Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Kelly, Lecturer in Drama, School of Creative Practice and member of the ‘Creative Practice for Social Impact’ Research Group, Queensland University of Technology

The play Don’s Party premiered on August 11 1971 at Carlton’s Pram Factory, home to the radical theatre ensemble, the Australian Performing Arts Group.

Established four years earlier in 1967, the group would nurture some of the most passionate Australian voices of a generation, including Max Gillies, John Romeril, Kerry Walker, Geoffrey Milne and Jenny Kemp.

Until this point, there was very little original Australian theatre. With the exception of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955), Australian stages were dominated by scripts imported from the UK and America.

This new generation was interested in creating a muscular, fiercely nationalistic form of theatre preoccupied with “staging the nation”.

Hot off the back of The Removalists at La Mama, Don’s Party was the fifth play by the young, engineering-student-turned playwright David Williamson.

Read more:
Where Australia’s great theatre artists trod the boards: 50 years of Melbourne’s La Mama theatre

Williamson’s hallmark satiric naturalism sat outside the collective’s experimental and confrontational aesthetic and there was some early resistance to programming the play.

But the explosive zeitgeist energy of Don’s Party and — as described by Graeme Blundell, who played Simon — the “gasp of recognition” from audiences couldn’t be ignored.

A forensic look at Australia

Don’s Party is a slice-of-life satire, set at an Australian barbecue hosted by 30-something couple Don and Kath on election night 1969. When the opposition Labour Party takes an early lead, all the couples at the party are elated — except for the “ring-ins”, Liberal voting couple Simon and Jody.

As the election win slides away, the evening slowly descends into despair.

The long, beery night, with guests milling in front of the television and wandering in and out of the lounge room, is laced with the unfinished sexual encounters, fist fights and drunken accusations that fuel the plot.

Williamson’s forensic characterisation nailed the social construction of party affiliation at the end of the 1960s. A new generation of left wing, middle class voters were challenging the puritanical and conservative culture of Australian politics. Williamson and many of his collaborators were born just at the beginning of what would become known as the Baby Boomers, and the play captured the fears and dreams of their audience.

It’s not all politics. The comedy also comes from the permissive wife-swapping social milieu of the Australian middle classes in the late 1960s. Free love, swearing that would make your ears hurt, and detailed discussion of excretion were the hallmarks of the swinging Australian suburban sophisticate.

(In 2005, Williamson observed this period of wife-swapping only lasted a few years, finishing “as soon as women realised that this was as oppressive as what had proceeded it”.)

The play’s reception was electric. In a few short years it would go on productions at Jane Street Theatre in Sydney (1972); in the newly created Melbourne Theatre Company (1973); and the Royal Court in London (1976), cementing Williamson’s international critical reputation.

Don’s Party signalled Williamson’s future as our most prolific playwright and king of the Australian middle-class, mainstream drama.

Read more:
The Great Australian Plays: Williamson, Hibberd and the better angels of our country’s nature

The brutality of film

The real imprint of the play on Australian culture came from its adaptation into film in 1976 by director Bruce Beresford and producer Philip Adams, the pioneers of 1970s ocker Ozploitation films.

Although Williamson wrote the screen adaptation, the film has a much more brutal tone. In a documentary, actor Susan Binney — who played “nymphette” university student Susan — says she still “shudders” when she recalls the filming of the pool scene where she was forcibly undressed and thrown into the pool by Don, Mal, Mack and Cooley.

Binney wasn’t warned she would be thrown into the pool during rehearsals, as the sexist machismo of the story bled over into real life.

Williamson has also shared his disquiet about that scene and some of the other additions to the film that brought the off-stage bedroom of the original play into graphic cinematic world.

Yet this bleed of 1970s ocker film genre into the more nuanced, gendered satire of Williamson’s script gave Don’s Party its enduring cultural impact. In its 50 years, the play has seen multiple remounts, a 2011 sequel Don Parties On (where the same friends gather on the night of the 2008 federal election) and pop culture tributes.

A capsule of Australian theatre — and Australia

Contemporary theatre director Sam Strong notes how Williamson’s “enduring power is to speak directly to Australian audiences.”

This year, the film was released on Netflix and Amazon Prime. A re-watch proves how fresh the work still is as a time capsule of the Boomer generation preparing to bring Australia into a globalised world, and a reminder of the often futile experience of the hapless Labour voter in barracking for what, in electoral terms, has been a long-term losing team.

Indeed, when I contemplate drinking my moderately-priced chardonnay on what is likely to be another sweaty election night eve sometime across the next eight months, I am haunted by the fear of enduring another Don’s Party.

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

– ref. Don’s Party at 50: an achingly real portrayal of the hapless Australian middle-class voter – https://theconversation.com/dons-party-at-50-an-achingly-real-portrayal-of-the-hapless-australian-middle-class-voter-165609

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

The Moderna vaccine has been provisionally approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for use in Australia, with one million doses due in the second half of September, which will go to pharmacies.

Three million doses are then scheduled to arrive in each of October, November, and December, with 15 million booster doses in the first half of next year.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said Moderna, an mRNA vaccine, was expected to be available for eligible people from next month, after final advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). Moderna has been approved for people 18 and over.

The TGA is also considering Moderna for children, with the head of the TGA Dr John Skerritt saying a decision on its suitability for those 12 and over is expected within the next three to four weeks.

Skerritt said very recently Europe had recommended Moderna’s use for children over 12.

“We made the decision in conjunction with the company to do the adults first because that enabled us to reach a decision earlier, which can then start the whole process of access to the vaccine in Australia earlier. The data on the teenagers does look good,” he said.

Skerritt said even after six months, Moderna was 93% effective against infection, 98% against severe disease and 100% against death. Two doses are required, 28 days apart.

The Moderna announcement came as NSW recorded 283 new locally acquired cases.

Skerritt also said the TGA was working with industry on the wider availability of rapid antigen tests.

“These tests are not the gold standard PCR tests,” he said, but they were a useful adjunct. “Clearly there are a range of things that have to be resolved, such as collection and recording of data.”

The Australian Industry Group’s CEO, Innes Willox, said it was urgent that rapid testing be fully approved as soon as possible.

“Results are very close to lab based tests, almost instantaneous and from the employer’s perspective that means they can be used in some high risk operations at the beginning of a shift or in operations every week or so,” Willox said.

Willox also called on the government “to extend the same indemnity to employers who vaccinate their willing workers at the workplace as is enjoyed by doctors, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies.

“A medical practitioner who comes to a workplace to give the vaccine would have an indemnity. The employer does not have that same indemnity but should be given it to cover any unexpected circumstances.”

He stressed indemnity had nothing to do with mandating vaccinations.

Morrison, who took another knock in the latest Newspoll in his personal ratings and for his handling of COVID, said the Delta variant has changed everything. “It’s changed all of the rules and it means we’ve had to change with it to keep Australians safe. And, that means, right now, we are going through one of the toughest parts of this COVID pandemic,” he said.

“I know Australians are frustrated. I know they’re sick of it. I know they’re angry. And I know they want it to stop and for life to get back to where they knew it. But, what we have to do now is recognise the reality of the challenge we have in front of us. None of us likes it.”

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. Australia’s vaccines boosted with provisional approval for Moderna – https://theconversation.com/australias-vaccines-boosted-with-provisional-approval-for-moderna-165820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle H Lim, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, Swinburne University of Technology

Millions of Australians are currently living under lockdowns in an effort to curb the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.

While lockdowns and other social distancing restrictions are important strategies to protect Australians’ physical health during the pandemic, it’s no secret they take a significant toll on mental health.

As well as financial stressors, including the loss of work, prolonged or frequent lockdowns can affect mental health by disrupting social routines. This puts people in lockdown at risk of loneliness.

So with lockdowns and social restrictions likely to be a part of life in Australia until a significant majority of us are fully vaccinated, it’s timely to think about what we can do to look out for people who may be vulnerable.

Lockdowns and loneliness

Lockdowns reduce our opportunities to connect with loved ones in person, and slow our ability to develop or foster new connections. Many families are also divided across borders — both domestic and international — with little certainty as to when they’ll be able to reunite.

We collected data from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, examining loneliness levels in relation to the severity of social restrictions during the first six months of the pandemic.

Although our research is yet to be published, we found, somewhat unsurprisingly, that as social restrictions eased, loneliness levels also dropped significantly.

While it’s normal to feel lonely from time to time, some people are at higher risk of problematic levels of loneliness. We found being aged 18-25, being unemployed, and living alone were among the factors that predicted higher levels of loneliness.

Why should we care about loneliness?

For some people, experiencing persistent or distressing levels of loneliness can lead to poor health. In part, this may be because loneliness creates a physiological stress response.

Researchers from Denmark found loneliness increases a person’s chance of developing heart disease by 20%, and type 2 diabetes by 90% within a five-year period.

While people with a mental health disorder are more likely to report being lonely, it goes the other way too. Loneliness predicts more severe depression, social anxiety and paranoia.

Read more:
It’s hard to admit we’re lonely, even to ourselves. Here are the signs and how to manage them

There’s increasing recognition that feeling lonely also costs businesses. Loneliness has been estimated to set UK employers back up to £2.53 billion per year, owing to factors such as higher staff turnover, lower job satisfaction and lower productivity.

The adoption of remote working practices beyond the immediate crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic will further limit our ability to form or keep those small, informal but important moments to connect with colleagues.

How can we help those who may be at risk?

Loneliness is a personal and distressing experience that can be complex to resolve.

But for people who are lonely, feeling meaningfully connected to others can help. Here are four steps we can all take to help people who may be experiencing loneliness.

1. Listen out

People who are lonely may not readily or explicitly complain about their loneliness due to fear of judgement or stigma.

If they do reach out, a person who is lonely may ask to connect in an indirect or non-urgent way. This can be because people who feel lonely don’t want to burden others. For example, “when you have time, let’s catch up” may appear non-urgent, but it’s important to respond to these requests.

2. Check in and share

Living in a lockdown is stressful, but it’s a shared experience. It presents us with opportunities to show kindness to people we may not know well. A simple “hello” can go a long way for many.

Asking others how they are can become part and parcel of our conversations with each other. Indeed, checking in — even with people who we may not know well, such as co-workers, neighbours, or the barista at the local coffee shop — is becoming the new normal.

Where appropriate, more often than not, sharing our lockdown experiences can create an opportunity to bond with and support each other.

Read more:
Are the kids alright? Social isolation can take a toll, but play can help

3. Ask the right questions

If someone shares they are feeling lonely, asking “is there anything I can do to help?” facilitates the conversation and lets others know you are there without judgement.

Don’t assume what works for you will work for someone else. Ask them “what do you think could help you?”

Being proactive

Since the pandemic began, many Australians have discovered different ways to keep in touch beyond the zoom call. These include things like writing stories and letters, leaving care packages, and exercising with a friend (while socially distanced and with masks).

Millions of Australians are living with multiple sources of stress right now. But it’s not impossible to show emotional support and care to people around us while still sticking to social distancing rules.

Employers must also take proactive steps to keep workers engaged with each other and to the organisation.

Read more:
Lonely in lockdown? You’re not alone. 1 in 2 Australians feel more lonely since coronavirus

So long as lockdowns are used as a strategy against the virus, there will be a social cost to our well-being. But that only makes it more important than ever that we make the effort to stay meaningfully connected to others.

Michelle H Lim is the Chairperson and Scientific Chair of Ending Loneliness Together, a not-for-profit national organisation. She is also the Co-Director of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection. She has received research funding from Barbara Dicker Brain Sciences Foundation and Nextdoor Inc.

– ref. Lockdowns make people lonely. Here are 3 steps we can take now to help each other – https://theconversation.com/lockdowns-make-people-lonely-here-are-3-steps-we-can-take-now-to-help-each-other-165256

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has delivered a sobering update on how much the Earth has warmed and how the climate system is responding.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) is the most comprehensive yet. It shows Earth is now 1.09℃ warmer than it was in the 1850s, and that each incremental increase in warming will bring more extreme weather events.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

For the first time, the assessment also includes a regional breakdown of observed and projected changes.

It shows that while the Australian continent has warmed faster than the global average, at 1.4℃ since 1850, New Zealand’s climate has been changing in line with global trends over the last century.

The average temperature has gone up by 1.1℃ and sea levels have risen about 20cm. The wetter western parts of the country have become even wetter, with more heavy rainfall events, while the drier regions in the east and in Northland have become drier.

Projections for the future continue this theme, becoming wetter in the west, while the eastern regions and the far north continue to dry, especially in winter and spring.

Irreversible changes

The change in rainfall is associated with an overall increase in the strength of the westerly winds across the country, along with an increase in high pressures and settled weather over the far north as the atmospheric band known as the “subtropical high pressure region” is moving south, closer towards the pole.

The overall average warming brings an increase in hot days around the country and more frequent marine heatwaves, with warmer sea surface temperatures over the Tasman Sea and around New Zealand.

The AR6 shows that some of the changes have now become irreversible, at least on time scales of hundreds or even thousands of years.

Across the globe, glaciers will keep retreating as the climate warms. New Zealand’s glaciers will also continue to melt and recede and could disappear right up their valleys if warming reaches 2℃ or more.

Read more:
Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down

The seas will also continue to rise, but how much and how quickly also depends on the amount of warming the world experiences. Even if we manage to cap warming at around 1.5°C, New Zealand will experience up to half a metre of sea level rise by the end of this century.

A changing water cycle

The latest assessment report takes a storyline approach and dedicates each chapter to a specific element of Earth’s climate system. I was an author for a chapter on the water cycle.

Water is vital for life, and changes in water availability have serious implications worldwide. Overall, we see that the water cycle is becoming more intense, that is, a warming atmosphere leads to both more precipitation over land and higher evaporation.

The magnitude and frequency of floods and droughts are increasing in many parts of the world. There is not enough published literature on such trends in New Zealand specifically, but we do know that climate change has made individual floods and droughts more intense in this country.

It is clear that all aspects of the water cycle are affected by warming, including rain and snowfall, glacier mass, groundwater storage, river flows and the oceans.

One clear signal is that variability and extremes in precipitation are increasing, above the rate of the global average. Unless we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions rapidly, we will see even more substantial changes in the water cycle worldwide, including the loss of glaciers and the river flows they feed, more intense precipitation, more extreme rainfall events and associated river floods, but also more intense droughts and an increased risk of wildfires.

As the climate warms, storm tracks are moving towards the poles in many regions, notably across the southern hemisphere. At the same time, the high-pressure regions in the subtropics are expanding poleward. The net effects for New Zealand are that the west and south will see increased precipitation in winter and spring, while the north and east will see reductions.

Abrupt changes

We now have a much better understanding of how aerosols (air pollution) affect the water cycle, especially for tropical monsoons and tropical rainfall generally. An increase in aerosols has generally offset the effect of warming in recent decades.

One proposed technique for managing climate change is known as solar radiation modification. It involves blocking out sunlight by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere.

But recent research shows this could drive abrupt changes in the water cycle and affect different regions in potentially disruptive ways. For example, continued Amazon deforestation, combined with a warming climate, could tip the Amazon ecosystem into a dry state during the 21st century.

Climate change has never been more obvious or better understood. Nor has the urgency of action been clearer, if we are to avoid the really catastrophic consequences. Reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions must by a priority, from now.

James Renwick receives funding from the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. He is a Commissioner at the NZ Climate Change Commission and is a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.

– ref. The global water cycle has become more intense, and that makes New Zealand’s wet regions wetter, and dry ones drier – https://theconversation.com/the-global-water-cycle-has-become-more-intense-and-that-makes-new-zealands-wet-regions-wetter-and-dry-ones-drier-165797

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Golledge, Professor of Glaciology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

After three years of writing and two weeks of virtual negotiations to approve the final wording, the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that changes are happening in Earth’s climate across every continent and every ocean.

My contribution was as one of 15 lead authors to a chapter about the oceans, the world’s icescapes and sea level change — and this is where we are now observing changes that have become irreversible over centuries, and even millennia.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

Overall, the world is now 1.09℃ warmer than it was during the period between 1850 and 1900. The assessment shows the ocean surface has warmed slightly less, by about 0.9℃ as a global average, than the land surface since 1850, but about two-thirds of the ocean warming has taken place during the last 50 years.

We concluded that it is virtually certain the heat content of the ocean will continue to increase for the rest of the current century, and will likely continue until at least 2300, even under low-emissions scenarios.

We also concluded that carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver of acidification in the open ocean and that this has been increasing faster than any time in at least 26,000 years.

We can also say with high confidence that oxygen levels have dropped in many ocean regions since the mid-20th century and that marine heatwaves have doubled in frequency since 1980, also becoming longer and more intense.

Past greenhouse gas emissions, since 1750, mean we are now committed to future ocean warming throughout this century. The rate of change depends on our future emissions, but the process itself is now irreversible on centennial to
millennial time scales.

Ice loss in Antarctica

All this heat is bad news for the area I work in: Antarctica. With a warming ocean, the Antarctic ice sheet is left vulnerable to melting because so much of it rests on bedrock below sea level.

As the ocean warms and the ice sheet melts, sea level goes up around the world. We have very high confidence that the ice lost from West Antarctica in recent decades has exceeded any gain in mass from snowfall. We are also confident this loss has largely been due to increased melting of ice below sea level, driven by warming ocean water.

This melting has allowed the acceleration and thinning of grounded ice further inland — and this is what contributes to sea level rise. On the other side of the world, the Greenland ice sheet has also been losing mass over recent decades, but in Greenland this is principally due to warmer air, rather than warming ocean water.

Read more:
If warming exceeds 2°C, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could raise seas 20 metres in coming centuries

It is virtually certain that the melting of the two great ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as the many thousands of glaciers around the world, will continue to raise sea levels globally for the rest of the current century.

By 2100, we project global mean sea level to be between 0.4m (for the lowest emission scenario, in which CO₂ emissions would have to drop to net zero by 2050) and 0.8m (for the highest emissions scenario) above the 1995–2014 average. How high the seas rise this century clearly depends on how much and how quickly we manage to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The time to act is now

There are processes at play which we still cannot fully capture in computer models, mostly because they take place over periods of time longer than we have direct (satellite-based) observations for. In Antarctica, some of these uncertain processes could greatly accelerate the loss of ice, and potentially add one metre to the projected sea level by 2100.

Whether or not this worst-case scenario plays out or not remains uncertain, but what is increasingly beyond doubt is that global mean sea level will continue to rise for centuries to come. The magnitude of this depends very much on the extent to which we are able, collectively, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right now.

The scientific updates in our AR6 chapter are in line with those from previous assessments. That’s encouraging, because every assessment report brings in new authors with different expertise. The fact the scientific conclusions remain consistent reflects the overwhelming agreement within the global scientific community.

For our chapter, we have assessed 1500 research papers, but across the entire AR6, over 14,000 publications were considered, with an emphasis on recent research that hasn’t been assessed in previous IPCC reports.

The report has been scrutinised carefully at every stage of its evolution, attracting nearly 80,000 individual review comments from experts all over the world. Every single comment had to be addressed by the author team, with written responses provided and any changes to the text carefully noted and tracked.

What changes with each assessment is the clarity of the trends we are observing, and the increasing urgency with which we must act. While some aspects of AR6 are new, the underlying message remains the same. The longer we wait, the more devastating the consequences.

Nick Golledge received funding from the Ministry for the Environment to support his contribution to the IPCC process.

– ref. Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down – https://theconversation.com/rising-seas-and-melting-glaciers-these-changes-are-now-irreversible-but-we-have-to-act-to-slow-them-down-165527

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO

Australia is experiencing widespread, rapid climate change not seen for thousands of years and may warm by 4℃ or more this century, according to a highly anticipated report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The assessment, released on Monday, also warns of unprecedented increases in climate extremes such as bushfires, floods and drought. But it says deep, rapid emissions cuts could spare Australia, and the world, from the most severe warming and associated harms.

The report is the sixth produced by the IPCC since it was founded in 1988 and provides more regional information than any previous version. This gives us a clearer picture of how climate change will play out in Australia specifically.

It confirms the effects of human-caused climate change have well and truly arrived in Australia. This includes in the region of the East Australia Current, where the ocean is warming at a rate more than four times the global average.

We are climate scientists with expertise across historical climate change, climate projections, climate impacts and the carbon budget. We have been part of the international effort to produce the IPCC report over the past three years.

The report finds even under a moderate emissions scenario, the global effects of climate change will worsen significantly over the coming years and decades. Every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the likelihood and severity of many extremes. That means every effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions matters.

Australia is, without question, warming

Australia has warmed by about 1.4℃ since 1910. The IPCC assessment concludes the extent of warming in both Australia and globally are impossible to explain without accounting for the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activities.

The report introduces the concept of Climate Impact-Drivers (CIDs): 30 climate averages, extremes and events that create climate impacts. These include heat, cold, drought and flood.

The report confirms global warming is driving a significant increase in the intensity and frequency of extremely hot temperatures in Australia, as well as a decrease in almost all cold extremes. The IPCC noted with high confidence that recent extreme heat events in Australia were made more likely or more severe due to human influence.

These events include:

• the Australian summer of 2012–13, also known as the Angry Summer, when more than 70% of Australia experienced extreme temperatures

• the Brisbane heatwave in 2014

• extreme heat preceding the 2018 Queensland fires

• the heat leading into the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20.

The IPCC report notes very high confidence in further warming and heat extremes through the 21st century – the extent of which depends on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

If global average warming is limited to 1.5℃ this century, Australia would warm to between 1.4℃ to 1.8℃. If global average warming reaches 4℃ this century, Australia would warm to between 3.9℃ and 4.8℃ .

The IPCC says as the planet warms, future heatwaves in Australia – and globally – will be hotter and last longer. Conversely, cold extremes will be both less intense and frequent.

Hotter temperatures, combined with reduced rainfall, will make parts of Australia more arid. A drying climate can lead to reduced river flows, drier soils, mass tree deaths, crop damage, bushfires and drought.

The southwest of Western Australia remains a globally notable hotspot for drying attributable to human influence. The IPCC says this drying is projected to continue as emissions rise and the climate warms. In southern and eastern Australia, drying in winter and spring is also likely to continue. This phenomenon is depicted in the graphic below.

Climate extremes on the rise

Heat and drying are not the only climate extremes set to hit Australia in the coming decades. The report also notes:

• observed and projected increases in Australia’s dangerous fire weather

• a projected increase in heavy and extreme rainfall in most places in Australia, particularly in the north

• a projected increase in river flood risk almost everywhere in Australia.

Under a warmer climate, extreme rainfall in a single hour or day can become more intense or more frequent, even in areas where the average rainfall declines.

For the first time, the IPCC report provides regional projections of coastal hazards due to sea level rise, changing coastal storms and coastal erosion – changes highly relevant to beach-loving Australia.

This century, for example, sandy shorelines in places such as eastern Australia are projected to retreat by more than 100 metres, under moderate or high emissions pathways.

Hotter, more acidic oceans

The IPCC report says globally, climate change means oceans are becoming more acidic and losing oxygen. Ocean currents are becoming more variable and salinity patterns – the parts of the ocean that are saltiest and less salty – are changing.

It also means sea levels are rising and the oceans are becoming warmer. This is leading to an increase in marine heatwaves such as those which have contributed to mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in recent decades.

Notably, the region of the East Australia Current which runs south along the continent’s east coast is warming at a rate more than four times the global average.

The phenomenon is playing out in all regions with so-called “western boundary currents” – fast, narrow ocean currents found in all major ocean gyres. This pronounced warming is affecting marine ecosystems and aquaculture and is projected to continue.

Read more:
We just spent two weeks surveying the Great Barrier Reef. What we saw was an utter tragedy

Where to from here?

Like all regions of the world, Australia is already feeling the effects of a changing climate.

The IPCC confirms there is no going back from some changes in the climate system. However, the consequences can be slowed, and some effects stopped, through strong, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

And now is the time to start adapting to climate change at a large scale, through serious planning and on-ground action.

To find out more about how climate change will affect Australia, the latest IPCC report includes an Interactive Atlas. Use it to explore past trends and future projections for different emissions scenarios, and for the world at different levels of global warming.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

Michael Grose receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Dr Joelle Gergis has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past. She currently receives funding from the Australian National University. The Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources provided travel funding to support her participation in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Roshanka Ranasinghe is employed at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education/Deltares, Delft, The Netherlands

– ref. Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-has-already-hit-australia-unless-we-act-now-a-hotter-drier-and-more-dangerous-future-awaits-ipcc-warns-165396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO

Of all the troubling news in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report out on Monday, one warning will surely generate the most headlines: under all scenarios examined, Earth is likely to reach the crucial 1.5℃ warming limit in the early 2030s.

As the report makes clear, global warming of 1.5℃, and then 2℃, will be exceeded this century unless we make deep cuts to CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.

Climate change and its consequences are already being felt. Beyond 1.5℃, the situation is likely to rapidly deteriorate.

We are among the climate scientists who contributed to the latest IPCC report, including on the question of 1.5C℃ warming. Here, we go beyond the headlines to explain how the 1.5℃ rise is measured – and why maintaining the lowest global warming possible is what really matters.

‘The most important goal’

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed to hold global warming to well below 2℃, and preferably limit it to 1.5℃, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The first global stocktake of that agreement will be held in 2023, to assess the world’s progress towards achieving its goals. That’s one of the reasons global warming levels are being so keenly watched right now.

The IPCC’s latest findings say 1.5℃ warming will be reached or exceeded in the early 2030s in all emissions scenarios considered – except the highest emissions scenario, for which the crossing could occur even earlier.

But not all hope is lost. In the very low emissions scenario considered in the report – known officially as “SSP1-1.9” – Earth reaches 1.5℃ warming for a few decades, but drops back below it by the end of the century.

This point is important. It’s still possible for Earth to keep below 1.5℃ global warming this century, if we rapidly cut emissions to net-zero. All other scenarios lead to further global warming once 1.5℃ is reached.

However, if maintaining 1.5℃ is not possible, the next goal should be to limit global warming to 1.6℃, then 1.7℃ and so on. Limiting warming to the lowest possible level is the most important goal. Every bit of warming we avoid will reduce the climate risks we face.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

How 1.5℃ warming is measured

The declaration that Earth has reached 1.5℃ warming since the pre-industrial era will not be made after a single year, or a single location, passes that threshold.

The warming is measured as a global average over 20 years, to account for natural variability in the system.

Before global average temperatures officially reach 1.5℃ warming, we can expect quite a few years will exceed that limit. In fact, global temperatures exceeded 1.5℃ warming during individual months at the peak of the 2015-16 El Niño.

The industrial era – and associated greenhouse gas emissions – started in the 1700s. But there is almost no observed climate data on land outside Europe before the mid-19th century.

So, the period of 1850-1900 is used to approximate pre-industrial conditions. The IPCC estimates there was a likely temperature change of between -0.1 to +0.3℃ for the century or so before this where climate data is lacking.

According to the latest IPCC findings, Earth’s average temperature in the last decade was 1.09℃ warmer than the pre-industrial baseline. Obviously, this goes most of the way to 1.5℃ of warming. The IPCC says this warming is unequivocally the result of human influence.

The new science

Several innovations have helped inform the IPCC’s latest assessment. For the first time, the IPCC’s estimate of future global temperature change is based on three factors.

First are projections using new scenarios “Shared Socio-economic Pathways” or SSPs. Each pathway refers to different trajectories the world’s society and economy could take, and the emissions that would result.

A range of climate models – the result of much global scientific effort – is used to simulate climate change in response to each pathway.

Second, climate models are verified against observed climate data. Climate models are essential tools, but should always be used carefully. This grounding in observations was particularly needed with the latest round of climate models, to bring their results in line with other types of evidence.

Read more:
Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions – but the technology remains a powerful tool

Third, the IPCC used an assessment of “climate sensititivty” – how sensitive Earth’s temperature is to a doubling of global CO₂ concentrations. The IPCC’s assessment of the evidence puts climate sensitivity at likely between 2.5℃ and 4℃, with low-likelihood possibilities of less than 2℃ or more than 5℃.

If humanity is lucky, and actual climate sensitivity is in the lowest plausible range, Earth may not reach the 1.5℃ warming limit under the lowest emissions scenarios (but still will under the medium or high ones). If we are unlucky and climate sensitivity is in the high range, the need to quickly reach net-zero emissions becomes even greater.

The following diagram from the latest IPCC report shows the estimated timeframe for reaching various global warming levels, under different Shared Socio-economic Pathways and climate sensitivity values.

Where does this leave us?

The latest IPCC findings confirm Earth will be in the ballpark of 1.5℃ warming in the early 2030s. What happens after that depends on the decisions we make today.

With deep and sustained reductions in CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades, we could keep warming around the 1.5℃ mark and then bring it below that threshold by the end of the century.

The IPCC findings are worrying, but should not be a distraction from our global climate efforts. Staying below 1.5℃ warming is important. But maintaining the lowest global warming we can – whether or not we exceed the 1.5℃ goal – is what really matters.

To explore climate change in Australia and around the world at 1.5℃ and higher global warming levels, see the IPCC’s Interactive Atlas.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

Michael Grose receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Malte Meinshausen is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He also works as Scientific Director at Climate Resource. Malte Meinshausen receives funding from various government and other research grants, including from the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth and Climate Systems Hub

Zebedee Nicholls receives funding from One Earth, a philanthropic organisation working to accelerate collective action to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5°C. He is also a co-founder of Climate Resource, which connects governments and businesses with the latest climate science.

– ref. IPCC says Earth will reach temperature rise of about 1.5℃ in around a decade. But limiting any global warming is what matters most – https://theconversation.com/ipcc-says-earth-will-reach-temperature-rise-of-about-1-5-in-around-a-decade-but-limiting-any-global-warming-is-what-matters-most-165397

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO

Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times and many changes such as sea-level rise and glacier melt are now virtually irreversible, according to the most sobering report yet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report also found escape from human-caused climate change is no longer possible. Climate change is now affecting every continent, region and ocean on Earth, and every facet of the weather.

The long-awaited report is the sixth assessment of its kind since the panel was formed in 1988. It will give world leaders the most timely, accurate information about climate change ahead of a crucial international summit in Glasgow, Scotland in November.

The IPCC is the peak climate science body of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. It is the global authority on the state of Earth’s climate and how human activities affect it. We are authors of the latest IPCC report and have drawn from the work of thousands of scientists from around the world to produce this new assessment.

Sadly, there is hardly any good news in the 3,900 pages of text released today. But there is still time to avert the worst damage, if humanity chooses to.

It’s unequivocal: humans are warming the planet

For the first time, the IPCC states unequivocally — leaving absolutely no room for doubt – humans are responsible for the observed warming of the atmosphere, lands and oceans.

The IPCC finds Earth’s global surface temperature warmed 1.09℃ between 1850-1900 and the last decade. This is 0.29℃ warmer than in the previous IPCC report in 2013. (It should be noted that 0.1℃ of the increase is due to data improvements.)

Read more:
Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

The IPCC recognises the role of natural changes to the Earth’s climate. However, it finds 1.07℃ of the 1.09℃ warming is due to greenhouse gases associated with human activities. In other words, pretty much all global warming is due to humans.

Global surface temperature has warmed faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years, with the warming also reaching ocean depths below 2,000 metres.

The IPCC says human activities have also affected global precipitation (rain and snow). Since 1950, total global precipitation has increased, but while some regions have become wetter, others have become drier.

The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased over most land areas. This is because the warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture — about 7% more for each additional degree of temperature — which makes wet seasons and rainfall events wetter.

Higher concentrations of CO₂, growing faster

Present-day global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) are higher and rising faster than at any time in at least the past two million years.

The speed at which atmospheric CO₂ has increased since the industrial revolution (1750) is at least ten times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years, and between four and five times faster than during the last 56 million years.

About 85% of CO₂ emissions are from burning fossil fuels. The remaining 15% are generated from land use change, such as deforestation and degradation.

Read more:
More livestock, more carbon dioxide, less ice: the world’s climate change progress since 2019 is (mostly) bad news

Concentrations of other greenhouse gases are not doing any better. Both methane and nitrous oxide, the second and third biggest contributors to global warming after CO₂, have also increased more quickly.

Methane emissions from human activities largely come from livestock and the fossil fuel industry. Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from the use of nitrogen fertiliser on crops.

Extreme weather on the rise

Hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy rain have also become more frequent and intense across most land regions since 1950, the IPCC confirms.

The report highlights that some recently observed hot extremes, such as the Australian summer of 2012–2013, would have been extremely unlikely without human influence on the climate.

Human influence has also been detected for the first time in compounded extreme events. For example, incidences of heatwaves, droughts and fire weather happening at the same time are now more frequent. These compound events have been seen in Australia, Southern Europe, Northern Eurasia, parts of the Americas and African tropical forests.

Oceans: hotter, higher and more acidic

Oceans absorb 91% of the energy from the increased atmospheric greenhouse gases. This has led to ocean warming and more marine heatwaves, particularly over the past 15 years.

Marine heatwaves cause the mass death of marine life, such as from coral bleaching events. They also cause algal blooms and shifts in the composition of species. Even if the world restricts warming to 1.5-2℃, as is consistent with the Paris Agreement, marine heatwaves will become four times more frequent by the end of the century.

Read more:
Watching a coral reef die as climate change devastates one of the most pristine tropical island areas on Earth

Melting ice sheets and glaciers, along with the expansion of the ocean as it warms, have led to a global mean sea level increase of 0.2 metres between 1901 and 2018. But, importantly, the speed sea level is rising is accelerating: 1.3 millimetres per year during 1901-1971, 1.9mm per year during 1971-2006, and 3.7mm per year during 2006-2018.

Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of CO₂, has occurred over all oceans and is reaching depths beyond 2,000m in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic.

Many changes are already irreversible

The IPCC says if Earth’s climate was stabilised soon, some climate change-induced damage could not be reversed within centuries, or even millennia. For example, global warming of 2℃ this century will lead to average global sea level rise of between two and six metres over 2,000 years, and much more for higher emission scenarios.

Globally, glaciers have been synchronously retreating since 1950 and are projected to continue to melt for decades after the global temperature is stabilised. Meanwhile the acidification of the deep ocean will remain for thousands of years after CO₂ emissions cease.

Read more:
We mapped the world’s frozen peatlands – what we found was very worrying

The report does not identify any possible abrupt changes that would lead to an acceleration of global warming during this century – but does not rule out such possibilities.

The prospect of permafrost (frozen soils) in Alaska, Canada, and Russia crossing a tipping point has been widely discussed. The concern is that as frozen ground thaws, large amounts of carbon accumulated over thousands of years from dead plants and animals could be released as they decompose.

The report does not identify any globally significant abrupt change in these regions over this century, based on currently available evidence. However, it projects permafrost areas will release about 66 billion tonnes of CO₂ for each additional degree of warming. These emissions are irreversible during this century under all warming scenarios.

How we can stabilise the climate

Earth’s surface temperature will continue to increase until at least 2050 under all emissions scenarios considered in the report. The assessment shows Earth could well exceed the 1.5℃ warming limit by early 2030s.

If we reduce emissions sufficiently, there is only a 50% chance global temperature rise will stay around 1.5℃ (including a temporary overshoot of up to 0.1℃). To get Earth back to below 1.5℃ warming, CO₂ would need to be removed from the atmosphere using negative emissions technologies or nature-based solutions.

Global warming stays below 2℃ during this century only under scenarios where CO₂ emissions reach net-zero around or after 2050.

Read more:
We’ve made progress to curb global emissions. But it’s a fraction of what’s needed

The IPCC analysed future climate projections from dozens of climate models, produced by more than 50 modelling centres around the world. It showed global average surface temperature rises between 1-1.8℃ and 3.3-5.7℃ this century above pre-industrial levels for the lowest and highest emission scenarios, respectively. The exact increase the world experiences will depend on how much more greenhouse gases are emitted.

The report states, with high certainty, that to stabilise the climate, CO₂ emissions must reach net zero, and other greenhouse gas emissions must decline significantly.

We also know, for a given temperature target, there’s a finite amount of carbon we can emit before reaching net zero emissions. To have a 50:50 chance of halting warming at around 1.5℃, this quantity is about 500 billion tonnes of CO₂.

At current levels of CO₂ emissions this “carbon budget” would be used up within 12 years. Exhausting the budget will take longer if emissions begin to decline.

The IPCC’s latest findings are alarming. But no physical or environmental impediments exist to hold warming to well below 2℃ and limit it to around 1.5℃ – the globally agreed goals of the Paris Agreement. Humanity, however, must choose to act.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth and Climate Systems Hub

Dr Joelle Gergis has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past. She currently receives funding from the Australian National University. The Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources provided travel funding to support her participation in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Malte Meinshausen is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He also works as Scientific Director at Climate Resource. Malte Meinshausen receives funding from various government and other research grants, including from the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Mark Hemer receives funding from the Australian Government National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change (NESP-1) and Climate Systems (NESP-2) Hubs.

Michael Grose 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. This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/this-is-the-most-sobering-report-card-yet-on-climate-change-and-earths-future-heres-what-you-need-to-know-165395

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Schubert, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

Australia currently has drugs that treat the symptoms of COVID, and drugs which have been repurposed from other diseases. Now the government has placed an early order for a new drug, sotrovimab, which works on COVID-19 virus particles in the body.

The federal government has bought 7,700 doses of sotrovimab (pronounced so-tro-ve-mab), with an initial delivery due some time this year.

But the COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce says the clinical trial results are too preliminary for the drug to enter routine use here. The taskforce says until further evidence shows sotrovimab is effective, it should only be given to patients as part of a human clinical trial.

Read more:
To ensure supply of the top 3 drugs used to treat COVID-19, it’s time to boost domestic medicine manufacturing

What type of drug is it?

Sotrovimab is a newly developed monoclonal antibody-based medicine. This means it stops the action of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Antibodies are a type of protein in the immune system. Antibodies can recognise and attach to another type of protein called an antigen.

When an antibody attaches to the antigen, it triggers a series of reactions, which can be used to treat an associated disease.

Monoclonal antibody drugs are already established in modern medicine and are used to treat diseases such as arthritis and cancer.

Another monoclonal antibody drug called tocilizumab is used to treat some of the inflammatory symptoms associated with COVID-19.

How does sotrovimab treat COVID?

Sotrovimab works by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the COVID-19 virus. This is the same spike protein the body’s immune system is trained to recognise with the Pfizer COVID vaccine.

By binding to the spike protein, sotrovimab can block the virus from attaching to and entering human cells. This stops the virus replicating in the body.

How is sotrovimab given and what are the side effects?

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved sotrovimab for emergency use as an intravenous injection to treat COVID-19 patients at high risk of progressing to severe disease.

Sotrovimab can be given as soon as someone receives a positive test result or within ten days of getting COVID-19 symptoms.

Read more:
What monoclonal antibodies are – and why we need them as well as a vaccine

The most common side effects with sotrovimab are rash and diarrhoea. Patients also need to be closely monitored for severe allergic reactions after the injection.

What have clinical trials shown so far?

In May 2021, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline released data from a clinical trial. It compared sotrovimab to a placebo in 583 at-risk COVID-19 patients to see whether it prevented the disease progressing to the extent that the patient needed to be hospitalised or died.

In the sotrovimab group (of 291 people), three patients saw their disease progress, compared to 21 in the placebo group (of 292 people). This amounts to an 85% reduction of disease progression in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Has it been approved by medical regulators?

In May, both the US and European drug regulators authorised sotrovimab to be used in adults and children aged over 12 with mild to moderate COVID-19, but who are at a high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. This includes people aged over 65, and those with certain medical conditions such as heart disease, obesity, asthma, and diabetes.

Australia’s regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has received an application from GlaxoSmithKline to provisionally register the drug here in Australia, however its use remains limited to research settings.

So what does that mean for Australia?

Yesterday federal health minister Greg Hunt announced the government had purchased 7,700 dose of sotrovimab, based on the recommendation of its Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group.

The intention is to have the drug ready for use once approved by the TGA.

But the COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, which creates clinical guidelines for the treatment of people with COVID-19 in Australia, has concerns about “the impact of sotrovimab on patient-relevant outcomes in the treatment of COVID-19” and the potential harms of unproven treatment.

It says sotrovimab should not be used outside randomised human clinical trials that have the appropriate ethical approval:

Trials are needed in special populations, including children and adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people living with frailty and those receiving palliative care. Until further evidence is available, do not use sotrovimab for the treatment of COVID-19 in these populations unless they are eligible to be enrolled in trials.

As such, sotrovimab can only enter mainstream use in Australia when the full results of the phase 3 clinical trials are known. That data will be important for the TGA to determine whether the drug works, and whether it’s better than the current treatments.

Read more:
Stopping, blocking and dampening – how Aussie drugs in the pipeline could treat COVID-19

Elise Schubert is a registered pharmacist at Royal North Shore Hospital, and a PhD Candidate receiving scholarship from the University of Sydney and Canngea Pty Ltd.

Dr. Lifeng Kang is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, School of Pharmacy. He received research funding from Australian and Singaporean research agencies, 3M Singapore, P&G Singapore, and some SMEs from Australia, UK, China and USA. He is the scientific advisor for Skinetrate Pty Ltd and Nusmetics Pty Ltd. He is a member of the following research societies: Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, Skin Research Society Singapore, Australasian Society of Dermatology Research, and an executive member of Transdermal Society in World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies.

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.

– ref. What is sotrovimab, the COVID drug the government has bought before being approved for use in Australia? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-sotrovimab-the-covid-drug-the-government-has-bought-before-being-approved-for-use-in-australia-165802

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Haswell, Professor of Practice in Environmental Wellbeing, Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services), University of Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been repeatedly harmed by policies and decisions that drive systematic dispossession, disempowerment, overincarceration and poverty.

Janine Mohamad and Zoe Staines and colleagues highlighted the breadth of cultural determinants of health that were unaddressed in the government’s Closing the Gap package. They provided examples of “how government policies continue to create damage that must later be healed”.

Many Traditional Owners of Northern Territory’s Beetaloo region view the Beetaloo cooperative drilling program this way — as more harm coming to their Country, water and people.

The Beetaloo is first of five major gas basin developments advanced in the prime minister’s A$6 billion plan for a “gas-led recovery” from the economic hit of COVID. The plan, currently under examination by a Senate inquiry, would vastly expand unconventional oil and gas production using hydraulic fracturing (fracking), adding enormously to Australia’s greenhouse emissions.

As climate change is already causing harm globally, this has been intensely criticised by Australian energy experts, doctors and international bodies.

The outcome of the Senate inquiry will significantly influence progression of gas mining in basins across Aboriginal Lands, impacting communities and Homelands.

The Commonwealth government can’t seem to wait to “unlock” the Beetaloo – pledging A$50 million in fracking grants in the NT, including A$21 million in taxpayers’ money to Empire Energy, to expedite exploration.

There are many serious health concerns associated with opening up remote parts of Northern Territory to the oil and gas industry, including the largely ignored links with sexual and physical violence experienced by Indigenous women and children in North America.

Read more:
Remote Indigenous Australia’s ecological economies give us something to build on

The health harms of unconventional gas mining

For over ten years, the authors here (along with our colleague David Shearman) have been translating research to government decision-makers and community groups.

Our research has been communicated extensively to the NT government in [multiple written submissions], oral presentations, letters, and to the NT chapter of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

This painstaking documentation details rapidly growing evidence of many environmental, climate, health and wellbeing losses associated with gas mining.

Our most recent submission to the Beetaloo Senate inquiry described international evidence of serious health harms including:

• heart failure
• heart attacks
• asthma
• severe birth defects
• psycho-social and mental health loss.

These unwelcome messages were ignored in the NT fracking inquiry report and the subsequent Strategic Regional Environmental and Baseline Assessment (SREBA) framework.

As remote Aboriginal Territorians already experience much higher burdens from these conditions, it follows the Beetaloo region would experience even more health loss if exposed to the hazards of gas mining.

These hazards include ozone and tiny particles in inhaled air and many chemicals capable of disrupting people’s endocrine systems in both the air and water.

Besides direct physical health impacts, the industry has an enormous environmental and social injustice footprint.

The expanse and intensity of mature shale gas mining operations, once allowed to proceed, are rarely foreseen. Remote areas are rapidly industrialised with airstrips, roads, wellpads, pipelines, gas processing and water treatment plants and pumping stations.

Many experts question the capacity, cost and commitment to procedural justice required to effectively monitor regulatory compliance through decades of mine expansion, production and well decommissioning.

Read more:
Fracking can cause social stress in nearby areas: new research

Risks to vulnerable communities

There is little research on the impacts of shale gas mining on Indigenous people specifically. As a result, affected Indigenous communities have had to raise their own voices about their experiences and concerns.

In 2015, a coalition of Native American and women’s organisations requested intervention by the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for protection against “the epidemic of sexual violence brought on by extreme fossil fuel extraction in the Great Lakes and Great Plains region” in North America.

They described vast “man camps” of temporary labour becoming “lawless hubs of violence and human trafficking”.

In 2019, the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls quoted Melina Laboucan Massimo of the Lubicon Cree First Nation:

The industrial system of resource extraction in Canada is predicated on systems of power and domination. This system is based on the raping and pillaging of Mother Earth as well as violence against women.

A recurrent theme in the current Beetaloo inquiry has been whether potential health risks experienced elsewhere would be likely occur here if the project in the Beetaloo Basin proceeds.

In response, we highlight the combination of circumstances accompanying oil and gas developments that heighten the vulnerability of any community. We also urge recognition of the specific, compounding factors faced by the people who live in the Beetaloo. These include:

• historical genocide, violence and transgenerational trauma
• the geographical vastness of gas mining potential across remote and under-serviced areas
• the characteristics of this work and enormous influx of workers
• the socioeconomic disparities and lack of voice among First Nations peoples
• police protection and duty of care to Aboriginal people as victims of crime
• and the criminal justice system itself

Construction and drilling workers — most being male fly-in, fly-out contractors — will build and service these facilities. Research shows these workers are separated from their families and have well-paid but stressful, sometimes dangerous jobs.

Recent reports of alleged sexual violence against female mine workers in Western Australia causes concern for the well being of women and children in remote areas.

We see no assurance to date that concerns raised here are being taken seriously, and hope this Senate committee is listening to all the incredible Aboriginal people from remote Beetaloo communities that are standing up and speaking out.

We need to respect their calls to protect their communities and Country, and address the potential damage that awaits unless we take action. As we know from history, as important as they are, reparations do not heal deep wounds, especially those easily foreseen.

Melissa Haswell is affiliated with Doctors for the Environment Australia, Climate and Health Alliance and the Public Health Association Australia.

Megan Williams receives funding from the Medical Research Futures Fund, National Health and Medical Research Council, National Indigenous Australians Agency, Australian Government Department of Health and NSW Aboriginal Land Council. She is affiliated with Croakey Health Media and Deadly Connections.

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

– ref. The Beetaloo drilling program brings potential health and social issues for Aboriginal communities in remote NT – https://theconversation.com/the-beetaloo-drilling-program-brings-potential-health-and-social-issues-for-aboriginal-communities-in-remote-nt-165392

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Hicks, PhD / Dr. iur. candidate, The University of Melbourne

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant huge restrictions on Australians’ ability to travel both within Australia and overseas. But until now, Australian citizens ordinarily resident in other countries have been able to return to Australia and then leave without requiring additional permission.

However, last week, the federal government quietly removed that exemption. This is designed to deter Australians from coming home in the first place, thereby reducing demand on quarantine places. It will come into effect on Wednesday August 11.

Read more:
There’s a ban on leaving Australia under COVID-19. Who can get an exemption to go overseas? And how?

It follows lobbying from state premiers (who have to quarantine people) to limit the movement of fly-in fly-out workers.

This means Australians who live abroad and return to Australia (even if it is to see family) will not automatically be able to leave again unless they meet narrow grounds for an exemption. They will need to prove they have an “established and settled” home overseas, via documents like a residency permit, tenancy agreement, letter from an employer or utility bills. This is not necessarily straightforward, particularly as lives, jobs and visas continued to be disrupted by the pandemic.

Is this latest move legal? Are there any grounds to challenge this?

The Biosecurity Act

The government’s power to ban people from leaving Australia comes from the Biosecurity Act. In an emergency, section 477(1) gives the health minister sweeping powers to prevent and control the entry of diseases into Australia.

Since COVID began, Health Minister Greg Hunt has issued determinations to stop Australian citizens and residents from leaving without permission, to ban them from travelling on from the New Zealand “travel bubble” to another country, and to ban people from returning to Australia from India during the second wave. If people breach these rules, they can be subject to penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to $66,000, or both.

By contrast to other legislative instruments, these determinations by the health minister cannot be “disallowed” (or overturned) by federal parliament.

This means parliament can’t block the health minister’s decision to stop Australians who live abroad from leaving without permission.

What about constitutional rights?

Australia is one of the only liberal democracies in the world without a bill of rights.

In countries such as Germany, Slovenia, and Spain, citizens and residents have been able to challenge COVID restrictions in courts by arguing they breach their constitutional rights. Courts then consider whether a restriction is a proportionate way of controlling the virus.

Read more:
Why the latest travel caps look like an arbitrary restriction on Australians’ right to come home

There is a strong argument the new restriction for Australians is disproportionate. This is because its objective — managing the entry of COVID by deterring demand for quarantine places — is already achieved via caps on the number of people who can enter Australia. There are also other means of managing risk that would place a lesser burden on rights to leave and return to Australia, such as tailoring restrictions to vaccination status.

Reducing demand for already regulated spaces, as the new restriction does, is really about reducing political pressure on government to expand quarantine systems.

What does the India experience tell us?

Because Australia doesn’t have a bill of rights, citizens can’t challenge the proportionality of Hunt’s determinations.

This was clear in the challenge to the ban on citizens returning from India, where the Biosecurity Act was described by counsel for the Commonwealth as a “legislative bulldozer” — knocking over any other statutory protections or common law rights that people might have. The ban was found to be legal.

Read more:
The crisis in India is a terrifying example of why we need a better way to get Australians home

The minister does need to consider whether there are less intrusive ways of controlling the entry of COVID when making a determination. But the challenge to the India ban shows courts will allow a great deal of discretion to the health minister in making that call. As long as there is a basis for the minister to make that call — such as health advice — courts will not look too deeply into the premises underlying that advice or its proportionality.

Commonwealth power

One argument against stopping Australians who ordinarily live abroad from leaving is the Commonwealth must have a power explicitly listed in the Constitution to make a law about this.

The federal government is likely relying on the Constitution’s quarantine power to stop Australians from leaving. The explanatory statement tabled in parliament last Thursday makes clear the Commonwealth is removing the exemption on people who ordinarily live abroad to reduce demand on quarantine places.

There is an argument stopping people from leaving doesn’t have enough of a connection to the Commonwealth’s power over quarantine. Given the broad approach courts have taken to emergency powers during the pandemic, a court may nonetheless find restrictions on people leaving is incidental to managing quarantine.

International human rights law

What about Australian citizens’ rights under international law?

Under international law, everyone must be free to leave any country, including their own. In exceptional and very limited circumstances, this right may be restricted – for instance, if it is necessary to protect public health. However, the restrictions must be clearly set out in domestic law, consistent with other human rights (including the right to family life), and “the least intrusive” way of achieving the desired aim.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has been very plain.

The application of restrictions in any individual case must be based on clear legal grounds and meet the test of necessity and the requirements of proportionality.

In other words, a “one size fits all approach” will not cut it.

The current restrictions do not take into consideration vaccination status, nor the fact a cohort of Australian citizens have their permanent home abroad.

Particularly when considered in conjunction with the barriers the government has already put in place that limit these Australians’ right to return home, this additional exit requirement truly seems like overreach.

Liz Hicks receives funding from an Australian Commonwealth Government Research Training Program stipend. She is also a member of the Australian Greens Victoria, although her views do not reflect party policy.

Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Regina Jefferies is affiliated with the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.

– ref. The federal government just made it even harder for Australians overseas to come home. Is this legal? Or reasonable? – https://theconversation.com/the-federal-government-just-made-it-even-harder-for-australians-overseas-to-come-home-is-this-legal-or-reasonable-165744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Russell, Senior Lecturer in Crime, Justice & Legal Studies, La Trobe University

Over the past 12 months, up to 1,200 people spent time in Victoria’s maximum-security women’s prison without being convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. They were on remand: waiting in custody for their trial or sentencing, or to be granted bail.

Since 2018, Victoria’s bail laws have made remand the default option for an expanded list of offences. Even when a woman’s alleged offending is non-violent and relatively low level, her chance of being granted bail can be impossibly low. This is especially so if she is experiencing severe social disadvantage. Many women will be denied bail because they don’t have an address: they’re living in their car, couch-surfing, or unable to return home because of family violence.

Thanks to a series of punitive bail reforms, the remand situation in Victoria’s prisons has now reached crisis level.

In the past ten years, the number of people entering the women’s prison on remand in Victoria has trebled. For First Nations women, the number has increased five-fold.

Shockingly, remandees now outnumber sentenced prisoners in the women’s system. Most will spend less than one month on remand, although a significant proportion (32%) spend between one and six months in custody. The majority will leave the women’s prison without having spent any time under sentence.

Read more:
Not for punishment: we need to understand bail, not review it

Unfortunately, Victoria is not an outlier. In New South Wales, 43% of women in prison are on remand, compared to 31% in 2013. National figures show more than a third (37%) of women in prison are unsentenced, up from 22% in 2010.

On a global scale, Australia’s startling rate of growth in its remand populations far outpaces those of similar jurisdictions internationally, such as England and Wales, and Canada.

Increased churn of unsentenced prisoners is a result of the politicisation of bail laws. State governments have used bail reform to send a “tough on crime” message when confronted with the fallout from high-profile instances of violent offending by people on bail.

In Victoria, this occurred after James Gargasoulos drove his car into a busy mall in central Melbourne, killing six pedestrians in January 2017. While recently released findings from the coronial inquest into these deaths found changes to policing practices, not bail laws, were required to prevent a similar event occurring in the future, the Victorian government had already acted.

Twenty-two changes to the Bail Act were implemented in 2018, making it the strictest bail regime in the country. But there is little consideration of the wider impact of making it harder for people to be granted bail, especially for groups that are already over-policed, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people experiencing homelessness.

Changes to bail in Victoria were intended to enhance community protection. But lawyers working within the bail and remand system report they are disproportionately affecting women who are homeless and victim-survivors of family violence. According to lawyers, a lack of safe housing options is the biggest barrier to women accessing bail in the current system.

Lawyers estimate the vast majority of women they represent in the bail and remand court are victim-survivors of family violence — a claim supported by an analysis of women entering prison on remand. They fear that even short periods of remand will further traumatise women and cause major disruptions to their lives and families.

Although remand is not intended to inflict punishment, its punitive effects are difficult to ignore. Being remanded can result in someone losing their housing, their job, and having their children removed and placed in out-of-home care.

Lawyers are also concerned that high thresholds for bail are pressuring women to plead guilty just to avoid extended periods of time on remand awaiting their day in court. This will mean more women are trapped in cycles of incarceration that have damaging flow-on effects.

Read more:
We need to consider granting bail to unsentenced prisoners to stop the spread of coronavirus

Despite the overall trend of growth, last year remand numbers in Victoria declined significantly due to the impacts of COVID-19. As infection rates rose, magistrates were wary of sending people to prison unsentenced, knowing they would be held for weeks in quarantine conditions that amount to solitary confinement. The ban on prison visits would also be particularly hard on women, who are more likely to be mothers and primary carers.

Victorian remand numbers are now bouncing back. Yet the 2020 downturn showed us prisoner reductions are possible and necessary. When the harmful effects of imprisonment are given serious consideration – with or without a pandemic – women can and should be diverted from prison.

To reduce rates of remand, we need to repeal changes to the Bail Act that have made prison the default, not a last resort. Diverting prison funds towards public housing will also produce longer-term benefits for women, their children and the community.

Emma Russell is affiliated with Smart Justice for Women.

– ref. Number of women on remand in Victoria soars due to outdated bail laws – https://theconversation.com/number-of-women-on-remand-in-victoria-soars-due-to-outdated-bail-laws-165301

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jathan Sadowski, Research Fellow, Emerging Technologies Research Lab and CoE for Automated Decision-Making and Society, Monash University

I’m a Luddite. This is not a hesitant confession, but a proud proclamation. I’m also a social scientist who studies how new technologies affect politics, economics and society. For me, Luddism is not a naive feeling, but a considered position.

And once you know what Luddism actually stands for, I’m willing to bet you will be one too — or at least much more sympathetic to the Luddite cause than you think.

Today the term is mostly lobbed as an insult. Take this example from a recent report by global consulting firm Accenture on why the health-care industry should enthusiastically embrace artificial intelligence:

Excessive caution can be detrimental, creating a luddite culture of following the herd instead of forging forward.

To be a Luddite is seen as synonymous with being primitive — backwards in your outlook, ignorant of innovation’s wonders, and fearful of modern society. This all-or-nothing approach to debates about technology and society is based on severe misconceptions of the real history and politics of the original Luddites: English textile workers in the early 19th century who, under the cover of night, destroyed weaving machines in protest to changes in their working conditions.

Read more:
The coronavirus pandemic is boosting the big tech transformation to warp speed

Our circumstances today are more similar to theirs than it might seem, as new technologies are being used to transform our own working and social conditions — think increases in employee surveillance during lockdowns, or exploitation by gig labour platforms. It’s time we reconsider the lessons of Luddism.

A brief — and accurate — history of Luddism

Even among other social scientists who study these kinds of critical questions about technology, the label of “Luddite” is still largely an ironic one. It’s the kind of self-effacing thing you say when fumbling with screen-sharing on Zoom during a presentation: “Sorry, I’m such a Luddite!”

It wasn’t until I learned the true origins of Luddism that I began sincerely to regard myself as one of them.

The Luddites were a secret organisation of workers who smashed machines in the textile factories of England in the early 1800s, a period of increasing industrialisation, economic hardship due to expensive conflicts with France and the United States, and widespread unrest among the working class. They took their name from the apocryphal tale of Ned Ludd, a weaver’s apprentice who supposedly smashed two knitting machines in a fit of rage.

The contemporary usage of Luddite has the machine-smashing part correct — but that’s about all it gets right.

First, the Luddites were not indiscriminate. They were intentional and purposeful about which machines they smashed. They targeted those owned by manufacturers who were known to pay low wages, disregard workers’ safety, and/or speed up the pace of work. Even within a single factory — which would contain machines owned by different capitalists — some machines were destroyed and others pardoned depending on the business practices of their owners.

Second, the Luddites were not ignorant. Smashing machines was not a kneejerk reaction to new technology, but a tactical response by workers based on their understanding of how owners were using those machines to make labour conditions more exploitative. As historian David Noble puts it, they understood “technology in the present tense”, by analysing its immediate, material impacts and acting accordingly.

Luddism was a working-class movement opposed to the political consequences of industrial capitalism. The Luddites wanted technology to be deployed in ways that made work more humane and gave workers more autonomy. The bosses, on the other hand, wanted to drive down costs and increase productivity.

Third, the Luddites were not against innovation. Many of the technologies they destroyed weren’t even new inventions. As historian Adrian Randall points out, one machine they targeted, the gig mill, had been used for more than a century in textile manufacturing. Similarly, the power loom had been used for decades before the Luddite uprisings.

It wasn’t the invention of these machines that provoked the Luddites to action. They only banded together once factory owners began using these machines to displace and disempower workers.

The factory owners won in the end: they succeeded in convincing the state to make “frame breaking” a treasonous crime punishable by hanging. The army was sent in to break up and hunt down the Luddites.

The Luddite rebellion lasted from 1811 to 1816, and today (as Randall puts it), it has become “a cautionary moral tale”. The story is told to discourage workers from resisting the march of capitalist progress, lest they too end up like the Luddites.

Neo-Luddism

Today, new technologies are being used to alter our lives, societies and working conditions no less profoundly than mechanical looms were used to transform those of the original Luddites. The excesses of big tech companies – Amazon’s inhumane exploitation of workers in warehouses driven by automation and machine vision, Uber’s gig-economy lobbying and disregard for labour law, Facebook’s unchecked extraction of unprecedented amounts of user data – are driving a public backlash that may contain the seeds of a neo-Luddite movement.

As Gavin Mueller writes in his new book on Luddism, our goal in taking up the Luddite banner should be “to study and learn from the history of past struggles, to recover the voices from past movements so that they might inform current ones”.

What would Luddism look like today? It won’t necessarily (or only) be a movement that takes up hammers against smart fridges, data servers and e-commerce warehouses. Instead, it would treat technology as a political and economic phenomenon that deserves to be critically scrutinised and democratically governed, rather than a grab bag of neat apps and gadgets.

Read more:
Doomsaying about new technology helps make it better

In a recent article in Nature, my colleagues and I argued that data must be reclaimed from corporate gatekeepers and managed as a collective good by public institutions. This kind of argument is deeply informed by the Luddite ethos, calling for the hammer of antitrust to break up the tech oligopoly that currently controls how data is created, accessed, and used.

A neo-Luddite movement would understand no technology is sacred in itself, but is only worthwhile insofar as it benefits society. It would confront the harms done by digital capitalism and seek to address them by giving people more power over the technological systems that structure their lives.

This is what it means to be a Luddite today. Two centuries ago, Luddism was a rallying call used by the working class to build solidarity in the battle for their livelihoods and autonomy.

And so too should neo-Luddism be a banner that brings workers together in today’s fight for those same rights. Join me in reclaiming the name of Ludd!

Read more:
The unmaking of the Australian working class – and their right to resist

Jathan Sadowski 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. I’m a Luddite. You should be one too – https://theconversation.com/im-a-luddite-you-should-be-one-too-163172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shelley Hannigan, Senior Lecturer in Art Education, Deakin University

This article is part of a series providing school students with evidence-based advice for choosing subjects in their senior years.

If you’re thinking of taking a performing or visual arts subject in years 11 and 12, you are probably weighing up a few considerations. These may include your passion and interest in the subject, how doing one or two arts subjects might affect your entry into university and what you could do with the skills you learn.

Nearly 30% of all year 12 students across Australia (53,311 year 12 students in total) chose to study visual or performing arts in year 12 in 2019. But twice as many girls took an arts subject (40%) as boys (18%).

The arts subject selection you have will depend on what state you live in. But these are the types of subjects you can broadly choose from in visual and performing arts.

Visual arts

Visual arts is a theory-based subject. You will learn about different artworks and the role of artists in society. You will engage in discussions and writing tasks about what artworks mean. This includes ideas from historical and contemporary arts and culture.

Read more:
Here’s looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock

In studio arts, you will learn about artists’ practices and the art industry while also developing your own art.

You will experiment with techniques and art processes in the mediums of your choice. These include photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, film, digital arts, ceramics or textiles. You will develop your own artworks, document this process and exhibit your work.

Media arts involves researching and learning about narrative across different media forms. You will demonstrate your understanding of production processes by designing a media product (such as a film or photographic exhibition) and presenting it.

Product design and technology involves learning about, and experimenting with, materials and processes. The materials will vary from school to school, but you may be able to choose from wood or timber, metal, fabrics, polymers, glass or ceramics. You will learn how to design and put these designs into production.

Performing arts

Dance will teach you about dance traditions, styles and works from different cultures. You will learn about music theatre, the work of tap or jazz or street performers, ballet and modern dance, and choreography. As you learn this content through theory and practice, you will engage in analysis of dance that will help you develop your own choreographed performance with others.

Drama involves studying practice and theory to understand the ways theatre and performance can communicate stories and ideas. You will explore different traditions of drama including costume, set design and lighting, make-up, masks, props and puppetry and sound design. You will ultimately create, develop and present a solo performance.

Music has different pathways depending on what state you live in. In the Victorian curriculum, there are three pathways culminating in units 3 and 4 of music investigation and music performance. These pathways require at least four years’ experience in learning an instrument. Another pathway, VET music industry, focuses on performing in public.

While each pathway and qualification is different, you will learn through listening, performing and composing. You will apply creative thinking skills to analyse and critique contemporary and historical music and musicians.

What benefits will I get through studying arts?

From my research and practice as an artist and university educator of 15 years, I know any of the year 11 and 12 art subjects will enable you to learn from extensive creative processes. Developing a set of paintings will require experimenting with techniques, learning from other artists, developing a theme or message to convey, and ensuring the subject matter in your paintings is suitable for conveying the message and appropriate for the style you are working in.

Read more:
Thrash not trash ?: why heavy metal is a valid and vital PhD subject

Your technique must be proficient to achieve good marks. You also need to document the development of your research and ideas with visual images you created and written statements in journals. This is somewhat risky as you are putting yourself out there. It must also come together in a certain time frame, which can be challenging and stressful.

But it will pay off as research shows arts education has many benefits.

Beyond technical knowledge and skills, benefits include actual enjoyment and stress relief. The senior years can be stressful years, so adding an arts subject to the mix can actually be a way to take care of yourself. It is well documented the arts offer mental health benefits as the focus on creating art is a form of mindfulness.

Creating art is a process of focusing on bringing together subject matter, technique and creative experience to communicate a story or an idea. The ability to express your feelings through the arts is a form of release. And reflecting on its meaning can provide insights into your self, which is therapeutic.

Read more:
Choosing your senior school subjects doesn’t have to be scary. Here are 6 things to keep in mind

In addition, you will develop a range of skills that will help you in any area of life. Beyond creativity and thinking skills, research shows arts education will help you enhance your communication and expressive skills, as well as boosting your confidence and self-esteem. Teamwork, too, is a big part of the arts, and learning this skill will be helpful at university and in your future employment.

The presentation, communication and performance skills you learn are adaptable for public speaking, community and public art careers, as well as teaching.

Will doing the arts bring down my ATAR?

The ATAR is a university-based system that determines how many students will get into particular courses. Like a queue, it ranks you against everyone in the year 12 age group.

But university entry, particularly when it comes to the arts, doesn’t rely on ATAR. It often requires an interview process with presentation of a portfolio.

If you’re not looking to do arts at university, it’s still important to choose senior subjects you are interested in and good at. Plus, skills you learn in the arts can enhance your entry prospects. For instance, entry into a medical degree requires a high ATAR. But most universities also conduct an interview to test your empathy, collaboration and ethical reasoning skills – all of which are enhanced by the arts.

What will I do with these skills after school?

Many students who study senior art go on to study the visual and/or performing arts at university. Some become self-employed artists. Others practise art on the side and that helps them maintain a good balance in life.

One ex-student, now in her late 20s, studied visual art and music in school but is now a psychiatric nurse who is also in a band. She said being a musician helps her cope with the stresses of her job.

Another ex-student, a 20-year-old male, studied the VCE VET in music industry as well as media arts, studio arts, visual arts, psychology and literature. He is a full-time intern in a technology company. He said the networking he does now is very close to what he had to do for the documentary he made in media arts. He also said his creative skills were helpful in the marketing material he designs.

You have to be a creative strategist to get people to give you time of day in sales and marketing.

Read the other articles in our series on choosing senior subjects, here.

Shelley Hannigan 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. Art, drama and music lower stress. Here’s what you need to know if you’re thinking of taking arts in years 11 and 12 – https://theconversation.com/art-drama-and-music-lower-stress-heres-what-you-need-to-know-if-youre-thinking-of-taking-arts-in-years-11-and-12-164713

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

This week’s Newspoll, conducted August 4-7 from a sample of 1,527, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged from three weeks ago. Primary votes were 39% Coalition (steady), 39% Labor (steady), 11% Greens (up one) and 3% One Nation (steady). Figures are from The Poll Bludger.

49% were dissatisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance (up four), and 47% were satisfied (down four), for a net approval of -2, down eight points. This is Morrison’s first negative rating since the start of the COVID pandemic in April 2020. Analyst Kevin Bonham said Morrison had the fourth longest streak of positive Newspoll ratings for a PM.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s net approval was steady at -8. Morrison’s better PM lead narrowed from 51-33 to 49-36.

Newspoll’s COVID questions continued to show declines for Morrison. On overall handling of COVID, he has a 49-48 poor rating (52-45 good three weeks ago and 70-27 good in April). The vaccine rollout had a 59-38 disapproval rating (57-40 three weeks ago, 53-43 approval in April).

With Sydney in an extended lockdown that is likely to last until vaccination rates are high, and current and recent lockdowns in Melbourne and south-east Queensland, people have become frustrated with the slow vaccination rollout.

But the next election is not required until May 2022. Vaccination levels will very likely be high enough by then to reopen. While the economy will be damaged by the lockdowns, past experience in Australia and overseas shows that the economy will recover quickly once the lockdowns end.

Read more:
Labor gains clear Newspoll lead during Sydney lockdown, but will the economy save the Coalition?

The Guardian’s datablog shows 17.8% of Australia’s population is fully vaccinated, while 17.5% has received just one dose (this means 35% have had either one or two doses). Among OECD countries, we currently rank 35 of 38 in our fully vaccinated share. We were last a month ago, but have overtaken South Korea, New Zealand and Costa Rica.

47% of unvaccinated in Essential would take Pfizer but not AstraZeneca

In last week’s Essential poll, 47% of those who have not yet been vaccinated said they would be willing to get the Pfizer vaccine, but not AstraZeneca.

About one in a million people who receive AstraZeneca die from a blood clot issue. Alarmism from the media and health authorities has tainted an effective COVID vaccine. Australians’ reluctance to get AstraZeneca has impaired the vaccination rollout.

ATAGI’s June recommendation that only those aged over 60 be vaccinated with AstraZeneca, and Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young’s attacks on AstraZeneca have been particularly unfortunate. It took until late July for ATAGI to change its advice on AstraZeneca, and then only for those in Sydney.

By contrast, the UK has vaccinated most of its adult population using AstraZeneca, and AstraZeneca creator, Sarah Gilbert, received a standing ovation at Wimbledon.

Other Essential questions and Morgan poll

In other Essential questions, 50% approved of Morrison’s performance (down one since July), and 40% disapproved (steady), for a net approval of +10. But Albanese’s net approval slumped ten points to -4. Morrison led Albanese by 45-26 as better PM (46-28 in July).

While Morrison’s ratings were stable, the federal government’s response to COVID was rated as good by just a 38-35 margin (46-31 good in mid-July, and 58-18 in late May, before the current lockdowns began).

The NSW government’s response to COVID was rated good by 47% (down seven), the Victorian government’s by 54% (up five), and South Australia’s by 73% (up five). This poll was taken before the new Victorian lockdown.

50% of NSW respondents thought NSW did not lock down hard enough, with 39% believing it to be about the right level and 11% too harsh. For Victoria, responses were 71% about right, 23% too harsh and 6% not hard enough.

By 66-11, voters supported the return of JobKeeper to assist people and businesses affected by lockdowns. By 67-18, voters opposed the recent anti-lockdown protests in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

A Morgan federal poll, conducted July 24-25 and July 31-August 1 from a sample of over 2,700, gave Labor a 53.5-46.5 lead, a 1% gain for Labor since mid-July. Primary votes were 37% Coalition (down two), 37% Labor (steady), 12.5% Greens (up one) and 3% One Nation (steady).

Federal redistribution finalised

Draft federal electoral boundaries for Victoria and WA were released in March, with Victoria gaining a seat, while WA lost one. Final boundaries were gazetted by August 2, and will be used at the next election.

Read more:
Morrison’s ratings take a hit in Newspoll as Coalition notionally loses a seat in redistribution

The WA seat axed was Liberal-held Stirling, while the new Victorian seat of Hawke will be safe for Labor. No other seat changed its notional holder. Ignoring Craig Kelly’s defection, the Coalition notionally starts the next election with 76 of the 151 seats and Labor 69.

ABC election analyst Antony Green has published a post-redistribution pendulum. Labor lost the two party vote by 51.5-48.5 in 2019. For the Coalition to lose its majority, a net loss of one seat is required, a 0.4% swing to Labor under the uniform swing assumption.

For Labor to win more seats than the Coalition, they would need four more net seats for a 73-72 seat lead. That’s a 3.1% swing (51.6% two party to Labor). A Labor majority needs a net seven gains (3.3% swing or 51.8% two party).

Swings are never uniform, but the pendulum suggests that Labor will need a bit more than 50% two party to oust the Coalition. I wrote about Labor’s problems after the last election.

Read more:
Difficult for Labor to win in 2022 using new pendulum, plus Senate and House preference flows

UK COVID data two weeks after “Freedom Day”

July 19 was “Freedom Day” in England, when virtually all remaining COVID restrictions were relaxed. I had an article for The Poll Bludger on August 2, two weeks after Freedom Day. Almost 89% of UK adults have received at least one vaccine dose and over 74% are fully vaccinated. About 95% of English aged over 55 are fully vaccinated.

New UK COVID daily cases were over 54,000 on July 17, two days before Freedom Day, and were predicted to surge to over 100,000. But instead they declined to under 22,000 last Monday, though they have risen back to 27,400 Sunday. Average daily deaths are 86, way short of the horrific January peak of over 1,200.

German polling ahead of the September 26 federal election, and Biden’s ratings and US COVID data were also covered in the article.

Adrian Beaumont 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. First negative Newspoll rating for Morrison since start of pandemic; 47% of unvaccinated would take Pfizer but not AstraZeneca – https://theconversation.com/first-negative-newspoll-rating-for-morrison-since-start-of-pandemic-47-of-unvaccinated-would-take-pfizer-but-not-astrazeneca-165665

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phil Bellinger, Lecturer in exercise science, Griffith University

The Tokyo Olympic Games have seen incredible performances in the short-distance track events. We have seen two major world records fall: the men’s and women’s 400-metre hurdles – and numerous personal best times.

In the women’s 400-metre hurdles, five of the eight competitors in the final ran personal bests. Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah set an Olympic record to win the women’s 100-metre event. A European record was set in the men’s 100-metre event, and all medallists in the race were slightly faster than the respective medal-winning times at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

What’s behind these super-fast times? Some have suggested the composition of the track, new “super spike” running shoes, or hot weather are responsible. While these almost certainly contributed to the results, another reason is likely to be more uninterrupted training through reduced international travel and competition in the months leading into the Tokyo Olympic Games.

This better preparation in turn is due to two things: first, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant less competition and more time for training; and second, steady improvements in sports science and applied research are maximising the extremes of human performance.
`

Bouncy tracks, super spikes and heat

The track surface at the Tokyo Olympic stadium, installed by an Italian company called Mondo, is designed to allow runners to better grip the surface while also providing better shock absorption. The surface contains hexagonal air chambers that can compress and bounce back with each step.

Many athletes are also wearing relatively new spikes containing a stiff and lightweight plate made from carbon fibre. The Nike version of these so-called “super spikes” also features a foam layer under the carbon fibre to provide additional spring.

Read more:
Super shoes: Explaining athletics’ new technological arms race

These Nike shoes in particular have been criticised as providing an unreasonable advantage, including by 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm. Warholm wore Puma carbon-fibre spikes without the additional foam in his world record-setting win, while silver medallist Rai Benjamin wore Nike’s version.

The weather in Tokyo, with temperatures in the 30s and humidity sometimes over 80%, may have also contributed to the fast times in sprint events. Hot conditions means warmer muscles, which can produce force more quickly, making for faster sprinting.

Heat and humidity also put greater strain on athletes over longer distances, which is the main reason we have seen fewer records fall in the track endurance events.

Uninterrupted training and competition

However, suggesting these personal best performances and record times in sprint events can be fully attributed to environmental conditions, new shoe technology and the track surface is a little disrespectful to the athletes. Both Warholm and Sydney McLaughlin, who respectively set the new men’s and women’s records for 400m hurdles, broke previous records they had recently set themselves.

On Tuesday Warholm smashed the record he had claimed in July, and on Wednesday McLaughlin beat the time she set in June. Both athletes were in career-best form heading into Tokyo.

All the athletes were aiming to achieve peak performance at Tokyo by precisely timing their training and recovery cycles. This gives them the best chance of maximal performance: personal best times, and for some Olympic or world records.

In addition to manipulating their training programs to peak at Tokyo, at the Olympics the best are racing against the best. This high level of competition raises the standard of each round compared with other international races, and this too contributes to the number of world-class performances in Tokyo.

For example, McLaughlin and her US teammate Dalilah Muhammad have both previously set the 400m hurdles world record when competing against each other. There is no doubt competition with other world-class athletes creates a favourable scenario for achieving more fast times.

COVID and research

Perhaps surprisingly, COVID-19 may have also played a role in these intense track performances. The pandemic has meant a reduced racing schedule over the past 18 months, with far less international travel and few races.

This may have allowed for more consistent training with fewer interruptions and peaks and declines organised around races. It is conceivable that this has contributed to some of the world-class performances we have seen.

Read more:
Record-setting performances at the Tokyo Olympics come after months of pandemic-induced stress

In addition to all of these factors, sports science research and support plays an important role in improving performance. Continued applied sports science research in athletes and the ongoing effort to push human limits to performance means we are likely to see world records being broken at the next Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 and beyond.

Phil Bellinger 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. What’s behind the spate of super-fast sprints at the Tokyo Olympics? Technology plays a role, but the real answer is training – https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-spate-of-super-fast-sprints-at-the-tokyo-olympics-technology-plays-a-role-but-the-real-answer-is-training-165737

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Klugman, Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University

Murmurs regarding the decline of the Olympics appear to have been premature. Despite the well-founded critiques, doubts, concerns, and ambivalence before the Tokyo games began, they have provided many compelling moments, stories, and discussion points that have gripped much of the world.

Indeed, many people have expressed surprise at just how much they have become swept up in these games – at how much meaning they have derived from a sporting event that before it began, seemed out of place in a world still grappling with the devastating COVID pandemic.

There’s even a palpable grief for some people at the end of the Olympics, particularly in areas of the world still enduring lockdowns.

In the aftermath of the Tokyo Olympics, it’s worth reflecting on just what kind of meaning the games still generate. What’s at stake in the passions, struggles, triumphs, and heartache that, alongside COVID, have dominated news cycles for the past three weeks?

The power of national glory

The modern Olympics have long been based on the notion that sport is a force for good. Put simply, they still purport to help make the world a better place.

Yet, after the disastrous second and third Olympics in Paris (1900) and St Louis (1904) that were overshadowed by festivals of white supremacy, it was the playing out of national rivalries — and the possibility of national glory — that drove rising public interest in the games.

By 1912, Australians were already so emotionally invested that they raised enough funds to send swimming star Fanny Durack to the Stockholm Olympics.

The modern Olympics had been developed to showcase and celebrate strong, athletic men. But after winning gold in the women’s 100-metre freestyle, Durack became a national hero, as did her silver-medal winning compatriot Mina Wylie (whose family had paid the costs of her travel to the games).

The strange, yet powerful, sense of national achievement – and even vindication — in the deeds of athletes continues to shape much of the ongoing fascination with the Olympics. Australian athletes have had many remarkable performances at the Tokyo Olympics. Like Durack and Wylie before them, Ariarne Titmus, Patty Mills, Jess Fox, Melissa Wu, Peter Bol, and so many others have captivated a nation.

These athletes bring joy, amazement, pride, and inspiration. And they are loved for it. But the Tokyo Olympics have also given us a clearer insight into the costs that such adoration entails.

Love and betrayal

The focus on individual athletes — especially those expected to bring national glory — is intense. Those athletes deemed to have “failed” can quickly find the love they were previously showered with was conditional.

Olympic athletes are loved for what they have done or might do — not (so much) for who they are as people. This adoration is based on the powerful, joyous feelings they can bring and the way their triumphs are vicariously shared.

At issue is a powerful form of identification that can become possessive. For many fans, it feels like the athletes not only represent their nation, but also them as individuals. These fans frequently behave as if what happens to the athlete happens to them. Hence the ecstasy when the athlete achieves greatness.

On the flip side, however, when the expectations of fans are not met, they frequently react as if they have been personally betrayed.

The bitterness, judgement, and even hate directed at Simone Biles when she withdrew from the gymnastics team event was extreme. Although Biles also received an outpouring of support on social media, the racial – and racist – dynamics of the stinging criticism and vilification directed at her were striking.

Many white men in particular seemed personally offended that Biles had prioritised her physical and mental health, saying no to a performance that they had expected would bring them pleasure.

In Australia, Ben Simmons was similarly vilified for withdrawing from the men’s basketball team, as if he had broken an unwritten contract to perform for the nation’s benefit. (In stark contrast, Patty Mills was fulsome in his support of Simmons.)

Even Jess Fox was castigated on social media for “only” winning a bronze medal in the K1 slalom, although her “failure” was quickly forgiven after she won gold in the C1 event.

Read more:
The power of no: Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Black women’s resistance

What (and who) is forgotten

The fervent meaning so many Australians find in Olympic performances regularly disproves the notion we are more interested in watching men play sports than women.

As is frequently the case, most of the Australian heroes of the Tokyo Olympics have been women. And millions of people have tuned in to watch them compete.

Yet, somehow the compelling, thrilling performance of female athletes is conveniently forgotten when questions are raised about why competitions like the AFLW still receives less financial investment and media coverage than AFLM.

Equally disturbing, even in the midst of an Olympics characterised by inspiring feats from Australian women, 80% of the mainstream Australian media’s general sports coverage (across all sporting competitions) still focused on men.

Read more:
The AFL sells an inclusive image of itself. But when it comes to race and gender, it still has a way to go

And it is not only the performances of Australian women that are frequently forgotten. The coverage of Rohan Browning’s impressive performance in the men’s 100-metre heats tended to elide the feats of Kaanju man Patrick Johnson, who represented Australia in sprint events in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

Johnson not only holds the Australian record for the fastest time in the 100 metres, but remains the only Australian to have run a time under 10 seconds. That he is less well-known than the slower Matt Shirvington (who also competed in the 100 metres at the 2000 Sydney Games) reveals much about Australian race relations.

These Olympics have also raised vital questions regarding the treatment of trans athletes, the problematic policing of gender, and the way gender diversity challenges the strict binary nature of most sporting competitions.

A force for justice?

The relationship of Australia to the First Nations people whose land remains unceded was a focus for the Matildas team who took a photo of themselves behind the Aboriginal flag after arriving in Tokyo.

In doing so, the Matildas were following a long tradition of using the national and international focus on the Olympics to raise (more) vital issues.

Around the same time, the International Olympic Committee was banning its numerous media staff from posting photos of athletes who took a knee before their events in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Although the IOC soon retracted this ban after it drew widespread criticism, it highlighted the organisation’s reluctance for the Olympics to provoke discussions of justice, despite the IOC’s professed commitment for the games to improve the world.

To the IOC’s likely dismay, the anti-protest rule in the IOC charter, which was written in the aftermath of the famous Black power salute at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, is in the news again.

Raven Saunders, a queer, Black American, crossed her raised arms over her head in an “X” after winning the silver medal in the Women’s Shot put. As Saunders later explained, the “X” was “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet”.

While the IOC suspended their investigation into Saunders after the tragic death of her mother, the matter once again raises questions as to the immense meaning the Olympics generate, and what this meaning might facilitate.

Like many Olympics before it, the Tokyo Games have created compelling sporting moments — when, for a few minutes, it felt like nothing else mattered. The end of the men’s high jump competition, when the two leaders decided to share the gold medal rather than have a jump-off, was celebrated around the world as an act of inspiring sports-personship.

Yet, while the power of the Olympics should not be underestimated, especially when it comes to the public fascination with women’s sports, the IOC should be less frightened of the way the games might promote the need for justice.

Until then, the burden of dealing with, resisting, and making use of the spotlight that comes with the Olympics will fall unequally on the athletes themselves.

Matthew Klugman has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network at Victoria University.

– ref. The Olympics still have the power to inspire — and reveal our nastier impulses and hypocrisies – https://theconversation.com/the-olympics-still-have-the-power-to-inspire-and-reveal-our-nastier-impulses-and-hypocrisies-165602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Courtney Walton, McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Mental Health in Elite Sports, The University of Melbourne

With the Olympics drawing to a close, many athletes will begin to turn their attention to a crucial yet daunting question: what’s next?

The Olympic Games are a unique event, with the potential for extreme highs and lows that accompany success, loss, injury, or regret. The experience of the games on athlete mental health goes far beyond the competition itself, though, with the weeks and months following the event crucial to athlete wellbeing.

It is critical to understand what can contribute to better or worse post-Olympic experiences for our athletes. In our recently published research, we set out to explore this question by interviewing 18 Australian athletes who had competed in the 2016 Rio Games.

Our goal was to explore what factors are most important to athlete wellbeing (and why), in addition to understanding the strategies athletes used to cope following their Olympic experiences.

The mental health of athletes is of increasing concern

The mental health of athletes has attracted increased attention, thanks to high-profile stars like Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles.

But even before the Tokyo Games, a 2019 statement from the International Olympic Committee highlighted that mental ill-health was common among elite athletes. It also emphasised how more needs to be done to improve the recognition and treatment of mental health issues, support athletes and reduce stigma around this topic.

For example, it has been estimated that approximately one-third of elite athletes around the world experience symptoms of depression or anxiety. Here in Australia, recent research has supported these findings, particularly among female elite athletes.

Publicly, athletes have spoken of dark post-Olympic periods, in particular. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, has described bouts of suicidal thoughts in these moments. He said in a 2019 interview that after every Olympics he “fell into a major state of depression”.

Read more:
The power of no: Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Black women’s resistance

‘When you get home it’s really lonely’

In our research, the Australian athletes we interviewed felt the quality of their performances had a direct effect on their post-Olympic wellbeing.

Those who exceeded expectations, achieved their goals, or were satisfied with their performances were generally positive about the post-games phase, as the following athlete indicated:

I finally did my PB [personal best] in the final, and honestly for me, doing a PB at that point in my career was like winning a gold medal. I know it’s a cliché, but I did really have a fairy tale end to my career.

However, given how many external factors can influence performance outcomes, attention must also be focused on things that are more easily controlled. Pre-Olympic planning and having social supports in place, for example, were key for those who transitioned more easily to a post-Olympic life.

Several athletes described the importance of having a plan for what they would do next, saying this was absolutely crucial to their wellbeing. These plans varied from getting married or going on holiday to beginning a degree, a new job, or even a new athletic season.

Conversely, when athletes did not have clear plans — like being uncertain about whether to retire or continue competing — difficulties emerged. One athlete said,

When you get home it’s really lonely […] It’s quite depressing, and it is a little bit overwhelming, starting from square one again.

Another telling quote came from an athlete who described how some fellow Olympians would “really, really struggle” after the games.

They’ve come back from the Olympics and they haven’t had anything to do. So, they haven’t had university, they haven’t had work, they haven’t had a family, they haven’t had community engagement, they haven’t had a plan.

The benefit of support systems

The athletes also shared with us that support from family, friends, coaches, and their sporting organisations significantly enhanced their wellbeing.

Some said when this support dropped off, it made the transition back to normality far harder. For example, an athlete with a particularly difficult experience said,

[Before Rio] I had my head of my team, the strength and conditioning coach, a psychologist, the national coach, nutritionist, massage therapists, all that sort of stuff. Everyone was helping me […] Post-Rio, I didn’t get contacted by a single person, not one of them contacted me.

Unfortunately, providing systemic support for athletes can be difficult due to the ongoing stigma associated with seeking help for mental health challenges.

Previous research has shown that athletes face specific barriers to seeking help for mental health issues, such as fears of team selection changes and concerns they may be perceived as unable to cope.

Indeed, one athlete in our study highlighted this:

It’s that vulnerability of saying, ‘Yeah, I’m not coping.’ I guess that is what keeps me just looking within my inner circle because it’s not something you want to put your hand up and go, ‘Yeah, I’m over here. I’m struggling massively.’ There’s still that stigma involved with it.

Read more:
What Olympic athletes can teach us about regulating our emotions and staying dedicated

What can be done to help athletes transition?

So what can be done to help athletes? The Australian Institute of Sport established a mental health referral network in 2018, with over 50 mental health practitioners now providing confidential support to elite athletes in areas of psychology, psychiatry, neuropsychology and nutrition.

Our study suggests some athletes may still struggle to reach out for this sort of help, and having mental health professionals check in with them for a significant period of time after the games is crucial, too.

Athletes must also work on building an identity outside of sport that they can then immerse themselves in at the end of their careers or a competitive cycle. This is also something Australian sporting organisations are now striving to support.

For the rest of us, the general public and media should be empathetic and supportive of our Olympians. Social media abuse of athletes is on the rise, particularly for women and racial minorities, as we sadly saw with Biles’ experience during the Tokyo Games.

Given we know significant psychological distress is common following the Olympics, it’s critical to be compassionate, respectful and supportive towards those who do us proud on the biggest stage.

Andrew Bennie received funding from the Australian Olympic Committee for the research published in this article.

Courtney Walton 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. ‘When you get home it’s really lonely’: new research shows how athletes cope with post-Olympic life – https://theconversation.com/when-you-get-home-its-really-lonely-new-research-shows-how-athletes-cope-with-post-olympic-life-163576

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Fletcher, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

If it goes ahead, the social insurance scheme currently being discussed behind closed doors would be the biggest change to New Zealand’s welfare system since the introduction of the accident compensation scheme in 1974.

That change took a royal commission, seven years’ debate and hard, considered work to prepare the ground.

This time, a small group of trade union officials, business representatives and public servants is busy developing a scheme that would introduce a two-tier benefit structure into the welfare system.

And it appears the government is only promising a discussion document once the shape of such a scheme is formulated. It’s expected this will present a single preferred social insurance policy option, no non-insurance alternatives, and a plan to have legislation passed before the next election.

Not much is known about what this might look like, beyond it being an “ACC-style” scheme. It would pay eligible people who meet the work history criteria and lose their jobs 80% of their previous earnings up to a cap for a period of six months or more (the ACC cap is currently NZ$130,911 per year).

What is clear, however, is a social insurance scheme (sometimes being referred to as a social unemployment insurance scheme) will almost certainly favour those with higher long-term incomes at the expense of those on the lowest incomes. Others, like many school leavers, sole parents and people with disabilities, won’t qualify at all.

Alternatives need to be considered

It also seems clear other solutions that avoid such inequities are not being seriously considered. This means the public will not be given an opportunity to ask basic questions, such as:

• what problems are intended to be solved by social unemployment insurance?

• what are the alternative options — including non-insurance options — for addressing these problems?

• what perverse incentives might the scheme create?

• would the money to be raised for the scheme be better spent on alleviating poverty and unfair outcomes in the current welfare system rather than a new, more generous, middle-class insurance system on top of the current one?

Read more:
Why New Zealand’s government cannot ignore major welfare reform report

The ‘wage scarring’ argument

Among the problems social insurance is claimed to solve is so-called “wage scarring”, where people who are made redundant find they experience a long-term drop in earnings once they return to work.

There is indeed evidence wage scarring occurs in New Zealand, and on average it may be higher here than in other OECD countries.

But wage scarring can occur for a number of reasons. There is also little evidence it is happening here due to unemployed workers having no unemployment insurance and therefore having to take low-paid jobs rather than spend more time looking for better paid work.

Read more:
Why reducing unemployment should have been a focus for NZ’s well-being budget

Moreover, if wage scarring is the issue, other more equitable solutions should also be considered.

For example, higher base benefit rates, combined with some individual entitlement — so a partner’s earnings are less likely to disqualify someone from receiving a benefit — would also go a long way to allowing laid-off workers to manage incomes while they look for jobs. This would also help other beneficiaries, including those currently penalised heavily for entering a relationship.

Compulsory redundancy paid by employers is another option.

The future of work

Another rationale offered relates to economic changes and the changing nature of work. There are two dimensions to this, and it is far from clear unemployment insurance is the best policy response to either.

The first involves structural economic change, including deliberate policy decisions to quit certain industries for environmental and climate-change reasons.

Such “just transitions” — out of harmful or declining industries towards a low emissions economy — are crucial. But they require far more than simply an insurance payout, even a generous one.

Just transitions need bespoke industry-wide packages that include support for multi-year trades and university training, assistance with the relocation costs and new housing — as well as income support.

Read more:
If New Zealand can radically reform its health system, why not do the same for welfare?

It would be highly inefficient and wasteful to provide an expensive, economy-wide social insurance scheme to meet the needs of specific industry transitions.

The second dimension is the commonly cited rise of insecure, temporary and gig-economy work. However, precarious and low-earning workers would almost certainly be better served by a well-functioning and generous benefit system than through insurance.

Many of the most insecure workers won’t even meet the eligibility requirement for insurance. Most of those who do will receive payouts considerably less than better paid workers, because payouts are linked to past wages.

Coping with economic shocks

Another argument used to justify the proposed scheme is the frequency of economic shocks and the fact many New Zealand workers are poorly safeguarded against them.

Protection against poverty and hardship caused by economic recessions was one of the driving motivations for the establishment of our welfare system in the 1930s. For many years, it proved largely effective in those aims. It could do so again.

Given economic downturns affect many who would not be covered by insurance, it’s far from obvious social unemployment insurance is a better policy solution than improved welfare for all who need it.

What’s more, as we learned from the COVID-19 experience, a very large economic shock requires a tailored response.

With COVID, the government — quite rightly — protected people with its wage subsidy scheme, which ensured most people retained their jobs post-lockdown. An insurance scheme may have provided some with more money in the short term — but only once they had been laid off.

Read more:
COVID-19 is predicted to make child poverty worse. Should NZ’s next government make temporary safety nets permanent?

Full discussion of all options needed

Social unemployment insurance would undoubtedly benefit some people. But a lot of the gains are likely to go to those with less need. Meanwhile others — including young new job entrants, insecure self-employed workers, sole parents and people with reduced work capacity due to disability — will gain much less, or even nothing.

Even after the government’s recent welfare increases, a large number of beneficiaries remain below the poverty line.

To forge ahead with developing an expensive insurance scheme before addressing those issues raises serious questions about the government’s commitment to equity and well-being.

Such a large and fundamental change should not happen without a full, transparent and open discussion of all the issues and all the alternatives.

Michael Fletcher 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. Why is New Zealand’s Labour government trying to push through a two-tier benefit system? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-new-zealands-labour-government-trying-to-push-through-a-two-tier-benefit-system-165615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Denholm, Associate Professor, Melbourne Health

By some estimates, 2 billion people are now infected worldwide, and in 2019, around 1.4 million people died from it.

It’s a pandemic infection, spread through the air — but it’s not COVID. It’s tuberculosis (or TB). Yet we’re not in lockdown for it. And we’re not queuing up for a vaccine.

Some people call TB “the forgotten pandemic”. But our knowledge of one pandemic is helping us manage the other.

Read more:
Explainer: what is TB and am I at risk of getting it in Australia?

They’re similar in some ways …

TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. And COVID is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a virus. They’re quite different microorganisms. But it’s easy for them to overlap in people’s minds.

Both TB and COVID are infectious diseases that generally affect the lungs. Both are passed between people mainly by aerosols, when infected people cough, sing or otherwise release them into the surrounding air.

So some of the things we’re used to doing for COVID-19 – like wearing masks and good ventilation – also work for preventing the spread of TB.

However, there are some important differences between them, which mean our public health responses can look quite different.

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

… but not in others

We are all so familiar with COVID. So when I’m talking with people about TB, I’ve started highlighting three key differences between the infections.

1. TB is less infectious

TB is much less infectious. While COVID (especially strains like the Delta variant) may be transmitted after brief or “fleeting” contact, this is rare for TB.

As a rule of thumb, TB programs around the world often suggest you need to be in close contact with an infectious person for more than eight hours before that risk builds up to the point where you need to be tested for it.

This means people are more likely to spread the infection within their household or immediate family rather than at the shops.

2. TB symptoms take longer to show up

With TB, the “window” between being exposed and becoming unwell, known as the incubation period, is much longer.

Infections can stay dormant (or “latent”) in the body for many months or years before people become unwell. But almost everyone who becomes unwell with COVID has been infected within the past two weeks.

We don’t ask contacts of TB to isolate at home as we can’t predict when they might become unwell. It certainly wouldn’t be ethical or realistic to isolate people for months or years, just in case. Fortunately, people who have dormant TB cannot pass infection on to others in the meantime.

3. We have TB treatments to help curb the spread

As we’re uncertain about how long it takes between someone becoming infected and becoming unwell with TB, you’d think that would be a big problem.

But we have effective treatments to give people with dormant TB. These help prevent them developing active disease.

These treatments, particularly antibiotics such as isoniazid or rifampicin, can greatly reduce the risk of contacts becoming sick.

For COVID, we don’t yet have any treatments for people who are infected but who are not showing symptoms (known as post-exposure treatments) to minimise the chance of them spreading the virus.

Some have been tried, but so far none have convincingly been shown to be effective.

How about vaccines?

Perhaps the biggest difference in our response to these pandemics is we have a variety of effective vaccines against COVID.

For TB, we are relying on a 100-year-old vaccine, known as BCG (short for Bacille Calmette-Guerin), which is still one of the most widely used vaccines globally.

While it protects young children from the most severe forms of TB, the vaccine seems to give much less protection for adults.

The BCG vaccine, unlike COVID vaccines, is a live vaccine, meaning it contains live (but weakened) bacteria. So it can’t be given safely to people with immune suppressing conditions, like HIV, because they could get infected from it. This means its use is limited in some people who most need protection.

TB vaccine may protect against COVID

Perhaps the BCG vaccine and COVID will come full circle. The BRACE trial, launched from Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, is studying whether the BCG vaccine might protect against COVID infection.

This investigation has been prompted by a long history of research showing the vaccine also improves our immune responses to other conditions such as viral infections.

We don’t know yet whether this will work, as the study is ongoing. Almost 7,000 health-care workers around the world at risk of COVID exposure have been recruited to the trial.

Read more:
Could BCG, a 100-year-old vaccine for tuberculosis, protect against coronavirus?

Whether or not BCG turns out to prevent COVID, there’s no question we need new and more effective vaccines for TB.

While we have an increasing number of potential vaccine candidates, right now there is still no alternative to our 100-year-old BCG.

The massive amount of activity globally in developing COVID vaccines has also stimulated calls for greater efforts and funding to develop new TB vaccines.

We hope these will lead to more effective and safer options, and be powerful tools for eliminating TB. Let’s hope we’re not left waiting another 100 years.

Read more:
Tuberculosis kills as many people each year as COVID-19. It’s time we found a better vaccine

Justin Denholm is the Medical Director of the Victorian Tuberculosis Program.

– ref. Tuberculosis, the forgotten pandemic relying on a 100-year-old vaccine – https://theconversation.com/tuberculosis-the-forgotten-pandemic-relying-on-a-100-year-old-vaccine-165303

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nerilie Abram, Chief Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes; Deputy Director for the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, Australian National University

The much-awaited new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is due later today. Ahead of the release, debate has erupted about the computer models at the very heart of global climate projections.

Climate models are one of many tools scientists use to understand how the climate changed in the past and what it will do in future.

A recent article in the eminent US magazine Science questioned how the IPCC will deal with some climate models which “run hot”. Some models, it said, have projected global warming rates “that most scientists, including the model makers themselves, believe are implausibly fast”.

Read more:
Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

Some commentators, including in Australia, interpreted the article as proof climate modelling had failed.

So should we be using climate models? We are climate scientists from Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, and we believe the answer is a firm yes.

Our research uses and improves climate models so we can help Australia cope with extreme events, now and in future. We know when climate models are running hot or cold. And identifying an error in some climate models doesn’t mean the science has failed – in fact, it means our understanding of the climate system has advanced.

So lets look at what you should know about climate models ahead of the IPCC findings.

What are climate models?

Climate models comprise millions of lines of computer code representing the physics and chemistry of the processes that make up our climate system. The models run on powerful supercomputers and have simulated and predicted global warming with remarkable accuracy.

They unequivocally show that warming of the planet since the Industrial Revolution is due to human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases. This confirms our understanding of the greenhouse effect, known since the 1850s.

Models also show the intensity of many recent extreme weather events around the world would be essentially impossible without this human influence.

Scientists do not use climate models in isolation, or without considering their limitations.

For a few years now, scientists have known some new-generation climate models probably overestimate global warming, and others underestimate it.

This realisation is based on our understanding of Earth’s climate sensitivity – how much the climate will warm when carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels in the atmosphere double.

Before industrial times, CO₂ levels in the atmosphere were 280 parts per million. So a doubling of CO₂ will occur at 560 parts per million. (For context, we’re currently at around 415 parts per million).

The latest scientific evidence, using observed warming, paleoclimate data and our physical understanding of the climate system, suggests global average temperatures will very likely increase by between 2.2℃ and 4.9℃ if CO₂ levels double.

The large majority of climate models run within this climate sensitivity range. But some don’t – instead suggesting a temperature rise as low as 1.8℃ or high as 5.6℃.

It’s thought the biases in some models stem from the representations of clouds and their interactions with aerosol particles. Researchers are beginning to understand these biases, building our understanding of the climate system and how to further improve models in future.

With all this in mind, scientists use climate models cautiously, giving more weight to projections from climate models that are consistent with other scientific evidence.

The following graph shows how most models are within the expected climate sensitivity range – and having some running a bit hot or cold doesn’t change the overall picture of future warming. And when we compare model results with the warming we’ve already observed over Australia, there’s no indication the models are over-cooking things.

What does the future look like?

Future climate projections are produced by giving models different possibilities for greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere.

The latest IPCC models use a set of possibilities called “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways” (SSPs). These pathways match expected population growth, and where and how people will live, with plausible levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases that would result from these socioeconomic choices.

The pathways range from low-emission scenarios that also require considerable atmospheric CO₂ removal – giving the world a reasonable chance of meeting the Paris Agreement targets – to high-emission scenarios where temperature goals are far exceeded.

Ahead of the IPCC report, some say the high-emission scenarios are too pessimistic. But likewise, it could be argued the lack of climate action over the past decade, and absence of technology to remove large volumes of CO₂ from the atmosphere, means low-emission scenarios are too optimistic.

If countries meet their existing emissions reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement, we can expect to land somewhere in the middle of the scenarios. But the future depends on our choices, and we shouldn’t dismiss any pathway as implausible.

There is considerable value in knowing both the future risks to avoid, and what’s possible under ambitious climate action.

Read more:
The climate won’t warm as much as we feared – but it will warm more than we hoped

Where to from here?

We can expect the IPCC report to be deeply worrying. And unfortunately, 30 years of IPCC history tells us the findings are more likely to be too conservative than too alarmist.

An enormous global effort – both scientifically and in computing resources – is needed to ensure climate models can provide even better information.

Climate models are already phenomenal tools at large scales. But increasingly, we’ll need them to produce fine-scale projections to help answer questions such as: where to plant forests to mitigate carbon? Where to build flood defences? Where might crops best be grown? Where would renewable energy resources be best located?

Climate models will continue to be an important tool for the IPCC, policymakers and society as we attempt to manage the unavoidable risks ahead.

Nerilie Abram receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and from the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. She is a member of the international Climate Crisis Advisory Group.

Andrew King receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Andy Pitman receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and from the ARC Discovery Grants scheme.

Christian Jakob receives receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and from the ARC Discovery Grants scheme.

Julie Arblaster receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the U.S. Department of Energy

Lisa Alexander receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Shayne McGregor receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions – but the technology remains a powerful tool – https://theconversation.com/yes-a-few-climate-models-give-unexpected-predictions-but-the-technology-remains-a-powerful-tool-165611

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Kristin Merga, Honorary Adjunct, University of Newcastle; Senior Lecturer in Education, Edith Cowan University

Parents at a loss to find activities for their children during COVID lockdowns can encourage them to escape into a book. New research shows how reading books can help young people escape from their sources of stress, find role models in characters and develop empathy.

Recent media reports have highlighted a concerning rise in severe emotional distress in young people. Isolation and disruption of learning in lockdown have increased their anxiety. Given the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and lockdowns in Australia, parents and educators may look to connect young people with enjoyable activities that also support both their well-being and learning.

A lot has been written about the role of regular reading in building literacy skills. Now, my findings from a BUPA Foundation-funded research project on school libraries and well-being provide insight into how books and reading can help young people deal with the well-being challenges of the pandemic.

The findings suggest books can not only be a great escape during this challenging time, but also offer further well-being benefits.

Escaping from a world of stress

We know that adults who are avid readers enjoy being able to escape into their books. Reading for pleasure can reduce psychological distress and has been related to mental well-being.

Reading-based interventions have been used successfully to support children who have experienced trauma. In a recent study, around 60% of young people agreed reading during lockdown helped them to feel better.

My research project confirms young people can use books and reading to escape the pressures of their lives. As one student said:

“If you don’t know what to do, or if you’re sad, or if you’re angry, or whatever the case is, you can just read, and it feels like you’re just escaping the world. And you’re going into the world of the book, and you’re just there.”

Connecting with role models in characters

If you enjoy reading, there’s a good chance you have favourite characters who hold a place in your heart. The project found young people can find role models in books to look up to and emulate, which can help to build their resilience. A student described her experience reading the autobiography of young Pakistani activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai:

“I thought it was incredible how no matter what happened to her, even after her horrific injury, she just came back and kept fighting for what she believed in.”

Read more:
Nobel Peace Prize: extraordinary Malala a powerful role model

Other research has linked connecting with characters to mental health recovery, partly due to its power to instil hope in the reader. Building relationships with characters in books can also be used as “self-soothing” to decrease anxiety.

Young people also celebrate their affection for book characters in social networking spaces such as TikTok, where they share their enjoyment of the book journey with favourite characters.

Developing empathy through reading

Research supports the idea that reading books builds empathy. Reading fiction can improve social cognition, which helps us to connect with others across our lives. My previous work with adult readers found some people read for the pleasure they get from developing insight into other perspectives, to “see the world through other people’s eyes”.

In the project, a student described how reading books helped him to understand others’ perspectives. He explained:

“You get to see in their input, and then you go, ‘Well, actually, they’re not the bad guy. Really, the other guy is, it’s just their point of view makes it seem like the other guy’s the bad guy.’ ”

Your teacher librarian can help you

If parents are not sure what books will best suit their child’s often ever-changing interests and needs, they can get in touch with the teacher librarians at school. Even during lockdown they are usually only an email or a phone call away.

The library managers in the project played an important role in connecting students with books that could lead to enjoyable and positive reading experiences.

For example, a library manager explained that she specifically built her collection to make sure the books provided role model characters for her students. She based her recommendations to students on their interests as well as their needs. To support a student who had a challenging home life, she said,

“I recommend quite a number of books where we’ve got a very strong female character […] in a number of adverse situations and where she navigates her way through those.”

Fostering reading for pleasure is a key part of the role of the teacher librarian. They create spaces and opportunities for students to read in peace. They also encourage them to share recommendations with their peers.

In challenging times, many parents are looking for an activity that supports their children’s well-being. And as reading is also linked to strong literacy benefits, connecting them with books, with the support of their teacher librarian, is a smart way to go.

Margaret Kristin Merga has received funding from the BUPA Health Foundation, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund, Edith Cowan University and the Collier Foundation. She is the current Patron of the Australian School Library Association.

– ref. Books offer a healing retreat for youngsters caught up in a pandemic – https://theconversation.com/books-offer-a-healing-retreat-for-youngsters-caught-up-in-a-pandemic-165247

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Crown Resorts was very sorry it had done so many wrong things in running its Melbourne casino, the company’s
senior counsel, Michael Borsky, last week told Victoria’s Finkelstein royal commission.

But his main point was to argue that Crown should keep running the casino, because cancelling or suspending its licence would not be in the public interest.

His submissions — responding to the arguments made by the counsel assisting the commission, Adrian Finanzio, for why Crown should be stripped of its licence — emphasised allowing the company to get on with reforming as the best course of action. At worst, Borsky argued, an independent supervisor or monitor with broad powers could be be appointed to direct the company’s activities.

Crown’s spin is that the public interest is mostly about maintaining the employment of the 11,600 people who work at the sprawling Melbourne casino and entertainment complex. It argues Victoria’s tourism industry would be endangered, should the licence be lost, and it is important to keep the revenue the casino provides to Victoria’s treasury flowing.

But based on the evidence, this seems a very optimistic take.

The commission has heard a litany of revelations about Crown’s malfeasance and improper conduct across a range of areas.

Last month royal commissioner Ray Finkelstein observed that everywhere he looked in the company there was evidence of inappropriate or unlawful behaviour. Last week he compared Crown Resorts to a car thief who promises to stop stealing cars when apprehended. He suggested it was certainly not in the public interest for a decade of malfeasance to be rewarded.

Read more:
Responsible gambling – a bright shining lie Crown Resorts and others can no longer hide behind

Finkelstein’s options

Several paths are open to Finkelstein. He can recommend Crown Resorts lose its licence. He could recommend the company be granted some further opportunity to rehabilitate itself. Perhaps under supervision. A manager could be appointed until Crown achieves its reform agenda, or the business is sold. Some combination of all these might be possible.

But on the prospect of Crown reforming itself, Finanzio made the case that Crown could never again be trusted.

Read more:
Illegal, improper, unacceptable: revelations about Crown’s casino culture just get worse

The inevitability of any of the dire consequences painted by Crown if it loses its casino licence is also a question Finkelstein has kept open. Someone else might operate the casino, he has suggested. Given the profitability of the casino, why wouldn’t someone else want it?

But Crown doesn’t have much else to argue for why it should be allowed keep its casino licence.

It began spruiking these arguments to the state government more than a month ago, in a July 2 letter to the Victorian minister for gaming. That letter has been interpreted by Finkelstein and others as an attempt to short-circuit the royal commission’s findings.

Indeed, the whole point of the casino is to contribute to Victoria, as successive governments have argued.

So what, exactly, is this contribution?

What Crown Melbourne gives …

In 2018-19 (Crown’s last “normal” year of operation) ABS data shows the Melbourne casino contributed $268 million in gambling taxes to Victoria’s tax revenue. This amounts to 0.8% of state tax revenue (which was $29.2 billion in that year).

Overall, gambling taxes contributed 8.4% of state tax revenue. Poker machine gambling in pubs and clubs contributed 3.8% ($1.12 billion).

Crown Melbourne employs about 11,600 people. That’s about 0.32% of Victoria’s 3.45 million employes as of March 2021. It contributes about $30 million of the total $6.3 billion the state collects in payroll taxes. That’s about 0.45% of total payroll taxes, about 0.1% of total state tax revenue.

Thus, at the upper range, Crown contributes about 0.9% of state tax revenue.

… and what it takes

Of course 11,600 jobs are significant, as is $300 million a year in taxes.

But what is also significant is Crown’s disproportionate contribution to the $7 billion in annual costs attributable to gambling harm in Victoria.

The casino also significantly contributes to the 36,000 Victorians who are, at any one time, directly affected by serious gambling problems, and to the estimated 216,000 children, partners, employers and others connected to those gamblers who also suffer significant harm.

If Crown were to be placed into independent management, no one need lose their job — with the possible exception of a few board members and executives — and revenue would continue flowing to the state.

Business as usual is not an option

Whatever happens, business as usual at the casino cannot continue.

If effective responsible gambling interventions are put in place and properly observed, revenue will inevitably decline. If Crown’s permit to operate 1,000 “unlimited” poker machines is withdrawn or reduced (as it should be), revenue will decline. If it goes cashless and eliminates indoor smoking, revenue will decline. If criminal syndicates can no longer use the casino to launder money, revenue will decline.

These impacts are the least that can be expected from a reasonable review of casino operating practices in Victoria. A new operator may also impose their own operational requirements, and look to reduce the workforce.

Crown is not and has never been a magic pudding, producing something from nothing. What it has done is transfer large sums to shareholders from many ordinary people (and a few, often criminally connected, high rollers).

The consequences of this have been considerable, in harm to gamblers and their families, to the integrity of Australia’s attempts to stop criminals laundering money, and to stamping out political corruption.

Read more:
How Sydney’s Barangaroo tower paved the way for a culture of closed-door deals

Whatever the royal commission recommends, the profitability of the casino will be affected, with consequences for the jobs and tax revenue it provides.

But the gains — involving a reduction in gambling harm, a strengthening of the rule of law, and the reinforcement of effective regulatory systems — are worth a great deal more.

Charles Livingstone has received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Finnish Alcohol Research Foundation, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Australian Greens.

– ref. Crown Resorts is not too big to fail. It has failed already – https://theconversation.com/crown-resorts-is-not-too-big-to-fail-it-has-failed-already-165659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ruth McHugh-Dillon, Lecturer in European Languages (Spanish and Latin American Studies), Monash University

If you haven’t heard of Nada, one of the most important European novels of the 20th century, you’re not alone.

Written in a few short months by Carmen Laforet, it was originally published in Spain in 1944 to immediate acclaim. It won a wide readership and Spain’s inaugural Premio Nadal, now the country’s most prestigious literary prize. Yet Nada took more than 80 years to appear in English translation.

A classic in Spanish, it is still shamefully under-read in English.

In the 20th century, Spanish-language literature was dominated by groundbreaking international names from Latin America such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes.

Several of these writers credit Nada with forcing them to reconsider writing from Spain. Until belatedly discovering Laforet’s novel, Vargas Llosa writes, he had believed “everything over there reeked of fustiness, sacristy and Francoism”.

The atmospheric and cruel Nada overturned this verdict. Laforet’s achievement is remarkable, given her age (just 23 when she wrote Nada) and the challenges she faced as a woman to overcome the sexist bias of her time and secure her place in the literary canon.

Even now, analysis frequently emphasises the autobiographical or semi-autobiographical elements of the novel, diminishing its feat of extraordinary imagination.

A family drama

Nada centres on Andrea, an orphan who arrives in Barcelona aged 18, to stay with relatives she hasn’t seen for years. Escaping to Barcelona to study literature has long been her dream. But the city Andrea encounters resembles nothing of her happy childhood memories.

Once glorious, Barcelona is now defeated and dilapidated, “its silence vivid with the respiration of a thousand souls behind darkened balconies”. Arriving at her grandparents’ crumbling apartment, Andrea enters “what seemed like a nightmare”: a ragged array of relatives teetering between madness and starvation.

Andrea’s grandfather is dead and the household is under the command of her authoritarian aunt, Angustias, who promises to “mould” Andrea into obedience. Every day, the same violent dramas recur. Andrea’s arrogant artistic uncle Román goads his hot-headed brother, Juan, usually about his “piece of trash” wife, Gloria, who Román claims is obsessed with him.

If Gloria gets involved, Juan turns on her. Juan can be found either beating Gloria or painting bad nudes of her to sell for a pittance. Andrea’s tiny, tremulous grandmother tries to keep the peace, recalling how “there were never two brothers who loved each other […] like Román and Juanito”. The scowling maid, Antonia, lurks in the shadows with her dog, relishing the violence.

Censorship and stagnation after the Civil War

Nada, which in Spanish means “nothing”, emerged in one of the darkest and most stagnant periods of Spanish history.

For many Spaniards — already exhausted from the brutal Civil War that ripped the country apart between 1936 and 1939 — their worst nightmare had become a crushing, everyday reality. The dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, whose rebel armies had ultimately vanquished the left-wing Republicans, would drag on until his death in 1975.

While the rest of Europe was beginning to emerge from the nightmare of the second world war, by the mid-1940s Spain was settling into one of its bleakest periods. These early years of Franco’s regime are known in Spain as “the hunger years”.

It was in these hunger years Laforet wrote Nada. Andrea recalls how “[the] hunger I almost didn’t feel because it was chronic” weakens her will, making her irritable and unfocused. Sniffing around the kitchen, she drinks cold, leftover vegetable stock.

Bedbugs infest the rooms and characters have discoloured teeth; Gloria’s baby almost dies from pneumonia, a sickness of the undernourished. These are up-close glimpses of the severe deprivations that, as historian Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco argues, Franco used to consolidate his power.

Under Franco, literary works were subject to strict censorship enforcing conservative values and the fascist narrative of the Civil War. As sometimes happens to art made in restricted circumstances, the social and political critiques embedded within Laforet’s novel are all the more remarkable given her creative play with what can and cannot be said directly.

Read more:
Franco’s invisible legacy: books across the hispanic world are still scarred by his censorship

Apart from scattered references to the war, the political situation is rarely named. Yet the atmosphere is oppressive: walls ooze with damp, blinds are drawn against the daylight. Even the air itself is heavy. Family life is a gothic nightmare, replicated behind a thousand “darkened balconies” in Barcelona and beyond.

This apartment and the others like it, are haunted houses inhabited by the ghosts of past violence — but also by its survivors. Civil wars turn neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother. As they attempt to live side-by-side, the apparently intractable conflict between Juan and Román shows how violence can be subdued or domesticated, yet still bubbles beneath the surface.

Gloria now views her joy at the end of the war as naïve:

How could I imagine what came afterwards? It was like the end of the novel. Like the end of all sadness.

With Nada, Laforet wrote the novel of what happens after: when the conflict ends but life continues.

A transcendent story of longing and desire

As a work of art, one of Nada’s triumphs is how it transcends this bleak and repressive atmosphere without ignoring it. Laforet’s novel offers compelling testimony of Spain’s post-war hunger years. But it is not a documentary. The novel’s compassionate portrayal of Andrea and its black humour draw the reader into a story that is unsentimental but deeply human: an impatient young woman, learning how to be in the world.

For Andrea, the only reprieve from the suffocating apartment is university. There, she makes friends with people her own age, who provide comfort away from the “ghostly world of older people”.

The divide begins to blur, however, when her wealthy and magnetic friend, Ena, becomes drawn to Andrea’s uncle Román. Having already bewitched Gloria and the maid Antonia, Román’s predatory circling of Ena penetrates Andrea’s private world and threatens her most meaningful relationship.

Andrea’s relationship with Ena is charged with intense desire. She is drawn to Ena’s “pleasant, sensual face” and “terrible eyes” glittering with intelligence. Embraced by her friend’s family, Andrea must also endure the pain of watching Ena entertain her many male admirers. This, along with Andrea’s fascinated descriptions of Gloria’s naked body, has led to queer readings of the novel and its protagonist.

Named or unnamed, straight or queer, there is no doubt a deep sexuality surges beneath the novel’s surface. Angustias’s obsession with modesty, and her warnings Andrea stay away from Gloria, “an inappropriate woman”, represent the anxiety around sexual agency and transgression in Franco’s Spain.

Spanish culture before, during and after the dictatorship has challenged Franco’s repressive ideology. Written before the Civil War, Federico García Lorca’s play The House of Bernarda Alba (1936) also uses an authoritarian matriarch in the family home to explore repression and sexual freedom.

After Franco’s death, the Movida movement exploded in a riotous celebration of sexuality and transgression, on display in Pedro Almódovar’s many films.

Nada sits in between, passionate but understated, escaping the censors with a story of human longing, frustration and hope. Like all classics, it will be read, reread and given new context. Today, Andrea’s anguish at being trapped inside, waiting for life to begin, will speak to many.

Read more:
Pain and Glory: Pedro Almodóvar’s latest movie is as much self-therapy as it is self-portrait

Ruth McHugh-Dillon 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. Guide to the Classics: Carmen Laforet’s Nada captures longing and desire in post-war Spain – https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-carmen-laforets-nada-captures-longing-and-desire-in-post-war-spain-164495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Karoly, Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO

On Monday, an extremely important report on the physical science of climate change will be released to the world. Produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the report will give world leaders the most up-to-date information about climate change to inform their policies.

It is an enormous undertaking, and has been a long time coming.

This report is the culmination of a marathon five-year assessment, writing, review and approval process from 234 leading scientists hailing from more than 60 countries. These scientists have worked together to rigorously evaluate the world’s climate change research papers — more than 14,000 of them.

I’ve been involved with the IPCC reports in multiple roles since 1997. For this current report, I was a review editor for one of the chapters.

This IPCC assessment report is the sixth overall, and the first since 2013. A lot has changed since then, from major governments setting ambitious climate targets, to the devastating floods, fires and heatwaves across the world.

So what is the IPCC is and why does this report matter so much? And given the report is commissioned and approved by national governments, should we trust it?

What is the IPCC?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was first established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. Their aim was to provide policymakers with regular and comprehensive scientific assessments on climate change, at a time when climate change was becoming a more mainstream concern around the world.

These reports assess the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. They’re required to be policy-relevant yet policy-neutral. They contain findings, and state the confidence with which the finding is made, but do not recommend action.

The first assessment was completed in 1990, and found

emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the concentrations of […] carbon dioxide [and other greenhouse gases]. These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.

Since then, new assessment cycles have been completed every five to seven years.

The overall assessment — the Sixth Assessment Report — is divided into three main parts. Monday’s report is the first part on the physical science basis for climate change, and was delayed by almost a year due to COVID restrictions.

The next two parts will be released in 2022. One will cover the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability of, for example, people, ecosystems, agriculture, cities, and more. The other will cover the economics and mitigation of climate change.

The Sixth Assessment Report will culminate in a synthesis report, combining the first three parts, in September 2022.

What will we learn?

The report will provide the most updated and comprehensive understanding of the climate system and climate change, both now and into the future. For that reason, it’s relevant to everyone: individuals, communities, businesses and all levels of government.

Read more:
Climate explained: how the IPCC reaches scientific consensus on climate change

It will tell us how fast carbon dioxide emissions have been rising, and where they’re coming from. It’ll also tell us how global temperatures and rainfall patterns have changed, and how they are expected to change this century, with associated confidence levels.

Compared to the previous report in 2013, this report puts greater emphasis on regional climate change, on changes in extreme events, and how these events are linked to human-caused climate change.

This greater emphasis on extreme events at regional scales makes it even more important to policy makers and the public.

In recent months the world has watched in horror as heatwaves, bushfires and floods toppled homes and buildings, killing hundreds across China, Europe and North America. The report will help put disasters like these in the context of climate change, noting that similar events are expected to be more frequent and severe in a warming world.

The report also examines the effects of different levels of global warming, such as 1.5℃ and 2℃. It also looks at when such warming is likely to be reached.

Read more:
5 things to watch for in the latest IPCC report on climate science

Why should I trust it?

The scope of each IPCC report is prepared by scientists and approved by representatives of all governments. The 234 scientists who wrote the report are selected based on their expertise, and represent as many countries as possible.

The reports go through multiple stages of drafting and review. The first draft of the current report had more than 23,000 review comments from experts. Each comment received an individual response.

The second draft had more than 50,000 review comments from experts and governments, and these guided the preparation of the final draft.

You may be thinking that the IPCC reports should not be trusted because they involve government inputs and approval. However, this is probably one of their strengths. Involving government representatives ensures the reports are relevant to the policy interests of all governments.

Indeed, the multi-stage review and revision process used for the IPCC reports has been used as a model for international assessments of other scientific topics.

Can I read it?

The report will be released and free to read at 6pm Australian Eastern Standard time (10am Paris time) on Monday. But each chapter in the final report will be more than 100 pages long in a small font, so few people will read it all.

The most accessible part of the report is its Summary for Policymakers, aimed at a general readership and drafted by the expert authors.

The approval meeting for this report has been taking place over the last two weeks in Paris, as a video conference meeting of government representatives. The meeting approves each chapter, but most time is spent considering and approving the Summary for Policymakers.

Read more:
Top climate scientist: I put myself through hell as an IPCC convening lead author, but it was worth it

Every line in this summary is considered separately, comments from government representatives are considered, and changes must be approved by consensus of all governments. Sometimes reaching consensus can take a long time.

It’s clear the IPCC brings the best of global science together. It’s vital that governments keep the findings of this report front of mind in their decision-making, if the world is to avoid the worst-case climate scenarios.

David Karoly is employed in CSIRO and was Leader of the Earth Sciences and Climate Change Hub in the National Environmental Science Program, which received funding from the Australian government until it closed in June 2021.
David was a Review Editor in the IPCC 6th Assessment Report Working Group 1 chapter 12 and received travel funding from the Australian government to travel to one IPCC Lead Author Meeting in 2019.

– ref. Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it? – https://theconversation.com/mondays-ipcc-report-is-a-really-big-deal-for-climate-change-so-what-is-it-and-why-should-we-trust-it-165614

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Hall, Deputy Director (Research), Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

This piece is part of a new series in collaboration with the ABC’s Saturday Extra program. Each week, the show will have a “who am I” quiz for listeners about influential figures who helped shape the 20th century, and we will publish profiles for each one. You can read the other pieces in the series here.

Jawaharlal Nehru was not just the architect of modern India and the country’s first prime minister. He also played a central role in the discrediting of European imperialism and gave a voice to people across Asia and Africa struggling for self-determination and racial equality.

An unlikely revolutionary, Nehru was born in 1889 into wealth and privilege. His father was a Kashmiri, a high caste Brahmin and a successful barrister, able to fund the best education for the young Jawaharlal the British system could offer.

After attending Harrow School and Cambridge University, Nehru, too, became a lawyer and could easily have settled into a comfortable life.

Instead, Nehru was swept by the enigmatic Mahatma Gandhi into the campaign against British rule in India. For the next 25 years, he dressed in homespun cotton, endured long terms in prison and campaigned relentlessly for the cause.

Successes and failures

Once the British were overthrown and he rose to power, Nehru quickly set about ensuring his vast, impoverished and hugely diverse country was governed by democratically elected leaders and the rule of law.

In parallel, he tried to make India economically self-reliant, so that it could no longer be exploited or manipulated by foreign powers.

Perhaps inevitably, given the scale of the challenges involved, the results of these efforts were mixed.

Nehru’s hopes for a peaceful transition from British rule were dashed by the horrific violence that accompanied partition — the division of the British colony into the separate states of India and Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands died in clashes between Hindus and Muslims, and millions more were displaced and traumatised.

Nehru did succeed in the herculean effort of transforming India into a constitutional democracy, but his ambitious plans to modernise the economy proved harder to realise.

To be sure, India avoided mass famines like those that ravaged Bengal in mid-1940s and China during the so-called “Great Leap Forward” in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But most Indians did not see major improvements in their standard of living.

A vision for a post-colonial world

Where Nehru really shone was on the world stage. Urbane, well-read, charismatic and eloquent, he was convinced India had a special role to play in international politics, despite its poverty and relative weakness.

And to ensure that happened, Nehru served as his own foreign minister and ambassador-at-large.

Initially, Nehru’s principal concern was the struggle against European imperialism, especially in Asia. Britain, France and the Netherlands all reasserted control over their colonial possessions in the region after the second world war. In response, Nehru and Gandhi rallied anti-colonial leaders, holding the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in 1947 to chart the way forward for the continent.

Read more:
Gandhi is still relevant – and can inspire a new form of politics today

In Nehru’s view, Asia’s newly liberated or soon-to-be liberated states should show the world a different way to conduct international relations.

They need not be suspicious of each other’s intentions, nor greedy for each other’s territory, he argued. And they should not waste their scarce resources on building armies or atom bombs. Committed to social and economic development and to treating others with mutual respect, they could — and should — create a more just and peaceful world.

Nehru was highly adept in using new platforms like the United Nations and the global media to promote this vision. He delivered passionate speeches and charmed foreign journalists in long interviews.

He campaigned against nuclear weapons, calling in 1954 for the superpowers to halt their tests of increasingly destructive bombs. This paved the way for a partial ban on testing in 1963.

He called for an end to racial discrimination, most notably in South Africa. He also commissioned India’s diplomats to offer their services to mediate in a series of disputes, including the Korean war and France’s disastrous attempt to cling to its colonial possessions in Indochina.

The birth of non-alignment

Throughout, Nehru made the case for what became known as “non-alignment” — perhaps his greatest contribution to the 20th century world.

India and other post-colonial states, he argued, had no good reason to take sides in the Cold War and plenty of reasons to maintain cordial relations with both the US and Soviet Union.

Allying with one or the other was too costly and compromising. It brought obligations to build armies and fight distant wars. And it meant renouncing the ability to criticise your ally when it did things with which you disagreed.

Non-alignment annoyed Cold Warriors in both Moscow and Washington. But it proved popular elsewhere, especially among newly independent states.

It helped inspire a series of major meetings intended to promote African and Asian cooperation in the shadow of US-Soviet competition, including the Bandung Conference in 1955, as well as the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1970s.

Today, 120 states belong to the movement, though India’s interest in the bloc has waned as it has grown stronger and wealthier.

Read more:
The ‘Bandung Divide’: Australia’s lost opportunity in Asia?

Nehru’s greatest failure

Nehru helped delegitimise imperialism and usher in a new world no longer dominated by the Europe powers. He laid out principles that he hoped would encourage mutual respect in international relations – principles eagerly embraced, if not always followed, by other post-colonial leaders.

It is ironic, then, that arguably Nehru’s greatest failure – the one that irreparably tarnished his leadership and broke his health – concerned foreign policy.

Convinced China would abide by the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” agreement it struck with India in the mid-1950s, Nehru failed to anticipate a military conflict over the long-disputed frontier. When Mao Zedong ordered a surprise attack in 1962, India’s forces were humiliated. And to Nehru’s dismay, neither the UN, nor the superpowers, intervened.

To critics, the Sino-Indian war exposed Nehru’s naivety and the limits of non-alignment. It compelled India to retrench and rearm, and laid bare his dream of an Asia free from “power politics”.

India has travelled far since Nehru’s time and left much of his legacy by the wayside. It now possesses the world’s second largest military – after China – and a nuclear arsenal. It has forged a strong security partnership with the United States.

But New Delhi still remains wary of alliances or anything that might compromise independence of voice or action. And it is as convinced today as when Nehru was in power that India is destined to play a special role in the world.

Ian Hall receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision for a just and equitable post-colonial world, with India leading the way – https://theconversation.com/jawaharlal-nehrus-vision-for-a-just-and-equitable-post-colonial-world-with-india-leading-the-way-156307