Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather R. Stevens, Doctoral student in Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University

The link between hot weather and aggressive crime is well established. But can the same be said for online aggression, such as angry tweets? And is online anger a predictor of assaults?

Our study just published suggests the answer is a clear “no”. We found angry tweet counts actually increased in cooler weather. And as daily maximum temperatures rose, angry tweet counts decreased.

We also found the incidence of angry tweets is highest on Mondays, and perhaps unsurprisingly, angry Twitter posts are most prevalent after big news events such as a leadership spill.

This is the first study to compare patterns of assault and social media anger with temperature. Given anger spreads through online communities faster than any other emotion, the findings have broad implications – especially under climate change.

Algorithms are watching you

Of Australia’s 24.6 million people, 18 million, or 73%, are active social media users. Some 4.7 million Australians, or 19%, use Twitter. This widespread social media use provides researchers with valuable opportunities to gather information.

When you publicly post, comment or even upload a selfie, an algorithm can scan it to estimate your mood (positive or negative) or your emotion (such as anger, joy, fear or surprise).

This information can be linked with the date, time of day, location or even your age and sex, to determine the “mood” of a city or country in near real time.

Our study involved 74.2 million English-language Twitter posts – or tweets – from 2015 to 2017 in New South Wales.

We analysed them using the publicly available We Feel tool, developed by the CSIRO and the Black Dog Institute, to see if social media can accurately map our emotions.

Some 2.87 million tweets (or 3.87%) contained words or phrases considered angry, such as “vicious”, “hated”, “irritated”, “disgusted” and the very popular “f*cked”.

Hot-headed when it’s cold outside

On average, the number of angry tweets were highest when the temperature was below 15℃, and lowest in warm temperatures (25-30℃).

The number of angry tweets slightly increased again in very high temperatures (above 35℃), although with fewer days in that range there was less certainty about the trend.

On the ten days with the highest daily maximum temperatures, the average angry tweet count was 2,482 per day. Of the ten coldest days, the average angry tweet count was higher at 3,354 per day.

Read more: Meet ‘Sara’, ‘Sharon’ and ‘Mel’: why people spreading coronavirus anxiety on Twitter might actually be bots

The pattern of angry tweets was opposite to that of physical assaults, which are more prevalent in hotter weather – with some evidence of a decline in extreme heat.

So why the opposite patterns? We propose two possible explanations.

First, hot and cold weather triggers a physiological response in humans. Temperature affects our heart rate, the amount of oxygen to our brain, hormone regulation (including testosterone) and our ability to sleep. In some people, this in turn affects physical aggression levels.

Second, weather triggers changes to our routine. Research suggests aggressive crimes increase because warmer weather encourages behaviour that fosters assaults. This includes more time outdoors, increased socialising and drinking alcohol.

Those same factors – time outdoors and more socialising – may reduce the opportunity or motivation to tweet. And the effects of alcohol (such as reduced mental clarity and physical precicion) make composing a tweet harder, and therefore less likely.

This theory is supported by our finding that both angry tweet counts, as well as overall tweet counts, were lowest on weekends, holidays and the hottest days,

Read more: Car accidents, drownings, violence: hotter temperatures will mean more deaths from injury

It’s possible that as people vent their frustrations online, they feel better and are then less inclined to commit an assault. However, this theory isn’t well supported.

The relationship is more likely due to the vastly different demographics of Twitter users and assault offenders.

Assault offenders are most likely to be young men from low socio-economic backgrounds. In contrast, about half of Twitter users are female, and they’re more likely to be middle-aged and in a higher income bracket compared with other social media users.

Our study did not consider why these two groups differ in response to temperature. However, we are currently researching how age, sex and other social and demographic factors influence the relationships between temperature and aggression.

The Monday blues

Our study primarily set out to see whether temperatures and angry tweet counts were related. But we also uncovered other interesting trends.

Average angry tweet counts were highest on a Monday (2,759 per day) and lowest on weekends (Saturdays, 2,373; Sundays, 2,499). This supports research that found an online mood slump on weekdays.

We determined that major news events correlated with the ten days where the angry tweet count was highest. These events included:

• the federal leadership spill in 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as prime minister

• a severe storm front in NSW in 2015, then a major cold front a few months later

• two mass shootings in the United States: Orlando in 2016 and Las Vegas in 2017

• sporting events including the Cricket World Cup in 2015.

Twitter in a warming world

Our study was limited in that Twitter users are not necessarily representative of the broader population. For example, Twitter is a preferred medium for politicians, academics and journalists. These users may express different emotions, or less emotion, in their posts than other social media users.

However, the influence of temperature on social media anger has broad implications. Of all the emotions, anger spreads through online communities the fastest. So temperature changes and corresponding social media anger can affect the wider population.

We hope our research helps health and justice services develop more targeted measures based on temperature.

And with climate change likely to affect assault rates and mood, more research in this field is needed.

Read more: Nine things you love that are being wrecked by climate change

– ref. Anger is all the rage on Twitter when it’s cold outside (and on Mondays) – https://theconversation.com/anger-is-all-the-rage-on-twitter-when-its-cold-outside-and-on-mondays-141589

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Grey, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Sydney

Victoria’s chief health officer has admitted the government did not properly engage with linguistically diverse communities about COVID-19 in the runup to Melbourne’s recent spike in cases.

Professor Brett Sutton last week said:

We know that there are some migrant communities, recent migrants or culturally and linguistically diverse communities, who are overrepresented now with some of our new cases […] It’s our obligation as government to reach those people. It’s not their fault if we’re not going in with appropriate engagement.

This issue is not confined to Victoria. My research has indicated that linguistically diverse communities in New South Wales are likewise not receiving official coronavirus advice.

Read more: Victoria’s coronavirus hotspots: not quite a second wave, but still cause for concern

What’s happening in Victoria?

Clusters of COVID-19 cases in “hotspots” across Melbourne have seen the Victorian government announce a testing blitz across 10 suburbs.

We don’t know for certain if language barriers have contributed to this spike.

However, the Victoria government is clearly worried about a link between linguistic diversity and infection, and is sending public health officials door to door to deliver health messages.

More than one in five (about 22%) of Australian households speak a language other than English. In Casey, a Melbourne hotspot, it’s about 38% and in Brimbank it’s up to 62%.

Read more: Keep your nose out of it: why saliva tests could offer a better alternative to nasal COVID-19 swabs

Poor health messaging to multilingual communities isn’t new

Victoria’s spike is not the first indication that official coronavirus health communications in languages other than English have been ineffective.

A small study in Melbourne early in the pandemic indicated people speaking languages other than English were not receiving sufficient, reliable information.

Concerns have also been raised nationally. The National COVID-19 Health and Research Advisory Committee reported to the Australian government that migrants were less likely to receive public health information because of sporadic government engagement, increasing their risk of contracting COVID-19 and transmitting it unwittingly.

People in Australia who aren’t proficient in English tend to be older, having started speaking it as adults, and older people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. So community leaders are concerned about this combination of vulnerabilities.

Here’s what I found in Sydney

My research examined official online COVID-19 information and public health signage in four Sydney suburbs with two to three times the national rate of households speaking a language other than English.

Multilingual posters from federal and state health departments, freely available to download, were rarely displayed.

Written information, communications using technical wording and English-medium government websites can be challenging, even if people are bilingual in spoken English.

In a submission to the federal Senate COVID-19 inquiry (number 156), I outline how some websites are easier to navigate than others and the limited use of other languages on government social media. State and federal health departments have commissioned the production of online videos about COVID-19 in languages other than English, but uptake is low.

It’s also difficult to ensure such communications are good quality.

Here’s what we could be doing better

We could make it the law

We could make it a legal obligation for federal and state health departments to collect and analyse data about who reads or watches their communications.

They could use that data to develop a cohesive, nationwide public health communications plan for languages other than English before the next emergency.

Setting legal standards could also mean government communications become consistent across online platforms, to increase accessibility.

Read more: Our culture affects the way we look after ourselves. It should shape the health care we receive, too

While government communications are already partially regulated, there are no overall rules about public health communications in languages other than English.

These rules would be important for public safety. That is, we can better collectively manage public health risks when everyone knows what to do.

These rules would also be important for equal autonomy. Being able to reliably receive not just a simple “stay 1.5m apart” message but official, up-to-date rules and details about the local pandemic situation enables us to determine our own course of conduct and manage our own anxiety. People whose dominant language is not English deserve that same autonomy.

We could clarify what local governments should be doing

Legal standards could also clarify the responsibilities of local governments.

My research found some local governments produced their own COVID-19 communications in locally common languages, such as the Strathfield signage below in Mandarin, Korean and English.

But others didn’t. In Strathfield’s neighbouring suburb of Burwood, which is just as multilingual, there are no local government COVID-19 posters.

Instead, local businesses produced and shared bilingual COVID-19 signage, as shown in this article’s lead image.

Other suburbs have neither local government nor local businesses providing multilingual health information.

We need greater transparency

Setting legal standards for government public health communications before our next health emergency may be a controversial, yet effective, way to reach everyone in our community.

We also need greater transparency about current government policies on communicating to people with languages other than English, and whether these policies are being followed during this pandemic.

– ref. Multilingual Australia is missing out on vital COVID-19 information. No wonder local councils and businesses are stepping in – https://theconversation.com/multilingual-australia-is-missing-out-on-vital-covid-19-information-no-wonder-local-councils-and-businesses-are-stepping-in-141362

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Griffin, Senior Lecturer, Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University

Maps have shown us how the events of this disastrous year have played out around the globe, from the Australian bushfires to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. But there are good reasons to question the maps we see.

Some of these reasons have been explored recently through maps of the bushfires or those created from satellite images.

Maps often inform our actions, but how do we know which ones are trustworthy? My research shows that answering this question may be critically important for the world’s most urgent challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more: Satellite imagery is revolutionizing the world. But should we always trust what we see?

Why are trustworthy maps important?

Maps guide decisions, including those made by governments, private companies, and individual citizens. During the pandemic, government restrictions on activities to protect public health have been strongly informed by maps.

Governments rely on public cooperation with the restrictions, and they have used maps to explain the situation and build trust. If people don’t trust information from the government, they may be less likely to comply with the restrictions.

This highlights the importance of trustworthy COVID-19 maps. Maps can be untrustworthy when they don’t show the most relevant or timely information or because they show information in a misleading way.

Below are a few question you should ask yourself to work out whether you should trust a map you read.

What information is being mapped?

The number of cases of COVID-19 is an important piece of information. But that number could just reflect how many people are being tested. If you don’t know how much testing is being done, you can misjudge the level of risk.

Low case numbers might mean that there isn’t much testing being done. If the percentage of positive cases (positive test rate) is high, we might be missing cases. So not accounting for the number of tests can be misleading.

The World Health Organization suggests that at least ten negative tests to one positive test, a positive test rate of at most 10%, is the lowest rate of testing that is adequate.

In Australia, we have been at the forefront of making sure we are doing enough testing and we are confident that we are identifying most of the cases. Undertesting has been a problem in some other countries.

How is the information being mapped?

It’s not just the numbers that matter. How the numbers are shown is also important so that map readers get an accurate picture of what we know.

The Victorian Government recently advised Melburnians to avoid travel to and from several local council areas because of high case numbers. But their publicly available map does not show this clearly.

Compare the government-produced map with a map of the same data mapped differently. Most people interpret light as few cases and dark as more cases. The government-produced map uses dark colours for both low and high numbers of cases.

Who made this map and why did they make it?

Maps can inform, misinform, and disinform, like any other information source. So it is important to pay attention to the map’s context as well as the author.

Viral maps are maps that spread quickly and widely, often via social media. Viral maps cannot always be trusted, even when they come from a reputable source. Maps that are trustworthy in one context may not be in another.

An example from Australian news media in February shows this. Several media outlets showed a map that was tweeted by UK researchers. The tweet announced the publication of their new paper about COVID-19.

The media reported the map showed locations to which COVID-19 had spread from Wuhan, China, the origin of the outbreak. It actually depicted airline flight routes, and was used in the tweet to illustrate how globally linked the world is. The map was from a 2012 study not the 2020 study.

Many readers may have trusted that reporting because their justifiable anxiety about COVID-19 was reinforced by the map’s design choices. The mass of overlapping red symbols creates a powerful and alarming impression.

While the lines in the map indicate potential routes for virus spread, it doesn’t provide evidence that the did virus spread along all of these routes. The researchers didn’t claim that it did. But without understanding why the map was made and what it showed, several media outlets reported it inaccurately.

Maps on social media are especially likely to be missing important context and explanation. The airline route map was re-shared many times as in the tweet below, often without any source information, making it hard to check its trustworthiness.

Limiting the damage done by COVID-19 is a very substantial challenge. Maps can help ordinary citizens to work together with governments to achieve that outcome. But they need to be made and read with care. Ask yourself what is being mapped, how it’s being mapped, who made the map and why they made it.

– ref. Can I trust this map? 4 questions to ask when you see a map of the coronavirus pandemic – https://theconversation.com/can-i-trust-this-map-4-questions-to-ask-when-you-see-a-map-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-141131

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

The US presidential election is being shaped by the two crises that have defined 2020 so far: the coronavirus pandemic and the national reckoning over police brutality and racism.

COVID-19 has infected millions of Americans and killed 125,000, while causing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Camera phone footage of George Floyd’s brutal killing sparked America’s largest wave of protests at least since the 1960s.

The term “unprecedented” has been used widely to describe these events, but they are just the latest versions of the two oldest and biggest problems in American politics: government dysfunction and racial injustice.

The “winning” years

In 2016, Donald Trump presented appealingly easy solutions to these problems.

Untainted by government, he would “drain the swamp” of bureaucrats and his business acumen would fix problems that conventional politicians could not, from trade deficits to crumbling infrastructure. Harnessing racial resentment and a backlash against Black Lives Matter, Trump promised white Americans an end to the painful reckonings of the Obama years, instead offering them a fantasy of black gratitude for white success.

Read more: The backlash against Black Lives Matter is just more evidence of injustice

For three years, Trump crafted a re-election narrative around his “winning” approach, based mainly on an economy that was already booming by the time he became president. The partisan polarisation of the 2016 election continued into his presidency.

Trump’s approval rating has always been relatively low despite the strong economy, but it has also been resilient in the face of scandal. Trump faced few crises in this period not of his own making, although there was one that foreshadowed the disasters to come: Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.

The federal government response to the hurricane was slow, uncoordinated and under-resourced. Trump showed little interest in it and took no responsibility for it. He briefly appeared on the island to congratulate himself and throw paper towels to residents. When the death toll was revealed to be nearly 3,000, revised up from initial reports of 64, Trump claimed Democrats made up most of the deaths “to make me look as bad as possible”.

Pandemic politics

The Puerto Rican tragedy was largely ignored and forgotten, but COVID-19 has replayed many of its themes on an even bigger scale.

There were bewildering government failures, despite the nation’s immense wealth and resources. There was an absence of coordination between different parts of the government. There was a visible disregard among some whites for non-white lives. And there were familiar claims by Trump that his opponents were exaggerating the scale of the crisis, this time to sink his re-election chances.

Even now, as experts stress the need for widespread testing, Trump complains that testing inflates coronavirus numbers, and says it should slow down.

You can’t fight a pandemic with racial slurs. After a very brief “rally round the flag” boost in polling, voter ratings of Trump’s handling of the pandemic have been poor, and are dropping.

Meanwhile, the kinds of experienced public servants Trump and his allies deride are enjoying much higher approval as Americans rediscover the virtues of scientific expertise.

Read more: Donald Trump blames everyone but himself for the coronavirus crisis. Will voters agree?

The pandemic itself may be less electorally consequential for Trump than its economic effects. It is very rare for presidents to win re-election during a recession.

Trump’s re-election hopes rest on a swift economic recovery, but that is unlikely while infections continue to surge, driven by attempts to reopen too quickly.

Black Lives Matter

The wave of Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis has damaged not just Trump’s electoral prospects, but the political order he represents.

For decades, conservatives have used the prospect of black unrest to scare white moderates, and Trump’s Nixonian rhetoric suggests he expected the same effect this time.

Instead, public opinion has solidified in support of the large, multiracial protests. The protests have changed minds, including white minds, about the systemic nature of racism in the United States. Racist backlashes may be less potent when there is a polarising white president in power.

Trump has floundered in response to the protests. He has paid lip service to the cause of justice for George Floyd, but has shown more genuine sympathy for those who worry about being called racist.

Ultimately, he has retreated to his comfortable daydreams of black gratefulness. When announcing better-than-expected job numbers, Trump said:

Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country.

African American unemployment is actually getting worse, and Trump’s response to the protests is costing Republicans support across the country.

What about Biden?

Joe Biden has been much less visible than Trump during the pandemic, which so far is working well for his campaign. Trump seems desperate for a fight with Biden, and his campaign is reassuring nervous supporters that things will turn around when they get the chance to “define” Biden.

Biden is hard to paint as a radical. He has been quick to distance himself from proposals such as defunding police, and he has never supported “Medicare for all”, despite its popularity with the Democratic base and relevance during the pandemic. As president he would be unlikely to bring the kinds of lasting changes that most Democrats want to see.

This is why Trump and his allies cast Biden as “sleepy” and senile. They warn that he would easily be manipulated by radicals, and Trump is really running against the “far left”. So far, however, this approach has compelled Trump to talk a lot about his own physical and mental fitness.

Trump is a classically charismatic leader, whose hold on his supporters stems from their perception he is blessed with unique powers. This might be why Trump worries about any sign of weakness or change in his image – why he refuses to wear a mask, feels the need to physically prove himself, and is crushed by the sight of empty seats at a rally.

Biden, whose support stems from a perception that he is safe and familiar, having served as vice president in the Obama adminstration, chooses instead to display certain vulnerabilities. This helps explain his rising support among older Americans during the pandemic.

And in a year when race is a defining election issue, Biden has a vast advantage with African American and Hispanic voters, despite parts of his legislative record and his cringeworthy “you ain’t black” interview. He also owes his nomination to African American voters. As Juan Williams put it bluntly, “Joe Biden would be retired if not for the black vote”.

The polls look bad for Trump, but the race remains unpredictable

Averages of national polls currently show Biden leading Trump by between nine and ten points. Even without the pandemic, Trump was never going to have an easy contest against Biden.

Before he secured the nomination in March, Biden had an average lead of 5% in hypothetical poll match-ups with Trump, which is the likely reason Democrats settled on him as an alternative to Bernie Sanders.

Polls still show Trump’s supporters are a lot more enthusiastic about voting for Trump than Biden’s supporters are about voting for Biden, which could be important if voting becomes a health risk.

But enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate may not matter. The 2018 midterm was effectively a referendum on Trump, and the 2020 election will be an even more focused one.

There is reason to believe the race could tighten, if only because no candidate has won a presidential election by more than 9% since 1984, and partisan divisions have become a lot sharper since then. Many conservative-leaning Americans who are undecided about the election may return to Trump. Closer to the election, many pollsters will restrict their samples to people who they believe are likely to vote, rather than just able to vote. These likely voter screens may reveal Trump’s standing is stronger than it currently looks.

Read more: As Minneapolis burns, Trump’s presidency is sinking deeper into crisis. And yet, he may still be re-elected

Of course, the election isn’t decided by a national popularity contest. Democrats are haunted by the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton got 2.8 million more votes than Trump but still lost the state-based electoral college. Currently, The Economist’s election forecast gives that scenario about a 10% chance of happening again.

Everyone will be watching key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina, as well as newly competitive states like Arizona and Minnesota.

Polls show Biden leading in most of these contests, but these leads are smaller and more volatile than his national lead. The quality of many state polls has also been questionable, raising the possibility they will repeat the same mistakes as last time.

Biden is discouraging complacency. Referencing a recent NYT/Siena poll that showed him leading Trump nationally by 14%, Biden tweeted:

COVID-19 has sabotaged the usual election-year registration drives that bring millions of new voters into the electorate, which could disadvantage Democrats who traditionally benefit from younger voters.

Coronavirus is also likely to cause increased mail voting. There is currently no evidence increased use of mail voting advantages one side over the other, and state officials from both parties have pushed to increase voting by mail. Mail voting could alleviate the electoral chaos recently seen in places like Georgia, where the pandemic kept election workers home and shut down polling places.

But mail voting brings its own problems. Most states currently do not have the infrastructure or rules to required to quickly process mail ballots, which means we may be unlikely to see a result on election night if the contest is close.

An uncertain result hinging on a prolonged mail ballot count could lead to the nightmare scenario of a disputed election outcome.

Would Trump accept defeat?

Trump already seems to be preparing to dispute the election. He has repeatedly claimed, with no evidence, that mail voting will facilitate massive voter fraud.

In March he said increased mail voting would mean “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”, and he recently tweeted:

These fraud claims have been repeatedly debunked, and Twitter was so worried about Trump attacking the electoral process that, for the first time, it flagged two of his tweets as misleading.

Trump may believe, with reason, that Republicans could benefit from in-person voting disarray on election day. Minority voters are far more likely than white voters to have to wait for long periods in lines at polling places.

In 2018, a federal court ruled for the first time since 1982 that Republicans could mount “poll watching” operations without prior judicial approval. This involves organising volunteers to challenge the eligibility of voters at polling places. Courts have previously found these tactics are used to intimidate and exclude minority voters, and they result in even longer delays. Republicans reportedly want to recruit 50,000 poll watchers for the 2020 election, including retired military and police officers.

But the purpose of Trump’s war on mail voting may simply be to delegitimise the election result in advance. He did this throughout 2016, saying the election would be “rigged” when it appeared he was set to lose. Even after he won, he claimed for years that he would have won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”.

These claims have also been thoroughly debunked, including by Trump’s own lawyers.

Trump’s resistance to the factual possibility that he could lose has raised fears he might not accept a defeat. Biden, noting that military leaders criticised Trump’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests, has fantasised that the military would escort him from the White House if he tried to “steal the election”.

Extensive lawsuits are a more likely scenario than military intervention, but there is also the danger Trump’s supporters would not accept the legitimacy of a Biden victory.

Given Trump has often warned his supporters that their enemies will take away the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms), there is a possibility of a violent backlash, even if it only consists of isolated incidents.

At the same time, it is increasingly normal that large parts of the population dispute the legitimacy of the president. From Bill Clinton’s impeachment to George W. Bush’s contested victory; from Trump’s “birther” conspiracies about Obama to his own impeachment last year, refusals to accept the lawfulness of the presidency, on grounds real or imaginary, have become a standard part of America’s political repertoire.

A lot can happen in four months, as we’ve already seen this year. The outcome of this race is far from certain, but its ugliness is guaranteed.

– ref. Trump is struggling against two invisible enemies: the coronavirus and Joe Biden – https://theconversation.com/trump-is-struggling-against-two-invisible-enemies-the-coronavirus-and-joe-biden-139667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Bricknell, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Health, CQUniversity Australia

One of the most profound ways the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives has been in the way we work. For people lucky enough to keep their jobs, and for those of us in professions where it’s possible, working from home has become the new normal.

Australia’s success in “flattening the curve” means restrictions are now being lifted. With this, many employers are bringing their staff back into the office, or at least contemplating doing so.

But as the current outbreaks in Victoria show, it’s dangerous to think we’re now safe from the threat of COVID-19.

So, what do we need to consider as we take those first tentative steps back into the office?

Read more: Coronavirus could spark a revolution in working from home. Are we ready?

First, how does the virus spread?

While there’s a lot we still don’t know about SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, we do know it spreads most effectively from person to person in droplet form. Infected people emit these droplets when they sneeze, cough, and even speak.

Those droplets can be transmitted directly through the air — say when an infectious person coughs in the direction of someone else close by — or they can settle on surfaces, where they can remain viable for hours.

The virus enters the body of a non-infected person through contact with mucous membranes in the nose, mouth or eyes and attaches to cells in the upper respiratory tract to establish infection.

What does this mean for office workers?

In many workplaces, employees share a small office space, work in an open-plan office, or use “hot desks” that are shared between several different employees on different shifts.

Workers in these situations are often required to work for long periods in environments that make it hard to maintain the recommended 4m² distancing rule.

This combination — several hours spent in close contact — increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission. This is illustrated by an outbreak in an open-plan call centre in Seoul, where more than 43% of workers contracted COVID-19 during February and March.

Read more: Employers, schools, take note. Coronavirus ‘clearance certificates’ are a waste of everybody’s time

Considerations for employers

First, each employee in a shared office should be able to have at least 4m² to themselves. If this isn’t possible, it would be a good idea to stagger staff or allow them to continue working from home for now.

Second, think about airflow. Small offices often have insufficient airflow to dilute the virus, and, if an infectious person is present, could end up with high concentrations of viral particles over the course of an hour or so.

Conversely, higher rates of airflow combined with poor ventilation can also lead to infection, as droplets can be carried further.

So where possible, increase ventilation and air exchange in open-plan workspaces. Increasing the ratio of fresh air intake to recirculated air can reduce the concentration of virus particles in air conditioned spaces. Even simply opening windows can reduce viral spread.

Third, cleaning protocols need to be increased. Where once a twice weekly visit from a contracted cleaner to vacuum the floors, empty the bins and quickly wipe over surfaces was considered sufficient, during COVID-19 you need to ensure a thorough daily clean of all surfaces.

Frequently touched surfaces, such as desks, light switches, door handles, phones, staircase railings, touch screens, keypads, taps and toilets should be given special attention and may require more frequent cleaning.

Read more: You better hope your work cleaner is one of the few who has time to do a thorough job

Fourth, if a worker becomes sick with respiratory symptoms, isolate them from other staff and arrange for them to go home. Advise them to get tested for COVID-19 and not return to work until they have a negative result.

Similarly, reinforce the message, “if you’re sick, get tested and don’t come to work”. Now more than ever, the culture of “soldiering on” while unwell puts others at risk.

Finally, you might also consider asking employees to wear face masks at work. Face masks are unlikely to protect the person wearing them but can limit the disease being spread by coughs and sneezes.

Considerations for employees

First, you should clean equipment like keyboards, phones and mice regularly, and definitely between each user if desks are shared. Simply wipe your desk and equipment with a domestic spray cleaner.

Second, the best protection against the virus is personal hygiene. Washing your hands with soap and water offers excellent protection against SARS-CoV-2. When you can’t wash your hands, use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser instead.

You should wash or sanitise your hands regularly throughout the day, especially any time you touch anything you suspect someone else has recently been in contact with.

Third, maintain a distance of 1.5m from other people to protect yourself from airborne droplets.

Fourth, practise good respiratory hygiene by coughing and sneezing into a tissue or the crook of your elbow. This prevents viral particles spreading over surfaces and toward people around you.

Lastly, if you have any symptoms, don’t go to work. Get tested as soon as possible and stay at home until you receive the results.

Read more: As coronavirus restrictions ease, here’s how you can navigate public transport as safely as possible

– ref. Heading back to the office? Here’s how to protect yourself and your colleagues from coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/heading-back-to-the-office-heres-how-to-protect-yourself-and-your-colleagues-from-coronavirus-140436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

A long-awaited draft review of federal environment laws is due this week. There’s a lot riding on it – particularly in light of recent events that suggest the laws are in crisis.

Late last week, the federal Auditor-General Grant Hehir tabled a damning report on federal authorities’ handling of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. Incredibly, he found Australia’s premier environmental law is administered neither efficiently or effectively.

It followed news last month that mining company Rio Tinto detonated the 46,000 year old Juukan rock shelters in the Pilbara. The decision was authorised by a 50 year old Western Australian law –and the federal government failed to invoke emergency powers to stop it.

Also last month we learned state-owned Victorian logging company VicForests unlawfully logged 26 forest coupes, home to the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum. The acts were contrary both to its own code of practice, and the agreement exempting VicForests from federal laws.

As relentless as Hehir’s criticisms of the department are, let there be no doubt that blame lies squarely at the feet of government. As a society, we must decide what values we want to protect, count the financial cost, then make sure governments deliver on that protection.

Shocking report card

I’ve been involved with this Act since before it began 20 years ago. As an ACT environment official reading a draft in 1998 I was fascinated by its complexity and sweeping potential. As a federal official responsible for administering, then reforming, the Act from 2007-2012, I encountered some of the issues identified by the audit, in milder form.

But I was still shocked by Hehir’s report. It’s so comprehensively scathing that the department barely took a trick.

Overall, the audit found that despite the EPBC Act being subject to multiple reviews, audits and parliamentary inquiries since it began, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment’s administration of the laws is neither efficient nor effective.

Read more: Mr Morrison, you can cut ‘green tape’ without harming nature – but it’ll take money and gumption

While the government is focused on efficiency, the lack of effectiveness worries me most – especially findings concerning so-called “environmental offsets”. These are measures designed to compensate for unavoidable losses, such as creating a nature reserve near a site to be cleared.

In the early years of the law, offsets were rare. By 2015 they featured in almost 90% of decisions, dropping to about 75% last year. In effect, we now rely on offsets to protect the environment.

The Auditor-General found that the absence of guidance and quality control for offsets has led to “realised risks”.

For example, offsets must be mapped and disclosed publicly, to ensure their integrity. But not only did the department fail to create a public register, in 2019 it stopped loading offset data into its systems altogether. This makes it likely offsets will be forgotten and so either destroyed later, or put up a second time and thus double-counted.

Hehir cites one example where the department accepted offsets for damage to koala habitat in 2015 that did not meet its offset standards. After negotiations with the developer and involvement from the Minister’s office, the department accepted the offsets. Worse, the developer secured a futher non-complying offset for a second development in 2018, arguing for consistency with the previous decision.

Apart from politicisation and failure to protect the environment, this case reveals a significant legal issue. Under administrative law, a decision is invalid if it has regard to an “irrelevant consideration”. An offset in one development in 2015 is surely irrelevant to an offset in another development in 2018.

Read more: Environment laws have failed to tackle the extinction emergency. Here’s the proof

Offsets aside, the Auditor-General higlighted key risks such as high volumes of unapproved land clearing for agriculture, and non-compliance in residential and mining developments. The department had proposed actions to address the issues, but made no progress on them.

And the report found arrangements to monitor whether approval conditions had been met before work started on a project were inadequate, which “leaves the department poorly positioned to prevent adverse environmental outcomes”.

At the end of the day, the federal department doesn’t have the tools to distinguish whether an environmental effect is the result of its own regulations, or other factors such as state programs or extreme weather. Essentially, it doesn’t know if the Act is delivering any environmental benefits at all.

How did this happen?

The EPBC Act itself remains a powerful instrument. Certainly changes are needed, but the more significant problems lie in the processes that should support it: plans and policies, information systems and resourcing.

As I wrote last month, between 2013 and 2019 the federal environment department’s budget was cut by an estimated 39.7%.

And while effective administration of the Act requires good information, this can be hard to come by. For example the much-needed National Plan for Environmental Information, established in 2010, was never properly resourced and later abolished.

Read more: Our nature laws are being overhauled. Here are 7 things we must fix

Officials are constrained here. The audit scope does not extend to the government decisions shaping departmental performance. And the department loyally refrains from complaining that government decisions leave it few options.

So while the audit office and the department might believe extensive government cuts are the underlying problem, neither can say so. I’m not excusing the department’s poor performance, but it must manage with what it’s given. When faced with critical audit findings, it can only pledge to “reprioritise” resources.

A national conversation

There is a small saving grace here. Hehir says the department asked that his report be timed to inform Professor Graeme Samuel’s 10-year review of the EPBC Act. Hehir timed it perfectly – Samuel’s draft report is due by tomorrow. Let’s hope it recommends comprehensive action, and that the final report in October follows through.

Beyond Samuel’s review, we need a national conversation on how to fix laws protecting our environment and heritage. The destruction of the Juukan rock shelters, unlawful logging of Victorian forests and the Auditor-General’s report are incontrovertible evidence the laws are failing.

I don’t believe we can lock nature up. But we must look after the things that enable nature to provide not just life, but quality of life. This includes a stable climate, our Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage and the resilience that comes from nature’s richness and diversity.

– ref. Let there be no doubt: blame for our failing environment laws lies squarely at the feet of government – https://theconversation.com/let-there-be-no-doubt-blame-for-our-failing-environment-laws-lies-squarely-at-the-feet-of-government-141482

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University

Education minister Dan Tehan will be meeting with university vice-chancellors to devise a new way of funding university research. They will have plenty to talk about.

Australia’s universities have been remarkably successful in building their research output. But there are cracks in the funding foundations of that success, which are being exposed by the revenue shock of COVID-19 and the minister’s reforms announced this month, which would pay for new student places with money currently spent on research.

I estimate the gap in funding that needs to be filled to maintain our current research output at around $4.7 billion.

The funding foundations crumble

The timing of Dan Tehan’s higher education reform package could not have been worse for the university research sector.

The vulnerability created by universities’ reliance on international students has been brutally revealed this year. Travel bans prevent international students arriving in Australia and the COVID-19 recession undermines their capacity to pay tuition fees.

Read more: Australian universities could lose $19 billion in the next 3 years. Our economy will suffer with them

Profits from domestic and international students are the only way universities can finance research on the current scale, with more than A$12 billion spent in 2018.

Based on a Deloitte Access Economics analysis of teaching costs, universities make a surplus of about A$1.3 billion on domestic students. Universities use much of this surplus to fund research.

Tehan’s reform package seeks to align the total teaching funding rates for each Commonwealth supported student – the combined tuition subsidy and student contribution – with the teaching and scholarship costs identified in the Deloitte analysis.

On 2018 enrolment numbers, revenue losses for universities for Commonwealth supported students would total around $750 million with this realignment. With only teaching costs funded, universities will have little or no surplus from their teaching to spend on research.

Read more: The government is making ‘job-ready’ degrees cheaper for students – but cutting funding to the same courses

International student profits are larger than domestic – at around $4 billion. Much of this money is spent on research too, and much of this is at risk. The recession will also reduce how much industry partners and philanthropists can contribute to university research.

Australia’s Chief Scientist estimates 7,700 research jobs are at risk from COVID-19 factors alone. Unless the Commonwealth intervenes with a new research funding policy, its recent announcements will trigger further significant research job losses.

Combined teaching and research academic jobs will decline

Although less research employment will be available, the additional domestic students financed by redirecting research funding will generate teaching work.

More students is a good thing in itself, as the COVID-19 recession will generate more demand for higher education.

But this reallocation between research and teaching will exacerbate a major structural problem in the academic labour market. Although most academics want teaching and research, or research-only roles, over the last 30 years Commonwealth teaching and research funding has separated.

After the latest Tehan reforms, funding for the two activities will be based on entirely different criteria and put on very different growth trajectories.

An academic employment model that assumes the same people teach and research was kept alive by funding surpluses on domestic, and especially international, students. With both these surpluses being hit hard, the funding logic is that a trend towards more specialised academic staff will have to accelerate.

We can expect academic morale to fall and industrial action to rise as university workforces resist this change.

Read more: More than 10,000 job losses, billions in lost revenue: coronavirus will hit Australia’s research capacity harder than the GFC

The funding squeeze will also undermine the current system of Commonwealth research funding. This funding is allocated in two main ways. In part, it comes from competitive project grant funding, largely from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.

Academic prestige is attached to winning these grants, but the money allocated does not cover the project’s costs. Typically, universities pay the salaries of the lead researchers and general costs, such as laboratories and libraries.

Universities are partly compensated for those expenses through research block grants, which are awarded based on previous academic performance, including in winning competitive grants. But because block grants do not cover all competitive project grant costs, the system has relied on discretionary revenue, much of it from students, to work. It will need a major rethink if teaching becomes much less profitable.

The stakes are high

University spending on research (which was over $12 billion in 2018), has nearly tripled since 2000 in real terms.

Direct government spending on research increased this century, but not by nearly enough to finance this huge expansion in outlays. In 2018, the Commonwealth government’s main research funding programs contributed A$3.7 billion.

An additional $600 million came from other Commonwealth sources such as government department contracts for specific pieces of research.

In addition to this Commonwealth money, universities received another $1.9 billion in earmarked research funding from state, territory and other (national) governments, donations, and industry.

These research-specific sources still leave billions of dollars in research spending without a clear source of finance. Universities have investment earnings, profits on commercial operations and other revenue sources they can invest in research.

But these cannot possibly cover the estimated $4.7 billion gap between research revenue and spending.

With lower profits on teaching, this gap cannot be filled. Research spending will have to be reduced by billions of dollars.

We are at a turning point in Australian higher education. The research gains of the last fifteen years are at risk of being reversed. The minister’s meeting with vice-chancellors has very high stakes.

– ref. Coronavirus and university reforms put at risk Australia’s research gains of the last 15 years – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-university-reforms-put-at-risk-australias-research-gains-of-the-last-15-years-141452

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phillip O’Neill, Director, Centre for Western Sydney, Western Sydney University

This is the first of three articles based on newly released research on the impacts of a lack of local jobs on the rapidly growing Western Sydney region.

Western Sydney has a jobs problem. No other big regional economy in Australia fails in providing jobs for its residents more than this one. At the last census the Western Sydney jobs deficit – local jobs minus local workers – was 222,000.

If the region’s average rate of jobs growth for this century continues, this deficit will grow to 325,000 by 2036, an increase of over 30%. In our newly released reports on Western Sydney, we estimate an outflow from the region of 562,000 commuters as a consequence. Over 300,000 people already leave the region each day for work.

Read more: If the people can’t get to their jobs, bring the jobs to the people

Young professionals will have a growing presence in this long-distance, grinding, daily flow of workers. It’s an urban planning nightmare.

Fifty years ago, Western Sydney was one of Australia’s major industrial regions. In 1971, a belt of four local government areas – stretching from Bankstown, through Fairfield and Parramatta to Blacktown – was home to 104,000 manufacturing workers, more than one-third of the local workforce. By 2016 the number of these workers had fallen by two-thirds to only 36,000, or 7.8% of local resident workers.

Yet, unlike many manufacturing regions across the developed world – where de-industrialisation has left deep pools of displaced workers – the region hasn’t ended up a rust belt. Western Sydney’s workforce has undergone a remarkable intergenerational reconstruction.

Education fuels rise of professional class

University education, in particular, is driving this. In 1971, only 3,900 degree-holders lived in the old industrial belt described above. By 2016, their number had surged to 198,000.

In the region as a whole, Western Sydney in 2016 was home to 353,000 adults with bachelor or higher degree qualifications. This was 20.7% of all people in the region aged 15 years plus, up from 10.7% in 2001. Clearly a transformative change in the region’s resident workers has been under way.

At the last census, 20% of Western Sydney’s employed residents were professionals, amounting to 203,000 workers. That’s more than any other occupational group in the region.

We can also see the transformation of the Western Sydney workforce through its take-up of jobs in what has become known as “knowledge-based business services”. This term covers three industry groups: professional, scientific and technical services; financial and insurance services; and information, media and telecommunications.

Here the emergence of the Western Sydney workforce as the real deal is undeniable. Our calculation is that, for 2018, Western Sydney was home to more knowledge-based business services workers (162,000) than Brisbane (159,000) – east-coast Australia’s wonder child – and significantly more than either Perth or Adelaide.

Such is the pace of upskilling in Western Sydney, the growth from 2013-2018 of residents holding jobs in knowledge-based business services outpaced the growth of these job holders in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth combined.

Indeed, our report finds an emerging divide in Australia’s metropolitan economies. Greater Sydney, including Western Sydney, and Greater Melbourne are hurtling ahead as advanced knowledge economies. The other metropolitan regions are lagging.

But 60% don’t work locally

A key question, then, is whether there are enough jobs in Western Sydney for this growing number of professional and knowledge workers? The answer, clearly, is no.

At the 2016 census only 40.4% of Western Sydney’s knowledge-based business services workers could find jobs in their home region. The remaining 59.6% are forced to commute to destinations beyond the region to ply their 21st-century trades.

Read more: Australian city workers’ average commute has blown out to 66 minutes a day. How does yours compare?

Western Sydney’s dependence on a population-growth economy has limited the growth of jobs for knowledge workers. The region’s strong jobs growth in recent years has come overwhelmingly from two sources.

Construction, especially residential construction, has generated a lot of jobs.

The other source of jobs is the industry sectors that have grown in direct proportion to population growth. These include health care and social assistance, education and training, retailing, and accommodation and food services. The region’s population growth has fuelled growth in these population-serving sectors.

Vulnerable in the downturn

Obviously, this jobs growth has been welcome and is important for the region’s day-to-day economy. The problem is that the Western Sydney economy has failed to produce significant job growth in other sectors. This has left the population-driven sectors, including construction, as the main source of growth.

In the construction sector, however, bust follows every boom. The sector entered a significant downturn in 2019.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession are likely to rein in Western Sydney’s record population growth rates. This will hit jobs in the population-serving sectors, including further job losses in construction.

So workforce transformation in Western Sydney is running ahead of the economic transformation needed to ensure a supply of suitable jobs in the region.

Western Sydney has grown to become something more than a suburban appendage to the Sydney metropolitan area. Yet its 1 million workers lack the diverse jobs base reasonably expected of a large advanced urban economy.

Little wonder Western Sydney’s reputation as a planning nightmare is growing.

The Centre for Western Sydney has released three reports on Western Sydney’s growing jobs deficit. You can read the reports here.

– ref. Jobs deficit drives army of daily commuters out of Western Sydney – https://theconversation.com/jobs-deficit-drives-army-of-daily-commuters-out-of-western-sydney-139384

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute

After managing the first stage of the COVID-19 crisis so effectively, the government now faces a bigger challenge: getting us back to work.

The official employment figures indicate the scale of what’s needed. In the past two months number of Australians with a job has fallen by 835,000. Millions more are in jobs kept on life support by JobKeeper.

Employed Australians, total

The Reserve Bank’s latest public forecast has the unemployment rate peaking at 10% and then falling to 6.5% (baseline scenario) or 5% (optimistic scenario) by mid-2022.

In Grattan Institute’s latest report, The Recovery Book, released this morning, we argue this isn’t ambitious enough.

The case for ambition

The bank and the government ought to aim for something better, closer to 4.5%.

This is the rate it has previously identified as “full employment”, the lowest Australia can sustainably achieve without stoking inflation.

It would mean bringing unemployment down 1.5 percentage points further than it might otherwise fall over the next two years – to somewhere between 4% and 5%.

Projected unemployment with and without extra fiscal stimulus

The bank has passed the baton

With the bank’s cash rate already cut to 0.25%, conventional monetary policy (cutting the cash rate) has run out of steam.

Unconventional policy will help.

The Reserve Bank is advancing cheap money to private banks for onlending to businesses, buying government bonds to keep the three year bond rate near 0.25%, and has pledged to keep the cash rate at 0.25% for the next three years.

The bank can and should do more, but the rest will have to be done by government spending and tax measures, so-called fiscal policy, of the kind that has already been proved effective in suppressing unemployment.

We’ll need $70 to $90 billion

We estimate that reducing unemployment by 1.5 percentage points by mid-2022 would require additional stimulus of A$70 billion to A$90 billion over the next two years, equivalent to between 3% and 4% of GDP.

This is on top of the more than $160 billion committed to JobKeeper and other coronavirus supports to date.

Here’s how we make the calculation.

First, to reduce unemployment by that much we estimate that real gross domestic product needs to grow by about 4 percentage points more than forecast over the next two years.

The estimate is based on previous work by economist Jeff Borland. Jeff kindly updated his calculation with us for this article, finding that each one percentage point increase in annual GDP growth reduces the unemployment rate by around 0.38 percentage points.

Read more: Why even the best case for jobs isn’t good. We’ll need more JobKeeper

Second, we assume each dollar of stimulus in a particular year increases GDP in that year by between 80 cents and one dollar (some of the rest is saved and some leaks overseas).

This estimate of “fiscal multiplier” is slightly higher than that used by treasury during the global financial crisis but is in line with recent academic work finding that stimulus measures are more effective when monetary policy is out of ammunition.

If the fiscal multiplier isn’t as high – or if the recovery is more sluggish than expected, more stimulus might be needed.

There’s little risk of overkill…

A few weeks ago Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe raised the possibility that the crisis had pushed the minimum sustainable rate of unemployment higher, from 4.5% to nearer 5%, on the face of it making a case for less ambition.

His concern was “scarring” – the risk that some of the people who lose their jobs will become so damaged they become unsuitable for future employment, meaning that employers looking for staff would rather bid up the wages of existing workers than employ them, fuelling inflation.

But, if anything, his concern is a powerful argument for spending more, and more quickly, in order to avoid scarring. There’s good evidence sustained high unemployment hurts the economy in the long term.

Read more: The charts that show coronavirus pushing up to a quarter of the workforce out of work

And if the extra spending did fuel inflation, it mightn’t be such a bad thing.

Inflation has been below the bank’s target for years. If it gets above it and becomes a problem, the bank can dampen it by raising rates.

…and little time to lose

The extra stimulus will need to be announced soon: on or well before the federal budget scheduled for October. Fiscal measures take time to have their biggest effect.

We are facing a “fiscal cliff” when measures including JobKeeper and the enhanced JobSeeker payment are withdrawn at the end of September. To escape it, they will need to be wound down more gradually, as the international Monetary Fund warned last week.

There are plenty of ways to maintain support including further cash payments to households, along the lines of those in the global financial crisis showed were effective in boosting spending, as well as spending on things such as social housing, roads and school maintenance.

Fear of debt needn’t hold us back

Extra stimulus will mean extra government debt. But the Australian government can now borrow for 10 years at a fixed interest rate below 1%. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a negative real interest rate, making debt more affordable than it has been in living memory.

There will naturally be concerns that further debt will place a burden on younger generations. But they are the generations that will be lumbered with the costs of worse than necessary unemployment, some of it very long term unemployment, unless we act.

In the worst case, they’ll ask why we didn’t do more.

Read more: No big bounce: 2020-21 economic survey points to a weak recovery getting weaker, amid declining living standards

– ref. Cutting unemployment will require an extra $70 to $90 billion in stimulus. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/cutting-unemployment-will-require-an-extra-70-to-90-billion-in-stimulus-heres-why-141376

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Plimmer, Senior lecturer in Human Resource Management, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Having had to rapidly adjust to working from home due to COVID-19, many people are now having to readjust to life back in the office. Many will have enjoyed aspects of what is sometimes called “distributed work”, but some may be dreading the return.

So is there a middle ground? Could hybrid work arrangements, known for boosting well-being and productivity, be a more common feature of workplaces in the future?

We say yes. Organisations need to recognise the valuable habits and skills employees have developed to work effectively from home during the lockdown. But they will need good strategies for easing the transition back into the physical workplace.

In doing so, they should aim for the best of both worlds — the flexibility of distributed work and the known benefits of the collaborative workplace.

Read more: The death of the open-plan office? Not quite, but a revolution is in the air

Good riddance to hot-desking

A good start would be a proper re-evaluation the two worst aspects of office life: crowded open-plan designs and so-called “hot-desking”.

Cramped shared offices and free-for-all hot-desking are both known for their negative impacts on quality of workplace life. The results are often interpersonal conflict, reduced productivity and higher rates of sickness.

Some organisations have already done away with hot-desking in an effort to improve physical and mental well-being. Acknowledging the evidence that tightly packed, cost-saving, open-plan office arrangements have not delivered what was promised should be another priority.

Hopefully, the impact of COVID-19 on business as usual will spell the end of these often poorly thought through management fads.

Working from home can be isolating

At the same time, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The office still has its advantages, and there is research showing that working from home has clear disadvantages for employees and organisations when it is offered as a permanent arrangement.

One study involved a large (anonymous) US Fortune 100 technology firm. It began as a traditional survey of what it was like for individuals to work from home, but evolved into a study of the effect of what happened to the company’s community when working from home was normalised.

Read more: The research on hot-desking and activity-based work isn’t so positive

The option of unrestricted distributed work meant employees simply stopped coming to work at the office. Many reported the well-known benefits of working from home, such as work-life balance and productivity.

They also reported a kind of “contagion effect”. As colleagues began to stay at home a tipping point arrived where fewer and fewer people opted to work in the office.

But this actually increased a sense of isolation among employees. It also meant the loss of opportunities to collaborate through informal or unplanned meetings. The chance to solve problems or be given challenging assignments were lost as well.

Those who participated in the study said social contact and productively interacting with colleagues was the main reason they wanted to come to work. Without it there was no real point. The research raises the possibility of a net loss in well-being if everyone were to work remotely.

Well-being and job satisfaction depend on a range of factors, including having clear goals, social contact and the structure of the traditional working day. Of course, jobs can also be toxic if there is too much structure. But fully distributed work may not provide the support, identity and community that offices provide for some.

Nor is technology always adequate when it comes to the subtle value of face-to-face catch ups. Five minute water-cooler talks and post-meeting debriefs still matter for both productivity, social contact and cohesion.

Management has to adapt too

None of which is to suggest there are not identifiable advantages of distributed work and the flexible workplace. As many of us discovered during the lockdown, just avoiding the daily commute helped with lowering stress and better work-life balance. Choosing when we worked was attractive too.

But this requires better management skills. Distributed workers require different (often better) engagement strategies, including the ability to build mutual trust.

Read more: Working from home: what are your employer’s responsibilities, and what are yours?

Research into how best to manage the health and safety of distributed workers has found that some leaders simply can’t adapt to the digital environment. Trust, consideration and communicating a clear vision or sense of purpose matter more for distributed workers than for those in the traditional office.

Recognition, reward, development and advancement in a distributed working environment will all need special attention. So too will ways to deal with people not pulling their weight, maybe because of too much time on social media.

Even the simple benefits of spontaneous humour in meetings or informal team interactions are easily lost with “e-leadership”, so new ways of building and maintaining morale are vital.

This is not an either/or question. Rather, the challenge is to strike a new balance — how to retain the benefits of distributed work while maintaining the sense of community that comes from personal interaction in the office.

– ref. In praise of the office: let’s learn from COVID-19 and make the traditional workplace better – https://theconversation.com/in-praise-of-the-office-lets-learn-from-covid-19-and-make-the-traditional-workplace-better-138516

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The picture of economic recovery painted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison is looking like a mirage. The 22 leading economists polled by The Conversation from 16 universities in seven states on average expect historically weak economic growth in all but one of the next five years, with growth dwindling over time.

In June, Morrison promised to lift economic growth by “more than one percentage point above trend” through to 2025.

Growth one percentage point above trend would average almost 4% per year.

Instead, The Conversation’s economic panel is forecasting annual growth averaging 2.4% over the next four years, much less than the long-term trend, tailing off over time.

The results imply living standards 5% lower than the prime minister expects by 2025.

The panel expects unemployment to peak at around 10% and to still be above 7% by the end of 2021.

It expects wages to barely climb at all, by just 0.9% in 2020, the lowest increase on record and even less than the rate of inflation, which it expects to be only 1.2%. It expects the share market to sink further in the rest of this year before climbing a touch in 2021.

Non-mining business investment, on which much of Australia’s recovery depends, should bounce back only 3.3% in 2021 after slipping 9.5% in 2020.

Read more: The Reserve Bank thinks the recovery will look V-shaped. There are reasons to doubt it

The Conversation’s panel comprises macroeconomists, economic modellers, former Treasury, IMF, OECD, Reserve Bank and financial market economists, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.

Several admitted to much greater uncertainty than usual. One pulled out, saying “it’s really a mug’s game right now”.

One, who did take part, despaired that forecasting had been reduced to “guessing, in the context of an unprecedented event”.

Several cautioned that climate change, along with the prospect of new waves of coronavirus, makes five-year forecasts especially difficult.

Economic growth

All of the panel expect incomes and production to shrink in the June quarter (the one finishing now) after shrinking in the March quarter, meaning we will be in a recession (if there was any doubt).

Some are expecting a small growth bounce in the September quarter, although they warn that if JobKeeper and the coronavirus JobSeeker Supplement end as planned when September finishes, economic activity will turn down again in the December quarter, creating what panellist (and former Labor politician) Craig Emerson describes as a “W-shaped economic trajectory”.

Panellist Julie Toth cautions there is “no magic V ahead”. Without government action on adaptation to climate change, productivity, industrial relations, inequality and other matters, the best that can be hoped for is a partial recovery of some of the growth that has been lost.

In in 2021 the panel expects the economy to recover only half of what it lost in 2020. After peaking at 2.9% in 2023, economic growth will slip back to less than it was before the crisis.

The panel expects China’s economy to shrink 2.3% this year before bouncing back 4% in 2021. It expects the US economy to shrink 5.6% before recovering only 2.2%.

Steve Keen suggests that the underlying US performance will be even worse. It will have attained its measured performance by being prepared to live with adverse health consequences.

Tony Makin notes that China’s near-term economic growth is likely to be hampered by a move towards deglobalisation in countries wanting to make their supply of goods and health equipment less reliant on China.

Unemployment

The forecasts for the peak in the unemployment rate range from the present 7.1% to 12%, with most of the panel expecting the peak before the end of the year.

Julie Toth points out that even with no further job losses, “which seems unlikely”, measured unemployment will continue to rise for some time as people who have stopped looking for work start looking again and return to being counted as unemployed.

Saul Eslake says this participation rate makes forecasting the unemployment rate a “crapshoot”. The rate will depend largely on how many people choose to define themselves as looking for or non longer looking for work.

Living standards

The panel expects household incomes and spending to fall by about 4% over the course of the year.

The best measure of living standards, real net national disposable income per capita, should fall 4.5%.

Real wages, a key component of living standards, are expected to fall.

Never in the 23-year history of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ wage price index has annual wage growth been much below 2%. Until now the lowest annual growth rate has been 1.9%.

The panel is forecasting growth of just 0.9% throughout 2020, a mere half of the record low to date. The forecast calls into question the timing of the current legislated increases in compulsory superannuation contributions of 0.5% of salary per year for each of the next five years, scheduled to start next year and set to eat into wage growth.

Headline price inflation should be only 1.2%, and underlying (smoothed) inflation only 1%, but both would be more than wage growth, shrinking the buying power of wages.

Share market

The spectacular recovery in the Australian share market (up 29% since late March after sliding 36% since late February) is not expected to continue this year.

The panel expects the ASX 200 to end the year down 8% before climbing 2.3% in 2021.

But the forecasts for 2021 fan out over a wide range, from a fall of 10% to a rise of 10%.

Housing

Sydney and Melbourne house prices are expected to reverse their gains of 5% and 3% in the first half of the year to close about where they started (Sydney) and down 1.3% (Melbourne).

New home building is expected to plunge a further 10% in 2020 after sliding 10% in 2019.

On balance it is not expected to improve at all in 2021, although again the range of forecasts is wide, from a recovery of 10% (Renée Fry-McKibbin) to a further decline of 10% (Stephen Hail).

Business

Mining investment is expected to continue to recover in 2020 and 2021 after huge falls between 2014 and 2019 brought about by the collapse of the infrastructure boom and the completion of several large liquefied natural gas projects.

Non-mining business investment is expected to fall 9.5% throughout 2020 before inching back 3.3% in 2021.

The Australian dollar is forecast to end the year near its present 69 US cents.

After initially diving to a low of 59 US cents as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, it and other currencies climbed against the US dollar from late March as the US response to the crisis faltered.

The price of iron ore has climbed from late March to a high of US$103 per tonne, well above the US$55 assumed in last year’s budget papers.

The panel is expecting most of those gains to be kept, forecasting US$97 by the end of the year, enough to provide one of the few welcome pieces of news for framers of the October budget.

Again, the range of forecasts is wide, from US$64 a tonne (Stephen Anthony) to US$110 (Margaret McKenzie).

Government finances

After ending 2018-19 almost in balance, the budget deficit is expected to blow out to between A$130 billion and A$150 billion in 2019-20, weighed down by about the same amount of stimulus payments.

The forecasts for 2020-21 and 2021-22 are centred around $150 billion and $100 billion respectively.

It’s a hard outcome to pick, in part because it depends on both the needs of the economy and government decisions about how to respond to them. In a report issued on Monday the Grattan Institute called for the government to spend an extra $70 billion over two years.

Forecasts for the 2021-22 budget outcome range from a deficit of $400 billion (Rod Tyers) to a deficit of just $10 billion (Renée Fry-McKibbin).

It’ll be easy to finance. The panel is forecasting a ten-year borrowing cost (bond rate) of just 1.4% per year, and it doesn’t expect it to climb that high until late 2021.

At the moment it’s 0.9%.

The Reserve Bank has committed itself to buy as many bonds as are needed to keep it low. The three major rating agencies have reaffirmed Australia’s AAA credit rating.

A survey of firsts

The 2020-21 survey is the first in 30 years not to ask for forecasts of the Reserve Bank cash rate, and the first since it has been published by The Conversation not to ask for the probability of a recession.

The Reserve Bank’s decision to push the cash rate as low as it conceivably could and leave it there for three years removed the need for the first. Australia’s descent into recession removed the need for the second.

The forecaster who proved to be the most farsighted on the recession was Steve Keen, who assigned a 75% probability to a recession in January at a time when Australia was dealing with bushfires and preparing to deal with coronavirus.

Other forecasters to assign a high probability to a recession (50%) were Julie Toth, Steven Hail, Warren Hogan and Richard Holden.

The Conversation 2020-21 Forecasting Panel

Click on economist to see full profile.

– ref. No big bounce: 2020-21 economic survey points to a weak recovery getting weaker, amid declining living standards – https://theconversation.com/no-big-bounce-2020-21-economic-survey-points-to-a-weak-recovery-getting-weaker-amid-declining-living-standards-141184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Volodymyr Bilotkach, Associate Professor, Singapore Institute of Technology

Qantas’ announcement this week of severe job cuts comes as little surprise. The COVID-19 pandemic and closed borders have brought the global aviation industry to its knees.

According to global travel data provider OAG (formerly the Official Airline Guide), this week airlines worldwide scheduled about 63% fewer flights to the week a year ago. In Australia, there were about 78% fewer flights.

Qantas’ decision to shed about 6,000 of its 29,000 workers (a further 15,000 have been stood down without pay) is part of its plan to reduce costs by A$15 billion over three years of anticipated “lower activity”.

It would be years before international flying returned to what it was, said Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce:

We have to position ourselves for several years where revenue will be much lower, and that means becoming a smaller airline in the short term.

About 100 of the airline’s 130 jets will be grounded for at least a year – some probably longer.

Qantas is far from alone. Airlines all around the world are furloughing or laying off workers, along with retiring aircraft ahead of schedule, grounding large planes such as A-380s and postponing new aircraft orders.

The latest US Department of Transportation data, for example, shows the number of US airline jobs fell 5% in April (representing more than 36,000 lost jobs) compared to March. May figures (yet to be published) will definitely be worse. There’s talk of a “tsunami” of airline job losses in Europe.

Read more: Once the pandemic is over, we will return to a very different airline industry

Past crises

The aviation industry has not faced a crisis like this since the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service took off in 1914.

Since 2000, however, it has suffered lesser blows.

The first was the grounding of fleets following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coupled with recession in the US and Europe. Then came the SARS outbreak in China from 2002 to 2004. Then the recession caused by the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

Read more: Grounded aircraft could make weather forecasts less reliable

Airlines shed jobs in all these crises. In the US, the number of airline jobs only returned to pre-2008 levels in 2016; and to pre-2001 levels in 2019.

But the slowness of that jobs recovery is mostly attributable to airlines deploying new technology, such as automated check-in and baggage handling.

This may be less of an issue in the next decade, with there being evidence most airlines have exhausted most of their capacity to replace people with machines. For example, employment in the US airline industry the five years to 2020 increased at a faster rate than the demand for air travel.

Recovery within five years

Nonetheless the general consensus among industry experts is that recovery this time around will not be quick. Qantas, for example, only expects to operating 75% of its pre-pandemic international flights by 2023.

Read more: Plane cabins are havens for germs. Here’s how they can clean up their act

My own view is a bit more optimistic. I expect recovery to 2019 levels by the end of 2022, assuming the virus “behaves itself”.

However, most experts believe the industry will return to its pre-pandemic growth path within about five years.

In 2019 global passenger numbers grew by 4.1% (to more than 4.5 billion). At that rate, passenger numbers would double in 18 years. The impact of COVID-19 means it may now take to 25 years to get to 9 billion passengers. But the aviation sector’s long-term prospects remain robust.

So if your dream is to work in the aviation sector, don’t give up.

I expect the jobs recovery in the aviation business to more closely match the recovery in demand for air travel than the experience of the previous crises mentioned, when jobs growth lagged well behind passenger demand.

– ref. Qantas cutbacks signal hard years before airlines recover – https://theconversation.com/qantas-cutbacks-signal-hard-years-before-airlines-recover-141522

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Mullins, Adjunct assistant professor, Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, University of Canberra

One grey morning in October 1970, in a crowded, tizzy-pink courtroom on the corner of Melbourne’s Russell and La Trobe Streets, crown prosecutor Leonard Flanagan began denouncing a novel in terms that were strident and ringing.

“When taken as a whole, it is lewd,” he declared. “As to a large part of it, it is absolutely disgusting both in the sexual and other sense; and the content of the book as a whole offends against the ordinary standards of the average person in the community today – the ordinary, average person’s standard of decency.”

The object of Flanagan’s ire that day was the Penguin Books Australia edition of Portnoy’s Complaint. Frank, funny, and profane, Philip Roth’s novel — about a young man torn between the duties of his Jewish heritage and the autonomy of his sexual desires — had been a sensation the world over when it was published in February 1969.

Greeted with sweeping critical acclaim, it was advertised as “the funniest novel ever written about sex” and called “the autobiography of America” in the Village Voice. In the United States, it sold more than 400,000 copies in hardcover in a single year — more, even, than Mario Puzo’s The Godfather — and in the United Kingdom it was published to equal fervour and acclaim.

But in Australia, Portnoy’s Complaint had been banned.

Read more: Philip Roth was the best post-war American writer, no ifs or buts

Banned books

Politicians, bureaucrats, police, and judges had for years worked to keep Australia free of the moral contamination of impure literature. Under a system of censorship that pre-dated federation, works that might damage the morals of the Australian public were banned, seized, and burned. Bookstores were raided. Publishers were policed and fined. Writers had been charged, fined and even jailed.

Seminal novels and political tracts from overseas had been kept out of the country. Where objectionable works emerged from Australian writers, they were rooted out like weeds. Under the censorship system, Boccacio’s Decameron had been banned. Nabokov’s Lolita had been banned. Joyce’s Ulysses had been banned. Even James Bond had been banned.

There had been opposition to this censorship for years, though it had become especially notable in the past decade. Criticism of the bans on J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Norman Lindsay’s Redheap had prompted an almost complete revision of the banned list in 1958.

The repeated prosecutions of the Oz magazine team in 1963 and 1964 had attracted enormous attention and controversy.

Outcry over the bans on Mary McCarthy’s The Group and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover had been loud and pronounced, and three intrepid Sydney activists had exposed the federal government to ridicule when they published a domestic edition of The Trial of Lady Chatterley, an edited transcript of the failed court proceedings against Penguin Books UK for the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Britain in 1960.

Read more: Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism

Penguin goes to battle

Penguin Books Australia had been prompted to join the fight against censorship by the three idealistic and ambitious men at its helm: managing director John Michie, finance director Peter Froelich, and editor John Hooker.

In five years, the three men had overhauled the publisher, improving its distribution machinery and logistics and reinvigorating its publishing list. They believed Penguin could shape Australian life and culture by publishing interesting and vibrant books by Australian authors.

They wanted Penguin’s books to engage with the political and cultural shifts that the country was undergoing, to expose old canards, question the orthodox, and pose alternatives.

Censorship was no small topic in all this. Those at Penguin saw censorship as an inhibition on these ambitions. “We’d had issues with it before, in minor ways,” Peter Froelich recalled, “and we’d have drinks we’d say, ‘It’s wrong! How can we fix it? What can we do? How do we bring it to people’s attention, so that it can be changed?’”

The answer emerged when they heard of the ban placed on Portnoy’s Complaint. Justifiably famous, a bestseller the world over, of well-discussed literary merit, it stood out immediately as a work with which to challenge the censorship system, just as its British parent company had a decade earlier.

Why not obtain the rights to an Australian edition, print it in secret, and publish it in one fell swoop? As Hooker — who had the idea — put it to Michie, “Jack, we ought to really publish Portnoy’s Complaint and give them one in the eye”.

The risks were considerable. There was sure to be a backlash from police and politicians. Criminal charges against Penguin and its three leaders were almost certain. Financial losses thanks to seized stock and fines would be considerable. The legal fees incurred in fighting charges would be enormous. Booksellers who stocked the book would also be put on trial. But Penguin was determined.

John Michie was resolute. “John offered to smash the whole thing down,” Hooker said, later. When he was told what was about to happen, federal minister for customs Don Chipp swore that Michie would pay: “I’ll see you in jail for this.” But Michie was not to be dissuaded.

A stampede

In July 1970, Penguin arranged to have three copies of Portnoy smuggled into Australia. In considerable secrecy, they used them to print 75,000 copies in Sydney and shipped them to wholesalers and bookstores around the country. It was an operation carried out with a precision that Hooker later likened to the German invasion of Poland.

The book was unveiled on August 31 1970. Michie held a press conference in his Mont Albert home, saying Portnoy’s Complaint was a masterpiece and should be available to read in Australia. Neither he nor Penguin were afraid of the prosecutions: “We are prepared to take the matter to the High Court.”

The next morning, as the trucks bearing copies began to arrive, bookstores everywhere were rushed. At one Melbourne bookstore, the assistant manager was knocked down and trampled by a crowd eager to buy the book and support Penguin. “It was a stampede,” he said later. A bookstore manager in Sydney was amazed when the 500 copies his store took sold out in two-and-a-half hours.

All too soon, it was sold out. And with politicians making loud promises of retribution, the police descended.

Bookstores were raided. Unsold copies were seized. Court summons were delivered to Penguin, to Michie, and to booksellers the whole country over. A long list of court trials over the publication of Portnoy’s Complaint and its sale were in the offing.

A stellar line-up

So the trial that opened on the grey morning of October 19 1970, in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, was only the first in what promised to be a long battle.

Neither Michie nor his colleagues were daunted. They had prepared a defence based around literary merit and the good that might come from reading the book. They had retained expert lawyers and marshalled the cream of Australia’s literary and academic elite to come to their aid.

Patrick White would appear as a witness for the defence. So too would academic John McLaren, The Age newspaper editor Graham Perkin, the critic A.A. Phillips, the historian Manning Clark, the poet Vincent Buckley, and many more. They were unconcerned by Flanagan’s furious denunciations, by his shudders of disgust, and by his caustic indictments of Penguin and its leaders.

They were confident in their cause. As one telegram to Michie said:

ALL BEST WISHES FOR A RESOUNDING VICTORY FOR LITERATURE AND LIBERTY.

This is an edited extract from Trials of Portnoy by Patrick Mullins, published by Scribe.

– ref. Trials of Portnoy: when Penguin fought for literature and liberty – https://theconversation.com/trials-of-portnoy-when-penguin-fought-for-literature-and-liberty-141525

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kcasey McLoughlin, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Newcastle

As debate rages about sexual harassment in the legal profession, a key outstanding question is reforming the way judges are appointed.

Underscoring the response to these allegations has been the acknowledgement the legal system – created by and for men – has excluded women through its formal and informal structures.

Read more: Dyson Heydon finding may spark a #MeToo moment for the legal profession

One important and long overdue change is boosting the diversity of the judges, who sit at the top of the profession.

‘Pale, stale and male’

To borrow a phrase used by former chief justice of Western Australia, Wayne Martin, Australia’s judiciary is overwhelmingly “pale, stale and male”.

Although it stands to reason the judiciary will not necessarily be representative in terms of age (given the importance of experience), no such justification can made in regard to other key characteristics.

Women’s historic formal exclusion from the profession has been well documented.

Women have since entered the law in significant numbers, and it was assumed they would then begin to occupy positions of power and authority within the profession.

This has not been borne out by the statistics.

Women today comprise 62% of Australian law graduates, 52% of NSW solicitors, and 23% of NSW barristers. The number of barristers is significant, as judges tend to be chosen from leaders at the bar.

Indeed, only 36% of Commonwealth judges are women. The proportion of women judges and magistrates is between 31 and 37% across at the state level, with the ACT (54%), Victoria (42%) and Tasmania (24%) as outliers.

How are judges appointed?

Australia’s judges are appointed by state and federal governments. Particularly at the federal level, this is an opaque system that lacks transparency and genuine political accountability.

When it comes to High Court appointments, there is no formal application process, no formal system for the checking of references, and no requirement that candidates undertake interviews.

In practice, the appointment is made by the government of the day, with the attorney-general presenting a nominee to Cabinet, which then recommends the appointment to the governor-general.

The government is therefore largely unrestrained in making their appointments beyond a requirement they consult with state attorneys-general and the appointee meets the minimum qualifications of admission as a legal practitioner.

Certainly, there is nothing that legally compels those making judicial appointments to consider diversity.

Reluctance to implement formal reforms

Pressure to reform judicial appointment practices is not new.

There have been previous calls to improve not just diversity but also transparency and accountability.

Importantly, these criticisms have very rarely been personal (about the suitability of individual appointees). But about the potential for political or other concerns to influence the process.

Read more: 72% of Australians have been sexually harassed. The system we have to fix this problem is set up to fail

In fact, some of these debates came to the fore in 2003, with the Howard government’s appointment of Dyson Heydon to the High Court.

The appointment raised concerns about what his appointment meant for the diversity of the bench, because he was replacing the first and, at that time, only woman member of the High Court, Mary Gaudron.

The lack of publicly available selection criteria speaks to the breadth of this discretion.

The ‘merit’ myth

Another issue here is the insistence these appointments are made solely on the basis of “merit” – as though this imprecise concept, which has the potential to reproduce informal networks of power and privilege, is an adequate substitute for clearly articulated selection criteria.

As Australian National University professor Kim Rubenstein noted in response to Heydon’s appointment:

when male politicians gaze at the available gene pool of potential High Court appointees, they only see reflections of themselves, and what they understand as depictions of merit.

Of course, what counts as meritorious is the eye of the beholder. It is notable that former prime minister, John Howard stands by his appointed of Heydon, observing this week he was an “excellent judge of the High Court of Australia”.

Previous reforms have not been enough, or stuck

In 2007, then attorney-general Robert McClelland instituted a number of reforms to the Federal Court judicial appointment process, during the early days of the Rudd government.

These included the introduction of publicly available selection criteria for appointments and the requirement that vacancies be advertised, as well as the use of advisory panels to make recommendations.

But these reforms (which did not extend to the High Court in any case) were abandoned in 2013, when the Coalition came to power.

Why the life experience of judges matters

Inevitably, questions have been raised about how Chief Justice Susan Kiefel’s gender shaped her response and leadership regarding the High Court inquiry into sexual harassment.

Would a male chief justice have responded in the same way?

Read more: Australia urgently needs an independent body to hold powerful judges to account

Of course, we may never know the answer to this, but her apology to the young women in question and her words “their accounts … have been believed” are powerful and important and will form an important part of her legacy.

This week, former Family Court chief justice Diana Bryant told the ABC “this kind of behaviour isn’t new” and said she had been sexually harassed by a former High Court judge as a young lawyer.

During that interview, she also described the changes she made once she had the power to do so on the Family Court – making clear that associates are not the personal employees of the judges they work with.

What next?

Addressing the lack of accountability and transparency in making these appointments is an obvious area of reform. We need to make selection criteria public and clear to create the political accountability that is currently lacking.

But more must also be done to explicitly value diversity in judicial appointments.

Some relatively straightforward changes could include, involving women’s lawyer groups in judicial appointments, as well as quotas.

In the context of High Court appointments, Rubenstein has argued that any given point in time, the High Court should be comprised of at least 40% of either gender.

Of course, diversity is not a synonym for “women”, although their exclusion is especially visible. Moving away from “state, male and pale” has the important potential to address the law’s homogeneity on other fronts, including race.

Any changes must be formalised

Importantly, any reforms which reflect this commitment to judicial diversity across must be formalised.

Formalising them would safeguard any gains so that they are not at the whim of the politics of the day.

Who our are judges are matters. It always has.

This moment of reckoning should be a catalyst for change in finally demanding long overdue reforms to the process by which these important appointments are made.

– ref. No selection criteria, no transparency. Australia must reform the way it appoints judges – https://theconversation.com/no-selection-criteria-no-transparency-australia-must-reform-the-way-it-appoints-judges-141446

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Criena Fitzgerald, Honorary Research Fellow, Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education, University of Western Australia

We’ve been reminded about avoiding hugging or kissing, especially among large family groups, in light of the recent Melbourne coronavirus clusters.

But alerting the public to the potential for kissing to spread infectious diseases isn’t new. It’s been a feature of past pandemics, including the scourge of tuberculosis (or TB) in Australia a century ago.

Read more: This isn’t the first global pandemic, and it won’t be the last. Here’s what we’ve learned from 4 others throughout history

In the first half of the 20th century, people with TB were advised to stop kissing to protect their friends and family from contracting the dreaded disease.

In 1905, delegates at an International Congress on Tuberculosis in Paris described kissing as “dangerous, detrimental and responsible for countless diseases”.

A minority of overly enthusiastic public health physicians suggested banning kissing altogether.

In Western Australia in 1948 an article in the Tuberculosis Association pamphlet warned “Kissing can be Dangerous: Doctors and Married Men are agreed on this”.

Showing bodily restraint was one of the few weapons against TB before the antibiotic streptomycin and other drugs became widely available after the end of the second world war and into the 1950s.

Other measures, with which we are familiar today, included sanitation and social distancing.

Laws and by-laws prohibiting spitting in public were introduced. Publicans had to provide spittoons for customers to prevent the spread of the disease. And people with TB had to spit into a jar, which they carried with them, or a tissue (known as Japanese paper), which they burnt after each use.

“Consumptives” (people with TB) were advised to cover their mouth when coughing or sneezing and not to speak near other people’s faces.

They were cautioned against drinking alcohol because even mild inebriation could make them careless in their behaviour and a danger to friends and family.

The message was clear. TB was a disease of the individual and any reckless or insanitary behaviour could infect others.

Extra cleanliness at home was encouraged. Regular dusting with a damp cloth kept surfaces clean and safe. Housewives were instructed to dampen the floor with wet tea leaves to prevent infected dust from contaminating the air and endangering family members.

An infected person used separate plates, cups and utensils that were boiled to sterilise them.

They separated themselves from their family, sleeping outside in an airy shelter or on the verandah or sleep-out.

If a person died from the disease, public health officials burnt their clothing and bedding. Their books were possible sources of contamination and had to be aired in sunlight to kill any remaining germs.

Contact tracing and mass testing

Public health officials conducted contact tracing to identify people carrying or having been exposed to TB.

People gave a sputum (spit) sample, which was then sent for analysis. They were warned to isolate themselves until the results were known.

Having a chest x-ray became compulsory for all Western Australians aged 14 years and over from 1950. The population was x-rayed at special clinics set up in every city or by mobile x-ray vans that went to every country town. Other states had different policies. By the early 1960s, x-rays were compulsory around Australia.

Only those who had had their x-ray and complied with public health requirements were deemed “safe”. If they didn’t comply they were called a public health menace and a danger to society.

Anyone refusing to be x-rayed could be sent to jail, where they were x-rayed.

Isolation housed the sick, often for years

If people weren’t at home convalescing, they were sent to specially built isolation hospitals, known as sanatoria, to be treated with rest and fresh air. Sanatoria were regarded as a last resort because until 1947, and the advent of antibiotics, there was no cure for the disease.

In Western Australia from 1904 people went to the Coolgardie Sanatorium and from 1914 to Wooroloo Sanatorium, where they slept in the open air to disperse infection.

Incarceration in the sanatorium might last years or even a lifetime. Patients were unable to have close contact with visitors or see their children, except from a distance. Their incarceration was intended to protect the public from infection.

In the 1950s, special chest hospitals were built in cities offering a more modern approach to the disease, although sanatoria remained open. Patients could still spend more than a year in hospital even after a cure became available.

By 1958, as the TB pandemic waned and was eradicated, chest hospitals began to treat patients with other diseases.

What can we learn?

COVID-19 and tuberculosis are both branded as public enemies, wreaking havoc on the fabric of society and destroying lives. But unlike COVID-19, TB is caused by a bacterium, can be treated with antibiotics, and we have a vaccine against it.

Still, the World Health Organisation reported 1.5 million people worldwide died from TB in 2018.

Until we have a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19, social distancing, good hand hygiene, contact tracing, testing and self-isolation are among our chief weapons during this latest pandemic. And yes, kissing can still be dangerous.

– ref. ‘Kissing can be dangerous’: how old advice for TB seems strangely familiar today – https://theconversation.com/kissing-can-be-dangerous-how-old-advice-for-tb-seems-strangely-familiar-today-140172

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

The Australian Bureau of Statistics this week released a provisional tally of the changes in Australia’s overall death rate amid the coronavirus epidemic.

The figures record 33,066 doctor-certified deaths in Australia from January 1 to March 31, 2020 – compared with an average of 32,249 during the corresponding months during the years 2015-19.

What’s more, the final week of March 2020 featured the highest weekly death rate of the entire three-month period, with 2,649 recorded deaths. That week also featured the highest numbers of deaths from respiratory diseases, diabetes and dementia.

Australia has had 103 known COVID-19-related deaths, with 21 reported before the end of March. The ABS death counts for respiratory diseases do not include these known cases, but might include COVID-19 deaths that were not recognised or confirmed as such at the time.

Overall, there were more than 800 “excess deaths” in the first quarter of 2020, compared with the average of the previous five years. The 103 confirmed COVID-19 deaths represent just a small fraction of these deaths. But my analysis shows that even in the early days of the pandemic, there are some signs that the impact of COVID-19 on Australia’s death rate may be bigger than the official tally suggests.

Read more: The calculus of death shows the COVID lock-down is clearly worth the cost

Death data allow us to monitor death rates by age, gender, location and cause, and to assess how death rates are changing over time. “Excess deaths” – those that exceed the long-term average – are particularly important to understand, not least during a pandemic but also because they could be due to preventable causes.

The coronavirus death toll has become a feature of media coverage during the COVID-19 outbreak. Unlike in many other countries, the epidemic has stayed within the capacity of Australia’s health system, so we might reasonably expect all COVID-19-related deaths to have been counted accurately.

However, analysis of sewage and swab samples in Europe suggest SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) may have been responsible for infections as early as December, before the world became aware of the emerging crisis in Wuhan.

Given the uncertainty about when the coronavirus actually entered Australia, it is possible Australia had COVID-19 cases before official counts began. If so, they may have been recorded as a death from another cause in the death register, most likely as pneumonia.

A death can only be officially attributed to COVID-19 if that patient had been tested for the coronavirus. Australia had a limited supply of test kits initially, and the rules for testing were strict in the early days, mainly focused on returned travellers and their immediate contacts. Testing rules did include hospitalised patients with community-acquired pneumonia, but this recommendation may not always have been followed.

What do the new data show?

The newly released ABS data are raw counts that only include deaths which occurred in January-March and were registered by the end of April. On average, 98% of deaths are reported to the ABS by the end of the following month.

The data compare the weekly death rates against the five-year average death counts for those same weeks from 2015 to 2019. There has been some population growth over this time, which in itself might lead to a rise in expected deaths, but is not yet factored in here. These counts only relate to the deaths that a doctor has certified (in home or hospital), but this is likely to include most deaths directly associated with COVID-19 patients, diagnosed or not.

The 33,066 recorded deaths in the first three months of 2020 is well above the five-year average of 32,249. But overall, the 2020 deaths follow a similar pattern to previous years, with the count rising as we enter the cooler months.

We do expect death counts to increase with population growth and population ageing. These changes will not be particularly pronounced from year to year in Australia, but certainly could account for the small rise in overall deaths seen in these three months. There are no obvious differences between states, but the smaller population in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory actually show slight declines.

Australia reported its first COVID-19 death on March 1, and has 103 confirmed COVID-19 deaths so far – a small proportion of the total number of deaths. Can we learn more by breaking down the new data?

Delve deeper into the data

One possible way to spot significant changes is to focus on groups known to be at most risk of dying from COVID-19.

First, let’s consider age at death. Older people are most vulnerable to COVID-19, but also have the highest death rates in normal circumstances too.

Differences from week to week are subtle, but we do see a slight trend by the end of January for the 2020 count to exceed the average. This could simply represent other factors contributing to the slight increase in all deaths, but will be worth watching over subsequent weeks.

Focusing just on those 65 and older in the ABS data, we see once again that 2020 counts are generally higher than average for all weeks for both males and females. Male deaths spiked in the final week of march, which is interesting as males represent 65% of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Australia.

These are preliminary numbers, but there is no clear evidence of COVID-19 deaths in Australia before March 1, or before the first known incursion of SARS-CoV-2 into Australia. However, this might be obscured by the “noise” of looking at deaths from all causes at the same time.

It is therefore worth taking a closer look at deaths attributed to respiratory causes (the ABS states that these counts do not include the confirmed 103 COVID-19 deaths). The ABS data split the total respiratory deaths into two categories: chronic conditions such as asthma, and acute infections like influenza and pneumonia. It’s in this latter category (shown in the lowermost set of lines on the graph below) where any excess, uncounted deaths due to COVID-19 should be evident.

So far this year there have been 43 excess deaths due to influenza and pneumonia, relative to the average, and the ABS notes that most of these are pneumonia deaths. The excess deaths were mainly in the final two weeks of March, with the preceding weekly fluctuations largely cancelling each other out. This compares with 21 COVID-19 deaths reported by March 21, and 48 total by the end of the first week of April (ABS data are recorded by date of death; COVID-19 counts by the day publicly reported).

Some of these extra deaths may indeed be due to factors such as population growth, but it does open up the possibility of unaccounted COVID-19 deaths in the early days of the epidemic in Australia that might match, or exceed, those confirmed cases we know about.

Read more: Has Australia really avoided 14,000 coronavirus deaths?

The issue of undetected COVID-19 deaths is not the only important question. Has the deferral of elective surgeries affected the death rate? Has there been a death toll associated with people being discouraged from visiting clinics or hospitals for other illnesses? Have the stresses of lockdown and financial uncertainty led to a rise in domestic violence or suicide?

We don’t know the answers yet. But hopefully the forthcoming ABS data will reveal the answers as 2020 continues to unfold.

– ref. Have there been uncounted coronavirus deaths in Australia? We can’t say for sure, but the latest ABS data holds clues – https://theconversation.com/have-there-been-uncounted-coronavirus-deaths-in-australia-we-cant-say-for-sure-but-the-latest-abs-data-holds-clues-141363

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter M Graham, Associate Professor – Architectural Performance, Monash University

The federal government’s new HomeBuilder scheme offers eligible Australians money to renovate or build a home. While it’s attracted controversy, HomeBuilder does offer a much-needed opportunity to make old homes more energy-efficient.

Research released in March showed the energy performance of housing must improve by an average 44-48% in the next decade for Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This means building new homes above today’s energy standards and upgrading existing homes.

Australian houses built before 2004 weren’t required to meet national energy efficiency standards. In fact, many older homes average just 1.8 stars in energy efficiency, which means they need more than three times as much energy to heat and cool compared to today’s six-star standard.

Bringing forward their upgrade to incorporate better energy performance would help Australia’s COVID-19 economic stimulus, and save occupants money on energy bills.

Potential win-win

The HomeBuilder initiative will provide a grant of A$25,000 to eligible property owners, with an income of no more than A$125,000 per year (or A$200,000 for a couple). And they’re required to spend at least A$150,000 on renovations. It’s touted as a way to protect construction jobs and help stimulate the post-coronavirus economy, but should be expanded to reach a greater proportion of home-owners and renters.

Energy-efficient home improvements include:

• draught-proofing doors and windows
• switching to LED lighting
• upgrading to solar hot water heaters
• insulating ceilings, floors and walls
• replacing windows with double glazing
• creating temperature zones so you don’t have to heat or cool the whole house
• adding shading to windows and orienting living areas to the north, to take advantage of winter sun.

A new report from the Global Building Performance Network shows how large-scale building renovation programs can boost energy efficiency, and create jobs and long-term cost savings.

Read more: Australia has failed miserably on energy efficiency – and government figures hide the truth

It found that globally, each US$1 million invested in energy-efficient buildings globally creates an average 14 years of net employment. And improving thermal comfort in homes can benefit heart and lung health, and productivity.

Drawing from international examples, here are six policies Australian governments should adopt to deliver both economic impact and emissions savings over the long term.

1. Set renovation targets

Australian governments should commit to annual renovation targets to meet energy efficiency goals at a local, state and national level.

Australia can learn from the European Union’s energy efficient directive, introduced in 2012.

The directive includes increasing the rate of public building renovations to 3% a year to improve energy efficiency. It’s coupled with a long-term strategy to mobilise investment to renovate existing residential and commercial buildings. This has helped the EU stay on track to reach its 20% energy efficiency target this year.

Analysts estimate EU initiatives to renovate buildings provided the opportunity to lift the EU’s gross domestic product by up to 2.3% between 2012-2020.

2. Upgrade local precincts

Australia can deliver “net zero makeovers” to multiple buildings in particular precincts, cutting emissions at scale. It could follow the lead of the Netherlands’s Energiesprong (or “Energy Leap” in English) program.

Energiesprong homes are designed to pay for themselves over 30 years. Innovative construction techniques, such as prefabricated facades, mean the work takes as little as a week and residents don’t have to move out during the process.

The program is now being implemented in the UK, Italy, France, Germany, California and New York State.

3. Make home energy ratings and labelling clear

In Australia, home energy ratings are not mandatory. Without them, many Australians probably know more about the energy efficiency ratings of their refrigerators than their homes.

The recently released King Review recommended Australia develop an energy performance rating scheme for new and existing residential buildings.

This is what’s happening in places such as the EU, China and some US states. Buildings certified under the US “Energy Star” label use 50% less energy than typical buildings.

Read more: Homes with higher energy ratings sell for more. Here’s how Australian owners could cash in

4. Enforce energy efficiency standards for renovation

One easy win available to governments is to ensure compliance with existing energy efficiency requirements.

By applying the energy efficiency provisions of the national building code to renovations, the Beijing municipal government substantially reduced emissions from existing buildings.

Australia’s National Construction Code, which sets out building regulations for new buildings, also requires major renovations to comply with its energy efficiency rules. But it’s poorly enforced.

Governments must urgently clarifying and enforce the code’s energy efficiency requirements for renovations.

5. Introduce standards for rental properties

In the rental market, landlords and tenants have “split incentives”: tenants pay the energy bills, but landlords make investment decisions. This means investments to improve energy efficiency in rental housing aren’t often made.

It also means many private renters are paying high energy bills and face health risks from heat and cold.

In some countries, such as France, rental properties must meet reasonable energy efficiency standards, which overcomes this problem. State governments in Australia should implement provisions like this.

6. Offer financial incentives

Local, state or national governments can provide direct financial incentives or tax incentives to create low-energy homes.

In Australia, states already offer financial incentives for energy efficiency, but tax incentives would require federal support.

In Germany, a grant scheme for energy efficient renovations and new housing created 253,000 jobs according to one measure. It also created a net benefit to public finances of about €10 billion in 2011.

Looking ahead

The COVID-19 impact on Australia’s construction industry is likely to last years.

But by adopting these six policies, Australian governments can deliver healthier, lower-energy housing, and bring us closer to meeting our climate targets.

Read more: HomeBuilder might be the most-complex least-equitable construction jobs program ever devised

– ref. Renovation rescue: 6 ways to ensure HomeBuilder helps consumers, the climate and the economy – https://theconversation.com/renovation-rescue-6-ways-to-ensure-homebuilder-helps-consumers-the-climate-and-the-economy-140939

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Alexander, Associate Professor, Network analysis, Procurement,Supply Chains, Curtin University

Australia Post delivered more than 3.3 billion items last financial year. That’s almost 14 million deliveries a day (not counting weekends and public holidays).

Its 2019 annual report itemises the massive logistical network required: 15,037 street post boxes, 4,343 post offices, 461 sorting and distribution facilities, 4,845 delivery vans, 2,600 trucks, six airline freighters, rail assets, and 8,992 motorbikes and electric delivery vehicles.

Letters and parcels move in “waves” to 12.1 million addresses daily. Federally legislated service standards oblige Australia Post to deliver a letter within the country in no more than four days at a fixed rate (currently A$1.10). And to do so every week day to 98% of all delivery points.

Or at least Australia Post did so until late April. That’s when the federal government granted a temporary suspension of the services standards, allowing it to deliver letters every second business day in metropolitan areas.

The rationale was to enable Australia Post to divert resources from letter delivery – the part of its business in decline for at least a decade – to the booming demand for parcel delivery driven by COVID-19.

Read more: COVID-19 has changed the future of retail: there’s plenty more automation in store

In May, with support from the Senate crossbench, the government passed amendments extending the suspension to June 2021.

That move is not universally supported. Unions fear postal workers will lose jobs. Federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese has signalled Labor Party support for a Senate motion to overturn the changes.

These cuts are to jobs, these cuts are to services that are absolutely essential […] In particular, older Australians really rely upon their postal services.

It’s true Australia Post provides an indispensable service. But its revenues tell a story of people relying on postal services less and less.

Lost letters

The decline of the letter business over the past decade has been relentless.

In 2009 Australia Post made a profit before interest and income tax of A$384.5 million. Of this its letter business generated A$52 million. Parcels and logistics made A$187 million. Other business (such as agency services and merchandise) made about A$146 million.

In 2019 its net profit was down to a razor-thin A$41 million. Profit before interest and tax for its non-letters businesses was almost A$259 million. Its letters business lost almost A$192 million.

Australia Post can still make profits delivering letters in major cities and regional centres, where population density is high and distances short. But not in in rural areas, where per-delivery costs skyrocket. Its commercial competitors, meanwhile, can cherry-pick the most lucrative market segments and avoid the loss-making ones.

Parsing parcels

Australia Post has long yearned to be freed from its obligation to deliver letters daily. In 2015 then chief executive Ahmed Fahour declared letter posting “in terminal and structural decline” and that Australia Post “is a parcels company more than a letters company”.

In March, current chief executive Christine Holgate told a Senate estimates committee:

Our most significant challenge is managing the tipping point of that transformation from letters for our delivery network, which is about 70% of our costs, which is actually now in need really of a significant transformation.

The cost of delivering a $1.10 letter is not much less than a $10 parcel. It makes no commercial sense to utilise resources on loss-making activities at the expense of profitable ones.

Read more: Delivery workers are now essential. They deserve the rights of other employees

But Australia Post is not just another corporation. Profits are not its only measure of success. It is owned by the nation. Its services are essential, particularly to rural communities.

At this time, a strong case can be made it is a better social service to ensure timely parcel delivery.

In the longer term, the issue for policy makers is whether the social good is best served by keeping Australia Post to its historical obligations, or allowing it to meet burgeoning parcel demand and return a bigger dividend to the federal government to help fund other public services.

Read more: Australia Post can’t turn back. Here’s why

While opinions will vary, the numbers make a compelling case. They show a mail delivery system designed before the advent of the internet doesn’t need to be daily any more – just as the telephone last century helped end the importance of mail being delivered twice a day.

– ref. You’ve got (less) mail: COVID-19 hands Australia Post a golden opportunity to end daily letter delivery – https://theconversation.com/youve-got-less-mail-covid-19-hands-australia-post-a-golden-opportunity-to-end-daily-letter-delivery-140848

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mojtaba Mahmoodian, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, RMIT University

Urban infrastructure – bridges, roads, railways, pipelines, power transmission towers and so on – must be inspected regularly to operate safely. Imagine if we used advanced technologies available to us, such as wireless sensors, mobile apps and machine learning, to remotely inspect and maintain this infrastructure. This could eliminate the need for regular daily inspections, save time and money for engineers and asset owners, and reduce the risks of working on job sites.

Everyone has experience of working with smart devices such as mobile phones and iPads. Using these technologies to perform technical and engineering work is a game changer. We have been developing “digital twins” – 3D-visualisation of in-service infrastructure – to monitor infrastructure performance under various service conditions and make intelligent maintenance decisions.

The digital model is the twin of the real infrastructure. Wireless sensors on the structure transfer performance data to our computer. We can see the performance of the infrastructure in real time online.

Read more: What’s critical about critical infrastructure?

This is extremely useful for engineers who need to regularly monitor the performance of infrastructure. They make critical maintenance decisions about which structural elements need to be repaired or replaced, and when this must be done, to ensure the infrastructure is safe.

How are digital twins created?

Digital twins are essentially a digital replica or a virtual model of a process, product or service. The concept of creating digital twins is still relatively new for civil and infrastructure engineers.

In the Netherlands, digital twins are being developed for operation at the Port of Rotterdam. A team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is working on a digital model of an operating crane.

To develop digital twins for intelligent infrastructure maintenance we must integrate a variety of disciplines. These include 3D visualisation, wireless technology, structural engineering and Internet of Things. The output is a digital model of the physical infrastructure, which can be seen on a PC, tablet or mobile phone.

Read more: As cities grow, the Internet of Things can help us get on top of the waste crisis

Looking at their smart device at home or in the office, an engineer can observe all deformations, deflections, cracks or even stresses due to various loads (such as traffic or wind). The intelligent digital twin model can also suggest appropriate maintenance decisions.

Cost benefits add up to billions

We have more than 7,000 bridges in Victoria alone that need regular inspection. Add all the pipelines, highways, railways and so on, and that’s a huge maintenance program.

Trillions of dollars are spent each year on inspecting, monitoring and maintaining infrastructure around the world. The non-profit Volcker Alliance recently warned repair costs of deferred maintenance of the United States’ ageing infrastructure could exceed US$1 trillion, or 5% of the country’s gross domestic product. For local roads across Australia, maintenance and renewal costs between 2010 and 2024 total an estimated A$45 billion.

Digitalising the way we look after our infrastructure can make the process more accurate and less costly in the long term than traditional labour-intensive practices. Using a digital twin is expected to produce cost savings of 20-30%. Given the huge costs of monitoring infrastructure – in the US, bridge inspections alone cost US$1.35 billion a year – the potential savings are huge.

There are also several indirect benefits for the nation.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of reducing crowds in public places. Considering the huge workload on transport infrastructure like highways, buses and rail, any concept that can reduce daily travel is important. Digitalising infrastructure management and maintenance can help by reducing the need for inspectors and technicians to travel to projects.

Reduced travel, by reducing emissions, benefits public health and the environment.

Read more: Smart tech systems cut congestion for a fraction of what new roads cost

What is being done in Australia?

In Australia, researchers from the School of Engineering at RMIT are developing digital twins for use in intelligent maintenance of almost all infrastructure across the nation.

Our current focus is on bridge and port infrastructure. However, soon we’ll be able to use the developed models for railways, water and wastewater pipelines, LNG, oil and gas pipelines, offshore platforms, wind turbines and power transmission towers.

RMIT researchers have also developed a cloud-hosted asset management platform, Central Asset Management System (CAMS). It uses discrete condition ratings given to components of infrastructure through inspections. We can use these ratings to develop predictive models to aid proactive planning and decision-making on civil infrastructure.

The system is being used commercially for property assets. Many public-private partnership clients are using the system for life-cycle modelling of buildings.

Read more: Explainer: what is BIM and is it the future of construction?

Proofs of concept have been completed for bridges, drainage and local council infrastructure. Funded research is in progress for road pavements and rail.

We are working on integrating live monitoring of infrastructure to progress the platform towards creation of digital twins. The system is available for trial by any interested infrastructure owners who wish to contact us.

This work represents a significant step in developing smart cities. It will help create a safer and healthier community.

– ref. ‘Digital twins’ can help monitor infrastructure and save us billions – https://theconversation.com/digital-twins-can-help-monitor-infrastructure-and-save-us-billions-138607

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Beck, Lecturer in Biology, University of Salford

Wombats are among the most peculiar of animals. They look like a massively overgrown guinea pig with a boofy head, a waddling gait, squared-off butt, backwards-facing pouch and ever-growing molars.

Indeed, wombats are oddballs and don’t look much like their nearest living relatives, the koala. But koalas and wombats (collectively known as “vombatiformes”) are the last survivors of a once far more diverse group of marsupials whose fossil history stretches back for at least 25 million years.

Working out how this diverse group fizzled out to just wombats and koalas has taken centuries of extraordinary discoveries in the fossil record. We are announcing one of these today in our research published in Scientific Reports.

Mukupirna nambensis is one of the oldest discovered Australian marsupials. Its unveiling has deepened our understanding of the relationships and evolutionary history of one of the strangest groups that once ruled this continent.

Read more: Aboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years

Acupuncturing the earth

In 1973 at Lake Pinpa – a small dry salt lake in South Australia – a multi-institutional expedition led by palaeontologist Dick Tedford from the American Museum of Natural History discovered a host of extinct animals.

A combination of drought and strong winds had blown the sand off the surface of the lake bed, revealing the remains of animals that died after getting stuck in mud 25 million years ago.

One of the discoveries was a skull and partial skeleton of a large, distinctive wombat-like animal that was clearly new to science – Mukupirna.

Its fossils were found by pushing a metal rod into the clay at intervals across the lake surface, a bit like acupuncturing the skin of Mother Earth. If the rod struck something hard, the team excavated down to find what was commonly the fossilised skeleton of an otherwise unseen animal.

Once uncovered, they were encased in plaster shells for transport back to the Museum of Natural History, where they were subjected to years of careful preparation. Although Mukupirna was discovered this way in 1973, it’s only now we can formally announce this discovery to the world.

A mammoth find

One of the most remarkable things about this marsupial is its large size, which we estimate was between 143-171kg, more than four times larger than any living wombat.

Its size inspired the scientific name Mukupirna, from the words muku, meaning “bones” and pirna, meaning “big”, in the Malyangapa and Dieri languages of Aboriginal people from central Australia.

We worked out the earliest vombatiform marsupials probably weighed about 5kg or less (about the size of a modern koala). That said, body weights of about 100kg, such as that of Mukupirna, then evolved independently at least six times in different branches of the family tree.

The biggest of these would be Diprotodon at about three tonnes, the world’s largest marsupial.

Behaviour up to scratch

Mukupirna‘s forearms were powerfully muscled and its hands may have worked like shovels, an attribute shared with modern wombats. Also like wombats, it was probably a good scratch-digger. But unlike today’s wombats, it probably couldn’t burrow.

Although Mukupirna was clearly herbivorous, unlike wombats its cheek teeth were low-crowned with well-developed roots. This indicates it couldn’t have survived on abrasive plant materials such as grasses, which today’s wombats consume without problems.

Pollens in the fossil deposit indicate that, unlike today, there were no grasslands in this area of central Australia back then. Instead, it was dominated by scrubby rainforest that was also home to possums, koalas and galloping kangaroos.

But alongside them were much stranger, more primitive animals that have left no living descendants. These included Ilaria, which was a bit like a gigantic koala, Ektopodon, an arboreal marsupial with teeth like a cheese-grater and Wakaleo, a leopard-sized marsupial lion with some of the most ferocious butchering teeth ever evolved by a mammal.

These forests were also punctuated by huge inland lakes that were home to lungfish, turtles, crocodiles, flamingos, ducks, stone curlews and even freshwater dolphins.

Read more: A new species of marsupial lion tells us about Australia’s past

A lost land

By comparing different features of Mukupirna’s teeth and skeleton, we discovered it to be the closest known relative of modern wombats. Yet, it was as different from wombats as wombats are from koalas, which is why it has been placed in a new family of its own: the Mukupirnidae.

Formal recognition of Mukupirna fills yet another fascinating gap in our knowledge of the weird and wonderful evolutionary history of mammals on this continent.

Sadly, it’s likely all mukupirnids vanished when a shift in global climate triggered an environmental change from scrubby rainforests 25 million years ago, to far lusher and more biodiverse rainforests 23 million years ago.

This would have resulted in more intense greenhouse conditions and an environment presumably not suited to mukupirnids.

Hopefully this rings a warning bell about the state of Earth’s climate now. If we can’t slow the global heating we’ve triggered, how many more of Australia’s uniquely endemic living creatures will soon join Mukupirna in the increasingly crowded abyss of extinction?

– ref. Meet the giant wombat relative that scratched out a living in Australia 25 million years ago – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-giant-wombat-relative-that-scratched-out-a-living-in-australia-25-million-years-ago-141296

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Chapple, Director, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

We all remember the lockdown, but not all our memories are the same. Some say they miss the tranquillity. Others don’t miss being stuck at home at all – especially those with young children. Some found new ways of working. Others just lost work.

New Zealand’s lockdown was ranked as one of the strictest in the world, and we wanted to find out how people felt about it. So we ran a “life under lockdown” survey in the third week of alert level 4 to examine general well-being, family resilience and employment.

We also asked people an optional question: Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your experiences of lockdown, positive or negative?

Of the 2002 people surveyed, 894 (45%) gave a usable response. In survey terms, this was a surprisingly good result, and provided a rich historical record of the thoughts of many ordinary New Zealanders during lockdown.

Time and quality of life

Overall, there were more positive responses (43%) than negative (35%), with 23% neutral or mixed. We mapped the most commonly used significant words, as shown in the word cloud above and the graphs below – and “time” was the most frequently used word, often in relation to family.

It’s been a good way to focus on what’s important in my life. Personally for me it’s been a good time […] to connect with my two year old and enjoy having time with my husband and parents. On the flip side it’s highlighted what I’ve missed due to working.

For some lockdown was a chance for growth; for others, like these three people, it was a novelty:

Have enjoyed the time off to renew myself.

I’ve enjoyed a holiday from work as I have never had longer than a week off. Could never afford it.

Home life has not posed any stress in our bubble during lockdown, we have found many things to keep busy and are enjoying our time together.

Others, such as these four, expressed mixed or negative emotions:

I quite enjoy working from home (warm, comfortable, quiet) but I am lucky that I can work from home. It does get lonely though but I manage it.

Lots of productive time wasted.

Very bored a lot of the time.

It sux big time.

Read more: Coronavirus: an architect on how the pandemic could change our homes forever

Work and worry

As expected, employment and money worries came up often. Many people, like these individuals, reported losing jobs or general concern about income:

I’m just worried/depressed that I won’t have a job and be able to help out my family with finances. That’s what’s making me feel worthless because I got laid off. It’s not fair that I’m the youngest and I can’t help out.

The most distressing and stressful thing has been dealing with my job and disputes re hours and pay. It has basically been the whole cause of my angst during lockdown.

Zero income in house. Frustration applying for support on internet. We give up. WINZ [Work and Income NZ] suck. Really suck. It feels like their working life based on trying to find a reason to decline supporting people has left them as the worst place for the public to need to go to for support.

I cry all the time. I’m worried about money and the long term effects of this situation on our household and our finances. I am hanging on by a thread.

Separation and grief

And for some it was the hardest time of all:

I felt really bad not being able to take flowers to the cemetery on the anniversary of my husband’s death.

Very sad because I can’t visit my kids’ grandkids or elderly mother plus a close friend who’s dying of cancer. All are about five hours’ drive away. I get upset at times and cry a lot.

My husband passed away […] I need my kids and family here, but they live out of town, it’s going to be a while and that’s so, so sad.

Read more: New Zealand’s pandemic budget is all about saving and creating jobs. Now the hard work begins

Family, home and school

Not surprisingly, “family” and “home” (and related terms) were mentioned a lot. While the majority of family references were positive, for some – like these two – lockdown was a challenge, if not the last straw:

After lockdown my partner and I will separate!!! Being in lockdown emphasised the difficulties with our relationship. Nonetheless I think that the lockdown was important and necessary and that it saved many NZ lives.

Men that are home on full pay while wife works thinking, yeah it’s holiday time, sleep when they want, do bugger all round home to catch up, drink when should be doing chores that needed doing, not considering […] oh I should cook, give partner that’s working a break – plain annoying.

Many reported struggling with children and home schooling while working from home:

Definitely finding it hard to help three kids, all at different levels, complete their school work, especially with a toddler running around.

It’s so difficult trying to manage schooling for the kids while also making time to work from home. Very stressful.

Bubbles and zombies

And finally, some people just wanted to get things off their chests:

Stop using that bloody word “bubble”. God I hate that word to describe home. Hang whoever decided to use it.

This is the closest I’m ever going to get to a zombie apocalypse, and it’s all just so boring. This is not at all what I was expecting.

Zombies or not, people were more positive than we’d expected. Their answers tell us about human resilience, humour, hardship and tragedy. While everyone’s lockdown was unique, we also shared many experiences. We want to thank everyone who shared theirs with us.

– ref. Time, family, work – and bored zombies. New Zealanders open up about life in coronavirus lockdown – https://theconversation.com/time-family-work-and-bored-zombies-new-zealanders-open-up-about-life-in-coronavirus-lockdown-140237

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer Sport Management, Western Sydney University

In the early hours of the morning, we learned Australia and New Zealand won their historic joint bid to host the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup.

It’s the first time two nations from different football confederations (Asia and Oceania) will co-host a World Cup. And it’s an especially sweet victory for Australia after its expensive failed bid for the 2022 men’s World Cup, which resulted in just one vote. No doubt the smile on Matildas star Sam Kerr’s face extends from ear to ear.

In an increasingly fractious world, the symbolism of Australia and New Zealand’s “As One” bid collaboration ought not be dismissed. Both countries have experience with this kind of partnership, having successfully co-hosted the 2015 Cricket World Cup and 2017 Rugby League World Cup.

But as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage globally and Australia wrestles with recession, it’s worth asking: do we really want this win from a financial perspective?

Brazil certainly had similar concerns, which is why it pulled out of the running just weeks ago.

Whether it’s a good investment in an economic downturn requires weighing the benefits against the costs. And while some benefits are evident – the World Cup will no doubt be a huge boost for women’s football in both countries, as well as women’s sport overall – there are significant questions about the expected revenues and long-term economic benefit.

Weighing the costs vs benefits

Football Federation Australia (FFA) remains confident the World Cup will be a money-maker.

In fact, the FFA forecasts a A$460 million social and economic benefit from hosting the tournament. It’s expected serious money will flow through the economy – everything from tourist revenue and ticket sales to infrastructure investment. Major cities won’t be the only beneficiaries; regional centres like Launceston and Dunedin are also expected to host games, to considerable economic benefit.

The FIFA bid evaluation report estimated the cost of running the tournament would be about A$150 million, with just over A$100 million of that coming from governments.

So, if the FFA’s forecast of economic and social benefits is roughly accurate – and projected costs don’t blow out – net benefits could well exceed A$200 million.

Read more: Australia wants to host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Equal pay for the Matildas will help our chances

Such an outcome is not without precedent. Canada enjoyed a stunning net economic gain of C$493.6 million (A$525 million) from hosting the 2015 Women’s World Cup, much of it coming from spending by tourists.

FIFA agreed with the commercial potential of an Australia-New Zealand bid, saying in its bid evaluation report:

The high organising costs projected for the Australia/New Zealand bid are significantly offset by substantial government contributions. … Strong revenue projections, driven by significant local attendance figures and sponsorship income at national support level, have also helped to place the bid in a strong financial position.

Overestimating the financial benefits?

Replicating Canada’s success, however, is far from assured, perhaps more so now than ever. The pandemic has made planning for major events much more difficult – just ask the Tokyo Olympic organisers.

For starters, if federal and state governments don’t engage in new infrastructure investment for the tournament, or do so by diverting money that would have been spent elsewhere in the economy, the immediate economic stimulus is likely to be negligible.

And governments might not be in the mood to spend on these projects when the COVID-19 recovery is plunging their budgets into deficits.

The planned A$810 million redevelopment of Sydney’s ANZ Stadium (otherwise known as Stadium Australia), which is expected to host the World Cup final, now appears unlikely due to the crisis. Perhaps this is justifiable, given the overstated economic benefits of stadium investments.

Read more: Five reasons why your city won’t want to host the Olympic Games

On top of this, revenue from international tourism is an extremely uncertain proposition. FFA and Football New Zealand have projected they can sell about 1.5m tickets for the World Cup.

But this projection was presumably made before coronavirus. While pandemic fears may have evaporated by 2023, it remains a big question whether international tourists will want to travel overseas again so soon, or be able to afford to.

Then there are the growing diplomatic tensions with China, which may further curtail tourist dollars.

Even if these issues can be resolved, the tourism benefits for host countries of World Cups have been shown to be temporary at best.

Unfortunately, Australia and New Zealand will not share in potential revenue from TV broadcast rights and sponsorships. These benefits go almost exclusively to FIFA – this is the “non-profit” organisation’s main source of income.

How women’s sport could benefit

Despite all this, hosting the Women’s World Cup would certainly result in a massive celebration of women’s sport in both countries.

While difficult to quantify, the social benefits from large-scale sporting events should not be overlooked, particularly for women’s sport. An estimated 1 billion television viewers watched the 2019 World Cup in France, for instance, a jump from 750 million four years earlier. This trend is expected to continue.

Hosting a large sporting event can also lead to a “trickle-down effect” in grassroots sports participation in host countries. The FFA president believes the World Cup will “supercharge” women’s football in Australia and New Zealand, though such post-event participation boosts are not always easily realised.

Women’s professional sport has also been experiencing increased commercial and public interest in both countries. In Australia, a record-setting crowd of more than 86,000 fans watched the Australian women’s cricket team win the T20 Women’s World Cup earlier this year.

Weeks later, Australia also won the rights to host the FIBA 2022 Women’s Basketball World Cup.

Of course, there is still room for improvement on gender inequality in the game. Research shows it is a barrier to female participation. It was only last year, for example, that the Matildas achieved pay equity with the men’s team.

Read more: The gender pay gap for the FIFA World Cup is US$370 million. It’s time for equity

There are important gains to be made in gender equality off the pitch, too. Our research shows how entrenched sexism in Australian sports organisations continues to limit women’s sports management careers.

The sporting world clearly needs more women in public-facing and influential governance roles. The president of New Zealand Football, Johanna Woods, was the only woman leader among the World Cup bidding countries.

Gender equality was a major part of the Australia-NZ bid. Both countries pledged to use the World Cup to support their goals of achieving 40% female representation in football governance bodies.

In the end, this is where we are likely to see the biggest benefits from a World Cup – improving gender equality in sports, not a boost in household incomes or employment.

With the 2023 Women’s World Cup event happily secured, let’s start working toward this goal.

– ref. World Cup 2023 will be a massive boost for women’s sport – but does it make financial sense? – https://theconversation.com/world-cup-2023-will-be-a-massive-boost-for-womens-sport-but-does-it-make-financial-sense-140445

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Peacock, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

There’s no question COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our lives. As drug researchers, we are interested in how the pandemic has affected illicit drug use in Australia.

Our two new surveys of Australians who regularly use illicit drugs show people most commonly reported no change or a reduction in their use of various illicit drugs since COVID-19 restrictions came into effect.

While this may be perceived as a good thing, for people who regularly use drugs, a period of decreased use can heighten the risk of adverse effects, such as overdose, later on.

Read more: Drug use may increase the risk of coronavirus. Here’s how to reduce the harms

Tracking drug trends

Many experts, ourselves included, predicted significant shifts in drug trends as governments around the world introduced restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19.

Evidence from major environmental, economic, and other past crises suggests the COVID-19 pandemic may have substantial effects on:

1. drug use (for example, switching to different substances or being unable to obtain drugs)

2. drug procurement (for example, shifts to online purchasing and buying drugs in larger quantities)

3. drug markets (for example, changes in price, purity and availability of illicit drugs).

These changes may increase the risk of drug-related harms, such as withdrawal, drug dependence and overdose. This could be especially problematic given challenges in delivery of drug treatment and harm-reduction services during COVID-19.

We wanted to see if Australians who use illicit drugs had experienced these changes.

We conducted telephone interviews with 350 Australians who live in capital cities and regularly use ecstasy and other illicit stimulants.

We also conducted an online survey of 702 Australians who regularly used illicit drugs in 2019.

We recruited participants for both studies between April and June via social media.

Drug use

Overall, we found the use of most illicit substances had largely remained stable or decreased since March. People most commonly reported they were using drugs like MDMA, ketamine and LSD at a similar level or less than they were before the pandemic.

Conversely, at least two in five people across both studies reported they were using more cannabis than before COVID-19.

These findings are unsurprising given cannabis is mostly used in private homes, whereas drugs like MDMA are more commonly used in public settings such as nightclubs or festivals.

Drug procurement

Most participants across both studies continued to obtain drugs face-to-face. But about 10% reported they had reduced face-to-face collection of drugs, obtained drugs less frequently, and bought drugs in larger quantities since COVID-19 restrictions.

People also reported trying to reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 by washing their hands before handling drugs, and avoiding sharing equipment such as pipes, bongs, needles and syringes.

And about 10% of participants reported seeking information on how to reduce their risk of COVID-19 when using drugs.

These findings refute stigmatised views that people who use illicit drugs are reckless with their health.

Read more: Drug use can have social benefits, and acknowledging this could improve rehabilitation

Drug markets

Our participants largely perceived the illicit substances they sought were no less available since the start of restrictions.

The exception was MDMA pills; half of participants we interviewed by phone said they were “more difficult” to obtain.

These findings are surprising given illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are typically detected at the Australian border, and air travel has been restricted with COVID-19.

However, the effects of COVID-19 on price, purity and availability of drugs may take time to become apparent and will vary by substance.

Reduced drug use is not always a positive

Participants commonly said their reduced substance use was a result of limited opportunities to “go out” and socialise. So as restrictions start to ease, it seems likely people will again increase their use of substances like MDMA and cocaine.

Resuming substance use after a period of abstinence or reduced use can increase the risk of harms such as overdose due to reduced tolerance to the effects of the drug.

Harm-reduction strategies — like taking smaller doses, spreading out doses during a session and having a sober person present — can help reduce the risk of these outcomes if people start to use drugs again or use larger amounts.

Peer-based organisations and online resources offer information and advice on how to reduce risk when using drugs.

Read more: Parents of teens, here’s what you really need to know about MDMA

We need broader research

Our samples mainly comprised young, educated capital city dwellers recruited via social media. Very few of our participants reported drug dependence or were engaged in drug treatment.

We need research exploring how COVID-19 has affected those who report more problematic patterns of use, like people who regularly inject drugs.

This group may be disproportionately affected by COVID-19 given underlying health issues, poorer health literacy, stigma, and higher economic and social vulnerabilities.

In responding to the impacts of COVID-19 on drug use, we need to remember that evidence shows punitive responses to drug control increase social and economic costs. We believe our findings reinforce the importance of pursuing drug policies and research focused on health, human rights and harm reduction.

Read more: Women are drinking more during the pandemic, and it’s probably got a lot to do with their mental health

We wish to acknowledge our research participants and the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) for their contribution to these projects.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

– ref. Pot, pills and the pandemic: how coronavirus is changing the way we use drugs – https://theconversation.com/pot-pills-and-the-pandemic-how-coronavirus-is-changing-the-way-we-use-drugs-141269

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kyle J.D. Mulrooney, Lecturer in Criminology, Co-director of the Centre for Rural Criminology, University of New England

This month, the Victorian government announced on-the-spot fines for trespassers on farms following an upper house inquiry into how animal activism affects agriculture.

It’s the latest in a string of new state and federal laws designed to crack down on activists who trespass on farms – often to gather video evidence of alleged animal cruelty, which is later distributed to the public.

But amid the flurry of attention on activists, another group of trespassers on farms has largely escaped attention: illegal hunters.

Unauthorised access to farm properties can create many problems – not least, it runs the risk spreading disease such as African swine fever that can devastate farming industries.

It’s important that laws to tackle farm trespass are evidence-based. So let’s look at the evidence.

Media and political focus

Media coverage of activists trespassing on farms has appeared regularly in recent years.

Over several months in 2018-19, activists targeted the Gippy Goat farm and cafe in Victoria – in one incident stealing three goats and a lamb. News reports covered the protests, claims by farmers that the fines issued to the activists was inadequate, and the eventual closure of the farm to the public.

In another example last year, the front page of rural newspaper the Weekly Times featured a family exiting the farming industry after alleged trespass and threats from animal activists.

Read more: Not just activists, 9 out of 10 people are concerned about animal welfare in Australian farming

Activists did not escape the attention of politicians. Ahead of Victoria’s new legislation this month, federal parliament last year passed a bill criminalising the “incitement” of both trespass, and damage or theft of property, on agricultural land.

Speaking in support of the bill, Attorney-General Christian Porter said trespass onto agricultural land could contaminate food and breach biosecurity protocols. He specifically cited “activists” when describing how the laws would work.

The New South Wales government last year also introduced significant fines for trespass on farms in the Right to Farm Act. And in South Australia, the government wants those who trespass or disrupt farming activities to face tougher penalties.

But as lawmakers crack down on animal activists, the problem of trespass by illegal hunters gets little political attention.

The illegal hunting problem

Illegal hunting includes hunting without a required licence and accessing private property without permission.

In 2015 and 2016, this article’s co-author Alistair Harkness surveyed 56 Victoria farmers about their experiences and perceptions of farm crime. Farmers reported that in recent years, illegal hunters had caused them economic loss and emotional anguish by:

• damaging fences
• shooting at buildings, beehives and livestock
• stealing from sheds
• failing to extinguish campfires
• destroying fields with their vehicles.

A follow-up mail survey of 906 Victorian farmers in 2017 and 2018 asked them to rate the seriousness of a range of issues. Farmers reported the following issues as either serious or very serious: illegal shooting on farms (34.4%), animal activism (30.9%), and trespass (44.2%).

Read more: Animal activists v private landowners: what does the law say?

Lead author Kyle Mulrooney is conducting the NSW Farm Crime Survey 2020. The work is ongoing, but so far farmers have reported feeling victimised by trespassers generally, and fear about illegal hunters. Farmers were not specifically asked for their views on trespassing activists.

A submission to a NSW parliamentary inquiry last year underscored the distress felt by farmers when hunters trespass on their properties. Farmer John Payne recalled:

Recently we had a period over several nights, where unknown persons trespassed on our property and callously killed a substantial number of our goat kids, in one case trussing one up before killing them. All just for fun and sport! […] This is one of several events where people have trespassed and shot our animals for fun, or hunted for pigs or wildlife, with little fear of detection, arrest and prosecution.

Police follow the evidence

Figures supplied to us by NSW Police show in 2018, 513 incidents of criminal trespass on farms was recorded – up from 421 in 2014.

Giving evidence to the NSW parliamentary inquiry, Detective Inspector Cameron Whiteside, the State Rural Crime Coordinator, said illegal hunting was “the most cited factor associated with the trespass” on farms.

Police action appears to be following the evidence. In communication with the lead author, Whiteside has said enforcement and operations focused on illegal hunting and trespass are a primary and current focus of the Rural Crime Prevention Team.

Target all trespassers

As African swine fever sweeps Asia, Australian pork producers have been urged to ramp up biosecurity efforts on their own properties. This reportedly includes restricting visitor numbers and separating visitor and farm vehicles.

There are fears that if the disease hits Australia, it could could shut down Australia’s A$5.3 billion pork industry, leading to mass job losses.

Given these risks, it’s important that policies to crack down on farm trespassers are guided by evidence, and don’t unduly target a single group.

And importantly, more research into the issue is needed – including into the social and economic impacts of farm trespass, in all its forms.

Read more: It isn’t clear how the new bill against animal rights activists will protect farmers

– ref. Illegal hunters are a bigger problem on farms than animal activists – so why aren’t we talking about that? – https://theconversation.com/illegal-hunters-are-a-bigger-problem-on-farms-than-animal-activists-so-why-arent-we-talking-about-that-126513

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University

The future of jobs has been used to justify the major changes to university education announced last week. Fees for courses that, according to the government, lead to jobs with a great future will fall, while those with a poor future will rise.

But can the government predict the jobs of the future? And do proposed fee changes match those jobs that will grow?

Read more: The government is making ‘job-ready’ degrees cheaper for students – but cutting funding to the same courses

It’s hard to predict future jobs

In the research I have done on the future of work, several things are clear. The further you look ahead, the less useful the present is as a guide. This is especially the case in employment because, in a quickly changing world, technology is hard to predict and changing consumption patterns even harder.

As prices for products fall in the face of new technologies, and new products are invented, those future consumption patterns are crucial but unforeseeable. Otherwise, we would all be using beta video camcorders but not the cameras on mobile phones.

Still, there have been several attempts to look at the jobs of the future, including by European researchers, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, the CSIRO and the Australian government itself. There have been studies on future automation from Oxford university and the OECD.

From these we can tell some factors that will be important.

These include the ageing population and the increasing demands that will be put onto care workers. In the short to medium term, it is clear care work will be a major area of growth. But it is a lot harder to judge in the long term.

Artificial intelligence means it is no longer just routine jobs (remember typists?) that are threatened by new technology.

Information and communications technology (ICT) occupations may be strategically important but they need not provide lots of jobs. Computer programming may be done by other computers, for instance. Projected employment growth for ICT managers to 2024 (1.2%) is barely one sixth the average for all jobs (8.3%). Some jobs in ICT might end up quite insecure.

The type of skills (or competencies) that will likely be in demand appear to be those relating to creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, cooperation, resilience, communication, complex reasoning, social interaction and emotional intelligence.

They include empathy-related competencies such as compassion, tolerance, inter-cultural understanding, pro-social behaviour and social responsibility.

Read more: If the government listened to business leaders, they would encourage humanities education, not pull funds from it

Some of these are what universities preferred to call “critical thinking” skills – the sorts developed by generalist degrees like arts and commerce.

Choosing exactly the right field for a degree is less important, in terms of getting a job, than simply doing one. Reflecting the constant pressure of credentialism, employers will demand a more educated workforce (and continue to complain it is not “work ready”), regardless of universities’ or governments’ ability to anticipate the skill needs of the future.

Fee changes and future jobs

The government claimed higher personal incomes (“private returns”) from studying its preferred courses explained the different fees structure in its reforms. That’s how it justified raising fees for humanities, business and commerce courses while reducing fees for ICT, engineering and science.

But its own data actually showed there was no correlation between the two.

For example, by the logic of government policy, law and economics should have the fourth lowest student fees because their figures (see the chart above) show the expected private returns from law and economics courses are the fourth best. Yet the fees for law and economics under the proposed schema are equal worst (band 4, in the chart below).

The student fees for management and commerce, by their logic, should be right in the middle of the fee range as the returns are in the middle. Yet their fees are also equal highest.

And the government did not even use future-facing data to estimate private returns. It used census data from 2016 – on-average earnings in the census year. These did not account for the year a qualification was obtained.

That was a major gap, as returns tend to increase as time since graduation grows. These estimates made no use of the government’s own employment projections that suggested, for example, that employment for “industrial, mechanical and production engineers” would fall by 1.3%.

So it is hard to believe, even if the government thought it could predict the jobs of the future, that this is what motivated the changes to fees.

Read more: Humanities graduates earn more than those who study science and maths

After all, in many areas where student fees are cut, government contributions are also cut — by more. The resources to universities to provide the content of the future will be reduced. For instance, science and engineering courses will see a 17% reduction per student per year.

A more plausible explanation for the changes to university fees is that the marketable skills argument is just a cover for another agenda.

Critical thinking is a key skill for the future, but one can’t help but think it is not something the government wants encouraged.

– ref. Can government actually predict the jobs of the future? – https://theconversation.com/can-government-actually-predict-the-jobs-of-the-future-141275

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Draper, Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, University of Adelaide

For a short time Australia has an unrivalled opportunity to set itself apart from donors to the Pacific including China, Japan and the European Union.

As Victoria’s current COVID-19 spike shows, it will take Australia some time to open its borders to the world and allow residents to travel wherever they like.

But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t open its borders to some parts of the world sooner than others, especially those in which it has a special interest and in which the spread of coronavirus is slowing.

Australia and New Zealand have been talking about setting up a trans-Tasman “travel bubble” for some time.

It would allow quarantine-free travel between two geographically-isolated island nations that face little risk of outside infection.

Fiji has already expressed interest in joining, extending the bubble.

Read more: Why a trans-Tasman travel bubble makes a lot of sense for Australia and New Zealand

Throughout the South Pacific, youth unemployment averages over 23%. Tourism accounts for as much as half of gross domestic product and up to one in four jobs.

A bubble that extended beyond tourism to trade, education, and guest workers could help the Pacific (and holidaying Australians) in a way that the generous loans available from powers such as China could not.

Much of the architecture for a trade and tourism bubble is already in place.

The trade and investment agreement known as the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) Plus concluded in Brisbane on 20 April 2017.

Good for Australia, good for the region

The agreement encompasses Australia, New Zealand and nine Pacific island countries: the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It has been ratified by five of the members and will come into force when it is ratified by eight.

For the Pacific Islands, a “bubble” would provide a major boost to economic development and recovery from the crisis.

It could help relieve the social pressures that come from growing youth populations and attendant unemployment and minimise the danger of future political crises and associated need for Australian interventions and financial support.

The long-term importance of continued access to quality education, vocational and tertiary, for Pacific Islander youth is essential. Hard-pressed Australian Universities and vocational education suppliers would benefit too.

For Australia (and New Zealand) it could provide relief from isolation via travel to attractive destinations. Perhaps more importantly, it could help fill gaps in Australia’s skill set by supplying tradespeople and agricultural workers to meet genuine shortages.

It would also help maintain Australia’s business and investment interests in the Pacific. PACER Plus implementation would reinforce these gains. It will facilitate more investment and trade opportunities, in goods and services.

Read more: How might coronavirus change Australia’s ‘Pacific Step-up’?

Unfortunately, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have not yet signed PACER Plus, for various reasons.

It is unfortunate because trade and investment flows are their best long-term route to advancement. There are strong economic complementarities between Australia and Pacific nations, especially for Papua New Guinea.

A bubble, implemented when the health situation allows, would be supported by many Pacific islands nations and most likely their regional coordinating body, the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat.

Together with PACER Plus implementation, it would benefit Australia and benefit the region in a way that aid and infrastructure support from big powers can not.

Read more: Sun, sand and uncertainty: the promise and peril of a Pacific tourism bubble

– ref. COVID-19 provides a rare chance for Australia to set itself apart from other regional powers. It can create a Pacific ‘bubble’ – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-provides-a-rare-chance-for-australia-to-set-itself-apart-from-other-regional-powers-it-can-create-a-pacific-bubble-139276

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

In light of Victoria’s COVID-19 resurgence, and with school holidays imminent, it might seem likely premier Daniel Andrews would tighten social mobility restrictions and his New South Wales counterpart, Gladys Berejiklian, would close the border with Victoria.

Read more: Victoria’s coronavirus hotspots: not quite a second wave, but still cause for concern

But it’s unlikely either will. Here’s why.

Politicians have varying degrees of competence. We voters only learn about that over time, based on their track record. We draw inferences about their competence from their actions. Because of that, politicians are reticent to ever admit they were wrong.

Judging competence

Imagine, for simplicity, there are just two types of politician: competent and incompetent. The reality is more complicated, of course, but all useful models simplify reality. To paraphrase the celebrated British economist Joan Robinson, a map on a scale of 1:1 is no use at all.

Let’s assume both types have a chance of knowing the best policy course, though competent types are more likely to get it right.

All else being equal – factoring out policy positions, for example – voters would like to elect competent politicians.

In lieu of better information (or even with it), they draw inferences about competency from politicians’ public actions.

Consider a politician who is competent. Faced with a degree of uncertainty about the right course, they take a specific policy stance. Think of Andrews going for a harder lockdown in Victoria than other Australian states. Or Berejiklian insisting Queensland closing its border with New South Wales was a bad idea.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Border wars split political leaders and embroil health experts

Or think of a stark example of incompetence, such as US president George W. Bush’s 2003 decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Whatever one thinks of the decision – I consider it the then most significant US foreign policy mistake since Vietnam – the Bush administration believed it would bring democracy to the Middle East.

As Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney said in the days just before the US invasion began:

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

Then, as is wont to happen, new information arrives that casts doubt on the original decision. In the case of Iraq, it turned out Americans weren’t greeted as liberators, and toppling Saddam sparked a vicious and protracted civil war.

But did Bush reverse course?

He did not. A big part of the reason (along with neoconservative advisers like Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz being in his ear) was that to do so would be admitting he got it wrong.

Incentives to gamble

In the language of economics, this would have led voters to update their beliefs about the probability of Bush being competent.

This might sound blindingly obvious. But it is also a subtle point. Why wouldn’t voters, we might ask, reward a politician who says: “I messed up. I made the best decision with the information I had at the time. Now I have new information, and when I get new information I change my mind.”

But voters have limited information to figure out if a politician is competent. So while we know people do make mistakes, it’s also rational to consider a politician who admits to getting it wrong as less likely to be competent, because incompetent types are more likely to make mistakes.

Even when faced with new information, politicians thus have an incentive to “gamble” on the risky choice that vindicates their initial stance. By not changing course, they preserve their reputation with many voters as likely competent. In fact, “sticking to their guns” might even boost their appeal.

So it is that competent politicians may fail to admit their mistakes, even when they know they’ve messed up.

Doubling down

Back to the spike in COVID-19 infections in Victoria.

If Andrews reverses course and tightens social-distancing provisions, he will be implicitly admitting his government relaxed them too soon.

Similarly, if Berejiklian now says closing the border with Victoria is a good idea, voters will question her past stance on borders.

In both cases, the premiers may wish to gamble (to a degree) by doubling down on their positions.

Read more: Vital Signs: rules are also signals, which is why easing social distancing is such a problem

The perverse but logically inescapable possibility is this. Andrews and Berejiklian might well have been right all along. It might now make sense for them to change course. But doing so could damage their re-election prospects.

Maybe politicians have an even tougher job than we give them credit for.

– ref. Vital Signs: why even competent politicians refuse to change policy course – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-why-even-competent-politicians-refuse-to-change-policy-course-141356

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

Washington Post publisher, Philip L. Graham, famously declared that journalism is the “first rough draft of history”. It’s also the first rough draft of inspiration for movies and books “based on a true story”.

Since four Victorian journalists witnessed Ned Kelly’s last stand on June 28 1880, their vivid accounts have influenced portrayals of the bushranger – from the world’s first feature film in 1906 to Peter Carey’s 2000 novel, True History of the Kelly Gang, adapted to a gender-bending punk film earlier this year.

In the hours before the Glenrowan siege, the four newspaper men – Joseph Dalgarno Melvin of The Argus, George Vesey Allen of the Melbourne Daily Telegraph, John McWhirter of The Age and illustrator Francis Thomas Dean Carrington of The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil – received a last-minute telegram to join the Special Police Train from Melbourne to confront the Kelly Gang.

The rail journey would prove to be one hell of an assignment and inspiration for Kelly retellings over the next 140 years.

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

All aboard

The journalists have a fleeting scene in the 1970 Ned Kelly film starring a pouty Mick Jagger. Two characters rush up to the train, holding huge pads of paper to signal their press credentials to the audience.

It’s a cinematic glimpse of the journalists whose historic descriptions continue to influence the Ned Kelly cultural industry that is the cornerstone of Australia’s bushranger genre.

The train left Melbourne late Sunday evening. Carrington, “embedded” along with the others, described the journey:

… the great speed we were going at caused the carriage to oscillate very violently … The night was intensely cold.

McWhirter’s take was somewhat more upbeat, suggesting a thrill in the cold evening air. He wrote the night was

a splendid one, the moon shining with unusual brightness whilst the sharp, frosty air caused the slightest noise in the forest beyond to be distinctly heard.

After 1am Monday, the train arrived at Benalla, where it picked up more troopers, horses and “Kelly hunter” Superintendent Francis Hare, played by Geoffrey Rush in Gregor Jordan’s 2003 adaptation of Robert Drewe’s novel, Our Sunshine.

Sometime later, the train was flagged down before Glenrowan by schoolteacher Thomas Curnow, alerting the travelling party to the dangerous Kelly gang ahead. In a follow-up article about the siege, Melvin reported the first details of the teacher’s bravery. This would become a pivotal scene in future Kelly recreations: “Kindling a light behind a red handkerchief, he improvised a danger signal”.

When the train arrived at Glenrowan station, the horses were released and bolted “pell-nell into a paddock”, wrote Carrington, as the Kellys opened fire.

Part of the story

Unhindered by modern media ethics, the journalists became actively involved in the siege. Their involvement is a nod to “gonzo journalism” practices – made famous nearly a century later by writer Hunter S. Thompson – in which journalists join the action rather than neutrally report on it.

Kelly had a love-hate relationship with the press. He once wrote:

Had I robbed, plundered, ravished and murdered everything I met, my character could not be painted blacker than it is at present, but I thank God my conscience is as clear as the snow in Peru …

Early in the siege, the journalists sheltered from the gunfire at the station, until they saw Hare bleeding from the wrist. Carrington wrote:

We plugged each end of the wound with some cotton waste and bound it up with a silk pocket handkerchief … Mr Hare again essayed to start for the hotel. He had got about fifty yards when he turned back and reeled. We ran to him and supported him to a railway carriage, and there he fainted from loss of blood … Some of the bullets from the verandah came whistling and pinging about us.

As the siege continued into the early hours, the journalists recorded the wails of the Glenrowan Inn’s matron, Ann Jones, when her son was shot, as well as the eerie tapping of Kelly’s gun on his helmet, which Carrington wrote sounded like “the noise like the ring of a hammer on an anvil”.

Their interviews with released hostages revealed gang member Joe Byrne was shot as he reached for a bottle of whiskey that, like Curnow flagging down the train, has become another key Kelly siege scene.

Man in the iron mask

Of all the gripping details the journalists recorded, their first descriptions of the bushranger emerging in his armour in the morning mist were what proved most inspiring to subsequent Kelly creators.

Allen wrote the helmet was “made of ploughshares stolen from the farmers around Greta”, describing the cutting blade construction, and called him “the man in the iron mask”. Carrington wrote:

Presently we noticed a very tall figure in white stalking slowly along in the direction of the hotel. There was no head visible, and in the dim light of morning, with the steam rising from the ground, it looked, for all the world, like the ghost of Hamlet’s father with no head, only a very long, thick neck.

After Kelly was shot in the legs, the writer described his collapse and his dramatic unmasking:

The figure staggered and reeled like a drunken man, and in a few moments afterwards fell near the dead timber. The spell was then broken, and we all rushed forward to see who and what our ghostly antagonist was […] the iron mask was torn off, and there, in the broad light of day, were the features of the veritable bloodthirsty Ned Kelly himself.

Precious film footage restored by the Australian National Film and Sound Archive of the 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang, the world’s first feature film, shows Kelly shooting at police in his iconic armour, then collapsing by a dead trunk on the ground surrounded by police. The scene is just as Carrington and his colleagues described it in their reports.

Perhaps the most faithful rendering of Carrington’s Kelly description is Peter Carey’s fictional witness in the preface of True History of the Kelly Gang.

Carey’s witness echoes the description of Kelly as a “creature” and describes its “headless neck”.

After he was shot in the legs, the witness recounts Kelly “reeled and staggered like a drunken man” and falling near dead timber. The book’s preface and Melvin’s first Argus report both describe Kelly after he fell as “a wild beast brought to bay”.

Carey’s witness may be fictional, but his account is based on journalists’ accounts of witnessing Kelly’s capture. Carey credited many of his research sources to Kelly historian Ian Jones, who republished Carrington’s account titled Catching the Kellys – A Personal Narrative of One who Went in the Special Train along with illustrations in Ned Kelly: The Last Stand, Written and Illustrated by an Eyewitness.

‘Hunted like a dog’

The journalists helped the police strip Kelly of his armour and carry him back to the station, cut off his boots and kept him warm, all the while interviewing him as the siege continued with the remaining bushrangers inside the inn.

McWhirter remarked the bushranger was “composed”.

“I had several conversations with him, and he told me he was sick of his life, as he was hunted like a dog, and could get no rest,” Carrington wrote. He described Kelly’s clothes underneath the armour – a crimean (meaning a coloured, no button flannel) shirt with large black spots.

The journalists then turned their attention to the burning of the inn, featured in the background of Sidney Nolan’s 1946 painting, Glenrowan which depicts a fallen Kelly towering in his armour over policemen and Aboriginal trackers.

Kelly was hanged in Melbourne in November 1880, a few months after the journalists’ train ride and the siege.

The journalists continued their careers, with Melvin becoming the most prominent of the four in participatory journalism. After a stint as a war correspondent, he joined the Helena ship as an crew member to investigate, undercover, the “blackbirding” trade that indentured South Pacific Islanders to the Australian cane fields.

In the 1906 review of the first feature film – The Story of the Kelly Gang and exhibition, The Age critic wrote, “if there were any imperfections in detail probably few in the hall had memories long enough to detect them”.

Yet, the 1906 film was criticised by the Argus for not being faithful to the original descriptions of his “bushman dandy” dress as described by Carrington and his colleagues on the day.

The art may be in the interpreting eye, but the scenes are from that first rough draft of history.

– ref. Friday essay: how a ‘gonzo’ press gang forged the Ned Kelly legend – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-a-gonzo-press-gang-forged-the-ned-kelly-legend-136232