Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

Lebanon did not need one of the world’s most horrific accidental detonations to remind people it is a state teetering on the edge of collapse.

However, the destructive power of 2,750 metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate ignited in Beirut’s port, killing 135 people and injuring 5,000 more so far, has amplified the parlous state in which Lebanon finds itself.

Read more: Beirut explosion: the disaster was exceptional but events leading up to it were not – researchers

Lebanon might not meet the accepted definition of a failed state because it retains the trappings of a central government. But an administration corrupted by a patronage system based on the country’s confessional groupings has long failed to deliver basic services to a population of 6.8 million.

Power shortages are a fact of daily life, inflation is rampant, the Lebanese pound has collapsed, unemployment has gone through the roof, crime has sky-rocketed, and food shortages are endemic.

If not a failed state, Lebanon is a failing one.

And it has been failing for a long time.

In essence, Lebanon’s problems are structural and therefore not capable of simple, or even rational, solutions.

The problems go back to the French mandate-era constitution of 1926, which sought to divide power between the country’s Christians and Muslims.

Under these arrangements, refined over the years, the president would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the National Assembly, or parliament, a Shia Muslim.

Cabinet’s composition would reflect these main confessional strands. So would positions in the military, security apparatus, judiciary and bureaucracy.

Needless to say, haggling over the distribution of the spoils of office has contributed to one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.

According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Lebanon ranks 137 out of 180 globally.

Lebanon’s wealth, such as it is, has been looted over the years by officeholders and their cronies to the point where the country is effectively bankrupt.

All this has taken place against the background of a civil war throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and two Israeli invasions, one in 1982, the other in 2006.

Then there is the increasing and disruptive influence of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, now the dominant political force in the country. Hezbollah’s growing power is one of the reasons Lebanon’s fragile power-sharing arrangements have come under increasing stress.

At the same time, Lebanon has been inundated by Syrians displaced by their homeland’s civil war.

Relative to its population, Lebanon has absorbed more refugees than any other country in the world. They account for 30% of Lebanon’s population.

These pressures have pushed the Lebanese administration close to breaking point.

In that context, the port ammonium nitrate explosion could hardly have come at a worse moment for an embattled government. It has been engaged in months of testy negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout plan.

IMF negotiators have been frustrated by their inability to get Lebanese counterparts to sign on to an emergency relief scheme to enable Lebanon to keep functioning.

Among the sticking points has been agreement on what money has been lost or otherwise misappropriated.

“It has been really difficult. The core of the issue is whether there can be unity of purpose in the country,” the IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, told reporters after talks had stalled.

This is an understatement.

Lebanese have been taking to the streets to protest against government corruption and incompetence. Those protests will now be fuelled by greater levels of outrage over the mismanagement by port authorities of highly combustible material that arrived on a Russian ship bound for Madagascar in 2013.

That ship did not continue the voyage. Its cargo was offloaded and placed in a warehouse. Higher authorities ignored repeated warnings from customs officials about the risks of continuing to store the ammonium nitrate.

Tragically, this episode pretty much sums up Lebanon’s central problem: lack of accountability due to a fractured and fragmented administration.

Read more: Trouble in the Gulf as US-Iran dispute threatens to escalate into serious conflict

Action is already being taken against officials deemed immediately responsible for overseeing security in the Beirut port. But this is unlikely to assuage anger among the general population over what has taken place.

In the days before the explosion, and separate from it, Lebanon was already on tenterhooks in anticipation of a UN-backed court verdict in the trial of four members of Hezbollah accused of assassinating former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri, who spearheaded Lebanon’s reconstruction after its civil war, was killed in Beirut in 2005 by a massive truck bomb.

UN investigations based on phone records identified four alleged culprits, none of whom have been seen in public for years.

Hezbollah has questioned the validity of the UN’s inquiries.

The verdict was due on February 7. It has now been put off to August 18.

If the UN court finds the accused guilty it will add to sectarian tensions.

Questions have been asked in the past about whether Lebanon can survive as a confessional state based on archaic power-sharing arrangements. Those questions may resurface.

In the meantime, the country’s strategic significance, abutting Israel in the south and Syria to its east and north, means it is not in the interests of the wider Arab world, nor the West, to allow it to implode.

The outlook for Lebanon, whose main city was once known as the Paris of the East, is bleak.

– ref. Beirut explosion yet another heartbreak for a country already on the brink – https://theconversation.com/beirut-explosion-yet-another-heartbreak-for-a-country-already-on-the-brink-144055

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Odette Best, Professor, Nursing, University of Southern Queensland

Recently announced Closing the Gap targets aim to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous people.

But if that’s to happen, we need to provide health advice suitable for First Nations Australians.

That includes providing culturally safe dietary advice, and acknowledging the difficulties some Indigenous people face in reliably accessing some foods recommended by official dietary guidelines.

If we don’t, this will put Indigenous Australians at even higher risk of illness from a poor diet, worsening existing disadvantage. It will also make closing the significant gap of life expectancy and disease between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians even harder to achieve.

Read more: We have 16 new Closing the Gap targets. Will governments now do what’s needed to meet them?

What’s wrong with current dietary advice?

The Australian Dietary Guidelines form the foundation of nutrition advice and education in Australia.

These guidelines are based on research from around the world, analysed by a panel of experts. That evidence is then distilled into advice on everything from how many serves of vegetables to eat a day to whether it’s best to drink full-fat or reduced-fat milk.

But these guidelines have not been formulated to take into account Indigenous Australians’ traditional foods or dietary differences. Instead, they reflect the predominant Western culture, and implicitly assume Western dietary advice suits everyone.

Read more: Dietary guidelines don’t work. Here’s how to fix them

One example of how the Australian guidelines fails to address Indigenous people is when recommending dairy products. Before invasion, Indigenous diets in Australia were in stark contrast to Western diets today. Most notable was the absence of dairy-based foods.

However, the guidelines suggest dairy is an important part of diets. What happens when this is not a traditional part of your diet? A significant percentage of Indigenous people are lactose-intolerant – a fact we’ve known ever since a landmark study in the 1980s. This is not addressed in the guidelines.

The guidelines also fail to consider Indigenous people are more likely to be suffering from a chronic disease such as diabetes, stroke, heart and kidney disease — and therefore need a tailored dietary approach.

For example, traditional Indigenous proteins such as kangaroo, emu and seafood are noticeably lower in fat than introduced proteins such as beef and lamb. This makes traditional foods particularly suitable for Indigenous people with a range of chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The guidelines also assume everyone has access to the types of foods it recommends, particularly fresh food and vegetables. But we know food access and food security are an issue, particularly for remote Indigenous communities.

We’ll hear more about this issue later this year, when the parliamentary inquiry into food pricing and food security in remote Indigenous communities reports its findings.

Indigenous foods are mentioned, but not enough

The guidelines do mention tailored foods for Indigenous peoples, such as the “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Guide to Healthy Eating”, a one-page poster that includes kangaroo, seafood and goanna.

But this does not go far enough to address the inequity in these very generalised guidelines. For instance, these foods are only in the protein group.

When looking at the grains and cereals mentioned in the guidelines, foods offered are mostly processed and contain high levels of gluten. Gluten-dense grains such as wheat, barley and rye were not cultivated in Australia before invasion.

Instead, traditional Indigenous diets relied on seasonal fruits and vegetables for dietary fibre.

However, Aboriginal Australians were also one of the first cultures to bake bread. Breads were made without preservatives, from a variety of high-fibre foods such as grass seeds and nuts, as opposed to grain-based crops such as wheat and oats. These traditional foods are not included in the dietary guidelines.

Read more: We can close the Indigenous nutrition gap – here’s how

What could we do better?

Rather than a “one size fits all” approach, we should support First Nations people to create regionally based dietary guidelines for Indigenous people.

That’s because there is no one consistent Indigenous food source across all Australia. So dietary guidelines need to be tailored to local foods, local conditions and practices, to reflect the diversity of Indigenous people around Australia and their diets.

For example, Davidson plums are found mainly in wet, rainforest terrains, whereas saltbush is found in drier climates.

In the meantime, the lack of cultural applicability in existing dietary guidelines helps put the Indigenous population at higher risk of ill health and early death. That makes Closing the Gap even harder to achieve, whether you’re talking about health, food equity or both.

Read more: Yes, we need to Close the Gap on health. But many patients won’t tell hospitals they’re Indigenous for fear of poorer care

– ref. We need to Close the Gap on health. But even official dietary advice disadvantages Indigenous people – https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-close-the-gap-on-health-but-even-official-dietary-advice-disadvantages-indigenous-people-143680

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney

Review: Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between (Hatchette)

Stuart Coupe’s new biography of Paul Kelly takes many known elements of Kelly’s story and rouses them again. Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and Life in Between reads the way a Paul Kelly cover version sounds: familiar, but also a bit disorienting.

Old school music fans might go to the liner notes first – in this case the back cover and acknowledgements. Both detail the insights Coupe has drawn from others: hundreds of interviews, including Kelly himself and over 80 people thanked in the acknowledgements.

It’s a who’s who of Australian music from the last few decades – Archie Roach, Kasey Chambers, Kev Carmody, Vika and Linda Bull and Neil Finn – but not too many younger voices. Coupe’s emphasis is on how Kelly became, rather than who he is today.

The impressive interview list provides the choir that sings this cover version. Each person adds an extra layer: a solo to recall a key memory of Kelly as a band member, collaborator, business partner.

As Kelly’s former manager, Coupe also chimes in with his own testimony.

Read more: Listening to Songs of Leonard Cohen: singing sadness to sadness in these anxious times

If I could start today again

Large parts of Kelly’s early career have been lost to time, with records not added to the master log.

Particular casualties are his first two albums with The Dots, Talk (1981) and Manilla (1982). Coupe’s interviews do however explore singles like Billy Baxter and Alive and Well, which have been left out of subsequent Kelly histories, including best of compilations and Kelly’s 2018 autobiography.

As Kelly explains it:

When I gained control of my work in the late nineties I simply chose not to make them available anymore. It wasn’t the fault of the bands on those records. It was me.

Studio recordings of this time are now hard to come by (as Coupe and his colleagues lament), though a few iconic Countdown snippets linger on.

The 1982 Countdown performance of Alive and Well captures the perspectives of some of Coupe’s interviewees. Kelly is working in collaboration, but also keen to draw the spotlight for himself. He is rake thin. Is this youth’s blessed metabolism, or the drug use many remember throughout the book?

The Paul Kelly he became in terms of sound and songwriting is here, but the some of the interviews in Coupe’s book makes the wobble of his head and unsteadiness of his gait hard to ignore.

Look so fine, feel so low

References to Kelly’s use of heroin in the past appear repeatedly in the biography. Fans will be curious to know how drugs influenced Kelly’s actual music, however Coupe doesn’t focus on Kelly’s writing process in this way. Some details are there, but nothing as forensic as Kelly has already offered himself in terms of craft and context. Instead, Coupe focuses on the machinations of the music industry.

As a songwriter, Kelly’s value was seen early. Accounts by Mushroom Records alumni and other associates from the early 1980s, show how his writing talent was privileged despite his unsteady performance style.

Still, Kelly’s songs were so popular so quickly that there was money to be made. Although many of the musicians in the book were left by the wayside as Kelly moved from project to project, his publisher continued to benefit.

Read more: Death, beauty and poetry come together in Ancient Rain

Deeper water

The biography brings readers to the present day, including the 2019 How To Make Gravy concert in the Domain in Sydney and his 2020 album releases (one in lockdown, and with Paul Grabowsky).

However, it would have been nice to see Coupe explore Kelly’s continued association with youth broadcaster Triple J and the newer artists and audiences who find him via contemporary collaborations.

Kelly’s 2016 collaboration with AB Original and Dan Sultan for Triple J’s Like A Version remains as much a step up for Kelly as it does for the younger musicians.

A reworking of Dumb Things, Kelly’s anthem (and his art) is sampled into a new context. Its energy is breathtaking.

How many teenagers discovered Kelly for the first time after this?

As well, the 2019 collaboration with Dan Sultan on Every Day My Mother’s Voice shows the fundamental connection Kelly continues to make with new audiences and artists – only vaguely referenced as “the Adam Goodes song” by Paul Luscombe in Coupe’s book.

While of, course, there had to be an end to Coupe’s address book, a bit more on these more recent and younger collaborators would strengthen this story and tell us more about where Kelly is going, not just where he has been.

Read more: Why Scott Morrison’s white, male music playlists matter

– ref. Paul Kelly biography traces his journey but not his work with young artists today – https://theconversation.com/paul-kelly-biography-traces-his-journey-but-not-his-work-with-young-artists-today-143350

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

Most people probably associate the Australian Alps with skiing and snow. Others might think of the Man from Snowy River legend or the engineering feats of the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme.

But few people know the region’s history of exploitation and overuse, nor the courage of those who fought to save this precious wilderness area. A new book, Kosciuszko: A Great National Park, tells that important story. The result, by authors Deirdre Slattery and Graeme L. Worboys, is a positive yet cautionary tale.

Today, the park is largely protected – yet threats such as ski tourism, feral horses and the Snowy 2.0 scheme still loom. And climate change has left the region highly vulnerable, as shown by declining snow depths and a massive bushfire that tore through the Snowy Mountains last summer.

The book shows how Kosciuszko National Park is the product of robust science and hard-fought battles by dedicated individuals – battles that continue to this day.

A long history of occupation

The Australian Alps in southeast New South Wales is the traditional home of three Aboriginal groups: the Ngarigo, Walgalu and Djilamatang people. It is home to Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko.

The book describes how squatters with cattle occupied the region from the 1820s. By 1840, the Snowy region had been stocked with 200,000 sheep, 75,000 cattle and 3,000 horses which grazed in the mountains each summer.

Read more: We need our Alps, so why aren’t we looking after them?

The discovery of gold in 1860 brought another 10,000 people to the Snowy Mountains. By the turn of the twentieth century, the mountains were also a playground for recreation. Hotel Kosciusko, with 93 bedrooms, a ballroom, museum, skating rink and tennis courts, catered for an upmarket clientele.

In 1949 the mountains became the site for the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme: 16 dams, 80 kilometres of aqueducts and more than 140 kilometres of tunnels.

By then, the signs of overuse were evident. Soils were eroding, streams became silted and unique alpine flora was diminishing.

The long conservation fight

Tannat William Edgeworth David, a professor at the University of Sydney, was one of the first to document the unique values of the Snowy Mountains and advocate for their protection.

In the 1800s, the notion that an ice age once gripped Australia was considered preposterous. The book tells how David and colleagues put the matter “absolutely beyond dispute” when they mapped, on Kosciuszko’s main range, the undeniable signature left by glaciers.

David was one of the first to advocate for protection of the alpine area. In the early 1900s he said:

[I]t would be wise policy, in the interest of people and of science, to reserve from occupation and even from the depasturing of stock, all the highest points of our alpine plateau, so that this floral wonderland may be preserved intact for posterity…

It took almost 50 years before this advice was heeded. Kosciuszko State Park — later Kosciuszko National Park – was proclaimed in 1944. A decade of further scientific research led to the end of summer grazing leases above 1,350 metres in 1958.

One of the first park managers was Neville Gare. As the book notes, Gare quickly learned that feelings over management of the mountains ran deep. Soon after rangers started impounding stock found illegally in the park, an effigy of a park ranger swinging from a hangman’s noose was installed on the veranda of the Jindabyne Hotel.

Read more: Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job

In 1950, Gare resisted a plan by head of the Ski Tourers Association, Charles Anton, to build a network of ski lodges. The book recounts how the tensions culminated at a public function when Anton snipped Gare’s tie in half to “indicate his indifference to Gare’s authority”. Some lodges were later built.

In his unpublished memoir, Gare wrote “it is not easy to conserve something and use it too”. In future years, this observation would prove all too true.

Ongoing battles

Gare and the Kosciusko State Park Trust developed the first formal plan of management for the park in 1965. The park was divided into zones for different uses: wilderness, conservation of exceptional natural and historic features, development, hydro-electricity and tourism.

This zoning was radical thinking at the time but has since been widely adopted in park management across Australia.

The plan of management for Kosciuszko National Park has been frequently amended to accommodate more tourism facilities, and the threat of further development is ever-present. As the authors note, further pressure is also coming via Snowy 2.0, a A$5 billion proposal to expand the current hydroelectric scheme.

Climate change is also a threat. Rising temperatures have triggered a 15% decline in the annual maximum snow depth, relative to the 1961-90 average.

Climate change is also making the threat of bushfires worse. In January last year, the massive Adaminaby Complex fire burned through more than 93,000 hectares in the Snowy region, affecting swathes of bush. It also devastated populations of several threatened species, including the corroboree frog and the stocky galaxias fish.

And the lethal chytrid fungus, introduced to Australia, has pushed the park’s southern corroboree frog to the brink of extinction.

Read more: NSW has approved Snowy 2.0. Here are six reasons why that’s a bad move

In 2018, the NSW government declared feral horses in the park a protected species. The population has quickly grown to about 19,000, representing a considerable threat to several species.

The book reminds us that today, as throughout history, Kosciuszko National Park needs protecting. And key to that are courageous, committed individuals – and robust science.

– ref. ‘It is not easy’: how science and courage saved the stunning Australian Alps – https://theconversation.com/it-is-not-easy-how-science-and-courage-saved-the-stunning-australian-alps-141658

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Mitchell, Professor of Nursing, University of Newcastle

Face coverings, such as cloth masks, are mandatory for all Victorians and are being recommended for public use in some other parts of the country.

Wearing a face covering helps prevent the spread of COVID-19 by providing a physical barrier. In saying that, they don’t replace the need to keep up physical distancing, hand hygiene, and staying at home when feeling unwell (as well as any other government restrictions). They should also be worn correctly.

Importantly, they should also be washed properly. If you come into contact with an infected person while wearing a mask, virus particles could land on your mask and contaminate it. If you don’t handle and wash your mask correctly, you may infect yourself or others by touching the contaminated mask.

When to clean

Cloth masks should be cleaned after each use. Importantly, if your mask gets wet, moist or visibly dirty, it’s time to take it off, put on a new one and wash the old one. A supply of masks will help you manage the cleaning process, so you always have one to hand. The number of masks you want to have in supply will depend on how frequently you leave the house and use them.

Remember the mask may be contaminated, so don’t touch the front of it when taking it off. Instead, use the loops or ties to take it off, then store it in a plastic bag or dedicated area, ready to be washed. And wash your hands immediately afterwards.

If you happen to have a surgical or medical mask, these are single-use only, so should not be laundered, cleaned or reused.

How to clean

Washing cloth masks is pretty straightforward. You can add them to your normal laundry wash. Make sure to use a detergent and to use the warmest temperature setting your clothes and cloth can handle.

There is no need to use disinfectant in your wash. For the detergent, you may want to use a non-scented detergent if you are sensitive to the smell.

If you want to wash your cloth mask by hand, use a bucket of hot water with a detergent. Just use hot water from the tap, no need to boil water. Let the cloth mask soak in the water, give it a hand wash and rinse. If your mask remains visibly dirty, try washing it in the washing machine.

As always, ensure you wash your hands after you put the mask in the washing machine or bucket, and after handling your mask in general.

Drying them is important

A wet cloth mask is not effective to use, so your cloth mask must be dry before using it again. You can dry your cloth mask in any number of ways.

You can use a dryer (using a heat setting) or lay it flat to air-dry. Direct sunlight is also another way to dry your cloth mask. You can hang it, but it’s best to dry it flat so it doesn’t lose its shape.

When you have washed and dried your mask, store it in a clean, dry place where it won’t get contaminated again.

How often do I need to make or buy a new mask?

Cloth masks are all very different. You may have purchased one or made one yourself. As a result, there is no set “life” of a cloth mask.

But here are some indications you may need a new one:

• it doesn’t fit snugly on your face anymore, or has lost its shape

• there are tears or holes, or the material is wearing thin

• it frequently falls down or you need to keep adjusting it.

Read more: Which mask works best? We filmed people coughing and sneezing to find out

And don’t forget

When putting on a fresh mask, make sure you wear it properly, ensuring it covers your mouth and nose. Do not wear a mask slung under your chin, or have your nose protruding over the top. Avoid fiddling with your mask, moving it around unnecessarily, or excessively touching it.

Finally, masks used alone will not prevent infection. Used together with physical distancing and hand hygiene will offer the most protection.

This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

– ref. How should I clean my cloth mask? – https://theconversation.com/how-should-i-clean-my-cloth-mask-143974

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Gray, Associate professor, Jumbunna Insitute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney

The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key figures in Australian political history, looking at the way they changed the nature of debate, its impact then, and it relevance to politics today. You can also read the rest of our pieces here.

In his pursuit of justice and self-determination for Aboriginal people, Charles Perkins, an Arrernte and Kalkadoon man and lifelong civil rights activist, held a mirror up to Australia.

Through his outspoken and sometimes controversial advocacy, he challenged Australia to confront its own history. He kept a spotlight on discrimination and inequality, making many people uncomfortable, and in doing so, opened the space for debate and opportunities for change.

As Aboriginal rights campaigner Tom Calma said of Perkins:

If we look back at each of the major developments in Indigenous policy since the 1960s – Charlie was always there.

From football to activism

Perkins was born in 1936 in Alice Springs and spent his early life on an Aboriginal reserve under the tight control of authorities, forced to live with curfews and the threat of interventions by police and welfare officials. Nevertheless, Perkins also remembered the small joys of spending time with his family and people.

At about 9-years-old, Perkins was taken to a hostel in Adelaide. This provided the chance for an education not offered to Aboriginal children in Alice Springs, but the institutional setting was strict and lacked the love and sense of belonging of home.

Perkins described this period as one of the great tragedies of his life, lamenting his lost youth and disconnection from family, kin and culture.

At 16, after confrontations with hostel administrators, Perkins was forced to leave. Adelaide’s football community offered refuge. Naturally athletic and determined to win, he thrived and was soon offered a trial with professional clubs in the UK.

During a game at Oxford University, a seed was planted:

I thought about Aboriginal affairs and what my contribution might be. I thought, ‘I must go to university. I’ve got to prepare myself educationally’.

And in 1959, he turned down an offer to join Manchester United, instead returning to Australia to enrol at the University of Sydney.

Read more: As the federal government debates an Indigenous Voice, state and territories are pressing ahead

Starting the fight for self-determination

It was during this time that Perkins became an active participant in the Aboriginal rights movement, organising petitions and speaking publicly about the discrimination he and his peers experienced.

In between studies and football, Perkins worked with the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, helping Aboriginal people in Sydney secure housing and employment and providing a place to socialise and organise politically.

Like other Aboriginal leaders of this time, Perkins’s vision prioritised basic rights – adequate housing, education and employment opportunities – as the building blocks of self-reliant communities, able to confidently engage with non-Indigenous society on their own terms.

He was mindful of the debilitating psychological impact of protection-era policies and saw strength and resilience in Aboriginal culture and values. He told an audience in 1974:

What I would think the Aboriginal people want […] is dignity, self-respect and a place in Australian society under some of the terms we dictate.

This included land rights, an end to discrimination and an Aboriginal commission to ultimately replace the functions of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

The impact of the Freedom Ride

Perkins also drew inspiration from the US civil rights movement, particularly Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in non-violent protest and the 1961 Freeedom Rides across the South.

In what became a significant event of the Indigenous rights movement in Australia, Perkins led the Student Action for Aborigines on its own Freedom Ride — a bus tour of country NSW in 1965.

Stops in Walgett, where Aboriginal people could not enter the RSL, and Moree, which excluded Aboriginal children from swimming in the local pool, attracted violent opposition and national attention, forcing Australia to grapple with these issues.

This set the scene for the 1967 referendum, in which Australians overwhelmingly voted to amend the constitution to allow parliament to make laws for Aboriginal people, shifting the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

With the Commonwealth taking a role in Aboriginal affairs, Perkins saw the potential for national change, working within the administrative system to influence policies that affected Aboriginal people.

‘A burning passion for advancing the interests of his people’

In 1969, Perkins joined the Office of Aboriginal Affairs. But change was slow, as the new department grappled with entrenched bureaucracies still focused on the assimilation of Aboriginal people.

Perkins persevered, though, and worked to establish institutional mechanisms to empower Aboriginal people to take charge of their own affairs. He led the National Tribal Council, with a vision of Aboriginal people

controlling their own destiny, electing their own representatives and speaking out in a strong and democratic manner whenever the need may arise.

His outspoken approach created significant tension. Prime Minister Bob Hawke noted Perkins

sometimes found it difficult to observe the constraints usually imposed on permanent heads of departments because he had a burning passion for advancing the interests of his people.

When Perkins was later appointed as the first Aboriginal person to lead the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, he brought a unique, hands-on approach to the role. He consulted widely with Aboriginal communities, spending significant time on the road.

However, following setbacks in Native Title legislation and friction with his minister, Perkins resigned in 1988. He was subjected to intense scrutiny and false allegations, but was exonerated following multiple inquiries. Hawke later acknowledged these travails as “grossly unfair”.

Read more: Lessons of 1967 referendum still apply to debates on constitutional recognition

A new generation carrying on his work

Perkins believed in the transformative power of education, becoming one of the first Aboriginal university graduates. This legacy continues to be felt today, with almost 20,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students enrolled at universities around the country.

A scholarship has also been established in his name to send Aboriginal students to study at the world’s best universities.

Perkins passionately believed Aboriginal people had a unique contribution to make to our society – they represented Australia’s conscience and could give the country its soul.

He and his contemporaries continue to inspire generations of Aboriginal people to take their rightful place in the future of this country, appreciating the solutions lie in Aboriginal communities themselves.

This legacy is present in the continued calls for recognition of Aboriginal peoples’ dignity and self-determination. It’s also felt in the push for a new relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people that recognises the special place of Aboriginal people on our Country – the unfinished business of our nation.

Reflecting on his own contributions to Australian society, Perkins once said,

I’m here today, gone tomorrow, and I’ve only just played a small role like other Aboriginal leaders do, but we’re only passing, you know, ships in the night really. And where the answer lies, is with the mass of Aboriginal people, not with the individuals.

Read more: Three years on from Uluru, we must lift the blindfolds of liberalism to make progress

– ref. Charles Perkins forced Australia to confront its racist past. His fight for justice continues today – https://theconversation.com/charles-perkins-forced-australia-to-confront-its-racist-past-his-fight-for-justice-continues-today-139303

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Aroney, Professor of Constitutional Law, The University of Queensland

There is a theory that despite all the commotion, religious freedom faces no significant threat in Western democracies like Australia. Therefore, the argument goes, we do not need a federal Religious Discrimination Act.

Read more: New research shows prejudice still high in Australia, but many people seeking to promote social inclusion

A major international study challenges this idea. Bar-Ilan University’s Jonathan Fox has undertaken a painstaking analysis of the incidence of religious discrimination around the world. His analysis is based on the most detailed and comprehensive data set on the topic ever compiled.

Fox, a professor of religion and politics, recently published the results in a new book, Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me.

His conclusions are startling. They are also very concerning. And Australia is not exempt from his penetrating analysis.

Liberal democracies and religious discrimination

Fox writes that while many assume the liberal democracies of the West are the strongest bastions of religious freedom in the world, the evidence simply does not support this claim.

For a start, he points out Western democracies such as France, Germany and Switzerland engage in more government-based religious discrimination than many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

He also singles out Australia as a clear example of the recent rise of “socially-based” discrimination against religious minorities in Western democracies, especially against Jews and Muslims.

Jews in particular have been the victims of literally hundreds of instances of vandalism, harassment and threats of violence reported each year.

Last November, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry similarly warned of a steep rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.

Religious discrimination is growing

Fox bases his conclusions on a data set recording the treatment of 771 religious minorities in 183 countries between 1990 and 2014.

The data set distinguishes 35 types of government-based religious discrimination. These include restrictions on the construction of religious buildings, controls on religious literature and prohibitions on chaplaincy services in prisons.

He found that in 162 countries, government-based religious discrimination was perpetrated against 574 of the minorities at some point during the study period.

Fox also found the prevalence of all these types of government discrimination increased globally by almost 25% over the study period.

The data set also identifies 27 types of socially-based religious discrimination. These include discrimination in employment, vandalism of places of worship, harassment on public transport and outright violence. Jews are the minority most likely to suffer from these sorts of discrimination, but religious minorities of all kinds are subjected to it in particular countries.

Read more: How anti-Semitic stereotypes from a century ago echo today

From 1990 to 2014, the prevalence of social discrimination increased globally by almost 30%. Outright violence, which is the most shocking form of social discrimination, tragically increased by more than 50%.

What is causing this?

Fox says it is difficult to identify the underlying causes because there are multiple, crosscutting factors. And these play out differently from one country to another.

In Western democracies, he identifies several causes, such as fear of Islamic terrorism and outright anti-semitism.

Read more: Islamophobic attacks mostly happen in public. Here’s what you can do if you see it or experience it

Increasingly, particular religious groups are also being singled out as supposed cults. These include Scientologists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Hasidic Jews, Seventh-day Adventists and Pentecostals. Belgium, France and Germany all have explicit anti-cult policies.

Secularist policies are also increasingly being adopted by Western governments which place religious believers under mounting restrictions and regulations, such as controls on religious dress or restrictions on religious speech.

Which states discriminate? Who is at risk?

Fox says it is important to identify which types of states are most likely to engage in religious discrimination, and which minorities in those states are most likely to be subjected to it.

While it appears that Muslim-majority states on average engage in the highest levels of government-based religious discrimination, there is also a wide diversity. There is a cluster of Muslim-majority states in West Africa that are among the most tolerant in the world.

Among Christian-majority states, the data suggests it is important to distinguish between Christian Orthodox-majority states and the others.

Orthodox-majority states are the second most likely type of state to engage in government-based religious discrimination. Catholic and Protestant-majority states are much less likely to do so. Fox speculates one cause of this may be developments in particular strands of Protestant and Catholic thought that are strongly supportive of religious freedom.

Ideology plays a strong role in causing government-based religious discrimination. However, it is not just religious ideology. Secular ideologies are very capable of causing religious discrimination, too.

This largely explains why Western democracies are not the paragons of virtue we readily assume them to be.

As Fox puts it, “thou shalt have no other gods before me” is still practised by many governments across the world. But to be clear, the “god” who will tolerate no competition is “often a secular one, or the state itself”.

Secularism and discrimination

Fox argues it is important to distinguish between types of secularism. Some secular states are relatively neutral and tolerant towards religion. But others are anti-religious and have a tendency to restrict religious expression, sometimes very repressively.

However, these two types of secularism don’t come in neat packages. There is a sliding scale and every Western democracy exhibits characteristics of both.

Many democratic states with officially neutral religious policies may still be influenced by secularist ideologies. And these can motivate the state to be intolerant of religious practices and religious speech.

For these and other reasons, there is more government-based religious discrimination in secular Western democracies than in many of their Asian, African and Latin American counterparts.

The threat in Australia is real

Fox’s analysis helps to explain why threats to religious freedom in Australia are very real. Elements of anti-religious hostility are already present in this country and manifest from time to time, especially in socially-based religious discrimination such as harassment, vandalism and threats of violence.

And, as Fox shows, government-based discrimination can develop, even in secular societies. This is especially when a religious minority is seen as a threat. Or its practices are deemed incompatible with the dominant ideology.

Read more: Why Australia needs a Religious Discrimination Act

Fox’s research highlights why an Australian Religious Discrimination Act is needed, to help address these issues in a principled manner, premised on the standards articulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Morrison government says it is still proposing to introduce a religious discrimination bill, even if progress has stalled due to COVID-19. This cannot be something that conveniently falls off the to-do list because of the pandemic.

Religious discrimination is a reality in Australia. Fox’s work warns us it is a reality that is not going away anytime soon.

– ref. New research shows religious discrimination is on the rise around the world, including in Australia – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-religious-discrimination-is-on-the-rise-around-the-world-including-in-australia-141789

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Huaiyu Yuan, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University

Far beneath the city of Dongshen in northern China, we have discovered what may be the 2 billion-year-old birthmarks of Earth’s first supercontinent.

An ancient dipping structure in the planet’s crust appears to be a trace of an early collision between two continental masses like the one that created the Himalaya – and may record the origin of the global system of plate tectonics that persists today.

Read more: How Earth’s continents became twisted and contorted over millions of years

When did plate tectonics begin?

The theory of plate tectonics is one of the key scientific advances of the past century. It explains how Earth’s crust is made of enormous rocky “plates” floating on the planet’s molten interior, which slowly move around. These movements are responsible for earthquakes and mountain ranges.

Earth is the only planet we know of with plate tectonics. The motion of the plates gradually cycles elements between the interior of the planet, the surface and the atmosphere, generating the resources and environment that make human life possible.

Read more: Does a planet need plate tectonics to develop life?

At some point in the deep past, plate tectonics began as Earth cooled. When this happened, however, has remained controversial. Dates spanning three-quarters of Earth’s history have been proposed, from the Hadean eon (between 4.5 billion and 4 billion years ago) to the late Proterozoic eon (less than a billion years ago).

Many of these dates come from isolated samples showing the existence of single plates. However, plate tectonics is a global phenomenon in which plates interact with each other. We studied one of these early interactions: a collision in what is now northern China, in which the edge of one plate was thrust upwards while the other was pushed down.

The dipping Moho

Our new study suggests plate tectonics began globally somewhere between 2 billion and 1.8 billion years ago. The research, published in Science Advances, was carried out by an international team from China, Germany and Australia, led by Wan, Bo from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS).

We studied an area geologists call the Ordos block, which is part of the North China craton, a very stable chunk of the Asian continent that takes in parts of northeastern China, Mongolia and North Korea.

In April 2019, we deployed 609 seismic recording stations spaced every 500 metres along a 300-kilometre line. By combining the earthquake data from these stations, we were able to form a detailed picture of Earth’s crust in this area.

Beneath the city of Dongsheng, we found a feature called a dipping Moho in which the bottom of Earth’s crust dips from around 35km deep to more than 50km deep over a horizontal distance of only 40km.

This dipping structure looks nearly identical to what is found beneath the Himalayan mountains, except it is around 2 billion years old.

A global pattern

Next, we collected seismic evidence from other studies around the world for similar dipping Moho structures that are about the same age. Putting observations from six continents together, we can form a picture of the creation of the ancient supercontinent Nuna.

Nuna (sometimes also called Columbia) is believed to have been made up of parts of most of the continents that exist today. If Nuna was the first supercontinent, we can interpret these tectonic collisions that occurred around 2 billion years ago as the oldest evidence of plate tectonics in the global sense. Even though such collisions may have occurred here and there early on, it is likely that plate tectonics did not become a global network until this time.

– ref. In northern China, scientists have found what may be the 2 billion-year-old birthmarks of Earth’s first supercontinent – https://theconversation.com/in-northern-china-scientists-have-found-what-may-be-the-2-billion-year-old-birthmarks-of-earths-first-supercontinent-143846

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elin Charles-Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Population Geography, The University of Queensland

In the early stages of COVID-19, much of the focus of demographers – who study populations – has understandably been on mortality and morbidity.

But as the pandemic rolls on, attention is also now turning to the impact of COVID-19 on population size, structure and distribution.

Read more: COVID-19 could see thousands of women miss out on having kids, creating a demographic disaster for Australia

Our new modelling shows that under a worst-case scenario, Australia will be 1.4 million people – or 4% – smaller in 2040, than if COVID-19 had not happened.

This is largely driven by a massive reduction in international migration.

Migration under COVID-19

When the Australian government implemented an international travel ban in March, many demographers’ thoughts turned to the impact on Australia’s future population growth.

Over the last decade, net overseas migration has been the main driver of population growth in Australia, contributing 2.2 million additional residents.

Our analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows, the closure of Australia’s borders led to a 97% drop in permanent and long-term overseas arrivals in April 2020 from the previous year, most of whom were migrants.

State border closures and the COVID recession have also raised the prospect of a significant decline in interstate migration. The ABS Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey suggests that for most Australians, the pandemic has not so far impacted their plans to move. However, our research indicates interstate migration has dropped following past Australian recessions.

Read more: Australians are moving home less. Why? And does it matter?

Births and deaths

Natural population increases – the excess of births over deaths – may also be impacted by COVID-19. Fertility often declines during economic downturns, as people become more risk averse.

On the other side of the ledger, Australia has been fortunate to so far avoid significant numbers of deaths from COVID-19. So, the pandemic is not expected to have a population-level impact on mortality in Australia.

Modelling the impact of COVID-19

Nevertheless, the rapid shift in some of the components of population change – particularly migration – means previous population projections no longer reflect our new demographic reality.

New projections are now needed to help plan economic and societal recovery from COVID-19. In a new paper, we developed three scenarios to work out plausible population futures for Australia.

Given the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, we adopted a multi-strand approach to inform our assumptions.

First, we undertook a review of the academic literature on demographic responses to shocks. Secondly, we reviewed historical data, to understand the impact of past shocks on the various components of demographic change in Australia. Thirdly, we surveyed Australian demographers on the likely impact of COVID-19 on international and internal migration.

Three scenarios for a future Australia

Our model then produced three scenarios.

1. Light impact: assumes net overseas migration recovers quickly in late 2020. Interstate migration drops slightly in 2019-2020, before rebounding in 2020-21. Fertility is also assumed to dip in 2020-21, before quickly recovering.

2. Moderate impact: assumes net overseas migration falls substantially in 2020-21, before recovering over the next few years. Interstate migration drops sharply over the next two years, before returning to the long-run average. Fertility falls this financial year and does not fully recover until the late-2020s.

3. Severe impact: assumes net overseas migration plummets to zero in 2020-21 and takes eight years to return to the long-run average. Interstate migration plummets by up to a third over the next two years, before slowly recovering. Fertility drops to historic lows and takes a decade to recover to the long-run value.

In all three scenarios, life expectancy at birth is assumed to continue its long-run upward trajectory.

It is tempting to nominate a “most likely” scenario here. But uncertainty about the duration and scale of COVID-19 and the restrictions around it, makes this unfeasible. The best option currently available to demographers is to develop scenarios that model a range of plausible population futures.

Possible 4% drop in expected population

Based on the modelled scenarios, COVID-19 is expected to have a measurable and persistent impact on Australia’s population.

Under the severe scenario, Australia’s population will reach 26.6 million by 2025, 29 million by 2030 and 31.8 million by 2040. This is 1.4 million or 4% fewer than our “no pandemic” scenario.

Under the light scenario, Australia’s population will be 180,000 people fewer by 2040. Under the moderate scenario, we will be down 580,000 people.

The impact of COVID-19 will be felt most strongly in the short-term. Annual population growth would have been 1.38% in 2020-21 without the pandemic. This will be just 0.41% under the severe impact scenario. Such a drop in annual population growth was last seen in 1916 due to World War I. Even during the Great Depression, annual growth remained above 0.70%.

States and territories

Our modelling showed different impacts on population growth across Australia. In large part, this is due to the concentration of immigration arrivals in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as an internal migration system that relocates population away from New South Wales and into Queensland and Victoria.

So, the largest impact on population numbers will be in NSW and Victoria, followed by Queensland and Western Australia.

Read more: Is slowing Australia’s population growth really the best way out of this crisis?

If the severe scenario comes to pass, the population of NSW will be almost half a million people fewer by 2040 than without the pandemic. Victoria will see a drop of 400,000, Queensland will be down by about 200,000 and WA down by more than 160,000 people.

Despite smaller population sizes, the impact of the pandemic on population ageing appears to be relatively modest. The proportion of Australians aged 65 and over will reach 20.8% under the severe scenario, compared to 20% without the pandemic.

This is because migration has a limited impact at older ages.

What does this mean for Australia?

A decline in population growth as predicted under each of our scenarios will inevitably impact many sectors of the economy. In the short-term, industries dependent on population growth, such as construction, consumer goods and overseas students, will be the hardest hit.

There are also likely to be ongoing consequences for economic growth, urban and regional planning and labour supply.

Read more: COVID-19 could see thousands of women miss out on having kids, creating a demographic disaster for Australia

But there are also potential benefits, including a reduction in environmental impacts and lower congestion, particularly in Australia’s capital cities.

More research into the demographic responses to COVID-19 will allow us to refine assumptions and increase our confidence in the modelled output.

But the potential for an unprecedented short-term drop in population growth and its various impacts should be on the radar of decision makers. We have to start planning for life after the pandemic now.

– ref. 1.4 million less than projected: how coronavirus could hit Australia’s population in the next 20 years – https://theconversation.com/1-4-million-less-than-projected-how-coronavirus-could-hit-australias-population-in-the-next-20-years-143544

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

With COVID-19 vaccine developers reporting promising results, it is probable we will one day face a major public health question: can the government compel New Zealanders to be vaccinated?

Just as inevitably, some people will refuse a vaccine. As we have seen overseas with debates over the wearing of masks, and more generally with anti-vaccination activists everywhere, compulsion is not a simple matter.

There are competing rights and duties on both sides. Forcing an individual to be vaccinated is a violation of their fundamental right to personal autonomy, which informs the more specific right to bodily integrity.

Basically, those rights mean every person can make decisions for themselves and what can and cannot be done to their bodies.

The state’s duty to protect

While international human rights treaties support this, they do not specifically talk about the right to refuse medical treatment. Rather, they state that everyone has the right not to be subjected to medical experimentation without free consent.

And here we see how quickly the stakes are raised. These rights are part of the broader right to be free from torture, cruel and inhuman degrading treatment or punishment. The specific reference to medical experimentation is a response to what happened under the Nazi regime during the second world war.

Read more: Oxford immunologist on coronavirus vaccine: our early results look highly promising

But it’s the fundamental right to life that throws the COVID-19 vaccine issue into stark relief, because it also means governments must make some effort to safeguard citzens’ lives by protecting them from life-threatening diseases.

Although everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, this includes the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment. But this in turn may be subject to the state’s obligation to prevent and control disease.

The right to be free from non-consensual treatment can only be restricted under specific conditions that respect best practice and international standards.

The introduction of mass immunisation programs therefore requires quite a balancing act.

In New Zealand, the courts and their English predecessors have long recognised and protected the right to bodily integrity. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 also clearly states that everyone has the right to refuse medical treatment.

Read more: Coronavirus: how countries aim to get the vaccine first by cutting opaque supply deals

Public health can trump individual rights

Any restriction of that right, any intrusion into the individual’s bodily integrity, would require explicit statutory authorisation. Such legislation would have to be interpreted very strictly and, wherever possible, consistently with the Bill of Rights Act.

There are examples of how this would work in practice. A recent decision from the Supreme Court of New Zealand addressed whether the fluoridation of water as a public health measure was a violation of the right to refuse medical treatment.

The court found it was. But – and it’s an important but – the court decided some public health measures could override the right to refuse medical treatment where these measures are clearly justified.

Clear justification would mean there must be a reasonable objective to compulsory vaccination that justifies the limits placed on the right to refuse medical treatment.

Such limits must be no more than are reasonably necessary to achieve the desired public health outcome, and they must be proportionate to the importance of mandatory vaccination.

Consequences for refusing vaccination?

In the end, should a COVID-19 vaccine become available, New Zealanders would have the right (but not the absolute right) under international and domestic law to refuse to be vaccinated. And the government could – and might even be obliged to – override that right.

So, no definitive answer. Furthermore, just because the government could make vaccination compulsory doesn’t mean it should.

It might not even have to. A person could still exercise their right to refuse vaccination but the government could then impose limits on other rights and freedoms.

Read more: Vaccine progress report: the projects bidding to win the race for a COVID-19 vaccine

In practical terms, this could mean no travel or access to school or the workplace if it placed the health and lives of others at risk. Similarly, a refusal to be vaccinated could limit jobs or social welfare benefits that depend on work availability.

But, again, the government would have to present clear justifications for any such restrictions.

Public consent is vital

Without a doubt, this would be highly controversial and the government would need to engage in another balancing act.

But a purely voluntary approach can have mixed results, too, as the 2019 measles outbreak showed. The main problem appears to have been a poorly designed immunisation program that missed various ethnic, socioeconomic and regional targets.

The success of a voluntary approach will be dependent on a highly performing vaccination program that is accessible to all New Zealanders and backed up by a strong public education campaign.

Ultimately, as the collective effort of the “team of 5 million” has already shown, the effectiveness of any law really depends on each one of us and the decisions we make.

– ref. Should a COVID-19 vaccine be compulsory — and what would this mean for anti-vaxxers? – https://theconversation.com/should-a-covid-19-vaccine-be-compulsory-and-what-would-this-mean-for-anti-vaxxers-143742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Smith, Associate Professor in Disaster and Emergency Response, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University

Melburnians have now been wearing mandatory face coverings in public for two weeks. Yet Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday announced another grim milestone in Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 infections: 725 new cases, a record daily tally for any Australian state since the pandemic began.

Four weeks after Melbourne reintroduced stage 3 restrictions, logic suggests the coronavirus curve should have flattened and begun heading downwards by now. And on July 27, Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton suggested the plateauing figures could represent the peak of the state’s daily case numbers.

But on August 2, Andrews announced Melbourne was moving to even stricter stage 4 restrictions, imposing a night-time curfew and shutting down a swathe of Victorian businesses for a further six weeks.

Read more: Which mask works best? We filmed people coughing and sneezing to find out

Why haven’t masks made a difference?

The premier announced on Tuesday a new deterrent aimed at those who continue to disregard the restrictions: a fine of A$4,957, the largest on-the-spot fine applicable in Victoria. People who repeatedly breach the rules can also be taken to court, where the maximum penalty is A$20,000.

Proper, widespread use of masks by the public should have made a big dent in coronavirus numbers. So why hasn’t there been a drop in cases?

It can’t be blamed entirely on the government’s response. A portion of the blame also lies with the public.

Philip Russo, president of the Australasian College of Infection Prevention and Control, last week lamented the “really obvious disoedience” displayed by some people, and speculated masks may also have created a false sense of security among the wider public who may view masks as more effective than they truly are.

Andrews said “far too many people” were going to work while sick, labelling this behaviour “the biggest driver of transmission” in the state. The stage 4 restrictions will clamp down heavily on this.

Julie Leask, a social scientist at the University of Sydney, said workers’ reluctance to call in sick is linked to how financially stable they feel, explaining that for casual workers:

isolation after a test could mean no work, less chance you will get a shift in future, and considerable financial stress. In that situation, it’s easy to rationalise a scratchy throat as just being a bit of a cold.

Another difficulty is the lag time between when someone is infected and when they start showing symptoms.

What we are seeing now is actually infections from 5-10 days ago. And any public health interventions implemented now will take 5-10 days to show an effect.

Taking this time lag into account, the full effect of mandatory mask wearing will start to be seen this week.

We also know COVID-19 thrives in environments where it can quickly infect large numbers of people – and the recent uptick in cases has largely been driven by workplace transmission which occurred before the stage 4 restrictions came into effect.

Read more: ‘Far too many’ Victorians are going to work while sick. Far too many have no choice

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a A$1,500 disaster payment available to workers in Victoria who do not have sick leave and who need to self-isolate for 14 days.

Lax lockdown?

During July’s stage 3 lockdown, Melburnians were under the same restrictions as the original lockdown in March and April. Yet vehicle traffic was almost 20% higher than during the earlier lockdown (albeit well below normal, pre-pandemic levels).

Victorian government epidemiologist James McCaw said people generally haven’t changed their behaviour as much during the second lockdown as they did the first time around.

Nevertheless, there are early signs the stage 4 lockdown is markedly reducing the number of Melburnians who are out and about. On Monday, the first day of the new strictures, pedestrian numbers in the CBD plummeted. Typically, 1,300 people walk across Sandridge bridge during morning peak hour – on Monday it was just six.

Read more: Mapping COVID-19 spread in Melbourne shows link to job types and ability to stay home

The persistently high numbers may also be partly explained by infected people transmitting the virus to their families, partners or housemates – something that’s hard to avoid even in lockdown.

The government will presumably not attempt enforce mask wearing or social distancing within our own homes, yet this has profound implications for disease transmission.

It is helpful to consider your household as a single unit; if one person puts themself at risk, perhaps by not wearing a mask, they put their entire household at risk.

Masks have slowed “sharp upward trend”

While it’s frustrating that Victoria’s numbers have not trended downwards, it’s also true the state has successfully avoided the kind of exponential increase in cases seen in many other countries. An analysis published this week in the Medical Journal of Australia estimates that Victoria’s restrictions have averted between 9,000 and 37,000 coronavirus infections.

Masks are a crucial part of this, and the state government is distributing more than 1.37 million free reusable masks to those most in need.

Read more: A $200 fine for not wearing a mask is fair, as long as free masks go to those in need

It’s also possible Victoria is partly a victim of bad luck and unfortunate timing. The case clusters that spurred the second wave arose just as social distancing rules were easing after months of restrictions.

Regardless of how Victorians got here, it is clear what they must do next. It’s vital for people in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire to diligently follow the stage 4 restrictions, and that all Victorians maintain physical distancing, stay at home if unwell, get tested if they have symptoms, and self-isolate if they test positive.

– ref. Two weeks of mandatory masks, but a record 725 new cases: why are Melbourne’s COVID-19 numbers so stubbornly high? – https://theconversation.com/two-weeks-of-mandatory-masks-but-a-record-725-new-cases-why-are-melbournes-covid-19-numbers-so-stubbornly-high-143898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell McGregor, Adjunct Professor of History, James Cook University

Under the first coronavirus lockdowns, birdwatching increased tenfold in Australia, with much of it done in and near the watchers’ own backyards. And as Melbourne settles into stage 4 restrictions, we’ll likely see this rise again.

The increase in backyard birding is good news for conservation and can help birds recover from bushfires and other environmental catastrophes. But backyard birding isn’t new, nor is its alliance with conservation.

Read more: Birdwatching increased tenfold last lockdown. Don’t stop, it’s a huge help for bushfire recovery

Since the turn of the 20th century, when birdwatching as a hobby began in Australia, birders have cherished the birds in their backyards as much as those in outback wilds. Birdwatchers admired wild birds anywhere, for one of their big motivations was — and is — to experience and conserve the wild near home.

This wasn’t an abstract ambition, but a heartfelt commitment. Birdwatchers have long known that if we are to conserve nature, we need not only the intellectual expertise of science but also an emotional affinity with the living things around us. Birders in Sydney in the 1920s and ‘30s knew this well.

The Birdman of Wahroonga

Harry Wolstenholme, son of the feminist Maybanke Anderson, was an office-bearer in the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union and a keen amateur birdwatcher. In the 1920s, his usual birding site was his own garden in the northern Sydney suburb of Wahroonga.

There, bird life was prolific. Harry recorded 21 native and five introduced species nesting in or near his garden, plus many more avian visitors.

His garden drew a stream of notable birders from the Sydney branch of the ornithologists’ union, such as wildlife photographer Norman Chaffer, naturalist and journalist Alec Chisholm, and businessman Keith Hindwood. (The union members were predominantly male, though with a liberal sprinkling of women, including Perrine Moncrieff who became its first female president in 1932.)

For his closeness to the birds, Harry earned the nickname “The Birdman of Wahroonga”. That suburb still hosts a good range of species, although the bird life is no longer as prolific as in Harry’s day.

Many others birded in city environs and, like Harry, published their suburban ornithological studies in the union journal, The Emu.

In 1932, Alec Chisholm devoted a whole book, Nature Fantasy in Australia, to birding in Sydney and surrounds. Featured on its early pages is a painting by celebrated bird artist Neville Cayley captioned “The Spirit of Sydney: Scarlet Honeyeater at nest in suburban garden”.

The fact this gorgeous little bird was common in Sydney’s gardens exemplifies Chisholm’s theme of urban Australians’ ready access to the wonders of nature. Scarlet Honeyeaters can still be found in Sydney though they are no longer common there.

Mateship with Birds

Like all Chisholm’s nature writings, Nature Fantasy promoted conservation.

Conservation then differed from conservation now, having a stronger aesthetic orientation and less ecological content. Nonetheless, these pioneer conservationists, among whom birdwatchers were prominent, laid the foundations on which environmentalists later built.

Chisholm urged people not merely to observe birds but also, more importantly, to love and cherish them. In his first book in 1922, Mateship with Birds, he urged readers to open their hearts to their avian compatriots and embrace them as friends and fellow Australians.

One way of fostering this feeling, Chisholm and his birding contemporaries believed, was to give birds attractive names. For example, “Jacky Winter” struck the right note, and as Chisholm wrote:

it would be a healthy thing if we had more of these familiar names for our birds, bringing as they do, a feeling or sense of intimacy.

While those birders urged people to cultivate an emotional connection with nature, and while most were amateur rather than professional ornithologists, they nonetheless made major contributions to the scientific study of birds.

Science was needed, they realised, but so was feeling. As one reviewer of Nature Fantasy enthused, Chisholm was a naturalist “who in his writings combines with the exact research of a scientist the sensibility of a poet”.

Read more: Bath bullies, bacteria and battlegrounds: the secret world of bird baths

Birders today

Our city birdscapes have since changed. Some species have dwindled; some have increased. But suburbia still holds a remarkable degree of biodiversity, if only we’re prepared to look.

The world of the birders of the 1920s and ’30s is gone. Our attitudes toward nature are cluttered with fears unknown in their day, such as climate change. Yet those early birders still have something worthwhile to tell us today: the need to connect emotionally and tangibly with nature.

To hear that message, we need not, and should not, jettison today’s environmental fears. But fear needs complementing with more positive emotions, like love.

Despite — or because of — the prominence of environmental alarms in today’s world, the need to admire and love living things remains as pressing as ever. As birdwatchers have long known, the birds fluttering in our own backyards are adept at fostering those feelings.

Read more: For whom the bell tolls: cats kill more than a million Australian birds every day

– ref. What ‘The Birdman of Wahroonga’ and other historic birdwatchers can teach us about cherishing wildlife – https://theconversation.com/what-the-birdman-of-wahroonga-and-other-historic-birdwatchers-can-teach-us-about-cherishing-wildlife-143189

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Garcia, Lecturer in Student Learning and Communication Development, University of Sydney

University life comes with its share of challenges. One of these is writing longer assignments that require higher information, communication and critical thinking skills than what you might have been used to in high school. Here are five tips to help you get ahead.

1. Use all available sources of information

Beyond instructions and deadlines, lecturers make available an increasing number of resources. But students often overlook these.

For example, to understand how your assignment will be graded, you can examine the rubric. This is a chart indicating what you need to do to obtain a high distinction, a credit or a pass, as well as the course objectives – also known as “learning outcomes”.

Other resources include lecture recordings, reading lists, sample assignments and discussion boards. All this information is usually put together in an online platform called a learning management system (LMS). Examples include Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas and iLearn. Research shows students who use their LMS more frequently tend to obtain higher final grades.

If after scrolling through your LMS you still have questions about your assignment, you can check your lecturer’s consultation hours.

2. Take referencing seriously

Plagiarism – using somebody else’s words or ideas without attribution – is a serious offence at university. It is a form of cheating.

In many cases, though, students are unaware they have cheated. They are simply not familiar with referencing styles – such as APA, Harvard, Vancouver, Chicago, etc – or lack the skills to put the information from their sources into their own words.

To avoid making this mistake, you may approach your university’s library, which is likely to offer face-to-face workshops or online resources on referencing. Academic support units may also help with paraphrasing.

You can also use referencing management software, such as EndNote or Mendeley. You can then store your sources, retrieve citations and create reference lists with only a few clicks. For undergraduate students, Zotero has been recommended as it seems to be more user-friendly.

Using this kind of software will certainly save you time searching for and formatting references. However, you still need to become familiar with the citation style in your discipline and revise the formatting accordingly.

3. Plan before you write

If you were to build a house, you wouldn’t start by laying bricks at random. You’d start with a blueprint. Likewise, writing an academic paper requires careful planning: you need to decide the number of sections, their organisation, and the information and sources you will include in each.

Research shows students who prepare detailed outlines produce higher-quality texts. Planning will not only help you get better grades, but will also reduce the time you spend staring blankly at the screen thinking about what to write next.

During the planning stage, using programs like OneNote from Microsoft Office or Outline for Mac can make the task easier as they allow you to organise information in tabs. These bits of information can be easily rearranged for later drafting. Navigating through the tabs is also easier than scrolling through a long Word file.

4. Choose the right words

Which of these sentences is more appropriate for an assignment?

a. “This paper talks about why the planet is getting hotter”, or b. “This paper examines the causes of climate change”.

The written language used at university is more formal and technical than the language you normally use in social media or while chatting with your friends. Academic words tend to be longer and their meaning is also more precise. “Climate change” implies more than just the planet “getting hotter”.

To find the right words, you can use SkELL, which shows you the words that appear more frequently, with your search entry categorised grammatically. For example, if you enter “paper”, it will tell you it is often the subject of verbs such as “present”, “describe”, “examine” and “discuss”.

Another option is the Writefull app, which does a similar job without having to use an online browser.

5. Edit and proofread

If you’re typing the last paragraph of the assignment ten minutes before the deadline, you will be missing a very important step in the writing process: editing and proofreading your text. A 2018 study found a group of university students did significantly better in a test after incorporating the process of planning, drafting and editing in their writing.

You probably already know to check the spelling of a word if it appears underlined in red. You may even use a grammar checker such as Grammarly. However, no software to date can detect every error and it is not uncommon to be given inaccurate suggestions.

So, in addition to your choice of proofreader, you need to improve and expand your grammar knowledge. Check with the academic support services at your university if they offer any relevant courses.

Written communication is a skill that requires effort and dedication. That’s why universities are investing in support services – face-to-face workshops, individual consultations, and online courses – to help students in this process. You can also take advantage of a wide range of web-based resources such as spell checkers, vocabulary tools and referencing software – many of them free.

Improving your written communication will help you succeed at university and beyond.

– ref. 5 tips on writing better university assignments – https://theconversation.com/5-tips-on-writing-better-university-assignments-130541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theodore Connell-Variy, Lecturer, School of Property, RMIT University

We’ve heard a lot about what the present crisis will do to home prices, less about what it will do to commercial property prices.

Commercial properties include office buildings, shopping centres, hotels and warehouses.

They account for 8% of the assets of Australian super funds.

If their values drop (and they are falling) it will affect all of us, especially those about to retire or already retired.

Until COVID-19, commercial properties were widely regarded as safe investments. They offered both reliable income streams and capital gains as population growth increased the value of scarce real estate.

With the return on government bonds falling below 1% they ought to be becoming more attractive, but offices are empty, their future uncertain, high end shopping centres are receiving less traffic, and hotels have entire floors unused.

In July the number of mobile phones active in Sydney’s central business district was down 52% on January and February. In Melbourne’s CBD, before the stage 4 lockdown, mobile phone traffic was down 65%.

Data centres are among the few commercial property bright spots – we are moving more data – along with distribution centres and regional shopping centres – we are shopping online and closer to home.

Over the course of the year the values of commercial property trusts listed on the Australian Securities Exchange have slid 29%, 32%, 34%,48%, 52%, and 69%.

For super funds with 8% of their assets in commercial property, a decline of 25% in values knocks 2% off their assets — A$54 billion across the industry as a whole.

In the only other big downturn since the advent of Australia’s superannuation system, the global financial crisis, commercial property offered the funds stability while shares were volatile.

Not so this time. The value of the commercial property is diving along with the stock market with just as uncertain a future.

– ref. Warning: what COVID is doing to commercial property it is about to do to super funds – https://theconversation.com/warning-what-covid-is-doing-to-commercial-property-it-is-about-to-do-to-super-funds-143824

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dawn LaValle Norman, Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?

Stage 4 lockdown is upon Melbourne for the next six weeks. How do we cope with the new normal of staying in our houses for 23 hours a day?

One popular solution is to immerse ourselves in stories. Topical films, such as Contagion (2011), have found a new life in the pandemic. But a more prescient film, for lockdown, is the cult classic Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis.

Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a thoroughly unsavoury TV weatherman, mysteriously wakes up to the same wintry February morning over and over again. His wonder and excitement at the lack of consequences quickly turn to despair.

How can a flawed human deal with the repetition of the same limited day, as restrictive in its own way as a one-room prison cell?

Eventually, a major change in perspective allows Phil to transform his prison into fulfilment, granting him the love of Rita (Andie MacDowell) – and the escape back to normal temporality.

Read more: Don’t know what day it is or who said what at the last meeting? Blame the coronavirus

Transformations

Over the centuries, countless people have chosen a form of elective lockdown. When I was 25, I spent a year as a guest at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut. I was not allowed to leave the grounds without permission, and spent my days milking cows, weaving cloth, tending beehives and singing the liturgical celebrations.

I chose to live in the monastery, as did everyone around me. That didn’t mean that the restrictions didn’t chafe. But I remember what one of the sisters said to me about the narrow borders we had placed around our lives: when you can’t change your environment, you have to change yourself.

That year taught me how to sit with myself and stick to the work I had chosen – skills I needed in the difficult seven years of education that followed.

Restrictions can promote transformation through friction, like tomatoes needing compression to be sealed into jars for the winter. The condensation, the reduction, are there to produce something new. When we can’t escape we have a tremendous opportunity for change.

Deadlines

I recently learned a new etymology. The word “deadline” once referred to a prison boundary, beyond which you would be shot by guards.

For Phil, in Groundhog Day, a “deadline” is what is missing from his life. He cannot die. With that boundary removed from him, he struggles to find meaning at all. Our own lockdown also lacks a firm deadline, a time when it will certainly be over. The Victorian government is saying stage 4 restrictions will last six weeks. But will that be enough?

We are faced with the odd combination of restricted space and endless time.

Phil experiments with goals at the beginning of the film, but these goals are questionable. He learns all he can about Rita, but only so he can seduce her. He choreographs the perfect robbery of a bank’s armoured truck to have abundant cash. He spends three hours a day for six months learning how to throw playing cards into a hat.

Somewhere in the middle of the story, as he lifts his head from a depression with the help of Rita, Phil turns a corner. He starts to realise his actions – even if they leave no trace on the next repeated day – can change himself, for the better.

He develops a pattern of care that takes up his entire day. He saves a man from choking and a boy from falling from a tree. He helps a young woman get over her cold feet before her wedding and fixes the flat tyres of a car full of elderly ladies.

Instead of short-term goals, he chooses to learn skills that enrich his life: he reads, he makes ice sculptures, he becomes an excellent pianist. He chooses to flourish.

Flourishing is compatible with a notion of infinity – no deadline needed.

Emotions

Rita: Sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes. I don’t know, Phil. Maybe it’s not a curse. Just depends on how you look at it.

Being stuck in the repetition of lockdown, while at first causing only frustration, can lead us to evolve from blaming our setting to interrogating ourselves.

Watching Groundhog Day in these times is strangely inspiring. It lets us imagine a repetition in which we can flourish.

So what will we do with our coming six weeks in Melbourne? I, for one, think I will finally start learning to play the piano. Thanks, Phil.

– ref. What Groundhog Day (and my time in a monastery) taught me about lockdown – https://theconversation.com/what-groundhog-day-and-my-time-in-a-monastery-taught-me-about-lockdown-143452

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

Scott Morrison will unveil on Thursday a cyber security package to give greater protection to critical Australian infrastructure and bolster the powers of the Australian Federal Police to pursue criminal networks on the dark web.

The Australian Signals Directorate would be able to go into networks to block operations against critical infrastructure.

The AFP would be given collection powers on the dark web which would enable it to call on the ASD to provide highly specialised technical assistance, using its most sophisticated capabilities.

The government would hope to have legislation for the changes passed before the end of the year, although that timetable will be tight given the limited sitting time.

Amid increasing concern about cyber disruption particularly from China, Morrison said ahead of the announcement: “We will protect our vital infrastructure and services from cyber attacks. We will support businesses to protect themselves”.

And with mounting worry about crime, especially against minors, on the internet he said, “We will track criminals in the darkest corners of the internet to protect our families and children”.

Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton said: “Pedophiles are targeting kids online in chat groups. Criminals are scamming money off our elderly by stealing their internet banking details. Businesses are being locked out of their systems by ransomware attacks.

“And some foreign governments are using the internet to steal health data and have the potential to turn off banking or energy systems.”

The cost of the cyber security package is nearly $1.7 billion but most of the money has been announced before.

The improved infrastructure security includes obligations on the providers of critical infrastructure and government assistance to quickly respond to attacks.

Some $66 million will be provided to help critical infrastructure providers to assess their networks for vulnerabilities and bolster their strength.

There will be more than $67 million to enable greater cyber security collaboration with state governments and industry.

The government will invest more than $88 million to bolster the AFP’s capabilities to investigate and prosecute cyber criminals, and create a fund to co-invest in counter cybercrime capabilities with the states.

At present the federal police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission can only collect communications in an investigation of a particular person or device, connected with a specific offence, under warrant.

On the dark web it is very difficult to identify suspects.

The new power would permit access to the computers used in serious criminal activity, making easier identification of perpetrators and their activities.

This information would then be used as a basis for applying for more targeted investigatory powers, such as interception and computer access warrants.

Among measures to support better cyber security in the community the government will urge greater uptake of safe and secure online behaviour and increase funding for victim support.

– ref. Morrison pursues tougher powers in fight against cyber attacks and criminals’ activity – https://theconversation.com/morrison-pursues-tougher-powers-in-fight-against-cyber-attacks-and-criminals-activity-144027

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

A rumour that Victoria’s high profile chief health officer Brett Sutton was quitting caused a flurry in state government circles on Wednesday afternoon.

Sutton has been one of the medical hardliners during the pandemic, at times an irritant in the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. According to Sky, the suggestion he was going came from a well-placed Victorian source.

The rumour followed the absence of Sutton – who’s on leave – from those marathon news conferences Premier Daniel Andrews gives.

At first Andrews’ office provided a less than watertight rejection of the story, before issuing a denial.

On Twitter someone said, “Might as well have said nickelback have broken up, same level of middle aged women would be upset”. This drew a tweet from Sutton himself. “What?! Nickelback have broken up??”

In Victoria Sutton has become something of a cult figure – you can get Brett Sutton masks, mugs, throw blankets and much else.

All this would be of only gossipy interest if it were not that there has been a deal of movement among Victorian health officers recently. Deputy chief health officer Annaliese van Diemen shifted to non-COVID duties and a new crew came in: Allen Cheng, from The Alfred hospital, Rhonda Stuart, from Monash Health, and Paul Johnson, from Austin Health became Sutton’s deputies.

Behind the scenes, there are wheels within wheels among the nation’s army of federal and state health officials, and professional differences.

For example the use of masks was, earlier on, a matter of debate among the experts, with at least one senior federal adviser very sceptical of them. Now they are mandatory in Victoria and their use is highly recommended in NSW.

But the mask debate continues on another front. This week an open letter signed by more than 2,800 healthcare workers and sent to Health Minister Greg Hunt and federal officials called for high end masks for health workers and reform of the Infection Control Expert Group.

We don’t hear much of this group but it is influential, especially its chair, professor Lyn Gilbert. It provides advice on infection prevention and control in hospitals and other institutional settings.

The healthworkers’ letter said the ICEG needed broader representation including from the specialist medical colleges and experts with a scientific background in aerosol science, personal protective equipment and worker safety.

One plus in the COVID crisis has been that the politicians have turned to expert advice, but that can be complicated when the advisers, despite usually publicly presenting a “consensus” view, are in fact divided.

At the end of the day, both the experts and the politicians will be judged on results.

As the Victorian lockdown screws continue to tighten, the state’s health results on Wednesday were another bad landmark – a record 725 new cases and 15 deaths.

Second time round, the state’s lockdown is both harsher and more difficult to handle. Businesses are complaining of directions that are confusing and hard to implement. Many parents with small children won’t have access to child care. More people seem at the end of their tether.

The Victorian crisis continues to create wider contagion nationally.

On Wednesday NSW tightened existing border restrictions from Victoria.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the state border would be closed from 1am Saturday to people from NSW and the ACT.

The Queensland border was already closed to Victorians and people from greater Sydney.

Facing an October election the premier, who has been angered by breaches from people trying to get around current controls, declared, “I say to Queenslanders, we’ve listened to you … today is the day we say we’re putting Queenslanders first.”

A frustrated Scott Morrison, who has argued the states should talk to his government when they plan to act on their borders, said “She’ll make her decisions and I’ll leave her to explain them and the medical advice upon which it’s based.”

But as he knows from his latest stoush with Western Australia premier Mark McGowan about that state’s closed border, the public is likely to be firmly behind Palaszczuk’s action.

– ref. View from The Hill: Rumour, contagion and yet more bad Victorian records – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-rumour-contagion-and-yet-more-bad-victorian-records-144024

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

From tomorrow (Thursday, August 6) only children of permitted workers will be able to attend childcare in Melbourne, which is under stage 4 restrictions.

Parents and providers have been waiting to understand what this means for their children and attendance numbers for the next six weeks.

Read more: Childcare closed to most families, no JobKeeper: what Melbourne’s stage 4 lockdown means for parents and the sector

Both Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews and the federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan made announcements today that clarify many of these details, although questions remain.

What did Dan Tehan announce?

The federal government funds childcare, along with fees paid by parents.

In April, the government put in place a childcare relief package. Early childhood education and care centres across the country were provided with around 50% of their revenue based on enrolment numbers between February 17 and March 2, on the basis parents weren’t charged any fees.

Services were also able to access JobKeeper for eligible employees.

The package ended in July, with as well as JobKeeper for employees. But there is a transition package back to pre-COVID funding arrangements until September 27. The government is making up 25% of the childcare service fee revenue from February 17 – March 1.

Read more: Morrison has rescued childcare from COVID-19 collapse – but the details are still murky

Today, Dan Tehan announced extra provisions to the childcare transition package for Melbourne providers located in areas facing stage 4 restrictions.

This 25% of service revenue will be increased by at least 5%, and possibly more depending on their new rate of attendance and subsidy levels for children still attending.

This will mean services have a guaranteed income from the childcare subsidy plus 25% of their total revenue, as well as fees from parents of permitted workers. This is likely to provide around 80-85% of their total revenue.

Dan Tehan said parents will be given 30 extra absence days, on top of the 42 already available. Families can use their 72 total absences to cover non-attendance in the next six weeks, and won’t pay fees for those days.

The extra absences will be given to all parents across Victoria — not just those in Melbourne.

These changes will be in place from Thursday, August 6.

What did Daniel Andrews announce?

Decisions about permitted workers sit with the state, as well as decisions about whether childcare can be accessed if only one parent is a permitted worker, and the other is working from home.

Daniel Andrews said the rules on who can attend childcare will be the same for childcare, kindergarten and school. If children can be supervised at home, they must be at home — even if one parent is a permitted worker.

A permitted worker at home will be able to access these education services, but only if no-one else can supervise their children.

Parents will need to obtain an access to childcare permit from the government, in addition to their permit to work.

What is still unclear?

There remains considerable confusion in the package for families and services.

For services, it’s unclear whether they will be required to remain open if it’s not practical to do so. Some services might only have a few children eligible to attend, creating cost pressures to open with small numbers, or consider combining operations with other services.

If providers decide they need to cut costs, staff hours will be the first to go, because labour costs are a significant proportion of their budgets. While the employment guarantee that exists requires jobs to be protected, for casuals this means their hours could be minimal.

Read more: COVID-19: what closing schools and childcare centres would mean for parents and casual staff

Although Dan Tehan says it is unlikely that services will have no children of permitted workers enrolled, some services might have no children attending.

The free absence days are aimed at keeping children enrolled while ensuring parents won’t pay while they’re not using services. They are also aimed at ensuring providers can continue to operate and remain viable, and provide early learning and care to children of permitted workers who cannot care for their children while working.

But for parents to access absence days with no charge, childcare providers need to agree to waive the gap fees.

That said, there is no mechanism for the government to mandate services to waive the fees. And we have heard reports of services informing parents they are not financially able to waive gap fees for absences.

This raises the question: if a particular centre won’t waive a family’s gap fees, will that family be able to keep their child enrolled in their centre?

For families, the new permit system for permitted workers offers no clarity about how vulnerable children will be identified. These children have most to gain from attending early childhood services, and are least likely to live in families where permit systems are likely to be taken up.

There are no easy answers to these questions, which have highlighted once again how complex and essential early childhood services are. It has also highlighted the need for greater attention that governments need to give to the needs of their youngest citizens and families.

– ref. Victoria’s childcare announcements explained – https://theconversation.com/victorias-childcare-announcements-explained-143991