Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Bertram, Senior Associate, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Another year, another round of hostage-taking by the owners of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

As always, Rio Tinto has made the first move, threatening to close New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) in Southland unless some ransom is paid. A thousand jobs would be lost, with a further 1,600 indirectly affected.

In the usual script the New Zealand government caves in and smelting rolls on while Rio Tinto and its local allies pocket their gains.

Will this time be different? As with any ransom demand, the questions are whether the threat is credible and how bad the consequences of refusing would be.

Will the smelter really close?

Cutting the smelter’s power price by a third is apparently the demand this time. Given the history (and the National Party’s unclear position) there is a real possibility the eventual outcome (after the election) could be another ransom payment and another few years of aluminium production.

A win for Rio Tinto could take several forms. The government could pay a cash ransom (as in 2013). Or Meridian Energy (supplier to Tiwai Point) could give up a chunk of its revenue. Or the big five electricity generators could share the ransom among themselves as a means of staving off a fall in residential power prices.

Read more: The market is not our master — only state-led business cooperation will drive real economic recovery

Alternatively, the Electricity Authority, always a compliant lapdog of the “gentailer” (generator-retailer) cartel, could provide the industry with cover by mandating price discounts for other power companies too.

If nobody blinks, we will find out whether the closure threat was really credible.

We can immediately set aside the smelter’s “NZ$46 million loss” declared for the past year. The accounts of both NZAS (the smelter operator) and Pacific Aluminium NZ Ltd are (quite legally) arranged to produce whatever profit/loss (and associated tax liability) the overseas owners want.

The final decision would be a strategic one for Rio Tinto: reputational benefits of being seen to punish a recalcitrant host economy, versus the loss of a renewables-powered smelter in an increasingly carbon-conscious world.

It really could go either way and I’m laying no bets.

How could we use the extra electricity?

We can, however, get a handle on possible policy responses to actual closure. The biggest impact, from which potentially big gains could come, is the freed-up electricity from the Manapouri power station.

Getting that amount of electricity (13% of the country’s entire consumption) to anywhere other than Bluff is not a simple matter, because it will need a new transmission line from Manapouri to Benmore or Christchurch. That line has never been built, and to build it now will take time and money.

Transpower is reported to be finally getting to work, but don’t expect an immediate result.

Read more: Unless we improve the law, history shows rushing shovel-ready projects comes with real risk

You might well think that building that line decades ago would have provided the New Zealand government with an essential bargaining chip (the “outside option” of reallocating the electricity if the smelter closed).

Certainly by failing to take that step, the state has declared a lack of will to resist ransom demands, which probably gave the smelter owners confidence in repeating those demands.

Suppose the line is built, what gain could residential consumers see? Well, it depends.

If the smelter’s contract is simply ended and Meridian is left looking for a new buyer, this might break the big-generator cartel and bring prices down. Or it might just lead to collective market manipulation to protect their share prices. (Contact is already talking of pausing a new geothermal project.)

What if the government became a player?

Alternatively, suppose the government summons up the courage to compulsorily acquire Rio Tinto’s contract rights (which run to 2030) and thus becomes the “single buyer” of 5,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity a year.

The government would then be able to dispose of this electricity as it sees fit. If it were to put the material well-being of households (in particular the poor ones) at the top of its priorities, it could supply those consumers with a fair chunk of their annual electricity consumption at a price far below the regular market wholesale price.

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

It could do this even within the current (deeply flawed) electricity market structure, leaving supply and demand to play out for the rest of the 40,000 GWh of annual generation.

Readers with long memories may recall the 1992 Hydro New Zealand proposal, which sought to protect vulnerable consumers from rising prices under corporatisation and privatisation by locking in just such a long-term, low-price “vesting contract”.

There is, however, a softer option open to the government, which would mollify Southland while leaving the crucial transmission line unbuilt.

That is the time-honoured Think Big tradition of installing some new, heavily subsidised giant electricity-using industry at Bluff – perhaps a “green hydrogen” plant, perhaps a data centre or even a Tesla “gigafactory”.

Remember, the government has a big stake in the profitability of three of the big generators. Watch this space – and don’t expect your power bills to come down any time soon.

– ref. Power play: despite the tough talk, the closure of Tiwai Point is far from a done deal – https://theconversation.com/power-play-despite-the-tough-talk-the-closure-of-tiwai-point-is-far-from-a-done-deal-142372

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mia Martin Hobbs, Researcher, University of Melbourne

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, out now on Netflix, tells the story of five Black US veterans who return to Vietnam to hunt for gold and recover the remains of their lost squad leader.

Beginning with the reunion of five old “Bloods”, and peppered with flashbacks to their combat days, the film quickly turns into an action-packed recovery mission.

Lee touches on important themes from veterans’ return journeys: reuniting with former girlfriends, reliving “Rest & Relaxation” in Vietnamese bars, engaging in NGO work to atone for the war and the role of war films in reimagining Vietnam as a tourist adventure.

But Lee depicts the Vietnamese as a hostile monolith, frozen in time with resentment toward American soldiers. In reducing the Vietnamese to angry victims, Lee fails to capture the reality of veterans’ return journeys.

Open arms

Since 1981, thousands of US veterans have returned to Vietnam.

In my doctoral research with returning US and Australian veterans, I found from the very first return trip these veterans were warmly welcomed back by the Vietnamese.

Over the decades, returnees’ stories of being welcomed back rippled through the US veteran community, inspiring others to embark on their own journeys to “meet the enemy”.

Read more: The battle over Long Tan’s memory – a perspective from Viet Nam

Lee gestures towards this theme of reconciliation with a friendly toast from former enemy veterans in the nightclub Apocalypse Now. But the moment is overshadowed by the broader theme of Vietnamese retribution, with repeated instances of Vietnamese beggars, vendors and gangsters yelling war-related grievances at the US veteran-tourists.

While Americans dwell on the national trauma of Vietnam, the American War — as it is called in Vietnam — was only one of many fought for Vietnamese independence in the 20th century. And with a median age of 31, most of Vietnam’s population were born well after this war ended.

The Vietnamese tend to view returning veterans as remorseful (and useful) allies. Many early returning veterans were radical anti-war activists, searching for answers and wanting to make amends.

The Vietnamese government has consistently emphasised friendship with returning veterans, American tourists and the United States for economic and geopolitical reasons.

Veterans told me both official representatives and ordinary Vietnamese welcomed them back, explaining “war is over” and “Vietnam is a country, not a war”.

Ongoing traumas

Early anti-war returnees reported experiencing Vietnam at peace was profoundly healing. By the 1990s, veterans were returning on “healing journeys” aimed at relieving PTSD symptoms through redemption and reconciliation, often with months of therapeutic preparation in advance.

But even the most well-prepared veterans told me their first moments back “in country” were fraught with anxiety. Over time, veterans gradually relaxed as they came to terms with a peaceful Vietnam and realised they were no longer under threat. Yet Lee shows the Bloods immediately at ease in Ho Chi Minh City, with no indications of latent stress.

Read more: From shell shock to PTSD: proof of war’s traumatic history

Where Lee does address veteran trauma, he makes angry Vietnamese the trigger: a resentful adolescent beggar throws firecrackers at the Bloods and mocks them when they duck for cover; a vendor attempts to force a live chicken on one of the Bloods before screaming “you killed my mother and father”, setting off a panic attack.

In my interviews, veterans described how seemingly minor experiences could spark a flashback: a backfiring truck, a glimpse of familiar landscape, the monsoon rains, the humid air as they left the aeroplane. Lee could have instead shown children playing with firecrackers or a vendor offering war-memorabilia to passersby — each utterly unaware of their effect on visiting veteran-tourists.

Lee’s reductive treatment of the Vietnamese limits his portrayal of war legacies.

The Bloods’ two-day mission to recover their missing leader is remarkably short, considering the decades-long struggle to recover bodies of former soldiers on all sides.

The film also makes no mention of the more than 300,000 revolutionary Vietnamese soldiers still missing, let alone the unknown thousands of missing South Vietnamese, who the Vietnamese government do not count among their dead.

Da 5 Bloods never acknowledges the sheer magnitude of Vietnamese loss and grief.

Black resistance

The movie is at its best in its exploration of anti-Black racism and Black resistance in American war and society.

Through the Bloods’ debate on reparations, Lee draws together civil rights activism of the Vietnam-era with today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement.

But by positioning Black veterans and Vietnamese in opposition, Lee overlooks the potential for solidarity between the two.

One Black US veteran I interviewed reflected on the shared experience of being oppressed by, and fighting against, American white supremacy.

Upon return to Vietnam, he met with former enemy veterans in Hanoi:

I told them that when I went home and I talked to my father I said ‘Daddy, if I was a Vietnamese, I’d be a VC [Viet Cong]’. When I said that, the VC, they got the biggest smiles on their faces. … It’s a blessing. All these years I’ve been wanting to get back, and I’ve come back, and look at this. Look at the way they’re treating me.

– ref. What Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods gets wrong about veterans returning to Vietnam – https://theconversation.com/what-spike-lees-da-5-bloods-gets-wrong-about-veterans-returning-to-vietnam-142558

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

Uncertainty surrounding a cluster of COVID-19 cases linked to a Sydney hotel has prompted reactions from the Queensland and South Australian governments, as the Victorian situation continues to be critical.

Victorian authorities on Tuesday reported 270 new cases, and two deaths. The man and woman who died were both in their 80s. There were 26 people in intensive care in Victoria, of whom 21 were on ventilators.

The national death toll stood at 110 as of late Tuesday.

By late Tuesday the cluster linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, in Sydney’s south west, had increased to 30.

The NSW government is on tenterhooks, as it waits to see the extent of the outbreak and the spread of those affected. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been under strong pressure to keep to a minimum further restrictions.

Queensland on Tuesday closed its border to people who have been in the NSW Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas.

The proposed reopening of the South Australian-NSW border on July 20 has been delayed. Premier Steven Marshall said: “The super spreader event, which has occurred at the Crossroads Hotel on the Hume Highway is really of great concern”.

Berejiklian toughened the conditions for pubs, reducing group bookings from 20 to 10 and limiting the number in a venue to 300. They will have to “ensure all patrons provide their name and contact details accurately”.

But she said NSW did not want to bring back lockdowns. “We can’t keep opening, closing, lockdown, not lockdown, we can’t have that repeatedly occur every time there’s an outbreak. We have to learn to manage these outbreaks. There is no end date,” she told the ABC.

She reaffirmed the strategy had to be one of suppression – elimination of the virus was not a practical option.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews issued a joint statement outlining what 1000 defence force personnel being deployed to Victoria will do – this will include compliance checking, support for testing and tracing, and partnering with Ambulance Victoria paramedic response crews. These defence personnel are in addition to 400 already there.

Meanwhile the Victorian government, under fire for lapses in its management of quarantine, has taken a hit in the latest Essential poll.

Victorians’ approval of their state government has declined from 65% in June to 49%. Those rating the Victorian government’s performance as very or quite poor rose from 13% in June to 26%.

The poll also found people’s concern about the virus had risen – the proportion of Australians saying they were very concerned about the threat of Covid-19 went from 25% in June to 36%.

Concern was highest in Victoria, where 46% were very concerned, and NSW (42%). This compared with much lower numbers in Queensland (25%) and Western Australia (26%).

– ref. More deaths in Victoria, as NSW COVID cluster triggers reactions in Queensland and South Australia – https://theconversation.com/more-deaths-in-victoria-as-nsw-covid-cluster-triggers-reactions-in-queensland-and-south-australia-142676

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

The “palace letters” show the Australian Constitution’s susceptibility to self-interested behaviour by individual vice-regal representatives. They also reveal the vulnerability of Australian governments to secret destabilisation by proxy by the Crown.

They reveal a governor-general, fearing his own dismissal, succumbing to moral hazard, and the British monarch’s private secretary encouraging him in the idea that a double dissolution was legitimate in the event a government could not get its budget bills passed.

The letters confirm the worst fears of those who viewed Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government as a constitutional coup. They reveal Kerr shortened by at most a mere three months the resolution of the crisis created by the conservative Malcolm Fraser-led opposition’s refusal to pass the government’s budget bills, compared to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s own timetable shared with Kerr.

The correspondence shows Kerr was privy to Whitlam’s plan to hold a double-dissolution election in February 1976 if all other avenues, including a half-Senate election, failed to secure passage of the budget beforehand. Whitlam candidly told Kerr he would be replaced as governor-general if he obstructed that plan. This introduced the element of moral hazard that saw Kerr take a reckless and self-interested route in ending the crisis rather than the steadier one privately put to him by Whitlam – one that Kerr could have, had he chosen, quite properly facilitated.

Crucially, the palace provided a specific nudge to Kerr in the direction of dismissing the government as a solution. It did so by creating a pretext by which Kerr could secure an election while saving his own position as governor-general.

A September 24 1975 letter from the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, to Kerr pointed him to Canadian constitutional law expert Eugene Forsey’s opinion that:

[…] if supply is refused this always makes it constitutionally proper to grant a dissolution.

In such correspondence, the queen’s private secretary is understood as speaking for the queen herself. As such, this could be interpreted as the monarch providing not just comfort but actual encouragement to the governor-general in his sacking of the government.

By adding his point about Forsey as a handwritten postscript to the letter, Charteris created a degree of ambiguity on this score, giving rise to a potential argument that it was Charteris’s personal view and not that of the queen.

Read more: ‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government

But this should be read in the context of the overall correspondence in the year leading up to The Dismissal. In these letters, Kerr repeatedly canvasses the opposition’s potential blocking of supply, the likely resulting constitutional crisis and his difficulties in that context. There is, notably, no counterveiling call from the palace to let the legitimately elected prime minister see his plan through, even though Kerr had conveyed Whitlam’s plan to the palace.

In a crucial letter to Charteris on September 30, Kerr outlined Whitlam’s privately proposed electoral path to a resolution.

In the event the opposition continued to block the budget bills, Whitlam wanted to hold a half-Senate election. After that the government would again put the budget bills to the Senate. Should the opposition continue to block them, Whitlam planned a double-dissolution election. Kerr relayed to Charteris Whitlam’s view that it “could not take place until February 1976”.

Why didn’t Kerr co-operate with Whitlam to implement this relatively speedy path to resolution of the crisis? The answer likely lies in Whitlam’s candour in telling Kerr he would ask the queen to replace Kerr should he not accede to the plan.

Since the letters through Charteris also confirm the queen’s intention, unreservedly, to accept Whitlam’s advice to sack Kerr should she be asked to do so, Kerr knew this threat to be real and increasingly immediate.

The question is, since the queen made clear through Charteris she would uphold Australia’s constitutional convention that the monarch follow the prime minister’s advice, why would her representative, Kerr, not simply do the same with regard to Whitlam’s plans for the crisis’s resolution?

Read more: The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal

This is the note missing from the palace side of the correspondence – an absence against which Charteris’s handwritten postscript pointing Kerr to the Forsey opinion that “dissolution” was a legitimate option when governments fail to get their money bills passed is stark.

Forsey was later a strong public supporter of Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government. No wonder the palace fought to stop these letters being released.

– ref. ‘Palace letters’ reveal the palace’s fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government – https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-reveal-the-palaces-fingerprints-on-the-dismissal-of-the-whitlam-government-142476

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

For more than four decades, the question has been asked: did the queen know the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, was about to dismiss the Whitlam government, and did she encourage or support that action?

The release of the “palace letters” between Kerr and the palace can now lay that question to rest. The answer was given, unequivocally, by the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, in a letter to Kerr on November 17 1975. He said:

If I may say so with the greatest respect, I believe that in NOT informing The Queen what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with perfect constitutional propriety but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty’s position.

Certainly, Kerr had kept the palace up to date with the various developments in Australia. While governors-general usually communicate with the queen only three or four times a year during ordinary times, it is common during a crisis for updates on the political situation to be made every few days – particularly if there is a risk of the queen becoming involved or the exercise of a reserve power.

Read more: The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal

Drawing the palace into the crisis

In 1975, there were multiple issues that might have drawn the palace into the crisis.

First, there was the question of whether Kerr should exercise a reserve power to refuse royal assent to an appropriation bill that had been passed by the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Fortunately, Whitlam dropped this idea, so that controversy disappeared.

Then there was the question of whether state premiers would advise state governors to refuse to issue the writs for a half-Senate election, and whether Whitlam would then advise the queen to instruct the governors to issue the writs. This didn’t happen either, because Whitlam did not get to hold his half-Senate election. But the prospect was enough to worry the palace.

Next there was the issue of what to do with the Queensland governor, Sir Colin Hannah. Hannah, in a speech, had referred to the “fumbling ineptitude” of the Whitlam government. Hannah held a “dormant commission” to act as administrator of the Commonwealth when the governor-general was away.

Whitlam, contrary to the advice of both the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Attorney-General’s Department, advised the queen to remove Hannah’s commission to be administrator.

Separately, the Queensland opposition petitioned for Hannah to be removed as governor, but that required the advice of British ministers, as Queensland was still in those days a “dependency” of the British Crown.

So the palace had to juggle advice on Hannah from two different sources.

A race to the palace

Another pressing question was what should be done if Whitlam advised Kerr’s dismissal. Kerr’s letters more than once referred to Whitlam talking of a “race to the Palace” to see whether he could dismiss Kerr before Kerr dismissed him.

Kerr saw these “jokes” as having an underlying menace. Kerr knew he didn’t have to race to the palace – he could dismiss the prime minister immediately. But he also knew, after Whitlam advised Hannah’s removal merely for using the words “fumbling ineptitude”, that Whitlam wouldn’t hesitate to act.

The letters also show Kerr had been told that while the “Queen would take most unkindly” to being told to dismiss her governor-general, she would eventually do so because, as a constitutional sovereign, she had no option but to follow the advice of her prime minister. This would inevitably have brought her into the fray in an essentially Australian constitutional crisis.

Kerr explained in a letter after the dismissal that if he had given Whitlam 24 hours to advise a dissolution or face the prospect of dismissal, there was a considerable risk Whitlam would advise the queen to dismiss Kerr. He wrote:

[…] the position would then have been that either I would in fact be trying to dismiss him whilst he was trying to dismiss me, an impossible position for The Queen, or someone totally inexperienced in the developments of the crisis up to that point, be it a new Governor-General or an Administrator who would have to be a State Governor, would be confronted by the same implacable Prime Minister.

Advice from the palace

The letters reveal much of Kerr’s thinking, but little from the palace. Charteris rightly accepted the reserve powers existed, but they were to be used “in the last resort and then only for constitutional and not for political reasons”.

Charteris stressed the exercise of such powers was a

heavy responsibility and it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.

This did not give Kerr any “green light” or encouragement to act. No-one suggested to him that the end had come and there was no other course to be followed. That was for Kerr to judge, and rightly so, because the powers could only be exercised by him – not the queen.

Whether the end had come and there was no other course is essentially what continues to be debated today. Should Kerr have waited? Should he have warned Whitlam? Was another course of action available?

All of these questions may justly be debated. But, no, the queen did not direct Kerr to dismiss Whitlam. He was not encouraged to do so. He was only encouraged to obey the Australian Constitution, which is something we all should do.

– ref. ‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government – https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-show-the-queen-did-not-advise-or-encourage-kerr-to-sack-whitlam-government-142376

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

From songs and poems to novels and movies, romantic love is one of the most enduring subjects for artworks through the ages. But what about the science?

Historical, cultural and even evolutionary evidence suggests love existed during ancient times and across many parts of the world. Romantic love has been found to exist in 147 of 166 cultures looked at in one study.

The complexity of love has much to do with how people experience it differently and how it can change over time.

Read more: Friday essay: finding spaces for love

Like, love, or ‘in love’?

Psychological research over the past 50 years has investigated the differences between liking someone, loving someone and being “in love”.

Liking is described as having positive thoughts and feelings towards someone and finding that person’s company rewarding. We often also experience warmth and closeness towards the people we like. In some instances we choose to be emotionally intimate with these people.

When we love someone we experience the same positive thoughts and experiences as when we like a person. But we also experience a deep sense of care and commitment towards that person.

Being “in love” includes all the above but also involves feelings of sexual arousal and attraction. However, research into people’s own views of love suggests that not all love is the same.

Passionate vs companionate love

Romantic love consists of two types: passionate and companionate love. Most romantic relationships, whether they be heterosexual or same sex, involve both these parts.

Passionate love is what people typically consider being “in love”. It includes feelings of passion and an intense longing for someone, to the point they might obsessively think about wanting to be in their arms.

The second part is known as companionate love. It’s not felt as intensely, but it’s complex and connects feelings of emotional intimacy and commitment with a deep attachment toward the romantic partner.

How does love change over time?

Research looking at changes in romantic love over time typically finds that although passionate love starts high, it declines over the course of a relationship.

There are various reasons for this.

As partners learn more about each other and become more confident in the long-term future of the relationship, routines develop. The opportunities to experience novelty and excitement can also decline, as can the frequency of sexual activity. This can cause passionate love to subside.

Although a reduction in passionate love is not experienced by all couples, various studies report approximately 20-40% of couples experience this downturn. Of couples who have been married in excess of ten years, the steepest downturn is most likely to occur over the second decade.

Life events and transitions can also make it challenging to experience passion. People have competing responsibilities which affect their energy and limit the opportunities to foster passion. Parenthood is an example of this.

Read more: Love by design: when science meets sex, lust, attraction and attachment

In contrast, companionate love is typically found to increase over time.

Although research finds most romantic relationships consist of both passionate and companionate love, it’s the absence or reductions in companionate love, moreso than passionate love, that can negatively affect the longevity of a romantic relationship.

But what’s the point of love?

Love is an emotion that keeps people bonded and committed to one another. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, love evolved to keep the parents of children together long enough for them to survive and reach sexual maturity.

Read more: What is this thing called love?

The period of childhood is much longer for humans than other species. As offspring rely on adults for many years to survive and to develop the skills and abilities needed for successful living, love is especially important for humans.

Without love, it’s difficult to see how the human species could have evolved.

A biological foundation too

Not only is there an evolutionary foundation to love, love is rooted in biology. Neurophysiological studies into romantic love show that people who are in the throes of passionate love experience increased activation in brain regions associated with reward and pleasure.

Read more: Love lockdown: the pandemic has put pressure on many relationships, but here’s how to tell if yours will survive

In fact, the brain regions activated are the same as those activated by cocaine.

These regions release chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine, which produce feelings of happiness and euphoria that are also linked to sexual arousal and excitement.

Interestingly, these brain regions are not activated when thinking about non-romantic relationships such as friends. These findings tell us that liking someone is not the same as being in love with someone.

What’s your love style?

Research has found three primary styles of love. First coined by psychologist John Lee, the love styles are eros, ludus and storge. These styles include people’s beliefs and attitudes about love and act as a guide for how to approach romantic relationships.

Eros

This style of love refers to erotic love and is focused on physical attraction and engaging in sex, the quick development of strong and passionate feelings for another and intense intimacy.

Ludus

This style involves being emotionally distant and often involves “game-playing”. It’s not surprising people who endorse this love style are unlikely to commit, feel comfortable ending relationships and often start a new relationship before ending the current one.

Storge

Storge is often regarded as a more mature form of love. Priority is given to having a relationship with a person who has similar interests, affection is openly expressed and there is less emphasis on physical attractiveness. People high on storge love are trusting of others and are not needy or dependent on others.

Or is a mixture more your style?

You may see yourself in more than one of these styles.

Evidence suggests some people possess a mixture of the three main love styles; these mixtures were labelled by Lee as mania, pragma and agape.

Read more: Darling, I love you … from the bottom of my brain

Manic love includes intense feelings for a partner as well as worry about committing to the relationship. Pragmatic love involves making sensible relationship choices in finding a partner who will make a good companion and friend. Agape is a self-sacrificing love that is driven by a sense of duty and selflessness.

Why do you love the way you do?

A person’s love style has little to do with their genetics. Rather, it’s associated with the development of personality and a person’s past relationship experiences.

Some studies have found people who are high on dark traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, endorse more of a ludus or pragma love style.

Read more: There are six styles of love. Which one best describes you?

People who have an insecure attachment style, involving a high need for validation and preoccupation with relationship partners, endorse more mania love, while those who are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness do not endorse eros love.

No matter the differences in the way love is experienced, one thing remains common for all: we as humans are social animals who have a deep fascination for it.

– ref. What is love? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-love-139212

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

Australia’s response to the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is rightly considered one of the world’s best. At their best, our federal and state politicians have put aside the sterile games dominating politics for decades.

It seemed possible these efforts might last, as politicians sought to find common ground and make real progress on issues such as climate change, industrial relations and inequality as part of the coronavirus recovery.

But as soon as the virus seemed to be receding, politics returned to the old “normal”. Policies are again being put forward on the basis of ideological reflexes rather than an analysis of the required response to our new situation.

There is no more striking example than the federal government’s reported plan to bring forward income tax cuts legislated for 2024-25. The idea apparently has backbench support.

Those cuts will benefit high-income earners the most. They include replacing the 32.5% marginal tax rate on incomes between A$45,000 and A$120,000, and the 37% rate on incomes between AA$180,000, with a single 30% rate up to A$200,000.

This is being proposed while the government begins to wind back income-support measures, such as free child care, with much more serious “cliffs” fast approaching.

This economic crisis is different

One of the most striking features of Australia’s initial response to COVID-19 was the speed at which the Morrison government abandoned a decade of rhetoric denouncing the Rudd Labor government’s response to the Global Financial Crisis.

In mid-March the government was floating the idea of a tightly limited response with a budget of A$5 billion. By the end of the month this had been abandoned in favour of the JobSeeker and JobKeeper schemes, estimated to cost A$14 billion and A$70 billion respectively. Other schemes brought the total to A$133 billion.

Despite the close resemblance to the Rudd stimulus packages, there was one crucial difference.

The GFC caused a collapse in the availability of credit, potentially choking off consumer demand and private investment. This was the classic case needing demand stimulus.

By contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shock to the production side of the economy, which flowed through to incomes. Millions of workers in industries such as tourism, hospitality and the arts were no longer able to work because of the virus.

The crucial problem was to support the incomes of those thrown out of work, and keep the businesses employing them afloat until some kind of normality returned. There were problems with the details of eligibility and implementation of the JobSeeker and JobKeeper programs, but the response was essentially right.

Have cash, will buy luxury car

The primary rationale for early tax cuts is that they will stimulate demand. But the economy’s real problem is not inadequate demand – particularly not on the part of high-income earners.

On the contrary, the problem for high-income earners is having a steady income even as many of the things they usually spend on (high-end restaurant meals, interstate and overseas holidays) have become unobtainable.

Among the results has been a splurge on luxury cars. Compared to June 2019, sales of Mazdas, Hyundais, Mitsubishis, Kias, Nissans and Hondas last month were all down. But Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus and MG were all up.

As Jason Murphy notes, this rush to buy fancy cars isn’t definitive proof the wealthy are looking to ways to spend all the money they’re saving. “But it is suggestive. Eventually the money has to go somewhere.”

The worst possible course of action

The continuing problem with the pandemic is the loss of income faced by millions of workers. By definition, anyone in a position to benefit from a high-end tax cut doesn’t have this problem. Equity would suggest that, far from receiving more income, they should be sharing more of the burden, if not now then in the recovery period.

Read more: Cutting unemployment will require an extra $70 to $90 billion in stimulus. Here’s why

When the federal government legislated its tax-cut schedule in advance, critics including Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe and Access Economics partner Chris Richardson pointed out the danger of promising future tax cuts based on projected growth. The same policy had failed ignominiously in the 1990s when the Keating government legislated tax cuts to be introduced after the 1993 election. After declaring the cuts “L-A-W”, Paul Keating was forced to withdraw half of the tax cuts when the budget deteriorated.

These criticisms have now been vindicated.

The decade of strong economic growth, starting this year, that was supposed to make big tax cuts affordable has disappeared. We will be lucky if per capita GDP is back to its 2019 levels by 2024-25, when the tax cuts are slated to kick in regardless of circumstances.

Once that happens, we will need all the tax revenue we can get to bring the budget back into balance and deal with the continuing expenditure needs the pandemic has created.

The government now seems to be headed for the worst possible course of action – cutting support for those hit hardest by the pandemic while pouring money into the bank accounts of the well-off.

Read more: Forget JobSeeker. In our post-COVID economy, Australia needs a ‘liveable income guarantee’ instead

The inevitable result of such a policy will be a surge of personal and business bankruptcies, mortgage defaults and evictions. That will bring about the kind of demand-deficiency recession the tax cuts are supposed to prevent, superimposed on the continuing constraints created by the pandemic.

So far we have all been in this together. For high-income earners that means forgoing tax cuts promised in happier times and contributing more to the relief of those who need it most.

– ref. Cutting taxes for the wealthy is the worst possible response to this economic crisis – https://theconversation.com/cutting-taxes-for-the-wealthy-is-the-worst-possible-response-to-this-economic-crisis-142637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien Manuel, Director, Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed last month Australia is actively being attacked by hostile foreign governments.

An advisory note posted on the government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre website said the attackers were targeting various vulnerable networks and systems, potentially trying to damage or disable them.

Read more: China’s disinformation threat is real. We need better defences against state-based cyber campaigns

Governments – along with individuals and the private sector – have an important role in addressing cyber risks that threaten our national security. At some point this year, the federal government’s new cybersecurity strategy is set to be announced.

Many in the industry hope it will be comprehensive and backed by significantly more investment than the previous one, to address what is a growing threat. Currently, a cybercrime incident is reported every ten minutes in Australia.

However, due to the unexpected budget impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, there may simply not be enough money to invest in the programs we need to stay protected from large-scale cyberattacks.

An underwhelming delivery

We know governments test each other’s cyber defences in the interest of their own national security.

Information warfare (such as through disinformation campaigns) between governments has taken place for many years.

In 2016, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull released Australia’s first cybersecurity strategy. It involved investments of more than A$230m across four years for five “themes of action” including including stronger cyber defences, and growth and innovation in the sector.

Read more: Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight

The strategy envisioned making Australia a “cyber smart nation”, by ensuring we had the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in the digital age, while staying cyber safe.

But overall, the strategy was poorly implemented.

For instance, improving cybersecurity requires close collaboration between government, industry, academia and community. To this end, Joint Cyber Security Centres were announced so various parties could share knowledge.

However, prior to COVID-19, plans were in motion to align these centres with the Australian Signals Directorate’s higher security classification. This would hinder a collaborative environment by restricting movement within, and access to, the centres.

Moreover, only 32% of cybersecurity professionals have visited a centre, highlighting the government’s failure to engage with the sector.

Four years on from the initial strategy’s release, the “smart nation” vision seems lost. The cybersecurity sector faces skills shortages, and the public and businesses remain largely unaware of how to protect themselves.

It’s clear a cybersecurity reset is required.

We need a targeted, forward-thinking strategy

The release of the Morrison government’s new strategy has been delayed due to COVID-19, but we have some idea of what to expect.

The government has announced it will redirect existing defence funding to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) to employ up to 500 additional staff to tackle cybercrime.

But how this will work in a market with skills shortages is unclear.

Read more: Morrison announces repurposing of defence money to fight increasing cyber threats

Also, redirecting existing funding into cybersecurity is positive, but it is only one part of the solution. What’s missing from the conversation is strategic, long-term investment.

A holistic, interdisciplinary approach

Effective cybersecurity is about more than technology – it’s about people (from a range of backgrounds), user behaviour, business processes, problem solving capability, regulations, industry standards and policy.

I’ve read 156 submissions to the upcoming cybersecurity strategy, which was open to public comment. I also have knowledge of confidential submissions not made public.

Drawing on these views, and my own expertise, here are five elements I believe the upcoming strategy should contain:

1. Educate to drive behavioural change

The “Slip, slop, slap” health awareness campaign was one of the most successful we’ve ever had.

It drove real social behavioural change in Australia. A similar change is required to help make Australians more knowledgeable about cybersecurity issues, and how technology can be exploited.

This isn’t a quick fix, and will likely be a long-term effort.

2. Build resilience in critical infrastructure

COVID-19 has demonstrated how easily societies can be disrupted, particularly key supply chains and systems.

We need improved processes, regulation and standards to ensure the infrastructure we rely on is cyber-resilient. When breaches occur, organisations must be prepared to resolve them and restore services.

Banks are a good example, as they rely on thousands of suppliers. On this front, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority last year introduced a prudential standard called CPS234, aimed at improving resilience against information security incidents (including cyberattacks).

3. Help small businesses

More grants and tax incentives for small businesses will enable them to access technology and talent to improve their cybersecurity capabilities.

A coordinated approach is needed through all levels of government to raise awareness of the adverse impacts cyberattacks have on businesses. This includes the consequences of customer data and privacy breaches.

It’s also crucial businesses know where to independently seek clear and concise advice when required.

4. Nurture the talent pipeline

Almost every day I hear about the industry’s cybersecurity skills shortage. I also hear from students how tough it can be to get a job in cybersecurity, even with any number of certifications.

It’s easy for businesses to poach existing talent from other organisation rather than hire graduates or interns. To break this cycle, we need improved educational courses focused on the skills employers want.

There should also be incentives for businesses to employ interns and graduates.

5. Cut the bureaucratic red tape

The federal government needs to do more to address Australia’s cybersecurity problem holistically – not just with additional legislation and funding for existing government agencies.

Hierarchies and dealings within the sector are currently overly complex.

Simplification and common sense are required.

Protecting Australians from outside parties intent on exploiting the technology we use isn’t something we can achieve overnight.

The digital cybersecurity strategy to be delivered by the Morrison Government needs to not only be impactful, but also built with future governments in mind. In such volatile times, it has never been more important to protect Australians.

– ref. Our cybersecurity isn’t just under attack from foreign states. There are holes in the government’s approach – https://theconversation.com/our-cybersecurity-isnt-just-under-attack-from-foreign-states-there-are-holes-in-the-governments-approach-137403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Tapsell, Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific., Australian National University

The recent police interrogations of six Al Jazeera journalists in Malaysia – five of whom are Australian – was not about shaping international reportage or a diplomatic rift.

Rather, it was part of a troubling pattern of crackdowns on the media and freedom of speech in the country, driven by the domestic concerns of an insecure government highly sensitive to criticism.

While the previous government led by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was by no means consistent or perfect, Malaysia was hailed just last year as an example of a country improving on press freedom.

This started to change in March, however, as Muhyiddin Yassin’s new government came to power. Tolerance for criticism and dissent has since been in short supply.

Pattern of repression

The Al Jazeera journalists have been accused of sedition and defamation over a documentary about the government’s treatment of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Malaysian officials and national television claim the documentary was inaccurate, misleading and unfair.

But these journalists are hardly the only ones to be targeted by the new government.

Steven Gan, chief editor of the trusted online news portal Malaysiakini, is facing contempt of court charges and could be sent to jail over reader comments briefly published on the news site that were apparently critical of the judiciary. Gan’s lawyer warned the case could have a “chilling effect”.

South China Morning Post journalist Tashny Sukamaran has been investigated for reporting on police raids of migrant workers and refugees.

Another journalist, Boo Su-Lyn, is being investigated for publishing the findings of an inquiry into a fire at a hospital in 2016 that left six dead.

A book featuring articles by political analysts and journalists has been banned over the artwork on the cover that allegedly insulted the national coat of arms. Sukamaran and journalists from Malaysiakini have been questioned by police about their involvement.

Opposition politicians have also been questioned by police for tweets and comments they made in the media prior to the new government taking power.

Whistle-blowers are included in this, too. For example, the government this week cancelled the work permit of the migrant worker who was featured in the Al Jazeera documentary.

Why the recent crackdown?

Malaysia’s current coalition government – Perikatan Nasional – was controversially formed earlier this year. The alliance came to power via backdoor politicking and support from the Malaysian king as Mahathir’s dysfunctional coalition imploded.

The new government coalition includes the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the party voted out of power in 2018 following a massive corruption scandal. This was the first time Malaysia had changed government in its 60-year history.

With UMNO now back in government, it is perhaps no surprise there are again more crackdowns on the media, as their previous rule saw regular attacks on journalists, activists and opposition figures.

Read more: Malaysia takes a turn to the right, and many of its people are worried

Malaysia has also become known for its “cybertroopers” – social media commentators similar to “trolls” – who drive heated nationalistic and race-related agendas, and target government critics.

After the Al Jazeera documentary, these cyber-troopers provided fervent support for the government’s actions, arguing it had every right to round up migrants and evict them if it sees fit. Al Jazeera said its journalists were also targeted by cyber-troopers, saying they

faced abuse online, including death threats and disclosure of their personal details over social media.

Shaky government looking to firm up support

There’s another reason for the return of media crackdowns and online-driven activity beyond just the government’s desire to control the media.

It is also tactical as it allows government ministers to respond with firm statements asking security forces to intervene – enabling them to look strong, coherent and nationalistic.

Muhyiddin’s coalition is on shaky ground. It holds a slim majority in parliament and internal party factions have come to dominate political debate, with “party-hopping” becoming increasingly common. Malaysiakini even has a rolling news page regularly updated to track politicians’ changing alliances.

Malaysia’s parliament also finally resumed this week after a long and unstable hiatus, and was described as a “circus”. Politicians shouted over one another, with some trading racist and sexist remarks.

The house speaker, who was part of Mahathir’s administration, was also controversially replaced. There has been consistent talk of snap polls.

In this environment, politicians who don’t respond forcefully enough in the “culture wars” over documentaries and controversial artwork on book covers, or conform with the online mob on immigration, risk looking weak.

Read more: How blaming others dominates Indonesian and Malaysian twitterspheres during COVID-19 pandemic

A ‘new normal’ settling in

A snap election won’t necessarily help Muyhiddin strengthen his position, as parties within the coalition can become rivals during a campaign for certain seats.

But no matter who rules Malaysia in the coming months, the result will likely be a government that is fragile, insecure and worried about its legitimacy. For Malaysians, this is their “new normal”.

The risk for journalists in this “new normal” is further repression and harassment of independent media. As we have seen elsewhere in Southeast Asia, as well as in Australia, the state seems increasingly willing to use legal and regulatory pressure to make sure journalists and whistle-blowers are afraid to speak up.

– ref. Malaysia’s media crackdowns are being driven by an insecure government highly sensitive to criticism – https://theconversation.com/malaysias-media-crackdowns-are-being-driven-by-an-insecure-government-highly-sensitive-to-criticism-142555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

And then there was none.

Early this morning the National Party caucus awoke to a nightmare. Todd Muller, their newly minted leader of some 53 days, had resigned his position.

This is not just another leadership spill, coup or change. In fact, nothing about this is routine.

First, Muller has been National’s leader for just less than two months, and will now go down as the shortest serving leader of the party since its formation in May 1936.

Second, the New Zealand National party faces an election in just under ten weeks.

And third, whoever leads the party into the election will be up against Jacinda Ardern, one of the most popular political leaders New Zealand has ever produced.

It is an inauspicious time to be changing the brass plate on the door of the leader’s office.

Why did Muller go?

In his statement Muller acknowledged he was not the right person for the position. Given his background, which included time as an advisor to former National Party leader and Prime Minister Jim Bolger, it can’t be said he came to the job uninformed of the unique pressures that come with leadership of the country’s most electorally successful party.

He also alluded to the toll the job was taking on his own health and that of his family. It would seem that what was once only theory regarding the physical, psychic or emotional toll political party leaders and their families pay has become all too real.

If so, I imagine most people might be inclined to say: good call, mate.

However, it’s unlikely that sentiment is dominating the thoughts of National’s caucus. Having just been through a divisive leadership change when Muller replaced former leader Simon Bridges on May 22, they will privately be furious about the nature and timing of Muller’s announcement.

National now has to scramble, and fast.

A poisoned chalice?

The first task is to find a new leader. Muller’s deputy, Nikki Kaye, is now acting party leader but tainted by her association with Muller. Various other caucus heavyweights – including Judith Collins, Gerry Brownlee and perhaps Amy Adams – are also in the frame.

But it is difficult to think of a more challenging set of circumstances in which to take over leadership of any political party: a hugely popular prime minister; a global pandemic; a divided party that leaks disastrously and has trouble identifying its own people’s ethnicity; and a timeframe that is not so much tight as suffocating.

National’s campaign strategy (and the inner circle around the leader responsible for it) also needs tweaking, if not a complete reset.

The party has long trumpeted its credentials as a competent economic manager, but it becomes very difficult to see how the word “competent” can now be part of the party’s rhetoric without triggering widespread guffaws.

And quite apart from the big picture considerations there are myriad operational particulars that need to be changed (at no small expense), not the least being the campaign hoardings (some of which are already up on fences) and pamphlets that feature Muller and Kaye.

Who benefits most?

For the Labour Party it is difficult to think of a better time for this to happen. Yesterday the papers, websites and social media feeds were full of the news that the Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into donations to Labour before the 2017 election (to go with the ones already underway on the National and New Zealand First parties). Today’s news is wall-to-wall Muller.

It may be, too, that National’s disarray proves a godsend to the two other centre-right parties in the parliament, New Zealand First and ACT. Both stand to gain should soft National supporters decide to take their political preferences to other parts of the centre-right spectrum.

Alternatively, the soft right might continue to find refuge in Ardern’s Labour, as recent polls suggest has been happening.

Why is our politics so toxic?

And so the feeding frenzy commences. In amongst the sound and fury, though, perhaps we should keep sight of one thing: Todd Muller made his captain’s call in the interests of his own health and that of his family.

So before we scramble on to the next leader, the next strategy, the next whatever ephemera of politics it is that catches our eye, we would do well to pause and reflect on the nature of politics.

What is it about the way we do this most human of activities that can cause someone this level of distress? What price do we expect people who put themselves forward for public office to pay? Is our politics broken?

– ref. Ahead of the New Zealand election, Todd Muller’s resignation is a National nightmare – and a sign of a toxic political culture – https://theconversation.com/ahead-of-the-new-zealand-election-todd-mullers-resignation-is-a-national-nightmare-and-a-sign-of-a-toxic-political-culture-142634

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance.

Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech.

The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.

Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump.

More recently, Reddit permanently removed its largest community of Trump supporters.

In this climate, Parler presents itself as a “non-biased, free speech driven” alternative to Twitter. Here’s what you should know about the US-based startup.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

What is Parler?

Parler reports more than 1.5 million users and is growing in popularity, especially as Twitter and other social media giants crackdown on misinformation and violent content.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in appearance and function, albeit clunkier. Like Twitter, Parler users can follow others and engage with public figures, news sources and other users.

Public posts are called “parleys” rather than “tweets” and can contain up to 1,000 characters.

Users can search for hashtags, make comments, “echo” posts (similar to a retweet) and “vote” (similar to a like) on posts. There’s also a direct private messaging feature, just like Twitter.

Given this likeness, what actually is unique about Parler?

Fringe views welcome?

Parler’s main selling point is its claim it embraces freedom of speech and has minimal moderation. “If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler”, founder John Matze explains.

This branding effort capitalises on allegations competitors such as Twitter and Facebook unfairly censor content and discriminate against right-wing political speech.

While other platforms often employ fact checkers, or third-party editorial boards, Parler claims to moderate content based on American Federal Communications Commission guidelines and Supreme Court rulings.

So if someone shared demonstrably false information on Parler, Matze said it would be up to other users to fact-check them “organically”.

And although Parler is still dwarfed by Twitter (330 million users) and Facebook (2.6 billion users) the platform’s anti-censorship stance continues to attract users turned off by the regulations of larger social media platforms.

When Twitter recently hid tweets from Trump for “glorifying violence”, this partly prompted the Trump campaign to consider moving to a platform such as Parler.

Matze also claims Parler protects users’ privacy by not tracking or sharing their data.

Is Parler really a free speech haven?

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook have denied they are silencing conservative voices, pointing to blanket policies against hate speech and content inciting violence.

Parler’s “free speech” has resulted in various American Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, promoting the platform.

Many conservative influencers such as Katie Hopkins, Lara Loomer and Alex Jones have sought refuge on Parler after being banned from other platforms.

Although it brands itself as a bipartisan safe space, Parler is mostly used by right-wing media, politicians and commentators.

Moreover, a closer look at its user agreement suggests it moderates content the same way as any platform, maybe even more.

The company states:

Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason.

Parler’s community guidelines prohibit a range of content including spam, terrorism, unsolicited ads, defamation, blackmail, bribery and criminal behaviour.

Although there are no explicit rules against hate speech, there are policies against “fighting words” and “threats of harm”. This includes “a threat of or advocating for violation against an individual or group”.

There are rules against content that is obscene, sexual or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value”. For example, visuals of genitalia, female nipples, or faecal matter are barred from Parler.

Meanwhile, Twitter allows “consensually produced adult content” if its marked as “sensitive”. It also has no policy against the visual display of excrement.

As a private company, Parler can remove whatever content it wants. Some users have already been banned for breaking rules.

What’s more, in spite of claims it does not share user data, Parler’s privacy policy states data collected can be used for advertising and marketing.

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

No marks of establishment

Given its limited user base, Parler has yet to become the “open town square” it aspires to be.

The platform is in its infancy and its user base is much less representative than larger social media platforms.

Despite Matze saying “left-leaning” users tied to the Black Lives Matter movement were joining Parler to challenge conservatives, Parler lacks the diverse audience needed for any real debate.

Matze also said he doesn’t want Parler to be an “echo chamber” for conservative voices. In fact, he is offering a US$20,000 “progressive bounty” for an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join.

Clearly, the platform has a long way to go before it bursts its conservative bubble.

Read more: Don’t (just) blame echo chambers. Conspiracy theorists actively seek out their online communities

– ref. Parler: what you need to know about the ‘free speech’ Twitter alternative – https://theconversation.com/parler-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-free-speech-twitter-alternative-142268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance.

Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech.

The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.

Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump.

More recently, Reddit permanently removed its largest community of Trump supporters.

In this climate, Parler presents itself as a “non-biased, free speech driven” alternative to Twitter. Here’s what you should know about the US-based startup.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

What is Parler?

Parler reports more than 1.5 million users and is growing in popularity, especially as Twitter and other social media giants crackdown on misinformation and violent content.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in appearance and function, albeit clunkier. Like Twitter, Parler users can follow others and engage with public figures, news sources and other users.

Public posts are called “parleys” rather than “tweets” and can contain up to 1,000 characters.

Users can search for hashtags, make comments, “echo” posts (similar to a retweet) and “vote” (similar to a like) on posts. There’s also a direct private messaging feature, just like Twitter.

Given this likeness, what actually is unique about Parler?

Fringe views welcome?

Parler’s main selling point is its claim it embraces freedom of speech and has minimal moderation. “If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler”, founder John Matze explains.

This branding effort capitalises on allegations competitors such as Twitter and Facebook unfairly censor content and discriminate against right-wing political speech.

While other platforms often employ fact checkers, or third-party editorial boards, Parler claims to moderate content based on American Federal Communications Commission guidelines and Supreme Court rulings.

So if someone shared demonstrably false information on Parler, Matze said it would be up to other users to fact-check them “organically”.

And although Parler is still dwarfed by Twitter (330 million users) and Facebook (2.6 billion users) the platform’s anti-censorship stance continues to attract users turned off by the regulations of larger social media platforms.

When Twitter recently hid tweets from Trump for “glorifying violence”, this partly prompted the Trump campaign to consider moving to a platform such as Parler.

Matze also claims Parler protects users’ privacy by not tracking or sharing their data.

Is Parler really a free speech haven?

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook have denied they are silencing conservative voices, pointing to blanket policies against hate speech and content inciting violence.

Parler’s “free speech” has resulted in various American Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, promoting the platform.

Many conservative influencers such as Katie Hopkins, Lara Loomer and Alex Jones have sought refuge on Parler after being banned from other platforms.

Although it brands itself as a bipartisan safe space, Parler is mostly used by right-wing media, politicians and commentators.

Moreover, a closer look at its user agreement suggests it moderates content the same way as any platform, maybe even more.

The company states:

Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason.

Parler’s community guidelines prohibit a range of content including spam, terrorism, unsolicited ads, defamation, blackmail, bribery and criminal behaviour.

Although there are no explicit rules against hate speech, there are policies against “fighting words” and “threats of harm”. This includes “a threat of or advocating for violation against an individual or group”.

There are rules against content that is obscene, sexual or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value”. For example, visuals of genitalia, female nipples, or faecal matter are barred from Parler.

Meanwhile, Twitter allows “consensually produced adult content” if its marked as “sensitive”. It also has no policy against the visual display of excrement.

As a private company, Parler can remove whatever content it wants. Some users have already been banned for breaking rules.

What’s more, in spite of claims it does not share user data, Parler’s privacy policy states data collected can be used for advertising and marketing.

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

No marks of establishment

Given its limited user base, Parler has yet to become the “open town square” it aspires to be.

The platform is in its infancy and its user base is much less representative than larger social media platforms.

Despite Matze saying “left-leaning” users tied to the Black Lives Matter movement were joining Parler to challenge conservatives, Parler lacks the diverse audience needed for any real debate.

Matze also said he doesn’t want Parler to be an “echo chamber” for conservative voices. In fact, he is offering a US$20,000 “progressive bounty” for an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join.

Clearly, the platform has a long way to go before it bursts its conservative bubble.

Read more: Don’t (just) blame echo chambers. Conspiracy theorists actively seek out their online communities

– ref. Parler: the Twitter ‘alternative’ isn’t the free speech haven it claims to be – https://theconversation.com/parler-the-twitter-alternative-isnt-the-free-speech-haven-it-claims-to-be-142268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash University

Forty-five years after they were written, hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released in full by the National Archives of Australia this morning.

Containing 211 letters and 1,200 pages in total, the “palace letters” will be the greatest addition to the history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government since the revelation of Sir Anthony Mason’s role nearly a decade ago.

Read more: Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the ‘Palace letters’ should matter to all Australians

The letters have been held in the National Archives, locked away as “personal” records under the embargo of the queen. That is, until the High Court’s emphatic 6:1 decision in June this year that they are Commonwealth records and to be made available for public access.

The impact of this extraordinary decision is being keenly felt in Buckingham Palace and with some trepidation, since the letters will be released against the wishes of the queen, as the High Court judgments make clear.

The queen’s private secretary argued strongly against their release when the case began in the Federal Court, as did the governor-general’s official secretary, even claiming in letters included in a submission from the official secretary, Mark Fraser, that their continued secrecy was essential “to preserve the constitutional position of the Monarch and the Monarchy”.

In rejecting this presumption of royal secrecy, the High Court has enforced a measure of transparency and accountability over a monarch and a monarchy once seen as untouchable. The significance of the decision and its ramifications is tremendous, beginning with the release of the letters themselves.

In anticipation of their historic public release, let’s take a look at the palace letters – what we know about them, what to look out for, and what they might tell us. These details are drawn from the court proceedings and from documents in Kerr’s archives.

What will be in the palace letters?

Firstly, there are 211 letters. This is a simply staggering number, on a scale I had never imagined, since previous governors-general had reported to the queen at most only quarterly. They include telegrams as well as letters.

Kerr’s letters include a number of large attachments, running to several hundred pages, such as newspaper clippings, articles and other people’s letters to him. Since these attachments “corroborat[e] the information communicated by the Governor-General” to the queen, they will be equally significant for revealing how Kerr depicted the polarised events of 1975 to the queen, and on what basis.

The letters cover the entirety of Kerr’s period in office, July 1974 to December 1977. Their number grew markedly from August 1975, as Kerr increased his quite obsessive “reporting” on the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, to the palace.

At times, Kerr wrote several letters in a single day. As a result, there are slightly fewer letters from the queen to Kerr in reply.

There are 116 “contemporaneously made copies” of Kerr’s letters and telegrams to the queen, most of them through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, some handwritten and some typed, and sent either by Kerr or the official secretary, David Smith. Charteris assured Kerr the queen read every one of them. Some of Kerr’s letters are addressed directly to the queen.

There are 95 original letters and telegrams from the queen to Kerr, all of them through Charteris. This nexus through the private secretary is entirely in keeping with their role as the official channel of communication with the monarch – Charteris writes for, and as, the queen. This is an important fact to bear in mind as we assess the letters.

In terms of that nexus, a critical detail emerging from the court case is that the queen’s letters, sent through Charteris, “convey the thoughts of The Queen to the Governor-General”. There can be no walking back from the fact the letters from the queen express her thoughts and her views.

This is extremely important in understanding the implications of the letters, particularly since some have tried to distance the queen from her letters to Kerr on the basis that her private secretary wrote them, even suggesting this constitutes a royal form of “plausible deniability”. Any attempt to construct a “get out of jail free” card for the queen over the content of her own letters is completely unsustainable.

Political and constitutional implications

Many of the letters will be highly sensitive politically since we know from the Federal Court submissions they “address topics relating to the official duties and responsibilities of the Governor-General”. The specific nature of those discussions will be one of the intriguing questions to answer when the letters are opened.

Did those topics include options and strategies relating to Kerr’s decisions, which the governor-general ought to have been discussing with the prime minister? Did they include a discussion of Kerr’s concern for his own position as governor-general, his fear that Whitlam might recall him – which is a decision for the prime minister alone to make and in which the queen can play no part other than to act on that advice? And did they include a consideration of the putative power of the governor-general to dismiss the government, which retained its majority in the House of Representatives and its confidence at all times, without warning?

Read more: High Court ruling on ‘Palace letters’ case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal – and our Constitution

Scattered references to the palace letters in Kerr’s papers shed further light on what we can expect to find. The most significant of these is his reference to “Charteris’ advice to me on dismissal”. Kerr writes of having “the additional advantage” of “the illuminating observations […] sent to me by Sir Martin Charteris”, indicating the significant role the letters played in his deliberations about dismissing the government and his eventual decision to do so.

Extracts from some of the palace letters explicitly refer to the prospect of Whitlam’s dismissal. In September 1975, Kerr writes:

if I were at the height of the crisis contrary to his advice to decide to terminate his commission […]

and, on November 6 1975:

he [Whitlam] said that the only way in which an election for the house could occur would be if I dismissed him.

Those particular letters, together with those written around key dates – the blocking of supply in the Senate, Executive Council meetings, Whitlam’s decision to call the half-Senate election, among others – will be a focal point for examining the letters.

The critical and defining context to assess the palace letters is that while Kerr and the queen were discussing these essentially political issues regarding the “events of the day” and the “official duties and responsibilities” of the governor-general, Kerr remained “silent” on these issues to the prime minister.

Worse, the queen well knew that. Whether there was any response from the queen about Kerr’s errant conception of his role as governor-general, his refusal to speak to or take the advice of the prime minister, will be of great interest.

Whatever the palace letters may reveal, the most important thing is that now we can know it. With that knowledge, the full history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government can finally be told.

– ref. The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal – https://theconversation.com/the-big-reveal-jenny-hocking-on-what-the-palace-letters-may-tell-us-finally-about-the-dismissal-142473

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learn & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

The recent lockdown of nine social housing towers in Melbourne’s north to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to widespread concerns for residents’ welfare.

Among the concerns was that implementation of these lockdowns was less than perfect in terms of infection control.

In housing commission towers, many people live in close quarters and share facilities, making them a high-risk setting for outbreaks of infectious disease.

So it’s likely we’ll see more outbreaks in tower blocks, or even similar settings like hotels and apartment buildings, during the pandemic.

Read more: Nine Melbourne tower blocks put into ‘hard lockdown’ – what does it mean, and will it work?

As of Sunday, there had reportedly been 237 COVID-19 cases across the affected towers. One tower remains in lockdown.

We don’t know whether any of these were sustained as a result of poor infection control practices during the lockdown period. But there are things we can do to keep residents as safe as possible in the event of further outbreaks in commission towers or similar settings.

The chain of infection

In the science of disease prevention and control, we often talk about something called the “chain of infection”. Stopping outbreaks taking hold is about disrupting this chain.

For COVID-19, the known reservoirs (sources) are infected people and contaminated objects.

The main modes of transmission are droplets spread by coughing, sneezing, and even talking. These droplets travel around 1 metre and might be inhaled by a person in close proximity, or settle rapidly to the ground.

Infection may occur via the transfer of the virus from contaminated objects or surfaces to your food or face.

Another potential route of transmission which continues to generate debate is the airborne route. This is where smaller droplets, called aerosols, travel further and stay in the air longer.

In the case of SARS-CoV-1 (SARS), airborne transmission was considered the most likely explanation for viral spread through the Amoy Gardens towers, an apartment complex in Hong Kong.

Contributing factors were poorly maintained plumbing — allowing airflow between floors — and bathroom fans that spread the virus through ventilation shafts.

Emerging evidence suggests airborne transmission may also be possible in the case of SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19).

Read more: Is the airborne route a major source of coronavirus transmission?

Using this knowledge to break the chain

Because COVID-19 is relatively new, there’s no research specifically on prevention of transmission of this virus in residential towers. But we can base recommendations on what we know about similar previous outbreaks such as SARS, and by following general infection control principles.

To prevent droplet spread in a locked down residential building:

• keep at least 1.5 metres away from others

• allow only essential personnel in the building

• residents should keep to their own apartment

• people servicing the building can wear gloves and masks, but it’s important they be trained in their proper use

• infected/symptomatic residents should wear a mask (and be aware of how to handle these correctly so as not to increase the risk of infection)

• avoid shared spaces, for example shared laundries; limit numbers in lifts/stairwells at any given time

• if movement is required, adopt staggered, rostered times to move through the building

• if the structure allows it, utilise separate entry and exit points and one-way pathways through the building

• practise good respiratory etiquette (such as coughing into your elbow). This can reduce the number of people each infected person passes the virus to.

Read more: Which face mask should I wear?

To reduce spread via contaminated objects:

• everyone who lives in or is visiting the building should frequently wash or sanitise their hands. Sanitiser should be available at entry and exit points and shared areas

• avoid touching your face and your food unless your hands have been freshly cleaned

• regular cleaning of shared spaces is important, including lift buttons, handrails, and door handles

• rubbish bins should be kept in separate areas to other supplies to avoid cross-contamination.

Additional measures to reduce airborne spread include:

• plumbing and ventilation systems should be maintained to ensure they’re operating effectively, particularly as buildings age

• HEPA filters in air conditioners may help to filter out the virus.

Other outbreaks highlight the importance of effective infection control

In the Amoy Gardens outbreak, a visit by one infected person to the apartment complex led to more than 300 cases in the block, and subsequent cases outside the block.

Similarly, Ruby Princess passengers were responsible for about 10% of COVID-19 cases in Australia at the time the ship left Australian waters in April. Cruise ships have a comparatively high density of people in confined and shared spaces as do residential tower blocks.

Finally, in Melbourne’s quarantine hotel bungle, we’ve seen what can happen when infection control measures are not implemented properly.

Read more: Melbourne’s lockdown came too late. It’s time to consider moving infected people outside the home

Prior planning is vital

Until we have a vaccine, outbreaks in other tower blocks are likely.

While “hard lockdowns” come with problems and challenges, quarantine can prevent the further transmission of infection across the wider community and makes sense from a public health perspective.

The first thing to do is develop a clear plan with procedures for residents and support workers in advance so it can be implemented at short notice. Public health units can develop these plans but governments are ultimately responsible for directing this.

Residents must be clearly informed (in multiple languages) about the plan and what they need to do. Support workers must be trained on strategies to reduce infection transmission.

– ref. We could have more coronavirus outbreaks in tower blocks. Here’s how lockdown should work – https://theconversation.com/we-could-have-more-coronavirus-outbreaks-in-tower-blocks-heres-how-lockdown-should-work-142297

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesco Paolucci, Associate Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, and Professor of Health Economics, University of Newcastle

Australia has fared better than most countries in reducing its COVID-19 cases to very low numbers. However, on June 15, new clusters of infection were identified in Victoria. The numbers grew so rapidly that metropolitan Melbourne is back in lockdown and the border with New South Wales is closed.

Lapses in quarantine for people with COVID-19 returning from overseas are believed to have led to community transmission in Victoria. Hotel isolation has been effective in other states.

Read more: Melbourne’s lockdown came too late. It’s time to consider moving infected people outside the home

However, while incoming travellers to Australia are forced to isolate for two weeks, any onshore patients are only asked to self-isolate at home. Community spread due to a patient failing to comply with the self-isolation rule (or more innocently as a member of a shared household) could easily create multiple new clusters as in Victoria.

So how do the costs and risks of aggressive hotel isolation compare with self-isolation at home? We ran the numbers. Although hotel isolation is more expensive than self-isolation at home, for families of more than five people we found the likely costs flowing from transmission to others would justify hotel isolation.

The recent outbreaks in Victoria, especially in higher-density public housing towers, illustrate the high risk of disease spread within and across households. Ultimately, this transmission can place an intolerable burden on the health-care system, as we have seen overseas.

Read more: 288 new coronavirus cases marks Victoria’s worst day. And it will probably get worse before it gets better

Weighing up the options

We analysed the economic costs and benefits of forced isolation of onshore patients to help guide decisions on when patients should be forcibly isolated away from the family home. We first considered the cost of the two alternatives when a person is confirmed positive:

1. home isolation: self-isolating at home where the person may live with other household members

2. hotel isolation: isolating the person in a hotel room to prevent interaction with other householders.

In hotel isolation, the estimated cost is A$177 per night for accommodation plus A$113.70 per day for food and other essentials. Therefore, the total cost of isolating a confirmed case in a hotel room for a typical isolation period of 14 days would be $4,069.80.

On the other hand, when a confirmed case is asked to self-isolate at home, we need to consider the cost of hospital care for other householders who might contract the virus.

The chance of spreading the virus to other household members, known as the household secondary attack rate (HSAR), is typically between 3% and 15%. But it could be higher depending on the environment and how aggressive the virus is. We assume the rate to be 15% with a household size of 2.6, the average for Australia.

Based on current data, an estimated 20% of cases will require hospitalisation, of which about 25% will be admitted to intensive care units. The average stay in hospital is reported as 16 days (with ten days in ICU) if the confirmed case needs critical care. Otherwise, the average is eight days on wards. The costs of one day in ICU and on wards in Australia are reported as A$5,000 and A$1,800 respectively.

On our calculations, the expected cost of self-isolating a confirmed case and exposing other household members would be $1,248.

This suggests the cost of isolating in a hotel room is significantly greater than for self-isolating at home in an average-sized household.

Read more: Melbourne’s hotel quarantine bungle is disappointing but not surprising. It was overseen by a flawed security industry

Household size matters

The household secondary attack rate is highly dependent on factors such as types of activities, duration of event, household ventilation and viral shedding. The rate can be as high as 100%. In other words, the whole household is infected.

Further analysis of the relationship between household size and secondary attack rate shows the cost of home isolation increases greatly and exceeds the cost of hotel isolation when household size is five people or more.

So, the decision on where to isolate an infected person needs to be re-evaluated when five or more people are living in the home. More than 10% of households in Australia have five or more members.

Read more: ‘Kissing can be dangerous’: how old advice for TB seems strangely familiar today

What does this mean for stopping the spread?

This analysis is particularly relevant to decisions on measures to contain outbreaks such as the isolation of whole buildings, as in Victoria.

The lockdown of public housing towers may be considered a larger case of “home isolation” where density and dwelling sizes may greatly increase the likely household attack rate. The increased risk of infection for individuals within the building or groups of buildings suggests hotel isolation could be both a safer and more cost-effective measure.

Read more: Overcrowding and affordability stress: Melbourne’s COVID-19 hotspots are also housing crisis hotspots

Facing the risks of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the government needs to consider multiple measures to control the spread of the virus. Although our findings show the cost of self-isolating a patient in his/her home is cheaper than a hotel room on average, this is not the case for all household sizes. Strategies such as testing, isolation and contact tracing, including use of the COVIDSafe app, can play a crucial role in the broader control of COVID-19.

– ref. Is aggressive hotel isolation worth the cost to fight COVID-19? The answer depends on family size – https://theconversation.com/is-aggressive-hotel-isolation-worth-the-cost-to-fight-covid-19-the-answer-depends-on-family-size-142283

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Burke, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Putting a price on carbon should reduce emissions, because it makes dirty production processes more expensive than clean ones, right?

That’s the economic theory. Stated baldly, it’s obvious, but there is perhaps a tiny chance that what happens in practice might be something else.

In a newly-published paper, we set out the results of the largest-ever study of what happens to emissions from fuel combustion when they attract a charge.

We analysed data for 142 countries over more than two decades, 43 of which had a carbon price of some form by the end of the study period.

Read more: Explainer: Australia’s carbon price mechanism in six dot points

The results show that countries with carbon prices on average have annual carbon dioxide emissions growth rates that are about two percentage points lower than countries without a carbon price, after taking many other factors into account.

By way of context, the average annual emissions growth rate for the 142 countries was about 2% per year.

This size of effect adds up to very large differences over time. It is often enough to make the difference between a country having a rising or a declining emissions trajectory.

Emissions tend to fall in countries with carbon prices

A quick look at the data gives a first clue.

The figure below shows countries that had a carbon price in 2007 as a black triangle, and countries that did not as a green circle.

On average, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 2% per year over 2007–2017 in countries with a carbon price in 2007 and increased by 3% per year in the others.

Carbon dioxide emissions growth in countries with and without a carbon price in 2007

The difference between an increase of 3% per year and a decrease of 2% per year is five percentage points. Our study finds that about two percentage points of that are due to the carbon price, with the remainder due to other factors.

The challenge was pinning down the extent to which the change was due to the implementation of a carbon price and the extent to which it was due to a raft of other things happening at the same time, including improving technologies, population and economic growth, economic shocks, measures to support renewables and differences in fuel tax rates.

We controlled for a long list of other factors, including the use of other policy instruments.

It would be reasonable to expect a higher carbon price to have bigger effects, and this is indeed what we found.

On average an extra euro per tonne of carbon dioxide price is associated with a lowering in the annual emissions growth rate in the sectors it covers of about 0.3 percentage points.

Lessons for Australia

The message to governments is that carbon pricing almost certainly works, and typically to great effect.

While a well-designed approach to reducing emissions would include other complementary policies such as regulations in some sectors and support for low-carbon research and development, carbon pricing should ideally be the centrepiece of the effort.

Unfortunately, the politics of carbon pricing have been highly poisoned in Australia, despite it being popular in a number of countries with conservative governments including Britain and Germany. Even Australia’s Labor opposition seems to have given up.

Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Australia’s two-year experiment with carbon pricing delivered emissions reductions as the economy grew. It was working as designed.

Read more: One year on from the carbon price experiment, the rebound in emissions is clear

Groups such as the Business Council of Australia that welcomed the abolition of the carbon price back in 2014 are now calling for an effective climate policy with a price signal at its heart.

Carbon pricing elsewhere

The results of our study are highly relevant to many governments, especially those in industrialising and developing countries, that are weighing up their options.

The world’s top economics organisations including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development continue to call for expanded use of carbon pricing.

If countries are keen on a low-carbon development model, the evidence suggests that putting an appropriate price on carbon is a very effective way of achieving it.

An open-access version of this research is available here.

– ref. Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt – https://theconversation.com/carbon-pricing-works-the-largest-ever-study-puts-it-beyond-doubt-142034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona David, Visiting Fellow, University of Western Australia

In previous recessions in Australia, far larger numbers of men than women lost their jobs. This reflected realities at that time. Men had higher levels of workforce participation than women, and the construction and manufacturing industries were particularly hard hit.

But in 2020, the composition of the workforce has changed. While far from even, today, women’s participation in the economy sits at 61% compared to 71% for men.

Recent payroll statistics show both men and women are losing their jobs in the pandemic, although women were particularly hard hit in its early stages.

Of course, paid employment is not the only work that gets done. Historically women have carried the bulk of caring work.

Statistics from the government’s gender agency suggest during COVID-19, more women than men are reporting heavier caring responsibilities, both for children and adults, as well as housework.

This context is important to keep in mind when noting the government’s COVID-19 childcare relief package ended on Monday. Under the package, the government’s various childcare subsidy payments were suspended and it provided childcare centres with 50% of the hourly rate cap based on enrolment numbers between February 19 and March 2.

Parents were not required to pay fees. Now, the pre-existing complex system of subsidies has been reinstated and parents will once again be charged fees.

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

Added to this, the JobKeeper payment will end from July 20 for employees of childcare providers, which will impact childcare workers as well as cooks, managers, admin staff and cleaners in these centres.

There will be A$708 million in funding for services to replace JobKeeper from July 13 until September 27. This money will be used to pay childcare services 25% of the fee revenue they received before COVID-19 saw parents pulling children out of attendance.

The end of this package is a double hit to women. It hits an industry mostly staffed by women, and removes free child-care when women are struggling with increased caring responsibilities and job losses.

This is deeply concerning from the perspective of gender equity. But if that is not reason enough, the economics of the decision should give pause for thought.

The system pushes women with children away from work

It is two years since accounting firm KPMG developed the “workforce disincentive rate” — a measure of the economic deterrence facing women wanting to return to work after having children, under our existing system of tax and benefits.

This rates the proportion of any extra earnings lost to a family after taking account of additional income tax paid, loss of family payments, loss of childcare payments and increased out-of-pocket childcare costs when women return to work after having children.

A 100% workforce disincentive rate means a family is no better off with the mother working more hours. A rate of more than 100% indicates the family is financially worse off when the mother works additional hours.

The KPMG study found workforce disincentive rates of between 75-120% are common for mothers seeking to increase their work beyond three days a week.

This means that, in many cases, women working additional days or taking additional shifts under the old system are financially worse off.

The study found professional, university-educated women are disproportionately affected.

Read more: Quality childcare has become a necessity for Australian families, and for society. It’s time the government paid up

Often, their fourth or fifth working day will cause the family’s income to exceed a threshold, significantly reducing the family’s childcare subsidy entitlement.

This means that while many women return to part-time work after having children, far fewer return to full-time work. And this has flow-on effects throughout the economy and impedes the career progression of women.

This is the economics of the system to which Australian families have just been returned. This is the economics that needs to be urgently reconsidered, given our shared imperitive to find ways to stimulate economic growth.

Economic recovery depends on women

Australia’s economic recovery depends on finding ways to support and unlock economic growth and jobs. One way to do this is to unlock the productivity gains that come from increasing women’s workforce participation.

KPMG estimates even halving the gap between male and female workforce participation would increase our annual GDP by A$60 billion over the next two decades.

One of the barriers to women going to work is the cost of childcare. We see the results in the labour force statistics. Women make up 37.7% of all full-time employees and 68.2% of all part-time employees.

Read more: COVID-19 has laid bare how much we value women’s work, and how little we pay for it

Australian families have now had a taste of what it is like to the have access to fee-free childcare. Statistics are not available yet to enable us to understand exactly who took advantage of this system, but one thing is for certain. The economics of fee-free childcare are fundamentally different to the economics of the old system of childcare, which involved a complex interaction between subsidies and tax transfers.

It is possible fee-free childcare saw some women either being able to afford to return to work or increase their working hours.

For too long, Australian working women have literally carried the cost of childcare, and suffered the impact on their own careers.

It is time to recognise that delivering a new system of childcare, that does not disincentivise working women, would not only support our combined efforts to achieve gender equality, it would also constitute a major economic reform with benefits for everyone.

– ref. We need a new childcare system that encourages women to work, not punishes them for it – https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-new-childcare-system-that-encourages-women-to-work-not-punishes-them-for-it-142275

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack of putting her readers in uncomfortable places in her fiction. In her short story Gender Studies she puts you in the middle of a hotel tryst between a Clinton-supporting professor and a Trump-supporting shuttle bus driver. In The Nominee, a journalist vomits on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In Rodham, Sittenfeld returns to the former First Lady, but with a twist. An imagined memoir, Rodham is propelled by a “what if” thought experiment: what if, in 1975, Hillary left Bill?

It is an alternative reality page turner, and a welcome escapist read in these difficult times.

But how does the book play with the historical record?

Year of the Woman

Sittenfeld’s first turning point in Hillary’s political career is while she watches the 1991 Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings from her colleague’s office at Northwestern University.

In both the true and imagined histories — despite clear evidence Thomas had sexually harassed his former employee Anita Hill — a predominantly male Senate confirmed Thomas’s appointment.

The backlash against these widely watched hearings led to 1992 being dubbed the “Year of the Woman” when a record number of women ran and were elected to the US Congress.

In the novel, Hillary runs and defeats Carol Moseley Braun in the Democrat primary. In real life, Braun won this race to become the first ever black female Senator.

The 60 Minutes interview

It is credibly claimed Hillary’s strength in 1992’s infamous 60 Minutes interview saved Bill’s candidacy.

I have watched the real interview with Hillary many times with my students. Questioned about Bill’s alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers, the interview was a watershed moment in the changing attitude of the media towards politicians’ sex lives.

The interview is tough to first watch: why should any couple’s most private affairs be discussed on television like this? What good does it serve?

On re-watching the interview, I am struck by the effective way in which Bill and Hillary talk down the interviewer and control the narrative. Hillary particularly does this with her famous statement:

I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honour what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And you know, if that’s not enough for people, then heck — don’t vote for him.

In Sittenfeld’s imagined interview, Bill’s publicity-shy wife, Sarah Grace, breaks down and cries, effectively ending Bill’s run for presidency.

Sexism in politics

Rodham does an excellent job at detailing the many forms of sexism women face in academia and politics. In the first part of the novel, Professor Rodham is a successful law academic whose male students and colleagues say things they would never say to male academics.

Such double standards are also highlighted by the fictional Hillary once she enters politics as a Senator for Illinois. She laments:

The extra time female politicians were expected to spend on our appearance, known as the pink tax, amounted to an hour a day for me, but I’d learned the hard way that this was necessary. In the past, whenever I didn’t have my hair and makeup professionally done, the media would speculate about whether I was ill or exhausted.

In a delicious plot line, Bill and Hillary end up competing against each other in the 2016 Presidential primaries which leads Hillary to ask: “You know when true equality will be achieved? When a woman with these kinds of skeletons in her closet has the nerve to run for the office.”

Truths and half-truths

The novel draws on the rumours published in Vanity Fair and elsewhere of Bill Clinton’s affairs and involvement in sex parties, as well as discussing the long-standing allegation he raped a female campaign volunteer in the 1970s.

Read more: Weiner’s erotic mediation: Bill Clinton’s sex vs Anthony Weiner’s sexting

In the novel Hillary’s long-time mentor Gwen Greenberger, an African American children’s right advocate, is stand-in for a few significant figures in Hillary’s actual life, including the very impressive Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.

The novel also features James, a stand in character for Hillary Clinton’s friend and fellow partner at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, Vince Foster, who died by suicide leading to conspiracy theories against the Clintons.

An appeal to experience

Throughout Rodham, Sittenfeld dissects the question of Hillary’s “likeability” by the press and the American people. In a killer debate response (that I wish she had given in 2016) she says:

[I]f you want someone to look out for the interests of the American people, for your family, for you – someone who understands the economy and education and health care and foreign policy … then vote for me.

In the real election in 2016, too many Americans ignored this appeal to experience and competence and tragically they have ended up with a president that cares little about governing or even the rising death toll of his own people.

The truth has turned out to be more unbelievable than Sittenfeld’s fiction.

– ref. Fiction, fact and Hillary Clinton: an American politics expert reads Rodham – https://theconversation.com/fiction-fact-and-hillary-clinton-an-american-politics-expert-reads-rodham-142478

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney

From next year, access to e-cigarettes and related products containing liquid nicotine will require a doctor’s prescription. This is to ensure liquid nicotine is handled like the poisonous, addictive substance it is and not promoted to young people. It’s good news for public health and bad news for the tobacco and e-cigarette industries.

This restriction comes into effect from January 1 2021, six months later than originally proposed.

It’s not a ban on importing e-cigarettes. But it will close loopholes between established prohibitions on the supply and sale of nicotine at the federal level, and state and territory laws restricting access to nicotine.

Here’s the evidence to show why closing the loophole between health regulations, customs regulations and state and territory laws is good news for the nation’s health.

Read more: Twelve myths about e-cigarettes that failed to impress the TGA

The so-called benefits of e-cigs don’t stand up

There have only been a small number of quality reviews on the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes for the whole population (rather than for individual people). They draw the same conclusions.

CSIRO and the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine reviews found the evidence for e-cigarettes helping people quit smoking is inconclusive. The reviews also found e-cigarettes are harmful in their own right and associated with increased smoking and nicotine use in young people.

A 2017 review from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council drew similar conclusions.

Australian regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration or TGA, found no evidence to support the sale of e-cigarettes as a “therapeutic good”; the evidence of therapeutic benefit was inconclusive. Nor has the TGA found evidence to relax existing poison safety controls that require liquid nicotine access to be authorised by a doctor.

Despite the e-cigarette industry’s claims and further promotion that “e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful” than smoking traditional cigarettes, there is no scientific basis for this either.

Protecting young people

Tobacco companies and retailers claim e-cigarettes are an effective quit aid and are targeted at adult smokers who need them.

However, the tobacco industry and retail sector promote e-cigarettes through youth-friendly events, such as music festivals, and through social media by using influencers and celebrities, including singer Lily Allen.

And the promotion of flavoured e-cigarette products — strawberry, doughnut or banana, for instance — could create a generation of nicotine addicts.

So, Australia’s latest move will protect young people and avoid the fate of countries like the US, where e-cigarette use in secondary school children has increased 78% in just 12 months.

Parents and teachers are now seeing more e-cigarette use in Australian schools. It is telling that the largest growing segment in e-cigarette use in Australia is in 18 to 24-year-old non-smokers and use has also risen among 12 to 17-year-olds.

What about quitters?

There are individuals who feel e-cigarettes help reduce the harms of smoked tobacco, and doctors who agree with them.

Read more: Why the ban on nicotine vape fluid will do more harm than good

Given the toxicity and addictiveness of liquid nicotine, it is entirely appropriate to close loopholes that until now have enabled it to be acquired with no medical authority.

This is no different from controls around other harmful substances, such as methadone for treating heroin addiction.

There are two key differences with e-cigarettes. One, the case has not been made within an evidence-based framework that the products are safe and effective for widespread distribution; and two, they are being pushed through retailers operating outside the health system.

Is this the end of the line for e-cigarettes in Australia?

The government’s proposal is not closing the door to evidence or to options that may work for some individuals with a legitimate need to access these products. It is closing a door that exploits a disconnect between the poison and import laws to protect young Australians.

The restrictions will also prevent profiteers from addicting young Australians to harmful, novel products. Evidence on the benefits of e-cigarettes remains inconclusive but the risks to young Australians are increasingly clear.

Read more: Australia’s decisive win on plain packaging paves way for other countries to follow suit

– ref. Making it harder to import e-cigarettes is good news for our health, especially young people’s – https://theconversation.com/making-it-harder-to-import-e-cigarettes-is-good-news-for-our-health-especially-young-peoples-141986

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology

The sentencing of the Christchurch mosque killer was always going to be tense. Having admitted his guilt in March, his declaration that he would now represent himself at the hearing on August 24 only adds to that tension.

Can he do this? Essentially, yes. Legal representation is a right, but people can choose not to exercise a right. His lawyers informed the court of his wish to represent himself and the judge, Justice Mander, allowed them to withdraw from the case – after checking that the defendant was clear about waiving his right.

The criminal courts deal with horrendous cases regularly, so squeamishness cannot be the touchstone for what is permitted.

Parliament has introduced some limits. For example, the Evidence Act 2006 prevents defendants in sex cases and family violence cases from cross-examining the complainant. Nor can they question child witnesses without the court’s permission.

The importance of victim impact statements

More pertinent to this case, there are limits relating to victim impact statements under the Victims’ Rights Act 2002, which prevents defendants from keeping those statements.

The Christchurch killer’s sentencing hearing is set to last several days in large part because of the number of victim impact statements that will have to be presented.

The judge can direct that statements not be shown to the defendant to protect the safety or security of the victim, but that material cannot then be taken into account at sentencing.

This in turn explains why defendants are entitled to see statements – they are designed to have an effect on their sentence. It would not be a fair trial if the defendant was subject to secret evidence, and any impression there has not been a fair process is to be avoided.

Read more: Explainer: will life mean life when the Christchurch mosque killer is sentenced?

The role of stand-by counsel

Multiple issues of law may arise in this sentencing. For example, who is the “victim” of a terrorism offence and so allowed to give a victim impact statement? Is it the entire Muslim community?

The most obvious question is whether this crime merits a whole life sentence. A life sentence is inevitable given the number of murders and the terrorist motivation. But will this be the first time a New Zealand judge declares there will never be eligibility for parole?

To assist the court the judge has said “stand-by counsel” will be appointed. Their job will be to help the court reach a correct decision on those questions of law.

They may also be asked to help identify points in favour of the defendant from medical and pre-sentencing reports, and perhaps ensure that victim impact statements address what the law permits.

Will the defendant appear in person?

Because the person speaking for the defendant is the defendant, this may affect some rulings. Firstly, it may be more likely he attends in person.

The defendant has already appeared before the High Court via audio-visual link. Under the Courts (Remote Participation) Act 2010, this is permitted in most instances. While it can’t be used for a trial unless the defendant consents, it may be used for sentencing if it is “not contrary to the interests of justice”.

Although the defendant has confessed to the crimes, his sentencing hearing may still involve disputes about the facts of his offending, which could require a mini-trial to resolve them.

Read more: Life in prison looms for Australia’s Christchurch gunman, now NZ’s first convicted terrorist

There may be evidence called from the authors of medical and pre-sentencing reports. There may be disputes about the victim impact statements. And the defendant’s right to see those statements presents challenges if he is not there.

These and other issues that might arise will require a high level of confidence that an audio-visual link is suitable if the defendant indicates he wants to be present.

What are the risks of hate speech?

It’s unwise to speculate about the defandant’s motives for waiving the right to representation. Nevertheless, there may be legitimate concerns about any attempt by him to use the hearing to grandstand.

The key point here is that the hearing is not about his guilt but about the proper sentence. So, unless he can show that his guilty pleas were improper, the hearing will be concerned with a narrow range of issues governed by the Sentencing Act 2002.

This imposes a structure on the sentencing process. The judge needs to consider the facts of the offending, any aggravating factors and any mitigation that can be offered. As such, submissions and statements from the defendant have to be relevant to these issues. They will usually be notified in writing in advance.

The defendant’s motivation for his crimes is relevant to sentence. However, because he has admitted the terrorism charge, his motivation is not in dispute. That should allow the judge to control the hearing firmly.

A fair process is both possible and essential. Giving a terrorist murderer any grounds to complain about unfairness must be avoided.

– ref. How will the court deal with the Christchurch mosque killer representing himself at sentencing? – https://theconversation.com/how-will-the-court-deal-with-the-christchurch-mosque-killer-representing-himself-at-sentencing-142554

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kerrie Davies, Lecturer, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW

Review: A Room Made of Leaves, Text Publishing

Some time ago, during the renovation of a historic house in Sydney, a tin box, sealed with wax and wrapped in oiled canvas, was found wedged under a beam in the roof cavity. The house was Elizabeth Farm…

So begins A Room Made of Leaves’ editor’s note, detailing the discovery of the “long lost secret memoirs” of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of colonial wool baron John Macarthur. The “editor and transcriber” is Kate Grenville, author of the acclaimed colonial novel based on her family history, The Secret River.

The discovery scenario is irresistibly believable. This month, a WWII diary was found at a Woolworths in Sydney’s North Shore. In 2011, James Bell’s 1838 account of his journey to Australia was published after being discovered at a market stall. In 2018, Miles Franklin’s final 1954 diary was discovered in an old suitcase.

Elizabeth Macarthur’s actual journal detailing her voyage on the Second Fleet was discovered at her daughter’s home in England, extracts of which were published as Some Early Records of the Macarthurs of Camden in 1914.

Grenville’s imaginary memoir of Elizabeth slips into the space between hoax and history, the paradox of purporting to be true while declaring it is not. Grenville openly plays with memoir’s “autobiographical pact”, where the reader unquestionably accepts an autobiography as truth. While a novel requires a suspension of disbelief, Grenville asks the reader to suspend their belief, akin to Peter Carey’s “feat of imposture”, True History of the Kelly Gang.

Read more: True History of the Kelly Gang review: an unheroic portrait of a violent, unhinged, colonial punk

Grenville so convincingly creates Elizabeth’s voice it is easy to forget her opening warning: “Do not believe too quickly!”

Remains unsaid

In Grenville’s telling of Elizabeth’s telling of her marriage to John Macarthur, Elizabeth astutely understands how to manage the patriarchy rather than be a “true helpmate” to her husband as she is introduced in the family history.

She writes of the notoriously difficult John: “He could not be trusted not to destroy our hopes.” Elizabeth believes John is “dangerously unbalanced”.

Through her revision of the Macarthurs’ relationship, Grenville’s imaginary memoir joins the litany of (imaginary and authentic) revisionist biographies of wives overlooked or derided because of their husband’s fame.

Read more: #ThanksforTyping: the women behind famous male writers

Elizabeth’s friendship with astronomer William Dawes is the central relationship. Grenville’s 2008 novel The Lieutenant was loosely based on Dawes, and she was inspired to write this imaginary memoir after reading Elizabeth’s passing reference to Dawes in an actual letter describing her astronomy lessons with the scientist and naval officer: “I blush at my error”.

This blush becomes a motif throughout A Room Made of Leaves: of the true nature of their friendship, and for what remains unsaid. “I blush at my error” was, in Grenville’s eyes, a rare glimpse of Elizabeth’s feelings hidden in what Grenville describes in her editor’s note as otherwise “unrevealing” and “dull” correspondence.

As in The Secret River, Grenville once again writes of a brutal history of colonisation and resistance. Sensitive to previous suggestions of whitewashing (which she has refuted at length), in A Room Made of Leaves Grenville expresses her gratitude to the Darug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation and the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council for their assistance in writing the book.

After being told of the Battle of Parramatta led by resistance leader, Pemulwuy, Elizabeth visits the battle site and alludes to dominant colonial accounts:

There was nothing to show what had happened. Only the words of that story, snipped out and pasted onto the air.

Filling the silence

There is historical precedence for reading Elizabeth’s actual letters with the eye for the unsaid. 18th and 19th century women’s life writing was written with the expectation it was not private and adhered to social conventions of behaviour. Self-censorship and “silences in the archives” abound.

As Elizabeth, Grenville fills the silences:

I composed a glorious romance about all this for my mother. I would not lie, not outright. I set myself a more interesting path: to make sure that my lies occupied the same space as the truth.

Michelle Scott Tucker’s referenced biography, Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World is a tempting companion to come back to reality after reading A Room Made of Leaves. But Grenville’s Elizabeth stays with you.

As you see more curls of truth in Tucker’s biography that appear in Grenville’s imaginary memoir, you wonder about how the real Elizabeth felt — rather than what actually happened.

– ref. Review: Kate Grenville’s A Room Made of Leaves fills the silence of the archives – https://theconversation.com/review-kate-grenvilles-a-room-made-of-leaves-fills-the-silence-of-the-archives-141985

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Clarke, Director, Monash Drone Discovery Platform, and Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Monash University

This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore the project here and read related articles here.

As we stepped out of a military helicopter on Victoria’s east coast in February, smoke towered into the sky. We’d just flown over a blackened landscape extending as far as the eye could see. Now we were standing in an active fireground, and the stakes were high.

Emergency helicopter rescues aren’t usually part of a day’s work for conservation scientists. But for eastern bristlebirds, a potential disaster loomed.

Our mission was to catch 15-20 bristlebirds and evacuate them to Melbourne Zoo. This would provide an insurance population of this globally endangered species if their habitat was razed by the approaching fire.

As climate change grows ever worse, such rescues will be more common. Ours showed how it can be done.

The plight of the eastern bristlebird

Such a rescue may seem like a lot of effort for a small, plain brown bird. But eastern bristlebirds are important to Australia’s biodiversity.

They continue an ancient lineage of songbirds that dates back to the Gondwanan supercontinent millions of years ago. They’re reminders of wild places that used to exist, unchanged by humans.

Read more: Yes, the Australian bush is recovering from bushfires – but it may never be the same

These days, coastal development has shrunk the eastern bristlebird’s habitat. The birds are feeble flyers, and so populations die out when their habitat patches become too small.

Fewer than 2,500 individuals remain, spread across three locations on Australia’s east coast including a 400-strong population that straddles the Victoria-New South Wales border at Cape Howe. Losing them would be a huge blow to the species’ long term prospects.

A rollercoaster ride

On the day of our rescue, bushfires had been raging on Australia’s east coast for several months. The so-called Snowy complex fire that started in late December had razed parts of Mallacoota on New Year’s Eve then burnt into NSW. Now, more than a month later, that same fire had crossed back over the state border and was burning into Cape Howe.

Our 11-person field team had two chances over consecutive mornings. Using special nets, we caught nine eastern bristlebirds on one morning, and six the next. As we worked, burnt leaves caught in our nets – a tangible reminder of how close the fire was.

The captured birds were health-checked then whisked – first by 4WD, then boat and car – to a waiting flight to Melbourne. From there they were driven to special enclosures at Melbourne Zoo.

On the second day a wind change intensified the bushfire and cut short our time. As we evacuated under a darkening sky, it seemed unlikely Cape Howe would escape the flames.

In the ensuing days, the fire moved agonisingly close to the site until a favourable wind change spared it.

But tragedy struck days later when fire tore through eastern bristlebird habitat on the NSW side of Cape Howe. Many of the 250 individuals that lived there are presumed dead.

And despite the best efforts of vets and expert keepers at Melbourne Zoo, six of our captive birds succumbed to a fungal respiratory infection in the weeks after their arrival, which they were all likely carrying when captured.

Return to Cape Howe

Against the odds, bristlebird habitat on the Victorian side of Cape Howe remained unburnt. So in early April, we released a little flock of seven back into the wild.

We’d initially planned to attach tiny transmitters to some released bristlebirds to monitor how they settled back into their home. But COVID-19 restrictions forced us to cancel this intensive fieldwork.

Instead, each bristlebird was fitted with a uniquely coloured leg band. As restrictions ease, our team will return to Cape Howe to see how the colour-banded birds have fared.

A model for the future

The evacuation involved collaboration between government agencies and non-government organisations, with especially important coordination and oversight by Zoos Victoria, the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Parks Victoria.

This team moved mountains of logistical hurdles. A rescue mission that would ordinarily take more than a year to plan was completed in weeks.

Read more: After the bushfires, we helped choose the animals and plants in most need. Here’s how we did it

So was it all worth it? We strongly believe the answer is yes. The team did what was needed for the worst-case scenario; ultimately that scenario was avoided by a mere whisker.

But climate change is heightening fire danger and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Soberingly, further emergency wildlife evacuations will probably be needed to prevent extinctions in future. Our mission will serve as a model for these interventions.

– ref. Our helicopter rescue may seem a lot of effort for a plain little bird, but it was worth it – https://theconversation.com/our-helicopter-rescue-may-seem-a-lot-of-effort-for-a-plain-little-bird-but-it-was-worth-it-138818

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Marsh, Research fellow at the Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University

This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore the project here and read related articles here.

I’m standing on a hill in Kangaroo Island’s Western River Wilderness Protection Area, looking over steep gullies and sweeping hillsides. As far as I can see, the landscape is burnt: bright patches of regrowth contrast with skeletal, blackened trunks. It’s stark, yet strangely beautiful.

It’s late May, five months after the catastrophic summer fires burned 90% of the park. I’m here to assess the damage to some of our tiniest Australians.

Much attention has been given to the plight of Kangaroo Island’s iconic birds and mammals – the Glossy Black Cockatoo and the Kangaroo Island Dunnart, for example. However, the invertebrates – spiders, insects and myriad other groups – have largely been overlooked. These groups contain some of Australia’s most threatened species.

Among the invertebrates listed by the federal government as a priority for intervention is an unassuming, brownish-black spider with squat legs and a body about the size of a A$2 coin. Its name: the Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spider (Moggridgea rainbowi).

The trials it now faces offer an insight into the enormous challenges ahead for invertebrates – the tiny engines of Australia’s biodiversity – in the wake of last summer’s cataclysmic fires.

Read more: Don’t like spiders? Here are 10 reasons to change your mind

The sea-faring spider

The Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spider has an interesting history. It is the only member of its genus found in Australia, its closest relative being in Africa. Studies show it arrived here between 2 and 16 million years ago, likely rafting across the ocean on vegetation! A true voyager.

Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spiders exist only on Kangaroo Island. They live in short, 6cm burrows, built neatly into creek banks. They are slow, calm spiders, spending most of their time in their burrow, determinedly holding the door shut with their fangs.

The females care for their young; I have opened a trapdoor to find 20 tiny spiders living together with their mother. When ready, the young disperse short distances to build burrows of their own, tiny versions of the adult’s.

Assessing the damage

My colleagues and I are in this conservation park today to locate patches of less fiercely burnt land in which to look for survivors. Sadly, all the known western populations of this enigmatic spider were destroyed. I am yet to find any survivors in the fire ground, but it is early days.

We will be out here for the next year or so, walking hundreds of kilometres of creek lines, searching for signs of life. There is a lot of land out there. Around 210,000 hectares was burnt, almost half of Kangaroo Island. I remain hopeful that some colonies have survived.

If we find some Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spiders – what then?

Surviving the initial blaze is the first step in the struggle for survival. The post-fire environment has many threats – habitat loss, exposure to hungry predators, weeds. Today, I noticed areas where soil, loosened by fire, has washed into creeks, completely burying them.

If we find some surviving individuals, we’ll protect them by installing sediment control, removing weeds and monitoring them in future.

Why should we care?

Not everyone loves spiders. I get that. But the functions invertebrates perform are vital. Our ecosystem relies on them; humans rely on them. Yet collectively our understanding of invertebrates – their importance and their value – is dangerously low.

The Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor Spider plays its own role the ecosystem. It is a predator, but we don’t really know what it eats. It’s a food source for birds, mammals or reptiles, but we don’t know what eats it. So, why should we care?

Firstly, I firmly believe every species has its own intrinsic value; every extinction, although a natural part of life, is a loss.

Secondly, the ecosystem is so complicated we don’t know exactly how the loss of one species will impact its prey, the parasites that live on it or its predators. And when we’re facing multiple extinctions, these effects could be devastating.

The Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spider, the Kangaroo Island Assassin Spider, the Green Carpenter Bee – we only know these species are threatened because scientists like me have spent years or decades studying them.

But the majority of Australia’s invertebrate species are yet to be discovered. Many will be similarly at risk, but we have no way of measuring the scale of risk or the repercussions. That’s a fact we should all find scary.

There is hope, though. It’s not yet over for these species. Work such as ours is a step towards understanding how worsening bushfires will affect these vital, but often forgotten, members of our ecosystem.

Read more: Bushfires: can ecosystems recover from such dramatic losses of biodiversity?

– ref. I’m searching firegrounds for surviving Kangaroo Island Micro-trapdoor spiders. 6 months on, I’m yet to find any – https://theconversation.com/im-searching-firegrounds-for-surviving-kangaroo-island-micro-trapdoor-spiders-6-months-on-im-yet-to-find-any-139556

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Lintermans, Associate professor, University of Canberra

This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore the project here and read related articles here.

On a coastal holiday last summer, I was preoccupied. Bushfires were tearing through southeast Australia, and one in particular had me worried. Online maps showed it moving towards the last remaining population of a plucky little fish, the stocky galaxias.

I’ve worked in threatened fish conservation and management for more than 35 years, but this species is special to me.

The stocky galaxias was formally described as a new species in 2014. Its only known population lives in a short stretch of stream in Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales. A single event could wipe them out.

On January 2 the bushfires forced my family and I to evacuate our holiday home. As we returned to Canberra, I was still worried. Fire maps showed the stocky’s stream virtually surrounded by fire.

A few days later, I prepared for an emergency rescue.

In critical danger

The stocky galaxias is the monarch of its small stream; the only fish species present. I’ve been trying to protect the stocky galaxias before it was even formally recognised.

Over the last century or more, the species has seen off threats from predatory trout, storms, droughts and bushfires. Snowy 2.0 is the latest danger.

It’s listed as critically endangered in NSW and is being assessed for a federal threatened listing. Before the fires, there were probably no more than 1,000-2,000 adults left in the wild.

Read more: After the bushfires, we helped choose the animals and plants in most need. Here’s how we did it

As the fires burned, I knew we had to move quickly. I wanted to collect up to 200 stocky galaxias and take them away for safekeeping.

Rainfall after bushfires is major threat to fish, because it washes ash and sediment into streams. Storms were forecast for the afternoon of January 15. So early that morning, myself and two colleagues, escorted by two staff from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, drove to the stocky galaxias stream.

A colleague and I waded in and began electrofishing. This involved passing an electrical current through water, stunning fish momentarily so we could catch them.

After 45 minutes we’d collected 68 healthy stocky galaxias. Woohoo! Further downstream we collected 74 more. By now, fire burned along the stream edge. We packed the fish into drums in the back of my car and drove out.

We headed to the NSW Department of Primary Industries’ trout hatchery at Jindabyne, where we measured each fish and took a genetic sample. I felt immensely relieved and satisfied that we’d potentially saved a species from extinction.

The fish have been thriving in the hatchery building. Stocky galaxias have never been kept in captivity before, but our years of field work told us the temperatures they encountered in the wild, so holding tanks could be set up appropriately.

Read more: Conservation scientists are grieving after the bushfires — but we must not give up

Back to the stream

The captive fish can be used for breeding, but the species has never been captive-bred before and this is not a trivial task.

When they’re reintroduced to the wild, the sites must be free of trout, and other invasive fish like climbing galaxias. Natural or artificial barriers should be in place to prevent invasive fish invasion.

In late March I finally got back to the stocky galaxias’ stream to see whether they’d survived. At the lower stretch of its habitat, the fire was not severe and the stream habitat looked good, with only a small amount of ash and sediment.

Upstream, the fire had been more severe. At the edge of the stream, heath was razed and patches of sphagnum moss were burnt. Again, sediment in the stream was not too abundant. But fish numbers were lower than normal, suggesting some there had not survived.

The fight’s not over

The stocky galaxias species might have survived yet another peril, but the battle isn’t over.

Feral horse numbers in Kosciuszko National Park have increased dramatically in the last decade. They’ve degraded the banks of the stocky galaxias’ stream, making it wider and shallower and filling sections with fine sediment. This smothers the fish’s food resources, spawning sites and eggs.

Before the fires, plans were already afoot to fence off much of the stocky galaxias habitat to keep horses out. Fire damage to the park has delayed construction until early 2021.

Read more: Snowy 2.0 threatens to pollute our rivers and wipe out native fish

The biggest long-term threat to the species is the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro development. It threatens to transfer an invasive native fish, the climbing galaxias, to within reach of stocky galaxias habitat. There, it would compete for food with, and prey on, stocky galaxias – probably pushing it into extinction.

Despite this risk, in May this year the NSW government approved the Snowy 2.0 expansion, with approval conditions that I believe fail to adequately protect the stocky galaxias population. The project has also received federal approval.

Future in the balance

The stocky galaxias is unique and irreplaceable. I want my grandchildren to be able to show their grandchildren this little Aussie battler thriving in the wild.

The damage wrought by Snowy 2.0 may not be apparent for several decades. By then many politicians and bureaucrats now deciding the future of the stocky galaxias will be gone, as will I.

But 2020 will go down in history as the year the species was saved from fire, then condemned to possible extinction.

– ref. Double trouble: this plucky little fish survived Black Summer, but there’s worse to come – https://theconversation.com/double-trouble-this-plucky-little-fish-survived-black-summer-but-theres-worse-to-come-139921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum

This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore the project here and read related articles here.

Bushfires are a threat to most animal species. But for one rare lizard living on a rocky island in the sky, a single blaze could wipe the species off the planet.

The Kaputar rock skink (Egernia roomi) is thought to have have one of the smallest ranges of any reptile in New South Wales – at the summit of a single extinct volcano, Mount Kaputar.

The existence of this mysterious skink was informally known for decades, and in August last year the species was finally scientifically described. But months later, it may already be headed for extinction.

Late last year, bushfires are thought to have ripped through more than half the Kaputar rock skink’s habitat. We don’t yet know what this means for its survival, but the outlook is not good.

A very special skink

The Kaputar rock skink is handsome lizard, typically around 10 centimetres in body length, with dark chocolate brown and grey scales and an orange belly.

It’s found in the Nandewar Ranges near Narrabri. The ranges – weathered remnants of ancient volcanic eruptions between 21 and 17 million years ago – rise out of the surrounding plains in a series of breathtaking rock formations.

Read more: Double trouble: this plucky little fish survived Black Summer, but there’s worse to come

The Kaputar rock skink lives on one of these outcrops, Mount Kaputar. It exists on a narrow band of rock at the summit, more than 1,300 metres above sea level.

This high elevation areas is cooler than the surrounding plains, which suits this cool-adapted species perfectly. But the species’ tiny range means it’s highly vulnerable. When danger strikes, the Kaputar rock skink has nowhere to go.

When the fires hit

Bushfires tore through the Nandewar Ranges in October and November last year, reportedly burning more than 17,000 hectares of bush. More than half of Kaputar rock skink habitat is believed to have burned.

The expert panel advising the federal government on bushfire recovery has named the skink as one of 119 severely-affected species needing urgent conservation intervention. But the species’ rugged, remote habitat, combined with COVID-19 restrictions, have delayed efforts to assess the extent of the damage.

Read more: After the bushfires, we helped choose the animals and plants in most need. Here’s how we did it

It’s likely that many Kaputar rock skinks died during the fires themselves, although we hope others survived by crawling deep into rock cracks.

But after the fires, threats remain. Vegetation loss may make the skinks easy prey, and in a charred landscape, there may be little for the reptiles to eat.

History tells us fires do affect high-elevation skinks. For example, fire is thought to have driven the rock-dwelling Guthega skink (Liopholis guthega) to become locally extinct at some sites on the Bogong High Plains in northeast Victoria.

A mountain of threats

Species restricted to a small area are vulnerable to any loss of habitat. And fire is not the only threat to the Kaputar rock skink.

Climate change is a big concern. While many species respond to increasing temperatures by migrating uphill to cooler climes, that’s not possible for the skink, which is already precariously perched on a summit.

Read more: Sure, save furry animals after the bushfires – but our river creatures are suffering too

Introduced goats may also be taking a toll as they trample through the rocky terrain.

Evidence suggests humans are also a disturbance to the Kaputar rock skink’s habitat. The reptiles live close to the edge of cliff lines that are readily accessible by walking tracks. Trampling of low vegetation has been observed at many sites, as have disturbed rocks – the latter possibly from people wanting to find and photograph the species.

Where to now?

Scientists know relatively little about the Kaputar rock skink. One thing we’re sure of, though, is that the species’ existence is threatened.

Surveys are needed at known skink locations, as well as surrounding areas where it might lie undiscovered. Understanding where the species occurs and how it responds to fires, drought and other disturbances is critical to conservation efforts.

Read more: Our field cameras melted in the bushfires. When we opened them, the results were startling

Of course it’s the middle of winter now, so the skinks may not be very active on their cold mountain top. But my colleagues and I hope to travel to Mount Kaputar soon to survey the skink’s habitat and find out how the species fared.

It’s just months since science officially welcomed the Kaputar rock skink to the world. It’s far too early to say goodbye.

Dane Trembath, an Australian Museum biologist with a focus on reptiles, contributed to this article.

– ref. A few months ago, science gave this rare lizard a name – and it may already be headed for extinction – https://theconversation.com/a-few-months-ago-science-gave-this-rare-lizard-a-name-and-it-may-already-be-headed-for-extinction-140356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Otago

How did the Polynesian peoples come to live on the far-flung islands of the Pacific? The question has intrigued researchers for centuries.

Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl brought the topic to public attention when he sailed a balsa-wood raft called the Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. His goal was to demonstrate such voyages were possible, supporting theories linking Polynesian origins to the Americas.

Decades of research in archaeology, linguistics and genetics now show that Polynesian origins lie to the west, ultimately in the islands of southeast Asia. However, the myth of migrations from America has lingered in folk science and on conspiracy websites.

New evidence for American interlopers?

A new study published in Nature reports genetic evidence of Native American ancestry in several Polynesian populations. The work, by Alexander Ioannidis and colleagues, is based on a genetic analysis of 807 individuals from 17 island populations and 15 indigenous communities from South and Central America.

Other researchers have previously found evidence of indigenous American DNA in the genomes of the modern inhabitants of Rapa Nui. (Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is the part of Polynesia closest to South America.)

The estimated timing of these interactions, however, raised concerns. Analyses of DNA from ancient Rapa Nui skeletal remains found no evidence of such mingling, or admixture. This suggests the “Amerindian” genetic component was likely introduced later via Chilean colonists.

Ioannidis and colleagues found southern South American Indigenous DNA in the genomes – the genetic material – of modern Rapa Nui, but they claim it represents a second pulse of contact. They also found signs of earlier contact, coming from as far north as Colombia or even Mexico.

More novel was the fact that this earlier signal was also found in modern DNA samples collected in the 1980s from the Marquesas and the Tuamotu archipelagos. The researchers argue this likely traces to a single “contact event” around 1200 AD, and possibly as early as 1082 AD.

Both suggested dates for this first event are earlier than those generally accepted for the settlement of Rapa Nui (1200-1250 AD). The earlier date predates any archaeological evidence for human settlement of the Marquesas or any of the other islands on which it was identified.

Ioannidis and colleagues make sense of this by suggesting that perhaps “upon their arrival, Polynesian settlers encountered a small, already established, Native American population”.

Read more: What wind, currents and geography tell us about how people first settled Oceania

Follow the kūmara

The 1200 AD date and the more northerly location of the presumed contact on the South American continent are not unreasonable. They are consistent with the presence and distribution of the sweet potato, or kūmara.

This plant from the Americas is found throughout Eastern Polynesia. It gives us the strongest and most widely accepted archaeological and linguistic evidence of contact between Polynesia and South America.

Kūmara remains about 1,000 years old have been found in the Cook Islands in central Polynesia. When Polynesian colonists settled the extremes of the Polynesian triangle – Hawai’i, Rapa Nui, and Aotearoa New Zealand – between 1200 and 1300 AD, they brought kūmara in their canoes.

So contact with the Americas by that time fits with archaeological data. The suggestion that it was Native Americans who made the voyage, however, is where we think this argument goes off the rails.

A great feat of sailing

Polynesians are among the greatest navigators and sailors in the world. Their ancestors had been undertaking voyages on the open ocean for at least 3,000 years.

Double hulled Polynesian voyaging canoes were rapidly and systematically sailing eastwards across the Pacific. They would not have stopped until they hit the coast of the Americas. Then, they would have returned home, using their well proven skills in navigation and sailing.

While Heyerdahl showed American-made rafts could make it out to the Pacific, Indigenous Americans have no history of open ocean voyaging. Similarly, there is no archaeological evidence of pre-Polynesian occupation on any of the islands of Polynesia.

Read more: Chickens tell tale of human migration across Pacific

The limitations of genetic analysis

Genetic analyses attempting to reconstruct historical events based on data from modern populations are fraught with potential sources of error. Addressing questions where only a few hundred years make a major difference is particularly difficult.

Modelling population history needs to consider demographic impacts such as the massive depopulation caused by disease and other factors associated with European colonisation.

Ioannidis and colleagues took this into account for Rapa Nui, but not for the Marquesas. Estimates of population decline in the Marquesas from 20,000 in 1840 to around 3,600 by 1902 indicate a significant bottleneck.

The choice of comparative populations was also interesting. The only non-East Polynesian Pacific population used in analyses was from Vanuatu. Taiwanese Aboriginal populations were used as representatives of the “pure” Austronesian ancestral population for Polynesians.

This is wrong and overly simplistic. Polynesian genomes themselves are inherently admixed. They result from intermarriages between people probably from a homeland in island southeast Asia (not necessarily Taiwan) and other populations encountered en route through the Pacific.

Polynesian Y chromosomes and other markers show clear evidence of admixture with western Pacific populations. Excluding other Oceanic and Asian populations from the analyses may have skewed the results. Interestingly, the amount of Native American admixture identified in the Polynesian samples correlates with the amount of European admixture found in those populations.

Finally, like many recent population genetic studies, Ioannidis and colleagues did not look at sequences of the whole genome. Instead, they used what are called single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays.

SNP arrays are designed based on genetic variation identified through studies of primarily Asian, African and European genomes. Very few Pacific or other indigenous genomes were included in the databases used to design SNP arrays. This means variation in these populations may be misinterpreted or underestimated.

Summing up

While the results presented by Ioannidis and colleagues are very interesting, to fully understand them will require a level of scholarly engagement that may take some time.

Did contact between Polynesians and indigenous Americans happen? Significant evidence indicates that it did. Do these new data prove this? Perhaps, though there are a number of factors that need further investigation. Ideally, we would like to see evidence in ancient genetic samples. Engagement with the Pacific communities involved is also critical.

However, if the data and analyses are correct, did the process likely occur via the arrival of indigenous Americans, on their own, on an island in eastern Polynesia? This, we argue, is highly questionable.

– ref. Did ancient Americans settle in Polynesia? The evidence doesn’t stack up – https://theconversation.com/did-ancient-americans-settle-in-polynesia-the-evidence-doesnt-stack-up-142383

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Phillips, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Australian National University

New research on disadvantage in Australia has found the gap between rich and poor is very wide in Sydney, while much of Queensland struggles with educational disadvantage and regional NSW and Victoria are both more disadvantaged when it comes to health.

Previous research on poverty has placed a heavy emphasis on income and economic outcomes at a given point in time. But disadvantage often goes beyond just economic factors. It’s also necessary to analyse the educational, health and social inequities in society to get a more accurate understanding of disadvantage.

At the core of our new research, published in our Mapping the Potential report, is the idea that disadvantage in Australia is more varied and complex than many people may think.

How we conducted our research

This research, conducted by the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and commissioned by Catholic Social Services Australia, expands on the socioeconomic indexes produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics by adding more detailed variables across health, education, social and economic domains.

We also incorporated a “persistence” element to disadvantage – in that, disadvantage isn’t tied to a singular point in time, but persists for a longer period.

In our research, disadvantage was data-driven. And to quantify disadvantage, we chose variables that were generally considered relevant for each area. For economic disadvantage, for instance, we looked at low incomes, low-skilled jobs and unemployment. Areas with a large share of people with these characteristics tended to be more disadvantaged.

Health disadvantage was based on various chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, heart and circulatory conditions, and obesity.

Educational disadvantage focused on levels of educational attainment and child educational disadvantage – both cognitive and physical development. We used data from the Australian Educational Development Census to gauge this.

Social disadvantage was less clearly defined. We focused on variables that contribute to social capital, or the interpersonal networks that help a society function effectively. Regions with social disadvantage, for example, tended to have low rates of volunteering, internet connection and social cohesion.

Geographically, we analysed these variables at the SA2 level (areas comprised roughly of suburbs and towns) across Australia. We then aggregated the results to the federal electorate level to avoid singling out and possibly stigmatising individual suburbs.

For comparison purposes, each index was standardised to an average score of 1,000 across all SA2s. Nearly all SA2s (95%) had a score between 800 (high disadvantaged) and 1,200 (low disadvantage).

To better understand differences between our major populations, we further aggregated our results to nine larger geographic entities: the five major capitals, the regional areas of NSW, Queensland and Victoria and a “catch all” remainder of Australia region. This last grouping was used due to the small number of electorates in some states and territories.

The most disadvantaged parts of Australia

The key finding of the report is there is considerable variation in the types of disadvantage experienced across Australia. Moreover, the types of disadvantage varied between locations, as well.

Australia’s most disadvantaged electorate overall was Hinkler in regional Queensland. Hinkler ranks poorly in three of the disadvantage domains we tracked: health, economic and social.

Australia’s least disadvantaged electorate is North Sydney.

When we looked at each type of disadvantage individually, we found that electorates had very different needs.

From an economic perspective, for example, our most disadvantaged electorate is Blaxland in Western Sydney. Our most disadvantaged health electorate is Braddon in regional Tasmania.

The most disadvantaged educationally was Spence in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. Socially, the most disadvantaged electorate was Parkes in regional NSW.

When comparing the larger regions in our report, we found Adelaide faces the most disadvantage overall, while Sydney and Perth have, on average, the least overall disadvantage.

Even the best-performing regions have pockets of high disadvantage. For example, while Sydney has a relatively strong overall result, it also has the most economically disadvantaged electorate in Australia (Blaxland) and several suburbs with scores below 800.

The research also shows the vast disparities between urban and regional areas in Australia. For example, according to our data, nearly the whole of regional NSW is considered disadvantaged. In contrast, the inner suburbs of Sydney are much better-off.

Most concerning was the deep level of disadvantage found in predominantly Indigenous communities, mostly in the Northern Territory. The electorate of Lingiari, for instance, has a marked split between the relatively advantaged suburbs around Darwin and the deeply disadvantaged areas outside the city.

We also found a number of electorates in coastal NSW, Queensland and Tasmania with significant health disadvantage. This is concerning given the threat of future outbreaks of COVID-19.

Read more: Educational disadvantage is a huge problem in Australia – we can’t just carry on the same

Why this data matters

The indexes remind us that despite nearly 30 years of continued economic growth in Australia, prosperity has not come to all parts of the country. Nor is economic advantage necessarily an indication of other facets of well-being, such as educational or health equality.

This data is important because it can help non-profit organisations make better-informed decisions on where and how to allocate future resources and investments.

It will also help governments at all levels gain a deeper understanding of the types of disadvantage that exist within regions and how their programs and other methods of assistance – both financial or non-financial – can be most effective.

Read more: New evidence suggests we may need to rethink policies aimed at poverty

– ref. Where are the most disadvantaged parts of Australia? New research shows it’s not just income that matters – https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-most-disadvantaged-parts-of-australia-new-research-shows-its-not-just-income-that-matters-132428

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Peters, Associate Professor of Wildlife Health and Pathology, Charles Sturt University

This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore the project here and read related articles here.

I looked through the microscope at the insides of a dead smoky mouse, and could barely believe my eyes. Thousands of tiny smoke particles lined its lungs. But the mouse had been kept more than 50 kilometres from the nearest bushfires. How could this be?

As it turned out, the critically endangered mouse had died from smoke inhalation. Some 45 had been held at a captive breeding facility near Canberra. Nine ultimately died – the first recorded wildlife in the world killed by bushfire smoke far outside a fire zone.

The deaths were a blow for conservation efforts. But in recent weeks, there’s been good news: smoky mice have been spotted at seven sites burnt in the fires. For now, at least, the species lives on.

A unique, bulgy-eyed rodent

The smoky mouse is shy, gentle and small – usually about nine centimetres in body length, plus its tail. They are rather cute, with bulgy eyes and very soft grey fur which inspired the species’ name.

In the wild, the smoky mouse is limited to a few sites in Victoria’s Grampians and East Gippsland, as well as in Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales. It lives in underground communal nests, in heath and forest habitats.

Read more: After the bushfires, we helped choose the animals and plants in most need. Here’s how we did it

Ancestors of the smoky mouse arrived in Australia more than five million years ago when the Australian continent finally drifted close enough to Southeast Asia for rodents to raft across.

These ancient rodents diversified into more than 50 species. Many, like the smoky mouse, are in decline. Others, like the white-footed rabbit-rat have already become extinct.

Several threats are reducing smoky mouse numbers, but feral cats and foxes are a major cause.

Death by irony?

Some 119 animal species were identified for urgent conservation intervention following the fires. The smoky mouse was among them. Modelling showed 26% of its distribution overlapped with burnt areas, and in NSW more than 90% of the species’ habitat burned.

I am a wildlife health and pathology expert based in Wagga Wagga in NSW, and part of my job is to diagnose why animals have died. The first dead smoky mouse I encountered had come from a Canberra breeding facility. It was sent by a vet and arrived via courier in mid-January.

In a note attached, the vet suggested bushfire smoke had killed the smoky mouse – and asked, in a nod to the species’ name, if this was a case of “death by irony”.

Canberra, like many other cities and towns, was shrouded in thick smoke in January. But the breeding facility was more than 50 kilometres from the nearest fire zone, so I thought the vet’s theory was unlikely.

When I and other veterinary pathologists examined organs of the mouse under the microscope, the only abnormality we could find was fluid and congestion in the mouse’s lungs.

Over the following month, eight more smoky mice died. I inspected the lungs of one – to my shock, it contained thousands of brown smoke particles. Once I knew the distribution of particles to look for, I found them in most of the other dead mice too.

The mice didn’t die immediately after inhaling the smoke. They hung on, but when temperatures in Canberra spiked at more than 40℃, they went into respiratory distress and died.

Read more: A season in hell: bushfires push at least 20 threatened species closer to extinction

Death from smoke inhalation has long been suspected in wildlife. But it’s poorly recorded because after bushfires, the bodies of dead animals are usually incinerated or too decomposed to make a diagnosis.

The smoky mouse case shows bushfire smoke can damage wild animals far beyond fire zones. That means the impact of bushfires on wildlife may be greater than we thought.

A bit of good news

There is hope for the smoky mouse. Motion-sensing cameras set up in Kosciuszko National Park after the fires have recorded smoky mice at seven burnt sites. Over the next year, more sites will be surveyed to better understand how many individuals remain, and where they live.

Most smoky mice at the Canberra captive breeding facility survived, and there are plans to release some into the wild. This captive breeding program has also been identified as a priority for federal funding.

But as global warming escalates, fires in Australia are predicted to become even worse. Now more than ever, the future of the smoky mouse, along with many other Australian animals, hinges on decisive climate action. Captive breeding programs and blind hope will not be enough.

Read more: Conservation scientists are grieving after the bushfires — but we must not give up

– ref. ‘Death by irony’: The mystery of the mouse that died of smoke inhalation, but went nowhere near a fire – https://theconversation.com/death-by-irony-the-mystery-of-the-mouse-that-died-of-smoke-inhalation-but-went-nowhere-near-a-fire-139906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wee Tiong Seah, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education, University of Melbourne

On Sunday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced government school students in prep to Year 10 in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire will learn from home for term three. The remote learning period will run from July 20 until at least August 19, and will follow five pupil-free days scheduled for this week.

Students in Years 11 and 12, as well as those in Year 10 attending schools for VCE or VCAL classes, and students with special needs, will resume face-to-face learning today.

Many independent schools had already decided, before the premier’s announcement, they will resume remote learning this week.

We conducted a national survey from April 27 until May 25 of more than 1,200 teachers’ experiences during Australia’s first wave of remote learning. Based on teachers’ responses, we know a sustainable return to remote learning must ensure schools and the government address the concerns around the social and emotional impacts on students, accessibility, and increasing workloads for teachers.

Social development and emotional well-being

Around the same number of teachers said the remote learning period had a positive (33%), negative (36%) or neither positive nor negative (31%), impact on students’ educational progress. But most of them expressed concerns about the impact on students’ social development and emotional well-being.

More than half (58%) of all teachers were concerned about students’ social development. Meanwhile, 68% of primary school and 79% of secondary school teachers felt remote learning was having a negative impact on students’ emotional well-being.

These results were fairly consistent across state capitals, regional and rural areas, as well as across government (73.6%), Catholic (76.5%) and independent (78.2%) schools.

One teacher said

it is the social-emotional well-being of our young people, particularly those at risk in their homes, that is my biggest concern.

Schools play a critical role in supporting student well-being. Feelings of isolation can have serious negative impacts such as increased stress, anxiety and disengagement. It is important there are strategies for maintaining a strong teacher presence online.

Teachers said the level of support students received for remote learning varied depending on the students’ home environment. Some vulnerable students can completely disengage from the school system and we have seen this increased vulnerability during remote learning.

Read more: Disadvantaged students may have lost 1 month of learning during COVID-19 shutdown. But the government can fix it

Some students didn’t attend live lessons, disguised attendance by only logging in but without video or audio, or did not submit work. Use of learning analytics to assist in tracking student access would be beneficial during remote learning.

In some cases, remote learning issues disrupted the capacity for teachers to provide additional support, despite repeated attempts to communicate with students and their families.

Schools play a critical role in supporting engagement and maintaining essential connections, routines and supports during a pandemic, and during recovery.

During the lockdown, schools and the government must take urgent measures to address student well-being. Teachers need support to identify and help students with high needs. They need professional learning programs to help them navigate this territory.

Not everyone is equal

In 2019, 87% of Australians could access the internet at home. But only 68% of Australian children aged 5 to 14 living in disadvantaged communities had internet access at home, compared to 91% of students living in advantaged communities.

In our survey, 49.45% of teachers reported all of their students had access to devices, while 43.28% indicated most of their students had access.

Fewer primary teachers (37.46%) than secondary teachers (56.25%) indicated all their students had access to devices.

Some students had to share devices with other family members, a few used their phones and some didn’t have any access to technology at all. For those who had access to devices, there were other challenges, such as the availability and reliability of apps and programs, with parents and teachers trying to troubleshoot IT problems.

Read more: Schools are moving online, but not all children start out digitally equal

A teacher said one of the challenges was “the large amount of disadvantaged families that [the] school serves [where] most don’t have access to three meals a day”.

Increasing the number of loan devices to students is essential during the upcoming remote learning period, as are engaging and interactive lessons. But it’s also important to plan for accessible tasks that aren’t internet-dependent, for those who don’t have ready access – such as school packs or the possibility of attending school.

During the first wave of remote learning, some telecommunications companies provided relief by waiving internet charges or extending data access limits. The government can play a more active role by working with internet providers to ensure further access to this kind of support is available.

Reasonable work expectations

In our survey, 68% of primary teachers and 75% of secondary teachers reported working more hours than usual during the lockdown period. Nearly 50% worked more than six hours extra a week and 19% worked between 11-15 hours extra per week.

Teachers reported increased stress levels, isolation, excessive screen time and exhaustion.

One teacher said there were

unrealistic expectations of teachers — using multiple platforms concurrently with very little training. The time to prepare per class is limited yet we are supposed to provide technologically advanced methods of delivery.

As a priority, setting realistic expectations for teachers, students and parents will ensure the workload is reasonable and manageable.

Remote teaching is not equivalent to classroom teaching and the same content will not be covered in the same amount of time online. Good teaching and curriculum design will soon address any gaps in learning once students are back in the classroom. But the social and emotional impacts could have a more negative impact in the longer term.

Read more: Students won’t get through all school content while learning at home: here are 3 things to prioritise

– ref. Students in Melbourne will go back to remote schooling. Here’s what we learnt last time and how to make it better – https://theconversation.com/students-in-melbourne-will-go-back-to-remote-schooling-heres-what-we-learnt-last-time-and-how-to-make-it-better-142550

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phillippa Carnemolla, Senior Research Fellow, School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney

The stated purpose of the Morrison government’s HomeBuilder program is to stimulate the economy and create construction jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research shows home improvements could do much more than just add capital value and a spare room. They can also restore or maintain a person’s ability to live independently – whether they are older, have a disability, are unwell or have been injured.

In other words, these home improvements could transform life for any one of us at some point in our lives. They greatly improve people’s well-being and reduce dependence on carers. This affects a great many people – including nearly a million who receive some form of aged care in their own home.

Read more: How can we best design housing for Australia’s ageing population?

Our study of 157 people receiving community care found home modifications reduced the overall hours of care they required by 42%. Their quality of life (measured as health-related quality of life) improved by 40%.

By reducing care needs and costs, and increasing independence and well-being, home modifications lead to a multitude of government, community and personal benefits. These include lowering the risk of COVID-19 transmission that providing and receiving personal care entails.

Read more: Confused about aged care in the home? These 10 charts explain how it works

What do home modifications involve?

Home modifications specifically help residents to live safely and independently in their own homes.

The range of possible renovations is diverse, so costs vary widely. Minor modifications might be installing a grab rail in a bathroom to aid stability, or levelling a step at a front door. A major modification could install a ramp or a lift, widen door frames or provide a new bathroom.

Modifications must be tailored to individual needs, as no “one size fits all” – just like every home renovation.

Enabling greater independence for longer

My research measures how home modifications directly influence the amount of care needed to live, and continue living, at home.

The study included 157 Australians aged from 15 to 92 who received community care. Some had arthritis, cancer or a motorcycle injury. Others were born with a disability. All required care in their home.

Read more: NDIS needs the market to help make up at least 60% shortfall in specialist disability housing

Hours of care for participants (most of it unpaid care by family and friends) were compared before and after home modifications. The changes liberated them. Home modifications reduced or eliminated their need for help, restored their confidence in caring for themselves and reduced carer stress.

As people’s confidence grew, they were happier to venture out into the broader community. Importantly, relationships improved.

Stories of lives transformed

Simple home modifications meant David* no longer had to help his mother shower as she could safely do that herself. His mother was saved the embarrassment of her son being involved in what is normally a private activity. Instead, they could enjoy each other’s company with regular activities like shopping and having afternoon tea together.

Ravi* had a spinal injury as a result of an accident. He was glad to be back at home but was sleeping in a converted sunroom at street level because he couldn’t get to his bedroom upstairs. The only bathroom for showering was a small ensuite, up three stairs.

The house was not suitable for a wheelchair, so his wife had to help him get around their home. The effort required to take care of basic daily living activities left them too exhausted to even think about going out.

An accessible bathroom with a hand-held shower was installed, as well as a ramp at the home entrance. Not only was Ravi able to shower independently again, but he and his wife also regained their energy and interest in going out. He attributed home modifications to enabling them to go to the movies and a restaurant for the first time in the three years after the accident.

Genevieve* needed to go to the toilet often at night, but was unsteady on her feet. She had to wake her husband to escort her safely to the bathroom. Installing handrails from the bedroom to the bathroom, as well as reconfiguring the bathroom, meant she could safely take herself to the toilet at night.

Now that he was getting a good night’s sleep, her husband also expressed relief that he was able to continue his full-time job – he had thought he would have to give it up.

People regain choice about where they live

The design of a house can be the single reason that forces a person into an aged care home. A bathroom, kitchen, entrance and exit, as well as how rooms connect, can all dictate whether a person lives independently in later life.

Read more: Meet the nonagenarians: people in their 90s are Australia’s fastest growing senior age group

Research shows how home modifications reduce fall risks. Think about an older bathroom where the shower has a hob or is over a bath. Such features commonly lead to falls, which can dramatically shorten lives or send us straight from hospital into residential aged care.

Of all the home modifications, my research showed those in the bathroom were most central to reducing dependence on others. They provided the freedom to shower and use the toilet without help.

For example, Heath* was 72 with a few overlapping health conditions. He had lost confidence using his shower and toilet on his own. His daughter, who lived five hours’ drive away, was convinced he would fall if he remained at home.

But Heath didn’t want someone coming in to help him shower. He absolutely did not want to go into a nursing home. Home modifications meant he could sit while showering independently and use grab rails to get in and out safely.

Modifications protect lives in a pandemic

The ability to take care of our own bathroom needs during a pandemic is particularly critical. The close proximity required to receive and provide care has been well documented. Who knows how much home modifications have helped to curb the spread of COVID-19 to people most vulnerable to it?

Australia is managing a pandemic while rolling out the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and reforming aged care in the context of a diverse and ageing population.

This research into home modifications highlights why renovations could be so much more than a new pool, kitchen island or cinema room. The government has a golden opportunity to reform HomeBuilder and encourage take-up of grants for home modifications. It would be a win for both tradies and the many Australians who may need help to stay at home.

* Names have been changed to protect anonymity.

– ref. Renovations as stimulus? Home modifications can do so much more to transform people’s lives – https://theconversation.com/renovations-as-stimulus-home-modifications-can-do-so-much-more-to-transform-peoples-lives-140639