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

A Newspoll, conducted May 10-13 from a sample of 1,532, gave Labor a 54-46 lead, unchanged from the previous week’s Newspoll. Primary votes were 38% Labor (down one), 35% Coalition (steady), 11% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (up one), 3% UAP (down one) and 7% all Others (up one).

53% were dissatisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance (down two) and 42% were satisfied (up one), for a net approval of -11, up three points. Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped five points to -11. Morrison led as better PM by 43-42 (44-42 the previous week). Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

This Newspoll will be the second last of the election campaign. The final pre-election Newspoll will be released online next Friday night, the evening before the election, and there are likely to be other national polls released late next week. This Newspoll was released two days earlier than usual.

This poll was taken after the widely criticised leaders’ debate on May 8. The shouting and interrupting appears to have damaged Albanese. It didn’t hurt Morrison as his ratings were already poor, and people had formed an opinion of him.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Labor widens leads in Newspoll and Ipsos, as pre-polling starts

The leaders’ debate on Wednesday was more civilised. Half the fieldwork in this poll would be after this debate and half before.

Despite Albanese’s ratings slide, Labor retains a large Newspoll lead with just one week remaining before election day. Even if Newspoll is understating the Coalition by three points, as occurred in 2019, Labor would still lead by 51-49 – probably enough to win in a minority government.

Read more:
As the election campaign begins, what do the polls say, and can we trust them this time?

If Newspoll and other polls are accurate this time, Labor will win a large majority of House of Representatives seats. I believe high inflation (5.1% in the 12 months to March) is a key reason for Labor’s large poll leads.

Economic data out next week includes the March quarter wage price index (to be released Wednesday) that will show how nominal pay has changed, and the April jobs report (out Thursday).

YouGov MRP poll: Labor 80 House seats, Coalition 63, Others eight

The Poll Bludger reported Wednesday that YouGov conducted Australia’s first ever MRP poll (multi-level regression with post-stratification) for The Australian. This used a large national sample of almost 19,000, and aims to forecast the results in each electorate using demographic modelling.

The Poll Bludger said this model performed well in the 2017 UK general election, correctly forecasting that the Conservatives would lose their majority. However, it understated the Conservatives at the 2019 UK general election.

Data for this poll was collected over three weeks, from April 14 to May 7. The long fieldwork period means this poll could be missing recent gains for Labor.

Results for all seats can be viewed at The Australian (no paywall). The overall prediction is that Labor would win 80 of the 151 House of Representatives seats (up 11 from the post-redistribution 2019 results), the Coalition would win 63 (down 13), and there would be eight Others (up two). This would be a Labor majority of nine.

Read more:
Where are the most marginal seats, and who might win them?

The Poll Bludger said that the 11 seats Labor is projected to gain are Bennelong, Lindsay, Reid and Robertson in NSW, Chisholm and Higgins in Victoria, Brisbane in Queensland, Swan and Pearce in WA, Boothby in SA and Bass in Tasmania.

The six existing elected crossbenchers are expected to hold their seats, with Kooyong and Goldstein in Victoria gained by “teal” independents. I don’t count Craig Kelly, as he was elected as a Liberal in Hughes before defecting to the UAP.

Some seats are tied at 50-50, and these cases are shaded to indicate which party is ahead. Bennelong and Lindsay are very close for Labor, with Longman (Qld), Ryan (Qld) and Sturt (SA) just remaining with the Coalition, while Corangamite (Vic) is a potential Labor loss.

While the Greens are shown as winning just their one existing seat of Melbourne, they are only one point behind Labor on primary votes in both Brisbane and Ryan. If they passed Labor, they would gain Brisbane on Labor preferences and Ryan would be close.

Last week’s Morgan narrowed due to methods change

A Morgan poll, conducted May 2-8 from a sample of 1,401, gave Labor a 54.5-45.5 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. However, Morgan switched to using 2019 preference flows instead of respondent preferences as the headline figure.

Had 2019 preferences been used in the previous poll, Labor would have led by 54-46, so this poll was a 0.5-point gain for Labor by that method. By respondent preferences in the current poll, Labor led by 56-44, a 0.5-point gain for Labor.

Primary votes were 35.5% Labor (up 0.5), 34% Coalition (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 4% One Nation (up one), 1% UAP (steady), 8.5% independents (down one) and 4% others (up 0.5).

Seat poll: Kooyong

The ABC’s Raf Epstein tweeted Tuesday that a Redbridge poll of Kooyong in May for the campaign of independent Monique Ryan gave current Treasurer Josh Frydenberg 40.5%, Ryan 32.3%, the Greens 8.4%, Labor 6.7% and UAP 5.2%. Ryan’s vote has jumped from 17.5% in March, but at the expense of Labor and the Greens.

Redbridge says Ryan is ahead after preferences, but her lead is within the margin of error. The narrow lead for Ryan in Redbridge contradicts a 59-41 lead for her in a uComms poll taken April 12.

NT chief minister resigns

Labor’s NT chief minister Michael Gunner resigned on Tuesday, and was replaced on Friday by Natasha Fyles after a meeting of Labor’s NT parliamentary caucus. Fyles was elected unopposed.

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

– ref. Labor retains large Newspoll lead but Albanese’s ratings fall; special poll gives Labor clear House majority – https://theconversation.com/labor-retains-large-newspoll-lead-but-albaneses-ratings-fall-special-poll-gives-labor-clear-house-majority-182858

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Clark, Deputy Engagement Editor, The Conversation

An existential moment for the Liberal party? Another female leader for Labor? In this episode of our election podcast Below the Line, our expert panel talk us through what might happen to the major parties if they do not win government.

Led by award-winning broadcaster Jon Faine, the panel talks through the potential configurations of the next federal parliament, including the possible balance of power in both chambers.

Polling expert Simon Jackman analyses the latest voter surveys and tells us why a Labor victory still looks very likely at this stage. Anika Gauja maps the key contests in the Senate and the likelihood of minor parties and independents holding decisive votes.

Andrea Carson scores the final leaders’ debate and argues that Channel Seven’s format gave voters a better look at policy issues than the previous debate on Channel Nine. Some 811,000 Australians tuned in to watch Wednesday night’s event, but Faine wonders whether voters have heard enough about the issues they truly care about.

“The debate’s range of topics was still pretty narrow,” says Carson. “I think it was noted for what wasn’t debated rather than what was,” says Faine, who lists tax reform, industrial relations and Indigenous affairs as important but missing policy issues.

The panel also contemplates the Liberal party’s future if key moderates lose their seats, and whether it will move further to the right. Gauja lists the likely names to lead Labor if Anthony Albanese suffers a shock defeat on May 21.

Below the Line is brought to you by The Conversation and La Trobe University. It is produced by Courtney Carthy and Benjamin Clark.

Image credit: Lukas Coch/AAP; Mick Tsikas/AAP

Disclosure: Simon Jackman is an unpaid consultant on polling data for the Climate 200 network of independent candidates.

– ref. Below the Line: What might happen to the major party that loses the election? – podcast – https://theconversation.com/below-the-line-what-might-happen-to-the-major-party-that-loses-the-election-podcast-183033

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

In 2020, the year Vincent Namatjira was awarded the Archibald for his double portrait with Adam Goodes, I was also impressed by the painting hanging next to it, Blak Douglas’ (aka Adam Hill) Writing in the Sand. It was both passionately political and visually very clever, incorporating the speech that the 12-year-old Dujuan Hoosan gave to the United Nations.

One of the many unwritten rules of the Archibald is that the winner is often an artist who has exhibited an outstanding (non-winning) work in previous years.

But this year, Blak Douglas’s winning portrait is the standout entry, head and shoulders above the rest.

It is not just the subject that makes it significant and topical, although that helps. Karla Dickens, a Wiradjuri woman, lives in Bundjalung Country in northern New South Wales.

When the prize was announced, Dickens described herself as “a grumpy white sperm whale in muddy water ready to rip the leg off any fool with a harpoon who comes too close”.

The people of Lismore and surrounding districts have every reason to be enraged at the politicians who come with platitudes instead of help. The people are left to wade through muddy waters with leaky buckets. Dickens herself harboured three homeless families in the immediate aftermath of the floods.

Douglas has painted Dickens standing under a dark grey sky patterned with 14 stylised clouds, symbolising the 14 days of continuous rain that brought the floods.

Douglas’s style owes a great deal to commercial art. The subject is outlined in black for emphasis, even the mud forms a pattern. Dickens stands full frontal, scowling at the viewer, uncompromising in her anger at the folly that has led to this mass destruction. Her feet are concealed by mud, the kind of sludge that still fills and stinks the houses as people try to survive.

I can’t think of a more timely painting, as it so effectively encapsulates the current mood of the country.

In his acceptance speech, Blak Douglas noted he has spent “20 years of taking a risk” before he stood on the winners podium with a prize of $100,000. He reminded the gathering of media and patrons that, especially in recent years, the lives of artists are both hard and uncertain. Not all are winners.

Read more:
The Archibald 2022 finalists: sitters speaking up to power; artists speaking back to the canon

The Wynne Prize

Nicholas Harding, who has been awarded the Wynne Prize is not an Indigenous artist, but his painting, Eora, also references Australia’s Aboriginal heritage.

The subject is based on the Narrabeen Lakes walk, north of Sydney. It is one of the largest works exhibited. Harding’s characteristic impastoed surface evokes the lush vegetation of the land before the colonists came to fell the trees and kill the ferns.

Interestingly the painting was not painted for the prize but as a commission for two private collectors who are long-term admirers. Harding is a nine time finalist in the Wynne, and says the decision to enter was “a last minute thing”.

His hesitation is understandable as every year, even being hung can be a bit of a lottery.

Read more:
From gum trees to cities to sweeping deserts: how 125 years of the Wynne Prize traces Australia’s shifting relationship to our landscape

The Sulman Prize

The Archibald and the Wynne are judged by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Not so the Sulman Prize, which was established as a bequest of Sir John Sulman – one of the Gallery’s most conservative trustees. The brief is for a “subject or genre painting”, but over the years that distinction has become meaningless.

Because it is judged by a different person every year, its outcome is less predictable.

It is worth noting that this year, 69% of the Sulman entries were by artists who had never before been hung. This is in marked contrast to the Archibald (27%) and Wynne (50%) finalists.

As is common practice this year’s judge, Joan Ross, was a previous winner and is also an Archibald finalist.

The winner is unusually a duo – Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro – who formed their artistic collaboration when they were undergraduate students. Over the last 20 years they have created installations both large and small, including at the Venice Biennale.

Raiko and Shuten-doji is painted on a piece of an army surplus helicopter, so that the Japanese legend of the warrior Raiko and the demon Shute-doji can be viewed through the lens of military conflict. But then they turn it back into a kite: a playful thing.

Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. ‘I can’t think of a more timely painting’: Blak Douglas’s Moby Dickens is a deserving winner of the 2022 Archibald Prize – https://theconversation.com/i-cant-think-of-a-more-timely-painting-blak-douglass-moby-dickens-is-a-deserving-winner-of-the-2022-archibald-prize-179771

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

Scott Morrison has acknowledged his style has alienated people, describing himself as “a bit of a bulldozer” and suggesting Australians would see a change of “gears” if he is re-elected.

The admission – though he qualified it by defending his approach in the circumstances he has faced – reflects the extent to which the prime minister’s character has damaged the government’s brand.

In “teal” seats especially, Liberal incumbents have been reporting voters saying they don’t have anything against the local MP but they don’t like Morrison. But the anti-Morrison sentiment has been coming through much more widely and his colleagues see him as a drag on the Coalition vote.

Morrison was asked at a news conference in Melbourne whether part of his problem was that he kept telling people what they should know rather than listening.

He insisted he had listened but went on: “Over the last three years, and particularly the last two, what Australians have needed from me going through this pandemic has been strength and resilience.

“Now, I admit that hasn’t enabled Australians to see a lot of other gears in the way I work.

“And I know Australians know that I can be a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to issues.

“But over the last few years that’s been pretty important, to ensure we’ve been able to get through some of the most important things that we’ve had to do and land some really big security agreements.”

But, he said, after the election “I know there are things that are going to have to change with the way I do things.”

He said this was “because we are moving into a different time.

“We are moving into a time of opportunity. And working from the strong platform of strength that we’ve built and saved in our economy in the last three years, we can now take advantage of those opportunities in the future.”

Anthony Albanese had a blunt comment on Morrison’s bulldozer self-description. “A bulldozer wrecks things. A bulldozer knocks things over. I’m a builder. If I’m elected prime minister, I will build things in this country.”

Albanese said the PM was saying “if you vote for Scott Morrison, I’ll change.”

“Well, if you want change, change the government,” the opposition leader said.

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

– ref. Morrison confesses to being a ‘bulldozer’, suggests he’ll change ‘gears’ – https://theconversation.com/morrison-confesses-to-being-a-bulldozer-suggests-hell-change-gears-183030

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

Scott Morrison has acknowledged his style has alienated people, describing himself as “a bit of a bulldozer” and suggesting Australians would see a change of “gears” if he is re-elected.

The admission – though he qualified it by defending his approach in the circumstances he has faced – reflects the extent to which the prime minister’s character has damaged the government’s brand.

In “teal” seats especially, Liberal incumbents have been reporting voters saying they don’t have anything against the local MP but they don’t like Morrison. But the anti-Morrison sentiment has been coming through much more widely and his colleagues see him as a drag on the Coalition vote.

Morrison was asked at a news conference in Melbourne whether part of his problem was that he kept telling people what they should know rather than listening.

He insisted he had listened but went on: “Over the last three years, and particularly the last two, what Australians have needed from me going through this pandemic has been strength and resilience.

“Now, I admit that hasn’t enabled Australians to see a lot of other gears in the way I work.

“And I know Australians know that I can be a bit of a bulldozer when it comes to issues.

“But over the last few years that’s been pretty important, to ensure we’ve been able to get through some of the most important things that we’ve had to do and land some really big security agreements.”

But, he said, after the election “I know there are things that are going to have to change with the way I do things.”

He said this was “because we are moving into a different time.

“We are moving into a time of opportunity. And working from the strong platform of strength that we’ve built and saved in our economy in the last three years, we can now take advantage of those opportunities in the future.”

Anthony Albanese had a blunt comment on Morrison’s bulldozer self-description. “A bulldozer wrecks things. A bulldozer knocks things over. I’m a builder. If I’m elected prime minister, I will build things in this country.”

Albanese said the PM was saying “if you vote for Scott Morrison, I’ll change.”

“Well, if you want change, change the government,” the opposition leader said.

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

– ref. Head Morrison confesses to being a ‘bulldozer’, suggests he’ll change ‘gears’ – https://theconversation.com/head-morrison-confesses-to-being-a-bulldozer-suggests-hell-change-gears-183030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Vandenberg, Research Fellow, Monash University

Gambling and homelessness are clearly linked. Australians over 50 are particularly vulnerable. They have high rates of regular gambling, and are the fastest-growing age group of Australians experiencing homelessness.

Data from homelessness services across Australia reveals older service users have the highest rates of gambling problems.

Until now, little attention has been given to the issue. For example, there’s no mention of gambling in any current state or territory homelessness strategy. This is a startling oversight, especially given Australia ranks highest globally for gambling losses per capita, according to 2016 data.

To better understand this issue, myself and a research team at Monash University studied how gambling and homelessness are linked in older adults.

We found gambling and homelessness often occur together, but the problem is generally hidden and not well measured in Australia. So it’s often overlooked by policymakers and service providers.

Higher rates of harmful gambling

We reviewed the international research on how commonly gambling and homelessness occur together, and explored the possible reasons for this in older Victorians.

Research suggests up to 60-80% of the general population gambled in the past year in countries including Australia (64%), New Zealand (86%) and the United States (82.2%). But studies find less than 30% of people experiencing homelessness report any gambling.

However, the prevalence of harmful gambling is higher in people experiencing homelessness (10–20%) compared to the general population (approximately 1–7%). Harmful gambling is repetitive gambling resulting in recurring harms. These include financial problems, addiction, and mental health issues.

This paradox – of lower rates of past-year gambling among people experiencing homelessness but higher rates of harmful gambling – was evident across the dozen countries we examined.

The body of research we reviewed also shows the rate of experiencing periods of homelessness is disproportionately high in people who gamble harmfully.

On average, around one in six people who gamble harmfully experience housing problems or periods of homelessness.

Two-way relationship

To more deeply understand the relationship between gambling and homelessness in older age, we interviewed 48 workers in health care, financial counselling, gamblers’ help and homelessness services across Victoria. We looked for reasons why gambling and homelessness often occur together and what can be done to prevent the harm.

We found experiencing homelessness into older age is often accompanied by gambling. We also found gambling can contribute to older adults becoming homeless.

However, the link between gambling and homelessness in older age is often complex and indirect. Frequently, it depends on personal circumstances and societal factors outside an individual’s control.

For example, a key factor is the isolation and hardship of homelessness for older adults. This makes gambling seem attractive.

Often added to this is a mix of individual vulnerabilities, including early life adversity, substance use, mental health disorders, and relationship breakdown.
The fact that gambling is readily available also contributes, along with poverty and housing insecurity.

This aligns with previous research showing gambling during homelessness is sometimes motivated out of desperation and in the hope of financial gain.

Studies also show the psychological effects of poverty, such as chronic stress, can create a feedback loop of behaviours and economic decision-making that reinforces disadvantage. For example, in our research we heard basic necessities such as shelter, food and medications were sometimes forgone because an individual had lost all of their money gambling. As one participant, who works for Gambler’s Help, said:

[…] They become that desperate that even if they have $20 left, that they can use on food, they’d rather put that in there to double it up or make some sort of jackpot.

For some people, gambling also contributes to becoming homeless for the first time in their lives at an old age. As another Gambler’s Help worker said:

[…] I’ve come across people who specifically blame their entire homelessness on gambling and basically say “I’m homeless because I gamble”. It’s pretty much just as straightforward as that.

Often, those who experience homelessness for the first time later in life have had significant, rapid losses from high-intensity gambling such as online betting or pokies.

Major life events and changes can also trigger harmful gambling in older adults, including bereavement, job loss, or relationship difficulties. Recognising these as potential markers for increased risk of gambling and homelessness in older age is important for prevention.

We found the design of high-intensity gambling products, especially pokies, and the conduct of gambling operators and creditors, can accelerate financial harm from gambling.

What can be done?

Moves signalled by Victoria’s regulators to introduce new pre-set time and loss limits on Crown Casino pokies may be a step towards preventing harm.

There’s also a need for developing and testing interventions on an individual level for people who are experiencing homelessness and gamble. However, this can be challenging, because gambling is often hidden in older homeless adults, in part because of the stigma and shame that surrounds it. This can hinder service providers’ attempts to effectively identify gambling issues and offer help.

A related challenge is that homelessness services sometimes neglect tackling gambling issues because they lack the capacity to respond, or view it as a lower priority for older homeless adults with many other pressing needs.

The recent Victorian parliamentary inquiry into homelessness acknowledged more should be done to measure how many people gamble and experience homelessness. The inquiry’s final report echoed our call to expand routine screening and early detection of gambling issues in the homeless population.

The state government’s response to the inquiry is now overdue.

Meanwhile, cuts to JobSeeker and the coronavirus supplement have seen a jump in people seeking help for homelessness nationally. And gambling losses have risen sharply since gambling venues re-opened.

It’s time to strengthen policies and improve services that can prevent and reduce the substantial but avoidable harm from gambling and homelessness in older age.

Brian Vandenberg receives funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.

– ref. Gambling and homelessness in older age: hidden and overlooked, but preventable – https://theconversation.com/gambling-and-homelessness-in-older-age-hidden-and-overlooked-but-preventable-177066

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Associate Professor Chris Wallace look at how the election battle stands as we enter the final campaign week.

They canvass the ever-present Katherine Deves, after Scott Morrison has once more come out in support of her, and the impact of the PM’s decision to run her in an apparent broader “dog whistle” tactic that’s backfired in Warringah and elsewhere. In the wake of two leaders’ debates this week – one shouty, the other more civil – Chris and Michelle also discuss whether these debates matter in campaigns. And they look at the explosion of the two-coffees-a-day wages argument, which will matter to low paid workers.

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

– ref. VIDEO: The penultimate week: all about wages, debates and Deves – https://theconversation.com/video-the-penultimate-week-all-about-wages-debates-and-deves-183022

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Waller, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

You want to help Ukrainians in need. Should you donate to UNICEF, UNHCR, Red Cross, World Vision, Caritas, Save the Children or some other charitable organisation?

There are so many charities, and charitable causes, to choose from.

Read more:
How to responsibly donate to Ukrainian causes

Australia, for example, has more than 57,500 registered charities (for a population of 25 million). The UK (population 67 million) has more more than 200,000. The US (population 350 million) has close to 1.5 million.

They’re vying against direct competitors as well as every other charity and cause. Suicide prevention is up against wilderness conservation. Cancer research against climate change activism. Refugee aid against the arts.

Read more:
Celebrity charities just compete with all other charities – so why start one?

Not all actively fundraise – in Australia only about 40% do – but that still leaves thousands competing for your money.

And that competition is hurting them.

The downsides of competition

Research by University of Washington economist Bijetri Bose suggests greater competition among non-profits marginally increases aggregate donations but reduces average donations per organisation. Fundraising costs also escalate with greater competition.

There are concerns aggressive marketing, from phone calls to junk mail to “edgy” advertising, is turning people off donating to any charity.

Read more:
Charities are contributing to growing mistrust of mental-health text support — here’s why

A classic example is the UK Pancreatic Cancer Action’s “I wish I had” campaign. It compared the 3% survival rate for pancreatic cancer to 97% for testicular cancer and 85% for breast cancer. The campaign attracted attention, but not in the way the organisation hoped.

Though there’s no hard data proving competition is contributing to donor fatigue, there is strong anecdotal evidence.

The UK’s Fundraising Regulator has been cracking down on aggressive fundraising since a 2015 case in which a 92-year-old woman committed suicide after receiving 466 mailings from 99 charities in a year. Last month it updated its service to stop direct marketing communications from charities, allowing people to block ten charities at a time.

In the US, the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has found that even though total donations have been increasing, the share of Americans donating has declined – from two-thirds in 2000 to half in 2018.

The report doesn’t speculate on the causes, but given the well-established phenomenon of choice overload, it’s reasonable to assume too much competition plays a part.

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

Unfair competition

As well as the issues already mentioned, competition generally disadvantages smaller charities.

This was highlighted in a 2020 report by Britain’s National Council for Voluntary Organisations, warning of competitive behaviour’s “negative impact on the sector, people and places”.

The report’s focus was mostly on competition in bidding for government service contract. but its conclusions also apply to competition for public donations

The “uncool” causes also lose out. This is well-known in conservation fundraising, where large and cute animals outdo ugly ones.

It also occurs with diseases. The breast cancer lobby in Australia, for example, has been likened to a “pink steamroller”, diverting funding and public awareness away from other forms of cancer.

Celebrity power has contributed to this. Breast cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John, for example, has been a passionate fundraiser for research, establishing the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre.

So too has champion cricketer Glenn McGrath, who established the McGrath Foundation after his wife Jane died of breast cancer. The foundation has a high-profile association with Cricket Australia, which hosts the annual Sydney Pink Test to raise money for breast cancer services.

Is more co-operation possible?

Could charities compete less less and co-operation more?

Co-operative marketing structures are common in sectors such as agriculture. They are also used in retailing, where small independent stores, travel agents and newsagencies have pooled their marketing resources to compete with large corporate rivals.

Applying this approach would mean, for example, that cancer charities – breast, bowel, leukaemia, lung, myeloma, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate – would fund campaigns coordinated by an umbrella organisation. Proceeds could then be split more equitably, based on expert input about research and support needs.

Read more:
The market is not our master — only state-led business cooperation will drive real economic recovery

The benefits of greater co-operation have been talked about for years with no much progress made.

But there’s nothing like an idea whose time has come, and with passing year the case for charitable co-operation grows.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. We all lose when charities compete with each other. They should join forces – https://theconversation.com/we-all-lose-when-charities-compete-with-each-other-they-should-join-forces-182754

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bethaney Turner, Associate Professor, Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra

Before you squash or poison the next slug or snail you see in your garden, consider this: The British Royal Horticultural Society no longer classifies these gastropods as pests. Why on earth would a leading gardening organisation do that, you might wonder. After all, slugs and snails are usually seen as a problem, given their eagerness to devour the plants you’ve lovingly nurtured.

The issue is that they are part of nature. Slugs and snails play a key role in healthy ecosystems, acting to break down organic material as well as providing a source of food for blue-tongued lizards, frogs and kookaburras.

So can we learn to live with slugs and snails? Yes, if we reframe how we see these invertebrates. After all, the definition of “pest” is based on our perception and can change over time. By rejecting the “pest” status of many invertebrates and advocating planet friendly gardening, the horticultural society directly connects the local actions of gardeners to our global biodiversity crisis.

Their principal entomologist, Andrew Salisbury, has argued that “now is the time to gracefully accept, even actively encourage, more of this life into our gardens”.

This doesn’t have to mean letting them destroy your lettuces. Nature can help. Enticing lizards, frogs and birds to your garden can help control slugs and snails and boost biodiversity.

Are these ‘pests’ actually legitimate garden inhabitants?

Gardening increased in popularity during the pandemic. With widespread rainy weather across Australia’s east coast, gardeners are more likely to see – and potentially be annoyed by – slugs and snails.

So should Australian gardeners follow the UK’s example? Should we try to welcome all species into the garden? Responses to these questions typically describe slugs and snails as “pests”, invoke the idea of a native/non-native species divide or describe the perceived damage done by invasive species.

Let’s tackle the pest argument first. We define pests based on perception. That means what we think of as a pest can change. The garden snail is a good example. Many gardeners consider them a pest, but they are cherished by snail farmers who breed them for human consumption.

Read more:
The pandemic’s gardening boom shows how gardens can cultivate public health

By contrast, many scientists consider the concept of an invasive species to be less subjective. Australia’s environment department defines them as species outside their normal distribution (often representing them as non-native) which “threaten valued environmental, agricultural or other social resources by the damage it causes”. Even this definition, however, is a little rubbery.

In recent decades, researchers in the humanities, social sciences and some natural sciences have shown our ideas of nativeness and invasiveness also undergo change. Is the dingo a native animal, for instance, after being introduced thousands of years ago? Would it still be considered a native if it was introduced to Tasmania where it does not occur?

Despite these questions over their worth, the ideas of “pest” and “invasive species” have proven remarkably persistent in ecological management.

What exactly are the slugs and snails we find in our gardens?

Australia has a huge diversity of land snails, with many species yet to be described. Many species are in decline, however, due to introduced predators and loss of habitat, and now require conservation efforts.

Does that include our gardens? Well, most snails and slugs found in gardens are considered non-native species which were introduced accidentally. The ability of snails to spread far and wide means these humble gastropods are listed on Australia’s official list of priority pests. We already have biosecurity measures in place to avoid unwanted introduction of new snail species.

The common garden snail, which hails from the Mediterranean, has now spread to every state and territory. But other species are still spreading, such as the Asian tramp snail on the east coast or the green snail, which is currently limited to Western Australia. So if we accept the existence of all kinds of snails and slugs in the garden, we could be undermining efforts to detect and control some of these species.

While slugs and snails don’t usually seriously threaten our home gardens, some species are known agricultural pests. The common garden snail can cause major damage to citrus fruit and young trees, while slugs such as the leopard slug or the grey field slug can devastate fields of seedlings. The damage they can do means farmers and their peak bodies would feel uneasy about changing how we think of these land molluscs.

Some snails can also carry dangerous parasites like the rat lungworm or the trematode worm Brachylaima cribbi. These can hurt us, particularly if a snail is accidentally eaten, or if vegetables in the garden are contaminated. If we let snails move around unhindered, we could increase the number of infections. Pets and children are the most at risk.

So should we follow the UK’s example?

It is not straightforward to rethink how we view and respond to creatures typically considered pests in the garden. But it is worthwhile thinking this through, as it requires appreciating how humans and nonhumans are interdependent. And we can gain a better understanding of how our simple actions in our gardens can scale up to affect human and planetary health and well-being.

Read more:
Urban gardens are crucial food sources for pollinators – here’s what to plant for every season

The world’s ongoing loss of biodiversity and the steadily changing climate must inform how we relate to and care for the nonhuman life – from mycelium in the soil to gastropods – that enliven our gardens.

This does not mean everything must have an equal opportunity to flourish. But it does require us to pay attention. To observe, to wonder and to be curious about our entangled lives. This kind of attention could help us take a more ethical approach to the everyday life and death decisions we make in our patch.

What does that look like? By understanding gardens as interconnected natural and cultural spaces, we can work to limit our resident slug and snail population and promote biodiversity. A perfect way to start is to design a lizard, frog and bird friendly site.

Bethaney Turner has received funding for research into urban agriculture from the ACT Government.

Valerie Caron receives funding from Grain Research and Development Corporation to work on Cochlicella acuta, an invasive snail species and the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment to work on other invertebrate invasive species.

– ref. Could we learn to love slugs and snails in our gardens? – https://theconversation.com/could-we-learn-to-love-slugs-and-snails-in-our-gardens-179568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Veysey, Honorary Professor, University of Newcastle

How often should we poo? If you Google this question, you’re likely to find an answer along the lines of three times a day to once every three days. But this leaves room for substantial variation. The true answer is: when you feel the urge.

In fact, habitually putting off the urge to poo and slowing the bowel “transit time” may be associated with a higher risk of problems such as bowel cancer, diverticulosis (small pouches of the bowel lining protruding through the bowel wall), haemorrhoids and anal tears, and prolapse.

That’s why the golden rule of gastroenterology is to always heed the “call to stool” when the urge strikes.

Read more:
A poo dose a day may keep bipolar away. When it comes to mental health, what else could poo do?

Eating often triggers the urge

Back in the early 20th century, physiologists determined that a powerful stimulus to open your bowels was eating food and they referred to this this as the gastro-colic reflex. It’s often most potent after a fast and, thus, after breakfast.

Babies generally void their bowels when the need presents itself. However, as soon as we can make decisions for ourselves – around the same age we start to walk – we learn to suppress this “call to stool”.

Learning to control one’s bowels is an important developmental step, but some of us take it too far; we discover we can sometimes make this urge go away temporarily if we ignore it for a while, because now doesn’t seem like a convenient time.

But habitually suppressing this urge can be associated with symptoms including:

• constipation

• abdominal pain

• variable and unpredictable bowel habits

• bloating

• wind

• slower transit of matter through our intestines.

Knowing your ‘transit time’

We probably know how often we open our bowels, but not many of us are aware of our “whole gut transit time”. In other words, how long it takes for residue from the food you eat to come out the other end.

This transit time is important because having problems with urgency (a sudden, frantic urge to poo), diarrhoea and constipation can all be signs of slow transit.

There’s a simple way to measure it; swallow a handful of raw sweetcorn kernels and then look out for the yellow kernels in your poo.

How long should it take for them to show up? It should be somewhere between eight and 24 hours.

A longer transit time

No one is arguing you should void your bowels wherever and whenever you like. But getting into the habit of putting it off means the residue from the food you eat stays in your body longer than it should. Your transit time lengthens and your quality of life deteriorates.

On average, we produce about six tonnes of poo in our lifetimes, composed of water, bacteria, nitrogenous matter, carbohydrates, undigested plant matter and lipids (fats).

The longer this mix of stuff sits inside us, the more it is prone to fermentation and decomposition. This produces not just wind but also chemicals known as metabolites, which then sit in contact with the bowel lining and can be absorbed.

The idea of auto-intoxication from the colon is not new. From the time of the ancient Greeks, waste products in the intestine were thought to contribute to an imbalance of the four body humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm) critical for good health.

Kellogg’s, part of the temperance movement in the United States in the 19th century, developed breakfast cereals to deal with both constipation and poor morals, which they believed to be connected.

A longer transit time has been linked to a higher risk of significant gastrointestinal problems such as:

• colorectal cancer

• colonic polyps

• diverticulosis

• gallstones and

• haemorrhoids.

Recent interest in the microbiome has also linked dysbiosis (or changes in the bacteria that live in our intestines) with slow transit. So slow transit may also be associated with a wider range of disease linked to gastrointestinal dysbiosis.

A healthy habit

You can improve your bowel habits by increasing the amount of fibre and fluids in your diet, exercising regularly and being in touch with your colon.

Some people are even using cognitive behavioural therapy to improve bowel function.

Most importantly, when your colon calls, you should listen.

Read more:
Do men really take longer to poo?

Martin Veysey has received funding from the Australian Research Council, NHMRC, Pfizer, ASME, LIVErNORTH and NIHR.

– ref. Why holding back your urge to poop can wreak havoc on your insides – a gastroenterologist explains – https://theconversation.com/why-holding-back-your-urge-to-poop-can-wreak-havoc-on-your-insides-a-gastroenterologist-explains-175047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miranda Stewart, Professor, The University of Melbourne

Amid the talk about tax changes set to cut the middle-income rate to 30%, a shortage of workers and incomes not keeping up with the cost of living, one common threat shines through.

It’s the cost of childcare, which, according to new calculations, imposes an effective tax as high as 70% on a second-earner wanting to work a fourth or fifth day a week.

The example in this chart is for a family on average male and female wages with two children under five, whose mother is considering working an extra day.

Such a mother with two children needing childcare would lose 32% of her first day’s wage in reduced family tax benefits, and a further 11% in childcare fees (net of subsidy) amounting to an effective marginal tax of 43%.

On her second day she would also pay tax (earning above the tax free threshold), and on her third day would lose 47% of her earnings, made up of 23% in tax and 24% in extra net childcare fees.

If she worked a fourth day, this would jump to 67% of that day’s earnings, made up of 36% in tax and 31% in extra net childcare fees.

Read more:
Blink and you’ll miss it: what the budget did for working mums

If she worked a fifth day, the impost would climb to 70% of that day’s earnings, made up of 35% in tax and 35% in extra net childcare fees.

The 67% and 70% effective marginal tax rates are severe, and beyond what we would normally consider to be a reasonable take from a day’s pay packet.

More women could be working

In the past few months the proportion of working-age Australian women in paid work has climbed to a record high of 60%, but it remains well below that in some of the countries to which we normally compare ourselves, including New Zealand in which 64.2% of working-age women are in paid work.

If Australia’s rate of female employment was lifted to New Zealand’s, an extra 460,000 Australian women would be in paid work.

Employed women in Australia are more likely to work part time than employed women in any other member of the 38-nation OECD apart from Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

It’s childcare that holds women back

Asked why they are unable to work more hours, almost half the women surveyed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics nominate “caring for children”.

Asked to nominate the incentive that would do the most to help them work more hours, half pick “access to childcare”.

The high cost of childcare steers women away from full-time work toward the role of primary caregiver at home. This in turn limits their career progression, their economic security, their retirement savings and their ability to afford housing.

It is also likely to limit fertility, which has fallen to 1.6, well below replacement levels, and limits tax revenue and Australia’s access to skills.

Employers are crying out for workers

Job vacancies are at a record high with employers crying out for skilled workers.

An analysis prepared for Chief Executive Women found that if women’s employment reached that of men’s, an extra one million full-time equivalent workers would become available, 800,000 of them with diplomas or more.

Separate modelling prepared for the National Foundation for Australian Women finds that expanding the provision of childcare (including by lifting the wages of childcare workers) would boost Australia’s labour supply 2%.

After ten years it would boost gross domestic product 1.6%.

Minor progress

In response to sustained calls for reform, the government last year boosted the childcare subsidy for families with two or more children in childcare, and removed the annual subsidy cap.

Read more:
How the Coalition’s child-care subsidy plan works and what it means

While addressing some of the most egregious effective marginal tax rates, these changes have not brought down the high costs for workers on average wages.

Labor and the Greens have promised to cut childcare costs. The so-called teal independents are also campaigning on the issue.

To work, such policies will need to be backed by an investment in the pipeline of childcare workers that will be needed.

Miranda Stewart receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Angela Jackson has received funding to undertake research related to childcare costs and female participation from Chief Executive Women, Parenthood and the Minderoo Foundation, and is affiliated with the Women in Economics Network, the National Heart Foundation, the National Federation of Australian Women and Gender Equity Victoria.

Leonora Risse is affiliated with the Women in Economics Network, the Economic Society of Australia, the National Foundation for Australia Women, and Gender Equity Victoria.

– ref. If governments were really concerned about tax and the cost of living they would cut the cost of childcare – https://theconversation.com/if-governments-were-really-concerned-about-tax-and-the-cost-of-living-they-would-cut-the-cost-of-childcare-182669

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Intifar Chowdhury, Associate lecturer, Australian National University

Early voting has begun and election day is looming. Many of us were disillusioned with politics well before the campaign even began, and it’s been going for almost five weeks.

To the ordinary Australian, voting may appear to be ineffective and a waste of time.

The costs of voting – waiting in line or being hassled by volunteer campaigners – can easily seem to outweigh the benefits. It is also highly unlikely an individual vote will directly determine the behaviour of elected representatives.

So, you may be asking yourself, “what’s the point?”.

It is your civic duty

In a representative democracy like Australia, voting gives citizens the power to elect officials, appoint legitimate governments, and have their political concerns heard.

The purpose of voting is not always conclusively to decide the outcome of an election. In fact, the odds of doing so are next to nothing.

But casting your vote fulfils your civic duty. It also spares you an unnecessary A$20 fine for not voting, as compulsory voting is strictly enforced in Australia.

You could be in a marginal seat

Candidates in marginal seats need every vote they can get.

Marginal seats, as opposed to safe seats, are those where the successful candidate beat their closest opponent by winning no more than 6% of the formal vote at the last election.

That means the electorate would need to convince this handful of voters to change hands this time around. That also means marginal seats could see a party win or lose the election.

For example, the 2019 election saw electorates with margins of less than 1% – including Gilmore, Corangamite, Herbert, Ford, Capricornia, and Cowan – swayed by hundreds of votes.

According to the ABC’S 2022 election pendulum there are almost 50 seats (21 Coalition-held, 26 Labor and two independent) on a margin of 6% or less.

Even if your candidate doesn’t win, your opinion is noted

But even if you don’t live in a marginal seat, your vote could still be influential.

In the upcoming federal election, many traditionally safe Liberal seats are being challenged by teal independents dissatisfied with the Coalition’s policies on key issues like climate change.

From previous elections, we know many voters are too. In the millennial-dominated Victorian electorate of Kooyong, for example, every vote counts as Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg fights hard to hold his seat against independent Monique Ryan.

Voting also allows ordinary Australians to express their views and opinions – sometimes convincing others to vote similarly. Social network research suggest that voters are influenced by events and people around them. They can change their vote based on political discussions with family or friends.

Don’t forget the Senate

Importantly, the Senate also provides an avenue to make your voice heard.

The upper house – comprising 76 senators – is a powerful body responsible for checking and reviewing the elected government. The Senate employs a proportional representation voting system which allows greater scope for independents and smaller-party candidates to be elected.

This system also enables a diverse range of issues across multiple states and territories to be included in the political agenda.

Read more:
Race for the Senate: could Labor and the Greens gain control?

We are lucky to vote

Many voters may not appreciate that voting is not an automatic right, but one for which Australian suffragists had to fight and campaign.

Some ancient scholars like Socrates didn’t like the idea of non-expert citizens – let alone women or young people – shaping the functioning of government.

Property-owning men were first to obtain the vote in 1843, while women were only granted a say in South Australian state elections from 1895.

In 1924, compulsory voting was introduced for eligible citizens over 21 years of age to improve the low rates of voter turnout across the newly federated Australia. Shamefully, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were only granted the right to vote in 1962.

In 1973, the minimum voting age was lowered to 18 years.

It’s been a long campaign, but …

Mounting political distrust and pandemic fatigue may lead many Australians to view their vote as irrelevant. Those voting for the first time (there are more than 400,000 in 2022) may find navigating complex policy issues and candidate promises a challenge.

However, it is crucial all voters show up to the ballot box to ensure the issues of most concern to them make it onto the political agenda. This includes housing affordability, education costs, and climate change.

Just as little drops make a mighty ocean, your individual vote does contribute to a stronger democracy.

Read more:
What will young Australians do with their vote – are we about to see a ‘youthquake’?

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

– ref. To Australians sick of the election: this is why voting is not a waste of your time – https://theconversation.com/to-australians-sick-of-the-election-this-is-why-voting-is-not-a-waste-of-your-time-182661

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brittany Williams, PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide

Though oysters may be brainless bivalves, they can “hear” and swim towards attractive sounds of the sea.

We played the crackling sound of snapping shrimp, which indicates a healthy reef, to baby oysters using underwater speakers. We discovered the oysters swim towards the sound.

This opens the possibility of playing marine sounds to attract oysters to reef restoration projects, accelerating their recovery.

Submarines and shrimp

This story of using the sounds of the sea begins in World War II, when US submarines detected a mysterious crackling sound over the sonar.

At first, it was feared to be jamming by the enemy. Other guesses were the crackling was created by shipworms (a type of mollusc), clams clapping, or pebbles rolling on the sea floor. But the true culprit? Snapping shrimp.

Snapping shrimp use their large snapping claws to rapidly shoot out a jet of water to stun prey. This snap is so rapid it creates a flash of light nearly as hot as the Sun (shrimpoluminescence) and generates a loud snapping sound that can exceed 210 decibels – louder than a rock concert!

When snapping shrimp aggregate, as they do on healthy reefs, their intense snapping sounds like bacon crackling on a frying pan.

Once the source of the sound was understood, Allied submarines even used the crackling chorus of healthy reefs to acoustically mask their location from the enemy. Today, many snorkellers and divers will be familiar with this crackle.

Swimming oysters

Baby oysters have no ears, but we found they can still detect snapping shrimp crackle and swim towards it. They swim using fine hairs called cilia that act as paddles, allowing them to move not only up and down in the water column, but also from side to side.

This discovery tells us baby oysters have more control over where they go in the ocean than was previously thought.

To conduct our research, we built affordable underwater speakers with engineers at the non-profit environmental organisation AusOcean to broadcast the snapping shrimp crackle in the ocean. When we used these speakers in places with little background noise, we attracted high numbers of baby oysters.

By contrast, places with high levels of human-made background noise, such as from outboard motors and shipping, made our speaker sounds harder to hear, resulting in fewer baby oysters being attracted.

Sound and animals

Just as music can reduce depression and increase the mood of humans, playing sound can change the behaviour of a diversity of animals. For example, ibises have more sex when their vocalisations are played to them.

Marine animals have broad vocal repertoires. Fish honk, drum and pop; whales whistle and moan; and seals groan, grunt and growl.

These sounds, combined with those of waves, wind and rain, create the marine soundscape. A soundscape filled with snapping shrimp crackle indicates to marine animals a healthy place to live, with plenty of food and habitat.

More than visual and chemical cues, sound is a useful sensory cue for marine animals in their day-to-day lives, because it travels a long way underwater. Sound can be heard by animals from afar and act as a beacon for them to follow.

Ocean music and conservation

The sounds produced by marine animals, such as the snapping shrimp, are fading due to habitat loss and climate change. At the same time, human-made ocean noise is on the rise, from activities such as shipping, sonar and offshore pile-driving.

This means animals such as the baby oyster are becoming lost at sea, not knowing where to find healthy habitats to settle and live in.

Read more:
The surprising benefits of oysters (and no, it’s not what you’re thinking)

Using acoustic technology to broadcast ocean music in the form of snapping shrimp crackle presents an opportunity to lead animals along highways of sound, all the way to coasts where we are trying to restore healthy habitats.

Sound technology offers a relatively inexpensive way to help speed up the recovery of oyster reef habitats. This would allow us to sooner experience the benefits provided by reefs.

The perfect playlist?

We still have much to learn about marine sound and how human activities pollute the marine soundscape.

The future of ocean restoration could be full of rhythms and melodies engineered to attract animals. Who knows what we will find on the playlist of the best sounds for habitat restoration?

Perhaps Mozart and Taylor Swift will make the cut.

Brittany Williams is a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide.

Dominic McAfee receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and from the South Australian Department for Environment and Water.

Sean Connell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the South Australian Department for Environment and Water.

– ref. Baby oysters follow the crackling sound of snapping shrimp – https://theconversation.com/baby-oysters-follow-the-crackling-sound-of-snapping-shrimp-182514

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Director, Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University

This election campaign has been somewhat different to most past campaigns. Traditionally, the Coalition campaigns on the economy and defence, while the Labor Party tenders its credentials on health and education.

However, this time around has seen a dearth of announcements across all portfolios, and from both parties.

Health care is no exception, despite COVID blowing out surgery wait times and a health-care workforce close to collapse.

Why are political parties and voters so apathetic to the health-care debate?

Health policy announcements so far

The Coalition promises to reduce out-of-pocket costs for medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and will give more people access to the seniors’ health-care card. These policies are targeted at older Australians.

Labor has also promised to reduce out-of-pocket costs for pharmaceuticals and increase access to the seniors’ health-care card. It will introduce GP urgent care clinics and will support aged-care wage increases and mandating nurse time in residential care homes.

These are mostly promises to increase funding. No party has sought to engage in serious debate on reform, despite a long list of identified system issues and intense pressure points.

Why isn’t there more health-care debate?

It seems health care is just not as important to voters in this election.

On average, voters ranked it their sixth most important issue, which is three down from the last election, when it was ranked third.

That is not surprising when there are big issues at front of mind, such as climate change, cost of living increases, and rising interest rates.

Most people feel comfortable with the state of health care. A consumer sentiment survey found 84% of respondents were satisfied with the health services they received.

Read more:
The private health insurance rebate has cost taxpayers $100 billion and only benefits some. Should we scrap it?

Parties are also hamstrung this election. Health care reform is expensive, and promising big spends when the budget is at a record deficit, opens the potential for being labelled fiscally irresponsible.

Labor seems to be low-balling its health policy given it leads the polls. It learned from the last election that proposing complex policy through campaign soundbites is risky, because it’s too easy to criticise step-change reform.

The Coalition launched its health campaign in the budget. It took a grassroots approach to wooing voters, with no big policy announcement but lots of smaller funding promises dispersed across electorates. Battling Labor on health in the election lead-up seems unattractive for the Coalition given its poor handling of vaccine purchasing and rollout.

But whoever wins, health care remains a problem that needs to be addressed.

Long surgery wait lists

People are waiting longer than ever before for public hospital elective surgery, with COVID blowing out waiting lists in 2020-21.

A key reason is the initial suspension of non-urgent elective surgery to deal with COVID in 2020.

Victorian waiting times were hardest hit. They experienced a threefold increase in the number of people waiting more than a year for elective surgery in 2020-21. New South Wales was hit next hardest, experiencing a twofold increase.

Non-urgent elective surgery was also suspended during the Delta and Omicron waves. These will have blown waiting times out further, which is not yet reflected in the data. All states and territories are still playing catch-up.

Read more:
How to clear Victoria’s backlog of elective surgeries after a 6-month slowdown? We need to rethink the system

Workforce collapse

Most of Australia’s health workforce seem weary, demotivated and burned out. Some 92% of 431 clinicians surveyed in January 2022 agreed health-care workers have a right to feel abandoned by government.

With unemployment at 4%, the labour market has little spare capacity to increase the supply of workers.

Health care and medical job advertisements are at an all-time high and there are not enough candidates to fill these roles. Workforce shortages are being experienced all over Australia, in rural and remote regions and major cities. Psychiatrists are particularly in short supply – a key concern when 24% of Australians reported in October 2021 they were experiencing serious psychological distress.

Sectors with significant workforce gaps are buckling under pressure, such as nursing, and in some places would collapse if a mutated COVID strain were to outmanoeuvre current vaccines.

Workforce shortages lead to poor care quality, worse health outcomes and sometimes avoidable death. Poor workforce planning and funding constraints by governments over the last decade are mostly to blame.

Read more:
A burnt-out health workforce impacts patient care

The Coalition government has released several health workforce strategies, but has not seriously implemented or funded promised activities.

Solutions the parties could offer

As a matter of urgency, any new government should lead collaboration with state government, private sector, non-government agencies, and specialist medical colleges to reduce surgery wait times and reduce workforce strain.

It is not ideological to suggest the public hospital system should strengthen its integration with private hospitals. Even a public hospital system that returns to full capacity will not have enough resources to shorten waiting times.

Public hospitals need more targeted money to streamline processes and patient journeys, improve wait-list management and prioritise strategies, and reduce low-value care.

Read more:
The coronavirus ban on elective surgeries might show us many people can avoid going under the knife

Proactively matching patients with hospital resources by giving patients explicit public hospital choice would reduce waiting times. Many patients will travel to a non-local hospital for a shorter wait.

More investment in hospital-in-the home programs would free up hospital beds. And increasing training places at hospitals and ramping up migration would attract more nursing and specialist time.

Voters have not yet had the opportunity to signal their support for major health-care policy reform in this election. The real work leading health-care reform will be up to whoever’s in government after May 21.

Jeffrey Braithwaite receives funding from:

Jeffrey is not an active member of any associations but has been involved in NHMRC Research Committee activities but in no way does this cause any conflict of interest for this particular paper.

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

– ref. With surgery waitlists in crisis and a workforce close to collapse, why haven’t we had more campaign promises about health? – https://theconversation.com/with-surgery-waitlists-in-crisis-and-a-workforce-close-to-collapse-why-havent-we-had-more-campaign-promises-about-health-182327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie L. Rummer, Associate Professor & Principal Research Fellow, James Cook University

Widespread coral bleaching has now occurred on the Great Barrier Reef for the fourth time in seven years. As the world has heated up more and more, there’s less and less chance for corals to recover.

This year, the Morrison government announced a A$1 billion plan to help the reef. This plan tackles some of the problems the reef faces – like poor water quality from floods as well as agricultural and industrial runoff. But it makes no mention of the elephant in the room. The world’s largest living assemblage of organisms is facing collapse because of one major threat: climate change.

Our window of opportunity to act is narrowing. We and other scientists have warned about this for decades. Australia has doubled down on coal and gas exports with subsidies of $20 billion in the past two years. When these fossil fuels are burned, they produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap more heat in the atmosphere that also warms the ocean.

If our next federal government wants to save the reef, it must tackle the main reason it is in trouble by phasing out fossil fuel use and exports as quickly as possible. Otherwise it’s like putting bandaids on an arterial wound. But to help the reef get through the next decades of warming we’ve already locked in, we will still need that $1 billion to help reduce other stressors.

Why is this new bleaching event such bad news?

Past bleaching events have been linked to El Niño events. Stable atmospheric conditions can bring calm, cloud-free periods that heat up the water around the reef. That can bring extreme summer temperatures – and that is when corals bleach.

This year is a La Niña, which can bring warmer-than-usual temperatures but also tends to bring more clouds, rain, and storms that mix up the waters. These usually spread the heat to the deeper parts of the ocean and mean lower temperature for corals. Not this time.

Global warming means corals are already close to their bleaching threshold, and it doesn’t take much heat to tip the balance. Water temperatures across the reef have been several degrees hotter than the long-term average. And the corals are feeling the heat.

Four times in seven years means that bleaching events are accelerating. Predictions have suggested that bleaching will become an annual event in a little over two decades. It may not be that long.

You always remember the first time you see bleaching in real life. For co-author Jodie, that was in 2016, off Lizard Island, a previously pristine part of the reef far from human impacts or water quality issues. The water was shockingly warm. Looking at our dive computers, we saw that the temperatures we had been simulating in our laboratories for 2050 were already here.

For a week, the marine heatwave pushed the corals to their limits. When corals experience heat stress, some initially turn fluorescent while others go stark white. Then the water goes murky – that’s death in the water. It’s heartbreaking to see. Grief is common among marine scientists right now.

Read more:
The $1 billion Great Barrier Reef funding is nonsensical. Australians, and their natural wonder, deserve so much better

Corals can recover from bleaching if they get a recovery period. But annual bleaching means there is not enough time for proper recovery. Even the most robust corals can’t survive this year after year.

Some people hope the reef can adapt to hotter conditions – but there is little evidence it can happen fast enough to outpace warming. While some fish can move to cooler waters further south, corals face ocean acidification, yet another problem caused by carbon dioxide emissions. As CO₂ is absorbed by the ocean, the changed chemistry makes it harder for corals to build their skeleton (and for other marine organisms to form a shell). There’s no safe place for corals to go.

What does the next government need to do?

The evidence is clear. We see it with our own eyes. We’re barrelling towards catastrophic levels of warming, and there’s not enough action.

As it stands, policies on offer by our two major parties will not save the reef, according to new research by Climate Analytics. Current Coalition emissions reduction targets of 26-28% by 2030 would lead to a 3℃ warmer world, which would be devastating for the Great Barrier Reef.

Labor’s policies of a 43% reduction by 2030 still lead to 2℃ of warming. The teal independents and the Greens have policies compatible with keeping warming to 1.5℃, though how to achieve those goals is unclear. What is clear is that every tenth of a degree matters.

We need leaders who are serious about climate action. Who can acknowledge the truth that the problem is real, that we’re causing it, and that it’s hurting us right now.

Read more:
Australia’s next government must tackle our collapsing ecosystems and extinction crisis

There are still a few people sceptical that humans can change the climate. But today the changes are apparent.

The words “unprecedented” and “record-breaking” are starting to lose relevance for natural disasters because they are used more and more. Australians faced the 2019/20 Black Summer of megafires. This year we’ve had major flooding. Marine heatwaves have killed off almost all of Tasmania’s giant kelp.

But climate impacts are also being seen around the world – extraordinary drought gripping California, fires in melting Siberia and events scientists consider to be “virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change”. That includes the accelerating impacts on coral reefs worldwide.

We need government policies matching the scale and urgency of the threat. That means getting to net zero as soon as possible. It isn’t only about the reef – it’s about all land and sea natural systems vulnerable to climate change, and the people who rely on them.

No developed country has more to lose from inaction on climate than Australia. But no country has more to gain by shifting to clean energy, through new economic opportunities, new jobs, and better protection for our natural treasures.

Jodie L. Rummer has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. She is also affiliated with the Australian Coral Reef Society.

Scott F. Heron has received funding from Australian Research Council and NASA ROSES Ecological Forecasting.

– ref. What the next Australian government must do to save the Great Barrier Reef – https://theconversation.com/what-the-next-australian-government-must-do-to-save-the-great-barrier-reef-182861

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carly Steele, Lecturer, Curtin University

In the title we quote Michelle Martin (with her permission), who is a proud Kija woman and passionate educator. She sees a system that does not adequately recognise Aboriginal students’ worldviews or knowledge. Instead, the education system measures Aboriginal students according to white language and cultural systems.

We know that languages other than English have features that do not exist in English, and use diverse modes of communication. This is particularly true of many Aboriginal languages. According to Centre for Aboriginal Policy Research fellow Inge Kral, these languages have complex ways of conveying meaning, including:

[…] language, sign, gesture and gaze, special speech styles and registers, non-verbal communication and the iconic representations found in body painting, carved designs and sand drawings.

But the school system – and the way it assesses students – does not recognise this.

This is certainly the case for NAPLAN testing, which is limited in what it tests and how. And, due to the “backwash effect” of high-stakes standardised assessment on teaching practices, teachers are also inclined to set their students tasks that closely align with NAPLAN-style assessments. This is commonly known as “teaching to the test”.

In our new paper, we argue the languages and methods of classroom assessments need to be expanded. Such changes will make assessment more inclusive and fairer for all, particularly First Nations students.

Read more:
How can Australia support more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers?

Why are current school assessment practices ‘unfair’?

One test, one language

Most assessment practices currently follow a “one test, one language” principle. We argue this is inherently unfair to users of multiple languages.

Consider the following example from New York University researchers.
“Paco” is a child with a linguistic repertoire of both Spanish and English. But when judged in each of these languages separately, his knowledge is considered deficient. The assessment does not accurately judge Paco’s knowledge and skills or recognise and value his bilingual identity.

In this example, the purposes of assessment are not fully met. The assessment also privileges the monolingual student. They can use the full extent of their language knowledge, whereas a bilingual student is only permitted to use half of their’s.

One mode of communication

Current assessment practices are not only monolingual, but they tend to be in writing. Therefore a “one test, one language, one mode” approach is used. For some users of Aboriginal languages, this means their messages cannot be fully communicated because culturally it is appropriate to use gesture or signing to communicate certain information.

For example, some Aboriginal languages use cardinal direction – the use of compass directions such as north, south, east and west. In English a left/right system is used which is centred on personal location. In contrast, cardinal direction in these languages are not centred on personal location but true compass directions.

In Guugu Yimithirr, an Aboriginal language in Far North Queensland, cardinal direction can be communicated using only body position and gesture with compass-like accuracy.

This is just one example of how languages can differ, and why English-based testing might disadvantage speakers of these other languages.

How can we make assessment fairer for all?

We propose two main ways to make school assessment fairer for all:

1. assessment practices should allow students to use all their available linguistic resources to express their knowledge and understanding.

2. methods of assessment need to be expanded to embrace linguistic practices in other languages.

Some might argue that if assessment includes languages other than English, the teacher will not be able to understand and grade the student’s work.

However, we respond that it provides teachers with an opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue with children to learn about their social, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This will help teachers to see what these children are capable of in their additional language/s. This can be supported by using “translanguaging” education and “two-way” learning in the classroom.

Translanguaging education

“Translanguaging” is a term used to describe the ways individuals will use all their available meaning-making resources to communicate – such as signs and languages. In a classroom that uses a translanguaging approach to learning, this practice is not only allowed, but actively valued.

Translanguaging has been shown to improve learning and foster inclusivity in the classroom. It is used to demonstrate that all languages and therefore all children, are welcome in this classroom.

Translanguaging also strongly aligns with the “two-way” approach to learning – one that has been advocated for in First Nations educational contexts for over half a century. Two-way learning is premised on dialogue between teacher and student and an equal exchange of knowledge about language and culture.

Read more:
Invisible language learners: what educators need to know about many First Nations children

New modes of communication

Storytelling practices in schools are currently dominated by Western narrative writing. This represents just one storytelling style in a written mode. There are many styles of narratives across many modes, such as sand drawings, art, drama, singing and dancing.

This example from Ngaanyatjarra, an Aboriginal language group in Western Australia, shows the telling of a traditional sand story:

As part of a research project with Aboriginal youth, Inge Kral and her colleagues documented ten young First Nations women who used iPads to record traditional sand stories. In doing so, they used multiple ways of communicating.

Kral and her colleagues comment on the way these young people seamlessly blended and integrated to create new ways of communicating:

The films burst with colour, energy and originality, and we see traditional iconography merging with contemporary symbols as the young storytellers recount stories of trips out bush collecting traditional foods with humorous memories of flat tyres and seeing scary animals.

This example shows school children are skilled at representing their knowledge and understanding across multiple modes of communication like oral, digital, drawing.

It is important to note these innovative and creative practices were produced outside the classroom, not inside. It is time for that to change.

By allowing linguistic freedom of expression and expanding modes of communication in assessment, we can enrich our understanding of the world and make classroom assessment fairer.

Rhonda Oliver receives funding from Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with Curtin University and supports the not-for-profit organisation “Kate Mullin Association” which supports Education and Literacy initiatives for Aboriginal students and their teachers.

Carly Steele, Graeme Gower, and Sender Dovchin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Stop measuring black kids with a white stick’: how to make school assessments fairer for all – https://theconversation.com/stop-measuring-black-kids-with-a-white-stick-how-to-make-school-assessments-fairer-for-all-180024

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Harvey, Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts, University of Auckland

The past two years have made it impossible to ignore the problem in Aotearoa New Zealand’s arts sector. The pandemic has been brutal, with venues shut, festivals cancelled and audiences staying home.

At the same time, art in all its forms – books, music, TV, film, even the visual and performing arts – helped people through lockdowns and uncertainty. We were reminded how vital art is for our well-being, sense of belonging, education and aspirations for a better world.

The government acknowledged this with emergency relief packages in 2020 and earlier this year.
Yet the basic model for arts funding hasn’t changed and still doesn’t deliver equitable, sustainable income for artists or arts organisations. Nor is it delivering equitable and sustainable access to the arts for all people.

The evidence has been stark. People working in the creative arts earn just NZ$35,800 a year on average, with only $15,000 of that coming from their creative practice. It’s hard to be hopeful about support for up-and-coming artists when the funding system and wider arts economy is geared towards an elite few.

The existing funding model has also been questioned for the amount that ultimately reaches artists themselves, and what this means for audiences and everyone involved the sector.

The pandemic brought this all to a head, with arts sector advocates calling for more than a temporary lifeline, and nothing less a long-term vision and strategy for a sustainable, diverse, equitable future for the sector.

Rather than ask what the arts should receive in next week’s budget, we propose instead a complete revamp of Aotearoa New Zealand’s arts policy and funding systems.

New world, old models

As we emerge (tentatively) from a world-changing experience, now is the perfect moment to listen to those calls for action. The government has already indicated an understanding of the multiple ways in which the arts are important to society, beyond just the economic.

And while the pandemic placed immense financial pressure on those working in the arts, it also showed how the sector could be funded at an unprecedented level that acknowledges the vital relationship between the arts, society and well-being.

Read more:
Australia should have a universal basic income for artists. Here’s what that could look like

According to a 2021 survey by Creative New Zealand, most New Zealanders support public funding of the arts. But despite the many social and political changes since the country adopted the British arts council model in 1963, the essential funding rationale has barely changed from its colonial origins.

Specifically, and in spite of the official rhetoric, the government’s arts policy initiatives still rely on a calculus, embedded in policy over the past 40 years, that measures the primary value of art based on its direct or indirect contribution to the economy and GDP.

How about we set 2023 – the 60th anniversary of the Arts Council – as the year we come up with a completely new system?

10 ways forward

Change needs to start with the state genuinely listening to artists, others involved with the sector, and the wider population, about the role and function of the arts beyond purely economic measures. That should include Māori views of art as integral to, and integrated with, all aspects of life and society.

Genuinely listening implies an open-ended process, not one where there is already a plan waiting in the wings to be implemented regardless. Such a process could draw on marae-based decision making and consensus-based democracy models, with the process guided by Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Read more:
Even if next week’s budget avoids the issue, it’s time New Zealand seriously considered a wealth tax

But we can also look overseas for inspiration with alternative ways of resourcing the arts. Research we’re involved with has thrown up ten tangible ways New Zealand’s support for the arts could be improved:

• a liveable universal wage, benefit or income for artists

• a social insurance or welfare scheme for artists, including pensions

• tax exemptions and credits

• liveable pay standards and fair minimum fee scales aligned with expertise

• long-term funding schemes, grants of five years and longer available for all artists

• royalties for all arts disciplines

• housing support for artists

• subsidised arts studios, venues and offices

• participatory grant systems where artists and communities decide on funding allocation

• arts funding in all levels of education, including fully subsidised tertiary education

Read more:
Why the budget should treat public health like transport – vital infrastructure with long-term economic benefits

Transformative change

Revamping government policies and structures will ideally involve a more holistic recognition of the multiple ways the arts benefit society. For example, the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework considers individual and collective well-being and wealth beyond the merely financial.

Similarly, we might listen to the late Manuka Henare’s proposal for a Māori economic model that placed mana, well-being and self-determination at its centre. Or the Māori adaptation of so-called “doughnut economics”, based on fairness, sustainability and social well-being.

Applying these kinds of values to arts policies and funding would help avoid tokenism and the risk of sliding back towards the economic status quo.

In 2017, the government promised it would be transformative, although the catchphrase was quietly dropped. It’s time to revive that transformative ideal and begin the change that would make a difference, for and through the arts, for generations to come.

Mark Harvey is affiliated with Arts Makers Aotearoa.

Molly Mullen is affiliated with Te Ora Auaha: Creative Wellbeing Alliance Aotearoa.

– ref. The arts helped us through the pandemic – NZ’s budget should radically rethink how and why they’re funded – https://theconversation.com/the-arts-helped-us-through-the-pandemic-nzs-budget-should-radically-rethink-how-and-why-theyre-funded-182278

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

It is fair to say that Richard Wynne, who died in 1895, would not recognise many recent entries in the art prize that he endowed with £1,000 to reward a “landscape painting of Australian scenery”.

Since 1999, when Gloria Tamerre Petyarre was awarded the Wynne Prize for her magical sequence of Leaves, the Wynne has been dominated by works by Indigenous artists living in communities in central and northern Australia.

Rather than inhibiting artists from different traditions, the presence of such superb art appears to have inspired non-Indigenous artists to also be their best. It is therefore well worth a visit to see the full range of entries in the Art Gallery of NSW’s annual festival of prizes.

Not all appreciate this liberation of landscape. In 2017, the veteran Australian artist John Olsen attacked the awarding of the Wynne Prize to Betty Kuntiwa Pumani for Antara, a painting of her mother’s Country.

He claimed the “real” Australian landscape tradition was represented by artists such as Elioth Gruner and Brett Whiteley, while Pumani’s painting was of “a cloud cuckoo land”.

From memory this may have been the year that the gallery changed the design of the exhibition spaces so that the most exciting Wynne entries – almost all by Indigenous artists – filled the large central court.

As a young man in the 1950s, Olsen had demonstrated against the reactionary conservatism of the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW; in his old age he objected to their openness to new ideas.

Both Olsen’s pomposity and the dreariness of an Australian landscape tradition that colonises the land was mocked by Abdul Abdullah in his painting A Terrible Burden, a Wynne finalist in 2019.

Abdullah has expressed surprise at Olsen’s strident defence of the conservative tradition of Australian landscape as his own paintings are so abstract, although he tells me “his cultural contribution doesn’t hold a flame to Ken Done, who is very good at painting ‘place’.”

Read more:
‘I think Archie would be pleased’: 100 years of our most famous portrait prize and my almost 50 years watching it evolve

Origins of the prize

As with its more famous partner competition, the Archibald Prize, the Wynne is not quite what its benefactor envisaged.

Richard Wynne’s will originally designated the Art Society of NSW as the body to administer the prize, not the Art Gallery of NSW. In 1895, shortly after Wynne’s death, the Art Society experienced an acrimonious split when a number of artists led by Tom Roberts and Julian Ashton established a rival body, The Society of Artists.

By the time the prize was first awarded in 1897 the executors, Perpetual Trustees, decided it was more prudent to have it administered by the Art Gallery than a group of squabbling artists.

The tensions between artists is perhaps one reason why for many years there was no formal exhibition of entries. Walter Withers was awarded the first prize in 1897 for a painting that had already been bought by the Art Gallery. As he wrote to the Argus:

I was unaware that such a prize existed until I read the telegram in your issue of November 24, announcing the honour that had been done to my work.

A search through both the National Library’s Trove and the Art Gallery of NSW’s digital archive shows that, as with all art prizes judged by a committee, on many occasions considerations other than merit influenced the judges’ decisions.

In 1898 the Trustees began the practice of both visiting Art Society exhibitions and inviting interested artists to deposit their offerings for consideration. This was also the first year the prize was awarded to William Lister Lister, a stalwart of the Art Society (later renamed the Royal Art Society of NSW). He was awarded the prize a total of seven times.

With the exception of the 1898 award, Lister Lister was a trustee and therefore a judge on each of the other six times he won. He was not alone in this.

Sydney Long, a fellow trustee and fellow member of the Royal Art Society, was awarded the Wynne in 1938 and 1940. The only artist to be awarded the Wynne more often than Lister Lister was the South Australian, Hans Heysen, who was awarded the prize eight times. Heysen, from South Australia, exhibited with the Society of Artists.

For many years, it is fair to say many of the decisions governing the Art Gallery of NSW were a fine balance between two competing factions, with each taking it in turn to award the various prizes to their members and supporters.

In 1899, the young George Lambert, associated with the Society of Artists, was awarded the Wynne for his heroic painting of horses ploughing through mud, Across the Black Soil Plains. He was also awarded the NSW Government’s newly established Travelling Art Scholarship, a recognition of his precocious talent.

The eccentric nature of the management of the prize led to the situation in 1921 when the Trustees commissioned Elioth Gruner to paint The Valley of the Tweed, with the prize as a part of the commission.

The cosy duopoly of the art societies was challenged in 1943 after William Lister Lister’s sudden death.

Instead of replacing him with another representative of the Royal Art Society, the minister for education, Clive Evatt, appointed his sister-in-law, the collector and painter of modern art, Mary Alice Evatt, to be the first woman trustee in the gallery’s history.

In January 1944, Evatt advocated for William Dobell’s portrait of Joshua Smith to win the Archibald Prize. The following year she voted for the Wynne to go to Sali Herman’s urban landscape, McElhone Stairs, a painting with a complete absence of gum trees, painted by a Jewish immigrant who exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society.

The Wynne continued to reward interesting paintings when Russell Drysdale won with Sofala (1947), and Lloyd Rees for The Harbour from McMahon’s Point(1950).

A changeable landscape

By the early 1960s, the old exhibiting societies were less relevant to artists trying to establish a career. But the new dealer galleries understood the value of prizes to their artists’ profiles.

The new superstars of Australian art, John Olsen, Fred Williams and Brett Whiteley, began to be listed as prize winners.

The Wynne was still very much a “boy’s club”, as if the Australian landscape could only be captured by one gender. Lorna Nimmo had won in 1941, but her watercolours did not appeal to the Trustees.

It took until 1971 for Margaret Woodward to be the next woman winner, with her painting, Karri Country.

She was followed in 1994 with Suzanne Archer’s Waratah Wedderburn.

(While the prize is most well known for its landscapes, figurative sculptures can also enter, and Rosemary Madigan had won with her classic stone torso in 1986.)

Ann Thomson was awarded the 1998 prize with her abstract painting, Yellow Sound, which may have encouraged the Trustees to cast their net wider. For the following year the Wynne Prize was awarded to Gloria Tamerre Petyarre.

This bastion of the Australian landscape tradition was never the same again.

Easily the most memorable painting to be awarded the Wynne in recent years was in 2016, when the Ken family collaborative painted Seven Sisters, the grand narrative of protecting country.

Although some non-Aboriginal artists have won this century, Aboriginal art continues to dominate. The gallery now also hosts the Roberts Family prize, specifically for work by Indigenous artists.

What we are seeing here in this oldest, and potentially crustiest of art prizes, is concrete evidence of a whole new tradition of Australian art – or rather evidence that the oldest tradition is using art as a means to reclaim the land.

Read more:
Australians’ favourites show Aboriginal art can transcend social divisions and art boundaries

Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australia Council.

– ref. From gum trees to cities to sweeping deserts: how 125 years of the Wynne Prize traces Australia’s shifting relationship to our landscape – https://theconversation.com/from-gum-trees-to-cities-to-sweeping-deserts-how-125-years-of-the-wynne-prize-traces-australias-shifting-relationship-to-our-landscape-179764

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

The Liberals have used John Howard extensively during this campaign. These days, they celebrate their party hero as the great winner. He was, however, the last Liberal prime minister to take his party into the wilderness.

There are comparisons and contrasts between 2007 and 2022. In each election the Coalition government was “old” – in 2007 it was seeking a fifth term; now it’s asking for a fourth.

People were “over” Howard, as they’re “over” Scott Morrison. But the feeling against Howard was that he’d had his time – it’s visceral against Morrison.

Kevin Rudd was a fresh face, plugged into the rising issue of the times, climate change. Anthony Albanese often projects more as old Labor than future Labor.

Oh, and interest rates went up by 25 basis points during each campaign – to 6.75% (an 11 year high) in 2007 and to 0.35% in 2022 (still at rock bottom).

Despite Albanese’s campaign hiccups, at the end of this penultimate week, based on the objective evidence, the election appears his to lose.

The Australian newspaper’s YouGov poll, which surveyed almost 19,000 people across all lower house seats between April 14 and May 7, had Labor on track to majority government.

This is not predictive – it’s a snapshot. Both sides know the final campaign days provide risks and opportunities.

A sizeable number of voters have yet to firm up their decisions. In particular, how will soft Liberal voters who are put off by Morrison break? Between those who opt to swallow hard and stick with the government and those who can’t stomach the PM any longer?

But to state the obvious, Morrison has a short time in which to try reduce a big margin. Last minute scare campaigns can play effectively; unexpected developments can change the dynamics. But that’s only if enough voters in the right seats retain an open mind.

The Liberals have left their launch, to be held in Brisbane on Sunday, until the last moment. New policy will be announced. Morrison needs to garner some momentum from it for the home run.

Next week will see the release of important economic data, on unemployment and wages. The government will be hoping the unemployment figure, most recently 4%, will have a three in front of it. That would be good news for the Coalition’s economic pitch.

The wages number could play to Labor.

Wages growth was 2.3% in the year to December. Any increase on that for the year to March would be expected to be small. The Reserve Bank has forecast wage growth of 2.7% in the year to June, indicating it doesn’t anticipate much in March.

If next week’s figure is modest, Labor will be able to use it to highlight its case that many people are going backwards in real terms, given the 5.1% inflation rate.

One skill in politics is to be able to turn a negative into a neutral, or a positive, and Albanese did this in the argument over wages and inflation this week.

He initially slipped up, when he embraced the desirability of the minimum hourly wage being increased by 5.1%, to match inflation. The reasons he should not have been so precise have been well canvassed.

But when subsequently he translated such a rise into “two coffees a day”, the proposition would look to many voters more than reasonable (regardless of some counter economic arguments).

Morrison jumped on Albanese’s wages position as evidence the opposition leader did not understand economic matters, with the derogatory put down that “Anthony Albanese is a loose unit on the economy.” But that meant the prime minister was advocating a real wage cut for the lowest paid workers.

The Albanese-as-risk claim is about the best attack line the government has got, but when the debate is about wages, the government is fighting on Labor’s preferred turf.

If Albanese’s campaign has had mistakes and glitches, Morrison’s is undermined by the very obvious fact he’s leading a divided party.

Hardly any Liberals would have heard of Katherine Deves before she shot to prominence as Morrison’s captain’s pick for Warringah. Now her views on transgender issues, which the PM thinks will work for him among some ethnic voters, are causing the Liberals serious internal and external angst.

In a video, former prime minister Tony Abbott, who lost Warringah to independent Zali Steggall in 2019, has urged reluctant Liberal members in the seat to get behind Deves.

“The more I see of Katherine Deves the more impressed I am with her courage, with her common sense, with her decency and with quite frankly her capacity to win this seat back for the Liberal Party,” Abbott says.

Voters’ disgruntlement with Abbott’s high profile campaign against marriage equality was a factor in his defeat in 2019. His words about Deves suggest he remains tone deaf to the views of many in the party and the public within his old seat.

While Abbott lavishes praise on Deves, treasurer Josh Frydenberg, fighting for his political life against a teal candidate in Kooyong, was again distancing himself from Morrison’s defence of her.

“I myself have been very clear in rejecting what Katherine Deves has been saying. Her comments have been insensitive, they’ve been inappropriate,” he reiterated on the ABC.

Morrison has said that in his “captain’s pick” candidates for various NSW seats he was anxious to run women.

A study by the Australian National University’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, released Thursday, of candidates from the major parties found only about 20% of female Coalition candidates are running in safe seats. This compares with 46% of male candidates. More than half (51%) of Coalition women candidates are running in marginal seats – under 6% – compared with 25% of male candidates.

Some “80% of female candidates in the Coalition are […] running in seats they are unlikely to win, or that are precarious to hold. The equivalent proportion of men running in these seats is 54%,” the study says.

If the Liberals lose this election, addressing the women problem will be among many issues confronting a shattered party.

Meanwhile women present a major obstacle in Morrison’s attempt to pull this election out of the fire.

The female teal candidates will be attractive to women voters in those seats. More generally, Morrison is significantly more unpopular with women than with men. Women voters could be in the vanguard if May 21 delivers him a mortal blow.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: It’s Albanese’s to lose, as Morrison looks for some momentum – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-its-albaneses-to-lose-as-morrison-looks-for-some-momentum-182953

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mitchell Harley, Scientia Senior Lecturer, UNSW Sydney

Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.

Extreme storms can cause devastating erosion and leave beachfront houses teetering on cliff edges. But our new research, published today, finds storms might also help replenish beaches by bringing in new sand from deeper waters.

We studied three extreme storms in Australia, the United Kingdom and Mexico. One, in Sydney in 2016, famously ripped a swimming pool away from a property overlooking the coastline.

For the first time, we’re able to show just how much new sand can be added to a beach in a single storm alone – over 400,000 cubic metres in some cases. That’s equivalent to the typical volumes of sand engineers use to nourish beaches artificially.

As sea levels rise, this natural form of beach replenishment might be an important factor in offsetting some of the damaging effects of climate change on beaches. Yet, with little knowledge of exactly how much sand is moving around offshore, predicting the future of beaches in the coming decades is extremely difficult.

Wave after wave

Violent storm waves strip beaches of sand above the waterline, which often erodes sand dunes. In deeper waters, however, these same waves help stir up sediment lying dormant on the seabed. This sand is then pushed towards the shore and settles as the storm passes.

To study the three storms in Australia, the UK and Mexico, we used high-resolution monitoring equipment including twin engine airplanes, drones and jet skis mounted with an echo-sounder for measuring the seabed.

In Australia, we measured Narrabeen Beach in Sydney. In the UK, we monitored the impact of several storms during the winters of 2013-2014 and 2015-2016, at Perranporth beach in Cornwall. And in northwest Mexico, we recorded the impact of the 2018-2019 winter on La Mision Beach.

In the time-lapse video below, you can see just how quickly the water can encroach on beachfront houses during extreme storms. Beneath the water surface, however, huge volumes of sand is also moving about.

By capturing the three-dimensional seabed changes for each event, we could quantify for the first time the precise sand volumes mobilised during these extreme storms.

To give an indication of the scale of beach change, the amount of sand added to the beach resulting from the stormy periods was on the order of 100 cubic metres for every metre length of beach – that’s like 20 tip trucks pouring sand on every metre-wide strip.

Read more:
The seas are coming for us in Kiribati. Will Australia rehome us?

As the beaches spanned several kilometres, this amounted to 130,000 cubic metres for La Mision beach, 400,000 cubic metres for Narrabeen and 420,000 cubic metres for Perranporth.

The time-lapse video below is of Wamberal Beach during a storm in 2020. While it wasn’t included in our study, it’s another great example of how large storm waves cause abrupt changes to beaches.

Rethinking coastal erosion

Exactly how a coastline might change due to sea-level rise is a key question facing coastal managers, as they plan for the escalating impacts of climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change projects global sea levels to rise up to 76 centimetres by 2100, under a middle-of-the-road emissions scenario where global temperatures rise 2.1-3.5℃.

The response of the coast to sea-level rise has previously been estimated using an approach known as the Bruun rule. This rule states that for a given metre of sea-level rise, the coastline is expected to retreat between around 20m to over 100m, depending on the steepness of the coast.

Using the Bruun rule, global sea-level rise caused by climate change has been projected to result in losing almost half the world’s sandy beaches by 2100. However, not all coastal scientists share this view.

Let there be no doubt: sea-level rise is a tragic consequence of climate change, and it poses an existential threat to many coastal communities, especially for island nations in the Pacific.

What our new research confirms is that the Bruun rule approach is overly simplistic, as it doesn’t take into account the many complex local factors about how individual beaches respond to sea-level rise.

This includes the amount of sand stored in deeper water immediately off the coast, and its potential to replenish beaches during extreme weather events.

Improving predictions in an uncertain future

While this research has focused only on three extreme storm sequences, it shows that understanding how sediment moves along the coast is fundamental to planning for climate change impacts.

There are two ways we can significantly improve long-term predictions of coastal change in this uncertain future:

1. upscaling efforts in mapping the seabed to learn how much sediment is presently stored in the deeper coastal waters

2. increasing routine coastal monitoring of the entire nearshore system, from the sand dunes down to deeper waters. This is currently carried out by UK coastal observatories.

A greater understanding of sand movements off the coast, combined with computer modelling, can better forecast future shorelines. This will give coastal managers the information needed to make critical long-term planning decisions for communities.

Read more:
Why some beaches, including in Queensland, are getting bigger despite rising sea levels

Mitchell Harley receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Gerd Masselink receives funding from NERC.

– ref. ‘Like 20 tip trucks pouring sand on every metre-wide strip’: how extreme storms can replenish beaches, not just erode them – https://theconversation.com/like-20-tip-trucks-pouring-sand-on-every-metre-wide-strip-how-extreme-storms-can-replenish-beaches-not-just-erode-them-182039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Muriel Porter, Honorary Research Fellow, Trinity College Theological School, University of Divinity

When same-sex marriage was legislated by the Commonwealth in 2017, it quickly became a potential flashpoint in the Anglican Church of Australia.

For the conservative Diocese of Sydney, which contributed $1 million to the “no” campaign in the national same-sex marriage plebiscite, it became the line in the sand that could open up a major rift in the national church.

This week was the first opportunity for the diocese to prosecute its anti same-sex marriage agenda nationally, after COVID stopped the scheduled 2020-21 meetings of the triennial General Synod.

The national church now stands on the brink of that rift, with General Synod – the church’s “federal parliament” – this week refusing to endorse the Sydney position against same-sex marriage.

Sydney Diocese holds that the Bible sanctions marriage between a man and a woman only, and that this traditional position is a central doctrine of the Anglican Church.

What will happen next is up in the air. As an Anglican layperson who was a member of General Synod for 30 years, and as a reporter for the UK weekly newspaper Church Times, I have been following the General Synod meeting via live stream.

The Sydney contingent at the synod is clearly unhappy. The Sydney archbishop, Kanishka Raffel, told the synod the church was “in a perilous position, and no one should be mistaken about that”.

The issue of same-sex marriage was, he said, a “tipping point”, adding that “we ought to stop wasting each other’s time by gathering this way and supporting these structures”.

Read more:
Talk of same-sex marriage impinging on religious freedom is misconceived: here’s why

Quite what he was suggesting was not clear, but it sounded like a potential move away from the national church structure – in other words, a breakup of the national church. If that happened, each of the 23 dioceses across the country would be on its own. It would be less a schism, and more a return to the situation before the national church was formed in 1961.

However, given Sydney Diocese’s huge representation on the synod following a couple of decades of what is often referred to as “branch stacking” within church circles, most observers do not expect that to happen.

The results of the elections to the standing committee of the General Synod, held yesterday, reveal the conservatives are now in almost complete control of the national church.

Progressive Anglican clergy and laity from around the country who had long been members of the committee have been cast aside. From here on, the national church’s central structures will prosecute a virtual carbon copy of Sydney’s conservative position on same-sex marriage and other issues as well.

Same-sex marriage is not the first flashpoint within the church. Most of the other 22 dioceses are celebrating 30 years since women were first ordained priests. Women clergy are now a quarter of the total number, and there are also seven women bishops across five dioceses. One diocese, Perth, has a woman archbishop, Kay Goldsworthy.

Women clergy and bishops are not only not ordained in Sydney Diocese, they are not even recognised there. In Sydney Diocese, where women are not permitted to lead in either the church or the home, Goldsworthy would not be recognised as a priest, let alone an archbishop.

During the ordination of women debates in the 1980s and ‘90s, there were threats of schism. They came to nothing. Instead, Sydney Diocese has systematically taken over the national church by increasing its representation on the General Synod through a loophole in its constitution. Now it holds a third of the clergy and laity members, as well as members from other dioceses where it has been planting like-minded churches and clergy.

That is why conservatives have now taken over the standing committee, and why they gained large majorities among the clergy and lay members for their move at General Synod against same-sex marriage.

It was the diocesan bishops who thwarted the move. A little more than half of the diocesan bishops could still be identified as progressives. In direct contrast to the Sydney position, they see the blessing of same-sex marriages as a means of offering acceptance and God’s grace to same-sex people in loving, committed relationships.

Moves are afoot in the General Synod as it approaches its conclusion on Friday to call on the progressive bishops to “repent” of their “sinful” position. Those moves might well be successful, but they won’t affect the decision made in what might well be the progressives’ last stand in the national Anglican church.

Read more:
Talk of same-sex marriage impinging on religious freedom is misconceived: here’s why

However, all is not lost for the progressive position. The General Synod is a limited federal structure that gives the individual dioceses great autonomy. Until now, the progressive dioceses have held back on same-sex marriage blessings to maintain national church unity.

Only two public blessings of same-sex marriages have occurred since the church’s highest court, the Appellate Tribunal, ruled in 2020 that these services were acceptable in terms of the church constitution. It’s hardly been a tsunami, as the bishop of Ballarat, Garry Weatherill, told this week’s General Synod.

Now that real unity is clearly a dead letter, some dioceses will perhaps step out confidently to embrace same-sex blessings and other progressive causes, just as they embraced women clergy 30 years ago. The Anglican Church of Australia might present many different faces in the future.

Muriel Porter is an Anglican layperson who was a member of General Synod for 30 years.

– ref. Anglican disunity on same-sex marriage threatens to tear the church apart – https://theconversation.com/anglican-disunity-on-same-sex-marriage-threatens-to-tear-the-church-apart-182936

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dean Biron, PhD in Cultural Studies; teaches in School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology

In May of 1972 the Rolling Stones released their 10th British studio album and first double LP, Exile on Main St. Although initial critical response was lukewarm, it is now considered a contemporary music landmark, the best work from a band who rock critic Simon Frith once referred to as “the poets of lonely leisure.”

Exile on Main St. was both the culmination of a five-year productive frenzy and bleary-eyed comedown from the darkest period in the Stones’ history.

By 1969 the storm clouds of dread building around the group had become a full-blown typhoon. First, recently sacked member Brian Jones was found dead, drowned in his swimming pool.

Then, as the decade ended in a rush of bleak portents, they played host to the chaos of the Altamont Speedway Free Concert, a poorly organised, massive free concert, which ended with four dead including a murder captured live on film.

Yet amidst all this the Stones produced Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971), two devastating albums that wrapped up the era like a parcel bomb addressed to the 1970s.

Songs like Gimme Shelter, the harrowing Sister Morphine, and Sway, which broods on Nietzche’s notion of circular time, exuded the kind of weary grandeur that would define Exile.

Rock folklore

The story behind Exile on Main St. has become rock folklore. Fleeing from England’s punitive tax laws, the Stones lobbed in a Côte d’Azur mansion that was a Gestapo HQ during World War II.

Mick Jagger was largely sidelined, spending much of the time in Paris with pregnant wife Bianca. The musicians were jammed into an ad-hoc basement studio, a cross between steam-bath and opium den, powered by electricity hijacked from the French railway system. The house was beset by hangers-on, including the obligatory posse of drug-dealers.

Yet with control ceded to the nonchalant, disaster-prone Keith Richards – the kind of person a crisis would want around in a crisis – they somehow harnessed the power of pandemonium.

The result was a singular amalgam of barbed soul, mutant gospel, tombstone blues and shambolic country, as thrilling in its blend of familiar sources as works by contemporaries Roxy Music and David Bowie were in the use of alien ones.

Jagger shuffles his deck of personas from song to song like a demented croupier, the late, great drummer Charlie Watts supplies his customary subtle adornments, and a cast of miscreants – most crucially, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer Jimmy Miller – function as supplementary band members.

All 18 tracks contribute to the ragged perfection of the document as a whole. Tumbling Dice and Happy are textbook rock propelled by a strange union of virtuosity and indolence. And there is an undeniable beauty to the likes of Torn and Frayed and Let it Loose, albeit a beauty that is tentative, hard-earned.

The package is completed by its distinctive sleeve art, juxtaposing a collage of circus performers photographed by Robert Frank circa 1950 with grainy stills from a Super-8 film of the band and a mural dedicated to Joan Crawford.

Exile confused audiences at first: Writer John Perry describes its 1972 reception as mixing “puzzlement with qualified praise”. The response of critic Lester Bangs was typical. After an initial negative review, Bangs came to regard it as the group’s strongest work. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine confirms that the record over time has become a touchstone, calling it a masterful album that takes “the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme.”

Inspiration

The roll call of artists inspired by Exile is extensive, from Tom Waits and the White Stripes to Benicio del Toro and Martin Scorsese. But two album-length homages stand out.

In 1986, underground punks Pussy Galore concocted a feral, abstract facsimile of the entire double-LP. In 1993, singer-songwriter Liz Phair used the original as a rough template for her acclaimed Exile in Guyville.

Nonetheless, journalist Mark Masters notes that by the 1980s, the social and cultural circumstances that produced Exile were waning as acts such as Minutemen, Mekons, The Go-Go’s and Fela Kuti gave listeners access to fresh modes of rebellion.

Read more:
Brown Sugar: why the Rolling Stones are right to withdraw the song from their set list

Circa 1972, the Rolling Stones deserved the title “greatest rock and roll band in the world.” That it is still claimed 50 years on shows how classic rock continues to overbear all that followed.

The grandfathers of rock

When in 2020 Rolling Stone magazine made a half-hearted attempt to tweak the classic rock canon – elevating Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy and Lauryn Hill alongside or above Exile and the Beatles – the response was predictably unedifying.

One reader complained that the magazine was catering to “young people with no musical history and older people who don’t know anything.” Others raged that rap is not music and the list was proof of rampant political correctness.

Such archaic, ignorant language is typical of gatekeepers of the classic rock tradition. It is a language of exclusion, ensuring that exceptional new music by, say, Fiona Apple (which sounds something like rock) or Liz Harris (which sounds rather different) will always be rated below what came before.

The Rolling Stones have an inevitable, if ambiguous, relationship to all of this. In terms of race, writer Jack Hamilton argues that they were always “fiercely committed to a future for rock and roll music in which black music and musicians continued to matter.”

How they intersect with gender is perhaps more troubling, though also conflicted. While eminent female musicians such as Joan Jett, Carrie Brownstein and Rennie Sparks continue to champion the Stones, their role as leading purveyors of an inherently masculine, increasingly archaic musical form cannot be avoided.

Exile on Main St. is a significant album made by a bunch of haggard rebels whose heyday (and rebellion) is past but whose art lives on in complex ways.

Along with Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On and Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, it fits snugly into an aesthetic of washed out, narcotic-smeared masterpieces from the early seventies.

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

– ref. Exile on Main St turns 50: how The Rolling Stones’ critically divisive album became rock folklore – https://theconversation.com/exile-on-main-st-turns-50-how-the-rolling-stones-critically-divisive-album-became-rock-folklore-181704

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ria Hopkins, PhD Candidate, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

One in five Australians live with chronic pain lasting three months or more. Common causes include back and neck pain, headache, and joint pain.

Opioid medicines – such as oxycodone, morphine, fentanyl and codeine – are essential medicines and provide relief to many people with this type of pain.

However, opioids can also cause side effects and harms including dependence and overdose, which may be fatal.

Over the past decade, measures have been introduced in Australia to curb growing rates of opioid use and harms. But this has come at the expense of access for some people who genuinely need them.

In our new study, one-third of participants prescribed opioids long-term for chronic, non-cancer pain had difficulties getting ongoing prescriptions.

Read more:
1 in 5 Aussies over 45 live with chronic pain, but there are ways to ease the suffering

Tightening access

In 2018, codeine was made a “prescription-only” medicine. In the same year, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer wrote to doctors prescribing a lot of opioids to encourage them to consider reducing their prescribing.

States have also introduced prescription monitoring programs, allowing providers to see whether their patients are getting opioids from other doctors or pharmacies.

We’re underaking a long-term study of just over 1,500 Australians prescribed opioids for chronic non-cancer pain. We started asking questions about accessing opioid prescriptions in our 2018 interviews with participants.

These weren’t prescriptions for new pain conditions, but ongoing prescriptions for people who had been using these medicines for four years, on average, and living with pain for ten years, before the study.

Opioids can cause significant harm

Over the past 30 years, the amount of opioids (doses per Australian per day) dispensed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) has increased four-fold.

There has also been a 15-fold increase in opioid prescriptions dispensed on the PBS between 1995 and 2015. Australia currently ranks eighth among countries using the most opioids.

Read more:
2,200 deaths, 32,000 hospital admissions, 15.7 billion dollars: what opioid misuse costs Australia in a year

As opioid use has risen, so have harms. Opioids are the main drug involved in drug-induced deaths.

Pharmaceutical opioids are now involved in more deaths than heroin. Pharmaceutical opioids also contribute more to poisoning-related hospital visits than heroin, with hospitalisations doubling since 1999.

So what did our research find?

In our study, one in five people reported problems relating to accessing doctors.

As opioids become more restricted, people may need to visit their doctor more frequently because they’re given smaller pack sizes and fewer repeats. They may be put in a position where they’re unable to get prescriptions if doctors aren’t available.

Opioids can cause dependence and tolerance with continuous and long-term use. However, sudden interruptions to opioid medicine supply may place people at risk of experiencing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, flu symptoms, and muscle cramping.

One in ten people in our study reported their doctor wanted to reduce or stop opioid medicines against their wishes.

Patients and doctors need to work together

More doctors are practising “opioid tapering” (reducing opioid doses over time), especially in the United States, following the release in 2016 of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for chronic pain.

However, there were soon reports of opioids being ceased without reducing the dose first, which risks withdrawal. This prompted the CDC to warn that applying guidelines without adequate care could harm patients.

Worryingly, studies have linked stopping or reducing opioids with death by suicide and overdose, even for people prescribed opioids at low doses to begin with.

These studies also found people who stopped opioids were more likely to visit the emergency department or be admitted to hospital for mental health crises, illicit drug use and overdoses.

Read more:
Opioid script changes mean well, but have left some people in chronic pain

For some people, reducing or stopping opioids will be the right thing for them, clinically. Some studies suggest stopping opioids can be done without increasing pain.

Some studies suggest pain may even improve when opioids are stopped. However, participants in these studies are usually enrolled in special pain programs. These programs are notoriously difficult to access in Australia and it is common to wait months to years for services.
Increased investment in pain services and programs is needed.

There is also a need for opioid tapering to be undertaken in a collaborative way, with patients and doctors working as a team to achieve agreed upon goals.

Balancing benefits and harms

Since we conducted our study, new restrictions introduced in 2020 reduced the quantities of opioids that can be prescribed on the PBS. For most opioids, doctors can only supply quantities and repeats for up to three months at a time.

So it’s likely to have become harder for people with pain to access pain medicines. In a survey released last month by Painaustralia, half of the respondents said their pain management was worse, and their pain was more severe, because of the changes.

When it comes to using opioids for chronic non-cancer pain, it’s important to balance both benefits and harms. Potential opioid-related harms need to be recognised and addressed. At the same time, adequate treatment of pain is essential, and we need to make sure people don’t suffer harms due to changes to opioid access.

The needs of people who live with pain and the impact of restrictions on them need to remain at the centre of all decisions and discussions about opioids.

Read more:
Patients leaving hospital sometimes need opioids. Doctors can reduce risks of long-term use and dependence

Ria Hopkins receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

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

– ref. One in three people with chronic pain have difficulty accessing ongoing prescriptions for opioids – https://theconversation.com/one-in-three-people-with-chronic-pain-have-difficulty-accessing-ongoing-prescriptions-for-opioids-182678

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

This federal election campaign has involved very little discussion of environmental or natural resource policies, other than mining. An exception is a A$220 million Morrison government pledge for the forestry industry.

The money will be invested in new wood-processing technology and forest product research, and used to extend 11 so-called “regional forestry hubs”. Some $86 million will aid the establishment of new plantations.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not support “any shutdown of native forestry” and claimed the funding would secure 73,000 existing forestry jobs. The spending on native forests, however, is problematic. In 2019-20, 87% of logs harvested in Australia came from plantations, and more investment is needed to bring this to 100%.

Here, we show how directing public funds to native forest logging is bad for the economy, the climate and biodiversity, and will increase bushfire risk.

1. Economics

Native forest logging has long been a marginal economic prospect. The Western Australian government has recognised this, electing to halt the practice by the end of 2023. It will instead create sustainable forestry jobs by spending $350 million expanding softwood timber plantations.

The move followed Victoria’s promised end to native forest logging in 2030.

In Victoria, native forest logging has repeatedly incurred substantial losses across large parts of the state. Data from the state’s Parliamentary Budget Office in 2020 show Victoria would be more than $190 million better off without its native forest logging sector.

Native forest logging sustains far fewer jobs than the plantation sector, and does not produce substantial employment opportunities in any mainland Australian state.

For example, only about 300 direct and indirect jobs are sustained by native forest logging in southern NSW.

A recent economic analysis showed ceasing native forest harvesting in that region would bring $62 million in economic benefits – a result likely to be repeated in native forestry areas across Australia.

About 87% of sawn timber used in home construction is derived from plantations. The vast majority of native forest logged in Victoria and southern NSW goes into woodchips and paper pulp.

Victoria exports 75% of plantation-derived eucalypt pulp logs. A small percentage of this diverted for domestic use would readily replace native forest wood at Victoria’s biggest paper mill at Maryvale. The feasibility of this has been known for years.

Read more:
Logged native forests mostly end up in landfill, not in buildings and furniture

2. Climate change

Native forest logging in Australia generates around 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) a year.

Victoria’s phase-out of native forest logging by 2030 will reduce emissions by 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent gases each year for 25 years, equivalent to taking 730,000 motor vehicles off the road annually.

Ending native forest logging in southern NSW would likely be the biggest carbon abatement project in that state.

These benefits also bring economic value. Even under relatively low market prices for carbon, the value of not logging, in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, far exceeds the economic benefits of native forest logging.

Read more:
Decaying forest wood releases a whopping 10.9 billion tonnes of carbon each year. This will increase under climate change

3. Bushfire risk

There’s now unequivocal evidence that logging native trees makes forests prone to more severe bushfires. Analysis of the 2019-20 Black Summer fires showed logged forests always burn more severely than intact ones.

Under moderate fire weather conditions during Black Summer, logged forests burned at higher severity than intact forests burning under extreme fire weather.

These logging-generated risks were particularly pronounced in southern and northern NSW. Importantly, they were also evident in Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria.

Read more:
Coming of age: research shows old forests are 3 times less flammable than those just burned

4. Biodiversity conservation

Numerous studies have demonstrated the damage native forest logging causes to biodiversity. In Victoria, for example, a 2019 analysis of areas proposed for logging showed it would negatively affect 70 threatened forest-dependent species, such as the Leadbeater’s possum.

The bottom line is that ongoing logging will drive yet further declines of Australia’s threatened species and add to the nation’s sad record on biodiversity loss.

The upshot

The empirical evidence points in one direction: ending native forest logging in Australia would bring substantial and multiple benefits to society and nature.

We welcome the Morrison government’s spending on supporting new plantations. To create the most positive return on taxpayer investment, however, the bulk of other industry funding should be directed to enhancing manufacturing and markets for high-value wood products from plantation timber.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government, and the Victorian Government.

Brendan Mackey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the federal government. He is on the board on the not-for-profit organisation Great Eastern Ranges and is a member of the Queensland government’s Native Timber Advisory Panel.

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

– ref. 4 reasons why the Morrison government’s forestry cash splash is bad policy – https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-why-the-morrison-governments-forestry-cash-splash-is-bad-policy-182145

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

The Sri Lankan state is descending into a full blown political and economic crisis, as more people contend with starvation, death and severe disruptions. Now they are also facing the brutal violence of the state.

The BBC reports at least nine people died and more than 200 were injured as vehicles and houses were set alight during fighting between government supporters and critics this week.

The island is facing its worst economic crisis since independence, and the responses of the state indicate it is incapable of protecting its citizens.

The deployment of military force, however, is unlikely to quell unrest. The anger and frustration displayed by the public, aggravated by pro-government protesters, is only likely to grow – fuelling further distrust in the ruling government.

Read more:
Sri Lanka: protests spread as petrol prices rise by 90%

The use of force

The army was this week given orders to shoot “law-breakers” on sight, as people gathered in the street to protest shortages in food, fuel and medicines.

Economic problems underpin the recent political unrest, with Sri Lanka confronting the very real prospect of bankruptcy as its foreign reserves run dry.

As I wrote recently in the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the country’s 22 million citizens are now suffering thanks to a legacy of government corruption, nepotism and poor economic management. The island is deeply in debt to China and unable to raise enough revenue due to a slew of tax cuts.

Its nationalist president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, came to office in November 2019 after campaigning on national security and appealing to Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism.

The Rajapaksa family has since grown increasingly powerful; Gotabaya installed his brother Mahinda (himself a former president) as prime minister and appointed other relatives to ministerial positions.

Recent constitutional changes have increased the power of the president to suppress political opposition, erode democratic institutions and further entrench discrimination against minority Tamils and Muslims.

A predictable economic crisis

Poor economic mismanagement is not new in Sri Lanka, with consecutive governments failing to manage inflation, debt and spending.

But the decisions of the current government have brought the island to the brink of bankruptcy.

It is the worst economic crisis Sri Lanka has faced since it gained independence from British rule in 1948.

One significantly disastrous policy under Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency was the banning of chemical fertiliser. This caused farmers’ livelihoods to collapse and led to lower crop yields as well as plantation closures, job losses and food shortages.

This triggered inflation and effectively crushed key export industries like tea and rubber.

Meanwhile, COVID wrecked the tourism industry, a key revenue generator for Sri Lanka.

The war in Ukraine has affected fuel shortages and crippled tourism, with Russia and Ukraine being key tourist markets.

Militarisation is the norm in Sri Lanka

Authoritarianism by the state is not new in Sri Lanka, as minority Tamils and Muslims well know. These groups faced horrifying violence before, during and after the civil war fought between 1983 and 2009.

This week’s deployment of security forces is a rapid development in the recent crisis, but militarisation has been a central pillar of Sri Lankan governance for years.

The ministry of defence received 12.3% of total estimated government expenditure in 2022 – the highest allocation for any ministry in the budget. This is despite its civil war ending 13 years ago.

The Tamil population in the north and east of the island face the brunt of this militarisation, which encroaches on their everyday lives.

The military runs civilian life, from schools, to recreation and religious activities. There is an estimated one military personnel per six civilians in the north and east.

The same military massacred tens of thousands of Tamils during the war, resulting in a genocide.

The United Nations continues to call for investigations into violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and international crimes.

At least 115 Tamil parents have died since the civil war ended without knowing the whereabouts of loved ones forcibly disappeared by Sri Lankan security forces as the war ended.

One 75-year old woman, Thangarasa Selvarani, had been protesting on the roadside over her abducted son for five years; she recently died without finding out what had happened to her child.

So what’s next?

The prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned as violence in the country escalated.

Protesters gathered at the Trincomalee port after unconfirmed reports he had gone there with family after fleeing his Colombo residence.

Anti-government protests across the island will continue, as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa holds firm and politicians shelter in safe houses to avoid the public.

Gotabaya is so far refusing to resign, instead seeking to appoint a new cabinet.

A new cabinet will not solve the problem, and the growing crackdown on civilians will only further erode trust in this government.

Read more:
What’s happening in Sri Lanka and how did the economic crisis start?

Niro Kandasamy volunteers at the Tamil Refugee Council.

– ref. The Sri Lankan state is using violence to unleash fury on its citizens, as its political and economic crisis deepens – https://theconversation.com/the-sri-lankan-state-is-using-violence-to-unleash-fury-on-its-citizens-as-its-political-and-economic-crisis-deepens-182937

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evita March, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Federation University Australia

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says one of his “great missions” is to make social media a safer place for young people.

If the Coalition is re-elected, Morrison says one of the first pieces of legislation will be an anti-trolling bill, after it was introduced but not passed in the last parliament.

In March, Labor said the bill needed “significant amendments”.

To understand if this bill will be effective in targeting trolling, we need to understand why people troll. I have been researching the psychology of internet trolls for more than seven years – this is what I have found.

What does the bill propose?

Last September, the High Court ruled Australians with a social media page can be liable for defamatory posts others people make on their page – even if they are not aware of the posts.

In response, the anti-trolling bill was introduced. The bill aims to make it easier to obtain contact details of anonymous social media users and “unmask” them. However, the online safety comissioner has questioned whether the bill will actually target trolling. Lawyers have also warned the bill could increase legal costs and waste court time.

My research shows trolls have complex motivations for their behaviour, which are not addressed by the bill.

Read more:
High Court rules media are liable for Facebook comments on their stories. Here’s what that means for your favourite Facebook pages

Who are the trolls?

Today, trolling is understood to be a malicious, antisocial act where the “troll” seeks to cause their target distress or harm. Commonly, it is a form of online harassment. In my research, I describe this as “malevolent trolling”.

In our Australian-first 2016 study, we found people who engage in more trolling behaviours, such as disrupting comment sections and upsetting people, were more likely to be callous, lack guilt and personal responsibility for their actions, and enjoy harming others. That is, they had higher scores on the personality traits of psychopathy and sadism. We also found trolls were more likely to feel rewarded when engaging in antisocial behaviour, and enjoyed being cruel to others and creating a sense of social mayhem.

Read more:
‘Don’t feed the trolls’ really is good advice – here’s the evidence

We have also shown that people who troll have lower affective empathy – the ability to share the emotions of others. We expected people who troll to also have low cognitive empathy – the ability to analytically understand the emotions of others.

However, we found people with high cognitive empathy combined with high psychopathy were more likely to troll. This paints a rather dangerous, malevolent portrait of the internet troll – they know what can hurt you but are less likely to experience guilt about their behaviour.

We have also found self-esteem is unrelated to trolling. Interestingly (and concerningly) we found self-esteem to interact with sadism – the higher an individual’s level of sadism and the higher their self-esteem, the more likely they are to troll. So, the more someone enjoys harming others and the greater their sense of self-worth, the more likely they are to troll.

Taken together, our findings suggest people who troll are callous, enjoy harming others, lack the ability to share the emotional pain they inflict on their targets, have a good understanding of what will hurt their targets and do not have low self-worth.

Based on these findings, we suggest “don’t feed the trolls” could be good advice, because letting trolls know they have caused harm likely reinforces their behaviour.

Why do people troll?

We can also understand trolling by applying theoretical frameworks.

According to General Strain Theory, when we experience something stressful we may have an aggressive response. So trolling could be seen as a response to experiencing stress. Indeed, during the 2020 COVID lockdowns in Australia there was a 300% increase in cyber abuse reports.

Read more:
New research shows trolls don’t just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves

The Broken Windows Theory is also helpful here. According to this theory, the more antisocial behaviour we see, the more likely we are to engage in the behaviour ourselves. Simply, the behaviour becomes normalised.

In combination, General Strain Theory and Broken Windows Theory suggest people who are stressed and who are exposed to more instances of trolling, are more likely to troll. This, in turn, normalises the behaviour, leading to even more trolling.

This effect can be seen in in an experiment by researchers from Stanford and Cornell universities. The researchers primed participants to be in a good or bad mood and then had them look at online discussions forms, some with primarily negative comments. Participants were then asked to post their own comment on the discussion forum. Those who were primed to be in a bad mood and who then viewed trolling were more likely to troll.

What does this mean for the bill?

The anti-trolling bill dangerously fails to address the complexity of the issue. Equating trolling with just defamation means the many other behaviours associated with trolling – harassment, disruption, intention to harm – would remain unlegislated.

But perhaps most concerning is the apparent ongoing lack of an evidence-based approach to targeting this harmful online behaviour.

Read more:
The government’s planned ‘anti-troll’ laws won’t help most victims of online trolling

This includes more empathy training throughout schools, with a particular focus on digital empathy. Developing digital empathy includes increasing understanding of how the online environment can impair empathy and connection, and what strategies you can employ to overcome this. This knowledge and skill development could be embedded in all digital school curriculum.

Cyber abuse, such as trolling and cyberbullying, have remained unchecked for too long. There is an urgent need to address and manage these harmful behaviours in a meaningful way.

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

– ref. Morrison says his anti-trolling bill is a top priority if he’s re-elected – this is why it won’t work – https://theconversation.com/morrison-says-his-anti-trolling-bill-is-a-top-priority-if-hes-re-elected-this-is-why-it-wont-work-178148

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Hickson, Economics Lecturer and Director Business Taught Masters Programme, University of Canterbury

Removing the goods and services tax (GST) from food is not a new idea. Te Pāti Māori are currently pushing for its removal from all foods. In 2011 Labour campaigned on removing GST from fruit and vegetables. In 2017 NZ First wanted GST removed from “basic food items”.

It’s an idea that voters like. A recent poll suggests 76% of New Zealanders support removing GST from food. But regardless of the support, removing GST on food always was, and still is, a bad idea.

The problem starts with the issue of motivation. Over the years, there has been no single clear goal for removing GST on food. Sometimes advocates argue it’s to encourage healthy eating or reduce obesity, sometimes it’s to help low income families afford better food.

As inflation increases to levels not seen for 30 years, the main reason given now is to ease the cost of living stress on those struggling to keep up.

Sacrificing simplicity

But the beauty of New Zealand’s tax system is its simplicity. Removing GST on food, or some types of food – for example, “healthy food” – makes that system more complex and costly.

There are a number of potential complications.

Let’s start with the obvious – what would count as “food”? Is milk powder food? Probably yes, so what about milk? Or flavoured milk? Oranges are food, so what about 100% natural orange juice? A broad definition of “food” would include lollies, potato chips, McDonalds and KFC, but many would object to removing GST from these on health grounds.

We would then need to decide what is acceptable to exempt and what is not. The arguments would go on and on.

In Australia, the quesion of whether an “oven baked Italian flat bread” is a bread (so not subject to GST) or a cracker (subject to GST) went to court, and involved flying a bread certification expert from Italy to testify. The only reason why that job exists is due to complexity in tax systems around the world.

Read more:
FactCheck: is the GST as efficient but less equitable than income tax?

In Ireland, the court was required to rule on whether Subway was serving “bread” or “confectionery or fancy baked goods” due to the difference in GST treatment.

In the UK, guidance on how GST on food is applied runs to 40 pages with 130 example categories; in Australia, an 87 page document covers some 1500 food types.

NZ First campaigned on exempting “basic food items” but this is also difficult to define. Are pies basic food items? Is a cold pie sold in a supermarket that you heat yourself different from a heated one sold in a bakery or one served at your table in a café?

Even worse would be to define “basic food” as what is sold in supermarkets. We already have an issue with a lack of competition in the supermarket industry and that sort of exemption would hand the existing duopoly even more market power.

Food costs won’t drop that much

Exempting some things and not others adds cost to the system.

Food outlets sell more than just food. With the proposed exemptions some things they sell will be subject to GST and some not. Some predominantly non-food outlets such as petrol stations also sell food.

Ultimately, someone has to pay the cost of complexity and the ones most happy about that will be the accountants.

Another issue is one of expectations. Food prices will drop but not by the full amount of GST. Basic economics teaches us that when something is taxed, producers and consumers share the burden of that tax.

Read more:
Cheaper food comes with other costs – why cutting GST isn’t the answer

The price rises for consumers but producers have to absorb some of that extra cost. When the tax comes off, therefore, the reverse happens, and producers and consumers share the cost reduction.

The 2018 Tax Working Group (TWG) didn’t support removing GST on food. It emphasised how such exemptions lead to “complex and often arbitrary boundaries”, particularly when trying to target specific types of food such as “healthy food”.

They also stated that such exemptions are a “poorly targeted instrument for achieving distributional aims”.

This is important given the current push to help New Zealanders, particularly those on low incomes, with the cost of living.

Alternative solutions

The working group explained that if the goal was to support those on low incomes, and the government was willing to give up the GST revenue from food, then it would be better to continue to collect the GST and simply refund it via an equal lump sum payment to every New Zealand household or taxpayer.

Higher income households pay more GST on food because they spend more on food than lower income households. Hence lower income households would get more back via a refund than what they pay in GST on food.

This would be simpler and a more effective way to address an issue faced by low income households.

The intentions with removing GST on food are good, but good intentions don’t always equal good policy. If the government wishes to increase support to New Zealand households it should do so in the most efficient way, which removing GST on food is not.

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

– ref. Removing GST on food is back in the news, proving some bad ideas just never go away – https://theconversation.com/removing-gst-on-food-is-back-in-the-news-proving-some-bad-ideas-just-never-go-away-182592

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Conway, Senior Lecturer – Games and Interactivity, Swinburne University of Technology

EA Sports and FIFA will part ways after almost 30 years of collaboration. This is surprising for a number of reasons, not least because it is such a large part of EA’s success: FIFA, a video game franchise using the world governing body of soccer’s official licence, is regularly played by 35 million people. 325 million copies of the game have been sold since it was launched in 1993.

The American gaming company EA openly acknowledges its dependency upon the series. A 2020 regulatory document stated their US$5.6 billion in revenue was “primarily driven” by FIFA 21 and FIFA 20.

As one might expect, this powerhouse relationship seems to have soured over money. According to the New York Times, FIFA wanted double its usual licence fee, from US$500 million every four years to US$1 billion.

EA will release its new brand of soccer video game, EA Sports FC, in 2023. FIFA are also outlining plans to introduce its own set of digital games. FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, remarked this week:

I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans.

This series has always revolved around an amorphous insistence upon authenticity and reality.

Read more:
Are esports the next major league sport?

Welcome to the real

EA Sports’ famous motto, “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game”, is not your average marketing braggadocio: it’s a declaration of intent. Even at its inception, the publisher was claiming to be more authentic than its competition.

It always wanted to be associated with established sports media. Its first game, based on America’s National Football League, was endorsed by NFL legend John Madden, credited as “co-designer” for 1988’s John Madden Football.

By the early 90s, EA Sports had reached agreement with the relevant governing bodies for NFL, American hockey, golf and lastly, in 1993, soccer.

On the back covers of these early games you’ll see words such as “actual”, “authentic” and “realistic” plastered liberally. These are, rather paradoxically, aligned with phrases such as “just like TV”, detailing features such as live commentary, instant replays and a host of camera angles.

In our heavily mediated society, signs of mediation are signs of reality.

The early FIFA games were filled with innovations. FIFA International Soccer in 1993 was the first soccer game to give the impression of three-dimensions, rather than the flat, two-dimensional appearance of competing games.

Graphical flourishes abound from 1996’s FIFA 97, featuring multi-dimensional players (instead of 2D sprites) and motion-captured animations provided by cover star David Ginola. This iteration also introduced live commentary provided by John Motson and Andy Gray, familiar voices to any English soccer fan.

Its successor, FIFA: Road To World Cup 98, would introduce a “title song” (Blur’s Song 2), beginning a tradition fusing musicians with the series, now an aspiration for many bands.

FIFA Football 2002 provided the now familiar convention of “power bars”, where the power of a shot (and later pass) is determined by how long the player holds the button. This expanded the skill curve for the game, paving the way for mechanics in later years such as dribbling controls and tricks.

FIFA 09 inaugurated the multiplayer “Clubs” mode, allowing players to compete against one another online. This edition also introduced user-controlled goal celebrations: an infamous feature among online players for the rage induced by taunting, elongated routines.

FIFA 19 was perhaps the nail in the coffin for the dominance of the FIFA licence. EA Sports was able to secure an exclusive licence with the Union of European Football Associations, introducing enormously popular competitions such as the European Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup to the game.

Read more:
Why does crowd noise matter?

Road to Wembley?

It’s interesting to look back now at how proud EA Sports were when teaming up with FIFA. The back cover for 1993’s FIFA International Soccer read:

EA Sports has teamed up with the governing body of international soccer to bring you the most realistic soccer game ever created.

This is a far cry from contemporary pronouncements, such as EA CEO Andrew Wilson’s recent dismissal that FIFA’s only contribution to the series’ success was “four letters on the front of the box”.

While Wilson’s comments on FIFA are condescending, they aren’t too far off the mark. Outside of “those four letters”, the game series has never really seemed to care too much about that particular endorsement.

EA Sports’ claims to authenticity and reality have centred upon two things: domestic representation, and expanding the simulation claims of its game.

The first is evident in the series’ emphasis on expanding from international teams in the first game to include leagues such as England’s Premiership, Spain’s LaLiga and Germany’s Bundesliga with the painstaking recreation of their stadiums, team kits and player likenesses.

The second is illustrated by EA Sports’ concentrated efforts to implement familiar sports media conventions into the unfamiliar territory of video games.

Tack onto this constant improvements in the physics engine, player motion capture and team statistics, and EA Sports’ value is obvious for your average fan.

In recent years, EA Sports have even adopted mechanics from older media such as trading cards. Players can purchase “card packs” which provide a random selection of footballers to use in the game. (This has drawn the eye of legislators concerned EA is promoting gambling.)

The road forward for EA Sports’ series is clear; FIFA’s plans are much less defined.

EA Sports’ new series has the rights to “19,000+ players, 700+ teams, 100+ stadiums and 30 leagues”, including the English Premiership and UEFA Champions League. It’s an extraordinarily strong defence. If FIFA really want to compete, it will need to field a formidable attack.

Read more:
World Cup 2022: if Qatar can silence critics with a strong tournament, an Olympic bid could be next

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

– ref. FIFA and EA sports are splitting: a look at 30 years of game innovation, and what fans can expect next – https://theconversation.com/fifa-and-ea-sports-are-splitting-a-look-at-30-years-of-game-innovation-and-what-fans-can-expect-next-182851