The Coalition and Labor parties have each produced election policies designed to help low and middle income earners buy homes.
Who is likely to benefit from them and who is likely to suffer is far from obvious, and depends in part on the price of the homes on offer.
But broadly speaking, both parties’ schemes will hurt buyers of low-priced homes and renters – and here’s why.
What’s on offer?
The Coalition and Labor policies have common themes, among them lower deposits for first homebuyers on low to middle incomes buying below-average priced homes.
The Coalition would extend its Home Guarantee Scheme scheme. It enables buyers with deposits as small as 5% (2% for single parents) to avoid paying mortgage insurance.
Labor’s Help to Buy Scheme would see the government partnering with buyers for up to 30% of the value of an existing home and 40% of the value of a new home, also with a low (2%) deposit.
Labor’s income caps are A$120,000 for couples and $90,000 for singles. The Coalition’s are $200,000 per annum for couples and $125,000 for singles.
Each scheme has price caps for the homes that can be bought with it. Roughly similar, they range from $400,000 in regional Tasmania to $900,000 in Sydney.
What’s likely to happen
For properties with values above the thresholds, the policies should have next to no effects on demand or supply, and as a result, close to no effect on prices.
For properties with values below the thresholds, the resulting increase in demand should push up prices (as well as getting more people into homes).
How much will depend on how responsive the supply of housing is to prices. The more responsive (“elastic” is the term used), the less prices will need to climb to get the extra people into homes.
There’s reason to believe housing supply is fairly inelastic. The bulk of the supply of housing is fixed. It was built some time ago.
Also, it takes time to build new homes, and supply of labour is fairly fixed, being hard to ramp up quickly. Uncertainty about whether the policy will continue might make builders cautious about hiring more staff, even if they can get them.
This is likely to push up the prices of lower (but not higher) value properties.
The Australians the schemes help into lower value properties will still come out ahead, but not others trying to get into lower value properties.
Low-priced homes will cost more
Some who would have been only just able to get into a lower-priced home will miss out as a result of the scheme, seeing prices climb just beyond their reach.
Repeat buyers of lower-priced homes face no such problem. People moving from one lower-priced home to another will find both the home they buy and sell have climbed in price, leaving them broadly no worse off.
All they will face will be a small net loss associated with higher (percentage based) agent fees and higher stamp duty.
Low-priced rents will cost more
Renters of and owners of lower-priced investment properties will be worse off.
More than one quarter of households rent, normally in lower-priced homes. New landlords who have to pay more for these homes will charge more in rent, in what will be an undesirable second-round consequence of the policies on offer.
Some households who would have rented will be able to get into home ownership as a result of the schemes. Others, who still have to rent, will pay more.
We ought to build more homes
While the size of these effects is uncertain, it’s easy to determine their direction.
The best way to get more renters into homes is to build more homes for them, enough to push down prices.
Stopgap proposals aimed at giving a fortunate few a leg-up can have unintended consequences.
John Freebairn 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.
Whether you need a new villain or an old Spider-Man, your sci-fi movie will sound more scientifically respectable if you use the word multiverse. The Marvel multiverse puts different versions of our universe “out there”, somewhere. In these films, with the right blend of technology, magic, and imagination, travel between these universes is possible.
For example (spoilers!), in Spider-Man: No Way Home, we discover there are other universes and other Earths, some of which have their own local Spider-Man. In the universe of the movie, magic is possible.
This magic, thanks to a misfiring spell from superhero Dr Strange, causes some of the other Spider-Men to be transported into our universe, along with a few supervillains.
So, which of these ideas has Marvel borrowed from science, and which ones are pure fiction?
Multiverse lite: a really big universe
Could there be other Earths? Could there be other people out there, who look a lot like us, on a planet that looks like ours? Scientifically, it’s possible, because we don’t know how big our universe actually is.
We can see billions of light years into space, but we don’t know how much more space is out there, beyond what we can see.
If there is more space out there, full of galaxies, stars and planets, then there are more and more chances for Another-Earth to exist. Somewhere. With enough space and enough planets, any possibility becomes likely.
The fiction of the Marvel multiverse stems from the ability to travel between these other earths. There’s a good reason why Dr Strange needs to use magic for this.
According to Albert Einstein, we can’t travel through space faster than light. And while more exotic ways to travel around the universe are scientifically possible – wormholes, for example – we don’t know how to make them, the universe doesn’t seem to make them naturally, and there is no reason to think they’d connect us to Another-Earth rather than some random part of empty space.
So, almost certainly, if Another-Earth is out there somewhere, it’s unimaginably far away, even for an astronomer.
In Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the multiverse is breached by various magical spells and special abilities. Marvel Studios
Changing the laws of nature
The Marvel multiverse might seem wild, but from a scientific perspective it’s actually too tame. Too normal. Too familiar. Here’s why.
The basic building blocks of our universe – protons and neutrons (and their quarks), electrons, light, etc. – are able to make amazing things, such as human life. Your body is astounding: energy-gathering, information-processing, mini-machine building, self-repairing.
Physicists have discovered that the ability of our universe’s building blocks to make life forms is extremely rare. Just any old blocks won’t do.
If electrons had been too heavy, or the force that holds atomic nuclei together had been too weak, the stuff of the universe wouldn’t even stick together, let alone make something as marvellous as a living cell. Or, indeed, anything that could be called alive.
How did our universe get the right mix of ingredients? Perhaps we won the cosmic lottery. Perhaps, on scales much bigger than what our telescopes can see, other parts of the universe have different building blocks.
Our universe is just one of the options – a particularly fortunate one – among a multiverse of universes with losing tickets.
This is the scientific multiverse: not simply more of our universe, but universes with different fundamental ingredients. Most are dead, but very very rarely, the right combination for life-forms comes up.
The Marvel multiverse, by contrast, merely rearranges the familiar atoms and forces of our universe (plus a bit of magic). That’s not enough.
In Spider-Man No Way Home, three different Spider-Man’s from alternate universe (and alternate Spider-Man movie franchises) team up to battle villains from across the multiverse. IMDB
Cosmic inflation and the Big Bang
What was our universe like in the past? The evidence suggests that the universe was hotter, denser and smoother. This is called the Big Bang Theory.
But was there a Big Bang? Was there a moment when the universe was infinitely hot, infinitely dense, and contained in a single point? Well, maybe. But we’re not sure, so scientists have explored a bunch of other options.
One idea, called cosmic inflation, says that in the first fraction of a second of the universe, it expanded extremely quickly. If true, it would explain a few things about why our universe expands in just the way it does.
But, how do you make a universe expand so rapidly? The answer is a new type of energy field. It has control of the first moments of the universe, causes a rapid expansion, and then hands the reins to the more familiar forms of matter and energy: protons, neutrons, electrons, light, etc.
Cosmic inflation might make a multiverse. Here’s how. According this idea, most of space is expanding, inflating, doubling in size, moment to moment. Spontaneously and randomly, in small islands, the new energy field converts its energy into ordinary matter with enormously high energies, releasing what we now see as a Big Bang.
If these high energies scramble and reset the basic properties of matter, then each island can be thought of as a new universe with different properties. We’ve made a multiverse.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) is about a regular woman trying to get her taxes done, who must also battle an evil that spans across the multiverse. IMDB
So is there a Multiverse?
In the cycle of the scientific method, the multiverse is in an exploratory phase. We’ve got an idea that might explain a few things, if it was true. That makes it worthy of our attention, but it’s not quite science yet. We need to find evidence that is more direct, more decisive.
Something left over from the aftermath of the multiverse generator might help. A multiverse idea could also predict the winning numbers on our lottery ticket.
However, as Dr Strange explains, “The multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little.”
Luke Barnes 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.
The public don’t have much regard for journalists and many people will be critical of the “gotcha” questioning that found Anthony Albanese on Thursday unable to recite the six points of his policy on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Pursuing “gotchas” is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. We’ve seen plenty of it recently. A while ago, Scott Morrison didn’t know the price of petrol or bread. Because a leader can’t rattle off a list doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t know a policy, and usually there are deeper questions the public would like explored.
Having said that, the NDIS moment was unfortunate for Albanese. And he wasn’t convincing when later on the ABC he denied he’d been caught out, although he’d win sympathy for his contention that “one of the things that puts people off politics, I think, is the sort of gotcha game-playing”.
The incident brought back memories of his stumble at the start of the campaign – when he couldn’t recall the unemployment and cash rates – and it played into the impression he isn’t good on detail. Before the news conference, he had been grilled on TV about whether he was really across his brief.
Albanese is not a strong campaigner, and it doesn’t help that he’s just come out of COVID and had to get through a campaign launch while still feeling its aftermath. He’s relying on having his frontbench colleagues beside him, which is not a bad thing in itself because most of the team are good performers but does risk diminishing him. He is also keeping to a relatively light schedule.
Recognising his own weak points, and the media’s penchant for “gotchas”, he needed to be better prepared. On Thursday he finally rustled up his material on the NDIS from an adviser but the confusion made for bad pictures.
The danger of being trapped by these questions is they not only get immediate headlines but become part of a wider, self-reinforcing negative story. And “gotchas” deflect attention from the big substantive issues, which in this fourth campaign week have been cost of living and rising interest rates.
A just-released poll from the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, titled Views on policy and politics on the eve of the 2022 Federal Election, underlines how central the cost of living has become for voters.
Some 3587 people were asked, between April 11 and 26, how much of a priority each of 22 policy areas should be for the next government. Nearly two thirds (64.7%) gave as a top priority reducing the cost of living. Among Coalition voters, 60.8% said this was a top priority: among Labor voters, it was 68.8%.
The only other area rating more than 60% as a top priority was “fixing the aged care system”(60.1%).
Four other areas polled more than 50% as a top priority. These were: “strengthening the nation’s economy” (54.4%), “reducing health care costs (53.5%), “dealing with global climate change” (52.8%), and “improving the education system” (53.1%).
Just 27.2% said fixing the budget was a top priority.
The two issues at the bottom of the list of top priorities were “dealing with the issue of immigration” (22.3%) and “addressing issues around race in this country” (24.8%).
It is notable that only 36.6% of Australians say dealing with the pandemic should be a top priority for the next government.
COVID is hardly getting a mention in this election campaign. This is despite a continuing high death rate, which only a few months ago would have been dominating headlines and news conferences. Covid-related deaths are now running at about 40 a day nationally, and it is currently the second leading cause of death in Australia, just a little behind heart disease, and ahead of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease.
The COVID years have been a balancing act between health and the economy – the scales, in the minds of politicians and members of the public, are now heavily weighted to the latter.
In campaigns, it is worth thinking about not just what issues are being talked about, but also what is being forgotten or pushed aside.
In this election, the Liberals are fighting on two fronts – against Labor and against the “teal” candidates. Thus on Wednesday treasurer Josh Frydenberg debated his Labor shadow Jim Chalmers at the National Press Club and on Thursday, he was up against his “teal” challenger Monique Ryan in a Sky debate in his Melbourne seat of Kooyong.
It’s a fair bet Frydenberg anticipated his face-off with Chalmers was the more predictable and manageable contest – it was a battle on known ground in which each combatant fought competently.
When Frydenberg met Ryan, he was on more unfamiliar, even treacherous political terrain, despite his opponent being at a considerable disadvantage, in terms of experience and her narrow agenda.
Frydenberg had his arguments marshalled, but prickled when Ryan described him as “the treasurer for NSW” during the pandemic. He was careful to stress his concern for his Kooyong community, and subtly made it clear he was no Scott Morrison (for example in talking about an integrity commission).
With “Keep Josh” signs through his electorate, Frydenberg warned: “If people vote for me, people need to know that if they want to keep me as the local member, but they may have an issue with something that the Liberal party has said or done and they want to give us a kick for that, at the end of the day you know that may not leave me as being the local member”.
Ryan stressed the teal issues of climate and integrity, and cast her opponent as “a hostage both to Barnaby Joyce but also his own political ambitions”.
She declared that “For Mr Frydenberg, politics is about power. For me, it’s about people.”
“Politics for me is about people, thank you Monique,” Frydenberg said sharply. “It’s about small business […] It’s about my local community.”
The content of this debate was less remarkable than the fact it happened at all. That the treasurer was going head to head in a major debate with an independent candidate was testament to how concerned Frydenberg has been about this seat that once was seen as the deepest blue.
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.
Men’s suicide is often linked to social and economic factors such as financial problems, legal issues and unemployment.
But when seeking to understand men’s suicide, we shouldn’t overlook important questions of responsibility, choice, and agency – especially in the case of men who kill themselves in the context of relationship conflict and intimate partner violence.
Our research, published this week, found threats of self-harm and suicide were a tactic of coercive control men used against female partners.
Together with other forms of physical, emotional, economic and psychological controlling behaviour, threats of self-harm and suicide were intended to instil fear and exert power over women.
Our research team included University of Newcastle psychiatric epidemiologist Tonelle Handley, UNSW senior research fellow in epidemiology Bronwyn Brew Haasdyk, and University of Newcastle professor of rural health David Perkins.
We examined cases of completed suicide from the National Coronial Information System and used a subset of data involving 155 suicide cases between 2010 and 2015 in rural Australia. We then qualitatively analysed 32 cases in detail to explore emerging patterns in the data.
Of the 2,511 male suicide cases in our larger study sample, family and intimate partner violence were identified in around 6% of cases.
The use of violence and suicide by men in our study took place primarily during times of separation, divorce, and custody battles. Men’s actions appeared to be based on a belief that threats of self-harm would force women into changing their behaviour.
When changes did not occur, suicide became a final act by which some men sought to punish women who they felt had wronged them. In some cases, men left spiteful messages or damaged (ex) partners’ personal belongings.
What drives this behaviour?
Suicide can be seen as a social act that draws on culturally established meanings. Here we might think of particular “types” of suicide such as the “protest suicide”, or “revenge suicide”.
Alternatively, we might think of acts of suicide that seek to express specific meanings such as grief, shame, honour or suffering.
These approaches are useful for considering how men in our study used suicide as a distinct form of violence to punish women, exact revenge, or lay blame and guilt on women.
The grief and guilt associated with suicide can be especially disruptive to relationships within families, including those between mothers and their children. For some men, suicide may be way of exerting control over (ex) partners, even in death.
These approaches also bring to light masculine ideals around marriage, family, authority, and control over women’s bodies. These were evident in the experiences, expectations, emotions, and actions of men in our study who suddenly found intimate partners out of reach.
Some men threaten suicide as a way of punishing their partner. Shutterstock
How do police respond?
The proportion of men in our study who were in contact with police and/or health services in the weeks before suicide was high.
Police face challenges when managing incidents of violence and threats of self-harm. As primary responders to intimate partner violence and mental health crises, police make important decisions about whether the criminal justice or mental health systems are the most appropriate pathway.
Our study found that in cases of physical violence, property damage, or other criminal offences, including violation of a domestic violence order, men were charged with a criminal offence.
However, in cases involving threats of self-harm, police regularly chose a health system pathway for these men.
What about health providers?
Once in health settings, health professionals typically viewed men’s violence (including threats of suicide) as a temporary crisis, with mental illness and/or alcohol or other drug use seen as important contributory factors.
Treatment then focused on management of these crises, primarily using medication, with a tendency to downplay men’s violent behaviour.
We found there was little evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions, with coroners’ findings identifying several problems in patient discharge, follow-up, and support.
Despite the involvement of police and health services, there was no indication the men in our study received any treatment to address their violent behaviour.
Further, the health and criminal justice interventions they did receive served as short-term responses, were disjointed, and did not directly communicate with each other.
So what needs to happen?
Health service and criminal justice interventions provide important opportunities for intervening to prevent further violence, including suicide.
Our study highlights the need for interventions that provide access to well-targeted, well-resourced, collaborative health and community services. There is a particular need for long-term integrated treatment, care, and social support for men experiencing alcohol or other drug use problems.
This requires a whole-of-government response to fund coordinated, collaborative approaches that do not treat social and health problems in isolation.
Also needed are mandated perpetrator programs that hold men responsible for their actions. These need to address the harmful norms of masculinity and consider the needs of men in their entirety.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Scott Fitzpatrick 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.
A leak of draft court documents reveals Roe v. Wade – which has broadly guaranteed abortion rights in the United States since 1973 – may be overturned.
The US decision may influence the rhetoric and lobbying techniques of anti-abortion activists globally but it has no direct bearing on Australia.
Nevertheless, it is a chance to highlight continued obstacles to abortion access in Australia.
Abortion is a common, essential health service. About 88,800 people have an abortion in Australia each year. Between one quarter and one third of women living in Australia will have an abortion in their lifetime.
In 2021, South Australia became the final jurisdiction to decriminalise abortion. However, the law has not commenced. Until then, the state’s abortion providers and patients remain subject to old, criminalising legislation. So the state government must enact the new law immediately.
Western Australia became the last jurisdiction to introduce “buffer zone” legislation, which prevents the harassment of pregnant people outside places that provide abortions. In WA, criminal law continues to regulate medical doctors who provide abortions.
All jurisdictions prohibit unqualified people from performing abortions. This is unnecessary legislation that seeks to regulate “backyard abortions”, which no longer exist, and prevents the full integration of abortion into health law (which already ensures medical procedures are performed by qualified professionals).
For the most part, however, abortion in Australia is now regulated under health law rather than criminal law. While new health laws correctly frame abortion as a matter of health, these health laws continue to impede access to it.
gestational limits to abortion (in all state/territories except the Australian Capital Territory)
requirements for doctors provide patients with information about counselling services (WA, NSW, SA).
Over-regulation is a direct result of, and exacerbates, abortion stigma, which treats abortion as more risky than it is in practice.
All medical procedures are already tightly regulated by government (state and federal health law), institutions (for instance, hospital policies) and professional bodies (for instance, doctors’ codes of ethics).
Removing the stand-alone abortion legislation that exists in all states/territories would treat abortion like all other health procedures and decrease abortion stigma.
Since Tasmania’s last private abortion clinic closed in 2018, abortion provision in the state has been dire. Last year, the government took action, expecting that, by October 2021, select public hospitals (together, covering the entire state) would provide abortions.
Surgical abortions are now performed at three public hospitals in the state. Vulnerable women are prioritised, indicating the service may not be universal.
The federal government could tie funding for public hospitals to abortion provision.
Primary health-care provision of abortion also needs to increase, which requires two key policy shifts.
First, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) must revise its guidelines for providers and dispensers of medical abortion. At present, doctors must complete an instruction module and register to prescribe mifepristone. Pharmacies must register to dispense the drug. No other drug is subject to such unnecessary regulation.
Second, Medicare needs to add an item number specifically for the provision of medical abortion. Appointments take time and, to keep this service viable, GPs often charge an out-of-pocket fee to patients of A$200-$300. Providing a Medicare item number reflects the need for this service and would incentivise more GPs to become providers by ensuring adequate compensation.
We need changes to Medicare to encourage more GPs to offer medical abortions. Shutterstock
More nurses, midwives and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers are needed to provide abortion services if abortions are to be affordable, local and timely.
This requires several shifts, including (but not limited to) changes to state/territory abortion laws (many of which limit abortion provision to medical doctors), TGA guidelines, and increased training.
Australia’s system is not perfect
There are several legal and practical hurdles to make sure abortion in Australia is affordable, accessible, and provided in a timely manner. We can look to the recent developments in the US to mobilise, in Australia, for a health system that reflects that abortion is an essential, common part of health care that needs to remain free from stigma and political interference.
Erica Millar receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
As well as the whole House of Representatives, 40 of the 76 Senate seats will be up for election on May 21. There are 12 senators per state and two per territory. At half-Senate elections, six senators for each state and the four territory senators are up for election. Unless there is a double dissolution, state senators have six-year terms and territory senators have three years.
The Senate is massively malapportioned, with Tasmania having the same number of senators as New South Wales, despite the latter’s population being more than 15 times greater. This was the price for the smaller states joining the Australian federation in 1901.
For elections to the Senate, all senators up for election in a state or territory are elected by statewide proportional representation with preferences. With six senators up in each state, a quota is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. With two up in each territory, a quota is one-third or 33.3%.
Voters are instructed to number at least 1-6 above the line (to vote for parties), or 1-12 below the line (voting for candidates). However, a “1” only vote above the line is still a formal vote, but in that case there are no preferences beyond the party receiving that vote. Six preferences are required for a formal below the line vote.
In state upper houses like NSW and South Australia, voters are only told to give a first preference above the line, although they can give more preferences. This leads to a larger number of exhausted votes than in the federal Senate. There, candidates will need about 0.8 quotas after preferences to win, while it’s only about 0.5 quotas with optional preferences.
Last year, Labor and the Coalition combined to change legislation to require 1,500 members to register a party, up from the current 500, and to disallow parties with similar names to older parties. Owing to the first change, there will be less cluttering on Senate ballot papers, with most states seeing a fall in the number of above-the-line boxes from 2019.
The second change was aimed at the Liberal Democrats and the Democratic Labour Party. The DLP was deregistered under the 1,500 rule – see analyst Kevin Bonham – but the Liberal Democrats found a loophole that enabled them to keep their name for this election, as ABC election analyst Antony Green has explained.
However, Western Australia is the only state where the Liberal Democrats have drawn a box far enough to the left of the Liberals for name confusion to be an issue.
The Senate playing field
The Coalition currently holds 35 of the 76 Senate seats, Labor 26, the Greens nine, One Nation two, Centre Alliance one and Jacqui Lambie one. The remaining two seats are filled by party defectors: Rex Patrick from Centre Alliance and Sam McMahon, who quit the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party and is now a Liberal Democrat.
During the last term, the Coalition regained a seat from a defector when Cory Bernardi resigned from the Senate.
The table below shows the 2022 seats up for election in each state and territory.
Senate seats up for election in 2022.
The Coalition will be defending three senators in all states except SA, and that makes them vulnerable if Labor wins the election. Senate results are highly correlated with lower house results, although the major parties’ primary votes are typically a little lower in the Senate.
For Labor and the Greens combined to gain control, they would need to gain four seats in total at this election. The Coalition and One Nation combined could gain control via a two-seat gain, with the Coalition virtually certain to gain from a defector.
State analysis
For this analysis, I will use the Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack for each mainland state. For translating poll percentages into quotas, one quota is 14.3%, two quotas are 28.6% and three quotas are 42.9%. It’s a pity Newspoll hasn’t yet published state data from its five polls taken since late March.
BludgerTrack is an analysis of lower house polling, and most data were taken before it was known that One Nation would contest 149 of the 151 House of Representatives seats. One Nation will be higher in the Senate, particularly in NSW, Victoria and SA.
In NSW, Labor has 38.5%, the Coalition 38.4%, the Greens 10.4% and One Nation 2.0%. One Nation and UAP preferences would help the Coalition to three seats, with the Greens likely gaining from Labor. Likely outcome: three Coalition, two Labor, one Green.
In Victoria, Labor has 38.1%, the Coalition 35.5%, the Greens 12.8% and One Nation 1.8%. I think this would be close between Labor and the Coalition for the final seat, so it would be either be three Coalition, two Labor, one Green; or three Labor, two Coalition, one Green.
In Queensland, the Coalition has 38.2%, Labor 31.9%, the Greens 14.0% and One Nation 6.9%. One Nation will be boosted in the Senate by Pauline Hanson’s candidacy. This result would be a Greens gain from the Coalition, with two Coalition, two Labor, one Green and one One Nation elected. But Labor has historically underperformed its polling in Queensland.
In WA, Labor has 38.7%, the Coalition 37.3%, the Greens 12.2% and One Nation 5.3%. One Nation and UAP preferences would likely lift the Coalition above Labor for a status quo result of three Coalition, two Labor, one Green.
In SA, Labor has 43.6%, the Coalition 39.3%, the Greens 10.5% and One Nation 2.2%. Nick Xenophon, a former independent SA senator, is contesting this election. But Bonham reported a Greens-commissioned SA Senate uComms poll gave Xenophon just 0.37 quotas – not enough to threaten.
However, Xenophon is likely to draw votes from both major parties, allowing the Greens to win a seat. This is likely a Labor and Green gain from the two Centre Alliance (one former), with a SA result of three Labor, two Coalition, one Green.
Tasmania’s sub-samples are too small for a separate analysis, but it was easily the most Labor-leaning state at the 2019 election, with Labor winning by 56-44, compared with a national result of 51.5-48.5 to the Coalition.
If Labor and the Greens win a combined 4-2 split in any state, it’s likely to be in Tasmania. Lambie will not be up for election this year, but she’s trying to win a second seat for her party.
Bonham reported polling that would give independent ACT Senate candidate David Pocock a chance of defeating the Liberals’ Zed Seselja. But there’s been speculation at past elections that the Liberals could lose this seat, and it hasn’t happened yet.
In the NT, the CLP is virtually certain to regain its Senate seat from defector McMahon.
With two gains for Labor and the Greens likely in SA, one in Queensland and one in Tasmania, on current polling Labor and the Greens would likely have enough for a Senate majority. But polls can change, or be wrong, as they were in 2019.
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.
While the recent legal challenges to elements of the government’s COVID-19 response have had mixed results in the courts, they have revealed something important – how the rule of law works in New Zealand.
In the past two years, a raft of laws have been passed or amended as the government put its response to COVID-19 on a legal footing.
Some of these laws have been subsequently challenged in the courts, starting with the Borrowdale case in May 2020. Plaintiff Andrew Borrowdale argued the government’s lockdown orders were based on an improper use of its powers under the Health Act and that a range of New Zealanders’ rights had been violated as a result.
Other cases have argued, with varying degrees of success, that the government’s requirement of mandatory vaccinations violated the rights of some New Zealanders.
At the end of April, the High Court found the border quarantine (MIQ) system did work well to protect public health and many of the resulting restrictions on rights were justifiable.
However, the court also found the allocation of space in MIQ through a virtual lobby system amounted to an unjustifiable limit on the right of New Zealand citizens to return because it did not prioritise citizens over non-citizens, and it did not prioritise on individual need or delays experienced.
What we see in these cases is the New Zealand constitution in action, operating as a system of checks and balances to protect individuals from arbitrary interference by the state.
As an aspect of that, the cases show the operation of the rule of law, which means any power exercised by the government has to be based on legal authority and that everyone is subject to the law, whether they are members of the public or politicians.
A recent court case challenged the legality of the government’s managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system, with mixed success. Adam Bradley/Getty Images
Bill of Rights has its limits
The Bill of Rights Act plays an important role in that regard, although its ability to protect our rights is not as strong as we might like to think.
There are four ways the Bill of Rights works in the creating of laws.
Firstly, the Bill of Rights Act states clearly that it does not affect all other laws passed before or after it simply because those laws are inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.
For example, New Zealanders have the right to protest but their protest actions cannot be unduly disorderly, violent or unsafe. Neither can the courts use the Bill of Rights Act to invalidate the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020.
The Bill of Rights Act does, however, stipulate that wherever an act, such as the Health Act, can be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with the Bill of Rights, then that interpretation is to be preferred.
Thirdly, the Bill of Rights Act, on the whole, does not protect absolutely the rights of New Zealanders, but any restrictions on those rights must be justifiable.
This balancing act has been at the core of the COVID cases so far. The limitations on the right to refuse medical treatment, for example, have largely been justified on the grounds of public health.
Finally, the attorney-general is required to report to parliament when they find any proposed law appears to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights. Parliament is still free to pass the proposed law, thanks to the provision outlined above.
The point of the Bill of Rights
At this stage, we might be left wondering what the point of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act actually is.
The Act still operates as a mechanism by which New Zealanders can challenge the law in the courts, and the courts can scrutinise the law in question.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has been the subject of several court cases challenging the government’s COVID-19 response. Mark Mitchell-Pool/Getty Images
Even if they can’t force the government to change the law, judges can point out any problems and put the onus back on the government to respond.
One aspect of this part of the constitutional process is a “declaration of inconsistency”, which allows judges to signal to the government and parliament that a law has seriously problematic implications for the protection of rights and freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights Act.
Efforts to improve this part of the constitutional system of checks and balances are currently under further discussion, as the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill makes its way through parliament, providing another example of our constitution and our democracy at work.
Limited options for change
If New Zealanders are unhappy with the current state of play regarding their own rights and the powers of the government, they have two options. Both are based on a question of trust.
Disgruntled kiwis can leave things as they are and continue to trust our elected representatives to protect our rights and freedoms. Any perceived failures in that regard can be dealt with at the ballot box.
Alternatively, those dissatisfied with the situation can push to change the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act itself to allow judges to have greater powers to curb parliament’s law-making power.
But changing the balance of law-making in favour of the courts involves a greater level of trust in those who are not so easily removed from power.
In a 2017 public talk, former prime minister and constitutional legal expert Geoffrey Palmer traversed these difficult issues. Somewhat presciently, however, he noted that such changes should not be undertaken in a time of crisis.
Trust in the rule of law to ensure the accountability of government – the structures of governance that stand aside the electoral ebbs and flows of political parties – is a core aspect of our democracy.
The “COVID cases” shine an important light on how the rule of law works in Aotearoa New Zealand; how the courts, the government and parliament must continue to work to ensure the rights of New Zealanders.
Even if now is not the time for change, as we emerge from this current crisis, it may well be the time to reflect on the importance of the rule of law as we continue to navigate uncertain seas.
Claire Breen 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.
The leaked Roe v Wade draft opinion this week has shown us the power of the legal system when it comes to facilitating (or winding back) social change.
This is why judicial appointments are so critical, and why there has been so much debate around the recent appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In April, Brown Jackson made history after being confirmed as the first black woman appointed to the US Supreme Court. She will take up her post in the middle of the year (and was not part of the Roe v Wade vote).
Despite Brown Jackson’s impressive background – she has been a judge of the US Court of Appeals – her appointment has been fraught with divisive racial politics and toxic partisan commentary.
In Australia, we rarely have debates of this sort. We don’t have much diversity in the judiciary, either.
Every Justice of the High Court of Australia since Federation in 1901 has been white, and all but six have been men. This is reflected elsewhere in the judicial system, where the vast majority of senior judges are male and virtually all are from British and European ancestry. For any Indigenous person or person of colour who finds themselves charged with and convicted of a crime, it is almost certain their sentencing will be decided upon by a white judge.
With the mandatory retirement of Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and Justice Patrick Keane due in the next parliamentary term, there is a significant opportunity to make the seven-member High Court more diverse.
Labor hints at change
There are signs a prospective Labor government would at least consider this.
In a recent article for the Australian Financial Review, Labor MP Andrew Leigh (who is not the party’s shadow attorney-general) hinted Labor was thinking about how to improve the representation of women and other minorities on the bench.
As he wrote:
In 120 years, no judge of colour has ever been appointed to the High Court of Australia […] the demography of the bench will never perfectly match the nation, but people should be able to see themselves in the faces of those chosen to dispense justice.
In response to criticism about gender diversity in senior judicial positions, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has previously pointed to the Coalition appointing Jacqueline Gleeson to the High Court and Jennifer Howe to Melbourne’s Federal Circuit Court in 2021.
Would it really make a difference? Given the lack of diversity on the Australian benches, it is difficult to answer this question directly. However, we do know Australia’s highly politicised selection process – it is decided by the prime minister and attorney-general – results in consistently ideological judicial decision-making.
In a recent study on the High Court, colleagues and I found a highly conservative High Court justice (such as Dyson Heydon) was around 30 percentage points less likely than a left-wing justice (such as Michael Kirby) to make an ideologically liberal decision. This includes being pro-civil liberties, Indigenous rights, freedom-of-information and the environment.
In a follow-up study, we also looked at whether justices vote in ways that demonstrate loyalty to the prime minister who appoints them. In some ways, this is a more serious question because it concerns judicial independence from government interference. We find that where the federal government is a party in High Court cases, justices are slightly more likely to rule in favour of the government who appointed them than subsequent governments.
These findings are not necessarily evidence of a malfunctioning justice system. After all, prime ministers are democratically elected and justices are not simply legal “robots” – they are people too. As such, it’s only natural their background and personal experience plays a part in the courtroom.
Judicial diversity outside Australia
We can also look to the experiences of other countries, who have found that increased judicial diversity positively affects case outcomes for minority litigants.
Research shows panels of US Federal Circuit Court Justices with one woman and two men (as opposed to all men) are significantly more likely to rule in favour of the plaintiff in cases regarding race, colour, religion and sex discrimination. Importantly, these results held for appointees of both Democratic and Republican parties, suggesting that women’s representation can cut across ideological divides.
Similarly, the presence of a black judge on a judicial panel was associated with a nearly 40 percentage point increase in the likelihood a court found in favour of policies that aim to increase the representation of black and other underrepresented people in government, universities, and private organisations.
In Israel, the presence of an Arab judge on panels (as opposed to all Jewish panels of judges) made a sizable improvement to the prospects of Arab defendants in criminal sentencing.
What happens now?
Whichever party wins the federal election, an emphasis on diverse appointments could make a lasting difference to justice for marginalised groups.
With two High Court appointments to be made in the next three years (and others on the Federal Court), this is a huge opportunity to recognise Australia’s diversity in one of the most important systems in our society.
Patrick Leslie receives funding from The Australian Research Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology
China has had the world’s fastest growing economy since the 1980s. A key driver of this extraordinary growth has been the country’s pragmatic system of innovation, which balances government steering and market-oriented entrepreneurs.
Right now, this system is undergoing changes which may have profound implications for the global economic and political order.
The Chinese government is pushing for better research and development, “smart manufacturing” facilities, and a more sophisticated digital economy. At the same time, tensions between China and the west are straining international cooperation in industries such as semiconductor and biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
Taken together with the shocks of the Covid pandemic, and particularly China’s rapid and large-scale lockdowns, these developments could lead to a decoupling of China’s innovation system from the rest of the world.
Balancing government and market
China’s current “innovation machine” began developing during the economic reforms of the late 1970s, which lessened the role of state ownership and central planning. Instead, room was made for the market to try new ideas through trial and error.
The government sets regulations aligned to the state’s objectives, and may send signals to investors and entrepreneurs via its own investments or policy settings. But within this setting, private businesses pursue opportunities in their own interests.
However, freedom for businesses may be declining. Last year, the government cracked down on the fintech and private tutoring sectors, which were seen to be misaligned with government goals.
Building quality alongside quantity
China performs well on many measures of innovation performance, such as R&D expenditure, number of scientific and technological publications, numbers of STEM graduates and patents, and top university rankings.
Most of these indices, however, measure quantity rather than quality. So, for example, China has:
substantially increased R&D expenditure. However, the proportion of its R&D expenditure on basic research, especially by enterprises, is still far lower than in many industrialised countries
has applied for the most international patents of any country, but the quality of these patents measured by scientific influence and potential commercial value still lags international competitors.
In the past, policies have aimed to “catch up” with known technologies used elsewhere, but China will need to shift focus to develop unknown and emerging technologies. This will require greater investment in longer-term basic research and reform of research culture to tolerate failure.
Developing smart manufacturing
Chinese firms can already translate complex designs into mass production with high precision and unmatched speed and cost. As a result, Chinese manufacturing is appealing to high-tech companies such as Apple and Tesla.
The next step is upgrading towards “industry 4.0” smart manufacturing, aligned with the core industries listed in the government’s Made in China 2025 blueprint.
By 2020, China had built eleven “lighthouse factories” – benchmark smart manufacturers – the most of any country in the World Economic Forum’s “global lighthouse network”.
Building an advanced digital economy
China’s giant tech companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei are also using machine learning and big data analytics to innovate in other fields, including pharmaceutical research and autonomous driving.
In China the regulations for biotechnology, bioengineering and biopharmaceuticals are relatively relaxed. This has attracted researchers and investors to several leading biotechnology “clusters”.
China’s population of more than 1.4 billion people also means that, even for rare diseases, it has a large number of patients. Using large patient databases, companies are making advances in precision medicine (treatments tailored to an individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle).
The rising power of China’s big tech firms has seen the government step in to maintain fair market competition. Regulations force digital firms to share user data and consolidate critical “platform goods”, such as mobile payments, across their ecosystems.
However, there are signs that such collaboration between China and the West may be under threat.
The semiconductor manufacturing industry – making the chips and circuits which drive modern electronics – is currently global, but at risk of fragmentation.
Making chips requires huge amounts of knowledge and capital investment, and while China is the world’s largest consumer of semiconductors it relies heavily on imports. However, US sanctions mean many global semiconductor companies cannot sell in China.
China is now investing vast sums in an attempt to be able to make all the semiconductors it needs.
If China succeeds in this, one consequence is that Chinese-made semiconductors will likely use different technical standards from the current ones.
Different standards
Diverging technical standards may seem like a minor issue, but it will make it more difficult for Chinese and Western technologies and products to work together. This in turn may reduce global trade and investment, with bad results for consumers.
Decoupling standards will increase the fracture between Chinese and Western digital innovation. This in turn will likely lead to further decoupling in finance, trade, and data.
At a time of heightened international tensions both China and the West need to be clear on the value of international collaboration in innovation.
From 2010–2014, while Vice President at Imperial College London, I collaborated with Huawei in forming the Data Science Institute, Imperial College London.
Marina Yue Zhang and Mark Dodgson 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.
The New South Wales government’s roadmap to transition from coal-based electricity to renewable energy involves the creation of five “renewable energy zones” across the state.
These “modern-day power stations” will use solar, wind, batteries and new poles and wires to generate energy for the state. They’re part of a broader plan to meet a legislated target of 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and 2 gigawatts of storage by 2030.
These renewable energy zones include measures to deliver regional benefits such as engagement, jobs and benefit-sharing with local Aboriginal communities. This is a first for an Australian renewable energy program of this scale.
However, two things are needed to maximise this opportunity for Aboriginal people.
First, Aboriginal land councils need greater support and resources to participate effectively in delivery of the renewable energy zones.
Second, there should be a program to facilitate the development of renewable energy projects on Aboriginal-owned land.
Through these actions, the government can help develop partnerships that can deliver revenue and jobs for Aboriginal communities as the state transitions to clean energy.
Maximising opportunities for First Nations communities
There are some cases of renewable energy projects delivering for Aboriginal communities, such as solar farms engaging unemployed Aboriginal workers. But overall the benefits have been limited to date.
However, legislation requires the NSW government bodies and renewables projects in the renewable energy zones to comply with “First Nations Guidelines” currently under development.
The guidelines will require:
regional reference groups
an engagement framework for renewable energy projects, and
a document reflecting community interests developed with the input of local Aboriginal organisations (land councils and Traditional Owners under Native Title) in each renewable energy zone.
Projects bidding for a “long-term energy supply agreement” from the NSW government – which will guarantee a minimum price for their output – have to comply with the Indigenous Procurement Policy. This includes ensuring a minimum 1.5% Aboriginal workforce and 1.5% of contract value to Aboriginal businesses.
These First Nations guidelines will form part of the tender evaluation, creating incentives for projects to increase benefits for First Nations communities.
The inclusion of these First Nations guidelines in the renewable energy projects is a first for Australian renewable energy. It’s likely to significantly improve economic outcomes for Aboriginal communities.
So far, so good.
However, there are also some missed opportunities.
First, if renewable energy projects and the First Nations guidelines are to work well, greater resourcing and capacity-building is needed for local Aboriginal land councils so they can participate effectively.
In addition, the NSW government should develop an Aboriginal-led local and regional level clean energy strategy so communities can identify what they want from this momentous change.
A study by the Indigenous Land and Justice Research Group, based at the University of Technology Sydney, revealed local Aboriginal land councils are eager for renewable energy. This would improve opportunities to live and work locally, boost energy security, lower costs, enable care of Country and create wealth.
However, the study found these communities had little or no knowledge about renewable energy options or how they could benefit.
Only one Local Aboriginal Land Council in the pilot renewable energy zone had prior dealings with renewable energy operators. All were uncertain about how their land assets could be mobilised.
More opportunities needed for Aboriginal-owned land in NSW
There are currently no measures to encourage and facilitate renewable energy projects on Aboriginal-owned land in NSW.
Work by Indigenous Energy Australia and the Institute for Sustainable Futures found the best outcomes often occur from “mid-sized” renewable energy projects on Indigenous-owned land.
Examples include:
the Ramahyuck Solar Farm (Longford, Victoria), which is wholly owned and operated by the Ramahyuck District Aboriginal Corporation. Following government funding, debt financing was secured for construction. The profit generated from the development will be redirected to Aboriginal education and health programs
the Tuaropaki Geothermal Power Station in New Zealand, which is 75% owned by the Māori, Tuaropaki Trust and 25% by Mercury Energy (a large energy company). The Tuaropaki Trust was developed through financial partnerships and government support. These developments produced long-term income for community programs and other commercial ventures
the Atlin Hydro Project in Canada, a 100% Indigenous owned and operated project. Government support was critical in establishing the project. Once established, revenues were distributed based on joint clan meetings for health programs and a land guardian program.
Developing projects on Aboriginal-owned land would take more time to identify a workable model, ensure there is support within the land council and local community and develop local capacity. But done well, it can deliver greater benefits for Aboriginal communities.
A government program developed in parallel with the roll out of the renewable energy zones could develop opportunities for renewable energy developments in partnership with local Aboriginal land councils.
Support for meaningful, Aboriginal-led renewable energy projects on Aboriginal land has the potential to make real progress towards the long hoped for benefits of land restitution for First Peoples in NSW.
The time for action is now.
Heidi Norman is affiliated with the First Nations Clean Energy Network (FNCEN).
The Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Sydney received funding from the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment for research into renewable energy employment, skills and supply-chains in NSW and with Indigenous Energy Australia to produce case studies of engagement with indigenous communities by renewable energy projects.
We are used to thinking of money as notes and coins, the kind most of us hold in our wallets. But most money – in Australia it’s 96.3% – is digital, held by financial institutions and moved around via bank transfers, debit cards and credit cards.
Late last year Treasurer Josh Frydenberg promised to consult about introducing a third type of currency, a central bank digital currency, and asked the treasury to come up with a position by the end of 2022.
A central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be an “e-dollar”, each one worth $1 dollar, but able to be held digitally without being put into a bank – such as on computers or in digital wallets on phones.
It could allow direct consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-business payments without the intervention of financial institutions, and allow people who don’t want to use banks to hold funds in a form that’s safer than cash.
It could also head off attempts by private firms – such as Facebook, which proposed something called Libre – to do the same sort of thing.
For transactions, it would have a clear advantage over so-called cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, whose values fluctuate because they are not tied to a currency.
Many central banks are investigating the idea, but most say they are unlikely to issue a retail CBDC in the foreseeable future.
Australia’s Reserve is particularly unenthusiastic, declaring there is “currently no strong public policy case to introduce a CBDC for retail use”.
Whereas in much of the rest of the world the use of cash is shrinking, in Australia there are more banknotes in circulation as a proportion of the economy than at any time since the introduction of decimal currency in 1966.
Most of the cash appears to be used to store money rather than execute transactions. But if ever Australians could be weaned off cash, there would be savings for the Reserve Bank in the cost of printing and distributing cash, and also, most likely, fewer robberies.
But how the idea would work isn’t clear.
Like bus and train cards
Victoria’s Myki cards needn’t record ownership. Shutterstock
One model would be to produce a digital token almost exactly the same as cash. Like a banknote, it could be passed from one person to another in anonymity, with no central authority involved.
The bus and train cards used in some parts of Australia are like this – unless an owner chooses to register ownership, there is no record of who used the card.
One downside is that, unlike cash, very large sums could be held on very small devices, which could be stolen or lost. A New Zealand study notes that cash is relatively bulky, “making it unlikely that consumers would carry
large amounts on their person or store large amounts in their homes”.
And it could facilitate illegal transactions. The current Coalition government is so concerned about the use of cash for illegal transactions that it introduced legislation – never enacted – which would have banned the use of cash for payments over A$10,000.
An alternative, the one most often talked about as a consumer digital currency, would use blockchain technologies of the kind used in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to register and track ownership, and verify transactions.
With blockchain, every transfer is recordable and hard to delete. The central bank (in Australia’s case, the Reserve Bank) would be able to track transactions.
It can be thought of as an account at a central bank, which could be used to transfer money to other accounts. In most models, the account would pay no interest.
And the central bank could limit transactions. Some, such as Bank of England Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe, see this as an advantage.
He says it could be like
giving your children pocket money but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets
In his book The Future of Money, Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad warns about societies in which central bank digital money becomes “an additional instrument of government control over citizens”.
China’s ‘programmable’ e-currency
China became the first major economy to pilot a digital currency in 2020.
The consulting firm Oliver Wyman says the digital Yuan will be “programmable” and could be set to only be used for payments after “activation” when certain predefined conditions are met.
China’s government, but not other users, would have the ability to monitor transactions in real time, in what China calls “controlled anonymity”.
This isn’t what much of the rest of the world seems to want. A survey of European consumers finds the thing they most want from an e-currency is privacy (43%) ahead of security (18%) and offline usability (8%).
The United States is continuing to investigate the idea, pointing to benefits including getting payments quickly to people in times of crisis (assuming there are working electricity and internet connections) and providing services to the unbanked.
Privacy is the roadblock
Privacy isn’t of concern in the other arena central banks are moving ahead with plans for a digital currency – wholesale money. Australia’s Reserve Bank is well advanced on Project Atom, which would allow financial institutions to transfer money between each other more quickly.
At the retail level, much of the world is moving slowly. Australia’s Reserve Bank says apart from the developed economies of Sweden and Canada, most of the economies advancing the idea are emerging, including the Bahamas, Cambodia, Eastern Caribbean, Ecuador, Nigeria and Ukraine.
They have weaker electronic banking infrastructure than Australia, and populations that can’t easily access physical banks.
Nafis Alam 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.
Last weekend’s LPGA event in California will likely be remembered as much for what was said as the golf that was played. Asked about some on-course treatment she’d needed for back pain, world number three Lydia Ko replied matter-of-factly, “It’s that time of the month.”
The candid reference to her menstrual cycle had Golf Channel commentator Jerry Foltz flummoxed. Ko joked, “I know you’re at a loss for words, Jerry. Honesty it is.”
Ko has been celebrated for breaking the stigma about menstruation in sport. But she is not the first elite athlete to talk to the topic. Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui made headlines for telling the world she was on her period during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
But even though more athletes are speaking out about a normal physiological experience, the words “period” and “menstruation” still tend to shock commentators and audiences.
A long silence
A brief look at the history of women in sport helps explain these longstanding silences and taboos. In fact, women in the 19th century were considered too “weak” and “fragile” to even participate in sport and vigorous physical activity.
Victorian women with bicycles, circa 1890, clearly ignoring male advice. Getty Images
Doctors and politicians – male, of course – warned women that running, cycling or playing tennis would compromise their ability to have children, including the threat that women’s wombs would fall out if they rode a bicycle.
We might seem to have come a long way, with modern women competing in almost every sport, demonstrating skill, competence, strength and courage. Yet discussion of many aspects of their female physiology – menstruation, menopause, pregnancy – has long been suppressed.
In this context, the menstrual cycle has often been seen as a “problem” in women’s sport. Research has revealed how sportswomen view it as an unwanted complication for training and competition. Some athletes have resorted to working around it for big events by manipulating the oral contraceptive.
It has been shown the menstrual cycle not only affects female reproduction, but also regulates physiological, metabolic, thermoregulatory and cognitive functions. But even coaches well versed in sport science have trouble talking about the menstrual cycle.
Our own research has shown most elite sportswomen don’t feel comfortable talking about menstrual health matters with male coaches and support staff, preferring to talk to women instead. While some coaches have adopted a more progressive approach, they remain the minority.
With a persistent culture of stigma and taboo, conversations about menstruation often happen in code, or quietly and privately among fellow sportswomen and women support staff.
Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui (here competing in 2019) also made headlines at the 2016 Olympics for talking about menstruation. Getty Images
An evolving science
Over the past two decades, however, a new wave of women in sport science has been leading important initiatives in understanding how the menstrual cycle affects women’s training, performance and recovery.
Their research has examined an array of menstrual-health issues faced by sportswomen (and menstruating non-gender-conforming athletes), including conditions such as iron deficiency, menorrhagia (heavy bleeding), amenorrhea (chronic loss of menstruation), and RED-S (relative energy deficiency in sport). The work represents a real change, with more research by women, with women, for women.
Armed with such knowledge, athletes and teams are designing training, performance, recovery, injury prevention and rehabilitation, sleep, nutrition and well-being programmes around the menstrual cycle. In the process, menstruation is re-framed as a sign of health and power.
For example, much of the research is conducted by white sports scientists on white sportswomen. Important cultural and religious ways of knowing menstruation are ignored or overlooked – although some athletes are drawing on Indigenous understandings of menstruation as a time and source of strength and power.
Lydia Ko has restarted an important conversation, one we must keep having publicly and privately. As physiology and nutrition expert Stacy Sims has put it, “women are not small men”, and their distinctive and varied physiologies are not weaknesses. Rather, they are strengths yet to be fully understood, harnessed and celebrated.
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.
May Nango sharing stories about Mamukala wetlands with her grandson, in 2015.Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC), Author provided
For 65,000 years, Bininj – the local Kundjeihmi word for Aboriginal people – have returned to Madjedbebe rock shelter on Mirarr Country in the Kakadu region (in the Northern Territory).
Over this immense span of time, the environment around the rock shelter has changed dramatically.
Our paper, published last week in Quaternary Science Reviews, uses ancient scraps of plant foods, once charred in the site’s fireplaces, to explore how Aboriginal communities camping at the site responded to these changes.
This cooking debris tells a story of resilience in the face of changing climate, sea levels and vegetation.
A changing environment
The 50-metre-long Madjedbebe rock shelter lies at the base of a huge sandstone outlier. The site has a dark, ashy floor from hundreds of past campfires and is littered with stone tools and grindstones.
The back wall is decorated with vibrant and colourful rock art. Some images – such as horsemen in broad-brimmed hats, ships, guns and decorated hands – are quite recent. Others are likely many thousands of years old.
May Nango sharing cultural knowledge about bim (rock art) with Djurrubu rangers Axel Nadjamerrek, Amroh Djandjomerr and Cuisak Nango at Madjedbebe. Lynley Wallis (courtesy of GAC)
Today, the site is situated on the edge of the Jabiluka wetlands. But 65,000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower, it sat on the edge of a vast savanna plain joining Australia and New Guinea in the supercontintent of Sahul.
At this time, the world was experiencing a glacial period (referred to as the Marine Isotope Stage 4, or MIS 4) . And while Kakadu would have been relatively well-watered compared with other parts of Australia, the monsoon vine forest vegetation, common at other points in time, would have retreated.
This glacial period would eventually ease, followed by an interglacial period, and then another glacial period, the Last Glacial Maximum (MIS 2).
Cut to the Holocene (10,000 years ago) and the weather became much warmer and wetter. Monsoon vine forest, open forest and woodland vegetation proliferated, and sea levels rose rapidly.
By 7,000 years ago, Australia and New Guinea were entirely severed from each other and the sea approached Madjedbebe to a high stand of just 5km away.
What followed was the rapid transformation of the Kakadu region. First the sea receded slightly, the river systems near the site became estuaries, and mangroves etched the lowlands.
By 4,000 years ago, these were partially replaced by patches of freshwater wetland. And by 2,000 years ago, the iconic Kakadu wetlands of today were formed.
Unlikely treasure
Our research team, composed of archaeologists and Mirarr Traditional Owners, wanted to learn how people lived within this changing environment.
To do this, we sought an unlikely archaeological treasure: charcoal. It’s not something that comes to mind for the average camper, but when a fireplace is lit many of its components – such as twigs and leaves, or food thrown in – can later transform into charcoal.
Under the right conditions, these charred remains will survive long after campers have moved on. This happened many times in the past. Bininj living at Madjedbebe left a range of food scraps behind, including charred and fragmented fruit, nuts, palm stem, seeds, roots and tubers.
A scanning electron microscope image of charred waterlily (Nymphaea sp.) stem found at Madjedbebe. Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC), Author provided
Using high-powered microscopes, we compared the anatomy of these charcoal pieces to plant foods still harvested from Mirarr Country today. By doing so, we learned about the foods past people ate, the places they gathered them from, and even the seasons in which they visited the site.
Researchers worked hard to collect comparative reference material, including the fruit of andjalbbirdo (white bush plum, Syzygium eucalyptoides subsp. bleeseri) near Mudjinberri, on Mirarr Country, 2018. Elspeth Hayes (courtesy of GAC)
Ancient anme
From the earliest days of camping at Madjedbebe, people gathered and ate a broad range of anme (the Kundjeihmi word for “plant foods”). This included plants such as pandanus nuts and palm heart, which require tools, labour and detailed traditional knowledge to collect and make edible.
The tools used included edge-ground axes and grinding stones. These were all found in the oldest layers at the site – making them the oldest axes and some of the earliest grinding stones in the world.
Our evidence shows that during the two drier glacial phases (MIS 4 and 2), communities at Madjedbebe relied more on these harder-to-process foods. As the climate was drier, and food was probably more dispersed and less abundant, people would have had to make do with foods that took longer to process.
Highly prized anme such as karrbarda (long yam, Dioscorea transvera) and annganj/ankanj (waterlily seeds, Nymphea spp.) were significant elements of the diet at times when the monsoon vine forest and freshwater vegetation got closer to Madjedbebe – such as during wetland formation in the last 4,000 years and earlier wet phases. But they were also sought from more distant places during drier times.
May Nango following the vine of a karrbarda (long yam, Dioscorea transversa) to dig for its yam near Djurrubu, on Mirarr Country, 2018. Anna Florin (courtesy of GAC)
A change of seasons
The biggest shift in the plant diet eaten at Madjedbebe occurred with the formation of freshwater wetlands. About 4,000 years ago, Bininj didn’t just start to include more freshwater plants in their diet, they also began to return to Madjedbebe during a different season.
Rather than coming to the rock shelter when local fruit trees such as andudjmi (green plum, Buchanania obovata) were fruiting, from Kurrung to Kunumeleng (September to December), they began visiting from Bangkerrang to Wurrkeng (March to August).
This is a time of year when resources found at the edge of the wetlands, now close to Madjedbebe, become available as floodwaters recede. With the emergence of patchy freshwater wetlands 4,000 years ago, communities changed their diet to make the best use of their environments.
Today, the wetlands are culturally and economically significant to the Mirarr and other Bininj. A range of seasonal animal and plant foods feature at dinner time, including magpie geese, turtles and waterlilies.
The burning question
It’s likely the First Australians not only responded to their environment but also shaped it. In the Kakadu region today, one of the main ways Bininj modify their landscape is through cultural burning.
Fire is a cultural tool with a multitude of functions – such as, hunting, generating vegetation growth, and cleaning up pathways and campsites.
One of its most important functions is the steady reduction of wet season biomass which, if left unchecked, becomes fuel for dangerous bushfires in Kurrung (September to October), at the end of the dry season.
Djurrubu rangers Amroh Djandomerr and Deonus Djandomerr burning Mirarr Country, not far from the Madjedbebe site, in 2019. Lynley Wallis (courtesy of GAC)
Our data demonstrates the use of a range of plant foods at Madjedbebe during Kurrung, throughout most of the site’s occupation, from 65,000 to 4,000 years ago.
This points to an ongoing practice of cultural burning, as it suggests communities managed fire-sensitive plant varieties, and reduced the chance of high-intensity bushfires by practicing low-intensity cultural burns before the hottest time of the year.
Today, the Mirarr still return to Madjedbebe. Their knowledge of local anme is passed down to new generations, who continue to shape this incredible cultural legacy.
Acknowledgment: we would like to thank the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, the Mirrar, and especially our co-authors May Nango and Djaykuk Djandjomerr.
Anna Florin received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and the Dan David Foundation for this research.
Andrew Fairbairn receives funding from Wenner-Gren and AINSE for this research
Chris Clarkson has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
Have you noticed your Facebook and Instagram feed filling up with political ads lately?
The social media strategies of many parties and candidates aim to bypass mainstream media to speak directly to voters, but they are often not as sophisticated as is assumed.
As part of a team studying the digital campaign, we have been tracking what the parties and candidates are doing with their Facebook and Instagram ad spend during the election campaign.
A big spend by ‘teals’ and Labor – and political fragmentation
The first is the really significant spend from the “teal” Independents. Historically, many successful federal Independents (such as Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott or Cathy McGowan) have come from regional areas.
But they rarely had the resources to execute a campaign of the scale we’re seeing from inner city “teals” like Monique Ryan (running in the seat of Kooyong against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg).
Some are spending A$4,000-$5,000 a week on Facebook and Instagram ads. That is enormous. Very few candidates from the major parties would normally spend that amount. Frydenberg is doing so to try to retain his seat.
The second theme emerging is that, so far, Labor is spending more than the Coalition. That’s a product of Labor’s post-2019 election review, which was damning of their digital campaign and emphasised a digital first strategy.
Thirdly, we’re seeing a real diversity of spending across a range of parties and candidates – Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania, Rex Patrick in South Australia, the Liberal Democrats and the United Australia Party in Queensland, for example.
That reflects the broader fragmentation of the political landscape in Australia. Federal elections in Australia are increasingly complex and multi-dimensional, the campaign online is indicative of this trajectory.
In inner city seats where teal independents are running, the number one issue is overwhelmingly climate change. But “environment” or “climate” is not one of they key terms we have found for the major parties across Australia. Instead, jobs, Medicare and health are more prominent.
For those in outer metropolitan and regional areas, the data suggests the cost of living is the key issue parties have identified as determining their vote.
Negative campaigning is showing up, too. One of the top terms appearing in ads from the major parties is “lies”.
Take talk of ‘microtargeting’ with a grain of salt
While there is always talk of fine-grained and sophisticated microtargeting strategies, there is good reason to be wary of such claims.
There’s a perception we live in this incredible digital age where each message is tailored to our interests or our personalities. But the reality is quite different.
In fact, a great deal of digital campaigning isn’t that targeted at all. Clive Palmer’s campaign is an extreme example of this, “carpet bombing” the electorate with messages about “freedom”. (A reasonable rebuttal might be: can I be free to not receive these messages?)
The reality is that most political advertising online is little more than what I describe in my recent book as a form of “narrowcasting”, where targeting is based on a basic segmentation of voters into demographic or geographic groups.
While many of the techniques we see in Australian election campaigns have been used overseas, particularly in the US and the UK, our electoral system and electoral rules are different; a mixed electoral system and compulsory voting changes the dynamic enormously.
In the US and the UK, the primary focus is to “get out the vote” rather than persuade voters. But the evidence suggests the effects of digital campaigns on mobilisation are limited. For persuasion, it is even less.
Most parties also lack the resources to engage in highly differentiated and targeted campaign activity.
In research I recently completed with colleagues from six advanced democracies, we showed most campaign activity builds on pre-existing techniques and are far less sophisticated than is often assumed.
Digital campaigning matters, as voters are online. It educates, it informs, it drives the conversation and it can have effects on social cohesion.
But the idea digital campaigning is the canary in the coalmine of electoral manipulation in Australia is hyperbole.
Data privacy is the broader concern
Two significant digital campaigning issues we should be concerned about are data privacy and cybersecurity.
They are able to acquire all sorts of data about you, from the Australian Electoral Commission, from data they collect when they speak to voters and from digital tracking data.
When pre-poll voting starts on Monday May 9, it will signal the denouement of one of the least compelling streaming series ever to secure repeat funding: #AusVotes2022.
I guess it helps if your ratings are locked in by law.
As community organisations like the Country Fire Service, Lions Club and Rotary gear up for Australia’s triennial feast of ballot-marking and sausage-eating, it is timely to ask who on each side has risen through the campaign period so far, and who hasn’t. This in turn tells us something about the government we might install.
First, let’s consider the Coalition.
Obviously, it is only actual votes that can settle this argument. Or, to put it in political-speak, “there is only one poll that counts”.
That was the standout lesson of the 2019 election. Despite negative reviews of the popularity of the Coalition’s one-man show, Australian audiences actually liked what they heard.
However, in 2022 that one-man approach seems less fit for purpose. Partly this is because the one man is Scott Morrison, who, after boldly explaining he doesn’t hold a hose, may now struggle to hold the house.
It’s also partly because in 2019, Morrison had a persuasive script written for him by his opponents’ plans for tax increases. In 2022, Labor has given him much less to work with, meaning the spotlight has stayed on his own performance.
Complicating things further is that Morrison’s party is trailing in the polls and fighting on three separate fronts: in the regions against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party; in the middle and outer suburbs against a unified Labor Party; and in its affluent capital city strongholds, against lifelong Liberal voters attracted to centrist independents.
In only one of these distinct battlegrounds, the outer suburbs, is the Prime Minister considered the clear asset he was in 2019. Indeed, in some Liberal heartland electorates, sitting moderate MPs have quietly asked that he stay away.
Scott Morrison is not the electoral asset in 2022 that he was in 2019. AAP/Mick Tsikas
These differential demands have forced the Liberals to tailor their messaging, and diversify their messengers too.
Tellingly, Morrison has so far not accepted multiple interview requests to appear on the ABC’s flagship political and current affairs programs, including 7.30, Insiders and Radio National Breakfast. He has done just one interview on AM, and that was on the very first day of the campaign when almost all the main broadcasters got an interview.
Much of the burden for these and other interviews has fallen to deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg. Affable, media-savvy and relentless, Frydenberg is probably the most popular politician on the conservative side, and with the economy central to the government’s re-election pitch, has rightly done his share of the heavy lifting.
But he has been distracted back at base by the existential threat he faces in his Melbourne seat of Kooyong. Defending a margin of just 6.4%, Frydenberg is locked in a ferocious local battle to hold off a highly credentialed “teal” independent, Monique Ryan.
It is a real dilemma. Frydenberg might be his party’s friendly face and leadership future, but he needs to stay in parliament for that to mean anything. At times, the stress has shown.
Josh Frydenberg has had to do a lot of the Coalition’s heavy lifting – as well as shoring up his own seat. AAP/James Ross
This has placed an even bigger burden on Senator Simon Birmingham. The doughty finance minister is the safest pair of hands on the government side, able to deliver a message, handle tricky interviews, and do it all with an even temper. It helps also that as an upper house member, he is not fighting for his career.
However, after Birmingham, the Coalition’s communications talent becomes noticeably less reliable. The Liberals’ official campaign spokesperson and incoming health minister (if the Coalition survives) is another South Australian senator, Anne Ruston.
She has struggled to cut through with the same command as Birmingham – a situation not helped by Labor’s suggestion she presents a risk to Medicare.
Among the other frontbench voices asked to step forward is Victorian-based Minister for Superannuation and Women’s Economic Security Jane Hume. Again, she has not made a lasting impression.
Others, such as the usually effective communicator Peter Dutton, are problematic. Dutton has probably done more harm than good outside his home state of Queensland – particularly in the seats under threat from climate-conscious “teal” independents.
Ditto outspoken Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan. Even Foreign Minister Marise Payne has not lifted the team after coming across as supine early in the campaign, when Beijing signed a security agreement with Australia’s close Pacific neighbour, the Solomon Islands.
The secretive Sino-Solomons pact was a body blow to the Coalition’s claimed vigilance against a strategically expansive China and against national security threats generally.
So what about Labor?
It sounded trite at the time, but when news broke of Anthony Albanese’s forced COVID isolation for week three of the campaign, Labor spinners insisted the leader’s absence would allow other frontbench talent to shine.
Albanese had suffered a rocky start to the campaign and may have benefited from the circuit-breaker brought by his seven-day isolation. Labor’s reconfiguration may have been an attempt to make a virtue of necessity, but arguably it worked.
Jason Clare has won plaudits for his performance as Labor’s election spokesman. AAP/Bianca de Marchi
In his place, established names such as Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Kristina Keneally and, to a lesser extent, Labor’s deputy leader Richard Marles took more public profiles. Marles subsequently had his own isolation experience after contracting COVID.
Also prominent were the official campaign spokespeople, Jason Clare and Katy Gallagher. Clare in particular has demonstrated an ability to land a political blow, and played a strong supporting role as warm-up man and attack dog at Labor’s campaign launch in Perth last weekend.
However, one of Labor’s most popular and senior figures, Tanya Plibersek, has been much less prominent in the campaign so far. Her absence has not escaped the attention of the Coalition, nor the media. As an effective communicator, Plibersek has clearly been under-used so far in this campaign – especially given her popularity and profile.
At the time of publication, that looked to be changing as Plibersek attended a campaign function with Albanese. But she remain under-utilised.
Labor’s popular education spokesperson, Tanya Plibersek, has been far less prominent in the campaign so far – which has escaped neither the Coalition nor the media. AAP/Lukas Coch
Within the minor parties and independents, the leaders – such as Adam Bandt, Pauline Hanson, and Clive Palmer – tend to be the only ones garnering much of the national media spotlight. To some extent, this reflects the fact they are not prospective parties of government. And with the exception of Bandt, are they also not realistic propositions for seats in the House of Representatives, where government is formed.
Clearly the 2022 election could change that to a degree if some of the “teal” independents are successful, although by definition, independents speak only for themselves.
Just over a fortnight from now, the effects of these wider frontbench contributions – good and bad – will be matters for the voters to decide.
For voters, getting a better sense of the people and capabilities being offered by each of the prospective parties of government remains an important, if under-appreciated, aspect of our election contests.
Mark Kenny 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.
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve heard much about health-care worker burnout. But what we haven’t heard much about is its effects on patients.
Even before the pandemic, health workers were grappling with long hours, high workplace demands, staff shortages, and limited resources. The culture of health-care values selfless dedication and around-the-clock availability, yet this risks both health-care workers’ health and the quality and safety of patient care. The pre-existing cracks in the system have widened during the pandemic.
The World Health Organisation says burnout results from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and is characterised by:
feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one’s job
reduced professional efficacy.
Health-care workers experience moral distress – where they worry they cannot give their patients adequate care. Shutterstock
Burnout is linked to moral distress, which occurs when health-care workers feel they cannot deliver the care they are trained to provide. Our participants talked about the emotional distress they experienced as patients died alone, the deficiencies in aged care, and their worries about whether health-care resources would be rationed.
What are its consequences?
The sustained and prolonged stress of the pandemic is taking its toll. Clinician burnout and workforce shortages are linked, and they have been listed as the biggest threats to patient safety in the United States in 2022.
Staffing shortages lead to patients having to wait longer for health care, even in life-threatening emergencies with potentially fatal outcomes, or being turned away. Patients have long wait times just to be triaged in emergency departments, with some deciding to leave instead of wait.
A review of nursing studies reveals burnout, particularly emotional exhaustion, is associated with poorer quality and safety of care. This review cites studies finding nurses and patients negatively rate the care provided when nurses are burnt out; along with adverse outcomes including medication errors, patient falls, increased infections, and even increased mortality in one study.
A participant in our survey said:
I’m burnt out. The impact of COVID has affected my empathy. I feel like best practice is unachievable and that there are so many barriers to providing care.
Burnout has implications for the whole workforce. Health-care workers who are burnt out may reduce their hours of work, quit their jobs, or retire early. These unnecessary staff reductions contribute to workforce shortages, meaning less staff available to provide care to the patients and increased pressure on those clinicians left behind.
Health-care workers are not easily replaced and the education and training of our highly skilled workforce is a substantial investment in quality patient care. This is why we must ensure health-care organisations have strategies to support and promote staff well-being and retain their staff.
Health-care workers are not easily replaced. Shutterstock
What has to happen to reduce burnout?
Even during times of crisis, burnout is not inevitable. Through our research we heard from health-care workers who felt connected, engaged, and able to do their jobs well despite the increased demands of the pandemic. The secret to avoiding burnout was not “individual resilience” – health-care workers are already a highly resilient group – nor tokenistic gestures of support.
One emergency department nurse in our survey told us her managers told staff to “watch [their] mental health” and threw them a pizza party, which she described as “the equivalent of throwing a Band-Aid over a haemorrhaging artery”.
Burnout is an occupational issue needing organisational change.
It requires a commitment from organisations and leaders to deliver safe, healthy and caring workplaces.
Practical supports to improve staff well-being include proactive strategies that ensure a work culture of respect and kindness, removal of stigma and feelings of guilt if staff need to take time off to support their mental health, and debriefing and peer support programs.
Frontline health-care workers in our survey asked for workload management strategies to reduce burnout, such as:
“compulsory leave days to prevent burnout” or “burnout leave”
sufficient staffing with “workload flexible hours to prevent burnout”
“prioritising leaving on time/taking leave to ensure health-care workers are well rested and avoid burnout”.
Staff also need workplaces free from patient and visitor abuse, so hospitals need to have good policies for preventing occupational violence.
The pandemic is not over yet, and it won’t be the last health crisis we face. We can’t afford to lose caring and dedicated health-care workers to burnout. Investing in safe and healthy workplaces is an investment in the quality of patient care.
Karen Willis receives funding from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation for the project: Future-Proofing the Frontline: Strategies to support healthcare workers during times of crisis.
Jaimie-Lee Maple receives funding from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation for the project: Future-Proofing the Frontline: Strategies to support healthcare workers during times of crisis.
Marie Bismark receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She is a Board Director of The Royal Women’s Hospital and GMHBA health insurance.
Natasha Smallwood receives funding from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation for the project: Future-Proofing the Frontline: Strategies to support healthcare workers during times of crisis. She is a Board Director for the Victorian Doctors’ Health Program.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University
Shutterstock
Australia’s remarkable animals, plants and ecosystems are world-renowned, and rightly so.
Unfortunately, our famous ecosystems are not OK. Many are hurtling towards collapse, threatening even iconic species like the koala, platypus and the numbat. More and more species are going extinct, with over 100 since British colonisation. That means Australia has one of the worst conservation records in the world.
This represents a monumental government failure. Our leaders are failing in their duty of care to the environment. Yet so far, the election campaign has been unsettlingly silent on threatened species.
Here are five steps our next government should take.
Numbats – dubbed Australia’s meerkats – are endangered. Shutterstock
1. Strengthen, enforce and align policy and laws
Australia’s environmental laws and policies are failing to safeguard our unique biodiversity from extinction. This has been established by a series of independentreviews, Auditor-Generalreports and Senateinquiries over the past decade.
The 2020 review of our main environmental protection laws offered 38 recommendations. To date, no major party has clearly committed to introducing and funding these recommendations.
To actually make a difference to the environment, it’s vital we achieve policy alignment. That means, for instance, ruling out new coal mines if we would like to keep the world’s largest coral reef system alive. Similarly, widespread land clearing in Queensland and New South Wales makes tree planting initiatives pointless on an emissions front.
Despite Australia’s wealth of species, our laws protecting biodiversity are much laxer than in other developed nations like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. These nations have mandatory monitoring of all threatened species, which means they can detect species decline early and step in before it’s too late.
2. Invest in the environment
How much do you think the federal government spends on helping our threatened species recover? The answer is shockingly low: Around $50 million per year across the entire country. That’s less than $2 a year per Australian. The government spent the same amount on supporting the business events industry through the pandemic.
Our overall environmental spending, too, is woefully inadequate. In an age of mounting environmental threats, federal funding has fallen sharply over the past nine years.
For conservationists, this means distressing decisions. With a tiny amount of funding, you can’t save every species. That means ongoing neglect and more extinctions looming.
This investment is far less than what is needed to recover threatened species or to reduce the very real financial risks from biodiversity loss. If the government doesn’t see the environment as a serious investment, why should the private sector?
The next government should fix this nature finance gap. It’s not as if there isn’t money. The estimated annual cost of recovering every one of Australia’s ~1,800 threatened species is roughly a mere 7% of the Coalition’s $23 billion of projects promised in the month since the budget was released in late March.
3. Tackle the threats
We already have detailed knowledge of the major threats facing our species and ecosystems: the ongoing destruction or alteration of vital habitat, the damage done by invasive species like foxes, rabbits and cats, as well as pollution, disease and climate change. To protect our species from these threats requires laws and policies with teeth, as well as investment.
If we protect threatened species habitat by stopping clearing of native vegetation, mineral extraction, or changing fishing practices, we will not only get better outcomes for biodiversity but also save money in many cases. Why? Because it’s vastly cheaper to conserve ecosystems and species in good health than attempt recovery when they’re already in decline or flatlining.
Phasing out coal, oil and gas will also be vital to stem the damage done by climate change, as well as boosting support for green infrastructure and energy.
Any actions taken to protect our environment and recover species must be evidence-based and have robust monitoring in place, so we can figure out if these actions actually work in a cost-effective manner against specific objectives. This is done routinely in the US.
Salvaging our damaged environment is going to take time. That means in many cases, we’ll need firm, multi-partisan commitments to sustained actions, sometimes even across electoral cycles. Piecemeal, short-term or politicised conservation will not help Australia’s biodiversity long-term and do not represent best use of public money.
4.: Look to Indigenous leadership to heal Country
For millennia, First Nations people have cared for Australia’s species and shaped ecosystems.
In many areas, their forced displacement and disconnection with longstanding cultural practices is linked to further damage to the environment, such as more severe fires.
Focusing on Indigenous management of Country can deliver environmental, cultural and social benefits. This means increasing representation of Indigenous people and communities in ecosystem policy and management decisions.
5. Work with communities and across boundaries
We must urgently engage and empower local communities and landowners to look after the species on their land. Almost half of Australia’s threatened species can be found on private land, including farms and pastoral properties. We already have good examples of what this can look like.
The next government should radically scale up investment in biodiversity on farms, through rebates and tax incentives for conservation covenants and sustainable agriculture. In many cases, caring for species can improve farming outcomes.
Corroboree frogs are critically endangered. Shutterstock
Conservation is good for humans and all other species
To care for the environment and the other species we live alongside is good for us as people. Tending to nature in our cities makes people happier and healthier.
Protecting key plants and animals ensures key “services” like pollination and the cycling of soil nutrients continues.
We’re lucky to live in a land of such rich biodiversity, from the ancient Wollemi pine to remarkable Lord Howe island stick insects and striking corroboree frogs. But we are not looking after these species and their homes properly. The next government must take serious and swift action to save our species.
Euan G. Ritchie is the Chair of the Media Working Group of the Ecological Society of Australia, Deputy Convenor (Communication and Outreach) for the Deakin Science and Society Network, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.
Ayesha Tulloch receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the Vice President of Public Policy and Outreach and co-convenes the Science Communication Chapter for the Ecological Society of Australia, and sits on Birdlife Australia’s Research and Conservation Committee. She is a member of eBird Australia, the Society for Conservation Biology and the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre Citizen Science Node.
Megan C Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Research Award and has previously been funded by WWF Australia and the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub.
COVID-19 travel restrictions brought migration to Australia to a virtual standstill, and over the course of the pandemic about 500,000 temporary migrants have left our shores. Now many Australian businesses are screaming out for more workers.
So, who are Australia’s missing migrants, where did they work, and when might they come back?
Which migrants are missing?
The Grattan Institute’s new report, Migrants in the workforce, shows there were about 1.5 million temporary migrants in Australia as of January 2022, compared with almost 2 million in 2019.
The 500,000 “missing migrants” are mainly international students and working holiday makers.
There are roughly 335,000 international students in Australia now – about half as many as in 2019 – and only 19,000 working holiday makers – about 85% fewer.
The number of temporary skilled workers is down by about 20%. Almost all of the 660,000 New Zealand citizens living in Australia on temporary visas remained throughout the pandemic.
Department of Home Affairs
This shortfall of migrants from the uncapped temporary migration program is hurting some businesses more than others. Before the pandemic about 17% of workers employers hospitality were here on temporary visas. These temporary migrants were overwhelmingly international students earning some money as waiters, kitchen hands and bar attendants.
Grattan analysis of ABS 2016 census
Demand for these services remains high, so it’s little wonder employers in the hospitality industry are screaming out for staff. The most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows about 33% of hospitality businesses in February were advertising for extra staff, compared with 15% in February 2020.
Meanwhile farmers are struggling because working holiday makers, who have made up about 4% of the agricultural workforce, are almost entirely absent.
Border closures have boosted wages where temporary migrants typically work
Closed borders may well have boosted the employment prospects and wages of locals in sectors where temporary migrants – especially students and working holiday makers – have made up a large share of the workforce. That’s likely to have benefited younger Australians, especially those working in hospitality.
But the fact there are fewer migrants in Australia now than before the pandemic is unlikely to have had much impact on the employment prospects and wages of Australian workers overall.
When migrants come to Australia, they spend money – on groceries, housing, transport, hospitality and so on. Fewer migrants means less of that spending, which means less demand for labour to make those goods and provide those services.
Grattan Institute research published in Febuary shows government spending and the Reserve Bank’s stimulus policies, not border closures, are the main reason for the the low unemployment rate.
Our analysis shows the effect record low interest rates and unprecedented levels of government support for businesses and households is seven to eight times larger than the effect of the border closure.
Whoever wins the federal election should resist the temptation to make permanent changes to visa policy
The federal government has implemented short-term measures to attract international students and working holiday makers back to Australia. It is refunding the application fee to those applying for such visas, and has removed the 40-hour per fortnight cap on working hours for international students.
Grattan analysis of ABS labour force data
But whichever party wins the election should avoid further changes to visa policy in response to what are short-term labour shortages.
Students and working holiday makers are likely to gradually return now that borders have reopened. Treasury expects the net overseas migration to increase from 41,000 people in 2021-22 to 180,000 in 2022-23 and 213,000 in 2023-24.
History shows expanding pathways to lower-skill, lower-wage migrants risks putting downward pressure on the wages of workers now in those roles.
As we have seen in agriculture and hospitality sectors, once an industry relies on low-wage labour, it is hard to wind the clock back.
Temporary changes to migration policy to solve short-term problems have a habit of becoming permanent.
Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website. We would also like to thank the Scanlon Foundation for its generous support of this project.
Brendan Coates 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.
In the midst of Labor’s campaign about the cost of living, the Coalition has zeroed in on one of those costs – taxes – and guaranteed to stop them rising. Its Lower Tax Guarantee promises:
No new taxes on Australian workers.
No new taxes on retirees.
No new taxes on superannuation.
No new taxes on small businesses.
No new taxes on housing.
No new taxes on electricity
In addition, the Coalition promises to continue to adhere to its taxation “speed limit” by keeping tax revenue below 23.9% of gross domestic product.
Labor, fearing its tax policies cost it the last election, isn’t mentioning tax much, and is backing the Coalition’s already-legislated Stage 3 tax cuts aimed at Australians on more than $90,000, and due to start in mid-2024.
As it happens, most Australians are due to pay a good deal more tax from mid next year when the Coalition’s Low and Middle Income Tax Offset ends.
This will give taxpayers with incomes between $48,001 and $90,000 a cut in their tax rebate of $1,500 next financial year.
Actually, we will need more tax
One of the problems with the pledge is that we are likely to need more tax.
Even on optimistic assumptions about productivity growth set out in the budget, the deficit – the extent to which revenue falls short of spending – is projected to be an usually high 3.4% of GDP next financial year, followed by 2.4%, 1.9%, 1.6% and then continuing without disappearing thereafter.
Budget deficits were an appropriate response to the pandemic.
But, as the Coalition keeps reminding us, unemployment is now just under 4% and set to fall lower, which means we might be at what the authorities call “full employment”, or so close to it the difference hardly matters.
The presumption that from now on Australia should aim for a balanced budget is baked into the budget fiscal strategy that targets “a budget balance, on average, over the course of the economic cycle”.
The continuing deficits the budget is forecasting risk aggregate demand (private and government spending) exceeding what the economy is able to produce.
In the coming year the budget forecasts an increase in aggregate demand of 4.5%, unmatched by the increase in Gross domestic product of 3½%.
The result is likely to be a budget-driven increase in inflation, at a time when the Reserve Bank is trying to ward off a surge in (largely foreign-produced) inflation.
Realistically, sound management requires the incoming government to balance the budget, if not straight away, then at least by 2023-24.
Failure to balance the budget will result in unacceptably high inflation and increasingly severe action by the Reserve Bank to restrain it, with damaging consequences for living standards.
There are only two ways to balance budgets: cut spending or increase revenue, and the biggest source of government revenue – by far – is tax.
The Morrison government has committed itself to an arbitrary tax ceiling that limits total taxation revenue to 23.9% of GDP, forevermore.
Labor is not committed to such a ceiling and nor does it talk much about appropriate levels of tax.
The reality is that according to the latest Treasury and Department of Finance projections, government spending will settle at 27.2% of GDP in ten years time, well above the tax ceiling.
Tax pays for services
The government is also guaranteeing essential services, but many are hugely underfunded, examples include:
the promise to fully implement the recommendations of the aged care and disability services royal commissions
tertiary education, which will be funded less in 2024-25 than it was pre-pandemic in 2018-19
health funding – abstracting from the impact of the pandemic, the rate of increase in health funding is projected to be less than half the increase pre-pandemic
defence, diplomacy, and foreign aid spending which will be needed to plug a massive capability gap over the next twenty years or so years
Certainly, there are opportunities for budget savings, starting with electorate giveaways and dodgy infrastructure projects that have no business case. But realistically, these savings will fall well short of what’s needed to fund the extra spending we are going to have to make.
In short, guarantees of both the provision of essential services and lower taxation are incompatible. No party can credibly promise both.
What this election needs is a debate about the best way to raise the needed revenue, followed by a full-scale review of taxation after the election.
The starting point should be to work out how much extra revenue is required.
A rough estimate is an extra 4% of GDP. While that might seem like a lot, it would leave Australia as one of the lower taxing countries in the OECD. It hasn’t hurt the OECD’s prospects.
Michael Keating receives funding from the ARC more than ten years ago, but nothing more recently
The human brain is said to be the most complex biological structure ever to have existed. And while science doesn’t fully understand the brain yet, researchers in the expanding field of neuroscience have been making progress.
Neuroscientists have made substantial inroads towards mapping the complex functions of the brain’s 85 billion or so neurons and the 100 trillion connections between them. (To put this astronomical number into perspective, there are upwards of 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.)
Enter Neuralink, a Silicon Valley start-up backed by Elon Musk that has developed a neuroprosthetic device known as a brain-computer interface. Among other things, Musk claims this chip could cure tinnitus, the neurological condition that causes ringing in your ears, within five years. But is this possible?
What is Neuralink?
The coin-sized Neuralink device, called a Link, is implanted flush with the skull by a precision surgical robot. The robot connects a thousand miniature threads from the Link to certain neurons. Each thread is a quarter the diameter of a human hair.
The device connects to an external computer by Bluetooth for continuous communication back and forth.
In future, Neuralink prostheses might help people with various kinds of neurological disorders where there is a disconnect or malfunction between the brain and the nerves that serve the body. That includes people with paraplegia, quadriplegia, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
Since its establishment in 2016, Neuralink has been recruiting top-class neuroscientists from academia and the broader research community to develop the technology to treat these conditions.
Neuralink’s monkey can play Pong with his mind
In April 2021, the company released a remarkable proof-of-concept video. It showed a nine-year-old macaque monkey called Pager successfully playing a game of Pong with his mind, by having an implanted Neuralink device connected to a computer running the game.
Pager the monkey played the computer game Pong with his mind. Pixabay.com
Pager was shown how to play Pong using a joystick. When he made a correct move, he’d receive a sip of banana smoothie.
As he played, the Neuralink implant recorded the patterns of electrical activity in his brain. This identified which neurons controlled which movements.
When the joystick was disconnected, Pager was able to play the game and win using only his mind.
Human trials to further develop the Neuralink prototype are expected to commence towards the end of 2022, contingent on United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Musk’s tinnitus claims
Elon Musk has claimed the Neuralink device could cure tinnitus by 2027.
Tinnitus is a neurological condition that manifests as a ringing or buzzing in the ears in the absence of an external source.
Tinnitus is a common problem, caused when the nerve that connects the inner ear with the brain, known as the vestibulocochlear nerve, is damaged due to prolonged loud noise, injury or deficiencies in blood supply.
A cure for tinnitus has proven elusive. Treatment currently centres on masking the sound or learning to ignore it.
At present, the Neuralink prosthesis connects to the cerebral cortex, the surface layer of the brain. This is where the device can remedy damage to the brain’s ability to process motor sensory input or output.
Are Musk’s claims credible?
These claims might appear grandiose. Yet the underlying science is not controversial.
Neural implants have been helping people since the early 1960s when the first cochlear implant was placed in a person with impaired hearing. There has been much progress in the 60 years since then.
Neuroscientists are broadly optimistic the device has potential to treat tinnitus. It may also be useful in treating obsessive compulsive disorder, repairing brain injuries, and treat conditions such as autism or degenerative diseases of the nervous system using deep brain stimulation.
As Paul Nuyujukian, director of the Brain Interfacing Laboratory at Stanford University, observes:
We are on the cusp of a complete paradigm shift. This type of technology has the potential to transform our treatments. Not just for stroke, paralysis, and motor degenerative disease, but also for pretty much every other type of brain disease.
What do we need to be cautious of?
The FDA categorises Neuralink as a class III medical device, the riskiest category. Before human trials start, Neuralink must successfully clear the rigorous FDA regulatory controls.
To be approved, the company must provide exhaustive clinical trial data from non-human test subjects (such as Pager the monkey) to conservatively justify moving to the next phase. Some monkeys have died during Neuralink’s tests, and critics have raised animal welfare concerns.
The approvals process for human testing could take some time.
The regulators will be looking for unintended negative consequences of the device, such as depression. Also of interest will be how practical it is to remove or repair a device should it malfunction, and how to manage the risk of brain injury or infection.
Once FDA-approved, Neuralink will enlist human volunteers and the next round of trials will proceed.
How long it will be until the device is commercially available and how much it will cost is anyone’s guess. It could be years and with a price tag that puts it out of reach for all but the wealthy.
So it’s wise to not hold out false hope for an affordable implant in the short term.
David Tuffley 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.
In the Wentworth Project, sponsored by the University of Canberra’s Centre for Change Governance and The Conversation, we are tapping into voters’ opinions in this seat, which appears to be on a knife edge.
In this podcast we talk with the two main candidates, Liberal incumbent Dave Sharma and “teal” independent Allegra Spender, as well as with Kerryn Phelps, the former independent member in the seat, who has mentored Spender and is on the advisory council of Climate 200, which is donating to her campaign.
Sharma says “Kerryn Phelps was a genuine independent candidate or a more traditional independent candidate. […] This independent candidate is really sort of a franchise or party operation.”
Sharma casts the teals, who are challenging Liberals in a range of city seats, as reflecting “populism as a political force”.
“People think populism only belongs to the right because of Donald Trump. I think the independents are basically harnessing a populist mood, which is similar to what Donald Trump did, which is ‘a curse on all your houses.’”
Morrison is not campaigning in the teal seats. Asked how much the Prime Minister is a drag on the vote, Sharma stresses the team. “Scott Morrison is the leader of our team and the spokesperson for the team. But it’s also got a range of ministers in there who control different portfolios and we’re putting ourselves forward, and I certainly am here, as a team.”
Spender says “there’s a feeling amongst the community that I hear, that they feel that the parties are looking after themselves first and the community after”.
On a possible hung parliament, she says, “I would be willing to work with either party, or major party on supply and confidence, because I want stable government”. She would talk first to whichever side had the greatest number of seats.
Wentworth is seeing enormous spending. Spender says her campaign will probably spend between $1.3 and $1.5 million (with something under 30% expected to come from Climate 200).
She favours caps on spending and donations. “I’d like to see a cap in what individuals or companies can give. I’d like to see real time information in terms of what has been given. And then I think at the same time, you need to look at political advertising and how that is used because the government just spent $30 million spruiking their clean energy credentials […] immediately before the election being called.”
Kerryn Phelps says of Wentworth: “I’ve had a medical practise in Double Bay for around two decades, and so I know the community well. It’s generally seen as an affluent community, but it’s actually quite diverse. There are clearly strong beliefs about the economy and business. And so a candidate would need to have business experience. But the people also have a very strong social conscience. They’re very environmentally aware. And I think that’s particularly highlighted by the fact that it’s bounded by the harbour and the ocean.”
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Flinders University
AP Photo/Jason DeCrow
A leaked United States Supreme Court draft opinion reveals it is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion as a constitutional right.
The end of Roe v. Wade would dramatically impact reproductive rights in the US. It would also likely have symbolic consequences globally, shaping the strategies and tactics of the trans-national anti-abortion movement.
Overturning Roe v. Wade would put the US Supreme Court out of step with public sentiment.
Abortion is a routine and safe health-care procedure accessed by approximately one in four American women. 2021 polling indicated 80% of Americans support abortion in all or most cases, and at least 60% support Roe v Wade.
About half the states are expected to immediately ban abortion; 16 states plus the District of Columbia have laws protecting abortion rights.
In the short term, a patient’s ability to legally access abortion would effectively be a lottery, determined by geography or having the financial resources to travel significant distances.
In the longer term, opponents of abortion view this moment as a beginning rather than an end. Republican lawmakers are already strategising about legislation that would ban abortion nationwide after six weeks.
Abortion is a routine and safe health-care procedure accessed by approximately one in four American women. Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP
Abortion in Australia is regulated by state and territory legislation and the overall trend in the 21st century has been to enshrine abortion as a legal right. In 2021, South Australia became the last jurisdiction to decriminalise the procedure.
Politically, abortion is the subject of conscience votes. It normally does not function as a partisan issue for the major parties, with the notable exception of the 2020 Queensland election, when the LNP promised a review of the recently passed abortion decriminalisation law while One Nation pledged to roll it back.
But while legal abortion in Australia seems secure, we are still a long way from treating abortion as the routine health care it is.
Access is a key issue
In most of Australia, patients needing abortion care face significant barriers to access.
With the exception of South Australia and the Northern Territory, most public hospitals do not offer abortion care. Instead, private clinics provide abortion services and patients pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket.
Regional patients face immense logistical barriers and travel and procedure costs. The pandemic inadvertently led to the permanent closure of regional abortion clinics in Queensland and New South Wales. Telehealth services for early medication abortion can sometimes help but shouldn’t be the only option.
Broadly, there is a significant shortage of trained surgical abortion providers. Although early medication abortion can be prescribed by GPs, very few are certified to do so. Until COVID, many private regional abortion clinics relied on doctors working on a fly-in-fly-out model.
In the 2019 federal election, Labor promised “free abortions” via a major sexual and reproductive health policy but has not revisited this proposal in the current campaign.
American tactics imported to Australia
While Australia does not share the US’ intense partisan politics over abortion, we also do not share the approach of Canada where abortion is normalised as reproductive health care.
There has also been a disturbing domestic trend towards the increasing political stigmatisation of abortion.
Amanda Stoker, the assistant minister for women, recently addressed the annual Queensland anti-choice rally.
The end of Roe v. Wade will likely embolden our own anti-abortion activists and politicians, who can question public provision of abortion, push for additional legal and medical regulations, and seek to revise laws by emphasising US talking points such as “late-term” and “sex-selective” abortions.
Legislatively eroding abortion is a strategy that has proven immensely successful in the US.
It ensures abortion is not viewed as health care, that anti-choice rhetoric is amplified in mainstream media, and that abortion patients and providers are further stigmatised.
Cumulatively, these tactics have a chilling effect that will likely make access to abortion even harder.
If the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this year, it will mean the end of a decision that has survived 49 years worth of hostile legal challenges. AP Photo/Alex Brandon
If the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this year, it will mean the end of a decision that has survived 49 years worth of hostile legal challenges.
It demonstrates the power and danger of long-term tactics relying on stigma and the gradual erosion of rights. It reminds us all that rights must be continually defended, never taken for granted.
Prudence Flowers has received funding from the South Australian Department of Human Services. She is a member of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajib Dasgupta, Chairperson, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University
In India in 2021, an estimated 504,000 people died from tuberculosis, or TB. That’s almost one per minute. More than a quarter of the estimated TB cases worldwide are in India.
In 2018, the UN committed to end the TB epidemic globally by 2030. The “End TB” strategy sought to reduce TB incidence by 80%, deaths by 90%, and eliminate catastrophic costs for TB-affected households.
Tuberculosis is a disease caused by infection with the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It mainly affects the lungs, and the bacteria spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Some people are infected but do not get any symptoms, which is known as “latent TB”. In others, the infection begins to cause symptoms within weeks or months, which is known as “active TB”.
Up to 10% of those with latent TB eventually develop active TB years after the initial infection.
Antibiotics are the mainstay treatment of TB. However, the bacteria has been known to become resistant and find a way to beat these antibiotics. Drug-resistant strains of TB have become a global concern.
When India gained independence in 1947, there were about half a million TB deaths annually and an estimated 2.5 million Indians suffered from active tuberculosis.
India’s first national survey of TB, conducted from 1955 to 1958, found on average four of every 1,000 people in India had TB.
The National Tuberculosis Institute was established in 1959 and an interdisciplinary group of epidemiologists, tuberculosis specialists, microbiologists, biostatisticians, sociologists, public health nurses and X-ray engineers conducted a series of research studies that culminated in the National Tuberculosis Programme in 1963. The key strategy of the program was to use chemotherapy to treat TB.
What did the most recent survey find?
The results of the most recent national TB survey in India (2019–21) have just been released, and found just over three people per 1,000 had active TB cases. This is not a great improvement on the last survey from the 1950s (four per 1,000) and much higher than the WHO’s 2020 estimate of 1.8 per 1,000.
The highest prevalence was in Delhi, at over five per 1,000. Groups with higher prevalence included the elderly, malnourished, smokers, those with alcohol dependence and diabetics.
Despite the plan to eliminate catastrophic costs due to TB, an estimated 7-32% of TB sufferers and 68% of TB sufferers whose infection is resistant to frontline antibiotics experienced catastrophic costs. Catastrophic costs are said to be incurred when the total costs of treatment exceeds 20% of the annual household income.
What happened to TB during the catastrophic COVID outbreak in India?
This probably indicates TB diagnoses were lost in 2020 during the COVID outbreak. Given hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID cases, people with TB symptoms would have been less able to get care, or would have been hesitant about going to hospital for fear of catching COVID. Even the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (NITRD) was converted into a designated COVID Care Centre in May 2021.
One might have thought lockdowns to stop the spread of COVID (which spreads person-to-person) would have seen a decrease in the incidence of TB (which also spreads person-to-person). This effect was certainly seen for infections such as influenza.
We can only speculate as to why TB cases didn’t decrease, but the fact TB was already endemic in India, and the fact lockdowns probably increased overcrowding for socioeconomically disadvantaged households, could have meant TB was able to more effectively spread in crowded households.
This was exacerbated by the healthcare system at time bordering on collapse as resources had to be allocated for COVID cases, and access to diagnostics and treatment were reduced during the lockdown periods.
Detect refers to early identification of presumptive TB cases, at the first point of care, and prompt diagnosis using high sensitivity diagnostic tests
treatment refers to initiating and sustaining all patients on first-line anti-tuberculosis drug treatment for drug-sensitive TB patients and appropriate antibiotics for drug resistant TB
prevent refers to scaling up air-borne infection control measures at health care facilities, treatment for latent TB infection in contacts of confirmed cases, and addressing social determinants of TB including crowded housing and sanitation
build refers to strengthening and building on the existing health service to prevent and treat TB and positioning TB high on the health and development agenda.
It is looking like we may be too late to reach the 2025 elimination goal. But if we follow these four steps, we might come closer to eliminating TB in India.
Jens Seeberg is the principal investigator and Rajib Dasgupta is the chair of the scientific advisory board of Antimicrobial resistance and labor migration across healthcare boundaries in Northern South Asia (AMR@LAB), funded by the Novo Nordisk Fonden.
Jens Seeberg 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.
There is more than one useful perspective on the present Russian war in Ukraine. None of these put the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s Russian war machine in anything other than an egregious light; Mr Putin is a geopolitical warrior of the worst order. He believes that he is waging a war against the treasonous secession of a territory that, in the view of him and many other Russians, should be an integral part of a Russian/Slavic ethno-political union.
(It is important to note that the western coalition of countries has a very different view. In the western view, the Soviet Union was dissolved, giving birth to fifteen sovereign, unaligned and autonomous nation states. The objective reality for almost all countries is of course some point in between full independence and some subjection to a higher or bigger authority.)
Putin’s badness does not however make good all those who would wage rhetorical or physical war against Russia. Further, most of history is scripted by the winners of conflicts. And as time passes, particular agendas come to the fore, reflecting ephemeral cultural concerns which inevitably influence different generations of historians.
One of today’s most prevalent cultural concerns is racism, and rightly so. A result, though, is that historical events come to be seen almost entirely through an ahistorical lens; in the case of 2020, the liberal anti-racism lens. Thus World War Two (WW2), more than ever, is understood as a fascist racist genocide against Jews; and that ‘the liberal west’ were fighting tooth and nail against the racist fascist Nazis because they were racist and fascist. Likewise, the United States’ Civil War of 1861-1865 is understood by many as a simple battle of good versus evil, black versus white; an anti-racist North fighting to the death against the racist slavers in the South, in order to free the ethnically African slaves.
In reality, both of these tumultuous conflicts were principally about something else; though the ‘bad guys’ were infused with self-serving views of racial superiority. War crimes were committed aplenty by all sides in these conflicts. In WW2, the principal motivation of the German aggressors – under the sway of both the Nazi government and substantial grievances carried over from WW1 – was ‘lebensraum‘, a desire to expand the greater German nation into the ‘Slavic’ territories to Germany’s east, including an expansion into Ukraine’s wheatlands and Russia’s oilfields beyond. Thus the central component of Nazi racism was the convenient belief that Slavs were an inferior people; a natural labouring caste. In the West, we continue to be unaware – through convenient ignorance – that WW2 (and WW1 for that matter) were principally struggles between Teutons and Slavs. (With the proviso that WW2 was also made up of another war of Japanese imperialism, in which Japan’s elite had also granted itself a conviction of ‘far-eastern’ racial superiority.)
The Jews on the other hand were not presented as racial inferiors; rather, they were presented by German nationalists – and by just about all other ethnically-European peoples including the Slavs – as a ‘devious but clever’ ethnic/religious people. The Jews were the ever-present scapegoat ‘race’ who have inherited that role for much of the history of Christianity. Many of the worst pogroms against Jews took place around the time of the Black Death in the fourteenth century; Jews were accused of poisoning the water-wells as a means to genocide, and suffered brutal backlashes as a result of those easily disprovable claims. In the fifty years from 1875 to 1925, the worst anti-Jewish pogroms took place in the western parts of ‘greater Russia’, including the early Soviet Union. And they continued in the Baltic States and Ukraine before the Germans arrived. The West – including the English-speaking West – was generally unsympathetic; many liberal westerners believed in the anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and, on that point at least, had some empathy towards the German Nazis.
Wars of Secession
The conflict that I will most focus on is that of the American ‘Civil War’. But we should note that secessions from de jure or de facto political unions are angst-ridden and usually violent affairs. Working backwards, Brexit was certainly angst-ridden, though was fortunately achieved without warfare. Other recent secession states also substantially avoided bloodshed: Slovakia and Slovenia, for example. And the three ex-Soviet Baltic States did manage to shift into both Nato and the European Union, again without bloodshed. Other secessions from ex-Soviet states did take place, militarily though successfully. The attempted secession of Chechnya from Russia was an unsuccessful and bloody affair.
Outside of the former Soviet Union, the secessions from the former Yugoslavia of Bosnia and Kosovo were bloody, and are still incomplete. The attempted secession of Catalonia from Spain failed. The secession from Sudan of South Sudan was a bloody success, though the new country continues to have many problems including tribal division.
Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1991, after a long war of independence. Sadly, Eritrea continued to be entangled with wars in Ethiopia. And it descended into becoming what might best be described as the ‘Stalinist’ state which it is today. Eritrea voted with Syria and Belarus in the UN General Assembly in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the mid-2010s, Eritrea – per capita – was a very significant source Mediterranean ‘boat people’ refugees.
In the 1970s, the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan was a successful though bloody affair. The attempted secession of Biafra from Nigeria was a bloody failure. Much more recently, the long Sr Lankan Civil War – a failed secession attempt by northern Tamils – ended in a bloodbath. The successful secession of Algeria from France in the 1960s was also a very bloody affair.
In the Caribbean, a number of countries seceded from their quasi-American de facto colonial realities: especially Cuba and Nicaragua. Two other attempted secessions were put down militarily through United States ‘gunboat diplomacy’; Grenada in the 1980s and the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. Across the Pacific, Philippines suffered similarly in 1900.
In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, a secession which included a rebellion and a civil war. Similar events occurred in Finland around the same time, as that country seceded from Russia. (Finland, by the way, could have been the model for Ukraine, in the early 2020s. An opportunity tragically squandered.)
A final country worth mentioning is Haiti, which successfully though bloodily (and with the help of an epidemic disease, yellow fever) seceded from France 220 years ago. Haiti’s secession was an uprising of plantation slaves; of Africans, transplanted into the ‘new world’, creating a neo-Africa which (like Eritrea) has been unable to live up to the aspirations of its founders. In all parts of the world, the road to post-secession success is commonly riddled with disappointments.
The US Civil War: The Confederate Secession
In 1860 the ‘Union’ of the United States of America was made up of 33 semi-autonomous states, divided informally into southern and eastern ‘slave states’ and northern and western ‘free states’. Seven of the former states seceded from the Union as the ‘Confederacy’ in February 1861, just weeks before the inauguration of newly elected president Abraham Lincoln. Hostilities began in April with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, a major Union military site now in Confederate territory.
Thus, Lincoln’s hand was somewhat forced in the direction of suppressing the secession. But it’s unlikely that Lincoln could have tolerated the secession for long, even had the Fort Sumter attack not taken place. After Lincoln called for troops to put down the secession, four more slave states joined the confederacy, including Virginia, adjacent to Washington DC. Washington itself was surrounded by slave states, with Maryland and Delaware – slave states to the north of the federal capital – showing divided loyalties.
By 1860, before the Civil War, the two-party political divide had become established, with the Democratic Party (founded by Thomas Jefferson) prevailing in the slave states, and Lincoln’s Republican Party prevailing in the free states. Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, had been a Democratic president.
The Civil War that followed lasted for four years and cost more lives in the United States than all other wars (before and after) combined. Latest estimates give an overall death toll of 750,000 in a country of just over 30 million people. The accepted number of civilian deaths is 50,000; although it was almost certainly higher. The demographic technique used to raise the death toll to 750,000 from 620,000 was based on comparisons between the 1860 and 1870 censuses, and focussed only on additional male deaths (using females as a control).
The Civil War was pursued by Lincoln as a war against secession, not a war against slavery; although of course the ‘right’ to maintain slaves was at the core of the secessionary movement. We should not presume that this was a war of northern anti-racists versus southern racists. Indeed the problem of ideological racism in the imperialist west was really only getting started in the 1860s, as the ideas of Social Darwinism took hold. Racism was becoming endemic throughout the western world; and, as well, it should be understood that tribalist and sectarian forms of racism were pretty much endemic in the non-western world.
Slavery was understood in 1860 as essentially a labour issue, rather than as a race issue. The division between north and south reflected divergent economic development, with the south taking a liberal free trade position (seeing its future in agrarian terms), whereas the north was pursuing a protectionist model of economic development through industrialisation and its need to stablish a strong domestic market for locally produced manufactured goods.
The Civil War became a particularly nasty war, fought mostly on Confederate territory, which became for a long time a military stalemate. From a Confederate point of view, this was a war of defence; defence of their territory from the destruction and depredation being inflicted by an invading force, a force superior in numbers but inferior in passion.
The Confederates miscalculated, in the sense that they hoped for much more support – including direct military support – from the United Kingdom and possibly France; the United Kingdom in particular was committed to the liberal free trade cost-competitive model of economic development. Nevertheless, the Confederate armies put up an amazing fight.
What were the counterfactuals? If Lincoln had withdrawn after Fort Sumter, and accepted the secession of the original seven states, then the savagery could have been avoided, and the slave issue would have been eventually resolved, probably as it was resolved in Brazil in the 1880s. But a display of apparent weakness on Lincoln’s part might have encouraged the remaining eight slave states to join the secession, leaving Washington DC – the Union capital – as a geographical enclave. And such apparent weakness could easily have led to further secessions in the mid-west and far-west. Had the secession succeeded, the USA today might have just been Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
An import part of the Civil War, and its brutality, was the ‘scorched earth’ deployment of Union troops through Georgia in 1864 – General Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’. Many wars of attrition have since followed that model of wanton destruction of land and people. The Georgia campaign may have been, literally, overkill. Could Lincoln have suppressed the secession with a lesser level of destruction?
What if Lincoln’s troops had lost the war? Today he would be zero rather than hero; known as a maker of widows. Perhaps a war criminal in light of the Georgia campaign? Washington would have become capital of a US Confederate state which would have gained international recognition soon enough; and slaves would have been freed eventually, decades later. Once matters get taken so far, there is no going back; there’s only victory or ignominy. Abraham Lincoln, like Julius Caesar, crossed his Rubicon.
Epilogue: The Great American Political Realignment
The origins of the Democratic Party lie in the southern plantations and in Thomas Jefferson’s agrarian dream of white liberal yeoman autonomy. The Republican Party – and its forerunner, the Federalist Party – began with Alexander Hamilton’s commitment to industrialisation and grew with the subsequent development of big business in the northern states. Jefferson was a libertarian slave-owning patrician. The more conservative Hamilton was of humbler origins, born in the British West Indies as the result of an ex-nuptial union; rumours that his mother was of ‘mixed race’ have not been substantiated. (Certainly, Jefferson had children of mixed race.) Hamilton would almost certainly have become an early American president; that is, had he not been killed in a duel.
A quick purview of the 1920 presidential election results shows a substantial win to the Republican Party. The alignment of red (Republican) and blue (Democrat) states very much reflected the conflicting origins of the two parties. The 2004 election, again a Republican victory, shows a near complete geographical switch. All the blue states in 1920 were red in 2004. And all the blue states in 2004 were red in 1920. The geographic switch largely happened in the 1970s and 1980s, though Bill Clinton being a southerner raised the Democrat vote in the 1990s in the south to higher levels than might otherwise have occurred.
Yet the Democrats continue to be the party of liberalism (although some aspects of the meaning of ‘liberalism’ in America have changed), and the Republicans continue to be the party of conservatism. As the party of liberalism, the Democrats have always been the party of internationalism, hence the greater and ongoing propensity of the Democrats to participate – or at least align – in international conflicts. Historically the more nationalist Republicans have taken a more neutral stance than the Democrats with respect to conflicts in Europe and Asia, preferring not to get involved.
The American Civil War was, in part, a desire on the part of the South to remain internationally connected; to sell cotton and tobacco to Europe, and to buy goods – and labourers – on the world market. The South paid a very high price in its quest to maintain its version of the good life. The North won a great victory, and then freed the slaves; Abraham Lincoln won his venerated place in history.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
In the course of her Met Gala attendances, Kim Kardashian has worn floral Givenchy (attending for the first time in 2013, pregnant with her first child), silver Balmain, gold Versace and latex “wet look” Thierry Mugler.
Last year, following the separation from her husband Ye (Kanye West) she wore head-to-toe black Balenciaga, an ensemble that rendered her a shadow, a silhouette, recognisable only by the familiar shape of her body.
This year, on the arm of new beau Pete Davidson, Kardashian has once again altered her body and reimagined her look. She lost 7kg in a matter of weeks and spent 14 hours bleaching her hair blonde: all to fit into a delicate, beaded Jean Louis dress, originally drawn by a young Bob Mackie and once worn by Marilyn Monroe.
The dress was famously worn by Marilyn Monroe. Getty Images
This is not just any vintage gown. This is a piece of American history. Monroe wore the dress in 1962 for the 45th birthday celebrations for President John F. Kennedy, where she famously serenaded him with a sultry rendition of Happy Birthday, Mr President.
The ethics of wearing such a fragile piece of material history are one thing. The logistics required – beyond the crash diet and hair dye – are quite another.
The elaborate nature of this performance attests to Kardashian’s commitment to the event, her dedication to fashion and her desire to attract maximum attention.
Vogue reports Kardashian wore the dress for only a matter of minutes, just as she walked the red carpet.
She was ushered out of her hotel through barricades against the paparazzi, fitted into the gown by a conservationist from the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum (who purchased the dress at auction in 2016 for a record US$4.8 million) in a small fitting room outside the museum, escorted up the steps by Davidson and hovering security guards, and then changed into a replica of the dress (also owned by Ripley’s) for the remainder of the party.
The interview in Vogue illustrates her reverence for Monroe, especially in that gown and at that historic event.
Monroe and Kardashian share much in common. They have recognisable bodies; famous for their sex appeal. They are petite women, 1.68cm and 1.57cm respectively. Both have been married three times. Kardashian, at 41, is just five years older than Monroe when she died, only three months after serenading the President at Madison Square Garden.
They are also vastly different. Monroe, a silver screen icon; an actor of remarkable talent. Kardashian, a reality TV star and icon of the modern celebrity age; famous for being famous.
By wearing this dress, radically (unhealthily) transforming her body into an approximation of Monroe, Kardashian attempted to reiterate their likeness.
Just as she has morphed herself into a facsimile of Cher or Naomi Campbell, or transformed her style under the tutelage of her ex-husband, Ye: Kardashian is nothing if not a fashion chameleon.
Reshaping the nature of celebrity
Kardashian is also irrefutably herself. She has constructed her own form of celebrity and has fought fiercely for its legitimacy. Her inclusion on the Met Gala guest list in the first place – initially only as Kanye’s plus-one – was hard won.
So, what does it mean for this peerless contemporary celebrity to appropriate the dress, the aura, the mythology of an historical Hollywood icon?
Some commentary has suggested Kardashian would be lucky to have half the charisma, the magic of Monroe. This may be correct, yet it also somewhat misses the point.
Regardless of your thoughts about Kardashian, it is undeniable she is an astute (albeit frequently tone deaf) business woman, who has made a living from her body and her ability to modify it.
For better or worse, she has altered the nature of celebrity and, along with her sisters, has reshaped American beauty ideals.
Of course, she is also a billionaire: one of the only women in the world with the financial means and cultural capital to acquire the rights to wear such a gown – extracted from its usual home in a temperature-controlled vault.
Other commentary decried the extravagance of the Met Gala itself. These familiar dissenting voices were perhaps louder than ever this year, as the event celebrated the so-called Gilded Age in American history (1870-1900) at a moment when political, economic, environmental and health crises the world over continue to proliferate.
However, that is the joy of fashion. It reminds us that, regardless of our differences, we are all bodies wrapped in garments. So, as women’s rights are brutally peeled back across the United States, I couldn’t help but revel in the extreme extravagance for a moment and savour this elaborate celebration of an iconic American woman.
Harriette Richards 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.
It is common to hear people use stigmatising, discriminatory and hurtful labels such as “psycho”, “schizo” or “totally bipolar”. Others might minimise conditions by saying they too are “a bit OCD” because they value structure and organisation.
This kind of everyday use of pseudo-clinical terms can be upsetting for young people who are struggling with these conditions. Worse still, it can stop them seeking care.
Clinical terms can have the same effect. For our recent research, we worked with young patients, carers and clinicians to develop new mental health vocabulary that carries less stigma, but remains accurate.
Labels can provide concise and understandable descriptions of clinical and theoretical ideas. Diagnoses enable patients and health professionals to follow evidence-based advice for effective care, because best practice guidelines are available for all labelled medical conditions.
In other words, naming a condition is the first step towards identifying the best treatment available. Labels can also help create communities of individuals who share a similar clinical description, and reassure individuals they are not alone.
On the other hand, labels can result in stigma and discrimination, poor engagement with services, increased anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and poorer mental health.
The process of posing a diagnosis, may treat an individual’s strengths or their vulnerabilities as abnormalities and pathologise them.
For example, a young person’s vivid imagination and artistic drive – strengths that allow them to produce wonderful artwork – might be recast as a sign of illness. Or their experience of growing up in poverty and disadvantage, could be seen as the cause of their mental illness, rather than environmental factors that may have merely contributed to it.
As such, clinicians should seek to understand a person’s difficulties through a holistic, humanistic and psychological perspective, prior to giving them a label.
Stigma around mental health labels may prevent young people seeking help. Unsplash, CC BY
In the past decade, there have been efforts to improve naming of psychiatric disorders. Attempts to update psychiatric terms and make them more culturally appropriate and less stigmatising have resulted in renaming schizophrenia in several countries.
Proposed terms such as Si Jue Shi Tiao (thought and perceptual dysregulation) in Hong Kong, and Johyenonbyung (attunement disorder) in South Korea, have been suggested as alternatives that carry less stigma and allow a more positive view of psychiatry.
These new terms, however, were generated by experts in the field. Consumers and clients within the mental health system have rarely been consulted, until now.
Thoughts from those ‘at risk’
Currently, “ultra-high risk (for psychosis)”, “at-risk mental state” and “attenuated psychosis syndrome” are used to describe young people at elevated risk of developing psychosis. But these labels can be stigmatising and damaging for the young people who receive them.
At Orygen, new, less stigmatising ways to describe the “risk for psychosis” concept were co-developed with young people with lived experience of mental ill-health.
During focus groups, former patients were asked how they would like their experiences to be termed if they were believed to be at risk for developing a mental illness.
This discussion resulted in them generating new terms such as “pre-diagnosis stage”, “potential for developing a mental illness” and “disposition for developing a mental illness”.
The terms were then presented to three groups: 46 young people identified as being at risk for psychosis and currently receiving care; 24 of their caregivers; and 52 clinicians caring for young people.
Most thought these new terms were less stigmatising than the current ones. The new terms were still judged as informative and illustrative of young people’s experiences.
Patients also told us they wanted terms like these to be fully disclosed and raised early in their care. This revealed a desire of transparency when dealing with mental ill-health and clinicians.
Labels can, and should, be revisited when stigma becomes associated with them.
Co-designing new diagnostic labels with patients, their carers and clinicians is empowering for all involved. Several similar projects are underway in Italy and Japan to include a cultural perspective in renaming terms related to young people at risk of developing serious mental ill health.
We hope to integrate and use more terms generated by young people in mainstream early intervention psychiatric services. We hope this will have a meaningful impact on young people’s mental health by allowing better access to care and less stigmatisation.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Vredenburg, Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Marketing, Auckland University of Technology
GettyImages
From Nike to Ben & Jerry’s to Airbnb, more and more brands are taking a stand on sociopolitical issues (often called brand activism), to the point it’s arguably become a component of any brand’s strategy.
But as consumers grow more accustomed to such initiatives, they’ve also become increasingly critical. While its clear many consumers want brands to take a stand, it’s not always clear what that stand should be.
So weighing in on a divisive issue becomes a calculated risk. Customers may stop buying a brand if it supports the “wrong” side of an issue, or supports it in the wrong way.
If and when this happens, the door opens for rival brands to pick up those disgruntled customers purely by remaining neutral on an issue, gaining an edge simply by observing and reacting to what the first brand has done. This raises an important question: is there a second mover advantage when it comes to brand activism?
Bystander brands and free agents
Take Gillette’s now infamous 2019 “The Best Men Can Be” campaign, for example. The short film features images of violence between boys, sexism in movies and at work, as well as news clips of the #MeToo movement. A voice asks, “Is this the best a man can get?”.
The day after the Gillette ad was released, rival Dollar Shave Club tweeted a short and simple message: “Welcome to the Club”. Comments on the tweet suggest it resonated with a group of consumers seemingly offended by the Gillette ad.
Our research examines what we call “bystander brands” that appeal to disaffected consumers of rival brands, who are offended by an activist stance and now “free agents” with no fixed brand allegiances.
As second movers, these bystander brands can, at least in the short term, benefit from consumer scepticism (or cynicism) fuelled by a perceived overload of brand activism – some of it inauthentic, opportunistic, imitative or just “woke washing” – which devalues such activism overall.
Our findings suggest that deliberate bystander brand strategies – waiting for a competitor to take a stand then appealing to alienated or offended customers – can appeal to certain consumers.
So far, research in this area has tended to focus on how sociopolitical brand activism works, how it can be most effective, and how companies can avoid reputational damage in the process.
But little has been said about brands that might be drawn into activist conversations simply through their competitors taking a stand. Rivals or bystander brands could remain silent on an issue, take a neutral stance, or announce an opposing position.
Appealing to a competitor’s customers is typically very challenging, given the strong psychological “contracts” that build brand loyalty. The fallout from brand activism represents a rare situation where market share is up for grabs.
For example, following Nike’s endorsement of Colin Kaepernick with its 2018 “Dream Crazy” campaign, many enraged customers looked for alternative athletic brands. What are the likes of Adidas and Under Armour to do in this position? Surprisingly, the research has yet to address this potential market share in limbo.
Brands have struggled to navigate activism in the modern era, with noticeable missteps around Black Lives Matter and #metoo. Steve Dykes/Getty Images
The conservative consumer
We find the desire to reject sociopolitical brand activism particularly true for customers who identify as “conservative”. While boycotting brands is a bipartisan affair, the way consumers engage in boycotts differs.
Past research finds conservatives can be quicker to seek punishment and want corrective action as a result of their moral outrage. Brand rivals are sometimes even viewed with hostility as the “enemy”. Switching from an offending brand to a rival satisfies a desire for retaliation, a pattern we observed across three studies.
Furthermore, our work finds that intentionally mentioning such rivalries in brand advertising is more effective at attracting “free agent” conservatives, relative to their more liberal counterparts, who were less concerned with brand rivalry or persuaded by advertising based on it.
Strategically, then, remaining “activism adjacent” as a bystander brand represents a critical opportunity. As other brands risk losing customers with sociopolitical platitudes or inauthentic campaigns, rivals can maintain relevance in an increasingly nuanced marketing landscape. It can be as simple as a cheeky tweet.
Para penulis tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi di luar afiliasi akademis yang telah disebut di atas.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
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Political Roundup: Trevor Mallard’s petty fiefdom
Is Parliament just the fiefdom of Trevor Mallard and his colleagues? That’s the impression the public might take from yesterday’s news that the Speaker of Parliament is issuing trespass notices to political opponents who visited the protest in March on the lawns of Parliament.
Speaker Mallard has the absolute right to decide who can and can’t visit Parliamentary grounds. However, in arbitrarily trespassing selected political figures, he brings both himself and the institution of Parliament into yet more disrepute. In particular, the decision to threaten New Zealand First leader Winston Peters with arrest if he visits Parliament makes a further mockery of how authorities have dealt with dissent. A sense of pettiness now pervades Mallard and those that defend him.
Parliament already has a bad rap. Poll after poll shows confidence in and respect for the institution has been declining in recent times.
One of the big problems is that Parliament and politicians are seen as out of touch, elite, and aloof. To get a better understanding of the problem, in 2018 Parliament actually commissioned a Colmar Brunton survey into how the public feels about Parliament. The results were so bad they were buried.
Here’s what New Zealanders think of Parliament:
21% “feel a sense of ownership of Parliament”
16% “feel connected to Parliament”
13% “would speak highly of Parliament”
7% “would speak highly of MPs”
27% trusted Parliament, compared to 29% who expressed distrust, and 41% who declared trust in the “civil service”
60% “believe big business and vocal minorities are the ones who influence Parliament”
37% “feel there’s no point in trying to influence Parliament as nothing will change”
These results are a real problem for an institution that is constitutionally regarded as the “people’s place”. And Mallard’s actions over the protest, and attempts to punish those people who attended the protest just reinforce the notion that Parliament is actually just the fiefdom of elites.
The big problem for Mallard in sending out trespass orders to figures who came to observe the protest is that it is entirely arbitrary and issued without justification. Over the course of the weeks of the protest, the site was visited by dozens, if not hundreds, of journalists, politicians, academics, public servants, and so forth.
I was one of these – visiting as an academic researcher of politics and political commentator. Like many others, I wasn’t there to support the protest in any way but to observe and try to understand what was occurring. In my case, I made it clear that I opposed the politics of those protesting.
To what extent Winston Peters was opposed to the protesters is less clear. But there has been no attempt for Speaker Mallard to explain why Peters is being legally banned from the place. Was he considered part of the protest? Or in some way encouraging it? We don’t know.
It seems unlikely that other observers at the protest such as media and academics will be trespassed, because that would surely create an immense fightback by all those who value democratic principles. But in lieu of such public figures – or even just neutral members of the public – being trespassed, Mallard needs to explain such inconsistencies. At the moment it looks as if he is simply targeting those that he doesn’t like.
If the criteria is that anyone who visited and was perceived to show support for an illegal occupation should be banned then there will be many current and former MPs, – especially Māori MPs from Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori – who would end up with quite a stack of trespass orders. That’s the problem with denying access to basic human and democratic rights to score political points – own goals are inevitable in the end.
Being the representative of Parliament, and the Labour Party who keeps him in the role, Mallard’s actions also reflect on the rest of the politicians in the institution. Those who stand by his decisions on this issue will have to also bear responsibility for them. And those that don’t will need to make their opposition clear.
As with all of Mallard’s other missteps over managing the protest, this one also seems destined to backfire. Not only will his actions reinforce the sense of persecution of the actual protesters, who felt conspiracies and the heavy hand of the state, but it will boost the political chances of Winston Peters in his attempted electoral comeback.
Peters is now well placed to enter the upcoming Tauranga by-election, and potentially do very well. By-elections can throw up some odd surprises, as voters don’t feel constrained to vote with the same degree of seriousness as in general elections. A large proportion of locals might well want to use a vote for Peters as a protest vote against the Government, or even just a slap in the face of Mallard for being dictatorial. And given that National appears to have chosen a weak and uninspiring candidate, anything could happen.
Of course, a surprise win by Peters would make Mallard’s trespass order somewhat moot and embarrassing, as the Speaker would have to rescind it to allow a triumphant Peters to take up his elected place.
Regardless of this unlikely scenario, there seems a good chance that Mallard will be forced to rescind the trespass notices, and stop sending out more. His survival as Speaker might depend on it. Certainly, if wiser heads around him, such as the Prime Minister, care about how the public feels about the institution of Parliament, or even about the Labour Party, then Mallard’s overreach will soon be put on notice.
Further reading on Mallard’s trespassing of Winston Peters
There’s something wonderful about sitting under the night sky, watching a meteor shower play out overhead. However, observers in the southern hemisphere usually get the short end of the stick, with most of the best showers strongly favouring those north of the equator.
Every May, however, southern observers get a special treat – the Eta Aquariid meteor shower. This year conditions promise to be perfect, making it the ideal opportunity for some autumnal meteor observation.
The forecast peak for this year’s Eta Aquariids falls on the morning of Saturday, May 7. The Moon is well out of the way, so meteors won’t be lost in its glare.
But what if skies are cloudy? Well, if you miss the morning of the peak, don’t panic! The Eta Aquariids are famed for their broad peak, and meteor rates typically stay high for about a week around the peak (May 4–11). So if Saturday morning is cloudy, try looking again on Sunday, or even Monday.
To get the best view, you’ll want to get up in the early hours of the morning and be well away from any bright city lights. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness. Take a chair or recliner to get comfortable, relax and gaze skywards.
You won’t even need a telescope! To best observe meteor showers, you’ll want to watch as wide an area of sky as possible. Using a telescope or binoculars would make the spectacle almost impossible to observe.
Dust and debris from a famous comet
As the Earth orbits the Sun, it continually runs into dust and debris from comets and asteroids. Every April and May, the Earth spends about six weeks traversing a river of dust left behind by the famous Comet 1P/Halley.
Comet 1P/Halley was photographed on March 8, 1986, during its last pass around the Sun. NASA/W. Liller
Every 76 years or so, Comet Halley swings close to the Sun. Its icy surface heats up until the ices boil off into space in a process called “sublimation”. This shrouds the comet in a gaseous coma, which is blown away from the Sun to generate the comet’s tail.
The gas escaping Halley’s surface carries dust grains, which gradually spread around the comet’s orbit. Some move ahead of the comet, while others lag behind.
Over thousands of years, the space around Halley’s orbit has become thick with dust grains. The comet is essentially moving through a dirty snowstorm of its own making! And each year, the Earth runs through that broad river of dust – giving birth to the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
Interestingly, the Earth runs into Halley’s debris again in October, producing the famous Orionid meteor shower. But we get a better show in May each year with the Eta Aquariids, as this is when we move closer to the centre of the dust stream.
When dust left behind by a comet smashes into Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes a spectacular fiery streak of light high in the sky. This usually happens about 80km above the ground, although the largest bits of debris can penetrate pretty deep into the atmosphere before burning up entirely.
The dust grains in a meteor shower all move around the Sun at essentially the same speed and in the same direction. This means the grains are also travelling in the same direction as they hit the Earth.
But as they move towards an observer on the ground, that observer’s perspective will make their paths diverge, and they will seem to be radiating out from a single point in the sky. That point is known as a shower’s “radiant”.
The Orionid meteors are a great example of how meteors in a shower seem to radiate from a single point in the sky. Phil Hart
Meteors showers are named for the constellation in which their radiant lies. So the Eta Aquariids have a radiant near the star Eta Aquarii – the tenth-brightest star in Aquarius.
To see the Eta Aquariids, you’ll need to wait until the radiant rises – before that, the body of the Earth gets in the way. We’re lucky here in the southern hemisphere, as the Eta Aquariid radiant rises in the east at around 1:30 to 2am, local time.
The Eta Aquariids radiant will rise between 1.20am and 2.20am for cities across Australia. Museums Victoria
While the Eta Aquariid meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky, the ideal place to see the best number of meteors is about 45 degrees to the left or right of the radiant itself.
Fortunately, this year we have another spectacular sight in the morning sky. Four planets – Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Venus – will all be in a line. To see the best meteor show, look about 45 degrees to the left or right of this line of planets.
The line of planets and the Eta Aquariid radiant as they will appear at around 4am on May 7 from Sydney (rising in the east). The sky will look mostly the same from Brisbane, Canberra and Perth at 4am (local time), Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide at 4:30am (local time) and Darwin at 5am (local time). Museums Victoria/Stellarium
To see how the planets and radiant will rise from your location, visit the Stellarium planetarium website, set your location and move the date and time forward to the morning of May 7. If you turn on the “constellations” and “constellations art” (at the bottom of the screen), you can watch Aquarius and the planets rising from the comfort of your computer.
How many meteors should I expect to see?
The Eta Aquariids are the second best shower of the year for people in Australia. They can put on a spectacular show – but don’t expect to see meteors falling like snowflakes.
When the radiant first rises above the horizon, at around 1.30am, meteors from the shower will be few and far between. If you see five or six Eta Aquariids in that first hour, you should probably count yourself lucky.
That said, these early meteors could be really spectacular. Known as “Earth grazers”, they often seem to streak from near one horizon all the way across the sky. Earth grazers are the result of meteors hitting our atmosphere at a very shallow angle, almost edge on. They’re rare, but incredible to witness!
As the night goes on, and the radiant climbs higher into the sky, the number of meteors should increase. In the hour before dawn, you could easily see 20 to 30 meteors per hour.
Oh, and a word of warning: meteors are like buses – if you’re expecting 30 per hour, you can easily wait ten minutes and see nothing, before three come along at once. Make sure you dress warm so you can stay under the stars for at least half an hour, if not more!
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
There’s something wonderful about sitting under the night sky, watching a meteor shower play out overhead. However, observers in the southern hemisphere usually get the short end of the stick, with most of the best showers strongly favouring those north of the equator.
Every May, however, southern observers get a special treat – the Eta Aquariid meteor shower. This year conditions promise to be perfect, making it the ideal opportunity for some autumnal meteor observation.
The forecast peak for this year’s Eta Aquariids falls on the morning of Saturday, May 7. The Moon is well out of the way, so meteors won’t be lost in its glare.
But what if skies are cloudy? Well, if you miss the morning of the peak, don’t panic! The Eta Aquariids are famed for their broad peak, and meteor rates typically stay high for about a week around the peak (May 4–11). So if Saturday morning is cloudy, try looking again on Sunday, or even Monday.
To get the best view, you’ll want to get up in the early hours of the morning and be well away from any bright city lights. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness. Take a chair or recliner to get comfortable, relax and gaze skywards.
You won’t even need a telescope! To best observe meteor showers, you’ll want to watch as wide an area of sky as possible. Using a telescope or binoculars would make the spectacle almost impossible to observe.
Dust and debris from a famous comet
As the Earth orbits the Sun, it continually runs into dust and debris from comets and asteroids. Every April and May, the Earth spends about six weeks traversing a river of dust left behind by the famous Comet 1P/Halley.
Comet 1P/Halley was photographed on March 8, 1986, during its last pass around the Sun. NASA/W. Liller
Every 76 years or so, Comet Halley swings close to the Sun. Its icy surface heats up until the ices boil off into space in a process called “sublimation”. This shrouds the comet in a gaseous coma, which is blown away from the Sun to generate the comet’s tail.
The gas escaping Halley’s surface carries dust grains, which gradually spread around the comet’s orbit. Some move ahead of the comet, while others lag behind.
Over thousands of years, the space around Halley’s orbit has become thick with dust grains. The comet is essentially moving through a dirty snowstorm of its own making! And each year, the Earth runs through that broad river of dust – giving birth to the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
Interestingly, the Earth runs into Halley’s debris again in October, producing the famous Orionid meteor shower. But we get a better show in May each year with the Eta Aquariids, as this is when we move closer to the centre of the dust stream.
When dust left behind by a comet smashes into Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes a spectacular fiery streak of light high in the sky. This usually happens about 80km above the ground, although the largest bits of debris can penetrate pretty deep into the atmosphere before burning up entirely.
The dust grains in a meteor shower all move around the Sun at essentially the same speed and in the same direction. This means the grains are also travelling in the same direction as they hit the Earth.
But as they move towards an observer on the ground, that observer’s perspective will make their paths diverge, and they will seem to be radiating out from a single point in the sky. That point is known as a shower’s “radiant”.
The Orionid meteors are a great example of how meteors in a shower seem to radiate from a single point in the sky. Phil Hart
Meteors showers are named for the constellation in which their radiant lies. So the Eta Aquariids have a radiant near the star Eta Aquarii – the tenth-brightest star in Aquarius.
To see the Eta Aquariids, you’ll need to wait until the radiant rises – before that, the body of the Earth gets in the way. We’re lucky here in the southern hemisphere, as the Eta Aquariid radiant rises in the east at around 1:30 to 2am, local time.
The Eta Aquariids radiant will rise between 1.20am and 2.20am for cities across Australia. Museums Victoria
While the Eta Aquariid meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky, the ideal place to see the best number of meteors is about 45 degrees to the left or right of the radiant itself.
Fortunately, this year we have another spectacular sight in the morning sky. Four planets – Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Venus – will all be in a line. To see the best meteor show, look about 45 degrees to the left or right of this line of planets.
The line of planets and the Eta Aquariid radiant as they will appear at around 4am on May 7 from Sydney (rising in the east). The sky will look mostly the same from Brisbane, Canberra and Perth at 4am (local time), Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide at 4:30am (local time) and Darwin at 5am (local time). Museums Victoria/Stellarium
To see how the planets and radiant will rise from your location, visit the Stellarium planetarium website, set your location and move the date and time forward to the morning of May 7. If you turn on the “constellations” and “constellations art” (at the bottom of the screen), you can watch Aquarius and the planets rising from the comfort of your computer.
How many meteors should I expect to see?
The Eta Aquariids are the second best shower of the year for people in Australia. They can put on a spectacular show – but don’t expect to see meteors falling like snowflakes.
When the radiant first rises above the horizon, at around 1.30am, meteors from the shower will be few and far between. If you see five or six Eta Aquariids in that first hour, you should probably count yourself lucky.
That said, these early meteors could be really spectacular. Known as “Earth grazers”, they often seem to streak from near one horizon all the way across the sky. Earth grazers are the result of meteors hitting our atmosphere at a very shallow angle, almost edge on. They’re rare, but incredible to witness!
As the night goes on, and the radiant climbs higher into the sky, the number of meteors should increase. In the hour before dawn, you could easily see 20 to 30 meteors per hour.
Oh, and a word of warning: meteors are like buses – if you’re expecting 30 per hour, you can easily wait ten minutes and see nothing, before three come along at once. Make sure you dress warm so you can stay under the stars for at least half an hour, if not more!
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.
Josh Frydenberg says they are fake independents, John Howard called them anti-Liberal groupies, Scott Morrison points out they are only standing in Liberal seats, and that a vote for them is in fact a vote for Labor.
Well, they would say this, wouldn’t they, as the Liberal heartland fractures, risking not only the return of the government but the careers of its more promising golden sons.
It is now clear Frydenberg is fighting for his future in Kooyong, against paediatric neurologist Monique Ryan. If he loses, he won’t be the next federal Liberal leader.
There are 15 teal candidates standing against incumbents in the lower house, but the ones to watch are in the once blue ribbon Liberal seats of the comfortable middle and upper middle class: Kooyong and Goldstein in Victoria, Wentworth, North Sydney and Bradfield in New South Wales, and Curtin in Western Australia.
The challengers are all well-educated, well-connected professional women, from a range of occupations – medicine, journalism, business, finance. Tellingly, none has been a political staffer. They would bring real life experience into the parliament, and they are backed by strong community campaigns.
The strength of support for these candidates in once blue ribbon Liberal seats reveals a fracturing of the Liberal Party’s traditional support among the upper middle class. Two of the women, Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney, are from families with deep connections to the Liberal Party. Both have the name recognition an independent needs to win.
These candidates have taken the “Voices of …” identity from Cathy McGowan’s successful 2013 campaign against Sophie Mirabella in the Victorian seat of Indi. McGowan has also been an important source of advice on how to organise a community-based campaign.
But these candidates are crucially different from McGowan, who was elected to make a noise about local issues in a rural electorate, such as an unreliable mobile phone network.
While the teal independents have taken the ‘voices of …’ slogan and advice from Cathy McGowan, the campaigns are crucially different. AAP/Mick Tsikas
The teal candidates in these once safe Liberal seats are not campaigning for better local facilities. They are arguing instead for different national policies – on climate change, a federal integrity commission and the treatment of women, with climate change the most important. These are all matters of national policy on which the federal government has failed to lead. In terms of the history of the Liberal Party, these candidates represent a significant class defection.
In the early 20th century, when it became clear Labor aspired to be a party of government, the established middle-class parties fought off the challenge with two core arguments: poorly educated working men and trade unionists did not have the skills or experience to provide competent government; and the party of the trade unions and the working class would be a sectional party that would govern on behalf of its supporters and not of the nation as a whole.
As Labor’s electoral support grew, these two claims buoyed the political self-confidence of the social formation I call “the moral middle class”. They were the people with the education and worldly experience to manage the nation’s affairs. They had the character, integrity and perspective to put the national interest before their own.
We hear weak echoes of these arguments in Morrison’s repeated refrain that only the Coalition can be trusted with the national government’s core responsibilities of economic management and national security. But that is all they are now, the weakest of echoes that Morrison barely understands.
The plausibility of the Liberals’ claims to superior competence has been undermined both by its policy failures in government since 2013 and the poor calibre and performance of many of its ministers. The team Morrison is taking to this election cannot claim to be more competent than Labor’s. It is the B team of a tired government, with some spectacularly poor performers, such as the bumbling Richard Colbeck.
Likewise, the plausibility of the Liberals’ historic claim to a commitment to national rather than sectional interests has been undermined by the government’s failure to take climate change seriously and its capture by the fossil fuel lobby, the soft corruption of its electoral bribery, its refusal of an effective federal integrity commission, and its electoral strategy of largely ignoring the interests of those unlikely to vote Liberal in favour of men in hard hats.
Morrison thinks more like a campaign director than a prime minister, so if your vote is already locked in you are of little interest, no matter what contribution your work might be making to the nation.
The Morrison government’s claim they operate in national rather than sectional interests does not stand up to scrutiny, abandoning many voters in favour of men in hard hats. AAP/Lukas Coch
Since John Howard, the Liberal Party has increased its support among less well-educated, suburban and regional manual workers, and argued Labor is the party of the inner-city elites. The culture wars morphing into the climate wars were crucial in this shift, as were election campaigns focused on the hip pockets of aspirational voters.
The relationship between tertiary education and voting has shifted, with higher levels of education increasingly correlating with voting for Labor or the Greens. The cost is the increasing alienation of the well-educated elites who once gave the Liberals their support.
Judith Brett 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.
It’s hard to survive in bitterly cold Antarctica. But the ice continent is home to more than 1,100 species who have adapted to life on land and in its lakes.
Penguins are the most well known, but Antarctica’s diversity lies in its microbes and species like mosses, lichens and tardigrades (water bears). Most of these survive in the few ice-free areas on the continent.
Our new research provides a comprehensive inventory of Antarctic species. We believe it will help the 54 nations who are party to the Antarctic Treaty fulfil one of its major conservation goals – the continent-wide protection of Antarctic species.
Despite their toughness, climate change, introduced species and human activities pose growing threats for these species. We need rapid and widespread protection for Antarctica’s biodiversity if these species are to survive.
How can so many species live in Antarctica?
Our inventory found 1,142 land and lake-dwelling species currently known to live on the Antarctic continent. This list is dominated by extraordinarily resilient groups, such as lichens, mosses and invertebrates, which have evolved to thrive under extreme conditions.
The number of species within each taxonomic group that live in Antarctica. Groups like bacteria with poorly-resolved species lists are excluded. Laura M. Phillips
These species have developed unique adaptations to live in this frozen desert, where sub-zero temperatures are the norm and life sustaining water is often locked up as ice.
Antarctic mosses have the incredible ability to freeze and almost completely dry out. They come back to life during the brief periods when it’s warm enough for ice to melt, and take advantage of liquid water to rehydrate and grow.
A moss bed at Casey Station, Antarctica. Laura M. Phillips Tardigrade in its active form and after freezing. Laura M. Phillips
Tardigrades are, famously, masters of survival. During tough times, they can enter a frozen, inactive state very close to death. Some have remained frozen for over 30 years before recovering and resuming their normal lives as if nothing happened.
And then, of course, there are the penguins. Five of the world’s 18 species live in Antarctica, with another four species on sub-Antarctic islands. These birds are built for the cold with thick layers of insulating fat and feathers to keep warm.
Gentoo penguin adult and chicks. Steven L. Chown
Isn’t Antarctica already protected?
It’s a common belief that Antarctica is already highly protected. But, in practice, this is only true for specific areas.
In 1991, the nations party to the Antarctic Treaty agreed to conserve the unique continent through the Madrid Protocol. This agreement set the foundations for a network of 75 protected areas – those with outstanding environmental, scientific, historic, aesthetic and wilderness value.
This approach aided conservation, by restricting entry and limiting what people can do, safeguarding biodiversity from issues such as wildlife disturbance, pollution, and introduction of invasive species.
But there are still large gaps, leaving many species unprotected.
One solution is already outlined in the Madrid Protocol: protect the “type localities” of each species. This refers to the location where the very first specimen of a species was collected and described. These specimens are crucial for taxonomy, as they act as the point of reference to check against unknown or ambiguous specimens.
Vegetation on the Clark Peninsula, Antarctica, the type locality for five lichen species. Laura M. Phillips
Importantly, protecting the type locality of a species ensures any species can be protected, even if we know little about their habitat or distribution. This is especially important for Antarctic species, because for many, the type locality is the only known location for that species.
To date, however, no Antarctic protected areas have been created specifically to conserve type localities. That’s where our research can help.
What needs to be done?
The reason there are no protected areas of this kind is because we haven’t had a comprehensive list of Antarctic species and their type localities. That’s why we undertook this research.
Once we had the list, we mapped the type localities across the continent to see how many of these sites are currently protected.
The distribution of protected (green) and unprotected (purple) type localities across Antarctica. Rachel I. Leihy
We found more than a quarter (28%) of all species already have their type localities protected for other reasons, such as scientific interest or wildlife colonies. That’s because they occur in the few and small ice free areas across the continent, where most of the existing protected areas have been created. The remaining 72% of the continent’s type localities are not protected in this way.
There is now a great opportunity to protect these localities. If we focus first on areas with multiple type localities, we could get many more species protected.
Over time, we could expand this network. We estimate another 105 new protected areas would cover all remaining type localities.
We would also need to update the plans for existing protected areas to ensure the value of type localities are taken into account.
Longer term, we will need to embrace a systematic conservation framework across Antarctica to ensure the world’s last great wilderness remains full of life.
Laura Phillips is affiliated with Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Rachel Leihy works for the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research and is affiliated with Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
This research was done as a part of the Australian Research Council funded program Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, and it was also funded by an Australian Antarctic Program grant.
Review: Gillian Wearing Editing Life, and Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #58, PHOTO 2022.
As we struggle to recover from the pandemic, “Being Human” – the theme of this year’s PHOTO 2022 international biennale in Melbourne – could not be more apt.
It is a recognition that interacting with other humans is the most cherished part of being alive, and one which we enthusiastically embrace.
This biennale has a wealth of outdoor experiences as well as indoor ones. Walks around Melbourne create surprise encounters in the city (or curated walks and cycle tours are available).
There are five stands: society, nature, history, mortality and self. The latter two are keenly addressed in works by Gillian Wearing at ACMI and Cindy Sherman outside the NGV Australia.
Through their close proximity, the PHOTO 2022 curators have effectively encouraged a conversation between artists.
Both adopt impressive scale. Sherman’s work is larger than most billboards at 20 metres high. Wearing’s giant floor-to-ceiling self-portraits wrap around the gallery.
Both artists use their own bodies and faces to communicate ideas beyond the self; they connect to human experience of the world, mortality and gender.
British conceptual artist Gillian Wearing is on display at ACMI in a survey of four works.
In Rock ‘n’ Roll 70 Wallpaper, she asked collaborators to visualise how she might look when she is 70, creating 15 different imaginary photographic portraits.
Using age rendering tools created by artificial intelligence, her possible future selves are depicted.
The images’ size, as a collage of portraits extending floor to ceiling, create a dramatic experience while also illuminating the psychological dimension of the portraits.
On walking into the gallery, you are surrounded by the many kinds of expressions and gazes of a variously aged Wearing: vulnerable, defensive, benign.
The work asks us to question how we feel about and react to ageing. How we might respond to not knowing whether an image is a truthful depiction. And, emotionally, how we contemplate the unknown factor of what time will impose upon the human form.
A second work is a deep fake video made with collaborators Wieden+Kennedy, a global advertising agency best known for working with Nike.
In the video, a digital mask of Wearing’s face is disconcertingly mapped onto the faces of others, making them eerily familiar and yet unknown. The participants were strangers responding to an advertisement to be in the film. On watching this, I am struck by the question: what is the true self? Are you obedient to social norms, a fraud, an authentic or frustrated character?
A person is more than a name, or an image. We embody and reflect experiences. Can we be who we say we are, or the persona we offer to the world?
The work creates the impression we are all one, an idea undercut by knowing that these are all constructed portraits.
There are two self-portraits, one of Wearing at age 17, and another titled Self-Portrait of Me Now in A Mask. Together, they expand Wearing’s reflection on ageing. The latter explicitly picks up on Wearing’s extensive interest in masking, self-production and personas.
As the video work in the exhibition offers:
We all wear masks. We’re all actors. When you leave your front door in the morning, you’re putting on a performance for the world.
Cindy Sherman and women photographers
Sherman’s work conveys a similar sentiment.
All representation – even of real things – is selected and presented by someone. When we are photographed, we offer an idea of ourselves to the photographer, we perform ourselves. The photographer selects the frame, the tone, the style and which image is presented.
From this point of view, an image is never neutral.
The American artist Cindy Sherman has portrayed herself in her photographs as film stars, unhappy housewives, socialites and other iconic female roles — conveying commentary on gender and celebrity.
The scale of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Photograph #58 is spectacular. Lisa French
The image outside the NGV Australia on Flinders Street, Untitled Film Still #58, is one from a series of 69 self-portraits Sherman produced from 1977-80. All in black and white, they recall scenes from movies. In most of those images, a single female figure appears as if caught spontaneously.
The monumental presence in Flinders Street is spectacular. The woman looks at something beyond the frame – as many in this series do – and the averted gaze invites the viewer to contemplate both the woman and what is just out of frame.
Perhaps she is aware of being looked at or objectified, concerned with being on the street and wary of the urban environment.
Wearing edits life while Sherman imitates it, but in all of these works, the images are not about the photographers themselves as people. They draw on their experience, but are about issues such as what women face in their lives, bodies and culture, and about how visual representations construct meaning.
Gillian Wearing: Editing Life and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #58 are on display until 22 May.
Lisa French 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.
Keir Starmer, Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern.Getty Images Europe, Lukas Coch/ AAP Image, and Robert Kitchin/Pool Photo via AP
With due caution about the (in)accuracy of opinion polls, Australian voters may bring in a Labor government on May 21. If so, what kind of government would they get?
One obstacle to answering this is that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been out of office for so long, having lost three elections since 2013. And it’s difficult to find comparable case studies, as the social-democratic left has generally not performed well in various elections over the past decade or more.
British Labour, for example, has lost four elections since 2010, although it’s showing signs of revival with Keir Starmer at the helm.
And the tide may be turning in the left’s favour. New Zealand Labour formed a coalition government after the 2017 election and then, following an election dominated by COVID-19 in 2020, hit a record high of 50% and won a single-party majority (virtually unheard of under the proportional MMP system).
And in Germany, social democrat Olaf Scholz now leads a coalition as federal chancellor following last year’s election.
ALP Leader Anthony Albanese and Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison at the first leaders’ debate of the 2022 federal election in April. AP
Three brands of labour
The three labour parties (British, Australian and New Zealand) have converged around some key values and ideas, indicating how the ALP might govern. There’s always likely to be a gap between rhetoric and actual policy implementation, but examination of leaders’ speeches gives some evidence about where they’re heading.
Our comparative analysis of speeches by the three party leaders indicates a “thin” labourism in relation to the parties’ social-democratic traditions.
ALP leader Anthony Albanese’s key speeches since becoming leader in 2019 show he’s big on economic growth, with an emphasis on social mobility (“aspiration”), fairness and security.
Along with talk of jobs and wages – essential themes for any politician wishing to appeal to working people – there’s reference to nation-building and infrastructure. These themes are reflected in the approach being taken by shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers.
Albanese, Starmer and New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern are alike in that their speeches use the words “economy”, “growth” and “jobs” more than any others – although Ardern refers to the environment noticeably more frequently than the other two.
Like Starmer and Ardern, Albanese downplays traditional social-democratic vocabulary like “progressive”, “dignity”, “solidarity” and “equality”. These leaders also lack the enthusiasm of the third-way “soft neoliberals” who governed during an era of deregulation and downsizing and yet claimed they could “modernise” social democracy, as popularised by the UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair.
Safe centrism
Today’s labour leaders do, however, steer a “safe” centrist path between being pro-growth (or at least not anti-business) and seeking gains for low- and middle-income earners.
They normally avoid explicit talk of class, redistribution and trade unions. None of them critiques the market economy – they just want it to be fairer. Once in office, the gains for workers from a labour government will be incremental, not transformational.
One can see this in New Zealand. The pandemic has meant a major detour, but Ardern hasn’t made great progress towards her avowed social goals: getting everyone into an affordable home and reducing child poverty. The gains she can cite are incremental at best.
Under Albanese, the ALP removed some politically troublesome tax policies which had originally been intended to deliver greater fairness. Labor reversed its 2019 policy positions on negative gearing, capital gains tax and franking credits. Further, Albanese announced no lift in the unemployment benefit under Labor, and also signed up to the Coalition’s stage three tax cuts – in effect removing an entire income tax bracket.
In the campaign he presents himself as professional, “reasonable” and a safe pair of hands – but above all, not radical. There have been some “gaffes and stumbles” and then a positive COVID test, but the latest polls will be reassuring.
A thin ideological platform
One impact of the pandemic has been a return of strong governmental action backed by borrowing. At the state level, premiers (notably Labor premiers) have gained credit for taking more decisive (or less indecisive) actions to prevent spread of the disease, reduce pressures on hospitals and save lives.
New Zealand Labour’s exemplary performance in disease control showed how a government can be rewarded electorally for this – although recent opinion polls show Ardern’s government could be beaten by a centre-right coalition next year.
Ardern’s commitment to lift the minimum wage, and Starmer’s and Albanese’s focus on job security exemplify the incremental approach that’s focused on workers but doesn’t want to “frighten the horses” of capitalism.
Labour leaders have to work harder than their centre-right opponents to convince voters they’re not anti-business, that they understand macroeconomic policy and that they won’t get too tax-hungry – and yet also appeal to those for whom “economy” might mean how the next paycheck will cover rent and groceries.
Labour parties now find themselves on a thin ideological platform, anxious not to be an easy target for their pro-business opponents, especially during an election campaign.
An attenuated social-democratic value base is all that’s left now.
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.
The Reserve Bank, as expected, has thrown its wild card into the election campaign, but neither government nor opposition can be sure which side will be more damaged, or advantaged, by it.
Tuesday’s interest rate rise had been anticipated, was inevitable, and is the result substantially (though not entirely) of external forces. As to its timing: given the recent big inflation spike, the bank could not credibly have held off for another month.
Governor Philip Lowe made it clear the (independent) bank did not take into account any political considerations, in what is the first rise during a campaign since 2007, the election John Howard lost. “The election has no influence at all on today’s decision,” Lowe said.
But the decision feeds into this volatile battle, so will have political fallout. It will affect voters’ mood and anxieties. They may attribute blame.
It was obvious the extraordinarily low interest rates from the height of the pandemic could not and would not last. But many people (and, earlier, the Reserve Bank itself) had not expected rates to start to move up again as soon as this.
Indeed, at one stage the bank said it did not anticipate an increase before 2024. Not only was it wrong in that judgement, but some critics are now saying it should have acted earlier than now to raise rates.
The bank is starting on a road to “normalise” rates. The trouble is that the totally abnormal levels necessary in the COVID economy have become “normal” in the minds of many people, some of whom used them to bid up home prices in the expectation they would be able to afford the payments.
The rise of 25 basis points, taking the cash rate to 0.35%, was larger than the economic experts had been forecasting. But it is not just this one rise that will have an impact on voters’ calculations. Lowe made it plain more will follow, indicating the official rate will probably reach 2.5% at some unspecified time.
Some people are well placed at the moment to deal with this increase, having fixed rate mortgages and money put away. But others are not.
And, crucially, the rise comes on top of living costs going up on many other fronts. This will make it difficult for many people to cope. Some, even if not over-stretched immediately, will be anxious about how they will be placed in the future, such as when the fixed rate on their mortgage ends.
Politically, there will be cross currents.
The Essential poll, released on Tuesday, showed cost of living at the top of issues important to people “when it comes to voting at this year’s federal election”: 47% said it was “very important”, and 32% said was “important”.
Significantly, when people were asked which party they trusted more to manage various issues, on cost of living 40% said Labor, 30% said the Coalition, and 30% saw no difference.
That result is bad for the government. It suggests while polls usually give the Coalition the edge on economic management, when the economy issue gets down to the nitty gritty of household budgets, the government’s advantage may evaporate.
Morrison is also hoist on his own petard. On Monday, asked whether a rate rise would hurt the Coalition, the PM said, “It’s not about what it means for politics. I mean, sometimes you guys always think, see things, through a totally political lens.”
But of course Morrison mostly puts a political frame around economic data, extracting as much credit as possible when it’s good. So it would not be surprising if he cops a political backlash for something basically out of his control.
Morrison argued on Tuesday the government had provided a “shield” for Australians in the budget against cost of living pressures, just as it had provided them with an economic “shield” during the pandemic. (The government on Tuesday quickly announced that if re-elected it would freeze for two years the “deeming” rate used to determine the income earned by pensioners and beneficiaries from financial assets “to ensure payments are not reduced as earnings increase from deposit accounts held by social security recipients”. The PM described this as another “shield”.)
But Morrison’s basic pitch is that the rate rise reinforces the case for this not being a time for voters to risk switching to an alternative without an economic plan and an opposition leader who couldn’t remember some basic statistics.
The government will ramp up its “don’t risk it” warning even further in coming days. Negative messages are powerful in elections. But whether Morrison, himself viewed so negatively by voters, can drive this one home is another matter.
Michelle Grattan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.
In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn canvass the Reserve Bank’s increase in interest rates, and which side wins or loses from it, as cost of living is centre stage in the election battle. They also discuss Anthony Albanese’s launch, and the implications for the Liberals if Josh Frydenberg were to lose in Kooyong.
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.
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe has announced he will lift the cash rate for the first time in a decade, by 0.25 percentage points, taking it from 0.10% to 0.35%.
Most market economists thought the bank would raise rates, but they were divided as to whether the bank would start small by lifting rates from 0.10% to 0.25%, or jump all the way to 0.50%.
The bank seems to have been similarly torn, and come in halfway between.
Backtracking on previous guidance
The hike comes despite the bank’s previous statements that it was keen to wait until the latest data on wages, due in a fortnight (just before the election).
Last Wednesday’s inflation news, which showed prices climbing much faster than expected, forced the bank to revise its stance and act quickly to tap on the brakes.
With so-called “trimmed mean” inflation (the RBA’s preferred measure of underlying inflation) jumping to 3.7% in the March quarter, the bank’s goal of having underlying inflation back in its target band has been fulfilled.
Indeed it is now just above the target band.
The only question the Reserve Bank board had to consider was whether inflation was sustainably back in the target band, something it has said it would need to see before it lifted rates.
A sustainable increase in prices is only likely when wages are also growing faster, which is why the bank was initially planning to wait for the wage news.
But it says its business liaison program (the regular meetings it has with businesses) has told it businesses are expecting to lift wages by much more than they have so far, meaning the official wage growth figures should be about to climb.
Businesses expect to pay their staff more. Shutterstock
These wage rises would be driven by the difficulty in finding staff, and greater demands from staff given what’s happening to the cost of living. Workers may be becoming keener to walk if they don’t get what they want.
Treasury analysis of Tax Office data finds that workers who move jobs typically get pay rises of 8-10%.
The higher inflation has been driven by a series of large, hopefully temporary, shocks, most notably Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Australia’s floods, and the COVID lockdowns in China.
We don’t know how long the foreign shocks will last, but if they quickly subside, it would take domestic price pressure to make high inflation sustainable.
That’s why news of higher “non-tradable” (domestically driven) inflation last Wednesday convinced the bank the current inflation is likely to last.
Non-tradable inflation was 4.2% over the year to March, suggesting much of Australia’s higher inflation was home-grown.
More hikes imminent
The Reserve Bank never lifts rates once. In his press conference, Lowe said it was “not unreasonable” to expect the cash rate to climb to 2.5%.
“How quickly we get there, and if we do get there, will be determined by how events unfold,” he added, pointing out that 2.5% is the middle of the bank’s target band for inflation, meaning that when the cash rate gets there it will be zero in inflation-adjusted terms, rather than negative as it is at the moment.
Financial markets are pricing in 2.5% by the end of the year. That implies another two percentage points of hikes over the next six meetings, something that would mean a hike each and every month for the rest of the year.
Many doubt that rates will rise that high that fast. However, over the past year the market pricing has proved more accurate than economists and the Reserve Bank’s own guidance, as the governor conceded in his press conference, describing his guidance as “embarrassing”.
A hike to 2.5% means an extra $600
“We were told thousands of Australians would die from the pandemic, hospitals will be full, that we would have double-digit unemployment, perhaps 15% unemployment, that deep scarring would last for years, perhaps decades,” he said, indicating things had turned out far better than government advisers expected.
If fully passed on, today’s increase will add around $65 to the monthly cost of servicing a $500,000 mortgage. If the cash rate gets to 2.5%, it’ll be an extra $600.
Isaac Gross 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.
One of the stranger things about the Reserve Bank’s announcement of why it’s lifting interest rates by 0.25 percentage points is that it suggests inflation will come down by itself.
“A further rise in inflation is expected in the near term,” the RBA says, “but as supply-side disruptions are resolved, inflation is expected to decline back towards the target range of 2-3%.
So why raise rates now, for the first time in more than a decade? The bank says it is about “withdrawing some of the extraordinary monetary support that was put in place to help the Australian economy during the pandemic”, which is fair enough.
But our latest burst of inflation is weird, and resistant to rate hikes. If the Reserve Bank isn’t careful, too many more rate hikes like this might help bring on a recession.
Labor’s Anthony Albanese is as good as correct when he says “everything is going up except your wages” – not completely correct, because wages are going up, by a minuscule 2.3% per year on the official figures; but essentially correct, because when it comes to prices, almost every single one is going up.
Every three months the Bureau of Statistics prices around 100,000 goods and services. They account for almost everything we buy, the exceptions including illegal drugs and prostitution, where pricing would be “difficult and dangerous”.
Among the types of bread the bureau prices are rye, sliced white, and multigrain, from all sorts of stores in every capital city. Where the bureau doesn’t price a type of loaf, it is a fair bet its price moves in line with the loaves it does price.
Then it groups these 100,000 or so prices into “expenditure classes”, 87 of them. “Bread” is one, “breakfast cereals” is another. Furniture and rent are two others.
Rarely do the expenditure classes move as one. Typically, only 50 or so of the 87 climb in price. But in the March quarter just finished, an astounding 70 climbed in price; according to Deutsche Bank economist Phil O’Donaghoe, that’s the most ever in the 72-year history of the consumer price index.
And the prices that climbed most – by far – were the ones we had little choice but to pay.
Necessities up, treats not as much
The bureau divides the 87 classes of goods into “non-discretionary” and “discretionary”.
It classifies bread as non-discretionary, biscuits as discretionary; petrol as non-discretionary, new cars as discretionary, and so on.
In the year to March, non-discretionary inflation (the price rises we can’t avoid) was a gargantuan 6.6% – well above the official inflation rate of 5.1%, and the highest in records going back to 2006.
Discretionary inflation – the price rises on the treats we splurge on if we’ve got the money – was only 2.7%.
Not since 2011 has the gap been that wide, which makes this inflation unusual.
While price rises are extraordinarily widespread – because most things need diesel to move them, and we were hit with floods, COVID-linked supply problems and the invasion of Ukraine all at once – they don’t seem to be the result of splurging.
These price rises are more like a tax.
The usual response to the usual hike in inflation is to hike interest rates. It’s a way to take away access to cash and push up mortgage and other payments so people have less money to spend and push up prices.
But this hike in inflation is doing that by itself, as the government recognised in the budget by handing out $250 cash payments to compensate.
These price rises are like a tax
If the big price rises are beyond our control and making us poorer, hiking interest rates to make us poorer still, in the hope we will splurge less on things whose prices we can influence (and whose price rises are small) might not achieve much.
Done repeatedly, the Reserve Bank could push up interest rates because inflation is high, discover inflation is still high, push interest rates higher in response, notice inflation is still high, push interest rates even higher in response… and so on, until it had brought on a recession.
A recession is already a risk with these sorts of price rises. If big enough, they can force consumers to cut other spending to the point where the economy stagnates and creates unemployment in the face of inflation – so-called “stagflation”.
Inflation might have already fallen
Another response would have been to wait. Seriously. The floods, invasion and supply problems pushing up prices in recent months are likely to pass, pushing down inflation and pushing down a lot of prices.
It might have already happened. The oil price has fallen 11% from its peak, down 2.5% in the past two weeks alone. And inflation has fallen – on one measure, to zero.
The official Bureau of Statistics measure of inflation is produced every three months, but for 13 years now the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has produced its own simpler monthly measure, which tracks the official rate pretty well.
Although missing a lot (tracking fewer types of bread, and a national rather than a city-by-city measure) it is produced quickly and more often, providing a better insight into prices in real time.
The latest, released on Monday, points to an inflation rate of zero in April.
Why rate hikes need only be mild
That’s right. While some prices continued to rise as always, enough prices fell to offset that. The high inflation in the lead-up to March stopped or paused in April.
It’s different in the United States. There, inflation is being supercharged by wage growth averaging 9% and the Federal Reserve is about to lift interest rates aggressively.
Here, wages growth in the year to December was just 2.3%. We’ll get the figures for the year to March in a fortnight. There’s a good case for future rate hikes to be a good deal less aggressive.
Peter Martin 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Ascher Barnstone, Professor, Course Director Undergraduate Studies, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
shutterstock
By 2030, climate change will make one in 25 Australian homes “uninsurable” if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, with riverine flooding posing the greatest insurance risk, a new Climate Council analysis finds.
As a professor of architecture, I find this analysis grim, yet unsurprising. One reason is because Australian housing is largely unfit for the challenges of climate change.
In the past two years alone we’ve seen over 3,000 homes razed in the 2019-2020 megafires, and over 3,600 homes destroyed in New South Wales Northern Rivers region in the recent floods.
Building houses better at withstanding the impacts of climate change is one way we can protect ourselves in the face of future catastrophic conditions. I’m part of a research team that developed a novel, bushfire-resistant house design, which won an international award last month.
We hope its ability to withstand fires on its own will encourage owners – who would otherwise stay to defend their home – to flee when bushfires encroach. Let’s take a closer look at the risk of bushfires and why our housing design should one day become a new Australian norm.
The house would be made from locally sourced, recycled steel frame. Deborah Ascher Barnstone, Author provided
Houses today are easy to burn
The Climate Council analysis reveals that across Australia’s 10 electorates most at risk of climate change impacts, one in seven houses will be uninsurable by 2030 under a high emissions scenario. This includes 25,801 properties (27%) in Victoria’s electorate of Nicholls, and 22,274 properties (20%) in Richmond, NSW.
Bushfires are among the worsening hazards causing homes to be uninsurable, and pose a particularly high risk to many thousands of homes across eastern Australia.
For example, the Climate Council found 55% of properties in the electorate of Macquarie, NSW, will be at risk of bushfires in 2030, if emissions do not fall. This jumps to 64% of properties by 2100.
The typical Australian house was not designed with bushfires in mind as most were built decades ago, before bushfire planning and construction regulations came into force.
This means they incorporate burnable materials, such as wood and plasterboard, and have features such as gutters which can trap embers.
What’s more, the gaps between building materials are often too large to keep embers out, which means spot fires can start on the inside of the house. And many houses are situated too close to fire-prone grasses and trees.
Indeed, at least 90% of houses currently in bushfire zones risk being destroyed in a bushfire.
How our new design can withstand fire
The prototypical bushfire resistant house we designed won first prize in the New Housing Division of the United States Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Solar Decathlon.
The house has three pavilions that can be built at different times to save cost. Deborah Ascher Barnstone, Author provided
The house would be made from locally sourced, recycled steel frame. It would be mounted on reinforced concrete pilings to minimise its disturbance on the land, touching the ground only lightly. In this way, we help preserve the site’s biodiversity.
The primary building material is rammed earth – natural raw materials such as earth, chalk, lime, or gravel – which is not combustible.
The roof and some cladding are made of fire-resistant corrugated metal. Its glass facades have fire shutters made of fibre cement sheeting, a material that’s non-combustible and can be closed to seal the house.
Importantly, the gaps between these construction materials are 2 millimetres or less.
The sloped roofs tilt inwards to capture rainwater. And as the roofs are made of corrugated metal, which has channels in it, the house does not require gutters.
These channels guide rainwater into two open retention ponds either side of the entry, and into protected tanks beneath the house. This also helps protect the house in a bushfire, as it means the fire can’t penetrate from beneath.
A view of the entry bridge and retention ponds. Deborah Ascher Barnstone, Author provided
When bushfires strike, the risk to life is highest when people stay and defend their homes. A design that can resist fire on its own encourages its owners to leave.
But it’s worth noting that it’s not a bunker for people to shelter in. No matter how well designed a house is, it always will be too dangerous to stay when a fire comes through, and particularly in the catastrophic and extreme fire conditions we’re increasingly experiencing.
It’s cost effective, too
The estimated cost of construction is between A$400,000 and $450,000. We deployed several strategies to keep costs down:
the house is designed to be energy and water independent, so will not need city utilities
it uses common construction techniques and is based on the construction industry standard for sheeting, so won’t require specialised builders and won’t waste any material
rammed earth is relatively inexpensive because it can be sourced in many locations, often for free. We also envision using recycled materials wherever possible.
Aesthetically speaking, the design also presents an elegant domestic space, one that’s flexible enough it can easily be adapted to almost any site.
The house is characterised by open spaces and inside/outside living. Deborah Ascher Barnstone, Author provided
The next stage is to build and test a prototype of the house so we can evaluate its performance and make improvements. We’re currently speaking to some potential funders to make this happen.
As climate change brings worsening disasters, Australia must brace for thousands more houses becoming destroyed. Innovative architecture like ours offers a chance for treasured homes and possessions to survive future catastrophes.
Deborah Ascher Barnstone 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Gillespie, Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Medicare has been mentioned a lot this election campaign but we’ve seen relatively few substantial policy announcements from the major parties.
Voters want improvements to Medicare and the health system. More than 13% of respondents to The Conversation’s #SetTheAgenda poll said health was one of the issues having the greatest impact on their life right now. Cost of living pressures were also a key concern.
As one respondent said, candidates should be talking about “increasing Medicare rebates to reduce gap payments” as they compete for votes, while another saw improving “rural and regional access to high quality care” as the key issue.
So what have the major parties committed to? And is this enough? We asked five experts to analyse and grade the major parties’ Medicare policies – from A for top marks to F for a failed effort.
Here are their detailed responses:
Coalition
Labor
Jim Gillespie receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Lesley Russell worked as a policy advisor on health and related issues for the federal Australian Labor Party from 2002 to 2007.
Richard Norman receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, and the Medical Research Future Fund.
Rosemary V Calder has received funding from the Australian government Department of Health. She has worked for both the Coalition and Labor governments, and was head of the Office for the Status of Women under the Howard government.
Stephen Duckett 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.
