Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Savitri Taylor, Associate Professor, Law School, La Trobe University

Late last month, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews and the president of Nauru, Lionel Aingimea, quietly announced they had signed a new agreement to establish an “enduring form” of offshore processing for asylum seekers taken to the Pacific island.

The text of the new agreement has not been made public. This is unsurprising.

All the publicly available information indicates Australia’s offshore processing strategy is an ongoing human rights — not to mention financial — disaster.

The deliberate opaqueness is intended to make it difficult to hold the government to account for these human and other costs. This is, of course, all the more reason to subject the new deal with Nauru to intense scrutiny.

Policies 20 years in the making

In order to fully understand the new deal — and the ramifications of it — it is necessary to briefly recount 20 years of history.

In late August 2001, the Howard government impulsively refused to allow asylum seekers rescued at sea by the Tampa freighter to disembark on Australian soil. This began policy-making on the run and led to the Pacific Solution Mark I.

The governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea were persuaded to enter into agreements allowing people attempting to reach Australia by boat to be detained in facilities on their territory while their protection claims were considered by Australian officials.

By the 2007 election, boat arrivals to Australia had dwindled substantially.

In February 2008, the newly elected Labor government closed down the facilities in Nauru and PNG. Within a year, boat arrivals had increased dramatically, causing the government to rethink its policy.

After a couple of false starts, it signed new deals with Nauru and PNG in late 2012. An expert panel had described the new arrangements as a “necessary circuit breaker to the current surge in irregular migration to Australia”.

This was the Pacific Solution Mark II. In contrast to the first iteration, it provided for boat arrivals taken to Nauru and PNG to have protection claims considered under the laws and procedures of the host country.

Moreover, the processing facilities were supposedly run by the host countries, though in reality, the Australian government outsourced this to private companies.

Despite the new arrangements, the boat arrivals continued. And on July 19, 2013, the Rudd government took a hardline stance, announcing any boat arrivals after that date would have “have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees”.

New draconian changes to the system

The 1,056 individuals who had been transferred to Nauru or PNG before July 19, 2013 were brought to Australia to be processed.

PNG agreed that asylum seekers arriving after this date could resettle there, if they were recognised as refugees.

Nauru made a more equivocal commitment and has thus far only granted 20-year visas to those it recognises as refugees.

The Coalition then won the September 2013 federal election and implemented the military-led Operation Sovereign Borders policy. This involves turning back boat arrivals to transit countries (like Indonesia), or to their countries of origin.

The cumulative count of interceptions since then stands at 38 boats carrying 873 people. The most recent interception was in January 2020.

It should be noted these figures do not include the large number of interceptions undertaken at Australia’s request by transit countries and countries of origin.

What this means is the mere existence of the offshore processing system — even in the more draconian form in place after July 2013 — has not deterred people from attempting to reach Australia by boat.

Rather, the attempts have continued, but the interception activities of Australia and other countries have prevented them from succeeding.

No new asylum seekers in Nauru or PNG since 2014

Australia acknowledges it has obligations under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees — and other human rights treaties — to refrain from returning people to places where they face the risk of serious harm.

As a result, those intercepted at sea are given on-water screening interviews for the purpose of identifying those with prima facie protection claims.

Those individuals are supposed to be taken to Nauru or PNG instead of being turned back or handed back. Concerningly, of the 873 people intercepted since 2013, only two have passed these screenings: both in 2014.

This means no asylum seekers have been taken to either Nauru or PNG since 2014. Since then, Australia has spent years trying to find resettlement options in third countries for recognised refugees in Nauru and PNG, such as in Cambodia and the US.

As of April 30, 131 asylum seekers were still in PNG and 109 were in Nauru.

Read more:
Explainer: the medevac repeal and what it means for asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru

A boon to the Nauruan government

Australia has spent billions on Pacific Solution Mark II with no end in sight.

As well as underwriting all the infrastructure and operational costs of the processing facilities, Australia made it worthwhile for Nauru and PNG to participate in the arrangements.

For one thing, it promised to ensure spillover benefits for the local economies by, for example, requiring contractors to hire local staff. In fact, in 2019–20, the processing facility in Nauru employed 15% of the country’s entire workforce.

And from the beginning, Nauru has required every transferee to hold a regional processing centre visa. This is a temporary visa which must be renewed every three months by the Australian government.

The visa fee each time is A$3,000, so that’s A$12,000 per transferee per year that Australia is required to pay the Nauruan government.

Where a transferee is found to be a person in need of protection, that visa converts automatically into a temporary settlement visa, which must be renewed every six months. The temporary settlement visa fee is A$3,000 per month — again paid by the Australian government.

In 2019-20, direct and indirect revenue from the processing facility made up 58% of total Nauruan government revenue. It is no wonder Nauru is on board with making an “enduring form” of offshore processing available to Australia.

Read more:
Cruel, costly and ineffective: Australia’s offshore processing asylum seeker policy turns 9

‘Not to use it, but to be willing to use it’

In 2016, the PNG Supreme Court ruled the detention of asylum seekers in the offshore processing facility was unconstitutional. Australia and PNG then agreed to close the PNG facility in late 2017 and residents were moved to alternative accommodation. Australia is underwriting the costs.

Australia decided, however, to maintain a processing facility in Nauru. Senator Jim Molan asked Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo about this in Senate Estimates in February 2018, saying:

So it’s more appropriate to say that we are not maintaining Nauru as an offshore processing centre; we are maintaining a relationship with the Nauru government.

Pezzullo responded,

the whole purpose is, as you would well recall, in fact not to have to use those facilities. But, as in all deterrents, you need to have an asset that is credible so that you are deterring future eventualities. So the whole point of it is actually not to use it but to be willing to use it.

This is how we ended up where we are now, with a new deal with the Nauru government for an “enduring” — that is indefinitely maintained — offshore processing capability, at great cost to the Australian people.

Read more:
Could the Biden administration pressure Australia to adopt more humane refugee policies?

Little has been made public about this new arrangement. We do know in December 2020, the incoming minister for immigration, Alex Hawke, was told the government was undertaking “a major procurement” for “enduring capability services”.

We also know a budget of A$731.2 million has been appropriated for regional processing in 2021-22.

Of this, $187 million is for service provider fees and host government costs in PNG. Almost all of the remainder goes to Nauru, to ensure that, beyond hosting its current population of 109 transferees, it “stands ready to receive new arrivals”.

Savitri Taylor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
She is a member of the Committee of Management of Refugee Legal.
She is a member of the Kim for Canberra Party.
The views expressed in this article are her own.

– ref. Multibillion-dollar strategy with no end in sight: Australia’s ‘enduring’ offshore processing deal with Nauru – https://theconversation.com/multibillion-dollar-strategy-with-no-end-in-sight-australias-enduring-offshore-processing-deal-with-nauru-168941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW

Given the caring nature of their profession, the general public might assume there isn’t any vaccine hesitancy among health workers. It can surprise (and anger) the community when health workers protest the introduction of COVID vaccine mandates.

In France, around 3,000 health workers have been suspended because they were not vaccinated. In Greece, health workers have protested against mandatory vaccination plans. Similar scenes have played out in Canada and New York State.

In Australia, health workers have reportedly joined protests in Melbourne and Perth. A small number of unvaccinated staff members are challenging vaccination mandates in the NSW Supreme Court. Beyond the hospital sector, there are reports of staff members leaving the aged care sector following the introduction of mandates.

Hesitancy among health workers broadly reflects concerns in the wider community. But the risks of being unvaccinated in health settings mean we should acknowledge these concerns and support informed decision-making.

Read more:
‘Living with COVID’ looks very different for front-line health workers, who are already exhausted

A range of concerns

Over 90% of health workers in NSW and Victoria have received a COVID vaccine. But there remains a small percentage of people who work at hospitals and other clinical settings who are vaccine hesitant or want to choose the vaccine they receive.
NSW health figures suggest that currently about 7% (or 7,350 staff members) remain unvaccinated.

Internationally, prevalence of COVID vaccination hesitancy in health workers ranges from 4.3 to 72% (average 23%).

In the US, one in four hospital workers in direct contact with patients had not received a single dose of a COVID vaccine by the end of May.

A study conducted in the first few months of this year found while most health workers intended to accept a COVID vaccine, 22% were unsure or did not intend to vaccinate. These findings tallied with a study in Italy that found 33% of health workers were unsure or did not intend to vaccinate.

The top three reasons for health workers to be hesitant echo the same concerns expressed by some in the wider community: vaccine safety, efficacy and side effects.

Earlier surveys overseas showed less than a third of health workers felt they had enough information around COVID vaccines. And, just like the wider community, health workers are vulnerable to misinformation and sometimes have insufficient understanding about how vaccines are developed.

The risks

While hospital patients are more likely to be the source of hospital COVID outbreaks, unvaccinated health and aged care workers still pose a risk to patient and resident safety. Transmission of COVID to or between unvaccinated health workers poses a risk to the wider community including their families and friends.

Beyond the risk of transmission, there is also the impact vaccine-hesitant health workers have on wider vaccine confidence. Health workers are seen as credible sources of information and are trusted by the community.

There are videos on social media, YouTube and TikTok of individual health workers speaking about the COVID vaccines, often repeating misinformation regarding the safety or effectiveness of the vaccines or expressing uncertainty. The potential impact of these viral videos may be heightened compared to those featuring speakers who don’t work in health professions. University of Washington researcher Rachel Moran, who examines internet misinformation, says such health workers are

leveraging the credibility of medical professionals to create a false impression that there is considerable debate about COVID vaccines among doctors and nurses when, in reality, there is a consensus about their efficacy and safety.

Read more:
‘Are you double dosed?’ How to ask friends and family if they’re vaccinated, and how to handle it if they say no

How can we all stay safe?

Moving forward, we must acknowledge three things when it comes to health workers and vaccine hesitancy:

1. Don’t judge

While there is a moral imperative and duty of care for health workers to receive the COVID vaccine, we should ensure unvaccinated staff members have the opportunity to discuss vaccines in a non-judgemental way.

As with the general public, we need to find out who health workers trust and connect them with trusted resources to alleviate their fears. This might be done via hospital websites, discussions with their primary health-care providers or evidence-based information.

2. Work out what works

Unlike the community setting, there has been a gap in funding to develop and test resources and interventions focused on supporting health and aged care worker vaccine uptake.

Understanding the specific strategies that work to support vaccine uptake, without having to move directly to mandates, is important from not only a patient safety perspective but an occupational health and safety lens.

These findings are relevant for COVID and other occupational vaccine programs.

3. Ensure supply and access

Prior to introducing a mandate, there needs to be adequate supply and equitable access to vaccines. We need to ensure people have the opportunity to review vaccine safety and effectiveness data and to get the vaccine of their free will.

Careful planning, consultation and communication with key groups can improve acceptability of mandates.

In the coming weeks, more health workers are likely to resign or be dismissed for failing to comply with the COVID mandates. There will be those in social media who will call out the situation as the “right move”. But some health workers will become privately or publicly vocal on the issue and will cast doubt on the vaccine. It is important we prepare for these situations, especially in regional areas where there may be fewer voices and greater trust in long-serving health workers.

Read more:
The 9 psychological barriers that lead to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal

Holly Seale is an investigator on research studies funded by NHMRC and has previously received funding for investigator driven research from NSW Ministry of Health, as well as from Sanofi Pasteur and Seqirus. She is the Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.

Margie Danchin receives funding from the Victorian and Commonwealth Departments of Health, NHMRC, WHO and is Chair, Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI).

Ruby Biezen was part of the research team who received funding from the Victorian Government on the project ‘COVID vaccine key cohort preparedness and communication strategies’.

– ref. Health workers are among the COVID vaccine hesitant. Here’s how we can support them safely – https://theconversation.com/health-workers-are-among-the-covid-vaccine-hesitant-heres-how-we-can-support-them-safely-168838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trivess Moore, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University

The recent IPCC report highlighted we must urgently transition to a low carbon future. One low hanging fruit is to improve the sustainability of new and existing housing.

Minimum performance and quality requirements for new housing in Australia are set via the National Construction Code. The last significant change was in 2010 with the introduction of the six-star requirements. These requirements are at least 40% less stringent than international best practice.

A suite of proposed changes to energy efficiency section of the National Construction Code are a good step forward. However, a lot more can be done.

And improving building quality requirements isn’t just good for the climate — it also delivers enormous health benefits, slashes energy bills and makes our homes more comfortable.

Read more:
Low-energy homes don’t just save money, they improve lives

Change is underway

Proposed energy efficiency changes for the National Construction Code 2022 include:

• an increase in the minimum thermal performance of homes from six stars to seven stars

• whole-of-home requirements for performance of heating, cooling, hot water, lighting and pool heating equipment

• new provisions designed to allow easy addition of on-site solar photovoltaic panels and electric vehicle charging equipment

• additional ventilation and wall vapour permeability requirements.

The Regulatory Impact Statement — a document aimed at helping government officials understand the cost-benefit impacts of a proposed regulatory change — has also been released.

Overall, it finds the costs for proposed more stringent requirements will outweigh the benefits for society.

In better news, it finds that for the majority of households, any increase in mortgage repayments from the additional costs of higher standards will be offset by a reduction in energy costs. In other words, you save so much on energy costs over time that it doesn’t matter you have to borrow more to pay for these building features.

There is critique of the Regulatory Impact Statement from stakeholders such as the Victorian government and the Green Building Council of Australia. Critics have pointed to the limited consideration of health and well-being, the impact to the energy network, and the climate emergency.

There are also issues with key economic assumptions which do not reflect environmental impacts of decisions and concerns delivery costs to households have been overestimated, potentially encouraging a “do nothing” policy position.

Public consultation is open until October 17.

What do the changes mean?

The proposed changes are important steps towards reducing carbon emissions. Currently less than 5% of new housing in Australia is built to achieve seven or more stars. These changes will affect thousands of new dwellings every year.

The seven-star standard will reduce heating and cooling energy for new housing by about 24%, slashing energy bills. The changes future-proof housing by reducing costs to add renewables or electric car charging once the house is built.

And with issues of mould and condensation in Australian housing, changes will make our housing healthier.

Historically, higher standards have been met by boosting specifications like insulation and double glazing. These new standards will shift attention to cost-effective strategies like orientation and site-responsive design, as it becomes harder to achieve higher stars through specifications alone.

Research from Sustainability Victoria’s Zero Net Carbon Homes program show homes can increase performance by one star simply changing from their worst to best orientation.

There’s room for improvement

These proposed changes are a good step forward. However, more can be done.

A decade ago research and case studies showed that seven star housing was achievable for little additional costs.

YourHome and developments like The Cape make seven or more star house designs freely available, showing we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The recently announced Green Star Homes Standard will also help to drive innovation beyond minimum performance requirements.

Our energy regulations are still measured per square metre (rather than per dwelling/person) and are predominantly concerned with operational energy demand.

To further reduce carbon emissions, we need to acknowledge the influence of house size and materials usage on total energy consumption and factor in the carbon footprint of building materials.

Additionally, the code does not use future climate data when demonstrating compliance. This means that our housing may not be fit for purpose in our future climate.

We will need more focus on summer performance. This should include performance in late summer and autumn, when the sun is lower in the sky, but extreme heat will be more likely. This will require solutions like adjustable shading.

As-built verification is a critical inclusion in new schemes such as Green Star Homes; we need similar mechanisms in our construction code to ensure as-built compliance. There is no point improving regulations on paper if we can’t deliver it in practice.

While the focus of these changes is on new housing, we must not forget the millions of existing homes which need to undergo deep retrofits to improve sustainability and performance. The new standards will need careful adaptation to suit alteration and addition projects.

Tools like the National Scorecard Initiative aim to help homeowners in existing dwellings improve performance but more could be done with regulations to ensure existing housing is part of the push towards a sustainable housing future.

Read more:
Sustainable housing’s expensive, right? Not when you look at the whole equation

Trivess Moore has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Victorian Government and various industry partners. He is a trustee of the Fuel Poverty Research Network.

Alan Pears receives funding from his consulting work, mainly with not-for-profit groups, industry organisations and governments. He is affiliated with the Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity.

Erika Bartak receives funding for her consulting work with Victorian Government agencies such as Sustainability Victoria and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), as well as private clients. She is a member of the Thrive Research Hub at the University of Melbourne, and has received financial support for her PhD research.

Nicola Willand receives funding for research, including on retrofits, energy efficiency and health, from various organisations, including the Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and the Future Fuels Collaborative Research Centre (FF CRC).

– ref. Better building standards are good for the climate, your health, and your wallet. Here’s what the National Construction Code could do better – https://theconversation.com/better-building-standards-are-good-for-the-climate-your-health-and-your-wallet-heres-what-the-national-construction-code-could-do-better-166669

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Powell, Professor, Edith Cowan University

Evergrande, China’s second-largest property developer, is in peril. After a decade of massive growth, including investing in “Fairyland” theme parks, an electric car company and a professional football team (Guangzhou FC), it is now struggling to service debts exceeding US$300 billion.

So far it has avoided the fate of dozens of its unfinished apartment towers — demolished in spectacular fashion in recent weeks — by selling off assets to make its payments.

But this is not a sustainable strategy. Credit rating agency Fitch has in the past week downgraded Evergrande to a “C”, indicating exceptionally high risk, with default “imminent or inevitable, or the issuer is in standstill”.

Without intervention by the Chinese government, the company will collapse. Here are three key ways in which that could affect Australia.

1. Lower demand for iron ore

Evergrande’s collapse will reverberate throughout China’s real estate market. Investors and lenders will be more cautious, potentially resulting in a credit crunch. This could severely dampen property development, and thereby demand for construction materials including steel, made using mostly imported iron ore.

China is by far the world’s biggest steel producer, and accounts for nearly 70% of global iron ore imports. About 60% of that iron ore has been imported from Australia.

This trade has made iron ore Australia’s most valuable export commodity, worth an estimated AU$149 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year. About 75% went to China. Any drop in Chinese demand will therefore affect the Australian economy.

China has already been seeking to cut back steel production, a high-energy process, to reduce carbon emissions. The iron ore price has halved since July.

Plummeting demand for iron ore

Further falls in demand and thus prices will affect the Australian businesses and 45,600 jobs employed directly by the industry, as well as the thousands of jobs sustained though their wages, and government revenues from mining-related royalties and taxes.

2. Overall weakening of China’s economy

Beyond the direct effects, problems in China’s real estate and financial sectors could ripple across China’s economy, hurting Chinese demand for other goods and services in which Australia is a major provider.

To put trade with China in context, Australia’s exports to China are about three times those of our second-most valuable market, Japan. Even with iron-ore exports removed from the equation, China is still our biggest export market.

The effect of China buying less from Australia has been a matter of considerable debate. Some have argued Australia can compensate by diversifying into other markets. But such things take time. Economists Rod Tyers and Yixiao Zhou, who have simulated the effects of Australia-China trade being shut down, have argued short-term effects could be severe.

3. Global contagion

Evergrande’s debt crisis has echoes of the case of Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank whose bankruptcy in 2008 played a big part in precipitating the Global Financial Crisis.

Although most of Evergrande’s debt is localised in China, in financial and real estate sectors there is always a risk of investors and banks in other markets getting spooked, leading to a credit crunch throughout global markets.

Australian share markets have already fallen off their highs over the past few weeks, certainly in part over concerns about China’s economy. The mining sector has experienced the real carnage, but there are indicators of general unease in falls across all sectors.

Will the Chinese government intervene?

Without external help Evergrande has a very high likelihood of failure. All the signs are there. It is averting bankruptcy by servicing the interest payments on its massive debt by selling assets at unfavourable prices.

All eyes are now on the Chinese government as a potential saviour through some form of debt restructure or guarantees.

Read more:
Vital Signs: Evergrande may survive, but for its executives expect a fate worse than debt

So far it has not committed itself, and it has taken a strong stance against high debt by developers. But it may consider Evergrande “too big to fail” — its collapse having potentially disastrous local and global implications. So some form of intervention to stabilise the situation seems more likely than not.

Australians, and the rest of the world, will need to wait to see exactly what hand the Chinese government will play.

Robert Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 3 ways the collapse of Evergrande will hurt the Australian economy – https://theconversation.com/3-ways-the-collapse-of-evergrande-will-hurt-the-australian-economy-168852

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandy Hughes, Lecturer in sociology and social science course coordinator, Southern Cross University

Women from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, Iraq and other countries are settling in regional Australian communities. Adjusting to life in a new home involves facing many challenges — but finding a sense of belonging can help the settlement process.

For those who have experienced trauma, including women from refugee backgrounds, creative arts can enhance well-being, improve social connections and promote a sense of belonging. Connecting through creativity also builds bridges, addressing fears of newcomers and communities around refugee settlement.

In our recent study, we looked at the experiences of refugee and migrant women in regional Australia, as they shared their work in community art exhibitions. We wanted to learn about the different benefits engaging in creative arts can provide for newcomers as they navigate their new lives.

The research collaboration with Anglicare Northcoast’s Three Es to Freedom program focused on fostering community connections to enhance social inclusion and achieve personal goals. Established in 2016, the program has supported 142 women from 36 countries. In the creative arm of the program, women undertook workshops with local community artists, harnessing existing skills and developing new ones.

At exhibitions in Coffs Harbour and Lismore in northern NSW, and the Gold Coast, women exhibited stories, textile works and installations alongside photographs of themselves.

Enhancing well-being and confidence

The therapeutic value of creative arts practice, especially for refugees, is well known. Art can provide a means of self-expression and advocacy, and promote good feelings, especially for those who have experienced trauma.

Read more:
A clearer view on the healing power of the arts

These positive experiences were reflected by the women when they considered what drawing, painting and sewing offered them. One woman told us the creativity “got me out of my depression, it’s given me love”.

The women made intricate circular textile works telling stories from their childhood. They created a group “story cloth” where they painted symbols to represent their personal journeys. They also made a large installation from feathers featuring inspirational words like “strong” and “free” to show their resilience.

It isn’t just about the creative process itself. The women’s enjoyment was enhanced by coming together as a group with shared experiences. One participant said:

sometimes if you are not happy it helps you. You come to group. You go home and you have lost the negative things you were feeling and that makes you happy.

The women supported each other, learnt about each other’s cultures and taught each other new skills, including special sewing techniques from their cultures.

Drawing on existing skills, learning new skills and gaining confidence encouraged the women to sell their work in various local markets and pop up shops. One woman became known in the broader community for her excellent dressmaking skills and set up her own business. These new initiatives presented a way forward for women who had previously been denied employment opportunities.

Alongside creating their own work, the women were photographed by professional photographers. The women dressed in traditional costumes, sat for formal portraits or were photographed enjoying themselves in the community garden. As one woman told us:

Yes, they were beautiful. It looks like for me a bit shy, but when I look at it, it made me happy to see that all the ladies changed in the photos.

Feeling heard

Another important part of this project was the public-facing exhibition. Knowing people were interested in learning about their lives and their culture increased the women’s feelings of empowerment and encouraged them to pursue their goals.

One woman told us:

I was very happy when I saw many people coming. I am very happy with my story displayed there, my story about my childhood, unforgettable memories […] I can show people what my tradition is about, so they can know my country.

Attendees wrote messages to the women on paper birds and posted them on the exhibition walls.

The words “welcome” and “friendship” were commonly found, as well as drawings of love hearts and peace doves. This conversation between the artists and visitors served as a bridge between migrants and their new community. One participant said the positive comments “made us feel the community was open to us”.

Negative perceptions of asylum seekers and refugees continue in Australia. Exhibitions like this one can create meaningful, personal encounters with people from different cultures, promote empathy and prompt social action. Australian communities can use art to welcome newcomers, investing in bridging community connections and enabling successful settlement.

As one visitor to the Stories of Freedom exhibitions wrote: “[thank you for] sharing your stories […] and adding your beautiful soul to Australia”.

Read more:
Refugees are integrating just fine in regional Australia

Mandy Hughes consults for Anglicare North Coast, through Southern Cross University.

Barbara Rugendyke consults for Anglicare North Coast, through Southern Cross University.

Louise Whitaker consults for Anglicare North Coast, through Southern Cross University and is a member of Ballina Region for Refugees

– ref. ‘It’s given me love’: connecting women from refugee backgrounds with communities through art – https://theconversation.com/its-given-me-love-connecting-women-from-refugee-backgrounds-with-communities-through-art-167786

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

Journalists are adept at creating and reflecting public sentiment. It is a reciprocating process: journalistic portrayal creates the sentiment, then the sentiment feeds back into journalistic portrayal.

This phenomenon can be seen clearly in the way the resignation of New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been reported and commented on.

The problem is that public sentiment does not always remain tethered to the underlying facts, so journalism that continues to reflect that sentiment likewise tends to become unmoored.

The sentiment about Berejiklian is based on a narrative about a good woman and excellent state premier led astray by a rogue boyfriend who abused his relationship with her to advance his interests in ways that led to his being investigated for corruption. In the process, he dragged her down with him.

In essence, it is a tale we are familiar with, may even have experienced at close hand: a good person making decisions of the heart until confronted by an ugly reality. Beats there a heart so cold that cannot sympathise with this predicament?

Much of the coverage of Berejiklian’s resignation has drawn on and fed into this narrative.

It had worked for her previously when she first appeared before ICAC in October 2020, so she no doubt thought it would work again. To a large extent, she has been proved right.

Read more:
Berejiklian’s downfall derailed a career built on accountability and control. Now, who will replace her?

In this telling, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption deliberately brought down this paragon at the height of her powers to the detriment of the public welfare, disrupting the government at a crucial moment in the pandemic.

In this telling, too, ICAC becomes the wrongdoer. Instead of stalling its investigation until heaven knows when – the pandemic is over, the federal election is done – it irresponsibly pushes on regardless.

The surprising thing is that this line of chat has been accepted uncritically by so many elements of the media.

• Superwoman“ Gladys joins two previous NSW Liberal premiers on the “political scrap heap”.

• “Shock and cold fury: Berejiklian’s hand reluctantly forced”

• “Curse of ICAC claims Covid Crusader Gladys Berejiklian”

• “Angry voters mourn loss they don’t understand” says a front-page headline in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

Their understanding is not improved by coverage like this.

The facts are that ICAC is investigating the suspected corrupt allocation of about $35.5 million in taxpayers’ money: $30 million to the Riverina conservatorium of music at Wagga Wagga and $5.5 million to the local clay-shooting club.

ICAC is investigating whether Berejiklian, while NSW treasurer, allowed or encouraged corrupt conduct by her ex-boyfriend, the disgraced former Liberal MP for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, in respect of those allocations.

ICAC says it is investigating whether, between 2012 and 2018, Berejiklian engaged in conduct that “constituted or involved a breach of public trust” by exercising public functions relating to her public role and her private personal relationship with Maguire.

It says it will begin a four-week inquiry into these questions on October 18.

It should not be presumed that ICAC will make adverse findings against Berejiklian. In similar circumstances in 1983, Neville Wran stood aside as premier during a royal commission into corruption in rugby league. He was exonerated and resumed office.

So a further fact in the present case is that Berejiklian chose to resign rather than stand aside.

It is a fair bet she was unnerved by the prospect of NSW being in the hands of her National Party deputy John Barilaro for any length of time. By her resigning, the state gets a new premier from within the Liberal Party. It was a calculated choice.

ICAC is not a curse. Anyone involved in public affairs in NSW before 1988 when ICAC was established – public officials, politicians, journalists – knew that certain parts of the state administration were riven with corruption. Police, planning, prisons, even the magistracy: repeated scandals engulfed them all.

ICAC has been and remains a remarkable force for good.

A sad irony was that Nick Greiner, the Liberal premier who had the courage to establish it, became one of its early victims. In 1992 ICAC found he had misused his position to secure an independent MP’s resignation for political advantage. Greiner fell on his sword.

Read more:
History repeats: how O’Farrell and Greiner fell foul of ICAC

It is instructive to consider how many of the Morrison cabinet would survive exposure to an ICAC investigation.

Berejiklian’s alleged conflict of interest is not a trivial matter. It involves substantial sums of public money in an exercise that she has previously dismissed as “pork-barrelling”.

This disarming term, rendered harmless by repetition, is actually about the improper distribution of public money. It is a form of vote-buying, as has been shown in the procession of rorts engaged in by the federal government over sports grants, community security grants and car parks.

ICAC exists to root out these and other ways by which the democratic process is corrupted.

It is undoubtedly a personal tragedy for Berejiklian that she has found it necessary to resign, and a misfortune for the state to lose a premier who was held in high public regard.

However, sentiment that draws a misty veil over underlying issues of probity in public life does not serve the public well.

Read more:
The ‘car park rorts’ story is scandalous. But it will keep happening unless we close grant loopholes

Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ICAC is not a curse, and probity in government matters. The Australian media would do well to remember that – https://theconversation.com/icac-is-not-a-curse-and-probity-in-government-matters-the-australian-media-would-do-well-to-remember-that-169132

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Bennett, Chair in Epidemiology, Deakin University

“Australia will be ready for takeoff very soon” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison today as he announced the ban on international travel will be lifted some time next month.

Returning Australian citizens and permanent residents will be able to quarantine at home for seven days if fully vaccinated with a TGA-approved vaccine.

The recognised vaccines include those already approved for use in Australia by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson/Janssen, as well as Sinovac and Covishield (Covishield is AstraZeneca’s vaccine made in India).

Unvaccinated returnees will still need to enter managed hotel quarantine for 14 days until Australia moves beyond Phase C of the National Plan.

Those who can’t be vaccinated, including young children and those with a medical exemption, will be counted as vaccinated for travel.

Arrival caps will also be abolished for fully vaccinated returnees.

Today’s announcement is one big step towards allowing vaccinated Australians to return home soon, as we move to a future that somewhat resembles pre-COVID life.

Is seven days enough?

Home quarantine trials in South Australia and New South Wales will answer this question.

Authorities will be testing returnees and the proportion of those who are COVID-positive, as well as when they test positive, will inform decision-making. This will also be monitored on an ongoing basis once we open up and can be adjusted if it turns out a higher than acceptable number of travellers test positive between day seven and 14.

Currently, NSW data tell us less than half of 1% of returnees in hotel quarantine are testing positive. The NSW Surveillance report from August 21 shows only 4% of those positive cases were in fully vaccinated.

The low percentage of returnees who are positive will matter less anyway as Australia progressively moves towards “living with COVID” with a background rate of the virus in the community.

We know fully vaccinated people can still get infected, but at much lower rates. There’s also mounting evidence suggesting their infectious period is shorter than unvaccinated people, so they’re less likely to pass the virus on. Importantly, there’s now a better than 70% reduction in risk of having a serious infection requiring hospitalisation in all of the vaccines the TGA has recognised for international arrivals.

How will we ensure people stay home?

South Australia is currently trialling an app that uses geo-tagged facial recognition software to ensure people stay home during quarantine.

If this app proves successful it might be rolled out across Australia.

It might also include supports for other aspects of compliance, like prompts to get tested, a checklist of symptoms and other ways to check in with returnees.

Random checks by police or ADF personnel have proven home quarantine and isolation have high levels of compliance. Something similar could also be brought in at some point if there were compliance concerns.

Read more:
Home quarantine for vaccinated returned travellers is extremely low risk, and won’t damage their mental health

One thing that’s more difficult to monitor is whether other people come into the house of a person meant to be isolating. The risk of transmission to the visitor is much higher than if the returnee ventured out. But this is the same risk we currently have with isolating close contacts locally.

Ultimately the system will need to rely, in part, on trust. We know Australians are generally very compliant, and many people will be desperate to travel again and reunite with family and friends. The majority will be likely to comply with the requirements to facilitate keeping travel open.

The system will be safe enough — and that’s all we need going forward.

What about other household members?

One question yet to be answered is whether everyone else in the house has to quarantine if housing a returned traveller.

With the risk of a fully vaccinated returnee being positive very low, so too is the risk to the household. If they do return a positive test on one of their test days, their household members may also be required to quarantine. Rapid Antigen Tests might be useful for early detection of infection in these cases.

Another question is whether we will still have offshore screening, requiring a negative test prior to departure for Australia?

The finer details will emerge and probably change over time as we collect data and manage changing risks. We’ll probably start conservatively and then gradually open things up more and more as we learn which components of risk mitigation are proportionate.

Which states will go first?

International travel will open to states and territories gradually as they reach 80% of over-16s fully vaccinated. So we won’t have to wait until all jurisdictions have individually hit the threshold.

Based on vaccination uptake rates, the ACT and NSW will likely be the first to open, followed by Victoria.

Tasmania is still tracking well but other states are lagging behind. Queensland and Western Australia will probably be the last to open their borders.

This is broadly in line with the national plan, but is coming probably a month or two earlier than looked possible in June. Vaccination rates, particularly in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, have been spurred on by significant COVID outbreaks. States are also assessing the distribution of vaccine coverage to ensure there are no parts of the community left behind by the time of opening.

What about travel bubbles?

The Prime Minister flagged potential bubble arrangements with countries like New Zealand where there’d be no quarantine requirements. The list of such countries will likely change over time, depending on circulating variants and country risk profiles.

We’re probably heading in the direction of eventually not requiring quarantine for returnees at all, only testing. For now, it’s clear we’re moving towards a system that manages risks rather than operating with zero risk tolerance.

Will contact tracers be able to cope?

As fully vaccinated people contribute less to transmission and are at less risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms, all states and territories will progressively shift the risk settings that underpin contact tracing. We have used comprehensive contact tracing, casting the epidemiological net wide to ensure not one contact of a case who might have contracted the virus was missed.

The chance of someone being positive drops away the more casual the exposure. Once you no longer have to be fearful of missing even just one case, we can make the net smaller and just trace the people at highest risk.

Read more:
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We might reach a stage where even close contacts just have to get a test, without having to quarantine.

This shift brings with it some risk of cases to the community, but we’re likely to have an ongoing, even if low, level of cases in the community. A low rate of introduction across international borders will not materially add to that. It’s about managing risk and being much more selective about identifying who’s at risk in a highly vaccinated population.

What about new variants from overseas?

Watching what variants are circulating will be a priority and some border rules changes might be needed if new risks are identified. For example, stricter arrangements for people arriving from “high-risk” areas where a particularly worrisome variant has emerged.

The system can be adapted for changing risks. There might be more transmissible variants which emerge, but we also might start using next-generation COVID vaccines which are a better fit for variants and precautions can be dialled down.

Being highly vaccinated allows Australia to move away from the ultra-conservative ways we’ve had to manage the pandemic previously, and allows us to start reopening to the world.

Catherine Bennett receives funding from the NHMRC and MRFF. Catherine was also an independent advisor on the AstraZeneca Vaccine Advisory Committee.

– ref. Australia’s international borders to reopen from November. It’s one big step towards living with COVID – https://theconversation.com/australias-international-borders-to-reopen-from-november-its-one-big-step-towards-living-with-covid-169094

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

Scott Morrison has promoted two of his closest allies in a reshuffle that follows Christian Porter’s recent departure from the ministry.

Immigration minister Alex Hawke moves from the outer ministry into cabinet, while Ben Morton goes being an assistant minister into the outer ministry.

As expected, energy minister Angus Taylor retains the industry part of Porter’s old portfolio.

Taylor was installed as acting minister when Porter was forced to resign after he refused to disclose the names of donors who helped him finance his legal action against the ABC.

Taylor becomes minister for industry, energy and emissions reduction.

However the science part of Porter’s former portfolio is being hived off and given to defence industry minister Melissa Price, who adds science and technology to her other responsibilities.

Morrison said he had asked Taylor “to focus on the critical supply chain initiatives from the recent Quad and the unique role Australia can play based on our national strengths in areas such as critical minerals”, working with resources minister Keith Pitt.

Read more:
Gladys Berejiklian quits premiership amid ICAC inquiry into links with former MP

Hawke, who has been a Morrison’s numbers man and close associate for years, doesn’t change his responsibilities for immigration, citizenship, migration services and multicultural Affairs, but fills the cabinet spot that Porter had.

Morrison said that “pleasingly” his elevation brought the immigration portfolio back into cabinet.

“Minister Hawke did an absolutely extraordinary job most recently in the evacuation from Kabul,” Morrison told a news conference.

Morton, who has been assistant minister to Morrison, goes into the ministry as special minister of state, minister for the public service, and minister assisting the prime minister and cabinet. Morrison said this would take in and expand Morton’s current responsibilities.

Read more:
VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Nationals and climate policy, the push for independent candidates, and Malcolm Turnbull

A former Liberal party director in Western Australia, Morton is a close confidant of Morrison’s.

Tim Wilson, from Victoria, has been promoted from the backbench to assistant minister to the minister for industry, energy and emissions reduction.

Attacking the reshuffle, Anthony Albanese said Morrison had “used it as an opportunity to reward his mates”. He said Hawke was one of the few people in the Liberal party close to Morrison.

Albanese said the industry ministry was a full time job but Morrison had chosen to promote Taylor into that position “on top of his existing responsibilities […] which have proven too much for him.”

Read more:
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He said that on the same day Gladys Berejiklian resigned over an ICAC investigation, Taylor – who has been the subject of various controversies – had been promoted.

“This is yet another reminder of how so many people in Mr Morrison’s government are walking, talking reminders of the need for a national anti-corruption commission.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Promotions for Morrison allies in post-Porter ministerial reshuffle – https://theconversation.com/promotions-for-morrison-allies-in-post-porter-ministerial-reshuffle-169104

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Strategy, Government and Alliances, Western Sydney University

In announcing her intention to resign as NSW premier today, Gladys Berejiklian took the, “I have been given no option” option.

Her actions followed confirmation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) that it would continue its public inquiry into whether she engaged in conduct that “constituted or involved a breach of public trust”.

The ICAC investigation relates to Berejiklian’s “personal relationship” with the former Liberal member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire.

At issue, according to ICAC, is whether she was in a “position of conflict between her public duties and private interests” in the promise or awarding of public funding for projects in Maguire’s electorate.

In her parting statement, Berejiklian was at pains to emphasise she has “always acted with the highest level of integrity”. She described the matters involving the ICAC inquiry as “historic”, noting she has “been the subject of numerous attacks […] by political opponents over the last 12 months.”

A record of accountability and delivery

Berejiklian’s statement focused substantially on control, timing and choice. This is significant.

For a decision that has profound implications for a state enduring the most severe public health and socioeconomic events in its history, her deferral of the decision to ICAC’s agenda was notable.

Her hand, she said, was forced. The timing? “Out of [her] control”. The decision? “Against every instinct in [her] being.” The choice? “ICAC’s prerogative”.

The acquiescence of responsibility in resignation is uncharacteristic for a premier who has forged a path defined by clear policy objectives, accountability and delivery. Those traits are largely a matter of public record.

Through her parliamentary career – since being elected in 2003 as the member for the northern Sydney electorate of Willoughby, then as the minister for industrial relations and transport, and later as treasurer and premier – Berejiklian has overseen major initiatives.

Read more:
Brand Gladys: how ICAC revelations hurt Berejiklian’s ‘school captain’ image

Among them were the 2012 implementation of electronic transport ticketing, the 2015 return to budget surplus, the 2018 Western Sydney City Deal and the 2019 opening of the Sydney Metro Northwest.

Her early management of the COVID-19 pandemic – through rapid contact tracing and agile testing regimes – was seen as further confirmation of her success, with the Australian Financial Review Magazine going so far as to herald her, “The woman who saved Australia”.

Equally, the premier’s presiding over a AAA credit rating set the state up for a large-scale stimulus response to the pandemic’s economic disruption.

A catalyst for government expansion

For the leader of a Liberal-National administration, Berejiklian might be remembered for her championing of some distinctly uncharacteristic ideological approaches. Her “Premier’s Priorities” set a series of social policy benchmarks for her ministers and departmental heads in areas typically viewed as Labor terrain.

Protecting vulnerable children, reducing domestic violence, preventing street homelessness, and increasing Aboriginal access to education are among key measures where her impact, over the longer term, might be more felt than the headline-grabbing pursuit of hard infrastructure.

Against the Liberal tradition of “small government”, she became a catalyst for its expansion. In her orbit, a plethora of agencies and statutory bodies arose. With nuanced purpose and specific remits, the last two parliamentary terms alone have ushered in the Greater Sydney Commission, the Western City Aerotropolis Authority, the Western Parkland City Authority, Investment NSW and Resilience NSW, to name a few.

Read more:
The long history of political corruption in NSW — and the downfall of MPs, ministers and premiers

From an electoral standpoint, Berejiklian has also been a steady hand. Taking the reins from her popular predecessor, Mike Baird, in January 2017, she lost some ground at the March 2019 election. Her party dropped six seats and weathered a 2.3% two-party preferred swing, despite having an impressive budgetary record and infrastructure pipeline.

Since then, Berejiklian’s more recent responses to the pandemic have attracted criticism. Her government was viewed by some critics as slow to act in responding to the state’s Delta variant outbreak. On stimulus, NSW was left in the shade by commitments like the $5.3 billion social housing investment made by the Victorian government.

Her admission in late 2020 that pork barrelling is neither “illegal” or “unique to [her] government”, was also a significant misstep with an electorate bruised by perceived inequities in the distribution of public funds.

Who might replace Berejiklian?

Her successor will confront considerable challenges aside from the state’s protracted public health situation. The newly installed Labor leader, Chris Minns, is also making inroads in critical electoral battlegrounds like western Sydney.

Minns’ focus on engaging with large areas of Sydney’s west impacted by hard lockdowns and economic disruption will be difficult to counter for any incoming Liberal-National premier. The new leader will also need to consolidate a joint-party room destabilised by Berejiklian’s departure.

Who that new premier might be is a matter for conjecture. Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, a conservative faction figure, is viewed by many as a leading contender. He has been a vocal critic of the federal government’s approach to economic support during the pandemic.

Late last year, he also ventured into commentary on Sydney’s urban aesthetics. And in the past week announced a $5 billion funding package for western Sydney.

Others in the Coalition have a case for leadership. Rob Stokes, a moderate, has championed a wider view of planning and public space in a portfolio critical to a state contending with rapid urban growth and questions of sustainability.

The firebrand transport minister, Andrew Constance, might rethink his commitment to bow out of state politics and test his leadership credentials with colleagues.

And Stuart Ayres, the moderate faction minister for western Sydney, may also prove compelling to peers who view him as a steady set of hands with deep ties to a key constituency.

For now, though, the ripples of Berejiklian’s announcement still need to play out.

In taking the “no option” option, she has made her own irreconcilable challenges on timing a matter for her colleagues to consider, as well. We’ll know the ramifications of that in coming days. The outgoing premier’s legacy, however, is something that will take much longer to determine.

Read more:
As a NSW premier falls and SA guts its anti-corruption commission, what are the lessons for integrity bodies in Australia?

Andy Marks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Berejiklian’s downfall derailed a career built on accountability and control. Now, who will replace her? – https://theconversation.com/berejiklians-downfall-derailed-a-career-built-on-accountability-and-control-now-who-will-replace-her-169093

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Clune, Honorary Associate, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

Gladys Berejiklian will be remembered as premier of NSW for her resilience, level-headedness, crisis management skills, and administrative competence — and, of course, the ICAC investigation that toppled her.

Decent, determined and hard-working, she was unflappable in adversity.

Berejiklian leaves a legacy of economic achievement and major infrastructure creation. She achieved a major milestone both personally and for women by being the first female NSW premier to win a general election.

Energetic, effective and politically astute

Of Armenian descent, Berejiklian began her career in politics working for former Liberal leader Peter Collins. She was prominent in the Liberal moderates faction and was president of the Young Liberals. After a sojourn in banking, she was elected MP for Collins’ former seat of Willoughby in 2003. She proved to be an energetic, effective shadow transport minister.

Berejiklian impressed Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell, who became something of a mentor. When O’Farrell became premier in 2011, Berejiklian served in the important transport portfolio.

She was tipped as a possible future premier because of her strong performance. However, when O’Farrell resigned after misleading an ICAC inquiry in April 2014, Mike Baird had the numbers in the party room. Berejiklian, who was personally close to Baird, withdrew from the contest and was elected deputy leader. She was treasurer and industrial relations minister in the Baird government.

Berejiklian’s time came when Baird resigned in January 2017 — she was elected Premier unopposed in late January 2017.

Berejiklian’s policy direction was similar to that of her predecessor, with a strong focus on economics, infrastructure and public sector reform.

Also like Baird, Berejiklian was a small “l” liberal on social reform. She had a less outgoing personal style than Baird but succeeded in convincing the voters she was trustworthy, capable and sensitive to their needs.

The premier stabilised the government and showed it still had purpose and dynamism. She showed her political astuteness by quickly dumping the unpopular local government reforms that had been a factor in Baird’s downfall.

The premier survived two rounds of threatening by-elections in April 2017, a sign the anti-government feeling that marked the end of Baird’s term had diminished.

The serpentine politics of Sydney

The serpentine politics of Sydney sport and stadiums left Berejiklian wrong-footed at the end of 2017. She announced that both Allianz and Homebush stadiums in Sydney would be simultaneously demolished and rebuilt at an estimated cost of A$2.5 billion.

It was a major miscalculation that would haunt Berejiklian. Public reaction was overwhelmingly negative, a common theme being that it was a gross misuse of public funds to rebuild two stadiums, one only 17-years-old, instead of financing vital community facilities. The premier backtracked on the demolition of Homebush but much public resentment remained about Allianz.

In her campaign for the March 2019 election, Berejiklian ran largely on the government’s record.

The economy was performing well compared to other states, the public finances were in the best condition they had been in for a long time, and the infrastructure budget for the next four years was close to $90 billion. Labor leader Michael Daley made opposition to the demolishing and rebuilding of Allianz Stadium the spearhead of his campaign.

While not a flashy or magnetic campaigner, Berejiklian stayed “on message” and came across as sincere and conscientious. The result was a triumphant victory for her. The government’s two-party preferred vote was 52% and its primary vote 42% — 9% higher than Labor’s.

The premier had persuaded enough voters that the government had significant achievements to its credit and was better equipped to deliver more in the future.

Through bushfires and COVID

The last years of Berejiklian’s term were marked by skilful handling of major crises. Like other parts of Australia, in January 2020, NSW was ravaged by a devastating bushfire season, in which 25 lives were lost.

Unlike Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Berejiklian emerged from the bushfire crisis with enhanced prestige.

As political commentator Niki Savva, writing in The Australian, put it:

When the fires hit NSW, she made a point of being there, every day, standing next to the fire chief, Shane Fitzsimmons, supporting him and allowing him to do his job. She visited affected communities. Her embraces were accepted. No one refused to shake her hand.

No sooner had the bushfires ceased than the state was plunged into another crisis with the outbreak of coronavirus. Berejiklian responded in much the same way, this time with Chief Medical Officer, Kerry Chant, by her side.

The second NSW COVID outbreak proved to be more difficult and unpredictable to manage but by the time of her resignation the situation was coming under control.

Although she had been criticised by some for her handling of the crisis, Berejiklian’s calm, competent, communicative approach would seem to have resonated in the electorate.

ICAC’s Operation Keppel

ICAC’s Operation Keppel was inquiring into whether former Liberal MP for Wagga Daryl Maguire engaged in conduct that involved a breach of public trust.

Public hearings began in September 2020 and Berejiklian appeared as a witness in October.

In a disclosure that generated a widespread tsunami of shock, it was revealed the premier had been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire from 2015 which had only recently ended.

Previously, the public persona of Berejiklian, who had never married, was that of a rather prim career woman wedded to her job.

Berejiklian said that she had no intention of quitting as she had done nothing wrong and most voters seemed to be sympathetic.

The general attitude was that she had made a miscalculation in her personal life, a not uncommon phenomenon, and did not deserve to be punished by losing her job.

As reporter Deborah Snow put it, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald,

there was relief inside the government that the crisis was playing out as a titillating love gone wrong scandal rather than a probity scandal.

The announcement of an ICAC inquiry into whether the premier had engaged in conduct that involved a “breach of public trust” as a result of her relationship with Maguire has precipitated her resignation.

She could have stepped aside pending the result of the inquiry, but instead has chosen to take the same course as O’Farrell, who decided to do the honourable thing and walk.

Read more:
The long history of political corruption in NSW — and the downfall of MPs, ministers and premiers

David Clune does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Stadiums, bushfires and a pandemic: how will Gladys Berejiklian will be remembered as premier? – https://theconversation.com/stadiums-bushfires-and-a-pandemic-how-will-gladys-berejiklian-will-be-remembered-as-premier-169096

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel de Zilva, Risk Culture Expert, Macquarie University

The AFR Magazine’s annual power issue, ranking Australia’s most powerful people in politics, business and professions, always makes for some interesting discussions.

This year, for the first time since it began in 2000, the prime minister has been pushed out of top spot. Thanks to the pandemic Scott Morrison is in second place, behind four state premiers (Daniel Andrews, Gladys Berejiklian, Mark McGowan and Annastacia Palaszczuk).

Third spot goes to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, fourth to the nation’s chief health officers, and fifth to Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe. Former ministerial staffer Brittany Higgins places sixth, followed by deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn, Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and defence minister Peter Dutton.

Read more:
Have our governments become too powerful during COVID-19?

There are subsidiary lists for most covertly powerful, the most culturally powerful, the most powerful in business, and in sectors such as technology, education, property and consulting.

One thing the issue really lacks is a comprehensive assessment of the downsides of power. To put it simply, feeling powerful tends to inhibit a person’s ability to make good decisions.

Research shows having a formal position of authority with influence over people, resources and rewards is associated with cognitive and behavioural costs. People who feel powerful (either in the moment or consistently) make significantly lower estimates of the likelihood of negative outcomes. They are more likely to take risks both to obtain gains and avoid losses.

Feeling powerful makes us more prone to three behavioural patterns that increase the likelihood of making poor decisions: overvaluing our own perspective; dismissing the expertise of others; and failing to recognise limitations.

Not seeing other perspectives

Taking the perspective of others is important in any leadership role. Those who feel more powerful tend, however, to overvalue their own perspective and discount the perspectives of others.

This has been demonstrated in behavioural experiments by social psychologist Adam Galinsky and colleagues.

The researchers evoked feelings of greater or lesser power in participants by asking them either to recall a time they had power over someone else, or a time someone else had power over them. Others, who were asked to do neither, formed the control group.

Participants were then asked to perform three different tests measuring their ability to see the perspective of other people. One test, for example, required them to identify emotions expressed by others. Those encouraged to remember feeling powerful were, on average, 6% less accurate than the control group. They were also less likely to detect expressions of displeasure in emails compared to the group made to feel less powerful.

Dismissing expert advice

Feeling powerful makes us more prone to dismiss expert advice. This effect has been measured by organisational behavioural researcher Leigh Tost and colleagues.

In their experiments they used the same method as Galinsky and colleagues to make participants feel more or less powerful. They then asked participants to estimate of the weight of three people or guess the amount of money in three jars of coins.

After the first round of estimates, participants were given access to advice from people who had done the tasks before. They were told if these advisers were “experts” (with a strong performance record) or novices (with estimates that were just average).

Those encouraged to feel less powerful were more inclined to listen to the advice of the experts. Those who felt more powerful were more likely to dismiss the expert and novice advice equally.

Participants also completed a survey about their feelings during the task. The results from this element of the study show those who felt more powerful had a greater sense of being in competition with others. The authors conclude that dismissing advice from experts is connected to a desire to “preserve their social dominance”.

Not recognising constraints

The more powerful we feel, the more likely we will pursue goals aggressively and fail to recognise constraints. This is because power means we are, in fact, less constrained. The powerful have more resources to do what they like, and to tell others what to do.

Organisational researcher Jennifer Whitson and colleagues measured this tendency in experiments in which participants were given nine facts that could hinder achieving a goal — such as “not much money to invest” — and nine facts that could help, such as “there is high demand”.

Those that felt powerful (again established through the method used by Galinsky and colleagues) were significantly less able to recall the constraints. The authors conclude “the powerful are more likely to act on their goals because the constraints that normally inhibit action are less psychologically present for them”.

Refusing to acknowledge constraints can sometimes be a useful thing. Apple founder Steve Jobs, for example, was notorious for ignoring his engineers’ complaints that they couldn’t do what he asked for. There’s a story of him tossing an iPod into a fish tank to demonstrate there was wasted space enabling air pockets.

But such stubbornness is more likely to lead to bad outcomes, such the fate of Elizabeth Holmes, who modelled herself on Jobs and refused to accept her idea of compact medical blood-testing device couldn’t be made to work. Now she’s on trial for fraud.

Read more:
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These downsides to power are worth remembering at a time when listening to different points of view and heeding expert advice has never been more important. Our experience from the pandemic is that power is best distributed. We need leaders who understand that power corrupts, and who are humble enough to listen.

Daniel de Zilva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 3 reasons people with power are more likely to make bad decisions – https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-people-with-power-are-more-likely-to-make-bad-decisions-169017

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Goldsmith, Strategic Professor of Criminology, Flinders University

Are anti-corruption commissions, and their role, set to come under new attack in Australia?

Today, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian resigned after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced an official investigation into alleged conflicts of interest. This is sure to reignite debate over the scope and powers of such bodies around the country.

The NSW ICAC is celebrated for exposing corruption across politics, including the now-convicted former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald. But as the third Liberal premier to resign as a result of ICAC scrutiny since 1992, Berejiklian’s demise is almost certain to provoke a backlash.

The news followed the South Australia parliament passing sweeping amendments to its own Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) last week, narrowing the scope of its operations and reducing its transparency.

Both events bring sharp focus to the right balance of powers for all such bodies, especially the long-awaited federal integrity commission, still in the works over two years after being promised by the Morrison government.

However, South Australia’s reforms in particular point to why a political backlash against these important agencies would be extremely unwise.

What did South Australia do?

Far from inspiring public confidence, the South Australian reforms have sparked considerable controversy. The changes strip the ICAC of its original powers to investigate not just corruption, but also misconduct and maladministration.

Commissioner Ann Vanstone has said the amendments “decimated” her powers to investigate corruption. A further suite of changes jeopardises her ability to even report publicly on the progress or outcome of investigations.

Some have said the changes are largely an exercise in self-protection by the state’s parliamentarians. The lightning speed with which SA’s parliament passed the laws only reinforces the public suspicion.

It is more worrisome than what happened in NSW in 2016, when the parliament restructured that state’s ICAC to add more commissioners and a full-time CEO, seriously altering Commissioner Megan Latham’s role. Latham resigned, returning to her seat on the NSW Supreme Court.

Some elements of South Australia’s reforms make arguable sense, such as giving the primary power over investigating maladministration back to the ombudsman. This role should never have been confusingly duplicated in the ICAC in the first place.

The challenge, however, is whether the ombudsman is up for the type of rigorous inquiries into government failures the ICAC excelled at. This includes being willing to sheet responsibility home to ministers and governments where necessary, not simply examine bureaucratic performance.

Former ICAC Commissioner Bruce Lander’s inquiries into dealings for the sale of government-owned land and major problems in state-run aged care set a new standard of transparency and public accountability for the state.

But a far bigger problem is shifting the power to examine official misconduct to the ombudsman, which is a poor fit for that office. It also strips the ICAC of a large part of its proper function.

Read more:
The ‘sports rorts’ affair shows the need for a proper federal ICAC – with teeth

A flawed fix to a flawed body

Many defects in the original SA model have been amplified by the reforms, sounding warnings for other states and the proposed national body.

Limiting the ICAC purely to investigating criminal corruption leaves it unable to lift the lid on many forms of non-criminal misconduct. This includes conflicts of interest, which are the slippery slope to more serious corruption taking hold.

With inquiries into allegations of serious parliamentary misconduct still outstanding, and a recent rise in reported police complaints in the state, the ICAC’s ability to ensure misconduct does not grow into systemic corruption has become crucial.

The best state models allow their anti-corruption bodies to examine allegations of serious or high-risk misconduct, alongside provable criminal offences – as in NSW. This power is key to actively preventing corruption in the first place.

Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission is another example of a state model that works this way. And even though Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission focuses on criminal acts, it has the benefit of a broad, common law “misconduct in public office” offence at its disposal.

The SA ICAC has also been the most secretive in the country. This is because it was modelled on federal crime commission legislation, not other states’ ICAC models. As such, it was never able to hold any public hearings. The recent amendments only make this secrecy worse.

As the recent Transparency International/Griffith University report on Australia’s national integrity system shows, safeguards are always needed, and there is always a balance to be struck in determining when anti-corruption bodies should use their public hearing powers — similar to royal commissions or coronial inquiries.

But there is no question, such powers are needed. And South Australia has none.

Read more:
Brand Gladys: how ICAC revelations hurt Berejiklian’s ‘school captain’ image

Lessons for the rest of Australia

South Australia has given a big signal to other Australian jurisdictions on what not to do, especially for the proposed federal integrity commission. Even at times of crisis and political pressure.

Recent proposals for the federal body have raised similar concerns about too little transparency and too narrow a focus on the rare and high threshold of criminal offences, at the expense of “grey area” misconduct.

In the real world, there are no bright lines between criminal corruption and serious misconduct.

Read more:
As the government drags its heels, a better model for a federal integrity commission has emerged

The federal purchase of land at Leppington for the Western Sydney airport has raised questions of both. While the Australian Federal Police has found no provable criminality in this controversial deal, the lack of an independent body to fully investigate and prevent recurrence of the non-criminal failures involved leaves ongoing, wider risks of corruption unaddressed.

The SA experience is also a reminder that while anti-corruption agencies might be initially popular, they can quickly end up with few powerful friends or admirers.

The uncomfortable truth is politicians, like many others in public service, are prone to cognitive dissonance. They know public integrity is a desirable goal, but become acutely sensitive to their own vulnerabilities when anti-corruption bodies are implemented.

The lessons here are clear: a best-practice federal integrity commission should look nothing like the South Australian model, and not be set back by the latest developments in NSW.

There can be no public confidence in a body aimed at rooting out corruption if its work is done behind closed doors, and with one hand tied behind its back.

A J Brown has received funding from the Australian Research Council, all of Australia’s Ombudsman offices, most of Australia’s anti-corruption agencies, various other Commonwealth and State regulatory agencies and the Victorian Parliament for his past research on integrity systems relevant to this article. He is also a boardmember of Transparency International Australia.

Andrew Goldsmith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. As a NSW premier falls and SA guts its anti-corruption commission, what are the lessons for integrity bodies in Australia? – https://theconversation.com/as-a-nsw-premier-falls-and-sa-guts-its-anti-corruption-commission-what-are-the-lessons-for-integrity-bodies-in-australia-168932

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

Gladys Berejiklian has resigned as NSW premier after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced it is investigating whether she breached “public trust” arising from a potential conflict of interest involving her personal relationship with disgraced former state MP Daryl Maguire.

Berejiklian, premier since 2017, told a news conference: “Resigning at this time is against every instinct in my being and something which I do not want to do.

“I love my job, and serving the community, but I have been given no option following the statement issued [by ICAC].”

She said standing aside wasn’t an option for her because the NSW people “need certainty as to who their leader is during these challenging times of the pandemic”.

“To continue as premier would disrupt the state government during a time when our entire attention should be focused on the challenges confronting New South Wales. I do not want to be a distraction from what should be the focus of the state government during this pandemic, which is the wellbeing of our citizens.”

She will also resign from state parliament.

Her shock resignation comes at a critical point in the state’s COVID crisis as it prepares to come out of lockdown, which is set to trigger increased cases and hospitalisations.

Scott Morrison has regarded Berejiklian as his closest ally among the premiers, notably because she favoured where possible keeping things open.

Morrison told a news conference she was a “dear friend”. He had always found her “a person of the highest integrity”.

ICAC is investigating her conduct between 2012 and 2018. It is looking at funding given to the Australian Clay Target Association and funding promised or awarded to the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Wagga Wagga.

It is also investigating whether her conduct “was liable to allow or encourage” corrupt conduct by Maguire.

Berejiklian declared her innocence. “I state categorically, I have always acted with the highest level of integrity. History will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties with the highest degree of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW.”

Berejiklian’s future was put in question when last year she gave evidence to ICAC about her close personal relationship with Maguire. During the hearing, damaging phone taps of calls between her and Maguire were played.

State treasurer Dominic Perrottet is considered the front-runner to replace her.

Berejiklian is the third Liberal premier to be claimed by ICAC – the others were Nick Greiner and Barry O’Farrell.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Gladys Berejiklian quits premiership amid ICAC inquiry into links with former MP – https://theconversation.com/gladys-berejiklian-quits-premiership-amid-icac-inquiry-into-links-with-former-mp-169099

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Andrejevic, Professor, School of Media, Film, and Journalism, Monash University, Monash University

Social media platforms are transforming how online advertising works and, in turn, raising concerns about new forms of discrimination and predatory marketing.

Today the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S) — a multi-university entity led by RMIT — launched the Australian Ad Observatory. This research project will explore how platforms target Australian users with ads.

The goal is to foster a conversation about the need for public transparency in online advertising.

The rise of ‘dark ads’

In the mass media era, advertising was (for the most part) public. This meant it was open to scrutiny. When advertisers behaved illegally or irresponsibly, the results were there for many to see.

And the history of advertising is riddled with irresponsible behaviour. We’ve witnessed tobacco and alcohol companies engage in the predatory targeting of women, underage people and socially disadvantaged communities. We’ve seen the use of sexist and racist stereotypes. More recently, the circulation of misinformation has become a major concern.

Read more:
Is it actually false, or do you just disagree? Why Twitter’s user-driven experiment to tackle misinformation is complicated

When such practices take place in the open, they can be responded to by media watchdogs, citizens and regulators. On the other hand, the rise of online advertising — which is tailored to individuals and delivered on personal devices — reduces public accountability.

These so-called “dark ads” are visible only to the targeted user. They are hard to track, since an ad may only appear a few times before disappearing. Also, the user doesn’t know whether the ads they see are being shown to others, or whether they’re being singled-out based on their identity data.

Severe consequences

There’s a lack of transparency surrounding the automated systems Facebook employs to target users with ads, as well as recommendations it provides to advertisers.

In 2017 investigative journalists at ProPublica were able to purchase a test ad on Facebook targeting users associated with the term “Jew hater”. In response to the attempted ad purchase, Facebook’s automated system suggested additional targeting categories including “how to burn Jews”.

Facebook removed the categories after being confronted with the findings. Without the scrutiny of the investigators, might they have endured indefinitely?

Researchers’ concern about dark ads continues to grow. In the past, Facebook has made it possible to advertise for housing, credit, and employment based on race, gender and age.

This year it was found delivering targeted ads for military gear alongside posts about the attack on the US Capitol. It also enabled ads targeting African Americans during the 2016 US presidential campaign to suppress voter turnout.

Public support for transparency

It’s not always clear whether such offences are deliberate or not. Nevertheless they’ve become a feature of the extensive automated ad-targeting systems used by commercial digital platforms, and the opportunity for harm is ever-present — deliberate or otherwise.

Most examples of problematic Facebook advertising come from the United States, as this is where the bulk of research on this issue is conducted. But it’s equally important to scrutinise the issue in other countries, including in Australia. And Australians agree.

Research published on Tuesday and conducted by Essential Media (on behalf of the ADM+S Centre) has revealed strong support for transparency in advertising. More than three-quarters of Australian Facebook users responded Facebook “should be more transparent about how it distributes advertising on its news feed”.

With this goal in mind, the Australian Ad Observatory developed a version of an online tool created by ProPublica to let members of the public anonymously share the ads they receive on Facebook with reporters and researchers.

The tool will allow us to see how ads are being targeted to Australians based on demographic characteristics such as age, ethnicity and income. It is available as a free plugin for anyone to install on their web browser (and can be removed or disabled at any time).

Importantly, the plug-in does not collect any personally-identifying information. Participants are invited to provide some basic, non-identifying, demographic information when they install it, but this is voluntary. The plug-in only captures the text and images in ads labelled as “sponsored content” which appear in users’ news feeds.

Facebook’s online ad library does provide some level of visibility into its targeted ad practises — but this isn’t comprehensive.

The ad library only provides limited information about how ads are targeted, and excludes some ads based on the number of people reached. It’s also not reliable as an archive, since the ads disappear when no longer in use.

The need for public interest research

Despite its past failings, Facebook has been hostile towards outsider attempts to ensure accountability. For example, it recently demanded researchers at New York University discontinue their research into how political ads are targeted on Facebook.

When they refused, Facebook cut-off their access to its platform. The tech company claimed it had to ban the research because it was bound by a settlement with the United States’ Federal Trade Commission over past privacy violations.

However, the Federal Trade Commission publicly rejected this claim and emphasised its support for public interest research intended “to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising”.

Platforms should be required to provide universal transparency for how they advertise. Until this happens, projects like the Australian Ad Observatory plugin can help provide some accountability. To participate, or for more information, visit the website.

Read more:
Australia’s competition watchdog says Google has a monopoly on online advertising — but how does it work?

Mark Andrejevic is a volunteer board member for Digital Rights Watch. His research is supported by the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (CE200100005) and the Discovery Project research scheme (DP200100189).

Daniel Angus receives funding from Australian Research Council through Discovery projects DP200100519 ‘Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures’, and DP200101317 ‘Evaluating the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation’.

Jean Burgess receives funding from the Australian Research Council’s Centres of Excellence and Discovery Project schemes. She has consulted with Facebook in an advisory capacity on topics related to content policy.

Abdul Karim Obeid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Facebook ads have enabled discrimination based on gender, race and age. We need to know how ‘dark ads’ affect Australians – https://theconversation.com/facebook-ads-have-enabled-discrimination-based-on-gender-race-and-age-we-need-to-know-how-dark-ads-affect-australians-168938

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael-Shawn Fletcher, Associate Professor in Biogeography, The University of Melbourne

According to the Oxford English dictionary, wilderness is defined as:

A wild or uncultivated region or tract of land, uninhabited, or inhabited only by wild animals; “a tract of solitude and savageness”.

Aboriginal people in Australia view wilderness, or what is called “wild country”, as sick land that’s been neglected and not cared for. This is the opposite of the romantic understanding of wilderness as pristine and healthy – a view which underpins much non-Indigenous conservation effort.

In a recent paper for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, we demonstrate how many iconic “wilderness” landscapes – such as the Amazon, forests of Southeast Asia and the western deserts of Australia, are actually the product of long-term management and maintenance by Indigenous and local peoples.

But this fact is often overlooked – a problem which lies at the heart of many of the world’s pressing environmental problems. Indigenous and local people are now excluded from many areas deemed “wilderness”, leading to the neglect or erasure of these lands.

The Anthropocene and Indigenous people

“Anthropocene” is the term scientists use to refer to the time period we live in today, marked by the significant and widespread impact of people on Earth’s systems. Recognition of this impact has sparked efforts to preserve and conserve what are believed to be “intact” and “natural” ecosystems.

Yet, the Anthropocene concept has a problem: it is based on a European way of viewing the world. This worldview is blind to the ways Indigenous and local peoples modify and manage landscapes. It is based on the idea that all human activity in these conservation landscapes is negative.

The truth is, most of Earth’s ecosystems have been influenced and shaped by Indigenous peoples for many thousands of years.

The failure of European-based “western” land management and conservation efforts to acknowledge the role of Indigenous and local peoples is reflected in recent scientific attempts to define “wilderness”. These attempts lay out a strict and narrow set of rules around what “human impact” is, and in so doing, act as gatekeepers for what it is to be human.

The result is a scientific justification for conservation approaches that exclude all human involvement under the pretence of “wilderness protection”. The disregard for the deep human legacy in landscape preservation results in inappropriate management approaches.

For example, fire suppression in landscapes that require burning can have catastrophic impacts, such as biodiversity loss and catastrophic bushfires.

Our case studies

In the Amazon, forest management by Indigenous and local peoples has promoted biodiversity and maintained forest structure for thousands of years. Areas of the Amazon considered “wilderness” contain domestic plant species, anthropogenic soils and significant earthworks (such as terraces and geoglyphs), revealing a deep human legacy in the Amazon landscape.

Despite playing a key role in maintaining a healthy and diverse Amazon forest system, Indigenous and local peoples struggle constantly against wilderness-inspired conservation agendas that seek to deny them access to their homelands and livelihoods in the forest.

Similarly, the forests of Southeast Asia and the Pacific are some of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. These forests have been managed for thousands of years using rotational agriculture based on small-scale forest clearing, burning and fallowing. Scientific attempts to define the last remaining “wild places” falsely map these areas as wilderness.

Rather than being wild places, agriculture has actively promoted landscape biodiversity across the region, while supporting the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Indigenous and local peoples.

In the central deserts of Australia, areas mapped today as “wilderness” are the ancestral homes of many Aboriginal peoples who have actively managed the land for tens of thousands of years.

Removal of Traditional Owners in the 1960s had catastrophic effects on both the people and the land, such as uncontrolled wildfires and biodiversity loss. Unsurprisingly, a return of Aboriginal management to this region has seen a reduction in wildfires, a significant increase in biodiversity and healthier people.

Read more:
‘The pigs can smell man’: how decimation of Borneo’s ancient rainforests threatens hunters and the hunted

A way forward

By framing landscapes created and managed by Indigenous and local peoples as wilderness, we are denying the land the care it requires. The effects of this neglect are evident in the catastrophic wildfires and environmental degradation occurring in Australia, northwest America and the Amazon – all lands invaded and colonised by Europeans.

Climate change is now making these problems worse.

Science alone has failed to solve these problems. Imposing land management approaches developed in Europe have failed. The idea of wilderness is destructive, and must be abandoned. We need new ways of engaging with the world around us if we’re to live sustainably on this planet.

Indigenous and local peoples must be engaged in the full range of efforts that affect their lands. This includes developing and implementing environmental initiatives and policymaking, the production and execution of research, and environmental management.

There are models that can be followed, such as developing Indigenous and community-conserved areas, Indigenous-protected and -conserved areas, or similar rights-based initiatives that merge the science and technology with the power of Indigenous and local knowledge.

This is one way forward in effectively decolonising conservation and making the Earth healthy again.

Read more:
Australia, you have unfinished business. It’s time to let our ‘fire people’ care for this land

Michael-Shawn Fletcher receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Lisa Palmer receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Wolfram Dressler receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Rebecca Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Indigenous knowledge and the persistence of the ‘wilderness’ myth – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-knowledge-and-the-persistence-of-the-wilderness-myth-165164

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

University of Canberra Professional Fellow Michelle Grattan and Professor Lain Dare of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra discuss the week in politics.

On climate policy, they canvass the need for Scott Morrison to finalise a deal with the Nationals as the Glasgow climate conferences draws near.

While Morrison negotiates with Barnaby Joyce, in the electorate local groups are ramping up to back independent candidates to run in government-held seats on climate policy.

Michelle and Lain also discuss former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s scathing attack on the government, when he accused Morrison of deceitful conduct in dealing with the French and risking Australia’s national security.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Nationals and climate policy, the push for independent candidates, and Malcolm Turnbull – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-nationals-and-climate-policy-the-push-for-independent-candidates-and-malcolm-turnbull-169086

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Bowtell, Adjunct professor, Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity, UNSW

In a recent article, The Australian’s health reporter asked: “has any modelling put forward by scientific institutes throughout the pandemic ever proved accurate?”

It’s a good question but the answer lies in understanding the truth about modelling — it cannot predict the future.

Rather, it’s a process that identifies variables most likely to shape the course of, say, a pandemic and to quantify their impacts over time.

Politicians commission modellers to assess the present state of things then consider what might happen if various policy settings were to be adjusted.

By providing assessments of the costs, benefits and impacts of proposed policies, good modelling provides governments with a firm foundation for deciding which policies will have what effects.

Politicians know invoking “health modelling” generates public support for their policies.

This week, federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg claimed his decision to scrap COVID support payments at 80% double-dosed vaccination coverage accorded with the National Plan as informed by the Doherty Institute modelling.

But in neither the plan nor the modelling is any connection drawn between ending support payments at any level of vaccination coverage.

Nor was any modelling apparently commissioned on the likely impact of removing financial support for the most vulnerable when infection rates are high – as in Sydney – and rising alarmingly as in Melbourne.

Read more:
Scientific modelling is steering our response to coronavirus. But what is scientific modelling?

The power of ‘health advice’

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, politicians have justified the many difficult decisions they’ve had to make as being based on “health advice”.

As it should be, “health advice” provided to politicians by chief health officers is informed by modelling commissioned from a range of well-respected and credentialed scientific research institutes.

The public draws a strong causal link between health modelling inputs and policy outcomes.

They are more likely to accept policies buttressed by modelling and health advice than not.

Modelling is therefore a powerful political tool.

In a pandemic, political decisions have human and economic impacts that are irrevocable, significant and for many a matter of life and death.

Even more reason, therefore, for the scientific integrity of modelling that informs those decisions to be beyond reproach.

The brief given to the modellers is critically important in setting parameters and assumptions and selecting the variables that will be assessed and measured.

Transparency is essential

The key to building public trust in modelling is full transparency.

But in Australia, these briefs and processes are often shrouded and opaque. Secrecy and a lack of transparency has greatly affected the quality of Australia’s response to COVID.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government’s Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus did not canvass the cessation of international travel and closure of borders, domestic lockdowns and the use of masks as possible or desirable responses to the pandemic.

Yet within weeks of this advice being published, the modelling had been overtaken by events.

Travel from some but not all countries was stopped, international and domestic borders closed from late March 2020, and lockdowns implemented across Australia.

In the initial planning and options, lockdowns, cessation of travel and masks were not among the assumptions. The entire response was based on a paradigm of influenza rather than the facts of coronavirus and need for rapid, preventive responses.

The assumptions informing the initial modelling should have been published, interrogated and debated before, and not after, the initial and ineffectual policy settings were adopted.

Read more:
Australia’s COVID plan was designed before we knew how Delta would hit us. We need more flexibility

Separating science from politics

Over the course of the pandemic, the assumptions of modelling commissioned by governments should have been published, scrutinised and debated before, not after, the modelling was undertaken.

Modelling ought to have been commissioned from a range of Australia’s excellent scientific institutions.

Open debate might have meant aerosol transmission of first Alpha and then Delta would have been factored into projections and policy-making about the efficacy of hotel quarantine and border protection far earlier than it was.

This unnecessary addiction to secrecy has eroded the trust and confidence that should exist between governments and the people.

Politics and science each have their separate and distinct roles to play in the managing the pandemic and reducing to the lowest possible levels the damage it causes to lives and livelihoods.

In the response to HIV/AIDS, the politicians of the day ensured scientific advice was provided independently of governments and published as it became available.

The advice became the foundation of the political decision-making process.

Now, as then, Australians expect a similar standard of open and independent scientific advice, information and assessment about the present and likely impact of the pandemic.

Whether commissioned by governments or acting independently, Australia’s pandemic modellers have lived up to their responsibilities to science and the Australian people.

They have applied their expertise to quantifying COVID and the costs and benefits of policy options.

But the critical decisions on assumptions, debate, contestability and transparency are made by politicians, not modellers.

As much as some politicians may wish to deny it, they alone are responsible and accountable to the Australian people for the decisions that have created Australia’s COVID response and will shape its future.

Modelling is integral to building the most robust, sustainable and well-supported response to the increasingly complex challenges of the pandemic.

The Australian people will be best served by separating science from politics.

Read more:
Explainer: do the states have to obey the COVID national plan?

William Bowtell is affiliated with OzSage, in an unpaid and informal capacity.

– ref. How COVID health advice and modelling has been opaque, slow to change and politicised in Australia – https://theconversation.com/how-covid-health-advice-and-modelling-has-been-opaque-slow-to-change-and-politicised-in-australia-168088

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rona Macniven, Research Fellow, UNSW

Physical activity and sport are important in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Traditional activities like hunting and caring for Country are still practiced today. These activities require physical exertion and have cultural significance.

Organised sport is important in many regional and remote communities where higher numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples live. This can be seen through competitions like the NSW Koori Knockout and the NAIDOC Netball Carnival.

Read more:
Whiteness in the time of COVID: Australia’s health services still leaving vulnerable communities behind

Why is this important?

Many factors influence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in physical activity and sport. These can be classified as facilitators, that enable participation, or barriers, that can make participation more challenging.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show fewer than four in ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults are doing enough physical activity. This is despite high Indigenous representation in professional sport, for example in Rugby League and AFL.

Doing physical activity has lots of positive health benefits, such as reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes. There are also social benefits of participating in sport. Our previous research found some evidence of benefits for education, employment, culture, well-being, life skills and crime prevention.

Our new review found 62 different facilitators and 63 different barriers to physical activity and sport. Multiple, complex facilitators and barriers were experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults across Australia.

The review included 27 studies of over 750 total participants aged 18 and over. The studies were published between 2008 and 2020 and took place in urban, rural/regional and remote areas. Most involved interviews, “yarning” or storytelling with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Some studies focused on physical activity programs. Some studies had a sport focus. And some focused on physical activity together with nutrition.

The main physical activity and sport motivators were support from family, friends and program staff, and opportunities to connect with community or culture. The main barriers were a lack of transport and financial constraints. Also, a lack of time due to work, family or cultural commitments.

Read more:
Sport can be an important part of Aboriginal culture for women – but many barriers remain

Feedback through Action Statements

Each facilitator and barrier were examined together to give five clear “Action Statements”. These statements give practical guidance for how future programs can increase and sustain participation. They also give advice to improve current programs and strategies.

Action Statement 1: personal attitudes and life circumstances of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be considered

Many different attitudes, expectations and self-beliefs were identified that could either facilitate or hinder physical activity and sport participation. Physical activity needs to fit in with people’s daily life and personal circumstances. These circumstances include health issues and socioeconomic issues. In urban areas, self-motivation made participation more achievable. But a lack of self‐motivation was a barrier in all geographic locations.

Action Statement 2: promote the holistic health and personal benefits of physical activity and address participation challenges

People described wanting to improve their health as a motivation to do physical activity and sport. However, health or physical issues were barriers to participating. This means coming up with strategies to overcome these barriers are essential. People also described being motivated to participate as they enjoy physical activity. However, injury or illness was also described as a barrier.

Action Statement 3: recognise the importance of family and cultural connections

Providing opportunities for positive connections with family, peers and networks can help people do physical activity and sport. Family commitments, including caring for children, were a common barrier. Racism was also a barrier. But the importance and influence of family, friends, community members and role models were very evident.

Action Statement 4: respect connections to culture and support communities to be supportive, safe, and well-resourced

At the community level, infrastructure and neighbourhood safety are important factors. Community relationships also play an important role that can help or hinder physical activity participation. Connecting to culture and access to culturally safe places and activities is also important.

Action Statement 5: physical activity and sport programs should be sustainably funded and open to participants’ needs and expectations

Programs must accommodate the needs and expectations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Programs that are cost‐free, have a structure, provide transport and childcare and that are professionally delivered and well‐organised were appealing.

Next steps

Future decisions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander physical activity and sport need to be made in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is also important to acknowledge the diversity in different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Decisions should be consistent with local views and customs.

Future research could evaluate the impact of future programs, or changes to current programs. This way, we can best understand the benefits of physical activity and sport for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and enhance future opportunities.

Rona Macniven receives funding from the Heart Foundation.

John Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Bridget Allen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sport and physical activity play important roles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, but there are barriers to participation – https://theconversation.com/sport-and-physical-activity-play-important-roles-for-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-communities-but-there-are-barriers-to-participation-168263

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

Review: Fairweather and China, by Claire Roberts (Miegunyah Press)

Paintings by Ian Fairweather have been a part of every survey exhibition of Australian art since the Whitechapel exhibition of 1961. He is discussed as a major figure in each analysis of Australian art history since Bernard Smith’s Australian Painting of 1962. His paintings are collected in the National Gallery of Australia, all state art galleries and some regional centres. He has been the subject of a monograph by Murray Bail as well as the subject of several significant survey exhibitions.

Yet the conclusion Claire Roberts draws in this scrupulously researched examination of Fairweather’s art and ideas is he cannot be described as an Australian artist. This is not just because of Australia’s bad habit of claiming anyone who spends some time here as one of our own.

Fairweather, who was born in Scotland and raised on the Island of Jersey, first visited Australia in the 1930s and 40s, but in the 1950s he built a shack on Queensland’s Bribie Island where he lived and painted until his death in 1974.

Fairfield and Chinese art

Roberts’ earlier book on Fairweather, Ian Fairweather: A life in letters, co-written with John Thompson, is the background research for this study of the artist’s life, relationships & constant questing for meaning. Other important sources include the books he read and valued throughout his life.

What distinguishes this from any previous study of Fairweather is her scholarship in both Mandarin and contemporary art. As a result, Roberts is uniquely placed to examine Fairweather’s work in the context of his idiosyncratic understanding of Chinese literature and classical language.

The significance of Roberts’ Mandarin scholarship comes to the fore in her analysis of The Drunken Buddha (1965), Fairweather’s magnificently illustrated “free” translation of The Complete Biography of the Great Master Chi-tien (Jidian).

She notes that while many reviewers called this a significant scholarly work, it is better described as an exercise in creative exploration, in her own words “a summative significance for an understanding of Fairweather’s artistic practice”.

Ian Fairweather first visited China in 1929. He left for the last time in the face of the impending war with Japan in 1936. Nevertheless Chinese ideas, especially Taoism and Buddhism, continued to influence his art for the rest of his life.

Read more:
How the stunning abstract art of Hilma af Klint opens our eyes to new ways of seeing

An artist who belongs to no nation

Fairweather is probably best described as an itinerant British wanderer in the colonial tradition of the old Empire. When the Art Gallery of South Australia asked him to nominate the artist who most influenced him, he claimed to be “a disciple of Turner”, that most English of all 19th century artists.

His life bears all the marks, or scars, of the British Empire. He was born in Scotland, the ninth son of a doctor in the Indian Medical Service. When he was six-months-old his parents returned to India, leaving the baby in the care of a great-aunt. He did not see his parents for the next ten years. Duty and family expectations saw him join the British Army, but in 1914 he was captured by the Germans and became a prisoner of war.

It was in the library of a PoW camp he first encountered books on Chinese and Japanese art. After the war he studied art at the Slade under Henry Tonks, and then wandered — to Canada, China, Bali, Australia, the Philippines, India.

Throughout his life Fairweather seemed to take lunatic risks with his personal safety, but was always saved by chance. He found his eventual home of Bribie Island 1948 by accident when his ramshackle sailing boat crash-landed him there, but did not return until after his most famous misadventure.

That was in 1952 when he tried to sail north-west from Darwin in a homemade raft and was lost at sea. Most accounts of Fairweather’s life give substantial detail to this voyage, but Roberts summarises it in a single paragraph. There is no need to walk in paths well trod.

Her conclusion is Fairweather was an artist who belonged to no nation but took his own path, wandering for truth. What that truth may be is woven through the text – in the description of the young man caught in an avalanche in Switzerland and feeling at one with the mountains, of the sailor wanting to be with the sea, and the old man exposed to the elements, living on an island off the Queensland coast.

One of Fairweather’s most loved books was Laurence Binyon’s The Flight of the Dragon: an Essay on the Theory and Practice of Art in China and Japan, based on Original Sources (1914). Binyon wrote:

The artist must pierce beneath the mere aspect of the world to seize and himself be possessed by that great cosmic rhythm of the spirit which sets the currents of life in motion”.

I strongly suspect Fairweather would have regarded the idea of claiming his art as belonging to any one country or style as an irrelevancy.

Fairweather and China will be launched at the Art Gallery of South Australia, on Friday 1 October at 6 pm

Joanna Mendelssohn has previously received funding from the ARC

– ref. A new study of artist Ian Fairweather considers how Chinese ideas influenced this wanderer and adventurer – https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-of-artist-ian-fairweather-considers-how-chinese-ideas-influenced-this-wanderer-and-adventurer-164077

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Dominey-Howes, Professor of Hazards and Disaster Risk Sciences, University of Sydney

A tornado has swept through central western New South Wales, with the Bureau of Meteorology reporting damage to houses, powerlines and trees around the Clear Creek area, north-east of Bathurst.

But while many think of tornadoes as a rare event in Australia, they are actually surprisingly common, and have killed quite a number of people since European occupation. Geoscience Australia says there have been more than 40 tornado-related deaths in Australia in the past 100 years.

That’s because Australia has the right environmental conditions that favour the formation of tornadoes, which have the fastest wind speeds of any natural hazard type on Earth.

Read more:
Tornadoes in Australia? They’re more common than you think

Tornadoes are born, they live, they die

Australia has expansive areas of flat land — usually agricultural land — and it’s over these large, flat areas that tornadoes like to form. It’s much the same in “Tornado Alley”, a stretch of central United States where tornadoes are most frequent.

You get thunderstorms developing over these areas of flat land because warm, moist air collides with a front of cold, dry air and that’s exactly what it takes for a storm to be born.

You sometimes see a tube coming out from a thundercloud and it’s only once it touches the ground that it’s a tornado.

How long they live on the ground and how far they travel influences the scale of damage.

Most storms only last a few minutes, but in Tornado Alley in the US, there have been tornadoes up to 500m in diameter on the ground for four hours. That kind of tornado would cause monumental damage.

Read more:
Explainer: why are tornadoes so destructive?

Some tornadoes touch down briefly and are quite narrow, perhaps just 20m across. They might run for a few metres and then die. Others can be much bigger and obviously if they touch down in a metropolitan area they can do a lot of damage very quickly — and they can behave very unpredictably.

Tornadoes can go up a street and pick one house out on the street and reduce it to a pile of debris, leaving the other houses alone. Or the opposite can happen — every house on the street is smashed but one.

Eventually, tornadoes run out of energy. If the base of the funnel loses contact with the ground, it dies. Most tornadoes occur in the mid afternoon to early evening.

Much like other types of natural hazards, tornadoes can be classified according to their impact. We have a magnitude scale for tornadoes called the Enhanced Fujita scale, which goes from 0-5 (where 5 is the biggest). It’s too early to say what the recent NSW tornado measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale because damage surveys are yet to be completed.

Australia has had some big tornadoes

The BOM has a national tornado database and record of accounts of tornadoes over last century and some were quite big. One of the most memorable tornadoes occurred in December 2015 where a tornado ripped through the Kurnell area of eastern Sydney. No one was killed but people were injured and the tornado caused a lot of damage. Windspeeds got up to 210km per hour. According the BOM, this tornado was recorded as a 2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.

Generally, Australia gets tornadoes all over NSW and Victoria, as well as the southwestern part of Western Australia.

There is a distinct spatial geography to where tornadoes occur around the world. This map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US shows those places around the world with the right conditions to allow tornadoes to form.

How do we detect, monitor and give early warning of tornadoes?

The truth is it’s very hard to give precise early warnings. Rather, weather services monitor for the types of conditions right for tornado development because tornadoes can form very quickly.

The Bureau of Meteorology uses Doppler radar to detect them in the short term. In that imaging, they show an unusual thing called a “hook echo”. That’s basically showing inside the thundercloud system, where winds are rotating really fast – a telltale sign that a tornado might be about to form.

But in Australia and in the US, we only usually know when a tornado is coming toward the ground if tornado spotters report them.

Can we expect them to become more frequent with climate change? We’ve got no idea. It’s impossible for climate science to predict because they are such small size phenomena. We need to rely on good planning and great spotters.

Read more:
The role of climate change in eastern Australia’s wild storms

What should I do if I am in a tornado?

In the US they have evacuation shelters in places such as toilets in malls or airports, which are reinforced with concrete. Residential houses tend to have a central shelter — sometimes in a cellar or under a staircase.

We generally don’t have that in Australia but if you end up in a tornado, it’s basically a case of “duck and cover”.

Find the most secure, reinforced part of the building — which is often the staircase, if the staircase is up against a wall. You want to take shelter in the part of the building that is most likely to stay up if the tornado comes over your head.

Dale Dominey-Howes receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the State and National Disaster Mitigation Program and the Global Resilience Partnership.

– ref. Tornado rips through western NSW — what are tornadoes and what do we need to know? – https://theconversation.com/tornado-rips-through-western-nsw-what-are-tornadoes-and-what-do-we-need-to-know-169085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By João Marcos Azevedo Correia de Souza, MetOcean Solutions Science Manager of the Research and Development Team. Moana Project Science Lead, MetService — Te Ratonga Tirorangi

The ocean around New Zealand is getting warmer, and extreme warming events have become more frequent over the past years.

These marine heatwaves can have devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems. When they happen in summer, they usually receive a lot of attention. But those happening during winter, when the ocean is cooler, are often ignored.

Yet, these winter events can affect the spawning and recruitment of fish and other sea animals, and in turn have significant impacts on aquaculture and fisheries.

To monitor the occurrence of such extreme events around New Zealand, we developed a marine heatwave forecast tool as part of the Moana Project. The tool has been operational since January 2021 and it forecasts marine heatwave occurrence, intensity and duration for 13 areas defined in collaboration with the seafood industry.

It revealed that most coastal areas around New Zealand were warmer than normal during this last winter (June to August 2021), as highlighted in the map showing the difference between winter 2021 average sea surface temperatures and the climatology (daily mean values based on data from 25 years).

A warm winter for New Zealand’s waters

Marine heatwaves are defined as periods of five days or more of ocean temperatures in the top 10% of local average values for the time of year.

During winter 2021, surface waters were on average 0.3℃ (±0.75) warmer than usual, with peaks occasionally reaching +4.2℃. In contrast, in a few areas, such as the Pegasus and Kaikoura canyons to the north-east of Banks Peninsula, we observed cooler than normal temperatures.

Except for the Banks Peninsula and the FMA3 box to the east of the South Island, all other 11 areas experienced marine heatwaves during the winter.

The events varied in intensity and duration. While Cape Reinga showed a continuous moderate event, Stewart Island experienced a severe winter marine heatwave that lasted 87 days, with maximum temperatures reaching 1.9℃ above long-term climate data.

Both areas are particularly important since they are located at the northern and southern extremities, respectively, of the main currents that hug the eastern coastline of New Zealand. The warm waters in these regions move downstream (southward from Cape Reinga, and north-eastward from Stewart Island) and warm most of New Zealand’s eastern coast.

We can expect serious economic impacts from such warming. Recent events in western Canada highlight the devastating impact summer marine heatwaves can have on coastal marine ecosystems and aquaculture.

In New Zealand, Fisheries Management Area 7 (FMA7) in the map matches hoki spawning grounds and is, therefore, of critical importance to deep-water fisheries. The hoki fishery is worth about NZ$230 million in export revenue. In 2017, the fishery’s catch shortfall was about 8,500 tonnes, which constitutes a loss to the New Zealand economy of some NZ$13 million.

While the reasons for this are not yet fully understood, the Deepwater Group, which represent quota owners from New Zealand’s deep-water fisheries, suspects warmer-than-usual temperatures resulted in fewer hoki arriving at the winter spawning grounds off the west coast of the South Island.

A greater focus on winter marine heatwaves will help us understand how fisheries and aquaculture in New Zealand may be affected and what we can do to minimise economic, societal and biodiversity losses.

Read more:
Coral reef scientists raise alarm as climate change decimates ocean ecosystems vital to fish and humans

Changes across the southwest Pacific affect New Zealand

We know ocean temperatures are warming faster during winter than summer around New Zealand and across the wider subtropical southwest Pacific Ocean. The warming has become particularly evident since 2010 and has manifested in the emergence of the “Southern Blob”.

This ocean hotspot is centred northeast of New Zealand and has been linked to drought in both South America and New Zealand.

Read more:
Marine heat waves spell trouble for tropical reef fish — even before corals die

The current rate of warming in the Southern Blob exceeds natural variability, implying a contribution from human-induced climate change. Along with changes in the regional atmosphere, this large-scale process increases the likelihood of winter marine heatwaves around New Zealand.

Our research shows the deepest and longest-lasting marine heatwaves in the Tasman Sea are typically driven by ocean currents — in contrast to shallower summer marine heatwaves, which are driven by the atmosphere.

The warmer-than-normal winter ocean temperatures in the Tasman and coastal seas around New Zealand send warning signals about what the summer may bring. On top of impacts on coastal ecosystems, marine heatwaves also affect extreme weather and make floods and tropical storms over New Zealand more likely during the coming summer.

João de Souza works for MetOcean Solutions, part of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand. The research presented is part of the Moana Project, funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund.

Amandine Schaeffer, Jonathan Gardner, and Robert Smith do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Marine heatwaves during winter could have dire impacts on New Zealand fisheries and herald more summer storms – https://theconversation.com/marine-heatwaves-during-winter-could-have-dire-impacts-on-new-zealand-fisheries-and-herald-more-summer-storms-167967

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

The weekend is approaching, your fridge is stocked with cheese and you’re eager to organise a COVID-compliant picnic with other fully vaccinated adults which your local rules stipulate. But choose your guests wisely — only fully vaccinated people can attend, and fines apply if the rules are broken.

These new rules, coming into effect in New South Wales and Victoria, place the responsibility for policing vaccination on individuals. Vaccine passports may eventually allow businesses to check people’s vaccination status on entry, but there is no app to scan before gathering for a picnic or home event.

So how do you find out who’s vaccinated, and what do you do with that information?

How do you start the conversation?

Vaccination can feel like a loaded topic, something you might not want to discuss if you can avoid it. But it doesn’t have to be a minefield. We can actually take some tips about approaching tricky personal topics from the field of sexual health.

First, try to talk about vaccination before you’ve confirmed plans with someone, and before you’ve communicated the plans to others. Once you’re already at the picnic, the stakes are much higher. You’re more likely to either go along with something that doesn’t feel right to you or end up in an argument.

Offer your own vaccination status first. You could say something like

FYI, I got my second dose last month. These new rules mean everyone coming will have to be vaccinated. Have you had both doses? I want to make sure we’re OK to go ahead.

Keep the question casual. Asking someone’s vaccination status is reasonable in these circumstances — it isn’t because you don’t trust the person.

What if the person says no?

Don’t jump to conclusions. Depending on your relationship with the person, you may want to find out more. When approaching a conversation about COVID-19 vaccines, start with an open mind and be ready to listen.

Ask them if they’d like to talk about why they aren’t vaccinated. Maybe they have some specific concerns, maybe they’re waiting for an appointment or for a different vaccine to the one available to them now.

Let them share all their concerns before you jump in and try to answer or correct them.

If they’re open to it, you can help them weigh up the risks and benefits of the vaccines, share some facts about safety and effectiveness, or tell them what convinced you to get vaccinated.

Talking about your own experience can help normalise vaccination.

The person you’re talking to might not be on fence about the vaccine — they might be strongly opposed to it.

If that’s the case, your best strategy may be to establish your position and close the conversation. You could say:

OK, that’s not what I believe. But either way, we have to follow the rules.

Arguing with people who strongly oppose vaccination is rarely — if ever — effective, and it could ruin your relationship.

While rules are in place that exclude unvaccinated people for the time being, it’s not necessary to cut someone out of your life because they aren’t vaccinated.

As those rules are relaxed and we move from suppressing COVID-19 to living with COVID-19, we will need to re-calibrate our risk assessments.

Of course these decisions are personal, but if you and your family are fully vaccinated, the risk of catching COVID-19, particularly in an outdoor environment, is significantly reduced.

If you have children too young to currently get vaccinated, the risks from COVID-19 are low except in certain circumstances so you’ll need to weigh health risks against social benefits.

Social exclusion leads to more conspiratorial thinking — in other words, cutting people off when they believe in conspiracy theories often leaves them to go further down the rabbit hole, unchallenged by alternative views.

You may have more positive impact by maintaining a relationship, within your boundaries, and role modelling the behaviour you believe in.

What about the picnic?

If your friend is a bit hesitant or firmly against getting the vaccine, your picnic with them will have to wait.

When you explain this, you may want to distance yourself from the rules. For example, you could say:

The new rules say… Unfortunately it sounds like we can’t get together for now. It’s only a temporary thing — we should all be able to get back to normal in a few more weeks.

You didn’t make the rules, but we’re all living with them for now. If relevant, convey how important the relationship is.

From the beginning, managing COVID-19 well has required us to take the evidence, abide by public health orders and, when we can choose, weigh the risks of an activity against the benefits.

For these sensitive social negotiations around vaccines, masks and other measures, we will need to communicate with care to keep connecting with each other as safely as possible.

Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Foundation and the Victorian Department of Health. She is a steering committee member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.

Julie Leask receives funding from the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

– ref. ‘Are you double dosed?’ How to ask friends and family if they’re vaccinated, and how to handle it if they say no – https://theconversation.com/are-you-double-dosed-how-to-ask-friends-and-family-if-theyre-vaccinated-and-how-to-handle-it-if-they-say-no-168754

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Hahn, Postdoc, CSIRO

As the climate crisis threatens millions of species worldwide, biodiversity conservation is now an all-hands-on-deck operation. Natural history collections play a critical role in this effort as repositories holding records of historical biodiversity shifts, like libraries made of biological specimens.

In response to the extinction crisis, the call is out to scour Australia’s collections for data to fill knowledge gaps.

For many species, however, recovering historical genetic data has been severely impeded, not by a lack of specimens but by the methods used to preserve them. This is where my new research comes in.

Our paper shows how natural history collections around the world can squeeze every last drop of historical genetic data out of their specimens, from dried iridescent wings of butterflies to platypus bills floating in alcohol.

Opening the vaults

With over half a million native species, Australia is a global biodiversity hotspot – but we are also a world leader in extinctions.

To have a chance at combating biodiversity loss, we must use every last resource to learn about our unique corner of the globe.

Long before the discovery of DNA, museums collected biological specimens to create a picture of where species live and how they are related. Today, the Atlas of Living Australia, which serves as a national database for Australia’s museums, contains approximately 2 million vertebrate specimen records.

Armed with modern techniques, we can now recover genetic data from specimens collected over the last 200 to 300 years. These data can then improve conservation outcomes for species struggling to cope with current environmental change.

For example, I recently used museum specimens to determine the historical native range of endangered Sonoran pronghorn in North America. This guided its reintroduction to the wild.

Biodiversity time capsules

When you visit natural history museums, most specimens on display will have been dried to beautifully preserve their physical appearance. Plant and insect specimens are dried and pressed or pinned, while birds and mammals are stuffed and dried.

Research-focused collections don’t prepare and pose specimens for public display. When drying doesn’t sufficiently preserve physical features, large collections of murky jars containing specimens are commonly found behind the scenes.

This is called “liquid fixation”, where we use chemicals such as formaldehyde to preserve fish, amphibians and reptiles. It’s used for birds and mammals, too, when scientists want to preserve their internal organs.

Nearly one-third of the 2 million specimens in our national database are preserved in liquid. Each of these specimens has a story to tell about how that species has coped (or didn’t) with our changing environment.

Together, dried and liquid-preserved specimens housed in collections around the world represent an irreplaceable record of biodiversity shifts in this period of rapid environmental change.

The problem with formaldehyde

Although drying and liquid fixation methods (such as with the chemical formaldehyde) both help preserve biological tissues, neither method was developed with modern genomic sequencing in mind.

Still, drying has the effect of slowing DNA degradation and a treasure trove of historical genetic data has been recovered from dried specimens in recent decades.

Recent examples include the use of egg shell DNA to solve mysteries surrounding extinct paradise parrots, and dried tissue DNA to examine the rapid extinction of native Australian rodents following European colonisation.

On the other hand, formaldehyde preserves tissues by stopping decay in its tracks by cross-linking the molecules within the tissue. Frustratingly, these cross-links turn DNA extraction into an exercise akin to chiselling strands of delicate thread out of a block of cement.

But in recent decades, museums have begun sampling fresh tissue from newly collected specimens and storing it specifically for DNA extraction.

This marks a pivot in preservation practices. Coupled with advances in extracting DNA from older dried tissues and those preserved in ethanol, it has ushered in an entire new field of museum genetics.

Meanwhile, extracting DNA from specimens preserved with formaldehyde has largely been left in the “too hard” bucket. This has left a gaping hole in the availability of older historical DNA for most fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Through advances in research, scientists have managed to find a way to successfully sequence a handful of formaldehyde-fixed museum specimens — lizards, snakes, salamanders and fish — that would have otherwise been lost to history.

But to collect at a greater scale, an important hurdle remains: community confidence.

Improving the confidence of curators

Until now, getting useable genetic information from specimens preserved in formaldehyde has been largely hit or miss with an emphasis on the miss. Despite the declining costs of DNA sequencing, many scientists are unwilling to hitch their limited research budgets to the pursuit of risky specimens.

DNA extraction requires the destruction of at least part of a specimen, such as removing a small section of liver or muscle tissue. So museum curators hesitate to grant precious tissues for studies with low expected success rates.

In our recent study, we set out to find ways to minimise this risk. We found that, essentially, a quick inspection of the preserved animal’s gut and a measurement of the formaldehyde in the jar can empower researchers and curators to identify which precious specimens are worth damaging to recover genomic data.

We also showcase a single DNA extraction method that works surprisingly well on both formaldehyde-fixed specimens and those preserved in ethanol.

This is useful because the preservation history of a specimen, especially older ones, is often unknown. While all of our wet specimens at the Australian National Wildlife Collection are currently in ethanol, like most collections, our records generally don’t indicate if they’ve come into contact with formaldehyde.

By reducing the need for specimen-specific methods, we can more quickly gather high quality historical data — even from long-ago disregarded jars of goopy specimens.

Erin Hahn works for the CSIRO Australian National Wildlife Collection.

– ref. Old, goopy museum specimens can tell fascinating stories of wildlife history. Finally, we can read them – https://theconversation.com/old-goopy-museum-specimens-can-tell-fascinating-stories-of-wildlife-history-finally-we-can-read-them-165013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna von Reibnitz, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Australian National University

Australia has ranked equal last on a gender pay gap scorecard across six countries, according to a major report released today.

It studied the gender pay gap reporting frameworks in Australia, France, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Based on 11 indicators, Australia received a score of 4 out of 11, ranking equal last with the UK. Spain was the top ranked nation, scoring 8.5.

The good news is the research, detailed in our Australian-focused companion report, shows how making a small number of changes can give Australia a chance to ramp up progress to close the gender pay gap.

What the study looked at

In a global study aimed at identifying best practice in gender pay gap reporting systems, six countries were selected on the basis of having unique, potentially high-impact design features. Australia was selected on the basis of its world-leading gender equality dataset.

The research identified 11 indicators of best practice reporting, including accountability, coverage, enforcement and penalties, intersectional elements (such as race and ethnicity), transparency and action plans. The six countries were ranked against the indicators in a pay gap reporting scorecard.

The findings were based on interviews with key stakeholders from government, gender equality advocates and experts, and employers and trade unions. The report also used evidence from academic literature, reports and publications from international and country-specific organisations, and cross-country comparisons to identify strengths and weaknesses in each reporting system.

We used to be a world leader

Australia was one of the pioneers when it came to legislating for equal pay in 1969 and 1972, and then with gender equality reporting since 1986.

Introduced in 2012, the Workplace Gender Equality Act requires employers to report data by gender on remuneration, workforce composition and the recruitment, promotions and resignations of their employees. This data goes to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

The act was an important step towards accountability and produced promising early results, with the national gender pay gap dropping steadily from 18.6% in 2014 to 14.1% in 2018. This means average weekly earnings for women working full-time were 14.1% less than their male counterparts.

Since then, progress has stalled. In fact, the COVID pandemic has seen the gender pay gap increase slightly, to 14.2%.

This means that in 2021, the average woman working full-time has to work an extra 61 days each year to earn the same as the average man.

Why was Australia ranked last?

Although Australia’s legislation has generated a world-leading dataset on workplace gender equality, our research found that data collection and monitoring alone are not enough to drive widespread change.

Australia falls behind on aspects of transparency and accountability for corrective action. This means that neither the incentives nor punishments are strong enough to change organisational behaviour. This has ultimately stifled our progress.

Read more:
Time to gender parity has blown out to 135 years. Here’s what women can do to close the gap

Australia also ranks behind other countries for only requiring relatively large, non-public sector organisations to report on gender equality (plans to expand to the public sector have been announced by the federal government). Australia also fails to capture other measures of social disadvantage like race or ethnicity.

Catching up with other countries on these metrics requires re-thinking how our pay gap legislation works – this will be essential in driving widespread and inclusive workplace equality into the future.

In the short term, we need to make our current legislation work harder to incentivise employers to reduce their gender pay gap. The upside is that accountability and transparency can be improved with minimal change.

This can begin with three steps.

Step one: publish pay data for individual organisations

Although Australia calculates individual organisations’ gender pay gaps, the 2012 act does not allow these gaps to be published. Rather, only aggregated data for whole industries and Australia overall can be released publicly.

Publishing the pay gaps for each organisation would require minimal legislative amendment.

But it could have a major impact. For example, it would enable investors, consumers, employees, trade unions and activist groups to exert pressure on employers to improve their gender equality performance by investing in, purchasing from, or working for companies with lower pay gaps.

Step two: set a new minimum standard that matters

Under the current legislation, the minister for women can nominate minimum standards that large organisations must meet in order to fulfil gender equality reporting obligations under the 2012 act.

At the moment, the minimum standard is satisfied if a company simply has one gender equality policy or strategy in place. But having a policy does not ensure it is followed or that its goals are met.

We need a performance standard that matters. Tying the minimum standard to outcomes will explicitly require organisations to correct pay inequalities and reduce their gender pay gap over time.

Step three: make use of sanctions

There need to be consequences if organisations don’t comply with laws requiring them to report pay data and meet the required minimum standards.

Current legislation does not impose specific sanctions, but does include the provision that non-compliant entities “may not” be eligible for government contracts and financial assistance such as Commonwealth grants.

A recent audit found 31 non-compliant organisations were still awarded government contracts.

Applying this provision would not be a major burden on government procurement processes and would signal government support for gender equality.

Unleashing the legislation’s full potential

The gender pay gap reporting legislation is only part of a broader package needed to promote gender equality — and there is always more work to be done. But we believe these minimal changes would have a significant impact on closing Australia’s gap.

We have the opportunity to ramp up support for the economic security of women and we should take it.

Read more:
National summits have their place — but what will it really take to achieve equality for Australian women?

The global study was funded by the UN Foundation with additional funding from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership ANU for the Australian case study.

No additional disclosures.

– ref. Australia has ranked last in an international gender pay gap study — here are 3 ways to do better – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-ranked-last-in-an-international-gender-pay-gap-study-here-are-3-ways-to-do-better-168848

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

A large, financially interconnected company is on the verge of collapse, weighed down by massive debt. The government ponders a bailout. There’s no easy answer. Doing nothing risks serious financial upheaval. But bailing it out will signal that greed, irresponsibility and moral hazard have no consequences.

It’s a tough call. And if this all sounds eerily familiar, then you’re right. In 2008 the US government faced the dilemma with what to do about Lehman Brothers, the nation’s fourth-biggest investment bank which found itself unable to pay debts totalling more than US$600 billion.

Now the Chinese government is facing a comparable situation with Chinese property and financial behemoth Evergrande.

Lehman Brothers, established in 1847, survived the US Civil War, the Great Depression and two world Wars. Then in the feverish bubble of risky bets on the US mortgage market in the 1980s, it got into deep trouble.

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson — a former senior Wall Street executive — was, by all accounts, offended that Lehman had so recklessly gotten into this position. Why not send a message that the US government wasn’t going to bail out big banks who behaved badly?

The answer, it turned out, is that letting Lehman fail ricocheted through the US and global economy.

When Lehman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, it was facing the largest bankruptcy in history. Those to whom it owed money were immediately put under pressure. That put those to whom they owed money under pressure. Money markets almost completely froze up.

Read more:
Vital Signs: the GFC and me. Ten years on, what have we learned?

Even Goldman Sachs – Wall Street’s most venerable firm and basically on the good side of mortgage-market trades — was hammered. It took legendary investor Warren Buffett plowing US$5 billion into the company to avoid a modern-day bank run.

China’s Lehman moment?

Unlike Lehman Brothers, Evergrande isn’t an investment bank. Ostensibly it is a real estate developer, responsible for building apartments across China. But it has morphed into more than that — a highly leveraged and integrated company that does everything from banking to property development to selling electric cars.

Like many things in China, the true state of affairs is all a little unclear, but one reading is that Evergrande is basically a hedge fund with a property and vehicle business attached.

The proximate cause of concern is Evergrande missing an US$83 million interest payment on September 23. The clock is running, in that is has 30 days to “cure the breach” and figure out a way to pay. Otherwise things, as the cool kids say, will “start getting real”.

Read more:
China’s problem with property: the domino effect of Evergrande’s huge debts

For now disaster has been averted by Evergrande agreeing to sell off its stake in a local bank (Shengjing Bank) for nearly 10 billion yuan (about US$1.5 billion) to the state-owned Shenyang Shengjing Finance Investment Group.

But Evergrande has US$300 billion in debt, so there’s really no running away from the issue for the Chinese authorities. If there are more dodgy dealings on Evergrande’s books then that US$1.5 billion will simply be buying time.

If things are as rotten in the state of Evergrande as many observers seem to think, then the Chinese government is going to have to bail it out, or let it fail.

In a sense, the CCP may be feeling “we’re all Hank Paulsons now”.

China’s extra tools

That said, there is an intriguing — if somewhat troubling — option available to Chinese authorities.

They could bail out the company but punish its top brass with serious personal sanctions. To put it bluntly, they don’t have to be concerned with the niceties of due process in the same way the US government does.

The Chinese government can, if it wishes, prevent the reverberations throughout the economy that would flow from an Evergrande collapse, but deter moral hazard in the future. It can send a very clear message of consequence for executives who engage in reckless and potentially corrupt behaviour. Maybe incarceration for life. Maybe worse.

It’s an interesting, if rather grim, example of the Tinbergen Rule — named after Jan Tinbergen, the winner of the first Nobel prize for economics. This rule says for each policy challenge one requires an independent policy instrument. The US government had one. The Chinese regime has two.

This all raises bigger issues

Beyond this lie much bigger issues. How well have Chinese enterprises actually been performing? Up until now it looked like the answer was remarkably well. But is this all a mirage, sustained by the lack of transparency that shrouds all Chinese institutions?

Read more:
China is financing infrastructure projects around the world – many could harm nature and Indigenous communities

It looks as if there may be two types of Chinese corporation: the ones that “make” things, which have been successful and still are, and the ones that “bank” things, which look disturbingly similar to their capitalist counterparts in the Western world when moral hazard and corruption are allowed to run rampant.

The shakeout of the coming years will reveal a lot about the economic bedrock of Chinese global power.

Richard Holden is President-elect of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

– ref. Vital Signs: Evergrande may survive, but for its executives expect a fate worse than debt – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-evergrande-may-survive-but-for-its-executives-expect-a-fate-worse-than-debt-168930

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Delia Falconer, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, UTS, University of Technology Sydney

When I experienced a great loss in in my early forties — almost a year to the day after another — I went to see my mother in the family home. She wasn’t a hugger or giver of advice, so instead we fed the birds. As she had when I was a child, she stood behind me in the kitchen with her shoulder propped against the back door, passing slices of apple and small balls of minced meat into my hand.

Each bird, apart from the snatching kookaburras, was touchingly gentle in the way it took food from my fingers. The white cockatoos ate daintily, one-legged. The lorikeets jumped onto the sloping ramp on both feet, like eager parachutists, to quarrel over the apple and press the juice from the pulp with stubby tongues.

Lined up on the veranda rail, the magpies cocked their heads to observe me before accepting meat precisely in their blue-white beaks. They had a beautiful, carolling song, with a chorded quality in the falling registers. But the bright-eyed butcher birds had the most lovely song of all: a full-throated piping, which I’ve heard compared to the Queen of the Night’s aria in Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Over decades, a family of these little blue-grey birds, had come to stack their hooked meat-eaters’ beaks with mince, which they flew to deliver to young somewhere in our neighbour’s garden, though we had never bothered to try to work out where they lived. This afternoon, when my mother and I opened the door, they landed by our side as they always had, having spotted us from their watching places. For a brief moment, surrounded by these vital creatures, I felt as if I might still want to be alive.

Small agents

Birds have always been small agents charged with carrying the burden of our feelings simply by following the logic of their own existence. The Irish imagined puffins as the souls of priests. The ancient Romans released an eagle when an emperor died in the belief it would “conduct his soul aloft”. In the Abrahamic religions, doves are given powers of revelation. We have even been inclined, right up until the present, to imagine birds as the souls of our recently departed returned to us, if only for a moment.

Even without being recruited into such labour, birds touch on our lives in small but significant ways. Once, in the botanical gardens of Melbourne, a boyfriend laughed until he almost cried at the mechanical, eager hopping of the tiny fairy wrens, a fact that only made me like him more. A friend tells the story of her uncle who ordered quail for the first time at a restaurant and cried when he saw it on his plate. “She had a raven’s heart, small and obdurate,” American author Don DeLillo writes of a nun in Underworld; it is my favourite description in any novel.

In Japan, where my partner and I tried to ease our sadness, the calls of crows were ubiquitous in every town. Like the low sounds of its deer, they had a subdued, almost exhausted quality, as hollow as the bells that are rattled to call the oldest spirits to its Shinto temples.

In 1975, when his first wife left him, Masahise Fukase began to photograph these birds, which he had seen from the window of a train. He would keep taking their pictures – on a hilltop tori at dusk, grouped on the budding branches of a bare tree, in flying silhouette – for ten years. Ravens would become one of the most famous books of modern photography, hailed as a “masterpiece of mourning”. While some people see the birds in his photos as symbols of loneliness I see them as embodiments of pure intention. “I work and photograph to stop everything,” Fukase said. As if fulfilling a prophecy, he would spend the last two decades of his life in a coma, after falling down the stairs at his favourite bar.

Yet for all our emotional investment in them, we’ve never treated birds particularly well. To train a falcon in Qatar, owners sew the young bird’s eyes shut, unstitching and then restitching them for longer intervals, until it is entirely dependent on its keeper. In Asia the appetite for caged songbirds is so great that their calls are disappearing from its forests. Our careless acceptance that these extraordinary creatures are subject to our will is perhaps as damning as any direct mistreatment of them. This is symbolised for me by that fact that, in North America, owners of long pipelines add a putrid odorant to the natural gas they carry so that turkey vultures, circling over the deathly smell, will alert them to methane leaks.

We are currently draining marshes globally three times faster than we are clearing forests. Migratory Red Knots fly 15,000 kilometres per year between Australia and their breeding grounds in the Arctic Tundra, but they’re declining because of the industrial development of the Yellow Sea’s tidal mudflats, where they stop to feed and rest. One of the details that most haunted me in the reports of Australia’s mega-fires was the fact that many birds that survived the radiant heat would die of smoke inhalation because the continuous one-way airflow of their breathing systems and air sacs meant they couldn’t cough to clear their lungs.

When we first moved into my childhood home, wattlebirds fed in the grevilleas, calling from the rockery with voices that sounded, as a poet once said to me, like the cork being pulled from a bottle of champagne. While their long forms ending in a slim, curved beak seemed the embodiment of alertness, they were the birds our cat caught most often. To see one, rescued but internally injured, vomit up its honey and grow limp was one of my first intimations as a child of the world’s evils. Unable to bear the thought of their sleek, streaky bodies in the bare earth, my mother would bury them wrapped in tea towels. But it was the 70s and no one thought to keep the cat inside.

As my mother entered her nineties, her life contracted around her birds. Although experts were now advising that the lack of calcium could soften chicks’ bones, I continued, against my conscience, to put through her weekly grocery order, which contained as much bird mince as food for herself. She had stopped feeding the cockatoos, which had chewed her windowsills and the struts of the back door, but when they heard us in the kitchen they would still plaster their chests like great white flowers against the window or poke their heads through the large holes they’d made over the years in the door’s wire fly screen.

But it was only the butcher birds that ever entered through these gaps to wait for her by the sink, feathers fluffed calmly. Once or twice, one would come and find her in the dining room and quietly walk back ahead of her to be fed. When I came with the children, she would press food into their hands as she stood behind them at the door, leaning against the kitchen counter for support. So she continued to be one of the estimated 30 to 60% of Australian households that fed wild birds, a statistic that suggests that we need them far more than they need us.

Survivors

Scientists began to think in the 19th century that birds might have evolved from dinosaurs, when the 150-million- year-old fossil skeleton of Archaeopteryx — which we now know was capable of short bursts of active flight — turned up in a German quarry.

The Victorian biologist Thomas Henry Huxley observed the bony-tailed, feathered fossil’s striking resemblance to small dinosaurs like Compsognathus and proposed that it was a transitional form between flightless reptiles and birds. Huxley’s theory fell out of favour until the last decades of the 20th century, when a new generation of palaeontologists returned to the similarities between the metabolisms and bird-like structures of dinosaur fossils and birds, and there is now a consensus that birds are avian dinosaurs. That the birds with which we share our lives are the descendants of the hollow-tailed, meat-eating theropods is a true wonder that never fails to thrill me.

Birds, like us, are survivors. They escaped the Cretaceous-Paleogene (or K-Pg) mass extinction event 65 million years ago: the fifth and last great dying in the history of our planet, until the Sixth Extinction taking place around us now.

Scientists were able to work out, from unusually high deposits of rare iridium (which mostly comes from outer space) in the Earth’s crust that a ten-kilometre-wide asteroid hitting the area that is now Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula had killed off three quarters of the world’s living creatures by causing forest fires and then a freezing “nuclear winter,” which inhibited photosynthesis and rapidly acidified the oceans. Its blast was thousands of times more powerful than the combined force of all the nuclear weapons in the world today. The dust and debris it dispersed into the atmosphere eventually settled into a thin grey band of iridium-rich clay, which came to be called the K-Pg boundary and, above it, no trace of a non-avian dinosaur can be found.

In historical ironies whose obviousness would shame a novelist, it was geophysicists looking for petroleum in the 1970s who would discover the existence of the Chicxulub crater. Walter Alvarez, who discovered the “iridium anomaly”, was the son of physicist Luis Alvarez, a designer of America’s nuclear bombs, with whom he posited the asteroid strike theory; Alvarez senior had followed in a plane behind the Enola Gay to measure the blast effect as it dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima.

The ground-dwelling, beaked avian dinosaurs were able to scratch out a life for themselves in the ferny “disaster flora” that replaced the obliterated forests; their intelligence, their feathery insulation, their ability to feed on the destroyed forests’ seeds, and to digest the “hard, persistent little morsels” as one writer puts it, would help them to survive, and later flourish.

More incredibly, these dinosaurs were already recognisably bird-like, inside and out; capable of at least short horizontal flight like quails, the parts of their brains that controlled sight, flight and high-level memory as expanded as those of modern birds’, while our early mammal ancestors — small, nocturnal, insectivorous, shrew-like mammals — were hiding in clefts and caves.

It is now thought that the world’s oldest modern bird, Asteriornis maastrichtensis, could probably fly and was combing the shallow beaches of today’s Belgium, in the way of modern long-legged shore birds, 700,000 years before the K-Pg mass extinction.

Because of a wealth of new fossil evidence in China, we now also know that feathers are far more ancient than we once thought; they didn’t evolve with birds 150 million years ago but are instead probably as old as dinosaurs themselves. In fact, many of the dinosaurs that we have been trained to think of as scaly, were at least partially feathered, including the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex, which may have used its primitive feathers, like a peacock, for display.

Powerful electron microscopes have allowed scientists to determine that the long filaments covering 150-million-year-old Sinosauropteryx, the first feathered non-avian dinosaur discovered, in China, in 1996, were “proto-feathers”; and even, looking at the melanosomes inside them, that they were ginger, running in a “Mohican” pattern down its back and ending in a stripey white-and-ginger tail. Similar examination of the melanosomes of another Jurassic-era theropod found that it had a grey-and-dark plumage on its body, long white and black-spangled forelimbs, and a reddish-brown, fluffy crown.

Scientists are puzzled about what dinosaurs’ feathers, which developed before the capacity of feathered flight, were “for”, but I don’t really care: the fact of them is startling enough, along with the imaginative readjustments we have to make in seeing the fearsome creatures of paleoart that we grew up with, locked in orgasmic conflict, as softly plumaged. Did their young call for them with the same open-mouthed yearning as baby birds, I wonder? Did they possess their own sense of beauty? If we imagine dinosaurs as being less alien and fluffier, does it make our own era’s potential annihilation seem more real?

Read more:
Meet the prehistoric eagle that ruled Australian forests 25 million years ago

Emissaries

Over the last century folkorists and psychoanalysts have kept trying to account for birds’ deep hold over our imaginations; as agents of death, prophets, ferriers of souls, omens, and symbols of renewal and productivity. Some attribute it to the power of flight and their ability to inhabit the heavens, others to the way eggs embody transformation. But could it be that the vestigial shrew-like part of ourselves has always recognised them instinctively as the emissaries of a deep past, much older than we are? “We float on a bubble of space-time,” writes author Verlyn Klinkenberg, “on the surface of an ocean of deep time”.

Recently, this deep past has begun to reassert itself as, even during coronavirus lockdowns, burned fossil fuels continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, bringing its concentration in the air to levels not seen since the Pliocene three million years ago when the seas were 30 metres higher. To try to help us understand the literal profundity of this moment in the history of the earth, writers have been looking increasingly below its surface, far beyond the human realm, to its deepest, billions-of-years-old strata.

In his astonishing Underland, English writer Robert Macfarlane travels physically far underground into caves, mines, and nuclear waste bunkers, to revive our ancient sense of awe as forces and substances once thought safely confined there begin to exert themselves above ground, but also to convey the enormity of the long shadow we will cast into the future of a planet that has already seen periods of great transformation.

In Timefulness, geologist Marcia Bjornerud argues that understanding the Earth through her discipline’s vastly expanded time-scales can help us avoid the almost unthinkably grave consequences of our actions. We live in an era of time denial, she writes, while navigating towards the future with conceptions of the long patterns of planetary history as primitive as a 14th-century world map. And yet, she writes, “as a daughter, mother, and widow, I struggle like everyone else to look Time honestly in the face.”

Yet here, I think, all around us on the surface of the planet, are our vivacious and inscrutable companions, feathered messengers from deep time, who still tell their own story of complex change.

What lives and dies

At a writer’s festival in northern New South Wales, I remember, a magpie lark landed between the chair and speaker on stage to let forth a cascade of liquid notes, “as if, to say,” a droll friend sitting next to me said, “I too have something to contribute!” while I found myself wondering, yet again, how something with such a small heart could be so alive.

To think about dinosaurs, as evolutionary biologist Steven Brusatte writes, is to confront the question of what lives and what dies. To think that dinosaurs were far more complex than we imagined, Klinkenberg muses, interrupts the chain of consequence we’ve been carrying in our heads, which assumes that deep time’s purpose was to lead to us as the end point of evolution. The history of feathers and wings, in which the power of flight appears to have been discovered and lost at least three times, shows that evolution is not a tree, but a clumped bush. And yet, Klinkenberg writes, “Because we come after, it’s easy to suppose we must be the purpose of what came before.”

The same could be said of mothers. When the time came to choose the photographs for my mother’s funeral, the images of her as a child in Mexico and Canada seemed as unreal as dispatches from the moon. The photographs of our mothers as young girls are so affecting a friend wrote to me, because they show them living lives that were whole without us. Now my own children turn their heads away from pictures of me as a girl, because, they say, “You don’t look like you.” And yet, if our minds struggle to encompass the deep time of our mothers, I think, how can they hope to stretch across aeons?

On my last visit to my mother, I left her on her front step throwing meat to the two magpies which had learned to come around from the backyard, away from the other birds, and would follow her on stilted legs around the garden. When she pressed her emergency pendant the next morning, I missed her call; it was my partner, hearing her faint answers, who called the ambulance. Unconscious in the hospital, she died having never known that she had left her home. When I stopped back at the house afterwards, one of the butcher birds, which I had never seen around the front, was on the windowsill of her dark bedroom, break pressed against the glass, looking for her.

This is an extract from Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss by Delia Falconer, published by Simon and Schuster.

Delia Falconer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Friday essay: on birds — feathered messengers from deep time – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-on-birds-feathered-messengers-from-deep-time-168469

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

If Scott Morrison doesn’t go to the Glasgow climate conference, “his absence will send a pretty strong message about his priorities”, Malcolm Turnbull said during his general excoriation of the prime minister this week.

Absolutely, it will. And Morrison’s priorities are clear. At the top of the list is political survival at next year’s election. Whether his political career lives or dies at that election will depend, in good part, on how he manages the issues of COVID and climate in the coming weeks and months.

The course of COVID from now on is unpredictable. Despite general (and politically fanned) excitement at the prospect of restrictions lifting or easing in NSW and Victoria, what happens then is highly uncertain, at least for the short term. And Queensland is suddenly a worry.

He might be PM but COVID management is always only partly in his hands (except the vaccine rollout, and we know the story there). The premiers will continue to flex their muscles.

Nor is climate policy, even at the federal level, under Morrison’s full control. He is determined to land that 2050 net-zero target for Glasgow, but can’t do it without the Nationals signing up.

We’re being reminded how differently the Nationals operate from Morrison’s preferred way of doing things. The PM likes secrecy, strict adherence to talking points, then everything put in place before the curtain is pulled aside to reveal an outcome trumpeted as ground-breaking. When it comes, the climate package will have plenty of tinsel.

In contrast the Nationals, as the minor partner in the Coalition, reckon they have to play loud and rough to get what they want. Also these days the party has a fair sprinkling of bomb throwers in its ranks who do what they like.

Any notion of cabinet solidarity is out the window, as we saw when Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie had a public go at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review this week.

McKenzie wrote: “It is easy for the Member for Kooyong [Frydenberg] or the Member for Wentworth [Dave Sharma] to publicly embrace net zero before the government has a position, because there would be next to zero real impact on the way of life of their affluent constituents.”

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Morrison is wedged between Biden and Barnaby in forging climate policy for Glasgow

The following day, at a (virtual) joint news conference with McKenzie called on another matter, Frydenberg countered with “climate change has no postcode”. Scientifically he’s right. But, politically, one challenge for both Coalition and Labor in the climate debate is that it is often seen variously according to voters’ postcodes. Hence Labor’s past problems in trying to deliver separate messages in coal and inner-city electorates.

It is said by insiders that McKenzie was helping Joyce by making it clear the Nats can’t be taken for granted, although the impression to the casual observer was she added to the chaos.

The mood of Morrison, locked in The Lodge in quarantine, must be mixed. He’s buoyed by his US trip, with its AUKUS agreement and the promise of nuclear-powered submarines, even if by their delivery time he’ll be in his 70s (perhaps critiquing his successors, as has become the ex-prime ministerial fashion). But he must also be frustrated that the policy and political difficulties of reaching a climate agreement within the Coalition make the road to AUKUS start to look like a walk in the park.

The bar keeps being raised too, as it was this week by the NSW Coalition government increasing its ambition to a 50% emissions cut by 2030.

Nevertheless, Liberal backbenchers who’d sought a virtual meeting with Morrison to put their views ahead of Glasgow were reassured by his feedback, including his indication he’d found his discussions with Joyce constructive. Many of the Liberals on the Tuesday call spoke about the local political contexts they faced.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: After the deal on security, Scott Morrison turns to the shift on climate

It’s not just Glasgow and pressure from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson that’s making it imperative for Morrison to secure agreement on 2050. A number of Liberals in safe seats will face well-organised and cashed-up challenges from independent candidates campaigning on climate change. Climate 200’s Simon Holmes a Court says there’s already more than $1.5 million in the kitty.

The independents will also be preoccupied with another issue that’s a weak point for Morrison – integrity. The rorting (sports grants, car parks) is a touchy point with voters, tapping into their distrust of politicians, and the government still has not set up an integrity commission (it promises to introduce legislation before Christmas).

It’s very hard for independents to win seats in the House of Representatives, given the electoral system. Recently their chances have been best where the incumbent has been weakened (this helped deliver victories in Indi, Mayo and Warringah), or has departed (Wentworth after Turnbull resigned, although the seat is now back in Liberal hands).

So no one should anticipate an influx of new independents next year. But the possibility of even one managing to get through, adding to the several expected to be re-elected, would concern Morrison. Especially if the election happened to produce a hung parliament, which is not out of the question, with voters disillusioned with both sides.

Whatever Morrison announces on climate is unlikely to be enough because, even with a firm 2050 target and something for the medium term, the government can expect to be widely criticised for failing to have sufficient medium-term ambition.

Morrison raised the prospect of not attending the Glasgow summit in an interview with the West Australian while he was abroad, saying he hadn’t finally decided. “It’s another trip overseas … and I’ve spent a lot of time in quarantine.”

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: The push to run independents on issues of climate and integrity

The Glasgow conference comes immediately after the G20; Morrison couldn’t go to one without the other.

While there would be much criticism of his failure to be at Glasgow, the hard-headed counter argument would be that leaving the country during a time of high COVID uncertainty could backfire.

Unlike the US trip, Morrison would get no plaudits at Glasgow. He’d be seen, as best, as the under-performer who, facing enormous pressure, had lifted his game to a greater or lesser degree.

Morrison’s absence from Glasgow would give his opponents, and those independent candidates, ammunition. The more substantial issue, however, is the quality of the policy he unveils, on home soil, before the summit.

Beyond that, whether he travels can reasonably be left to a judgment on how the COVID situation is looking, although one cynic suggests he might have been wiser to stay silent on the possibility of cancelling until a decision had to be finalised.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: To go or not to go — Morrison grapples with Glasgow – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-to-go-or-not-to-go-morrison-grapples-with-glasgow-169028

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

If Scott Morrison doesn’t go to the Glasgow climate conference, “his absence will send a pretty strong message about his priorities”, Malcolm Turnbull said during his general excoriation of the prime minister this week.

Absolutely, it will. And Morrison’s priorities are clear. At the top of the list is political survival at next year’s election. Whether his political career lives or dies at that election will depend, in good part, on how he manages the issues of COVID and climate in the coming weeks and months.

The course of COVID from now on is unpredictable. Despite general (and politically fanned) excitement at the prospect of restrictions lifting or easing in NSW and Victoria, what happens then is highly uncertain, at least for the short term. And Queensland is suddenly a worry.

He might be PM but COVID management is always only partly in his hands (except the vaccine rollout, and we know the story there). The premiers will continue to flex their muscles.

Nor is climate policy, even at the federal level, under Morrison’s full control. He is determined to land that 2050 net-zero target for Glasgow, but can’t do it without the Nationals signing up.

We’re being reminded how differently the Nationals operate from Morrison’s preferred way of doing things. The PM likes secrecy, strict adherence to talking points, then everything put in place before the curtain is pulled aside to reveal an outcome trumpeted as ground-breaking. When it comes, the climate package will have plenty of tinsel.

In contrast the Nationals, as the minor partner in the Coalition, reckon they have to play loud and rough to get what they want. Also these days the party has a fair sprinkling of bomb throwers in its ranks who do what they like.

Any notion of cabinet solidarity is out the window, as we saw when Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie had a public go at Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review this week.

McKenzie wrote: “It is easy for the Member for Kooyong [Frydenberg] or the Member for Wentworth [Dave Sharma] to publicly embrace net zero before the government has a position, because there would be next to zero real impact on the way of life of their affluent constituents.”

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Morrison is wedged between Biden and Barnaby in forging climate policy for Glasgow

The following day, at a (virtual) joint news conference with McKenzie called on another matter, Frydenberg countered with “climate change has no postcode”. Scientifically he’s right. But, politically, one challenge for both Coalition and Labor in the climate debate is that it is often seen variously according to voters’ postcodes. Hence Labor’s past problems in trying to deliver separate messages in coal and inner-city electorates.

It is said by insiders that McKenzie was helping Joyce by making it clear the Nats can’t be taken for granted, although the impression to the casual observer was she added to the chaos.

The mood of Morrison, locked in The Lodge in quarantine, must be mixed. He’s buoyed by his US trip, with its AUKUS agreement and the promise of nuclear-powered submarines, even if by their delivery time he’ll be in his 70s (perhaps critiquing his successors, as has become the ex-prime ministerial fashion). But he must also be frustrated that the policy and political difficulties of reaching a climate agreement within the Coalition make the road to AUKUS start to look like a walk in the park.

The bar keeps being raised too, as it was this week by the NSW Coalition government increasing its ambition to a 50% emissions cut by 2030.

Nevertheless, Liberal backbenchers who’d sought a virtual meeting with Morrison to put their views ahead of Glasgow were reassured by his feedback, including his indication he’d found his discussions with Joyce constructive. Many of the Liberals on the Tuesday call spoke about the local political contexts they faced.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: After the deal on security, Scott Morrison turns to the shift on climate

It’s not just Glasgow and pressure from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson that’s making it imperative for Morrison to secure agreement on 2050. A number of Liberals in safe seats will face well-organised and cashed-up challenges from independent candidates campaigning on climate change. Climate 200’s Simon Holmes a Court says there’s already more than $1.5 million in the kitty.

The independents will also be preoccupied with another issue that’s a weak point for Morrison – integrity. The rorting (sports grants, car parks) is a touchy point with voters, tapping into their distrust of politicians, and the government still has not set up an integrity commission (it promises to introduce legislation before Christmas).

It’s very hard for independents to win seats in the House of Representatives, given the electoral system. Recently their chances have been best where the incumbent has been weakened (this helped deliver victories in Indi, Mayo and Warringah), or has departed (Wentworth after Turnbull resigned, although the seat is now back in Liberal hands).

So no one should anticipate an influx of new independents next year. But the possibility of even one managing to get through, adding to the several expected to be re-elected, would concern Morrison. Especially if the election happened to produce a hung parliament, which is not out of the question, with voters disillusioned with both sides.

Whatever Morrison announces on climate is unlikely to be enough because, even with a firm 2050 target and something for the medium term, the government can expect to be widely criticised for failing to have sufficient medium-term ambition.

Morrison raised the prospect of not attending the Glasgow summit in an interview with the West Australian while he was abroad, saying he hadn’t finally decided. “It’s another trip overseas … and I’ve spent a lot of time in quarantine.”

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: The push to run independents on issues of climate and integrity

The Glasgow conference comes immediately after the G20; Morrison couldn’t go to one without the other.

While there would be much criticism of his failure to be at Glasgow, the hard-headed counter argument would be that leaving the country during a time of high COVID uncertainty could backfire.

Unlike the US trip, Morrison would get no plaudits at Glasgow. He’d be seen, as best, as the under-performer who, facing enormous pressure, had lifted his game to a greater or lesser degree.

Morrison’s absence from Glasgow would give his opponents, and those independent candidates, ammunition. The more substantial issue, however, is the quality of the policy he unveils, on home soil, before the summit.

Beyond that, whether he travels can reasonably be left to a judgment on how the COVID situation is looking, although one cynic suggests he might have been wiser to stay silent on the possibility of cancelling until a decision had to be finalised.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: To go or not to go — Morrison’s rocky road to Glasgow – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-to-go-or-not-to-go-morrisons-rocky-road-to-glasgow-169028

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sung-ae Lee, Lecturer, Asian Studies, Macquarie University

Squid Game, an original Netflix drama produced in South Korea, is a streaming phenomenon. Released on 17 September, within two weeks the series has become the most watched Netflix title in 76 countries, including the US, Australia and South Korea.

Across nine episodes, desperate people enmeshed in debt voluntarily participate in a sequence of six sadistic and lethal survival games. The prize for the winner is 46.5 billion won (around A$50 million). At the outset, the 456 participants are unaware there is a twist. There can only be one winner — and the rest of the contestants will die along the way.

This outcome is foreshadowed for viewers in a segment that precedes episode 1, in which two groups of children are seen playing the eponymous Squid Game (essentially a violent game played by Korean schoolboys). The groups struggle for possession of a squid-shaped area drawn on the ground. Both attackers and defenders must resist being pushed out of the play area, for, according to the commentary, if you are pushed out you “die”.

Such games are commonly metaphors for life experiences. Games structured as a struggle for possession, or with the goal of overcoming a player in a position of control, are often stories about social aspiration and limited social mobility.

In the survival game played in episode 1, Red Light, Green Light (also known as “Hibiscus flowers have bloomed” in Korea and “Statues” elsewhere around the world), players can win if they can creep forward when the controlling figure’s back is turned. If seen to move, they are “eliminated” (and in this case, die).

The brutal adaptation of children’s games at the centre of Squid Game have clearly captured the imagination of the show’s viewers, and also provide a startlingly evocative metaphor for socio-economic inequality and capitalism.

Television drama frequently portrays Korea as a profoundly unequal and violent society. Its traumatic history throughout most of the twentieth century — Japanese colonisation, the Korean War, almost 40 years of military dictatorship, and financial crises — has left deep psychological scars on the national psyche.

Dark political narratives in TV and film continue to express the social impact of that history, such as the recent Netflix zombie series, Kingdom (2019–2021), along with D.P. (2021), Signal (2016) and Stranger (2015). The economic gap within Korean society is ever widening, and has become a recurrent motif in TV drama.

This unequal society is a staple of “Cinderella” stories in which protagonists are displaced into poverty and abused by those with wealth and power until they regain their place. It is also reflected in dramas about the super-rich such as Sky Castle (2018) and The Penthouse (2020-2021), which show how ultra-wealthy Koreans maintain their control over the country’s wealth.

Bong Joon-Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite (2019) drew dramatic attention to the economic gap, as have several other films: Burning (2018), Veteran (2015) and Insiders (2015).

Read more:
Parasite’s win is the perfect excuse to get stuck into genre-bending and exciting Korean cinema

Economic stress

Socio-economic inequality in Squid Game is explored through the often heartbeaking narratives of the contestant’s economic stress. These are shown to be often compounded by Korea’s lack of a social safety net and unregulated financial structures.

Employment in underclasses is precarious: chief protagonist Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) has been retrenched, has amassed gambling debts, cannot afford lifesaving surgery for his mother, and has tried to solve his financial problems by borrowing from loan sharks.

Television dramas widely depict this latter practice as a blight upon society: interest rates are extortionate and borrowers easily slip into a form of modern slavery through ever increasing debt.

Effective slavery is also depicted in Squid Game in the exploitation of North Korean refugees and South Asian migrant workers, often by other underclass members.

Squid Game participants who question their commitment to the violent game are warned by those in control that because of their poverty or level of debt they will be much worse off in the world outside. Episode 2, Hell, is a realistic account of the precarious life of marginalised people, and the motivations that drive them into the perilous game.

The popularity of Squid Game

The global popularity of Squid Game can be attributed to various factors.

First, it draws on a worldwide cultural obsession with game shows, from quiz shows where winners hope to make a fortune to reality television programs such as Survivor.

As the participants wake on their first morning in their huge dormitory, the soundtrack rather comically consists of Haydn’s triumphalist Trumpet Concerto, which was previously used as signal music in a popular Korean quiz game titled Janghak Quiz (1973-1996).

Squid Game also includes a level of violence characteristic of western cinema but rare in Korean TV drama. It forms a potent metaphor for a deep social malaise.

The series also contains a lot of black comedy and even schadenfreude. There is a humorous contradiction between events on the screen, and the romantic music of the soundtrack.

For example, the ominous preparation for the first game, including passage along an Escher-inspired staircase, is accompanied by Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz. Having forgotten his daughter’s birthday, Gi-hun gets her a mystery present which turns out to be a cigarette lighter in the shape of a gun. The moment when she opens her present is both very funny and heart-wrenching.

Finally, the series is a high-quality production. Its visuals are strong and it builds suspense very effectively. Such elements temper what otherwise might seem heavy-handed social critique.

The success first of Parasite and now of Squid Game is bringing Korean film and media into the international limelight in an unprecedented way.

Hwang Dong-hyuk, director of Squid Game, had to wait 12 years to find a backer for his script. He has been a highly successful film maker, known for Dogani (2011) and Miss Granny (2014), and currently seems to have his sights set on a return to the large screen. Perhaps he can be persuaded otherwise?

Sung-ae Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Social inequality and hyper violence: why the bleak world of Netflix’s Squid Game is a streaming phenomenon – https://theconversation.com/social-inequality-and-hyper-violence-why-the-bleak-world-of-netflixs-squid-game-is-a-streaming-phenomenon-168934

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

In the pre-digital world, advertising was largely carried by print media, radio and television.

Today, digital advertising has surpassed those channels, pervading our desktops and laptops, smartphones, tablets and a variety of other internet-connected devices. And perhaps the biggest player in the online advertising space is Google.

Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), says Google now dominates the country’s online advertising so throughly it must be reined in.

The ACCC maintains that over the past ten years, Google’s advertising technology has developed to the point of being anti-competitive.

The lion’s share

In a report released on Tuesday, the ACCC said Google had arrived at market dominance through a massive data advantage. The tech giant hoovers up vast quantities of information about the people who use Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Contacts, Google Sites, Google Meet, Google Chat, Cloud Search and more.

The watchdog estimates 80–90% of all online ad impressions for Australia passed through at least one Google service in 2020. An “ad impression” is created when an ad is displayed on an app or webpage. It is the benchmark by which advertisers know how many times an ad has been viewed.

In light of this estimate, it’s fair to say Google has the lion’s share of Australia’s digital advertising industry, which last year reached A$9.5 billion in spending.

The ACCC has recommended a new industry code to make the end-to-end ad process more transparent. It also wants to impose rules on how user data is collected for digital advertising purposes, and how fees for services are calculated.

The full list of recommendations is aimed at limiting Google’s potentially monopolistic power in the digital advertising market.

What does Google say?

In response, Google has said the ACCC hasn’t properly taken into account other online advertising channels available to Australian advertisers, such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

Google also highlighted a PwC report which estimated three-quarters of the tech giant’s advertising customers in Australia were small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — and that Google’s services contributed A$2.4 billion to Australia’s economy each year.

A Google spokesperson reaffirmed the company’s willingness to work with the ACCC to engender a “healthy ads ecosystem”, according to The Guardian.

Google’s winning formula

It may be apocryphal that in the early days of Google, when their only product was a revolutionary search engine, a business advisor is said to have asked the founders how they intended to make money. The reply was along the lines of “we’ll figure something out”. That something, it seems, was Google Ads.

Last year, Google Ads helped the market value of US company Alphabet (of which Google is a part) surge in excess of US$1 trillion, joining Apple and Microsoft. It places ads in Google Search results, as well on mobile apps, webpages and videos, and is the main tool through which advertisers can reach customers via Google’s services.

Each time someone uses Google Search, or visits a website hosting ads through Google Ads, an automated ad auction takes place behind the scenes. Advertisers bid on the maximum cost-per-click amount they’re willing to pay for their ad.

Paying cost-per-click means that rather than paying for the ad space itself, the winning advertiser pays a set amount to Google each time someone clicks on their ad.

Of course, not everyone who clicks an ad will also make a purchase. It might only be one click in ten that converts to a sale — this depends on how hot or cold the market is.

So if the cost per click is 50 cents, and the click-to-sale conversion rate is one in ten, the advertiser must sell their product for no less than $5 if they want to break even on their ad purchase. But how does that price compare with their competition’s? They must do their sums carefully.

For an ad to be displayed in a prime position, the cost-per-click bid must be sufficiently high, the ad must be of a high quality, and must have keywords directly related to the search enquiry.

Read more:
ACCC ‘world first’: Australia’s Federal Court found Google misled users about personal location data

According to Google, ads can be targeted based on a number of factors including audience “demographics” (certain locations, ages, genders and device types) and by picking out “similar audiences”:

Expand your audience by targeting users with interests related to the users in your remarketing lists. These users aren’t searching for your products or services directly, but their related interests may lead them to interacting with your ads.

The exact details of the process are murky, however, as Google guards its methods carefully.

What does the future look like?

As artificial intelligence (AI) comes increasingly into people’s lives, the job of buying things will conceivably be delegated to AI assistants. This is the vision of Peter Diamandis, one of Silicon Valley’s leaders best known as the founder of the technology nonprofit X Prize Foundation.

How would it work? Well, over time your personal AI will come to know all about your daily habits, the products you use, how often you use them, what brands you like, where you go, who you meet — everything.

It will then make product suggestions to you based on these patterns. This is an expanded version of what Google already does with its Google Assistant feature.

Amazon does this too, sending users messages along the lines of “we notice you’re reading this. Other readers who’ve read that have also read…”

The next step would be for AI to go ahead and buy the consumables it knows you need, when you need them, and have them delivered to you — without you expressly requesting it. This means you won’t run out of things you didn’t realise you were low on.

But on the other hand, this potential future raises serious concerns regarding our personal privacy, agency and consumerist behaviours.

Read more:
Google is leading a vast, covert human experiment. You may be one of the guinea pigs

David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia’s competition watchdog says Google has a monopoly on online advertising — but how does it work? – https://theconversation.com/australias-competition-watchdog-says-google-has-a-monopoly-on-online-advertising-but-how-does-it-work-168939

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristin Carson-Chahhoud, Associate Research Professor, University of South Australia

Cigarettes are the only legal consumer product that kill up to half of their users when consumed exactly as the manufacturer intended. The diseases they cause cost Australia’s health system A$136.9 billion a year.

Philip Morris International (PMI) is one of the global leaders in the cigarette supply chain. But with steady declines in cigarette sales over the past 20 years, tobacco companies such as Philip Morris are now attempting to market themselves as health-care companies with visions for a “smoke-free future”.

One of the industry’s first moves was to manufacture non-cigarette nicotine products, such as nicotine replacement therapy to help people quit smoking.

In the latest move to diversify its portfolio, Philip Morris has acquired British health-care company Vectura Group Plc, at a cost of more than £1 billion (A$1.9 billion).

Vectura specialises in manufacturing inhalation products such as commonly used inhalers (or puffers) and nebulisers that help people with asthma and lung disease to breathe.

Read more:
Big Tobacco’s decisive defeat on plain packaging laws won’t stop its war against public health

On August 12, the Vectura board announced it “unanimously recommended the PMI offer” to shareholders, with the decision based on price and access to resources.

The Vectura board noted:

[…] wider stakeholders could benefit from PMI’s significant financial resources and its intentions to increase research and development investment and to operate Vectura as an autonomous business unit that will form the backbone of its inhaled therapeutics business.

On September 15, the deal became official. And so the problems begin.

Why Vectura?

In acquiring Vectura, Philip Morris will profit from treating the very illnesses its products cause, as nebulisers are commonly prescribed for patients with tobacco-related lung disease.

Philip Morris’s interest in the company is to help it generate “[…] at least $1 billion in annual net revenues from Beyond Nicotine sources in 2025”. In other words, Philip Morris plans to expand development of electronic cigarettes and start profiting from other inhaled devices.

This is despite there being limited evidence to support electronic cigarettes to help people quit smoking, but mounting evidence showing damaging health effects.

If Philip Morris really wants to move “beyond nicotine”, it should stop its aggressive promotion and sale of all tobacco products.

Why does it matter?

The consequences of Philip Morris’s acquisition of Vectura are far reaching, especially for the medical and research workforce fighting against respiratory disease. The Philip Morris takeover will have significant implications for the sector.

Many public health organisations, medical professional bodies, universities, individual health professionals and researchers cannot and will not work with tobacco companies or their affiliates. This is in line with the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

This means researchers who would have received support from Vectura, or used their products to pioneer the next generation of inhaler therapies, will no longer be able to do this.

There will be conflicts of interest prohibiting them from publishing their findings, collaborating on grants for new research, and presenting their work at conferences.

Read more:
Medical journals refuse to publish tobacco-funded research

This has already begun to happen, with pharmaceutical industry conferences such as the Drug Delivery to the Lungs Conference terminating Vectura’s sponsorship, forcing the company’s representative to stand down from its committee, and barring them from participation.

Going forward, companies, health professionals and researchers now inadvertently linked to big tobacco through Vectura may be restricted from fully participating in the medical and scientific community. The European Respiratory Society, for example, excludes participation from anyone with links to the tobacco industry in the past ten years.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) will need to consider if it’s appropriate for Australian taxpayers to subsidise inhaler devices licensed to Vectura or, more truthfully, to big tobacco.

Many doctors will be looking for alternative devices to prescribe for their patients that do not contribute to Philip Morris’s or Vectura’s profits.

Meanwhile, people with lung disease are also likely to be reluctant to use devices linked to big tobacco.

But switching from one inhaler to another comes with consequences, such as lower adherence and new side effects, causing poorer clinical outcomes.

There are also concerns Philip Morris’s takeover of Vectura could be used to buy “a seat at the table” with health care policymakers and professionals, meaning they could have a say in the development of government policies.

The tobacco industry hasn’t changed

The tobacco industry remains one of the world’s most lethal. And Philip Morris continues to undermine public health messages, while trying to disguise itself as a health brand.

Yet Philip Morris’s company statutory regulations, which are the standards by which they undertake business, list evidence-based actions to reduce smoking rates – such as strong health warnings on packets and smoking bans in public places – as “risk factors” for its business.

Philip Morris’s move into the health sector, reinforced with the latest acquisition of Vectura, should be met with equal measures of disgust and contempt.

Kristin Carson-Chahhoud receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council, Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, Cancer Australia, Ministry of Health, The Sax Institute, New South Wales Government, Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, University of South Australia, Australian Association of Gerontology, Cancer Council Victoria, Asthma Australia, The University of Adelaide and the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. She has received honorariums and travel reimbursement from Pfizer Australia to present her research findings at the Pfizer annual general meeting and at the Ogilvy Smoking Exchange Summit. Kristin is a Board Director for the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ), Chair of the TSANZ Research Subcommittee and Executive Director of the SA/NT Branch of the TSANZ. She is also a member of the Australian Association of Gerontology.

Bruce Thompson is immediate past president of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. He has received research funding from the NHMRC, and historically speaker fees from Chiesi, Mundipharma, GSK and AstraZenca.

John Upham has received funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council. He is currently President of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand.

– ref. After buying health company Vectura, tobacco giant Philip Morris will profit from treating the illnesses its products create – https://theconversation.com/after-buying-health-company-vectura-tobacco-giant-philip-morris-will-profit-from-treating-the-illnesses-its-products-create-168564

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney

Former Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly recently spammed large numbers of Australian voters by sending bulk text messages to their mobile phone numbers.

The spam texts, one of which promoted Kelly’s anti-vax views, struck many recipients as an invasion of privacy and triggered thousands of complaints to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Kelly said the messages were “100% legal.” He is right.

Indeed, Australia’s anti-spam law applies only to “commercial” messaging and specifically exempts political communication (Section 44) — including text messages like Kelly’s.

Read more:
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has the power to stop misleading advertising. So why can’t it stop Craig Kelly’s texts?

Some have proposed changes that would allow people to unsubscribe from unwanted political text messages.

But it is likely in future we will see more, not less, unsolicited text messaging — and not just in politics.

How did they get my number?

Kelly, who joined Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party earlier this year, has said he used software to generate random mobile numbers.

That’s plausible: there are plenty of sites that will perform this relatively simple task.

But it is not cheap to upload the random numbers onto a server that can send text messages. It’s also not efficient, as many of the randomly generated numbers will not be real numbers.

Then again, Palmer’s track record of lavish electoral expenditure in the 2019 federal election suggests he can afford such an approach.

Kelly did not reveal the actual number of text messages he sent, though it is likely to be in the thousands.

Read more:
How political parties legally harvest your data and use it to bombard you with election spam

There are plenty of other ways in which your mobile phone number might end up being fodder for marketing campaigns.

Think how many times you provide your private contact details for retail and financial transactions, social media accounts, ID checks, entertainment subscriptions.

Now ask yourself: how often do you read the privacy policy of the company or organisation collecting your data?

The reality is your private details have a commercial value. In the murky world of data harvesting, they can be transferred and bundled up into large data bases and rented out to telemarketers — or they can be leaked or hacked.

These can include your mobile phone numbers.

How is that legal?

By and large Australian phone numbers, including both landline and mobile services, are well secured. Access to the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND), managed by Telstra, is overseen by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Phone subscribers can choose to have a “silent” (unlisted) number, and can opt out of telemarketing calls via the do not call register.

But even here, there are political exemptions. Researchers can be given permission to call numbers from the IPND to conduct interview-based research – including market research into “federal state and local government electoral matters.”

ACMA can punish companies that misuse numbers for “spam” marketing purposes.

But both Telstra and ACMA are clear they can’t block political parties, along with charities and some government agencies, from sending unsolicited marketing numbers.

What about the electoral roll?

When you enrol to vote, you provide your full name, date of birth, current residential address, phone number or numbers, email address and citizenship. You also need proof of identity such as a driver’s licence or passport.

These details are well protected and support Australia’s system of compulsory voting. Again, however, under the Electoral Act, your name and address can be provided to members of parliament, registered political parties and candidates for the House of Representatives.

For both major parties, ALP and Liberal, that information forms the basis of the large data bases they have assembled for targeted campaigning: making phone calls, knocking on doors, sending automated “robocalls” and texting.

Why are political parties exempt?

When Kelly joined Palmer’s party, he not only accessed Palmer’s campaign war chest. Registered political parties enjoy special treatment under Australian electoral law – including entitlement to public funding for their campaign costs, and exemptions from privacy rules governing access to personal data.

The rationale for the exemption is that no regulator should impede the free flow of information about electoral choice.

The argument is that claims and counterclaims by different politicians and parties — even false claims about vaccinations — constitute the lifeblood of democracy and should be resolved, ultimately, at the ballot box, not in the courts.

All this is underpinned by the High Court’s finding that the constitution “implies” the freedom of political communications to the extent necessary to allow the operation of democratic government.

Read more:
83% of Australians want tougher privacy laws. Now’s your chance to tell the government what you want

For all these reasons, political advertising in Australia is largely unregulated. It doesn’t have to be truthful or factual. Courts and regulators would be reluctant in the midst of an election campaign to adjudicate on truth; voters are expected to have the wisdom to work it all out at the ballot box.

Of course, political parties are not just the beneficiaries of this lack of regulation; they are in a real sense its authors. The capacity of rival parties to collaborate in shaping laws to suit themselves forms a key pillar of the cartel theory of parties.

The main, virtually the sole, regulatory requirement for political ads is they are “authorised” – that is, they include the name of a person responsible for them. Authorisation provides accountability for political statements.

Remember ‘Mediscare’?

Back in 2016, however, SMS messages were not covered by this requirement. At the end of the 2016 federal election campaign, the Queensland Labor Party sent a bulk text message promoting its scare campaign about Liberal plans to “privatise Medicare”.

The text messages were not authorised and, moreover, purported to come from “Medicare.”

The law was tightened in 2019. Kelly’s text messages were authorised, by himself.

Is this likely to happen more often in the future?

During the Black Summer bushfires, blazes ripped through Cobargo on the far south coast of New South Wales. As part of the nation’s emergency warning system, thousands of landlines and mobile phones — my own included — were alerted with urgent warnings to evacuate.

Alerts were sent to mobiles according to their registered service address and also to the “last known location of the handset at the time of the emergency.”

It is a far cry from Kelly, and no one envisages political parties being able to target voters by this kind of electronic geo-location.

But it suggests the ability to send brief, urgent and unsolicited text messages, to large numbers of people, is too valuable to ignore.

Read more:
Three reasons why we should have seen Labor’s ‘Medicare SMS’ coming

Stephen Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How did politicians and political parties get my mobile number? And how is that legal? – https://theconversation.com/how-did-politicians-and-political-parties-get-my-mobile-number-and-how-is-that-legal-168750

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Collie, Professor and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University

Victoria’s occupational health and safety regulator, Worksafe, has charged the state’s health department with 58 breaches for failing to provide hotel quarantine staff with a safe workplace.

The breaches occurred between March and July 2020, and at up to A$1.64 million per breach, could amount to fines of $95 million.

This should serve as a warning to all employers to start assessing their workers’ safety against COVID and how they can mitigate these risks, ahead of the nation reopening.

Read more:
Here’s the proof we need. Many more health workers than we ever thought are catching COVID-19 on the job

Remind me, what is Worksafe?

States and territories have responsibility for enforcing laws designed to keep people safe at work: occupational health and safety (OHS) laws.

Worksafe Victoria is responsible for and regulates OHS in Victoria. It’s responsible for making sure employers and workers comply with OHS laws; and it provides information, advice and support.

Victoria’s parliament has given Worksafe the power to prosecute employers if they breach OHS laws. In 2018-19, it commenced 157 prosecutions which resulted in nearly A$7 million in fines.

Unlike some other state OHS regulators, Worksafe also manages the Victorian workers’ compensation system.

Why did Worksafe charge the health department?

Worksafe charged Victoria’s Department of Health with 58 breaches of sections 21 and 23 of the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The Act requires employers to maintain a working environment that is “safe and without risks to health” of employees. These obligations extend to independent contractors or people employed by those contractors.

Worksafe is alleging that in operating the Victorian COVID-19 quarantine hotels between March and July 2020, the Department of Health failed to maintain a working environment that was safe and limited risks to health, both to its own employees and to other people working in the hotels.

Essentially Worksafe is stating that through a series of failures, the department placed government employees and other workers at risk of serious illness or death through contracting COVID-19 at work.

Worksafe alleges the Victorian health department failed to:

• appoint people with expertise in infection control to work at the quarantine hotels

• provide sufficient infection prevention and control training to security guards working in the hotels, as evidence shows training can improve employees’ safety practices

• provide instructions, at least initially, on how to use personal protective equipment, and later did not update instructions on mask wearing in some of the quarantine hotels.

Worksafe undertook a 15-month long investigation, beginning in about July 2020. It’s possible the trigger for this investigation was a referral from the Coate inquiry into hotel quarantine, but that has not been stated.

Is it unusual for a government regulator to fine a government department?

It’s not that unusual. Government departments are subject to the same OHS laws as other employers in the state, and so Worksafe’s powers extend to them as well.

In the past few years, Worksafe has successfully prosecuted the Department of Justice, Parks Victoria and the Department of Health, resulting in fines and convictions.

In 2018, for example, Worksafe prosecuted Corrections Victoria (part of the Department of Justice) after a riot at the Metropolitan Remand Centre in 2015 that put the health and safety of staff at risk.

The riot occurred after the introduction of a smoking ban in prisons. Worksafe considered prisoner unrest was predictable and its impact on staff could have been reduced by having additional security in place in the days leading up to the smoking ban.

In that case the Department of Justice pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined A$300,000 plus legal costs.

What does this mean for other employers?

This case highlights that employers have obligations to provide safe working environments for their staff, and other people in their workplaces. This extends to reducing risks of COVID-19 infection.

These obligations don’t just apply to government departments. They apply to every employer in the state.

Employers should ensure they have appropriate systems and policies in place to reduce COVID-19 infection risk to their staff. This includes, where appropriate, physical distancing, working from home, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), good hygiene practices, workplace ventilation, and so on.

Employers should consider the risks unique to their environment and address them appropriately, in advance of the nation reopening when we reach high levels of COVID vaccination coverage.

Some employers in high-risk settings – such as health care, retail and hospitality – will need to do more to protect their workers than others.

What happens next for the Vic health department?

The case has been filed in the Magistrates court, with an initial hearing date set for October 22. It will progress through the court system from there. Most prosecutions are heard in the Magistrates Court although some proceed to the County Court.

If the Department of Health pleads guilty, the courts will determine if a fine should be paid and how much. The court may also determine if a conviction is recorded.

Read more:
Soon you’ll need to be vaccinated to enjoy shops, cafes and events — but what about the staff there?

Alex Collie receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, State Insurance Regulatory Authority of NSW, Worksafe Victoria and Safe Work Australia. He was previously CEO and Chief Research Officer of the Institute for Safety Compensation and Recovery Research, a research institute established by Worksafe Victoria and Monash University.

– ref. Worksafe’s hotel quarantine breach penalties are a warning for other employers to keep workers safe from COVID – https://theconversation.com/worksafes-hotel-quarantine-breach-penalties-are-a-warning-for-other-employers-to-keep-workers-safe-from-covid-168968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kado Muir, Chair of National Native Title Council and Ngalia Cultural Leader, Indigenous Knowledge

In May 2020, Rio Tinto blasted two rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara as part of its operations to feed an insatiable global appetite for iron ore.

Some 46,000 years of Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people’s spiritual and cultural connections to Juukan Gorge were shaken with a detonation. The shockwaves also resounded globally. People took to social media and the streets to voice their anger at the actions of Rio Tinto.

While the final report of the Juukan Gorge inquiry is yet to be released, interim findings suggest the inquiry has the potential set a new precedent for legal codes to align with ethical standards for Aboriginal land management.

These outcomes are reflective of a shift in the balance of authority in Australia — and this shift is tilting towards Aboriginal people.

Read more:
Juukan Gorge inquiry puts Rio Tinto on notice, but without drastic reforms, it could happen again

The Juukan Gorge tragedy: ‘never again’

Despite shareholders and stakeholders deeming the blast unconscionable, these destructive actions by Rio Tinto were legal under Section 18 of the Western Australia Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972.

While the act was designed to protect sites of cultural significance to Aboriginal people, it hasn’t prevented their destruction.

The Juukan Gorge is “of the highest archaeological significance in Australia.” Over 7,000 artefacts have been discovered in the rock shelters, including a 4,000-year-old belt made from the human hair of the direct ancestors of the current Traditional Owners.

Rio Tinto was aware of the living cultural value of the rock shelters to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, “but blew it up anyway”.

Three senior executives responsible for this decision resigned from their jobs in the aftermath of the blast, including the chief executive.

The “Never Again” national inquiry was subsequently held and Rio Tinto was ordered to provide compensation to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people.

A critical turning point in First Nations authority over land

We are witnessing a turning point in the control and management of Aboriginal lands and the flow of benefits from these lands. For Indigenous people, land is central to self-determination.

Indigenous people are part of their traditional lands and draw nourishment from them. Control of their lands is also key to the economic flourishing of Indigenous people.

This turning point is being driven by regulatory changes — such as the recommendations from the Juukan Gorge inquiry — as well as shifts in environmental and social governance, growing economic independence, and increased Indigenous representation in parliaments.

Read more:
‘Although we didn’t produce these problems, we suffer them’: 3 ways you can help in NAIDOC’s call to Heal Country

Regulatory changes in environmental and social governance

Australia is moving towards 80–90% of its land mass being under Native Title and Land Rights claims and agreements.

The recommendations of the “Never Again” report for stronger protections and informed consent hold significant implications for the governance of these lands. Shifting custodianship of land and water back into the hands of Indigenous Traditional Owners allows them to receive equal share of the benefits from the resources extracted from their lands.

The rise of environmental and social governance globally is further supporting the shift in authority back to Indigenous custodians of the land.

In addition, the global march towards zero-carbon emissions is creating a flow of capital towards markets that meet carbon emissions and sustainable growth targets. This includes renewable energy and circular food production. This de-carbonisation of economies has been termed “carbonomics”.

These sustainable practices are integral to Aboriginal land management. This is why Indigenous-owned and -managed operations are informing carbonomic solutions and attracting carbonomic capital investment.

Economic independence providing hope for the future

The Australian Indigenous procurement policy has begun mandating minimum procurement targets for contracts to be awarded to Indigenous-owned businesses. This has the potential to increase Indigenous participation in local and global economies.

The growth of carbonomics also illustrates the shift towards environmental and sustainable forms of commerce that are bringing Indigenous land and water management to the forefront of business operations and leadership.

The potent combination of investment in Indigenous land management systems, the recommendations in the Indigenous procurement policy, and increasing consumer demand for Indigenous-owned goods and services, is creating the conditions for an Indigenous-business boom.

These conditions provide opportunities for economic independence and self-determination in Indigenous commerce. Indigenous entrepreneurship and businesses are being supported through initiatives such as the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership.

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However, further Indigenous representation at the highest levels of government, as well as corporate, education and community sectors, is needed for Indigenous voices to be heard on a national scale.

As has been seen with the backlash from Rio Tinto shareholders, investors and the media are holding corporations and their executives accountable for their treatment of Indigenous people and their lands.

There is more work to be done to ensure all Indigenous people are central to the land and water decisions of their respective Countries.

Yet, these changes are combining to give power back to Indigenous people. First Nations people need to be rightful authorities in the control, management and beneficiaries of the land. This will pivot the narrative from pain to power.

Affiliated with National Native Title Council.

Michal Carrington is affiliated with the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership, University of Melbourne.

– ref. Juukan Gorge inquiry: a critical turning point in First Nations authority over land management – https://theconversation.com/juukan-gorge-inquiry-a-critical-turning-point-in-first-nations-authority-over-land-management-167039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland

When I first moved to New Zealand – even after living in some of the highest-priced US property markets – I was taken aback by house prices. My shock was reinforced by the condition of the houses, many of which lack sufficient insulation, adequate heating or cooling, or double-glazed windows.

I wondered why I’d pay so much for a house that needed so much attention. Then I overheard someone quip, “In New Zealand, you pay for the land and the house comes for free.” Suddenly things made a lot more sense.

Unlike in the US, where land is valued at a small fraction of the “improvements” (the building that stands on the section), in New Zealand it’s the exact opposite.

But it also raised a big question: in a country where the cost of land is so exorbitantly high and the supply of housing so scarce, how could so many surface car parks exist?

The price of parking

Take Auckland, for example, arguably the most housing-constrained market in New Zealand. Specifically, the still developing Wynyard Quarter on the downtown waterfront presents a clear case of car parking over potential housing.

One of the several abundant surface car parks is located on Jellicoe Street. It encompasses 8,146 square metres of tar, paint and parked cars. The massive lot has a NZ$37,000,000 valuation, with the improvements valued at $1,000,000 — presumably all that pavement and paint.

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The next part is a bit more difficult to swallow. The land is valued at just over $4,500 per square metre. With the average parking spot occupying 15 square metres, that means each spot is worth about $68,000.

That’s just for the parking spots themselves, not all the land required for people to drive in and out and around the car park.

What parking earns

Now things get interesting. The Jellicoe Street car park is maintained by Auckland Transport which provides people who drive to the CBD the courtesy of a free initial hour of parking followed by a rate of $6 per hour.

So for just $18 drivers can park for four hours. On the weekend those four hours of parking will cost a mere $6.

Assuming a parking space is fully occupied during all operating hours (from 7am to 10pm Monday to Sunday), it could optimistically take in $480. Extended over an entire year, a single space might earn just under $25,000.

Ignoring overhead costs and more realistic occupancy rates, it would take almost three years for a single open-air parking space to earn back the cost of the land it sits on. Perhaps this sounds economically viable. But what isn’t in this equation is the actual, very high cost of cheap and plentiful parking.

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Parking expectations

The widespread availability of low-priced parking in high-demand locations has significant impacts on our cities. When people expect parking to be available in these locations, they often choose to drive rather than use a more sustainable mode such as public transport. This means people buy more cars and take more trips by personal vehicle.

When cheap parking spots fill up during peak hours, people tend to cruise for a parking space rather than search out slightly more expensive and less convenient alternative locations. That is, they circle a car park or a city block until someone else leaves. When enough drivers do this it creates more congestion, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

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The long-term availability of cheap urban parking also implies that parking in such locations is a public good. People expect parking to always be in these places and will fight to keep the land from being used for higher and better purposes.

This is where the rubber hits the road. Open-air parking is the least productive use of important urban land. In the midst of the greatest housing affordability crisis in perhaps a generation, we could stand to lose some of this car space in favour of apartments.

People before parking

According to the Auckland District Plan, a one bedroom/one bathroom apartment should occupy about 45 square metres — precisely three parking spaces.

The good thing about an apartment building compared to an open-air car park is that we can build it up. Instead of some 200 spots for cars, we can build more than 600 apartments across ten storeys.

Rather than storing a couple of hundred cars for part of the day, with bare pavements overnight, we could provide living space for up to 1,200 people around the clock.

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We could do the same thing with the car park across the street and the one a block over and so on — until we are a city and a country that focuses more on housing people than parking cars.

It will be hard to let go of the car parks. Where some see an opportunity for urban regeneration through the development of under-utilised space, others see the loss of car parking as another impediment for city workers to overcome.

But we simply have too much space in our cities dedicated to the car. Our land is far too valuable to pave over. It’s time to use a fraction of that space to house many people instead of a few machines.

Timothy Welch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Using valuable inner-city land for car parking? In a housing crisis, that just doesn’t add up – https://theconversation.com/using-valuable-inner-city-land-for-car-parking-in-a-housing-crisis-that-just-doesnt-add-up-168745