Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Ward, Fellow in Historical Studies, The University of Melbourne

The Australian government has decided not to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog this parliamentary term, despite a promise in December 2018 to deliver an integrity commission

with teeth, resources and proper processes that will protect the integrity of Australia’s Commonwealth public administration

In the three years since that promise was made, Australia has slipped further down the international corruption league tables.

On the respected Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, it is now in 18th position, down from 13th in 2018.

A decade ago Australia was seventh.

The Corruption Perceptions Index both ranks and rates countries on a scale out of 100. Australia’s score in 2012 was 85. In 2021 it was 73.

This 12-point drop is, along with Hungary’s fall from 55 to 43, equal worst among the 38 nations in the OECD – the economies with institutions and cultures most comparable to Australia.

New Zealand, by comparison, has consistently been in the top three, with scores between 88 and 91.

Does Australia’s decline in this index really matter? Its score is, after all, still comparatively high, and the Corruption Perceptions Index is only a proxy measure of corruption.

Yes, it does. Dozens of studies have demonstrated the corrosive economic effect of corruption, and perceptions are almost as important as reality in guiding economic decisions.

Read more:
Australia and Norway were once tied in global anti-corruption rankings. Now, we’re heading in opposite directions

Based on studies correlating corruption indices with economic impacts, I estimate the difference between Australia’s 2012 and 2021 ratings equates to 0.6% lower economic growth.

This translates to about 60,000 extra new jobs and an extra A$10 billion in government revenue a year.

The value of measuring perceptions

Because corruption is hard to measure – not least because it’s generally illegal – the Corruption Perceptions Index does the next best thing.

Measuring perceptions is useful, particularly when considering economic impacts. Perceptions are critical in investment decisions – whether it be a major corporation investing in a billion-dollar project, a small business borrowing money to expand, or an individual taking on a debt to get a university degree.

Any impression a system is “rigged”, and that “who you know” is more important than how hard or smart you work, acts as a disincentive against taking risks.

Read more:
It’s the luxuries that give it away. To fight corruption, follow the goods

The Corruption Perceptions Index’s credentials are strengthened by it being a survey of expert surveys, drawing on 13 different data sources from 12 authoritative institutions.

These include the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey, the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Country Risk Ratings and the World Bank’s Policy and Institutional Assessment.

The index is focused on public-sector corruption – from misusing public institutions for private or political gain to outright fraud and bribery. Many of its sources also incorporate perceptions of broader corruption.

According to a 2018 World Bank review of eight major corruption measures, this “composite methodology” makes the Corruption Perceptions Index the most valid measure of the magnitude of overall corruption in many countries.

Calculating economic impacts

To estimate the economic impact of Australia’s falling score, I’ve drawn on the extensive body of economic research done over the past 30 years quantifying the impact of corruption on economic growth.

A useful overview of these many studies came from a 2011 meta-analysis for the United Kingdom government by University of London economists Mehmet Ugur and Nandini Dasgupta.

They sorted through more than 1,000 papers, analysing 115 of those studies in detail to calculate concrete numbers for the relationship between corruption index scores and economic performance.

Read more:
Equality: our secret weapon to fight corruption

They created a six-point corruption scale from “0” (very corrupt) to “6”.

Every one-point change on this six-point scale, they calculated, increased or reduced per capita economic growth by, on average, 0.86% a year.

Each one-point change on their scale equals a 17-point change on the Corruption Perceptions Index 100-point scale, meaning Australia’s 12-point decline suggests 0.6% less income per capita.

What this means for Australia

It suggests that if Australia had the same Corruption Perceptions Index score as in 2012, therefore, it would enjoy GDP per capita growth of 2.2% over the next few years instead of Treasury’s forecast 1.6%.

In terms of jobs, the Treasury forecasts 1.6% annual growth between 2022 to 2025 – about an extra 200,000 jobs per year. An extra 0.5% would lift that growth by 60,000 jobs per year.

The calculations are necessarily rough. International averages don’t automatically translate to a specific nation’s circumstances. However, Ugur and Dasgupta’s study finds higher economic effects apply in wealthier countries, meaning applying the average effect to Australia might produce an underestimate.

The result is also broadly consistent with an International Monetary Fund study, published in 2016 linking a 22-point improvement on the Corruption Perceptions Index to a tax revenue increase equal to 0.88% of GDP.

Applying this to Australia’s performance would suggest its 12-point decline is costing government revenue some 0.5% of GDP – that’s $10 billion – a year.

Perceptions of corruption do matter. These results suggest they go well beyond integrity and good governance.

Simply put, an effective integrity commission and other steps tackling corruption are both sensible economic management and good budget repair.

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

– ref. Perceptions of corruption are growing in Australia, and it’s costing the economy – https://theconversation.com/perceptions-of-corruption-are-growing-in-australia-and-its-costing-the-economy-176562

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rahul Sen, Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, Auckland University of Technology

You don’t have to be an economist to know New Zealand faces its highest annual inflation rate in 30 years – 5.9% as of December 2021. Visit a supermarket or petrol station and the evidence is right before your eyes.

The average price of petrol per litre is now up by 31% compared to last year. In some places, it has already hit NZ$3 a litre. To take just one grocery example, tomatoes doubled in price during the same period, contributing to the highest annual food price inflation since 2011.

These severe price hikes are a direct reflection of the impact of the global pandemic on tradable inflation – that is, goods and services we either import for our own consumption or as components in our own manufacturing and exporting processes.

Since mid-2021, annual tradable inflation has been outpacing non-tradable inflation (the rising price of goods and services we produce and consume domestically) – 6.9% versus 5.3% at December 2021.

While tradable inflation accounts for about 40% of New Zealand’s overall inflation, the pace at which it’s growing means external sources are increasingly fuelling inflationary pressure.

Pandemic pressures

Much of this can be sourced back to the effects of the pandemic on global supply lines. Three key factors are driving the pressures:

1. Costs of raw materials and other inputs are rising at each stage of the supply chain, with factories closing and reopening due to changing restrictions. The semiconductor industry, for example, has been facing a chip shortage since 2021.

2. Logistics and transport costs are rising due to massive disruptions at the distribution end of the supply chain. Reduced airline capacity and rerouting of cargo, coupled with lockdowns and isolation requirements, have led to delays in unloading cargo at ports and slower turnaround times for ships. Freight company Mainfreight, for example, expects delays of 20-30 days above normal shipping times for Auckland.

3. Energy costs are rising, partly due to recovery in global demand in 2021, combined with supply shortages and cartel-controlled production.

Read more:
Energy prices: how COVID helped them to surge – and why they won’t go down any time soon

These combine to cause disruption at each stage of supply chain – production, transportation and distribution – forcing New Zealand to “import” more inflation on top of what is being generated from within its own economy. Vehicles, fuel, clothing, processed foods and manufacturing materials have all been affected.

Supply chain vulnerability

The rising cost of house construction provides an illustrative example. Prices go up when, say, imported iron girders cost more to produce in their country of origin, in turn caused by costlier imports of iron and steel.

On top of this there can be delays in shipping the materials due to port closures or workforces affected by the pandemic.

Similarly, the scarcity caused by a worldwide semiconductor shortage means higher costs of production for electronic products and new vehicles, pushing up retail prices for imports.

Read more:
Inflation is raising prices and reducing real wages – what should be done to support NZ’s low-income households?

Above all, rising energy costs are a financial body blow to the transport and logistics sector – the backbone of the local economy. The geopolitical tensions over Ukraine and Russia – both major oil and gas producers – simply add to the risk of spiking imported energy costs.

The pandemic has exposed New Zealand’s ever-present vulnerability to global supply chain disruptions. If the emergence of new COVID-19 variants affects New Zealand’s major trading partners (China, Australia, US, EU and Japan) imported inflation will remain a problem throughout 2022.

No quick fix

The unpredictable impacts of the pandemic on supply chain-led tradable inflation create a tough balancing act for policymakers because the causes are out of their direct control.

The Reserve Bank’s use of interest rates and monetary policy to maintain short-term price stability has worked well when domestic factors drove inflation. It’s a lot trickier when external supply shocks become the key drivers, and inflation predictions are clouded by global uncertainties.

Read more:
How to prevent disruptions in food supply chains after COVID-19

Some relief could be provided by the government reducing GST and fuel taxes, but this is not a quick fix. In the medium to longer term, New Zealand needs to diversify risk and bring some supply chains back within its own borders.

The government could take a cue from the trilateral supply chain resilience initiative (SCRI) launched last year by two of New Zealand’s main trading partners, Australia and Japan, and the fastest-growing emerging global market, India. Its aim is to identify key sectors vulnerable to supply chain shocks and invest in their resilience to future uncertainties.

For now, however, New Zealand can count on an unpredictable road ahead, and should be ready for the possibility of even higher inflation than the year before.

The author is Senior Lecturer, School of Economics, Faculty of Business Economics and Law, AUT. The views expressed here are personal.

The author is Lecturer, School of Economics, Faculty of Business Economics and Law, AUT. The views expressed here are personal.

– ref. The pandemic exposes NZ’s supply chain vulnerability – be ready for more inflation in the year ahead – https://theconversation.com/the-pandemic-exposes-nzs-supply-chain-vulnerability-be-ready-for-more-inflation-in-the-year-ahead-176232

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University

Australia is losing its birds at an alarming rate – one in six species are now threatened with extinction, predominantly due to climate change, land clearing and worsening bushfires.

Last year, when we met in a Darwin cafe to discuss Anthony’s PhD on the impact of environmental art on conservation, we wondered if his project could contribute to saving threatened birds.

Could we, perhaps, harness the beauty of birdsong to help Australians care about what they were losing?

Throughout history, humans have been inspired by the complex melodies and rhythms of birdsong. It’s a natural, daily celebration of our biodiversity, and has shaped the evolution of human speech and song for millennia.

Our idea was to let the threatened birds speak directly to those who might help them.

Teaming up with renowned bird recordist David Stewart, we created a CD for the music charts consisting entirely of bird calls, titled Songs of Disappearance. For the title track, the Bowerbird Collective’s Simone Slattery arranged a fantasy dawn chorus of 53 threatened species.

As of February 18, the CD – now with a video by Senior Gooniyandi artist Mervyn Street and Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman – was sitting at No.2 on the charts.

Among the stars

Launched on December 3, 2021, the album debuted at No.5 on the ARIA charts, in part because the conservation organisation BirdLife Australia alerted its supporter base to a wonderful Christmas present that would also help bird conservation.

Some calls on the CD are astonishing for their rarity. Night parrots, critically endangered with a bell-like call, were lost for a century before they were rediscovered in 2013. Regent honeyeaters are now so scarce that young birds lack models from which to learn their soft, warbling calls.

Others are poignant cries of a disappearing landscape – the creaking calls of gang-gangs, buzzing bowerbirds and the mournful cry of the far eastern curlew.

Some purchasers of the CD have written to say they have the 53 calls on loop.

Two weeks after its release, the CD reached number 3, ahead of such artists as Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé.

“I’m very happy to have birds flying above me!” Paul Kelly told us when Songs of Disappearance displaced his Christmas Train album.

Suddenly, retail giants wanted our album in their stores. Media requests flowed in from around the world. Our CDs are being manufactured and distributed for release in the United States.

Read more:
Regent honeyeaters were once kings of flowering gums. Now they’re on the edge of extinction. What happened?

Now it’s at number 2 on the ARIA charts – a pretty good result for threatened species from a project with a zero marketing budget. It may also be the first time, anywhere in the world, that a university research project has hit the music charts.

Will the calls be answered?

In December last year, more than 300 of Australia’s leading ornithologists released the Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020. It found 216 Australian birds are now threatened with extinction, mainly due to climate change.

The devastating findings of the action plan are what spawned our idea. The resulting combination of research, conservation, and creativity told a story that has resonated globally, something the action plan alone would never have achieved.

But will it make a difference?

Certainly the profits, which go to BirdLife Australia, will be put to good use. However, the 200 Australian bird taxa identified in the action plan need far more assistance to survive than one CD can provide.

The question is, can art help change population trajectories? Or, as cultural policy expert Christiaan De Beukelaer writes, will these haunting bird calls just “naturalise the awful future it wishes to avert”, like other climate apocalyptic art?

The answer is that we do not know – hence our ongoing research. However, we do know that, 60 years ago this year, the fear of losing birdsong implied by conservationist Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring helped launch the environmental movement.

Where will the songs lead us?

Songs of Disappearance now presents a fascinating opportunity to understand whether it can catalyse some of the same impetus for change.

Those who purchased the album have been invited to complete a survey to help us understand whether this project and others like it can have a lasting effect on conservation outcomes.

We wish to know, for example, whether the CD has affected people emotionally. Conservation, like art, is a belief system driven by deep emotions. As 2020 research suggests, empathy for wildlife is strongly linked to a sense of moral justification for preventing extinctions.

Read more:
More than 200 Australian birds are now threatened with extinction – and climate change is the biggest danger

So, has the CD changed behaviour? We know bird song, like music, boosts mental well-being. But can it turn intention into action? And if so, what sort of action? We also aim to learn lessons from this experience that might be transferred to other projects involving the arts and conservation.

The disappearance of Australian bird song is by no means inevitable. How wonderful if the songs of the birds themselves can help secure their future.

Stephen Garnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with BirdLife Australia for which he coordinates the threatened species committee.

Anthony Albrecht is co-founder of the Bowerbird Collective

– ref. How our album of birdsong recordings rocketed to #2 on the ARIA charts – https://theconversation.com/how-our-album-of-birdsong-recordings-rocketed-to-2-on-the-aria-charts-177070

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Thompson, Associate Dean (Education) – Science, Monash University

Aahh, the Australian summer. When the temperatures top 40℃ and only the bravest or most foolhardy would venture outside in bare feet, there’s a cherished old saying: “it’s so hot outside you could fry an egg on the footpath!”

But what does the science say? Does this claim stack up, or it half-baked?

To answer this question, we need to understand the chemicals inside an egg, what happens to them during the cooking process, and whether the footpath really gets hot enough to drive these chemical changes.

The first and most obvious point is that the egg’s yolk and white are chemically very different. The white, which makes up about two-thirds of an egg’s mass, is roughly nine parts water and one part protein. The key here is that the protein’s structure changes if you heat it above a certain temperature.

About half the yolk’s mass is water, about a quarter is “fat”, about one-sixth is protein, and less than 5% is carbohydrates. The protein in the yolk is a completely different type of protein, but much like with the egg white, it’s how the protein responds to heat that gives us the texture of fried, scrambled, poached or hard-boiled eggs.

Ok, so how does this work?

We can think of proteins as being long chains of molecules called amino acids. In a raw egg, the protein is suspended in the watery mixture. The chain is curled up in a very particular way, held in shape by weak chemical bonds between different parts of the chain as it folds over on itself (the animation below shows the folded structure of ovalbumin, the main protein in egg white). This keeps it stable, and able to mix with the water.

But once it’s heated up, the heat energy starts to break these weak chemical bonds and the chain begins to uncurl, rearrange itself and stick together again in a completely different way.

Suddenly, these reconfigured clumps of protein molecules are no longer water-soluble, and so they solidify. This is why eggs get harder if you cook them for longer.

This process is called denaturation, and it can happen to any type of protein. Denaturation is what turns milk into curds and whey, and changes the texture of meat as it cooks.

Read more:
Kitchen Science: the chemistry behind amazing meringue and perfect cappuccino

For eggs, denaturation begins at around 60℃, but this is likely to only slightly cook the egg whites, and the yolk will not turn solid at all.

As you slowly go from 60℃ to 70℃, however, there is more heat energy available and all of the egg’s proteins now begin to denature. The egg white begins to turn gel-like and eventually rubbery, and the yolk begins to solidify into a viscous goo, before eventually becoming solid or even slightly powdery in texture.

Get the temperature right and this process unfolds nice and gradually, which means with a bit of practice you can get your eggs to turn out exactly how you like them.

Righto, so is a footpath hot enough for this?

That leaves us with the crucial question: how hot does pavement get on a scorching summer day? Does it reach the almost 70℃ you would need for a footpath fry-up?

This depends on a lot of factors, including the air temperature, direct sunlight, the footpath material and even its colour. Black-painted concrete, for example, absorbs more heat than white or unpainted concrete.

All in all, at the peak of these conditions, on a boiling summer day, a footpath can potentially just about reach the right temperature. But sadly, that’s still not enough to sizzle an egg.

First, concrete is a poor conductor, so it will transfer heat to the egg much more slowly than a metal frying pan. Second, after cracking the egg onto the footpath, the footpath’s temperature will drop slightly.

Read more:
Why you can’t fry eggs (or testicles) with a cellphone

So if you were hoping for a cheap way to cook your sunny-side-up eggs on the footpath this summer, you might be disappointed. It’s much wiser to head back indoors to the kitchen. Your egg will be hotter, and you’ll be much cooler.

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

– ref. Sunny side up: can you really fry an egg on the footpath on a hot day? – https://theconversation.com/sunny-side-up-can-you-really-fry-an-egg-on-the-footpath-on-a-hot-day-172616

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity

Over the past week, Australians have heard Scott Morrison make several explicit references to his faith. Given Morrison has placed his faith front and centre of his public persona, it is helpful to try to understand how he perceives his faith and how it might intersect with his job as prime minister.

For me, Morrison’s recent comments about faith and prayer reveal a pattern of human passivity, dependence on divine intervention, and potential abnegation of power.

For example, in his 60 Minutes interview, Morrison’s response to a question about his empathy was:

I’ve worn out the carpet on the side of my bed […] on my knees, praying and praying […] praying for those who are losing loved ones, praying for those who couldn’t go to family funerals, praying for those who are exhausted […]

To be fair to Morrison, it would be odd for a person of any faith not to include prayer as part of their expression of concern for those who suffer or struggle. Such an approach has a long tradition. But we might expect more than just prayer from a devout Christian who also happens to be the prime minister.

In this response, he appears to prioritise prayer over action, which is astonishing given the power he holds due to his position. In the Christian tradition, prayer informs and even motivates action; it does not replace it. Such a response is also, of course, a way of signalling his piety to certain constituents.

It is not an isolated example. Take, for instance, his address to the Australian Christian Churches National Conference in 2021, where he told the crowd:

I can’t fix the world, I can’t save the world, but we both believe in someone who can.

That someone, of course, is God.

On the one hand, it shows admirable humility to acknowledge that even the prime minister cannot “fix the world”. But in alluding to the “someone who can”, Morrison appears to be giving over his agency and responsibility to God. Leave it up to God to act.

More recently, in a speech commemorating 14 years since the Rudd government’s “sorry” to Indigenous peoples, Morrison shifted the focus to forgiveness, which sparked fury.

Morrison explicitly stated that forgiveness was an individual, not a “corporate” matter, expressing a hope for the kind of healing that came through forgiveness. His desire to move from apology to individual forgiveness is entirely consistent with his stated spirituality which emphasises individual and personal faith.

But it is also theologically thin. Trawloolway man and theologian Garry Deverell was quick to point out the prime minister had missed a step. In the Christian tradition, no apology can insist on forgiveness, and seeking forgiveness for harm done requires repentance, acts of restitution, and attempts to address injustice. The spiritual cannot be divorced from the physical, tangible, social, and political dimensions of life.

While acknowledging, rightly, that forgiveness is hard and cannot be earned, Morrison had put the onus on those wounded by systemic justice to do the work of forgiveness, rather than on those with power to do the work of restitution.

Read more:
Christians in Australia are not persecuted, and it is insulting to argue they are

Prayer and action go hand in hand

There’s a classic story that does the rounds in Christian circles of a guy who gets trapped when his town floods. In a desperate attempt to avoid the rising floodwaters he climbs onto his roof and prays to God to save him.

Soon a rescue crew in a boat come past and invite him into their boat, but he refuses. “God will save me,” he says.

Later a helicopter flies by and a man descends on a rope. He is offered a way off the roof by the rescue crew, but again he refuses. “God will save me.”

Eventually the man dies and goes to heaven, but he is confused. “Why didn’t you save me God?” he asks. “I’ve been a faithful Christian my whole life.”

And God replies: “What do you mean I didn’t save you? I sent a boat and a helicopter. You refused them both.”

Such parabolic stories demonstrate a Christian theological belief that God works through and with human activity, not despite it. It points to the need to integrate belief, prayer and action.

Theology – how we think and talk about God – matters precisely because of its implications for human activity. I have no reason to doubt that when Morrison talks about his faith he is sincere, and when he expresses his care for people primarily through prayer he is behaving in a normal way for his faith community. Yet this kind of passivity and trust in divine intervention is not the only or even the fullest expression of Christian faith.

Faith and power should integrate, not separate

The danger of emphasising personal prayer as the primary expression of Christian care is that social responsibility can be abdicated. Pray and leave it up to God can be a cop-out, particularly for those with power. It can be a way to ignore systemic injustice by reducing faith to something personal and private.

As Brittany Higgins put it so eloquently in her recent National Press Club address: “I didn’t want his sympathy as a father, I wanted him to use his power as prime minister.”

Theologians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer offer an alternative expression of Christian faith. Bonhoeffer lived and wrote during the early 20th-century rise of Nazism in Germany. In his well-known book The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer writes about “cheap grace”, which is the kind of faith that wants forgiveness without actual repentance, and justice or peace without personal cost. Cheap grace wants the inner spiritual resolution without the outward costly work.

For Bonhoeffer, that outward work included vocal criticism of the Nazi regime and of Christians who were silent bystanders. Bonhoeffer saw the way of Jesus was one that demanded practical help for victims of injustice and, where necessary, resistance to government. Arrested for conspiring to rescue Jews, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned before being executed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945.

Not every Christian needs to become a martyr, but as Garry Deverell writes:

The Christian is called not to separate but to integrate their faith and their public presence, work or office.

This broader view of faith is seen in the call of Tim Costello for the prime minister to act on his faith when it comes to climate change, or in the urging of church leaders for more compassionate action for refugees based on Christian values. After all, Jesus teaches that whatever one does for the least among us (defined as those who are hungry, poor or imprisoned) one does for Jesus.

Morrison is not the first prime minister to be a person of deep faith, nor will he be the last. That is not the issue. All politicians are informed by their value systems and beliefs, regardless of the religious or non-religious traditions that shape them.

Neither am I criticising Morrison for speaking out about his faith. I am, however, critical of the highly individualistic, spiritualised version of faith Morrison espouses, which allows him to shirk personal responsibility and action when convenient.

There are millions of faithful Christians in this country who also wear out the carpet in prayer every week. The difference is they do not hold the highest office in the land, nor have Morrison’s power to enact change.

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

– ref. Morrison’s Christian empathy needs to be about more than just prayer – it requires action, too – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-christian-empathy-needs-to-be-about-more-than-just-prayer-it-requires-action-too-177248

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

University of Canberra Professional Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Associate Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics.

In this episode they review the penultimate sitting weeks in the parliamentary term, with only budget week left before the election.

In parliament we saw Labor ramp up its attack on the aged care crisis, calling for the resignation of the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, Richard Colbeck.

Meanwhile the government has brought national security centre stage, accusing Labor of being soft on China, with Scott Morrison even going so far as dubbing deputy opposition leader Richard Marles a ‘Manchurian candidate.’ Unusually, we saw the current and a former head of ASIO entering the debate.

Michelle and Caroline also take a look at THAT 60 Minutes program, which put a lot of focus on Jenny Morrison.

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

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Morrison government weaponising national security – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-morrison-government-weaponising-national-security-177440

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreea Lachsz, PhD Candidate, University of Technology Sydney

Content warning: This article contains details readers may find distressing including discussion of excessive or gratuitous violence, abuse and mental illness.

In December, the Victorian Court of Appeal found certain routine strip searches in prison breach human rights to privacy and dignity in detention. The decision highlights how traumatising, unnecessary and degrading the routine practice of strip searching people can be.

In Victoria’s prisons, strip searches involve forcing a person to remove their clothing, stand with their legs apart and bend over in full view of prison guards. There is some variation in strip-searching processes in other states and territories.

Throughout Australia, police and prison officials conduct strip searches as a matter of routine. They are commonly conducted upon entry into custody, after legal and family visits and hearings, when moving between secure locations or before drug testing.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who are more likely to be policed, imprisoned, subjected to abuses of power and violence within prisons, and strip searched, the court’s decision is important. Victoria’s criminal and legal systems are built on Australia’s violent colonial history, and routine strip searches are a modern form of this violence.

The Victorian Court of Appeal case is an opportunity for real systemic reform. The Victorian government must now decide whether it will maintain this violent practice.

Read more:
Excessive strip-searching shines light on discrimination of Aboriginal women in the criminal justice system

The case of Thompson v Minogue

In 2020, Dr Craig Minogue successfully challenged a prison order that he submit to a urine test and routine strip search before that test. In the Supreme Court, Minogue successfully argued this direction was in breach of his rights to privacy and dignity in detention. The state of Victoria appealed.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) was granted leave to intervene in the appeal as a “friend of the court” to make written and oral submissions.. Although Minogue is not Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, VALS believed it was critical to provide the court information on the harmful impact of strip searching and urine testing on First Nations people.

The Victorian Court of Appeal upheld the Supreme Court’s ruling that routine strip searches prior to urine testing breached Minogue’s human rights and the government did not properly consider human rights when making strip-searching policies.

The Court found these routine strip searches were “extremely invasive and demeaning” procedures which can constitute “a severe limitation upon […] privacy and dignity rights”.

Both the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal found the government did not back up its claims that routine strip searches prior to urine tests were necessary or effective. The government did not sufficiently explain why pre-existing and less harmful alternatives, such as x-ray body scanners, were not used.

However, the Court of Appeal reversed the Supreme Court’s decision on urine testing and found this procedure did not breach Minogue’s human rights. Minogue has sought to appeal this aspect of the decision to the High Court.

Now, it is up to the Victorian government to decide whether it will implement changes to strip-search policies and laws to end this practice across all police stations and prisons.

Read more:
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The human rights of people in prison

Evidence and data in Australia show strip searches are often over-used, ineffective in uncovering contraband and unnecessary. Strip searches are also prone to being a tool for abuses of power and misconduct.

A 2021 IBAC report exposed serious misconduct in the management and conducting of strip searches in Victoria. Staff were unfamiliar with human rights standards and prisons did not properly investigate complaints about inappropriate searches.

The general manager of Port Phillip Prison was reported to have said strip searches were “one of the options available to assert control” over people in prison. Reports from other states tell the same story of unlawful searches being used to degrade and humiliate prisoners.

Under both the Victorian human rights charter and international law, people in prison are entitled to the same human rights as those outside of prison. This includes a right to privacy, including bodily and psychological autonomy, and to be treated with humanity and respect.

International law dictates that, given the harmful impact of strip searches, alternatives such as x-ray scanners should instead be used in prisons.

Independent scrutiny of human rights in prisons is also vital, including preventive oversight under the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). Australia has ratified this protocol, but has missed the January 20, 2022, deadline to meet its obligations to set up an independent oversight system of places of detention.

Strip searches are inherently harmful

There is evidence Aboriginal people are subjected to disproportionate rates of strip searching. Many Aboriginal people who are incarcerated have disabilities and histories of trauma. Strip searches can compound this trauma and impede a person’s ability to recover and heal.

In a 2016 Four Corners episode, entitled Australia’s Shame, footage was shown of a young Aboriginal child in the Northern Territory being stripped naked. This horrified Australians and led to a royal commission.

Years later, however, it is still lawful in Victoria and other states and territories to subject Aboriginal children to traumatic strip searches.

The evidence is indisputable – strip searches do not work, are inherently harmful, and disproportionately impact Aboriginal people.

Rather than persist with this archaic practice, all Australian governments must end the use of strip searches.

Andreea Lachsz is the Head of Policy, Communications and Strategy at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

Sarah is a Senior Lawyer / Advocate at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) and represented VALS in the Court of Appeal matter of Thompson v Minogue, referred to in this article.

– ref. Strip searches in prison are traumatising breaches of human rights. So, why are governments still allowing them? – https://theconversation.com/strip-searches-in-prison-are-traumatising-breaches-of-human-rights-so-why-are-governments-still-allowing-them-174463

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

In case you missed it, election season is upon us again. Like the elongated summers caused by climate change, campaigning is intensifying and being spread over longer periods every election.

Although polling day is not due until May, this year’s campaign kicked off nine months out with billionaire Clive Palmer’s plunge into spam texts, and big spending on YouTube ads and billboards.

Campaigning may be well under way, but the rules governing the election are still being finessed. Some of this is administrative and technological, such as tweaks to ensure COVID-safe voting at polling places.

However, in the past week, a more substantial campaigning bill sailed through parliament. Its title, the Electoral Amendment (Foreign Influences and Offences) Bill 2022, is clunky, but suggestive.

The bill creates several new offences, limiting “foreign” persons or entities from fundraising for or directly spending on electioneering – or even authorising electoral matter – to influence a Commonwealth election.

This new law has received minimal attention. Aside from a commentary piece by a Liberal MP, there’s been scant reporting or analysis.

Instead, it has been subsumed by concerns over foreign interference or disinformation campaigns in the upcoming federal election. These concerns were amplified by revelations about alleged Chinese attempts to inject funding into the Australian political system.

The Morrison government has sought to leverage the heightened tensions by claiming “Beijing backs Labor”. In response, the head of ASIO warned against politicising the issue. Any risk of inappropriate overseas influence in the election affects all sides.

What the new law will do

The new “foreign influences” bill was hurried through the Senate at the end of last week, then passed the House on Wednesday. Unlike almost all electoral reforms, it was not subject to committee, let alone public, scrutiny.

This suggests both major parties are genuinely concerned about beefing up the law or at least sending a strong signal against overseas assistance to Australian parties, candidates or electoral lobby groups that may hope to benefit from it.

The bill builds on existing offences against “foreign” donations to parties, MPs or electoral lobby groups in Australia, which were enacted after long debate in 2018. These already cover gifts on behalf of a “foreign” donor to candidates – the alleged scheme recently involving Chinese money and potential Labor candidates.

Read more:
Federal government’s foreign donations bill is flawed and needs to be redrafted

“Foreign” is a slippery concept, and not easy to define. This is a reason why the bill needed more debate – and may be partly unconstitutional.

In our electoral act, the term “foreign” covers overseas governments or corporations, as well as any non-citizen, either in Australia or overseas. These include some refugees and those in Australia on working or business visas (however long-term), but not permanent residents.

Of course, such foreigners cannot vote in our elections. And the 2018 ban on these individuals donating to electoral campaigns was sensible.

Yet, the new law now threatens fines of up to $26,000 for merely authorising election material. This would include small things like pamphlets, or YouTube content that costs any money to produce.

Many of the guest workers we rely on to work on farms or in the hospitality industry face objectively poor conditions and legal rights. Under this new law, they are permitted to contribute to discussion of these issues, but would be prohibited from trying to sway Australians to vote to address them.

On its face, this breaches freedom of political communication. This freedom is not an individual right, it’s a collective ideal. Its rationale is to ensure we, as an electorate and society, can be informed about politics and government.

Limits on this freedom of political communication have to be proportionate or the High Court can strike them down.

Read more:
The NSW political donations case: the implied freedom of political communication strikes again (after 21 years)

More systemic issues to worry about

For over a century, Australian law accepted foreign influence in our politics. A British lord tipped $1 million into Liberal Party coffers before the 2004 election. US agencies have helped fund liberty-oriented expression.

Some argue that because goods and finance flow easily internationally, and problems like climate change and pandemics know no borders, foreign influence is not only unavoidable but essential. We live in an integrated world, where interests are intermingled.

Some say these laws are xenophobic against China. But we should be concerned about Chinese influence, due to its sheer size, resources, and opaque and unaccountable system of government.

The bigger problem is we have been focusing on the mote of foreign influence, without addressing the beam in our eye – the broader systemic weakness of our political finance regime.

Read more:
$177 million flowed to Australian political parties last year, but major donors can easily hide

Our national election act, despite years of debate, still lacks expenditure limits and donation limits. The US, UK, New Zealand, Canada and most Australian states have one or both of these limits. Capping campaign spending helps maintain political equality, while capping donations inhibits those who would give big, behind the scenes, to buy political influence.

Nor do we regulate misleading political ads at the national level.

Foreign money and disinformation is a worry. But even more so are the much larger sources of both, generated entirely inside the country.

In 2019, for instance, Palmer spent a record-shattering $83 million to influence the federal election. Parliament had three years to fix this problem. It didn’t; now we get to relive it.

Graeme Orr has received ARC grant funding in the past to research electoral law and work with electoral commissions. He is currently an expert member of the NSW iVote Panel. He also gives pro bono advice to groups lobbying for reform of electoral law.

– ref. Stronger laws on ‘foreign’ election influence were rushed through this week – limiting speech but ignoring our billionaire problem – https://theconversation.com/stronger-laws-on-foreign-election-influence-were-rushed-through-this-week-limiting-speech-but-ignoring-our-billionaire-problem-177147

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gemma Carey, Professor, UNSW Sydney

Newly released Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data show people living in poverty or disadvantage are three times more likely to die from COVID than the wealthy.

This statistic is alarming, but it gets worse when we begin to look more closely at particular communities.

ABS data show the rate of death from COVID for people living in Australia who were born overseas was almost three times more than those born in Australia when standardised for age (6.8 deaths per 100,000 vs 2.3 deaths).

The rate of death from COVID for people living in Australia from the Middle East was over 12 times that of people born in Australia (29.3 people per 100,000).

These statistics are damning. They tell us you’re more likely to survive COVID if you were born here, grew up speaking and reading English, are educated, and earn a good income.

They undermine the idea that Australia has good quality universal health care that has been accessible during the pandemic.

Poverty makes you sick

Most health problems, and the care needed to address them, follow what we call “the social gradient”.

This term is shorthand for the idea that those with the most resources – be it money or education – have better health and get better treatment than those with fewer resources.

In short, poverty makes you sick. It does this by limiting your access to services and supports, through money or other factors such as the type of job you work.

People at the “lower end” of the social gradient also tend to receive poorer quality health care.

Unfortunately, this social gradient is now clear in the data on Australian COVID deaths.

For example, some people from Middle Eastern countries and other migrant or refugee communities have poorer employment conditions, such as janitorial jobs in hospitals. These jobs expose people to COVID, who then bring the virus home. They have also needed to keep working in these high risk jobs throughout the pandemic so they can afford basic living costs like food and rent.

There are also major barriers to medical care for, and information about, COVID for particular communities. During the Delta variant wave in Victoria and New South Wales, we saw this result in people from refugee and migrant backgrounds dying at home before receiving any medical care for COVID.

Authorities attributed this to a reluctance to seek health care. This reluctance can stem from a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate health care communication and services.

Read more:
Using military language and presence might not be the best approach to COVID and public health

Many people also distrust authorities, including the police and army, due to experiences in people’s home countries. Being scared of authorities is a legitimate fear when you have come from a country where authorities may kill you.

This has been exacerbated by governments in Australia choosing to “police” the pandemic. Large fines were threatened to people who broke COVID public health orders.

This fear of fines and authorities likely contributed to a reluctance to seek medical care, and in turn more deaths. And messaging around authoritarian approaches to those who break COVID health orders are likely to have exacerbated this.

Many have also been excluded from government support.

Australian governments and health services have been failing parts of our community, from those with low incomes to people from non-English speaking backgrounds.

What can we do right now?

There are a range of actions we can take to rectify the high rates of death amongst refugee and migrant communities.

Policy wise, the federal government could extend access to Medicare and social safety net support for people experiencing issues with temporary visas, such as asylum seekers living in the community who are appealing a decision on a visa application, and are not eligible for Medicare. Adding specific Medicare items for refugees and migrants may also encourage more culturally and linguisticaly inclusive medical care in the health system.

These changes would help provide more affordable, accessible and inclusive health care, particularly for asylum seekers and refugees dealing with visa issues, and help prevent loss of life.

Governments should also involve refugee and migrant communities in the development and implementation of actions to reduce COVID deaths. Communities know what they need in a crisis – we need to find new ways of listening. A top-down, middle class response to a pandemic will create services and supports that only work for the middle class.

It’s vital we look to the evidence of what may best help refugee and migrant communities reduce the risk of infection, involve them meaningfully in this process, and sharpen our focus on making life in Australia fairer, more inclusive and, hopefully, safer for all.

What has to happen next?

Currently, there are major gaps in understanding what may best support refugee and migrant communities to reduce the risk of infection and harm from COVID.

More research is needed. However that research needs to be led by peers in communities and be easy to access and participate in. In other words, we cannot repeat the mistake of creating approaches that work for just the middle class.

Best practice tells us multiple forms of research are required, and in culturally and linguistically inclusive ways.

Read more:
The real challenge to COVID-19 vaccination rates isn’t hesitancy — it’s equal access for Māori and Pacific people

Survey-based research must be conducted in hospitals, health centres and other clinical environments to understand how barriers to medical care and information for COVID can be addressed to better meet the needs of people from refugee and migrant communities. The research could identify more culturally inclusive ways of managing vaccinations, testing and recovery from virus symptoms.

This must be backed up by in-depth research to explore the experiences of a diverse range of communities. Just as disadvantaged groups are not all alike, neither are refugee and migrant communities (despite being commonly lumped under the term “culturally and linguisticaly diverse”).

Communities who are recently arrived or longer settled – all from different countries – have different needs.

We need more listening, and less punitive approaches.

Ben O’Mara has previously received funding from VicHealth, the Department of Heath and Ageing and the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. O’Mara also works as an Adjunct Fellow at Swinburne University and he is the Information Resources Manager at Motor Neurone Disease Australia.

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

– ref. Australia is failing marginalised people, and it shows in COVID death rates – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-failing-marginalised-people-and-it-shows-in-covid-death-rates-177224

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By K M Shahunja, PhD candidate, The University of Queensland

One in every nine people in Australia has asthma. It is a health burden for many children, and expensive for families because of medication, hospital and out-of-hospital expenses.

The pandemic has added further stress and extra testing measures to check respiratory symptoms. COVID infection can co-exist with asthma and, although research shows allergic asthma does not increase the risk of COVID infection and death, keeping asthma symptoms under control remains important.

At home, tobacco smoke, pollen, mould, dust, pet dander and harmful gases can initiate or worsen asthma symptoms. Our recent study – a review and analysis of Australian research – identifies the most significant culprits. Passive smoking, synthetic pillows or quilts, and gas heating in your house are the most frequently identified triggers for the highest rates of asthma in the home. Preventing these common household environmental factors could better control asthma.

Read more:
We expected people with asthma to fare worse during COVID. Turns out they’ve had a break

Nasties in the home

Prior research reports various environmental factors can trigger asthma symptoms. But the relevant factors and the size of the effect varies widely in different countries and populations. Knowing the most common environmental triggers that can initiate asthma symptoms in Australia can help us tailor prevention strategies.

We examined the evidence based on the research conducted in Australia to determine significant family environmental factors associated with asthma. We looked at 56 studies that involved 137,840 people in Australia. The combined data confirm passive smoking, synthetic bedding and gas heating in households are significant triggering factors for asthma symptoms. These household features are noted in more homes where people have asthma and need more asthma treatment.

Being around smokers, such as at home or in the workplace is the most commonly reported indoor exposure for people with asthma. Breathing in smoke disrupts normal lung and immune system development and causes airway irritation. This can lead to asthma symptoms and other lung diseases. The main sources of secondhand smoke in Australia were identified as smoking by a parent or other family member at home and by colleagues in the workplace. Children were the main victims of secondhand smoke, exposed to their parents’ smoking – especially mothers – at home.

Read more:
We boosted babies’ immune systems and it protected them from serious lung infections: new research

Bedding and heating

The second most commonly reported household trigger was bedding from unnatural fibres, such as microfibre, nylon or acrylic materials. Synthetic bedding items have higher house dust mite allergen levels than feather-bedding items.

They also increase exposure to volatile organic chemicals. These are gases emitted from certain solids and liquids found in many household products. These gases can accumulate in higher concentrations inside and cause health problems.

Synthetic pillows are also more likely to trap cat and dog allergens than feather pillows. The firmer weave of feather pillows makes them a more protective barrier to allergens that could otherwise lead to respiratory irritation. Households of children prone to asthma or allergies should pay extra attention to the bedding they choose.

Finally, both flued and unflued gas heaters can emit nitrogen dioxide gas that can irritate the respiratory tract and trigger asthma symptoms. It’s better to get rid of gas heaters or heating systems, if possible, in households where asthma is an issue.

Read more:
Gas cooking is associated with worsening asthma in kids. But proper ventilation helps

Asthma risks we can control

Our research shows the importance of emphasising prevention of some common family environmental factors to prevent asthma symptoms. These factors may remain less acknowledged despite their notorious effect on asthma.

The scientific evidence that shows active tobacco smoking is detrimental for asthma control is well understood by the general public. But people may be less aware of the effect of passive smoking on asthma.

There is also scope to build awareness around gas heaters and synthetic bedding as asthma triggers. These environmental factors lurking in homes should be better communicated to families who could be affected, especially in a country where asthma is a major public health problem. Elimination of these factors may help control asthma symptoms and reduce COVID testing during the pandemic.

Read more:
Air pollution: over three billion people breathe harmful air inside their own homes

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

– ref. Passive smoking, synthetic bedding and gas heating in homes show the strongest links to asthma – https://theconversation.com/passive-smoking-synthetic-bedding-and-gas-heating-in-homes-show-the-strongest-links-to-asthma-176677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Starling, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Sydney

The recent ABC TV series Muster Dogs has brought into sharp focus the incredible skills of our working stock dogs.

It’s not just their sensitivity to livestock movement that makes them so good at what they do.

They are also agile endurance athletes that can work long hours in very hot conditions. During peak times, working kelpies have been recorded travelling over 60km just in one work day.

There are dog breeds all over the world that have been selectively bred over many generations to work with stock. That selective breeding has shaped them to be best suited to the specific environment they work in and the style of work they are required to do.

If you’re interested in the history, traits and skills of these amazing dogs – and perhaps have wondered about owning one yourself – here’s what you need to know.

Read more:
How hot is too hot? Here’s how to tell if your dog is suffering during the summer heat

Shaped for Australian conditions

The Australian Working Kelpie was shaped for Australian conditions to use what’s known as a “strong-eyed style” of herding, which is to adopt a low posture and use eye-stalking (keeping its eyes fixed on the livestock) to track the herd’s movement. The Border collie also uses this style.

They control the movement of the herd with exquisite sensitivity with their overall presence.

Their behaviour includes that characteristic stalking posture with head and body low, and quiet, controlled steps.

This is how a predator would approach a herd of prey animals if it were hunting.

The strong-eyed herding dog stalks, stares, holds position, and rushes; it is not just where they are that controls the herd, but what they are doing.

Most other herding breeds have a looser style of herding, where they work with their heads up and use their body position to influence the movement of the herd.

Herding dogs that use eye-stalking also often work the front of the herd, turning it towards the handler. The looser style herding dogs tend to drive the herd from the rear.

Bred for bravery

Australian Working Kelpies were developed from British farm collies in the late 1800’s.

Some claim there is dingo infused in the breed to add resilience, but this remains subject to debate.

Signals of selection in the Australian Working Kelpie DNA suggest one very important trait is the ability to withstand prickly terrain; a working dog that cannot ignore burrs and spines to continue working is of little use to the farmer.

Other traits prized by the handlers are bravery and a level head. In other words, a dog that doesn’t panic under pressure.

Unlike many other herding breeds, the Kelpie is often asked to work independently from the handler and to think for itself.

Owning a working dog

Working breeds can be very rewarding canine companions for people that don’t have stock for them to work. But prospective owners need to understand the selective breeding that makes these dogs so good at herding can also make them a handful in a suburban setting.

They are of course extremely active; most need a few hours of high intensity exercise a day just to keep them from destroying the home and yard when they are young.

They are also highly alert and often extremely aroused by movement. The faster and more chaotic the movement, the more powerfully they are drawn to control that movement as they would a herd.

This can make playing with kids, ball games, bikes and skateboards, and even encountering other dogs in the dog park a real challenge.

Working breeds also sometimes have a tendency to rush in and bark at an object that is bothering them, just as they would rush and bark at cattle looking to break away from the herd.

Some good lessons for owners

The television program Muster Dogs presented some core messages applicable to any pet dog, as well as working dogs that are pets at home. These include:

1. Early exposure

Ensuring puppies have positive experiences with stimuli they’ll encounter often in life early is crucial. They must be taught to accept activities they need to be tolerant of, and be comfortable with handling and restraining themselves.

2. Responsiveness

The owner must build strong foundations in the areas of coming when called, staying close while off leash, and maintaining a connection with the handler even around distractions.

3. Impulse control

This is particularly important for working dogs keen to participate in exciting activities. In fact, all dogs can benefit from learning to control their impulses and not chase, jump up, or use their mouth every time the urge takes them.

It takes a special kind of dog to be able to face animals 20 or more times their size that can easily cause them serious damage.

To do it all day in the hot and rough terrain of inland Australia takes a dog with a tremendous desire to work.

This should never be forgotten by those of us living in more comfortable environments when we think we want a working dog to accompany us through our suburban lives.

Read more:
At home with your dog? 3 ways to connect and lift your spirits

Melissa Starling owns an animal behaviour consulting business called Creature Teacher.

Claire Wade has previously received funding from the Working Kelpie Council of Australia. She is affiliated with the Royal NSW Canine Health and Welfare Charity.

– ref. A strong-eyed style: what makes Australian muster dogs unique – https://theconversation.com/a-strong-eyed-style-what-makes-australian-muster-dogs-unique-177143

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Wardlaw, Research Associate, University of Tasmania

Southern Tasmania’s tall eucalyptus forests are exceptionally good at taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into wood.

For many years, we have believed these forests had a reasonable buffer of safety from climate change, due to the cool, moist environment.

Unfortunately, my research published today shows these forests are closer to the edge than we had hoped. I found during heatwaves, these forests switch from taking in carbon to pumping it back out.

That’s not good news, given heatwaves are only expected to increase as the world heats up. While we work to slash emissions, we need to explore ways to make these vital forests more resilient.

From carbon dioxide in to carbon out

It’s well established from forest sampling that moist, cool environments like southern Tasmania provide ideal growing conditions for tall eucalypt forests.

We had believed these types of forests would have a buffer against the worst effects of climate change to come, and perhaps even benefit from limited warming.

But this is no longer the case.

I monitored what happened to a messmate stringybark (Eucalyptus obliqua) forest during a three week heatwave in November 2017. Under these conditions, the forest became a net source of carbon dioxide, with each hectare releasing close to 10 tonnes of the greenhouse gas over that period.

A year earlier during more normal conditions, the forest was a net sink for carbon dioxide, taking in around 3.5 tonnes per hectare.

How can we know this? The forest I studied is at the Warra Supersite in the upper reaches of the Huon Valley, one of 16 intensive ecosystem monitoring field stations making up Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network.

Instruments mounted on an 80-metre-tall tower at Warra give us great insight into how the forest is behaving. We can measure how much, and how quickly, carbon dioxide, water and energy shuttle between the forest and the atmosphere.

Read more:
Australian forests will store less carbon as climate change worsens and severe fires become more common

So what actually happened in the forest during the hot spell? Two crucial things.

The first was that the forest breathed out more carbon dioxide. This was expected, because living cells in all air-breathing lifeforms (yes, this includes trees)
respire more as temperatures warm.

But the second was very unexpected. The forest’s ability to photosynthesise fell, meaning less solar energy was converted to sugars. This took place while the trees were transpiring (releasing water vapour) rapidly.

Until now, we’ve seen falls in photosynthesis output in heatwaves because the trees are trying to limit their water loss. They can do this by closing their pores on their leaves (stomata). When a tree closes its stomata, it makes it harder for carbon dioxide in air to enter the leaves and fuel the photosynthesis process.

By contrast, this heatwave saw trees releasing water and producing less food at the same time.

So what’s going on? In short, the temperatures were simply too hot for the forests in southern Tasmania. Every forest has an ideal temperature to get the best results from photosynthesis. We now know this temperature in Australia is linked to the historic climate of the local area.

That means the trees at Warra require lower temperatures to optimally feed themselves, compared to most other Australian forests.

During the 2017 heatwave, the temperatures soared well outside the forest’s comfort zone. In the hottest part of the day, the forest was no longer able to make enough food to feed itself.

Outside the forest’s comfort zone

For now, the forest at Warra is still intact. After the heatwave, the messmate stringybark forest quickly recovered its ability to feed itself, and became a carbon sink again.

But as the world warms, these forests will be pushed outside their comfort zones more and more. They can only endure so many of these kinds of heatwaves. If they keep coming, there will be a tipping point beyond which the forest can no longer recover.

What then? We can see a disturbing glimpse when we look at Tasmania’s oceans, which are a marine heatwave hotspot. Fully 95% of Tasmania’s giant kelp forests are now gone, killed off by temperatures beyond their ability to tolerate.

It is no exaggeration to say that the rapid increase in temperatures are the most serious threat to the health of tall eucalypt forests I’ve encountered during 40 years of studying forest health and threats in Tasmania.

Unlike the kelp forests, our tall eucalyptus forests have not yet hit their tipping point. We still have time to lessen the risk global heating poses.

Read more:
Can selective breeding of ‘super kelp’ save our cold water reefs from hotter seas?

There is already work under way to test promising new methods for making future forests better able to cope with the new climate they find themselves in.

These techniques include climate adjusted provenancing, where forest managers sow seeds of local species collected from areas at the hotter end of their range. Another being tried for giant kelp is finding individual plants with better heat tolerance and breeding them.

Our eucalyptus forests will need our help, more and more. The better engaged and informed we are about the risks to forests we long thought were highly resilient, the likelier we will be to be able to preserve them.

One way we could do this is by making our monitoring data publicly accessible in real time, so we can grasp the strain our forests are under as the world warms.

Tim Wardlaw is affiliated with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network.

– ref. In heatwave conditions, Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests no longer absorb carbon – https://theconversation.com/in-heatwave-conditions-tasmanias-tall-eucalypt-forests-no-longer-absorb-carbon-176979

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brock Bastian, Professor, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Have you looked at the international rankings of the world’s happiest countries lately?

Measuring a country’s subjective levels of happiness has become something of an international sport. People look with interest (and a little jealousy) to nations such as Denmark, which consistently tops the world happiness rankings.

It has also led to Danish practices such as the “hygge” lifestyle gaining popularity elsewhere. If only we could add more cosiness to our lives, perhaps we would be as happy as the Danish!

But is living in one of the worlds happiest nations all it’s cracked up to be? What happens if you struggle to find or maintain happiness in a sea of (supposedly) happy people?

In our new research, published in Scientific Reports, we found that in countries which rank the highest in national happiness, people are also more likely to experience poor well-being due to the societal pressure to be happy.

So living in happier countries may be good for many. But for some, it can end up feeling like too much to live up to, and have the opposite effect.

Broadening our search

For several years, my colleagues and I have been researching the social pressure people may feel to experience positive emotions and avoid negative ones.

This pressure is also communicated to us through channels such as social media, self-help books and advertising. Eventually people develop a sense of what kinds of emotion are valued (or not valued) by those around them.

Read more:
So many in the West are depressed because they’re expected not to be

In an ironic twist, our past research has shown that the more people experience pressure to feel happy and not sad, the more they tend to experience depression.

While this previous research has mostly focused on people living in Australia or the United States, we were curious about how these effects might also be evident in other countries.

For our latest study we surveyed 7,443 people from 40 countries on their emotional well-being, satisfaction with life (cognitive well-being) and mood complaints (clinical well-being). We then weighed this against their perception of social pressure to feel positive.

What we found confirmed our previous findings. Worldwide, when people report feeling pressure to experience happiness and avoid sadness, they tend to experience deficits in mental health.

That is, they experience lower satisfaction with their lives, more negative emotion, less positive emotion and higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress.

Interestingly, our global sample allowed us to go beyond our prior work and examine whether there were differences in this relationship across countries. Are there some countries in which this relationship is especially strong? And if so, why might that be?

Not a uniform problem

To investigate this, we obtained data for each of the 40 counties from the World Happiness Index, collected by the Gallup World Poll. This index is based on the subjective happiness ratings of large-scale nationally representative samples.

It allowed us to determine how the overall happiness of a nation, and therefore the social pressure on individuals to be happy, might influence individuals’ well-being.

We found the relationship did indeed change, and was stronger in countries that ranked more highly on the World Happiness Index. That is, in countries such as Denmark, the social pressure some people felt to be happy was especially predictive of poor mental health.

That’s not to say on average people are not happier in those countries – apparently they are – but that for those who already feel a great deal of pressure to keep their chin up, living in happier nations can lead to poorer well-being.

Why might this be the case? We reasoned that being surrounded by a sea of happy faces may aggravate the effects of already feeling socially pressured to be happy.

Of course, signs of others’ happiness are not limited to the explicit expression of happiness, but are also evident in other more subtle cues, such as having more social contact or engaging in pleasurable activities. These signals tend to be stronger in happier countries, ratcheting up the effects of social expectations.

In these countries, feeling happy can easily be viewed as the expected norm. This adds to the social pressure people feel to adhere to this norm, and exacerbates the fallout for those who fail to achieve it.

What’s the solution?

So what can we do? At a personal level, feeling and expressing happiness is a good thing. But as other research has found, it’s sometimes good to be sensitive about how our expression of positive emotion may affect others.

While it’s good to bring happiness and positivity to our interactions, it’s also good to know when to tone it down – and avoid alienating those who may not share our joy in the moment.

More broadly, perhaps it’s time to rethink how we measure national well-being. We already know that flourishing in life isn’t just about positive emotion, but also about responding well to negative emotion, finding value in discomfort, and focusing on other factors such as meaning and interpersonal connection.

Perhaps it’s time to rank countries not only by how happy they are, but how safe and open they are to the full range of human experiences.

Read more:
How to avoid ‘toxic positivity’ and take the less direct route to happiness

Brock Bastian receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Research finds countries that focus the most on happiness can end up making people feel worse – https://theconversation.com/research-finds-countries-that-focus-the-most-on-happiness-can-end-up-making-people-feel-worse-177323

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Alidoust, Lecturer in Planning, The University of Queensland

The severe lack of affordable housing is hurting Australians right across the community – from young renters, to families seeking to buy and older people needing a stable home.

The number of Australians over 55 who are homeless jumped by 28% between the 2011 and 2016 censuses.

An increasing lack of affordable housing is forcing some older people to take unconventional approaches to finding a home. One of these is house-sitting.

My new research published in Australian Geographer, looks at how this works – and how it doesn’t – for this often-vulnerable group.

What is house-sitting?

In exchange for free accommodation, house-sitters take care of the house (and garden and pets), while the owner is away. House-sitting episodes can be as short as one day to more than three years.

House-sitters use different methods to find a potential house-sitting property. Most rely on house-sitting websites and specific Facebook groups. Some people also find house-sitting opportunities through referrals and repeat bookings.

Our study

In the first analysis of its kind, a colleague and I interviewed 20 Australians between 53 and 78, who had been house-sitting for more than a year.

Read more:
‘I tell everyone I love being on my own, but I hate it’: what older Australians want you to know about loneliness

Half our interviewees had permanent housing (either rental or owned) and were mainly casual house-sitters. The remaining were house-sitting full-time and had no permanent address.

We asked people about their experiences as older house-sitters and the impact of this type of housing on their well-being.

A temporary relief from rental stress

Almost half of the house-sitters we interviewed reported financial issues, such as unemployment, unstable or low-paid jobs and unaffordable housing as the main reason for starting house-sitting. Relationship breakdown that left people without a secure housing was the second most common reason.

They told us house-sitting provided temporary relief from the high and unrelenting costs of paying rent. As one interviewee noted:

It [house-sitting] is pretty essential, where would we live otherwise? So, we did rent for a little while, but money is an issue, because I am not earning enough yet to be paying rent […] [It] just happens to be a really good solution to the situation that we happen to be in.

In turn, this freed up funds to spend on other things, such as their health and social life.

My husband gets his pension this year. So, [if we house-sit] it means that we will actually have an income, which means in theory we might actually save some money.

Less common reasons for starting house-sitting included free accommodation for travelling and spending time with animals.

‘Gorgeous pets’

Apart from saving money, interviewees described multiple benefits of house-sitting. The majority referred to the opportunity to travel and experience different places.

Participants also appreciated the opportunity to live in pleasant houses and meet new people. They liked the freedom, variety and “getting rid of unnecessary stuff”.

As one interviewee noted:

we were able to live in some beautiful homes and with gorgeous pets.

But not feeling secure

However, house-sitting, was not seen as a long-term option. Interviewees were concerned about the lack of security and increasing health needs as they aged.

Well, for short stays and holidays this [house-sitting] is viable, but for long-term you need to have plan B and C. As you see when COVID struck, it affected many people and some are staying in their cars even.

Most sitters also found the temporary, short-term nature of house-sitting made it difficult to engage in the local community and develop a sense of belonging.

You might make temporary friends, but then you move on and leave the community.

Constant moving around also makes it hard to acquire local knowledge, which is particularly important in unforeseen circumstances, such as natural disasters. As one interviewee explained:

It was quite scary in the bushfire […] when suddenly you need to know […] where to go, where’s the evacuation centre […] If I was at home in my own place, I might be talking to friends or neighbours and making decisions together but […] the loneliness becomes obvious when something like that happens.

Lack of transparency

A further issue is the power imbalance. House-sitters have few, if any rights – home owners have ultimate control over their properties. House-sitters referred to a range of challenges because of the lack of clear agreement between parties.

Read more:
What sort of housing do older Australians want and where do they want to live?

These included disputes over the cost of housing repairs and disagreement on the property status when departing, such as how clean the house and how tidy garden should be.

Unexpected changes or cancellation of the house-sitting schedules by owners also contributed to feelings of insecurity and distress among older house-sitters.

Making house-sitting more stable

House-sitting may not yet be a widespread practice, but it is growing. As it gains more prominence, we need transparent policies to specify the rights and entitlements of owners and sitters and address the inherent power imbalance.

We also need to investigate ways of making house-sitting a more secure proposition for people in the longer-term.

And to prioritise informed discussions about secure housing options for people as they age.

This work was supported by The School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland.

– ref. ‘Where would we live otherwise?’: the rise of house-sitting among older Australians – https://theconversation.com/where-would-we-live-otherwise-the-rise-of-house-sitting-among-older-australians-173984

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Wong, Lecturer/Research Fellow in Psychology, Flinders University

Many of us will have experienced some unexpected honesty from the older people in our lives. Whether it’s grandma telling you your outfit is unflattering or grandpa saying he doesn’t like the meal you’ve prepared, we often explain it away by saying “Oh, don’t mind grandpa, he’s just lost his filter”.

But do we really have a “filter”, and do we lose it as we get older?

What do we mean when we say ‘filter’?

When someone has no “filter”, it means they say things without thinking about their audience. They may blurt out something rude, inappropriate, or unkind, without considering the likely consequences.

“Filters” are an important part of our everyday social interactions. A brief Monday morning chat with your boss is more complex than it may seem. For example, you might stop yourself from telling them they smell awful after their morning bike ride into the office and should’ve showered before your meeting. You might consider telling them about the fungal infection you discovered on your toenail over the weekend but decide against it. Of course, what you do or do not say also depends on how well you know them and what’s considered socially acceptable in your workplace.

Your “filter” relies on cognitive processes such as inhibitory control, which stops you from saying the first thing that pops into your mind. It also relies on social cognition, which refers to the ability to understand and predict other people’s behaviours, thoughts, and intentions. This helps us to recognise what behaviour is appropriate in a particular social setting and to adapt our behaviour based on this.

The prefrontal cortex, which is located within the frontal lobes of our brains, acts as our “filter”, helping us say and do things in a socially appropriate way. When this part of the brain isn’t functioning properly, we might act as though we’ve lost our “filter”.

Read more:
Five common myths about the ageing brain and body

What happens to our ‘filter’ as we age?

As we get older, our brains start to shrink. This is a normal part of the ageing process known as brain atrophy. It affects how well our brain cells can communicate with one another. Importantly, brain atrophy doesn’t happen to all areas of the brain at once. It is particularly noticeable in the frontal lobes.

Researchers have linked age-related shrinking in the frontal lobes with declines in inhibitory control and social cognition. Studies have also found older adults respond differently to socially awkward situations than younger adults.

For example, older adults have more difficulty recognising when someone’s said something embarrassing or tactless, and show poorer understanding of sarcasm.

So as we get older, normal ageing processes in our brains may make it much easier for things to slip out through our “filters”.

Read more:
What’s happening in our bodies as we age?

What if it’s more than just a few slip-ups?

In some rare cases, losing your “filter” can be a sign of something more serious, such as damage to the frontal lobes due to a brain injury or stroke, or a neurodegenerative condition such as frontotemporal dementia.

People with frontotemporal dementia present with striking changes in their personality and social behaviour. This could involve losing their normal inhibitions, disregarding social conventions and other socially inappropriate or embarrassing behaviour.

However, these changes are completely out of character and are typically accompanied by other symptoms such as rigidity, loss of empathy, apathy, difficulties with reasoning and judgement, overeating or unusual food preferences and declines in self-care and personal hygiene.

Read more:
Explainer: how is frontotemporal dementia different and what are the warning signs?

What other things could be at play?

Aside from changes in the brain that impact inhibitory control and social cognition, it could simply be that as we get older, we care less about what others think.

Compared to younger adults, older adults are less self-conscious, reporting fewer experiences of emotions such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. They also have higher overall levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

Perhaps we learn to let go of our “filters” and embrace the social awkwardness as we get older. Perhaps grandpa really didn’t like your cooking, and feels secure enough to tell you.

So, what does this mean for those of us who seem to be losing our “filter”?

Based on what we know about the brain and ageing, blurting out a remark without thinking isn’t necessarily something to be alarmed about. And if you’re on the receiving end, try not to take it too personally. If these remarks seem out of character or extreme, however, consider raising this with other family members or a doctor.

Stephanie Wong receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

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

– ref. Do we really ‘lose our filter’ as we age? – https://theconversation.com/do-we-really-lose-our-filter-as-we-age-176248

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melanie Baak, Senior Lecturer, UniSA Education Futures, University of South Australia

After August 2012, the Australian government introduced “deterrence policies” for asylum seekers who arrive here by boat. Part of this is keeping them on temporary visas and giving them almost no feasible pathway to permanent residency.

Many linger in detention centres, while others who may be in community detention still face constraints on their freedoms. Many live below the poverty line and suffer significant mental health issues. They are also locked out of many education opportunities.

Temporary visas for asylum seekers include:

• temporary protection visas (TPV), granted for three years. Holders can work, access Medicare and some social security payments

• safe haven enterprise visas (SHEV). These are granted for five years and require holders to work or study in a part of regional Australia. At the end of five years, SHEV holders may apply for a permanent visa

• bridging visas (BV). Holders can live in the community but don’t receive housing support and have limited other supports.

One of the possible pathways to transition from a SHEV to a permanent visa is having been enrolled in full-time study in a designated regional area for at least three and a half years. This makes education a crucial pathway to staying in Australia, as well as to employment.

Read more:
Asylum seekers left ‘desperate’ and ‘helpless’ when they try to find work in Australia

Education also provides opportunities to learn and develop English, interact with the broader community and develop skills and qualifications.

But asylum seekers have no way of paying the international fees required to study at a university, and those still at school can’t stay there after they turn 18. There are no known cases of people successfully meeting the criteria to transition from a SHEV to a permanent visa.

How asylum seeker students are locked out

We are conducting an ongoing study which investigates how schools foster resilience in refugee students.

All children aged under 18 on temporary visas can go to school. But once they turn 18, they can no longer get government-funded schooling, even if they have not finished school.

A school leader told us that once students turned 18

[…] The department would not fund them. If the school wanted to keep them it would be at the school’s cost and we’d have to write a very compelling statement about why they should stay.

This particular school advocated for the around 20 students who were affected, and they were able to stay at the school. But new students aged over 18 were not allowed to enrol.

Read more:
Refugee students struggle with displacement and trauma. Here are 3 ways schools can help them belong

For other schools in our study without the knowledge and ability to advocate, students had to leave high school. Beyond being deprived of the opportunity to finish school, it is even more difficult for students on temporary visas to attend university.

A recent publication by Deakin University contains a case study of Hadi, a student from Afghanistan on a temporary visa. Hadi says:

[…] the fear of not being able to study at university would always keep me up at night. My teachers were also concerned because I was categorised as an international student and I was not eligible for a government funded place at university.

The exact number of students impacted by these preventative policies is not known. But those who gain admission to a university would have to pay around $30-40,000 per year. This is unaffordable for them.

A school finance officer from a school participating in our study said:

[Students on protection visas] come to us for education. We want to do our bit and then they finish with us and they achieve an ATAR that’s got value for a university. And then the university says well we can’t take you unless we treat you like an international student. They just can’t do that.

What universities are doing

Twenty-five Australian universities and one other higher education provider offer scholarships for students on temporary visas. These generally cover the tuition fee and some universities provide a stipend. There are about 15 universities without such scholarships.

Deakin University, for example, provides a Deakin Sanctuary Scholarship to successful applicants holding a TPV, SHEV or relevant BV. This covers 100% of tuition fees and provides recipients with $6,000 per year towards study expenses.

The University of Adelaide provides an annual Refugee and Humanitarian Scholarship to TPV, SHEV or relevant BV holders. This also covers 100% of tuition fees and gives recipients a one-off $2,500 payment.

Scholarship holders at University of Adelaide are restricted in the undergraduate programs they can undertake and cannot pursue degrees such as medicine, dentistry, occupational therapies, as well as double or combined degrees.

A South Australian school principal in our study told us these scholarships weren’t easy to get:

When they get to the end of school you sometimes watch that fall apart a little because their options are very limited beyond school. They can’t afford university. We hear talk of scholarships but trying to navigate that system is almost impossible and unless you’re a 95-plus student you probably won’t get one of those scholarships.

There are success stories from these scholarship programs, such as Farzaneh Dehghani who graduated as a civil engineer from RMIT and subsequently got a job in her field – but the competition for a limited number of scholarships is high.

What needs to be done

Two simple measures would improve this situation.

Governments in other countries offer access to higher education for students on temporary protection or asylum visas. In Scotland, asylum-seeking students under 25 are who have lived there for at least three years are treated as “home” students. This means they access higher education for free.

In Germany, asylum-seeking students have the same rights to access higher education as local students and can apply for exemptions to university fees.

Read more:
How people seeking asylum in Australia access higher education, and the enormous barriers they face

Given the relatively small number of students on temporary visas in Australia and the significant equity benefits of providing scholarships – such as improved settlement outcomes, pathways into employment and opportunities for pathways to permanent visas – all Australian higher education providers should be making such provisions.

Ultimately, Australians can help asylum-seeker students gain access to university by pressuring governments to scrap the punitive and arbitrary visa system which ignores the well-being of young people and dehumanises them for political ends.

Melanie Baak receives funding from the Australian Research Council (LP170100145), Department of Education (Qld), Department for Education (SA), Catholic Education South Australia.

Bruce Johnson receives funding from the Australian Research Council (LP170100145), Department of Education (Qld), Department for Education (SA), Catholic Education South Australia. He is also a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts.

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

– ref. Education is a human right, but for most asylum seekers in Australia, university is an impossible dream – https://theconversation.com/education-is-a-human-right-but-for-most-asylum-seekers-in-australia-university-is-an-impossible-dream-174881

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW Sydney

Thursday brought news that Australia’s official unemployment rate in January remained at a historically low 4.2%. In parliament, Prime Minister Scott Morrision boasted of the nation being on track to achieve a rate “with a 3 in front of it” this year.

It’s entirely possible the unemployment rate will drop further. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s central forecast is 3.75% by the end of 2022. Some economists have suggested it could be driven down below 3%.

With economic management is a key issue at any election, it is clear the state of the labour market will be a big part of the Coalitions re-election narrative.

But the story on wages is not impressive.

Real wages (that is, wages adjusted for inflation) have not grown strongly in recent years. From 2013 to 2018 they grew at 0.5%, compared with 0.8% from 2008 to 2012, and 1% from 2001 to 2007.

Australia is not alone in this respect. Growth in real wages has been sluggish since 2013 in many advanced economies. For the average American worker they haven’t budged in 40 years.

Annual growth in real wages

There are many reasons for this. Labour-saving technologies are reducing demand for all sorts of human workers, from truck drivers and cashiers to junior lawyers and accountants. Globalisation and international trade have increased competition for less-skilled labour.

What economists call “skill-biased technical change” – new technologies requiring workers to have more skills – has increased wage inequality. The question is what to do about all of this.

Market forces prevail

The first-order policy response should be recognition that a tighter labour market than in the past is now needed to drive wages growth. That is, to get wages up we need to get unemployment down even further – and keep it there.

There is some resistance to this idea.

One argument is that Australia’s labour market isn’t all that competitive – that it’s full of all sorts of regulatory institutions such as the award system and enterprise bargaining that obscure or even break the relationship between unemployment and wages growth.

Read more:
Why there’s no magic jobless rate to increase Australians’ wages

This has never been a persuasive argument. At most these institutions mean there will be lags in adjustment – with the Fair Work Commission reviewing awards once a year and enterprise agreements typically negotiated every three years.

Yet even these lags are less important than they used to be, now the percentage of private-sector workers covered by enterprise agreements is just 10.9% compared with nearly a quarter in 2010.

What governments can and can’t do

The reality is that the majority of Australian workers have their pay determined by market forces, mediated by individual agreements. Supply and demand in the labour market is the key determinant of wage outcomes.

Understanding this helps frame what governments can and can’t do about wages.

They certainly can enact policies that drive unemployment down and hence wages up. On this count the Morrison government gets high marks and deserves due credit.

Read more:
Vital Signs: wages growth desultory, unemployment stunning

They can also help provide workers with better skills, which lead to higher wages. One of the central lessons from economics is that people basically get paid for their skills.

Australia’s major political parties could do a much better job of formulating a comprehensive education and training policy.

On the Labor side, announcing a few new apprenticeships is fine but really just tinkering. On the Liberal side, whining about postmodernism isn’t going to provide students with more human capital.

Governments could also encourage schemes to give workers a stake in the profits of the enterprises they work for – through employee share ownership or worker ownership schemes. Rosalind Dixon and I have proposed a “shadow equity” scheme as one way to implement this.

What governments can’t do is turn back the tide of globalisation and pretend automation won’t continue to replace or reduce demand for human labour.

It is futile, for example, to seek to resurrect Austrlia’s car manufacturing industry. Sure, let’s talk about developing new manufacturing industries, such as in battery technology, but a 1970s-style industry policy won’t bring back the jobs.

Read more:
An unemployment rate below 4% is possible. But for how long?

To get wages growth moving again we need lower unemployment, and to ensure it stays low. That won’t happen effectively by just mandating higher wages. It will happen by ensuring workers have the skills the market values, and by keeping macroeconomic policy settings tuned for low unemployment.

Richard Holden is President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

– ref. Vital Signs: Unemployment steady at 4.2%, but it will need to go lower still to lift wages – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-unemployment-steady-at-4-2-but-it-will-need-to-go-lower-still-to-lift-wages-177218

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

If you were to believe the Morrison government, you’d think Anthony Albanese as prime minister would sell out Australia’s interests to China, give criminals a break, and perhaps sneak in a death tax.

You’d question whether this man, who held senior positions in the Labor years, including briefly being deputy PM, could run a competent government. Because, you see, he didn’t have an economic or national security portfolio.

Scott Morrison is determined to do what Malcolm Turnbull refused to do in the 2016 election – run a ferocious, no-holds-barred negative campaign to try to trash his opponent.

The trouble with being a small target, which has been Albanese’s strategy all this term but especially recently, is that your opponent will still seek to turn you into a big target, indeed a scary risk to the nation.

The government’s campaign over the past fortnight’s parliamentary sitting has been full of gross exaggeration and, on the issue of policy on China, it has been outrageous and irresponsible. It’s a mark of Morrison’s desperation, and it carries risks of backfiring.

The question remains, however, whether the assault will be effective. Or will the government just harm itself by going over the top?

We’ve seen many scare campaigns through the years that have had little regard for the truth. Labor’s “Mediscare” claims in 2016 about an alleged Coalition threat to Medicare was potent, despite lacking substance. But the Morrison government’s effort is among the most brazen.

Without a compelling positive agenda of its own, the government believes – or hopes – that Albanese, who is still not well defined in the public’s mind, is potentially a soft target in the two key policy areas where the Coalition usually has an advantage – national security and economics.

It has gambled that in our fast-moving media cycle it can get away with extraordinary claims, helped by sections of the media.

But in its national security attack on Labor, the government this week ran into some heavy counter fire it would not have expected, from impeccable sources. The current and a former chief of ASIO weighed in against the Coalition’s crude attempt to wedge Labor over China.

The saga started when Defence Minister Peter Dutton declared last week that “the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government” had picked Albanese as “their candidate” in the coming election.

Dutton led with his chin, saying he was reflecting on what had been reported and commented on by the ASIO director-general, Mike Burgess.

Burgess, in his “Annual Threat Assessment” speech the previous evening, had said ASIO recently disrupted “a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia”. He didn’t name the country or the jurisdiction. Burgess related how a wealthy “puppeteer” had hired an employee to identify potential target candidates.

This week Morrison dipped back into the China well.

On Wednesday, he told parliament the Chinese government “have picked their horse” (Albanese) and labelled Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, a “Manchurian candidate” for remarks Marles made some years ago. (“Manchurian candidate” is a reference from a political thriller to someone brainwashed and manipulated by an enemy power.)

The stakes were raised for the government when, in a rare TV appearance on Wednesday night, Burgess made it clear he was less than impressed with ASIO, which was “apolitical”, being drawn into political infighting.

Then on Thursday the government received a massive whack from Dennis Richardson, who is not only a former ASIO head but also a former secretary of the defence and foreign affairs departments and was Australia’s ambassador in Washington.

Richardson denounced the government’s “attempt to create an artificial division where one in practice does not exist”, saying that only served “the interests of one country. And that’s China.”

Read more:
Elections are rarely decided by security and defence issues, but China could make 2022 different

He described the tactic as “grubby beyond belief”.

Morrison was not put off, later that day saying Albanese “is the Chinese government’s pick at this election”.

The government’s sledges against Albanese on the economic and law-and-order fronts were less spectacular but equally stretched.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last week delved into the archives, back to when Albanese, as a Labor Party official from the left in the early 1990s, moved a motion at a conference calling for consideration of an inheritance tax. From this, Frydenberg asserted, “he stands for death duties”.

In promoting legislation to make it easier to deport visa holders convicted of serious crimes, Morrison accused Albanese of being “clearly on the side of criminals”.

In defensive tactics, Albanese has been extremely surefooted.

Thus, after Burgess’s revelation about foreign interference, the opposition leader immediately contacted him and was able to report that ASIO has no problem with any of Labor’s federal candidates.

As Morrison attacked Labor’s credentials on national security, Albanese tabled a letter from the PM last year thanking him for supporting the government on the AUKUS agreement.

Albanese met the “scare” around his one-time backing for an inheritance tax three decades ago with ridicule, waving around an economics essay he’d written four decades ago.

Efforts by the government to wedge Labor on the visa legislation and legislation on guns fell in a heap. The opposition waved the bills through the House of Representatives with little prospect of them being considered in the Senate before the election.

The government’s effort last week to wedge Labor on the religious discrimination legislation ended with it being wedged by its own rebel backbenchers.

Albanese has covered off every angle that’s come up.

For instance, on Thursday he told parliament in a personal explanation that he had consulted Burgess before attending the opening of the Chau Chak Wing Museum at Sydney University in 2020. He added that he had obtained Burgess’s permission to say this to parliament.

Earlier this week a Labor senator named, under parliamentary privilege, businessman and political donor Chau as the “puppeteer” referred to in the Burgess speech, something Burgess declined to be drawn on.

In his statement to parliament, Albanese said he did “regularly consult with our national security agencies, because I take their role seriously as leader of the opposition”.

However neat Albanese’s moves, however reprehensible the government’s, Labor doesn’t fool itself. Morrison and his ministers have sown the seeds for a national security scare, and it’s too early to know whether they will germinate.

What we do know is that the Chinese government must be enjoying this spectacle immensely.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Morrison has sown the seeds for a scare campaign, and Albanese doesn’t know whether they’ll grow – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-has-sown-the-seeds-for-a-scare-campaign-and-albanese-doesnt-know-whether-theyll-grow-177368

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

If you were to believe the Morrison government, you’d think Anthony Albanese as prime minister would sell out Australia’s interests to China, give criminals a break, and perhaps sneak in a death tax.

You’d question whether this man, who held senior positions in the Labor years, including briefly being deputy PM, could run a competent government. Because, you see, he didn’t have an economic or national security portfolio.

Scott Morrison is determined to do what Malcolm Turnbull refused to do in the 2016 election – run a ferocious, no-holds-barred negative campaign to try to trash his opponent.

The trouble with being a small target, which has been Albanese’s strategy all this term but especially recently, is that your opponent will still seek to turn you into a big target, indeed a scary risk to the nation.

The government’s campaign over the past fortnight’s parliamentary sitting has been full of gross exaggeration and, on the issue of policy on China, it has been outrageous and irresponsible. It’s a mark of Morrison’s desperation, and it carries risks of backfiring.

The question remains, however, whether the assault will be effective. Or will the government just harm itself by going over the top?

We’ve seen many scare campaigns through the years that have had little regard for the truth. Labor’s “Mediscare” claims in 2016 about an alleged Coalition threat to Medicare was potent, despite lacking substance. But the Morrison government’s effort is among the most brazen.

Without a compelling positive agenda of its own, the government believes – or hopes – that Albanese, who is still not well defined in the public’s mind, is potentially a soft target in the two key policy areas where the Coalition usually has an advantage – national security and economics.

It has gambled that in our fast-moving media cycle it can get away with extraordinary claims, helped by sections of the media.

But in its national security attack on Labor, the government this week ran into some heavy counter fire it would not have expected, from impeccable sources. The current and a former chief of ASIO weighed in against the Coalition’s crude attempt to wedge Labor over China.

The saga started when Defence Minister Peter Dutton declared last week that “the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government” had picked Albanese as “their candidate” in the coming election.

Dutton led with his chin, saying he was reflecting on what had been reported and commented on by the ASIO director-general, Mike Burgess.

Burgess, in his “Annual Threat Assessment” speech the previous evening, had said ASIO recently disrupted “a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia”. He didn’t name the country or the jurisdiction. Burgess related how a wealthy “puppeteer” had hired an employee to identify potential target candidates.

This week Morrison dipped back into the China well.

On Wednesday, he told parliament the Chinese government “have picked their horse” (Albanese) and labelled Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, a “Manchurian candidate” for remarks Marles made some years ago. (“Manchurian candidate” is a reference from a political thriller to someone brainwashed and manipulated by an enemy power.)

The stakes were raised for the government when, in a rare TV appearance on Wednesday night, Burgess made it clear he was less than impressed with ASIO, which was “apolitical”, being drawn into political infighting.

Then on Thursday the government received a massive whack from Dennis Richardson, who is not only a former ASIO head but also a former secretary of the defence and foreign affairs departments and was Australia’s ambassador in Washington.

Richardson denounced the government’s “attempt to create an artificial division where one in practice does not exist”, saying that only served “the interests of one country. And that’s China.”

Read more:
Elections are rarely decided by security and defence issues, but China could make 2022 different

He described the tactic as “grubby beyond belief”.

Morrison was not put off, later that day saying Albanese “is the Chinese government’s pick at this election”.

The government’s sledges against Albanese on the economic and law-and-order fronts were less spectacular but equally stretched.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last week delved into the archives, back to when Albanese, as a Labor Party official from the left in the early 1990s, moved a motion at a conference calling for consideration of an inheritance tax. From this, Frydenberg asserted, “he stands for death duties”.

In promoting legislation to make it easier to deport visa holders convicted of serious crimes, Morrison accused Albanese of being “clearly on the side of criminals”.

In defensive tactics, Albanese has been extremely surefooted.

Thus, after Burgess’s revelation about foreign interference, the opposition leader immediately contacted him and was able to report that ASIO has no problem with any of Labor’s federal candidates.

As Morrison attacked Labor’s credentials on national security, Albanese tabled a letter from the PM last year thanking him for supporting the government on the AUKUS agreement.

Albanese met the “scare” around his one-time backing for an inheritance tax three decades ago with ridicule, waving around an economics essay he’d written four decades ago.

Efforts by the government to wedge Labor on the visa legislation and legislation on guns fell in a heap. The opposition waved the bills through the House of Representatives with little prospect of them being considered in the Senate before the election.

The government’s effort last week to wedge Labor on the religious discrimination legislation ended with it being wedged by its own rebel backbenchers.

Albanese has covered off every angle that’s come up.

For instance, on Thursday he told parliament in a personal explanation that he had consulted Burgess before attending the opening of the Chau Chak Wing Museum at Sydney University in 2020. He added that he had obtained Burgess’s permission to say this to parliament.

Earlier this week a Labor senator named, under parliamentary privilege, businessman and political donor Chau as the “puppeteer” referred to in the Burgess speech, something Burgess declined to be drawn on.

In his statement to parliament, Albanese said he did “regularly consult with our national security agencies, because I take their role seriously as leader of the opposition”.

However neat Albanese’s moves, however reprehensible the government’s, Labor doesn’t fool itself. Morrison and his ministers have sown the seeds for a national security scare, and it’s too early to know whether they will germinate.

What we do know is that the Chinese government must be enjoying this spectacle immensely.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Morrison has sown the seeds for a negative campaign, and Albanese doesn’t know whether they’ll grow – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-has-sown-the-seeds-for-a-negative-campaign-and-albanese-doesnt-know-whether-theyll-grow-177368

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl McPhee, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Bond University

The fatal shark attack off Sydney on Wednesday left the city shocked, and triggered questions from the horrified public. Why would a shark just grab a man from the water? And will it strike again?

The incident – Sydney’s first fatal shark attack since 1963 – has prompted debate on what to do next. Some people even took to social media to call for sharks to be culled.

This is a common community response following unprovoked shark attacks. But killing sharks is highly controversial. And as my research has shown, there are many non-lethal alternatives to protect beachgoers from sharks.

As authorities grapple with the best way to respond to this tragedy, it’s worth remembering all shark mitigation measures come with both merits and drawbacks – and none is a silver bullet.

Killing sharks is problematic

It’s unlikely authorities would ever be able to hunt down the specific shark involved in Wednesday’s fatality. As Macquarie University marine scientist Vanessa Pirotta has noted, sharks travel large distances and the animal is likely to be long gone.

Other times, members of the community call for an area-wide shark cull – and in rare cases a government will oblige.

In Western Australia in 2013, for example, the then Liberal government announced shark “kill zones” near beaches following a string of attacks. But the measure was scrapped after fierce opposition from the public and environment officials.

Read more:
Why we’re opposing Western Australia’s shark cull: scientists

Any increased effort to kill sharks is likely to face public and political opposition, for several reasons.

First, sharks pose a low risk to humans. It’s true that globally, the frequency of unprovoked shark bites has increased, due to factors such as more water users and changes in shark distribution and behaviour.

But the probability of an unprovoked shark bite remains low.

Second, public perception towards sharks is changing. Many people now realise the intrinsic value of sharks and their important role in marine ecosystems.

Given all this, we must keep pursuing non-lethal methods to protect swimmers and surfers from sharks while avoiding environmental damage.

Let’s look at such approaches in more detail.

Aerial surveys

Aerial surveys involve detecting sharks via a plane, helicopter or unmanned drone, or by people on land.

Their effectiveness can vary depending on how clear, calm or deep the water is, and on wind strength and shark behaviour.

An aircraft with human observers on board can survey a lot of coastline. But an aircraft can spend less than a minute on each beach, limiting the opportunity to locate a shark.

And research has shown even in reasonably clear water, overall rates of detection from planes and helicopters is low.

Drones cost less to operate than manned aircraft and are better for surveying a single location. However, battery constraints mean commercially available models can only stay airborne for a limited time.

In future, drones could be tethered to helium balloons or kites to allow for longer-term surveillance. But such technology is still at an early stage.

Surf patrol towers can help lifeguards detect sharks. But they must offer a vantage point more than 40 metres above sea level to be suitable for the task – a height well above that normally afforded by existing towers.

Nets and drumlines

Sharks can be detected by capturing then releasing them. These methods include deploying either mesh nets or “drumlines” – baited hooks that lure sharks.

Shark nets operate at more than 50 NSW beaches in the warmer months. The program releases all live sharks caught in nets, but more than 80% of large “target” sharks caught in the nets die.

Traditional drumlines, used extensively in Queensland, also historically kill a significant proportion of sharks.

New “SMART” drumlines are designed to kill fewer captured animals. The device issues an alert when an animal is caught, and a contractor unhooks and relocates it.

Over three years of SMART drumline trials in NSW, high levels of live shark releases were reported. But the method requires extra labour expense to ensure rapid response to a capture.

Area-based deterrents

Electrical shark deterrents have been investigated over many years. Research shows substantial promise, and Australia is making progress in commercialising the technology.

Scientists have investigated using acoustic deterrents such as orca calls and novel sounds to deter sharks. But such methods do not work on all shark species, and the impacts on other animals needs to be considered.

Physical barriers to exclude sharks from a particular area is a longstanding approach to protect bathers. Permanent swimming enclosures have worked in areas protected from exposed ocean conditions, such as Sydney Harbour.

But on ocean beaches, physical barriers must be designed to withstand constant wave energy, including extreme conditions. Previous attempted trials on NSW surf beaches failed as the gear either could not be installed, or was destroyed by the surf.

Read more:
Fatal shark attacks are at a record high. ‘Deterrent’ devices can help, but some may be nothing but snake oil

No quick fix

Wednesday’s fatal shark attack has understandably shaken the community and prompted heated debate. In all this, of course, we must remember that a human life has been lost.

Right now, talk of preventing future attacks will be of little comfort to the victim’s family and friends, eyewitnesses and first responders.

Looking further ahead, no system will ever deter or detect 100% of sharks. But risks can be reduced with well-considered approaches, suited to local conditions.

More research is needed into non-lethal strategies. The cost of various approaches is also an important consideration.

And no matter what system is used to protect beachgoers, it should be accompanied by efforts to educate the public about shark safety.

Tips include avoiding swimming or surfing in low light levels, avoiding beaches near estuaries after heavy rain and flooding, and avoiding places where stranded marine mammals are present – as the sites may attract sharks.

Read more:
Shark bites are rare. Here are 8 things to avoid to make them even rarer

Daryl McPhee has previously received funding from the NSW, Queensland and WA Governments to investigate unprovoked shark bite and mitigation responses. This article was based on the publication “A comparison of alternative systems to catch and kill for mitigating unprovoked shark bite on bathers or surfers at ocean beaches” in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management which was partly funded by the NSW DPI. Dr McPhee is not currently in receipt of any research or other funding associated with the sharks and shark-human interactions.

– ref. Sydney shark attack triggers calls for a cull – but let’s take a deep breath and look at the evidence – https://theconversation.com/sydney-shark-attack-triggers-calls-for-a-cull-but-lets-take-a-deep-breath-and-look-at-the-evidence-177357

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

In the 1970s, low-carb diets were all the rage. The Dr Atkin’s Diet Revolution book claimed carbohydrate restriction was a “high calorie way to stay thin forever”.

Carbohydrates are found in breads, cereals and other grains, fruit, vegetables and milk. They’re also in ultra-processed fast foods, cakes, chips and soft drinks.

These days, low-carb diets are promoted as a weight-loss solution, to beat heart disease and as better for diabetes. But how do these claims match up with the latest research?

Read more:
Health Check: what’s the best diet for weight loss?

A new review of the evidence found long-term low-carb dieters lost just under a kilo more weight than other dieters. However the review concluded there was no evidence low-carb diets have any additional health benefits.

In fact, if you’re on a low-carb diet, you’ll need to pay closer attention to what you eat to make sure you get enough essential vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre and other phytonutrients.

What did the reviewers investigate?

The Cochrane review included 61 randomised controlled trials (the highest level of evidence) with almost 7,000 adults with excess body weight. About 1,800 had type 2 diabetes. People in the healthy weight range were not included.

The reviewers compared weight-loss diets that varied in carbohydrate content:

1. lower carbohydrate diets. This included very low-carb or ketogenic diets (less than 50g of carbs a day or less than 10% of your total energy from carbs) and low-carb diets (50-150g of carbs per a day, or less than 45% of total energy from carbs)

2. “balanced” carbohydrate diets (150+ grams of carbs a day, or 45-65% of your total energy from carbs).

What did they find?

The reviewers found that among adults with excess body weight (but who didn’t have type 2 diabetes), those following lower-carb diets for 3-8.5 months lost, on average, one kilogram more weight than those on balanced carb diets.

However, when they ensured restrictions in energy intake were the same in both groups, by providing the food or meal plans, the difference was about half a kilogram.

In longer-term weight-loss interventions lasting one to two years, the average difference in weight-loss between those on low-carb versus balanced carb diets was just under one kilogram.

The average weight lost by groups on any weight-reducing diet varied greatly across the trials from less than one kilogram in some, up to about 13kg in others.

The studies in adults with type 2 diabetes found greater initial weight loss on low-carb diets compared to balanced carb diets: 1.3kg over three to six months. However, in longer interventions that lasted between one to two years, there was no difference.

In the small group of studies that included a maintenance period at the end of the weight-loss intervention, there were no differences in weight-loss in adults either with or without type 2 diabetes.

There were no significant differences in other health measures, including blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar control or risk of constipation. And they found no important clinical differences in results based on the extent of participants’ carb restriction.

Overall, the review shows that whether you prefer a lower carb or a balanced carb eating pattern, both can work for weight loss.

Read more:
Do ketogenic diets help you lose weight?

Nutrients to monitor on a low-carb diet

Carbohydrate is a macronutrient. Your body uses it to produce energy to fuel your muscles, brain, lungs and other vital processes.

Healthy foods with carbs – breads, cereals and other grains, fruit, vegetables and milk – are packed with other important nutrients, especially dietary fibre, thiamine, calcium and folate.

Without careful planning, a low-carb diet could also be lower in these nutrients. So how can you ensure you’re consuming enough? Here’s what to look out for – and some lower- and higher-carb options.

Dietary fibre is needed to keep your bowel function regular and promote growth of healthy bacteria in your colon.

Lower carb sources: spinach, fresh and frozen mixed berries, almonds, cauliflower

Higher carb sources: wholegrain bread, apples, chick peas, sweet potato.

Thiamin or vitamin B1 is needed to supply energy to your body’s tissues and is used to metabolise carbohydrates.

Lower carb sources: trout, tuna, sunflower seeds, beef, yeast extracts

Higher carb sources: brown rice, black beans, wholemeal bread, yoghurt.

Read more:
Phytonutrients can boost your health. Here are 4 and where to find them (including in your next cup of coffee)

Calcium is needed for strong bones.

Lower cab sources: hard cheese, canned salmon with small bones, almonds, firm tofu

Higher carb sources: yoghurt, milk, soft cheese.

Folate is essential for growth and is used to manufacture DNA, your genetic code. Adequate intakes are especially important for women, as folate is needed to prevent neural tube defects in infants during pregnancy.

Lower carb sources: green leafy vegetables, avocado, broccoli, peanuts

Higher carb sources: wholemeal bread (Australian bread-making flour is fortified with folic acid), fortified wholegrain cereals, brown rice, oranges.

Ultimately, if you love carbs and want to lose weight, you can. Plan to lower your kilojoule and carb intake by not eating ultra-processed, energy-dense, nutrient-poor (junk) foods, while still eating carbohydrates from healthy foods.

If you’d like to learn more about weight loss, you can enroll in our free online course The Science of Weight Loss – Dispelling Diet Myths which begins on February 23.

Clare Collins is a Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, NSW and a Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) affiliated researcher . She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow and has received research grants from NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, HMRI, Diabetes Australia, Heart Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nib foundation, Rijk Zwaan Australia, WA Dept. Health, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Greater Charitable Foundation. She has consulted to SHINE Australia, Novo Nordisk, Quality Bakers, the Sax Institute, Dietitians Australia and the ABC. She was a team member conducting systematic reviews to inform the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines update and the Heart Foundation evidence reviews on meat and dietary patterns.

Erin Clarke is affiliated with the School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, The University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

Rebecca Williams is affiliated with the School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

– ref. Do low-carb diets help you lose weight? Here’s what the science says – https://theconversation.com/do-low-carb-diets-help-you-lose-weight-heres-what-the-science-says-176368

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Whiting, Lecturer – Creative Industries, University of South Australia

News the prominent live music venue The John Curtin Hotel is up for sale, with the current lease expiring at the end of this year, has been met with grief and outrage by the Melbourne music community.

In their announcement on social media, the long-term leaseholders of this much-loved venue said the building had been put up for sale by the estate of the recently deceased former owner and is expected to be sold to developers.

Built in the 1860s and originally trading as The Lygon Hotel, for decades the John Curtin Hotel has been a crucial space for Melbourne’s musicians and as a meeting place for activist, socialist and unionist traditions.

Buildings like this hold a special place in the unofficial heritage of our cities. Its loss would not only be a blow to Melbourne’s current arts and political scene, but also our shared cultural heritage.

This unofficial heritage function of the Curtin, curated by participants in its own cultural and political setting, is difficult to capture – and would be near impossible to reproduce if lost.

A political watering hole

Pushing through its heavy double doors from the noise of Lygon Street, punters at the John Curtin Hotel are immediately met with the smell of beer and the timber and leather of its iconic booths.

Posters of local punk bands are stuck alongside framed portraits of prominent Labor luminaries, including its titular wartime PM.

The sound of musicians thrashing onstage upstairs mixes with the soul and funk records spun by front bar DJs and the conversations of nearby union representatives, students and other activists.

The venue has a “lived-in” feeling: somewhere with character and history close to its working-class roots.

Sitting directly opposite the Victorian Trades Hall – established in 1859 and “the birthplace of organised labour in Australia” – the John Curtin Hotel represents an architectural style typical of inner-urban public houses in the late Victorian era.

In 1887, the Working Men’s College opened close to the hotel, offering night-classes to working class men. To this day, the venue continues to host students and academics from RMIT, serving as a melting pot for musical, intellectual and activist cultures.

Renamed after prime minister John Curtin in 1953, many ALP prime ministers and premiers have shared a pint there, most notably Bob Hawke who used the venue as a de facto office in his early career.

More recently, the Curtin hosted the after party for the “Yes” marriage equality campaign, which was driven by Trades Hall and culminated in a huge street-party between the two venues on the day of the result’s announcement.

A place for musicians to cut their teeth

Climbing the centre staircase to the Curtin’s upstairs bandroom, punters encounter the volume of the performance well before they can see the band.

Entering directly onto the venue’s dance floor in full view of the stage, the bandroom wraps around its stairwell: a wide, L-shaped room, with the stage at its top and the bar off to the side. The venue’s disco ball, DIY lighting and sweaty, dark atmosphere lend it an immediate appeal, and the space is a favourite among local musicians.

Band rooms like this are an important element of the live music circuit, and are hard to replace once gone. Current indie darlings Big Thief played here on their first Australian tour. Local acts like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard cut their teeth at the venue.

One of the few dedicated music venues in Carlton, the Curtin Hotel is that rare small live music space that acts as stepping-stone for local and international up-and-comers, and a social hub for the local music scene.

How we capture cultural memories

Discussions have begun as to whether the Victorian state government, the unions, or a combination of both could step in and buy the freehold outright.

The Curtin Hotel represents much more than its current purpose as a music venue, eatery and drinking hole for those of Melbourne’s political left. Its heritage value lies not just in the building, but in what the building represents: the stories of those who have passed through its doors over the years, from students, musicians and academics, to trade unionists, activists and prime ministers.

The age of the building, its specific layout and modifications that have happened over the years, and its location create a unique character which can only truly be understood in person.

Buildings have a unique role to play in anchoring our cultural memories. As a tangible connection to the past – and a continuing focal point for the communities connected to the site today – the Curtin enables new stories to be told that are grounded in a sense of place.

Memories and histories will remain. New band rooms may emerge. But if the building is lost, the particular embodied experience of the Curtin and its layers of complex past will be lost, too.

Sam Whiting is a member of the ALP, and is currently involved with the Reset Arts and Culture collective (https://resetartsandculture.com/).

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

– ref. The John Curtin Hotel is a home for Melbourne’s musicians, activists and unionists. Shutting it down is a loss for our cultural heritage – https://theconversation.com/the-john-curtin-hotel-is-a-home-for-melbournes-musicians-activists-and-unionists-shutting-it-down-is-a-loss-for-our-cultural-heritage-177313

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Briggs, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

In a major step forward for Australia’s clean energy transition, the country’s biggest coal-fired power station Eraring is set to close seven years early in 2025, Origin Energy announced this morning.

Eraring has been operating for 35 years in the central coast of New South Wales. Last year, it alone was responsible for around 2% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, based on calculations from electricity market and emissions data.

The fundamental reason for its early closure is the brutal impact the growth of renewable energy is having on the profitability of coal plants. Origin has announced it will be building a large, 700 megawatt battery on-site in its place to store renewable energy.

This announcement follows the acceleration of other major coal plant closures: Liddell power station is scheduled to close in 2023, Yallourn’s closure was brought forward to 2028, and only last week AGL Energy edged forwards the scheduled closure of two more coal plants.

This is a welcome step with transition planning by Origin – but also underlines the risks of Australia’s clean energy transition accelerating without a national plan for the exit of coal.

Why is this happening?

Old power stations are excellent sites for batteries due to their existing connections to transmission lines and lots of electricity capacity. This has also been announced for the closed Hazelwood and Wallerawang coal power stations.

Over the past 12 months, the market share of renewable energy has increased to over 30%. In particular, the rapid growth of rooftop solar and solar farms in the middle of the day has sent daytime wholesale electricity prices crashing.

To stay open, coal plants are using a variety of coping strategies. This includes cycling their output down on sunny days and ramping back up for higher prices as the sun sets and demand increases at the end of the day. However, this places stress on ageing plants and breakdowns are becoming more common.

Something has to give. Electricity market analysis last year found Eraring was the coal plant most exposed to the growth of renewable energy and likely to lose significant money by 2025 – so the writing was on the wall for Eraring.

As Origin CEO Frank Calabria, stated:

the reality is the economics of coal-fired power stations are being put under increasing, unsustainable pressure by cleaner and lower-cost generation, including solar, wind and batteries.

In announcing the closure, Origin also cited its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, and the recommendation of the International Energy Agency that advanced economies close coal plants by 2030.

What will happen to the market and workforce?

When the Hazelwood coal power station closed in 2017 with just a few months notice, power prices spiked for several years afterwards and many workers were unable to find alternative work.

Origin, however, has given three-years notice in accordance with electricity market rules brought in after the shockwaves from Hazelwood’s closure, and announced it will develop a transition plan for its workforce. This includes training, redeployment and prioritising site employees for long-term operational roles.

Origin presented figures showing the energy and capacity gap will be filled by a combination of new storage, Snowy 2.0, a new transmission line to move power between South Australia and NSW, and new renewable energy infrastructure scheduled for NSW.

Consequently, the impact on prices is likely to be modest compared to the Hazelwood closure.

Eraring’s closure may provide other coal plants some breathing space. Coal plant owners have effectively been playing a game of chicken, holding on and hoping another plant shuts to tighten supply and increase prices.

But as Origin’s figures illustrate, there’s a lot more renewable energy projects in the pipeline, and its figures don’t include the tremendous growth of rooftop solar, which last year saw over 3,000 megawatts installed.

So this is unlikely to be the last of the coal plant closures in our near future. Indeed, in the draft 2022 Integrated System Plan (a “roadmap” for the electricity system), the Australian Energy Market Operator projects as much as 60% of coal plant capacity could be gone by 2030.

We still don’t have an exit plan for coal

Even though coal plants are shutting up shop faster, Australia still doesn’t have an exit plan for coal. That’s unlikely to change, given neither major party is going to want to “own” the closures in an election year.

As a result, this pattern seems likely to continue: renewable energy will continue to grow as the cheapest form of electricity generation, governments will put in place policies to accelerate its growth, and it will be left to the market and asset owners to make decisions on closures without a policy framework. This is extremely risky.

Origin has done the right thing by giving three-years notice, committing to a transition plan for its workforce and investing in battery storage.

Read more:
The end of coal is coming 3 times faster than expected. Governments must accept it and urgently support a ‘just transition’

But energy market players don’t consider the penalties for not complying with notice requirements an effective deterrent, compared to the financial incentive to hang on and hope for a price uplift when other plants close.

This means we’re left relying on the owner’s goodwill, enlightened self-interest and fear of reputational damage to act responsibly.

Maybe Australia will muddle through like this. But without a plan, we’re at risk of a rush of closures in future years with disastrous impacts on electricity prices, regional economies and livelihoods in coal communities.

We need policy commitments

A variety of models for an orderly exit from coal have been proposed and national agreements have been negotiated to phase out coal in other nations such as Germany and Spain.

While the Australian Energy Market Operator has noted there are technical challenges in the clean energy transition, it considers they can be addressed. There’s no lack of alternative generation and storage to fill the energy gap from retiring coal plants.

Read more:
How Australia can phase out coal power while maintaining energy security

Just this week, the NSW government received expressions of interest from renewable energy and storage projects worth over A$100 billion. The government observed that this was equivalent to the electricity output of ten coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley Renewable Energy Zone.

Hopefully on the other side of the election there’ll be a political and policy commitment to an orderly exit from coal – a plan that can manage impacts on our electricity system and support coal power station workers through the inevitable transition.

The Institute for Sustainable Futures has received funding for research on projects related to coal transition including the Clean Energy Council (large-scale survey of renewable energy employment), Infrastructure Australia (electricity employment projections) and Global Compact Network/Westpac (implications of just transition for financial institutions and corporate sector).

– ref. Australia’s largest coal plant will close 7 years early – but there’s still no national plan for coal’s inevitable demise – https://theconversation.com/australias-largest-coal-plant-will-close-7-years-early-but-theres-still-no-national-plan-for-coals-inevitable-demise-177317

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW Sydney

Next month we will see a significant shake-up in courts across Australia’s eastern seaboard. Three chief justices – Tom Bathurst, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Catherine Holmes, of the Supreme Court of Queensland, and Helen Murrell of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory – are all due to retire.

To date, two replacements have been announced. Andrew Bell is to be sworn in as chief justice in NSW on March 5, followed by Lucy McCallum in the ACT on March 8. The announcement of the Queensland chief justice is imminent.

Read more:
No selection criteria, no transparency. Australia must reform the way it appoints judges

What is the role of a chief justice?

The appointment of a chief justice is always an important occasion. A chief justice is sometimes called the “first among equals”, referring to the fact that they don’t hold authority over other judges in the court.

But this doesn’t capture fully the role of the chief justice. Increasingly, eras in judicial history and decision-making are discussed by reference to their judicial leader. An example is the discussion of “the Mason court” and its decisions on Indigenous and constitutional rights during the 1990s.

This is in part a reflection of the key role a chief justice can play as an intellectual leader and in the creation of court culture. It also reflects that it is often the chief justice who speaks publicly for the court, including to the media. They will often respond to controversies involving the court, such as delay, misconduct or other shortcomings of judicial officers.

Chief justices also perform key administrative functions in the court. These include the allocation of cases, engaging with the government about court reform and budgets and, of course, consulting on judicial appointments.

How do we appoint chief justices?

Chief justices are appointed by the same process as other judges.

This means their appointment is at the discretion of the executive government. The cabinet acts on the advice of the attorney-general.

To appoint a judge to the High Court, the Commonwealth attorney-general must first consult with state attorneys-general. In the states and territories, there is no requirement for an attorney-general to consult before appointment.

In practice, though, the attorney-general would generally seek input from the head of jurisdiction (if appointing a new chief justice, that would be the outgoing chief justice), as well as professional bodies representing barristers and solicitors.

This remains the process at the Commonwealth level. It was also the approach adopted most recently in New South Wales.

Some jurisdictions have recently experimented with a more transparent appointment process. In Queensland, following the highly criticised appointment of Tim Carmody as chief justice in 2014 on the basis he was unsuited to be appointed to the position, the government adopted a Protocol for Judicial Appointments.

This includes an expression-of-interest process and a judicial appointments advisory panel. The panel provides the attorney-general with a shortlist of candidates. The shortlist must be based on six criteria set out by the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA):

1. intellectual capacity

2. personal qualities (including, for instance, integrity and independence of mind)

3. an ability to understand and deal fairly

4. authority and communication skills

5. efficiency

6. leadership and management skills, particularly in the court, but also relating to those external to the court such as the legal profession.

The Queensland protocol also requires the panel to consider “opportunities for promoting diversity in the judiciary”.

However, these experiments with more open appointment processes have rarely been secured through legislative or constitutional reform. This leaves them vulnerable to being shelved by future governments. Indeed, when the Abbott government came to power in 2013 it quietly abandoned a Labor-initiated federal reform of the late 2000s.

Whether a process for appointment is fluid and secret or transparent and consultative depends greatly on how governments understand the essential attributes of a “good” judge in a diverse democratic society.

What should a government look for in a chief justice?

Is there anything, then, that governments should be looking for specifically in a chief justice? We have written elsewhere that the chief justice has distinctive relationships with the government, the legislature, the media and the public, the profession and the academy. This means they are uniquely placed, and obliged, to protect and promote judicial values in the court they lead.

When well-established principles such as judicial independence and impartiality come under threat, from the government or elsewhere, the chief justice must defend them. A prominent recent example was when Victorian Chief Justice Marilyn Warren issued a public defence of the court in 2017 after federal government ministers attacked the impartiality of her court, particularly in criminal sentencing of terrorist offenders.

Chief justices can also advance emerging values, such as a commitment to robust accountability for judges who misbehave, or to increase diversity and transparency on the bench.

How can the process be improved?

The AIJA’s criteria for appointing a judge require chief justices to display various “authority and communication” and “leadership and management” skills. But does a chief justice require something more?

We say yes. They must be individuals who can provide intellectual leadership and contribute constructively to the collegiality of the court. These characteristics are no doubt important, but they will largely be met through the existing criteria.

Chief justices must also bring to the role an institutional sensitivity and a reform mindset that allows them to respond to and anticipate contemporary challenges to the court.

Recently, this has included the need for courts to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain access to justice and uphold the open court principle. It has also included responding appropriately to public revelations, and administrative findings, of sexual harassment by judicial officers.

Read more:
Appointing Australia’s highest judges deserves proper scrutiny

In this respect, High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel has been widely commended for the personalised understanding she showed to those women who brought complaints of sexual harassment against former High Court judge Dyson Heydon. In response, she implemented an administrative inquiry into the conduct and a subsequent review of the judicial workplace, focusing particularly on the vulnerable position of judicial associates.

If a government is truly committed to the traditional and modern values of the court system, it should be seeking an individual who can defend the institution from unwarranted attacks, as well as recognise and respond to genuine criticism and shortfalls of the institution.

These attributes should not be left to chance, but should be set out and candidates’ experience considered against them. It is only in this way the judiciary will retain the confidence of the public.

Professor Gabrielle Appleby was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry into Judicial Impartiality (2020-2021).

Associate Professor Heather Roberts receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a project titled ‘The Ideal Judge’, which examines changing expectations of judges and judging in Australia since federation. She was a member of the legal history committee that designed the legal history installation for the Supreme Court of the ACT.

– ref. Explainer: how are chief justices appointed and how can the process be improved? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-are-chief-justices-appointed-and-how-can-the-process-be-improved-177212

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul E. Griffiths, Professor of Philosophy, University of Sydney

Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary are all nice buzzwords. But talk of “breaking down the barriers” is all too often a cover for breaking down academic disciplines to create administrative flexibility. This is a disaster in the making for both research and education.

This is why the proposal to abolish departments in the arts and social sciences at the University of Sydney met such a heated response. That response led to a substantial revision of the proposal.

Universities need to learn to recognise antidisciplinarity and avoid it. Running through the initial restructuring proposal was the idea that academic disciplines are “silos” that stand in the way of interdisciplinary research and teaching. This is a complete misunderstanding: strong disciplines are the essential foundation of interdisciplinarity.

What is interdisciplinarity?

Interdisciplinary research uses knowledge and skills from different disciplines to target a specific problem. Interdisciplinary teaching examines the same question from different disciplinary perspectives. If universities are to meet today’s challenges, whether that is climate change and extinction or reconciliation and closing the gap, they need to support interdisciplinary research and education.

I have the privilege of working in the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. This interdisciplinary research centre was created because solving the problem of lifestyle diseases requires input not only from medicine and the biosciences, but also economics, political science, law, engineering and the humanities and creative arts.

Interdisciplinary teams, when assembled with insight and managed with skill, can achieve extraordinary results. But the foundations of those results are strong disciplines.

Read more:
Science in silos isn’t such a bad thing

An interdisciplinary team is not a group of people trained in “interdisciplinarity”. It’s a group of people who have deep knowledge and sound judgment in their disciplines.

I once worked with an international collaboration that was standardising how some biomolecules are named. I was not invited as an interdisciplinary scholar who knows a bit about molecular biology, but as an expert in the history and philosophy of biological classification. A key skill in an interdisciplinary team is knowing when to defer to other people’s disciplinary expertise. That is what they are there for.

What are the warning signs of antidisciplinarity?

Truly interdisciplinary work is likely to reach right across the university and beyond.

If an “interdisciplinary” initiative encourages people from the same administrative unit or “cost centre” to work together and even discourages involving people from another cost centre, that should set off alarm bells. It’s likely not an interdisciplinary initiative at all, but an effort to force intellectual activity into an ill-fitting administrative box. That is antidisciplinarity in action.

A discipline is much more than a particular stream of courses in the undergraduate syllabus, despite efforts to redefine it as such. A discipline is an international community of expertise.

A discipline is the group within which one expert can legitimately judge another expert’s work. A historian, an epidemiologist or a quantum theorist is best placed to judge whether work in history, epidemiology or quantum theory is good work. They can tell if a course covers the right material. They can also tell who is the most promising candidate for employment or for promotion.

If these day-to-day management decisions are not made by disciplinary experts, bullshit can flourish. That is why universities were traditionally organised into departments based on a discipline or tightly related disciplines like the different branches of physics.

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And what about educating students?

Interdisciplinary education is better described as multidisciplinary, since what it really does is expose students to multiple disciplinary perspectives.

In a truly interdisciplinary project each participant has a different perspective on the problem. They negotiate through these differences to a shared – and often highly innovative – approach. That is one reason interdisciplinary teams are so powerful.

But only the most advanced undergraduate students have started to develop a disciplinary mindset. They can learn to work in a group – an important skill – but they are not collaborating as discipline experts. We should not be training students to think that having “done your research”, as we now say, is a substitute for disciplinary expertise.

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This does not mean disciplines are set in stone

Disciplines are continually evolving. The changing structure of knowledge itself drives this evolution. The administrative structures of universities must accommodate these changes or become obstacles to progress.

For example, retired biologists will remember departments of botany, zoology and microbiology, with a department of biochemistry somewhere else in the university. The molecular revolution in biology dissolved those divisions as the ideas and techniques of the life sciences became more broadly integrated.

But a university cannot create meaningful disciplines or interdisciplinary fields by creating administrative units. Back in 1900 it was common for philosophy and psychology to sit together in departments of “moral sciences” or “mental and moral philosophy”. If we did that today it would not create an exciting new synergy. It would just make life difficult for everyone involved – staff and students.

Like running a research team, running a university means knowing when to defer to discplinary expertise. Those actively involved in creating knowledge understand best what will create synergy and what will merely create confusion.

Disciplines are not the real problem

Administrative structures do frequently do stand in the way of interdisciplinary research and teaching. But the problem is not that people are fenced off in different disciplines. It is that they are fenced off in different cost centres, unable to collaborate because income would be “lost” to another part of the university.

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It would be convenient if every administrative unit was an interdisciplinary synergy, where everyone wants to collaborate and no-one wants to collaborate with a different cost centre. But wishing will not make it so.

It would be convenient if academics cared more about whether their research and teaching are profitable and a bit less about whether they are credible in their discipline. But unless research and teaching have credibility with disciplinary experts a university loses its social licence to operate.

Antidisciplinarity arises from an understandable frustration with these facts among those who must manage university budgets. But it’s a recipe for poor research and poor education.

Paul E. Griffiths receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the John Templeton Foundation

– ref. Why the ‘interdisciplinary’ push in universities is actually a dangerous antidisciplinary trend – https://theconversation.com/why-the-interdisciplinary-push-in-universities-is-actually-a-dangerous-antidisciplinary-trend-175511

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Simmons, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, University of New England

Are you one of the increasingly large number of people seeking to minimise the environmental damage wrought when producing the food you eat? If so, you might use the common “environmental footprint” method to decide what to buy.

Environmental footprints measure the environmental damage caused by a product throughout its life. For food, this includes the impacts of growing crops and livestock, and manufacturing the inputs required such as fertilisers. It can also include packaging and transport.

But unfortunately, environmental footprints often don’t tell the full story. When consumers switch to a food seen as more environmentally friendly, its production expands at the expense of other products. This has consequences that environmental footprints don’t take into account.

Environmental footprint calculators may promise to help consumers lead a greener life. But they may in fact encourage choices that don’t benefit – and may even harm – the environment.

A problematic assumption

We are experts in assessing the effectiveness of climate change mitigation for agricultural systems. We regularly provide policy advice to governments, United Nations bodies and other organisations.

The design of environmental footprint calculators is guided by international standards organisations and policymakers, including the European Union. The tool is commonly found on the websites of environmental groups, government agencies, companies and other organisations.

The calculators aim to guide consumer choice, by assessing the impacts of current production on the environment. But this is a problem.

It assumes the footprint of a product calculated today remains constant as production is scaled up or down, but this often doesn’t hold true. When demand for a product changes, this has knock-on effects on nature. It might mean more agricultural land is required, or river water is used to irrigate different crops.

Below, we examine three ways environmental footprints can provide a misleading picture of a product’s true impacts.

1. Land use

Agriculture makes a large contribution to greenhouse gas emissions – primarily due to animal belches but also the production and use of synthetic fertilisers.

Organic farming can help reduce agriculture emissions, primarily because it doesn’t use synthetic fertiliser. But some research suggests converting to organic farming production could also exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions.

One study in England and Wales examined what would happen if all food production was converted to organic. It found global greenhouse gas emissions from food production could increase by about 60%.

This was because organic systems produce lower yields, meaning more crop and livestock production would be needed overseas to make up the shortfall. Creating this agricultural land would mean clearing vegetation, which emits carbon dioxide when it decomposes.

And when grasslands are converted to cropland, soil organic carbon is also lost.
Enhanced soil carbon storage from organic farming offsets only a small part of the higher overseas emissions.

When considering the consequences of switching from one food to another, the type of agricultural land used is also important.

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In Australia, about 325 million hectares of land is used to raise cattle to produce red meat. This land often can’t be used to grow crops because it’s too dry, steep, vegetated or rocky.

If consumers switch from red meat to plant-based diets, more land suitable for growing crops would be needed, either in Australia or overseas, to produce alternative proteins such as legumes or plant-based meats.

In Australia, existing arable land is already being used to supply crops to domestic and global markets. So new land would have to be made suitable for crops, either by cultivating grazing land or clearing forest. Alternatively, crop production could be increased by using more fertiliser or other inputs.

The emissions associated with these shifts are not included in carbon footprints of plant-based protein production.

2. Water

It’s commonly assumed that choosing a product with a smaller water footprint will increase the water in rivers and lakes which replenishes the environment. However, in Australia, policy and markets determine how water is used.

Irrigation water can be traded between users. If a water-intensive crop such as rice is no longer grown, the farmer will almost always either use the water to grow a different crop or trade it with another farmer. In such a scenario, no water is returned to the environment.

Similarly, a fall in red meat production may not necessarily increase water for the environment.

Farmers whose land adjoins a river or other water body are allowed to take water for livestock to drink. Fewer livestock would leave more water available in rivers, but research in Australia suggests this water would be extracted for domestic uses, especially in dry years.

3. Goods produced together

Many agricultural products are produced in conjunction with others. For example, a cow slaughtered for red meat will also produce hide, meat meal and tallow. Likewise, a sheep can produce wool when alive, then other products when slaughtered.

So if consumers eschewed red meat due to its high carbon footprint, the associated products would also need to be replaced – and this would have environmental impacts.

If synthetic materials replace wool or hides, for example, demand for oil will likely increase. Or if wool is replaced with bio-based products such as cotton or hemp, demand for cropland will increase.

Increasing milk production per cow – and thus keeping fewer cows – has been considered as a way to reduce livestock emissions. But research suggests it may not have the intended result.

Fewer cows would produce fewer calves, which are used to produce veal. The research found less veal would require more red meat to be produced elsewhere, meaning no overall reduction in emissions.

It is realistic to assume that more red meat would be required. While per capita beef consumption is declining in some Western countries, global demand for beef is projected to increase to 2030 as wealth in developing countries increases and global population grows.

Towards a healthier planet

We and other experts are increasingly trying to raise awareness of the simplistic nature of environmental footprints.

It’s important to recognise the limitations of current methods and create tools that fully assess the consequences of consumers’ decisions.

Developing these tools will be challenging, due to the many uncertainties involved, and will require substantial research investment.

But it will lead to better environmental policy, fewer unintended consequences and a healthier planet.

Read more:
Don’t drink milk? Here’s how to get enough calcium and other nutrients

Aaron Simmons is a Technical Specialist in Climate Change Mitigation with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and a
an adjunct Senior Research Fellow with The University of New England. He receives funding from the Commonwealth government and rural research and development corporations.

Annette Cowie is a Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Climate Branch at the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England. She receives research funding from NSW and Commonwealth government programs and rural research and development corporations. She is a member of Soil Science Australia and an adviser to the Australia New Zealand Biochar Industry Group and the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund.

– ref. Environmental footprint calculators have one big flaw we need to talk about – https://theconversation.com/environmental-footprint-calculators-have-one-big-flaw-we-need-to-talk-about-166897

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

This week’s Newspoll, conducted February 9-12 from a sample of 1,526, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the late January Newspoll. Primary votes were 41% Labor (steady), 34% Coalition (steady), 8% Greens (down three), 3% One Nation (steady) and 14% for all Others (up three).

40% were satisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance (up one), and 56% were dissatisfied (down two), for a net approval of -16. Anthony Albanese’s net approval was down six to -6. Morrison increased his better PM lead from 43-41 to 43-38. Figures are from The Poll Bludger.

For most of this term, Newspolls have been published every three weeks, but this Newspoll was released a fortnight after the previous one. That suggests Newspoll will be fortnightly in the lead-up to the federal election.

The big story is the three-point drop in the Greens’ primary vote. It’s possible some Greens supporters are not enamoured with the Greens’ anti-Labor rhetoric
and so switched to Labor, and that the Greens are also losing support to climate independents.

If the Greens lost support to Labor, why isn’t Labor up? It’s possible Labor lost support to the Coalition, but the Coalition lost ground to vaccine-sceptical others like Clive Palmer’s UAP.

The overall Labor lead of 55-45 is still strong for Labor, but Essential last week
gave Labor just a one-point lead after preferences. Essential and Resolve, which have been the worst polls for Labor since late 2021, are likely to both be published next week.

NSW byelection updates: Willoughby could be close

After originally selecting the Greens as the Liberals’ two candidate opponent in Willoughby, the Electoral Commission has nearly finished re-doing this count as Liberal vs independent Larissa Penn.

Based on preference flows from polling places that have reported a Liberal vs Penn count, the ABC is estimating 51.7-48.3 to Liberal from the current primary votes. But postals have not yet been counted, and there are almost as many postals received to date as votes counted so far.

I suggested in Sunday’s article that, if more left-leaning voters were anxious about COVID, the postals could skew left. Postals almost always skew right in Australian elections, but far fewer people vote by post than at these byelections.

Read more:
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In the other byelections, Labor’s two party share in Bega dropped from 57.1% on election night to 55.6%, still a 12.6% swing to Labor. In Strathfield, Labor rose from 54.4% to 55.7%, a 0.7% swing to them that was negative on election night. In Monaro, the Nationals were down from 55.0% to 54.9%, a 6.7% swing to Labor.

These changes from the election night figures mainly reflect the addition of pre-poll booths that were not counted on election night. Postal votes will not start being counted until Saturday.

Morgan poll: Frydenberg preferred as Liberal leader

A Morgan federal SMS poll, conducted February 14-15 from a sample of 1,080, had 38.5% of voters preferring Treasurer Josh Frydenberg as Liberal leader, 31% incumbent PM Scott Morrison and 12.5% Defence Minister Peter Dutton.

Coalition voters still had Morrison first with 40%, Frydenberg at 32.5% and Dutton 12.5%. Dutton had his highest ratings (22%), with the independent/other category, which would include One Nation.

Australian jobs report: little change in January despite COVID crisis

The ABS released the January Australian jobs report Thursday. Despite the massive COVID surge in early to mid-January, there was little change from December. Unemployment was steady at 4.2% and underemployment and participation both up 0.1% to 6.7% and 66.2% respectively. This ABC report focuses on the drop in hours worked, which are likely to rebound in February.

The 4.2% unemployment is tied with December as Australia’s lowest since August 2008, just before the global financial crisis. The employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Australians employed – increased 0.1% to 63.4%, and is higher than at any prior point on the ABS chart in the past ten years.

Bad COVID outbreaks are having a diminishing impact on the overall economy; this was the case in the US in January too. While the jobs situation is good for the government, inflation is not so good.

WA poll: McGowan’s approval slumps to 64%

From the front page of Wednesday’s West Australian, a People’s Voice poll has WA Premier Mark McGowan at 64% approval, 25% disapproval (net +39).

While a 64% approval is very good by most standards, McGowan had a 91% approval rating in late 2020, with just 5% disapproving. His approval dropped to 77% in November 2021.

US Democrats gain in redistricting, but Biden’s ratings still poor

I wrote for The Poll Bludger Tuesday that redistricting of the 435 US federal House seats occurs once a decade after a Census. So far this cycle, Democrats are up 11, Republicans down three and competitive down eight. But Joe Biden has almost overtaken Donald Trump in having the worst net approval of any president at this stage of their term since approval polling began.

Also covered in this article: Boris Johnson remains UK Prime Minister despite the “PartyGate” scandal, the centre-left Socialists won a majority at the Portuguese election, and Emmanuel Macron likely to be re-elected at French presidential elections in April.

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

– ref. A bad Newspoll for the Greens; Willoughby NSW byelection could be close – https://theconversation.com/a-bad-newspoll-for-the-greens-willoughby-nsw-byelection-could-be-close-177055

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trisia Farrelly, Associate Professor, Massey University

Following years of discussions, support for a global treaty to stem the tide of plastic pollution is now widespread, with 75% of UN member states backing the idea.

Next week, countries will negotiate two competing resolutions in the lead-up to the UN Environment Assembly. Both resolutions call for the establishment of an intergovernmental negotiating committee to start work on a legally binding treaty.

The negotiations are a crucial moment for the New Zealand government. More than 750 groups — including civil society, Indigenous peoples, trade unions and youth groups — are calling for a binding treaty that captures the full life cycle of plastics.

New Zealand has so far only expressed general support for a plastics treaty, but has not co-sponsored either of the two resolutions. More than 300 scientists and research organisations are calling on all UN member states to accept nothing less than the key elements of the stronger Rwanda-Peru resolution.

Global production of plastics is set to double and marine plastic pollution is predicted to triple by 2040.

Both resolutions call for quick negotiations, a legally binding agreement, national action plans, technical support and innovations.

But there are fundamental differences between the Rwanda-Peru and Japan resolutions in terms of the mandate and overall vision.

Read more:
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Solutions to match the severity of the plastic crisis

The Peru-Rwanda resolution is commensurate with the gravity of the plastic pollution crisis. It has the backing of more than 70 countries, including 27 from the European Union. It was the result of a consultative process and has widespread support among civil-society organisations.

Japan’s resolution has only three co-sponsors to date: Cambodia, Palau and Sri Lanka. It has been described as the “skin” of the Rwanda-Peru resolution “without the muscle” — a significantly diluted version.

The Rwanda-Peru resolution proposes a legally binding agreement which addresses the full life cycle of plastics. This covers the extraction of fossil fuels for the production of plastics, manufacture and consumption, end-of-life management and the safe retrieval of legacy plastics.

Read more:
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It sets out an open mandate for the intergovernmental negotiating committee. This means negotiators could work on a broad range of issues relevant to plastic pollution as discussions progress.

The Rwanda-Peru resolution also requires a scientific advisory committee to ensure all countries have free and open access to the latest science and best practice, financial support for developing countries and coordination with pre-existing international agreements.

Cleaning up ocean plastics is not enough

Japan’s resolution proposes a closed mandate which severely limits what diplomats can consider. This significantly undermines the ability of the intergovernmental negotiating committee to prepare an effective treaty.

This resolution refers to plastics’ “life cycle” but its text prioritises waste management interventions over preventative measures, while further limiting its scope to marine litter.

New Zealand’s government should support the key elements of the Rwanda-Peru resolution. It presents the absolute minimum needed to ensure the global community operates within the safe space of the planetary boundary for “novel entities”, including plastics.

Plastic pollution crosses borders and lasts for generations. This is an opportunity for New Zealand and other UN member states to meet their moral obligation to protect people from its wide range of impacts.

Plastics are threat multipliers. They can act together with other stressors, such as climate change and over-exploitation of marine resources, to cause far greater damage than if they occurred in isolation.

An effective treaty would dramatically reduce the volume of persistent toxic plastics released into the biosphere. Simultaneously, it would also reduce the impacts of escalating plastic pollution on the climate, human health, human rights and biodiversity.

Read more:
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The Ministry for the Environment says the New Zealand government supports a global treaty, but “the overall scope, level of ambition, and nature of commitments of a global agreement all remain subject to negotiations”.

If we are to realise a treaty with long-term and effective outcomes, New Zealand will need to negotiate hard for an agreement with a sufficiently wide scope and high ambition.

The international scientific community is clear. Efforts focusing only on waste management will not scale up to the crisis. The priority must be prevention and product redesign.

Turning off the tap at the point of production offers the largest reduction of plastic pollution. It often represents net savings to consumers and producers, while providing the best opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The last thing we want is to come out of negotiations with a treaty that can only respond to waste management and marine litter. This would fail to address the source and impacts of rapidly increasing volumes of global plastic pollution.

Trisia Farrelly receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and Massey University. She is affiliated with Massey University, The Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance, and the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council.

– ref. An international treaty to curb plastic pollution risks being watered down — New Zealand needs to take a stand – https://theconversation.com/an-international-treaty-to-curb-plastic-pollution-risks-being-watered-down-new-zealand-needs-to-take-a-stand-177130

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bridget Harris, Associate professor, Queensland University of Technology

Domestic and family violence perpetrators commonly use technology such as phones and other devices as a weapon to control and entrap victims and survivors, alongside other forms of abuse. This “digital coercive control” is not bound to a particular location and can follow targets anywhere, any time they access devices or digital media.

For women outside urban Australia, technology-enabled abuse can pose more risk than for those in cities. In research funded by the Australian Institute of Criminology, we spoke to 13 such women who have been subjected to digital coercive control to understand what it is like.

The disturbing side of technology

… you see a side of a phone that you probably wish you didn’t know about [Shelly]

The women reported that abusers used technology to harass and stalk. The majority experienced image-based sexual abuse (the creation and/or release of intimate images without consent) or recordings made of victims or survivors, overtly or covertly.

Some experienced doxxing (release of personal and identifiable information). Perpetrators in some cases impersonated real or fake people and initiated contact with women or their children. Authorised functions of phones and other devices and accounts were sometimes impaired, or unauthorised functions enabled.

I think you can feel a lot safer knowing they are not in proximity; they can’t hurt me. When it comes to technology it can – I guess you’re more hyper-vigilant because they can come any time and you can’t stop it. Even if you block someone, they find another way. They do; he always found other means to make contact with me. I never – I guess you never got to escape, which I hadn’t experienced before, because every other type of abuse I was able to – it ended at some point. [Kira]

It is different outside the cities

These behaviours have also been observed in urban settings in Australia. Also, like in cities, we found that violence persisted (and often increased) after separation.

However, women outside cities face higher barriers when seeking help and responding to family violence, and they can also be at greater risk.

Read more:
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Domestic violence agencies are further from women’s homes in non-urban areas, as we have observed in this study and in other work. Legal services can be limited and there are shortages in alternative and crisis accommodation.

Complicated financial arrangements and pressures may hinder women’s ability to exit violent relationships, such as where they work on farms or other small businesses and there may be few employment and educational opportunities in the region.

No anonymity

Numerous survivors spoke of the lack of anonymity in rural areas, so they and/or their abusers were more likely to be known when disclosing and reporting violence. This can be confronting, especially when perpetrators are well-known and well liked.

He is established – he knows people and he’s well liked … he’s in a boys’ club and knows lots of people … whereas I don’t. [Fiona]

This could be heightened for women with family and networks out of the region or overseas, culturally and linguistically diverse women, criminalised women, or those viewed as “different” outsiders.

Read more:
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As well as actively destroying women’s social networks, abusers would challenge women’s accounts of abuse and attempt to gather allies, as Claire explains:

He went around the streets telling people that I’m crazy … Because we’re in a small country town he was going in and out of shops … He affiliated himself with one of the local churches and got them on his side.

Isolation and fear

Abusers socially isolate women, and those in non-urban areas are often socially further from family, friends and support services than those urban areas. We found too, that some abusers sought to extend geographic isolation, by moving women to more remote locations.

Technology could provide channels to communicate with others and to seek assistance and support. Natalie had “a good amount of friends” and so would be “on the phone, or I’d be texting, and that was my outlet for a crazy situation”. However, some women felt this was not always possible when devices had been taken over or were monitored by abusers.

[I was] too scared to use it [technology]. I just couldn’t reach out to people … I didn’t want to use it just in case [Lola]

Fear loomed large in women’s accounts of digital coercive control. All those we spoke to had contact with police.

Some had positive encounters, most commonly with specialist (domestic and family violence liaison officers, who are less available in many rural areas) but more spoke of negative encounters. Women who were dissatisfied with police felt that officers were dismissive of digital coercive control.

‘Homicide flags’

We believe digital coercive control warrants attention. Coercive control, obsessive tendencies, stalking, and threats to kill or self-harm have all been noted as signals of fatal violence by death review teams.

The women we interviewed reported all these behaviours. Non-fatal strangulation is another “homicide flag” and was reported by 46% of our participants.

Firearm ownership and threats to use firearms also signal high risk. Firearm ownership is common on farms and in many rural areas.

An assault can become a homicide in rural areas, because of the sheer distance between the site of an attack and a hospital or medic.

It is imperative that we acknowledge and address how technology is used against survivors and the impact that technology-facilitated abuse has on women across landscapes. We must also recognise that women in rural locations face elevated risks, and that digital coercive control can provide evidence and signal risk of fatal violence.

Pseudonyms have been used for the women quoted in this article.

The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

Bridget Harris receives funding from the Australian Research Council and has previously received funding from The eSafety Commissioner. This work was funded by the Australian Institute of Criminology. She has completed and ongoing grants funded by this organisation.

Delanie Woodlock has previously received funding from The eSafety Commissioner. This work was funded by the Australian Institute of Criminology. She has completed and ongoing grants funded by this organisation

– ref. ‘You can’t stop it’: in rural Australia, digital coercive control can be inescapable – https://theconversation.com/you-cant-stop-it-in-rural-australia-digital-coercive-control-can-be-inescapable-176980