Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Breen, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

The revelation that women’s KiwiSaver retirement savings lag 20% behind men’s represents a double threat: not only are women paid less during their working lives, they will also be poorer when they retire.

This is perhaps to be expected – the gap in retirement savings reflects the gender pay gap overall. Many women who do the same work as men are comparatively underpaid, meaning they have less money to save for their retirement.

COVID-19 worsened the pay and savings gender gap. The government’s direct financial assistance favoured male-dominated sectors like construction, rather than female-dominated, low-wage sectors like hospitality.

On top of this, a COVID baby boom will likely see old trends reinforced, with more women than men taking time out of the paid workforce. In turn, this will see them disadvantaged when they retire, perpetuating the cycle.

Part of the solution, therefore, would be to enable more women to return to paid work by making it more attractive for men to take paid parental leave. Because right now, the number of new fathers choosing to do this is vanishingly small.

Old stereotypes persist

These problems have wider implications for the rights of women to equality and freedom from discrimination under international and domestic law.

New Zealand’s Human Rights Act also prohibits indirect discrimination, meaning laws or policies that have a negative effect on certain groups – even if unintentional – are still discriminatory.

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The coming storm for New Zealand’s future retirees: still renting and not enough savings to avoid poverty

Yes, New Zealand’s statutory parental leave scheme mitigates some of the immediate financial burden of childbearing and child rearing. It appears, on the face of it, to promote gender equality, since either parent can be the primary carer and thus be entitled to parental leave. Also, one parent can transfer their leave and pay entitlements to the other.

However, the statutory leave payments are capped at NZ$621 per week, which is less than the weekly minimum wage. And while a partner is entitled to up to two weeks of leave, that leave is unpaid.

This rather meagre scheme hasn’t prevented some companies from generating their own, more generous packages, some of which provide paid partner’s leave.

Yet the statutory entitlements are transferred in less than 1% of cases, and only 4% of partners take unpaid leave. It seems the present system serves to reinforce old stereotypes of women as carers and men as earners outside the home.

Stay-at-home dads

One way to change this would be to introduce non-transferable, paid partner leave. This would apply irrespective of whether the primary carer has an entitlement to paid parental leave themselves.

Such a scheme would offer greater incentive for men to look after their young children at home, freeing up more women to go back to work.

There is evidence this works. Sweden introduced paid parental leave in 1974, but the number of fathers taking leave only jumped significantly when non-transferable paid leave was introduced in 1995.

À lire aussi :
No wonder dads aren’t taking shared parental leave – most employers have failed to embrace it

A number of other countries are already guaranteeing paid parental leave that includes paid paternity leave or leave reserved specifically for fathers of infants. And a similar recommendation was made by New Zealand’s National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women as far back as 2008.

But OECD research suggests paternity leave payments need to be equivalent to half or more of a father’s previous earnings. Given the existing gender pay gap means fathers are already likely to be earning more than mothers, a partner-specific scheme would inevitably favour men.

À lire aussi :
Paid family leave makes people happier, global data shows

Happier families

Offering boosted paternity payments for men as a way to close the gender pay gap may seem paradoxical. But it does highlight the ineffectiveness of current systems offering lower payments that are taken up mainly by women.

Again, Swedish research suggests separate payments to fathers can serve to close the gender pay gap by allowing mothers to return to the paid workforce. Opportunities for promotion and pay rises can then increase retirement savings.

And there are wider benefits to these family-friendly policies, such as improved health for mothers and children, improved educational outcomes for children, and lower levels of stress among fathers.

À lire aussi :
Fixing gender gaps isn’t just about women – men will benefit from a more equal society too

Of course, another barrier to men taking parental leave is their fear of the career and social consequences. Those deeper stereotypes of women as homemakers and men as providers will not disappear overnight, as the Swedish experience shows. But the fact a female prime minister’s male partner has embraced the caregiving role is perhaps a start.

Longer term, however, making paid paternity leave a more viable option financially and socially for families will mean doing more to address the gender pay gap and its flow-on effects over a woman’s lifetime.

There’s no single solution to this multi-faceted problem, but encouraging more men back into the home with paid paternity leave would help shift things in the right direction.

Claire Breen 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.

– ref. Fewer than 1% of New Zealand men take paid parental leave – would offering them more to stay at home help? – https://theconversation.com/fewer-than-1-of-new-zealand-men-take-paid-parental-leave-would-offering-them-more-to-stay-at-home-help-180777

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Forbes, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Singing, University of Southern Queensland

Singing with others feels amazing. Group singing promotes social bonding and has been shown to raise oxytocin (the “bonding hormone”) and decrease cortisol (the “stress hormone”).

But it’s not just about singing in groups. There are many unexpected ways
singing is good for you, even if you’re on your own.

Singing is a free and accessible activity which can help us live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.

And before you protest you are “tone deaf” and “can’t sing”, research shows most people can sing accurately in tune, so let’s warm up those voices and get singing.

1. Singing gets you in the zone

If you’ve ever lost track of time while doing something slightly challenging but enjoyable, you’ve likely experienced the flow state. Some people refer to this feeling as being “in the zone”.

According to positive psychology, flow, or deep engagement in a task, is considered one of the key elements of well-being.

Research has shown singing can induce the flow state in expert singers and group singing.

One way to get into this flow state is through improvisation.

Try your hand at some vocal improvisation by picking one phrase in a song you know well and playing around with it. You can improvise by slightly changing the melody, rhythm, even the lyrics.

You may well find yourself lost in your task – if you don’t realise this until afterwards, it is a sign you’ve been in flow.

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Let it happen or make it happen? There’s more than one way to get in the zone

2. Singing gets you in touch with your body

Singers make music with the body. Unlike instrumentalists, singers have no buttons to push, no keys to press and no strings to pluck.

Singing is a deeply embodied activity: it reminds us to get in touch with our whole selves. When you’re feeling stuck in your head, try singing your favourite song to reconnect with your body.

Focus on your breathing and the physical sensations you can feel in your throat and chest.

Singing is also a great way to raise your awareness of any physical tensions you may be holding in your body, and there is increasing interest in the intersection between singing and mindfulness.

3. Singing as exercise

We often forget singing is a fundamentally physical task which most of us can do reasonably well.

When we sing, we are making music with the larynx, the vocal tract and other articulators (including your tongue, lips, soft and hard palates and teeth) and the respiratory system.

Just as we might jog to improve our cardiovascular fitness, we can exercise the voice to improve our singing. Functional voice training helps singers understand and use their voice according to optimal physical function.

Singing is increasingly being used to help improve respiratory health for a wide range of health conditions, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson’s, asthma and cancer.

Because singing provides such a great workout for the respiratory system, it is even being used to help people suffering from long COVID.

À lire aussi :
Long COVID: For the 1 in 10 patients who become long-haulers, COVID-19 has lasting effects

4. Singing builds psychological resources

Group singing can help combat social isolation and create new social connections, help people cope with caring burdens and enhance mental health.

Studies show these psychological benefits flow because group singing promotes new social identities.

When we sing with others we identify with, we build inner resources like belonging, meaning and purpose, social support, efficacy and agency.

5. Singing for “super-ageing”

“Super-agers” are people around retirement age and older whose cognitive abilities (such as memory and attention span) remain youthful.

Research conducted by distinguished psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her lab suggest the best-known way to become a superager is to work hard at something.

Singing requires the complex coordination of various physical components — and that’s just to make a sound! The artistic dimension of singing includes memorisation and interpretation of lyrics and melodies, understanding and being able to hear the underlying musical harmony, sensing rhythm and much more.

These characteristics of singing make it an ideal candidate as a super-ageing activity.

À lire aussi :
How to stay fit into your 60s and beyond

Melissa Forbes 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.

– ref. Flow state, exercise and healthy ageing: 5 unexpected benefits of singing – https://theconversation.com/flow-state-exercise-and-healthy-ageing-5-unexpected-benefits-of-singing-180415

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

George Christensen caused the government a heap of trouble while he was in the Nationals, and is set to be a pest now he’s jumped ship.

A year ago Christensen announced he wouldn’t re-contest at this election, saying “I think my time is done”. Now he’s opted, just days after resigning from the Liberal National Party, to run as third candidate on the One Nation Queensland Senate ticket.

He won’t win a seat but defeat will entitle him to a $105,000 “resettlement allowance”.

It had been earlier reported he’d tried to have the LNP disendorse him, so he could get this payout, but it had declined. (Christensen claims he is already likely entitled to the money but this is denied by government sources.)

At a news conference with his new leader, Pauline Hanson, Christensen said if he could help get Hanson and maybe her number two candidate elected it would be “the job done, because Pauline’s been a warrior for common sense conservative issues”.

Christensen, 43, member for the north Queensland seat of Dawson since 2010, has been extended an extraordinary degree of tolerance by his colleagues over the years. His party has treated him with kid gloves, despite some outrageous behaviour.

So indeed did his electorate. Regardless of his spending nearly 300 days in the Philippines between April 2014 and June 2018 – which earned him the title “the member for Manila” – the Dawson locals gave him a positive swing of more than 11% in 2019.

Over the years Christensen periodically threatened to cross the floor and sometimes did, although he was equally likely to draw back after kicking up the dust. In his book A Bigger Picture, Malcolm Turnbull has a diary entry saying Christensen kept threatening to move to the crossbench.

In late 2017 he encouraged Sky to report that an unnamed Coalition MP would quit the government if Turnbull remained prime minister, then changed his mind leaving a couple of presenters high and dry.

In the arguments over the handling of COVID, he featured prominently at anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination rallies.

In August last year he condemned the handling of the pandemic, declaring in a parliamentary speech: “restore our freedoms, end this madness.” Scott Morrison dissociated himself from Christensen’s views and the house voted to condemn his comments.

Christensen called the bluff of his peers and betters in the Nationals. When tackled about his maverick backbencher Barnaby Joyce would say that taking him on would be fruitless, and just make things more difficult. Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud earlier this year described him as a “free spirit” while disagreeing with him.

Christensen and Joyce only spoke about his defection on Tuesday night. On the campaign trail on Wednesday, Joyce described his action as an “unwelcome distraction”.

Senator Matt Canavan months ago tried to talk Christensen out of retiring, believing he was an asset for the LNP and a great campaigner.

Canavan now describes his former colleague as “a coward” for “shirking away from battles in the LNP” in favour of the “echo chamber” of a minor party. He’d deserted the Nationals party members, Canavan said.

Canavan admits that Christensen could harm the LNP Senate vote in Queensland, where there are “a lot of angry people” from the debate over COVID and vaccines.

Christensen told the Courier Mail he should have joined One Nation “a long time ago”.

“The more I queried One Nation’s policies and looked at their constitution, their core beliefs, the things that Pauline has been campaigning on recently, just about everything aligned with my views.”

On Sky on Wednesday night he said he hadn’t deserted anyone because “my beliefs are exactly the same. I’ve just realised One Nation is more in tune with those thoughts.” He rejected the gold-digging interpretation of his motives for running for One Nation.

He said he had fulfilled his “contract” because he had stuck with the LNP right to the end of the parliament before he “pulled the pin”. He named not just the handling of COVID but the signing up to the 2050 net zero target as among his beefs. One Nation was the only party in the parliament questioning “this religion of manmade climate change”.

“You get sick of defending the indefensible,” he said.

He said it was “not impossible” to win the Senate seat but it would be “a big ask”, although he claimed he was in One Nation “for the long haul”.

For a minor party, One Nation sure has a big umbrella. In their earlier years George Christensen and former Labor leader Mark Latham (now in the NSW parliament) would never have imagined they’d end up wearing the same brand.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: New One Nation candidate George Christensen set to win from losing – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-new-one-nation-candidate-george-christensen-set-to-win-from-losing-181275

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

In this episode, Michelle Grattan speaks with Joe Hockey about his newly-released memoir titled Diplomatic.

Hockey, treasurer in the Abbott government and former Australian ambassador to the United States, picked early that Donald Trump had a good prospect of becoming president and reached out to his team, something that went down badly at the time with the foreign affairs bureaucracy back in Canberra.

But Hockey says: “Diplomacy is just about human relations. It’s countries dealing on the same basis with each other as human beings. So you’re never going to get on well with someone you don’t know. You’re actually going to have to engage.”

Of Trump’s successor, Hockey says: “I think Joe Biden has aged quite a bit in the presidency. He’s only been president for just over a year. He’s really shown he hasn’t had the energy that you would expect of someone as president of the United States.”

Also, “he’s run a very left wing agenda, and that’s completely stunned – completely stunned – middle America, because they thought he was a safe, middle-of-the-road sort of person.

“America is just not tuned into that. They’re not buying that.”

Speaking about the differences between US and Australian politics, Hockey highlights the significance of compulsory voting in this country. “I think the challenge in the United States is, you know, firstly, you try and get your own people to vote. And the more extreme you are, the more you villainise, and radicalise your opponents. It’s easier to get people to come out and vote for you if they’re against something.

“We don’t have that battle for the extremes, and I think that’s really, really important,” he says.

“The political ads and what people say about each other in the United States has no filter, has no boundaries. And as a result, it becomes more fractious, becomes much more aggressive. And I think it’s really, really important that proper defamation laws [exist] that allow someone to go in and protect their reputation so that people cannot make ridiculous, false accusations against others.”

And Hockey’s prediction for May 21? “I think it’s just too close to call, really. I genuinely feel that both parties have a pathway to victory. And then, as so often the case, as events unfold during the campaign, we’ll get a clearer picture of which way […] the events are breaking.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Joe Hockey on Trump, Biden, and the federal election – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-joe-hockey-on-trump-biden-and-the-federal-election-181270

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

George Christensen, the maverick Liberal-National Party member from far north Queensland, dropped the pre-Easter bombshell that he is no longer heading for retirement but joining One Nation. Today, the Below the Line podcast team unpack what this means for the major parties’ prospects in that seat and for the election result.

Joining our host, award-winning broadcaster Jon Faine, is Anika Guaja who says the defection is a big win for One Nation, whose leader Pauline Hanson says they will field candidates in every Australian electorate.

Meanwhile, Andrea Carson finds that One Nation is getting more public interactions (likes, shares and comments) on Facebook for political posts than any other party or politician including the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Carson says this shows One Nation’s mastery in reaching voters with their conversational style of messaging on social media.

Simon Jackman notes that even before the media publicly shamed Anthony Albanese with front page headlines for failing to recall the unemployment rate on the first day of campaigning, Labor’s vote lead was already narrowing according to different pollsters.

With early voting opening on May 9, ahead of polling day on May 21, our panel looks at what this means for media messaging, polls and political strategies. Added to this is the Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers’ unprecedented announcement that COVID-19 affected voters will be able to lodge their vote by telephone on election day. This has never happened in a federal Australian election before. This raises all sorts of questions about how the vote will be recorded and counted, especially for those of you who choose to vote “below the line” on the Senate ballot.

Listen to our expert panel’s latest election insights, and thank you for tuning in and propelling Below the Line into the top 20 Australian news podcasts on Spotify this week after just two episodes. Keep listening, we’ll have more to come right up until election day.

Image: Darren England/AAP

– ref. Below the Line: Does George Christensen’s defection spell a win for One Nation? And are Australian parties ‘lazy’? – podcast – https://theconversation.com/below-the-line-does-george-christensens-defection-spell-a-win-for-one-nation-and-are-australian-parties-lazy-podcast-181252

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lachlan G. Howell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University

Australia’s wildlife was hit hard by the 2019-20 Black Summer megafires.

Amongst the casualties were our iconic tree-dwelling koalas, with an estimated 5000 dead in New South Wales alone. They are now officially endangered in three states and territories.

In response, researchers are ramping up captive breeding to prevent extinction. Unfortunately, captive breeding faces two major challenges: it’s expensive, and it can be hard to maintain genetic diversity.

To tackle both issues, our new modelling study backs the approach of biobanking (freezing koala sperm) and tailored assisted reproduction techniques. We found these techniques would result in a five-fold decrease in the costs of running captive breeding programs.

Despite their promise, these reproductive tools have not yet become widely used in conservation. With koalas facing an uncertain future, it’s time to explore their full potential. If we get this right, we could use the same tools to help other species in rapid decline.

What are these techniques?

In animals, biobanking refers to freezing and storing sperm, eggs and embryos, as well as other cells and tissues from the body. These techniques have long been used in agriculture to store valuable sperm from top breeding bulls and crops in seed banks.

Read more:
It’s fish on ice, as frozen zoos make a last-ditch attempt to prevent extinction

Most people are aware of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), a common assisted reproductive technology, but other options exist such as artificial insemination and direct sperm injection into the egg. In humans, IVF and sperm injection have dramatically improved fertility while artificial insemination has revolutionised the breeding of livestock.

Models show huge drop in costs and less inbreeding

In our modelling, we set the goal of maintaining at least 90% of the genetic diversity in the captive population over a century.

We compared conventional natural breeding programs to programs mixing natural breeding with frozen koala sperm from wild animals delivered by artificial insemination or direct sperm injection.

We found supplementing captive breeding with frozen sperm would dramatically slow inbreeding rates, produce genetically healthier animals and require fewer animals to be held in breeding colonies.

To reach the genetic target, you would need 223 koalas in a conventional captive program. By contrast, adding assisted reproduction means you’d only have to keep 17 koalas.

These much smaller colony sizes are what drives down the cost. When you factor in the costs of assisted reproduction, including sperm freezing and performing artificial insemination or sperm injection, you still end up with a more than five-fold reduction in costs.

Let’s put these technologies to work

While these technologies have proven their worth for us and for livestock, we largely haven’t put them to work in wildlife recovery. We believe this is a missed opportunity to cut costs and boost genetic diversity.

Read more:
To save koalas from fire, we need to start putting their genetic material on ice

The few programs which have embraced these techniques have seen success.
North America’s black-footed ferret is coming back from the edge of extinction, aided in part by assisted reproduction techniques. In the 1980s, the last remaining 18 black-footed ferrets were brought into a captive breeding program in America. Because the genetic diversity was so low, researchers used artificial insemination and frozen sperm to reintroduce lost genes and reduce the damage from inbreeding.

What do we need to do?

In recent years, we’ve seen significant investment in frozen storage and genomic sequencing of tissue samples collected from wild koalas.

These technologies are useful to take stock of the genetic health of koala populations. But they can’t help us restore lost genetic diversity to wild populations because the frozen tissue samples cannot be turned into living animals.

While we’ve seen some progress in tailoring these technologies to koalas, there’s more to do. To date, 34 koala joeys have been born using artificial insemination in tame zoo koalas. These joeys, however, came from fresh or chilled sperm, not frozen. To use frozen sperm requires more research and technology development. Other procedures like embryo transfer and cryopreservation of sperm will also need more development.

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

If we perfect these techniques and technologies, we could see new possibilities for koala conservation.

These include:

• using genetic material from dead or sick koalas which would otherwise be lost
• preserving gene pools from genetically important koala populations at risk of extinction
• protecting the species against catastrophic events in the wild linked to climate change, disease and bushfire, which can cause major genetic loss
• reducing inbreeding in captive breeding programs and producing genetically fit koalas for release
• overcoming issues of separated populations and ensuring desirable breeding pairs can actually breed
• tackling relocation issues emerging from the varying diets of koalas across regions and risk of disease transfer.

We already have the expertise

Australia already has a strong network of wildlife hospitals and zoos across the koala’s range in eastern Australia, as well as existing captive colonies and technical and husbandry expertise.

With a relatively small amount of funding (A$3-4 million to start, A$1 million annually), these sites could be equipped to collect and store koala sperm from wild populations and help perfect the technologies we need to make this a reality.

Longer term, we could adapt these technologies for other endangered marsupials. The potential is real. All we need now is attention from researchers and funding bodies.

Lachlan G. Howell is affiliated with Deakin University, the Centre for Integrative Ecology, the University of Newcastle, and FAUNA Research Alliance. Lachlan is funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. Lachlan is a member of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. Lachlan would like to acknowledge several co-authors on the research study referenced in this article including Stephen D. Johnston, Justine K. O’Brien, Richard Frankham, John C. Rodger, Shelby A. Ryan, Chad T. Beranek, John Clulow and Donald S. Hudson. We also thank Port Stephens Koala Hospital and their president Ron Land for assistance in under-standing the required program costs used in the models.

Ryan R. Witt receives funding from Taronga Conservation Society Australia, the Mid North Coast Joint Organisation, WWF-Australia’s Regenerate Australia Program, and the Paddy Pallin Foundation administered by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. He is affiliated with the University of Newcastle and FAUNA Research Alliance. Ryan is a member of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, is a scientific associate of Taronga Conservation Society Australia, and is the Australasian board member of the Companion Animals and Non-Domestic Endangered Species Committee of the International Embryo Technology Society.

John Clulow is affiliated with the University of Newcastle (Research Affiliate) and the Fauna Research Alliance.

– ref. Frozen sperm and assisted reproduction: time to pull out all stops to save the endangered koala – https://theconversation.com/frozen-sperm-and-assisted-reproduction-time-to-pull-out-all-stops-to-save-the-endangered-koala-179368

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron J. Snoswell, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Computational Law & AI Accountability, Queensland University of Technology

If you’ve seen photos of a teapot shaped like an avocado or read a well-written article that veers off on slightly weird tangents, you may have been exposed to a new trend in artificial intelligence (AI).

Machine learning systems called DALL-E, GPT and PaLM are making a splash with their incredible ability to generate creative work.

These systems are known as “foundation models” and are not all hype and party tricks. So how does this new approach to AI work? And will it be the end of human creativity and the start of a deep-fake nightmare?

1. What are foundation models?

Foundation models work by training a single huge system on large amounts of general data, then adapting the system to new problems. Earlier models tended to start from scratch for each new problem.

DALL-E 2, for example, was trained to match pictures (such as a photo of a pet cat) with the caption (“Mr. Fuzzyboots the tabby cat is relaxing in the sun”) by scanning hundreds of millions of examples. Once trained, this model knows what cats (and other things) look like in pictures.

But the model can also be used for many other interesting AI tasks, such as generating new images from a caption alone (“Show me a koala dunking a basketball”) or editing images based on written instructions (“Make it look like this monkey is paying taxes”).

2. How do they work?

Foundation models run on “deep neural networks”, which are loosely inspired by how the brain works. These involve sophisticated mathematics and a huge amount of computing power, but they boil down to a very sophisticated type of pattern matching.

For example, by looking at millions of example images, a deep neural network can associate the word “cat” with patterns of pixels that often appear in images of cats – like soft, fuzzy, hairy blobs of texture. The more examples the model sees (the more data it is shown), and the bigger the model (the more “layers” or “depth” it has), the more complex these patterns and correlations can be.

Read more:
What is a neural network? A computer scientist explains

Foundation models are, in one sense, just an extension of the “deep learning” paradigm that has dominated AI research for the past decade. However, they exhibit un-programmed or “emergent” behaviours that can be both surprising and novel.

For example, Google’s PaLM language model seems to be able to produce explanations for complicated metaphors and jokes. This goes beyond simply imitating the types of data it was originally trained to process.

3. Access is limited – for now

The sheer scale of these AI systems is difficult to think about. PaLM has 540 billion parameters, meaning even if everyone on the planet memorised 50 numbers, we still wouldn’t have enough storage to reproduce the model.

The models are so enormous that training them requires massive amounts of computational and other resources. One estimate put the cost of training OpenAI’s language model GPT-3 at around US$5 million.

Read more:
Can robots write? Machine learning produces dazzling results, but some assembly is still required

As a result, only huge tech companies such as OpenAI, Google and Baidu can afford to build foundation models at the moment. These companies limit who can access the systems, which makes economic sense.

Usage restrictions may give us some comfort these systems won’t be used for nefarious purposes (such as generating fake news or defamatory content) any time soon. But this also means independent researchers are unable to interrogate these systems and share the results in an open and accountable way. So we don’t yet know the full implications of their use.

4. What will these models mean for ‘creative’ industries?

More foundation models will be produced in coming years. Smaller models are already being published in open-source forms, tech companies are starting to experiment with licensing and commercialising these tools and AI researchers are working hard to make the technology more efficient and accessible.

The remarkable creativity shown by models such as PaLM and DALL-E 2 demonstrates that creative professional jobs could be impacted by this technology sooner than initially expected.

Read more:
AI could be our radiologists of the future, amid a healthcare staff crisis

Traditional wisdom always said robots would displace “blue collar” jobs first. “White collar” work was meant to be relatively safe from automation – especially professional work that required creativity and training.

Deep learning AI models already exhibit super-human accuracy in tasks like reviewing x-rays and detecting the eye condition macular degeneration. Foundation models may soon provide cheap, “good enough” creativity in fields such as advertising, copywriting, stock imagery or graphic design.

The future of professional and creative work could look a little different than we expected.

5. What this means for legal evidence, news and media

Foundation models will inevitably affect the law in areas such as intellectual property and evidence, because we won’t be able to assume creative content is the result of human activity.

We will also have to confront the challenge of disinformation and misinformation generated by these systems. We already face enormous problems with disinformation, as we are seeing in the unfolding Russian invasion of Ukraine and the nascent problem of deep fake images and video, but foundation models are poised to super-charge these challenges.

Read more:
3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake?

Time to prepare

As researchers who study the the effects of AI on society, we think foundation models will bring about huge transformations. They are tightly controlled (for now), so we probably have a little time to understand their implications before they become a huge issue.

The genie isn’t quite out of the bottle yet, but foundation models are a very big bottle – and inside there is a very clever genie.

Aaron J. Snoswell’s research is funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (CE200100005).

Dan Hunter receives funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (CE200100005)

– ref. Robots are creating images and telling jokes. 5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI – https://theconversation.com/robots-are-creating-images-and-telling-jokes-5-things-to-know-about-foundation-models-and-the-next-generation-of-ai-181150

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By R. Ramakumar, Professor of Economics, Tata Institute of Social Sciences

The island nation of Sri Lanka is in the midst of one of the worst economic crises it’s ever seen. It has just defaulted on its foreign debts for the first time since its independence, and the country’s 22 million people are facing crippling 12-hour power cuts, and an extreme scarcity of food, fuel and other essential items such as medicines.

Inflation is at an all-time high of 17.5%, with prices of food items such as a kilogram of rice soaring to 500 Sri Lankan rupees (A$2.10) when it would normally cost around 80 rupees (A$0.34). Amid shortages, one 400g packet of milk powder is reported to cost over 250 rupees (A$1.05), when it usually costs around 60 rupees (A$0.25).

On April 1, President Gotabaya Rajpaksha declared a state of emergency. In less than a week, he withdrew it following massive protests by angry citizens over the government’s handling of the crisis.

The country relies on the import of many essential items including petrol, food items and medicines. Most countries will keep foreign currencies on hand in order to trade for these items, but a shortage of foreign exchange in Sri Lanka is being blamed for the sky-high prices.

Read more:
Sri Lanka teeters on economic edge, from pandemic-fueled financial crisis and Ukraine war spillovers

Why are some people blaming China?

Many believe Sri Lanka’s economic relations with China are a main driver behind the crisis. The United States has called this phenomenon “debt-trap diplomacy”. This is where a creditor country or institution extends debt to a borrowing nation to increase the lender’s political leverage – if the borrower extends itself and cannot pay the money back, they are at the creditor’s mercy.

However, loans from China accounted for only about 10% of Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt in 2020. The largest portion – about 30% – can be attributed to international sovereign bonds. Japan actually accounts for a higher proportion of their foreign debt, at 11%.

Defaults over China’s infrastructure-related loans to Sri Lanka, especially the financing of the Hambantota port, are being cited as factors contributing to the crisis.

But these facts don’t add up. The construction of the Hambantota port was financed by the Chinese Exim Bank. The port was running losses, so Sri Lanka leased out the port for 99 years to the Chinese Merchant’s Group, which paid Sri Lanka US$1.12 billion.

So the Hambantota port fiasco did not lead to a balance of payments crisis (where more money or exports are going out than coming in), it actually bolstered Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves by US$1.12 billion.

So what are the real reasons for the crisis?

Post-independence from the British in 1948, Sri Lanka’s agriculture was dominated by export-oriented crops such as tea, coffee, rubber and spices. A large share of its gross domestic product came from the foreign exchange earned from exporting these crops. That money was used to import essential food items.

Over the years, the country also began exporting garments, and earning foreign exchange from tourism and remittances (money sent into Sri Lanka from abroad, perhaps by family members). Any decline in exports would come as an economic shock, and put foreign exchange reserves under strain.

For this reason, Sri Lanka frequently encountered balance of payments crises. From 1965 onwards, it obtained 16 loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Each of these loans came with conditions including that once Sri Lanka received the loan they had to reduce their budget deficit, maintain a tight monetary policy, cut government subsidies for food for the people of Sri Lanka, and depreciate the currency (so exports would become more viable).

But usually in periods of economic downturns, good fiscal policy dictates governments should spend more to inject stimulus into the economy. This becomes impossible with the IMF conditions. Despite this situation, the IMF loans kept coming, and a beleaguered economy soaked up more and more debt.

The last IMF loan to Sri Lanka was in 2016. The country received US$1.5 billion for three years from 2016 to 2019. The conditions were familiar, and the economy’s health nosedived over this period. Growth, investments, savings and revenues fell, while the debt burden rose.

A bad situation turned worse with two economic shocks in 2019. First, there was a series of bomb blasts in churches and luxury hotels in Colombo in April 2019. The blasts led to a steep decline in tourist arrivals – with some reports stating up to an 80% drop – and drained foreign exchange reserves. Second, the new government under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa irrationally cut taxes.

Value-added tax rates (like Australia’s goods and services tax) were cut from 15% to 8%. Other indirect taxes such as the nation building tax, the pay-as-you-earn tax and economic service charges were abolished. Corporate tax rates were reduced from 28% to 24%. About 2% of the gross domestic product was lost in revenues because of these tax cuts.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In April 2021, the Rajapaksa government made another fatal mistake. To prevent the drain of foreign exchange reserves, all fertiliser imports were completely banned. Sri Lanka was declared a 100% organic farming nation. This policy, which was withdrawn in November 2021, led to a drastic fall in agricultural production and more imports became necessary.

But foreign exchange reserves remained under strain. A fall in the productivity of tea and rubber due to the ban on fertiliser also led to lower export incomes. Due to lower export incomes, there was less money available to import food and food shortages arose.

Because there is less food and other items to buy, but no decrease in demand, the prices for these goods rise. In February 2022, inflation rose to 17.5%.

What will happen now?

In all probability, Sri Lanka will now obtain a 17th IMF loan to tide over the present crisis, which will come with fresh conditions.

A deflationary fiscal policy will be followed, which will further limit the prospects of economic revival and exacerbate the sufferings of the Sri Lankan people.

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

– ref. What’s happening in Sri Lanka and how did the economic crisis start? – https://theconversation.com/whats-happening-in-sri-lanka-and-how-did-the-economic-crisis-start-181060

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne

Public hospital emergency departments in every state are overwhelmed, with ambulance ramping the most visible manifestation. Emergency department performance is deteriorating with fewer people being seen in a timely manner.

Labor, in its first major health election campaign announcement, has signalled it recognises the problem, and is offering an innovative solution — at least 50 new urgent care centres.

What is an urgent care centre?

About one-third of presentations to emergency departments may have been able to be managed in another setting, such as GP clinics.

There are several definitions used to identify these patients retrospectively in datasets – for example: “not too urgent”, “not arrive by ambulance”, “not admitted” — but the important issue is identifying these patients prospectively and encouraging them not to go to the emergency department, but rather to seek care elsewhere.

The reasons these patients attend an emergency department are complex and may be multi-faceted – it may be to do with perceived availability of necessary diagnostic equipment (for example x-rays), cost, or their regular general practice was not open.

The Labor proposal addresses some of these by ensuring the clinics will bulk bill and that they will be open extended hours, with appropriate equipment.

The issue of potentially avoidable emergency department presentations is facing health systems around the world, and so the “urgent care centre” idea is not new.

Close to home – and referred to in Labor’s proposal – are the New Zealand urgent care centres. These centres – with medical staff specifically trained in urgent care – treat minor ailments, fractures, sporting injuries, sprains and strains, and infections.

South Australia has established four “priority care centres” in Adelaide with a similar remit. Labor’s proposal refers to the centres potentially treating “broken bones, wounds, minor burns, and scrapes”, so fits the same profile as the New Zealand model.

Importantly, both the South Australian and New Zealand models are established with general practices, and Labor’s proposed model is similar. In this way, they are a contrast to a Rudd government initiative of free standing “Super Clinics”.

Importantly, the Labor Party commitment is that there will be further development of this proposal with state and territory governments and other stakeholders, including local emergency departments and ambulance services, and hopefully Primary Health Networks as well.

Read more:
The problems with Australia’s hospitals – and how they can be fixed

Do urgent care centres work?

The million-dollar question – actually the A$135 million question – is whether these new centres will work. People will certainly use them, but that is not the critical benchmark for an evaluation. What is important is whether use of an urgent care centre will reduce emergency department use.

The evidence from New Zealand is promising – emergency department attendances are lower in Auckland, which has a network of urgent care centres, compared to other parts of the country.

Importantly, the Labor commitment is phrased as a pilot, so hopefully a rigorous evaluation study will be developed alongside the establishment of the new centres, allowing a proper evaluation. If the evaluation shows there are demonstrable, measurable benefits in reduced emergency demand, with good care outcomes, then the new centres will provide a platform for further expansion across the country.

Read more:
Why do we wait so long in hospital emergency departments and for elective surgery?

Will urgent care centres fix the emergency department mess?

Here the answer is more complex.

There is no single, simple solution to emergency department overcrowding, but urgent care centres will help, and they are certainly better than nothing, which is the Morrison government’s offer to date.

Emergency department access is also a system and flow problem – patients are staying too long in hospital because they cannot get adequate aged care support at home or a bed in a residential aged care facility, or because the National Disability Insurance Scheme has failed to provide appropriately for them.

Read more:
Why hospitals need more generalist doctors and specialist nurses

Another contributing factor is mental health care. The Productivity Commission showed the mental health system in Australia is a renovator’s opportunity, and additional support systems are needed to help people avoid crises which lead to emergency department presentations.

People, especially younger people, don’t have a regular GP and might think the emergency department is the best place to go for chronic care, which it’s not.

In summary, the Labor urgent care initiative is innovative – at least for Australia – and welcome. But Labor needs to be careful it doesn’t over-hype the initiative. It is a pilot. It addresses one component of the overall emergency department flow problem. It has yet to be evaluated. So we should have an open mind about whether the approach really works prior to investing too much in it.

Unfortunately, in the black-and-white world of an election campaign, nuance sometimes goes out the window.

Stephen Duckett is chair of the Board of Directors of the Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network.

– ref. Labor’s urgent care centres are a step in the right direction – but not a panacea – https://theconversation.com/labors-urgent-care-centres-are-a-step-in-the-right-direction-but-not-a-panacea-181237

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lorrey, Principal Scientist & Programme Leader of Southern Hemisphere Climates and Environments, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

Earlier this month, we wrapped up the latest annual end-of-summer snowline survey over New Zealand’s South Island (Te Waipounamu), providing a birdseye view of how glaciers fared during the past year.

This collection of aerial photos adds to a near half-century perspective of irrefutable and dramatic climate change impacts on New Zealand’s frozen landscapes.

To put it bluntly, New Zealand’s glaciers look emaciated. Another Tasman Sea marine heat wave punctuated the hottest year on record nationally at the close of 2021, bathing the Southern Alps in warmth. That pattern continued into the Southern Hemisphere summer of 2022.

As New Zealand’s glaciers continue to feel the heat and shrink, bedrock that has not seen daylight for ages becomes exposed. Basins filled with meltwater begin to multiply across the landscape. In many cases, a ring of dirt and rock around some of New Zealand’s largest lakes marks where ice once reached.

Our current research is exploring these exposed rocky ridges to retrace New Zealand’s climate history.

Fingerprints of change in the landscape

The ridge-like mounds of rocks retreating glaciers leave behind are called moraines. Directly in front of some of the largest Southern Alps glaciers, fresh moraines circumscribe turquoise-tinted lakes, with ice calving into them. This scene doesn’t leave room for denial of the rapid retreat of ice from the alpine landscape.

Downstream, more extensive moraines are wrapped like ribbons around massive lake basins that lie along the edge of the Southern Alps. Some of these landforms stretch for miles, and they illustrate ice was much more extensive in the past.

We know the processes that formed those moraines must have been similar to what we observe today. But how old are they? What happened to the massive ice that was once there, and why did it retreat?

Read more:
How climate change made the melting of New Zealand’s glaciers 10 times more likely

A new mechanism that explains a rapid shift at the end of the last ice age – called the Zealandia Switch – is founded on New Zealand moraine evidence. This new hypothesis is challenging a long-held view about why glaciers changed in the recent and distant past.

While the Zealandia Switch focuses on global ice retreat for prehistoric times, we think it may also explain what is happening right now with our glaciers.

Clues from a nearly sunken continent

Glacial geologists use rare chemical isotopes trapped in rocks to trace the history of Earth’s surface with a technique called cosmogenic surface exposure dating.

This method measures how long rocks found on the surface today have been exposed to cosmic rays. Boulders that have been carried inside flowing ice have zero exposure history.

When they are dropped onto a moraine and exposed to cosmic rays from outer space, their “cosmic clock” starts and the rare isotopes begin to accumulate inside minerals in the rock.

Once exposure dates for moraine boulders are established, they are linked to detailed maps that outline ice advance and retreat sequences. The major moraines around central Southern Alps lakes – Pukaki, Tekapo and Ōhau – now have hundreds of results showing rapid change happened about 18,000 years ago.

Read more:
Climate explained: what is an ice age and how often do they happen?

Offshore in the Tasman Sea, microfossils from sediment cores indicate ocean currents and boundaries shifted at exactly the same time. Climate modelling can explain the simultaneous land and sea changes through a major switch of Southern Hemisphere westerly winds over the nearly-submerged Zealandia continent – hence the Zealandia Switch hypothesis.

When the Zealandia Switch turns on and spins up the southern westerlies, it helps to promote water vapour export from the tropics and atmospheric circulation patterns that drive warming in both hemispheres. If the Zealandia Switch hypothesis is upheld, then the story about Quaternary ice age origins and their impacts on global climate, plant ecosystems and ancient fauna will need to be rewritten.

The Zealandia Switch and ice loss

Fast forward 18,000 years and the southern winds of change are on the move again. Subtropical waters are being pumped into the Tasman Sea, driving more frequent marine heatwaves. New Zealand’s temperatures are soaring.

Atmospheric rivers loaded with tropical moisture are penetrating Antarctic latitudes and bringing record temperatures with them. The current situation has hallmarks of the Zealandia Switch playing an enhanced role – but this time, Earth is in an interglacial rather than an ice age state.

The latest Southern Alps glacier research shows austral warm season temperatures and a rising snowline trend are tightly coupled. The rising snowline trend is also accelerating at an alarming pace.

A series of extremely hot years with exceptionally high snowlines that are driving this pattern have been linked to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Similar conclusions have been drawn for the recent acceleration of global ice loss.

These connections raise the possibility that human activities have flicked the Zealandia Switch to a higher level of the “ON” position, and it may remain stuck there for the foreseeable future. If what unfolds is anything similar to when the Zealandia Switch curtailed the ice age during the Last Glacial Termination, we can expect big, fast and global climate re-organisation impacts.

The changes ahead may also bring the beginning of the end – a final termination – for many glaciers north and south.

Andrew Lorrey receives funding from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research LTD.

Aaron Putnam receives support for scientific research from the National Science Foundation, the Comer Family Foundation and the Quesada Family Foundation.

David Barrell receives funding from GNS Science.

George Denton receives support for scientific research from the National Science Foundation, the Comer Family Foundation and the Quesada Family Foundation.

Joellen Russell receives funding from the US National Science Foundation and the Thomas R. Brown Foundation

– ref. The Zealandia Switch drove rapid global ice retreat 18,000 years ago. Has it switched to a new level? – https://theconversation.com/the-zealandia-switch-drove-rapid-global-ice-retreat-18-000-years-ago-has-it-switched-to-a-new-level-179188

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate professor, The University of Western Australia

Several Australian states have used mandates to drive up COVID vaccination rates. Governments justified the mandates on the basis of preventing the spread of disease and protecting the vulnerable.

Now many states are rolling back these mandates, with Queensland removing the requirement to show you’re vaccinated before entering cafes, pubs, galleries and other public spaces from tomorrow.

It would be nice to think that when mandates have served their purpose, they can be removed. In practice, removing mandates may affect public attitudes about the importance of vaccination and the likelihood of getting boosters.

Read more:
Is it time to rethink vaccine mandates for dining, fitness and events? We asked 5 experts

Remind me, what were the mandates?

Public space mandates involve governments mandating that venues (such as restaurants, libraries and sporting venues) check individuals’ vaccination status and exclude the unvaccinated. This is facilitated by vaccine passports and certificates.

Government employment mandates involve governments requiring workers in specific industries to be vaccinated. Businesses and organisations may also implement their own policies requiring the vaccination of their staff, their clients, or both.

Most states and territories embraced public space mandates and all have required vaccination of aged and health-care workers.

But many are on their way out. NSW eased its requirements last year. South Australia has recently revoked mandates for police, teachers and transport workers. Queensland’s new policy is noted above.

Victoria, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory are sitting with their existing requirements for now.

What could happen next?

It’s unclear what impact removing vaccine mandates will have in Australia. However, we can learn from other public health measures and COVID vaccine mandates implemented overseas.

Seat-belt laws converted a government requirement into a widespread social norm. Car manufacturers reinforced the norm with vehicles that beep at us when we don’t comply.

But just because something has become habitual doesn’t mean we can lose the law. If governments removed the seat-belt law now and expected us to comply because we are informed, educated, and socialised, some people would still conclude that seat belts are no longer important. Removal of a requirement can send a bad message.

Read more:
Smallpox, seatbelts and smoking: 3 ways public health has saved lives from history to the modern day

The Italian government learned this when the region of Veneto suspended childhood vaccine mandates for four childhood vaccines in 2007. Officials thought the region’s wealthy and educated population would continue to vaccinate their children if the regional government provided strong education and messaging.

They were wrong. Their strategy worked until there was a national vaccine scare in 2012. Vaccination rates in Veneto plummeted faster than anywhere else in the country.

Eventually, the national government mandated more vaccines for the whole country.

Other countries have already experimented with introducing, removing, and sometimes re-introducing mandates. Some, such as Austria and the United Kingdom, have flip-flopped, providing little opportunity to study the impact of their mandates’ introduction or removal.

Israel, which vaccinated its population promptly with Pfizer to the envy of the world, used a “public space” mandate (with an opt-out of a negative COVID test). The mandate has been switched on and off depending on the disease situation at the time.

Unfortunately, Israelis’ uptake of subsequent doses has dropped over time, but its government still ended the mandate in February.

Mandates are also not without risks and costs. They can provoke reactance, making those who are reluctant to vaccinate more determined not to do so. They may also prompt activism against vaccines and mandates.

High vaccination rates help contain COVID

One of the biggest challenges is nobody knows what the next phase of COVID will look like. Neither infection nor the current vaccines provide long-lasting immunity. We don’t know whether the next strain will continue the trajectory towards less serious symptoms started by Omicron (and helped by high vaccination rates).

Whether we continue to be able to stay on top of COVID and whether the disease continues to remain less severe in most people infected will depend on maintaining high vaccination coverage rates.

Read more:
COVID mask mandates might be largely gone but here are 5 reasons to keep wearing yours

Governments across the nation and the world have struggled to get third doses into populations at the same level and with the same enthusiasm people showed towards the first two.

Uptake in paediatric populations is also lagging in Australia – and there are no mandates.

Now adults are being asked to prepare for and accept our fourth doses.

Leading the way

Western Australia has one of the highest rates of uptake in the country, with 76.7% of people aged over 16 triple dosed. This compares with the national average of 52.3%.

It’s no coincidence the state’s employment mandates, which cover 75% of the workforce, require workers have their third dose within a month of becoming eligible.

The WA mandate did not contain three doses to begin with, but it was very easy for the government to build it in.

Faced with rolling back the mandate or keeping it operational for the fourth dose, the government will have to grapple with whether the population continues to support these measures – and there are definitely people who reluctantly accepted two doses and are not prepared to keep having more.

WA’s public space mandate only covers two doses for now.

WA’s COVID vaccination experience has shown that mandates, including for third doses, drive high levels of uptake, and are easy for governments to implement.

However, much of the rest of Australia is moving in an opposite direction to WA in removing its mandates.

As we live through the continued natural experiment of living with COVID – and not allowing it to defeat us – we now move into a new phase of making sense of what to do with the policy instruments governments used.

Katie Attwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the WA Department of Health. She is funded by ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE1901000158. She is a specialist advisor to the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) COVID-19. All views presented in this article are her own and not representative of any other organisation.

– ref. Time to remove vaccine mandates? Not so fast – it could have unintended consequences – https://theconversation.com/time-to-remove-vaccine-mandates-not-so-fast-it-could-have-unintended-consequences-180781

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Orr, Professor of Law, The University of Queensland

You join a political party. Its rules are over 100 pages long. And that’s only for your state division. There’s also an overarching “federal” party constitution.

Good, you think. Parties run parliament, our lawmakers should be be governed by rules about selecting candidates or expelling party members. But are they? Can you ask the courts to ensure your party’s powerbrokers abide by the rules that they, by and large, write?

It’s a simple question, but the answer to it is a mess, thanks to cases about recent high-profile interventions by national party leaders into Victorian Labor and the NSW Liberals.

What is going on? In part this is an historical tangle within common (in other words, judge-made) caselaw. In part, it is because the major parties have decided to upset 30 years of pragmatic acceptance of the obvious answer: serious rules, of registered parties, should be enforceable.

Read more:
Preselection and parachuting candidates: 3 reasons parties override their local branch members, despite the costs

Parties as private social clubs?

Ninety years ago, Ned Hogan lost his pre-selection to stand for the Labor Party and was expelled from its ranks. Just weeks before, he had been Labor premier of Victoria. This drama – one of several splits that occasionally rend our parties – happened as the nation was divided about Depression-era austerity measures.

Hogan fought his peremptory treatment all the way to the High Court. In 1934, it ruled in favour of the party. Not on the merits, but because it equated parties to any “voluntary association […] formed for social, sporting, political, scientific, religious, artistic or humanitarian” interests. Unless the squabble concerned who owned property, the court would treat it as a private stoush.

Parties as semi-public bodies

Thirty years ago, this ruling was side-stepped. It had long been criticised for its unreality. A clear-sighted Queensland judge, John Dowsett, reasoned that whatever the mores of the 1930s, modern parties were deeply involved in public affairs. In particular, they register with electoral commissions and receive significant public funding.

Since 1992, a variety of Supreme Court judges, across numerous states, reinforced that finding. Party rules formed a contract, biding party members and administrators alike.

This didn’t mean open slather. First, non-members couldn’t insist party rules be enforced. (So parties could easily avert hostile takeovers). Second, only clear, usually procedural, rules were enforceable. (So statements of philosophy were treated as puffery). Internal grievance procedures had to be exhausted and members who sued late could be rebuffed.

Finally, the courts just interpreted rules, they didn’t re-write them. Rules might be democratic or hierarchical. With one caveat: they couldn’t completely oust any role for the courts.

First they came for the union boss…

In 2019, Anthony Albanese intervened personally to urgently expel construction union leader, John Setka, from Victorian Labor. This was in apparent violation of the state party’s procedures and misconduct triggers.

Setka challenged in court, but Labor convinced a Victorian judge to revert to 1934, and not hear the matter. Few seemed to lament this judicial washing of hands. After all, Setka has attracted much controversy in his personal, legal and union life.

Into 2021-22, the role of the courts became critical. First the national takeover of Victorian Labor was contested. Then, a similar gambit by Scott Morrison in NSW was decried as “carpet-bombing”, by Liberal members both moderate and conservative.

In the last month, appeal courts in Victoria, then NSW, crafted a third way. Courts should hear such disputes, but only if they are closely connected to some electoral law requirement.

This new approach is very fuzzy. The Victorian court said it covered pre-selections, since parties nominate their candidates via the electoral commission. The NSW court rejected that finding completely, suggesting that only questions such as who was the party’s agent for electoral registration were necessarily within judicial purview.

The High Court in a wedge

In each case, party members then sought leave to appeal to the High Court. In each case, in the past week, the High Court declined to be involved. Understandably, given the imminence of the election. Sometimes the clock runs down on any useful remedies, and complex questions deserve considered reflection.

Also, the merits of the claims were limited. Unsurprisingly, party rules often give wide power to national executives to intervene, take over a branch, and select candidates.

But in Delphic hints last Friday, two High Court judges tantalisingly implied the very narrow NSW approach was fine.

Read more:
Word from The Hill: Court saves Morrison’s NSW preselections but what sort of campaign will Liberals run?

Membership bodies or top-down electoral brands?

Where do these judicial shenanigans leave us? First, until the High Court finds a suitable case to resolve the confusion, members in most states – but not necessarily the biggest two – may still seek the help of the courts.

Second, parties can run up costs by objecting to court hearings at will. Yet, if a party executive wants the courts involved (to suit their public agenda, or if there’s a fight between sub-factions in which the executive has no interest) it can simply not raise an objection to a hearing.

Finally, the law of parties in Australia is one-sided and underdeveloped. Parties get benefits, from public funding through to control of party names on ballot papers.

Yet they increasingly are constructed as mere electoral brands, disconnected from any social base.

Meanwhile, their dwindling band of active members – who pay up to $225 a year for the privilege – have limited say in party affairs. And little reassurance the courts will help them if they feel repressed by administrators ignoring their party’s own rules.

Graeme Orr does pro bono and occasionally consultancy work in the law of politics, including electoral law. He is on the NSW Electoral Commission’s iVote advisory panel. Last year he was on the Constitutional Advisory Board of the ARM. In the past he has given pro bono advice, on electoral law, to various small parties and independent candidates, regardless of ideology.

– ref. Why party preselections are still a mess, and the courts haven’t helped – https://theconversation.com/why-party-preselections-are-still-a-mess-and-the-courts-havent-helped-181054

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Hanckel, Senior research fellow, Western Sydney University

Homelessness remains a huge problem in Australia and an important contributing factor is low literacy levels.

We interviewed 23 people who were homeless or had experienced homelessness to find out how they viewed literacy and participation in literacy classes. We wanted to know what would help or hinder them in attending literacy classes.

Our report found low literacy levels affected homeless people’s lives in many ways. Our interviewees repeatedly emphasised the importance of having a literacy program suited to their needs.

Read more:
HILDA Survey reveals striking gender and age divide in financial literacy. Test yourself with this quiz

Common factors driving poor literacy

Housing instability or adolescent homelessness was a common factor contributing to poor literacy. Dropping out of school at an early stage was typical.

Holly* said:

I dropped out of school in Year 7 so I haven’t had much schooling […] And then going to being on the streets and going from house to house you don’t learn very much. Just what sort of you learn from other people.

Lisa told us:

I tried to get my Year 10 but I didn’t end up getting it [Year 10 certificate] cos’ I had a baby. And I ended up taking my baby back to school but I’d probably say Year 9.

Sam had a similar history:

I left halfway through Year 10. I didn’t even finish my Year 10 exams. I did the half-yearly but didn’t complete my certificate so I found it really hard to get into work.

Daniel said:

I didn’t really start reading until I was an adult. I read the pictures in MAD magazines and stuff like that.

They also spoke about factors such as learning dis/abilities such as dyslexia, as well as systemic factors such as racism.

Rick, an older Indigenous man, experienced institutional racism throughout his youth:

I didn’t have much schooling because of discrimination back in the 60s, 70s and that, and didn’t get much to school.

A humiliating experience

The experience of not being able to read was humiliating for some. Gregory said:

I can’t even read the newspaper. I pretend to people […] I can read […] but I just look at the pictures.

Interviewees said that besides not being able to read the newspaper, they struggled with key activities such as filling in forms, shopping, reading and sending emails or text messages, and writing letters.

Luke told us he wanted:

[…] help with reading newspapers, stuff like that […] Filling out forms would probably come in handy ‘cos I always have trouble with forms […] You name it. Everything you’ve got to do nowadays is filling out forms.

Andrew said:

Just dealing with the paperwork and that with all the different agencies you have to go through, while you’re homeless is just absolutely insane.

Aaron told us:

I’ve got pretty basic literacy. Like, since you left school, you forget a lot of words which you don’t use most of them. And then you get on the phone and you’re trying to send a message and […] you go, “How do you spell that bloody word?” You can’t put the […] letters to the word.

A stepping stone

All interviewees felt a literacy program for homeless people would improve the quality of their lives. As Daniel said,

Literacy obviously is a key factor for a successful life, isn’t it?

They recognised the strong link between finding employment and improved literacy. They felt classes were a good idea if they would, as Drew suggested, “better my job prospects”.

Leanne saw value in having some formalised recognition, saying:

If it puts me back into the workforce, that’d be great – even if it was just, like, a certificate of attainment or whatever. That’d be even better.

Some interviewees saw literacy classes as a stepping stone to engage with educational institutions, and finish high school certificates.

Holly said a literacy program would help her do “year 10 and my HSC, no matter how much it takes”.

Some also wanted to enhance their skills to read and write for pleasure. Daniel commented,

I’d expect a tutor to say, ‘Pick up a book. I’ve got one here that I suggest if you’re struggling’.

The benefits of books were also noted for well-being. As Sandra said:

Books have helped me through my mental health issues […] books are very useful in times of need.

What would help create a successful literacy program?

Interviewees told us a successful literacy program for homeless people would need to provide refreshments, have empathetic tutors, be comfortable, be accessible and be in familiar territory.

Anna said a literacy class would be best at

a community centre or like a town hall something like that. Something relaxing […] ‘cos you don’t want people coming in and just being, you know, [in] unknown territory.

Andrew said:

People would probably be more comfortable coming to a place like this [a community centre] as opposed to a university ‘cos you’ve got some pretty funky young people nowadays.

Chloe told us:

A venue that would be central but also not so public as well [so] that they could easily get to [it] and not feel judged when they’re walking through.

Interviewees told us an effective tutor would be respectful and understanding. Andrea said:

Just be really open and understanding […] Obviously not judgemental or that sort of stuff. I guess just to maybe try and understand that people are at different levels as well and people want different things out of the course.

What happens next

A growing body of research has drawn a link between poor literacy and social outcomes.

Our study, funded by The Footpath Library, highlighted how structural issues in a person’s formative years affect their literacy and life outcomes.

A parliamentary inquiry into adult literacy recently identified the need for local community-based “literacy mediators”. These are professional educators or peers who have the literacy competency and necessary skills to enhance the literacy of people experiencing homelessness. Literacy mediators would support them with their literacy needs in a safe and inclusive way.

Read more:
95% of homeless in Sydney and Melbourne own a mobile phone

* All names have been changed to protect identities.

This project received funding from The Footpath Library. This story is part of The Conversation’s Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Alan Morris received funding from the Footpath Library and receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Keiko Yasukawa contributed to this project that was funded by the Footpath Library. Funding sources for her past research projects have included the ARC, Commonwealth government, NCVER and the Telstra Foundation. She is affiliated with the NSW Adult Literacy and Numeracy Council, a membership based professional association for adult literacy and numeracy professionals in NSW.

– ref. ‘I always have trouble with forms’: homeless people on how poor literacy affects them – and what would help – https://theconversation.com/i-always-have-trouble-with-forms-homeless-people-on-how-poor-literacy-affects-them-and-what-would-help-180784

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Powles, Associate Professor of Law and Technology; Director, Minderoo Tech & Policy Lab, UWA Law School, The University of Western Australia

Over the past decade, the top end of sport has become saturated in data. Some of this is visible — such as match statistics, maximum speeds and distances covered — but a tremendous amount is invisible.

Athletes are continuously being tracked. Details on their precise location, physiology, well-being, sleep, and more are recorded round the clock through an array of body-worn and observational technologies.

This information, most of which is personal and sensitive, is processed by a complex and opaque transnational system of commercial entities, including cloud providers, device manufacturers, analytics developers and athlete management systems.

Given the sheer scale and number of entities involved, few people know where this information goes. It’s rare for sports scientists and support staff to be able to account for it, and rarer still for sports governing bodies and athletes themselves.

The justification from technology vendors and sports clubs is that all this information is collected to improve performance and reduce injury risk to athletes.

But a number of people in the sports sector have started asking questions: is the data collection actually delivering athletes benefits? What are the costs? And what are the implications beyond the sector?

Assessing the state of play

To answer these questions, the Australian Academy of Science convened an expert working group over the past 18 months. The group, which we co-chaired, comprised a dozen experts from a range of fields including sports science, sports medicine, sports governance, artificial intelligence, law, policy, and social science.

The project drew on experience from a number of the working group’s members, who have worked for the past three decades in basketball, cricket, netball, rugby league, rugby union, football (soccer) and Australian rules football. We also interviewed 25 sports practitioners with experience working on professional sport codes in Australia, the United States and Europe.

Our findings, published today in a discussion paper, reveal the degree of personal and sensitive information collected from professional athletes is excessive, and often unjustified.

Our scientific review of the types of data being collected, and their use in professional sport, showed that much more information is collected than is demonstrably beneficial to athletes.

What’s more, how the information is being collected and used falls short of requirements laid out in Australian law. Excessive data collection that is neither demonstrably beneficial, nor lawful, has costs — not just for athletes, but for everyone who works in sport.

The great unpredictable drama of sport

Currently in professional sport, the approach to athlete data is “collect everything you can” and “save it in case it’s useful”. This is the sort of environment susceptible to snake oil salesmen peddling the promise of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

But as our expert group warns, there’s a crucial limit to any promise that if we can just gather enough data, we can leverage it to predict injury and performance.

We found what we can collect on athletes is almost always a second-order proxy of what we actually need in order to understand causal mechanisms of performance and injury.

Say we want to predict the risk of soft-tissue injury. Metrics routinely collected in professional sport such as total running time, distance covered, and repeat sprint efforts can be used to calculate macro measures of muscle work. Some sports might also make relative assessments of muscular strength deficits and asymmetries.

Ultimately, these are all low-resolution data inputs about athlete movement, attempting to reflect how hard the muscles are working. But this is a long way from describing the multi-scale complexity of human function. No amount of machine learning can bridge this gap.

Turning around unaccountable monitoring

Where do athletes figure in how sporting leagues and clubs handle the often intimately revealing information about them?

Current practices in professional sport are out of step with Australian legal requirements. Two major disconnects stand out. First, the category of “performance data” widely used in sport is not a legally recognised concept.

Rather, in law, the vast majority of what’s collected is actually health information, and requires much more robust protection and active athlete engagement.

Second, under Australian law, sporting organisations are limited to holding information that is “reasonably necessary” to their functions or activities. Australia’s leading privacy regulator has confirmed information “being entered in a database in case it might be needed in the future”, or being collected as part of “normal business practice”, simply does not satisfy this test.

Professional sport is a workplace. Few of us would be comfortable in a workplace where, rather than being judged on the outcome of our efforts, our every tiny movement was being unnecessarily observed and judged.

Remembering what works

Athletes risk having their livelihoods affected by data and systems that do not adequately reflect them, and that they can’t contest.

At the same time, increasingly invasive data collection risks replacing expert specialists — such as exercise physiologists, biomechanists and sports psychologists – with data analysts who lack domain expertise in the complexities of human function, especially in the small and highly specific populations who compete at the pinnacle of sport.

Our paper calls for a conversation about legal and ethical guardrails, and improvements in literacy and governance needed to ensure athletes have their rights protected and promoted. This is both in their own interest and in the public interest.

Change is coming

In a tangible sense, we are pleased that key players in the sector have been inspired by our work to tackle the challenge.

Player associations like the Rugby League Players Association are working with researchers to establish scientifically rigorous studies in specific areas to validate whether players’ intimate information can be linked to health outcomes. This is happening at a small scale before being considered for a wider rollout.

The Australian Institute of Sport, and associated state and territory entities, have initiated the award-winning Female Performance & Health Initiative. This has already led to restrained practices around menstrual tracking and other information collected on female athletes.

More broadly, the high performance system is implementing a long-term project, in partnership with the University of Western Australia, to establish a leading approach to athlete-centred data stewardship.

Just as Australia punches above its weight in the sporting arena, it has a historic opportunity to set forward-looking norms and standards around how it approaches athlete information. Let’s get ahead of the game.

Read more:
Wearable tech at the Olympics: How athletes are using it to train to win

Julia Powles is Chief Investigator on a grant to improve data governance and ethics in high performance sport, funded by the Australian Institute of Sport and National Institute Network. She is also Director of the UWA Minderoo Tech & Policy Lab, which receives unrestricted gift funding from Australian charitable organisation, Minderoo Foundation.

Toby Walsh receives funding from the Australian Research Council as an ARC Laureate Fellow.

– ref. Has the monitoring of professional athletes’ intimate information gone too far? – https://theconversation.com/has-the-monitoring-of-professional-athletes-intimate-information-gone-too-far-180890

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eddie Synot, Lecturer, Griffith Law School, Griffith University

The result of the federal election will be key for a voice to parliament protected by the Constitution as called for by the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The election will also be crucial for Indigenous affairs more broadly.

The Uluru Statement calls for structural reform of the Australian Constitution. This means a First Nations Voice to Parliament so Indigenous peoples can be appropriately recognised and have a say about the laws and policies that affect them. The second step of the Uluru Statement is a Makarrata Commission to oversee a process of agreement-making (treaty) and truth-telling.

Scott Morrison acknowledged significant problems with past government approaches to Indigenous affairs in his 2019 Closing the Gap address. Morrison promised to do things differently,

“Despite the best of intentions; investments in new programs; and bi-partisan goodwill, Closing the Gap has never really been a partnership with Indigenous people. We perpetuated an ingrained way of thinking, passed down over two centuries and more, and it was the belief that we knew better than our Indigenous peoples. We don’t.”

Following details of these failures, including how closing the gap targets have been set, Morrison promised,

“There remains much to do. And we will do it differently”

Morrison’s promise however has proven lacklustre. This is despite the much-praised Council of Australian Governments partnership with the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community-Controlled Peak Organisations (the Coalition of Peaks). This partnership produced the re-negotiated closing the gap agreement.

Despite these promises, First Nations communities have witnessed much of the same, with advice being ignored and funding cut. Pat Turner, CEO of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, described the recent budget as “business as usual” that won’t help close the gap.

Read more:
Non-Indigenous Australians shouldn’t fear a First Nations Voice to Parliament

The current government’s plans around a voice to parliament

The current government has made its intention to pursue a legislated voice to government clear. This was confirmed with A$31.8 million being allocated in the budget to the next stage of local and regional voice structures following the government’s final Voice Co-Design report. If the government is re-elected, we can expect voice legislation to be introduced.

The pursuit of a legislated body before constitutional reform is a mistake. It is contrary to the Uluru Statement and the support that was received by the government’s own process for constitutional enshrinement.

The government legislating a model without first enshrining the First Nations Voice in the Constitution ignores how important structural reform is. Australia’s institutions can only make real and lasting change in Indigenous affairs by empowering First Nations people to achieve meaningful and effective treaty and truth-telling outcomes.

However there are issues with the government’s Voice Co-Design report and the limited legislated voice model it is pursuing. The proposed model will gag Indigenous communities by restricting what they can and can’t raise to the national level. This means issues that involve local or state matters cannot be elevated to the national body. Elevating matters to the national body and using its position and resources may be exactly what is required to force change.

The current proposed models state the government will decide what is a local issue and when advice may be given. This will further entrench Indigenous dis-empowerment and limit government accountability.

The 1967 referendum was supposed to address this very issue. The Commonwealth were given the power by the most successful referendum in Australian history to legislate for Indigenous peoples and address the failure and inaction of state governments. And yet the federal government will not make use of this power to support First Nations voices in state governments.

Where does Labor stand?

The opposition under Anthony Albanese and Linda Burney has promised to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. This was confirmed in Albanese’s budget reply speech where the opposition leader stated,

“I want to build a strong Australia […] An Australia that embraces the generous Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally recognised Indigenous Voice to Parliament.”

Labor has said it is committed to a referendum in its first year of parliament but has said it would look to simultaneously pursue the implementation of a Makarrata Commission. This is problematic because this does not follow the sequence set out in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Beginning a Makarrata Commission in the current climate would mean relying on the same institutions Indigenous affairs are currently having issues with. One example of this is the new closing the gap agreement with the Coalition of Peaks that has been mostly ignored. As a result, gaps in health, education and socio-economic status in First Nations communities continue to exist.

Labor has made other promising commitments since the last federal election. These include earlier promises to end the cashless welfare card and the Community Development Program. The Community Development Program has forced generations of unemployed Indigenous peoples to work for less than minimum wage to receive support. It’s being scrapped by the government in favour of a new employment program in 2023 but with little detail or promise of being any better for Indigenous communities.

Many have doubts over Labor’s commitments, particularly with strong memories of Labor’s continuance of the widely condemned Northern Territory Intervention. The Intervention, in response to conflated reports of child sex abuse in communities, communities that had otherwise been asking for the resources to address these issues over decades, saw the Australian Army sent into Indigenous communities without notice.

The Intervention forced the handover, management and leasing of Indigenous property and communities. It put in place strict restrictions on movement and prohibited goods such as alcohol and pornography, while also implementing strict income management. Despite the many known problems and backlash from the community, Labor continued the program under the new “Stronger Futures” program in 2012.

Read more:
Indigenous recognition is more than a Voice to Government – it’s a matter of political equality

The Greens and Independent parties

The Greens have troublingly revised their support for the Uluru Statement, after handing their Indigenous affairs portfolio to Lidia Thorpe. This has resulted in the Greens insisting on a reversal of the sequence of reforms (Truth, Treaty and Voice rather than Voice, Treaty and Truth). Something contrary to the Uluru Statement and evidence of what will work in the Australian context.

Most independents are supportive of the Uluru Statement and have expressed their commitment publicly. This commitment is also shared with a general commitment to achieve lasting reform in Indigenous affairs.

National leadership on the Uluru Statement and Indigenous affairs is important if we are to make lasting, meaningful change. Unfortunately, the federal government has been actively limiting its role while disingenuously emphasising the importance of state and local groups. These groups are then heaped with the burden of responsibility without genuine empowerment, government support or resources to achieve change.

Professor Megan Davis has written on this phenomenon. This policy practice sees the federal government walk back from their leadership in Indigenous affairs, something that was hard fought for in the successful 1967 referendum. Michael Dillon from Australian National University’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research explains that:

“It is the culmination of a decade-long push to shift Indigenous policy responsibilities away from the Commonwealth and towards the states and territories, and away from Indigenous-specific programs and towards mainstream programs.”

States and territories are doing some good work, including work towards treaty in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Victoria is often said to be the only jurisdiction moving ahead with the Uluru Statement reforms. The new Malinauskas government in South Australia has recently made similar promises.

However, the Uluru Statement is deliberately a federal reform – it is a reform of our nation, and no state or territory can implement that alone. The reality of our political, legal and cultural institutions is woven with the character of our nation, including its hierarchical makeup.

Whoever wins the coming election will need to actively lead on improving Indigenous affairs if we are to make meaningful and lasting change.

Eddie Synot is affiliated with Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW that works in partnership with the Uluru Dialogue on progressing the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

– ref. How the election could affect the future of a First Nations Voice to Parliament – https://theconversation.com/how-the-election-could-affect-the-future-of-a-first-nations-voice-to-parliament-180556

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esmé Louise James, Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne

The success of Netflix’s Bridgerton is owed to many different factors: an addictive storyline, inspired casting choices, a dazzling costume design… and, of course, the fact the show is incredibly sexy.

Bridgerton has finally satisfied an ongoing craving for historical romance (and borderline erotica) which has existed since Mr Darcy’s wet-shirt moment in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

But how sexy would Bridgerton have been in real life?

The show is set in the early years of the 19th century, placing it in the middle of the Regency period and towards the end of the Georgian era. Around this time, it is estimated one in five Londoners would have had syphilis (or “the Pox”) by the age of 35.

If this number isn’t already shocking enough, historians also estimate the number who contracted gonorrhoea or chlamydia was far higher. According to historian Professor Simon Szreter:

The city had an astonishingly high incidence of STIs at that time. It no longer seems unreasonable to suggest that a majority of those living in London while young adults in this period contracted an STI at some point in their lives.

There was no effective cure found for syphilis until the beginning of the 20th century, meaning if you happened to fall within the unlucky 20% of society, there was generally no hope of recovery.

Syphilis in Bridgerton

The drama of the recently released season 2 of Bridgerton primarily revolves around the love interest of the eligible Viscount Anthony Bridgerton and the spinsterly Kate Sharma. However, their enemies-to-lovers romance is complicated by Anthony’s intentions to court the Queen’s favourite and Kate’s younger sister, Edwina Sharma.

Kate’s initial objection to the match concerns Anthony’s objectionable personality – and rumours of his licentious past. With the prevalence of syphilis at the time in mind, Miss Sharma is rather well justified in rejecting her sister’s match on the basis of the Viscount’s libertine history. As a titillating montage at the beginning of the first episode reminds us, Anthony regularly employed sex workers to help him blow off a little steam at the end of the day.

Brothels and other forms of sex work were prolific across England during this time, commonly referred to as “the great social evil”. Brothels which catered to higher members of society were generally run by women to the west of London, whereas the bawdy-houses of the East End tended to be run by men.

By the mid-eighteenth century, it was estimated 50% of London’s brothel’s were operated by women. Brothel Madams were generally considered to be more tactful when it came to dealings with clients; frequenting these establishments was something that Lords (and, in some rare cases, Ladies) would regularly do, yet not something that should be spoken of in polite society.

As may well be expected, the spread of syphilis and the popularity of these establishments were not entirely unconnected. Admission records of London’s hospitals and workhouse infirmaries show the disease was particularly rife among young, impoverished, mostly unmarried women, who used commercial sex to financially support themselves.

With no effective treatment available for the Pox, those afflicted were often prescribed mercury as a treatment (which, with the privilege of our modern worldview, we know to be just as detrimental – if not worse – than untreated syphilis). This led to the popular saying from the period, “A night with Venus, and a lifetime with mercury.”

For this reason, it was common for members of high society, such as Anthony Bridgerton, to have a more exclusive arrangement with a chosen mistress (or mistresses). This arrangement allowed Lords to minimise risk their of infection without forfeiting this favoured pastime.

Prevention is better than a cure (and also doesn’t exist)

It wasn’t just a cure for STIs that was lacking, but also preventative methods. While condoms did exist, they were not anywhere near as widely accessible, encouraged, or effective as we know them today.

One of the major proprietors of condoms within London (particularly for sex workers) was the infamous Mrs Phillips, who held a shop in Leicester Square. These were made of sheep and goat gut, pickled, and fashioned by hand on glass moulds by Mrs Phillips herself.

While certainly better than nothing, the material by which these condoms were made meant that they were generally prone to breaking (and certainly not a sexy addition to any licentious affairs).

Read more:
A whole new set of horny lords and ladies: how Bridgerton brought romance book serialisation to television

It would not be until the 1910s that the first effective treatment for syphilis was discovered through the development of the drug, Salvarsan. Until this stage, mercury remained the primary treatment for the disease. By the 1940s, a safe and accessible cure was established with the production of penicillin.

While Bridgerton is not limited by the often strangulating bounds of historical accuracy, it is rather fascinating to consider the dirtier environmental factors that did impact this world of balls and fine fabrics.

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

– ref. Did everyone in Bridgerton have syphilis? Just how sexy would it really have been in Regency era London? – https://theconversation.com/did-everyone-in-bridgerton-have-syphilis-just-how-sexy-would-it-really-have-been-in-regency-era-london-180581

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Donne Potter, Professor, Research Centre for Hauora and Health, Massey University

Many patients recover from COVID within a week or two, but at least one in five experience persistent or new symptoms more than four weeks after first being diagnosed.

Long COVID is a growing concern. But we still don’t have a clear definition and there are insufficient data to provide a trajectory or a timeline for how long it lingers. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has proposed a working definition:

Signs and symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with COVID-19 but continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis. It usually presents with clusters of symptoms, often overlapping, which can fluctuate and change over time and can affect any system in the body.

Although some symptoms resolve over time, others persist or re-emerge. There are many individuals with symptoms lasting 12 months or longer.

Downstream damage can affect the brain, heart, lungs, pancreas (causing diabetes) and other organs. However, we know that vaccination is protective against long COVID, whether given before or after the initial infection and illness.

On average, the risk is higher for people with more severe disease, but many develop long COVID after a mild initial illness. Long COVID is more common in women than men, but there is no consistent relationship with age. Although the initial viral illness is more severe for older people, this is not true for long COVID.

Common symptoms of long COVID

Most studies show a general pattern of higher prevalence of long COVID for people with more severe illness. The estimates of prevalence range from from 19% to 57%, with one outlier at more than 80%.

The three largest cohort studies place it at 19% to 30%, showing long COVID is common enough to be a major public-health threat, independently of acute COVID.

It is becoming increasingly clear that long COVID is much more than a collection of symptoms. Rather, it is a recognisable clinical syndrome (or set of syndromes) with well described underlying pathology.

Read more:
Long COVID: symptoms experienced during infection may predict lasting illness

SARS-CoV-2 infection can contribute to long COVID in a variety of ways. It can cause direct damage to tissue as well as microscopic blood clots, which sometimes result in deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and stroke.

The immune system can itself cause damage when it begins to attack normal tissue or produce a cytokine storm. All of these effects are seen in COVID-related brain damage, which is likely to be the result of infection, microclots, lack of oxygen and an activated immune response.

Impacts on the brain and heart

A study across 62 healthcare organisations reported that, among almost 250,000 patients with COVID, 33.6% were diagnosed with neurologic and psychiatric conditions in the following six months, with 12.8% being new-onset conditions. For ICU patients, the comparable estimates were 46.4% and 25.8%.

Specific outcomes included stroke, Parkinson’s, dementia, anxiety and psychosis. A large study of US veterans reported elevated risk of anxiety and depression. Studies in the UK and China established evidence of cognitive decline, again related to the severity of the initial illness.

A brain-imaging study in the UK involved participants who were initially scanned pre-infection, making it possible to see clearly the timeline of changes. The COVID-affected group showed damage to brain tissue and an overall reduction in brain size compared with those who had not been infected – changes that occurred with even relatively mild infection.

Read more:
Even mild COVID can cause brain shrinkage and affect mental function, new study shows

The most comprehensive study of cardiovascular complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection involved a cohort of more than 150,000 US veterans and more than 11 million controls. It revealed an elevated risk of new-onset stroke, heart arrhythmia, pericarditis and myocarditis, ischaemic heart disease and clotting disorders.

As with the brain, risks and burdens were evident even among individuals who were not hospitalised with acute infection and increased in graded fashion across non-hospitalised, hospitalised and intensive care. Other studies have shown inflammatory changes in the heart and markedly reduced oxygen supply to both blood and tissue.

Long COVID affects lungs and other organs

COVID can result in prolonged changes in both the lung blood supply and immune system, which may produce lethal lung disease and seems likely to cause persistent lung damage in those who recover.

A meta-analysis of eight studies with more than 3,700 patients reported 14.4% of those hospitalised with COVID developed diabetes. Patients with pre-existing type 2 diabetes are already at higher risk, but this provides evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can cause new-onset diabetes.

The virus can also damage muscles, which plausibly explains the very common symptoms of fatigue and muscle pain. Immune abnormalities probably contribute to the chronic inflammatory aspects of long COVID. Kidney damage occurs early during long COVID, particularly among those with respiratory failure. Clots in small blood vessels can cause erectile dysfunction.

Long COVID in children

Post-acute effects have been described in all infectious childhood diseases and COVID is no exception. It is useful to consider the persistent effects of COVID in children in three main groups:

• multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a rare but severe syndrome that occurs from two to five weeks after the initial illness

• longer-term symptoms grouped under the umbrella term of long COVID, with similar symptoms to adults

• tissue-level damage (heart, lungs, blood vessels and brain) that may be silent during childhood but cause chronic disease in later life.

Minimising harm from long COVID

Prevention measures currently in place are not enough, given what we now know about the full population impact of widespread COVID infection. Prevalence is much less clear in children but the impacts of the pandemic could potentially last decades. Damage to tissues that may be undetected in childhood could emerge as chronic disease as the pandemic generation ages.

We now have a good sense of the services we need in Aotearoa for long-COVID patients.

There is strong and consistent evidence that vaccination protects against long COVID. However, recurrent infections with Omicron (and any future variants) suggest we need a “vaccine plus” approach while we wait for universal, sterilizing vaccines.

Public-health measures such as mask wearing remain highly protective because they are effective for all variants. But most of all, New Zealand urgently needs to deliver a high standard of air quality in all indoor settings, especially schools. These vital protections against airborne viruses are essential to ensure New Zealand can safely navigate the remainder of the pandemic without generating a long shadow of chronic disease.

Amanda Kvalsvig receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand for infectious disease research.

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

– ref. Long COVID affects 1 in 5 people following infection. Vaccination, masks and better indoor air are our best protections – https://theconversation.com/long-covid-affects-1-in-5-people-following-infection-vaccination-masks-and-better-indoor-air-are-our-best-protections-180668

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

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 fallout from Anthony Albanese’s lapse when asked to nominate the unemployment level and the cash rate.

Meanwhile Scott Morrison, with poor popularity, has drawn on voters’ experience with their dentist: it doesn’t matter whether you like them – it’s about their competence.

They also discuss the strange story of Alan Tudge, who remains in cabinet and education minister, albeit without ministerial salary or duties, despite Morrison earlier saying “he is not seeking to return to the frontbench, and I support his decision”.

Finally, they canvass whether this election will ever turn to actual policy issues.

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

– ref. Word from The Hill: Morrison suggests voters judge him as they would their dentist – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-morrison-suggests-voters-judge-him-as-they-would-their-dentist-181172

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

When Labor leader Anthony Albanese couldn’t say whether the unemployment rate was 5% or 4% on Monday, he might have had a point.

It’s 4%. But for a decade – the entire decade leading up to COVID – it never strayed too far from five-point-something per cent.

Melbourne University labour market specialist Jeff Borland points out that in March 2010, Australia’s unemployment rate was 5.4%. Ten years later, before COVID changed things in March 2020, it was 5.3%.

In the years between, it briefly dipped to 4.9% (three times), climbed slowly as the mining boom wound down, edged above 6% in 2014 as the newly-elected Coalition government cut spending, and then fell back slowly towards what the Treasury then regarded as the long-term sustainable rate of 5%.

For much of Albanese’s time in parliament, from 1996 to now, it has been 5-6%.

And a case can be made that it is 5% right now.

Independent economist Saul Eslake says what he calls the “effective” rate of unemployment is indeed 5%. To the 607,900 officially unemployed Australians in February 2022 (the lowest slice of the population in decades), Eslake adds the historically high:

• 72,000 people who were counted as employed despite working zero hours, for what the Bureau of Statistics called “economic reasons” including being stood down or because there was insufficient work

• 59,000 people who were counted as employed despite working zero hours for reasons “other than economic”, including being on leave

The result is an unemployment rate of 5%, which doesn’t count as unemployed the 221,000 employed Australians who worked zero hours due to illness or injury – twice as many as before COVID.

The figures point to something real

But even Eslake’s effective rate of 5% is lower than before COVID.

The massive 26,000-household survey of employment conducted each month by the Bureau of Statistics is pointing to something real.

To get an idea of the scale of the bureau’s survey, compare it to the Essential and Newspoll surveys used to indicate how people are going to vote in the election. Essential surveys 1,000 people each time, Newspoll about 1,500.

The bureau surveys 26,000 households every month to obtain information on the employment status of about 50,000 people aged 15 and over. The scale of the operation is exceeded only by national elections every three years and the census every five years.

Australia’s biggest survey

The survey asks first whether those surveyed worked in the previous week, then whether they were employed but away from work because of holidays, sickness or another reason. Then it asks about hours. Less than one hour (unless it was due to time off) counts as not working.

It is this definition (one hour a week = work) that generates so much of the mistrust of unemployment figures.

The bureau uses one hour per week as the cutoff because it has to use something and because every other comparable country has used it, since 1982.

Fewer than 50 of the 50,000 people surveyed each month report working only one hour, meaning the cutoff makes little difference.

If the bureau used a different cutoff, such as three hours per week, its employment numbers would be moving in the same direction.

It defines being unemployed as not being employed and looking for work. If you are not looking, you are “not in the labour force” and not counted as unemployed.

This is a problem when times are tough and people don’t bother to look (or can’t easily look, such as during lockdowns) and can mean that genuine unemployment is higher than the figures suggest.

More jobs on offer than ever before

But that isn’t a problem at the moment. So many jobs are on offer (423,500 – far more than ever before) that people who want work know it is worth looking.

More of the population aged 15 and over is in work than ever before. And almost all of the new jobs are full-time.

As would be expected given the shift to full–time work, casual employment (defined by the bureau as employment without paid leave) has fallen in recent years, rather than climbed as the opposition leader’s material suggests.

Women have benefited more from the improved jobs market than men, getting 240,000 of the 395,000 new places created over the past year. Every age group up to 65 has more work than it did before.

We will get an inkling as to whether things will keep getting better on Thursday when the bureau releases the employment figures for March, and again just two days before the May 21 election, when it releases the figures for April.

The Treasury and the Reserve Bank are cautious, expecting unemployment to settle at 3.75% before (in Treasury’s case) gradually climbing back to 4.25%.

But private forecasters are bolder. Westpac is forecasting an unemployment rate of 3.25% by year’s end. Citibank is forecasting 3.3% by the end of this year and an extraordinary 3% by the end of 2024 – which would be a 60-year low not seen since 1974.

How to keep creating jobs with reopened borders

It is tempting to say what has happened with unemployment is the result of closed borders and slower population growth during COVID (more jobs per worker than there would have been). But the banks making those bold forecasts know the borders have been reopened.

New Zealand has enjoyed faster (although still slowed) population growth than Australia over a year in which its unemployment rate has slid to 3.2%.

Read more:
Australia cut unemployment faster than predicted – why stop now?

What New Zealand, Australia and the other nations now enjoying unusually low unemployment have in common is out-sized government spending and record low interest rates during COVID to keep the economy afloat.

Spending and ultra low rates create jobs. If we keep them in place right up to the point where we create worrying inflation, we will be able to get even more Australians into jobs and, all being well, keep them there.

It’s the most important thing to grasp from what’s happened. More important than the exact rate of unemployment.

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.

– ref. Forget the election gaffes: Australia’s unemployment rate of 4% is good news – and set to get even better by polling day – https://theconversation.com/forget-the-election-gaffes-australias-unemployment-rate-of-4-is-good-news-and-set-to-get-even-better-by-polling-day-181141

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, leader of the Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW Sydney, and leader of the UNSW Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney

Before calling the election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed in a promotional video his government had done a good job of handling the COVID crisis over the past two years.

According to Morrison, “Things are tough” but “40,000 people are alive in Australia today because of the way we managed the pandemic, 700 thousand people still have jobs and countless numbers of businesses […] would have been destroyed.”

Read more:
Did the Morrison government really prevent 40,000 COVID deaths? A health economist checks claims against facts

But what do Australians think of his government’s and their state leaders’ approach to COVID management? What could Morrison and other politicians have done better to control the spread of COVID and its economic impacts?

To find out, we interviewed 80 Australians from a wide range of ages and backgrounds – 40 people in mid-2020, then another 40 in September/October 2021. Here’s what we found.

The early days

The first set of interviews were after the first lockdown, when restrictions were beginning to loosen. It was looking as if lockdowns and border closures had worked to contain the pandemic.

The people involved in the first stage interviews were largely feeling fortunate and positive about Australian governments’ management of COVID. They remarked that in comparison to other wealthy countries, Australia was lucky to have escaped the worst effects of the pandemic.

As one respondent said:

We haven’t had the trauma that New York City or UK or Italy have or the USA in general have experienced, and I’m so grateful for that.

Participants said communication from state governments had been good – they particularly appreciated the regular press conferences held by premiers and chief health officers.

Nearly everyone was highly supportive of border closures between states and territories, as this made them feel safe and protected.

There was a more mixed response to the federal government. There was praise for closing Australia’s international border early:

They’ve made some really good moves. Closing down the international flights initially was probably what saved us going down a pretty dark road.

However, many people mentioned the federal government’s handling of the Ruby Princess cruise ship outbreak as a major misstep:

I’m particularly horrified by what happened with the Ruby Princess. There are people dead now who wouldn’t have been probably dead if those people weren’t let loose into Sydney.

In terms of economic support from the federal government, most interviewees praised the JobKeeper and JobSeeker initiatives to support workers and businesses.

Others pointed out that many people or occupation groups were left out of this support.

I think they haven’t thought through the JobKeeper and the JobSeeker finance very well. I think it should have been more far-reaching, because we really could have done with that.

Frustrations mount

Fast forward to September/October 2022. By then, the pandemic was in a very different phase. The Delta variant had caused major outbreaks in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, with strict and extended lockdowns.

The vaccine rollout had finally gathered pace, and Australians were promised that receiving two doses of COVID vaccine would be the “way out” of further restrictions or lockdowns.

The Australians we interviewed at this point had been through many twists and turns in the pandemic by then, and had some different views to offer.

A dominant theme was frustration that policy changes were so constant and different, state by state. Unlike the early national lockdown, where everyone went through the same restrictions, each state and territory had since experienced different lockdowns of different lengths.

People complained about a lack of clarity from governments about the best way forward for the nation as a whole. They remarked on the constant change in government advice about what to do in relation to the risk of COVID.

They were becoming weary of the difficulties posed by internal border closures and just wanted clear guidance from their leaders concerning what needed to happen to control the pandemic.

The vaccine rollout was a particular bugbear. Morrison came in for some trenchant criticism for what people saw as lack of decisive action in securing and providing enough vaccines for Australians:

I personally think that Scott Morrison really stuffed up when ordering the vaccines. Yeah, the vaccine rollouts have been shocking based on the federal government’s ordering of those vaccines.

Read more:
Australia has not learned the lessons of its bungled COVID vaccine rollout

Finally, a plan

In August 2021, a National Plan was agreed to by both the federal and state governments for “the way out” of continued lockdowns and moving towards “living with COVID”. This plan set targets for high vaccine coverage of eligible Australians.

By the end of September 2022, problems earlier that year with the vaccine supply and rollout had finally been dealt with. Rates of vaccinated Australians were rising quickly.

With these targets, Australians knew what they had to do. All 40 people interviewed for this part of the study had received at least one of the vaccines and were planning to get their second dose as soon as they could.

The interviewees were positive about improvements in the rollout and the clarity offered by the targets set by the road maps:

I really appreciated this benchmark being set at 80%, because it’s quantifiable.

People were able to see some end to the pandemic. But they still remembered some of the missteps of the federal government over the course of the pandemic. They continued to see their own state/territory leaders as doing a better job.

[At the] federal level, I don’t think they’ve even done anything really. I just think they’ve mishandled it completely. They haven’t dealt with the vaccinations quick enough. They don’t support the states enough.

Read more:
Australia has a new four-phase plan for a return to normality. Here’s what we know so far

Australians have long memories

Since these interviews took place, the Omicron variant has spread rapidly, schools, supply chains and workplaces have been badly disrupted, and vaccine uptake has slowed down.

As these interviews showed, Australians haven’t forgotten what has gone wrong during the pandemic.

When they go to the polls, they will also be considering how Morrison and his cabinet has handled the past six months, and weighing up the history of his response across these past two-plus years of pandemic crisis.

Deborah Lupton receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Bungled vaccine rollout, welcome financial support – here’s what Aussies thought of Morrison’s COVID response – https://theconversation.com/bungled-vaccine-rollout-welcome-financial-support-heres-what-aussies-thought-of-morrisons-covid-response-181149

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Eckermann, Professor of Health Economics, University of Wollongong

As an opening gambit to his re-election campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed his handling of the pandemic had saved 40,000 lives.
This figure compares Australia over 2020 and 2021 with an average derived across higher-risk predominantly northern hemisphere countries.

He made similar comparisons to much higher-risk countries two years ago, at a press conference on April 7 2020. Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy pointed to COVID graphs comparing Australian cases with modelling.

“We have so far avoided the many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of cases that may have otherwise occurred by this point across the Australian community — and indeed the many more fatalities that could also have occurred by this point,” he said then, urging Australians to “hold the course. We must lock in these gains.”

But a comparison with equivalent countries tells a very different story about the claim to have saved 40,000 lives.

Read more:
Here’s why you might need a 4th COVID vaccine dose this winter

The wrong comparison

Given Australia’s very different environment as an island in the Oceania region and strong evidence transmission of initial COVID strains were highly seasonal and temperature dependant, the comparison with OECD countries in the northern hemisphere doesn’t hold.

Australian-led research as early as February 2020 showed there were significant reductions in rates of COVID transmission associated with temperature. Higher average temperature was strongly associated with lower cases.

Those findings were confirmed by global research comparing 117 countries with more than 100 cases up to April 10 2020. That showed there was an average 5.4% reduction in case transmission for each degree increase in temperature above 0 centigrade and explained 72% of variation.

During 2020 this was reflected in rapidly increasing cases during European and North American winters. Numbers then tailed off in summer as temperatures rose while the South American winter saw case rates increase.

Comparing within our region

As an island in the Oceania region, Australia’s 2020 outbreaks were largely restricted to those imported by air and sea travel, flourishing in the colder environments of meatworks, until temperatures dropped with winter and outbreaks started to emerge in Tasmanian hospitals and in Melbourne – the coldest, high-density urban population centre in Australia.

Robust comparison for Australia over 2020 are with Oceania region countries facing the same environmental risks with original variants. At December 21 2020, Australia had the highest COVID case rates (1,101 per million) or death rate (35 per million) of all Oceania countries , other than French Polynesia which opened up to cruise ships in August 2020.

However, Oceania’s climatic cloak of protection in 2020 would not last.

New variants brought greater risks

The Delta variant was much more transmissible than the original COVID strains and able to transmit at higher temperatures. This was clear from the catastrophic spread that occurred at the height of the Indian summer in April and May of 2021.

When the Delta outbreak emerged in Sydney in June 2021 from an unvaccinated limousine driver, less than 4% of the Australian population was double-dose vaccinated. The percentage in NSW was lower still, an at-risk population of sitting ducks.

Yet right up until June 26 2021 Morrison claimed no lockdown was required to address the Delta outbreak, despite the absence of broad vaccine protection.

The low vaccination rate was attributable to reliance on one vaccine and the contracting out of many aspects of the rollout to a range of for-profit companies. Each aspect of the process proved poor value, including vaccine rollout strategies and planning, vaccine distribution, delivery of vaccination programs in aged care, and systems meant to monitor these activities.

Bottom line: the relevant comparison is to New Zealand

The federal government’s claims of success show it did not learn the importance of the precautionary principle – a decision-making approach used in public health and environmental fields that urges caution when the science and risks are still uncertain – and wasted the luck Australia had in 2020.

To say there has been a saving of 40,000 lives relies on a comparison to the northern hemisphere at the beginning of the pandemic when Australia had a climatic cloak of protection and a safe distance from which to learn from overseas evidence.

New Zealand provides a more useful comparison if we’re to judge the success of the Morrison government’s pandemic handling. Our neighbour faced the closest set of climate and wider conditions to us and had similarly high levels of PCR testing (at least until Omicron overwhelmed testing in late 2021). On this comparison, Australia did not do well.

By September 15 2021, COVID case rates in Australia were almost four-fold that of NZ (3,038 versus 796 cases per million) with more than eight times the death rate (43 versus 5 five per million) – further puncturing the Morrison government’s 40,000 lives boast.

In November 2021, the federal government claimed it was well prepared for Omicron, but 70% of all COVID deaths in Australia (4,579 out of 6,569 as of April 11) have occurred after that date. The majority of those were in 2022 and are therefore not been accounted for in the 2020 and 2021 comparison underlying the 40,000 lives saved claim.

Read more:
COVID cases are rising but we probably won’t need more restrictions unless a worse variant hits

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

– ref. Did the Morrison government really prevent 40,000 COVID deaths? A health economist checks claims against facts – https://theconversation.com/did-the-morrison-government-really-prevent-40-000-covid-deaths-a-health-economist-checks-claims-against-facts-181052

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Thorpe, Professor in Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture, University of Waikato

New Zealand Rugby’s just released report into the culture of the Black Ferns national women’s team is damning, but sadly all too familiar.

Like a number of previous investigations into elite sporting codes – including football, cycling, rowing and gymnastics – it reveals abuses of power and inadequate systems that are failing sportswomen. Despite significant investment in women’s sport over recent years, its rapid professionalisation is exposing problems in systems designed by and for men.

Rugby may be New Zealand’s national game, but it is the women’s team that has brought home more World Cup titles. Historically under-funded and under-valued, the women’s game (both 15- and 7-aside) has become a source of national pride and mana with a strong player culture.

Until very recently, the Black Ferns have dominated the international game. But the team’s disappointing end-of-year European tour did not go to plan. Back home and stuck in quarantine with no support, Black Fern Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate used social media to express her concerns about the coaching culture:

My confidence and self esteem was so low that it made me play like I was walking on egg shells and was constantly too scared to express myself […] I let the words over the years get to me, the words became the flesh.

The Instagram post prompted internal and external demands for an inquiry, with New Zealand Rugby commissioning the “cultural and environmental review” that hit this week like a hard tackle.

Stuck in the past

The report made 26 recommendations and identified seven key themes, including:

• a strong culture among Black Ferns players that isn’t aligned with or supported by management structures

• significant communication issues between coaches, managers and players

• gaps in athlete health and well-being support

• and that NZ Rugby has not sufficiently supported women’s high performance rugby.

The findings are familiar and mirror the six goals outlined in New Zealand Rugby’s 2017 “Respect and Responsibility” report, and bears striking similarities with recent similar reviews in Ireland and Canada.

The immediate question has been why Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore was being kept on until this year’s Rugby World Cup. As Women in Rugby Aotearoa chair Traci Houpapa said:

It does send a message to say they are retaining the status quo […] New Zealand rugby needs to think about what [message] that sends to the players and to the rugby community.

The report tells us in many ways what we already knew, that these are long-time, long-term systemic issues that have been affecting and impacting women who want to play rugby in Aotearoa.

Toxic sporting cultures

While it is important to focus on the specifics of the Black Ferns review, it is also necessary to look at the broader patterns emerging in light of the previous reviews of other sports.

At least 11 sports bodies, including Cycling New Zealand, Gymnastics New Zealand, Canoe Racing New Zealand, NZ Football and Hockey New Zealand, have come under scrutiny for toxic cultures.

Investigations and athlete testimonies have revealed the damage done through abuse, neglect and psychological harm. The “win at all costs” mentality has come at a huge price, causing significant harm and trauma for many athletes.

Read more:
Toxic sport cultures are damaging female athletes’ health, but we can do better

While each review was commissioned to address a specific incident, in most cases they have highlighted systemic problems. These stem from gender inequity and organisational failings such as bullying and lack of player welfare – all rampant in global elite sport.

Despite High Performance Sport New Zealand launching a new NZ$273 million strategy prioritising athlete wellbeing, it doesn’t address the distinct gender dynamics of the problem.

Despite important initiatives to increase women in leadership roles, sporting cultures that genuinely value and respect women as athletes, leaders, coaches, managers and experts are still some way off in New Zealand. The leadership and management teams in women’s sport don’t represent the gender and cultural diversity on the field, and this is part of the problem.

Turning words into action

Supposedly about accountability and change, reviews of sporting culture rarely translate into action by national sporting bodies.

Small amendments might be made – hiring a human resources manager, providing unconscious bias training or adding a high-profile coach – but the hard work of real cultural change tends to be avoided.

Read more:
The price of gold — what high-performance sport in NZ must learn from the Olivia Podmore tragedy

None of the reviews attach deadlines to their recommendations and very rarely are the recommended change processes subjected to systematic monitoring and evaluation processes.

In the case of Cycling NZ, a second review was necessary to identify why changes had not occurred, at huge cost to athlete health and well-being.

The self-regulating nature of sport organisations and the associated “one step forward, two steps back” reform process suggest more accountability is required from an elite sports model that has for too long been designed by and for men.

If sports organisations are serious about supporting women, on and off the field, they need to invest in programmes and structures designed by and for women’s sport. This is no longer a bold, brave move; it is a long-overdue and urgently needed solution.

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

– ref. The Black Ferns review shows – again – why real change in women’s high performance sport is urgently overdue – https://theconversation.com/the-black-ferns-review-shows-again-why-real-change-in-womens-high-performance-sport-is-urgently-overdue-181144

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash University

The Greens have long battled against the perception they’re the radical fringe or the electoral ingenues of Australian politics.

Today, neither of these labels bedevil them in quite the same way they might have previously.

Two factors make it increasingly difficult to typecast the Greens in these terms. First, the issue that elevated the Greens to electoral prominence – the environment – is no longer an abstraction for the public.

The second is the party is a known quantity. The Greens’ federal leader, Adam Bandt, is ensconced in one of the safest federal seats in the country, and is also one of Australia’s most “believable” politicians, according to the Believability Index 2022.

So what are the Greens’ prospects this federal election?

Although the electoral and political context is more amenable to the Greens’ message than ever before, it may not translate into a dramatically improved vote.

More experienced

The Greens’ experience is showing in their approach to the campaign.

The messaging around the party’s policy agenda is more disciplined and strategic.

Consider, for example, its net zero carbon economy agenda. The party’s commitment to a net zero carbon economy is unchanged, but it’s more adept at foregrounding the importance of a transition “plan” and guaranteeing affected communities won’t be left behind. Bandt even paid homage to coal workers:

We owe coal workers a debt of thanks for powering our country. We don’t need to choose between taking urgent climate action and supporting coal communities. We can do both.

Crowded electoral space

Campaigns are always noisy affairs, and 2022 is no exception.

In addition to the usual problem of visibility in an electoral context dominated by the two major parties, compounding the situation for the Greens is Clive Palmer’s extraordinary media advertising purchase power, and the fascination with the “teal” independents.

The problem of visibility in a crowded electoral space is reflected in the opinion polls.

If current trends are any indication, the Green vote won’t surge (with the possible exception of stronger growth in Queensland) but will remain stable at 10-11%.

Read more:
The Wentworth Project: polling shows voters prefer Albanese for PM, and put climate issue first in ‘teal’ battle

Seats to watch

Nevertheless, every election presents opportunities, and the Greens rate their prospects in eight lower house seats:

• Brisbane (LNP), Griffith (Labor) and Ryan (LNP) in Queensland

• Higgins (Liberal), Kooyong (Liberal) and Macnamara (Labor) in Victoria

• Richmond (Labor) in NSW

• and Canberra (Labor) in the ACT.

With the exception of Richmond, these are inner metropolitan seats. They’re also seats where the Greens have attracted over 20% of the primary vote, and the party has shown consistent vote gains over the past three electoral cycles.

However, some of these seats are more promising propositions than others. The Greens’ prospects are strongest in Liberal-held seats where their candidate has previously finished in second position, or in Labor-held seats where there is little difference in the Greens and Labors’ primary vote. Another useful requirement is that the incumbent’s primary vote is under 40%.

Based on this, Brisbane, Ryan, Kooyong and Higgins are likely dim prospects. In these seats, the incumbent’s primary vote was over 45% in 2019 and, with the exception of Kooyong, the ALP candidate polled in second place. The swing against the incumbent is likely to benefit Labor, assuming the electoral momentum in Labor’s favour holds.

The outlier of the four Liberal seats is perhaps Kooyong, because of Monique Ryan, one of the “teal” independents.

Kooyong becomes very competitive for the Greens if Ryan is able to attract double digit support away from Liberal incumbent Josh Frydenberg, but fails to surpass the Greens’ vote. If so, it might be an exciting finish for the Greens, even if Frydenberg is still widely tipped to win.

The situation is more dynamic in Canberra, Macnamara and Griffith. Here, Labor’s primary vote is under 40% (or slightly over 40% in the seat of Canberra) and the Liberals typically finish in second position behind Labor.

These seats become winnable for the Greens if the Liberal vote collapses and the Greens emerge as the main beneficiary of this collapse. Under these conditions, these seats should become a two-way contest between Labor and the Greens.

Preferences?

Whether the Greens succeed in winning these seats will, of course, depend on how the preferences of excluded Coalition candidates split.

We don’t have much federal data on this but based on the distribution of Liberal preferences in the seat of Melbourne in 2013, the overwhelming majority of these votes transferred to Labor.

Yet more recent state electoral data indicates the Greens can also emerge as the main beneficiaries of the votes of excluded Liberal candidates.

Of course, there are still a lot of unknowns, such as the actual size of Labor’s much vaunted swing and in which states and seats, as well as the lower house preference strategies of the major parties.

In spite of the Greens’ optimism, its sluggish ad spend in most of their targeted lower seats suggests they’re quite cautious about their prospects.

Whatever the outcome in the House of Representatives, the Senate presents an opportunity to build the party’s representation in the powerful upper house. Of the Greens’ nine serving senators, three are up for reelection.

If the party is able to maintain its primary vote, it will swell its ranks to 12 senators, returning it the balance of power in the Senate.

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

– ref. Voters love the Greens’ message more than ever – but it may not lead to a surge of votes for them – https://theconversation.com/voters-love-the-greens-message-more-than-ever-but-it-may-not-lead-to-a-surge-of-votes-for-them-180671

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angela R. Dobele, Associate professor, RMIT University

A supermarket starts stocking hot-cross buns straight after Christmas. A cling-wrap brand shifts its serrated cutter bar from the base of the box to inside the lid. The maker of M&M’s chocolates changes its marketing. Each time people take to social media to complain.

Why do people get so angry about things that seem so trivial?

We’ve examined the issue of consumer anger on social media because, as marketing academics, we’re interested in how companies handle the excessive toxicity that comes with corporate social media engagement. But our research also helps explain the causes of this culture of complaint.

Our findings point to this behaviour meeting two basic psychological needs.

First, complaining is a mechanism for social connection.

Second, it’s an opportunity to boost self-esteem through what psychologists call “downward social comparison”. Given social media feeds can be rife with opportunities to feel inferior, complaining about brands is an easy way to feel better about ourselves.

How we did our research

To figure out why people complain so much on social media, we analysed negative posts on Facebook about brands caught up in media controversies at the time.

We focused on six companies – a clothing brand, a supermarket, an airline, an e-commerce store, a department store and a beverage company.

Each had a Facebook page with more than 1 million followers. The controversies included alleged employee mistreatment, unethical business practices, bad customer experiences and a poorly received advertising campaign. We analysed hundreds of comments posted on these companies’ pages. We followed up with interviews with 13 social media users who said they used Facebook at least daily and interacted with brands on social media at least weekly.

We asked these 13 people what they posted about and their reasons for posting. We also asked them to speculate about other social media posts regarding the same brands. This enabled us to draw our conclusions.

Complaining to bond with others

The most common reason for complaining online was paying for something that didn’t arrive or failed to work in some way. This was our least surprising finding.

More surprising was how many who joined in posting negative comments, without any firsthand experience. We saw this complaining used as a bonding mechanism, with users tagging family or friends in posts about malfunctioning equipment with questions such as: “Has this happened with yours?”

Complaining has long been “a pervasive and important form of social communication”, as psychology professor Mark Alicke and colleagues noted in a 1992 study, published before most people had even heard of the internet.

Social media has amplified this, enabling us to not only complain to friends but also to create a type of social connection with strangers. We could give you dozens of examples from our research, but you can probably think of many from your own experiences.

Read more:
Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it

The people we studied got a kick out of debating strangers, particularly when they felt they had the upper hand. One interviewee told us:

I kind of like it, because it shows that at least I’m having an impact. If I’m talking about something someone’s so angry about that they write something back, at least we’re having a conversation.

Such responses speak the social dilemma of social networks. Our increasingly digital existence contributes to real-world social disconnection. To compensate, people look for whatever attention they can find on social media, including through complaining and arguing.

Downward social comparison

The second major psychological reward from complaining on social media was to boost their self-esteem. As one participant told us:

This is kind of that negative thing, but it’s more in a funny, sarcastic, trolling negative thing.

This pay-off came through strongly when we asked our interviewees to speculate on others’ complaints. “Maybe they’re bored and lonely at home,” said one. “The fact he’s obviously looking down on the people is elevating his position,” said another.

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

Boosting self-esteem by looking down others is known as “downward social comparison”. This idea was articulated by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, who suggested humans were hardwired by evolution to compare our value against others.

Generally we seek comparisons with people like ourselves. Upward social comparisons (to higher-status individuals or groups) is bad for our self-esteeem, while downward comparison (to lower-status targets) can boost our self-esteem.

Research over the past decade or so suggest amplifies our need to find things to feel superior about precisely because it is so effective in making us feel inferior, with social media feeds typically subjecting us to “highlight reels” of other people’s beachside holidays, job promotions, romantic dinners and so on.

One study, for example, has found that spending more time on social media is associated with a greater likelihood of thinking others are happier and have better lives.

Looking down on companies and brands may be an easy, relatively socially acceptable way for us to feel smarter and superior.

Read more:
How social media affects children at different ages – and how to protect them

Manipulating our love of complaining

Some complaining is a good thing. It shows companies we are ready to hold them to account.

But the degree to which complaining is done to scratch psychological itches is complicating the use of social media. Indeed, some companies now deliberately court controversy to exploit our love for complaining.

An example is British breakfast cereal maker Weetabix, which in February 2021 tweeted an image of Weetabix topped with baked beans. This is hardly an important issue. But it generated enough controversy on social media to also spill over into dozen of reports on legacy media.

Whenever you see a brand bringing out some odd flavour, it’s probably not because company executives have lost their minds. It’s more likely their marketing experts are deliberately looking to provoke people to express mirth or disgust about it.

So if you find yourself engaging in online complaining, be mindful of the social and psychological factors lurking below the surface.

Just as you may be taking advantage of a brand to make yourself feel better, it is possible a company is stoking controversy to take advantage of you.

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.

– ref. What our negative comments and consumer gripes on social media reveal about us – https://theconversation.com/what-our-negative-comments-and-consumer-gripes-on-social-media-reveal-about-us-175148

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

During the almost two years of on-again off-again COVID lockdowns, we heard lots of concern from many different corners about the mental health effects of forcing people to stay home and keep away from friends and family.

Many research projects were undertaken to attempt to measure the scale of the impacts on mental health.

However, the speed with which research was generated meant in some cases, research quality was sacrificed, and some research found evidence of an effect on mental health, and some didn’t.

Read more:
Most of us will recover our mental health after lockdown. But some will find it harder to bounce back

To make sense of the very mixed findings, my colleagues and I conducted a review of all of the studies on mental health conducted during the first year of the pandemic.

We included 33 published papers which studied a total of nearly 132,000 people across various world regions.

We found that overall, social restrictions doubled people’s odds of experiencing mental health symptoms. This means, of those who participated in these studies, those who experienced lockdowns were twice as likely to experience mental ill health than those who didn’t.

This finding can be broken down further by different mental health symptoms. Social restrictions saw the odds people would experience symptoms of depression increase by over 4.5 times, the odds of experiencing stress increased by nearly 1.5 times, and the odds of experiencing loneliness almost doubled.

When we drilled down further into these results, we found the length and strictness of lockdowns affected mental health symptoms differently. For example, strict lockdowns increased depression, whereas the onset of social restrictions increased stress. Low social restrictions, where there were some restrictions in place but not total lockdown, were associated with increases in anxiety.

Also, mental health outcomes differed by age, with young and middle-aged adults reporting greater negative mental health symptoms than older adults.

What lessons can we take away from these findings?

The findings give us a good idea of what public health outreach should look like in the event of future pandemics.

Anxiety was most prevalent when low restrictions were introduced. This could be due to the fact people were nervous about the precarity of the situation and where the virus could be circulating. The introduction of such measures should be accompanied by public health messaging and interventions that focus on alleviating chronic fear and worry.

During the periods of strict social restrictions, the predominant mental health issue was depression, meaning mental health responses should focus on combating depressive-related symptoms such as hopelessness and loss of purpose.

The findings for stress suggest symptoms are likely to intensify during the early stages of social restriction enforcement. This is probably because the onset of restrictions communicates to people an increase in the seriousness of the pandemic threat, and people have to work very hard to re-organise their lives if restrictions involve the need to work from home and home-school.

Read more:
Lockdowns make people lonely. Here are 3 steps we can take now to help each other

During these times, providing messaging and interventions that help people manage their stress, such as dealing with work stress or the stress of home-schooling children, may be especially important. For parents, making them feel capable in the home classroom and promoting strategies that foster positive family functioning (such as more constructive communication and problem-solving) could reduce parental and family stress.

Given social restrictions were found to be associated with increases in loneliness, promotion of digital technologies to keep people feeling connected is also important.

Across all these mental health issues, messages that communicate these symptoms are to be expected are likely to help individuals normalise and acknowledge the nature and severity of their symptoms. This, in turn, may prompt people to seek help for their mental health symptoms.

Research quality was poor

Another important point to highlight from our review is the research conducted during the first year of the pandemic was generally of poor quality.

This is because good measures of social restrictions were hard to come by in studies. Some studies didn’t detail the specific restrictions in place in various cities, or did not ask study participants to what extent they complied with restrictions.

Also, some studies surveyed people’s mental health symptoms on the day social restrictions were first enforced. Most people are likely to experience heightened but temporary spikes in mental health symptoms that may naturally reduce after the initial lockdown announcements. This means it’s difficult to get a handle on the “true” mental health effects of social restrictions on the first day restrictions are activated.

However, the effects of social restrictions on mental health symptoms were similar across studies where people were surveyed at one time point and where they were surveyed on more than one occasion during restrictions. This suggests the estimated effects seem robust, despite many studies not having the best assessments of social restrictions.

The findings of our review show that although we have a way to go in the way we conduct research into the mental health effects of COVID-19 social restrictions, the initial research highlights these restrictions indeed negatively impacted the mental well-being of citizens.

Although such restrictions may be an effective public health response to mitigate the spread of viruses such as COVID-19, there needs to be a co-ordinated response to safeguard people’s physical and mental health.

Read more:
Melbourne’s second lockdown will take a toll on mental health. We need to look out for the vulnerable

Gery Karantzas receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the founder of relationshipscienceonline.com. Gery Karantzas was a co-author on the review cited in this article.

– ref. Lockdowns doubled your risk of mental health symptoms – https://theconversation.com/lockdowns-doubled-your-risk-of-mental-health-symptoms-180953

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

This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 6-9 from a sample of 1,506, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since last week. Primary votes were 37% Labor (down one), 36% Coalition (steady), 10% Greens (steady), 4% UAP (up one), 3% One Nation (steady) and 10% for all Others (steady).

52% were dissatisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance (steady), and 42% were satisfied (steady), for a net approval of -10. Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped two points to -3. Morrison’s lead as better PM increased to 44-39 from 43-42 last week. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

It’s a concerning trend for Labor that they’ve lost two points from the early March Newspoll that gave them a 55-45 lead. That Newspoll gave Labor 41% primary, and they’ve lost four points since – two to the Greens, one to the Coalition and one to UAP. This is the Coalition’s best Newspoll since December.

Albanese had been urging Morrison to call the election for days before Sunday’s announcement of the May 21 poll. Analyst Peter Brent thought this could be perceived as arrogance by Albanese.

Politically engaged people, particularly Labor supporters, wanted the election as soon as possible, but the large majority of voters are not politically engaged and do not like elections.

Labor will be hoping that Albanese does not make more damaging stumbles like not remembering the Reserve Bank’s cash rate or the unemployment rate on Monday. This will play into Coalition claims that Labor is weak on the economy. All polling in this article was taken before this stumble.

Morgan: Labor retains 57-43 lead, but primary vote tumbles

A Morgan poll, conducted April 4-10 from a sample of 1,384, gave Labor a 57-43 lead, unchanged on the previous week. Primary votes were 36% Labor (down 3.5), 32.5% Coalition (down 0.5), 12.5% Greens (up 1.5), 5% One Nation (up 1.5), 1.5% UAP (up 0.5), 8.5% independents (down 0.5) and 4% others (up one).

Labor’s primary vote in Morgan was up four last week, so they’re now 0.5 points above their primary vote two weeks ago. Morgan is using respondent preferences for its two party estimate. By last election preferences, analyst Kevin Bonham gets 55.3-44.7 to Labor, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since last week.

Resolve state breakdowns

The Age has state breakdowns of the three Resolve federal polls conducted from January to April. Only primary votes are provided as Resolve does not give any two party estimates. Since the 2019 election, the biggest swings to Labor are in WA and SA.

Seat polls

I’ve said before that seat polls have been unreliable at past elections. Redbridge conducted four federal seat polls of Bass (Tas), Greenway (NSW), Longman (Qld) and Paterson (NSW). The polls were conducted by robopolling April 4-6 from samples of 880 to 1,000 per seat. Only primary votes were given.

In Longman, the LNP had 34%, Labor 33%, One Nation 9%, the Greens 7% and UAP 7%. The LNP would hold Longman. This is the second poll with the LNP holding Longman, a seat they gained in 2019.

In Bass, the Liberals have 36%, Labor 36%, the Greens 11%, One Nation 6% and UAP 3%. In contrast to an earlier Bass poll, Labor would gain it.

In Greenway, the Liberals had 40%, Labor 38%, the Greens 6%, One Nation 5% and UAP 5%. This would be a Liberal gain, though 15% were undecided on the voting intentions question.

In Paterson, Labor had 38%, the Liberals 33%, One Nation 9%, the Greens 7% and UAP 3%. Labor would retain it.

There was also a uComms poll in Mackellar for independent Sophie Scamps, which implies she would defeat Liberal incumbent Jason Falinski by 55-45 according to The Poll Bludger. Polls released by candidates are very prone to be biased to that candidate. This poll was conducted April 5 from a sample of 833.

A Greeens-commissioned uComms federal poll of SA, reported by InDaily, gave Labor a 58-42 lead, from primary votes of 39.4% Labor, 33.2% Liberal, 9.6% Greens, 3.6% UAP and 3.1% One Nation. This poll was done April 5 from a sample of 1,052.

French presidential first round election

I covered Sunday’s French presidential first round election for The Poll Bludger. Incumbent Emmanuel Macron (with 27.8%) and the far-right Marine Le Pen (with 23.2%) advanced to the April 24 runoff, with the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon a close third with 22.0%. Mélenchon overperformed his polls, while other right-wing candidates underperformed, so Macron is the clear favourite to win the runoff.

Also covered: the landslide re-election of the far-right Fidesz in Hungary, which was a disaster for both the opposition and the polls.

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

– ref. Labor trending down in Newspoll before Albanese’s stumble – https://theconversation.com/labor-trending-down-in-newspoll-before-albaneses-stumble-181048

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Willsteed, Senior Lecturer, School of Creative Practice, Queensland University of Technology

Inala in the early 70s was bleak. A Brisbane suburb of wide dusty streets, treeless and bland. A planned community, meant to grow over time. Austerity, accented by the cheap houses – weatherboard, red brick, concrete – stifled the suburb like a blanket on a hot February night.

It was boring. Beyond boring. The only concession to communal childhood joy was the pool, and the crazy concrete skate rink. But if you wanted a creative outlet, you needed to search elsewhere.

Ivor Hay, (future Saints drummer), was heading to the picture theatre in Sherwood one Saturday night in early 1971:

and I saw Jeffrey [Wegener – another Saints drummer] with these two longhairs, Chris [Bailey] and Ed [Kuepper]. They were off to a birthday party in Corinda and asked me along. That was our first night.

Bailey was raised by his mum, Bridget, in a house alive with siblings – mostly girls, who looked after the kid. He got away with a lot.

“None of us had a lot of money,” Hay tells me.

Both Chris and I were raised by single mums in reasonably sized families. Chris’ mum was pretty feisty, with this Belfast accent which was just fantastic. They all looked after ‘Christopher’, he could do all sorts of things and they would accommodate him. His mum would have a go at him about the noise, but we’d just go to his bedroom and rehearse and bugger everybody else in the house!

Kuepper taught Hay to play the guitar: Stones and Beatles and Hendrix. Hay passed the knowledge down to Bailey, who was keen to learn. Neither Kuepper nor Bailey learned to drive, so Hay became the driver in those wide suburbs where driving and cars were everything.

There was politics in Bailey’s house – his sister Margaret chained herself to the school gates to protest uniform policy – but this pervaded the town. The conservative government had no time for the young, and the police force did their best to make life difficult.

But there was a sense that these young men were making something new. As Hay says:

We used to sing The Internationale at parties. I don’t know if we were revolutionaries, but we had that sense that something was happening. [With the band] we were doing something that we thought was going to change something. Chris was particularly good at pushing things, at being anti-everything.

Out of Inala

To escape the suburb was to head north to the railway line. It was the lifeline to the centre of Brisbane – record stores, bookshops and other forms of life.

Kuepper remembers going into the city with Bailey.

We had intended to steal a record, and we went into Myers […] both wearing army disposal overcoats […] these two long haired guys walking into the record department with these overcoats […] surprisingly enough, we were successful!

Like the railway line, Ipswich Road joins Brisbane to the old coal town of Ipswich. It slices through these western suburbs, carrying hoons in muscle cars and streams of commuters, the occasional screaming cop car or ambulance.

On Thursday nights, the boys used to sit at the Oxley Hotel, overlooking Ipswich Road, “just sit up there having beers, we wouldn’t have been much more than 17 or 18 at that time. Chatting about all sorts of stuff,” says Hay.

Chris and Ed were comic collectors and Stan Lee was the hero […] there were political discussions, philosophical discussions. Those guys could talk underwater.

They talked and played and sang. And Bailey had the voice. It was a force, not just loud and tuneful, but full of snarl and spit.

Soon they had songs, and in 1976 scraped the money together to record and release their first single on their own Fatal Records label. (I’m) Stranded took Bailey out of Inala, out of Brisbane and into the world.

He never looked back.

A changed city

The Saints released three albums in as many years – (I’m) Stranded, Eternally Yours and Prehistoric Sounds – before Kuepper and Hay returned from the UK to Australia, leaving Bailey to his own devices.

Bailey remained in Europe, releasing a cluster of solo albums and many Saints records over the next 40 years. He wrote some achingly beautiful songs. It is a testament to his talents as a songwriter that Bruce Springsteen recorded a version of Bailey’s Just Like Fire Would in 2014.

There’s no doubt that Bailey and The Saints changed Brisbane forever. People around the world who love music know Brisbane exists because of The Saints, The Go-Betweens and bands like them.

Peter Milton Walsh (The Apartments) was one of many who benefited from The Saints legacy:

They blazed through our young lives like comets. Showed so many what was possible – that you could write your way out of town.

“Without The Saints,” Mark Callaghan of The Riptides/Gang Gajang told me, “we probably wouldn’t have started. ”

They just made it all seem doable. It was like, ‘Well, they’re from Brisbane!’ So we started our first band, and at our first gig we covered (I’m) Stranded! We even took a photo of the abandoned house in Petrie Terrace with (I’m) Stranded painted on the wall. But it never crossed our minds to stand in front of this. It would be sacrilege, you know? And we were trying to work out a way that we could get it off the wall intact, because we recognised it was a historical document.

Chris Bailey isn’t the first of our creative children to leave this life behind and move on into memory. With their passing, like the returning comet, the past is freshly illuminated, allowing us to look back at our young lives. Back when the future was broad in front of us, urged on by voices like Bailey’s to open our eyes and see the world.

And Bailey’s was a unique voice. Kenny Gormley (The Cruel Sea) remembers him singing Ghost Ships:

But ah, I’ll never ever forget seeing Chris pick that shanty, alone at sea in a crowded room, holding us sway, wet face drunk and shining, quiet and stilled in storm, cracked voiced with closed eye and open heart. And that was Bailey, a gentleman with the mad soul of an Irish convict poet.“

John Willsteed would like to thank Ivor Hay, Mark Callaghan and Courtney Pedersen, for talking to him for this piece, and Ed Kuepper, Peter Milton Walsh and Kenny Gormley for their words.

– ref. ‘A gentleman with the mad soul of an Irish convict poet’: remembering Chris Bailey, and the blazing comet that was The Saints – https://theconversation.com/a-gentleman-with-the-mad-soul-of-an-irish-convict-poet-remembering-chris-bailey-and-the-blazing-comet-that-was-the-saints-181059

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dougal Sutherland, Clinical Psychologist, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

In Japan it’s known as karōshi. In China, guolaosi. The South Koreans call it gwarosa. The literal English translation is “death from overwork”.

While we might hope this term wouldn’t resonate in New Zealand, the recent resignation of Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield and two of his deputies, citing stress and exhaustion, suggests otherwise.

Bloomfield has rightly received widespread praise for his efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. But do we really want our leaders working 24/7 to the point of exhaustion and ultimately resignation?

Short term stress can often be a useful thing. It gets adrenaline and cortisol pumping around our body, increasing our alertness and energy levels, and potentially improving our performance. But prolonged levels of stress without sufficient recovery can lead to burnout and exhaustion.

Unfortunately, organisations have not adapted to the prolonged stress associated with COVID-19. Consequently, many people are responding to the current situation as if it were a sprint, when we’re actually running an ultra-marathon.

Moral stress and injury

In 2019 the World Health Organization defined burnout as a syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress. Burnout is characterised by physical exhaustion, increased mental distance from work, increased negative or cynical feelings about it, and reduced productivity or difficulty focusing on work.

You may recognise these symptoms in your own life even if you’re not working in healthcare. Research shows increasing rates of burnout across many sectors in Aotearoa.

Read more:
Experts are back in fashion – now more than ever we need to question them

Nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers have long expressed concerns about their huge workloads and associated mental burnout. For many of these workers, burnout and fatigue have been an understandable response to years of being underpaid and under-resourced.

But COVID-19 has led to the adoption of a term previously used in military psychology, “moral stress and moral injury”, to describe the heightened response of healthcare workers caught at the front line of the pandemic.

Moral injury can occur when a person has to compromise or work contrary to their own moral beliefs or values, such as having to compromise on optimal care for patients due to insufficient resources. This dissonance can lead to complex emotions, including the feelings of guilt, shame or embarrassment, anger, contempt or disgust.

This sort of injury can affect a person’s social, psychological and spiritual well-being and is linked to a range of poor health outcomes.

Understanding this concept can help make sense of why healthcare workers may oscillate between tears, exhaustion, angry outbursts and guilt.

Combating burnout and moral injury

Efforts to reduce or prevent workplace burnout and moral stress start with employers meeting their responsibilities to protect their workers’ psychological wellbeing under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Citing his own journey with stress and anxiety, Bloomfield shared the importance of switching off and setting boundaries with work. He gave his executive team an extra week of annual leave in 2020 and explicitly instructed them to rest during that time – an example of how leaders can be role models of how to circuit-break cumulative stress by taking decent breaks.

But organisations need to go a step further.

As well as enabling employees to set good boundaries at a personal level (saying no, taking breaks, engaging in healthy habits), there should be an organisation-wide process for identifying and responding to work-related psychological risk factors.

Read more:
How to recover from burnout and chronic work stress – according to a psychologist

The first global standard for psychological health and safety at work calls these “psycho-social risk factors”. They include high workloads, exposure to emotional distress at work, tight deadlines, lack of control or role clarity, and poor support pathways.

Mitigation of psychological risks ensures they are effectively minimised and well-being prioritised. This in turn allows for the creation of high-performing teams who feel psychologically safe, are physically and mentally healthy, and are able to create, innovate and reconnect with the meaning behind their work.

Crucially, employees are also better protected against burnout, making them much more likely to stick around in their jobs.

Validation and appreciation

“Validating” might sound fluffy, but the science underpinning this concept is sound. Emotional validation is recognising and accepting, but not necessarily liking or agreeing about, employees’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

When organisational leaders do this well, the validation helps to acknowledge and dial down strong negative emotions like anger, frustration or being overwhelmed, reducing the impact of these feelings.

Read more:
Why the four-day week is not the solution to modern work stress

Appreciation needs to be offered carefully, given the risk it may sound patronising or minimising. Research found that employers should praise and reward aspects of performance that are under an employee’s control.

Employers should also praise behaviour rather than the person, as well as recognising the effort, not the end results. It’s also important that employers ask their people what kinds of appreciation and recognition will be validating and meaningful, rather than assuming they know.

Bloomfield will leave a lasting legacy in New Zealand’s public health system. His departure also creates an opportunity to shine light on workplace psychological health and safety so we don’t lose more people to burnout.

Gaynor Parkin and Dr Amanda Wallis from Umbrella Wellbeing contributed to this article.

Dougal Sutherland works for Victoria University of Wellington and is an Associate at Umbrella Wellbeing

– ref. The overwork pandemic: Ashley Bloomfield’s resignation highlights burnout on the COVID-19 front line – https://theconversation.com/the-overwork-pandemic-ashley-bloomfields-resignation-highlights-burnout-on-the-covid-19-front-line-181050

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

Since the invention of Bitcoin in 2009 the global cryptocurrency market has grown from nothing to a value of around US$2 trillion. From a price of US$1 in 2011, Bitcoin rose to an all-time high of more than US$63,000 in April 2021, and now hovers around the US$42,000 mark.

Large fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices are common, which makes them a highly speculative investment. What kind of people are willing to take the risk, and what motivates them?

We conducted a survey to find out. In particular, we wanted to know about the relationship between the so-called “dark tetrad” personality traits and attitudes towards cryptocurrency.

The dark tetrad

In psychology, the “dark tetrad” refers to a group of four personality traits. These are Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (together known as the “dark triad”), plus sadism.

They are called “dark” because of their “evil” qualities: extreme selfishness and taking advantage of others without empathy. The dark tetrad are also often related to risk-taking behaviours.

The appeal of cryptocurrency

We identified two main areas of appeal. First, the high risks and high potential returns of crypto trading make it attractive to the kind of people who like gambling.

Second, cryptocurrencies are not issued or backed by governments like traditional or “fiat” currencies. This makes them attractive to people who distrust government.

What are the personalities of crypto buyers?

We asked 566 people to complete online personality surveys as well as answer questions about their attitudes to crypto and whether or not they planned to invest in it. Of our participants, 26% reported they own crypto and 64% showed interest in crypto investing.

We measured their dark tetrad traits using standard psychological tests. We also measured traits that might connect the dark tetrad to judgements about crypto: fear of missing out (FOMO; the feeling that others are experiencing better things than you are), positivity (the tendency to be positive or optimistic in life), and belief in conspiracy theories.

Why do people want to buy crypto? It’s not just about making money

A common reason to invest in crypto is the hope of earning high returns. Beyond the desire to build wealth, our research shows dark personality traits also drive crypto buying.

Machiavellianism is named after the Italian political philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli. People who rate highly on this trait are good at deception and interpersonal manipulation.

Machiavellians take a calculated approach to achieving goals, and avoid impulsive decisions. They are less likely to engage in problem gambling.

Read more:
Behind the crypto hype is an ideology of social change

Machiavellians also tend to believe strongly in government conspiracies. For example, they often believe politicians usually do not reveal their true motives, and that government agencies closely monitor all citizens.

We found Machiavellians like crypto primarily because they distrust politicians and government agencies. Many crypto supporters believe governments are corrupt, and crypto avoids government corruption.

Overconfidence and positivity

Narcissism is a self-centred personality trait, characterised by feelings of privilege and predominance over others. Narcissists are overconfident and are more willing to do things like make risky investments in the stock market and gamble.

Narcissists tend to focus on the positive side of life. We found narcissists like crypto because of their great faith in the future, and because of their confidence their own lives will improve.

Impulsive psychopaths like crypto

Psychopathy is a callous, impulsive antisocial personality trait. Psychopathic people often find it difficult to perceive, understand, or address emotions due to a lack of emotional intelligence and empathy.

The reckless nature of psychopaths makes them more resistant to stress and anxiety. As a result, psychopaths like stimulation-seeking and risk-taking. They are prone to gambling and gambling addiction.

We found that impulsive psychopaths like crypto, because they fear missing out on investing rewards that others are experiencing.

How is sadism involved?

Everyday sadism relates to a personality enjoying another’s suffering. Sadists often display aggression and cruel behaviours. For example, sadists troll others on the Internet for enjoyment.

At first glance, buying crypto is unlikely to harm others. However, we found sadists like crypto because they do not want to miss out on investment rewards either. To them, perhaps both the pleasure from seeing another’s pain and the fear of missing out are related to selfishness.

Unlike narcissists, we found both psychopaths and sadists lack positivity about their prospects, which cancels out their liking of crypto.

A psychological lens

Studying cryptocurrency through the psychological lens of the dark tetrad offers insight into why people want to buy crypto. We are not suggesting that everyone interested in crypto displays dark tetrad traits.

We studied only a subset of people interested in crypto who do have these traits. If you happen to be a Bitcoin or other crypto holder, you may or may not exhibit them.

If you want to know how you score for dark tetrad traits, you can do the Dark Triad Personality Test and Sadism Test online.

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

– ref. ‘Impulsive psychopaths like crypto’: research shows how ‘dark’ personality traits affect Bitcoin enthusiasm – https://theconversation.com/impulsive-psychopaths-like-crypto-research-shows-how-dark-personality-traits-affect-bitcoin-enthusiasm-180782