I was disappointed that the Green Party continues to reject a distributive Universal Basic Income (UBI) in favour of a redistributive and polarising Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) model. GMI is the antithesis of UBI. The essence of UBI, through flattening income tax, is the creation of a dividend – a return on collective capital – that is received by every economic citizen of a country. Universal Basic Income should represent progressive capitalism, not socialism.
(I plan to develop the concept of economic citizenship in this space next week. But the essence of the concept is that everyone over a certain age – most likely 18 – is an economic citizen of one and only one country; and that immigration can be understood as a transfer of economic citizenship. Many of the people discussed in my Foreign Lives Matter are in fact economic citizens of New Zealand.)
The essence of the Green policy is to extend New Zealand Superannuation to all working-age adults who are not ‘fulltime workers’. And the graduated income tax scale is steepened, not flattened as per the requirements of Universal Income Flat Tax. The Greens’ GMI is to be funded by redistributive income and wealth taxes.
The Green Party’s recently announced policy divides New Zealand’s working-age population into two distinct groups – a beneficiary group and a working group – and relies on heroic assumptions around the working group’s willingness to transfer huge amounts of income to the beneficiary group. And by replacing the present poverty trap with a ghetto trap. Precarious workers – who are a substantial minority of all workers, and who straddle the two abovementioned groups – would face even more impediments to having their needs addressed.
(The ‘ghetto trap’ referred to can be summarised as high EMTRs – effective marginal tax rates – faced by people who would normally wish to transition from the beneficiary group to the working group.)
This policy announcement confirms, in the minds of most people, that the Green Party is a socialist party – like the former New Labour Party that formed the core of the 1990s’ Alliance – unlike the progressive party that seceded from the Alliance in 1999.
Taxes and Behavioural Change
Taxes may be imposed for two distinct reasons. One reason is to raise public revenue. The other is to modify behaviour; to address ‘negative externalities’ in economist language. The Green Party has always been confused in this regard, seeking to tax bad behaviour in order to raise public revenue. The perfect behavioural modification tax raises zero revenue. When the taxed behaviour – such as vehicle speeding – ceases, then the tax raises zero revenue. Today the Green Party wishes to both raise revenue from asset speculation (what they call ‘wealth taxes’) and to eliminate asset speculation. If they wish past property speculators to become a stable future tax base, then they will need to find policies which will ensure that property prices remain unaffordably high.
The other obvious social change that would result from the implementation of the Green policy would be the reversal of fifty years of shifting from one-income to two-income families. In practice, this will mean a substantial shift of women from the labour force (from the ‘working group’ abovementioned) into beneficiary status.
The policy is generous to one-income families, and quite ungenerous to low-wage two-income families. Based on these incentives, we could expect working class mothers to exit the labour force, and to withdraw their children from childcare. Further, if the fathers are not earning much – or are in precarious employment – they would become dispensable as household providers.
I presume that Child Support would continue much as it does at present. That would mean that – where possible – benefits paid to single or repartnered parents would be funded in the first instance by non-caregiver parents. This would push low paid working non-caregiver parents into quitting their jobs – ie joining the ‘beneficiary group’ in order to avert bankruptcy.
In general, this policy does little for the present crisis of hardship faced by people in work, and could be expected to aggravate the existing disconnect between working class – who now largely vote National – and the beneficiary classes.
The Covid-19 Pandemic and Asset Prices
I suspect that most of the work on this Green policy was done pre-pandemic. The costings – heroic at best – are unlikely to make any sense in the present pandemic environment. During the current emergency, any policy to raise taxes is tone deaf. All initiatives in the emergency need to be funded by new money.
The asset valuations used to estimate revenues from wealth taxes are largely fictions, based on the assumption that demand for these assets remains high, and that selling of assets is restrained. Assets can only be correctly valued when those assets are realised (ie sold). The inflated ‘paper’ valuations are dependent on few realisations (sales) taking place. Any situation that prompts increased sales of financial assets would lead to substantial reductions in asset prices, unless those prices were to be propped up by a willingness of the Reserve Bank to bail out asset-holders by purchasing assets (ie printing money) at inflated prices. These fickle assets are by no means the “rainy day savings” that their owners can assuredly “fall back on in hard times” (quoting from the policy document). In unmitigated hard times, nobody has economic security.
Learn from the 1930s
The Great Depression of the 1930s brought to light the cruelty of a welfare system based on providing private charity only to the ‘deserving poor’. The result was a strong public groundswell in favour of universal benefits, and away from the intrusive processes of household means-testing and character evaluation.
The First Labour Government was elected in 1935 on the basis of promises to deliver a universal welfare state. This meant free education and hospital care. And it meant access to decent social security benefits with minimal intrusive bureaucracy. And it meant universal superannuation for persons over 65 who did not qualify for an age benefit; and the promise of a universal family benefit, payable to all mothers.
(It is important to note that, while Labour won the 1935 election in part on this promise, it also benefitted from a union with the monetary reformist ‘social credit’ movement – very strong in the provinces – and from a split in the then governing coalition; a split that lead to the formation of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party played a spoiling role in the 1935 election, much as the New Zealand Party did in 1984.)
In practice politics post-1935 was not so simple. While a plan for universal welfare was formulated in 1936, Labour’s left-wing preferred a redistributive welfare state much as the Green Party want today. Labour’s right-wing – mesmerised by compound interest – wanted to establish actuarial (contribution-based) welfare funds; funds that promised to pay big future benefits to higher earning working men.
For most of the next three years, the Labour government’s factions tore at each other over which was the best way to dishonour their 1935 promise. In early 1938, it seemed very likely that Labour would lose, when all it had to do to win was to implement the reforms it promised in 1935. Labour’s position was rescued by its leader – Michael Joseph Savage – who belonged to neither faction, and had the ability to read the public mood. (It was Savage’s leadership at this moment which made him, in the evaluation of many, the New Zealander of the twentieth century.)
Savage went to the people with a policy on universal superannuation that united rather than divided the people. The 1938 result was the biggest electoral victory for a single party in New Zealand’s history. The universal superannuation began in 1940, initially at the modest amount of $20 per year, but with a formula to raise that amount annually, with the long-run aim that it would reach the level of the Age Benefit, and then combine with the age benefit.
(That convergence eventually happened, though the merging of the two benefits only occurred in 1976 under Robert Muldoon. Roger Douglas – a descendant of Labour’s actuarial school – abolished universal superannuation in 1974; Muldoon, again reading the public mood, reinstated it.)
The inchoate public mood is for a Universal Basic Income based on the Universal Income principles that I have outlined; an inclusive rights-based payment. The political problem is that five sets of gatekeepers keep the proposal off the immediate agenda. These gatekeepers include the ‘redistributive left’ and the actuarial ‘financial literacy’ right; essentially the same groups who opposed the 1938 reforms. They also include mainstream journalists (some of whom still do not get MMP, let alone UBI), career academics, and career bureaucrats; people whose careers are more enhanced by having problems than by resolving them.
(I recommend ‘The politics of social security: the 1938 Act and some later developments’ by Elizabeth Hanson, published in 1980 by Auckland University Press.)
Conclusion
The Green Party tax-welfare policy represents an example of orthodox redistributive western socialism. It is divisive left-wing politics. While the Green Party knows that such a policy will never be implemented, it nevertheless represents a gambit designed to put pressure on Labour to produce a ‘lite’ version of the same policy. (The Act Party has used use the same stratagem re National.)
There are alternative policies that unite people rather than divide them. In 2020 we need to focus on people’s basic economic rights, just as in the 1890s we focussed on people’s political rights.
Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph has lost its appeal against a defamation decision that awarded actor Geoffrey Rush almost A$3 million.
Last year, Rush was awarded a record $2.9 million after he sued Nationwide News, the publisher of the Daily Telegraph.
This was over allegations the newspaper published regarding Rush’s inappropriate behaviour with an unnamed fellow actor. The actor was later identified as Eryn Jean Norvill, who gave evidence in the case. Rush denied the claims.
In the original judgment, Justice Michael Wigney decided the defence of truth argued by Nationwide News had not been proven.
On Thursday, following an appeal from Nationwide News, the full court of the Federal Court once again found in favour of Rush.
Is this a surprise? What does this say about the way our legal system handles sexual harassment and defamation?
Two legal academics – UTS associate professor Karen O’Connell and Sydney University professor David Rolph – discuss the high-profile decision.
Karen O’Connell, specialist in sexual harassment and sex discrimination law
This outcome was not a surprise at all, it was exactly what was expected. There was no obvious reason to think there was a legal problem with Wigney’s decision last year.
Last year, there were issues raised by some of the comments made by Wigney, but these were not about the legal underpinnings of his judgement.
The criticism went much more to those subtle assessments of sexual harassment that pervade the law, as part of our culture of discounting or disbelieving what women say.
When Wigney suggested Norvill was “prone to exaggeration and embellishment” and “not an entirely credible witness”, this is something a lot of women have experienced when talking about sexual harassment.
There’s a clash between how people experience harassment in their daily lives and the way the law talks about it
Ultimately, criticism of the case last year centred on a deeply gendered discomfort about the way Norvill was treated as a witness.
And the degree to which the judge harshly criticised her credibility in ways that seemed to lack awareness of the way women experience and respond to harassment – but weren’t outside the boundaries of a reasonable decision in the law.
What will be the impact going forward?
It is important to note the Rush case was not about sexual harassment, it was about defamation.
It was Rush versus Nationwide News and Norvill was dragged into it as a reluctant witness, noting she never wanted the issues to be “dealt with by a court”.
But today’s decision is a reminder we don’t have good systems for dealing with sexual harassment. And the public debate still turns very quickly to the salacious and scandalous elements of it, while alleged victims lose control of their stories.
I know inappropriate behaviour has not been proved here, but what I’m talking about is the way someone can raise concerns about another person’s behaviour in a professional context, and it then escalates out of their control.
Eryn Jean Norvill has said there were ‘no winners’ in the Rush case.Peter Rae/AAP
This is a sorry case, everyone was harmed in this – there’s no good outcome.
On a more positive note, this has been handed down in the context of the allegations against former High Court judge Dyson Heydon – one of Austraia’s biggest sexual harassment stories. This is promising a fresh wave of action and culture change when it comes to our attitudes to these issues and is an encouraging development.
But what the Rush case shows going forward is we still don’t have appropriate responses to sexual harassment – either at the legal or social level.
David Rolph, specialist in media law
This was a comprehensive victory for Rush and a comprehensive defeat for Nationwide News, but I don’t think the judgment was entirely surprising.
The original case involved incredibly complex fact-finding, with multiple incidents, email exchanges and text messages. To interfere with the original findings of fact would have been difficult, as a lot of what was involved was very specific, involving decisions by the trial judge about the credibility of witnesses.
All the appeal court can do is review the transcript.
Legally, the issues here are not as difficult. You’ve got the issue of whether it was defamatory, and the issue of whether it was true.
Does this set a precedent in terms of damages?
In terms of the damages awarded, this is not a typical case. Most defamation cases are awarded damages of between $50,000 and $100,000.
We have seen a recent string of high profile cases being awarded large amounts of money – such as the 2017 Rebel Wilson case (although Wilson was later ordered to pay most of the damages back).
Rebel Wilson sued Bauer Media for defamation in 2017, who then appealed.Luis Ascui/ AAP
Interestingly, in the Rush case, the large sum for damages survived the appeal. Unlike Wilson, Rush was able to prove that he suffered economic loss as a result of the publications. The largest component of the damages awarded here – $1.9 million – was for the economic consequences Rush would suffer as a result of the articles.
Since 2005, damages for non-economic loss in defamation case have been capped in Australia (currently at less than $400,000), so this has perhaps prompted more claims for economic loss, as was the case with Rush.
Legal experts are watching to see what happens to this issue when further changes to Australia’s defamation laws are brought to Parliament later this year.
Remember what this case was actually about
It’s worth stressing this was a case about an actor versus a newspaper. It was not a case about giving a remedy for sexual harassment.
The subject matter of the Daily Telegraph articles was sexual harassment, but the legal issue in the case was the damage to Rush’s reputation and whether newspaper could prove what it had published was true.
A court dealing with a defamation case is not the best place to address the complex issue of sexual harassment.
Lastly, this case again shows that given the nature of Australia’s defamation laws, it’s still better to be a plaintiff than a defendant.
Tensions over border closures are in the news again, now states are gradually lifting travel restrictions to allexcept Victorians.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says singling out Victorians is an overreaction to Melbourne’s coronavirus spike, urging the states “to get some perspective”.
Federal-state tensions over border closures and other pandemic quarantine measures are not new, and not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our new research shows such measures are entwined in our history and tied to Australia’s identity as a nation. We also show how our experiences during past pandemics guide the plans we now use, and alter, to control the coronavirus.
In early 1900, bubonic plague broke out just months before federation, introduced by infected rats on ships.
When a new vaccine was available, the New South Wales government planned to inoculate just front-line workers.
Journalists called for a broader inoculation campaign and the government soon faced a “melee” in which:
…men fought, women fainted and the offices [of the Board of Health] were damaged.
Patients and contacts were quarantined at the North Head Quarantine Station. Affected suburbs were quarantined and sanitation commenced.
The health board openly criticised the government for its handling of the quarantine measures, laying the groundwork for quarantine policy in the newly independent Australia.
Quarantine then became essential to a vision of Australia as an island nation where “island” stood for immunity and where non-Australians were viewed as “diseased”.
Public health is mentioned twice in the Australian constitution. Section 51(ix) gives parliament the power to quarantine, and section 69 requires states and territories to transfer quarantine services to the Commonwealth.
Ports then became centres of immigration, trade, biopolitics and biosecurity.
Spanish flu sparked border disputes too
In 1918, at the onset of the Spanish flu, quarantine policy included border closures, quarantine camps (for people stuck at borders) and school closures. These measures initially controlled widespread outbreaks in Australia.
However, Victoria quibbled over whether NSW had accurately diagnosed this as an influenza pandemic. Queensland closed its borders, despite only the Commonwealth having the legal powers to do so.
When World War I ended, many returning soldiers broke quarantine. Quarantine measures were not coordinated at the Commonwealth level; states and territories each went their own way.
Quarantine camps, like this one at Wallangarra in Queensland, were set up during the Spanish flu pandemic.Aussie~mobs/Public Domain/Flickr
There were different policies about state border closures, quarantine camps, mask wearing, school closures and public gatherings. Infection spread and hospitals were overwhelmed.
The legacy? The states and territories ceded quarantine control to the Commonwealth. And in 1921, the Commonwealth created its own health department.
The 1990s brought new threats
Over the next seven decades, Australia linked quarantine surveillance to national survival. It shifted from prioritising human health to biosecurity and protection of Australia’s flora, fauna and agriculture.
In 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome (or SARS) emerged in China and Hong Kong. Australia responded by discouraging nonessential travel and started health screening incoming passengers.
The next threat, 2004 H5N1 Avian influenza, was a dry run for future responses. This resulted in the 2008 Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, which included border control and social isolation measures.
Which brings us to today
While lessons learned from past pandemics are with us today, we’ve seen changes to policy mid-pandemic. March saw the formation of the National Cabinet to endorse and coordinate actions across the nation.
Uncertainty over border control continues, especially surrounding the potential for cruise and live-export ships to import coronavirus infections.
Then there are border closures between states and territories, creating tensions and a potential high court challenge.
Border quibbles between states and territories will likely continue in this and future pandemics due to geographical, epidemiological and political differences.
Australia’s success during COVID-19 as a nation, is in part due to Australian quarantine policy being so closely tied to its island nature and learnings from previous pandemics.
Lessons learnt from handling COVID-19 will also strengthen future pandemic responses and hopefully will make them more coordinated.
On Tuesday, a year-long New South Wales parliamentary inquiry revealed the state’s koalas are on track for extinction in the wild by 2050, without urgent government intervention.
Habitat destruction and fragmentation for agriculture, urban development, mining and forestry has been the number one koala killer since European occupation of Australia. This is compounded by the unabated impacts of climate change, which leads to more extreme droughts, heatwaves and bushfires.
Koala populations in NSW were already declining before the 2019-2020 bushfires. The report doesn’t mince words, saying “huge swathes of koala habitat burned and at least 5,000 koalas perished”.
Thousands of koalas in Australia perished in the Black Summer fires.Reuters/Tracey Nearmy
The report, ambitiously, makes 42 recommendations, and all have merit. The fate of NSW koalas now relies on a huge commitment from the Berejiklian government to act on them. But past failures by a federal government inquiry into koalas suggest there’s little cause for optimism.
First, let’s look at the report’s key recommendations and how they might ensure the species’ survival in NSW.
Leadership needed at the local level
Real, on-ground koala conservation actions take place at the local level. “Local” is where councils give development approvals, sometimes to clear koala habitat. And it’s where communities and volunteers work on the front line to save and protect the species.
Recommendation 10 in the report addresses this, suggesting the NSW government provide additional funding and support to community groups so they can plant trees and regenerate bushland along koala and wildlife corridors.
Another two recommendations build on this: encouraging increased funding from the NSW government to local councils to support local conservation initiatives, and suggesting increased resources to support councils to conduct mapping.
Mapping, such as where koalas have been recorded and their habitat, is a critical component for local councils to develop comprehensive koala management plans.
Stop offsetting koala habitat
One recommendation suggests a review of the “biodiversity offsets scheme”, where generally developers must compensate for habitat loss by improving or establishing it elsewhere. It is embedded in the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, and other state and territory governments commonly use offsets in various conservation policies.
But the report recommends prohibiting offsets for high quality koala habitat. Prohibiting offsets is important because when a vital part of koala habitat is cleared, it can no longer support the local koalas. Replacing this habitat somewhere else won’t save that particular population.
The NSW government must act urgently on the inquiries ambitious recommendations.AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Build the Great Koala National Park
It’s of paramount importance to increase the connected, healthy koala habitat in NSW, particularly after the bushfires.
One tool to achieve this is laid out in recommendation 41: to investigate establishing the Great Koala National Park. Spearheaded by the National Parks Association of NSW, this national park would see 175,000 hectares of publicly owned state forests added to existing protected areas.
It total, it would form a 315,000 hectare reserve in the Coffs Harbour hinterland dedicated to protecting koalas – an Australian first.
It would be a great day if such a park was established and replicated throughout the NSW and Queensland hinterlands. Research shows that in those regions, the future climate will remain suitable for koalas, and urbanisation, agriculture and mining are not currently present in these parks.
The Great Koala National Park.
But it’s worth noting Australia’s national parks are under increasing pressure from “adventure tourism”. Human recreation activities can fragment habitat and disturb wildlife, for example by constructing tracks and access roads through natural areas.
Humans must not be allowed to compromise dedicated koala conservation areas. Intrusive recreational activity is detrimental to the species, and can also reduce the chance quiet park visitors might spy a koala sitting high in a tree, sleepily munching on gum leaves.
This rule should apply both to existing national parks, and a new Great Koala National Park.
Failures of past inquiries
The tragic fate predicted for koalas in NSW depends on the state government’s willingness to act on the recommendations. Developing wordy, well-intentioned documents is simply not enough.
Habitat destruction is an existential threat to koalas.Shutterstock
After a 2012 Senate inquiry into the health and status of koalas, the species was officially listed as “vulnerable” under the EPBC Act. But since then, tree clearing and declines in koala numbers have continued at a furious pace across Queensland and NSW.
One of the shortcomings of the federal listing for the koala is in its Referral Guidelines, which recommends “proponents consider these guidelines when proposing actions within the modelled distribution of the koala”. In other words, informing the government about clearing koala habitat is only voluntary. And that’s not good enough.
The failure of the 2012 inquiry and the EPBC Act to protect koalas should serve as a wake-up call to the NSW government. It must start implementing the recommendations of the current inquiry without delay to ensure Australia’s internationally celebrated species doesn’t die out.
Koala conservation must take priority over land clearing, regardless of the demand for that land. That principle might seem simple, but so far it’s proved agonisingly difficult.
With three months before JobSeeker is due to end and calls for billions of dollars in extra spending, there is a growing debate about how Australia’s post-coronavirus economy will actually look.
While Scott Morrison has said Australia will need to lift economic growth by “more than one percentage point above trend” through to 2025, a 22-economist panel hosted by The Conversation forecast a bleaker result.
Growth one percentage point above trend would average almost 4% per year.
The Conversation’s economic panel forecast an annual growth averaging 2.4% over the next four years, much less than the long-term trend.
In this podcast, Michelle Grattan discusses the economic pathway ahead with two economists featured on the panel: Professor of Economics at the UNSW Business School Richard Holden, and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Australian National University Warwick McKibbin.
McKibbin argues for a major change to the national cabinet. “I think it would be very useful if the leader of the opposition was on that cabinet, and perhaps even a couple of the key ministerial portfolios from the opposition side, so that you truly have… both sides of the political spectrum represented.”
Making the body more inclusive, McKibbin says, would assist a bipartisan approach. “If you are going to go for the big bipartisan approach, which I think is fundamental to most of the problems we face, you have to do something like the national cabinet,” he said.
“It worked very effectively during the worst parts of the virus, it is breaking down now it appears, because Australians seem to think things are okay now. But I think you’ll see it re-emerge very shortly.”
Richard Holden warns an increase in taxation should not be contemplated to pay for some of the large spend the COVID crisis is requiring.
“I don’t think there will be an increase in taxation under this government, and I definitely don’t think there should be under any government,” he says.
“The coalition has made the debt and deficits mantra part of their political brand, and I understand that from a political perspective. And there’s nothing wrong with aspiring to balancing the budget over the economic cycle.”
“But when you’re in one of the largest economic crises in a hundred years, it is not the time to be penny-pinching and focusing on economic management credentials as measured by the budget bottom line in the short term.”
As of this morning, ten “hot spot” postcodes in Melbourne’s suburbs have gone back into Stage 3 coronavirus lockdown.
In these suburbs, stay-at-home restrictions will be enforced by police patrols, “booze bus”-style barriers and random checks in transport corridors. In what Premier Daniel Andrews described as “extraordinary steps”, people moving in and out of these suburbs will be asked by police to identify themselves and provide one of four valid reasons for being out. Otherwise, they could face fines.
It seems likely that ever-more restrictive public health measures will be adopted should the coronavirus outbreak continue to worsen. With measures to protect public health competing with individual rights in what appears to be a zero-sum game, there are legitimate questions about how far the government can go before it reaches the outer limits of the law.
These refusals aren’t explicitly linked to increased transmission rates, but some disgruntled residents in locked-down suburbs and others have called for compulsory testing.
Existing laws already enable compulsory testing, but they have not yet been used. The March declaration of a human biosecurity emergency under the Biosecurity Act empowers the health minister to issue directions considered necessary to prevent or control the spread of coronavirus.
Under the act, these powers must not be used in a manner that is more restrictive and intrusive than necessary. However, there are few other obvious limits on these powers.
Door-to-door testing is now under way in parts of suburban Melbourne.James Ross/AAP
The Victoria Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 gives the chief health officer the power to compel a person to take a test. To use this power, the officer must believe the person either
is infected with the infectious disease or has been exposed to the infectious disease in circumstances where a person is likely to contract the infectious disease.
Unlike the Commonwealth Biosecurity Act, this power seems constrained to being used as a measure of last resort. The act refers to the consideration of alternatives and a preference for the
measure which is the least restrictive of the rights of the person.
Such orders could be reviewed or challenged in the courts, but more practical challenges, including the need to have police present when conducting compulsory testing, may explain why this measure has not yet been used.
Quarantine restrictions
In the state of emergency currently in force in Victoria, the chief health officer also has the power to detain or restrict the movement of any person for as long as necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health.
The hotel quarantine program relies on this power. While the chief health officer must review the need for the continued detention of people at least once every 24 hours, there are no other obvious limits on this power.
In practice, international travellers entering Victoria receive notices imposing a 14-day quarantine with permission to leave their hotel rooms only for medical care, where it is reasonably necessary for physical or mental health, on compassionate grounds, or if there is an emergency.
The quarantine program in Victoria has been a clear failure, due to the alleged breaches of public health protocols.
An independent inquiry into the program is being conducted by retired judge Jennifer Coate, and Corrections Victoria will take over supervision of the program from the private security contractors who had been running it.
It is possible the newly appointed authorities – with prior experience managing prisoners – may adopt a more restrictive approach.
People detained under the new regime may find it more difficult, for example, to get permission to leave their rooms for supervised outdoor exercise. If this approach is disproportionate to the health risk, and causes or contributes to a person’s ill health, court action may ensue.
Possible infringements on human rights
Public authorities responsible for the management of people in quarantine must balance their role mitigating public health risks with their duty to protect the human rights of those in their care and custody.
In a civil society, fundamental freedoms and individual liberties are highly valued, and intrusive powers should be used only where necessary. In a state of emergency, some limitations of rights may be necessary, but any such limitation must be necessary, justifiable, proportionate and time-bound.
Unless it is overridden by parliament, the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 continues to apply during a state of emergency. Although no charter rights are absolute, this act has been used successfully by people challenging the conditions of their detention.
Governments across Australia have extraordinary emergency powers at their disposal, and have been prepared to use many of them in response to the pandemic. Although the courts have considered the impact of coronavirus on existing laws and procedures – such as the right to protest in the face of social-distancing measures and increased risks to the health of prisoners – they have yet to scrutinise some of the key public health measures adopted.
Despite the deference of courts to public health measures in the face of a deadly infectious disease, there are limits, and it seems inevitable that some limits will eventually be reached.
Returning overseas travellers have been forced to quarantine in hotels since early in the pandemic.Scott Barbour/AAP
Questions over legitimacy
There are also limits to the effectiveness of these measures when people perceive them as unfair.
People obey laws and comply with rules when they see them as legitimate, not because they fear punishment. If the rules are unclear, or the process of developing them poorly explained, they may feel like postcode lottery to residents. This, in turn, could bring more dissatisfaction with lockdown measures and fail to effect behaviour change.
During times of emergency, it is critical powers with the potential to limit human rights and deprive people of liberty are properly communicated to the community and used with restraint.
This is not only important for the protection of individual rights, but also to prevent lasting damage to the rule of law. Ensuring that respect for human rights remains a central concern of government responses to the pandemic will build confidence and resilience in our communities and our institutions as we emerge from the crisis.
The newspaper had acknowledged that “demand” was a poor word choice and apologised for it to the Speaker.
Rattle noted that those two changes were made by the newspaper’s editor Jonathan Milne. However, she acknowledged that the rest of the report was accurate and therefore she could not impose a ban on the journalist involved.
Because the motion put forward did not implicate the editor, Rattle did issue a warning to Cook Islands News and said in future regardless of whether editorial changes to headlines and reports were made by the editor, the journalist would face scrutiny.
It’s excellent this virus has been found early, and raising the alarm quickly allows virologists to swing into action developing new specific tests for this particular flu virus.
But it’s important to understand that, as yet, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of this particular virus. And while antibody tests found swine workers in China have had it in the past, there’s no evidence yet that it’s particularly deadly.
China has a wonderful influenza surveillance system across all its provinces. They keep track of bird, human and swine flus because, as the researchers note in their paper, “systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs is essential for early warning and preparedness for the next potential pandemic.”
In their influenza virus surveillance of pigs from 2011 to 2018, the researchers found what they called “a recently emerged genotype 4 (G4) reassortant Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus.” In their paper, they call the virus G4 EA H1N1. It has been ticking over since 2013 and became the majority swine H1N1 virus in China in 2018.
In plain English, they discovered a new flu that’s a mix of our human H1N1 flu and an avian-based flu.
What’s interesting is antibody tests picked up that workers handling swine in these areas have been infected. Among those workers they tested, about 10% (35 people out of 338 tested) showed signs of having had the new G4 EA H1N1 virus in the past. People aged between 18 to 35 years old seemed more likely to have had it.
Of note, though, was that a small percentage of general household blood samples from people who were expected to have had little pig contact were also antibody positive (meaning they had the virus in the past).
Importantly, the researchers found no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission. They did find “efficient infectivity and aerosol transmission in ferrets” – meaning there’s evidence the new virus can spread by aerosol droplets from ferret to ferret (which we often use as surrogates for humans in flu studies). G4-infected ferrets became sick, lost weight and acquired lung damage, just like those infected with one of our seasonal human H1N1 flu strains.
They also found the virus can infect human airway cells. Most humans don’t already have antibodies to the G4 viruses meaning most people’s immune systems don’t have the necessary tools to prevent disease if they get infected by a G4 virus.
In summary, this virus has been around a few years, we know it can jump from pigs to humans and it ticks all the boxes to be what infectious disease scholars call a PPP — a potential pandemic pathogen.
If a human does get this new G4 EA H1N1 virus, how severe is it?
We don’t have much evidence to work with yet but it’s likely people who got these infections in the past didn’t find it too memorable. There’s not a huge amount of detail in the new paper but of the people the researchers sampled, none died from this virus.
There’s no sign this new virus has taken off or spread in the regions of China where it was found. China has excellent virus surveillance systems and right now we don’t need to panic.
The World Health Organisation has said it is keeping a close eye on these developments and “it also highlights that we cannot let down our guard on influenza”.
There’s no evidence the virus has transmitted between humans, yet. But the researchers say it’s possible.Zhong Min/EPA
People in my field — infectious disease research — are alert but not alarmed. New strains of flu do pop up from time to time and we need to be ready to respond when they do, watching carefully for signs of human-to-human transmission.
As far as I can tell, the specific tests we use for influenza in humans won’t identify this new G4 EA H1N1 virus, so we should design new tests and have them ready. Our general flu A screening test should work though.
In other words, we can tell if someone has what’s called “Influenza A” (one kind of flu virus we usually see in flu season) but that’s a catch-all term, and there are many strains of flu within that category. We don’t yet have a customised test to detect this new particular strain of flu identified in China. But we can make one quickly.
Being prepared at the laboratory level if we see strange upticks in influenza is essential and underscores the importance of pandemic planning, ongoing virus surveillance and comprehensive public health policies.
And as with all flus, our best defences are meticulous hand washing and keeping physical distance from others if you, or they, are at all unwell.
On Monday, online discussion platform Reddit permanently took down its largest community of Donald Trump supporters, r/The_Donald.
The community had more than 7,000 active users per day (although this has previously been much higher). The ban was on the grounds that some posts incited violence, and the community had engaged in harassment on other subreddits. It will have removed hundreds of thousands of posts, and millions of comments going back many years.
The “r/The_Donald” subreddit is a themed, online message board where users can submit, comment and vote on posts. The decision to ban it comes as several other platforms censure racist and violent material from Trump and his supporters.
Twitter recently fact-checked some of Trump’s posts, video live-streaming service Twitch has temporarily banned the president’s account, and Facebook is now losing advertisers over its unwillingness to moderate hateful material and disinformation, including from the president.
American company Reddit was founded in 2005.PAUL MILLER/AAP
According to the New York Times, Reddit also banned another 2,000 communities across the political spectrum alongside the pro-Trump community, including left-leaning groups.
But while some may celebrate these actions, the moves should be understood within the context of a largely deregulated information economy, in which “doing good” is mostly about “doing well”. In other words: making money.
Upon a close look, the removal of r/The_Donald exposes the inadequacies of market-based information governance. Even in cases where individual governance decisions benefit society, the information economy remains primarily motivated by profit.
Started in 2015, r/The_Donald was the largest and most controversial subreddit dedicated to supporting Trump. Before the ban, it had more than 790,000 subscribers and was at times one of the most popular subreddits on the platform.
In June last year, Reddit “quarantined” the subreddit over posts inciting violence. Several months later it purged most of the community’s volunteer moderators, arguing they weren’t upholding the platform’s policies, particularly through allowing banned content to stay up.
These shifts mirror changes in Reddit’s overall governance approach.
Historically, the platform has sold itself as a democratic space for free speech, with administrators resisting censorship in favour of a hands-off philosophy. However, like other platforms, Reddit now faces pressure from advertisers that don’t want their brands associated with political extremism.
But as digital marketing agency iCrossing’s chief media officer has previously argued:
What makes it (Reddit) attractive to consumers, which is the free and open ability to post, makes them scary to advertisers.
Walking a tightrope
For major social media platforms, content regulation is a delicate issue, teetering on a balance between value and liability.
Reddit’s laissez-faire approach and community-led model invites broad participation and has helped its user base grow. However, this also fosters content that’s distasteful, unseemly and potentially dangerous – creating brand associations many advertisers would rather avoid.
The r/The_Donald subreddit embodies this tension. Reddit’s gradual regulation of it, and eventual banning, indicates the value-liability balance has tipped towards the latter.
While there is reason to laud these regulatory shifts, they are products of political-economic realities, rather than social priorities. And they speak to a much broader issue of information policy in contemporary society.
Although social media platforms are central to civic discourse, they’re also products in a competitive market economy. As long as that market economy remains deregulated by governments, individual companies will have outsized power.
They may use their power for social good, but this decision will be market-based, and thus can change with the winds of financial promise.
Risks for Reddit, risks for the internet
Much of Reddit’s popularity has come from its status as the “wild west” of the internet.
The platform’s new approach may alienate its more dedicated user base. In trying to balance the ethos of free speech with increasing pressure to regulate, Reddit finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place.
And as Reddit moves to moderate and ban hateful content, more extreme users are going elsewhere. Prior to the r/The_Donald subreddit’s banning, participants had already established their own external site and were encouraging others to move there.
Similarly, moderators on the quarantined r/MGTOW (an anti-feminist men’s rights subreddit) are now directing subscribers to a Discord channel – a community-based discussion app for private and public interaction.
Moderators of the quarantined r/TheRedPill (another anti-feminist men’s rights group) have been directing users to an external site for over a year.
Users leaving for external sites will reduce hateful content on Reddit, but will concentrate this hate elsewhere. And such sites are often far less regulated than larger platforms.
Conservatives increasingly complain digital platforms are anti-conservative. Reddit’s actions against r/The_Donald will likely increase calls for new, conservative-founded platforms.
Reddit’s move highlights the influence of economics in platform governance – and the vulnerabilities that arise from this.
Rather than individual moderation decisions, what’s needed is a broad regulatory framework that holds corporate bodies to account. We need to reconsider “safe harbour” laws that protect social media companies from legal liability.
More broadly, we need to recognise social media are entangled with civic society, and enact social policies that coincide with the weight of that responsibility.
Bhosip Kaiwi, the man accused of murder in the Papua New Guinean torture case, will be held at the Correctional Services Training College at Bomana to undergo 14 days of quarantine under the government’s covid-19 requirement, reports the PNG Post-Courier.
He will remain there until he is cleared before joining the general population at the Bomana jail.
He will be under the watchful eyes of prison warders.
On Tuesday, the man accused of killing the mother of his two children arrived under heavy police guard at the Waigani District Court as a large number of interested public and his dead partner’s family gathered outside to catch a glimpse of him.
Getting off the police vehicle, Kaiwi had his head covered with a white towel and was led into a waiting room at the courthouse by the NCD homicide and CID officers.
The angry crowd who watched the arrival called for the removal of the towel on his head.
“Rausim towel lo pes blo em!” (“remove the towel on his head”), “bai mipla paitim em!” (“let us belt him”), and “wanem kain man yah!” (who does he think he is) were some of the comments hurled at him as he was led into the courthouse.
Angry crowd outside court He sat in a waiting room for a few minutes, awaiting his turn to appear before Magistrate Tracey Ganai.
After reading his charges, Magistrate Ganai issued a remand warrant that Kaiwi be moved from the Boroko police station cell to Bomana until his second appearance on July 30.
After that he was led out again to an angry crowd calling for his head and was rushed into the police vehicles back to Boroko police station, where he waited for the warrant to allow him to be taken up to the CS quarantine site.
Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis, when asked about reported threats against Kaiwi, said an assessment would be done and appropriate protection measures would be taken.
“Yes. The commanding officer and his officers will assess the situation, the threats and dangers, and where required, they will separate the detainee from other detainees.
“On a positive note, many detainees at Bomana are Godly people who will provide support to any person who is incarcerated at the institution,” Pokanis said.
Hong Kong protesters in New Zealand are worried they could be arrested if they return home because they have attended political demonstrations here.
Beijing’s new national security law, passed on Tuesday, criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces, but will also effectively shut down protest action and freedom of speech.
There are fears the laws could be applied more broadly, due to article 38, which says people can be charged in or outside of Hong Kong, even if they are not permanent residents.
“It seems like to them, no matter where you are, no matter what your nationality is … if you ever step to Hong Kong, they can just arrest you,” an Auckland woman, who asked not to be named because she feared reprisals from Beijing, said.
She said despite her fears, she would continue to attend pro-independence rallies in Auckland.
Legal specialists say the national security law is so broadly worded it could be used to charge Hong Kong dissidents living overseas.
‘Stay out of Hong Kong’ George Washington University law professor Donald Clarke wrote in his blog: “If you’ve ever said anything that might offend the PRC or Hong Kong authorities, stay out of Hong Kong.”
Canada has warned its citizens in Hong Kong or travelling there they risk arbitrary detention and possible extradition to mainland China.
Another member of Auckland’s Hong Kong community said he was worried because he and others who had attended pro-independence protests have been filmed by Chinese diplomats in New Zealand.
“I wish there were more safeguards in terms of the government or the police taking more of an active interest in the threatening behaviour from foreign entities,” he said.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is concerned the legislation was passed without proper consultation, and he said the government would be studying it and its rollout closely.
“This is a critical moment for fundamental human rights and freedoms protected in Hong Kong for generations,” he said.
Auckland University Asian studies professor Manying Ip said it was too early to tell how the law would be applied, but she said it was unlikely to damage the New Zealand-Hong Kong relationship.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Benjamin, Associate Professor in Maritime Archaeology, Flinders University and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University
For most of the human history of Australia, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and there was extra dry land where people lived.
Archaeologists could only speculate about how people used those now-submerged lands, and whether any traces remain today.
But in a study published today in PLOS ONE, we report the first submerged ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites found on the seabed, in waters off Western Australia.
The great flood
When people first arrived in Australia as early as 65,000 years ago, sea levels were around 80m lower than today.
Sea levels fluctuated but continued to fall as the global climate cooled. As the world plunged into the last ice age, which peaked around 20,000 years ago, sea levels dropped to 130m lower than they are now.
Between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago the world warmed up. Melting ice sheets caused sea levels to rise. Tasmania was cut off from the mainland around 11,000 years ago. New Guinea separated from Australia around 8,000 years ago.
The sea-level rise flooded 2.12 million square kilometres of land on the continental shelf surrounding Australia. Thousands of generations of people would have lived out their lives on these landscapes now under water.
These ancient cultural landscapes do not end at the waterline – they continue into the blue, onto what was once dry land.Jerem Leach, DHSC Project, Author provided
Landscapes under water
For the past four years a team of archaeologists, rock art specialists, geomorphologists, geologists, specialist pilots and scientific divers on the Australian Research Council-funded Deep History of Sea Country Project have collaborated with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation to find and record submerged archaeological sites off the Pilbara coast in WA.
Location of the finds in northwest Australia (left) and the Dampier Archipelago (right).Copernicus Sentinel Data and Geoscience Australia, Author provided
In the final phase of the research, our team of scientific divers carried out underwater archaeological surveys to physically examine, record and sample the seabed.
Archaeologists working in the shallow waters off Western Australia. Future generations of archaeologists must be willing to get wet!Jerem Leach, DHSC Project, Author provided
We discovered two underwater archaeological sites in the Dampier Archipelago.
The first, at Cape Bruguieres, comprises hundreds of stone artefacts – including mullers and grinding stones – on the seabed at depths down to 2.4m.
A selection of stone artefacts found on the seabed during fieldwork.John McCarthy and Chelsea Wiseman, Author provided
At the second site, in Flying Foam Passage, we discovered traces of human activity associated with a submerged freshwater spring, 14m below sea level, including at least one confirmed stone cutting tool made out of locally sourced material.
Environmental data and radiocarbon dates show these sites must have been older than 7,000 years when they were submerged by rising seas.
Our study shows archaeological sites exist on the seabed in Australia with items belonging to ancient peoples undisturbed for thousands of years.
In Murujuga (also known as the Burrup Peninsula) this adds substantially to the evidence we already have of human activity and rock art production in this important National Heritage Listed place.
A submerged stone tool associated with a freshwater spring now 14m under water.Hiro Yoshida and Katarina Jerbić, DHSC Project, Author provided
Underwater archaeology matters
The submerged stone tools discovered at Murujuga make us rethink what we know about the past.
Our knowledge of ancient times in Australia comes from archaeological sites on land and from Indigenous oral histories. But the first people to come to Australian shores were coastal people who voyaged in boats across the islands of eastern Indonesia.
The early peopling of Australia took place on land that is now under water. To fully understand key questions in human history, as ancient as they are, researchers must turn to both archaeology and marine science.
Archaeologist Chelsea Wiseman records a stone artefact covered in marine growth.Sam Wright, DHSC Project, Author provided
Protecting a priceless submerged heritage
Submerged archaeological sites are in danger of destruction by erosion and from development activities, such as oil and gas installations, pipelines, port developments, dredging, spoil dumping and industrialised fishing.
In Australia, the federal laws that protect underwater cultural heritage in Commonwealth waters have been modernised recently with the Historic Shipwrecks Act (1976) reviewed and re-badged as Australia’s Underwater Cultural Heritage Act (2018), which came into effect in July 2019.
This new Act fails to automatically protect all types of sites and it privileges protection of non-Indigenous submerged heritage. For example, all shipwrecks older than 75 years and sunken aircraft found in Australia’s Commonwealth waters are given automatic protection.
Other types of site, regardless of age and including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sites, can be protected but only with ministerial approval.
There is scope for states and territories to protect submerged Indigenous heritage based on existing laws, but regulators have conventionally only managed the underwater heritage of more recent historical periods.
With our find confirming ancient Indigenous sites can be preserved under water, we need policy makers to reconsider approaches to protecting underwater cultural heritage in Australia.
We are confident many other submerged sites will be found in the years to come. These will challenge our current understandings and lead to a more complete account of our human past, so they need our protection now.
Deep History of Sea Country: Investigating the seabed in Western Australia.
Emerging infectious diseases, including COVID-19, usually come from non-human animals. However our understanding of most animals’ immune systems is sadly lacking as there’s a shortfall in research tools for species other than humans and mice.
Our research published today in Science Advances details cutting edge immunology tools we developed to understand cancer in Tasmanian devils. Importantly, these tools can be rapidly modified for use on any animal species.
Our work will help future wildlife conservation efforts, as well as preparedness against potential new diseases in humans.
The fall of the devil
Tasmanian devil populations have undergone a steep decline in recent decades, due to a lethal cancer called devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) first detected in 1996.
A decade after it was discovered, genetic analysis revealed DFT cells are transmitted between devils, usually when they bite each other during mating. A second type of transmissible devil facial tumour (DFT2) was detected in 2014, suggesting devils are prone to developing contagious cancers.
A Tasmanian devil with devil facial tumour disease.Save the Tasmanian Devil Program
In 2016, researchers reported some wild devils had natural immune responses against DFT1 cancers. A year later an experimental vaccine for the original devil facial tumour (DFT1) was tested in devils artificially inoculated with cancer cells.
While the vaccine didn’t protect them, in some cases subsequent treatments were able to induce tumour regression.
But despite the promising results, and other good news from the field, DFT1 continues to suppress devil populations across most of Tasmania. And DFT2 poses an additional threat.
In humans, there has been incredible progress in treatments targeting protein that regulate our immune system. These treatments work by stimulating the immune system to kill cancer cells.
Our team’s analyses of devil DNA showed these immune genes are also present in devils, meaning we may be able to develop similar treatments to stimulate the devil immune system.
But studying the DNA blueprint for devils takes us only so far. To build a strong house, you need to understand the blueprint and have the right tools. Proteins are the building blocks of life. So to build effective treatments and vaccines for devils we have to study the proteins in their immune system.
Until recently, there were few research tools available for this. And this problem was all too familiar to researchers studying immunology and disease in species other than humans, mice or rats.
Into the FAST lane
You could build a house with just a saw, hammer and nails – but a better and faster build requires a larger, more versatile toolbox.
In our new research, we’ve added more than a dozen tools to the toolbox for understanding tumours in Tasmanian devils. These are Fluorescent Adaptable Simple Theranostic proteins – or simply, FAST proteins.
The term “theranostic” merges therapeutic and diagnostic. FAST proteins can be used as a therapeutic drug to treat a disease, or as a diagnostic tool to determine its cause and better understand it.
A key feature of FAST proteins is they can be tagged with a fluorescent protein marker, and can be released from the cells that we engineered in the lab to make them.
This way, we can collect and observe how the proteins attach and interact with other proteins without needing to add a tag later in the process.
To understand this, imagine trying to use a tiny key in a tiny lock in the dark. It would be difficult, but much easier if both were tagged with a coloured light. In the context of the immune system, it’s easier to understand what we need to turn on or off if we can see where the proteins are.
By mapping how proteins within the devil’s immune system interact, we can find better ways to stimulate the immune system.
An overview of the FAST protein system. Fluorescent proteins and immune system proteins from different species can be rapidly swapped to make new FAST proteins.Andrew S. Flies/WildImmunity
The FAST system is also adaptable, meaning new targets can be cut-and-pasted into the system as they’re identified, like changing the bits on a drill. Therefore, it’s useful for studying the immune systems of other animals too, including humans.
Also, the system is simple enough that most people with basic cell culture and molecular biology experience could use it.
Cancer cells in humans and animals can travel via the bloodstream to spread, or “metastasise”, throughout the body. Identifying single tumour cells in blood can shed light on how cancer invades devils’ organs and kills them.
Using FAST tools, we discovered CD200 – a protein that inhibits anti-cancer responses in humans – is highly expressed in devils. With FAST tools, we were able to mix DFT2 cancer cells into devil blood and pick them out, despite there being about one cancer cell for every 1,000 blood cells.
CD200 is a powerful “off switch” for the immune system, so identifying this off switch allows us it can help us produce a vaccine that disables the switch.
A devil facial tumour 2 (DFT2) cell, with the cell nucleus shown in blue.Andrew S. Flies/WildImmunity
COVID-19 has once again brought emerging infectious diseases onto the global stage. The ability to rapidly develop immunology tools for new species means we can jump into action when a new virus jumps into humans.
Additionally, species are going extinct at an alarming rate, and wildlife disease is increasingly threatening conservation efforts.
Understanding how the immune systems of other animals fight diseases could provide a blueprint for developing vaccines and therapeutics to help them.
I recently wrote about Victoria’s surge in COVID-19 cases. On that day, Victoria recorded 11 new infections, after a few days of new cases in the high teens and low twenties.
I wondered then whether the situation could be brought quickly under control. Unfortunately, it has since got much worse.
On Wednesday, the state recorded 73 new cases, after 64 new cases on Tuesday and 75 the day before that. These numbers are approaching levels seen at the peak of Victoria’s initial outbreak in late March.
In response, the state government has reintroduced lockdown measures in hotspot postcodes.
Victoria is right on the precipice. Either the government’s measures will wrest back control, or unbridled community transmission could mean infection rates get totally out of hand.
The main issue here is public compliance. We can’t forget this is a public health emergency, the likes of which we haven’t seen in Australia for a century. We simply can’t have people refusing to take tests.
Victoria has actually had four “waves” of infection, although the subsequent waves were quite small and could probably be better described as wavelets.
There’s no formal definition of what constitutes a second wave, but a reasonable one might be “the return of an outbreak where the numbers of new daily cases reach a peak as high or higher than the original one”.
By that definition, Victoria has not yet had a second wave of COVID-19. The peak of the pandemic so far was 111 new cases, recorded on March 28.
However, the current resurgence is still a major concern, and at this stage we are unsure whether the daily tallies will go up or down from here.
Sadly, it’s still possible the new outbreak gets worse and the Victorian government loses control of the situation.
How could this have happened?
There have been several holes in Victoria’s approach so far.
As we know, all people entering Australia from overseas must go into a 14-day quarantine. But 14 days may not be long enough. A recent (not yet peer-reviewed) study looked at COVID-19’s incubation period based on 1,211 Chinese patients. It found that “based on the estimated incubation distribution in this study, about 10% of patients with COVID-19 would not develop symptoms until 14 days after infection”.
In other words, the 14-day quarantine does not guarantee all people are free of COVID-19 when they leave quarantine. It’s important to remember, though, that this data is preliminary and must be treated with caution.
Another possible threat involves locally acquired cases – close contacts of known cases. Although these people must self-quarantine, in Victoria they are not required to be tested unless they develop symptoms.
One study which reviewed cases from several countries concluded “more than 50% of positive individuals were asymptomatic at the time of testing”. It’s possible people connected to a known outbreak, but without symptoms, could pass the virus on after their self-isolation period. It would make sense to make testing mandatory for all close contacts of confirmed cases.
Of increasing concern is the proportion of Victoria’s cases that are still under investigation, meaning many of these might be community-acquired. The percentage of cases under investigation was 46% on June 28, and 58% on July 1.
In cases of community transmission, the individual does not know how or where they got infected. This makes contact-tracing and quarantining much more difficult. Increasing levels of community-acquired cases mean it’s possible public health authorities could completely lose control of the outbreak.
Further, the state government believes a large number of cases may have been caused by lapses in infection control measures in the hotel quarantine system.
As a result of genomic testing, the Chief Health Officer has today advised the government that a number of our cases through late May and early June can be linked to an infection control breach in the hotel quarantine program.
Genomic testing is a way to track cases using a special technique based on the virus’s genetic profile, rather than through human contact tracing.
The state government has ordered residents of ten Melbourne postcodes to stay at home until at least July 29. Residents are only allowed out to buy food or essential items, to work or study, to provide care or seek medical attention, or for exercise.
To fix the problem of cases in hotels potentially incubating for longer than 14 days, the Victorian government has introduced testing on day 11 of quarantine. Those who refuse to be tested have to stay in quarantine for an extra ten days after day 14. This regime means returned travellers will hopefully pose little risk of spreading infection.
The government has also organised a testing blitz with the help of the Australian Defence Force across the ten hotspot postcodes over ten days, aiming to test 10,000 residents a day. Andrews has pleaded with residents not to refuse testing.
Testing can now be done using saliva, which involves spitting into a plastic container. This test, developed by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, is much more comfortable than the current nasal and throat swabs. But it is less sensitive, and is likely to miss 13% of positive cases, according to the Doherty Institute’s own research.
The government has also announced an investigation into how the virus escaped hotel quarantine. International flights have been diverted away from Melbourne for the next fortnight to reduce the load on hotel quarantines.
What else can be done?
These measures could very well be effective in containing the surge.
But in my opinion, testing in the hotspots should be made compulsory. This is a public health emergency, and authorities have the power to insist people be tested.
As mentioned, Andrews has already said anyone arriving from overseas who refused a test would be forced to stay in quarantine in hotels for ten extra days on top of the existing compulsory two weeks.
It’s possible similar consequences could apply to any test-refuser in a hotspot, but we don’t know exactly what the punishment would be if someone refused.
Testing can be mandatory — all of the state and territory chief health officers have powers under their public health acts that can make testing and other mechanisms mandatory — but it’s a last resort.
Finally, nasal and throat swabs should continue to be used, rather than the saliva tests that could easily produce false negatives. We can’t have a situation where infected people go about their daily lives, wrongly believing they are negative. This might breed community transmission cases, the most difficult cases for authorities to track.
On Tuesday, a year-long New South Wales parliamentary inquiry revealed the state’s koalas are on track for extinction in the wild by 2050, without urgent government intervention.
Habitat destruction and fragmentation for agriculture, urban development, mining and forestry has been the number one koala killer since European occupation of Australia. This is compounded by the unabated impacts of climate change, which leads to more extreme droughts, heatwaves and bushfires.
Koala populations in NSW were already declining before the 2019-2020 bushfires. The report doesn’t mince words, saying “huge swathes of koala habitat burned and at least 5,000 koalas perished”.
Thousands of koalas in Australia perished in the Black Summer fires.Reuters/Tracey Nearmy
The report, ambitiously, makes 42 recommendations, and all have merit. The fate of NSW koalas now relies on a huge commitment from the Berejiklian government to act on them. But past failures by a federal government inquiry into koalas suggest there’s little cause for optimism.
First, let’s look at the report’s key recommendations and how they might ensure the species’ survival in NSW.
Leadership needed at the local level
Real, on-ground koala conservation actions take place at the local level. “Local” is where councils give development approvals, sometimes to clear koala habitat. And it’s where communities and volunteers work on the front line to save and protect the species.
Recommendation 10 in the report addresses this, suggesting the NSW government provide additional funding and support to community groups so they can plant trees and regenerate bushland along koala and wildlife corridors.
Another two recommendations build on this: encouraging increased funding from the NSW government to local councils to support local conservation initiatives, and suggesting increased resources to support councils to conduct mapping.
Mapping, such as where koalas have been recorded and their habitat, is a critical component for local councils to develop comprehensive koala management plans.
Stop offsetting koala habitat
One recommendation suggests a review of the “biodiversity offsets scheme”, where generally developers must compensate for habitat loss by improving or establishing it elsewhere. It is embedded in the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, and other state and territory governments commonly use offsets in various conservation policies.
But the report recommends prohibiting offsets for high quality koala habitat. Prohibiting offsets is important because when a vital part of koala habitat is cleared, it can no longer support the local koalas. Replacing this habitat somewhere else won’t save that particular population.
The NSW government must act urgently on the inquiries ambitious recommendations.AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Build the Great Koala National Park
It’s of paramount importance to increase the connected, healthy koala habitat in NSW, particularly after the bushfires.
One tool to achieve this is laid out in recommendation 41: to investigate establishing the Great Koala National Park. Spearheaded by the National Parks Association of NSW, this national park would see 175,000 hectares of publicly owned state forests added to existing protected areas.
It total, it would form a 315,000 hectare reserve in the Coffs Harbour hinterland dedicated to protecting koalas – an Australian first.
It would be a great day if such a park was established and replicated throughout the NSW and Queensland hinterlands. Research shows that in those regions, the future climate will remain suitable for koalas, and urbanisation, agriculture and mining are not currently present in these parks.
The Great Koala National Park.
But it’s worth noting Australia’s national parks are under increasing pressure from “adventure tourism”. Human recreation activities can fragment habitat and disturb wildlife, for example by constructing tracks and access roads through natural areas.
Humans must not be allowed to compromise dedicated koala conservation areas. Intrusive recreational activity is detrimental to the species, and can also reduce the chance quiet park visitors might spy a koala sitting high in a tree, sleepily munching on gum leaves.
This rule should apply both to existing national parks, and a new Great Koala National Park.
Failures of past inquiries
The tragic fate predicted for koalas in NSW depends on the state government’s willingness to act on the recommendations. Developing wordy, well-intentioned documents is simply not enough.
Habitat destruction is an existential threat to koalas.Shutterstock
After a 2012 Senate inquiry into the health and status of koalas, the species was officially listed as “vulnerable” under the EPBC Act. But since then, tree clearing and declines in koala numbers have continued at a furious pace across Queensland and NSW.
One of the shortcomings of the federal listing for the koala is in its Referral Guidelines, which recommends “proponents consider these guidelines when proposing actions within the modelled distribution of the koala”. In other words, informing the government about clearing koala habitat is only voluntary. And that’s not good enough.
The failure of the 2012 inquiry and the EPBC Act to protect koalas should serve as a wake-up call to the NSW government. It must start implementing the recommendations of the current inquiry without delay to ensure Australia’s internationally celebrated species doesn’t die out.
Koala conservation must take priority over land clearing, regardless of the demand for that land. That principle might seem simple, but so far it’s proved agonisingly difficult.
HESTA, the industry super fund for health and community workers, plans to dump its shares in thermal coal mining companies.
Beyond that, its Net Zero by 2050 program announced on Friday commits it to cutting the carbon emissions in its portfolio by one third by 2030, and to “net zero” by 2050.
UniSuper, the fund that controls most of the retirement savings in the higher education sector, is bigger, managing A$82.2 billion instead of $53.8 billion.
Like many superfunds, UniSuper does not fully disclose how it invests these funds. However, what it does report (and you can read its report on climate risk and its investments here) is troubling.
It invests 12% of its funds – one in every eight dollars – in companies involved in fossil fuels. Half of that, 6%, is invested “directly related to fossil fuel exploration and production business activities.”
6% of UniSuper funds in fossil fuels
UniSuper has responded to criticism of these investments of almost $10 billion and $5 billion by noting that three quarters of its investment portfolio has “set targets around emissions”.
It points to three investment options specifically designed for “members wanting to avoid fossil fuels”. They are Sustainable High Growth, Sustainable Balanced, and Global Environmental Opportunities.
Global Environmental Opportunities excludes Rio but includes companies with no obvious link to environmental opportunities such as the Citrix Systems server and software corporation.
UniSuper defends these investments by saying it pushes for climate action by engaging with the companies in which it invests. However, its responsible investment reports suggest it voted in favour of few if any climate change-related shareholder resolutions at Australian company meetings.
University staff have fewer choices than most
It would be tempting to suggest that if UniSuper members don’t like UniSuper’s investment choices they can leave.
But UniSuper is unusual among super funds. Most members are tied to it. Enterprise bargains have made membership of UniSuper compulsory for employers of institutions such as the University of Western Australia.
Other universities effectively bar employees from choosing other super funds without formal restrictions. UniSuper is the default fund into which new employees are automatically funnelled.
It runs one of Australia’s last remaining defined benefit schemes, in which retirement benefits are related to years of service and salary rather than the accumulation of funds invested, and in which the investment of funds is particularly opaque with regard to climate change.
This is troubling because all new university staff members are defaulted into the defined benefit stream and are unable to switch to the accumulation stream for the first two years.
But they’re not powerless
Research suggests consumer action works best when consumers act collectively. UniSuper’s rules make this difficult, but not impossible.
The social media campaign for UniSuper to divest from fossil fuel companies organised by the environment activist group Market Forces has amassed almost 12,000 signatures.
The more that UniSuper members sign up to it, the less room there will be for UniSuper to claim it is serving members interests.
And many UniSuper members are actually able to transfer their funds to other super funds (or at partially – it’s harder than for most funds). UniSuper provides a fact sheet explaining how to do it.
Investment decisions matter
The threats posed by climate change to investment returns and standards of living in retirement are real.
The umbrella organisation for the world’s central banks says climate change is likely to cause the largest economic dislocations ever seen and could bring about dramatic drops in the value of portfolios, including a 25% reduction in global GDP growth.
In 2019 the investment advisor Mercer modelled three climate change scenarios; average warming of 2°C, 3°C and 4°C on preindustrial levels, over three time frames – to 2030, 2050, and 2100.
It concluded that 2°C would have the least damaging effect on portfolios, and that fund managers, motivated by the economic and social interest of their beneficiaries, had the opportunity, “arguably the obligation”, to use their investments to help bring about this more economically-secure outcome.
We agree, there is no retirement on a dead planet.
Unprecedented border closures and the domestic lockdown have paralysed New Zealand’s $40.9 billion a year tourism industry. In the process, the vulnerability of the sector to external shocks and the tenuous nature of tourism employment have been exposed.
While New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic has been hailed as a global masterclass, and the prospect of travel bubbles promoted as a way to restart the tourism economy and save jobs, it is clear there is no quick fix.
The inherent dangers of reinfection from travel to and from countries with uncontrolled community transition, and the challenge of protecting New Zealand’s borders, mean international tourism is grounded for the time being.
Nevertheless, planning for recovery is underway. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) wants to restore confidence and restart tourism without delay. The European Union recently opened its borders to travellers from certain countries, including New Zealand.
But the proposed trans-Tasman and Pacific bubbles will likely be among the first safe international travel zones in the world.
A Tasman-Pacific bubble is good for the planet
The economic benefits are obvious. A recent study using UNWTO data identified Australian tourists, who spend on average $7,490 on holidays, as the top spending tourists in the world. Of the 3.8 million international tourists who visited New Zealand in 2018, nearly 40% were from Australia.
By the end of 2019, Australian tourists had spent $NZ 2.5 billion in the New Zealand economy. Of course, that figure is offset by the $NZ 1.6 billion spent by Kiwis visiting Australia in 2019.
Simply wishing for a return to normal, however, is not enough. The tourism rebuild must negotiate a delicate balance between immediate recovery and long term sustainability. A new steady-state equilibrium that generates employment and income while driving down tourism carbon emissions is required.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic it was widely recognised that the global tourism system is economically and environmentally flawed. Our research has highlighted three main structural failures:
low value (caused by growth in arrivals combined with declining spending)
economic “leakage” (due to outbound tourism and the concentration of profit flowing to a few global players)
high carbon emissions (from high-carbon transport dependence, increasing distance of travel and falling average length of stay).
Reducing travel distances is key
In the case of a geographically distant destination like New Zealand, there is no ignoring the last of those problems, as a report by the New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment highlighted in late 2019.
The fact is, high carbon emissions are embedded in New Zealand’s tourism GDP. In the rebuild we must commit to measuring the carbon footprint of tourism, and actively manage forms of tourism that come with a disproportionately high carbon cost.
In practice, this will mean more tourism from the regional medium-haul markets that fall within the proposed Australia-New Zealand-Pacific travel bubble. Increasing reliance on Australian states rather than long-haul markets will result in a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions per dollar of tourism GDP.
Research published in 2010 showed that while Australian tourists made up 37% of international visitors to New Zealand they were responsible for 13% of air travel emissions. By contrast, visitors from Europe made up 18% of total visitors but 43% of emissions.
Fewer long haul arrivals, more Australian tourists, more domestic tourism and less outbound travel will dramatically reduce tourism carbon emissions.
COVID-19 has already kickstarted the domestic part of this equation. New Zealand hasn’t targeted local tourists since 1984’s iconic “Don’t leave town till you’ve seen the country” campaign. But the regions are now competing for the roughly 60% of all tourist dollars that New Zealanders spend in their own country each year.
The closure of international borders has also, for now, stopped the significant economic drain caused by outbound travel. In 2019 Kiwis spent nearly $5 billion travelling overseas.
Time to stop marketing long-haul tourism
Most trade (including tourism exports) comes from markets closest to us. It is much cheaper to trade with neighbours, and it is far more sustainable to have tourists arrive from closer rather than distant countries.
New tourism models have to be found that can reduce the sector’s emissions while maintaining as much as possible its income and employment benefits.
Tourism carbon analysis is likely to point towards the growing importance of long-stay visitors, such as international students, who already provide 23% of total international tourist spending in New Zealand.
Equally it will be necessary to “de-market” and reduce long-haul, high-carbon, short-duration, and low economic yield tourist arrivals. Passengers who arrive on enormous carbon intensive cruise ships – 9% of visitors but only 3% of tourism earnings – fall firmly into the least desirable category.
An Australia-New Zealand-Pacific travel bubble clearly fits the new model. The tourism rebuild must involve all measures being taken to create a high-value, low-leakage and low-emissions tourism future.
While the government is reportedly considering a revamp of both the JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments, we believe a much broader rethink is needed of the way we provide income support to people without a market income.
Instead of an unemployment payment – or the dole – we need a liveable income guarantee.
‘Snapback’ is not going to happen
It’s increasingly clear a “snapback” to the pre-pandemic way of doing things is not realistic.
Unemployment has jumped under coronavirus.Stefan Postles/AAP
The recent upsurge in coronavirus cases reminds us the new normal will see all sorts of economic and social activity constrained and subject to sudden lockdowns.
As a June Grattan Institute report has also shown, we need more fiscal stimulus, not a return to pre-pandemic fixations on debt and deficits.
Thousands of hardworking Australians, many of whom have never been unemployed before, will be thrown out of work – some of them for a long time.
We need a new unemployment system for a new reality
The system of unemployment benefits that was in place before COVID-19 worked on the assumption there were plenty of jobs for anyone capable of filling them.
Unemployment was therefore seen as reflecting personal defects – either unwillingness to work or, more charitably, a lack of particular skills needed for “job readiness”.
This assumption was clearly untrue, even before the pandemic. As the long history of booms, busts and economic crises have shown us, all workers are vulnerable to losing their job through no fault of their own.
There aren’t jobs for everyone
The failure of labour markets to provide full employment is also seen in the increasing levels of underemployment, particularly among young people.
Underemployed workers are, by definition, willing and able to work, and ineligible for unemployment benefits. But they are nonetheless unable to secure a full-time job.
Young people are increasingly underemployed.www.shutterstock.com
For an unacceptably high proportion of young people, the experience of the labour market has been one of stringing together part-time gigs, while trying unsuccessfully to start a career. Official measures of youth unemployment hit 16% in May. A further 25.8% of young Australians between 15 and 24 years old were underemployed.
We need to do something different
Even before coronavirus, there was a pressing need to reform the way we support unemployed people.
JobSeeker (or its predecessor, Newstart), had not been increased in real terms since 1994. Business, community groups and researchers were among the loud chorus pushing for an increase to the payment which, on average, is about A$45.50 a day.
But to respond to the post-pandemic era, we need to make more comprehensive changes to the way we support unemployed and underemployed Australians, that acknowledge the scarcity of jobs.
A liveable income guarantee
Moving forward, we should adopt the concept of a liveable income guarantee or living wage. The living wage is closely linked to the idea of participation – starting from the principle everyone has a right to a liveable income and a responsibility to contribute to society.
Ideas of this kind, under names including “universal basic income”, “guaranteed minimum income” and “participation income” have been discussed since the 1960s.
They have attracted more attention in recent years as the failure of the current economic system to deliver full employment and broad improvements in living standards has become more apparent.
How would a liveable income guarantee work?
Many people already productively contribute to society in different ways, such as caring, but their work is largely obscured by the narrow measure of formal employment.
The social security system only partially supports those unable to work due to age, disability, unemployment, or caring needs. And support for all of these categories has been cut back and subjected to conditionality under successive governments, operating on the ideology of market liberalism.
There are many possibilities of what contributions could be included and “paid for” under a liveable income guarantee. Most of them have some precedent, but have not been considered as part of a comprehensive program of social participation. The options include:
volunteering in support of organisations and causes
work on grant-funded community projects
support for beginning small businesses
ecological care projects
artistic and creative activity
full-time study.
All of these productive activities should be given the same terms, income and assets test as the pension.
Including supplements, a single pensioner currently receives up to $944.30 per fortnight. This is paid to the aged, people with disability and carers.
Without the Coronavirus Supplement, a single person on the JobSeeker Payment receives $574.50 a fortnight (including the Energy Supplement).
How to pay for a living wage
We estimate the annual cost of a policy along the lines suggested above would be less than $30 billion. About $10 billion a year would be needed to set all benefits equal to the age pension. The cost of expanded eligibility for the liveable income guarantee is harder to estimate, but unlikely to be more than $20 billion a year.
Most of this could be financed simply by forgoing the tax cuts for high income earners legislated by the Morrison government after it won the 2019 election.
The welfare system should be more like the tax system
When it comes to government checks on people’s participation in their chosen community activities, we need to look to the tax system.
Currently the welfare system imposes strict compliance rules to prevent cheating at the outset. By contrast, the tax system is operated on the basis of self-assessment.
The welfare system could operate more like the tax system when it comes to self-reporting.James Gourley/AAP
Looking ahead, we need to focus on cooperation rather than competition.
This means giving everyone the opportunity to contribute to society, whether or not they generate a market income. A liveable income guarantee will be a crucial step towards this goal.
This article was the product of discussion among a group that also included author Tim Dunlop, Western Sydney University emeritus professor Jane Goodall and QUT senior lecturer Dr Jenni Mays.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains references to deceased people.
In 2019, Dujuan Hoosan travelled from Garrwa country in the Northern Territory, to Geneva where he addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council.
As he sat by his father’s side, he stated the purpose of his visit:
I come here to speak with you because the Australian government is not listening. Adults never listen to kids like me, but we have important things to say.
Dujuan, in identifying himself as a “kid like me”, signalled to the world his disempowerment as an Aboriginal child by the Australian state.
As one of the youngest people ever to address the UN, as a powerful child healer in his own community and as the subject of the documentary film In My Blood It Runs, Dujuan is exceptional.
But as an Aboriginal child much loved by his family, alienated by the education system, and under the purview of child welfare and Northern Territory youth justice, Dujuan’s story is all too common.
The education system
At one point in the film, Dujuan’s teacher reads Eve Pownall’s The Australia Book, published in 1952. The cover features illustrations of imperial soldiers and a naked Aboriginal man and child. The teacher reads:
Now this one isn’t a story. It’s information, or non-fiction. It’s fact. The Australia Book. It’s about the history of our country. At Botany Bay, Cook landed for the first time in the new country […] On an island in Cape York he raised the English flag and he claimed for the English country the whole of this new land.
Throughout the film we witness the disjuncture between Dujuan’s sense of self as a strong Aboriginal child against his mounting disillusion with school.
He is increasingly forced to disengage rather than comply with an education system he experiences as inherently problematic. Like many Aboriginal children and young people – and by extension their families – Dujuan is disciplined for his non-compliance.
Dujuan becomes disengaged by a curriculum which he experiences as exclusionary of his worldview as an Aboriginal child.Maya Newell/In My Blood It Runs
Families are told if their kids don’t go to school, it is inevitable their children will end up in prison.
The criminal justice system
In this moment where Black Lives Matter gains global traction, it is vital we remember Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people make up a significant proportion of people who are detained and die in prison and police custody.
In 2018, on any given night in Australia, Aboriginal young people made up nearly 3 in 5 young people in detention, despite constituting only 5% of the population under the age of 25.
In May 2019, all children and young people in detention in the Northern Territory were First Peoples.
In My Blood It Runs captures Indigenous children’s awareness of a racialised divide between rich and poor in the town of Alice Springs.Maya Newell/In My Blood it Runs
In my research, I have found the incarceration and deaths in custody of Aboriginal young people is overwhelmingly framed in policy and the media as “inevitable”.
This “inevitability” is directly tied to whether a young person is compliant with the demands of the school system – a system often experienced as violent and exclusionary.
In 2018, two Noongar teens aged 16 and 17 drowned in the Swan River attempting to escape police. The two young men were labelled truants, their failure to attend school implied as an underlying reason for their death.
Questioning narratives
Directed by Maya Newell, in collaboration with the Arrernte and Garrwa families it represents, In My Blood It Runs challenges the way Aboriginal young people’s educational disadvantage and engagement with the criminal justice system is understood as inevitable.
The film represents Dujuan’s life as full, complex and dignified. It counters the dehumanising way Indigenous young people are often depicted as statistics; as criminal and almost (if not already) as at-risk; as educationally deficient.
The film reveals the violence of the education and criminal justice systems. But it also shows how families navigate through, negotiate with, and refuse to comply with these systems.
Family is central to this story.Maya Newell/In My Blood It Runs
The punitive and assimilatory state intervention into the lives of Aboriginal young people is the problem – not Aboriginal young people themselves. The focus needs to shift from locking up our kids to supporting on-the-ground initiatives, keeping young people safe and families together.
In knowing the importance of a future where Aboriginal children and young people are free of state violence, Dujuan closed his address to the UN:
My film is for all Aboriginal kids. It is about our dreams, our hopes and our rights.
In My Blood It Runs is currently in select cinemas, and airs on Sunday, July 5 at 9.30pm on ABC and iView.
Eden-Monaro voters are calling for a compassionate and empathetic recovery process as Australia emerges from the pandemic.
In focus group research conducted this week, ahead of Saturday’s byelection, the vast majority of participants favoured increasing JobSeeker payments above the pre-COVID level, extending the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, and providing targeted help for areas hit hard by the summer fires and the impact of coronavirus.
More surprising, almost all participants were willing to pay more tax to assist the economic and social recovery effort. Many were concerned about leaving debt for future generations.
This was the second round of online research by the University of Canberra’s Mark Evans and Max Halupka. Two groups, with 10 and nine participants respectively, were held on Monday and Tuesday. All but three participants had taken part in the research’s first round. Drawn widely from the diverse electorate, participants included aligned and swinging voters.
Focus group research taps into voters’ attitudes rather than being predictive of the outcome.
Both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese have been very active in the seat as voting day nears, although over the campaign as a whole Albanese has been on the ground much more than the PM. But the Liberals have invested heavily in an effort to wrest the seat – which is on a margin of under 1% – from Labor and increase the government’s parliamentary majority.
There was only a marginal change in participants’ views on the key issues.
Top issues are: action on climate change, the federal government’s response to the bushfire crisis, job creation, better access to public health care, and addressing the high cost of living.
Climate change action continued to receive the greatest support when people were asked to nominate the one most important issue to them. Most participants saw a link between the bushfire crisis and the need for climate action.
People continued to be aggrieved at the Morrison government’s handling of the fire crisis, which they thought suffered from poor federal leadership, inadequate preparation and insufficient collaboration between federal and state government.
In the second round discussion, there was greater concern over economic recovery issues. “The economy looks weak so we will need good economic management and that tends to come from the Coalition,” a retired Coalition voter noted.
But there was some cynicism over the extra support the government has promised.
People saw Morrison’s announcement in Bega of a $86 million package for the forestry industry, wine producers and apple growers hit by the bushfires as “guilt money”. “It’s an obvious bribe – which might well work,” said a middle-aged hard Coalition supporter, while a female Greens voter described it as “a shameful example of logrolling”.
Most participants thought there would still be a bushfire backlash against the Coalition, despite Morrison’s announcement.
The government is hoping Morrison’s performance on the pandemic negates criticism of his handling of the fires.
Since their first discussion, people have cooled in their views of leaders’ management of the virus crisis. Morrison is now seen as the best performer, followed by NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, a reversal from the first round.
Berejiklian’s poorer performance is attributed to general annoyance with the states and the perception they are acting “selfishly”. The vast majority of participants think Morrison “is handling the coronavirus outbreak competently and efficiently.” But people are worried by a second wave and cautious about re-opening too quickly.
Anthony Albanese is a distant third (the question about him was whether he was doing a good job holding the PM to account); his performance was rated more poorly in the second discussion compared with the first. He wasn’t impacting on the core political agenda: “he hasn’t got a plan,” said one participant.
The vast majority of participants, however, did not believe any party was offering a clear COVID-19 recovery plan and were surprised there hadn’t been a national conversation on the issue.
COVID-19 has constrained the usual forms of campaigning, and has led to a very high demand for postal votes. Participants perceived the Coalition had run a very traditional campaign using “old media”, while they thought Labor had run a “new media” campaign with more emphasis on social media platforms.
Both the major candidates are seen positively. Fiona Kotvojs (Liberal) was considered an “excellent” candidate even by Labor supporters. But several people suggested the intervention of senior Coalition figures in the campaign (Morrison and Payne) may have “reduced her community standing”. Labor’s Kristy McBain was considered a “really hard working” and a “very well liked” candidate by Coalition supporters.
But McBain was regarded as having run the better campaign.
When people were asked who they would vote for, the responses suggested a Labor victory and strong support for McBain. However there had been some attitudinal changes over the campaign.
There appeared to be a marginal increase in support for Cathy Griff (Greens) as the campaign neared its end and two independent candidates emerged from the woodwork – Narelle Storey (Christian Democratic Party) and Matthew Stadtmiller (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers) – during the discussion. That suggested the possibility certain soft Coalition voters might be exercising a protest vote against the government.
Some soft Coalition and Green voters might have moved to Labor and some soft Coalition voters to the Greens, but hard Coalition, Green and Labor voters looked to be remaining loyal.
Kotvojs’s well-resourced campaign appeared to be losing some momentum. But the participants continued to think the election – a straight Labor-Liberal battle despite a field of 14 candidates – would be very close.
This is a byelection where even seasoned watchers are wary of chancing their arm in advance of Saturday night.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penny van Oosterzee, Adjunct Associate Professor James Cook University and University Fellow Charles Darwin University, James Cook University
Today marks the end of Australia’s commitments under the Kyoto climate deal as we move to its successor, the Paris Agreement. Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor on Wednesday was quick to hail Australia’s success in smashing the Kyoto emissions targets. But let’s be clear: our record is nothing to boast about.
Taylor says Australia has beaten Kyoto by up to 430 million tonnes — or 80% of one year of national emissions. On that record, he said, “Australians can be confident that we’ll meet and beat our 2030 Paris target”.
The fact that Australia exceeded its Kyoto targets means it’s accrued so-called “carryover” carbon credits. It plans to use these to cover about half the emission reduction required under the Paris commitment by 2030.
But there’s been little scrutiny of why Australia met the Kyoto targets so easily. The reason dates back more than 20 years, when Australia demanded the Kyoto rules be skewed in its favour. Using those old credits to claim climate action today is cheating the system. Let’s look at why.
The Paris climate deal officially starts today.Daniel Munoz/Reuters
Australian scorns the spirit of Paris
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty negotiated in 1997. Industrialised nations collectively pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels. The reductions were to be made between 2008 and 2012.
Any surplus emissions reduction in the first Kyoto period could be carried over to the second period, from 2013 to 2020. In the name of climate action, five developed countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – voluntarily cancelled their surplus credits.
However, Australia held onto its credits. Now it wants to use them to meet its Paris target – reducing emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
This is clearly not in the spirit of the Paris agreement. And importantly, the history of Kyoto shows Australia did not deserve to earn the credits in the first place.
Sneaky negotiations
Under Kyoto, each nation was assigned a target – measured against the nation’s specific baseline of emissions produced in 1990. During negotiations, Australia insisted on rules that worked in its favour.
Instead of reducing its emissions by 5.2%, it successfully demanded a lenient target that meant emissions in 2012 could be 8% more than they were in 1990.
Our negotiators argued we had special economic circumstances – that our dependence on fossil fuels and energy-intensive exports meant cutting emissions would be difficult. Australia threatened to walk away from the negotiations if its demand was not met.
Australia negotiated an advantageous deal under the UN Kyoto protocol.Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock
Australia then waited until the final moments of negotiations – when many delegates were exhausted and translators had gone home – to make another surprising demand. It would only sign up to Kyoto if its 1990 emissions baseline (the year future reductions would be measured against) included emissions produced from clearing forests.
Here’s the catch. Australia’s emissions from forest clearing in 1990 were substantial, totalling about a quarter of total emissions, or 131.5 million tonnes of carbon.
Forest clearing in Australia plummeted after 1990, when Queensland enacted tough new land clearing laws. So including deforestation emissions in Australia’s baseline meant we would never really struggle to meet – or as it turned out, beat – our targets. In fact, the rule effectively rewarded Australia for its mass deforestation in 1990.
This concession was granted, and became known as the Australia clause. It triggered international condemnation, including from the European environment spokesman who reportedly called it “wrong and immoral”.
Then prime minister John Howard declared the deal to be “splendid”.
John Howard was thrilled with Australia’s concessions under Kyoto.LYNDON MECHIELSEN/AAP
A new round of Kyoto negotiations took place in 2010, for the second commitment period. Under the Gillard Labor government, Australia agreed to an underwhelming 5% decrease in emissions between 2013 and 2020.
Australia insisted on using the deforestation clause again, despite international pressure to drop it. It meant Australia’s carbon budget in the second period was about 26% higher than it would have been without the concession.
Had forest clearing not been included in the 1990 baseline, Australia’s emissions in 2017 were 31.8% above 1990 levels.
Forest clearing in 1990 made it easy for Australia to beat Kyoto targets.Harley Kingston/Flickr
History repeats
At the Madrid climate talks last year, Australia reiterated its plans to use its surplus Kyoto credits under Paris. Without the accounting trick, Australia is not on track to meet its Paris targets.
Laurence Tubiana, a high-ranking architect of the Paris accord, expressed her disdain at the plan:
If you want this carryover, it is just cheating. Australia was willing in a way to destroy the whole system, because that is the way to destroy the whole Paris agreement.
Whether Australia will be allowed to use the surplus credits is another question, as the Paris rulebook is still being finalised.
Analysts say there is no legal basis for using the surplus credits, because Kyoto and Paris are separate treaties.
Australia appears the only country shameless enough to try the tactic. At Senate estimates last year, officials said they knew of no other nation planning to use carryover credits.
Protesters in Spain in January 2020, calling for global climate action.JJ Guillen Credit/EPA
Nothing to be proud of
Some hoped Australia’s recent bushfire disaster might be a positive turning point for climate policy. But the signs are not good. The Morrison government is talking up the role of gas in Australia’s energy transition, and has so far failed to seize the opportunity to recharge the economy through renewables investment.
Crowing on Wednesday about Australia’s over-achievement on Kyoto, Taylor said the result was “something all Australians can be proud of”.
But Australia abandoned its moral obligations under Kyoto. And by carrying our surplus credits into the Paris deal, we risk cementing our status as a global climate pariah.
Panic buying has returned to Australia in the wake of its second-biggest city experiencing a spike in COVID-19. The Victorian government has reimposed stay-at-home restrictions on 36 of Melbourne’s 321 suburbs in response.
Once again supermarket stores are being emptied of toilet paper and other consumables.
But this panic buying isn’t just in affected areas. It’s not even limited to Victoria. Empty supermarket shelves have been reported in Canberra, Mittagong in the New South Wales southern highlands, and Bathurst in the NSW central tablelands.
As a preventative measure Coles and Woolworths have reintroduced nationwide limits on the amount of toilet paper shoppers can buy. Coles is also limiting packets of pasta, rice and long-life milk nationally, while Woolworths has so far done so only for Victoria.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called the panic buying “ridiculous”, and previously dubbed it “unAustralian”.
But are admonishments helpful in stopping panic buying?
That depends on what motivates people to panic buy. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us the chance to ask.
What motivates panic buying?
We’ve surveyed more than 600 Australians, first in April then again in June, about their stockpiling behaviour, attitudes and feelings.
Our results show about 17% of shoppers admitted to panic buying in April. About 6% were continuing to stockpile two months later, joined by an equal number who did not buy in April and feared missing out again.
Panic buyers and stockpilers were more likely to be younger and under financial and personal stress. A number of personality traits were also significant predictors. Those less agreeable, more anxious and less able to cope with uncertainty were more likely to panic buy.
These findings suggest panic buyers are likely to feel a lack of control in their lives and worry more about COVID-19. Stocking up on items gives them a sense of security in one part of their lives. They are likely to be less cooperative and considerate of others.
Police ensure order as shoppers queue for toilet paper and other items at a Coles store in Sydney on March 20 2020, after the first wave of panic buying sparked more stockpiling and extreme supply shortages.James Gourley/AAP
Studying panic buying
We recruited our 600 participants via consumer-survey company Pure Profile, which ensured our sample was representative of the Australian population.
We asked if they had “stockpiled”, and how much, in response to COVID-19, as well as questions about their income, education attainment, attitudes and personality.
Participants indicated their agreement with more than 100 statements such as:
I am someone who is emotionally stable, not easily upset
I spend too much time following COVID-19 related news coverage
Obtaining food and basic household items has been a major source of stress.
The strongest predictor of “early” panic buying was low “agreeableness”.
Agreeableness describes how motivated people are to cooperate with and consider the feelings of others. It is typically expressed as polite and compassionate behaviour. We measured this trait by asking respondents to agree or disagree with statements such as “I am someone who is sometimes rude to people” and “I am someone who can be cold and uncaring”.
The second strongest predictor was high “neuroticism”.
Neuroticism describes a person’s experience of negative emotions such as worry, anxiety and uncertainty. Those with this trait tend to agree with statements such as “I often feel sad” or “I am temperamental and get emotional easily”.
High scorers experience negative emotions more intensely and more often. Our data shows that 22% of high scorers on neuroticism reported panic buying compared to 12% who scored low.
Our results also suggest these individuals are driven to stockpile to limit their need to go to the supermarket as much as fear of store supplies running out.
Financial stress
Stress also appears to be a significant factor. Panic buyers in our survey were significantly more likely to have been stood down or had their hours reduced due to COVID-19.
Those 32 and younger were about 40% more likely to have panic bought than those older. This is likely due to the economic impacts hitting younger workers hardest, as well as young families generally facing more financial and domestic strain.
Panic buyers also reported more time worrying about COVID-19, and more conflict in their household as a result of the pandemic.
Toilet paper prices at a convenience store in Redfern, Sydney on March 24 2020.Callum Godde/AAP
Fear of missing out
The fear of missing out was the main predictor of respondents stockpiling in June. More than half these “late” stockpilers did not do so in April. They were far more likely to agree with the statement “Difficulties in obtaining basic household has been a major source of stress” than the April panic buyers.
So while panic buying is indeed more common in “selfish” people, it might also serve as a coping mechanism. People who experience higher levels of instability and uncertainty – due to personality disposition and/or their life circumstances have been disrupted – are most likely to panic buy and stockpile.
Stockpiling gives such individuals some sense of control and reduces one source of potential stress in their lives – the possible difficulty to obtain essential food and household products.
With more outbreaks of panic buying predicted over the next 12 months as new COVID-19 hotspots emerge, we need more strategies than condemnation to address that behaviour.
The update boosts defence spending from A$195-$270 billion over the next decade, with a commitment to see it through, regardless of the proportion of GDP it may reflect in the economically challenging months ahead.
The update promises increases for the three services (navy, army, air force), a satellite constellation, a bolstered cyber capability and plans for increased engagement with the neighbourhood. The intention is to bolster the ADF’s reach, precision, speed, agility and resilience.
The extended reach and more robust capabilities are intended to catch up with recent upgrades in the militaries in our region (notably in the Chinese armed forces).
This update is also intended to complicate the plans of any adversary seeking to cause us harm. Diversifying our capabilities is key to avoiding being limited by a shortage of force options.
China’s military has been undergoing dramatic reforms in recent years.XINHUA NEWS AGENCY HANDOUT/EPA
China is the main motivator – but not the only one
China didn’t feature explicitly in the prime minister’s launch speech, but the dramatic growth in its military capabilities, coupled with an aggressive approach to cyber intrusions and its “wolf warrior diplomacy ”, is clearly a significant motivator for this surge in defence spending.
The plan makes clear, though, that other issues beyond great power rivalries are also contributing to the world’s sense of uncertainty, including threats to human security, pandemics and natural disasters.
Also implicit in the plan is the concern over heightened US introspection and waning relative influence, particularly in our region.
It is sometimes helpful to think of defence as being like a signposted home insurance policy and alarm system, designed to deter intruders and provide for potential calamity. The ADF capability, to date, has offered insufficient deterrence at a time when the prospect of (literal and metaphoric) fires and intrusions is growing.
The plan doubles down on regional engagement initiatives (a “neighbourhood watch” program, if you like). Key priorities here include better cooperation with maritime Southeast Asian states and the South Pacific, as well as other security partners further afield.
This will complement the work being undertaken as part of Australia’s Pacific “Step Up” policy and reflects the investment in regional military partnerships, such as the Indo-Pacific Endeavour. However, it does not yet go as far as a more comprehensive proposal for a grand compact for the Pacific.
There is an underlying purpose to the ADF update: to ensure what Australia does is seen as being in the shared interests of the region, helping to bolster regional stability and security in these uncertain times.
It also may demonstrate a heartening increase in resolve to confront challenges in our region and stand with our neighbours as we have done in the past, instead of being focused on security challenges in the far corners of the globe, where our influence is commensurately less.
Greater resilience and preparedness
The update’s workforce plan projects incremental personnel growth in the hundreds, not thousands. And the service chiefs appear content. With unemployment spiking due to the coronavirus and related economic downturn, their recruitment and retention problems have faded for now.
The plan acknowledges the prospect of further “black swan” events, such as bushfires and pandemics. The ADF, however, is only a boutique force and while its utility and adaptability is impressive, there is little spare capacity in the event of a spike in crises – even with more soldiers and other staff.
Resilience featured prominently in the update, as well, reflecting growing awareness of Australia’s vulnerability arising from an overdependence on supply lines from abroad, notably refined petroleum products.
Morrison said Australia needs to prepare for a world that is ‘poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly’.Lukas Coch/AAP
Deterrence is critically important
Critics may argue this update is a mistake and our words and actions may antagonise China – our largest trading partner.
But China is itself antagonising many countries, all of which have extensive trade ties with it. Even the Philippines, which has made concessions and reached out to China under President Rodrigo Duterte, has seen these efforts spurned. As a result, it has retained its ties with the United States.
It is not just us. We are not the ones being pushy or rude. In fact, looking around to the United Kingdom,Canada, Japan, South Korea, Europe, Southeast Asia and beyond, the pattern of assertive Chinese actions suggests we may have been a bit too polite so far.
It also points to the need to double down on consulting and collaborating with neighbours who are equally disconcerted by China’s belligerence and America’s evident retreat from global leadership. That seems to have been the point of much of the policy prescriptions in the Foreign Policy White Paper of 2017 – or what I call our Foreign Policy “Plan B”.
Meanwhile, China has built its robust, lethal and rapidly expanding military capability, structured to confront its very own trading partners.
Australia’s actions are not happening in a vacuum. Rather, Australia is appropriately and commensurately responding in an effort to bolster its own resilience and deterrence. After all, wars start when one side calculates the other’s ability to deter is insufficient and they feel confident of victory. Deterrence is critically important.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penny van Oosterzee, Adjunct Associate Professor James Cook University and University Fellow Charles Darwin University, James Cook University
Today marks the end of the Kyoto climate deal and the start of its successor, the Paris Agreement. Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor on Wednesday was quick to hail Australia’s success in smashing the Kyoto emissions targets. But let’s be clear: our record is nothing to boast about.
Taylor says Australia has beaten Kyoto by up to 430 million tonnes — or 80% of one year of national emissions. On that record, he said, “Australians can be confident that we’ll meet and beat our 2030 Paris target”.
The fact that Australia exceeded its Kyoto targets means it’s accrued so-called “carryover” carbon credits. It plans to use these to cover about half the emission reduction required under the Paris commitment by 2030.
But there’s been little scrutiny of why Australia met the Kyoto targets so easily. The reason dates back more than 20 years, when Australia demanded the Kyoto rules be skewed in its favour. Using those old credits to claim climate action today is cheating the system. Let’s look at why.
The Paris climate deal officially starts today.Daniel Munoz/Reuters
Australian scorns the spirit of Paris
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty negotiated in 1997. Industrialised nations collectively pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels. The reductions were to be made between 2008 and 2012.
Any surplus emissions reduction in the first Kyoto period could be carried over to the second period, from 2013 to 2020. In the name of climate action, five developed countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – voluntarily cancelled their surplus credits.
However, Australia held onto its credits. Now it wants to use them to meet its Paris target – reducing emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
This is clearly not in the spirit of the Paris agreement. And importantly, the history of Kyoto shows Australia did not deserve to earn the credits in the first place.
Sneaky negotiations
Under Kyoto, each nation was assigned a target – measured against the nation’s specific baseline of emissions produced in 1990. During negotiations, Australia insisted on rules that worked in its favour.
Instead of reducing its emissions by 5.2%, it successfully demanded a lenient target that meant emissions in 2012 could be 8% more than they were in 1990.
Our negotiators argued we had special economic circumstances – that our dependence on fossil fuels and energy-intensive exports meant cutting emissions would be difficult. Australia threatened to walk away from the negotiations if its demand was not met.
Australia negotiated an advantageous deal under the UN Kyoto protocol.Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock
Australia then waited until the final moments of negotiations – when many delegates were exhausted and translators had gone home – to make another surprising demand. It would only sign up to Kyoto if its 1990 emissions baseline (the year future reductions would be measured against) included emissions produced from clearing forests.
Here’s the catch. Australia’s emissions from forest clearing in 1990 were substantial, totalling about a quarter of total emissions, or 131.5million tonnes of carbon.
Forest clearing in Australia plummeted after 1990, when Queensland enacted tough new land clearing laws. So including deforestation emissions in Australia’s baseline meant we would never really struggle to meet – or as it turned out, beat – our targets. In fact, the rule effectively rewarded Australia for its mass deforestation in 1990.
This concession was granted, and became known as the Australia clause. It triggered international condemnation, including from the European environment spokesman who reportedly called it “wrong and immoral”.
Then prime minister John Howard declared the deal to be “splendid”.
John Howard was thrilled with Australia’s concessions under Kyoto.LYNDON MECHIELSEN/AAP
A new round of Kyoto negotiations took place in 2010, for the second commitment period. Under the Gillard Labor government, Australia agreed to an underwhelming 5% decrease in emissions between 2013 and 2020.
Australia insisted on using the deforestation clause again, despite international pressure to drop it. It meant Australia’s carbon budget in the second period was about 26% higher than it would have been without the concession.
Had forest clearing not been included in the 1990 baseline, Australia’s emissions in 2017 were 31.8% above 1990 levels.
Forest clearing in 1990 made it easy for Australia to beat Kyoto targets.Harley Kingston/Flickr
History repeats
At the Madrid climate talks last year, Australia reiterated its plans to use its surplus Kyoto credits under Paris. Without the accounting trick, Australia is not on track to meet its Paris targets.
Laurence Tubiana, a high-ranking architect of the Paris accord, expressed her disdain at the plan:
If you want this carryover, it is just cheating. Australia was willing in a way to destroy the whole system, because that is the way to destroy the whole Paris agreement.
Whether Australia will be allowed to use the surplus credits is another question, as the Paris rulebook is still being finalised.
Analysts say there is no legal basis for using the surplus credits, because Kyoto and Paris are separate treaties.
Australia appears the only country shameless enough to try the tactic. At Senate estimates last year, officials said they knew of no other nation planning to use carryover credits.
Protesters in Spain in January 2020, calling for global climate action.JJ Guillen Credit/EPA
Nothing to be proud of
Some hoped Australia’s recent bushfire disaster might be a positive turning point for climate policy. But the signs are not good. The Morrison government is talking up the role of gas in Australia’s energy transition, and has so far failed to seize the opportunity to recharge the economy through renewables investment.
Crowing on Wednesday about Australia’s over-achievement on Kyoto, Taylor said the result was “something all Australians can be proud of”.
But Australia abandoned its moral obligations under Kyoto. And by carrying our surplus credits into the Paris deal, we risk cementing our status as a global climate pariah.
COVID-19 is changing the way we live. Panic buying, goods shortages, lockdown – these are new experiences for most of us. But it’s standard fare for the protagonists of young adult (YA) post-disaster novels.
In Davina Bell’s latest book, The End of the World Is Bigger than Love (2020), a global pandemic, cyberterrorism and climate change are interrelated disasters that have destroyed the world as we know it.
Like most post-disaster novels, the book is more concerned with how we survive rather than understanding the causes of disaster. As such, we can read it to explore our fears, human responses to disaster and our capacity to adapt.
The day after
Kelly Devos’s Day Zero (2019), and the soon to be released Day One (2020), use cyberterrorism as the disaster. Like Bell’s novel, Day Zero focuses more on how the protagonist, Jinx, maintains her humanity when she must harm or kill others in order to keep herself and her siblings alive.
A form of speculative fiction, YA post-disaster writing imaginatively explores causes and responses to apocalyptic disasters. (Some readers categorise YA juggernaut The Hunger Games – and the recently released prequel – as dystopian rather than post-disaster – others think it’s both.)
Many YA novels in this genre explore issues of survival and humanity following a catastrophe. In YA post-disaster novels, teenage protagonists must learn to exist in a fractured world with little support from elders.
When they are explained, the fictional causes of catastrophe can illustrate social concerns of times they were written in. Because of this, YA post-disaster books allow us to reflect on our current beliefs, attitudes and fears.
Davos’s Day Zero can be read as commenting on contemporary concerns about cyberterrorism and political corruption. Bell’s The End of the World Is Bigger than Love expresses similar anxieties, but is also prescient given the current pandemic.
War is the cause of disaster in Glenda Millard’s A Small Free Kiss in the Dark (2009) and John Marsden’s Tomorrow series. While Millard’s novel raises questions about homelessness, Marsden’s series expresses an anxiety about invasion from Asia. The author has expressed regret about this aspect of the books since their publication.
A latent xenophobia is also present in Claire Zorn’s, The Sky So Heavy (2013), in part because the nuclear disasters are attributed to “regions in the north of Asia”. Passive ideologies of racism that pervade some YA post-disaster novels are problematic, as are other underlying ideals that promote any form of discrimination.
Literary texts that reinforce fear about Asia, particularly China, are especially problematic in the context of coronavirus, which reportedly saw an increase in racist attacks.
Panic buying and the stockpiling of goods during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak established an “us against them” dichotomy in our “struggle to survive”, reminiscent of YA post-disaster fiction.
Not everyone hoarded food and items for themselves though. Others showed compassion, donating toilet paper and food to those in need. Because of this, we were confronted with questions about how we want to survive.
YA post-disaster novels allow us to explore similar questions of humanity. In these fictional worlds, teenage characters are faced with moral dilemmas about who to help and who to harm. How does someone look out for themselves while still expressing empathy and consideration for others? How can characters maintain their humanity if their survival means another’s suffering or death?
Speculative fiction can help us think about our responses to disaster. Will it bring out our best – or our worst?Andrew Amistad/Unsplash, CC BY
Who to save
Tied up with the question about how we survive, then, is who survives. The protagonist, Jinx, in Day Zero is continually faced with this dilemma. As she flees the corrupt government, Jinx must decide who to help, and how.
While Jinx readily uses violence to overcome her aggressors, she eventually must shoot to kill to save her stepsister. Doing so, Jinx loses a part of herself and becomes “something else”; she must now reconcile her actions with her sense of self.
It’s not so far from the choices medical professionals in Italy, the United States and elsewhere have had to make about who to treat due to limited ventilators and a rapid influx of patients.
No matter the cause of catastrophe, the literary exploration of questions of survival provides opportunities for teenagers, parents and teachers to discuss a range of contemporary issues, including humane responses to disaster.
Given the current crisis we are in, perhaps it is time to critically read more YA post-disaster novels. If they hold up a mirror to our current attitudes and behaviours, they can help us reflect on our humanity, and on what and who we think matters.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Stevens, Associate Professor in Ocean Physics, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Jules Verne sent his fictional submarine, the Nautilus, to the South Pole through a hidden ocean beneath a thick ice cap. Written 40 years before any explorer had reached the pole, his story was nevertheless only half fiction.
There are indeed hidden ocean cavities around Antarctica, and our latest research explores how the ocean circulates underneath the continent’s ice shelves – large floating extensions of the ice on land that rise and fall with the tides.
These ice shelves buttress the continent’s massive land-based ice cap and play an important role in the assessment of future sea level rise. Our work sheds new light on how ocean currents contribute to melting in Antarctica, which is one of the largest uncertainties in climate model predictions.
The field camp on top of the Ross Ice Shelf.Craig Stevens, Author provided
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest floating slab of ice on Earth, at 480,000 square kilometres. The ocean cavity it conceals extends 700km south from Antarctica’s coast and remains largely unexplored.
We know ice shelves mainly melt from below, washed by a warming ocean. But we have very little data available about how the water mixes underneath the ice. This is often overlooked in climate models, but our new measurements will help redress this.
The only other expedition to the ocean cavity underneath the central Ross Ice Shelf goes back to the 1970s and came back with intriguing results. Despite the limited technology of the time, it showed the ocean cavity was not a static bathtub. Instead, it found fine layering of water masses, with subtly different temperatures and salinities between the layers.
Other ocean studies have been conducted from the edges or from high above. They have provided insight into how the system works but to really understand it, we needed to take measurements directly from the ocean under hundreds of metres of ice.
The team used a hot-water jet to drill through the ice to the ocean below.Craig Stevens, Author provided
In 2017, we used a hot-water jet, modelled on a British Antarctic Surveydesign, to drill through 350 metres of ice to the ocean below. We were able to keep the hole liquid long enough to make detailed ocean measurements as well as leave instruments behind to continue monitoring ocean currents and temperature. These data are still coming in via satellite.
We found the hidden ocean acts like a massive estuary with comparatively warm (2℃) seawater coming in at the seabed to cycle close to the surface in a combination of meltwater and sub-glacial freshwater squeezed out from the ice sheet and Antarctica’s hidden rocky foundation.
The hundreds of metres of ice isolate the ocean cavity from the furious winds and freezing air temperatures of Antarctica. But nothing stops the tides. Our data suggest tides push the stratified ocean back and forth past undulations on the underside of the ice and mix parts of the ocean cavity.
Antarctica’s ice isolates the ocean cavity from furious winds and freezing air temperatures.Craig Stevens, Author provided
Future projections
This sort of discovery is the ultimate challenge for climate science. How do we represent processes that work at daily scales in models that make projections over centuries? Our data show the daily changes can add up, so finding a solution matters.
For example, data collected outside the ocean cavity and computer models suggest that any given parcel of water spends one to six years making its way through the cavity. Our new data indicate the lower end of the range is more likely and that we should not be thinking in terms of one grand circuit anyway.
The Ross is not the ice shelf in most danger from warming oceans. But its sheer size and its relationship with the neighbouring Ross Sea means it is a vital cog in the planetary ocean system.
The importance of these ice shelves for sea level rise over the next few centuries is very apparent. Research shows that if atmospheric warming exceeds 2℃, major Antarctic ice shelves would collapse and release ice flowing from the continent’s ice cap – lifting the sea level by up to 3 metres by 2300.
What is less well understood, but also potentially a massive agent for change, is the impact of meltwater on the global thermohaline circulation, an oceanic transport loop that sees the ocean cycle from the abyss off the coast of Antarctica to tropical surface waters every 1,000 years or so.
Antarctic ice shelves are like a pit stop in this loop and so what happens in Antarctica resonates globally. Faster melting ice shelves will change the ocean stratification, with repercussions for global ocean circulation – and one result of this appears to be greater climate variability.
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could work, and what it might mean for the election.
For the best reporting on the announcement, see Henry Cooke’s Green Party’s $8b plan would guarantee income of $325 a week, and pay for it with a wealth tax on millionaires. This explains how the Greens’ wealth tax would apply a 1% levy on people who have net assets above $1m – exempting the first $1m – and this would rise to 2% for subsequent wealth over $2m. There would also be new higher marginal tax rate of 37% for earnings over $100,000 a year, and 42% for earnings over $150,000. The increased revenue would be used to pay a “guaranteed minimum income” welfare payment of $325 to all those not in full-time work (including students, unemployed, part-timers, retired).
Praise from the left
Leftwing blogger No Right Turn is incredibly happy with the policy, saying: “Its bold, its progressive, it would make us a better, more equal society” – see: The Greens’ opening bid is transformational change.
Although the blogger would prefer a land tax rather than a wealth tax, which he suggests is easier for the rich to evade, he says a lot of the quibbles with the policy – such as whether the rich will simply be able to avoid the tax – are unfounded, as these can be fixed in the implementation phrase. However, he’s disappointed that the Labour Party appear to oppose the policy, which he puts down to too many in the party owning investment properties and generally being a force for the status quo.
Leftwing commentator Chris Trotter is also deeply disappointed by Labour’s apparent opposition to the policy, and suggests it’s typical of the party’s general moderate orientation in a time that requires boldness – see: Labour will not win with a yeah-nah strategy.
Trotter believes the Greens’ new policy “has the capacity to get young, poor voters up off the couch and into the polling booths.” He foresees the party possibly rolling out a similarly radical suite of policies which might “offer the voters something pretty close to a complete re-prioritisation of all the activity that makes up the New Zealand economy”.
Fellow Daily Blog writer Martyn Bradbury, is also a big supporter of the new policy: “For the first time in 3 years, the Greens finally give a reason why New Zealander’s should vote for them, and I’m genuinely surprised and pleased. The middle class woke identity politics, which has been so toxically alienating for the Greens and is why they have been floundering in the Polls, has been sidelined in favour of genuine social justice in welfare and a real economic philosophy of taxing the rich” – see: Finally a reason to vote for the Greens!
Newsroom’s editor Tim Murphy also praises the Greens’ policy for its radicalism and vision, saying the party deserves praise for being “the first party to offer a big, detailed and transformative policy in response to the economic tornado that is Covid-19. This is what political parties should be doing, 80 or so days out from a general election in the context of a major economic downturn” – see: The Greens’ cunning plan. He adds, “The Greens have shown us a medium to longer-term response to the economic crisis that challenges current political limits.”
Here’s Murphy’s main point: “the value in the Greens going early and going hard with such a sweeping policy is that the party has offered a response to the biggest crisis since the Great Depression that offers change beyond an orthodox, vast Government stimulus and infrastructure build. The party will be betting New Zealanders shaken by the rapid and comprehensive threat to jobs, incomes and futures will be open to a new, collectivist and non-judgmental platform where Kiwis accept they need to pay more from any wealth they have above million and two million dollar limits to help their sisters and brothers. Is there a new normal in compassion and sharing the burden?”
Critiques from the left
How radical is the policy? Leftwing playwright and satirist Dave Armstrong is generally supportive of the new policy but warns against seeing it as some kind of socialist nirvana: “So when we look at the Greens’ ‘far Left’ wealth tax, we have to remember that it is a slightly Left-of-centre party big on the environment and with the Right-wing ‘realist’ faction of the party firmly in control. To pay the Greens’ wealth tax you have to own an asset worth more than a million dollars. Even then you only pay a small amount of tax based on the amount over a million. So all those residents of leafy Wellington suburbs, mine included, can relax – especially if you co-own a house. Even if you own a million-dollar house and a million-dollar company, you’ll more likely be paying your accountant more per year than the wealth tax” – see: Greens’ wealth tax will appeal to Labour’s Left-wingers.
Armstrong points out that not only will the wealth tax be “about as potent as a shandy in global terms”, the resulting increased welfare payments will still be inadequate: “For many of us, living on $325 a week would be incredibly difficult. It’s hardly largesse.”
The Greens, Armstrong argues, are actually in broad alignment with all the parliamentary parties, who largely agree on the basic taxation settings: “Our five parties have an unspoken consensus that corporate tax must stay low, that indirect taxes must rise and direct taxes must fall, that our crippling – for the poor – GST rate of 15 per cent must remain, and that corporate tax be modest.”
However, the Greens’ policy will be useful for Labour, Armstrong says, because it means that they will be able to “come up with a wishy-washy centrist scheme to address child poverty and inequality and when there are howls of outrage from the anti-beneficiary Right, Labour can say, ‘it’s very moderate – nowhere as radical as what the Greens were proposing’.”
Leftwing blogger Steven Cowan is dismissive of the new policy, largely because it amounts to a band aid rather than a solution for inequality and poverty, which is actually produced in the economic system rather than the welfare system. He complains that the Greens are only willing to treat “the symptoms of the disease itself” as a way of avoiding the necessity of fundamental economic transformation – see: Treating the symptom and not the disease.
Like Armstrong, Cowan argues that the Greens’ proposed $325 per week isn’t enough to live on, and in fact is much lower than what the current government has deemed is necessary for those who lost their jobs during the current recession (they get $490/week). And because the Greens haven’t so far pushed Labour to be transformative during the last three years, Cowan finds it hard to imagine them doing it in the next term – hence he sees the policy as dead in the water.
Critiques from Labour and the right
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has poured cold water on the Greens’ policy, saying the wealthiest New Zealanders would simply change how they structure their assets in order to pay much less tax than the Greens have calculated. She has complained that the Greens have included some “fairly heroic assumptions” in their calculations that the proposed new tax would raise $8bn – see 1News’ ‘Significant behaviour change’ needs to be factored into Green’s proposed wealth tax, says PM.
Here are Ardern’s main points: “Some of the assumptions around people’s change in behaviour, they aren’t necessarily factoring in a significant behaviour change which often tax amendments like this would drive… Also the fact that people would change the value of their assets in order to avoid tax, the fact that people will often move funds offshore and also I’m interested in the underlying modelling which is not necessarily something I’ve had access to.”
On the political right, others have made some similar arguments about the weaknesses of such a wealth tax. National-aligned blogger David Farrar says the wealthiest can afford to use accountants and lawyers to hide their wealth: “Of course the super wealthy will pay nothing. They will have all their assets in trusts. This asset tax will just affect the prudent retired person or small business owner who has managed to save some money, but don’t have fancy lawyers to hide everything in trusts” – see: Greens want to tax, tax, tax.
Evaluations of wealth taxes
For an in-depth and thoughtful examination of the general pros and cons of wealth taxes, it’s worth reading Henry Cooke’s The crucial feature of the Greens’ wealth tax that would exempt most family homes. He explains why such taxes are not commonly advocated for in New Zealand: “There is a reason we tax income more than wealth in this country. Taxing wealth is very hard – both politically and logistically. It’s fairly easy to clip the ticket on someone’s pay packet every week, but a lot more difficult to ascertain exactly what they own, what it’s worth, and whether the public morally thinks that worth should be taxed at some level.”
Cooke also outlines how the Greens’ version of a wealth tax is actually rather moderate, and says it is difficult to see how it would raise as much revenue as the Greens suggest. This is because the tax only applies to the marginal income above a very high threshold, and assets such as houses are divided in value between the various owners – with each owner getting a $1m exemption.
So, for example, even if a couple owned a $2.1m home and had no mortgage, they each would only pay $500 a year in the tax. And, in fact, such couples might have the potential to reduce this further by making their children co-owners of the home: “it isn’t clear what would happen to stop people just putting their kids on the title of their home, spreading the wealth around a family and avoiding the tax.”
Similarly, Thomas Coughlan has written about how a wealth tax fits within the broader tax system, again pointing to the complexities of introducing this type of taxation – see: Taxing wealth: a necessary step, or unachievable pipe dream? He argues the benefit of the current system – which relies heavily on tax on incomes, spending, and corporate profits – is its effectiveness: “This ensures high rates of compliance because there’s no great reward for the costly practice of stashing your income somewhere the taxman can’t get at it.”
Coughlan interviews Robin Oliver, formerly the IRD’s deputy commissioner of policy and a member of the Government’s tax working group, who argues that such a wealth tax will have problems with valuing assets. He says a land tax would be preferable: “A land tax would be relatively more easy to implement as land values were independently calculated for rating purposes.” Oliver says: “All we’ve really got in New Zealand in assets is land… What we have is land, what’s untaxed is land.”
The problem, Harman says, is that the Labour Party will have very little desire to implement such a policy, making it “more or less dead on arrival”. And with Jacinda Ardern being so opposed to implementing a capital gains tax, she is “hardly likely to agree to a capital gains’ tax’s lesser cousin, a wealth tax.”
The Greens could yet get their plan implemented according to Barry Soper, who points out that with NZ First likely to be out of the picture the Greens might have the ability to make the policy a bottom-line for post-election negotiations – something the Greens aren’t ruling out – see: Is the Greens’ poverty plan a flight of fantasy? Think again.
For this reason, Soper suggests Labour’s best bet is to totally rule out the Greens’ proposal, otherwise it will give National and NZ First a strong campaigning message: “Smiling all the way to the ballot box if that doesn’t happen will be National, which will be out selling what a Labour/Greens coalition could look like. And so too will be handbrake Peters, who’ll be out there reminding the electorate of what he stopped Labour from doing”.
Here’s du Plessis-Allan’s main point: “Labour clearly hasn’t learned from the capital gains tax fiasco last election. Remember how that played out? As soon as the PM promised a CGT, her polls started falling. This time, it might not be her policy, but if it’s coming from a party she is most likely going to need, it’s close enough for some voters. Unless she rules this out, there is the risk that this becomes capital gains tax 2.0.”
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Naomi Pfitzner, Postdoctoral Research fellow with the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Monash University
During lockdown, we have seen an increase in demand for domestic violence services in Australia and around the world.
The United Nations recognised this problem in April, declaring a “shadow pandemic” of violence against women and girls.
But while we look at specific supports to victims, we cannot forget the people who work to help them.
Our research highlights how we risk losing the essential workers on the frontlines of our domestic violence response, as a result of overwhelming workloads and potential burn out.
Thousands of workers involved
While there is no national data on the Australian domestic violence workforce, in Victoria alone there are around 3,000 specialist practitioners and an additional 30,000 workers who provide core support for, or interventions to address, domestic and family violence.
These include workers from specialist domestic violence services, men’s behaviour change services as well as child and family services.
COVID-19 has seen domestic violence support being delivered from people’s homes.www.shutterstock.com
This included 166 workers in Victoria and 56 and 117 workers over two surveys in Queensland.
As shutdown commenced in March, many services moved to remote delivery, with 73% of specialist practitioners in Queensland reporting they now worked from home.
This change resulted in frontline workers providing crisis counselling and conducting risk assessments and planning with traumatised and abused women from their homes. Often they were doing this incredibly challenging work from their living rooms.
The ‘shadow pandemic’
According to our recent surveys, the incidence and severity of domestic violence has increased in Australia during the COVID-19 restrictions. Over 50% of workers in Victoria reported an increase in the frequency and severity of domestic violence. These findings were mirrored in Queensland, with 70% of practitioners observing an escalation in the violence experienced by women in May.
The pandemic conditions have also made providing support to victims more difficult and more complex. The lack of face-to-face services and the constant presence of perpetrators in victims’ homes limits workers’ ability to respond to violence. As one practitioner explained
You can’t see the hole in the wall, the bruise on her jaw, the fear in the kid’s eyes when dad’s name is mentioned.
Our Victorian and Queensland survey findings also showed during COVID-19, perpetrators have adapted their abusive behaviours, finding new opportunities to control and isolate their victims.
Frontline workers told us in some cases perpetrators are using the pandemic to force women into residing in homes with their abusers where there are children involved.
Perpetrators have also pressured women to wash their hands to the point they are experiencing cracks and bleeding, and have used the threat of COVID-19 infection to isolate women from friends, family and other supports.
Flow on effect to the workforce
Queensland domestic violence workers reported a decline in their mental well-being during April and May. More than 40% of practitioners surveyed in April said working during the pandemic was causing additional pressure and stress.
They tended to attribute this to their challenging work coming into their homes.
Frontline domestic violence workers say it has been difficult working from home during COVID-19.www.shutterstock.com
Queensland workers also revealed the transition to remote work alongside an increased demand for their services during COVID-19 has been harmful to their mental health.
I have already used a week of personal leave due to potential burn out. The impact on domestic violence workers needs to be considered by government.
Similar reports have emerged from Victorian workers. As one survey respondent explained
We are all working from home, which has been emotionally, extremely difficult. Having this work in my bedroom, my safe space, has been frankly awful and has wreaked havoc on my work/life balance and self-care routines. Most significantly of all, not being around my colleagues for support, guidance and debriefing has really been the worst.
Self-care strategies and well-being supports
Positively, some workers involved in the Queensland surveys talked about new self-care strategies developed during the lockdown. For example, many Queensland workers said their services had implemented regular online catch-ups and debriefing sessions to check in with staff and provide regular contact and support.
Other well-being supports shared in the Queensland surveys included dedicated counsellors to provide individual counselling services to workers and their families during the pandemic.
We need to protect these essential workers
Historically, there has been limited attention paid to the support needs of the domestic and family violence workforce, beyond a general emphasis on self-care in social work training.
Our research shows why this must change moving forward.
As Australia navigates the easing of restrictions in some locations, funding and resources must be increased to ensure the sector can meet the demands of the increasing number of women seeking help from violence.
Victoria and Queensland have already provided multi-million dollar emergency funding packages, to address increased demand on the sector and the scarcity of short-term accommodation for victims fleeing violence.
Equal investments are now needed to ensure the health and well-being of support workers now and into the future.
The specifics of what this entails should be decided in close consultation with the sector, but we note workers said they benefited from counselling for themselves and their families and flexible working conditions, including additional leave days.
Without dedicating the resources needed to support practitioners, we run the risk of seeing an exodus due to burn out in the coming months and years. As one practitioner warned
I feel like we are all in a bubble that is set to burst very soon, in terms of capacity. And when it does burst, I don’t know what it will look like but I know who will pay the ultimate price – victims.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
This is the third of three articles based on newly released research on the impacts of a lack of local jobs on the rapidly growing Western Sydney region.
The problem of not enough jobs in Western Sydney has been in the public spotlight for half a century. At the same time, though, record immigration levels and cheap housing on new residential estates way out on the urban fringe have fuelled growth in the region’s labour force. Long-distance commuting by car is one consequence.
Our estimate in our newly released research reports is that by 2036, should nothing change, Western Sydney’s 1.5 million resident workers will confront a shortage of 325,000 jobs. This will mean a daily outflow from the region of over 560,000 workers. And that would be a planning disaster.
Centre for Western Sydney, Data: .id, Author provided
The good news is that governments are aware of the problem. Perhaps they have been sensitised by increasingly close election results in Western Sydney seats.
Governments are looking to three strategies to solve the problem – although none has yet generated a permanent job. A COVID-19 recession has arrived to make start-up even more difficult.
The first strategy is the Western Sydney Airport. A first runway is planned for 2026 and a second around mid-century.
The federal government and impact statements say a fully operational airport by 2063 will generate 88,000 airport jobs. It will also create 25,000 jobs on an adjoining business park and a further 29,000 jobs elsewhere around Western Sydney. If realised, these impressive numbers would make a major contribution to the region’s job needs – but not for a long time yet.
It’s a hugely ambitious project. Many have questioned both the idea of an aerotropolis and the possibility of one in Western Sydney yielding 200,000 permanent jobs.
The third strategy is the set of plans in the Greater Sydney Commission’s A Metropolis of Three Cities. The plans divide Western Sydney into two cities, the Central River City and the Western Parkland City, broadly the inner (and older) and outer (and newer) districts of the region.
Greater Sydney Commission’s ‘Three Cities’ strategy has commendable goals but is vague about where all the jobs will come from.Greater Sydney Commission
Commendably, the commission stresses the need to integrate population, housing and job targets into Sydney’s land-use planning. The commission aspires to the 30-minute city as a daily travel range for every Sydney household.
The commission estimates 817,000 extra jobs are needed from 2016-36 to accommodate metropolitan Sydney’s labour force growth. Western Sydney’s share of this total, according to Transport for NSW, is 49.6%, equal to 405,000 jobs.
The commission’s plans contain forecasts of job growth in each of the metropolitan area’s strategic centres. For the Central River City, centred on Parramatta, the commission nominates ten strategic centres and predicts a baseline growth of 71,400 jobs for 2016-36. For the Western Parkland City, the fringe suburbs plus the airport, the plan proposes only three strategic centres and predicts growth of only 24,000 jobs for 2016-36.
So, the total growth in jobs from 2016-36 assigned to Western Sydney’s strategic centres is 95,400. That leaves over 300,000 jobs to be found by 2036 from growth somewhere else in Western Sydney.
While the commission acknowledges the importance of the airport and aerotropolis for jobs in the Western Parkland City, it fails to attach job targets to these ventures. This makes sense, given the uncertainty about the level of jobs generation that will flow from these projects. And neither of these ventures is expected to become fully operational until after mid-century.
Work has begun on Western Sydney Airport, but the Greater Sydney Commission hasn’t attached job targets to its planning for the project.Joel Carrett/AAP
Absent airport-aerotropolis jobs, the commission nods in the direction of greenfields employment areas to provide more than 57,000 jobs over the next 30 years. A fancy science park to accompany a new residential estate at Luddenham is to deliver 12,000 jobs. But little detail is provided in either case.
So each of the three interventions carries risk. The airport is being constructed at a time of great volatility for air travel. There is a high degree of uncertainty about the nature and volume of air traffic in the longer term. In any case, the airport’s big benefits won’t come until the 2050s.
The spillover effects from the airport into an aerotropolis are untested and, like the airport, can only ramp-up around mid-century.
Then, to get 50,000 jobs from greenfields industrial areas in Western Sydney would mean a monumental shift from a pattern of transport and logistics investments with low job creation that have dominated equivalent sites over the past decade.
There’s not much here to give confidence that a Western Sydney planning disaster will be averted. The region’s chronic jobs deficit is central to the problem. More detailed planning, rigorous assessment and generous resourcing are all urgently needed.
The Centre for Western Sydney has released three reports on Western Sydney’s growing jobs deficit. You can read the reports here.
The covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has brought numerous challenges to the way journalists report and has limited the stories they’re able to tell, forcing many of them to drop coverage of issues like the environment in order to focus on the public health crisis.
But for Jakarta-based Kantor Berita Radio (KBR), the first independent national radio news agency in Indonesia, the pandemic was an opportunity to make its climate change coverage more relevant.
Using a mix of live radio talk shows and videos, innovative outreach and personal stories, KBR is helping raise awareness about climate change by looking at how it intersects with covid-19.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, the station had developed a project called “What’s In It For Me?” Supported by a grant from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, the project was designed to explore the different ways climate change affects people’s daily lives.
The goal was to build public engagement through storytelling, in the hope of triggering a wider debate about climate issues between the public and policy-makers.
That plan could have been derailed when covid-19 took center stage, but KBR quickly moved to explore how concerns about the virus also related to climate change, producing content on topics such as energy use and forest fires that were both timely and relevant.
Three talk shows Between May and June, the station produced three talk shows.
“How to use energy wisely during the covid-19 pandemic.” (May 15) This show explored the links between energy consumption and climate change and discussed ways in which people could use energy more wisely at home to keep electricity bills down.
“Anticipating a water crisis in Indonesia.” (May 22) With all the hand washing required during a pandemic, water use has gone up, but access to clean and adequate water supplies remains a huge problem in many parts of the country. The discussion during this show revolved around the reasons for the scarcity as well as environmental justice issues, and allowed speakers to share solutions.
“Forest fires and the dry season in the midst of covid-19” (June 12) The third talk show, looked at how covid-19 heightens the challenge of combating Indonesia’s perennial land and forest fires and could exacerbate health problems related to the blazes. Speakers outlined the public health links between covid-19 and forest fires and discussed what’s being done and what more is needed to address the problem.
The key challenge for KBR has been ensuring the content is relevant to its audience. But Ardhi Rosyadi, an editor and producer at KBR, says they’ve tried to overcome this by bringing in diverse speakers – including experts, government officials, activists and community leaders – who can clearly explain the issues at both a national and local level.
“We believe that diversity of speakers is crucial because our audience is also diverse,” said Rosyadi. “Our radio talkshow is broadcasting in 34 provinces and each area is experiencing climate change in different ways. And for us, it’s important to make our audience feel connected with the topic, because we want them to feel that it’s also important and eventually take part and do something.”
Expanding to video, growing engagement The talk shows have all been broadcast live as part of KBR’s flagship program Ruang Publik, which means Public Space in Bahasa Indonesia. To reach new and younger audiences they have also converted them to podcasts that can be shared online and through mobile apps, such as Spotify.
KBR also worked to grow its audience by recording videos of its talk shows and streaming them live on Facebook. The pandemic has now motivated KBR to carry out its shows primarily through online videos, said Citra Parstuti, KBR’s editor-in-chief.
Content is prerecorded and rebroadcast on YouTube and other social media platforms, with most newsroom teams able to broadcast from home and production carried out in the studio.
Transition to YouTube KBR has already seen the fruits of its efforts. During a typical one-hour radio talk show they might get between three and six questions (sent through call-ins or text messages). The transition to YouTube has seen this number jump, with 30 questions/comments offered in the third show on June 12, said Parstuti.
“What can we do as society? Because last year, we experienced land burning for five months and it was devastating for us. It will be harder for us in the middle of [the] corona pandemic like now,” read a comment from a viewer on YouTube during that June 12 show.
“From the comments and questions that we received throughout the talk show, we have a sense that the audience understands that we are living in the midst of climate crisis, by looking at their own backyards,” Prastuti wrote in a recent report on the project.
“We believe that this is a good start to inform and educate public to understand climate crisis. Through our talk shows, we are showing that the impacts are real and happening now.”
In coordination with the talk shows, KBR also invites bloggers to listen to the live shows and then write blog posts as part of a writing competition drawing on insights and data shared during the discussion.
Prastuti said they have chosen to target the blogger community because bloggers have the ability to continue the conversation and share information in a more practical way on their own platforms and among their audience. The three winners selected have all been women.
“Our radio talk shows play an important role to give ‘ammunition’ to their writings and also lights further curiosity to dig out for more information,” Prastuti wrote in her report. “The writing competition is a way to find new champions who care, understand and can campaign on climate change issues.”
Short audio spots As a final effort to extend its content as widely as possible, KBR has taken some of the best quotes from speakers and created short audio spots that it broadcasts up to five times a day in the week following the talk shows.
KBR says it is an attempt to reach listeners after the broadcast is over in a shorter, more straightforward way.
The station’s creative new approaches are already brightening up climate change coverage, and it intends to broadcast more YouTube videos and plans to mainstream environmental topics into the station’s regular shows.
Eventually, KBR plans to host talks shows outside of the studio with live audiences, one that it hopes will have grown bigger despite, or perhaps because of, the pandemic.
The Pacific Media Centre is a partner of Internews’ Earth Environment Network.
Fiji’s health minister is trying to allay concerns about the health of more than 160 soldiers who returned from the Middle East at the weekend.
There has been community concern about their return from Sinai, particularly after it was revealed some of the locals who had been working with the troops have tested positive for covid-19.
But Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said they were being held in strict quarantine and would be tested for the coronavirus.
“Because this is a big group – the numbers are big – they are using up two facilities I believe,” he said.
“But before they can finally go home, the soldiers will have to be tested again and they have to be covid-19 negative before they can be released to go home.”
Waqainabete said every measure was being taken to ensure there was no threat to the public.
The military said all steps had been taken by the government, as well as Australia – who flew the soldiers home – and the Multinational Force and Observer Mission to minimise the soldiers’ exposure.
The soldiers’ 12 month deployment had already been prolonged because of rapid border closures in March, which made a repatriation difficult.
They will be held in isolation for two weeks, and will be released to their families after then if they test negative for the coronavirus.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Chugh, Senior Lecturer/Discipline Lead – Information Systems and Analysis, CQUniversity Australia
Australia has ruled out abandoning the government’s COVIDSafe contact tracing app in favour of the rival “Gapple” model developed by Google and Apple, which is gaining widespread support around the world. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth told The Project the COVIDSafe app was “a great platform”.
In the two months since its launch, COVIDSafe has been downloaded just over 6.4 million times – well short of the government’s target of 40% of the Australian population.
Its adoption was plagued by privacy, security and backwards compatibility concerns, and further exacerbated by excessive battery consumption. And despite being described as a vital tool in the response to COVID-19, it is reportedly yet to identify a single infection that hadn’t already been tracked down by manual contact tracing.
It seems the app has failed to win the public’s trust. Software downloads are based on the perceptions of risk and anticipated benefits. In this scenario, the risks appear to outweigh the benefits, despite the dangers of a second coronavirus wave taking hold in our second most populous city.
COVID-19 cases in Melbourne continue to surge. But more broadly, the relatively low number of overall cases in Australia and the lack of adequate buy-in among the public make it difficult for COVIDSafe to make a meaningful contribution.
Is there another way?
Some 91% of Australians have a smartphone, whereas a rough calculation based on the 6.4 million downloads suggests only 28% have downloaded COVIDSafe.
For digital contact tracing to be effective, an uptake of around 60% of the population has been suggested – well beyond even the 40% target which COVIDSafe failed to hit.
The logic is straightforward: we need a system that 60% of people are willing and able to use. And such a system already exists.
Gapple is not an app itself, but a framework that provides Bluetooth-based functionality by which contact tracing can work. Crucially, it has several features that lend it more privacy than COVIDSafe.
In simple terms, it allows Android and iOS (Apple) devices to communicate with one another using existing apps from health authorities, using a contact-tracing system built into the phones’ operating systems.
The system offers an opt-in exposure notification system that can alert users if they have been in close promixity to someone diagnosed with COVID-19.
Gapple’s exposure notification system.
Gapple’s decentralised exposure notification system offers more privacy and security than many other contact-tracing technologies, because:
it does not collect or track device location
data is collected on the users’ phones rather than a centralised server
it does not share users’ identities with other people, Apple or Google
health authorities do not have direct access to the data
users can continue to use the public health authority’s app without opting into the Gapple exposure notifications, and can turn the notification system off if they change their mind.
The system meets many of the basic principles of the American Civil Liberties Union’s criteria for technology-assisted contact tracing. And its exposure notification settings appear in recent updates of both Android and iOS devices. But without an app that uses the Gapple framework, the exposure notification system cannot be used.
COVID-19 Exposure Notification System.
Gapple going global
Global support for the Gapple model is growing. The United Kingdom, many parts of the United States, Switzerland, Latvia, Italy, Canada and Germany are abandoning their native contact-tracing technologies in favour of a model that could achieve much more widespread adoption worldwide.
The ease of communication between different devices will also make Gapple a crucial part of international contact tracing once borders are reopened in the future, and people start to travel.
In this light, it is hard to see why Australia resisted the calls to ditch COVIDSafe and adopt the Gapple model.
Can Australians use Gapple anyway?
No, they can’t, because the Gapple model requires users to download a native app from their region’s public health authority which uses the Gapple exposure notification system. Australia’s decision means that won’t be happening here any time soon.
In grappling with the dilemma between citizens’ civil rights and curbing the growth of the fatal COVID-19 virus, the Gapple model is a trade-off to encourage higher uptake of contact-tracing technologies.
Ultimately, the Gapple model will be a step forward in the world’s fight against COVID-19, because it will encourage significant numbers of people to use it.
The decision to persist with the COVIDSafe app, rather than adopting an emerging global model, could have severe repercussions for Australians. For any digital contact-tracing technology to work effectively, a large number of people must use it, and COVIDSafe has fallen short of that basic requirement.
Australia’s 7th Community Pharmacy Agreement, which comes into force today and lasts five years, will see the government provide A$16 billion for dispensing subsidised medicines and A$1.15 billion for other services such as diabetes support.
If you are a consumer, the new deal is a reassuring continuation of essential existing subsidies. Prescription medications accessed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) will still be available from your local chemist. There will be a bit more government support for some other services provided by pharmacies, especially to Indigenous people. There is continuing recognition of the need to locate a community pharmacy within reach of most people.
If you are a pharmacist, the agreement finally gives you a little recognition as a professional with years of training and high standards, as distinct from corporations with chains of chemist stores.
The Community Pharmacy Agreement is one of the building blocks of the Australian health system, which is notably fairer and more effective than that in the United States. The underpinning expectation is that the federal government will subsidise prescription medicines under the PBS. We all benefit if everyone can afford those treatments.
Markets are imperfect. In an unregulated environment we would see pharmacies clustering in areas of high population – just like fast food shops – and not serving other areas such as outer suburbs and rural Australia.
The succession of Community Pharmacy Agreements, authorised under the National Health Act, uses regulation to avert this kind of market failure. The rules mean you cannot set up a pharmacy to compete with another nearby pharmacy, apart from under exceptional circumstances, thus ensuring the commercial viability of each pharmacy.
Where’s the community?
The “community” label is sometimes misunderstood. It doesn’t mean your local chemist is run by volunteers, the local council, or the federal government. Instead, it means the pharmacy operates on a commercial basis for people in the community. It is distinct from dispensing of medications by hospitals, which typically restrict what they offer to current patients and have a different business model.
Each pharmacy serving the community must be supervised by a pharmacist – a health practitioner who has undergone extensive training and meets the relevant professional criteria. Pharmacists are supervised under the National Health Practitioner Regulation Law and associated Pharmacy Board.
The dispensing of medicine in community pharmacies needs to be supervised by pharmacists, although pharmacies can be owned by non-practitioners. The ongoing shift to corporate ownership is contentious, as pharmacies move away from being analagous to the “friendly family doctor” and towards a business model that emphasises selling jelly beans, “wellness” products and fluffy toys alongside medications. That model is not good for public health, and not necessarily good for the pharmacists themselves (more on this point later).
What’s the significance of the new agreement?
The agreement is important for three reasons.
First, and most importantly, it retains existing arrangements regarding distribution of pharmacies. Those arrangements have been criticised by entrepreneurs, often represented by the Pharmacy Guild, which is the equivalent of industry peak bodies such as the Minerals Council of Australia.
The latest version of the agreement provides for updating of government payments to wholesalers and retailers of prescription medications – in other words, continued subsidisation of products under the PBS and support for the pharmaceutical supply chain.
There is little point in subsidising payments by consumers if there are no supplies in the warehouses for distribution to the pharmacies. That is an issue of concern amid a pandemic. Streamlining of processes under the agreement will make it easier for pharmacies to receive payments to dispense medicines subsidised under the PBS and the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which helps Australia’s veterans and predates the wider PBS.
There will be support for pharmacy services in regional, rural and remote areas, although past concerns about the viability of pharmacies in the bush mean it is uncertain whether this support will be sufficient.
Second, the agreement also provides support – mainly in the form of payments under the National Diabetes Services Scheme and the Dose Administration Aids program – for advice by pharmacists regarding ongoing testing by consumers with diabetes and assistance to seniors.
There is also increased funding of programs aimed at boosting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ access to medicines.
Finally, the agreement belatedly and weakly acknowledges the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.
The society’s involvement in the agreement is important because health services are not just about profit. Corporate imperatives to maximise the use of floor space by selling non-therapeutic products are potentially at odds with both professional practice and consumer benefit.
The latest agreement expands the existing remuneration to pharmacy owners for pharmacists to provide health advice. This is likely to be a useful supplement, rather than a major revenue source. In the coming years we can expect to see claims by health economists and calls for greater support.
The Pharmaceutical Society’s involvement is more broadly relevant because the latest agreement provides for remuneration of advising by professionals. Community pharmacists are a first port of call for many people with health issues. Problems with the interaction of multiple medications mean we need accessible professional expertise.
Rewarding such service to the community means pharmacists, self-employed or otherwise, can concentrate on health, not jellybeans and complementary products.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin A. Welbergen, President of the Australasian Bat Society | Associate Professor of Animal Ecology, Western Sydney University
On Saturday, Cairns Regional Council will disperse up to 8,000 endangered spectacled flying-foxes from their nationally important camp in central Cairns.
The camp is one of the last major strongholds of the species, harbouring, on average, 12% of Australia’s remaining spectacled flying-foxes. But after recent catastrophic declines in spectacled flying-fox numbers, moving them from their home further threatens the species survival.
Yet, the federal environment minister approved the dispersal last month under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) – Australia’s key environment legislation for protecting threatened species, and currently under a ten-year review.
This planned dispersal – which the council says is in the interests of the species – is set to conclude a long series of controversial management actions at the site. The EPBC Act failed to protect the species at every turn. The camp may now be non-viable for the flying-foxes.
Spectacled flying-foxes are important pollinators and seed dispersers in Australia’s Wet Tropics.Inigo Merriman
Decline of the rainforest specialist
Spectacled flying-foxes are critical for pollination and dispersing fruit in Australia’s Wet Tropics, and so underpin the natural values of this world heritage-listed region.
Today, the camp is not only home to a big portion of the species, but also around 2,000 pups each year. Flying-foxes are extremely mobile in the region, so the camp provides a roosting habitat for more than what’s present at any one time.
Endangered spectacled flying-foxes are set to be dispersed from their camp in Cairns CBD, one of the last strongholds of the species.Justin Welbergen
Why dispersals don’t work
The council is permitted to disperse the flying-foxes with deterrent measures, including pyrotechnics, intense lighting, acoustic devices and other non-lethal means.
The Conversation sought a response to this article from Cairns Regional Council. A spokesperson said:
Relocation measures will only occur between May and September – outside of the spectacled flying fox pup rearing season to avoid a disruption to the species’ breeding cycle.
The relocation activity will be undertaken by appropriately qualified and experienced individuals and non-lethal methods will be used.
The program is tailored to minimise any stress on the animals and causes no injury of any type.
Dispersals risk stressing the already disturbed animals, and causing injuries and even abortions and other fatalities. They also risk shifting the issues to other parts of our human communities, as the bats tend to end up settling in an unanticipated location after having been shuffled around town like a game of musical chairs.
Even in the often-cited example of the “successful” relocation of vulnerable grey-headed flying-foxes from the Melbourne Botanic Gardens in 2003, experts couldn’t direct the bats to their designated new camp.
Instead, the flying-foxes formed a permanent camp at Yarra Bend, one kilometre short of the intended destination, where they’re now subjected to renewed calls for culling or dispersal.
‘Fogging’ is one of several methods used to disperse flying-foxes from their camps.Australasian Bat Society
Poor management
Cairns Regional Council argues their decision to attempt to move the bats to the Cairns Central Swamp is in the long-term interest of their survival. A council spokesperson says:
Heat stress events, urban development and increased construction in close proximity to the Cairns City Library roost will continue to stress and adversely affect the spectacled flying fox population.
Also, the health of roost trees at the library site, and therefore the viability of the site as a spectacled flying fox roost, is diminishing.
Council believes relocation will mitigate human/flying fox conflict, enable the trees at the library to recover, and will likely reduce the high rates of pup mortality that have been recorded at the library colony.
But these animal welfare concerns arose from the accumulated impacts of the council’s poor management actions, or actions the council supported.
In 2014, the council was found guilty, under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act, of driving away spectacled flying-foxes and illegally pruning the habitat trees.
Over the past seven years, most roosting trees of the Cairns CBD camp were either removed or heavily pruned, resulting in the destruction of more than two-thirds of the available roosting habitat.Provided by authors
The Cairns camp was then subjected to a series of EPBC-approved roost tree removals in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Collectively these destroyed more than two-thirds of the available roosting habitat at the site.
This directly contradicts the specific EPBC Act referral guideline, which states actions to manage the flying-fox camps should not significantly impact the species.
And in 2015, Cairns Aquarium developers had to destroy trees home to hundreds of spectacled flying-foxes before they could start construction. That’s because under the EPBC Act, no building near or around the flying-foxes is permitted. In this case, the act’s well-intentioned protection measures caused far more harm than good.
Removals (X) of roost trees from the Cairns flying-fox camp between 2013 and 2020. The new white rectangular buildings visible in 2020 are high-rise hotel (centre) and Cairns aquarium (top) developmentsProvided by authors
Warnings fall on deaf ears
In the meantime, the national conservation status of the spectacled flying-fox moved too slowly from “vulnerable” to “endangered” in the listing process.
In 2017 the government’s own Threatened Species Scientific Committee advised listing the species as endangered, which would provide them with more protection.
But when the spectacled flying-fox was finally declared endangered in February 2019, they already qualified as critically endangered, according to official guidelines.
What’s more, the state government’s recovery plan for the spectacled flying-fox – in place since 2010 – has never been implemented.
Are there any solutions?
There are no solutions under the EPBC Act as it’s currently framed.
The tragic end to the story is that a dangerous precedent is being set for flying-fox management in Australia. Bat carers in Cairns are readying themselves for an influx of casualties from the dispersal.
Some bat carers have sadly reached the conclusion the dispersal is now the least-bad option for the bats after their stronghold suffered a death by a thousand cuts, leaving their home unviable.
Maree Kerr contributed to this article. She is a co-convenor of the Australasian Bat Society’s Flying-Fox Expert Group; an invited expert on the Cairns Regional Council’s Flying-fox Advisory Committee; President of Bats and Trees Society of Cairns; and is studying the role of education in public perceptions of flying-foxes at Griffith University
Evan Quartermain contributed to this article. He is Head of Programs at Humane Society International and a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas.
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.
If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz
Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or possibly reverse the effects of climate change (due to decreased air travel, cars, fossil fuels being emitted)?
The COVID-19 lockdown has affected the environment in a number of ways.
The first is a reduction in air travel and associated emissions. Globally, air travel accounts for around 12% of the transport sector’s greenhouse gas emissions and this was predicted to rise. An ongoing reduction in air travel would lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The lockdown has also meant less travel by road, which has resulted in measurably lower vehicle emissions and cleaner air in New Zealand.
Worldwide, daily emissions of carbon dioxide had dropped by 17% by early April (compared with 2019 levels) and just under half of the reduction came from changes in land transport. The same study estimated the pandemic could reduce global emissions by between 4% (if the world returns to pre-pandemic conditions mid-year) and 7% (if restrictions remain in place until the end of 2020).
But even a 7% drop would mean emissions for 2020 will roughly be the same as in 2011. The long-term impact of the pandemic on climate change depends on the actions governments take as economies recover – they will influence the path of global carbon dioxide emissions for decades.
In New Zealand, the biggest reduction in emissions came from people not travelling as much, or at all. But as the lockdown lifted, these improvements seemed to be short term, with traffic volumes and the associated pollution now back at pre-COVID-19 levels.
There is significant uncertainty about all of the changes prompted by the pandemic lockdown, but international air travel is predicted to remain down in the short to medium term as the risk of inter-country transfer of COVID-19 remains high. For how long depends on the ability of other countries to effectively manage the virus or the availability of a vaccine.
Land transport is more within our control in New Zealand. How, and how much, we choose to travel will determine our greenhouse gas emissions. While many people are returning to their cars, there are some lockdown changes that could lead to longer-term emissions reductions.
Firstly, people now realise it is possible to work from home and may want to continue doing so in the future.
These measures are important and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they are not designed to reduce the number of people travelling, or the mode they use. Congestion is an ongoing issue in Auckland and is now estimated to cost more than NZ$1 billion per year.
Another challenge is the growing rate of obesity, with one in three New Zealanders now obese. This is at least partly a transport-related challenge. We know obesity rates are higher in places where more people travel by car. Increased use of public transport can reduce obesity – as well as making people happier.
How long-lasting the COVID-19 impact on emissions is depends on how much we want some of the temporary changes to continue. For example, COVID-19 showed more people walk and cycle if there are fewer cars, which supports evidence that safety is a big barrier to cycling and we need dedicated cycle ways to keep people away from traffic. We also know people are happy with a little inconvenience to have safer play-friendly streets.
Encouraging some of the lockdown behavioural changes could have additional benefits and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.
The government’s higher education funding changes aim to ensure graduates are “job-ready”. Students will be charged more for courses the government deems have poorer employment outcomes, to incentivise them into cheaper courses with supposedly better job prospects.
But these changes seem ignorant of the research surrounding future jobs, and the unpredictable nature of the market. Experts predict today’s graduates will have several different careers throughout their working life. A linear path from education to work makes little sense in a rapidly changing world.
Changes can also happen fairly quickly that affect the availability of jobs. We saw this in the collapse of IT jobs after the dot-com bubble burst in the 2000s, and the demise of Australia’s car manufacturing industry in the last decade.
Instead of lowering fees for some courses to make them more attractive, the government should ensure better links between study and employment and strengthen careers advice for students to make better choices.
Why cheaper courses won’t help with career choices
Higher education expert Andrew Norton writes 80% of students enrol in courses with a specific job in mind and only 10% based on subject interest. But he explains interests and job goals aren’t mutually exclusive.
He says when survey participants are given the choice of multiple answers for why they chose a course, interest in the field of study is the most popular – more than 90% of respondents say it’s important. While three quarters of respondents say they have a specific job in mind.
This fits with something called vocational interest profiles. This theory holds a person’s choice of occupation is influenced by their personality.
Research on vocational interest profiles found students with a stronger preference for jobs that involve working with people (such as in sales, police work or nursing) had a one in 50 chance of being enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) courses.
Students with a stronger preference for conventional type jobs (those that involve working with data, rules or procedures) had a one in two chance of being enrolled in a STEM course.
People’s career choices are often influenced by their character.Shutterstock
Based on the strong link between a person’s interests and their career, the government’s plan to influence this choice by changing the price of courses will likely have a limited effect.
The government, universities and industry must work together to help students understand how their knowledge, skills and other attributes can be applied in the labour market, and where the opportunities exist.
My research has found careers advisers are often employed as generalists, with workloads spread across career counselling, running workshops, developing curricula, designing programs and liaising with employers.
Employing more careers advisers will enable staff to specialise and deliver targeted support to more students.
To be effective, career education should be embedded in all university courses. It should provide opportunities for students to identify their knowledge, skills and other attributes and learn about the range of jobs and industries they can apply these.
It should also teach students how to identify and apply for jobs, and confidently articulate to an employer how they can contribute to the organisation.
Career education should be facilitated by qualified career development practitioners who can design career education programs in collaboration with academics and industry.
In addition to increased career education, the government needs to provide better labour market information so students can make informed decisions about identifying appropriate job opportunities.
A few resources are currently available, but they only give snippets of information and do not connect.
Two examples include:
Graduates in Agriculture and Environmental Studies from Charles Sturt University had a median salary of $60,000.Screenshot ComparEd
ComparED – a website for prospective students to compare courses and universities. The information is limited to graduate starting salaries, the proportion of graduates employed four months after course completion and graduates’ satisfaction with skill development achieved through the course.
This site could be improved by adding data, for each course, on the types of jobs and industries in which graduates find employment.
Job Outlook – a government website that provides labour market information such as average salary and predicted growth or decline in job vacancies.
It also has a handy Skills Match app which gives suggestions on jobs that use skills you have.
The app has limited value for graduates as it determines skills based on jobs you have already done. As an example, if a student has worked as a barista, Skills Match recommends similar jobs such as a kitchen hand or cleaner. It doesn’t ask what course you are studying or have completed, so it won’t recommend barrister if you’ve been studying law.
Together, a deliberate and well-resourced strategy to support university students’ career education and links with industry will be a more effective way to increase labour market productivity than price signals on university courses.
Review: The Body Electric, National Gallery of Australia
In 1992, the legendary American writer Kathy Acker said:
The students who come to my class are very closely related to all the evil girls who are very interested in their bodies and sex and pleasure.
“I learn a lot from them,” she revealed, “about how to have pleasure and how cool the female body is.”
Undoubtedly, the students who attended Acker’s classes at the San Francisco Art Institute were learning from her. They were learning from her radical openness to creating stories about sex, pornography, desire, pleasure, pain and violence – from a woman’s perspective.
When I visit The Body Electric at the National Gallery of Australia, I can feel Acker shadowing me. Her influence is ever present in a brilliantly curated exhibition by Shaune Lakin and Anne O’Hehir.
Two decades have passed since Acker’s death, but the eroticism she brought to art remains central to women artists.
Women’s experiences of the erotic
The Body Electric features ground-breaking photography and video from the 1960s, 70s and 80s alongside more recent work from Australian and international artists.
It is an intelligent and daring visual exploration of women’s erotic experiences from the domestic to the pornographic.
Jo Ann Callis’ Untitled (nude with towel) (1976) portrays an anonymous woman seated on the long arm of a living room sofa, presumably using it to masturbate.
Annie Sprinkle’s comically pornographic Pleasure Activist Playing Cards (1995) features porn stars posing as characters with wildly inventive names: “Horny Biker Shutterbug”, “The Mother Theresa of Female Ejaculation”.
Christine Godden mischievously reveals her belly button in a humble black and white self-portrait titled Self. Sunny Day in Winter (1974). Collier Schorr’s Ass and leaf (2015), a simple but subversive image, reveals a backside with stretch marks.
Such bodily traces rarely appear on the airbrushed bodies dominating visual culture.
The more powerful works question the ways women and sexuality have historically been – and continue to be – represented from the perspective of white hetereosexual men.
Pixy Liao. Some words are just between us from Experimental relationship, 2010, chromogenic photograph, 40.6 (h) x 50.8 (w) cm.Image courtesy of the artist
Head (1993), by Cheryl Donegan, mimics a woman performing oral sex in heterosexual pornography. Donegan simulates the “money shot” (the pornographic trope of ejaculation, usually into the woman’s mouth) with a green plastic bottle spewing milk.
Directly alongside Head is Female sensibility (1973), a recording of the artist Lynda Benglis kissing her friend and colleague, Marilyn Lenkowsky. The camera captures the thrill of their touch. In close detail we see Benglis use her tongue to searchingly caress the inside of her friend’s mouth.
But the work is more complicated than a kissing performance between two women: their eyes are not focused on each other, but instead follow a moving camera.
The camera – and therefore the viewer – becomes proxy for the “male gaze”: the positioning of women in visual media as sexual objects for the visual pleasure of heterosexual men.
By being in control of the camera, in charge of her representation, and in charge of her pleasure, Benglis actively resists this male gaze.
Viewing Benglis and Donegan’s videos simultaneously side-by-side is mesmerising, their collective power amplifying the critique of the male gaze at the heart of the exhibition.
When Acker talked of the “evil girls” who came to her class, she (like the artists in this exhibition) was rejoicing in them – while mocking outdated patriarchal standards that repress female representations of sexual pleasure.
The Body Electric visualises Acker’s legacy of the “female gaze” in art: a female perspective of sex, desire and pleasure beyond patriarchal limits of passivity and reproduction. The artists in this exhibition position women as powerful creators, acutely conscious of their sexual agency as women and as artists.
People can find the body disturbing, especially when it is a woman’s body performing in ways that challenges social expectations of the private and the public.
But what of fake bodies? In the far corner of the exhibition is an iconic Cindy Sherman work Untitled #255 (1992), featuring a mannequin doll equipped with anatomically detailed sexual parts.
The doll is crouched on her knees with a ready and waiting plastic orifice. Her pose reminded me of an instructional video I once watched on how to give birth.
All our stories begin at the site of the female body.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
Simone da Silva Ribeiro Gomes and Lara Sartorio Gonçalves From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
It is a recurring debate. In 2011 journalist and activist Darcus Howe commented on the civil unrest that had happened in England in August of that year saying, “I don’t call it rioting. I call it an insurrection of the masses of the people. It is happening in Syria. It is happening in Clapham. It’s happening in Liverpool. It’s happening in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and that is the nature of the historical moment.” It is now June 2020 and that quote does not seem figurative as we observe a growing wave of protests, riots, and violence met with harsh repression and the criminalization of activism. But we must also remember that this is often how important rights and changes are won.
Behind every protest and riot there is invariably a Black man or a Latin American Indigenous person lying on the street of any given city in the Americas: in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and New York, US in 2014; in Minnesota, US in 2015; in Santiago, Chile in 2017; in Tierralta, Colombia in 2019; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2020,[1] among thousands of others. The “No Justice, No Peace!” actions that have followed call attention to the killing of unarmed Black people in broad daylight by state agents (Abt, 2020). Then things invariably get complicated, with protests depicted as starting “largely peaceful, before taking a violent turn.” Outside of social movements and hegemonic narratives, what is violence, after all? Is it flaming objects?
Fire is commonly associated with riots, both in witness statements and in images of the events. The phrase “London is burning!” did not start with the 2011 riots, but with the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780 (Navickas, 2011). Social movements have historically experimented with violence, as illustrated by the suffragettes in 1918. While they are traditionally depicted as empowered young women holding placards, determined to win the right to vote and have a voice on equal terms with men, they also participated in numerous acts of violence, including explosions and bombs throughout the United Kingdom for several years prior to winning voting rights.[2]
We would like to draw attention to the magnetic attraction to fire in protests. It is no wonder, humans have been using fire for over 400.000 years. The human ability to control fire is linked to our ability to evolve as a species, as we have learned to use it to cook, forge tools, and stay warm. Among the many things that fire may depict are passion, desire, rebirth, resurrection, eternity, destruction, hope, and purification. People have written extensively about fire and its ability to nourish and protect, but also cause harm and kill. Along with water, air, and earth, it is considered one of the four elements essential to life.
The images of burning buildings, stores, and public sculptures seem to fascinate humanity. But they are often misunderstood, even among activists and social movement scholars. Direct actions[3] are often controversial. Public opinion has moral objections to civil disobedience, believing that violence is the sole prerogative of the State. Even the political Left sometimes creates a tight separation between spontaneous and organized actions. In this light, (literally) inflamed actions can be interpreted as a simulation of non-existent radicalism, if it is not accompanied by political strategy.
Therefore, what we propose is that burning should not be seen as an end in itself, but as a ritual with potential for communication and mobilization. Direct action has been recurrent in racial and food riots throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, most often used by those most directly targeted by the state and who, therefore, have less bureaucratic methods of response, since they are disconnected from the social compact. Fire, as a flaming symbol of a decaying world, is here understood to be a performative tactic that produces meaning and inflammatory reactions.
Several protests in Ramallah and Bethlehem (Palestine), and Rio de Janeiro. Photo-credit: Thayla Fernandes da Conceição and Lara Sartorio Gonçalves.
The current protests were sparked by the May 25, 2020 killing of George Floyd. An African American male, 46 years old, recently unemployed, father of a six-year-old girl,[4] was savagely killed by a white male police officer named Derek Chauvin. This tragic event resulted in people going out into the streets in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis. It all started in Minneapolis, but by the following Sunday, protests had broken out in 75 cities across the US, and many more in Brazil, shedding light on the persistent racism in our societies, with at least four deaths and around 1,700 arrests.[5] A protest speech by #BlackLivesMatter activist Tamika Mallory went viral: : “We cannot look at this as an isolated incident. The reason why buildings are burning are not just for our brother George Floyd. They are burning down because people here in Minnesota are saying to people in New York, in California, people in Memphis, to people all across this nation: enough is enough.”[6]
By late May 2020 the protests had taken on a certain aesthetic which has historical precedent. By now many of us have seen, read about, and probably shared pictures of the Midwestern city of Minneapolis and its flaming buildings. Those images are indeed very powerful and are assumed to be effective. If buildings are burning, then people are fed up and the protests must be working, demands will be met and minorities’ voices will be heard–or so other social movements will say.
But this is not always how protests operate. Literature on protests considers them to be key components of democracy, an expression of ideals and principles that necessarily challenge dominant orthodoxies. In the past, the civil rights movement applied many different tactics, from bus boycotts to sit-ins to freedom-rides to community-wide protest campaigns (Tufecki, 2017). In the last few years, actions have been more performative, in both strategy and tactics (Butler, 2015). Visual activism has ranged from protest graffiti (Thomas 2018) to fine art photography in which the protester has some control over the framing (Hallas 2012). This form of struggle is broadly related to forms in political protests that emerged following the economic and financial crisis of 2008.
Also, they happen when people come together to react against inequality, injustice, exclusion, and other vulnerabilities. The aesthetics of protest primarily include humour, graffiti, slogans, art, symbols, slang, gestures, bodies, colors and other elements of performance that can be digitally shared across media platforms. All protest aesthetics are both performative and communicative (McGarry, Erhart, Eslen-Ziya, 2019).
Visuals matter. But so does what happens following the protests. These fire-related protests are frequently followed by looting, and looting sometimes causes a setback for the movement. George Rudé, Edward Thompson, and Eric Hobsbawm have documented riots from the 18th to 20th century in Europe, and found that looting, plunder, and fire were rather common. In Brazil, although historically disputed among the Left (Gorender, 1987), since the 1930s, and particularly in the state of Sao Paulo in the 1980s, direct actions appeared spontaneously as a form of struggle with heavy repercussions. Looting can illuminate a specific historical moment by exposing the contradictions, conflicts, and tensions in the political, economic, and social spheres.
Accordingly, literature about riots (Briggs, 2012, Ferreira, 2009, Kelley and Tuck, 2015, Bowden, 2014, Abt, 2019, Abu-Lughod, 2006) indicates that when objects and buildings are burned in protests, this invariably provokes curfews, a police backlash, (un)justified repression, and even the rise of the far Right. We will not focus on these repercussions, but on the link between burning objects and people not being able to breathe. We are experiencing the systematic suffocation of Black people, which did not start with Eric Garner´s murder in 2014, when his dying words were, “I can’t breathe.” This is part of the long history of populations being enslaved based on the color of their skin. The subjugation of the original peoples of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade are a large part of this vivid memory, forcefully kept alive through police brutality.
The idea that everything must burn down in order to start a new world is not new, but the mere act of burning is emblematic of contemporary struggles. A sort of pyromania is an integral part of these contemporary riots–including the response that these images invoke among both social movement protesters in the streets and scholars. Fire is fascinating to the broad political spectrum: from right-wing groups ready to incriminate as soon as they see flames, to left-wing activists celebrating what they consider to be a victory.
George Floyd´s horrific death at the hand of a former US police officer not only shows the murder of a human being, but the domination of one enormous group of people by another. Black people account for 13% of the US population and 55.8%[7] of the Brazilian population,[8] but persistent racial inequalities have triggered anger and distrust of institutions in the Americas. It is not far from the truth that fire implies radicalism to a certain degree, but protesters and scholars’ hypotheses must take into account the changing patterns of protest. The global Left seems to think that Revolution is coming when they see images of burning cars and buildings, knowing that history repeats itself and people have had enough.
In a brief semiotic exercise, the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation, we gather from the images below that victory, revenge, and fatigue have fueled the last few weeks of protest in the Americas. But since the extraction of meaning is not a straightforward process, it is evident that the burning of objects may be interpreted as success by the participants and scholars, while they are also quite likely to be both the cause and effect of repression of further protests.
Fire is a handy resource in protests because it does not allow the insistent actions and voices of rioters to leave the landscape unscathed, as Thompson once said about “hunger rioters.” Because fire is also a specific way to destroy what exists, “a complete destruction, because the trail that the fire leaves is itself, the fire that passed through here” (ILHARCO, 2008: 150). It also finds its way into mass media, since it becomes impossible for state agents not to respond, leading to increased repression. And there are variations on how much repression they will unleash: President Donald Trump enraged many with his tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” giving an historic endorsement of police violence,[9] and it is not far fetched to say, an endorsement of white supremacist shootings of rioters.[10]
Breathing is not optional
Achille Mbembe (2020) calls our attention to the day after COVID-19 and how it ought not come at the expense of the same people the economy was sacrificing prior to these protests. The day after will come but only if there is a reinvention, since it has become evident that we are surrounded by rings of fire. The philosopher states that before this virus, humanity was already threatened with suffocation and unable to choose the terms of death, given that entire segments of the world population, entire races, are condemned to a life of oppression. Mbembe calls for the universal right to breathe–not just biological breathing–but breathing as full enjoyment of the human experience.
The mesmerizing, dystopian scenario that the pandemic unleashed paved the way for the moment we now face: the curious observation that the apocalypse is nothing more than our everyday existence. The survival mode the vast majority of the world’s population has been living in is like holding one’s breath, waiting for death, or rather, its relief. As Walter Benjamin said in 1940, “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, (…).”[11] It is no coincidence then that red images of insurrection make us feel heat. Fire. The moment when the burning present day makes us face our fears, and we panic at the prospect of losing what little we have, is also seductive. Just as heat is agitation, fire can function as an extension of creative acts: transformation.
To the end
Disruptive events can cut history time, as Hannah Arendt once said. A significant example is 9/11 in the US, for which there is a before and an after. The world afterwards is marked by asymmetry and significant changes in global war paradigms, as highlighted by Chamayou (2015). Counterinsurgency was the effort to control those who, through their demands, confronted States, fighting as sectors of the population with fundamental rights. An important change occurred after 9/11, when fighting terrorism replaced counterinsurgency, and the enemy came to be depicted as a dehumanized, generic “terrorist.”
Consider hellfire, which plays a role in constituted memory. To put it in divine terms, we find ourselves in a world divided between good and evil – a form of Manichaeism appropriate to a context of (permanent) war. We know it is irrational, but different notions of “otherness” have been developed to define the terrorist enemy. This is not just semantics, but a legal concept. Following the example of the United States, most countries have adopted anti-terrorism laws in the last few years. The dynamics of this, the way collectives, political organizations, social movements, and protesters have been framed, allows them to be the best next terrorists.
For example, this was the first reaction of Presidents Bolsonaro and Trump when referring to the recent #BlackLivesMatter protesters. Use of the fire aesthetic seductively plays into this discourse, as we have become accustomed to political imagery that associates fire with terror. Explaining the problem of political violence as the reaction of the oppressed is, thanks to the politics of fear, fertile ground for authoritarianism, social control and increased surveillance of the population.
The two sides in the protests were never evenly matched. The weapons and subsequent violence one side can mobilize easily overwhelms the power of the multitudes. The growing state security apparatus to control and repress protests is worrisome, quite often enhanced by drones,[12] which seem to “construct a bodiless force, a political body with no organs” (Chamayou, 2015). Drones have been increasingly used to monitor, repress and eliminate targets, while maintaining immunity since there is no logic of reciprocity in state violence.
Modern democracies, usually antagonistic to authoritarianism, are founded on inclusion of the masses in decision-making processes. This is supposed to coincide with the notion that fear of popular uprisings should guide the practice of political power. Indeed, the policy of fear, meaning fear of the most marginalized sectors of society, feeds into the aforementioned state of emergency. In the words of #BLM activist Tamika Mallory, “This is a coordinated activity happening across this nation. So we are in a state of emergency. We [as Black people] are dying in a state of emergency.”[13] In these terms, the description of what is said to be an emergency–be it the burning of buildings and police vehicles or other forms of reaction–is instilling fear in the powers that be, which in turn is freeing for the protesters.
Simone da Silva Ribeiro Gomes is Associate Professor of Sociology at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel), and an activist on popular education. Lara Sartorio Gonçalves is Phd Candidate in Sociology by Social and Political Studies Institute (IESP), of State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
Fred Mills and Jill Clark-Gollub assisted as editors of this article
[Main photo: protest in Rio de Janeiro, 2019. Credit: Thayla Fernandes da Conceição]
[3] “As “direct action” we understand actions which reject mediation instruments, that are not filtered by the institutions. They are situated in the field of civil disobedience and direct confrontation with the repressive forces of the State, […] involves damaging the private property of multinationals and other companies, looting of stores, graffiti on walls, breaking of shop windows and occupations of public spaces “. (SARTORIO, 2014).
[6] Available at https://www.facebook.com/164188247072662/posts/1871493659675437/?vh=e&d=n
[7] Following the trends of academic research on the theme of inequality, here we use Black to mean the sum of those who call themselves blacks and browns (RIOS, PEREIRA, RANGEL, 2017). Available from: http://cienciaecultura.bvs.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0009-67252017000100015
MCGARRY, Aidan, ERHART, Itir, ESLEN-ZIYA, Hande, et al (2019). Introduction: The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication. In : The Aesthetics of Global Protest: Visual Culture and Communication. Amsterdam University Press. p. 15-35.
THOMPSON, Edward. (2016). The making of the English working class. Open Road Media.
TUFECKI, Zeynep (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas. Yale University Press.
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