Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick O’Connor, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide

Among the vast number of native species damaged by the recent bushfire crisis, we must not forget native pollinators. These animals, mainly insects such as native bees, help sustain ecosystems by pollinating native plants.

Native pollinator populations have been decimated in burned areas. They will only recover if they can recolonise from unburned areas as vegetation regenerates.

Since the fires, Australia’s beekeeping industry has been pushing for access to national parks and other unburned public land. This would give introduced pollinators such as the European honeybee, (Apis mellifera) access to floral resources.

But our native pollinators badly need these resources – and the recovery of our landscapes depends on them. While we acknowledge the losses sustained by the honey industry, authorities should not jeopardise our native species to protect commercial interests.

The bush: a hive of activity

The European honeybee is the main commercial bee species in Australia. It exists in two contexts: in hives managed for honey production, and as a pest exploiting almost every wild habitat. Honeybees in managed hives are classified as livestock, the same way pigs and goats are.

Feral and (to a lesser extent) managed honeybees contribute a broad variety of crop pollination services, including for almond, apple and lucerne (also called alfalfa) crops.

Read more: Keeping honeybees doesn’t save bees – or the environment

Pollinators visit the flowers of the crop plants and ensure they are fertilised to produce fruit and seed. Beekeepers are often paid to put their bees in orchards since trees (such as almond trees) cannot produce a crop without insect pollination.

But native species of bees, beetles, flies and birds are just as important for crops. They are also essential for pollination, seed production and the regulation of Australia’s unique ecosystems – which evolved without honeybees.

Nature at risk

The honeybee industry sustained considerable losses in the recent fires, particularly in New South Wales and on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island. Commercial hives were destroyed and floral resources were burned, reducing the availability of sites for commercial hives. This has prompted calls from beekeepers to place hives in national parks.

Currently, beekeepers’ access to conservation areas is limited. This is because bees from commercial hives, and feral bees from previous escapes, damage native ecosystems. They compete with native species for nectar and pollen, and pollinate certain plant species over others.

In NSW, honeybees are listed as a key threatening process to biodiversity.

Untold damage

Allowing commercial hives in our national parks compromises these valuable places for conservation and could do untold damage.

Australia’s native birds, mammals and other insects rely on the same nectar from flowers as honeybees, which are abundant and voracious competitors for this sugary food.

Also, honeybees pollinate invasive weeds, such as gorse, lantana and scotch broom. These are adapted to recover and spread after fire, and are very expensive to control.

Many native plant species are not pollinated, or are pollinated inefficiently, by honeybees. This means a concentration of honeybee hives in a conservation area could shift the entire makeup of native vegetation, damaging the ecosystem.

Bringing managed hives into national parks would also risk transferring damaging diseases such as Nosema ceranae to native bee species.

Chokehold on our flora and fauna

Currently, the commercially important honeybee is kept mainly on agricultural land. In national parks and reserves, native species are prioritised.

The amount of land set aside for conservation is already insufficient to preserve the species and systems we value.

Read more: Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job

Australia’s national parks also suffer from mismanagement of grazing by native and introduced animals, and other activities permitted in parks, such as road development and in some cases, mining.

National parks must be allowed to recover from bushfire damage. Where they are unburned, they must be protected so native plants and animals can recover and recolonise burned areas.

Protecting nature and the beekeeping industry

The demand for commercial beekeeping in national parks is a result of native vegetation being cleared for agriculture in many parts of Australia.

In the short term, one solution is for beekeepers to artificially feed their hives with sugar syrup, as is common practise in winter. Thus, they could continue to produce honey and provide commercial pollination services.

While production levels may fall as a result of the reduced feed, and honey may become more expensive, at least consumers would know the product was made without damaging native wildlife and vegetation.

A long-term solution is to increase the area of native vegetation for both biodiversity and commercial beekeeping, by stepping up Australia’s meagre re-vegetation programs.

Read more: To reduce fire risk and meet climate targets, over 300 scientists call for stronger land clearing laws

Unfortunately, vegetation clearance rates in Australia remain extremely high.

Protecting and enhancing native vegetation would have both commercial and public benefits. Programs like the recently announced Agricultural Stewardship Package could be designed, to pay farmers for vegetation protection and revegetation.

Increasing vegetation in our landscapes is an insurance policy that will not only protect biodiversity, but support the honey industry.

– ref. Buzz off honey industry, our national parks shouldn’t be milked for money – https://theconversation.com/buzz-off-honey-industry-our-national-parks-shouldnt-be-milked-for-money-131891

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Skead, Professor, Dean of Law School, University of Western Australia

In 2017, a business lecturer posted a photo on LinkedIn showing a completely empty university classroom, 15 minutes after the class had been scheduled to start.

This is not an isolated incident. Anecdotally, lecture and tutorial attendance has been declining steadily in Australian universities and faculties for many years.

Declining attendance may affect students’ academic performance and their sense of connectedness. University doesn’t only teach content but develops attributes such as oral communication and interpersonal skills including teamwork.

Students are less likely to develop these skills if they don’t physically attend class.

We conducted a large-scale study in our law school to uncover whether lecture recordings are responsible for declining student attendance and what motivates students to attend or miss class.

By manually counting how many students were in lectures across sixteen different subjects, we found attendance rates averaged just 38% of total enrolments across the semester.

There was a natural ebb and flow of lecture attendance throughout the semester. There was peak attendance at the beginning (57%), a significant drop in the middle as assessments became due (26%) and a rebound at the end of semester as exam season hit (35%).

We also asked students to self-report their lecture attendance. The most common answer given, by far, was “almost all of the time” and 59% of students said they attended lectures the majority of the time.

Clearly there is a dissonance between this self-perception and reality.

Are recordings to blame?

Lecture recording is now common in Australian universities. Anecdotally, it’s often held responsible for declining attendance rates. But there is little research on the relationship between student attendance and lecture recording.

While lectures are usually recorded and available to students in streamed or downloadable format once the class ends, tutorials and other smaller classes are not usually recorded.

Read more: Are lectures a good way to learn?

Our study found students aren’t ditching tutorials, seminars and workshops as much as they are lectures. Tutorials averaged a whopping 84% attendance rate. This could partly be explained by the fact teachers assess students on their participation in tutorials.

We also surveyed 900 students to find out their reasons for attending and not attending lectures, tutorials and workshops.

Availability of lecture recordings was the most common reason students gave for not attending lectures (18% of students said this). But work commitments were a close second (16%). Then it was timetable conflicts (12%), the time and day of lectures (11%) and assessments being due (8%).

Students lead complex lives

Universities provide students with lecture recordings for several reasons. These include giving students an alternative study tool and supporting students with disabilities or from non-English speaking backgrounds (who can slow down or pause recordings if necessary).

Our survey and focus groups showed students lead complex lives often balancing work, family and other commitments alongside their studies.

One student said:

[…] if some [lectures] are so early as 8am, that would involve waking up at 6am, which is difficult as I work in hospitality at night and if I’ve worked the night before I wouldn’t be getting to bed until after midnight.

I likely would be fatigued during that lecture and have difficulty concentrating and taking in the content, compared to if I watched the recording and took notes later that afternoon.

Other students said they relied on lecture recordings to enhance their learning. One said:

I find I get more out of the lecture by listening to it in my own time and at my own pace […] I prefer to be able to pause the recorded video to research more in-depth into cases and theories to add to my notes.

Some students with additional learning needs said the option not to attend class, and to access lecture recordings, was an important equity measure.

What should we do?

Lecture recordings bring important benefits for students. They can also be necessary for students with personal, work or health difficulties.

But recordings are clearly contributing to declining lecture attendance, too. We propose three possible paths forward for universities and teachers, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

First, we can simply persist with the traditional model of recorded lectures. Teachers will need to accept attendance will likely be low and student learning, experience and wellness should instead be the focus of tutorials and other small group classes.

Second, we can introduce more active learning into lectures to encourage greater attendance. This could include small group exercises, in-class polling or role-plays.

Read more: Let’s not abandon the humble lecture quite yet

But this would mean lecture recordings would be less useful for students. It would undercut the flexibility recordings offer and may cause equity concerns.

Third, we can change our teaching methodology to a “flipped” approach. This means the main way students would get information would be through online resources and activities. Face-to-face classes would then be dedicated to engaging students in deeper learning through collaborative activities.

Though this frees up lecture time for more effective learning, it would require appropriate support and training for teachers. Teachers, many of whom already work under significant time constraints, would need to invest more time and energy into their lessons.

Unfortunately there is not a one-size fits all answer to the conundrum of declining lecture attendance. But learning and teaching policies, such as mandatory lecture recording, should be informed by an evidence-based understanding of the likely consequences for staff and students.

– ref. Online lectures mean fewer students are turning up – does it matter? – https://theconversation.com/online-lectures-mean-fewer-students-are-turning-up-does-it-matter-131988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil G Sipe, Adjunct Researcher in Transport and Planning, The University of Queensland

Over the past decade almost US$200 billion has been invested globally in mobility technology that promises to improve our ability to get around. More than US$33 billion was invested last year alone. Another measure of interest in this area is the number of unicorns, which has doubled in the past two years.

A unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at US$1 billion or more. In early 2018 there were 22 travel and mobility unicorns. By last month the number had grown to 44.

Read more: The battle to be the Amazon (or Netflix) of transport

The top categories in the mobility area are: ride hailing, with 11 unicorns (25.0%); autonomous vehicles, with ten (22.7%); and micromobility, with three (6.8%). The remaining 20 unicorns are in the travel category (hotels, bookings and so on).

Mobility technology is more than just autonomous vehicles, ride hailing and e-scooters and e-bikes. It also includes: electrification (electric vehicles, charging/batteries); fleet management and connectivity (connectivity, data management, cybersecurity, parking, fleet management); auto commerce (car sharing); transportation logistics (freight, last-mile delivery); and urban air mobility.

Promised solutions, emerging problems

Much of the interest in mobility technology is coming from individuals outside the transport arena. Startups are attracting investors by claiming their technology will solve many of our transport problems.

Micromobility companies believe their e-scooters and e-bikes will solve the “first-mile last-mile” problem by enabling people to move quickly and easily between their homes or workplaces and a bus or rail station. While this might work in theory, it depends on having safe and segregated bicycle networks and frequent and widely accessible public transport services.

Ride-hailing services might relieve people of the need to own a car. But there is evidence to suggest these services are adding to traffic congestion. That’s because, unlike taxis, more of their time on the road involves travelling without any passengers.

Navigation tools (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze) have been around longer than most other mobility technologies and are meant make it easier to find the least-congested route for any given trip. However, research suggests these tools might not be working as intended. The backlash against them is growing in some cities because traffic is being directed onto neighbourhood streets rather than arterial roads.

Autonomous vehicles have the goal of reducing injuries and deaths from car crashes. Only a few years ago many bold predictions were being made that these self-driving vehicles would be having positive impacts by now, but this hasn’t happened. The enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles has cooled. Some now believe we won’t see many of the social benefits for decades.

Read more: How we feel about our cars means the road to a driverless future may not be smooth

The final mobility tech area is known as mobility as a service (MAAS). It’s basically a platform designed to make better use of existing infrastructure and transport modes. MAAS begins with a journey planner that is linked to one-stop payment for a range of mobility services – ride-hailing, e-scooters, e-bikes, taxis, public transport, and so on.

MAAS is the newest entrant in the mobility tech field. It has attracted US$6.8 billion to date, but is expected to grow to over US$100 billion by 2030. This idea is creating great enthusiasm, not only among private entrepreneurs, but also in the public sector. It’s too early to know whether it will improve transportation.

Read more: For Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to solve our transport woes, some things need to change

3 trends are driving investment

So, why do venture capitalists continue to show so much interest in mobility technology startups despite poor company performance to date? It appears they believe personal mobility will become increasingly important. Three trends support this belief.

First, urban dwellers increasingly value the ability to move around easily. It’s thought to be a key ingredient for a liveable city. The problem is public transport is often not very good, particularly in the US and in outer suburbs in Australia.

This is due to historically low funding relative to roads. The prospect of more funding and better public transport services in the future is not good. In part that’s because many view public transport as welfare and not an essential public service. Thus, if cities want to become more liveable and competitive, they must look beyond government-funded public transport for other mobility alternatives.

Read more: To bolster our fragile road and rail system we need to add a ‘micro-mobility’ network

The second trend is declining vehicle ownership. Since 1986 US sales of car and light trucks per capita have dropped by almost 30%. In Australia, new car sales remained relatively constant over the past decade, but a decline since 2017 is expected to continue. These trends are due in part to the cost of owning a vehicle, but also because of a growing view that owning a car may not be necessary.

This brings us to the third trend, which involves demographics and the post-millennial desire for access to mobility services rather than vehicle ownership.

Read more: We subscribe to movies and music, why not transport?

These trends, combined with expectations of an upward trend in prices of these services, suggests there may be good times ahead for ride-hailing and micromobility companies. It also means venture capital funding for these startups will not be diminishing in the near future.

The future of transport isn’t simple

Transport systems are multifaceted. No one single app or technology will solve the challenges. And, as we are discovering, some of the purported solutions to problems might actually be making the situation worse.

If the goal is to get people out of their cars (for better health and quality of life and a better environment), this will require more than a technology. Better infrastructure and public policies (including better integration of land uses and transport to reduce the need for transport) will be required – congestion pricing being one of those.

That is not to say technological innovations are not welcome as part of the solution, but they are just that … “part” of the solution.

– ref. Billions are pouring into mobility technology – will the transport revolution live up to the hype? – https://theconversation.com/billions-are-pouring-into-mobility-technology-will-the-transport-revolution-live-up-to-the-hype-131154

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

In a recent ruling the Australian Press Council has given a signal to gossip magazines it is OK to make up and publish rubbish about people, so long as the stories aren’t “blatantly incorrect”.

This is despite the council’s own guidelines stating all member publications must strive for accuracy and avoid being misleading.

The council, which adjudicates complaints against the print media, has also suggested it’s OK to have less rigorous standards when reporting on royalty and celebrities.

And all this happened in a ruling against a magazine for publishing falsehoods.

A confused adjudication

The council has upheld a complaint about an article published in Woman’s Day on May 27 2019. The cover declared: “Palace confirms the marriage is over! Why Harry was left with no choice but to end it.”

The inside story was titled “This is the final straw” and claimed: “Prince Harry has been left enraged and humiliated by a series of shock revelations about his wife’s past” and he “has finally reached breaking point”.

In upholding the complaint, the Press Council said the headline was “blatantly incorrect” and not supported by the article’s contents. It also ruled the headline “was more than just an exaggeration […] it was misleading”.“

But the council has sent a strong signal it will be lenient with publications that exaggerate.

It said: ”[A]n entertainment publication can be expected to use some exaggeration” and “celebrity and gossip magazines are purchased for light entertainment, with readers not necessarily assuming that everything presented is factual”.

The phrase “not necessarily” suggests some people might believe what’s presented is factual. But, that aside, why is the Press Council making rulings at odds with its own general principles?

The first principle says publications should “ensure that factual material in news reports and elsewhere is accurate and not misleading and is distinguishable from other material such as opinion”.

How does it reconcile these two contradictory ideas? It’s a question Marcus Strom, the president of the journalists’ union, MEAA Media, has been considering. He told The Conversation:

The Press Council guidelines are clear that all member publications must strive to be factual and not misleading. I’m surprised that falsehoods – where not “everything presented is factual” – are allowed within that definition.

If you’ve walked past a rack of magazines in the supermarket and wondered just how many times the same celebrity can become pregnant, you may have asked yourself why these publications can print falsehoods on an almost industrial scale. You might have concluded they’re just gossip magazines and no one takes them seriously.

That same thinking seems to be driving the Press Council’s comments. But is that good enough?

The idea these publications have a special exemption from journalistic standards is a concept with almost no foundation in law. There is no special provision under Australia’s defamation laws for this class of magazines.

There is no “celebrity” defence that allows the media to make up lies about people. Even the defamation law’s defence of “triviality” offers very little protection. The Rebel Wilson case made that perfectly clear.

Read more: Rebel Wilson’s $4.5 million win a sobering reminder that defaming a celebrity can be costly

Lawyer Dougal Hurley, of Minter Ellison, tells The Conversation gossip magazines trade on light entertainment, and readers “can and do expect a level of hyperbole that they would not in news media”.

However, he concludes:

This does not mean that the defence of triviality will succeed if these magazines are sued for defamation. Indeed, the rejection of triviality defences by the jury [in the case of] Wilson is evidence of this. Gossip magazines that have not already changed their editorial practices risk being liable for significant defamation payouts.

Out-of-step thinking

The other controversial suggestion in the ruling is that the media can apply less rigorous standards when reporting on the royal family and celebrities.

The Council also acknowledges that the reasonable steps required to be accurate and not misleading in an article concerning royalty and celebrities can, depending on the circumstances, be different to those required in respect of other persons, particularly those who are not usually in the public eye.

The council offers little reasoning for this, but is no doubt assuming that, as public figures, they should expect incursions on their privacy and sensationalised coverage. Again, the council’s thinking is looking out of step with the increased use of the courts to combat inaccurate reporting and false gossip.

Hurley says: “Although in many respects gossip magazines are as they ever were, it is also true that they are bearing more risk in circumstances where they purport to report news and publish to a global audience instantaneously.”

He continues:

While international celebrities may appear to be easy targets for gossip magazines, our notoriously plaintiff-friendly defamation laws mean that these celebrities can and will sue in Australia. Only a major overhaul of Australia’s defamation laws will prevent the libel tourism that has contributed to Australia becoming the defamation capital of the world.

Perhaps in these circumstances, the Press Council might do its members – and the public – a greater service by insisting proper standards apply to all reporting, and that accuracy and fact checking be the norm, even for the magazines at the supermarket checkout.

– ref. Australian law says the media can’t spin lies – ‘entertainment magazines’ aren’t an exception – https://theconversation.com/australian-law-says-the-media-cant-spin-lies-entertainment-magazines-arent-an-exception-132186

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

The transformation of the national electricity market has “progressed at a remarkable pace and scale” over the last year as it moves towards renewables, but security is a critical issue, according to the Energy Security Board.

In its latest report on “The Health of the National Electricity Market”, released Monday, the board also notes affordability improved slightly over the year for retail customers, with more relief to come.

A government report, also released Monday, shows Australian emissions (on a seasonally adjusted and weather-normalised basis) in the September quarter were unchanged compared with the previous quarter, while on an annual basis they were down 0.3%.

The ESB, an independent body chaired by Kerry Schott which reports to the Council of Australian Governments’ energy council, says in 2018-19 about 16% of electricity consumed in the NEM was from wind and solar (up from 14%), and this is forecast to rise to about 27% by 2022 and above 40% by 2030.

The 16% does not include rooftop solar, which is now about 5% of NEM generation and is expected to be 10% by 2030.

Different states are at different stages of transition to renewables. Tasmania, with hydro and wind, is close to 100%, South Australia is operating at about 53%; other states in the NEM (which doesn’t cover Western Australia) are on 10-20% though increasing rapidly.

“The issue of most concern in the NEM is security. This is a critical issue at present and for the future,” the ESB says.

“While there has been understandable concern about reliability, and whether or not there is sufficient supply or demand response when wind and solar is not available, the more immediate worry is maintaining security.

“To be secure the electricity system must operate within defined limits of frequency, voltage, inertia and system strength and be able to maintain that through disturbances.

“Failure to do so can seriously damage a power system and lead to significant supply interruptions.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator has had to intervene more than twice as much this year as the year before.

The report says reliability has been rated as critical, a worse rating than last year, and maintaining it has been a challenge. While there has been an improvement in reliability since last year summer supply is very tight in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.

Issues include the more severe summer weather conditions and ageing generators.

On affordability, the slight improvement was due to falls in average energy use as rooftop solar increased, and some energy efficiency.

“Both electricity and gas prices fell slightly against income levels and the consumer price index in 2018-19. The modest decrease was largely related to a decline in retail margins and a fall in wholesale costs.

“Retail prices remained largely steady across the NEM, with only modest improvement in affordability. The improvement was related to falls in average energy usage with growing distributed energy (rooftop solar) and energy efficiency. The decline in energy usage is most remarkable in Queensland and South Australia where there is a high penetration of rooftop solar”.

But the report says the overall trends hide the impact on particular consumers of high energy costs, notably those on low incomes, who spend 8-10% of their income on energy compared with the 2-4% spent by an average household. Low income households are less likely to see the benefit of investing in solar or energy efficiency.

On a national basis household electricity bills are likely to reduce by 7.1% or $97 over the period 2018-19 to 2021-22. This is primarily driven by wholesale costs falling as new low cost renewable capacity comes in.

The report stresses “the need for significant investment over the next decade in both transmission and distribution networks”.

The September update of “Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory”, from the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, says the 0.3% fall over the year to September reflects annual decreases from the electricity, transport and agriculture sectors. These falls were partly offset by increases in emissions from stationary energy, fugitive, and land use, land use change and forestry sectors.

There was an increase over the year in emissions from total export industries of 3.5%, mainly reflecting a 17.4% rise in LNG exports.

A 2% decrease in emissions from the electricity sector was largely due to a 2.7% fall in coal generation, a 4.3% fall in gas generation and a 14.1% increase in renewables in the NEM.

Transport emissions fell 0.7% over the year, reflecting a reduction in petrol consumption of 3.2%.

The decline of 5.8% in emissions in the agriculture section came from the drought, with fewer livestock and less fertiliser being used.

Meanwhile former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has again weighed into the climate debate, to support strongly a target of having Australia carbon neutral by 2050.

Anthony Albanese last week recommitted Labor to the target of net zero emissions by 2050, which the ALP took to the last election.

Turnbull tweeted on Sunday, “a policy which opposes net zero by 2050 is a policy of 3 degrees plus global warming and an uninhabitable planet”.

The Coalition has improved its position slightly in the latest Newspoll, published in Monday’s Australian, now trailing Labor in two-party terms 49-51%, compared with 48-52% three weeks ago.

– ref. Electricity market transforming apace but security a worry: Energy Security Board – https://theconversation.com/electricity-market-transforming-apace-but-security-a-worry-energy-security-board-132261

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 extension of the coronavirus travel ban, the royal commission into the bushfires, and labor’s stance on a compulsory superannuation guarantee and zero emissions by 2050.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on an extended travel ban, a royal commission, and zero emissions by 2050 – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-an-extended-travel-ban-a-royal-commission-and-zero-emissions-by-2050-132262

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Steen, Professor of Midwifery, University of South Australia

In a new parenting podcast, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, said she used hypnobirthing techniques to help her get through severe morning sickness – a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum.

She also used the techniques during labour.

She told the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast:

I saw the power of it, the meditation and the deep breathing and things like that, that they teach you in hypnobirthing, when I was really sick, and actually I realised that this was something I could take control of during labour.

It was hugely powerful.

So what is hypnobirthing and what does the evidence say about its use?

Calmness and relaxation

Hypnobirthing aims to reduce fear, pain and anxiety during childbirth. It involves learning calm breathing techniques, some deep relaxation, guided mediation, visualisation, positive suggestions and affirmations.

These affirmations might include phrases such as, “I have the ability to give birth to my baby,” or “I trust in my body and my baby to help me.”

Read more: Explainer: what are women’s options for giving birth?

Hypnobirthing teaches women to induce a “self-hypnotic” state of mind where a woman focuses her attention inwards, concentrates deeply and this helps her to decrease peripheral awareness. But she can still respond to suggestions and affirmations.

When a woman is afraid she will physically become tense, rigid and produce the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Her perception of pain will increase and this can affect labour.

Hypnobirthing aims to counteract the effects of fear and help women secrete the hormones oxytocin and endorphins which enable her to remain calm and relaxed, so labour can progress.

Some women who have used hypnobirthing techniques say they feel like they are day dreaming, in a trance and drifting into a calm, deeply relaxed state but are not actually sleeping.

Hypnobirthing techniques are founded on British obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read’s observations. In his 1942 book, Childbirth without Fear, he proposed women in a calm state of mind, and who had faith in their ability to give birth, did so with less pain.

These days, women and their partners or support people can learn self-hypnotic techniques for hypnobirthing by attending one-to-one sessions, group classes or online courses.

Usually, women attend sessions from about 25-30 weeks of pregnancy but self-hypnosis and guided mediation techniques are sometimes taught earlier in pregnancy.

There is also emerging evidence it could be used postnatally if women have had a traumatic birth or are experiencing increased levels of anxiety, stress or depression after birth.

Fear and anxiety in childbirth

Historically, women have been supported and comforted by other women during labour and birth, including in traditional Aboriginal birthing practices. Women would support other women by performing special songs, chants and rituals to ease the birthing process and make the woman feel safe and calm.

But while great advances in care have resulted in better outcomes for mothers and babies in childbirth, many women today are extremely anxious and afraid of this process.

So it’s important find ways to reduce anxiety and fear associated with childbirth.

Read more: Parent education and complementary therapies reduce birthing risks

Other strategies women can also use alongside hypnobirthing include having a continuous support person for labour and undergoing combined complementary therapies, such as yoga, acupressure and learning breathing techniques, in preparation for birth.

What does the evidence say about hypnobirthing?

A 2016 Cochrane review examined the effectiveness and safety of hypnosis for pain management in labour and birth. The review examined nine studies of varying quality which included just under 3,000 women.

It found women who used hypnobirthing techniques used less of some kinds of pain relief such as opioid pain medication or inhaling nitrous oxide and oxygen, than women who didn’t. However epidural rates were similar in both groups.

There were no clear differences between women who used hypnobirthing techniques and those who didn’t for most of the other measures. These included their satisfaction with pain relief, their sense of coping with labour and their likelihood of having a spontaneous vaginal birth.

Importantly, the review found hypnobirthing didn’t cause any harm.

Overall, little research has been conducted on hypnobirthing. We need more well-designed studies to accurately assess the effectiveness of these techniques.

It might help some women and not others

Some women who participated in a clinical trial of self-hypnosis were followed up and interviewed and reported feelings of calmness, confidence and empowerment.

But the techniques don’t work for everyone.

Some women reported feeling frustrated or disappointed when their labour and birth experiences didn’t match their expectations, or when their midwives misinterpreted their relaxed state.

Other women find it extremely difficult to switch off and relax. They may find they’re not able to put themselves into a deeply relaxed state and then respond to positive suggestions and affirmations.

Some women may be sceptical of the process and don’t see any potential benefits.

Read more: Don’t believe everything you see on TV: hypnosis is less far fetched and far more important

– ref. What is hypnobirthing, the technique the Duchess of Cambridge used? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-hypnobirthing-the-technique-the-duchess-of-cambridge-used-132015

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne

This article is the first in a three-part series on radical ideas to solve the environmental crisis.

As the Productivity Commission confirmed this week, Australia’s economy has enjoyed uninterrupted growth for 28 years straight. Specifically, our output of goods and services last financial year grew by 2%. Economists obviously see the growth of a national economy as good news – but what is it doing to the Earth?

Capitalism demands limitless economic growth, yet research shows that trajectory is incompatible with a finite planet.

If capitalism is still the dominant economic system in 2050, current trends suggest our planetary ecosystems will be, at best, on the brink of collapse. Bushfires will become more monstrous and wildlife will continue to be annihilated.

Read more: 222 scientists say cascading crises are the biggest threat to the well-being of future generations

As my research has sought to demonstrate, an adequate response to climate change, and the broader environmental crisis, will require creating a post-capitalist society which operates within Earth’s ecological limits.

This won’t will be easy – it will be the hardest thing our species has tried to do. I’m not saying capitalism hasn’t produced benefits for society (although those benefits are distributed very unequally within and between nations).

And of course, some people will think even talking about the prospect is naive, or ludicrous. But it’s time to have the conversation.

What is growth?

Economic growth generally refers to gross domestic product (GDP) – the monetary value of goods and services produced in an economy. Historically, and across the globe, GDP and environmental impact has been closely linked.

Capitalism needs growth. Businesses must pursue profits to stay viable and governments want growth because a larger tax base means more capacity for funding public services. And if any government tried to slow or stop growth for environmental reasons, powerful economic forces under capitalism would offer fierce resistance – with some businesses perhaps threatening to leave the nation altogether.

What about ‘green growth’?

Most mainstream economists and politicians accept the science on the dire state of the planet, but not many people think capitalism is the problem. Instead, the dominant response to the ecological crisis is to call for ‘green growth’.

This theory involves producing ever more goods and services, but with fewer resources and impacts. So a business might design its products to have less environmental impact, or a product at the end of its life could be reused – sometimes called a ‘circular economy’.

If our entire economy produced and consumed goods and services like this, we mightn’t need to abandon the growth economics inherent to capitalism. Instead, we would just “decouple” economic growth from environmental impact.

Too good to be true

There are several big problems with green growth theory. First, it isn’t happening at the global scale – and where it is happening to a limited extent within nations, the change is not fast or deep enough to head off dangerous climate change.

Second, the extent of “decoupling” required is simply too great. Ecological footprint accounting shows we need 1.75 planets to support existing economic activity into the future – yet every nation seeks more growth and ever-rising material living standards.

Read more: No food, no fuel, no phones: bushfires showed we’re only ever one step from system collapse

Trying to reform capitalism – with a carbon tax here and some redistribution there – might go some way to reducing environmental harm and advancing social justice.

But the faith in the god of growth brings all this undone. The United Nations’ development agenda assumes “sustained economic growth” is the best way to alleviate global poverty – a noble and necessary goal. But our affluent living standards simply cannot be globalised while remaining within safe planetary limits. We need degrowth, which means planned contraction of energy and resource demands.

Taking a fair share

Let’s do the maths. If all humans lived like Australians, we’d need more than four planets to sustain us. Earth’s population is set to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Our current levels of consumption do not add up.

Something resembling a fair share could involve developed nations reducing energy and resource demands by 50% or even 75% or more. This would mean transcending consumer lifestyles, embracing far more modest but sufficient material living standards, and creating new post-capitalist modes of production and distribution that aimed to meet the basic needs of all – not for limitless growth.

Read more: To address the ecological crisis, Aboriginal peoples must be restored as custodians of Country

The “downshift” in material consumption can begin at the individual level where possible. But more broadly we must create local and sharing economies that don’t depend on globalised, fossil-fuelled distribution chains.

A range of social movements will be needed to persuade politicians to adopt systemic change.

Last year’s global student strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests were a good start. Over time, they could create widespread public momentum for an alternative, post-growth economy.

Ultimately, structural and policy inventions will be needed. This includes changes to land governance to make sustainable living easier. And we need to start having difficult but compassionate conversations about population growth.

Transcending capitalism

I’m certainly not suggesting we adopt a centralised, Soviet-style state socialism. After all, a socialist economy seeking growth without limit is just as unsustainable as growth capitalism. We must expand our imaginations and explore alternatives.

I don’t have all the answers – and I think post-capitalist movements, now and in the future, will probably fail. But if we do not recognise capitalism’s inherent growth fetish as the central problem, we cannot formulate a coherent response.

– ref. I’ve seriously tried to believe capitalism and the planet can coexist, but I’ve lost faith – https://theconversation.com/ive-seriously-tried-to-believe-capitalism-and-the-planet-can-coexist-but-ive-lost-faith-131288

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide

When booking a luxury cruise, you generally expect relaxation and enjoyment, not forced quarantine and distress. Unfortunately, for the thousands of vacationers trapped on cruise ships in Asia the past month, what started as a dream trip has quickly turned into a nightmare.

In the last fortnight, hundreds of passengers have tested positive for coronavirus aboard the Diamond Princess docked off Japan, while thousands of others were trapped on other ships for days before finally being able to dock in Hong Kong and Cambodia.

Around 180 Australians finally disembarked the Diamond Princess this week and boarded an evacuation flight to Darwin for monitored isolation. At least 16 Australians on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus.

High Court case on a less-than-enjoyable cruise

Whether it be virus outbreaks, poor food and sanitation, accidental wrecking or even lousy entertainment, a holiday can easily be ruined. But can you claim compensation for disappointment or lack of enjoyment?

This question came before the High Court last week in a high-profile class action.

A group of Australian tourists sued a company called Scenic Tours, claiming it was responsible for ruining their European river cruise holiday in 2013. The cruises were supposed to include lengthy sails along the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers, but passengers were forced to travel by bus for most days due to high water levels.

The plaintiffs allege they did not receive the promised “five-star experience” and were left distraught.

Read more: The coronavirus will hit the tourism and travel sector hard

Lead plaintiff David Moore won his initial court case and was fully refunded for his trip and awarded an extra A$2,000 for his disappointment under Section 267(4) of the Australian Consumer Law.

This section allows people to recover damages for a supplier’s failure to comply with mandatory consumer guarantees. The relevant guarantees here were to exercise due care and skill, provide “fit for purpose” services and achieve the desired result (an enjoyable holiday).

On appeal, the A$2,000 award for disappointment was revoked, meaning Moore merely broke even.

The High Court must now decide whether the plaintiffs’ claims for compensation are subject to certain restrictions set out in state civil liability legislation.

For Moore, that would mean applying New South Wales’ Civil Liability Act 2002, which precludes compensation for disappointment arising from claims for non-economic loss worth less than 15% of the maximum payout under the act (currently $350,000).

What the law says

While the High Court’s judgment is yet to be handed down, the legal rules in this area are fairly straightforward.

The starting point is contract law. The basic rule is monetary damages are not generally awarded for non-economic losses such as mental distress caused by breach of contract.

An exception to this rule is where the contract is essentially one for enjoyable experiences, such as cruises. In these cases, it is foreseeable that failing to deliver a pleasant experience will upset the customer.

Read more: We depend so much more on Chinese travellers now. That makes the impact of this coronavirus novel

In a famous case from 1993 involving a cruise ship which sank mid-journey, the High Court confirmed the plaintiff could claim compensation for her trauma. The contract implied the cruise would be enjoyable and relaxing, but the court found otherwise.

In other cases where travellers have been injured when a tour bus braked suddenly or complained of being offered substandard food and inadequate recreational equipment, they have also been awarded damages.

For any physical inconvenience or emotional distress caused by a tour operator’s breach of contract, therefore, there is legal precedent for claiming compensation.

Most travel companies, however, will likely have exclusions in their contracts with travellers. These may bar claims for disappointment or emotional distress.

An alternative means for claiming compensation, then, is under the Australian Consumer Law guarantees.

According to the ACCC, holiday packages and cruises count as personal services, meaning distraught vacationers are ordinarily eligible to seek compensation under consumer protection law.

Read more: Cruise ships can be floating petri dishes of gastro bugs. 6 ways to stay healthy at sea this summer

But the state and territory civil liability legislation has complicated matters. These laws are largely uniform and were introduced from 2002 following a report into the insurance affordability crisis.

This legislation overlaps with contract law and the law of negligence. Its interaction with the Australian Consumer Law is one of the key questions in the Scenic Tours case being heard by the High Court.

Protecting yourself on your travels

The simplest way to safeguard your personal wellbeing is to take out appropriate insurance. This will typically ensure you recover money for losses you sustain if things go wrong.

Most travel providers will also offer compensation when trips are interrupted, changed or affected by calamity. Where a travel provider is not willing to offer compensation of its own initiative, you may wish to draw their attention to the consumer guarantees. The ACCC can provide general advice with respect to this.

In the event you are unable to secure a satisfactory response from your travel provider, you could speak to a lawyer. This may, in some cases, result in court action.

Litigation, however, is expensive and takes time, so consider whether it’s cost-effective. Claiming compensation may be as distressing as the spoiled trip itself.

– ref. Memories overboard! What the law says about claiming compensation for a holiday gone wrong – https://theconversation.com/memories-overboard-what-the-law-says-about-claiming-compensation-for-a-holiday-gone-wrong-132012

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Courtney Hempton, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has this week published a report detailing the first six months of the legislation in action in Victoria.

The report reveals 52 people legally ended their lives from the time voluntary assisted dying became legal on June 19 last year to the end of December.

While the Victorian government is hailing the report as an indicator the law is operating successfully, some questions remain.

Notably, the report only documents people who have accessed the legislation. It doesn’t tell us about those who may have wanted to be assessed for voluntary assisted dying, but not been able to.

Read more: Voluntary assisted dying will soon be legal in Victoria, and this is what you need to know

What the report tells us

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board will report on the operation of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria every six months for the first two years, and then annually.

The review board’s first report was tabled in parliament on August 27 2019. As this initial report only covered the law in effect from June 19 to June 30, this second report, tabled in parliament on Wednesday, is the first to provide any real detail about voluntary assisted dying in practice.

The report gives us a snapshot of the number of patients progressing through various stages of the assessment and approval process. In brief:

• 136 patients had completed a “first assessment”

• 102 patients had completed a “consulting assessment” (this is a second assessment to confirm a person’s eligibility, performed by a different doctor)

• 81 voluntary assisted dying permits had been approved

• 52 deaths had been confirmed. Some 43 people self-administered the lethal substance, while nine required a practitioner to administer it for them.

The review board concludes these figures demonstrate “the Act has struck a balance between being strict with compliance, while still accessible to those who want this choice”.

Read more: WA’s take on assisted dying has many similarities with the Victorian law – and some important differences

The Victorian government estimated about a dozen patients would access voluntary assisted dying in the first year, so the number of reported deaths already well exceeds this.

The Chair of the review board, Justice Betty King QC, said the number of patients accessing voluntary assisted dying shows this is something Victorians wanted, and now it’s available, they’re using it.

Victorian Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos said the report indicates the legislation “is working well and as intended”.

What the report doesn’t tell us

Importantly, the report doesn’t provide any information about patients requesting access to voluntary assisted dying prior to the formal first assessment.

This means we don’t have any data at this stage about patients who may have wanted to access voluntary assisted dying but were not able to, or the reasons why this may have been the case.

For example, we’ve seen anecdotal reports of people unable to find a doctor willing or qualified to assess them for voluntary assisted dying.

Patients in regional or rural Victoria have also reportedly had difficulties accessing voluntary assisted dying due to a federal law prohibiting doctors from discussing it with patients over the phone or online.

These issues are in addition to the “gag clause” feature of the Victorian legislation, which prohibits all health practitioners from initiating a discussion about voluntary assisted dying with their patients.

The review board said it has recently started collecting data on terminally ill people who were unable to access the laws. But it’s an oversight that systematic processes to collect this information weren’t in place from the beginning.

Read more: In places where it’s legal, how many people are ending their lives using euthanasia?

In regards to those assessed for voluntary assisted dying, the report doesn’t explain the differences in reported numbers at each stage of the assessment and approval process. While some of the discrepancies are likely explained by the time it takes people to move through the steps, it’s unclear whether some patients decided not to proceed, or died during the process.

The report also doesn’t detail how long it takes patients to progress from a first assessment through to the permit application stage, though the review board noted the process can take several weeks.

Further, the report doesn’t provide any demographic detail about the patients who have accessed voluntary assisted dying, such as their age, sex, level of education or income. While the review board receives information on demographics, and acknowledges this is important, it didn’t report this data.

The limited information reported by the review board should be interpreted with caution, particularly in terms of understanding community access (and potential inaccess) to voluntary assisted dying in Victoria.

Without further detail, it’s premature to conclude the voluntary assisted dying legislation is “working well”.

What’s next?

Other jurisdictions considering or implementing voluntary assisted dying have an opportunity to learn from the initial period of operation as well as data collection and reporting in Victoria.

Western Australia passed similar voluntary assisted dying legislation in 2019, which will come into effect in 2021. Meanwhile, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania are also exploring legalising voluntary assisted dying.

Read more: Western Australia looks set to legalise voluntary assisted dying. Here’s what’s likely to happen from next week

The report offers a useful snapshot of the initial uptake of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria. But we need more detailed data to better assess the operation of the legislation, including whether or not access is equitable, and “accessible to those who want this choice”, as the review board has suggested.

– ref. Without more detail, it’s premature to say voluntary assisted dying laws in Victoria are ‘working well’ – https://theconversation.com/without-more-detail-its-premature-to-say-voluntary-assisted-dying-laws-in-victoria-are-working-well-132096

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blanca del Rosal Rabes, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

Brain temperature is implicated in many common conditions including stroke, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and headaches.

Changes in brain temperature can indicate there is a disease developing, but researchers have struggled to measure it. The use of conventional thermometers is very invasive, and remote measuring techniques are blunt and often inaccurate.

But a new technique that combines infrared light with temperature-sensitive nanoparticles could be the solution.

Understanding brain temperature

Temperature is tightly regulated in living beings, so sudden changes usually indicate that something is amiss. The brain is no exception to this. Brain temperature depends on neural activity, and will vary if blood flow is disrupted (as occurs, for instance, in stroke).

Brain temperature is not only relevant for diagnosing conditions, it can also be harnessed for therapeutic uses. Heat can kill cells, which may be useful in treating tumours. Manipulating brain temperature can also activate or suppress neural activity, which may be used to alleviate the symptoms of some neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s.

Read more: Ozzy Osbourne has a type of Parkinson’s disease called Parkin: A neurologist explains

Traditional methods lacking

Researchers have struggled to detect neurological disorders based on changes in brain temperature. This is because it is difficult to measure brain temperature accurately with current technology.

The brain is not only extremely complex, it is also very delicate and well-protected. To make matters more complicated, brain temperature changes associated with significant variations in neural activity are usually small (below 1℃) and may occur very rapidly over a small area.

Conventional thermometers are not a great option for sensing brain temperature. They require contact with the object they are measuring – so in this case, they need to be inserted into the brain itself. This very invasive procedure requires drilling a hole in the skull and can damage and scar the brain permanently.

The reward for such a risk is very limited. These thermometers can only measure the temperature at a single spot, making them useless to understand how it changes across different brain regions.

There are options for remote temperature sensing, but they also fail at mapping brain temperature effectively. They can only record surface temperature, or are not sensitive and fast enough.

Measuring temperature without entering the brain

To measure brain temperature accurately, we need a very sensitive technique that can measure small temperature changes remotely, in real time, and with good spatial resolution. This is where near-infrared fluorescence comes in.

Fluorescence is a common technique for high-resolution, real-time imaging of cells. Researchers use contrast agents (dyes or nanoparticles) that emit visible light when illuminated. Some of these contrast agents change their fluorescence depending on the local temperature, acting as local, tiny, thermometers.

But fluorescent thermometers that emit visible light are not very useful when it comes to measuring temperature below the skin surface – they would only be if our skin was transparent.

The skin, however, is quite transparent to near-infrared light, and the same is true for fat, muscle and bone.

Visible light is just the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can see. Invisible, near-infrared light has a slightly shorter wavelength that our eyes – and conventional fluorescence imaging cameras – cannot detect.

Using near-infrared fluorescent contrast agents, researchers have been able to see blood vessels in the brain through the skull in live mice – even tiny vessels no thicker than a few microns (one thousandth of a millimeter).

Some near-infrared nanoparticles are highly sensitive to changes in temperature. Combining them with wide-field fluorescence imaging, it is possible to measure the temperature of the brain temperature through the scalp and skull – no drill holes or inserted thermometers required.

My research used this technique to see, in real time, how brain temperature drops in live mice after drug administration. Near-infrared fluorescence thermometry can help us understand how brain temperature and neurological diseases are related – eventually leading to the application of temperature-based diagnosis in humans.

For this technique to become fully useful, the delivery of the temperature-sensitive contrast agents still needs improvement. Having them reach the brain and stay there for as long as required – without altering the function of the brain – is still a major challenge. To avoid invasive brain injections (as we used in our work), the next step is developing an efficient method to get the contrast agents across the blood-brain barrier.

– ref. Brain temperature is difficult to measure. Here’s how a new infrared technique can help – https://theconversation.com/brain-temperature-is-difficult-to-measure-heres-how-a-new-infrared-technique-can-help-126501

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

Anthony Albanese will commit a Labor government to adopting a target of zero net emissions by 2050, in a speech titled “Leadership in a New Climate” to be delivered on Friday.

The opposition leader’s embrace of this target, which the ALP also took to the last election, is in line with the policies of state and territory governments, many companies and the Business Council of Australia. It is also the public stand of some Liberal moderates but is totally rejected by the Nationals and hard-line Liberals.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to adopt it.

“Currently no one can tell me that going down that path won’t cost jobs, won’t put up your electricity prices, and won’t impact negatively on jobs in the economies of rural and regional Australia, ” he said this week.

In his speech, released ahead of time, Albanese also says a Labor government would never use Kyoto credits to meet Australia’s Paris targets, as the government will do if that is necessary.

And Albanese again condemns the government for putting $4 million into a feasibility study for a coal-fired power station in Collinsville, Queensland.

But Albanese is leaving until closer to the election the shorter-term emissions reduction target Labor will adopt.

At the last election it committed to a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030. Labor first took that target to the 2016 election and Albanese has previously said it was a mistake not to review it before the 2019 poll.

He says in his speech the 2050 carbon-neutral target should be “as non-controversial in Australia as it is in most nations”.

“This will be a real target, with none of the absurd nonsense of so-called ‘carryover credits’ that the prime minister has cooked up to give the impression he’s doing something when he isn’t.

“That’s not acting. It’s cheating. And Australian’s aren’t cheaters.”

On the Collinsville project, he says: “Let’s be clear. There is nothing to stop a private company investing its money in such a proposal. The reason it hasn’t is it doesn’t stack up.”

The $4 million is “just hush money for the climate sceptics who are stopping any real reform and who stopped the National Energy Guarantee supported by Turnbull, Morrison and Frydenberg.

“It’s pathetic. If it made sense the market would provide funding.

“The climate sceptics are market sceptics as well,” Albanese says.

“Investors will not contribute because the economic risks are simply too great. The costs are higher and rising. And the cost of alternatives like renewables is lower and falling.

“Everyone in the electricity sector knows that the only way a new coal power plant will be built in Australia is through significant taxpayer subsidies, including a carbon risk indemnity that the Australian Industry Group estimates would cost up to $17 billion for a single plant.

“That’s why one hasn’t been opened since 2007, construction hasn’t begun on one since 2004 and tenders haven’t been called this century,” Albanese says.

Meanwhile the terms of reference for the bushfire royal commission, released by Morrison on Thursday steer away from the issue of emissions reduction.

They acknowledge “the changing global climate carries risks for the Australian environment and Australia’s ability to prevent, mitigate and respond to bushfires”. But the inquiry is to report on

• improving coordination across all levels of government in managing natural disasters
• improving preparedness, resilience, and response in dealing with natural disasters
• whether changes are needed to Australia’s legal framework for the involvement of the Commonwealth in responding to national emergencies.

– ref. Albanese pledges Labor government would have 2050 carbon-neutral target – https://theconversation.com/albanese-pledges-labor-government-would-have-2050-carbon-neutral-target-132205

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy N. W. Jackson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian Venom Research Unit, University of Melbourne

This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

Who would win in a fight between the Black Mamba and the Inland Taipan? – Biswajit Tripathy

Dear Biswajit,

What a fascinating question!

Before we start talking about the fight, we first need to think about why these two snakes got into the dust-up. Despite what many people think, snakes are generally very shy and cautious animals that will do their very best to avoid trouble.

This is sensible – why take the risk of getting hurt if you can avoid it?

Having said that, there are two main reasons why snakes get into fights with other snakes. During the breeding season, male snakes sometimes fight other male snakes of the same species.

We might think of this as a way of impressing the girls – not a good reason for a fight between two humans, but it seems to work for snakes. Because black mambas and inland taipans are two different species, though, we can rule out this reason for their biff.

The most likely reason for our showdown is that one snake is trying to eat the other.

A serving of snake might not seem very appetising to us, but a smaller snake is actually a very nice meal for a larger snake. Some species of snakes, like the king cobra, even specialise in eating other snakes – they are extremely fussy about their food and turn their noses up at almost any other meal.

Read more: Yes, Australian snakes will definitely kill you – if you’re a mouse

Black mambas normally eat mammals and birds, and inland taipans almost exclusively eat mammals like rats and mice, but most snakes will take advantage of an easy meal if it presents itself.

Before we get to the fun bit, we should note that black mambas are from Africa and inland taipans are from Australia. This means under natural circumstances, the two species would never meet.

In fact, black mambas and inland taipans are like the “alpha” snakes of Africa and Australia. They’re the top dogs of their turf and, once they become adult snakes, there aren’t too many other animals that want to tangle with them.

The battle

The stage is set, the combatants have entered the ring, there can be only one winner. Which will it be?

Snakes have two main ways of fighting: they can wrestle and they can bite. When boy snakes fight to impress the girls, they usually just wrestle, wrapping around and around each other to see who’s strongest, as each tries to pin his opponent’s head to the ground.

Read more: Curious Kids: What happens if a venomous snake bites another snake of the same species?

When snakes fight because one thinks the other would make a yummy snake snack, they fight dirty, by any means necessary, both wrestling and biting. Black mambas and inland taipans are both famously venomous, so their bites pack a serious punch!

But which venom is the more powerful weapon? Which one will give its owner the edge?

Taipan venom is extremely strong – it’s the most powerful snake venom there is, at least against mice. Black mamba venom, on the other hand, is extremely fast-acting.

We have good reason to believe taipan venom is specially designed for taking down rats as quickly as possible. But the way they do that – by interfering with the rat’s blood – probably won’t work well against the mamba.

Black mamba venom is designed for rapidly taking down birds as well as mammals, and this turns out to be an important point. If you’ve seen Jurassic Park (if you haven’t, stop whatever you’re doing and see it immediately!) you know birds are descended from dinosaurs.

Read more: Curious Kids: How do snakes make an ‘sssssss’ sound with their tongue poking out?

In fact, even though birds have feathers and (usually) fly, they’re actually just a special group of reptiles. Birds are more closely related to crocodiles than crocodiles are to lizards! This means that a venom that works well against birds probably works well against most other reptiles, including snakes.

The mamba has the edge when it comes to venom – watch out, inland taipan!

Wrestling is important too. And although mambas can grow very long and are very fast, taipans have more muscle and are probably stronger.

If the taipan was very careful not to get bitten during the scuffle, there’s a good chance it could overpower the mamba – watch out, black mamba!

Sizing up the opponent

These species are closely matched, each with their own special weapon they could use to win the fight. Remember, the reason these snakes are fighting is because one wants to eat the other, and only a silly snake – one with eyes bigger than its stomach – would try to eat a snake bigger than itself.

So who would win?

Although both species are highly venomous and each of their venoms is beautifully designed for subduing their natural prey, the biological reality is that the winner would probably be whichever snake was bigger on the day, regardless of species.

This is an important lesson for us about snakes – despite their impressively toxic venoms, they generally do not like to pick fights with animals that are much bigger than they are.

Read more: Explainer: what should you do if you’re bitten by a snake?

Since we humans are a lot bigger than snakes, they’d much prefer to hide from us and get out of our way as fast as possible. If we leave snakes alone, they will leave us alone – look, but don’t touch!

Even though our fantasy fight between the black mamba and inland taipan might never happen in reality, this was a great question because it made us think about snake biology, from behaviour to venom, in a fun way. Using our imagination to learn about the natural world is never a bad thing.

– ref. I’ve always wondered: who would win in a fight between the Black Mamba and the Inland Taipan? – https://theconversation.com/ive-always-wondered-who-would-win-in-a-fight-between-the-black-mamba-and-the-inland-taipan-129906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamen Franklen Gussen, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology

In 1971, a Time magazine article, titled “Should New York City Be the 51st State?”, observed:

States have not only short-changed and hamstrung their cities but are themselves the least creative and effective of the three levels of government.

Of course, the United States still doesn’t have a 51st state, but the issue of city governance remains alive and relevant to Australia. Our metropolitan cities have no metropolitan government.

There are state governments, which are meant to represent the whole of the state but of course are most concerned with the single biggest city (as that’s where most voters live), often neglecting the rest of the state. And there are local governments, none of which has responsibility for more than a small part of the capital city.

Perhaps it’s time to consider statehood for our largest and fastest-growing cities.

Read more: Metropolitan governance is the missing link in Australia’s reform agenda

Statehood has long been granted to global cities such as Berlin and Vienna (in the German and Austrian federations, respectively).

What might not be so obvious in Australia is that all our capital cities are effectively on the way to being city-states. This has had huge consequences for social well-being, economic development and global competitiveness.

What’s the problem?

Global cities – cities with a significant role in the global economy – like Sydney and Melbourne are gaining more power. It’s in line with a global trend of social, economic, technological and political convergence on cities.

This trend is especially obvious in Australia – about 90% of us live in urban areas. The capital cities alone account for 67% of the population and roughly 70% of GDP. Each state and territory has a lonesome metropolitan centre, surrounded by much smaller “satellites”.

Sizeable political gaps have emerged between urban and rural areas. At last year’s federal election, 60% of seats were in our capitals.

The growth and changing role of metropolitan cities means we should rethink their governance structures to meet their need of a strategic vision built on agglomeration. It’s about maximising the benefits of having many producers and people located near one another.

Read more: The growing skills gap between jobs in Australian cities and the regions

Western Australia, for example, has one substantial city, Perth. Its other much smaller centres function mainly as satellites to the capital.

Perth has been ranked as one of the top ten global cities of the future. Today, however, Perth is a “Beta +” city in the most recent Globalisation and Work Cities Research Network (GaWC) rankings. This means it is a city that links only moderate economic regions to the world economy.

In comparison, California has Los Angeles (Alpha), San Diego (Gamma), San Jose (Gamma) and San Francisco (Alpha -).

Western Australia is therefore, relatively, a city-state. It has only one global city.

Of course, saying Western Australia is a city-state is rather absurd, right? By definition, a city-state is a political organisation at a microscale, like Singapore, Berlin and Vienna. Western Australia has a land area about 3,500 times that of Singapore and roughly 2,800 times the area of Berlin.

But it’s equally absurd that vast expanses of the state have to be connected to the world economy through a lonesome Beta city. The absurdity is in the dilution of agglomeration effects, which come only from higher population density. Singapore has about 8,000 people per square kilometre, Berlin almost 4,000. And Western Australia? One.

A natural evolution

But hold on! Doesn’t Perth have its own government?

Well, no. Perth, like the other capitals, is made up of local government areas (LGAs) controlled directly by the state legislature. Perth has 30 LGAs. Sydney has 35, Melbourne 31 and Adelaide 17. Hobart and Brisbane have six LGAs each and even the smallest capital, Darwin, has three. The exception is Canberra, governed directly through the ACT Legislative Assembly.

We need to look at adding a fourth tier of government, metropolitan government, that can help harness the agglomeration effects in global cities. This proposition was advanced by a 2018 CSIRO book, Australian’s Metropolitan Imperative

Read more: Our cities need city-scale government – here’s what it should look like

But what would it do for people outside the capitals? How would the rest of Western Australia benefit from metropolitan government?

Lest the reader thinks I am picking on WA, I’ll elaborate my reasoning using the state where I live: Victoria. It’s not efficient for a state bigger than England (as is the case for every state and territory, except Tasmania and the ACT) to be servicing one metropolitan city.

Regional centres in Victoria, like Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat, service Melbourne to their disadvantage. Why to their disadvantage? Because a global city like Melbourne absorbs capital – human, physical and financial capital – from these cities. These cities will remain satellites of the global city.

Read more: Regional cities beware – fast rail might lead to disadvantaged dormitories, not booming economies

Think of the territorial evolution of Australia. Had Victoria not split from New South Wales in 1851, how likely is it that Melbourne would be a global city today?

To help the rest of Australia grow, the territorial evolution that started in the 19th century, and was interrupted in the 20th century, has to continue in the 21st century.

Note that this is an evolutionary argument. Over time, we expect more Australian cities to reach the level of population density and economic growth that would require statehood.

Read more: A patchwork of City Deals or a national settlement strategy: what’s best for our growing cities?

In 2013, demographer Bernard Salt predicted Townsville would become a metropolitan city by 2026, with more people living in north Queensland than in the state of Tasmania. North Queensland statehood would only help this evolution, just as it helped Brisbane in the 1800s.

In 1949, David Henry Drummond, who served in the House of Representatives and in the NSW Legislative Assembly, noted:

It is significant that since the Imperial Parliament handed over the control of Australia to the Commonwealth, no new State has been created, notwithstanding that Sir Henry Parkes, the founder of the Federation, said – ‘that as a matter of reason and logical forecast, the division of the existing colonies into smaller areas to equalise the distribution of political power, will be the next great constitutional change’.

The imperative for the Commonwealth is to pursue this “great constitutional change”. At the very least, it’s time to have a healthy national conversation about how we can boost our capital cities’ global status through a new drive for statehood.

– ref. Australia, we need to talk about who governs our city-states – https://theconversation.com/australia-we-need-to-talk-about-who-governs-our-city-states-119884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ida Kubiszewski, Associate professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Labor’s treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, wants to follow New Zealand’s example and introduce a “wellbeing budget” alongside the traditional budget that stresses economic growth, when Labor is next in office.

New Zealand’s budget, introduced last year, targets mental health, child welfare, indigenous reconciliation, the environment, suicide, and homelessness, along side more traditional measures such as productivity and investment.

Iceland is drawing up its own plans and Scotland isn’t far behind.

The United Nations is also promoting the concept through Sustainable Development Goals, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development through a Better Life Index.

The international Wellbeing Economy Alliance has thousands of individual members, more than 100 institutional members, a handful of governmental members, and is quickly growing.

Life satisfaction can be measured

Life satisfaction isn’t to difficult to measure, and can be compared between countries, over time.

The Gallup Organisation regularly asks the same question in 150 countries covering 98% of the world’s population:

Imagine an 11-rung ladder where the bottom (0) represents the worst possible life for you and the top (10) represents the best possible life for you

On which step of the ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time?

In a similar way, Australia’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey (HILDA) asks:

All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life?

Answer on a scale from 0 (totally dissatisfied) to 10 (totally satisfied)

But it varies from place to place

In Australia, the national average can be misleading. Our analysis of the HILDA data, published in the journal of Ecological Economics, finds significant differences between areas of Australia related to factors such as environment, employment, health, and social structures, amongst others.

The map below shows that, while the national average was 7.5, in some areas of Australia the regional average was as low as 3. In other regions, it was as high as 10.

Average life satisfaction by region 2001-2017, scale 0 to 10

But even these averages hide people with extraordinarily low levels of life satisfaction.

On average, 3% of the Australians surveyed between 2001 and 2017 reported a score between 0 and 4, a range so low as to be considered “suffering” by Gallup.

Over the same period, around 10% reported a score between 5 and 6 (“struggling”) and 87% reported a score between 7 and 10 (“thriving”).

Acknowledging this diversity is critical to ensuring happy lives for all Australians.

And what helps varies by location

What matters to life satisfaction appears to also vary from place to place.

We found that what matters most in parts of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales is the relationships people have with their children and partners. In a large part of Western Australia it is built infrastructure. In some other parts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory it is personal health.

What matters most for life satisfaction by location

It’s the same with what harms life satisfaction.

In South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and even parts of Queensland, inequality in life satisfaction itself contributes most to decreasing of life satisfaction.

In the central Northern Territory it’s the harsh environment. In parts of Western Australia it’s simply being a male, or having children.

What most harms life satisfaction by location

None of this means that all of these factors aren’t important to all of us to some extent.

What it does mean is that there are difference in how each of us prioritises what is more important. Some of us choose careers while others choose large families, some choose nightclubs and five-star restaurants while others choose remote beaches.

Read more: How do we measure well-being?

It means that while national programs can be useful, local and regional policies can be critical.

Formulating local policies is time-consuming and complex, and requires information, but it is worthwhile.

It might help to add another question or two to the census with answers recorded by location.

One might be: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life?”

– ref. Labor is right to talk about well-being, but it depends on where you live – https://theconversation.com/labor-is-right-to-talk-about-well-being-but-it-depends-on-where-you-live-129704

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Andreallo, Honorary research fellow, University of Sydney

A sea of oversized hair bows bobs through primary school gates each morning. It might be dismissed as a harmless children’s fad but big bows are back, driven by current fashions, tween influencers and celebrities.

Hair bows have a long history that includes the cushiony large posh bows of the 1980s, and more recently Lady Gaga’s hair bow made of hair. In the 1940s, teenage girls wore hair bows as signs of sexual availability.

Over the last century or so they’ve signified femininity, but historical sources indicate it wasn’t always that way.

For the boys

The hair bow was originally gender-specific to adult males in Europe throughout the 1700s when men adorned their hair with bows to show they were prosperous and extravagant.

Women also wore extravagant hairstyles, but these did not often feature hair bows; rather large ornaments and jewels were preferred.

After the French Revolution extravagance in dress and hairstyle was frowned upon and hair bows were rarely worn. By the 1800s it became common for male children to wear hair bows tying hair at the nape of the neck.

Women throughout the 19th century wore hair ornaments and hats, but the hair bow only really achieved widespread popularity in the 20th century before the second world war.

Pretty but strong

The hair bow today most commonly projects ideas of innocence linked to children and a concept of femininity as linked to qualities of gentleness, softness and compliance.

It may be precisely because the hair bow projects such ideals that it has also been employed as a means of empowerment for both female and male bodies.

During the war in 1942 the wartime propaganda We Can Do It poster – designed by Miller for Westinghouse Electric – appeared in the company factories to encourage women at work in the facilities.

The poster depicts an active female holding up her arm to show strength. She wears a red and white spotted scarf in her hair knotted at the top. The female body is presented as strong and able. The bow is minimal in size, and in this context also becomes functional – to keep the woman’s hair off her face – rather than simply decorative.

In the 1980s, singers Madonna and Boy George wore bows as symbols of feminine performance. Both pop icons wore the bow as a sign of celebration and transgression. The small fashion moment subtly exposed the social limitations of ideas of femininity.

Madonna wore the hair bow in a subversive manner, poking fun at social constraints projected onto the female body by being girlish and powerfully sexy at the same time.

The innocence of the girly bow, lollipops, white wedding dresses and religious iconography both in her name and the crucifixes she wore contrasted with the sexy and outgoing image she personally projected. Like the titles of her songs and albums – Material Girl, Immaculate Collection, Like a Virgin – the bow poked fun at how women are constrained by the stereotypes of innocence, virginity and femininity.

Meanwhile, Boy George, identifying as male, wore a hair bow during this period to perform femininity. In doing so, he highlighted the hair bow as something socially considered as limited to feminine presentation, but not necessarily limited to a female body.

Gaming gender

Today the hair bow is so intrinsically linked exclusively to femininity performed by a female body that we often see characters in games gendered simply by a hair bow.

In 1981, Ms Pac-Man was released in game form with a hair bow to distinguish her from the original male game protagonist.

Wendy O. Koopa of Super Mario fame relies mainly on a big pink polka dot hair bow (even though she has no hair), but gender is also indicated with a beaded necklace, large lips and long eyelashes. Super Mario character Birdo wears a large pink hair bow tied onto her head (like Wendy, the pink dinosaur does not have hair) and has been hailed as the first transgender game character to hit screens.

Nintendo game character Marmar is probably the most explicit use of the bow to indicate gender. She is a gold star with no other indicators except a big pink hair bow a third of the size of her body. We are familiar with bows as a way of marking femininity through characters such as Ub Iwerks and Walk Disney’s Minnie Mouse who debuted in 1928.

JoJo with the bow bow

Most recently American child pop star JoJo Siwa’s iconic oversized bow has been the point of great fan connection with many children under 11 years old wearing the oversized and often glamorous bows in public.

Siwa, originally known for her role in reality-TV series Dance Moms (2014), connects with her fans through YouTube and a number of songs with dance videos such as Kid in the Candy Store (2016) and Hold the Drama (2014).

Her Facebook account has more than 6.2 million followers made up of mothers and fans from Australia, UK, US and New Zealand. There are many images of children wearing the bow and often they are pictured with their mothers, suggesting a bond of mother-daughter through femininity.

The JoJo bows are reminiscent of the white Soviet Union bantiki bows, worn from the 1940s on to show national allegiance.

At first glance, JoJo’s large bows might be dismissed as dance costume, dress-ups or linked to cheerleading. The practice of wearing them is evident in new Netflix documentary Cheer, which features college athletes competing in body-punishing routines in an effort to win the national championship. Despite being thrown high in the air and landing heavily, their stiff bows remain unmoved.

JoJo asserts the hair bow is more than a look. In an interview with the Children’s British Broadcasting Corporation, JoJo said:

A bow is more than just a hair accessory […] It is a sign, a symbol of power, confidence, and (this is not a word, but) believing-ness, like literally, it’s just a good thing.

The hair bow is more than a piece of ribbon. The bow for Siwa and her fans carries power, confidence, “believe-ingness” and goodness.

Luxe for ladies

Bows have come back into fashion in the last few years: worn by the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, and well-heeled celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain and Margot Robbie.

The symbolism has been extended to high-end consumerism, with some bow-wearers repurposing the characteristic decorations on Chanel, Dior and Chloe shopping bags for their hair.

Though we’ve seen many man buns, the trend of hair bows for men has yet to return, and it may be some time before the bow transitions from necktie to men’s heads. If it does have a resurgence, we’ll know it’s nothing new.

– ref. Friday essay: scarlet ribbons – the huge history of big hair bows – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-scarlet-ribbons-the-huge-history-of-big-hair-bows-131389

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

Seen as a political narrative, the Morrison government’s handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) fits the patterns of its approaches on border security and anti-terrorism.

Stressing the central imperative is to “keep Australians safe”, it has taken the most risk-averse path.

With the exception of returning Australians and their immediate families, the border has been closed to people who’ve been recently in China. On Thursday the ban was extended until at least February 29, which would be a month’s shutdown.

The border-closure went beyond the World Health Organisation’s stand, which did not recommend any travel restrictions, although many other countries did impose them.

Those Australians from the government-organised flights from Wuhan and the cruise ship Diamond Princess were put into quarantine on Christmas Island and a centre near Darwin.

All through, the government has stressed it has acted on the advice of its medical experts.

Coincidentally, the political advice would probably have accorded with the medical. People are easily spooked; they want to feel protected to the maximum. And with only a handful of cases in Australia, that goal has been achieved.

The travel ban is now a week-to-week matter.

The problem for the government is that the timing of its lifting will inevitably have an element of arbitrariness.

The government has to be able to say it is based on medical advice. Even so, whenever the border is reopened, there’ll still be many new COVID-19 cases emerging in China.

But the longer the ban stays – in other words, the more cautious the government remains – the greater the cost to the Australian economy.

Read more: Australian unis may need to cut staff and research if government extends coronavirus travel ban

It sounds, and is, a crude proposition, but there is a trade off here between Australia’s health security and its economic wellbeing, and at some point the balance will have to swing in favour of the latter.

Scott Morrison said on Thursday the “first priority” was the health and welfare of Australians, but added, “We’re also very mindful though of the significant economic impacts of this virus, but that’s not restricted to Australia, that is happening globally”.

Morrison flagged the government was working on some arrangements to mitigate the effect on the university sector, which has seen about 100,000 students in limbo.

If the ban is kept on too long, deepening the economic harm, the government will pay the price later. There is already some questioning of whether the ban’s economic damage is greater than the risk posed by an open border.

There was a hint in the government’s statement extending the ban that its lifting might not be too far away. The health experts had advised “there are signs the spread of the coronavirus in Chinese provinces outside Hubei province is slowing. We will need to watch closely whether this positive trend continues as people return to work after the holidays,” it said.

The coronavirus has been a sharp reminder of how vulnerable Australia is, despite all its strengths. This vulnerability has been exposed on multiple fronts: specific industries and exports with considerable China-dependency, notably tertiary education and tourism; parts of the small business sector; the wider economy, and the budget.

The economic fallouts are direct and indirect. The impact of the virus on the Chinese economy will flow through to the international economy, adding to the headwinds Australia faces.

Read more: Coronavirus: the blow to the Chinese economy could be felt for years

COVID-19 is set to be more serious for our economy than the impact of the bushfires, and its implications are harder to assess.

No one can judge how long the disruption will last. It affects supply chains, with some Australian manufacturers finding their inputs hard to get because of factories closing in China. As well, with fewer air services available, it is more difficult to dispatch some products to China.

The virus’s economic impact will be at the centre of discussions at the G20 finance ministers meeting in Saudi Arabia which treasurer Josh Frydenberg attends this weekend.

On another front, COVID-19 has seen the latest manifestation of that strand running back through Australian history, which used to be called our fear of the “yellow peril”.

Leaving aside loss of business from absent Chinese tourists and students, there is no objective reason why customers should have deserted Chinese restaurants. Certainly there should be no backlash against Chinese people in Australia. But old prejudices are never far below the surface.

The Victorian government this week announced measures to show “solidarity” with the Chinese community, including lighting iconic buildings in red and gold, and roundtables to “bring Chinese community leaders together to share ideas on how to revitalise local businesses and boost trade”. The state government plans to lead a delegation of 100 Victorian businesses to China.

Coronavirus has complicated Australia’s already difficult relationship with Chinese authorities. The Chinese government has been very critical of the travel ban, calling it “extreme” and an “overreaction”.

While the federal government wouldn’t be too concerned about the criticism itself – the Chinese were unforgivably secretive about the virus initially – it potentially complicates a situation where there are more matters to be negotiated.

These include arrangements by tertiary institutions for online courses.

Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia and chair of the government’s Global Reputation Taskforce, which is advising on how best to assist the education sector post coronavirus, says the Chinese government will have to approve such online courses.

“Any offshore qualification has to be signed off by the Chinese ministry of education in order for the Chinese student, when they go home, to get the official certification from their own government that would help them in the job market,” he says.

“And this is a challenge in itself, at the best of times, with some courses. And now we have this conundrum of … will the ministry of education agree to compromise on what in the past has been fairly rigid rules around academic credit from online learning?”

COVID-19 will have a long-term impact on the thinking of universities, a number of which were already aware of the danger of the sector’s over-reliance on the Chinese market.

In economic terms, the government hopes COVID-19 will not go beyond a short sharp shock. It is a salutary reminder of how much Australia’s economic fortunes are tied to one country, but in practical terms the scope for reducing that dependence is very limited.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Government juggles health security and wealth security as China travel ban extended – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-government-juggles-health-security-and-wealth-security-as-china-travel-ban-extended-132202

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

The coronavirus is presenting a major threat to Australia’s education export industry, which is highly dependant upon the China market, and a huge challenge to the universities. Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia says:

“At the end of the day, China is the most heavily populated country in the world, it’s on our regional doorstep and it has an incredible appetite for having their children study offshore.”

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Phil Honeywood on the coronavirus challenge for universities – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-phil-honeywood-on-the-coronavirus-challenge-for-universities-132196

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

The corona virus is presenting a major threat to Australia’s education export industry, which is highly dependant upon the China market, and a huge challenge to the universities. Phillip Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia says:

“At the end of the day, China is the most heavily populated country in the world, it’s on our regional doorstep and it has an incredible appetite for having their children study offshore.”

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Phillip Honeywood on the corona virus challenge for universities. – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-phillip-honeywood-on-the-corona-virus-challenge-for-universities-132196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stacey L Rowe, PhD candidate, Monash University

Today’s evacuation of about 180 passengers from the cruise ship Diamond Princess to serve another period of quarantine back in Australia has raised questions about the best way to control spread of the coronavirus.

The passengers had already spent 14 days quarantined on board the ship, which had been docked in Japan, and now face another 14 days at the Howard Springs quarantine facility close to Darwin.

Di Stephens, Northern Territory’s acting chief health officer, told the ABC today:

These people need to go into quarantine because we are not entirely convinced that the quarantine procedures on that ship were 100% effective.

By contrast, Japan’s health ministry is allowing hundreds of people to leave the ship without being subject to further quarantine.

So what’s behind Australia’s announcement to impose a second quarantine period? And what were conditions like on board to prompt this decision?

What’s quarantine?

Quarantines have been put in place around the world as part of the global public health response to COVID-19 – the disease caused by a new coronavirus, now named SARS-CoV-2.

The idea is to limit the spread of the virus within and between countries.

Formal measures designed to limit contact between infected (or potentially infected) people are called “social distancing”. And they have been used to control communicable diseases for at least 2,500 years.

Read more: Remote village to metropolis: how globalisation spreads infectious diseases

Today, the term quarantine refers to the separation or restriction of movement of people who are not ill but are believed to have been exposed to an infectious disease.

This differs to isolation, which is the term used for the separation or restriction of movement of people who are ill, thereby minimising onward transmission.

How long should quarantine last?

Quarantine periods are determined by certain characteristics of the infectious agent, most notably the incubation period. This is the period between being exposed to it and symptoms appearing.

For COVID-19, the average incubation period is thought to be around six days, and can range from two to 11 days.

While a preliminary report has suggested a longer incubation period of up to 24 days, this is considered unlikely.

Read more: How contagious is the Wuhan coronavirus and can you spread it before symptoms start?

People who have been in close contact with someone confirmed to have COVID-19 are considered to have been potentially exposed to the virus. As a precaution, these people are placed in quarantine, essentially to “sit out” their potential incubation period.

The quarantine period of 14 days currently being used in Australia and elsewhere for COVID-19 takes into account the maximum known incubation period for this disease, plus a few extra days as a reasonable precaution.

In quarantine, people will either develop the disease and have symptoms or they will remain well. In theory, if a person remains well after their period of quarantine, they are deemed uninfected and restrictions are lifted.

Another factor that influences how long someone needs to be quarantined is the infectious period. That’s the period during which the infection can be transmitted from one person to another.

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

If the infectious period starts before the symptoms (from asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic individuals), the virus can be transmitted silently. This can substantially complicate disease prevention and control.

When a new virus emerges – as with SARS-CoV-2 – the infectious period is largely unknown. While the proportion of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic COVID-19 cases is not clear, it is increasingly apparent people can be infected without having any symptoms. However, further evidence is needed to see if these people can infect others.

When is it best to extend the quarantine period?

Crucial to quarantine is ensuring that best possible infection control practices are put in place to prevent ongoing transmission.

It is also essential to assess real-time data about newly diagnosed cases, which tells us how effective quarantine measures have been.

In some circumstances, it may be necessary to extend a person’s period of quarantine, as in the case of the Australian citizens on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess.

Read more: Cruise ships can be floating petri dishes of gastro bugs. 6 ways to stay healthy at sea this summer

So, what happened on board the Diamond Princess?

Data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) give us clues to what’s behind Australia’s decision to impose a second period of quarantine.

The graph below shows there may have been up to four possible waves of infections on board, including an initial undetected wave before quarantine measures were imposed.

These data demonstrate ongoing SARS-CoV-2 transmission between people on board during the quarantine period. It also indicates breaches in infection control on board may have contributed to ongoing waves of infections, which an expert highlights in the video below.

Evidence of ongoing transmission during the quarantine period supports the decision by several countries to evacuate their citizens from the Diamond Princess, including Australia, to “reset the clock” and to impose a further 14-day quarantine period.

This additional measure – while causing considerable and understandable frustration to those affected – is designed to limit transmission of COVID-19 within Australia.

The rights of individuals versus public good

Implementing public health measures, such as isolation and quarantine, requires decision-making that balances the rights of individuals and public good.

When appropriately designed and implemented, quarantine and isolation work. Even when quarantine is not absolutely adhered to, it can still be effective at reducing the likelihood of large-scale outbreaks.

With SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), these strategies were thought to have been an important part in controlling the epidemic, though they were resource and labour intensive.

Read more: Yes, there’s merit in quarantining people on Christmas Island to prevent the spread of coronavirus

– ref. Yes, Australians on board the Diamond Princess need to go into quarantine again. It’s time to reset the clock – https://theconversation.com/yes-australians-on-board-the-diamond-princess-need-to-go-into-quarantine-again-its-time-to-reset-the-clock-131906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tess Hardy, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Melbourne

Australian supermarket giant Coles and discount chain Target this week joined an ignominious list of large corporations caught up in “wage theft” scandals.

Coles confessed to underpaying salaried employees about A$20 million over the past six years. Target admitted to underpaying staff about A$9 million.

Other large companies guilty of underpaying employees include Bunnings, which underpaid its staff about A$4 million in superannuation entitlements, and Woolworths, which underpaid employees up to A$300 million over ten years.

These cases – along with a string of others involving small and medium enterprises – reinforce the need for reform.

Read more: Shocking yet not surprising: wage theft has become a culturally accepted part of business

Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter has said he will introduce legislation within weeks to criminalise the worst cases of worker exploitation and underpayment.

Heavier sanctions may be appropriate. But harsher civil or criminal penalties will not, on their own, lead to greater compliance.

Beyond penalties and punishment

Not surprisingly, Rob Scott, the chief executive of Wesfarmers (the parent company of both Target and Bunnings), is among those opposed to penalising companies for “inadvertent administrative errors”.

“I’m not sure more punitive penalties are necessarily going to change behaviour at all,” he said this week. “There have been some significant issues across payroll systems in the market, which in part reflects the incredible complexity of the systems that we’re dealing with.”

Read more: No, a ‘complex’ system is not to blame for corporate wage theft

Even if these underpayments were not deliberate, companies were – in the words of Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker – “lax and lazy” about complying with their obligations. It is hard to believe a corporation like Wesfarmers – one of Australia’s ten biggest listed companies – does not have the resources to pay people correctly.

Nonetheless, Scott does raise a valid point. Changing the compliance culture in Australia will not be straightforward.

There is much research that suggests promoting, achieving and sustaining compliance with the law is about much more than just penalties, punishment and deterrence.

There is also limited evidence to support the idea that criminalising wage theft will alone act as a regulatory panacea. This is especially the case where underpayment is primarily committed by corporations rather than individuals.

Risk of detection

My colleague John Howe and I have researched employer non-compliance with the Fair Work Act in the hairdressing and restaurant industries. Our findings confirm conclusions drawn in previous studies relating to environmental violations, tax evasion and cartel conduct: it is the perceived risk of detection, not the severity of the sanction, that is most likely to enhance deterrence and encourage compliance.

If the perception of being caught is critical, then what counts are the resources available to the Fair Work Ombudsman to strategically intervene and to be seen to be doing so – that is, by widely publicising enforcement outcomes.

On these points the current system has at least two vulnerabilities. These will remain even if criminal penalties are introduced and civil penalties increased.

First, various federal government commitments to boost funding for the Fair Work Ombudsman have not resulted in any discernible increase in the number of Fair Work inspectors or other staff.

It is no coincidence that trade unions – the organisations that have historically supplemented government detection efforts – are struggling to keep up with demand in the sectors most prone to wage theft, such as horticulture and hospitality.

Read more: All these celebrity restaurant wage-theft scandals point to an industry norm

While Porter is promising the “most vigorous, robust and complete set of laws around wage underpayment that Australia’s ever seen”, there’s no sign the government will do anything that might enhance the role of the union in this space.

Contraventions are generally detected by the regulator through proactive inspections and individual complaints. But most complaints are settled confidentially. This may mean quicker redress for workers, but it has limited deterrent effect.

Effective reforms

The prospect of criminalising wage theft grabs headlines. But in making this change it is essential policy makers do not lose sight of the total reform agenda needed to make a real difference.

The Fair Work Ombudsman needs sufficient resourcing and enhanced enforcement tools and detection mechanisms. Dispute-resolution and court processes for workers seeking to recover pay need to be streamlined. Auditors that tick off company accounts and processes also need to be to held to account.

Finally, prosecutions and penalties need to occur and be public, so employers know transgressions of workplace law – inadvertent or not – do have consequences.

– ref. Criminal penalties for corporate wage theft are appealing, but won’t fix the problem on their own – https://theconversation.com/criminal-penalties-for-corporate-wage-theft-are-appealing-but-wont-fix-the-problem-on-their-own-132021

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne

Since July last year, bushfires have burned more than 7.7 million hectares of southeast Australia, putting many threatened species at increased risk of extinction.

Now that fires have been extinguished in some areas, surviving wildlife face other challenges, such as a lack of food, clean water and shelter, and more exposure to invasive predators.

Read more: These plants and animals are now flourishing as life creeps back after bushfires

Australians have helped raise millions of dollars to support Australia’s imperilled wildlife, such as to set up triage centres and evacuate threatened species like eastern bristlebirds and Macquarie perch.

But beyond the vital role of providing financial support, here are a few simple things individuals can do – and avoid – to help our native wildlife recover.

Animals need fresh water, but not from a bottle

Photos of well-meaning people offering water from bottles to animals, especially thirsty koalas, often go viral online. But this is not a safe way to help koalas.

Animals must be allowed to drink water themselves, rather than us pouring water into their mouths. Animals, such as koalas, can’t drink quickly and poured water can fill their lungs, leading to potentially fatal aspiration pneumonia.

Still, providing safe, fresh drinking water is one crucial and practical way we can help them as summer grinds on.

This is particularly important since recent storms have washed ash, sediment and chemicals from burnt infrastructure into waterways, contaminating many catchments.

Water should be stationed at ground level, in a shaded location safe from predators, and in trees for birds and tree-dwelling species like possums, gliders and koalas. Check out DIY guides for building drinking fountains, or “watering pods”, for wildlife.

Sticks and rocks should be placed in the water to allow small species, such as reptiles, to climb out if they fall in. Water must be checked and changed regularly to ensure hygiene and avoid the spread of disease. And pets must be kept away from these locations (especially cats).

What to do if you spot injured wildlife by the road

Authorities are searching the fire grounds for injured animals, and the public is reminded to avoid these areas until they’re confirmed as safe to enter.

But if you happen upon an injured survivor, what should you do?

First of all, call government agencies or trained wildlife rescuers, who can assist any injured wildlife.

Many animals may be in pain and frightened and some, including kangaroos, koalas and wombats, are potentially dangerous if approached. In urgent cases, such as when an animal is in obvious distress or has clear injuries, some animals can be carefully caught and wrapped in a towel, then placed in a well-ventilated, dark and secure box for quiet transport to wildlife veterinary hospitals for care.

Sadly, many animals are hit by cars during fires when they’re disoriented and panicked, and so it’s important to slow down in such areas.

You can also check animals found by roads for injuries and surviving young in pouches, and call authorities to assist. But always be careful of traffic when attending to animals on roadsides, and help other drivers be aware of you by putting hazard lights on and wearing bright clothes.

Don’t feed native wildlife, especially not peanut butter mixes

With so much vegetation burned away, supplementary feeding has gained attention following fires in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

But feeding wildlife without expert advice and legal approval can do more harm than good.

Feeding inappropriate foods like processed foods, over-feeding, providing unhygienic foods or food stations, and attracting predators to food stations, can all be fatal for native wildlife.

Read more: Fire almost wiped out rare species in the Australian Alps. Feral horses are finishing the job

Even some foods suggested online, such as bait balls (peanut butter mixes), can cause gastrointestinal issues for wildlife, potentially killing them. Similar issues can arise if wildlife are given some types of hay, vegetables, seeds, and fruits.

Supplementary feeding isn’t advised unless habitat and sources of food have been completely destroyed, and is only appropriate as a short-term emergency intervention until natural resources recover.

But leave it up to the experts and government agencies, which provide nutritionally suitable, specially developed and monitored food in extreme cases.

Somewhere to run and hide

In some cases, fire may mean native animals are more prone to predators killing and eating them. And, depending on the habitat, it may take months or even years for plants and animals’ homes to recover sufficiently to provide safety once again.

However, new approaches – such as building artificial shelters out of fencing wire and shade cloth – may help to buy species time, keeping small mammals, reptiles and other potential prey safe from hungry mouths. This could occur both on private and public land.

Show wildlife the money

Caring for wildlife after fires, whether they’re injured or have lost their homes, is a marathon, not a sprint. And given the scale of these fires, our wild neighbours need our increased support.

Often, the most helpful thing people can do is raise and donate funds to organisations, including Zoos Victoria and the Ecological Society of Australia.

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

Some wildife species, such as bristlebirds, corroboree frogs, and mountain pygmy-possums, are being pushed to the brink of extinction and may need long-term captive breeding and release programs, or investment in active management of wild populations (such as the newly constructed feral predator-free area for Kangaroo Island dunnarts).

We can all help to make a difference and protect our remarkable and unique wildlife that so desperately needs our help.

– ref. How you can help – not harm – wild animals recovering from bushfires – https://theconversation.com/how-you-can-help-not-harm-wild-animals-recovering-from-bushfires-131385

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jianling Xie, Postdoctoral Scientist, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute

Researchers in the United States have unveiled the structure of the “spike protein” of 2019-nCoV – the virus behind the current coronavirus disease outbreak.

Despite the fact that researchers have already pieced together the virus’s genetic sequence, the World Health Organisation has warned that a vaccine is still 18 months away.

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

But knowing the structure of the virus’s spike protein gives us crucial information about exactly how the virus infects host cells. This could be a vital piece of the puzzle in making the hoped-for vaccine a reality.

What is a spike protein?

A viral spike protein is like a key that “unlocks the door” to gain access to the cells of a specific host – humans, in this case. To understand how to deal with 2019-nCoV, we first need to understand what this key looks like, and what “keyhole” it targets on human cells. This is exactly what the new paper, published overnight in Science, is all about.

The researchers, led by Jason McLellan of the University of Texas at Austin, defined the structure of 2019-nCoV’s spike protein using a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy, or “Cryo-EM”. This involves cooling the protein to below -150℃, so that it crystallises and then its structure can be determined with near-atomic resolution.

They also identified the “keyhole”, the host cell receptor: it is a human protein called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This is the same human receptor protein targeted by the earlier SARS coronavirus.

But, disturbingly, the researchers found that 2019-nCoV binds to ACE2 with much higher affinity (10-20 times higher!) than SARS. In other words, 2019-nCoV’s “key” is a lot “stickier” than the SARS one. It’s like a SARS “key” covered in superglue. This means that once it’s in the lock, it’s far less likely to be shaken loose and is therefore presumably more effective at invading our cells.

So what about a vaccine?

The researchers reasoned that, given that both viruses attack the same protein on human cells, it would be worth seeing whether the already available antibodies against SARS-CoV would work against 2019-nCoV. Unfortunately, they didn’t work.

This means we still have to wait for a stronger solution to this problem. Perhaps this is a reflection of the ongoing “arms race” between humans and viruses. We have stronger weapons now, thanks to scientific advances, but our enemies are gaining strength too – now they are using superglue against us!

Read more: We’re in danger of drowning in a coronavirus ‘infodemic’. Here’s how we can cut through the noise

Globally, the competition is heating up to hunt for the best anti-2019-nCoV vaccine. But as the old Chinese proverb says, “distant water can’t put out a nearby fire”. The earliest clinical trials to test a suitable vaccine will not be available until several months or even a year after a candidate vaccine is identified, and the global coronavirus outbreak may well be controlled by then.

The discovery of the 2019-nCoV spike protein structure therefore represents both good news and bad. The good news is now we know what it looks like, it will be easier to find the most suitable weapon against the virus. The bad news is the enemy is much stronger than we thought, and our current ammunition depot doesn’t have anything efficient against it.

– ref. Revealed: the protein ‘spike’ that lets the 2019-nCoV coronavirus pierce and invade human cells – https://theconversation.com/revealed-the-protein-spike-that-lets-the-2019-ncov-coronavirus-pierce-and-invade-human-cells-132183

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Daley, Chief Executive Officer, Grattan Institute

The Australian government will soon decide whether it will extend its ban on travellers from China for another week.

The Department of Home Affairs has already extended the original two week travel ban (that began on February 1) by one week.

Anyone who has left or transited mainland China within the previous 14 days (with some exceptions including Australians citizens) will be denied entry into Australia until February 22.

But with about 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus being confirmed every day, the ban could well be extended even further.

More than 100,000 international students are estimated to be stuck in China, unable to start their academic year in Australia.

With the substantial loss of revenue from these students, universities will likely need to make cuts to their staff and research budgets.

How the travel ban affects universiites

The number of international students studying at Australian universities has increased dramatically in the past two decades. International student contributions extend beyond fees. These students spend money on accommodation, food and other experiences while they are here.

In 2018, international students contributed A$32 billion to the Australian economy. One third of that – $11 billion – was from the 160,000 students from China who studied in Australia that year.

Some Australian universities are more exposed to the Chinese student market than others. The University of Sydney took in about A$750 million from international students in 2017 (the latest year the data were available).

We have calculated two-thirds of that – about $500 million – came from international students from China. That same year, the University of Sydney had an operating surplus of $200 million.

The figure below shows the ten Australian universities with the highest revenue from Chinese international students. All these universities had an operating surplus in 2017.

The current reserves of these ten universities reportedly range from $48 million to $3.9 billion.

These universities are in good financial position to weather the storm. But whether university revenues are cut by a few weeks, a semester, or longer, they will inevitably look at reducing costs.

With materially fewer students to teach, they will look to reduce classes and cut teaching staff. Around 23% of their full time employees are casuals without employment security.

Cutting the hours of these employees would be the easiest way for universities to mitigate the hit to the bottom line.

But cutting costs can’t fill the hole: the revenue from foreign students substantially exceeds the costs of teaching them.

Australian universities generated a surplus of about A$1.2 billion on international onshore students in 2013. International student revenues have almost doubled since then, so the surplus budgeted for 2020 before coronavirus hit would have been a lot higher.

This loss of revenue will also have flow on effects for research, 20% of which is funded by student fees.

The government should lift the funding cap

Universities are doing what they can to accommodate students still in China. Monash University has delayed its teaching semester by a week to March 9, and will conduct its first week entirely online.

The University of Sydney will start on February 24 as normal, but it will delay some postgraduate business courses that have high international student numbers.

Universities are also offering online-only alternatives to international students for first-semester subjects.

But delayed start dates will work only if the travel ban is lifted in the coming weeks. Online-only study deprives international students of the campus-and-country experience they have paid for, so that option may not prove attractive.

And the problem will be far larger if this cohort of Chinese international students don’t come at all, instead choosing to study at home or elsewhere abroad.

All of this comes at a bad time for Australia’s university sector. While the Department of Home Affairs is restricting its access to international students this academic year, the Department of Education is restricting its access to domestic students next year and beyond.

The Commonwealth government effectively ended the demand-driven funding system at the end of 2017. During the years the model was operational, universities could enrol unlimited numbers of bachelor-degree students into any discipline other than medicine and be paid for every one of them.

In 2017, the government put a freeze on domestic bachelor places for two years, with population-linked adjustments from 2020 for universities that met certain performance criteria.

Read more: Demand-driven funding for universities is frozen. What does this mean and should the policy be restored?

By the luck of a demographic slump, the number of people finishing year 12 in Australia has been flat, and so the freeze has been of little consequence so far.

But that will change in the coming years. More domestic students will be knocking on the doors of cash-strapped universities.

The freeze means universities desperately needing revenue will lose many school leavers who would otherwise have studied at university under the demand driven system.

The Commonwealth government can’t fix an international pandemic. But it can lift the cap on domestic students.

– ref. Australian unis may need to cut staff and research if government extends coronavirus travel ban – https://theconversation.com/australian-unis-may-need-to-cut-staff-and-research-if-government-extends-coronavirus-travel-ban-132175

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Callick, Industry Fellow, Griffith University

Brand “People’s Republic of China” is wobbling, as if the massive picture of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square was swaying with an earthquake tremor. But it can only actually fall if pushed from inside.

The handling of the coronavirus epidemic is undoubtedly sapping confidence in the Communist party and its formerly all-conquering general secretary, Xi Jinping.

Any country or ruling party would struggle if faced with a similarly massive challenge – exacerbated by the great annual domestic migration for Lunar New Year.

But the party and its leader shoulder especially great ambitions of entering a “new era” created by Xi to “realise the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.”

Read more: Why the coronavirus has become a major test for the leadership of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party

National elders selected Xi as leader in 2012 to purge corruption and purify the party. He has replaced most senior officials, including in the People’s Liberation Army, with those who supported his rise through the provincial ranks in Fujian and Zhejiang.

Xi has restructured the party, personalised and centralised power. Leveraging the anti-corruption campaign, he has also built the central party’s vast surveillance and control powers.

Losing the ‘mandate of heaven’

The big question now is how this renovated party structure is holding up against the appalling coronavirus epidemic. Particularly as it compounds an economic slowdown already exacerbated by the trade-and-tech war with the US and Beijing’s struggles to subdue its troubled borderlands in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

It would seem logical that since Xi claims all the glory for China’s economic rise and global influence, he would bear the responsibility for disasters, as well.

This would fit with the old imperial danger of losing the “mandate of heaven” – the notion that only a righteous ruler would retain the approval of the gods.

But there’s a long history in China of people blaming local officials for problems, while retaining a belief in the power of the emperor or general secretary to resolve them. Hundreds of thousands still annually petition the central party leadership about regional and personal wrongs.

Many are still assessing where to pin blame for the current crisis and are reluctant to accept what they are told officially. People are adroitly downloading and re-posting censored messages on social media, causing the “net police” constant whack-a-mole grief.

Read more: The coronavirus and Chinese social media: finger-pointing in the post-truth era

This is why the initial failings of the Wuhan authorities, which likely enabled the virus to spread rapidly, have aroused widespread anger in China. And why many rightly dubbed the whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang, who died from the disease after being hauled in by police, a martyr.

In recent days, the central government has also blamed local authorities, replacing the party secretary in Hubei province. However, public anger and distrust of the authorities still burns.

Crises like the melamine-laced milk powder scandal that sickened more than 300,000 babies in 2008 and now coronavirus underline a basic reality: for all the vast sums spent on security in China, it remains fundamentally elusive for most people.

Alistair Nicholas, a Sydney-based business consultant with extensive China experience, told me his contacts in China have said

the poor initial handling of the crisis by the Chinese authorities has ‘left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Chinese.’ Trust with their own government has been broken and those who can will leave.

With hundreds of millions still staying largely at home, staring at smartphones, such sentiments seep out everywhere.

Reform remains unlikely

Xi will, of course, be aware it was in Wuchang, a district of Wuhan, where a rebellion began in 1911 that triggered the downfall of the Qing Dynasty.

Today, however, the extent of China’s online and offline controls almost rule out change – or even threat – coming from the “masses”.

They are not trusted to participate in their own governance. They are given no scope to organise. Since seizing power in 1949, the party has drawn a line under further revolutions.

In the last few days, two figures named Xu have challenged Xi, and suffered the consequences.

Xu Zhiyong, a civil rights activist and academic who called on Xi to resign over the virus response, has been arrested by security officials in Guangzhou.

And Xu Zhangrun, a famous law professor at Tsinghua University, has been placed under effective house arrest after posting a lengthy critique that said China’s political system

turns every natural disaster into an even greater man-made catastrophe.

There has also been sharp criticism of China’s response to the crisis overseas, but this, too, carries limited weight in Beijing.

Instead, China highlights and relishes the applause its governance receives, especially from agencies like the World Health Organisation. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus recently thanked China for its “transparency” and heaped particular praise on Xi for his “detailed knowledge of the outbreak”.

There are, of course, questions about when Xi’s knowledge of the outbreak actually began.

But rather than claiming ignorance of the severity of the outbreak at the outset, Xi has decided to take a different course. He’s persisting with his customary claim of omniscience and blaming local officials, while insisting China’s “war” against the virus has been valiant, as attested by the WHO and other international voices.

Who is going to take credible issue with that?

In today’s China, it is not intellectuals or the general public, but the 90 million party members who will determine whether this epidemic demands substantial change.

And that will ultimately depend on the tiny circle of elite cadres surrounding Xi. Unless a convincing crack appears at the top, the crucial band of middle-ranking party managers will sit tight.

‘Not just a problem for China, but for the world’

The personalisation of the system, combined with Xi’s reluctance to groom a successor is, however, steadily raising party anxiety about the future.

Xi said recently,

the long-term sound fundamentals of our economy haven’t changed … The impact of the outbreak will only be short-term.

But the rippling effects of coronavirus threaten to derail Xi’s vision of “rejuvenation” – a Chinese century of power and affluence. Economists ponder whether China will now spring the “middle income trap” that has restrained the prosperity of other nations, risking a failure to “get rich before it grows old.”

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

The almost certain postponement of next month’s National People’s Congress is a further mark of a government in crisis. Despite making good health sense, this move would create political risk by acknowledging that even pillar state events are now eluding Xi’s control.

Once eventually summoned, though, the NPC delegates will be expected to cheer to the red rafters Xi’s victory in the “People’s War” against coronavirus.

But what does it mean, asks Jude Blanchette, who holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, for Xi to dominate a party and government

that appear unable to confront, diagnose, and effectively overcome complex domestic and international challenges? That’s not just a problem for China, but for the world.

Or as the stood-down law professor Xu Zhangrun asks, can a regime that cannot treat its own people well, treat the world well?

– ref. How vulnerable is Xi Jinping over coronavirus? In today’s China, there are few to hold him to account – https://theconversation.com/how-vulnerable-is-xi-jinping-over-coronavirus-in-todays-china-there-are-few-to-hold-him-to-account-131760

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Waling, Research fellow, La Trobe University

Older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI+) people fear discrimination, exclusion and isolation in Australia’s aged care services, we found in our research.

With an ageing cohort of LGBTI+ people needing to access, and currently using, Australia’s aged care services, we interviewed older gay men, lesbian women, and trans women about their perceptions of residential aged care.

We found these populations have unique needs, and providing safe and dignified aged care for them means accepting and understanding their experiences and histories. This includes the impacts of the criminalisation of homosexuality, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the marriage equality debates, and more recently, debates about conversion therapy.

Our research shows we need new initiatives and reforms to support LGBTI+ people to age safely and with dignity.

Read more: Does Australia need a Queer History Month?

Fear

Many of the people we spoke to fear homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia from aged care residents and staff. Many feel they must, or are forced, to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity in order to receive appropriate care.

Cody*, a 65-year-old gay man, said:

I’ve heard stories about […] older people being discriminated against or not treated properly because they are gay.

Charlotte, a 64-year-old heterosexual trans woman, said she would rather end her life than go into aged care.

I will euthanise myself before I go into aged care.

Lack of support

Older LGBTI+ people may be at higher risk in aged care because they don’t have families of origin, such as children or young relatives, or partners who are legally recognised to advocate on their behalf.

As Mabel, a 60-year-old lesbian woman, said:

A lot of nursing homes where residents have been sexually abused, medicated beyond belief, financially abused by staff and family, and it’s only those people that have got a really strong family support or advocate that survive that.

Isolation

Others are concerned about losing connection to lesbian, gay or trans communities and people, and being isolated as a result.

Devon, a 69-year-old gay man, said:

I am just concerned about nursing homes and being isolated especially if you are alone as I probably will be […] Being in a nursing home and maybe there is not another gay person there, that does bother me. Not being able to speak to other gay people or mix with them.

Read more: Nursing homes for all: why aged care needs to reflect multicultural Australia

Unique needs

Trans people have additional concerns, including being able to access treatments, such as hormone replacement therapy, having their unique health needs understood, and being able to live as themselves.

Leah, a 60-year-old trans woman, said:

You have particular health issues with trans people, different for trans men and trans women […] how many would know that for trans women, you know, they are at risk for prostate cancer, even though being on hormones reduces that risk considerably, but it’s still a risk, it’s still there.

Janelle, a 67-year-old trans woman, said:

I have heard some horror stories about a number of people, of trans women who want to dress and live as trans women being told, “No, no, no, you are really a male. You have to wear this. You have to wear that” […] I would hate to be in that sort of situation.

Access to safe services

The concerns and perceptions of our interviewees appear to reflect the reality of being an LGBTI+ person in aged care. The Australian Law Reform Commission has recognised many LGBTI+ elders experience mistreatment and abuse in aged care.

Yet aged care facilities may not be equipped to handle the unique needs of older LGBTI+ people.

Both residential and home care services need to create environments that are not only knowledgeable about the barriers older LGBTI+ people experience in health-care settings, but are also welcoming and accepting of LGBTI+ people.

While the majority of older Australians prefer to stay in their own home as they age, some older LGBTI+ people are concerned care workers they invite into their homes may not be LGBTI+ friendly.

Rather than use aged care service providers, some older LGBTI+ people opt for alternative strategies such as moving house, seeking out LGBTI+ specific housing (co-operative housing specifically for LGBTI+ people), and renovating existing properties.

Read more: Don’t wait for a crisis – start planning your aged care now

We need LGBTI+ inclusivity and cultural safety training for aged care service providers and nursing and social work staff and students. Services that have undergone LGBTI+ training need to promote themselves to be more visible to the LGBTI+ community.

The aged care diversity framework was introduced to guide service providers to better support diverse groups such as older LGBTI+ people. Ensuring aged care services are fully inclusive, as outlined in these guidelines, could go a long way toward supporting the emotional and mental well-being of older LGBTI+ people.

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of our research participants.

– ref. ‘I will euthanise myself before I go into aged care’: how aged care is failing LGBTI+ people – https://theconversation.com/i-will-euthanise-myself-before-i-go-into-aged-care-how-aged-care-is-failing-lgbti-people-131306

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Tolhurst, Hon. Assoc. Prof., Fire Ecology and Management, University of Melbourne

When it comes to reducing the extent of bushfires, scientists disagree on the best way to do it. Hazard-reduction burning (also known as “prescribed burning” or “controlled burning”) is controversial and, depending on the scientific paper, it’s shown to either be effective or not work at all.

Hazard reduction burning is the process of removing vegetation that would fuel a fire – the “hazard” – through burning, slashing or grazing. It’s one of the ways state governments try to prepare for looming bushfire seasons.

Read more: There’s no evidence ‘greenies’ block bushfire hazard reduction but here’s a controlled burn idea worth trying

The Climate Council published a fact sheet in January this year titled “Setting the record straight on hazard reduction”. It concluded that, while important, in future “no amount of hazard reduction will protect human lives, animals and properties from catastrophic fires”.

But this is at odds with empirical studies in Victoria and Western Australia, which found otherwise, after taking a wider view on the issue.

So why are there conflicting views?

Hazard reduction burns don’t help: a 2015 study

For its report, the Climate Council relied heavily on a 2015 study based on fire and weather records from southeastern Australia over a period of 34 years. This is a relatively short time when it comes to ecosystem cycles – the earth’s natural recycling process of resources like water and carbon.

The researchers of this study used a metric called “leverage” to evaluate the effect of hazard reduction burning on reducing the extent of wildfires. “Leverage” in this context refers to the ratio between the area burnt by wildfires and the area burnt by prescribed burning.

And they concluded hazard reduction burning has a statistically significant effect on the extent of wildfires, but only in forested areas with distinct annual drought periods.

Read more: A surprising answer to a hot question: controlled burns often fail to slow a bushfire

The leverage measure implies that prescribed burning only increases the total area burnt, and is therefore ineffective in reducing fire extent.

Like all scientific papers, the conclusions of the 2015 paper are drawn from several assumptions. And while the conclusions are valid for the researchers’ focus, several assumptions don’t work in a land management context. For instance, it’s assumed only the extent of the area burnt is important, rather than the severity.

But the recovery of the plants, animals, nutrients and habitat after low-intensity fire is much quicker than after high-intensity wildfire, according to a long-term Victorian study.

Several other assumptions were also made in the 2015 study, and it is such assumptions that lead to conflicting conclusions with others. While this study is valid within the context in which it was undertaken and includes useful analysis, the conclusions the Climate Council draws from it aren’t supported.

Hazard reduction burns do help: a 2009 study

A 2009 study looking at 52 years of fire history in southwest Western Australia identified the benefits of hazard reduction burns. This includes it leading to fewer fires starting and a greater ability to suppress fires in prescribed burnt areas.

A big reason for the different findings is because, unlike the 2009 study, the 2015 study didn’t explicitly consider how past prescribed burns lower the severity of new high-intensity fires when they move in. This helps fire suppression efforts and helps reduce the spread of wildfires.

The 2009 study showed prescribed burning less than about 4% of a million hectares of forested landscape per year wasn’t enough to show trends in reducing wildfires.

Read more: There’s only one way to make bushfires less powerful: take out the stuff that burns

But in the 2015 study the Climate Council used, only included 2% of prescribed burning in the forested landscape of southeast Australia, so a conclusion that prescribed burning was ineffective could have been expected.

In other words, not enough of the landscape was prescribed burnt to have a measureable effect, so it cannot be concluded that prescribed burning is ineffective at reducing the impact of bushfires from this analysis.

The Climate Council should have taken a broader view of the available scientific studies before drawing its conclusions.

So should we use hazard reduction burns?

There are many dimensions to the debate about whether to use hazard reduction burns to mitigate and prepare for wildfires. And not all scientific studies will be equally relevant in addressing particular issues.

Read more: To fight the catastrophic fires of the future, we need to look beyond prescribed burning

So before we decide whether hazard reduction burning for land management is a good thing, we need to consider all of the variables. This includes increased ecosystem resilience, mitigation of wildfire number and extent, impact on human health, economic value, social impact, Traditional Owner culture, and more.

The Climate Council’s conclusions are drawn only from the consideration of reduced wildfire extent.

In debating the value or otherwise of prescribed burning, we need to use good scientific evidence, but our decisions must be based on the whole picture, not just a selective part of it.

– ref. The burn legacy: why the science on hazard reduction is contested – https://theconversation.com/the-burn-legacy-why-the-science-on-hazard-reduction-is-contested-132083

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Stanley, Adjunct Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

We were heavily involved in the consultation program for Melbourne’s long-term land-use plan, Plan Melbourne. The idea that resonated most with many participants was shaping the city as a series of 20-minute neighbourhoods.

People generally loved the thought that most (not all) of the things needed for a good life could be within a 20-minute public transport trip, bike ride or walk from home. These are things such as shopping, business services, education, community facilities, recreational and sporting resources, and some jobs (but probably not brain surgery).

Creating a city of 20-minute neighbourhoods is a key policy direction of Plan Melbourne 2017-2050. As the plan states:

The 20-minute neighbourhood is all about ‘living locally’ – giving people the ability to meet most of their everyday needs within a 20-minute walk, cycle or local public transport trip of their home.

This planning idea has gained Melbourne recognition in international planning circles. For example, Singapore’s recent Land Transport Master Plan 2040 is based on shaping the city and its transport systems to achieve 20-minute towns within a 45-minute city. Officials who prepared the report have acknowledged to one of us Melbourne’s leadership with the concept.

The concept is not about travel by car. It is about active transport (walking, cycling) and the use of public transport. The goal is that this combination of modes would offer a reasonably sized catchment area in which people, jobs and services, including recreational opportunities and nature, are accessible.

Inner parts of Australia’s capital cities and parts of their middle suburbs already meet a 20-minute neighbourhood test. Very few of the outer suburbs would do so. However, new developments such as the City of Springfield in outer Brisbane are encouraging.

Key ingredients of 20-minute neighbourhoods

If outer suburbs, in particular, are to become 20-minute neighbourhoods, then two key requirements must be met.

First, local development densities need to be increased. This means ensuring minimum density levels of around 25-30 dwellings per hectare, which will better support local activity and services provision.

Consultations with council planners suggest new developments in Melbourne’s outer north, for example, are typically running at about 18 dwellings. The density of developments was about 12 just a decade ago.

Accompanying more dense residential development is the need to integrate a mix of uses within these neighbourhoods. This would bring more jobs and services close to where people live. They would also have a range of housing to support a mix of household types, income levels and age groups.

So we need not just density but also a mix of land uses within a neighbourhood. This is often known as density plus diversity.

Second, local public transport service levels need to be greatly improved. To achieve 20-minute neighbourhoods requires local weekday public transport services running every 20 minutes or better, from around 5am until 11pm (start of last run). That’s a minimum of 55 services per stop per day per direction.

The map below shows very few parts of outer Melbourne have services anywhere near this level.

What would it cost to achieve?

Gross funding increases of about 50% for local public transport services (essentially buses) would be needed to meet this basic service standard for 20-minute neighbourhoods across Melbourne. Based on scaling up the cost of current bus services in Melbourne, we estimate the cost would be about A$250 million a year, or A$4 billion over the long term, in present values.

This is a modest amount compared to current capital commitments for rail. These total A$30-40 billion, depending on what share of the cost of level-crossing removals is attributed to rail. Development of the government’s proposed Suburban Rail Loop around the city will add an estimated A$50 billion. Annual payments for metropolitan train services add A$1.1 billion.

Trains now carry only twice as many passengers as buses do. So the suggestion that an extra A$4 billion or so be spent on bus services, in capitalised terms, is very modest compared to the commitments being made to rail. The amount includes an allowance for infrastructure works to improve operating speeds – such as bus lanes and B-lights, which give buses priority through intersections.

The tram network could make an equally strong argument for extra funding, relative to trains, given the relative passenger loads carried and small new capital program in place for trams (hundreds of millions rather than tens of billions).

Melbourne has recently had a massive jump in spending on capital projects, particularly transport projects. This investment is needed to tackle the backlog from years of neglect and cope with one of the fastest population growth rates of any similar-sized city in the developed world.

The 2019-20 state budget, for example, suggests capital spending will average A$13.9 billion a year over the four years to 2022-23. It was less than A$5 billion a year from 2005-06 to 2014-15.

It’s about more than walkability

In stark contrast, implementation of 20-minute neighbourhoods has been limited to three pilot studies, in Strathmore, South Croydon and Sunshine West. These studies appear to be focused heavily on developing walkable neighbourhoods, rather than on improving access by walking, cycling and public transport, which was the original intent of the idea.

Walkable neighbourhoods are an important part of 20-minute neighbourhoods, but only one part. Increased neighbourhood densities and more mixed-use development across local active transport and public transport catchments, together with better walking, cycling and local public transport opportunities, need far greater attention if 20-minute neighbourhoods are to be created in outer and middle suburbs.

We expect a much stronger focus at the neighbourhood level will deliver very high social, environmental and economic returns from small outlays. But, for this to be achieved, much greater urgency is needed.

– ref. People love the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods. So why isn’t it top of the agenda? – https://theconversation.com/people-love-the-idea-of-20-minute-neighbourhoods-so-why-isnt-it-top-of-the-agenda-131193

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Michael X. Savvas, Senior Lecturer in the Transition Office (PhD in Creative Writing), Flinders University

A recent project to encourage South Australian prisoners to write provides insights into how prisoners may benefit from written expression.

The project, Life Sentences, gave more than 70 contributors professional feedback, certificates of merit and publication in a booklet produced annually from 2017 to 2019.

The submissions revealed a surprising diversity of topics, considerable talent and self-awareness.

The back story

Life Sentences began as an offshoot of Art by Prisoners, a visual arts competition organised by Jeremy Ryder, who wanted to showcase art from prisoners across South Australia.

We wondered if prisoners may also want to express themselves through writing. Department for Correctional Services officers promoted Life Sentences and prisoners responded with interest. After the program, Life Sentences booklets were available to the public at the Art by Prisoners exhibitions.

Firsthand writing from and about prisons isn’t new. Prison literature has a rich tradition, with writers such as Jack London, O. Henry and Oscar Wilde writing about their experiences in jail. The nine years Dostoyevsky spent in Siberian imprisonment and exile gave him the focus and depth of understanding to become one of the greats.

Conversely, illiteracy in Australian prisons is prevalent. A recent government report found around one in three Australian prisoners had only completed Year 9 (or under) at secondary school. One aim of Life Sentences was to provide encouraging feedback for prisoners of varying literacy levels. Although not all of the writing submitted was grammatically perfect, feedback focused on what the prisoners did well in their writing. This was seen as a first step in getting prisoners to enjoy writing and begin the adventure of literacy.

Stories of pain and humour

What Life Sentences contributors wrote about was telling. Most entries directly related to what American criminologist Greshem Sykes called the “pains of imprisonment” in 1958. This wasn’t surprising, and it is hoped writing about such pains was healing for the writers. What was more surprising was the number of entries not directly about imprisonment.

Of 77 contributors over three years, 26 expressed pain, fear and depression from imprisonment (even suicidal thoughts), and often how much they missed their children or loved ones. The heartbreaking lines from a 26-year-old woman’s poem called Little Treasure illustrate this:

But I will never forget

His sweet little smile

My darling little boy

Is now their child.

Although male and female prisoners both expressed tender feelings towards their lost partners, the male writers would at times also express sexual longing for their loved ones or for imagined partners. In Prisoner’s Lament, a 61-year-old male wrote:

I can but lament the way my life went,

Before I ended up here,

Instead of a gun and a greed-driven bent,

I’d be armed with a babe and a beer.

Eight of the poems – both fictional and autobiographical pieces – describe prison life using humour. In Lean Cuisine, a man, 45, wrote of the food, gloryless food he got over the course of a week:

Friday’s no surprise with some sort of sloppy pasta

Nothing is as bad as that tomato disaster.

Saturday is early lockup: chicken wings and rice

Some blokes sprint for seconds, yelling ‘This shit’s so fucking nice!‘

Although some contributors wrote about their abusive childhoods, others wrote with nostalgia about their upbringings. A 51-year-old man’s poem, Edge of the World, tells of spending a day on a jetty with his father and siblings:

Like well-practised commandos

we inched along the side rail

dodging gut stains

jagged notches and salty scales.

Eight entries philosophised about life, and two honoured religious deities. Two contributors wrote about their lives, with the goal of inspiring others to stay out of jail and lead happier, more productive lives.

Five entries pondered the personal meanings of art or writing. Other themes explored drugs and alcohol, futuristic societies, rock band membership, friendship, political statements (Fuck the System), dreams and the supernatural (The Love of a Lycan was a song about a werewolf). Three entries were hip hop raps.

Being recognised

The Western Australian literary journal Westerly included several of the 2017 entries in a special edition about South Australian writing.

Hidden talents emerged. A 22-year-old male rapper demonstrated advanced verbal skills in his Laggin Rap:

I want my chance to climb but I’m firmly underground

proud to get his lips clappin louder than a thunder cloud.

Man, Hip Hop’s beautiful — totally therapeutical —

better health benefits than pharmaceuticals.

Another contributor submitted two novels in 2017 and two more in the following competitions. Although already an accomplished writer, he incorporated the feedback he received in the first year. His manuscript was an exciting adventure set in 18th century France. The novel begins:

The battlefields were torn by heavy hooves and ran red with blood. Pieces of meat that used to be men lay tossed about and were scattered in windrows. Mud made it difficult to distinguish between uniforms, yet they found uniformity in a death that made a mockery of it all. It was not yet lunchtime.

The same author printed, bound and illustrated his own novels. He and other contributors also revealed a pattern by the third edition of Life Sentences: a growing awareness of their new identities as writers.

What Prisoners Need

Australian prison libraries are often inadequate for supporting prisoners who seek to improve their literacy skills.

Knowing what prisoners like to write about could inform decisions about the types of books to stock in prisons to encourage reading and writing. Prisoners who wish to write motivational books could be exposed to notable authors in this genre, such as Tony Robbins and Dale Carnegie.

Education is a powerful way to prevent prisoners from reoffending once they leave jail.

To stay out of prison, ex-prisoners need to achieve what criminologists call “secondary desistance”, meaning both the prisoner and society see the prisoner as changed and occupying a law-abiding role in society. Writing might be one way to achieve this and open up new career paths. Writing may also allow prisoners and “civilians” to connect. As one Life Sentences writer put it:

Without seeing their individual faces, I recognise that I am part of the greater consciousness that makes up the brotherhood of writers across the world.

– ref. Life sentences – what creative writing by prisoners tells us about the inside – https://theconversation.com/life-sentences-what-creative-writing-by-prisoners-tells-us-about-the-inside-130783

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wallace Boone Law, PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide

On the night of January 9 2020, my wife and I secured our Kangaroo Island home and anxiously monitored the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS) website for bushfire advice.

After many horrific weeks of bushfires, the winds had again shifted, and the fire front began a slow, nightmarish march eastward into the island’s central farmlands. Official warnings advised that the entire island was potentially under threat.

As my good neighbours and volunteer firefighters headed off to battle the flames elsewhere on the island, I desperately wanted to find a way to help. With no firefighting training, I felt I physically had little to offer. But I reasoned that my skills and training in remote sensing and spatial science could potentially turn satellite information into useful maps to track the fires, in more detail than those provided by the Country Fire Service and Geoscience Australia.

Read more: ‘This crisis has been unfolding for years’: 4 photos of Australia from space, before and after the bushfires

While I was ultimately successful, it wasn’t quite as straightforward as I thought. And what I learned about access to good-quality and up-to-date satellite bushfire information surprised me.

Free satellite imagery is abundant; useful information is not

In principle, there are many good sources of free satellite imagery. But selecting, sourcing, understanding and processing a multilayered satellite image into an accurate burnt area map takes technical know-how that is beyond the reach of the people who need it the most.

We are fortunate to live in a time where satellite images are constantly uploaded to the web, often within hours of acquisition. There are many reputable sources for this information, including NASA Worldview, USGS Earth Explorer, USGS LandLook Viewer, and the Sentinel EO Browser.

These websites are gateways to the world of “big satellite data”, and I quickly found myself on a steep learning curve to efficiently navigate them and find recent imagery.

Once downloaded, the next hurdle I faced was how to process a data-rich satellite image into a meaningful and accurate map of the bushfire area. I scoured the internet for “how to” blogs, academic articles, spatial algorithms, and processing codes; these too are the products of much intellectual investment by global scientists, openly and freely available.

As a spatial scientist, I naturally found all this fascinating. But as a resident of an island under assault from bushfires, I also found it frustratingly time-consuming. I crashed my computer testing algorithms. I maxed out my hard drive. I spent hours on possibilities that turned out to be dead ends.

Maps help to fight fires and recover from them

In the end, I produced burnt area maps from Sentinel and Landsat satellite images captured during the fires. I learned that this kind of information can indeed help firefighting and ecological recovery efforts, both during and after bushfires.

Initially I gave the maps to a group of farming friends who had been fighting fires around their properties for weeks. They told me the maps helped save time in assessing which areas had already burned, allowing them to focus on defending unburnt areas, and to make decisions on where to move livestock and install firebreaks.

The positive feedback inspired me to customise my processing techniques, so I could provide updates more quickly when new satellite images became available.

I embedded appropriate safety disclaimers into the maps and released them on Twitter and Spatial Points, a blog site managed my research group at the University of Adelaide.

Within hours, I received messages that the maps were being used for ecological recovery efforts. The maps successfully highlighted remaining patches of habitat where endangered and vulnerable species had found refuge. Several government agencies even contacted me for burnt area information, which I’m told was used to assess infrastructure damage and habitat loss.

National knowledge gap

My experience shows there is a swag of free and regularly updated satellite imagery available, which when interpreted and presented appropriately can potentially be hugely helpful to firefighting and recovery efforts.

However, I am concerned that neither the general public nor decision-makers seem fully aware of the range of satellite information on offer. Nor is there a good understanding of the advanced technical skills needed to access and process imagery into useful map data.

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

This leads me to wonder whether I have stumbled upon a glaring knowledge gap in Australia’s bushfire preparedness.

How can we overcome this technological and information bottleneck? I don’t propose to have all the answers, but I do believe it would be sensible for governments, industry and research agencies to invest in the kind of capabilities that I developed while trying to protect my own local community.

As Australia faces a future of more frequent and extreme bushfires, there will doubtless be many people who would be glad of this kind of information when they need it most.

– ref. I made bushfire maps from satellite data, and found a glaring gap in Australia’s preparedness – https://theconversation.com/i-made-bushfire-maps-from-satellite-data-and-found-a-glaring-gap-in-australias-preparedness-132087