With governments around the world asking their citizens to avoid places, activities and gatherings to save lives, this just might be the largest ever international effort to self-regulate our actions against competing desires and impulses.
To achieve this, we must overcome our desire to enjoy the sun and sand, go shopping or to the pub, and even embrace family and friends.
Of course, it’s not so easy for young children, who must forego activities they previously enjoyed and may be confused by contradictions – like being able to see friends at, but not after, school.
But there are ways parents can help children learn to regulate their emotions and behaviours, and to practise these skills.
Self-regulation has always played an important role in our lives. It’s what underpins our ability to control our behaviours, emotions and interactions, while at the same time avoiding distractions and enticing alternatives.
With lower levels of self-regulation, our decisions and behaviours would more frequently be poorly conceived, unnecessarily risky or inappropriate to the situation – often with undesirable results.
Even in the early years of life, the ability to self-regulate is important. Pre-school-aged children who have better self-regulation are often better prepared for school and life.
and have better health, wealth and productivity as adults.
So many things have changed for children recently.Shutterstock
So, what can we do to support children’s self-regulation, especially during this pandemic, when their capacity for self-control already appears to be under strain?
Self-regulation requires at least three things: selecting a goal, problem-solving and working on motivation, and overcoming distraction and impulses.
1. Selecting a goal
Self-regulatory behaviour is goal-directed. That means children must first decide to behave in a particular way.
If a child is unaware of (or forgets) a family convention to wait for everyone to be seated before starting to eat, a child starting to eat before others may appear like a consequence of poor self-regulation. Yet the child never decided to pursue that goal in the first place.
We need to support children’s thinking and decision-making around goals, while acknowledging that plans can change and often need to be adjusted.
Adults can support children to be more goal-oriented by giving them opportunities to lead and make decisions, as well as encouraging them to devise simple plans, strategies and procedures to achieve goals.
This may be as simple as asking children to decide what they would like to play (building a cubby house), and plan where they would play it (bedroom), with whom (mum, dad, sibling), and what resources they will need (cardboard box, cushions).
2. Problem-solving and motivation
Even when a goal has been decided, the path to its achievement is often not immediate. Children will encounter numerous distractions and competing opportunities along the way. So they need effective problem-solving and motivation strategies.
To be an effective problem-solver, children must understand there is more than one way to achieve something. This requires creative and critical-thinking, flexibility and persistence.
As adults we can encourage these by:
engaging children in brainstorming activities, like finding an alternate ending to a familiar story, such as Peter Pan losing his shadow
using open-ended questioning and posing small problems – as in “How might we capture our shadow? What will we need?”
encouraging reflective thinking, such as “I wonder, why don’t we see shadows on the ground at night?”
Supporting young children to persist in the face of challenge means taking cues from your child, validating their efforts, reinforcing their solutions and encouraging creative alternatives.
3. Overcome distractions and impulses
Children need to be able to overcome distractions and impulses that are contrary to their goals.
As with most things, this self-regulatory capacity can benefit from practice. This can be achieved in simple, playful ways.
One game, played all around the world, is musical statues. Children dance while the music plays and freeze when the music stops.
Musical statues allows children to practise controlling their impulse to keep dancing.Shutterstock
What often happens in this game, though, is children who can’t or don’t freeze are either left to continue dancing or they are “out”. Those who perhaps could benefit most from the practise get the least opportunity to practise.
Instead, if a child doesn’t freeze in time, have them try the next round sitting on their bottom, removing their legs from the equation. As they succeed, they can return to standing.
Where children can already do this well, why not reverse things so you dance when the music is off and remain still while the music plays?
This gives children practice controlling impulses – in this case, to keep dancing when the rule requires them to stop – at an achievable level of challenge.
For parents, it gives them unique insight into children’s capacities to control their behaviours, and where they may require additional support.
Things like stress, tiredness, hunger, fear, sadness and loneliness can deplete children’s limited self-regulation resources. Parents should seek to minimise these factors before trying to extend children’s self-regulation further.
In the current climate, we can ensure children are operating at their self-regulatory best when we reduce unnecessary demands, ensure routines are not overloaded, are patient and realistic when setting responsibilities.
Lastly, whether we are aware of it or not, children often model themselves on the ways we act and respond. As adults, it’s important to reflect on our own behaviours too: do we give up when challenged, yell when frustrated, fight for resources, or preference others in need over our own wants?
How we respond to this “new normal” will set an example for our youngest generation – and they will undoubtedly learn from our responses.
There are very few silver linings that have developed from the current catastrophic health crisis, but the wider accessibility of world class performances is one positive outcome to have emerged in recent weeks.
Breaking Glass – a quadruple bill of single-act operas composed by four Australian women – is an example of these. Originally programmed for late March at Carriageworks, it instead premiered on Facebook Live on Saturday.
Breaking Glass is a collaboration between Sydney Conservatorium’s Composing Women professional development program and the Sydney Chamber Opera (SCO). While gender inequality is an issue across most art forms, the inequality in operatic programming is especially stark. Projects such as this are essential to bringing new perspectives and diverse artistic voices to audiences within an otherwise conservative art form.
SCO was the ideal partner for Composing Women in this project. Established in 2010 to present operas of the 20th and 21st century, SCO has shown a commitment to works by Australian composers, with previous productions including Mary Finsterer’s Biographica in 2017 and Elliott Gyger’s Oscar and Lucinda in 2019.
While the name suggests a reference to breaking through the glass ceiling in the opera world, the violent imagery of breaking glass is also fitting in the context of the contemporary themes of ecological disaster, inequality, mental illness, and dystopia explored in these four works.
Commute.Daniel Boud
Four works
Her Dark Marauder, composed by Georgia Scott with the libretto by Pierce Wilcox, is a reworking of concepts drawn from the works of Sylvia Plath. There was an almost expressionist aesthetic to both the staging and the music.
Opening with the three singers separated on the stage surrounded by haze, Scott’s use of insistent repeated-note instrumental motifs, tremolo strings and flutter tonguing immediately evoked a disturbing, oppressive atmosphere. The vocalists – Jane Sheldon, Simon Lobelson, and Jessica O’Donoghue in this work – showed exceptional range, with virtuosic execution of techniques such as vocal fry, portamenti and fricative sounds along with beautifully phrased melodic material.
Dark Marauder opened the Facebook premiere event.Daniel Boud
In Commute, composer Peggy Polias depicts a woman’s daily commute through the lens of ancient Greek mythology and Homer’s Odyssey, with two “suitors” representing mythical monsters. The staging of this work, which was directed by Clemence Williams, was particularly effective, with O’Donoghue hesitantly walking across stage while in front of menacing, oversized projections of hands, and later a single eye representing the cyclops.
This short 20-minute work has a satisfying five-part structure full of contrasting musical textures. From the pulsating white noise and fragmented plosive vocalisations from the two suitors (played by Lobelson and Mitchell Riley) in the opening Amen I through to the entreating modal melody from O’Donoghue in Episode II: The Eye, Polias employed a vast range of compositional techniques to great effect. Commute ended on a note of refreshing optimism, with the final Dawn section featuring interwoven pentatonic melodic lines against the visual effects of a sunrise.
Josephine Macken’s The Tent diverged the most from typical operatic conventions. The title refers to a short story of the same name by Margaret Atwood, which is used as a conceptual framework rather than narrative structure. This abstract, almost wordless work explores the idea of researchers feeding knowledge into an intelligent machine in the wake of an ecological disaster. Macken has created a desolate soundscape using howling winds, drones, microtonality, with the vocal text mostly comprising disjointed phonemes, sustained vowel sounds and fricatives.
Bree van Reyk’s The Invisible Bird draws a connection between invisible and forgotten women in history and extinct or endangered birds. Its minimalist libretto consists of names of vulnerable, endangered and extinct bird species. Despite the seriousness of its subject manner, there was humour and absurdity in the staging. With three performers dressed in formal wear, it opened with cabaret-like choreography complete with jazz hands accompanying birdcalls from both singers and instrumentalists.
The music was palindromic in structure, starting and ending with energetic polyphony. The middle section was particularly poignant, with Sheldon portraying a night parrot shedding its feathers while mournfully singing the names of extinct species.
The Invisible Bird.Daniel Boud
Virtuosity under pressure
Despite the difficult circumstances, all aspects of this production were outstanding.
The singers showed impressive virtuosity throughout, as did the instrumentalists in the small ensemble, which included some of Australia’s most experienced and committed new music practitioners.
Breaking Glass is a testament to the importance of professional development programs like Composing Women. It is vital new, ambitious artistic work has the opportunity to be presented. In this case, the result was spectacular. While the four operas were very different from each other, they were equally engaging, relevant and thought-provoking.
Getting this production ready to premiere in a different format in such a short time shows adaptability and hard work from all involved. Hopefully this is a sign that large scale, innovative art forms will be able to weather the current crisis, despite unprecedented challenges to the sector.
Breaking Glass can be viewed online. In lieu of ticket purchases, tax deductible donations can be made to SCO.
There are very few silver linings that have developed from the current catastrophic health crisis, but the wider accessibility of world class performances is one positive outcome to have emerged in recent weeks.
Breaking Glass – a quadruple bill of single-act operas composed by four Australian women – is an example of these. Originally programmed for late March at Carriageworks, it instead premiered on Facebook Live on Saturday.
Breaking Glass is a collaboration between Sydney Conservatorium’s Composing Women professional development program and the Sydney Chamber Opera (SCO). While gender inequality is an issue across most art forms, the inequality in operatic programming is especially stark. Projects such as this are essential to bringing new perspectives and diverse artistic voices to audiences within an otherwise conservative art form.
SCO was the ideal partner for Composing Women in this project. Established in 2010 to present operas of the 20th and 21st century, SCO has shown a commitment to works by Australian composers, with previous productions including Mary Finsterer’s Biographica in 2017 and Elliott Gyger’s Oscar and Lucinda in 2019.
While the name suggests a reference to breaking through the glass ceiling in the opera world, the violent imagery of breaking glass is also fitting in the context of the contemporary themes of ecological disaster, inequality, mental illness, and dystopia explored in these four works.
Commute.Daniel Boud
Four works
Her Dark Marauder, composed by Georgia Scott with the libretto by Pierce Wilcox, is a reworking of concepts drawn from the works of Sylvia Plath. There was an almost expressionist aesthetic to both the staging and the music.
Opening with the three singers separated on the stage surrounded by haze, Scott’s use of insistent repeated-note instrumental motifs, tremolo strings and flutter tonguing immediately evoked a disturbing, oppressive atmosphere. The vocalists – Jane Sheldon, Simon Lobelson, and Jessica O’Donoghue in this work – showed exceptional range, with virtuosic execution of techniques such as vocal fry, portamenti and fricative sounds along with beautifully phrased melodic material.
Dark Marauder opened the Facebook premiere event.Daniel Boud
In Commute, composer Peggy Polias depicts a woman’s daily commute through the lens of ancient Greek mythology and Homer’s Odyssey, with two “suitors” representing mythical monsters. The staging of this work, which was directed by Clemence Williams, was particularly effective, with O’Donoghue hesitantly walking across stage while in front of menacing, oversized projections of hands, and later a single eye representing the cyclops.
This short 20-minute work has a satisfying five-part structure full of contrasting musical textures. From the pulsating white noise and fragmented plosive vocalisations from the two suitors (played by Lobelson and Mitchell Riley) in the opening Amen I through to the entreating modal melody from O’Donoghue in Episode II: The Eye, Polias employed a vast range of compositional techniques to great effect. Commute ended on a note of refreshing optimism, with the final Dawn section featuring interwoven pentatonic melodic lines against the visual effects of a sunrise.
Josephine Macken’s The Tent diverged the most from typical operatic conventions. The title refers to a short story of the same name by Margaret Atwood, which is used as a conceptual framework rather than narrative structure. This abstract, almost wordless work explores the idea of researchers feeding knowledge into an intelligent machine in the wake of an ecological disaster. Macken has created a desolate soundscape using howling winds, drones, microtonality, with the vocal text mostly comprising disjointed phonemes, sustained vowel sounds and fricatives.
Bree van Reyk’s The Invisible Bird draws a connection between invisible and forgotten women in history and extinct or endangered birds. Its minimalist libretto consists of names of vulnerable, endangered and extinct bird species. Despite the seriousness of its subject manner, there was humour and absurdity in the staging. With three performers dressed in formal wear, it opened with cabaret-like choreography complete with jazz hands accompanying birdcalls from both singers and instrumentalists.
The music was palindromic in structure, starting and ending with energetic polyphony. The middle section was particularly poignant, with Sheldon portraying a night parrot shedding its feathers while mournfully singing the names of extinct species.
The Invisible Bird.Daniel Boud
Virtuosity under pressure
Despite the difficult circumstances, all aspects of this production were outstanding.
The singers showed impressive virtuosity throughout, as did the instrumentalists in the small ensemble, which included some of Australia’s most experienced and committed new music practitioners.
Breaking Glass is a testament to the importance of professional development programs like Composing Women. It is vital new, ambitious artistic work has the opportunity to be presented. In this case, the result was spectacular. While the four operas were very different from each other, they were equally engaging, relevant and thought-provoking.
Getting this production ready to premiere in a different format in such a short time shows adaptability and hard work from all involved. Hopefully this is a sign that large scale, innovative art forms will be able to weather the current crisis, despite unprecedented challenges to the sector.
Breaking Glass can be viewed online. In lieu of ticket purchases, tax deductible donations can be made to SCO.
This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 22-25 from a sample of 1,519, had a 50-50 tie between the major parties, a one-point gain for Labor since the last Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 41% Coalition (down one), 36% Labor (up two), 12% Greens (down one) and 4% One Nation (down one). Figures are from The Poll Bludger.
Despite Labor’s voting intentions gain, Scott Morrison’s ratings jumped again, following a record 38-point gain in net approval last time. 68% (up seven) were satisfied with his performance and 28% (down seven) were dissatisfied. That’s a net approval of +40, up 14 points. Morrison’s net approval is the best for a PM since Kevin Rudd in October 2009.
Anthony Albanese also improved his ratings, with his net approval up two points to +11 after a nine-point gain last time. Morrison led as better PM by 56-28 (53-29 three weeks ago).
Ratings for the PM are correlated strongly with voting intentions, so having the PM’s net approval at +40 while voting intentions are tied is abnormal. Analyst Kevin Bonham tweeted this chart showing that this Newspoll is a major outlier.
The most likely explanation for the discrepancy between voting intentions and the PM’s ratings is that Labor and Greens voters approve of Morrison’s performance on the coronavirus crisis, but they distrust the Coalition in general.
Australia’s performance on coronavirus has been strong by international standards. I expect Morrison’s ratings to stay high if Australia continues to perform well, as long as the public thinks there is a crisis. Once the crisis is perceived to be over, Morrison’s ratings are likely to drop over normal partisan conflict.
South Korea is another country that has performed well on coronavirus. The left-wing Democratic party of the incumbent president was rewarded for this performance at April 15 parliamentary elections. They won 180 of the 300 seats (up 57 since 2016), to 103 for conservative parties (down 19).
In an additional Newspoll question, 54% said they would be prepared to install the government’s voluntary coronavirus tracking app, while 39% said they would not install it.
Trump’s ratings slide and Biden leads in key states
This section is an updated version of an article I wrote for The Poll Bludger, published on Friday.
In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 43.4% approve, 52.4% disapprove (net -9.0%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 43.8% approve, 52.5% disapprove (net -8.7%). Since my article three weeks ago, Trump has lost five points on net approval, returning his ratings to about their early March levels, before the coronavirus crisis began.
As the US coronavirus death toll increases to over 50,000, there has been far more criticism of Trump’s early response, and this appears to have punctured the “rally round the flag” effect.
Furthermore, there has been a massive economic impact from the virus and related shutdowns: in the past five weeks, over 26 million filed for unemployment benefits. In the latest week, over 4.4 million filed. While this is a slowdown, it is far ahead of the previous record of 695,000 weekly jobless claims. The April jobs report, to be released in early May, will be grim.
The RealClearPolitics average of national polls gives Joe Biden a 5.9% lead over Trump, little changed from 6.1% three weeks ago. However, most of the polls in the average were taken in early April, when Trump’s ratings were better.
As we know from 2016, the US does not use the popular vote to elect presidents; instead, each state is allocated Electoral Votes (EVs). A state’s EVs are the sum of its House seats (population dependent) and senators (always two). There are 538 total EVs, so it takes 270 to win. With two minor exceptions, states award their EVs winner-takes-all.
In 2016, Trump won 306 EVs to Hillary Clinton’s 232, ignoring “faithless” electors, despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%. Trump won Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by 1.2% or less.
The three most recent Florida polls give Biden an average two-point lead. In Michigan, he has an eight-point lead in the only April poll. In Pennsylvania, Biden averages a seven-point lead in two April polls. In Arizona, which has trended Democratic at recent elections, Biden leads Trump by 9% in an April poll.
Despite noisy protests in Michigan and other states advocating an end to social distancing, polls show the vast majority of Americans want social distancing to continue. In an AP-NORC poll, just 12% thought distancing measures went too far, 26% said they didn’t go far enough and 61% said they are about right.
To have a realistic chance of winning the next election, Trump needs the US economy to be perceived as improving by November. While his base is loyal, lower-educated voters in general want a good economy, and Trump needs their support to offset losses among higher educated voters owing to his behaviour.
Despite the continued economic and coronavirus woe, the Dow Jones has rebounded from a low below 18,600 on March 23 to be currently above 23,700. Stock traders anticipate a V-shaped recovery, which would assist Trump. But since March 31, there have been 25,000 to 39,000 new US coronavirus cases every day. I am sceptical that the US can reduce the caseload to a point where economic activity can safely resume anytime soon.
In the wake of COVID-19, we’re seeing intense international competition for urgently-needed supplies including personal protection equipment and ventilators. In Australia, this could extend to other critical imports such as pharmaceuticals and medicines. And when our manufacturing sector can’t fill unexpected breaks in supply chains, we all face risk.
However, Australians have lived through crises of comparable magnitude before. During and after the two world wars, scientific innovation played a crucial role in reform. It led to the creation of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and an array of subsequent discoveries.
Some may assume life will go back to normal once COVID-19 withdraws. But if the past is to be learnt from, Australia should prepare for a greatly different future – hopefully one in which science and innovation once more take centre stage.
It was WWI that heightened awareness of the role of science in defence and economic growth. In December 1915, Prime Minister William (Billy) Hughes announced he would set up a national laboratory “which would allow men of all branches of science to use their capabilities in application to industry”.
A CSIR council meeting in 1935, held at the McMaster Laboratory in Sydney.CSIRO Archives, CC BY
This led to the formation of the CSIR in 1926, and its rebirth as the CSIRO in 1949. In the years after WW1, the CSIR contributed greatly to improvements in primary production, including through animal nutrition, disease prevention, and the control of weeds and pests in crops. It also advanced primary product processing and overseas product transport.
In 1937, the CSIR’s mandate was expanded to include secondary industry research, including a national Aircraft and Engine Testing and Research Laboratory. This was motivated by the government’s concern to increase Australia’s manufacturing capabilities and reduce its dependence on technology imports.
War efforts in the spotlight
The CSIR’s research focus shifted in 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbour. Australian war historian Boris Schedvin has written about the hectic scramble to increase the nation’s defence capacities and expand essential production following the attack, including expansion of the scientific workforce.
The John Curtin government was commissioned in October, 1941. Curtin appointed John Dedman as the Minister for War Organisation and Industry, as well as the minister in charge of the CSIR. Dedman’s department was concerned with producing military supplies and equipment, and other items to support society in wartime.
Dedman instructed the council to concentrate on “problems connected with the war effort”. The CSIR responded robustly. By 1942, the divisions of food preservation and transport, forest products, aeronautics, industrial chemistry, the national standards laboratory and the lubricants and bearings section were practically focused on war work full-time.
Scaling up production
The Division of Industrial Chemistry was the division most closely involved in actual production. It was formed in 1940 with Ian Wark as chief, who’d previously worked at the Electrolytic Zinc Company.
Wark was familiar with the chemical industry, and quickly devoted resources to developing processes (using Australian materials) to produce essential chemicals to the pilot plant stage. They were soon producing chemicals for drugs at the Fishermans Bend site, including the starting material for the synthesis of the anaesthetic drug novocaine (procaine).
The researchers developed a method to separate the drug ergot, which is now essential in gynaecology, from rye. They also contributed directly to the war effort by manufacturing the plasticiser used in the nose caps of bullets and shells.
This photo from the early 1940s shows a lab at Fishermans Bend where experts worked on methods to separate ergot from rye.Author provided, Author provided (No reuse)
CSIRO today
In response to the current pandemic, CSIRO at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong, Victoria, is working with the international Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness to improve understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They are currently testing two vaccine candidates for efficacy, and evaluating the best way to administer the vaccine.
CSIRO’s directors Trevor Drew and Rob Grenfell share progress on COVID-19 vaccine testing being carried out at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong.
Australian scientists have made monumental contributions on this front in the past. In the 1980s, CSIRO and its university collaborators began efforts that led to the creation of anti-flu drug Relenza, the first drug to successfully treat the flu. Relenza was then commercialised by Australian biotech company Biota, which licensed the drug to British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
The CSIRO also invented the Hendra virus vaccine for horses, launched in 2012.
Prior to that, Ian Frazer at the University of Queensland developed the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine which was launched in 2006.
COVID-19 is one of many viral diseases that need either a vaccine or a drug (or both). Others are hepatitis B, dengue fever, HIV and the viruses that cause the common cold. Now may be Australia’s chance to use our world class medical research and medicinal chemistry capabilities to become a dominant world supplier of anti-viral medications.
As was the case during WWI and WWII, this pandemic drives home the need to retain our capabilities at a time of supply chain disruption. While it’s impossible for a medium-sized economy like Australia’s to be entirely self-sufficient, it’s important we lean on our strengths to not only respond, but thrive during these complicated times.
In 2020, Australia has a much greater and broader research and production capacity than it did in 1940. And as we march through this pandemic, we can learn from the past and forge new paths to enhance our position as pioneers in sciencific innovation.
On April 16, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced to declare a national state of emergency until at least May 6, covering all 47 prefectures. This extended an initial state of emergency declaration on April 7 for seven prefectures, including the cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka.
Two medical groups have also warned that a “collapse in emergency medicine” has already happened as hospitals are being forced to turn away patients, presaging a possible collapse of the overall health care system.
How did Japan get to this point? The country had initially been held up as having one of the more effective responses to the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic. Yet, its curve has not even started to flatten like those of its neighbours, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The relatively low rate of infections from January to March was credited by some to Japanese societal norms: bowing instead of handshakes and hugs, the use of masks in flu season and generally high standards of personal hygiene.
Japan has long had a reputation for conformity and adherence to rules, so a high level of compliance with public safety directions was expected.
However, overconfidence in these practices, and the ongoing lack of firm direction from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, may have lulled many Japanese into a false sense of security. This has been starkly demonstrated in recent weeks as crowds have flocked to parks to view the cherry blossoms, ignoring requests from local authorities to stay home.
Opinion polls now show at least half of Japanese disapprove of the government’s handling of the crisis and believe Abe’s national emergency declaration came too late.
Many Japanese believe Abe’s declaration of a state of emergency came to late.Naoki Ogura/Reuters
Erratic decision-making from the start
From the start of the pandemic, Abe’s government has been criticised for being too offhand in its response and erratic in its decision-making.
Japan’s first major misstep occurred in early February, when the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama. At least 23 passengers were allowed to disembark and go home without being tested, and around 90 government employees returned directly to their Tokyo offices after visiting the stricken vessel.
More than 700 cases were eventually linked to the cruise ship, in total.
Weeks later, Abe then ordered schools to remain closed until the end of the spring break in April, a sudden decision that caught both teachers and parents by surprise, leaving them little time to plan and prepare.
Then came the lack of decisiveness on the Tokyo Olympics. Abe reluctantly announced in late March that the games would be postponed in 2020, but only after countries began to pull out and the government was accused of dragging its feet.
Abe’s government has also faced criticism over relatively low levels of testing. Over 112,000 tests have been conducted, at a rate of around 7,800 per day in April. But the government’s decision to restrict most tests to highly symptomatic patients means actual cases are likely being under-counted.
At a press conference in mid-April, Abe pledged to rectify shortages of personal protective equipment for medical workers and ramp up testing. As an interim measure, two cloth masks are being mailed to every household, an unpopular gesture widely lampooned on social media as “Abenomasks”.
Even when Abe has tried to send the right message, the tone has been off. This was perhaps best symbolised by the mocking reaction to his well-intentioned “stay home” Twitter post, which portrayed him drinking tea and patting his dog.
Critics said it showed just how out of touch he was with the lives of ordinary Japanese.
Tokyo’s governor outshines Abe
As cases began to spike in late March, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike held an emergency press conference to urge residents refrain from nonessential outings, such as visits to parks to view cherry blossoms.
Yuriko Koike has emerged as a trusted voice during the pandemic.Issei Kato/Reuters
But despite rising concerns from medical authorities, as late as March 31, Abe’s government still denied there was a need for a national state of emergency.
When the state of emergency was finally declared in mid-April, many feared it still wasn’t enough. Under the law, governors can requisition property and medical supplies to use to treat COVID-19 patients, but crucially, police have no enforcement powers to close businesses or restrict the movements of individuals. People and companies can only be asked to voluntarily comply.
The Japanese government could interpret two articles in the constitution to impose a stricter lockdown, as long as appropriate legislation is passed in the Diet, Japan’s parliament.
However, Abe has thus far avoided doing so. He seems to be bowing to pressure from the Keidanren, a major corporate lobby group and donor to his party, out of fear the economy could descend into an even deeper recession than the -5.2% reduction in economic growth projected by the IMF.
Crowds have flocked to view the cherry blossoms, despite messages to stay home.Kimimasa Mayama/EPA
Demands have been increasing from health authorities, prefectural governments and opposition parties for Abe to take more forceful action. Revealing his diminishing political authority, he is even being pressed by both senior figures and rank-and-file members within his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The LDP’s junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, also threatened to break from the ruling coalition. The move forced Abe to extend a planned income support scheme for low-income households into a universal payment of 100,000 yen (nearly A$1,500) to all citizens, as part of the government’s record 117 trillion yen (A$1.7 billion) emergency stimulus spending.
Abe’s third consecutive term as LDP president expires in September 2021, around the time national elections are due. Even if Japan recovers by then, his legacy as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister is now surely being tarnished.
First the drought, then bushfires and then flash floods: a chain of extreme events hit Australia hard in recent months. The coronavirus pandemic has only temporarily shifted our attention towards a new emergency, adding yet another risk.
We knew from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the risk of extreme events was rising. What we perhaps didn’t realise was the high probability of different extreme events hitting one after the other in the same regions. Especially in the fringes of Australian cities, residents are facing new levels of environmental risk, especially from bushfires and floods.
But this cycle of devastation is not inevitable if we understand the connections between events and do something about them.
Measures to slow climate change are in the hands of policymakers. But, at the adaptation level, we can still do many things to reduce the impacts of extreme events on our cities.
We can start by increasing our capacity to see these phenomena as one problem to be tackled locally, rather than distinct problems to be addressed centrally. Solutions should be holistic, community-centred and focused on people’s practices and shared responsibilities.
Respond to emergency
We can draw lessons from humanitarian responses to large disasters, including both national and international cases. A recent review of disaster responses in urban areas found several factors are critical for more successful recovery.
One is to prioritise the needs of people themselves. This requires genuine, collaborative engagement. People who have been through a bushfire or flood are not “helpless victims”. They are survivors who need to be supported and listened to, not dictated to, in terms of what they may or may not need.
Another lesson is to link recovery efforts, rather than have individual agencies provide services separately. For instance, an organisation focusing on housing recovery needs to work closely with organisations that are providing water or sanitation. A coordinated approach is more efficient, less wearying on those needing help, and better reflects the interconnected reality of everyday life.
In the aid world this is known as an “area-based” approach. It prioritises efforts that are driven by people demand rather than by the supply available.
A third lesson is give people money, not goods. Money allows people to decide what they really need, rather than rely on the assumptions of others.
As the bushfires have shown, donations of secondhand goods and clothes often turn into piles of unwanted goods. Disposal then becomes a problem in its own right.
Planning approaches in outer urban areas should be realigned with our current understanding of bushfire and flood risk. This situation is challenging planners to engage with residents in new ways to ensure local needs are met, especially in relation to disaster resilience.
In areas of high bushfire risk, planning needs to connect equally with the full range of locals. Landscape and biodiversity experts, including Indigenous land managers, and emergency managers should work in association with planning processes that welcome input from residents. This approach is highly likely to reduce risks.
Planners have a vital job to create platforms that enable the interplay of ideas, local values and traditional knowledge. Authentic engagement can increase residents’ awareness of environmental hazards. It can also pave the way for specific actions by authorities to reduce risks, such as those undertaken by Country Fire Service community engagement units in South Australia.
Regenerating ecosystems by responding to flood risk can be crucial to increase urban and peri-urban resilience while reducing future drought and bushfire impacts.
Research on flood management suggests rainwater must be always seen as a resource, even in the case of extreme events. Sustainable water management through harvesting, retention and reuse can have long-term positive effects in regenerating micro-climates. It is at the base of any action aimed at comprehensively increasing resilience.
In this sense, approaches based on decentralised systems are more effective at countering the risks of drought, fire and flood locally. They consist of small-scale nature-based solutions able to absorb and retain water to reduce flooding. Distributed off-grid systems support water harvesting in rainy seasons and prevent fires during drought by maintaining soil moisture.
Better planning will prepare areas to cope better with the inevitable floods.Jonny Duncan/AAP
Decentralisation also creates opportunities for innovation in the management of urban ecosystems, with responsibility shared among many. Mobile technologies can help communities play an active role in minimising flood impacts at the small scale. Information platforms can also help raise awareness of the links between risks and actions and lead to practical solutions that are within everybody’s reach.
Tailor responses to people and ecosystems
Disrupted ecosystems can make the local impacts of drought, fire and flood worse, but can also play a role in global failures, such as the recent pandemic. It is urgent to define and implement mechanisms to reverse this trend.
Lessons from disaster responses point towards the need to tailor solutions to community needs and local environmental conditions. A few key strategies are emerging:
foster networks and coordinated approaches that operate across silos
support local and traditional landscape knowledge
use information platforms to help people work together to manage risks
manage water locally with the support of populations to prevent drought and bushfire.
Recent environmental crises are showing us the way to finally change direction. Safe cities and landscapes can be achieved only by regenerating urban ecosystems while responding to increasing environmental risks through integrated, people-centred actions.
Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has prompted countries and governments to become increasingly inward-looking. Australia is not immune to this. One of the effects of this situation has been that the “Pacific Step-up” appears to have dropped entirely off the political radar.
The step-up is – or was – the signature foreign policy of the Morrison government. Although it predates Scott Morrison becoming prime minister, under his leadership it had really come to the fore. We saw an increase in ministerial visits to the region, a ramping up of labour mobility opportunities for Pacific islanders, and the establishment of a A$2 billion infrastructure financing facility.
So, how does the Pacific Step-up need to evolve to help respond to the challenges posed by coronavirus?
It’s important to acknowledge that Australia and the island members of the “Pacific family” share more than just an ocean. They have many common challenges. Addressing them requires sharing resources. The coronavirus response presents an opportunity to move the Pacific Step-Up from something that is done “to” or “for” the Pacific to something that Australia does “with” the Pacific.
It is too easy for the Australian media (and indeed the Australian public) to perpetuate the trope that Pacific people are helpless – chronic victims who need to be rescued from whatever calamity has most recently befallen them. Now is the time for Australian policymakers to step up and demonstrate real respect for their Pacific counterparts.
On top of the increasingly devastating effects of climate change, Pacific island countries are now managing the twin challenges of a potential public health emergency and its severe economic ramifications.
When it comes to the former, the focus has been on prevention. Many countries took swift and significant steps to minimise the risk of the virus entering their communities. Borders have been closed, restrictions on movements enforced and health and medical systems enhanced.
Pacific island countries are also already feeling the economic impacts of the global shutdown. This is particularly evident in those countries that rely on tourism and remittances for revenue, livelihoods and employment.
Several countries have moved quickly and decisively to introduce economic support and stimulus packages to meet some of the most pressing needs of their populations. Maintaining these into the medium and longer term will be a challenge.
In Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, the impacts of the recent Tropical Cyclone Harold are presenting additional challenges. Reaching Category 5 strength, it caused more than 30 deaths and left large amounts of damage and destruction in its wake. Australia and other partners (particularly France and New Zealand) have provided assistance to government agencies in the region that are charged with responding to disasters of this type.
In the Pacific, and among many Australian commentators, it is widely acknowledged that the step-up is driven largely by geo-strategic anxiety about the growing influence of China in the Pacific islands region. Coronavirus has done little to dilute this angst. In some instances, it appears to have accentuated it. Certainly, China has made it abundantly clear it is ready, willing and able to be a friend in need for Pacific island countries.
A more sophisticated and nuanced Pacific Step-up that addresses the challenges posed by coronavirus provides Australia with an opportunity to demonstrate to Pacific counterparts its ability and willingness to offer something that is different and more valuable than is available elsewhere.
This can take one or more of several forms. First of all, Australia should continue to advocate to the global community the need to provide tailored financial support to Pacific island countries. This must include lobbying for meaningful debt relief to underpin economic recovery.
The IMF has already made some moves in this regard. Australia has also moved quickly in relation to its most recent loan to PNG. When the Pacific Islands Forum’s finance and economic ministers meet online in the near future, this will likely be on the agenda. Australia should look to have something concrete to put forward in support of this, including offers to lobby the G7 and G20.
Recently, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters raised the possibility of a New Zealand-Australia “bubble” based on low numbers of infections in both countries. He saw this as a basis for reopening the borders to allow for freer movement of people and goods.
Pacific island countries that have no COVID-19 cases – there are several – should look to be part of a “Pacific bubble” if this conversation goes forward. This would maintain Pacific islanders’ participation in labour mobility schemes.
Australia and New Zealand are also the key markets for Pacific tourism. The sooner tourists can be welcomed back to the resorts and beaches, the sooner island livelihoods can be restored.
The rhetoric of the Pacific Step-Up has been couched in terms such as “Pacific family”. We now need to know what this means for how Australia can and will support Pacific states and communities in the face of coronavirus.
The federal government’s Snowy 2.0 energy venture is controversial for many reasons, but one has largely escaped public attention. The project threatens to devastate aquatic life by introducing predators and polluting important rivers. It may even push one fish species to extinction.
The environmental impact statement for the taxpayer-funded project is almost 10,000 pages long. Yet it fails to resolve critical problems, and in one case seeks legal exemptions to enable Snowy 2.0 to wreak environmental damage.
The New South Wales government is soon expected to grant the project environmental approval. This process should be suspended, and independent experts should urgently review the project’s environmental credentials.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor, left, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison, at the Snowy Hydro scheme.Lukas Coch/aAAP
Native fish extinctions
Snowy Hydro Limited, a Commonwealth-owned corporation, is behind the Snowy 2.0 project in the Kosciuszko National Park in southern NSW. It involves building a giant tunnel to connect two water storages – the Tantangara and Talbingo reservoirs. By extension, the project will also connect the rivers and creeks connected to these reservoirs.
A small, critically endangered native fish, the stocky galaxias, lives in a creek upstream of Tantangara. This is the last known population of the species.
An invasive native fish, the climbing galaxias, lives in the Talbingo reservoir (it was introduced from coastal streams when the original Snowy project was built). Water pumped from Tantangara will likely transfer this fish to Talbingo.
From here, the climbing galaxias’ capacity to climb wet vertical surfaces would enable it to reach upstream creeks and compete for food with, and prey on, stocky galaxias – probably pushing it into extinction.
The stocky galaxias.Hugh Allan
Snowy Hydro has applied for an exemption under NSW biosecurity legislation to permit the transfer of the climbing galaxias and two other fish species: the alien, noxious redfin perch and eastern gambusia.
Redfin perch compete for food with other species and produce many offspring. They are voracious, carnivorous predators, known to prey on smaller fish.
Redfin perch also allow the establishment of a fatal fish disease – epizootic haematopoietic necrosis virus – or EHN. This disease kills the endangered native Macquarie perch, the population of which below Tantangara is one of very few remaining.
If Snowy 2.0 is granted approval, it is likely to spread these problematic species through the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee, Snowy and Murray rivers.
The climbing galaxias, which threatens the native stocky galaxias.Stella McQueen/Wikimedia
Acid and asbestos pollution
Four million tonnes of rock excavated to build Snowy 2.0 would be dumped into the two reservoirs. Snowy Hydro has not assessed the pollution risks this creates. The rock will contain potential acid-forming minerals and a form of asbestos, which threaten to pollute water storages and rivers downstream.
When the first stage of the Snowy Hydro project was built, comparable rocks were dumped in the Tooma River catchment. Research in 2006 suggested the dump was associated with eradication of almost all fish from the Tooma River downstream after rainfall.
The environmental impact statement either ignores, or pays inadequate attention to, these environmental problems.
For example, installing large-scale screens at water inlets would be the best way to prevent fish transfer from Talbingo Dam, but Snowy Hydro has dismissed it as too costly.
Snowy Hydro instead proposes a dubious second-rate measure: screens to filter pumped flows leaving Tantangara reservoir, and building a barrier in the stream below the stocky galaxias habitat.
The best and cheapest way to prevent damage from alien species is stopping the populations from establishing. Trying to control or eradicate pest species once they’re established is far more difficult and costly.
We believe the measures proposed by Snowy Hydro are impractical. It would be very difficult to maintain a screen fine and large enough to prevent fish eggs and larvae moving out of Tantangara reservoir and such screens would be totally ineffective at preventing the spread of EHN virus.
A six metre-high waterfall downstream of the stocky galaxias habitat currently protects the critically endangered species from other invasive species threats. But climbing galaxias have an extraordinary ability to ascend wet surfaces. They would easily climb the waterfall, and possibly the proposed creek barrier as well.
Such an engineered barrier has never been constructed in Australia. We are informed that in New Zealand, the barriers have not been fully effective and often require design adjustments.
Even if the barrier protected the stocky galaxias at this location, efforts to establish populations in other unprotected regional streams would be severely hampered by the spread of climbing galaxias.
Preventing redfin and EHN from entering the Murrumbidgee River downstream of Tantangara depends on the reservoir never spilling. The reservoir has spilled twice since construction in the 1960s, and would operate at much higher water levels when Snowy 2.0 was operating. Despite this, Snowy Hydro says it has “high confidence in being able to avoid spill”.
If dumped spoil pollutes the two reservoirs and Murrumbidgee and Tumut rivers, this would also have potentially profound ecological impacts. These have not been critically assessed, nor effective prevention methods identified.
The Tumut 3 scheme, part of the existing Snowy Hydro scheme.Snowy Hydro Ltd
Looking to the future
Snowy 2.0 will likely make one critically endangered species extinct and threaten an important remaining population of another, as well as pollute freshwater habitats. As others have noted, the project is also questionable on other environmental and economic grounds.
These potential failures underscore the need to immediately halt Snowy 2.0, and subject it to independent expert scrutiny.
In response to the issues raised in this article, a spokesperson for Snowy Hydro said:
“Snowy Hydro’s EIS, supported by numerous reports from independent scientific experts, extensively address potential water quality and fish transfer impacts and the risk mitigation measures to be put in place. As the EIS is currently being assessed by the NSW Government we have no further comment.”
COVID-19 has forced us into social distancing, isolation and quarantine. These conditions are likely fostering widespread anxiety and loneliness in our cities. However, they’ve also made the need for socially connected, vibrant public spaces obvious to all.
We offer four strategies for rebuilding social connectivity and emotional well-being in our cities, once restrictions are lifted.
Enforced distancing measures are probably changing not just our work, travel and family routines, but how we interact with others and how we feel about ourselves and our communities.
Loneliness is bad for your health and is likely on the rise. There is no guarantee the pandemic-driven shift towards more digital communication will compensate for the lost emotional closeness of in-person contact.
As loneliness becomes more common, it creates a change in what sociologists refer to as “emotional climates” – the collective feelings experienced and shared by most people within a given city or society. A “mass emotional event” like COVID-19 can dramatically alter the emotional climate. It’s so disruptive that it leads to a permanent change in everyday emotional states, expressions and social interactions.
COVID-19 has strong potential to make us not only lonelier, but more distrustful, fearful, anxious and angry. The emerging evidence of this includes: panic buying of goods; abuse and stigma of “risky” carers such as health workers; and potential increases in domestic violence and animal cruelty.
It has even been suggested we are collectively processing and moving through the stages of mass grief.
It’s important to remedy negative emotional climates with strategies to reconnect communities, allay fears and better prepare us for any future shutdowns. We can even aim to promote positive emotional climates and “kindness pandemics”.
4 ways to build better communities
COVID-19 is an opportunity to build on what we know and to learn from this situation. It’s possible to promote social and emotional well-being. We suggest four key approaches for building better communities that do this.
1) Design walkable, social, flexible public spaces
Recent work-from-home practices have reduced car traffic by up to 50% on arterial roads. However, they have also prompted cabin fever and a craving for exercise and social contact.
Cities and suburbs should be redesigned to support physical and social activity and mental health. We need a greater emphasis on cycle- and pedestrian-friendly spaces. There should also be renewed focus on building walkable town centres and neighbourhood high streets, rather than continuing with car-dependent suburban sprawl.
Recent examples of innovative and flexible use of space by business are inspiring. Whether cafes become corner stores, pubs sell takeaway cocktails, parks become gyms, or car parks become pop-up businesses, flexible use of space should become commonplace.
Video conferencing is flexible and can enable long-distance connection and “work from home” hubs. However, social media platforms, such as Facebook, Meetup, WhatsApp or art-based apps like Somebody, are useful for organising physical meetings too. These can can help with community volunteering, socialising, or simply sharing guerrilla-garden herbs for local cooking.
A better physical-digital interface could help new jobs flourish in “interactive” creative industries that virtually connect isolated individuals. New art spaces could be established, putting connective digital infrastructure, such as audio-visual platforms, within physical spaces to help face-to-face and virtual audiences interact.
COVID-19 has exposed the vast variability in the quality of Australian housing. Many homes lack the space to accommodate work, study, relaxation, exercise and socialising, or spaces where people can seek privacy and quiet. Housing also varies in its access to fresh air, light, temperature control and healthy green spaces.
Designing future homes with these needs and features in mind should be a priority.
4) Build with different needs and stigma in mind
The impacts of COVID-19 will not be felt equally. Post-COVID-19 cities should take this into account.
Recent positive public conversations on social media and within the arts community on previously stigmatised emotions like loneliness and anxiety will help keep these concerns on the public agenda.
The Australian government’s COVID-19 rescue package for the child-care sector provides a lifeline for centres and parents alike.
Child-care centres now have a guaranteed stream of income and support for wage costs, helping them to stay in business through the crisis. For working parents, there’s the relief child care will be available through the crisis and beyond. Better yet, the care is free.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has emphasised this is a temporary measure, set to run for six months. But parents, having tasted life free of child-care costs, won’t resume paying without a fight.
There is also an economic case for the government to invest more in child care to help rebuild the economy after the health crisis is over.
Australian child-care costs are high
Out-of-pocket child-care costs in Australia have been relatively high by international standards.
The standing Commonwealth Child Care Subsidy is means-tested. Even for a family getting the maximum subsidy (85% of costs for households with income less than A$68,000) it costs about A$9,000 a year to have two children in full-time care. For a family where each parent earns A$80,000, the cost is about A$26,000 a year.
Full-time net child-care costs absorb about a quarter of household income for an average-earning couple with two young children in Australia. The OECD average is 11%. Almost half of Australian parents with children under five say they struggle with the cost.
Deterring workforce participation
The high cost of child care doesn’t just drain family incomes. It has a big impact on workforce participation, particularly for women.
Women are more likely to be a family’s “second earner”, reducing their paid work hours to accommodate caring responsibilities. For many, child-care costs interact with other elements of Australia’s tax and benefit system to make extra hours of paid work financially unattractive.
The chart below shows the “workforce disincentive rate” – the proportion of income from an extra day’s work lost through higher taxes, reduced family payments and child-care costs – for second earners. The disincentive rates are high across the board, but particularly punishing for second earners thinking of taking on a fourth or fifth day of paid work.
Modelling is based on two parents earning the same full-time salary, with two children requiring child care. The cost of child care is assumed to be $110 a day per child. It also assumes the family is renting and receiving rent assistance if applicable.Grattan Institute
For example, consider a household with two young children where both parents would earn A$60,000 a year if they worked full-time. Dad works full-time and mum three days a week.
If mum decided to take on an extra day, she would lose more than 90% of the income for that fourth day in child-care costs, tax and reduced family payments. For comparison, someone earning more than A$180,000 and paying the top marginal tax rate (shown by the black line in the graph) only loses about 47% of additional income.
That leaves mum working for about A$2 an hour on her fourth day; and for nothing on her fifth day.
Is it any wonder the “1.5 earner model” – where dad works full-time and mum part-time – has become the norm in Australia?
The following graph shows the cost of child care is the biggest contributor to these high workforce disincentive rates. Reducing that cost would do more than any other policy change to boost workforce participation for mothers of young children.
Modelling is based on two parents earning the same full-time salary, with two children requiring child care. Every day of work for the second earner results in exactly one day of approved childcare. The cost of child care is assumed to be $110 a day per child. It also assumes the family is renting and receiving rent assistance if applicable.Grattan Institute
But ‘free’ child care doesn’t come cheap
The Child Care Subsidy cost the federal government A$8 billion last financial year. Making child care free would almost triple that cost. In fact, it could be higher, since free child care would trigger a jump in demand, including by those not in the paid workforce.
There is an attractive simplicity to universal child care, and it would likely lead to a big economic payoff in workforce participation, at least over the medium term (5-10 years).
But scrapping means-testing completely would be a radical change to the system and potentially raise concerns about fairness. Under a universal scheme, all parents of young children would be able to access more than $25,000 in subsidies for each child. This would be true even for high-income parents who currently receive no Child Care Subsidy.
A cheaper and less radical alternative would be raising and simplifying the Child Care Subsidy to reduce the disincentives to work.
Our modelling suggests a subsidy of 95% of child-care costs for low-income families, tapering down slowly to zero as family income increases, would cost taxpayers an additional A$5 billion a year, compared with at least A$14 billion more for a universal scheme.
It would enable many women who want to increase their paid work to do so, support the post-crisis recovery and boost GDP by about $A11 billion a year in the medium term through higher workforce participation.
For policymakers seeking high-return government initiatives to boost the economy, this is an opportunity too good to miss.
In the midst of this global pandemic, a sourdough revolution has been born.
More time at home combined with supermarket shortages of essentials, has fostered the creativity of a whole new generation of home bakers.
If your Instagram feed is filled with everyone’s favourite new housemate, the sourdough starter, you may be wondering what is so special about these strange, bubbly jars of flour and water and the tasty bread they create.
A happy accident
Sourdough is a leavening (rising) method for baked products that dates back to at least ancient Egypt.
Historians believe that this technique was likely discovered by accident by a baker leaving dough unattended for much longer than usual. By sitting for longer, the wild yeast and bacteria living in the flour, water and air had sprung to life, transforming the dough into what would become the first form of leavened bread. It tasted better and lasted longer, so it stuck.
The sourdough process starts with a starter (sometimes called a “sponge”) – a simple mixture of flour and water. When left for a day or so, a vibrant community of wild yeast and bacteria start to bloom. These microscopic organisms work in harmony to transform the sugars and starches in the flour, producing the gas bubbles that help bread rise and natural acids that give sourdough its characteristic taste, aroma and texture.
With nothing more than flour and water you can create a bubbly new companion who will provide good bread vibes.Shutterstock
Up until fairly recently, the sourdough tradition (including the starter) was passed down through the generations and considered the norm for bread making. However, in the dawn of the industrial revolution, baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was discovered and began to be mass produced.
Baker’s yeast is now the preferred leavening agent for commercial bread making due to its aggressive nature, resulting in dough that rises quickly and bread that is ready in just a few hours. Sourdough, on the other hand, relies on much gentler yeast and bacteria, that ideally need a longer proving time to work their magic.
Extra starter can be used to make light and tasty pancakes.Shutterstock
Throughout the long rising process, the bacteria present in the starter (typically lactobacillus species) feed on carbohydrates in the dough, producing both lactic and acetic acids as biproducts. This acidity results in a bread with a lower glycaemic index (and a longer shelf life). This makes sourdough a great option for diabetics as it is digested more slowly, resulting in a lower and slower rise in blood sugar levels after eating. Because it is more slowly digested, sourdough bread will even keep you feeling fuller for longer.
No matter the source, each starter will contain its own unique community of yeast and bacteria. It will change over time depending on how you feed it. Wait, feed it? Yes, your starter is very much alive and like any pet, plant or housemate, needs to be tended to regularly to keep it flourishing.
Feeding your starter is simple and your feeding schedule will depend on how you plan on storing it: in the fridge for less frequent use or on the bench if you bake bread every day or second day. Try to find a storage and feeding regime that fits your lifestyle. This will prevent your starter becoming too “needy”.
Tip top baking pointers
It typically takes a week or so to create a starter with enough umph to make a reasonable loaf of bread. You will know it is ready to go when it can double in size in under eight hours after feeding.
There are many sourdough recipes online to help get you started, but here are some key tips for success.
Try a variety of recipes using a range of different flours (common ones include wheat, rye and spelt). You will eventually find something that best suits your taste buds!
Prove your dough overnight in the fridge. The result will be a more flavoursome loaf. Just remember to bring your dough to room temperature and ensure it has doubled in size before baking.
Though the process can seem complicated at first, the long rising process makes sourdough quite a forgiving artform. If it doesn’t work out first go, try something different next time. You could even consider joining an online sourdough class to perfect your skills.
So why not experiment with making your own sourdough starter this week – it may just become the most fun and rewarding housemate of them all!
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy has predicted a more than 50% take up of the new “COVIDSafe” app, as the government mobilises a broad range of health professionals to convince people to download the tracing device.
The app, launched by Health Minister Greg Hunt on Sunday, will broaden and speed up the tracing of contacts a person testing positive for COVID-19 has had.
Fearing many people will shy away from the app because of privacy concerns, the government has surrounded it with what it describes as the “strongest ever” security provisions. Hunt has made a determination under the biosecurity legislation enshrining protections. There will also be legislation for the app when parliament meets in May.
Data must be held in Australia, and not used for any purpose other than tracing contacts of a COVID case.
Once a person who has downloaded the app has tested positive they must give permission before the data on it can be retrieved. Only state health officials will then be able to access the data.
There are prohibitions on coercing or requiring anyone to install or use the app, whether by positive obligation, or adverse consequences of refusing to do so.
For example, there is a prohibition on an employer refusing to enter into or continue a contract or arrangement on this basis, or a person refusing to allow someone to enter premises.
Experts disagree about the needed take up for the app to be effective. In Singapore the take up rate was only 20%.
The Australian government has spoken of a take up rate of 40%.
Murphy said on Sunday that a “good uptake, in my mind, would be well over half the people. And I reckon we’ll get it, because I think Australians will rise to the challenge, because they have risen to the challenge of distancing, they’ve risen to the challenge of testing.”
Hunt was flanked by health experts at his news conference, including the secretary for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Annie Butler, and the president of the Australian Medical Association, Tony Bartone.
Backed by opinion testing about the most effective way to convince the public, Hunt is the ministerial face of the app, after earlier appearances by the Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert, were counter-productive.
The app on Sunday was endorsed by more than a dozen health sector organisations.
Hunt said Australia had seen a “sustained and consolidated and now extended flattening of the curve”.
There had now been 6711 cases all up, with 83 deaths.
In the last seven days there had been 117 new cases; this compared with 297 in the previous seven days. “We have now had an average increase in case numbers of less than 1% for 15 consecutive days and an average increase in case numbers of less than half a percent for seven consecutive days,” Hunt said.
“All these things mean we are doing well as a nation, but we have not won yet.”
A poll from the Australia Institute, a progressive think tank, released at the weekend found 45% said they would use the app, 28% said they would not, and 27% said they didn’t know or weren’t sure. Men were more likely than women to say they would use it, and people aged 18-39 were more likely than those 60 and over.
Murphy made it clear the enhanced ability to trace fast was particularly important in relation to younger adults.
The government is arguing the app will be a factor in helping decisions on when and what restrictions can be eased.
Australian Banking Association CEO Anna Bligh said the banks’ CEOs would download the app “and, to protect staff and customers, encourage their staff to do the same”.
Opposition health spokesman Chris Bowen said the app could play a constructive role if handled correctly. The opposition would look at the legislation very constructively and was pleased the government had agreed to refer it to the Senate committee that is examining COVID-19 matters.
But the Law Council of Australia expressed some concerns. “Most important is the concern that the Determination instrument underpinning the legality of the app makes no provision for oversight and reporting on its use,” it said.
Meanwhile, as the debate continued about when children should return to schools, a NSW study by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) found very limited transmission in schools.
The study, commissioned by the state government and released Sunday, found:
In NSW from March to mid-April. 18 individuals (nine students and nine staff) from 15 schools were confirmed as having coronavirus; all had an opportunity to transmit the virus to others in their schools
735 students and 128 staff were close contacts of these 18 cases.
One primary school child and one high school child may have contracted the virus from the initial cases at their schools
No teacher or staff member contracted the virus from any of the initial school cases.
NCIRS is a research organisation that provides independent expert advice on all aspects of vaccine preventable diseases and social and other issues related to immunisation.
The situation on schools is a patchwork across the country. Scott Morrison has been strongly in favour of children being at school. In NSW they will reopen for all students from May 11 but only for a day a week.
But the Andrews government in Victoria is keeping schools closed for the bulk of children, relying on the advice of its own chief health officer Brett Sutton, who has taken a tougher line than his fellow medical officers. The Victorian opposition at the weekend called for schools to be open.
Federal education minister Dan Tehan said on Sky on Sunday the government’s hope was to see all schools teaching all children in the classroom by the end of May.
In mid March, cases of COVID-19 – the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 – dramatically increased in Australia and the government responded with an effective public health strategy. People who could, shifted to working from home, social distancing measures were applied and Australians experienced life in isolation.
Somewhere in the mix, kids stopped attending school. While the federal government has consistently maintained it is safe for schools to remain open, other states like Victoria and NSW told parents to keep their children at home if they could.
We are now in a different phase of the pandemic in Australia. With cases dropping, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced students would be making a staggered approach back to classrooms from the third week of the first term – initially for one day a week, then for more time on campus as the term progresses. Schools in Western Australia reopen on Wednesday April, 29.
On Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the same social distancing rules as in the community did not apply in the classroom. He said:
The 1.5m in classrooms and the four square metre rule is not a requirement of the expert medical advice for students in classrooms.
Closure of schools has meant kids not seeing their friends and a disruption to their usual education routine.
The federal and state governments who say it is safe for children to return to school are working off the latest evidence. Here are five reasons we know it’s safe.
1. Kids get infected with coronavirus at much lower rates than adults
This is the case in Australia and throughout the world. There are no clear explanations for this yet, but it is a consistent finding across the pandemic.
Although SARS-CoV-2 can cause COVID-19 in school-aged children, it rarely does and children with the disease have mild symptoms.
Fewer than 150 children below 15 years have been infected with SARS-COV-2 in Australia since the pandemic began. This is compared to the 6,695 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia at 25 April, 2020.
2. Children rarely get severely ill from COVID-19
Data from around the world and Australia have confirmed children very rarely require hospitalisation, and generally only experience mild symptoms, when infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Many parents have worried their kids’ friends could be infected with the virus without showing symptoms. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. A study in Iceland showed children without symptoms were not detected to have COVID-19. No child below ten years of age without symptoms was found to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 in this study.
this tweet is saying the opposite of the piece?
3. Children don’t spread COVID-19 disease like adults
During the yearly flu season, children spread the flu to friends and grandparents alike. But COVID-19 behaves differently. In household clusters in China, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Iran, fewer than 10% of children were the primary spreader – meaning the virus goes from adult to adult much more effectively than from children to other children, or even children to adults. The same has been found in new studies in The Netherlands.
We still don’t know why this is. It takes us all by surprise as kids with snotty noses are always blamed (and probably responsible) for driving the annual round of winter coughs and colds.
4. School children in Australia with COVID-19 haven’t spread it to others
Schools where cases have been diagnosed in Australia have not seen any evidence of secondary spread.
This means even with kids sitting right next to each other in the classroom, they are very unlikely to infect their friends.
5. There is no evidence closing schools will control transmission
Modelling shows only a small incremental public health benefit to closing schools in the case of usual respiratory viruses such as influenza. But COVID-19 is quite different to flu, so any of the benefits seen for influenza are likely to be even less in the case of COVID-19.
During the 2003 SARS outbreak, school transmission was not found to be a significant contributor to the outbreak and school closures did not influence the control of transmission.
Back to school doesn’t mean back to normal
Schools reopening does not mean a return to education as it was before. Other measures may also be put in place, like staggering lunch breaks, limiting face to face contact between staff and parents and regular hand-washing breaks.
Kids with a cold or other symptoms must stay home from school. And older teachers or those with underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk of complications if infected with SARS-CoV-2 will have altered responsibilities.
It is important parents and the public differentiate between schools reopening from all the other important strategies used to reduce transmission still in place. These include social distancing, travel restrictions, case isolation and quarantine, and banning of large gatherings.
But returning to schools is safe. Our leaders are advised on this issue by some of the best infectious diseases, public health and microbiology physicians in Australia, who have repeatedly said that schools can safely remain open.
Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. We will be publishing more stories in this series in the coming week.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.
In the early Sydney colony, newcomers commonly quizzed Indigenous locals about their memories of Captain Cook and the Endeavour.
They believed the arrival of a shipload of British men who stayed for a week was an incredibly memorable event; and assumed that details of it would have been preserved — even treasured — over time.
The accounts given are hardly ever a straightforward recounting of what Cook did. And they rarely tally with what is recorded in the voyage accounts.
Rather, they carry those common qualities of remembering: telescoping, conflating, rearranging time, stripping back detail, and upping symbolism and metaphor. Unpicking the threads of these memories is vital for historians wanting to find agreement on details and interpretations, and provenance of items that changed hands during early encounters.
Recollecting memories
Some oral accounts were written down – either at the time they were heard or later. Records reveal accounts extracted out of curiosity, to assist with commemorations, or simply to pass the time.
Efforts are underway to clarify the history and provenance of items like this bark shield, held by The British Museum.The British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA
One account comes from the early 1830s. Two priests stationed at St Mary’s Cathedral near Sydney’s Domain met an Aboriginal man from Botany Bay. They asked him “if he had any recollections of the landing of Captain Cook”? He was born too late to have witnessed it himself, but he shared a reasonably long story he had inherited from his father, the recollection of which one of the priests later published.
Similarly, in a recent prize-winning essay, historian Grace Karskens reconstructs a tantalising conversation between Aboriginal woman Nah Doongh and her settler friend Sarah Shand.
“Shand was intensely curious about Nah Doongh’s memory of her first contact with white people”, Karsken explains, but was frustratingly incapable of seeing she was implicated in the dispossession of Aboriginal people, including Nah Doongh.
Nah Doongh offered her a story about Cook, whom she presented as big and evil, violent and greedy, in a way that anticipates late 20th-century Aboriginal oral narratives.
Cook emerged as an erstwhile topic in cross-cultural conversations across colonial Sydney, but the substance of what was said and why was less dependent on the details of what Cook and his crew had done in 1770 than on the conditions, contexts and purposes of the chats.
As many have noted, discourses about Cook in Australia are neverending; but their contours and emphases change in relation to – and contribute to change in — broader Australian culture and politics.
Who is speaking?
Sometimes it is not the account given of Cook that is of primary interest, but the identity of the narrator.
Dharawal woman Biddy Giles lived around the Botany Bay area for much of the 19th century. An account she gave of Cook’s landing was written down after her death by a white settler.
He recalled she’d said: “They all run away; two fellows stand; Cook shot them in the legs; and they run away too!”.
Dharawal woman Biddy Giles (left) with Jim Brown, Joe Brown, Joey, and Jimmy Lowndes.State Library of NSW
This economical account is faithful to longer Endeavour voyage renditions. But researchers are more exercised by biographical information showing Giles was briefly married to a much older man, Cooman. Speculation swirls that Cooman’s grandfather, also called Cooman, was one of the two fellows shot.
When historian Heather Goodall in her book Rivers and Resilience returned to Giles’ life, she made it clear she thought historians who relied on documentary sources should not attempt such jumps.
Repatriation requests
Not all researchers have been so circumspect. In 2016, speculations about the identity of one of the two men shot contributed to formal requests to museums in Britain for the return of artefacts either known to have been collected at Botany Bay during the Endeavour voyage (four spears at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge) or believed to have been (a shield at the British Museum in London).
The repatriation claim repeated historian Keith Vincent Smith’s assertion one of the two men was Cooman.
When asked for advice on this repatriation request, I (Nugent) concluded there was no consensus about that assertion, noting it was unfortunate that:
historical claims which derive from inconclusive evidence, are based on questionable interpretative leaps, and are not presented in ways that recognise and respect the complexities of writing “early contact” history from fragmentary sources […] were being relied upon.
Other arguments would serve applications for return far better.
The request was unsuccessful, but the process was productive and generally positive. More work has taken place since, both further historical research and object analysis, and importantly, renewed and enriched relationship-building.
Building a material history
Retracing the speculative leaps made between the historical encounters, collected objects, and related written, oral and visual sources reinforces the urgent need for well-resourced, critically reflexive, and multimodal methods of interpretation. This is particularly true when the return of an object and the knowledge it embodies is strongly desired.
This year we will commence a new ARC-funded project, Mobilising Objects to draw together objects in international collections, images, written records, oral accounts, and contemporary expertise to generate a material history of early colonial Sydney.
The project aims to build knowledge about exceptional, but poorly-documented, Aboriginal objects from Sydney and the NSW coast (circa 1770-1920s) in British and European museums. We hope to build strong relations between Aboriginal communities and overseas museums and lay robust foundations for future projects seeking the return of Indigenous cultural heritage.
Gathering together records of oral accounts given by Aboriginal people about Cook and other seaborne interlopers, and grappling with the interpretive challenges they present, will be a vital aspect of this work.
Against a backdrop of many governments using tough controls under cover of fighting the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic to strengthen “creeping authoritarianism”, a global media freedom watchdog has signalled draconian virus reactions as a major threat.
The pandemic is “highlighting and amplifying the many crises”, already casting a shadow on press freedom, says the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders watchdog, which released its annual World Media Freedom Index this week.
While China and Iran have been singled out for strong criticism for suppressing details of the coronavirus outbreak early in the crisis, several countries traditionally strong on media freedom in the Asia-Pacific region have slipped down in the rankings – including Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
In the case of New Zealand, which has usually been in the top 10 of media freedom nations, it has dropped two places to ninth, mostly because of shrinking media plurality.
Only Timor-Leste made gains in regional media freedom, with Fiji and Samoa barely holding the line.
According to RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire, the pandemic has encouraged some regimes to “take advantage of the fact people are stunned and mobilisation has weakened to impose measures that would be impossible to adopt in normal times”.
RSF accused China and Iran – in 177th, three places from the bottom of the 180-nation list, and 173nd place respectively – of censoring major coronavirus outbreaks.
Few rankings changed dramatically from last year, with Scandinavian countries again doing really well. Norway was top for the fourth year in a row with Finland again in second place.
Rounding off the bottom nations, unsurprisingly, were Turkmenistan and North Korea.
RSF says China “maintains its system of information hyper-control, whose negative effects for the entire world have been seen during the coronavirus public health crisis”.
However, Europe has also not been immune with countries such as France (34th) – suffering violence against journalists in state crackdowns – and the United Kingdom (35th) also slipping.
Hungary (89th) has been criticised too over Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s widely condemned law on false information which was a “completely disproportionate and coercive measure”.
According to RSF, there is a “clear correlation” between suppression of media freedom in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a country’s ranking in the index.
The watchdog’s Asia-Pacific director, Daniel Bastard, says this year’s Index shows that press freedom is potentially in danger in any country. He adds that the region has shown the highest increase of violations (up 1.7 percent).
“The proof is Australia (26th), formerly cited as a regional model, which has fallen five places – above all because of federal police raids on a journalist’s home and the state TV broadcaster’s headquarters last year,” says Bastard.
“The precedent set by the raids poses a serious threat to investigative reporting and the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.
Constitution lacking guarantees
“It also drew Australians’ attention to the fact that their constitution is completely lacking in guarantees for the right to inform and to be informed.”
Bastard says the report shows that “business imperatives also threaten media independence” through encouraging an “extreme polarisation and search for sensationalism” – as with Tonga (down 5 at 50th), Papua New Guinea (down 8 at 46th), one place below the United States, and Taiwan (down 1 at 43rd).
“Even the regional model, New Zealand (9th), has fallen two places because media ownership continues to be highly concentrated,” says Bastard.
“It shows that regardless of where in the world you want to exercise the right to press freedom, you have to keep fighting for it.”
In the Philippines (136th), after a decade-long wait, leading members of the Ampatuan political clan were finally convicted in December 2019 of carrying out the biggest ever massacre of journalists, in which 32 journalists, many of them women, were killed on the island of Mindanao in 2009 and dumped in a mass burial site.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s government employs an army of trolls to attack media critics and has mounted a relentless campaign against some media companies.
A quick snapshot of selected Asia-Pacific nations in the Index report: Australia 26th (down 5 places) “In 2019, Australian journalists became more aware than ever of the fragility of press freedom in their country, whose constitutional law contains no press freedom guarantees and recognizes no more than an ‘implied freedom of political communication’. Federal police raids in June 2019 on the home of a Canberra-based political reporter and the headquarters of the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney were flagrant violations of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and public interest journalism. ‘National security’, the grounds given for these raids, is used to intimidate investigative reporters. They also have to cope with a 2018 defamation law that is one of the harshest of its kind in a liberal democracy.”
Fiji 52nd (no change)
“Under Voreqe ‘Frank’ Bainimarama, who has proved impossible to remove as prime minister ever since a military coup in 2006, journalists who are overly critical of the government are often subjected to intimidation or even imprisonment. The media have to operate under the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Decree, which was turned into a law in 2018, and under the regulator it created, the Media Industry Development Authority, over which the government has direct oversight. Those who violate this law’s vaguely worded provisions face up to two years in prison. The sedition laws … are also used to foster a climate of fear and self-censorship. Sedition charges put the lives of three journalists with The Fiji Times, the leading daily, on hold until they were finally acquitted in 2018. Many observers believe it was the price the newspaper paid for its independence.”
New Zealand 9th (down 2)
“The press is free in New Zealand but its independence and pluralism are often undermined by the profit imperative of media groups trying to cut costs to the detriment of good journalism. Concern was voiced about the editorial integrity at New Zealand’s leading news portal Stuff after its owner, Fairfax Media, was taken over by the Australian entertainment giant Nine Television Network in July 2018. Stuff was forced to close a third of the sites it hosted and major budget cuts were imposed on all the local media outlets it owns. The situation could have been even worse if the Commerce Commission had not blocked another proposed merger between Stuff and New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), which owns the country’s leading daily, The New Zealand Herald.”
Papua New Guinea 46th (down 8) “Although the media enjoy a relatively benign legislative environment, their independence is clearly endangered. The last months of the government led by Peter O’Neill, a prime minister with dictatorial tendencies, were marked by many press freedom violations, including intimidation, direct threats, censorship, prosecutions and attempts to bribe journalists. The installation of an O’Neill rival, James Marape, as prime minister in May 2019 was seen as an encouraging development for the prospects of greater media independence vis-à-vis the executive.
“Journalists nonetheless continue to be dependent on the concerns of those who own their media. This is particularly the case at the two main dailies, The Post-Courier, owned by Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and The National, owned by the Malaysian logging multinational Rimbunan Hijau, which does not want its journalists to take too much interest in environmental issues.”
Samoa22nd (down 1) “Despite the liveliness of media groups such as Talamua Media and the Samoa Observer group, this Pacific archipelago is in the process of losing its status as a regional press freedom model. A law criminalising defamation was repealed in 2013, raising hopes that were dashed in December 2017, when Parliament restored the law under pressure from Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi so that that he could attack journalists who dared to criticise members of his government. … In response to … repeated threats, the Samoa Alliance of Media Practitioners for Development (SAMPOD) urged the media to reaffirm the right of Samoans to pluralist, free and independent journalism as an essential condition for democracy.”
Timor-Leste 78th (up 6)
“No journalist has ever been jailed in connection with their work in East Timor since this country of just 1.2 million inhabitants won independence in 2002. Articles 40 and 41 of its constitution guarantee free speech and media freedom. But various forms of pressure are used to prevent journalists from working freely, including legal proceedings designed to intimidate, police violence and public denigration of media outlets by government officials or parliamentarians. The creation of a Press Council in 2015 was a step in the right direction, despite the reservations expressed by the media about the way its members are elected.
“However, the media law adopted in 2014, in defiance of the international community’s warnings, poses a permanent threat to journalists and encourages self-censorship. Relatively unrestricted coverage of government instability in 2019-20 nonetheless served to show the importance of the role that media pluralism can play in East Timor’s democracy.”
Tonga 50th (down 5) “Independent media outlets have increasingly assumed a watchdog role since the first democratic elections in 2010. However, politicians have not hesitated to sue media outlets, exposing them to the risk of heavy damages awards…. The re-election of [the late] Prime Minister Samuela ‘Akilisi Pōhiva’s party in November 2017 was accompanied by growing tension between the government and journalists. This was particularly so at the state radio and TV broadcaster, the Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC), where two senior editors were sidelined under pressure from the government. Pohiva Tu’i’onetoa, who became prime minister in October 2019, must put a stop to the pressure and meddling and ensure that journalists enjoy full editorial independence.”
Not all Pacific nations are surveyed by the Index. At least Vanuatu should be there and West Papua is “hidden” within the Indonesian (119th) statistics.
A final word on the status of Timor-Leste. The country has a dynamic young media industry with a group of dedicated and creative journalists and industry leaders. In many respects they are showing the way to their more established Pacific neighbours and this ought to be reflected with a higher ranking.
Perhaps next year if the media freedom improvements keep coming?
Ever since Australia’s two airline policy of regulated competition was abandoned in 1990 ushering in an era of deregulation, Australian governments have prioritised airline competition over stability and reliability of services.
Just how much airlines were operating on a wing and a prayer after the end of the policy was powerfully illustrated by the failure of Ansett in 2001.
Ansett had been Australia’s second major airline.
Its owner, Air New Zealand had been sucking out cash to cover its own losses.
Ansett dramatically collapsed in the face of the September 11 attacks and price-based competition from new entrant Virgin Blue.
Virgin Blue was founded in 2000 by the flamboyant British entrepreneur Richard Branson, floated on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2003 and rebranded Virgin Australia in 2011 after the original owners lost control.
It was put into voluntary administration on Tuesday after a decade of near-continuous losses, owing 10,000 creditors A$6.8 billion.
Chief Executive Paul Scurrah praised the board’s decision to quickly enter administration.
Our board made a very courageous decision last night to put the company into voluntary administration and do so quickly, with the intent of working with our administrator, Deloitte, to come through and be as strong as we possibly can on the other side of this crisis.
But his “courageous” board had long been chancing fate.
The company had always been dominated by a small number of overseas shareholders (often airlines) with little interest in building a well-capitalised profitable airline with cash buffers.
The initial share offer raised $371.7 million, of which the board promptly handed back to the airline’s previous owners $90.4 million.
Many of the board’s decisions seem to have been designed to benefit its dominant shareholders while minimising onshore profits and corporate tax.
Strategies to achieve this include the extensive use of outsourcing and leasing, which is tax effective and allows companies to operate without much capital outlay. But its success depends on positive, stable and predictable cash flows.
Virgin Australia’s major shareholders, Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airlines, and the two Chinese conglomerates Nanshan Group and HNA Group have historically had enormous access to capital.
Branson himself (now just a 10% shareholder through Virgin Group) is not short of money.
He is highly attuned to the politics of jobs and growth. The loss of air services and competition within aviation markets creates intense political pressure for governments to act.
So rather than contributing more capital, Virgin Australia’s major shareholders have used the the COVID-19 crisis to look for bail outs.
State governments in the past offered, and now are again offering hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for Virgin to base its operations in their state.
Predictably Branson has joined the campaign chorus, acting more like a cheerleader than a shareholder.
He has offered to borrow against his private island located in the notorious tax haven the British Virgin Islands, although he hasn’t said how much of the money raised would go to Virgin Australia.
The inescapable reality is that if Branson and the board really cared for Virgin Australia’s employees, it would have long ago put pressure on the major shareholders to properly capitalise the business.
This week the international agencies Moody’s and Fitch, downgraded Virgin Australia’s credit ratings to “junk” and “D” – ratings that are usually regarded as warnings not to invest.
The administrators have said they have already received expressions of interest from 10 potential buyers.
Regular airline failures not only push costs onto employees and creditors, they undermine important Australian industries such as tourism and leave regional communities isolated.
The government and regulators should ensure that any successor that takes to the skies is fit for purpose and won’t crash in 10 or 20 years time as a result of the poor governance and risky financial engineering.
The line between “political point-scoring” and “speaking truth to power” can be a fine one. No one likes to see people opportunistically using a time of great tragedy and danger for their own political advantage.
That doesn’t mean we should become intolerant to questions about the actions of those in power, regardless of whether this is about the Police, Jacinda Ardern, the Ministry of Health, or any other authority. Scrutiny of those wielding incredible power and making huge decisions is vital.
A mood against questioning and challenge
There is a climate at the moment in which the public seem averse to negativity or criticisms of the way New Zealand has dealt with the Coronavirus crisis. Recent opinion polls show there is extraordinary faith in our government, alongside increased support for the police and other institutions of power. There have also been recorded rises in patriotism and nationalism.
Yesterday Colmar Brunton put out a new poll reporting that 62% “feel a greater sense of national pride than they did before the crisis”, and this was up from 47% at the start of the month – see Toby Manhire’sPublic backing for NZ Covid-19 response rises to 87% – new poll.
Similarly, the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study reported this week that the most significant finding of its latest survey was an increase in patriotism, as well as “higher levels of institutional trust in science, government, police and health authorities” – see Ripu Bhatia’sKiwi patriotism, trust in institutions rise amid pandemic, major study finds. It reported University of Auckland psychology professor Chris Sibley saying that “when facing an external threat, humans tend to tighten bonds – including bonding on a national level – to repel the threat the virus poses.”
It’s in this context that the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges, has twice been widely condemned for his questioning of the Government over their management of the pandemic. Back in March, when Finance Minister Grant Robertson unveiled his $12bn rescue package, Bridges gave a critical speech in Parliament. And this week he posted on Facebook his criticisms of the Government, such as their lack of work on contact tracing, which he argued had led to the Level 4 lockdown being extended unnecessarily. In contrast, he praised Australia as the model to emulate.
The latest Facebook post has been widely criticised, including by the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, who has told Bridges off for “politicising” the lockdown extension this week. And it has sparked a further round of rumours of a leadership coup in National.
Bridges out of sync with the public mood
Many commentators have pointed out how Bridges has been out of sync with the public mood. Most point out that Bridges’ criticisms had merit, but his tone was not sufficiently in sync with this mood of patriotism, fear of the virus, and positivity about New Zealand’s success in combating it.
RNZ political editor Jane Patterson discussed how “patriotism trumps politics” and Bridges is a victim of this: “Unfortunately for him, the current climate means many New Zealanders don’t want to hear direct criticism of the government as it offends that sense of patriotism” – see: A war footing from Ardern and misstep from Bridges.
She speaks about the “almost reverence” for the PM at the moment, and how although Bridges’ criticisms have been “valid”, “he misjudged the tone” with “his natural instinct to go on the attack”.
The NBR’s political editor is even more sympathetic to Bridges’ plight, saying the National leader “has raised legitimate questions about testing and contact tracing”, and “New Zealand is entering dangerous times, as people become increasingly intolerant of voices not in tune with the government” – see: Bridges over troubled water (paywalled).
According to Edwards, Bridges is doing what is required of him: “That is the opposition’s role: to criticise and challenge the government. That is not petty politics and is probably even more important in times of crisis.” And he’s wary of this message that we should all unite politically: “The government has run an effective public relations campaign on the pandemic based around the call to arms to ‘unite against Covid-19′. Uniting against Covid-19 should not mean, however, having to agree with everything the government does.”
Edwards also points out that, as well as Bridges basing his criticisms of decisions on the submissions of a number of “leading epidemiologists and other health professionals”, the unions for teachers and nurses were also critical of similar issues. And he says the media are under pressure not to be too critical: “Journalists are also routinely attacked for their questioning of the prime minister.”
Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper also felt the reaction against Bridges’ criticisms were over the top: “Fact is, Bridges said what many of us have been saying; the Government was ill-prepared by not moving the country out of level 4 this week, which is surely stating nothing more than the bleeding obvious” – see: It’s absurd to suggest Simon Bridges’ lockdown criticism is politicking.
Soper says such questioning is still important: “It seems to be forgotten that he’s the Leader of the Opposition and as such is not only entitled but is expected to oppose what the Government is doing. To suggest that now is not the time for politicking when the fearful nation has been cowed and forced into submission is absurd. We still live in a democracy even though at times it might not seem like it. Even though Jacinda Ardern may have done a good job preaching from the pulpit every day, she’s not infallible.”
Stuff newspaper editorials also backed Bridges on the issues that he raised, and said the backlash was unfair: “Ardern rightly gets the benefit of our goodwill, co-operation and tolerance for mistakes. But anybody who responsibly suggests she and her team have got it wrong deserves a better hearing than to be shouted down on Facebook or national radio” – see: Bridges had a point on unpreparedness.
The editorial also acknowledges the difficult climate that now exists for challenges to authority: “Any criticism or bellyaching about a leader doing her best in dealing with a catastrophe is going to sound petty and ungrateful. When the leader is as exceptional as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the criticism sounds even worse. Carping opposition politicians find themselves in an impossible position – compounded by the fact their motives are always under question.”
It’s a question of timing and tone, according to the Herald’s Claire Trevett, and she says Bridges got it wrong last month and this week: “Bridges’ strident response was at odds with public sentiment and he suffered as a result. It is rather surprising he does not seem to have learned his lesson. In both cases, Bridges raised points that were legitimate. He just raised them at the wrong time, and in the wrong way. People felt raw and uncertain, and needed reassurance. There was a hyper-sensitivity to anything that looked like political game playing” – see: Covid 19 was bad for Simon Bridges, he just made it worse (paywalled).
She points out that even National supporters are favourable at the moment to the PM: “People have a sense of fairness, and many believe Ardern is doing a pretty good job at a tough time. There is a feeling that this should be recognised, rather than being lambasted.”
Trevett suggests that, in future, criticisms will be more favourably received: “The time for Bridges to make his points will come. Seven weeks of a state of lockdown will take its toll.”
Similarly, writing on the Spinoff, rightwing commentator Ben Thomas argues that as we get closer to the election, and as we shift from a focus on the health crisis to the economic crisis, the public will be more primed for Bridges’ messages, but for the moment his criticisms are “serious tonal missteps” – see: One giant misstep: Simon Bridges’ flailing attack was too far, too soon. He says that such criticisms can be “received as some kind of sedition or even treason.”
Thomas outlines how out of sync Bridges was: “Self-congratulation is part of the New Zealand psyche and has been a salve for flagging spirits in lockdown, and Bridges suggesting Australia is doing better strikes a bum note.” What’s more, the messages were out of line with a country dealing with a crisis: “This may be a function of the public gearing up for a ‘war’ against an invisible enemy. If we’re all in this together, the public needs someone to fight, whether it’s the 10,000 suspected rule breakers dobbed in by their neighbours in two days, or the politician they never really liked anyway.”
Bridges simply hasn’t caught up with the fact that the landscape has changed, requiring less oppositional type politics according to Anna Rawhiti-Connell – see: Read the room, Simon. She says that, although Bridges had some fair points to make, “the threat of Covid-19 has made the nation extremely sensitive and tolerance thresholds for negativity, much lower. Matching time, place and messaging has become crucial.” She argues “Kiwis are traumatised and needing reassurance right now, so Simon Bridges needs to wait with his criticisms until the nation is ready”.
Armstrong was writing a month ago, when Bridges was first in trouble for criticising the Government’s response to the crisis. He argued it was wrong for people to accuse Bridges of “exploiting people’s misery for political gain” and the PM needs to be reminded that “it his right to ask the hard questions that need to be asked about the adequacy of New Zealand’s response to the crisis”. He says “calls for national unity ring hollow, however, when used to deflect criticism of some pretty obvious failings and flaws in the country’s strategy for confronting and countering the pandemic.”
The need for media questioning and challenge
Also writing early in the crisis, Andrea Vance warned that “now more than ever, decisions of this magnitude must be questioned and picked over and challenged”, and there was a danger that such questioning would be suppressed – see: Our panic makes us more inclined to conform: here’s why we need to push back.
Vance’s main point is worth quoting in full: “We treat outsiders and non-conformers harshly. That’s helpful if you are a government and a police force trying to get a society to adhere to the rules, even if it is to protect life and health. But that fear also makes us less questioning. We place more value on obedience and more trust in our political leaders. That’s what makes critical, free-thinkers so important at a time like this. It’s not the job of journalists or commentators to support or applaud politicians, or to be stenographers for official messages.”
There has now been more concentration on the role of the media in questioning the Government about the crisis. Stuff’s Thomas Coughlan has written on this, arguing “it’s time to start questioning whether our response really was as robust and effective as our low number of cases and fatalities would suggest. The angry and aggressive commentary directed at the media and the Opposition for raising questions about the response suggests New Zealand isn’t quite ready for such probing questions” – see: We need to learn to be critical of Ashley Bloomfield.
Just because an authority figure is a good communicator doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be strongly scrutinised. And this is also the message from Claire Trevett, writing a month ago: “Whenever somebody argues that there should be “unity” and no criticism from the media or the Opposition, it brings to mind the days after the Pike River Mine disaster. Then there was a similar approach to the mine management during the press conferences: that it was not the time for criticism or hard questions, but for support. Peter Whittall was the good guy. The ones asking hard questions in those press conferences were the Australian journalists. It transpired those journalists were right all along. Now a similar sentiment seems to exist over Covid-19″ – see: A rare defence of Simon Bridges’ Covid-19 criticisms (paywalled).
Trevett points out that it can also be difficult for Opposition politicians in these crises; was the same for Labour when National was in power: “As a general rule, voters do not like negative Neddies. It did not work out well for Labour when they took swipes at National over its decisions after the Christchurch earthquakes or the Global Financial Crisis. But they were right to challenge issues affecting New Zealand.”
Writing this week, RNZ’s Hayden Donnell also pick up on the Pike River Mine example: “It’s instructive to look at the case of Peter Whittall to see the dangers of sycophantic coverage. The former Pike River mine chief executive won plaudits for his clear, articulate communication in the aftermath of the disaster which killed 29 of his employees in November, 2010. Herald readers called for him to be named New Zealander of the Year, despite him being Australian. He sat next to prime minister John Key at the national memorial service for the Pike River victims. It later emerged that Whittall had overseen a negligently run, dangerous work environment in the leadup to the mine explosion” – see: Increasing media resistance to the deification of Ashley Bloomfield.
Journalists will continue to be criticised for the pressure and difficult questions they are asking of the Government. And today Herald political journalist Jason Walls provides his defence of “New Zealand’s most loathed essential workers: the Press Gallery journalists”, pushing back against the “tirade of complaints on social media about ‘idiotic questions’ and shouting matches between reporters” in the PM’s press conferences – see: Inside NZ’s favourite reality TV show – the 1pm press conference.
Finally, for a more general discussion of the accusation that opponents are taking advantage of a crisis for their own ends, see Monique Poirier’s Politicising a crisis, with the argument being that everyone tends to tribally blame those in opposing camps for the petty point-scoring.
The Australian National University (ANU) is facing a backlash from students over the proposed use of a digital platform to invigilate exams remotely. The university recently announced plans to use the Proctorio platform to ensure the legitimacy of exams conducted away from campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students aren’t happy. A Facebook page and a Change.org petition with more than 3,700 signatures have gained significant media attention.
But the use of technology to solve COVID-19 related challenges has been widespread. So what’s different now?
What is Proctorio?
In essence, Proctorio is the digital equivalent of the invigilators walking up and down the aisles during student examinations. The software is already used by various institutions around the world, including Harvard University and other US universities. The University of Queensland has also announced plans to use a similar platform, ProctorU.
To use the Proctorio software, the student taking the exam has to install it on their computer and allow the program to access their camera and microphone.
A range of permissions are required by the Proctorio browser extension.Author provided
The software is a browser extension for Google Chrome. Along with camera access, Proctorio requires permission to:
access web page content to allow the extension to function correctly
capture the screen to facilitate screen recording
manage other extensions to monitor other tools being used in the browser
display notifications
modify clipboard data to prevent copy-and-paste capability
identify storage devices to allows the extension to “see” system resources and
change privacy settings to allow an external technical support function.
While the provider gives reassurance in each category (and there’s no evidence any of it’s untrue), it’s understandable some students are daunted by the extent of permissions requested.
The second part of the system is in the cloud. Data collected on a user’s computer is transmitted to the company’s servers to be analysed. This could include video and audio recordings, as well as images captured of a user’s screen.
In a statement to The Conversation, an ANU spokesperson said:
Data will be stored in a secure location in Australia. Only ANU staff who are trained in privacy and the use of Proctorio will have access to this data. These staff members are also responsible to the University’s privacy policy. Data will be deleted once exams are over and course results are finalised.
Facial detection (but not recognition)
Proctorio claims to use machine learning and facial detection to identify the likelihood a student is cheating. It’s important to distinguish facial detection from the more controversial technology of facial recognition.
By observing a student throughout the exam, Proctorio’s system may be able to detect if the student:
is looking at a second screen or reading from another source
is copying content
is being prompted by another person
has been replaced with someone else.
Concerns have been raised that the system will monitor keystrokes (typing), potentially compromising students’ personal information.
But an ANU spokeperson told The Conversation that “Proctorio does not monitor what keys are typed – just that keys have been typed”.
What are the issues being flagged?
Students may nevertheless feel Proctorio is “spying” on them. Any tool that overtly monitors a user’s behaviour, particularly when downloaded on a personal laptop, merits thorough examination.
all data is encrypted in transit and storage, and is only available to designated ANU staff. Proctorio has no access to the student data
students may have to show their room to the camera (presumably to verify they are alone)
the system doesn’t record keystrokes or mouse movements
camera, microphone and browser are used to monitor the user. However, the document does make reference to a rather nondescript “other means” of monitoring.
In a YouTube video statement, ANU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Grady Venville reassured students the university’s IT security team had undertaken a thorough assessment of the software, and were “very satisfied” it met ANU’s “rigorous cybersecurity standards”.
ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) on the use of Proctorio.
This is perhaps not entirely reassuring, given the university’s own cyber advisory recognised its “recent security challenges”.
ANU, like any university, is entitled to implement assessment strategies it deems appropriate. Given the current situation, finding alternatives to traditional examinations is essential to adhere to social-distancing measures.
The university is somewhat vague with regards to the specific use of Proctorio. In its FAQ it states:
Course conveners will determine if your course requires the use of Proctorio for the assessment for your course.
ANU has confirmed to The Conversation that students have the option to defer the exam instead of using the software. Those without a suitable device can also use a university computer on campus, or enquire about alternative assessments with their convener. An ANU spokesperson also said course conveners “can use a range of other assessment methods” if appropriate.
Some students have asked to be notified before May 8 (the deadline to withdraw from units) if they will be forced to use Proctorio.
What’s next?
The legal situation is currently unclear. While ANU may be allowed to force the use of Proctorio for exams conducted on university-owned devices, mandating its use on privately owned devices is less certain.
If students do use Proctorio on their personal devices, they may want reassurance their device will be safe from surveillance when not being used for exams.
Also, while ANU offers the option to defer exams, students may feel pressure to unwillingly use the system simply to avoid a delayed graduation.
The coronavirus pandemic is keeping us at home due to widespread unemployment, school closures and social distancing. This has already led to concerns about an upsurge in domestic and family violence.
But women with a disability, particularly those with an intellectual disability, are at even greater risk of gender-based violence, affecting not only them but their families.
Intellectual disability affects a person’s cognitive functioning in many varied ways. For some people, the effect on their ability to learn may not be severe enough to meet a threshold for clinical diagnosis but the impact on everyday life can be profound.
Some people with intellectual disability do not identify with the label of intellectual disability or wish to be defined by it. If they become parents, trying to “fly below the radar” can mean they avoid seeking help.
Researchers say about 0.4% of Australian parents have an intellectual disability.
This equates to at least 17,000 parents who already face more challenges than other parents. The COVID-19 pandemic could make things worse – particularly for mothers who are often socially isolated and at risk of violence from a partner.
Victims of abuse
The control and coercion partners use on these mothers may not conform to typical patterns of domestic abuse. It may involve withholding medication or using their fear of judgment about their disability to control them, so the violence can go undetected.
Caroline (not her real name) was in special classes at school but did not receive any disability services. She was single and living alone in her mid-20s when she became pregnant. After she was hospitalised with post-natal depression, the child’s father got full custody.
Caroline was devastated and alone and the man preyed upon her vulnerability, forcing Caroline to trade visits with her child for sex. He warned her to keep her mouth shut or she would not see her child.
When Caroline became pregnant again, she was terrified she would lose this child, too. She confided in a friend and, with the help of her church community, she was able to bring her baby home. The sexual abuse, however, continued.
Caught in the courts
Parents with intellectual disability come to the attention of social services at high rates and usually due to factors related to poverty, disadvantage and social isolation.
For example, they make up almost 10% of all care matters in the New South Wales Children’s Court. Internationally, up to 60% of children are removed from a parent with intellectual disability. Parental neglect is the most common reason for child removal, which is the case for many families living in poverty.
What brings these parents to the notice of child protection officials is rarely the intellectual disability alone. It’s usually other compounding factors such a domestic violence, social isolation, limited resources, or adverse childhood experiences.
Once in the system, the parent’s disability tends to become the focus and concern. There is reliance on assessments that equate IQ with parenting capacity, despite the best evidence to the contrary. These parents can be seen as a risk to their child’s development but studies show they actually experience normal feelings of love and connection toward their parents.
Our research shows parents with intellectual disability feel they are made to jump through invisible hoops, with child protection workers failing to make their expectations clear.
One parent told us:
When they come to our home, we feel like we’re doing things that are wrong. We were so confused.
Pandemic reduces parent support
While the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all Australian families, some services for vulnerable families have restricted their operations to minimise the spread of the virus. For example, some are offering video chats instead of home visits during the crisis.
The effects of self-isolation and physical distancing will compound existing problems for mothers with intellectual disability and their children who are at risk of failing to get the help they need.
These families are losing access to crucial educational and family supports at this critical time. They are also likely to be affected by changes to the provision of disability services during the COVID-19 crisis.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) now recognises parenting as a support need. But there are complex eligibility requirements that assess individual functioning and may miss or minimise the impact of, say, housing instability and lack of social support on parenting capacity.
The pandemic is creating challenges and placing constraints on the provision of community-based and in-home disability services. NDIS participants are being asked to evaluate what services they “can’t live without”.
As services pivot to target high-risk groups like those needing help with self-care, and primarily become focused on health-related needs, supports for mothers with intellectual disability are at risk of being reduced.
We need to protect those families where the primary caregiver is a mother with an intellectual disability. If we fail to do this we are likely to see a spike in the incidence of child removal – something that takes generations to heal.
The Australian National University (ANU) is facing a backlash from students over the proposed use of a digital platform to invigilate exams remotely. The university recently announced plans to use the Proctorio platform to ensure the legitimacy of exams conducted away from campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students aren’t happy. A Facebook page and a Change.org petition with more than 3,700 signatures have gained significant media attention.
But the use of technology to solve COVID-19 related challenges has been widespread. So what’s different now?
What is Proctorio?
In essence, Proctorio is the digital equivalent of the invigilators walking up and down the aisles during student examinations. The software is already used by various institutions around the world, including Harvard University and other US universities. The University of Queensland has also announced plans to use a similar platform, ProctorU.
To use the Proctorio software, the student taking the exam has to install it on their computer and allow the program to access their camera and microphone.
A range of permissions are required by the Proctorio browser extension.Author provided
The software is a browser extension for Google Chrome. Along with camera access, Proctorio requires permission to:
access web page content to allow the extension to function correctly
capture the screen to facilitate screen recording
manage other extensions to monitor other tools being used in the browser
display notifications
modify clipboard data to prevent copy-and-paste capability
identify storage devices to allows the extension to “see” system resources and
change privacy settings to allow an external technical support function.
While the provider gives reassurance in each category (and there’s no evidence any of it’s untrue), it’s understandable some students are daunted by the extent of permissions requested.
The second part of the system is in the cloud. Data collected on a user’s computer is transmitted to the company’s servers to be analysed. This could include video and audio recordings, as well as images captured of a user’s screen.
In a statement to The Conversation, an ANU spokesperson said:
Data will be stored in a secure location in Australia. Only ANU staff who are trained in privacy and the use of Proctorio will have access to this data. These staff members are also responsible to the University’s privacy policy. Data will be deleted once exams are over and course results are finalised.
Facial detection (but not recognition)
Proctorio claims to use machine learning and facial detection to identify the likelihood a student is cheating. It’s important to distinguish facial detection from the more controversial technology of facial recognition.
By observing a student throughout the exam, Proctorio’s system may be able to detect if the student:
is looking at a second screen or reading from another source
is copying content
is being prompted by another person
has been replaced with someone else.
Concerns have been raised that the system will monitor keystrokes (typing), potentially compromising students’ personal information.
But an ANU spokeperson told The Conversation that “Proctorio does not monitor what keys are typed – just that keys have been typed”.
What are the issues being flagged?
Students may nevertheless feel Proctorio is “spying” on them. Any tool that overtly monitors a user’s behaviour, particularly when downloaded on a personal laptop, merits thorough examination.
all data is encrypted in transit and storage, and is only available to designated ANU staff. Proctorio has no access to the student data
students may have to show their room to the camera (presumably to verify they are alone)
the system doesn’t record keystrokes or mouse movements
camera, microphone and browser are used to monitor the user. However, the document does make reference to a rather nondescript “other means” of monitoring.
In a YouTube video statement, ANU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Grady Venville reassured students the university’s IT security team had undertaken a thorough assessment of the software, and were “very satisfied” it met ANU’s “rigorous cybersecurity standards”.
ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) on the use of Proctorio.
This is perhaps not entirely reassuring, given the university’s own cyber advisory recognised its “recent security challenges”.
ANU, like any university, is entitled to implement assessment strategies it deems appropriate. Given the current situation, finding alternatives to traditional examinations is essential to adhere to social-distancing measures.
The university is somewhat vague with regards to the specific use of Proctorio. In its FAQ it states:
Course conveners will determine if your course requires the use of Proctorio for the assessment for your course.
ANU has confirmed to The Conversation that students have the option to defer the exam instead of using the software. Those without a suitable device can also use a university computer on campus, or enquire about alternative assessments with their convener. An ANU spokesperson also said course conveners “can use a range of other assessment methods” if appropriate.
Some students have asked to be notified before May 8 (the deadline to withdraw from units) if they will be forced to use Proctorio.
What’s next?
The legal situation is currently unclear. While ANU may be allowed to force the use of Proctorio for exams conducted on university-owned devices, mandating its use on privately owned devices is less certain.
If students do use Proctorio on their personal devices, they may want reassurance their device will be safe from surveillance when not being used for exams.
Also, while ANU offers the option to defer exams, students may feel pressure to unwillingly use the system simply to avoid a delayed graduation.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Stanley, Perinatal and pediatric epidemiologist; distinguished professorial fellow, Telethon Kids Institute
There seems to be a myth in Australia that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mostly live in remote communities. But the vast majority (79%) live in urban areas.
The federal government has rightly decided the best policy to protect Indigenous people from COVID-19 is to socially isolate remote communities.
Now the government needs to turn its attention to the risks Indigenous people face in urban and rural areas.
So far SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has infected more than 6,600 Australians and killed 75 people. The elderly and those with underlying conditions are most at risk of severe illness and dying from the virus.
Chronic diseases such as respiratory diseases (including asthma), heart and circulatory diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney diseases and some cancers are more common in Indigenous people, and tend to occur at younger ages, than in non-Indigenous people.
These diseases, and the living conditions that contribute to them (such as poor nutrition, poor hygiene and lifestyle factors such as smoking), dramatically increase Indigenous people’s risk of being infected with coronavirus and for having more severe symptoms.
So Elders and those with chronic disease are vulnerable at any age.
We know from past pandemics, such as swine flu (H1N1), Indigenous Australians are more likely to become infected with respiratory viruses, and have more serious disease when they do.
So far, there have been 44 cases of coronavirus among Indigenous people, mostly in our major cities. We’re likely to see more in coming months.
This suggests the decision to close remote communities has been successful so far. But we also need to now focus on urban centres to prevent and manage further cases.
Current Australian government advice is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 50 years and over with existing health conditions to self-isolate. General government health advice tells all Australians to maintain good hygiene and seek health care when needed.
But this advice is easier said than done for many urban Indigenous people.
So what unique family and cultural needs and circumstances so we need to consider to reduce their risk of coronavirus?
Large households
Many urban Indigenous households have large groups of people living together. So overcrowding and inadequate accommodation poses a risk to their health and well-being.
This is particularly the case when it comes to infectious diseases, which thrive when too many people live together with poor hygiene (when it’s difficult for personal cleanliness, to keep clean spaces, wash clothes and cook healthy meals) and when people sleep in close contact.
Crowded accommodation also means increased exposure to passive smoking and other shared risky lifestyles.
Households are also more likely to be intergenerational, with many children and young people living with older parents and grandparents. This potentially increases the chances of the coronavirus spreading among and between households, infecting vulnerable older members.
Immediate solutions to prevent infection are, with guidance from Aboriginal organisations, to house people in these situations in safe emergency accommodation. But it is also an opportunity to work with Aboriginal organisations in the longer term to improve access to better housing to improve general health and well-being.
Most Indigenous people live in our cities, not in remote Australia.Shutterstock
Poor health literacy
Indigenous Australians don’t always have access to good information about the coronavirus in formats that are easily understood and culturally appropriate.
The challenge is to get these distributed in urban centres urgently. These health messages should also be distributed in Aboriginal Medical Services waiting rooms and on Indigenous television and radio.
Poverty will limit some families’ ability to buy hand sanitiser, face masks, disinfectant and soap.
Although there are provisions for Indigenous Australians to receive free vaccines against the flu and pneumococcal disease to protect against lung disease, not all age groups are covered.
Scepticism of mainstream health services
Due to policies and racism that have marginalised Indigenous people, many do not use health and other services.
This is why Aboriginal Controlled Health Services are so important and successful in providing culturally sensitive and appropriate care.
However, there is concern these health services are not adequately funded or prepared to manage a coronavirus pandemic in urban centres.
They need more personal protective equipment (including masks). They also need more Aboriginal health workers, community nurses and others for testing and contact tracing.
Not everyone can afford to buy soap and hand sanitiser to limit the spread of the virus.Shutterstock
What do governments need to do?
Some regions’ responses have been better than others.
In Western Australia, the urban-based Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) are working with key state government departments to coordinate the COVID-19 response. This includes guidance about how best to prevent and manage cases.
It’s time for other governments to set up collaborative arrangements with ACCHS and other Aboriginal controlled service organisations in urban centres to better manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
This should include more staff to:
provide care
help people self-isolate
explain and embed the digital COVID-19 media messages about hand washing, use of sanitisers and social distancing
enable accommodation that is acceptable and safe, especially for Elders and homeless people.
These services should also provide free flu and pneumococcal vaccinations.
Getting Indigenous health experts to lead this defence is clearly the way to go. We must listen and respond to these leaders to implement effective strategies immediately. If ever there was an opportunity to demonstrate that giving Indigenous people a voice to manage their own futures is effective, it is this.
Our hope is that, after this pandemic, the value of Aboriginal control will be recognised as the best way to improve Aboriginal health and well-being.
This article was co-authored by Adrian Carson, Institute for Urban Indigenous Health; Donisha Duff, Institute for Urban Indigenous Health; Francine Eades, Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service; and Lesley Nelson, South West Aboriginal Medical Service.
Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher (remotely) about the week in politics, including how China and the World Health Organization will come out of the coronavirus crisis, the success of the Australian government’s economic packages so far, and the foreshadowed contact tracing app.
Before COVID-19, children would spend a lot of the day at school. There they would be taught about internet safety and be protected when going online by systems that filter or restrict access to online content.
Schools provide protective environments to restrict access to content such as pornography and gambling. They also protect children from various threats such as viruses and unmoderated social media.
This is usually done using filters and blacklists (lists of websites or other resources that aren’t allowed) applied to school devices or through the school internet connection.
But with many children learning from home, parents may not be aware of the need for the same safeguards.
Many parents are also working from home, which may limit the time to explore and set up a secure online environment for their children.
So, what threats are children exposed to and what can parents do to keep them safe?
What threats might children face?
With an increased use of web-based tools, downloading new applications and a dependence on email, children could be exposed to a new batch of malware threats in the absence of school-based controls.
This can include viruses and ransomware – for example, CovidLock (an application offering coronavirus related information) that targets the Android operating system and changes the PIN code for the lock-screen. If infected, the user can lose complete access to their device.
Children working at home are not usually protected by the filters provided by their school.
Seemingly innocent teaching activities like the use of YouTube can expose children to unexpected risks given the breadth of inappropriate adult content available.
Most videos end with links to a number of related resources, the selection of which is not controlled by the school. Even using YouTube Kids, a subset of curated YouTube content filtered for appropriateness, has some risks. There have been reports of content featuring violence, suicidal themes and sexual references.
Many schools are using video conferencing tools to maintain social interaction with students. There have been reports of cases of class-hijacking, including Zoom-bombing where uninvited guests enter the video-conference session.
Because video conferencing is becoming normalised, malicious actors (including paedophiles) may seek to exploit this level of familiarity. They can persuade children to engage in actions that can escalate to inappropriate sexual behaviours.
In a particularly sickening example, eSafety Office investigators said:
In one forum, paedophiles noted that isolation measures have increased opportunities to contact children remotely and engage in their “passion” for sexual abuse via platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and random webchat services.
Some families may be using older or borrowed devices if there aren’t enough for their children to use. These devices may not offer the same level of protection against common internet threats (such as viruses) as they may no longer be supported by the vendor (such as Microsoft or Apple) and be missing vital updates.
They may also be unable to run the latest protective software (such as antivirus) due to incompatibilities or simply being under-powered.
Error message when attempting to install a new application on an older device.Author provided
What can parents do to protect children?
It’s worth speaking with the school to determine what safeguards may still function while away from the school site.
Some solutions operate at device-level rather than based on their location, so it is possible the standard protections will still be applicable at home.
Some devices support filters and controls natively. For example, many Apple devices offer ScreenTime controls to limit access to apps and websites and apply time limits to device use (recent Android devices might have the Digital Wellbeing feature with similar capabilities).
Traditional mechanisms like firewalls and anti-virus tools are still essential on laptops and desktop systems. It is important these are not just installed and forgotten. Just like the operating systems, they need to be regularly updated.
There is a wealth of advice available to support children using technology at home.
The Australian eSafety Commissioner’s website, for instance, provides access to:
But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by these materials, some key messages include:
ensuring (where appropriate) the device is regularly updated. This can include updating the operating system such as Windows, Android or Mac
using appropriate antivirus software (and ensuring it is also kept up to date)
applying parental controls to limit screen time, specific app use (blocking or limiting use), or specific website blocks (such as blocking access to YouTube)
on some devices, parental controls can limit use of the camera and microphone to prevent external communication
applying age restrictions to media content and websites (the Communications Alliance has a list of accredited family friendly filters)
monitoring your child’s use of apps or web browsing activities
when installing apps for children, checking online and talking to other parents about them
While technology can play a part, ensuring children work in an environment where there is (at least periodic) oversight by parents is still an important factor.
death rates spiked twice in 1915 and once in 1916. Chart by Keith Rankin.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Today’s Anzac Day Smithometer Chart shows the fatal impact in New Zealand of World War 1 battles at Gallipoli and on the Somme in France. (Earlier this week the Smithometer showed the impact of 1917 WW1 battles in Belgium – Messines and Passchendaele – and the dramatic, though short-lived, impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic.)
These two charts show that most of the combat death in World War 1 was linked to just five periods each of one or two weeks: Gallipoli in May and August 1915, the Somme in September 1916, Messines in June 1917, and Passchendaele in October 1917. The Smithometer shows that much of World War 1 was inactivity, at least in the military sense.
The total number of Smith deaths in 1915 was the same as in 1914, when there were no Smith war fatalities. Seventeen percent of Smith deaths in 1914 were infants (under one year old); a worse year for infant mortality than 1913. Eighteen percent of Smith deaths in 1915 were due to the war, and thirteen percent were infants. Total Smith deaths in 1915 and 1916 were 288, just ten percent higher than for 1913 and 1914. Deaths not related to war or infancy were noticeably down in 1915 and 1916. The war did not increase New Zealand’s crude death rate by as much as most of us would have expected.
Smith deaths in New Zealand were unusually low in 1919, and with only eight infant deaths (6.6 percent of all deaths). However, in 1920 infant mortality returned to the high 1914 rate of 17 percent. This rise in part but not entirely reflected increased numbers of infants in 1920, after the soldiers returned from the war. The male babies born at this time represented the core fighting force in World War 2.
Since the Gorkha earthquake killed almost 9,000 people in April 2015, Nepal has been on a slow and arduous route to recovery. Nepal’s vibrant cultural heritage of monuments, religious places, crafts, festivals and traditional practices has been key to this process.
Heritage reconstruction in Nepal has been prioritised in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Kathmandu Valley and received vast amounts of international assistance. But this reconstruction has also become the source of growing tensions between global institutions, national politics and local aspirations.
Bhaktapur city is home to one of seven monument zones of the valley. It has been undertaking a novel form of locally led recovery, focusing on built heritage to restore its tourist potential and – more importantly – rebuild community life and the resilience of residents.
The chariot assembly in progress for Bisket Jatra in Taumadhi Square, April 2019.Vanicka Arora, Author provided
Heritage in recovery
Bhaktapur is 13km from Kathmandu with a population of 82,000. The city has a long history stretching back to the 12th century as a prominent seat of power for the Malla Dynasty.
The central Durbar Square, an ensemble of palaces, temples and rest-houses, showcases centuries of history, architecture and craftsmanship. Declared a World Heritage Site in 1979, Bhaktapur is often referred to as a city of “living heritage”, with over 130 heritage sites and an annual calender of festivals, processions and crafts.
Bhaktapur suffered extensively in the earthquake, with over 300 deaths and 2,000 wounded. Over 30,000 houses and 116 monuments were significantly damaged.
The reconstruction of Vatsala Durga Temple in Bhaktapur Durbar Square nearing completion in February 2020.Vanicka Arora, Author provided
For residents, heritage reconstruction is a prominent, tangible sign of post-earthquake recovery, offering a renewed sense of local pride. Sites being reconstructed are not simply monuments for tourists to visit, but essential places for public life: temples for worship and rest-houses for community gatherings.
The president of one of the local user committees, Ram Hari Kora, tells me why he volunteers for heritage reconstruction: “All these monuments are properties left by our ancestors. They have cultural significance as well.”
Continuing to celebrate festivals has become the city’s way of returning to normalcy. The annual August festival of Gai Jatra commemorates the dead through a week-long series of rituals and processions through the city.
Images of deceased family members are part of the processions, accompanied by riotous and energetic dances, traditional costumes and masks.
In 2015, the festival offered locals the opportunity to share in collective grief.
Global heritage, local action
Five years on, close to 80% of the restoration and reconstruction work in Bhaktapur has been completed. Local consumer committees handle finances and planning of individual projects. Funds are supplemented with donations of cash and building materials from residents, and locals volunteer to work on reconstruction sites themselves.
Bhaktapur resident Deepesh Raj Sharma recalls how, in the aftermath of the earthquake, residents rallied together to catalogue and store important fragments of several temples that had fallen down to ensure their safety.
“Protecting our heritage and the wealth of our ancestors is part of our duty towards the community,” he says.
In stark contrast to its neighbours Kathmandu and Patan, Bhaktapur maintains a high degree of autonomy in reconstruction. Less than 10% of heritage sites in Bhaktapur have been directly assigned to the Department of Archaeology of Nepal. The city famously declined over US$10 million (A$16 million) in foreign funding from the German Development Bank in 2018 over disagreements about the way reconstruction projects would be commissioned and implemented.
Several local approaches conflict with international guidelines on heritage protection, which has led to critiques by conservation experts. The use of new materials and techniques and the lack of detailed documentation and research are ongoing concerns.
But most locals I interviewed are satisfied with the steady progress that is visible within the city. Many have a distinct sense of ownership of their city’s heritage recovery.
Literature student Samriddhi Prajapati tells me: “Ongoing reconstruction of heritage makes me proud, because this way we can preserve our culture and encourage tourism side by side.”
Not all heritage, not all people
Unfortunately, not all Bhaktapur’s heritage buildings have received the same care.
While public and community heritage has received sustained attention and funding, many private houses have disappeared into piles of rubble. Houses that survived have been languishing.
Many houses over 150 years old are still standing in Bhaktapur, while others were destroyed by the earthquake. Newer construction systems and materials replace the old building stock.Vanicka Arora, Author provided
Housing needs to follow strict bylaws to qualify for funding incentives, leading to conflicts slowing down reconstruction. Concerns for safety and efficiency also override heritage, so almost all new houses are built using modern construction materials. The city’s ageing housing stock is being abandoned or replaced.
Heritage is not a priority for all of Bhaktapur’s residents, particularly its poorest and most marginalised communities, which have more immediate concerns about housing, food and employment. For them, recovery is a distant dream and heritage is a luxury.
But Bhaktapur’s heritage recovery process leverages its past for its future, building disaster resilience and fostering social and cultural ties while rebuilding local and national identity.
As tourist guide Sahana Chitrakar tells me: “People can see their reflection in heritage, they can see their parents and grandparents, so they want to keep it for the future”.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ron Wakefield, Professor of Construction, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor, International, and Dean, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us our health is intimately connected to the health of the person next to us, and that everyone needs shelter. It has created unprecedented urgency about moving people who are homeless into emergency accommodation – for their health and ours. So what happens next?
Getting people into hotel and motel rooms and off the streets is a good thing, but these are stopgap measures. They don’t provide a home.
The rush to shelter people before the peak of the virus has been driven by a pressing need to protect us all. As the only seven-day-a-week mobile outreach service still operating in Victoria, Launch Housing has temporarily housed 800 people, half of whom were sleeping rough. So what will happen to them and the thousands of other Australians in emergency accommodation when social-distancing restrictions ease and our world returns to something resembling normal?
Will they exit back into street homelessness to become the face of fear and stigma, while the rest of the community returns to more social activities?
A way to find homes right now
Australia has a significant but solvable homelessness problem, so let’s start solving it right now.
Image: AAP, Author provided
To avoid people being deposited back onto the streets, we’re asking state and territory governments to fund a rapid spot-purchasing program. The Victorian government has done it before on a smaller scale in 2016, and it worked. It’s time to do it again, but on a bigger scale and around the country.
The spot-purchasing program would fund community housing agencies to enter the property market to buy up “distressed” or cheap housing assets. These properties would be let at below market rent to people who pay 30% of their income as a social rent.
Vendors and developers would get much-needed sales and thousands of people would get a home. Taxpayers would get an enduring social benefit for years to come, as expensive nightly motel bills – without any long-term benefit – get converted to community-owned property assets.
This is our mirror moment. We simply can’t afford to drop people when no one is looking and attention turns elsewhere.
People in emergency accommodation can’t wait years for new housing to be built. They (and we) need those homes now while longer-term solutions are developed.
Meeting rising needs in the longer term
Many people who are not homeless have lost jobs or had their work hours cut, and are facing their first-ever brush with housing insecurity. They are struggling, paying more than 30% of their income for housing.
There was a housing crisis before this latest upheaval, and these conditions haven’t changed. Rents were too high and there weren’t enough affordable homes.
The health and economic fallout from COVID-19 has exposed the urgent need for more homes that are cheaper to rent for people on moderate, low or no incomes.
Crucially, we are also calling for the Australian government to fast-track the building of more social and affordable housing as part of an economic stimulus package.
A national social housing stimulus package will help get people back to work, speed the recovery, give the building industry the confidence to retain more workers and put roofs over people’s heads.
Initiatives to fund the construction of new social housing could be rolled out quickly. The industry capacity is there to do it, in partnership with the community housing sector.
The early stages of the stimulus would bring forward maintenance and new construction projects that are already on the drawing board.
By targeting locations with transport and facilities but high levels of rental stress, new social housing buildings can be built quickly and integrated well into local communities.
The stimulus should be designed to encourage new mixed housing models, including properties that are “built to rent”.
It would increase the supply of social housing for households that are homeless, or at risk of becoming so, and would stimulate the building, maintenance and construction industry.
The program would build on the Social Housing Initiative that was launched in response to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Some 20,000 new social housing units were built throughout Australia.
This time, we think it is possible to deliver 30,000 new units. Community housing organisations could raise extra private finance to build another 5,000 homes.
The pandemic has created some very real challenges, but it also creates some unique opportunities to accelerate progress on ending homelessness, to recognise our interconnectedness and to give people the best possible protection of all – a home.
This article was co-authored by Bevan Warner, CEO of Launch Housing.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Hamilton, Postdoctoral Researcher in Palaeoecology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
The HMS Endeavour’s week-long stay on the shores of Kamay in 1770 yielded so many botanical specimens unknown to western science, Captain James Cook called the area Botany Bay.
During this visit, the ship’s natural history expert Joseph Banks spoke favourably of the landscape, saying it resembled the “moorlands of England” with “knee-high brushes of plants stretching over gentle and treeless hills as far as the eye could see”.
Since then, Kamay has become an icon of Australia’s convict history and emblematic of the dispossession of Indigenous people from country.
However, memories of the pre-British flora have largely been lost. Ongoing research drawing on ecological data, and Indigenous and European histories, reveals what this environment once looked like. It shows many of the assumptions about the historical landscape we hold today may actually be wrong.
The site better reflects 20th-century European exploitation of the landscape than it does early or pre-British Botany Bay.
From swamps to suburbs
Today, the northern shore of Kamay acts as Australia’s gateway to the world. It hosts Australia’s busiest international airport and one of Australia’s largest container ports, major arterial roads and a rapidly growing residential population.
From the early 19th century, urban development gradually overprinted a vast network of groundwater-fed swamplands, whose catchment extended north from Kamay to what is now the southern boundary of Sydney’s CBD.
These swamps have largely disappeared under the suburbs, or have been corralled into golf course ponds or narrow wetlands alongside Southern Cross Drive – a sight familiar to anyone who has driven between Sydney city and its airport.
Kamay holds a rapidly growing residential population.Shutterstock
“Natural” remnants of the former swamplands are today considered to have high conservation value under both state and federal environmental and heritage protection legislation.
But attempting to protect ecosystems that reflect a version of the past has a major constraint. Long-term information about their past species composition and structure can be fragmented, misremembered, or absent.
This is especially problematic in the case of the Kamay swamplands, which, like many urban ecosystems, have been fragmented, hydrologically altered, and polluted.
Yet not all is lost. We studied pollen released from flowering plants and conifers, which can accumulate and preserve in sediment layers through time.
Looking at this preserved pollen lets us develop a timeline of vegetation change over hundreds to thousands of years.
Lachlan swamp
One wetland remnant, called Lachlan Swamp, occurs at the springhead of the swamplands in Centennial Parklands. Boardwalks and signs at the site encourage visitors to imagine the swamps and the paperbark forest (Melaleuca quinquenervia) surrounding them as a relic of pre-British Sydney.
Paperbark trees dominate the landscape at Lachlan Swamp.Author provided
We used the pollen technique at Lachlan Swamp to determine whether the contemporary ecosystem reflects the pre-European landscape being protected.
And our results reveal that, at the time of British occupation, the swampland was surrounded by an open, Ericaceae-dominated heath. Casuarina and Leptospermum species were the dominant swamp trees, not the swamp paperbark.
This plant community was present at the site for at least the previous 2,000 years, and was only replaced by the contemporary paperbark forest between the 1890s and 1970s.
Ongoing work from the La Perouse Aboriginal Community led research team drawing on Indigenous knowledge and European history suggests this open heathland vegetation grew consistently across the Lachlan and Botany Swamps during and prior to European colonisation of Sydney.
Continuous cultural knowledge about the environment, held by local Dharawal people, can provide a rich picture of Kamay’s botany and how it was used – well before the arrival of the HMS Endeavour.
For instance, the Garrara or grass tree (Xanthorrhoea), which is depicted in many early colonial paintings, is a multi-use plant used to construct fishing spears – a tradition upheld today within the La Perouse Aboriginal community.
Similarly, other food and medicinal plants have been long been used by this community. This includes Five Corners (Ericaceae), Native Sarsaparilla (Smilax), Lomandra (Lomandra) and multi-use heath and swamp plants such as the coastal wattle (Acacia longifolia), swamp oak (Casuarina glauca) and coastal tea tree (Leptospermum laevigatum).
Xanthorrhoea plants grew throughout Botany Bay before European colonisation.Shutterstock
The plant species described and utilised by the local people correlates with the pre-European vegetation reconstructed from the Lachlan Swamp pollen record, and with what is described in early British records.
Not all is lost
Our common understanding of the Kamay landscape, as recognised in the protected swamp remnant in Centennial Park, is based on a misremembering of the past.
If our future goals are to conserve beautiful, unique ecosystems that have escaped European exploitation and mismanagement – such as the version of Botany Bay described by Banks – it’s crucial to start including and listening to long-term environmental histories to compliment our scientific research.
We must protect a resilient, ecosystem-rich landscape informed by accumulated Indigenous knowledge, passed down over many generations.
Though Sydney’s environmental past may be misremembered, it’s not lost entirely. Its legacy is subtly coded into the remnant landscapes of pre-British occupation, and preserved in the continuous knowledge systems of the land’s first peoples.
With care, it can be read and used to support resilient and authentic urban ecosystems.
Most Australian children are stuck at home due to the outbreak of COVID-19. They need to find ways to socialise, do their school work, exercise and entertain themselves.
It’s not surprising parents may be hearing “I’m bored” a lot more than before.
People hate being bored. So much so that in one study, one-quarter of participants said they would rather give themselves a painful shock than be in a room with no external stimulus (music, books, phones) for 15 minutes.
This shows how much people want to escape the feeling of boredom.
But while boredom causes temporary uncomfortable feelings, it can be good for us in many ways – from stimulating creativity to helping train our concentration.
Boredom can come from lack of rest and nutrition, lack of mental stimulation or too much repetition (lack of novelty). People with a high sensitivity to reward, meaning those who need constant stimulation to feel satisfied, are more at risk of being bored.
Boredom doesn’t mean you don’t have things to do; you just don’t want to do them.Shutterstock
A person can get bored if a task isn’t stimulating enough, if the work is too hard or too easy and if activities lack meaning and challenge.
Lack of control can also contribute to boredom. In one study, students showed more boredom when an adult picked their leisure activity than when they were allowed to generate their own.
COVID-19 may throw up all these situations – sleepless nights, not enough novelty and a lack of control.
The good and bad of being bored
Boredom can lead to creativity. Participants in one study showed more divergent thinking (finding multiple uses for items, making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and generating multiple creative ideas) after doing a boring task.
In another study, participants had to either complete a boring activity of sorting beans by colour, or a fun craft activity before completing a creative task. Participants who had to sort the beans showed a better quality and quantity of ideas than those who had engaged in a craft activity prior to the creative task.
Creativity emerges because when one is bored, people actively seek something stimulating. Creativity is a challenge that meets this need.
Being bored also helps train our concentration and attention. While it is easy to turn to electronic devices to entertain and distract when we are bored, research shows devices don’t fulfil boredom.
It teaches us to go to different places in our minds when we don’t have external stimulation. In other words, our mind gets a workout. Boredom is good for us and it’s good for your kid.
Solutions to boredom
So if you find your child is getting bored, you don’t need to feel guilty you’re not entertaining them.
Instead, think about the following:
check your child isn’t just hungry or tired as everything can feel boring then. It isn’t boredom, just lack of energy to engage in an activity
these are unusual times where a lot feels out of control so see how you can provide your child with new day-to-day choices (such as a menu for the day, where you eat dinner or what order they do their school work in)
don’t feel obligated or responsible to stop this “terrible experience” for your children. They can develop internal resources (attention, self-regulation, creativity) by having to solve the boredom problem themselves
teach your child not to be afraid of the feelings that come with boredom, but excited. Boredom is a signal that indicates change is needed. Help them generate ideas and then pick one to engage in. Let them be responsible for the choice. Get them to create a boredom box with ideas they can choose from
boredom is sometimes just getting over the hard part of getting started. Your child may not be bored, just not knowing where to start. Help them break a task down and get started
our attention is easily stolen by our mobile devices as they provide an easy distraction. Try setting a timer with your family, turn off your devices, and all engage in something meaningful for 20 minutes. Creativity emerges in space. You’ll never know what you could achieve if you keep distracting them.
Psychologist Heather Lench, who explores motivation, says boredom stops us ploughing the same old furrow, and pushes us to try to seek new goals or explore new territories or ideas. Rather than reject it, work with it and see what you and your children can create.
We may have a surprising new ally in the bid to contain the COVID-19 outbreak: your sewage.
Australia’s government recently announced that sewage is to be tested for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Federal health minister Greg Hunt explained this will be a key part of the monitoring program that will need to be in place to guard against future local outbreaks of the virus.
Researchers in the Netherlands, France, the United States and Australia have been testing sewage for SARS-CoV-2 for more than a month, and have generally reported that the rise and fall of their results reflect the officially reported local rates of infection with COVID-19.
This suggests sewage can indeed be used to monitor the future spread of the virus. And with many infections thought to be symptomless, this means we can potentially detect cases that might evade other monitoring programs.
The testing for SARS-CoV-2 in sewage doesn’t detect the virus itself, but just a very small fragment (about 0.1%) of the virus’s genetic material, called RNA. This means it cannot tell whether the water contains infectious virus particles or just a few pieces of leftover RNA from inactivated or decomposed viruses.
This type of waste tracking is not new. It has already been used in Australia to track viruses such as norovirus. And since 2017, sewage testing has been used to uncover evidence of illicit drug use at the population level. Drug-testing sewage has helped police and other authorities discover what drugs are used in particular cities, and even to track down illicit drug labs.
The newer aspect is the proposal to use sewage monitoring in the context of a major pandemic, and potentially to rely on the data to inform some very high-stakes decisions. This introduces a high burden of responsibility to ensure that the data are collected by reliable means, with well understood rates of false results, both positive and negative.
If major decisions are to be based on measured concentrations, it will be essential to understand all the factors behind these measurements.
If sewage tests positive, what next?
While technically possible, sewage testing from individual properties is unlikely to be cost-effective. But it might potentially be used to sample wastewater from large buildings, hospitals or even ships or aircraft.
It will be important to understand how we would respond to positive results for SARS-CoV-2. Locking down a building or cruise ship might require isolation for everyone involved. Alternatively, a positive result could be used as a trigger for individual testing of those people who may have contributed to the positive sewage sample. In any case, the impacts to individuals will be sufficient to warrant a high reliability for sewage testing.
Meanwhile, how confident can we be about sewage that tests negative for SARS-CoV-2? Do we properly understand the likelihood of missing what could have been a positive result? Would there be liability placed on the testing authorities, governments, or others in the case of false negatives leading to missed opportunities for virus containment?
We will also need to understand the trends that may be observed in terms of increasing and decreasing concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage. While we may assume these accurately reflect changing patterns of infection, other factors such as rainfall and sampling variability could significantly influence the measured concentrations.
Of course, direct clinical testing of patients is also subject to many types of errors, and there are protocols in place for how we respond. But sewage testing would likely have higher degrees of uncertainty and greater numbers of people directly affected by the responses.
The issue is thus far less straightforward than it might appear on first reflection. That means it deserves a similar level of scrutiny as the government’s planned contact tracing mobile phone app, which has prompted significant privacy concerns.
A human right to flush without self-incrimination?
If coronavirus testing is to be used to dictate specific actions or responses from public health officials under emergency orders, it raises questions that have not yet been addressed in Australia’s drug testing.
A testing regime that delivers information on the scale that would be most useful for public health would create challenges for human rights. The human right to water is recognised under international law, and includes the right to safe and accessible sanitation. If sewage testing is used to support sanctions in the form of lockdowns, this may erode our basic right to access sanitation.
This kind of testing also poses challenges for public water authorities, which must comply with the Information Privacy Principles.
We may also wonder where our own “rights” to our waste end. In Australia, household garbage remains the legal property of the householder while on their private property, but belongs to the garbage collection agency (usually a local government) once collected. Is this an appropriate model for bodily waste?
Australia’s legal frameworks around sewage collection, treatment and management have struggled to keep pace with developments in sewer mining, stormwater reuse and water recycling.
It might seem strange to ponder the ethics of what people flush down the toilet. But given the personal details that sewage can reveal – everything from diseases and pollutants to drug and alcohol use – we need a national framework to ensure the technology does not go unchecked.
In the space of six weeks, the threat posed by COVID-19 and the sudden absence of partisanship from the political landscape have ushered in a focus on leadership for the greater good, the likes of which we haven’t seen for years.
Leadership for the greater good occurs when leaders create value for society in a manner that is transparent, accountable and ethical. Once conspicuous by its absence, it now seems to be everywhere, and gratifyingly so in the institutions where it counts most.
As an extension of our Australian Leadership Index (ALI) – a long-running survey to gauge public perceptions of leadership for the greater good – we have asked Australians over the past five weeks to judge the performance of various institutions during the current pandemic.
Each institution receives a score based on the number of people who said the institution showed leadership to a “large extent” or “extremely large extent”, minus those who responded “some extent” or “not at all”.
Notably, by taking the pulse of Australians weekly, we can track how public opinion is changing. When these findings are compared to our wider survey results, which we have been collecting quarterly since September 2018, the results are striking.
The ascent of leadership for the greater good
Prior to the pandemic, the public had a dim view of the state of leadership in Australia. This has been consistent from September 2018 to March 2020.
However, in the week of March 13-19, in specific response to the COVID-19 pandemic, public sentiment entered positive territory (+1) for the first time in a year and a half. Even more striking, these perceptions have improved week-on-week to a score of +34 in the week of April 15-22.
What a difference a(nother) crisis makes
The improvement in public perceptions is most remarkable for the federal government, particularly in light of the recent bushfire crisis.
Throughout the bushfires, the public consistently judged the federal government’s leadership for the greater good as poor. From the beginning (-32) to the end (-25) of the crisis, its ALI score was negative – most people thought the government was failing to demonstrate effective leadership.
Fast-forward to mid-March, however, and the federal government’s fortunes changed dramatically. In the week of March 13-19, the government’s ALI score (+24) surged into positive territory for the first time since we started running the surveys.
Public perceptions have improved every week since then, hitting a high score of +47 recorded in the past week.
The pattern of results for state governments is almost exactly the same, but interestingly, state governments have trailed the federal government in most of our weekly polls, with the exception of the week ending April 1.
Public health still at the top
A consistent finding of our surveys from the beginning has been the high esteem in which our respondents have held the public sector.
Notably, since we started measuring public perceptions, the public sector has always outscored government when it comes to demonstrating leadership for the greater good.
However, during the coronavirus pandemic, our respondents have viewed both the public sector and government in practically the same light.
The gains for the public sector are largely accounted for by public health institutions, which have been judged overwhelmingly as showing the greatest degree of leadership for the greater good of all institutions measured.
Public health institutions have also far outpaced private health institutions in our surveys during the pandemic.
This pattern is replicated in other sectors. Public education and media institutions, for instances, have been viewed much more favourably than their private counterparts during the crisis.
The worst performers in terms of leadership for the greater good throughout the pandemic have been health insurance companies, religious institutions, trade unions and multinational corporations.
What does this mean for the state of leadership in Australia?
The ALI was founded on the principle that leaders should act beyond self-interest to benefit the greater good, and this leadership should come from institutions across all sectors.
Since its inception, the results have painted a dim picture of the state of leadership across Australia, with the exception of only a few institutions, such as charities and public health.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has necessarily brought the wider public interest to the fore, and institutions across all sectors have instigated measures to protect the greater good.
To be sure, crises crystallise a shared understanding of the common good and encourage people to pull together in a manner not typical of more ordinary times.
Nevertheless, by shining a light on leadership for the greater good and how it can be improved, this pandemic may yet have a silver lining for the future.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains references to deceased people.
This has been a difficult review to write. The late Aurukun artist Mavis Ngallametta’s major survey exhibition Show Me the Way to Go Home opened in March at the Queensland Art Gallery. I was lucky enough to view the exhibition before QAG shut its doors to the public a couple of days later.
Now the gallery has uploaded a video journey through the exhibition with co-curator Katina Davidson. But my concern is the exhibition will be another victim of COVID-19, through no fault of its own. Perhaps future historians will look back on the earliest days of the pandemic and ask what fell through the cracks? What were the unseeable exhibitions? Writing these words somehow feels like writing a love letter to the future.
This exhibition is both important and necessary, securing Ngallametta’s rightful position in Australian art history.
Songwoman
Mavis Ngallametta was a Kugu woman born near the Kendall River in west Cape York Peninsula. She lived a traditional life on Country until she was five, when her family moved to the Presbyterian Mission further north at Aurukun. Ngallametta later became an elder of the Putch clan, and a cultural leader of Aurukun’s Wik and Kugu people.
She was a songwoman and the exhibition’s title is drawn from Irving King’s 1925 Show Me the Way to Go Home, one of Ngallametta’s favourite songs.
Mavis Ngallametta’s Ikalath #9 2013 from the Janet Holmes à Court Collection.Photo: Gina Allain
More than 40 of Ngallametta’s paintings and sculptures are assembled for the first time. The exhibition is organised in terms of site, or groupings of paintings that are records of the most significant places in her life. The Kendall River series for instance, was inspired by a 2013 helicopter trip, where Ngallametta and a number of her family returned to their Country.
What comes to the fore is just how rapidly Ngallametta’s command of the medium took place. Ngallametta was introduced to acrylic paint at a women’s painting workshop at the Wik and Kugu Art Centre in 2008 at the age of 64. From 2010, her works started to grow in scale and ambition. It was also around this time that Ngallametta shifted away from acrylics to ochres and clay.
Kugu-Muminh people, Putch clan Australia QLD 1944-2019 Pamp (Swamp) 2009. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery.Photo: Natasha Harth
Connections to the land
Inscribed on the paintings’ surfaces is the complexity of Ngallametta’s connection to the land in and around Aurukun. Ikalath, the coastal region north of Aurukun, has spectacular red cliffs that rise steeply from the sandy beaches. The cliffs are where sacred white ochre is collected for paint. As a Kugu woman, this was not Ngallametta’s traditional country. It was through her adopted son Edgar’s blood ties that she inherited a relationship to Ikalath.
In a remarkably short period of time, Ngallametta developed her own distinct visual language, drawing from tradition and punctuated with her own unique motifs. The waterlilies and birds that featured in her early acrylics never fully disappear from her later works. Ngallametta would start with an acrylic blue base and gradually build the layers of paint from there. The blue unifies her practice, as well as reflecting the ebb and flow of the ocean, swamps and waterways she was responding to.
The meandering lines are interspaced with dots, as well as delightful nods to realism such as flowers, ducks and pigs. Her paintings draw close to oral story telling techniques, where she conveys an intimate knowledge of the land, combined with personal details and memories: family camping trips, fishing and preparing painting materials.
Before turning her attention to painting, Ngallametta was a master weaver, using materials such as cabbage palm and pandanus. Later, she would weave from ghost nets, or discarded fishing nets that washed up as detritus on the beaches of Queensland’s far north.
Ik (Basket) 2010. Collection of The University of Queensland.Photo: Carl Warner
The influence of Ngallametta’s weaving practice is evident through this exhbition. The strong horizontal bands that feature on her ghost net baskets reappear on her canvases as an intricate weft and weave of colour and paint.
Dragging Net at Less Creek (detail) 2015. Collection: Johnny Kahlbetzer, Sydney.Photo: Jenni Carter
Bird’s eye
There are many ways the history of Australian landscape painting can be written. One possible genealogy is via artists’ attempts to resolve the vastness and enormity of the country. William Robinson’s swirling landscapes with multiple points of perspective are logical points of comparison. However, Ngallametta, is doing something very different from Robinson.
The use of bird’s or mind’s eye perspective is a familiar technique used by Indigenous artists to represent country. Ngallametta evokes the sensation of flying over the land, only to have the land fold back and over, enveloping the viewer.
In this way, standing in front of Ngallametta’s enormous paintings is akin to the experience of standing before a giant wave. Her paintings rise up, asserting their physical verticality and threatening to engulf the viewer. This vertiginous experience is counteracted by the strong horizontal bands. These anchor the viewer, creating not just one, but many possible horizons. The horizontal and vertical are in constant dialogue, creating a tension that pulses with the energy of life in Queensland’s far north.
Joyful and exuberant, with accents of wry humour, Mavis Ngallametta’s paintings, weavings and sculptures are exactly what we all need right now. Hopefully we will get to see them in person again soon.
Burdekin ducks 2011. Dux of Distinction Collection: John Conroy.Photo: Carl Warner
Although the Queensland Arts Gallery is currently closed, Show Me the Way to Go Home is scheduled to continue until 2 August 2020. A series of exhibition videos can be viewed [here].
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
Anzac Day 2020 will be a far cry from the Australian War Memorial’s dawn service of recent years. While dignified and solemn, the dawn service has also been spectacle. Sophisticated technology is used to project images from the memorial’s photographic collection onto the building. From an hour before the service, members of the armed forces read from the diaries and letters of men and women who have served in war over more than a century.
The choreography of the whole event is unmistakable as national performance. Even the birdlife at the foot of Mount Ainslie seems to recognise it has a role to play with its singing and screeching and laughing – instantly recognisable as an Australian soundscape – alongside the speechmakers, catafalque party and bugling of the Last Post.
This year, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, it will be different. The dawn service will be held without members of the public, but will be televised on the ABC and streamed online. There will be no local marches.
The Returned and Services League (RSL) has encouraged people to film themselves reciting the ode in their homes and post it online. The RSL is partnering with News Corp in Light Up The Dawn, asking Australians to step into their driveways to observe a minute’s silence, possibly carrying a candle or using mobile phones for illumination. They have even created a virtual candle you can download to your phone.
We can be sure the novelty of the 2020 Anzac Day commemoration will attract plenty of media attention. The Australian media have a ready-made, multipurpose rhetoric that is easily adapted to whatever novelty – minor or otherwise – each year’s Anzac season brings with it. This year will be no exception.
We can expect to read and hear of Australians in these troubled times expressing mateship, of children in pyjamas and dressing gowns showing the young are connecting more and more with Anzac each year, that coronavirus has not dampened the Anzac spirit of the nation – and so on. We will learn of the doughty Australian suburbanites who weren’t going to let a mere global pandemic get in the way of their appreciation of those who defend their freedoms. Our health workers will be seen as displaying the self-sacrifice and heroism of Anzac, born all those years ago on the shores of Gallipoli.
Anzac 2020 will be less novel than it is presented. In the enforced private nature of Anzac commemoration in 2020, we are being returned to some of the earliest themes in Anzac commemoration.
While the day has had its elements of public ritual since 1916, much early Anzac Day commemoration was private rather than public, sometimes conducted at the gravesides of Australian soldiers buried in cemeteries in Britain and Australia. Women were prominent in these efforts, honouring the memories of men they might or might not have known by placing flowers on their tombs.
There was no big Anzac Day march in Sydney in 1919. At the time, Spanish flu was ravaging the world.Parramatta Heritage Centre
There are other echoes of the past. Anzac Day in 1919 was also disrupted by a major crisis in public health. In New South Wales, where the rate of infection from Spanish influenza was high and the number of deaths – approaching 1,000 by Anzac Day – was alarming, the government had banned public meetings.
The government called off the march until May 22. When that happened, it was a fiasco. Rain prompted organisers to decide against marching all the way to Sydney’s Domain, and soldiers and sailors who had come from Central Railway Station instead slipped straight into the service in the Town Hall. Unfortunately, no one remembered to tell the thousands of people lining the streets to watch.
On Anzac Day itself, there had still been activity – more than we’ll see this year. The Centre for Soldiers’ Wives and Mothers appealed to the parents of the city’s children – home for their Easter break – to take their Shakespeare down from the shelf and read their children Henry V’s speech to his troops before Agincourt.
Gallipoli might have made the nation, but Australians still looked for inspiration to a much longer British history stretching back through Mafeking, Rorke’s Drift, Balaclava, Waterloo and Trafalgar – and even further to that “band of brothers” who made short work of the French on St Crispin’s Day, 1415.
The Centre of Soldiers’ Wives and Mothers held a service in the Domain. “Womenfolk, many of them in mourning, preponderated”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, and most were wearing masks. The location of this service was pointed: it was at Woolloomooloo Bay, where so many soldiers had embarked for the war.
Outside Sydney, there was also some disruption. “The Approach of Anzac Day this year was overlooked locally,” explained a local newspaper at Dorigo in northern New South Wales. “Owing to the presence of the influenza epidemic, the thoughts of the people seem to have been turned away from other things.” But there were Anzac Day activities; a surprising number, actually.
Anzac Day was commemorated at Lismore, notwithstanding that the town had seen several serious cases of influenza and, in the week before Anzac Day, the deaths of two men. At Grafton, thousands enjoyed a soldiers’ carnival. And in the other states, there were few signs of difficulty:
Adelaide was gay with flags from end to end, and the trains and tramcars brought thousands of people into the central city to view the procession of soldiers.
A subdued Anzac Day in Perth was attributed not to the influenza but to the authorities’ hope that the proclamation of peace in Europe would be timed so that the two “celebrations” might merge.
In 1919, as soldiers returned to Australia on ships and often went into quarantine, the nature of Anzac Day commemoration remained fluid. It was still not a public holiday, and the Anzac Day march had not yet become an essential or permanent fixture of the city commemorations. Melbourne had no march on April 25 1919, but then it didn’t have a march on most other Anzac Days in these early years, either.
Some will be disappointed there will be no marches and other public gatherings this year. But Anzac Day 2020 is less likely to be recalled as an absence than as yet another way in which Australians adapted their national life to the challenges of the greatest public health crisis for a century.
Electricity demand in Australia has barely budged since COVID-19 took hold. Many may be wondering: after months spent largely at home, are huge household power bills on the way?
The answer, largely, is no. But as the pandemic forces hundreds of thousands of Australians into unemployment, some will still struggle to pay their electricity bills.
A mass failure to pay would threaten the viability of electricity retailers. If some folded, this would reduce market competition and drive up energy costs for everyone.
So let’s take a look at how stay-at-home measures are affecting energy demand, and what the coronavirus pandemic means for electricity consumers in Australia.
The unemployed may struggle to pay their electricity bills this winter.Julian Smith/AAP
A mixed bag
We’ve assessed how social distancing restrictions have affected both demand for electricity and “mobility” (the movement of people) in Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK.
Interestingly, changes in electricity demand and mobility go together and were significantly different across the countries after strict stay-at-home rules were imposed in late March.
Grid-based electricity demand in both the UK and New Zealand has declined significantly (20% and 15% respectively). Demand is largely unchanged in Australia and has declined about 5% in the US overall, relative to the baseline.
Among Australian states, electricity demand has declined in New South Wales by around 5%, and increased slightly in Western Australia and Tasmania. Demand is largely unchanged in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland compared to the baseline.
The relative strictness of social distancing policies seems to be the main driver of changes in electricity demand. For example, unlike New Zealand, Australia’s construction industry was not subject to lockdown restrictions, which meant electricity use in that sector has continued.
Of course, many factors affect electricity demand, and further analysis is required to isolate the precise impact of social distancing policies.
Electricity demand in Australia has changed little since stay-at-home regulations were introduced.Scott Barbour/AAP
Out and about
To crosscheck changes in electricity demand, we examined the change in the movement of people to retail, recreation and workplace locations as measured in Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports. These reports use location history data from users to create a picture of how people are moving around the community.
Mobility changes are consistent with the change in electricity demand: since stay-at-home restrictions were imposed, falls in mobility have been about twice as large in New Zealand and the UK as in Australia.
Mobility in the US states of New York and California has declined more than in Australia, but less than in the UK and New Zealand.
An empty London street. Electricity demand and mobility in the UK has fallen since social distancing was enforced.SOPA Images
What to expect this winter
In Australia, electricity demand from households has increased slightly as millions of people stay at home, prompting warnings of bill shock. But activities such as boiling the kettle and cooking more often, and keeping lights on all day, do not make a big difference to consumption.
This will change in winter, when we need to keep our houses warm. Households using split-system air conditioners for heating can expect seasonally adjusted electricity bills to be around 10-20% higher if they’re heating the house 24 hours a day, rather than just briefly in the morning and again in the late afternoon and evening.
But demand will vary greatly depending on weather and a home’s size, insulation, efficiency of heater and so on.
Averaged across all Australian households (and assuming social distancing regulations continue to apply in winter), we expect total residential electricity consumption to be a little higher this winter than in previous years.
Differences will be more pronounced in the colder states: Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and to a lesser extent New South Wales. The warmer states of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory will see little change.
Overall, slightly higher demand for electricity in Australian households over winter will probably offset lower commercial and retail demand.
Many Australians are worried about bill shock this winter.Dan Peled/AAP
Threat to competition
While overall electricity demand might not shift much in Australia, skyrocketing unemployment may create a surge in the number of households struggling to pay their energy bills, even with Jobkeeper payments.
Long before the pandemic, regulators, governments, retailers and customer groups had worked to improve consumer protections such as hardship policies. These measures are now likely to be put to the test.
There are signs that electricity retailers are already anxious about looming non-payment. For example, some retailers have offered incentives for customers to take up direct debit, or cash-back for bills paid in advance.
Retailers pay for both the electricity produced, and its transport. If many thousands of customers can’t pay their bills, some retailers may become financially unviable. The smaller retailers have the weakest balance sheets and are most at risk.
But these small companies are the lifeblood of competition in Australia’s retail electricity markets. Losing them would, in time, translate into higher prices.
If utility non-payment spirals and retailer viability is seriously threatened, governments and regulators might consider ways to share the risks more broadly, to protect competition and consumers.
Scientists recently confirmed the Great Barrier Reef suffered another serious bleaching event last summer – the third in five years. Dramatic intervention to save the natural wonder is clearly needed.
First and foremost, this requires global greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed. But the right combination of technological and biological interventions, deployed with care at the right time and scale, are also critical to securing the reef’s future.
This could include methods designed to shade and cool the reef, techniques to help corals adapt to warmer temperatures, ways to help damaged reefs recover, and smart systems that target interventions to the most strategically beneficial locations.
Research into breeding coral hybrids for heat-stress resistance could help restore parts of the reef.Marie Roman/AIMS, Author provided
Implementing such measures across the breadth of the reef – the world’s biggest reef ecosystem – will not be easy, or cheap. In fact, we believe the scale of the task is greater than the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission in 1969 – but not impossible.
That mission was a success, not because a few elements worked to plan, but because of the integration, coordination and alignment of every element of the mission’s goal: be the first to land and walk on the Moon, and then fly home safely.
Half a century later, facing the ongoing decline of the Great Barrier Reef, we can draw important lessons from that historic human achievement.
The study, of which we were a part, involved more than 100 leading coral reef scientists, modellers, economists, engineers, business strategists, social scientists, decision scientists and reef managers.
More than 100 coral reef scientists took part in the feasibility study.Nick Thake/AIMS, Author provided
It shows how new and existing interventions, supported by the best available research and development, could help secure a future for the reef.
We must emphasise that interventions to help the reef adapt to and recover from climate change will not, alone, save it. Success also depends on reducing global greenhouse emissions as quickly as possible. But the hands-on measures we’re proposing could help buy time for the reef.
Cloud brightening to heat-tolerant corals
Our study identified 160 possible interventions that could help revive the reef, and build on its natural resilience. We’ve whittled it down to the 43 most effective and realistic.
Possible interventions for further research and development include brightening clouds with salt crystals to shade and cool corals; ways to increase the abundance of naturally heat-tolerant corals in local populations, such as through aquarium-based selective breeding and release; and methods to promote faster recovery on damaged reefs, such as deploying structures designed to stabilise reef rubble.
But there will be no single silver bullet solution. The feasibility study showed that methods working in combination, along with water quality improvement and crown-of-thorns starfish control, will provide the best results.
Field testing the heat resistant coral hybrids in the Great Barrier Reef.Kate Green/AIMS, Author provided
Harder than landing on the Moon
There are four reasons why saving the Great Barrier Reef in coming decades could be more challenging than the 1969 Moon mission.
First, warming events have already driven the reef into decline with back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, and now again in 2020. The next major event is now only just around the corner.
And fourth, the inherent complexity of natural systems, particularly ones as diverse as coral reefs, provides an additional challenge not faced by NASA engineers 50 years ago.
So keeping the Great Barrier Reef, let alone the rest of the world’s reefs, safe from climate change will dwarf the challenge of any space mission. But there is hope.
We must start now
The federal government recently re-announced A$100 million from the Reef Trust Partnership towards a major research and development effort for this program. This will be augmented by contributions of A$50m from research institutions, and additional funding from international philanthropists.
Our study shows that under a wide range of future emission scenarios, the program is very likely to be worth the effort, more so if the world meets the Paris target and rapidly cuts greenhouse gas emissions.
What’s more, economic analyses included in the feasibility study show successful Great Barrier Reef intervention at scale could create benefits to Australia of between A$11 billion and A$773 billion over a 60-year period, with much of it flowing to regional economies and Traditional Owner communities.
And perhaps more importantly, if Australia is successful in this effort, we can lead the world in a global effort to save these natural wonders bequeathed to us across the ages. We must start the journey now. If we wait, it may be too late.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of David Wachenfeld, Chief Scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and member of the the steering committee for the development of this program.
Australia has done better with COVID-19 than anyone dared hope. This opens up the prospect of a progressive relaxation of restrictions later this year. Organisations that could participate in an economic stimulus program will need to be in a position then to deliver “shovel-ready” projects to help revive the economy.
The construction sector is the obvious focus of a stimulus plan, and the construction of social housing should be the priority, for reasons that I’ll outline below.
Fortunately, if we get going now, we have months to plan the recovery program. Getting it right will be crucial. By September, one month before JobKeeper payments end, many businesses are going to be on their knees.
Why construction?
Most of the successful elements of the Rudd package focused on construction. The reason is simple. Nearly one in ten Australians work in the construction industry. Many more are employed locally in the production of building products.
Both construction and building product manufacturing provide jobs for people with varying levels of skill, including people who are unskilled. The vast majority of concrete and steel reinforcement, bricks, wall framing, building boards, windows and doors, roof tiles and metal cladding are still made here. A substantial portion of domestic electrical and plumbing products, including stainless steel sinks, copper pipes and electrical cables are also made here.
It’s important to realise that the type of building being constructed will affect its local stimulatory impact. For buildings up to three storeys high, over 50% of their cost is labour on site. Of the remaining cost, the vast majority is Australian-made materials and components. (Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics stopped its series on Australian-made construction products in 2014, the employment impact can still be estimated from ABS manufacturing statistics.)
For typical single and double-storey housing, more than half the cost goes into labour and locally made materials account for most of the rest of it.Shutterstock
However, the taller a building gets, the greater the percentage of imported components – lifts, mechanical components and facade systems are mostly imported.
Why social housing?
What sort of construction projects should the government consider for a stimulus package? While the response so far has been to focus on “fast-tracking” infrastructure, the current crisis has highlighted a number of pressing social needs. Various aspects of social housing top the list:
Housing to reduce the number of people living in precarious private rentals. A substantial program to increase the stock of social housing would be a great legacy.
Housing for people who are homeless. They will not be able to go on living in hotels once the lockdown ends.
Affordable housing for workers in health, emergency services, education and retail who cannot afford to live close to the communities they provide vital support to. It turns out they are essential workers, some of the most important people in Australia, so we need to look after them.
Housing construction is a very effective way to create jobs, both directly and downstream. About 6% of Australian jobs are related to housing.
What other construction work is needed?
There are other opportunities for well-targeted construction stimulus.
Replacing combustible cladding is another essential, labour-intensive program that could stimulate the economy.STR/AAP
In many areas of Australia, public schools and kindergartens still rely on low-quality portable buildings or buildings that have exceeded their economic life. A program to replace them with new and efficient buildings would produce substantial social benefits, cut maintenance costs and improve sustainability.
Improving the deteriorated state of community buildings and parks, particularly in disadvantaged areas, would also deliver social benefits and potentially employ a lot of unskilled labour. Having decent parks and exercise facilities close to where people live will allow social distancing to continue as long as needed.
A Victorian government plan to remove combustible cladding from residential and community buildings could also be extended to all states. It’s essential work that would also create jobs.
The government could also consider a program to replace or refurbish university teaching and research buildings that are over 40 years old. Incredibly, as we have found at ARINA in our consultancy work, these older buildings still provide more than half of the 11.8 million square metres of gross floor space occupied by the higher education sector.
These ageing buildings are not well suited to supporting the research into solutions to SARS-CoV-2 and other pressing medical and economic problems. Replacing or refurbishing them would improve outputs, cut maintenance costs and improve sustainability, plus give a much-needed boost to the higher education sector.
Plan now to be shovel-ready
Anglicare SA is already thinking of what it can do to deliver more social housing. Its CEO, Peter Sandeman, told me he is making sure Anglicare has “shovel-ready projects that can be rolled out the moment a stimulus package is announced. There is no better way of stimulating the economy than by constructing social housing.”
This is stimulus that also meets critical social needs, Sandeman says.
There is a desperate shortage of social housing. Our waiting list and the number of people who are homeless demonstrates that.
Social housing provides a long-term benefit to everyone. It adds stability to the lives of the occupants and this is a particular benefit to their children and their education. Safe, affordable housing is the foundation stone that gives people a chance in life.
Other organisations that could be part of the stimulus package should be getting ready, too, and making sure the government knows what they are doing.
With Australia’s test-confirmed daily COVID-19 infection rates continuing to fall to relatively low levels, there is considerable discussion about when and how the successful containment measures might be relaxed.
There are four key prerequisites for relaxation:
the daily infection rate needs to be very low – perhaps in the single digits per day, unless we are pursuing a pure “elimination strategy” which would require zero
more testing. Experts at Harvard University say we would need 150 tests per 100,000 people a day. In NSW we test a third as much
more personal protective equipment for front-line medical staff
widespread and effective contact tracing to ensure we can quickly respond to second-wave outbreaks.
Contact tracing is extremely challenging when done manually. Asking people to keep a diary of where they have been is outdated.
The ubiquity of mobile phones offers a smarter and vastly more effective way to contact trace – at least in principle.
The Australian government has been exploring that path, and hopes to release an app within weeks based on the one used in Singapore – TraceTogether.
According to its website:
TraceTogether uses received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values to measure the signal strength between phones. Calibrated RSSI values are used to estimate approximate distance between users during an encounter. TraceTogether interpolates between successive communications in order to estimate the approximate duration of an encounter
These data are stored on a user’s own device and deleted on a 21-day rolling basis.
To alleviate privacy concerns, no location data is stored, and the “contact data” can be sent only to state health departments and only if needed – such as after a contact tests positive for COVID-19.
Researchers at Oxford University have calculated a take-up rate of 80% of all phone users (or 56% of the population overall) is needed to reliably suppress an epidemic.
How could we get it in Australia?
To get it, we’ll need incentives
The obvious way to would be to mandate its use. That’s how compulsory voting works. But Morrison has ruled that out.
As an economist, I should observe that another obvious (if less effective) means would be to provide incentives.
Joshua Gans and I advocated such an approach earlier this week.
People who install and use the app could, for example, be given a A$10 rebate on their monthly phone bill (a carrot). People who do not could be denied access to public places such as shopping centres and parks (a stick).
Perhaps even group incentives
The prime minister has suggested relaxing containment measures might be conditional on a certain take-up rate, suggesting another, complementary, approach – group incentives.
Imagine that any relaxation of current containment measures required a 40% take-up rate. There would be peer pressure to “do the right thing” for the whole community.
The higher the take-up, the safer it would be to lift additional restrictions.
Maybe pubs could open, with four-square-metre social distancing rules in place, if the take-up was 60%.
Perhaps with evidence of the virus remaining under control for an extended period, social-distancing measures could be relaxed further at an 80% to 90% take-up rate.
It’d be up to us
We would be deciding whether to do our part and sign up for the app. We would be weighing the benefits for the community against personal privacy concerns.
Admonitions are unlikely to be enough. We’ll need nudges.
If the government is serious about take-up it will make those nudges, both direct and indirect. We care about society as a whole. We are likely to weigh that up against what it costs us to do our bit.
As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on our usual way of life, the language of war proliferates. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called it the “the battle that all Australians are enlisted in as we fight this virus”. French President Emmanuel Macron has declared: “We are at war”; and US President Donald Trump is calling himself the “wartime president”.
For Asian Australians, and temporary Asian migrants, this fervour has brought increased racist attacks against them. This kind of xenophobia is common in wartime, and for Japanese Australians it was most pronounced during and after the second world war.
In considering the significance of the upcoming Anzac Day, we look back at the experiences of two of the estimated two dozen Japanese Australians (or Nikkei) who enlisted. Reflecting on their treatment during wartime, we ask what their stories reveal about the pressures on Asian Australians now.
Under the radar
Japanese people started migrating to Australia in the mid-19th century – before the White Australia Policy (established in 1901 as the Immigration Restriction Act). Some of the earliest Japanese migrants were circus performers, pearl divers, and sex workers. Japanese communities were established in cities including Broome and Darwin where the pearling industry was strong.
These migrants, referred to around the world as Nikkei migrants, established livelihoods and families in Australia, both within cultural groups and after marrying white and Aboriginal Australians. By the second world war, there were more than 1,000 people of Japanese descent living in Australia.
There were 28 Australians of Japanese descent who served. However, there may be more. Unlike their American brethren, including the famous Japanese-American 100th/442nd Infantry Regiment who became the most decorated unit in US military history, Australians of Japanese heritage were officially prohibited from enlisting. Those who did serve were only able to do so by hiding their roots.
There were two reasons for this. The first was a blanket ban on all non-Europeans from enlisting. The Defence Act on 1910 exempted all those who were “not substantially of European origin or descent” (as determined by an appointed medical professional) from miltary service. Nikkei were not considered for military armed service roles, or even translation and interpretation roles — despite the knowledge some had of both English and Japanese that made them suitable for such functions.
The second reason for their prohibition from military service was the classification of all Japanese as enemy aliens, leading to their mass internment in civilian camps during wartime. Around 4,000 Japanese (including Japanese Australians) were imprisoned.
Japanese internees at Tatura line up for dental parade in 1943.Australian War Memorial
Unlike German and Italian Australians, who were selectively interned and largely consisted of adult men, a more blanket approach to the internment of Japanese. Australian-born citizens with Japanese heritage, young children and even Australian spouses were interned in camps, along with elderly residents who had been in Australia since before the White Australia Policy. Many were deported to Japan after the war.
In spite of this, we know at least 28 Nikkei did enlist.
One of them was a man named Mario Takasuka. Born in Mildura to Japanese rice cultivators Jo and Michiko Takasuka, Mario worked as an orchardist before his enlistment. Although arriving at the height of the White Australia Policy, the Takasuka family were able to enter and remain in Australia for an extended period because of their important cultivation research, which eventually led to them being the first rice growers in Australia.
In 1940, Mario volunteered locally to join the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF). After being rejected twice at his local enlistment centre, he was eventually accepted after travelling to Melbourne, where his Japanese heritage was unknown and the recruiting officer happened to be unaware of the military regulations excluding non-Europeans.
Mario initially served in Crete and Alexandria in the 2/3 Light Anti-Aircraft regiment. However, after Japan entered the war at the end of 1941, military authorities went to great lengths to have him removed, including launching an enquiry into “the presence of a full-blooded Japanese in the Australian army”.
Within his unit, Mario was well liked, and his commanding officer fought hard to keep him deployed, stating:
His record as a soldier both in and out of action has been exemplary and in consideration of his outstanding service in Crete, I selected him for promotion as a bombardier. He is most popular with the men in his [battalion] and the recent declaration of war against Japan has in no way affected his popularity or his ambition to serve.
Thanks to this support, Mario was able to remain with his unit and went on to serve in Palestine, where he received a written commendation from his general for his efforts in a train crash rescue. He was then promoted to gun sergeant and deployed to New Guinea. Mario returned from the war in 1945 and continued to live in Australia until his death in 1999, aged 89.
Brother Sho
The Takasukas were well-respected within their local community. Mario’s older sister Aiko was a school teacher, and his older brother Sho was the first Japanese born Australian citizen to hold a local government position. Sho did not serve in the second world war, but was a member of the volunteer defence force until his internment in 1941.
Unlike Mario, Sho was Japanese by birth and the military was unwilling to consider him for service. He was interned as a result. The local community fought hard for his release, with some members going so far as to testify on the family’s behalf at the Aliens Tribunal.
Sho is described in the tribunal minutes as being “as loyal a citizen as any living in our district… always willing to help”, and the family reputation was “absolutely one of the best”.
The Swan Hill police force apparently felt ashamed and embarrassed at the prospect of arresting the Takasuka family, and sought advice from the Attorney General about circumventing the regulations. The Takasukas’s tomato farm was supplying food to the Department of Defence after all. These examples of community involvement led to Sho Takasuka being released and allowed to remain within a 14 kilometre radius of his farm.
Others were treated more harshly still. Unlike Mario Takasuka, Joseph Suzuki was born in Japan and migrated to Australia with his Australian mother just six months after his birth. On June 19, 1940 he registered for service in the AIF in Sydney, falsely listing his birthplace as Geelong and raising his age from 17 to 22.
Joseph served in the 2/1 Survey Regiment in Australia until February 21, 1941, when his identity was discovered. He was discharged “on racial grounds” and was interned at the Japanese Internment camp in Hay, NSW.
Suzuki was steadfast in his fight to prove his loyalties to the Australian government. He applied for release from internment and on May 13, 1942 stood before a tribunal where he emphasised his desire to assist the war effort in any way he could, including being prepared to take the risk of being taken prisoner or shot as a traitor by the Japanese military.
Joseph had a tattoo of a map of Australia, and in an interview with researcher Yuriko Nagata, his sister spoke of him as always being a loyal Australian, adding “the proof is that he got a medal from the Queen”. Suzuki later told The Sunday Telegraph in an interview that he was “an Australian to the backbone”.
Although the tribunal concluded in 1942 that Suzuki should be released, he remained interned until August 21, 1944. This was due to reports from the Australian Military Forces (AMF) Eastern Command in July 1942 which argued that as a person with Japanese heritage born in Japan, Suzuki was under “the influence of the fatalistic Emperor cult; [and] the obligation on Japanese to report intelligence to the Consulate”. It said “evidence of conversion to Christianity was no argument for Australian orientation”.
The military was also concerned Suzuki’s skills as a surveyor would be useful to the enemy. Further, his Security Service assessment presented to the government argued that “the son of a Japanese is always regarded as a Japanese even if he had some other nationality”. Because of his prolonged internment, Suzuki’s mental health suffered and he was hospitalised. This eventually triggered his release.
Suzuki and several of the other “mixed race” or Australian-born internees did not get along with the Japanese nationals in the camp. They were referred to as The Gang and were segregated in a separate tent. Suzuki said the other internees were friendly enough, but they had to “try to speak English” to communicate with him, as he did not speak any Japanese. Suzuki’s actions at Hay served as the inspiration for a fictional character named Peter Suzuki in After Darkness, the 2014 Vogel’s Literary Award-winning novel by Christine Piper.
After his release, Suzuki returned to Newcastle, where he was naturalised on June 12, 1945. He eventually changed his surname due to continued discrimination. In Yuriko Nagata’s influential book on Australian internment, Unwanted Aliens, Joseph’s sister Hannah stresses she does not want Joseph to be contacted for research, as it would upset him too much.
A sense of belonging
Mario Takasuka and his family experienced acceptance from the Australian communities around them. They had deep social ties and their loyalty was never in question. Suzuki, on the other hand, was continually rejected by his nation for being half-Japanese. Despite his loyalty to the nation and his white heritage, he was regarded an enemy and this resulted in significant psychological pain.
Many Asian Australians will be experiencing an array of feelings to do with their sense of belonging to the nation right now. Do they feel included? Are they targeted for their race?
Earlier this year, it was reported planned Anzac Day celebrations at RSLs in WA were going to take place strictly in English and without Aboriginal flags or Welcome to Country. Thankfully this divisive approach was overturned.
Other Anzac Day ceremonies proffer a more inclusive attitude celebrating Aboriginal diggers and other ethnically diverse soldiers – including Chinese Australians. Reflecting on Takasuka and Suzuki’s lives prompts us to imagine the version of Australia we want on Anzac Day – especially in these alarming times of social isolation.
Asian Australians are among the vulnerable groups in our society during this pandemic. Wartime Nikkei histories may give us some perspective on the present.
It’s significant that so few Japanese Australian families share their internment stories. Just 141 Nikkei Australians were allowed to stay after the war; the rest were repatriated to Japan. As such, post-war Japanese Australian migrant identity was not built on the particular shared trauma of marginalisation that internment represents. Conversely in the US, internment galvanised the community into a powerful cultural and political force.
Nikkei Australian stories raise questions about Asian Australian responses to marginalisation. Joseph Suzuki remained loyal to a nation that repeatedly rejected and ostracised him. Is this a likely response from Asian Australians in the current COVID-19 climate?
Many Japanese Americans rejected former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s call in the Washington Post early this month for Asian Americans to “embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before”. They recalled the pain of wartime internment, saying that now (and indeed, then) “being American should have been enough”.
It wasn’t possible to form an Asian Australian community response to racist attitudes during the second world war. It isn’t entirely clear if that is possible today. However, Mario Takasuka’s story does show us that Australians of different backgrounds can band together to defy racism and support each other in hardship.
For many women, the journey through menopause is a roller coaster of symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disturbance, dry and itchy skin, mood changes, anxiety, depression and weight gain. For some, it can be relatively uneventful.
During menopause, women also experience a shift in how fat stores are distributed around the body. Fat tends to move from the thigh region up to the waist and abdomen.
While the average weight increase was only about one kilogram, the increase in percentage total body fat was almost 3%, with fat on the trunk increasing by 5.5% and total leg fat decreasing around 3%.
Average waist circumference increased by about 4.6 centimetres and hips by 2.0 centimetres.
Other bad news is that once postmenopausal, women have lower total daily energy needs. This is partly because body fat requires less energy to maintain it compared to muscle. So even if your weight doesn’t change, the increase in body fat means your body needs fewer kilojoules each day.
Energy requirements decrease after menopause.Shutterstock
The bottom line is that unless your transition to menopause is accompanied by a reduction in your total energy intake or an increase in your physical activity, you’re at high risk of weight gain.
They manage this by either decreasing the total amount of food they eat, cutting down on fat and sugar, using commercial weight loss programs, doing more exercise, or a combination of all these.
They key thing is that they change some aspects of their lifestyle.
The Women’s Healthy Lifestyle Project compared the impact of receiving support to improve diet and exercise habits over four years covering menopause, to making no changes at all.
Women who changed their lifestyle had lower body weights, less abdominal fat and better blood sugar levels compared to those in the control group.
This was associated with a reduction in weight, body fat and waist circumference, as well as blood levels of bad cholesterol and fats, highlighting the benefits of endurance walking.
Women in the exercise group reduced their waist circumference relative to their hips, indicating a reduction in abdominal fat, even though their total body weight did not change.
More recently, we studied 54 women aged 45-50 years in the “40-Something” trial.
We randomly assigned half the participants to receive healthy eating and physical activity support from health professionals, using motivational interviewing to encourage behaviour change. The other half received information only and were asked to self-direct their lifestyle changes.
Our aim was to prevent weight gain in women who were in either the overweight or healthy weight range as they entered early menopause.
We encouraged women who were overweight to reduce their body weight to achieve a body mass index (BMI) in the healthy weight range (BMI 18 to 25). We encouraged women already in the healthy weight range to maintain their weight within one kilogram.
We gave all women the same healthy lifestyle advice, including to eat:
2 serves of fruit and at least 5 serves of vegetables every day
1-1.5 serves of meat or meat alternatives
2-3 serves of dairy
wholegrain breads and cereals.
And to:
limit foods high in fat and sugar
cut down on meals eaten outside the home
engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity for 150-250 minutes per week
sit for less than three hours per day
take at least 10,000 steps per day.
Eating a variety of vegetables is an important component of healthy eating.Shutterstock
Women in the intervention group had five consultations with a dietitian and exercise physiologist over one year to provide support and motivation to change their eating habits and physical activity.
When we evaluated changes based on their starting BMI, the intervention was more effective for preventing weight gain in women initially of a healthy weight.
Although weight gain, and especially body fat gain, is usual during the menopausal transition, you can beat it.
Rather than menopause being a time to put your feet up, it’s a time to step up your physical activity and boost your efforts to eat a healthy, balanced diet, especially when it comes to the frequency and variety of vegetables you eat.
