Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stacy Blythe, Deputy Director Translational Research and Social Innovation Group at the Ingham Institute, Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University

Foster and kinship carers are volunteers who provide day-to-day care to children who are unable to live safely with their parents. A kinship carer is someone who is either related to the child or has a previous relationship with the child (such as a neighbour or family friend). Prior to placement in their care, a foster carer is a stranger to the child.

There are roughly 9,000 foster carer households and 15,600 kinship carer households in Australia, providing care to nearly 46,000 children. Babies (under one year of age) enter out-of-home care at a higher rate than any other aged children.

Foster and kinship carers undergo an extensive screening process prior to authorisation and should receive ongoing support and training to assist them in their caregiving role.

However, our research, launched recently at the National Permanency Conference, found these carers are not well supported to care for babies.

Read more:
Adoption law should be reformed to give children legal connections to both of their families – here’s why

40% of carers got no information or training on infant care

Typically, when a person discovers they are becoming a parent, they have access to pregnancy and parenting classes, and many other resources to prepare them to care for their baby.

When a baby is born, parents are taught by nurses and midwives how to hold, feed, bath and settle their baby.

After leaving the hospital, many also receive home visiting services which provide ongoing support for parents and their babies.

Unfortunately, foster and kinship carers of infants do not receive this same level of support.

We surveyed 232 foster and kinship carers who had provided care to a baby in out-of-home care sometime in the past five years. We also interviewed 13 carers to understand how to best support them in their caregiving role.

The survey asked carers whether they had received information or training related to eight key areas regarding infants:

• nutrition

• feeding

• bathing

• sleeping and settling

• immunisation

• developmental milestones

• attachment; and

• trauma.

Around 25% of carers received information on infant nutrition (such as what formula to use or when to introduce solids) and about 33% were given information on feeding (such as how to bottle-feed a baby).

Only 16% of carers reported receiving information to help them bathe a baby, settle a crying baby or put them to bed.

Only 25% of carers received information regarding childhood immunisation and 20% received information regarding typical developmental milestones (such as when babies should be able to lift their head, roll over or crawl).

These rates are surprisingly low given that the health care system provides basic caregiving information to all expectant parents either shortly before or after the birth of a child.

Babies who require separation from their parents due to safety issues often experience developmental trauma and struggle to form healthy attachments to others.

Poor attachment and during infancy can have major negative long-term effects on children.

Despite this, only 25% of carers received information on attachment and about 33% received information on developmental trauma.

In total, 40% of the carers in our study received no information or training at all related to caring for a baby.

‘We had to Google a lot of information’

The carers in our study were resourceful.

We asked those who reported receiving information or training whether it had been offered to them or if they had found it themselves.

The majority reported finding the information themselves. While this shows a desire to provide good quality care, it is concerning as we don’t know whether this information is from a credible source.

As one carer told us:

We had to Google a lot of information because we hadn’t had a baby for so long!

Carers were also motivated. While only 29% of carers reported receiving home visiting services, over 80% reported taking the babies in their care to the community health nurse.

Also, it should not be assumed carers don’t need information because they’ve done it before.

Just over 30% of the carers surveyed had no previous parenting experience before providing out-of-home care.

Many of those with parenting experience had not cared for a baby for several years.

In their interviews carers described themselves as “unprepared” and needing a “refresher” before receiving care of a baby.

Three key recommendations

The United Nations says governments have the responsibility to ensure children grow and develop healthily.

This includes babies living in out-of-home care. But how can carers provide quality care if they are not trained and supported to do so?

When carers are not supported, they may worry about their ability to meet the needs of the baby in their care. This anxiety and self-doubt can cause carers to stop providing care.

As one carer put it:

I’m still in two minds myself about whether I would do this again.

Australia is already facing a shortage of carers and increasing numbers of babies are requiring care.

The carers in our study found caring for babies to be “rewarding” but indicated they would welcome training and support, such as home visiting services, to help them provide the best possible care to babies.

We recommend that foster and kinship carers caring for babies are provided:

1. training related to basic infant care
2. credible resources, and
3. home visiting services.

This will help retain carers and ensure the best possible care is provided to babies in out-of-home care.

Read more:
We checked the records of 6,000 kids entering care. Only a fraction received recommended health checks

This research was jointly funded by My Forever Family and the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Western Sydney University. Stacy Blythe is an authorised foster carer for the NSW Department of Communities and Justice. .

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

– ref. ‘We had to Google a lot’: what foster and kinship carers looking after babies told us about the lack of support – https://theconversation.com/we-had-to-google-a-lot-what-foster-and-kinship-carers-looking-after-babies-told-us-about-the-lack-of-support-194459

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University

There are now just five days until the last day of voting in the Victorian state election.

Much of the focus of the campaign so far has been on the Legislative Assembly, or lower house. To win government, a party or coalition of parties must win a majority of seats in this chamber.

At the last state election in 2018, Labor won 55 of the 88 seats, while the Liberal and National coalition won just 27 seats.

Like other jurisdictions, COVID-19 had a major impact on Victoria. In responding to the pandemic, the Andrews government introduced a range of policy measures that sought to limit the transmission of the virus in the community. These included lengthy lockdowns, curfews, and limits on how far people could travel from their homes.

While the Victorian political debate appeared to become more polarised during this time, opinion polls have continually favoured a third consecutive win for the Dan Andrews-led Labor Party.

In contrast, the Coalition has seemingly struggled to generate support, despite being out of government for eight years. The decision to bring back Matthew Guy as Liberal Party leader last year sought to build the opposition’s momentum ahead of the election. Based on recent polls, Guy appears to have stopped voters leaving the Coalition, but the opposition still trails Labor on the all-important two-party-preferred measure.

Minor parties and new challengers

While the major parties continue to be central to the campaign coverage, minor parties are also working to increase their representation in the lower house.

The Greens currently hold three inner-metropolitan seats: Melbourne, Prahran and Brunswick. Two of these seats are on very fine margins. Melbourne is held by just 1.6%, while the Brunswick margin is 2%.

In addition to defending these seats, the Greens are hoping to win Richmond, another inner-metropolitan electorate held by Labor by 5.8%. The seat is currently held by Labor minister Richard Wynne, who will be retiring after 23 years. This opens an opportunity for the Greens to make further inroads in the Victorian parliament.

There is also a lot of interest in how the “teal” independents will perform. At the federal poll in May, teal candidates won Kooyong and Goldstein from the Liberal Party. There is an expectation they may win eastern metropolitan seats including Kew, Hawthorn and Caulfield, which had once been safe electorates for the Liberal Party.

This election will provide the teals with an opportunity to consolidate themselves in Australian politics if they are able also to win state representation.

The upper house

The state’s upper house is made up of 40 parliamentarians, with five MPs elected from each of the eight Legislative Council regions. At the last election, Labor won 18 seats, while the Coalition won 11.

The proportional voting system used to elect candidates is similar to that used in the Senate prior to 2016. To win, a candidate must win 16.7% of the vote across the region in which they are standing.

Furthermore, the controversial Group Voting Ticket (GVT) system is used to elect candidates. This means voters can simply indicate their most preferred party above the line on the ballot paper. Their preferences will then be distributed according to the preference flows designed by the party.

While this makes voting straightforward, the GVT system has been criticised for giving too much power to parties to determine where votes end up through preference deals.

Of course, voters can also choose to vote below the line by numbering at least five boxes.

Read more:
How Victorian Labor’s failure on upper house electoral reform undermines democracy

At the last election, the Greens won just one seat thanks to poor preference flows. In contrast, parties with beneficial preference deals were able to win representation in the state’s upper house. These included the Liberal Democrats, Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, the Reason Party, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

The use of the GVT system has also come under scrutiny after so-called “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery, who has regularly designed beneficial preference deals for parties, was shown on video talking about these deals.

Irrespective of the debates about the GVT, it remains a feature of the Victorian system and could be used in future state elections unless changes are made to the electoral system following this election.

As such, the final outcome of the upper house election may replicate the existing result, which would mean neither major party controls the chamber and must work with cross-bench MPs to form a majority.

The final countdown

Opinion polls have been consistently pointing to a Labor win in Victoria. If successful, Andrews may become the longest-serving premier of the state since John Cain junior, another Labor leader, held the post from 1982 to 1990.

A third straight loss for the Liberals in Victoria will presumably lead to further introspection and analysis within the party about its policy agenda and leadership.

With many Victorians have already voted early, the future of the state’s government and party system will be revealed when counting starts on Saturday night.

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

– ref. As Victorians head to the polls, will voters punish the major parties? – https://theconversation.com/as-victorians-head-to-the-polls-will-voters-punish-the-major-parties-193724

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University

With better awareness and acceptance, approximately one out of every 50 children is receiving an autism diagnosis. More and more families are deciding when to share this information with their child. Some parents worry that doing so will “label” their child, or make others treat them differently.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that presents as differences in socialising, communicating, and processing information (including thinking, sensing and regulating). The earlier a child is identified as autistic, the earlier supports and services are provided. This leads to better outcomes for the child and family.

These benefits also flow from talking about the diagnosis. But what’s the best way to start that conversation? And what does your child need to know?

Getting in early

Children are receiving diagnoses as early as 12-18 months in our program, which helps maternal and child health nurses screen for autism during regular health checks.

Early identification of autism allows parents and professionals to learn how their child communicates as early as possible. Then they can match that child’s communication style to help them learn important, everyday life skills.

Rather than a focus on “changing” or “fixing” an autistic child to suit others, it’s better to encourage acceptance.

While some parents may worry about stigma and labelling, those within the Autistic community report that labelling happens regardless of whether parents discuss diagnosis or not. It can instead take the form of harmful labels like “weird” or “strange”. In fact, others are more likely to form negative first impressions when they do not know someone is autistic.

Parents may also think they need to wait until their child seems “ready” to understand a diagnosis. But this can lead to people not knowing they are autistic until many years after their diagnosis, and fuel feelings of shame.

An empowering truth

Telling children they are autistic as early as possible has several benefits.

Research shows teenagers talk about themselves in a more positive way when their parents have had open conversations with them about being autistic, compared to those who did not. When this conversation is had earlier, autistic people have better quality of life and wellbeing in adulthood.

By understanding themselves at an earlier age, autistic people can feel empowered, advocate for themselves, and potentially gain access to supports and services earlier.

An open discussion around diagnosis also provides an earlier opportunity to “find a community”. Some autistic people say they feel understood and accepted when they connect with other autistic people. This can increase positive identity and self-esteem.

Read more:
Autism is still underdiagnosed in girls and women. That can compound the challenges they face

Having the chat – 3 ideas to guide parents

1. Check in with your own feelings

First, identify where you are at with your feelings around the diagnosis. You may still be coming to terms with this new path for your child and family – and this may make it difficult to have a discussion without becoming distressed or emotional. Wherever you are on your journey to acceptance, it’s important you are in a positive frame of mind when raising this topic with your child.

If you’re not ready, you may choose to wait while you process your own emotions. But don’t wait too long, given the importance of knowing about an autism diagnosis early – especially if your child starts asking about their differences compared to other children.

2. Build awareness into everyday talk

We recommend parents or carers start by talking about autism in everyday life. If your child is very young, not yet talking or communicating much, you could use autistic figures on TV, such as Julia on Sesame Street. For example, you could say: “Did you see how Julia needed to have some quiet time, like you need sometimes? Julia is autistic, just like you.”

Older children and teens already know the world is diverse. They may have classmates or neighbours from different cultural backgrounds or have friends or family from the LGBTQIA+ community. You can start discussions about autism as part of neurodiversity. For example, you could say: “There are different types of brains, just like there are different cultures and ways people express their gender.”

3. Choose a good time

For younger children, it’s best to incorporate everyday talk about autism during times they are calm and alert – for example, in the morning, after a nap, or during calming and wind-down routines like bath time or reading books before bed.

When explicitly telling your older child or teen they are autistic, you might want to do this during “low-demand” times such as during the school holidays. It may be easier for your child to take on new information when they are not busy with school and other activities.

Many autistic children may not have the privilege of fully understanding what being autistic means. This could include autistic children who also have a significant intellectual disability, who may not yet be able to communicate using speech, or who are not able to use assistive technology. However, parents of these children should not assume they have no understanding at all. Such conversations should be part of everyday life for all autistic children.

Looking for more information

We recommend resources which describe autism using neutral language (such as “differences” and “challenges”) rather than those which use negative language (terms like “deficits” or “symptoms”). As well as reading material developed by professionals, parents can learn a lot from the lived experience of autistic people.

Our colleague Raelene Dundon’s book is a good example. The Brain Forest by Sandhya Menon (also a colleague) is about different types of brains.

There are free online resources to help you and your child learn about neurodiversity. Reframing Autism has developed resources on next steps after a childhood diagnosis and ways to talk about it.

For older children and young teenagers, this self-help guide is by autistic authors. And this video by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, covers many of the traits, challenges and strengths of autistic people.

Ultimately, we want all children to accept themselves and their differences, and be happy about who they are. But this is a two-way street – society also needs to accept that being different is OK. This begins with parents and carers and their early conversations with children about their differences, and acceptance of themselves, regardless of their neurological make-up.

Read more:
Kids on the autism spectrum experience more bullying. Schools can do something about it

Josephine Barbaro receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services

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

– ref. How to talk to your child about their autism diagnosis – the earlier the better – https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-to-your-child-about-their-autism-diagnosis-the-earlier-the-better-193942

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meena Jha, Researcher in Information Communications Technology, CQUniversity Australia

Contract cheating – where commercial cheating services provide assignments for university students – has become a global problem.

Australia is not immune. According to the latest data, record numbers of Australian students are paying someone else to do their assessments.

This comes amid broader concerns about rising levels of cheating during COVID.

Last week, the University of New South Wales said it was detecting more than double the amount of cheating among its students post COVID. Before the pandemic, just under 2% of students were caught in misconduct processes each year. Now it is close to 4.5%.

“It’s really taken off during the pandemic,” Deputy Vice-Chancellor George Williams told Radio National.

This isn’t just problem for individual universities. It threatens the integrity and reputation of a university degree and the whole higher education system.

Our research suggests the way to address this is to revert to more traditional ways of holding exams.

Read more:
If unis stick with online assessment after COVID, they’ll have do more to stop cheating

Harsh penalties are not working

There are harsh penalties for cheating if a student is caught. They can been expelled from their course or even have their degree revoked.

However, these deterrents are not working. Research in 2021 showed one in ten students either pay someone to write their essays or use content they find that was not written by them. Other studies show up to 95% of cases go undetected.

If assignments and many exams are done online or at home, this provides new opportunities to collude with other students. Or to pay a cheating service to do it.

Students can also use artificial intelligence tools to write essays which prevent plagiarism software from picking this up.

Meanwhile, academic staff are already overworked and may not have the time or capacity to detect and report misconduct cases.

The issue, of course, has been made worse by the increased use of online assessments during COVID.

Our research

Our research looked at how 47 academics working in computing courses were upholding academic integrity during COVID and the move online.

We focused on bachelors degree and coursework masters degrees across 41 Australian universities.

Our interviewees told us that pre-pandemic, the majority of final exams were done in person and were monitored by academic staff. During COVID, many assessments moved online and simply could not be supervised.

As one interviewee told us,

There was a lot more cheating, both plagiarism and collusion […] students are cheating in way that they were not able to cheat with paper, supervised exams.

Another explained:

we would release the exam at 8am […] and about 20 minutes later the questions were appearing on the contract cheating sites […] we did think of limiting the time they had available to do the exam, but clearly, the internet moves faster than we do.

The random interview approach

Interviewees told us how post-exam interviews were used way to try and detect and prevent cheating during online assessments.

In these interviews (also called vivas) academics can check whether an exam was completed by the appropriate student and that they worked by themselves.

Read more:
When does getting help on an assignment turn into cheating?

Before an exam, students were warned they might be required to do an interview after the exam. They might be selected randomly or might be chosen because of suspicions raised by their exam answers.

But as one interviewee explained, even this wasn’t enough to stop cheating – “the thought of a viva didn’t stop them”.

Our research suggests universities should strongly consider going back to the past and holding exams in person. As one interviewee noted:

We haven’t come up with an answer as to how to do assured assessment online […] all of the solutions that we’ve tried for online invigilation [monitoring] have problems of one kind or another.

Another academic was more blunt:

you cannot ensure academic integrity in online assessment.

Why we need old fashioned methods

There is huge interest in moving university life online post-COVID, as the sector moves to make learning as flexible as possible.

Read more:
We took away due dates for university assignments. Here’s what we found

Some universities in our study are considering moving entirely to online exams. This obviously presents ongoing integrity issues. And it suggests we may be employing and trusting qualified experts who have not earned those qualifications.

But rather than fancier technology or harsher penalties, our research suggests we need to be reverting to more traditional methods of assessing students.

This means traditional face-to-face exams, with student identity card checks, arranged seating, and exam rooms monitored by staff.

This will be less flexible for students, particularly for those who are still overseas or who still need to practice social distancing. But it remains a tried and trusted method of ensuring students are doing their own exams.

The author would like to acknowledge the team members who worked on this research: Sander Leemans, Queensland University of Technology, Regina Berretta, University of Newcastle, Ayse Bilgin, Macquarie University, Trina Myers, Queensland University of Technology, Judy Sheard, Monash University, Simon, formerly of the University of Newcastle and Lakmali Herath Jayarathna, Central Queensland University.

Meena Jha received funding for this project from the Australian Council of Deans of Information and Communication Technology (ACDICT), under the ALTA grant scheme.

– ref. With record numbers of students cheating, unis should revert to old school in-person exams – https://theconversation.com/with-record-numbers-of-students-cheating-unis-should-revert-to-old-school-in-person-exams-194341

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Phillips, Public Policy Researcher, University of Oxford

Increasingly, climate change is at the centre of government decision-making.

This year’s federal budget devoted pages to an examination of the fiscal impact of climate change; Treasury has established a climate change modelling unit; and it’ll be front and centre of next year’s intergenerational report.

Yet it is still nowhere near the centre of the deliberations of Australia’s Reserve Bank – one of the nation’s most important economic decision-making institutions.

The Reserve Bank’s enabling legislation is the Reserve Bank Act 1959. That 63-year old legislation requires the bank to make decisions that are directed to the “greatest advantage of the people of Australia” in three specific areas:

• the stability of the currency of Australia

• the maintenance of full employment in Australia

• the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia

The first objective is interpreted in an agreement signed by the treasurer as aiming to get “inflation between 2% and 3%, on average over time”.

The second and third aren’t clearly defined in the agreement, leaving most of the focus on the first.

Climate given second-order status

While it is beyond doubt that the third objective – “economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia” – includes a liveable climate and a sustainable environment, not spelling this out relegates climate and sustainability to second-order status as the bank makes decisions.

In a submission to the independent review of the bank, set up by the treasurer and due to report in March, I put forward an argument for adding a fourth objective along with my colleagues from the Centre for Policy Development:

• an orderly transition to, and maintenance of, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and management of climate-related risks and opportunities

Should that be seen as too much of a change, we suggest a fallback: adding the word “sustainability” to the existing third objective, making it refer to

• the economic prosperity, sustainability and welfare of the people of Australia

In addition, our submission asks the government to include in its written directions to the bank a statement setting out the government’s view of the ways in which the bank’s objectives relate to climate change.

What’s the climate got to do with the bank?

Climate change is a first-order financial stability issue and will be the dominant economic theme of this century, due to both the scale of likely damage and the opportunities in the transition to net-zero.

The bank needs to build out a more sophisticated toolkit for dealing with the impacts of this transition.

The bank’s primary tool – the interest rate – is particularly good at sending signals to the “demand” side of the economy, but climate risks are more likely to present supply-side inflationary shocks.

This means an obsessive focus on short-term inflation without considering the transition could be self-defeating, as it might encourage the continued use of fossil fuels even as they play an increasingly less stable and more inflationary role in the economy.

One way this could play out would be a decision by the bank to push up interest rates in response to inflation caused by high fossil fuel prices. In turn, this could make it more expensive to invest in renewable energy – the very thing that would decouple prices from fossil fuels.

Beyond setting interest rates, a less public part of the Reserve Bank’s role is maintaining liquidity in the financial system by lending to private banks against collateral, some of which includes corporate bonds.

The bank can insist on climate risk reporting

The international task force on climate-related financial disclosures – which reports to the Bank for International Settlements, of which Australia’s Reserve Bank is a member – is pushing for the standardised reporting of corporate climate risks.

If Australia’s Reserve Bank insisted on this from firms whose corporate bonds it held as collateral (as the European Central Bank is planning to), it would help spread awareness of accounting for the importance of accounting for climate risks throughout the financial system.

The bank could go further and consider the impact of climate-related risks on expected default rates when assessing the creditworthiness of assets used as collateral, preferencing corporate debt from companies with credible transition plans. The effects of this repricing would ripple through the financial system.

Read more:
Why it’s not anti-environmental to be in favour of economic growth

It could even decide to preference government debt from “green sovereigns” (foreign states or Australian states whose activities involve little climate risk) over those of less-green sovereigns by offering differentiated interest rates.

In 2019 the Centre for Policy Development hosted a landmark address in which then Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Guy Debelle emphasised the importance of an orderly climate transition to financial stability, saying:

decisions that are taken now can have significant effects on future climate trends and can limit or eliminate the ability to mitigate the effect of those trends

The Reserve Bank, Australia’s oldest and arguably most important public financial regulator, has the ability to help smooth the transition.

An early step would be to update the bank’s 1950s rules, and put beyond doubt that climate change is one of its 21st century responsibilities.

Toby Phillips is a Program Director at the Centre for Policy Development, an independent non-partisan think tank.

– ref. It’s time to add climate change and net-zero emissions to the RBA’s top 3 economic goals – https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-add-climate-change-and-net-zero-emissions-to-the-rbas-top-3-economic-goals-194068

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

For 30 years, developing nations have fought to establish an international fund to pay for the “loss and damage” they suffer as a result of climate change. As the COP27 climate summit in Egypt wrapped up over the weekend, they finally succeeded.

While it’s a historic moment, the agreement of loss and damage financing left many details yet to be sorted out. What’s more, many critics have lamented the overall outcome of COP27, saying it falls well short of a sufficient response to the climate crisis. As Alok Sharma, president of COP26 in Glasgow, noted:

Friends, I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 degrees was weak. Unfortunately it remains on life support.

But annual conferences aren’t the only way to pursue meaningful action on climate change. Mobilisation from activists, market forces and other sources of momentum mean hope isn’t lost.

One big breakthrough: loss and damage

There were hopes COP27 would lead to new commitments on emissions reduction, renewed commitments for the transfer of resources to the developing world, strong signals for a transition away from fossil fuels, and the establishment of a loss and damage fund.

By any estimation, the big breakthrough of COP27 was the agreement to establish a fund for loss and damage. This would involve wealthy nations compensating developing states for the effects of climate change, especially droughts, floods, cyclones and other disasters.

Most analysts have been quick to point out there’s still a lot yet to clarify in terms of donors, recipients or rules of accessing this fund. It’s not clear where funds will actually come from, or whether countries such as China will contribute, for example. These and other details are yet to be agreed.

We should also acknowledge the potential gaps between promises and money on the table, given the failure of developed states to deliver on US$100 billion per year of climate finance for developing states by 2020. This was committed to in Copenghagen in 2009.

But it was a significant fight to get the issue of loss and damage on the agenda in Egypt at all. So the agreement to establish this fund is clearly a monumental outcome for developing countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change – and least responsible for it.

It was also a win for the Egyptian hosts, who were keen to flag their sensitivity to issues confronting the developing world.

The fund comes 30 years after the measure was first suggested by Vanuatu back in 1991.

Not-so-good news

The loss and damage fund will almost certainly be remembered as the marquee outcome of COP27, but other developments were less promising. Among these were various fights to retain commitments made in Paris in 2015 and Glasgow last year.

In Paris, nations agreed to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and preferably to 1.5℃ this century, compared to pre-industrial levels. So far, the planet has warmed by 1.09℃, and emissions are at record levels.

Read more:
Global carbon emissions at record levels with no signs of shrinking, new data shows. Humanity has a monumental task ahead

Temperature trajectories make it increasingly challenging for the world to limit temperature rises to 1.5℃. And the fact keeping this commitment in Egypt was a hard-won fight casts some doubt on the global commitment to mitigation. China in particular had questioned whether the 1.5℃ target was worth retaining, and this became a key contest in the talks.

New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw said a group of countries were undermining decisions made in previous conferences. He added this:

really came to the fore at this COP, and I’m afraid there was just a massive battle which ultimately neither side won.

Perhaps even more worrying was the absence of a renewed commitment to phase out fossil fuels, which had been flagged in Glasgow. Oil-producing countries in particular fought this.

Instead, the final text noted only the need for a “phase down of unabated coal power”, which many viewed as inadequate for the urgency of the challenge.

Likewise, hoped-for rules to stop greenwashing and new restrictions on carbon markets weren’t forthcoming.

Both this outcome, and the failure to develop new commitments to phase out fossil fuels, arguably reflect the power of fossil fuel interests and lobbyists. COP26 President Alok Sharma captured the frustration of countries in the high-ambition coalition, saying:

We joined with many parties to propose a number of measures that would have contributed to [raising ambition].

Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text. Clear follow through on the phase down of coal. Not in this text. Clear commitments to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text weakened in the final minutes.

And as United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres lamented: “Our planet is still in the emergency room”.

Read more:
‘Toxic cover-up’: 6 lessons Australia can draw from the UN’s scathing report on greenwashing

Beyond COP27?

In the end, exhausted delegates signed off on an inadequate agreement, but largely avoided the backsliding that looked possible over fraught days of negotiations.

The establishment of a fund for loss and damage is clearly an important outcome of COP27, even with details yet to be fleshed out.

But otherwise, the negotiations can’t be seen as an unambiguously positive outcome for action on the climate crisis – especially with very little progress on mitigating emissions. And while the world dithers, the window of opportunity to respond effectively to the climate crisis continues to close.

It’s important to note, however, that while COPs are clearly significant in the international response to the climate crisis, they’re not the only game in town.

Public mobilisation and activism, market forces, aid and development programs, and legislation at local, state and national levels are all important sites of climate politics – and potentially, significant change.

Read more:
How young climate activists are making their voices heard at COP27 over Egypt’s protest suppression

There are myriad examples. Take the international phenomenon of school climate strikes, or climate activist Mike Cannon-Brookes’ takeover of AGL Energy. They point to the possibility of action on climate change outside formal international climate negotiations.

So if you’re despairing at the limited progress at COP27, remember this: nations and communities determined to wean themselves off fossil fuels will do more to blunt the power of the sector than most international agreements could realistically hope to achieve.

Matt McDonald has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council

– ref. COP27: one big breakthrough but ultimately an inadequate response to the climate crisis – https://theconversation.com/cop27-one-big-breakthrough-but-ultimately-an-inadequate-response-to-the-climate-crisis-194056

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

With the Albanese government now at its six months mark and the end of the parliamentary year fast approaching, it’s tick-off time.

In a Monday speech to the International Trade Union Confederation, the prime minister lists measures the government has introduced into parliament “in the past month”.

They include protections against sexual harassment, measures to improve job security, initiatives to revitalise bargaining and “get wages moving”, and a “new focus” on closing the gender pay gap.

He and his ministers are feasting on a substantial list of the government’s early legislative and other achievements, especially those that fulfil election promises. And of course the past week, with the breakthrough meeting with Xi Jinping, has put the icing on a strong half year for Anthony Albanese’s foreign policy.

It will be interesting, when commentators start reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the election of the Whitlam government – which comes on Friday week – what comparisons are made of the early days of these two Labor administrations, in substance and style.

To cap off 2022 as it would wish, the Albanese government wants to “tick off” two crucial pieces of legislation: one setting up the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), and the other introducing substantial industrial relations change, notably widening multi-employer bargaining.

Both have undergone short parliamentary inquiries. The report on the NACC is bipartisan, but with some amendments proposed.

The government can be confident it will get that legislation through this sitting.

Peter Dutton has expressed backing for the commission. Integrity was a big issue at the election and the Coalition would have nothing to gain and a good deal to lose by failing to support the bill. The issue has already cost it a lot politically.

Independents Helen Haines in the House of Representatives and David Pocock in the Senate want a change made to the provision that the commission would only hold public hearings in “extraordinary circumstances”. They will press for the qualification to be taken out, so widening the opportunity for public interrogations.

That, however, could jeopardise Coalition support – which the government would like to have, to underpin the new body with maximum political authority. Anyway, Labor is determined to keep the provision for public hearings narrow.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: A lot may be changing in China-Australia relations, but a lot is staying the same

The NACC bill is in the lower house this week and the Senate next week.

The government is currently going through the process of selecting a head for the NACC. This is a crucial appointment. For the commission to work well and gain all-round respect, that choice needs to have support from both sides of politics.

The anti-corruption commission is a necessary step, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it won’t bring its own problems and face its own challenges. That’s obvious when we look at the operation of comparable bodies in NSW and Victoria.

Before the next federal election political players could try to use it as a weapon, with referrals. That’s why its head must be someone of stature, also possessing a certain quality of savviness, and its processes have to be rigorous.

The fate of the industrial relations bill is more up in the air, with Pocock the key player at the moment.

The Senate report on the bill comes out on Tuesday, and it will divide along party lines.

Pocock, among other parliamentarians, and the bill’s business critics, have complained of inadequate time for consideration of this complex legislation. Albanese said on Sunday the government was willing to extend the Senate sitting if necessary. This could be done by sitting on the next couple of Fridays (which might be necessary anyway to get through its program) or going into a third week as well.

The crunch will be what more concessions the government is willing to give to get Pocock over the line. It’s already signalling it will agree to a review to determine how the changes are working.

In addition, Pocock wants a higher threshold for the definition of small business. He also has concerns about unions being able to veto the holding of a vote on a proposed multi-employer agreement, and about some other aspects of that bargaining.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Government throws everything at securing workplace reforms before Christmas but Pocock keeps it guessing

One thing that has to be squeezed into the Senate sitting for Pocock, who represents the ACT, is a vote on the territory rights bill – already through the lower house – which will allow the ACT and the Northern Territory to legislate for voluntary assisted dying. It’s a free vote and the numbers are there to pass it.

Before Christmas Pocock will be doing his own “ticking off” on his list of demands.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: What Anthony Albanese wants from parliament for Christmas – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-what-anthony-albanese-wants-from-parliament-for-christmas-194985

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Bisley, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, La Trobe University

Every November, the annual summit meetings of Asia’s key regional institutions attracts the world’s attention. The APEC leaders’ meeting started the trend in 1993, adopting a much-derided practice of an awkward photo op where presidents and prime minister dress in “local” attire. ASEAN’s own leaders’ summit and its outgrowths, especially the East Asia Summit (EAS), are scheduled in close proximity to APEC, creating an annual “summit season”.

This year, Indonesia’s hosting of the G20 leader’s jamboree gives the season added significance. The Ukraine war, global economic turmoil and the dismal state of Sino-American relations makes for an extremely challenging context for the groupings.

Across all of the summits, the ASEAN-centred ones as well as at the G20 and APEC, the sideline meetings stole the show. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three hour discussion with US President Joe Biden was the most significant of all. Both leaders came to Southeast Asia with added confidence due to recent domestic political successes. Xi had secured a third term as paramount leader and solidified his hold on the Chinese Communist Party in the 20th Party Congress.

Read more:
Albanese-Xi meeting won’t resolve Australia’s grievances overnight. But it is a real step forward

Biden had beaten the historical odds, and pundits’ expectations, to retain the Democratic majority in the Senate while minimising losses in the House at the mid-term elections.

As leaders, they had met previously only online, and their first in-person interaction appeared to go well. No major breakthroughs were reached but they agreed to recommence some high level discussions that had been cut off. Given how fraught things have been, this is a positive move.

Xi took the opportunity to re-emerge on the global stage after the COVID years. Beyond the Biden meeting, he held an extensive array of bilaterals across the week. This included discussions with Australian Prime Minister Albanese, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong and Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau, while a planned meeting with new UK PM Rishi Sunak had to be rescheduled.

Most of these meetings indicated the Chinese leader was seeking to improve ties, notably with Australia and Japan, where bilateral relations have been difficult in recent years. Xi uncharacteristically publicly admonished Trudeau for purportedly leaking remarks from their meeting to the press.

Prior to the summits, much speculation centred on who would and would not attend, with Russian participation causing the most unease. As a member of the EAS, G20 and APEC, the risk the war in Ukraine would divide members and derail the summits was significant. At one point, it appeared several countries might boycott the summits if Russia attended.

In the end, Vladimir Putin did not attend. This revealed a lack of confidence on his part stemming from the war’s circumstances and the embarrassing way in which he was treated by the China at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathering in Uzbekistan.

Russia was represented by foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who firmly pushed his country’s line. This led to the scuppering of the EAS efforts to produce its usual joint communique. And while the G20 statement was agreed, through much Indonesian effort, it was not as unified or firm in its criticism of Russia as many may have preferred. Equally, the APEC statement did appear, but with similar equivocation.

Biden’s decision not to attend APEC – it clashed with his granddaughter’s wedding – meant the Chinese leader’s remarks obliquely blaming the US for destabilising the region received more attention than they might otherwise. But a sense of summit fatigue was palpable in Bangkok.

So, what actually was achieved?

The improvement in tenor of US-China relations is unquestionably positive and the less hard-edged face that Xi presented to the world is also encouraging. But summit season showed us that the institutions themselves are in an uneven state.

ASEAN is resilient as an organisation, but the grouping’s manifest failure to deal with the ongoing turmoil in Myanmar is causing even the most ardent supporter to have doubts about it.

APEC’s primary focus is on international on trade and it has found the rise of economic nationalism especially challenging. The geopolitical crosswinds are adding to this and the 2022 summit showed no signs the grouping is capable of grappling with the times.

The EAS appears to have suffered most. The gathering brings together the ten ASEAN members alongside Japan, China, South Korea, US, Russia, Australia, NZ and India at the highest level. It has, ostensibly, a full spectrum policy remit. The potential in the grouping was immense, yet it has failed to capitalise on this. Jammed in the middle of meetings that are higher profile and politically more valued, the EAS was almost invisible, for which it may be grateful given its inability to reach any kind of significant common ground.

Read more:
The G20 may be a talk fest, but it’s a talk fest we need at a time of growing division

Notwithstanding the tensions caused by Russian participation, the G20 showed that members value it sufficiently to provide a level of accommodation and flexibility. While its ability to provide the kind of macro-economic coordination that was behind its establishment is not optimal, it and its president had a generally sound week.

But it was unmistakable just how significant the gaps are that exist between many of the world’s most important powers. The institutions can only do so much to bridge those gaps. Institutions are there to help states cooperate with one another, to build trust and foster collaboration action. These bodies seem to be more appealing to members as convenient places to convene than as mechanisms through which to coordinate shared policy goals.

This should not be surprising given the heightened geopolitical tensions in today’s world. But it is a sobering reminder of the limits of collective action at a time when it has never been so needed.

Nick Bisley has received funding from Australia’s federal government to support research in areas related to this topic.

– ref. As APEC winds up, ‘summit season’ brought successes but also revealed the extent of global challenges – https://theconversation.com/as-apec-winds-up-summit-season-brought-successes-but-also-revealed-the-extent-of-global-challenges-193934

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stan Karanasios, Associate professor, The University of Queensland

The football teams of 32 nations are gathered in Qatar for the quadrennial FIFA World Cup. Some 5 billion people around the world are expected to tune in to watch matches over the course of the month-long tournament.

These enormous audiences will be ready to applaud great play – and to howl ferociously when a referee’s decision goes against their team. To ensure the tough decisions are fair and accurate, FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the sport’s global governing body) has invested not only in the best human referees but also in the latest and greatest in technological tools.

Video replays and other tools can help cut down on blatant mistakes and human oversights, but will they ever eradicate errors entirely?

We are researchers who study how organisations use technology, and we’re not so sure. In the messy and complex world of football, human judgement – with all its fallibility – will always reign supreme.

What is the video assistant referee (VAR)?

The video assistant referee (VAR) system uses a team of people watching multiple angles of match video to help referees make tough decisions. It was used at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and since then in many competitions all over the world.

At this year’s World Cup, the VAR team can get involved in only four types of situation involving goals and other match-changing events.

Read more:
Why is the Qatar FIFA World Cup so controversial?

The VAR team continuously watches for clear and obvious errors related to those situations. When they spot such an error (or an incident that has been missed) they will let the referee know.

The VAR team also has access to extra tools to assess whether a ball has fully crossed the goal line, as well as a semi-automated system that tracks players and the ball to determine whether any player is offside.

Grey areas

Technologies such as these can be powerful tools, and they are being applied more heavily across all areas of sport. However, they will always be in tension with the inherent complexity of real-world incidents on the pitch.

Handball decisions in football are one example that is open to interpretation regardless of the technology. Video alone can’t truly determine whether there was contact between the ball and the player’s arm below the shoulder, which constitutes a handball.

Read more:
Why Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal is priceless — and unforgettable

In a game earlier this year, Manchester City’s Rodri appeared to handle the ball but the VAR team and match referee did not award a foul because there was not conclusive evidence. After the game, however, the refereeing body Professional Game Match Officials Limited admitted there had been an error.

These controversies are less common in more clear-cut contexts. Similar technologies used in tennis are rarely disputed, as the ball is either “in” or “out” – there is no grey area.

Interpretation and doubt

The application of VAR in subjective contexts raises questions about who is correct, what is the truth, and how to interpret information.

For instance, when a referee calls a foul and the VAR team recommends they review their decision, the referee may see something they missed and should have considered. This is how the system is meant to work.

However, the review may also lead the referee to doubt their initial decision, because many incidents are open to interpretation and remain subjective.

At the World Cup, there will be four people on the VAR team. This means there are as many VAR officials as there are officials monitoring the game in person.

Matters of context

In some situations, the VAR team may offer a snippet of slow-motion footage to a referee (usually only seconds long) – which can lack context and miss the nuance of the situation at hand.

In September, a goal was scored in an English Premier League game between Newcastle United and Crystal Palace – and the VAR team immediately asked the referee to review an incident that had occurred just prior to the goal. The ref reviewed a snippet of footage, interpreted it as a foul against the goalkeeper by an attacking player, and disallowed the goal.

Read more:
Goal! Or is it? How technology – and not just VAR – is changing sport

However, the snippet didn’t show that the attacker had himself been pushed by a defender, which was why he collided with the goalkeeper. The Professional Game Match Officials Limited later accepted the decision was wrong, but still the goal did not count.

Incidents such as these show how lack of context can result in incorrect decision reversals, because the replay is not necessarily a faithful representation of the action.

Tech problems

In addition to the human component, technology has its fair share of issues.

In an Italian Serie A game between Juventus and Salernitana in September, a goal was disallowed on the basis of a VAR decision – but it turned out the VAR cameras had left a crucial player out of the frame, and the goal should have stood.

Another notorious technology failure occurred in a 2020 Premier League game between Aston Villa and Sheffield United: the ball crossed the goal line but, because the goal-line cameras were obstructed by players, it failed to register with the goal decision system. The match officials, not receiving the automatic notification they expected if a goal had been scored, did not award the goal.

What these examples show is that technology struggles to offer answers to inherently messy and subjective matters.

Reality is up for grabs

So, during this World Cup, when a player makes the most of contact in the box and everyone turns to VAR and the referee to make the right decision over whether to give a penalty, it is worth acknowledging that VAR may only provide partial help. Any 50–50 call is debatable, and reality is up for grabs!

These decisions don’t take place in a vacuum. There is an intense interplay between the unfolding of the game (some games are more physical than others), players and coaches (protesting and trying to influence decisions), passionate spectators cheering and protesting, and team dynamics between the referees on the field and the VAR team.

At the World Cup repercussions for errors will be high and the spotlight will shine heavily on VAR. And yet again, a few controversies are likely to overshadow the correct decisions.

Stan Karanasios is a member of the Association for Information Systems.

Bikesh Raj Upreti is a member of the Association for Information Systems

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

– ref. VAR and peace? Why tech-assisted refereeing won’t do away with disputed decisions at the World Cup – https://theconversation.com/var-and-peace-why-tech-assisted-refereeing-wont-do-away-with-disputed-decisions-at-the-world-cup-194640

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

If we learnt anything from the past federal election, it’s that Australians care about climate change and nature. A survey released this week suggests the same dynamic is at play as we head into the Victorian state election.

The poll, prepared for the Victorian National Parks Association, found 36% of Victorians say their vote would be influenced by policy announcements regarding saving threatened species and stopping extinction.

The Victorian government’s own surveys have highlighted the enormous number of people who value nature. And research this year for the Australian Conservation Foundation found 95% of Australians agree it’s important to protect nature for future generations.

Despite the weight of public concern, Victoria is failing its wildlife. Last year the Victorian Auditor General’s Office handed down a damning report on biodiversity protection. It concluded that about a third of Victoria’s land-based plants, animals and ecological communities face extinction, their continued decline will likely have dire consequences for the state, and funding to protect them is grossly inadequate.

We know what’s primarily behind Australia’s extinction crisis: land clearing, invasive species and climate change-induced impacts such as extreme bushfires.

So, what have the different political parties promised in the lead up to the Victorian election, and how do they stack up? Here’s a brief guide to what’s on offer.

Funding and policy commitments

Let’s start with one of the key shortfalls discussed by the Auditor General – funding for biodiversity conservation. Labor has announced:

• a $10 million nature fund to match biodiversity projects proposed by private or philanthropic groups

• $2.8 million for Trust for Nature

• $7.35 million for six large-scale conservation projects to reduce the impact of pests, predators and invasive weeds

• $773,000 to extend Victoria’s Icon Species Program for another year

• $160,000 for platypus conservation.

These funds don’t come close to the estimated annual shortfall of $38 million in ongoing funding needed for the government to deliver its biodiversity strategy, as identified by the Auditor General.

Read more:
This is Australia’s most important report on the environment’s deteriorating health. We present its grim findings

The Victorian Liberals have denounced Labor’s relatively dismal promises and their record of under-funding biodiversity. But, so far, new Liberal-National Coalition announcements have been limited. They include:

• $20 million to increase canopy cover in metropolitan Melbourne from 15% to 35% by 2050 (it’s unclear whether this will benefit biodiversity)

• $200,000 in environmental grants for Dandenong Creek, its catchments and wetlands

• $1 million to rehabilitate and protect wetlands in Mount Eliza.

But the Coalition has also announced anti-environmental commitments, such as ending feral horse culling and $10 million to dredge Mordialloc Creek.

The Greens plan is to create an ongoing, $1 billion per year “zero extinction” fund to support a Save our Species program.

This would double the funding for national parks and create a program to restore land, including through a First Nations Caring for Country investment. It would also fund Trust for Natures’s work to protect and restore private land and urban biodiversity.

The Greens also commit to reforming nature laws and to offer First Nations people greater rights and control over land, water and oceans.

Teal candidate Melissa Lowe supports significant investment towards reforestation and the rehabilitation of native habitats.

Response to native forest harvesting

Native forest timber harvesting continues to be a prickly issue in Victoria. This month the Supreme Court ruled state-owned logging company VicForests broke the law by failing to protect threatened species. Despite this, an ABC investigation this week found old growth forests continue to be cleared.

Greater gliders, Leadbeater’s possums and other forest-dwelling animals are facing a greater risk of extinction, and logging is one of the key threats. Without a significant change in protection, their numbers will continue to decline.

Labor’s policy is to phase out native forest logging by 2030 – but this leaves plenty of time for a lot of damage to be done. Labor also hasn’t legislated this phase-out, nor has it responded to VicForests’ failure to protect biodiversity.

Other election commitments relating to forestry include increasing fines to protesters who disrupt native forest logging.

Read more:
Greater gliders are hurtling towards extinction, and the blame lies squarely with Australian governments

The Liberal-Nationals have pledged to immediately reverse both of the Andrews government’s 2019 decisions to end old-growth forest logging and to phase-out native forest logging by 2030. This would take us backwards in terms of biodiversity protection.

The Greens have committed to legislating an end to native forest logging in 2023. This includes a transition plan to move workers into new jobs and a shift towards greater use of plantations.

The Reason Party and two Teal candidates have also articulated commitments for an immediate end to native forest logging.

How about land clearing from other causes?

Proportional to its size, Victoria has the highest amount of cleared land than all other states and territories. According to the Victorian Auditor General, about 10,380 habitat hectares of native vegetation is removed from Victorian private properties each year.

The state government is a significant land clearer. This includes clearing for infrastructure projects, such as new highways (including 26,000 trees cleared for the Northeast Link, though this may be a gross underestimate), and, of course, enabling native timber harvesting via VicForests, a state-owned business.

Substantial clearing also takes place under the state planning system, which the Auditor General said fundamentally fails to protect biodiversity on private land. In particular, critically endangered grasslands on Melbourne’s fringe continue to be lost at an alarming rate.

Further, the state’s planned 1,447 kilometres of strategic fuel breaks will occupy an area of around 5,790 hectares (equivalent to approximately 2,894 MCGs) of bushland that will be either cleared or altered.

Read more:
40 years ago, protesters were celebrated for saving the Franklin River. Today they could be jailed for months

Labor and the Coalition have both been silent on reforms to land clearing in the lead up to this election.

The Greens have committed to strengthening Victoria’s environmental assessment process so it can better protect the environment. Teal candidate Sophie Torney has committed to stopping the destruction of tree canopy in Kew by amending planning laws.

Links to climate change

Climate change is a key driver of extinction, so it’s also important to analyse political commitments on emissions reduction.

Labor has announced new targets for renewable energy in Victoria’s electricity supply of 65% by 2030, and 95% by 2035. It has also set an emissions reduction target of 75-80% by 2035, and brought forward its net-zero emissions target by five years to 2045.

The Liberal opposition has promised to legislate an emission reduction target of 50% by 2030 and is committing to a $1 billion hydrogen strategy. It also endorsed net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Greens have stepped up further, committing to replacing coal and gas with 100% renewable energy powering the state by 2030, committing to 75% carbon emissions reduction target by 2030, and net zero by 2035.

A net-zero by 2035 target is matched by all Teal candidates.

So, what would zero extinction commitments look like?

We know it would cost approximately $2 billion per year nationally to prevent future extinctions of Australia’s threatened plants and animals.

At least 270 (15%) of Australia’s threatened species live in Victoria. So it’s reasonable to assume around $300 million per year of focused threatened species recovery funding is required to prevent their extinction. This is likely a conservative estimate.

Regulatory reform to prevent further habitat loss, and a significant increase in spending on threatened species recovery are the two key actions to prevent further extinctions.

Preventing extinctions will also require a shift in thinking. While the major parties seem stuck in the biodiversity-versus-development mindset, others recognise development can occur in ways that enhance ecosystems.

Read more:
‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing

The natural world underpins our own health and prosperity via productive agriculture and liveable cities. Keeping it healthy is an enlightened act of self-interest.

Without adequate investment, regulatory reform and reframing nature as an asset rather than a problem, we’re likely to see more plants and animals on the threatened species list. Indeed, whole ecosystems may be lost.

Sarah Bekessy receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Ian Potter Foundation and the European Commission. She is a Board Member of Bush Heritage Australia, a member of WWF’s Eminent Scientists Group and a member of the Advisory Group for Wood for Good.

Brendan Wintle has received funding from The Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government, the NSW State Government, the Queensland State Government, the Commonwealth National Environmental Science Program, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the Australian Conservation Foundation. Wintle is a Board Director of Zoos Victoria.

– ref. If you care about nature in Victoria, this is your essential state election guide – https://theconversation.com/if-you-care-about-nature-in-victoria-this-is-your-essential-state-election-guide-194805

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

The latest figures on the economic performance of Australia’s states and territories shows Victoria leading the nation and New South Wales falling to last place.

The annual gross state product accounts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics record the equivalent of gross domestic product (the total value of goods and services bought and sold).

In the 2021-22 financial year Australia’s real gross domestic product – that is, adjusted for inflation – grew by 3.6%.

Victoria’s real gross state product grew by 5.6%, followed by South Australia (5.1%), Northern Territory (4.7%), Queensland (4.4%), Tasmania (4.3%), Western Australia (3.1%), the Australian Capital Territory (1.9%) and New South Wales (1.8%).

This isn’t as impressive for Victoria as it might seem.

Victoria’s GSP contracted in the previous year due to the state’s extensive COVID lockdowns. This left more scope for a rebound in 2021-22. The state’s construction sector in particular had a backlog of projects.

South Australia has benefited from a strong grain harvest. In the Northern Territory, oil and gas extraction were the prime drivers of growth.

In Tasmania, and to a lesser extent Queensland, the major contributor to growth was the rural sector.

Western Australia’s growth was restrained by a fall in iron ore exports. The Australian Bureau of Statistics attributes this to adverse weather – there was record rainfall in the Pilbara – and falling overseas demand.

NSW’s growth was driven by the services sector. Services were also the major driver of growth in the Australian Capital Territory.

Western Australia is still the most affluent

The state accounts allow us to get a sense of the relative affluence of each state and territory.

This can be done by dividing the total real gross state product by the population. Of course, these averages say nothing about how the income from this production is actually distributed within the state. But they are a useful indicator.

Western Australia and Northern Territory top the list, due to their large mining sectors.

The Australian Capital Territory’s high per capita income reflects its highly educated workforce, with an economy dominated by professional services and education.

Longer term structural factors such as the relative decline in manufacturing explain incomes lagging in South Australia.

Tasmanian economist Saul Eslake attributed the lower average income in Tasmania to a smaller proportion of Tasmanians working, tending to work fewer hours and being less productive due to less education.

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

– ref. Victoria’s economic growth leads nation, as NSW falls to last place – https://theconversation.com/victorias-economic-growth-leads-nation-as-nsw-falls-to-last-place-194721

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Sanders, Senior Research Fellow on Law and the Future of War, The University of Queensland

On November 17 2022, the Hague District Court in the Netherlands convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of murder in relation to the downing of flight MH17 by a Buk-TELAR surface-to-air missile in 2014 over rebel-held territory in Ukraine.

This conviction is the first concluded legal action in relation to the incident. It is important not only because it provides some answers for the families of the 298 people killed on that flight, but because it demonstrates that states intend to pursue justice against Russian acts of violence connected with the Ukrainian conflict, regardless of the time or cost involved.

This conviction can, in some respects, be considered shallow. Many family members have still not achieved closure in terms of recovery of their loved ones’ remains. Those most responsible have not been prosecuted or held to account.

Read more:
MH17 charges: who the suspects are, what they’re charged with, and what happens next

However, this prosecution is an important first step in bringing those responsible to justice. It serves as an indicator that the international community will not tolerate such actions; and as a signal to Russians involved in atrocities in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict that they may yet be held to account.

It further demonstrates the value of in-absentia trials – where those who are being tried do not have to be present. The Dutch convictions regarding the downing flight MH17 occurred without having custody over the perpetrators. The convicted men remain at large, and it is unlikely Russia will agree to their extradition.

However, their convictions will remain in place for their entire lives and can form the basis of subsequent legal action in relation to the incident.

Australia’s war crimes prosecution regime allows for the prosecution of crimes without any traditional jurisdictional nexus to the perpetrators; that is, without connection in geography or citizenship to the victims. It does not allow for prosecution without the presence of the accused.

It does, however, allow for proceedings to begin with the attorney-general’s permission. Extradition requests could then be sent to the Russian government to seek custody over the alleged perpetrators in order to continue the prosecution. Such action sends a strong message in support of the rule of law and accountability, even if the prosecution does not proceed.

The principle of double jeopardy (or ne bis in idem) does not apply between countries. That is, prosecutions in Australian will not prejudice other states from prosecuting the same offending. This means there is little risk to Australia in pursuing this course of action in terms of jeopardising other mechanisms for justice related to these crimes.

Australia provided expert investigators from the Australian Federal Police to support the MH17 investigation. Their evidence was used to secure these convictions.

Australian investigators will also support the investigation of war crimes in Ukraine. The prosecution of war crimes offences in Ukraine is going to take many years and will likely overwhelm their domestic criminal justice system.

One concern if these prosecutions occur outside of Ukraine is that victim participation will be reduced. Careful case selection and victims being able to participate remotely through technology can mitigate this.

Historical examples, such as in the case of Rwanda, demonstrate that concentrating prosecutions in one tribunal means prosecutions can continue for decades after the conflict; and justice delayed is justice denied.

Australia has the expertise and the opportunity to be seen as a leader in at least pressing for accountability for crimes in Ukraine.

Read more:
Does the UN aviation body have the power to punish Russia for the MH17 downing? An aviation law expert explains

Among other judicial activism in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Australia and the Netherlands have commenced proceedings against Russia in the International Civil Aviation Organization, on the basis that Russia is internationally responsible for downing the aircraft.

The Russians have rejected this legal action and the Netherlands prosecution as acts of “political favour”, which should be dismissed for a lack of impartiality. Effectively, Russia accuses Australia of using tactics of “lawfare” – using the law to affect a strategic outcome.

Rather than resile from these claims, Australia should embrace them, and continue to use lawfare to seek accountability for war crimes committed in the Ukraine conflict. There is value in launching carefully investigated domestic prosecutions for atrocity crimes. There is also value in reinforcing international criminal justice and accountability measures. This would prevent impunity and discourage further atrocity crimes being committed in this and future conflicts.

Specifically, there is political value in reinforcing the importance of the rule of law. Our political motivations should be to seek out and punish those guilty of committing atrocities.

Lauren Sanders receives funding from the Truster Autonomous Systems CRC. She is a Reserve Legal Officer, however, the views presented do not represent the views of the Australian Defence Force or the Australian Government.

– ref. MH17 convictions pave the way for war crime prosecutions from Ukrainian invasion – https://theconversation.com/mh17-convictions-pave-the-way-for-war-crime-prosecutions-from-ukrainian-invasion-194909

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Htwe Htwe Thein, Associate professor, Curtin University

The fate of Myanmar has major implications for a free and open Indo-Pacific.

An undemocratic Myanmar serves no one’s interests except China, which is consolidating its economic and strategic influence in its smaller neighbour in pursuit of its two-ocean strategy.

Read more:
Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?

Since the coup China has been – by far – the main source of foreign investment in Myanmar.

This includes US$2.5 billion in a gas-fired power plant to be built west of Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, that will be 81% owned and operated by Chinese companies.

Among the dozens of infrastructure projects China is funding are high-speed rail links and dams. But its most strategically important investment is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, encompassing oil and gas pipelines, roads and rail links costing many tens of billions of dollars.

The corridor’s “jewel in the crown” is a deep-sea port to be built at Kyaukphyu, on Myanmar’s west coast, at an estimated cost of US$7 billion.

This will finally give China its long-desired “back door” to the Indian Ocean.

Natural gas from Myanmar can help China reduce its dependence on imports from suppliers such as Australia. Access to the Indian Ocean will enable China to import gas and oil from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela without ships having to pass through the contested waters of the South China Sea to Chinese ports.

About 80% of China’s oil imports now move through the South China Sea via the Malacca Strait, which is just 65 kilometres wide at its narrowest point between the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia’s Sumatra.

Overcoming this strategic vulnerability arguably makes the Kyaukphyu port and pipelines the most important element of China’s Belt and Road initiative to reshape global trade routes and assert its influence over other nations.

Read more:
Conflict in the South China Sea threatens 90% of Australia’s fuel imports: study

Deepening relationship

Most of China’s infrastructure investment was planned before Myanmar’s coup. But whereas other governments and foreign investors have sought to distance themselves from the junta since it overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021, China has deepened its relationship.

China is the Myanmar regime’s most important international supporter. In April Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would support Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes”. In May it used its veto power on the United Nations Security Council to thwart a statement expressing concern about violence and the growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

Work continues on projects associated with the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. New ventures (such as the aforementioned power station) have been approved.
More projects are on the cards. In June, for example, China’s embassy in Myanmar announced the completion of a feasibility study to upgrade the Wan Pong port on the Lancang-Mekong River in Myanmar’s east.

Read more:
As Myanmar suffers, the military junta is desperate, isolated and running out of options

Debt trap warnings

In 2020, before the coup, Myanmar’s auditor general Maw Than warned of growing indebtedness to China, with Chinese lenders charging higher interest payments than those from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.

At that time about 40% of Myanmar’s foreign debt of US$10 billion was owed to China. It is likely to be greater now. It will only increase the longer the Myanmar’s military dictatorship, with few other sources of foreign money, remains in power, dragging down Myanmar’s economy.

Efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar should therefore be seen as crucial to the long-term strategic interests of the region’s democracies, and to global peace and prosperity, given the increasing belligerence of China under Xi Jinping.

Xi, now president for life, this month told the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war. A compliant and indebted Myanmar with a deep-sea port controlled by Chinese interests tips the scales towards that happening.

A democratic and independent Myanmar is a counter-strategy to this potential.

Calls for sanctions

Myanmar’s democracy movement wants the international community to impose tough sanctions on the junta. But few have responded.

The United States and United Kingdom have gone furthest, banning business dealings with Myanmar military officials and state-owned or private companies controlled by the military.

The European Union and Canada have imposed sanctions against a more limited range of individuals and economic entities.

Read more:
As Myanmar suffers, the military junta is desperate, isolated and running out of options

South Korea has suspended financing new infrastructure projects. Japan has suspended aid and postponed the launch of Myanmar’s first satellite. New Zealand has suspended political and military contact.

Australia has suspended military cooperation (with some pre-existing restrictions on dealing with military leaders imposed following the human rights atrocities committed against the Rohingya in 2017.

But that’s about it.

Myanmar’s closest neighbours in the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations are still committed to a policy of dialogue and “non-interference” – though Malaysia and Indonesia are increasingly arguing for a tougher approach as the atrocities mount.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project says the only country now more violent than Myanmar is Ukraine.

Given its unique geo-strategic position, self-interest alone should be enough for the international community to take greater action.

Htwe Htwe Thein receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant.

– ref. China’s influence in Myanmar could tip the scales towards war in the South China Sea – https://theconversation.com/chinas-influence-in-myanmar-could-tip-the-scales-towards-war-in-the-south-china-sea-189780

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niro Kandasamy, Lecturer in History, University of Sydney

Review: The Jungle and the Sea, directed by Eamon Flack, Belvoir.

After the roaring success of their debut collaboration, Counting and Cracking, S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack have produced another play that will captivate audiences.

Sri Lanka was in a civil war from 1983 to 2009, about a Tamil national liberation struggle for independence in the north and east. This followed decades of discrimination by the Sri Lankan state against Tamils.

The Jungle and the Sea revolves around the story of one Tamil family who are separated after church bombings in 1995, following them through to 2009.

The Jungle and the Sea is an expression of the many stories of Tamils that remain untold. This play will hold immense value for the Tamil community in Australia, not least because there is very little in the way of Australian public acknowledgement about their war histories.

As The Jungle and the Sea reminds us, war is never only about nationalist politics. It is also profoundly local, intimate and involves negotiation of human relationships that can challenge political boundaries.

We are taken along the multiple trajectories of the members of one Tamil family.

A revolving floor symbolises the constant movement of the Tamil community, which endured 26 years of intense armed conflict. Accompanied by musicians Indu Balachandran and Arjunan Puveendran, the music takes the audience through constantly revolving worlds of loss and survival.

Read more:
Sri Lanka’s crisis is not just about the economy, but a long history of discrimination against minority groups

Into the chaos of war

On July 9 1995, the Sri Lankan government bombed St Peter’s Church in Navaly, following the collapse of peace talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and the resumption of fighting.

Just days before, the government had dropped leaflets across the Jaffna peninsula instructing civilians to seek shelter in churches and temples ahead of the military’s new mission to capture Jaffna.

The opening scenes of The Jungle and the Sea reimagine this horrific moment.

Children go from playing a game of cricket to suddenly reorganising their lives to ensure their survival and the survival of those around them. The scenes foreshadow the rest of the play, which traces entanglements of violence, loss, joy and compassion.

The Jungle and the Sea is about the vulnerabilities and agency of people navigating the chaos of war.

After the bombing, father Siva (Prakash Srinivasan) and daughter Lakshmi (Emma Harvie) seek refuge in Sydney. The son Ahilan (Biman Wimalaratne) is recruited into the Tamil Tigers. The mother Gowrie (Anandavalli) and two more daughters – Abi (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and Madhu (Nadie Kammallaweera) – remain in the war zones foregoing the chance to escape.

In agony after the family’s separation, the mother decides to blindfold herself and refuses to leave her homeland until she can be reunited with all her children.

Shakthidharan gives us the diverse experiences of war: those of liberation fighters, civilians and refugees. We are given multifaceted identities, as the actors take us into their kaleidoscopic worlds.

In one of several comedic scenes, Lakshmi, the only child who flees Sri Lanka, celebrates her university graduation by taking her father to a candle-lit dinner by the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There, she comes out to him as a lesbian.

The father’s response to her being Tamil, atheist and lesbian highlights intergenerational tensions in a humorous and humbling manner.

Survivors of war are more than the traumas of war they carry with them.

Truth-telling in the aftermath of war

In the final act, the cast takes up the contested terrain of remembering the atrocities against Tamils in the aftermath of the war.

Gowrie finally removes her blindfold when she is reunited with her family – those who survived, and those who died. Gowrie’s determination to continue searching for her children renders the war an internal fight to keep alive hope and resistance.

Played by Anandavalli, a renowned bharatanatyam dancer, Gowrie’s dance is a fitting close to the story and an ode to the genre of theatre as a creative medium through which stories about war can be used to reflect, mourn, and educate.

Gowrie captures the particular plight of Tamil mothers. Some 13 years after the war ended, those mothers whose children were forcibly disappeared in the final days of the war continue to make visible through protesting that there can be no peace or reconciliation without justice.

History in the aftermath of the war is contested, especially for Tamils whose losses are beyond measure. The Jungle and the Sea is one story among many about a history that breathes in the present, serving as a reminder that there are hundreds of Tamil refugees in Australia without permanent protection, each of them carrying stories like this one.

The Jungle and the Sea is at Belvoir, Sydney, until December 18.

Read more:
Why do Tamil asylum seekers need protection — and why does the Australian government say they don’t?

Niro Kandasamy is affiliated with the Tamil Refugee Council.

– ref. The Jungle and the Sea reminds us war is profoundly local, with the intimate negotiation of human relationships – https://theconversation.com/the-jungle-and-the-sea-reminds-us-war-is-profoundly-local-with-the-intimate-negotiation-of-human-relationships-194044

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Armour, Senior research fellow in reproductive health at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University

Endometriosis is a painful condition caused by the presence of tissue similar to the lining of the uterus found outside the uterus. It affects around one in nine women and people assigned female at birth.

Common symptoms include painful periods, pelvic pain, fatigue, pain with sexual intercourse, pain while urinating or passing bowel motions, and infertility.

While mild endometriosis involves superficial deposits on or around the reproductive organs, severe endometriosis causes nodules and adhesions – bands of scarring that can attach organs to each other.

There’s currently no known cure for endometriosis. Symptoms can be managed with surgery, medications, hormonal treatments, pelvic physiotherapy and complementary therapies such as acupuncture.

Read more:
You no longer need surgery to be diagnosed with endometriosis. Here’s what’s changed

What happens during surgery?

Endometriosis surgery is usually performed by laparoscopy or keyhole surgery. Most people will have a camera inserted through the belly button and three to four other incisions (about half a centimetre across) for other instruments to cut, grab, burn and hold.

The first step is to look around for abnormalities. Surgeons will look for endometriosis in the pelvis, abdomen, and under the diaphragm. They will look in, around and under every possible fold of tissue.

Surgeons use two different techniques to treat endometriosis:

1) excision involves cutting out endometriosis. The aim is to remove as much of the visible endometriosis as possible and repair any damage it may have caused. Excised lesions can be examined under a microscope to see if endometrial-like cells are present to confirm diagnosis, which is not possible with ablation

2) ablation attempts to destroy the endometriosis where it lies, using heat energy.

Since most surgeries are laparoscopic, many centres discharge patients home on the same day.

Recovery after surgery varies. Within a few weeks, some people are back to relatively regular activities like work, household duties, and socialising. Most people who have laparoscopic surgery will feel almost back to normal by six weeks after their operation.

Which surgical technique is better?

Some evidence suggests excision surgery may be better than ablation at reducing pain during sexual intercourse.

However, overall, several recent meta-analyses (a type of study that combines the results of many clinical trials) concluded there is little-to-no difference in most symptoms between ablation and excision at 12 months after surgery.

Many surgeons use excision, as this can remove the lesions as completely as possible. However, there may be circumstances where the lesions may be more suitably treated with ablation – for instance, to remove endometriosis on the surface of the uterus, ovary or fallopian tube – where excision may cause more harm.

Read more:
I have painful periods, could it be endometriosis?

How effective is surgery?

Clinical guidelines in Australia and New Zealand and Europe recommend laparoscopic surgery be offered as one way to reduce pain from endometriosis. This is based on evidence that it successfully reduces pain. However, the current quality of evidence assessing the effectiveness of surgery in reducing pain is low because the studies were small and didn’t follow participants for long.

For treating infertility, there may be some benefit to surgically treating endometriosis, but it’s impossible to say exactly how much.

Often, people may seek assisted reproductive therapies (ART) such as IVF. However, there is little research comparing whether surgery or IVF is more effective at achieving the goal of a live birth.

The risks and benefits of surgery and ART differ based on the individual circumstances.

What happens after surgery?

After the recovery period, patients will be able to assess how their symptoms have changed.

They may need to continue to use or start other strategies to manage pain. While surgery can reduce inflammation pain associated with endometriosis lesions, it may be less effective for treating pain from the pelvic floor muscles that may be short, tight, or tender.

Read more:
Considering surgery for endometriosis? Here’s what you need to know

In some people, endometriosis symptoms resolve after surgery, then sometimes return. After five years, 15-56% of people who had surgery for endometriosis experience a recurrence of symptoms.

This may be due to new lesions developing or growth of residual disease if the previous endometriosis lesions were not completely removed, were overlooked or not detected.

In some cases, it may be due to other gynaecological conditions. Or it may represent a change in the nervous system, often due in part to endometriosis, called central sensitisation.

Part of the problem is the definition of “recurrence” is inconsistent and ranges from pain symptoms returning (with an assumption they must be due to endometriosis recurring) to endometriosis lesions actually being seen again (by imaging or repeat surgery).

Ultimately, any health decision is an intimately personal decision and people have to weigh the pros and cons after speaking with their doctors.

Mike Armour is affiliated with Endometriosis Australia. He reports funding from Endometriosis Australia and the Medical Research Futures Fund, outside this work.

Cecilia Ng receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund.

Mathew Leonardi reports grants from Endometriosis Australia, AbbVie, CanSAGE, Medical Research Future Fund, Hamilton Health Sciences, Hyivy; honoraria for lectures/writing from GE Healthcare, Bayer, AbbVie, TerSera, affiliations with Imagendo, outside the submitted work.

– ref. I’m thinking of surgery for endometriosis. What’s involved? Does it work? – https://theconversation.com/im-thinking-of-surgery-for-endometriosis-whats-involved-does-it-work-182509

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Summer May Finlay, Senior Lecturer – Indigenous Health, University of Wollongong

This article contains information on violence experienced by First Nations young people in the Australian carceral system. There are mentions of racist terms, and this piece also mentions self harm, trauma and suicide.

The ABC Four Corners report “Locking up Kids” detailed the horrific conditions for young Aboriginal people in the juvenile justice system in Western Australia.

The report was nothing new. In 2016, Four Corners detailed the brutalisation of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, in its episode “Australia’s Shame”. Also in 2016, Amnesty International detailed the abuse children were receiving in Queensland’s juvenile detention facilities.

Children should be playing, swimming, running and exploring life. They do not belong behind bars. Yet, on any given day in 2020-21, an average of 4,695 young people were incarcerated in Australia. Most of the young people incarcerated are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in WA making up just 6.7% of the population, they account for more than 70% of youth locked up in Perth’s Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.

The reasons so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are detained are linked to the impacts of colonisation, such as intergenerational trauma, ongoing racism, discrimination, and unresolved issues related to self-determination.

Read more:
Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only a first step. First Nations kids need cultural solutions

The Four Corners documentary alleged children in detention were exposed to abuse, torture, solitary confinement and other degrading treatment such as “folding”, which involves bending a person’s legs behind them before sitting on them – we saw a grown man sitting on a child’s legs in this way in the documentary.

The documentary also found Aboriginal young people were more likely to be held in solitary confinement, leading to the young people feeling helpless. Racism was also used as a form of abuse, with security calling the young detainees apes and monkeys. One of the young men detained at Banksia Hill expressed the treatment he received made him consider taking his own life.

How does incarceration impact young people’s mental health?

Many young people enter youth detention with pre-existing neurocognitive impairments (such as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder), trauma, and poor mental health. More than 80% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in a Queensland detention centre reported mental health problems.

Data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealed that more than 30% of young people in detention were survivors of abuse or neglect. Rather than supporting the most vulnerable within our community, the Australian justice system is imprisoning traumatised and often developmentally compromised young people.

Research has shown pre-existing mental health problems are likely exacerbated by experiences during incarceration, such as isolation, boredom and victimisation.

This inhumane treatment brings about retraumatisation of the effects of colonisation and racism, with feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness and low self-esteem.

Youth detention is also associated with an increased risk of suicide, psychiatric disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Locking young people up during their crucial years of development also has long-term impacts. These include poor emotional development, poor education outcomes, and worse mental health in adulthood. As adults, post-release Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are ten times more likely to die than the general population, with suicide the leading cause of death.

You don’t have to look far to see the devastating impacts of incarceration on mental health. Just last year, there were 320 reports of self-harm at Banksia Hill, WA’s only youth detention centre.

Read more:
Reunifying First Nations families: the only way to reduce the overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care

Locking up kids increases the likelihood of reoffending

Imprisoning young offenders is also associated with future offending behaviours and continued contact with the justice system.

Without proper rehabilitation and support post-release, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young peoples often return to the same conditions that created the patterns of offending in the first place.

Earlier this year, the head of Perth Children’s Court, Judge Hylton Quail condemned the treatment of a young person in detention at Banksia Hill, stating:

When you treat a damaged child like an animal, they will behave like an animal […] When you want to make a monster, this is how you do it.

What needs to be done?

There needs to be substantive change in how young people who come in contact with the justice system are treated. We need governments to commit, under Closing the Gap, to whole-of-system change through:

1. recognising children should not be criminalised at ten years old. The Raise the Age campaign is calling for the minimum age of responsibility to be raised to 14. Early prevention and intervention approaches are necessary here. Children who are at risk of offending should be appropriately supported, to reduce pathways to offending.

2. an approach addressing why young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are locked up in such great numbers is required, driven by respective First Nations communities. This means investing in housing, health, education, transport and other essential services and crucial aspects of a person’s life. An example of this is found in a pilot program in New South Wales called Redefining Reinvestment, which tackled the social determinants of incarceration using a community approach.

3. future solutions must be trauma-informed and led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Read more:
The criminal legal system does not deliver justice for First Nations people, says a new book

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are not born criminals. They are born into systems that fail them, in a country that all too often turns a blind eye before locking them up.

The Australian government needs to work with First Nations communities to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including our future generations.

If this article has caused distress, please contact one of these helplines:
13yarn,
Lifeline,
Headspace

Summer May Finlay receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She is also a member of the Labor party, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the Public Health Association of Australia. Sumer is the Deputy Chair of Thirilli and Co-chair of the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW.

Ee Pin Chang receives funding from Suicide Prevention Australia, and Western Australian Office of Crime Statistics and Research at the WA Department of Justice.

Jemma Collova receives funding from the Australian Department of Health.

Pat Dudgeon receives funding from the Australian Department of Health. She is the Director of the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention and lead Chief Investigator on a NHMRC Million Minds Mission Grant. She is the chair and member of the Australian Indigenous Psychologist’s Association, and sits on the board of Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia.

– ref. Locking up kids has serious mental health impacts and contributes to further reoffending – https://theconversation.com/locking-up-kids-has-serious-mental-health-impacts-and-contributes-to-further-reoffending-194657

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andres Gambini, Senior Lecturer, School of Agriculture and Food Science, The University of Queensland

You may not realise it, but the world’s donkeys are in trouble: many domestic breeds and wild species are headed for extinction. But my colleagues and I have developed a scientific breakthrough that may contribute to saving them.

We created the world’s first successful donkey embryo using in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). The embryo, from an endangered European breed, is frozen in liquid nitrogen. We’re now searching for a suitable female donkey to grow the embryo into a baby.

We hope to apply our findings to help conserve other endangered animals. Hopefully one day, we’ll have a genetic bank of embryos that form a “frozen zoo” – creating another weapon in our conservation ass-enal, so to speak.

Donkeys in decline

Donkeys share the same genus with horses and zebras. They’re thought to have been domesticated about 6,000 years ago and used for transport and food redistribution. They were particularly essential in the overland trade in Africa and western Asia.

Domestic donkeys are still used for transport in parts of Asia, South America and Africa. They are also kept for meat and milk production and as companion animals.

Seven of the 28 European domestic breeds are critically endangered and 20 are endangered. Populations of wild donkey species are also dwindling.

There are several reasons for this. People are using and breeding them less, and their grazing land has declined. Donkeys are also slaughtered for “ejiao”, a key ingredient in traditional Chinese food and remedies produced from collagen in donkey skin.

There’s an urgent need to improve donkey conservation programs to increase the animal’s numbers and distribution, and to broaden the genetic pool.

My research team set out to produce donkey embryos in the laboratory, in the hope of helping to repopulate species. I worked with colleagues from Argentina’s National University of Río Cuarto, and Spain’s University of Córdoba and Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Read more:
Feral desert donkeys are digging wells, giving water to parched wildlife

What we did

An embryo is the group of cells that form when a female egg is fertilised by male sperm.

Creating a viable donkey embryo is not easy. Once an egg is fertilised in the lab, it has only a 5% to 10% chance of growing into a good embryo that can be implanted into a female. By comparison, for horses the success rate is up to 30%.

We used an IVF process known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). It involves injecting a single sperm into the centre of an egg using very fine, specialist equipment.

Importantly, we added a step to the process. Before fertilising the egg, we immersed it for two days in fluids from the female donkey’s ovary. This simulates ovary conditions and gives the egg the molecules and hormones it needs to grow.

After three years of work, we produced the world’s first viable donkey embryo. It is currently frozen in a lab at the University of Cordoba in Spain.

Our research suggests that using ovary fluids as an egg matures in the lab supports the IVF process and could be more likely to lead to a viable embryo. These findings are a step forward in donkey conservation.

We produced the embryo by combining donkey semen with an egg from a different part of Spain. This aimed to avoid inbreeding problems that can occur when trying to reproduce an endangered species.

We hope to create more viable embryos and find suitable female donkeys to implant before the breeding season ends next year.

Read more:
Human reproductive technologies like sperm freezing and IVF could be used to save threatened species

So what next?

Throughout my research career, I’ve used assisted reproductive technologies to improve the genetic progress in a range of domestic animals. In 2020, for example, I and my colleagues reported the first in vitro zebra embryos. We now have ten frozen zebra embryos in storage, including clones.

We hope to build on our donkey embryo development, using IVF to improve the prospects of other endangered species.

Read more:
Scientists release world-first DNA map of an endangered Australian mouse, and it will help to save it

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

– ref. We created the world’s first donkey embryo using IVF in a bid to save species from extinction – https://theconversation.com/we-created-the-worlds-first-donkey-embryo-using-ivf-in-a-bid-to-save-species-from-extinction-194903

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Faith Gordon, Associate Professor in Law, Australian National University

Prison is no place for a child. Putting children in youth justice facilities can have long-lasting consequences for their physical, psychological and emotional health, wellbeing and development.

Prison can aggravate existing health conditions and result in new ones, such as depression, suicidal thoughts, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

We heard this firsthand from children interviewed by ABC’s Four Corners this week.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Australia became a signatory in 1990, states detention should only be used as a “last resort” and, if required, should only be for the least possible time (Article 37). Yet this is not what we see in Australia.

Rather than imprisoning children who come into conflict with the law, the evidence suggests diverting them away from the criminal justice system and providing appropriate supports gives children the best chance to “grow out” of the behaviours that are being criminalised.

A time of rapid brain development

Neuroscience shows children and young people undergo rapid brain development. This can affect risk-taking, particular kinds of decision-making, and the ability to control impulses.

As previous research has shown, many children and young people desist or stop involvement in crime and in effect “grow out” or “age out” of it as they get older.

Reports demonstrate there is typically a peak in involvement in crime in the mid-teens and a decline at the beginning of adulthood.

Read more:
One year on from Royal Commission findings on Northern Territory child detention: what has changed?

How do other countries compare with Australia?

Australia has a very low minimum age of criminal responsibility compared to other parts of the world. Children as young as ten can be searched, arrested, detained and held criminally responsible.

Other countries have a much higher age of criminal responsibility. In Luxembourg and South America, it’s 18, Poland is 17 (with some exceptions from 15), Portugal is 16, and Denmark is 15.

In contrast to Australia’s heavy reliance on the police, courts and prisons, other countries prioritise diversion for children who come into conflict with the law and promote alternative, community-based and social care-focused responses, which have much better outcomes for children and for communities.

One example is the public health model approach to address violence in communities, which has been successful in Scotland.

This is where diverse sectors such as health, social services, education, justice and policy work together to solve problems that contribute to violence and criminality including homelessness, addiction and family violence.

Scotland’s homicide rate halved between 2008 and 2018 after the approach was implemented and the number of hospital admissions due to assault with a sharp object fell by 62% in Glasgow (knife crime has been a significant issue in the United Kingdom).

In other countries that have a much higher age of criminal responsibility, such as Norway (where it’s 15), children under 15 do not interact with courts, are not punished but rather supported by child protection services, and their identities are not released in the media.

For those over 15, suspended sentences and probation, as well as support from child protection services, are prioritised.

Norway’s approach appears to be effective with an overall rate of recidivism (the number of people who return to prison after release) of 20%. This is in stark contrast with Australia’s overall recidivism rate of 45.2%, with states and territories as high as 58.9% (Northern Territory).

No benefits, only losses

There is no credible evidence imprisoning children decreases levels of crime or improves community safety.

Yet there is a wealth of established evidence demonstrating interactions with formal criminal justice institutions negatively impact children and are counterproductive. As the data demonstrates, children who are first sentenced between the ages of ten and 12 are more likely to re-offend than those first sentenced when they are older.

Read more:
Don Dale royal commission demands sweeping change – is there political will to make it happen?

So what needs to happen?

We need to change our mindset about children who come into conflict with the law. We need a complete overhaul in our systems, with decarceration not incarceration.

Decarceration is a process of reducing the number of people in prison by diverting people away from the criminal justice system and reducing the focus on prison as a solution to crime.

In Australia this would mean detaining children as a last resort and prioritising other methods of diversion, such as fixing the social determinants of criminality, as described above.

Read more:
Locking up kids damages their mental health and sets them up for more disadvantage. Is this what we want?

We need to see youth justice facilities closing, not plans and financial resources being allocated to building more.

A major UN human rights review and longstanding national campaigns have called for the minimum age of criminal responsibility to urgently change nationally. The UN recommends 14 as the minimum age. Raising the age will prevent the criminalisation of younger children.

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders, disabilities or developmental delays should not be in the youth justice system, no matter their age.

The harsh bail laws in a number of states and territories also need to be amended, as they are resulting in large numbers of children spending periods in prison on remand.

Due to the bail laws, in Victoria in the decade to 2020 the number of children on remand doubled. Two-thirds spent time in detention but did not go on to receive a custodial sentence.

Justice reinvestment redirects resources from traditional criminal justice and related systems to communities, to instead invest those resources into programs that prioritise early intervention and prevention. Its core aim is to give communities back decision-making powers, allowing them to self-determine their own futures.

Community-designed and community-based diversion programs are much more effective than formal criminal justice system responses and evaluations show positive outcomes and reductions in reoffending.

National Children’s Commissioner, Anne Hollonds has called for a national taskforce to urgently address the crisis in youth justice in Australia. However, this needs to be coupled with action from the federal government, in full cooperation with the states and territories.

If there are further delays or a lack of political will to bring about such change, it’s the most vulnerable children and young people who will continue to pay the price. Their wellbeing and futures are at stake.

Faith Gordon receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the AIJA.

– ref. Diverting children away from the criminal justice system gives them a chance to ‘grow out’ of crime – https://theconversation.com/diverting-children-away-from-the-criminal-justice-system-gives-them-a-chance-to-grow-out-of-crime-194645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney

One of the most common reasons people apply for social housing is because they or their immediate family members have a disability and they are unable to work. They need an affordable alternative to private rental housing that’s suitable for their disability-related needs.

Our research on the experiences and circumstances of people on the social housing waiting list has found many people with serious disabilities are not guaranteed access to social housing. The following three case studies, drawn from our interviews, illustrate how the long wait for social housing makes their extremely difficult situations worse.

Read more:
Not just ramps and doorways – disability housing is about choosing where, how and who you live with

Paul

Paul* has serious mobility problems and requires a wheelchair. He lives by himself in Sydney. He had been on the social housing priority waiting list for just under a year and had no idea of how much longer he would have to wait. But the house he was living in was unsuitable. As Paul explained:

“The nature of the accommodation has been assessed […] and it’s not suitable for me to live in […] There is a bathroom, but to do the shower you have to stand inside the tub […] so I can’t do that shower any more […] And the doors are not wide enough for the wheelchair to go through.”

Access to the house is also difficult.

“The condition of the [path] from the house going to the road it’s not good and it’s very difficult.”

Paul is on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and eligible for an electric wheelchair. But he says:

[T]hey won’t approve […] until I have a proper accommodation […] they want to make sure whether it’s going to be used in the house.“

Mark

Two of Mark’s three children have complex mental and physical disabilities. His wife also has a disability. He gave up paid work 20 years ago to be their full-time carer.

Through community housing he found a subsidised private rental property.

“We were there from 2002 until 2019 in the same house that was very not suitable for people with disabilities. It was just a three-bedroom normal house that was run down that as the kids grew up […] and my wife’s getting worse. The house was just absolutely not suitable […] for our situation.”

His pleas for suitable social housing fell on deaf ears. In 2019 Mark felt he had to move.

“I just couldn’t hack it anymore. The kids are getting bigger. It’s getting very hard for me to look after them cos I was the main carer and I have to shower them, toilet them, you know all that stuff, and you know the house was small […] sometimes they had to be in a wheelchair, [but] there was no wheelchair access.

“So eventually I just gave up and found a house that I’m renting now […] I’m paying private rent but being on priority housing I get subsidised from public housing […] It’s still not suitable, but it’s a bit bigger and a little bit better.

Mark summed up his experience:

“I’ve been on the waiting list for over 20 years without, you know, being given a public [housing] house or […] never offered suitable housing for our situation, and until today we’re still on the priority list.”

Read more:
‘Getting onto the wait list is a battle in itself’: insiders on what it takes to get social housing

Despite the permanent nature of his family members’ disabilities, to continue receiving the rental subsidy Mark has to get forms filled in by a GP every six months.

“There’s a lot of paperwork involved. Every six months you’ve got to bring bank statements […] you’ve got to bring medical certificates […] and the stress, and you know […] GPs these people don’t want to sit there filling up forms for three people.

“If I take my family and I go to a GP and say, ‘Listen, can you fill up these forms?”, they say, ‘No mate, […] it’s too much work for me”, and I’ve got that from my GP many times. You’ve got to beg the doctor, fight with the doctor […] and this is the life you live.“

Pippa

Pippa has an intellectual disability and lives with her carer who is also her partner. Despite being homeless at times, she has been on the waiting list for around 10 years.

“They refused to put me on priority […] and I said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t have anywhere to sleep. I don’t have a house or anything.’ And they basically just said, ‘Keep looking for private rental.’ We got 21 days of TA [temporary accommodation] and a little bit more during the whole year that me and my partner were homeless.”

Although they eventually found a private rental property, the insecurity and her lack of disposable income are deeply unsettling.

“I mean for me I think I need something more stable which would be [social] housing […] If it’s a place where I could kind of set my life up and you know get a job and not have to focus on, okay, the owner is going to sell or, you know, my rent’s going to go up […] if the owners sell tomorrow we would be back on the street cos there’s no way we could afford anything. There would be nowhere to go.”

Read more:
Stability and security: the keys to closing the mental health gap between renters and home owners

Pippa was scathing of the NSW Department of Communities and Justice – Housing.

“The fact that Housing can’t even assist someone with a disability is very concerning […] I just think they don’t have the right kind of tools or people or anything to kind of handle someone with a disability […] they just have no idea at all.”

The situations of Paul, Mark and Pippa (who is now on the priority list) starkly illustrate how not being able to get into social housing makes their lives even more challenging. Clearly, what is required is the urgent building of social housing that is suitable for people with different disabilities.

* All the names used are pseudonyms to protect individuals’ privacy.

Alan Morris receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Jan Idle is employed though ARC funding.

– ref. ‘I’ve been on the waiting list for over 20 years’: why social housing suitable for people with disabilities is desperately needed – https://theconversation.com/ive-been-on-the-waiting-list-for-over-20-years-why-social-housing-suitable-for-people-with-disabilities-is-desperately-needed-193455

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Armstrong, Senior Lecturer in Special and Inclusive Education, RMIT University

At a press conference last week, paralympian Dylan Alcott recalled the pain of being a child with a disability.

“I had no friends when I was five,” the Australian of the Year told reporters. “I even got goosebumps saying that.”

He said one of the positives about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was that it had helped today’s young kids develop almost twice as many friendships. But how?

School is a crucial place to think about friendships for kids with disabilities because, as research confirms, it’s a space where all kids learn to make and maintain friendships. Some studies imply that schooling plays an even more important social role for students with a disability than for typically developing kids – with non-disabled students modelling appropriate behaviours.

Friendships matter for kids with a disability – without them, kids will not flourish in school, feel lonely and be isolated. So how can we help some of our most vulnerable students make and maintain them?

Read more:
Everyone is talking about the NDIS – we spoke to participants and asked them how to fix it

Disability and social isolation

Alcott’s comments echo what experts know about disability and social connection. A study of English adults published last year shows: “Compared to the general population, people with disability have fewer friends, less social support and are more socially isolated”.

According to several studies, the quality of friendships for many young people with disabilities is reduced, compared to young people without a disability. (Friendship quality is measured against criteria including status as peers, variety of activities enjoyed together and these activities being spontaneous rather than prearranged or programmed group events.) This lowers quality of life.

Negative social attitudes toward disability compound this social disadvantage in schools and in our communities.

Although small progress has been made in Australia toward addressing these ingrained attitudes in the school system, they still persist as shown at the Disability Royal Commission public hearing on education in 2020.

At the 2020 hearing, students with disabilities reported losing access to friendships as well as learning if they are excluded from school and sitting at home. Once excluded, students have even fewer chances for social interactions and friendships.

Friendship is about access

My own research highlights how students with a disability are seriously over-represented among kids asked to leave settings or suspended, usually on account of their behaviour – and what might address this problem.

Lacklustre or tokenistic application of policies on educational inclusion is a more subtle problem. Well-meaning policies applied without considering a child’s social needs mean a child might be? physically present in the classroom of a regular school but without classroom friendships or experiencing the wider social life of the school.

Advocates point out genuine inclusion is about access to friendships and social opportunities children with and without disabilities? might not have considered or encountered otherwise.

And decades of international research finds strong friendships mean young people are less likely to develop aggressive behaviours or a mental health condition. This finding is particularly important for children and young people with a disability who may be at increased risk of severe psychological distress.

Read more:
Mental distress is much worse for people with disabilities, and many health professionals don’t know how to help

Making moments, calling out issues

The finding that NDIS participation boosts friendships shows that with sufficient support and adequate funding, social success is entirely achievable.

Parents, teachers, school leaders and concerned members of communities can help too. Parents play a key role in kids’ friendship development, facilitating opportunities for children with and without disabilities to bond in groups or one-on-one.

Adults can call out segregation, discrimination and cultures of low expectations lurking in school systems.

Kids with disabilities can be enabled to participate in whatever aspects of the wider school social life interest them. Non-disabled students may have a negative bias towards kids with a disability and that can prevent relationships. Resources such as the ABC’s You Can’t Ask That can be used in schools to tackle stereotyping.

Students with disabilities often face bullying. Effective school-wide anti-bullying programs are essential for helping them navigate positive relationships. The governments’s Bullying No Way program is a good example.

Friendships can have unique challenges for kids with autism, but providing explicit teaching about social rules among the neurotypical can help. Research-supported specialist programs exist. Nurture groups can give kids focussed support to gain and maintain relationships.

The benefits of friendships and strong social inclusion for children and young people with a disability are compelling. As a society we should do all we can to prevent some of the most vulnerable in our communities from falling into a lonely and isolated life.

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

– ref. Dylan Alcott says he missed out on childhood friends. With support, disabled kids today can have a better shot socially – https://theconversation.com/dylan-alcott-says-he-missed-out-on-childhood-friends-with-support-disabled-kids-today-can-have-a-better-shot-socially-194620

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janneke Blijlevens, Senior Lecturer Experimental Methods, RMIT University

It’s been a long day. Your partner messages you: “let’s just order in, I don’t feel like cooking”.

With a sense of relief, you open your usual takeaway app and start scrolling through the many restaurants and dishes available. Thai, pizza, burgers, Korean, Lebanese… oooh this one has free delivery! Hmm, but they’re far away and I am famished… Soon that sense of relief is replaced by overwhelm and inability to decide what to order. And your partner is not much help either!

Sound familiar? What you are experiencing is called choice overload. This can sometimes go as far as leading to complete decision paralysis (when you give up and make a toastie instead) and ultimately leads to an overall reduced satisfaction with the choices we make.

Thankfully, marketing and psychology scholars have studied this phenomenon for years and can provide tips to make your life a little easier. But first, we need to understand it to fix it.

Where does choice overload come from?

In the dinner scenario above, “choice set complexity” – how choices are presented, how many options there are, how different the options are in their characteristics, how much we already know about each option – is the culprit.

There are simply too many things to consider to make the most optimal choice: cuisine, delivery time, delivery costs, distance, healthy or indulgent, and so on. What seems a simple decision at first glance, soon turns into quite a complex one.

With people making approximately 200 choices a day when it comes to food alone, you can easily relate to the fatigue our brains feel at the end of a day.

Being presented with yet another complex and multifaceted decision will lead to cognitive overload: it means your brain simply doesn’t have the cognitive resources (brain power) to consciously process all the options and consider all the information needed to make an optimal choice.

Why making ‘perfect’ decisions is impossible

As a matter of fact, our brains are rather limited in the amount of information they can process consciously at any given time.

Especially if a scenario is combined with high decision task difficulty – when there are time constraints (kids need to be in bed soon), we are likely to be held accountable (buying a wine for dinner at our boss’ rather than for ourselves), or potential losses are significant (buying a house) – it is no wonder the brain blows a fuse trying to make the most optimal decision.

And therein lies the problem and the solution: you don’t always have to make the optimal choice. What’s wrong with “good enough”?

Read more:
Clinical perfectionism: when striving for excellence gets you down

Expectation-disconfirmation – the expectation that the perfect choice must exist if so much choice is available to you – is seated in the idea that people tend to want to optimise results, rather than satisfice. It is like striving for happiness in life rather than contentment.

Especially perfectionists will find this often explains their choice overload.

Another reason you may experience choice overload is because you explicitly don’t want to put effort into making the decision. This is called minimising of cognitive demand goals (for example, forfeiting deciding what to cook to ordering take out).

How to overcome choice overload

So after a long day, when you have no energy left, accountability is low, and the potential consequences are minor, consider satisficing your choice:

• reduce the choice task to a binary one immediately. Only give yourself the choice of two options, randomly chosen, or the first that came to mind. For example, before you open a delivery app, decide you have to choose between the first two cuisines that pop up.

• stick with what you know. Habits are created when a choice was marked as a rewarding one by the brain in the past. This means the choices you make regularly are good ones according to yourself, the expert! In your app, navigate to your favourites section and pick one from there.

• stick with your first choice. Don’t waiver. Once you’ve decided, commit to your decision. Do you really want to spend all that time and effort reanalysing and going back and forth when the result is of minor consequence?

Satisficing may not work for everything

Of course, not all choices are without grave consequences. When you are buying a house, you do want to consider all information needed to make an optimal decision.

Choice overload is likely because your brain is trying to connect all the dots consciously. So what do you do then?

If the decision is becoming overwhelming, try to pause and do some “unconscious thinking”. When you get back to it after a good night’s sleep, your brain will have processed the information unconsciously and you will be able to make a more confident decision.

You know when people say “it just felt like the right choice”? Intuition is not some mythical creature whispering in your ear – it’s your unconscious mind having been able to connect the dots.

Perhaps a cold comfort, but choice deprivation has far greater consequences for our wellbeing than choice overload. Dissatisfaction with choices made is much higher when we are deprived of sufficient choices than when we have too many.

With a few simple tricks, even the luxury problem of what to order for dinner can be eliminated; now, you have some brain space left to agree on what to watch on Netflix as you dig into your pizza… or laksa.

Read more:
Does choice overload you? It depends on your personality – take the test

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

– ref. ‘What shall we have for dinner?’ Choice overload is a real problem, but these tips will make your life easier – https://theconversation.com/what-shall-we-have-for-dinner-choice-overload-is-a-real-problem-but-these-tips-will-make-your-life-easier-193317

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Askerud, PhD candidate, University of Otago

One in four New Zealanders have more than two chronic conditions, including both physical and mental health issues.

The COVID pandemic has highlighted how difficult it can be for people with multiple pre-existing conditions to access health services and receive the most suitable care. For those living in poverty or challenging family and social circumstances, it can be even harder.

We have evaluated a new model designed to provide care for people with multiple chronic health and social needs.

Our findings show it was less effective than anticipated in reducing health inequities. But it nevertheless delivered useful lessons to incorporate into New Zealand’s current health reform process.

Primary care has been endorsed as the best place to support people with chronic conditions, many of whom are older. It focuses on patient-centred care to avoid hospitalisations and provides regular disease screening.

But since the pandemic, staffing issues have limited access to face-to-face primary care services and increased demand on emergency departments, which are not structured to provide care for those with complex health and social needs.

Client Led Integrated Care (CLIC) is a model of care specifically for people with multiple chronic conditions. It is based on the principles of the global chronic care model and was envisaged as a proactive programme based on best-practice guidelines.

One of its goals was to reduce health inequities, particularly for Māori, Pacific people, vulnerable older adults and those living in poverty. Another significant aim was to provide appropriate levels of care to reduce demand on hospitals.

Our assessment during the four years since the programme was implemented in general practices in the southern district of Aotearoa, from 2018 to 2022, shows it has not been effective in reducing health inequities.

Read more:
Living with complex illness and surviving to tell about it: Anna Spargo-Ryan’s chronic optimism

What’s wrong with current care for chronic conditions?

CLIC and similar chronic conditions programmes developed over the past 20 years focus on trying to teach people how to change lifestyle factors which may have contributed to their illness.

CLIC is based on an annual one-on-one holistic assessment. Patients are prioritised depending on their likelihood of requiring hospitalisation. Support focuses on changing negative lifestyles and managing medications. The programme also aims to encourage regular engagement with health professionals to meet goals from mutually developed care plans.

Although this sounds good, the prioritisation process does not identify those with the greatest ability to benefit from change. Neither does it address the needs which may matter the most, such as not having enough money for healthy food or to regularly attend a general practice.

There is little or no consideration of the personal resources required for people to achieve their health goals and minimal understanding of the lack of funding in primary care to address poverty and associated issues.

Better outcomes for people with complex needs

The reason CLIC has not worked uniformly is because people’s ability to manage their health is complex. Social determinants of health – including income and job security, education, housing and food insecurity, social inclusion and non-discrimination – influence outcomes.

These determinants can either be protective or confer risk. Social factors that put people at higher risk are complex and involve power dynamics, such as the long-term impacts of colonisation and the influence of government policies that don’t consider social determinants.

Read more:
Disempowered, shut off and less able to afford healthy choices – how financial hardship is bad for our health

The ongoing health reforms must recognise the challenges of living with clinical complexity while also being negatively affected by these determinants. We need radical rethinking to provide more than standard models of care if Aotearoa is to improve health outcomes for a growing number of people.

Key changes include the removal of barriers such as patient fees for primary care services and providing alternatives to nine-to-five clinic consultations. Incorporating family, social and community connections to support people to improve their health and their social circumstances is also a valuable strategy.

New models of care for those with chronic conditions must consider social determinants and ensure health programmes work for both the people receiving them and those delivering them. Care must be provided across both primary and hospital facilities and be integrated with social services.

Most importantly, when developing (and appropriately funding) new models of care, it is vital to acknowledge people’s expertise in prioritising their own health. It is crucial such programmes consider individual life circumstances and people’s capability and access to resources (or the lack thereof) to manage their health.

The author would like to acknowledge the support of Fiona Doolan-Noble, Eileen McKinlay and Chrystal Jaye in writing this article.

Anna Askerud received PhD funding from WellSouth Primary Health Network, Southlink Education Trust and the HOPE Foundation through the University of Otago. She currently works as a senior lecturer at Otago Polytechnic Te Pūkenga School of Nursing.

– ref. Healthcare for New Zealanders with multiple chronic conditions needs ‘radical rethinking’ – here’s what should happen – https://theconversation.com/healthcare-for-new-zealanders-with-multiple-chronic-conditions-needs-radical-rethinking-heres-what-should-happen-193835

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney

The 2022 men’s FIFA World Cup, starting on Monday, promises to add to Qatar’s status as the Middle East’s sporting hub and a burgeoning global power in the business of sport.

The spectacular Aspire City regularly welcomes international teams and tournaments, while the 3-2-1 Olympic and Sport Museum features iconic artefacts from global sport.

Although Qatar is hardly renowned as a sports performer, it has brought the world of sport to its door. Indeed, sport – along with tourism – is expected to be a key part of Qatar’s economic future given its finite reserves of oil and gas.

Yet Qatar’s status as World Cup host has been highly controversial. Why is that so? And how have FIFA and Qatar manoeuvred to deflect criticism?

Bend it like FIFA

In 2010, Qatar was the surprise winner of a FIFA vote to stage the 2022 World Cup, a decision critics put down to nefarious influences beyond the bid itself.

It was difficult to reconcile how Qatar, with average daytime summer temperatures over 40℃, was an ideal environment for this tournament.

A few years later, in an unprecedented pivot, FIFA allowed Qatar to move the event to its winter, even though that would disrupt prestigious football schedules in the northern hemisphere.

So, despite some critics calling for the World Cup to be taken from Qatar, this spatially tiny Gulf country with an exceptionally rich economy from oil and gas, had defiantly retained the imprimatur of the FIFA family.

Renewed pressure

However, FIFA’s endorsement of Qatar was soon under renewed pressure, for two main reasons.

First, critics reasserted their dismay that the host nation is hostile to same-sex culture. In 2010, FIFA was well aware of Qatar’s position that homosexuality is an affront to Islam, but it also accepted that Qatar would not resile from its cultural norms.

In response, then FIFA president Sepp Blatter clumsily quipped that LGBTQI+ football fans might “refrain” from amorous activities while in Qatar.

Second, Qatar had allowed vulnerable foreign workers – who were central to building World Cup infrastructure – to be exploited, with employment and living conditions consistent with modern slavery.

While it’s difficult to procure precise figures, a February 2021 investigation by The Guardian estimated there were around 6,500 workplace fatalities in the decade after Qatar was awarded the World Cup. While not all were working specifically on tournament facilities, experts say most were employed on infrastructure developments that support the event.

FIFA was well aware that stadium construction would rely on the import of foreign labourers under the Middle East’s notorious “kafala system”, which empowers wealthy employers to oppress impoverished workers.

Human rights

The Western-led reticence towards Qatar being anointed World Cup host undoubtedly spurred an awakening of what has been described as “FIFA’s sensitivity to human rights”. Two developments stand out.

First, facing concerted pressure about human rights, the FIFA statutes were amended in 2013 to declare that discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion” from football.

However, World Cup hosts Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) already held contracts to stage the event in accordance with their own laws and customs, which are hostile to homosexuality. FIFA, by choosing not to press the issue of sexual freedom with either scheduled host, was in effect delaying the application of the anti-discrimination measures embedded in its amended statute of 2013.

Indeed, for the 2026 World Cup, human rights were now a core element of the host city selection process, with candidates required to “develop detailed human rights plans”.

Second, facing concerted pressure from worker rights bodies, FIFA committed to upholding the conventions of the International Labour Organisation. FIFA’s inaugural 2017 Human Rights Policy therefore accorded with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Once again, though, this was a new position – bid agreements for Russia and Qatar were already signed.

FIFA could, if it chose, threaten to withdraw either host contract. But it had no appetite for logistical consequences or potential legal impacts. Instead, in the case of Qatar, FIFA comforted itself by advocating for reforms to the working conditions of foreign labourers.

Incremental improvements have indeed followed, notably a move away from the draconian kafala system.

However, according to a report by Equidem, a human rights and labour rights charity, the exploitation of migrant workers has continued, meaning that promised reforms have not been adequately implemented.

What’s more, Qatar has fiercely rejected claims by human rights bodies – along with FIFA – that it ought to compensate the families of foreign workers killed on World Cup infrastructure projects.

Extraordinary lengths

Qatar has gone to extraordinary lengths to stage the World Cup, spending an estimated US$100 billion on infrastructure. Daytime winter temperatures can often reach around 30℃, so all eight stadiums (seven of which are new) will be air-conditioned to at least 24℃.

To move patrons around venues, the Doha Metro railway has been created, supplemented by a new bus transit system.

Eleven luxury hotels opened just prior to the World Cup, with the volume of rooms across Qatar tripling over the past decade. Yet this will be insufficient to house the near three million fans who are slated to travel to Doha.

Adding to the mix are cruise ships and mini “floating hotels”, as well as tiny porta cabins and tents in the fan village.

Qatar claims the World Cup will be carbon neutral courtesy of renewable energies and carbon offsets, such as the ten-fold growth of green spaces around Doha, including over one million new trees.

Some climate experts have questioned the robustness of such claims.

But the deployment of recycled shipping containers in stadium construction, as well as the planned donation of temporary seating in several arenas, speak to Qatar’s rising commitment to sustainability.

Temporarily adjusting local norms

Qatar, though staging a global event, is doing so through a local prism. It’s the first Muslim country to host the World Cup, and therefore brings its own world view to FIFA’s showpiece.

Two issues are likely to test both the hosts and football fans.

First, the World Cup has long been associated with the demonstrative consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Although alcohol is available in Qatar, drinking in public is against the law.

This position has been modified for the World Cup: alcohol will be sold in stadium compounds, but not during games. Fans will have to quench their thirst in a time frame of three hours before kick-off, and one hour after kick-off.

Meanwhile, though, Qatar’s 40,000 capacity Fan Zone allows the sale of alcohol from 6:30pm to 1:00am, so watching evening games on a big screen while chugging a beer is feasible. But those who drink too much risk being temporarily housed in “sobering tents”.

Second, Qatar has tried to assure football fans of any sexual orientation they will be safe and welcome, though with the caveat that public displays of affection – of any kind – are generally “frowned upon” locally.

As with alcohol, it now appears Qatar will temporarily accommodate different standards. According to a report by a Dutch news site, which said it had seen documents shared between tournament organisers and Qatari police, people from the LGBTQI+ community who “show affection in public will not be reprimanded, detained, or prosecuted. They may carry rainbow flags. Same-sex couples can share a hotel room”.

The world has come to Qatar and, for a time at least, it’s adjusting its local norms. A more enduring World Cup legacy has been incremental reforms to the treatment of foreign workers, though an absence of an effective remedy for the families of deceased workers continues to raise a bloody red card upon Qatar.

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

– ref. Why is the Qatar FIFA World Cup so controversial? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-qatar-fifa-world-cup-so-controversial-192627

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Gibbs, Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of Technology

On Monday, residents of Eugowra in New South Wales had to flee for their lives. They had only minutes to get to higher ground – or their rooftops – to escape what’s been dubbed an “inland tsunami” of water. This week, many other towns across western NSW faced renewed floods. For many people affected, the real shock is how unexpected it was – and how fast the water came. Their houses and land had never flooded, as far as they knew. What had changed?

This is an important question with a number of answers. When we make these assessments, we’re drawing on two sources: local knowledge and, increasingly, what flood maps tell us.

While tremendously useful, local knowledge has limits. Human memory is fallible and written records do not stretch back far. Flood maps also have constraints. That’s because floods can differ greatly depending on where the rain falls, at what intensity, and over what period of time. We will also have to redraw flood maps more often, as climate change brings more extreme weather. As climate change progresses, the atmosphere can hold more water. This supercharges atmospheric rivers – huge torrents of water carried above our heads.

The result? You might think you’re safe if you drew on local knowledge and flood maps when choosing where to live. The reality is there always have been gaps in our knowledge, and homes built on floodplains once thought safe may not be any more.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore credible sources of information. But it does mean we have to remember every information source has some uncertainty.

What are the limits of our knowledge?

Local knowledge held by long-term residents, historical records and hearsay are tremendously useful sources.

But these only reach back a short way in terms of the history of flooding. Indigenous knowledge of flooding reaches back far further, with oral stories of the flooding of Port Phillip Bay and many other locations passed down over many generations.

Australia’s floodplains have periodically flooded for millennia, renewing ecosystems.

What’s new are the towns and cities built along their banks. Early European settlers were often taken by surprise by the size of the floods, and a number of rescues were undertaken by Indigenous peoples.

In our time, communities are increasingly turning to flood maps produced by local and state governments to take stock of their vulnerability. This is broadly a good thing, as these maps can drill down to which streets are more vulnerable.

But they aren’t perfect – and they’re mostly only updated every few years. Some councils are still relying on outdated maps.

Flood maps are generated from computer flood models and simulate how floods develop and spread. To do this, you need to consider a range of variables. How much rain falls? When? Where? For how long? Is the ground sodden already, or dry as a bone? What has changed in the catchment since the last flood modelling study that may alter the overland flows of water?

Read more:
Like rivers in the sky: the weather system bringing floods to Queensland will become more likely under climate change

Rain doesn’t fall evenly across catchment areas. Intense rain can carpet some areas and leave others all but untouched. In the devastating 2011 floods in South East Queensland, huge volumes of rain fell in the upper catchment of the Brisbane River, across foothills of the Great Dividing Range. Flash floods hit communities like Toowoomba and Grantham hard, while bayside Brisbane was experiencing light rain and sunshine – and had more time to prepare.

Many of this year’s floods, by contrast, have come from heavy rain falling on lower catchment areas, with repeated soaking priming the area for near-instant floods. That’s partly why cities like Forbes have been taken by surprise, with the worst floods in decades.

In short, every intense or extreme rainfall event is different – and that, in turn, means the resulting floods can differ dramatically.

What information should we rely on?

You can see the challenge for flood modellers. Which events do you model? You can’t model all of them, as it’s impractical to model all possible combinations of rainfall, location and so on. So you model the most likely combinations.

This is a major reason why major floods may not actually flood all of the houses in a designated flood zone in every flood, as it depends in part on where the rain is falling in the catchment.

In turn, this leads to confusion. People in affected communities may believe the flood models and warnings are wrong.

It’s been long understood this kind of information can be complicated and confusing for the people relying on it. Does the Annual Exceedance Probability mean the chance of a 1 in 100 year flood, or not? And if so, how can it flood twice in quick succession? There’s jargon galore.

When vital information is hard to understand, many people may give up and ignore the information. Others may make decisions based on their own interpretation or with social media.

It is hard to sift through complex information. We will need to continue to find ways to make clearer the likely risk for prospective home-owners as well as the danger from the more severe floods we can expect as the world warms.

For now, we need to stay as vigilant as possible on flood risk when choosing where to live. And we need to heed official warnings issued months ahead as seasonal outlooks as well as in the lead up to major rains. It hasn’t flooded here before? Unfortunately, it may be more accurate to say it hasn’t flooded here yet.

Read more:
Some councils still rely on outdated paper maps as supercharged storms make a mockery of flood planning

Mark Gibbs is a non-Executive Director of the Gold Coast Waterways Authority, the Morton Bay Foundation, and Reef Check Australia

– ref. As New South Wales reels, many are asking why it’s flooding in places where it’s never flooded before – https://theconversation.com/as-new-south-wales-reels-many-are-asking-why-its-flooding-in-places-where-its-never-flooded-before-190912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hussein Dia, Professor of Future Urban Mobility, Swinburne University of Technology

If you’re shopping for an electric vehicle in Australia at the moment, your options are limited. Of more than 300 electric vehicle models on sale globally, only about 30 are available here.

What’s more, waiting lists for vehicles are long and the purchase cost is still higher than many consumers are willing to pay.

Australia might now have a federal government with stronger climate ambition than the last. But major new policies are still needed to accelerate the road transport transition.

There’s good news, however: Australian motorists have been promised more choice soon. So let’s take a look at the cars we might be driving in the next few years.

Why make the switch?

Transport is Australia’s third-largest – and fastest growing – source of greenhouse gas emissions. Cars are responsible for the greatest share of these emissions.

Most of Australia’s vehicle fleet uses polluting fossil fuels. A switch to electric vehicles, coupled with a transition to renewable energy, is vital if Australia is to meet its commitments to tackle climate change.

Electric vehicles are also cheaper to run than their traditional counterparts, and don’t rely on expensive imported fuel.

Despite all the benefits, electric vehicle uptake in Australia is still low. They accounted for just 3.39% of new vehicle sales (or 26,356 cars in total) to September this year, according to the Electric Vehicle Council of Australia.

It’s an increase on last year, but still well below other nations. In the UK, for example, 19% of new cars sold are electric.

The ACT buys the most electric vehicles (9.5% of new vehicles) followed by New South Wales (3.7%), Victoria (3.4%), Queensland (3.3%), Tasmania (3.3%), Western Australia (2.8%), South Australia (2.3%) and the Northern Territory (0.8%).

Read more:
A rapid shift to electric vehicles can save 24,000 lives and leave us $148bn better off over the next 2 decades

Which electric vehicles are we buying?

Almost 40% of new battery electric vehicle sales this year were Tesla Model 3 (8,647 sales) and 25% were Tesla Model Y (5,376 sales). Other top-selling models include the Hyundai Kona (897 sales), MG ZS EV (858 sales) and Polestar 2 (779 sales).

Less than 20% of vehicles sold had a purchase price below $65,000.

The Porsche Taycan, one of the most expensive electric vehicles on the market, was in 11th place with 401 sales. Its price ranges from $156,000 to more than $350,000, depending on the model grade.

Some buyers are yet to receive the cars they purchased. Supply shortages mean consumers can wait 11 months for their vehicle.

But despite the frequent delays, consumers keep placing orders. Hyundai recently offered 200 of its Ioniq 5 electric SUVs for sale online; they were snapped up within 15 minutes.

Price is a sticking point

Clearly, some Australians are willing to buy an electric vehicle despite the price tag. But the purchase cost remains a big concern for others.

In a recent survey, more than half of Australian respondents preferred electric vehicles over fossil fuel cars – but 67% said price was the main barrier preventing them from making the switch.

Only 13% were willing to spend between $45,000 and $54,999 on an electric car.

In another survey of around 1,000 Australians, about 72% said they would budget less than $40,000 for their next car purchase.

But few battery electric vehicles cost less than $55,000, and many cost more than twice this. Others are nearly 60% more expensive than their petrol-powered counterparts.

Choice coming soon

Carmakers have promised a suite of new battery electric vehicles will soon be available in Australia.

Two are expected to be the among the cheapest new battery electric vehicles available here: the Atto 3 by carmaker BYD and MG’s updated ZS compact SUV.

Both will be available for less than $50,000 including on-road costs. The MG model is the cheaper of the two, at $44,990 for the Excite variant.

Other models expected to arrive in the next two years include the Aiways U5 SUV, Fiat 500e, Kia Soul, Peugeot e-2008, Skoda Enyaq, Toyota bZ4x and Volkswagen ID series.

The Chinese LDV electric ute is already on sale in New Zealand and may be on Australian roads by the end of this year. It remains to be seen, however, if electric utes and vans will be embraced by Australia’s tradespeople.

What policy settings are needed?

Clearly, Australia needs more affordable mid- and low-end electric vehicles. But one key policy setting is holding us back: the lack of mandatory fuel efficiency standards for road transport vehicles.

Australia is the only country in the OECD without such a policy. The standards help drive demand for low-emissions vehicles – so electric vehicle manufacturers often prefer to sell into those markets.

Car importers also tend to promote top-end models first because they have higher profit margins.

Meanwhile globally, competition between manufacturers of cheaper battery electric vehicles is expected to intensifying. Multinational automakers in China have been gearing up. Their lineup of new models is already selling in international markets.

Heavy trucks are also ripe for electrification, and progress has been rapid in recent years. Broad deployment in Australian will accelerate emissions cuts and improve air quality.

The road ahead

Electric vehicles are not the total solution to cutting transport emissions. We also need strategies to change our travel behaviour, reduce the number of cars on the roads and improve walkability and access to public transport.

But electric vehicles are a crucial piece of the puzzle. To improve their uptake in Australia, policymakers can draw from a range of effective electric vehicle policies that can be adapted from other nations. They include investment in charging stations and providing financial incentives to buy and run electric vehicles.

Australians want to drive electric vehicles, and governments must respond. Without a variety of affordable electric vehicles, Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels will deepen, and reaching our emissions reduction goals will become harder.

Read more:
Four ways our cities can cut transport emissions in a hurry: avoid, shift, share and improve

Hussein Dia receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre, Level Crossing Removal Authority, Transport for New South Wales, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, and Beam Mobility Holdings.

– ref. New electric cars for under $45,000? They’re finally coming to Australia – but the battle isn’t over – https://theconversation.com/new-electric-cars-for-under-45-000-theyre-finally-coming-to-australia-but-the-battle-isnt-over-191854

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aleryk Fricker, Lecturer, Indigenous Education, Deakin University

The federal government has recently released a draft plan to fix the teacher shortage.

The plan sets out ways to increase respect for the profession and ease teachers’ workloads. A key aspect of the plan also includes recruiting more First Nations teachers. This emphasis is welcome. But as it stands, the draft doesn’t include enough detail about how we achieve this.

Leer más:
Jason Clare has a draft plan to fix the teacher shortage. What needs to stay and what should change?

We need more First Nations teachers

First Nations teachers are under-represented in Australian schools. As of 2016 6.2% of Australian school students identified as First Nations, while just 2% of the teaching workforce identified as First Nations.

We know First Nations cultures are the oldest continuous cultures in the world. We also know culture is not innate. We are born into culture, not with it.

So First Nations peoples have the oldest teaching and learning techniques and knowledges in the world. This has the potential to benefit all students. Recruiting and retaining First Nations teachers is crucial to this becoming a reality.

What’s in the plan?

The plan includes a number of specific measures designed to recruit more First Nations people into teaching degrees and classrooms. This includes:

• A$10 million for a national campaign to increase respect for teachers, with a focus on First Nations teachers

• bursaries of up to $40,000 to study teaching, again with a focus on First Nations students

• a new national First Nations teachers’ strategy to apply from 2024. This will be co-designed by the federal government and First Nations education organisations

• as part of this, $14.1 million for teaching First Nations languages in schools. This will give potential First Nations teachers exposure to the classroom and potentially provide a pathway for more First Nations teachers.

More detail needed

But so far, there is limited detail about how these actions or measures will lead to increasing teacher numbers. We welcome the investment in First Nations languages in schools, but there are many barriers to growing a First Nations teacher workforce.

According to the 2022 Closing the Gap report, 63% of Indigenous Australians aged 20 to 24 had finished year 12. This compares with 88.5% of non-Indigenous Australians in that age group.

Research has identified Indigenous students doing teaching degrees at university then face racism, a lack of financial support, inflexible structures of university, limited access to technology, and isolation.

When First Nations teachers enter the profession, they often face overwhelming demands. It is not uncommon for First Nations teachers to be seen by non-Indigenous colleagues as the expert in everything Indigenous in a school.

So, if we are going to get more First Nations people teaching in schools, we first need to ensure they were successful as a school student. Then we need to help them find a pathway through teacher education at university and then ensure it is worth staying in the profession, once they make it into classrooms.

Decolonising classrooms

Another element missing from the plan is an agenda to decolonise classrooms. This requires teachers and schools to change their approaches to include First Nations contexts across all aspects of teaching and learning.

This means everything from what is taught to the way it is taught and the spaces they are taught in. This means including knowledge of First Nations cultures in the curriculum, using First Nations ways of teaching, Aboriginal flags and artworks on display, dedicated collections in school libraries, and spaces that allow for on-Country learning. It also needs to involve Elders and other community members in our schools.

Without these changes, schools themselves become barriers to First Nations teachers wanting to remain in the profession.

Two pathways into the profession

Broadly speaking there are two pathways for First Nations people into teaching – through teaching assistant jobs or through university.

In many remote and rural schools, there is a strong workforce of First Nations teacher assistants. Programs to help Indigenous teaching assistants into teaching degrees have suffered from funding cuts, although the Northern Territory government, has recently announced it will increase professional development opportunities for remote Aboriginal teacher education. This includes school-based traineeships, grants and mentoring.

Leer más:
‘Once students knew their identity, they excelled’: how to talk about excellence in Indigenous education

The federal government’s draft plan also touches on this – mentioning Queensland’s plan to build pathways for First Nations teacher assistants and classroom teachers, by talking to TAFEs and universities. There is also the commitment to a First Nations teachers’ strategy, and initiatives to build the cultural capabilities of the non-Indigenous teacher workforce.

This is a start, but it lacks detail and a sense of national cohesion.

And there is little detail about how First Nations school leavers – who mainly come from urban areas – can be encouraged to enter teaching degrees at university.

Bipartisanship is key

Lessons from past reviews highlight the merits of developing long-term, First Nations-led strategies and programs that provide real support for First Nations teachers.

They also note the importance of listening to, acting on and resourcing initiatives controlled by First Nations peoples. Consistency is vital for success. Bipartisanship is needed across education and Indigenous policy, so programs can be developed without the threat of funding being withdrawn if there is a change of government.

This is a crucial moment for Australia’s education system. The teacher shortage could lead to current and future generations missing out on the quality education they need.

We welcome the investment in First Nations teachers. But we also fear this won’t have the necessary impact unless there is system-wide reform and decolonisation that supports the recruitment, retention, and engagement of First Nations teachers – the oldest teachers in the world.

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

– ref. The teacher shortage plan must do more to recruit and retain First Nations teachers – https://theconversation.com/the-teacher-shortage-plan-must-do-more-to-recruit-and-retain-first-nations-teachers-194526

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

In retrospect, there were various signposts pointing to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ice-breaking meeting with Anthony Albanese in Bali on Tuesday.

One of the more obscure, perhaps, was China’s ambassador to Canberra, Xiao Qian, seeking out Peter Dutton for a chat, which took place last week.

Why would the ambassador want a catch-up with the opposition leader, who in the former government had been one of the loudest voices warning of the danger posed by the increasingly assertive superpower?

One answer is that preparation for what has been dubbed Xi’s current broad “charm offensive” was comprehensive.

The meeting with Xi has been the showstopper of Albanese’s summit-season trip – including the East Asia and ASEAN-Australia summits, the G20 and APEC – from which he rerturns this weekend.

For the PM, having the bilateral relationship begin to stabilise and move to a more constructive footing, after China had relegated Australia to “the freezer” for years, culminates a very successful first six months on the world stage.

It will be all the more satisfying for Albanese personally, because December 22 marks the 50th anniversay of the Whitlam government establishing diplomatic relations with China. This was one of that government’s earliest acts, following Gough Whitlam’s ground-breaking visit to China as opposition leader and preceding a 1973 prime ministerial trip.

The new Australia-China rapport has to be seen in both multilateral and bilateral contexts.

China, for its own reasons, is lowering the temperature in its international relations. Its economic problems (fuelled by its COVID-zero policy) may be one factor driving this. Also Xi, now his leadership has been further strengthened by the recent 20th Party Congress, may feel he has more latitude to alter the tone of foreign policy.

Hence the very long meeting with Joe Biden, which the US president cast as positive, and Xi’s benign attitude to several other leaders in the past few days.

The change in stance towards Australia may partly be in the slipstream of this wider move.

Read more:
Word from The Hill: Albanese-Xi meeting is the first step on long march

Bilaterally, however, the defeat of the Morrison government has enabled and facilitated the recalibration of the relationship. If Scott Morrison were still PM, the fridge door would likely have remained shut for some time.

The Albanese government, from its first days, has handled adroitly the run-up to Tuesday’s meeting. It responded appropriately to China’s initial overtures for a rapprochement, sending positive signals while making it clear it would not give ground on substantive issues.

We now find ourselves in a somewhat paradoxical situation. While we look to better times with China, Australia’s defence preparations, which include a strategic review to report in March, are all about improving our preparedness (including our interoperability with the Americans) against a possible threat from that country.

Defence Minister Richard Marles, who was also acting prime minister this week, sought to square this circle when he addressed the Sydney Institute on Monday.

“A commitment to stabilising our relationship with China does not mean we won’t also maintain a clear-eyed focus on our security,” Marles said.

“The idea that Australia has to choose between diplomacy and defence – or as some critics would have it, between co-operation and confrontation – is a furphy, and a dangerous one at that.

“Speaking frankly about what we see in our region isn’t confrontation, it’s common sense. Improving our national security isn’t provocation, it’s prudence.”

On the threat side, Marles was blunt. “We must adapt to the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. A world where post-Cold War optimism has been replaced by the reality of renewed major-power competition. A competition in which Australia is more relevant now than at any time in our history because its centre of gravity is in our region, the Indo-Pacific, where it is driving the biggest military build-up we have seen anywhere in the world over the last 70 years.

“The risk that this competition becomes confrontation, with all the destructive power of modern weapons, is a threat that we recognise and want to avoid.

“That’s why sober, responsible and clear-eyed statecraft has never been more important,” Marles said.

Read more:
The G20 may be a talk fest, but it’s a talk fest we need at a time of growing division

The Xi meeting was never expected to yield immediate “announceables”, whether the lifting of restrictions on $20 billion in Australian trade or the release of detained Australians, journalist Cheng Lei and writer Yang Hengjun.

There is some speculation an easing of the trade sanctions might begin around the anniversary of diplomatic recognition. Ambassador Xiao has been showing a keen interest in that milestone, talking to people with first-hand knowledge of Whitlam’s travel to Peking (now Beijing).

A cursory glance at history indicates it is important to put the Xi meeting into a longer-term, cautionary context. It was only in 2014-15, under the Abbott government, that Xi addressed the Australian parliament, and the two countries signed and celebrated their free trade agreement.

Then things went quickly downhill. During Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership, China was riled by Australia legislating against its actual and potential interference. In particular it was infuriated at the rejection of Huawei’s participation in the 5G network.

The climate (on both sides) grew colder under Morrison. China progressively ramped up trade restrictions. It was angered by the Australian government’s call for an inquiry into the origins of COVID, which began in Wuhan. Australian ministers could not get calls returned.

Now we have the defrost, with Xi declaring at the start of his talks with Albanese: “China-Australia relations had been at the forefront of China’s relations with developed countries for a long time, which is worth cherishing. In the past few years, China-Australia relations have encountered some difficulties, which we didn’t want to see.”

It is worth recalling that the ups and downs of recent years have come within Xi’s presidency. It is not as though there was regime change; rather, it has been changes of stance during one man’s leadership, prompted often by Australia’s push-back against China’s behaviour (or the perceived risk of it).

Relieved as we are to be out of the freezer, we have to remember circumstances can always see us returned there.

That’s where Canada is at present, following its reaction to China’s meddling and pressure. At the G20, Xi did not accord PM Justin Trudeau a bilateral meeting. After Trudeau grabbed him for a “pull aside” (as such brief encounters are termed) and the Canadian media were briefed on the discussion, Xi publicly upbraided Trudeau.

Read more:
Albanese-Xi meeting won’t resolve Australia’s grievances overnight. But it is a real step forward

As the bilateral relationship unfolds in coming days, Dutton should have the opposition maintain, as far as possible, a solid front with the government.

After his session with the ambassador, he tweeted: “We had a constructive meeting where we discussed security, trade and human rights issues. I will continue to engage in an open and honest dialogue in matters relating to the safety, security and prosperity of our region.”

It’s important that government and opposition present a united face to China.

Australia should take full advantage of the new rays of sunshine in the relationship. But Australians should, and probably do, understand that this is a relationship where clouds can quickly gather, brought about by both the actions of China and the reactions that an Australian government may consider (rightly or wrongly) to be necessary in the national interest.

Dennis Richardson, who has formerly headed the defence department and the foreign affairs department, captures the moment succinctly.

“We’ve reached the end of the first phase of the Albanese government’s efforts to improve Australia’s relationship with China. The substantive challenge of turning that into real outcomes in trade now begins. But whatever happens on that front, Australia and China’s strategic perspectives remain at odds.”

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: A lot may be changing in China-Australia relations, but a lot is staying the same – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-a-lot-may-be-changing-in-china-australia-relations-but-a-lot-is-staying-the-same-194817

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

In one of the few positive developments to come out of Myanmar in recent times, the military junta announced on Thursday it would be releasing almost 6,000 prisoners in an amnesty to mark Myanmar’s National Day.

Included in the announcement were four foreign nationals being held in Myanmar’s jails: Australian academic Sean Turnell; former UK Ambassador to Myanmar and Myanmar resident Vicky Bowman; Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota; and US citizen Kyaw Htay Oo.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong reacted cautiously to the announcement, clearly waiting for further confirmation before celebrating the news.

Turnell had been in jail for more than 21 months, and in September had been sentenced to three years in jail for violating the country’s official secrets act. He was a close adviser to former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom the military deposed in a February 2021 coup.

At the time of Turnell’s sentencing, Suu Kyi had been sentenced to a total of 23 years in jail. It appeared likely that, with the 77-year old Suu Kyi removed from any role in the military’s next election charade, Turnell would be released soon afterwards. Suu Kyi has since been sentenced to a further three years’ detention.

However, the most likely prod towards the amnesty that included the foreign nationals was the politics surrounding the ASEAN-led round of summits over the previous weeks.

The ASEAN leaders statement was suitably bland, due to the need for consensus among all member states. But it did call for “concrete, practical and measurable indicators with a specific timeline” to achieve the five-point peace plan it has developed to tackle the country’s political crisis.

However, the important messaging came from ASEAN powerhouse Indonesia, outside of the formal channels.

The week before the summit, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi stated in no uncertain terms that the military junta was solely responsible for the failing peace process.

On the sidelines of the summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo then proposed broadening the ban on political representatives at ASEAN events, arguing “we must not allow the situation in Myanmar to define ASEAN”.

The Indonesian proposal drew support from Malaysia and Singapore, but pushback from the more authoritarian member countries Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.

This division in the organisation means statements and actions are necessarily limited in their scope.

Nevertheless, the unusually strong statements from Indonesia, in addition to the persistence of the empty Myanmar chair at these events, will be causing concern within the junta.

Myanmar’s military – and other militaries in the region such as Thailand’s – can normally count on ASEAN eventually falling into line whenever they supplant elected governments with military regimes.

The fact that this time, 21 months after the coup, powerful ASEAN members seem to be digging in their heels in vehement hostility towards the military may have led the junta to reassess its situation.

As with previous military juntas in Myanmar, the current regime’s playbook is chequered with amnesties that are deployed strategically to ease diplomatic and domestic pressure, and it appears that is what has happened here.

While we should be extremely thankful that some political prisoners are being released from Myanmar’s jails, we should also recognise they should never have been there in the first place.

As a friend and colleague of Sean Turnell and Vicky Bowman, I will be relieved to see them return to safety.

However, there will remain thousands of other political prisoners in Myanmar’s jails even after this amnesty, not including those who have already been tortured to death.

Read more:
As killings, beatings and disappearances escalate, what’s the end game in Myanmar?

The international community’s focus understandably remains on Ukraine, but we need stronger action from our political leaders on Myanmar.

An inexpensive and relatively risk-free diplomatic manoeuvre would be to formally intervene to support the Gambia in the Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice.

While 23 mostly-Western countries have intervened to support Ukraine’s genocide case against Russia, not a single country has intervened to support the case against Myanmar. Low hanging fruit indeed.

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

– ref. Relief as Australian Sean Turnell to be released from prison in Myanmar, but more needs to be done – https://theconversation.com/relief-as-australian-sean-turnell-to-be-released-from-prison-in-myanmar-but-more-needs-to-be-done-194814

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

Deliveroo’s decision to quit the Australian market, after what have been boom times for food delivery platforms, may seem surprising. But the writing has been on the wall for some time.

The British-based platform – one of the first to start operating in Australia – announced yesterday it was going into voluntary administration.

It cited “challenging economic conditions” and an inability to achieve “a sustainable position of leadership in the market” as key reasons for its decision.

Creditors must now await decisions by the appointed administrator, KordaMentha, about how much of the money they are owed will be paid.

Crucially, those potentially out of pocket include up to 15,000 couriers who worked for the platform as independent contractors.

They are not officially employees, so they are not covered by the federal government’s Fair Entitlement Guarantee, which ensures workers left in the lurch by an employer declaring insolvency can receive some of their unpaid wages, annual leave and other entitlements.

Read more:
Guilt, shame, dissatisfaction: workers and customers on the gig economy (and how to make it better)

Challenging economic conditions

Globally, Deliveroo has been exiting countries where it is not in a “sustainable position of leadership” — that is, effectively being one of the two largest players in the food delivery market.

It has already shut its operations in Germany (2019), Spain (2021), and the Netherlands (2022).

Deliveroo’s Australian operations were also considered a drag on the UK company’s stock price. Despite being among the first app-based food delivery platforms in Australia, beginning in 2015, it has not been in a market leading position since 2016-17.

It sought to differentiate itself as a niche player, working only with “high-quality” restaurants while promising quick deliveries to consumer. In Australia, though, this model struggled against competitors delivering from a greater variety of restaurants with more couriers making deliveries.

Cutthroat market dynamics

Deliveroo’s exit highlights the cutthroat market dynamics of the on-demand gig economy.

COVID-19 restrictions were a heyday for it and its fellow food delivery platforms (Uber, DoorDash, Foodora and Menulog).

Demand for food deliveries boomed during lockdowns. So did the supply of labour, as those laid off from other jobs — especially temporary migrants excluded from JobKeeper and JobSeeker benefits — sought alternative work.

But profits in boom times aren’t guaranteed to continue. Inflation is hitting consumers’ discretionary spending and the era of “cheap money” is ending.

Platforms have often had to offer their services at a loss to increase or sustain market share. This is in part because consumers of food delivery services are highly price-sensitive, as our research has found.

Greater regulation coming

Another key local factor likely to have influenced Deliveroo’s decision is the prospect of greater regulation.

The Albanese government has promised to improve conditions for gig workers. This includes legislation to give the federal industrial relations umpire, the Fair Work Commission, the power to regulate “employee-like” forms of work.

Read more:
How Australia’s gig workers may remain contractors under Labor

Currently the commission can only adjudicate on matters affecting employees. The government’s approach is to avoid the seemingly endless classification debates and instead provide all workers with greater protections.

Read more:
An employee, not a contractor: unfair dismissal ruling against Deliveroo is a big deal for Australia’s gig workers

Giving platform workers greater benefits and protections as employee-like workers – in whatever form this takes – will increase costs. But Deliveroo’s exit highlights just why greater protection for workers in the “gig” economy is needed.

It’s now up to the Albanese government to make meaningful, innovative reforms.

Alex Veen is part of a research team that received a University of Sydney Business School Industry Partnership grant. Uber Technologies is a Partner Organisation on this grant and provided a minority financial contribution to the project. He further receives funding from the Australian Research Council in the form a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for his project entitled ‘Algorithmic management and the future of work: lessons from the gig economy.’

Caleb Goods is part of a research team that received a University of Sydney Business School Industry Partnership grant. Uber Technologies is a Partner Organisation on this grant and provided a minority financial contribution to the project.

Tom Barratt has been awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council to investigate Work Fragmentation and the Gig Economy, commencing in 2023.

Tom Barratt is part of a research team that received a University of Sydney Business School Industry Partnership grant. Uber Technologies is a Partner Organisation on this grant and provided a minority financial contribution to the project.

– ref. Deliveroo’s exit from Australia shows why gig workers need more protection – https://theconversation.com/deliveroos-exit-from-australia-shows-why-gig-workers-need-more-protection-194743

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

Victorians go to the polls on November 26, with the Andrews government seeking a third term.

Labor is the clear favourite, but it is under pressure in a number of seats.

The premier is a polarising figure, especially (although not only) as a result of the trials Melburnians endured with the prolonged harsh lockdowns during COVID.

Victoria will be a fresh test of what we saw in the federal poll – the disillusionment of many voters with the major parties.

There are only several “teal” candidates but their fate will be watched carefully as a measure of whether the movement continues to have momentum.

Main issues in the election include the cost of living, health, and integrity.

In this podcast, we talk with Tim Colebatch, former economics editor of The Age and a keen election watcher, Kos Samaras, a director of the Redbridge Group and former deputy campaign director for Vic Labor, and Sumeyya Ilanbey, state political reporter for The Age and author of Daniel Andrews: The Revealing Biography of Australia’s Most Powerful Premier.

While Colebatch believes this election will be closer than 2018, he can’t see Labor losing its majority. “Labor will govern as an absolute majority unless they lose 12 seats and it’s very hard to see them losing 12 seats.”

He does however, think that the minor parties and the Greens will have a very good night. “Voting for Greens, minor parties and independents has jumped from 22% to 34% and all the evidence suggests it’ll be something like that this time as well.”

Colebatch is scathing of Daniel Andrews’ suburban rail loop project. “It’s a 26 kilometre tunnel in an arc well out of the way from Melbourne. Something like 20, 25 kilometres out of town and it basically links up a number of marginal Labor seats”.

Samaras says “there’s this sizeable portion of the voters out there who have an issue with the premier as an individual, but equally have the same issue with the opposition leader [Matthew Guy]. So I think it’s going to be a contest of who do they hate the most. And that will then obviously influence their vote […] You’ve got an electorate that is extremely fatigued, suffering what I would define as a form of PTSD that is going to have an impact on the election.”

RedBridge polling suggests cost of living is the major issue, he says. “[In] a recent poll that we just did, for example, we asked people who are experiencing mortgage stress how many more interest rate rises can they cope with before they have to sell their home. 35% of those who are experiencing mortgage stress said ‘one more’ […] We expect the major party vote come Saturday week to be the lowest it has been in Victorian history”.

Ilanbey says the campaign has been “very stage managed and very lacklustre”. She believes “people have got a better insight into Daniel Andrews [compared to 2018], particularly because of those pandemic press conferences. You know, his ruthlessness, his work ethic, his drive, his relentlessness.”

But she doesn’t think the Murdoch media’s attacks have had an effect on him, citing the negative coverage of the government in 2018. “And we saw Labor not only get re-elected but win in a landslide.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tim Colebatch, Kos Samaras and Sumeyya Ilanbey on the Victorian Election – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-tim-colebatch-kos-samaras-and-sumeyya-ilanbey-on-the-victorian-election-194811