Despite a recent best-in-the-world ranking for its handling of COVID-19, New Zealand remains at risk as the pandemic intensifies globally. With more infectious variants of the virus emerging, there are many persisting concerns.
In particular, the number of infected people entering managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities at the border is increasing. This pressure contributes to the risk of border failures, which are now regular.
There have been at least nine since August 2020, including the most recent issues with the Pullman Hotel in Auckland.
Despite MIQ facilities beginning in April 2020, there was a delay until June before routine testing and reporting began (NZ Ministry of Health data).Author provided
We argue the time has come to “turn down the tap” of infected travellers coming from so-called “red zone” countries where the pandemic is out of control. We have already advocated for a traffic light system to achieve this.
One option is to reduce the risk of infected travellers getting on flights by using brief pre-departure quarantine and COVID-19 testing in carefully designed ways.
For example, an additional low-cost, rapid antigen test prior to boarding, plus clear instructions to passengers about the need for a period of pre-travel self-quarantine to reduce their risk of infection, could be a prerequisite.
Tighter measures available
A more intensive approach could require all red zone travellers to undergo pre-flight quarantine for five days in an approved airport hotel facility, with daily rapid (saliva) testing by New Zealand-certified officials.
The logistics of this could be simplified by having these approved airport hotel facilities located at specific travel hubs — for example, London, Hawaii and Singapore.
Another possibility is simply to further limit the bookings in MIQ facilities available to travellers from red zone countries — say, down to 500 travellers a month — to make the situation more manageable.
Australia has recently reduced the cap on incoming travellers. The New Zealand government could also temporarily suspend approval for any flights originating in red zone countries.
Benefits from limiting red zone arrivals
Of course, political decision-makers need to consider the immediate well-being of travellers coming from red zone countries (150 to 250 people per day on average).
Some are returning for compelling reasons: they have a health condition and genuinely fear dying in the pandemic, they are coming home to care for a sick relative, or they have lost a job overseas and lack financial support.
But these important considerations will apply to a relatively small number of individuals. They do not outweigh the far greater duty to the rest of New Zealand’s citizens to keep the country COVID-free.
The greater good
Turning down the tap is important for maintaining COVID-19 elimination, providing multiple benefits:
Protection from illness and death from COVID-19 outbreaks. Although the outbreak in Victoria, Australia, was eventually controlled, there were still more than 800 deaths. There are also concerning reports of debilitating ongoing symptoms being a feature of COVID-19 infection, and “long COVID” may become a huge public health problem.
Protection from the psychological stress, economic disruption and other hardship caused by lockdowns. For example, Auckland Council’s chief economist estimated the cost of level 3 lockdown at 250 jobs and $NZ60-75 million in GDP each day.
Protection from greater inequalities from outbreaks that hit communities with higher background rates of chronic disease (Māori, Pacific, low-income New Zealanders), as seen in past pandemics. A recent study estimated those existing inequalities could double the risk of death for Māori and Pasifika compared with NZ Europeans. Indeed, Māori leaders are already calling for reduced traveller numbers.
Health authorities have a specific duty of care to protect workers in MIQ facilities from infection. While personal protective equipment (PPE) is provided, we know failures can still occur despite workers using it.
There is a case to be made that health authorities are currently not adequately meeting their duty of care by permitting large numbers of infected people to pass through these MIQ facilities.
There have been no successful legal challenges to New Zealand’s current quarantine requirements, or in Australia with its even tighter systems. Those requirements can logically be extended to include pre-flight quarantine and testing, and further limiting MIQ bookings to make border control safer and more manageable.
The claim that citizens are rendered “stateless” by such measures is a myth.
In summary, the risk of COVID-19 border control failures appears to be increasing. Action is needed to reduce the proportion of infected people boarding flights, or reducing travel from high-risk countries, or both.
There is no legal case against turning down the tap, provided it is clear such measures are time-limited and not absolute.
Anthony Albanese’s sudden change of heart, swapping out Labor’s climate spokesman Mark Butler in favour of the more conservative Chris Bowen, can be read in two ways.
First, as a shrewd chess move: one that sharpens the economic arguments in favour of green jobs, boxes in Bowen’s Right faction behind existing climate ambition, and perhaps constrains Bowen as a potential leadership aspirant.
Alternatively, critics could view Albanese’s decision as more self-serving — the manoeuvring of an opposition leader desperate to shore up his defences.
The NSW Right’s outspoken convener Joel Fitzgibbon had made unusually public attacks on the Left-aligned Butler. Albanese will have a job of convincing people he has not blinked under pressure, throwing an ally under a bus.
That perception could, in turn, be dangerous. It may even trigger existential discussions on his leadership. Not merely because of the loyalty questions it invites, but because of the policy implications in an area of chronic political miscalculation.
Mark Butler, right, is a factional ally of Albanese’s.Lukas Coch/AAP
Judging by his behaviour, Fitzgibbon surrendered his frontbench spot last year to free his arms for the move against Butler, and by proxy, the campaign against Albanese’s leadership.
The Hunter-based MP is trenchantly pro-coal and anti-progressive. He’s made no secret of his antipathy for green-tinged inner-city politics, which he believes has alienated the party’s industrial origins.
Fitzgibbon blames Labor’s obsession with climate change for everything from the 2019 election failure – where it pledged a 45% emissions cut by 2030 – to the party’s dwindling purchase in the outer suburbs and regions.
Albanese’s position, like all opposition leaders, relies on a mixture of support: in his case, a foundation of Left MPs and the crucial backing of key NSW and some Victorian Right figures. Unsurprisingly, these supporters were the main beneficiaries of the reshuffle.
Deputy leader Richard Marles gets a super-portfolio combining national reconstruction, employment, skills, small business and science. Another Victorian Right figure, Clare O’Neill, gets a frontbench promotion as spokeswoman for senior Australians and aged care services – assisting the relocated Butler in health and ageing.
And Ed Husic, also an influential player in the NSW Right, is elevated to shadow cabinet in industry and innovation.
Taken separately, these moves may be justified. Together, however, they might also hint at Albanese’s vulnerability, given his own Left faction’s minority position.
Joel Fitzgibbon is trenchantly pro-coal and anti-progressive.Mick Tsikas/AAP
The bigger concern for progressives in the short-term will be what these personnel changes amount to in policy terms, if anything.
Does Albanese intend to scale back Labor’s climate ambitions? Fitzgibbon has explicitly called on his party to ditch interim targets entirely, and simply adopt the government’s goal of 26% emissions reduction by 2030.
During the 2019 election, then leader Bill Shorten struggled to quantify the negative impact on economic growth arising from Labor’s proposed 45% cut in emissions.
It was a strategic vulnerability on which Prime Minister Scott Morrison capitalised. He argued relentlessly that Labor’s formula would cost Australian jobs and send household and business electricity prices soaring.
Albanese’s decision to defer interim targets until closer to the next election had already invited doubts about whether Labor is truly committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Butler’s removal is likely to exacerbate those doubts.
The hold-fire approach leaves Labor’s left flank exposed to the Greens’ claims it is equivocating on climate action, just as the rest of the world finds new resolve.
As Albanese put the final touches on his reshuffle, the Climate Targets Panel of scientists and economists released a chastening report. It showed Australia would need to slash emissions by 50% by 2030, and achieve zero emissions by 2045 (rather than 2050) to be in line with the Paris commitment of keeping global warming inside 2℃.
Freshly installed US president Joe Biden has used a series of executive orders to accelerate US restructuring. He hopes to spur global momentum for climate action, calling on developed economies to rapidly increase their commitments.
US President Joe Biden will call for developed economies to act on climate change.Evan Vucci/AP
Albanese, however, denies any diminution. He maintains that Bowen, a former treasurer, is better placed to reframe climate policy in more starkly economic terms, stressing the opportunities for new green jobs against the risks cited by the Coalition.
This may well be sound. Bowen’s established economic standing could allow a “green jobs of the future” rebranding of Labor’s emissions approach.
That would be a breakthrough, given the widening divide between Labor’s professional and blue-collar constituencies, and claims by Fitzgibbon and others on the party’s Right that it has abandoned regional workers through its green emphasis.
There’s little doubt that, as an experienced minister, Bowen has the skills and the policy depth for the job.
But there’s a judgement question. His role in the 2019 election loss – chief advocate of an unwieldy suite of adventurous tax proposals – was arguably more central to Labor’s shock defeat than any perceived overreach on climate.
Not finished yet, Fitzgibbon has described Butler’s removal as a good start but called for further policy change.
Fitzgibbon’s Right-aligned parliamentary colleagues seemed willing to accept his public undermining of Butler. It will be interesting to see whether they allow the same treatment of Bowen.
How does a small retail company that sells video games, worth less than US$400 million in the middle of 2020, become a US$10 billion company in less than six months? How does its share price climb from about US$20 on Jan 12, 2021, to US$347 on January 27 – then fall back to US$193 the very next day?
How is this happening? The simple answer is it’s a power play, magnified by social media, between small retail investors who want some share prices to rise and larger hedge funds who have made big bets that those same prices will fall.
Revenge of the little fish
Melvin Capital is a hedge fund (worth US$12.5 billion until recently) with a “short position” on GameStop. A short position means Melvin was betting GameStop’s share price would fall (a reasonable bet, as the outlook for bricks-and-mortar video game stores is a bit like what happened to Blockbuster and other video rental outlets). This in itself is not at all unusual.
What made the past two weeks so unique was the heavy involvement of small individual investors in driving the action. Through platforms like Reddit (specifically the Wall Street Bets forum, which describes itself as “like 4Chan found a Bloomberg terminal”), these retail investors have worked to together to drive prices so high that hedge funds have had to abandon their short positions.
As a result, the short sellers have lost a lot of money and the retail investors (and anybody else with GameStop shares) have made huge profits. Normally on the stock market, the shark swallows the little fish. Now the little fish are eating the shark.
These individual investors started buying shares (and options to buy shares in the future) in GameStop, and other companies that had significant short positions. In fact, the 50 most shorted companies on the Russell 3000 index have gone up 33% this year.
This increase has become a surge in recent days. GameStop surged in value by 92% on January 26 (US time), leapt another 134% on January 27, and has traded more than 178 million shares. The average volume typically traded for GameStop is roughly 10 million shares per day. This is not normal.
How long can redditors remain irrational?
How is it possible that small retail investors can drive the value of a company up like this?
Two important factors have led to the situation. The first is structural. Investors seized on the fact that Melvin, and another fund called Citron Capital, had significant short positions in GameStop.
When a stock price surges, short sellers must either put in more money to sustain their position or liquidate it. Melvin tried to sustain its short position, because the hedge fund’s managers believe the stock is overvalued, and has suffered massive losses as a result (last week, Melvin announced it was already down 30% on the year). This is a case of the well-known idea that “the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent”.
Melvin may ultimately be right, and GameStop’s price will eventually fall, but retail investors who knew about Melvin’s bet forced it into an untenable position. With the price continually pushed up, Melvin was left with a stark choice: continue to go short, or else realise its losses.
How buying creates more buying
This leads to the second factor, which is mechanical. The retail investors driving the price surge are much smaller than the hedge funds they are battling. By buying the stock and call options (which are effectively rights to buy the stock in future at a certain price), retail investors are causing market makers to also buy shares in GameStop.
Market makers are companies that facilitate share trades by owning stocks and making them available for sale. Market makers don’t care about whether stock prices rise or fall; they just want a cut when people buy or sell.
So when an investor buys a call option from a market maker, the market maker will immediately hedge the position by buying the stock. This way, they are covered whether the price rises or falls.
If there is a big enough surge in speculators buying call options, as we have seen with GameStop, it will be accompanied by a lot of stock buying.
This is a cascading effect, which leads to price runs. In this case, it’s running the price up, but we are just as likely to see the same effect running the price down as well. (This is what happened on a larger scale on October 19, 1987, triggering the Black Monday stock market crash.)
After the surge
These two factors – short sellers getting squeezed and market makers hedging their bets – have led to this situation. You need both for what we are witnessing: an investor with an exposed position (Melvin) and a flurry of investors targeting that position (Redditors and others).
Soon this will be all over. Late on January 27 (US time), Melvin Capital announced it had abandoned its short position. It’s unclear how much money Melvin lost, but it has taken on almost US$3 billion in investment from the Citadel and Point72 funds to cover its losses.
The next morning, GameStop’s price actually continued to rise, reaching almost US$500 for a brief moment. However, at that point several popular retail stockbrokers – including Robinhood, Interactive Brokers and E*Trade – intervened to limit trading in several highly active stocks including GameStop. The price quickly plummeted before rallying and ending the day at $US193.60.
What’s next? With the short sellers removed from the game, the reality of the company’s business prospects may reassert themselves.
The past two weeks have been exciting times for market watchers. But we cannot ignore the apparent ease with which these stocks have been manipulated, and the possibility of more market manipulation in the future.
It seems it doesn’t take much of an economic recovery before people start pressuring policymakers to pull back the very policies that have contributed to the recovery.
The Reserve Bank of Australia wisely (if rather too late) cut short-term interest rates to 0.1% – effectively zero – in November. It also lowered longer-term rates through a bond-buying program (i.e. quantitative easing). Given the economic outlook, said the bank’s governor, Philip Lowe, it did not expect to increase the cash rate for at least three years.
Now it is under pressure to raise rates again. ANZ Bank’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, put it this way:
Because things have rebounded so fast, the challenge for the RBA this year will be managing the evolution of monetary policy away from extraordinarily stimulatory settings to somewhat less stimulatory.
That’s an overly rosy view. The Australian economy is still very fragile, and frankly not in great shape.
The unemployment rate is still at 6.6%. Underemployment is a further 8.5%. Worse still, those figures predate the COVID-19 outbreak on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. We don’t yet know what effect that will have.
With the JobKeeper wage subsidy fading away, the economy needs the Reserve Bank’s support more than ever.
To be fair, we thankfully haven’t seen calls for an increase in the cash rate thus far. The main point of contention seems to be around the RBA’s bond-buying program or “yield-curve control” whereby the central bank buys three-year government bonds in sufficient quantities to keep the yield at 0.1%. This has a flow-on effect to the private lending market, including corporate debt and also fixed-rate mortgages.
While it might be true this fairly extraordinary component of monetary policy cannot go on forever, it would be very premature to start winding it back while we haven’t yet deployed a coronavirus vaccine, we’ve just recovered from a dangerous outbreak in NSW (arguably the best-managed state) and unemployment is 2.5-3% above where it should be in the long run.
Moreover, 2021 still involves considerable uncertainty with respect to the coronavirus.
The new strain that emerged in Britain late last year appears to be both more contagious and between 30% and 90% more deadly. Perhaps Australia will avoid it. But all it would take is another hotel quarantine bungle for this to change.
On top of this, there are issues about the national vaccine strategy. We look set to rely heavily on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. There are some plausible reasons for the choice. But given AstraZeneca’s efficacy rate of about 70% (compared with 95% for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines), achieving herd immunity might require almost everyone getting vaccinated. Absent either compulsion or strong incentives, this seems challenging. It will also take time.
The Australian government has agreements in place for 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as 10 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.Dominic Lipinski/EPA
All of this suggests business and consumer confidence are unlikely to rebound strongly until this uncertainty is resolved. That could easily take all of 2021. We really don’t want mortgage rates going up in the meantime, which is what would happen if the RBA pulled back on its yield-curve control.
Recoveries are fragile
Not only should the Reserve Bank not be pulling back its economic medicine, if anything, continued fiscal support from the federal government is needed. This month it cut the JobKeeper subsidy to pandemic-hit businesses for employing workers at least 20 hours a week from A$600 to $500. For employing workers less than that the payment was cut from $375 to $325 a week.
It is hard to dispute that JobKeeper has to taper off eventually. The key question is about timing. Deciding to start tapering it off before the roll-out of a vaccine was not ideal. The federal government will need to look for other ways to continue to support business throughout 2021.
Almost all recoveries from economic crises are fragile. That’s certainly true of traditional “demand deficiency” crises such as the 2008 financial crisis. It is crucial for people to believe not just that the economy is going to recover but also to believe that other people believe it will recover – what economists call “higher order beliefs”. Turn off stimulatory measures too quickly and those beliefs unravel.
The “supply deficiency” crisis that has characterised the economic impact of COVID-19 may be even more fragile. We simply don’t know which businesses will be viable and which won’t once JobKeeper completely goes away. If there is a slew of bankruptcies or businesses cutting their workforce, the economic crisis could easily get worse.
In times of great uncertainty it’s a mistake to remove the policy medicine that has been helping manage the recovery. The Reserve Bank should stick to its guns.
Two slippery and elusive phantoms seem to be escaping UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative government. The first is the fiendishly viral and deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of covid-related deaths in the UK has passed 100,000, making it the first nation in Europe to pass this milestone. The UK now has the fifth-highest death toll in the world. The Johnson government has struggled to manage the crisis, and the human cost is higher than the total civilian casualties the UK experienced during the second world war.
As elusive for Johnson, who for so long has played arch-buffoon and joker, is political capital. The concept of “political capital” feels intuitive – popular politicians seem to have a lot of it, and unpopular ones seem to have none of it. Yet, political science has long wrestled with trying to define and understand it.
The notable sociologist Pierre Bourdieu was one of the first to grapple with the idea. The academic Kimberly Casey argues that political capital is analogous to a cake – it requires a number of ingredients and, crucially, not all of them were initially made by the baker. Richard French suggests political capital is made of up of:
[…] mostly intangible assets which politicians use to induce compliance from other power holders [such as business leaders].
A rampaging virus has meant a bleak winter in the UK, which has just passed 100,000 COVID deaths.Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA/AAP
Johnson has made a number of serious political misjudgements in responding to the pandemic. First, his government has repeatedly been slow off the mark to deal with the crisis. At the outset of the first wave, it played down the risks. In March 2020 he was arguing the UK would “turn the tide” in 12 weeks.
Johnson’s government was slow to handle the second wave, attempting a relaxation of restrictions over the Christmas period. The government’s chief medical officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, asserted an earlier lockdown could have made a difference. More striking was this claim relating to the first wave by one of the scientists advising the government, Professor Neil Ferguson:
Had we introduced lockdown a week earlier we’d have reduced the final death toll by at least half.
Johnson also made of habit of either marginalising or just ignoring scientific advice. In tandem with handling the pandemic, Johnson was under immense pressure to deliver a Brexit deal while also dealing with the “economic emergency” of the crisis.
More damningly, there appears to be no overarching and clear strategy to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. Johnson’s government has had to make numerous and predictable policy U-turns on a range of issues.
Poor communication has also been a hallmark of the period. The government’s “stay alert” campaign last May was met with public bemusement. The belated introduction of a tier system in October also seemed to cause confusion and was followed by further England-wide lockdowns.
Johnson’s approach has been bedevilled by trying to meet the health challenges while simultaneously trying to rebuild the economy and manage the spiralling costs of the pandemic. The government’s “eat out to help out” scheme proved disastrous, with evidence it appears to have contributed to the devastating second wave.
Worse still were the complacency and apparent hypocrisy that are part of Johnson’s political calculus – not least his handling of the damaging trip made by his then-top aide Dominic Cummings to “test his vision”. Johnson’s own father Stanley has seemingly flouted lockdown rules, all while his government hectors the public. The double standards in Johnson’s approach give an impression of “one rule for us” and serve as a reminder of the levels of inequality in the UK.
There are systemic factors, beyond Johnson’s leadership, that help explain the flailing response to the pandemic in the UK. In a considered essay, Ferdinand Mount brutally reminds us of the systemic dismantling of the NHS and neo-liberal reforms under both Conservative and Labour governments, and the austerity measures that have left the system struggling. Mount’s judgment is:
The malign combination of an over-centralised system and a hopelessly narcissistic prime minister has been fatal.
Will Johnson be able to remake his political capital? If he manages to ride out the current crisis, he has a number of available strategies and systemic advantages.
First, he stuffed his cabinet full of loyalists, many owing their political careers to his backing – even when they break ministerial codes. Johnson is now trying to get on the front foot, expressing “deep sorrow” for the mounting death toll, and a change in advisers is resetting his political strategy. He is adept at downplaying criticisms with the “benefit of hindsight” argument.
Crucially, the UK is not scheduled to head to the polls until 2024. If the vaccine strategy works, Johnson knows future elections are not often decided by a government’s record in the early part of a term.
The Productivity Commission yesterday released the health section of its annual Report on Government Services, bringing together a range of data on hospitals, primary care, ambulance services and mental health care in Australia.
Comprising more than 200 spreadsheets, it’s difficult to know where to start any analysis.
With a variety of reports published all the time about Australia’s health system, before delving into the findings it’s worth starting with what this one is all about, and why it’s important.
Australia’s health system is an accountability black hole, despite exabytes of data being collected from hospitals, medical services and the public.
Commonwealth and state governments collectively spend about A$115 billion annually on health services, but we don’t always know exactly what results we get for the money.
Very often the data collected are simply about how many “things” have been produced — how many hospital bed days or patients treated, how many GP attendances — rather than what result was achieved for the patient, how efficiently and how equitably.
And the data can be fragmented and overlapping. It is rarely transformed into useful information the public can understand and use to hold politicians, doctors, and hospitals to account.
The Productivity Commission Report on Government Services aims to help fill the accountability hole, with information going beyond simply counting activity to include information about quality as well. The idea is that public reporting will prompt governments to improve their health systems.
How do we measure health system accountability?
We can think of health sector accountability on four different levels, across three main dimensions of accountability: financial, performance and political.
Grattan Institute, Author provided
The report focuses on system-level and population-level questions: is the system effective, efficient, and providing care for all equally? And as a consequence, is Australia’s health system achieving good health outcomes for the population?
The report helps answer some of these high-level questions, but there are gaps. It doesn’t provide constructive feedback about the effectiveness of different health-care programs.
The data collected also limits the information in the report, meaning some crucial accountability questions cannot be answered.
For example, the Commonwealth government spent about A$580 million on Medicare-funded clinical psychology and psychology services in 2018-19. But we don’t know whether, on average, people who saw a psychologist had poorer, unchanged or better mental health after the treatment sessions, because before and after measures are not collected.
Meanwhile, the report reveals about half the people who needed a hip replacement in a public hospital waited more than 15 weeks for the procedure. But the waiting time is calculated from when they were added to the waiting list, not when a GP first referred them to the hospital. This “hidden” waiting list — between referral and listing — may span several months. So we don’t know what the average total wait is, even though that’s what matters to the patient.
Many people had to wait more than 15 weeks for a hip replacement in a public hospital.Shutterstock
But this report has lots of useful information
The report sheds light, among other things, on potentially preventable deaths. For example, in 2019, more than 28,000 Australians under 75 died from conditions that are potentially avoidable, including “deaths of despair” such as suicide or drug or alcohol abuse; conditions such as breast or skin cancer; falls, fires and burns; heart failure; or asthma.
These deaths occurred at the rate of about 106 people per 100,000 of the population. Aside from an anomalously better year in 2018, that rate has been trending down over the past decade.
Notably, there are significant differences in the rates of potentially avoidable deaths between the states, from 128 per 100,000 in Tasmania to 100 in South Australia (these rates take into account the different age distributions of the population). This should lead Tasmanians to ask their state government: why the big difference?
First Nations people have a much higher rate of potentially avoidable deaths: 313 per 100,000, compared with 102 for non-Indigenous Australians. Underscoring the poor progress in closing the gap, there has been only a minuscule improvement in the First Nations death rate over the past few years.
The report also highlights quite detailed areas of failure. In 2018-19 almost 6,000 people with diabetes had to have a limb amputated — about 20 people per 100,000 population. The figures varied from 40 per 100,000 in the ACT to 17 in NSW. Again, the question for the ACT government is: what preventive services are missing in the ACT?
The report contains a wealth of information. But it doesn’t tell us everything.Shutterstock
The federal government has questions to answer too. For instance, one table in the mental health chapter documents National Disability Insurance Scheme spending in 2019-20 on people with a psychosocial disability as their primary disability. Why was only A$286 million spent in Victoria, compared with almost A$500 million in NSW?
Now what?
This report is an important part of the fabric for our health system. It doesn’t answer every question, but it does help to ensure accountability of Commonwealth and state governments.
That said, right now there’s no requirement for governments to respond to the report’s findings, such as through Parliamentary Public Accounts Committees or, in the case of the Commonwealth, through Senate Committees.
Without this, the investment in bringing all this information together might be wasted, and the accountability black hole as big as ever.
Long heatwaves during entrenched drought often trigger fears of bushfire. It’s easy to imagine rolling days of hot, dry weather desiccating leaves, bark and twigs, transforming them into a potent fuel.
Victoria’s heatwave in 2009, which reached a record temperature of 46.4℃, came during severe, enduring drought and culminated in the Black Saturday bushfire tragedy.
Likewise, the unprecedented Black Summer bushfires marked the end of 2019, Australia’s warmest and driest year on record. It unfolded in episodes of extreme heat combined with dry, windy conditions.
While we know heatwaves and drought make fires worse, the details are poorly understood. This is what our new research investigated.
We found drought and heatwaves intensify the drying of dead bushfire fuel, and can lead to “megafires” like those we saw last summer. However, we were surprised to find the effect varies in nature over different regions. Let’s look at why.
Drought exacerbates the effect of heatwaves on fuel dryness.AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Fuelling a megafire
Megafires are mainly defined by their enormous size and the amount of resources required to bring them under control. They can burn for months, and consist of multiple “extreme” bushfires.
Extreme bushfires burn intensely in smaller areas, lasting up to a few hours. They’re also widely known to create their own weather, and in the very worst cases can develop into fire thunderstorms.
Most of the damage wrought by the Black Summer fires was due to recurring extreme bushfire events. These were extraordinarily powerful, with high rates of fire spread, high fire intensity and profuse “spotting” (when embers in the wind start new bushfires).
A notice board in Victoria on January 25, when Melbourne’s temperature cracked 30 degrees at 7.30am.AAP Image/James Ross
One of the most critical factors driving extreme bushfires is the moisture content of bushfire fuel — grass, leaves, sticks, shrubs, logs and trees.
Drier fuels not only burn more readily and with greater intensity, but are more susceptible to mass spotting, which can rapidly drive a fire across the landscape.
Testing the moisture levels of bushfire fuels.
Our study quantified the combined influence of drought and heatwaves on the moisture content of bushfire fuels. We specifically looked at “dead fine fuels”, which consist of dead vegetation less than 25 millimetres in diameter.
Dead fine fuels are specifically considered in fire management due to their capacity to ignite fires and drive the initial spread. They also play an important role in spotting. In fact, when the moisture content of dead fine fuels is critically low, spotting can become the dominant way bushfires propagate.
Heatwaves and fuel moisture
We looked at peak heat and fire seasons in southeast Australia from 1971 to 2020, and investigated the statistical correlation between various heatwave characteristics — frequency, duration, average intensity, and amplitude — and the average dead fine fuel moisture content for this period.
Dried vegetation is one of the most critical factors driving extreme bushfires.Shutterstock
We found the heatwave characteristics of duration and intensity (high average heatwave temperature) had a strong effect on dead fine fuel dryness. But surprisingly the effects were not the same across different regions.
In and around the Australian Capital Territory, lower fuel moisture was driven by long-lasting heatwaves.
Meanwhile, over northeastern New South Wales, southeast Queensland and central Victoria, fuel dryness was driven by heatwave intensity. A clear example of this is when Melbourne endured three consecutive days of temperatures over 43℃ prior to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, leading to critically dry fuels.
The enduring drought helped to create the perfect conditions for the Black Summer fires.AAP Image/David Mariuz
We found drought exacerbates the effect of heatwaves on fuel dryness. However, this also depends on the region.
In and around the ACT, a longer heatwave with drought produced critically low fuel moisture. But in central Victoria, extreme temperatures with drought led to the driest fuel.
While our research didn’t look at why these variations occurred, we can speculate that it may be due to the ways “climate drivers” influence the weather in different parts of Australia. These climate drivers are phenomena created by circulation patterns in the atmosphere and ocean, and include La Niña and El Niño (or “ENSO”), and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM).
La Niña or El Niño years are mostly felt in Queensland, northern NSW and the NT, and bring wetter or drier weather. And SAM influences the number of heatwaves in central Victoria.
Improving how we fight fires
Understanding what regions are vulnerable to particular conditions is important, because it can improve how fire danger is assessed.
It will also help better identify which parts of the landscape are most likely to experience catastrophic fires, and provide more detailed information for planning prescribed burning activities across the country.
Continuing research in this area is imperative as we face the challenge of managing the greater risk of bushfires under climate change.
At a time when the world has been in chaos, it’s easy to forget young people might have completely different, yet significant and real, worries. We asked children about their sense of safety and what they worry about in their community.
In July to August 2020 we used anonymous surveys with 176 young people aged between five and 15 from several schools in Darwin, Northern Territory. These data were collected at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is likely concerns were heightened generally.
Here is what kids want you to know
In the NT, addressing community perceptions of safety and concerns about crime levels has long been a priority. We asked students what they were worried about in their day-to-day lives with some specific questions on their sense of safety in the community.
This was an open question in which students could freely respond with three worries of importance to them.
We put children into two groups: 30 children aged ten and under, and 146 children aged 11 and over. Around 30% who responded were male across both age groups. Overall, the major themes that emerged about their worries were:
personal safety (44%)
crime (16%)
bullying and school behaviours (10%)
mental and physical health (8%)
school performance (8%).
More than half of students under ten (66%) and over 11 (53%) worried about safety in their local community.
Some of what children said about personal safety was:
I worry about drinking and fighting outside on the street.
I am scared walking home by myself.
Another common worry was a fear of being exposed to crime and racial violence:
I worry about getting kidnapped while walking home from school.
I am scared of people breaking into our home and attacking us.
Health was also a worry and reflects the timing of the survey with references to parent mental health, COVID-19 and death of family members.
This community of schools had delivered some campaigns to support children and their families about domestic violence and resilience. Some children said:
I am worried that mum might hurt herself.
I worry about this pandemic throughout the world.
In the consent process for our surveys, we offered access to supports for children who might have disclosed concerning worries.
School performance and behaviour at school were a concern for 10% of young people aged over 11.
Middle-school students told us:
I worry about passing the year.
I’m worried about what people think of me, my grades and schooling.
How students help themselves
We also wanted to understand how emotionally aware the young people in our survey were. So we asked them: “When you get upset at school, can you make yourself feel OK or good again?”
Some children turn to their friends for support.Shutterstock
We also asked where they learnt these strategies and where they sought help.
Only 14% in the over-11 age group reported not being able to feel good again once becoming upset at school. And only 3% of children under ten reported not being able to make themselves feel good again.
Of those who said they were able to calm down in the over-11 group, 58% said they “just know how to do it” and 19% reported “learning it from their family”.
In the under-ten group, 45% “learnt it from a teacher” and 23% “learnt it from their family”.
This suggests young children have greater need for explicit instruction when learning how to self-regulate.
Among children in the under-ten group who said they can’t calm themselves, 42% selected they “get help from a teacher”.
This reinforces the critical role of teachers in these formative years and the time children are likely to be most receptive to help.
Only 3% of students over 11 identified teachers as a source of support. While 39% said they “mostly want to be alone”, 20% “get help from a friend” and another 20% said they “get angry”.
It is reassuring 87% of young people over 11 reported “good” and “very good” family relationships. And 86% said they have three friends they can turn to when in need.
We should appreciate how real children’s concerns are to them and check in with how they are feeling.
Teachers, parents and other adults need to know how to support young people with their worries, and access information to help them develop self-regulation and problem-solving strategies.
A reliable resource for this information is Be You.
This research was conducted by Charles Darwin University
It seems it doesn’t take much of an economic recovery before people start pressuring policymakers to pull back the very policies that have contributed to the recovery.
The Reserve Bank of Australia wisely (if rather too late) cut short-term interest rates to 0.1% – effectively zero – in November. It also lowered longer-term rates through a bond-buying program (i.e. quantitative easing). Given the economic outlook, said the bank’s governor, Philip Lowe, it did not expect to increase the cash rate for at least three years.
Now it is under pressure to raise rates again. ANZ Bank’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, put it this way:
Because things have rebounded so fast, the challenge for the RBA this year will be managing the evolution of monetary policy away from extraordinarily stimulatory settings to somewhat less stimulatory.
That’s an overly rosy view. The Australian economy is still very fragile, and frankly not in great shape.
The unemployment rate is still at 6.6%. Underemployment is a further 8.5%. Worse still, those figures predate the COVID-19 outbreak on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. We don’t yet know what effect that will have.
With the JobKeeper wage subsidy fading away, the economy needs the Reserve Bank’s support more than ever.
To be fair, we thankfully haven’t seen calls for an increase in the cash rate thus far. The main point of contention seems to be around the RBA’s bond-buying program or “yield-curve control” whereby the central bank buys three-year government bonds in sufficient quantities to keep the yield at 0.1%. This has a flow-on effect to the private lending market, including corporate debt and also fixed-rate mortgages.
While it might be true this fairly extraordinary component of monetary policy cannot go on forever, it would be very premature to start winding it back while we haven’t yet deployed a coronavirus vaccine, we’ve just recovered from a dangerous outbreak in NSW (arguably the best-managed state) and unemployment is 2.5-3% above where it should be in the long run.
Moreover, 2021 still involves considerable uncertainty with respect to the coronavirus.
The new strain that emerged in Britain late last year appears to be both more contagious and between 30% and 90% more deadly. Perhaps Australia will avoid it. But all it would take is another hotel quarantine bungle for this to change.
On top of this, there are issues about the national vaccine strategy. We look set to rely heavily on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. There are some plausible reasons for the choice. But given AstraZeneca’s efficacy rate of about 70% (compared with 95% for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines), achieving herd immunity might require almost everyone getting vaccinated. Absent either compulsion or strong incentives, this seems challenging. It will also take time.
The Australian government has agreements in place for 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as 10 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.Dominic Lipinski/EPA
All of this suggests business and consumer confidence are unlikely to rebound strongly until this uncertainty is resolved. That could easily take all of 2021. We really don’t want mortgage rates going up in the meantime, which is what would happen if the RBA pulled back on its yield-curve control.
Recoveries are fragile
Not only should the Reserve Bank not be pulling back its economic medicine, if anything, continued fiscal support from the federal government is needed. This month it cut the JobKeeper subsidy to pandemic-hit businesses for employing workers at least 20 hours a week from A$600 to $500. For employing workers less than that the payment was cut from $375 to $325 a week.
It is hard to dispute that JobKeeper has to taper off eventually. The key question is about timing. Deciding to start tapering it off before the roll-out of a vaccine was not ideal. The federal government will need to look for other ways to continue to support business throughout 2021.
Almost all recoveries from economic crises are fragile. That’s certainly true of traditional “demand deficiency” crises such as the 2008 financial crisis. It is crucial for people to believe not just that the economy is going to recover but also to believe that other people believe it will recover – what economists call “higher order beliefs”. Turn off stimulatory measures too quickly and those beliefs unravel.
The “supply deficiency” crisis that has characterised the economic impact of COVID-19 may be even more fragile. We simply don’t know which businesses will be viable and which won’t once JobKeeper completely goes away. If there is a slew of bankruptcies or businesses cutting their workforce, the economic crisis could easily get worse.
In times of great uncertainty it’s a mistake to remove the policy medicine that has been helping manage the recovery. The Reserve Bank should stick to its guns.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.
In May 2020, the international mining giant Rio Tinto made a calculated and informed decision to drill 382 blast holes in an area of its Brockman 4 mining lease that encompassed the ancient rock shelter formations at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
The Puutu Kunti Kurrama Pinikura people, who are the traditional owners of that land, lost their material connection to sacred sites of ceremonial, clan and family life, the basis for their political and social organisation. The Australian people lost a significant chunk of their national estate. For this hefty price we all paid, Rio Tinto lawfully gained access to $135 million dollars of high-grade iron ore.
The Human Rights Law Centre said that the global Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, based in the Netherlands, should strip Rio Tinto of its status as a global human rights leader. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who three years earlier had lovingly cradled a lump of coal in his hands in parliament, said nothing.
In the devastating wake of Juukan, it is timely to ask: can the extractive frontier be just as important as the military frontline in defining the story of our nation?
Stealing the land but also the value of the land. Protesters rallied outside Rio Tinto’s Perth office in June 2020.AAP/Richard Wainwright
One day, all Australian primary school students might learn about the Juukan Gorge the way generations have studied the 19th-century Victorian goldrush, with its own explosive crescendo, the Eureka Stockade.
To recap: gold was “discovered” in Ballarat in 1851, when the population of Victoria was about 25,000. By 1861, after a tidal wave of immigration from across the globe, that number had risen to over 600,000. Escaping old-world hierarchies, inequality and poverty, polyglot schemers and dreamers dug their way towards a new life of freedom and independence.
When the British rights and liberties of these cosmopolitan miners were threatened by an authoritarian administration and unjust taxation, the disenfranchised diggers rebelled, leading to a short battle and a long legacy: Eureka became known as “the birthplace of Australian democracy”. Recent research, including my own, has demonstrated that women as well as men participated in this mining boom and its economic and political, if not mythological, inheritance.
Similarly little recognised is the fact that the central Victorian goldrush occurred on the lands of the Wathawurrung people, who had made the fertile hunting grounds of the Ballarat basin their ancestral home for tens of thousands of years.
It is estimated that prior to European contact there were up to 3,240 members of the 25 Wathawurrung language groups. By 1861, 255 Aboriginals remained in the Ballarat region.
As historian Fred Cahir has shown in his landmark book Black Gold, some goldseekers were aware of the extensive quarrying, and subsequent commercial transactions, being carried out by Victoria’s Indigenous inhabitants prior to and after British colonisation. Indeed, resource extraction was practised by Indigenous people throughout the continent.
Batjala-Quandamooka-Kalkadoon historian Kal Ellwood has traced the principal mining trade routes of pre-colonial Australia, proving that Aboriginals used sophisticated underground and pit mining techniques, as well as post-extraction treatment processes, as part of complex commercial relationships.
Indigenous Australia had its own stories to explain how minerals were created and where they were deposited. The bronzewing pigeon Marnbi, for example, seeded gold at Broken Hill, copper at Cloncurry, sandstone at Mt Isa and opals at Coober Pedy. The Europeans were novel. The activity they undertook was not.
The Indigenous people of central Victoria might have been dispossessed, but they were not diffident. They installed toll booths on bridges, requested bounties on vessels crossing rivers, took food and goods from domiciles, and demanded financial restitution for revenue extracted from the land, all as a matter of cultural and legal entitlement stemming from prior ownership: “indefeasible title from time immemorial”, as Wathawurrung elder King Jerry put it to the Geelong Council. (Common law title, as we might call it post-Mabo.)
Such insistence, however, fell on deaf ears. In June 1860, by which time the tent city of Ballarat had been replaced by houses, churches and schools, the Victorian government established a system of six reserves to control and administer the affairs of Aboriginal people.
For most Australians, the phrase “the Peninsula campaign” conjures the distant shores of Gallipoli, where ANZACs fought against an alien enemy, apparently for our freedom.
But another battle waged much closer to home — indeed at home — was also referred to as “the Peninsula campaign”. This contest for territorial control occurred on the Gove Peninsula, on the north-east tip of Arnhem Land. The contest was over access to land that contained some of the richest bauxite reserves in the world. It played out over a decade from the late 1950s. The critical year of the campaign was 1963.
Paul Hasluck (in 1960) would later become Governor General.Wikimedia Commons
The Minister for Territories in the Menzies government, Paul Hasluck, commanded the forces of expansion and development of the Top End; the Yolngu people of the Yirrkala region were the defenders of land that had been legally reserved for them in 1931, and to which they claimed ownership in perpetuity.
The Yirrkala Bark Petitions (August 1963) and the subsequent Select Committee on Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines (October 1963) were key battles in the offensive. Depending on your perspective, the creation of the mining town of Nhulunbuy, built in 1972, was either the spoils of victory or the price of defeat in the Peninsula campaign.
The military metaphors are mine, not germane to the mining vernacular. I’ve deliberately deployed them here to highlight how much of our national historical consciousness is built around war stories. We understand the language of conflict in binary, adversarial terms: enemy and ally; victor and vanquished.
In reality, the story of how resource extraction led to a four-cornered contest over the right to define and control the narrative of nation-building in north-east Arnhem Land is more complex — and compelling.
The Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve, some 80,000 square miles of flat ironstone and low-lying stringybark forest, was established in 1931 with the intention of “insulating” the region’s Aboriginal population from the rest of the Northern Territory. Arnhem Land became “exclusively Aboriginal”; only missionaries, NT welfare officers and Yolngu were allowed in.
Fierce and co-ordinated Yolngu resistance, coinciding with drought, repelled pastoralists in the 1880s and early 20th century. It was not the first time that strangers had come to Arnhem Land. The Yolngu people are considered exceptional because they are the first Australian Aboriginals to have had contact with foreign visitors.
For at least 500 years, Yolngu engaged in seasonal trading visits with the Macassans, Indonesian seafarers who came to exploit the trepang beds of the north-east coast in exchange for tobacco, pottery, knives and cloth.
By the time the European visitors arrived overland, Yolngu had experienced centuries of adaptation to new material culture and notions of labour and trade for goods and services. They understood and engaged in economic and political relationships, both inter-tribally and internationally.
The next strangers to arrive were the missionaries who established bases at Roper River in 1908, Goulburn Island in 1916 and Milingimbi Island in 1923. Following violent encounters with Japanese pearlers and Darwin-based police, a Methodist mission was established at Yirrkala in 1935 to provide sanctuary for the more than dozen clans of Yolngu people of this Miwatj region.
Yirrkala, and surrounding Melville Bay, encompassed the traditional lands of the Gumatj and Rirritjingu clans. Yolngu, having long understood the positive use to which outsiders could be put, accepted the newcomers. The Methodists also accepted most cultural beliefs, permitted language and rituals, employed a philosophy of bilateral learning and, in many cases, developed genuine friendships and important alliances.
The first known geological reconnaissance at Gove occurred in 1952, fewer than two decades after the Yirrkala Mission was established, when Hasluck announced a change of policy, opening the NT’s Aboriginal reserves to mineral prospecting.
The time had come, Hasluck argued, to “extract the latent mineral wealth of the Territory”.
In 1958, the Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation (Comalco) was issued Special Mining Lease No. 1 to prospect 21 square metres of land on Melville Bay, abutting the Yirrkala Mission.
According to Hasluck, times had changed since the 1930s, when the system of Aboriginal land reserves had been established “liberally but rather carelessly”. Now, incentivised by the discovery that a blanket of bauxite lined the Gove Peninsula, Hasluck underscored ‘the necessity for developing our national resources’.
By the wet season of 1962, when the Reverend Edgar Wells took over as superintendent of the Yirrkala Mission, it had become commonplace to see prospectors “walk about the country, boring holes, marking off areas, and finally erecting buildings” without, according to Wells, “any attempt at explanation”. The miners, observed Wells, roamed around “with a renewed assurance … in complete optimism … masters of the future.
On 18 February 1963, the federal government ratified an agreement with Nabalco, a joint Swiss–Australian venture, to mine for bauxite. This meeting took place at the Methodist Overseas Mission’s headquarters in Sydney, attended by mining representatives but no Yolngu.
In May 1963, Rirritjingu elder Mawalan Marika put aside tribal rivalries to join with Mungurrawuy Yunupingu, senior elder of the Gumatj clan, and write to Hasluck. They requested 40 houses, “so we can exchange to make us level between you and we natives”.
The lack of consultation was the primary insult, not the idea that they might be asked to share their land. To the Yolngu mind, they were not only custodians of the land – caretakers – but also owners, with the capacity to cede territory.
When Hasluck unilaterally excised reserved land, he effectively stole land from people who understood both the spiritual and commercial value of their assets.
Notice of the excision of the Arnhem Land Reserve was published in the Government Gazette in May 1963. Over the next two months, there was a flurry of correspondence between Yirrkala, Darwin, Canberra and Sydney. Federal Labor MP Kim Beazley Sr, along with Labor MP Gordon Bryant (later Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Minister for the Capital Territory in the Whitlam Government), made the long trek to Yirrkala in July to ascertain the level of distress.
Standing in the newly opened Methodist Church, Beazley contemplated the extraordinary artworks that flanked the altar: large boards painted by Yolngu elders of each clan and moiety, including Mungurrawuy. Edgar Wells’ wife, Ann, who interviewed each of the artists as they painted, recognised these panels were a “statement of land claims”, delineating language borders, natural features, sacred sites and “the disputes that inevitably arise over boundaries”.
On viewing the panels, Beazley suggested the Yolngu present a petition to the parliament in their own vernacular. Before leaving Yirrkala, he furnished the wording of the preamble required of any petition to the House. Yolngu did the rest.
On 14 August, Beazley presented the House of Representatives with what have become known as the Bark Petitions: two versions of the text, one in English and one in Yolngu Matha, pasted onto bark and framed with traditional paintings.
There were eight points, but this is the crux: a protest against “decisions taken without them and against them” that were “never explained to them beforehand, and were kept secret from them”, as well as a plea to “hear the views of the people of Yirrkala before permitting excision of this land”. Nowhere do the petitions suggest that Yolngu are opposed to mining per se. What they requested was a voice.
Though Hasluck rejected the Bark Petitions on the grounds they didn’t represent the true wishes of the community (only a small group of young rabble-rousers), the Select Committee on Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines was empowered — the first time in Australia’s history that a petition had directly led to a parliamentary enquiry.
It concluded that the Bark Petitions were “an appeal to the House of Representatives for protection”. It made 11 recommendations pertaining to how best to integrate the Yolngu into the inevitable establishment of a large mining town on the Gove Peninsula, while preserving sacred sites.
In 1963, the average Aboriginal life expectancy was 42 years. In 1968, the federal government signed an agreement with Nabalco for a 42-year lease to mine and process bauxite in Gove, conditional upon the construction of an alumina refinery and a township able to accommodate 4,000 mining workers, administrators, service providers and their families.
To Wells, the injustice of “giving away of ancestral territorial privilege of children’s children” was simply ‘beyond comprehension’.
Wells was sacked as superintendent on 11 November 1963. The mining lease for Juukan Gorge was granted in 1964.
In February 2020, I sat with Galarrwuy Yunupingu at his kitchen table in Gunyangara — the Gumatj homeland on Melville Bay, 15 kilometres from Nhulunbuy, now framed by the rusting carcass of the alumina refinery, mothballed by Rio Tinto in 2013 — and read him the list of recommendations from the Select Committee. How many of these things happened, I asked him? “Bangyu,” he answered: None.
They tricked us. They never gave us anything they promised. I’m afraid I have to come to this conclusion. They asked us but they didn’t listen.
Looking at the foundational moments of Ballarat and Nhulunbuy helps to elucidate patterns and themes that should be central to further exploration of how mining has defined the life of our nation. As Galarrwuy has said elsewhere, land rights are one thing, but ownership means more than a moral prerogative.
“We would like to turn the land into money,” Galarrwuy told a somewhat perplexed progressive audience at the 2013 Garma Festival. “Aborigines have land rights but are still the poorest people on earth.”
Galarrwuy Yunupingu at the Garma Festival in the Northeast Arnhem Land town of Gulkula in 2010.AAP Image/David Sproule
Ultimately, the Peninsula campaign was not only about the market value of the mineral resources themselves, but also the moral, legal and civic status conferred on those who would call themselves miners. Those who would bring the future along with their bores and excavators. Those who could drive the nation and the economy forward.
In her University of Melbourne Narrm Oration of 2015, From Hunting to Contracting, Marcia Langton outlined the history of Aboriginal Australians’ economic exclusion from colonial times to the 21st century. Mining, she argued, offered First Nations peoples “a new paradigm devoted to development”.
To Langton, examples of Indigenous wealth creation demonstrate Indigenous engagement with the private sector economy is the “best way to close the gap”. (Indeed, the Gumatj Corporation launched its own 100% Yolngu-owned mining training facility and bauxite operations in 2017.)
Where mining is concerned, however, economic development is not a “new paradigm” that Indigenous Australians have latterly come to accept as part of the logic of late capitalism or “postcolonialism”. Rather, an economic stake in the land is something that has been perennially contemplated and contested in territories that have come to hold commercial importance to white Australia.
What has changed, perhaps, is that mining companies have recognised the “social capital” of collaborative working relationships with Aboriginal “stakeholders”. Whether this new alliance proves to be a reliable means of “livelihood and independence” for Aboriginal communities remains to be seen.
Juukan Gorge represents the pinnacle of the colonial mining project. It fulfils the Four-F rating that is at the heart of Australia’s relationship to land: Find it. Fuck it. Flog it. Forget it. Let’s hope that Juukan stands as the most broken, defective, shattered and superseded point of the hill.
A group of Papuan students in front of the House of Representatives (DPR) building in Jakarta, who were planning to hold a protest action opposing the extension of Papuan Special Autonomy (Otsus), have been arrested and taken to the Metro Jaya regional police headquarters.
“Around 15 people were taken away and put into a police crowd control vehicle”, one of the participants, Ambrosius Mulait, told Tirto.
Mulait said he did not know the reason for the arrest yesterday because the group had not yet arrived at the rally location when the arrests took place.
Two days ago, said Mulait, the group sent a written notification of the action to police, but the police did not issue a permit for the demonstration.
He suspects that this was the reason for the arrest – as well as the pretext of Covid-19 health protocols which prohibit crowds from gathering.
Although they tried to negotiate with the police to be allowed to demonstrate, this did not succeed.
Mulait and the other participants who were not arrested are still being held in front of the parliament under police guard.
“How can Papuans convey their right to an opinion opposing Otsus, but are always silenced. Today we were silenced,” he said.
A similar incident occurred on 27 October 2020 when demonstrators near the Cenderawasih University in Jayapura, Papua, were dispersed and 13 were arrested.
Action coordinator Mani Iyaba said that based on directives issued by the Jayapura district police, “Any protesters can be beaten, trampled underfoot”.
The two new cases of covid-19 confirmed yesterday in New Zealand are the South African variant and initial results show they are connected to the Northland case at the Pullman Hotel.
This morning the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, confirmed to Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins that preliminary genomic sequencing results showed a link.
They left quarantine at the Pullman Hotel on January 15 and have been living in North Auckland. They will now isolate in the Jet Park quarantine facility.
Hipkins said it was not an exact match but what they call “in the same tree”, so it is highly likely they are connected.
He says someone with the virus was picked up from the Pullman and taken to the Jet Park Hotel which appears to be the source.
Cause of the spread Hipkins says something happened at the Pullman to cause the spread and they are now trying to work out whether it was something like an interaction in the lift or exercise area.
People who visited locations of interest in Auckland or anyone with symptoms, are asked to isolate and call Healthline 0800 611 116 to arrange a test and remain isolated until they receive their result.
Overhype can be a dead giveaway of under-confidence. When Anthony Albanese on Thursday compared his situation to that of Joe Biden, it sounded rather desperate.
Some journalists, he said, had predicted a certain Trump win. But “a bloke who was a former deputy leader and an experienced politician who had held a wide range of portfolios and who was someone who was underestimated by some” was now US president.
“I will be the leader of this country after the next election,” Albanese declared as he ended the news conference where he announced his reshuffled frontbench.
It smacked of a message to himself.
The obvious rejoinder is that Joe Biden was up against an opponent who did everything to invite defeat. Scott Morrison presents a very different challenge.
Albanese has turned his reshuffle, earlier set to be minimal, into an attempt to protect his leadership.
The less serious one is that changes can bring some negative fallout. For instance, shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers might be less than enthusiastic that deputy leader Richard Marles is moving into the economic area as shadow minister for “national reconstruction, employment, skills and small business”. Tanya Plibersek didn’t like losing training (although she was pleased to regain responsibility for women).
More serious is that Albanese’s problems are not driven by the performances of his frontbenchers, but by his own performance.
For the most part, it’s not the shadow ministers who’ve been coming under fire – leaving aside Joel Fitzgibbon’s attacks on climate spokesman Mark Butler. It’s Albanese’s failure to cut through that critics raise within and outside the Labor Party.
The most significant and controversial of the changes is moving Butler out of climate and energy, replacing him with Chris Bowen.
Albanese previously insisted he wouldn’t shift Butler. He casts the Bowen move in terms of greater emphasis on jobs. Bowen, with his treasury background, will bring a strong economic slant to the post. And he might be a better salesman; Butler has been hardly seen lately.
But some may reckon Labor has become spooked on climate policy just when it’s in tune with the times, as the Biden administration, labelling climate change an “existential crisis”, advances very robust policies.
While the change is a slap for Butler, his new job of health and ageing is high-profile. He’s a former minister for ageing and he’ll have plenty of political exposure after the royal commission reports soon.
The government is very vulnerable on aged care, where most of the COVID deaths occurred. Morrison knows this and elevated it to cabinet in his December reshuffle. Labor also needed extra frontbench heft for the coming debate.
Marles will be of more political use in employment and science than he was in defence. On Thursday he impressed with a strong speech at the news conference. Albanese described Marles as “shadow minister for jobs, jobs and more jobs”.
Ed Husic, the most recent recruit to the frontbench and a good retail politician, should go well in industry and innovation.
But attention will continue to focus on Albanese himself. Once colleagues and media have formed negative judgments, it’s very difficult for a leader to reverse them.
Albanese doesn’t have the problem Bill Shorten had – that so many voters intensely disliked him. Indeed people seem quite warm towards Albanese personally. But that doesn’t mean they’ll vote for him, and Labor’s primary vote remains low.
On the back foot, Albanese tries too hard to be visible. His impractical suggestion this week that the January 26 Australia Day holiday could be an appropriate date for a referendum on Indigenous recognition was a case in point.
The discontent with Albanese will continue. Whether it will blow up is impossible to predict.
Fitzgibbon has achieved the shift of Butler but he will go on stirring. Asked about Butler, he said: “A change of jockey alone will not be enough. We really do need to change the policy trajectory and to recalibrate.” Now he’s questioning the rule, product of the Rudd era, that Labor has in place to protect leaders from a challenge.
Plibersek, from the left, is trailing her coat as an alternative to Albanese. She’s very active, recently edited a book of essays (titled Upturn: a better normal after COVID-19), and hers is usually the name first mentioned in leadership speculation.
She is popular and articulate. But, the sceptics say, when Labor needs to broaden its appeal in the middle ground, why would you substitute one inner-city leftie for another inner-city leftie?
Anyway, Plibersek faces a numbers hurdle. She’d need some support from the right, and there’s no sign of that.
The obvious candidate from the right is Chalmers, but it’s said he doesn’t have an interest at this stage.
Some Labor sources see the positioning by frontbenchers not so much in terms of a pre-election putsch as “branding” for the leadership battle after an election loss.
Albanese is an astute numbers man from way back and well aware his biggest protection lies in the arithmetic.
But equally he knows that’s not absolute protection – he must do better. He’ll step on the policy pedal in coming months, but even this is not easy when things remain so COVID-dominated, directly (with the coming vaccine rollout) or indirectly, as the economy recovers. Out-of-the-box fresh ideas are in short supply.
Labor started 2020 optimistic, because of the toll the bushfires took on Morrison’s support. Then the pandemic sucked the politics out of politics, infecting the opposition with a fever of despair.
On present polling Labor wouldn’t win an election, which could be later this year. But perhaps it should remember it did win 2020’s only real-life federal contest (the Eden-Monaro by-election). It should also remember the volatility of politics.
Labor is not in the situation it was in the run-ups to the 1983 and 2007 elections, when the indications were a leadership change would produce a clear advantage.
Making a change in 2021 might involve a good deal of trauma for very little or no gain. Whether that would be the view of nervous holders of marginal seats is another matter.
The federal government’s A$23.9 million COVID-19 vaccination information campaign, launchedyesterday, aims to reassure the public about vaccine safety and effectiveness. It will also provide information about the vaccine rollout.
We’ve only just started to see the campaign materials appearing online, but the government also promises other communication formats, such as print, radio and outdoor advertising.
This 30-second TV commercial is part of the campaign.
Australia has never undertaken a vaccination program of this scale, and effective communication will be crucial to its success.
So here’s the $24 million question: will this communication campaign work? Vaccine and public health communication research provide some useful insights.
Who are the spokespeople?
Research into how best to communicate risk tells us the most trustworthy spokespeople:
are competent and objective
are reliable and transparent
share the values and experiences of the audience
demonstrate empathy and address the audience’s concerns.
This video — which features a deputy chief medical officer (and infectious disease physician), a representative of the Therapeutic Goods Administration and chief nursing and midwifery officer — is a great start.
This video features experts and trusted health-care providers, which is a great start.
These people are widely seen as experts and trusted health-care providers. They’re not controversial or partisan figures who might be seen to have a political agenda.
But do they resonate with every audience? It might be valuable also to include some diverse and more accessible spokespeople who represent particular communities, such as cultural or religious leaders.
To increase engagement on social media, the campaign could also use respected celebrities or sports stars to share messages or act as vaccination role models. In the 1950s, Elvis Presley was used to promote the polio vaccine.
An effective communication campaign should also train and empower health-care workers such as GPs, nurses and pharmacists to discuss COVID-19 vaccines confidently with the public. This is not visible in the public campaign, but may be part of the government’s strategy.
Information for a wide population needs to be designed for people with different levels of health literacy — the ability to understand, access and act on health advice.
The government’s animated explainer videos demonstrate many principles of effective communication. They are relatively simple, use graphics and short bullet-point lists, and repeat their key messages.
They currently focus on passively providing information, but the best kind of public health messages are action-oriented. Hopefully, once the vaccines are actually available, the campaign will focus on behaviours such as visiting a vaccination delivery site, speaking to your GP or demonstrating where to find information.
There’s also an important balance to strike between accessibility and oversimplification. Some people with concerns about vaccines want more detailed information about safety, side-effects and efficacy. This information should also be available as part of the communication campaign.
The new communication campaign plans to specifically target Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Better yet, the government indicates committees representing these groups are informing its campaign. Therefore, communication materials may look very different for different groups.
This would show the government has undertaken a meaningful process of community engagement to design communication to reach everyone and resonate with their values.
From what we know so far, the communication campaign shows promise with its spokespeople, health-literate design and focus on engaging with diverse communities.
However, we don’t know whether the campaign can adapt and respond to changing events, concerns and evidence. This is one of the most important features of an effective vaccination communication campaign.
People concerned about COVID-19 vaccines commonly cite safety as one of their top concerns. So it is paramount the government proactively prepares to communicate about any side-effects or possible safety issues that arise following vaccination, and respond to events quickly. The government also needs to share safety data transparently and regularly with the public to build and maintain trust.
Monitoring social media can also help identify developing rumours and misinformation before they spread widely. This strategy, also called “social listening”, can be used to inform the communication messages and approach.
If rumours are caught soon enough, it’s possible to pre-emptively debunk — or “prebunk” — misinformation before it takes hold.
Finally, the campaign should be actively seeking public feedback and input. It should be informed by regularly measuring how people feel about vaccination and asking about their concerns.
The government could do this by setting up interactive virtual town hall meetings or Q&A sessions for the public to speak directly with spokespeople. This would demonstrate transparency and a willingness to hear and respond to issues as they arise.
There has been extraordinary coordinated effort and investment around the world to develop effective COVID-19 vaccines. Now, we need evidence-based communication about these vaccines that engages people, offers accessible, culturally appropriate information and earns their trust.
Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies.
The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all reaches of the globe, is alone estimated to have around 100,000 foreign fishers in its crew, mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia.
These fishing vessels mainly catch tuna, marlin and swordfish, but they have also been found to catch threatened species, including sharks, dolphins, turtles, whales and seabirds. Much of the catch is sold fresh to markets in Asia, but is also processed in countries like Thailand and exported beyond Asia, including to Australia.
Workers peeling shrimp at a factory in Thailand.Sakchai Lalit/AP
The conditions on many of these vessels are shocking. The fishers are often expected to work up to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, leaving little time for adequate rest.
Food is often in poor supply, expired or rotting, and a one-litre ration of drinking water must be shared among three men. Injuries, illness and physical and sexual violence are commonplace. The number of deaths on these ships is increasingly drawing attention from the international community.
As part of our research on human trafficking and slavery in distant waters fisheries, we interviewed 25 Indonesian boys and men working on these ships over the past year, and another 48 Cambodian and Filipino men from 2015–19.
One thing the men emphasised was how they were promised salaries of around AU$300–600 per month, only to later discover the wages were not paid to their families back home. Instead, massive deductions, fines and fraudulent contracts kept them in a state of constant debt.
Three Filipino fishermen interviewed by the authors, all of whom were victims of trafficking. They were never offered the opportunity to take legal action or claim compensation.Author provided, Author provided
Our interviews with victims confirm all three elements are very clearly present. So, why then is it so difficult to address this problem?
One reason is the main responses to seafood slavery have centred on trying to improve supply chain transparency rather than focusing on justice itself, such as securing compensation for the fishers, supporting them through the legal process and effectively criminalising traffickers.
While this is important, the focus on supply chains does not offer a complete solution to the problem.
Our research into three human trafficking cases
Between 2015–20, we reviewed three legal cases of human trafficking in Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines involving Taiwanese-owned vessels. We also interviewed dozens of victims who were witnesses or plaintiffs in the cases. Our initial findings suggest much more can be done to protect trafficked fishers and provide them with access to justice.
One of the problems with the current justice response in many countries is it focuses on criminalising traffickers, while the victims are not always able to pursue civil claims.
In the Philippines case, for instance, the victims were not offered the opportunity to make a civil claim, and their involvement in the case against their traffickers was limited to giving evidence as witnesses.
Even in this capacity, there was not much support for them. They had to travel to the trial at their own expense and were not allowed to leave the Philippines until it ended, more than two years later. For the men, the legal proceedings actually worsened their financial insecurity.
As one of the Filipino victim witnesses lamented,
I should never have agreed to be a witness in this case. I have no job or income since coming back from the boat, but the [prosecutor] doesn’t care about that at all, only that I show up to give the testimony when he calls.
Unloading fish at a port in the southern Philippines.Bullit Marquez/AP
No compensation or restitution for the men
In the Cambodian case we reviewed, four Taiwanese traffickers were convicted of human trafficking and one was subsequently jailed. The other three remain at large.
But it has now been seven years since the conviction and the fishers have still not received the US$2,500 or so they were each awarded by the court. Without the money to start a small business or pay off debts, many had no choice but to try their luck on fishing vessels again.
In the Indonesian case, the victims received restitution of US$1,850 each, but this was a fraction of the US$9,200–11,000 they had sought to cover three years of unpaid salaries. One of the victims told us,
we decided to take it instead of getting nothing at all.
Light punishments for traffickers
Even in terms of punishing traffickers, the criminal cases have not acted as a significant deterrent to others.
In the Philippines case, for example, only two low-level recruiters were convicted. The owners of the labour recruitment agency in Singapore were not investigated and remain in business.
The Taiwanese captain of the vessel was also never prosecuted, even though there were serious allegations of physical abuse and the suspicious death of one Filipino fisher.
In the Indonesian case, the owners of just one of the two manning agencies were convicted. The investigation of the second agency was halted because it claimed to be no longer operational.
What can Australia do differently
In December, the Australian government released its National Plan of Action to Combat Modern Slavery, which outlines key initiatives over the next five years to respond to slavery, both in Australia and the Indo-Pacific region.
It is heartening to see a significant focus on justice in this plan. We suggest a few additional steps the government should take:
work through regional mechanisms like ASEAN and the Bali Process to ensure investigations of traffickers can proceed cooperatively across jurisdictions and include labour recruitment agencies, boat captains and senior crew, and owners of fishing fleets
better support fishermen through the legal process, including providing resources for NGOs to assist them
urge countries involved in the trade to make it mandatory for remedial justice and civil claims to occur alongside criminal proceedings
coordinate between source countries of fishers, port states and fleet states to ensure fishers are protected and appropriately supported.
To date, justice that ensures the resilience of victims and reduces their vulnerability to re-trafficking has either not been effective or pursued at all. We need to recognise justice is largely about financial compensation and ensuring the enforcement of fishers’ labour and employment rights.
As one of the Indonesian fishers reflected,
Nothing good has come out of this case. Now I must go again to try my luck working in Thailand. What other option is there?
Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles and clean energy technologies.
In the past week Tesla’s share price surpassed US$880, ten times its March 2020 low of US$85, giving the company a market capitalisation (or total value) in excess of US$880 billion – more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, General Motors, BMW, Honda, Hyundai and Ford combined.
That’s an extraordinary amount for a company that only last financial year made its first full-year profit since being founded in 2003; and that profit was relatively modest. It gave Tesla a price-to-earnings ratio – a standard measure of a stock’s value – close to 1,700.
Compare that to the other shares that have boomed since global stock markets rebounded from the COVID-induced lows of March 2020 – technology companies such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Amazon’s PE ratio is about 97, Apple’s about 44, and others in the 30-40 range.
Telsa’s latest quarterly profit is equally modest, missing analysts’ expectations with reported earnings per share of just 80 cents. Its share price has dipped as a result, but still remains a very optimistic valuation.
So can Tesla’s valuation be justified, or is this one more example of a bubble waiting to burst? Well, Tesla is clearly an extraordinary innovator, but there are several reasons to think that, though irrational exuberance may drive its value even higher, sooner or later it’s going to come crashing back down to earth.
Tesla has benefited from its founder’s vision. It has established a strong brand as the premiere producer of electric vehicles and renewable energy systems – two industries on the cusp of significant growth as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
It has successfully developed a suite of electric cars where other car companies have failed. It has done this by capturing the imagination of investors and technology enthusiasts alike with technically impressive and aesthetically beautiful products.
It has become a major manufacturer of solar photovoltaic systems.
Connected to both these markets are its developments in batteries to power vehicles, homes and entire communities. In South Australia it built the world’s largest lithium-ion battery, storing renewable energy from nearby wind turbines when generation exceeds demand and balancing out the grid when demand exceeds variable supply.
South Australia’s ‘big battery’, formally known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve.Hornsdale Power Reserve/AAP
These industries will accrue a greater share of vehicle and energy markets over time, and Tesla will be a major player in both.
However, Tesla faces serious challenges.
Tesla has led, but others will follow
The major car makers, once wedded to their old internal combustion technologies, are embracing electric in response to what is, for them, an existential threat. Car makers from Korea to Japan to Germany – and of course China – are responding with new products to challenge Tesla’s position.
In strategic management, this response is called “disruption”.
The term is most closely associated with the American academic Clayton Christensen. In his influential 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, he describes the inexorable processes of how “early movers” are confronted with a new batch of entrants intent on securing their share of growing markets.
Clayton Christensen discusses the innovator’s dilemma.
Tesla’s success is tantalising, something both established and start-up competitors will seek to emulate. Late movers may start with simpler, cheaper and by some measures inferior products. But over time they can learn what consumers want and are willing to pay for. They then challenge industry leaders for a share of the market, starting at the bottom but always moving upward.
Indeed, Tesla itself has benefited from these very processes.
As an early mover, Tesla is also laying the foundations for emulators’ success. By establishing the impetus for infrastructure needed for the massive roll-out of electric vehicles, later movers will face fewer entry obstacles than Tesla and other early movers.
These include creating charging stations that, once established, will drive a virtuous cycle of increased demand for electric vehicles and supply of stations.
Tesla’s ‘supercharger station’, in the car park of a Shanghai office complex, is the largest yet built, with capacity for 72 vehicles.Imaginechina?AP
But the differences between Tesla and its big-tech peers may be a source of serious challenge.
Other tech companies benefit from what economists call network effects: the more ubiquitous a product, the more valuable it become to users.
Social media platforms are an obvious example, but it also applies to companies such as eBay and Amazon: the more buyers and sellers on these platform, the greater their value to sellers and buyers – and therefore the greater the returns to the service provider.
For Tesla, network benefits are harder to protect. More electric vehicles will create more demand for charging stations, and more charging stations will help vehicles sales. But it will be harder for Tesla to protect its stations from benefiting competitors.
Perhaps for Tesla’s visionary founder that’s just fine. His plans extend far beyond making money – and Earth.
But if you’re an investor, it’s something to be careful about. You might be able to ride the speculative rocket, so long as you time when you hop off. But if you’re looking at Tesla as a long-term investment – as you should – there are no guarantees.
The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting the jabs when they are available.
Access to vaccines is the most important barrier to widespread immunisations, so this campaign should go a long way toward getting the right people vaccinated at the right time.
But it also comes as government ministers — and even the prime minister — have refused to address the COVID-19 misinformation coming from those within their own ranks.
Despite advice from the Therapeutic Goods Administration explaining that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19, Senator Craig Kelly has continued to promote the opposite on Facebook. A letter he wrote on the same topic, bearing the Commonwealth coat of arms was also widely distributed.
He has also incorrectly advocated the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19, and encouraged people to protest against what he called “health bureaucrats in an ivory tower”.
Compared to health experts, politicians and celebrities tend to have access to larger and more diverse audiences, particularly on social media. But politicians and celebrities may not always have the appraisal skills they need to assess clinical evidence.
I spend much of my time examining how researchers introduce biases into the design and reporting of trials and systematic reviews. Kelly probably has less experience in critically appraising trial design and reporting. But if he and I were competing for attention among Australians, his opinions would certainly reach a much larger and varied segment of the population.
Does misinformation really cause harm?
According to a recent Quantum Market Research survey of 1,000 people commissioned by the Department of Health, four in five respondents said they were likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine when it’s made available.
Australia generally has high levels of vaccine confidence compared to other wealthy countries – 72% strongly agree that vaccines are safe and less than 2% strongly disagree.
But there does appear to be some hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine. In the Quantum survey, 27% of respondents overall, and 42% of women in their 30s, had concerns about vaccine safety. According to the report, this showed
a need to dispel some specific fears held by certain cohorts of the community in relation to potential adverse side effects.
For other types of COVID misinformation, a University of Sydney study found that younger men had stronger agreement with misconceptions and myths, such as the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, that 5G networks spread the virus or that the virus was engineered in a lab.
Surveys showing how attitudes and beliefs vary by demographics are useful, but it is difficult to know how exposure to misinformation affects the decisions people make about their health in the real world.
Studies measuring what happens to people’s behaviours after misinformation reaches a mainstream audience are rare. One study from 2015 looked at the effect of an ABC Catalyst episode that misrepresented evidence about cholesterol-lowering drugs — it found fewer people filled their statin prescriptions after the show.
When it comes to COVID-19, researchers are only starting to understand the influence of misinformation on people’s behaviours.
After public discussion about using bleach to potentially treat COVID-19, for instance, the number of internet searches about injecting and drinking disinfectants increased. This was followed by a spike in the number of calls to poison control phone lines for disinfectant-related injuries.
As vaccine roll-outs accelerate around the world, concern is growing about vaccine hesitancy among certain groups.Peter Dejong/AP
Does countering misinformation online work?
The aim of countering misinformation is not to change the opinions of the people posting it, but to reduce misperceptions among the often silent audience. Public health organisations promoting the benefits of vaccinations on social media consider this when they decide to engage with anti-vaccine posts.
A study published this month by two American researchers, Emily Vraga and Leticia Bode, tested the effect of posting an infographic correction in response to misinformation about the science of a false COVID-19 prevention method. They found a bot developed with the World Health Organization and Facebook was able to reduce misperceptions by posting factual responses to misinformation when it appeared.
A common concern about correcting misinformation in this way is that it might cause a backfire effect, leading people to become more entrenched in misinformed beliefs. But research shows the backfire effect appears to be much rarer than first thought.
Vraga and Bode found no evidence of a backfire effect in their study. Their results suggest that responding to COVID-19 misinformation with factual information is likely to do more good than harm.
So, what’s the best strategy?
Social media platforms can address COVID-19 misinformation by simply removing or labelling posts and deplatforming users who post it.
This is probably most effective in situations where the user posting the misinformation has a small audience. In these cases, responding to misinformation with facts in a more direct way may be a waste of time and could unintentionally amplify the post.
When misinformation is shared by people like Kelly who are in positions of power and influence, removing those posts is like cutting a head off a hydra. It doesn’t stop the spread of misinformation at the source and more of the same will likely fill the void left behind.
In these instances, governments and organisations should consider directly countering misinformation where it occurs. To do this effectively, they need to consider the size of the audience, respond to the misinformation and not the person, and present evidence in simple and engaging ways.
The government’s current campaign fills an important gap in providing simple and clear information about who should get vaccinated and how. It doesn’t directly address the misinformation problem, but I think this would be the wrong place for that kind of effort, anyway.
Instead, research suggests it might be better to directly challenge misinformation where it appears. Rather than demanding the deplatforming of the people who post misinformation, we might instead think of it as an opportunity to correct misperceptions in front of the audiences that really need it.
The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine acceptance is needle fear.
In a study that surveyed parents and children in Canada, 24% of parents and 63% of children reported a fear of needles. About one in 12 children and adults alike said they didn’t get all the vaccinations they needed because of their phobia.
Needle phobia generally begins from around age five, and can last through to adulthood. It can be a barrier to health-care access and treatment.
So it’s important to establish positive attitudes towards needle procedures, particularly vaccination, early in life.
An opportunity
Although there’s no one specific reason why people develop needle phobia, people who are anxious and fearful of needles can often relate their concerns back to one poorly-managed needle experience as a child. A bad experience may result from feelings of powerlessness due to being under-informed or being “tricked” into a vaccination.
While it’s important to use a respectful approach at all ages, the four-year-old vaccinations present a particularly valuable opportunity for parents to help children feel comfortable with needle procedures.
The guide below offers a strategy to help make vaccination a positive experience for your child. It’s based on what’s called the respectful approach to child-centred health care. This focuses on the parent and health-care provider developing a cooperative relationship with the child, rather than using authority or incentives.
The aim is to help the child feel in control and reduce anxiety around needle procedures.
The author’s son is pictured having his four-year-old vaccinations.Therese O’Sullivan, Author provided
Five steps
1. Prepare
A few weeks beforehand, briefly introduce the topic of vaccinations and why they’re important.
Expect some resistance. This is normal — there’s no need to argue, just acknowledge your child’s feelings. Let them know adults don’t particularly like getting vaccinations either!
About a week out, mention again that they’ll be having a vaccination, and give some details, such as where they will be going. Another reminder the day before is helpful.
2. Be honest and transparent
It’s important to check if your child has any questions each time you discuss vaccination with them. Answer as honestly as possible. Yes, it will hurt. But not for long — most of the pain will be gone by the time 30 seconds is up, perhaps as long as it takes to run around the house or say the alphabet.
Help children feel like they are actively part of the process by giving choices where possible. For example, can they have a choice of day, or morning or afternoon?
Check with your health-care provider in advance whether children can choose the location of the injection – normally the vaccines are administered on the outside of the thigh, or the upper arm.
In the lead up, the child might like to prod themselves with a toothpick to see the difference between how each site feels. They may also have a preference for the left or right side.
Sometimes it helps to yell out when you feel pain. Kids may find this fun if you give them free reign to call out anything they want (even “rude” words) when the injection goes in. Just let your health-care provider know in advance so they’re not taken by surprise.
Let your child watch the injection, if they want to.Shutterstock
4. Avoid bribes and distractions
Offering a bribe can give the child the impression there’s something terrible about the procedure. As the parent, be confident (or pretend to be confident if you have needle fear yourself). Pain-related beliefs and behaviours can be learnt through observing others, and children are very perceptive.
You can always do a fun activity or have a treat afterwards, but make this a surprise at the end rather than a bribe before the vaccination.
Distractions are common, but can leave the child wondering why they were distracted. “What was going on that was so bad I wasn’t allowed to look at it?”, they might wonder. When children feel they have been deceived, this may erode trust.
Some children may like to watch so they know what’s happening — give them the option. Interestingly, in one study, adults who chose to watch the needle being inserted into their arm reported less pain compared with those who chose to look away.
5. Use mindful parenting
Think of vaccinations as an opportunity to be 100% present, one-on-one with your child. Put aside any multitasking for the morning or afternoon of the vaccination. If you can, take the time off work, turn off your phone, and arrange for any other siblings to be looked after.
Observe your child, aim to listen with your full attention, be compassionate and aware of how you and your child are feeling. All of these things can improve the quality of parent–child relationships and are important for helping children through potentially anxious times.
Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to collectively “get the smarts”, to devise clever, adaptable responses, that really makes a difference.
But the challenge now is to keep doing the smart thing as we continue to face risk from the ongoing pandemic.
Our research echoes international studies in finding this requires leaders who can recognise what a crisis needs, frame the situation and then draw people together to act in new creative ways to deal with the circumstances.
For a nation or group, adaptive resilience occurs when we are thrown out of our normal routines and have to find new ways of responding. It draws on our planned resilience, the resources and plans we’ve prepared in advance.
Adaptive resilience then moves forward, with agile ways of responding, making decisions on the spot, and rapidly learning while a crisis is still happening.
Leaders identified the needs and drew together the most relevant people from wherever they were, cutting across organisational boundaries. The teams focused on the pressing urgency of the crisis situation, bypassing standard bureaucratic processes and instead used new streamlined rapid responses, making decisions on incomplete information.
They continuously sought out new information, leading to their realisation that official WHO guidance was inaccurate. From there they were brave enough to take a radically different approach. The success of this won international acclaim.
What now?
Now though, there are two serious dangers for New Zealand. The first is a critical challenge that is common to most major disruptions. It is the transition from the initial crisis stage to the longer phase of managing the ongoing disruption.
With earthquakes, this was the shift from the emergency “search and rescue” crisis response phase, to the longer recovery phase and rebuilding. The new phase is definitely not “business as usual”.
It requires special expertise and high levels of adaptability, to perceive and address the changes in a continuously evolving situation.
The second risk occurs when a group has been successful. Recent accounts show one of the key weaknesses in nations that performed less well in the early phases of the pandemic was a misguided belief that “we have it under control”.
This serious error of judgement can follow success and cause leaders to downplay the need for urgency, steering them towards existing routines, rather than the creative responses the new situation demands.
Living with the pandemic
The key question now is what sort of approach is currently guiding New Zealand’s handling of this phase of the pandemic?
It should involve an ongoing, dynamic way of learning that continuously seeks out and takes on board new information, foreseeing and anticipating threats and challenges before they eventuate.
But commentaries suggest those vital elements may have been replaced by a “maintenance mode”. The partnership between public leaders and scientists, one of the hallmarks of the initial crisis phase, appears to have waned.
Well known scientists have repeatedly highlighted shortfalls in the MIQ system, but those warnings do not seem to be acted on, despite other countries having already addressed them.
The consequences of those shortfalls become highly foreseeable, and when an error occurs the response is instead characterised by an after-the-fact, reactive approach.
There are many knowledgeable and talented people working in handling the pandemic but research shows this is not enough. It also requires leadership that creates a mode of working that involves flexibility, with constant learning and adaptation, taking on board new insights to alter ways of operating, pre-empting and averting threats.
Keeping the trust
Managing pandemic border controls is a high-hazard, high-risk area. As with aviation or running major power systems, a slight error can have enormous consequences.
There are well recognised approaches such as “high-reliability organisations” (those experienced in managing high risk, such as air traffic control or nuclear power) that could be implemented, featuring tight controls and consistency, as well as the ability to anticipate threats through continuous learning.
The organisational and management sciences are well established. The issue now is applying those principles.
Any new outbreak will have major health, economic and social costs. But there will also be another significant casualty.
Until now, politicians and public health officials have been able to draw on their social capital, the trust they have earned. But that trust is conditional.
If leaders are seen as failing to act and letting foreseeable failures happen, that has the potential to seriously weaken the collective support and compliance that is absolutely pivotal for current public health measures.
While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country.
This disease — canine ehrlichiosis — is transmitted through the bite of a bacterium-carrying parasite called the “brown dog tick”. This vector parasite is widespread in warm and humid areas of Australia, and its bite can be potentially fatal for dogs.
Until the first cases were recently discovered last May, Australia was considered free of the disease. However, more than 300 dogs in Western Australia and the Northern Territory have now tested positive for it. There have also been reports from veterinary workers in the field of dogs dying without being tested or treated.
And it’s spreading — infected ticks that carry the deadly bacteria have been detected in South Australia, according to Mark Schipp, Australia’s chief veterinary officer. If you own a dog, it’s vital you take precautions to protect it as the outbreak is unlikely to be controlled any time soon.
Fever, lethargy and uncontrollable bleeding
Canine ehrlichiosis is caused by a bacterium called Ehrlichia canis (E. canis) carried by the tick. It first came to the attention of veterinary scientists in the 1960-1970s after affecting scores of military working dogs, often German Shepherds, in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
In Australia today, the disease appears most prevalent in regional areas and remote communities in WA and NT, where the ability to test dogs is restricted for logistical reasons. In some areas, such as communities in the Roper Gulf Shire, testing and treating dogs can be impossible during the wet season as severe flooding can prevent veterinarians from accessing the region.
However, with the detection of ticks in South Australia, veterinarians are concerned they could travel to more populous areas.
When an infected tick bites a dog, the bacterium enters white blood cells and multiplies rapidly, causing signs of illness the owner will only first notice about two weeks after transmission.
This animation on Canine ehrlichiosis has been developed by AMRRIC.
The disease is characterised by fever, decreased appetite, lethargy and bleeding (such as nose bleeds). Some dogs develop severe and rapid weight loss, swollen limbs, difficulty in breathing and blindness.
One of the most serious effects of this disease is on the bone marrow, which can be fatal. Some dogs die of septicaemia as they can no longer fight off even the most innocuous of infections, or they bleed uncontrollably, which can also lead to death.
Ticks expanding southward
Every pet owner who has travelled into Australia with their dogs would know about the stringent testing procedures in place to ensure their canine companions do not bring canine ehrlichiosis into the country. This is especially important since the brown dog tick (the vector) has been in northern Australia for many years, but not with this particular infection.
The brown dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus) injects the bacterium E. canis when it bites a dog.Shutterstock
As with other serious animal diseases screened by biosecurity authorities, such as African Swine Fever and Screw Worm Fly, the bacterium E. canis is highly prevalent in tropical regions, including our closest northern neighbours (Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea) and the Pacific Islands.
However, our 2016 research shows a southwards expansion of the brown dog tick’s geographical range. The reasons why aren’t fully understood, but may include increased pet travel around the country and possibly also climate change.
Worse, the tick is also well adapted to indoor living and readily establishes within kennels or homes, and even in cooler climates. These conditions mean E. canis can spread to most parts of Australia.
In addition to border controls, our isolated geography is another physical barrier to the establishment of canine ehrlichiosis.Markus Winkler/Unsplash, CC BY
Protecting your best friend
Just as our health authorities have been with COVID-19, the response from the state and federal veterinary authorities to this outbreak of canine ehrlichiosis has been swift.
Most dogs will improve from treatment with antibiotics and other supportive measures. However, some may develop a chronic infection, which usually has a terminal outcome.
The disease isn’t contagious; only dogs bitten by the ticks will contract it. So it’s vital animal owners are proactive with the application of parasite prevention.
Owners should seek advice from their veterinarian about which products will protect their dogs from contracting this disease. Research has shown those that repel ticks and stop them attaching in the first place, such as effective tick collars, are the best way to prevent canine ehrlichiosis.
Since the first Australian cases of canine ehrlichiosis were diagnosed, veterinary practitioners have raised questions about how the disease arrived (considering our border controls), as well as how it’s likely to play out in the future.
Was the infection carried into Australia by a dog travelling from an endemic country, or was there an undetected incursion of the contaminated tick itself? If this were the case, there are implications for other, potentially far more serious diseases, such as rabies, entering the continent in a similar manner.
And when exactly did the infection arrive? To be so widespread now would seem to imply its presence for quite some time, possibly several years.
Finally, what are the implications of this disease spilling over to other animals — and humans – in Australia? It would seem our native marsupials are in no danger from this disease; however, the potential impact on dingoes is unknown.
The disease is diagnosed using blood tests conducted by state and federal veterinary laboratories.Shutterstock
A similar, rare disease in humans — called “human monocytic ehrlichiosis” (HME) — is caused by a different, closely related bacterium (Ehrlichia chaffeensis) and is characterised by fever, chill, headache, nausea and weight loss. However, one study in Venezuela revealed 30% of humans with HME were infected with a strain of E. canis.
HME isn’t known to occur in Australia, and the potential for E. canis to cause illness in humans here is currently unknown.
The discovery of E. canis in Australia reminds us of the importance of quarantine measures to protect our pets, just as we take such measures seriously for the protection of humans.
Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States.
This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle to understand writing in a way required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
If adults do not understand key health messages, they are unlikely to comply with health directives that can protect themselves and the rest of the population.
Difficulty with reading
There are many reasons adults can struggle with reading. They include English being their second language, having had long or many absences from school, home factors, student attitudes and engagement, school and systems factors, and learning difficulties and disabilities.
People who have difficulty reading information may miss out on key health messages about COVID-19.
This could lead to poor health outcomes for themselves and others. This is because many of the health messages, such as the importance of wearing a face mask and social distancing, require individual action for community benefit.
We analysed the content of online government documents (federal and Western Australian) related to COVID-19 to determine how hard this information was to read. We chose government pages because we expect them to provide reliable information.
The website pages we selected clearly indicated they were for the general public — such as a page with the heading “information and advice on the COVID-19 coronavirus for the community and businesses in Western Australia”.
Many health messages, such as the importance of wearing a face mask and social distancing, require individual action for community benefit.Shutterstock
We used an online readability checker to analyse the documents we accessed. Readability scores are based on the number of words in a sentence, the number of syllables in the words and the number of sentences in the document.
The documents we analysed had an average readability of grade 13, which is very difficult to read for many adults. The range of readability scores was from grade 8 to grade 26.
Only two of the 52 documents could be read with relative ease, as these were assessed at grade 8. But no document in the set we analysed was easy to read. An easy-to-read document would have had a score of grade 6.
For example, here is a difficult sentence explaining what the public needs to know about moving from one phase of restrictions to another. It is from one of the government websites. The document from which it was taken scored at grade 24 (very difficult to read).
Phase 3 will be subject to health advice, but will focus on continuing to build stronger links within the community and include further resumption of commercial and recreational activities.
There are 29 words in the above sentence.
As you can see, it is quite a long sentence with a number of big words. Without losing its original meaning, the sentence can be simplified into 18 words.
Based on health advice, Phase 3 will include connecting with community, opening businesses and allowing some personal activities.
The words we used are more common and therefore more easy to understand. Words such as “resumption” may be too hard for many readers.
What does this mean?
Based on the sample of documents we assessed, it appears a lot of government-produced COVID-19 information is not easy to read. This means it is unlikely to be of much practical use.
Our findings suggest governments are failing to take into account that many adults struggle to read when they develop important online communications about the pandemic — and perhaps other health advice.
If those who create health messages don’t take into account that many adults struggle with reading, a large portion of the population misses out on information important for individual and public health.
We recommend readability checkers, now freely available on the internet, be used to check the grade level at which government documents are written.
Governments have a responsibility to share information so everyone can access it. They should not assume failure to comply with public health measures is always a choice. It’s possible the message simply hasn’t been received.
The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our cities today.
But the COVID-19 pandemic might have brought our cities to a similarly dramatic turning point. Working from home has received a far-reaching fillip. Our pre-COVID survey of 277 remote-working employee and self-employed Australians shows most had a separate workspace for telework and generally felt satisfied with their home-work environment.
But levels of satisfaction among workers in home-based settings vary. We identified some key factors to explain these differences.
Teleworkers’ work motivation increased with:
having a higher income
being a single parent with children
living in an apartment
satisfaction with workspace size
quality of home office equipment
the mobility of owning a private vehicle.
The quality of the home office space is an important factor in satisfaction with working from home.Jelena Zelen/Shutterstock
For Australian sole parents, who are more likely to be women than men, telework at home can be an efficient and smart way of working. While having more time at home for caring responsibilities, they can work and earn money for household expenses.
Living and working in apartments can provide more opportunities for social interaction. It can also enable more efficient use of energy, lowering costs. Apartments and units are more likely to be located in higher-density urban areas, which offer better access to office and business services and other amenities.
At the same time, there were factors that decreased teleworkers’ motivation, including:
being in full-time employment
complicated corporate protocols
shorter time living in the current residence
feelings of isolation and distraction
having convenient access to public transport.
Access to public transport might seem counterintuitive but while enabling work-related journeys it also promotes more engagement outside the home, distractions to some extent, and so fewer feelings of isolation. Work-life balance at this micro-scale also has to be negotiated individually.
The pandemic has given new impetus to the critical rethinking of dispersed urbanisation that dates back to the sharp rise in energy prices in the early 1970s. The idea of working from home re-emerged at the dawn of the telecommunications revolution early in the 1980s.
Our latest collective experience of working from home has brought into sharp relief both the pitfalls and the positives.
The academic literature on telework from fields such as organisational psychology focuses on maximising economic and logistical efficiency. Many studies ignore the positive and negative effects being in the home has on the worker.
To date, organisational and managerial policies have been contradictory. There are public and private organisational guidelines and supportive government tax policies to encourage teleworking. These cover matters such as ergonomics and utilities (internet, electricity and technology).
But these policies do not practically or adequately support teleworkers’ access to appropriate conditions. Teleworkers can still be left alone with a host of problems and personal challenges.
Many of these issues are rooted in place-related factors. For example, although Australian tax-deduction policies cover internet, electricity and technology costs, they do not cover the capital costs of home renovations made to provide a home office or telework space. Yet these modifications are of great importance for successfully working from home.
The OECD has recognised the risk of policies over-promoting teleworking for economic gains. The negative consequences, such as increased social isolation, distraction and work-family conflict, mainly affect the most vulnerable social groups. They include sole parents, people with disabilities and older people.
The distractions of family life can be stressful for people working from home.Igor Link/Shuttterstock
Based on our research, the government should:
encourage formal agreements for working from home
support modification of homes for telework for vulnerable social groups
Teleworking seems set to become a more entrenched work practice than ever before. Yet factors such as the impacts of home and place on human motivation have not been dealt with.
Over time, if governments want to encourage telework, our cities will need to change. Resources and infrastructure will need to be localised where people live – and increasingly work domestically – and not just in centralised employment districts.
Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke
Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a tidy profit for its investors. With the advent of streaming services like Netflix, this is no longer necessarily the case. And Occupation: Rainfall shows us this.
Occupation (2018) made barely anything at the box office or through international sales, and yet became a surprise hit on Netflix in the US. Writer-director Luke Sparke was able to leverage this success to fund this sequel.
Although it has a much bigger budget, Occupation: Rainfall is marginally worse than its predecessor.
Occupation was able to make the most of its dramatically compelling narrative of a group of survivors banding together to resist an alien invasion, and the new film takes off where Occupation ended. It’s two years after the first film, and the war between “the resistance” and the “greys” (the aliens) rages on.
Its main narrative follows Matt Simmons (Dan Ewing) and alien Gary (Lawrence Makoare) as they travel from Sydney to Alice Springs to find out about “Rainfall,” an alien super weapon sent to Earth eons earlier. On the way, they pick up Peter Bartlett (Temuera Morrison) who presides over a rural community established in the first film.
Meanwhile, Wing Commander Hayes (Daniel Gillies) oversees a giant underground resistance compound, performing secret evil experiments on captured aliens in order to develop a weapon that will win the war.
Virtuous Amelia Chambers (Jet Tranter) takes up her own war against Hayes, and the epic existential war between aliens and humans is mirrored in these internal tensions within the resistance.
The whole thing is bookended by two drawn out, noisy battle sequences between the humans and aliens.
If you haven’t seen the first film, it all seems fairly shrill and incomprehensible.
A failure of spectacle
There are fantastic alien invasion films that make the most of the conflicts between different species, and, in this, say something interesting and original about life on Earth.
John Carpenter’s cult hit They Live (1988) brilliantly critiques American class inequality through its exploration of invasion, and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) says more about the atomic age at the beginning of the Cold War than virtually any other film of the period.
Then there are the more tedious variety: epic war films in which the antagonists happen to look weird and talk in a weird way. These can be effectively done, as in Starship Troopers (1997), but Occupation: Rainfall just does not have the budget to fulfil its premise.
And without a sufficient budget, this kind of epic cinematic spectacle inevitably fails.
The visual effects used don’t stand up to 2021 standards.Monster Pictures
A budget of A$25 million makes it, by Australian standards, a very well resourced film (Occupation was made for A$6 million). But Occupation: Rainfall tries to emulate its much bigger-budgeted brethren like Avatar (2009), made for US$237 million, rather than making its own mark. And this will always be a losing game when it comes to economies of scale.
The visual effects here may have been passable 25 years ago (and look at about the level of the Australian TV show Spellbinder (1995-97) in places), but are laughably bad by contemporary standards.
The spaceships attacking Sydney in the opening battle sequence look like they’ve been rendered using Paint 3D, and we can never suspend our disbelief when looking at the alien companion animals accompanying Matt and Gary on their trip.
For some projects this wouldn’t matter, but building a convincing and immersive world is absolutely critical for this kind of fantasy narrative.
Occupation: Rainfall tries for a visual spectacular — but doesn’t have the budget to pull it off.Monster Pictures
Occupation: Rainfall just doesn’t use its budget creatively or effectively – unlike, for example, Leigh Whannell’s superb Australian science-fiction film Upgrade (2018), with a budget of less than a third of Occupation: Rainfall.
Light and dark
The narrative is unclear and underdrawn. The relationships between the humans and the aliens is never clearly delineated. There are no clear back stories to the characters that might anchor viewers to the world (unlike a film like Alien Nation (1988), which treads similar territory).
It’s not all bad. Aspects of the design are good – there’s an appealing colourfully kitsch quality to the lighting – and the main narrative structure of a pair of mismatched buddies travelling across country facing numerous hazards will always be a winner.
The alien costumes ‘look like objects your mum might have made you for book week in the 1980s.’Monster Pictures
The look of the greys is appealingly bodgie – their costumes and laser guns look like objects your mum might have made you for book week in the 1980s – and Dan Gillies and Temuera Morrison give strikingly assured performances.
But the strength of these actors backfires in terms of the film as a whole, as we become acutely aware of the Home and Away-ish acting of most of the supporting cast. This was a big enough film to throw Ken Jeong in at the end once they reach Pine Gap, but even his comic relief seems lame, doing little to improve the film.
The strength of Temuera Morrison’s performance unfortunately highlights the weaknesses in the rest of the cast.Monster Pictures
The bigger-than-usual budget for an Australian film also plays against Occupation: Rainfall: it makes one painfully aware of the waste. Imagine how many better films could have been made with this money!
It is great to see a sincere genre film coming out of Australia. But Occupation: Rainfall becomes tedious pretty quickly. Given its colonial history, it would seem Australia is primed for a thoughtful, well-made film about alien invasion. This is not it.
Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says.
Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi said overcrowding, especially in the emergency department, was a big concern.
“The population increases at 3 percent a year yet services remain the same,” Dr Molumi said.
“There is a discrepancy between demand and supply which is reflected by the overcrowding.”
He said sometimes patients died while waiting to be attended to because of the long queue.
“The hospital serves over a million people in Port Moresby, Central and Gulf,” he said.
“Limited staff are struggling to meet the demand which reduces the quality of care given to a sick person.
Specialised care needed “As a specialist hospital, it should be concentrating on delivering specialised care so that our people do not need to go overseas for that.
“Instead, we are taking on primary and secondary care as we do not have a separate hospital for the growing population in the city.”
The city has an estimated population of 385,000.
Dr Molumi was responding to a complaint on social media about a woman being admitted at the emergency ward on Saturday but was not attended to until Monday night.
“There is no hospital for Central and the Gulf Hospital cannot offer adequate services,” he said.
“Hence, all come to the Port Moresby General Hospital.
“The overcrowding at the emergency department and outpatients is a reflection of a defective health service we are offering to our people.”
Dr Molumi sees a separate hospital for the National Capital District Health Authority and Central to look after primary and secondary healthcare, leaving Port Moresby General Hospital to concentrate on referrals as the best solution to the overcrowding.
Right now, he said, the hospital was dealing with “everything” which was putting a strain on existing resources.
Lulu Mark is a reporter for The National. Asia Pacific Report republishes The National articles with permission.
Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now.
Anthony took over the then Country party from the legendary John McEwen in 1971; he served as deputy prime minister under John Gorton (briefly), William McMahon, and throughout the Fraser government.
He held the powerful trade portfolio, now out of the Nationals’ hands.
Most importantly, the junior Coalition partner in those days had not just a strong leader effective at juggling his party’s interests with those of the joint team, but an extremely forceful troika – including heavy hitters Ian Sinclair and Peter Nixon – in the upper reaches of government. The party was also united.
Today the Nationals have an embattled leader and a fractured party. They are tolerated rather than respected by the Liberals. For Scott Morrison they are more problem than asset.
As has been on show this week, which has seen sprays from former leader Barnaby Joyce and a renewed push for government support for new coal-fired power.
Joyce, who was forced to quit the leadership in early 2018 in a blaze of bad publicity over his personal life, wrote in The Australian on Wednesday that “the Coalition has devolved into a marriage of convenience that diminishes the electoral prospects of the whole Coalition”.
Amomg his complaints is that the Liberals “allocate the substantial portfolios and [committee] chairs exclusively to themselves”.
“Would the Nationals’ doyen, John ‘Black Jack’ McEwen, have accepted this? This needs to be corrected prior to an election, which I presume will be at the end of this year.”
Joyce pointed to symbolism as well as substance. “In question time to the right of the dispatch box, where the Prime Minister sits, is no longer the Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the Nationals, but the Treasurer. He moved into the picture recently with the COVID pandemic and it does not look like he is for moving out of the frame.”
Joyce’s reference to McEwen is a less-than-subtle crack at Michael McCormack. Joyce and his supporters are deeply frustrated not just with McCormack’s leadership but also by the fact they haven’t been able to get rid of him, which is not for want of trying.
One of Morrison’s periodic challenges is to prop up the position of his deputy prime minister. For example, in considering a legal issue last year, Morrison overrode the preference of Attorney-General Christian Porter to side with strident Nationals, fearing to do otherwise could undermine McCormack.
Morrison has wanted to avoid the disruption in government ranks that would come with the overthrow of McCormack.
Also, what dissidents Nationals see as a negative – McCormack’s pliancy – is for Morrison a positive. Basically, McCormack doesn’t kick up within the Coalition.
He does, however, stuff up from time to time. Like when he was recently acting PM and sparked controversy with his comments about the insurrection in Washington, comparing “the events at the Capitol Hill” “to those race riots that we saw around the country last year.”
With the usual provisos about the uncertainties of politics, McCormack is expected to lead into the election. The heir is not Joyce, despite his aspirations, but the party’s deputy leader, Agriculture minister David Littleproud – and it’s in Littleproud’s interests to wait.
But it is telling that Nationals sources (not from the dissidents) say McCormack’s position would not be guaranteed post election even if the party held its seats.
At the start of a year when Morrison will be under international and domestic pressure over climate policy, the Nationals’ backbench manufacturing committee is hyping up the coal debate. The committee is chaired by former resources minister Matt Canavan, close ally of Joyce and an outspoken rebel.
The committee’s policy paper says: “Australia needs to build modern coal fired power stations to help manufacturing industries. That is why the Nationals Party backs the delivery of a coal fired power station at Collinsville in North Queensland.
“But more will need to be built. Given that the NSW Government has recently announced plans to shut 8520 megawatts of coal fired power (representing 70 per cent of the electricity of NSW), the Government should also support a new coal fired power station in the Hunter Valley.
“This would use the world’s best and cleanest thermal coal. It would be better for the environment for more Australian coal to be used to manufacture goods in Australia, instead of Australians importing manufactured goods from countries that use lower quality coals.”
While the federal government has a feasibility study underway for a possible coal-fired plant at Collinsville, it does not expect there will be a viable case made out for the project.
As for the Hunter region, Morrison’s energy pitch is all about gas, not coal.
The battle on the conservative side of politics over climate and energy issues is nothing like as feral as in Malcolm Turnbull’s time. But Morrison still has to watch potential dissenters – and at present the most unmanageable voices seem to be in the Nationals rather than in the Liberals.
This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees.
Commercial honey bees are also thriving: the New South Wales population has reportedly bounced back after the drought and bushfires
While you may have seen a lot of bees around lately, there’s no reason to be afraid. Most bees are only aggressive when provoked, and some don’t sting at all. And some bee-like insects are actually flies.
We are experts on honey bee and other insect behaviour. So let’s look at which bees to watch out for, and how to avoid being stung this summer.
Most bees, like this native blue banded bee, are not very interested in people.Shutterstock
Is it a bee, or a wanna-bee?
Bees in Australia comprise both introduced and native species.
Invasive bees found in Australia, all of which can sting, include the widespread European honeybees, bumble bees in Tasmania, and Asian honey bees in Queensland.
Australia is also home to about 2,000 native bees, including 11 stingless species.
Stingless bees live in colonies and produce honey. Other native species, such as blue banded bees and leaf cutter bees, are capable of stinging but are rarely aggressive.
Some insects we see around flowers are actually harmless hoverflies. But their yellow and black stripes mean they are often mistaken for bees.
Hoverflies have similar colouring to honeybees.Caitlyn Forster
Bees out and about
Bees on flowers are usually more interested in the food they’re collecting than the people around them. However, if you’re concerned about encountering one on your morning walk or in the garden, there are simple ways to mitigate the risk.
Bees sting when they feel threatened. So when you see one, move slowly and keep your distance. If bees fly close to you, avoid sudden movements such as swatting them away.
And wear closed shoes where bees might fly close to the ground, such as around clover or fallen jacaranda flowers.
If you see a bee in the garden, avoid sudden movements.Shutterstock
What if I see a swarm?
In spring and into summer, healthy honeybee colonies may reproduce by dividing into two. One part of the colony stays at the hive and the other goes looking for a new home.
Worker bees and the queen bee leave the hive in a swarm and find a spot to stay temporarily while scout bees find a new home. That’s when you might see a swarm on a tree, vehicle or building.
Once scout bees find a new home, they return to the swarm and communicate the location via the “waggle dance”. Once a sufficient number of scouts agree on a new nest site, the swarm lifts into the air and flies to its new home.
Don’t panic if you encounter a stationary swarm of bees. The bees will sting only if threatened. But keep your distance.
Moving swarms can pose a higher sting risk, and should be avoided. If you encounter one, move a safe distance away, or indoors if possible. When moving away, avoid fast movements or swatting.
Swarms are usually present for a few hours or days before they move to a permanent location. If the bees are in a risky location (for example, near a footpath or other busy areas), call a beekeeper to safely remove them.
Mating swarms involve males congregating outside a hive to mate with the queen. Fighting swarms occur when a colony of stingless bees attempts to invade another colony. They do not usually pose a risk to humans.
Native bees capable of stinging are solitary, so don’t swarm. However, male solitary bees are known to group together on branches in the evening.
Bee swarms, such as this on a fence during a 2018 cricket match, usually move on in a few days.Brendon Thorne
When a bee sting happens
Death and serious injury from bee stings is rare. But in Australia, bees are responsible for more hospital visits than snakes or spiders. European honeybees are also responsible for more allergic reactions than any other insect.
Only female bees can sting. Honeybees can only sting once, and die shortly after. This is because their stinger is barbed – once it stings something, the bee can’t pull the stinger out. Instead the stinger pulls free from the bee’s abdomen and the bee dies.
Other species can sting multiple times because their stingers are not barbed.
When a bee’s stinger enters your skin, it injects venom from a sac on its abdomen. When this happens, you’re likely to experience temporary swelling and redness.
For most people, reactions to bee venom are shortlived. To limit the amount of venom injected by the bee, quickly remove the sting using the edge of your fingernail or credit card.
In some cases, stings can lead to severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. If you think you may have an allergy to bee stings, speak to your doctor.
And seek medical advice if you are stung in the face or neck, if significant swelling occurs or if you develop symptoms such as wheezing, light-headedness or dizziness.
Many people develop swelling and redness after a bee sting.Shutterstock
Learning to like bees
Bees and other insects play an important role in our food production, by moving pollen from one plant to another. They do a similar job in your garden, helping flowers and fruits to flourish.
But worldwide, bees and other pollinators face many threats, including climate change, misuse of pesticides and habitat loss. We must do what we can to keep pollinator populations healthy.
So if you’re out and about and see a bee, or even a swarm, try not to panic. The bees are probably focused on the job at hand, and not interested in you at all.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England
Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals.
A hyena devouring an antelope carcass, a bonnethead shark feasting on hard-shelled crabs, a dog chewing on a bone: these are all examples of “durophagy”, which basically means “to eat hard parts”.
Durophagy typically involves crushing or chewing and is one of the most effective ways to consume a prey’s hard internal or external skeleton, including shells. While today this feeding style is most common among apex predators such as crocodiles, it can be seen right across the animal kingdom.
An age-old appetite for destruction
Durophagy extends far back in time. More than 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, an array of creepy and curious organisms were swimming, crawling and floating through Earth’s oceans.
Evidence of durophagy in the Cambrian usually comes in the form of shell injuries, and sometimes as fossilised poo containing shell fragments. Buy rarely in the fossil record can we identify the suspects responsible for this carnage.
Enter the arthropods — animals with exoskeletons and jointed legs. Modern examples include insects, spiders and crustaceans. During Cambrian times, there was one particular group of arthropod that dominated the oceans: the trilobites.
These now-extinct creatures had exoskeletons made entirely of “calcite”, which is effectively nature’s version of having a suit of armour made out of rock.
Looking like enlarged woodlice, some trilobite species after the Cambrian grew to be more than 90 centimetres in length. Most would have walked along the seafloor in search of their next meal.
Lucky for us, some Cambrian trilobites are so well preserved we can study their non-calcite anatomy, including their appendages. What’s particularly interesting about these arthropods is they didn’t have jaws or other structures in the mouth to chew.
Instead, they used spines on their many pairs of legs to grind up or shred prey in a similar fashion to modern-day horseshoe crabs.
One of the largest known Cambrian trilobites, Redlichia rex, was found in South Australia. This species could reach up to 25cm in length and had large, spiny legs.Russell Bicknell
But despite being aware of this spectacular anatomical detail, nobody had ever tested whether trilobite species could potentially crush, or “chew”, shells with their spiny legs. We set out to find the answer.
Using advanced modelling techniques, we compared the legs of two Cambrian trilobite species, Olenoides serratus and Redlichia rex, to the legs of the modern horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), which is a known clam eater.
We also compared them to another Cambrian arthropod, Sidneyia inexpectans, which is known to have been durophagous due to shell fragments found in its gut.
3D leg reconstructions of the modern horseshoe crab (top), Redlichia rex (middle) and Olenoides serratus (bottom). The spines used for shredding or crushing are visible on the inner part of the appendage, in green.Russell Bicknell, Katrina Kenny
Our modelling confirmed Sidneyia inexpectans was indeed capable of crushing shells, as indicated by its fossilised gut contents. However, it could not do this very effectively.
On the other hand Redlichia rex — Australia’s most menacing Cambrian trilobite, spanning 25cm and armed with bulky legs — was effectively built like a tank. As such, it was probably highly capable of shell-crushing destruction.
Separate to our modelling, past research has suggested Redlichia rex also ate other trilobites, including its own kind. Thus, this species represents one of the oldest known cannibals.
Long spines mean soft food only
Meanwhile, trilobite species Olenoides serratus had a very different leg shape to Redlichia rex, with more elaborate spines. This presented an unexpected outcome.
We found Olenoides serratus would have been unable to crush very much at all due to its very long, and therefore less powerful, leg spines. We concluded this particular trilobite was strictly on a soft seafood diet.
Biomechanical models of examined arthropod legs. On the left is the modern horseshoe crab and on the right is Sidneyia inexpectans (top), Redlichia rex (middle) and Olenoides serratus (bottom). Warmer colours represent areas of higher strain.Russell Bicknell
By showing which ancient arthropods were equipped for shell-crushing, our research paints a more vibrant picture of life underwater more than half a billion years ago.
During the dawn of animals, the emergence of this feeding style would have placed immense pressure on prey species with shells and skeletons — forcing them into an evolutionary ultimatum: become the tougher “nut to crack” or face extinction.
When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end.
ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence and reported Monday morning it was one of the “variants of concern” we have heard so much about since mid-December.
So far, close contacts of the infected woman have tested negative. But this is the ninth community incursion detected since August. With a makeshift managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system using hotels in the country’s biggest city, rather than purpose-built facilities, further community cases have been expected.
And the increasing prevalence of the new variants worldwide meant it was inevitable we’d eventually see one in the community. Unless there are major improvements at the border, we can expect more cases.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield and Minister for COVID-19 Response Chris Hipkins prepare to announce a probable case of COVID-19 in the Northland community, January 24.GettyImages
How concerned should we be?
Briefly, there are three variants that all share a common mutation known as 501Y in the region of the genome that codes for the spike protein — the part of the virus that binds to our cells and establishes infection.
The three variants are most simply known as 501Y-V1 (or B.1.1.7, first detected in the UK), 501Y-V2 (B.1.351, detected in South Africa) and 501Y-V3 (P1 or B.1.1.28.1, first detected in Brazil).
While the 501Y mutation has been seen multiple times in several countries, what makes these three variants of particular interest is that they are all accompanied by multiple other mutations that are not seen together elsewhere.
It is thought the combined effect of these mutations helps the virus spread more quickly and potentially helps it evade parts of our immune response. Very early and incomplete evidence suggests they may pose a slightly greater risk of death than the original virus.
Risk of increased transmission
Trying to establish whether one variant spreads faster than any other is very difficult. A huge range of factors influence viral spread and there is a lot of random chance involved.
Before December, there was only evidence that one variant — with spike protein mutation 614G — might have a higher rate of transmission. This is now the dominant strain worldwide.
But it might have achieved its current dominance by simple luck as it spread to new and fertile grounds for transmission. Scientists spent much of the last year batting down suggestions that new mutations were changing the dynamics of the pandemic.
Reports from the UK of 501Y-V1, the first variant of concern, changed that. Here was a variant competing with many others in the same location — and it seemed to be growing much more quickly.
Winter plays a role
We can think of viral transmission as a tree, new infections being branches budding off and current cases the tips of those branches. If we see 100 branches, 50 of one variant and 50 of another, grow into 200 branches, we’d expect to end up with roughly 100 of each variant.
Whole genome sequences of viral cases sampled across the UK let researchers construct the family tree of the virus and watch it grow. What they observed was 501Y-V1 outgrowing other variants: the split was more like 115 501Y-V1 branches and 85 of the other type.
Of course, chance may also be involved here. The big factors that influence transmission are how we respond as a society through preventive measures. Seasonal influences are increasingly being recognised, too.
As the UK variant spread, cases rose as winter set in and students returned to education. Growth in case numbers was no surprise.
But the higher growth rate for 501Y-V1 has now been observed repeatedly. Estimates typically put it around 30-70% more transmissible.
Rapid growth has also been observed in 501Y-V2 in South Africa, and genetic similarities suggest 501Y-V3 may also share this trait.
The known unknowns
We should be cautious about transferring these numbers to other environments. The UK was at a fairly high alert level, which reduced the reproduction number (or R number — the average number of people each infected person is expected to infect) to about 0.9 for the standard strain.
The R number for 501Y-V1 was above 1, at around 1.2 to 1.5, hence the claim it was up to 70% worse. It is not yet clear, though, whether the effect is multiplicative (meaning we multiply the observed R number by 170%), or additive (we simply add the difference between the higher and lower R numbers to make the adjustment, so up to 0.6 based on the UK data).
If there was an undetected outbreak in New Zealand right now, given we have very few restrictions and it is summer, R for the standard virus might be around 2. A multiplicative effect of 70% would increase R to 3.4, while an additive effect would just add the same amount — 0.6 — seen in the restricted UK environment, putting R at 2.6.
The difference between 2, 2.6 and 3.4 may seem small. But after four weeks of spread starting from one case it could be the difference between 30, 120 and 450 new cases.
As New Zealand moves into the cooler weather of autumn and winter, the background R number will creep up.
So far we have been somewhat lucky with the community cases detected since the first wave. With the notable exception of the Auckland outbreak in August, the index case has always been quickly identified, linked to the border, and has not been a super-spreader.
While many of the individual cases involved have done everything right in getting tested early, at some point our “dumb good luck” may run out, with a case triggering a super-spreading event.
It has been estimated that around 15-20% of cases are super-spreaders and these cause 70-90% of infections. Seeing one major outbreak from nine border incursions tallies with these estimates.
The most obvious and cheapest way to reduce the risk of a rapid outbreak would be to reduce the number of people returning from high-risk countries (though not necessarily the number of people overall).
We can also reduce the chance of super-spreading events by adding extra post-quarantine testing requirements and having those leaving quarantine severely limit their contacts for the first week in the community.
There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if some people are really taking longer, is that a problem?
As we sift through the evidence, it’s important to remember pooing may involve time spent sitting on the toilet and the defaecation process itself.
And there may be differences between men and women in these separate aspects of going to the toilet. But the evidence for these differences isn’t always as strong as we’d like.
Men do appear to spend more time sitting on the toilet. An online survey by a bathroom retailer suggested men spend up to 14 minutes a day compared with women, who spend almost eight minutes a day. But this survey doesn’t have the rigour of a well-designed scientific study.
Would there be any physiological reason to explain why men spend longer on the toilet? Well, the evidence actually suggests the opposite.
We know it takes longer for food to travel through the intestines in women than in men. Women are also more likely to suffer from constipation related to irritable bowel syndrome than men. So, you’d expect women to take longer to defaecate, from the start of the bowel motion to expulsion.
But this is not the case even if you take into account differences in fibre intake between men and women.
Instead, how long it takes someone to poo (the defaecation time) is heavily influenced by the mucus lining the large bowel. This mucus makes the bowel slippery and easier for the stools to be expelled. But there’s no evidence this mucus lining is different in men and women.
One thing we do know, however, is mammals from elephants to mice have a similar defaecation time, around 12 seconds.
For humans, it’s slightly longer, but still quick. In one study it took healthy adults an average two minutes when sitting, but only 51 seconds when squatting. Again, there were no differences in defaecation time between men and women, whether sitting or squatting.
If there’s no strong evidence one way or the other to explain any gender differences in how long it takes to poo, what’s going on? For that, we need to look at the total time spent on the toilet.
What I call the “toilet sitting time” is the time of defaecation itself and the time allocated to other activities sitting on the toilet. For most people, the time spent just sitting, aside from defaecating, accounts for most of their time there.
So what are people doing? Mainly reading. And it seems men are more likely to read on the toilet than women.
For instance, a study of almost 500 adults in Israel found almost two-thirds (64%) of men regularly read on the toilet compared with 41% of women. The longer people spent on the toilet, the more likely they were to be reading. However, in the decade or more since this study was conducted, you’d expect adults would be more likely to be reading or playing games on their mobile phones rather than reading paper books.
People might also be sitting longer on the toilet for some temporary relief from the stresses of life.
Sometimes, people just need time to themselves.Ramblin Mama
One poll found 56% of people find sitting on the toilet relaxing, and 39% a good opportunity to have “some time alone”. Another online survey revealed one in six people reported going to the toilet for “peace and quiet”. Although these are not scientific studies, they offer useful insights into a social phenomenon.
Then there can be medical reasons for a prolonged defaecation time, and consequently a lengthier time sitting on the toilet.
An anal fissure (a tear or crack in the lining of the anus) can make defaecation a painful and lengthy process. These fissures are just as common in men as in women.
And obstructive defaecation, where people cannot empty the rectum properly, is a common cause of chronic constipation. This is more common in middle-aged women.
Are there any harms from spending too long on the loo?
In a Turkish study, spending more than five minutes on the toilet was associated with haemorrhoids and anal fissures. Another study from Italy noted the longer the time people spent on the toilet, the more severe their haemorrhoids.
One theory behind this is prolonged sitting increases pressure inside the abdomen. This leads to less blood flow into the veins of the rectum when passing a bowel motion, and ultimately to blood pooling in the vascular cushions of the anus. This makes haemorrhoids more likely to develop.
In addition to the usual advice about increasing the amount of fibre in your diet and ensuring you drink enough water, it would be sensible to limit the amount of time spent on the toilet.
More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda.
“Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian elites have made clear their racist plans to destroy Melanesian West Papuans as a distinct people,” said Wenda in a statement.
Last month retired General Hendropriyono, former head of the Indonesian intelligence agency (BIN) and special forces (Kopassus) general, claimed that two million West Papuans should be separated from their Melanesian brothers and sisters in the Pacific and moved to the island of Manado in Indonesia.
“This is racial ethnic cleansing, a genocidal fantasy at the highest levels of the Indonesian state,” Wenda said.
Ambronicus Nababan, chair of the Pro Jokowi-Amin Volunteers (Projamin), made the racial comment about Natalius Pigai, former head of Indonesia’s leading human rights group.
“These remarks stand in a long tradition. When Indonesia invaded our land, General Ali Moertopo said the Papuan people should be transferred to the moon,” Wenda said in the statement.
‘Obstacle to development’ “In 2016, General Luhut Panjaitan said the Papuans should be transferred to the Pacific. Indonesia’s rulers have always seen us as sub-human, as an obstacle to ‘development’ that needs to be ethnically cleansed and killed.
“The Indonesian state punished those who spoke out with over 100 years of collective prison time. The killers and racists in the army, police and state-backed militias were allowed to go free.”
These are not just statements from Indonesian officials, Wenda’s statement said.
They were linked to the military operations that had displaced more than 60,000 people since December 2018. The racist attitudes “justify treating us as second-class citizens, torturing and imprisoning us for exercising our rights to free expression under international law”.
Wenda said this was why the ULMWP provisional government was formed on December 1 last year.
‘We are no longer accepting Indonesian law’ “We are no longer accepting any Indonesian law, policy or proposal. We will not bow down to Indonesian rule any more. The provisional government is issuing the following four points:
We reject all forms of Indonesian law enforced in West Papua;
We support the 83 countries demanding Indonesia allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights into West Papua;
The solution to West Papuan suffering is an independence referendum; and
All West Papuans must unite behind the provisional government.
“It is time to end this: no more torture, no more displacement, no more killing, no more discrimination. To all my people, those who are working in the Indonesian government, in the civil service, professionals, exiles, lawyers, those inside, in the highlands, coasts, islands and towns – we are no longer Indonesian citizens.
“We are forming our own Melanesian nation. Come behind the provisional government, and we will peacefully reclaim our country and refuse Indonesia’s illegal occupation of our territory.”
Among the many hard truths exposed by covid-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5 percent.
And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, The Guardian reported “the 1 percent are coping” by taking private jets to their luxury retreats.
Such perverse affluence further fuelled criticism of the so-called 1 percent, which has long been the standard rhetoric of the political Left.
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters called out growing economic inequality by proclaiming: “We are the 99 percent!”. And an Oxfam report in September last year lamented how the richest 1 percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of humanity.
But you might be surprised to find this 1 percent doesn’t just comprise the super-rich. It may include you, or people you know. And this fact has big implications for social justice and planetary survival.
Many everyday Australians have a net worth that puts them in the world’s richest 1 percent. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock
Look in the mirror When you hear references to the 1 percent, you might think of billionaires such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Tesla founder Elon Musk. However, as of October last year there were 2189 billionaires worldwide — a minuscule proportion of the 7.8 billion people on Earth.
So obviously, you don’t have to be a billionaire to join this global elite.
So how rich do you have to be? Well, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report in October last year showed an individual net worth of US$1 million (A$1,295,825) – combined income, investments and personal assets — will make you among the world’s 1 percent richest people.
The latest official data shows Australia’s richest 20 percent of households have an average net worth of A$3.2 million. The average Australian household has a net worth of A$1,022,200, putting them just outside the world’s richest 1 percent.
The net worth of many Australians puts them in the global elite. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock
If you’ve just done the sums and fall outside the 1 percent, don’t feel too sorry for yourself. A net wealth of US$109,430 (A$147,038) puts you among the world’s richest 10 percent. Most Australians fit into this category; half of us have a net worth of A$558,900 or more.
What does all this mean for the planet? It’s true the per capita emissions of the super-rich are likely to be far greater than others in the top 1 percent. But this doesn’t negate the uncomfortable fact Australians are among a fraction of the global population monopolising global wealth. This group causes the vast bulk of the world’s climate damage.
A 2020 Oxfam report shows the world’s richest 10 percent produce a staggering 52 percent of total carbon emissions. Consistent with this, a 2020 University of Leeds study found richer households around the world tend to spend their extra money on energy-intensive products, such as package holidays and car fuel. The UN’s 2020 Emission Gap Report further confirmed this, finding the top 10 percent use around 75 percent of all aviation energy and 45 percent of all land transport energy.
It’s clear that wealth, and its consequent energy privilege, is neither socially just nor ecologically sustainable.
Global wealth disparity is not just or sustainable. Image: The Conversation/Shutterstock
A potential solution Much attention and headlines are devoted to the unethical wealth of billionaires. And while the criticism is justified, it distracts from a broader wealth problem — including our own.
We should note here, one can have an income that’s large compared to the global average, and still experience significant economic hardship. For instance in Australia, the housing costs of more than one million households exceed 30 percent of total income – the commonly used benchmark for housing affordability.
Here lies a central challenge. Even if we wanted to reduce our wealth, the enormous cost of keeping a roof over our head prevents us from doing so. Servicing a mortgage or paying rent is one of our biggest financial obligations, and a key driver in the pursuit of wealth.
But as we’ve shown above, as personal wealth grows, so too does environmental devastation. The rule even applies to the lowest paid, who are working just to pay the rent. The industries they rely on, such as retail, tourism and hospitality, are themselves associated with environmental damage.
Existing economic and social structures mean stepping off this wealth-creating treadmill is almost impossible. However as we’ve written before, people can be liberated from their reliance on economic growth when land – the very foundation of our security – is not commodified.
For social justice and ecological survival, we must urgently experiment with new land and housing strategies, to make possible a lifestyle of reduced wealth and consumption and increased self-sufficiency.
This might include urban commons, such as the R-Urban project in Paris, where several hundred people co-manage land that includes a small farm for collective use, a recycling plant and cooperative eco-housing.
The R-Urban project in Paris, which includes a small farm. Image: The Conversation/Flickr
Under a new land strategy, other ways of conserving resources could be deployed. One such example, developed by Australian academic Ted Trainer, involves cutting our earnings sharply – with paid work for only two days in a week. For the rest of the working week, we would tend to community food gardens, network and share many things we currently consume individually.
Such a way of living could help us re-evaluate the amount of wealth we need to live well.
The social and ecological challenges the world faces cannot be exaggerated. New thinking and creativity is needed. And the first step in this journey is taking an honest look at whether our own wealth and consumption habits are contributing to the problem.
As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory quarantine and visa restrictions.
Even so, concern about new strains of the virus have led to calls to “turn down the tap”, particularly for those coming from places such as Britain, where spectacular political incompetence has created the conditions for these new COVID variants to evolve.
Such a move would make an already difficult process even more so. Since quarantine has to be pre-booked and there are limits on availability, there have been inevitable delays and disappointment. This has led to complaints about it being too difficult to “come home”.
Also inevitably, there has been much talk of the “right” to return. While the government has granted special visas for entertainers, sportspeople, essential workers and students, those with citizenship or residency status expect to be allowed home.
Rights aren’t always absolute
However, rights are rarely a trump card. With very few exceptions — most obviously the right not to be tortured or treated in an inhuman or degrading way — rights are not absolute.
Rather, they represent an important value that must be weighed in the balance and respected unless there are good countervailing arguments. Depending on the strength of those arguments, a right may be delayed, only partly respected, or outweighed completely.
For example, there is a right to privacy, but a criminal conviction cannot be kept private from people who need to know about it. There is a right to freedom of expression, but not to the extent of defamation or inciting discrimination.
So it is with the right of New Zealanders to come into New Zealand when they have exercised another right, namely the right to leave the country.
No arbitrary denial of rights
The modern human rights regime begins with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which New Zealand had an important role in drafting. Its article 13 sets out a right to move within state borders, to leave any country and to return to one’s home country.
But article 29 notes there are duties to the community and that rights can be limited for good reasons.
The declaration was put into a binding treaty, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which New Zealand ratified in 1978. Article 12 of this significant treaty refers to people not being “arbitrarily” prevented from entering their own country.
The ICCPR is part of the reason we have the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Under its section 18, all citizens have the right to enter New Zealand. However, under section 5, limitations are allowed if they are clearly justified in a democratic society.
This goes to the heart of what “arbitrarily” means in practice. Basically, limits on the right to return have to be based on a competing interest. Those limits have to support the competing interest, and the balance has to make sense.
The government’s duty
There are many competing interests, most fairly obvious, starting with protecting people’s lives, particularly those most vulnerable.
COVID-19 is objectively dangerous and protecting people in New Zealand is a government’s duty. In short, we have a right to life. Protecting this is rationally connected to an effective quarantine process. In turn, this can justify all manner of conditions, including limits on numbers.
Secondly, there is the more general health of people, which will be compromised if healthcare systems are overwhelmed, as has happened in other parts of the world. This undermines the right to health.
Thirdly, there are rights that flow from having a robust economy, including the right to an adequate standard of living. The government’s approach of protecting these interests by cutting off international tourism and limiting some other sectors to protect the rest of the economy is certainly not arbitrary.
There is another side to this, of course. All these rights also belong to New Zealanders abroad. Their right to return includes the right to be in a safer and better environment. This is not lost by being overseas when a pandemic strikes.
However, the government can give extra weight to protecting people already here, particularly as fair notice was given that significant restrictions were being imposed to eliminate COVID-19 in the community, rather than merely manage it.
As the overseas experience suggests, the latter approach would have led to more deaths, compromised health care, and might well have undermined the economy to a greater degree.
So, yes, there is a right to return — but it is a right that can be delayed to protect those already here.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US.
If history is any guide, the new president’s forward-thinking approach could help drive Australia’s commitments to refugee protection, as well.
Over the past four decades, the United States and Australia have contributed to international refugee resettlement through planned annual admission programs.
The annual US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has traditionally operated on a much larger scale than any other country, with tens of thousands of places per year. Since 1980, the program has enabled more than 3 million people to find safety and build new lives in the US.
Under former President Donald Trump, however, the program was cut to historic lows of just 15,000 places for the year beginning in October 2020.
A rally against Trump’s refugee policy in October.Steve Helber/AP
Less dramatically, Australia’s quota for the admission of refugees and others in humanitarian need was similarly reduced from 18,750 in 2019-20 to 13,750 in 2020-21, a cut attributed to travel restrictions imposed due to COVID-19.
Biden pledging to increase US refugee intake
Revitalising the US refugee program is one of the many tasks facing the newly installed Biden administration, in addition to revising US asylum policy for those seeking protection at the borders.
Biden has committed to an annual refugee intake of up to 125,000 people, echoing the goals of the Obama administration in its final year, when it set an intake of up to 110,000 refugees.
At that time, resettlement was valued as a “foreign policy priority” for the US, with President Barack Obama joining UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in hosting a Leaders’ Summit on Refugees in 2016 to address record levels of global displacement, including from Syria.
The Australian government participated in that initiative and pledged to increase its annual humanitarian intake to 19,000 by 2018. The summit demonstrated how leadership by the US can have direct impact and influence on the actions of other states.
Australia has similarly tried to boost its reputation
By increasing the US resettlement numbers now, Biden is looking to rebuild America’s image abroad.
This is a tried and tested tool, evident in the Ford and Carter administration’s large-scale admission of Vietnamese refugees in the aftermath of the disastrous war in Vietnam.
Previous Australian governments have also sought to improve the country’s image through the rosy glow of resettlement contributions.
In September 2015, for example, just five days after The New York Times published a scathing assessment of Australia’s offshore detention system, the Abbott government announced Australia would resettle an additional 12,000 Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
Abbott claimed Australia was demonstrating good international citizenry.
However, the optics did not prevent the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from decrying a week later the lack of transparency around offshore detention in Australia and the inability of asylum seekers to access medical care and independent legal advice.
Most recently, the Australian government this month cited the country’s “generous” humanitarian program in its formal response to UN concerns about the treatment of asylum seekers here.
Refugees housed on Manus Island have long faced dangerous and unhealthy conditions.Matthew Abbott/PR Handout Image/GetUp
US and Australia policies have long echoed one another
Whether the Biden administration could influence Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is hard to gauge.
The US has been a model for Australia’s harsh asylum policies over the years. The US Coast Guard, for instance, was interdicting asylum seeker boats under the Reagan administration, years before the Howard government adopted the practice in 2001.
And in the early 1990s, the Bush and Clinton administrations authorised the detention of Haitian refugees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base — a practice later adopted by Australia on Manus Island and Nauru.
And at times, Australia has influenced the US. In a phone call with Trump following his inauguration in January 2017, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed support for Trump’s promotion of hard-line immigration control, and claimed that Australia had “inform[ed] your approach”. Turnbull said,
We have, as you know, taken a very strong line on national security and border protection here […] We are very much of the same mind.
In their phone call, Trump said he liked Australia’s tough approach to refugees.Shawn Thew/EPA
Could the Biden administration lean on Canberra now?
If Biden follows through on his pledge to reinstate America’s “historic role in protecting the vulnerable”, he may prove to be a very different kind of leader.
The Obama era could provide some clues to the Biden approach. In 2015, the head of the Department of State’s refugee bureau encouraged Australia to
be with us again in really being leaders in humanitarian response to migrants and refugees in the region.
The Obama administration urged the Australian government to change its hard-line insistence on detaining asylum seekers offshore.
Unsuccessful in this effort, the Obama administration did what it could, signing a resettlement deal with the Turnbull government in 2016 to get refugees off Manus and Nauru and grant them entry to the United States.
Protests in support of relocating refugees from Manus and Nauru have been a familiar sight on Australian streets.Wayne Taylor/AAP
The deal was loudly criticised but reluctantly upheld by the Trump administration (even though Trump struggled to understand what he called Australia’s “thing with boats”).
Importantly, the deal was reportedly predicated on Australia “doing more” for refugees elsewhere in the world. Signs of this effort were evident in Australia’s increased refugee admission quotas of recent years.
If the Biden administration leans on Canberra in a similar way, we may see Australia return to a higher resettlement quota.
Perhaps we will also see humane solutions for those who came by boat seeking Australia’s protection and are still being detained in hotels and remote detention facilities — including young children.
There are glimmers of hope. In recent days, for instance, the Australia government released dozens of refugees and asylum seekers from detention.
However, these men have been given short-term visas, which means they will continue to face an uncertain future — a product of current government policy that affects many thousands of refugees living in Australia today.
It is clear that leadership by the US, Australia’s major ally, is needed now more than ever.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Boddy, Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School (Learning and Teaching), Griffith University
Domestic and family violence soars in the months and years following natural disasters. It usually involves physical and psychological violence perpetrated by men against women and children, but it can also include an escalation in sexual, financial and emotional abuse.
Following the 2009 Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, more than half of women in one study reported experiencing domestic and family violence. Many had never experienced it before.
Recent research found significant differences in reports of violence amongst women in high, medium and low bushfire affected regions in Victoria three years after the Black Saturday bushfires. There was an overrepresentation of women experiencing violence in high bushfire affected areas.
And according to Australian frontline workers, while reports of violence might decrease during a disaster, it soon escalates.
The frequency and severity of violence against women is exacerbated by tensions arising from natural disasters, including:
The frequency and severity of violence against women is exacerbated by tensions arising from natural disasters, including increased alcohol and drug use.Shutterstock
Disasters hit vulnerable groups hardest, entrenching disadvantage
Disasters can have disproportionate effects across socioeconomic groups. We have known for some time disasters of similar nature and magnitude have dramatically different consequences for people in different places.
Families where income has fallen after a disaster are at higher risk of women experiencing violence.
The 2016 Personal Safety Survey found both financial stress and unemployment were associated with women experiencing domestic and family violence.
Worse, research shows disasters are more likely to occur in low socioeconomic areas.
In Australia, about one quarter of women have experienced an incident of violence from an intimate partner.
Violence prevention should be part of our emergency response
As disasters are expected to increase, Australia should further consider how to incorporate domestic violence mitigation into our emergency responses.
First responders need training in how to identify risks of violence and respond appropriately.
In the face of displacement and trauma, it’s important volunteers and workers do not excuse violence. Instead, they should provide care that promotes victims’ safety, and respects their privacy and dignity. Access and referral to appropriate health and community services should be assured.
We need permanent shelters that stay cool during heatwaves and offer protection from flooding. Public buildings need to be well set up for women and children experiencing disasters and, during COVID-19, allow for families to maintain a safe physical distance.
Local community-based domestic and family violence services must ensure their organisations are disaster-ready and can operate when disaster strikes.
Longer term investment to boost community resilience
Australian governments must invest in domestic violence hotlines, refuges and women’s centres — especially in low socioeconomic, disaster-prone areas.
Programs supporting perpetrators of violence to change their behaviours also need investment.
But we also need new ways of working directly with men, informed by the experiences of women. Such approaches should seek to intervene early and involve women and children in their design.
As a society we must seek to address the underlying causes of domestic and family violence, and move beyond outdated ideas about masculinity that hold men to an impossible standard and put women at risk.
Many people don’t actually know what domestic violence looks like. We need community education about coercive and controlling behaviours and about the fact that the risk of family violence spikes after disasters.
Such training should be used to challenge social and cultural norms that condone violence, while also letting people know how to report violence, find services, and get to safety.
We all have a role to play in addressing domestic and family violence. Our efforts grow only more important as we face more frequent and severe disasters in Australia.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call the 1800 Respect national helpline on 1800 737 732 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. 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.
Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5%. And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, The Guardian reported “the 1% are coping” by taking private jets to their luxury retreats.
Such perverse affluence further fuelled criticism of the so-called 1%, which has long been the standard rhetoric of the political Left.
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters called out growing economic inequality by proclaiming: “We are the 99%!”. And an Oxfam report in September last year lamented how the richest 1% of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of humanity.
But you might be surprised to find this 1% doesn’t just comprise the super-rich. It may include you, or people you know. And this fact has big implications for social justice and planetary survival.
Many everyday Australians have a net worth that puts them in the world’s richest 1%.Shutterstock
Look in the mirror
When you hear references to the 1%, you might think of billionaires such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Tesla founder Elon Musk. However, as of October last year there were 2,189 billionaires worldwide — a minuscule proportion of the 7.8 billion people on Earth. So obviously, you don’t have to be a billionaire to join this global elite.
So how rich do you have to be? Well, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report in October last year showed an individual net worth of US$1 million (A$1,295,825) – combined income, investments and personal assets — will make you among the world’s 1% richest people.
If you’ve just done the sums and fall outside the 1%, don’t feel too sorry for yourself. A net wealth of US$109,430 (A$147,038) puts you among the world’s richest 10%. Most Australians fit into this category; half of us have a net worth of A$558,900 or more.
The net worth of many Australians puts them in the global elite.Shutterstock
What does all this mean for the planet?
It’s true the per capita emissions of the super-rich are likely to be far greater than others in the top 1%. But this doesn’t negate the uncomfortable fact Australians are among a fraction of the global population monopolising global wealth. This group causes the vast bulk of the world’s climate damage.
A 2020 Oxfam report shows the world’s richest 10% produce a staggering 52% of total carbon emissions. Consistent with this, a 2020 University of Leeds study found richer households around the world tend to spend their extra money on energy-intensive products, such as package holidays and car fuel. The UN’s 2020 Emission Gap Report further confirmed this, finding the top 10% use around 75% of all aviation energy and 45% of all land transport energy.
It’s clear that wealth, and its consequent energy privilege, is neither socially just nor ecologically sustainable.
Global wealth disparity is not just or sustainable.Shutterstock
A potential solution
Much attention and headlines are devoted to the unethical wealth of billionaires. And while the criticism is justified, it distracts from a broader wealth problem — including our own.
We should note here, one can have an income that’s large compared to the global average, and still experience significant economic hardship. For instance in Australia, the housing costs of more than one million households exceed 30% of total income – the commonly used benchmark for housing affordability.
Here lies a central challenge. Even if we wanted to reduce our wealth, the enormous cost of keeping a roof over our head prevents us from doing so. Servicing a mortgage or paying rent is one of our biggest financial obligations, and a key driver in the pursuit of wealth.
But as we’ve shown above, as personal wealth grows, so too does environmental devastation. The rule even applies to the lowest paid, who are working just to pay the rent. The industries they rely on, such as retail, tourism and hospitality, are themselves associated with environmental damage.
Existing economic and social structures mean stepping off this wealth-creating treadmill is almost impossible. However as we’ve written before, people can be liberated from their reliance on economic growth when land – the very foundation of our security – is not commodified.
For social justice and ecological survival, we must urgently experiment with new land and housing strategies, to make possible a lifestyle of reduced wealth and consumption and increased self-sufficiency.
This might include urban commons, such as the R-Urban project in Paris, where several hundred people co-manage land that includes a small farm for collective use, a recycling plant and cooperative eco-housing.
The R-Urban project in Paris, which includes a small farm.Flickr
Under a new land strategy, other ways of conserving resources could be deployed. One such example, developed by Australian academic Ted Trainer, involves cutting our earnings sharply – with paid work for only two days in a week. For the rest of the working week, we would tend to community food gardens, network and share many things we currently consume individually.
Such a way of living could help us re-evaluate the amount of wealth we need to live well.
The social and ecological challenges the world faces cannot be exaggerated. New thinking and creativity is needed. And the first step in this journey is taking an honest look at whether our own wealth and consumption habits are contributing to the problem.
On January 27 communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz — the largest complex of concentration camps and extermination centres during the Holocaust. This is the first year the International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be marked nationally in Australia.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will address the event, which demonstrates the importance the government ascribes to Holocaust commemoration.
In October 2019, after two cases of serious anti-Semitism in schools (one where a Jewish student was forced to kiss the feet of another student) Josh Frydenberg urged schools to deliver more history lessons about the Holocaust. He said:
If they [bullies] understood and comprehended the atrocities of the Holocaust, they would be as insulted as anybody, including me, about these recent attacks.
Federal and state governments have provided funding to Holocaust museums, and Holocaust education is mandatory in years 9 and 10 in NSW and Victoria. It is also part of the history curriculum nationally.
Although the Holocaust is a universal symbol of evil, there is some feeling among Australians it has no direct historical relevance here. In 2016, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra unveiled a small exhibition with several stories connecting Australia to the Holocaust. But there was some opposition.
One regular visitor to the Memorial told me emphatically that she was opposed to this exhibition. “This has nothing to do with Australia and the Australian War Memorial”, she said. She told me that she would never walk through it.
With the passing of most of the last survivors, it seems the horrors of the event are being lost with the younger generations. Surveys conducted by the Claims conference (an international organisation that aims to bring justice to Holocaust survivors) in 2018, showed 31% of Americans (41% of millenials) believe substantially fewer than 6 million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust.
And almost half of Americans couldn’t name a single concentration camp during the Holocaust, despite the fact there were possibly more than 40,000 at the time.
Teachers need to consider new ways how to make Holocaust history relevant to new generations globally, and in Australia.
How the Holocaust is relevant to Australia
My historical research has brought to light personal stories connecting Australia and Europe during the second world war.
Between 7,000 and 10,000 Jewish refugees reached Australia shortly before the war. Most of them left behind relatives, often elderly parents, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends, who perished in the Holocaust.
In 1939 Mayloch Ruda from Warsaw, Poland migrated to Australia with his two daughters — leaving his wife Chana and three other children, Pola, Frania and Guta behind. This was a typical migration strategy, when the breadwinner left first to establish a new home overseas.
Mayloch applied for Australia to admit his family, but it was too late. The war closed almost all emigration routes from Europe. His wife and three daughters were soon imprisoned in the largest Nazi ghetto in Warsaw.
Mayloch and his two daughters remained in an intermittent contact with their family through the International Red Cross. The last message they received from Pola in November 1942 was delayed by almost six months:
We are in dire material conditions. Mother lost her sight. We plead for any help, as soon as possible. We all live together. We are waiting for help and the news.
Mayloch contacted Jewish humanitarian agencies to send his family food parcels, but it is doubtful they ever arrived. Most of the Jews from Warsaw, very likely including the Ruda family, were murdered in Treblinka.
After the war, the Rudas and others tried to locate their relatives, and if they survived, bring them over to Australia.
Another surviror, Max Heitlinger, who arrived in Australia in 1939 from Vienna, expressed these feelings in his memoirs.
I knew it was the end for all of them. I still wake up at night and cry in desperation and self-accusation.
Despite the immense interest in the history of the Holocaust in Australia their efforts and strategies have remained largely unknown.
The Holocaust is about human rights more generally
The idea Holocaust education could help combat rising anti-Semitism is not new. Surveys conducted in the past 15 years, however, suggest “Europe is experiencing rising levels of antisemitism […] alongside a growth in Holocaust education”.
The authors of the surveys write that for Holocaust education to be effective, the curriculum should also consider “the pre-existing cultural capital of students and the specific history of Jewish communities, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust in the country […] where the subject is being taught”.
UNESCO recommends education about the Holocaust include elements such as a fostering critical thinking, education about global citizenship and an integration of gender perspectives to help unmask bias.
Stories like the above, of migrants in Australia separated from family, offer possible avenues for teachers to present the Holocaust as part of our history.
Using these stories is also crucial for understanding the diverse experiences in Australian multicultural society.
Up to 10,000 Jewish refugees came to Australia before the war. Many left behind relatives. (Photos of Holocaust victims and survivors taken from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington)Shutterstock
Stories of separated families still happen today. Sadam Abudusalam, an Australian citizen, was separated for three years from his Uyghur wife Nadila and their child, who were left behind in China. The Chinese persecution of the Muslim Uyghurs was recently characterised by the Trump administration and the president-elect Joe Biden’s team as a case of genocide. Thankfully, Sadam was reunited with Nadila and their child in December 2020.
The study of the Holocaust offers immense opportunities to educators at all levels, but proper training is necessary for those who teach the subject.
But while the Australian government has mandated Holocaust education, the recent fee shake-up in universities — where fees for most humanities courses have risen – will unfortunately put learning about it in-depth out of reach for some students. And this includes prospective school teachers.
Australia must make it easier for students to learn about the history of our world so they can better teach it to school students.
The study of the Holocaust, as the ultimate example of genocide, allows teachers to raise the universal message of human rights abuses and mass violence. If we relate the Holocaust to our past and present context, we can facilitate a better understanding of the Australian place in the world and its relation to gross human rights violations around the globe.
The summer break is over, marking a return to the office. For some, this ends almost a year of working from home in lockdown. Some analysts are predicting it might also mark an enduring shift in how we dress for success.
It’s not the first time in Australia’s history the return to “normal” life after times of turmoil has prompted calls for more comfortable dress. The suit — quintessential men’s business dress for more than a century — has sat at the heart of these debates.
What we dress in speaks of our occupation as much as it shapes how we work: a collar that is blue or white, a singlet or a suit. The history of the suit is also tied to ideas of masculinity, class, modernity and fashionable consumption.
Is it time men swapped the suit for something more relaxed?
The birth of the business suit
Young men moved away from formal professional attire of top hats and frock coats — cut with hems that fell to the knee — around the 1870s. Instead they wore “business fashion”, pairing tailored jackets, trousers and sometimes patterned waistcoats with white shirts. Stylish neckwear and bowler hats completed the look.
Group of bank managers, stock and station agents dressed for work but not the weather, circa 1900.State Library Queensland
By the turn of the century, three-piece suits cut from the same dark-coloured woollen cloth were worn for work. These became known as “business suits”. They are strikingly similar to what we see businessmen wear today, though our contemporaries no longer wear them with stiff, detachable collars or watch chains.
As business suits became ubiquitous for city wear and office workers across Australia, working-men’s attire became increasingly practical. Those labouring in the sun or in roles demanding movement stripped back to shirts with their sleeves rolled up, or down to undershirts.
Women working in offices or shops donned lightweight blouses teamed with long, dark skirts. The fascinating history of their transforming workwear deserves a piece of its own.
Many men lamented that suits and ties were hot and stuffy by comparison, particularly in Australia’s summer months.
There were calls for men’s “dress reform” from the early 20th century. Dress reform movements were not new at the time, nor were they confined to Australia or to men’s dress.
But war was a catalyst for change, when reformers emphasised health and hygiene over conservative, heavy suits and constrictive, tight collars. The aesthetics of men’s dress — dubbed drab, austere and colourless — also came under question.
As men returned to Australia from the first world war, commentators debated new ideas around colour, comfort and clothing that was better suited to Australia’s climate. Reformers advocated for different cuts to men’s clothing or swapping certain garments: jackets with knitted jumpers, for example, or stiff collars for looser versions that freed the neck to move.
But men in the city remained hesitant. Going without jackets and ties was undoubtedly more comfortable, but unprofessional against the dress codes of the day. As one young city worker expressed in late 1922, it made a man look “as if he were going to a picnic”.
When discussions around dress reform flourished in the aftermath of the second world war, they responded to shortages as much as to dressing for the heat. “Civvy suits” issued to returning servicemen from 1943 were in short supply. These suits were lampooned and despised when they looked cheap and badly made, but wool mills were stretched to their limits and tailors struggled to keep up with demand.
Dress reform aimed for comfort and style, exemplified by these chaps photographed for Pix magazine in 1947.Laurie Shea/Mitchell Library, State Library NSW and Courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd
Into this void, some suggested men adopt sportswear for their return to the office — a more comfortable alternative men deserved after long years of war and austerity. This form of sportswear referred to jackets and trousers sold as separates and worn in different colour combinations, or woollen cardigans and jumpers.
An example was photographed in 1947 for Pix magazine. It captured two young men breezily strolling along Sydney’s Martin Place in open-neck shirts and loose or safari-style jackets. The photograph’s caption noted that they looked “cool, smart and comfortable” unlike “conservative” men in suits left to “swelter in the heat”.
Though suits continued to be worn by many office workers, this set in place the move towards more casual dress that would resonate across decades to come.
The idea of a room full of suits, standing so close together, seems dated post-lockdown.Shutterstock
Lockdown has again transformed our dress as we’ve tested new combinations of comfortable clothes while working from home — variously labelled “slob chic” and the “lockdown look”, with fancy dress days to keep things interesting.
Some forecast our penchant for relaxed clothing will ripple through office dress protocols this year in a move to something akin to casual Fridays.
While it’s unlikely the tracksuit will replace the suit just yet, looser styles, freer tailoring and lighter fabrics would be another step along the path suggested by dress reformers a century ago.
New Zealand has a strong history of protecting and promoting human rights at home and internationally, and prides itself on being an outspoken critic and global leader in this area. So, when the most serious accusation of human rights abuse — genocide — is made of one of its friends, how to respond?
This is precisely the situation now regarding China.
One of the final acts of the Trump administration was to bequest to incoming president Joe Biden the formal assertion that China had committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang region.
This would be a difficult position to reverse for Biden, even if he wanted to, although it appears the new administration has no such intention. Biden’s nominee as Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is also calling China’s Uyghur policy “genocide”.
In response to the Trump initiative, China sanctioned 28 “lying and cheating” Trump officials, labelling the accusation a “bold faced lie”.
But for now, the US has taken the lead on the issue. Canada came close but backed away from any formal finding of genocide. Britain, while also expressing concern, avoided labelling the “utterly abhorrent” treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide.
Australia is also avoiding the description, but is leaving the door open to introducing penalties for Australian companies that source products made using forced labour in Xinjiang.
Defining genocide
New Zealand is now under pressure to make a stand and to endorse the use of the term genocide to describe China’s treatment of the Uyghurs.
But there is good reason why nations are cautious when it comes to such accusations. In law, genocide is strictly defined as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
This can involve killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to its members, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its total or partial physical destruction.
Genocide can also be committed by imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group, and/or forcibly transferring children to another group.
The crime is specifically prohibited by the Genocide Convention, framed after the horrors of the Holocaust during WWII. It later became one of the core crimes the International Criminal Court (ICC) would focus on.
While China is accused of actions that would seem to meet the definition, the problem is gathering the evidence.
The burden of proof
Despite the assertions of the outgoing Trump administration, the situation in China is complicated by the lack of reputable, non-partisan, independent verification of human rights violations.
Furthermore, independent verification is easier said than done, especially given China’s footwork in international law, and the reluctance of other countries to criticise its human rights record.
That support for China has included allowing friendly countries to visit the disputed areas and report back reassuringly that there is no Uyghur problem.
In October last year, those countries also helped elect China for a new term on the UN Human Rights Council — effectively allowing Beijing to block the likeliest avenue for challenging its Uyghur policies.
The second possible route, via the ICC, has also come to nothing because the court has refused to entertain the charge, on the grounds the alleged acts happened in China, which is not a signatory to the ICC.
Thirdly, the International Court of Justice is unlikely to resolve the dispute under the Genocide Convention; although China is a signatory, it has registered a “reservation” and “does not consider itself bound” by the relevant article.
An alternative strategy
Given these obstacles, what should New Zealand do? Rather than making pronouncements about genocide, the most effective response would involve trying to establish the substance of the US assertions, at the same time as giving China a chance to make its case and clear its name.
A pathway to achieve this emerged in June last year when 50 UN independent experts, driven by multiple human rights concerns, called for decisive measures to protect fundamental freedoms in China. Echoed by 321 civil society groups, they recommended an independent international mechanism to focus on China’s alleged human rights violations.
The independent experts pointed out that, unlike more than 120 other states, the Chinese government (which has signed most of the key human rights treaties) has not issued a standing invitation to independent UN experts to conduct official visits.
Rather, despite many requests over the past decade, China has permitted only five visits to investigate rights involving food, discrimination against women and girls, foreign debt, extreme poverty and older people.
New Zealand should strongly support, publicly and diplomatically, and help in any way it can, China becoming more transparent and improving its credibility on human rights. This would involve inviting independent observers with the status and mandate to monitor civil and political rights, roam freely and speak to anyone, and report what they find.
China may find such proposals challenging, but they are better than being accused of genocide. Not to accept a compromise will only amplify diplomatic, economic and military tensions with the US and its Five Eyes security allies.
Only independent assessment by mandated experts can prove China is compliant with its existing international commitments to protect the human rights of all its citizens — and, if so, whether the US assertion of genocide is wrong or right.
