Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

One hundred years ago officials from nations representing about four-fifths of the world’s population met in Brussels hoping to reset the global economic order, and promote prosperity and peace, after a disastrous world war and pandemic.

The International Financial Conference convened by the new League of Nations and held in Brussels from 24 September to 8 October 1920 was not quite “a gathering unique in the history of the world” as some publicity material claimed. There had been international finance conferences before – four, in fact, between 1867 and 1892, which mainly discussed the operation of the gold standard.

Read more: The slow recovery after the combined shock of Spanish flu and the first world war – Recovery podcast part three

But the 1920 conference was by far the most representative, as delegates attended from 39 countries. What they achieved, or failed to achieve, might be judged by the outbreak of the Great Depression within a decade, and another world war within two decades. It’s a lesson for policy makers now about the folly of seeking to recreate an old order, rather than building something fit for the times.

Who went to Brussels?

The Brussels conference was in a sense the equivalent of the better known Bretton Woods conference of 1944, which agreed on the framework for the global economic order following World War II.

Memoranda were prepared for the delegates by five eminent economists: Gijsbert Bruins from the Netherlands; Gustav Cassel from Sweden; Charles Gide from France; Maffeo Panetaleoni from Italy; and Arthur Pigou from England.

It is a pity none of them participated in person. It might have made for a much livelier debate. Gide was from the left, Cassell and Pigou were then liberals, Bruins more conservative while Panetaleoni became aligned with Italy’s fascists.

As it was, the conference’s delegates held surprisingly homogeneous views.

Governments had been asked to send experts “conversant with public finance and banking” rather than politicians.

There were no women. Nor were there radicals or trade unionists. The labour parties in Britain and New Zealand had yet to win government while the Australian Labor Party was in opposition. Soviet Russia sent no delegates. Progressive tax policies such as wealth taxes were quickly dismissed.

The British delegation typified the establishment figures sent. It included Robert Chalmers, former head of the UK Treasury; Brien Cokayne (1st Baron Cullen of Ashbourne), the former governor of the Bank of England; and Henry Bell, the general manager of Lloyds Bank.

European powers accounted for two-thirds of the nations represented, they generally sent larger delegations and the proceedings were in English and French. Unsurprisingly, Europeans then dominated the discussion.

The economics of nostalgia

The upside to the similar world view of most participants was that it probably helped the conference reach a consensus. The downside was that this consensus reflected much of the conventional wisdom of the time. The delegates were wedded to the fiscal orthodoxies of 19th century “Gladstonian liberalism”, which stressed keeping budgets balanced and taxes low.

Implicitly, the delegates paid little regard to the economic rivalries or pressures that had contributed to World War I. Nor did they pay much attention to the significant changes the conflict wrought. The general aspiration was to revert to pre-war arrangements.

The correspondent for the New Statesman (a leading leftist magazine) described the discussion of fiscal policy as producing “a number of platitudes which might have been warmly cheered by a gathering of young politicians in the middle of the nineteenth century”.

As well as stressing the importance of balanced budgets, the delegates agreed on national currencies returning to the gold standard (which many countries had abandoned during the war). As Cokayne put it:

If we are to secure that stability of prices which is so essential to the healthy development of trade, we must endeavour gradually to readjust our internal purchasing power so as to bring down our prices to gold prices.

On monetary policy, the priority was to reduce inflation. This partly reflected concerns about the distortions inflation causes to economic activity. It also reflected the desire to return to pre-war exchange rates (ignoring the advice of Cassel, whose memorandum warned against this).

This was one the few areas where there was enthusiasm for doing things differently. Delegates endorsed independent central banks with the power to resist government pressure to fund extra government spending through printing money. It would be many decades, though, before most governments recognised the value of independent central banks.

With the Great War’s adversaries slow to return to their pre-war trade, the conference also called for trade barriers to be dismantled. There was some progress on this during the 1920s until the Great Depression, which saw many nations revert to tit-for-tat tariffs.

What did Brussels sprout?

The conference recommended governments cut spending to balance budgets. The transcripts of proceedings reveal no shortage of platitudes and calls for austerity. Gerard Vissering, chairman of the Netherlands’ central bank, for example, warned against “the superfluous consumption of dainties, waste of petrol for pleasure drives and excessive illumination of shops”.

Chalmers declared: “We must all work hard, live hard and save hard.”

Read more: Lessons of economic history: Nixon, Obama and the politics of austerity

More than a decade before his ideas challenged the orthodoxy of government austerity during economic downturns, English economist John Maynard Keynes was among those who gave the conference little regard. It “did absolutely no harm whatever”, he wrote to a friend in October 1920.

But in retrospect, knowing how the continuation of economic orthodoxies would contribute to more crises, feeding totalitarianism and war, we can see how much harm flowed from wasted opportunities.

Read more: ‘Guaranteed to lose money’: welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest rates

Some may see a parallel with today.

We live in a period when wage growth has been low for years, with interest rates at record lows and many prices falling. Yet it has taken the coronavirus recession for some to reconsider the shibboleths of fiscal rectitude.

Let us hope policy makers today are more imaginative than those a century ago, with their eyes fixed on the future rather than recreating the past.

– ref. The Brussels Finance Conference of 1920: a lesson in the perils of focusing on the past – https://theconversation.com/the-brussels-finance-conference-of-1920-a-lesson-in-the-perils-of-focusing-on-the-past-142822

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney

Discussion of online misinformation in politics and public health often focuses on the role of bots, organised disinformation campaigns and “fake news”. A closer look at what typical users see and engage with about vaccines reveals that for most Twitter users, bots and anti-vaccine content make up a tiny proportion of their information diet.

Having studied how vaccine information spreads on social media for several years, I think we should refocus our efforts on helping the consumers of misinformation rather than blaming the producers. The key to dealing with misinformation is to understand what makes it important in the communities where it is concentrated.

Vaccine-critical Twitter

In our latest study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, we looked at how people see and engage with vaccine information on Twitter. We showed that while people often see vaccine content, not much of it is critical and almost none comes from bots.

While some other research has counted how much anti-vaccine content is posted on social media, we went a step further and estimated the composition of what people saw and measured what they engaged with. To do this we monitored a set of 53,000 typical Twitter users from the United States. Connecting lists of whom they follow with more than 20 million vaccine-related tweets posted from 2017 to 2019, we were able to track what they were likely to see and what they passed on.

In those three years, a typical Twitter user in the US may have seen 727 vaccine-related tweets. Just 26 of those tweets would have been critical of vaccines, and none would have come from a bot.

Read more: Anti-vaxxers appear to be losing ground in the online vaccine debate

While it was relatively infrequent, nearly 37% of users posted or retweeted vaccine content at least once in the three years. Only 4.5% of users ever retweeted vaccine-critical content and 2.1% of users retweeted vaccine content posted by a bot.

For 5.8% of users in the study, vaccine-critical tweets made up most of the vaccine-related content they might have seen on Twitter in those three years. This group was more likely to engage with vaccine content in general and more likely to retweet vaccine-critical content.

Studying people, not posts

Many social media analyses about misinformation are based on counting the number of posts that match a set of keywords or hashtags, or how many users have joined public groups. Analyses like these are relatively easy to do.

However, these numbers alone don’t tell you anything about the impact of the posts or groups. A tweet from an account with no followers or a blog post on a website that no one visits is not the same as a major news article, a conversation with a trusted community member, or advice from a doctor.

Information consumption is hard to observe at scale. My team and I have been doing this for many years, and we have developed some useful tools in the process.

In 2015 we found that a Twitter user’s first tweet about HPV vaccines is more likely to be critical if they follow people who post critical content. In 2017, we found lower rates of HPV vaccine uptake across the US were associated with more exposure to certain negative topics on Twitter.

Read more: COVID-19 anti-vaxxers use the same arguments from 135 years ago

A study published in Science in 2019 used a similar approach and found fake news about the 2016 US election made up 6% of relevant news consumption. That study, like ours, found engagement with fake news was concentrated in a tiny proportion of the population.

I also think analyses focused on posts are popular because it is convenient to be able to blame “others”, including organised disinformation campaigns from foreign governments or reality TV hosts, even when the results don’t support the conclusion. But people prone to passing along misinformation don’t live under bridges eating goats and hobbits. They are just people.

Resisting health misinformation online

When researchers move beyond counting posts to learn why people participate in communities, we can find new ways to empower people with tools to help them resist misinformation. Social media platforms can also find new ways to add friction to sharing any posts that have been flagged as potentially harmful.

While there are unresolved challenges, the individual and social psychology of debunking misinformation is a mature field. Evidence-based guides on debunking conspiracy theories in online communities are available. Focusing on the places where people encounter misinformation will help to better connect data science and behavioural research.

Connecting these fields will help us understand what makes misinformation salient instead of just common in certain communities, and to decide when debunking it is worthwhile. This is important because we need to prioritise cases where there is potential for harm. It is also important because calling out misinformation can unintentionally help it gain traction when it might otherwise fade away.

Vaccination rates remain a problem in places where there are higher rates of vaccine hesitancy and refusal, and are at higher risk of outbreaks. So let’s focus on ways to give people in vulnerable populations the tools they need to protect themselves against harmful information.

Read more: Vaccine refusers are health literate and believe they’re pro-science. But this just reinforces their view

– ref. Do Twitter bots spread vaccine misinformation? Research shows it’s not that simple – https://theconversation.com/do-twitter-bots-spread-vaccine-misinformation-research-shows-its-not-that-simple-147192

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Lynch, Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Southern Queensland

What happens if you breathe pure oxygen and why? Stephen, age 9, Muntinlupa City, The Philippines

Hi Stephen!

That’s a great question. We can’t live without oxygen. But too much can harm us. Let’s find out why.

Our bodies make the energy we need to run around, play and do schoolwork, by burning the food we eat. Think of this a bit like a candle burning. To burn our food, we need oxygen, which we get from breathing in the air around us.

Oxygen isn’t the only gas in the air. In fact, air’s mostly made of nitrogen. This has a very important job. Nitrogen slows down the burning process so you get enough energy through the day, bit by bit.

If you breathed pure oxygen, the energy from your food would be released all at once. So forget candles. This is more like a firework exploding. Bang! If you breathed pure oxygen, you wouldn’t actually explode. But you would damage your body.

Read more: Curious Kids: when I swipe a matchstick how does it make fire?

Breathing pure oxygen sets off a series of runaway chemical reactions. That’s when some of that oxygen turns into its dangerous, unstable cousin called a “radical”. Oxygen radicals harm the fats, protein and DNA in your body. This damages your eyes so you can’t see properly, and your lungs, so you can’t breathe normally.

So breathing pure oxygen is quite dangerous.

But breathing pure oxygen can sometimes be necessary. Astronauts and deep-sea scuba divers sometimes breathe pure oxygen because they work in very dangerous places.

The length of time they breathe pure oxygen, and how much they breathe, is carefully controlled so they’re not harmed.

Sick people, including premature babies in hospital or people in hospital with the coronavirus, might also need some extra help breathing. They might be given a bit of extra oxygen on top of what’s in the air. It acts like a medicine to help calm and settle their breathing.

Again, too much oxygen can be dangerous. That’s why doctors and nurses keep a close eye to make sure people get just the right amount they need.

So we need oxygen to help us get energy from our food. We might also need a little extra if we’re sick in hospital, or if we’re an astronaut or deep-sea diver. But too much oxygen can harm us.

Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: what happens if you breathe pure oxygen? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-happens-if-you-breathe-pure-oxygen-145181

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott McKinnon, Research associate, University of Wollongong

The Boys in the Band, a remake of a 1970 film based on a 1968 play, has arrived on Netflix with little fanfare.

The film tells the story of Michael, a Hermés scarf-loving, Manhattan-dwelling gay man who is hosting a birthday party for a friend. Intended as a small event for seven gay men, a straight former college buddy of Michael’s also arrives unexpectedly. The party, to put it mildly, does not go well.

The guest of honour is Harold, a former figure skater who, in his spectacular party entrance, describes himself as “a 32-year-old, ugly, pockmarked, Jew, fairy.” That description sums up much of the film’s mood.

First performed a year before the New York Stonewall Riots, when LGBT people fought against police brutality, igniting a revolution, this is a pre-gay liberation story in which homosexual men swap barbed insults, indulge in a cruel party game and seem to be drowning in a sea of self-loathing.

The original play, written by Mart Crowley, was regarded as a breakthrough in the telling of gay stories. It was revived on Broadway in 2018 and the cast of that production star in the Netflix film.

Read more: With Moonlight’s Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs

But the 1970 film was initially banned in Australia, judged “indecent and obscene” by the Film Classification Board. It wasn’t until 1972, with the introduction of the “R” rating system that Australians could watch the movie.

The differing responses to versions of Crowley’s drama, 50 years apart, offer an intriguing case study in how historical context alters the way we understand a story.

Outdated and harmful?

In 1970, a film almost entirely about homosexual people was rare. As a result, The Boys in the Band was unlikely to be assessed purely on its merits as cinematic art or entertainment. Instead, it was read by censors as a threat to Australia’s inviolable heterosexuality.

When it finally screened here, in 1972, the gay liberation movement had burst into life and the response to the film from gay activists was wary.

Watching the party goers decry each other as “faggots,” (one character declares, “Show me a happy homosexual and I’ll show you a gay corpse”), Australian gay activists deemed the film outdated, harmful and cruel.

It was seen as a memory of a time happily left in the past, before gay liberation arrived with its messages of pride and freedom beyond the closet. But if this story was labelled a tired, outdated memory almost 50 years ago, what can a remake offer today?

Read more: Why are we still scared of seeing two men kissing?

A memory of a memory

As it turns out, plenty. Freed of much of the burden of representation it carried in 1970, The Boys in the Band now arrives as a funny, tense and heartbreaking memory of a memory.

The film is a fond, nostalgic replica of its predecessor. Some scenes are almost shot-for-shot copies. Others act more like the workings of memory, in that they evoke a sense of the earlier film without quite managing to create a direct duplicate.

The performances similarly call to mind the original cast. At times, they sand the edges of some of the harsher earlier stereotypes, particularly Robin de Jesus, whose portrayal of the proudly “nelly” (or effeminate) Emory feels more real than the original one did.

Others add some new complexity or depth, including Andrew Rannells as Larry, who must negotiate his desire for free love with a partner looking for monogamous romance.

This distancing through layers of memory switches the central question of the story from “Is this who we are?” to “Is this who we used to be?”. Which isn’t to say present-day gay men won’t see something of themselves in the film.

The jokes, the relationships and the inner workings of gay friendship circles at times still ring true. But the stakes are lowered by the passing of time and the nostalgic haze.

Gay artists in the Hollywood mainstream

With an openly gay cast (many of them TV stars), a gay director and gay producers, the new film shows how gay artists, no longer on the fringes but working within mainstream Hollywood, have reclaimed and repositioned this story.

In so doing, they reveal an element of gay culture that simply didn’t exist in 1970. Gay men’s mainstream cultural memory as displayed in the original film revolves around the popular divas of the day (Judy Garland, Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich are all quoted or imitated by the cast).

Read more: Why Dorothy’s red shoes deserve their status as gay icons, even in changing times

Today, that cultural memory also incorporates stories about gay people, written by gay people, including The Boys in the Band itself.

If the first film was Hollywood’s earliest attempt at revealing gay lives, the remake wraps its predecessor in layers of historical meaning.

Netflix’s film doesn’t carry the burden of being a landmark. Instead, it recalls the earlier film’s breakthrough as something worth remembering.

– ref. The Boys in the Band: once banned in Australia, this pre-gay liberation story is now a fond, funny Netflix remake – https://theconversation.com/the-boys-in-the-band-once-banned-in-australia-this-pre-gay-liberation-story-is-now-a-fond-funny-netflix-remake-147005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Williams, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, Griffith University

The Queensland election campaign officially begins this week, with the government entering caretaker mode on Tuesday, and the election set for October 31.

But the crystal ball for this election, which will see a number of significant firsts, is frustratingly cloudy.

Palaszczuk vs Frecklington

This is the state’s first election for a four-year fixed term of parliament since 1893. It’s also the first occasion at which the leaders of the two major parties — Labor’s Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Liberal-National Party’s (LNP) Deb Frecklington — are women.

Meanwhile, apart from August’s Northern Territory election, Queensland’s poll will be the first major electoral test of any Australian jurisdiction since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All of this makes the election extremely difficult to forecast, especially given the marked difference in how voters rate the parties, as opposed to their leaders.

That’s before you throw in the pull of four significant minor parties and their unpredictable preference flows.

A change of government is possible

Even so, we might say Labor is Queensland’s “natural” party of government, given it has held office for 26 of the past 31 years, and for 70 of the past 105 years (since the birth of the modern party system).

This stands in sharp contrast to Queenslanders’ predilection to back conservative parties at federal elections. In 2019, for example, the state swung toward the Morrison-led Coalition at a rate about four times the Australian average.

Read more: Queensland to all those #Quexiteers: don’t judge, try to understand us

Heading into the election, Labor holds a razor-thin buffer, with just 48 seats in the 93-seat parliament. A tiny after-preference swing of 0.7% would see Labor lose two seats and its majority.

The LNP, currently on 38 seats, must win nine additional seats, via a 3.4% swing to form majority government.

Ironically, that’s virtually identical to the 3.5% swing against the NT Labor government last month.

In June, a YouGov poll had the LNP in front of Labor, 52% to 48%, two-party preferred. In July, Newspoll had the LNP ahead, 51% to 49%.

The implications are clear: victory for the LNP is eminently possible.

A hung parliament is also on the cards

With polls putting Labor’s primary vote as low as 32%, preferences will be crucial and minor parties will once again play a significant role.

Because of recently introduced election spending caps, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party is expected to walk away empty-handed. This comes after Palmer donated almost $84 million to his own campaign during the 2019 federal election.

But with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation likely to maintain its lone seat, Katter’s Australian Party its three, and the Greens almost certain to double their representation to two, a hung parliament – a repeat of the 2015-17 term – is also a real possibility.

Referendum on three questions

For these reasons and more, the political eyes of Australia will be on Queensland on October 31. And it will invariably be a referendum on three questions.

The first is whom Queenslanders trust more as their premier for the next four years.

In late July, Newspoll found 81% of those surveyed approved of Palaszczuk’s handling of the pandemic, with 57% preferring her as premier. Just 26% preferred Frecklington.

But a late September, Newspoll saw a marked dip in Palaszczuk’s ratings, with 69% of respondents saying the premier was performing well over coronavirus.

Health vs economy

A second question is which public policy frame — public health or economic buoyancy — do Queenslanders rate more highly? This comes down to simple arithmetic.

Read more: Did someone say ‘election’?: how politics met pandemic to create ‘fortress Queensland’

If those angry at hard border closures and damaged hospitality, tourism and other small businesses outweigh those grateful for a government that has overseen just 1,160 coronavirus cases and six deaths, then Palaszczuk has a problem.

But with border and pub relaxations introduced last week, even that anger might be quelled by election day.

COVID recovery

If not, these concerns would be compounded by a third question: which party do Queenslanders trust more to navigate the state out of the COVID-19 economic quagmire?

Labor has reason to feel secure here, despite state debt nearing $100 billion and an unemployment rate above the national average. In June, a YouGov poll found Labor enjoyed an 11 point lead on the question of preferred economic managers. That figure alone has panicked LNP strategists.

But since then, the LNP has come out with economic guns blazing. It has re-embraced the 1930s Bradfield Scheme — a largely debunked populist dream to divert northern rivers westward. More pragmatically, the LNP also launched a $33 billion plan to upgrade the entire Bruce Highway from Gympie to Cairns.

Given more than half the state’s seats are outside Greater Brisbane, this policy pays the sort of regional homage that wins elections in Queensland.

The Prime Minister will be watching

Beyond Queensland, who will be watching the Queensland poll most closely?

Morrison found his way back to government last year via regional Queensland, which is now torn between border closures and economic survival. He will certainly be keeping a close eye on the contest, even if it is impossible to visit in person.

There are just four weeks to go.

– ref. Queensland’s unpredictable election begins. Expect a close campaign focused on 3 questions – https://theconversation.com/queenslands-unpredictable-election-begins-expect-a-close-campaign-focused-on-3-questions-146927

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hall, Senior Researcher in Politics, Auckland University of Technology

Back in pre-COVID times last year, when New Zealand passed the Zero Carbon Act, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern insisted “New Zealand will not be a slow follower” on climate change.

It struck a clear contrast with the previous National government’s approach, which the then prime minister, John Key, often described as being “a fast follower, not a leader”.

He had lifted this language from the New Zealand Institute’s 2007 report, which argued against “lofty rhetoric about saving the planet or being a world leader”. Instead, it counselled New Zealand to respond without “investing unnecessarily in leading the way”.

Key was eventually accused of failing to live up to even this unambitious ideal — New Zealand came to be known as a climate laggard.

With her hand on the nation’s rudder since 2017, has Ardern done any better? Is New Zealand a climate leader, and not merely a symbolic leader on the international speaking circuit but a substantive leader that sets examples for other countries to follow?

Finally a fast follower

On my analysis of Ardern’s government, New Zealand is now, finally, a fast follower.

The government’s climate policy is best evaluated from three perspectives: the domestic, international and moral.

Read more: NZ has dethroned GDP as a measure of success, but will Ardern’s government be transformational?

From a domestic perspective, where a government is judged against the governments that preceded it, Ardern is entitled to declare (as she did when the Zero Carbon Act was passed) that:

We have done more in 24 months than any government in New Zealand has ever done on climate action.

But at the international level, where New Zealand is judged against the actions of other countries and its international commitments, it is more a fast follower than a leader, defined by policy uptake and international advocacy rather than innovation.

At the moral level, where New Zealand is judged against objectives such as the 1.5°C carbon budget, its actions remain inadequate. A recent report by Oxfam notes New Zealand is off-track for its international obligations.

The nation’s record looks even worse when we factor in historical responsibilities. From this perspective, New Zealand, like other countries in the global north, is acting with an immoral lack of haste. It is for the next government to go from being merely transitional to truly transformational.

Turning in the right direction

The formation of the Ardern government in 2017 inaugurated a phase of rapid policy development, drawing especially from UK and EU examples. But the evidence of substantive climate leadership is much less clear.

The government’s most prominent achievement is the Zero Carbon Act, which passed through parliament with cross-party support in November 2019. This establishes a regulatory architecture to support the low-emissions transition through five-yearly carbon budgets and a Climate Change Commission that provides independent advice.

Its other major achievement, less heralded and more disputed, was the suspension of offshore oil and gas permits. This supply-side intervention is surely Ardern’s riskiest manoeuvre as prime minister, not only on climate but on any policy issue.

It stands as an exception to her careful, incremental style. It signalled that the Crown’s historical indulgence of the oil and gas sector was coming to an end.

But both policies involve followership. The Zero Carbon Act is closely modelled on the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008 and the leadership came from outside government. It was initially championed by the youth group Generation Zero. The independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment then picked it up.

Similarly, the offshore oil and gas ban builds upon longstanding activism from Māori organisations and activists. In 2012, Petrobras withdrew prematurely from a five-year exploration permit after resistance from East Cape iwi (tribe) Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. New Zealand was also only following in the footsteps of more comprehensive moratoriums elsewhere, such as Costa Rica in 2011 and France in 2017.

Towards climate leadership

There are many other climate-related policies, including:

Only the last policy is a world first. Even then, private companies throughout the world are already adopting this approach without a mandate from government.

Read more: New Zealand will make big banks, insurers and firms disclose their climate risk. It’s time other countries did too

In all likelihood, New Zealand’s greatest claim to pioneering policy is its decision to split targets for carbon dioxide and methane in the Zero Carbon Act, which means agricultural methane is treated separately. If the science behind this decision eventually informs the international accounting of greenhouse gases, it will have major ramifications for developing countries whose economies also rely heavily on agriculture.

Not all proposed policies made it through the political brambles of coalition government. Most conspicuously, commitments to an emissions-free government vehicle fleet, the introduction of fuel-efficiency standards, and feebates for light vehicles were all thwarted.

This is symptomatic of this government’s major weakness on climate. Its emphasis on institutional reforms rather than specific projects will yield long-term impacts, but not produce the immediate emissions reductions to achieve New Zealand’s 2030 international target under the Paris Agreement. This is where a future government can make the rhetoric of climate leadership a reality.

This article is adapted from an upcoming book – Pioneers, Leaders and Followers in Multilevel and Polycentric Climate Governance.

– ref. Ardern’s government and climate policy: despite a zero-carbon law, is New Zealand merely a follower rather than a leader? – https://theconversation.com/arderns-government-and-climate-policy-despite-a-zero-carbon-law-is-new-zealand-merely-a-follower-rather-than-a-leader-146402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alina Dini, Industry Fellow at the Institute for Future Environments, Queensland University of Technology

Many Australians say they would consider buying an electric car. But unfortunately, new electric vehicles don’t come cheap.

Even at the more affordable end of the market, a new Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq cost around A$50,000. The popular Tesla Model 3 would set you back A$66,000.

But there’s another option: buy second-hand. A used electric vehicle can be yours for under A$20,000. However supply is limited and, like with any major purchase, there are pitfalls to watch for.

I’m an energy consumer advocate, researcher and electric vehicle owner, and have helped friends and family buy their electric cars. So let’s take a look at where to find second-hand electric cars in Australia, and what to think about before handing over your cash.

Where to find one?

The supply of used electric vehicles in Australia is limited. Numbers are obviously tied to new vehicles sold, and the rate at which they end up in the used car market.

In 2019, 6,718 fully electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars were sold in Australia – triple the previous year, but still a relatively small number. And the young age of Australia’s electric vehicle fleet means there hasn’t been much turnover into the used market.

Used electric vehicles are generally found in the same places you’d find other second-hand cars. These include car dealerships and private sellers.

At the time of writing, about 120 used electric vehicles were for advertised on Carsales – the cheapest was a 2013 Nissan Leaf in Victoria for A$11,500. Sites such as Autotrader and Gumtree also sell them – however electric vehicles are a tiny proportion of overall listings.

Read more: Owners of electric vehicles to be paid to plug into the grid to help avoid blackouts

Tesla, by far the most popular electric vehicle producer in Australia, offers second-hand cars on its website, but currently none are available.

Former government electric vehicles can appear for sale on auction sites such as Pickles or Manheim.

In recent years, specialist electric vehicle importers have emerged in Australia. These include Good Car Company, which has brought in about 50 second-hand vehicles to date, mostly from Japan. They sell for as low as A$19,000.

The following graph gives a breakdown of second-hand electric vehicles available in Australia in August this year. Prices range from A$19,000 for a first-generation Nissan Leaf to A$180,000 for a Tesla Model X.

Buyers’ guide

Naturally, anyone buying a second-hand electric car wants to know they’re getting a good deal, and the vehicle is reliable.

You should check the usual things such as mileage, body condition, maintenance records, safety ratings and tyre condition. You should also keep in mind other things specific to electric vehicles:

1. Battery health

Over time, batteries in electric vehicles lose “range” – the distance they can drive on a single charge. The rate of loss can depend how and where the vehicle is driven. Batteries typically respond poorly to extremes – heat, cold, or other harsh driving or charging behaviours. So the condition of your battery should be top of mind when buying and maintaining an electric vehicle.

Many second-hand electric cars come with a battery diagnostic report from the seller. If they don’t, you can request this test or check the car’s onboard computer. Ideally, the battery should be at 80% or more than its original rated capacity.

2. Warranty and servicing

Warranties are a big consideration when buying any car. For electric vehicles, the battery and vehicle have separate warranties, and most offer greater coverage for the battery than the car. An eight-year warranty on a new car battery, which passes to successive owners, is standard. Good Car Company offers a two-year warranty on the battery of its imports.

The good news is electric vehicles have few moving parts, and require less servicing than conventional cars. Specialist servicing companies such as EVolution support the budding second-hand market. Still, it’s a good idea to check the terms of a car’s warranty, and how it can be serviced locally.

3. Charging needs

Electric vehicle charging is done at home or at public or private charging points.

Most used electric vehicles in Australia will be compatible with highway chargers, but early models and imports may require an adapter. Be sure to check your car’s plug type, and when charging outside of your home, use an app like Plugshare or Nextcharge to ensure the charging station works for your car.

Home charging can be done via a normal domestic electricity supply. But installing a dedicated electric vehicle charger at home is the safest and most efficient option.

An electric future

Unfortunately, Australia lacks the strong policies required to stimulate new electric vehicle sales, which would flow on to the second-hand market.

For example, unlike most of our international peers, Australia has not imposed fuel efficiency standards to discourage the use of polluting cars. It has also failed to follow the lead of nations such as the UK and France, which have set a target date for banning sales of new petrol and diesel cars.

If all levels of government in Australia transitioned their vehicles to an electric fleet, this would provide a regular influx into the used car market as the fleets are updated.

In New Zealand, electric vehicle registrations have steadily increased since 2016 when targeted policy was introduced. As of this month, 63% of electric vehicles sold in New Zealand were second-hand.

Electric vehicles are affordable to run, easy to maintain and good for the planet. Now we need to ensure as many Australian motorists as possible can go electric – and the second-hand market is key.

Read more: We thought Australian cars were using less fuel. New research shows we were wrong

– ref. Want an electric car, but think you can’t afford one? Here’s how to buy second-hand – https://theconversation.com/want-an-electric-car-but-think-you-cant-afford-one-heres-how-to-buy-second-hand-147173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nadia Wilson-Ali, PhD Student, Edith Cowan University

Up to 90% of brain development occurs in the first five years of life. Early learning matters, and creates a solid foundation for future development.

Philosophical underpinnings in early education matter too. They influence the interactions between teachers and children, the environment design and beliefs about how children learn.

The demographic diversity of Australia means no single early learning philosophy will suit everyone. Parents can find it difficult choosing a service given the plethora on offer.

Below are three of the best known alternative educational philosophies used in early childhood education in Australia.

Steiner (Waldorf)

Steiner education (also known as Waldorf) is based on Rudolf Steiner’s educational philosophy. It originated in Germany in the early 20th century.

It is focused on self-directed learning, based on children’s interests. Steiner education encourages self-motivated learning that supports and encourages problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and social skills.

When learning is self-directed, children’s motivation doesn’t come from rewards. Instead, they are engaged because they find it satisfying.

A Steiner childcare centre or preschool engages children in self-directed play, and in the arts. Children draw, paint, model, tell stories and do practical things like cooking, cleaning and gardening. There would be more arts and craft in a Steiner-inspired setting than a mainstream one.

Steiner teachers role model rather than instruct and play with children, facilitating their learning.

Assessments of children’s learning are generally personalised to the child and their interests, abilities, culture and strengths — rather than based on developmental checklists or standardised assessments.

Steiner learning resources are simple and low-tech to stimulate curiosity and creativity. A Steiner classroom may include weaving materials, crayons, puppets, natural fibres and natural timber.

Parents enrolling their child in a Steiner-inspired service can expect the centre to aim for the same teacher to educate and care for their child throughout their time there.

Genuine Steiner schools are certified and use a specific Steiner curriculum. They attract families who would like their child to develop their creativity in a predictable, routine environment with little to no technology.

Read more: Don’t worry, your child’s early learning doesn’t stop just because they’re not in childcare

Limited research has been conducted into Steiner education. What research exist mainly relates to schools rather than childcare. Some studies show students at Steiner-inspired schools get better academic scores (when using the same test methods) and social outcomes than students at public schools.

The Montessori approach

Dr Maria Montessori was a medical doctor and psychiatrist. She opened a school for disadvantaged children in early 20th century Rome, to test her education theories. There are now Montessori schools in more than 100 countries.

Montessori’s philosophy is based on her direct observations of children, and integrating their development with their learning. The focus is on play and work, as children like to model adults and be involved in real-world tasks. The philosophy sees children as capable of self-directed learning, who can independently choose resources to use in their learning.

The first learning materials a child is likely to encounter in the Montessori environment will be used for practical life activities. These include pouring different materials, using utensils such as scissors and tongs, cleaning, preparing snacks, laying the table and washing dishes, arranging flowers and gardening. The aim is to develop independent skills and to build their gross and fine motor control and hand-eye co-ordination.

Montessori resources are specifically designed, often sensory. They are to encourage matching, rhyming, sequencing, sandpaper letters and numbers for finger tracing, cutting, writing and drawing, sewing, weaving and woodworking.

Resources help children learn through repetition and self-correction. A child manipulating a puzzle can see their mistake if the pieces don’t fit together and self-correct as they go.

Unlike the Steiner approach, children in Montessori settings are grouped according to ability, not age. There are benefits associated with multi-age classrooms, which support children to work at their individual pace. They provide opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and to develop a sense of community.

Read more: Maria Montessori challenged and changed how kids are taught, and remains influential today

Many Australian early learning services are inspired by Montessori, but not all will be Montessori-registered (anyone can open a Montessori services as the name “Montessori” was never copyrighted).

In Australia, education and care services can participate in an external review by Montessori Australia against the Montessori quality standards and become “Montessori registered™. Parents can search the Montessori Australia directory to confirm if a service is Montessori-inspired, or Montessori-registered.

There is limited evaluation of the Montessori method in Australia, particularly for children aged under three. Some research has shown children aged 3-6 attending Montessori settings make significant gains over children attending non-Montessori settings in social and academic skills — but only if using the prescribed Montessori program without adaptations.

A US study found higher academic and social skills, as well as better mastery of skills and executive function in children aged 3–6 who had attended a Montessori service, in comparison to children in non-Montessori settings.

Reggio Emilia

The Reggio Emilia approach was established in a city in Northern Italy. After the end of World War 2 and fascism, parents and educators looked for new educational experiences.

The first preschool in Reggio Emilia opened in 1963 with the collaboration of educationalist Loris Malaguzzi.

In 1991, one of the city’s preschools, the Diana preschool, was named one of the most advanced preschools in the world by Newsweek, in recognition of the preschool’s innovative teaching practices. These preschools saw the child as an active citizen and holder of rights from birth, valued for their individual identity and active participation in their learning.

Read more: Knowledge is a process of discovery: how constructivism changed education

In contrast to the more structured educational programs in Montessori settings, teachers in Reggio Emilia design curricula that follow children’s interests and learning. Teachers assume different roles including researcher, role model, observer, documenter, photographer and student.

A teacher may see children are interested in nesting birds in the tree outside their classroom. The teacher may first establish what the children already know about the birds. Then the teacher may offer children the opportunity to draw the birds in the nest, create sculptures of the nest and read children books about bird species. The teacher could also photograph the children engaged in learning about the birds and do further research themselves.

The learning journey is then displayed at the centre.

Reggio Emilia schools are renowned for their aesthetics. Each resource is purposefully placed in the classroom to invite children to explore and create with it. Resources can include items such as PVC piping, boxes, fabrics, buckets, stones, blocks and clay. Classrooms are bright and open, designed to allow children to move freely between spaces.

An exact replica of Reggio Emilia can’t be recreated outside the town, as each services must reflect its cultural, political and historical context. So centres refer to themselves as “Reggio-inspired”. These individual differences make it difficult to evaluate.

– ref. Montessori, Steiner or Reggio Emilia: which childcare philosophy is best for your family? – https://theconversation.com/montessori-steiner-or-reggio-emilia-which-childcare-philosophy-is-best-for-your-family-131457

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hail, Lecturer in Economics, University of Adelaide

It’s easy get the impression the massive government spending and deficits and debt required by the pandemic are new.

It would be understandable, because much of what happened before the 1980s has been forgotten.

Yet for almost all of the years since Federation – almost every one – the Commonwealth budget has been in deficit, right through til the late 1980s.

And it has hurt us not at all.

Seventy five years ago, the world faced daunting challenges: the reconstruction of Europe and Japan; the long-overdue end of an empire; the threat of communism; urgent demands for public services, social welfare and housing; and the orientation of economic activity away from the demands of war towards improvements in the quality of life.

In Australia, the Commonwealth published a white paper, Full Employment in Australia, in which it accepted responsibility for ensuring that there would always be enough demand for labour so that everyone who wanted to a job would be able to get one.

In pursuit of this goal, both sides of politics understood that they would usually need to run budget deficits.

For 40 years under prime ministers Chifley, Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam and Fraser that is exactly what happened, as it had for most of the 40 previous years without the guiding light of the white paper.

Governments would spend as much as was needed (some of it in the form of gigantic nation-building projects such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme) and tax as little as was needed in order to keep the unemployment rate at close to zero as practical without putting too much pressure on prices.

If there were deficits, low interest rates and the economic growth that flowed from those deficits would shrink the resulting debt as a proportion of GDP.

Banks were regulated to ensure interest rates stayed low and credit was directed to businesses and households.

Menzies was a Keynesian

These were the golden years of so-called Keynesian economics with a consensus across the political spectrum that it was right to use government spending and tax measures to sustain the economy, disputed only by Marxists on the Left and a small band of neoliberals on the Right.

Up until the mid-1970s, when war in the Middle East, fautrising energy prices in a world dependent on oil and rising union militancy in Australia combined to create double-digit inflation and an unemployment rate far higher than the one or two per cent Australia had enjoyed since the war.

Read more: Memories. In 1961 Labor promised to boost the deficit to fight unemployment. The promise won

In Australia and elsewhere it allowed a takeover by a new band of neoliberal politicians and economists who believed in small government (sometimes austerity), balanced budgets and outsourcing economic management to central banks who were given the autonomy to adjust interest rates and the supply of money in a deregulated market.

It happened slowly, under the governments of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, Ronald Reagan in the United States and (Labor prime minister) Bob Hawke in Australia.

Hawke was an exception

By the 1990s, the old consensus had not only disappeared, its successes had been erased from memories. A new academic and institutional consensus emerged, shared by prime ministers Hawke, Keating and Howard and treasurers Keating and Costello.

Although it does not require balanced budgets, the Charter of Budget Honesty introduced by Treasurer Peter Costello requires governments to publish the fiscal strategy they intend to use in drawing up budgets.

Read more: Frydenberg is setting his budget ambition dangerously low

The first, in 1997 required the government to achieve “underlying budget balance, on average, over the course of the economic cycle”.

Over time it was hardened to “achieve budget surpluses, on average, over the course of the economic cycle”.

It has been honoured in the breach since 2008, because surpluses usually aren’t consistent with good economic management, regardless of charters.

If the private sector is a net saver, as it usually is, the public sector usually needs to be a net spender in order to keep resources fully employed.

In last year’s election Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his opponent Bill Shorten disagreed about many things, but the need for surpluses wasn’t one of them

Surpluses no longer

No longer. In the leadup to tomorrow’s budget Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has promised a new fiscal strategy, one that for the first time is likely to promise neither a surplus or a balanced budget.

“It would now be damaging to the economy and unrealistic to target surpluses over the forward estimates, he said in September. “This would risk undermining the economic recovery we need to bring hundreds of thousands more Australians back to work and to underpin a stronger medium-term fiscal position”.

Proponents of the neoliberal consensus would argue that the decade of surpluses between the late 1990s and the global financial crisis was a golden time. It was certainly helped by the mining boom.

Read more: Bernie Sanders’ economic adviser has a message for Australia we might just need

But inequality grew, household debt trebled, and as the government continued to target a surplus, interest rates had to be cut to the point where further cuts may no longer have an effect.

Inflation has been below the Reserve Bank’s target and unemployment above it for a decade. The budget is about all that’s left to support the economy. It certainly shouldn’t be getting out of the way to allow the private sector to create wealth, as those proponents used to suggest.

We are on the cusp or a second Keynesian revolution, one expression of which is Modern Monetary Theory, which suggests deficits need to be embraced where they are necessary to bring about full employment.

A government such as Australia’s which issues its own currency is able to fund deficits for as long as it needs to, and would be wise to do so up until the point where it creates too much inflation.

Something stronger

With the package comes the idea of a job guarantee, first put forward by the American economist Hyman Minsky in the 1960s, and promoted now by University of Newcastle labour market specialist Bill Mitchell and the founder of the Cape York Institute Noel Pearson.

It is the unconditional offer of a job at a minimum wage to anyone willing and able to work, normally funded by budget deficits and bigger when the economy is weak and smaller when it is strong.

Will it happen? As Stephanie Kelton, the world’s most prominent Modern Monetary Theorist and author of the New York Times bestseller The Deficit Myth said recently, “I won’t say no. But it’s going to be a hell of a fight.

– ref. Big budget spending isn’t new: it’s a return to what worked before – https://theconversation.com/big-budget-spending-isnt-new-its-a-return-to-what-worked-before-142370

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Associate Professor in Internet Studies, Curtin University

Tomorrow marks Instagram’s tenth birthday. Having amassed more than a billion active users worldwide, the app has changed radically in that decade. And it has changed us.

1. Instagram’s evolution

When it was launched on October 6, 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram was an iPhone-only app. The user could take photos (and only take photos — the app could not load existing images from the phone’s gallery) within a square frame. These could be shared, with an enhancing filter if desired. Other users could comment or like the images. That was it.

As we chronicle in our book, the platform has grown rapidly and been at the forefront of an increasingly visual social media landscape.

In 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for a deal worth a $US1 billion (A$1.4 billion), which in retrospect probably seems cheap. Instagram is now one of the most profitable jewels in the Facebook crown.

Instagram has integrated new features over time, but it did not invent all of them.

Instagram Stories, with more than half a billion daily users, was shamelessly borrowed from Snapchat in 2016. It allowed users to post 10-second content bites which disappear after 24 hours. The rivers of casual and intimate content (later integrated into Facebook) are widely considered to have revitalised the app.

Similarly, IGTV is Instagram’s answer to YouTube’s longer-form video. And if the recently-released Reels isn’t a TikTok clone, we’re not sure what else it could be.

Read more: Facebook is merging Messenger and Instagram chat features. It’s for Zuckerberg’s benefit, not yours

2. Under the influencers

Instagram is largely responsible for the rapid professionalisation of the influencer industry. Insiders estimated the influencer industry would grow to US$9.7 billion (A$13.5 billion) in 2020, though COVID-19 has since taken a toll on this as with other sectors.

As early as in 2011, professional lifestyle bloggers throughout Southeast Asia were moving to Instagram, turning it into a brimming marketplace. They sold ad space via post captions and monetised selfies through sponsored products. Such vernacular commerce pre-dates Instagram’s Paid Partnership feature, which launched in late-2017.

The use of images as a primary mode of communication, as opposed to the text-based modes of the blogging era, facilitated an explosion of aspiring influencers. The threshold for turning oneself into an online brand was dramatically lowered.

Instagrammers relied more on photography and their looks — enhanced by filters and editing built into the platform.

Soon, the “extremely professional and polished, the pretty, pristine, and picturesque” started to become boring. Finstagrams (“fake Instagram”) and secondary accounts proliferated and allowed influencers to display behind-the-scenes snippets and authenticity through calculated performances of amateurism.

3. Instabusiness as usual

As influencers commercialised Instagram captions and photos, those who had owned online shops turned hashtag streams into advertorial campaigns. They relied on the labour of followers to publicise their wares and amplify their reach.

Bigger businesses followed suit and so did advice from marketing experts for how best to “optimise” engagement.

In mid-2016, Instagram belatedly launched business accounts and tools, allowing companies easy access to back-end analytics. The introduction of the “swipeable carousel” of story content in early 2017 further expanded commercial opportunities for businesses by multiplying ad space per Instagram post. This year, in the tradition of Instagram corporatising user innovations, it announced Instagram Shops would allow businesses to sell products directly via a digital storefront. Users had previously done this via links.

Read more: Friday essay: Twitter and the way of the hashtag

4. Sharenting

Instagram isn’t just where we tell the visual story of ourselves, but also where we co-create each other’s stories. Nowhere is this more evident than the way parents “sharent”, posting their children’s daily lives and milestones.

Many children’s Instagram presence begins before they are even born. Sharing ultrasound photos has become a standard way to announce a pregnancy. Over 1.5 million public Instagram posts are tagged #genderreveal.

Sharenting raises privacy questions: who owns a child’s image? Can children withdraw publishing permission later?

Sharenting entails handing over children’s data to Facebook as part of the larger realm of surveillance capitalism. A saying that emerged around the same time as Instagram was born still rings true: “When something online is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product”. We pay for Instagram’s “free” platform with our user data and our children’s data, too, when we share photos of them.

Read more: The real problem with posting about your kids online

5. Seeing through the frame

The apparent “Instagrammability” of a meal, a place, or an experience has seen the rise of numerous visual trends and tropes.

Short-lived Instagram Stories and disappearing Direct Messages add more spaces to express more things without the threat of permanence.

Read more: Friday essay: seeing the news up close, one devastating post at a time

The events of 2020 have shown our ways of seeing on Instagram reveal the possibilities and pitfalls of social media.

In June racial justice activism on #BlackoutTuesday, while extremely popular, also had the effect of swamping the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag with black squares.

Instagram is rife with disinformation and conspiracy theories which hijack the look and feel of authoritive content. The template of popular Instagram content can see familiar aesthetics weaponised to spread misinformation.

Ultimately, the last decade has seen Instagram become one of the main lenses through which we see the world, personally and politically. Users communicate and frame the lives they share with family, friends and the wider world.

Read more: #travelgram: live tourist snaps have turned solo adventures into social occasions

– ref. Happy birthday Instagram! 5 ways doing it for the ‘gram has changed us – https://theconversation.com/happy-birthday-instagram-5-ways-doing-it-for-the-gram-has-changed-us-147039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Cooper, Lecturer at Griffith University, Griffith University

As the 2020 US presidential election draws near, close to 209,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 7.3 million have tested positive to the virus, including President Donald Trump.

The announcement of Trump’s positive diagnosis has led to arguably the most extensive case of collective schadenfreude in human history. Taking pleasure in another person being unwell is usually a sign that one has lost one’s moral bearings.

In this case, Trump‘s own cavalier behaviour and attempts to gaslight not just his own nation but the entire world on the dangers posed by COVID-19 (on top of a series of other lies and cruel policies) has led to a widespread lack of sympathy.

In the US, Trump‘s opponents and critics have gone out of their way to publicly wish Trump a speedy recovery.

But globally, the story is more complicated. Trump isn’t everyone’s president, of course, and he is seen by many as a singular threat to humanity and the global environment.

Recent Pew surveys show how deeply unpopular Trump is globally. Normally sanguine commentators have been talking about the death of democracy in the US if Trump steals victory from the jaws of defeat.

Our view is the most preferable way for the Trump presidency to end is for him to recover quickly and be beaten clearly on November 3. However, because people are so invested in this year’s election, there is much interest in what happens if Trump does not recover quickly. There is uncertainty on a number of fronts.

Read more: Donald Trump has COVID-19. How might this affect his chances of re-election?

Much will depend on how sick Trump becomes

Although receiving the best medical care, at 74, Trump is in a high-risk category. We know that for many people, symptoms appear similar to that of the flu, often quite mild to begin with, but with the potential for things to go downhill quickly, especially if those contracting the illness develop respiratory complications.

There are conflicting reports from Washington about how sick Trump actually is, and much will depend on what happens in the next few days.

So what happens if the president is incapacitated in the coming weeks, or even dies from COVID-19?

First, if the president dies in office, there is a long line of succession starting with the vice president — in this case, Mike Pence. This is hardly unprecedented, as eight American presidents have died in office. The first of these, William Harrison, died of pneumonia after serving just over 30 days in office in 1841.

Following the vice president, there is a host of congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries identified as next in line. This starts with the Speaker of House, which in this case would be Nancy Pelosi, the Californian Democrat whose relationship with Trump, to put it mildly, is not good. In other words, if Trump dies, there is a succession plan.

However, what complicates matters is that more people within the Trump circle are testing positive by the day.

Even if Trump does not die, what happens if he has a lengthy illness? What happens if Pence, who has initially tested negative, also contracts the virus in the coming days? If neither of these men are fit to run for the looming election, now less than one month away, how will the process play itself out?

If Trump and Pence were both unable to campaign as a result of contracting the virus, this would truly be unprecedented. Americans have had controversial elections in the past — elections in which neither candidate received the required number of electoral college votes, throwing the election to the House of Representatives; those where the winner of the popular vote did not win the presidency.

So if both Trump and Pence were incapacitated, the Republican National Committee would have some difficult choices to make — and they would have to make them quick.

The election will likely go ahead on November 3

At this stage, a delay of the election is extremely unlikely. This would require congressional authorisation and the Constitution requires through the 20th Amendment that a president must commence their new term on January 20. Time is the enemy, and advantages Biden. Democrats in the House, where they have a majority, would not countenance changing the election date.

However, even if Trump only develops a mild version of the illness, it has shaken up the campaign. Information on Trump’s condition is conflicting. Some reports suggest he is improving and in good spirits, others suggest he has already required a dose of supplemental oxygen.

The presidential debates are unlikely to go ahead and Trump will not be campaigning anytime soon. In the short term, Trump’s presence in his campaign will be virtual. If any Republican is to spend time in key swing states, it will be Pence.

If Trump recovers, he will want to project an image of strength — the “warrior” president who battled and defeated COVID-19. This might seem far-fetched, but creating an image of manly vigour has been central to the Trump presidency. Trump does not like images of weakness.

In Geoffrey’s Goldberg’s controversial article, he argues Trump fails to comprehend the notion of heroism, concluding the president, while “fixated on staging military parades”, does not like to include wounded veterans in such parades.

Uncomfortable with deformity, endlessly mocking those he considers weak and inferior, the president, if he recovers, could reappear late in the election cycle with a renewed swagger, boasting about his personal exploits against what he calls the “China plague”. His base would relish such images.

And what about Joe Biden?

However, it is difficult to see how this situation will not advantage Biden.

As long as Biden, who is 77, stays healthy, he has quite a bit of latitude in terms of how and where he campaigns. He will continue to express his perfunctory well wishes to the president and first lady, but given Biden has spoken incessantly about the president’s failures to combat COVID-19, the disease will be the dominant issue of this election — and so it should.

With more than 200,000 Americans dead, most of whom, unlike the president, never had personal physicians, were not rushed to Walter Reed medical centre, and were not given drugs such as the anti-viral remdesivir to shorten their hospital stays, it is hard to resist the notion Biden will not consolidate his lead.

Read more: Coalition regains Newspoll lead; time running out for Trump

Without the debates, Biden can avoid tricky questions about what he will do to the Supreme Court if Republicans insist on a vote for Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, will do everything in their power to make sure this vote goes forward to consolidate the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. However, with three Republican Senators recently contracting the virus, a vote before the election is not guaranteed. Again, the longer the uncertainty lasts, and the more Senators who become infected, Biden may secure the advantage of a delayed vote, if indeed the vote takes place at all.

But as Trump recently said to journalist Bob Woodward in Rage, the controversial book in which the president admitted to knowing how serious this virus was despite publicly downplaying its threat to the American people, when “you’re running a country it’s full of surprises. There’s dynamite behind every door”.

The same can be said for the 2020 presidential election.

– ref. With Trump in hospital, uncertainty reigns. It’s not likely to end any time soon – https://theconversation.com/with-trump-in-hospital-uncertainty-reigns-its-not-likely-to-end-any-time-soon-147416

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Hurley, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

Australia should create a national job cadet program to help young people into work, according to a report released today by the Mitchell Institute.

In the report, Averting an Escalating Labour Market Crisis for Young People in Australia: A Proposed National Job Cadet Program, we highlight the extraordinary labour market challenges young people face.

Our analysis suggests the worst is yet to come, as young people compete for fewer available jobs in the transition from education to the workplace.

To help avert the crisis, we argue Australia should support employers to hire young people as cadets. The evidence shows programs such as these are effective in helping young people into viable careers, including at times of crisis.

Read more: 5 charts on how COVID-19 is hitting Australia’s young adults hard

What are cadetships?

A cadetship combines formal training with practical work experience that includes some form of paid employment.

Like apprenticeships and traineeships, a cadetship program would mean young people train, study and earn an income. However, our proposed cadetships are aimed at jobs more often associated with diploma or bachelor degree qualifications. These cadetships will focus on areas of study – such as business, information technology and engineering – that are different to traditional trades.

This is similar to the German model of dual training, which combines theory and training embedded in a real-life work environments.

Cadetships can take many forms. We describe two main streams in the table below.

The first stream more closely resembles a traditional apprenticeship or traineeship, and draws on the relevant training provisions in industrial awards. This stream is for more unskilled and non-tertiary-qualified young people.

The second stream is for recent graduates, or those who already have some work experience, but who may need some further supported training to enter the labour market.

Read more: Advanced apprenticeships will boost skills for future jobs, but not in time to counter COVID impacts

Why do we need a cadetship program?

Our research shows the already difficult labour market conditions for young people are likely to get much worse.

Of particular concern is that fewer opportunities to enter the workforce will mean many young people will end up in the category known as “NEET” – “not in employment education or training”. It is the red flag of education-to-work transitions because it is associated with poor long-term outcomes.

These outcomes include higher rates of unemployment and underemployment, and lifetimes of insecure work and low pay.

The figure below shows the number of people between the ages of 15 to 24 who are in the NEET category in Australia.

During the pandemic, about 100,000 more young people became NEET than would normally be the case. The most recent data show a reduction in their number, although it clearly remains higher than before. It is important to place these changes within a wider context.

Australia is experiencing the early economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Based on previous recessions, the most negative effects on young people will come progressively as cohorts graduating from education make the transition to the workforce. With lower rates of job creation it becomes harder for them to find work.

Indeed, data show the negative impacts of youth unemployment can linger long after an economic downturn has passed.

The chart below shows the historical incidence for 15-to-24-year-olds who are NEET since 1986, using a three-month rolling average.

These trends suggest Australia may need to tackle the problem of a “bottleneck” forming in the youth labour market. This is when waves of young people try to move from the education system into the labour force.

However, when fewer jobs are available, young people are unable to find employment and a “queue” forms. The result is higher incidences of NEET that can take some time to dissipate.

Read more: Pupil job prospects and earnings boosted by employer links to schools

How much will it cost?

The challenge facing Australia is to create a greater quantity and quality of employment opportunities for young people.

Investing in cadetships for young people will help meet this difficult challenge.

To support businesses to hire cadets, we argue the Australian government should subsidise their wages. Wage subsidies have been shown to be effective in creating extra employment.

We believe subsidies up to A$28,000 will help create the extra high-quality employment opportunities young people need. This matches the current support provided to certain employers of apprentices and trainees. The final amount an employer receives can be adjusted according to criteria such as the size of the business or amount of skills development required to do the job.

While cadetships will cost money, the cost of doing nothing is enormous. The OECD estimates the cost to the Australian economy of young people not being in education, training or employment is about 1% of GDP, or about A$40,000 per person per year.

Ultimately, the investment we make now in a job cadet program will deliver long-term rewards.

– ref. With over 300,000 young people left in limbo by COVID, we need a job cadet program – https://theconversation.com/with-over-300-000-young-people-left-in-limbo-by-covid-we-need-a-job-cadet-program-147190

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

In its latest stimulus measure, the Morrison government will extend its first home loan deposit scheme to an extra 10,000 home buyers.

But unlike existing arrangements, where people can purchase a new or existing home, these buyers will have to build a house or buy a newly-built property.

The condition is to direct maximum help to the residential building sector.

As with the existing program, the extended program allows people to buy with a deposit of as little as 5%, much less than the usual deposit of about 20%. The government guarantees the other 15% of the deposit.

The additional guarantee will run until June 30, 2021. The program has already assisted some 20,000 buyers since the start of the year.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “Helping another 10,000 first home buyers to buy a new home … will help to support all our tradies right through the supply chain including painters, builders, plumbers and electricians.

“In addition to the government’s HomeBuilder program, these measures will support residential construction activity and jobs across the industry at a time when the economy and the sector needs it most.

“At around 5% of GDP, our residential construction industry is vital to the economy and our recovery from the coronavirus crisis.”

The first home loan deposit scheme began in January, to provide up to 10,000 guarantees for the financial year to June 30, 2020. It saw strong demand in its first six months , with 9,984 out of a maximum of 10,000 guarantees offered.

Between March and June, the scheme supported one in eight of all first home buyers.

The government has announced new caps for the scheme, given newly built homes are usually more expensive than existing homes for first home buyers:

– ref. Government extends assistance for first home buyers to stimulate building industry – https://theconversation.com/government-extends-assistance-for-first-home-buyers-to-stimulate-building-industry-147372

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy J. Lynch, Associate Professor in American Politics, University of Melbourne

With just a month left until the November 3 US presidential election, contracting the virus could have politically positive or negative consequences for President Donald Trump. These will, of course, be contingent on how severe the president’s illness becomes. But we should not count him out and Biden in just yet.

Here are the ways the diagnosis could swing the election either way for Trump.

Negative

1. Trump’s days in isolation will halt his intense campaign schedule. Trump was much better at energising crowds in airport hangers than Joe Biden has been. This advantage is now gone.

2. Trump is a sick man. Campaigning in any form requires robust health. Any physical advantage born of being the younger and fitter of the two candidates has now gone.

3. Because he has often disparaged the virulence of the disease, the president faces the public humiliation of being its victim. Trump does not deal well with humiliation – the excoriating account of his childhood, as told by his estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, is replete with examples of the young Donald dishing out but being unable to take humiliation.

4. Trump has traded on his strong man image for decades. If he gets a bad dose, he will look every bit and more of his 74 years. If his experience is like that of Boris Johnson, Trump could well be out of action for weeks with the attendant psychological challenge of recovery weighing on him. The British PM, several intimates have observed, is still in recovery, still cognitively and emotionally impaired by his personal fight with COVID-19.

Positive

There are also potential political advantages in Trump’s COVID diagnosis.

1. Because of the virus, Joe Biden was already cautious about face-to-face campaigning. His younger opponent falling ill may well keep Biden more basement-bound and less willing to crisscross the battleground states.

2. Trump is not the first leader to catch the virus. While Boris Johnson became very sick, Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president, had a relatively mild dose. He was able to claim from personal experience how few people who catch the virus are actually killed by it. This has been Trump’s basic refrain over the course of the pandemic. Catching and recovering from the virus will prove he was right all along. Lockdowns, he will insist, were one big overreaction to a contagious but not virulent disease.

3. History tells us sick presidential candidates often win the ensuing election – Ronald Reagan nearly died from an assassin’s bullet in 1981 but won big in 1984 – or that their party will. When Warren G. Harding died in office (in 1923), his Republican party stayed in the White House for another ten years.

4. Indeed, assassinated presidents tend to guarantee their party retains the White House at the next election: Lincoln’s murder in 1865 was a cause of his great general, Ulysses S. Grant, winning in 1868. William McKinley’s murder in 1903 put his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, into office for eight years. John Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 lead to Lyndon Johnson winning in a landslide the next year. Dying is, of course, not Trump’s plan, but sickness and death need not mean the GOP lose the White House.

5. The greatest president in US history, measured by victories (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), Franklin Roosevelt, was also the most challenged by his health. A victim of polio, he spent his entire presidency in a wheelchair. The point is not that COVID could turn Trump into FDR. It is to observe how far illness can empower a president.

6. Trump’s illness could have a positive effect on the tone of political discourse. Biden will not want to be seen to demonise a sick opponent. The presidential debates will almost certainly be cancelled – which will likely mean a more civil national debate.

Again, we can only begin to properly estimate the political ramifications of Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis when we know his prognosis. It is another element of uncertainty in this strangest and most uncertain of election years.

– ref. Donald Trump has COVID-19. How might this affect his chances of re-election? – https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-has-covid-19-how-might-this-affect-his-chances-of-re-election-147361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Koopman, Professorial Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

It’s one of the most important genes in biology: “Sry”, the gene that makes males male. Development of the sexes is a crucial step in sexual reproduction and is essential for the survival of almost all animal species.

Today in the journal Science, my international collaborators and I report the surprise discovery of an entirely new part of the Sry gene in mice — a part we had no idea existed.

I co-discovered Sry in 1990. It is the gene on the Y (male) chromosome that leads to the development of male characteristics in mice, humans and most other mammals. Since then, Sry has been the subject of intense study worldwide because of its fundamental role in mammalian biology.

We have come to understand, in some detail, how Sry acts to trigger a cascade of gene activity that results in the formation of testes, instead of ovaries, in the embryo. Testes then stimulate the formation of other male characteristics.

But it’s clear we don’t have all the answers just yet. Our results published today take us one step further in the right direction.

Hidden in plain sight

For 30 years, we have understood the Sry gene is made up of one “exon”, a segment of a gene used to code for amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. This can be compared to a computer file consisting of one contiguous block of data, on a hard disk.

Our newest research reveals there’s actually a second exon in mouse Sry. This is like finding a whole new separate block of previously hidden data.

The mouse genome, like the human genome, has been extensively characterised due to the availability of advanced DNA sequencing and related technologies. Researchers commonly assume all the genes and all the parts of the genes have already been discovered.

But earlier this year, scientists in Japan uncovered what looked like a new piece of the Sry gene in mice. New sequencing approaches revealed what appeared to be two versions of Sry: a short, single-exon form and a longer, two-exon form. They called this two-exon version “Sry-T”.

They collaborated with my group at the University of Queensland and removed the new exon using CRISPR, a gene editing tool that lets researchers alter DNA precisely. Together we discovered this prevented Sry from functioning: XY mice (which would normally develop as males) developed as females instead.

Conversely, adding Sry-T to fertilised XX mouse eggs (which would normally develop as females) resulted in males.

Implications for human sex determination

Importantly, although human Sry does not have the added exon, our discovery may reveal new functions that might be shared between mouse and human Sry.

The DNA sequence of the new exon in Sry-T may point us towards discovering some of the genes and proteins that interact with Sry, something that has been elusive up till now.

And interactions we find in mice may also occur in humans. Studying what human Sry interacts with may help explain some cases of differences in human sex development, otherwise known as “intersex” development. This is a common but poorly understood group of mostly genetic conditions that arise in humans.

Currently, we don’t know the genetics behind a large proportion of intersex conditions. This is partly because we don’t yet know all the genes involved in the human sex development pathway.

Read more: Sex, genes, the Y chromosome and the future of men

Towards a better understanding of male sex development

Scientifically, this discovery is a bit like discovering a new cell type in the body, or a new asteroid in the Kuiper belt. As with many scientific discoveries, it challenges what we thought we knew and raises many questions.

What is the function of the new exon in Sry-T?

Currently, we only have part of the answer. It turns out the first exon of Sry, the one we already knew about, contains “instability sequences” at its end. These are sequences that cause proteins to fray and degrade.

An important function of the newly discovered second exon is to mask the instability sequences, seal the end of the Sry protein and prevent it from degrading. In other words, this second exon is crucial to the development of male babies.

What’s more, this protection mechanism represents an unusual and intriguing evolutionary mechanism that has acted to help stop vulnerable Y-chromosome genes from literally falling apart.

But it’s early days yet. The challenge now is to understand whether there are more functions hidden within the newly discovered exon.

If so, this information may provide some of the missing links that have stood in the way of our full understanding of how Sry works at a molecular level and of how males and females come to be.

Read more: Why education about gender and sexuality does belong in the classroom

– ref. We discovered a missing gene fragment that’s shedding new light on how males develop – https://theconversation.com/we-discovered-a-missing-gene-fragment-thats-shedding-new-light-on-how-males-develop-147348

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

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

This week the pair discuss the first of three US presidential debates, the report into aged care tabled this week, the Melbourne lockdown, and what is likely to be in the budget handed down on Tuesday.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Melbourne, manufacturing, and the budget – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-melbourne-manufacturing-and-the-budget-147356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Kabatek, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne

The following five charts provide a snapshot of how COVID-19 is affecting Australians aged 18-24. Though the health impacts of the coronavirus fall most on the elderly, it is young adults that have been hit hardest by the economic and psychological costs of the pandemic response.

The data for the charts comes from results gleaned from two major surveys run by the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne.

The first is the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Since 2001 this survey has collected information from about 17,000 Australians each year.

The second is the Taking the Pulse of the Nation (TTPN) survey. The Melbourne Institute has been running this bi-weekly survey since March, polling 1,200 people over the age of 18, to track Australians’ expectations and attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Huge job losses

Between March and April, ABS figures show almost 600,000 of Australian workers – about 3% of the workforce – lost their jobs. Our data shows these losses were concentrated among young workers, with almost one in three (28%) workers aged 18-24 losing their jobs.

While things have since improved (with the end of lockdowns in most states), the employment rate of young Australian adults remains just under 60% (though with distinct state differences).

On top of that, half of workers aged 18-24 who managed to keep their jobs during the pandemic reported having had their regular working hours cut. This compares to a third of workers aged 25 or more.

The disproportionate impact on youth employment is likely driven by two factors.

First, more young adults work in industries directly affected by border closures, travel restrictions and social-distancing measures (hospitality, retail, culture and leisure). Past Melbourne Institute research indicates more than half of all workers in the most-affected industries are aged 18-24 (compared with 19% aged 25-34, and less than 12% aged 35-44).

Second, half of workers aged 18-24 are on casual contracts (79% in the most-affected industries). Having little-to-no employment protection, they have been most expendable during the downturn.

Read more: More neurotic, less agreeable, less conscientious: how job insecurity shapes your personality

2. The Victorian divergence

The previous chart tells the “average” Australian story. But there has been a distinct divergence between Victoria and the rest of Australia since late July. With Melbourne’s “second wave” and subsequent restrictions, the employment rate for Victorians aged 18-24 remains at just 46%, compared with 45% in April.

In contrast, the employment rate for those aged 18-24 in other states has bounced back strongly. This is encouraging, suggesting the negative effects of COVID-19 on Victorian youth employment may also be relatively quickly reversed.

Read more: Who suffers most from Melbourne’s extended lockdown? Hint: they are not necessarily particularly vocal 

3. Mental distress has skyrocketed

Our data shows a significant increase in the number of young Australians reporting mental distress.

Almost a quarter (23%) of those aged 18-24 report high levels of mental distress, compared to 9% in 2017. Only those aged 25-34 report more mental distress, due to the stresses felt by employed parents with primary school-aged children.

4. Financial stress varies

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of people (63%) who have lost their job due to the pandemic report high levels of financial stress.

These people represented about 40% of the unemployed in our survey. What is surprising is that our respondents who considered themselves unemployed for other reasons were, on average, less stressed than those with jobs. This likely reflects the relief existing Newstart recipients felt due to the doubling of the welfare payment during the pandemic.

5. Young women more affected

Young women are much more likely than men to report losing their job due to COVID-19 – 45% of unemployed females aged 18-24, compared with 34% of unemployed males.

Our data further indicate young women are more likely to report high levels of mental distress – 24% of females, compared with 21% of males).

These larger effects likely reflect women’s greater representation in the industries directly affected by COVID-19, and increased caring responsibilities during the pandemic.

– ref. 5 charts on how COVID-19 is hitting Australia’s young adults hard – https://theconversation.com/5-charts-on-how-covid-19-is-hitting-australias-young-adults-hard-147254

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristian Bell, PhD candidate, Deakin University

Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this new series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.

Though it may not be as famous a stereotype as shrimps on the barbie, deadly snakes or Vegemite, Australia is renowned in certain scientific circles for being the “land of the lizards”.

Australia has a higher diversity of lizards than anywhere else in the world. The number of different species within a single part of remote, central Australia well exceeds similar desert environments, such as the Kalahari in Africa, or the US.

Over the last 50 years, scientists have tried to understand the cause of this extraordinary and unique diversity.

Some suggest unpredictable resources in the arid outback, such as sporadic rain, favour low-energy animals like lizards over birds and mammals. Others claim a high diversity of termites allows lots of different termite-eating lizards to co-exist.

Read more: New research reveals these 20 Australian reptiles are set to disappear by 2040

Or perhaps the presence of shrubs, sparse trees and grass clumps provide a variety of niches (microhabitats) for tree and litter dwelling species. Despite these many hypotheses, no consensus has ever been reached.

My research explores the role of spinifex, a spiky clumping grass that’s typically found in the arid outback, often in conjunction with lizard diversity hotspots.

With many species found nowhere else on earth, some Australian lizards are threatened with extinction. Understanding how and why lizards use this iconic outback plant can help us conserve them, by predicting how they might respond to disturbances such as habitat loss and climate change.

Read more: Spinifex grass would like us to stop putting out bushfires, please

Following many trips to the outback, I was surprised to find locals who had never encountered some of the species I was studying. Taking photographs of these often small and overlooked animals helps me to better engage the community and raise the wider public profile of lizards, compared to other, more “charismatic” native animals.

A thriving desert ecosystem

All 60 species of spinifex grasses (members of the Triodia genus) are found only in Australia. Although spinifex habitats cover more than one-fifth of mainland Australia, the plant is little-known and little-loved by non-naturalists.

Spinifex typically forms a spiky and impenetrable clump that provides useful, and in some cases essential, resources to lizards, birds, mammals and invertebrates.

But despite the close association of many lizard species to spinifex, we still don’t know exactly why reptiles like it so much.

Read more: I walked 1,200km in the outback to track huge lizards. Here’s why

Three ideas dominate. First, spinifex may contain lots of food for lizards, such as termites or ants.

Alternatively, the spiky, needle-like leaves of spinifex may offer small lizards a great place to hide from predators. And finally, temperatures deep within a dense spinifex hummock can be very cool compared to the searing desert heat, where temperatures can reach a scorching 50℃.

My research aim is to work out which, if any, of these explanations is true. I do this by measuring variables such as temperature, invertebrate abundance and risk of becoming prey, in spinifex and other plants.

Alongside my supervisors, I have also conducted behaviour trials on a couple of spinifex-loving lizard species: the mallee ctenotus (Ctenotus atlas) and the mallee dragon (Ctenophorus spinodomus).

We have recorded 230,000 temperatures, caught 16,089 invertebrates, constructed 112 lizard models and classified 143,627 behavioural observations. But such is the complicated nature of the work, we’re only partially closer to understanding the lizard-spinifex relationship. So far, our data suggests temperature is a key component.

Read more: Does Australia really have the deadliest snakes? We debunk 6 common myths

The photos below are generally a result of good fortune and spending inordinate amounts of time in wild places. Pictures of some of the smaller, more skittish animals were taken upon release from pitfall traps.

The above two photos show my study species: the mallee dragon and the mallee ctenotus. Despite one lizard being a skink and the other a dragon, both species are strongly associated with spinifex. The skink tends to forage within spinifex, whereas the dragon emerges into open patches adjacent to spinifex to eat and “signal” to other dragons.

Spinifex grass, pictured above, with its spiky, needle-like leaves, creates valuable habitat for numerous species of birds, mammals and invertebrates — not just reptiles. Its abundance and influence on many species make it a “foundation species”.

This photo above shows a Burton’s legless lizard (Lialis burtonis) — a predator of my study species. These snake-like reptiles are specialist lizard hunters and often use the dense cover of spinifex to their advantage to ambush passing lizards.

Legless lizards might look a bit like snakes, but they have different ancestries and subtle distinguishing features, such as the lizard’s eyelids and external ears, which snakes don’t have.

But many other animals live in or near spinifex, and would happily make a meal of small lizards, including those shown in the following photos. The ability of numerous predators to access the centre of spiky spinifex clumps throws some doubt on the idea spinifex is used as protection from predators.

We can’t claim to have cracked the case yet. But we’re a step closer to unravelling the secrets behind one of Australia’s remarkable, and under-appreciated, biodiversity stories.

Read more: Scientists capture rare footage of mother skink fighting a deadly brown snake to protect her babies

– ref. Photos from the field: Australia is full of lizards so I went bush to find out why – https://theconversation.com/photos-from-the-field-australia-is-full-of-lizards-so-i-went-bush-to-find-out-why-146020

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross University

Janis Joplin died 50 years ago this Sunday, aged just 27, but her songs reach beyond time. Her enduring influence and popularity can be attributed to her raw, unadulterated, fearless performances.

We respond to vocalists who can express emotions such as pain, angst and release. Joplin gave us all those in spades, delivered with a powerful, uninhibited raspy voice.

Influenced by artists like Bessie Smith, Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, she possessed a command of blues styling, phraseology and melody. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and voted number 28 in Rolling Stone’s greatest singers of all time in 2008.

But when we hear a vocalist such as Joplin, who stirs something deeply in us, what is actually happening?

In command of her voice

The origins of music are rooted in the emotional expression of the human voice. Expressive musical performances have been shown to activate the emotional centres of our brains.

Joplin had a powerful and commanding voice. In her live performances she was focused and uninhibited, showcasing a broad palette of distinctive vocal timbres coupled with a fast vibrato. With her three-octave range, she used raspy growls, wails and screams to express raw emotion.

Rock singing often uses a rich chest voice, requiring great physicality and energy. Blues and rock singers might also incorporate a constricted quality in their voices: tightening the larynx and manipulating the air pressure they sing with.

Joplin’s voice has been described as using a distortion and edge, a mixture of noise and tone.

Read more: Friday essay: the art of the pinch – popular music and appropriation

This is perhaps best demonstrated in her 1968 song Piece of my Heart. This constricted sound directly conveys intensity — it is very exciting but also creates tension. This constriction comes to a climax on the line “you know you got it”: she improvises on the melody, changing the phrasing to include blues licks and then screams before the last chorus.

This use of constriction in singing carries with it a variety of challenges and significant risks, impacting the singers’ control. But audiences are thrilled by risk-taking of high-wire artists. Here, Joplin’s technique is in service to the communication of emotion, simultaneously thrilling and devastating.

The deepest of emotions

In performance, Joplin was at once vulnerable and fearless, yearning to break free, pushing boundaries and willing to reveal her authentic self. She was unapologetic.

While Joplin wasn’t singing the protest songs of her contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, a sense of protest comes through in her expression, her choice of repertoire and the way she refused to sing in a “pretty” voice accepted of women at the time.

As her biographer Alice Echols said:

Janis in some sense was the great unrecognized protest singer of the 1960s. No, Janis was not singing explicit protest songs. But in her voice, what people heard was somebody who was refusing the status quo.

Joplin’s last recorded work, posthumously released as Pearl, demonstrates the ongoing evolution in her vocal use. Her voice has undergone a refinement, still featuring gutsy and raw moments, here it is more controlled, without any loss of expression.

The opening of Cry Baby features Joplin singing two notes at once in a constricted tone, then loudly belting out the chorus. She then reduces the volume and softly explains her betrayal in the verses.

There are clear influences in her use of call and response from gospel music, and in particular the original recording and vocal stylings of Garnet Mimms.

This refinement is also visible in one of her last filmed performances. On This is Tom Jones in 1969, she transformed the touching jazz standard Little Girl Blue into a rhythm and blues epic.

It is edifying to compare her performance with performances of the same song by some of her influences, Nina Simone and Nancy Wilson. Simone’s delivery on piano and voice are expressively delicate and highlight a refined musicianship with subtle embellishments of the melody. Wilson’s version features rhythmic precision coupled with lush orchestration.

In contrast, Joplin’s approach features a change of rhythm and tempo throughout the song, regularly extending phrases and singing long held notes highly ornamented with gravelly yearning calls and vocal twists, turns and tone colours.

Joplin stands out as a vocalist of great influence. She was willing to express the deepest of human emotions – emotions not easily allowed nor expressed in western society. She afforded her audience a vicarious understanding of her emotions, an understanding which still echoes today.

Read more: ‘No reason for livin’: early death in female popular musicians

– ref. On the 50th anniversary of her death, Janis Joplin still ignites – https://theconversation.com/on-the-50th-anniversary-of-her-death-janis-joplin-still-ignites-147097

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Ibrahim, Professor, Health Law and Ageing Research Unit, Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University

Amid the ongoing disaster in Victorian aged-care homes, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety yesterday released its special report into the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report finally states who is responsible for aged care — the federal government — finding its actions were “insufficient” to ensure the aged-care sector was prepared for the pandemic.

But the report doesn’t offer us a clear picture of what went wrong and why.

Importantly, its recommendations largely fall short and come too late.

5 main recommendations that don’t go far enough

The report’s first key recommendation addresses the vexed issue of isolating residents from family and friends during lockdowns. The commissioners have asked the government to fund providers to ensure adequate staff are available to facilitate loved ones to visit.

This addresses the universally recognised need for a humane and proportionate response to lockdown, and the need to reduce the mental and physical harms associated with isolation.

But a better approach would be to introduce a mandatory code for visits to aged-care homes during COVID-19, rather than the voluntary code we currently have. We’d also need a way of enforcing this code, including a process to address family concerns immediately.

Read more: Federal government did not prepare aged care sector adequately for COVID: royal commission

Second, the commission recommends the government create Medicare Benefits Schedule items to increase the provision of allied health services, including mental health services, to aged-care residents.

While this will assist to some degree, a better recommendation would be instituting structured rehabilitation plans for residents with support from care workers. This would ensure the allied health advice provided through these new Medicare items is followed.

This recommendation also fails to address the fact many allied health staff work across multiple services, which increases the risk of infection spread.

The third recommendation requires establishing a national aged-care plan for COVID-19, including setting up a national aged-care advisory body. This is the most obvious step in any emergency response.

The commission indicates the plan should establish protocols between the federal government and states and territories, which may reduce some confusion around who is responsible for what. The plan should also set up procedures regarding who decides whether residents with COVID-19 are transferred to hospital.

As part of the plan, significant outbreaks in facilities are to be investigated by an independent expert, and any lessons promptly disseminated to the sector.

But the commission doesn’t provide any detail on what constitutes an independent expert, a major oversight. Ideally, the experts shouldn’t be directly involved with government departments, the regulator or affiliated groups involved in the pandemic response.

Read more: 4 steps to avert a full-blown coronavirus disaster in Victoria’s aged care homes

Perhaps most disappointing is the commission did not highlight that multiple outbreaks in aged-care homes reflect systemic issues rather than individual organisational failures. The most useful information is obtained by investigating every aspect of the sector as a whole. This is a missed opportunity and does not serve the best interests of older Australians.

As for the advisory body, the commission was clear the group Prime Minister Scott Morrison established in August was not sufficient — it lacked the right skill mix and was temporary.

But it’s extremely disappointing the commission has not directed that senior nurses, family members and residents (ideally supported by human rights lawyers) be appointed to the group. The people who will be most affected by the decisions should be directly involved in making them.

Read more: Banning visitors to aged care during coronavirus raises several ethical questions – with no simple answers

The fourth recommendation stipulates all aged-care homes should have one or more trained infection control officers as a condition of accreditation.

The fifth is for governments to deploy accredited infection prevention and control experts into aged-care homes to provide training, and assist with preparing for and managing outbreaks.

These are sound recommendations, but should have been in place more than a decade ago, had we learnt from Hong Kong’s experience with SARS.

The challenges with implementing these recommendations will be having the human resources for such a workforce, including addressing the longstanding issue of health professionals’ willingness to work in regional and remote areas.

Some key omissions

The report’s recommendations are worthwhile, yet all are late in arriving and incomplete. Each recommendation provides a solution to an entirely foreseeable problem.

Notably, there’s an absence of strategies to address the known structural problems in aged care. These are issues the commission itself has previously described, around workforce limitations, widespread neglect of residents, and regulatory failures. They represent barriers to implementing the recommendations.

The commissioners also fell into the trap of inappropriate comparisons. References to Australia faring better than selected European and North American countries fail to acknowledge our advantages of being an island continent with lower community transmission and an extra three months to prepare. This provides false reassurance to the public.

We should judge our performance on the disparity between what we could have done and what we did do, rather than against countries in different situations.

There’s more to uncover

It’s not surprising the government has accepted all the recommendations, as each of these initiatives should have already been in place well before the second wave hit Victoria.

The commission has recommended the federal government report on the implementation of these recommendations no later than December 1.

Read more: The budget must address aged care — here are 3 key priorities

Ultimately, this report was not designed, nor did it deliver, an understanding of what went wrong in aged care, and why.

Similarly, the recommendations do not go to the heart of the information gleaned from the appalling and tragic lived experiences of residents, families, aged-care workers and health professionals.

With so many outbreaks, many still ongoing, and tragically, several hundred deaths in aged care already, there remains much we need to uncover.

– ref. Older Australians deserve more than the aged care royal commission’s COVID-19 report delivers – https://theconversation.com/older-australians-deserve-more-than-the-aged-care-royal-commissions-covid-19-report-delivers-147273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University

The Australian government has released a series of manufacturing industry policies in the lead-up to the October 6 budget. Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke about a A$1.5 billion strategy to strengthen Australian manufacturing and supply chains. Last week, Education Minister Dan Tehan announced a A$7.2 million extension of advanced apprenticeship pilot programs across the country to teach students the high-level, specialist knowledge and skills they’ll need for industry jobs of the future.

Read more: Scott Morrison names six priority areas in $1.5 billion plan to boost manufacturing

COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerabilities of Australian manufacturing. Recent research ranked Australia lowest in the OECD for manufacturing self-sufficiency.

The government wants to expand work-integrated learning. Its aim is to strengthen the link between training and future industry needs, and significantly lift workforce skills to meet the requirements of the digitally driven Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The investments in Australia’s future workforce, businesses and economy are welcome. However, the training program will not solve the unemployment problems and skills mismatch in the short term, given COVID-19’s impact on the economy.

Where do advanced apprenticeships fit into this?

The main aim of advanced apprenticeships is to strengthen relationships between universities and industry to produce highly skilled graduates for an Industry 4.0-driven economy. This is all the more important in light of the government’s JobMaker Digital Business Plan to drive economic recovery.

Advanced (or higher) apprenticeships combine higher and vocational education. Student “apprentices” are exposed to a combination of systematic, on-the-job (vocational) training and higher degree education.

This approach is the basis of the German education and training system. In recent years, concerns about manufacturing’s decline in many developed economies have prompted governments to adopt aspects of the German model.

Read more: The UK is rethinking university degrees and Australia should too

In Australia, Siemens, the AiGroup and Swinburne University launched the first digital technologies advanced apprenticeships pilot in 2017. In a two-year Associate Degree in Applied Technologies, student-apprentices work for a host employer and attend university for periods of 6-8 weeks followed by similar periods of applied learning in the workplace. They do 22 weeks of full-time study a year, with 26 weeks in the workplace and four weeks’ annual leave. The program has won industry awards.

The extra funding will extend the program beyond Victoria to New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia.

Preparing skills for future jobs

Advanced apprenticeships are especially relevant to rapidly changing sectors such as advanced manufacturing. Higher-level skills are increasingly in demand as emerging and disruptive technologies automate lower-level tasks.

Jobs that draw on digital and related skills have been growing more rapidly than jobs in the so-called legacy economy. This is because the technological innovations underpinning the digital economy demand higher-level skills. These disruptive technologies include artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning and digitisation.

Read more: Jobs are changing, and fast. Here’s what the VET sector (and employers) need to do to keep up

COVID-19 has accelerated this trend. The need for up-skilling and training is urgent, to ensure tomorrow’s graduates, as well as the existing workforce, have the skills to take advantage of job opportunities in the digital economy.

The federal government believes in the power of free markets. But it recognises market failure exists when it comes to students’ preferences for skills development versus educational institutions having the right training to meet future industry needs. As a result, many young people’s career expectations were concentrated in ten so-called “20th century” careers such as doctors, teachers, lawyers and business managers. They could struggle to find relevant and consistent work in the future.

Read more: If you’re preparing students for 21st century jobs, you’re behind the times

This approach doesn’t offer a quick fix

Our research highlights a major gap in Australia between what education and training providers are delivering and what business and industry need. Programs such as advanced apprenticeships in digital technologies will help to reduce this mismatch.

However, the pilot programs are not a silver bullet to solve the problems of skills and employability in Australian manufacturing, for several reasons.

First, this is a long-term solution. In advanced apprenticeship programs, students take two years to gain the associate degree and longer for a full university degree. Swinburne University’s first pilot intake in 2017 has only just gained undergraduate qualifications.

This training will not solve the mass unemployment due to the COVID-19 shock nor cushion the impacts of the roll-back of Jobkeeper and Jobseeker.

Second, while the government says its manufacturing strategy will create up to 80,000 direct jobs and about 300,000 more indirect jobs, advanced apprenticeships will not be the main training pathway. These programs have relatively small intakes and are niche in nature.

The first Swinburne pilot enrolled only 20 students. Similar small intakes are likely at other universities in the extended program.

One aim of the pilots is to involve more local firms and small to medium-sized enterprises. But how many will be willing (and able) to invest in these initiatives amid the economic uncertainties of the pandemic?

More questions than answers

The lack of detail in the apprenticeship announcement raises other questions.

First, it is unclear to what extent the government has collaborated or consulted with the states and territories and industry bodies. This is essential because the pilots involve both vocational and higher education aspects of learning. The Joyce Review and the Productivity Commission both emphasised the need for collaboration.

Second, why are only universities being targeted? And why do the extended pilots include only two dual-sector universities (Swinburne and RMIT)?

Perhaps the aim was to align the training element with the research element for the federally funded Industry 4.0 Testlabs in six selected universities. However, not all these universities are part of the advanced apprenticeship pilots.

Despite the positive spin about inter-government collaborations as a result of COVID-19, this does not appear to be happening in skills and training. Industry groups have therefore taken the initiative to work directly with the states and territories and with vocational education providers.

Further details may be revealed after the budget and the Productivity Commission’s final report on its review of the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development.

For pilot programs to be successful, especially in the context of high market uncertainty and rapid technological development, they need to be given room for experimentation. The extended advanced apprenticeship pilots are welcome steps in this direction. They will help overcome the inaction of recent times on the changes needed in education, skills and training to ensure students are better able to meet the future needs of employers.

– ref. Advanced apprenticeships will boost skills for future jobs, but not in time to counter COVID impacts – https://theconversation.com/advanced-apprenticeships-will-boost-skills-for-future-jobs-but-not-in-time-to-counter-covid-impacts-147113

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Wright, Professor of History, La Trobe University

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

What’s in a name? A rose might very well smell as sweet if it was called a turnip, but clearly there is more cultural cache invested in nomenclature than Shakespeare would have us believe.

Why else would our forefathers have been so intent on reserving the lion’s share of geographic names in Australia for men if there was not real value in the symbolic real estate?

Why are there so many streets, buildings, bridges, public institutions and private firms named after dudes, and not women?

This cavernous gender gap in public naming practices is precisely why there should be intense scrutiny of the Australian Electoral Commission as it designates a new federal electorate later this month.

The AEC is currently taking public submissions on the name for the new electorate, which is being created in Victoria in 2021 due to a federal redistribution.

Gender equality activists (including, I hope, some of those fabled Male Champions of Change) are busy compiling extensive lists of women, including Indigenous women, who meet the AEC’s criteria for naming divisions: that is, deceased Australians who have rendered outstanding service to their country.

Place names have always been a means for exerting power

Like statues and monuments, we’ve been taught to treat official names with veneration. As New Yorker journalist Hua Hsu has argued about statues to historical figures in the wake of Black Lives Matters protests,

we are also taught to read them as unitary and their message as unified, rooted in consensus.

We are rarely encouraged to consider whose names — and whose stories and histories — are silenced in the christening process.

Geographic place names have also long been a means for exerting power.

Recasting a mountain, river or plain from its Indigenous designation to a European name is one of the first and most enduring acts of colonial dispossession. Ensuring those European names belong to exalted or aspirational men is patriarchy’s way of pissing on the post of dominion.

And so it was that when the new Australian nation branded its first federal electorates in 1901 for the 75 House of Representative seats, not one was named after a European woman, let alone a First Australian.

Wentworth, Lang, Oxley, Parkes, Kennedy, Cowper, yes. But not Goldstein, Lee, Windeyer or Wolstenholme — all women who had contributed to the successful inauguration of the Federation. (Look them up.)

Read more: Review: new biography shows Vida Goldstein’s political campaigns were courageous, her losses prophetic

Just 11% of electorates named after women

But what about the naming of electorates more recently, in the supposedly more enlightened modern Australia that has witnessed two waves of feminism and – if you believe the Murdoch media — a tsunami of political correctness?

Women’s names are still disproportionately unrepresented. At a federal level, 114 out of the current 150 House seats are named after one or more people. Eighty-nine are named after a man and eight are jointly named for a husband and wife (for example, Lyons) or a family. A mere 17 — or 11% — are named after a woman.

Perhaps even more remarkable, only six electorates bear the name of a First Nations person.

Of those original Federation electoral division names, 36 remain.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors

In a nation that claims to value equality and fairness, these numbers are simply not good enough. (Neither are they inevitable: in New Zealand, where seats are exclusively given place names, 37 of 71 have Maori names.)

Electoral boundaries ebb and flow according to demographic fluctuations, but for the names of divisions to reflect our current values when it comes to gender parity — not to mention cultural diversity — will take leadership and commitment on the part of the AEC.

The AEC’s most recent fails: Monash and Bean

The AEC’s most recent opportunity to level the scales of commemorative justice was an abject failure.

Two years ago, the AEC reviewed the federal seat of McMillan, which was first proclaimed in 1949 and encompasses the region of Gippsland in Victoria. The seat was named after colonial “explorer” Angus McMillan, who is now widely acknowledged as the perpetrator of massacres of the Gunaikurnai people. Even Wikipedia calls McMillan “a mass murderer”.

Many Gippsland residents and other civic-minded folk tendered the names of suitable women to help erase McMillan’s sullied legacy. These were all rejected in favour of the electorate’s new name: Monash.

As co-founder of the Honour a Woman campaign, Ruth McGowan lamented in an email to me

a freeway, a university, a local council and a hospital were not enough for the good general.

Nobody disputes John Monash’s valour, but seriously? Come on Australia.

Similarly, the creation of a third Commonwealth electorate in Canberra in 2018 witnessed the birth of the division of Bean, honouring the memory of Australian Imperial Force war correspondent Charles Bean.

(Ironically, one of the many objections to the Bean nomination focused on his anti-Semitic comments about Monash during the first world war.)

Was the problem the AEC didn’t receive public support for or suggestions of names of worthy female and Indigenous citizens? Of course not. There were plenty. They were simply overlooked.

Read more: Vale Susan Ryan, pioneer Labor feminist who showed big, difficult policy changes can, and should, be made

Some suggestions of meritorious women for the AEC

Fortunately, we now have another chance to circumvent what Kim Rubenstein, the co-director of the 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, and law student Katrina Hall have pointed out is

effectively a system of affirmative action in favour of men.

The 2021 Victorian redistribution could see the AEC recognise the political and civic leadership of such women as Margaret Tucker, Eleanor Harding, Zelda D’Aprano, Joan Kirner and, of course, the woman who smashed a galaxy of glass ceilings, Susan Ryan.

Pulling down statues is one way to make a statement about the ruins of history. Naming places is an equally powerful — and arguably more creative and cohesive — way of demonstrating, as Hsu puts it,

whether a nation’s story is finished or a work in progress.

The 2021 redistribution will test the AEC’s mettle: instrument of the Canberra boys’ club or, as its mission statement asserts, independent electoral service which meets the needs of the Australian people.

All of the people. Not half of them.

– ref. We have enough electorates named after dead white men. It’s time we chose a woman instead – https://theconversation.com/we-have-enough-electorates-named-after-dead-white-men-its-time-we-chose-a-woman-instead-146923

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Associate Professor in Internet Studies, Curtin University

Facebook Messenger and Instragram’s direct messaging services will be integrated into one system, Facebook has announced.

The merge will allow shared messaging across both platforms, as well as video calls and the use of a range of tools drawn from both platforms. It’s currently being rolled out across countries on an opt-in basis, but hasn’t yet reached Australia.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans in March last year to integrate Messenger, Instagram Direct and WhatsApp into a unified messaging experience.

At the crux of this was the goal to administer end-to-end encryption across the whole messaging “ecosystem”.

Ostensibly, this was part of Facebook’s renewed focus on privacy, in the wake of several highly publicised scandals. Most notable was its poor data protection that allowed political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to steal data from 87 million Facebook accounts and use it to target users with political ads ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

In a statement released yesterday on the new merge, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and Messenger vice president Stan Chudnovsky wrote:

… one out of three people sometimes find it difficult to remember where to find a certain conversation thread. With this update, it will be even easier to stay connected without thinking about which app to use to reach your friends and family.

While that may seem harmless, it’s likely Facebook is actually attempting to make its apps inseparable, ahead of a potential anti-trust lawsuit in the US that may try to see the company sell Instagram and WhatsApp.

Together, with Facebook, 24/7

The Messenger/Instagram Direct merge will extend to features rolled out during the pandemic, such as the “Watch Together” tool for Messenger. As the name suggests, this lets users watch videos together in real time. Now, both Messenger and Instagram users will be able to use it, regardless of which app they’re on.

With the integration, new privacy challenges emerge. Facebook has already acknowledged this. And these challenges will present despite Facebook’s overarching privacy policy applying to every app in its app “family”.

For example, in the new merged messaging ecosystem, a user you previously blocked on Messenger won’t automatically be blocked on Instagram. Thus, the blocked person will be able to once again contact you. This could open doors to a plethora of unexpected online abuse.

Why this is good for Mark Zuckerberg

This first step – and Facebook’s full roadmap for the encrypted integration of WhatsApp, Instagram Direct and Messenger – has three clear outcomes.

Firstly, end-to-end encryption means Facebook will have complete deniability for anything that travels across its messaging tools.

It won’t be able to “see” the messages. While this might be good from a user privacy perspective, it also means anything from bullying, to scams, to illegal drug sales, to paedophilia can’t be policed if it happens via these tools.

Read more: Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption is good news for user privacy, as well as terrorists and paedophiles

This would stop Facebook being blamed for hurtful or illegal uses of its services. As far as moderating the platform goes, Facebook would effectively become “invisible” (not to mention moderation is expensive and complicated).

This is all great news for Mark Zuckerberg, especially as Facebook stares down the barrel of potential anti-trust litigation.

Secondly, once the apps are merged, functionally they will no longer be separate platforms. They will still exist as separate apps with some separate features, but the vast amount of personal data underpinning them will live in one giant, shared database.

Deeper data integration will let Facebook know users more intimately. Moreover, it will be able to leverage this new insight to target users with more advertising and expand further.

Finally, and perhaps most concerning, is that by integrating its apps Facebook could legitimately respond to anti-trust lawsuits by saying it can’t separate Instagram or WhatsApp from the main Facebook platform – because they’re the same thing now.

And if they can’t be separated, there’s no way Facebook could sell Instagram or WhatsApp, even if it wanted to.

100 billion messages a day

The messaging traffic across Facebook’s platforms is vast, with more than 100 billion messages sent daily. And this has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the sheer size of its user database, Facebook continues to either purchase, or squash, its competition. Concerns about the company being a monopoly aren’t without merit.

Researchers and founding Facebook employees have called to have the company split up – and for Instagram and Whatsapp to become separate again.

Just a few months ago, Facebook released its Instagram-housed tool Reels which bears a striking resemblance to TikTok, another social app sweeping the globe.

It seems this is just another example of Facebook trying to use the sheer size of its network to stifle growing competition, aided (perhaps unwittingly) by Donald Trump’s anti-China sentiment.

If competition is important to encouraging innovation and diversity, then the newest development from Facebook discourages both these things. It further entrenches Facebook and its services into the lives of consumers, making it harder to pull away. And this certainly isn’t far from monopolistic behaviour.

Read more: Trump’s TikTok deal explained: who is Oracle? Why Walmart? And what does it mean for our data?

– ref. Facebook is merging Messenger and Instagram chat features. It’s for Zuckerberg’s benefit, not yours – https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-merging-messenger-and-instagram-chat-features-its-for-zuckerbergs-benefit-not-yours-147261

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

Most of us are living through a year that is unprecedented in our lifetimes. Too young to remember the Spanish flu, we’ve grown up in a world where we take Western wonder drugs and life-saving vaccines for granted. We have no memory of a time when disease brought the world to a standstill or shut down entire economies. We could not have predicted life in Melbourne in 2020 would include a 5-kilometre travel limit or a curfew.

A longer view of history reminds us we are not the first community to experience and reflect on life during a time of plague or pandemic. So what might we learn from history as we continue to navigate life during a pandemic?

Read more: Pray, but stay away: holding on to faith in the time of coronavirus

We want to blame someone

Given the ubiquity of religion in most human communities throughout history, it is not surprising reflections on pandemics often begin with God. Plagues and diseases on such a scale feel “biblical” in the sense they are beyond the norm and therefore supernatural in some way. While modern science gives us insight into COVID-19, we still look for someone, anyone, to blame for its presence.

In antiquity, that someone was often God.

One of the earliest records of plagues comes from the Hebrew Bible. Anyone who has celebrated Passover, read the biblical book of Exodus, or seen the animated Dreamworks movie Prince of Egypt will be familiar with the plagues that Moses (or God) unleashed on Egypt when Pharaoh would not free the enslaved Hebrews.

Not all of the plagues were disease, but they all brought destruction and potential death. In that ancient narrative, a plague served two functions: it is divine punishment for injustice, and an assertion of religious power in the battle between Egypt’s gods and the god of the Hebrews. In the Hebrew Bible texts, Pharaoh’s refusal to release the slaves is to blame. It is his fault.

Throughout history, humans have sought explanations for things that are beyond our normal control or understanding. While God is often credited as the sender of plagues or pestilence – usually to teach some moral lesson – we tend to focus our wrath on human scapegoats. In the 1980s, the HIV-AIDS viral pandemic was blamed on the gay community or Haitians, revealing the racism and homophobia behind such views.

US President Donald Trump’s constant reference to COVID-19 as the “China virus” reflects a similar desire for a scapegoat. In its worst form, the blame game leads to widespread retribution against anyone identified with that group.

Role of government is key to protecting the community

Another link with the past is the role of government in containing disease. Governments have for centuries used quarantine as a way to preserve public health, often with great success.

Yet resistance to forced quarantine has an equally long history, with reports of those in isolation being “unruly” and needing to be contained during the Great Plague in 17th-century England. During this period, quarantine procedures made a marked difference to the mortality rate when comparing cities.

Balancing individual freedom with the health of whole communities is a tricky business. Karen Jillings’s work on the social history of the plague in 17th-century Scotland shows that, while physicians, magistrates and preachers all regarded the plague as supernatural (either directly from God or by God working through nature), the responses of those of faith differed.

Jillings describes the arrest of a Scottish preacher in 1603 for refusing to comply with the government’s health measures because he thought they were of no use as it was all up to God. The preacher was imprisoned because he was viewed as dangerous: his individual freedoms and beliefs were deemed less important than the safety of the community as a whole.

Being religious does not mean being anti-science

Being a person of faith, however, does not necessarily make one anti-science.

COVID sceptics take a wide variety of forms in contemporary culture, including anti-religious conspiracy theorists. Yet anti-science views are often associated with people of faith thanks, in part, to some now tragic examples from North America.

One example of a cleric who did not pit faith against reason was Martin Luther, the 16th-century theologian and reformer. Luther wrote about living through the plague in a pamphlet titled Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.

Oxford University professor Lyndal Roper writes that while many fled Wittenberg in 1527 when the plague struck, Luther stayed out of a sense of duty to help nurse and care for the dying. This is what he thought all leaders should do.

His staying was not the decision of a martyr, nor was it born of a naïve idea that God would necessarily save or protect him. Luther, writes Roper, “advocates social distancing”, the use of hospitals, and necessary precautions according to the science of his time. While he believed that God was ultimately in control, he also affirmed human responsibility. Luther harshly condemned those who went about knowing they were sick and spreading the disease.

A historical perspective does not make living through a pandemic easy. But perhaps there is a small comfort in realising we are not the first community to live through such times, and neither will we be the last.

The things we find hard to balance – individual freedoms versus the group, accountability versus blame, science versus personal beliefs – are centuries old and deeply human.

And, like others in centuries past, we too are capable of incredible acts of care and sacrifice for the sake of the sick and vulnerable.

Read more: How the Bible helped shape Australian culture

– ref. God, plagues and pestilence – what history can teach us about living through a pandemic – https://theconversation.com/god-plagues-and-pestilence-what-history-can-teach-us-about-living-through-a-pandemic-146094

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

From Tasmania’s majestic forest giants to the eucalypt on your nature strip, trees in Australia are many, varied and sometimes huge. But how many are there exactly? And how does their number change over time?

To answer such questions, we mapped changes in Australia’s tree cover in detail, using 30 years of satellite images. We published the results in a recent paper and made the data available for everyone in our new TreeChange web interactive.

Perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that since 1990 we’ve been gaining trees faster than we are losing them. On average, we’ve been gaining eight “standard trees” per year for every Australian.

In total, we found there is currently the equivalent of 1,000 standard trees for every Australian. But this doesn’t mean all our forests are doing well.

There are 24 billion standard trees in Australia

Counting trees is difficult, as there are always more small trees than big ones. So we defined a “standard”: imagine a gum tree with a trunk 30 centimetres in diameter, standing about 15 metres tall.

It’s the sort of good-sized tree you might find in your street or backyard — not huge, but not small either. It might have been planted 15 or 20 years ago. Cut it down and let it dry out, and it will weigh about half a ton.

Read more: Photos from the field: capturing the grandeur and heartbreak of Tasmania’s giant trees

To count the number of trees in Australia, we first estimated the total mass of trees by combining satellite and field measurements. Then we compared this result to the weight of a standard tree.

We found the total forest biomass across Australia holds the equivalent of about 24 billion standard trees.

What this means for forests and carbon emissions

If the total mass and number of trees has increased in Australia, does this mean the area of forests has expanded, too? To determine that, you need to decide how many trees make a forest.

Typically, to be called a forest in Australia, a canopy of trees over two meters tall needs to shade 20% of the ground. If only 10-20% of the ground is shaded, we call it a woodland instead.

Read more: Across the world, trees are growing faster, dying younger – and will soon store less carbon

By this definition, we gained a staggering 28 million hectares of forest over the last 30 years, plus another 24 million hectares of woodland.

So where did they come from, and why wasn’t it reported in the news? Probably because most of the trees were already there. They just grew larger and denser, and crossed the threshold of our definition of a forest, so were counted in.

And are eight new trees each year, per person, enough to soak up our greenhouse gas emissions? No.

By international standards our emissions are massive, equivalent to the carbon stored in 24 standard trees per person per year. Even so, those eight new trees do us a big favour.

And additional carbon is stored on the forest floor in, for example, logs and branches, as well as under the surface as organic matter. This is worth, perhaps, several more trees of carbon. But it is not clear how safe those carbon deposits are from fire and drought.

Still, if you wanted to set yourself a new year’s resolution, planting those additional 16 trees would be a great start.

Gains and losses

The increasing trend in forest extent has not been smooth — there have been big swings corresponding to wet and dry periods.

For example, the climate of northern Australia has become wetter over the last 30 years, which has helped tree growth. Changes in fire regime and the fertilising effect of our carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere may also have played a role.

And just like increased rainfall can help increase the area of forests, drought and bushfire can cause them to disappear.

Bushfires may not remove or even kill most trees, but they can cause enough dieback, scorching or thinning for the vegetation to fall short of the definition of a forest or woodland.

Read more: Many of our plants and animals have adapted to fires, but now the fires are changing

Logging can also cause a patchwork of gains and losses when it goes through cycles of harvesting, regrowth and replanting. And land clearing of native forests still occurs in Australia, such as in the old growth forests of Tasmania, which are vital for native wildlife.

It’s not all good news

While we found the total area and biomass of forests and woodlands has been rising, quality can be more important than quantity when it comes to our ecosystems.

Many things are required to make up a high quality forest, such as a rich understory of perennial species, including grasses and shrubs, and even logs and branches on the ground. These features provide important habitats for many native animals.

Read more: Comic explainer: forest giants house thousands of animals (so why do we keep cutting them down?)

Large old trees are also important. Some trees take hundreds of years to reach their greatest size, towering up to 100 meters tall.

These forest giants are an ecosystem in themselves, with birds and tree-dwelling mammals, such as sugargliders, relying on their nooks and crannies. Old growth forests also hold far more carbon than a new forest.

In some cases, a few remaining forests and woodlands are all that’s left of an endangered ecosystem, such as once-abundant box gum grassy woodlands.

Such old or rare forests are difficult or impossible to replace once lost. So creating new forests should never be seen as an alternative for protecting our existing ones.

Read more: Where the old things are: Australia’s most ancient trees

– ref. Every year in Australia, nature grows 8 new trees for you — but that alone won’t fix climate change – https://theconversation.com/every-year-in-australia-nature-grows-8-new-trees-for-you-but-that-alone-wont-fix-climate-change-146922

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Mackenzie, Lecturer in Education, Western Sydney University

Year 12 exams can be stressful at the best of times; this is particularly true for the Class of 2020.

Here are five ways parents and carers of Year 12 students preparing for their final exams can support them.

1. Check in and listen

It is important to remember teenagers are often more resilient than we think. In most cases, they can cope well with challenges. But some students find exams more stressful than others, and some may also be worried about the influence of COVID on their future.

Research consistently shows parental monitoring that supports the autonomy of the young people is linked with their better psychological adjustment and performance during difficult times. This means checking-in with your teen, seeing how they are going and empowering them to use whatever coping skills they need.

Unfortunately, in times of stress, many parents use a high-monitoring low-autonomy style. Parents may still monitor their teen’s coping but also take over, hurry to suggest solutions, and criticise the strategies their child is trying.

This is a low-autonomy style, which may signal to the young person their parent doesn’t believe in their ability to cope.

So, to not come across as controlling or undermining their autonomy:

• ask your teen, “How are you coping?”

• listen to their answers

• check you have understood and ask if they need your support.

• Let your actions be guided by their response. If they say “I’m very stressed”, ask if there is something you can do. You could say: “Tell me what you need to do and we’ll work it out together”.

If they do the famous “I dunno”, say something like “OK, think about it, I’ll come back in a bit, and we can chat”. Follow through and let them know you will check in more regularly over the coming weeks.

2. Encourage them to take care of their physical and mental health

Support your teen to get exercise, downtime and sleep. Exercise helps produce endorphins — a feel-good chemical that can improve concentration and mental health.

Downtime that is relaxing and enjoyable such as reading, sport, hanging out with friends or video games, can also help young people recharge physically and mentally. If you see your Year 12 child studying for numerous hours without a break, encourage them to do something more fun for a while.

A change of scene can help avoid burnout and helps students maintain focus over longer periods of time.

Read more: 3 things to help improve your exam results (besides studying)

Good sleep is important for alertness, and teenagers should aim for eight to ten hours per day. Sleep also helps memory consolidation: a neural process in which the brain beds down what has been learnt that day.

Even short-term sleep deprivation, such as five hours across a week of study, can have a negative impact on teens’ mood, attention and memory.

To ensure your child priorises self-care, help them put together a routine. This may involve scheduling specific times for exercise, meals and downtime each day, and breaking up blocks of study time with short breaks.

Also negotiate a nominated time for them to turn their phone off at night. Stopping phone use one hour before bedtime can increase sleep.

3. Help them maintain connections

Connections with friends are critical for young people, especially during times of stress. Teens regularly talk about academic concerns online, and may use online support more when stressed. Research shows seeking support in person is more effective than doing so online, so try to encourage your teen to connect with friends in person if possible.

But also be aware of the risks. Talking with friends over and over about problems can actually make young people feel worse. Your son or daughter may find their friends are increasingly leaning on them for support too, which can exhaust their own emotional reserves.

Encourage your child to use time with friends as time away from studying. It’s OK to seek support from friends, but help your child think about when might be too much — and to have a balance of happy and serious conversations when they are together.

Encourage your child to continue talking to you and to ask their teachers for help with academic concerns.

4. Help your child understand their own brain

When asked, most young people report frequently using rehearsal — which involves simply going over textbooks, notes or other material — as a study technique. This is one of the least efficient memory strategies.

The more active the brain is when studying — by moving information around, connecting different types of information and making decisions — the more likely that information will be remembered. Active study sometimes feels harder, but this is great for memory.

Read more: Studying for exams? Here’s how to make your memory work for you

Encourage your child to study actively by making their own test questions, reorganising information into concept maps, or explaining the topics to you. It can also help to “intersperse” different study topics: the brain grows more connections that way. It also gets more practice reactivating the original material from memory.

5. Look out for warning signs

While most teens are resilient, some may more frequently report negative mood, uncertainties about the future or a loss of control. This is particularly true in 2020. You might hear evidence of “catastrophic thinking” (“what’s the point?” or “this is the worst thing ever”).

You can help by modelling hopeful attitudes and coping strategies. Reactive coping strategies are things like taking a break, selectively using distractions and going for a run to clear your head.

Read more: Year 12 can be stressful, but setting strong and healthy goals can help you thrive

Pair these with proactive coping strategies, which prevent or help manage stressful situations. These include helping the young person get organised and reminding them that if they don’t have life figured out right now, that’s OK. Help them see opportunities that come with challenges. These include self-development (learning what they like and don’t like), self-knowledge (knowing their limits and character strengths) and skill development (organisational and coping strategies).

Some teens may be struggling more than they let on. Look out for warning signs. These can include:

• not participating in previously enjoyed activities

• avoiding friends or partners

• drastic changes in weight, eating or sleeping

• irritability over minor things

• preoccupation with death or expressing how difficult it is to be alive.

If these behaviours occur most of the time you are with them or seem out of character, consult a mental health professional as soon as possible. This is particularly so if your teen has a history of mental health concerns.

Some resources that may help if you are worried include Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 and Headspace

Your GP can also help to connect your teen with a suitably qualified professional.

– ref. Year 12 exams in the time of COVID: 5 ways to support your child to stress less and do better – https://theconversation.com/year-12-exams-in-the-time-of-covid-5-ways-to-support-your-child-to-stress-less-and-do-better-146197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simone Casey, Research Associate, Future Social Service Institute, RMIT University

On Monday “mutual obligation” was switched back on for programs such as ParentsNext.

In the case of ParentsNext that means parents selected for it are required to

• attend initial and three-monthly appointments (by phone/online if preferred)

• negotiate and agree to a participation plan

• participate in and report on having done the activities they agreed to do

Other than in Victoria, parents who do not meet these requirements without a valid reason can have their payments suspended.

The “big stick” of suspension was present right from the beginning of ParentsNext as a pilot program aimed at helping teenage mothers, although it was wielded gently.

Mothers were required to take part in activities that would prepare them for work (and in some cases parenting) such as resume writing classes, vocational training and taking their children to libraries.

Targeted compliance not pre-tested

The evaluation merely noted that non-compliance “could potentially have resulted in the parents’ income support payments being suspended”.

When the pilots were declared a success and the program was taken national in 2018, it came with a more rigid Targeted Compliance Framework that hadn’t been tested.

Service providers, engaged to help participants, were also required to monitor and record their compliance with requirements which would move them through zones, the “green zone”, the “warning zone” and the “penalty zone” mediated with demerit points.

If a participant’s parenting payment was cancelled, they had to serve a four-week preclusion period before they could be paid again.

Read more: Turning local libraries, pools and playgroups into sites of surveillance – ParentsNext goes too far

A parliamentary inquiry found that by placing conditions on the social security of parents and potentially reducing their income, the program did not appear to consider the best interests of children.

The Australian Human Rights Commission said the compliance framework allowed social security to be reduced below the minimum level essential for parents caring for young children.

In the first six months, one in five participants had their payments suspended. Among Indigenous parents, it was one in four.

Providers themselves complained that the emphasis on compliance prevented parents from fully benefiting from the program.

Parents were having to choose between using petrol to take their children to school and saving it to come to appointments.

Read more: More than unpopular. How ParentsNext intrudes on single parents’ human rights

The ABC and Guardian reported on the case of “Sue”, an Indigenous woman who took on seven children after her sister was murdered by an estranged partner.

She was placed on ParentsNext and her parenting payments were cut off multiple times, usually because she was unable to attend appointments.

The worst bit is back

In August last year the government rejected recommendations from the parliamentary inquiry that ParentsNext should not continue in its present form and that participants who miss their first appointment should be given an opportunity to address their failure before their payments were suspended.

But in March COVID-19 forced it to temporarily lift the mutual obligation requirements. Once connected with your provider, “all future appointments and activities” were voluntary.

Until this week. Now ParentsNext participants will still be able to meet with providers over the phone or online, but they will be required to participate in activities and report online to demonstrate they have done so.

It means little has changed.

My scans of ParentsNext Facebook groups tell me parents are once again stressed-out about the reporting requirements and the threat of losing their payments.

It needn’t be this way. The good things about ParentsNext continued while the mutual obligation requirements were put on hold.

Read more: After Robodebt, it’s time to address ParentsNext

For some parents the contacts and confidence provided by the training programs are valuable, although much less so when they are linked to burdensome and punitive obligations.

Other parents aren’t ready for paid work. The COVID schools closures have reminded us that parenting is itself work.

A better program could be designed in partnership with the parents it is meant to help.

– ref. The bad bits of ParentsNext just came back – https://theconversation.com/the-bad-bits-of-parentsnext-just-came-back-133079

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

It’s unlikely The New York Times’ publication of Donald Trump’s tax records just before the first presidential candidates’ debate was a coincidence.

This looks like a classic example of what political scientists and commentators call an “October Surprise” – a news story deliberately timed to influence the US presidential election.

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

Much is at stake – the presidency, as well the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. What is in the minds of voters before they vote is crucial. This gives interested parties great incentive to strategically time the release of information they might have been holding on to for some time.

A well-timed “bombshell” can sway the outcome. But what is the best timing? The first Tuesday in November is still a long way off. Why not wait?

Remember what happened last election

Remember 2016, when both Trump and rival Hillary Clinton faced last-minute scandals.

Trump had his “Access Hollywood tape”, featuring him talking crudely about women. The Washington Post published the tape on October 7, two days before his second debate with Clinton. Given the recording was from 2005, it is hard to conclude the timing of the Post’s publication wasn’t strategic – if not by the newspaper then by the source of the material.

But this October Surprise arguably proved far less damaging than the bombshell that hit Clinton just 11 days before the election, when FBI director James Comey announced the bureau was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while US Secretary of State.

The FBI had previously investigated and deemed Clinton and her team extremely careless in not using secure government emails to handle classified information. But it recommended no charges. The case was reopened when more emails, sent by Clinton aide Huma Abedin on the laptop of her husband Anthony Weiner, were found. Making the story even juicier was that the FBI found the emails while investigating Weiner for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl.

While there is no suggestion Comey’s announcement was a deliberate October Surprise, its timing certainly didn’t help Clinton. Nothing came of the reopened case. Had Comey made the announcement a few weeks earlier, the election might have gone to Clinton.

Read more: Why Weiner is Wonderful

Credibility versus scrutiny

The superficial lesson from 2016 might appear to be that the closer to the election you can drop a bombshell, the better.

Indeed analysis of political scandals since the late 1970s show more occur with as as an election get closer.

But too many scandals bunched too close to an election is likely to blunt their impact. Voters might rationally assume scandals are more likely to be fake the closer they erupt to election day. They have good reason to be sceptical. It is also rational for anyone wanting to influence the outcome with fake news to deny voters the time to distinguish between fact and fiction.

So when is the best time to drop a bombshell for maximum impact?

My analysis with colleagues Gabriele Gratton and Anton Kolotilin (in the Review of Economic Studies) shows fake scandals are more likely closer to elections. This includes “Billygate” claims in October 1980 that President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy was a Libyan agent of influence, and “Filegate” claims in 1996 the Clinton White House had improperly acquired access to FBI files on political opponents.

So there is a strategic trade-off between credibility and scrutiny.

On the one hand, dropping the bombshell earlier is more credible, in that it signals that its sender has nothing to hide. On the other hand, it exposes the bombshell to scrutiny for a longer period of time — possibly revealing that the bombshell is a fake.

Time adds credibility

What, then, to make of the New York Times’ bombshell on September 27, two days before Trump’s first debate with Joe Biden, that:

Donald J. Trump paid [US]$750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another [US]$750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

Only the Times knows when it first could have run this story. But it has released its story far enough before election day that there is time for a good deal of scrutiny. Given the nature of the story, the newspaper’s claims are likely to be proven true or false quickly. The lead time is reason to have confidence in the story’s accuracy.

Adding to the story’s credibility is what economists call a high “prior belief” about Trump being someone who lies and cheats.

Read more: From Washington to Trump, all presidents have told lies (but only some have told them for the right reasons)

We can probably count on more than a few more bombshells about Trump or Biden as November 3 draws closer.

But the basic strategic considerations highlighted by our model suggests the closer a bombshell drops to election day a bombshell drops, the greater the reason to question its credibility.

– ref. Vital Signs: how to time a bombshell like Trump’s tax returns – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-how-to-time-a-bombshell-like-trumps-tax-returns-147141

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

For three decades, Australia’s economic story has been marked by abundance and wealth. Much of it has flowed from minerals, and a good deal more from earlier economic reforms.

COVID-19 has exposed how unprepared we are for a new uncertain reality.

Next week’s budget most certainly does have to address the recession we are in. But it also has to get us in shape for what’s ahead.

Property and resources booms have masked structural weaknesses.

Even before this crisis, our productivity growth had begun to lag other nations – and this was in the midst of a widespread productivity slowdown among advanced nations, dubbed “secular stagnation” by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

Australia is ranked 22nd by Cornell University’s Global Innovation Index, 16th in competitiveness by the World Economic Forum, and outside the top 20 on multiple indicators of industry and business collaboration.

Performing better won’t happen by itself.

The Budget Blueprint we released this week suggests a five-prong plan.

1. Continued financial support

We need to set aside any usual concerns about public debt for the good of the nation. Providing too little support or withdrawing it too quickly would threaten our fledgling recovery. But we should prioritise support that has the best bang for buck, avoids perverse incentives, and adapts to changing circumstances.

We are suggesting

• Bringing forward planned personal tax cuts

• Revenue-contingent loans for small and medium businesses.

• Immediate capital expensing and hiring incentives for small and medium businesses

• Investment in projects high on Infrastructure Australia’s priority list

• Household cash stimulus payments of A$1,000 per adult earning less than $100,000 plus $500 for each dependent, and a further $750 for government payment recipients

(The stimulus payments would hardly be a first. The Rudd government handed out two cash payments during the global financial crisis. The Morrison government handed $750 to pensioners, Newstart recipients, family tax beneficiaries, and other social security recipients early in the coronavirus crisis.)

2. Medium-term fiscal discipline

A ratcheting up of government debt over time poses big risks. Our existing fiscal and tax settings are ill-equipped to repay a net debt approaching A$1 trillion.

We suggest

• Accounting separately in the budget papers for the cyclical and structural deficits

• Credibly committing to drawing down net debt faster than through bracket creep alone

• Increasing the cap on tax receipts from its current level of 23.9% of GDP

• Committing to overhauling our tax and transfer system

3. Compassionate social initiatives

During the crisis we have taken welcome steps to protect vulnerable Australians, but we need to do more. Societies are judged by how they treat their most vulnerable.

We suggest

• Targeted interventions and retraining to address the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women and young people in the workforce

• Additional funding for support services and strengthen legal protections to combat domestic violence

• Permanent Medicare funding for bulk-billed telehealth services (psychologists, psychiatrists, and GPs) for those at risk of mental illness and suicide

• Boosting funding for social housing to reduce the impact of homelessness and housing insecurity while supporting economic activity

4. Clean, cheap and reliable energy

Many governments have leveraged COVID-19 stimulus to invest in clean energy. With excellent renewable resources and a strong clean-technology sector, Australia can play a key role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon world.

We suggest

• Increasing funding to the Clean Energy Financing Corporation’s Innovation Fund and decrease its required rate of return

• Creating a “Grid Expansion Fund” to publicly finance critical electricity transmission projects

• Recasting the regulatory investment test for transmission infrastructure to include carbon emissions

• Conducting rigorous cost-benefit analyses of investment options in the technologies other nations are investing in during the crisis such as green hydrogen and steel

5. Setting things up for the next boom

The record-high debt incurred in World War II was followed by rapid growth that helped us pay it down. Getting us on a similar path today will require an industry policy that supports dynamism.

We suggest

• Redesigning JobSeeker, offering more generous support in a smarter way to encourage better matches of workers to firms discourage over-reliance on welfare

• Reforming and better funding the higher-education sector to promote competition and better prepare workers for the jobs of the future

• Committing to supporting research, development, and deployment in science, technology, engineering, and related fields to drive innovation and productivity

• Improving access to capital for young and fast-growing firms, learning from successful international efforts such as the Israel Innovation Fund

Nothing focuses the mind like a crisis.

We think that with the right policy settings it is possible to get out of the slump we are in while creating the conditions that will ignite the next boom.

Read more: Top economists back boosts to JobSeeker and social housing over tax cuts in pre-budget poll

Even better, we think it can be done while assisting the vulnerable and refashioning our energy system.

It’s a tall but important order. We are hoping for some first steps in the first pandemic budget on Tuesday night.

– ref. The 5-prong plan for a budget that will set us up for the future – https://theconversation.com/the-5-prong-plan-for-a-budget-that-will-set-us-up-for-the-future-147099

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet McCalman, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, University of Melbourne

We are living through the greatest disruption of the postwar era; what is likely to be the defining historical period of our lives. And the disrupter is a piece of RNA surrounded by fat, a virus human beings have never before encountered.

A virus that ticks all the boxes for disaster: it is novel, it is highly contagious, it is transmitted by asymptomatic carriers, and it attacks and kills people whose immune systems have been undermined by disease, inequality, malnutrition, stress and age.

It’s only months since we were overwhelmed with the bushfire disaster. The climate emergency was upon us more viscerally than ever before. Sydney lost its summer to choking smoke; the glorious forests of the Great Dividing Range and eastern sea- board burnt with an unstoppable ferocity. Lives were lost, as were homes, businesses, communities, and a billion native animals. The koalas screaming in agony were heard around the world. This was our global future burning before our eyes.

Then came this virus. And it has shut down much of the world by freezing markets and informal economies that daily feed and service most of the people of the planet. But we should understand the virus as an ecological disaster, just like the climate emergency. They are not causally related. Rather, they are expressions of the same profound overburdening of the planet by anthropogenic excess.

Read more: Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics

The climate emergency has not abated with the pandemic. Extreme weather is everywhere on the planet. Syria is gripped by its worst drought in 900 years. Locusts are swarming over East Africa. We are warned the climatic sweet spot of the Holocene that has made complex societies possible for the last 6,000 years is coming to an end, to be replaced by unbearable heat in some of the world’s most populous places.

Not only the year of COVID, 2020 will be the year, according to the World Food Programme, of the greatest food shortages since 1945. And the global economic collapse, if we are not both brave and careful, will morph into a depression longer and deeper than that of the 1930s.

This is the end of the “good times” for the world, but it has been a long time coming. COVID-19 is simply an accelerant. Therefore, it is important now to focus on what has to be done, for all that stands between us and disaster is good government.

Many young people feel deeply pessimistic about the future. They have little confidence organised society can face profound threats, survive them and rebuild. But the world has done so, even within living memory with the astonishing recovery in Europe and Asia after World War II.

Critical moral decisions

In 1945, Europe lay in ruins. Eighty-five million people had perished, most of them civilians, deliberately murdered by starvation or industrial slaughter or burnt alive in their torched villages or fire-bombed cities. Sixty million people were displaced and took to the roads.

The total of lost or orphaned children has never been tallied. The 1944–45 winter had been terrible, crops had not been planted and there was no food. In Berlin, only the Russians seemed to know how to ration food and rebuild civil society: the other Allies were at a loss.

Civil society had been destroyed by oppression, cruelty and hunger. Scarcely any civilian who survived occupation ended the war with a clear conscience. People had to kill, steal, lie, inform on neighbours, refuse to help when asked, fail to fight when needed. And at the end, they had nothing. They amounted to millions upon millions of destitute, damaged people. A friend’s mother who spent the war in Trieste once admitted that there was no human depravity she had not witnessed.

Not only had the physical world been consumed by fire, so also had institutions, communities and infrastructure. Yet out of the carnage, modern Europe and the Soviet Union rebuilt their cities and homes and their civil societies. If the European Union and the former Eastern Bloc have problems now, their flourishing since 1945 has been a miracle. All have experienced a dramatic improvement in living standards in the past three-quarters of a century.

When this pandemic crisis ends, things will be very bad for those with weak, corrupt and incompetent governments. For those with good governments, critical moral decisions will be required: do we reinvest and rebuild positively, or do we inflict austerity to pay down the debt quickly?

The deaths will be proportionately fewer than in World War II, the buildings won’t be smashed, nor the sewers, water pipes and gas pipes shattered. Physically the world will still be there. Farms will still be producing food except where severe weather has destroyed crops. The shock and grief will be awful, and it will be the world’s turning point between collapse or recovery towards a new resilience.

JM Keynes’ 1940 book How to Pay for the War outlined a program of rationing, war bonds and currency creation that could produce the necessary funds without generating inflation. But the minute the second world war ended, 42% of the British workforce was made redundant.

How did the Allies pay for the peace without a return to the misery and chaos that were experienced after World War I? Rationing and austerity continued, but governments did not stop spending. The new British Labour government passed legislation mandating full employment; the existing Labor government in Australia in May 1945, issued its famous white paper, written by Dr HC Coombs titled Full Employment in Australia. We pre-empted the British, but we were of like mind.

Australia, by comparison, got off lightly from World War II. And Australia also had arguably the best government in its history under prime ministers Curtin and Chifley. They believed in the social contract that government was there to serve the people; that our Commonwealth was formed for the “common good”. They were great internationalists. They prosecuted the war, but they also committed from 1943 to building a better Australia for the people who had sacrificed so much to win it.

Their postwar reconstruction scheme, in just four years of war and four years of peace, established a welfare state and addressed historic injustices to Indigenous people who came under Commonwealth laws. They legislated to mandate full employment after the war, despite the demobilisation of the military and of war industries — and it worked.

Read more: Australia’s post-war recovery program provides clues as to how to get out of this

They reformed the economy from the factory to the farm: General Motors-Holden, the Snowy Mountains Scheme and, this time, soldier settlements that were better planned and more successful. They invested in national and international air travel. They trained hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers to be skilled workers, and sent ex-service people to university. They opened Australia to non- British migration, changing us forever.

They lost office before they could implement Professor Sam Wadham’s massive Rural Reconstruction Scheme. But they also believed that the future depended on education and research, establishing our first research university, the Australian National University, to be a Princeton in the Pacific.

They inaugurated Commonwealth Scholarships and research funding. Our first PhDs began to graduate, and our academic gaze turned away from Oxbridge towards our Asian neighbours for the first time. They invested in the CSIRO. Another term of office may have delivered a national health service. We had to wait almost another 40 years for Medicare, but the four years after the war set up modern Australia.

A new accord?

This story is important to retell because it gives us hope — and a model. We need national reconstruction again: to transition to renewable energy, to restore fairness and security to our economy, to rebuild our rural and regional sectors that are beset by poverty, environmental stress and long-time marginalisation.

Climate change imperils our food security as it does our natural environment and wildlife. If we are to reconstruct Australia as a sustainable economy and society, then perhaps 60% of that effort needs to be in the bush.

National reconstruction requires political will, and political will needs a measure of bipartisan support to be effective. Menzies followed the social democratic Labor lead — social housing, support for universities, infrastructure construction. In the 1980s, the Prices and Incomes Accord was struck between unions and employers under the leadership of the Hawke Government. The accord lost its way after time, but initially it did bring down unemployment and inflation, in return for Medicare and new social transfers.

A new accord would be a different social contract. It would require a summit as before, after consultation and planning. It could be led by First Nations people with a mission to heal the nation and the land, starting with the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Read more: The Uluru statement is not a vague idea of ‘being heard’ but deliberate structural reform

This time its participants would be drawn from across the spectrum: farmers, business big and small, unions, universities and research, state and local government, the health and welfare sectors, culture and the arts. (Universities have played a vital role in changing course for this country in times of crisis and will do so again, just as their researchers, along with the CSIRO, are leading the fight against COVID-19.)

The accord itself could be a commitment to the guiding principles of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which connect social and economic justice to environmental justice.

This new accord would be a commitment to principles of practice that open doors to funding, tax incentives, advice and collaboration among sectors to build a new sustainable economy, turning Australia into the renewable energy powerhouse that the distinguished economist Professor Ross Garnaut envisages.

There would be no compulsion for businesses to sign on, but if they chose to be outside the tent, then they would not receive any benefits and opportunities.

Read more: After COVID, we’ll need a rethink to repair Australia’s housing system and the economy

Likewise, government’s role is not to take the lead on every issue — it can’t, because it doesn’t have expertise to match that already in the community. Rather, it is to ensure that law and order prevail, that there is no corruption or favouritism. We have forgotten the power of the law to bring about social as well as judicial justice.

No nation can truly flourish if its hinterland is degraded and unproductive. Global warming threatens our food security, our pastoralists and, as we saw in the summer of 2019–20, our forests and native wildlife. National reconstruction needs not merely to be bipartisan at the top: it must offer genuine participation in decision-making in how to transition to new industries and farming technologies.

We may need to start growing some crops under cover in highly controlled environments with careful water use and no pesticides. If the Netherlands can become the world’s second-largest food exporter after the United States, then we, too, in a more environmentally sensitive way than the Dutch, can build a high-tech food exporting industry that could replace coal and help feed a hungry world.

To do all this, we need a partnership between farmers, the private sector, workers, government and universities. If employers are to receive funding and research support from the public sector, then as their part of the accord they should commit to providing secure jobs and vocational training. They must be prepared to negotiate improving wages and support more generous welfare provision.

Above all, they need to endorse a government-funded Jobs Guarantee to get people back into the workforce with dignity and security: that is, real jobs with award wages, not work for the dole. The economy will not ‘bounce back’ if no one has money in their pocket.

It is to be hoped that the pandemic will bring an end to the distrust of science and learning that neo-liberalism has spread like poison through the rich world.

It will be time to rethink the tertiary and vocational sectors and fund research infrastructure in universities, alongside restoring the CSIRO and providing more job security for researchers. Our universities could then return to being servants of the public rather than fragile, semi-private corporations.

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

All this is fiscally possible if we accept that we can only pay back the debt by economic growth. Artificially balancing the budget via austerity leads to further impoverishment; investing in people and their enterprises to get on with it restores prosperity so that we can grow our way out of debt.

A fresh narrative

Government cannot do it all. Business is the larger part of society, and reconstruction cannot be done without their cooperative engagement, expertise, creativity and resources. But what is possible with the new accord is not a series of precise prescriptions for reform, but rather a narrative that can capture the trust and enthusiasm of an electorate that is disenchanted with politics and politicians.

People want our leaders to “come together”. The “Green New Deal” is an American idea; the United Kingdom wants a “green industrial revolution”; but we in Australia know how to strike accords and build institutionalised fairness.

Perhaps it does not matter what we call it: perhaps First Nations people will one day permit us to use their term Makarrata to express a new national social compact. We need to reconstruct Australia, better than we have before, and we need to do it for our very survival.

No one—no politician, no scientist, no economist, no bureaucrat, no business leader, no farmer, no pundit and no political party — has all the answers. But collectively we do, provided we can devolve consultation and much decision-making to the communities and regions directly affected. That will build resilience and draw on the experience and knowledge of those who are experts in their own worlds.

The great power of the human mind is that it can work with other minds: our greatest strength lies in each other.

This is an edited extract from What Happens Next? edited by Emma Dawson and Prof Janet McCalman AC, published by Melbourne University Publishing.

– ref. Friday essay: it’s possible — how we can create a fairer, greener Australia beyond COVID – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-its-possible-how-we-can-create-a-fairer-greener-australia-beyond-covid-145698

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Associate Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

Can a state built upon the “taking of another people’s lands, lives and power” ever really be just?

Colonialism can’t be reversed, so at a simple level the answer is no.

But in my book, ‘We Are All Here to Stay’, published last week, I argue colonialism need not be a permanent state.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which New Zealand is currently thinking about implementing, shows how and why.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States were the only UN members to oppose the declaration when it was adopted in 2007. They were worried about the constraints they thought it would place on state authority, in particular over Indigenous land.

All four have since changed their positions. In 2010, then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key argued:

While the declaration is non-binding, it both affirms accepted rights and establishes future aspirations. My objective is to build better relationships between Māori and the Crown, and I believe that supporting the declaration is a small but significant step in that direction.

The state’s right to govern is not absolute

The declaration recognises the state’s right to govern. But it also constrains it by recognising self-determination as a right that belongs to everybody — to Indigenous peoples as much as anybody else.

Self-determination has far-reaching implications for rights to land, language and culture and for government policy in areas such as health, education and economic development.

Read more: How to improve health outcomes for Indigenous peoples by making space for self-determination

The declaration’s 46 articles challenge the idea of state sovereignty as an exclusive and absolute right to exercise authority over Indigenous peoples. It parallels New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi by affirming Indigenous peoples’ authority over their own affairs and their right to meaningful influence as citizens of the state.

The fact that 144 UN member states voted for the declaration shows that the international community regards these assumptions as fair and reasonable. The declaration states:

Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Indigenous people’s right to make their own decisions

The declaration provides different ways of thinking about political authority. The Māori right to make their own decisions, through iwi (tribes) and other independent institutions, and to participate as members of the wider political community implies a distinctive Māori presence in the sovereign state.

The Waitangi Tribunal, which was established in 1975 to hear alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, is a forum for thinking about these questions. In a tribunal report concerning Māori culture and identity, Justice Joe Williams, subsequently the first Māori appointed to the Supreme Court of New Zealand, argued:

Fundamentally, there is a need for a mindset shift away from the pervasive assumption that the Crown is Pākehā [non-Māori], English-speaking, and distinct from Māori rather than representative of them. Increasingly, in the 21st century, the Crown is also Māori. If the nation is to move forward, this reality must be grasped.

Read more: The Crown is Māori too – citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi

From this perspective, the Crown is an inclusive and unifying institution. It is neither the Pākehā political community, nor the dominant party in a bi-cultural treaty partnership.

Beyond partnership to independence and authority

In 2019, the state’s solution to allegations of racist and ineffective practices in its child welfare agency Oranga Tamariki was to call for stronger partnerships between Māori and the state.

It is too early to say whether partnership agreements will reduce the numbers of Māori children taken from their families into state care.

But in 2020 independent reports into Oranga Tamariki show measures more robust than partnership may be required to assure Māori of the declaration’s undertaking that:

Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.

Claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, arguing for independent authority in health and education and ensuring that Māori benefit fully from international trade agreements, have had mixed success for the Māori claimants. However, the declaration gives international authority to the arguments made.

Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, Indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programs affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programs through their own institutions.

A colonial state may never be just. But as New Zealand considers its implementation of the declaration, the important moral question is whether the declaration can help people to work out what a state will look like if it no longer reflects the colonial insistence on power over others.

– ref. Can colonialism be reversed? The UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides some answers – https://theconversation.com/can-colonialism-be-reversed-the-uns-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-provides-some-answers-147017

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomas Rozbroj, Post-doctoral fellow, Monash University

Australians belonging to the vaccine refusal movement consider themselves a science advocacy group, according to a study published today.

My colleagues and I found this group believes it lobbies for unbiased research against increasing industry interference. We also found vaccine refusers construct their identities around developing health literacy, engaging with science and being informed when making decisions about their health.

Other research shows people who refuse vaccines seek to take control of their health decisions. And conversely, they think people who follow public health advice to vaccinate lose out by not educating themselves.

It may be tempting to dismiss these self-perceptions. But that would be to miss the point.

The vaccine refusal movement is a loosely connected community that organises to resist vaccination programs. Not all Australians who refuse vaccines are part of the movement. There is great diversity in the extent to which people refuse vaccines, and in their reasons for doing so.

On average, Australians who refuse vaccines know more about vaccination than do those who fully vaccinate, perhaps because their scepticism prompts them to seek out information. They access both mainstream and alternative vaccine information. People who refuse vaccines are often more likely to have higher health literacy.

Refusing vaccines is risky, and it can be linked to problematic health beliefs and behaviours. But people who refuse vaccines also embody many traits we desire among modern patients, including seeking to be informed, engaged and empowered in their health decision-making.

Is more health information better?

Health literacy means having the knowledge and skills to find, understand and use health information.

The public and policy makers often treat health literacy as an antidote to health conspiracy movements like the vaccine-refusal movement.

Pro-vaccine Australians generally think vaccine misinformation is only accepted by people who are too foolish or too health illiterate to know better.

The president of the Australian Medical Association, in response to growing vaccine refusal, called in May for educational resources to help Australians “differentiate the good from the bad and the downright deadly”.

Read more: Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds

Some researchers have called for improving health literacy to fight vaccine refusal, and many vaccine promotion strategies rely on improving knowledge and understanding.

After all, it makes a lot of sense. Increased public health literacy often leads to improved health. Evidence suggests it can correct some beliefs in health misinformation. It’s easy to assume that all Australians would be pro-vaccine, if only they had adequate health literacy and critical thinking

Higher health literacy is unlikely to counter refusers’ beliefs

As far as we know, people who refuse vaccines use their health literacy skills to dive deeper into vaccine information, develop more sophisticated views and greater confidence in those views.

But health literacy doesn’t appear to make pro-vaccine evidence look more convincing to refusers. In fact, when people who distrust vaccination also have higher health literacy, they are even more likely to choose information that matches their biases, and to think that information supports their beliefs. Indeed high health literacy seems to help reinforce anti-vaccination beliefs among people who refuse vaccines.

Read more: Young men are more likely to believe COVID-19 myths. So how do we actually reach them?

Vaccine refusers’ “pro-science, health literate” identity is not benign. In their eyes, it makes them highly credible, which helps them resist public health messages. It also makes them look more credible to others, who may in turn be persuaded to question vaccines.

We need to understand the limitations of health literacy

People who refuse vaccines sometimes hold different health beliefs compared with people who accept vaccination, and lean towards conspiracies (though sometimes they don’t).

But their views are built on mainstream trends. These include trends towards consumer-driven health care, exposure to alternative health paradigms, distrust in “big pharma” and in government.

If people who refuse vaccines can go down health misinformation “rabbit holes” despite having high health literacy, it’s feasible any of us could also be misled by health misinformation.

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

We undoubtedly need higher public health literacy in Australia. It has clear and well established benefits. But the vaccine-refusal movement shows we may be placing too much faith in health literacy as a solution for health misinformation. It also shows we need to understand its potential to lead some people to internalise harmful health beliefs.

This understanding is sorely needed amid the COVID-19 “infodemic”, where we are confronted with an overwhelming amount of health information. It’s particularly crucial given the public needs to understand and accept credible information to follow public health directives to slow the spread of the virus.

– ref. Vaccine refusers are health literate and believe they’re pro-science. But this just reinforces their view – https://theconversation.com/vaccine-refusers-are-health-literate-and-believe-theyre-pro-science-but-this-just-reinforces-their-view-144068

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Winston Peters has long been described as a populist, both in New Zealand and internationally. At different times during his career he has embraced the label.

As he said recently, populism to him “means that you’re talking to the ordinary people and you’re placing their views far higher than the beltway and the paparazzi”.

But across much of the world, political analysts and commentators see the politics of populism as a menace. Parties described as populist are often associated with the radical right, authoritarianism, xenophobia and a rejection of pluralism and diversity.

While Peters and New Zealand First have sometimes leaned in those directions, it’s been inconsistent and intermittent. The party has retained a significant number of Māori among its MPs, members and voters — including, of course, Peters himself.

At this point in the election campaign, however, New Zealand First’s problem is not populism but popularity. Polls show its support significantly below the 5% it needs to stay in parliament. Where have those voters gone?

Populism of the left

In our recently launched book on the 2017 New Zealand general election, drawing on data from the New Zealand Election Study (NZES), we argue that populism has another side: in its origins as a social movement, populism was of the left, not the right.

Those who originally called themselves populists sought to mobilise and unite the vast majority of people to challenge the excessive economic and political power of a narrow elite. This form of democratic populism emerged in New Zealand in a wave of reforms that, by the 1890s, had made the young country one of the first fully fledged representative democracies in the world.

Populism flowered under the Liberal governments of the early 20th century, personified by the prime minister Richard Seddon (“King Dick”). His government championed the interests of the working class and small farmers by encouraging trade unionism and breaking up the big estates held by the colonial rich.

The Liberals were less successful at defending the interests of Māori. But New Zealand’s first Māori deputy prime minister and sometime acting prime minister was Liberal MP James Carroll (Ngāti Kahungunu) — not Winston Peters.

Read more: Populism from the Brexit and Trump playbooks enters the New Zealand election campaign – but it’s a risky strategy

Inclusion versus exclusion

We define populism in two senses: first, as a set of democratic norms that takes seriously the idea of “the sovereignty of the people”; second, as rhetoric that uses populist language to attract support, but not necessarily for populist ends.

We also argue that it is necessary to distinguish between authoritarian or exclusionary populism, which seeks to divide the people by ethnicity or national origins, and inclusive populism, which seeks to build majorities on the foundations of what most members of a society have in common.

We found that in 2017 New Zealand populists were located predominantly on the left, with few exhibiting authoritarian views. For the minority of voters who expressed preferences for both populism and authoritarianism, their party of choice tended to be New Zealand First — the party that in 2017 won just over 7% of the vote and is now polling at 2% or less.

So, does the decline in support for New Zealand First in 2020 represent a shift in populist sentiment?

Where have authoritarian populists gone?

New Zealand First’s brand of populism over the past three years has shifted between the exclusive and the inclusive. In the 2017 election campaign, the party’s rhetoric was true to form, focusing on reducing immigration and a desire to give more voice to the regions.

NZES data show the majority of New Zealand First voters wanted the party to form a coalition with National, but a sizeable minority also wanted to see political change. Indeed, New Zealand First’s campaign policies in 2017 were closely aligned with Labour’s, with a few exceptions: water quality and climate change mitigation being the two most clearly incompatible.

Our study shows that in 2017 New Zealand First appealed to voters who were older, Pākehā, male, on low incomes and lived outside the major cities.

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

In the end, New Zealand First entered into a government with Labour, led by Jacinda Ardern, a relatively young woman whose rhetoric, feminism and policy orientation aligned with a more inclusive version of populism. This challenged some New Zealand First voters but won over others.

More recently, the issue of immigration has all but disappeared from the political agenda, removing New Zealand First’s key populist plank. Peters has been championing various versions of border reopening over the past three months, suggesting he may be an internationalist at heart, at least when the economy is at stake.

It’s too early to be sure where New Zealand’s small percentage of authoritarian populists have gone. Are they the roughly 2% that remain committed to New Zealand First? Or has National Party leader Judith Collins’ aggressive labelling of Labour as anti-farmer and anti-aspirational been gaining traction?

Or has the resolve with which Labour closed the borders struck a chord with New Zealand First’s authoritarians? Some recent polling analysis suggests much of the 2017 New Zealand First vote has indeed shifted to Labour.

The rise of moderate populism

Our analysis of the 2017 election reveals Ardern’s inclusionary campaign rhetoric was appealing. Voters found her likeable, competent and trustworthy. She also struck a chord with the onset of COVID-19. Her phrase “a team of 5 million” clearly evoked the populist ethos.

Trust in Ardern’s leadership, despite the centralised nature of our political institutions, has remained high. At the same time, satisfaction with our political process has not declined as it has in the other democracies, making a spike in authoritarian populism even less likely.

Read more: With polls showing Labour could govern alone, is New Zealand returning to the days of ‘elected dictatorship’?

Those who fear and lament populism tend to see only the dark side of the phenomenon and often discount the idea that “the people” represent anything other than a threat. Liberal democratic critics of populism therefore admire or hanker after constitutional checks to insulate governments from public opinion.

While we concede that protection of human rights requires some limits on majorities, our analysis of contemporary New Zealand politics indicates that the best antidote to authoritarian populism is a democratic and inclusive form of moderate populism.

Certainly Ardern’s version of moderate populism has proved popular. With immigration not a focus this election, New Zealand First’s appeal to authoritarian populist voters appears to have all but disappeared. To know where these voters go next we will need to wait for the results of the 2020 New Zealand Election Study.

– ref. With the election looming and New Zealand First struggling in the polls, where have those populist votes gone? – https://theconversation.com/with-the-election-looming-and-new-zealand-first-struggling-in-the-polls-where-have-those-populist-votes-gone-147166

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

The royal commission into aged care has said government did not prepare the sector well enough for the pandemic.

In a damning report the commission rejected the government’s repeated claim it had a plan for aged care, which is a federal responsibility.

The commission said that now “is not the time for blame” for what happened in aged care, where most of the Australian deaths have occurred – as at September 19, 629 out of 844 total deaths. The latest number of deaths from residential aged care is 665.

But, the commission said, it was clear the measures implemented by the federal government on advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee “were in some respects insufficient to ensure preparedness of the aged care sector”.

It called for immediate action on infection prevention and to ensure residents weren’t cut off from visitors.

In its special report into COVID, the commission said the government should establish a national aged care plan and a permanent aged care advisory body.

Under pressure from evidence to the commission, the government belatedly set up an advisory committee in August but made it clear it was temporary.

As soon as the report was tabled on Thursday, Aged Care minister Richard Colbeck said the government was accepting all its recommendations.

But he continued to insist the government did have a plan for the sector.

“Never before has the aged care sector in Australia faced a challenge like COVID-19,” the report said.

It said the government should fund providers to ensure there were adequate staff available to deal with visits from family and friends.

The understandable restriction of visits “has had tragic, irreparable and lasting effects which must immediately be addressed as much as possible”.

“Maintaining the quality of life of those people living in residential aged care throughout the pandemic is just as important as preparing for and responding to outbreaks,” the report said.

“Funding to support increased visits is needed immediately.”

The commission recommended the Medicare schedule be changed to increase the provision of allied health and mental health services to residents during the pandemic, and the government should “arrange for the deployment of accredited infection prevention and control experts” into facilities.

Announcing $40.6 million as an initial response, Colbeck said the government was already well progressed in delivering some of the recommendations.

The commission said that “confused and inconsistent messaging” from providers, the federal government, state and territory governments had been themes in submissions to it.

“All too often, providers, care recipients and their families, and health workers did not have an answer to the critical question: who is in charge?

“At a time of crisis, such as this pandemic, clear leadership, direction and lines of communication are essential”.

The commission said much had been made during its hearing about whether there was an aged care specific plan for COVID.

“There was not a COVID-19 plan devoted solely to aged care. But there was a national COVID-19 plan that the Australian Government sought to adapt and apply to the aged care sector.”

However “there is a clear need for a defined, consolidated, national aged care COVID-19 plan”.

The commission said the recommended plan should establish federal-state protocols, maximise the ability for residents in facilities to have visitors, and establish a mechanism for consultation with the sector about the use of “Hospital in the Home” programs.

It should establish protocols on who would decide about transfers to hospitals of residents with COVID, and ensure significant outbreaks were investigated by an independent expert, with the results disseminated to the sector.

The commission said the government should report to parliament no later than December 1 on the implementation of the recommendations in its report.

– ref. Federal government did not prepare aged care sector adequately for COVID: royal commission – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-did-not-prepare-aged-care-sector-adequately-for-covid-royal-commission-147307

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

The pandemic is the worst of times to be governing but Scott Morrison is determined to make it the best of opportunities to be seen to be doing things.

It’s also the most difficult period to be an opposition. In contrast to Morrison, Anthony Albanese is struggling to find any political chances.

The government has used the last nearly three weeks to launch a tsunami of policies in the run up to Tuesday’s budget. We’re seeing a reform agenda, although it’s not big bang stuff.

Labor complains about particular measures and keeps calling for “a real plan” for recovery but it is not cutting through.

In theory, such an age of anxiety could play for the government, or for its critics. In practice, it has elevated Morrison (and premiers too) and swamped Albanese.

The recent policy announcements include a clutch of initiatives on fuel storage, energy and emissions reduction, upgrading the NBN, a digital business plan, relaxing restrictions on credit assessments, a revamped insolvency regime, and a manufacturing plan.

There are several takeouts from this hyper-activity. Morrison favours both intervention and deregulation. He’s big on “road maps” (in energy, manufacturing) but wary of tying himself to long term destinations. He’s untroubled by what was previously said and done by his own side.

Morrison isn’t called “Scotty from marketing” for nothing. Policy releases are carefully controlled. They’re given to the newspapers in the afternoon on an embargoed basis – no comment can be sought. They then dominate the morning headlines, surf through the news day, and usually are on that night’s TV.

The $1.5 billion manufacturing blueprint Morrison announced on Thursday selected six areas for special assistance. In terms of sectors, it is unashamedly picking winners.

The energy policy embraces one big controversial winner – gas. “If you’re not for gas, you’re not for jobs in our manufacturing and heavy industries,” Morrison says, in bold overstatement. Specific new and emerging emission-reduction technologies have also been nominated for encouragement.

The government’s preoccupation with removing what it sees as excessive regulation stretches from environmental approval processes to borrowing to buy a house.

Last week’s decision to free up access to credit by easing the checks banks have to make on borrowers aims to help stimulate the economy. The government brushes off fears it could lead to people financially over-extending.

The energy policy concentrates on the immediate and medium term; Morrison refuses to embrace a 2050 target of zero net emissions, despite this being accepted by a wide range of stakeholders and countries. One reason is he doesn’t want to stir dissent in his ranks.

In its commitment to an NBN upgrade, embracing fibre running past homes that will be able to connect for a price, the government argues it is following a course it had in mind from the start. Some commentators agree; the more common interpretation has been this is belatedly catching up with a version of what the Labor government planned.

There are more policy changes to come, notably in industrial relations although we don’t yet have a fix on how far the government will be willing to go in stirring that hornets’ nest. Morrison was bellicose about the waterfront dispute this week.

Much of the reform program needs legislation – for measures due to start early next year, this will require some parliamentary haste. The senate crossbench is easier for the government than it once was, but not a pushover.

An immediate test will be an earlier announced reform – the proposed (and contested) restructuring of higher education fees, due to start in 2021.

Aged care is looming as one of the most challenging reform areas the government must tackle, where it is hostage to a royal commission Morrison set up.

COVID is a “stress tester” – it locates systemic weaknesses. Morrison has highlighted this in relation to Australia’s supply chains. The PM promised “sovereign manufacturing capability plans” in vulnerable areas. They’re likely to be assisted through procurement and contracting arrangements.

The pandemic also exposed a very different sort of vulnerability, in the nation’s nursing homes. Here we saw the result of years of loose regulation, inadequate staffing requirements and poor oversight.

The aged care royal commission in a special report on COVID tabled on Thursday said the government should establish a national aged care plan for COVID and a permanent national aged care advisory body.

The report’s various recommendations have been quickly accepted but these stick in the government’s craw because it has insisted it had a plan and that the advisory group it (reluctantly) set up was temporary.

What’s happened in aged care is a disgrace – comprehensive reform is imperative after the commision’s final report early next year. It will require more money but that’s only part of it. Much better and tighter regulation is vital and there is a wider issue about the “for profit” industry.

Looking to the other side of politics, in textbook terms Albanese has done what an opposition leader should do in the first half of a term. He has outlined broad approaches to policy in so-called “vision statements”. Not unreasonably, he hasn’t wanted to be tied down to detail, especially in such quickly-changing times.

But he’s up against it. His party is split on energy/climate policy, and it’s increasingly hard to paper over the wide rift between resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon and climate change and energy spokesman Mark Butler.

Butler is seen much less than he used to be. Fitzgibbon is bluntly outspoken.

This clash has the potential to become dangerously destructive for the opposition. Climate is one of Labor’s core issues. If compromises that accommodate both Butler and Fitzgibbon can’t be found, the falling out could be extremely serious for the party. Fitzgibbon has floated the threat of leaving the frontbench.

Labor’s critiques of the government encounter two hurdles. Firstly, with so much happening, and Morrison occupying such a huge political space, people aren’t listening to the opposition.

Secondly, the public are still not in a mood for partisanship. The opposition has felt it necessary to dial up the conflict metre but that does not match where people are at.

Of course the dynamics will change when the election gets close.

The poll (due early 2022) could be late next year. That is still a long way off. Politicians tend to be in-the-moment sort of people and Labor MPs are frustrated their attacks are having little impact.

On the other hand, from Albanese’s point of view, a possible late 2021 election is frighteningly close, given he has yet even to begin to establish himself as a strong alternative.

All this makes Albanese’s budget reply next Thursday more than usually important for Labor. The speech is being talked up as policy-rich. Budget week is the government’s, but Albanese knows his performance is also crucial, to show he’s still in the game.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Next week will belong to the government, but Albanese needs to make an impression too – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-next-week-will-belong-to-the-government-but-albanese-needs-to-make-an-impression-too-147287