Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University

Queensland is stereotyped for its sunshine, beaches, lack of daylight saving, Bundy rum, meter maids and One Nation supporters.

Many Australians have an ambivalent relationship with the state and don’t take its politics that seriously.

But after Queensland “lost” the federal election for Labor last year, there are good reasons to care about the state election on October 31.

With the campaign now officially underway, this isn’t just another state poll, either. We outline five reasons why voters — and those beyond Queensland — should be paying close attention.

1. Quexit was misguided

Despite widespread predictions the Labor Party would win the May 2019 federal election, the Coalition had a “miracle” victory, thanks – in part – to Queensland.

“How good’s Queensland?” Prime Minister Scott Morrison exclaimed on election night, with Liberal supporters chanting, “Queensland, Queensland” in reply.

But on social media, those disappointed with the election result wanted to cut Queensland loose from the rest of the country. A “Quexit” hashtag started to trend.

The whole episode proved we need a better understanding of the needs and interests of all Australians.

Without checking Queensland’s temperature, we miss vital information that has a bearing on the whole country. For those watching along at home: you need to win Queensland to win federally.

2. There is more than one Queensland

To understand Queensland, we need to understand its diversity. This is the only state to have the majority of residents in rural or regional areas. So, it is not just about what happens in Brisbane.

As one example, Queensland’s largest electorate, Gregory, covers about 460,000 square kilometres. So even within regional areas, the interests and issues are different.

Queensland is also a state that experiences frequent natural disasters. This, coupled with economic reliance on beef, gold, sugar, coal and gas industries, can place disparate Queensland communities on the edge.

In the 2020 election, the top seats to watch are around Townsville, Rockhampton and the coast, with an eye on some inner-city Brisbane electorates and wild card seats, given the recent resignation of three Labor ministers.

3. Pandemic politics

While the Northern Territory went to the polls in late August and the ACT will vote on October 17, Queensland’s will be the most significant election in Australia since the start of COVID-19.

This will give us several clues about the impact coronavirus will have on campaigns and voting, which could affect future elections in Australia.

We are expecting postal votes will be significant in the October 31 decision, with an estimated 600,000 Queenslanders predicted to vote this way. Many people are also expected to pre-poll to avoid the crowds.

This has significant ramifications on the campaign itself. When will political parties release their major policies, if huge chunks of the population have already voted well before polling day? With so many postal votes, will we have a result on election night?

We are also set to see a drop in door-knock campaigning, less reliance on paper how-to-vote cards and question marks over the election day democracy sausage. What will this do to people’s engagement with the voting process?

The COVID crisis also means attention is essentially focused on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her challenger, LNP leader Deb Frecklington. This will increase the “presidential” nature of the contest, exacerbating an increasing trend in Australian elections.

It is also worth noting, this is the first contest between two female leaders at a state or federal election in Australian history.

4. What are the minor parties up to?

The preferences of three minor parties — Katter’s Australian Party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and North Queensland First — are set to play an important role in battleground North Queensland seats.

With predictions of a hung parliament and the importance of preference flows, we should be keeping a close eye on their campaigns.

Read more: Queensland’s unpredictable election begins. Expect a close campaign focused on 3 questions

The role of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party looks less certain.

Palmer’s Mineralogy company donated almost $84 million to the United Australia Party campaign in the last federal election. This was the biggest individual spending spree in Australian political history, resulting in a very visible campaign, without winning any seats.

However, Palmer still had an impact, with his anti-Labor campaigning perhaps partly responsible for swinging votes away from the ALP.

In this year’s state election, Palmer will be restricted by new electoral spending caps. But it’s the pattern of spending that is really interesting.

Throughout the Queensland middle — the dry belts of land west of the Great Dividing range out to the fringes of the Channel Country — populist campaign messages dominate via bright billboards.

Their message may be simple — like the “Simon says” equivalent “Clive says… give Labor THE BOOT” — but they are also targeted. In many cases, they are the only messaging (and real political attention) these regions receive.

5. Tough questions that go beyond Queensland

Queensland is dealing with its fair share of local issues. But it is also grappling with policy questions that resonate around the country.

These include how to recover from the COVID recession and how to capture young voters who have been hit hard by the economic downturn.

Queensland also needs to transform its tourism industry in the face of both public health and environmental challenges.

And it needs to tackle climate change and transform “fossil” industries into new opportunities for employees and businesses.

Read more: Matt Canavan says Australia doesn’t subsidise the fossil fuel industry, an expert says it does

Meanwhile, Southeast Queensland has its 2032 Olympic bid bubbling away in the background.

Queensland issues are Australian issues — and a harbinger of what’s to come.

– ref. Remember Quexit? 5 reasons you should not take your eyes off the Queensland election – https://theconversation.com/remember-quexit-5-reasons-you-should-not-take-your-eyes-off-the-queensland-election-146926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch changed lives. Published 50 years ago in October 1970, it exists in the popular imagination as a kind of shorthand for that world-historic moment when women said they’d had enough.

The book inspired women to challenge the ties binding them to gender inequality and domestic servitude. It broke marriages, or else caused some to be renegotiated on more equal terms.

The Female Eunuch told women the project of emancipation had stalled. Freedom would not be wrested from a process of reform, by “genteel, middle-class women” sitting on committees or signing petitions. To grasp their freedom, “ungenteel” women would need to “call for revolution”, “disrupt society” and “unseat God”.

Indeed, “marriage, the family, private property, and the state” were in the firing line.

Greer urged women to think beyond the stereotype patriarchal society had created for them, which limited their capacity to act. She likened the situation of the 1970s woman to that of a bird “made for captivity”.

“The cage door had been opened but the canary had refused to fly out,” Greer wrote. “The conclusion was that the cage door ought never to have been opened because canaries are made for captivity; the suggestion of an alternative had only confused and saddened them.”

Women, she wrote, needed to “discover that they have a will”.

Read more: Friday essay: How Shakespeare helped shape Germaine Greer’s feminist masterpiece

Through the book’s five chapters — “Body”, “Soul”, “Love”, “Hate” and “Revolution” — Greer gradually built her famous motif of women as “eunuchs” or castrates, robbed of their natural energy. She wrote that in accepting this castrated or false identity, women had allowed the destruction of their instinct, inclination, will and capacity.

Greer’s book told women — in a hopeful way — that things could be otherwise. It told them to demand a better education, to pool their childcare arrangements, to share a better washing machine or other labour-saving appliance with women in the street. It told women to challenge men’s ownership of the means of production and consumer capitalism’s ownership of the soul.

Smashing sexual shibboleths

Greer famously drew attention to deeply entrenched cultural constructs that linked sex to shame and disgust, calling out the hypocrisy of a society that blamed women for men’s misogyny. “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them,” she wrote. “The man regards her as a receptacle into which he has emptied his sperm, a kind of human spittoon.”

These sexual shibboleths, she wrote, must be smashed. This was the point behind Greer’s widely discussed calls to go around bra-less and wear no underpants. Own your body, she urged women, its tastes and smells, including — most memorably — your menstrual blood.

“I must confess to a thrill of shock when one of the ladies to whom this book is dedicated told me that she had tasted her own menstrual blood on the penis of her lover,” Greer wrote. And yet, there are “no horrors presented in that blood, no poisons”.

Greer said women must question everything they had been taught about sex, love, romance, their bodies and their rights. Freedom was theirs, but they had to take it. Action was not just collective but individual too. Agency was everything. Grab any missile, break any rule. Do it now.

In this way, The Female Eunuch spoke to, and challenged, women directly. It asked, in its famous end line, “What will you do?”

Read more: Why it’s time to acknowledge Germaine Greer, journalist

Intellectual origins

Too few discussions of Greer’s work fully appreciate its intellectual origins in the libertarian ideas of the Sydney Push. Greer was born in Melbourne, educated by Irish nuns in a convent school, and yearned for a world beyond her own home, which was, she says, singularly bereft of books.

She moved to Sydney to study and fell in with a tearaway group of left libertarians known as the Push, a Bohemian movement with its origins in philosopher John Anderson’s Freethought Society.

In Greer’s time, the Push included soon to be luminaries such as Clive James, Richard Neville — editor of Oz magazine and a doyen of the underground culture that gathered around it in London — and Lillian Roxon, “the abundant, the golden, the eloquent, the well and badly loved”, who became the New York-based correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, author of the Rock Encyclopedia, and is one of five women to whom The Female Eunuch is dedicated.

The “Sydney line” espoused by the Push featured a heady mix of libertarianism and rule-smashing, anarcho-socialism. It preached “free love” and “opposition to authority”, encouraging members to live “freely” in an attitude of “permanent protest”.

Members of the Push pondered the “futility of revolutions” but nonetheless turned out for protests. The movement gave rise to seminal works of Australian feminism from Greer’s to Eva Cox’s and Wendy Bacon’s.

The formative influence of the Push led Greer to mount her social critique from the standpoint of “liberation feminism”, which she differentiated from so-called “equality feminism”. Equality was dismissed as a conservative aim, because it confers an illusion of power that merely re-entrenches the status quo.

Meaningful change — true “liberation” — required something more radical. Liberty could be terrifying. It was something not even men possessed. “The first significant discovery we shall make as we rocket along our female road to freedom is that men are not free,” wrote Greer, “and they will seek to make this an argument why nobody should be free”.

Media event

Intellectual discussions of The Female Eunuch often focus on the book’s appearance as a media event, and on Greer as a celebrity. It is a rich line of cultural inquiry, but occasionally leads critics to sell her work short, as flippant and ephemeral.

The book was commissioned by Sonny Mehta, who met Greer at a cafe in Soho on March 17 1969, when he was editor at MacGibbon and Kee. Mehta had an unerring eye for words, and an astonishing capacity to connect authors to an audience. He went on to become one of the most influential publishers of the late 20th century.

The Female Eunuch launched in London, but it was the extensive publicity campaign preceding the book’s entry into the American market that shaped its Anglophone reception. Its US publisher, McGraw Hill, outlayed a then extraordinary US$25,000 on promotion, including full-page advertisements in national newspapers.

During her 1971 book tour of the US, Greer appeared on television and radio. The New York Times called The Female Eunuch “the best feminist book so far”.

Always the controversialist, Greer gave interviews to magazines such as Esquire and Playboy. She trounced Normal Mailer in a New York debate, and often spoke back to journalists. “What kind of a question is that?” she would ask them.

Read more: The Town Hall Affair brings Germaine Greer’s 1970s feminist debate roaring into the present

In The Female Eunuch, Greer first signalled her often misinterpreted theories around rape and sexual consent. Greer has argued the idea of consent as it is written into law automatically positions women as subordinate and inferior. This sets up a situation that makes it almost impossible for a rape victim to get justice, as a perpetrator will only ever need to establish an element of doubt that consent was absent, by arguing that the victim had “given up” or “given in” or “hadn’t fought hard enough”.

The law, she argues, is a reflection of the wider misogyny diffuse in our culture, and is written in men’s interest. In more recent times, Greer has been accused of underplaying the seriousness of sexual assault and its impact on women.

Read more: Greer is right to say rape law has failings, but wrong to suggest its decriminalisation

In the 1970s, Greer openly discussed sexual violence and reproductive politics on prime-time TV, on talk shows like Dick Cavett’s, which Greer guest hosted for two nights. The results were explosive.

The Greer archives, housed at the University of Melbourne, contains thousands of letters that demonstrate the impact of Greer’s work and The Female Eunuch in particular. One female television viewer wrote about Greer’s talkshow appearance, “You could see minds and attitudes changing right on stage”.

She added, “Life magazine claims your appeal is that you ‘like men’. I claim that your appeal is that your intellect is welded to a very handsome ability to communicate”.

Of course, not everybody agreed. A reader of McCall’s magazine called a book extract from The Female Eunuch published in its pages “the most revolting ideas I’ve read in a woman’s magazine”.

Read more: Friday essay: reading Germaine Greer’s mail

Making the personal political

Greer became known — and still is — equally for her personality as for her ideas. This was perhaps inevitable because Greer had – and still has – a mesmerising capacity to make the personal political, and to play with the cultural gap between news and social norms.

Her work communicated her ideas on a mass scale and translated what were then the utterly unfamiliar ideals of feminism into everyday aspirations.

In the 1970s, The Female Eunch was dismissed with faint praise and even subject to panicked attacks from some feminists who saw the book as taking up too much space. In “The Selling of Germaine Greer”, published in The Nation, Claudia Dreifus argued that Greer was “shallow, anti-woman, regressive, three steps backwards” and “not the feminist leader she is advertised to be”.

In Australia, Beatrice Faust called Greer a “political bonehead”. Others appeared disconcerted by her dazzling polemics or dismayed — or simply uncomprehending — of the book’s left libertarian intellectual origins and its blunt insistence that before liberation can be achieved, women need to free themselves from the stereotypes that shackle them personally and sexually, as well as politically.

Today Greer’s work — and her legacy — remains divisive. Writers Mary Beard and Rachel Cusk have stood by the book, while others, including Naomi Wolf and Mary Spongberg, have been vocally critical of the author and her subsequent works. In 2010, Greer was vigorously attacked by playwright Louis Nowra in an infamous essay published in the The Monthly.

I first read The Female Eunuch at the age of 12, taking the age-spotted copy from my mother’s bookshelf. I read it again — this time from cover to cover — at 23. The Female Eunuch has never been out of print since it was published.

What still jumps out of the book’s pages is the strength and power of an author’s voice that speaks to its reader so directly.

The voice — like the author — is dazzling, erudite, anti-authoritarian, reliably contrarian, recklessly courageous, full of wit and great encouragement for unconventional ideas, tactics and behaviours, and utterly fearless in her search for social justice.

All this is why the marvellous “Germaine” exists for her reader on first name terms.

– ref. Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer’s fearless, feminist masterpiece – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, Professor, University of Western Australia

Review: Richard Flanagan, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (Penguin Random House, 2020)

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Richard Flanagan’s eighth novel, is one of a slew of novels one expects to emerge from the shadow of the 2019–2020 bushfire season that darkened the skies of eastern Australia for weeks on end, scorching forests from Byron Bay to Kangaroo Island.

A rolling incineration of large swathes of the continent, the sky itself seemed to have been on fire, from the uncanny pink-disk sun of smoke-choked Sydney in November and December to the apocalyptic scenes at Mallacoota on New Year’s Eve.

In Flanagan’s novel the collapse of the planet’s ecosystems happens in the background. The story itself is mainly occupied with something which must be trivial by comparison: the dying of 87-year-old Francie in a Hobart hospital.

Francie’s three children have come together to deal with the demands of the situation. While Anna and Terzo have long left Tasmania behind them (or so they thought) for high-flying careers on the mainland, Tommy has remained. Tommy is a failed artist and speaks with a stutter that appeared when a fourth child, Ronnie, died by suicide following abuse suffered at a Marist boys’ school.

The novel mainly follows Anna. A successful architect living in Sydney, she reluctantly answers Tommy’s call to return to Tasmania when their mother’s health turns for the worse. The novel traces the breaking down of all the things Anna has put up to convince herself she was no longer in that place.

What place? Not Tasmania, but the invisible, traumatic centre of family life — all the failures, evasions, dirty compromises swept under the carpet only to reappear with surprising exactitude each Christmas.

Or, when a parent dies.

Losing a mother; losing a world

In this respect, Flanagan’s novel resembles Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections or HBO’s Succession.

While Succession, with its ageing mogul patriarch Logan Roy, is loosely based on the Murdoch dynasty, it does not really depend on a media empire at stake. Its heart is the tawdry machinations of the infantilised children as they jockey for advantage, trying to win the game of imaginary approval driving sibling rivalry.

In The Living Sea of Waking Dreams it is a matriarch rather than a patriarch slowly, messily and unevenly passing out of the world. Yet, while Logan Roy is a monster and Francie a saint, the effect in the adult children is exactly the same.

The brilliance of Flanagan’s story and the deep power of this novel is in our witnessing of the end of the world. The death of Francie opens up a black hole in the family drawing Anna, Terzo and Tommy into its implacable singularity.

At the same time as this family’s little world is collapsing, the world itself is in its own end times. Ash rains down from the sky and one ecological catastrophe after another interrupts Anna’s social media feed. This conjunction presents a new form of what is called the pathetic fallacy, in which we project the world of our inner emotions and moods onto the natural world.

A sullen sky, a bright morning, a funereal forest — some basic animism in us takes the world to be the sounding board of our affects. It is a symptom of the Anthropocene these affinities have become planetary.

Read more: How the term ‘Anthropocene’ jumped from geoscience to hashtags – before most of us knew what it meant

Is Flanagan’s novel an ecological novel? The luxury of choosing has now all but gone.

We no longer have to turn our minds to an ecology forcing itself into our lungs and washing up on our every shore. The novel has a dimension of allegory, but it is no longer clear which direction it is flowing.

Our missing parts

The pathetic fallacy was thought to serve the psychic needs of people by offering them a consoling mirror in the natural world, but what if its true point was to turn our subjective misery into ethical environmental action?

Certainly, the moribund Francie seems an emblem of a dying maternal nature. The ever greater efforts her children expend on keeping her alive evoke the desperate rear-guard actions to prevent this or that catastrophe.

But the novel’s most persuasive ploy is not based on the redeployment of sympathy. At regular intervals, Anna realises she is missing a body part. It begins with a missing finger. Later her knee, then a breast, an eye. Others, too, start to lose body parts.

These “vanishings”, as they come to be known, are entirely painless and seem to go almost unnoticed. It is as if, we are told, they have simply been photoshopped away.

The uncanny part is not the loss of the limb, but the fact the phenomenon is going unremarked. This is what extinction feels like. Something is gone that was once there. We are briefly confused, but then we reassemble the picture and push on.

Read more: Australian writer Richard Flanagan wins the Man Booker prize

– ref. Review: Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams considers griefs big and small – https://theconversation.com/review-richard-flanagans-the-living-sea-of-waking-dreams-considers-griefs-big-and-small-147105

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

Many people who know Mathias Cormann – let us except Malcolm Turnbull – will hope he wins his bid to become secretary-general of the OECD.

Not only is he well qualified, but it would be a feather in Australia’s cap.

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: a budget for a pandemic

He’s certainly no shoo-in, however. There are already multiple candidates, the pandemic will make campaigning complicated, and Australian’s record on climate change might be a negative.

But he’ll have strong government support and, given his meticulous organisational skills and network of contacts abroad, nothing will be left undone.

Finance minister throughout the Coalition’s term, Cormann is respected across the political spectrum, which has made him effective as the government’s “wrangler” of the difficult characters in the Senate.

His dour image conceals a lighter side, seen in Wednesday’s cameo appearance on the ABC’s “Mad as Hell” as he parried with his “spokesman” Darius Horsham, a long-running character on the show.

Cormann’s October 30 parliamentary exit – the timing determined by the OECD’s process – is a significant loss for the government. But Scott Morrison was determined not to let it become a disruption.

Morrison has filled Cormann’s shoes even before his minister has stepped out of them, announcing Simon Birmingham will take over the finance portfolio and Senate leadership when Cormann goes.

The PM said he’d make no other changes at that time, but there’ll be a reshuffle at year’s end.

Read more: Simon Birmingham to become finance minister and Senate leader as Australia nominates Cormann for OECD

Birmingham will then shed his trade ministry, and Morrison will have the opportunity to make other alterations to his team. With aged care set to be a mega issue after the royal commission reports in February, one thing he should do is put a heavyweight into that portfolio and elevate it to cabinet.

Thursday’s small shuffle was a side show in the major play of the week, which saw a budget with a deficit of $213.7 billion this financial year that gambles on being large enough to get the country marching to recovery.

It will take months to judge whether the government has pitched its budget well (and that’s assuming no new seismic setbacks), but it is satisfied with the immediate reception. Income tax cuts are likely to be popular even if their critics argue other measures would be better. Business can only welcome the massive incentives to invest, although many enterprises won’t survive to take advantage of them.

Labor has given its support to the huge tax concessions for business in Josh Frydenberg’s second budget.

Read more: Budget 2020: Frydenberg tells Australians, ‘we have your back’

There’s a sharp contrast with the company tax cuts in then treasurer Scott Morrison’s first budget, which embroiled the Turnbull government in a debilitating fight from 2016 to 2018. Even Cormann couldn’t wrangle the big business tranche of those through the Senate; it was abandoned in the final week of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.

The budget has come under fire on various fronts – for example, the wage subsidy for younger workers carries the risk of being rorted, and there’s criticism about the lack of assistance for older workers.

Nevertheless, it has been a difficult budget for the opposition to savage, given Labor is endorsing its core elements of income tax cuts and business concessions.

But one fertile area for the opposition has been the lack of specific assistance for women, many of whom have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. They’re often in casual jobs, and in highly vulnerable sectors (although Frydenberg pointed out women have been strongly represented in the restored jobs). Women have also carried a disproportionate load of home schooling.

Albanese tapped into this area of government vulnerability when he delivered his Thursday night budget reply.

The opposition leader had several imperatives to meet as he went into that speech. To produce some policy flesh. To set up an ideological difference with the government. To cut through to the public.

With possibly only a little over a year before an election, the opposition is under pressure to start rolling out detailed policies. Albanese’s promises to make child care more affordable (at a cost $6.4 billion) and modernise the energy grid (a $20 billion investment) were substantial commitments.

The child care policy will appeal to women in particular. The pandemic has made families, but especially women, even more aware how important child care is for them – the brief period of it being free only increased the appetite for a better system – and the budget didn’t respond.

The proposals Albanese put forward to boost skills and local manufacturing highlighted Labor’s message that it believes in using government as a driver of change, through prescriptions, procurement policy and other means.

Read more: Albanese promises $20 billion plan to modernise electricity grid, and $6.2 billion for child care

Albanese proposes mandating that a certain proportion of workers on major government-funded projects should be apprentices and trainees. He even suggests this could be extended to government-funded sectors such as aged care – how practical that would be is debatable.

There wasn’t a detailed social housing policy but Albanese flagged Labor would invest substantially in this area – that’s spending favoured by many economists as well as necessary to improve lives.

While Albanese is at pains to argue he’d mobilise the power of government, Morrison has muddied this political water.

The budget might be heavily private-sector oriented (and from that vantage point, seen as ideological), but Morrison is also interventionist when it suits him. His so-called gas led recovery, and his identification of designated sectors in his manufacturing policy are examples.

In terms of the imperatives he was trying to meet, Albanese did produce some policy flesh but of the announcements, probably only the child care initiative is likely to general “cut through”.

But the danger for Albanese is that come the next election, if Morrison sees child care as a political weak spot, he’s likely to address it.

In his stress on child care and social housing, Albanese made his point that Labor had different priorities to the government’s. And we got the message about putting government in the driver’s seat.

But the picture of what an Albanese government would actually look like wasn’t clear – as it can’t be, because that remains a work-in-progress.

Nor did we get any comprehensive idea of how, if this had been a Jim Chalmer’s budget, Labor would be tackling the immediate crisis differently.

Albanese’s problem was that circumstances demanded too much of him in his budget reply. He had a fair crack at meeting those demands, but he couldn’t change the perception that the pandemic has made the opposition one of its victims.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese tries to climb an impossible mountain – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-anthony-albanese-tries-to-climb-an-impossible-mountain-147796

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

Anthony Albanese has promised an ambitious $20 billion plan to modernise Australia’s electricity grid, and extra spending of $6.2 billion over four years for more affordable child care in a budget reply that emphasises the role of government.

In another initiative, Albanese said a Labor government would have a plan to promote local manufacturing and skills that would boost the nation’s productivity.

The Labor leader claimed the recession in Australia would be “deeper and longer” because of Tuesday’s budget, which he said left behind women and people over 35.

Albanese is casting Labor’s alternative as using the power of government to drive economic activity and reform, setting this up an ideological difference with the Morrison government.

“Government has the power to break down barriers of disadvantage, to change lives for the better,” he said.

His childcare initiative homes in on criticism that the present system is costly and inadequate for families, with nothing extra done in the budget.

“Right around Australia, instead of childcare supporting families, where both parents want to work, the costs – and the tax system – actively discourage this,” he said.

Too often “it’s working mums who cop the worst of it”.

“For millions of working women, it’s not worth working more than three days a week.”

This deprived working women of opportunities and cost workplaces years of experience, knowledge and skills.

He said a Labor government would, from July 1 2022 remove the annual cap on the childcare subsidy, which would eliminate the disincentive to work more hours. The current cap is $10,560.

It would also increase the maximum childcare subsidy to 90%, cutting costs for 97% of families in the system. Labor would increase the subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning under $530,000.

Under the changes 97% of families in the system would save between $600 and $2900 annually, with no family worse off.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would be told to design a price regulation mechanism that made sure all the funds the government spent went through to savings for families.

“This is real reform. It will be women’s workforce participation, boost productivity, and get Australia working again.

“Building a childcare system that works for families will turbo charge productivity in workplaces, delivering a much-needed boost in economic growth of up to $4 billion a year.”

Labor’s long term goal would be to investigate moving to a 90% subsidy for childcare for every family.

The Productivity Commission would be asked to report on this in Labor’s first term.

Outlining his program for “powering the nation”, Albanese said Australia’s present electricity network was designed for a different century – “a time when solar panels ran pocket calculators, not the one in four households which have rooftop solar”.

“The current network takes no account of the rise of renewables as the cheapest new energy source, and doesn’t help link these new sources up to the national grid.”

Labor would set up a new Rewiring The Nationl Corporation, to rebuild and modernise the grid.

The Australian Energy Market Operator had already identified projects that were needed, Albanese said.

“The planning work is done. Rebuilding the grid will create thousands of jobs – particularly in regional Australia – and deliver up to $40 billion in benefits,” he said.

“Fixing transmission is technology neutral and will allow the market to drive least cost, new energy production.”

The “Future Made in Australia” initiative would be driven by the power of Commonwealth spending.

There would be an “Australian Skills Guarantee” which would provide opportunities for apprentices and trainees on major Commonwealth projects.

“On every major work site receiving federal spending, one out of ten workers employed will be an apprentice, a trainee, or cadet,” he said.

“We will also consider how this principle can be extended to federal government subsidised sectors like aged care, disability care and childcare, in cooperation with providers.”

A Labor government would bring in rules in defence spending “to maximise local content and create local jobs”.

It would also have a national rail manufacturing plan, providing leadership to the states and working with industry to maximise opportunities to build trains in Australia.

– ref. Albanese promises $20 billion plan to modernise electricity grid, and $6.2 billion for child care – https://theconversation.com/albanese-promises-20-billion-plan-to-modernise-electricity-grid-and-6-2-billion-for-child-care-147764

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Stone, General practitioner; Clinical Associate Professor, ANU Medical School, Australian National University

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in more anxiety and depression, raised rates of bipolar disorder and other psychoses, and left many Australians stricken with grief. And we will, devastatingly, lose more Australians to suicide.

Meanwhile, many people are facing job losses, financial hardship, isolation and some are suffering long-term symptoms of COVID-19 or other chronic illnesses.

At first glance, it’s fitting the 2020-21 federal budget, unveiled on Tuesday, includes A$7 million for mental health organisations Beyond Blue, Headspace, Kids Helpline and Lifeline.

Look more closely, however, and some concerning patterns emerge. The commitment to mental health is channelled through these services, which provide a narrow spectrum of care. These organisations favour people who are resourced, resourceful, literate in English, urban, and have more easily treated conditions than those with complex or multiple chronic illnesses. In fact the people with the deepest need tend to receive the least care.

These services aren’t suited for those with complex needs

People with mental illnesses aren’t all the same. Mental health concerns range from grief and loss, to chronic severe schizophrenia, to depression and anxiety, and many of these conditions overlap. Many people have also survived considerable trauma, and this has a deep and lasting impact on their health and well-being. Others live with disability, homelessness, chronic pain, domestic violence and poverty.

Professor Ian Hickie, who was a founding director of Headspace, says:

The Headspace model was never set up to deal with more complex presentations, people with impairments already established, those who had complex mixes of anxiety, depression and substance misuse.

As clinicians with a particular interest in mental health, we are wary of the “single illness fallacy” — one person, one illness — that underpins many of Australia’s current mental health policies. People with ongoing or serious mental illnesses almost always suffer other physical conditions which compound their mental illness, and die decades earlier than the average Australian. They deserve support.

Many people with disabilities also encounter difficulty in accessing appropriate care for their needs. One example, among many, is that in the ACT, public child and adolescent mental health services exclude patients with autism or attention deficit disorder.

Patients describe being too complex or not complex enough for services, and a little like Goldilocks they have difficulty finding a service that is “just right” for their needs.

Read more: Three charts on: why rates of mental illness aren’t going down despite higher spending

Doubling Medicare-subsidised sessions won’t help those who receive no care

People who commonly don’t receive adequate care include those who are homeless, poor and unemployed, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and those on temporary visas. All tend to have higher rates of mental illness than the general population.

All people with mental distress and illness should be able to access mental health care. In theory, this is the basis of the federal government’s Better Access program, which allows people to access ten Medicare-subsided sessions per year with a psychologist or psychiatrist. It’s a useful initiative, but only for those who can afford the co-payments and live in areas where psychologists are available.

The budget’s commitment to extend the program to 20 sessions, at a cost of more than A$100 million, is welcome. But it doesn’t ensure equity. It also puts considerable strain on the psychology profession, which is already overloaded, especially in rural areas.

Like Headspace, Better Access risks excluding people with complex conditions or unstable mental illnesses. Those who are on the margins of society, and rely on the social safety net or charity, are unlikely to use this model of care.

Read more: When it’s easier to get meds than therapy: how poverty makes it hard to escape mental illness

How do get the best value for our mental health services?

It’s hard to see the value-add of a narrow mental health response that funds a set of services which can only care for people with mild to moderate distress, while ignoring the people with the greatest disability.

The value-based care movement argues there are four elements that create value for people. Services should:

1. provide outcomes that matter to the person receiving the service. We need to decide whether every dollar spent on clinical treatment of mild to moderate depression and anxiety could be better spent on housing, trauma therapy, employment or other forms of social care

2. alleviate suffering. People should be able to form close and continuing relationships with clinicians, so their story and needs are known and trust can develop. The evidence for this relationship-based care is deep, but often services use multiple teams with health professionals who change frequently. We need to understand that continuity often matters to people and developing trust helps reduce distress

3. create calm, which means addressing the chaos people experience trying to access services. The experience of telling your story multiple times to multiple providers, and then finding the service won’t accept care, is traumatic and unnecessary

4. be cost-effective for the whole population who need mental health support, not just for the patients each service chooses to treat.

We need each of these government-funded services to report against these outcomes, including recording those people who are directed away from the services and essentially denied care.

Policies should be driven by data

We know little about the wider mental health needs of the Australian population. Our most recent national mental health survey was back in 2007. We know a lot about patients who present to services, but little about patients who don’t.

The largest providers of mental health care in the country, GPs, are invisible in the budget. Their patients, who have no other option for mental health care because they are too poor, too rural, too unwell or not unwell enough, are invisible in policy. Our only data from GPs is billing and prescribing data; hardly sufficient to understand the unmet needs of the Australian population.

If we are to meet the needs of all Australians, not just those who can access and afford care, we need more data. Offering simplistic solutions to complex problems means there are larger chasms for people to fall through.

– ref. Budget funding for Beyond Blue and Headspace is welcome. But it may not help those who need it most – https://theconversation.com/budget-funding-for-beyond-blue-and-headspace-is-welcome-but-it-may-not-help-those-who-need-it-most-147661

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodie McVernon, Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, University of Melbourne

Melburnians are addicted to the Victorian health department’s daily tweet of the state’s new COVID-19 cases. This figure contributes to the all-important rolling 14-day average, which alongside the number of mystery cases, tells us whether we’re on target for the next phase of reopening.

How likely is it we’ll get to the target of an average of no more than five new daily cases by October 19 and fewer than five mystery cases — the triggers for the next stage of restrictions to be lifted?

Our regular modelling updates contribute to assessment of epidemic trends in Australia. This work suggests the chance of achieving the target is 50% or less.

In the words of Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, it’s looking like a “line ball” decision.

Why aren’t the numbers going down?

Daily case reports have dramatically decreased from the hundreds seen only weeks ago. However, now numbers are low, any minor fluctuations are highly visible. We’re still seeing small outbreaks that seed chains of transmission, contributing to this day-by-day variation.

The recent outbreak linked to the Butcher Club at Chadstone shopping centre is a prime example, with workers transporting the virus back home across Melbourne and into regional Victoria. Essential work is a valid reason to leave home and travel beyond 5 kilometres, facilitating long-range spread. The potential for further outbreaks like this remains.

Then there are the cases in “stubborn” settings such as aged care. We have seen the potential for outbreaks in these environments, which are essentially residential settings housing large numbers of people at risk of severe outcomes.

While there have been major efforts to reduce introduction and spread of infection in these environments, rumbling chains of infection spread have proven difficult to stamp out.

Read more: Victoria’s path out of COVID-19 lockdown – quick reference guides

At the moment, the vast majority of cases are linked, and related to spread in occupational and residential settings.

So what happens if we’re still at an average of ten cases by mid-October? By late October? Into November? Are the measures that would remain in place proportionate to these numbers, and is there good evidence those measures are needed to prevent a third wave?

It’s clear Melbourne cannot stay in lockdown indefinitely. Lockdowns are an emergency brake on widespread community transmission.

How can we safely free up society and the economy without dashing all the efforts of the past months?

Read more: Now everyone’s a statistician. Here’s what armchair COVID experts are getting wrong

Super-spreaders are who we should be focusing on

The biggest challenge for containing COVID-19 is the potential for super-spreading events. Many infected people do not spread the virus. But some, the super-spreaders, infect many others. Those newly infected people then return to their own homes, schools or workplaces, each with the potential to seed new infections.

So rapid identification of super-spreading events is key. This is achieved by working backwards whenever we identify a new case — a concept known as “back tracing”.

Where resources are limited, they’re best applied to investigating where a known infection came from (as that “parent” source was clearly contagious) and following up on their close contacts as quickly as possible.

At our current low case numbers, we can also focus on who the newly identified person (the “child”, who may or may not be contagious) has subsequently been in contact with.

We also need to minimise the chance of these super-spreading events from happening in the first place. We can do this by limiting the number of people who mix together in workplaces and social situations.

Keep to your bubble

It’s also useful to distinguish between mixing with known and unknown people. It’s clear SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, spreads very effectively in households, where we understandably let our guard down.

Limiting our social contacts to known, repeated people or small groups or “bubbles” reduces the overall risk and makes contact tracing easier in the event of an infection. Meeting up in outdoor settings further reduces those risks.

But socialising in public places, like restaurants, provides opportunities for mixing with unknown people. That’s why COVID-safe operating practices to limit group sizes in restaurants and cafes and minimise between-group interactions are so important. And of course there are outdoor dining options if the Melbourne weather chooses to be kind.

Hong Kong managed its “second wave” very effectively without lockdowns by reducing mass gatherings, promoting remote working and learning, introducing seating restrictions in restaurants and closing bars. All these measures were explicitly focused on reducing super-spreading risk.

Read more: Friday essay: COVID in ten photos

Individual behaviours still matter

No matter where we are or who we’re with, we can all reduce our individual risk of catching or spreading SARS-CoV-2. Whether or not we are staying “at home” is arguably a lot less important than how we behave when we leave.

Despite poor choices by some, Victorians’ compliance with personal behaviours to reduce infection spread are the highest in Australia and holding steady over time, helping keep the potential for transmission down.

What happens after October 19?

Thanks to early, proactive responses to COVID-19, Australia is in the fortunate position of having achieved near-elimination.

However, it is inevitable SARS-CoV-2 infections will continue to be imported, particularly as we look to reconnect with the wider world.

As a global community, we will be living with and adapting to this virus and its impacts for years to come. We need a view beyond the next fortnight to find sustainable ways to live, work and respond.

Lockdowns have served us well. Australia has avoided catastrophe. But it is not lockdown or bust. We have other alternatives.

– ref. Sorry Melbourne. The chance of reaching an average 5 COVID-19 cases by mid-October is under 50% – https://theconversation.com/sorry-melbourne-the-chance-of-reaching-an-average-5-covid-19-cases-by-mid-october-is-under-50-147569

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shane Satterley, PhD Candidate, Griffith University

Facebook has announced a ban on groups and pages identified with the rapidly growing QAnon conspiracy movement, which will cover both Facebook itself and the Facebook-owned Instagram.

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that alleges, among other things, that US President Donald Trump is battling Satan-worshipping paedophiles and a global child sex-trafficking ring run by Democrats. While the movement began in the US, it has begun to attract followers in other countries, including Australia.

Facebook’s ban escalates a policy announced in August that aimed to ban QAnon groups promoting violence, and comes as the social media giant attempts to slow the spread of disinformation on its platform in the lead-up to the US presidential election on November 3.

Twitter also banned “so-called ‘QAnon’ activity” in July. After Facebook’s latest move, some QAnon adherents were quick to claim the ban itself was more evidence of a cover-up.

Read more: Why QAnon is attracting so many followers in Australia — and how it can be countered

Can social media suppress ‘dangerous’ ideas?

Facebook’s action raises important questions. Will it work? Will taking down these pages stop the spread of “potentially dangerous” ideas?

There is some evidence it will. In 2015, Facebook blocked accounts and deleted posts associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Thereafter, the group’s propaganda did not seem to pop up as often elsewhere online (although it has not disappeared entirely).

However, if groups are banned from Facebook or other platforms, they may still find ways to propagate material. This can create a “black market” of ideas out of public view, where any idea, no matter how objectionable, can go completely unchecked.

Should social media suppress ‘dangerous’ ideas?

Another question is whether Facebook should be banning “potentially dangerous” groups and pages, and therefore ideas, from its platforms. This is a harder question to answer.

Platforms such as Facebook sit in a grey area in relation to freedom of expression. Banning somebody from a platform does not infringe on their legal right to express themselves — it just means they will have to do it elsewhere.

However, Facebook and other platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are among the main avenues for public expression, and are used not only by everyday individuals but also large organisations and even elected representatives. So the removal of certain groups or ideas should be at least concerning. This is particularly true for those like QAnon which do not directly call for violence (though the group has been linked to some violent incidents).

Read more: Netflix’s The Social Dilemma highlights the problem with social media, but what’s the solution?

The value of free expression

Trump has said he has heard followers of QAnon are “people who love our country”. Like other far-right groups, QAnon is ultra-nationalistic, so Trump is likely correct.

QAnon’s ultra-nationalism is important when we talk about the Facebook ban because one of the founding principles of the United States as a nation is the idea people should be free to express any idea they like, including conspiracy theories, ideas associated with religious cults and hateful propaganda.

Key texts that informed the foundation of the US, such as the introduction to The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, Areopagitica by John Milton and and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, all make similar arguments on freedom of expression.

They argue that when we deny an idea the chance to be expressed, we do ourselves a disservice because we deny ourselves a chance to hear it. It is not just the right of the expresser to think and say; it is the right of the listener to hear and think.

From this point of view, ideas expressed by QAnon or any other fringe group should sharpen our ability to think critically about what we claim to know. If someone puts forward a seemingly crazy idea, they should be heard because they could be correct or hold kernels of truth to their ideas — if not, they need to be publicly refuted for the benefit of everyone.

John Stuart Mill argued “the greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy”. The heretical view is therefore the most salient of all views because in its heresy enhances our individual and collective ability for critical thinking.

No simple solutions

Do these centuries-old principles still hold in the age of social media? Platforms like Facebook appear perfectly suited to the promotion and dissemination of conspiracy theories like QAnon. In their relentless quest for our attention, the platforms take advantage of the human tendency to find salacious and infuriating articles and ideas more captivating than nuanced, balanced and factual material.

There is no simple solution or shortcut to mitigating potentially dangerous ideas. They need to be openly refuted but to do this requires time and engagement with the ideas themselves but importantly first, an ability for critical thinking.

Read more: To combat conspiracy theories teach critical thinking – and community values

Who will do this work? It may be an indictment on our educational systems if it can be shown that we are not producing enough critical thinkers. Perhaps this is a place to start, so we do not have to rely on Silicon Valley to tell us what crazy ideas we can read, because those ideas will find it hard to find a home to begin with.

In the meantime perhaps Facebook can use its algorithms and tremendous resources to find a way to promote critical thinking and to incentivise nuanced and balanced discourse — adding to the global discussion rather than merely subtracting.

– ref. Facebook is removing QAnon pages and groups from its sites, but critical thinking is still the best way to fight conspiracy theories – https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-removing-qanon-pages-and-groups-from-its-sites-but-critical-thinking-is-still-the-best-way-to-fight-conspiracy-theories-147668

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle

China’s President Xi Jinping surprised the global community recently by committing his country to net-zero emissions by 2060. Prior to this announcement, the prospect of becoming “carbon neutral” barely rated a mention in China’s national policies.

China currently accounts for about 28% of global carbon emissions – double the US contribution and three times the European Union’s. Meeting the pledge will demand a deep transition of not just China’s energy system, but its entire economy.

Importantly, China’s use of coal, oil and gas must be slashed, and its industrial production stripped of emissions. This will affect demand for Australia’s exports in coming decades.

It remains to be seen whether China’s climate promise is genuine, or simply a ploy to win international favour. But it puts pressure on many other nations – not least Australia – to follow.

Goodbye, fossil fuels

Coal is currently used to generate about 60% of China’s electricity. Coal must be phased out for China to meet its climate target, unless technologies such as carbon-capture and storage become commercially viable.

Natural gas is increasingly used in China for heating and transport, as an alternative to coal and petrol. To achieve carbon neutrality, China must dramatically reduce its gas use.

Electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles must also come to dominate road transport – currently they account for less than 2% of the total fleet.

Read more: New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardising Earth’s future

China must also slash the production of carbon-intensive steel, cement and chemicals, unless they can be powered by renewable electricity or zero-emissions hydrogen. One report suggests meeting the target will mean most of China’s steel is produced using recycled steel, in a process powered by renewable electricity.

Modelling in that report suggests China’s use of iron ore – and the coking coal required to process it into steel – will decrease by 75%. The implications for Australia’s mining industry would be huge; around 80% of our iron ore is exported to China.

It is critically important for Australian industries and policymakers to assess the seriousness of China’s pledge and the likelihood it will be delivered. Investment plans for large mining projects should then be reconsidered accordingly.

Conversely, China’s path towards a carbon neutral economy may open up new export opportunities for Australia, such as “green” hydrogen.

A renewables revolution

Solar and wind currently account for 10% of China’s total power generation. For China to meet the net-zero goal, renewable energy generation would have to ramp up dramatically. This is needed for two reasons: to replace the lost coal-fired power capacity, and to provide the larger electricity needs of transport and heavy industry.

Two factors are likely to reduce energy demand in China in coming years. First, energy efficiency in the building, transport and manufacturing sectors is likely to improve. Second, the economy is moving away from energy- and pollution-intensive production, towards an economy based on services and digital technologies.

It’s in China’s interests to take greater action on climate change. Developing renewable energy helps China build new “green” export industries, secure its energy supplies and improve air and water quality.

The global picture

It’s worth considering what factors may have motivated China’s announcement, beyond the desire to do good for the climate.

In recent years, China has been viewed with increasing hostility on the world stage, especially by Western nations. Some commentators have suggested China’s climate pledge is a bid to improve its global image.

The pledge also gives China the high ground over a major antagonist, the US, which under President Donald Trump has walked away from its international obligations on climate action. China’s pledge follows similar ones by the European Union, New Zealand, California and others. It sets an example for other developing nations to follow, and puts pressure on Australia to do the same.

Read more: South Korea’s Green New Deal shows the world what a smart economic recovery looks like

The European Union has also been urging China to take stronger climate action. The fact Xi made the net-zero pledge at a United Nations meeting suggests it was largely targeted at an international, rather than Chinese, audience.

However, the international community will judge China’s pledge on how quickly it can implement specific, measurable short- and mid-term targets for net-zero emissions, and whether it has the policies in place to ensure the goal is delivered by 2060.

Much is resting on China’s next Five Year Plan – a policy blueprint created every five years to steer the economy towards various priorities. The latest plan, covering 2021–25, is being developed. It will be examined closely for measures such as phasing out coal and more ambitious targets for renewables.

Also key is whether the recent rebound of China’s carbon emissions – following a fall from 2013 to 2016 – can be reversed.

Wriggle room

The 2060 commitment is bold, but China may look to leave itself wriggle room in several ways.

First, Xi declared in his speech that China will “aim to” achieve carbon neutrality, leaving open the option his nation may not meet the target.

Second, the Paris Agreement states that developed nations should provide financial resources and technological support to help developing countries reduce their emissions. China may make its delivery of the pledge conditional on this support.

Third, China may seek to game the way carbon neutrality is measured – for example, by insisting it excludes carbon emissions “embodied” in imports and exports. This move is quite likely, given exports account for a significant share of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

So for the time being, the world is holding its applause for China’s commitment to carbon neutrality. Like every nation, China will be judged not on its climate promises, but on its delivery.

Read more: ‘Backwards’ federal budget: Morrison government never fails to disappoint on climate action

– ref. China just stunned the world with its step-up on climate action – and the implications for Australia may be huge – https://theconversation.com/china-just-stunned-the-world-with-its-step-up-on-climate-action-and-the-implications-for-australia-may-be-huge-147268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

Tonight Labor will deliver its alternative budget and promise that if it was in government it would be investing A$500 million in fast-tracking repairs to social housing, and urging state governments to match it dollar for dollar.

The budget itself, delivered on Tuesday, offered nothing extra for social housing, even though when polled by The Conversation and the Economic Society of Australia more of Australia’s leading economists wanted money spent on social housing than any other stimulus measure.

They are right to place it above investment allowances, wage subsidies, and tax cuts as a sure-fire way of boosting economic activity and employment.

Unlike those other measures, it has a track record.

The Rudd Government’s social housing initiative, introduced as part of the package that staved off recession during the global financial crisis, delivered 20,000 new units on time and on budget while creating 14,000 well-paying jobs.

It was the only Commonwealth public housing or community housing initiative of any size since the Howard Government effectively ended routine public home building in 1996.

Pre-tested, pre-prepared

On a per capital basis, social housing supply has halved since then.

At the same time, private rental housing has moved upmarket, making it even harder for low income Australians to find a suitable and affordable home.

The Community Housing Industry Association put forward a $7.7 billion Social Housing Acceleration and Renovation Program (SHARP) that would have delivered an extra 30,000 homes and renovated thousands more over four years.

Calculations by SGS Economics and Planning in June suggested it would have supported between 15,500 and 18,000 full-time equivalent jobs in each of those years.

Read more: Australia’s housing system needs a big shake-up: here’s how we can crack this

Why, in the face of this analysis, did Treasurer Frydenberg turn the option down?

It’s hard to say, but the omission of social housing is consistent with the budget’s lukewarm attitude towards infrastructure investment more broadly.

Adding up everything the government is planning to spend on infrastructure over the next four years, the budget comes up with a total of $6.7 billion, which is rather small beer compared with the four year spending plan before the crisis, which was $4.5 billion.

Lukewarm on infrastructure generally

It’s also small when compared to the business tax and other incentives, which amount to $26.7 billion.

Kick-starting the recovery via social housing or other infrastructure would have been out of kilter with a strategy focused on creating “private sector-led growth”.

The strategy, spelled out formally in the budget papers, is to, wherever possible, support markets rather than act directly.

It’s thinking that allows the government to distinguish itself from the Rudd response to the global financial crisis in 2008.

Read more: Coronavirus lays bare 5 big housing system flaws to be fixed

But – unlike direct action, such as through social housing investment – the favoured approach relies heavily on assumptions about how market players (firms and consumers) react to incentives.

Those reactions might help bring about the post-pandemic snapback the most optimistic forecasts envisage.

There’s time

If not, there’s an opportunity to try again, even reluctantly. SHARP, is ready and pre-tested.

There’ll be an opportunity in the mid-year budget update, due in December (in two months time) and next year’s budget (due in seven months time).

Regardless, resumption of a routine national social homebuilding program is seriously overdue.

Australia’s housing system has become [increasingly unbalanced] – not just in the past six months, but over the past 20 years and more (https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-lays-bare-5-big-housing-system-flaws-to-be-fixed-137162). The crisis provides an opportunity to begin to fix it.

– ref. Social housing was one hell of a missed budget opportunity, but there’s time – https://theconversation.com/social-housing-was-one-hell-of-a-missed-budget-opportunity-but-theres-time-147665

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piers Kelly, Linguistic anthropologist, University of New England

This week, newly appointed Greens senator Lidia Thorpe entered the chamber with one fist raised. In her other hand, she carried a large message stick with 441 carefully painted marks.

The lines represented each of the First Nations people who have died under police supervision since the 1991 Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody. The first Indigenous senator from Victoria, Thorpe is a Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman with a history of fighting for justice on behalf of Aboriginal people.

Last year, Alwyn Doolan, a Gooreng Gooreng and Wakka Wakka man (and co-author of this article) brought three message sticks to deliver to the Prime Minister representing Creation, Colonisation and Healing.

He carried them to Canberra all the way from Cape York, walking the long way round via Tasmania and Melbourne in a journey of over 8,500 kilometres. His intention was to submit a tribal law notice to the Australian government, to declare First Nations sovereignty, and open a new dialogue with the First Nations of this land.

These two events continue a powerful pre-Invasion tradition, when message sticks were sent between distant communities to maintain diplomatic relations.

Read more: Lidia Thorpe wants to shift course on Indigenous recognition. Here’s why we must respect the Uluru Statement

Treacherous journeys

Traditionally, the Nation sending the message would appoint an individual to serve as a messenger to travel vast distances across land or water to meet a recipient. The sticks were small enough to carry a long way. Many of the signs on the stick had fixed meanings while others were intended to be decorative.

Colours such as red ochre or white pipe-clay also added meaning, and even the type of timber had significance. Along with the message, they might also tell a story of where the messenger had come from, depicting the journey as a map.

When the messenger made contact with the intended recipient, they would deliver the message verbally, referring to the signs on the stick to both illustrate and emphasise a memorised oral statement.

Messengers were often men but in some regions women were known to take on this role. If you were a messenger you had a huge responsibility for your own people, and those from other nations were obliged to recognise you as an ambassador, to look after you and guarantee a safe passage.

Message sticks could be on any topic, but what they always had in common was the fact they demanded acknowledgement and mutual respect. They were often announcements about ceremonies, such as initiations or funerals. They could also be for establishing political partnerships, requesting emergency assistance, declaring war, organising hunting, or trading vital resources.

Read more: Friday essay: lessons from stone – Indigenous thinking and the Law

Messengers would set out on foot, sometimes journeying for days or weeks on end. The mission was dangerous. There are over 500 First Nations within Australia and crossing into a foreign territory without permission could be punishable by death. But envoys had diplomatic immunity and their message stick was a bit like a passport in the modern sense.

In order to show peaceful intentions, they displayed the message stick clearly from a safe distance. A common technique was to hang it from the tip of a spear or to tuck it into a headband. Body paint could also be used to signal a special status.

Some past anthropologists held that only “civilised” nations could be seen to possess writing, so downplayed the value of message sticks as communication. Others saw them as precursors to alphabetic script or letters.

Message sticks have even been sent through the mail service. During the second world war, an Indigenous soldier sent a message stick home to his family through the military post, once it had been approved by a mystified government censor.

Carrying meaning

Australia’s First Nations have always been connected through shared kinship systems, histories, Dreamings, values and symbols. This is why the signs on message sticks frequently depict common points of reference with rich cultural associations — like landscapes, totemic animals, and ceremonial grounds — that wouldn’t require explanation.

As Indigenous people began to encounter new phenomena like ships, livestock and homesteads these were symbolised on message sticks. Individuals had signatures to guarantee the message came from them and would be addressed to the correct person.

Shared understandings helped ensure a message could be correctly interpreted, even when a messenger was not available to explain it.

In some places, white settlers learned from First Nations peoples how to make message sticks and used them to facilitate diplomatic communications with communities.

Read more: New coins celebrate Indigenous astronomy, the stars, and the dark spaces between them

Political messages

During the period of colonial dispossession, First Nations people have introduced adaptations and innovations. They began to make use of non-native timbers and took advantage of iron tools.

Message sticks also began featuring Western symbols. Alphabet letters, playing card suits and police insignias have been used sparingly. And from the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous envoys began to bring message sticks to government leaders.

In 1951, Indigenous men sent a message stick to Robert Menzies to solidify an alliance between the Tiwi islands and Canberra. Gough Whitlam received one in 1974 demanding land rights, and Bob Hawke was given one in 1983.

Yolŋu leaders gave Prince Charles a message stick in 2018 during his visit to Yirrkala, asking him to intervene in Treaty negotiations.

When Alwyn Doolan brought his message sticks to Scott Morrison last year — after a gruelling journey — the Prime Minister defied precedent by declining to meet with him.

– ref. What are message sticks? Senator Lidia Thorpe continues a long and powerful diplomatic tradition – https://theconversation.com/what-are-message-sticks-senator-lidia-thorpe-continues-a-long-and-powerful-diplomatic-tradition-147674

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Noble, Education Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

During the COVID-19 crisis phase, all eyes have been on childcare, but preschool is an equally important driver of well-being and economic security for children and parents — and of economic productivity.

Research has found for every dollar invested in preschool, Australia receives two dollars back over the course of a child’s life.

Preschool is jointly funded by the federal, and state and territory governments (like schools), but government funding is topped up by parent fees. Preschool includes kindergarten, preschool and pre-primary (states and territories use different names) and is delivered by a range of providers (schools, long daycare and standalone preschools).

Here’s a rundown of the budget implications for preschool, and how states, territories and families are plugging the gaps left by federal government commitments.

What’s in the budget for preschool?

In contrast with secure funding arrangements for schools, preschool funding is currently extended annually. This makes it difficult for providers to plan and limits job security for early childhood educators, who are already among the lowest paid workers in the country.

In April this year, the federal government committed to funding preschool until the end of 2021. The 2020 budget confirms this commitment but that’s it — no long-term security, and no hint of funding an increase from one to two years of preschool.

A minimum commitment might seem reasonable in the context of COVID-19. But it seems less reasonable when compared with secure funding for schools, and the implications of insecure funding for preschool providers.

Read more: Report finds every $1 Australia spends on preschool will return $2, but this won’t just magically happen

A major government-commissioned report published in March 2020 recommended scrapping annual funding arrangements and moving to a five year commitment from 2021.

Beyond 2025, it recommended even longer term funding arrangements. This would increase providers’ ability to plan and retain staff, encourage innovation, and reduce risk for states and territories undertaking more ambitious reforms.

The report also warned of “serious consequences” of reducing current funding levels — for children and parents, the sector and educators, and other government programs.

How does preschool funding affect families?

More than half a million Australian children were enrolled in a preschool program in 2018 (nearly 300,000 in the year before school, and the remainder in three-year-old preschool). More than 90% of children are enrolled in the year before school.

While additional state and territory funding provides free preschool for families on the lowest incomes, many disadvantaged children are still missing out.

Quality preschool delivers substantial developmental and educational benefits to children while supporting economic growth through increased parental workforce participation. All children benefit, but disadvantaged children benefit most.

Preschool isn’t free in all jurisdictions, even after substantial subsidies from the federal and state and territory governments. For three-quarters of all Australian children, parents are charged fees of up to $4 per hour, and the rest pay between $5 and $14. Depending on the provider, preschool fees can be up to $2,500 (or more) per year.

Read more: Preschool benefits all children, but not all children get it. Here’s what the government can do about that

Childcare is often cheaper than sessional preschool, but preschools tend to be higher quality. Depending on parents’ income, childcare fees after subsidies can range from $1.50 to $5 per hour. This can present parents with difficult choices between quality and cost.

The budget will subsidise preschool at existing levels for another year, but how much parents contribute will depend on where they live, as well as their income. This is because some states and territories have responded to the evidence on preschool provision, and boosted local funding either across the population, or for low income families.

What are the states and territories doing?

One year of preschool in the year before a child starts school is free in some jurisdictions, and costly in others — even for community or charity-run preschools. Some states and territories have injected extra funding to expand their preschool programs from one to two years.

Starting this year, preschool is free for three-year-olds attending community-run preschools in New South Wales. Victoria is committing nearly $5 billion over ten years towards three-year-old kindergarten, starting in 2020. The rollout starts in some of the state’s most disadvantaged areas. The ACT is moving towards two years of free preschool over the next five years.

Read more: Research shows there are benefits from getting more three-year-olds into preschool

Victoria, NSW and Queensland have also responded to concerns about educational gaps caused by COVID-related disruption with temporary funding boosts to provide free preschool for one or more terms this year, for children starting school in 2021.

Supporting a stable, well-funded preschool system across the country — as we do with school — is an important social and economic investment.

While moves to fund preschool at higher levels in some jurisdictions will benefit local populations, it won’t do much for equity on a national scale. Equity — as well as economic recovery and productivity — must be a central policy focus as the country recovers from the ravages of COVID-19.

The government should move to longer-term funding arrangements immediately. Beyond that, it needs a plan to make preschool access more equitable across the country; investigate a fairer, needs-based funding model; increase affordability for families and improve conditions for educators.

– ref. Preschool benefits children and the economy. But the budget has left funding uncertain, again – https://theconversation.com/preschool-benefits-children-and-the-economy-but-the-budget-has-left-funding-uncertain-again-147737

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Larkins, Professor Emeritus and Former Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Melbourne

The federal budget injection of an extra A$1 billion of new money as a one-off allocation into the Research Support Program for 2021 is welcome news for the university research community. The stated goal is to ease some of the financial pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and loss of international student fee revenue that has cross-subsidised research. Universities have been facing research funding shortfalls of up to A$7.6 billion over five years from 2020 until 2024.

Without new funding, universities would have to manage a potential reduction of 11% in the research workforce. That put the jobs of nearly 6,000 research students and staff researchers in jeopardy.

Read more: $7.6 billion and 11% of researchers: our estimate of how much Australian university research stands to lose by 2024

The extra A$1 billion funding from January 2021 provides a critical stop-gap. It will help recover some of the lost research momentum. But what will happen after 2021?

Ongoing additional government support of about A$1 billion a year will be essential to at least 2024. Without such funding, institutions won’t be able to employ the world-class researchers and research students they need to remain internationally competitive.

Only with continued funding will research institutions be able to strengthen the national higher-level skills base, create knowledge and support innovation for wealth and job creation. These are the building blocks for the economic prosperity and social well-being of all Australians.

The Research Support Program mechanism being used to allocate the A$1 billion is performance-based: 47% of the funding is determined on relative research income performance and 53% on engagement income performance.

This means the strongest-performing research universities with the largest revenue losses should get the most funding. These block grants will fund essential infrastructure, such as libraries, laboratories, consumables and computing centres, and the salaries of research staff who are not supported by competitive grants and other government research grants.

Read more: As universities face losing 1 in 10 staff, COVID-driven cuts create 4 key risks

Universities can expect some spillover research support from budget measures announced for other research institutions. The new funding for specific programs at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – A$459 million over four years – and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) – $238 million over four years – presents further opportunities for research collaboration with universities.

The restoration of research and development (R&D) tax concessions to industry worth A$1.8 billion and other measures should counter declining business R&D investment. This could boost industry research partnerships with universities.

Six other steps to restore research

University research activities are but one component of the greatest policy and financial crises that universities have faced in living memory. All parties will require other initiatives beyond increased government funding to overcome these challenges. Here are six initiatives Australia should pursue.

1. Develop a more coherent national research policy with priorities applicable to all research sectors. This framework would benefit universities, enabling them to invest in their research strengths and to reduce under-performing programs.

2. The Australian government should acknowledge the full economic costs of research and develop a national policy for awards, grants and contracts. Failure to properly fund the real costs has been the major reason universities have had to use discretionary student fee income to cross-subsidise research. This vexed question has remained unresolved for decades in Australia. The US and the UK governments have had policies in place for many years that provide templates for Australia to follow.

3. New and emerging student markets need to be developed and existing markets restored as fast as possible in partnership with federal and state governments. Some cross-subsidisation of research from discretionary revenue will be most important for many more years.

4. Research administration costs must be reduced. There is too much bureaucracy involved in accounting for performance, and too many grant programs have low success rates.

5. Universities need to make substantial savings in spending on general operations. They also have to identify new sources of revenue growth to sustain research.

6. Universities must increase collaboration with other research sectors, including independent research institutes, government research agencies and industries, both national and international. Deeper and broader collaboration will help sustain research programs.

A rapid research sector recovery is of paramount importance. A sustainable research sector underpins job creation, economic prosperity and social well-being.

There is no more timely example of the benefits of long-term research investment than the pioneering research Australians are doing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. This is only possible because of our world-class capacity for medical research, which has been established over several decades.

– ref. Budget’s $1bn research boost is a welcome first step. Billions more, plus policy reforms, will be needed – https://theconversation.com/budgets-1bn-research-boost-is-a-welcome-first-step-billions-more-plus-policy-reforms-will-be-needed-147662

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kyli Hedrick, Psychologist and PhD Candidate (submitted), Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

Newly published data have revealed the number of self-harm incidents in Australia’s immigration detention centres spiked during the first seven months of this year.

While rates of self-harm among detained asylum seekers were already known to be high – in fact, 200 times higher than in the general Australian community – this recent increase has fuelled concerns by health experts that the pandemic has made them even more vulnerable to mental distress.

We have researched self-harm among detained asylum seekers for the past decade and our recently published findings shed further light on the extent and nature of self-harm among these detainees.

This includes details about the methods and characteristics of self-harm, which has been little researched due to the lack of accessible data.

In two studies published in recent months, we investigated how rates and methods of self-harm varied over a 12-month period from August 2014 to July 2015 depending on the type of detention where asylum seekers were held, as well as the time, day and month of the year.

Fewer security measures do not reduce self-harm risk

Immigration detention facilities may appear to be similar, but in reality they are quite diverse. In Australia, asylum seekers are held in four main types of “closed” detention arrangements, with varying levels of security and available support:

• immigration detention centres (IDC), which were designed to detain asylum seekers and those posing a risk to the Australian community, and have high security features

• immigration transit accommodation (ITA), which were designed to hold detainees being transferred between facilities, those needing medical treatment or those being deported

• immigration residential housing (IRH), which can hold families and generally have less stringent security features

• alternative places of detention (APOD), which include hotels that have come under scrutiny during the pandemic due to the frequently overcrowded conditions.

Read more: Refugees need protection from coronavirus too, and must be released

Our findings showed self-harm rates were exceptionally high in detention arrangements such as these. On average, self-harm rates were highest among asylum seekers in ITAs (452 episodes per 1,000 people), followed by APODs (265/1,000) and IDCs (225/1,000).

What’s notable about this is self-harm rates were not lower in facilities with fewer security features and more flexible living arrangements (such as hotels), as might be expected. Making detention facilities less prison-like, but still “closed”, is thus unlikely to reduce the risk of self-harm.

By comparison, our research shows rates of self-harm among asylum seekers living in community-based settings are much lower.

Community-based options allow asylum seekers to live in homes under supervision or at a place of their choosing, while their claims for protection are being processed.

Policies and conditions can increase vulnerability

In our second study, we found both the frequency and methods of self-harm varied by time of day and month, as well as where asylum seekers were being processed. We also identified numerous factors associated with these variations.

Self-harm most commonly occurred from 12:00–3:59am for community-based asylum seekers, from 4:00–7:59pm for those on Manus Island and from 8:00–11:59pm for those in onshore detention.

There are a number of possible explanations for these patterns. If we take onshore detention as one example, our research shows self-harm most commonly occurs in settings where asylum seekers are mixed and subject to overcrowding.

Frequent transfers between facilities is another trigger. Such transfers often occur in the early hours of the morning – with little notice – and result in separation from family and other support systems.

Read more: ‘People are crying and begging’: the human cost of forced relocations in immigration detention

The peak in self-harm incidents from 8pm to midnight, therefore, could be associated with the state of these detention facilities at this time, fear of transfer during the night and lower levels of supervision and support.

Other factors were also found to be associated with the temporal variations in self-harm across different settings. These included personal safety and security concerns, physical and sexual assault, visa insecurity, inadequate mental and physical health care, and family separation.

This shows how certain policies and conditions can increase asylum seekers’ vulnerability. It also explains why the ongoing lack of a governmental response to the risk of COVID-19 in immigration detention may be associated with the recent spike in self-harm.

What can we do to prevent further harm?

Rising incidents of self-harm in immigration detention constitute a public health crisis and warrant urgent government attention. Here are six ways we can prevent further harm:

We can no longer pretend we do not know about the harms of immigration detention. We must use the evidence we have to protect those held in detention from further avoidable harm.

Read more: Banning mobile phones in immigration detention would make an inhumane system even crueler

– ref. Self-harm in immigration detention has risen sharply. Here are 6 ways to address this health crisis – https://theconversation.com/self-harm-in-immigration-detention-has-risen-sharply-here-are-6-ways-to-address-this-health-crisis-146679

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitri Perrin, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences yesterday awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their work on CRISPR, a method of genome editing.

A genome is the full set of genetic “instructions” that determine how an organism will develop. Using CRISPR, researchers can cut up DNA in an organism’s genome and edit its sequence.

CRISPR technology is a powerhouse for basic research and is also changing the world we live in. There are thousands of research papers published every year on its various applications.

These include accelerating research into cancers, mental illness, potential animal to human organ transplants, better food production, eliminating malaria-carrying mosquitoes and saving animals from disease.

Charpentier is the director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany and Doudna is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Both played a crucial role in demonstrating how CRISPR could be used to target DNA sequences of interest.

Read more: Why more women don’t win science Nobels

Taking advantage of bacterial immunity

CRISPR technology is adapted from a system that is naturally present in bacteria and other unicellular organisms known as archaea.

This natural system gives bacteria a form of acquired immunity. It protects them from foreign genetic elements (such as invading viruses) and lets them “remember” these in case they reappear.

Like most advances in modern science, the discovery of CRISPR and its emergence as a key genome editing method involved efforts by many researchers, over several decades.

In 1987, Japanese molecular biologist Yoshizumi Ishino and his colleagues were the first to notice, in E. coli bacteria, unusual clusters of repeated DNA sequences interrupted by short sequences.

Spanish molecular biologist Francisco Mojica and colleagues later showed similar structures were present in other organisms and proposed to call them CRISPR: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.

In 2005, Mojica and other groups reported the short sequences (or “spacers”) interrupting the repeats were derived from other DNA belonging to viruses.

Evolutionary biologists Kira Makarova, Eugene Koonin and colleagues eventually proposed CRISPR and the associated Cas9 genes were acting as the immune mechanism. This was experimentally confirmed in 2007 by Rodolphe Barrangou and colleagues.

A programmable system

The CRISPR-associated genes, Cas9, encode a protein that “cuts” DNA. This is the active part of the defence against viruses, as it destroys the invading DNA.

In 2012, Charpentier and Doudna showed the spacers acted as markers that guided where Cas9 would make a cut in the DNA. They also showed an artificial Cas9 system could be programmed to target any DNA sequence in a lab setting.

This was a groundbreaking discovery which opened the door for CRISPR’s wider applications in research.

In 2013, for the first time, groups led by American biochemist Feng Zhang and geneticist George Church reported genome editing in human cell cultures using CRISPR-Cas9. It has since been used in countless organisms from yeast to cows, plants and corals.

Today, CRISPR is the preferred gene-editing tool for thousands of researchers.

A technical revolution with endless applications

Humans have altered the genomes of species for thousands of years. Initially, this was through approaches such as selective breeding.

However, genetic engineering – the direct manipulation of DNA by humans outside of breeding and mutations – has only existed since the 1970s.

CRISPR-based systems fundamentally changed this field, as they allow for genomes to be edited in living organisms cheaply, with ease and with extreme precision.

CRISPR is currently making a huge impact in health. There are clinical trials on its use for blood disorders such as sickle cell disease or beta-thalassemia, for the treatment of the most common cause of inherited childhood blindness (Leber congenital amaurosis) and for cancer immunotherapy.

CRISPR also has great potential in food production. It can be used to improve crop quality, yield, disease resistance and herbicide resistance.

Used on livestock, it can lead to better disease resistance, increased animal welfare and improved productive traits – that is, animals producing more meat, milk or high-quality wool.

With great power…

A number of challenges to the technology remain, however. Some are technical, such as the risk of off-target modifications (which happen when Cas9 cuts at unintended locations in the genome).

Other problems are societal. CRISPR was famously used in one of the most controversial experiments of recent years.

Read more: Why we need a global citizens’ assembly on gene editing

Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui unsuccessfully attempted to use the technology to modify human embryos and make them resistant to HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). This led to the birth of twins Lulu and Nana.

We need a broad and inclusive discussion on the regulation of such technologies – especially given their vast applications and potential.

To quote CRISPR researcher Fyodor Urnov, Charpentier and Doudna’s work really has “changed everything”.

– ref. What is CRISPR? A close look at the gene editing technology that won the Chemistry Nobel prize – https://theconversation.com/what-is-crispr-a-close-look-at-the-gene-editing-technology-that-won-the-chemistry-nobel-prize-147695

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

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, a leader of the Liberal moderates, will become Senate leader and finance minister following the imminent retirement of Mathias Cormann.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia will nominate Cormann as its candidate for secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: a budget for a pandemic

Cormann indicated in July he planned to leave parliament late this year. He has been Finance Minister throughout the Coalition government and a central figure in the preparation of its seven budgets.

Morrison said Birmingham would be sworn in as finance minister at the end of the month when Cormann retired. He would continue as minister for trade, tourism and investment.

“I am not planning on making other ministerial changes at that time,” Morrison said.

But it is expected there will be a reshuffle in the summer. With the current COVID-19 restrictions on international travel, Birmingham will be able to juggle his trade responsibilities for a time.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash will become deputy Senate leader, a position Birmingham has held since 2018.

Birmingham has served in the Senate since 2007 and was education minister between 2015 and 2018.

Cormann, who came to Australia from Belgium in the 1990s unable to speak English, demonstrated his multilingual skills at a Thursday news conference with Morrison, giving short speeches in French and German.

His election to the OECD job is not certain, but Australia will campaign hard for him.

Morrison said this was “the most important Australian nomination for a major international body in decades”.

“Senator Cormann has already been an influential contributor in regional and global institutions, having attended every G20 Leaders’ meeting since 2014 and numerous G20 finance ministers, IMF and World Bank meetings over the period,” Morrison said.

“Over the last seven years, Senator Cormann has worked with many OECD leaders, and dozens of treasury, finance, and trade minister counterparts from developed and developing countries.”

Cormann will step down from the ministry and the Senate on October 30, before he is formally nominated for the OECD role. Nominations close at the end of October, with interviews and consultations beginning after that and an outcome expected in the first part of next year.

– ref. Simon Birmingham to become finance minister and Senate leader as Australia nominates Cormann for OECD – https://theconversation.com/simon-birmingham-to-become-finance-minister-and-senate-leader-as-australia-nominates-cormann-for-oecd-147742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate C. Prickett, Director of the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families and Children, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Despite the 2017 Labour-led government taking power with a mandate to fight Aotearoa New Zealand’s abysmally high child poverty rate, only incremental progress has been made.

The percentage of children living in poor households dropped only slightly, from 16.5% in June 2018 to 14.9% by June 2019.

That equates to approximately one in seven children (168,500) living in poverty, according to one official measure used in New Zealand and internationally: households with incomes less than 50% of the median disposable household income before housing costs (BHC).

Before COVID-19, the government was projected to be in range of its 2021 BHC poverty target. It was also projected to meet its after-housing-costs (AHC) target (a measure of poverty based on household income with standard housing cost estimates factored in).

The government’s stated reduction targets are 5% of children in poverty based on the BHC measure, and 10% using the AHC measure, by 2028. The somewhat stagnant trend lines from 2017 to 2019, however, suggest there was still a need for the “transformational” policies promised in 2017.

The impact of COVID-19

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government delivered some of those transformative policies in the form of both temporary and more permanent economic responses.

Families with children relying on income assistance received an income bump through temporary increases in the winter energy payment and a longer term rise in benefit payments. For those who lost jobs, the COVID-19 relief payment was far more generous than the normal Job Seeker benefit.

Read more: The major parties’ tax promises are more about ideology and psychology than equity or fairness for New Zealanders

These changes no doubt made a difference in the day-to-day lives of low-income families. Treasury estimated this short-term safety net, coupled with the full implementation of tax credits through the families package, meant the government was still on track to meet its child poverty targets in 2021.

Unfortunately, that stagnant pre-pandemic trend line is now predicted to move upwards post-2021. The rise consists of children already in families who rely on an income support system that keeps them below the poverty threshold, and those newly in poverty due to their parents’ job or income loss.

Indeed, our research shows families with children were more likely to experience an economic shock during lockdown.

Unequal distribution of economic shock

The data are based on our survey of people’s experiences during and after lockdown (March–April 2020). It highlights the disproportionate impact the economic crisis is having on families with children generally, and on low-income working families in particular.

For families with children where at least one adult was working prior to the lockdown, 51% experienced an economic shock due to someone in the household losing their job or some income. This compares with a rate 44% for the population overall.

As well as the financial hit, parents in households that experienced an economic shock reported more negative feelings during the day, such as depression, stress, and worry. Those feelings appeared to persist beyond lockdown.

Read more: Stardust and substance: New Zealand’s election becomes a ‘third referendum’ on Jacinda Ardern’s leadership

While all parents reported their sense of well-being improved moderately during the first return to alert level one (July 2020), that rebound wasn’t as high for those who had experienced an economic shock during lockdown.

There was nothing random about which families were most affected: 60% of working families living below the median household income (approximately NZ$50,000 per annum) experienced an economic shock compared with 45% of families in higher income brackets ($100,000 or more).

All working parents who reported an economic shock during lockdown, regardless of household income, reported declines in how they rated their relationship with their family. For parents from lower income households, however, this drop in family well-being was deeper than for higher income families.

In short, not only were parents in low-income households more likely to experience an economic shock, that shock had a bigger impact on their family well-being.

Temporary policies should become permanent

When we look at the child poverty projections from Treasury, it’s important to place them in the context of these findings.

Families who were working and just getting by are more likely to be suffering now and potentially into the future. That applies even more to those who were already struggling before the pandemic and who may find it harder to be part of the economic recovery.

Even the more optimistic child poverty projection, which shows the percentage of children in AHC poverty returning to early 2020 levels by 2024, may be misleading.

Read more: New Zealand is violating the rights of its children. Is it time to change the legal definition of age discrimination?

Housing prices (and presumably rents) have continued to rise and are projected to outpace wage growth. Indeed, the statistical assumption built into the AHC poverty measure is that families spend approximately 25% of their disposable income on rent — an unrealistically small proportion of financial resources for low income families.

If there is a silver lining, it is that the government’s short-term policy responses to the pandemic, such as the COVID-19 relief payment and wage subsidy programme, gave us a glimpse of what transformative policies could look like: a responsive safety net benefit maintaining families’ financial well-being at a liveable rate.

Without more permanent change, however, those rising child poverty projections will become our sad reality.

– ref. COVID-19 is predicted to make child poverty worse. Should NZ’s next government make temporary safety nets permanent? – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-is-predicted-to-make-child-poverty-worse-should-nzs-next-government-make-temporary-safety-nets-permanent-147177

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Villalba, Service Designer and Researcher (PhD), Queensland University of Technology

Diabetes-related vision loss is the leading cause of blindness for working-aged Australians. Yet it’s almost entirely preventable.

A recent Australian study found only half of people with diabetes get the recommended annual eye checks.

We could be doing things better.

One of many complications

Around 1.7 million Australians have diabetes. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are three times more likely to develop diabetes than non-Indigenous Australians.

Diabetes occurs when glucose (sugar) in your blood is not converted into energy, so its level becomes too high. Blood glucose is our main source of energy and mostly comes from the food we eat.

Diabetes can be managed, for example through lifestyle modifications, medication, or insulin. Diabetes management will be a different experience for each person, and depend on the type of diabetes they have.

But the central aim is keeping blood sugar levels within a healthy range. When they’re not, people with diabetes are at higher risk of complications, which can affect all parts of the body.

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

The most common complication of diabetes — globally and for Australians — is eye disease.

Diabetes-related eye disease affects more than one in three people with diabetes. When left undiagnosed and untreated, it can cause vision loss and blindness.

What causes it?

Diabetes-related eye disease can occur when there is damage to the blood vessels on the retina, a thin layer at the back of the eye. This damage limits oxygen and other nutrients reaching the eye.

We need a healthy retina to be able to see.

The chance of developing diabetes-related eye disease is higher for some people, including those who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or who have had diabetes for many years.

Worryingly, the study we mentioned above found people who had been living with diabetes for ten or more years were even less likely to get regular eye checks. Almost 80% of people in this group didn’t have the recommended annual eye check.

Prevention and treatment

When diabetes-related eye disease becomes more advanced, it can cause blurred or distorted vision and blindness. But we can prevent most diabetes-related vision loss before it reaches this stage.

Special cameras allow us to look at the retina and see if irregular spots or blood vessels are developing.

At this early stage the disease has no impact on a person’s vision. Once we detect it, we can provide timely treatment with laser therapy or injections.

But without regular eye checks, we might not know until it’s too late.

Read more: How Australians Die: cause #5 – diabetes

We have made progress

Strong social impact work from the government, not-for-profits and local health services is already preventing diabetes-related eye disease from developing into vision loss and blindness in many people.

2020 Australian of the Year, ophthalmologist James Muecke, cofounded the not-for-profit Sight For All and has brought attention to the issue of preventable vision loss for people with diabetes.

The federal government is investing in a national diabetes eye screening program, as well as primary health-care technology and training to embed retinal care in 105 existing health services across Australia. But national programs can put a blanket solution over the population.

When one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health-care service introduced cameras in 2008, they screened 93% of regular clients with diabetes for eye disease — a significant improvement on 16% the previous year. But we found these rates subsequently declined and by 2016, only 22% had an eye check.

We can see just having the technology in primary care is not enough. Ongoing quality improvement is integral to a successful service in the long term.

What else can we do?

In the case of diabetes-related eye disease, the science supporting early detection is advancing every day. But it’s not reaching those who need it the most, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Having the technology, policy or medicine alone is not sufficient. We need to unlock the potential of communities, empowering everyone to have joint responsibility.

Read more: Words from Arnhem land: Aboriginal health messages need to be made with us rather than for us

A model of person-centred eye care would involve:

• making screening and treatment easy to access for people with diabetes. This means addressing physical barriers, such as distance and cost, but also cultural, emotional and social barriers that might stop people from getting their eyes checked

• thinking about the screening experience, including:

  • before: how will we motivate people to get their eyes checked, especially if they’re not experiencing any problems with their vision?
  • during: how can eye checks be streamlined with regular diabetes care, and how can we make the process as seamless as possible for patients?
  • after: how do we ensure they come back every year?

• considering the experience of the diverse teams providing this care, including keeping staff well equipped, trained and motivated

• investing in researching, developing and testing the non-medical components of eye care services. For example, the reminder system, the workflow of each eye check, and how the results are delivered to patients.

We must pursue ongoing improvement of eye care that involves and empowers people with diabetes, their health teams and communities to develop services, systems, new technology and policies that meet their needs.

There is potential for us to prevent blindness in more people with diabetes.

– ref. We could be doing more to prevent vision loss for people with diabetes – https://theconversation.com/we-could-be-doing-more-to-prevent-vision-loss-for-people-with-diabetes-132086

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

With the budget’s expected eye-watering debt and deficit numbers, the question remains whether the huge spending will be enough to fight the coronavirus slump.

Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann and Shadow Minister Katy Gallagher joined the podcast to discuss the budget’s entrails.

The government has faced criticism for benchmarking the much vaunted tax cuts against 2017-18, making them appear larger. Cormann said 2017-18 is the appropriate benchmark, and wouldn’t be drawn on giving further detail.

“The costing has been done on the basis that we’ve published it.”

Gallagher declared the budget expressed Scott Morrison’s choice to leave some people without support.

In particular, the decision to leave those on JobSeeker hanging was described by Gallagher as “frankly, just plain mean.”

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: a budget for a pandemic – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-a-budget-for-a-pandemic-147739

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

Anthony Albanese will highlight the potential of spending on social housing as a job creator in his Thursday night budget reply.

He says if Labor were in government now it would be investing $500 million to fast-track repairs to social housing, and urging state governments to match the funding.

While Albanese is not putting this as a commitment for the election, he promises he will later announce a comprehensive plan a Labor government would undertake for building and repairing social housing.

Albanese and housing spokesman Jason Clare said in a statement this immediate spending would be a win-win approach, fixing homes and creating work.

Some 25% of Australia’s social housing – 100,000 homes – needed urgent maintenance, they said.

“Repairs could start almost immediately, providing work for local plumbers, chippies, sparkies, plasterers and painters as well as companies that manufacture building supplies and materials. This would also provide opportunities for apprentices.”

Albanese frequently reprises his own “back story” of being brought up in public housing as he emphasises its importance. “As someone who grew up in public housing, I know the difference it can make when you’ve got a roof over your head and a comfortable home,” he said.

Economists in a recent survey pointed to social housing as a high priority for what should be in the budget, but it did not feature.

Albanese’s budget reply, expected to contain a number of initiatives, is being keenly watched by colleagues who are frustrated at Labor’s difficulty in cutting through during COVID.

Even the budget, with its big spending, has not left the opposition a great deal of scope for major attacks.

Labor has written to the Tax Commissioner to formally indicate its support for the budget’s bringing forward and backdating to July 1 of tax cuts that were due to start in 2022.

The acceleration requires legislation but Labor’s guarantee of its passage clears the way for the Tax Office to prepare new Pay As You Go tables.

This means the tax cut will flow to workers as soon as later this month. But the backdated part will not be paid to them until the end of the financial year.

It has been pointed out the budget made the tax cuts people will get appear larger than they actually are by benchmarking them against 2017-18, so including some tax relief that has already been received.

The Australia Institute, a progressive think tank, has taken a “wraparound” advertisement in the right-leaning Australian newspaper on Thursday declaring “TAX IS GOOD”. The wraparound will be in the edition that appears in Canberra and parts of NSW.

– ref. $500 million on social housing repairs: Albanese’s alternative budget – https://theconversation.com/500-million-on-social-housing-repairs-albaneses-alternative-budget-147685

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Louys, ARC Future Fellow, Griffith University

Thinking of Southeast Asia today may conjure up images of dense tropical rainforests teeming with iconic jungle animals such as orangutans, tigers and monkeys.

Perhaps less well known, but just as important to these ecosystems, are a host of other large-bodied creatures: the goat-like serows and gorals, three species of Asian rhino and the only species of tapir still living in the “Old World”.

Together, these creatures comprise Southeast Asia’s megafauna, second only to Africa’s in diversity. These two continental ecosystems are the last vestiges of a world largely lost – one where giants roamed the Earth. But what caused so many megafauna species to go extinct?

Several theories have suggested either humans, climate change, or both drove Southeast Asia’s megafauna to extinction. However, our newest research published today in Nature indicates it was actually the rise and fall of savannah environments that drove this extinction event.

Southeast Asia’s megafauna extinctions

Southeast Asia has lost many large mammal species over the Quaternary period, the past 2.6 million years. They included the world’s largest ever ape, Gigantopithecus, elephant-like creatures known as stegodons and large water buffaloes.

These extinctions also include one of our closest relatives, Homo erectus, and two island offshoots of the human family tree – Homo floresiensis (the “Hobbit”) and Homo luzonensis. One final human species is also recorded in the genes of Southeast Asians today: the Denisovans, who were once likely widespread throughout the region.

According to previous research, the lead antagonist in the megafauna extinction story is humans. Some have suggested the arrival of people to new lands over the past 60,000 years or more – who then overhunted and altered this new habitat – is what led to the loss of giant mammals.

Read more: New analysis finds no evidence that climate wiped out Australia’s megafauna

Others researchers have contended changes in climate resulted in the extinction of the megafauna. While others suggest a combination of both human and climate influences.

Toothy insights into past environments

For our research, we examined environmental changes in Southeast Asia over the past 2.6 million years, to determine how they may have impacted extinctions.

We analysed the stable isotopes of the teeth of mammals found in the region today, as well as those from available published fossil records.

Read more: Meet the giant wombat relative that scratched out a living in Australia 25 million years ago

Stable isotopes are the non-radioactive forms of many elements. Stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen preserved in mammal teeth record important information on what kinds of plants those animals ate, and how wet their environments were, respectively.

Stable carbon isotopes are particularly helpful in recording whether animals predominantly ate leaves and fruits in shaded forests, or grasses in more open settings. This insight lets us identify shifts in environments over time.

The fluctuating presence of forests

During the first 1.5 million years or so of the Pleistocene (the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago), the northern parts of Southeast Asia were largely forest, while the southern parts were woodlands or grasslands.

Later, from about one million years ago, forests retreated everywhere in the region and grasslands dominated. Coincident with these changes, large forest-adapted animals including Gigantopithecus and a giant panda relative disappeared from Southeast Asia’s northern parts.

Later still, around 400,000 years ago, the Southeast Asian Sunda Shelf began to submerge and climate cycles changed. Because of this, forest conditions returned.

At the same time, grassland-adapted creatures that had filled the region, including giant hyenas, stegodons, bovids and Homo erectus began to disappear – and largely went extinct by the end of the Pleistocene. The remainder were driven into the rainforests.

By the last few tens of thousands of years, we see the first evidence of stratified, closed-canopy rainforests in Southeast Asia. These have dominated the region for the past 20,000 years or so.

Rainforest-adapted species should have been advantaged by the return of the rainforests, but one interloper changed that. Homo sapiens appears to be the only species in our family tree that was able to successfully adapt to and exploit rainforest environments.

Read more: Old teeth from a rediscovered cave show humans were in Indonesia more than 63,000 years ago

And although humans lived in Southeast Asian rainforests as early as 73,000 years ago, it was probably only in the last 10,000 years that Homo sapiens began to fundamentally alter these habitats and exploit the mammals within.

A vanishing world

Southeast Asia continues to preserve some of the most critically endangered megafauna on the planet.

Megafauna grassland specialists were the greatest loss as a result of disappearing savannahs 400,000 years ago. Today, rainforest megafauna are also at great risk of extinction.

Luckily for us, our own species’ fortunes changed for the better with the emergence of typical Southeast Asian rainforests. But we’re now the very thing threatening to destroy them forever.

– ref. It was growing rainforests, not humans, that killed off Southeast Asia’s giant hyenas and other megafauna – https://theconversation.com/it-was-growing-rainforests-not-humans-that-killed-off-southeast-asias-giant-hyenas-and-other-megafauna-147656

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Stoljar, Professor, Australian National University

Social media algorithms, artificial intelligence, and our own genetics are among the factors influencing us beyond our awareness. This raises an ancient question: do we have control over our own lives? This article is part of The Conversation’s series on the science of free will.

Suppose you are thinking about doing something trivial, such as moving your index finger a little to the right. You are free to do it. You are free not to do it. You weigh up the pros and cons, and decide to do it. Lo and behold, your finger moves. Congratulations! You did it.

This is a case of free will. Clearly it’s not a momentous case. Nothing much depends on whether you move your finger.

But imagine if something did. Imagine someone would be executed if you did move that finger. Then you’d be morally responsible, because you did it freely.

It seems as obvious as anything that we have free will. But lots of philosophers and scientists will tell you free will doesn’t exist.

The starting point of this argument is that free will is incompatible with determinism, a worldview that dominated science in the past and remains influential today.

Is everything predetermined?

Determinism says everything that happens now is entirely determined by factors that were in place well before you were even born.

Maybe these factors concern your upbringing or culture. Or they concern the initial conditions of the Universe and the laws that govern how it unfolds. Either way, you had nothing to do with them. And if they determine what you do, you aren’t free.

US philosopher Peter van Inwagen provides a vivid illustration of this argument, in his book An Essay on Free Will. If determinism is true, the laws of nature and the past together guarantee you will move your finger. It therefore follows that if you have the power not to move your finger, you would also have the power to change the laws or the past.

But that’s ridiculous. You don’t have such powers.

An initial reaction is that, while determinism was important historically, it now seems false.

Quantum physics shows the occurrence of some events to be literally random. It’s a concept the Australian National University used to develop a random number generator.

Unfortunately, this only makes matters worse. If moving your finger were just a random act, you wouldn’t be responsible for it and so you still wouldn’t be free.

This gives us the full-blown argument against free will. Either determinism is true or it’s not; that’s just logic.

If determinism is true, your acts are a consequence of things that happened before you were born; so you have no free will. But suppose determinism is not true; then it’s easy to think everything would be random, including all your actions (such as raising your finger!). But in this instance, there would be no free will either.

You might side with British philosopher Galen Strawson who, in his book Things That Bother Me, argues free will is “provably impossible”.

Is there a middle ground?

Another option is to try to understand free will so it works with a limited form of determinism, that applies to your actions rather than to everything in the world.

One version of this view, developed by ANU’s Victoria McGeer, involves defining free will as whatever explains our social capacities to hold each other morally responsible. As a deterministic process could in principle do that, free will and determinism may coexist.

But while a deterministic process may explain these capacities, it would not in that case be free will, because free will is fundamentally incompatible with determinism.

At this point, things look bleak. But there is a small ray of light, pointed out by US linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, who says:

We just can’t abandon believing it (free will); it’s our most immediate phenomenologically obvious impression, but we can’t explain it. […] If it’s something we know to be true and we don’t have any explanation for it, well, too bad for any explanatory possibilities.

Suppose again that determinism is incompatible with free will. If so, when you freely moved your finger, that event was not fully determined by the initial conditions of the Universe and the laws of nature.

Does it necessarily follow that it’s random? On the face of it, no. To be random is one thing; to be not fully determined is quite another. There’s a logical space between determinism and randomness, and perhaps free will lives in that space.

Chomsky goes on to say it may be impossible for humans to understand free will. In science, people develop models or theories of the systems they are interested in. He suggests in his book Language and Problems of Knowledge the only models we can understand are those in which our acts are either determined or random. If so, we will never develop scientific models of free will, for it is neither of these things.

I am not sure Chomsky is right about the limits of human understanding. But I think he’s right about free will. We are free to move our finger. That is neither determined nor random — it’s a choice we can feel in our bones.

– ref. We might not be able to understand free will with science. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/we-might-not-be-able-to-understand-free-will-with-science-heres-why-132898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO

Nitrous oxide from agriculture and other sources is accumulating in the atmosphere so quickly it puts Earth on track for a dangerous 3℃ warming this century, our new research has found.

Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen are spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertiliser. The same amount again is put onto pastures and crops in manure from livestock.

This colossal amount of nitrogen makes crops and pastures grow more abundantly. But it also releases nitrous oxide (N₂O), a greenhouse gas.

Agriculture is the main cause of the increasing concentrations, and is likely to remain so this century. N₂O emissions from agriculture and industry can be reduced, and we must take urgent action if we hope to stabilise Earth’s climate.

Where does nitrous oxide come from?

We found that N₂O emissions from natural sources, such as soils and oceans, have not changed much in recent decades. But emissions from human sources have increased rapidly.

Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O reached 331 parts per billion in 2018, 22% above levels around the year 1750, before the industrial era began.

Agriculture caused almost 70% of global N₂O emissions in the decade to 2016. The emissions are created through microbial processes in soils. The use of nitrogen in synthetic fertilisers and manure is a key driver of this process.

Other human sources of N₂O include the chemical industry, waste water and the burning of fossil fuels.

Read more: Intensive farming is eating up the Australian continent – but there’s another way

N₂O is destroyed in the upper atmosphere, primarily by solar radiation. But humans are emitting N₂O faster than it’s being destroyed, so it’s accumulating in the atmosphere.

N₂O both depletes the ozone layer and contributes to global warming.

As a greenhouse gas, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. It’s the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and methane.

N₂O depletes the ozone layer when it interacts with ozone gas in the stratosphere. Other ozone-depleting substances, such as chemicals containing chlorine and bromine, have been banned under the United Nations Montreal Protocol. N₂O is not banned under the protocol, although the Paris Agreement seeks to reduce its concentrations.

What we found

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed scenarios for the future, outlining the different pathways the world could take on emission reduction by 2100. Our research found N₂O concentrations have begun to exceed the levels predicted across all scenarios.

The current concentrations are in line with a global average temperature increase of well above 3℃ this century.

We found that global human-caused N₂O emissions have grown by 30% over the past three decades. Emissions from agriculture mostly came from synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used in East Asia, Europe, South Asia and North America. Emissions from Africa and South America are dominated by emissions from livestock manure.

In terms of emissions growth, the highest contributions come from emerging economies – particularly Brazil, China, and India – where crop production and livestock numbers have increased rapidly in recent decades.

N₂O emissions from Australia have been stable over the past decade. Increase in emissions from agriculture and waste have been offset by a decline in emissions from industry and fossil fuels.

What to do?

N₂O must be part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and there is already work being done. Since the late 1990s, for example, efforts to reduce emissions from the chemicals industry have been successful, particularly in the production of nylon, in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Reducing emissions from agriculture is more difficult – food production must be maintained and there is no simple alternative to nitrogen fertilisers. But some options do exist.

Read more: Emissions of methane – a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide – are rising dangerously

In Europe over the past two decades, N₂O emissions have fallen as agricultural productivity increased. This was largely achieved through government policies to reduce pollution in waterways and drinking water, which encouraged more efficient fertiliser use.

Other ways to reduce N₂O emissions from agriculture include:

• better management of animal manure

• applying fertiliser in a way that better matches the needs of growing plants

• alternating crops to include those that produce their own nitrogen, such as legumes, to reduce the need for fertiliser

• enhanced efficiency fertilisers that lower N₂O production.

Getting to net-zero emissions

Stopping the overuse of nitrogen fertilisers is not just good for the climate. It can also reduce water pollution and increase farm profitability.

Even with the right agricultural policies and actions, synthetic and manure fertilisers will be needed. To bring the sector to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, as needed to stabilise the climate, new technologies will be required.

Read more: Earth may temporarily pass dangerous 1.5℃ warming limit by 2024, major new report says

– ref. New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardising Earth’s future – https://theconversation.com/new-research-nitrous-oxide-emissions-300-times-more-powerful-than-co-are-jeopardising-earths-future-147208

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

Anthony Albanese will highlight the potential of spending on social housing as a job creator in his Thursday night budget reply.

He says if Labor were in government now it would be investing $500 million to fast-track repairs to social housing, and urging state governments to match the funding.

While Albanese is not putting this as a commitment for the election, he promises he will later announce a comprehensive plan a Labor government would undertake for building and repairing social housing.

Albanese and housing spokesman Jason Clare said in a statement this immediate spending would be a win-win approach, fixing homes and creating work.

Some 25% of Australia’s social housing – 100,000 homes – needed urgent maintenance, they said.

“Repairs could start almost immediately, providing work for local plumbers, chippies, sparkies, plasterers and painters as well as companies that manufacture building supplies and materials. This would also provide opportunities for apprentices.”

Albanese frequently reprises his own “back story” of being brought up in public housing as he emphasises its importance. “As someone who grew up in public housing, I know the difference it can make when you’ve got a roof over your head and a comfortable home,” he said.

Economists in a recent survey pointed to social housing as a high priority for what should be in the budget, but it did not feature.

Albanese’s budget reply, expected to contain a number of initiatives, is being keenly watched by colleagues who are frustrated at Labor’s difficulty in cutting through during COVID.

Even the budget, with its big spending, has not left the opposition a great deal of scope for major attacks.

Labor has written to the Tax Commissioner to formally indicate its support for the budget’s bringing forward and backdating to July 1 of tax cuts that were due to start in 2022.

The acceleration requires legislation but Labor’s guarantee of its passage clears the way for the Tax Office to prepare new Pay As You Go tables.

This means the tax cut will flow to workers as soon as later this month. But the backdated part will not be paid to them until the end of the financial year.

It has been pointed out the budget made the tax cuts people will get appear larger than they actually are by benchmarking them against 2017-18, so including some tax relief that has already been received.

The Australia Institute, a progressive think tank, has taken a “wraparound” advertisement in the right-leaning Australian newspaper on Thursday declaring “TAX IS GOOD”. The wraparound will be in the edition that appears in Canberra and parts of NSW.

– ref. We’d be spending $500 million on social housing repairs: Albanese’s alternative budget – https://theconversation.com/wed-be-spending-500-million-on-social-housing-repairs-albaneses-alternative-budget-147685

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Murray, Associate Professor in Guitar, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne

The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen has died aged 65. One of the most influential guitarists of the modern age, Van Halen was known for his mastery of the two-handed tapping technique and for bringing the virtuosic rock guitar solo back into the popular music mainstream in the late 70s and 1980s.

One of the great innovators, Van Halen formed a bridge between 1970s rock styles and heavy metal sounds of the 1980s. He delivered his best work with a nonchalance that belied the training and dedication driving him and his band to succeed.

Born in the Netherlands in 1955, Van Halen came from a musical family. His father played saxophone and clarinet professionally and ensured Van Halen and his older brother, Alex, started piano lessons from a young age.

The boys’ training in classical music and theory would influence Van Halen’s guitar playing, particularly the famous two-handed, finger tapping technique, where harmonic ideas derived from the keyboard found new expression on the electric guitar.

Read more: Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes

Young tour de force

The family immigrated to the US in 1962 and the young Van Halen brothers later discovered rock music, with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as early heroes.

In his first Guitar Player magazine interview in 1978, Van Halen mentioned Clapton as a formative influence, having learnt his solos note for note.

In 1972, while still in high school, the brothers formed the band Mammoth, hiring a public address system from David Lee Roth. Van Halen originally sang as well as playing guitar, but he tired of combining duties so Roth (and his PA) joined the band.

Mammoth caught the attention of Kiss’s Gene Simmons, who financed an early demo tape, and then producer Ted Templeman who signed the group to a record deal. Their first album, Van Halen (1978), was recorded quickly, drawing on their live sound and set list.

It was the album’s second track, Eruption, that captured the attention of guitarists.

This tour de force shows Van Halen had already developed his signature style by his early 20s. Opening power chords signal a call to attention while licks based on blues and rock phrases are transformed through sheer speed and intensity. The tone has a power, presence and clarity rarely heard in rock guitar recordings of the time.

The climax of the piece is the famous two-handed tapping section. With a concluding dive bomb – a pitch descent courtesy of subtle manipulation of the whammy bar, Van Halen ushered in a new era in electric guitar playing.

True innovation

The sounds and techniques used in Eruption seemed to be only possible on the electric guitar, exploiting the instrument’s responsiveness and tactile immediacy.

But Van Halen continued to seek new means of musical expression and on Van Halen II (1979), he gave us an example of what was possible when his virtuosic approach was adapted to the acoustic guitar.

Van Halen was always modifying his guitars. Early experiments led to him creating his “Frankenstein guitar” in 1974, fusing the neck and humbucker pickup from a Gibson guitar onto a Fender Stratocaster body. He added the stripes that became his signature.

He remained involved in designing new instruments throughout his career, collaborating with makers such as Music Man, Charvel and Fender.

‘The brown sound’

Van Halen’s sound was loud and distorted but also clear and focused. Often referred to as the “brown” sound for its feeling of organic warmth, this sound has gone on to inspire generations of guitarists.

The band’s biggest commercial success was the album 1984, where Van Halen turned to keyboards in both writing and recording.

On the single Jump, keyboard chords ground the song but an improvised, high energy electric guitar solo reminds the listener of Van Halen’s virtuosity as he leads the band into a Bach-inspired, keyboard fantasy.

From 1978 to 1998, the band released 11 studio albums, with their 12th and final album, A Different Kind of Truth (2012), appearing 13 years later. But it is the searing lead break on Michael Jackson’s Beat It (1983) that bought Van Halen to global attention.

Jammed into 32 seconds, Van Halen’s solo is a masterpiece of construction, featuring pitch manipulation with the whammy bar, squealing harmonics, rapid-fire two-handed tapping, scurrying scalar licks (or quick scales) and a final ascending tremolo line that soars to the upper reaches of the fretboard and makes you wonder what just happened.

It is one of the most famous rock guitar solos around.

Van Halen was diagnosed with tongue cancer in 2000, and declared cancer free in 2002. In 2019, it was first reported he had been battling throat cancer for five years.

In 2015, Rolling Stone named Van Halen as number eight on a list of the world’s greatest guitarists of all time. But as his career shows, his talent wasn’t simply in his musical virtuosity, but in his innovation: creating a brand new sound for rock music, but also in the design of the guitar itself.

– ref. With his signature guitar style, Eddie Van Halen changed rock music – https://theconversation.com/with-his-signature-guitar-style-eddie-van-halen-changed-rock-music-147652

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

When it comes to action on climate change, Tuesday’s federal budget delivered by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was a real – though not unexpected – disappointment which favoured polluting technologies over a clean energy future.

It included money to upgrade a coal-fired power station in New South Wales, and confirmed A$50 million previously announced to develop carbon capture and storage. The government will also spend A$52.9 million expanding Australia’s gas industry.

But investment in renewable energy was largely shunned. Notably, the government allocated just A$5 million for electric vehicles. It confirmed funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) for another decade, but the money is far less than what’s needed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the Morrison government abandon long-held dogma on debt and deficits. However, the federal budget shows when it comes to climate and energy, the government is singing from the same old songbook.

A techno-fix

The budget doubled down on the Morrison government’s rhetoric of “technology, not taxes”, by choosing preferred technologies for investment.

This “picking winners” approach would have some chance of addressing climate change if it were based on a comprehensive analysis of the best path to zero emissions. But instead, the government has largely made offerings at the altars of technologies worshipped by the conservative side of politics.

The government will spend an as-yet undisclosed sum, possibly A$11 million, to refurbish the Vales Point coal-fired power station. The commitment to this coal infrastructure, co-owned by prominent Liberal party donor Trevor St Baker, is a disgraceful misuse of public money. It will also do little to halt the steady decline of coal-fired power generation.

Read more: ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’: here’s the lowdown on Australia’s low-emissions roadmap

As previously announced, the government will spend A$52.9 million to support the gas industry, which Frydenberg says will lower prices and support more manufacturing jobs. It includes money for gas infrastructure planning and to open up five gas basins, starting with Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory.

The budget confirms A$50 million for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to fund projects to cut emissions from industry. But proving the viability of large-scale CCS projects is extremely difficult, as experience in the United States and Canada has shown. In this context, allocating just A$50 million to get the technology off the ground is simply laughable.

History suggests the spending offers little return on investment. Research by the Australia Institute in 2017 revealed federal governments have spent A$1.3 billion in taxpayers’ money on CCS projects, with very little to show for it.

Renewables snubbed

Meanwhile, last night’s budget largely shunned investment in renewable energy.

The budget confirmed A$1.4 billion in ARENA funding for a further ten years, including a pretty paltry A$223.9 million over the next four years. Separately, the government will also seek to pass legislation to change ARENA’s investment mandate, enabling it to fund gas and carbon capture projects.

The government has allocated a tiny A$5 million towards electric vehicle development, including money towards a manufacturing facility in South Australia. It’s good to see electric vehicles on the government’s radar. But the commitment is dwarfed by investment overseas, including a reported US$300 billion set aside by global car makers over the next decade to bring electric vehicles to mass production.

Read more: Budget 2020 at a glance: the cuts, the spends, and that big deficit in 7 charts

The measly spending on clean energy technology does not make economic sense. The renewable energy sector is standing by to slash emissions and deliver lower energy prices – if only the right policy environment existed.

The budget was also an opportunity for the government to ditch its irrational opposition to carbon pricing. Recent research has comprehensively shown carbon pricing slows growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

Vehement carbon pricing critics, such as conservatives Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly and Barnaby Joyce, are now either discredited or out of parliament altogether. And scores of countries around the world have implemented some form of price on carbon.

A global outlier

Most obviously, the budget was an opportunity to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050, as many developed countries have done.

The Morrison government has already used dodgy accounting tricks to meet Australia’s Paris Agreement commitment – reducing emissions by 26% on 2005 levels. The absence of a net-zero target suggests the government intends to allow emissions to grow indefinitely after 2030.

This approach is out of step with many of Australia’s international peers. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, now the clear favourite to win the US election in November, is campaigning on what has been described as “the most aggressive climate platform” ever put forward by a presidential nominee.

Read more: South Korea’s Green New Deal shows the world what a smart economic recovery looks like

Biden wants the US to produce net-zero emissions by 2050. His US$2 trillion plan includes huge investments in clean energy research and development, and low-emissions infrastructure such as public transport and energy-efficient buildings. He has also promised a border tax levied on imports from countries without a carbon price.

Europe is well on the way to phasing out coal, and forging ahead with new carbon-free technologies to produce steel, cement and ammonia. The European Union has also said any free trade deal with Australia is contingent on our commitment to deep emissions abatement.

And in China, President Xi Jinping recently announced his nation will reach net-zero emissions by 2060.

We have no choice

The budget was a chance to reset Australia’s failed climate policy – an opportunity enhanced by the stimulus spending brought on by COVID-19.

Instead, we got a string of backward-looking gestures including subsidies for coal, another go at the failed technology of carbon capture storage and a continued push for gas.

Sooner or later, Australia will have to join the rest of the world in ending our reliance on carbon-based energy. The catastrophic bushfires of last summer proved this. And if we refuse to move, the rest of the world will force our hand.

– ref. ‘Backwards’ federal budget: Morrison government never fails to disappoint on climate action – https://theconversation.com/backwards-federal-budget-morrison-government-never-fails-to-disappoint-on-climate-action-147659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

In putting together his unprecedented pandemic budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had two big tasks: to support the economy now, and to kick-start the next boom.

Many commentators seem to be enamoured by the size of the spend. But once you dig into the details, it’s a mixed bag.

The 2020 budget certainly delivers on boosting business investment and hiring, and the tax cuts will help lift employment and activity.

But overall it’s a bit light on direct stimulus – spending to support those who have lost their incomes and boost consumer demand. It doesn’t do enough for the economy now, when a boost is needed most. And it lacks a coherent reform narrative around driving the economy out of this crisis better than it went in.

Read more: Budget 2020 at a glance: the cuts, the spends, and that big deficit in 7 charts

Employment and business incentives

Let’s start with the good.

Bringing forward scheduled income tax cuts and increasing the tax offset for low-income earners is good news, despite misgivings among some economists.

They will provide some stimulus via increased spending over the next two years. They will also make it cheaper for businesses to take on workers, and more worthwhile for workers to take on more hours. Research backs this up.

Read more: The budget’s tax cuts have their critics, but this year they make fiscal sense

Encouraging business investment is another good priority. There is strong evidence from schemes in the US that the A$27 billion allocated to enable businesses to deduct the full cost of new assets installed up to June 2022 will boost investment, driving jobs and higher wages over the next few years. Other business incentives, around hiring and R&D, are also welcome.

The budget also contains many worthy smaller measures. For example, it is great to see the government commit an extra A$101 million to double the number of Medicare-subsidised therapy sessions from 10 to 20 per year. Hopefully there will be more support to come for mental health and suicide prevention as the government delivers reviews into these areas.

Investment sleight of hand

Now on to the not-so-good.

First, the A$27 billion for instant asset write-offs is a bit of a sleight of hand. The measure allows businesses to write off investments up front instead of depreciating them over time. So businesses will pay less tax now but more later.

This is why the budget shows a reduction in tax receipts over the first three years, but an increase in year four. Expenses are brought forward to year one even for investments they were going to undertake anyway. The economic benefit – which is real, to be clear – is purely in businesses not having to wait for those tax benefits.

And it is not an investment allowance, as some have called it, which would provide a subsidy on top of allowing a business to expense the assets up front. Research suggests a true investment allowance such as the GFC Investment Tax Break given to Australian business during the Global Financial Crisis, would have boosted investment even more.

This budget just isn’t very stimulating

Now on to the not good at all.

Though the tax cuts provide some stimulus to the economy, it will not be as much as direct cash payments. And you only receive the tax cuts – more than A$2,000 a year for many taxpayers – if you work.

The government’s main instruments for direct stimulus – the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments – are already being wound back (with JobKeeper ending in March 2021), which will pull a massive amount of demand out of the economy.

Read more: Budget 2020: promising tax breaks, but relying on hope

US research on the effect of the US government’s US$2.2 trillion stimulus package shows government payments to households significantly boosted spending in a matter of weeks, with 25 to 40 cents in every dollar of stimulus being spent.

But this budget offers little in the way of direct cash payments. The government has committed to two modest $250 payments to certain welfare recipients, but the second won’t arrive for another five months.

The direct stimulus that is on offer will provide some support, but not nearly the volume required.

Green waste

By far the budget’s biggest snub is the almost complete absence of green stimulus – specifically, investment in carbon-reduction efforts. This spending is all the more critical in the absence of an economy-wide carbon price.

Green stimulus offers the prospect of a triple economic dividend: it generates activity and jobs today, it prevents an impending environmental calamity, and it creates the industries and jobs of the future.

Other countries are seizing COVID-19 as an opportunity to make inroads towards their emissions-reduction targets. France, for example, has devoted a third of its stimulus to green measures.

Read more: Creative destruction: the COVID-19 economic crisis is accelerating the demise of fossil fuels

Using the most generous possible definition, only about 1% of new Australian government spending over the next four years will go to environmental initiatives. This is a tremendous missed opportunity.

So, overall, the budget is a mixed bag. There are some welcome stimulus measures, but some critical ones missing. The government has a lot more work to do to kick start a new golden era of economic growth.

Let’s hope the Treasurer delivers on that in his next budget, due in just seven months.

– ref. It’s not the size of the budget deficit that counts; it’s how you use it – https://theconversation.com/its-not-the-size-of-the-budget-deficit-that-counts-its-how-you-use-it-147603

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Senior Advisor, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

In many ways, a vice president’s most important constitutional duty is simply to stay alive. Beyond breaking ties in the US Senate, the vice president essentially has no real constitutional duties beyond replacing a deceased or incapacitated president.

Such matters of life or death could not weigh heavier in the upcoming presidential election, which features the oldest candidates of all time — President Donald Trump is 74 and his opponent, Joe Biden, is 77.

And Trump, as we all know, was hospitalised in recent days after contracting COVID-19 — and, according to his doctor, is still not “out of the woods” when it comes to making a full recovery.

With the health of Trump (and Biden, who has so far tested negative for COVID) at the forefront, it’s even more vital for Americans and the world to learn more about Vice President Mike Pence and his fellow vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, as they meet in their only debate this week (Thursday AEST).

How vice presidents differ from their presidents

A vice president becoming president outside of an election is by no means a remote possibility. It has happened nine times in US history and includes some of America’s most well-known presidents – Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt.

One of the chief reasons these former vice presidents are so well-known is that, on taking office, they diverged in key areas from the presidents they served under, from Johnson’s doubling down on the US presence in Vietnam to Truman’s more confrontational approach to the Soviet Union.

In the case of Andrew Johnson, who became president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the divergence was essentially a reversal: the Southern-born Johnson largely sought to obstruct Reconstruction efforts following the end of the Civil War.

Read more: Who is Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s pick for vice president?

Most vice presidents, however, serve their presidents faithfully until it’s their turn to run for the higher office. In modern times, they are often given considerable responsibilities, too.

Dick Cheney came to the office with much more experience in Washington than his running mate, George W. Bush, and assumed more duties than most — if not all — vice presidents in modern history, particularly with the administration’s “War on Terror” after the September 11 attacks.

Biden, who also came into office with more Washington experience than his running mate, Barack Obama, was entrusted with specific responsibilities, such as overseeing the US troop withdrawal from Iraq and securing votes in Congress for key legislation like the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Why the vice president debate matters

This week’s debate will be a rare opportunity for Pence and Harris to show the nation who they are without Trump and Biden in the room — and, potentially, how they differ from their running mates.

Harris is already familiar to some Democrats, having participated in nearly half a dozen debates as a presidential candidate herself last year in the lead-up to the Democratic primaries.

Many will be watching to see just how much daylight she allows between herself and Biden. Though Harris and Biden are allies now, she fiercely criticised him in the Democratic debates for his close relationships with pro-segregationist US senators and his stance on the bussing of Black students to white schools in the 1970s.

Pence, meanwhile, will likely stick closely to the Trump campaign script, despite the fact he has diverged with Trump on many issues in the past.

Before the two were running mates in 2016, for example, Pence called Trump’s pledge to ban Muslim immigration to America “offensive and unconstitutional”. And while Trump railed against illegal immigration, Pence endorsed pathways to citizenship for undocumented migrants.

These days, however, Pence is very much a Trump loyalist and fully supportive of the administration’s agenda – even when talking off the record with journalists. He will no doubt offer a full-throated defence to any attacks Harris makes against the president or their administration’s policies in the debate.

Pence offers a predictable counterpart to Trump

Pence’s role in the Trump administration has less to do with a specific portfolio and is more tied to his personality.

An evangelical Christian and former governor of Indiana, Pence is conventional, predictable and methodical – a helpful counterweight to Trump’s unconventional, unpredictable and instinctual manner.

Read more: The first US presidential debate was pure chaos. Here’s what our experts thought

The public spat in the White House between the president and Democratic lawmakers in 2018 perhaps most clearly illustrated the differences between Pence and Trump. While Trump and the Democrats tried to score points against one another, Pence sat silent and almost motionless, giving the president the limelight.

But Pence’s differences with Trump go beyond just demeanour.

While Trump has had a troubled history with women that includes at least 18 allegations of sexual misconduct, Pence refuses to meet alone with women other than his wife of 35 years.

And while Trump has mastered the art of insulting political opponents, Pence pledged not to engage in negative campaigning after an election loss in 1990.

Pence is clearly a politician from an earlier era, but it works for the Trump administration.

He has been deployed when the administration has needed careful and deliberate nuance on everything from clarifying its policy toward China to reassuring concerned allies after Trump’s surprise election win.

Looking ahead to 2024

Pence and Harris will likely be significantly more disciplined and restrained in this week’s debate than Trump and Biden were in theirs — a spectacle that featured countless interruptions and personal attacks.

Neither Pence nor Harris will likely diverge too far from their running mates on key issues, either, regardless of their personal views.

It’s not hard to understand why they would be so supportive of candidates they have explicitly criticised in the past — both are likely favourites to be their respective party’s nominees for president in 2024. This week’s debate offers a short preview of what might be to come.

Read more: The US presidential election might be closer than the polls suggest (if we can trust them this time)

– ref. Why the US vice presidential debate matters more now than ever before – https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-vice-presidential-debate-matters-more-now-than-ever-before-147449

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Wille, Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellow, University of Sydney

As we navigate a global human pandemic, avian influenza (or “bird flu”) has been detected in domestic poultry across Victoria.

When scientists discuss avian influenza, we’re usually referring to the diverse subtypes of influenza that primarily infect birds. Avian influenza viruses are commonly found in healthy wild birds and can also cause illness and death among domestic poultry including chickens, turkeys and ducks.

Humans can contract it if they come into close contact with infected birds (not from eating cooked chicken or eggs). But these viruses don’t easily infect us and their health risk is considered low.

Between 2003-2019, there have been about 2,500 human cases of avian influenza globally (mainly caused by the influenza subtypes H7N9 and H5N1).

There’s also no evidence of people becoming infected as a result of the current outbreaks in Victoria. Nonetheless, avian influenza viruses can mutate, so we must carefully monitor and deal with them as they arise.

Read more: Bird flu: learning lessons from traditional human-animal relations

How we classify avian influenza

These viruses are classified in two ways. The first is based on the HA-NA subtype system. On the surface of the virus are two proteins: haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Of these, there are 16 and 9 types respectively.

So when we talk about the subtype H5N1, for example, we’re referring to type 5 of the HA and type 1 of the NA. Due to their mix-and-match nature, there are 144 potential HA-NA subtype combinations. The vast majority of these never cause disease in birds.

Avian influenza viruses are also classified by how “pathogenic” they are, which refers to their ability to cause disease in domestic poultry. Low pathogenic viruses are common in wild birds and may cause limited disease in poultry, but highly pathogenic viruses cause high mortality in poultry.

Occasionally, when an H5 or H7 low pathogenic avian influenza virus crosses from wild birds to poultry, changes in the virus genome can occur, transforming it into a highly pathogenic virus.

Avian influenza outbreaks in Victoria

In Victoria, there have been three outbreaks of avian influenza since July this year: two low pathogenic avian influenza viruses, H5N2 and H7N6, in domestic turkeys and emus, respectively, as well as a high pathogenic H7N7 virus in chickens.

The simultaneous detection of different virus subtypes in chickens, emus and turkeys is unusual. In the past, outbreaks in domestic birds have mostly been caused by a single subtype. This highlights the importance of stringent biosecurity practices, to prevent the introduction of avian influenza into farmed poultry.

Victoria’s current outbreaks are causing substantial economic loss and are considered emergency animal diseases. They have resulted in:

• the deaths of about 450,000 domestic birds across six farms, of which the vast majority are egg-laying chickens
• a potential loss of export markets for poultry products
• significant response costs and loss of income for affected producers, requiring permits to move eggs, equipment and birds from affected areas.

The good news is Australia has successfully eradicated high pathogenic avian influenza viruses in the past. We will almost certainly eradicate these too.

Agriculture Victoria, the lead agency for emergency animal diseases in the state, is responding to the outbreaks in a number of ways.

Firstly, a housing order requires all bird owners in the affected areas to keep their birds inside. This measure, along with other movement controls, helps limit spread to other farms.

Second, infected birds on the farms are destroyed, with the farms thoroughly decontaminated. These procedures are key to preventing the continued spread of avian influenza.

How we’re tracking the spread of the viruses

Outbreaks of avian influenza in Australian poultry are infrequent. The last outbreak of high pathogenic avian influenza in Victoria’s poultry (before this year) was in 1992. Low pathogenic avian influenza, however, is detected in our wild birds regularly.

Past testing has found different groups of wild birds can have infection rates ranging between 0.1-40%. The variation depends on which species make up the group, the group’s predominant location and also what season it is. The most common virus subtypes found in wild birds are H1, H3 and H6.

Data used to understand and monitor avian influenza in the wild is generated by the National Avian Influenza Wild Bird Surveillance program, which screens samples directly from captured birds, or indirectly through their faeces.

Not an ‘imported’ virus

Unlike contact tracing with people, birds can’t tell you who they have been socialising with. That’s why genomic sequencing is crucial in tracking, tracing and monitoring avian influenza viruses.

Each virus has a unique genomic sequence, like a genetic fingerprint. Using genetic analysis, the different genomes can be compared. This offers insight into how closely related certain viruses are and how wild birds may be spreading them across the country.

This method helped us to discover Victoria currently has three distinct outbreaks – and to connect the farms within each outbreak.

Also, a critical component of our response is the collection of virus genomes already available to us from past surveillance efforts. These data have revealed the viruses currently in Victoria are not imported from Asia, or elsewhere.

Rather, they’re similar to low pathogenic avian influenza viruses currently circulating in wild Australian waterbirds, as well as viruses that have caused past outbreaks in poultry.

Read more: Avian influenza – why it’s not going away

We would like to acknowledge Agriculture Victoria, AgriBio, the Centre for AgriBioscience (a joint initiative between Agriculture Victoria and La Trobe University), the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in collaboration with Deakin University, for their ongoing avian influenza surveillance under the National Avian Influenza Wild Bird Surveillance program.

– ref. Nearly half a million poultry deaths: there are 3 avian influenza outbreaks in Victoria. Should we be worried? – https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-a-million-poultry-deaths-there-are-3-avian-influenza-outbreaks-in-victoria-should-we-be-worried-145325