Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University

After years of waiting, the federal government finally introduced Australia’s first offshore electricity legislation in parliament yesterday. The bill will establish a regulatory framework for the offshore wind industry, paving the way for more than ten proposed projects.

Australia’s wind resources are among the world’s best, comparable to the North Sea between Britain and Europe where offshore energy is an established industry. In fact, research from July found if all the proposed offshore wind farms were built, their combined energy capacity would be greater than all of Australia’s coal-fired power plants.

But Australia’s lack of legal framework has meant we’re yet to commission our first offshore wind farm.

The new legislation took years of stakeholder anticipation leading to public consultation in 2020, but upon first reading one is left a little wanting. We find four reasons the bill isn’t up to scratch yet, from its inadequate safety provisions to vague wording around Native Title rights and interests.

A huge opportunity

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) identifies offshore wind as key in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, calling for the world’s offshore wind capacity to increase ten-fold, to 45 gigawatts per year by 2050.

In line with IRENA’s position, many of Australia’s trading partners have ambitious targets for offshore wind, including the UK, US, European Union, Korea and Japan. For example, the UK’s target is to reach a total of 40 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

This new bill is Australia’s attempt to join its partners. It will give offshore electricity projects the framework for construction, operation, maintenance, and more.

One project, for example, is the Star of the South, which plans to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria. This project has the potential to supply 20% of the state’s energy needs. Like Australia’s other 12 proposed offshore wind projects, it has been waiting on an appropriate regulatory framework to go ahead.

Read more:
Wind turbines off the coast could help Australia become an energy superpower, research finds

Offshore wind is essential to help Australia cut its greenhouse gas emissions and create a sustainable and affordable electricity market. Indeed, the explanatory memorandum that accompanies the bill notes that if passed, the legislation will establish certainty that investors crave, potentially leading to billions of dollars worth of investment.

Wind energy infrastructure projects will also create thousands of jobs. Recent estimates suggest the offshore wind industry could create as much as 8,000 jobs each year from 2030. The Star of the South alone expects to create 2,000 direct jobs in Victoria over its lifetime, including 200 ongoing local jobs.

But the bill doesn’t go far enough

This bill represents a first attempt to establish a world-class regulatory regime. But does it?

Well, first of all it didn’t get off to a good start. In 2020, the government committed to having the legislation settings and framework in place by mid 2021. This target was not delivered.

And upon closer examination of the bill, we find critical omissions compared to best practice in North Sea jurisdictions.

1. Weak protections for the environment

To protect the environment, projects need to create a management plan that complies with requirements under the federal environment law. But this won’t ensure marine life is unharmed by enormous, noisy turbines.

According to a major, independent review earlier this year, Australia’s environment law is outdated and flawed.

Read more:
A major report excoriated Australia’s environment laws. Sussan Ley’s response is confused and risky

It only addresses select environmental issues. The law is far too broad to deal with the unique requirements of offshore wind turbines, which Australian waters have never experienced before.

For example, under the bill’s broad management plan requirements, many environmental issues such as underwater noise and impacts on fish spawning would likely not be addressed.

Compare this to jurisdictions in the North Sea. In the UK, offshore wind projects require a thorough strategic environmental assessment, detailing all possible environmental impacts.

2. Native Title holders lose out

Offshore energy project developers are prohibited from interfering with Native Title rights and interests. But the bill allows interference if it’s “necessary” for the for the “reasonable exercise” of project rights and obligations.

This raises a critical question — what is considered “necessary” and “reasonable”?

This vague wording could see projects go ahead when it conflicts with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and their Native Title rights.

Read more:
Why most Aboriginal people have little say over clean energy projects planned for their land

3. Inadequate safety provisions

Offshore wind energy development holds inherent risks, such as transporting and constructing wind turbine components in hazardous environments, which are often subject to extreme weather. Without a solid safety framework, construction may lead to injuries or deaths, similar to those that have occurred in the North Sea.

Under the new legislation, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) would be appointed as the offshore wind regulator. NOPSEMA would oversee safety using the generic Work, Health and Safety Act 2011.

But the bill says parts of the Work, Health and Safety Act will need to be modified so they’re “fit for purpose”. It would require extra provisions, exclusions and workarounds, making the assurance of structures difficult.

Compare this to offshore petroleum operations, which get a bespoke safety framework , one NOPSEMA is already familiar with. Why isn’t one put in place for offshore wind farms?

4. It may leave the community behind

In Denmark, offshore wind turbines are located less than 16 kilometres from the coastline. They’re obliged to offer at least 20% of ownership shares to local citizens.

But under Australia’s proposed bill, there are no explicit community benefit schemes. This is an important omission, because creating laws to increase community participation and engagement could reduce any risk of “not in my backyard” (Nimbyism) attitudes. It would also ensure hosting communities are actively involved early and frequently throughout the lifecycle of offshore wind projects.

In crafting best practice regulation coupled with community benefit schemes, the opportunities are limitless. A first step could be to create further public submission opportunities for communities to comment on the bill.

Offshore wind is our golden ticket to a reliable, affordable, and clean energy future. Investing in the offshore wind industry is a no-brainer for Australia, but it needs to be done right.

Read more:
A ‘100% renewables’ target might not mean what you think it means. An energy expert explains

Madeline Taylor is a Climate Councillor at the Climate Council and is affiliated with ACOLA.

Tina Soliman Hunter is affiliated with ACOLA

– ref. Australia’s first offshore wind farm bill was a long time coming, but here are 4 reasons it’s not up to scratch yet – https://theconversation.com/australias-first-offshore-wind-farm-bill-was-a-long-time-coming-but-here-are-4-reasons-its-not-up-to-scratch-yet-167196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pnina Levine, Lecturer in Law, Curtin Law School, Curtin University

The nature and enforceability of university codes of conduct have been in the news lately. Prominent sackings for alleged misconduct include the cases of Professors Peter Ridd from James Cook University and Tim Anderson from the University of Sydney.

Anderson had a legal win this week when the full court of the Federal Court decided Sydney’s enterprise agreement contains an enforceable right of academics to “intellectual freedom”.

Previous court rulings had suggested intellectual freedom is an aspirational goal with limited legal force. Ridd and Anderson have both argued they were sacked for exercising their right to intellectual freedom, albeit in ways to which many, including us, would object.

The issue, broadly speaking, is what happens when the manner in which academics want to exercise their right of intellectual freedom under university enterprise agreements collides with what their university’s code of conduct requires of them. Universities are clearly wondering about the worth of their codes of conduct if they cannot dismiss staff for discourteous, disrespectful or offensive behaviour.

Read more:
Feel free to disagree on campus … by learning to do it well

Universities and academics, and Ridd in particular, are awaiting the outcome of his appeal to the High Court.

As for Anderson, the National Tertiary Education Industry Union supported him in the case of NTEU and Anderson v University of Sydney [2021] FCAFC 159. The full court found this week that his right to exercise intellectual freedom is relatively unfettered. But victory is only partially complete: a Federal Court judge will now have to decide whether Anderson was exercising his right to intellectual freedom.

Read more:
If not in a university, then where? Academia must define harm to allow open debate on difficult issues

Why was Anderson dismissed?

Anderson was dismissed in 2019 after the university repeatedly warned him about his social media activity. Among other things, he posted:

• PowerPoint slides with an infographic of an Israeli flag with a swastika superimposed over it
• a photo of one of his tutors wearing a shirt bearing the words in Arabic “Death to Israel”, “Curse the Jews” and “Victory to all Islam”
• allegedly false references to the university’s allegations against him when he had been directed to keep their communications confidential.

Anderson removed the “University of Sydney” from the “about” details of his Facebook and Twitter accounts after receiving a final warning. He did not remove the comments and posts. After he reposted and retweeted the Israeli flag with swastika infographic, the university at first suspended and then terminated his employment for “serious misconduct”.

Anderson argues he was exercising his right to intellectual freedom under the university’s enterprise agreement and, as such, his activities could not constitute misconduct. He contends that, in warning him and terminating him, the university breached the agreement (it crossed two agreements, from 2013-17 and 2018-21) and contravened the Fair Work Act 2009.

What is the effect of the judgment?

What does the court finding mean? This right to intellectual freedom under their enterprise agreement allows Sydney’s academics to express unpopular or controversial views, provided they do not engage in harassment, vilification or intimidation. They must also exercise their right “in accordance with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards”.

The court found that if Sydney academics are exercising the right to intellectual freedom, it generally could not be misconduct or serious misconduct to do so. This was the case even if the manner in which they exercised their right breached the code of conduct.

In this way, the court privileged the intellectual freedom clauses over other clauses in the agreement. These included “misconduct” and “serious misconduct” being specifically defined as including breaches of the code of conduct.

The ongoing problem for Sydney’s academics is that the court decided the code of conduct did not identify the “standards” relevant to deciding whether intellectual freedom was being exercised “in accordance with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards”, as stated in the enterprise agreement.

Read more:
Universities’ relevance hinges on academic freedom

What happens next?

The court was considering the legal issues of the relationship between Sydney’s enterprise agreement and its code of conduct. But whether Anderson’s social media activity was a permissible exercise of intellectual freedom under the agreement and whether he was wrongfully dismissed remains to be decided by a Federal Court judge. If the judge finds in favour of Anderson, the University of Sydney may have to reinstate and compensate him.

In the meantime, the Federal Court has left Sydney’s academics with a relatively unqualified right to express their opinions however they choose. They are unconstrained by any behavioural standards, as long as they do not harass, vilify, intimidate or fail to uphold the “highest ethical, professional and legal standards”.

This judgment underscores to Australian universities what they must do to ensure they can terminate staff for breaches of their codes of conduct. Their enterprise agreements must explicitly qualify the right of intellectual freedom by reference to upholding the code of conduct.

Universities will also have to consider the effect of the French Model Code for the Protection of Free Speech and Academic Freedom on this course of action.

For Australian academics generally, the judgment demonstrates that their right to intellectual freedom is strongly prescribed by what their particular enterprise agreement says.

Read more:
Dan Tehan wants a ‘model code’ on free speech at universities – what is it and do unis need it?

The lingering question for Sydney academics is: what are the “the highest ethical, professional and legal standards”? This week’s judgment suggested these standards do not require them to avoid causing any offence to others. Nor did they necessarily have to conduct themselves with “respect”, “impartiality” or “courtesy”. It also did not matter to the court whether the conduct might be able to be carried out in a different way so as to not cause offence.

We, along with Anderson, now have to await a Federal Court judge’s view as to whether his conduct departed from the required standards.

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

– ref. Court gives legal weight to academics’ right to intellectual freedom, but it’s not the final word – https://theconversation.com/court-gives-legal-weight-to-academics-right-to-intellectual-freedom-but-its-not-the-final-word-167112

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ghazala Jamil, Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University

A new anti-conversion law passed in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is being used to prevent inter-faith couples from getting married. Media reports suggest right wing groups are preventing interfaith marriages by claiming it involves “forced conversion”, or what they call “love jihad”.

“Love jihad” is a term used by these groups to suggest Muslim men seek to deceive Hindu women through marriage and convert them to Islam.

Under the new anti-conversion law, passed on November 28, interfaith couples must now give two months’ notice to a district official before getting married. Currently, under the Special Marriages Act, 1954, that governs interfaith marriages in India, couples must give a notice of 30 days.

The new law has criminal aspects, too, including a jail term of up to ten years if convicted of using marriage to force a spouse to change their faith. Parents, siblings and “any relatives” by marriage and adoption can complain against a conversion. Such marriages can also be nullified. The burden of proof lies on the persons converting, or those counselling the persons to convert, to prove the conversion isn’t forced.

Women’s rights advocates are pointing out this amounts to curtailment of the right to choose one’s partner by the state.

Under the Bhartiya Janata Party, also the ruling party at the federal level, eight of 29 states of India now have anti-conversion laws, including these interfaith marriage clauses. These laws seek to regulate religious conversions through “forcible or fraudulent means”, or through “allurement” or “inducement”. In practice, they restrain the citizens’ constitutional right to convert.

Read more:
Holy cow: as Hindu nationalism surges in India, cows are protected but minorities not so much

A history of religious conversion in India

According to the Indian Constitution, citizens have the freedom to “profess, practice and propagate” religion. The word propagate must include the citizen’s right to convert.

However, the right to propagate and convert has come into contradiction with laws that restrict a citizen to do so. Anti-conversion laws have roots in India’s colonial history and the deep caste and communal fractures in its society.

As in other parts of the world, the British and other European colonisers were accompanied by cultural missions to “civilize” natives in India.

Proselytizing Christian missionaries have traditionally focused their efforts on better living standards and education among the tribal (Indigenous) people of India.

In the 1950s, Indian social reformer Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar promoted mass conversion to Buddhism as a way for the lower castes, who were considered “untouchable”, to escape the Hindu religious order and attain a more dignified life.

Ambedkar was a jurist and chairman of the committee that drafted the Constitution of India. He took up the cause of the “untouchables” within the anti-colonial movement in India, and made a crucial contribution in ensuring freedom of religious conversion was included in the constitution.

The first generation of anti-conversion laws, euphemistically called “Freedom of Religion” Acts, were passed in the late 60s and early 70s. They were enacted in states with higher tribal populations. However a few princely states in India (those governed by a local ruler or king, unlike other states that were ruled by the British before India’s independence) had similar laws in place even before the country became independent in 1947.

Read more:
The problem with India’s ‘love jihad’ laws

These laws were enacted to allay anxiety among the caste Hindus around conversion to Christianity and Islam, and later to stop the lower castes converting to Buddhism, in order to maintain the caste hierarchy.

Recent laws, though, are more forthright in their intent, and include “conversion for marriages”.

How are the new laws being used?

The new laws have been passed in states where the Bhartiya Janata Party (the ruling party) has strong support. Through these laws, the ruling party’s agenda is to mobilise anti-Muslim sentiment in these states.

The case of the latest law in Uttar Pradesh shows the intensification of these tendencies due to upcoming state elections. As the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh sends the largest contingent of representatives to the Parliament of India. With the highest concentration of Muslims in the country, the state also had the highest number of Muslim MPs until 2014, when the ruling party swept the parliamentary elections by consolidating Hindu voters across caste divides.

The new anti-conversion laws, including the one in Uttar Pradesh, are being debated with the backdrop of a fake news campaign alleging Muslim men ensnare Hindu women with fraudulent marriages with the sole aim of overtaking the Hindu population to attain demographic majority status in India.

Read more:
Indian Matchmaking: a show about arranged marriages can’t ignore the political reality in India

However, what is being missed in the social commentary on these laws is the criminal penalty for mass conversions (defined as two or more) among lower castes and tribal people. Converting for the purpose of attaining a better education, job and lifestyle is being called “allurement”.

Through such discriminatory law-making, right wing forces in power are seeking to achieve their core agendas.

First, they seek to mobilise anti-minority sentiments by fanning the insecurities of the Hindu majority, polarising people and explicitly disenfranchising Muslim minorities.

Second, they wish to mount a backlash against the gains made by the feminist movement in achieving increased autonomy for women in a patriarchal society.

And last, but not least, they wish to covertly undermine the social mobility of the lower castes and tribal populations.

A repeal of these laws may not be enough to bring about social justice in India, but it is a necessary step.

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

– ref. India’s ‘love jihad’ anti-conversion laws aim to further oppress minorities, and it’s working – https://theconversation.com/indias-love-jihad-anti-conversion-laws-aim-to-further-oppress-minorities-and-its-working-166746

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Novak, Senior Research Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer, The University of Queensland

Major sporting events like the Paralympics are a breeding ground for technological innovation. Athletes, coaches, designers, engineers and sports scientists are constantly looking for the next improvement that will give them the edge. Over the past decade, 3D printing has become a tool to drive improvements in sports like running and cycling, and is increasingly used by paralympic athletes.

The Paralympics features athletes with a diverse range of abilities, competing in a wide range of different categories. Many competitors use prosthetics, wheelchairs or other specialised components to enable them to perform at their best.

One interesting question is whether 3D printing widens or narrows the divide between athletes with access to specialised technologies, and those without. To put it another way, does the widespread availability of 3D printers — which can now be found in many homes, schools, universities and makerspaces — help to level the playing field?

Forget mass production

Mass-manufactured equipment, such as gloves, shoes and bicycles, is generally designed to suit typical able-bodied body shapes and playing styles. As such, it may not be suitable for many paralympians. But one-off, bespoke equipment is expensive and time-consuming to produce. This can limit access for some athletes, or require them to come up with their own “do-it-yourself” solutions, which may not be as advanced as professionally produced equipment.

3D printing can deliver bespoke equipment at a more affordable price. Several former paralympians, such as British triathlete Joe Townsend and US track athlete Arielle Rausin, now use 3D printing to create personalised gloves for themselves and their fellow wheelchair athletes. These gloves fit as if they were moulded over the athlete’s hands, and can be printed in different materials for different conditions. For example, Townsend uses stiff materials for maximum performance in competition, and softer gloves for training that are comfortable and less likely to cause injury.

3D-printed gloves are inexpensive, rapidly produced, and can be reprinted whenever they break. Because the design is digital, just like a photo or video, it can be modified based on the athlete’s feedback, or even sent to the nearest 3D printer when parts are urgently needed.

Read more:
Paralympians still don’t get the kind of media attention they deserve as elite athletes

Harder, better, faster, stronger

An elite athlete might be concerned about whether 3D-printed parts will be strong enough to withstand the required performance demands. Fortunately, materials for 3D printing have come a long way, with many 3D printing companies developing their own formulas to suit applications in various industries – from medical to aerospace.

Back in 2016, we saw the first 3D-printed prosthetic leg used in the Paralympics by German track cyclist Denise Schindler. Made of polycarbonate, it was lighter than her previous carbon-fibre prosthetic, but just as strong and better-fitting.

With research showing sprint cyclists can generate more than 1,000 Newtons of force during acceleration (the same force you would feel if a 100-kilogram person were to stand on top of you!), such prosthetics need to be incredibly strong and durable. Schindler’s helped her win a bronze medal at the Tokyo games.

More advanced materials being 3D printed for Paralympic equipment include carbon fibre, with Townsend using it to produce the perfect crank arms for his handbike. 3D printing allows reinforced carbon fibre to be placed exactly where it is needed to improve the stiffness of a part, while remaining lightweight. This results in a better-performing part than one made from aluminium.

3D-printed titanium is also being used for custom prosthetic arms, such as those that allow New Zealand paralympian Anna Grimaldi to securely grip 50kg weights, in a way a standard prosthetic couldn’t achieve.

Different technologies working together

For 3D printing to deliver maximum results, it needs to be used in conjunction with other technologies. For example, 3D scanning is often an important part of the design process, using a collection of photographs, or dedicated 3D scanners, to digitise part of an athlete’s body.

Such technology has been used to 3D-scan a seat mould for Australian wheelchair tennis champion Dylan Alcott, allowing engineers to manufacture a seat that gives him maximum comfort, stability and performance.

3D scanning was also used to create the perfect-fitting grip for Australian archer Taymon Kenton-Smith, who was born with a partial left hand. The grip was then 3D-printed in both hard and soft materials at the Australian Institute of Sport, providing a more reliable bow grip with shock-absorbing abilities. If the grip breaks, an identical one can be easily reprinted, rather than relying on someone to hand-craft a new one that might have slight variations and take a long time to produce.

Read more:
3 reasons why Paralympic powerlifters shift seemingly impossible weights

All these technologies are increasingly accessible, meaning more non-elite athletes can experiment with unique parts. Amateurs and professionals alike can already buy running shoes with 3D-printed soles, and 3D-printed custom bike frames. For those with access to their own 3D printer, surf fins, cycling accessories and more can be downloaded for free and printed for just a few dollars.

However, don’t expect your home 3D printer to be making titanium parts anytime soon. While the technology is levelling the playing field to a certain extent, elite athletes still have access to specialised materials and engineering expertise, giving them the technological edge.

_This article was coauthored by Julian Chua, a sports technology consultant at ReEngineering Labs and author of the Sports Technology Blog.

This article was written in collaboration with Dr Julian Chua, who is affiliated with ReEngineering Labs, a sports technology consultancy, as well as the Sports Technology Blog (https://sportstechnologyblog.com/).

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

– ref. From bespoke seats to titanium arms, 3D printing is helping paralympians gain an edge – https://theconversation.com/from-bespoke-seats-to-titanium-arms-3d-printing-is-helping-paralympians-gain-an-edge-166896

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer in General Practice, The University of Queensland

Most Australians diagnosed with COVID-19 recover at home, rather than in a quarantine facility or hospital. About 10% have required hospital treatment. However, a handful have had worsening symptoms, did not receive emergency care and died at home.

There appear to have been two factors behind such COVID deaths at home: worry about the perceived costs and risks of seeking official health care; and the sudden onset of complications from a worsening infection.

Here’s what to watch out for when symptoms worsen dramatically at home and when to call an ambulance.

Read more:
Got a child with COVID at home? Here’s how to look after them

What should I look out for?

As a GP I am asked this question often. Patients naturally want guidance on the signs to look out for so they don’t seek help too late or too early. This is called “safety netting”, and is guided by an understanding of the natural history (prognosis) of a disease and its response to treatment. People also seek advice on worrying symptoms to look out for, and specific information on how and when to seek help.

With COVID-19, the natural course of the infection varies. What starts out with cold and flu-like symptoms can lead to breathing difficulties within five days. Not all patients get symptoms that warrant hospital care. But of those who do go to hospital, this generally occurs around 4-8 days after symptoms start.

Read more:
Tested positive for COVID-19? Here’s what happens next – and why day 5 is crucial

We know COVID-19 affects the lungs as well as multiple organs, leading them to fail. This includes complications such as pneumonia, liver or kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke, blood clots and nerve damage.

This progress to more severe disease happens as the virus triggers release of inflammatory proteins, called cytokines, flooding the bloodstream and attacking organs.

Some symptoms of these COVID complications include:

• shortness of breath

• loss of appetite

• dizziness

• confusion or irritability

• persistent pain or pressure in the chest

• high temperature (above 38℃).

• reduced consciousness (sometimes associated with seizures or strokes)

• cold, clammy or pale and mottled skin.

Not everyone feels ‘short of breath’

The main risk factors that predict progression to severe COVID include: symptoms lasting for more than seven days and a breathing rate over 30 per minute. Faster breathing is to compensate for the less-efficient transfer of oxygen to lung blood vessels, due to inflammation and fluid build-up in the airways.

But how diseases progress is rarely straight forward, making it impossible to give definitive lists of “red flag” symptoms to look out for.

Some COVID patients have “happy” or silent hypoxia. This features low levels of oxygen in the blood but there aren’t the usual signs of respiratory distress normally seen with such low oxygen levels, including feeling “short of breath” and faster breathing.

However, these patients can suddenly deteriorate. Faster and deeper breathing are early warning signs of failing lungs.

What to do

If you’ve already been diagnosed with COVID-19 and are concerned about your symptoms, call the phone number you will have been given by your local public health unit, or your health-care provider.

However, for a sudden deterioration, call an ambulance immediately. Tell the operator you have COVID.

If you’re not sure which applies or you can’t get through on the phone for medical advice immediately, call 000 anyway as operators are trained to triage your call.

Being in hospital if you develop severe COVID, with access to the best monitoring and treatments available, will increase your chance of surviving complications of COVID, and recovering well.

However, the likelihood of getting any of these complications if you’re fully vaccinated is very low. So the best way to protect yourself (and never having to think about calling 000 for COVID) is to get vaccinated.

Read more:
When is it OK to call an ambulance?

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

– ref. COVID can worsen quickly at home. Here’s when to call an ambulance – https://theconversation.com/covid-can-worsen-quickly-at-home-heres-when-to-call-an-ambulance-166889

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.

This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the state of the federation generally – with various states experiencing varying levels of lockdown and case exposure. Despite the disparity, the federal government is pushing to treat the virus as endemic.

They also discuss the economic growth experienced in the June quarter, and the prime minister’s further attempts to keep the minutes of national cabinet confidential.

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

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on national accounts and national cabinet – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-national-accounts-and-national-cabinet-167261

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Chen, Research Fellow at Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, University of Auckland

From 11:59pm on Tuesday September 7, every person in Aotearoa New Zealand over the age of 12 will be required to keep a record of their whereabouts, either by scanning QR codes or signing paper registers many businesses and event organisers will have to provide.

Mandatory record-keeping is part of an effort to strengthen contact tracing, in response to low numbers of people who were scanning or signing in before the current Delta outbreak and lockdown.

The new rules will lead to significantly more data being collected. The government has reassured the public that any data collected for contact tracing would only be used for that specific purpose, but there are concerns other government agencies could ask for such information for law-enforcement purposes.

I have been calling for strong privacy protections, enshrined in law, since January, when Singaporean police accessed contact tracing data for criminal investigations.

In an open letter to COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins, signed by more than 100 academics and civil society organisations, we argue the public health response order that implements the new rules does not provide sufficient privacy protection.

Particular concerns about the potential use of contact-tracing data for other purposes include:

• by police and government agencies with enforcement powers for investigatory or enforcement purposes

• by private sector agencies for marketing purposes

• by employers for purposes other than health and safety

• and by individuals coercively against others.

Read more:
Police debacle leaves the McGowan government battling to rebuild public trust in the SafeWA app

The role of protections for contact tracing records

Penalties under New Zealand’s privacy laws are relatively low (up to NZ$10,000) in comparison with Australian laws that protect contact-tracing data (up to A$250,000 or five years’ imprisonment).

Better protection of contact-tracing data should be a relatively simple to introduce, and we have Australian law from which to draw inspiration. This would improve people’s confidence that their contact-tracing records will only ever be used for this purpose, and will help increase participation.

Before New Zealand’s current lockdown, participation in record-keeping was likely too low. We don’t know how many people were keeping pen-and-paper diaries, but only 10-15% of New Zealand adults were scanning QR codes or making manual entries in the NZ COVID Tracer on a regular basis.

Read more:
New Zealanders haven’t been scanning in enough, and that contributed to the need for a full lockdown

Detailed record-keeping is important for contact tracers to figure out where and when people may have been exposed to an infectious person and to draw up a list of locations of interest as quickly as possible.

It is hard to remember exactly where you’ve been during the 14 days before a positive COVID-19 test. But it might make the difference between contact tracers being able to identify locations of interest and the virus continuing to spread in the community.

What it means for businesses

The list of businesses to which the new requirement applies is long and listed specifically under schedules 2 and 3 of the public health response order).

The onus to scan in won’t be on customers but on business owners. Supermarkets, dairies, hardware stores, food banks and petrol stations are exempt, but the new rules allow people to keep a record in their own diary, so they don’t have to use QR codes or any pen-and-paper option provided by a business.

We need most adults to participate in record keeping to have a significant impact on the spread of new variants, like Delta.

As New Zealand prepares to move down alert levels, more businesses will be allowed to operate. Businesses for which the mandatory record-keeping rule applies will be given seven days after an alert level change to comply. In a practical sense, this means two main things:

1. Businesses will need to provide a pen-and-paper system for individuals to record their visit. I recommend a “ballot box” to help protect privacy (rather than a sheet of paper anyone can read). A template is available. These records need to be kept for 60 days (preferably sorted by date), but then have to be disposed of. They shouldn’t be used for any other purpose, or shared with anyone other than a public health official.

2. Businesses must ensure customers are either scanning the QR code (which is mandatory to display) or otherwise recording their visit. Staff should also be scanning in too, so they can check whether the systems work properly.

A new simplified QR code poster design is available from the Ministry of Health.

Enforcing mandatory record keeping

It is up to businesses to decide their policy for dealing with people who refuse to record their visit. Strictly speaking, the order requires that a record be made, and there are fines of up to $1,000 for non-compliance.

But in reality, it is likely these fines will only be applied against businesses that repeatedly and flagrantly refuse to comply with the requirements.

Businesses trying to do the right thing will need to decide whether or not to serve individuals who refuse to make a record. Businesses can refuse service as they are simply upholding the law, and can call the police if someone is being particularly difficult.

In my opinion, staff should not have to put up with poorly behaved customers or put themselves in danger. The approach should be the same as with other health and safety regulations, such as not serving alcohol to intoxicated patrons.

Even without further legislation to protect the privacy of contact-tracing data, the benefits of everyone maintaining good record-keeping far outweigh the potential costs. Good records could make the difference between containing an outbreak and the whole country having to go into lockdown. It’s a relatively cheap and simple insurance to keep our communities safe.

Andrew Chen has provided some informal advice to the Ministry of Health and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but has no financial relationship. He is also a member of the Privacy Foundation.

– ref. NZ is introducing mandatory record keeping to help contact tracers. But is the data protected enough? – https://theconversation.com/nz-is-introducing-mandatory-record-keeping-to-help-contact-tracers-but-is-the-data-protected-enough-167177

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Rice, Professor of Law; Director of Professional and Community Engagement, University of Sydney

An anti-discrimination law is, in effect, a code of conduct. An employer, an HR manager, a school principal, a shopkeeper, or hotelier needs to be able to pick up the act and get a good idea of what their obligations and duties are.

Similarly, a worker or student or customer needs to be able to pick up the act and understand how they are protected.

NSW’s outdated Anti-Discrimination Act fails as a code of conduct. Passed in 1977, it is cumbersome, wordy, opaque, repetitive and confusing.

But it need not be. The same laws in Queensland, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania have wider scope, with fewer words in a more accessible form.

There is growing impatience with the inaction in NSW. Community groups are calling on the NSW attorney-general to review the outdated act. A recent report by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre also makes a case for how poorly the people of NSW are served by this antiquated law.

Shrinking budget and unfilled positions

In the past decade, Anti-Discrimination NSW, the statutory agency with oversight of the act, has had its budget reduced by 10% in dollar terms (in effect a 24% cut in real terms). A recurring statement in its annual reports has been

staff costs were controlled by keeping several positions vacant during the year.

The agency has only a part-time head, but for two of the past ten years that position was vacant. There have also been unfilled board positions in five of the past 10 years.

Lots of mini acts all strung together

The NSW act is in the same state of neglect. Considered state-of-the-art 40 years ago, the law today reads like a lot of mini anti-discrimination acts strung together.

First, it defines race discrimination, sets out each area of life where race discrimination is unlawful, and sets out the exceptions.

Then it defines sex discrimination, sets out each area of life where sex discrimination is unlawful, and sets out the exceptions.

It goes on like this, with regard to transgender people, marital status, disability, carer’s responsibilities, homosexuality, and age. Each time an additional attribute is added, a new part of the act is wedged in among the others.

Read more:
We need to talk about discrimination law and why a thoughtful approach to reform is so important

Along the way, other protections have been slotted in, such as for vilification, harassment and compulsory retirement.

Compare this to the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act, which is not a series of mini-acts but a single coherent statement of what discrimination is, who is protected, the areas covered, and the exceptions.

A law such as this must also be inclusive. But terms such as “homosexuality” and “transgender” in the NSW Act are limited in their scope. The absence of protection for gender identity, sexual orientation, political and religious belief, parental status, and industrial activity illustrates how far the NSW act is behind contemporary values.

Lacking a positive duty to ensure equality

Perhaps most significantly, the NSW act remains simply a law that prohibits discrimination — it does not actively promote measures to secure equality, as laws in other jurisdictions do.

The anti-discrimination acts in Victoria and the UK, for instance, require that measures actively be taken to eliminate discrimination and harassment. The proposed sexual harassment amendments to the federal Sex Discrimination Act do the same.

Nor does the NSW law go beyond prohibiting disability discrimination and require
steps be taken to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate a person’s disability. This is how other states’ laws work.

Without a positive duty to both eliminate discrimination and harassment and make reasonable adjustments to address inequality, the NSW act fails its essential purpose — to help our society towards equality.

Read more:
How Australia’s discrimination laws and public health campaigns perpetuate fat stigma

How can it be fixed?

The NSW act is not amenable to a quick fix. It is already a barnacle-encrusted, gap-plugged vessel.

By my count, the law has been subject to more than 800 amendments, insertions and deletions over the years, in 88 different amending acts.

The numbering of inserted sections has become ridiculous, such as s49ZYW(2)(a), which specifies when section s49ZYW(1) doesn’t apply. That may be fun for lawyers, but it’s no fun for anyone who wants to know their duties and rights.

It would be unconscionable to tack yet another piece onto the existing act. The people of NSW, instead, need an new and contemporary equality law.

Read more:
Why mandatory retirement ages should be a thing of the past

So how might we get there? There are well-established and successful reform processes around Australia and internationally to draw from.

Reform in the UK began with an independent report, two public inquiries, and then extensive consultations with the public, specialists, stakeholders and interest groups. This iterative and collaborative process resulted in the Equality Act 2010 (UK), described in the Discrimination Law Review as “harmonising and simplifying the law” and “modernising the law”.

Victoria set about a similarly rigorous process to modernise its law, which had been in much the same form for over 30 years. The government commissioned an independent public consultation and launched a parliamentary committee inquiry, resulting in its 2010 Equal Opportunity Act. A similar process led to 2014 reforms in the ACT.

Updating discrimination law is a perennial task, responding to social change. It is happening now in Western Australia, where the Law Reform Commission is reviewing the 1984 Equal Opportunity Act, and in Queensland, where the Human Rights Commission is reviewing the 1991 Anti-Discrimination Act.

The Northern Territory’s review, meanwhile, is done and awaiting report.

Clearly, there are contemporary models in Australia that show the way for NSW to follow. It is not a brave step for NSW to commit to contemporary measures to secure non-discrimination and equality. We just need a government that cares.

Simon Rice is a member of the Australian Discrimination Law Experts Group

– ref. NSW’s anti-discrimination law is confusing and outdated. Why is it lagging behind the country on reform? – https://theconversation.com/nsws-anti-discrimination-law-is-confusing-and-outdated-why-is-it-lagging-behind-the-country-on-reform-166753

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melinda Rackham, Adjunct Research Professor, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia, University of South Australia

A palpable cast of women inhabit Barbara Hanrahan’s oeuvre, joined frequently by their “daddys”, sweethearts, valentines and husbands.

Given her father died the day after her first birthday, leaving Hanrahan (1939-91) to grow up with her maternal grandmother, mother and great aunt in Adelaide’s then working-class suburb Thebarton, it is no surprise the matriarchy dominates.

Innocent and audacious, her characters jostle, quiver and hum in this significant salon-hung survey at Flinders University Museum of Art.

180 works on paper — woodcuts, linocuts, screenprints, lithographs, etchings, dry points and rarely-seen drawings, paintings and collage — produce a shrine to Hanrahan’s bold visual language.

Their breadth and depth, texture and translucency demand an embodied engagement.

You have to get up close, stretch and bend, almost breathe the same air as the artworks you are observing.

This show asks to be savoured, to be given time to absorb the spice of conical breasted, gartered and corseted ladies; the biting sadness of torrential tears; the sour aftertaste of society’s hypocritical expectations; the sweetness of childhood memories.

An independent woman

Encouraged by her mother’s work as a commercial artist in a department store, Hanrahan originally trained as an art teacher.

After graduating in 1960, she enrolled in night classes at the South Australian School of Art, making her first linocuts, etchings and lithographs.

Independently minded and influenced more by the drama of German expressionism than Australian printmakers such as Margaret Preston, Adelaide Perry and Ethel Spowers, Hanrahan set off to swinging London a few years later to pursue her creative dreams.

Gaining a taste for pop art and the burlesque, she was not so much a proponent of the Women’s Art Movement but worked in parallel, questioning beauty, social convention and sexual mores.

She regularly visited Australia to exhibit until returning to live in Adelaide with her partner in the late 1970s.

It seems quaint to recall that, in 1964, Sydney art dealer Barry Stern declined to show Hanrahan in his “family gallery” or, after purchasing many works, Adelaide gallerist Kym Bonython received legal advice not to exhibit her etchings of naked men.

Australian women artists of her era such as “femail” artist Pat Larter and Charis worked with sexually explicit imagery in drawing, collage, photography and video. But Hanrahan’s characters are often unaware, naive, or — as in Wedding Night (1977) — very awkward.

Ironically, while being labelled risqué, Hanrahan was simultaneously criticised for being too decorative in image and form, as if her technical excellence portrayed a shortcoming.

Her technical achievement is on stunning display here in etchings such as Earthmother (1975) and the perfectly registered multi-coloured screen prints like Moss-haired Girl (1977).

Life, and death

Hanrahan’s interspecies ecosystems are populated by celestial bodies and English and Australian flora and fauna.

Intertwining woman becomes tree, branches sprout from human trunks and crevices, vulvas filigree into flowers, birds nest in fibrous hair, a man lives in the moon, Adam and Eve frolic before the fall, angels float Chagall-like through troubled skies, women hover flower-strewn as Ophelia across the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park.

In her work, the flutter of the dove and buzz of the bee are as vital as the ebb and flow of the tides or the flowering of the sun: all grounded in the order and fecundity of nature and its cycles of life and death.

Twinning, mirroring and doubling reoccur. As with Frida Kahlo, Hanrahan has a fascination with birth, giving birth to the self, and self-realisation.

From her alarmingly unconventional linocut Birth (1986) to women depicted with fully formed children inside their belly or on their clothing, Hanrahan celebrates the curious inner-child we all carry with us.

Abundant heart

Over three decades, Hanrahan revealed her adventurous, desiring, fragile, dreaming self in over 400 images and 15 books. Her work would frequently return to portrayals of her grandmother, Iris Pearl, and she continued to explore the psychological underbelly of family lineages and the diverse neighbourhood characters that impressed her childhood.

She exorcised the socially demonic forces of propriety, unbinding the constriction of gendered stereotypes and, through western and eastern spiritual practices, came to a peaceful acceptance of her own terminal illness.

Works produced in Melbourne in Barbara’s final years beat with an abundant heart. Celebrating her mastery of line and intelligence of touch, Girl with dogs (1989) and The Angel (1991) are iconic Australian images.

This ambitious survey is set to ensure Barbara Hanrahan becomes a household name.

Bee-stung Lips: Barbara Hanrahan works on paper 1960-1991 is online and on display at FUMA Gallery until October 1, before touring nationally.

In 2014 I wrote an Essay for The Microscope Project, produced by FUMA, funded by the Government of South Australia through Arts SA (New Exhibitions Fund) and by Anatomy and Histology, Flinders University.

– ref. Barbara Hanrahan: an Australian feminist artist you need to know – https://theconversation.com/barbara-hanrahan-an-australian-feminist-artist-you-need-to-know-166664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Noam Peleg, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law and Justice; Associate, the Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW

European countries have been asked to focus on “ensuring the right of children to be involved in all decisions that affect them”, in a newly released report ahead of the school year in Europe.

The report — from the “High-level meeting on schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic” held in July — states “very few governments” have made an effort to engage children in decision-making.

The report was released by the European Office of the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

It’s based on the premise school closures are detrimental to child health, well-being and educational outcomes. It recommends, from a child-centred perspective, that school closures be avoided as much as possible.

And it presents ways to help keep children safe from COVID when they do go to school.

Read more:
From vaccination to ventilation: 5 ways to keep kids safe from COVID when schools reopen

Schools in New South Wales are on track to reopen by October 25 following four months of closure. The state government has introduced an incremental reopening plan. Kindergarten and year 1 children go back to the classrooms first, followed by other cohorts on weekly bases — a process that should be complete by November 8.

Victoria has not given certainty to whether children will return to the classroom in term 4.

When comparing the NSW plan to international best practice, it doesn’t measure up. And Victoria’s movements don’t seem to be following a child-centred approach either.

Where the back-to-school plans fall short

The number of children contracting COVID-19 in Australia continues to rise. Meanwhile, data from the United States and the United Kingdom show high transmission rates in primary schools, especially where insufficient safety measures are in place.

According to the NSW plan, school staff will have to be vaccinated by November 8, but high school students, who are eligible for the vaccine, are free to return to school without getting the jab. This means primary school children, for whom a safe vaccine is not available, will return to school before all adults are vaccinated. So schools will have high concentrations of unvaccinated individuals coming together under one roof, spending hours indoors, every day.

Masks will be mandated for all adults on site and for secondary school children, but not for primary school children. This is despite their proven success in reducing transmission.

Read more:
7 tips for making masks work in the classroom

A study published earlier this month shows that, without mandatory masks and testing in primary schools, more than 75% of students are at risk of infection within three months of returning to school. Universal mask-wearing can reduce student infections by 26-78%, it says. Adding fortnightly testing can further reduce infections by 50%.

The effectiveness of masks in schools has been proven in other studies too.

The European report recommends rapid testing in schools. Austria, for example, has developed a rapid screening policy, aiming to avoid school closures by identifying infected children, removing them from schools and locating other infected students through secondary tracing. Children perform the test themselves, and most children and parents were satisfied with this regime as it helped keep schools open and reduce transmission.

NSW has not introduced a similar plan.

Read more:
Back to school: what works to keep children safe from COVID-19 – podcast

Other recommendations in the European report include paying attention to children living in vulnerable situations, the effects school closures have on them, and how digital gaps can curtail their access to remote learning. Schools in Victoria are open to vulnerable children and children of essential workers.

But in NSW parents in LGAs of concern are “strongly encouraged” to keep their kids at home. Many of these are lower socioeconomic areas. This further marginalises children from communities who already suffer the most during the lockdown.

Children have internationally agreed rights

The July meeting in Europe heard that:

[…] the Committee on the Rights of the Child warned […] of the grave physical, psychological and mental impacts of the pandemic on children and called on countries to base their response not just on public health, but also on the broad framework of rights, including economic, social and cultural rights.

The report draws attention to several children’s rights governments should respect. Australia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, which means children in Australia can expect the government to respect their rights.

The call to include children as part of decision-making follows a similar one from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in April last year.

Children have unique insight into how a school day looks. When presented with information about potential safety measures to be implemented – particularly around physical distancing — they will be able to provide views and solutions relevant to them and other children.

Read more:
We can’t close schools every time there’s a COVID outbreak. Our traffic light system shows what to do instead

Participation of children requires more than giving them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Whenever a child speaks, there must be an adult willing to listen and to pay close attention to what the child is saying.

There is no evidence to suggest the NSW government gave children any meaningful opportunity to participate in the design of its back-to-school plan, nor that it based its decisions on any child’s rights assessment.

There is also no evidence to suggest the Victorian government is engaging with children as it prepares its own back-to-school plan.

A child’s rights assessment must account for a range of relevant rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These include the rights to education, health, play, life and development. Children’s best interests must be a primary consideration, and this can not be done without giving proper weight to children’s own insights.

Emphasising physical safety and therefore closing schools while overlooking other equally important dimensions of children’s lives is not a child-friendly policy. Nor is opening schools in the name of facilitating adults’ “freedom”, without adequately protecting children’s rights.

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

– ref. In debates about opening schools, we’re neglecting an important voice: our children’s – https://theconversation.com/in-debates-about-opening-schools-were-neglecting-an-important-voice-our-childrens-167179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Latella, Lecturer, Master of Exercise Science (Strength and Conditioning), Edith Cowan University

Many people viewed the Tokyo Olympics as the pinnacle of human physical achievement. However, Paralympic performances often receive less attention despite amazing feats of strength, speed and endurance.

We’ve seen this with powerlifting, which is our area of interest. We’re working with para-athletes to learn more about how some can lift heavier weights than athletes without disabilities.

Here’s what we know so far.

Read more:
A brief history of the Paralympic Games: from post-WWII rehabilitation to mega sport event

Paralympic record breakers

Many Paralympians out-perform athletes without disabilities in track and road races lasting longer than a minute.

One example is the men’s 800m T54 class, where athletes compete in a track wheelchair. Here, the Paralympic record is almost 11 seconds faster than athletes without a disability.

In the marathon, the Paralympic world record is a little over 1h 20min, set in 1999. This remains over 40 minutes quicker than the record for athletes without a disability.

However, athletes who use a wheelchair can maintain speed over longer distances, at least in part due to the advantage offered by purposely designed equipment and technology.

It’s the medium- and long-duration events, rather than the speed and strength sports, where Paralympic athletes tend to perform better than athletes without disabilities.

But there’s one exception — powerlifting.

Read more:
The Paralympics strive for inclusion. But some rules unfairly exclude athletes with severe disabilities

What’s so special about powerlifting?

Paralympic powerlifters (or Para-powerlifters) have one or more impairments that would limit their ability to participate in traditional weightlifting. These include impaired muscle function, co-ordination and movement of the hips and legs, or short stature.

They compete in classes according to their bodyweight and bench press as much weight as possible under strict criteria.

Para-powerlifting world records are impressive. Some five out of eight female records and six out of eight male records would be held by Paralympians if they were compared directly to athletes without disabilities.

Our calculations are based on athletes in a similar weight class and compared Paralympians with those competing in International Powerlifting Federation competitions.

Read more:
First person: how the Paralympics changed my life

Records continue to be broken. Take China’s Guo Lingling who lifted 109kg in the female 41kg weight class at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

This record is more than 2.6 times her bodyweight, a feat that would still be impressive for an athlete without a disability during a squat, let alone the bench press.

In the men’s competition, Paralympians can lift record-breaking weights more than 3.8 times their bodyweight. By comparison, the world record for a male athlete without a disability is about 3.3 times his bodyweight.

Why are Para-powerlifters so strong?

Due to lower limb impairments, Para-powerlifters may have a distinct advantage when comparing how much they can lift per kilo of bodyweight. That is, in some instances, lower-limb weight may be significantly less due to poor muscle quality even though automatic bodyweight additions are applied to athletes with amputations.

However, world records are based on the greatest weight lifted in each weight class rather than weight lifted per kilo of bodyweight. This is what makes Para-powerlifting records even more impressive.

So, we’re working with Para-powerlifters to find out more. Here are our three top reasons why they might be able to lift such heavy weights.

1. Leg position

Para-powerlifting rules are similar to those for athletes without disabilities. However, the legs of all Para-powerlifters must be placed or strapped to top of the bench when performing the bench press, rather than on the ground.

But scientific research remains at odds as to how much the legs contribute to powerlifting bench press performance. In fact, some research suggests upper-body muscles are better engaged when the legs are not placed on the ground.

In other words, the current evidence cannot say for certain whether leg position gives one group an advantage or disadvantage. We want to find out more.

2. Short stature may help

In the bench press the athlete lowers the bar to the chest, then pushes it up until the arms are fully extended. A shorter stature may mean some Para-powerlifters have to move the weight a shorter distance away from the chest. By moving through a smaller range, the muscle may be able work better throughout the movement.

Shorter limbs may also make it easier for some Para-powerlifters to overcome the torque (a rotating force on the joints) when lifting the bar.

However, in athletes without a disability arm length is not a major predictor of bench press performance, and not all Para-powerlifters have a short stature. So, more research is needed.

3. Focusing on the bench press

Para-powerlifters also train solely to perform the bench press. However, many record breaking powerlifters without disabilities also compete in competitions that include the squat and deadlift exercise.

Perhaps focusing on the one event gives Para-powerlifters some advantage.

What can we make of this?

Para-powerlifters show us not all superior world records are confined to endurance sports or influenced by technology.

They also highlight the importance of strength training for people with or without a disability.

Last of all, Para-powerlifters shift our perception of athletes with disabilities by highlighting their extraordinary sporting capabilities.

Dr Christopher Latella is currently collaborating with the International Paralympic Committee (Para powerlifting) on scientific research projects related to this article. He has previously (2013-2017) coached able-bodied powerlifting athletes competing in the International Powerlifting Federation. He co-leads a research working group named ‘The Strength Initiative’ which aims to understand and promote strength training across the lifespan.

Daniel van den Hoek is currently collaborating with the International Paralympic Committee (Para powerlifting) on scientific research projects related to this article. He co-leads a research working group named ‘The Strength Initiative’ which aims to understand and promote strength training across the lifespan.

– ref. 3 reasons why Paralympic powerlifters shift seemingly impossible weights – https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-why-paralympic-powerlifters-shift-seemingly-impossible-weights-166824

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roderic Broadhurst, Chair Professor, Australian National University

Child sexual abuse material is rampant online, despite considerable efforts by big tech companies and governments to curb it. And according to reports, it has only become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This material is largely hosted on the anonymous part of the internet — the “darknet” – where perpetrators can share it with little fear of prosecution. There are currently a few platforms offering anonymous internet access, including i2p, FreeNet and Tor.

Tor is by far the largest and presents the biggest conundrum. The open-source network and browser grants users anonymity by encrypting their information and letting them escape tracking by internet service providers.

Online privacy advocates including Edward Snowden have championed the benefits of such platforms, claiming they protect free speech, freedom of thought and civil rights. But they have a dark side, too.

Tor’s perverted underworld

The Tor Project was initially developed by the US Navy to protect online intelligence communications, before its code was publicly released in 2002. The Tor Project’s developers have acknowledged the potential to misuse the service which, when combined with technologies such as untraceable cryptocurrency, can help hide criminals.

Read more:
Explainer: what is the dark web?

Tor is an overlay network that exists “on top” of the internet and merges two technologies. The first is the onion service software. These are the websites, or “onion services”, hosted on the Tor network. These sites require an onion address and their servers’ physical locations are hidden from users.

The second is Tor’s privacy-maximising browser. It enables users to browse the internet anonymously by hiding their identity and location. While the Tor browser is needed to access onion services, it can also be used to browse the “surface” internet.

Accessing the Tor network is simple. And while search engine options are limited (there’s no Google), discovering onion services is simple, too. The BBC, New York Times, ProPublica, Facebook, the CIA and Pornhub all have a verified presence on Tor, to name a few.

Service dictionaries such as “The Hidden Wiki” list addresses on the network, allowing users to discover other (often illicit) services.

Child sex abuse material and abuse porn is prevalent

The number of onion services active on the Tor network is unknown, although the Tor Project estimates about 170,000 active addresses. The architecture of the network allows partial monitoring of the network traffic and a summary of which services are visited. Among the visited services, child sex abuse material is common.

Of the estimated 2.6 million users that use the Tor network daily, one study reported only 2% (52,000) of users accessed onion services. This suggests most users access the network to retain their online privacy, rather than use anonymous onion services.

That said, the same study found from a single data capture that about 80% of traffic to onion services was directed to services which did offer illegal porn, abuse images and/or child sex abuse material.

Another study estimated 53.4% of the 170,000 or so active onion domains contained legal content, suggesting 46.6% of services had content which was either illegal, or in a grey area.

Although scams make up a significant proportion of these services, cryptocurrency services, drug deals, malware, weapons, stolen credentials, counterfeit products and child sex abuse material also feature in this dark part of the internet.

Only about 7.5% of the child sex abuse material on the Tor network is estimated to be sold for a profit. The majority of those involved aren’t in it for money, so most of this material is simply swapped. That said, some services have started charging fees for content.

Several high-profile onion services hosting child sex abuse material have been shut down following extensive cross-jurisdictional law enforcement operations, including The Love Zone website in 2014, PlaypEn in 2015 and Child’s Play in 2017.

A recent effort led by German police, and involving others including Australian Federal Police, Europol and the FBI, resulted in the shutdown of the illegal website [Boystown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boystown_(website) in May.

But one of the largest child sex abuse material forums on the internet (not just Tor) has evaded law enforcement (and activist) takedown attempts for a decade. As of last month it had 508,721 registered users. And since 2013 it has hosted over a million pictures and videos of child sex abuse material and abuse porn.

The paedophile (eroticisation of pre-pubescent children), haebephile (pubescent children) and ephebophile (adolescents) communities are among the early adopters of anonymous discussion forums on Tor. Forum members distribute media, support each other and exchange tips to avoid police detection and scams targeting them.

The WeProtect Alliance’s 2019 Global Threat Assessment report estimated there were more than 2.88 million users on ten forums dedicated to paedophilia and paraphilia interests operating via onion services.

Countermeasures

There are huge challenges for law enforcement trying to prosecute those who produce and/or distribute child sex abuse material online. Such criminal activity typically falls across multiple jurisdictions, making detection and prosecution difficult.

Undercover operations and novel online investigative techniques are essential. One example is targeted “hacks” which offer law enforcement back-door access to sites or forums hosting child sex abuse material.

Such operations are facilitated by cybercrime and transnational organised crime treaties which address child sex abuse material and the trafficking of women and children.

Given the volatile nature of many onion services, a focus on onion directories and forums may help with harm reduction. Little is known about child sex abuse material forums on Tor, or the extent to which they influence onion services hosting this material.

Apart from coordinating to avoid detection, forum users can also share information about police activity, rate onion service vendors, share sites and expose scams targeting them.

The monitoring of forums by outsiders can lead to actionable interventions, such as the successful profiling of active offenders. Some agencies have explored using undercover law enforcement officers, civil society, or NGO experts (such as from the WeProtect Global Alliance or ECPAT International) to promote self-regulation within these groups.

While there is a lack of research on this, reformed or recovering offenders can also provide counsel to others. Some sub-forums seek to offer education, encourage treatment and reduce harm — usually by focusing on the legal and health issues associated with consuming child sex abuse material, and ways to control urges and avoid stimuli.

Other contraband services also play a role. For instance, onion services dedicated to drug, malware or other illicit trading usually ban child sex abuse material that creeps in.

Why does the Tor network allow such abhorrent material to remain, despite extensive opposition — sometimes even from those within these groups? Surely those representing Tor have read complaints in the media, if not survivor reports about child sex abuse material.

Read more:
The darknet – a wild west for fake coronavirus ‘cures’? The reality is more complicated (and regulated)

Roderic Broadhurst has received funding for a variety of research projects on cybercrime and darknet markets from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology, Korean institute of Criminology and, the Australian Criminology Research Council. Since April 2019 he has served on the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation Research Working Group.

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

– ref. How the world’s biggest dark web platform spreads millions of items of child sex abuse material — and why it’s hard to stop – https://theconversation.com/how-the-worlds-biggest-dark-web-platform-spreads-millions-of-items-of-child-sex-abuse-material-and-why-its-hard-to-stop-167107

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History, Monash University

Today’s Australian fathers are believed to be more “hands on” and engaged with their children than the stereotypical absent breadwinner of generations past.

However, our research exploring Australian fatherhood between 1919 and 2019 has found that while men’s family roles have changed, deep-rooted societal and cultural forces keep them from being the kind of fathers many of them would like to be.

The breadwinner of the early 1900s

Our research examined oral history interviews with (and about) fathers from diverse backgrounds, along with archival sources including letters, diaries and government files. Our goal was to better understand the experience of Australian fathering over the past 100 years.

We found a key factor shaping the history of Australian fatherhood has been the demands of paid work and the enduring power of the provider role — even in situations where dads are not the sole earners.

While the breadwinner father is hardly a uniquely Australian phenomenon, the ideal became institutionalised here in distinctive ways.

The 1907 Harvester Judgement, a landmark court ruling, established the principle that the male basic wage should support a wife and three children. This decision, which in turn ensured lower wages for women, remained the basis for setting Australia’s minimum wage until the 1970s.

Male breadwinner assumptions shaped not just the country’s wages but also welfare and tax policy, so that it simply made better financial sense for fathers to work and mothers to stay at home with the kids. This entrenched a gendered division of labour in family roles that would last for generations.

The Great Depression then made many fathers failed breadwinners. Geoffrey Ruggles, who was born in rural Victoria in 1924, recalled in an oral history interview that when his war-veteran father lost work, his mother was “forced to scrub other people’s washing”.

Humiliation fuelled marital discord and damaged Ruggles’ relationship with his father. He found an alternative father figure in his navy officer uncle:

[My uncle] had a lot of glamour about him […] an extrovert, a bright outgoing, merry man. A contrast to my father who was a sad sack. So Uncle Tom was a great fellow to be with, he gave me tools and helped me to start things like that, and fostered an idea of innovation – of doing what I wanted to do.

The sons of struggling Depression-era families often grew up determined to be good providers for their own families.

Many were also veterans who sought the stability of “traditional” family life. These men became the stereotypical, Holden-driving, breadwinner fathers of the “imagined fifties”, counterpart to the stereotypical 1950s housewife.

These stereotypes are not entirely wrong. The sole-breadwinner father is often assumed to be the historical norm, but in fact this family arrangement was broadly achievable for only a brief time between the early 1950s and 1970s. For the only time in Australian history, many working-class families could manage on one wage.

By the mid-1970s, however, recessions, deindustrialisation and the casualisation of the workforce shattered the economic security of the (male) “job for life”. At the same time, feminism and equal pay were mounting a new challenge to the male breadwinner stereotype.

Read more:
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The “new man” of the late 20th century

History is so often circular. The sons of the postwar, breadwinner fathers wanted to do things differently from their dads, too.

In another oral history interview, Peter, a man born in Melbourne in 1956, recalled:

As a teenager in the 1970s […] most of the guys that I knew had lousy relationships with their dads. And I think that was really common […] a lot of them had been to war, they’d come home and their role was to build a family, you know, build a financial basis for it so they worked long hours and they just really didn’t seem to relate to their sons.

We all got on really well with each other’s mothers. But the fathers were very distant figures and it’s very different from today.

The social, cultural and economic transformations sweeping Australia from the mid-1970s brought new opportunities and expectations for fathers. Feminism and the growing numbers of working mums challenged traditional gender roles in families and contributed to the emergence of the popular ideal of the “new man” by the 1980s.

Fathers of this generation were more likely to be present at the births of their children, and to be physically and emotionally “present” dads.

The inevitable outcome of these changes, some assumed, would be a dual worker-carer model of family life in which mothers and fathers have more equal parenting roles.

Read more:
How Hemingway felt about fatherhood

The “modified breadwinner” family

Yet, today’s fathers still find their working lives to be a significant barrier to their ability to be active and engaged fathers.

Since the mid-1990s, the most common family formation has been the “modified breadwinner” model. Mothers typically return to work after having children, usually part-time, while the full-time working father earns the primary wage.

Read more:
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Although fathers are caring for children slightly more than in the past, time use surveys confirm how much more time women spend doing childcare today compared to men. The unpaid labour of household and family management still largely falls on mothers, with dads “helping”, as homeschooling during COVID has laid bare.

Fathers interviewed in the late 1990s and early 2000s express a desire to be more involved, but are tied to paid work that limits the time and opportunity for parenting. Many speak of the stress of trying to meet expectations at work, as well as home, and some feel excluded from family life.

Peter, a man born in the mid-1950s in Victoria, recalls:

I was probably working pretty long hours and a lot of the duties were left up to my wife to do […] Even on the weekends, I found that if the kids had a choice of who they would go with, they tend to choose my wife anyway. I found that distressing quite often.

I never used to get home from work till 7:00-7:30. My job was to earn money, and the only time I did stuff around the house was on the weekend and for the kids.

The fathers who spend the most time with their children tend to be those living in less typical family types, including single and stay-at-home dads.

Gay male couples with kids are less detached from their children’s daily care than fathers in heterosexual couple families, perhaps because they are able to evade the “gender baggage” that influences men’s and women’s roles in families.

The parenting paradox

Today’s Australian fathers face a striking paradox. They are expected to be more “hands-on dads”, yet there’s been little systemic change in their working lives (including access to, and uptake of, parental leave and flexible work). There’s also been little change to gendered roles in family arrangements: a situation that, admittedly, many fathers have been happy to roll with.

Most fathers are still working long hours and many are concerned about how little time they have to be engaged fathers. Today’s dads may not view breadwinning as their raison d’être, but the breadwinner model of Australian fatherhood is not yet “history”.

Kate Murphy receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Grants scheme, for DP190100214 A History of Australian Fatherhood 1919-2019. She is affiliated with Monash University.

Alistair Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Grants scheme, for DP190100214 A History of Australian Fatherhood 1919-2019, and the Australian Research Council Discovery Linkage scheme, for LP170100860 People, Places and Promises: Social Histories of Holden in Australia. He is affiliated with Monash University, and is member of the Australian Labor Party.

– ref. We studied 100 years of Australian fatherhood. Here’s how today’s dads differ from their grandfathers – https://theconversation.com/we-studied-100-years-of-australian-fatherhood-heres-how-todays-dads-differ-from-their-grandfathers-166348

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Haynes, Research Officer, University of Sydney

The design and construction of new homes in Australia may leave residents vulnerable to heatwaves and local councils can do little to fix the situation, our new research has found.

Our study focused on the Jordan Springs development at Penrith in Western Sydney. We found the estate may not be fit to withstand future heatwaves, potentially putting residents at risk and leaving them dependent on increasingly expensive air conditioning.

Australians are already experiencing significant heatwaves. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month warned heatwaves will become even more frequent, intense and longer.

Rising house prices in Australia’s major cities are driving many people to more affordable housing estates on the city fringe. But without interventions from state governments and local councils, such estates may be unsustainable as heatwaves intensify.

Exacerbating hot temperatures

Jordan Springs is a ten-year-old planned housing estate located 7km from Penrith. As of the 2016 Census, the estate was home to 5,156 residents. It currently consists of 1,819 homes and it is forecast to grow to about 13,000 residents in 4,800 homes.

Our research involved:

• collecting secondary information about the area, including climate forecasts, regional growth forecasts and planning law
• conducting surveys and interviews with residents, government and council officials and scientific experts
• examining the estate’s physical exposure to heat through aerial imagery and ground cover analyses.

Inland suburbs are significantly hotter than those on the coast, due to the lack of cooling coastal breezes. That is true of Penrith, which lies 60km west of Sydney’s central business district. On average, Penrith experiences three times more days above 30℃ than the CBD.

Jordan Springs is compliant with building regulations and individual homes are compliant with NSW’s Building Sustainability Index (BASIX). However, we found the estate’s built environment exacerbates the region’s hot temperatures and exposes residents to higher indoor temperatures. This points to a need for better planning regulations and building design.

We suspect our findings may be true for other planned estate developments across New South Wales and Australia, but more research is needed to confirm this.

Read more:
Houses for a warmer future are currently restricted by Australia’s building code

What we discovered

Homes in the estate are built close together, with minimum side and rear distances from adjoining properties of 1.8m and 6m respectively. This can prevent air flow and allow heat to accumulate during the day. The close proximity also reduces space for vegetation.

The estate’s streets are wide and buildings are low. This reduces shade and maximises exposure to the sun of roofs, roads and other hard surfaces.

Almost 59% of Jordan Springs is heat-trapping hard surface cover such as concrete and asphalt. This compares to just 10% combined tree and shrub cover. A lack of greenery can contribute to the accumulation of heat.

Houses, roofs, and surrounding surfaces (such as roads, walls and fences) are generally dark-coloured, which increases heat absorption. For example, dark roofs have been recorded as 20-30℃ hotter than light coloured roofs (see images below).

The NSW government last week recognised the problem dark roofs pose in hot weather, announcing light-coloured roofs will be mandatory in new homes in parts of southwest Sydney.

At Jordan Springs, we found some houses were poorly insulated and draughty. Yet many of these homes still attained a high BASIX star rating for energy efficiency.

The Conversation sought a response from the developer, Lend Lease. A company spokesperson said given the technical nature of the findings, it could not provide an adequate comment by deadline.

Read more:
Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?

A persistent problem

During heatwaves, the built environment can exacerbate already dangerous conditions for humans. Many people turn on their air conditioners to beat the heat, increasing energy use and leading to higher electricity bills.

So why does this situation persist?

One councillor believes the profit imperative of developers is a factor, telling us:

the developers are only thinking about their shareholders and directors … I don’t believe that the developer is eco-friendly.

Meanwhile, a scientific expert said:

Today people don’t build double brick because of the cost […] they are about building fast and moving on and building more because of the profit they make […] everything must be cheap or else you can’t be fast.

In recent years there have been media reports of private certifiers signing off on buildings which do not meet planning guidelines. One local councillor told us this can result in homes that don’t perform well in hot weather.

And even if councils could enforce stricter rules, they risk losing interest from developers – and associated financial benefits. A frustrated council official said if one council had strict rules around housing developments and heat, and the neighbouring council did not, then:

developers are more likely to go there to build housing … It’s a tricky balance. We still want growth, and we want to work with developers, but we want to improve how we are doing things.

So where to now?

Clearly, many planned housing estates are not fit-for-purpose in our changing climate. But residents can take action to help their homes and estates stay cooler in hot weather.

Where possible, install heat-resistant features such as blinds, shades and awnings to increase passive cooling and reduce air conditioning dependence. Plant trees and shrubs in home gardens and encourage communities to engage in estate-wide greening initiatives.

Councils and developers should ensure prospective residents understand the benefits of light-coloured materials, passive design and urban green space. This will encourage them to make more informed decisions during the construction process.

But ultimately, the responsibility to ensure the heat-resilience of current and future housing rests with state governments and developers. While building new homes and returning profits is important, the well-being of citizens in a warmer world must be the paramount concern.

Read more:
The world endured 2 extra heatwave days per decade since 1950 – but the worst is yet to come

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

Emma Calgaro receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the State and National Disaster Mitigation Program and the Global Resilience Partnership.

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

– ref. The Great Australian Dream? New homes in planned estates may not be built to withstand heatwaves – https://theconversation.com/the-great-australian-dream-new-homes-in-planned-estates-may-not-be-built-to-withstand-heatwaves-166266

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

Australia is in the middle of its worst COVID-19 outbreak. Our hospital system is under strain. Vulnerable communities are being hit hard. And more than half the nation is locked down.

There is an understandable desire to know when we can reopen. But there is also an even more important need to know how we can reopen.

The national plan endorsed by the prime minister and state and territory leaders goes part of the way to answering this question.

It sets thresholds for the proportion of the 16-plus population vaccinated beyond which it says certain restrictions can be less common.

But it doesn’t talk much about the other things we will have to do.

How we reopen is as important as when

It’s the big gap in the national approach. And it needs to be filled. Now.

That is what OzSAGE aims to do. OzSAGE is an additional expert resource for governments and business, health, education, community and non-government agencies in Australia.

Inspired by the UK Independent SAGE (Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), OzSAGE members have expertise in public health, infectious diseases, epidemiology, Aboriginal health, engineering, the built environment, occupational hygiene, behavioural and social science, multicultural engagement, communications, law, data science, public policy and economics.

Ventilation will become a priority

Our first piece of advice on how to best live with occasional outbreaks centres on ventilation and what we are calling vaccines-plus.

Ventilation (and filtration) is about providing safe air and limiting transmission in shared spaces. These include workplaces, health and aged care, schools, prisons, social venues and homes, especially where overcrowding is present. COVID is airborne, meaning prevention requires safe air.

Vaccines are essential to our pandemic exit strategy, but overseas experience shows current vaccines alone are not sufficient to fight the Delta variant.

“Plus” refers to testing, contact tracing, masks and other non-pharmaceutical strategies that will continue to be required in the medium term to fight Delta, and may need to be scaled up or down depending on severity of the epidemic.

Our first recommendations have been with politicians for a week.

They are released publicly this morning.

One of the things that made Australia’s 2020 pandemic response world-leading was that we acted early to keep the virus under control. This gave us options other countries did not have.

As we reopen we should ensure we do so safely enough to retain what economists call “option value” — the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Our approach should entail the following elements.

1. Living with occasional outbreaks rather than widespread disease

COVID-19 is here to stay, but we don’t have to resign ourselves to losing all the gains won in 2020. We should aim to control COVID-19 in the same way we control measles, which is even more contagious.

Right now that requires ventilation and “vaccines-plus” to manage outbreaks. But the level of innovation in vaccines is extraordinary.

When boosters or vaccines matched to variants are available, herd immunity ought to be possible using a smart and agile vaccine strategy.

2. Leaving no-one behind

Vaccine targets should be met for all, not only for the population as a whole but also for subgroups, recognising structural and social disadvantage.

These include all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, residents of remote and regional Australia, and other vulnerable high-risk and disadvantaged groups.

While vaccination is not available yet for all children, we recommend additional steps to protect them and make schools safe.

3. Protecting the health system

Australia has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Despite this, urgent non-COVID care is already suffering in NSW.

We plan to outline a range of strategies essential to preventing the loss of health workers and protecting hospitals and their patients in cities and in regional areas.

Read more:
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The best-laid plans to reopen will be disrupted if the capacity of the health system to deal with COVID and non-COVID care is exceeded by a surge.

I am proud to be part of an expert group that will provide independent, cross-disciplinary advice on how to open up safely.

What’s next?

Our advice will be informed by the best evidence, but will be practical. It will provide government, business, and community organisations with a series of tangible measures that can be taken to ensure we can reopen safely.

Nobody knows what 2022 will hold. But we need to ensure Australia is in a position to consolidate its successes and avoid repeating its recent mistakes.

Proper ventilation is a start. We will have more to say in coming weeks.

Richard Holden is President-elect of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and an executive member of OzSAGE, the Australian Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

– ref. Introducing OzSAGE, a source of practical expert advice for how to reopen Australia from COVID safely – https://theconversation.com/introducing-ozsage-a-source-of-practical-expert-advice-for-how-to-reopen-australia-from-covid-safely-166943

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Palmer, Professor, School of Art, RMIT University

Australians have always loved photography exhibitions. They are consistently among the most well attended at our museums and galleries, and have formed an important part of our cultural landscape since the middle of the 19th century.

Our research reveals a fascinating history of encounters, spaces, and techniques of display — hidden in more conventional accounts that focus on famous photographers and iconic images.

Here are ten exhibitions that represent some key chapters in this history.

Read more:
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1. J. W. Newland’s ‘Daguerrean Gallery’, Sydney, 1848

Visitors to Australia’s first photography exhibition in 1848 climbed the steps above a wine and spirits store in the centre of Sydney to the studio of J. W. Newland. He had just arrived with 200 daguerreotypes made during an almost three-year journey from New Orleans, thorough Central and South America, across the Pacific to New Zealand, and finally to Sydney.

In delicate images formed on polished silver plates ranging from the size of an iPad to an iPhone, visitors saw “views” of other great Pacific ports such as Peru’s Callao, “specimens” of various Indigenous people, and “likenesses” of celebrities they had only read about in newspapers. These included Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti who had famously become caught up in French and British colonial rivalry.

Visitors could also have their own portrait taken for the gallery, joining the other daguerreotypes Newland advertised as covering “two thirds of the globe”.

2. The Australian Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, 1866

In 1866, where Victoria’s State Library now stands, two purpose-built, timber exhibition halls were filled with commodities from ten Australasian colonies for the first Intercolonial Exhibition. The hundreds of photographs crammed between the profusion of the displays were such an important component they attracted their own review from the now defunct Australian Monthly Magazine.

This “wanderer amongst the photographic views” thought they exhibited “the high standard of taste to which we, as inhabitants of new colonies, have arrived”. Like the pyramidal “trophies” of canned foods and confectionery placed throughout the exhibition spaces, the photographs visualised and quantified colonial prosperity.

Scale and spectacle were everything. Many views of the new colonial buildings were contact printed from glass plate negatives 25 x 30 cm in size, and one multi-panelled panorama of Sydney stretched over a metre in length. Viewers could peer into the binocular lenses of a stereoscope, which enabled them to see a number of paired images taken from slightly different angles as a sequence of 3D views of Hobart.

3. Harold Cazneaux’s ‘One Man Show’, Photographic Society of New South Wales, Sydney, 1909

At the turn of the 19th century, Australian photography was transformed by the self-consciously artistic style of Pictorialism. In 1909, one of its emergent figures, Harold Cazneaux, held the first solo show by an individual Australian photographer.

Its 26 portraits, landscapes, seascapes, harbour scenes and “picturesque city corners” showed what “any energetic cameraist can secure in his lunch hour, if he is gifted with the ‘seeing eye’.”

Cazneaux proudly documented the tasteful installation of his show in the Sydney rooms of the Photographic Society of New South Wales. Each print was individually mounted behind a wide cardboard mat in an elegant frame and numbered, referring to a catalogue on a table beneath a vase of flowers. Cazneaux had set the template for thousands of photographers’ shows to come.

4. Wolfgang Sievers and Helmut Newton’s New Visions in Photography, Federal Hotel, Melbourne, 1953

Staged over five days at the Federal Hotel on Melbourne’s Collins Street in 1953, Wolfgang Sievers and Helmut Newton declared the bold aim of New Visions in Photography in an introductory wall panel. It was “to demonstrate … the potential of industrial and fashion photography as a means of better promotion and bigger sales”.

The two German émigrés embodied a dramatically new approach to the photograph. Sievers’ industrial and architectural studies and Newton’s fashion images both exploited radical vantage points and close-ups to produce bold, graphic compositions in sharp, high contrast black and white — reflecting Australia’s emergence as a modern nation.

The magazine-like display matched the formal qualities of the photographs. Instead of framed images in a row, enlarged unframed photographs were presented on white pegboard and suspended in the air by fine thread, sometimes at radical angles.

This dramatic sculpting of space in the old hotel underscored Sievers and Newton’s belief in photography’s potential to make the world anew.

5. Urban Woman, Melbourne Town Hall, 1963

Urban Woman was the most ambitious and accessible exhibition by a collective of Melbourne-based amateur photographers including Albert Brown, George Bell, Roy McDonald and John Crook who called themselves Group M. Earnest teachers and chemists, they were inspired by the tradition of social documentary.

Urban Woman comprised over 200 mostly candid, long, focal length images by 13 photographers (all male), selected by designer Max Forbes. Inspired by the photographers’ observation of the “loneliness” of young suburban mothers, they aimed “to confront reality with an unprejudiced eye”.

The fact that an exhibition about women was made exclusively by men went unnoticed in the significant press coverage it attracted.

Conceived as a direct response to the international blockbuster The Family of Man, which toured to Australia in 1959, Urban Woman appealed to similar humanist sentiment. Its design featured purpose-built wooden structures to display huge, unframed prints, with subjects arranged from youth to old age.

6. Frontiers, National Gallery of Victoria, 1971

The National Gallery of Victoria became the first Australian gallery to establish a department of photography in 1967, despite opposition from some trustees (one of whom referred to photography as a “cheat’s way of doing a painting”). At the time, it was one of only a handful of such departments in the world.

Frontiers featured the experimental and abstract photography of John Cato, Peter Medlen, Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski, Mark Strizic and John Wilkins. All-male photography exhibitions remained common until the pioneering exhibitions of feminist photographers such as Sue Ford and Carol Jerrems in the mid-1970s.

The work in Frontiers was self-consciously contemporary, even psychedelic. Cato’s environmental protest work comprised 52 prints installed on crimson screens with strobe lighting. Ostoja-Kotkowski’s light transparencies, formed by laser beams and infra-red, were backlit from spotlights mounted on the ceiling. Strizic presented a 10-metre colour mural (later destroyed due to chronic fading).

7. William Yang, Sydneyphiles, Australian Centre for Photography, 1977

In 1977, William Yang used the walls of the new Australian Centre for Photography for a diaristic exhibition, Sydneyphiles. This was Yang’s first exhibition, in which his small scale colour and black and white photographs of Sydney’s gay community and its art, fashion and socialite scenes were hung closely alongside and above each other to cover the walls like a giant personal scrapbook.

Sydneyphiles is significant for reasons beyond its controversial sexual content. It was an early example of the Centre moving beyond a more conventional framed black and white modernist tradition.

It is likely the first exhibition by an Asian-Australian photographer, and it included its community as part of the event (the press release notes Yang “invited many of the subjects of his photography” to his exhibition). Yang later said the exhibition “launched me as a photographer”.

8. National Aboriginal and Islander Photographers Exhibition, Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney, 1986

The first exhibition in which Aboriginal people had control over their own photographs took place in 1986 during what is now known as NAIDOC week. On the raw brick walls of Sydney’s Aboriginal Artists Gallery, ten Indigenous photographers hung their exhibition.

They included Mervyn Bishop, Australia’s first Aboriginal press photographer, and others such as Brenda L. Croft, Michael Riley and Tracey Moffatt, who went on to become important figures in Australian art.

The show featured photographs that later became touchstones, such as Moffatt’s portrait of actor David Gulpilil relaxing at Bondi beach in board shorts and face paint.

It was an immediate success, as Moffatt ruefully commented: “To be honest, we got the kind of publicity which makes me want to vomit; e.g. ‘they’re Aborigines, they’re articulate, and gee whizz, they take good pictures’ sort of stuff. I guess I shouldn’t complain because we got a lot of people coming through looking at the show and buying work, which is what we do like!”

9. Photography Is Dead! Long Live Photography!, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1996

In 1996, as the medium was being transformed by the impact of digital photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art mounted Photography Is Dead! Long Live Photography! For curator Linda Michael its 32 exhibitors were “artists using photography”, not photographers per se. They saw photographs not as transparent windows onto the world, but as a material within themselves.

Some large unframed prints were suspended to curl delicately out from the wall, others were bonded onto aluminium for an industrial look; some were expressionistically cut up, others were physically sculpted.

Some — such as Jane Eisemann’s surrealist imagery and Patricia Piccinini’s glossy advertising style portraits of a celebrity starlet holding a genetically modified pet — were digitally produced, with computer manipulation an intrinsic part of their meaning.

10. Hoda Afshar’s Remain, The Substation, Melbourne, 2019

Photographs have long appeared in public space in the form of corporate messaging. They can be projections or billboards. To offer different messages, Tehran-born, Melbourne-based artist Hoda Afshar is one of many who have taken advantage of inexpensive, large-scale printing to give voice to the experiences of marginalised people.

In 2019 Afshar presented her striking, collaboratively-produced portraits of asylum seekers incarcerated by the Australian Government on Manus Island on 2.4-metre-high billboards along the train line that skirts The Substation in the western Melbourne suburb of Newport.

The Christ-like image of the Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was already becoming iconic, having won a major photography prize and circulated in newspapers and Afshar’s Instagram account (arguably the most important site for photography today).

But the public display amplified the political potency of her ghostly black-and-white portraits to new audiences. As she has said, “When you make a socially and politically engaged work, the intention is to communicate with the people”.

These moments are drawn from our book Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848-2020) published by Perimeter Editions in 2021.

Daniel Palmer received funding from the Australian Research Council for this project.

Martyn Jolly received funding from the Australian Research Council for this project.

– ref. Friday essay: 10 photography exhibitions that defined Australia – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-10-photography-exhibitions-that-defined-australia-166755

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

In the Orwellian world of the pandemic, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews’s raising of the white flag on “COVID zero” was greeted positively by the Morrison government and with relief by many among the public who are at the end of their tether.

We’ve now officially moved into a new stage. As federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday, “the pandemic has become endemic”.

In accepting Victoria couldn’t get back near zero, Andrews was following NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who lost control of the virus, with daily new cases in that state now running well above a thousand and rising.

Only weeks ago there were hopes of suppressing the outbreaks in both states. When it was becoming obvious NSW was failing, Berejiklian was criticised for not locking down early and hard enough. Andrews went hard immediately – and failed too.

“Living with COVID is a reality – it’s not an option,” Berejiklian said on Thursday, sending the blunt message to premiers still set on COVID-minimalism that they’d have to accept the Delta world.

As they will. But not for some time, if they can help it.

Watching Australia’s third wave escalate, the Labor states of Western Australia and Queensland are dug in, trenchantly and vociferously, behind their efforts to keep cases out. The brawling between them and the Morrison government took on an even sharper edge this week.

In contrast, Morrison praised the Liberal premiers of South Australia and Tasmania, who are also pursuing COVID zero, but keeping their heads down.

Australia’s federation is now more fractured than at any time during this crisis, in a toxic mix of policy differences and politics, exacerbated by the approaching federal election.

WA’s Mark McGowan must be concerned as to how he’ll eventually reintegrate his state into the rest of the country, which he accepts must happen at some point. With WA vaccination levels lagging, he’s not tying himself down but says he’ll set a date when “the time is right” (assuming he’s not mugged by a runaway outbreak). He wants to ensure vulnerable sections of the population are fully protected. The state’s isolation and insulation help him.

Economic imperatives for WA’s opening will strengthen, but McGowan can usually outplay the federal government on the politics.

Last year Scott Morrison had to make an embarrassing withdrawal from the Clive Palmer challenge (subsequently lost) to the WA border closure, after it became clear local public opinion was strongly on the state government’s side.

This week federal Attorney-General Michaelia Cash, who’s from WA, mused about how an action could be more successful in the changed circumstances of a vaccinated population (not that the federal government is planning to launch a case).

McGowan seized the baseball bat. “West Australians don’t want me to bring [the border] down now, to give in to this sort of crazy bullying by the federal government, and infect our population, lose jobs and shut down part of our economy, including the mining industry,” he said.

This highlights, incidentally, a point often overlooked in the heated political rows. Talk about “opening” WA and Queensland refers to opening borders. Internally, these states are “open” – unlike the shuttered NSW and Victoria.

McGowan is usually careful to avoid overreach. In contrast, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk went over the top when she defended her closed border with an emotive claim about the danger to young children.

“You open up this state and you let the virus in here, and every child under 12 is vulnerable, every single child,” she told state parliament on Wednesday. These children were “vulnerable because they are the unvaccinated”.

The federal government, and other critics, retorted that while young children caught the virus, very few got a severe illness, and they’ve not so far been vaccinated in other countries (although vaccination is being trialled in the US).

In the border wars, it’s worth remembering the big border decisions – about reopening Australia to the world – rest with the federal government.

There are multiple fronts – not just Australians travelling abroad and returning home, but also the admission of foreign tourists, students, workers to fill serious skill shortages, and migrants. The relaxation won’t be done all at once; even so it will be challenging – for example, needing home quarantine arrangements as well as vaccination requirements.

The government’s COVID strategy is built around the national cabinet “plan”, underpinned by the Doherty Institute’s modelling, and buttressed with the catchword “hope” and the promise of a great Christmas.

But grim realities will accompany the transition.

NSW is likely to reach 3,000-4,000 daily new cases this month, while Victoria is expected to rise above 1,000 daily. In NSW, the state government is bracing for the month of October to be very bad, in hospitalisations and deaths.

More generally, the Australian Medical Association wrote to Morrison this week warning of a looming crisis in the public hospital system.

“As it stands, our hospital system is not ready to cope with an easing of restrictions, even with increased vaccination rates,” the letter from AMA president Omar Khorshid said. “To prepare we must develop a detailed understanding of our current hospital capacity and model the impact of ‘living with COVID-19’, with the associated caseload increase.”

The AMA suggested a vaccination rate of higher than 80% of the adult population was likely to be required, “given the existing constraints on hospital capacity and staffing”.

With Friday’s national cabinet receiving a report on the health system and its workforce, the government appears inclined to regard the AMA pitch as part of its periodic appeal for more hospital funding.

But from what we’ve seen in NSW, with some hospitals coming under acute pressure, and evidence the WA system is already inadequate, hospitals are clearly a potential weak point in our defences as COVID cases rise quickly after restrictions are eased in coming months.

We know the Morrison government is now totally focused on getting life back to some normality. It stresses this will be done “safely”.

In fact, it is less a matter of opening “safely” than minimising the risks inevitable in opening. That goes beyond the state of the health system to include issues such as sub-groups in the population who might not be adequately vaccinated when the general community levels of 70% and 80% are reached. Dealing with the risks will demand more nuance than “the plan” seems to provide.

The government is banking on the attention of people – who are now deeply frustrated if they live in NSW or Victoria – shifting decisively off the health issues once life is freer. That, however, will depend on effective management of an unpredictable transition.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: The transition to living with ‘endemic’ COVID could be rough – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-transition-to-living-with-endemic-covid-could-be-rough-167218

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Griffin, Associate Professor, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The University of Queensland

This week the World Health Organization named a new “variant of interest” of the coronavirus, called the Mu variant. It was first found in Colombia in January 2021, and has been found in about 39 countries so far.

Mu has changes, called mutations, which mean it might be able to evade some of the protection we get from COVID vaccines.

But one reassuring element is that, despite being around since January 2021, it doesn’t seem to be outcompeting Delta, the dominant variant across most of the world.

If Mu was truly a really bad variant, we would have expected to have started to see indications of this, and we haven’t yet.

Read more:
Coronavirus variants have new names: we can finally stop stigmatising countries

What’s a variant of interest?

An impressive element of our COVID response has been frequent genomic sequencing, which we haven’t done before on this scale. This tracks and maps the evolution of the virus in real time, as it adapts and mutates.

Some mutations will be detrimental to the virus, but some will be beneficial, allowing it to spread better, escape the protection offered by vaccines or even evade COVID tests.

If there are changes to the virus that mean it looks like it has the potential to do more harm, then we might designate it a “variant of interest”.

Mu has mutations that might confer some of these properties, but evidence is still emerging.

The four other variants of interest are Eta, Iota, Kappa and Lambda.

If there’s good evidence Mu is more serious and beginning to overtake other variants such as Delta, it might be upgraded to a “variant of concern”. The four variants of concern are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.

Can it escape vaccines?

Most COVID vaccines target the “spike protein” of the virus, which it uses to enter our cells. Our vaccines expose our bodies to a part of the virus, commonly the spike protein, so our immune system can learn to fight the virus off if it encounters it.

If a variant has significant changes in the spike protein, this may decrease the effectiveness of our vaccines.

Read more:
There’s no need to panic about the new C.1.2 variant found in South Africa, according to a virologist

The WHO said preliminary evidence suggests the Mu variant could partially evade the antibodies we get from vaccination.

But because this data is from lab studies, we can’t be sure how the variant will actually play out in the population.

We need more research to be certain about how it behaves in humans, and work on this is ongoing.

The good news is our vaccines currently protect well against symptomatic infection and severe disease from all variants of the virus so far.

Vaccines may not protect forever

There’s a high probability a new variant will arise one day that can significantly escape the protection offered by our vaccines, which are based on the original strain of the virus. We would call this an “escape variant”.

It’s hard to know if and when this would happen, but rampant community transmission of the virus increases the chances of such a variant emerging.

Read more:
How will Delta evolve? Here’s what the theory tells us

However, the leading COVID vaccine manufacturers are well prepared if this eventuates. Some are already developing vaccines for new variants, such as Delta.

If we did discover an escape variant, some vaccine manufacturers could alter their existing vaccines to match the new variant, possibly within 6-8 weeks. Medical regulators around the world would likely accelerate the approval process to make this possible. Certain studies would be required but these could be done quickly, so long as the new vaccine had basically the same properties as the existing vaccine.

It’s possible we could see a variant overtake Delta in terms of infectiousness eventually. Scientists think it’s at least 50% more infectious than the Alpha variant, which was about 50% more infectious than the original strain.

Evolutionary theory predicts the virus may become more transmissible over time, but less severe, as a virus wants to spread as much as possible and doesn’t want to kill its host before it can do so. But this may not necessarily be how SARS-CoV-2 plays out, and realistically we’re still in the early days of this virus.

The best way of combating variants is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, so there are fewer susceptible hosts for the virus to reproduce and mutate.

Read more:
New COVID variants have changed the game, and vaccines will not be enough. We need global ‘maximum suppression’

There is a risk that once we have the majority of the world vaccinated, vaccines may place “selective pressure” on the virus to evolve to escape vaccines. But the benefits of having more people vaccinated outweighs this risk.

I don’t think it’s time to be concerned about Mu yet. If it became a “variant of concern”, then we might be more worried. But we have some amazing tools to fight this virus, including many successful vaccines — the majority of which can be adapted quickly to new variants.

It’s likely we’ll have regular booster shots to protect us against variants in the future.

Paul Griffin is a Director and Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Immunisation Coalition and serves on advisory boards for GSK and AstraZeneca.

– ref. What’s the Mu variant? And will we keep seeing more concerning variants? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-mu-variant-and-will-we-keep-seeing-more-concerning-variants-167183

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Williams, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, Griffith University

Nationals MP George Christensen recently copped condemnation from federal parliament for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

The member for the central Queensland seat of Dawson falsely claimed masks and lockdowns were ineffective against the spread of COVID, demanding governments “open society back up” to “restore our freedoms [and] end this madness”. In a rare move, both Labor and the government backed the motion against him.

The comments were outrageous, but not surprising. Christensen, who has been in parliament since 2010, has a long history of courting controversy, including comments on Muslim immigrants and global warming.

Why do people listen to him? Where does his power base come from?

Democratically elected, so…

Understanding why Christensen can make such statements — and why the news media report them — is simple: as a democratically elected MP, he is entitled to air even the most egregious views under parliamentary privilege.

Of course, the parliament is equally entitled to condemn him. And the more novel his views, and the more conflict they produce, the more likely they are to be reported.

What is more difficult to explain, however, is how and why maverick politicians succeed in a liberal democracy like Australia, where the confines of political discourse have traditionally been quite narrow.

Unlike many European polities, Australian politics have never really entertained hard socialism on the left or ultra-conservatism on the right, at least until the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the late 1990s.

The maverick tradition in Australia

Yet mavericks have existed since the earliest days of Australian politics.

Before the evolution of the modern party system 130 years ago, rogues were common in legislatures free from party constraints. Today, given the major parties’ discipline over their MPs — most of whom boast frontbench ambitions — and an aggressive Fourth Estate, political mavericks are much rarer.

Read more:
Twenty years on, One Nation is still chaotic, controversial and influential

And those who fail to toe the party line are often forced out. Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Clive Palmer, Fraser Anning (Queensland appears to be a natural home to mavericks) are just a few examples of those who left established parties to lead their own, self-titled brigades.

Other mavericks include Graeme Campbell (Western Australia), Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania) and Fred Nile, Mark Latham and Craig Kelly (NSW).

While overwhelmingly from conservative ranks, mavericks have come from the centre, such as South Australia’s Nick Xenophon. They have also come from the hard left, in the case of Queensland’s Fred Paterson, Australia’s only Communist Party MP, elected to a central Queensland seat in the 1940s.

What is it about Queensland?

But what is it about Queensland regional voters and their predilection for mavericks?

The answer lies in understanding Queensland’s unique political culture – steeped in a populism that vilifies “elites” and “outsiders”. This itself built upon five pillars:

1. a reverence for strong, opinionated leaders
2. a demand for regional services across Australia’s most decentralised mainland state
3. a demand for local infrastructure
4. a preference for political pragmatism (“common sense” solutions to complex problems)
5. a Queensland chauvinism that encourages locals to feel superior to other Australians.

In a decentralised state overwhelmingly dependent on primary industries, where regional voters boast significantly higher rates of Christian identity and lower rates of higher education and multiculturalism, it’s perhaps unsurprising regional Queensland has long been shaped by frontier politics.

And any regional MP hoping to maintain electoral support must pander at least to some of these elements.

Christensen, for example, has previously called for a ban on the burqa and Muslim immigration from “radicalised” countries. In 2016, he floated the return of the death penalty. In 2014, the MP labelled environmentalists “terrorists” and, in a statement he later regretted, described the “Safe Schools” program as paedophile “grooming”.

Yet Christensen also supported a banking royal commission when his Coalition colleagues would not. And while his pandemic libertarianism – rooted in Donald Trump’s Republicanism – is a new development on the Australian hard right, it’s hardly surprising it finds a ready audience among regional Queenslanders, already suspicious of capital city power.

Christensen’s success

The formula appears to work. The seat of Dawson, based on sugar farming districts surrounding Mackay, has been in Country/ National/Liberal-National party hands for all but 12 of its 72-year history. But over the past decade, Christensen has turned a thin after-preference margin of 2.4% into a safe 14.6% buffer.

However, the Christensen style has come at a cost. In sating the appetite of local voters, the MP has inevitably angered metropolitan colleagues and, therefore, blocked any chance of promotion.

Interestingly, returned Nationals’ leader Barnaby Joyce, himself something of a maverick, refuses to rebuke his MP — Joyce insists it’s worse than useless to “prod the [Christensen] bear”. Given the Morrison government’s razor-thin majority, an unwanted by election could plunge the Coalition into crisis.

In April, Christensen stunned observers when he announced his retirement at the next federal election. On Sunday, Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor Andrew Willcox was preselected as the Liberal National Party’s candidate for Dawson. Coal miner Shane Hamilton will contest the election for Labor.

Christensen’s successor won’t have to mirror him to hold the seat, but engaging in at least some of his populist behaviour will go far in building support over the longer term.

In choosing the timing of his own departure from a safe seat at age just 43, it seems Christensen remains a maverick to the very end.

Read more:
Right out there: how the pandemic has given rise to extreme views and fractured conservative politics

Dr Paul Williams is an associate of the T.J. Ryan Foundation.

– ref. The George Christensen formula — how do maverick MPs succeed in Australian politics? – https://theconversation.com/the-george-christensen-formula-how-do-maverick-mps-succeed-in-australian-politics-166190

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney

Westmead Hospital in Sydney’s west says it has treated a patient who overdosed after taking the drug ivermectin, an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment for COVID-19.

The person went to hospital seeking treatment for diarrhoea and vomiting side-effects, after taking the drug, which is usually used to treat parasites. The person had ordered this and other unproven COVID “cures” online.

While the patient did not die, health authorities are concerned at the number of people taking ivermectin, and warn against it for anyone else who may have COVID symptoms or has been diagnosed with the virus.

Other known ivermectin side-effects range from mild to the life-threatening, including seizures and coma.

Why are people taking it?

Ever since researchers showed ivermectin could kill SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in the laboratory, there has been interest in whether the drug would also work to kill the virus in the human body.

So far, there is no clinical evidence it works to treat or prevent COVID-19. And there is widespread consensus people should not take ivermectin at home for COVID-19.

Organisations that recommend against it include: the World Health Organization, Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce and NPS Medicinewise, the United State’s Food and Drug Administration, and the Cochrane Library.

Read more:
A major ivermectin study has been withdrawn, so what now for the controversial drug?

How are people getting hold of it?

Despite this, community pharmacists have reported increased demand for ivermectin, with people seeking the drug as a possible COVID treatment.

In Australia, ivermectin is approved to treat parasite infections in humans. It’s also widely used in veterinary medicine to treat and prevent parasite infections.

However, as a prescription-only human medicine (known as schedule 4), you can only access ivermectin legally in Australia after approval from a doctor.

This is because, like all medicines, ivermectin is not 100% safe. It does have possible harmful side-effects and a doctor’s judgement is necessary to decide if ivermectin is safe and appropriate for each patient.

So ivermectin is currently only recommended to treat and prevent COVID-19 when used as part of a clinical trial, where patients can be more safely selected and carefully monitored.

As well as more patients presenting to pharmacies with scripts, the Therapeutic Goods Administration warns about the danger of importing ivermectin products of unknown quality, bought over the internet.

This is risky because products may not contain the stated drug, may contain dangerous contaminants or much more of the drug than thought, which may result in an overdose.

Of most concern are reports from Australia and overseas of people buying and taking ivermectin products intended for animal use. People may be resorting to these types of products where they have been unable to access a script for human formulations of ivermectin.

What does it do to your body?

We know very little about what the drug does to humans, and the little we do know mostly comes from its use in animals.

When taken at the recommended dose, the drug is generally well tolerated. But ivermectin is known to cause mild side-effects such as diarrhoea, nausea, dizziness and sleepiness. Less common, but serious, side-effects include severe skin rashes and effects on the nervous system (causing tremor, confusion and drowsiness).

In higher doses, and overdose cases, these side-effects can be more severe. These include low blood pressure, problems with balance, seizures, liver injury, and it can even induce comas.

Read more:
Coronavirus misinformation is a global issue, but which myth you fall for likely depends on where you live

The take-home message

The public is understandably interested in medicines to treat and prevent COVID-19. However, misinformation about ivermectin and others continues to circulate.

COVID-19 vaccination remains the best way to reduce the risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19. Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce provides the most up-to-date information about COVID-19 treatments and is a reliable source of information as new knowledge emerges.

If you or a family member take ivermectin and have strong side-effects you should seek medical advice. Call the Poisons Information Centre on 131 126. For life-threatening symptoms, call 000 for an ambulance.

Associate Professor Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association. Nial is science director of the medicinal cannabis company Canngea Pty Ltd, a board member of the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association, and a Standards Australia committee member for sunscreen agents.

Andrew McLachlan receives research funding from the NHMRC and the Sydney Pharmacy School receives research scholarship funding from GSK for a PhD student under his supervision. Andrew has served as a paid consultant on Australian government committees related to medicines regulation. Andrew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article.

Slade Matthews has served the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration as an external evaluator for the Therapeutic Goods Evaluation Panel. He also serves on the NSW Poisons Advisory Committee as the pharmacologist member. Slade does not work for, consult or own shares in or receive funding from any company of organisation that would benefit from this article.

– ref. Thinking of trying ivermectin for COVID? Here’s what can happen with this controversial drug – https://theconversation.com/thinking-of-trying-ivermectin-for-covid-heres-what-can-happen-with-this-controversial-drug-167178

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elliott Dooley, PhD Candidate, University of Newcastle

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s new series introducing you to Australia’s unloved animals that need our help.

For many people, the term “wallaby” may describe a single species, or rather just a small kangaroo. So you may be surprised to learn there are actually more than 50 known species of wallaby in Australia.

The parma wallaby (Macropus parma) is one of Australia’s smallest. It’s no larger than a house cat, with a body length up to 55 centimetres and a tail about the same length again. It has thick, brownish-grey fur, and a defining white moustache.

But this is about as much as can be said for its appearance, as even its moustache is common to many other wallaby species, such as the yellow-footed rock-wallaby.

Here, we aim to defend the voiceless. The parma wallaby’s failure to charm with either its looks or charisma has condemned it to obscurity by the general public and wildlife researchers alike, potentially dooming it to extinction.

The parma’s resurrection

So overlooked is the parma wallaby that for more than 30 years, it was presumed extinct until 1966, when a feral population was discovered on Kawau Island, New Zealand.

The species was introduced there a century earlier by former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sir George Grey, who’s zoological interests led to Kawau becoming home to a menagerie of exotic animals.

This sudden rediscovery resurrected the parma from the pages of natural history books, prompting a reintroduction program to re-establish the Kawau Island population in Australia. This occurred on two occasions, once on Pulbah Island in Lake Macquarie, and near Robertson, NSW. But both attempts were considered abject failures, with all reintroduced, marked individuals found dead, mostly due to predation by dogs and foxes.

Despite this unsuccessful program, the sudden spotlight on the species led to its rediscovery on the mainland in 1972 near Gosford, NSW. Soon after, a state-wide parma survey was conducted.

An elusive species

But since then, its ecology has largely gone unstudied and, once again, the parma has faded to obscurity.

The IUCN Red List — the pre-eminent assessment of the conservation status of the world’s biodiversity — has relied on a guestimate of population size, placing it at under 10,000 individuals.

Despite little monitoring the species is still considered only “near threatened” on the Red List, but events like the Black Summer bushfires may have significantly reduced its population.

Read more:
Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help

As a result of its cryptic nature and very recent rediscovery in the wild, there is scarce known about the ecology of the parma wallaby. We don’t even know the exact origins of its name.

We do know its preferred habitat is moist eucalyptus forest with thick, shrubby understory. It shelters there during the day, often with nearby grassy areas as, at night, they typically feed on grass and herbs. They’re also found in rainforest margins and drier eucalypt forest, but to a lesser extent.

The parma wallaby is under threat

We also know the parma wallaby’s range is in decline and has been since European colonisation.

The species once occurred from southern Queensland to the Bega area in the southeast of NSW. Now, its range is confined to the coast and ranges of central and northern NSW. It’s patchily distributed throughout cool, high-altitude forests along the Great Dividing Range.

It weighs around 5 kilograms, placing it in the critical weight range category. This means it’s vulnerable to feral predators, such as dogs, cats and foxes.

Read more:
One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your pet, it’s a killing machine

Another major threat facing parma wallabies is habitat destruction from catastrophic bushfires.

The 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires killed, injured or displaced an estimated three billion animals. Over half (55%) of the parma’s key habitat was severely burned. Coupled with the loss of those that would have perished in the flames, the species is now considered vulnerable in NSW.

Saving the parma

The recent bushfire Royal Commission raised the issue that Australia doesn’t have a comprehensive, central source of information about its native flora and fauna. This is especially urgent, given seemingly “drab” species like the parma wallaby that have gone unnoticed for too long.

All species rely on interactions with a plethora of other species to survive in a complex system from which humans are not exempt. But with so little known about these interconnected relationships, we don’t know what the broader impacts to the ecosystem would be if one species disappeared.

Read more:
3 billion animals were in the bushfires’ path. Here’s what the royal commission said (and should’ve said) about them

Imagine a Jenga tower where each species is a wooden block. You can never really be certain which block you remove will cause the tower to collapse. Australia has an appalling extinction record, and we can’t afford to be playing Jenga with our biodiversity — whether it’s a boring bird, an ugly fish or just another wallaby.

Our ongoing research aims to help fill this conservation gap. We focus on a range of conservation actions the parma wallaby needs immediately.

These include carrying out field surveys to gauge the extent of their survival, and identifying the places that need refuge vegetation recovery. Refuge patches of bushland are important because they provide parma wallabies escape routes and places to hide, helping protect them from predation.

But you can help, too

Given the breadth of catastrophic fires is expected to increase under climate change, we can all help threatened species like the parma wallaby bounce back.

Come bushfire season, you can reduce the fire risk around your home by clearing anything that could fuel a fire — long grass, weeds and leaves on the ground and in guttering.

The parma wallaby, like many other little mammals, is vulnerable to introduced predators, especially cats. By keeping your cat indoors, you could be sparing the lives of 186 animals per year.

You can urge your politicians to value Australia’s unique and precious biodiversity. They are the ones who will ultimately determine whether our threatened species survive or go extinct.

Finally, you can volunteer. There are many volunteer-based conservation projects all over Australia, run by government agencies, charities, and universities.

With the ongoing pandemic travel restrictions, there’s no better time to experience the rich biodiversity this country has to offer, and discover less celebrated, but still fascinating, species like the parma wallaby.

Elliott Dooley receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Matt Hayward receives funding from the Australian Research Council via Linkage Grant LP200100261.
.

– ref. This shy little wallaby has a white moustache and shares its name with a pub meal. Yet it’s been overlooked for decades – https://theconversation.com/this-shy-little-wallaby-has-a-white-moustache-and-shares-its-name-with-a-pub-meal-yet-its-been-overlooked-for-decades-164326

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dilan Thampapillai, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales, UNSW

The saga over subscription-based social media platform OnlyFans, which announced it would ban sexually explicit content only to reverse that decision a week later, has highlighted just how quickly such a platform can move the goalposts for those relying on it for an income.

Yes, the most successful “content creators” on OnlyFans can reportedly make more than US$100,000 a month. But they are the minority. Most barely make enough to justify the hustle, with the median income estimated to be US$180 a month.

Strip away the sexy marketing and what you have is just another digital platform facilitating another form of gig work, substantially no different to ride-share drivers or food-delivery couriers.

The increase in popularity of OnlyFans during the COVID-19 pandemic is mirrored by the growth of the gig economy more generally. With the pandemic hitting other forms of part-time and casual work, the attraction of the income-earning activities provided by digital platforms has increased.

Some of these activities outside of the traditional, long-term employer-employee relationship may even appear desirable, offering flexibility as child care and other demands have increased during lockdowns.

Though precise estimates are complicated by differences in definitions of work and the way statistics are counted, the data suggests at least 10% of the labour force in industrialised economies now rely primarily on gig work for their income. They may be called freelancers, independent contractors, temporary workers or consultants. More than a quarter of the workforce participates in the gig economy in some capacity.

Gig work is rightly controversial. It continues to be accused of driving inequities, exploitation and issues around workplace and occupational health safety. While there have been a few significant legal wins this year for some gig workers over employment status and rights, platforms still largely have the whip hand.

Shifting risks

Key to platforms’ power is how they avoid responsibilities and transfer risks to gig workers, by positioning themselves legally as intermediaries between customer and service provider.

This is achieved via the terms and conditions users agree to when they sign up. These terms and conditions can be changed at any time. While users are generally given notice, they are often unaware of changes because they don’t bother to read notifications before agreeing to updated terms.

Read more:
The rise of the ‘porntropreneur’: even hustlers need side hustles in the gig economy

In the case of OnlyFans, its “standard contract” gives subscribers permission to access content produced by a creator, and also implicitly obligates a creator to produce and provide content over time. The contract is just over 1,500 words — theoretically short enough to read, though it’s likely few do so entirely.

The contract does permit for the expiry of the licence where the creator removes content. It also includes a “no guarantees” clause that mostly protects the creator with regard to the removal or unavailability of content. These clauses superficially seem to give creators some protection from disgruntled fans. But in reality they are a trap for the unwary.

If things go wrong, consumer protection laws generally give customers rights that create liabilities for creators. For example, under Australian Consumer Law a court could strike out the “no guarantees” clause in the OnlyFans standard contract, making creators liable for non-delivery to fans.

Had OnlyFans banned sexually explicit content, subscribers could well have have been entitled to demand their money back from content creators. The platform would not have been liable.

Read more:
3 ways ‘algorithmic management’ makes work more stressful and less satisfying

Future challenges

The OnlyFans case thus highlights the precarity of gig work, and some interesting legal, social and governance challenges for the future.

2021 has delivered some landmark court rulings in Britain, the Netherlands and Australia rolling back the ability digital platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo to dictate the terms by which they engage and pay drivers and riders.

But these were limited wins, not applicable to all gig workers even in those jurisdictions. There is still more work to be done.

Sarah Steele receives funding from the Wellcome Trust via Bocconi University and the University of Cambridge. She consults for Australian National University’s College of Law. She has worked on research funded by the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, but received no funds or grants directly from that organisation herself. She receives monies from various organisations and companies to provide active bystander training aimed at addressing sexual harassment and assault in workplace and institutional contexts, and is working with EdX to delivery this training worldwide.

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

– ref. OnlyFans controversy highlights the bind facing most gig workers – https://theconversation.com/onlyfans-controversy-highlights-the-bind-facing-most-gig-workers-167101

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jair Garcia, Research fellow, RMIT University

We all know the birds and the bees are important for pollination, and we often notice them in gardens and parks. But what about flies?

Flies are the second most common type of pollinator, so perhaps we should all be taught about the bees, the flies and then the birds. While we know animals may see colour differently, little was known about how fly pollination shapes the types of flowers we can find in nature.

In our new study we address this gap in our knowledge by evaluating how important fly pollinators sense and use colour, and how fly pollinated flowers have evolved colour signals.

The way we see influences what we choose

We know that different humans often have preferences for certain colours, and in a similar way bees prefer blue hues.

Our colleague Lea Hannah has observed that hoverflies (Eristalis tenax) are much better at distinguishing between different shades of yellow than between different blues. Other research has also reported hoverflies have innate responses to yellow colours.

Read more:
The mystery of the blue flower: nature’s rare colour owes its existence to bee vision

Many flowering plants depend on attracting pollinators to reproduce, so the appearance of their flowers has evolved to cater to the preferences of the pollinators. We wanted to find out what this might mean for how different insects like bees or flies shape flower colours in a complex natural environment where both types of insect are present.

The Australian case study

Australia is a natural laboratory for understanding flower evolution due to its geological isolation. On the mainland Australian continent, flowers have predominately evolved colours to suit animal pollination.

Around Australia there are plant communities with different pollinators. For example, Macquarie Island has no bees, and flies are the only animal pollinator.

We assembled data from different locations, including a native habitat in mainland Australia where both bees and flies forage, to model how different insects influence flower colour signal evolution.

Measuring flower colours

Since we know different animals sense colour in different ways, we recorded the spectrum of different wavelengths of light reflected from the flowers with a spectrometer. We subsequently modelled these spectral signatures of plant flowers considering animal perception, allowing us to objectively quantify how signals have evolved. These analyses included mapping the evolutionary ancestry of the plants.

Generalisation or specialisation?

According to one school of thought, flower evolution is driven by competition between flowering plants. In this scenario, different species might have very different colours from one another, to increase their chances of being reliably identified and pollinated. This is a bit like how exclusive brands seek customers by having readily identifiable branding.

An alternative hypothesis to competition is facilitation. Plants may share preferred colour signals to attract a higher number of specific insects. This explanation is like how some competing businesses can do better by being physically close together to attract many customers.

Read more:
Plants use advertising-like strategies to attract bees with colour and scent

Our results demonstrate how flower colour signalling has dynamically evolved depending on the availability of insect pollinators, as happens in marketplaces.

In Victoria, flowers have converged to evolve colour signals preferred by their pollinators. The flowers of fly-pollinated orchids are typically yellowish-green, while closely related orchids pollinated by bees have more bluish and purple colours. The flowers appeared to share the preferred colours of their main pollinator, consistent with a facilitation hypothesis.

Our research showed flies can see differences between flowers of different species in response to the pollinator local “market”.

On Macquarie Island, where flies are the only pollinators, flower colours diverge from each other – but still stay within the range of the flies’ preferred colours. This is consistent with a competition strategy, where differences between plant species allow flies to more easily identify the colour of recently visited flowers.

When both fly and bee pollinators are present, flowers pollinated by flies appear to “filter out” bees to reduce the number of ineffective and opportunistic visitors. For example, in the Himalayas specialised plants require flies with long tongues to access floral rewards. This is similar to when a store wants to exclusively attract customers specifically interested in their product range.

Our findings on fly colour vision, along with novel precision agriculture techniques, can help using flies as alternative pollinators of crops. It also allows us to understand that if we want to see a full range of pollinating insects including beautiful hoverflies in our parks and gardens, we need to plant a range of flower types and colours.

Adrian Dyer receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Jair Garcia and Mani Shrestha do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Flies like yellow, bees like blue: how flower colours cater to the taste of pollinating insects – https://theconversation.com/flies-like-yellow-bees-like-blue-how-flower-colours-cater-to-the-taste-of-pollinating-insects-167111

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin O’Donnell, Early Career Academic Fellow, Centre for Resources, Energy and Environment Law, The University of Melbourne

Water management in the Northern Territory just keeps making headlines. The recent decision to grant an unprecedentedly large groundwater licence is a case in point.

The licence, granted to Fortune Agribusiness at Singleton Station, threatens springs and sacred sites near Alice Springs, and Aboriginal people, who are the custodians of these places, say they “are not being listened to”.

These media stories point to a wider problem with water law and water management in the Northern Territory. New legislation passed just this month is set to make it worse.

Under the cover of responding to a COVID-induced economic slowdown, the Northern Territory government is set to undermine hard-won national standards of water governance. This includes one of the most important advances in Indigenous water rights: the reservation of water for Aboriginal land owners to use or trade.

The Northern Land Council called the water law reforms a “betrayal of the interests of all Territorians”.

With even more regressive reforms on the books, the future of the NT’s water is looking more like its frontier past.

The NT’s history of undermining Aboriginal economic development

Water is a valuable resource, especially in the drier zones of Australia. The sheer volume of the Alice Springs water licence, in particular, represents a new form of resource extraction that rivals mineral extraction in scale.

Just as in the 19th and 20th centuries, the rampant reach of the Crown to appropriate and control natural resources to the detriment of Aboriginal peoples is evident. Analysis of the actions of the NT government in land rights disputes since the 1970s showed it made “immense areas of land and resources” available to commercial interests at virtually no cost.

A major participant (and beneficiary) of the government’s efforts to prevent land claims was the Northern Territory Land Corporation. Its role included holding title to certain lands, thereby removing them from the category of land over which claims could be made under the Land Rights Act.

History is being repeated in today’s water reforms. The Northern Territory Land Corporation has now been repurposed to accelerate the transfer of water rights to commercial interests. This move could make it harder for Aboriginal people to access water.

Why is Northern Territory water governance so weak?

In 2004, states and territories across Australia signed the National Water Initiative, which laid a foundation for good water management. On almost all counts, the Northern Territory is not compliant.

Read more:
Australia, it’s time to talk about our water emergency

Only 5% of the Northern Territory is covered by water allocation plans. Under NT law, environmental water is protected through provisions in water plans – which means it is largely unprotected in the 95% of the territory without a plan.

Major decisions about water use are made by the water controller, who wears multiple hats. They are the water regulator, the chief executive of the Territory’s environment department, and also sometimes a water holder through their role on the board of the Northern Territory Land Corporation. We think that this inevitably creates a perception of a conflict of interest, and objectively leaves the decisions open to criticism, even where the decisions are well based.

One of the only areas in which the NT is arguably ahead of the curve is the Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve. It was introduced into law in 2019 because Indigenous people have historically been locked out of water allocation processes and denied water rights.

The reserve sets aside up to 30% of water rights in a water allocation plan area for Aboriginal economic development. The reserve is only available to Aboriginal people with recognised rights to land.

Water can only be accessed under the reserve through an allocation plan. Even then, if all the available water is allocated by the time the plan is prepared, the reserve will have no water.

New laws make NT water governance worse

On August 12, the NT parliament passed the first of two key pieces of water legislation. The Statute Law Amendment (Territory Economic Reform) Act creates “head licence” arrangements that will formally allow “speculative” water licence applications from land developers, including the NT Land Corporation.

As water licences in the NT cost nothing to acquire, developers can effectively hoard this water for free until they are ready to proceed, locking others out.

The second set of law reforms are in the environment omnibus bills, which have been recently delayed by the NT environment minister after widespread concern about inadequate consultation.

As currently written, these bills:

1. reduce the need to comply with water allocation plans when issuing a water licence

2. enable water trade to occur outside water allocation plan areas

3. reduce public notification requirements, including for dams, limiting public feedback.

If passed, these laws would reduce transparency and scientific rigour in water allocation and undermine public confidence in regulation.

Together, these proposed changes mean the Northern Territory government is less likely to invest resources to produce more water allocation plans (essential for Aboriginal Water Reserves). Even where they do, new “head licence” law means more water may be allocated by the time the plans come into effect, leaving less in the Aboriginal Water Reserve.

Read more:
The Beetaloo drilling program brings potential health and social issues for Aboriginal communities in remote NT

The future of water management in the Northern Territory

We can’t help but also draw a connection between the new legislation and the successful challenges to water licence decisions made by the water controller.

These include most recently the decision by the NT minister to cancel the Larrimah water licence (issued to the Northern Territory Land Corporation) on the grounds it lacked clarity on future water use and was therefore too “speculative”.

A similar challenge has been made to the decision to grant the 40,000 megalitre licence at Alice Springs. However, the new “head licence” arrangements could entrench speculative water use in the Northern Territory’s water law.

While the changes appear to be aimed at stimulating economic development, the package of law reforms (those passed in August and those still under consideration) weaken legal controls on the issuing of water licences. Considering the Northern Territory’s colonial history, these new laws seem like a way to make it harder for Aboriginal people to access water for economic gain.

The excessive scope of this package of new water laws is not dissimilar to the long campaign by mining companies and the Northern Territory government itself in opposition to Aboriginal land rights from the 1970s.

The Northern Territory government has a long, tragic history of weakening land and water rights for Aboriginal people, and the proposed laws could further entrench the national problem of water dispossession.

Erin O’Donnell has received funding from the Northern Land Council for research on the Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve in 2021. She is a member of the Birrarung Council, the voice of the Yarra River.

Professor Marcia Langton AO holds the Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at The University of Melbourne consults to Origin Energy (2021) and other private sector entities cultural awareness, reconciliation and Indigenous engagement. She has received receives funding from the ARC and AIATSIS for research on Indigenous agreements and resource management, including water resources.

Sue Jackson has received funding from the Northern Land Council for research on the Strategic Aboriginal Water Reserve in 2021 and from a number of ARC grant schemes (for research on Indigenous water rights, water cultures, and water and carbon markets). She is a member of the scientific advisory committees of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Council.

– ref. Regressive changes to Northern Territory water laws could undermine Indigenous rights – https://theconversation.com/regressive-changes-to-northern-territory-water-laws-could-undermine-indigenous-rights-166561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ted Snell, Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University

Love in Bright Landscapes: The story of David McComb of The Triffids, directed by Jonathan Alley

David McComb’s lyrics embed narratives of love and loss within the vastness of the Western Australian landscape. “The sky was big and empty, my chest filled to explode, I yelled my insides out at the sun, at the wide-open road.”

It’s a song “full of air,” explains Paul Kelly. The lyrics of McComb, who founded legendary band The Triffids with his friend Alsy MacDonald and brother Robert in 1978, evoke a palpable sense of place. The group attracted enthusiastic audiences at festivals, garnering critical acclaim as part of the Australian indie band invasion of Britain in the early 1980s.

“You don’t just hear these songs,” says Kelly in Jonathan Alley’s extraordinary documentary Love in Bright Landscapes? “You see them, feel and smell them.”

By the late 1980s, The Triffids were filling stadia all over Europe, performing songs such as Wide Open Road, Save What You Can and Bury Me Deep in Your Love. However, this didn’t guarantee commercial success. In 1989, they disbanded, leaving a legacy of tender, lyrical songs and memorable performances.

The band’s successes and frustrations, McComb’s ascendancy as songwriter and performer, his physical decline, and his early death in 1999, aged 36, are beautifully told in this film.

Alley has structured his documentary like one of McComb’s songs. The unfurling narrative is driven by an urgent sense of purpose and inspired by McComb’s “magpie aesthetic,” where everything makes a connection.

From his early life (described by those who loved and worked with him), an image emerges of a sensitive boy from a privileged background with high achieving parents. His mother Athel confesses he was “… different from the others; his life was singular”.

David met his best mate MacDonald at Christ Church Grammar School in the 1970s, where, coincidentally, I was Senior Art Master. Art was a means of escape, a way to make sense and break free. The inquiring, intelligent McComb brothers (David had three siblings) trooped through my classes. As McComb said in 1998, the stricter the school, “the better rock and roll music it can produce”.

As punk spread from London to Seattle and Claremont, David and drummer MacDonald formed a band called Daisy, making their own albums on cassette. Daisy morphed into The Triffids in 1978, drawing on the DIY energy that seems to coalesce around the western edge of continents.

In the documentary Hype, for instance, which chronicles the rise of the grunge scene in Seattle, the lack of mainstream infrastructure is described as liberating, making it possible for young musicians to imagine recording their own music, writing their own magazines, and distributing their work. In Perth, like Seattle, doing it yourself was the only way to get something happening.

A creative cauldron

As a result, these young musicians and entrepreneurs were free to break new ground and stir it up. “David was the original Punk, not Johnny Lydon,” says Alley, “… everything was up for grabs, he made no distinction between high and low culture”.

Read more:
Friday essay: punk’s legacy, 40 years on

From the creative cauldron of Perth in the 70s emerged Hoodoo Gurus frontman Dave Faulkner, and bands like the Manikins, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists and The Triffids.

Despite McComb’s conviction that “nothing happens here, nothing gets done, but you get to like it,” The Triffids did make great music and performed some terrific gigs before leaving, first for Sydney, then London.

There they found the success that had eluded them. In 1984, they recorded a session with John Peel on BBC radio. By 1985 they were on the cover of New Musical Express. They were on the cusp of global success, playing major festivals and signed by Island records.

Through Alley’s scrapbook of home videos, photographs, and interviews, we hear how it all slowly unravelled. It’s a sad story of a driven musician whose creativity was the bulwark keeping his demons at bay. Fuelled by a regime of drugs, he died of a heart attack on February 2 1999. The conflict that informed his best work was internal.

“I woke to discover an inferior replica of myself,” wrote McComb in a diary note; “avoid madness” in another. This inner tension with his dark side was a catalyst for his songs but as Alley explains “… for David, his best self was his creative self.”

McComb joined the galaxy of rock and roll stars whose short lives continue to inspire generations. Still, albums like Born Sandy Devotional and songs like Wide Open Road remain potent markers in our cultural life.

For curator Annika Kristensen, McComb’s album title Love in Bright Landscapes — borrowed from the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti but made his own — is a lens through which to explore the social, political and cultural landscapes of Perth and Los Angeles.

Coincidentally on show currently at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, the 14 artists from both cities she has selected locate stories of love, hope, desperation, and despair under the vast canopy of a shared open sky.

McComb, whose love stories inflected with pain, humour, and wistful longing bleed into imagery of expansive WA landscapes, would have been delighted.

Love in Bright Landscapes will premiere at Luna Leederville in Perth on September 9.

Love in Bright Landscapes, curated by Annika Kristensen, is at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, until October 10

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

– ref. ‘A singular vision’: new film tells the touching story of musician and Triffids founder David McComb – https://theconversation.com/a-singular-vision-new-film-tells-the-touching-story-of-musician-and-triffids-founder-david-mccomb-166758

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer Taxation, Auckland University of Technology

Governments worldwide have released emergency stimulus packages to support workers and businesses through the economic crisis COVID-19 has wrought.

These measures include financial support, credit relaxation and tax relief for small businesses and some individuals, but they benefit only some taxpayers.

New Zealand may need to consider more significant changes to the tax system to repay the unprecedented level of borrowing that has funded the pandemic response. Tax cuts, investment incentives, changes to filing deadlines and tax amnesties could all play a significant role in helping to alleviate COVID-19’s financial and economic impact.

My research explores whether, under current uncertain economic conditions, introducing a voluntary disclosure program for overseas income could help protect New Zealand’s pandemic-impacted businesses — and promote honesty in tax matters at the same time.

New Zealand’s tax system is primarily punitive, rather than encouraging tax compliance. If a taxpayer is operating outside the tax system, the consequences of re-entering may be harsh. This encourages even inadvertent offenders to remain outside the system.

Tax amnesties, also known as “tax forgiveness”, can help short-term tax collection, recoup lost tax revenue and allow taxpayers to “regularise” their tax compliance.

Read more:
How a one-off tax on wealth could cover the economic cost of the coronavirus crisis

A low-cost compliance initiative

New Zealand has strengthened penalties for tax offences considerably during the late 1980s to protect existing voluntary compliance. The introduction of an Overseas Voluntary Disclosure (OVD) mechanism would not only improve compliance but boost future tax revenue. Taxpayers cannot hide from their tax obligations once they have disclosed overseas income.

Since 1990, the number of immigrants has increased in New Zealand. According to the 2018 census, 31% of New Zealand’s population are immigrants. One in ten are self-employed without employees, and 5% have employees.

Many of these immigrants own small businesses. As a result of COVID-19, they are dealing with cash-flow stress. They may not be fluent in English or be unaware of their tax obligations and are unintentionally non-compliant. They now face the ramifications and penalty costs of voluntary disclosure.

Of course, some taxpayers are intentionally non-compliant in reporting their offshore income and assets. Whether unintentionally or deliberately non-compliant, many are self-employed and may want to inject their undeclared overseas funds into their local businesses to offset cash-flow stress.

Irrespective of these taxpayers’ accidental or deliberate lack of compliance, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) must support these small businesses through the current crisis.

Offshore tax investigations

New Zealand adopted the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) mechanism, which allows the IRD to obtain information about offshore assets and funds for New Zealand tax residents to verify it is accurately reported for tax purposes. New Zealand completed its first information exchange in 2018.

Since 2019, the IRD has started sending letters to New Zealand resident taxpayers regarding foreign income and tax residence status. They are advised to disclose the foreign-sourced income in their tax returns.

Some taxpayers may falsely assume the IRD is randomly targeting them and may continue to hide their foreign income. For those non-compliant taxpayers, an audit investigation is the first option.

Read more:
Post-coronavirus, we’ll need a working tax system, not more taxes and not higher rates

My research shows that offering voluntary disclosure would substantially reduce administrative costs in cross-checking the millions of lines of additional data received under the AEOI policy.

To administer such a program effectively, the IRD must use the best strategies to encourage voluntary declaration. For example, the opportunity to declare should be offered once only. Enforcement strategies and sanctions for non-compliance should be credible, consistent and clear.

Tougher penalties and interest would apply to those who choose not to take advantage of the program. Research shows a well-administered tax amnesty program facilitates strong engagement.

My research suggests New Zealand should offer a robust voluntary disclosure initiative similar to Australia’s 2014 Project Do It. Australian tax administrators gave taxpayers a last chance to correct their offshore tax affairs before audits or litigation.

This allowed intentional and unintentional tax evaders to pay the debt assessed under amnesty conditions without fear of prosecution or compliance penalties. It succeeded in encouraging them to return to the tax system.

Deliberate tax evaders will get the message that if they do not declare offshore assets, severe punishments will be imposed. Voluntary disclosure would also help non-compliant taxpayers protect their businesses from the financial and economic turmoil COVID-19 has caused.

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

– ref. How ‘tax forgiveness’ could help New Zealand’s many small businesses weather the financial woes brought on by COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/how-tax-forgiveness-could-help-new-zealands-many-small-businesses-weather-the-financial-woes-brought-on-by-covid-19-166955

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Sullivan, Associate Professor of Education, University of South Australia

Australian schools are struggling to recruit and keep teachers. Low wages, overwork, difficult student behaviour, lack of support and stress are some of the reasons teachers leave the profession or have periods of sick leave.

More than half of teachers with a current teaching qualification are not working in education. States such as New South Wales are facing major difficulties in employing teachers. This is especially so in the case of casual teachers who are needed to replace stressed and sick teachers.

Part of the reason for the teacher shortage is Australia’s lack of support for graduating teachers to successfully transition into the profession.

How does this work?

The transition for graduate teachers into the profession can be very challenging and they need to be supported with a quality induction program. Such programs help new teachers learn more about their roles, gain confidence and refine their teaching skills.

They are especially important for new teachers learning how to effectively manage diverse classrooms and student behaviour.

According to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, induction programs should be:

1. school-based

2. delivered over two years

3. embedded in daily practice

4. practice-focused to further develop teaching skills.

From doing research in this area, we know Australian schools have responded to this need and increasingly developed induction programs to support new teachers over the past decade.

But it can take teachers several years to find long-term employment, which means many new teachers miss out on effective induction programs.

Research from 2019 shows that, within the first two years of graduating, 60% of new teachers are employed as insecure replacement teachers. We know

• 30% of new teachers are employed on contracts of less than one year

• 30% of new teachers are employed as casual teachers.

This leaves many new teachers relying on the strategies they develop during their insecure work experience to manage diverse classrooms and difficult student behaviours.

Newly qualified teachers who aren’t involved in a good induction program are more likely to leave the profession within their first five years of teaching.

No induction affects students too

Teachers employed casually or on short-term contracts know it is important to understand students’ strengths, needs and interests, as well as build good relationships with them. But they often don’t have the time or opportunity to do this properly.

Read more:
Six ways to support new teachers to stay in the profession

They know curriculum and pedagogy are important, yet often don’t know what the regular teacher had planned. And they haven’t always got time to assess and understand the students’ learning needs.

Short-term teaching work leads to a reliance on surviving or just getting through the day. Typically, this means managing student behaviour using more reactive techniques such as rewards and consequences (punishments).

On top of this, newly qualified teachers may feel anxiety about their uncertain job prospects and the potential loss of income.

Teachers employed for a short term usually try to perform as well as they can, so they get a subsequent job. This means they are usually reluctant to let anyone know they need help. They are aware they are being scrutinised and it’s important they are seen as being capable of managing students’ behaviour. More controlling approaches can help them achieve this.

Such teaching approaches mean they are not attending to the students’ problem behaviours in a way that prevents them from reoccurring. This can lead to an escalation of these behaviours over time and result in the student being disaffected at school.

Read more:
How teachers are taught to discipline a classroom might not be the best way

Teachers need to develop a broad range of proactive strategies to build a positive learning environment and prevent student behaviour problems. They must also be able to intervene effectively to de-escalate issues when they arise.

Much of this learning is based on developing and refining classroom management strategies during the induction period with the support of colleagues.

We’ll keep losing teachers

Induction programs are focused more on permanent new teachers. But the majority of new teachers are contract or casual staff.

A one-size-fits-all approach to induction programs will not address the specialist needs of casual teaching staff, particularly graduate teachers who move regularly between diverse school settings as work demands require.

Read more:
Teachers shouldn’t have to manage behaviour issues by themselves – schools need to support them

Education departments should support schools, including financially, to include casual and contract teachers in meaningful induction programs. They should also think more creatively about what is possible because this problem rests with them.

If we don’t develop meaningful ways for new teachers to be inducted into the profession, we may keep losing them.

Anna Sullivan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is Board Chair and Director of the Media Centre for Education Research Australia.

Michele Simons receives has received research funding from the ARC, the NVETRE program as well as from state-based education employers. Michele is currently the President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, Treasurer of the the Australian Association for Educational Research, and a member of the AVETRA executive. Michele sits on a number of boards including MCERA, the Chain Reaction Foundation and a number of education providers in the school and tertiary education sectors

Neil Tippett receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Andrea Reupert, Simone White, and Stuart Woodcock do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A good induction is important for all new jobs. So why are teachers being left behind? – https://theconversation.com/a-good-induction-is-important-for-all-new-jobs-so-why-are-teachers-being-left-behind-166570