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

The coronavirus has moved to a new stage in Australia, with the first two cases of local transmission of the disease.

The NSW government announced a 53-year-old Sydney health worker – who had not recently travelled abroad – had been diagnosed. The other case is the 41-year-old sister of an Iranian man who had arrived in Australia on Saturday. The woman had not travelled to Iran.

Other cases in Australia – now more than 30 – have been people who have come from abroad. There has been one death, a 78-year-old man who had been evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Health authorities have anticipated the spread of the virus locally, with plans being ramped up to deal with that.

Efforts were being made on Monday to track down passengers who sat near travellers from Iran who have been diagnosed with the virus. There is now a ban on the entry of foreigners coming from Iran.

News of the local transmission comes amid the expectation the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates on Tuesday as the virus scare hits the economy, and panic buying of items such as toilet paper.

Hand sanitisers have been a runaway sales item. The share price of Zoono, a company that makes them, has jumped 70% in under a week.

On Friday the futures market rated the probably of a Tuesday rate cut at just 18%. On Monday it was rating the probability at 100%, with some economists even speculating about the possibility of the cut being double the usual 0.25%.

The Australian share market fell by 0.77%, after a 10% fall in what was the worst week since the global financial financial crisis.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said it was time for people to “give each other a pat on the back” rather than shaking hands. He also suggested a degree of caution when kissing.

In parliament, the government took a series of questions on the virus and its fallout. Attorney-General Christian Porter said it was important for Australians to understand the use of certain powers may become necessary in the months ahead.

Notably among these were changes made in 2015 to the Biosecurity Act, which replaced the Quarantine Act.

COVID-19 had been listed as a human disease for the purposes of this act in January.

“That has a number of very important consequences for Australia and Australians in what will no doubt be challenging months going ahead,” Porter said.

“There are two broad ranges of powers that people may well experience for the first time.

“There is the ability of the government to impose – always based on medical advice, but nevertheless impose – a human biosecurity control order on person or persons who have been exposed to the disease.

“It could require any Australian to give information about people that they’ve contacted or had contact with so that we can trace transmission pathways. It will also mean that Australians could be directed to remain at a particular place or indeed undergo decontamination.”

“Secondly, a very important power that may be experienced for the first time—and that we will be monitoring very carefully—is the declaration of a human health response zone, ” he said.

This was done with the Diamond Princess.

“But it’s very important to understand, going forward, that that is a power that can be used for either localised disease outbreaks in Australia or indeed to restrict individuals from attending places where a large number of people may otherwise choose to gather, such as shopping centres, schools or work.

“These are challenging times going forward, and these will be some of the first times that these important powers may be used,” Porter said.

– ref. First locally-transmitted COV-19 cases in Australia, as Attorney-General warns drastic legal powers could be used – https://theconversation.com/first-locally-transmitted-cov-19-cases-in-australia-as-attorney-general-warns-drastic-legal-powers-could-be-used-132771

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julaine Allan, Senior research fellow, Charles Sturt University

On February 21 NSW Health issued a warning about methamphetamine and cocaine being contaminated with the dangerous opioid fentanyl.

Several people who had taken these illicit stimulant drugs presented to Sydney hospitals with symptoms of opioid overdose, raising the alarm. Drug tests found fentanyl and acetyl-fentanyl had caused the overdoses.

It’s believed to be the first time fentanyl has been found in stimulant drugs in Australia.

People using stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine are not looking for the depressant effects of opioids. They would not have expected their drugs to contain fentanyl.

While you never know for sure what you’re getting when you buy illicit drugs, this is an extreme case.

Read more: Prince’s death from fentanyl is only the tip of the global overdose iceberg

What is fentanyl?

Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid prescribed for severe pain, for example to cancer patients or after surgery. It was first developed in the 1950s as a fast acting anaesthetic and pain reliever, but its availability has been restricted in recent years because of a high rate of misuse.

Today it’s usually applied in skin patches where the pain is. It’s also used in epidurals in combination with other drugs to relieve pain during childbirth.

Fentanyl is much stronger than other opioid drugs like heroin, morphine and codeine.

Opioids are depressants, which means they depress the central nervous system, slowing breathing and heart rate. Other effects include reduced pain, euphoria, constipation, vomiting, slurred speech and loss of appetite.

People who use fentanyl for non-medical reasons inject it. They find a tolerance to the drug builds quickly, the effects diminish quickly and physical dependence is rapid.

Symptoms of fentanyl overdose include difficult or shallow breathing, fainting, cold and clammy skin and blueish lips and skin around the mouth. People can die quickly so seeking emergency help is critical.

Read more: Weekly Dose: fentanyl, the anaesthetic that may have been used as a chemical weapon on Chechen rebels

Acetyl-fentanyl has a slightly different chemical structure to fentanyl but similar effects. It has not been approved for human use.

A prime culprit in America’s opioid crisis

Fentanyl has been responsible for many of the overdose deaths reported globally in recent years, including in Australia.

Fentanyl and related substances like acetyl-fentanyl are manufactured illegally in some countries. They’re mixed with other drugs to produce powerful effects at a lower production cost. Fentanyl may also be found in other drugs because of cross contamination through careless practices in drug labs.

In the United States more than 700,000 people died from a drug overdose between 1999 and 2017. Illicit fentanyl caused around half of the overdose deaths reported each year since 2013.

While a portion of these people would have knowingly been using fentanyl, many people who overdosed on fentanyl in the US had been using stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine.

A study in Canada found 73% of people who tested positive for fentanyl did not know they had taken it.

Read more: Opioid dependence treatment saves lives. So why don’t more people use it?

Risk in Australia

Illicitly manufactured fentanyl has not been reported in Australia previously. Nine overdose deaths that occurred in Melbourne in 2015 were found to include fentanyl and heroin, however the source of the fentanyl was unknown.

An Australian study published in 2019 found illicitly produced fentanyl was readily available on the dark web and suggested a high risk of the drug being imported to Australia.

The Australian Crime Commission identified China as a likely source of illicit fentanyl and related substances, highlighting ease of access to Australian markets.

Doctors working in the area of drug dependence have been expecting to see illicit fentanyl in Australia at some point. The fear is Australia could face an overdose epidemic similar to the US and Canada.

How can we reduce harm?

Harm reduction strategies include training people who take illicit drugs in the use of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, and providing rapid fentanyl test strips so drugs can be tested prior to use.

The test strips are reliable and easy to use. A small amount of the drug is dissolved in water and the test strip is dipped into the liquid for 15 seconds.

The test strips are highly sensitive and only a tiny amount of fentanyl is needed for it to be detected. It takes five minutes for the test result to appear.

While the strips have been found to be accurate at detecting the presence of fentanyl, they don’t identify the strength or quantity of the drug in the sample.

Read more: Testing festival goers’ pills isn’t the only way to reduce overdoses. Here’s what else works

Most people who use illicit drugs do so occasionally. It’s likely people using stimulant drugs will not have fentanyl testing kits or naloxone with them. This increases the risk of harm.

Naloxone, testing kits and drug checking availability in general are the best ways to reduce harm from fentanyl. These will need greater promotion if we continue to see cases like we’ve seen in Sydney in the past month.

– ref. The deadly opioid fentanyl is turning up in disguise on Sydney streets, making illicit drug use even riskier – https://theconversation.com/the-deadly-opioid-fentanyl-is-turning-up-in-disguise-on-sydney-streets-making-illicit-drug-use-even-riskier-132598

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Speck, Professor, Art History;, University of Adelaide

Review: 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres

The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art – now in its 30th year – has a tradition of measuring the pulse of contemporary art practice. This iteration is no different.

Art Gallery of South Australia curator Leigh Robb approaches contemporary anxieties, the challenges of technology, the unfolding anthropogenic tragedies and the continuing fallout from empire colonialism in this exhibition. She wrangles these fears under the compelling umbrella of Monster Theatres. In a sense, Robb picks up where Nick Mitzevich left off in his 2014 biennial Dark Heart, probing the guilt and grief of the national psyche. Six years on, the anxieties feel greater and more urgent.

Monsters have always been a cultural trope; in an accompanying display, Julie Robinson explores this phenomenon with a look at historical monster prints. Once, monstrous imagery by Durer, Goltzius and Goya depicted hybrid creatures with an assortment of limbs, bodies and heads and catered for societal follies and fears; their message was understood then as a moralistic warning or omen. The visual language of today differs greatly.

Humans, machines, monsters

The 24 solo projects in the biennial by Australian artists include two major performance artists, Stelarc and Mike Parr.

Each day for six days, Parr reads a 100-page script based on a Roland Barthes text in Reading for The End of Time. He has modified the text to stress repetitious words and phrases and synonyms, so the audience hears the same phrases coming up again and again. His only props are a glass of water and a reading lamp. As each day progresses, Parr reads this text against the video playback of the previous day. His monster is the cognitive dissonance this causes. At the time of writing, his voice was still holding out.

In Reclining StickMan, Stelarc placed himself on a large nine-metre robot made for the exhibition space. Over two five-hour performances on the opening weekend, he choreographed its movements and sounds. Audience members contributed via a touch screen, as did remote users. The robot’s movements and sounds stem from a mathematical algorithm and human interaction. This is the most recent and perhaps most spectacular of Stelarc’s work in which his own body facilitates complex interactive systems between the human and the machine.

There are some deeply psychological works on show, including Brent Harris’s grotesque paintings exposing the trauma and menace of his abusive father. Judith Wright’s haunting Tales of Enchantment are a memorial to a lost child she imagines in a shadowy surreal underworld.

Muslim artist Abdul Abdullah’s Understudy sits alone in a picture theatre. Viewers can, if they wish, take a seat next to this slightly hunched-over figure dressed in faux designer human clothing, but they will soon notice the hood he is wearing partly conceals his monkey face – he is one of the rare and endangered Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys. The monkey, also a familiar figure in monster films such as Godzilla and King Kong, reflects the artist’s outsider experience in post-September 11 Australia.

Karla Dickens’ Dickensian Country Show feels like a sideshow with its lights and glitter, but its imagery is a dark exposé of Aboriginal members of the country circus and boxing troupe whose blackness was the attraction, the oddity, the “other”.

What fear sounds like

Monster Theatres lends itself to the idea that the exhibition space is a site for speculation and wonder. In Transmission, experimental sound artist Julian Day’s found organ pipes emit a monstrous and resonating timbre that echoes through the gallery’s atrium, on the hour. On the opening weekend of the biennial, Day orchestrated a moving performance called A Civic Space in the nearby Freemasons Lodge with a group of singers and brass musicians improvising abstract sounds, augmented by the organ.

Ecological threat is imminent and urgent in Monsters Theatre. Quandamooka artist Megan Cope’s sound installation Untitled, Death Song replicates the ghostly warning sound of the bush stone curlew, an endangered nocturnal bird. The “instruments” are re-purposed remnants from mining and deforestation projects. The auger drill, oil drums and rocks, along with a piano, ring through gallery space. Their haunting sounds are arresting enough to make viewers sit and listen.

The biennial extends to the nearby Adelaide Botanical Gardens with sculptures by Mark Valenzuela and Michael Candy in the Palm House and the Bicentennial Conservatory. Candy’s slowly moving and mesmerising Big Dipper hangs high above Conservatory’s entrance while Mark Valenzuela’s Once Bitten, Twice Shy pops up in a lily pond.

In his purpose-built bee house Anthrocomb, Mark Bianco counters the collapse of bee colonies by literally sleeping with them in the structure. He invites audience members to do the same.

Julia Robinson’s Beatrice, an ill-fated toxic creature – part-human, part-flower – sits in the Museum of Economic Botany. Her writhing soft sculpture tentacles in beautiful purples and mustards point to a creature trying to avoid a monstrous fate.

Glass artist Yhonnie Scarce, of the Kokotha and Nukuna peoples, reclaims the Deadhouse in the Gardens, once used to house Aboriginal body parts for “medical purposes”, by filling it symbolically with healing glass-fabricated bush bananas.

This biennial brings a refreshing psychological depth, reflective gaze and energy to our fears. Robb has imaginatively added a new ingredient to the cultural mix: the monster. The exhibition underscores how in colonial, post-colonial and decolonial times, and now the anthropegenic era, the monsters are not only within us, they have always been us.

Monster Theatres is on show at the Art Gallery of South Australia until 8 June.

– ref. A meeting of monsters at the Adelaide Biennial brings us closer to our fears – https://theconversation.com/a-meeting-of-monsters-at-the-adelaide-biennial-brings-us-closer-to-our-fears-132753

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warren Hogan, Industry Professor, University of Technology Sydney

This week marks a new phase in the coronavirus crisis with the case count outside China accelerating sharply.

China’s containment strategy bought global health authorities time to prepare, but failed to confine the outbreak to North-East Asia.

In the past week both President Trump and Prime Minister Morrison have prepared citizens for a rise in the onshore case count in recognition of the likelihood the virus will spread to most of the world.

Because it isn’t possible to shut down the global trade and transport system without causing a global recession, their strategy has shifted from containment to preparation.

It’ll be important to manage panic

Critical to the process is managing panic. If consumers around the world substantially reduce their spending either as a precautionary measure or in response to public health fears, the impact on businesses will be substantial.

The key economic challenge will be to stop a vicious cycle of weaker spending and job losses taking hold. Targeted government spending can help businesses at risk, although some will use it as an excuse to reset their cost base and scale down in an economic environment that was challenging even before the coronavirus.

Global share markets have fallen 10% in a week as this new phase has begun to unfold, adding to uncertainty and fear.

Rate cuts are all but certain

Countries that have the capacity to cut interest rates will do it. In the US, markets are expecting a cut at or before the next meeting of the US Fed on March 17.

In Australia, markets are expecting a cut of 0.25 points at the Reserve Bank’s board meeting on Tuesday. There is some talk of a double cut, of 0.50 points, which would bring the Reserve Bank cash rate down from 0.75% to 0.25%.

The cuts would be aimed at shoring up confidence in the economy and financial markets as much as anything else. Global rates are already low enough to provide economic stimulus. It will be up to politicians to provide the targeted measures that will be needed to help keep businesses afloat and people in jobs.

We’re facing a Chinese recession

The trade and travel restrictions in place in and around China will have major ramifications. Estimates of the impact of the containment policies on Chinese growth in the first quarter of the year range from minus 2% to minus 10%, enough to obliterate growth in the world’s fastest-growing big economy.

A shocking Chinese purchasing managers’ index reading on the weekend showed a fall to a new low not reached during the global financial crisis.

Few countries are as exposed to Chinese purchasing as Australia.

Read more: World economy flashes red over coronavirus – with strange echoes of 1880s Yellow Peril hysteria

Australia gets GDP figures on Wednesday for the final three months of 2019. These are likely to show the economy grew by less than 0.5% in the quarter.

Most of the impact of the bushfires and the initial impact of the coronavirus will show up in the data for the first quarter of this year. Many analysts have pencilled in a negative number.

And possibly an Australian recession

It will leave Australia exposed to what is known as a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, in the three months to March and the three months to June.

This possibility, Australia’s first recession in 29 years, will depend on how we react to the emergence of coronavirus onshore.

The initial reaction might paradoxically support measured economic growth as people stockpile supplies. The next phase would be a reduction in spending as people avoid leaving their homes. As we are seeing in China, and more recently in Korea and Italy, shopping districts can become ghost towns.

Read more: 3 ways coronavirus will affect the US economy – and 1 silver lining

It would be akin to a nationwide rise in saving, which drains consumer spending and business activity. Beyond efforts to maintain perspective and keep calm, little can be done to prevent people from willingly choosing to remain at home.

We’ll need targeted, clever, government support

It is in this phase that government policy actions will be critical. A mild technical recession caused by an external shock would be undesirable but need not be a disaster for the community if the employment ramifications can be minimised.

Government efforts need to be directed at stopping a negative shock evolving into a self-reinforcing spiral of declining spending and lower employment.

Lower interest rates will be of very little use to start with. Governments will need to target support to those parts of the economy most under stress with the greatest risk of job losses.

The challenge will be to identify those businesses at the greatest risk of insolvency.

Read more: The growing impact of coronavirus on the global economy

The Reserve Bank board will need to follow the lead of the US Federal Reserve and at least issue a soothing statement to financial markets that it is ready to act if needed.

If it is too early to gauge the impact of this new phase of contagion of the coronavirus, it is really too early for rate cuts. And there is a risk that a rate cut this week might generate more panic and amplify the effects of any consumer and business panic already upon us.

At most, the bank can support the government. It is our leaders who will bear the biggest responsibility for steering us through what’s to come.

Read more: 2020 survey: no lift in wage growth, no lift in economic growth and no progress on unemployment in year of low expectations

– ref. We’re staring down the barrel of a technical recession as the coronavirus enters a new and dangerous phase – https://theconversation.com/were-staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-technical-recession-as-the-coronavirus-enters-a-new-and-dangerous-phase-132752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenni Downes, Research Fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia (Monash Sustainable Development Institute), Monash University

Australia is still grappling with what to do with the glut of recyclable material after China closed most of its market to our recycling in 2018.

Now the Victorian government has released the first major change to state recycling policy: a consistent kerbside four bin system by 2030, and a container deposit scheme.

So what’s the proposed new kerbside bin system, and will it help alleviate Australia’s recycling crisis? Here’s what you need to know about the extra bin coming your way.

Read more: China’s recycling ‘ban’ throws Australia into a very messy waste crisis

The problems with our recycling system

There are two big problems – particularly since the China ban.

One is about supply. The quality of materials we have for recycling is quite poor, partly from the design of the products, and partly how we collect and sort waste items.

The other is demand. There’s not enough demand for recycled materials in new products or infrastructure, and so the commodity value of the materials, even high quality, is low.

And even though many of us think we’re good at recycling, many households aren’t getting recycling exactly right because they put things that don’t belong in the recycling bin, such as soft plastics.

One reason is because of the confusion about what can be recycled, where and when. A standardised system of collection (no matter how many bins) will go a long way to improving this, and the most exciting aspect of the Victorian announcement is the strong leadership towards consistency across the state.

Read more: Don’t just blame government and business for the recycling crisis – it begins with us

This means by 2030, no matter where Victorians live or visit, they’ll have a consistent kerbside bin system.

But to boost our recycling capacity, we need consistency across the country. New South Wales, South Australian and Western Australian governments are already supporting combined food and garden organics bins, and other states are likely to follow as the evidence of the benefits continues to accumulate.

What will change?

Details are still being ironed out, but essentially, the new system expands the current two or three bins most Victorian houses have to four bins.

While paper, cardboard and plastic or metal containers will still go in the yellow bin, glass containers will now have their own separate purple bin (or crate). A green bin, which some Victorians already have for garden vegetation, will expand to collect food scraps.

The purple bin will come first, with the gradual roll-out starting next year as some Victorian councils’ existing collection contracts come to a close. The service is expected to be fully in place by 2027 (some remote areas may be exempt).

And the expanded green bin service accepting food scraps for composting will be rolled out by 2030, unless councils choose to move earlier (some are already doing so).

How extra bins will make a difference

A 2015 report on managing household waste in Europe showed separating our waste increases the quality of material collected. Some countries even have up to six bins (or crates, or sacks).

That’s because it’s easier for people to sort out the different materials than for machines, particularly food and the complex packaging we have today.

A separate bin for food (plus garden organics) will help recover Victoria’s share of the 2.5 million tonnes of food and scraps Australian households chuck out each year.

Read more: Melbourne wastes 200 kg of food per person a year: it’s time to get serious

And a separate bin for glass will help with glass breaking in the yellow bin or collection truck, contaminating surrounding paper and cardboard with tiny glass shards that renders them unrecyclable. It should also boost how much glass gets recycled, according to Australia’s largest glass reprocesser.

What do they need to get right?

To make sure the transition to the new system is smooth, councils and the Victorian government must consider:

• the space needed for four bins

Not everyone has enough space (inside or outside). This may require creative council and household solutions like those already found overseas (stackable crates and segregated bins).

• the collection schedule

Does the new purple bin mean we’ll see a another truck, or perhaps a special multi-compartment recycling truck? And once councils have food waste in a weekly green bin, will the red bin collection go fortnightly? This actually makes sense because 35–60% of the red bin is food scraps, which will be gone.

• correct disposal of food waste

Many councils that have already added food waste to the green bin report contamination issues as people get their head around the transition, such as putting food wrappers in with the food scraps.

• correct sorting of recycling

Putting the wrong thing in the recycling bin is a problem across the country, and taking glass out of the yellow bin won’t solve this issue. While this is already being tackled in government campaigns and council trials, we’ll likely need more government effort at both a systems and household level.

Better collection won’t mean much without demand

Collection is only one piece of the puzzle. Government support is needed to make sure all this recycling actually ends up somewhere. Efforts to improve the “supply-side” aspects of recycling can go to waste if there’s no demand for the recycled materials.

Environmental economists have long pointed out that without government intervention, free markets in most countries will not pay enough or use enough recycled material when new, or “virgin”, materials are so cheap.

Read more: Only half of packaging waste is recycled – here’s how to do better

What’s great for Victoria is the new four bin system is only one pillar of the state’s new recycling policy.

It also includes many demand-side initiatives, from market development grants and infrastructure funding, to developing a Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre. The policy also deems waste management to be an “essential service” and has left space for strong procurement commitments. Today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged the importance of procurement when he announced an overhaul of the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines at the National Plastics Summit, to boost demand for recycled products.

Stepping up to the challenge

But to effectively combat Australia’s recycling crisis, more must be done. This includes reinvestment of landfill levies; standards for recycled materials, and at a federal level; clear strategies to improve product design ; and funding to support the waste and recycling industry to meet the export ban.

Read more: A crisis too big to waste: China’s recycling ban calls for a long-term rethink in Australia

We also need regulation on the use of recycled material in products. For example, through mandated targets or fiscal policies like a tax on products made from virgin materials.

Since 2018 when China stopped taking most of our recycling, the level of industry, community and media interest has created a strong platform for policy change. It’s exciting to see Victoria responding to the challenge.

– ref. Four bins might help, but to solve our waste crisis we need a strong market for recycled products – https://theconversation.com/four-bins-might-help-but-to-solve-our-waste-crisis-we-need-a-strong-market-for-recycled-products-132440

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warren Hogan, Industry Professor, University of Technology Sydney

This week marks a new phase in the coronavirus crisis with the case count outside China accelerating sharply.

China’s containment strategy bought global health authorities time to prepare, but failed to confine the outbreak to North-East Asia.

In the past week both President Trump and Prime Minister Morrison have prepared citizens for a rise in the onshore case count in recognition of the likelihood the virus will spread to most of the world.

Because it isn’t possible to shut down the global trade and transport system without causing a global recession, their strategy has shifted from containment to preparation.

It’ll be important to manage panic

Critical to the process is managing panic. If consumers around the world substantially reduce their spending either as a precautionary measure or in response to public health fears, the impact on businesses will be substantial.

The key economic challenge will be to stop a vicious cycle of weaker spending and job losses taking hold. Targeted government spending can help businesses at risk, although some will use it as an excuse to reset their cost base and scale down in an economic environment that was challenging even before the coronavirus.

Global share markets have fallen 10% in a week as this new phase has begun to unfold, adding to uncertainty and fear.

Rate cuts are all but certain

Countries that have the capacity to cut interest rates will do it. In the US, markets are expecting a cut at or before the next meeting of the US Fed on March 17.

In Australia, markets are expecting a cut of 0.25 points at the Reserve Bank’s board meeting on Tuesday. There is some talk of a double cut, of 0.50 points, which would bring the Reserve Bank cash rate down from 0.75% to 0.25%.

The cuts would be aimed at shoring up confidence in the economy and financial markets as much as anything else. Global rates are already low enough to provide economic stimulus. It will be up to politicians to provide the targeted measures that will be needed to help keep businesses afloat and people in jobs.

We’re facing a Chinese recession

The trade and travel restrictions in place in and around China will have major ramifications. Estimates of the impact of the containment policies on Chinese growth in the first quarter of the year range from minus 2% to minus 10%, enough to obliterate growth in the world’s fastest-growing big economy.

A shocking Chinese purchasing managers’ index reading on the weekend showed a fall to a new low not reached during the global financial crisis.

Few countries are as exposed to purchasing from China as Australia.

Read more: World economy flashes red over coronavirus – with strange echoes of 1880s Yellow Peril hysteria

Australia gets GDP figures on Wednesday for the final three months of 2019. These are likely to show the economy grew by less than 0.5% in the quarter.

Most of the impact of the bushfires and the initial impact of the coronavirus will show up in the data for the first quarter of this year. Many analysts have pencilled in a negative number.

And possibly an Australian recession

It will leave Australia exposed to what is known as a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, in the three months to March and the three months to June.

This possibility, Australia’s first recession in 29 years, will depend on how we react to the emergence of coronavirus onshore.

The initial reaction might paradoxically support measured economic growth as people stockpile supplies. The next phase would be a reduction in spending as people avoid leaving their homes. As we are seeing in China, and more recently in Korea and Italy, shopping districts can become ghost towns.

Read more: 3 ways coronavirus will affect the US economy – and 1 silver lining

It would be akin to a nationwide rise in saving, which drains consumer spending and business activity. Beyond efforts to maintain perspective and keep calm, little can be done to prevent people from willingly choosing to remain at home.

We’ll need targeted, clever, government support

It is in this phase that government policy actions will be critical. A mild technical recession caused by an external shock would be undesirable but need not be a disaster for the community if the employment ramifications can be minimised.

Government efforts need to be directed at stopping a negative shock evolving into a self-reinforcing spiral of declining spending and lower employment.

Lower interest rates will be of very little use to start with. Governments will need to target support to those parts of the economy most under stress with the greatest risk of job losses.

The challenge will be to identify those businesses at the greatest risk of insolvency.

Read more: The growing impact of coronavirus on the global economy

The Reserve Bank board will need to follow the lead of the US Federal Reserve and at least issue a soothing statement to financial markets that it is ready to act if needed.

If it is too early to gauge the impact of this new phase of contagion of the coronavirus, it is really too early for rate cuts. And there is a risk that a rate cut this week might generate more panic and amplify the effects of any consumer and business panic already upon us.

At most, the bank can support the government. It is our leaders who will bear the biggest responsibility for steering us through what’s to come.

Read more: 2020 survey: no lift in wage growth, no lift in economic growth and no progress on unemployment in year of low expectations

– ref. We’re staring down the barrel of a technical recession as the COVID-19 coronavirus enters a new and dangerous phase – https://theconversation.com/were-staring-down-the-barrel-of-a-technical-recession-as-the-covid-19-coronavirus-enters-a-new-and-dangerous-phase-132752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Peterie, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Between July 2018 and August 2019, the Home Affairs Department spent A$6.1m flying refugees, asylum seekers and other immigration detainees around Australia.

This figure includes $5.7 million for charter flights and $400,000 for commercial flights with airlines like Qantas. It does not include the cost of keeping planes on standby and transporting staff who accompany detainees. Neither does it include the cost of transporting detainees by road.

Details of these and other expenses have led Labor to ask why minister Peter Dutton’s departmental costs continue to rise. Given revelations the government spent $26.8 million reopening Christmas Island detention centre to hold a single family last year, this is a pressing question.

Read more: How the Biloela Tamil family deportation case highlights the failures of our refugee system

Yet deeper questions about what these relocations involve and how they affect detainees and their supporters have been largely ignored. As a researcher studying immigration detention, I can attest forced relocations impose profound human costs.

Over the past five years, I have conducted over 70 interviews with regular visitors to Australia’s onshore immigration detention centres. Speaking with volunteers and advocates, as well as detainees’ friends and family members, I have collected witness accounts of conditions and practices within the system. A constant theme in these interviews has been the harm caused by involuntary transfers.

How many forced transfers are occurring

When we think of immigration detention centres, we often imagine places of confinement. This is accurate, but it is not the full picture.

Refugees and asylum seekers in Australia’s onshore detention system are held in prison-like facilities on the outskirts of our capital cities or – in the case of Christmas Island and Yongah Hill in Western Australia – in remote parts of the country.

In December 2019, there were at least 504 refugees and asylum seekers within the system, as well as hundreds of other immigration detainees, including those about to be deported. Detention can last months or even years.

Read more: How people in immigration detention try to cope with life in limbo

As monotonous as detention can be, detainees are not allowed to become comfortable. Between July 2017 and May 2019, there were 8,000 involuntary movements within the system. Some of these were deportations, but others were forced transfers between facilities.

Detainees are rarely given an explanation when they are moved. The opacity of the practice is undoubtedly one of its concerning aspects, and has been criticised by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). In a report last year, the commission recommended that when a relocation occurs

the department and facility staff should ensure as far as possible that the person […] receives a clear explanation of the reasons for the transfer.

‘Sheer, random cruelty’

Participants in my study stressed the secrecy of relocations. Detainees were typically moved with minimal warning or explanation. At times they knew a transfer was pending, but they were often moved with just a few hours’ notice.

In some instances, the staff woke detainees up and gave them minutes to collect their belongings. As one regular visitor to Yongah Hill Detention Centre described it,

It was always early in the morning – you’ve got 10 minutes to pack your bags. And they would lose things. They were always in such a hurry. It was made to be traumatic for them.

Confronted with what a visitor to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation described as “the sheer, random cruelty of it”, detainees felt their vulnerability. So, too, did those left behind.

There’s constantly distressing scenes as one family or another is being dragged away to be put on a plane with very little notice. And it’s so upsetting for all the other refugees […] that they’re seeing people get hauled off and people are crying and begging […] You never know if it’s going to be you tomorrow morning.

The AHRC has documented the “excessive” use of restraints during transfers. Just in the last fortnight, the Commonwealth Ombudsman observed that handcuffs had become “accepted transfer practice” during transport operations.

In his recommendations, the ombudsman advised

the Aviation Transport Security Regulations [to] restrict the use of mechanical restraints to circumstances where there is a genuine risk to the safety of the aircraft that cannot be mitigated by any other option.

The human costs of forced relocations

Beyond the stress of the transfer process, relocations separate detainees from support networks within the facilities, as well as friends, advocates, doctors and lawyers in the community. As a regular visitor to Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation explained, the relocation experience is one of loss.

They might put down roots and get a few mates where they are, but when they move they lose those bonds that they’ve developed. If they’re getting any medical help they lose that contact with that medical care, their ability to learn English gets less.

Interstate transfers are particularly devastating for people with families in the community. Partners and children without social or financial resources in Australia can rarely travel to visit loved ones.

Read more: Explainer: how Australia decides who is a genuine refugee

The despair caused by relocations is perhaps best exemplified by stories I heard of detainees self-harming immediately before or after a transfer.

These testimonies accord with previous research at Victoria University that has found a link between forced relocations and self-harm in immigration detention facilities. Forced transfers, this researcher found, are among a number of “precipitating factors or triggers for self-harm” in both immigration detention and prison settings.

An unconscionable practice

The practice of moving detainees around Australia’s immigration detention network is doubly unjustifiable on economic and humanitarian grounds. A consistent finding from my research is that forced relocations cause harm. They harm detainees, and they harm the people who love and support them.

As a country, we can find better ways to spend taxpayer money.

– ref. ‘People are crying and begging’: the human cost of forced relocations in immigration detention – https://theconversation.com/people-are-crying-and-begging-the-human-cost-of-forced-relocations-in-immigration-detention-132193

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monique Mann, Senior lecturer, Deakin University

You’d thinking flying in a plane would be more dangerous than driving a car. In reality it’s much safer, partly because the aviation industry is heavily regulated.

Airlines must stick to strict standards for safety, testing, training, policies and procedures, auditing and oversight. And when things do go wrong, we investigate and attempt to rectify the issue to improve safety in the future.

It’s not just airlines, either. Other industries where things can go very badly wrong, such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices, are also heavily regulated.

Artificial intelligence is a relatively new industry, but it’s growing fast and has great capacity to do harm. Like aviation and pharmaceuticals, it needs to be regulated.

AI can do great harm

A wide range of technologies and applications that fit under the rubric of “artificial intelligence” have begun to play a significant role in our lives and social institutions. But they can be used in ways that are harmful, which we are already starting to see.

In the “robodebt” affair, for example, the Australian government welfare agency Centrelink used data-matching and automated decision-making to issue (often incorrect) debt notices to welfare recipients. What’s more, the burden of proof was reversed: individuals were required to prove they did not owe the claimed debt.

The New South Wales government has also started using AI to spot drivers with mobile phones. This involves expanded public surveillance via mobile phone detection cameras that use AI to automatically detect a rectangular object in the driver’s hands and classify it as a phone.

Read more: Caught red-handed: automatic cameras will spot mobile-using motorists, but at what cost?

Facial recognition is another AI application under intense scrutiny around the world. This is due to its potential to undermine human rights: it can be used for widespread surveillance and suppression of public protest, and programmed bias can lead to inaccuracy and racial discrimination. Some have even called for a moratorium or outright ban because it is so dangerous.

In several countries, including Australia, AI is being used to predict how likely a person is to commit a crime. Such predictive methods have been shown to impact Indigenous youth disproportionately and lead to oppressive policing practices.

AI that assists train drivers is also coming into use, and in future we can expect to see self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles on our roads. Lives will depend on this software.

The European approach

Once we’ve decided that AI needs to be regulated, there is still the question of how to do it. Authorities in the European Union have recently made a set of proposals for how to regulate AI.

The first step, they argue, is to assess the risks AI poses in different sectors such as transport, healthcare, and government applications such as migration, criminal justice and social security. They also look at AI applications that pose a risk of death or injury, or have an impact on human rights such as the rights to privacy, equality, liberty and security, freedom of movement and assembly, social security and standard of living, and the presumption of innocence.

The greater the risk an AI application was deemed to pose, the more regulation it would face. The regulations would cover everything from the data used to train the AI and how records are kept, to how transparent the creators and operators of the system must be, testing for robustness and accuracy, and requirements for human oversight. This would include certification and assurances that the use of AI systems is safe, and does not lead to discriminatory or dangerous outcomes.

While the EU’s approach has strong points, even apparently “low-risk” AI applications can do real harm. For example, recommendation algorithms in search engines are discriminatory too. The EU proposal has also been criticised for seeking to regulate facial recognition technology rather than banning it outright.

The EU has led the world on data protection regulation. If the same happens with AI, these proposals are likely to serve as a model for other countries and apply to anyone doing business with the EU or even EU citizens.

What’s happening in Australia?

In Australia there are some applicable laws and regulations, but there are numerous gaps, and they are not always enforced. The situation is made more difficult by the lack of human rights protections at the federal level.

One prominent attempt at drawing up some rules for AI came last year from Data61, the data and digital arm of CSIRO. They developed an AI ethics framework built around eight ethical principles for AI.

These ethical principles aren’t entirely irrelevant (number two is “do no harm”, for example), but they are unenforceable and therefore largely meaningless. Ethics frameworks like this one for AI have been criticised as “ethics washing”, and a ploy for industry to avoid hard law and regulation.

Read more: How big tech designs its own rules of ethics to avoid scrutiny and accountability

Another attempt is the Human Rights and Technology project of the Australian Human Rights Commission. It aims to protect and promote human rights in the face of new technology.

We are likely to see some changes following the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s recent inquiry into digital platforms. And a long overdue review of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) is slated for later this year.

These initiatives will hopefully strengthen Australian protections in the digital age, but there is still much work to be done. Stronger human rights protections would be an important step in this direction, to provide a foundation for regulation.

Before AI is adopted even more widely, we need to understand its impacts and put protections in place. To realise the potential benefits of AI, we must ensure that it is governed appropriately. Otherwise, we risk paying a heavy price as individuals and as a society.

– ref. Airlines take no chances with our safety. And neither should artificial intelligence – https://theconversation.com/airlines-take-no-chances-with-our-safety-and-neither-should-artificial-intelligence-132580

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

As the nine-year Syrian civil war enters its final turn, Turkey and Russia, long-time allies in Syria, are on the brink of war over the Syrian province of Idlib.

Both sides are sending stern messages of warning as diplomacy to end the conflict has so far failed to de-escalate the situation.

What has led to the stand-off?

In September 2018, Turkey, Russia and Iran signed an agreement (also called the Sochi accord) to create a de-escalation zone in Idlib, where violent hostilities were prohibited.

Under the agreement, opposition forces were classified as jihadist and mainstream. Mainstream forces were to pull heavy weapons out of the zone and jihadist groups to vacate it completely. All sides, including Turkey, set up military observation posts.

Claiming that jihadist groups did not leave the zone after more than a year, Syrian government forces launched an offensive in December 2019. The offensive displaced more than 900,000 civilians.

This was followed by the Syrian government forces attacking a Turkish observation post and killing 13 Turkish soldiers.

Read more: The ‘ceasefire’ in Syria is ending – here’s what’s likely to happen now

Outraged, Turkey retaliated on February 2 with a counter-attack that killed Syrian soldiers and four members of Russian special forces. Turkey also intensified its military build-up in Idlib’s north.

On February 3, Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan openly defied Russia with a visit to Ukraine, where he pledged US$200 million in military aid.

On February 15, Erdogan warned:

The solution in Idlib is the (Syrian) regime withdrawing to the borders in the agreements. Otherwise, we will handle this before the end of February.

Russia blamed Turkey for failing to meet its obligations and continued to allege Turkey was supplying weapons to what Russia considers terrorist groups.

Erdogan countered these claims by saying Russian and Syrian government forces were “constantly attacking the civilian people, carrying out massacres, spilling blood”.

The greatest fear is an all-out war in Idlib and the inevitable civilian suffering. With more than a million civilians trying to survive in makeshift camps, a United Nations representative has warned of “a real bloodbath”.

Why is Idlib so important?

Capturing Idlib has immense strategic significance for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as it is the last opposition stronghold in Syria.

Backed by Russia, Assad has been conducting a successful military offensive against jihadist opposition forces throughout the country to regain and consolidate his power since 2015. He has allowed remnants of these groups to escape to Idlib as a deliberate strategy to gather all opposition forces in one location.

So far, Idlib has been controlled by a range of opposition groups. The most powerful is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was formed by a large faction that split from the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda in 2017.

Capturing Idlib with the help of Russia and clearing the province of all armed opposition would allow Assad to declare victory and end the civil war.

Turkish and Russian clash of interests in Syria

Erdogan had three main goals in his Syrian involvement. First, prevent the establishment of a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria. The Turkish fear such a development could inspire the large Kurdish-populated southeast regions of Turkey to pursue similar ambitions.

The second is to fight a proxy war in Syria through jihadist groups to topple the Assad regime and establish an Islamist government. Erdogan hoped this would extend his political influence in the Middle East and his ambitions to make political Islam dominant would be achieved.

A third aim is to do with maintaining his 18-year rule in Turkey amid political and economic problems. A war in Syria serves to silence critics.

Erdogan calculated he could achieve his goals if he was to have forces in Syria and collaborate with Russia and Iran. The cost was distancing Turkey from the Western block and increasing its international alienation.

Read more: As Turkish troops move in to Syria, the risks are great – including for Turkey itself

Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government wanted to balance Western and particularly US power in Syria, and if possible to push US out of Syria. Even though their relationships were fragile from the start, these four countries were extremely careful on the diplomatic table and presented a powerful bloc against US involvement in Syria.

The Russian strategy in Syria has been clear from the start – support the Assad government until it regains control over all Syrian territory and defeats all opposition forces. Then Russia can control Turkey so it does not cause serious armed conflict with the Assad regime, while protecting Russian interests in Syria and the greater Middle East.

Russia has invested enormous funds in support of the Assad government. The only way to recoup its costs and have return on investment is if Assad achieves a full victory. Nothing short of capturing Idlib will suffice, even if it means open conflict with Turkey.

What is likely to happen next?

Erdogan is caught in a dilemma. He is unable to influence the Syrian opposition parties in Idlib, but he is also not prepared to forsake them. If he withdraws support, they may possibly retaliate with terrorist attacks in Turkey.

Another flood of Syrian refugees is a serious problem for Erdogan. He lost local government elections in 2019 largely due to the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey.

It is hard to predict what Erdogan will do in Syria. He is either bluffing or is determined to stay the course, even if it means war. He has shown he is not afraid to make bold moves, as demonstrated with his October 2019 military operation in northern Syria and recent military involvement in the Libya conflict.

Bluffing or not, Putin is not backing down and will not hesitate to take on Turkey in Syria. In doing so, Putin will continue to support the Assad forces with equipment, military intelligence, air power and military expertise, rather than being involved in open military conflict. This strategy allows Russia to claim Syria is exercising its legitimate right to defend its sovereign territory against a foreign Turkish military presence.

It is likely Erdogan will avert the risk of war at the last moment. He has involved the US, which has expressed its support for Turkey and hopes to see Assad gone. He has used his NATO membership card and the European fear of another Syrian refugee flood to bring European powers onside at the diplomatic table.

Erdogan will be happy and claim victory if he manages to enlarge the safety zone with a continued Turkish presence there. Russia would only accept this on the condition that all jihadist opposition groups leave Idlib. On these terms, both sides could claim a win from the present dangerous tension.

The likely Russian response is to go all the way in Idlib, regardless of what Turkey does. Any Turkish military success in Syria is highly unlikely. Russia completely controls the airspace and could inflict serious damage on Turkish ground troops.

It is in Russia’s interests to finish this costly civil war once and for all. It is only a matter of time before the Assad government captures Idlib diplomatically or by force.

– ref. Turkey and Russia lock horns in Syria as fear of outright war escalates – https://theconversation.com/turkey-and-russia-lock-horns-in-syria-as-fear-of-outright-war-escalates-131830

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, La Trobe University

The coronovirus outbreak has reminded us of the importance of public health responses in managing the spread of disease.

But what actually is public health? And why are we so often hearing from public health experts about the coronavirus and other health threats?

In broad terms, whereas medicine primarily focuses on treating disease in individuals, public health focuses on preventing disease and improving health in communities.

Public health activities are far-reaching and varied. They include health promotion campaigns, infectious disease surveillance and control (as in the response to coronavirus), ensuring access to clean air, water and safe food, screening for disease, community health interventions and policy and planning activities.

Here are three examples which show the important role public health plays.

Read more: It’s now a matter of when, not if, for Australia. This is how we’re preparing for a jump in coronavirus cases

The reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases

The development of vaccines to protect against infectious diseases is one of the most significant achievements in both medicine and public health. Vaccines have prevented literally millions of deaths – the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates at least ten million globally between 2010 and 2015 – and spared countless others from getting sick.

We now rarely see diseases such as polio, measles and mumps in the developed world thanks to the effectiveness of vaccines. The fact we can protect individuals and communities against some of the deadliest diseases by a simple and safe injection is one of the miracles of modern medicine.

The delivery of vaccines to communities throughout the world and the reduction in disease as a result of this is a testament to public health and its power.

Perhaps the greatest example of the effect vaccines have had on the health of populations globally is the eradication of smallpox. A viral disease characterised by fever and a pustular rash, smallpox was one of the most devastating infectious diseases we’ve ever seen. It killed around 300 million people in the 20th century alone.

To eradicate smallpox, public health physicians sought to identify new cases swiftly. Then people the cases had come into contact with were vaccinated as quickly as possible to prevent the disease spreading further, a public health measure called “ring vaccination”. This campaign began in earnest in 1967, with the WHO declaring smallpox eradicated in 1980, in what’s regarded as one of the greatest public health achievements of modern times.

Read more: Health Check: which vaccinations should I get as an adult?

Tobacco control

Although there’s still a lot of work to do, smoking rates have declined over recent decades, with great benefits to our health.

When science established a clear link between smoking and poor health outcomes, the role of public health was to get this message out to the public and implement measures to minimise smoking rates.

We’ve managed to reduce deaths due to tobacco through interventions such as health promotion campaigns providing information to the public about the dangers of smoking, restrictions on cigarette advertising, plain packaging, restrictions on smoking in public places, increased taxes on cigarettes, as well as increased access to cessation programs.

Tobacco control is one of the major achievements of public health. This is especially true as we’ve often had to fight against the industry, or “big tobacco”, to get these initiatives off the ground.

Read more: Can we trust Big Tobacco to promote public health?

Tobacco control is also a great example of how coordinated actions from a number of different government sectors can be targeted to address a major public health challenge.

Australia has been recognised as a world leader in this area.

Motor vehicle safety

Motor vehicles have been a great advancement in modern society, but have also been a major cause of injury and death.

Road deaths in industrialised countries have declined significantly in the last few decades. This reduction has occurred despite the increased number of drivers and distances travelled on the roads in this period.

We’ve been able to achieve these safety improvements and therefore reductions in deaths with the help of a wide variety of interventions.

For example, increased regulation in motor vehicle design standards, improved roads, seatbelt regulation, speed limits, drink driving deterrents and the education of drivers.

Despite the gains made, road traffic accidents remain a leading cause of death worldwide, and are a particular problem for developing countries. So there’s still much work to be done in this area.

Read more: A new approach to cut death toll of young people in road accidents

Public health has played a major role in the increased health and longevity we take for granted in the modern world. But it’s perhaps an area we don’t give much thought to.

One of the reasons public health gains may be under-appreciated is that they are marked by the absence of disease, which can often go unrecognised. For example, while it’s clear when a life has been saved by a medical intervention, it’s much less obvious when disease has been prevented.

– ref. Smallpox, seatbelts and smoking: 3 ways public health has saved lives from history to the modern day – https://theconversation.com/smallpox-seatbelts-and-smoking-3-ways-public-health-has-saved-lives-from-history-to-the-modern-day-128300

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

New South Wales’ Forestry Corporation will this week start “selective timber harvesting” from two state forests ravaged by bushfire on the state’s south coast.

The state-owned company says the operations will be “strictly managed” and produce timber for power poles, bridges, flooring and decking.

Similarly, the Victorian government’s logging company VicForests recently celebrated the removal of sawlogs from burnt forests in East Gippsland.

VicForests says it did not cut down the trees – they were cut or pushed over by the army, firefighters or road crews because they blocked the rood or were dangerous. The company said it simply removed the logs to put them “to good use”.

However the science on the impacts of post-fire logging is clear: it can significantly impair the recovery of burned ecosystems, badly affect wildlife and, for some animal species, prevent recovery.

We acknowledge that for safety reasons, some standing and fallen burnt trees must be removed after a fire. But wherever possible, they should remain in place.

Damaging effects

Hollows in fire-damaged trees and logs provide critical habitat for animal species trying to survive in, or recolonise, burned forests.

Detailed studies around the world over the past 20 years, including in Australia, have demonstrated the damage caused by post-fire logging.

Indeed, the research shows post-fire logging is the most damaging form of logging. Logging large old trees after a fire may make the forests unsuitable habitat for many wildlife species for up to 200 years.

Read more: Buzz off honey industry, our national parks shouldn’t be milked for money

Long-term monitoring data from extensive field surveys shows hollow-dependent mammals, such as the vulnerable greater glider, generally do not survive in areas burned and then logged. Research by the lead author, soon to be published, shows populations are declining rapidly in landscapes dominated by wood production.

Forests logged after a fire have the lowest bird biodiversity relative to other forests, including those that burned at high severity (but which remain unlogged). Critical plants such as tree ferns are all but eradicated from forests that have been burned and then logged.

Soils remain extensively altered for many decades after post-fire logging. This is a major concern because runoff into rivers and streams damages aquatic ecosystems and kills organisms such as fish.

A double disturbance

Fire badly disrupts forest ecosystems. Animals and plants then begin recovering, but most forests and the biota they support simply cannot deal with the second intense disturbance of logging so soon after a first one.

For example, young germinating plants are highly vulnerable to being flattened and destroyed by heavy logging machinery. And in an Australian context, post-fire logging makes no sense in the majority of eucalypt-dominated ecosystems where many tree species naturally resprout. This is an essential part of forest recovery.

Logs provide shade, moisture and shelter for plants, and rotting timber is food for insects – which in turn provide food for mammals and birds.

Read more: Logged native forests mostly end up in landfill, not in buildings and furniture

Living and dead trees are also important for fungi — a food source for many animals, including bandicoots and potoroos which have been heavily impacted by the fires.

Similarly on burnt private land, removing damaged and fallen trees will only hinder natural recovery by removing important animal habitat and disturbing the soil. If left, fallen trees will provide refuge for surviving wildlife and enable the natural recovery of forests.

While the sight of burnt timber can be disheartening, landholders should resist the urge to “clean up”.

It doesn’t add up

Research in North America suggests debris such as tree heads, branches and other vegetation left by post-fire logging not only hinders forest regeneration, but can make forests more prone to fire.

And the economics of logging, particular after a fire, is dubious at best. Many native forest logging operations, such as in Victoria’s East Gippsland, are unprofitable, losing millions of taxpayer dollars annually.

Read more: Yes, the Australian bush is recovering from bushfires – but it may never be the same

Timber is predominantly sold cheaply for use as woodchips and paper pulp and fire-damaged timber is of particularly poor quality. Even before the fires, 87% of all native forest logged in Victoria was for woodchips and paper pulp.

Post-fire logging certainly has no place in national parks. But for the reasons we’ve outlined, it should be avoided even in state forests and on private land. Million hectares of vegetation in Australia was damaged or destroyed this fire season. The last thing our forests need is yet more disturbance.

VicForests response: VicForests told The Conversation that timber currently being removed by VicForests, at the direction of the Chief Fire Officer, is from hazardous trees that were cut or knocked over to enable the Princes Highway to be re-opened.

It said the timber would be used for fence restoration, firewood and to support local mills “protecting jobs, incomes and families. It would otherwise be left in piles on the side of the highway”.

“Any further post-fire recovery harvesting will occur in consultation with government including biodiversity specialists and the conservation regulator, following careful assessment and protection of high conservation values,” VicForests said.

The company said post-fire recovery harvesting, particularly of fire-killed trees, does not increase fire risk.

“Sensitive harvesting including the retention of habitat trees and active re-seeding is more likely to result in a successfully regenerated forest and a supportive environment for threatened species. This regenerating forest will have the same fire risk as natural regeneration following bushfire.”

Forestry Corporation of NSW response: Forestry Corporation of NSW said in a statement that small-scale selective timber harvesting operation will begin on the south coast this week.

The company’s senior planning manager Dean Kearney said the Environment Protection Authority, with the input of scientific experts “has provided Forestry Corporation with site-specific conditions for selective timber harvesting operations in designated parts of Mogo and South Brooman State Forests. These areas were previously set aside for timber production this year but have now been impacted by fire.”

“Strictly-managed selective timber harvesting will help prevent the loss of some high-quality timber damaged by fire, including material that will be in high demand for rebuilding, while ensuring the right protections are in place for key environmental values, particularly wildlife habitat, as these forests begin regenerating,” he said.

“The harvesting conditions augment the already strict rule set in place for forest operations and include requirements to leave all unburnt forest untouched and establish even more stringent conditions to protect water quality, hollow-bearing trees and wildlife habitat.”

– ref. Logging is due to start in fire-ravaged forests this week. It’s the last thing our wildlife needs – https://theconversation.com/logging-is-due-to-start-in-fire-ravaged-forests-this-week-its-the-last-thing-our-wildlife-needs-132347

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

This morning the Grattan Institute releases its submission to the government’s retirement incomes review, a review called in anticipation of five annual increases in compulsory superannuation contributions, scheduled to begin in July 2021.

Our research shows the super increases aren’t necessary. For most Australians, retirement incomes are already adequate. Since higher super contributions will come at the expense of wages, the scheduled increases should be abandoned.

But there are big problems the review will need to confront.

Here are five changes that would tackle them.

1. Boost rent assistance

While most Australians are comfortable in retirement, the system is failing too many poorer Australians, especially low-income women and retirees who rent.

Senior Australians who rent privately are more likely to suffer financial stress than homeowners or renters in public housing. And it will get worse because young Australians on lower incomes are less likely to own homes than in the past.

The government’s priority should be boosting rent assistance, which has not kept pace with rent increases. Raising rent assistance by 40%, or roughly A$1,400 a year for singles, would cost just $300 million a year if it applied to pensioners, and another $1 billion a year if extended to other renters.

A common concern is that boosting rent assistance would lead to higher rents. But that’s unlikely: households would not be required to spend any of the extra income on rent, and most would not.

2. Ease the age pension asset test

While retirement incomes are adequate for most retirees, the age pension assets test excessively penalises people who save more for their retirement.

Before January 1, 2017 retirees with assets above the threshold lost $1.50 of pension per fortnight for every $1,000 of assets above the threshold. In 2017 the Coalition lifted the threshold but also lifted the withdrawal rate to $3 of pension per fortnight for each $1,000 of assets.

The changes resulted in very high effective marginal tax rates on retirement savings, so much so that a typical worker who saves an extra $1000 at age 40 increases their retirement income by only $25 each year, or $658 over 26 years of retirement, which is a negative return on money saved for decades.

Read more: Why pensioners are cruising their way around budget changes

The age pension withdrawal rate should be cut to $2.25 per fortnight for each $1,000 of assets above the threshold. This would cost the budget about $750 million a year.

For middle and high-income workers, this change would have a bigger impact on retirement incomes per government dollar expended than boosting compulsory super.

3. Boost Newstart

Newstart, together with the disability support pension, provides an important safety net for Australians who are unable to work right through to retirement age.

Yet while the age pension and disability support pension are indexed to wages, Newstart is not. It only climbs in line with inflation. It should be increased by $75 a week and then indexed to wages going forward.

This would cost a lot but it would help the growing legions of older Australians, many of them women, who find themselves among the long-term unemployed in the years leading up to retirement, or are forced to retire early. And it would lift many more younger Australians out of poverty.

4. Include the home in the pension assets test

Falling rates of home ownership mean we are at risk of creating an underclass of retirees who rent.

And our retirement incomes system makes this worse by favouring homeowners over renters. Once a person is retired, their home is treated differently to their other assets. Which is why $6 billion in pension payments go to people with homes worth more than $1 million.

It’s time for more of the value of the family home to be included in the pension assets test. Counting more of the home above some threshold (such as $500,000) would be fairer and would save the budget up to $2 billion a year.

No pensioner would be forced to leave their home. Pensioners with valuable homes could continue to stay at home and receive the pension under the Government’s pension loans scheme, which recovers debts only when homes are eventually sold.

5. Fix super tax breaks

Superannuation tax breaks cost a lot – tens of billions each year in foregone revenue, with half the benefits flowing to the top one fifth of income earners, who already have enough resources to fund their retirements.

And the costs are set to climb further as super balances climb. The cost of the earnings concessions alone is set to climb from $17.4 billion to $20.8 billion over the next four years.

Three reforms would keep them in check.

• Voluntary contributions from pretax income should be limited to $11,000 a year. This would save the budget about $1.7 billion a year.

• Contributions from post-tax income should be limited to $250,000 over a lifetime, or to $50,000 a year. It won’t save the budget much in the short term, but in the longer term it will plug a large hole in the tax system.

• Earnings in retirement – currently untaxed for people with superannuation balances less than $1.6 million – should be taxed at 15%, the same as super earnings before retirement. Doing so would save the budget about $2 billion per year at first, and much more in future.

These changes to super taxes free up money to help Australians who need help without hurting the retirement prospects of middle Australians.

Australia’s retirement incomes system works well, but there are things that need fixing.

The reforms we propose would make retirement fairer, save taxpayers’ money, and ensure that all Australians can enjoy a comfortable retirement free from poverty.

Read more: Think superannuation comes from employers’ pockets? It comes from yours

– ref. Forget more compulsory super: here are 5 ways to actually boost retirement incomes – https://theconversation.com/forget-more-compulsory-super-here-are-5-ways-to-actually-boost-retirement-incomes-132655

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

The Morrison government will use its procurement policy to encourage the recycling of plastics, as well as committing financial assistance for upgrading infrastructure to boost the capacity for this waste to be reused.

Scott Morrison will announce the initiatives to a national conference in Canberra on Monday that is looking at the challenge of dealing with this escalating and environmentally destructive problem. The meeting is attended by industry, government and community representatives.

The prime minister, who has previously highlighted better management of plastics waste as a priority for his government, will emphasise that for major change “the only way forward is in partnership – working with our neighbours; state, territory and local governments; industry, our manufacturing sector and supermarkets; waste operators, and with consumers and communities”.

In a speech circulated ahead of delivery he proposes “three pillars” for tackling the problem: taking responsibility for the waste; encouraging demand for recycled products; and expanding industry capability.

Plastics “are choking our oceans. Scientists estimate that in just 30 years’ time the weight of plastics in our oceans will exceed the weight of fish in our oceans. That’s appalling.

“Taking responsibility means recognising the problems we are contributing to – and it also means keeping faith with the Australian people who recycle,” Morrison says.

“Only 12% of plastic put out in the yellow bin for recycling is actually recycled. Australians don’t expect their waste to be exported to someone’s village or waterway.”

Morrison will meet state and territory leaders at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) next month to finalise a ban on the export of waste plastic, paper, glass and tyres.

He stresses this isn’t to ban the export of value-added recyclable materials.

Morrison says more investment is much needed in the recycling industry; this and collection systems are under “severe strain”. Investment is needed in “technological innovation that maximises the value of the recycled product and minimises the costs as well”. Only 8% of the $2.6 billion states and territories collected in waste levies over 2018-19 has been reinvested in infrastructure and technology.

“The Commonwealth stands ready to co-invest in these critical facilities with state and territory governments, and with industry”, he says. “We will invest with governments and with industry on a 1 to 1 to 1 basis.” Details will come closer to the May budget, Morrison said.

The waste sector employs 50,000 and generates more than $15 billion annually, Morrison says.

“For every 10,000 tonnes of waste sent to landfill, 2.8 direct jobs are created. But if we recycle the same waste, 9.2 direct jobs are created.

“According to the Australian Council of Recycling, recycling more domestically could create more than 5,000 new jobs.”

With a ban on waste plastic being exported, there will be more in Australia to reuse – which means finding ways of encouraging demand for recycled products. Both industry and government need to do this, Morrison says.

As the first of a number of measures the government will take, its procurement guidelines will be rewritten “to make sure every procurement undertaken by a Commonwealth agency considers environmental sustainability and use of recycled content as a factor in determining value for money”.

He instanced a number of examples of innovative recycling, These included “recycled plastic into asphalt … a one kilometre, two-lane stretch [of road] uses up to half a million plastic bags”, as well as into picnic tables, bollards and gardening products.

– ref. Morrison government will use purchasing power to encourage plastics recycling – https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-will-use-purchasing-power-to-encourage-plastics-recycling-132742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Anderson, Professor of Sports Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

With the announcement that China’s Sun Yang has been banned from swimming for eight years, FINA, the world governing swimming body, must take stock of how it oversees one of the most popular and high-profile of the Olympic sports ahead of this year’s Tokyo games.

It would now seem obvious that, taking the lead from athletics and tennis, FINA should establish an independent integrity unit to investigate and prosecute doping and similar offences.

In a decision announced Friday, the Court of Arbitration (CAS), sport’s self-styled world supreme court, confirmed that Sun would be banned from competitive swimming for eight years. His swimming future now rests largely on one final avenue of appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

Read more: Why drug cheats are still being caught seven years after the 2012 London Olympics

This has always been a big global story: Sun is one of the most successful swimmers of all time, and one of China’s most beloved sports stars. A three-time Olympic gold medallist, he has 11 world championship golds, and is second only to the legendary US swimmer Michael Phelps in men’s individual events.

It was at last year’s world championships in Korea that silver medallist, Australia’s Mack Horton, famously protested against Sun, during the podium ceremony for the 400 meters freestyle.

Horton’s protest related to the fact that Sun, having previously served a three-month ban for a doping infraction in 2014, had been involved in an incident with doping control officers in September 2018.

Having given a sample to the testers at his home, Sun became concerned about their conduct and accreditation. This concern eventually led to the vial containing Sun sample being smashed by one of the swimmer’s entourage.

Initially, Sun’s behaviour in this case merely attracted a reprimand. An investigation carried out by FINA concluded that, although Sun’s actions were incautious, they could be justified given the testers’ grave procedural errors and misconduct.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the global body for anti-doping standards, later took the view that FINA’s approach was overly lenient. WADA appealed to CAS and a public hearing was held in Switzerland in November.

Having deliberated on what they heard at that eleventh-hour hearing, which was initially marred by poor translation, the three arbitrators delivered a summary of their verdict last week.

Basically, CAS held that the procedural concerns Sun had about the testing process in September 2018 either did not occur or were not sufficiently compelling to justify tampering with the sample container. Given this was his second anti-doping infraction, an eight-year sanction applied.

It must be remembered the charge against Sun is that of tampering with a sample – it is not a charge or “conviction” relating to doping. Sun’s sample taken in September 2018 was never tested, and this seems to be the reason why the arbitrators have not decided to strip him of the medals he obtained at the world championships in 2019. In this, as with other aspects of the Sun decision, we must await the publication of the arbitrators’ full, reasoned award.

Sun now has until the end of March to lodge an appeal at the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) and has already indicated that he will take that option. As it happens, on various technical grounds – one relating to an unsubstantiated claim of bias against WADA’s chief lawyer – Sun’s lawyers have already been to the SFT on three separate occasions. They will now likely go for a fourth time, and it is likely to end in disappointment.

He will not get a full re-hearing at the SFT, and the grounds of appeal will be limited to narrow procedural issues only. An example would be whether the CAS hearing in some way unfair – ironically, the fact that it was held in public at Sun’s request may tell against him here. Another consideration may be whether the sanction was disproportionate – given the eight-year ban is mandated in the World Anti-Doping Code, this ground would likely not succeed. One final consideration may be whether the poor translation service at the CAS hearing might be a ground of appeal – again, unlikely, given that it was Sun’s legal team that hired the translator.

Read more: Snubbing Chinese swimmer Sun Yang ignores the flaws in the anti-doping system

Arguably, Sun’s strongest point has always been the general one, outlined in the seminal CAS case of Quigley v UIT. It is that, while the principle of strict liability applies to athletes in anti-doping control, it should equally apply to testers to strictly comply with all administrative aspects of the anti-doping process. Whether the SFT would entertain an argument that goes right to heart of the current anti-doping policy globally is unlikely.

While Sun grapples with an effective end to his career and WADA, unsurprisingly, feels vindicated, FINA must now reflect on its governance of its sport.

Lately, it has had a fractious relationship with some of its leading participants who sought successfully, on threat of litigation, to compete in a privately funded international swimming league. An integrity commission would seem a vital next step.

The reaction to the Sun ban on social media from China has been predictably ferocious. One knock-on effect of the Sun decision may be a greater focus from countries such as China and Russia on the fact that, in terms of the nationality of those appointed to hear cases, CAS, sport’s supreme court, appears to be systemically Eurocentric in nature.

It seems almost certain that Sun will not compete at Tokyo 2020. Attention now moves at CAS and on doping in sport to the case against Russia and its athletes.

The reaction to the Sun verdict will be a mere ripple in a pool compared to that which will greet a similar verdict against Russia.

– ref. Sun Yang ban shows world swimming body must establish an integrity commission – https://theconversation.com/sun-yang-ban-shows-world-swimming-body-must-establish-an-integrity-commission-132738

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

Happy February 29! It doesn’t come round very often, so make sure you enjoy it.

But why do we have these extra days? Well, if we didn’t, the seasons would gradually move around the calendar. Rather than midsummer in the southern hemisphere falling around December 21, it would arrive in January, then February, and so on. After a few centuries, the Australian summer would end up be in July!

But what exactly is a year? The simplest answer is the amount of time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun. At school, we all learn that that is 365 days. Nice and simple, right?

There’s just one problem: there are several different definitions of a year.

Read more: It’s going to be a long summer’s day today, seriously

The sidereal year

The “sidereal year” is the classic classroom definition. It’s the time it takes Earth to complete one lap of the Sun and return to exactly the same place in its orbit, judged by the position of the Sun relative to the background stars.

But one sidereal year doesn’t take 365 days. Rather, it takes 365.256 days.

Then there’s another problem. In addition to spinning on its axis (which gives us day and night), our planet also wobbles. More accurately, Earth’s axis “precesses”, spinning around once every 26,000 years or so, like a wobbling spinning top.

This is important because the direction in which Earth’s axis points is what controls the seasons. When the southern hemisphere points away from the Sun, we experience our southern winter while the northern hemisphere sees summer, and then vice versa.

But the precession (wobbling) of Earth’s axis means that in 13,000 years’ time, the directions would be the opposite of today. Today, the South Pole is angled towards the Sun during the southern midsummer, but in 13,000 years it would be tilted away (midwinter) at the same place in Earth’s orbit.

This means that, over thousands of years, the location at which we would experience midwinter or midsummer in Earth’s orbit would change. In other words, if we tied our calendar to the sidereal year, the seasons would still shift through the calendar!

The tropical year

Fortunately, we have another way to define a year that can fix this problem. Instead of measuring the exact time it takes to orbit the Sun, we can instead measure the time between the vernal equinox of one year and the next.

The vernal equinox is the point in Earth’s orbit where the Sun moves from the southern hemisphere of our sky to the northern one. Each year it falls on or around March 21.

The time between one equinox and the next is called the “tropical year”, and is slightly shorter than the sidereal year. It comes in at 365.24219 days.

This difference is pretty small (about 20 minutes), but it equates to the amount that Earth’s axis has precessed in that time – just under 1/26,000 of a full lap.

Leaping into the future

But what does all this have to do with leap years? Well, because the tropical year is not exactly 365 days long, the date of the vernal equinox (and midsummer, midwinter, and any other seasonal event you care to name) will gradually drift through the calendar. If every year had 365 days, those events would gradually fall later and later in the calendar – by 0.24219 days per year.

That doesn’t sound like much, but it would mount up. After 100 years, the dates of those events would be 24 days later. The calendar would fall out of alignment with the seasons.

To remedy this, we have leap years, in which we add a single day to the length of the year. If we take a single four-year period, and work out the average length of the year, we get 365.25 days, which is pretty close to the real thing. But it still isn’t close enough.

The Julian calendar

This approximation worked well enough for a long time. In 45BC, the predecessor to the modern calendar began. Known as the Julian calendar, it was introduced by Julius Caesar.

The Julian calendar implemented a process of leap years: every fourth year, without fail, there would be an extra day at the end of February.

There were some problems implementing this new calendar – and for a few decades, leap years were incorrectly added every three years. Things were sorted out by 12AD, and from then on, every fourth year had a leap year.

But by the mid-1500s, errors were again beginning to mount. Remember that this approach gives an average year length of 365.25 days, whereas the true tropical year is 365.24219 days.

After one and a half millennia, this small difference had resulted in the dates for the solstices drifting by ten days through the calendar.

The Gregorian calendar

To fix this very slow drift, a new calendar was devised in the second half of the 16th century. Named after Pope Gregory XIII, the Gregorian calendar was released in 1582.

It shifted the dates of the year, moving the solstices back to their intended place. It then tweaked the way leap years were handled, to ensure those dates didn’t drift again in the future.

The small change was that leap years that were ‘“century years” (years ending in 00) had to be divisible by both 100 and 400. If the year can be divided by 100, but not by 400, it’s not a leap year.

Let’s take the century years 1900 and 2000 as examples. 1900 is divisible by 100, but not by 400. So 1900 wasn’t a leap year.

By contrast, 2000 can be divided by both 100 and 400, so it remained a leap year, and is called a “century leap year”.

So at the end of the 19th century, the sequence of leap years went: 1892, 1896, 1904, 1908. But at the end of the 20th century, leap years continued without a break (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004).

Read more: Wait a moment: 2016 goes a little longer thanks to a leap second

What does this mean? In the old Julian calendar, there were 100 leap years in every 400 years. But in the Gregorian calendar, we have just 97 for every 400 years.

This gives a remarkably good fit to the length of the tropical year. The average length of one year in the 400-year Gregorian cycle is 365.2425 days. That is almost (but not quite) exactly one tropical year – in fact, the two differ by just 26.8 seconds.

That’s close enough that we don’t have to worry about our seasons shifting in the calendar for thousands of years to come.

– ref. How a seasonal snarl-up in the mid-1500s gave us our strange rules for leap years – https://theconversation.com/how-a-seasonal-snarl-up-in-the-mid-1500s-gave-us-our-strange-rules-for-leap-years-132659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University

Review: Leviathan, directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Circa in collaboration with Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA for Perth Festival.

As the audience takes their seats, two feet poke out from beneath the curtain.

In hindsight, it’s the first trick they play on us, lulling us with this image of a human body involved in the ordinary business of lying down.

Things get complicated fast. The single figure is joined by a cast of about 40 on a vast stage filled with discarded party streamers. It’s as if we’ve arrived too late for a fancy dress party. There’s an astronaut, a king, an assortment of other costumes.

Just as quickly as it appears, the party is replaced by a stunning feat of physical derring-do: a body standing on top of a body, standing on top of another body.

A great height, and a stomach-dropping fall.

For the next 80 minutes, Leviathan progresses through a melange of bodies moving through space. Transforming shapes, they morph from humans to totems to mythical creatures (perhaps the leviathans of the title) back to humans. From extraordinary to ordinary and back again.

Each sequence stands on its own while also seeming to build on what came before. At its most basic level, Leviathan is a series of bodies climbing up and climbing down, falling and getting up again, but the work’s cumulative effect evokes an almost contemplative, trance-like reverie in the viewer.

Playing with scale

Directed by Yaron Lifschitz for Brisbane’s Circa Ensemble in collaboration with three West Australian companies – Co:3 Australia, MAXIMA Circus and CircusWA – Leviathan is a highly accomplished work and a one-of-a-kind collaboration.

Casts of this size are a rare treat and a great outcome for any festival. Leviathan – in process, form and content – speaks directly to Perth Festival’s celebration of “our town, our place and our Festival”. Bringing together four companies means the cast members range from children to young adults to adults, and the sense of on-stage community is palpable.

Dressed in an eclectic array of contemporary streetwear they could have been any of the (mostly) young audience members. I could have sworn I’d seen one of them leaning against a street sign on my way into the theatre.

Community underpins Lifschitz’s vision for the piece. In the program he refers to the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan as inspiration:

A monster king rising up out of the sea whose body is constituted by these tiny little people – the populace.

Taking Hobbes’ exploration of power, the individual and society, Lifschitz explores individual freedom and the responsibility each of us has to be part of a community by acknowledging our interdependence. He does so by creating a performance that moves between extraordinary individual feats and startling images of the mass at work.

It is a repeated motif, but one that stays vivid and fresh in the hands of this extraordinary creative team and cast.

Somewhere between contemporary circus and dance, Leviathan moves between exquisitely precise choreography and kinaesthetic improvisation, between union and seeming chaos.

When the party space transforms, it is possible to imagine a human chessboard that becomes a school playground that becomes a prison. The associations flow free and fast. At points throughout, an overhead perspective of the performers is provided via a live-feed projection at the top of the stage: the kaleidoscope of possibilities expands further.

Read more: Sequins and symphonies: how opera ran away with the circus

In a show full of many extraordinary physical feats of strength and dexterity there is an astonishing duet between a young woman in a fluoro-green tank top and a young man in fluoro-pink shoes.

Performed with physical and emotional intensity, he seems to lift and manipulate her with just his hands placed on her face. Just when our eyes tell us he’s lifting her it becomes apparent that her strength is doing just as much of the work. It is one of many tricks of light, time, space and physical ability that cause a literal gasp in the audience as it comes to a momentarily terrifying then stunning conclusion. The work of both performers here is truly mesmerising.

The cast is characterised by a compelling seriousness of purpose. For the majority of the performance they are an anonymous mass, as the lighting celebrates the imprint of their bodies in space, rather than their faces.

However, towards the end, there is a moment of direct eye-to-eye connection with the audience as each of them gives a final straight-to-camera curtain call.

It beautifully serves the work’s higher purpose.

Leviathan plays at the Regal Theatre until March 1.

– ref. Leviathan review: Circa’s new production explores the ordinary, extraordinary mass of humanity – https://theconversation.com/leviathan-review-circas-new-production-explores-the-ordinary-extraordinary-mass-of-humanity-132270

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Bailey, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

If you’re hot and sticky even before your daily commute, you might ask why you sweat so much.

Sweating is usually the body’s way of stopping you overheating. But for some people, sweating becomes a problem. Either they sweat for no obvious reason or (as Prince Andrew admitted last year) not at all.

So why do some people sweat more than others? And what can you do about excess sweating?

Read more: Anhidrosis: why some people – apparently like Prince Andrew – just can’t sweat

Remind me again, why do we sweat?

Humans need to regulate their internal body temperature to keep it constant, even when the environmental temperature rises, perhaps on a hot day, sitting in a hot-tub or running for the bus.

That’s because a rise in internal body temperature can lead to our organs overheating, fatigue, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Preventing severe heat gain requires a careful balance between the heat our body produces (from everyday metabolism), heat from the environment and the heat our body loses.

Read more: The skin is a very important (and our largest) organ: what does it do?

Our bodies are well-designed for this. We have special temperature sensors in our skin and central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) that send signals to the body’s thermostat in the brain to alert it to increases in body temperature.

The body’s largest organ, the skin, is also designed to remove heat from the body. The most noticeable way is losing heat via evaporating sweat.

Read more: Curious Kids: What happens in the body when we sweat?

How does sweating cool us down?

When our skin or core body temperature rises sufficiently, the thermostat in the brain sends impulses via our central nervous system to increase blood flow to the skin. The thermostat also activates the sweat glands.

Our sweat glands release droplets onto our skin that become vapour when the blood flowing through the skin passes underneath.

As the sweat vaporises, energy (in the form of heat) passes into the environment, cooling the blood. This cooled blood gets circulated back to the heart and brain, and cools our core body temperature.

This is why a day in the sun can feel so draining. Your body is working much harder and using much more energy to keep you cool.

By preventing our organs from overheating, sweat not only keeps us healthy, it also allows us to enjoy (or tolerate) the hot Australian summer.

So it’s important to stay hydrated on a hot day so your body can produce and replace the volume of sweat necessary to keep you cool.

OK, but why do I sweat so much?

You might find yourself sweating more or less than usual for a number of reasons, other than it being a hot day.

Exercise

Exercise improves our ability to produce sweat and keep cool. People who exercise regularly (particularly in the heat) can produce more sweat during exercise. This helps our bodies perform longer, with less physiological strain.

So many of the Australian Olympic athletes will undergo a period of heat acclimatisation in the lead up to Tokyo 2020.

Read more: Why is Japan’s Olympic marathon shifting cities to avoid the heat? A sports physiologist explains

Stress

Ever notice you become sweaty when you are stressed? A different type of sweat gland, the apocrine sweat glands, are associated with hair follicles and often respond to emotional stress.

This type of sweat combines with bacteria on your skin and causes body odour.

Menopause

Up to 75% of women experience acute bouts of excessive sweating during menopause, called a hot flush.

The amount of sweat produced during a two to three minute hot flush can be similar to the amount produced during exercise.

Most people think hot flushes are caused by increases in core body temperature. But our research suggests this might not be the case.

Drinking alcohol

Having a couple of drinks with friends may also increase the sweat response. Alcohol raises your heart rate and causes the blood vessels in your skin to relax and widen. This increases skin redness and your sweat rate, which can actually lead to decreases in body temperature.

So, what can I do about it?

Excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis) can happen in unusual situations such as in a cooler climate or with seemingly no cause.

Although it can be embarrassing and uncomfortable, there are ways to treat it, which you can discuss with your doctor.

One option is to use an antiperspirant with aluminium or topical aluminium salts, which blocks the sweat glands from releasing sweat onto the skin.

Read more: Health Check: do men really sweat more than women?

A longer-term option may be injecting Botulinum toxin (commonly known as Botox) into the skin. This paralyses the injected area (such as the armpits, hands and feet) and prevents the activation of sweat glands.

Other options include using low frequency electrical stimulation (iontophoresis), prescription drugs and although controversial, surgery.

For menopausal women, we have shown closely supervised exercise training can improve temperature regulation, leading to fewer and less severe hot flushes.

This training involved 16 weeks of supervised, progressive moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, such as treadmill and cycling exercise, for up to one hour for three to five days a week.

In a nutshell

In the end, sweating is usually our body’s natural way to protect us from overheating. But if excess sweating is a problem, see your doctor who will outline which treatment options are best for you.

– ref. Why do I sweat so much? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-sweat-so-much-131135

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maggie Tonkin, Senior Lecturer, English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide

Review: Dance Nation, directed by Imara Savage. State Theatre Company South Australia and Belvoir for the Adelaide Festival

Dance is at the heart of playwright Clare Barron’s Dance Nation, from the resolutely upbeat ensemble number that opens the show to the poignant solo that ends it.

We are in the hyper-competitive, vapid and vulgar pre-pubescent dance culture of the TV series Dance Moms, thankfully mostly absent from the Australian dance scene.

Larissa McGowan’s choreography mercilessly recreates the cut-throat world of American competition dance and is as pivotal in conveying the narrative arcs of its characters as Barron’s script and Imara Savage’s ebullient direction.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2019, Dance Nation reveals Barron’s fearlessness in tackling the under-explored dramatic territory of young girls entering puberty, but is not without flaws.

Dance teacher Pat’s dance troupe is launching a campaign to win a national dance competition, and Pat’s claim to glory is a dance routine of jaw-dropping cheesiness: a jazz ballet paean to Mahatma Gandhi. The dancers, decked out in metallic pastel unitards, disport themselves around Gandhi seated on a glittery disco version of a golden lotus, to With Arms Wide Open.

Apart from bringing the house down with its conceptual incongruity, this hilarious number reveals Pat, with his delusions of artistic profundity, to be oblivious to the damage he is doing to his charges.

Pat urges his dancers to channel their inner Gandhi and meditate on the suffering of the world, while utterly blind to the suffering under his own nose. Played with a tense doggedness by Mitchell Butel in his first role since taking on the directorship of the State Theatre Company, Pat is the embodiment of the cliché-spouting coach who vicariously realises his own ambitions by pushing his students to win no matter what the cost.

It is the cost of this competitiveness that propels the action.

Only one dancer can be selected for the solo. When Pat unexpectedly bestows the role on Zuzu (always second to her bestie Amina), he opens up a repressed rivalry. Both girls dream of becoming dancers, but Amina is more gifted and more ambitious. When the opportunity arises, she usurps Zuzu’s place and wins the prize that will launch her professional career.

The secret lives of girls

One of the conceits of the play is the preteen girls are played by grown women. Chika Ikogwe owns the role of Zuzu, ably conveying her vulnerability and insightfulness.

Although she makes the most of the part, Yvette Lee’s Amina has to work with the weakest aspect of the script. According to Barron’s program notes, the play’s feminist intention is to validate female ambition, but the unlikeability of the only “successful” character undermines this.

While the other girls profess they “love” Amina, they obviously don’t like her much. In the flash-forward at the end it’s clear the one truly ambitious girl, the one who goes on “winning and winning”, is destined for a lonely life.

Barron’s writing of character is generally underdeveloped, and Amina’s success undercuts the play’s message. But this flaw is balanced by the play’s outrageous depiction of girls grappling with emerging sexuality and power.

Read more: Friday essay: scarlet ribbons – the huge history of big hair bows

In true adolescent fashion, the six girls and one dorky boy, Luke (nicely played by Tim Overton), are fixated on sex.

Verbal gags on menstrual blood are interspersed with earnest discussions of masturbation and circumcision. The language is defiantly crude. As Ashlee, Amber McMahon delivers a monologue about her own sexual power (and mathematical brilliance), morphing into an almost demonic possession. It’s a scene-stealer, in which McMahon is absolutely terrific, and the culmination of the play’s powerful celebration of girl power.

There is an undercutting of the real in several shifts from present to future, the girls carrying the victories and traumas of their pubescence into adulthood. This transition is nicely encapsulated as Connie (Emma Harvie) and Sofia (Tara Morice) admit their lifelong struggles with depression.

Jonathon Oxlade’s set comprises a dance studio with mirrored walls where daily reality merges with fantasy sequences. The mirrors become windows: revealing mother figures (all played by Elena Carapetis) urging on their progeny; revealing the trophies and triumphs of past teams.

Dance Nation is unsubtle and flawed, but the uniformly terrific cast and the exuberant energy of this production make it well worth seeing.

Dance Nation is at the Scott Theatre, Adelaide, until March 7. Then Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, March 14 – April 12.

– ref. Dance Nation review: an outrageous depiction of girls grasping their emerging sexuality and power – https://theconversation.com/dance-nation-review-an-outrageous-depiction-of-girls-grasping-their-emerging-sexuality-and-power-132350

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

Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including the implementation of an emergency plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus, the major parties’ policies on climate change, national security and the Senate motion to strip Bettina Arndt of her Order of Australia.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the government’s emergency plan, climate change, and Bettina Arndt – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-governments-emergency-plan-climate-change-and-bettina-arndt-132658

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

On Churchill Island, southeast of Melbourne, small cone-shaped, shallow holes (digs) puncture the grass. They’re widespread, and reveal moist soil below the surface. A soil heap at the entrance of a dig is a sign it was made recently.

Older digs are filled with leaves, grass, spiders, beetles and other invertebrates. They are made by hungry eastern barred bandicoots – small, roughly rabbit-sized digging marsupials – looking for a juicy worm or grub.

Read more: How you can help – not harm – wild animals recovering from bushfires

It turns out these bandicoot digs are far from just environmental curiosities – they can improve the properties and health of soils, and even reduce fire risk.

But eastern barred bandicoots are under threat from introduced predators like foxes and cats. In fact, they’re considered extinct in the wild on mainland Australia, so conservation biologists are releasing them on fox-free islands to help establish new populations and ensure the species is conserved long-term.

Our recent research on Churchill Island put a number on just how much the eastern barred bandicoot digs – and the results were staggering, showing how important they are for the ecosystem. But more on that later.

Why you should dig marsupial diggers

Digging mammals – such as bettongs, potoroos, bilbies and bandicoots – were once abundant and widespread across Australia, turning over large amounts of soil every night with their strong front legs as they dig for food or create burrows for shelter.

Read more: Restoring soil can help address climate change

Their digs improve soil health, increase soil moisture and nutrient content, and decrease soil compaction and erosion. Digs also provide habitat for invertebrates and improve seed germination.

What’s more, by digging fuel loads (dry, flammable vegetation, such as leaves) into the soil, they can help bring down the risk of fire.

Rather than leaves and other plant matter accumulating on the soil surface and drying out, this material is turned over faster, entering the soil when the badicoots dig, which speeds up its decay. Research from 2016 showed there’s less plant material covering the soil surface when digging mammals are about. Without diggers, models show fire spread and flame height are bigger.

In fact, all their functions are so important ecologists have dubbed these mighty diggers “ecosystem engineers”.

Losing diggers leads to poorer soil health

Of Australia’s 29 digging mammals, 23 are between 100 grams and 5 kilograms. Most are at risk of cat and fox predation, and many of these are officially listed as threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Since European settlement, six of Australia’s digging mammals have gone extinct, including the lesser bilby, desert rat kangaroo and pig-footed bandicoots. Many others have suffered marked population declines and extensive range contraction through habitat destruction and the introduction of foxes and cats.

Read more: Rockin’ the suburbs: bandicoots live among us in Melbourne

Tragically, the widespread decline and extinction of many digging mammals means soil and ecosystem health has suffered as well.

Soils that were once soft textured, easy to crumble, rich and fertile are now often compact, repel water and nutrient poor, impeding seed germination and plant growth. Fuel loads are also likely to be much higher now than in the past, as less organic matter is dug into the soil.

To date, most research on digging mammals has focused on arid environments, with much less known about how digging influences wetter (mesic) environments. But our recently published study on eastern barred bandicoots provides new insights.

Just how much do bandicoots dig anyway?

In 2015, 20 mainland eastern barred bandicoots were released onto Churchill Island in Victoria’s Westernport Bay.

On mainland Australia, fox predation has driven this species to near extinction, and it’s classified as extinct in the wild. All Victoria’s islands are beyond the historic range of eastern barred bandicoots, but fox-free islands could be how we recover them.

Introducing bandicoots on Churchill Island presented the perfect opportunity to quantify how they influence soil properties when digging for food.

Read more: The secret life of echidnas reveals a world-class digger vital to our ecosystems

To do this we recorded the number of digs bandicoots made each night and measured the volume of soil they displaced through digging. We also compared soil moisture and compaction within the digs, versus un-dug soil – and we didn’t expect what we found.

In one night on Churchill Island, one bandicoot can make 41 digs an hour. That’s nearly 500 digs a night, equating to around 13 kilograms of soil being turned over every night, or 4.8 tonnes a year. That’s almost as much as the average weight of a male African elephant.

So, an astonishing amount of soil is being turned over, especially considering these bandicoots typically weigh around 750 grams.

If you multiply this by the number of bandicoots on Churchill Island (up from 20 in 2015 to around 130 at the time of our study in 2017), there’s a staggering 1,690 kilos of soil being dug up every night. That’s some major earthworks!

However, we should note our study was conducted during the wetter months, when soils are typically easier to dig.

In summer, as soil becomes harder and drier on Churchill Island, digging may become more difficult. And bandicoots, being great generalists, feed more on surface invertebrates like beetles and crickets, resulting in fewer digs. So we expect in summer that soil is less disturbed.

Bandicoots might help agriculture too

All this digging was found to boost soil health on Churchill Island. This means eastern barred bandicoots may not only play an important role in ecosystem health and regeneration, but also potentially in agriculture by assisting pasture growth and condition, reducing topsoil runoff, and mitigating the effects of trampling and soil compaction from livestock.

The benefits bandicoot digs have across agricultural land is of particular importance now that eastern barred bandicoots have also been released on Phillip Island and French Island, and are expected to extensively use pasture for foraging.

These island releases could not just help to ensure eastern barred bandicoots avoid extinction, but also promote productive agricultural land for farmers.

Read more: To save these threatened seahorses, we built them 5-star underwater hotels

So, given the important ecological roles ecosystem engineers like bandicoots perform, it’s also important we try to reestablish their wild populations on the mainland and outside of fenced sanctuaries so we can all benefit from their digging, not just on islands.

Lauren Halstead is the lead author of the study reported, which stemmed from her honours research at Deakin University. She also contributed to the writing of this article.

– ref. One little bandicoot can dig up an elephant’s worth of soil a year – and our ecosystem loves it – https://theconversation.com/one-little-bandicoot-can-dig-up-an-elephants-worth-of-soil-a-year-and-our-ecosystem-loves-it-132266

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Tormey, Professor of Politics, University of Bristol

Of the many issues thrown up by Brexit, one of the most pressing is the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Brexit was in large measure a revolt by a certain section of English and Welsh opinion against transnational elites, immigration and imagined loss of identity. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain.

The Brexit vote reinforced the sense that the “interests of the UK” is a proxy for the interests of numerically larger England over other parts of the union. Surely Scotland, with its strong sense of national identity and separateness, would seek to challenge the union and return to the warm embrace of the European Union at the earliest opportunity?

This sentiment was further reinforced by the recent success in elections of the pro-EU Scottish National Party (SNP) led by Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP demolished the opposition in the 2019 election, winning 48 out of 59 possible seats.

Read more: The Brexit mess could lead to a break-up of a no longer United Kingdom

With Boris Johnson sweeping to power as UK prime minister on the back of a breakthrough in the Midlands and northern England (the “Red Wall”), the scene was set for a showdown over the issue of another referendum on Scottish independence. Some even speculated we would see a Catalonia-style challenge to the authority of Westminster. So what is the state of play, and what is likely to happen?

Recent opinion polls demonstrate growing support for Scottish independence, which has tipped past 50% of the electorate. More Scots now favour independence than at any time in recent history. In the 2014 referendum, the vote was 45-55 against independence.

But the fact that support for independence is growing doesn’t mean there is a consensus on when a new vote on the issue should take place. This is proving a key consideration.

While there is some support for a poll as soon as one can be organised, others want to wait for next year’s elections to the Scottish parliament to be held first. Still others feel the timing is not right and that clarification is needed on the nature of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, which has yet to be resolved.

Scottish independence is an urgent matter for some, particularly for nationalists, but is much less so for others, particularly remainers who may otherwise have been lukewarm on independence. This exposes a key faultline in the independence constituency itself: some want independence whatever the cost, the commitment of others to the cause might somewhat rest on the prospect of economic benefits for Scotland, which they may feel EU membership would offer.

All this poses a headache for Sturgeon. Does she seek a showdown with Johnson now, but at the risk of losing that part of her support that doesn’t want an immediate poll? Or does she wait until the middle of 2021, when an election might return yet more SNP members to the Scottish parliament, adding legitimacy for a vote on independence – but at the risk of a loss of momentum?

In addition to the vexed question of timing is the nature of the regime in Westminster. The SNP is a left-of-centre party, drawing support from those who wish to see increased funding for social services, housing and education.

Normally, the SNP would find itself in ideological opposition to a centre-right Conservative administration in Westminster. But part of Johnson’s election strategy was to promise to spend big on infrastructure across the UK. There is even talk of a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Read more: Boris Johnson, ‘political Vegemite’, becomes the UK prime minister. Let the games begin

With the promise of such largesse, the feeling lingers that Scotland does quite well out of its partnership with Westminster. This is an intentional strategy on Johnson’s behalf. The calculation is that by using the superior resources available to him he can undermine the case for Scottish independence, which without EU support is likely to result in an economic hit to the Scottish economy. Vote for independence, in other words, and Scots will be poorer.

This is, as the Scots might say, a canny strategy. It certainly complicates the equation and has already served to dampen the ardour of those who might otherwise have been committed to an early poll.

What might dampen it further is the early panic in Brussels over who will pay the increased costs for the EU itself due to the departure of the UK. The semblance of technocratic modernity and cohesion the EU likes to paint of itself is coming under strain and so, therefore, is the SNP’s case for making a play to rejoin the EU.

Whether all this is enough to keep the Scots in the UK is a matter of speculation. There are lots of obstacles that might yet derail the Johnson strategy: a bad trade deal with the EU, a balance-of-payments crisis, together with loss of revenue for his grand strategy.

But what has become evident since Johnson took power is that he should not be underestimated. Or, rather, an administration underpinned by the Machiavellian cunning of his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, should not be underestimated.

Sturgeon will need all her famed powers of persistence to prevent the independence issue being derailed by a combination of exhaustion with elections and referendums, a Johnsonite play for the centre ground of Scottish opinion, and a collapse in confidence in the viability of a life outside the UK.

– ref. Many Scots want independence from the United Kingdom. How might that play out in a post-Brexit world? – https://theconversation.com/many-scots-want-independence-from-the-united-kingdom-how-might-that-play-out-in-a-post-brexit-world-131776

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Gibney, NHMRC early career fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

While countries around the globe have been taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it has now been reported in 37 countries outside China.

As of February 26, close to 3,000 cases and 43 deaths had been recorded outside China. In Australia, we’ve so far seen 23 cases across five states.

The good news is currently there’s no evidence of “community transmission” of the virus in Australia. This means it’s not spreading locally. All cases have had travel connections to China or the Diamond Princess cruise ship, or very close contact with a confirmed case in Australia (being in the same family or tour group).

But as the list of countries with community transmission increases – it’s happening in South Korea, which has more than 1,200 cases, and Italy, which has 400 – so too does the risk of an escalation in Australia. It’s now a matter of “when” local transmission occurs, not “if”.

Read more: Is the coronavirus a pandemic, and does that matter? 4 questions answered

In this climate, the Australian government has developed a national emergency response plan, which takes us through three phases. Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced we are activating this plan.

Phase 1

The current “Initial Action” stage of the COVID-19 plan focuses on preventing introduction and establishment of the disease in Australia through border measures and social distancing. These are measures designed to keep infected (or potentially infected) people away from healthy people.

In an effort to contain COVID-19 and delay it becoming established in Australia, the Australian government banned the entry of foreign nationals (excluding permanent residents) who had been in mainland China in the last 14 days. This ban has now been extended to March 7.

The return of Australian residents from China, and more recently year 11 and 12 students studying in Australia, has been strictly controlled.

People returning are required to go into home quarantine for 14 days after they leave China.

And at this stage, university students from China must spend 14 days in a third country before arriving in Australia.

Other countries have imposed their own border restrictions, as well as screening people for illness before they enter. These measures have undoubtedly slowed the spread of COVID-19 throughout the world and delayed its progression to a pandemic.

Phase 2

The true clinical severity of this disease remains highly uncertain, but overall it appears less severe than the 1918–19 influenza pandemic or SARS and more severe than the pandemic flu in 2009.

Importantly though, compared to other epidemic and pandemic diseases, COVID-19 is considered highly transmissible, so a large number of cases is likely.

Read more: Yes, Australians on board the Diamond Princess need to go into quarantine again. It’s time to reset the clock

Given ongoing uncertainties, the plan doesn’t articulate the number of cases that would need to be diagnosed for the second phase, “Targeted Action”, to be enacted. The plan simply stipulates public health activities need to be balanced (or “proportionate”) to the magnitude and severity of the pandemic.

We would expect phase two to be put into place when we’re seeing community transmission occurring in Australia.

In this second phase, the current strict border measures and quarantine for arrivals will likely be relaxed as “keeping it out” becomes futile. The focus will shift to minimising spread within Australia and limiting the health, social and economic impact of the disease.

Australians might see a public health response like we’ve seen in Italy. This could include cancellation of large local gatherings (sporting matches and festivals), closure of schools, universities and some workplaces, and strict local travel restrictions.

Community members will be asked to take responsibility for their own “social distancing” if they have mild disease or have been in close contact with someone with the virus (by self-isolating or self-quarantining at home).

These measures, while disruptive to individuals and households, have been highly effective to date in preventing community transmission of COVID-19 in Australia and will remain very important throughout the response to this disease.

As case numbers rise, case management will need to be streamlined to make best use of finite resources within the health system, including personnel, primary care and hospital capacity and personal protective equipment. Options include greater use of fever assessment clinics, caring for COVID-19 patients together on wards, and keeping people out of hospitals and emergency departments if they don’t require that level of care.

Read more: There’s no evidence the new coronavirus spreads through the air – but it’s still possible

The government, public health experts and clinicians will actively review and be guided by new information to determine exactly which of these clinical and public health measures to put in place.

While many mild cases have been admitted to hospital during the containment phase, community-based care will be the reality for most people as we become more familiar with this disease and its usual course. This approach will allow us to provide higher levels of clinical care for those at greatest risk of poor outcomes, such as older people.

Phase 3

It’s likely, but not certain, that COVID-19 will remain in circulation beyond 2020 and become “endemic” in Australia – that is, here for good. But once the peak has passed (that’s when there’s a declining number of new infections and less demand on hospitals), the COVID-19 plan will move into the “Standdown” phase, which is essentially a return to “business as usual”.

We have a huge challenge ahead of us, but the measures we all take can make a big difference to how this plays out. Whether it’s isolation and quarantine or simply frequent handwashing and good cough etiquette, we can all help protect ourselves, our families, and the most vulnerable in society.

Read more: Here’s why the WHO says a coronavirus vaccine is 18 months away

– ref. It’s now a matter of when, not if, for Australia. This is how we’re preparing for a jump in coronavirus cases – https://theconversation.com/its-now-a-matter-of-when-not-if-for-australia-this-is-how-were-preparing-for-a-jump-in-coronavirus-cases-132448

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University

As this summer draws to a close, it marks just over a year since successive fish death events at Menindee in Lower Darling River made global headlines.

Two independent investigations found high levels of blue-green algae and low oxygen levels in the water caused the deaths. Basically, the fish suffocated.

Read more: We wrote the report for the minister on fish deaths in the lower Darling – here’s why it could happen again

The conditions were caused by a combination of water extraction and extremely dry conditions which effectively stopped the river from flowing. Both investigations concluded that until more water flowed in the Darling, in western New South Wales, further fish kills were very likely.

So what’s happened since, and does the recent rain mean the crisis won’t be repeated?

Federal and state government action

In April last year the federal government committed A$70 million to improve the river’s health and prevent more fish deaths. Let’s examine what’s been done so far:

– Native fish management and recovery strategy: Parts of a draft native fish management and recovery strategy have been released for public consultation. The plan has included governments, academics, the community and indigenous groups.

– Native fish hatchery: Government hatchery facilities at Narrandera in NSW will be upgraded to hold and breed more fish. But reintroducing fish into affected areas is challenging and could be a decades-long program.

– Research: The government committed to new research into hydrology and climate change. A panel has been formed and the oversight committee is scoping the most effective research outcomes to better manage water under a changed climate.

– Fish passage infrastructure: Fish ladders – structures that allow fish to travel around obstacles on a river – are needed at sites on the lower and upper Darling. Fish ladder concept designs have progressed and are also part of the NSW government’s Western Weirs project.

-In-stream cameras: Live-stream feeds of the Darling River are not yet available.

-Meter upgrades and water buybacks: Discussions have begun as part of a commitment to buy back A-class water licenses from farmers and return water to the rivers. Rollout of improved metering is due over the next five years.

Progress on these actions is welcome. But the investigation panels also recommended other actions to help fish populations recover over the long term, including ensuring fish habitat and good water quality.

Further fish deaths

In 2003, basin native fish communities were estimated to be at 10% of pre-European levels and the spates of fish deaths will have reduced this further.

Over spring and summer in 2019, conditions in the Darling River deteriorated. A series of smaller, but significant, fish deaths prompted government agencies and communities to conduct emergency “fish translocations”.. Aerators were deployed in a bid to improve the de-oxygenation. Fish were moved to more suitable water bodies, or to hatcheries to create insurance populations.

By spring, once-mighty rivers such as the Darling and Macquarie had dried to shallow pools. As summer progressed, more than 30 fish die-offs occurred in the Macquarie, Namoi, Severn, Mehi and Cudgegong rivers and Tenterfield Creek.

What about the rain?

Strong recent rainfall means upper parts of the Darling catchment are now flowing for the first time in more than two years. Flows are passing over the Brewarrina Weir and associated fishway.

A flowing Darling is great, but it raises questions over future water management. Farmers have been waiting for years for the Darling to flow and will be eager to extract water for agricultural productivity. Likewise, the environment has been awaiting a “flush” to reset the system and restore ecological productivity.

Read more: Aboriginal voices are missing from the Murray-Darling Basin crisis

After the rains, the NSW government allowed irrigators to harvest floodwaters to reduce the threat of damage to private infrastructure. Now that threat has subsided, governments are working together to “actively manage” the event – meaning water rules will be decided as the flow progresses, in consultation with water users and environmental managers.

But there is still significant debate on how best to manage water over the longer term.

Is a flowing Darling a return to normal?

The current flows in the Darling are far from a return to normal conditions. NSW is still in drought, and the river flows are yet to reach the Lower Darling. Many children in the Menindee township have not seen a flowing Darling in their lifetime.

Indigenous elders and recreational fishers – those who remember when the river flowed freely and was full of fish – are lamenting the recent declines. In parts of the system, dry riverbeds and isolated pools are still begging to be connected so fish can move about, spawn, and naturally recover.

Read more: Friday essay: death on the Darling, colonialism’s final encounter with the Barkandji

River flows could take up to six weeks to reach the lower Darling, and follow-up rain is urgently needed to avoid another summer of fish carnage. Future water sharing strategies must protect both upstream and downstream communities. Some people are lobbying for the Menindee lakes to be listed as internationally important under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands to ensure biodiversity and water management work together.

Undoing over 200 years of fish declines will require a sustained effort, with a significant investment in recovery actions over a long period. We must recognise Australia is a country of long droughts and flooding rains, and develop a proactive native fish strategy that reduces the probability of a similar disaster in future.

But unfortunately, as history has shown that when we transition from drought to flood, our memories can be short.

– ref. Last summer’s fish carnage sparked public outrage. Here’s what has happened since – https://theconversation.com/last-summers-fish-carnage-sparked-public-outrage-heres-what-has-happened-since-132346

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

Every January Larry Fink, the head of the world’s largest funds manager, BlackRock, sends a letter to the chief executives of major public companies.

This year’s letter focused on climate risk. “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” Fink wrote. To put sustainability at the centre of its investment approach, he said, BlackRock would stop investing in companies that “present a high sustainability-related risk”.

Read more: BlackRock is the canary in the coalmine. Its decision to dump coal signals what’s next

Now business leaders – even big money managers – express opinions all the time, and major companies keep doing what they are doing. But this was different.

Fink, who’s in charge of US$7 trillion (that’s not a typo – $7,000,000,000,000), says in his letter: “In the near future – and sooner than most anticipate – there will be a significant reallocation of capital.”

It’s emphasised in bold type. That’s something to which chief executives pay attention.

Even before the letter was sent – but knowing what was coming – major US companies like Amazon, Delta Air Lines and Microsoft announced new climate action plans.

These three companies are in different industries with different abilities to take action. But the plans they’ve outlined illuminate the three key strategies needed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Delta Air Lines

Delta, being an airline, burns a lot of fossil fuels. Bar an extraordinary technological shift in aircraft, it will burn a lot of fossil fuels well into the future.

Read more: Flight shame won’t fix airline emissions. We need a smarter solution

The airline’s goal by 2050 is to cut its carbon emissions to half the levels they were in 2005. It plans to do this through a combination of fuel-efficiency measures and helping spur the development of more sustainable jet fuels. In the medium term (up to 2035), its goal is “carbon-neutral growth”, buying carbon offsets for any increases in emissions from jet fuel due to business growth.

Let’s consider the economics of the Delta plan – at least up to 2035.

Buying carbon offsets increases the airline’s costs. These are passed on to customers – in which case it is simply a form of carbon tax – or paid for by shareholders through lower profits. I’m betting it’s not the shareholders who will pay.

So Delta is essentially imposing its own carbon tax in the hope customers who care about the environment will be more attracted to its brand or that other airlines follow suit.

Amazon

Amazon, which reported a carbon footprint of 44.4 million metric tons in 2018, is doing two broad things.

The company has a fleet of about 30,000 delivery vans. It plans to have 100,000 electric vehicles by 2024. This will reduce the company’s carbon footprint so long as the vans are charged with power from sustainable sources.

Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has also announced the Bezos Earth Fund, which will give away US$10 billion in grants to anyone with good ideas to address climate change or other environmental issues.

Again, let’s consider the basic economics at play here.

Moving to electric vehicles is a smart hedge against rising fuel costs from a price on carbon – something that already exists in California.

The Bezos Earth Fund, meanwhile, is an excellent example of taking money generated from maximising shareholder value – Amazon is valued at about US$1 trillion and Bezos’s personal fortune (pre-divorce) was about US$130 billion – and redistributing it to socially productive causes.

Microsoft

Finally, Microsoft – the least-carbon-intensive business of the three mentioned here – plans to be carbon-negative by 2030, and by 2050 to have offset all the emissions it has been responsible for (both directly and through electricity consumption) since its founding in 1975.

Since 2012 it has had an “internal carbon tax”, which in April 2019 was doubled to US$15 a tonne. This price mechanism is used to make Microsoft’s business divisions financially responsible for reducing emissions.

On top of this, Microsoft has developed the AI for Earth program, which provides cloud-computing tools for researchers working on sustainability issues to process data more effectively.

Lessons for Australia

Australia’s Coalition government and Labor opposition would do well to heed the lessons of these three companies.

Together they show three clear strategies:

• a technological push to lower emissions
• a price on carbon to drive technological innovation and uptake
• clear goals to reduce emissions.

Our political parties both have one out of three. Right now Labor has announced a goal. The Coalition is promising a technology plan some time soon.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is right to criticise Labor for not having a plan. Opposition Leader Anthony is right to criticise the Coalition for not having a suitable goal.

But neither of them advocates a price on carbon, without which neither technology road maps nor ambitious goals will translate into sufficient emissions reductions.

Read more: Carbon pricing: it’s a proven way to reduce emissions but everyone’s too scared to mention it

Technology investment, a carbon price and clear goals are all necessary to effectively reduce carbon emissions. Without all three we are bound to fail.

And we no longer have time for that, according to climate scientists.

– ref. Vital Signs: a 3-point plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-a-3-point-plan-to-reach-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-132436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne

The government’s financial system inquiry, on which I sat, reported five years ago.

It recommended that the creators of financial products be subject to a design and distribution obligation (DDO), which would mean the products they sold had to not only make money for them, but also meet the needs of the people buying them.

An insurance policy that couldn’t be claimed on would fail the test, as would a product that charged fees for advice that wasn’t given, as would any number of products later detailed in the 2018 report of the financial services royal commission.

It’s the first half of 2020, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission is seeking input into how the obligation will work. It has asked for comments by March 11.

Requiring products to be useful is good…

There ought to be nothing controversial about the idea. It reflects the fundamental premise upon which the free market economy is founded – that transactions should provide gains to both the seller and buyer.

Reputable financial institutions, seeking to meet community expectations, ought to already meet such obligations, although they are likely to incur some (hopefully minor) administrative costs.

However, as history and the royal commission have reminded us, even reputable institutions’ procedures can go awry and lead to badly designed products that exploit consumers.

Read more: CommInsure proves the need for a banking royal commission

Less reputable firms exploit consumers anyway, leading to a race to the bottom in terms of product quality.

…but not enough

Unfortunately, even if a financial product meets the DDO requirements, which means it is suitable for its intended consumers, it can be a bad purchase for consumers who aren’t aware of its true worth. Retail customers who overpay for a “suitable” product can lose just as much (if not more) as those being sold one that’s unsuitable.

Many financial products (actually, most financial products) have characteristics that make them hard to value accurately. When product outcomes depend on future events – as do insurance products – accurate valuations can be almost impossible even for customers who are financially literate.

For example a consumer might assume that there is a 10% chance of an event happening, when the true probability is less than 1%. Not only would they overpay on insurance (perhaps repeatedly), they would be unlikely to ever know about it.

It’s hard to tell when prices are bad

Suppose a producer can supply a financial product profitably for any price over $6. Suppose that buying it for any price under $8 would would benefit the consumer, but that the consumer is unable to tell what it is really worth.

Since the supplier’s profits increase as the selling price increases, what is there to stop the supplier increasing the price to more than $8 and harming consumers, in part because some would never get the product?

Standard answers talk about competition, disclosure, financial advice and financial education.

But if consumers don’t have the information they need (or the time they need) to do the calculations, what’s likely to happen instead is that competition will cut the worth of the products in ways that are not obvious to consumers.

As important as disclosure, advice and education are, they haven’t been able to stop this happening in the past.

What we are seeing are first steps

Plans by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to make banks and other deposit-taking institutions designate an accountable executive as responsible for the “end-to-end” creation and delivery of each product under a Bank Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) would be an important step.

The government has announced plans to extend it to all financial institutions, making it a FAR (Financial Accountability Regime).

But there is nothing in either the BEAR or FAR rules that that would require the executives to price their products fairly.

Read more: HILDA Survey reveals striking gender and age divide in financial literacy. Test yourself with this quiz

DDO’s, together with the Securities and Investments Commission’s new temporary banning powers, should help to rid the financial sector of the most egregious types of consumer abuse. But will they do nothing to prevent profit seeking institutions setting prices for “suitable” products that cause poorly informed consumers harm.

It is not clear what could, short of instilling a sense of “fairness” into corporate cultures. While welcome, DDO’s are only the start.

– ref. Requiring firms to only sell financial products we can use is good, but not enough – https://theconversation.com/requiring-firms-to-only-sell-financial-products-we-can-use-is-good-but-not-enough-131887

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Simionato, Lecturer, RMIT University

Books are always transforming. The book we hold today has arrived through a number of materials (clay, papyrus, parchment, paper, pixels) and forms (tablet, scroll, codex, kindle).

The book can be a tool for communication, reading, entertainment, or learning; an object and a status symbol.

The most recent shift, from print media to digital technology, began around the middle of the 20th century. It culminated in two of the most ambitious projects in the history of the book (at least if we believe the corporate hype): the mass-digitisation of books by Google and the mass-distribution of electronic books by Amazon.

The survival of bookshops and flourishing of libraries (in real life) defies predictions that the “end of the book” is near. But even the most militant bibliophile will acknowledge how digital technology has called the “idea” of the book into question, once again.

To explore the potential for human-machine collaboration in reading and writing, we built a machine that makes poetry from the pages of any printed book. Ultimately, this project attempts to imagine the future of the book itself.

A machine to read books

Our custom-coded reading-machine reads and interprets real book pages, to create a new “illuminated” book of poetry.

The reading-machine uses Computer Vision and Optical Character Recognition to identify the text on any open book placed under its dual cameras. It then uses Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing technology to “read” the text for meaning, in order to select a short poetic combination of words on the page which it saves by digitally erasing all other words on the page.

Armed with this generated verse, the reading-machine searches the internet for an image – often a doodle or meme, which someone has shared and which has been stored in Google Images – to illustrate the poem.

Once every page in the book has been read, interpreted, and illustrated, the system publishes the results using an online printing service. The resulting volume is then added to a growing archive we call The Library of Nonhuman Books.

From the moment our machine completes its reading until the delivery of the book, our automated-art-system proceeds algorithmically – from interpreting and illuminating the poems, to pagination, cover design and finally adding the endmatter. This is all done without human intervention. The algorithm can generate a seemingly infinite number of readings of any book.

The poetry

The following poems were produced by the reading-machine from popular texts:

deep down men try there

he’s large naked she’s even

while facing anything.

from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey

how parties popcorn

jukebox bathrooms depressed

shrug, yeah? all.

from Bret Easton Ellis’ The Rules of Attraction

Oh and her bedroom

bathroom brushing sending it

garter too face hell.

from Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s

My algorithm, my muse

So what does all this have to do with the mass-digitisation of books?

Faced with growing resistance from authors and publishers concerned with Google’s management of copyright, the infoglomerate pivoted away from its primary goal of providing a free corpus of books (a kind of modern day Library of Alexandria) and towards a more modest index system used for searching inside the books Google had scanned. Google would now serve only short “snippets” of words highlighted on the original page.

Behind the scenes, Google had identified a different use for the texts. Millions of scanned books could be used in a field called Natural Language Processing. NLP allows computers to communicate with people using everyday language rather than code. The books originally scanned for humans were made available to machines for learning, and later imitating, human language.

Algorithmic processes like NLP and Machine Learning hold the promise (or threat) of deferring much of our everyday reading to machines. History has shown that once machines know how to do something, we generally leave them to it. The extent to which we do this will depend on how much we value reading.

If we continue to defer our reading (and writing) to machines, we might make literature with our artificially intelligent counterparts. What will poetry become, with an algorithm as our muse?

We already have clues to this: from the almost obligatory use of emojis or Japanese Kaomoji (顔文字) as visual shorthand for the emotional intent of our digital communication, to the layered meanings of internet memes, to the auto-generation of “fake news” stories. These are the image-word hybrids we find in post-literate social media.

To hide a leaf

Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Spiritual Laws

Emerson’s challenge highlights the subjectivity we bring to reading. When we started working on the reading-machine we focused on discovering patterns of words within larger bodies of texts that have always been there, but have remained “hidden in plain sight”. Every attempt by the reading-machine generated new poems, all of them made from words that remained in their original positions on the pages of books.

The notion of a single book consisting of infinite readings is not new. We originally conceived our reading-machine as a way of making a mythical Book of Sand, described by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1975 parable.

Borges’ story is about the narrator’s encounter with an endless book which continuously recombines its words and images. Many have compared this impossible book to the internet of today. Our reading-machine, with the turn of each page of any physical book, calculates combinations of words on that page which, until that moment, have been seen, but not consciously perceived by the reader.

The title of our early version of the work was To Hide a Leaf. It was generated by chance when a prototype of the reading-machine was presented with a page from a book of Borges’ stories. The complete sentence from which the words were taken is:

Somewhere I recalled reading that the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest.

The latent verse our machine attempts to reveal in books also hides in plain sight, like a leaf in a forest; and the idea is also a play on a page being generally referred to as a “leaf of a book”.

Like the Book of Sand, perhaps all books can be seen as combinatorial machines. We believed we could write an algorithm that could unlock new meanings in existing books, using only the text within that book as the key.

Philosopher Boris Groys described the result of the mass-digitisation of the book as Words Without Grammar, suggesting clouds of disconnected words.

Our reading-machine, and the Library of Nonhuman Books it is generating, is an attempt to imagine the book to come after these clouds of “words without grammar”. We have found the results are sometimes comical, often nonsensical, occasionally infuriating and, every now and then, even poetic.

The reading-machine will be on display at the Melbourne Art Book Fair in March and will collect a Tokyo Type Directors Club Award in April. Nonhuman Books are available via Atomic Activity Books.

– ref. Friday essay: a real life experiment illuminates the future of books and reading – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-real-life-experiment-illuminates-the-future-of-books-and-reading-131832

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

The government would be looking for the private sector to put in four or five times as much as it invests in research and development of particular technologies to reduce emissions, Energy Minister Angus Taylor says.

In a speech on Friday, released in part ahead of delivery, Taylor lays the groundwork for the “technology investment roadmap” to be released soon.

Technologies attracting the government’s attention include hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, lithium and advanced livestock feed supplements to reduce emissions from farm animals.

The “roadmap” will provide the basis for the government’s work towards the next international climate change conference, in Glasgow late this year.

The government is resisting pressure to embrace the widely supported target of a carbon neutral economy by 2050, but focusing on a “strategy”.

Read more: Albanese pledges Labor government would have 2050 carbon-neutral target

“The Australian government will take a technology-based long-term emissions reduction strategy to Glasgow later this year. We want to lead the world on this.

“Our strategy will be based on a series of detailed pieces of work that we will complete over the rest of this year,” Taylor says.

“That work must look at our investments, it must evaluate the technology and then encourage prospective technologies to full commerciality and deployment without massive government subsidies.”

Taylor says under the roadmap, progress will be measured in two ways.

Economic goals will be set for technologies, so a clear signal can be given for when the technology is commercial.

“The goal for each technology is to approach economic parity or better, which means the shift to lower emissions is zero cost or low cost,” he says.

The other measurement would be on investment.

Government investment is important as a market signal and to give a lead, Taylor says. But success requires tracking “how much private-sector and other investment in R and D and early deployment follows our own investment.

“To measure the success of the overall portfolio I think we should be aiming for a four or five time multiplier.

“That is, for every dollar invested I want to see four or five dollars from the private sector following over the course of our investments.

“An important indicator of the success of a technology is the private sector and state government interest”.

Taylor says the government has already invested more than $10.4 billion in hundreds of clean technology projects with a value of $35 billion.

“But we are coming to an end of the value of these investments.

“Wind and solar are economic as a source of pure energy at least. And the Government should not crowd out private sector investment.

“We must move our investments to the next challenges.”

– ref. Angus Taylor sets down ‘markers’ to measure success of government’s technology roadmap – https://theconversation.com/angus-taylor-sets-down-markers-to-measure-success-of-governments-technology-roadmap-132623