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

Scott Morrison has pointedly left in doubt the future of Christian Porter as Attorney-General, saying he is presently considering advice on Porter’s situation in the context of the “ministerial guidelines”.

Morrison’s statement heightened speculation about a cabinet reshuffle after parliament adjourns this week until the May budget.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, currently on medical leave with heart problems but due back to work on April 2, is considered unlikely to stay in her portfolio.

It was learned on Wednesday that on medical advice she would not attend the Raisina Dialogue on April 13 in India.

Morrison’s failure to clarify Porter’s future comes a week before he is due to resume his duties as first law officer, after taking mental health leave in the wake of being accused of a 1988 rape, which he denies.

It was the second time in two days the Prime Minister had indicated he was still mulling advice about Porter.

In parliament on Wednesday, opposition leader Anthony Albanese asked whether Morrison had received advice from the Solicitor-General about Porter’s portfolio responsibilities.

Albanese also noted Morrison had previously confirmed he had sought advice from his department in relation to the Attorney-General and ministerial standards.

“Is the Prime Minister preparing to make his Attorney-General a part-time minister or is he preparing to drop him all together?” Albanese asked.

Morrison said he was considering “that advice with my department secretary, in terms of the application against the ministerial guidelines”.

“When I have concluded that assessment […] I’ll make a determination and I’ll make an announcement at that time.”

The assessment of Porter’s position follows his launch of federal court action against the ABC over its February 26 report that the allegation of rape made by a now deceased woman had been sent in a letter to several parliamentarians including Morrison.

It has already been announced Porter will not deal with anything to do with the federal court or the ABC.

Last week Morrison said he had sought advice from the Solicitor-General about the scope of the Attorney-General’s “portfolio responsibilities in light of the defamation law suit”.

Porter is also Minister for Industrial Relations and Leader of the House of Representatives.

Depending on the content of the Solicitor-General’s advice, Morrison has the options of further carve outs of Porter’s Attorney-General responsibilities to avoid conflicts of interest, standing him aside, or removing him altogether from that position.

If he wished to show some continued support for Porter, he could leave him in cabinet holding just the industrial relations job.

Reynolds went on medical leave after coming under attack for her handling of the Brittany Higgins matter. Higgins alleged she was raped by a colleague in the office of Reynolds, then defence industry minister, in 2019.

Meanwhile, Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz on Wednesday was accused by the Speaker of the Tasmanian parliament, Sue Hickey, of denigrating Higgins.

Hickey told the Tasmanian parliament that on March 1 at a citizenship ceremony in Hobart she had casually asked Abetz whether Porter was the minister involved in the historical rape allegation.

She said Abetz had replied it was Porter, “but not to worry, the woman is dead and the law will protect him”.

According to Hickey, Abetz “then said ‘as for that Higgins girl, anybody so disgustingly drunk who would sleep with anybody could have slept with one of our spies and put the security of the nation at risk’”.

Abetz said he categorically denied “Ms Hickey’s defamatory allegations under Parliamentary privilege”.

“As someone who was on the inaugural committee of a women’s shelter and its honorary legal adviser for a decade prior to entering parliament, I reject outright her suggestions and gross mischaracterisation of our discussion,” Abetz said.

“It’s noteworthy Ms Hickey has made her assertions some 3 weeks after she alleges they occurred.

“At no stage has Ms Hickey ever raised concerns with me about any of our conversations.”

Abetz suggested Hickey was motivated by Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein telling her on Sunday she would not be endorsed by the Liberal party for the next state election.

After the conversation with Gutwein, Hickey said she had been “effectively sacked” from the Liberal Party. “It appears that the men in dark suits are firmly in control and there is no place for small ‘l’ Liberal women who refuse to kowtow or be subservient to the dominant males.”

In 2018 Hickey won the speakership with Labor and Greens support, against the Liberal candidate.

Abetz said that “on her way out the door she is trying to destroy the party”.

Hickey hit back in another statement in parliament on Wednesday, accusing Abetz of “very grubby politics”. She stood by her account and said, “I have witnesses who can testify that I told them of the discussion at the event and immediately afterwards”.

Late Wednesday the ABC reported that Gutwein had written to Morrison requesting he consider Hickey’s allegations against Abetz.

It said that in a written statement Gutwein said Hickey had told him several weeks ago Abetz had made offensive comments but had not gone to the level of detail she had raised in state parliament.

“As Ms Hickey has outlined her allegations in more detail in the Parliament, this afternoon I have written to the Prime Minister and requested that he consider the matters raised.”

– ref. Scott Morrison leaves Christian Porter’s future in doubt, amid reshuffle speculation – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-leaves-christian-porters-future-in-doubt-amid-reshuffle-speculation-157778

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Bronitt, Head of School and Dean Professor of Law, University of Sydney

Public debate about our rape laws in recent weeks has fixated, yet again, on the concept of consent and whether our current definition in the law is “fit for purpose”.

Over the past three decades, Australia’s states and territories have set out to modernise the definition of consent, albeit with some variability in how it is defined.

South Australia, New South Wales and Northern Territory, for example, have a requirement of “free and voluntary agreement” to sexual intercourse, while Victoria and Tasmania have a more pared-down version of “free agreement”.

Queensland and Western Australia have gone their own way, rejecting the idea of consent as “agreement” in favour of a more active interpretation that consent is “freely and voluntarily given”.

These definitions are still being refined and debated. The NSW Greens have, for instance, introduced a bill to extend the current definition to require enthusiastic consent to sex. This is a qualitative threshold that would go far beyond the “free and voluntary” language in the current law.

Last week, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller also proposed using an app to record sexual consent — an idea that was roundly criticised.

Why consent can’t be contractually given

Advocates for rape law reform argue our current definitions of consent are leading to “staggeringly low” reporting rates of sexual assaults and conviction rates.

According to the national statistics, nearly nine in 10 victims of sexual assaults do not go to police.

In NSW, official statistics reveal the number of sexual offences reported to police increased from 3,541 to 4,444 from 2015–19. Of most concern, however, is that only 19% of these incidents proceeded to trial in 2019. (Two-thirds of those charged were found guilty.)

Understanding the attrition of cases is complex. This can turn on the strength of evidence, as well as how police and prosecutors exercise their powers to progress a case at various points in the process.

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

These statistics are often cited in support of the case for expanding the legal definition of rape. Some law reform advocates and survivors are calling for a broader “affirmative” consent standard, which would require consent to be actively given by actions and/or words before, and continuously throughout, a sexual act.

Encouraging open conversations about consent before and during sexual activity is important, as awkward as this might be for some people. Though it may seem “unromantic” — as Fuller noted last week — this type of communication provides safety and assurance for both parties.

The NSW police commissioner’s idea that consent could be structured and recorded via an app, however, has raised the ire of many commentators.

Some critics argue this approach to consent is apt to mislead. It promotes a contractual understanding of sexual relations – an “offer and acceptance” model, in which one person actively initiates sex with an offer and terms that can be revised, accepted or rejected by the other person.

Read more: Apps against sexual violence have been tried before. They don’t work

Indeed, the idea of a “consent app” is deeply problematic. It is reminiscent of the paper-based consent forms that floated about some university campuses (with free condoms) in the 1990s.

Such written consent forms, on closer scrutiny, had little if any legal or evidential value in sexual assault cases. The key point behind a “positive” definition of consent is that it should be viewed as an active, conscious and above all reflexive exercise.

Consent is given and obtained through communication, not contracts. It cannot be inferred from a written document or an app, negotiated some time before the sexual activity. And it must be remembered that consent must be ongoing and can be withdrawn at any time before and during sex.

Put simply, consent should never be implied or inferred by an offender from apps, Tinder swipes or social media likes.

The proposal for a consent app has little merit, except perhaps to provide a platform for educating people about the law and reminding them about the standards of behaviour expected from people when engaging in sex.

Perceptions of what constitutes ‘real’ rape

From my perspective, there is another core issue that is leading to low reporting and high attrition rates of sexual assault cases — and this can’t be solved by further fiddling with our legal definitions of consent.

This is how our community perceives rape — or what constitutes “real” rape as opposed to consensual intercourse.

The law has an important role in shaping community standards. Over the past three decades, the legislature and courts have worked to embed and reflect more modern concepts of human dignity and respectful decision-making in the law governing sexual activity.

For instance, marital rape gradually came to be criminalised in all Australian states and territories, though the process took many years.

And the legislatures and courts have provided further guidance on the wide range of cases where the victim’s apparent “consent” has been compromised by the effects of intoxication, fraud, mistakes, blackmail, threats or other abuses of power.

The battle at the heart of rape trials rarely relates to issues of identity or whether in fact sexual activity took place. Rather, cases often turn on the differing perceptions of the people involved about what took place (what is referred to as “he said, she said”).

And this is where community attitudes toward gender, sexuality and race invariably come into play.

Read more: ‘Cultural misogyny’ and why men’s aggression to women is so often expressed through sex

When it comes to consent, for example, juries must decide whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt there was no free and voluntary consent. And the perceptions of juries are influenced by these wider societal beliefs and attitudes.

In the end, the “law’s truth” about consent, as legal feminist Carol Smart pointed out more than three decades ago, is decided in the context of how the police, prosecutors, defence team, courts and wider community view what constitutes a “real rape” (or not).

Countering these entrenched biases and myths about “real rape” is needed to improve sexual assault reporting and conviction rates.

We can do this by reviewing our laws and procedures governing rape investigations, improving our judicial and lawyer education, and providing better jury directions on consent in “plain English”.

This is the best way forward to tackle what is, and will remain, a complex and often deeply contested aspect of every rape trial.

– ref. Consent laws aren’t the reason for low sexual assault conviction rates — it’s how society views rape itself – https://theconversation.com/consent-laws-arent-the-reason-for-low-sexual-assault-conviction-rates-its-how-society-views-rape-itself-157689

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Maxwell, Associate Professor in Performance Studies, University of Sydney

No-one has done more for Australian drama than Katharine Brisbane. When she talks, we should all be listening to what she has to say. Over seven remarkable decades, she has played one of the leading roles in Australian culture.

As theatre critic for the Australian from 1967 to 1974, she documented the most exciting, innovative and tumultuous period of the nation’s artistic, cultural, social and political activity — from the avant-garde stirrings of the late 1960s, through the revolutions of the Australian Performance Group in Melbourne and the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney.

Australia’s new wave was not so much a singular wave, but a thrashing, roiling series of tempests lashing the complacent, monochrome cultural landscape: Brisbane was there to document it all.

With her late husband, Philip Parsons, Brisbane founded Currency Press in 1971 committed to publishing the explosion of new Australian plays, a commitment it maintains to the current day.

A public discussion

In 2001, responding to a sense of “despondency” amongst performing arts workers — deriving in no small part from the contraction of funding over the prior decade — Brisbane and a handful of collaborators set up a monthly discussion club they called “Currency House”.

Over the following three or four years, the group encouraged artists to join them in an attempt to restore a sense of purpose and significance: to reignite the passion, optimism and energy of the years of cultural expansion that followed the establishment of the Australian Council for the Arts in 1968, and the fiscal (and ideological) investments of subsequent governments.

In 2004, Currency House took the private discussions public, launching the quarterly essay series Platform Papers. Now 89, Brisbane’s latest provocation, an essay called On the Lessons of History, is a stirring call to arms for the arts sector, and, reportedly, her last Platform Paper.

Read more: The problem with arts funding in Australia goes right back to its inception

On the surface, On the Lessons of History presents as a retrospective of the 62 essays and their authors, luminaries of contemporary practice and thinking, including Wesley Enoch, Lyndon Terracini, Lee Lewis and Alison Croggon.

However, there is something much more important going on here, as hinted in the title’s nod to Will and Ariel Durant’s formative The Lessons of History (1968), a book that distilled history into sharp, focused themes, with a view to better understanding the past and the times to come.

Brisbane’s sights are set resolutely on the future. The essay charges artists with a responsibility not only to their practices, but to a broader project. The arts, she writes, should provide a space where we undertake reflection as an active, interventionist and disruptive project.

In this, theatre can lead us to an imagining of “Australia as a wiser and more creative country”.

Crafting a new future

Brisbane writes with informed urgency. Since 2001, she has observed “a period of cultural change from which we have emerged a different nation”.

But not a better one, she writes. Rather:

we have allowed ourselves to be swept up in fears and occupied with distraction — new [electronic] devices of incomprehensible ingenuity that invite entry into dazzling new worlds to escape the wreck we have made of this one.

Artists are caught up in the terror: precarious, scared to speak out for fear of losing work, locked into logics of competition, celebrity and commerce.

In response to this trend, and to the acute challenges of the most recent few years — drought, pandemic, the shattering revelations of corruption and inhumanity across our public institutions — Brisbane urges a fundamental repositioning of the arts.

Most pointedly, she points to the “fatally flawed” terms under which the Australia Council was established.

Since its establishment in 1968, the council has been focused on funding “products rather than creators”, and dividing the arts sector into discrete artforms — losing sight both of the artists themselves, and the ways art forms meld and evolve.

Rather than persisting in the “endless, competitive pursuit of excellence” — a trajectory which culminated in former arts minister George Brandis siphoning funding away from the Australia Council — we must reconsider the needs of the arts sector in the 2020s and beyond, and act on these new needs.

Instead of framing arts funding as “money with which to produce art”, could we not instead see it as “money for cultural research”?

This, then, is what Brisbane describes as Currency House’s new project: concrete steps toward re conceiving and redesigning the arts and cultural sector.

The first of those steps is to provide a rallying point for artists: an activist platform from which to build upon the proposals and provocations of the Platform Papers series, lobbying and advocating for genuine change. For Brisbane, among the most pressing demands should be a cabinet-level acknowledgement of the creative sector, with an arts department “staffed by arts workers, dedicated to forward planning and fostering collaborative enterprises.”

Read more: Remember the arts? Departments and budgets disappear as politics backs culture into a dead end

Crucially, it is artists themselves who must show the way forward. They must not be cowed into silence, but instead must demand, at the very least, “funds to experiment and a living wage.”

“In 2021” Brisbane writes, “we are starting again.” What, she concludes, do we have to lose?

Platform Paper 63: On the Lessons of History by Katherine Brisbane, is on sale now.

– ref. Katharine Brisbane has been a leader in Australian theatre for decades. Her new proposal is her most daring yet – https://theconversation.com/katharine-brisbane-has-been-a-leader-in-australian-theatre-for-decades-her-new-proposal-is-her-most-daring-yet-157239

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Baker, Senior lecturer in business strategy, Auckland University of Technology

The past 12 months presented unprecedented challenges for the performing arts as the pandemic curtailed many live performances.

Some organisations relied on pushing digital content to remain in the public eye, but this was next-to-impossible to monetise.

Now, as the COVID vaccines roll out and the sector heads towards a reset, it’s worth applying some fresh thinking to the arts landscape of the future.

Some have asked for more sustainable funding, others for more funding. But the central question is: can we get better value-for-money from the spend through central and local government?

Read more: A year on from New Zealand’s big lockdown the ‘team of 5 million’ needs a new story

The answer is “yes” — if we don’t duplicate effort, if we target funding to those organisations that are of an appropriate scale, and if those organisations take a more creative approach to market development.

We love the arts

Pre-pandemic research in 2017 commissioned by Creative New Zealand (CNZ) found the majority of people agreed the arts improve our society and help define what it is to be a New Zealander.

The research also found about 52% of people believe the arts should receive public funding, with only 17% disagreeing.

The arts sector overall contributed NZ$2.38-billion to GDP in 2018, about half as much as sports and recreation.

Of all art forms, the performing arts (music, dance and theatre) are the most popular and just over half of all New Zealanders attended an event in 2017.

Value for money

Performing arts organisations receive some funding from local government but the bulk comes from CNZ, which in 2018-19 received $16 million from the Ministry for Culture & Heritage (MCH) and $43 million from the Lottery Grants Board.

A small number of national performing arts organisations receive funding from MCH directly, out of its total budget of $577 million.

A look at some of the publicly available performance reports of arts companies provides an interesting picture of how that money is used.

What becomes apparent if you adopt a systemic perspective of the sector are at least two key, interlinked areas that need attention:

• scope and scale of organisations
• the need for market development.

The first key issue is related to organisational scale and scope – those that are too large and those too small.

National tours

At the large end, NZ features organisations required to deliver performances on a national scale, in multiple centres around the country.

For the organisations themselves, this is expensive. It leads to large chunks of budget being spent on production costs — including hotels, daily allowances and airfares. Funding levels must make up for this.

For example, in 2019 the Wellington-based New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) spent almost 40% of its total revenue of $20m on mounting its 98 performances around the country. These costs were over and above paying all the personnel and general operating costs.

In contrast, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) spent almost half that proportion of its ($12.4-million) budget mounting its 70 performances in Auckland.

Government funding must accommodate high touring costs. Almost three-quarters of the NZSO’s total revenue was derived from government funding. Less than half the APO’s total revenue came from government.

Similarly, the national opera company, NZ Opera, had to source almost two-thirds of its $6.3-million total revenue from government. Only 15% of its revenue came from box office.

National touring also leads to a lot of duplication of effort. In addition to the 70 APO performances in Auckland in 2019, the NZSO delivered 15 more to satisfy its mandate.

The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (which received only 36% of its $3-million total revenue from government), performed 17 concerts in Christchurch. The NZSO performed another four.

On the whole, organisations that stick to their city deliver better value for money. So we should be aiming for organisations with the right size and scope that meet market needs, while still delivering excellence.

That doesn’t mean we won’t have national performing arts organisations. It just means they will be called “national” because they are based in the capital city, much like other countries around the world.

Size should matter

There are also issues with very small performing arts organisations.

In 2018 the performing arts employed about 30,000 people. But with almost 10,000 performing arts organisations in NZ that’s an average of just three employees per organisation.

The median income for all New Zealanders in 2019 was $51,800. For artists it was $32,400 for those in acting and theatre production, $28,300 in music and sound, and only $17,500 in dance.

In Auckland there has been a proliferation of small contemporary dance companies — assembled around individual choreographers. Achieving efficiency is enormously difficult, with a large proportion of funding going to administrators and managers, not performers.

The scale of these organisations also hobbles their ability to engage in effective marketing and audience development, leading to modest box office take.

Government funding comprised 63% of total revenue for one of these organisations, for another it was 86% and for another, 100%.

Our city-based theatre companies are much better sized to deliver the full package both artistically and managerially.

Court Theatre in Christchurch received a modest 23% of total revenue from government and 37% from box office. And Auckland Theatre Company received 36% from government funding and 41% from box office.

So which organisations qualify for recurring CNZ investment funding needs careful reconsideration. This means making some hard decisions about what’s really needed.

Collaboration brings benefits

The second key issue is the need for more deliberate development of the market for performing arts — largely through collaboration.

Currently, arts organisations see each other as competitors.

We know what happens when organisations compete. They are reluctant to collaborate, become risk-averse and carefully protect intellectual property — such as subscriber databases.

But we aren’t talking about Pepsi and Coke. Any ticket sold to a live performance is a small victory for the entire sector.

Our research shows how collaboration between competitors can be used to shape markets, leading to new networks, practices, assumptions and levels of engagement. Ultimately, in the arts this would deliver increased audiences.

A market-shaping strategy works in multiple contexts. For example, what is today the entertainment behemoth Cirque du Soleil emerged in the 1980s. At the time, it was just one of numerous new circus troupes.

But what Cirque did differently was to build close connections into related disciplines, including Broadway and gymnastics. It worked closely with circus education programmes, and built truly imaginative productions that challenged the status quo and appealed to a wide range of people.

Read more: Has a gap in old-school handwriting and spelling tuition contributed to NZ’s declining literacy scores?

Our research into music festivals and the wine industry show similar processes and results.

So the appropriate response is for the sector to better articulate the value proposition — the benefit to customers — of the performing arts. Then arts managers should decide how to deliver it together, which will generate some fresh thinking.

When you think about international artists such as André Rieu or, more locally, the Pop-Up Globe, you see great attention put into production values, setting, timing and dedication to audience appeal.

For NZ performing arts, a revitalised value proposition might leverage off people’s growing need for experiences that distract them from their busy, digital lives.

Arts funding should not be reduced, nor should it necessarily be increased. Instead, some fresh thinking needs to be applied to the status quo to increase New Zealander’s value for money.

– ref. The show must go on, but it’s time to re-think how we fund the arts in NZ – https://theconversation.com/the-show-must-go-on-but-its-time-to-re-think-how-we-fund-the-arts-in-nz-156488

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paola Balla, Lecturer in Indigenous Education and Indigenous art, PhD Candidate, Victoria University

“We want your blood,” declared Dark Mofo on Saturday. This was not a metaphorical call. This was a literal request of First Nations Peoples by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra.

The call-out was confronting — and probably set out what it intended to do: shock — but the white curators may not have counted on the level of Indigenous disgust, refusal and critique it prompted.

On Monday, Dark Mofo released a statement defending the project, called Union Flag. By Tuesday afternoon, it had been cancelled.

The critical question is how this was allowed to be programmed in the first place? And what structures support white curators to speak of Black traumas?

Trawlwoolway and Plengarmairenner Pakana visual artist and dancer, Jam Graham Blair led the call on social media to denounce the project, and is now among those calling for artists to boycott MONA.

Yorta-Yorta curator Kimberley Moulton described “the neo-colonial curatorial practice that haunts us”. Wardandi (Nyoongar) curator Clothilde Bullen reminded the art world “this is why we need far more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts workers and curators in senior leadership and director positions.”

As Noongar writer and researcher Cass Lynch wrote for Overland: “the proposed artwork betrays itself as hinging on violence against Indigenous bodies.”

More than ever, we need Black curators who work from community standpoints.

A track record

Aboriginal blood is still being spilt in acts of generational colonial violence at the hands of the police. In the 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over 450 First Nations people have died in custody.

As Aboriginal People, we know racism and white supremacy are not hidden in corners. Indeed, MONA has a track record of unsettling practices and cancellations. In 2014, they pulled an Aboriginal DNA identity testing installation by Swiss artist Christoph Buchel after a similar outcry.

Union Flag aimed to literally extract Aboriginal blood as an anthropological and biological specimen. Extracted to be used as paint without the bodies or sovereign voices it belongs to and within.

This is a deep triggering of the wounds caused by the exploitation done to and on the bodies of our Ancestors and Old People in the name of anthropology and science. Our remains are held in museums in Australia and around the world.

This is unfinished business unaided by empty performances of decolonial consciousness.

We are taught by our Elders that our bodies and all they hold are sacred, from our hair to our sweat.

Capitalism and colonialism work hand in hand in the art world, dominated by privileged white Australians, directors, curators, wealthy board members and customers. Few white artists are able to contend with the violence of the ongoing colonial project without literally using or alluding to the blood of Indigenous Peoples.

Read more: The Tjanpi Desert Weavers show us that traditional craft is art

Resisting and contesting

Aboriginal artists create work that is nuanced, complex, multi-layered and engaged with lived realities, the traumas caused by colonial violence and how to survive and thrive in spite of it.

Part of this is because of our abilities and skills to resist and contest the never-ended colonial project and all the tentacles of its violence. This violence that disturbs and unsettles us once again with the daily labour of responding to white peoples’ poorly constructed ideas.

MONA’s David Walsh has now apologised, saying he “didn’t see the deeper consequences of this proposition” and Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said he had “made a mistake” in commissioning Union Flag.

But Dark Mofo know better. In partnership with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the 2019 festival presented the work of Trawlwoolway artist Dr Julie Gough. Her 25-year career survey show, Tense Past, showed her long engagement with art-making on the ongoing impact of colonisation on Tasmania’s First People.

Read more: Julie Gough’s ‘Tense Past’ reminds us how the brutalities of colonial settlement are still felt today

How is it lead curator Carmichael, who also sits on the board of the Australia Council, isn’t complying with arts protocols for using First Nations cultural and intellectual property?

This isn’t about mistakes. This is about the wilful decision making focused on shock tactics and sensationalism that is part of the Dark Mofo brand.

Aboriginal curators and artists have been asking for positions of leadership and decision making for decades. If MONA, Dark Mofo, and indeed all of Australia’s arts institutions centred First Nations people in collaborative leadership and curatorial positions, festivals could still make work that engages without shock, and without contributing to ongoing colonial trauma.

The criticism of Union Flag was not about censorship, cancel culture or halting personal expression. It is about accountability and ethics.

To recognise and memorialise First Nations grief and loss caused by ongoing colonialism (not an historical past tense, as referred to by this project) requires sovereign Aboriginal led and self-determined decisions.

This work continues to be done by artists and academics, such as Dr Vicki Couzens’, Dr Fiona Foley, Djon Mundine and many other Aboriginal community peoples, artists, activists, curators and educators.

Our peoples’ prior and informed consent is non-negotiable to making shared, collective projects.

We don’t need to see our blood to know we bleed.

Read more: Review: Fiona Foley’s Biting the Clouds is a visceral look at opium and control on the colonial frontier

– ref. Dark Mofo doesn’t deserve our blood. Australia must invest in First Nations curators and artists – https://theconversation.com/dark-mofo-doesnt-deserve-our-blood-australia-must-invest-in-first-nations-curators-and-artists-157677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marios Koutsakos, Research Fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 are emerging and becoming dominant around the world. So some vaccines are being updated to allow our immune system to learn how to deal with them.

But this process of identifying and characterising variants that can escape our immune system, then tweaking a vaccine to deal with them, can take time.

So researchers are designing a universal coronavirus vaccine. This could mean one vaccine to protect against different variants of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Alternatively, a universal vaccine would target many different coronaviruses, perhaps one waiting in the wings to cause the next pandemic.

Here’s where the science is up to and the challenges ahead.

Why would we need a universal coronavirus vaccine?

Coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, belong to a large and diverse family of viruses that infect humans and animals. And a universal coronavirus vaccine might be particularly important under two scenarios.

The first is the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2. The second is the emergence of new coronaviruses that may cause a pandemic in the future. Indeed, SARS-CoV-2 is not the first of the coronaviruses that has “crossed” from animals and can cause severe disease in humans and it is unlikely to be the last.

Read more: UN report says up to 850,000 animal viruses could be caught by humans, unless we protect nature

How do we even start?

Researchers are already designing and testing a universal vaccine against influenza. If successful, this would avoid needing to tweak the vaccine every year to guard against new variants. So we can apply what we’ve learnt to designing a universal coronavirus vaccine.

Read more: A universal influenza vaccine may be one step closer, bringing long-lasting protection against flu

We could look for common features

We could identify parts of the virus common to the entire family of coronaviruses or variants. So we could analyse and compare the genetic sequences of the viruses to find some common ground.

Alternatively, we could isolate immune cells that can react with all coronaviruses or a number of variants. These could be antibodies or T cells (a type of immune cell that specialises in identifying and killing virus-infected cells). Then we could map where on the viruses these target. In other words, we’re looking for a common antigen or group of antigens.

We can then use that knowledge to design a vaccine to teach the immune system how to specifically recognise those parts of the virus.

Several pharmaceutical companies around the world are investigating such approaches against COVID-19, although all are at very early stages of development, and have yet to start clinical trials.

Read more: Explainer: what is the immune system?

We could make a ‘mosaic’ vaccine

An alternative approach is to make a “mosaic” vaccine. This is a vaccine that contains antigens from a few different variants or coronaviruses.

These are arranged on a nanoparticle — an extremely small biological structure made from proteins that serves as a platform for delivering antigens. Using this approach, our immune system figures out the commonalities itself. It then learns how to generate antibodies that react broadly to all the different viruses.

Scientists from the US have tested this approach in mice. After being vaccinated with the mosaic vaccine, the mice had an immune response against SARS-CoV-2 and a range of other coronaviruses from bats. The results are interesting for two reasons.

The first is the type of immune response. The mice raised a broad range of neutralising antibodies, the types of antibodies that can stop a virus from infecting our cells and therefore provide the strongest protection. These neutralising antibodies are the main goal of vaccines.

The mice also raised an immune response to bat coronaviruses. This strategy could be useful for providing protection against future pandemics, should a bat coronavirus cross over to infect humans.

But “mosaic” vaccines against coronaviruses have yet to be tested in humans.

So what are the challenges ahead?

The design of a universal vaccine against any group of viruses is no small task. Indeed, universal vaccines against HIV or influenza have been the focus of intense research for years.

Some candidate universal vaccines against HIV or influenza have been assessed in human clinical trials and shown to be safe. However, the efficacy results have generally been modest.

One big challenge is these vaccines need to able to protect against an incredibly large number of possible variants. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 mutates slower than HIV or influenza viruses, so variants may take longer to arise.

The second challenge is establishing long-lasting immunity, which both HIV and influenza universal vaccines have yet to show.

A third barrier to overcome is learning how to anticipate the virus’ next mutation or which animal coronavirus may cause the next pandemic.

So it is likely a universal coronavirus vaccine, whether it aims to cover multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 or animal coronaviruses with pandemic potential, may take years to develop.

For now, we have to rely on reformulating currently available vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 to accommodate the emergence of new variants.

Read more: Why we’ll get COVID booster vaccines quickly and how we know they’re safe

– ref. A single vaccine to beat all coronaviruses sounds impossible. But scientists are already working on one – https://theconversation.com/a-single-vaccine-to-beat-all-coronaviruses-sounds-impossible-but-scientists-are-already-working-on-one-156373

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tayanah O’Donnell, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

It is no joke that New South Wales residents are in the midst of their fourth “one in 100 year” event since January 2020. Much of the Australian east coast continues to experience heavy rainfall, strong winds and abnormally high tides. All will make the current floods worse.

As climate tipping points are reached and the Earth’s systems begin to buckle under the strain, the need for considered adaptation strategies is overwhelmingly clear. One of these strategies is for human settlements to retreat from areas most at risk, whether from floods or bushfires. While something needs to be done to ensure future generations do not suffer catastrophic consequences, managed retreat is a complex tool.

These strategic decisions in the next five to ten years will be challenging. And these decisions really matter: where and how do we build residential areas that can cope with a climate-changed world?

Read more: Yes, Australia is a land of flooding rains. But climate change could be making it worse

What is managed retreat?

Managed retreat can be defined as “purposeful, co-ordinated movement of people and assets out of harm’s way”. Managed retreat more often refers to the retreat of existing development out of harm’s way. Planned retreat is usually the preferred phrasing for new development that is planned for possible future relocation.

Both planned and managed retreat are focused on the permanent relocation of people and assets, as opposed to the evacuations we are seeing now.

Managed retreat is experiencing a resurgence in scientific literature as the impacts of climate change become increasingly frequent, severe and more obvious. These impacts bring with them a recognition of the need for adaptation even as we urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, relocating away from high-risk locations is not an entirely new concept. However, managed retreat in response to a changing climate is not only complex, but also has a lot of political baggage. The complexity spans legal, financial, cultural and logistical factors among others: the political baggage seemingly associated with effective climate action in Australia often hinders governments’ abilities to respond properly.

Societies around the world need to grapple with the reality that managed retreat will become a suite of tools to respond to crisis. Insurers will not always be available, and the costs to governments (and therefore to you, the taxpayer) of responding to increasing rates of disasters, irrespective of insurance, will continue to grow exponentially.

Read more: How insurers can get better at responding to natural disasters

Responding to events after the fact is an unsustainable model of adaptation. There is, too, a need to acknowledge settlement needs and historical built environment legacies that have put significant state infrastructure in harm’s way.

Managing difficult trade-offs

We know trade-offs need to be made between what we protect and what we let go in suburban floodplain areas.

Legal machanisms to force people and assets to move can and must be thoughtful. The implementation of managed retreat in urbanised areas faces multiple hurdles. These include:

Read more: Coastal law shift from property rights to climate adaptation is a landmark reform

It is wrong to see managed retreat as the panacea for climate risk and development in vulnerable locations. In many cases, once development is in place, it can be more appealing to some to protect an at-risk area rather than work towards managed retreat. Even where managed retreat has been successful, as in the case of the flood-prone township of Grantham, it was not without pain.

There are also other, more basic needs, such as having land available where people can relocate.

Working out highest and best use of land

There are ways that land can be used for its highest and best use at a point in time. For example, tools like easements can enable vulnerable land to be used, subject to event-based or time-based trigger-point thresholds. Once these thresholds are reached, the land is put to some other use. The advantage of these machanisms, especially for new development, is that owners are clear about the risks from the start.

This still leaves us with hard decisions about responding to at-risk current developments. Putting off these hard decisions and leaving them for future decision-makers will result in a huge injustice, because there will be catastrophe as Earth’s tipping points are bypassed. Development decisions made now will determine the impacts on our children and grandchildren.

Urban development decisions for both new and existing development in this coming decade demand courage and leadership. If we accept that Australian cities will continue to expand and increase in density, then we have some serious questions to ask ourselves. What kind of future do we want?

Some areas should simply not be developed.

Read more: ‘Climigration’: when communities must move because of climate change

There is a risk that an over-reliance on managed retreat will over-simplify the challenge of working out what to do about development in at-risk locations. There is a clear need to separate out what to do about current and past developments, and how to approach new developments.

The latter is easy – do not rebuild residential homes in at-risk areas. Governments should repurpose these zones for uses that permit nature-based solutions to the need to adapt to climate change.

Current development is much more complex. In some cases, managed retreat – done thoughtfully and considerately – will be the only option.

– ref. Managed retreat of settlements remains a tough call even as homes flood and coasts erode – https://theconversation.com/managed-retreat-of-settlements-remains-a-tough-call-even-as-homes-flood-and-coasts-erode-157595

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Mann, Professor of Medicine and Director, Healthier Lives National Science Challenge and the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre, University of Otago

Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in New Zealand and will get much worse unless action is taken now, according to a new report on the economic and social cost of the disease.

Already 228,000 New Zealanders (4.7% of the population) have type 2 diabetes. The estimated annual cost is NZ$2.1 billion — a staggering 0.67% of GDP.

The report projects that if nothing is done to change the current trajectory, the number of people with type 2 diabetes will increase by 70-90% (to 6.6%-7.4% of the population) in 20 years. Costs are expected to rise by 63% to $3.5 billion by 2040.

Hospital care is the biggest cost to the public purse but losses from tax revenue, personal income and unpaid labour contribute to overall economic losses. The human cost of lives cut short cannot be quantified. Māori, Pacific and Asian communities bear the brunt of the disease burden.

The scale of New Zealand’s type 2 diabetes epidemic underscores the urgent need for prevention at a population level. It is a societal problem that needs a societal solution.

While individuals’ lifestyles must change if their health is to improve, New Zealanders need a supportive environment to make changes that stick.

A public health approach

A range of approaches would help to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Re-introducing a national healthy eating and activity policy for schools and young people would likely also benefit parents and carers. At school, children should be free from harmful drinks and foods which are packed with sugar, fat and salt. Our children must be protected from being bombarded by junk food advertising in their homes and neighbourhoods.

More effective food labelling would help consumers to better understand what they are putting in their supermarket trolleys, and encourage food producers to forge ahead with reformulating products so they contain less harmful ingredients.

Many other countries have introduced policies to protect their populations, including the UK’s 2018 soft drinks industry levy regulations. It’s time for New Zealand, which has among the highest rates of adult and childhood obesity in the western world, to catch up with our international peers.

We must not forget that in some parts of New Zealand, families experience food scarcity and insecurity and buy cheaper, less healthy foods. We must remedy this by tackling the root causes of poverty.

Read more: A disease that breeds disease: why is type 2 diabetes linked to increased risk of cancer and dementia?

Cost-effective health programmes

In addition to public health measures, there are also things we can do immediately to improve the treatment and care of people who already have type 2 diabetes and to prevent people with pre-diabetes from progressing further.

The report recommends rolling out four cost-effective programmes which could help thousands of New Zealanders:

• lifestyle interventions that reduce the risk of progression from pre-diabetes to type 2 diabetes (sustained changes in diet and exercise)
• intensive lifestyle interventions to achieve remission of type 2 diabetes (clinical nutrition therapy)
• “gold standard” medications to better manage type 2 diabetes
• optimal foot screening and protection services.

Read more: Got pre-diabetes? Here’s five things to eat or avoid to prevent type 2 diabetes

Two new medications for managing type 2 diabetes have recently been funded by New Zealand’s medicines-funding agency PHARMAC. This is a great start but we can do much more.

Pre-diabetes is being identified in many New Zealanders as part of screening for heart disease risk factors. Healthy lifestyle support programmes have been shown to halve the risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes. Culturally appropriate support should be made widely available to people with pre-diabetes.

International evidence has recently shown that it is possible to achieve remission of type 2 diabetes through clinical nutrition therapy. Investment in such services could save our hospital system from becoming overwhelmed by serious medical complications arising from type 2 diabetes, including kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and blindness.

We could avoid around 600 diabetes-related amputations each year if all District Health Board foot screening and protection services were operating at an optimal level. Some are already close to achieving this.

Such measures, along with a public health approach to disease prevention, are essential if we are to prevent health costs from escalating out of control and our healthcare system from being overwhelmed.

Lessons from the COVID-19 response

New Zealand’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how effective a co-ordinated, government- and science-led approach can be in tackling a major health problem.

In New Zealand we have seen how aiming high — for elimination of an infectious disease — has saved lives and livelihoods. Excellent communication has been key to New Zealanders’ enthusiasm for playing their part.

We need a similar approach and resolve to tackle the type 2 diabetes epidemic. This problem is too big to leave to individual district health boards, which are dealing with competing health problems on strained budgets.

We urgently need a national strategy for tackling type 2 diabetes to change the trajectory New Zealand is currently on. If we don’t act now the scale of the problem in 20 years’ time is almost unimaginable.

– ref. New Zealand needs urgent action to tackle the frightening rise and cost of type 2 diabetes – https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-needs-urgent-action-to-tackle-the-frightening-rise-and-cost-of-type-2-diabetes-157581

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hanlie Booysen, Research fellow, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Ten years ago this month, Syrians took to the streets to call for political reform and social dignity.

The success with which earlier protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt had toppled dictators Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, as well as NATO’s air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya, seemed outwardly to present an opportunity for change in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.

Instead, the Syrian uprising turned into an insurgency and then a bloody civil war.

By December of 2011, 133 countries in the United Nations General Assembly (including Aotearoa New Zealand) were strongly condemning the Syrian authorities’ “grave and systematic human rights violations” in its response to the uprising.

Alas, this was to no avail. In the past decade, 7 million Syrians (from a pre-conflict population of 22 million) have been internally displaced, and 5.6 million have fled to neighbouring countries.

More than 500,000 have been killed, including 55,000 children. According to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, thousands of civilians have been subject to torture, sexual violence or death in detention, or have disappeared.

The dire circumstances of more than 64,000 mostly women and children being held in the Al-Hol and Al-Roj detention camps in north-eastern Syria have become the most recent statistic in the Syrian tragedy.

How did this ongoing disaster happen? While the Syrian conflict is complex, it is possible to identify three things that facilitated the militarisation of the uprising and al-Assad’s political survival.

First resort to violence

Like their counterparts in neighbouring countries, Syrians faced a pervasive mukhabarat (security establishment), poverty and the absence of basic freedoms.

Their desire for change found early expression when a group of schoolboys painted a slogan, first seen in Tunisia and then in Tahrir square in Cairo, onto a wall in the southern Syrian city of Daraa: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام (as-shab yurid isqat an-nizam), translated as “the people want the fall of the regime”.

Read more: Arab Spring: after a decade of conflict, the same old problems remain

But the al-Assad government did not fall. It violently cracked down on the protest movement. In Daraa, the schoolboys were detained and tortured. When the mukhabarat dismissed the tribal elders who intervened on their behalf, it sparked demonstrations in the city.

The demonstrators were met with live ammunition and later tanks. Whole neighbourhoods and villages were put under siege. This excessive use of violence against demonstrators in Daraa and elsewhere militarised the Syrian uprising and undermined the protest movement.

Failure of the UN Security Council

The UN Security Council, initially slow to react, became no more than a witness to the violence in Syria.

Seven months after the protests in Daraa began, a resolution tabled by France, the UK, Germany and Portugal condemned Syria’s human rights violations, and raised the potential use of force under Article 41 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter.

Russia and China vetoed the resolution, and non-permanent members India, Brazil, South Africa and Lebanon abstained. No punitive action occurred.

Opposition to the draft resolution was motivated by what had happened in Libya. On March 17 2011, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 had authorised “necessary measures” under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to protect Libyan civilians against Gaddafi’s military.

Read more: ‘Every day is war’ – a decade of slow suffering and destruction in Syria

The UN-sanctioned, NATO-led military campaign began two days later, but did not cease after the feared attack against civilians in Benghazi was foiled. It continued for seven months until Gaddafi was captured and killed.

Russia’s veto of the first Syrian UN Security Council resolution was based on a suspicion that regime change, as had occurred in Libya, was also planned for Syria.

But Russia has gone on to veto a further 15 resolutions, rendering the security council largely impotent in the face of a war that has seen thousands of Syrian civilians killed, maimed, detained, tortured and forcibly displaced.

The pretext of terrorism

In late 2016, Syrian forces, backed by Russia and Iran, recaptured eastern Aleppo. The battle for the city had been a prolonged, bloody and strategically important standoff between government forces and anti-government armed groups that had taken a terrible toll on civilians.

For ten years, al-Assad’s permanent representative to the security council had used the threat of terrorism to justify sieges on whole cities and neighbourhoods, the use of barrel bombs on civilians, and attacks on medical personnel and facilities.

Read more: Ten years after the Arab Spring, Libya has another chance for peace

However, in the first six months of the Syrian uprising, al-Assad decreed an amnesty for “political prisoners”. At least four radical Islamists who later joined or formed militias were among those pardoned.

When Aleppo fell, Aotearoa New Zealand was serving as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Then-Prime Minister John Key told the security council that although terrorism was a major consequence of the Syrian war, “it did not cause it”.

Later, as Aotearoa New Zealand’s term came to an end in December 2016, its permanent representative stated:

I choose to believe the Secretary-General and the people working for him when they say the issue is not terrorism, but it is barbarism.

Without denying the legacy of UN-designated terrorist groups Islamic State (ISIS) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (former Jabhat al-Nusra) in the Syria conflict, Aotearoa New Zealand was right to reject the Syrian state’s justification for its actions.

One minor irony in all this is that the same Syrian permanent representative to the UN was also, in his capacity as rapporteur for the UN Decolonisation Committee, charged with monitoring Aotearoa New Zealand’s administration of Tokelau.

However, this authoritarian absurdity pales in comparison to an ongoing tragedy in Syria. What Key said to the UN in 2016 remains true: a political solution is the only way out of this conflict.

– ref. Ten years on from the Syrian uprising, what has prevented an end to the tragedy? – https://theconversation.com/ten-years-on-from-the-syrian-uprising-what-has-prevented-an-end-to-the-tragedy-156854

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By João Teixeira, Research associate, University of Adelaide

Island Southeast Asia has one of the largest and most intriguing hominin fossil records in the world. But our new research suggests there is another prehistoric human species waiting to be discovered in this region: a group called Denisovans, which have so far only been found thousands of kilometres away in caves in Siberia and the Tibetan Plateau.

Our study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals genetic evidence that modern humans (Homo sapiens) interbred with Denisovans in this region, despite the fact Denisovan fossils have never been found here.

Conversely, we found no evidence that the ancestors of present-day Island Southeast Asia populations interbred with either of the two hominin species for which we do have fossil evidence in this region: H. floresiensis from Flores, Indonesia, and H. luzonensis from Luzon in the Philippines.

Together, this paints an intriguing — and still far from clear — picture of human evolutionary ancestry in Island Southeast Asia. We still don’t know the precise relationship between H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis, both of which were distinctively small-statured, and the rest of the hominin family tree.

And, perhaps more intriguingly still, our findings raise the possibility there are Denisovan fossils still waiting to be unearthed in Island Southeast Asia — or that we may already have found them but labelled them as something else.

An ancient hominin melting pot

Stone tool records suggest that both H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis are descended from Homo erectus populations that colonised their respective island homes about 700,000 years ago. H. erectus is the first ancient human known to have ventured out of Africa, and has first arrived in Island Southeast Asia at least 1.6 million years ago.

This means the ancestors of H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis diverged from the ancestors of modern humans in Africa around two million years ago, before H. erectus set off on its travels. Modern humans spread out from Africa much more recently, probably arriving in Island Southeast Asia 70,000-50,000 years ago.

We already know that on their journey out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, H. sapiens met and interbred with other related hominin groups that had already colonised Eurasia.

The first of these encounters was with Neanderthals, and resulted in about 2% Neanderthal genetic ancestry in today’s non-Africans.

The other encounters involved Denisovans, a species that has been described solely from DNA analysis of a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia.

Intriguingly, however, the largest amounts of Denisovan ancestry in today’s human populations are found in Island Southeast Asia and the former continent of Sahul (New Guinea and Australia). This is most likely the result of local interbreeding between Denisovans and modern humans — despite the lack of Denisovan fossils to back up this theory.

Read more: Southeast Asia was crowded with archaic human groups long before we turned up

To learn more, we searched the genome sequences of more than 400 people alive today, including more than 200 from Island Southeast Asia, looking for distinct DNA sequences characteristic of these earlier hominin species.

We found genetic evidence the ancestors of present-day people living in Island Southeast Asia have interbred with Denisovans — just as many groups outside Africa have similarly interbred with Neanderthals during their evolutionary history. But we found no evidence of interbreeding with the more evolutionarily distant species H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis (or even H. erectus).

This is a remarkable result, as Island Southeast Asia is thousands of kilometres from Siberia, and contains one of the richest and most diverse hominin fossil records in the world. It suggests there are more fossil riches to be uncovered.

So where are the region’s Denisovans?

There are two exciting possibilities that might reconcile our genetic results with with the fossil evidence. First, it’s possible Denisovans mixed with H. sapiens in areas of Island Southeast Asia where hominin fossils are yet to be found.

One possible location is Sulawesi, where stone tools have been found dating back at least 200,000 years. Another is Australia, where 65,000-year-old artefacts currently attributed to modern humans were recently found at Madjebebe.

Read more: Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years

Alternatively, we may need to rethink our interpretation of the hominin fossils already discovered in Island Southeast Asia.

Confirmed Denisovan fossils are extremely rare and have so far only been found in central Asia. But perhaps Denisovans were much more diverse in size and shape than we realised, meaning we might conceivably have found them in Island Southeast Asia already but labelled them with a different name.

Given that the earliest evidence for hominin occupation of this region predates the divergence between modern humans and Denisovans, we can’t say for certain whether the region has been continuously occupied by hominins throughout this time.

It might therefore be possible that H. floresiensis and H. luzonensis (but also later forms of H. erectus) are much more closely related to modern humans than currently assumed, and might even be responsible for the Denisovan ancestry seen in today’s Island Southeast Asia human populations.

If that’s true, it would mean the mysterious Denisovans have been hiding in plain sight, disguised as H. floresiensis, H. luzonensis or H. erectus.

Solving these intriguing puzzles will mean waiting for future archaeological, DNA and proteomic (protein-related) studies to reveal more answers. But for now, the possibilities are fascinating.

– ref. Evolutionary study suggests prehistoric human fossils ‘hiding in plain sight’ in Southeast Asia – https://theconversation.com/evolutionary-study-suggests-prehistoric-human-fossils-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-southeast-asia-157587

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

A year after Aotearoa New Zealand went into full lockdown for a month (it felt like longer, but lasted from March 25 to April 27), the country has without doubt fared better than many other places.

True, the cost of buying (or renting) a house is terrifyingly high, the capital city’s infrastructure is crumbling (literally bursting, actually, in the case of its water pipes), and young people are disproportionately affected by unemployment and the wealth gap.

But on the up side, Team New Zealand retained the America’s Cup, Crowded House has been playing to sold-out crowds, and a trans-Tasman travel bubble is pending — we hope.

Unfamiliar working conditions and several short spells in lower alert levels aside, most New Zealanders spent the past year doing pretty much what they would have been doing had COVID-19 never arrived.

That has generated a lot of things: gratitude, pride, appreciation, indifference, complacency — and (in response to some ill-informed foreign commentary) some excellent ironic memes about life in the “hellhole” that is Aotearoa. Cue selfies on the beach, in the mountains, knocking back flat whites at the local café, swimming with the local dolphins, etc.

Most attributed this good fortune to a government that is both competent (mostly) and cares about its citizens, led by someone who knows what she is doing. While the edges might have frayed a little during the last level 3 lockdown in Auckland, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour majority government has stayed high in the polls.

It also helped that the health bureaucracy is both competent (mostly) and cares about the people it serves, led by someone who also knows what he is doing (although director-general Ashley Bloomfield’s halo slipped a little when he accepted free tickets to a cricket match when he probably shouldn’t have).

A temporary social cohesion

As a consequence of all of this competence, New Zealanders’ trust in their governing institutions remains high. Not counting some disgruntled anti-vaxxers and COVID-sceptics, our democracy appears to be in rude good health. From the outside we must positively exude social cohesion. So that’s all right then.

Except it isn’t, not really. Because beneath the surface, daily life for a lot of New Zealanders is a long way away from those sunny beaches and witty memes.

Let’s start with those without work. Credit where it’s due — many people will concede that Ardern’s governments have done a better-than-expected job of keeping the economy ticking over in challenging times. It might not feel that way, though, if you are Māori, Pasifika or a woman, all still over-represented in unemployment figures.

Read more: A year on from the arrival of COVID-19 in NZ: 5 lessons for 2021 and beyond

As to housing, the only way you cannot know about the extreme unaffordability of home ownership and renting is if you are the kind of person who remains convinced smashed avocados are the reason young New Zealanders are locked out of the housing market.

Despite its latest attempt to dampen real estate speculation, it remains fashionable to blame the government for this state of affairs. But rarely do those with the means to purchase a second, third or fourth house as investments appear to point the finger at themselves.

A reckoning to come

Above all, the country is well and truly betraying its young people. Disproportionately higher rates of unemployment, exorbitant housing and rental prices, and long stretches of learning via Zoom have left many feeling real psychological distress.

Older generations who expect young people, once this is over, will blithely continue to fund government superannuation and subsidise property speculation need to think again. There is a righteous anger smouldering among the young of Aotearoa, and there will be a reckoning. Or there should be.

Read more: COVID-19 is predicted to make child poverty worse. Should NZ’s next government make temporary safety nets permanent?

The causes of some of these faultlines reach back to the colonial violence done to the economic, social and political fabric of Māori.

Other explanations are more recent, traceable to the choices of the neo-liberal cultists of the 1980s and 1990s. Their creaking policy diagnoses and prescriptions remain dogma for too many in this country. The coronavirus has simply made matters worse.

So, yes, perhaps from the other side of an ocean Aotearoa New Zealand does appear socially cohesive. But social cohesion is an aspiration in this country, not a state of being.

Read more: With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for

Time for a new narrative

Life here has rarely approximated the self-serving egalitarian myth that is the nation’s origin story (least of all for Māori), and which is the closest thing we have to a sense of exceptionalism.

The narrative of the “team of 5 million” is the latest iteration of this. There is no question Ardern’s catchphrase has been a great rallying cry. But neither can there be any doubt it obscures the extent to which we are not really a team at all.

Some of us are on the bench, some are non-travelling reserves. And some are not even remotely interested in team sports (or, indeed, sport of any kind).

But the notion “we are all one people” runs deep in this country. It is risky to gainsay the forced cohesion of the team of 5 million. To break with team culture is to risk being labelled a “dickhead” — breaking the champion All Blacks’ informal rule of “no dickheads” — and who wants to be that person?

But the splits in the dressing room are there, if you care to see them. Maybe a year on from that first lockdown it’s time for a new national story, one that makes room for all of us, whether or not we make the team.

– ref. A year on from New Zealand’s big lockdown the ‘team of 5 million’ needs a new story – https://theconversation.com/a-year-on-from-new-zealands-big-lockdown-the-team-of-5-million-needs-a-new-story-156955

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Barr, Deputy Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza

As the nights begin to close in and the temperatures cool, it’s clear winter is approaching again.

With the winter season comes the risk of the usual winter lurgies, most of which result from respiratory infections. Some of the usual suspects include rhinoviruses (the common cold), RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), and influenza.

This year, of course, we’re also contending with the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) could escape from its quarantine status and circulate alongside these other viruses.

We don’t know yet how the winter season will play out in terms of respiratory viruses. But one important way we can prepare for it is by getting a flu vaccine.

What will winter bring?

In 2020 there was a paucity of seasonal winter viruses. Only rhinoviruses circulated widely, while the others were either vastly reduced (for example, we saw a very minimal flu season) or very delayed (RSV circulated later than usual in some states until spring or even summer).

So what’s going to happen in 2021? Will it be similar to 2020, or will it be like 2019, which saw very high levels of influenza? Or perhaps something completely different?

We simply don’t know for sure. With COVID-related restrictions having eased in all Australian states and territories — albeit to varying degrees — people are free to move around, come together in crowds, and attend schools, universities and offices.

These activities promote the transmission of respiratory viruses, which explains why we saw such different trends in the usual winter lurgies last year, when we were mixing much less.

Read more: RSV is a common winter illness in children. Why did it see a summer surge in Australia this year?

But the virus circulation needs to start from somewhere. While some viruses are happy to circulate domestically, like rhinoviruses and adenoviruses, others, like influenza, are largely transported into the country each year. So it’s possible that if Australia’s international borders remain closed through winter, we may again have a less serious flu season in 2021.

On the other hand, if borders are opened and the flu does take hold, people might have reduced immunity to the viruses given the missed season last year, and be more susceptible.

A vaccine is your best bet

In the face of this uncertainty, the usual adage prevails: “prevention is better than cure”. The best measure we can take is to get our influenza vaccine.

The flu vaccines available in Australia in 2021 under the National Immunisation Program are:

• for children aged six months to five years — Vaxigrip Tetra® (Sanofi) and Fluarix® Tetra (GSK)

• for children and adults aged five to 64 years — Vaxigrip Tetra®, Fluarix® Tetra and Afluria® Quad (Seqirus)

• for adults aged 65 and over — Vaxigrip Tetra®, Fluarix® Tetra, Afluria® Quad and Fluad® Quad (Seqirus).

The Fluad® Quad vaccine, which is slightly different and more potent than the others, is the preferred vaccine for the over-65 age group. It contains a component called an adjuvant, which helps boost the immune response in elderly people.

This season’s flu vaccines are made up of four different viruses — two influenza A types and two influenza B types. The 2021 vaccines have two changes (both in the influenza A types) from the 2020 influenza vaccines.

It’s very hard to predict in advance which strains will circulate, but the World Health Organization provides guidance on this every year, and recommends which components of the vaccine should be updated accordingly.

All the influenza vaccines used in Australia are inactivated virus vaccines, meaning the virus contained in the vaccine doesn’t replicate, so you can’t get the flu from the vaccination.

Read more: Flu vaccines are updated every year. We can learn from this process as we respond to COVID variants

In addition to the flu vaccines under the National Immunisation Program, a new vaccine called Flucelvax® Quad (Seqirus) is available through retail outlets, like pharmacies, for people aged nine years and older.

This vaccine is the first influenza vaccine available in Australia which has been produced entirely in cell culture, rather than chickens eggs. This new vaccine may have some benefits over the traditional egg-based vaccines for certain people, for example those with severe egg allergies.

How effective are flu vaccines?

Flu vaccines are only moderately effective at preventing infection with influenza. On average, they offer around 60% protection across the population, although rates can often be higher in children.

While this is lower than we’d like, it’s the best measure we currently have to protect us from influenza infections. There’s also evidence it reduces the more severe consequences of being infected, such as being hospitalized or dying.

Scientists are continuing to work on new flu vaccines that may offer greater protection.

The practicalities

This year’s vaccines are already becoming available through pharmacies and some GP clinics, and will be available under the National Immunisation Program from GPs and other providers, such as workplace immunisation programs, in April.

The flu season generally starts in earnest around June, so it’s reasonable to get your vaccine any time between now and then.

Under the National Immunisation Program, some groups are eligible to receive the influenza vaccine for free. These include:

• adults 65 and older

• all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians six months and older

• children aged six months to five years

• pregnant women

• people with certain medical conditions.

For people who don’t fall into these groups, the vaccine costs as little as A$14.99.

Read more: You can’t get influenza from a flu shot – here’s how it works

Influenza vaccines are being rolled out this year alongside the COVID-19 vaccines. With both programs operating at the same time, there may be some confusion and logistical challenges.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation have recommended a 14-day gap between the COVID and flu vaccinations, regardless of which one you have first. This is something both individuals and providers will need to keep in mind and will mean some extra planning this year.

– ref. Yes, COVID vaccines are front and centre. But don’t forget about your flu shot – https://theconversation.com/yes-covid-vaccines-are-front-and-centre-but-dont-forget-about-your-flu-shot-157051

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joelle Gergis, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Australian National University

Over the past three years, I’ve been working on the forthcoming report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I’m a climate scientist who contributed to the chapter on global water cycle changes. It’s concerning to think some theoretical impacts described in this report may be coming to life – yet again – in Australia.

The recent flooding in New South Wales is consistent with what we might expect as climate change continues.

Australia’s natural rainfall patterns are highly variable. This means the influence climate change has on any single weather event is difficult to determine; the signal is buried in the background of a lot of climatic “noise”.

But as our planet warms, the water-holding capacity of the lower atmosphere increases by around 7% for every 1℃ of warming. This can cause heavier rainfall, which in turn increases flood risk.

The oceans are also warming, especially at the surface. This drives up both evaporation rates and the transport of moisture into weather systems. This makes wet seasons and wet events wetter than usual.

So while Australia has always experienced floods, disasters like the one unfolding in NSW are likely to become more frequent and intense as climate change continues.

Understanding the basics

To understand how a warming world is influencing the water cycle, it’s helpful to return to the theory.

From year to year, Australia’s climate is subject to natural variability generated by the surrounding Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans. The dominant drivers for a given year set up the background climate conditions that influence rainfall and temperature.

It is a combination of these natural climate drivers that makes Australia the land of drought and flooding rains.

However, Australia’s climate variability is no longer influenced by natural factors alone. Australia’s climate has warmed by 1.4℃ since national records began in 1910, with most of the warming occurring since 1970. Human-caused greenhouse emissions have influenced Australian temperatures in our region since 1950.

This warming trend influences the background conditions under which both extremes of the rainfall cycle will operate as the planet continues to warm. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture (higher water vapour content), which can lead to more extreme rainfall events.

Since the winter of 2020, Australia has been influenced by the La Niña phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Historically, sustained La Niña conditions, sometimes with the help of a warmer than average Indian Ocean, have set the scene for severe flooding in eastern Australia.

During these events, easterly winds intensify and oceans around Australia warm. This is associated with the Walker Circulation – a giant seesaw of atmospheric pressure that influences the distribution of warm ocean waters across the Pacific Ocean.

The last La Niña occurred in 2010–2012. It led to widespread flooding across eastern Australia, with particularly devastating effects in Queensland. The event caused the wettest two-year period in the Australian rainfall record, ending the 1997–2009 Millennium Drought.

Oceanographers from UNSW studied the exceptional event. They demonstrated how a warmer ocean increased the likelihood of extreme rain during that event, primarily through increased transport of moist air along the coast.

Their analysis highlighted how long‐term ocean warming can modify rain-producing systems, increasing the probability of extreme rainfall during La Niña events.

It is important to point out that changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns are still not as well understood as fundamental changes in thermodynamics. However, because regional rainfall changes will be influenced by both factors, it will take researchers time to tease everything out.

So what about climate change?

The theoretical changes to the global water cycle are well understood. However, determining the contribution of natural and human influences on climate variability and extremes – known as “attribution” – is still an emerging science.

More studies are needed to distinguish natural or “background” rainfall variability from recent human-caused changes to the water cycle. This is particularly the case in a country like Australia, which has very high yearly rainfall variability. This contrasts with some regions of the Northern Hemisphere with less variable rainfall, where a clear climate change signal has already emerged.

Right now, La Niña conditions are decaying in the Pacific Ocean. As expected, the 2020–2021 La Niña has brought above-average rainfall to much of eastern Australia. This helped ease the severe drought conditions across eastern Australia since 2017, particularly in NSW.

What’s interesting about the 2020–2021 La Niña is that it was weak compared with historical events. The relationship between La Niña and rainfall is generally weaker in coastal NSW than further inland. However, it’s concerning that this weak La Niña caused flooding comparable to the iconic floods of the 1950s and 1970s.

The rainfall totals for the current floods are yet to be analysed. However, early figures reveal the enormity of the downpours. For example, over the week to March 23, the town of Comboyne, southwest of Port Macquarie, recorded an extraordinary 935mm of rainfall. This included three successive days with more than 200mm.

The NSW coast is no stranger to extreme rainfall – there have been five events in the past decade with daily totals exceeding 400mm. However, the current event is unusual because of its duration and geographic extent.

It’s also worth noting the current extreme rainfall in NSW was associated with a coastal trough, not an East Coast Low. Many of the region’s torrential rainfall events in the past have resulted from East Coast Lows, although their rainfall is normally more localised than has been the case in this widespread event.

Remember that as the air warms, its water-holding capacity increases, particularly over the oceans. Current ocean temperatures around eastern and northern Australia are about 1℃ warmer than the long-term average, and closer to 1.5℃ warmer than average off the NSW coast. These warmer conditions are likely to be fuelling the systems driving the extreme rainfall and associated flooding in NSW.

A nation exposed

Weather and climate are not the only influences on extreme flood events. Others factors include the shape and size of water catchments, the presence of hard surfaces in urban areas (which cant’t absorb water), and the density of human settlement in flood-prone areas.

The Hawkesbury–Nepean region in Western Sydney, currently experiencing major flooding, is a prime example. Five major tributaries, including the Warragamba and Nepean Rivers, flow into this extensively urbanised valley.

Improving our understanding of historical weather data may help improve future climate change risk assessment. For example, past floods in the Hawkesbury–Nepean have been a lot worse than the current disaster. In 1867, the Hawkesbury River at Windsor reached 19.7 metres above normal, and in 1961 peaked at 14.5 metres. This is worse than the 13.12 metres above normal recorded at Freemans Reach on March 23.

It’s sobering to think the Hawkesbury River once peaked 6 metres higher than what we’re seeing right now. Imagine the potential future flooding caused by an East Coast Low during strong La Niña conditions.

It will take time before scientists can provide a detailed analysis of the 2020–2021 La Niña event. But it’s crystal clear that Australia is very exposed to damage caused by extreme rainfall. Our theoretical understanding of water cycle changes tells us these events will only become more intense as our planet continues to warm.

– ref. Yes, Australia is a land of flooding rains. But climate change could be making it worse – https://theconversation.com/yes-australia-is-a-land-of-flooding-rains-but-climate-change-could-be-making-it-worse-157586

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Hogan, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

We have estimated around $8 billion of non-government or private funding flows through Australia’s school system each year — both public and private. The vast majority of this comes from school fees. The rest is from “other private sources”, including donations and community fund-raising.

Unsurprisingly, the independent school sector generates the most private income. But public schools also receive private income that goes towards things like refurbishing facilities.

We analysed private income in every Australian school using data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). At the time of our study, the latest figures available for school fees and income were from 2015.

We found independent schools totalled an average A$9,227 of private funding per student. This was followed by Catholic schools ($2,873) and government schools ($752).

What are parents paying for school?

We found school incomes from private sources increase with the relative advantage of a school.

Relative advantage is defined using ACARA’s Index of Community Socio-educational Advantage (ICSEA). This scale is a proxy for socioeconomic status used by education sectors in Australia.

ACARA calculates the ICSEA score for each school using factors such as students’ parental education and occupation, the proportion of Indigenous students at the school, students with a language background other than English and the school’s geographical location.

An ICSEA score above 1,000 indicates greater socioeconomic and educational advantage; an ICSEA score below 1,000 indicates greater disadvantage. In our analysis, we put schools into four categories:

• very disadvantaged (ICSEA 900 and less)

• disadvantaged (ICSEA from 901 to 1,000)

• advantaged (ICSEA from 1,001 to 1,100)

• very advantaged (ICSEA more than 1,100).

Parents in very disadvantaged independent schools paid an average of $1,225 in 2015 per student. This increased to an average of $14,624 in very advantaged independent schools.

Parent fees at the most advantaged government schools were $745 in 2015 per student. At the most disadvantaged government schools, parents paid around $299 per student.

School fees on the rise

Private school fees are growing faster than inflation and are now one of the biggest financial outlays in the average Australian family.

Only 50% of families with children attending private schools pay fees from their disposable incomes. The rest, according to market-based research by Edstart, increase their credit card debt, take out personal loans, redraw on their mortgage, or borrow money — often from grandparents.

Read more: What the next government needs to do to tackle unfairness in school funding

According to the latest financial data from ACARA, fees have increased in some public schools since 2015, too.

Using metropolitan Brisbane schools as an example, Macgregor State High (ICSEA 1,018) had a 19% increase in fees between 2015 and 2019 — from $576 to $715 respectively. Browns Plains State High (ICSEA 963) had a 10% increase from $273 to $305, and Bray Park State High (ICSEA 989) had a 6% increase from $387 to $415.

But many public school fees had a less than 2% increase, and some, like Kelvin Grove State College (ICSEA 1,129) actually reduced their fees from $1,714 to $1,532 per student between 2015 and 2019. Other very advantaged public schools also reduced fees.

A recent article in The Age showed families in Victoria spent a total of $400.1 million for the 2019-20 financial year in public schools.

The article said data from ACARA showed total parent payments to Victorian state schools have risen by $160 million since 2009.

What happened to free education?

Fees in public schools are often referred to as voluntary contributions. This is because government legislation prevents public schools attaching parental fees to student enrolments.

But public schools sometimes use various strategies to promote fee payment. For instance, schools may exclude students from extra-curricular activities and excursions if parents have not paid fees. This may compel parents to pay to avoid their child’s embarrassment.

Read more: Some public schools get nearly 6 times as much funding, thanks to parents

There are other ways parents contribute money to public schools.

Bake sales, fetes and “democracy sausage” sizzles have always been a cornerstone of public schooling. And like their private school counterparts, public schools are now investing in strategic fundraising with parents and alumni, and sponsorship arrangements with businesses and philanthropists.

In our study, we found very advantaged independent schools received the most funding from “other” income sources, compared to all other independent schools. But in the public school sector, the very disadvantaged schools received the most from “other” income sources, compared to other public schools. This was the same in the Catholic school sector, where the very disadvantaged schools received the most from “other” income sources. This may be because disadvantaged schools are receiving targeted philanthropy.

For instance, Schools Plus is an intermediary organisation that works to connect disadvantaged schools with donors through a tax-deductible giving program.

Since 2015, Schools Plus has directed $17.8 million to both public and private disadvantaged schools in Australia. Most of these donations come from the corporate sector, large trusts and foundations, and high-net worth individuals.

According to the Schools Plus 2020 Impact Report, most schools apply for funding to help improve student engagement and performance. While all disadvantaged schools (with an ICSEA less than 1,000) are eligible for Schools Plus funding, the process is competitive, meaning not all schools that need extra funding receive it.

An equity issue

Income raising is a labour-intensive process that is re-imagining the role of school staff and parents. Raising money relies on entrepreneurial principals, savvy PR staff, engaged parents and parent committees, as well as the work of intermediary organisations like Schools Plus. This is a problem, especially when it comes to public schools.

Research from the United States and United Kingdom cautions that an over-reliance on private income could lead to governments shirking some responsibility for resourcing and supporting schools.

Read more: Australian primary private schools should be fully funded by governments — but banned from charging fees

This has the potential, if it has not already, to produce a multi-tiered education system based on parental capacity and inclination to pay.

The ongoing issue here is one of equity. When schools start relying on private funding (both fees and philanthropy) to augment how basic education services are provided, schools in most need of extra support are the least likely to be able to afford it.

– ref. Education funding is unfair — and public schools asking parents to chip in makes it worse – https://theconversation.com/education-funding-is-unfair-and-public-schools-asking-parents-to-chip-in-makes-it-worse-157144

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simone Casey, Research Associate, Future Social Service Institute, RMIT University

Many Australians whose jobs were decimated by the COVID business shutdowns will soon be waking up to new income shocks and the prospect of rental stress. This is because people whose employers can’t afford to keep them on will suddenly lose more than A$300 per week when the JobKeeper scheme ends on March 28. Worryingly, this income shock will happen just days before the payment to people on the JobSeeker benefit is effectively cut by $100 per fortnight.

At that point, all income support recipients – more than 2.6 million people – will be below the poverty line and many will face extreme rental stress.

Read more: $1 billion per year (or less) could halve rental housing stress

This income shock has been anticipated for some time, but what does it means for rates of rental stress, particularly in Victoria? Despite promising signs of recovery, Victorian jobs lost in the COVID-induced recession, such as in the hard-hit business tourism and live music industries, have not bounced back at the same rate as others.

What will happen to rental affordability?

To illustrate this point we have modelled housing affordability for single people who were on either the full-time or part-time JobKeeper rate. In this scenario, they could also get JobSeeker payments at a part-rate because of the temporary increase in the income-free threshold to $300. This made them eligible for Commonwealth Rent Assistance too.

The chart below shows the impacts on income and rental affordability when JobKeeper and Coronavirus Supplement payments end. Their incomes and the amount of rent they can afford are roughly halved.

Full-time and part-time single workers were able to afford weekly rent of $265 and $245 respectively before the withdrawal of JobKeeper. Afterwards, affordable rent goes down to $115 per week. That’s about $110 less than the $450 median rent ($225 per person) for a two-bedroom share house in Melbourne.

Based on our earlier calculations, this leaves these renters with only $17.57 per day to meet basic costs. They have a lavish $3.57 per day more than they did before the pandemic to pay for food, utilities and job-seeking costs such as mobile phone plans and travel cards (A$4.40 a day in Melbourne).

Read more: City share-house rents eat up most of Newstart, leaving less than $100 a week to live on

What is different now than for pre-COVID unemployment was that business shutdowns thrust people who had reliable earnings – and accompanying high rents and mortgages in metropolitan areas – onto JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments.

The chart below shows the change in rental affordability for a number of household types before the pandemic and during the Coronavirus Supplement stages (i.e. payments of $550, then $250, then $150).

For example, when their income was highest during the $550 stage, two singles sharing could afford rent of $430 per week. Once the supplement ends and is replaced by the $25-a-week increase in JobSeeker payment, affordable rent declines to only $230 per week or $115 each.

Rental affordability for single-parent households is notable here because the COVID Supplement was payable to one person only. Once the supplement is withdrawn, they will again be disadvantaged relative to other households because they will not be receiving the increase in the JobSeeker payment.

Read more: After COVID, we’ll need a rethink to repair Australia’s housing system and the economy

What sort of job losses can we expect?

It is hard to predict exactly how many people will lose their jobs when JobKeeper ends. What we do know is the economic recovery in Victoria has lagged behind the other states. We also know that at the end of December 2020 1.55 million people were on JobKeeper and a large proportion of them (660,000) were in Victoria.

Economist Jeff Borland conservatively estimates national job losses could range between 125,000 and 250,000. It is reasonable to expect as many as half of these could be in Victoria.

Our analysis also shows there are worrying signs that the economic recovery celebrated in the January labour force data was not sustained in February. The latest data provided to a Senate inquiry into COVID-19 show JobSeeker recipients increased by 7,267 between January and February. The increase in Victoria could be attributed to the temporary Christmas retail boom, but in states like New South Wales and Queensland claims decreased slightly.

While fewer people will lose their jobs in other states than in Victoria when JobKeeper is withdrawn, they are not immune to this income shock. We created the chart below to show the overall scale of the coming problem of rental stress when the fortnightly $150 Coronavirus Supplement disappears and is replaced by the $50 JobSeeker increase.

Once the supplement reduced to $250 per fortnight, singles and single parents with two children were below the poverty line. When it was reduced to $150, the number of household types in poverty increased again. From April 1, all income support recipients – covering more than 2.6 million people including children – will be waking up to poverty and the prospect of extreme rental stress.

What can be done to avoid this?

So how can governments prevent people from falling off the rental cliff? It is unlikely to be achieved by introducing cut-price flights to Far North Queensland.

A new range of strategies will be needed. These include options advocated by ACOSS and others to increase the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 50%, increase the JobSeeker base rate above the poverty line and introduce rental stress grants targeted at individuals who need help.

Over the longer term, there is also a need to adopt strategic approaches to increase the supply of affordable rental housing such as those recommended by researchers at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

– ref. At least 2.6 million people face poverty when COVID payments end and rental stress soars – https://theconversation.com/at-least-2-6-million-people-face-poverty-when-covid-payments-end-and-rental-stress-soars-157244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University

“Italy had its renaissance, Germany its reformation, France had Voltaire”, the historian Will Durant once commented.

Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778) was known in his lifetime as the “patriarch” of the French enlightenment. A man of extraordinary energy and abilities, he produced some 100 volumes of poetry, fiction, theatre, biblical and literary criticism, history and philosophy.

Among his myriad works, Voltaire’s Candide, or Optimism (1759) is widely recognised as the masterpiece. A darkly satirical novella taking aim at human folly, pride and excessive faith in reason’s ability to plumb the deepest metaphysical truths, it remains as telling in this era of pandemics and wild conspiracy theories as when first published.

Read more: Criticism of Western Civilisation isn’t new, it was part of the Enlightenment

Theological shockwaves

In his earlier works Voltaire had propounded an almost naive optimism, but the decade from 1749-1759 was not easy for the philosopher-author.

Personally, his great love, Émilie du Châtelet had died in 1749. Politically, he had been forced from exile to exile for his criticism of monastic and clerical privileges in France and his Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations (1756), which treated Christianity as just one world religion, rather than the final revealed truth.

In 1755, meanwhile, on November 1, a huge earthquake had struck the Portugese capital, Lisbon, followed by a tsunami. Within minutes, tens of thousands were dead.

The recriminations soon began. Protestants saw in Lisbon’s destruction divine judgement on Catholicism. Catholics proposed, with equal implausibility, the especial sinfulness of the Lisbonites as the disaster’s cause. Pyres were erected in the streets to burn heretics, as scapegoats for the disaster.

This combination of senseless death and even more senseless human responses outraged Voltaire. His first response was the impassioned “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster” of 1755:

As the dying voices call out, will you dare respond
To this appalling spectacle of smoking ashes with,
[…] ‘God is avenged. Their death is the price of their crimes’?

Then, several years later, came Candide.

A simple lad

As his name suggests, Voltaire’s hero, Candide, is a simple lad. Raised in a magnificent castle in Westphalia, in North-Western Germany, he is moved by just two passions. The first is abiding love for his sweetheart, Cunégonde.

The second is admiration for his teacher, Pangloss (“all tongue”), an exalted Professor of “métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie” possessed of the happy ability to explain everything that happens, despite appearances, as “for the best”.

It is demonstrable,“ said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for […] all is necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles — thus we have spectacles. Legs are visibly designed for stockings — and we have stockings […] Pigs were made to be eaten — therefore we eat pork all the year round. Consequently, they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said: all is for the best.”

In Pangloss, Voltaire is satirising German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the British poet, Alexander Pope.

These two men had defended what the former called “theodicy”: the idea that a perfect God could only have created the best possible world. Hence, the human perception that events like pandemics, earthquakes, massacres and tsunamis are bad must be mistaken.

Read more: Floods and fires: the struggle to rebuild, the search for meaning

Candide’s fate is set up by Voltaire as a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) of this optimistic theory. Our hero is first expelled from his Edenic childhood garden, when Cunégonde’s father comes upon she and Candide illicitly experimenting in what Voltaire delicately calls “natural philosophy”.

In Candide’s ensuing wanderings around Europe and the Americas, Voltaire treats his hero to a veritable guided tour of all of the evils of war, lust, avarice, vanity and colonialism.

Fleeing war, rapine and zealotry in Bulgaria and Holland, Candide arrives in Lisbon just in time for the earthquake. He is selected for execution by fire as a heretic, before escaping to save Cunégonde from disputing, lustful representatives of the West’s two great biblical faiths, Judaism and Christianity.

The lovers flee together to the Americas. In Buenos Aires, however, the Spanish governor seizes Cunégonde for his wife. Candide and his servant, Cacambo, are forced to flee through yet more bloody misadventures in the new world.

In a rightly famous passage, which finally sees Candide recant of his teacher Pangloss’ theodicy as the “abomination […] of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong”, they come upon a crippled African slave whose masters are Dutch merchants in Surinam:

“Yes, sir,” said the negro, “it is the custom. […] When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe.”

To this Europe, the increasingly disillusioned Candide returns. The riches he acquired in the new world are soon fleeced by cunning social climbers in Paris and Venice. He is reunited with Pangloss, who has recanted nothing of his optimism, despite being enslaved, flogged, hanged and brutally maimed, explaining that “I am a philosopher and I cannot retract […]”

Soon enough, Candide also hears news that Cunégonde is now a slave in Turkey, after her own litany of unlikely sufferings. So, he hits the road one last time. Reunited at last with his half-broken beloved, they retire to a little farm with their friends near Constantinople.

Here, despite everything, Pangloss still sometimes comes to mindlessly philosophise, as the story famously closes:

“There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: […] if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”

“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

Laughter

In the entry on “wit” (esprit) in his famous Philosophical Dictionary of 1764, Voltaire reflects that it is:

the art either of bringing together two things apparently remote, or of dividing two things which seem to be united, or of opposing them to each other […]

It is the art of Voltaire’s Candide to leave readers unsure whether they should be weeping, screaming, laughing or all at the same time. Atrocious sufferings are recounted with the innocence of a children’s fairy tale.

Elevated questions of metaphysical philosophy, which for a century had divided the greatest Western minds, are brought crashing down to earth amid the clamours of warring armies, collapsing cities, inhumane barbarism and slavery.

It is easy to see why critics have read Voltaire’s novella as a document written in despair. But the laughter of the book suggests this is only half the story.

Voltaire is enraged at human cruelty and idiocy. He scorns the Panglossian pride, which pretends to justify the unjustifiable with blithe self-assurance and vain sophistries. He despises any theory clever enough to explain away human suffering, but not humane enough to decry it.

But this is because he believes human beings can be better. For Voltaire, we can and should challenge all fair-sounding ideologies reconciling us to indignities visited on others we would not accept for ourselves.

Read more: A moral world in which bad things happen to good people

Let us crush the infamous!

Stateless, Voltaire had ended up in 1758 in rural retreat in Ferney, near the Swiss-French border. At the tender age of 65, he embarked on a legendary campaign against religious fanaticism — associated with his famous slogan: Écrasez l’infâme! (let us crush the infamous!).

His Treatise of Toleration of 1763, was sparked by anger at the wrongful execution of Protestant Jean Calas by Catholic zealots in Toulouse.

In 1778, the legendary author and advocate for multi-faith society finally returned to Paris, to be hailed as a hero. Fatigued by the journey, Voltaire died soon after, claiming: “I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.”

In 1791, the revolutionary government honoured Voltaire as an inspiration. His remains were re-interred in the Pantheon.

There is no pandemic in Voltaire’s Candide, and today’s conspiracy theories make Pangloss’ inhumane, hyper-rationalism look balanced.

But there are few other books you could read with greater sympathy in 2021 than this little gem of irony, calamity, and restrained outrage at human folly and prejudice. And none that are more cutting and entertaining.

– ref. Guide to the Classics: Voltaire’s Candide — a darkly satirical tale of human folly in times of crisis – https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-voltaires-candide-a-darkly-satirical-tale-of-human-folly-in-times-of-crisis-157131

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

One potentially solid proposal came out of Scott Morrison’s extraordinary news conference, held on Tuesday morning against the backdrop of the fresh revelations about appalling behaviour in Parliament House.

Morrison said he was open to a conversation about having Liberal Party parliamentary quotas, and had been “for some time”, as his colleagues knew.

“I have had some frustrations about trying to get women preselected and running for the Liberal Party to come into this place,” he said.

“I have had those frustrations for many years going back to the times when I was a state director where I actively sought to recruit female candidates, whether it was for state or federal parliament.”

At present women form just over a quarter of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party (including both houses); in Labor, they are a little under half of caucus.

If Morrison is serious about quotas, he should immediately take action to have the Liberal Party, and its state divisions, advance the proposal.

It will also be up to women in the party who support quotas to seize the moment, while the PM is desperately searching for initiatives.

But even if this important debate takes off, it won’t be an easy one within the party, which has stood firmly against quotas, vociferously rejecting Labor’s embrace of them.

One well-placed source says there’s a growing minority in the party for quotas but there would still be a larger proportion against, including opposition from some of the female MPs.

Quotas also go against the democratisation push in the party. And they would take a long time to make a substantial difference to the ratio of men and women.

Tuesday’s news conference put on display the different faces of Morrison.

In part, his performance was a mea culpa and explanation for what critics attacked as his mishandling of the debate over the past weeks, notably when he recounted his wife’s advice, and he contrasted Australia’s peaceful women’s protest with the shooting of demonstrators in Myanmar.

In part and more broadly, he was trying to relate to women, to say he had heard their messages, understood their pain.

“I acknowledge that many have not liked or appreciated some of my own personal responses to this over the course of the last month, and I accept that,” he said.

“People mightn’t like the fact that I discuss these [traumatic events] with my family. They are the closest people in my world to me. That is how I deal with things, I always have.

“No offence was intended by me saying that I discuss these issues with my wife. […] that is in no way an indication that these events had not already dramatically affected me.

“Equally, I accept that many were unhappy with the language that I used on the day of the protests. No offence was intended by that either. I could have chosen different words.”

He acknowledged “many Australians, especially women, believe that I have not heard them” and said “that greatly distresses me.”

He had “been doing a lot of listening over this past month”, which was “not for the first time”. He listed what he’d heard, ranging from women clutching their keys as weapons as they walked, to being talked over in boardrooms, staff rooms and even cabinets. There was much else that was “not OK”.

Morrison was at times highly emotional – as he was also in the joint parties meeting, where the official briefing noted he’d found it difficult to get out his first words in an address canvassing the recent times.

But amid his strong pitch at projecting empathy during his news conference, suddenly attack-dog Morrison broke the leash.

Sky News’ Andrew Clennell had asked, “if you’re the boss at a business and there had been an alleged rape on your watch and this incident we heard about last night on your watch, your job would probably be in a bit of jeopardy, wouldn’t it? Doesn’t it look like you have lost control of your ministerial staff?”

Instead of batting the question away – a tactic he’s adroit at – Morrison let fly.

This exchange followed.

PM: I will let you editorialise as you like, Andrew, but if anyone in this room wants to offer up the standards in their own workplaces by comparison I would invite you to do so.

Clennell: Well, they’re better than these I would suggest, Prime Minister.

PM: Let me take you up on that, let me take you up on that. Right now, you would be aware that in your own organisation that there is a person who has had a complaint made against them for harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet and that matter is being pursued by your own HR department.

This outburst was a bad misjudgment.

It wrongly implied the matter involved Sky News – Morrison had got his facts wrong about its nature. News Corp later put out a statement saying it was an exchange “about a workplace-related issue, it was not of a sexual nature, it did not take place in a toilet and neither person made a complaint”. The matter had now been resolved.

Morrison had distracted from, and undermined, the whole message he was trying to get through – that he understands and is focused on the problems women endure and on finding solutions.

One notable characteristic of Morrison is how his mood can turn on a dime. That reinforces the unsettling feeling one has of never being sure whether, on any particular day, we’re seeing the real deal, or the practised political actor.

– ref. View from The Hill: Scott Morrison opens door to Liberal quotas, but don’t hold your breath – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-scott-morrison-opens-door-to-liberal-quotas-but-dont-hold-your-breath-157693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University

One group of women was strikingly absent from the March4Justice rallies last week: Coalition MPs. Admittedly, there are not many of them (only 23% of the government’s MPs are female), but the refusal of the minister for women to attend the demonstration was a remarkable abrogation of responsibility.

Only one female Liberal MP, Tasmanian Bridget Archer, attended the demonstration. She had assumed – wrongly – it would receive bipartisan support. Like many who marched, she was motivated to attend by what she described as “a deep-seated rage”.

Women across Australia have expressed similar feelings: March4Justice events held across the country attested to a resurgent feminist anger. This rage has been sparked by overwhelming evidence of a misogynist culture that ignores and downplays sexual assault and enables perpetrators to escape justice.

Very few of the LNP’s female ministers spoke out against their party’s culture of toxic masculinity in the wake of the news about Brittany Higgins’ alleged rape. Like most players in this awful story, most seemed focused on establishing their lack of knowledge of the incident after it allegedly took place.

How extraordinary, then, were the events of Monday evening. Reports broke that male Liberal staffers had exchanged videos featuring themselves engaging in sex acts in Parliament House. In particular, the revelation that one male staffer had filmed himself masturbating on a female MP’s desk seems to have finally prompted some reticent female MPs to comment. Liberal MP Katie Allen declared on Twitter:

Nationals MP Michelle Landry told reporters she was “absolutely horrified” by the story, but added: “The young fellow concerned was a really good worker and he loved the place. I feel bad for him about this.”

That these reports of lewd behaviour in Parliament House are now drawing the comment of otherwise silent female Liberal and Nationals MPs is telling. If these MPs were serious about confronting a misogynist culture in their party, they would have to deal with the impact of the Coalition’s policies on women.

A Liberal male staffer masturbating on a female MP’s desk is merely a symptom of something very wrong in the party’s attitudes to women, not the sum total of it.

Let’s start with JobSeeker. Women form the majority of 2 million JobSeeker recipients affected by the federal government’s decision to replace the $75-a-week Coronavirus Supplement with a $25-a-week permanent increase in JobSeeker. The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) warned that rolling back the supplement would have a “devastating” impact on women. The government did it anyway.

Read more: COVID-19 is a disaster for mothers’ employment. And no, working from home is not the solution

The government consistently failed to recognise the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women. During the COVID lockdowns, women lost their jobs at a faster rate than men and were offered fewer supports. They also shouldered far more of the unpaid care work associated with childcare and home schooling.

Yet government ministers failed to consult the Office for Women on the big policy responses to the pandemic, including JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Free childcare was the first policy to be wound back in the pandemic “snapback” last year.

The mismanagement and neglect in aged care is a feminist issue. Two out of three residents in aged care are women. Almost 90% of the aged care workforce is female.

The recent Royal Commission into Aged Care called for much stricter regulation and improvements to workforce conditions. Yet, given the government has consistently rejected calls for greater regulation of the sector, the future looks bleak for those who live and work in residential aged care.

Women also bore the brunt of the massive fee hikes to university courses that formed the centrepiece of the government’s Job-Ready Graduates Package in 2020. The steepest fee increases (up to 113% in some cases) were for humanities and social sciences courses: in 2018, women comprised two-thirds of enrolments in these subjects.

Read more: Why degree cost increases will hit women hardest

On domestic and family violence, the government has reduced supports for survivors, who are overwhelmingly women. The telephone counselling service 1800 RESPECT, previously managed by Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, was outsourced to a private health insurer in 2017. There was a corresponding decline in the quality of service offered to those in need.

The government’s recent merger of the Family and Federal Courts reduces the resources available to women and their children for settling complex family law matters. The government was even considering allowing domestic violence survivors to access their superannuation early – effectively funding their own meagre safety nets – to escape violent relationships, an idea it has since abandoned.

Of course, the ALP is not immune from making policies that harm women. On the day Julia Gillard delivered her famous misogyny speech in parliament in 2012, the Labor government also legislated to move thousands of women from a parenting payment to the lower Newstart payment.

But the far wider breadth and depth of successive LNP governments’ attacks on women through policy are, frankly, breathtaking.

LNP women’s attitude to feminism might be best summed up by Julie Bishop’s sparkly red shoes. She wore them on the day she resigned as foreign minister, her leadership aspirations defeated by men in her own party, whom she only now identifies as the “big swinging dicks”. The shoes today sit on display in Old Parliament House.

Bishop’s brand of glamorous, individualistic one-woman celebration took her all the way to cabinet. Until, that is, it couldn’t take her any further. A “feminism” premised on a single white woman’s empowerment, rather than a movement that works to safeguard the rights and freedoms of all women, is not up to the demands of the present moment.

All the quotas in the world won’t change the culture of the government if none of the women who are elected are prepared to stand up for women’s rights.

– ref. Memo Liberal women: if you really want to confront misogyny in your party, you need to fix the policies – https://theconversation.com/memo-liberal-women-if-you-really-want-to-confront-misogyny-in-your-party-you-need-to-fix-the-policies-157687

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xanthe Mallett, Forensic Criminologist, University of Newcastle

As the country watches Scott Morrison grapple with the sex scandals rocking our federal parliament, it is worth wondering what has really changed since former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s now-famous 2012 “misogyny” speech.

The power of that speech is undeniable, and it resonates loudly today.

Gillard spoke to the imbalance of power between men and women and the under-representation of women in positions of authority. Her speech raised serious concerns about how some politicians saw women’s roles in contemporary Australia.

Fast forward to yesterday, and Scott Morrison attempted to address the most recent shocking allegations of lewd behaviour by some coalition staff – the allegation being a group of government staffers had shared images and videos of themselves undertaking lewd acts in Parliament House, including in the office of a female federal MP.

These stories raise the question as to why some men participate in sexually denigrating women – both those in authority as well as those in positions of submission in hierarchical organisations. And why is male aggression towards women so often expressed through sex rather than through other means?

As a criminologist, I interpret men’s sexually aggressive behaviour – whether it is desecrating a women’s desk by videoing himself masturbating on it, or a sexual assault – as an activity born of a need for power and control.

When some men feel challenged, or want to dominate someone to fulfil an innate internal inadequacy, they can feel the need to do so sexually. Often, the subjects of their rage about feelings of inadequacy are women.

From lewd comments, to being groped, through to sexual assault, the attacks on women in the workplace continue.

Research suggests heterosexual men who are more socially dominant are also more likely to sexually objectify women. When these men are placed in positions of submission to women at work and their dominance is challenged, the levels of sexual objectification of women go up. This supports the assertion that some men increase their dominance by sexually objectifying women, and this objectification can become physical.

This conversation around how we address this has been building for some time.

Read more: Sexism, harassment, bullying: just like federal MPs, women standing for local government cop it all

In 2017, the #MeToo movement went viral, as women started to share their negative sexual experiences via social media. The discussion initially focused on women being sexually harassed by their bosses in the media and entertainment industry, but it soon became obvious the problem was much wider than that. It permeates every industry in every country.

Sexual harassment and assault are more common than many people might believe, or want to believe. A 2018 study surveyed 2,000 people in the US. It found 81% of women and 43% of men had suffered some form of sexual harassment or assault. Further, 38% of the women surveyed said they have suffered from sexual harassment in the workplace.

The picture is mirrored in Australia. A 2018 Australian Human Rights Commission report found 23% of women said they had been sexually harassed at work in the previous 12 months.

In 2021, we are still having the same debate.

One big question is where these bad male behaviours originate from?

Social Learning Theory might help us to understand what is going on in relation to some men’s need for sexual domination of women. It is based in the premise that individuals develop notions of gender and the associated behaviours by watching others and mimicking them. This learning is then reinforced vicariously through the experiences of others.

Combine this learnt behaviour with cognitive development theory, which suggests gender-related behaviour is an adoption of a gender identity through an intellectual process, and we can see how misogynistic behaviours can be identified, remembered, and mimicked by subsequent generations of males.

This could be termed “cultural misogyny”.

How do we change the dynamic?

The only way to shift the framing around appropriate behaviour in the workplace, and society more generally, is to continue to break down gender stereotypes. Women need to be elevated to positions of power to reduce male domination in all aspects of life. We must challenge the undermining of women’s and girl’s autonomy and value when boys exhibit it, to break the chain of passing on these negative attitudes.

Read more: #MeToo has changed the media landscape, but in Australia there is still much to be done

We are only now beginning the hear the breadth of stories from women speaking out about their own negative experiences.

As a woman in academia – a very hierarchical structure – I have been sexually harassed, and I just accepted it as part of my working world. My experience was with a very senior member of a previous university, and I would never have considered challenging him or reporting it, as I was very well aware of the power he had over me and my career. I even considered changing organisations to avoid the unwanted behaviours.

The brave women who are now speaking up have changed the way I view my own experience. The more we raise our voices, support each other and encourage change in the attitudes around us, the more we will all benefit.

– ref. ‘Cultural misogyny’ and why men’s aggression to women is so often expressed through sex – https://theconversation.com/cultural-misogyny-and-why-mens-aggression-to-women-is-so-often-expressed-through-sex-157680

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tegan Larin, PhD Candidate Monash University XYX Lab, Monash University

The recent US shootings at massage businesses in Atlanta should ring alarm bells in Australia. Eight people were killed in the attacks, including four Korean women and two Chinese women.

US authorities are still trying to determine the exact motive behind the attack by a 21-year-old white man, who is a suspected sex buyer.

But some feminist groups, such as Asian Women for Equality, immediately identified misogynist racism as a key element behind this sort of violence. As one member of the group, Suzanne Jay, said,

Men are being trained by the prostitution industry. They’re being encouraged and allowed to orgasm to inequality. This has an impact on Asian women who have to deal with these men.

The global sex trade, feminists have argued,

increasingly contributes to the dehumanisation of all Asian women.

Indeed, it has been reported that the Atlanta shooting suspect explained the attacks were a form of vengeance to eliminate the “temptation” for his “sexual addiction”.

How Australia’s massage businesses operate

Like the US, Australia’s “massage parlours” are associated with the prostitution of Asian women. These venues, outwardly presenting as massage businesses but offering illicit sexual services, make up the majority of brothels in the city I study, Melbourne.

Australia’s commercial sex industry is regulated at the state and territory level, resulting in a patchwork of differing models.

In Victoria, massage parlours are estimated to outnumber legal brothels five-fold. My research on Melbourne’s massage parlours supports this estimate.

Read more: Will Victoria be the first place in the world to fully decriminalise sex work?

Despite the main purpose of Victoria’s Sex Work Act to “control sex work”, the majority of Victoria’s brothels get around the legislative requirements and controls by operating under the guise of legitimate massage businesses.

Massage businesses are usually considered a general retail premises in most council areas, which do not require a planning permit or registration.

Australia’s sex industry is also heavily reliant on a culture of sexualised racism.

An analysis of online massage parlour advertising conducted as part of my research shows ads commonly feature images of Asian women in suggestive poses. The wording highlights race or ethnicity, with such phrases as “young and beautiful trained girls from Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, China and Malaysia”.

Read more: New report shows compelling reasons to decriminalise sex work

In addition to ads, my research also examined online sex buyer review forums. These typically encourage men to include descriptions of “ethnicity, appearance, breast size”, ratings of the women’s body parts and the “services” received.

These sex buyer reviews not only demean and denigrate women, they also promote the sexualised and racist stereotypes that pervade the industry.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a recent study of sex buyer reviews of Australia’s legal brothels found

that sex buyers actively construct and normalise narratives of sexual violation and violence against women.

The effects of sexualised racism in prostitution

This blatant racism, misogyny and male sexual entitlement is not confined to massage parlour owners or their customers. It’s also embedded in Victoria’s Sex Work Regulations.

The updated regulations now allow advertising to reference “race, colour or ethnic origin of the person offering sexual services”. This means that Victoria’s sex industry legally promotes women from minorities as an eroticised “other”.

Read more: US has a long history of violence against Asian women

This normalisation of sexualised racism promoted by the sex trade in Australia may have wider effects.

A Korean-Canadian doctor, Alice Han, for example, recounted to the ABC being asked twice in a span of 12 hours in regional New South Wales whether she was a sex worker.

She said this exemplifies “a pattern of demeaning stereotyping and racial profiling” of Asian women in Australia, and the association of Asian women with prostitution more broadly.

Australia’s sex industry also relies on the migration and trafficking of Asian women for its survival.

Indeed, Australia’s sex industry is rife with modern slavery for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Cases have been found in both legal and illegal brothels, signalling the wholesale failure of prostitution legislation in this country.

This raises questions about the model of total decriminalisation being proposed in Victoria. This model seeks to decriminalise not only those exploited in prostitution but those who profit from them, such as pimps, brothel owners and sex buyers.

The best path forward

Australia is increasingly behind the rest of the world when it comes to approaching prostitution from a gender equality perspective.

Indeed, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has consistently reprimanded Australia for not meeting its requirements to reduce the demand for prostitution.

In order to address the mix of racism, misogyny and men’s sexual entitlement that prostitution is founded on, Australia must adopt a new national framework. The Nordic or “Equality” model offers one path forward — it decriminalises those working in prostitution, but not those who exploit them.

This model, which has garnered support from survivors of prostitution and anti-trafficking organisations around the world, includes robust social services to support those in the sex trade and assist them into transitioning to other industries.

We know prostitution relies on the abuse of the world’s most marginalised women and girls in order to function. It is predominantly Asian and migrant women who suffer on the front lines of Australia’s sex trade.

While the national conversation confronting society’s acceptance of sexual violence is well overdue, we cannot ignore the sexism, misogyny and racism bound up in Australia’s sex trade.

– ref. US massage parlour shootings should ring alarm bells in Australia: the same racist sexism exists here – https://theconversation.com/us-massage-parlour-shootings-should-ring-alarm-bells-in-australia-the-same-racist-sexism-exists-here-157591

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Pitman, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, UNSW

People living on the east coast of Australia have been experiencing a rare meteorological event. Record-breaking rainfall in some regions, and very heavy and sustained rainfall in others, has led to significant flooding.

In different places, this has been described as a one in 30, one in 50 or one in 100 year event. So, what does this mean?

What is a 1 in 100 year event?

First, let’s clear up a common misunderstanding about what a one in 100 year event means. It does not mean the event will occur exactly once every 100 years, or that it will not happen again for another 100 years.

For meteorologists, the one in 100 year event is an event of a size that will be equalled or exceeded on average once every 100 years. This means that over a period of 1,000 years you would expect the one in 100 year event would be equalled or exceeded ten times. But several of those ten times might happen within a few years of each other, and then none for a long time afterwards.

Read more: Explainer: was the Sydney storm ‘once-in-a-century’?

Ideally, we would avoid using the phrase “one in 100 year event” because of this common misunderstanding, but the term is so widespread now it is hard to change. Another way to think about what a one in 100 year event means is that there is a 1% chance of an event of at least that size in any given year. (This is known as an “annual exceedance probability”.)

How common are 1 in 100 year events?

Many people are surprised by the feeling that one in 100 year events seem to happen much more often than they might expect. Although a 1% probability might sound pretty rare and unlikely, it is actually more common than you might think. There are two reasons for this.

First, for a given location (such as where you live), a one in 100 year event would be expected to occur on average once in 100 years. However, across all of Australia you would expect the one in 100 year event to be exceeded somewhere far more often than once in a century!

In much the same way, you might have a one in a million chance of winning the lottery, but the chance someone wins the lottery is obviously much higher.

Second, while a one in 100 year flood event might have a 1% chance of occurring in a given year (hence it’s referred to as a “1% flood”), the chance is much higher when looking at longer time periods. For example, if you have a house designed to withstand a 1% flood, this means over the course of 70 years there’s a roughly 50% chance the house would be flooded at some point during this time! Not the best odds.

How well do we know how often flood events occur?

Incidents like these 1% annual exceedance probability events are often referred to as “flood planning levels” or “design events”, because they are commonly used for a range of urban planning and engineering design applications. Yet this presupposes we can work out exactly what the 1% event is, which sounds simpler than it is in practice.

First of all, we use historical data to estimate the one in 100 year event, but Australia has only about 100 years of reliable meteorological observations, and even shorter records of river flow in most locations. We know for sure this 100-year record does not contain the largest possible events that could occur in terms of rainfall, drought, flood and so on. We have data from indirect paleoclimate evidence pointing to much larger events in the past.

Read more: Sydney storm: are extreme rains and flash floods increasing?

So a 1% event is by no means a “worst case” scenario, and some of the evidence from paleoclimate data suggests the climate has been very different in the deep past.

Second, estimating the one in 100 year event using historical data assumes the underlying conditions are not changing. But in many parts of the world, we know rainfall and streamflow are changing, leading to a changing risk of flooding.

Moreover, even if there was no change in rainfall, changes to flood risk can occur due to a host of other factors. Increased flood risk can result from land clearing or other changes in the vegetation in a catchment, or changes in catchment management.

Increased occurrence of flooding can also be associated with poor planning decisions that locate settlements on floodplains. This means a one in 100 year event estimated from past observations could under- or indeed overestimate current flood risk.

A third culprit for influencing how often a flood occurs is climate change. Global warming is unquestionably heating the oceans and the atmosphere and intensifying the hydrological cycle. The atmosphere can hold more water in a warmer world, so we would expect to see rainfall intensities increasing.

Extreme rainfall events are becoming more extreme across parts of Australia. This is consistent with theory, which suggests we will see roughly a 7% increase in rainfall per degree of global warming.

Australia has warmed on average by almost 1.5℃, implying about 10% more intense rainfall. While 10% might not sound too dramatic, if a city or dam is designed to cope with 100mm of rain and it is hit with 110mm, it can be the difference between just lots of rain and a flooded house.

So what does this mean in practice?

Whether climate change “caused” the current extreme rainfall over coastal New South Wales is difficult to say. But it is clear that with temperatures and heavy rainfall events becoming more extreme with global warming, we are likely to experience one in 100 year events more often.

We should not assume the events currently unfolding will not happen again for another 100 years. It’s best to prepare for the possibility it will happen again very soon.

Read more: Droughts and flooding rains: it takes three oceans to explain Australia’s wild 21st-century weather

– ref. What is a 1 in 100 year weather event? And why do they keep happening so often? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-1-in-100-year-weather-event-and-why-do-they-keep-happening-so-often-157589

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University

On Monday night, Four Corners investigated how Brittany Higgins’s alleged rape at Parliament House was kept quiet for almost two years.

Once again, it highlighted the huge barriers to justice faced by victims of sexual assault.

This comes barely a week after tens of thousands of Australians marched, demanding justice and an end to the harassment and mistreatment of women within federal parliament and beyond.

With sexual violence in the media spotlight on a daily basis, we need to reflect on how far we have come — and what still needs to be done — to achieve justice for victim-survivors.

Almost 90% of women don’t go to police

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in five Australian women and one in 20 men have experienced sexual assault since the age of 15. Most assaults occur in private spaces, and most are against women by a man known to them.

Yet, almost nine in ten women(87%) do not contact the police.

Many are worried their experience won’t be taken seriously. They also worry they will face repercussions, whether personally, professionally or from the perpetrator themselves, if they report the assault.

What survivors want

According to Australian research, victim-survivors say they want to have their experience heard, to have the wrong against them acknowledged, and to know that something will be done to stop the perpetrator from harming others.

Sadly, we know often the opposite often occurs. Whether it is workplaces and other organisations responding to sexual harassment and/or sexual assault, or formal responses in our criminal justice system, victims are often left feeling silenced and sidelined.

Read more: Sexual assault: what can you do if you don’t want to make a formal report to police?

But a formal report to police is not the only option. There are alternative ways a victim-survivor can either seek support or talk about what happened to them. There’s a national helpline, and sexual assault counselling services in every state and territory.

Some states also have an option for victims to make an anonymous or confidential informal report to police. Importantly, research shows a positive experience making an informal report can encourage a victim-survivor to report formally.

Another option, currently under consideration by the Victorian Law Reform Commission, is restorative justice. In broad terms, this allows a victim and a perpetrator to meet with expert support to acknowledge the impacts of the crime and find a way to repair the harm.

Reforming laws around consent

Of course, these alternative ways of responding to sexual assault do not mean we should ignore the formal criminal justice processes. There are ways to improve it — and the last several weeks have demonstrated the urgent need to do so.

Many measures are needed, and one of them is reform to consent law. Criminal law is left to the states and territories, and so, confusingly, there are many definitions of consent across Australia.

In response to the confusion, as well as the low threshold for accused persons to claim that they had a reasonable belief there was consent, advocates, academics and survivors are calling for affirmative consent laws.

Read more: Australian law doesn’t go far enough to legislate affirmative consent. NSW now has a chance to get it right

Affirmative consent requires consent to be actively given by actions and/or words before, and continuously throughout, a sexual act. Under such laws, consent cannot be inferred from the behaviour of another person, such as what they were wearing or that they (supposedly) flirted with the perpetrator prior to the rape. Instead, a perpetrator must show they took active and reasonable steps to make sure the other person was consenting.

Yet, most Australian states do not currently require a person to take such active steps to determine another’s consent. Both the New South Wales and Queensland Law Reform Commissions recently failed to recommend the inclusion of active steps in proposed rape law changes.

More education for police, juries

There is a host of other concrete changes that can improve justice for victims of sexual assault.

Other possible measures include greater training for police investigating sexual assaults.

There is also independent victim legal representation in sexual assault trials, initiatives to reduce the trauma of giving evidence for victim-survivors, along with inclusion of expert testimony on the nature of sexual violence, and education for potential jury members.

Changing our broader culture

The ongoing national public conversation about sexual violence has made a further problem abundantly clear.

Too often bystanders, who had an opportunity to either intervene or provide support to a victim, do nothing.

The National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women shows us many Australians blame victims, minimise abuse, and excuse the actions of perpetrators.

We can all do better to educate ourselves on how to respond supportively if a colleague, friend or loved one discloses that they are a victim of sexual violence. We can also speak up and challenge victim-blaming attitudes when we see them, whether it is at the office, at the sports club, at the pub, or at a family BBQ.

Read more: Rape culture: why our community attitudes to sexual violence matter

Sex and respectful relationships education needs to start early, be consistent, inclusive, positive about sex and sexuality, and promote consent as a normal practice in all our interactions with others.

Modelling respect

But if the past few months have taught us anything, it is the importance of leadership that models respect: both for victim-survivors and for women generally.

Sadly, the best laws and the best prevention education in the world may not be enough to create lasting change if our leaders and institutions don’t also step up, stop walking past sexual violence, and set a new standard for respect and justice.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732

– ref. Almost 90% of sexual assault victims do not go to police — this is how we can achieve justice for survivors – https://theconversation.com/almost-90-of-sexual-assault-victims-do-not-go-to-police-this-is-how-we-can-achieve-justice-for-survivors-157601

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Lim, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy (Anatomy), University of Newcastle

Why do you get dizzy when you stop spinning? – Finn, 7

Why does it look like the world is tilting when I spin around really fast, and then lie down? – Milosh, 7, Brisbane

Great questions, Finn and Milosh!

Your ears are really amazing. They help you hear and help you balance. And when you walk, run, jump and spin around, the parts of your ear that help you balance get really excited. Here’s what’s going on in your ears when you spin around (and when you stop).

Which way’s up?

Deep in your ears, past your ear drums, you have balance organs that tell you what is up and what is down. They also tell you that you’re moving, and even how you’re moving.

Three of these balance organs look like the inner tubes of a bicycle wheel. You can see these three tubes in blue in the picture below. These tubes tell you when you are moving and spinning.

The tubes are filled with fluid, like water. When you move your head, the fluid in the tubes begins to move. The moving fluid bends hairs on the top of hair cells that are also in the tube.

When the hairs bend in one direction, the cells become excited. The cells then send a message to your brain that your head is moving in that direction.

Amazingly, moving your head also moves your eyes. When you turn your head in one direction, your eyes move in the opposite direction. This is why you can clearly look at road signs in a bumpy car without the sign becoming blurry.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do our ears pop?

I feel dizzy now

When you spin around and around on the spot, this moves the fluid in one of the tubes. The fluid in the tube moves in the same direction as if shaking your head “no”.

If you spin around really fast, the fluid in your ear moves really fast too. This is what happens when you first start to feel dizzy.

When you stop spinning, your head stops moving but the fluid in the tube of the balance organ keeps spinning. So now your brain thinks you are spinning in the opposite direction. This is what makes you feel dizzy again.

Your eyes then flick very quickly back and forth to the right and left too, even though your head is not moving anymore.

I think I need to lie down

If you lie down after spinning around really quickly, the water in the tube is spinning in the same direction as shaking your head “no”.

But now your head is in a different position. Instead of flicking right and left, your eyes flick up and down.

So, if you lie down after spinning really fast, the brain gets two messages about what your head is doing (going round and round, and lying down). These two messages join together and trick your brain into thinking the world is tilted.

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: when I stop spinning, why do I feel dizzy and the world looks like it’s tilting? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-when-i-stop-spinning-why-do-i-feel-dizzy-and-the-world-looks-like-its-tilting-154559

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Maund, Research Affiliate, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle

Some 18,000 people have been evacuated in New South Wales as torrential rain hammers the state. Almost three-quarters of NSW is subject to a severe weather alert.

Right now, thousands of people are sheltering in schools, bowling clubs, community centres and other makeshift evacuation centres.

As always, the State Emergency Service (SES) is doing great work to ensure the safety of the community. And evacuation centre staff and volunteers are doing their utmost to ensure the well-being of the evacuees.

But the floods have revealed, yet again, Australia must better accommodate people displaced by natural disasters. As climate change worsens and extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, we need adaptable, safe, secure and multi-purpose spaces to house those in need – possibly for weeks or months.

Evacuation centres are crucial

Evacuation and relief centres are often the first place disaster-affected people go, and should provide a minimum standard of living and care. But this standard is not always met.

The recent Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements highlighted issues that arose at some centres during the Black Summer fires of 2019-20. These included:

• overcrowding, which forced people to sleep on floors with little or no bedding, or in their cars

• power and/or communications outages

• insufficient storage for food and donated items

• inadequate bathroom and kitchen amenities

• inability to accommodate pets

• outbreaks of illness among evacuees

• centres not equipped for people with disabilities, mobility issues or chronic health concerns.

As one heavily pregnant women who gave evidence noted:

[…] my husband, three-year-old daughter, cat and dog had to evacuate for almost two weeks, and I gave birth to my son during our evacuation. This put strain on finances and the mental health of our three-year-old, who became traumatised during the fires.

Read more: Why do people try to drive through floodwater or leave it too late to flee? Psychology offers some answers

Creating multi-purpose spaces

The royal commission called for better evacuation planning. It said this should include:

• assessing the location and standard of evacuation centres

• assessing the suitability of evacuation centres to cater for diverse groups

• contingencies if evacuation centres are unable to cope

• community education on the function and limitations of evacuation centres.

We believe the measures must go further, and a network of multi-purpose buildings is needed across Australia. These should be accessible and designed to meet the needs of a community affected by disaster.

Read more: Not ‘if’, but ‘when’: city planners need to design for flooding. These examples show the way

The buildings may be existing, or specially constructed. They might be located at sports grounds, large parks or similar public facilities. When not needed for crisis accommodation, these spaces can also be used for sport, functions and other purposes – as is often the case now.

However, their potential use as an evacuation centre should be integral to their design, rather than an afterthought.

Essential features should include:

• enough space to accommodate thousands of people

• spaces catering for people with particular needs, such as children

• cooking facilities

• beds and bedding

• toilets and showers

• storage facilities

• backup power.

These centres should also ensure people can access additional help such as advice on government assistance, recovery schemes, long-term housing options and health support.

Just as importantly, we must identify which agency or agencies will manage the evacuation centre, and define the role the community can play in volunteering time, food, clothing and support to others.

Read more: ‘They lost our receipts three times’: how getting an insurance payout can be a full-time job

Not just an overnight fix

Between July 2019 and February 2020, bushfires in Australia destroyed more than 3,100 homes and displaced 65,000 people.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) says the displacement affected not just housing conditions, but people’s livelihoods, education, security and health. It called for better planning for the next bushfire season, to help minimise the negative impacts.

Many people left homeless by natural disasters remain so for months, or even years, after the event.

For example, a Senate inquiry into lessons from the Black Summer fires this month heard some residents on the NSW South Coast were displaced more than a year after the disaster – partly due to bureaucratic hurdles to accessing disaster relief funding. Some were still living in tents and caravans, and did not have access to running water.

With this in mind, multi-purpose community spaces should be flexible enough to accommodate people for longer periods – allowing them to recover physically, socially and financially.

Under climate change, bushfires and floods will only get more frequent and intense. We must start planning and building better evacuation centres now – let’s not wait for the next disaster.

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

– ref. Thousands of flood-stricken people are sheltering in schools, clubs and halls – but we can do better – https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-flood-stricken-people-are-sheltering-in-schools-clubs-and-halls-but-we-can-do-better-157584

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annika Seppälä, Senior Lecturer in Geophysics, University of Otago

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

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

When the Sun ejects solar particles into space, how does this affect the Earth and climate? Are clouds affected by these particles?

When we consider the Sun’s influence on Earth and our climate, we tend to think about solar radiation. We are acutely aware of the skin-burning dangers of ultraviolet, or UV, radiation.

But the Sun is an active star. It also continuously releases what is known as “solar wind”, made up of charged particles, largely protons and electrons, that travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometres per hour.

Some of these particles that reach Earth are guided into the polar atmosphere by our magnetic field. As a result, we can see the southern lights, aurora australis, in the southern hemisphere, and the northern equivalent, aurora borealis.

This visible manifestation of solar particles entering Earth’s atmosphere is a constant reminder there is more to the Sun than sunlight. But the particles have other effects as well.

Read more: Why is the sun’s atmosphere so hot? Spacecraft starts to unravel our star’s mysteries

Solar particles and ozone

When solar particles enter the atmosphere, their high energies ionise neutral atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen molecules, which make up 99% of the atmosphere. This “energetic particle precipitation”, named because it’s like a rain of particles from space, is a major source of ionisation in the polar atmosphere above 30km altitude — and it sets off a chain of reactions that produces chemicals that facilitate the destruction of ozone.

The impact of solar particles on atmospheric ozone was first observed in 1969. Since the early 2000s, thanks to new kinds of satellite observations, we have seen growing evidence that solar particles play an important part in influencing polar ozone. During particularly active times, when the Sun releases large amounts of particles into space, up to 60% of ozone at altitudes above 50km can be depleted. The effect can last for weeks.

Lower down in the atmosphere, below 50km, solar particles are important contributors to the year-to-year variability in polar ozone levels, often through indirect pathways. Here, solar particles again contribute to ozone loss, but a recent discovery showed they also help curb some of the depletion in the Antarctic ozone hole.

How ozone affects the climate

Most of the ozone in the atmosphere resides in a thin layer at altitudes of 20-25km — the “ozone layer”.

But ozone is everywhere in the atmosphere, from the Earth’s surface to altitudes above 100km. It is a greenhouse gas and plays a key role in heating and cooling the atmosphere, which makes it critical for climate.

In the southern hemisphere, changes in polar ozone are known to influence regional climate conditions.

Its depletion above Antarctica had a cooling effect, which in turn pulled the westerly wind jet that circles the continent closer. As the Antarctic hole recovers, this wind belt can meander further north and affect rainfall patterns, sea-surface temperatures and ocean currents. The Southern Annular Mode describes this north-south movement of the wind belt that circles the southern polar region.

Ozone is important for future climate predictions, not only in the thin ozone layer, but throughout the atmosphere. It is crucial we understand the factors that influence ozone variability, be it man-made or natural like the Sun.

The Sun’s direct influence

The link between solar particles and ozone is reasonably well established, but what about any direct effects solar particles may have on the climate?

We have observational evidence that solar activity influences regional climate variability at both poles. Climate models also suggest such polar effects link to larger climate patterns (such as the Northern and Southern Annular Modes) and influence conditions in mid-latitudes.

The details are not yet well understood, but for the first time the influence of solar particles on the climate system will be included in climate simulations used for the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment.

Read more: Solar weather has real, material effects on Earth

Through solar radiation and particles, the Sun provides a key energy input to our climate system. While these do vary with the Sun’s 11-year cycle of magnetic activity, they can not explain the recent rapid increase in global temperatures due to climate change.

We know rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are pushing up Earth’s surface temperature (the physics have been known since the 1800s). We also know human activities have greatly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Together these two factors explain the observed rise in global temperatures.

What about clouds?

Clouds are much lower in the atmosphere than where most solar particles penetrate. Particles know as galactic cosmic rays (coming from the centre of our galaxy rather than the Sun) may be linked to cloud formation.

It has been suggested cosmic rays could influence the formation of condensation nuclei, which act as “seeds” for clouds. But recent research at the CERN nuclear research facility suggests the effects are insignificant.

This doesn’t rule out some other mechanisms for cosmic rays to affect cloud formation, but thus far there is little supporting evidence.

– ref. Climate explained: how particles ejected from the Sun affect Earth’s climate – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-how-particles-ejected-from-the-sun-affect-earths-climate-155445

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Maund, Research Affiliate, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle

Some 18,000 people have been evacuated in New South Wales as torrential rain continues to hammer the state. Almost three-quarters of NSW is subject to a severe weather alert.

Right now, thousands of people are sheltering in schools, bowling clubs, community centres and other makeshift evacuation centres.

As always, the State Emergency Service (SES) is doing great work to ensure the safety of the community. Evacuation centre staff and volunteers are doing their utmost to ensure the well-being of the evacuees.

But the floods have revealed, yet again, Australia must better accommodate people displaced by natural disasters. As climate change worsens and extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, we need adaptable, safe, secure and multi-purpose spaces to house those in need – possibly for weeks or months.

Evacuation centres are crucial

Evacuation and relief centres are often the first place disaster-affected people go, and should provide a minimum standard of living and care. But this standard is not always met.

The recent Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements highlighted issues that arose at some centres during the Black Summer fires of 2019-20. These included:

• overcrowding, which forced people to sleep on floors with little or no bedding, or in their cars

• power and/or communications outages

• insufficient storage for food and donated items

• inadequate bathroom and kitchen amenities

• inability to accommodate pets

• outbreaks of illness among evacuees

• centres not equipped for people with disabilities, mobility issues or chronic health concerns.

As one heavily pregnant women who gave evidence noted:

[…] my husband, three-year-old daughter, cat and dog had to evacuate for almost two weeks, and I gave birth to my son during our evacuation. This put strain on finances and the mental health of our three-year-old, who became traumatised during the fires.

Read more: Why do people try to drive through floodwater or leave it too late to flee? Psychology offers some answers

Creating multi-purpose spaces

The royal commission called for better evacuation planning. It said this should include:

• assessing the location and standard of evacuation centres

• assessing the suitability of evacuation centres to cater for diverse groups

• contingencies if evacuation centres are unable to cope

• community education on the function and limitations of evacuation centres.

We believe the measures must go further, and a network of multi-purpose buildings is needed across Australia. These should be accessible and designed to meet the needs of a community affected by disaster.

The buildings may be existing, or specially constructed. They might be located at sports grounds, large parks or similar public facilities. When not needed for crisis accommodation, these spaces can also be used for sport, functions and other purposes – as is often the case now.

However, their potential use as an evacuation centre should be integral to their design, rather than an afterthought.

Essential features should include:

• enough space to accommodate thousands of people

• spaces catering for people with particular needs, such as children

• cooking facilities

• beds and bedding

• toilets and showers

• storage facilities

• backup power.

These centres should also ensure people can access additional help such as advice on government assistance, recovery schemes, long-term housing options and health support.

Just as importantly, we must identify which agency or agencies will manage the evacuation centre, and define the role the community can play in volunteering time, food, clothing and support to others.

Read more: ‘They lost our receipts three times’: how getting an insurance payout can be a full-time job

Not just an overnight fix

Between July 2019 and February 2020, bushfires in Australia destroyed more than 3,100 homes and displaced 65,000 people.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) says the displacement affected not just housing conditions, but people’s livelihoods, education, security and health. It called for better planning for the next bushfire season, to help minimise the negative impacts.

Many people left homeless by natural disasters remain so for months, or even years, after the event.

For example, a Senate inquiry into lessons from the Black Summer fires this month heard some residents on the NSW South Coast were displaced more than a year after the disaster – partly due to bureaucratic hurdles to accessing disaster relief funding. Some were still living in tents and caravans, and did not have access to running water.

With this in mind, multi-purpose community spaces should be flexible enough to accommodate people for longer periods – allowing them to recover physically, socially and financially.

Under climate change, bushfires and floods will only get more frequent and intense. We must start planning and building better evacuation centres now – let’s not wait for the next disaster.

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

Read more: Not ‘if’, but ‘when’: city planners need to design for flooding. These examples show the way

– ref. Thousands of flood-affected people are sheltering in schools, clubs and halls – but we can do better – https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-flood-affected-people-are-sheltering-in-schools-clubs-and-halls-but-we-can-do-better-157584

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

Have you ever wondered why your super fund rarely sends you mail?

It could be because it is one of the 36 funds that perform badly, or one of the six funds that perform extraordinarily badly. As of mid last year those six funds managed the retirement savings of 900,000 Australians.

Not that you would know it from their communications. The wonder of a system that pours a fresh 9.5% of your salary into super each year is that your fund is able to show an upward graph of the amount you’ve got saved even if it is managing those savings badly. You might think it was performing well.

Or your fund might have a more straightforward reason for avoiding mail.

The head of Australia’s biggest super fund, Australian Super with 2.4 million members, spelled it out in an appearance before the banking royal commission.

He said “a direct mail-out – a one-off direct mail-out to Australian Super’s members — costs $2.3 million”.

A million here, two million there…

Chief executive Ian Silk was trying to put into context the $2 million Australian Super threw at the startup news site New Daily throughout 2012 and 2013. He said the $2 million (long gone) wasn’t an investment in the financial sense of the term, but an investment in communications, “a tool to enhance the fund’s engagement with members”.

It’s an investment that will be illegal from July under the government’s proposed Your Future, Your Super law, along with those rather odd TV advertisements implying improbably that unless the government lifts compulsory super contributions, people might lose their houses.

It will be illegal for funds to spend money on these things even if they route the payments through a third party such as the super-fund-owned Industry Super Australia, as they now are.

Read more: That extra you’re about to get in super, most of it will come from you, but don’t expect the ads to tell you that

The new laws, which flow from the royal commission and a Productivity Commission inquiry, will require every cent of super fund spending (without “any materiality threshold”) to be directed to the best financial interests of members.

What’s different is the addition of the word “financial”. Previously funds were only required to act in the “best interests” of the members.

Until now (and this is an example used in the explanatory memorandum) it might have been OK for a fund to spend member contributions on “well-being and counselling services, due to its preference for providing beneficiaries with a holistic retirement experience”.

Services, seats at the Australian Open

It won’t be legal after July. Spending will have to be in the best “financial” interests of members.

And the onus of proof will be reversed. If challenged, funds will have to demonstrate that their decisions were indeed in the best financial interests of their members, rather than regulators demonstrating that they were not.

Which it should be. It’s our (mainly conscripted) money that they are spending. If they can’t make out a case for the way they are spending it, they might be acting as if it’s their own.

Shockingly, when in 2017 the Productivity Commission inquiry into super asked all 208 funds regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority for information about their spending and net returns and fees by asset class, 94 didn’t respond.

A cavalier approach to finances

Of the 114 funds that did respond, 26 left blank all of the bits of the form that asked about assets, net returns and investment management costs.

When the commission tried again the following year, 13 of the 136 funds that responded provided no information about expenses at all. It was as if they either didn’t know about their expenses, or felt it was their business and no one else’s.

Time and time again the commission heard about bank-operated funds buying products from other parts of the bank at high prices.

The banking royal commission heard of hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by just one (industry) fund on corporate hospitality at the Australian Open.

It heard of directors of a retail fund who decided against putting their members into lower-priced products when they became available, overruling a lone director who protested, using capital letters

in what circumstances would it NOT be in a client’s best interest to transfer to the new pricing if it was lower than their existing pricing?

Spending on advertising would still be permitted under the draft legislation, but only where it was in the best financial interests of members. If it was aimed at grabbing members from other funds it probably would pass the test, because when funds get bigger the administrative and investment costs per member can shrink.

But the guidance note makes it clear that the costs per member would need to actually shrink, along with the charges to members, or there would need to be a documented case prepared as to why they should have shrunk.

Read more: Yes, women retire with less than men, but boosting compulsory super won’t help

Vanity advertising, or advertising for a group of funds, or advertising aimed at influencing public opinion won’t cut it.

And nor will indifferent performance. The law will require the Prudential Regulation Authority to annually test the performance of funds against objective, consistently-applied benchmarks, different benchmarks for different stated investment strategies.

Early MySuper test results

Funds that fail the test will be required to notify their members in writing. Funds that fail two years in a row will be closed to new members.

Most of us probably have no idea that we spend more on super investment and administration fees each year than we do on gas and electricity combined.

And when the performance is lousy (the difference between a good and bad fund can be $660,000 in retirement) we often don’t find out until it’s too late.

Our funds are about to have to work for us first, and no-one else.

– ref. Super funds have been working for themselves when they should have been working for us. That’s about to change – https://theconversation.com/super-funds-have-been-working-for-themselves-when-they-should-have-been-working-for-us-thats-about-to-change-157580

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Hendy, Lecturer in Criminology, Monash University

Examples of the police using force in the line of duty are not uncommon, but allegations of excessive force used by staff at Auckland Women’s Prison have raised serious questions about what happens away from the public eye.

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has now ordered an urgent overhaul and review of women’s prisons. This follows criticism by a district court judge of the Department of Corrections for its failure to properly respond to accusations of “degrading” and “inhumane” treatment of inmates at the prison.

At the same time, a reported increase in assaults on corrections officers has highlighted what a difficult ethical and practical area this is for staff.

Generally, the use of force by police and other law enforcement agencies in democratic societies is governed by the principles of reasonableness, proportionality and necessity.

The Crimes Act sets out how anyone — not just those entrusted with specialist law enforcement powers — may use force in certain circumstances: self-defence, the defence of another, or to prevent suicide or immediate and serious injury.

But determining whether the use of force was necessary, reasonable and proportionate is often open to interpretation. What happens in the heat of the moment may look quite different in the cold light of another day.

Permission to use force

Police and anyone using force are governed by section 62 of the Crimes Act, which stipulates any force used should not be excessive. If and when it is found to be excessive, the person responsible is criminally liable.

Prison staff are also governed by the Corrections Act. It gives them the power to use force in self-defence, defence of a prisoner or other person, provided the use of physical force is reasonable and necessary.

Unlike the police, however, corrections staff require permission whenever practical before force is used.

In the case of Auckland Women’s Prison, the Corrections Department’s independent inspectorate found no evidence of deliberate cruelty by staff but said they lacked proper oversight and guidance.

Read more: Despite claims NZ’s policing is too ‘woke’, crime rates are largely static — and even declining

This underlines the importance of risk identification and management in a custodial situation. Custody officers have a duty of care to the people in their protection, but also a clear interest in their own safety.

Equally, supervisors need to balance the rights of those in custody with the safety of their workforce. The reported increase in assaults on corrections officers will undoubtedly affect their sense of personal safety and inform their risk assessment when considering the need to use force.

The review of women’s prisons will need to address the real challenges of determining the reasonableness, proportionality and necessity of actions, both at the time of the event and afterwards.

Risk in the real world

In reality, assessing risk is never easy. When training to be a frontline police constable, for example, I didn’t anticipate the need to use force on someone affected by mental illness. Police training at the time was focused on the apprehension of criminal suspects rather than those in crisis.

In fact, police report force being used once in every 91 suicide attempts attended in 2019 — making up 6% of all incidents where force was used.

Two incidents in particular influenced how I assessed risk and responded.

The first involved a 13-year-old female who had been sending text messages threatening to self-harm. I detained her at her school but she became less compliant when she realised we were heading to the police station. She kicked out the rear passenger window to escape.

The second involved a middle-aged male who had sliced both arms in a suicide attempt. It took three of us to restrain him, all the while trying to avoid the blood and blood-drenched towels, before he could be sedated and given first aid.

Unlike many dramatised depictions of police use of force, real incidents tend to be messy. Without context they can appear uncoordinated, excessive or repressive. Actions taken in response to something might seem more reasonable at first glance than those taken to prevent it.

Read more: Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society

Getting the balance right

Research has shown people’s attitudes tend to be shaped by their own levels of trust and confidence in police. Those who hold generally positive views will view police actions as appropriate; those who hold negative views see them as inappropriate.

How people view the actions of prison staff will probably depend on similar perceptions.

While the Auckland Women’s Prison inquiry has drawn attention to the potential for misuse of force, we should be mindful of missing the many nuances that render easy assessment superficial — including that the people who work in these places are not allowed to comment publicly.

The review ordered by the minister will have to address the need to strike the right balance between the safety of those in custody and the safety of those responsible for them. The decisions upon which that balance hinges are not as easy as they might appear.

– ref. Overhaul of NZ women’s prison system highlights the risk and doubt surrounding use of force on inmates – https://theconversation.com/overhaul-of-nz-womens-prison-system-highlights-the-risk-and-doubt-surrounding-use-of-force-on-inmates-156848

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Vagg, Conjoint Clinical Associate Professor, Deakin University School of Medicine and Specialist Pain Medicine Physician, Deakin University

As a pain specialist, I often have patients asking me whether they should try medicinal cannabis. There’s a common perception it can be an effective way to manage chronic pain.

But two expert groups have recently recommended against medicinal cannabis for people suffering persistent non-cancer pain.

The International Association for the Study of Pain published a position statement last week after its presidential taskforce summarised the evidence on the topic.

And yesterday the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists published guidance for health practitioners in the form of a Choosing Wisely recommendation. (Choosing Wisely is an initiative of NPS Medicinewise which aims to highlight low-value health care.)

Many in the community would see this recommendation as controversial. So let’s take a look at some of the commonly held misconceptions about medicinal cannabis and chronic pain.

Myth #1: evidence shows cannabis products are effective for chronic pain

Evidence from randomised controlled trials is critically lacking when it comes to medicinal cannabis products for chronic pain.

While some studies have looked at tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis) or a combination of THC and cannabidiol (CBD), there isn’t a single published randomised controlled trial of a CBD-only product for chronic pain of any type. Australian medicinal cannabis products are often CBD-only.

This means we can’t even judge whether the claims that medicinal cannabis can alleviate pain might be true. The results of THC-containing products in clinical trials don’t give a reliable picture one way or the other because they involve too few participants, have major technical flaws in design, or have been judged to have an unacceptably high risk of producing biased results.

The International Association for the Study of Pain taskforce looked at all the available research published in peer-reviewed journals on the use of medicinal cannabis for pain management, from preclinical studies to human trials.

They concluded overall the studies’ “quality, rigour, and transparency of reporting” of benefits and harms needs to be improved across the board. We would require higher quality data, for example through randomised controlled trials, to determine the safety and efficacy of using medicinal cannabis for pain.

In the polite and understated world of academic medicine, this is about as big a smackdown as it gets. The authors are essentially saying most of the studies are too poorly done, using unsuitable methods, to give any answer to the most basic question of whether medicinal cannabis helps with pain.

Read more: Medicinal cannabis users in Victoria could soon be allowed to drive with THC in their system. Is it safe?

Myth #2: cannabis products should be provided as a ‘last resort’

A doctor has the right to prescribe any drug they think may be effective for an individual patient based on nothing more than their clinical judgement. We do this relatively frequently, especially for chronic pain.

This is ethical if we have a scientific reason to believe the drug may be helpful. But for patients with chronic pain, we have little reason to believe medicinal cannabis offers any sustained benefit.

A further challenge to the ethical provision of cannabis products as a “last resort” is the fact they’re among the most expensive pharmaceutical products available to chronic pain patients, many of whom have very modest incomes. The only party likely to benefit is the manufacturer.

Myth #3: medical cannabis may help with the opioid crisis

There’s a consensus that much of the current use of opioid analgesics to manage chronic non-cancer pain in Australia may be of limited value.

Proponents of medicinal cannabis have suggested it may hold promise as a potential solution to this problem. While this idea has some appeal, the balance of the evidence points the other way.

Read more: 1 in 10 women with endometriosis report using cannabis to ease their pain

Data collected from Australia and New Zealand shows participation in best-practice multidisciplinary pain care, as provided by a specialist pain clinic, results in half of pain patients being able to reduce their opioids by at least 50%, with improved quality of life.

People wanting an alternative to opioid treatment for persistent pain will do best if they seek out treatment from a professional team of experts, rather than substituting cannabis for opioids.

It could be harmful

The International Association for the Study of Pain taskforce identified general known risks from using cannabis, such as in recreational settings. But no studies have characterised the way the body handles prescribed or over-the-counter medicinal cannabis products.

The TGA guidance document on medicinal cannabis notes basic research on how the drugs interact with both the body and other medications — known as pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies — is not available. Without this information, we can’t answer important questions about the safety of medicinal cannabis.

Medicinal cannabis products may have a role in the management of other conditions, such as relieving chemotherapy-induced nausea, or treating childhood epilepsy. The evidence around those conditions seems to be more convincing than the studies for persistent pain, though I’m not an expert in either field.

Despite the lack of evidence to support the use of medicinal cannabis for chronic pain, the legislation around medicinal cannabis in Australia continues to become more permissive.

It will be legal to sell low-dose CBD products over the counter from June this year, if they meet the very minimal requirements to be listed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

Meanwhile, Tasmania is set to become the last Australian state to allow GPs to prescribe medicinal cannabis from July.

Read more: Weed withdrawal: More than half of people using medical cannabis for pain experience withdrawal symptoms

The Faculty of Pain Medicine has a track record of advocacy for pain patients. We led the process that resulted in the first ever National Pain Strategy a decade ago, and were a founding partner of Painaustralia as an ongoing policy voice.

If medicinal cannabis was truly as potentially valuable as often claimed, we would be the loudest voice in favour of wider access. The weight of evidence points us away from this conclusion.

– ref. Medicinal cannabis to manage chronic pain? We don’t have evidence it works – https://theconversation.com/medicinal-cannabis-to-manage-chronic-pain-we-dont-have-evidence-it-works-157324

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cate Macinnis-Ng, Associate Professor, University of Auckland

Islands are biodiversity hotspots. They are home to 20% of the world’s plants and animals yet cover only 5% of the global landmass. But island ecosystems are highly vulnerable, threatened by habitat fragmentation and introduced invasive weeds and predators.

Climate change adds to all these stresses. In our recent paper, we use Aotearoa New Zealand as a case study to show how climate change accelerates biodiversity decline on islands by exacerbating existing conservation threats.

Aotearoa is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, with 80% of vascular plants, 81% of arthropods and 60% of land vertebrate animals found nowhere else.

Its evolutionary history is dominated by birds. Before the arrival of people, the only native land mammals were bats. But now, introduced predators threaten the survival of many species.

Complex interplay between many threats

Conservation efforts have rightly concentrated on the eradication of introduced predators, with world-leading success in the eradication of rats in particular.

Potential climate change impacts have been mostly ignored. Successive assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlight the lack of information for Aotearoa. This could be due to insufficient research, system complexity or a lack of impacts.

In the past, some researchers even dismissed climate change as an issue for biodiversity in Aotearoa. Our maritime climate is comparatively mild and already variable. As a result, organisms are expected to be well adapted to changing conditions.

Read more: Despite its green image, NZ has world’s highest proportion of species at risk

Palaeo-ecological records suggest few species extinctions despite abrupt environmental change during the Quaternary period (from 2.5 million years ago to present). But past climate change provides an incomplete picture of contemporary change because it did not include human-induced threats.

Habitat loss and fragmentation, land‐use change and complex interactions between native species and introduced predators or invasive weeds all contribute to these threats.

How climate change affects biodiversity

Species respond to climate change by evolving physiological adjustments, moving to new habitats or, in the worst cases, becoming extinct. These responses then change ecosystem processes, including species interactions and ecosystem functions (such as carbon uptake and storage).

Methods for identifying climate change impacts are either empirical and observational (field studies and manipulative experiments) or mechanistic (ecophysiological models). Mechanistic approaches allow predictions of impacts under future climate scenarios. But linking species and ecosystem change directly to climate can be challenging in a complex world where multiple stressors are at play.

There are several well-known examples of climate change impacts on species endemic to Aotearoa. First, warming of tuatara eggs changes the sex ratio of hatchlings. Hotter conditions produce more males, potentially threatening long-term survival of small, isolated populations.

Second, mast seeding (years of unusually high production of seed) is highly responsive to temperature and mast events are likely to increase under future climate change. During mast years, the seeds provide more food for invasive species like rats or mice, their populations explode in response to the abundant food and then, when the seed resource is used up, they turn to other food sources such as invertebrates and bird eggs. This has major impacts on native ecosystems.

How masting plants respond to climate change is complex and depends on the species. The full influence of climate is still emerging.

Indirect effects of climate change

We identified a range of known and potential complex impacts of climate change in several ecosystems. The alpine zone is particularly vulnerable. Warming experiments showed rising temperatures extend the overlap between the flowering seasons of native alpine plants and invasive plants. This potentially increases competition for pollinators and could result in lower seed production.

Some large alpine birds, including the alpine parrot kea, will have fewer cool places to take refuge from invasive predators. This will cause local extinctions in a process know as “thermal squeeze”.

Small alpine lakes, known as tarns, are not well understood but are also likely to suffer from thermal squeeze and increased drought periods. Warmer temperatures may also allow Australian brown tree frogs to invade further into these sensitive systems.

Climate change disproportionately affects Indigenous people worldwide. In Aotearoa, culturally significant species such as tītī (sooty shearwater) and harakeke (flax) will be influenced by climate change.

The breeding success of tītī, which are harvested traditionally, is strongly influenced by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. As ENSO intensifies under climate change, numbers of young surviving are decreasing. For harakeke, future climate projections predict changes in plant distribution, potentially making weaving materials unavailable to some hapū (subtribes).

Read more: Traditional knowledge helps Indigenous people adapt to climate crisis, research shows

Mātauranga, the Indigenous knowledge of Māori, provides insights on climate change that haven’t been captured in western science. For instance, the Māori calendar, maramataka, has been developed over centuries of observations.

Maramataka for each hāpu (subtribe) provide guidance for the timing of gathering mahinga kai (traditional food sources). This includes the gathering of fish and other seafood, planting of crops and harvesting food. Because this calendar is based on knowledge that has accrued over generations, some changes in timing and distributions due to environmental or climate change may be captured in these oral histories.

Climate change is here now

Future projections of climate change are complicated in Aotearoa — but it is clear the climate is already changing.

Last year was the seventh hottest on record for Aotearoa. Many parts of the country suffered severe summer drought. NASA captured images of browned landscapes across the country.

Much of the focus of climate change research has been in agricultural and other human landscapes but we need more effort to quantify the threat for our endemic systems.

On islands across the world, rising sea levels and more severe extreme weather events are threatening the survival of endemic species and ecosystems. We need to understand the complicated processes through which climate change interacts with other threats to ensure the success of conservation projects.

While we focused on terrestrial and freshwater systems, marine and near-shore ecosystems are also suffering because of ocean acidification, rising sea levels and marine heatwaves. These processes threaten marine productivity, fisheries and mahinga kai resources.

And for long-term conservation success, we need to consider both direct and indirect impacts of climate change on our unique species and ecosystems.

– ref. Many New Zealand species are already at risk because of predators and habitat loss. Climate change makes things worse – https://theconversation.com/many-new-zealand-species-are-already-at-risk-because-of-predators-and-habitat-loss-climate-change-makes-things-worse-156650

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

International students commonly share bedrooms so they can afford the rent. What is perhaps much more surprising is that our research suggests thousands are “hot-bedding” – their beds are available to them for only some hours of the day or night so others can use them the rest of the time. If our survey of more than 7,000 international students renting privately in Sydney and Melbourne is representative of the 758,154 international students in Australia in December 2019, this equates to about 22,750 students hot-bedding.

In our survey, 3% of all students answered yes to the question, “Do you have to hotbed (i.e. our bed is only available for a few hours of the day/night)?”. The survey also found about four in ten of these hot-bedding students were going without meals. And this was before nearly two-thirds of international students lost their jobs in the COVID-10 pandemic.

Read more: ‘No one would even know if I had died in my room’: coronavirus leaves international students in dire straits

Another extraordinary finding is that 14% of hot-bedders said their employer had threatened them with visa cancellation (compared to 2% of non-hot-bedders). One in five (20%, compared to 5% of non-hot-bedders) answered yes when asked: “Has the landlord/real estate agent/property manager ever taken away your passport?”

These findings suggest a sizeable proportion of hot-bedders are struggling financially and in a vulnerable situation. Many said their circumstances were having a negative impact on their studies.

Despite this, almost eight in ten agreed or strongly agreed that they “enjoy living and studying in Australia”.

Who are the hot-bedders?

In our survey, 45% of hot-bedders were female. Just under two-thirds (65%) were university students, rather than studying at vocational or English language colleges.

Hot-bedding was spread across all age groups and countries of origin. Thus 4% were aged 18, a quarter were 19 to 21, 42% were 22 to 25, 18% were 26 to 30 and 11% were over 30.

Just under a third came from low-income countries, half came from middle-income countries and 15% from high-income countries.

How do they feel about rent costs?

Hot-bedders were generally satisfied with their rent – 23% disagreed with the statement, “I think the rent I pay is fair.”

However, one in two (51%) strongly agreed or agreed they worried about paying rent each week (compared to 35% for non-hot-bedders) and only 21% (36% non-hot-bedders) disagreed.

Most students (58%) living less than 40 minutes away from their education provider paid more than $250 a week in rent.

About four in ten hot-bedders agreed they “go without necessities like food so I can pay for my accommodation” and had failed to make a rent payment because of a lack of funds. The rates for students who didn’t hot-bed were two in ten.

Read more: ‘God, I miss fruit!’ 40% of students at Australian universities may be going without food

Almost half (48%) of hot-bedders agreed concern about paying the rent was having a negative impact on their studies.

How do they view their accommodation?

Despite having to hot-bed, just under eight in ten (78%) of these students said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the home they are renting.

Just over seven in ten (72%) agreed with the statement, “The home I rent is suitable for my needs.” Only 7% disagreed.

Only one in ten hot-bedders agreed the person they rent from did not keep the property well-maintained.

Just over one in four (27%) hot-bedders felt their home was overcrowded compared to 12% of non-hot-bedders.

The cramped situation appeared to have a negative impact on their academic work. About one in three (35%) agreed or strongly agreed that “the condition of my accommodation has a negative impact on my studies”, compared to 13% of those who didn’t hot-bed.

Remarkably, just under one in four (23%) hot-bedding students answered “yes” when asked if the “balcony of the property is used as a bedroom”, compared to 5% of students who did not hot-bed. A similar percentage of hot-bedders (and 4% of non-hot-bedders) said the garage is used as a bedroom.

Read more: Informal and illegal housing on the rise as our cities fail to offer affordable places to live

How secure do they feel?

Most hot-bedders reported they had a good relationship with their landlord or real estate agent. Only 6% said it was “bad” or “not very good”.

Close to half (45%) of hot-bedders said the person they pay rent to lives in the same accommodation. It’s unclear whether this is the actual landlord, or a person who sub-lets the property.

Two in three hot-bedders sensed they “could stay in this rental property as long as they want to”. Despite the seemingly good relationship of most hot-bedders with their landlord, just under one in three agreed that if they “complain about the standards of the property and maintenance problems [they] might be asked to leave”.

Although maintenance did not seem to be a major issue, just under four in ten hot-bedders agreed they were concerned the rent might be increased if they did ask for repairs. And 38% were anxious they “might be told to leave [their] property and be given a short time to leave”.

When asked, “In the last year, have you ever felt that you could become homeless?”, 37% answered yes. This compares to 17% of non-hot-bedders.

Just under four in ten hot-bedders agreed or strongly agreed that “stress around the possibility of losing my accommodation is affecting my academic studies”.

Read more: Why coronavirus impacts are devastating for international students in private rental housing

What is their employment status?

Half of the students who hot-bed had paid work at the time of the survey and of those employed 48% reported that their landlord employed them, compared to 17% of the other students in paid work.

A large proportion felt they were poorly paid and their job was insecure. Less than half of the hot-bedders felt they were well-paid. Only one in four disagreed with the statement, “My current job is insecure.”

Just over eight in ten said losing their job would cause them financial difficulties.

Financial stress is widespread

The chart below shows eight measures of financial stress adapted from the Australia Bureau of Statistics. We added an item on affordability of textbooks.

On every measure students who hot-bed were two to three times more likely to have answered yes to the question, indicating financial stress. Perhaps the most alarming statistic is that 39% of hot-bedders went without meals. So did 20% of non-hot-bedders.

One in ten hot-bedders suffered from all eight indicators of financial stress. A worrying 34% of hot-bedders reported five or more indicators of financial stress. Only 9% of non-hot-bedders reported five stress indicators. Less than one in 100 endured all eight.

Read more: Tracking the rise of room sharing and overcrowding, and what it means for housing in Australia

– ref. As one student gets out of bed, another gets in: thousands are ‘hot-bedding’ in Australia – https://theconversation.com/as-one-student-gets-out-of-bed-another-gets-in-thousands-are-hot-bedding-in-australia-156589

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Ralston, Professorial fellow, Monash University

All sorts of claims are being made following the release of the Retirement Income Review, including that it paid insufficient attention to issues of gender.

Among other things we are being told that the gap between female and male super would narrow if compulsory contributions were lifted from 9.5% to 12%.

It wouldn’t, not at all. As the review of which I was a member states, “maintaining the superannuation guarantee at 9.5% would avoid the increases in inequities associated with the superannuation guarantee rate rising to 12%”.

Since men on average earn more than women, increasing the superannuation guarantee rate would widen — rather than narrow — the retirement income gap.

By design, superannuation is a contributory scheme. That means what you get in retirement depends largely on how long you have been in the workforce and how much you have been paid.

In that respect women are at a disadvantage, firstly due to the gender pay gap.

Women get less super because they get less pay

The review points out in November 2019 the gap in total average weekly earnings was 16.9% for women and men working full-time.

The Bureau of Statistics reported in December 2020 that the pay gap had fallen to 13.4%.

While there is still a way to go, it’s an improvement.

However, the second and greater disadvantage for women is that they are far more likely to take on caring roles that lead to career breaks and part-time employment.

Some 93% of all primary carer leave is taken by women. The result is a gender pay gap of closer to 30% when part-time and full-time work are taken together.

Several things could help

To understand the contribution of career breaks to super balances and retirement incomes, the review constructed and modelled five different scenarios for female workers based on observed patterns of career breaks and part-time work.

Not surprisingly the modelling found that when women take more time out of the workforce, the gender gap in superannuation balances increases. Breaks earlier in careers have a greater impact on balances than breaks taken later.

In recent decades the impact of career breaks has been declining as women take less time out of the workforce. Average female working life climbed from 24 years in 1980 to around 38 years in 2019.

There are a number of measures that could improve super outcomes for women.

The review found one would be to require the payment of superannuation on employer paid parental leave and government parental leave pay.

The super gap isn’t as wide as the pay gap

Another would be to require employers to make superannuation contributions to workers earning less than $450 per month.

The present exemption impacts directly on those who work part-time and who work for a number of different employers, 63% of whom are women.

Both options would improve the retirement incomes of women, but only marginally mitigate the gender gap inherent in the way superannuation is structured.

Read more: Retirement incomes review finds problems more super won’t solve

But here’s what else we found. A number of measures already in place do quite a bit to lessen the gap.

Among them are the Low-Income Superannuation Tax Offset and the government superannuation co-contribution.

Because women earn less than men, both benefit women far more than men.

Also, women benefit from the imposition of Division 293 tax which limits concessions for higher income earners, who are more likely to be men.

Half as worse off in retirement

And women also make higher voluntary super contributions as a proportion of incomes then men. This is particularly so for women over the age of 50, suggesting some make a concerted effort to catch up.

As a result, in 2017‑18 the median gap in superannuation balances between men and women aged 60‑64 was 22%, considerably less than the 30% gender gap in pay.

And the age pension means test means that once women move into retirement, they are more likely than men to get the age pension, and to get more of it.

Read more: Home ownership and super are far more entwined than you might think

When the age pension and superannuation income are combined, the retirement income gap for women who have worked full time with no career break falls to 8.4% For women with two career breaks and part-time work it falls to 14.5%.

We could do better, and the review spelled out steps to take. It found that boosting compulsory super contributions was not one of them.

An increase in the proportion of income sent to super would lift the retirement incomes of high earners more than the retirement incomes of low earners.

Until things change, increases in compulsory super will boost the retirement incomes of men more than women.

– ref. Yes, women retire with less than men, but boosting compulsory super won’t help – https://theconversation.com/yes-women-retire-with-less-than-men-but-boosting-compulsory-super-wont-help-157412

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Gleeson, Associate professor, La Trobe University

Papua New Guinea’s COVID-19 outbreak is a portent of the “catastrophic moral failure” the head of the World Health Organization warned of in January due to poor countries being pushed to the back of the vaccine queue.

Australia has gifted 8,000 doses to PNG, and vowed to help the nation of almost 9 million secure 1 million more. Earlier this month Australia agreed to work with the US, India and Japan to provide 1 billion vaccines to poorer countries in the Asia-Pacific. It is also supporting COVAX, the global program aiming to buy and distribute 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing nations by the end of 2021.

But all this could be negated through Australia’s potential spoiling role (with a handful of other countries) against a proposal supported by 118 countries to ramp up vaccine production by relaxing the trade rules governing intellectual property.

Inequities in access to COVID-19 vaccines

The inequities in access to vaccines are stark. By November, wealthy nations accounting for just 14% of the global population had locked in premarket agreements to buy 51% of the first 7.48 billion doses of candidate COVID-19 vaccines.

That number should be enough to vaccinate almost half the global population – 3.76 billion of 7.8 billion people. But Canada, Australia, Britain, Japan, the European Union and the US have all bought up more than their fair share. Canada has reserved about 4.5 courses per person; Australia and the UK close to 2.5.

This means most middle-income countries won’t achieve widespread vaccination coverage until late 2022, according to The Economist’s Intelligence Unit. For poorer economies, including some of Australia’s closest neighbours, it won’t be “before 2023, if at all”.

Suspending intellectual property rules

Addressing vaccine inequities, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, requires pulling “out all the stops”.

One of those stops is the international agreement protecting intellectual property rights – the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, commonly called the TRIPS agreement. All members of the World Trade Organization are bound by the agreement.

In October 2020, South Africa and India proposed waiving certain provisions of TRIPS that give the owners of the intellectual property exclusive rights over the manufacture and sale of COVID vaccines. The waiver would only apply to COVID-19 medical products and only for the duration of the pandemic. This would allow others to make COVID-19 vaccines without the vaccine developers’ permission.

The TRIPS waiver is supported by 118 of the WTO’s 164 members – more than two-thirds of its membership.

The counter-proposal supported by Australia

Australia, however, has joined with Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Norway and Turkey in supporting a counter-proposal that argues provisions already in the TRIPS agreement are good enough.

TRIPS does allow for compulsory licensing, enabling the use of a patent without the consent of the owner, in a public health emergency. But the compulsory licensing process is time-consuming and only applies to patents, not the other types of intellectual property important for making vaccines.

The counter-proposal put its faith in encouraging more talk between vaccine developers and manufacturers, enabling them to make voluntary licensing agreements and identify ways to increase production.

But there’s little reason to think this would achieve more than what is already happening. For example, AstraZeneca has licensed the Serum Institute of India to make its vaccine both for India and other countries.

Read more: Yes, export bans on vaccines are a problem, but why is the supply of vaccines so limited in the first place?

Voluntary licences are problematic because they are ad hoc and confidential. The lack of transparency has seen pricing discrepancies such as Bangladesh and South Africa reportedly paying more for their AstraZeneca doses than European nations.

Voluntary licences can also place tight restrictions on where the resulting products can be sold. For example, when US pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences negotiated licences with makers in India, Pakistan and Egypt to produce a cheaper version of Remdesivir (a candidate for COVID-19 treatment in the early stages of the pandemic) the licence conditions excluded many middle-income countries from buying the cheaper version.

Australia’s support for this counter-proposal is therefore a distraction at best. It can’t bring about the fundamental change the TRIPS waiver could generate. Nor is it likely to lead to the world being vaccinated sooner.

– ref. More talk, no action: Australia’s approach to trade rules restraining vaccine production – https://theconversation.com/more-talk-no-action-australias-approach-to-trade-rules-restraining-vaccine-production-156971

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elisabeth Findlay, Director of Queensland College of Art, Griffith University

Barely a year goes by on the Australian art calendar without the announcement of a major Impressionist exhibition. The latest is the National Gallery of Victoria’s “international exclusive show”, French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The NGV’s is the next instalment in a series of recent Impressionist exhibitions, including Monet: Impression Sunrise (National Gallery of Australia, 2019) and Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2018).

The global popularity of Impressionism can be traced back to 1886 when the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel mounted an exhibition of 300 Impressionist works in New York. Attracting widespread acclaim, it was a turning point in public awareness of the art movement.

The NGV announcement includes phrases such as “artistic energy and intellectual dynamism”, “radical practitioners” and a “breathtaking display”. But such cliche and hyperbole belies the more interesting realities of a divided group of artists striving to capture the complexities of the emerging modern world around them.

A romanticised story

At the heart of the popularity of Impressionism is a romanticised story of a group of young artists battling against the conservatism of the dominant French Salon. They are repeatedly presented as a passionate collective who embraced plein air painting, capturing nature with unprecedented freshness.

Impressionist exhibitions almost invariably perpetuate the notion of the male artist as a genius. An aura surrounds artists such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. They are repeatedly viewed as heroic radicals who shunned the establishment, rallying together to champion a new form of art.

For decades, Monet in particular, has been singled out for praise. From his pioneering work at La Grenouillère to his final days at Giverny, Monet is applauded for abandoning the studio and immersing himself in the landscape. His paintings have become the paragon of the Impressionists’ ability to authentically capture the world around them.

This romanticised story of visionary artists working in nature is echoed in the stories of Impressionism beyond France. By the late 19th century local variants of Impressionism had spread to places such as America and Australia. She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism will also be held at the NGV this year, presenting the work of leading exponents of Australian Impressionism. Into the 20th century, Impressionist techniques continued to be embraced in countries beyond France, including Japan and China.

Read more: Art Gallery SA goes back to Impressionism’s colourful roots with masterpieces from Musee d’Orsay

Impressionist paintings readily lend themselves to merchandising, with their work reproduced on a vast array of mementos, including postcards, posters, mugs, magnets, scarves, jigsaw puzzles and even umbrellas. For galleries, the large crowds and their willingness to spend on such items are a winning blockbuster formula. Critics such as Meta Knol have lamented our addiction to the blockbuster but such a successful model is difficult to abandon.

Division

However, the version of Impressionism that accompanies most blockbusters is highly sanitised. In truth, the artists were not the united group of popular imagination.

Degas was a particularly divisive figure. He was strident in his view that no-one in the group should exhibit with the conservative Salon, which had rejected and ridiculed them. This was an abiding source of tension.

In 1879 Renoir exhibited Madame Charpentier with her Children at the Salon, which enraged Degas. A further feud broke out when Monet followed Renoir’s example and submitted Seine at Lavacourt to the Salon. While usually portrayed as radicals, clearly Renoir and Monet were happy to court official recognition.

Pissaro and Degas argued that Monet should be thrown out of the group and consequently Monet, Renoir and Sisley did not exhibit in the fifth exhibition in 1880. As the bickering escalated, Durand-Ruel increasingly resorted to solo shows. By the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886 there was considerable acrimony within the group with Monet also rejecting Seurat’s Neo-Impressionism and his scientific application of optical principles.

The familiar blockbuster tropes also mask the reality that many Impressionists painted disturbing observations of human relationships and social division. Art historian T. J. Clarke in The Painting of Modern Life demonstrates that urbanisation and political instability in late 19th century France provides a much richer context to appreciate Impressionism than stories of individual geniuses capturing a fleeting moment.

For the Impressionists, places of leisure were ideal for observing human interaction. Degas, in particular, did not shy away from presenting the undercurrents of urban life. In Women on a Café Terrace in the Evening (1877), for instance, he depicts a group of prostitutes. The woman in the middle is biting her thumb. Often interpreted as a simple sign of her boredom, art historian Hollis Clayson suggests this gesture references particular sexual activities.

In Dance at Bougival, one of the major paintings in the forthcoming NGV French Impressionism exhibition, Renoir depicts a couple dancing in the new open-air cafes.

On one level this is a simple scene of frivolity but a closer look reveals something more menacing at play. The woman is looking away from the boatman with her eyes cast down, while he leans into her with his face obscured by his straw hat. Their flushed cheeks and the way he pulls her towards him invites an uneasy contemplation of their relationship.

The discarded bouquet and the burnt matches add to the sense that something is awry. Renoir would have been very familiar with the use of such items as symbols of fallen virtue.

Tension

Even in a portrait as endearing as Mary Cassatt’s Ellen Mary in a White Coat — also among the paintings coming to Melbourne — there is a tension. Feminist art historians such as Griselda Pollock have argued there are radical undercurrents to such domestic images.

Read more: The National Gallery is erasing women from the history of art

As a single woman, Cassatt did not have the opportunity to paint a scene such as Renoir’s Dance at Bougival. Her gender and class denied her access to the open-air cafes.

Cassatt’s images of domesticity therefore reflect her confinement. The recurring imagery of little girls also reveals her concern for the next generation of women. The serious faced Ellen, who is swamped by her bonnet and coat, holds firmly to the chair as she looks to a point in the distance in this psychologically complex portrait.

Impressionist exhibitions will continue to delight large audiences. However, it is unfortunate that the anodyne story of the movement dominates.

– ref. We can’t seem to get enough of the Impressionists but can we move on from the sanitised version? – https://theconversation.com/we-cant-seem-to-get-enough-of-the-impressionists-but-can-we-move-on-from-the-sanitised-version-156747

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

The government has immediately sacked a staffer after Network Ten reported on Monday that a Coalition whistleblower had provided photographs and videos recorded inside parliament house “of men engaged in blatant sex acts”.

The Coalition staffers filmed themselves and shared the videos, the report said.
Ten aired (distorted) images. It said one showed a man pointing to the desk of a female Liberal MP and then performing a “solo sex act on it”.

“One of the government staffers featured in the videos we have seen says publicly that he works closely with the prime minister’s office and the leader of the house’s office,” the report said. The leader of the house is Christian Porter.

The whistleblower, “Tom,” (not his real name) claimed staffers had procured “rent boys” to come to parliament house for Coalition MPs.

He also said “a lot” of sex occurred in parliament house’s meditation room.

Morrison said in a statement on Monday night the reports aired by Ten “are disgusting and sickening”.

“It’s not good enough, and is totally unacceptable,” he said.

“The actions of these individuals show a staggering disrespect for the people who work in parliament, and for the ideals the parliament is supposed to represent.

“My government has identified the staff member at the centre of these allegations and has terminated his employment immediately.” This is the man who committed the sex act on the MP’s desk.

Morrison said: “I urge anybody with further information to come forward”.

He said he’d have “more to say on this and the cultural issues we confront as a parliament in coming days”.

This is the second federal government staffer in under a week who has been sacked for gross sexist behaviour. Last week Andrew Hudgson, media adviser to the Assistant Treasurer, Michael Sukkar, was dismissed immediately after Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor told the state parliament he had called her a “meth-head c***” in 2019 when he worked for the then Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, is currently conducting an inquiry into the parliament house workplace.

Meanwhile a parliamentary security guard on Monday night challenged Morrison’s claim a security breach was committed when Brittany Higgins and the colleague she alleged raped her entered minister Linda Reynolds office in the early hours in March 2019.

Morrison has said the man, who was dismissed within days, had been sacked “because of a security breach. That was the reason for it. As I understand it, it related to the entry into those [office] premises.”

But Nikola Anderson, the security guard who opened the door of the office for the pair, said on the ABC’s 4 Corners, “What was the security breach? Because the night that we were on shift, there was no security breach. Because these two people worked for minister Reynolds, they were allowed access in there, which is why we granted it.”

She was at the security check-in point where they entered the building, before she took them to Reynolds office. Both had active passes although they were not carrying them, so they were given temporary ones (the normal practice in parliament house when a passholder does not have their pass with them).

Asked why Morrison would have said this was a security breach and that was why the man was sacked, Anderson said, “Because he’s been given false information”. She said she was one of the only people who knew what happened and nobody had asked her anything.

Anderson said after the man left the building hastily by himself she went to check on the woman’s welfare.

She opened the door to the minister’s personal office to find Higgins lying on her back on the couch, completely naked. Higgins had opened her eyes, then rolled over onto her side.

“So therefore my take on it was, she’s conscious, she’s breathing, she doesn’t look like she’s in distress.”

Higgins has said she was drunk and fell asleep on the couch, to awake “mid-rape.”

“But given the nature of the situation and the fact that she was completely naked, I think his call on it was just let her sleep it off, leave her there.”

Anderson said she was told to be discreet about the incident. “We were told to keep it under wraps and not to make it common knowledge.”

There is now a police investigation into Higgins’ allegation she was raped, after she recently laid a complaint.

Anderson was contacted by ACT police a week ago.

Asked why she was speaking out publicly, Anderson said it was because “I’m fearful for my job, and I don’t want to be used as DPS’s [Department of Parliamentary Services] scapegoat. And the truth does have to come out. I mean, I’m sick of seeing all of these news reports with inaccurate information because it is wrong.”

– ref. Morrison says Coalition staffer sacked after ‘disgusting’ allegation – https://theconversation.com/morrison-says-coalition-staffer-sacked-after-disgusting-allegation-157629

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Morris, Military analyst, Griffith University

This is an important day for the veteran community. After five years of campaigning for a royal commission, parliament has backed a motion to establish one. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also signalled he would no longer oppose the move.

For at least two decades, there have been numerous inquiries into veteran suicide, institutional abuse, mental health, the transition from military to civilian life, and combat trauma — with little positive outcome.

More Australian veterans have lost their lives by suicide than have been killed on active duty since ADF personnel were first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001.

In October and November of last year alone, nine veterans took their lives, leading Senator Jacqui Lambie to argue veteran suicides should be treated as “one of Australia’s most pressing problems”.

Thirteen veterans have tragically taken their life so far this year.

A petition calling for a royal commission into veteran suicide — led by the families of those who have lost their lives — has garnered more than 400,000 signatures.

Yet, despite the urgent need and popular support for the idea, a royal commission didn’t have the political support of the Morrison government until this week.

The government’s initial response seen as inadequate

Last year, a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) said

reducing the rate of serving and ex-serving suicides is a priority of the Australian government.

Despite this recognition, the matter has not been met with a sense of urgency.

In response to calls for a royal commission, the government established a national commission for defence and veteran suicide prevention, which has largely been seen as inadequate.

The reaction from former and serving military personnel was also mixed. Critics said the national commission was inferior to a royal commission in terms of its scope, independence and resources. The timing of the move by the government was also viewed as problematic.

While the role of the national commission is likely necessary to prevent future suicides, we believe a royal commission is still vital to bring attention to the links between veteran suicide and the institutional failures and bureaucratic barriers that are causing harm daily.

Read more: Veterans have poorer mental health than Australians overall. We could be serving them better

Data on defence suicides difficult to compile

There is imprecise and limited research into veteran suicide in Australia. Research commissioned by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and conducted by AIHW found there were 419 known suicides of serving, ex-serving and reserve defence personnel between 2001-17.

That is on average one death by suicide every two weeks.

Veteran Scott Harris has compiled statistics on veteran suicides for The Warrior’s Return Facebook page, and has counted 731 deaths by suicide over the same period.

The Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRP) has described the lack of information on veteran suicides as a “serious shortcoming in current knowledge”. The organisation said there is

very limited research information focusing specifically on suicide mortality, non-fatal suicidal behaviour or suicidal ideation among individuals who have left the [Australian Defence Force].

Put simply, the sector is flying blind.

We aren’t just lacking data on veteran suicides; there is limited knowledge of veterans in the Australian community more broadly. In fact, questions about veterans will be introduced to the census for the first time this year.

A royal commission will enable us to gather information on the defence and veteran communities to help understand their needs and ensure we craft well-targeted policies.

Five key points to consider for a royal commission

The terms of reference of the royal commission must be designed by the veteran community, as well as policy-makers and other experts. Significantly, to preclude serving and former ADF members from such an investigation would continue to silence the very people it seeks to help.

We have identified five key points to ensure a rigorous and effective commission process.

1) The terms of reference should include suicidality – not just suicide. Suicidality is a term that covers both suicide ideation (serious thoughts about taking one’s life) and actual suicide attempts.

2) It should also focus on the structural and institutional systems that contribute to suicidality. This would include the experiences of defence personnel who have struggled to get the support they need both during and after their military service.

For instance, this means looking at the bureaucratic obstacles that have prevented some veterans from accessing physical, mental and financial support after leaving the ADF, or the institutional practices and structures that encouraged abuse, bullying, harassment and denigration in the ADF.

Read more: We need to talk about suicide in the military

3) The terms of reference should look at the broader practices and processes of the ADF, including but not limited to:

• the military justice system

• institutional abuse

• military transitions, including at enlistment and discharge from the ADF

• the health care of defence personnel, including the reporting of incidents and management of injuries.

4) The royal commission must include protective measures for witnesses, akin to the disability royal commission. Given that both serving ADF members and public service employees are restricted in public comment, potential witnesses are unlikely to come forward and provide evidence without strong protections.

5) The appointment of the commissioners also requires real independence, free from bias. This was a significant sticking point with the establishment of the interim national commissioner for veteran suicide prevention, Bernadette Boss, who previously held various command and staff roles in the ADF.

As such, we argue those appointed to the royal commission should have no association with the ADF – both past and present – and a wider background than just mental health.

Morrison said today a royal commission is not a “silver bullet”, and we tend to agree.

Nobody believes this process will be easy – just that it is necessary. A royal commission, with broad terms of reference, has the capacity to draft a blueprint for the best way forward.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

– ref. One veteran on average dies by suicide every 2 weeks. This is what a royal commission needs to look at – https://theconversation.com/one-veteran-on-average-dies-by-suicide-every-2-weeks-this-is-what-a-royal-commission-needs-to-look-at-157582

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

On any commonsense interpretation of language, Scott Morrison’s comments in parliament last Thursday deliberately concealed the full truth.

The harsher view is they were downright misleading.

Moreover, the prime minister then resorted to a tactical ploy that flies in the face of any claim the government is dealing with the Brittany Higgins matter with respect.

The cynicism displayed is appalling. Surely when the political workshopping was going on in the Prime Minister’s Office – assuming it happened – someone asked, “Is this a good idea”?

Or have they all lost any compass for what is appropriate parliamentary behaviour? Or any notion the public deserve some frankness?

Consider the sequence of words and actions concerning the inquiry into who knew what when in the Morrison office about the allegation by Higgins she was raped by a colleague in a ministerial office in 2019.

This inquiry was being undertaken by the Secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, Phil Gaetjens.

Asked last Thursday why the report was taking so long, Morrison told the House: “this work is being done by the secretary of my department. It’s being done at arm’s length from me. […]

“He has not provided me with a further update about when I might expect that report, but I have no doubt the opposition will be able to ask questions of him in Senate estimates next week.”

Fast forward to Monday’s Senate estimates.

Gaetjens revealed the work is no longer “being undertaken”. He had in fact “paused” his inquiry nearly a fortnight ago, and had immediately told the Prime Minister.

Gaetjens said that on March 9 the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Reece Kershaw, had told him “it would be strongly advisable to hold off finalising the records of interviews with staff until the AFP could clarify whether the criminal investigation into Ms Higgins’ sexual assault allegations may traverse any issues covered by the administrative process I was undertaking”.

That same day Gaetjens emailed the Prime Minister’s Office staff “to tell them that I would be not completing the documentation.”

“At that same time, I also told the Prime Minister of that, just in case his staff asked him any questions as to what was going on.”

This was all very cosy.

Morrison did not have the same regard for parliament as Gaetjens had for the PM’s staff. He did not tell the house or the public “what was going on”.

Indeed, he had Gaetjens appear before Senate estimates – which is highly unusual for a secretary of the prime minister’s department – to deliver, in effect, an “up yours” to the senators.

Gaetjens stonewalled about the inquiry – for which there is now no end date – although he did say he had not interviewed Higgins. His explanation – he was respecting her request for privacy – doesn’t wash.

We don’t know how far Gaetjens got with his investigation before he paused it. We do know he had quite a while prior to March 9 to make progress, because the inquiry was announced mid-February.

On any reasonable work speed, it should have been done and dusted by March 9. Why was it taking so long?

Of course Morrison, under fire at question time, denied being misleading.

He then challenged Anthony Albanese to use “other forms of the house” – in other words, try to move a motion.

Albanese did, twice, and was immediately gagged by the government – twice.

By the end of it all, Morrison had trashed his own credibility and left Gaetjens, who is repeatedly depicted by the opposition as being used as Morrison’s political tool – hung out to dry.

– ref. View from The Hill: Scott Morrison becomes tangled in his own spider web – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-scott-morrison-becomes-tangled-in-his-own-spider-web-157596