Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Arianrhod, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow , School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University

Four hundred years ago, on July 2 1621, a remarkable Englishman named Thomas Harriot died in London. He left behind some 8,000 pages of scientific research, but it is only in recent decades that scholars have uncovered their treasures.

And what they show is that Harriot independently made many significant discoveries now attributed to other, more famous scientists. Some scholars have called him “the English Galileo” and “the greatest British mathematical scientist before Newton”.

Yet Harriot died without publishing a single word of this extraordinary output. His tale reminds us that, while we may sometimes think science progresses through a series of famous pioneers who single-handedly overturn entrenched beliefs, the story is rarely so simple.

What did Harriot discover?

For instance, we learn in school that Galileo Galilei initiated telescopic astronomy and discovered the law of falling motion. But Harriot independently did both of these things.

He also deduced fledgling general laws governing the motion of everyday objects, again independently of Galileo, and before René Descartes. (Half a century later, Isaac Newton developed the definitive laws of motion.)

Harriot studied light, too, discovering the secret of colour and the nature of the rainbow before Newton, and finding the law of refraction (which we know today as Snell’s law) before the Dutch astronomer Willebrord Snell.

He also made a mathematical study of population growth before Thomas Malthus, developed a completely symbolic form of sophisticated algebra before Descartes, discovered binary arithmetic before Gottfried Leibniz, and took
steps on the road to calculus with his work on infinite series.

The law of falling bodies

It wasn’t until 2008 that Harriot’s work on gravity was fully reconstructed, by the German scholar Matthias Schemmel.

As Schemmel pointed out, Harriot and his contemporary Galileo were heirs to essentially the same body of knowledge. It’s perhaps not so surprising, then, that they made some of the same breakthroughs. There are plenty of examples of independent co-discoveries in history, most famously that of calculus by Newton and Leibniz.

The law of falling motion says that without air resistance all objects, no matter their size or mass, fall from the same height at the same rate.

Legend has it Galileo dropped balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to study how they fell. Nobody knows if this is true, but Harriot had the same idea: he recorded the time, in pulse beats, that it took for different objects falling from as high as 55½ feet (about 17 metres) to reach the ground.

Read more:
Copernicus’ revolution and Galileo’s vision: our changing view of the universe in pictures

Both Harriot and Galileo devised more accurate experiments, however, from which they derived a mathematical understanding of how things fall.

This combination of experiment and mathematics is now the accepted way to derive a law of nature. Quantifying observations means others can test the results, and use them to make useful predictions.

Harriot and Galileo were not the first to understand the role of observation and mathematics in this context, of course. But they were among the most successful of the pre-Newtonian pioneers.

Galileo didn’t publish his work on gravity until after Harriot had died, and there’s no evidence that the two men ever met or corresponded.

The law of refraction and the shape of the rainbow

The German astronomer Johannes Kepler, however, did correspond briefly with Harriot. Kepler had been working on the nature of light and vision when word reached him that Harriot had unravelled two mysteries: the law of refraction, and why the rainbow has its magical colours and its unique shape.

The law of refraction describes how light bends when it passes from one medium into another, which explains how an image can be focused by a glass lens or why your leg looks wobbly when you dip it in a swimming pool.

Harriot derived this law 20 years before Snell, but there’s a popular belief that the 10th-century Baghdad-based scholar Abū Saʿd al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Sahl beat even Harriot. This is not quite right: Ibn Sahl is a notable pioneer whose geometrical diagram of light focussed by a lens gives, in hindsight, the correct refractive path. But there’s no evidence he deduced his result from experiment, or that he understood the general properties of refraction.

Judging from his surviving papers even Snell failed to generalise his result, which he, like Ibn Sahl, never wrote as the neat trigonometric equation we use today. Harriot, by contrast, did: his derivation of the general law of refraction is another example of his rigorous blend of experiment and mathematics.

Read more:
Curious Kids: Why are rainbows round?

Harriot’s other adventures

If only Harriot had published! In the early stage of his career, though, he was bound by commercial secrecy, for his first patron was the controversial statesman and entrepreneur Sir Walter Raleigh. Harriot was also busy dodging heretic hunters and sailing the high seas as Raleigh’s navigational advisor.

Raleigh had delusions of empire and glory, and wanted to establish a trading colony in today’s USA before the Spanish beat him to it. The one work Harriot did publish in his lifetime was “a brief and true report” on the economic potential of Raleigh’s chosen American site.

Harriot’s contribution to colonialism has justly attracted its share of criticism. Nonetheless, his report is still widely praised for its sympathetic depiction of the way of life of the North Carolina Algonquian people, as it was when Europeans first set foot on their land. Harriot learned the local language, and enjoyed much about the year he spent living with the Algonquians.

What he loved doing most, though, was mathematics and physics. He was neither flamboyant nor ambitious, and when he was wrongfully imprisoned through an unlucky connection with the Gunpowder Plot (a failed attempt to assassinate King James I), he told his jailers he just wanted

to live a private life for the love of learning that I might study freely.

Conclusion

In the late 1590s Harriot had found a second patron, Henry Percy, the ninth earl of Northumberland. It was then that he was able to study the mysteries of nature and the marvels of mathematics for their own sakes, rather than the “applied” work he had done for Raleigh.

Having two generous patrons meant Harriot did not need to publicise his discoveries to attract funding, the way Galileo did. Nor did he care about fame, despite being urged by friends to claim his priority. His manuscripts do contain several almost finished treatises, but it seems he was so busy doing science that he never managed to put his results together for the printer.

After his death, well-meaning scholars carved up his manuscripts in an attempt to study and publish them. In the process, however, all the papers disappeared, seemingly lost forever. Then, 150 years later, the Hungarian astronomer Franz Xaver Zach discovered them, locked safely away in Northumberland’s castle.

Most of the papers were then given to the British Museum. They are now in the British Library, where I had the privilege of studying them. (They’re also available online.)

As for Harriot, no-one knows much about him as a person – not even his birthday. Nevertheless, he has fascinated scholars for the past half century (as I discovered some years ago when I set out to bring his story to a wider, non-specialist readership).

That’s because despite the lack of biographical data, those precious manuscripts show that what mattered most to Harriot himself was mathematics and science. Four hundred years on, his mix of genius and dedication is something to honour.

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

– ref. The scientific genius who eschewed fame: remembering Thomas Harriot, 400 years on – https://theconversation.com/the-scientific-genius-who-eschewed-fame-remembering-thomas-harriot-400-years-on-163167

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Henry, Professor of Evidence-Based Practice, Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University

Many Australians will be weighing up whether to be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is widely available, or to wait for Pfizer later in the year.

There are many factors to consider. One is how well these COVID-19 vaccines work in the “real world” of those getting vaccines now.

Real-world data data can tell us how well vaccines protect against currently circulating variants — including the Delta variant, which is dominant in the UK and the subject of lockdowns in Australia. Though less reliable than clinical trials, real-world data can tell us how well vaccines work in some parts of the population excluded from clinical trials. They can also tell us whether we can effectively mix vaccines and what the main side-effects are, almost in real time.

You might be surprised by the results.

Where did these data come from?

Results of the crucial randomised clinical trials, which led to COVID vaccines being approved around the world, led to extraordinary media coverage. The vaccines have since become household names. But those trials were only the beginning.

Data collected during health-care delivery including medical consultations, hospital admissions, vaccine registers, laboratory tests and death records give us more, and different information about the vaccines.

These are data about millions of individual people, which are de-identified before analysis. Analysed properly, they tell us how well vaccines work, and their side-effects, in the real world.

How well do COVID vaccines protect you from serious disease?

The most important finding from analysing these data is vaccines from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna appear equivalent in reducing your chance of serious illness from COVID-19. As we show in our recent review, they do this by more than 80%.

These results extend the findings of the randomised trials by showing all ages benefit from the vaccines, and people with underlying chronic diseases experience reduced, but still worthwhile, protection from serious illness.

Read more:
Which COVID vaccine is best? Here’s why that’s really hard to answer

How about reducing transmission?

The next question is how well these vaccines reduce transmission of the virus from person to person, which the randomised clinical trials were not designed to measure directly.

Researchers in the UK linked data from the vaccination register with laboratory results and residential addresses. They showed a vaccinated household member who then developed COVID-19 was half as likely to transmit the virus to another household member as someone who had not been vaccinated.

However, researchers did not measure the impact of vaccination on transmissibility of the Delta variant in this study as it was conducted before this became dominant in the UK.

Read more:
Mounting evidence suggests COVID vaccines do reduce transmission. How does this work?

How about effectiveness against viral variants?

Researchers in the UK have released estimates of vaccine effectiveness against coronavirus variants.

The most recent report from England found a single dose of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines provides only modest protection (30-40%) against infection with the Delta variant. Full vaccination with two doses of Pfizer offers greater protection (88%) than two doses of AstraZeneca (67%).

However, the same report found full vaccination with either vaccine provides more than 90% protection against hospitalisation from COVID-19.

A study in Scotland found very similar results.

Read more:
Should I get my second AstraZeneca dose? Yes, it almost doubles your protection against Delta

What about vaccine side effects?

Common side-effects of vaccines are tracked by the Zoe COVID Symptom Study. This allows over four million people, mainly in the UK, to report any side-effects via an app.

Reported side-effects are generally mild (headache and fatigue). About 13% report common side-effects after the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, 22% after the second dose. With AstraZeneca, it’s more than 33% after the first dose. Data from the second AstraZeneca dose were not available for this study.

The Zoe app has not quantified the risk of rare severe complications of vaccination. However, real-world data have provided early estimates of the risk of a blood clot (thrombosis) after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine in Norway and Denmark.

The overall rate of a blood clot in the veins anywhere in the body was approximately doubled compared to the general population. This included an extra risk of cerebral venous thrombosis (a type of brain blood clot) of 2.5 out of every 100,000 who received a first vaccination (compared with the general population). Although elevated, this is a very low risk.

The researchers did not have access to appropriate control groups receiving other COVID-19 vaccines to compare the levels of risk. This will likely be a priority in future studies.

Read more:
Concerned about the latest AstraZeneca news? These 3 graphics help you make sense of the risk

How do we know all this?

The science of analysing and interpreting real-world data from vaccine and other treatments has developed over the past 20 years.

In clinical trials randomisation of participants to treatment or control results in very similar comparison groups. This means any differences in trial outcomes should be due to the treatment, not some other factor. Real-world comparisons do not provide this guarantee.

If elderly people, with underlying disease, receive their vaccine early in the rollout, this may create a sicker group of people (or cohort) to follow and analyse. This may make the vaccine appear less-effective than it really is.

Conversely, a more open rollout may lead to more healthy people getting vaccinated. So, the vaccine will appear better (more effective) than it really is.

This complex interplay of biases makes it difficult for researchers to tease out the true effects of vaccines; hence real-world studies require more sophisticated designs and analyses than randomised trials.

However, it’s not so simple. Randomised trials can also be “real world” when they include broad criteria of who to include. While we need more randomised trials, they will never answer all the emerging questions soon enough. That’s why real-world data are so powerful in the middle of a pandemic.

Where to next?

Despite some limitations, analyses of real-world data have become increasingly important with the emergence of new, more infectious strains of SARS-CoV-2 as they can provide answers to important questions more quickly than randomised trials.

However, not all governments provide secure access to de-identified population-scale data to allow researchers to do this. So it’s essential suitably qualified researchers have this access to perform this important work.

David Henry also has an affiliation with Gold Coast University Hospital, Queensland, Australia

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

– ref. How well do COVID vaccines work in the real world? – https://theconversation.com/how-well-do-covid-vaccines-work-in-the-real-world-162926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoe Richards, Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University

The federal government has opposed a recommendation by a United Nations body that the Great Barrier Reef be listed as “in danger”. But there’s no doubt the natural wonder is in dire trouble. In new research, my colleagues and I provide fresh insight into the plight of many coral species.

Worsening climate change, and subsequent marine heatwaves, have led to mass coral deaths on tropical reefs. However, there are few estimates of how reduced overall coral cover is linked to declines in particular coral species.

Our research examined 44 years of coral distribution records around Lizard Island, at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. We found 16% of coral species have not been seen for many years and are at risk of either local extinction, or disappearing from parts of their local range.

This is alarming, because local extinctions often signal wider regional – and ultimately global – species extinction events.

Sobering findings

The Lizard Island reef system is 270 kilometres north of Cairns. It has suffered major disturbances over the past four decades: repeated outbreaks of crown-of-thorns seastars, category 4 cyclones in 2014 and 2015, and coral bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020.

Our research focused on “hermatypic” corals around Lizard Island. These corals deposit calcium carbonate and form the hard framework of the reef.

We undertook hard coral biodiversity surveys four times between 2011 and 2020, across 14 sites. We combined the results with published and photographic species records from 1976 to 2020.

Of 368 hard coral species recorded around Lizard Island, 28 (7.6%) have not been reliably recorded since before 2011 and may be at risk of local extinction. A further 31 species (8.4%) have not been recorded since 2015 and may be at risk of range reduction (disappearance from parts of its local range).

The “missing” coral species include:

• Acropora abrotanoides, a robust branching shallow water coral that lives on the reef crest and reef flat has not been since since 2009

• Micromussa lordhowensis, a low-growing coral with colourful fleshy polyps. Popular in the aquarium trade, it often grows on reef slopes but has not been seen since 2005

• Acropora aspera, a branching coral which prefers very shallow water and has been recorded just once, at a single site, since 2011.

The finding that 59 coral species are at risk of local extinction or range reduction is significant. Local range reductions are often precursors to local species extinctions. And local species extinctions are often precursors to regional, and ultimately global, extinction events.

Each coral species on the reef has numerous vital functions. It might provide habitat or food to other reef species, or biochemicals which may benefit human health. One thing is clear: every coral species matters.

Read more:
The outlook for coral reefs remains grim unless we cut emissions fast — new research

A broader extinction crisis?

As human impacts and climate threats mount, there is growing concern about the resilience of coral biodiversity. Our research suggests such concerns are well-founded at Lizard Island.

Coral reef communities are dynamic, and so detecting species loss can be difficult. Our research found around Lizard Island, the diversity of coral species fluctuated over the past decade. Significant declines were recorded from 2011 to 2017, but diversity recovered somewhat in the three following years.

Local extinctions often happen incrementally and can therefore be “invisible”. To detect them, and to account for natural variability in coral communities, long-term biodiversity monitoring across multiple locations and time frames is needed.

In most locations however, data on the distribution and abundance of all coral species in a community is lacking. This means it can be hard to assess changes, and to understand the damage that climate change and other human-caused stressors are having on each species.

Only with this extra information can scientists conclusively say if the level of local extinction risk at Lizard Island indicates a risk that coral species may become extinct elsewhere – across the Great Barrier Reef and beyond.

Read more:
Is Australia really doing enough for the Great Barrier Reef? Why criticisms of UNESCO’s ‘in danger’ recommendation don’t stack up

Zoe Richards receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Zoe Richards is Marine Invertebrate Curator at the Western Australian Museum.

– ref. Almost 60 coral species around Lizard Island are ‘missing’ – and a Great Barrier Reef extinction crisis could be next – https://theconversation.com/almost-60-coral-species-around-lizard-island-are-missing-and-a-great-barrier-reef-extinction-crisis-could-be-next-163714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luara Ferracioli, Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney

In recent years, Australian academics have been accused of many forms of wrongful expression including racism, transphobia and anti-Semitism.

Earlier this year an African-Australian researcher’s paper was accused of being racist. The research found the over-representation in crime statistics of Sudanese-born young people is not due to racial profiling.

More recently a queer political action group at the University of Melbourne called for a review of a philosophy subject on feminism over concerns the course materials contain “transphobic rhetoric”.

The university also drafted a new “gender affirmation policy”, which considers prohibiting public speeches or events it deems an attack on gender diversity. Critics of the draft policy argue it expands the relevant notion of “harm” and represents a major potential constraint on academic freedom.

These examples raise questions about the limits of academic freedom, and about what makes constraint of academic speech legitimate.

Political convictions underlie interpretations of such incidents. Some are more likely to emphasise concerns about purportedly harmful speech, and to interpret constraints on academic expression as an essential part of protecting marginalised members of society.

Others emphasise concerns about the negative effects of limiting academic freedom. They may interpret their stance as an essential part of larger efforts to resist illiberal cultural trends.

To evaluate these challenging issues, we need to understand the value of the university in a liberal society. We must also appreciate the many roles of academics in the university and in the wider democratic ecosystem.

The pursuit of truth

It is common to claim universities have the special function of facilitating the pursuit of truth. This pursuit requires open and fearless discussion of ideas, including ones that are controversial, false and even sometimes immoral. According to this view, censoring academics for their speech is incompatible with the rigorous pursuit of truth, and hence with the foundational purpose of the university.

But this can’t be the end of the story. First, the university has other important functions. For example, educating students, preparing students for life after university and improving public debate.

Second, some campus speech constitutes unjustifiable harm. Such harmful speech can be constrained when its exercise violates the rights of others, for instance their right to non-discrimination.

Read more:
There are differences between free speech, hate speech and academic freedom – and they matter

To better assess the limits of academic freedom, it is useful to distinguish between two aspects of academic work: teaching and research.

As teachers, academics are tasked with facilitating the pursuit of truth. But they are also responsible for cultivating a respectful environment, which gives students fair opportunities to grow intellectually. This requires presenting material in ways that don’t demean, subordinate or intimidate any one group or person.

In a United States case that went to court, a philosophy professor refused to address a transgender student with her preferred pronouns. Such behaviour singles out the relevant student and jeopardises their equal status in the classroom. It should not be protected under the guise of academic freedom.

But as researchers, academics should primarily be interested in pursuing the truth. They should not, for example, minimise findings that challenge their political views, the views of their students or their employers.

Similarly, research should not be constrained merely on the grounds it might have bad effects. Valuable research often has some bad effects. A prominent US economist published surprising findings which challenge the common assumption black Americans are disproportionately likely to encounter lethal force from the police. These findings have, predictably, been used inappropriately. Some have used them to argue there is no racism in policing.

We are very sceptical about arguments that assume bad political consequences like this are sufficient to limit the freedom of academics to pursue the research that interests them.

Read more:
Book review: Open Minds explores how academic freedom and the public university are at risk

It is important to distinguish the first critique from the second. The idea of the first is not that the speech might cause later harm, but that it constitutes harm on its own. Demeaning students is harmful in itself. And it violates principles of fairness in education.

So the relevant question is: when does academic speech constitute harm in this way?

Robust debate in the classroom

It is our view that causing distress, hurt feelings or discomfort in students cannot be sufficient on its own to limit academic speech — even if this distress is significant.

Socialists may feel discomfort in a class on macroeconomics. Indigenous students may feel confronted in a class on Australian literature. Students committed to the literal truth of the bible may feel distress in a class on evolutionary biology. Sexual assault survivors may feel disrespected in a class on criminal law. These reactions deserve to be taken seriously. But taking them seriously does not mean ensuring they never arise.

It is unavoidable some students will be offended and distressed by material they encounter at university — just as they will be offended and distressed by material they encounter in society more broadly.

Student distress can sometimes also be a sign instructors are engaging in unacceptable classroom behaviour. An economics professor should not mock their anti-capitalist student, even if that student were to exhibit poor reasoning. Similarly, professors teaching gender critical views — which distinguish between gender and biological sex and maintain biological sex is politically important — should not insult, intimidate or silence students who passionately disagree with them.

Read more:
Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook

Academics can be appropriately censured for violating their professional duties if they behave sufficiently disrespectfully.

However, we should err on the side of preserving academic freedom when the cause of distress is the mere discussion of academic material. Outside of the case of clearly demeaning, subordinating, or intimidating speech, hurt feelings or distress are insufficient grounds on their own for limiting the speech in question.

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

– ref. If not in a university, then where? Academia must define harm to allow open debate on difficult issues – https://theconversation.com/if-not-in-a-university-then-where-academia-must-define-harm-to-allow-open-debate-on-difficult-issues-163355

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

You might have thought the “lockdown wars” in Australia were over.

After all, Australia navigated the pandemic better than essentially any other country in 2020.

We closed our international border in March, used an early and relative light lockdown in NSW to get contact testing and tracing up and running, squelched costly hotel quarantine leaks in Victoria with more dramatic measures, and generally kept Australia as COVID-free as possible.

We adopted the wise principle, borne out by so much tragic international experience, that we could not have a functioning economy with a pandemic raging.

The overwhelming focus of public policy has now shifted to getting people vaccinated. But some of the anti-lockdown tribe are battling on, suggesting our border controls and lockdown didn’t save lives.

Are they right? No.

Their latest argument uses a US National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by academics from the University of Southern California and the RAND Corporation that looks at “excess deaths”. That is, it compares total deaths from all causes in a particular jurisdiction with an estimate of “expected” deaths in that jurisdiction based on historical data.

Their data covers all 50 US states and 43 nations, including Australia. Their conclusion is that “shelter-in-place” policies were associated with an increase in excess mortality, with the exception of three countries: Australia, Malta and New Zealand.

So this isn’t a good argument against our approach. Nor did the authors find any statistical significant result covering more than the immediate weeks following shelter-in-place implementation in the more internally comparable US data.

Nonetheless it’s worth examining this paper, and also looking at what Australian data on excess deaths is showing.

Read more:
Yes, lockdowns are costly. But the alternatives are worse

A brave empirical method

The National Bureau of Economic Research is a distinguished organisation. It has published nine of my working papers. But this does not bestow some kind of magical status on them. It doesn’t mean they are peer-reviewed. Rather, it is an automatic privilege accompanying bureau affiliation.

Thus every paper comes with the disclaimer that “working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes” and “have not been peer-reviewed”.

The paper latched on to by the anti-lockdown tribe uses an empirical method known as an “event study”. Such studies were popularised in financial economics thanks to an influential 1969 paper on stock prices by American economist Gene Fama and colleagues.

Fama has been called “father of modern finance” for his work on the “efficient markets hypothesis” – the idea that asset prices reflect all available information, so it is impossible in the long run to “beat” the market.

The efficient markets hypothesis is a big and important idea in financial economics. It rightly led to the 2013 Nobel prize for economics, which Fama shared with University of Chicago colleague Lars Peter Hansen
and Yale University’s Robert Shiller, who built on Fama’s work and concluded that markets are often very far from efficient.

Whatever one’s view about the rationality of asset prices, it is important to understand the “event study” method relies crucially on rationality in financial markets and the efficiency of securities prices. As one survey article of event studies notes:

The usefulness of such a study comes from the fact that, given rationality in the marketplace, the effects of an event will be reflected immediately in security prices. Thus a measure of the event’s economic impact can be constructed using security prices observed over a relatively short time period.

Using an event study to assess a noisy measure of mortality in decidedly inefficient political markets (if one can even call them that in this case) is a million miles away from the purpose and internal logic of event studies in securities markets.

The nice way to describe using an event study to assess pandemic policy is that it’s “brave”.

Australian data on deaths

The Australian Bureau of Statistic collates definitive statistics about deaths after reports from state coroners are finalised. It usually publishes these annually, in September.

Due to the interest in deaths due to the pandemic, however, the bureau has been publishing monthly “provisional mortality statistics” based on doctor-certified deaths. (About 80-85% of all deaths are certified by doctors, without a coroner determining the cause.)

The provisional statistics show Australia had slightly fewer non-COVID-related deaths in 2020 than normally the case (an average of 385.6 deaths per day, compared to the baseline average of 385.8.)

In 2020 and so far in 2021 Australians have been less likely than normal to die of heart disease and strokes, and dramatically less likely to die from flu.

Read more:
You can’t fix the economy if you can’t see it: how the ABS became our secret weapon

What about suicides?

A common claim by the anti-lockdown tribe is that suicides have risen due to people being socially isolated and losing work.

But early evidence from insurance companies on suicides shows the opposite.

There’s a good reason for this. As Simon Swanson, the chief executive of ClearView Life Assurance, told the House Standing Committee on Economics on June 25:

If you read our annual report last year you would have seen we increased assumptions for suicide. That did not actually happen — suicide actually went down —and in our research part of that was because people were participating in a global pandemic and everyone was in this together. The second impact was there was an incredible increase in telehealth, which was an interesting part of technology actually delivering to consumers.

Everyone was in this together.

There may, of course, be other mental health impacts from lockdowns. But there are no perfect options. We will have a greater array of policy options when at least 80% of the population are vaccinated.

With apologies to John Keating (played by Robin Williams) in Dead Poets Society: “‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.”

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

– ref. Vital Signs: Australia’s anti-lockdown tribe battles on against the evidence – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-australias-anti-lockdown-tribe-battles-on-against-the-evidence-163648

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Doctor of Botany, The University of Melbourne

As tree scientist, I am fascinated by the magnificent biology of trees. I also find it enthralling and encouraging that trees are being appreciated by writers around the world right now.

Three fresh books (chosen from a wider field of titles on the topic) exemplify how trees can be written about as more than just background or an incidental part of a landscape, but as integral to meaning.

My Forests: Travel with Trees by Janine Burke, The Heartbeat of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, and Tree Story, a collection curated by Charlotte Day and Brian Martin — are mixed in style and content. But all make clear the close relationships between people and trees and the vital importance of those connections.

It is not surprising that at a time of significant climate change, where natural ecosystems around the world are being devastated and after 18 months of a global pandemic, books on trees are proving popular.

There is an air of desperation in these three titles. Things are changing fast, trees and forests grow slowly, we are wasting time.

Hardy annuals

Books about trees are published every year. Some are beautifully illustrated with photos or hand-drawn images of special trees in large coffee table formats. Some, like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, have trees and forests as characters. Tolkien told a fan that his magnificent Ents were “either souls sent to inhabit trees, or else were folk who slowly took the likeness of trees owing to their inborn love of trees”.

Tolkien’s writing, including a story collection called Tree and Leaf, reminds us of the differences between tree time and human time — we humans are hasty folk. This is something I dwell upon often.

The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton was one of the first books I can recall reading where a tree played a major role and it helped set me on a path of lifelong reading and interest in botany.

That childhood favourite connects to Richard Powers’ The Overstory, which draws together a disparate fictional band of tree protectors. After his book became a hit, Powers recommended 26 other titles for tree-loving readers.

This library of tree books has served a wide and varied readership well and sustained those of us who despair at the wholesale clearing of forests and trees in our cities and suburbs.

Read more:
Friday essay: how many climate crisis books will it take to save the planet?

Legacies lost

In most Australian cities we are losing trees and canopy cover at a rate of about 1-1.5% per year. I’m still saddened by the loss of a lemon scented gum (Corymbia citriodora) that grew at the city end of the Tullamarine Freeway in Melbourne. I miss its shade in summer but also the delicious scent that wafted through the car window at certain times of the year.

In October last year, protesters mourned a sacred 350-year-old Djab Wurrung Directions Tree, cut down along Victoria’s Western Highway.

Read more:
An open letter from 1,200 Australian academics on the Djab Wurrung trees

There has been a growing disconnect between people and trees and vegetated spaces, particularly for those living in cities. Many people have become so focused on urban survival they have become distanced from the essential and intimate dependence that human beings have on plant life.

Earth as we know it, and the lifeforms it sustains, depend upon and have been shaped by plants and their evolution. Human beings can only survive on our planet because of the ecosystems made possible by plants and trees. If these systems are put in jeopardy because people fail to appreciate the importance of plants, then entire ecosystems are put in peril with profound consequences for humankind.

Climate change is giving us a glimpse of how these important relationships are affected by bushfires, stronger winds from unusual directions and more frequent storms with heavy rainfall that can lead of the loss of grand old trees that have stood as silent sentinels for decades and centuries.

All plants in an ecosystem are important to its function, but the large size and long lives of trees explain why they are often focused upon as representatives of their communities. Their size makes them obvious and contributes to the ambience of any landscape, but can also inspire a sense of awe and in some urban-dwellers, fear.

Their long life spans provide a sense of certainly and continuity in uncertain times of rapid change — their presence can link several human generations, when other connections have been lost. They also provide a tangible prospect, if they are left alone or are properly managed, for links to future generations. All of this can be very reassuring for people who feel vulnerable and oppressed by rapid change.

Read more:
An act of God, or just bad management? Why trees fall and how to prevent it

A fresh crop

All three of the new books selected tend to anthropomorphise trees and aspects of their biology, attributing to them distinctly human qualities. Sometimes they are described by a mood, such as an upbeat growth in spring or by a willingness to share resources with other species. While this may be annoying to some scientists, it allows many people to relate or even identify more closely with trees, especially when there is complex biology and ecology involved.

Peter Wohlleben’s bestselling 2016 book The Hidden life of Trees, took readers on a voyage of discovery with a blend of science, philosophy and spiritualism.

Like that first book, his latest — The Heartbeat of Trees — can be enthralling and annoying almost in equal measure. But the author clearly relates the importance of using our senses when we are in forests to explore the complexity of tree biology. By doing so not only will we achieve a better understanding of trees, but also of ourselves and the importance of trees and vegetated places for human development, our physical and mental health and the sustainability of our societies. It will surely resonate strongly with readers after the pandemic lockdowns of the past year, which saw people flocking to parks, gardens and forests.

A personal and professional travelogue woven together by trees is the framework of My Forests: Travel with Trees, by Janine Burke. As an art historian Burke weaves her own experiences with trees with those depicted in paintings, ancient mythology and historic and literary texts.

It is a set of idiosyncratic connections that may not resonate with all readers, but the strong cultural links between trees and ancient human history are undeniable. The reader can learn a great deal about people but relatively little about trees themselves — they remain illusory, almost furtive.

Tree Story, curated by Charlotte Day and Brian Martin catalogues a recent exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art. It is an eclectic mix of style, content, form and media. Some of the images and text do not do justice to the works, but the book does provide a permanent and curated record of what was offered.

The book makes it clear that people see and connect with trees in different, varied and curious ways. While the works may look at the past, there are clear implications, messages and lessons for the present and importantly for the future. Indigenous voices and perspectives speak loudly, longingly and desperately. The works plead that we cannot go on treating trees in this way: for our own health and sustainable futures we must recognise that ultimately all earthly life is essentially one.

Strengthening the bond

The three books, in their own and different ways, challenge how we think about and interact with trees. They broaden the relationship that exists between trees and people and encourage an active and positive interaction. There is a unifying theme that healthy relationships will benefit both people and trees.

Authors and artists recount their personal stories of trees benefiting their own physical and mental well-being. Research shows that trees along streets and roadways have a traffic calming effect that results in slower speeds and more courteous driver behaviour. In a huge study of women’s health in the United States it was shown that green spaces (parks, gardens and trees) significantly correlated with many aspects of improved health.

Plants and trees are not passive participants in ecosystems. They actively contribute to the complexity, resilience and survival of these systems and while the environment affects and changes them, they also modify the environment. Shade from trees cools the understorey and soils, making it possible for a more diverse range of species to thrive. Shade on creeks and rivers helps native fish survive and breed.

Read more:
Friday essay: this grandmother tree connects me to Country. I cried when I saw her burned

These books highlight the complexity of the relationships that many of us have with trees – relationships that can bring change to both us and the trees.

Wohlleben asks that we use all our senses when we interact with trees and forests. There is more going on than meets the eye. Burke reminds us that culture and tradition influence our perception of trees and forests. The works exhibited in Tree Story help us to explore these influences and their meaning.

We are far from knowing all there is to know about plants, trees, forests and ecosystems. The scientific approach is but one method of questing for truth. The open-minded approaches explored in these books could stimulate new discoveries.

The books remind us of the pace of change being wrought on trees and forests by climate change and that the stakes, if we don’t reverse this decline, are very high.

Scientists should never dismiss what they don’t understand. Neither should readers. As climates change, the presence of trees and green space will be recognised as a priority. Trees will be a part of our futures no matter where we live because we cannot have economically viable, environmentally sustainable or liveable places without them.

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

– ref. Friday essay: trees have many stories to tell. Is this our last chance to read them? – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-trees-have-many-stories-to-tell-is-this-our-last-chance-to-read-them-161428

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

Jeannette Young sounded at the end of her tether on Thursday

Queensland’s chief health officer attracted a storm of criticism, including the accusation she was fuelling the anti-vaxxer movement, after she challenged Scott Morrison’s opening the door for younger people to get the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“No, I do not want under 40s to get AstraZeneca,” she said on Wednesday. “I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got COVID, probably wouldn’t die.”

Fellow experts turned on her, as well as political figures and commentators. But Young, though sounding frazzled, stuck to her position.

Asked whether she was not undermining the vaccination program, she said on Thursday: “I’m giving my advice. I’m a doctor. I’ve been involved in Australia’s vaccination programme now for 16 years.

“People need to work out where they want to get advice from […] But my advice is very, very clear.”

At the pandemic’s beginning experts (at least in Australia) were hailed as heroes and saviours, notwithstanding some differences among them. The politicians embraced them; the public asked why the leaders didn’t always listen to them as they were doing now.

That gradually changed, and some – notably Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton – were singled out as the political warfare over handling the pandemic ramped up.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Scott Morrison’s AstraZeneca ‘hand grenade’ turns into cluster bomb

Young has long had a target on her back, not least because of controversy over some compassionate cases but mostly because of her power and hard line.

This week’s furore raised wider questions about the nature of expertise and the proper balance between expert advice and political decisions.

One obvious takeout is, just because you are an expert doesn’t mean you have the definitive answer when the question is on AstraZeneca. There are many unknowns about a new vaccine.

A 20-somethings listening to Young would shy away from AstraZeneca. If she listened to former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth, however, she’d reckon the doomsayers were being paternalistic and an AZ jab was probably worth the risk.

At the centre of the argument is the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s advice, which prefers Pfizer for people under 60 but doesn’t rule out AstraZeneca for them.

ATAGI’s co-chair, Chris Blyth, on Thursday told the ABC he did not believe “young people should be receiving AstraZeneca at this stage unless their circumstances press for that. There are some situations where that would be warranted, but they are quite small.”

That seemed to give broad support for Young’s position but with a deal more nuance.

Chris Moy, a member of the ATAGI COVID-19 working group, suggested the tone of the message is important. “Opinion is fine […] but you should be unemotional like the ATAGI guidelines”.

Moy said Young’s words extended beyond the advisory role of a doctor, being so emphatic as to sound like an edict overriding patient choice, and applying to a vaccine which continues to be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for all those over 18.

All the experts urge people to talk to their doctors – who can feel less constrained now they’ll have a new government indemnity scheme. But while a doctor knows a patient’s situation, picking through the official advice won’t be straightforward.

Read more:
View from The Hill: No, this isn’t based on the medical advice

Morrison on Monday seized on the “let-out” in ATAGI’s position for practical and political reasons. He’s desperate to speed the rollout. The country has a lot riding on this – lockdowns and shut borders will continue while we’re not adequately vaccinated, and an outbreak could easily go wild.

The Prime Minister’s own fortunes are tied to getting the wheels moving faster. Added to this is the excess supply of AstraZeneca.

Young is not the only embattled health official.

Brendan Murphy, secretary of the health department, this week came under strong and personal attack from the head of the Pharmacy Guild, Trent Twomey.

The pharmacists have been frustrated the government is so late in bringing them into the rollout, despite their efficiency in handling flu shots. They are just now starting to be used. Twomey said Murphy should “take responsibility for this bungled rollout.”

He complained about “the amount of times that I personally have extended my hand of cooperation to the secretary of the Department of Health and it has gone unanswered”, although this is disputed.

Early last year Morrison had Murphy on the highest of pedestals, when he was chief medical officer and in waiting to be departmental secretary. Now Murphy finds the department’s role in charge of the rollout has been given to a military supremo.

The government’s new “fave”, Lieutenant General JJ Frewen, is not just top dog running the vaccination operation, but has an increasing public profile (probably being tested in the focus groups, where the medicos did well).

On Wednesday, following Monday’s national cabinet meeting and Morrison’s statement, Frewen sent a message to the states. In it he said “the Commonwealth will be opening access at primary care sites to people aged 18 to 39 who are interested in receiving AstraZenica”.

On Thursday Frewen appeared on two breakfast TV shows, where he apoke about AstraZeneca and said “in the last two days since the Prime Minister made this announcement, 2,616 Australians under 40 have chosen, with informed consent, to have AstraZeneca”.

In an interview with Nine media published on Thursday Frewen said Morrison saw what “military-style command and control structure can deliver in the way it can cut through” the process.

What even the military man can’t do, however, is get enough of the Pfizer vaccine quickly. This dilemma goes back to 2020, when there was misplaced hope in the UQ vaccine, and priority given to “sovereignty” – Australia’s ability to locally produce AstraZeneca. This became a serious problem when the medical issues arose around AZ.

Malcolm Turnbull is a professional critic of the government but his assessment of the rollout is widely shared. “I can’t think of a bigger black-and-white failure of public administration than this” he told the ABC.

“The reason we are so far behind is because the government last year didn’t buy enough vaccines, they didn’t buy nearly enough Pfizer and they didn’t buy any Moderna.[…] It is a comprehensive failure of administration […] you can’t put a gloss on it.”

Morrison goes into Friday’s national cabinet with some states demanding a lowering of arrival caps and complaints about Pfizer shortages. There’s deep irritation about the shambles flowing from his AstraZeneca remarks. Meanwhile nearly half the country has been in lockdown.

The default position of the PM – who lay low all week after Monday night’s appearance – is gloss. But it will be hard for him to apply any shine that doesn’t immediately rub off.

Read more:
Podcast with Michelle Grattan: the return to lockdown

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: The pandemic is now putting the ‘experts’ in their own world of pain – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-pandemic-is-now-putting-the-experts-in-their-own-world-of-pain-163752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

We’ve been living in a COVID world for more than 18 months now. At the outset of the pandemic, government agencies and health authorities scrambled to inform people on how to identify symptoms of the virus.

But as the virus has evolved, it seems the most common symptoms have changed too.

Emerging data suggest people infected with the Delta variant — the variant behind most of Australia’s current cases and highly prevalent around the world — are experiencing symptoms different to those we commonly associated with COVID earlier in the pandemic.

Read more:
What’s the Delta COVID variant found in Melbourne? Is it more infectious and does it spread more in kids? A virologist explains

We’re all different

Humans are dynamic. With our differences come different immune systems. This means the same virus can produce different signs and symptoms in different ways.

A sign is something that’s seen, such as a rash. A symptom is something that’s felt, like a sore throat.

The way a virus causes illness is dependent on two key factors:

• viral factors include things like speed of replication, modes of transmission, and so on. Viral factors change as the virus evolves.

• host factors are specific to the individual. Age, gender, medications, diet, exercise, health and stress can all affect host factors.

So when we talk about the signs and symptoms of a virus, we’re referring to what is most common. To ascertain this, we have to collect information from individual cases.

It’s important to note this data is not always easy to collect or analyse to ensure there’s no bias. For example, older people may have different symptoms to younger people, and collecting data from patients in a hospital may be different to patients at a GP clinic.

So what are the common signs and symptoms of the Delta variant?

Using a self-reporting system through a mobile app, data from the United Kingdom suggest the most common COVID symptoms may have changed from those we traditionally associated with the virus.

The reports don’t take into account which COVID variant participants are infected with. But given Delta is predominating in the UK at present, it’s a safe bet the symptoms we see here reflect the Delta variant.

While fever and cough have always been common COVID symptoms, and headache and sore throat have traditionally presented for some people, a runny nose was rarely reported in earlier data. Meanwhile, loss of smell, which was originally quite common, now ranks ninth.

There are a few reasons we could be seeing the symptoms evolving in this way. It may be because data were originally coming mainly from patients presenting to hospital who were therefore likely to be sicker. And given the higher rates of vaccination coverage in older age groups, younger people are now accounting for a greater proportion of COVID cases, and they tend to experience milder symptoms.

It could also be because of the evolution of the virus, and the different characteristics (viral factors) of the Delta variant. But why exactly symptoms could be changing remains uncertain.

Read more:
Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

While we still have more to learn about the Delta variant, this emerging data is important because it shows us that what we might think of as just a mild winter cold — a runny nose and a sore throat — could be a case of COVID-19.

This data highlight the power of public science. At the same time, we need to remember the results haven’t yet been fully analysed or stratified. That is, “host factors” such as age, gender, other illnesses, medications and so on haven’t been accounted for, as they would in a rigorous clinical trial.

And as is the case with all self-reported data, we have to acknowledge there may be some flaws in the results.

Does vaccination affect the symptoms?

Although new viral variants can compromise the effectiveness of vaccines, for Delta, the vaccines available in Australia (Pfizer and AstraZeneca) still appear to offer good protection against symptomatic COVID-19 after two doses.

Importantly, both vaccines have been shown to offer greater than 90% protection from severe disease requiring hospital treatment.

A recent “superspreader” event in New South Wales highlighted the importance of vaccination. Of 30 people who attended this birthday party, reports indicated none of the 24 people who became infected with the Delta variant had been vaccinated. The six vaccinated people at the party did not contract COVID-19.

In some cases infection may still possible after vaccination, but it’s highly likely the viral load will be lower and symptoms much milder than they would without vaccination.

We all have a role to play

Evidence indicating Delta is more infectious compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 and other variants of the virus is building.

It’s important to understand the environment is also changing. People have become more complacent with social distancing, seasons change, vaccination rates vary — all these factors affect the data.

But scientists are becoming more confident the Delta variant represents a more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 strain.

Read more:
What’s the difference between mutations, variants and strains? A guide to COVID terminology

As we face another COVID battle in Australia we’re reminded the war against COVID is not over and we all have a role to play. Get tested if you have any symptoms, even if it’s “just a sniffle”. Get vaccinated as soon as you can and follow public health advice.

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

– ref. The symptoms of the Delta variant appear to differ from traditional COVID symptoms. Here’s what to look out for – https://theconversation.com/the-symptoms-of-the-delta-variant-appear-to-differ-from-traditional-covid-symptoms-heres-what-to-look-out-for-163487

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Madden, Adjunct Professor, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology

On Monday night, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new vaccine indemnity scheme.

An indemnity scheme would mean health practitioners who are found liable to pay compensation for any serious adverse events suffered by people receiving COVID vaccines, will have the compensation paid for them by the Commonwealth of Australia.

Morrison also said if people under 60 wish to access to the AstraZeneca vaccine, they can “go and speak to their doctor”.

The media reporting that followed suggests there’s some confusion as to what all this means, for people and health practitioners.

So how does an indemnity scheme work, and does it provide any benefits to people in the very rare event they get a serious adverse reaction to a COVID vaccine?

Wait, what was announced?

Currently, Pfizer is the preferred vaccine for under-60s in Australia.

But the national cabinet media release said “GPs can continue to administer AstraZeneca to Australians under 60 years of age with informed consent”.

The expert panel of immunisation experts which advises the federal government has always said people under 60 can get AstraZeneca if the benefits are likely to outweigh the risks, and if they make an informed decision to consent.

Read more:
Under-40s can ask their GP for an AstraZeneca shot. What’s changed? What are the risks? Are there benefits?

The prime minister also said the new COVID-19 vaccine indemnity scheme “will provide confidence to medical practitioners to administer both AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines to Australians”.

The proposed indemnity scheme is designed to support health practitioners, and reduce real or perceived barriers to them administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to under-60s.

However most, if not all, relevant health practitioners already have indemnity insurance in place, either through private medical indemnity insurers or through their employers.

The proposed new vaccine indemnity scheme therefore appears to shift exposure to claims for compensation from the existing insurers to the Commonwealth of Australia. It’s unlikely to prohibit health practitioners being sued, for example, for negligent advice in relation to the risks and benefits of a particular vaccine.

It’s also worth noting this doesn’t just apply to GPs, but other health practitioners too, such as nurses.

What does the new vaccine indemnity not do?

The new vaccine indemnity doesn’t provide automatic access to the AstraZeneca vaccine for anyone who simply asks for it.

A health practitioner will use their professional judgement as to whether the AstraZeneca vaccine is suitable for a particular patient.

Some patients may have pre-existing conditions which make them unsuitable, and in those circumstances a health practitioner may well refuse to provide that vaccine.

It’s also worth noting individual health-care practitioners aren’t protected from facing complaints or disciplinary action if they engage in any unsatisfactory professional conduct. Perhaps seriously inappropriate advice or treatment could give rise to disciplinary action.

Are there new benefits for you?

Australia doesn’t have a no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme or bespoke COVID-19 vaccine compensation scheme. Countries such as the United States and United Kingdom do have such schemes, even if they are perhaps imperfect.

In these countries and some others, in the very rare instance you have a really bad reaction to a COVID vaccine and, for example suffer a prolonged or permanent disability, you can access compensation.

Some media reports interpreted Australia’s new vaccine indemnity announcement as including such a “no-fault” injury compensation scheme to compensate Australian patients who suffer adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines.

Adding to the confusion was that on Tuesday federal Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly mentioned such a scheme was coming.

Details of the proposed indemnity scheme have not been released. But the prime minister’s announcement made no direct reference to no-fault compensation.

Without a special vaccine compensation scheme, patients may only get compensation if a health practitioner fails to exercise reasonable care or acts in breach of Australian Consumer Law. Sometimes actions against vaccine manufacturers are also possible.

One exception might be an injury flowing from a vaccination related to someone’s employment.

In other words, compensation almost always requires fault on the part of the health practitioner or the vaccine manufacturer.

Could I get compensation without a vaccine injury compensation scheme in place?

There are existing pathways for people to obtain financial assistance when there’s been no fault on the part of the health practitioner advising or administering a vaccine.

Subject to meeting eligibility requirements, people may obtain sickness benefits from Centrelink, or in cases of persisting disability, a disability support person.

Financial supports under the National Disability Insurance Scheme are also available, but only for people under 65 who suffer significant permanent disabilities.

In the very rare event a vaccine causes someone to die, accessing assistance for their dependants is somewhat more complex.

What should happen next?

The new vaccine indemnity may encourage health practitioners to provide the AstraZeneca vaccine more broadly, by reducing financial risks to them and their insurers.

Most people seeking vaccination will be purely motivated by the health benefits. But some people might like the idea of being compensated in the very rare instance something goes badly wrong. One group of researchers from the UK argue that a better financial safety net for patients would encourage more people to seek vaccination, more quickly. Whether this will happen in Australia is a question the national cabinet could consider.

We will know more when the details of the new vaccine indemnity scheme are released. It seems unlikely at this stage but perhaps we’ll be pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of a benefit scheme for anyone who suffers a serious adverse event from a COVID vaccine.

Bill Madden is also a lawyer in private practice based in Sydney.

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

– ref. What’s the new COVID vaccine indemnity scheme? Two legal experts explain – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-new-covid-vaccine-indemnity-scheme-two-legal-experts-explain-163717

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Regina Jefferies, Affiliate, Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW

With outbreaks of COVID-19 in most states and territories, and low rates of vaccination, concerns have arisen again about who is being permitted to exit (and re-enter) the country.

Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan, for instance, said there should be stricter measures for people wanting to leave Australia “while there’s a pandemic running wild around the world because inevitably they want to come back”, posing a health risk to the community.

Questions have also been raised about where travellers are being permitted to go, and for what reasons.

Even though we are more than a year into the pandemic, the Commonwealth’s general prohibition on citizens and permanent residents leaving Australia remains in effect. Despite the passage of time and the increasingly widespread availability of vaccines, Australia is among a small number of countries that continues to rely on border restrictions as the primary pandemic response.

What statistics from Home Affairs show

We recently obtained detailed data from the Department of Home Affairs through a Freedom of Information request that answer these questions. The statistics show who has been allowed to leave Australia, which countries they are going to, and why.

The data cover the period from August 1 2020 to April 25 2021, and reveal some concerning trends.

In particular, the figures show that while the top countries of intended destination were India (25,443 requests), followed by China (21,547) and the UK (15,703), approval rates to the UK (68%) were 22 percentage points higher than India (46%), and 11 points higher than China (59%).

Read more:
The airline industry hasn’t collapsed, but that’s the only good news for overseas travel

This was at a time when the UK was experiencing a drastic second wave of COVID-19 — but India’s second wave had only just begun.

The figures are reminiscent of approval rates for travel exemptions to enter Australia, which precipitated allegations of racial bias earlier this year. Those numbers were even more stark: only 7.17% of requests from India were approved, compared to 23.48% from the UK and 30.73% from South Africa.

Who can leave Australia?

Some people don’t require permission to leave Australia (and are not counted in the numbers above).

These include people who usually live overseas (as well as New Zealanders who ordinarily live here), aircraft crew or maintenance staff, freight workers, those who have “essential work at an offshore facility in Australian waters”, those travelling on official government business, and those travelling directly to New Zealand (who are not transiting from another country).

But most of us do need permission. Among the reasons would-be travellers are able to leave the country:

• it’s part of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak (including the provision of aid)

• business-related

• necessary to receive urgent medical treatment that is not available in Australia

• for a compelling reason for three months or longer

• for compelling or compassionate reasons

• or in the national interest.

Many of these concepts are very murky, and it is up to the decision-maker to determine the appropriate level of evidence required.

The data show that travelling overseas for a compelling reason for at least three months made up the vast majority of exemption approvals (71,249), while comparatively fewer requests were approved on compassionate and compelling grounds (28,391). By contrast, only 4,797 requests were approved for urgent and unavoidable personal business.

Some of these numbers are still fuzzy due to category adjustments. For example, “travelling overseas for at least three months” was included in the “urgent and unavoidable personal business” category prior to September 30, 2020.

Similarly, on January 8, 2021, “travelling overseas for at least three months” became “travelling overseas for a compelling reason for at least three months”.

We were unable to calculate the percentage of approvals from this data because no reason was available for a sizeable number of requests (25,966).

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

Objective decision-making?

Although the Australian Border Force has released an operational directive to clarify how departure exemptions are granted, the data we obtained suggest the thresholds for decision-making are not as systematic (or objective) as desired.

In the period we examined, officials assessed 208,791 exemption requests and approved 119,922 applications. A further 17,017 requests were deemed not to require an individual exemption.

This means roughly 65% of requests were either approved or deemed not to require an exemption.

However, anyone granted an exemption to travel to India who had not yet left by early May had it revoked, following “expert health advice” that considered India a high-risk COVID-19 country.

Similar travel bans were not enacted for other countries — including the UK and US — despite the fact that, as of October 16 2020, the Department of Health has considered travellers arriving from any country besides New Zealand to be high risk.

Policy being made behind closed doors

In short, these data reveal the arbitrary nature of exit requests being granted or denied. It rings true with the anecdotal evidence we have heard from lawyers trying to assist people to leave, as well as would-be travellers themselves.

Much depends on who the decision-maker is in Home Affairs or the Australian Border Force, how they choose to exercise their discretion, and — based on these figures — where the person wants to go and for how long.

Without the opportunity for appeal, there is no independent review of how the factors are weighed, and little, if any oversight of the decisions being reached.

Read more:
We need to restart immigration quickly to drive economic growth. Here’s one way to do it safely

When viewed alongside the barriers preventing the return home of thousands of Australian citizens and permanent residents, the highly variable rates of exit permissions suggest an arbitrariness stemming, in part, from the fact that both individual and policy decisions are being made behind closed doors.

While the Commonwealth, state and territory governments consistently premise their decisions on “the medical advice”, there is not always uniform consensus among medical experts.

Indeed, we have seen in the past week how slippery that notion can be — especially when the prime minister decides to make a unilateral decision about access to vaccines. Governments are effectively making political decisions dressed up as scientific ones, without any oversight from parliament or the public.

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

Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council, including for a project examining internal border controls during epidemics.

– ref. Who’s being allowed to leave Australia during COVID? FOI data show it is murky and arbitrary – https://theconversation.com/whos-being-allowed-to-leave-australia-during-covid-foi-data-show-it-is-murky-and-arbitrary-163725

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Hughes, Distinguished Professor, James Cook University

In case you missed it, last week the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO revealed its draft decision to list the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” — a decision that appeared to shock the Australian government.

In an opinion piece published yesterday in The Australian newspaper, Environment Minister Sussan Ley acknowledged climate change is the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and that it “has been through a few rough years”.

She has also suggested, however, UNESCO’s draft in-danger decision is a surprise and was politically motivated. Neither of these claims is credible.

So let’s look at Australia’s reaction so far, and why criticisms of UNESCO’s draft decision don’t stack up.

The poster child for climate change

An in-danger listing of a World Heritage property recognises a decline in the “outstanding universal value” that makes the site internationally significant. It sets off alarm bells to identify the underlying causes of decline, and triggers stronger interventions to prevent further damage.

Ley foresees a negative effect of the proposed in-danger listing on reef tourism. However, there’s no evidence from the Galapagos Islands, the Belize Barrier Reef or the Everglades National Park — all World Heritage properties and tourism hotspots — that an in-danger listing led to any discernible impacts on tourist numbers.

Most tourists, international or domestic, are already well aware of the pressures facing the Great Barrier Reef, but they are still keen to see it. From 2015–2018, more than two million visitors each year used a tourism operator to visit the reef. During 2020, COVID led to significant decline in visitor numbers so this period has been particularly difficult for the tourism industry.

Ley also claimed Australia, and the reef, didn’t deserve to be the poster child for climate change perils. But why can’t they be? The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most obvious examples of the costs of inaction on anthropogenic climate change.

The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed as a World Heritage Area in 1981. And for the past two decades Australia has meticulously documented its ongoing deterioration.

According to Australia’s regular reporting to UNESCO, the major causes of the reef’s decline in outstanding universal value is pollution from agricultural runoff, which has now been eclipsed by heat stress from climate change.

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

Extreme summer temperatures in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020 have reduced coral cover and changed the mix of species, altering the biodiversity and other World Heritage attributes of the reef for many decades to come.

Unless global warming is stabilised soon, the reef will become unrecognisable. Indeed, in 2019, Australia’s latest five-yearly Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report projected the future of the reef as “very poor”.

Is Australia doing enough?

Ley also suggests Australia is doing everything it can to protect the reef — but is it really?

UNESCO certainty doesn’t think so. The draft decision from UNESCO, which will be considered next month by the World Heritage Committee, noted that interventions to reduce inshore pollution over the past five years have been “largely deficient”.

There have been some positive achievements in reducing water pollution levels. But the slow progress in meeting many of the water quality targets is documented clearly in the 2017–2018 and 2019 reef Water Quality Report Cards, produced jointly by the federal and Queensland governments.

UNESCO cites Australia’s poor progress on reducing emissions as an additional area requiring considerable improvement, to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and Australia’s responsibilities under the World Heritage Convention.

Read more:
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UNESCO has also asked Australia to work with it to develop corrective measures and to ensure the revised Reef 2050 Plan — the overarching framework for protecting the reef to 2050 — addresses the threats.

An in-danger listing is a call to arms to all countries to work together to save the reef from human-caused heating. So the ongoing collaboration between Australia and UNESCO could then enable the Great Barrier Reef’s removal from the in-danger list.

Is Australia suddenly being singled out?

Ley wrote that the Great Barrier Reef was suddenly and unexpectedly “singled out” for an in-danger listing, which she interpreted as a suggestion that “Australia can single-handedly change the emissions trajectory of the whole world”.

However, the dialogue between UNESCO and Australia on the Great Barrier Reef’s protection has a long history. And in making its in-danger recommendation, UNESCO acknowledged Australia “on its own cannot address the threats of climate change”. But UNESCO does appear to have concerns about Australia’s record on emissions reduction.

For example, in 2011 the World Heritage Committee expressed “extreme concern” over the approval for liquefied natural gas facilities on Curtis Island within the boundary of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area. A year later, it asked Australia to ensure coastal development isn’t permitted if it effects the outstanding universal value of the property.

In 2012, 2013 and 2014, prior to the annual meetings of the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO raised the possible inscription of the Great Barrier Reef on the in-danger list.

Significantly, in 2017, the World Heritage Committee emphasised the importance of state parties (countries adhering to the world heritage convention, such as Australia) undertaking the most ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement. This is an important pathway to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change on World Heritage properties.

UNESCO invited all state parties to act on climate change under the Paris Agreement “consistent with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.

So what are Australia’s responsibilities?

Ley is correct to point out that all 29 World Heritage listed coral reefs, scattered throughout the tropics, are extremely vulnerable to human-caused climate change.

However, Australia is responsible for the world’s largest coral reef system, and has far higher capabilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than other, less wealthy countries.

But Australia’s record on protecting ecosystems and people from climate change is comparatively very poor. And despite being responsible for 20 World Heritage Areas, we have one of the highest per capita emission rates in the world.

The federal government continues to spruik a fossil-fuelled, gas-led COVID recovery, with ongoing subsidies for new coal mines. This support for coal and fossil gas is inconsistent with Australia’s commitments to the World Heritage Convention.

Rejecting the science-based assessments by UNESCO is further damaging Australia’s reputation as a laggard on addressing climate change. Surely, Australia can do better.

Read more:
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Terry Hughes receives competitive research funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jon Day previously worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority between 1986 and 2014, and was one of the Directors at GBRMPA between 1998 and 2014. He represented Australia as one of the formal delegates to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-2011.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is affiliated with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

– ref. Is Australia really doing enough for the Great Barrier Reef? Why criticisms of UNESCO’s ‘in danger’ recommendation don’t stack up – https://theconversation.com/is-australia-really-doing-enough-for-the-great-barrier-reef-why-criticisms-of-unescos-in-danger-recommendation-dont-stack-up-163641

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra

Phillip Lowe, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, gets many letters and emails from retirees complaining they can’t live on the interest from their savings when interest rates are so low.

“I read these letters, many of them are very heartfelt and I feel very bad for the people who are in this situation,” he told the House of Representatives standing committee on economics in February. “So I try and say we understand. The second thing I do is explain why we’re in this situation.”

Low interest rates have other critics.

The idea that central banks have increased wealth inequality by keeping interest rates so low is so widespread that the central bank for central banks, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), has addressed the issue in its 2021 annual economic report.

The argument goes like this.

Low interest rates means potential buyers can afford to borrow more. This pushes up the price of houses. Low interest rates also encourage spending rather than saving, which contributes more to company profits and thus more dividends for shareholders. This increases the value of shares.

These factors benefit those who can afford to own property and shares. So the rich get richer.

Some studies support this argument. The Netherlands’ central bank, for example, published a report in 2019 analysing almost a century of data for 12 advanced economies. It concluded low interest rates increased the income share of the top 1%.

RBA research published in February 2020 also found low interest rates increase housing wealth inequality, by bumping up the value of more expensive homes. Lowe’s deputy, Guy Debelle, acknowledged the “distributional consequences” of rising house prices in a speech in May, though said this wasn’t the RBA’s problem to fix.

So what is the the view of the BIS, the global expert on monetary policy?

It agrees the gap between the rich and the poor within countries has indeed widened since about the 1980s, and the COVID recession has made things worse. But it concludes low interest rates are not the real culprit.

Read more:
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Blame technology and globalisation

The BIS report instead emphasises the impact of technological progress and globalisation.

Technological progress, particularly in information technology, has increased the productivity and incomes of the wealthy (such as top lawyers and tech company executives). It has done little for many low income earners (such as aged care workers and restaurant staff).

Globalisation refers to the increased international trade of goods, and increasingly services. An example is corporations moving their call centres to countries where wages are lower. This has increased profitability for shareholders but eroded the bargaining power of lower skilled workers and small businesses.

A central bank can only do so much to mitigate these factors.

Interest rates and jobs

The main thing it can do is to help minimise unemployment, perhaps the most important driver of income inequality. Its tool to stimulate the economy is lower interest rates.

Lower rates means consumers have less reason to save, so they spend more. Businesses are more likely to borrow to invest. All this helps create more jobs. So higher rates would likely mean higher unemployment, making income inequality worse.

As Lowe explains to retirees: “Those people who have a job might be a child or your grandchild and the society, in the end, as a collective, is going to be better off if more people have jobs.”

Tweaking monetary policy

Concerns about inequality may be one reason some central banks have altered their monetary policy framework. They are giving more priority to reducing unemployment and showing a willingness to tolerate temporarily higher inflation (which central banks control by raising interest rates).

The US Federal Reserve, for example, has said it will tolerate a period of inflation above its long-term target.

The RBA has more subtly done something similar.

Lowe has said Austrlia’s central bank will not increase interest rates until actual inflation is back within the target range. Previously it would have acted pre-emptively based on forecast inflation, given the lags between its actions and the impact on economic behaviour.

Waiting does carry some risk that inflation will temporarily overshoot its target in 2024 or 2025. But with inflation having been below its target for an extended period, it is willing to accept this.

Other ways to reduce inequality

Central banks may be able to help reduce inequality through some of their other roles, however.

They can use their profile to advocate for policies that will help lower unemployment. Indeed the Bank for International Settlements’ report notes the proportion of speeches by central bankers that mention inequality and the “distributional consequences” of monetary policy have risen significantly over the past decade.

The RBA has argued strongly that expansionary fiscal policy – that is, government spending – is important to keep the economy on track. Public investment will encourage rather than “crowd out” private investment. This is a rejection of those who argue for a rapid return to fiscal austerity.

Central banks can also encourage governments to adopt policies that tend to reduce inequality over time. For example, in February Lowe supported the “wide consensus in the community” for higher unemployment payments.

Read more:
5 ways the Reserve Bank is going to bat for Australia like never before

Central banks can also reduce inequality by promoting financial inclusion, including for Indigenous citizens. They can help develop a more efficient payments system. All these sorts of measures help the poor. Again the RBA has been acting on these fronts.

Inequality of incomes is an important issue. But on balance low interest rates are moderating rather than exacerbating it.

John Hawkins formerly worked for the Reserve Bank and the Bank for International Settlements.

– ref. Are low interest rates increasing inequality? No, says the world’s central bank – https://theconversation.com/are-low-interest-rates-increasing-inequality-no-says-the-worlds-central-bank-163480

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent H.S. Yap, University of Tasmania

Last year, Australian kids hounded parents for Ooshies — character-based plastic collectibles distributed by supermarket chain Woolworths. But like the attention span of a five year old, the contentious marketing campaign quickly faded. This year, the similarly named Oodies are gaining viral attention — and presenting their own plastic problem.

The Oodie is essentially a wearable blanket comprising an oversized hooded sweatshirt and an equally oversized kangaroo pocket. Lined with light, ultra-soft and heat-retentive fabrics, Oodies are billed as the ultimate comfort-wear for those wanting to snuggle down in front of the TV — especially during a winter lockdown.

But what makes Oodies (and other hooded blanket brands) soft and warm is a wool-like material called fleece. While it can sometimes be made of cotton or acrylic, fleece is most often made of polyester. This synthetic fibre commonly derived from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — the same plastic used to make water bottles — makes Oodies bad news for oceans.

Read more:
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We know plastics are bad

Environmental concerns about Oodies extend beyond the amount of water such bulky items require to wash them. As most PET plastics still originate from fossil fuels, concern regarding the environmental impact of polyester-based garments is justified.

Not only does its production contribute to enhanced carbon emissions and global warming, synthetic fibres like polyester and acrylic are the dominant form of microplastic pollution in marine (and freshwater) environments. The main pollution source is microplastic fibres released from the washing of synthetic fabrics. Fleece-type garments (including Oodies) are likely major culprits.

Numerous studies have documented the detrimental effects of microplastic ingestion on various aquatic organisms (such as fish, mussels and crustaceans), ranging from impaired physiology to lowered reproduction and survival. According to marine biologists at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, these effects may transfer up the food chain to reach humans.

Studies have also shown potential direct impacts of prolonged exposure to polyester microfibres on humans, including allergies, lung inflammation, disrupted hormonal function and even carcinogenic effects. This is allegedly due to harmful chemical additives (such as phthalates) that are commonly used in the manufacture of synthetic fabrics.

Natural vs synthetic fibres

The apparel industry is working to become more sustainable, be it the fabrics used, or the manufacturing process involved. However, information about how and where Oodies are made is limited on their website. The garments are spruiked as vegan, which provides a positive spin.

Fleece can be made from cotton — some hooded blankets are of a flannel fleece exterior (made of cotton). This natural fibre — provided it’s been organically and sustainably farmed — is arguably more sustainable than polyester. It is a renewable resource that can biodegrade under favourable conditions.

However, polyester-made fleece remains the preferred fabric for most hooded blanket brands available (including the Oodie with its 100% polyester interior), presumably due to its relatively light weight, durability, better heat retention, moisture resistance and recyclability — and yes, polyester can be recycled!

Read more:
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Is recycling (really) the answer then?

According to a 2017 study by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, production of recycled polyester uses 59% less energy than virgin polyester. It is also ostensibly less environmentally harmful than growing organic cotton, given the latter leaches nutrients from the soil and requires large open spaces to grow.

Of the hooded blankets brands we looked at (including the Oodie, Cotton On’s Snuggets, Bed Bath N, Table’s Hooded Sherpa and others) only BONDS’ Super Softies Reversible Hoodie indicates the use of recycled polyester. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a significantly “greener” choice. The relative proportion of the garment made of recycled polyester is not specified — it could be 90%, 50% or even 5%!

With any polyester-based fabric, recycled or not, the release of synthetic microfibres into wastewater systems and subsequently into natural waterways is inevitable.

Installing a decent microfibre filter in your laundry machine could help reduce the amount of microplastics entering the environment, but the efficiency of such filtering devices is still in need of urgent improvement.

Read more:
Sustainable shopping: where to find a puffer jacket that doesn’t warm the Earth

Some heroes wear capes … ones made of natural fibres!

Given we could not find fully cotton-based hooded blankets for sale, the current best alternative may well be to stick with standard, natural fibre-based blankets, throws or hoodies.

These are typically made from organic cotton, hemp, Tencel or recycled wool and offered by eco-friendly brands like Bhumi and Seljak Brand.

As winter warmers, they are equally functional and do not generate microplastics. This makes them a much safer bet for the environment and health-wise.

Alternatively, you could sew your own hooded blanket. This would allow a choice of non-synthetic fabrics as well as personalised designs.

Sure, the Oodie is new and exciting with cute fabrics. But you get to wear conventional, non-synthetic blankets like a superhero cape and, quite literally, save the planet.

Jennifer Lavers receives funding from the Pure Oceans Fund and Australian Academy of Science.

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

– ref. The problem with Oodies: hooded blankets are cosy but they are not great for oceans or our health – https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-oodies-hooded-blankets-are-cosy-but-they-are-not-great-for-oceans-or-our-health-163087

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yee-Fui Ng, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Monash University

Yet another rorts scandal is swirling around the federal government. The Auditor-General has reported that a $389 million car park construction fund has been administered ineffectively. The minister had distributed the grants with “inadequate assessment” for eligibility.

The auditor-general’s report found 77% of the commuter car park sites selected were in Coalition electorates, rather than in areas of real need with congestion issues.

Damningly, none of the 47 project sites selected for funding commitment were proposed by the department. This suggests there has been extensive ministerial interference in the funding decision-making.

The fact this questionable allocation of funding occurred the day before Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the 2019 federal election suggests an element of “pork barrelling”: the channelling of public funds to government electorates for political purposes, rather than proper allocation according to merit.

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

What is the history of rorts in Australia?

The car park rorts is the latest in a series of rorts scandals in recent years. This includes the “sports rorts” scandal, in which the biased distribution of funds and a conflict of interest prompted the resignation of minister Bridget McKenzie.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was also accused of reducing funding to the highest ranked community safety projects and redirecting the funding to projects of his choice, including those not recommended by his department.

At the state level, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was accused of pork-barrelling with the Stronger Communities fund, as she approved $252 million funding before the state election, with 95% of funds going to Coalition electorates.

Rorting isn’t new in Australian politics. More than a decade ago, we had a previous “sports rorts” incident under the Labor Government, in which grants were distributed in favour of the Labor Party. Famously, minister Ros Kelly claimed that decisions on short-listed applications were made on a “great big whiteboard” that was erased without permanent record.

A number of empirical studies over the years have confirmed a strong partisan component to allocating grant money towards the party in power.

Why all the rorts?

Given we have had so many rorts scandals over the years, the question is why they are still happening unabated? Why hasn’t the problem been fixed?

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the legal and political regulation of grant programs in Australia.

First, the political regulation of grant programs is generally working well. The auditor-general, an independent officer of parliament, has been vigilant in reporting on maladministration of grants in government. Many of the rorts scandals have been brought to light through auditor-general reports.

Parliamentary committees have also been vigilant in investigating grants rorts, and reporting on these incidents.

Sometimes the relevant minister resigns, sometimes they tough it out, depending on the political circumstances and the support of the prime minister or premier.

However, the legal regulation of grant programs is problematic.

Although at the federal level we have sophisticated financial management legislation that provides a framework for grant rules, there are significant loopholes in it.

For one, the government cannot make grant rules for government statutory corporations, or for grants administered under intergovernmental agreements with the states. This is problematic because many grants programs are administered by independent statutory corporations or through the states.

As I have written, there are good reasons to set up independent statutory bodies to administer government policies, rather than leave it to the politicians. This would avoid the partisan interference and short-termism that characterises modern politics. An example of the benefits of this is letting the Reserve Bank set interest rates, rather than politicians.

However, these goals are undermined if ministers interfere with the merit-based decisions of the independent bodies in favour of partisan considerations.

Another issue is that breaches of these grant rules do not result in any legal penalty. There is no penalty for breaching the Commonwealth grant rules in the financial management legislation. So there are no repercussions for breaching the rules, which may be why politicians do it with impunity.

A further problem is the limited opportunity for grant applicants to challenge partisan decisions. Courts in judicial review will confine themselves to the legality of the decisions. They will not intrude into public policy considerations by ministers, such as which applicants deserve the grants.

Read more:
Remembrance of rorts past: why the McKenzie scandal might not count for a hill of beans

How can we fix the system?

In light of the pervasive and repeated rorts scandals that have plagued Australian politics, it is time to reform the rules.

First, the loopholes need to be closed. The Commonwealth grant rules provide a detailed set of guidelines that ministers and government officials must follow on grant application and selection processes. This should be broadened to include situations where the Commonwealth distributes grants through an independent statutory corporation or through the states.

Second, there needs to be legal enforcement of the grant rules. This may lead to more effective legal challenges of partisan grant decisions in the courts.

With no legal repercussions for breaches, politicians will continue to flout the rules.

It is clear the probity of the use of public funds is essential to maintaining public trust in the Australian political system. The repeated rorts scandals in Australia undermines a basic tenet of our democracy: that allocation of public money should be administered responsibly by our elected officials.

We need to reform the regulation of grant programs in Australia to enhance the probity, transparency and integrity of the use of public funds.

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

– ref. Another day, another rorts scandal – this time with car parks. How can we fix the system? – https://theconversation.com/another-day-another-rorts-scandal-this-time-with-car-parks-how-can-we-fix-the-system-163645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Andrillon, Chercheur en neurosciences à l’ICM, Inserm

Our attention is a powerful lens, allowing our brains to pick out the relevant details out of the overwhelming flow of information reaching us every second.

However, scientists estimate we spend up to half our waking lives thinking about something other than the task at hand: our minds are wandering. This is striking considering the potential negative consequences, from decreased school or work performance to tragic traffic accidents.

We also know that mind-wandering and lapses of attention are more common when we are sleep-deprived, which suggests they may happen when the neurons in our brain start behaving in a way that resembles sleep. We tested the relationship between sleep and lapses of attention in new research published in Nature Communications.

By monitoring people’s brainwaves against their self-reported states of attention, we found that mind-wandering seems to happen when parts of the brain fall asleep while most of it remains awake.

Parts of the brain can sleep while you’re awake

Directing our attention inwards can be very useful. It can let us focus on our inner thoughts, manipulate abstract concepts, retrieve memories, or discover creative solutions. But the ideal balance between focusing on the outer and inner worlds is hard to strike, and our ability to stay focused on a given task is surprisingly limited.

When we get tired, our control of attention goes awry. At the same time, our brains starts showing local activity that resembles sleep while most of the brain appears clearly awake. This phenomenon, known as “local sleep”, was first seen in sleep-deprived animals and then in humans.

We wanted to investigate whether local sleep might also happen in well-rested people, and whether it could trigger shifts in attention.

Read more:
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Wandering minds and blank minds

To better understand the relationship between brain activity and lapses of attention, we asked healthy young volunteers to perform a rather boring task requiring continuous attention. As anticipated, their attention frequently shifted away from the task. And when their attention lapsed, their performance decreased.

But we also wanted to know what exactly was going through their minds when their attention was not on the task. So we interrupted them at random intervals and asked them what they were thinking about at that moment.

Participants could indicate whether they were focusing on the task, their mind was wandering (thinking about something other than the task), or their mind was blank (not thinking about anything at all).

In parallel, we recorded their brain activity with an electroencephalogram, which consists of a set of sensors placed on the head that can monitor the rhythms of the brain. Thanks to this non-invasive brain imaging technique, we could search for signs of sleep within wakefulness during the entire task.

Read more:
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In particular we focused on “slow waves”, a hallmark of sleep involving brief silences from assemblies of neurons. Our hypothesis was that these lapses in neuron activity could explain lapses in attention.

We found local slow waves could predict episodes of mind wandering and mind blanking as well as changes in participants’ behaviour during these lapses of attention.

Importantly, the location of slow waves distinguished whether participants were mind wandering or blanking. When slow waves occurred in the front of the brain, participants had the tendency to be more impulsive and to mind wander. When slow waves occurred in the back of the brain, participants were more sluggish, missed responses and mind blanked.

Sleep-like brainwaves predicts failure of attention

These results can easily be understood through the concept of local sleep. If sleep-like slow waves really do correspond to local bouts of sleep in people who are otherwise awake, the effect of the slow waves should depend on where they occur in the brain and the function of those brain regions as we have found.

This suggests that a single phenomenon – local sleep intrusions during waking hours – could explain a broad range of attentional lapses, from mind-wandering and impulsivity to “going blank” and sluggishness.

Furthermore, our results suggest that local sleep might represent an everyday phenomenon that can affect us all, even if we are not particularly sleep-deprived. Our participants were simply going about the task at hand. Yet, without realising it, parts of their brains seemed to go offline repeatedly throughout the experiment.

Local sleep and attentional deficits

We are currently exploring whether this phenomenon of local sleep could be exacerbated in some individuals. For example, most people suffering from attentional deficits and/or hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) also report disrupted sleep. This may result in an increase in local sleep episodes during the day and could explain part of their attentional problems.

Finally, this new study reaffirms how sleep and wakefulness can be intermingled in the human brain. It parallels studies in sleep showing how the brain can locally “wake up” in order to process sensory information coming from the environment. Here, we show the opposite phenomenon and how sleep intrusions during wakefulness can make our minds wander somewhere or nowhere.

Read more:
Improving sleep in children with ADHD has some lessons for all parents

Thomas Andrillon receives funding from the Human Frontier Science Program and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Jennifer Windt receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Naotsugu Tsuchiya receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health Medical Research Council, the Fundamental Question Institute and Fetzer Franklin Fund, a donor advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the Japan Society for Promotion of Science.

– ref. What is daydreaming? Parts of the brain show sleep-like activity when your mind wanders – https://theconversation.com/what-is-daydreaming-parts-of-the-brain-show-sleep-like-activity-when-your-mind-wanders-163642

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Thomas, Research fellow, University of Technology Sydney

Since the British invasion of Gadigal land at Sydney Cove in 1788, race relations in Australia have been underscored by what Wiradjuri writer Jack Gibson describes as the “supremeness of whiteness”.

Narratives of Indigenous inferiority and deficiency, combined with paternalistic policies, have produced a cultural climate where non-Indigenous voices have often dominated debate on matters of concern and importance to Indigenous communities.

However, in recent years, Indigenous journalists and storytellers have sought to change this.

The Uluru Statement From the Heart calls for a process of truth-telling. And as the Black Lives Matter movement has grown, some media organisations are recognising the need to deal with their histories of racist representations. In 2020, for example, the Stuff Group in New Zealand apologised for its racist and exclusionary depictions of Māori over decades.

Our new research, published as a joint report from All Together Now, University of Technology Sydney, Deakin University and Cultural and Indigenous Research Australia, examines the ways in which the mainstream media use language, voices, and other features (such as sources and points of view) to represent and frame Indigenous communities and issues.

Our research revealed the media is increasingly depicting Indigenous people and communities in “inclusive” ways. In a survey of 288 opinion pieces about Indigenous communities across mainstream newspapers and television networks in Australia, we found that 151 had inclusive depictions of Indigenous people.

Articles were considered inclusive if their language defied racial stereotypes, condemned racism, or gave a voice to Indigenous people.

However, when we delved more deeply into a smaller sample of these inclusive pieces using discourse analysis, we found that inclusive commentary can still deny agency to Indigenous people through marginalising Indigenous voices.

Exploring surface level inclusion

Focusing on 20 opinion articles published between 2019 and 2020 in five leading newspapers – The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and The Courier Mail – we found that Indigenous voices, points of view and sources were routinely under-represented, while relevant historical and cultural context was regularly overlooked.

This obscures the actions and views of Indigenous people in the political debates that matter to their communities.

Our research found what we called surface level inclusion: inclusion of Indigenous people through the absence of negative stereotypes, but excluding Indigenous authors, perspectives, historical and cultural contexts, and voices.

Non-Indigenous voices dominated discussion of Indigenous matters. Only 20% of authors had an Indigenous background, while 50% were written by authors of an Anglo-Celtic background.

One example was the opinion piece, “Time to deal with dysfunction so First Australians can heal”, published by The Courier Mail. This almost exclusively recounted the issue of police brutality towards Indigenous people from the white author’s perspective, when it could have also drawn on the accounts of Indigenous people and their families.

We also found the majority of the articles we studied reflected the views of elites — a category we defined as members of government, police or academia. More than half (55%) of articles were written from this perspective.

By contrast, only 35% of opinion pieces contained an Indigenous point of view. We often found the authors’ white standpoint was prominent. This included white authors presenting an “us” and “them” dialogue, or focusing on coming to terms with their responsibility to provide support and allyship for Indigenous people.

This prevalence of white points of view was combined with a lack of Indigenous historical context and sources in social commentary discussing Indigenous issues. Just over a third of the articles did not make reference to historical and cultural context of invasion and/or subsequent policies of assimilation and discrimination.

As Darambul and South Sea Islander scholar Amy McQuire powerfully argues, inattention to Indigenous historical and cultural context in even sympathetic contexts can unwittingly assign blame for Indigenous disadvantage on individuals and communities rather than histories of racism and discrimination.

Sixty-five percent of the opinion pieces used Indigenous sources. While this number looks promising, considering we looked exclusively at inclusive social commentary, there is much room for improvement. A dominant white lens distorts public perceptions of Indigenous people and politics.

The role of media to challenge and change

Our research shows that a substantial shift in media commitment to highlighting Indigenous voices and perspectives is required to challenge the negative patterns of deficit-based reporting. Even “inclusive” coverage has not always been paired with centring Indigenous voices and prioritising Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous issues.

In her foreword to our report, award-winning Warlpiri journalist and creative Rachael Hocking argues that our findings speak to “the power imbalance of whose knowledge is valued in Australian society.”

Hocking argues that mainstream media journalists must deliberately engage with and learn from Indigenous-run media, which prioritise Indigenous knowledge and expertise. This is just one of five key recommendations our report makes for ways the media can engage in a process of reflection and seek to change or challenge the status quo.

As Stuff’s chief executive, Sinead Boucher, recognised in 2020, media has “an enormous impact in shaping public thought”. Rather than imagine its role as a passive reflection of public opinion, the media can acknowledge and take responsibility for the way it shapes the conversation around Indigenous issues.

Deliana Iacoban and Umesha Weerakkoddy from All Together Now also contributed to this article.

Amy Thomas has consulted for All Together Now, and has received research funding from Aboriginal Affairs NSW.

Yin Paradies is a board member of All Together Now.

– ref. Included, but still marginalised: Indigenous voices still missing in media stories on Indigenous affairs – https://theconversation.com/included-but-still-marginalised-indigenous-voices-still-missing-in-media-stories-on-indigenous-affairs-163426

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chongyi Feng, Associate Professor in China Studies, University of Technology Sydney

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in full swing to prepare for the 100th anniversary of its founding this week, with an intense publicity push to crow about its achievements.

However, the CCP has little to celebrate in terms of what it has done for China. Its chief achievement has been how it has managed to survive and stay in power for so long.

So, what exactly does the CCP lay claim to, and where does the truth lie?

1. Chinese sovereignty

The top claim on the list is that the CCP unified the country and secured its independence through the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The CCP had accused the previous government, led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), of being a puppet of the imperialist US.

But China had been a completely independent country on all counts before the CCP seized power by force from the Nationalists.

With the surrender of occupying Japanese troops at the end of the second world war, China was a country that enjoyed full sovereignty. It had abolished the unequal treaties signed with western powers over the previous century and retaken most of the concessions and territories claimed by foreign powers (with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau). China was also exercising independent tariff rights.

When the United Nations was established in 1945, China even became a permanent member state of the UN Security Council and was recognised by the international community as one of the five great global powers.

2. Economic prosperity

The CCP also boasts of its economic achievements, claiming it unleashed China’s potential and turned it into an economic superpower.

But industrialisation and urbanisation had been well underway before the CCP took power. Despite successive wars, the infrastructure for modern cities, transport, industries, commerce and finance was being established across much of the country. Shanghai, for instance, was already a sophisticated metropolis in the 1930s, known as the “Paris of the Orient”.

Chinese citizens, including peasants, also enjoyed full property rights under the modern legal system created by the government of the Republic of China, as well as the right to establish and operate free enterprises.

All of these accomplishments were destroyed by the CCP, which confiscated private property, eliminated entire classes of urban capitalists and rural landlords, and wasted opportunities for economic growth for three lost decades before returning China to a semi-market economy in the 1980s.

Read more:
The world has a hard time trusting China. But does it really care?

3. Eradicating poverty

The CCP and its supporters take particular delight in their claim the party “lifted” hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. Earlier this year, in fact, President Xi Jinping trumpeted a “complete victory” in the CCP’s goal of eradicating rural poverty — a drive some analysts say was not cost-effective or sustainable.

While it is true abject poverty has declined sharply in recent decades, it must be remembered that failed CCP policies condemned millions of people to poverty in the first place.

The CCP should never be forgiven for its crime of killing up to 45 million people through the Great Leap Forward campaign, which led to the worst man-made famine in Chinese history.

And according to different poverty measurements now used by the World Bank, there are still potentially hundreds of millions of Chinese still living beneath the poverty line.

4. Instituting a ‘people’s democracy’

The CCP lays claim to the establishment of a “people’s democracy” in China, or what Mao Zedong once described as a “democracy for the people” and “dictatorship for the enemy”.

But in reality, the party established a totalitarian state that interrupted China’s march toward constitutional democracy.

The Republic of China had been founded in 1912, and is frequently referred to as the first democratic republic in Asia. It had a modern legal system, vibrant civil society, largely free press, and autonomous schools and universities.

In 1928, the KMT united China by force and replaced the unstable multi-party democracy with a “tutelage democracy”, in which the KMT monopolised political power on the promise it would provide guidance to the population to establish a full democracy.

Read more:
Xi Jinping’s grip on power is absolute, but there are new threats to his ‘Chinese dream’

The authoritarian party-state of the KMT started the process of democratisation after 1946. A constitution was enacted the following year, and multi-party elections for the national parliament and presidency were carried out in 1947 and 1948.

The CCP put an end to these political developments. Under Xi, the current hard-line leadership maintains its grasp on power by waging an all-out war against universal values, suffocating Chinese civil society and eliminating any opportunity of a peaceful transformation toward constitutional democracy.

The recent crackdown on democratic institutions in Hong Kong are a clear example of the way the country is headed.

5. Socialism and greater equality

The CCP also talks about bringing socialism and greater equality to China, but it created the most brutal caste system against the “Five Black Categories” during the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in the most appalling inequality.

For three decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, millions of people were classified by the communist regime as “landlords”, “rich farmers”, “counter-revolutionaries”, “bad elements” and “rightists”. These people were routinely separated out for struggle sessions (a form of public humiliation), re-education through labour, beatings and even execution. Many of their children were denied education and state employment.

Furthermore, through a special household registration system during the Mao years, peasants and their children were registered as rural residents. They were permanently excluded from state welfare, employment and schools in urban areas.

This household registration system and the rural-urban divide still have serious consequences for rural residents and migrants to major cities today.

The communist regime is also still using “re-education camps” in the Xinjiang region today as a method of rooting out what it considers threats to its power.

6. Protecting Chinese culture

Lastly, the CCP pretends to represent Chinese culture nowadays, but it rooted out traditional Chinese culture long ago.

During the Mao years, the rural gentry and urban intelligentsia – the main defenders of Chinese traditional culture – were either eliminated or remoulded in accordance with communist party-state ideology.

Campaigns were launched during the Cultural Revolution to systematically destroy “the Four Olds” deemed undesirable — namely old ideas, old culture, old habits and old customs.

The current promotion of Chinese culture by the communist party-state is nothing more than a cynical move to exploit any opportunity to boost Chinese nationalism as a tool to provide legitimacy to the regime.

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

– ref. The Communist Party claims to have brought prosperity and equality to China. Here’s the real impact of its rule – https://theconversation.com/the-communist-party-claims-to-have-brought-prosperity-and-equality-to-china-heres-the-real-impact-of-its-rule-163350

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

Australia’s vaccine rollout started just over four months ago. It has not gone well, to put it mildly. To date, only 24% of the population have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and nearly 5% – 1.2 million people – have been fully vaccinated.

This rate is far too slow. The United Kingdom and the United States are showing that effective mass vaccination programs can work, with more than 80% of Brits and 54% of Americans having received their first dose. Australia should be just as ambitious.

The federal government should press the reset button and shift to Rollout 2.0.

Rollout 1.0 was plagued with supply problems – there just wasn’t enough of either vaccine available. But from July, there will be more supply, with about two million Pfizer doses, and half a million Moderna doses available per week from October – more than enough to cover the whole adult population.

With supply looking sorted, the federal government should set a new goal for when all adults will be able to receive full vaccination by.

The government – and its army of rollout consultants – has had months to learn from its mistakes. The actual army has also been called in.

Read more:
Calling in the army for the vaccine rollout and every other emergency shows how ill-prepared we are

The government has no excuse not to have all arrangements in place for an efficient vaccination program when the vaccines begin rolling in.

Three key things need to be done differently to achieve this goal.

1. Fix the logistics

The supply side of Rollout 1.0 was a shemozzle. GPs and state governments had no idea how many doses were going to arrive and when. This was partly due to slow supply of doses from overseas, but mainly due to slow supply from the local producer, CSL.

That should not be a worry under Rollout 2.0.

But Rollout 1.0 was also a distribution nightmare. It was seemingly impossible for anyone to organise to get doses from place A to place B.

There are now fewer anecdotes about distribution disasters than a few months ago, but the government needs to assure the public that the supply chain and distribution networks are working efficiently.

Read more:
How the Pfizer COVID vaccine gets from the freezer into your arm

If I can be notified when my book or beer is due to arrive – and even the driver’s name – then GPs and state vaccine hubs should be able to be notified when their doses are due to arrive.

And it should be as easy for me to book my vaccination online as it is to book a restaurant table or parcel pick-up online, with advance bookings helping to guide where extra doses should be allocated.

2. Widen the channels

Of the Australians who are getting vaccinated, just over half are doing so through GPs and primary care clinics.

If Rollout 2.0 is to make use of the millions of new doses arriving every week, it will need to deliver at least three times as many doses every week as it has been able to achieve so far.

Government planning seems to be putting GPs front and centre of Rollout 2.0 – the same strategy that failed in Rollout 1.0.

Sure, GPs should be invited to step up, but governments should continue to put a focus on mass state-run vaccination hubs that can vaccinate up to 1,400 people every eight hours, compared to GP clinics that can vaccinate only 100 to 300 people in the same time.

Rollout 2.0 needs to increase both the hours existing outlets are available and expand the number of large vaccination hubs. It should also introduce new outlets such as pharmacies.

States should bring vaccines to people, by providing on-site pop-up vaccination centres at major sports events, workplace hubs, universities, major public transport stations, housing commissions, and regional town centres.

When the Pfizer vaccine is approved for people under 16, states should also arrange for vaccinations to be done in schools.

Because more doses will be available within one month, states should no longer stockpile doses to ensure second-dose availability but rely on fewer supplies for this purpose.

A faster rollout will need a bigger workforce. Planning needs to start now on how we should draw on medical, nursing, and pharmacy students to contribute to Rollout 2.0.

3. Tackle vaccine hesitancy

As the government fixes the supply side, it also needs to tackle the demand side – vaccine hesitancy. About 25% of Australian adults say they may not get the jab. The aim should be to change the minds of those who are unsure, rather than focusing on those who are much less willing.

There is a science behind what works in addressing COVID vaccine hesitancy, drawing on previous vaccine campaigns. Government should use it, rather than developing ads that look like the cheapest possible bland offering, which compare poorly to international offerings.

There is not one slick answer, and no one campaign. Different demographics will respond to different messaging. Different reasons for hesitancy will need to be addressed differently.

Ads should be placed at times when target audiences might be watching TV.

A text message campaign could be used, sent to all Australian adults, regardless of their vaccination status, encouraging them to get vaccinated and telling them how, as is done in the UK.

Some campaigns could start now, promoting the benefits of vaccines to individuals and their efficacy. Messaging should also emphasise the collective benefits of high vaccination rates, including protecting the vulnerable and bringing stranded Australians home, just as our collective effort saved lives to date.

Better real-time tracking of vaccine uptake by demographics can be used to develop different messages for different audiences.

The campaigns should go beyond simply pronouncing that all the vaccines are safe and effective. The communication should be ongoing, clear and actionable, address concerns, and de-bunk misunderstandings, without over-reassuring.

Read more:
The government is spending almost A$24m to convince us to accept a COVID vaccine. But will its new campaign actually work?

Younger people, women, and people who live beyond the inner-city are more likely to be hesitant. Communications should build trust and confidence in government, and not pit groups against each other, which would only increase hesitancy.

The government has over-promised and under-delivered on Rollout 1.0. It needs to push the reset button so that Rollout 2.0 takes Australians to a vaccine-protected future as soon as possible.

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website. Stephen Duckett has been partially vaccinated with AstraZeneca.

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

– ref. Vaccine Rollout 2.0: Australia needs to do 3 things differently – https://theconversation.com/vaccine-rollout-2-0-australia-needs-to-do-3-things-differently-163479

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neera Bhatia, Associate Professor in Law, Deakin University

People can access their superannuation early to pay for expensive fertility treatments such as IVF.

They can claim “mental disturbance” if they want part of their funds released early on compassionate grounds.

However, in our recent paper in the UNSW Law Journal, we question whether the rules are tight enough to protect future retirement incomes. We also consider whether involvement of fertility clinics and other companies in the process is a conflict of interest.

Here’s how it all works and what needs to change.

Here’s what happens

People can apply to the Australian Tax Office to legally access their super funds early on compassionate grounds for a range of medical procedures, including IVF. Last year, tax figures show almost 34,000 people did this, accessing a total of more than A$513 million. That figure has grown considerably since 2015, where 14,000 people accessed $184 million.

If that medical procedure is dentistry or surgery, people need to show the procedure is needed to alleviate pain or to treat a life-threatening injury or illness.

But to access IVF or other fertility treatments, these criteria don’t apply. So the only avenue is for people to claim they are experiencing “acute, or chronic, mental disturbance” that can only be alleviated by the fertility treatment.

People must also submit two medical practitioner reports certifying the treatment is necessary.

The Australian Tax Office did not provide a breakdown of how many people accessed super funds for IVF this way when we requested detailed figures. However, we understand accessing super for IVF is one of the main medical reasons.

We do not advocate a blanket ban on the process. For many people, having a baby is more important than the amount of money they retire with. But to protect individuals and couples seeking fertility treatment, we need to reform the rules surrounding early release of super for IVF.

This is needed so people are aware of the implications of accessing their super early, have enough money to retire on, and that this option is only available after a rigorous assessment process independent of private fertility clinics.

Read more:
Considering using IVF to have a baby? Here’s what you need to know

What does ‘mental disturbance’ mean?

Superannuation legislation does not define the term “mental disturbance”. It’s not a term used to diagnose mental illness. So it can be interpreted in many ways.

This might mean someone may have an “acute, or chronic, mental disturbance”, such as a diagnosis of severe depression. Or they may not have a diagnosed mental health condition, but nevertheless may be extremely distressed about wanting a baby and not being able to afford IVF.

A 2018 parliamentary paper suggested the term “diagnosed mental illness or behavioural disorder” instead; we agree. These words are consistent with the language psychiatrists and psychologists use and understand; are more specific and clearer; and people would have to meet clearly defined criteria before being diagnosed.

Who are these medical practitioners?

The legislation is vague about the qualifications a certifying medical practitioner needs to have, a topic considered in a case that went to the Federal Court.

So theoretically, it might be possible for a fertility doctor from an IVF clinic to be one of the certifying doctors, which may be a conflict of interest.

If that fertility doctor doesn’t also have psychiatric expertise, this also means the doctor doesn’t have the expertise to certify someone has a “mental disturbance”.

This situation might lead people to think the doctor might not be impartial or objective, whether or not that’s the case. This is because the fertility clinic ultimately profits from the release of any super funds.

To prevent any perceived or actual conflict of interest, we strongly recommend one of the certifying medical practitioners have clinical expertise in mental health, such as psychiatry, who would then evaluate the person wishing to access their super for IVF.

We recommend this person be independent of the fertility clinic, to be further removed from any actual or perceived conflict of interest.

An appropriately trained mental health practitioner would also ensure the person gets mental health care (in addition to medical advice) before IVF is prescribed and administered.

Other companies get involved

Specialist companies help people access their super early for services, including IVF. Some advertise their services on fertility clinic websites.

Some of these third-party intermediaries charge a fee to help people prepare and submit their applications to the Australian Tax Office. In some cases, fertility clinics refer people to them.

And a 2018 parliamentary paper noted a greater awareness of third-party intermediaries may have contributed to an increase in applications for early release of super on medical grounds.

The practice also raises ethical concerns about companies that have built their business model on taking a cut of people’s super at a time where they may be vulnerable or their mental health fragile.

This has led some consumer groups and financial planners to call for more stringent controls on third-party intermediaries and their involvement in early access to super on medical grounds, especially when medical practitioners are likely to financially benefit.

Read more:
The business of IVF: how human eggs went from simple cells to a valuable commodity

Independent financial counselling

We recommend people be required to undertake affordable financial counselling before starting IVF or other fertility treatment, whether or not they’re accessing their super early to pay for it. This should be impartial and independent of any fertility clinic to avoid any potential or perceived conflict of interest.

This should allow people to make informed financial decisions based on their assets and liabilities, and the most effective and equitable funding avenues for treatment. This may or may not involve early access to super. If people do go ahead, they need to understand the short- and long-term costs of doing so.

This is especially important for women, who generally have lower super balances than men due to lower life-long earnings, gendered pay gaps and career breaks. And it’s women who are more likely to access their super early for IVF or other reasons.

Read more:
Standard IVF is fine for most people. So why are so many offered an expensive sperm injection they don’t need?

Where to now?

For some people, accessing their super early for fertility treatments is their only chance to start or extend their family. So they need better protection to make sure their interests are not compromised by any financial motivations of fertility treatment providers — whether perceived or actual.

We also need to reduce the need for people to rely on their super to pay for IVF in the first place. That’s why we also recommend greater availability of public funding for fertility technologies, such as IVF.

This would mean people would still be able to access IVF, regardless of whether they are in genuine distress, have a mental health diagnosis, or just want to start or extend their family.

Changes such as these might go some way in providing better security in retirement, greater faith in the fertility industry and fairer provision of treatment.

Lily Porceddu, a lawyer in private practice in Victoria, co-authored this article.

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

– ref. People are using their super to pay for IVF, with their fertility clinic’s blessing. That’s a conflict of interest – https://theconversation.com/people-are-using-their-super-to-pay-for-ivf-with-their-fertility-clinics-blessing-thats-a-conflict-of-interest-161278

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

Australia is globally renowned for its abysmal conservation record – in roughly 230 years we’ve overseen the extinction of more mammal species than any other nation. The federal government’s Threatened Species Strategy was meant to address this confronting situation.

The final report on the five-year strategy has just been published. In it, Threatened Species Commissioner Dr Sally Box acknowledges while the plan had some important wins, it fell short in several areas, writing:

…there is much more work to do to ensure our native plants and animals thrive into the future, and this will require an ongoing collective effort.

Clearly, Australia must urgently chart a course towards better environmental and biodiversity outcomes. That means reflecting honestly on our successes and failures so far.

How did the strategy perform?

The strategy, announced in 2015, set 13 targets linked to three focus areas:

• feral cat management
• improving the population trajectories of 20 mammal, 21 bird and 30 plant species
• improving practices to recover threatened species populations.

Given the scale of the problem, five years was never enough time to turn things around. Indeed, as the chart below shows, the report card indicates five “red lights” (targets not met) and three “orange lights” (targets only partially met). It gave just five “green lights” for targets met.

Falling short on feral cats

Feral cats were arguably the most prominent focus of the strategy, despite other threats requiring as much or more attention, such as habitat destruction via land clearing.

However, the strategy did help start a national conversation about the damage cats wreak on wildlife and ecosystems, and how this can be better managed.

In the five years to the end of 2020, an estimated 1.5 million feral cats were killed under the strategy – 500,000 short of the 2 million goal. But this estimate is uncertain due to a lack of systematic data collection. In particular, the number of cats culled by farmers, amateur hunters and shooters is under-reported. And more broadly, information is scattered across local councils, non-government conservation agencies and other sources.

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

Australia’s feral cat population fluctuates according to rainfall, which determines the availability of prey – numbering between 2.1 million and 6.3 million. Limited investment in monitoring makes it impossible to know whether the average of 300,000 cats killed each year over the past five years will be enough for native wildlife to recover.

The government also failed in its goal to eradicate cats from five islands, only achieving this on Dirk Hartog Island off Western Australia. Importantly, that effort began in 2014, before the strategy was launched. And it was primarily funded by the WA government and an industry offset scheme, so the federal government can’t really claim this success.

On a positive note, ten mainland areas excluding feral cats have been established or are nearly complete. Such areas are a vital lifeline for some wildlife species and can enable native species reintroductions in the future.

Priority species: how did we do?

The strategy met its target of ensuring recovery actions were underway for at least 50 threatened plant species and 60 ecological communities. It also made good headway into storing all Australia’s 1,400 threatened plant species in seed banks. This is good news.

The bad news is that, even with recovery actions, the population trajectories of most priority species failed to improve. For the 24 out of about 70 priority species where population numbers were deemed to have “improved” over five years, about 30% simply got worse at a slower rate than in the decade prior. This can hardly be deemed a success.

What’s more, the populations of at least eight priority species, including the eastern barred bandicoot, eastern bettong, Gilbert’s potoroo, mala, woylie, numbat and helmeted honeyeater, were increasing before the strategy began – and five of these deteriorated under the strategy.

The finding that more priority species recovery efforts failed than succeeded means either:

• the wrong actions were implemented
• the right actions were implemented but insufficient effort and funding were dedicated to recovery
• the trajectories of the species selected for action simply couldn’t be improved in a 5-year window.

All these problems are alarming but can be rectified. For example, the government’s new Threatened Species Strategy, released in May, contains a more evidence-based process for determining priority species.

For some species, it’s unclear whether success can be attributed to the strategy. Some species with improved trajectories, such as the helmeted honeyeater, would likely have improved regardless, thanks to many years of community and other organisation’s conservation efforts before the strategy began.

Read more:
Australia-first research reveals staggering loss of threatened plants over 20 years

What must change

According to the report, habitat loss is a key threat to more than half the 71 priority species in the strategy. But the strategy does not directly address habitat loss or climate change, saying other government policies are addressing those threats.

We believe habitat loss and climate change must be addressed immediately.

Of the priority bird species threatened by land clearing and fragmentation, the trajectory of most – including the swift parrot and malleefowl – did not improve under the five years of the strategy. For several, such as the Australasian bittern and regent honeyeater, the trajectory worsened.

Preventing and reversing habitat loss will take years of dedicated restoration, stronger legislation and enforcement. It also requires community engagement, because much threatened species habitat is on private properties.

Effective conservation also requires raising public awareness of the dire predicament of Australia’s 1,900-plus threatened species and ecological communities. But successive governments have sought to sugarcoat our failings over many decades.

Bushfires and other extreme events hampered the strategy’s recovery efforts. But climate change means such events are likely to worsen. The risks of failure should form part of conservation planning – and of course, Australia requires an effective plan for emissions reduction.

The strategy helped increase awareness of the plight our unique species face. Dedicated community groups had already spent years volunteering to monitor and recover populations, and the strategy helped fund some of these actions.

However, proper investment in conservation – such as actions to reduce threats, and establish and maintain protected areas – is urgently needed. The strategy is merely one step on the long and challenging road to conserving Australia’s precious species and ecosystems.

Read more:
‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Government Bushfire Recovery program, Australian Geographic, Parks Victoria, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, WWF, and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

Ayesha Tulloch receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government’s Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. She is the Vice President of Public Policy and Outreach and co-convenes the Science Communication Chapter for the Ecological Society of Australia, and sits on Birdlife Australia’s Research and Conservation Committee. She is a member of eBird Australia, the Society for Conservation Biology and the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre Citizen Science Node.

– ref. Australia’s threatened species plan has failed on several counts. Without change, more extinctions are assured – https://theconversation.com/australias-threatened-species-plan-has-failed-on-several-counts-without-change-more-extinctions-are-assured-163434

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Abraham, Research Assistant – Health Economics, The University of Melbourne

Lockdowns are costly. They damage businesses and livelihoods.

Victoria’s recent lockdown cost about $100 million a day in lost economic activity, according to Victorian Treasury. NSW’s current lockdown will cost about $140 million a day, according to AMP. The total cost of current lockdowns affecting Sydney, Darwin, Brisbane and Perth will therefore be in the billions.

Is there another way?

There is broad consensus among epidemiologists that Australia’s strategy of elimination, with hard and early lockdowns, is the best response until the population is vaccinated. But some economists disagree.

“Imagine if lockdowns caused more harm than good,” mused The Australian’s economic correspondent Adam Creighton this week, citing US research that “fails to find evidence that lockdowns saved lives in net terms”. The study has also impressed University of NSW economist Gigi Foster. “We need to stop this madness,” she wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald.

We too have been considering the costs of lockdowns, but have come to a very different conclusion – that “living with the virus” would mean both higher health and economic costs than our strategy of elimination, achieved through border controls and sporadic lockdowns.

How we did our research

Our research (in press at an international peer reviewed journal, but available as a pre-print) has involved modelling four scenarios using data from Victoria’s experience.

Two of those scenarios are elimination strategies – aggressive or moderate. The aggressive approach means implementing a lockdown when COVID cases reach about eight a day, the moderate approach at 30 cases a day.

The other two scenarios are suppression strategies, limiting cases to a given threshold. The tight suppression scenario involves locking down when cases hit about 120 a day, while the loose scenario at about 700 cases a day.

All four scenarios involve some form of lockdown, just as these strategies have in the real world. In countries pursuing suppression, such as the US and Britain, lockdowns have been deployed to regain control of infection rates that have gotten so high that cases requiring hospitalisation threaten to overwhelm the health system.

As the experience of nations such as Britain have shown, getting a workable suppression strategy has been extremely difficult. Measures to beat back the virus have always been temporary. Once restrictions are relaxed the virus has bounced back, meaning more lockdowns.

Read more:
Lockdown, relax, repeat: how cities across the globe are going back to coronavirus restrictions

It shouldn’t be surprising that this approach tends to cost more, as our modelling suggests.

We ran the model a hundred times for each of these scenarios, to capture some of the randomness inherent in the spread of the virus in real life as well as uncertainty about inputs like costs per week of lockdown.

The costs of treating COVID-19 in hospitals were always greater for our two suppression strategies than the two elimination strategies.

Economic costs – measured by effect on GDP – were less clear-cut. However, in 77% of model runs GDP losses were greatest for either of the two suppression strategies.

Other research supports elimination

Our findings are consistent with other new studies, both for Australia and globally.

In a study published last month, researchers from the University of Melbourne and ANU have calculated the total economic costs of unmitigated spread would have been about four to eight times larger than quashing the virus early.

Another study published last month, in the Lancet, compares health and economic outcomes for Australia and four other OECD countries opting for elimination (Iceland, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea) with the 35 OECD nations that have opted for suppression.

Though the authors acknowledge their analysis does not prove causal connection between response strategies and outcomes, all indicators favour elimination. The elimination nations have had a COVID-19 death rate (per million) 25 times lower than the suppression nations, and higher GDP growth through almost every weekly period through to early 2021.

Read more:
Sweden and Japan are paying the price for COVID exceptionalism

Go hard, go early

So what of the study cited by Creighton and Foster as evidence that lockdowns are not only ineffective but actually may be causing more deaths?

This study measures changes in excess deaths following the implementation of stay-in-place policies in all US states and 42 other countries. It finds extending lockdowns by a week has been associated with a 2.7% increase in excess deaths.

However, since many of these countries implemented suppression strategies, lockdowns were implemented in the presence of high and increasing COVID-19 cases. These high cases flowed on to high mortality in coming weeks. Essentially, correlation does not imply causation.

Significantly, the study notes Australia and New Zealand, two countries that used early lockdowns to eliminate COVID-19, had fewer deaths (allowing for both SARS-CoV-2 and other causes). This is also what you will usually find at our COVID-19 Pandemic Tradeoffs tool, which examines health impacts of different strategies allowing for unintended health impacts of lockdowns.

To put it simply, the costs of lockdowns can’t be calculated in isolation from their role in the strategy chosen to control COVID-19. Both elimination and suppression have lockdowns, but elimination requires fewer lockdowns with better health and economic outcomes.

Read more:
Vital Signs: the cost of lockdowns is nowhere near as big as we have been told

Australia is having less economic scarring, and a stronger recovery than any other OECD country apart from South Korea. We can thank, in part, high iron-ore prices, but also the relative success of the elimination strategy, which has allowed economic activity to recover strongly following lockdowns.

The lesson is “go hard, go early” – at least in 2020 and until we have higher vaccination coverage. But we’re still a long way from that. Until then the elimination strategy, including early, sharp lockdowns where necessary when contact tracing is unable to “do the job”, remain our best policy.

Laxman Bablani has received funding from the Health Research Council of NZ.

Natalie Carvalho receives funding from NHMRC and previously from Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Tony Blakely receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, NHMRC, and Asia Development Bank

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

– ref. Yes, lockdowns are costly. But the alternatives are worse – https://theconversation.com/yes-lockdowns-are-costly-but-the-alternatives-are-worse-163572

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tamara Bucher, Senior Researcher, University of Newcastle

In 2020, Australia’s first non-alcoholic bar opened in Brunswick. Sydney quickly followed suit. Major liquor retailers are dedicating more and more shelf space for the growing range of no-alcohol and low-alcohol drinks.

Alcohol-free wines, beers and spirits are increasingly sophisticated, driven by consumers taking more care in what they drink — and how they choose to drink.

Over the past 15 years, alcohol consumption has decreased in Australia, from 10.8 litres per capita per year down to 9.4 litres, the lowest seen in 50 years. Similar trends have been seen globally.

The reduction has been particularly stark for the younger age groups: the number of people in their 20s abstaining from alcohol increased from 8.9% in 2001 to 22% in 2019.

Saying no to excessive drinking is the new act of youth rebellion.

‘Sober curious’ and ‘mindful drinking’

Drinking or not drinking was once seen as binary: you were a drinker, or you were sober. But recent years has seen a rise of the “sober curious”, or the “mindful drinking” movement.

This might mean pausing to consider your need to drink, or how much you will drink. Maybe replacing your midweek glass of wine or beers with a non-alcoholic alternative. It’s about stopping to ask yourself why you want to have a drink, and if each and every drink needs to be alcoholic.

This moves away from the extremes of teetotallers vs binge drinkers and opens up the idea of drinking – or not – on any given occasion.

We could also call these people moderate drinkers: they embrace mindful drinking as a lifestyle, using social media hashtags such as #soberissexy #sobercurious and #hangoverfree. These hashtags show images of health, happiness, empowerment, and success — people living life to the full.

Read more:
#WineMom: Humour and empowerment or binge drinking and mental health challenges?

This idea of conscious or controlled drinking has generated a new culture of consumers who celebrate, share and hashtag their non- or low-alcohol drinking.

It’s not grape juice

This shift in consumer attitudes has driven product innovation. Global alcohol brands are exploring alternatives, and several new brands have emerged with a focus on producing high-quality alcohol-free drinks that feel at home on any fashionable cocktail list.

Alcohol-free wine isn’t grape juice. To be classified as wine in Australia, a product must be made from fermentation of fresh grapes. During fermentation, yeast converts fruit sugars to alcohol.

Fermentable sugars can be reduced by harvesting fruits early, creating wines naturally lower in alcohol, or alcohol can be removed from a finished wine product after fermentation.

Alcohol-free wines have been around for a while — the first non-alcoholic wines were produced more than 100 years ago, but the technological methods for “dealcoholisation” have seen drastic improvements.

Dealcholisation once resulted in drinks lacking aroma, flavour quality and the characteristics we associate with drinking a glass of wine. But alcohol can now be removed without destroying the flavour compounds of the wine — and in a cost-effective way at large scale.

Even with the rise of the sober curious, consumers think these drinks are of lower value. There is a belief because these drinks do not contain alcohol they should cost less. In practice, the production of high-quality alcohol-free wine and beer is more expensive and the potential savings on alcohol taxes are not making up for the increased costs.

Non-alcoholic wines are reported to be one of Australia’s fastest growing drink categories, valued at more than A$4.5 million last year, predicted to be worth $15 million by the end of this year. Despite the growth, they still account for less than 1% of Australia’s total wine consumption.

But … what is the point?

So, why not just drink water, or a soft drink? Drinking is not just about quenching your thirst, or just about intoxication. Drinking is a social event, a ritual, a reward and an experience. Drinks are paired with food and are to be enjoyed.

Wine drinkers know it is more than just a drink or source of alcohol. A particular pour may be chosen for reasons such as health (think resveratrol in red wine), food pairings (a dry Chardonnay with crispy-skinned Barramundi), style (sipping an award-winning wine), intellectual challenge (sampling different grape varieties and regions) or tradition and fun (popping the cork of a sparkling white).

Many of these needs can be fulfilled by non-alcoholic wine.

Alcohol does contribute to the flavour profile of alcoholic drinks, and removing alcohol does change the taste. But today’s makers are creative.

Wine does contain antioxidants, and moderate consumption has been linked with good health. But alcohol removal can give consumers the benefits of the antioxidants without risking adverse effects.

Read more:
Non-alcoholic drinks: how healthy are they?

And while you’re unlikely to think of beer as a sports drink, savvy marketers are thinking differently: Australians can now buy non-alcoholic “sports beers”. ZERO+ Sports Beer claims these beers contain similar minerals and isotonic properties as sports drinks.

The future is mindful

Drinking alcohol is seen as a way to relax, socialise and gain a sense of pleasure.

But the mindful drinker gains their sense of pleasure and enjoyment through abstaining or moderating their drinking.

Embracing mindful drinking has been shown to generate positive feelings such as a sense of self-determination, building self-esteem, and feeling comfortable with one’s social identity.

Consumers want alternatives and are excited by new products and innovation.

Some dealcoholised beers and wines have even won awards against standard strength wines — so the mindful drinker may be getting the pick of the shelf.

Tamara Bucher is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre (PRC) for Physical Activity and Nutrition and PRC for Health Behaviour, the University of Newcastle, NSW. She has received research grants from the Australian Research Council, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Foundation for Nutrition Research, The European Union, Universities Australia and food industry including Rijk Zwaan, Nestec Ltd and Goodman fielder, Mars Australia, Tamburlaine Organic Wines, Fist Creek Wines, MCC label. She is a member of the International Society for Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), the Nutrition Society Australia (NSA) and the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST).

Melanie Pirinen is affiliated with the Doctoral Training Centre for Food & Agribusiness, University of Newcastle. She is a PhD Candidate and is supported by a University of Newcastle Women in STEM Post-Graduate Research Scholarship. She is a member of the Nutrition Society Australia (NSA) and the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST).

– ref. Australians are embracing ‘mindful drinking’ — and the alcohol industry is also getting sober curious – https://theconversation.com/australians-are-embracing-mindful-drinking-and-the-alcohol-industry-is-also-getting-sober-curious-160931

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

The debate about the vexed vaccination rollout on Wednesday exploded into an extraordinary free-for-all, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison under fire and health experts arguing among themselves.

Morrison had hoped by easing the way for younger people to get AstraZeneca he’d give a push to the program’s slow pace; equally, he wanted to put to use the excess supply of a vaccine that’s become unpopular in the public marketplace.

But his Monday night comments after national cabinet did not sit easily with the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.

ATAGI says Pfizer is the preferred vaccine for people under 60. When it comes to AstraZeneca, it has not given an actual no-no for younger people – seeing it as an alternative when Pfizer’s not available and there’s informed consent – but has discouraged its use.

Former health department secretary Jane Halton makes the distinction between population-wide advice – about those over and under 60 – and what may be best for individuals based on their own circumstances. AstraZeneca has been registered in Australia to be given to anyone over 18, she points out.

Instead of advancing the rollout, Morrison’s intervention triggered one of the worst days he’s had among many bad ones on vaccine issues.

There’s confusion and anger, when what’s required is order and calm. We heard the sort of cacophony more usual in the middle of an election campaign.

The government insists Morrison’s words did not contradict ATAGI.

Read more:
View from The Hill: No, this isn’t based on the medical advice

Phil Gaetjens, secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, told his state counterparts on Tuesday there was no inconsistency between what the PM had said and the clinical advice (and blamed some media coverage).

But the critics saw considerable inconsistency.

First to Morrison’s Monday words.

He said: “The ATAGI advice talks about a preference for AstraZeneca […] for those over 60. But the advice does not preclude persons under 60 from getting the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“And so if you wish to get the AstraZeneca vaccine, then we would encourage you to go and have that discussion with your GP.” The government would establish an indemnity scheme to protect the doctors.

In its formal statement, national cabinet “noted” the indemnity scheme and also “noted that GPs can continue to administer AstraZeneca to Australians under 60 years of age with informed consent”.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Wednesday was adamant there had been “no national cabinet decision about AstraZeneca being given to under 40s.” (They are the ones not being vaccinated at the moment.)

She wanted to know if the federal cabinet had made the decision.

Her “message to Queenslanders” was to listen to the Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young and other health experts on the vaccine.

Young – who is Queensland’s governor-in-waiting – absolutely let fly.

“No, I do not want under 40s to get AstraZeneca,” she said. “It is rare, but they are at increased risk of getting the rare clotting syndrome.

“We’ve seen up to 49 deaths in the UK from that syndrome. I don’t want an 18-year-old in Queensland dying from a clotting illness who, if they got Covid, probably wouldn’t die.”

Former federal deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth had earlier tweeted: “Critical ethical principle of autonomy at stake here. Should not be paternalistic. Adults should be allowed to consent to an intervention with a 3 in 100,000 risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome and less than 1 in 1,000,000 of death”.

Coatsworth – the guy you see in those Commonwealth vaccination advertisements – added after Young’s comments, “Well, I guess that puts me at odds with the QLD CHO”.

Charlotte Hespe, from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, described Young’s comments as scaremongering.

Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan said the Commonwealth had made a decision to allow younger people to be able to receive AstraZeneca and “provided an indemnity for GPs who do that. The health advice we have is that they shouldn’t”.

As McGowan observed, “with health advice, lots of doctors give you different advice at different points in time”.

And, indeed, see things differently from day to day.

Read more:
View from The Hill: No, this isn’t based on the medical advice

Australian Medical Association President Omar Khorshid on Tuesday declared Morrison’s announcement “a really significant change in the vaccine program”.

On Wednesday, he said: “The PM simply removed the age restrictions on AZ.”

But Khorshid did say Morrison had thrown a “hand grenade” into the rollout. “Today shows why we need to keep the politicians out of health discussions, and leave them between patients and their doctors.”

While the argument raged about AstraZeneca, problems just deepened over the shortage of Pfizer.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the state had written to Lieutenant General JJ Frewen, who is in charge of the rollout, to ask for further supplies.

“The reason we gave is that we are at a critical level and that at some of our sites we are projected to run out of Pfizer by as soon as … next Monday.

“We sent that letter yesterday. We got a response this morning. From the lieutenant general. We’ve been advised that we will not be provided additional vaccines of Pfizer.”

Queensland did not suggest which state or territory should get less Pfizer to meet its request for more.

National cabinet meets again on Friday. With frustrations high, tempers frayed, and some states struggling with their own shortcomings, its effectiveness will be tested to the limit.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Scott Morrison’s AstraZeneca ‘hand grenade’ turns into cluster bomb – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-scott-morrisons-astrazeneca-hand-grenade-turns-into-cluster-bomb-163680

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology, University of New England

There are only four known species of horseshoe crabs alive today. But the fossil record shows that hundreds of millions of years ago they came in a huge range of shapes and sizes.

In our research, published today in the open-access journal PeerJ, we describe one of these extinct species — Attenborolimulus superspinosus — for the first time.

We named this fossil crab after the famous naturalist and documentary host Sir David Attenborough, in honour of his contributions to conservation and science communication.

When life peaked for horseshoe crabs

Today’s horseshoe crabs live along the east coast of North America, as well as the coasts of China, India, Indonesia and Japan. But despite this distribution, the four species are only minutely different from each other.

During the Triassic period, however, between 250 million and 200 million years ago, a whole host of bizarre horseshoe crabs had evolved. We call these austrolimulids.

They lived alongside horseshoe crabs that look broadly similar to limulids — the curious critters we see along the beaches of the United States and Asia today.

The concurrence of two major horseshoe crab groups reflected a recovery from the end-Permian extinction. This event defined the end of the Paleozoic and the beginning of the Triassic, and 95% of marine organisms died out during it!

The newly described animal in our study comes from the early part of the Middle Triassic. We think Attenborolimulus superspinosus lived in marginal marine to freshwater conditions. This is in contrast with modern horseshoe crabs, which are almost exclusively marine animals.

Read more:
Ancient marvels: the first shell-crushing predators ground up their prey between their legs

A new austrolimulid from Russia

During research trips to the Ural Mountains of Russia that spanned 2018 and 2019, a team of Russian fossil collectors, palaeontologists and geologists collected fossils from a rock section thought to represent a Triassic-aged floodplain.

One particular group of fossil-rich rocks had preserved a host of animals, including the very rare specimens we examined and published on today.

Attenborolimulus superspinosus is a unique austrolimulid as it has very developed spines on its head section (called “genal spines”), but notably rounded and somewhat reduced spines on other sections of its segmented body.

This condition of overdeveloping and reducing spines, as well as other body sections, is observed in other austrolimulids. However, the combination of spine size, shape and structure in the new material was unique enough to warrant a new genus and species.

Attenborolimulus superspinosus was over an order of magnitude smaller than modern horseshoe crabs. It was likely a bottom-dwelling organism that fed on whatever it could get into its mouth, which is effectively how modern horseshoe crabs feed today.

What’s rather interesting about some of the fossils we studied is evidence of worms and other arthropods having lived on top of the horseshoe crabs. This tells us they may have been hosts for other parts of their ecosystem, effectively becoming “micro-habitats” for other species in the Triassic floodplain.

We don’t really know why austrolimulids didn’t make it into modern ecosystems. But the best explanation relates to how the group inhabited conditions that were closer to freshwater than marine (saltwater) environments.

They may have been outmatched by the resilience of other animals that arose as Jurassic ecosystems developed. This would suggest austrolimulids were simply not very well adapted for the ecosystems that flourished during the Jurassic.

In honour of the great naturalist

We named the new genus after Sir David Attenborough, who has influenced generations of people from all walks of life to understand the natural world and the importance of conservation.

This is especially important for horseshoe crabs now, as two of the four living species are considered endangered. And this is due to negative interactions with humans, including habitat modification and harvesting for their blood (which has applications in modern medicine).

Read more:
‘Living fossils’: we mapped half a billion years of horseshoe crabs to save them from blood harvests

Attenborolimulus superspinosus is one of more than 12 animals named after Sir David Attenborough, who has dedicated his life to helping us appreciate the beauty and vitality of the natural world.

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

– ref. We discovered a new fossil species of horseshoe crab (and named it after David Attenborough) – https://theconversation.com/we-discovered-a-new-fossil-species-of-horseshoe-crab-and-named-it-after-david-attenborough-163086

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yun Jiang, Managing Editor, Australian National University

A report from Human Rights Watch released yesterday found students and academics critical of China’s Communist Party are being harassed and intimidated by supporters of Beijing.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 24 pro-democracy students from mainland China and Hong Kong, and 22 academics at Australian universities. In three verified cases, families of students in Australia who lived in China were visited or were requested to meet with police about the student’s activities in Australia.

The report also said Australian universities had failed to protect the academic freedom of students from China, and academics.

As a result, the report said students from China and academics researching China had been self-censoring “to avoid threats, harassment, and surveillance”. This frequent self-censorship threatened academic freedom.

Freedom of speech and academic freedom are paramount values for Australian universities. To protect these values, universities must do more to ensure the safety and well-being of students and employees.

The majority can still speak freely

While the report detailed concerning instances of intimidation and harassment, it also noted most Chinese students in Australia could express their views freely and engaged in healthy political debate. Intimidation is carried out by a small but highly motivated, vocal minority.

In a statement, The Group of Eight — which comprises Australia’s biggest research universities including the universities of Melbourne and Sydney — said harassment and censorship were unacceptable. But it also added universities weren’t solely responsibility for foreign interference protection:

[…] the primary responsibility for monitoring the actions of foreign governments on Australian soil lies with the Australian Government and its agencies, not universities.

Author of the Human Rights Watch report, Sophie McNeill, said:

[…] the majority of students who experienced harassment didn’t report it to their university. They believe their universities care more about maintaining relationships with the Chinese government and not alienating students supportive of China’s Communist Party.

Universities are struggling from a loss of foreign student revenue as a result of the pandemic. Before COVID-19, about two in every five international students enrolled in Australian higher education institutions were from mainland China. These students bring in billions for universities.

Still, universities can and should do a few things to protect their students and academics from foreign-power threats and intimidation.

What universities can do

The Australian government introduced the University Foreign Interference Taskforce in August 2019. This is a way for universities to engage with the government on foreign interference.

Read more:
Government boosts scrutiny over Chinese targeting of university sector

Current taskforce guidelines however, don’t seem to cover issues of foreign-power intimidation with regard to free debate. They are limited to addressing foreign interference in the university sector, through:

[…] efforts to alter or direct the research agenda; economic pressure; solicitation and recruitment of post-doctoral researchers and academic staff; and cyber intrusions.

The peak body representing Australia’s universities has said the kind of coercion shown in the Human Rights Watch report will be addressed in a “refresh” of the guidelines, which are currently being worked on.

Universities must not be afraid to punish students who harass others, or report back to the Chinese authorities. This should include expelling them from the university. This creates a safer environment for all students, including international students who are paying high foreign-student fees.

Universities could also encourage lecturers to hold classroom debate on sensitive topics while protecting students from surveillance. One strategy is anonymous online discussion, where students remain anonymous to other students but not to the lecturer.

Read more:
Pro-China nationalists are using intimidation to silence critics. Can they be countered without stifling free speech?

Other strategies include universities letting students know before enrolment about potential risks they may face if they talk freely about sensitive issues — particularly students learning remotely from China or Hong Kong — and actively preventing recordings of discussions.

Chinese students come to Australian universities in a big part to experience the culture and society. Part of this experience is democratic, healthy debate. Students should be encouraged to express their views, whether they support or oppose the Chinese government.

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

– ref. Academic freedom is paramount for universities. They can do more to protect it from China’s interference – https://theconversation.com/academic-freedom-is-paramount-for-universities-they-can-do-more-to-protect-it-from-chinas-interference-163647

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marie Segrave, Associate Professor, Criminology, Monash University

A third of migrant and refugee women in a new survey said they experienced some form of domestic and/or family violence.

And temporary visa holders consistently reported proportionately higher levels of domestic and family violence, including controlling behaviours. Temporary visa holders also reported much higher patterns of migration-related abuse and threats (such as threats to be deported or separated from their children).

These are the main findings of a survey of nearly 1,400 migrant and refugee women across Australia, the most comprehensive of its kind in the country.

This was the first national study to look at the residency and visa status of migrant and refugee women, and the first to ask specific questions about controlling behaviours related to migration abuse.

The survey was conducted last year by Harmony Alliance, a migrant and refugee women advocacy organisation, and the Monash Migration and Inclusion Centre.

While the survey is not a representative sample, and cannot provide a comprehensive account of the experiences of all women from these backgrounds, it offers a unique snapshot of the lives of those who were willing to share their stories with us.

The findings provide an understanding of the needs of women across Australia’s diverse migrant and refugee communities as we look towards a post-COVID-19 future.

The study also offers key insights into the diversity of these women’s experiences, which are critical for informing policies and other measures to help support them in future.

Domestic and family violence

Of the participants who had experienced domestic and/or family violence:

• 91% experienced controlling behaviours

• 47% experienced or witnessed violence towards others and/or property

• 42% experienced physical or sexual violence.

The majority of women in our sample who had experienced domestic and/or family violence had experienced more than one form of harm on multiple occasions.

While the majority of perpetrators were male partners or former partners, family members and the women’s in-laws were also responsible for this violence.

Victimisation and trust in police

This survey is also among a handful in the world to comprehensively focus on migrant and refugee women’s experiences with victimisation, their perceptions of policing, and their trust in communities and institutions.

Of the women who were victims of crimes like theft, burglary, threatening behaviour or property damage, nearly 40% said they believed it was motivated by bias and/or prejudice.

Read more:
‘If you call 000 … I will send you back to your country’: how COVID-19 has trapped temporary visa holders

The majority of the women we surveyed perceived the police as just and fair. However, the women who had experienced domestic and/or family violence and were the victims of other crimes viewed the police as less procedurally just and fair than the rest of our participants.

Older people had higher levels of trust in the police compared to younger participants. And those with higher levels of education reported lower levels of trust in police compared to those with high school or trade/TAFE qualifications.

While the women generally had high trust in the institutions included in the study, religious institutions were consistently rated at the bottom. The greatest levels of trust were for Australia’s health care system and state education systems. Only 30% of the sample trusted their neighbours “a great deal” or “a lot”.

Employment and hardship

Our survey was conducted in late 2020 to take into account the impact of COVID-19 when asking about employment and financial hardship.

Of those participants who were employed in 2019, 10% lost their jobs due to the pandemic. There was an increased reliance on government payments as their main source of income during the crisis.

Temporary visa holders experienced an increase in hardship, more so than permanent visa holders and Australian citizens. Our understanding of the hardships of temporary visa holders and those in precarious work is limited, however, due to their somewhat limited representation in the study.

Age and generational differences

We also analysed key differences among the women based on a range of factors. Age was one area where we saw major differences. Two key findings:

Younger participants reported lower levels of trust compared to older participants across all institutions. The difference was most stark when it came to religious community leadership, with nearly a third of participants under the age of 44 saying they had no trust in these individuals.

Younger participants also reported greater levels of hardship after the pandemic began, compared to older participants. Those who lived in areas with high disadvantage reported the highest level of hardship.

Why these findings are important

As Australia moves towards a post-pandemic national recovery, our findings highlight the urgent needs among those most affected by the crisis, including young people and temporary visa holders.

Our report also shows that embracing and celebrating Australia’s diversity means paying greater attention to the needs of migrant and refugee women to ensure their safety and security in all aspects of their lives.

Read more:
We need to restart immigration quickly to drive economic growth. Here’s one way to do it safely

Marie Segrave receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Chloe Keel and Rebecca Wickes do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. One third of migrant and refugee women experience domestic violence, major survey reveals – https://theconversation.com/one-third-of-migrant-and-refugee-women-experience-domestic-violence-major-survey-reveals-163651

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bo-Huei Huang, PhD candidate, University of Sydney

Despite the well-known links between poor sleep and poorer health, getting enough good quality sleep has become a luxury in modern society.

Many of us struggle to improve our sleep, while amid the COVID pandemic and recurring lock-downs, our sleep has deteriorated.

Read more:
We’re sleeping more in lockdown, but the quality is worse

But our new study, published today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, bears some encouraging news.

We found doing enough physical activity (including exercise such as running or going to the gym) may counter some of the adverse health effects of unhealthy sleep patterns.

Let us explain.

Does poor sleep really harm our health?

Unhealthy sleep patterns include:

• not sleeping for long enough (less than seven hours per night for adults)

• sleeping for too long (more than nine hours per night for adults)

• snoring

• insomnia

• being a night owl, also known as “late chronotype”. This is people who naturally feel most awake and motivated in the evening, and are sluggish in the morning.

They are all associated with poorer health.

Recent research shows poor sleep may:

• cause inflammation

• impair the metabolism of glucose (also known as blood sugar) and reduce the number of calories burned, thereby increasing the risk of obesity

• increase the risk of heart disease and premature death.

Read more:
Why sleep is so important for losing weight

However, very few studies have examined how sleep and physical activity interact and impact our health.

We set out to answer the question: if I have poor sleep but I do quite a lot of physical activity, can that offset some of the harms of my poor sleep in the long-term? Or would this not make any difference?

What did we do?

We analysed the information provided by 380,055 middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank study, recruited between 2006 and 2010. Participants reported their level of physical activity and five aspects of their sleep.

We grouped people based on their sleep behaviour into healthy, intermediate or poor.

We categorised people’s level of physical activity based on the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. People who met the upper bounds of the guidelines did 300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week, or 150 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination of both. Those who met the lower bound did 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or a combination.

Moderate intensity physical activity usually makes you slightly out of breath if sustained for a few minutes and includes brisk walking or cycling at a leisurely pace.

Vigorous exercise usually makes you breath hard and can include running, swimming, and playing sports like tennis, netball, soccer or footy.

What did we find?

We followed up with the participants after 11 years. By May 2020, 15,503 participants had died, of which 4,095 died from heart disease and 9,064 died from cancer.

We found that, compared to healthy sleepers, people with poor sleep had a 23% higher risk of premature death, a 39% higher risk of dying from heart disease, and a 13% higher risk of dying from cancer.

We then compared the data of people who slept well with those who slept poorly, and how much they exercised. We found people who had the highest risk of dying from heart disease and cancer were those who had poor sleep and didn’t meet the WHO physical activity guidelines. On the other hand, those who had poor sleep but did enough physical activity to meet the WHO guidelines didn’t have as high a risk of dying from heart disease or cancer, compared to those who slept poorly and didn’t meet the physical activity guidelines.

For example, let’s look at the risk of dying from cancer. Those who had poor sleep and did no physical activity had a 45% higher risk of dying from cancer compared to those who had healthy sleep and exercised a lot. But among those who met the physical activity guidelines, despite poor sleep, they didn’t really have a higher risk of dying from cancer any more.

We found physical activity levels which met at least the bottom threshold of the WHO guidelines could reduce or eliminate some of the health harms of poor sleep. So people who did at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week were to some extent protected against the detrimental health effects of poor sleep.

Read more:
How much sleep do you really need?

Those who had both poor sleep and did no moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity had the highest risks of premature death.

Our study wasn’t designed to find out how and why physical activity may counteract some of the bad physiological impacts of poor sleep. But other research provides theories. For example, adequate physical activity may reduce inflammation, help maintain a healthy glucose metabolism, and increase the number of calories burned.

It’s important to note our study was what’s called an “observational study”. It shows an association between adequate physical activity and reduced harms from poor sleep, but we must be careful in interpreting causation. It can’t conclusively say adequate physical activity causes the reduction of harms from poor sleep, though there’s strong evidence for an association in the right direction.

Our study offers a hopeful message, that even if you haven’t been able to improve your sleep, you can still offset some of the health harms by doing enough exercise. Our previous research has also shown physical activity may help improve poor sleep patterns, which are a serious health problem across the world.

In addition to combating some of the negative outcomes of poor sleep, physical activity can also provide many other health benefits and extend our lives. For example, a 2019 study found people who met WHO’s physical activity target above lived three years longer on average than those who didn’t.

During lockdowns, access to parks, gyms, and swimming pools might be limited in many places. But there are still many ways to to stay fit and active at home during the coronavirus.

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

– ref. Poor sleep is really bad for your health. But we found exercise can offset some of these harms – https://theconversation.com/poor-sleep-is-really-bad-for-your-health-but-we-found-exercise-can-offset-some-of-these-harms-163270

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

Australia’s economy will limp along after recovering from the pandemic, failing to regain the growth it had either in the years leading up to the crisis or the much higher growth in the decades before.

That’s the consensus of the 23 leading Australian economists assembled to take part in The Conversation’s July 1 forecasting survey — a panel that includes former Treasury, Reserve Bank and International Monetary Fund officials and modellers and policy specialists from 13 Australian universities.

On balance, the panel expects year-average economic growth (the measure reported in the budget) to slide from 4% this financial year to just 2.2% by 2024-25, well below the average of 2.6% assumed in this week’s intergenerational report.

The panel forecasts much weaker business investment than does the budget and lower household spending, but higher wage growth and lower unemployment. It expects a flat share market, and slower growth in house prices.

Weaker economic growth

During the decade leading up to the COVID-19 crisis, economic growth averaged 2.6% per year. During the 27 years between the early 1990s recession and the crisis, it averaged 3.2%.

The panel’s average forecast of 2.2% by the end of the four-year budget forecasting horizon is lower than both the budget forecast of 2.5% and the 2.6% in the intergenerational report.

Economic modeller Janine Dixon expects growth of just 1.7%. She says after Australia has soaked up unemployment, its future economic growth can only be driven by population growth or improved productivity.

With population growth expected to be weak for several years, GDP growth will be weak unless dwindling productivity growth rebounds.

Read more:
Intergenerational report to show Australia older, smaller and more in debt

Forecasting veteran Saul Eslake says on the other hand, for as long as borders remain closed Australia should enjoy an “artificial boost” to domestic spending of more than A$50 billion per year from Australians who can’t spend abroad.

The two most optimistic forecasts of 3% growth, from Angela Jackson and Sarah Hunter, are contingent on borders reopening and tourism and immigration restarting.

The panel expect extraordinarily strong growth in the United States of 5.2% throughout 2021 on the back of what panelist Warren Hogan calls massive government stimulus and a full-vaccination rate approaching 50%.

China’s growth is forecast to rebound to 7.9%, but will come under pressure from what panelist Mark Crosby describes as an attempt by some of China’s customers to diversify the sources of supply away from China.

Support from iron ore

The panel expects actual living standards to be higher than the bald economic growth figures suggest.

This is because high iron ore prices boost Australians’ buying power (by boosting the Australian dollar) and boost company profits in a way that isn’t fully reflected in gross domestic product.

In recent months, the spot iron ore price has been at a record US$200 a tonne, a high the budget assumes will collapse to near US$63 by April next year as supply held up in Brazil comes back online.

Read more:
The four GDP graphs that show us roaring out of recession pre-lockdown

The panel is expecting the iron ore price to stay high for longer than the Treasury — for at least 18 months, ending this year near a still-high US$158 a tonne.

There’s agreement that at some point the unusually high price will fall, with one panelist saying there might be “one more year to ride this wave, then who knows”.

Because the panel expects a higher iron ore price than the government in the year ahead, it expects a greater rise in nominal gross domestic product — the measure of cash pouring into wallets. The panel forecasts an increase of 5% this financial year compared to the budget forecast of 3.5%.

But it expects consumer caution to limit growth in household spending to 4.2%, much less than the budget forecast of 5.5%.

Unemployment to fall quickly

The panel expects unemployment to fall more quickly than the government does, to 4.7% by mid-2022, a low the budget didn’t foresee until mid-2023.

The unemployment rate is already 5.1%, something the May budget didn’t expect for a year. However, it is to some extent artificially assisted because jobs that used to go to temporary foreign workers and were not counted in the employment statistics are now being taken by domestic workers who are counted.

As foreign workers return to Australia, the process will unwind, putting upward pressure on the recorded unemployment rate.

Wage growth better than budget

The May budget forecast wage growth of just 1.5% in 2021-22 (less than forecast price growth), followed by only 2.25% in 2022-23 (merely matching price growth), in part because of legislated increases in employers’ super contributions.

The forecasting panel is more optimistic for the year ahead, being able to take account of the Fair Work Commission’s 2.5% increase in award wages announced in June.

Read more:
Australia’s top economists oppose the next increases in compulsory super

Warren Hogan calls 2.5% the new “baseline”, with some labour shortages forcing some employers to offer more.

Even so, the panel’s average wage growth forecast for 2021-22 is 2.2%, only marginally above expected price inflation of 2.1%.

Slower home price growth

The panel expects weaker home price growth in the year ahead, with the CoreLogic Sydney price index climbing 6.4% after a year in which it soared 11.2%.

Melbourne prices should climb a further 5.2% after a year in which they gained 5%.

The panelists say much will depend on how long mortgage rates remain at their record lows, what action authorities take to restrain lending and when immigration restarts.

Low rates for some time

Over the past year, the bond rate at which the Commonwealth government can borrow for ten years has jumped from 0.9% to 1.5% in accordance with moves overseas.

The panel expects further increases to a still-low 1.8% by the end of this year and to 2.2% by the end of next year.

Even so, the panel expects no increase in the Reserve Bank’s cash rate — the one that drives variable mortgage rates — for almost two years, until April 2023.

Former Reserve Bank head of research Peter Tulip, now with the Centre of Independent Studies, says the bank meant it when it said it said it wouldn’t lift the record-low cash rate of 0.1% until actual inflation was “sustainably within” its 2-3% target range, something that wasn’t likely until 2024.

Other panelists, including economic modeller Warwick McKibbin, believe those criteria might be met sooner, some as soon as mid-2022.

No take-off in investment

The panel doesn’t buy the government’s bold prediction of a jump in non-mining business investment in response to budget tax measures.

The budget predicts year-on-year growth of 12.5% in 2022-23 after 1.5% in 2021-22.

Instead, the panel predicts 3.7% in 2021-22 and 5.8% in 2022-23, citing low population growth and the likelihood that most investment that could have been brought forward by tax measures has already been brought forward.

Read more:
Bounce-back in investment holds open possibility of good news

Former IMF official Tony Makin also points to the relatively high tax rates facing foreign investors and the increasingly restrictive approach of the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Other panelists cite lack of clarity about the rules governing investment in renewable energy and growing shortages of labour and materials as reasons to expect only restrained growth in business investment.

Markets steady

On balance, the panel expects the US-Australia exchange rate to stay where it is at around 76 US cents as it has for years, noting that much will depend on the iron ore price and the strength of the US economy.

On average, it expects no change in the Australian share market after 12 months in which the ASX200 has soared 24%.

The average hides sharp differences. Some panelists expect the ASX200 to climb a further 10%, while others expect it to fall 10%. One panelist, economic modeller Stephen Anthony, expects a collapse of 55%, saying it “smells like a blood bath is coming”.

Deficits forevermore

This year’s budget forecast is for a deficit of 5% of GDP after last year’s near-record 7.8% of GDP.

Asked at what point over the next four decades the budget deficit would shrink to 1% of GDP, three panelists replied “never”.

Six others said not before 2030. Only four nominated the decade ahead.

Read more:
Intergenerational report to show Australia older, smaller and more in debt

Angela Jackson said any improvements in the budget position delivered by a better-than-expected iron ore price would be spent.

Saul Eslake saw no appetite for either the tax increases or spending cuts that would be needed to eliminate the deficit, adding that, fortunately, there was no “urgent requirement to do so”.

Unexpected times

Forecasts often don’t come to pass. This time last year, mid-pandemic in a rapidly evolving situation, the panel forecast unemployment of 8.8%, no share market growth and ultra-low wage growth of just 0.9%.

That these things didn’t happen was in part due to the role of such forecasts in persuading the government to respond in an unprecedented fashion, a point made by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg launching the intergenerational report on Monday.

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

This year’s forecasts, prepared in a less-hectic environment, might have more staying power. They point to a weak recovery and an economy reliant on government support for some time to come.

Participants

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

– ref. Economy will be weak and in need of support after pandemic, say top economists in 2021-22 survey – https://theconversation.com/economy-will-be-weak-and-in-need-of-support-after-pandemic-say-top-economists-in-2021-22-survey-163433

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wacker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow – School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England

Am I not pretty enough? This is the first article in The Conversation’s series introducing you to the unloved Australian animals that need our help

When people think of rodents, they usually think of introduced species such as the black rat and house mouse. But Australia actually has around 54 native rodent species, which live in a vast range of habitats across the continent, from the ocean to spinifex-dotted deserts.

My research focuses on the broad-toothed rat, a vulnerable, chubby-cheeked rodent that lives in parts of Tasmania and pockets of southern Victoria. It even thrives beneath the snow in the Australian Alps and in Barrington Tops in New South Wales.

You may have already heard of the broad-toothed rat from articles about the damage feral horses do in Kosciuszko National Park, or as one of the species living near the highly photogenic mountain pygmy possum.

But I don’t want to turn this into a debate about feral horses or a popularity contest with the pygmy possum. As the broad-toothed rat rarely, if ever, gets its own story, I want to introduce you properly to this fascinating, unique, and beautiful species, focusing on those that live in Kosciuszko National Park.

A very special rodent

The broad-toothed rat (Mastacomys fuscus) is often referred to by wildlife scientists as Australia’s guinea pig. However, it belongs to a very different group of rodents.

Weighing approximately 150 grams — about the same size as the introduced black rat — the broad-toothed rat looks like any typical rodent at first glance.

But with its chocolate coloured coat, long, soft, almost luxurious fur, little to no musky smell, chubby face, and calm and inquisitive nature, it bears little resemblance to any introduced species.

The broad-toothed rat gets its name from its wider-than-usual molar teeth, which help it chew the stalks of sedges and grasses. It also nests in these grasses, and moves unseen through an elaborate network of tunnel-like runways. The broad-toothed rat shares these runways with other small mammal species, such as the bush rat and the dusky antechinus.

In winter, low shrubs hold the snow off the ground, creating a subnivean space (the area between snow and terrain). This creates a relatively cosy environment, keeping the temperature of the runways above zero, even when the air above this space is much colder.

When most of the snow has melted in October, the broad-toothed rat’s breeding season is triggered and generally lasts until March the next year. They have on average only two to three young, and these are unusual because they’re partially furry at birth.

Why native rodents matter

Native rodents are essential in many ecosystems. They disperse seeds by forming seed caches. This is when rats keep seeds in storage to eat, and when they vacate their burrow, the uneaten seeds can germinate.

They often have the role of ecosystem engineers, providing burrows and runways for small mammals that cannot dig their own. This is particularly common for desert rodent species that dig burrows, which are then used by small marsupials.

Native rodents may also be early indicators of local environmental change, like furry canaries in a coal mine. When their populations decline, populations of other native species, such as small marsupials, also decline soon after because whatever affects the rodents, will affect other small mammals.

But broad-toothed rats are in danger

Of the 54 species of native rodent, 16 are vulnerable or endangered. Their biggest threats include introduced rodents who compete for resources, predation by cats and foxes, and general human activity such as land clearing.

While the damage feral horses do to the vegetation in the Australian Alps is a well-known problem, the broad-toothed rat also has many other threats.

It’s currently classified as vulnerable or near threatened in much of its range. While the exact number of individuals is difficult to determine, it’s clear the rat’s range is getting smaller, in part due to climate change-induced reduction in snow cover.

Since their reproductive behaviours are triggered by the environment, changes in temperature and snow cover can be catastrophic. Reduced snow cover also means less protection during the colder months.

Another reason these rats are unusual among native Australian rodents is they’re entirely herbivorous. Any variation in temperature, rainfall, snow melt, or drainage alters the types of vegetation that grows. And changes in available grasses reduce the food and nesting material the rats have access to.

Read more:
Victoria’s new feral horse plan could actually protect the high country. NSW’s method remains cruel and ineffective

In the Australian Alps, broad-toothed rats have very few native predators. But a 2002 study found foxes, and perhaps feral cats, prefer eating broad-toothed rats over other small mammal species. Whether this is due to the rats being easier to catch or because they’re tastier is unclear.

Because the broad-toothed rat lives in Kosciuszko National Park, it also lives side-by-side with the ski industry, and will even inhabit the disturbed areas alongside ski runs. But ski resorts change drainage patterns, groundwater and surface water, changing the type of vegetation that grows.

With the continued reduction in natural snow from climate change, and heavier reliance on artificial snow for tourism, the impact on the fragile alpine ecosystem will need to be closely monitored so we can protect the broad-toothed rat.

Three ways you can help

Unfortunately, just having “rat” in its name can turn people away from caring about this species, as rats are typically seen as destructive and diseased.

But does an animal have to be cute and endearing to gain public and political sympathy? Well, unfortunately, yes.

Research from 2016 shows native rodents are the least cared about and researched of all animals, and they gain the least amount of funding.

So, what can the average person do?

First and foremost, learn about what species live where you live, and make sure you can correctly identify a native rodent from an introduced species.

Second, when you hear people complain about all rodents, tell them about our natives, and even show them a photo. Most people have a change of heart once they see one.

Finally, appreciate that our native rodents are just as important as our marsupials, monotremes, bats, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and are just as affected by our activities as any other animal group.

Read more:
This adorable mouse was considered extinct for over 100 years — until we found it hiding in plain sight

Chris Wacker receives funding from Australian Geographic.

– ref. Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-broad-toothed-rat-a-chubby-cheeked-and-inquisitive-australian-rodent-that-needs-our-help-160929

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University

Review: French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. NGV International

When prospects for overseas travel are bleak, a major exhibition of the work of the French Impressionists is a salvation — a beautiful shining oasis in a somewhat gloomy Australia.

When I lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was an unexpected veritable treasure trove. Unexpected in that it is not as well known as some of the museums in New York, London or Paris.

But, with more than 450,000 art objects, it is the 14th largest art museum in the world and is famed for its collection of French Impressionism.

This “neglect” means, of the 100 works at this exhibition, about 80% have never before been seen in this country.

The exhibition sparkles with unexpected treasures including Edouard Manet’s Street singer (c1862), a huge vibrant life-size painting; Claude Monet’s luminous Poppy Field in a hollow near Giverny (1885); Paul Cézanne’s classic Fruit and a jug on a table (c1890–94) and the pulsating Vincent van Gogh, Houses at Auvers (1890).

The accessibility of Impressionism

The National Gallery of Victoria’s Winter Masterpieces series of exhibitions commenced in 2004 with the exhibition Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. There were then exhibitions of Monet (2013), Degas (2016) and Van Gogh (2017).

Impressionism has certainly been a unifying thread of the Winter Masterpieces series. These four exhibitions have attracted almost a million visitors between them.

What is it about Impressionism that makes it the most popular art movement amongst the general public? In part, it is because it is such an accessible and undemanding art language.

There is no demand made on the viewer to decipher the complexities of mythology — the naked gods in complicated embraces — and the subject matter deals with a reality known and experienced by many in their audience. There is a celebration of a physically accessible countryside; of a hedonistic lifestyle with pretty girls and handsome young men frolicking, flirting and enjoying parties, spending a day at the races or travelling to beauty spots abroad.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Dance at Bougival (1883), an icon image for this exhibition, shows a man eating up the woman in his arms on the dancefloor, while companions sit at tables drinking and sharing the cheer. There is a palpable feeling of a joyous letting go, and celebrating.

You can almost hear the dance music radiating from the picture.

In part, the popularity of Impressionism must lie in the new way of painting with the brighter and more luminous palette, generally the broken, roughly applied brush strokes and the move of the whole colour scheme away from the dark tonal masses to vibrant heightened colour reflexes.

This applies equally to Camille Pissarro’s light and breezy Spring pasture (1889) or the radiating Claude Monet’s Meadow with poplars (c1875). By classical standards, the works appear “unfinished” or impressions of scenes, instead of the carefully composed and compositionally resolved views with their mirror-like finishes.

Berthe Morisot’s White flowers in a bowl (1885) or Monet’s Grand Canal, Venice (1908) sit on the canvas like a sketch breathing with life and light and appear immediate and accessible.

The iconic and the forgotten

Particularly when Impressionism is interpreted in the very broad sense of the word, as it is in this exhibition to include much of what immediately preceded it, Impressionism attracted some of the best painters over several generations.

This show includes some of the greats in realism such as Gustave Courbet, a good selection of Eugène Louis Boudin, the wonderful tonal landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a cross-section of the Barbizon School of landscape painters, right through to Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Monet, van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec.

It is a very strong show that combines famous iconic images by some of the great names, such as Monet’s much reproduced and discussed Grainstack (snow effect) (1891) and his water lilies series, with some quirky and puzzlingly neglected works, including Gustave Caillebotte’s Man at his bath (1884).

This Boston Impressionists show, on one hand, caters for a popular audience with a display of some of quintessential “masterpieces” of French Impressionism that will find a ready resonance with any viewer seeking an escapist orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism.

On the other hand, it is also intended for the very erudite viewer, who can be inducted into the complex nuances and states of Pissarro’s etchings or into Boudin’s profound explorations of colour and mood.

Even as COVID clouds gather once more over Australia, French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is almost guaranteed to become a blockbuster exhibition success.

It will assist us in better understanding the Australian Impressionism exhibition presently on show at NGV Australia, and further our love affair with Impressionism.

Read more:
She-Oak and sunlight: ‘the best feelgood show I have seen since COVID’

French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is at NGV International until October 3

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

– ref. An orgy of sunlight, colour and hedonism: the French Impressionists are an oasis in a gloomy Australia – https://theconversation.com/an-orgy-of-sunlight-colour-and-hedonism-the-french-impressionists-are-an-oasis-in-a-gloomy-australia-163268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Thorpe, Professor in Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture, University of Waikato

When Laurel Hubbard was announced as the first out transgender woman athlete to compete in an individual sport at an Olympic Games, controversy wasn’t far behind. One prominent commentator even called it a “disaster for women’s sport”.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the topic was hotly debated across television, radio, newspapers and social media. And earlier this week there was a protest outside the New Zealand High Commission in London against Hubbard’s inclusion in the weightlifting team.

The arguments are emotive and polarising, and often ignore key facts — in particular that Hubbard qualified through processes outlined by the International Weightlifting Federation and the International Olympic Committee.

More broadly, the language deployed has real consequences beyond this specific debate. It is important, therefore, to consider the impact this can have on the mental health and well-being of transgender athletes, and transgender communities in general.

Whose voices are heard?

Sadly, the perspectives most often absent from these debates are those of transgender athletes themselves.

But the backlash against Hubbard following the 2018 Commonwealth Games, echoing now in the lead-up to the Olympics, contributes to a climate in which transgender athletes don’t feel safe speaking to the media.

By protecting their own mental health and well-being, their stories, their humanity and their courage are largely lost from the media narrative. That is a loss to us all, leaving the wider discussion about transgender people’s participation in sport to centre around often ill-informed fears.

Read more:
The debate over transgender athletes’ rights is testing the current limits of science and the law

This has serious implications, as the power of the media to reinforce or sometimes challenge stereotypes and misunderstandings about transgender athletes is well established.

Preliminary analysis of 111 articles on the day of Hubbard’s Olympic inclusion shows 33 (mostly from the UK) “deadnamed” her — meaning they deliberately used her pre-transition name. Referring to people as they choose to be known should be a basic principle of media ethics.

Discriminatory language, underpinned by fear, phobias and characterisation of transgender athletes as “cheats” or worse, is likely to contribute to the already very high levels of psychological distress and suicide among transgender communities.

Selective science

We need to be careful about other aspects of the language being used to argue against Hubbard’s inclusion in the Olympics, and transgender participation in sport generally.

Often this language plays on fear and misinformation, rather than being based on well-founded evidence. For example, there is a tendency to selectively cite research focused on testosterone levels, although the science on this is far from settled.

Other research has shown many variables contribute to sporting performance and achievement. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and testosterone is just one part of a much bigger picture of what builds sporting greatness.

Read more:
Transgender medicine – what care looks like, who seeks it out and what’s still unknown: 3 essential reads

Many researchers and experts are encouraging approaches that go beyond physiological criteria to better recognise the complex social (rather than strictly biological) understandings of athletes’ gender experiences.

A growing body of research also shows the importance of ethics and human rights as the basis for developing sporting policy and law that enable transgender people to participate in sport at elite and community levels.

The importance of listening

Unfortunately, the entire topic is too often approached from a position of ignorance rather than curiosity and compassion. As one researcher has argued:

Those persistent in their views that trans women ought not to compete with cis women in elite women’s categories would benefit from talking to trans women, getting to know trans athletes, and reading the qualitative research that delves deeply into trans athletes’ experiences, motivations and reasons for participating in sport.

This was reinforced in a recent report from the United Nations independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity:

All persons who struggle against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity have in common certain lived experiences that should provide a notion of the importance of seeing each other, listening to each other and acting towards each other with kindness and compassion.

The report specifically challenged the belief that the inclusion of trans women threatens women’s sport. It called instead for evidence-based approaches to ensure sports promote the development of all girls, including those who are trans.

Read more:
World Rugby’s proposed ban on trans athletes is wrong. History shows inclusion is possible

A teachable moment

Meanwhile, mainstream debate is still too often bound up in polarising rhetoric and confused argument. At this important moment in the history of sport, that needs to change.

Hubbard’s groundbreaking Olympic inclusion offers a genuinely teachable moment that allows us to work towards a more constructive dialogue. The work being done by researchers and activists with online resources such as Proud2Play in Australia and Athlete Ally in the US is particularly helpful here.

Finding new ways of speaking about the topic can flow into developing more inclusive and supportive policies and practices in sport at elite and community levels.

More than anything, we need to remember those most directly affected by current media debates and campaigns. That includes the trans girls and young women who simply want to be able to play on their school or club sports teams.

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

– ref. Why the way we talk about Olympian Laurel Hubbard has real consequences for all transgender people – https://theconversation.com/why-the-way-we-talk-about-olympian-laurel-hubbard-has-real-consequences-for-all-transgender-people-163418

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Steyn, Research assistant, University of Auckland

New Zealand will have to maintain some border controls and public health measures until a high proportion of the population is vaccinated, according to our latest modelling study, released today as a pre-print ahead of peer review.

For the alpha variant of COVID-19, our model estimates around 80-85% of the population would need to be vaccinated before we can completely relax controls. For the more transmissible delta strain, which is currently causing problems even in parts of the world with high vaccine coverage, we would need to reach 97% of the population.

New Zealand’s rollout uses the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, one of the most effective vaccines yet developed.

At this early stage, only around 8% of the population are fully vaccinated. But the vaccination rate is set to ramp up in coming months and the government has committed to offering the vaccine to everyone by the end of 2021.

The good news is that increasing levels of vaccination will protect some of our most vulnerable groups from COVID-19.

It will also make maintaining an elimination strategy easier and allow the country to gradually move from relying on population-wide interventions like lockdowns towards more targeted controls like contact tracing.

Population immunity threshold

One of the biggest benefits of vaccines is they don’t just protect the individual. They also contribute to collective immunity of the population by reducing the number of people who can spread the disease.

In a mathematical model like ours, there is something called the population immunity threshold (also known as “herd immunity”). It represents a theoretical point in the vaccine rollout where we could relax all restrictions and public health measures and only see small, occasional outbreaks.

This differs from country to country, depending on the population and how people live and work, and it is higher for more transmissible variants. Until we reach this threshold, relaxing controls completely would risk serious health impacts, including potentially thousands of deaths.

This shows New Zealand will need very high levels of vaccine coverage to protect the population. But we shouldn’t turn these numbers into a target.

Firstly, there is still uncertainty in the data. Our study used recent data from the UK on transmissibility and vaccine effectiveness. But with a shifting mix of new variants, the picture is evolving rapidly.

Secondly, models are always based on simplifications. We used a national model that assumes vaccine coverage is evenly distributed across the country. In reality, regions or communities with lower than average vaccine coverage will remain at risk, even if we have theoretically reached population immunity at a national level.

À lire aussi :
COVID-19 may never go away, but practical herd immunity is within reach

Finally, reaching population immunity is not an all-or-nothing goal. The higher the vaccine coverage we can achieve, the more protection we will have and the easier it will be to control outbreaks with measures that don’t require full border restrictions. Everyone who gets vaccinated is doing their bit to get New Zealand back to life as normal as possible.

COVID-19 won’t go away quickly

While the vaccine rollout is still in progress, elimination remains the best strategy for Aotearoa. Keeping strong border controls and stamping out any outbreaks protects people who haven’t yet been vaccinated or can’t be for medical reasons.

The vaccine makes elimination much easier to sustain. As more people are vaccinated, any outbreaks that do make it across the border are more likely to fizzle out on their own.

Outbreaks that don’t run out of steam become easier to control, allowing a gradual shift away from lockdowns towards more targeted measures such as contact tracing and case isolation. Health impacts will also be blunted.

À lire aussi :
We may never achieve long-term global herd immunity for COVID. But if we’re all vaccinated, we’ll be safe from the worst

New Zealand is prioritising high-risk groups for vaccination, so the potential number of hospitalisations and fatalities will decrease.

But COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon. Even with relatively high vaccination rates, the delta variant is causing another wave in the UK. It’s clear countries around the world will continue to struggle with the virus until they reach high vaccine coverage.

While being vaccinated means you are far less likely to catch the virus, no vaccine is 100% effective. A blanket border re-opening before we reach population immunity, even if we only reopen to vaccinated people, would pose a high risk of an outbreak and threaten our healthcare capacity.

Eventually, we will be able to relax border restrictions. This is likely to happen gradually, starting with a partial re-opening to low-risk countries, alongside public health measures such as testing and masks.

As international travel resumes, it’s highly likely we will see cases and even outbreaks in Aotearoa. The best way to protect yourself and your whānau from those outbreaks is to get vaccinated.

Nicholas Steyn is affiliated with the University of Auckland and receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems.

Michael Plank is affiliated with the University of Canterbury and receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems.

Shaun Hendy is affiliated with the University of Auckland and receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence in complex systems.

– ref. At least four in five New Zealanders will have to be vaccinated before border controls can be fully relaxed – https://theconversation.com/at-least-four-in-five-new-zealanders-will-have-to-be-vaccinated-before-border-controls-can-be-fully-relaxed-163486

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beth Gaze, Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne

It’s been over a year since Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ report on sexual harassment in the workplace in Australia, Respect@Work, was released.

After a long delay, the Morrison government published its response to the report in April, and followed up by quietly introducing a bill to legislate some of these changes last week.

The bill proposes changes primarily to the Sex Discrimination Act and the Fair Work Act. While some of these changes are welcome and long overdue, the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough to protect women or prevent harassment at work.

Read more:
The government’s ‘roadmap’ for dealing with sexual harassment falls short. What we need is radical change

Major changes to the Sex Discrimination Act

There are three major proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act that focus on sexual harassment.

First, protection would be expanded to cover harassment based on a person’s sex, such as comments or actions that “seriously demean” women, in addition to sexual harassment.

Second, the time limit to make a claim under the act would be extended from six months to two years.

Third, more workers would be protected from sexual harassment beyond just direct employees and contractors. Subcontractors, labour hire workers, outworkers, trainees, unpaid work experience students and volunteers would also be included.

The sexual harassment and sex-based harassment provisions would also be extended to cover members of parliament, as well as their staff and judges at both state and federal levels for the first time. These groups are not currently subject to the Sex Discrimination Act.

State public servants would be covered under the act (joining federal public servants). Previously, they would have only been subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

Threshold for demeaning language too high

There is much to commend in these proposed amendments, but other changes are expressed in a way that is likely to limit their scope or effect.

The extension of protections to cover sex-based harassment, such as misogynist language that demeans or degrades women, is a very important step forward. But it has not been included in the Fair Work Act changes (discussed below). Moreover, it would require a higher standard than the sexual harassment provisions to prove.

To succeed in a case involving sex-based harassment, for instance, it would be necessary to prove not only that the behaviour is offensive, humiliating or intimidating, but also that the conduct is seriously demeaning.

This unfortunately suggests sex-based harassment that is not seriously demeaning is acceptable.

Discrimination and harassment often happen through frequently repeated, small or nuanced transgressions, rather than singular, dramatic actions. A threshold of “seriously demeaning” is too high.

More workplace protections — but only to a point

The proposed changes to the Fair Work Act make clear that sexual harassment is a workplace health and safety issue, like bullying. This means sexual harassment will be treated as a form of bullying, which can be addressed through a stop order made by the Fair Work Commission.

In addition, the Fair Work Act would be amended to make clear sexual harassment falls within the definition of serious misconduct and can be a legitimate reason for dismissal from employment.

Importantly, the government rejected Jenkins’s recommendation to include language that expressly prohibits sexual harassment in the Fair Work Act.

This means a person who is subjected to sexual harassment will not be able to seek compensation under the Fair Work Act; that person would still need to bring an claim under anti-discrimination laws at the state or federal level.

Another problem is the changes to the Fair Work Act would not include the new provision for sex-based harassment. The bill does not see sex-based harassment as a workplace health and safety issue, or as serious misconduct.

Both of these omissions demonstrate an ongoing reluctance to fully integrate anti-discrimination principles into workplace law.

Jenkins’s report recommended that employers should be required to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate both sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination at work, but the government has resisted this, claiming work health and safety laws are sufficient.

With such a requirement under the law, employers could be held liable — including for compensation — if they do not make sufficient efforts to prevent harassment or discrimination in their workplace.

Legal claims under anti-discrimination laws can be riskier than those under the Fair Work Act because different rules apply about paying the other side’s legal costs if you lose the case. As a result, those who are harassed at work are still being denied access to the most effective procedures to bring their claims.

Read more:
In the wake of the Dyson Heydon allegations, here’s how the legal profession can reform sexual harassment

Another problem is the Fair Work Act would only protect against sexual harassment while a person is “at work”.

This overlooks the use of social media outside working hours, which is now a major avenue for bullying and harassment. It also might not cover work-related harassment that occurs off-site or out of hours.

The government has introduced some significant changes in the bill, which are to be commended. But in some respects, this is a missed opportunity to fully embrace Jenkins’s report and implement comprehensive change.

The narrow drafting of this bill and, in particular, the failure to fully protect against sex-based harassment should be addressed before it is adopted.

Beth Gaze receives research funding from the Gender Equality Commission (Victoria).

– ref. Can the government get its workplace harassment laws right? Its bill is a missed opportunity – https://theconversation.com/can-the-government-get-its-workplace-harassment-laws-right-its-bill-is-a-missed-opportunity-163492

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Nixon, Research officer, The University of Queensland

This article is part of the “Who would win?” series, where wildlife experts dream up hypothetical battles between animals (all in the name of science).

Scorpions and tarantulas are two ancient arachnids that have been walking the Earth for hundreds of millions of years — even before the time of the dinosaurs.

And the question of which would win in a fight has been the subject of numerous YouTube videos, online forums and even research papers.

Well, with more than 900 species of tarantulas and 2,500 species of scorpions found worldwide, the winner depends on who’s facing off in the ring. The question comes down to three things: size, speed, and venom.

Choose your fighter

In the wild, scorpions and tarantulas rarely cross paths, but they will battle to protect their territory or themselves as sometimes they try to eat each other.

At first glance, the fight seems evenly matched. Scorpions and tarantulas are typically ambush predators that “sit and wait” for their prey. Both are highly armed.

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On Team Scorpion, we have tough armour in the form of a hardened exoskeleton made of overlapping layers of chitin, a protein that’s similar to the keratin in our nails.

Scorpions also have grasping pincers to catch and tear prey, which they could use to grab onto the tarantula. One of the world’s largest scorpions, the giant forest scorpion (Heterometrus swammerdami), can grow up to 22 centimetres long, and could use its powerful pincers to crush a tarantula.

Luckily, in a pinch, a tarantula could drop its leg to get away, and regrow the leg as it continues moulting.

Spiders on Team Tarantula also have the advantage of size. The goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) in South America, for example, has an impressive body length of 12 centimetres, with legs spanning nearly 30 centimetres (the size of an A4 page).

What spiders lack in pincers, they make up for with metal-tipped fangs, enabling them to easily punch through chitin and inflict painful puncture wounds.

Many tarantula species have another special defence called urticating hairs, which are barbed bristles flung from the abdomen against potential attackers. These hairs can severely irritate soft mammalian skin and eyes; however, they would be ineffective against the scorpion’s tough exoskeleton.

Superweapon: venoms

Scorpions and tarantulas have a superweapon in their arsenal: venom. Scorpions inject venom via the stinger in their tail, while tarantulas inject via their fangs.

Both spider and scorpion venoms are complex cocktails of thousands of different molecules that mainly target the nervous system. They’ve been fine-tuned by hundreds of millions of years of evolution to be fast-acting, potent and selective, allowing them to catch their prey (usually insects) and defend themselves from predators (such as mice and birds).

Although spiders have the more fearsome reputation, it’s actually scorpion venoms you should be worried about. There are estimated to be over one million scorpion envenomations each year, resulting in more than 3,000 fatalties worldwide.

As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the scorpion pincers, the more potent the venom. For example, deathstalker scorpions (genus: Leiurus) have slender pincers, but their potent venom is filled with neurotoxins that overexcite the nervous system, leading to myocardial injury, pulmonary oedema, and cardiogenic shock. In other words, your heart cannot pump enough blood to key organs like the brain and kidneys.

Read more:
Australian stinging trees inject scorpion-like venom. The pain lasts for days

Meanwhile, tarantula venoms are generally not considered dangerous to humans, with no recorded fatalities to date.

One group of tarantulas you should watch out for are the ornamental tarantulas (genus: Poecilotheria), found in Southeast Asia. These tree-dwelling tarantulas are brilliantly coloured, move with lightning speed, and inject large volumes of very potent venom, causing extreme pain and muscle cramps that can last for weeks.

Size and speed

Venoms are typically fast-acting, so whoever is fast enough to get the first strike in the battle has a big advantage.

Using high speed video, scientists found a species of deathstalker scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus) can whip its tail at 128 centimetres per second in a defensive strike.

Another study found Texas brown tarantulas (Aphonopelma hentzi) can sprint at similar speeds.

While venoms have evolved as powerful chemical defences to help level the playing field for these arachnids, there’s no doubt size plays an important role in this battle, too. The bigger the animal, the larger the dose of venom required to affect it.

Several studies have recorded scorpions hunting smaller spiders. In Western Australia, the spiral burrow scorpion (Isometroides vescus) specialises in hunting burrow-dwelling spiders, such as trapdoor spiders and wolf spiders.

When the spiders get bigger, however, the tables turn. Some tarantulas are known predators of scorpions.

One study noted that in Yucatán Peninsula villages with high densities of tarantulas, scorpions were conspicuously absent. When the researchers brought the local Mexican red rump tarantula (Tliltocatl vagans) and bark scorpions (Centruroides species) into the laboratory, they found the tarantula successfully predated the scorpion every time, regardless of who attacked first.

Similarly in the US, researchers have recorded Arizona blonde tarantulas (Aphonopelma chalcodes) hunting and eating scorpions. However, lab studies with these species showed if the scorpion got the first sting in, the tarantula would retreat.

Overcoming scorpion venom

Both Arizona blonde and Mexican red rump tarantulas are considered harmless to humans, but bark scorpions have a potent, potentially lethal venom.

So how do these tarantulas overcome the lethal bark scorpions’ sting?

Predators and prey are always in an evolutionary arms race, trying to develop strategies to overcome each other’s weapons to survive. For example, one bark scorpion predator, the grasshopper mouse, has evolved very slight mutations in its nervous system that make the scorpion toxins much less effective, thereby protecting the mouse.

Another study showed some scorpion venom toxins were active on tarantula nerves, but less so than on insect and mammalian nerves. This means that tarantulas may also have evolved mutations to help protect them from scorpion venom, perhaps even natural means of detoxifying the scorpion venom in some tarantula species’ haemolymph (the spider equivalent of blood).

Overall, the battle of the arachnids depends on the size, speed and venom of the contenders — but my money is on the tarantula.

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

– ref. Ever wondered who’d win in a fight between a scorpion and tarantula? A venom scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/ever-wondered-whod-win-in-a-fight-between-a-scorpion-and-tarantula-a-venom-scientist-explains-155138