Private equity companies generally have a reputation for buying “distressed assets” at bargain prices, squeezing as much cash out of them while making them look as profitable as possible, then selling out for a huge profit.
But the takeover of Australia’s disgraced casino operator Crown Resorts by US private equity behemoth the Blackstone Group may be the best option available to Crown’s shareholders, the governments that benefit from gambling revenue, and the community that suffers the consequences of problem gambling.
The board of Crown Resorts has recommended Blackstone’s A$9 billion offer for total ownership, subject to approval from the federal Foreign Investment Review Board and state gaming regulators in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
The astonishing ethical and moral depths Crown plumbed in its pursuit of profit means that this may be one of those rare occasions where private equity’s financial and (particularly) non-financial engineering leads to a net positive outcome for the wider community.
An atypical private equity deal
Private equity companies raise money from private investors to buy undervalued and often distressed businesses to nurture back to commercial health before exiting at a profit.
Private ownership can be advantageous for a struggling company because it removes the regulatory and other distractions that come with being a listed public company. It means management can make decisions without worrying about short-term stock price fluctuations, for example.
Blackstone’s takeover of Crown Resorts is not a typical private equity transaction; Crown’s problems arose from moral, not financial, bankruptcy.
Notwithstanding the impact of the pandemic on casino profits – in particular the loss of foreign high-rollers – Crown has been consistently profitable. But its licences to continue to rake in those profits are under a cloud.
A NSW commission of inquiry (headed by former NSW Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin) and a Victorian royal commission (headed by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein) found Crown unfit to hold its Sydney and Melbourne casino licences. A Western Australian royal commission into the company’s fitness to hold its Perth casino licence is pending.
Illegal, dishonest, unethical, exploitative
The Victorian royal commission’s final report described Crown Melbourne’s management as disgraceful and its practices as variously illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative.
It lambasted senior executives for being “indifferent to their ethical, moral and sometimes legal obligations”, and the board for failing in its prime responsibility to ensure the company “satisfied its legal and regulatory obligations”.
This included facilitating the laundering of millions of dollars and ignoring its problem gambling obligations. Its claim to have a “world’s best approach to problem gambling”, Finkelstein said, could not “be further from the truth”.
Blackstone’s priority, therefore, will be to repair Crown’s many regulatory inadequacies, and deeply tarnished reputation, away from the gaze of shareholders, the media and investment bank analysts.
A rare opportunity
For Blackstone, Crown Resorts is a rare opportunity. Casino cash flows are irresistible to highly leveraged private equity investors. Casino company balance sheets dominated by valuable real estate assets are also a draw-card.
Blackstone has extensive experience in “flipping” hotels and casinos.
For example, it acquired the Hilton hotels empire in 2007 and exited 11 years later, making a $US14 billion profit. Last year it sold The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for US$5.65 billion, seven years after buying it for US$1.8 billion. It is in the process of exiting its investment in Spanish gambling company CIRSA, which runs casinos and betting shops across Spain and Latin America.
Crown Resorts’ shareholders, meanwhile, are over a regulatory barrel.
The company’s licence to operate its brand-new Barangaroo casino is suspended. Its Victorian licence is on probation, with a requirement that Packer reduce his 37% stake (through his company Consolidated Press Holdings) to 5%.
Existing casino operators would have been averse to tarnishing their reputations by buying into Crown, given its outstanding regulatory problems. Correcting its myriad problems can be expected to raise Crown’s costs (especially compliance costs) and cut its revenue (fewer high-roller junkets) – reducing its profitability and, hence, investor appeal.
If Blackstone can oversee Crown’s rehabilitation from regulatory pariah, it has the opportunity to profit from the ultimate corporate redemption story.
What happens next
Private equity outfits assist distressed companies by injecting the money required to turn things around and providing management expertise.
Crown doesn’t need money, so Blackstone’s main role will be rehabilitating its brand and corporate credentials with regulators and, hence, the investment community.
It can then be expected, after a polite interval, to sell Crown either to a global casino operator via a trade sale, or to public investors via a refloat on the Australian Stock Exchange.
One of the criticisms often made of private equity firms like Blackstone is that they aggressively (but legally) minimise their tax obligations. In the case of a casino, tax obligations should be harder to avoid since they are calculated on the basis of revenue received rather than reported profit. (That said, the Victorian Royal Commission did find Crown Resorts had avoided $200 million in tax, of which the company has since repaid $61.5 million).
But so long as Blackstone follows the rules, particularly those to do with policing problem gambling, there’s a chance it could serve shareholder interests while minimising the social harm casinos tend to visit on the communities in which they operate.
Mark Melatos is a member of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Educators Advisory Panel and a member of the NSW Education Standards Authority’s HSC Standards Committee. He is also a volunteer for the Australian Conservation Foundation.
People choose certain foods or change their diets for a range of reasons: to improve their health, lose weight, save money or due to concerns about sustainability or the way food is produced.
Consider the trend towards low-fat products in the 1980s and low-carb diets in the 1990s, and now, the rise in plant-based protein products and ready-to-eat meals.
But before you abandon your traditional food choices, it’s important to consider the nutritional trade-offs. If you’re replacing one food with another, are you still getting the vitamins, minerals and other nutrition you need?
In a recent paper, I sought to raise awareness of nutritional differences between foods by producing a new index specific to Australia. It aims to help Australians make better informed dietary choices and get the nutrients recommended for good health.
Before you abandon your traditional food choices, it’s important to consider the nutritional tradeoffs. Shutterstock
Nutrients: are we getting enough?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes tables showing the usual intake of selected nutrients across the population. The tables also show the proportion of Australians whose usual nutrient intake is below what’s known as the “estimated average requirement”.
While Australian adults eat in diverse ways, they generally get enough of some nutrients regardless of their diets.
For example, most people seem to obtain adequate niacin (Vitamin B3) and phosphorus. And the tables suggest 97% of Australians get enough vitamin C.
However, inadequate intake of calcium, magnesium, vitamin B6 and zinc is common.
Around two-thirds of Australian adults consume less calcium than what’s recommended (which ranges from 840 to 1100 mg/day depending upon age). Worryingly, 90% of women aged over 50 don’t get enough calcium.
Inadequate zinc intake is most prevalent among Australian men – more than half aged over 50 consume below recommended levels.
So what about free sugars? These include added sugars and the sugar component of honey and fruit juices, but exclude natural sugars in intact fruit, vegetables and milk.
It’s recommended Australians limit free sugars to less than 10% of dietary energy intake. However, almost 50% of Australian adults exceed this recommended limit.
Worryingly, 90% of women aged over 50 have calcium intake beklow what is recommended. Shutterstock
Paying attention to under-consumed nutrients
Every food has a different nutrient composition. And as the Australian Dietary Guidelines show, we should eat a variety of foods to stay healthy.
We should pay particular attention to foods that are important sources of nutrients for which large numbers of Australians are not getting enough. If possible, Australians should seek to include more of these foods in their diet.
At the same time, foods with free sugars should be eaten only in moderation.
The new food index I produced seeks to help Australians achieve this. It provides an overall nutrient composition score tailored to the Australian dietary context.
The index includes eight vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, Folate, A and C), eight minerals (calcium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, magnesium, iodine, selenium and molybdenum), along with protein and free sugars.
These 18 elements are weighted in proportion to the extent of inadequate or excessive intake in Australia. A higher score is better than a lower score.
So, the index scores foods highly if they are low in free sugars, and rich in the elements many Australians need more of – calcium, magnesium, vitamin B6, zinc and vitamin A.
Foods containing few nutrients but added sugar score very low. For example, a chocolate chip cookie weighing 35 grams scored 0.004 and a sugar-sweetened cola-flavoured beverage scored below zero.
Foods containing few nutrients but added sugar score very low in the index. Matt Dunham/AP
Swapping foods may not achieve like-for-like
The index can be used to compare foods that might be considered substitutes in pursuit of a diet that’s healthier, more affordable or better for the environment.
In the case of dairy foods, 250ml of full cream milk scored 0.160, and reduced-fat milk almost as high at 0.157.
The index shows the potential nutritional trade-offs when choosing dairy alternatives. A 250ml serving of calcium-fortified oat beverage scored 0.093. Without calcium fortification, the score fell to 0.034.
Looking at meat, 100g of raw lean diced beef scored 0.142. An equivalent serving of plant-based burger made from pea protein, with many added vitamins and minerals, scored almost the same at 0.139. This shows plant-based alternatives are not necessarily less nutrient dense.
The index also shows the different nutritional needs of women and men. For example, the scores for two large eggs were higher for women (0.143) than men (0.094). This reflects, in part, the greater prevalence of inadequate iron intake among younger women.
Packaging on unprocessed foods doesn’t usually include nutrition information. Shutterstock
Understanding trade-offs
To date, comprehensive nutritional information about foods eaten in Australia has been found only in databases used by scientists and nutrition professionals.
For the average consumer, packaging on unprocessed foods – such as fruits and vegetables, fresh meats and some cheese – doesn’t usually include nutrition information.
Consumers can consult the nutrition information panel when buying processed foods, but only some nutrients are shown.
I hope my research may prompt manufacturers produce more nutrient-dense foods or those formulated to meet the nutrient needs of a particular subgroup.
In future, I hope the index will also be translated into a user-friendly format or app that everyday Australians can consult, to ensure their changing food preferences result in a healthier choice.
Brad Ridoutt is a Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. He has previously undertaken food system and nutritional research for a variety of private sector organizations and Australian government agencies. The research underpinning this article was partly funded by CSIRO and partly funded by Dairy Australia. Dairy Australia had no role in undertaking the study and the decision to publish research findings was made prior to funding and before the results were known. Dairy Australia had no role in the preparation of this article.
Many might choke at the suggestion Big Oil could play a key role in saving the climate. But, culpability for past actions aside, it is worth considering how fossil fuel interests might be recruited to combat global warming.
International commitments to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 leave less than three decades to achieve monumental change. A healthy dose of pragmatism will be essential.
Allowing time for new technologies to emerge might not be enough. Consumers will be reluctant to switch from familiar fossil fuels to untried or inconvenient new technologies with limited infrastructure – even if they are cheaper.
By the same token, new fuel infrastructures will not become competitive unless they achieve scale, meaning existing infrastructures will enjoy scale-related cost advantages unless sufficient users migrate to the new technologies.
Breaking this cycle is as much an economic challenge as a technological one. Harnessing the massive infrastructure and resources of the fossil fuel industry could be one way to meet that challenge.
Would it be better to repurpose existing infrastructure than build from scratch? Shutterstock
Accelerating net-zero targets
History shows the mass market adoption of new technologies is driven by their convenience and cost-effectiveness compared to what they replace. And large vested interests can be key to rolling out the required infrastructures.
For example, canals and railways in industrial revolution Britain were not built for ordinary travellers. They were sponsored by industrialists wanting more cost-effective transport options.
A recent study I authored on transitioning to net-zero emissions in transport and other sectors highlighted another (perhaps unexpected) solution: repurposing existing fossil fuel supply chains and infrastructures to supply low- or zero-emission fuels.
This could represent an affordable way to transition more rapidly to net-zero than by building entirely new infrastructures.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are already on the road in some countries. Shutterstock
The hydrogen alternative
Central to any viable solution is certainty. For instance, vehicle buyers face the risk of choosing a new technology that fails to take off, or opting for one that is displaced by another.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are a case in point. At the turn of the 20th century they challenged both steam and fossil fuel vehicles (FFVs) in the race to replace the horse, until they were eclipsed by FFVs.
Modern EVs have taken an early lead in replacing FFVs, despite a less-than-ideal environmental footprint. But major carmakers in Japan, Europe and China are actively exploring rival clean technologies, with hydrogen the most likely contender.
Hydrogen technology is perhaps as developed now as EVs were a decade ago, and is rapidly improving. It’s not inconceivable that EVs could be displaced, given the ability of hydrogen to fuel heavy transport, aviation and shipping.
In practice, hydrogen would be transported in modified gas networks and likely distributed through new or existing petrol stations. It could be made using renewable electricity to split water, or from natural gas with carbon dioxide emissions from manufacturing captured and stored in depleted gas fields.
A recent Californian study predicts hydrogen produced using renewable electricity will reach price parity with existing fuels this decade.
Toyota and Hyundai have already released consumer hydrogen cars, and New Zealand recently imported its first hydrogen-powered truck. Hydrogen refuelling infrastructure is also emerging both locally and globally.
Promisingly, hydrogen combustion vehicles are already under development, raising the possibility of retro-fitting existing FFVs to run on hydrogen (just as FFVs were converted to run on natural gas after oil price shocks in the 1970s).
This could substantially reduce the cost of replacing New Zealand’s 3.5 million private vehicles with low-emissions alternatives – an unavoidable challenge in decarbonising transport.
Why would fossil fuel companies make the necessary clean energy investments? Because they see it as sufficiently profitable compared to the alternatives.
Rather than abandoning much of their existing assets and switching to electricity generation and distribution to profit from a transition to EVs, they could repurpose their considerable assets and resources to produce and distribute hydrogen (or some other clean fuel).
Fossil fuel companies could be assured of playing a key role in the transition if governments picked a winner among competing clean technologies – but this would be politically hazardous.
Usefully, there is another approach that avoids those risks: franchise bidding – a much-used policy tool that replaces competition in markets with competition for markets.
Under this approach, governments would plan fossil fuel reductions over time, but auction a monopoly right to develop a clean energy alternative. That right would be time-limited and subject to performance standards and pricing oversight.
Creating a monopoly right allows economies of scale. Critically, vehicle manufacturers and buyers, fuel manufacturers and infrastructure investors can be confident they are not investing in the “wrong” technology – they all know the way forward.
Efficiency and equity
Furthermore, auctioning the monopoly right means governments avoid the political hazards of picking a winner. And proceeds from such an auction could be used to subsidise clean vehicle uptake or conversion of existing vehicles to clean fuels.
Finally, an auction can induce parties to participate when they might otherwise prefer no new technologies to emerge at all. Confronted with the prospect of owning a declining technology while a competitor enjoys the monopoly right to build the new one, winning the auction would look like the least-worst future.
Fossil fuel companies should have a substantial head start in winning such an auction, given their highly developed infrastructures, massive balance sheets and skilled workforces.
They could also ensure a more orderly transition away from fossil fuels to clean ones, since they would manage the supply of both.
And whether fossil fuel companies or other clean energy suppliers win, by holding a franchise-bidding auction the net-zero transition in transport is achieved more quickly, efficiently and equitably.
Richard Meade is Principal Economist at Cognitus Economic Insight. Research funding for the study cited in this article was provided by companies owning electricity and/or natural gas distribution networks. The views expressed in that study, and in this article, are the author’s alone.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
It’s probably no surprise that keeping healthy in space is incredibly important. And without the typical resources found on Earth, creative solutions have to be explored.
Right now, some excited Year 10 and 11 students from around Victoria are waiting with anticipation as their space-made yoghurt – fresh off the International Space Station (ISS) – heads back to Australia from NASA facilities in the United States.
The students worked with researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology to design an experiment investigating the nutritional values of space-made yoghurt. The results could provide insight into how to best help astronauts with vital nutrition during long-haul spaceflight.
The human gut
A critical factor in human health is the overall health of our gut microbiome, which is estimated to host more than 100 trillion bacteria.
Maintaining the health and diversity of these bacteria might be even more important in space than on Earth. In 2019, NASA released groundbreaking results from a year-long study on astronaut twins Mark and Scott Kelly.
In 2016, Scott spent 365 days on the ISS, experiencing reduced gravity, while Mark remained on Earth. A fascinating result from the study was that Scott experienced significant changes to his gastrointestinal microbiome when in space – and which didn’t persist after he returned to Earth.
In 2016, Mark and Scott Kelly were part of a study on how living in space can affect the human body. NASA/Robert Markowitz
It’s theorised the changes in microbiome experienced by astronauts are due to the lack of exposure to the “everyday” microbes encountered on Earth. Additionally, astronauts in space are exposed to less gravity, and high levels of radiation, which increase as they travel further away.
Understanding how to supplement astronauts’ gut bacteria and sustain its health is one of NASA’s current research goals. NASA is exploring this through both the use of capsule probiotics and simulated gravity experiments.
Why yoghurt?
Yoghurt is made by the bacterial fermentation of milk. The lactic acid produced in this process acts on the milk’s proteins to create yoghurt’s signature tart taste and thick texture. We wanted to see how this process is affected in the space environment.
Our student-led experiment is investigating whether different probiotic strains of bacteria can be used to make yoghurt directly in space. The ideal outcome would be to show that healthy, living bacteria cultures can be generated from frozen bacteria and milk products sent to space. This has not yet been achieved, although yoghurt has been made using bacteria returned from space previously.
This would be hugely beneficial during long space flights, where fresh food is limited and typical probiotic capsules would lose potency. Yoghurt also offers the nutritional benefits of the milk the bacteria are feeding off.
Our brilliant students began this journey via two paths. Through the ongoing SHINE program, six exceptional STEM students from Victoria’s Haileybury school worked with Swinburne staff and student mentors to develop, prototype and produce an experiment for the ISS.
In the past, this program has sent human teeth, chia seeds and magnetorheological fluid to the ISS. For the 2021-22 experiment the students had 24 five-millilitre vials (things have to be tiny in space) in which to build their detailed experiment.
Teams from four Victorian schools undertook an 11-week crash course in space applications before pitching their dream experiment. The winning team from Viewbank College was assigned six dedicated experimental vials, with all other teams also awarded a vial – all working towards the goal of investigating probiotics, bacteria and yoghurt in space.
The 2021 SYSIC winning team from Viewbank College blew the judges away with their insightful idea of investigating magnetic fields on plant growth in space. Pictured (L-R): Tarnie Jones, Belle Shi, Madeline Luvaul and Paisley Noble.
Aboard the ISS
Once ready for flight, the final bacteria samples were prepared and put into deep freeze by our Rhodium Scientific partners at the Kennedy Space Centre in the US.
The experiment samples were prepared at the Kennedy Space Centre (left), which involved putting them through a rapid-spinning vortex procedure (right). Rhodium Scientific
All 33 vials boarded their rideshare to the ISS via the SpaceX Crew Dragon 24, and were launched on December 24. Once onboard, the samples were removed from deep freeze by Astronaut Mark Vande Hei and set aside in a room-temperature experiment chamber in the Japanese Experiment Module, named Kibo.
After the allotted 48- and 72-hour timestamps (the time it takes to typically make yoghurt on Earth) the samples were placed back in deep freeze to preserve the progress. It’s expected they would have become yoghurt during this time.
The samples returned to Earth in late January and will be investigated by staff and students in the coming months, once they return to Australia.
The Rhodium Probiotic Challenge samples were boarded on the SpaceX Crew Dragon 24 spacecraft.
What we might find
The students chose to explore six different bacteria strains mixed together in various combinations, as well as certain strains isolated. With both the space-based experiment and control experiments conducted on Earth, we’ll be able to determine whether the bacteria sent to the ISS were significantly affected by reduced gravity.
Working from the lab at Swinburne, we will use methods such as DNA sequencing to isolate any variations in the genetic makeup of the bacteria, and investigate how many generations (or cell divisions) have occurred in the samples.
The students also purposely designed the experiment to test both dairy and non-dairy milk options, to see the potential differences in nutritional output. But perhaps the most exciting part for all involved will be the final taste test – and finding out if space yoghurt really is out of this world.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This climate pattern typically causes warm, humid air to rise from the western Pacific Ocean, ultimately leading to greater cloud formation, increased rainfall, and higher humidity along Australia’s eastern seaboard and tropical north.
So what’s the best way to cope with what’s left of a hot and humid La Niña summer?
Sweating (and the heat loss that goes with it) is by far the most effective way our bodies use to cool us down. But it’s not sweating alone that does the trick. It’s the evaporation of sweat that is key.
For every gram of sweat you evaporate, a little over 2.4 kilojoules of heat energy is taken with it.
That’s a bit difficult to visualise. So let’s think of it in terms of boiling water.
Evaporating roughly 140 grams of sweat results in enough energy (heat) “loss” to bring a litre of 20℃ water to boiling point (at sea level).
We were treated to some interesting facts during this year’s notoriously sweaty Australian Open tennis tournament.
Sweat evaporation is dictated primarily by the wetness of the skin, and the absolute humidity of the air. Absolute humidity is a function of the amount of water vapour in the air.
This is not to be confused with relative humidity which is the term usually used in weather reports. This tells us how much water vapour the air is holding (as a percentage) relative to how much it could possibly hold, which goes up with temperature.
The bigger the difference between the wetness of the skin and the absolute humidity, the more readily sweat evaporates.
In arid climates, such as central Australia, where the absolute humidity is low, sweat evaporates so rapidly you can barely feel it on your skin.
Whereas in humid conditions, such as in northern Australia and more recently much of eastern Australia, sweat evaporation is hindered.
This is why on humid days we think we’re much sweatier, when in reality we may not be sweating that much more than any other warm day. It’s just more sweat is staying on our skin (rather than evaporating), forming patches on our clothes and making us feel sticky.
Hot and sticky with all this humidity? Shutterstock
What can we do about it?
These three simple strategies will actually keep you cool on a humid day (without aircon):
Misting fans also work well as water settles on the skin and subsequently evaporates, taking body heat with it. Alternatively, you can spray your skin with water and sit in front of a fan.
2. Use ‘ice towels’
Wrap crushed ice in a damp towel and wrap it around your neck. Professional tennis players regularly do this to keep cool. This circumvents the need for evaporation by taking heat straight from the body via conduction.
3. Wet your clothes
Soaking your t-shirt with water and putting it back on reduces the increase in core temperature the same way as the evaporation of sweat. But it has the added bonus of not dehydrating the body. Alternatively, directly wetting the skin with a spray or wet sponge provides the same benefit.
What won’t work
Here are three strategies commonly recommended for beating the heat that won’t always work.
1. Evaporative cooling
Evaporative coolers work by passing hot air across a wet membrane to cool it. These work really well on hot, dry days. But on humid days, the air can hold less extra water, so evaporation is reduced and therefore, air is cooled far less.
2. Drinking chilled drinks
Although cold drinks may feel like they cool you down, it is mainly in your mind. Your body warms up the cold fluids or ice. At the same time, this triggers a reduction in sweating, which reduces the amount of heat you lose via evaporation. One cancels out the other.
This results in the same body temperature irrespective of how cold (or hot) the drink is.
We’re not suggesting abandoning drinks altogether. In fact, you do need to replenish water that you sweat, to avoid dehydration. But don’t expect cold drinks to perform any better than warm ones. Just drink fluid at the temperature you find most palatable.
Similarly, eating cold food, such as ice cream or other frozen or chilled snacks, does not result in any net cooling effect. By all means, eat them if they make you feel better, but don’t expect them to actually cool you down.
3. Sunscreen
While it is very important to protect you skin from UV, there is no evidence wearing sunscreen makes any difference to how hot you get or how hot you feel.
Ollie Jay receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Wellcome Trust (UK), MS Research Australia, NSW Dept of Industry and Environment, Tennis Australia, Cricket Australia, National Rugby League (NRL). He also serves as a consultant on research projects for the National Institutes of Health and US Dept of Defence. He served on Board of Trustees for the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) from 2018-21
Connor Graham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A study published last month in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition made headlines around the world.
Among a number of findings concerning alcoholic drinks and COVID, it reported drinking red wine was associated with a reduction in the risk of contracting COVID.
Before you start inviting people over to celebrate, it’s important to be aware there are a number of reasons to be cautious about these findings.
This paper is a great example of why many studies addressing diet and health are unreliable and need to be interpreted carefully.
Limitations in the way many of these studies are conducted is the reason we’re often told a food is good for us one day, only for this to be contradicted in another study.
This whiplash in study findings is a source of continued frustration in the field of nutritional science.
Let’s explore some of the the reasons why these studies can be misleading.
What were some of the findings?
There were a number of findings reported in this study.
Probably the most captivating from a media perspective was that drinking between one to four glasses of red wine a week was associated with an approximate 10% reduction in the risk of getting COVID.
Drinking five or more glasses of red wine a week was associated with a reduction in risk of 17%.
Although drinking white wine and champagne also appeared protective, the effect was smaller than with red wine.
In contrast, drinking beer was associated with a 7–28% increased risk of getting COVID.
It was hard to identify clear patterns with some of the other findings. For example, while drinking spirits was associated with an increased risk of contracting COVID, drinking fortified wine, in small doses only, appeared protective.
Similarly, while drinking alcohol more frequently was associated with a lower risk of getting COVID, drinking more than the UK guidelines for alcohol consumption was associated with an increased risk of contracting COVID.
Let’s delve deeper into the findings concerning red wine to explore some of the reasons why one should be sceptical about the results of these sorts of studies.
You hear this phrase all the time, but that’s because it’s so important to make the distinction between two variables being simply linked with each other, and one causing the other.
This analysis was completed from data collected from a large longitudinal study, which is a study in which you recruit participants and track them over time to collect information about their behaviours and health. Although this study, the UK Biobank cohort, had an impressive number of participants, the analysis simply involved looking for associations between alcohol consumption patterns and the diagnosis of COVID.
As this was an observational study where data was collected and analysed from people living their lives normally, all one can say with confidence is drinking red wine was associated with a lower likelihood of having been diagnosed with COVID. One can’t say drinking red wine was actually the reason the risk of contracting disease in this group was lower.
It’s entirely possible this association reflected other differences between red wine drinkers and those who developed COVID. This phenomenon is called “confounding”, and it’s very hard to completely remove the effect of confounding in observational studies to tease out what’s really going on.
Although the researchers made attempts to statistically adjust the results to account for some obvious confounders in this study – such as age, sex and education level – this type of adjustment isn’t perfect.
There’s also no guarantee there weren’t other sources of confounding in the study that weren’t considered.
Data on alcohol drinking is unreliable
There are two major limitations in the data collected relating to alcohol drinking patterns in this study.
The first is collecting information on what people eat and drink is notoriously unreliable.
And even more of a problem is the extent of this misreporting tends to vary considerably between people, making it very difficult to correct for.
The second major limitation was the researchers collected data on alcohol drinking patterns at the beginning of this longitudinal study and extrapolated forward many years to complete the analysis. That is, researchers looked at drinking patterns at the start of the study and assumed people had the same drinking patterns for the whole study.
Clearly a person’s drinking patterns could change considerably over the years, so this also introduces a great deal of potential error.
The public health significance is questionable
Another reason to temper your response to these findings is even if we assume red wine reduces the risk of COVID infection, the key question we need to ask is whether a 10–17% reduction in this risk compared with non-drinkers is of any real-world significance.
That is, how does this finding impact on our response to COVID?
Considering the huge benefit one can gain from other measures such as wearing masks, social distancing, improved hand hygiene, and getting vaccinated, this reduction in risk (if real) is marginal, and doesn’t translate to any significant protection from COVID.
The reality is drinking red wine solely to reduce your risk of contracting COVID isn’t something that can be recommended on the basis of this study – especially considering the other potentially detrimental effects of drinking alcohol.
Putting it together
Observational studies addressing aspects of our diet and health come with numerous and significant challenges.
They’re highly susceptible to the presence of confounders and biases, which limit their reliability and make the interpretation of their findings fraught.
So it’s really important the results from these types of studies are interpreted with a great deal of caution.
Therefore, the message when it comes to drinking alcohol remains you shouldn’t drink because of any perceived health benefits relating to COVID or any other illness. You should drink moderately if it brings you pleasure, and be clear this is why you are drinking.
While this isn’t the news any of us wanted to hear, this shouldn’t be a surprise, because if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Hassan Vally 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.
We’ve all been there (and perhaps even done it): a quick glance in the rear-view mirror shows the car behind is too close to our bumper, an aggression designed to make us drive faster or move over.
It is not only unpleasant, but highly dangerous. A Queensland study found being tailgated is one of the most stressful driving experiences. This is no surprise considering tailgating is among the top five complaints of road users.
So, what is being done to prevent this behaviour on our roads?
Based on the statistics, one could assume current countermeasures are not effective in preventing tailgating behaviours. For example, over 500,000 motor-vehicle collisions and injuries globally have been attributed to not maintaining a safe following distance.
In Queensland, Australia, over 7,000 injuries and fatalities were attributed to tailgating between 2019 and 2020. However, only 3,120 drivers received an infringement notice for the behaviour in this period.
Our research applied three deterrence-based theories used in road safety to examine whether current countermeasures are effective in preventing tailgating.
A total of 887 Queensland licensed drivers completed an online survey (55% male and an average age of 49 years). An alarming 98% of participants reported having tailgated at some point, highlighting how common the behaviour is on Queensland roads. Consistent with previous research, males and younger drivers reported the highest levels of tailgating.
Our research made the following findings (based on three deterrence-based theories):
drivers who believe the consequences for tailgating (that is, the fine and demerit points) are high, are less likely to engage in the behaviour
drivers who frequently tailgate (but are not caught) are more likely to continue the behaviour
those who know of family or friends who have been caught for tailgating are less likely to engage in the behaviour
those who think tailgating increases their risk of injury are less likely to engage in the behaviour
drivers who feel guilty for tailgating are less likely to engage in the behaviour
those who believe the chances of being caught for tailgating are low are more likely to continue engaging in the behaviour.
So, some current countermeasures for tailgating can be effective. Of particular interest is the finding that individuals who know of someone receiving a fine for tailgating are less likely to tailgate.
And information can spread widely, so someone being fined for tailgating may also deter friends and family from doing it.
However, some findings highlight that there is certainly room for improvement. These findings include:
drivers believe there is a low chance of being caught for tailgating
people frequently avoid detection.
Importantly, the findings suggest that legal sanctions can be improved by increasing drivers’ perceptions that they will be caught for tailgating.
Our findings also suggest that increasing the penalties (fines and demerit points) for tailgating may not necessarily improve the deterrent effect, as the current penalty is already considered effective.
There are two main actions that could increase drivers’ perceptions of the likelihood of being caught for tailgating. These include the use of cameras that can capture this behaviour, and additional police operations to detect the practice.
In the UK, there are police operations to detect phone use while driving that use larger vehicles to see what other drivers are doing more easily. UK police also encourage drivers to send in dash-cam footage of drivers violating road rules. Such measures may also be useful for capturing tailgating.
The findings also identify that the risk of injury and sense of guilt associated with tailgating are associated with less frequent engagement in this behaviour. So, those who tailgate frequently likely do not feel much guilt about doing so and do not think about the risk of injury associated with crashing. Therefore, campaigns that target these factors is another area to consider for preventing tailgating.
Taken together, the research findings highlight that tailgating remains a pervasive problem. Both legal and non-legal factors need to be part of efforts to counter this behaviour.
Tailgating may seem minor, but it is stressful for other drivers and dangerous. We must look at ways to curb this behaviour.
Michelle Nicolls receives funding from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC).
This research was funded by the Motor Accident Insurance Commission.
This research was partially supported by the Motor Accident Commission (MAIC) Queensland. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the MAIC.
Verity Truelove receives funding from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC).
A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will deep-dive into the latest events emerging from the Russia/Ukraine crisis, and they will consider:
What does Russia’s Vladimir Putin want from NATO and the US in a negotiated diplomatic solution to the Ukraine issue?
And what, from Ukraine’s perspective, is the most favourable outcome from the threat of the Russian military build-up on its border.
Also, in the US there are concerns that once the Beijing Winter Olympics concludes, the Peoples Republic of China may assert a renewed diplomatic crisis with Taiwan.
But, does this fit with a renewed Russia-PRC strategic partnership? And what does such a strategic partnership look like?
Join Paul and Selwyn for this LIVE recording of this podcast while they consider these big issues, and remember any comments you make while live can be included in this programme.
You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
Why is Russia encircling Ukraine with what looks very much like an invasion force? The first principle in answering such a question is that one should never take the simple media-reported statements of any of the major protagonists at face value.
Keith Rankin.
Yesterday I argued that an important part of the context for conflicts of this type is rival views of nationality. Here I look at the reality of the world’s many ambiguous ‘nations’ (we may call each of these a ‘polity’, a more inclusive term than ‘nation-state’ and a more specific term than ‘country’). Also, in the context of their present relationship to a dominant partner, we may all these places ‘annexes’, though not necessarily ‘annexed’.
My interest in political ambiguity was heightened when I watched the five-part BBC documentary series Places that Don’t Exist, presented by the intrepid and familiar Simon Reeves. Four of the six places featured are located in the former Soviet Union; none of these far from Ukraine. Of the other two, one was Taiwan. (The sixth was Somaliland, a breakaway from Somalia.)
China and Taiwan.
My sense is that the status of Taiwan continues to remain the greatest threat to ‘world peace’ (where ‘world peace’ is here defined as anything that is not ‘world war’). China ‘has’ three ambiguous annexes: Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Each has its own quite different set of historical circumstances. Hong Kong, as a polity, was almost entirely independent of China for 157 years to 1997. Its principal relationship was with United Kingdom, and it became one of the world’s biggest financial centres. In the last 25 years it has been subject to a now-near-complete reclamation process, the last few years being ones of intense internal conflict.
The polity of Macau was linked to another nation (Portugal, in this case) for much longer than Hong Kong was. So far it seems to have avoided the conflict that has plagued Hong Kong, and may indeed be poised to become a new focal point for China’s one country, two systems presentation of diversity.
Taiwan was a full part of China in the immediate post- World War Two period, between the surrender of the Japanese occupiers (1945) and the completion of the Maoist [Communist] Chinese Revolution (1949). It became the final bastion of the pre-Mao regime. The new Communist regime had priorities in 1949 other than waging a final battle, in the island of Formosa, with the surviving forces led by Chiang Kai-Shek. To the Chinese Communist Party, the polity of Taiwan remains the most significant unreclaimed territory.
Very early on, from 1949, Taiwan became a significant icon of the Pacific ‘Cold War’. It became an important part of the United States’ informal Pacific empire. Taiwan is an ambiguous annex. As such, we have come to expect that any attempt by China to repossess Taiwan by military means would mean an immediate state of war between United States and China.
However, what is little known, is that the polity of Taiwan covers more than the big island of Formosa. Lieyu Township, on Taiwan’s island group of Kinmen, is just three kilometres of shallow water away from China’s Xiamen city. The Mashan Observation Post is similarly close to China. Another Taiwanese archipelago – the Matsu Islands, aka Lienchiang County – are just off the Fujian coast, near the Chinese city of Fuzhou. (For a few months in the 1990s, I hosted a boarder from Fuzhou; he was always intensely interested in news about the then military build-up across the Taiwan Strait.)
What would the United States or the United Kingdom do if China militarily occupied Kinmen or Lienchiang, and stopped there? Quite possibly even less than they did with respect to Hong Kong. Military responses, pragmatically, have to be proportionate. Few would want to risk a world war over a few islands that almost nobody ever knew existed.
China also incorporates other contested territories, and is particularly eager to keep them under tight control, given the importance of central power to the Chinese territorial state. One obvious one is Tibet. The other is ‘East Turkistan’, essentially Xinjiang, home of the Turkic (and Muslim) Uighur people. (See East Turkestan independence movement, and the Turkistan Islamic Party.) Another important point of contest is the borderlands between China and India; both countries are significant nuclear powers.
United States
The United States ‘has’ five external territories, plus two mainland enclaves. While none of these are politically ambiguous at present – in the sense that they are not currently contested – the five territories fall well short of being states (as Hawaii is). The territories are Puerto Rico, American Virgin Islands (whose people drive on the left), American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands (from where the 1945 atomic bombs ‘took off’) and Guam. The enclaves are Alaska, a full state, and Point Roberts, part of Washington State. Alaska remains the best place in the English-speaking world to see authentic Russian architecture; a clue to its ambiguous political history.
There are other places in the Pacific with significant American presence, including Okinawa (Japan). And, we shouldn’t forget the United States military enclave in Cuba, Guantanamo Bay.
New Zealand and its neighbours
New Zealand is a surprisingly interesting case. It has a realm with time zones covering a 24 hour span. (Niue is 24 hours behind New Zealand in summer; Tokelau, hundreds of kilometres to the north is a full day ahead of Niue).
New Zealand’s closest international neighbours – both on the Zealandia continental mass – are ambiguous foreign polities, with contested histories.
Norfolk Island would probably today be part of New Zealand’s realm, were it not for the convict history that tied it to Australia. (It is the only foreign territory that my parents ever took a holiday to, together. Today it is serviced by the regional airline, Air Chathams.)
Norfolk Island is an external – realm – territory of Australia, which has been recently subject to a (contested) loss of autonomy. According to Wikipedia, the results of a recent survey indicated that 25 percent of the local population want full independence; the remainder were equally split over whether their association should be with Australia or with New Zealand.
New Caledonia’s formal status today is as a French Overseas Territory (like French Polynesia and Wallis/Futuna; unlike Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana which are full ‘Departments’); ie New Caledonia is a French realm country.
New Caledonia’s sovereignty has been highly contested, though with the weight of the French identifying population prevailing. In 1988, an independence insurrection – Ouvéa cave hostage taking – was violently suppressed by the French Government, with at least 21 fatalities on both sides. Since then there have been a number of independence referendums, the results of which were determined – as noted – by the weight of population identities; the demographics favouring those with French identity. (In another group of islands, the Comoros Islands off Africa’s east coast, a similar demographic balance led to most of the islands becoming independent, but one island – Mayotte – becoming a French Department.)
United Kingdom
England probably ‘has’ the more ambiguous territories than any other nation. First there is Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, each with different circumstances, and with different degrees of and processes of contestation as hegemons of England. Then there are the nearby tax haven polities: Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. The last two – together known as the Channel Islands – are just off the French coast, a long way from England, and were occupied by Nazi Germany during World War 2.
Even the status of the Republic of Ireland is ambiguous. While a full member of the European Union, it continues to have a relationship with the English-centred United Kingdom that is different from the United Kingdom’s relationships with the rest of the European Union. It even shares an ‘All Ireland’ rugby team with the Northern Ireland ‘province’ of the United Kingdom. After all, Ireland is a part of the British Isles, and the flag of the United Kingdom continues to include the Irish cross of St Patrick.
The United Kingdom still maintains an extensive realm, which includes part of the European mainland (Gibraltar), enclaves of Cyprus (Britain’s equivalent of Guantanamo Bay), the Chagos Islands (recently in the news; and see this and this on youtube) including the American military base at Diego Garcia, and Pitcairn Island.
The most numerous group of British extensions is in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. They include Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands tax haven. Of particular interest here is the contested Falkland Islands (aka Las Malvinas) in the South Atlantic Ocean. Forty years ago, Argentina claimed or reclaimed Las Malvinas by military force. However, most of the Falklands’ residents identified as British, and were resistant to the claims from the South American mainland, especially as 1982 represented a particularly problematic period in Argentine history.
The result was a substantial military (and ultimately successful) operation undertaken by United Kingdom, though not supported by United States. It was never going to become a World War. But what if the nearby mainland had been Russia or China?
Other Europe and Asia
Before looking at Russia, we might note that both Denmark and Netherlands have significant ‘overseas territories’. In the Netherland’s case, the territories of Aruba and Curacao used to attend the Olympic Games as ‘Netherlands Antilles’; now their residents must form part of the Netherlands’ team. As in the Norfolk Island case, the possessor has this century taken the territory into a closer embrace.
Two other places that should be noted here are the Spanish possession in Africa of Ceuta, and Republika Srpska within what is generally recognised as Bosnian territory.
At either ends of Asia there: is Houthi Yemen, a product of Shia/Sunni Islamic rivalry; and the purported Republic of West Papua (and other contested territories in eastern Indonesia).
And there is of course Palestine, now two highly contested territories bisected by the post-1948 ethno-political state of Israel.
India has the seemingly permanent flashpoint of Jammu and Kashmir, contested with Pakistan. Similarly, Myanmar has Rakhine State. Philippines has its Bangsamoro region in Western Mindanao and the neighbouring Sulu Archipelago. All these contested places, like previously mentioned East Turkistan, are associated with Islamic as well as ethnic-identity nationalism.
Former Soviet Union
It is with the context of the above ambiguous political states that the Ukraine crisis – the problems and the solutions – can be understood. Before going directly to the Ukraine region, it is pertinent to note that, in 1945, the Soviet Union annexed a group of Kuril Islands from Japan. Now considered fully a part of Russia, these islands lie just a few kilometres to the east (not west!) of Hokkaido, one of Japan’s main islands.
So, if World War 3 was to break-out from the Ukrainian impasse, there is more fuel than just Taiwan for there to be a Pacific War in parallel with a European war.
The breakup of the Soviet Union into its constituent republics was inevitably going to create a number of border issues, as former provincial boundaries become national territorial boundaries, with the possibility of becoming geopolitical boundaries. (Indeed, we see this problem in the boundary within Ireland. While there are two distinct national polities within Ireland, the preference of all, nevertheless, is to downplay the role of the border.)
Ukrainian nationalism was always going to be a significant force, despite both a shared ethnicity with Russia and shared variant of Christianity (Orthodox). In the last 100 years this particularly relates to the economic exploitation of Ukraine by Russia, especially in Stalinist times. This parallels the economic exploitation of Ireland by England at the time (1840s and 1850s) of the potato famine.
It has taken time for some of the various nationalisms to unfold, however, thanks to the original terms of the Soviet Union breakup, that left compliant autocrats in charge of flawed fledgling democracies.
The first of the significant splits was Transnistria, on the Ukrainian edge of Moldova. The Moldovian Soviet Republic was an unstable Romanian-Russian identity mix. Transnistria, formed in the early 1990s, remains a strongly pro-Russian separatist polity that is internationally recognised today as part of Moldova. Russia does have military hardware in Transnistria, poised as part of Russia’s near encirclement of Ukraine.
Next was Abkhazia, a Russian-leaning province of Georgia located on the Black Sea close to Sochi. Abkhazia fought for (and won) its freedom from Georgia in 1992 and 1993. Still recognised in the west as a part of Georgia, Abkhazia is in reality still part of the ‘Russian Riviera’.
Next, in 1994, was Nagorno-Karabakh, which saw the creation of an unrecognised Armenian enclave within recognised Azerbaijan territory. In late 2020, Azerbaijan successfully reclaimed – by military means – Nagorno-Karabakh.
Jump to 2008. While the Beijing Olympic Games were being held, Russia invaded Georgia, a post-Soviet nation making strong advances to both Europe and NATO. Russia annexed the Georgian territory of South Ossetia, not far from the problematic Chechnya, again like Abkhazia a place nominally in Georgia but whose people identified, for the most part, with Russia. Russia also gained a set of assurances that Georgia would not become a full member of NATO. It is this event, however, that the American National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was almost certainly alluding to when he commented that he expected Russia to invade Ukraine before the end of the present Beijing Winter Olympics Games.
By the end of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, this intervention had become a historical fait accompli. Today, most people, including most of the mainstream media, have forgotten. Looking back, it was certainly not regarded today as a lost opportunity by the west to engage in an expanded war with Russia.
Fast forward to late 2013. This is when the occupation of central Kyiv began, an event reminiscent of the Arab Spring occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo. The issue was the political leadership reneging on a promise to align Ukraine with the European Union. After three months and quite a lot of bloodshed, the President fled, and paved the way for a more western-aligned political leadership.
These events triggered the Russian intervention into Crimea, a strategic and ethnically diverse region not historically aligned with Ukraine. Thus, Crimea become another (strictly, two other) new nation that doesn’t officially exist. The parallel is with South Ossetia. At the same time, the eastern region of Donbas extended its attempts to breakaway from Ukraine, much as Abkhazia had fought against the state of Georgia. The result has been the creation of two unofficial Russian-aligned states that are usually referred to as Donbas. While there exists a definite boundary between Donbas and the rest of Ukraine, many people who lived in Donbas have moved to Russia which is more economically and militarily secure.
So, in the region there are effectively five ambiguous though Russian-aligned polities, three of which border on Ukraine and two of which are internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. We may also note that Belarus itself, with its strongly Russian-aligned regime, is also somewhat ambiguous, and helps to maintain the balance of power in the region. Belarus may be described, for the present at least, as a Russian-aligned ‘autonomy’.
Current Events
My present interpretation of the current impasse is that Russia has received intelligence to the effect that Ukraine plans to push to reclaim one or both of its ‘lost territories’. If I am correct, then Russia has no actual plans to invade Ukraine; certainly not as per the American ‘Olympic’ narrative. However, Russia I believe will take military action against Ukraine if the Kyiv-based government acts in any military way to reclaim either Donbas or Crimea. Crimea seems to more likely; especially it seems the more likely that the western powers would wish to prompt Ukraine to reclaim.
For a Ukrainian nation to go ahead and forge substantial ties with the European Union, it does not have to be distracted by its hitherto peripheral territories which have always been less keen to embark on that nationalist journey. For Russia, it would seem, the critical issue is that the five ambiguous territories maintain their present ambiguity. The Russian leadership might be ‘bad’, but I don’t think that they are ‘mad’.
What looks like an aggressive posture may really be about defending – and eventually recognising – the ‘places that do not exist’ as Russian-aligned ‘autonomies’. (Just as the United States will defend Taiwan – or at least the main island of Taiwan – from any attempt to reincorporate it into China.)
Some Wider Thoughts
NATO should be understood as a Cold-War institution that is no longer fit for purpose. Indeed a number of European Union Eurozone countries are not members of NATO: Ireland, Austria, and Finland. Finland is most significant here; it has a long history of rivalry with Russia, but is no longer seen as either beholden to Russia or a threat to Russia. Ukraine can forge for itself a future much as Finland has done. And it needs neither Crimea nor Donbas to do this.
It is also useful to note that the Russian desire to build a Greater Russia based upon Slavic identity may be not quite that. In the Interwar period – 1920s and 1930s – there was an underlying European racial hierarchy (as noted by Robert Boyce in his introduction in his 2009 book The Great Interwar Crisis) with Teutonic peoples (including ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and Scandinavians) at the top, Latin peoples next, and Slavic peoples below them. These beliefs, common in the past, are of course racist nonsense. Nevertheless, they linger, and East European people have suffered much because of them. Is Vladimir Putin the champion of the historically unappreciated Slavs? I think maybe not. The Rus’ people were in fact Swedish Vikings. And the supreme Rus’ were the Kyivan Rus’; thus the Russian national identity broadly defined may reflect the once-accepted racial hierarchy rather than bely it.
So, it could be interpreted that President Putin would like to acquire the citadel of Kyiv as the pinnacle of a Russian hegemony that controls the world in the terms that some early political geographers understood such control. (See Halford Mackinder in Wikipedia, and this Battle for the Heartland commentary by Chris Trotter in 2017.)
Having noted that, my preferred view about the present crisis is that the Russian leadership principally wants to defend the former Soviet places which, officially, do not exist. And therein lies our problem; we find it hard to cast a narrative around places that few of us have heard of. And we default to the presumption of officially recognised territorial sanctity; except when it comes to Taiwan.
Conclusion
Intractable boundary issues can be practically resolved by allowing for ambiguity. So far, the process of ambiguity – and a willingness by interested parties to live with that – has held the post-war peace with respect to Taiwan. It can do the same with respect to the much more complex boundary issues associated with the post- Soviet Union unravelling. We can take the middle road, avoiding both territorial dogmatism and identity dogmatism. And, we should always be sensitive to the preferences of the people who live in these ambiguous territories; so long as those people are willing to live peaceably with their neighbours.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Australian Jaclyn Narracott admits it took a significant change of mindset to help her claim silver at the Beijing Winter Olympics in the women’s skeleton – the bobsled event in which competitors hurl themselves down a curving track at speeds of 130 kilometres per hour, with mere centimetres between their chin and the ice.
I was part of the coaching team that introduced her to this event more than a decade ago, in March 2011 at Lake Placid, New York, the venue for the 1980 Winter Olympics. I was the sport scientist and program manager of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia’s Skeleton Program, along with my colleagues from the Australian Bobsleigh Skeleton Association (now Bobsleigh Skeleton Australia).
These days, Jacklyn splits her training time between sunny Queensland, at the Queensland Academy of Sport, and training with her partner in the UK during the off-season. On-ice training happens either during the northern summer in an “ice push house” – an indoor facility that lets athletes practise the start component of the event – or during the northern winter at one of just 15 tracks worldwide.
So what does it take to produce a medal-winning performance? And, perhaps more intriguingly, how does someone even begin to learn this fearsome sport?
What is skeleton?
Skeleton racers ride along a banked, ice-covered track, lying face-down on a single-piece sled with no suspension, no steering and no brakes. It’s a bumpier ride than it looks – ice isn’t smooth when you’re travelling faster than a car on a freeway!
Unlike the related events of bobsleigh, in which athletes sit inside a sled with steering cables attached to the front runners, and luge, in which competitors lie on their backs and use their legs to activate steering paddles, a skeleton sled is steered mainly by applying pressure via the knee or shoulder, or by subtly shifting the head or body position.
Beginners’ guide to skeleton.
How do you win?
Olympic skeleton athletes make four runs down the track, which is typically 1.2km long and features about 20 corners, with the fastest cumulative time taking the gold.
The overall speed depends on three things: the momentum generated during the short running start; the kinetic energy supplied by gravity as athletes descend along the course and by centrifugal force as they round the corners; and how effectively competitors can conserve energy by taking the most efficient line through the corners.
In general, athletes prefer to steer using their knee, shoulder or both. Steering left, for example, would involve pressing the right shoulder or left knee down onto the sled, or both at once for a sharper turn. This flexes and twists the sled, affecting the direction of the runners.
When approaching a corner, both the entry point (either early or late into the corner) and the direction of the sled affect how the centrifugal force of the corner will act on the slider. The athletes seek to anticipate the centrifugal force in the corner, to stick to a natural flowing line so as to carry more speed through the corner exit. Dragging a toe along the ice, while very effective for changing direction, can cost a lot of speed, so generally racers avoid this move where possible.
In straight sections of track, where there is no centrifugal force, steering the sled in the usual way doesn’t work, but a subtle tilt of the head can create an “air dam” that slightly changes the sled’s direction. But you don’t want to break the sled into a power slide skid, as you will lose a lot of momentum.
Finding an aerodynamic position is relatively straightforward: arms and hands by the competitor’s sides or tucked slightly under the top of the thighs; legs together and toes slightly pointed to remain off the ice. The head and chin are not tucked down, but instead held in a neutral position to maintain a clear view down the track.
As athletes develop, they become comfortable in this sliding position despite the alarming proximity of face and ice.
There’s no time to enjoy the view. Pavel Golovkin/AP
Ok, but how do you learn?
An athlete’s approach to skeleton depends on what we sports scientists call their “fear/risk profile”. This is an analytical tool that can help any athlete who may need to deal with significant fear or risk in their chosen event. It can boost confidence by allowing athletes to describe and contextualise their previous experiences of a track, with reference to particular weather or ice conditions.
When first learning this discipline, all skeleton sliders will begin from a lower position in the track, and only navigate the final six or so corners. This reduces both the speed and complexity of the run. At Lake Placid a decade ago, Jaclyn began her first ever run from corner 10 and completed four runs that day, before moving up to corner 7 the next day.
This might sound like a very small amount of practice for such a complex sport, but the on-ice vibrations and the g-forces involved are very fatiguing. After training, some athletes can show symptoms similar to impact trauma without having suffered any actual impact.
Their coach will then ask them to describe their entrance and exit from each corner, when and where they steered, and what steering technique they used. Using visual and video feedback, the athlete and their coach reviews their performance, thus building their risk profile and improving their speed.
As the athlete improves, they move further up the track to include more corners and greater speeds, until eventually they have mastered the entire course. But an experienced slider like Jaclyn will tackle a new course from the top straight away, as they have the necessary skills and confidence.
To cement their performance and learning, athletes take detailed track notes which they use to perform “mind runs”, either purely by mentally picturing the descent, or while lying on their sled and rehearsing the moves in the correct sequence.
As mentioned above, a skeleton bobsled has no brakes. Bobsled courses generally have a long uphill ramp beyond the finish line, and competitors can also drag their spiked shoes along the ice or aim to rub off speed by steering into the walls of the track. After crossing the finish timing eye, the finishing straight or “outrun” of a track is usually about 100m long.
Stopping comes with its own risk of injury – athletes have fallen off their sleds, usually bruising nothing more than their ego, but occasionally something may be tweaked or broken. But compared with the challenge of successfully navigating a succession of corners at speeds faster than a car on a freeway, stopping is the relatively easy part.
Job done. Pavel Golovkin/AP
Dale Chapman 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.
More than five months after Taliban forces overran Kabul, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke made a long-awaited announcement in January to resettle Afghan refugees. Over the next four years, Australia will offer 10,000 places to Afghans in humanitarian need and another 5,000 visas to Afghans reuniting with family in Australia.
The news came as a Senate committee released a “damning consensus report” that called Australia’s approach to the evacuation of Afghans last year “short-sighted”, “confused” and “dishonourable”.
The Senate committee urged the Australian government to “play a global leadership role” in resettling those displaced from Afghanistan. But just 15,000 visas fall far short of this task, particularly as these places will come out of Australia’s existing refugee and migration quotas, reducing space for others in need.
The Refugee Council of Australia called the announcement “hopelessly inadequate”. It pointed out that a large proportion of the pledged 10,000 humanitarian places could be taken up by Afghans who were evacuated to Australia last year, leaving just 4,500 spots for those overseas.
Meanwhile, 150,000 Afghans have submitted applications for refugee and humanitarian visas to Australia since Kabul fell.
Members of the Afghan community met with Hawke this week to urge him to recognise Australia’s “moral obligation” to the people of Afghanistan, calling for at least 20,000 more humanitarian resettlement places.
With borders closed, thousands are stuck in limbo
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely diminished Australia’s modest contribution to global refugee resettlement needs.
In 2019-20, Australia was planning to welcome up to 18,750 people in humanitarian need, but this number was slashed to some 13,750 annual places for 2020–25.
This is a tiny proportion of the more than 1.4 million displaced people identified by the UN refugee agency as being in need of resettlement each year.
Crucially, Australia’s program was suspended in March 2020 due to the pandemic. This left around 9,500 refugees waiting in limbo for borders to re-open almost two years later. There were only extremely limited exceptions for refugees to be resettled in the interim.
In contrast, after a short suspension early in the pandemic, the United States, Canada and some European countries resumed their resettlement programs in 2020, welcoming more than 30,000 refugees. These countries then welcomed the bulk of the more than 39,000 refugees resettled in 2021.
In December 2021, Australia reopened its borders to vaccinated skilled migrants and international students and began to welcome refugees who had been waiting for resettlement. Home Affairs did not respond to a request by The Conversation, however, for the numbers of refugees resettled since December 15, or when the program would ramp up.
Two months on, it is clear the government has been slow to develop COVID-safe processes that would allow for a larger-scale refugee intake.
Many refugees awaiting resettlement are stuck in countries that have low COVID vaccination rates. Some may also have received vaccines that have not been approved in Australia.
However, the government requires humanitarian entrants be fully vaccinated before arriving. The Refugee Council of Australia is calling for Canberra to create space in quarantine facilities to facilitate the entry of refugees who do not meet the vaccination requirements.
Even though Australia has announced 15,000 visas for Afghan nationals over the next four years, its contribution is still well behind that of Canada and the US.
The Canadian government made a pledge of 40,000 places for Afghan refugees after the fall of Kabul. Delays in processing have meant only about 6,500 have been granted entry so far. But these places are in addition to Canada’s existing annual resettlement program (unlike Australia).
Since mid-2021, the Biden administration has admitted more than 74,000 Afghan nationals, many of whom now need to apply to stay in the United States permanently.
And for 2022, President Joe Biden has pledged to provide permanent resettlement to up to 125,000 refugees from around the world, although progress has been delayed somewhat as authorities work to speed up the entry of Afghan refugees.
With the Taliban once again allowing chartered evacuation flights to Qatar, the US plans to expedite its system of interviews, security and health checks, and visa processing for those fleeing Afghanistan.
No clear path for Afghans already here, either
Not only has the Australian government been slow to process Afghans fleeing their homeland, it has also not made it easier for those already in Australia to stay permanently.
This includes around 5,000 Afghans living on temporary visas for the last decade. The visa conditions prevent individuals from bringing their family members to safety in Australia.
The Afghanistan-Australian Advocacy Network has also called for the government to review its eight-year ban on the resettlement of Afghan refugees from Indonesia. Several thousand people are stuck there without work, education or health care, waiting for a chance at resettlement elsewhere.
Meanwhile, around 25 Afghan refugees remain in limbo on Nauru or in Papua New Guinea, while others are detained in hotels in Australia.
The Senate committee’s call for Australia to be a global leader in refugee protection has been issued many times in recent years – by representatives of the US, the UN refugee agency and civil society groups.
Such leadership can have real impact. Ahmad Shuja Jamal, a special advisor at the Refugee Council of Australia, told the Senate committee Australia could use its influence to encourage neighbouring Pakistan to allow Afghan refugees to enter and wait for resettlement safely. This diplomacy can “literally save lives”, he said.
Instead, Australia’s response during the pandemic reveals a country quick to close its borders and drag its feet. This ignores the strong community support for the admission of Afghan refugees and Australia’s “international standing”
as a country with a well-established resettlement program.
Should Australia wish to stake a credible claim to leadership in helping refugees, a much greater contribution to the protection of those fleeing Afghanistan is a crucial place to start.
Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Regina Jefferies 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.
Australia’s forests now carry far more flammable fuel than before British invasion, our research shows, revealing the catastrophic risk created by non-Indigenous bushfire management approaches.
Contemporary approaches to forest management in Australia are based on suppression – extinguishing bushfires once they’ve started, or seeking to prevent them through hazard-reduction burning.
This differs from the approach of Indigenous Australians who’ve developed sophisticated relationships with fire over tens of thousands of years. They minimise bushfire risk through frequent low-intensity burning – in contrast to the current scenario of random, high-intensity fires.
Our research, released today, provides what we believe is the first quantitative evidence that forests and woodlands across southeast Australia contained fewer shrubs and more grass before colonisation. This suggests Indigenous fire management holds the key to a safer, more sustainable future on our flammable continent.
Globally, climate change is causing catastrophic fire weather more often. In Australia, long-term drought and high temperatures were blamed for the Black Summer bushfires in the summer of 2019-20. This event burned 18 million hectares, an area almost twice the size of England.
The unusually high fire extent in forests prompted several important questions. Could these massive fires be explained by climate change alone? Or was the way we manage forests also affecting fire behaviour?
Recent catastrophic fires in Australia and North America prompted renewed scrutiny of how the disruption and exclusion of First Nations’ burning practices has affected forest fuel loads.
Fuel load refers to the amount of flammable organic matter in vegetation such as leaves, twigs, branches and trunks. Large fuel loads in the shrubby layers of vegetation enable flames to more easily reach tree canopies, causing intense and dangerous “crown” fires.
Colonial vegetation management involved clear-cutting and intense intentional burning to create land on the plains for agriculture. Forests in rugged and less desirable terrain were left unmanaged or exploited through logging.
A fire-fighting mentality came to dominate fire management in Australia, in which fires are seen as a threat to be prevented, or stopped once they start. This thinking underlies mainstream fire and land management to this day.
Current mainstream fire management focuses on suppression techniques. Sean Davey/AAP
Uncovering past landscapes
Our research set out to examine vegetation change at 52 sites across much of Australia’s southeast before and after colonisation in 1788. A large proportion of these are in forested areas of Victoria and New South Wales.
Scientists can develop a picture of past vegetation by extracting tiny fossilised grains of pollen from ancient sediment in wetlands and lake beds. Different plants produce pollen grains with different shapes, so by analysing them we can reconstruct past vegetation landscapes.
We also calibrated the amount of pollen to vegetation cover, to determine the past proportions of trees, shrubs, and grasses and herbs.
We did this using new modelling techniques that allow the conversion of pollen grain counts to plant cover across the landscape. These models have been widely applied in Europe, but our work represents a first in Australia.
We could then quantify vegetation changes before and after British invasion. We found forests in the southeast are now much denser, and more flammable, than before 1788.
Researchers preparing a platform for extracting lake sediment cores. Photo by Haidee Cadd.
We found grass and herb vegetation dominated the pre-colonial period, accounting for about half the vegetation across all sites. Trees and shrubs covered about 15% and 34% of the landscape, respectively.
After British invasion, shrubbiness in forests and woodlands in southeast Australia increased by up to 48% (with an average increase of 12%). Shrubs replaced grassy areas, while tree cover has remained stable overall.
Considering the vast area covered by our analysis, the shrub increase represents a massive accumulation of fuel loads.
The transition from pre- to post-colonial fuel structure in southeastern Australian forests, according to results presented in our recent publication in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (Mariani et al., 2022).
More than 200 years of neglect
In 1770, natural history artist Sydney Parkinson described the landscape along Australia’s east coast as “free from underwood […] like a gentleman’s park”.
In 2011, historian Bill Gammage published a controversial book titled The Biggest Estate on Earth. It contained several paintings of early colonial Australia in which the landscapes resembled a savanna, with large gaps between trees and a grassy understorey.
Nowadays, many such areas are dense forest. Our research is the first region-wide analysis that gives scientific credence to these historical accounts of a landscape very different to what we see today.
Painting by Eugen von Guerard, Crater of Mt Eccles (Budj Bim National Park), Victoria (1858). Sourced from Gammage, 2011, The Biggest Estate on Earth.
The disposession of Indigenous Australians by British invaders has had a deep social and ecological impact. This includes neglect of the bush, the direct result of denying Aboriginal Australians the right to exercise their duty of care over Country, using fire.
Australia’s forests need fire, deployed by capable Indigenous hands. Without it, increased fuel loads, coupled with climate change, will create conditions for bushfires bigger and more ferocious than we’ve ever seen before.
Michela Mariani receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) at the Australian National University.
Michael-Shawn Fletcher is a Wiradjuri scholar and receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Simon Connor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
According to UNICEF, Australia ranks in the bottom third of OECD countries in providing equitable access to quality education. This means our education system – from access to early childhood education to expectations for study after school – does not allow every student to enjoy the same benefits that come from schooling.
The students who often miss out are from disadvantaged families. This includes young people with disabilities, First Nations peoples, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, students in regional and remote communities, and young refugees and asylum seekers.
A Grattan Institute report shows the gap between students whose parents have low education and those with highly educated parents grows from ten months in year 3 to around two-and-a-half years by year 9. And because of COVID, and the disruption to education, vulnerable students are even worse off than before.
This is important because what happens to young people at school affects the opportunities they are exposed to for the rest of their lives.
Existing testing measures don’t capture young peoples’ whole learning experience which occurs both inside and outside formal education settings. Nor do they capture all key objectives of education including promoting active citizenship and social engagement.
In our report out today through the Centre for Social Impact, we reviewed 45 education interventions and culturally inclusive studies. We synthesised the findings and have come up with so-called “levers for change”. These represent actions that can be implemented not only in schools, but also outside educational settings including communities, to make education more equitable.
What programs did we evaluate?
The 45 programs we chose to review had been through a rigorous evaluation process. We specifically looked for those implemented in schools and communities that had shown promise in improving education and other social learning outcomes – such as problem solving and teamwork skills – for young people in vulnerable contexts.
These included programs that connect families in remote communities with local early childhood services and community playgroups, as well as offer small staff-to-student ratios and targeted care to families experiencing stress.
Other programs exposed students to a variety of workplace and study settings and provided Indigenous cultural activities to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
Out of the 45 programs we looked at, 15 focused on First Nations students.
Our findings
From our review, four key findings emerged:
students in disadvantaged groups have a range of skills that aren’t captured in traditional education. These include the ability to care for family members with disability, or be an interpreter to other family members. School systems and other flexible learning models should find a way to use these young people’s existing strengths which will contribute to outcomes including building their resilience and confidence
while there are a number of culturally responsive Indigenous education programs, they are often lacking rigorous evaluation. This means successful ones cannot be replicated. Indigenous education experts are calling for strong evidence of best practice models for Indigenous young people
student agency is often missing from discussions about their future. For example, there could be a formal process in schools where students document and integrate various experiences they gain when doing work experience in their local community. These experiences would transfer to skills such as confidence, time management, teamwork, and students’ increased understanding of themselves and belonging in the world
when schools, families and communities work in non-tokenistic partnerships, this can lead to decreased drop-out rates for young people, improved attendance and strengthened pride in their culture. This was evident in programs where school authorities partnered with parents, Elders and the community to nurture cultural perspectives.
Our findings translate to what we have termed “levers for change” as well as recommendations for governments, education systems and communities.
The key recommendations include:
acknowledge the limitations of Western definitions of knowledge and look to other perspectives. This means rethinking what counts as “success” in learning by prioritising competencies gained outside traditional education settings. This includes investing in flexible education options with non-ATAR based pathways
engage young people more fully into school and community life through social learning programs. This includes supporting partnerships between schools, universities and communities to enable young people to pursue education and employment pathways in local and outer regions
Traditional education doesn’t recognise skills such as caring for family members. Shutterstock
develop a robust evidence ecosystem, so there is a continuous process of collecting best practice evidence of student learning from schools and outside schools
share and replicate successful or promising interventions across education settings and in the community. We must recognise programs and evidence are often highly contextual, bound by demographic groups, settings, duration and other parameters.
Feedback on our recommendations
In January we workshopped our recommendations with educators, philanthropic organisations, and those who implement programs. We spoke about which recommendations should be prioritised and the barriers that need to be removed.
People recognised the importance of non-ATAR driven approaches and recognising and documenting skills developed outside schools.
They also identified policy choices and institutional barriers, such as lack of sustained investment and approaches which focus on deficits rather than strengths. We should also be careful in assuming successes in one jurisdiction or context will replicate in others.
Above all, steps must be taken to actively include diverse young people in decisions that impact their future. This is our next step; we will take our recommendations to young people to gain further feedback.
Meera Varadharajan receives funding from Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropy Australasia.
Jack Noone 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.
Last month the British Medical Journal published an editorial calling for racism to be listed as a leading cause of death among Black people in the United States.
The authors argue reporting excess deaths by race and ethnicity will “galvanise action and promote accountability”. They write:
There is no biological reason, independent of social context, that Black people should die younger than White people. The excess premature deaths are the cumulative difference in death between Black and White people across every specific cause of death.
This call echoes the global shift to declare racism a public health crisis, after the confluence of COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement showed how it affected the lives of Black and Indigenous peoples.
We commend these calls. But measuring the impact of racism by the number of excess deaths raises concerns about how we deal with the racialised health disparities Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to experience.
If racism is only understood in terms of excess death, it risks perpetuating racialised imaginings of Indigenous peoples as “destined to die”.
The findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the failure to implement recommendations, shows Indigenous deaths don’t galvanise action or promote accountability in this country.
Measuring racism via excess deaths also fails to account for the ways race bears down heavily upon the lives of Indigenous peoples from birth to death. This is the problem with seeking to measure something that remains poorly defined and only measured by its worst possible outcome: death.
Race operates as a structure of power. Our understanding of it is not well served by only telling the statistical story of death. What is needed is not “more data”, but a better understanding of power. The refusal to pursue a deeper understanding of race sustains the existing power structure – even in efforts that claim to improve it.
For instance, despite the investment in Indigenous health research in recent decades, there has yet to be a focused investment in studies examining the operation of race and racism in this realm. This is disturbing given the efforts of Closing the Gap are intended to remedy a range of disparities marked by race.
Perhaps this explains why Closing the Gap is widely considered a policy failure. Each year the account of Indigenous ill health is reported on in the floors of parliament. Yet this tragic failure is often attributed to Indigenous peoples as though they haven’t taken “proper responsibility” for their health and used as justification to maintain power over Indigenous peoples’ lives.
The BMJ editorial authors claim biological understandings of race have been abandoned by medical science. We argue such understandings have been replaced with a behaviouralist explanation that is also racist.
Both approaches – the biological and the behavioural – focus on blaming the Black body. It is to be measured, monitored and ultimately controlled. The individual behavioural approach in public health has been widely criticised in global efforts as a form of victim-blaming because it doesn’t address the structural conditions that create health disparities.
Over the past few months, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) Race Discrimination Commissioner has invited public submissions surrounding the formation of a National Anti-Racism Framework, and put forward a “concepts paper” detailing eight national outcomes.
Included was a call for better data which describes the nature, prevalence and incidence of racism. But the AHRC provides no conceptual clarity around the very thing they wish to measure and eradicate. What is clear, is that more of the same is not enough to address racism in this country.
Chelsea Watego: ‘I think of myself as a Black speed bump of the capital B kind. A cautionary disruption to an otherwise smooth ride.’
Indigenous lived experience is the answer, not death
Recognising the public health crisis of racism, and the formation of a national anti-racism framework demands a richer understanding of how racism “originates in the operation of established and respected forces” of society and the ways it impacts lives.
Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy prioritises an “increased awareness of the historical roots of racism and discrimination, and their impacts on communities and Indigenous peoples”. This centres the expertise of Indigenous peoples and communities.
While excess Black deaths may tell a certain truth about the ongoing violence of racism, it is in Black living that a richer understanding of how race works materialises. It is also in the expertise and actions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that we can see more meaningful anti-racist efforts emerge that attend to the structural nature of racism.
Sadly, we’ve a long way to go in this country for there to be a foregrounding of the lived experiences and expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in developing an understanding of the realness of race. This is what speaks so clearly to how big the racism crisis really is in this place.
Chelsea Watego is affiliated with Inala Wangarra. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research.
Lisa J Whop receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Around the world, Earth’s natural environments are being destroyed at a truly shocking scale. It means places animals need to shelter and breed, such as tree hollows, rock crevices and reefs, are disappearing.
The only long-term way to protect these animals is to stop destroying their homes. But political resistance, financial interests and other factors often work to prevent this. So scientists must get creative to try and hold off extinction in the short term.
One way they do this is to create artificial habitat structures. Our new research, released today, examines how ingenious, high-tech innovation is making some structures more effective.
But artificial habitats are not a silver bullet. Some can harm animals, and they can be used by developers to distract from the damage their projects cause.
Technology is making some artificial habitat structures more effective. Matthew Newton, WWF Australia
What are artificial habitat structures?
Animals rely on specific environmental features to survive, grow, reproduce and sustain healthy populations. Artificial structures seek to replicate these habitats.
Some artificial homes provide habitat for just one species, while others benefit entire ecological communities.
They’ve been built for a huge variety of animals across the world, such as:
ceramic poles that provide a surface for spotted handfish to lay eggs
textured tiles attached to seawalls that provide habitat for up to 85 marine species.
Artificial habitat, such as these tiles added to a seawall, can help a species’ short-term prospects. Alex Goad, Reef Design Lab
How do new technologies help?
More recently, wildlife conservationists have partnered with engineers and designers to incorporate new and exciting technologies into artificial habitat design.
For example, researchers in Queensland recently installed microchip-automated doors on nest boxes for brushtail possums.
The doors opened only for microchipped possums as they came close, and most possums were trained to use them in about 11 days. Such technology may help to keep predators and other animals out of nest boxes provided for threatened species.
In New Zealand, small, native lizards hide from predatory house mice in the crevices of rock piles. Researchers used video game software to visualise these 3D spaces and create “Goldilocks” rock piles – those with crevices big enough to let lizards in, but small enough to exclude mice.
3D printing to create artificial habitats is also becoming increasingly common.
Scientists have used a combination of computer simulation, augmented reality and 3D-printing to create artificial owl nests that resemble termite mounds in trees.
And researchers and designers have created 3D-printed rock pools and reefs to provide habitat for sea life.
A 3D-printed, modular artificial reef structure designed by Alex Goad.
It’s not all good news
Collaboration between scientists and engineers has enabled amazing new homes for wildlife, but there’s still lots of room for improvement.
In some instances, artificial habitats may be detrimental to an animal’s health. For example, they may get too hot or be placed in areas with little food or lots of predators.
And artificial habitats can become ineffective if not monitored and maintained.
Artificial habitat structures can also be used to greenwash environmentally destructive projects, or to distract from taking serious action on climate change and habitat loss.
Further, artificial habitat structures are often only feasible at small scales, and can be expensive to build, deploy and maintain.
If the root causes of species decline – including habitat destruction and climate change – aren’t addressed, artificial habitat structures will do little to help wildlife in the long-term.
The root causes of species decline, such as habitat destruction, must be addressed. Darcy Watchorn
What next?
It’s great that conservationists can create high-tech homes for wildlife – but it would be better if they didn’t have to.
Despite the dwindling numbers of countless species, environmental damage continues apace.
Such actions are the root cause of species decline.
We strongly encourage further collaboration between scientists and engineers to improve artificial habitat structures and help animal conservation. But as we help with one hand, we must stop destroying with the other.
Darcy Watchorn receives funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation, Parks Victoria, the Conservation and Wildlife Research Trust, the Ecological Society of Australia, the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council, and the Geelong Naturalists Field Club. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania.
Mitchell Cowan receives funding from the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, and Consolidated Minerals. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Australian Wildlife Society, and the Australian Mammal Society.
Tim Doherty receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Hermon Slade Foundation, NSW Environmental Trust, Australian Academy of Science and WWF Australia. He is policy committee chair for the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia.
A Mitchell Institute report shines a light on how quality teaching and innovation in universities can dramatically improve learning. The report found the Victoria University Block Model of teaching cut the fail rate for first-year students by around 40%. The model involves rearranging the timetable so students take one subject at a time in a four-week “block” of intensive learning rather than multiple subjects together over a traditional 12-week teaching semester.
While universities generate innovation for other industries, innovations in their own core business – teaching – do not receive much attention. Innovative teaching often happens “in spite of, not because of” the system in which universities operate. Yet it can have a significant impact on student learning.
The latest research analysed the academic outcomes for commencing students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects following the adoption of Australia’s first block model learning structure in 2018. Comparing first-year cohorts in the two years before the change (2016-17) to first-year cohorts in the two years after the model was implemented (2018-19), the report found the overall fail rate for these students fell by around 40%. The improvement was greatest for students from equity groups, such as female students in non-traditional areas and students from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
This research reinforces the findings of earlier research on the block model’s impact.
VU has since rolled out the block model for all years of university, including postgraduate degrees. Other universities, including Southern Cross and Murdoch, have recently introduced a form of block model to their teaching.
What’s the recipe for success?
The report got “inside the black box of the block model” to find out how this improvement in learning happened and what other universities can learn.
In interviews, VU students said doing one subject at a time helped them focus and sustain learning, rather than cramming for end-of-semester exams. As one student told us:
“I feel like when you do one thing at a time, you learn better as well.”
Students also gained confidence from getting results from their first “block” early, instead of having to wait until mid-year.
“When I saw my marks come through and they were the unexpected high marks,
it was very motivating ’cause it gave me that confidence it’s possible.”
But the key ingredient was a focus on quality teaching and student success. When VU introduced the model, it created a dedicated multidisciplinary First Year College staffed by academics who were passionate about teaching.
The importance of quality teaching shone through in the interviews. Students recognised that the staff cared about their learning.
“It just wasn’t like a job that you guys had to do […] you’re really invested and you wanted us to do well, you really did, and it was very clear from the very
beginning.”
VU academics and leaders also described the positive energy and enthusiasm in the First Year College. Staff from all disciplines came together to create an environment where learning comes first.
Why aren’t such innovations more common?
The experience of the block model shows universities can innovate in ways that lift results for all students, especially those in equity groups. This raises the question of why such innovations have been relatively rare in Australia.
It’s no secret that quality teaching matters. A 2017 meta-analysis covering over 2 million students explored the factors that affect learning at university. It found the largest impact comes from interactive classes where students engage in discussion with academics and each other.
Block model classes exemplify this approach. As one VU academic said:
“I think that’s another difference in our block and small classes, with students who have been to other universities who say, “I never got to talk to anybody. You’d
have to sit there in silence.” And […] the teacher was just miles away. You’d never
actually get close to them.“
The problem is that quality teaching is generally not given the recognition it deserves. While Australian universities are monitored for quality teaching as well as research and broader impact, the way universities are compared internationally skews their focus towards research that helps them scale academic rankings.
There is a vast difference between the Australian universities that rank highest in teaching quality and those that rank highest on international measures. The Australian university ranked highest internationally is not among the top 10 universities for undergraduate teaching quality in Australia.
This is a self-reinforcing cycle, as prestigious universities attract many students who need little teaching support.
Chart: The Conversation. Data: The Good Universities Guide 2021-22, Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022, CC BY
All Australian universities may need to give greater attention to teaching and student support as the COVID-affected generation of young people enters universities.
In 2020, student rankings of university teaching quality fell to an all-time low. Less than half of Australian undergraduates felt satisfied with the efforts that teaching staff made to engage them. This suggests universities will need to focus intensely on teaching quality to get students back on track.
The Mitchell Institute research was conducted as COVID-19 moved learning online. It found the close relationships between block model students and staff, and the passion for quality teaching, helped VU to get through the chaos.
Focusing on quality teaching is not just a strategy for student achievement. It is a smart move for all universities to build their resilience in uncertain times.
Jen Jackson is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Victoria University, and received funding from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education for this research.
Kathy Tangalakis is an Associate Professor in the First Year College at Victoria University.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Novitz, Senior Lecturer, Writing, School of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
Amazon Studios
Amazon Studios is due to launch its Lord of the Rings prequel TV series in September this year. Not much is known about it yet, other than the title – Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power, some first looks, a teaser-trailer, and that it will be set in the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth timeline.
The Second Age will not be all that familiar to audiences of Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of Tolkien’s novels, which take place in the Third Age, many thousands of years after the events featured in The Rings Of Power. But the books, including Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and the lore-heavy Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-Earth provide us lots of background to the history of the Second Age.
What follows is a quick primer on this setting and what we can expect from the Amazon series.
What is the Second Age?
The Second Age begins after the downfall of Morgoth (a Lucifer figure in Tolkien’s mythology) and ends with the first defeat of Morgoth’s lieutenant Sauron, which film audiences will remember from the opening montage of the Fellowship of the Ring, where an alliance of men and elves defeat the dark lord by cutting the source of his power, the One Ring, from his finger.
None of Tolkien’s books focus specifically on the Second Age, though key events are briefly detailed in the last sections of the Silmarillion and some stories from Unfinished Tales. Tolkien’s lengthily appendices to the Lord of the Rings provide a full timeline of the Second Age. These fragments describe a time when the elves were more prominent and powerful, and human kingdoms were greater and more unified.
The Second Age serves as a lost classical period that falls between the heroic myth-cycle that depicts the events of the First Age in the Silmarillion, and the grittier medievalism of the Third Age that we see in the Lord of the Rings.
Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark. Amazon Studios
What happens in the Second Age?
Perhaps the most important event is the forging of the rings of power. A disguised Sauron tricks the elven smith Celebrimbor into forging nineteen rings to be distributed between elves, dwarves and humans.
However, the elves quickly realise that this is a ploy by Sauron to control them all through the power of the One Ring and begin a long battle against his influence.
Given its title, the series will probably focus on the consequences of falling prey to the power of the rings. It might well depict the origins of the Nazgûl, or ringwraiths, the undead servants of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings, who first emerge in the Second Age.
The Nazgul, as shown in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. New Line Cinema
What else?
Promotional images include a map of the island of Númenor, a land given to humans who fought against Morgoth. In the Second Age it becomes a great naval power, creating colonies and settlements on the main continent.
Eventually Númenor joins the war against Sauron and takes the dark lord captive. However, Sauron corrupts their king, Ar-Pharazôn, and convinces him to invade the western land of Valinor, home to the angelic Valar, in pursuit of immortality. In retribution, the Valar sink the island of Númenor into the ocean.
Tolkien first conceived of Númenor in the Lost Road, an abandoned novel about time travellers witnessing the fall of Atlantis, but it really works as an analogue to Rome within the history of Middle Earth: a broken empire that is eventually succeeded by fragmented kingdoms.
The survivors of Númenor later join with the elves to defeat Sauron and found Gondor and Arnor.
A first look from Amazon Studios upcoming The Rings of Power. Amazon Studios
What’s Arnor? Tell me about Arnor!
Arnor is established towards the end of the Second Age as a sister-kingdom to the more familiar Gondor and is located far to the north.
It is later destroyed by the Witch-King of Angmar, the most powerful of Sauron’s Nazgûl, which is why we don’t hear much about it in the Lord of the Rings. This probably won’t make into the Amazon series, though, unless it runs for quite a few seasons.
Is anyone from the Lord of the Rings around in the Second Age?
The elven queen Galadriel will be a central character, and also Elrond, the lord of Rivendell. They are both important figures of the Second Age and recipients of rings of power, so they will certainly play an active role.
Sauron himself will also play some part. In the Second Age Sauron is not just the purely antagonistic force depicted in the novel and the films, but also a subtle trickster and manipulator. This offers the potential to portray him as a more compelling and multifaceted villain.
Gandalf is never young, exactly. As a wizard (Istari), he is a spirit sent by the Valar to Middle Earth in the form of an old man. The Istari don’t appear until the Third Age, but Amazon might try to work him in anyway, given the focus on the rings of power.
The appendices state Gandalf took possession of Narya, the elven ring of fire, and Tolkien fans have speculated his threat to the Balrog about being “the wielder of the flame of Anor” might refer to this ring. If the series is a success then we might eventually see how it makes its way into Gandalf’s hands.
How much of this story can we expect to see?
Amazon seems likely to condense some of the key incidents from the Second Age (the rings of power, the fall of Númenor, the emergence of the Nazgûl), which are separated by centuries in the appendices, to provide a compelling narrative.
But whatever happens, it is all leading to the events we know from the beginning of the Lord of the Rings: the forging of the One Ring, Sauron’s attempt to assert his dominion through it, and the war between the orcs and the elven and human alliance.
While audiences may well be exhausted with prequels to the Lord of the Rings after the Hobbit film trilogy, this exploration of Tolkien’s Second Age of Middle Earth has the potential to add texture and richness to the stories we already know and love.
Julian Novitz 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.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the “unacceptable political meddling” behind Sincha Dimara’s suspension as head of news and current affairs at EMTV News, Papua New Guinea’s main public television news channel, after three news stories annoyed a government minister.
After 33 years at EMTV News, Sincha Dimara was suspended for at least three weeks without pay on February 7.
From a leaked memo from Lesieli Vete, the CEO of Media Niugini Limited (MNL), EMTV’s owner – which was finally published on February 9 – her staff learned that she had been accused of “insubordination” and “damaging the reputation of the company”.
The “insubordination” consisted of three stories by Dimara’s news team about Australian hotel manager Jamie Pang’s legal problems in Papua New Guinea and suspicions that the police had violated criminal procedure in the case,
Their reporting seems to have displeased Public Enterprises Minister William Duma, who — according to several accounts — was behind the decision to suspend Dimara.
Duma is also in charge of Telikom, the state-owned telecommunications company that owns MNL, and therefore, by extension, EMTV News.
Dimara told RSF that she was very concerned that the suspension was “affecting the performance of my staff”.
Deliberate intimidation “As Sincha Dimara’s suspension is clearly a ploy to intimidate the entire editorial staff at EMTV News, we demand her immediate reinstatement as head of news and current affairs,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.
Suspended EMTV head of news Sincha Dimara … “disturbing precedents … coming just four months ahead of the June general elections.” Image: EMTV News
“This political interference weakening diversity in news and information is all the more unacceptable for having disturbing precedents and coming just four months ahead of next June’s general elections.”
Political and commercial pressure aimed at limiting editorial freedom at EMTV News is not new.
Scott Waide, an EMTV News senior journalist of long standing, was suspended in November 2018 over a story suggesting that the government had misused public funds by purchasing luxury cars, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.
He was later reinstated after protests and has since become an independent media operator.
The political pressure on EMTV News is such that Neville Choi was fired as head of news in 2019 on the same grounds as his successor now — for “insubordination.” He was eventually reinstated.
The dormant Bougainville Copper Limited share value has more than doubled overnight on the Australian Stock Exchange following a resolution to reopen the rich but controversial Panguna copper mine.
Landowners from the mine area and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) signed a joint resolution last Friday to reopen the mine, causing the leap in its share price.
The ABG’s current 36.4 percent (146,175,449 shares) shareholding was worth K146.2 million (NZ$63 million) when the shares were worth 40 cents each on Thursday.
On Friday afternoon, however, the share value was worth K325.2 million (NZ$152 million) when they increased and closed at 89 cents, a jump of 122.5 per cent.
That is an increase of K179 million (NZ$89 million).
It shows what a little bit of good news and perhaps a demonstration of confidence in Bougainville can do.
ABG President Ishmael Toroama acknowledged and congratulated the five clans and their respective leadership for taking the bold stand to reopen the mine.
Facilitate reopening process Toroama said that following the signing of the joint resolutions, the ABG through the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources and other relevant departments, would now work together with the landowner groups to facilitate the process towards the reopening.
The ABG government is confident that the mine reopening would be a major boost for Bougainville’s economic future and at the same time guarantee Bougainville’s political independence.
“Today marks the ending and the beginning of a new chapter, a chapter to realize Bougainville’s independence,” Toroama said.
BCL general manager and secretary Mark Hitchcock said the significant increase in the volume of BOC’s securities traded from 10 February 2022 to 11 February 2022 and the article published on the Autonomous Bougainville Government website entitled “Panguna Landowners and ABG agree to reopen Panguna Mine” dated 11 February 2022 contributed to the latter.
“We understand the article published relates to resolutions passed during a Panguna landowner summit that was supported by the ABG,” he said.
“The landowners appear to have agreed to work co-operatively with the ABG to reopen the Panguna Mine.
“According to the article the resolutions were endorsed by the chiefs of the five major Panguna clans and the ABG will now work with landowners to facilitate a process towards reopening.
Fair representation of events “If the article is a fair representation of the events, then this would appear to demonstrate unity amongst the landowners and, would also boost confidence in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville as it pursues economic independence.
“Bougainville Copper Limited is engaged in investment activities.
The company’s assets include the Panguna mine and associated facilities on Bougainville, and equities listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
“There is no change in the status of the shareholdings of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and PNG shareholdings in BOC.
The PNG government’s commitment to transfer their shares to the ABG remains pending and both governments continue to hold 36.4 percent each of the shares in BOC.
“The judicial review of the ABG’s decision not to renew the exploration licence over Panguna remains in process and we anticipate proceedings to commence in the first quarter of 2022.”
The ABG has a 36.4 percent ownership stake in BCL, which is set to become a 72.8 percent majority share with the PNG national government committed to transferring over its 36.4 percent share.
Active presence on the ground Hitchcock said BCL had long had an active presence on the ground in Bougainville with a locally engaged team.
It had continued supporting community projects and other initiatives.
Bougainville Copper’s board has strong levels of local representation with four prominent Bougainvillean directors – Sir Mel Togolo, David Osikore, James Rutana and Kearnneth Nanei.
Other board members are Sir Rabbie Namaliu, Sir Moi Avei, Dame Carol Kidu and Peter Graham.
“Over time, BCL has transformed into a truly local company,” Hitchcock said.
It was once one of the world’s largest and most profitable copper and goldmines and still contains an estimated 5.3 mllion tonnes of copper and 19.3m ounces of gold, which would make the reserves worth about $60 billion at today’s prices.
In 1989, amid rising community anger at the environmental damage and the inequitable division of the mine’s profits, locals forced closure of the mine, blowing up Panguna’s power lines and sabotaging operations.
The PNG government sent in troops against its own citizens to restart the foreign-owned mine, sparking a bloody, decade-long civil war. A peace settlement was brokered by New Zealand in 2001.
Gorethy Kennethis a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. This article is republished with permission.
Sir David, who is chair of the Strategic Covid-19 Public Health Advisory Group, said Aotearoa is much more ready than any other country he can think of to face an omicron outbreak on a large scale.
The experience of other countries has shown New Zealand that the country cannot beat omicron in the way it beat the original virus and to a large extent Delta, he said.
“I see this as a strategic withdrawal. It has been carefully planned. It shows that omicron is now getting the upper hand.”
He praised public health officials for their “Rolls-Royce” contact tracing but said there was now no choice except to move to phase two.
However, his greatest concern is the numbers who are still to get their booster shot, he told RNZ Morning Report.
Two doses ‘not adequate’ “I’m amazed that there’s more than a million New Zealanders who are eligible for the booster dose who have not yet taken up that opportunity. This is crazy.
“I think it’s time we stopped talking about people being fully vaccinated if they’ve only had two doses.”
The virus had mutated, Sir David said, and omicron was better at evading the vaccine immunity.
“So two doses of the vaccine doesn’t give adequate protection.”
He urged all those eligible to make an appointment or get it done today.
“No point having it in a few weeks after you’ve become sick.”
He referred to Denmark which has a similar population to New Zealand and is sometimes held up as a covid-19 success story.
He pointed out that it had seen 4000 deaths and was still having around 27 people die daily whereas Aotearoa’s total death toll in two years was 53.
Challenges face the country “The next few months are going to be very challenging for this country. We are going to experience something of what those other countries had, so I think we all need to fasten our seat belts.
“It’s not just health although many of us will become sick and a considerable number will die. It’s also going to affect business, it’s going to affect social life and it’s going to affect education. The best thing people we can do right now is get boosted.”
He said people were tired of the pandemic but now was not the time to be considering removing restrictions.
While there was some fragmentation on the best way to deal with covid-19, there was also a consensus that New Zealanders did not want to see large numbers of people get seriously ill or die.
He said as an older person he would be doing his best to avoid getting the virus. He would be restricting his contact with other people while trying to live as normal a life as possible.
While there is some fragmentation on the best way to deal with covid-19, there is also a consensus that New Zealanders do not want to see large numbers of people get seriously ill or die. Image: Nate McKinnon/RNZ
Pragmatic managing of omicron Te Pūnaha Matatini principal investigator Dr Dion O’Neale says phase two is a pragmatic way to manage the growing omicron outbreak.
He told Morning Report that the high numbers of the last couple of days were pulling the country back in line with what the modelling had been predicting for a while.
“So we’ve seen overseas and we’d expect to see in New Zealand doubling times every three days. So that’s your trend.
“On top of that there will be little ups and downs … from here they go up.”
Dr O’Neal said the country had been able to slow down the spread of omicron, due mainly to the work of contact tracers. Their efforts had “put the brakes on” a growth of cases.
However, once case numbers got high there was not enough capacity to contact trace for every case and the spread would speed up, leading to the inevitable decision to move to phase two.
New system more online focused “It’s an acknowledgement that with these high case numbers systems and processes they won’t have the capacity to deal with the large numbers and we need to try and change how we respond to covid.”
Until now, the contact tracing system has been very personal with contact names identified and these people are then rung and given advice.
The new system will be more online focused, with a text message with a positive result sent, and then the person will be asked to fill in an online form and the information is passed on.
O’Neal said it would be important for people to pass on information on possible exposures as quickly as possible, not waiting for official processes which might be slower as systems became stretched.
Despite being trespassed from Parliament grounds a week ago, protesters remain on the Parliament lawn and show no sign of leaving in spite of a new record 981 community covid-19 cases yesterday.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Google images of a country or region can offer a wealth of information about the people and cultures that live there. Some images accurately portray reality while others present camouflage, attempting to deceive or twist our perception.
From a marketing standpoint, it’s all about selling the national identity, brands and products.
When you type “West Papua” or “West Papua genocide” into Google Image search, you are immediately confronted with some of the grossest human rights violations on Earth.
Images of other Melanesian island countries, conversely, display pristine, exotic beauty, presenting them as an ideal vocational playground for first-world self-exhausted tourists.
West Papua is a region where its public image is produced and controlled by those who want West Papua to mould to and represent their modern, capitalist ideals.
On the one hand, we have images of West Papua representing a hidden heaven on earth, with majestic glaciers, mountains, lush lowlands, mangrove swamps along the coastline, and coral reefs with a rich biodiversity.
On the other hand, we see images of Indonesian soldiers torturing, killing, bombing, and destroying ancestral homelands; we see images of West Papuan freedom fighters in their jungles with modern machine guns, performing their cultural rituals while declaring war on the Indonesian military.
Freeport’s gigantic hole – a graveyard for Papuans At the centre of this tragic display of contradiction is the image of a giant gaping hole right in the middle of West Papua’s magnificent ancient glacier — a sacred home of local indigenous people.
The Grasberg mine in West Papua is the largest goldmine in the world and Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer. Image: Free West Papua.org
Local elders say that this hole has become “a graveyard for Papuans”.
This hole was created by the discovery of a strange-looking, greenish-black rock on Gunung Jayawijaya (Mount Carstensz) by Dutch geologist Jean Jacques Dozy in 1936.
It took some 20 years before the discovery was brought to the attention of American geologist Forbes Wilson in 1959, who was the vice-president of Freeport Minerals Company at the time.
From 1960 to 1969, the Papuan people lived through a century of great historical significance. It began with a sense of hope and optimism as the Dutch prepared Papuans for independence in 1961.
This independence dream was taken to New York in 1962, only to be abandoned at the mercy of the United Nations, and then to Indonesia in 1963.
The controversial UN sponsored “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, which Papuans called “Act of No Choice”, ultimately sealed the fate of Papuans’ independence dream within Indonesia. It may seem that the world and UN have forgotten Papua’s dream, but Papuans have never lost sight of it and continue to die for or because of it.
The US-based Freeport-McMoRan was given the green light to begin digging this hole behind the scenes during that decade, during which Papua’s fate was controlled by world leaders in their cruel puppet show. For the newly created state of Indonesia, this was an economic blessing, but for Papuans it was a death sentence.
Over the past 60 years, this hole has taken the lives of many Papuan mothers, fathers, and children, creating an endless world of grief and mourning.
Papuans not happy, says Governor Enembe It was these decade-old wounds and grievances that caused Governor Lukas Enembe, the current governor of Papua’s province, to erupt on February 7, 2022.
“Papuans are not happy. Papuans are not happy in all of Papua. Papuans are the most unhappy people on earth. You take note of that,” he said in a recent video posted by senior journalist Andreas Harsono on his Twitter account.
Gubernur Lukas Enembe: Kehidupan orang Papua tidak bahagia. Orang Papua tidak happy di seluruh Papua. Intan Jaya menangis, Puncak menangis, Nduga menangis, Pegunungan Bintang menangis dan Maybrat menangis. Orang tidak hidup aman di negeri kita sendiri ?https://t.co/VOsuJNOkpepic.twitter.com/HvTVYo5yXx
Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe in the middle: Twitter image
The governor also said that some areas such as Intan Jaya, Nduga, and Star Mountains “cry” with the harsh conditions experienced by the Papuan people.
“Papuans do not live in happiness. Intan Jaya is crying, Puncak is crying, Nduga is crying, The Stars Mountains are crying, and Maybrat is crying. People are crying. People [Papuans] do not live safely in our own country. We were not born for that,” he said.
“We want to live happily. We want to live and enjoy happiness. Papuans have to live happily, that’s the main thing,” Governor Enembe said in a statement he made in a speech circulated on a video on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.
These areas, where the governor is referring to, are among the most militarised in West Papua.
Victor Yeimo, a prominent Papuan, said that over the past three years, Jakarta had sent 21,369 troops to West Papua, some of them referred to as “Satan Troops”, as reported by Arnold Belau on Asia-Pacific Report.
Sadly, this overwhelming military presence in West Papua is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has been sending military troops equipped with western-made and supplied war machines since 1963.
The West Papua National Liberation Army of Free Papua Movement (OPM-TPNPB) is actively engaged in an ongoing war with Indonesian forces, which is being ignored by the international media.
The grace of Papuan mothers In spite of the tragedies, grievances and the haunting images that Google displays, one story is rarely shown — The story of Papuan mothers. They are known for their resilience, courage, and indomitable will to live and work, despite the odds being stacked against them.
They are hard-working, compassionate, and strong — the backbone of Papuan society. They sacrifice everything to send their children to school and welcome foreigners with open arms.
There was a recent Tiktok video clip circulating in West Papua and Indonesia which received thousands of views and comments. The video footage featured a young Indonesian migrant weeping while singing in Papuan, the language of the Lani people of the highlands. Her name is Julitha Mathelda Wacano. She works in Tolikara, one of the newly created regions in the highlands of West Papua.
The young Indonesian woman singing in the local Papuan language of the Lani people. Video: Tiktok
The following lines are translations of what she wrote on the video below:
I cannot hold this song anymore.
I am a migrant, my hair is straight,
my skin is white, but in Tolikara,
after I return home from office,
food is already prepared on the table.
Who cooks this?” she asks. Then she replied “Mama gunung dorang…” meaning the “mothers from the mountains”.
Julitha Mathelda Wacano The emotional video depicts the experience of a young Indonesian migrant girl being cared for by people deemed “enemies” by the state in some of the most demonised and militarised areas in Indonesia, due to constant negative representation in media coverage.
She opened a window to the world of Papuan mothers, for others to see the kindness of Papuans in the face of a society segregated by racism and caste.
The video of Julitha singing in the local Lani language has received more than 1500 comments, many of which share their own experiences of the goodness of the Papuan people. Many praise the love and kindness of Papuans, while others praised God and Allah for her story.
Papuan mothers still face so many challenges Despite their unwavering love for others, Papuan mothers struggle to compete with the might of migrant economic dominance and their modern entrepreneurial skills.
In the eyes of Indonesians, Papuans do not produce anything of value to be traded or sold on either the national, regional, or global market.
Most Papuans produce fresh food, which has its own value and merit for those seeking a healthy lifestyle.
Papuan mothers spend their days sitting in the rain, in the dirt, alongside busy dusty roads. Meanwhile, migrants sell their imported products and gadgets in high-rise buildings, malls, kiosks, and shops, with comfort and convenience.
At sunset and sometimes into the night, if the mothers don’t sell their produce, they have no place to store it — no cool room or freezer– so they either give it away or take it home to be eaten. They have to start it all over again the next morning.
Many of these mothers are torn between taking care of their children, attending constant funeral services for family members, and finding money to send their children to school to participate in the education system that fails them and demonises their identity at every turn.
All roads lead to Rome – West Papua economics A total of Rp 126.99 trillion (more than US$20 billion) has been distributed to the provinces of Papua and West Papua since Jakarta passed the so-called Special Autonomy Law in 2021. The details of how this figure was distributed throughout the period 2002-2020 are summarized here by Muhammad Idris and Muhammad Idris on compass.com.
Fiscal figure of this type, or any reports provided by those who seek to promote the state’s interests, can be difficult to verify independently, owing to the nature of the mechanism in place by Jakarta to carry out its settler colonial activities on Papuan Indigenous lands. Nevertheless, this type of report gives us some rough insight into what goes on in the region.
Despite such an amount, the poverty rate in these two provinces is nearly three times higher than the national average. Infant, child, and maternal mortality rates are among the highest, and health services and literacy rates are among the lowest in Indonesia.
There is an “all roads lead to Rome” economic system operating in West Papua, to which no matter how much money Jakarta gives to Papuans, it will all end up back in Jakarta, with migrants, security forces, foreign companies, misfits and opportunists.
Unfortunately, Papuan mothers’ hard-earned money ends up in the same hands that control and maintain this brutal settler colonial system.
A mama-mama Papua (market for Papuan mothers) in Jayapura. Image: bumipapua.com
As part of the efforts to empower Papuan mothers, President Jokowi in 2018 toured the five-story building which he ordered to be constructed two years earlier in Jayapura, the capital city.
As it was dedicated to Papuan mothers, it was named “Pasar mama-mama Papua” (Market for Papuan mothers).
The building can accommodate up to 300 traders. Each floor has been allocated for “mama mama Papua” to sell their produce and to display cultural artifacts. The building also houses a school for Papuan children to learn.
Papuan mothers have unimaginable willpower and determination to compete with Indonesian settlers, who have almost total control of the economic system in West Papua.
Their lives and work are shaped by the realities of constant violence and inequality in one of the most heavily militarised regions in the world.
No matter what the odds are, Papuan mothers overcome them with grace and compassion.
This sacred power broke the heart of that young Indonesian woman living in the highlands of the Lani people.
Papuan mothers and their international students Unfortunately, the majority of Papuan international students whose scholarship funds were threatened to be cut by President Jokowi’s administration are the sons or daughters of these mama-mama Papua.
The students who are now spread across different continents and countries, from North America, Russia, Asia, Europe and Oceania, have united under the name International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) and strongly condemn any slight alteration in the scholarship package that would have a crippling effect on their education.
Some of the West Papuan students in Aotearoa New Zealand pictured with Papua provincial Governor Lukas Enembe (front centre) during his visit in 2019. Image: APR
These students overcome so many obstacles, from connecting to the right people within the brutal system, to leaving home, learning new languages, and adjusting to a new cultural system.
The constant loss of their family members back home takes a heavy toll on their studies.
Ali Mirin is one such student who is pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
Mirin came from the Kimyal tribe of Yahukimo region of West Papua. He came to Australia on a student visa in 2019 to study at Monash University in Melbourne but struggled to meet the English requirements.
The university placed him in an English language course before enrolling him in a master’s programme. In the end, he was trapped between international student agencies such as International Development Programme (IDP), university and immigration departments since his two-year required study visa had almost run out, though he had yet to complete his master’s degree.
It was not clear to them why he was not in a master’s programme, but he was struggling to make sense of all the information he was receiving from these various parties.
The combination of covid-19 lockdown, passing of family members in West Papua, frustration with adjusting into a new culture, along with inconsistency in scholarship funds nearly cost everything that his mother worked for to help him achieve this level of education.
Additionally, he had to find a part-time job in Melbourne just to survive and pay rent, which nearly led to his study visa being revoked.
Ali Mirin at Flinders University, Adelide … “tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges faced by Papuan students.” Image: YK
Mirin’s case is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges faced by Papuan students studying overseas. Almost all Papuan students have dramatic and traumatic stories to share about the obstacles they faced just to receive a scholarship, let alone the difficulties of studying abroad.
Studying in first world industrialised countries like USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany requires tremendous amounts of money, which the parents of these students will likely never be able to afford in their lifetime.
The governor knows and understands what it is like to be Papuan (especially from the highlands) and study in Indonesia, let alone overseas.
With all these tragic circumstances Papuans have endured for decades, when the Jakarta government withdraws scholarship funds or changes its policies, Papuan students are shattered.
Papuan mothers, who Jokowi calls “mama-mama”, are the ones most affected by the news of deported or failed Papuan students who are studying abroad.
A new policy needs new minds and hearts in Jakarta The central government in Jakarta should listen to what students have to say as they clearly stated in Asia Pacific Report on January 27.
Indigenous Papuan representatives should oversee Indonesian and foreign agents and agencies that deal with students’ affairs. Because as long as they are not Papuan, whether Indonesian, American, Australian, or British, it will be difficult for them to fully comprehend the mental trauma and cultural issues that each of the students suffer due to the conditions at home.
Papuan students fail their studies or struggle with them, not because they are unintelligent, but because they are deeply traumatised by the abuse and persecution that their families endure at home.
Most of these result from decades of violence, torture, and denigration of their human value under Indonesia’s settler colonial system in their own homeland.
Whatever the number of expert reports on success and failure stories of education in West Papua, if students’ deepest issues are not being listened to or understood, how can we help them or hope to change things for the better?
The politicisation of these students will continue to cloud Jakarta’s judgment about West Papua as it has for 60 years. Elites in Jakarta forget that these people have no agenda to colonise the island of Java, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ukraine or build nuclear weapons.
They simply want to live peacefully in their own land and pursue their education.
Jakarta’s policies in West Papua are largely influenced by fear, and worst of all, wrong ideas and misguided judgments. They should be more concerned about a potential global nuclear war between the Western Empire and its allies, and the emerging Chinese-led eastern empire, which poses an existential threat to everyone and everything on this planet.
Indonesians target the wrong people and attack the wrong places — West Papua is not your enemy.
Images of ‘Wonderful Indonesia; and West Papua torture I wonder if Jakarta searched images of West Papua on Google if they would like what they see. Would they see the truth — the horror, torture, abuse, murder, and exploitation of Papuans at their own hands?
Or would they see their ideals reflected back to them, the current state of terrorism that they manufactured in stolen lands.
These images do not represent the true nature of West Papua and its people, it is Indonesia that is reflected in these images.
Indonesia’s famous national promotional image of “wonderful Indonesia” that has been marketed throughout the world can be best authenticated when it uses the situation in West Papua as a mirror in which to see what Indonesia really is.
Wonderful Indonesia … The programme promoting Indonesia as a country “blessed with countless wonders”. Image: Wonderful WI screenshot PMC.
This hallmark of Jakarta’s nation-building image of Indonesia, which has been marketed around the world, can be best comprehended when it uses West Papua’s reality as a mirror to show the reality of Indonesia. In any case,
It may represent Bali or Java, but for West Papua it is just an elaborate ploy to deceive people about the terror image they have been projecting in the region.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
On December 30, New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade published a tweet condemning the forced closure of two Russian human rights groups, International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Centre.
The groups were shut down by the Russian Supreme Court which was enforcing strict laws relating to dealings with “foreign agents”.
In releasing the tweet, the government urged Russia to “live up to its civil and political rights commitments”.
Our government has also been speaking out against human rights abuses in China against the Uighur people, to the extent of facilitating a parliamentary motion condemning the cruel policies of the Chinese government.
Compare the criticism of Russia and China with MFAT’s reaction to Israel’s outrageous attacks on Palestinian human rights groups last October when it declared six of them to be “terrorist” organisations.
The targeted groups (Bisan, Al-Haq, Addameer, Defence for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees) typically challenge human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority as well as Israel, both of which routinely detain Palestinian activists.
Israel’s “terrorist” claim against these groups was a blatant attempt to undermine some of the most effective Palestinian civil society organisations, stifle their collective voices, and cut their sources of funding.
Not a peep from MFAT But not a peep from MFAT. No tweets, no public statements, nothing.
When our Foreign Minister is asked about these things her officials say the government is “very concerned” about developments in the Middle East and “keeping a close watch” on the situation. They say they regularly raise human rights concerns with the Israeli ambassador in meetings with officials.
Heaven only knows what goes on in those meetings but if all human rights abuses by Israel against the Palestinian people were discussed, the Israeli ambassador would be in permanent residence at MFAT.
MFAT gives similar responses when massive human rights abuses are perpetrated against the people of West Papua by the Indonesian Army, which has occupied the territory since 1962. These are discussed behind closed doors, if they are raised at all, with Indonesian officials.
So what’s the difference that results in the Russian and Chinese governments being castigated for human rights abuses but for countries like Indonesia and Israel, there is minimal, if any, public comment?
The awful truth is that our current government has moved New Zealand closer to the US than at any time since the 1980s and MFAT calls out human rights abuses to a US agenda.
If the abuses are perpetrated by enemies of the US, such as in Russia or China, they get a full public blast but if US allies are killing unarmed people protesting the occupation of their country then it’s all hushed up.
Kept ‘in the family’ It’s kept “in the family”, behind closed doors. Martin Luther King’s comment about “the injustice of silence” applies.
Human rights abuses against Palestinians and the people of West Papua continue because countries like New Zealand have self-important ministry officials who think it’s clever to operate a public/private hierarchy of human rights abuses according to US criteria.
Aotearoa New Zealand is complicit in many ongoing human rights abuses through our silence.
Cowardice is another word that comes to mind. It’s not acceptable.
The hypocrisy of the US, and Aotearoa New Zealand’s, position on human rights was laid bare last week when Amnesty International released a 280-page report which concluded that Israel was an apartheid state. US Government officials attacked the report outright without reading it and without challenging any of the report’s substance.
MFAT hasn’t uttered a word At a Washington press conference, a State Department official was left to try to explain why US Human Rights Reports have quoted extensively from Amnesty International regarding Ethiopia, China, Iran, Burma, Syria and Cuba but reject outright Amnesty’s report on Israel.
Needless to say, MFAT hasn’t uttered a word on the Amnesty report but is busy helping support a webinar intending to “build strategic partnerships in agriculture” with Israel through AgriTech New Zealand. This is deeply embarrassing to this country and MFAT should cancel Aotearoa New Zealand’s involvement in this webinar.
It goes without saying this country should stand against all abuses of human rights in a principled and forthright manner. This won’t happen until the current leadership of MFAT is stood down.
“Go home and take your children” — that was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s plea to protesters remaining at Parliament today.
Despite being trespassed from Parliament grounds a week ago, protesters remain on the Parliament lawn and show no sign of leaving in spite of a new record 981 community covid-19 cases today.
There were about 3000 present over the weekend protesting over covid mandates and public health measures.
Ardern announced that New Zealand would move to Phase Two of the omicron plan at 11.59pm on February 15, when the period of home isolation reduces.
She said the increase in covid-19 cases was not unexpected and the country would stay in Phase Two as long as daily cases remained between 1000 and 5000 cases.
Earlier today, Ardern told RNZ Morning Report: “I think we all want [the protesters] to leave”.
“What’s become very clear is this is not any form of protest I’ve seen before and we’ve seen a lot, you know, and I think we’ve said time and time again, New Zealand is a place where protest is part of who we are.
“Some of our greatest movements have been born of people movements, many of which have entered the forecourt of Parliament.
“But what I’m seeing, it is some kind of imported form of protest.
‘Trump flags, Canadian flags’ “We’ve seen Trump flags, Canadian flags, people who are moving around the outskirts of the area with masks are being abused.
“Children and young people on their way to school are being abused. Businesses are seeing people occupy their spaces.
“This is beyond a protest.”
The Morning Report interview. Video: RNZ News
She did not believe the protest should continue and had specific concern for the children there, saying it was not an appropriate place for them.
“Do I believe that they should be there? No. Should they go home? Yes. Especially, especially the children.
Asked if it was time for an “olive branch” gesture or for politicians to meet and talk with protesters, Ardern said their actions did “not create a space where there’s any sense that they want dialogue”.
“What I have seen down on that forecourt does not suggest to me that this is a group that are interested in engaging in policy development.
Signs calling for ‘death of politicians’ “There are signs down there calling for the death of politicians.”
As for the management of the situation, that was for police, she said.
Police today were appealing to protesters to work with them to try to clear the streets of Wellington.
Police “ultimately need to be able to make all of those operational decisions,” Ardern said.
“It is absolutely for the police to determine how they manage any form of occupation or protests. And you can understand why that is a convention we will hold strongly to.
“I would hate to see in the future a situation where you have politicians seen to be instructing the police on how to manage any type of protest — and that extends to not passing judgment on operational decisions that are for them.”
Out-of-tune music tactics Asked about tactics used by Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard over the weekend — out-of-tune music and Covid-19 vaccination ads being played to protesters — Ardern said: “I would also enforce the difference in our different roles here, the Speaker exists on behalf of all parliamentarians.
“His job is to, of course, maintain a safe place to work. Right now it is a very difficult place for people to enter and the one piece of context I’ll just give is that it has not been a silent protest.
“What I’ve heard are clear anti-vaccination messages that do not align with the vast majority of New Zealanders.
“Media, when they’ve stepped onto the forecourt, have been abused and chased and called liars.
“So some of the rhetoric and noise coming from the protest has been pretty poor.”
A discussion on Mallard’s tactics was “not a fray” Ardern wanted get into, she said.
Other covid control tools being used As for covid-19 restrictions, Ardern said “we’ve only used what’s been necessary. That’s why we’re not using lockdowns anymore — because we now have other tools that means we don’t need to use those harsher form of measures, and we will continue to move away from them.
“But when we’re in the middle of a growing pandemic, that is not the time to move away from those things that keep us safe…
“When it comes to everything from the use of vaccine passes to the use of mandates, you’ve seen with other countries that they have been in the position to start lessening the use of those as they progress through the pandemic and got to a place where you see more stabilisation and a steady management within the health system.
“That is what we would move to as well. It is fairly difficult to put timelines or criteria on that when of course we are dealing with different variants that can come anytime.
“[I am] always loath to set up a situation you then can’t follow through on because of a changing situation, so instead I give the principle: As soon as we can move away, we will move away.
“We’ve done that with lockdowns. We’re opening the borders, we are easing restrictions that have been quite impactful for everyday lives.
“But right now, the ones we still have are going to help us get through omicron.”
In a statement, the ministry said the new cases were in Northland (21), Auckland (768), Waikato (82), Bay of Plenty (23), Lakes (12), Hawke’s Bay (5), MidCentral (5), Taranaki (1), Tairāwhiti (6), Wellington (6), Hutt Valley (14), Wairarapa (12), Nelson Marlborough (2), Canterbury (4), South Canterbury (1) and Southern (19).
“Once again, the further increase in new cases today is another reminder that, as expected, the highly transmissible omicron variant is now spreading in our communities as we have seen in other countries,” the ministry said.
Thirty-nine people with covid-19 are in hospitals in Whangārei, Auckland, Waikato, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch — however, none in ICU or HDU.
The average age of hospitalisations is 55.
At the border, there are 25 new covid-19 cases — eight of which are historical. The cases at the border are from India, Malaysia and 14 of them are unknown.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Alan Tudge faces the sack from the frontbench over seeking to promote his lover while they were in an undisclosed relationship, according to a Channel 10 report on Tuesday.
Channel 10 journalist Peter van Onselen said the investigation into allegations by ex-staffer Rachelle Miller that Tudge was emotionally, and on one occasion physically, abusive towards her had not supported her claim.
But according to van Onselen, the inquiry by Vivienne Thom had pointed to the promotion, and this could be used to dismiss him on the grounds of breaching the ministerial standards code.
Scott Morrison ordered the investigation late last year after Miller made her claims, which took further earlier allegations she made against Tudge in an ABC Four Corners program in 2020. Miller did not participate in the inquiry.
Tudge stood aside from his position as education minister pending the outcome of the investigation. Morrison has had the report since late January.
A spokesman for Morrison said “the matter is still in process”.
It was being undertaken “without prejudice to ensure it is being dealt with fairly,” the spokesman said.
He said Stephanie Foster, a deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, had told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday she intended to release the report.
“The Prime Minister supports her view and approach,” the spokesman said.
Foster told the hearing the department had advised that if the government wanted to provide the report to Tudge and Miller, the department should consult those who provided the inquiry with confidential information.
Foster said the Commonwealth had told Miller “that, to the extent that it was within the Commonwealth’s power to release the report, it would but that we had to be conscious that there may be third-party concerns to take into account”.
Asked in an estimates hearing about the Channel 10 report, Senate leader Simon Birmingham said: “We’re not going to respond to a news report in a way that undermines the rights of those who engaged in a review process.
“We want to ensure that review is concluded and Mr Tudge and Ms Miller receive the findings of Dr Thom, which will be more substantive than that [media] report if it is accurate.”
Meanwhile at Tuesday’s government parties meeting, Morrison stressed his troops must be focused in the run up to the election. “You haven’t seen me as focused as I can be yet.”
“We have a job to do – I’m going to do mine, I need you to do yours. I need you to focus on your seats.”
As it continued its attacks on Anthony Albanese’s credentials on national security, the government homed in on its legislation to make it easier to cancel visas of people convicted of serious crimes.
Speaking on 2SM, Morrison said Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally “wants people who have been convicted of domestic violence to stay in the country because the judge gave them a soft sentence”.
He said the government had cancelled 10,000 visas since it first came to office, 4,000 just since the 2019 election.
But criminals were using a loophole to help them stay when the government tried to cancel their visa, Morrison said.
He said if a judge gave them a sentence of less than two years for crimes such as domestic violence, assaulting police officers, concealing child abuse offences or date rape, even though the crime carried a two-year sentence, they could appeal against the decision to cancel their visa.
“Anthony Albanese likes to talk about […] whose side is he on – well he is clearly on the side of criminals. And if that’s what side he wants to choose, well, he can explain that to the Australian people.”
Labor has said the legislation is not necessary, because the immigration minister has adequate powers already. However in parliament on Tuesday, minister Alex Hawke pointed to a limitation on his power.
This limitation would give Labor a way out, to prevent being wedged, if it wants to take it and support the legislation.
The legislation will be debated in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The Senate is not sitting so it could not be considered there before the very brief budget sitting.
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.
As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan now includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.
This week she and politics editor Amanda Dunn discuss the government’s torpedoed religious discrimination legislation. Scott Morrison thought he could press the issue and hopefully get the package through parliament. But he found he couldn’t control his backbench, with rebels backing an amendment to protect transgender children. As a result, Morrison then abandoned the package.
Amanda and Michelle also canvass the Morrison family’s appearance on Nine’s 60 Minutes, which brought more debate (and blowback) than ratings.
Meanwhile, as parliament winds down, the government is waging a shock-and-awe attack on Anthony Albanese, with Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg working in tandem to try to undermine his credentials on national security and economic issues.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
After significant delays in production and approval, Novavax – the first protein-based vaccine against COVID approved in Australia – is now available.
Unvaccinated Australians can receive Novavax for their first and second doses, at least three weeks apart, at pharmacies, GP clinics and vaccination hubs.
So what makes Novavax different from the other vaccines? And why are some people waiting for it to get vaccinated?
What is Novavax?
Novavax (or Nuvaxovid) is a protein-based vaccine, meaning it contains a protein fragment of the COVID spike protein.
These fragments are taken by specialised immune cells which direct an immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID.
While these proteins are from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, there is no live virus in the vaccine, and it cannot cause COVID.
Each of the two 0.5ml doses contain 5 micrograms of the spike protein and 50 micrograms of an adjuvant called Matrix-M. An adjuvant is a compound which stimulates the immune system. It ensures the immune system picks up the protein fragments.
Matrix-M is a compound derived from the soapbark plant (Quillaja saponaria). It forms part of the plant’s defence against insects and is used to improve the immune response with protein vaccines.
After injection, immune cells rapidly move to the injection site and clear both the adjuvant and viral proteins.
In Australia, Novavax is only approved for use in adults aged 18 and over, and only as a primary course of treatment – for doses one and two.
To date, there is no published data available on its efficacy and safety in children, or as a booster for adults.
This may change in coming months as paediatric and booster dose studies continue and additional data on this is provided to Australia’s regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administraion (TGA).
How effective is it?
Novavax has been shown to be effective in clinical trials, particularly against the original, Alpha and Beta variants. In these studies, Novavax offered 90-92% protection against symptomatic disease, and higher protection against hospitalisation.
A study later showed a lower efficacy (60%) in South Africa against Beta, though it was small and complicated by a large HIV-positive population.
However, there is no specific evidence of Novavax’s efficacy against Omicron. The company reported in a press release its ongoing trial in 12 to 17 year olds has shown “robust immune responses”, though these reports are unverified by scientists.
Is it safe? What are the side effects?
Novavax has a similar safety profile to the other vaccines, with a number of common immediate side effects. These occurred in around 60% of those receiving a first dose and 80% with second dose.
The most common side effects were injection site pain and tenderness, headache, fatigue and muscle pain.
The most common side effect is pain and tenderness at the injection site. Shutterstock
To date, no rare serious conditions are associated with Novavax. This includes blood clots associated with AstraZeneca. While there were three cases of heart inflammation in the trials, one was in the placebo group and the other two are yet to be clearly linked to the vaccine, due to the rarity of the adverse event.
However, further side effects may emerge as the vaccine rolls out across a larger population, as was the case with the other vaccines.
Why are some waiting?
Some people have been waiting for Novavax to get vaccinated against COVID, because of fears about the mechanisms by which other vaccines work.
While Novavax directly places the COVID spike protein in reach of the immune system, the mRNA (Moderna and Pfizer) and vector (AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson) vaccines take advantage of our bodies’ own protein-making systems to produce it in the body.
This has been the centre of a mass misinformation campaign falsely claiming they cause permanent changes to our genetics, and therefore have long-term consequences. This is untrue but has still caused concern and vaccine hesitancy in some people.
Others who are unable to receive the mRNA or vector vaccines, such as those with polyethylene glycol (PEG) allergies, may be able to receive Novavax.
Further, some religious believers have concerns about how some COVID vaccines were developed using human embryonic cell lines, however these are cell lines grown in a lab from samples collected decades ago. No embryonic cells are included in the actual vaccines.
Novavax, in contrast, was developed using a moth cell line.
Whatever the reasons for choosing Novavax, its a welcome addition to Australia’s suite of vaccines and will likely boost our protection against COVID.
Vasso Apostolopoulos COVID-19 research has received internal funding from Victoria University place-based Planetary Health research grant and from philanthropic donations.
Jack Feehan 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.
If you told someone a year ago unemployment was about to dive below 5%, to just above 4%, they wouldn’t have believed you.
If that person was an expert, and you said it would happen despite a Delta outbreak and lockdowns in our two biggest states, they might have said you had little idea of how the economy worked.
At the beginning of last year, The Conversation asked 21 of Australia’s leading economists what would happen in 2021 and 2022. At the time, the published unemployment rate was 6.6%.
None of them thought it would slip below 5% in 2021 or 2022.
Asked when the unemployment rate might eventually even touch 5%, none nominated 2021. Only two nominated 2022. The rest picked dates years into the future. Three picked “not for the foreseeable future”.
Six months later unemployment was 4.9%, six months after that it was 4.157%.
And yet many experts – many of whom use the models that failed to foresee how quickly unemployment would fall – are now using the same models to warn against doing too much to push it down further.
Experts concerned
They are worried about absurdly high inflation along the lines of the 7.5% now being experienced in the United States and the danger that authorities will push up interest rates too late and too hard to crush it, bringing on a recession.
In their sights are the Reserve Bank’s ultra-low cash rate and the government’s A$7 billion per year tax offset, introduced in 2018 to provide tax relief ahead of the more comprehensive tax cuts now in effect, then extended twice to support the economy during COVID.
Removing them – removing the economic support set to push it down to where it hasn’t been in half a century – is said to be essential in order to bring down government debt and avoid disastrous inflation.
Governor relaxed
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe dealt quickly with the idea of cutting back government support to reduce government debt on Friday.
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe, giving evidence on Friday. Mick Tsikas/AAP
He told a parliamentary committee that while this was an option “conceptually”, a better idea would be to use government spending to grow national income quickly so the debt-to-income ratio shrank.
That’s the way the debt-to-income ratio has been shrunk in the past – by expanding national income through, among other things, putting more people into jobs.
Dr Lowe also has ideas about tightening settings to stymie inflation, which don’t accord with those of the experts who warn of a US-style takeoff in inflation if we eat further into unemployment.
The case for caution was summed up this way by economist Andrew Charlton on Radio National’s Saturday Extra a few weeks back:
Running the economy is a bit like driving a car around a racetrack. You want to go as fast as you can, but you don’t want to go too fast or you will crash.
Go too fast and you’ll get rising inflation, authorities will be forced to lift interest rates quickly, and you’ll bring on a recession. Ease off on boosting employment – be less ambitious – and you won’t crash.
It’s the way many of those who responded to The Conversation’s survey see it. It’s the way many economists with eyes on the US see it. But it isn’t the way the governor sees it.
Dr Lowe told parliament last week that Australia was not the United States.
Australia is not the US
In the US, utility prices jumped 25% over the past year. In Australia it was 2%. In the US new car prices jumped 12%. In Australia it was 6%. The US price increases are largely one-offs caused by shortages. In Asia, inflation has scarcely moved.
In Australia wage growth is no higher (at 2.2%) than it was before COVID, even though unemployment is dramatically lower. That’s because, unlike the US, Australia kept workers in their jobs through JobKeeper and measures to keep jobs safe. Employers haven’t had to offer more to get workers back.
The Reserve Bank’s model says inflation should be climbing much higher than it is with unemployment as low as it is. That that hasn’t happened suggests the model is wrong.
On Friday, Reserve Bank chief economist Luci Ellis said if there was a floor under unemployment that couldn’t be breached without setting off an inflationary spiral, that floor was not “set in stone”.
One of the reasons is that as people previously unemployed become employed, the floor of people employers regard as unemployable sinks.
The longer the Reserve Bank and the government’s budget keeps supporting the economy, the lower the floor will sink and the fewer Australians will be kept unemployed.
Dr Ellis said while her model was telling her the floor under unemployment was 5%, it was not “the right way to think about it”. The floor might be four-point something, it might be three-point something. Until we get there, we won’t know.
Given that we are in uncharted territory we owe it to ourselves to chart it. This is the Reserve Bank’s view, and it might well be the government’s view.
We owe it to ourselves to see just how low unemployment can be.
Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For more than two decades the International Space Station (ISS) has been the mainstay of human presence and research in space. More than 100 metres long, it’s the largest object ever placed in space, and its construction brought together the space agencies from the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada.
The ISS has hosted research that could not have been done anywhere else, in the fields of microgravity, space biology, human physiology and fundamental physics. It also provides a base for deep space exploration.
Now, the end of its life has been planned. According to NASA, the station is expected to be de-orbited by 2031 (an extension from the original plan to de-orbit by 2020). But if the ISS is so important, why is there an end-of-life plan at all?
In short, the ISS is getting old
The first components of the ISS were launched in the 1990s. And although many parts have been updated and replaced, it’s not feasible to replace everything.
In particular, the main structural components can’t be replaced. While they are checked, monitored and repaired, there are limits to this. The ISS was not designed to last forever.
It survives in a harsh environment, travelling at 27,500 kilometres per hour, with a day/night cycle every 90 minutes (the time it takes the ISS to orbit Earth).
The temperature differences experienced during each cycle put a small fatiguing load on the structure. Over a few years, this is not significant. But over the course of decades this can cause fatigue failures in the metal structure.
So there comes a time when the costs and risks of maintaining the ISS become too high, and this has been determined to be in 2030.
How will the de-orbiting work?
As with all objects under the influence of gravity, given time the ISS would simply fall down to Earth. This is because, even at the orbital altitude of 400km, there is some drag due to small particles. In fact, the ISS currently requires a regular boost to lift its orbital altitude, which is slowly – but constantly – decreasing.
A natural re-entry would be a completely uncontrolled process, and there would be no way of predicting where this would take place. The responsible (and planned) approach is to use thrusters to slow the ISS down, causing the de-orbit to happen much faster and in a specific location decided in advance.
The slowing down will initially be done using thrusters on the station, and on support vehicles docked to the station. This process may take a few months and will slowly reduce the orbital altitude of the ISS, preparing it for the final re-entry phase.
In the final phase, the deceleration will be much more rapid, and will determine the ISS’s final re-entry trajectory. Although it hasn’t been decided exactly how the ISS will reach its final deceleration, the favoured option is to use three modified Russian Progress spacecraft.
The three spacecraft will be docked to the ISS and fire their propulsion systems to achieve the required deceleration – controlling the trajectory of the re-entry and the re-entry location.
Artificial fireballs
It will take a couple of minutes for the ISS to pass through the atmosphere. It’s likely the higher-altitude phase of this will take place near or above Australia.
The re-entry will be a visually spectacular event, resembling multiple large shooting stars. An increasing number of space debris breakup events have been observed and videoed over the last few years.
But these re-entries have been small objects, sized in the order of metres, such as the ATV-1 and Cygnus spacecrafts. Meanwhile, the ISS is about the size of a football field, and will be correspondingly more spectacular.
The ISS will burn up into many smaller ‘fireballs’ as it passes through the atmosphere – creating a spectacular view. Shutterstock
Crashing at Point Nemo
Due to the danger of components reaching the surface, it will be important to make sure they fall where there is minimal risk to people or property. Even a controlled re-entry will potentially spread pieces of debris over an area of hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres.
This is why the ISS re-entry (and most space debris de-orbits) will target an area known as the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area (SPOUA), the centre of which is known as Point Nemo, or the “Spacecraft Cemetery” .
The SPOUA is used as Earth’s dumping ground for space debris. It’s the largest uninhabited area on Earth, and hence has the lowest risk associated with debris from re-entry.
Point Nemo, known as ‘the oceanic pole of inaccessibility’, is a point in the ocean which is the farthest away from any land. NASA
The ISS will be travelling at something like 6km per second when it hits the atmosphere. This high speed will cause the air in front of the structure to heat up significantly, reaching temperatures in excess of 10,000℃.
This will cause the structure to break into smaller pieces. Most of it will burn up as it falls, but it’s very likely some small pieces will survive – especially some of the heavier and denser internal components.
Any surviving debris will eventually sink into the ocean and disappear.
The Cygnus spacecraft is an uncrewed cargo ship that brings supplies to the ISS and removes unwanted waste. For disposal, the spacecraft and waste burn up upon re-entry.
Fabian Zander receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Kenneth Branagh’s new adaptation of Death on the Nile arrives with a lot of preconceived baggage. We know Agatha Christie. We know Poirot.
Christie’s influence on the murder mystery genre cannot be understated. Her stories feature heavily in the contemporary media landscape; reruns of various incarnations regularly appear in television schedules. David Suchet’s portrayal of her detective Hercule Poirot is iconic – as are Julia McKenzie, Geraldine McEwan and Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.
The first cinematic adaptation of a Christie mystery. IMDB
The author of 66 detective novels, 14 short story collections and six bittersweet romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Christie has sold over two billion books. The first film adaptation of her work was The Passing of Mr Quinn in 1928. Her mysteries have been a staple of the big and small screen ever since.
Key to the Agatha Christie narrative – on screen and on the page – is the puzzle. The murder mystery is ultimately a game where you have to guess the killer before the detective does.
For many fans of Christie, adaptations are judged according to the degree to which they conform to their source text. How close is the adaptation to Christie’s original puzzle? Do the clues “fit together” in a similar fashion?
Reactions to Branagh’s adaptations of Christie complicate this picture even further. We aren’t just comparing these films to the novels themselves but other screen adaptations – the portrayals of Poirot we are more accustomed to.
Past Poirots
David Suchet is known as the quintessential Poirot, having played the role on television from 1989 to 2013. Suchet is faithful to Christie’s description of Poirot in her writing and fantastic in portraying Poirot’s iconic “rapid, mincing gait” and particular mannerisms.
This is Branagh’s second performance as Poirot. In 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, the importance of the clues given by the suspects in the interviews became secondary to Branagh’s own peculiar portrayal of Poirot.
Branagh’s adaptations are more concerned with Poirot himself than any of the suspects.
The method of the crime in Death on the Nile, the puzzle Poirot (and we) must solve, is very intricate. It is one of Christie’s best in my opinion. In Branagh’s film, the central murder happens far too late in the narrative: the murder happening 70 minutes into a two hour film leaves insufficient time for the investigation.
What I love about the books and many of the adaptations, particularly Suchet’s versions, is how each clue is slowly considered.
How do we interpret each clue? What are its implications? This is where having an assistant for Poirot to bounce ideas off (and to show off as well) comes in handy. In the book of Death on the Nile it is Colonel Race. In this film, Poirot doesn’t really engage with anyone in any meaningful manner.
Rather than just a mystery, this film functions more as an exploratory narrative into Poirot. We get an absurd origin story for his moustache. We learn of his lost love. This theme about the extremities heartbreak can drive us to permeates throughout all the suspects.
It is an interesting narrative device but, in the end, it is still all about Poirot. There is no care given to these suspects or the importance of several clues.
But the biggest crime with Branagh’s portrayal of Poirot is the lack of charm. While the Poirot audiences are used to is peculiar, pompous and obsessed with order, he is above all else charming. He gets to know each suspect, asks them seemingly irrelevant questions and makes them lower their guard.
In this version he is gruff, unfriendly and often mean.
As with Murder on the Orient Express, Branagh again has the film veer into absurd action sequences. These moments break the narrative tone. The Poirot we are accustomed to does not chase suspects as if he was an action hero.
The visual effects are notably poor. The green screen is laughable at times. With the exception of a wonderful scene in Rameses II’s tomb, there is no genuine sense of place. There is no depth given to Egypt here.
There is so much potential to this film. The cast is superb and harks back to the incredible cast of the 1978 version, which featured Maggie Smith, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury and Jane Birkin.
The Murder on the Orient Express performed well at the box office but received mixed critical reviews. The negative response was centred largely around the notion of fidelity. As the Atlantic described it, the film was “self-indulgent and thoroughly unnecessary”.
Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile has been met with an equal amount of trepidation. The adapted work can never fully forget the original source.
It is interesting, then, that Christie’s name isn’t as present on the promotional material for Death on the Nile as, say, the BBC’s recent collection of miniseries adapted by Sarah Phelps.
Perhaps this is to signal Christie is no longer the sole author of this mystery, or maybe we are supposed to believe this version of Christie is elevated above the quaint, televisual fare that we may be accustomed to.
Fidelity informs the critical responses of Agatha Christie fans to adaptations of her work because, as film academic Christine Geraghty argues, “faithfulness matters when it matters to the viewer”.
Branagh’s adaptations of Christie are for an audience that haven’t read the original book and don’t already adore Suchet’s portrayal of Poirot. This film is for a new audience: an audience which isn’t hoping for fidelity.
If many go on to read her work and watch the rich history of Agatha Christie screen adaptations, that can only be a good thing – it gets a lot better than this attempt.
Stuart Richards 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.
Trent Zimmerman is one of the five Liberal moderates who crossed the floor to vote to amend the religious discrimination package to protect trans children. Scott Morrison’s response was to abandon his legislation.
Asked whether he regrets his decision to vote against the government Zimmerman, who crossed the floor on some other proposed amendments, says he was “standing up on a couple of points of principle for me – and first and foremost was seeking to support amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, which would have protected trans kids, but also broadened the limitation of the discrimination that’s allowable for children more generally.”
Zimmerman also voted for an unsuccessful amendment (not supported by Labor) to “remove the current provisions which allow teachers to be discriminated in schools as well”.
But he does “support the principle of a Religious Discrimination Act”.
“I think it’s a no-brainer that you shouldn’t be allowed to be discriminated [against] based on your religious beliefs. But I just thought that this went above and beyond an orthodox discrimination law, and that’s where my problems arose. And I hope that at some stage we can have the debate again with a more orthodox bill.”
The rebels have come under some sharp attack from their own side but Zimmerman says they didn’t take their decisions lightly. His colleagues were “very emotionally committed to taking the action that they did because of their perceived concerns, but they recognised the magnitude of what they were doing.”
Zimmerman expects his battle against high profile independent Kylea Tink to be “a very tightly contested campaign”. “I’ve never taken elections in North Sydney for granted.”
With the government’s failure to deliver a national integrity commission an issue, he hopes a commission will be a fresh promise for the election.
“Having a national integrity commission, I think, is very important for our community and for politics.”
On the issue of trust, Zimmerman says: “I think what people are looking for is really the answer to the question of who you trust to get certain jobs done that they expect of their government. And I think that when we get to the election, people will be judging the government on its performance in managing the economy, on its overall performance in managing the pandemic.”
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Shackleton, PhD candidate; Research Officer, Australian Research Centre for Sex Health and Society, La Trobe University
www.shutterstock.com
Discussions about online sex often make it sound like the “dark side” of the internet.
But this isn’t the whole story. Our new study looks at how Australians use technology in their sex lives and the many benefits of this.
A regular part of life
We recently conducted a survey of Australian adults (ages 18 years or older). The study involved 445 people, with an average age of 42. More than half were women (58.5%), and 61% identified as heterosexual.
Sending sexual texts and using apps to find partners have become common practice, particularly among younger people. www.shutterstock.com
We found digital media was a common part of people’s sex lives.
60% had watched porn online
35% had used dating apps
34% had sent sexual texts or naked selfies to another person.
Better connections
People also reported how digital technology benefited their sex lives and relationships.
38% felt more emotionally connected to their partners
27% felt more sexually connected with their partners
31% said they found it sexually gratifying to share or receive sexual text messages with someone they met online.
Others reported using the internet to find information about relationships or sexual health.
54% said information they found online had helped them feel more comfortable about sex
49% said the internet had enabled them to explore new or different sexual cultures.
Yes, there are risks
That being said, while reporting many benefits, participants were also aware of risks of sexual activity or communication online.
59% agreed sharing naked or explicit images or videos could cause them embarrassment
51% agreed online sexual engagement could cause them problems in the workplace
51% were worried their search history could be seen by others if they searched for pornography
24% were worried about providing personal contact details when shopping for sex products online.
What is happening in Australia?
In 2021, federal parliament passed the Online Safety Act, expanding the eSafety Commissioner’s powers to combat cyberbullying and image-based abuse.
The commissioner can now demand that social media services, hosting services providers and individuals remove online material deemed to be harmful, dangerous or abusive within as little as 24 hours.
New federal laws are aimed at making the internet safer, but experts fear there will be unintended consequences. www.shutterstock.com
This is an important step in improving digital safety given the global, unregulated nature of the internet.
However, there are serious concerns these expanded powers will lead to restrictive acts, prohibiting consensual online sexual activity or information.
Current eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says she will use the new powers to target child exploitation material and is not interested in policing the sexual interests of consenting adults. Nevertheless, the potential exists for such assurances to shift over time, or as a new appointee fills the position.
Why does this matter?
Decades of research show sexual health education is most effective if it teaches sex should be pleasurable.
Messages that focus on abstinence or disease and problems can undermine people’s confidence about pursuing healthy, consensual sexual relationships.
The same can be said for digital sexual literacy. Education about online safety will be most effective if discussions about risk occur in the context of sex in the digital world being a broadly positive thing.
How do we balance risk and pleasure?
Our findings add to the growing body of research that shows how the internet and digital technologies can benefit relationships and sex lives.
These are places where people explore their sexuality, learn about sex, and engage with diverse communities. It can also be a space to facilitate conversations about consent, safety and sexual health.
Managing digital risk should not be about sanitising the internet but supporting people’s choices.
Nicole Shackleton receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Anne-Maree Farrell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, British Academy, Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Economic and Social Research Council.
Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Department of Health and Fairer Victoria. She has previously received funds from ViiV Healthcare.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cristyn Davies, Research Fellow in Child and Adolescent Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney
While the bill has been shelved, the debate is a continuation of a discussion in which the existence, rights, and lives of trans children and adolescents have been called into question both in Australia and overseas.
These young people have endured intensified stigma and discrimination that negatively impacts their health and well-being.
Trans people make up between 2.3% to 3.7% of Australia’s youth population.
Although many trans people live healthy, fulfilled lives, research from overseas shows a disproportionate number have poorer mental health than their peers.
Recent Australian studies paint a similar picture. One study found:
90% of trans young people experienced high or very high psychological distress in the previous four weeks
54% had self-harmed
71% reported suicidal ideation
14% had attempted suicide in the preceding 12 months
38% reported having attempted suicide at some point in their life.
Another study found trans young people in Australia were 15 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population.
Minority stress
Minority stress arises from the social, psychological and structural discrimination associated with belonging to a stigmatised minority group.
Negative media commentary can directly contribute to minority stress among trans people, as can legislation and policies that seek to exclude trans individuals from schools and workplaces.
Negative representations of trans children and adolescents in the media shape public attitudes and practices. This can not only stoke fear and mistrust that further marginalises trans young people, but also lead to violence against them.
Negative media representations marginalise young trans people. Shutterstock
In Australia, one study found 89% of trans young people had experienced peer rejection. Some 74% had experienced bullying, while 69% had experienced discrimination.
Another study found 68% of trans young people in Australia had felt uncomfortable or unsafe in their educational setting because of their gender or sexuality diversity.
A third study found young trans Australians were four times more likely to have experienced sexual violence or coercion.
Public debate about trans young people also impacts their families. For instance, a recent study reported parents of trans children and adolescents in the United States experienced significant stress as a result of legislation introduced to prevent young trans people accessing medical and surgical gender affirmation.
Not surprisingly, parents viewed these bills as increasing stigma towards their child and the broader trans community.
Public debates about trans rights can be distressing for trans young people and their families. Shutterstock
Health harms of public debate
Apart from fostering stigma and discrimination, public debate about trans people can also negatively impact their health.
Physical activity in adolescence is important for long-term health. Trans young people already experience multiple barriers to participating in sport and physical activity. Public commentary questioning involvement of trans people in sport acts as a further obstacle.
Negative press coverage about affirmative health care for trans young people has also been associated with reduced referral rates to specialist paediatric gender clinics overseas, and highlights the role public debate is likely to play in reducing access to such care.
Finally, trans young people report exposure to negative news stories adversely affects their mental health by provoking experiences of depression, anxiety, and/or fear.
So what can we do to help?
Strikingly, previous research has shown when trans young people are supported and their gender is affirmed, they have similar mental health outcomes to their cisgender peers.
School safety and connectedness, for example, are protective factors against depression, self-harm, and suicide.
Similarly, peer and school support provide a buffer against the negative impact of gender-related victimisation on mental health.
Policies and procedures that enable a trans young person’s gender, name and pronouns to be accurately recorded are also important. Research shows having identity documents that match one’s affirmed gender is associated with lower rates of serious psychological distress and suicide.
Finally, the media itself may help to promote better health for trans young people. For instance, trans adolescents have reported experiencing happiness and increased hope after exposure to positive news reports about other trans people.
Trans young people flourish with support from family, friends, and the broader community. Hopefully, future commentary about trans young people’s rights takes this into account.
Cristyn Davies reports voluntarily being co-chair of the Human Rights Council of Australia; co-chair of the Child and Youth Special Interest Group for the Public Health Association of Australia; an ambassador to Twenty10 Incorporating the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of New South Wales; and a member of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (and its research committee).
Alessandra Chinsen 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.
Ken Pang is a paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. He receives research funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, and the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation. He is a member of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health (and its research committee).
Rachel Skinner is a paediatrician in Adolescent Medicine at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and Senior Clinical Advisor in Youth and Wellbeing at the NSW Ministry of Health. She holds research funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Association for Adolescent Health; the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
Kerry H. Robinson 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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
And that’s important, because it is the special properties of curling ice that allow the heavy curling stones to glide and curve in ways that seem to defy physics. In fact, scientists are still not sure what puts the “curl” in curling.
Chess on ice
Curling’s origins date back to 16th-century Scotland, making it one of the world’s oldest team sports. Like golf – invented around the same time in the same part of the world – curling seems both amusingly pointless and deceptively simple to the untrained eye.
It has been called “chess on ice”, although to many Australians it most resembles frozen lawn bowls. Athletes take turns sliding circular 20-kilogram granite stones along the ice toward the centre of a horizontal target 28 metres away. Teams are awarded points for getting their stones closest to the centre of the target, or “house”.
The slippery science behind curling starts with the ice itself. Curling ice must be perfectly flat – far flatter than a typical ice hockey rink – and is sprayed with droplets of water before each game to produce a pebbled surface. This minimises the contact area between the ice and the heavy curling stone.
Curling stones also have a concave lower surface – like the bottom of a beer bottle – that further reduces the contact area between the stone and the ice. The effect is to increase the pressure at the base of the stone, partially melting the ice and reducing friction in a similar way to how ice skates work.
Uniquely among Olympic sports, curling players can change the path of the stone after it has been “thrown”. This is achieved by vigorously sweeping the ice in front of the stone with special brooms that warm the ice and reduce friction, allowing the stone to travel farther and straighter along its path.
Deciding when, where, and how hard to sweep has a big influence on the stone’s trajectory; so naturally it is accompanied by a great deal of enthusiastic yelling.
Give it a spin
By adding a small amount of spin, skilled players can make their stone “curl” along a curving path to block an opponent’s stone or knock it out of the way. Even a small amount of rotation can deflect the path of the curling stone by as much as a metre and a half. How exactly the curling stone does this is something of a puzzle.
Let’s start with a (literal) tabletop experiment. Slide an upturned glass along a table, adding a little spin as it leaves your hand. With a little practice (and perhaps a few replacement glasses) you will be able to make the glass trace a curving path across the table, deflecting to the left when you spin it clockwise or to the right when you spin it anticlockwise.
The reason for this is explained by a branch of science called tribology, which studies the effect of friction on moving and sliding objects.
As the glass spins, it rubs against the table top, generating friction that tries to slow down the rotation of the glass. The friction forces are directed opposite to the direction of motion: for a clockwise-rotating glass, friction will be directed to the left at the front of the glass and to the right at the back of the glass.
When the spinning glass slides across the table, it leans forward slightly in the direction of travel, pushing the front lip of the glass down a little harder on the table than the trailing lip. The extra pressure generates extra friction at the front compared to the back. The resulting imbalance of friction forces causes the glass to deflect in the direction of stronger friction – to the left in the case of a clockwise-rotating glass.
A twist in the tale
But curling stones behave in exactly the opposite way: a clockwise rotation causes the stone to deflect to the right, not the left. For a long time, scientists assumed this was because of an effect called asymmetrical friction.
The theory goes like this: like a glass pushed across a table, a curling stone leans forward slightly. The extra pressure at the front of the stone partially melts the ice at the leading edge, creating a thin film of water that reduces the friction at the front of stone compared with the back.
The curling stone will still deflect in the direction of stronger friction. But in this case, it is the trailing edge that wins, resulting in a deflection to the right rather than the left, for a clockwise-rotating stone.
Scratch that
Like many theories, this explanation was widely accepted until someone got around to actually testing it. In 2012, a team at Uppsala University in Sweden made detailed calculations of the friction forces acting on a sliding stone.
The problem they found is that curling stones rotate quite slowly, only completing a couple of turns before coming to a stop. This spin is far too small to cause a sideways deflection of a metre or more. Even odder, more rotation does not lead to more curl – in fact, spin a stone too hard and it won’t curl at all. Asymmetrical friction cannot explain such behaviour.
The researchers used an electron microscope to look more closely at the ice under a curling stone. They discovered that the front edge of the stone leaves behind miniscule scratches on the ice in the direction of rotation. These scratches act as a guide for the back edge of the stone, causing the stone to deflect in the direction of rotation.
Curling stones make microscopic scratches in the pebbled surface of the ice – and according to one theory, these scratches deflect the stone’s path to the left or right. H. Nyberg, et al., Wear (2013)
The Swedish team then showed that, using this “scratch-guide” mechanism, they could “steer” the sliding stones by adding artificial scratches to the ice in different directions. In one experiment, a stone was made to travel along a zigzag path by laying down scratches in alternating directions.
Their findings ignited a minor controversy in the admittedly niche world of curling physics.
In 2020, a Japanese team attempted to clear things up by systematically testing each theory in a curling hall using sophisticated motion-tracking equipment, a laser scanning microscope, and some sheets of sandpaper to modify the surface of the curling stone.
However, no clear winner emerged. When it comes to the science of curling, it appears we are just scratching the surface.
Shane Keating 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.
As the 2022 federal election draws nearer, there are many factors that may shape the outcome.
This is not Australia’s first experience of a pandemic, nor the first time this has played a role in state divisions and elections: the 1919 Spanish Influenza pandemic is a case in point.
However, this is the first election in which the immense economic and social damage of a pandemic has combined with a global far-right populist surge, an increase in far-right-wing extremism and the disruptive power of social media. The most recent and visible example is the so-called “Canberra convoy”, which has just concluded.
In seeking to understand the potential influence of these factors, we cannot look at any one of them in isolation; they have to be understood as part of a symbiotic relationship. This is evident when we look at the make-up of the protesters.
They first gathered at old Parliament House, site of the Aboriginal tent embassy, the longest protest for Indigenous rights anywhere in the world. There, the “sovereign citizen” protesters initially sought to cloak themselves in the legitimacy of Aboriginal calls for sovereignty. Shortly after, in December 2021, old Parliament House, which holds significance within some sovereign citizen conspiracy theories, was set on fire. Several people have been charged over the incident.
While featuring a very small number of Indigenous activists, the fire and recently arrived protesters were roundly condemned by Aboriginal leaders at the Tent Embassy.
Since these events, anti-vaccine mandate protesters and other “freedom rally” protesters, including Q-Anon conspiracy theorists, militant wellness groups, religiously inspired actors and far-right extremists such as the Proud Boys, have converged on the nation’s capital. They have protested outside the old and new Parliament House, seeking to cause mass disruption.
The fire in December 2021 caused damage to the entrance to Old Parliament House. Lukas Coch/AAP
Protesters on the ground are highly diverse. Many are keen to paint themselves as concerned “mums and dads”. Others frame their actions as an act of “love”, a pattern seen globally at “freedom” protests.
Indeed, many may be merely exercising their democratic right to protest.
However, it is important to understand that the ideological underpinnings of the freedom movement range from libertarianism to far-right ideologies. We need to move beyond the notion of anti-vaxxers as left-wing hippies from Brunswick or Byron Bay (though they may well be concentrated there).
Many from the “wellness” communities are educated, wealthy, hold strong convictions and are active consumers in a highly profitable enterprise.
Likewise, it is important to move beyond the association of the far right as black-clad, swastika-wearing skinheads (though some may be).
The modern far right is well organised and more sophisticated in its tactics (including the use of “citizen journalists”, memes and encrypted messaging applications). Most importantly, beyond the traditional neo-Nazi groups, it is multiracial. Restoring the “nation”, rather than race, to an imagined past greatness is central to their extremism.
Protesters have joined the ‘freedom’ convoy for many different reasons. Lukas Coch/AAP
This is evident in groups such as the Proud Boys, who are present at the Canberra protests, and who were led in the US until recently by Enrique Tarrio, a Cuban American. We have witnessed numerous Ustaše flags at the protests, representing a resurgent Croatian ultranationalist fascist and antisemitic organisation that was active during the second world war, perpetrating acts of genocide. The group also holds a wide variety of groups and individuals from QAnon conspiracy theorists and sovereign citizens (known for their use of the red ensign) to evangelical and Orthodox Christians. They represent a highly multicultural cluster who have opposed the use of vaccines from the earliest days of the pandemic.
Importantly, this broad coalition, and the far right in particular, must be understood as part of a transnational movement. Even a cursory analysis of protest message boards indicates the protesters have been heavily influenced by groups and events overseas. They share a common vocabulary and symbology.
It is clear the January 6 2021 storming of the Capitol Building in the United States, and the more recent Ottawa “freedom convoy”, described by Ottawa police as a “threat to democracy”, have inspired some protesters.
Many in the Canberra convoy have been influenced by similar protests in Ottawa, Canada. Justin Tang/AP/AAP
Many actors within these movements have track records of violent rhetoric and extremist sentiment, and the threat of future violence cannot be discounted. Indeed, it must be considered likely.
These movements must be also be understood as associated with the global right-wing populist surge that has resulted in the election of authoritarian governments, led by “strong men”, in countries ranging from the United States, Hungary and Poland to the Philippines, India and Brazil.
These leaders claim to speak for the “people”, framing themselves as outsiders to a corrupt and broken political system. They promise to deliver radical change, though merely aim to replace the current powers. We saw this most famously with Donald Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp”.
While a key element of winning democratic elections is indeed to be the most “popular” party, far-right authoritarian populists prey on social division and seek to exploit anger and fear to gain political capital. We see this in the actions of United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly and some fringe members of the Liberal Party such as George Christensen. These men have sought to frame themselves as champions of the protest movement, but their actions may be understood as cynically stoking social division for political gain.
In this case, the prize is seats in parliament and the potential to hold the balance of power, forcing major parties to negotiate favourable outcomes for mining magnate Clive Palmer, via the United Australia Party.
In the Canberra convoy, we are witnessing the consolidation of an alliance between diverse, yet highly political, groups infected with conspiracy and far-right ideas. They then intersect with right-wing populist politicians intent on exploiting these events for political gain.
This is, in many respects, new ground in Australian politics. The question remains as to how successful this alliance will be at the ballot box.
Josh Roose is part of a project funded by The Australian Research Council: ‘Far Right in Australia: Intellectuals, Masculinity and Citizenship’ (DP200102013).
Babies who get bad lung infections are at higher risk of developing asthma later on, a condition that affects 10% of Australian kids and costs Australia A$28 billion a year.
Our new paper, published overnight in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, looked at how OM85 improves babies’ defences against bad lung infections. OM85 is a mix of molecules extracted from bacteria that commonly infect the respiratory tract.
This follows our previous research which found treatment with OM85 protected susceptible babies from severe lung infections. This latest work shows OM85 provided babies with an early immune boost, leading to stronger defences against severe infections. This meant when these babies got a lung infection, their immune system could respond more effectively and they didn’t get as sick.
So taking the treatment could halt the development of asthma by protecting babies’ lungs from damaging infections in the early years of life.
What is OM85?
OM85 is a treatment made from a mixture of crushed up bacteria. It was first used in Europe in the 1970s, and since then, it has been used to prevent recurrent and wheezy lung infections in susceptible adults and kids. It’s commonly sold across the world under the brand name Broncho-Vaxom, but it’s not yet available in Australia.
Clinical trials have shown it can reduce the rate of lung infections in asthmatic children by around 40%.
A small number of people taking OM85 may get gastrointestinal upset, but overall, trials have shown the treatment is safe and any side effects are mild.
Strategies to prevent lung infections are extremely limited in babies, because there aren’t any vaccines against the most common respiratory viruses, such as RSV and rhinovirus. OM85, and other similar treatments in clinical trials, may provide a promising solution.
Despite this, there has been ongoing scepticism.
OM85 is a non-conventional medicine. Most drugs contain known active ingredients. However, OM85 contains multiple components that are likely to synchronise to stimulate the immune system.
Until now, there was no strong evidence for how the treatment actually works. We set out to find this missing piece of the puzzle and learned OM85 trains the “innate immune system”.
What’s the innate immune system?
Our immune systems have two key components.
The innate immune system is the defensive line that pathogens (like viruses and bacteria) first encounter when they enter our body.
While the innate immune system is taking shots at invading microbes, the second line – the adaptive immune system – is mobilising its elite fighters.
We have known for a long time that vaccines can provide a training system for the adaptive immune system.
But recently, scientists have discovered the innate immune system can be trained in a different manner. This is an exciting and emerging field.
Our previous clinical trial, conducted with collaborators at The University of Queensland, found OM85 protected high-risk babies from bad lung infections.
We found the strongest protection was when they took OM85 in their first winter, when babies were between five and nine months old.
But nobody has ever looked at how the treatment actually works in this context, which was the focus of our new work.
To pinpoint how the treatment worked, we studied how these babies’ immune systems reacted when faced with a range of infections.
Babies who got OM85 had a number of key changes to their first-line defences. They had a mild boosting of “interferons” – proteins that are critical early in an infection. They also had reduced amounts of inflammatory proteins, which can be damaging when levels get too high.
These two components of the innate immune system (interferons and inflammation) play a critical role in immune defence. Problems with either component have been implicated in an increased risk of developing asthma.
OM85 comes in a powder form that the parents in our study mixed with water or milk for their babies to ingest. OM85 then enters the gut, which contains lots of immune cells and gut bacteria. Signals travel from the gut to the bone marrow where more immune cells are made. We think OM85 can communicate through this messaging system to ultimately provide the positive benefits we discovered.
OM85 boosted babies’ first-line immune defences, improving their protection against severe lung infections. Shutterstock
Babies are beginners when it comes to fighting infections – their immune system has to rapidly learn how to behave and strike a balance between clearing infection quickly while minimising damage to the lungs.
From the moment babies are born, they are exposed to microbes that bombard the immune system, sending critical messages that guide the immune system to develop and mature.
A lack of these beneficial exposures in early life makes kids more susceptible to asthma (and other chronic diseases). Our innate immune system has evolved alongside bacteria, but our modern lifestyle often reduces the contact that we have with these bacteria that are needed for healthy immune development.
OM85 acts as an “immune trainer”, replacing these vital microbial signals that shape the immune system early in life.
Niamh Troy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The COVID pandemic has had a huge impact on people living with dementia and their family carers around the world. Our study, published today, found people with dementia experienced worse symptoms after the pandemic began.
Carers reported their loved ones were more disoriented, restless and withdrawn. They also reported poorer mental health themselves as a result of the pandemic.
Dementia is an umbrella term that describes a range of progressive neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia.
The number of people living with dementia has more than doubled in the past 20 years worldwide. Dementia currently affects approximately 480,000 Australians, and one in ten people over the age of 65.
Nearly 1.6 million people in Australia care for someone living with dementia.
Given the progressive, neurodegenerative nature of dementia, deterioration of symptoms generally occurs gradually over time. However, we found an accelerated decline of symptoms over a short period of time (within a few months) during the pandemic, which may not be attributable to the typical course of dementia.
Why is the pandemic particularly challenging?
People with dementia can have difficulties understanding why public health measures are important. They may not understand why they can no longer hug or kiss their loved ones, or see them in person.
Symptoms of dementia such as perseverative behaviour (which might manifest as inflexibility to changes in routines) and disinhibition (which might involve approaching or touching strangers) can make it harder to follow public health guidance for social distancing, washing hands and wearing masks.
Lockdowns and bans on visitors in aged care facilities have led to increased social isolation.
Loss of access to health, respite and community services have removed essential sources of support for both people with dementia and their family carers.
Worsening symptoms of dementia
From April to November 2020, we conducted an online survey of 287 carers of people with dementia, from clinics in Australia, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands.
We asked carers about the impact of the pandemic on the person they were caring for, as well as their own mental health, social support and knowledge about the COVID pandemic.
We found 39% of people with dementia had worse depression since the COVID pandemic.
More than one-third of people with dementia had worse apathy (loss of motivation) and anxiety. They also had worse delusions, that is, unshakeable beliefs about things that are not true. For example becoming increasingly paranoid or suspicious of unfamiliar surroundings, such as people wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), and changes to their daily routines, such as not being able to see their families.
Many carers saw their loved ones’ symptoms worsen during the pandemic. Shutterstock
More than one-quarter had worse irritability and agitation compared to before the pandemic.
People with dementia who weren’t living with their carer (for example, those in aged care facilities) had a higher risk of worse outcomes. These symptoms may be exacerbated by the reduction in meaningful contact with their loved ones, and disconnection from their usual social activities and routines.
What about carers?
More than half of carers reported they had worsened mental health since the pandemic began and 63% had a reduced social network.
Carers said they had difficulty managing day to day, due to the social isolation and the relentlessness of the condition.
For those caring for someone living in an aged care home, not being able to visit their loved ones was distressing and added to their stress.
Interestingly, carers in Spain were less likely to report worsened mental health than carers in Australia and Germany. Intergenerational living and greater familial support networks for those living at home may have helped lessen the impact on carers’ mental health.
Carers have had difficulty managing, day to day. Shutterstock
Balancing protection and social connection
Compassionate care is vital during the pandemic, and helps to maintain cognitive and physical stimulation, and meaningful social connections.
To help support carers and people with dementia during the pandemic, we have developed a free, evidence-based toolkit, with tips on communicating health messages, managing symptoms and staying connected.
Understanding the lived experience is key to inform policy and health settings to balance risk and quality of life. Our findings suggest COVID restrictions, particularly on visits to aged care facilities, may lead to an accelerated decline for people with dementia, and poorer mental health outcomes for carers.
Fiona Kumfor receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Grace Wei 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.
Debates about how schools acknowledge gender and sexuality diversity have been ongoing in Australia. It’s often claimed parents oppose the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity content in the teaching of their children. But our research shows four out of five parents support such content being included in the relationships and sexual health curriculum.
Debate about these issues has been revived by the federal Religious Discrimination Bill and the NSW One Nation’s Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill. The now-shelved federal bill would have allowed religious schools to expel transgender and gender-diverse students. The NSW bill seeks to revoke the accreditation of educators who discuss gender and sexuality diversity in a public school.
Both bills would have the same effect: the erasure of gender and sexuality diversity from schools.
Until now there has been no comprehensive research in Australia that examines what parents actually want in relation to such topics in their child’s education. This lack of research-based evidence has meant even teachers are unsure about whether or not they are allowed to discuss gender and sexuality diversity.
Our landmark study, published in the journal Sex Education, sheds light on this issue. Our findings challenge the idea that most parents oppose the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity-related content in school.
What did the study find?
We surveyed 2,093 parents of students attending government schools across the nation. To ensure results could be considered nationally representative, data were weighted using a probability panel of Australian adults. Both demographic markers (including gender, location and languages spoken at home) and attitudes to education that’s inclusive of gender and sexuality diversity were used to weight the final data set.
The survey asked fundamental questions about parents’ views on the “who, what, when” of relationships and sexuality education. There was a specific focus on how parents felt about including gender and sexuality diversity in the curriculum.
The findings show 94% of parents want relationships and sexuality education in schools, in keeping with the current Australian Curriculum. When asked about gender and sexuality diversity across six different topic areas, on average, 82% of parent respondents support their inclusion as part of the relationships and sexual health curriculum from kindergarten through to year 12.
In terms of understandings of gender diversity by students at different ages, two-thirds of parents (68%) want this topic introduced in the curriculum by the end of stage 4 of schooling (years 7 and 8). In keeping with other areas, over 80% of parents support its inclusion by the end of year 12.
Parents’ reasons for supporting inclusion were apparent in their views on the purpose of relationships and sexual health education. Given a choice of four central purpose statements, the largest group of parents (nearly 50%) felt this curriculum area should focus on student “empowerment, choice, consent, and acceptance of diversity”.
It’s about fairness, inclusion and safety
These findings reflect the culture of fairness and inclusion that most Australians believe in. The results point to parents’ understanding of the importance of inclusion. They object to the school-based harassment of gender and sexuality diverse students in this country.
These young people are rarely represented in curriculums. They are not only invisible, but also experience discrimination by omission.
Parents are likely to know Australia has one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the world. Tragically, the rate is even higher for gender and sexuality diverse young people. Their experiences at school are undoubtedly linked to this outcome.
In our study, nearly 90% of parents wanted to see the curriculum address discrimination and bullying of gender and sexuality diverse people. This finding speaks to their desire to create safe and welcoming schools for all students.
What does this mean for teachers?
This research has important implications for teachers of relationships and sexual health education. Many report they avoid gender and sexuality diversity and fear community backlash.
Teachers’ unease prevails despite federal government guidance that promotes the well-being of students. The guidelines encourage schools to create positive learning environments that foster diversity and respectful relationships and support students to feel safe, connected and included.
The public response to the Religious Discrimination Bill and its subsequent shelving highlights how it is inherently anathema to punish and exclude children and young people from school based on their identity. Australian teachers need to be supported to create a school culture where these students can feel safe, welcome and informed about their relationships and sexual health.
Educators across the country would benefit from additional guidance and support to feel confident that discussing these topics is in line with the views of the majority of their students’ parents.
Tania Ferfolja has received funding for this research from the Australian Research Council.
Jacqueline Ullman received funding from the Australian Research Council for the research discussed in this article.
Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes segment about the prime minister and his family, broadcast on February 13, was political confectionery so laden with sugar as to be a serious hazard to Scott Morrison’s political health.
It also raised questions about Nine’s commitment to impartial election coverage.
This is a live issue, given that the company is chaired by Peter Costello, the long-serving treasurer in John Howard’s Liberal-National Coalition government.
Nine is promising an equivalent program on the leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese. It will be interesting to see whether it turns out to be just more confectionery or whether it will contain some political fibre.
One problem is, if it wishes to be seen as even-handed, 60 Minutes will have to dish up the same schmaltzy fare on him too.
Another problem runs deeper.
The Morrison program was framed not around the prime minister but around his wife Jenny, described in the trailer and in the program itself as the prime minister’s “secret weapon” for the election.
This played into Morrison’s hands. He has already fashioned her into a political asset by repeatedly referring to her in press conferences as someone to whom he turns for advice.
The most notorious example was when he sought her counsel about how to deal with the Brittany Higgins rape allegations and she advised him to think about it as the father of two daughters.
Jenny is thus much more, in political terms, than the prime minister’s wife: her persona has become a central part of his political strategy, and the “secret weapon” description reinforces the point. Bizarre, though. She is neither a secret nor a weapon. She has been well tested as a cast member in Morrison’s political theatre.
How 60 Minutes provides a counterpoint to this in the promised Albanese program we will have to wait and see, but it presents Nine with an awkward challenge if it wants to be seen as genuinely even-handed. Will it find some way to promote a central feature of his election campaign strategy too?
The Morrison program was such a naked piece of political marketing that it also raises questions about what demands were made by the prime minister, and what undertakings were given by Nine about how it would be done.
For instance, why was Karl Stefanovic the interviewer and not one of Nine’s serious political journalists, such as Chris Uhlmann?
Why was there no follow-up questioning of Jenny Morrison on the issue of manners?
The need was obvious.
She was free enough with her criticism of the former Australian of the Year Grace Tame for failing to smile for the cameras with Morrison on Australia Day. Bad manners, apparently.
What about Morrison turning his back on Tanya Plibersek in the House of Representatives while she was speaking at the Despatch Box, or grabbing the hands of unwilling Black Summer bushfire survivors when they point-blank refused to shake his hand?
The soft questions to Morrison were cringe-making. “Do you feel our pain?” asked Stefanovic. In answer, Morrison channelled Shylock in the Merchant of Venice: “I bleed”.
Stefanovic gave Jenny a gratuitous boost by telling her what a straight shooter she was.
And indeed she did come across as a thoroughly decent person, giving a mixture of straight and carefully parsed answers, including a convincing apology for the notorious Hawaiian holiday.
Speaking of which, given this damaging history, it seemed odd of the prime minister to choose to play the ukulele.
The risk to Morrison’s political health lies in the heavy public-relations packaging of the program.
A stereotype of him as little more than a PR song-and-dance man has already taken hold, as was seen in the blow-back to his recent foray into hairdressing. He was mocked – on Rupert Murdoch’s news.com, no less – as someone who didn’t hold a hose, the clear inference being that he could evidently hold a salon’s shower attachment.
Scott Morrison’s recent foray into hairdressing was not warmly received. AAP/Con Chronis
From the point of view of political strategy, more PR is not what Morrison needs. He needs to look prime ministerial.
60 Minutes gave us only a fleeting glimpse of him in this role, welcoming Stefanovic into his office. But even then it consisted mainly of Stefanovic giving him yet another free kick: “You’re under the pump right now.”
This kind of pap is not what voters want or need as they approach the election, something that was obvious from the program’s dismal ratings.
The preceding program was Married at First Sight, which attracted 961,000 viewers, giving 60 Minutes a strong springboard. However, when it came on, viewer numbers plummeted to 574,000, less than the ABC’s imported whodunnit Vera, and on par with the ABC’s Muster Dogs.
Denis Muller 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.
