Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trish Luker, Senior lecturer, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names and voices of deceased people.

When was the last time you signed your name? Perhaps you are more familiar with the frustrations of trying to insert a digital image of your cursive signature into an inadequate space in a PDF document? You have probably used a Personal Identification Number, a digital fingerprint, your finger or a stylus on an electronic pad.

In European contexts, the signature is a performative act with a long history. In medieval times, rather than signing a name, people placed hands on a bible, uttered oaths, broke objects, signed the cross or exchanged a lock of hair. From these non-documentary forms, the signature developed as a form of validation to transform a written document into a legal action. It became standard practice in the 17th century – a compulsory addition to legal documents, even if the signatory was illiterate.

Legal history

Despite its significance, there has been little judicial guidance to defining the signature.

In Australia and the United Kingdom, courts have accepted different types of signatures, from seal imprints to rubber stamps, fingerprints, initials, a partial signature, words other than a name, a trade name, printed names as well as the traditional handwritten signature. More recently, signatures appearing on faxes, PDFs and on emails have all been accepted as valid.

Signatures are evidence of the will or intent of the person signing and provide insight into the history of legal documents.

In 2000, the Federal Court of Australia decided a thumbprint was a signature that proved a mother’s consent to the removal of her child. Peter Gunner and Lorna Cubillo, members of the Stolen Generations, sued the federal government seeking compensation for the harm they suffered as a result of being taken away from their families and sent to residential schools.

Taken from Utopia

Peter Gunner was seven years old in 1956 when he was taken from his home at Utopia, in the Northern Territory.

A significant, and notorious, piece of evidence in the case was a document titled Form of Consent by a Parent. This was a proforma document, phrased as a request that Gunner be taken away to St Mary’s Hostel and given a Western education.

On the bottom of the form there is a thumb or fingerprint and the name of Gunner’s mother, Topsy Kundrilba. On the basis of this evidence, the court concluded Gunner had been removed at his mother’s request.

Signatures appear on other legal documents involving Indigenous people in Australia, such as petitions where they are signs of political action.

The Yirrkala Bark Petitions were sent in August 1963 to both houses of federal parliament by the Yolngu people living in the area of Yirrkala, Arnhem Land. The petition followed the granting of mining leases without any consultation with the people of Yirrkala.

These petitions are cross-cultural documents written in both Yolngu Matha and English. They follow the Westminster form and are presented on painted bark boards depicting country. The petitions protested the excision of land from the reserve where the Yolngu people live, hunt and where their sacred sites are located. They are now on display in Parliament House.

More than words

As bark paintings that frame paper with words and signatures, the Yirrkala Petitions demonstrate an innovative cross-cultural legal documentary form: they are symbols of Yolngu title deeds to country.

Because the then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Paul Hasluck, questioned the validity of the signatures, the Yolngu people followed up with another document, this time on paper, which contains the names and signatory marks of the leaders of every clan group represented.

On 26 May 2017, 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people signed the Uluru Statement from the Heart, calling for a First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement making and truth telling between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The statement, written in the centre of a large canvas with paintings that tell the creation stories of the traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, is surrounding by 250 signatures.

The guiding principles for the statement draw on a lengthy history of political campaigns represented in petitions, including the Yirrkala Bark Petitions and the Barunga Statement, presented by the Jawoyn community in Northern Territory to the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in 1988. It is a unique legal document that makes a formal claim on the Australian people and our governing institutions. The statement affirms the sovereignty of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that sovereignty has never been ceded or extinguished, but it co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

Such Indigenous declarations of sovereignty demonstrate the way signatures can be mobilised as a sign to transform written documents into legal actions. In this way, they seek to inaugurate a new form of legality.

Reading the signs was made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney – a new audio production house combining academic research and audio storytelling. This podcast is available for download through the award winning History Lab podcast. It is the third episode in the four-part series, The Law’s Way of Knowing.

– ref. Indigenous pain and protest written in the history of signatures – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-pain-and-protest-written-in-the-history-of-signatures-130458

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Green, Emeritus Professor & UTS innovation adviser, University of Technology Sydney

The only surprise about the termination of the Holden brand in Australia was that it caused such surprise.

This was the final nail in an already empty coffin, given local assembly manufacturing ended more than two years ago.

In 2017, when Holden stopped making cars in Australia but committed to keeping the brand with local engineering and design facilities, I wondered how long it could last.

We now know.

There was in reality no commercial justification for a US-based global corporate to continue to invest in switching imported cars to right-hand drive for 3% of 1% of the world’s car market. Holden’s dominant local market share was well and truly a thing of the past, no matter what was being rebadged under its name.

The huge nostalgia for the loss of an iconic Australian brand is perfectly understandable. But the naiveté shown by successive governments in dealing with the owners of this brand is not. Particularly when this has meant accepting commitments supposedly made in good faith in return for billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

Let’s remind ourselves of the three factors that doomed Australian car assembly.

Tariff protection

The first factor was removing tariff protection. Domestic car manufacturing flourished behind high tariff walls for more than half a century, but like many other areas of manufacturing it was not keeping up with the rest of the world.

It was hoped removing tariffs in the 1980s and exposing the industry to international competition would transform it for the better.

Alongside tariff reform were “industry plans” to manage the transition, in particular focusing on export markets where economies of scale could be achieved. At the same time, workers were given training and financial support to move from companies that couldn’t survive this harsher environment to those that could.

Such success was patchy but, with substantial government subsidies and a number of manufacturers withdrawing from the local market, the Australian car industry continued to be viable. However, as the local makers introduced new models on a drip-feed of investment from their global parents, they lost market share to imports. This could not be offset by increased exports as the same global parents limited Australia’s role in overseas growth markets.

Read more: Vale Holden: how America’s General Motors sold us the Australian dream

Rise of the dollar

The second factor affecting domestic car manufacturing, and indeed Australian manufacturing more widely, was the rise in the value of the Australian dollar associated with the mining boom beginning in the early 2000s.

Local manufacturers found it more difficult, if not impossible, to compete with imports. By 2016 the number of jobs in manufacturing had fallen to less than 684,000, down from more than 903,000 in 2011 (and a peak of 1.35 million in the early 1970s). The “death of manufacturing” became a popular headline.

Some manufacturing has subsequently revived but not in the same form as in the past. Large mass-production facilities were increasingly superseded by small to medium manufacturers pursuing “smart specialisation” in global markets and value chains. This worldwide trend included many companies in Australia’s high-calibre auto-components sector, but less so the car-assembly industry.

Flawed business model

This brings us to the third and decisive factor in the decline of car manufacturing in Australia: a flawed business model.

An industry designed for success in a protected domestic market had to innovate and scale up radically in an intensely competitive global market once protection was removed. This simply didn’t happen.

In retrospect, we can sympathise with governments not wishing to pull the plug on a major industry employing many thousands of workers. Not many countries can sustain an integrated car manufacturing industry. Most don’t even try.

Those that succeed do so because they can control their own destiny, including investing in future technologies, skills and market development. The only part of the Australian car industry that could control its own destiny was the auto components sector, which was world-competitive.

Read more: Why Australians fell out of love with Holdens

Which brings us to the inevitable counterfactual. What if, instead of directing public support to global car giants that had no intention of transforming local assembly, governments had focused on accelerating the growth of the auto components sector?

The problem in Australia has not been the use of public funds to support manufacturing, but rather to prioritise what might have worked in the past over what we know will be required in the future. Such as electric vehicles.

It is worth taking the opportunity to reflect on the fact this observation applies as much to other challenges – such as climate change – as it does to the car industry.

– ref. Holden’s dead end shows government policy should have taken a different road – https://theconversation.com/holdens-dead-end-shows-government-policy-should-have-taken-a-different-road-132080

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Williamson, Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Tasmania

As bushfires in New South Wales are finally contained, attention is turning to nature’s recovery. Green shoots are sprouting and animals are returning. But we must accept that in some cases, the bush may never return to its former state.

We’ve all read the devastating figures of destruction this fire season. More than 11 million hectares of land burned across the country over a period of about six months. There is some evidence more than one billion animals perished.

We can take some heart in the regenerative power of the Australian bush. However, when we read of “recovery” in the media, we feel we must clarify what that might actually look like.

While Australia’s environment has evolved to adapt to fire, our research shows we can no longer assume it will recover completely.

Read more: Yes, native plants can flourish after bushfire. But there’s only so much hardship they can take

A fiery future

We are scientists and social science researchers who work in transdisciplinary climate change projects, liaising with park rangers, farmers, policymakers, emergency services and local government.

Our work involves scoping future challenges in land management and developing a range of plausible future climate scenarios for south-east Australia.

Our experience told us something like this catastrophic climatic event was possible, but as researchers we weren’t prepared to see such an inferno this summer.

Although fires are natural in Australia, they’re now occurring at an unprecedented frequency and intensity in areas that, historically, did not burn. This new regime does not allow the effective recovery of natural systems to their pre-fire state.

Alpine ash to ashes

Fires in alpine ash forests (Eucalyptus delegatensis) are a good example of this.

Unlike many eucalypt species which can re-sprout after fire, this species’ only means of recovery is through germination via a seed bank in the canopy, and rapid germination and growth of seedlings after fire.

Multiple fires in quick succession kill seedlings before they reach maturity, disrupting the tree’s reproductive cycle and leading to local extinction of the species in the landscape.

Alpine ash forests have endured repeated fires in recent years. In 2013, a blaze in Victoria burnt more than 31,000 hectares of the Alpine National Park.

Read more: Ash to ashes – what could the 2013 fires mean for the future of our forests?

Vast areas have been burnt again in this season’s fires in the same places. Research reveals climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of fires in the Australian Alps.

This ecosystem will not recover. It will instead transition into a new, different ecosystem, and many species which evolved to live in the original habitat, such as the alpine ash, will no longer be supported. They will be replaced by other vegetation types, such as other eucalyptus woodland, shrubland or grassland.

No more refuge

To further illustrate this point, take the Tasmanian pencil pine Athrotaxis cupressoides.

This slow-growing conifer native to Tasmania can live for up to 1,000 years. They are found in Tasmania’s highlands and sub-alpine regions – historically a Tolkien-esque landscape of moss and emerald green cushion plants, studded with thousands of tiny mountain lakes, called tarns.

But large fires across Tasmania’s pencil pine habitat in recent years, including those in 2016, reduced hundreds of isolated pencil pine communities to blackened skeletons. The stands of trees that remain are struggling to survive in a drying and warming climate.

All this is occurring in areas that historically did not experience fire, which allowed a suite of ancient, fire-sensitive species to persist.

As climate change worsens, the pencil pine will be restricted to even smaller areas. Higher temperatures and increased fuel loads increase the likelihood of destruction by fire. Areas where pencil pines have historically been protected will diminish in number and size.

Irreplaceable loss

In these cases and many others, animal species relying on these trees and their ecosystems are profoundly affected.

Well before the latest fires, Australia had an abysmal record on vertebrate extinctions. This summer’s fires have brought some animal species, including the Kangaroo Island dunnart, closer to extinction.

Read more: Australia’s bushfires could drive more than 700 animal species to extinction. Check the numbers for yourself

Future fire seasons will not be normal events, or even some kind of stable “new normal”, to which humans and nature will readily adapt. We’re seeing a trajectory of change in which our climate will shift faster than most living things can tolerate.

The Australian environment evolved with fire and in past conditions, could recover from fire. However climate change has altered the rules irrevocably.

We can no longer rest assured that nature will bounce back, and that knowledge should be a wake-up call for the world.

– ref. Yes, the Australian bush is recovering from bushfires – but it may never be the same – https://theconversation.com/yes-the-australian-bush-is-recovering-from-bushfires-but-it-may-never-be-the-same-131390

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Associate Professor, Psychology, Deakin University

Snapchat has announced a new feature called “Here For You” that promises to “provide proactive in-app support to Snapchatters who may be experiencing a mental health or emotional crisis”.

The popular youth-oriented app is the latest to join a wave of social media platforms setting out to monitor and improve the well-being of their users.

Details are scarce, but it appears the Snapchat feature will monitor searches for key terms related to anxiety, depression, stress, grief, suicidal thoughts, and bullying. When these are detected, it will return links to helpful resources which Snapchat says will come from local experts.

This could mean, for example, that when a Snapchat user in Melbourne searches for “eating disorder” in the app, they are directed to credible content from Eating Disorders Victoria or the National Butterfly Foundation.

It’s a welcome move from Snapchat, because existing evidence suggests that conversations about mental health (including help seeking) are common online and that searching for such content is associated with lower well-being. Will it work? This likely depends on whether users actually click on the resources, and whether the resources are credible and lead people to seek treatment.

How have other social media platforms approached the issue?

On Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, users can block or report material, and Facebook also provides resources for users to engage directly with other users about their posts. These platforms, along with Pinterest, also deploy artificial intelligence to identify and ban content that may be viewed as harmful.

Facebook and Pinterest have also introduced more proactive measures, attempting to provide resources to users they view as being at risk for mental health concerns.

Read more: Twitter’s plan to help young people not get too overwhelmed by bad news doesn’t go far enough

Perhaps prompted by a number of suicides broadcast via the platform, Facebook has launched a suicide prevention initiative, which uses AI capabilities to flag users who may be at risk of self-harm or suicide. Pinterest prompts users to undertake mood altering in-app activities based on their searches.

Details are often hidden from sight

The exact details of these social media features are often hidden from view, with press releases speaking only in vague terms. The science that may (or may not) motivate the design of the features is seldom mentioned.

There is also an absence of peer-reviewed literature evaluating how successfully these features achieve their stated goals. Such information is essential to know whether these changes are having any effect, or whether further measures are needed to keep social media users safe and well.

Potential benefits of these initiatives should also be weighed against privacy concerns. Privacy experts are concerned that information on Facebook is not covered by traditional data protection and security laws. What’s more, Facebook has not shared details of privacy protection protocols that are in place for the initiative.

We need to know more about social media and mental health

Even if software gets better at monitoring and restricting harmful content, there are plenty of other ways in which social media platforms may lead to emotional crisis. While some of these issues are well known (such as unfavourably comparing oneself to others), some are newer and users need a certain level of online literacy to become less vulnerable to them.

New users need support to avoid falling prey to traps for the unwary, such as catfishing, false accounts and impersonation, or being misled by inaccurate or dangerous health recommendations.

We still don’t know much about what kind of interventions are more effective than others, and for whom. We know that simplistic solutions, such as putting warning labels on digitally manipulated images or temporarily banning users who post offensive content, have not been found to be effective.

Blunt instruments like these may not be sufficiently sophisticated to respond to different levels of need and may only provide a short-term fix to long-term issues. We clearly need a more nuanced, multi-targeted approach.

A holistic approach may be the answer

Media literacy, anti-bullying, and resilience-building programs can reduce exposure to harmful content and equip people with the right skills to help them better manage their social media environment. This more holistic approach to social media-enabled intervention forms the focus of our team’s WIRED project.

One important factor in steering users towards appropriate care is to increase awareness of the importance and availability of health-care services. However, mental illnesses are complex, and having information alone is no guarantee that someone will seek treatment.

Read more: Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it

A host of barriers, both individual and systemic, can also prevent people from seeking help. These include the cost of treatment, lack of local treatment options, and the stigma attached to mental illness.

These barriers and complexities make it imperative that Snapchat and other platforms recommend the right resources. The decisions about these resources must be undergirded by a rigorous base of scientific evidence.

Most of all, Snapchat and its social media siblings must be transparent and accountable. If we can’t see exactly what they’re doing, we have no way to tell if it’s working.

– ref. Can new Snapchat features help troubled teens? – https://theconversation.com/can-new-snapchat-features-help-troubled-teens-131992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Lecturer Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

Why don’t burns bleed? – from the year three and four students at Islington Public School in NSW

Hello year three and four students – thanks for your excellent question!

To understand burns, we need to understand some things about the skin. Did you know your skin is made up of three different layers?

You might have heard of burns being called first-degree, second-degree or third-degree burns.

This tells us how many layers of skin are affected and how deep the burn is.

First-degree burns

A first-degree burn affects just the outer layer of the skin, which is called the epidermis.

The epidermis protects the inside of our body, including our muscles, bones and organs.

It stops the sun’s harmful rays, sharp objects and water from getting through and damaging the inside of our body.

Read more: Curious Kids: how do wounds heal?

Could you imagine if we didn’t have a waterproof outer layer? You would fill with water and burst the next time you hopped in the bath!

When we have a first-degree burn, this affects just the outer layer of skin.

A first-degree burn, such as sunburn, is red, warm and painful to touch because the cells have been damaged.

So why doesn’t a first-degree burn bleed? Because there actually isn’t any blood travelling in the epidermis.

The blood vessels, which carry blood around our body, are in the next layer down.

This second layer is called the dermis.

Second-degree burns

A second-degree burn affects the outer two layers of the skin: that is the epidermis and the dermis.

The dermis has blood vessels that carry our blood around our body.

Now, you might think that because of the blood vessels in the dermis, a second-degree burn would bleed.

If you cut yourself into the dermis, say, with a deep paper cut, it might bleed.

The difference with a burn is the heat actually stops the blood from flowing.

A small bit of blood may ooze out at first, but it won’t actually bleed much.

Read more: I’ve always wondered: why do our veins look blue when our blood is red?

The dermis also has nerves that make us feel pain if they’re damaged.

A second-degree burn is the most painful burn because it damages the nerves of the skin.

Third degree burns

The third and deepest layer of our skin is called the hypodermis. This is mostly fat, but there are also blood vessels and nerves in this layer.

The veins that you can see on the back of people’s hands are in the hypodermis layer of the skin.

A third-degree burn affects all three layers of skin. This is very deep and will need medical treatment.

Read more: Curious Kids: why do we get bruises?

A third-degree burn doesn’t just damage cells like first-degree and second-degree burns, it actually kills them. The redness of sunburn, and even blisters, will gradually get better and return to normal. But dead cells cannot repair.

A third-degree burn also doesn’t bleed because it completely destroys the blood vessels and the heat stops the blood from flowing.

Even though a third-degree burn causes the most damage, it is actually not painful at that location because it has completely killed the nerves.

Think of a jacket

Our skin is like our own three-layered waterproof, padded jacket.

The outer layer (epidermis) is thin and protects against water.

The middle layer (dermis) is the material and threading holding the jacket together.

The deepest layer (hypodermis) is thick and padded to keep us warm just like our fat.

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: why don’t burns bleed? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-dont-burns-bleed-130792

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

Young Australians are abandoning private health insurance in droves. And the overall decline in the percentage of the population with private coverage is continuing.

New data for the three months to the end of 2019, released yesterday by the private health insurance regulator, show that compared with the same time a year ago, 44,000 fewer young people (aged 25 to 34) have private health insurance.

The percentage of the population with some form of private hospital insurance is down 0.7 percentage points compared to the December quarter in 2018 and now stands at 44.0%.

The private health insurance industry is in a dire predicament, and people who remain in private health insurance also stand to lose out.

But the industry’s argument a youth exodus will put massive amounts of additional pressure on public hospitals doesn’t stack up. The industry’s self-serving claims are simply designed to bolster its case for yet more government handouts.

Read more: Youth discounts fail to keep young people in private health insurance

Why is the industry worried?

The proportion of the population with any form of private hospital insurance is now around 44%.

While the number of young people has fallen, there are 60,000 more people 70 and older than a year ago. The average age of a person with private health insurance continues to creep upwards.

Changes in the composition of the insured population affects different stakeholders – such as the insured, the insurers and the public hospital system – differently.

The more young people drop out, the more the “risk pool” of the insured population worsens, because young people use health care less than older people.

This causes the price of insurance to go up for everyone, which leads to still more young people dropping out. This creates a death spiral for the industry.

Insurers lose out because fewer people are paying insurance premiums.

And those who remain in private insurance lose out because they have to pay higher premiums.

Little impact on the public hospital system

A critical issue is what happens to demand on the public system as the proportion of people who are privately insured declines.

The people who are most likely to drop out are younger people and people who don’t expect to use hospitals much. So logically, this is not likely to have much impact on demand for public care.

Private health insurance is now differentiated into Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Basic products, with “+” designations on the last three of these. Typically debates about private health insurance only focus on the number of people insured not the level of cover they have.

Read more: Premiums up, rebates down, and a new tiered system – what the private health insurance changes mean

About 41% of those insured have coverage with “no exclusions”, the equivalent of Gold.

This means less than 20% of the total population has insurance coverage for all conditions. So many people with private health insurance already rely on the public system for those procedures not covered in their insurance package.

Maternity care, for example, is usually only covered at the Gold tier. Presumably, people with Silver, Bronze, or Basic products were always going to have their baby in a public hospital. So a reduction in the number of people with those products will have no impact on demand for maternity care in public hospitals.

Joint replacements, such as hips and knees, are also normally covered only in Gold products, so the same arguments apply.

There has been extensive research trying to predict the impact of a decline in private insurance on public hospitals. Researchers have found consumers are relatively slow to respond to changes in the price of insurance. Private health insurance is therefore said to be “sticky”.

Once insured, people, especially older people, tend to stay insured, and respond to premium increases by downgrading their cover, either in terms of what they are covered for (dropping from Gold to Silver, for example), or taking on a higher excess they have to pay if they go to hospital. But a higher excess is unlikely to make them choose a public hospital.

The big changes in terms of dropping out are happening in the group which is new to private health insurance – the young – who have not established a history with insurance.

But young people use health care infrequently, meaning only a small number of hospital admissions would be expected to move from the private to the public system.

A slow death

Our own modelling at the Grattan Institute suggests the death spiral is real, but is slow. People over 70 will probably still be insured at much the same rate they are now over the next ten years, but people under 70 will drop out, with people under 55 dropping out more rapidly.

Young people receive a bad deal from private health insurance. The premium they pay – which is essentially the same as the premium everyone else pays under Australia’s system of “community rating” – is much greater than the costs of their expected use of health care.

The gap between what they pay and expected benefit is getting worse. That’s why they are leaving in droves.

But this decline is a bigger problem for the private insurers than it will be for the public health system.

Read more: How do you stop the youth exodus from private health insurance? Cut premiums for under-55s

– ref. Young people dropping private health hurts insurers most, not public hospitals – https://theconversation.com/young-people-dropping-private-health-hurts-insurers-most-not-public-hospitals-132004

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

As the brutal reality of climate change dawned this summer, you may have asked yourself a hard question: am I well-prepared to live in a warmer world?

There are many ways we can ready ourselves for climate change. I’m an urban forestry scientist, and since the 1980s I’ve been preparing students to work with trees as the planet warms.

In Australia, trees and urban ecosystems must be at the heart of our climate change response.

Governments have a big role to play – but here are five actions everyday Australians can take as well.

Read more: Go native: why we need ‘wildlife allotments’ to bring species back to the ‘burbs

1. Plant trees to cool your home

At the current rate of warming, the number of days above 40℃ in cities including Melbourne and Brisbane, will double by 2050 – even if we manage to limit future temperature rises to 2℃.

Trees can help cool your home. Two medium-sized trees (8-10m tall) to the north or northwest of a house can lower the temperature inside by several degrees, saving you hundreds of dollars in power costs each year.

Green roofs and walls can reduce urban temperatures, but are costly to install and maintain. Climbing plants, such as vines on a pergola, can provide great shade, too.

Trees also suck up carbon dioxide and extend the life of the paint on your external walls.

2. Keep your street trees alive

Climate change poses a real threat to many street trees. But it’s in everyone’s interests to keep trees on your nature strip alive.

Adequate tree canopy cover is the least costly, most sustainable way of cooling our cities. Trees cool the surrounding air when their leaves transpire and the water evaporates. Shade from trees can also triple the lifespan of bitumen, which can save governments millions each year in road resurfacing.

Tree roots also soak up water after storms, which will become more extreme in a warming climate. In fact, estimates suggest trees can hold up to 40% of the rainwater that hits them.

But tree canopy cover is declining in Australia. In Melbourne, for instance, it falls by 1-1.5% annually, mainly due to tree removals on private land.

This shows state laws fail to recognise the value of trees, and we’re losing them when we need them most.

Infrastructure works such as level crossing removals have removed trees in places such as the Gandolfo Gardens in Melbourne’s inner north, despite community and political opposition. Some of these trees were more than a century old.

So what can you do to help? Ask your local council if they keep a register of important trees of your suburb, and whether those trees are protected by local planning schemes. Depending on the council, you can even nominate a tree for protection and significant status.

But once a development has been approved, it’s usually too late to save even special trees.

3. Green our rural areas

Outside cities, we must preserve remnant vegetation and revegetate less productive agricultural land. This will provide shade and moderate increasingly strong winds, caused by climate change.

Planting along creeks can lower water temperatures, which keeps sensitive native fish healthy and reduces riverbank erosion.

Strategically planting windbreaks and preserving roadside vegetation are good ways to improve rural canopy cover. This can also increase farm production, reduce stock losses and prevent erosion.

To help, work with groups like Landcare and Greening Australia to vegetate roadsides and river banks.

4. Make plants part of your bushfire plan

Climate change is bringing earlier fire seasons and more intense, frequent fires. Fires will occur where they hadn’t in the past, such as suburban areas. We saw this in the Melbourne suburbs of Bundoora, Mill Park, Plenty and Greensborough in December last year.

It’s important to have a fire-smart garden. It might seem counter-intuitive to plant trees around the house to fortify your fire defences, but some plants actually help reduce the spread of fire – through their less flammable leaves and summer green foliage – and screen your house from embers.

Read more: Low flammability plants could help our homes survive bushfires

Depending on where you live, suitabek trees to plant include crepe myrtle, the hybrid flame tree, Persian ironwood, some fruit trees and even some native eucalypts.

If you’re in a bushfire-prone area, landscape your garden by strategically planting trees, making sure their canopies don’t overhang the house. Also ensure shrubs do not grow under trees, as they might feed fire up into the canopy.

And in bad fire conditions, rake your garden to put distance between fuel and your home.

Read more: Keeping the city cool isn’t just about tree cover – it calls for a commons-based climate response

5. What if my trees fall during storms?

The fear of a whole tree falling over during storms, or shedding large limbs, is understandable. Human injury or death from trees is extremely rare, but tragedies do occur.

Make sure your trees are healthy, and their root systems are not disturbed when utility services such as plumbing, gas supplies and communication cables are installed.

Coping with a warming world

Urban trees are not just ornaments, but vital infrastructure. They make cities liveable and sustainable and they allow citizens to live healthier and longer lives.

For centuries these silent witnesses to urban development have been helping our environment. Urban ecosystems depend on a healthy urban forest for their survival, and so do we.

– ref. Here are 5 practical ways trees can help us survive climate change – https://theconversation.com/here-are-5-practical-ways-trees-can-help-us-survive-climate-change-129753

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eva Plaganyi, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO

Currents are strong around the Torres Strait Islands, lying between Australia’s northern-most tip and Papua New Guinea.

When the tidal conditions are right and the waters relatively still, though, up to 230 islanders – a sizeable percentage of the islands’ roughly 4,000 indigenous inhabitants – will board small boats and head out to the surrounding reefs. There they will dive down and search the underwater outcrops for lobsters, grabbing the crustaceans by hand.

It’s laborious work compared with lobster fishing in other parts of Australia, where fishers bait “pots”, then simply pull up the pots with lobsters inside. The tropical rock lobsters of the Torres Strait, however, are sensitive creatures and generally won’t crawl into a trap. By hand is the only sure way to catch them.

But, until a few weeks ago, it has been worth it.

A fisher can sell a live lobster from these waters for $65-95 a kilogram. That makes it worth holding them in water-filled crates and then flying them to wholesalers in Cairns. There they are processed and transported to domestic and international markets.

The most lucrative market is China. Its appetite for live rock lobster makes up about half the value of Australia’s seafood exports (A$660 million of A$1.4 billion).

Now, though, lobster fishers are staying home. There hasn’t been a regular lobster shipment to China since January 26.

With the Wuhan coronavirus suspected to have originated from wild animals in the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Chinese authorities have temporarily banned all wild animal trade. Lobster and other wild-caught aquatic products are exempt from the ban, but demand has plummeted due to people staying home and avoiding both markets and restaurants.

Read more: Fear spreads easily. That’s what gives the Wuhan coronavirus economic impact

This collapse has come at a time that would normally be one of peak demand, and peak prices, due to Chinese New Year festivities. Our industry sources report prices for live lobsters are down 50% to 80%.

It’s a huge blow to the economy of Torres Strait, along with the rest of Australia’s live seafood export industry.

Loss of livelihoods

Lobster fishing is among the highest-value economic activities in the strait. Indigenous islanders have limited alternatives to make money, given their geographical isolation.

As scientists fortunate to work closely with traditional owners in the Torres Strait over the past decade, we’re saddened to see this devastating impact on livelihoods.

CSIRO researchers have worked in the strait for more than three decades to help local people sustain their traditional way of life and conserve the marine environment for future generations.

This is no easy feat, considering the resources are also shared with an Australian non-Islander sector and traditional owners from Papua New Guinea.

The region’s wild marine fisheries have been thriving thanks to good management and a strong sense of custodianship by the Islanders.

New harvest strategies for fishing lobster and bêche-de-mer (sea cucumbers) were implemented in December 2019. These took years of research and consultation. This included augmenting scientific surveys with information from fishers to work out sustainable catches.

The new strategies followed a disastrous lobster-fishing year in 2018, when our scientific surveys suggested the lobster population was in trouble due to conditions created by extreme El Niño events. The fishery had to be closed two months early, with substantial economic impact. It was nonetheless an example of Torres Strait Islanders putting sustainability before short-term gain.

No offsets

Now they have the coronavirus to contend with.

The loss of income from those in the fishing business affects other small businesses and ripples throughout the local community.

Selling to the frozen seafood market is an option, but prices are much lower, and there’s a point at which the time, effort and cost of catching a tropical rock lobster make it uneconomical. Boat fuel, for one thing, is expensive. Sales of frozen seafood to China have also taken a dive.

For some Australian fisheries it’s possible taking fewer fish this season will mean a larger fish population next year. So next year’s catch quotas could be adjusted up without jeopardising the marine population. This could partially offset losses this year.

But that’s not an option for the Torres Strait lobster fishery. That’s because by the time a lobster is big enough to catch, usually in its third year of life, it is also ready to migrate, walking several hundred kilometres to the east of the fishery area. So catching fewer lobsters this year won’t mean they are around to catch next year. It is a unique fishery in this regard.

Planning sustainable exports

This impact of the coronavirus on Torres Strait Islanders shows how connected global trade now is.

Read more: High-tech shortages loom as coronavirus shutdowns hit manufacturers

What it also demonstrates is the importance of deliberate and distributed growth in export markets for them to be sustainable.

Heavy dependence on a single market carries a big risk. As things stand, we can expect demand for seafood in China will remain low for some time to come.

This is an opportune time to rethink sustainable export growth strategies.

– ref. Coronavirus is killing Australia’s lobster export market – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-killing-australias-lobster-export-market-131750

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Fahey, PhD Candidate, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University

General Motors has announced the Holden brand will be “retired” in 2021.

This week’s announcement has been a long time coming. The Holden brand has been in a state of terminal decline since General Motors ceased local manufacturing in October 2017. A once-dominant presence in the everyday life of Australians, Holden became simply one of many imported cars on offer for the Australian consumer.

In 1926, when General Motors set up an Australian subsidiary, management immediately attempted to integrate the firm into the Australian community, importing General Motors public relations practices to Australia.

Using this then novel form of corporate communication, General Motors management placed the firm at the forefront of the nation-building project. It produced pamphlets and took out newspaper advertisements heralding General Motors’ contribution to the local economy.

A 1929 pamphlet asked: “What does General Motors mean?”

It answered: “More wealth for Australia, more jobs for Australians”.

An inherited identity

In 1931, General Motors acquired South Australian car body manufacturer Holden’s Motor Body Builders. The formation of General Motors-Holden allowed General Motors to inherit an Australian identity.

Read more: Why Australians fell out of love with Holdens

In the wake of the Great Depression, General Motors’ public relations focused on the firm’s contribution to full employment. The Holden brand was increasingly tied to its industrial workforce. This was a deliberate marketing development, directed towards the paradoxical goal of making General Motors a local institution.

In 1948, General Motors-Holden, in close collaboration with the Australian government, produced the first fully Australian-made car: the Holden 48-215, popularly known as the Holden FX.

Marketed as “Australia’s own”, the Holden was a resounding success for General Motors. The car entrenched local automotive manufacturing and solidified a powerful symbolic connection with the Holden brand and the stability of post-war Australian capitalism.

It was in this context the Elizabeth manufacturing facilities opened in South Australia in 1954, forming the backbone of the community and providing a stable source of employment for years to come.

Production and sales of Holdens boomed in the 1950s, helped along by full employment for white men, high tariff protection, state-sponsored migration and amicable relations with trade unions.

Reshaping lives

By 1962, the one millionth Holden rolled off the assembly line, and Australian society had been transformed.

Expanding rates of car ownership fostered a unique link between the Holden and the emerging notion of the “Australian way of life”. This was a unique post-war construction, and one deeply related to the growth of manufacturing and a growing suburban landscape.

The new industrial economy reshaped the everyday lives of Australians, fostering booming home ownership and an ever-expanding market for consumer durables. This entrenched General Motors-Holden within the cultural imagination, enabling widespread acceptance of Holden as “Australia’s Own Car”.

But this symbolism of Holden obscures a more complicated history, including large-scale industrial dispution, racial tensions on the assembly line and a long-term decline in the industrial workforce.

The dominant imagery of the Australian way of life was male-dominated. Women’s roles were restricted to housewives and mothers. This worked to render the role of women in the firm invisible. But women had worked at General Motors-Holden from its inception.

Nostalgia for post-war stability ignores the instability faced by those who were excluded, and a growing dissatisfaction with the demands for social uniformity that accompanied the notion of an “Australian way of life”.

Yet the symbolism endured, perhaps best captured by Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1994 with the launch of the “Working Nation” white paper. Keating chose to launch the white paper at the Holden factory, arguing for Holden’s place at the forefront of Australian nation building.

Changing worlds

The Australia of today is very different from the one that embraced Holden as a symbol of national culture.

The Holden car was a powerful symbol for many post-war migrants, as a source of both employment and inclusion into the national myth.

But a once-great manufacturer is now a painful public memory, representing closures, lay-offs and long-term unemployment.

Read more: An end to Australia’s auto dream: why we loved Holden

With access to affordable housing and stable employment increasingly out of reach for a growing number of Australians, the place of the car in the Australian dream has shifted. But the Holden brand was always constructed to serve the interests of its parent company General Motors.

After ceasing Australian manufacturing, the Holden brand was disconnected from our national myths. The car of the last century is no more.

– ref. Vale Holden: how America’s General Motors sold us the Australian dream – https://theconversation.com/vale-holden-how-americas-general-motors-sold-us-the-australian-dream-131915

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

An “unholy coalition” is attacking the planned increase in the superannuation guarantee, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese says in his latest “vision statement”, pledging to resist any attempt to stop the legislated rise to 12% going ahead.

In a speech on older Australians – released ahead of Wednesday’s delivery in Brisbane – Albanese says critics “want to see super wound back or abolished. They say that the pension should be enough, or that it reduces wages.

“I absolutely reject this binary approach. With economic growth and productivity you can have both higher super and higher wages.”

The rise in the guarantee, at present 9.5%, would take it in increments to 12% by 2025. The increase has strong critics within government ranks (where some would favour making superannuation voluntary) and outside, among them the Grattan Institute. The government currently has an inquiry into retirement incomes running.

The Australian Council of Social Service has argued that “any increase in compulsory retirement saving above 10% of wages should be based on a careful assessment of the needs of low and middle-income workers before and after retirement”.

ACOSS also says the guarantee should not rise above 10% until tax breaks for super contributions are reformed to make them fair.

Interviewed on Sky on Tuesday, government senator Gerard Rennick, from Queensland, agreed there was a growing push among Liberals to stop the increase.

Albanese says the prescriptions of ACOSS and others play into the government’s hands.

Supporting the guarantee going to 12%, he says “having established the superannuation system we will not stand by and see it chipped away. We want to make it better”.

In his speech Albanese also says a Labor government would charge its proposed body Jobs and Skills Australia with strengthening the workforce for the aged care sector.

This is one of “the workforces of the future”, and needs proper pay and training, and to be able “to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate care”.

Albanese attacks the government’s plan to privatise aged care assessments. “The first interaction the elderly and their families have with the aged care system is through an aged care assessment or ACAT. It is the first step to getting a home care package or entering a residential aged care facility.

“Our aged care system is broken – and this government wants to make it worse by subjecting ACAT to the indifference of the market. There is a role for the market. But markets have no conscience.”

Albanese also endorses the concept of “intergenerational care”.

“The ABC program ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’ made me laugh and made me cry – but it also made me imagine a future where intergenerational care is the answer to our aged care crisis.

“Imagine a future where we co-locate aged care facilities including day respites with kinders and preschools.

“Day respite for our elderly is a missing piece of the puzzle. For many families, they want mum or dad to stay at home or live with them, but they worry about the long days when they are at work.

“Imagine being able to drop your child and grandmother off to the same location.

“Imagine knowing their day would be enjoyable and safe, with activities led by well-paid staff.

“The benefits of intergenerational care are immense. It can help our elderly re-engage with the world, minimise their isolation and the effects of their health issues.”

Addressing the issue of older workers who have trouble getting jobs, Albanese says the answer for some is “to upgrade their skills, which underscores the urgency of rebuilding our TAFEs in particular and our VET system in general”.

But cultural change is also needed, he says, and employers must play their part.

“According to Deloitte Access Economics, a 3% increase in workforce participation by Australians aged over 55 would generate a $33 billion boost to the economy each year.

“Volunteering is great. But to build a stronger economy, we must harness the talents of everybody – and that includes older Australians who are sources of wisdom and experience for their employers and co-workers.”

– ref. ‘You can have both higher super and higher wages’: Albanese – https://theconversation.com/you-can-have-both-higher-super-and-higher-wages-albanese-132013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thami Croeser, Research Officer, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

The idea that we should decentralise our population has come up many times in Australia. Recently, the National Farmers’ Federation president pushed the notion, calling for a shift to the regions. And the premise is this: city living is unpleasant. Roads are jammed, housing is expensive and it’s all so much nicer out in the country. We need to “spread out”.

We reject this conclusion. Regional centres certainly must play a role in accommodating our population growth, but for now it’ll be a modest role.

The more immediate need is to focus on improving conditions in our major cities. Our smaller towns matter, but we can’t neglect the urgent need to get better at doing the bigger ones right.

Read more: Australia’s dangerous fantasy: diverting population growth to the regions

Our cities are growing very rapidly. The fastest growth is in Melbourne, which added 119,400 residents in 2017-18. That’s nearly as many extra people as the entire population of Darwin in a single year. This rapid growth doesn’t need to mean more traffic, ugliness or stratospheric housing prices and rents – if we confront a difficult truth.

A dirty word in Australia

The truth is we’re just really ordinary at urban density. It’s so poorly executed in Australian cities that it has become a dirty word in local politics.

Urban density targets remain low in planning policies for many states. It’s often set at around 15 dwellings per hectare. In practice, even lower density is delivered.

Australians tend to think of density as living in high-rise tiny apartments. Drop the “d-word” at your local pub and see how the term “shoebox” or “vertical slum” quickly follows.

The irony is that the very thing that makes a getaway to central Paris or Barcelona so attractive is what many Australian city residents revile at home. The places we visit and admire are really quite dense.

Our estimates based on UN figures suggest Paris averages around 213 people per hectare and Barcelona 156. By contrast, Melbourne averages 38 people per hectare and Sydney around 50.

It’s higher-density living that makes their streets and public spaces buzz. But, importantly, this density is achieved through a combination of well-designed mid-rise apartments (roughly six storeys) close to shops, services and public transport. This gives residents the best of both worlds: cities that are liveable and likeable.

Read more: This is what our cities need to do to be truly liveable for all

A failure of planning

Past failed experiments in density have made it difficult to replicate overseas examples locally. The great Australian dream of owning a quarter-acre block and the stigma around density persist with reason. In Melbourne, for example, rapid high-rise development in the last decade has delivered large numbers of very small apartments, in some cases of poor quality and lacking natural light and ventilation.

Very modest investment in public transport makes things worse, as new residents try to cram onto services that haven’t kept pace with growth. Car parking, however, is usually mandated. These planning rules mean the price of new apartments includes the expense of multiple floors of parking, and streetscapes are peppered with vehicle crossover ramps.

Without adequate public transport, roads fill with cars, stoking resident opposition to further infill development. The roads and parking these cars need occupy valuable space, which could be better used for trees and urban greening. Green space is often overlooked in the haste to accommodate rapid population growth, yet it’s essential for community health and well-being and for reducing urban heat island effects.

Read more: Higher-density cities need greening to stay healthy and liveable

Handling population growth doesn’t require us to move to Tamworth or Toowoomba, but it will require some really important changes in our urban development priorities. There has to be a much stronger focus on quality and aesthetics to win back public support for infill development. It’s also going to take commitment to lift density targets in key planning policies.

Plan Melbourne’s 2017 refresh, for instance, has moved to a goal of “over 20 dwellings per hectare”. It follows the recommendations of research in allowing higher densities in high-activity areas such as activity or town centres. However, it will take time to implement this change in existing and new areas across the city.

Density must be complemented by suitable streetscapes and infrastructure. This will require a significant rethink of the role of the car in urban areas, greater investment in public transport, and a reallocation of large areas of streetscape space to greenery and pedestrians.

That’s a big ask, but it’s worth it, because density really doesn’t have to mean “dogbox”.

Read more: GOD save us: greenspace-oriented development could make higher density attractive

Dutch show change is possible

Take a (digital) walk around a woonerf neighbourhood in the Netherlands and you’ll notice on-street parking is scant, the speed limit is around 15km/h and plentiful road space is allocated to tree planting and garden beds. Kids play in the street under the watchful eye of long-term locals. You don’t notice the dense apartments around you because there are trees in the way and there’s a lot to see at ground level.

Read more: Designing the compassionate city to overcome built-in biases and help us live better

Remarkably, it was only in the 1970s that the Dutch started to move away from car-oriented planning to deliver this kind of urban design, which puts people and place first. With courageous policy change, we could have this in Australia too.

– ref. No need to give up on crowded cities – we can make density so much better – https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-give-up-on-crowded-cities-we-can-make-density-so-much-better-131304

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen R Fisher, Professor, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW

Access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for young children with disability is not equal across Australia. Where you live can hinder access to information about disability support, assistance to apply for it, and timely access to services.

Sadly, long-standing problems getting children into disability support were part of the reason the NDIS was introduced in the first place.

Your location can exacerbate inequity at three points: noticing your child needs support, proving they need support, and finding suitable support near you.

We interviewed families with a child who went through the NDIS process and the organisations that support them. Based on our research, we’ve collated some tips to ensure your child can access the NDIS if they need it.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: will parents of newly diagnosed children with disability be left in the dark?

1. Noticing your child might need support

Some disabilities, like physical disabilities, are visible; but many disabilities are not immediately obvious or don’t have a specific label.

Sometimes families and professionals won’t notice children need help until they get to primary school, when a teacher might suggest a child could benefit from support.

We found one common difficulty for families is wondering whether their child needs support, and what kind of support. Most families have minimal experience of disability, so this can be confusing and distressing.

If you have any concerns, it’s a good idea to speak to health and early childhood intervention workers. Asking questions early means your child is more likely to get the support they need.

Even in regional and rural areas, most families will attend health services – whether general practitioners, community nurses or early childhood health centres. These are good places to ask if you think your child needs support.

You might also share ideas about how and where to get help with other parents and with educators at social activities like playgroup, the library, child care and preschool.

Read more: How do I know if my child is developing normally?

2. Proving your child needs support

When you know your child needs support, you must prove they are eligible.

Support is available from different parts of government, which makes it confusing – health, education, early childhood intervention services, child care and now the NDIS. Most support is free, though some families will pay for additional support.

NDIS has two support streams relevant to children.

If your child is aged up to six, contact the NDIS Early Childhood Partner (ECP) in your area.

ECPs are early childhood organisations that have partnered with the NDIS to support young children accessing the scheme. They’re free and your child doesn’t need a diagnosis to seek support.

The ECP will talk to you about what your child might need and support you to get it. Depending on your child’s needs, they will help you obtain equipment, get support from health services and education providers, and apply to the NDIS.

Read more: NDIS failing to catch children with late-onset difficulties

If your child is aged seven or above, contact your NDIS Local Area Coordinator (LAC). These services are also free. If your child is eligible for the NDIS, the LAC will explain how to get a diagnosis to prove they have “permanent and significant disability”, and how to apply for an NDIS package.

Usually getting a diagnosis relies on the health system, which can delay access to the NDIS, depending on where you live.

3. Finding suitable support for your child

Once you’ve secured an NDIS package for your child, you can choose which organisations will provide the support. The ECP or LAC can help you navigate this. Other service providers, including health professionals, educators and NDIS support coordinators can help with this too.

Once in the NDIS, our research confirmed the availability of support and range of choices varies by where you live.

Some families live in places, like rural areas, where there are not many services available. In these cases they need to find creative ways of getting support, including paying community members or using tele- or fly-in services.

The system needs improvement

The current system relies on families or children’s services noticing the child might need support. But not all families know how to be assertive, have the capacity to ask for help or have free medical and social care in their local community.

Another difficulty is the NDIS is confusing for families, and even for support providers. First, it’s different for children aged 0-6 and older children. Second, it overlaps with education, health and other services. These factors mean families and service providers are often unsure which part of the NDIS or other services can help and how.

Every family’s experience of the NDIS is different. Some families in our research said they didn’t have enough information about the NDIS. Some families waited a long time before they could get NDIS services. Families with more education, money and information had a better experience.

Generally, families said the process worked best when their GP, early childhood educator or other service had expertise about disabilities and the NDIS, and could guide them.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: many eligible people with disabilities are likely to miss out

The NDIS is still a relatively new system, so some difficulties are understandable. But the NDIS needs to work together with other parts of government and private services to ensure families know what supports children are entitled to and how to access them.

Any delays receiving an NDIS package or other support for a young child delays the benefit of early intervention and risks higher support needs in the long term.

– ref. Yes, the system needs to be better. But here’s how to ensure your child can access the NDIS if they need it – https://theconversation.com/yes-the-system-needs-to-be-better-but-heres-how-to-ensure-your-child-can-access-the-ndis-if-they-need-it-131757

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Teare Ada Lambert, Adjunct Lecturer/ Ecologist, University of New England

As the east coast bushfire crisis finally abates, it’s easy to see nothing but loss: more than 11 million hectares of charcoal and ash, and more than a billion dead animals.

But it is heartening to remember that bushfire can be a boon to some plants and animals. We’re already seeing fresh green shoots as plants and trees resprout. Beetles and other insects are making short work of animal carcasses; they will soon be followed by the birds which feed on them.

Australia’s worsening fire regimes are challenging even these tolerant species. But let’s take a look at exactly how life is returning to our forests now, and what to expect in coming months.

The science of resprouting

Of course, bushfires kill innumerous trees – but many do survive. Most of us are familiar with the image of bright green sprouts shooting from the trunks and branches of trees such as eucalypts. But how do they revive so quickly?

The secret is a protected “bud bank” which lies behind thick bark, protected from the flames. These “epicormic” buds produce leaves, which enables the tree to photosynthesise – create sugar from the sun so the tree can survive.

Under normal conditions, hormones from shoots higher in the tree suppress these buds. But when the tree loses canopy leaves due to fire, drought or insect attack, the hormone levels drop, allowing the buds to sprout.

Insect influx

This summer’s fires left in their wake a mass of decaying animal carcasses, logs and tree trunks. While such a loss can be devastating for many species – particularly those that were already vulnerable – many insects thrive in these conditions.

For example, flies lay eggs in the animal carcasses; when the maggots hatch, the rotting flesh provides an ample food source. This process helps break down the animal’s body – reducing bacteria, disease and bad smells. Flies are important decomposers and their increased numbers also provide food for birds, reptiles and other species.

Read more: Looks like an ANZAC biscuit, tastes like a protein bar: Bogong Bikkies help mountain pygmy-possums after fire

Similarly, beetles such as the grey furrowed rosechafer, whose grubs feed on decaying logs and tree trunks, add nutrients to the soil when they defecate which helps plants grow again.

Insects also benefit from the mass of new leaves on trunks and branches. For example, native psyllids – an insect similar to aphids – feed on the sap from leaves and so thrive on the fresh growth.

Then come the birds

Once insects start to move back into an area from forested areas nearby, the birds that eat them will follow.

An increase in psyllids encourages honeyeaters – such as bell miners and noisy miners – to return. These birds are considered pests.

A CSIRO study after bushfires in Victoria’s East Gippsland in 1983 found several native bird species – flame and scarlet robins, the buff-rumped thornbill and superb fairy-wren – increased quickly to levels greater than before fire. As shrubs in the understorey regrow, other species will move in, slowly increasing biodiversity.

Read more: Not all weeds are villains. After a fire, some plants – even weeds – can be better than none

Since the recent bushfire in woodland near Moonbi in New South Wales, numerous bird species have returned. On a visit over this past weekend, I observed currawongs landing in the canopy, saw fairy wrens darting in and out of foliage sprouting from the ground, and heard peep wrens in tufts of foliage on bark and high branches.

Honeyeaters moved between burnt and intact trees on the edge of the blackened forest and butterflies visited new plants flowering after recent rain.

Weeds can help

Weeds usually benefit when fire opens up the tree canopy and lets in light. While this has a downside – preventing native plants from regenerating – weeds can also provide cover for native animal species.

A study I co-authored in 2018 found highly invasive Lantana camara provided habitat for small mammals such as the brown rat in some forests. Mammal numbers in areas where lantana was present were greater than where it was absent.

Lantana often grows quickly after fire due to the increase in light and its ability to suppress other plant growth.

Is there hope for threatened species?

Generalist species – those that thrive in a variety of environments – can adapt to burnt forest. But specialist species need particular features of an ecosystem to survive, and are far less resilient.

The critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum lives only in small pockets of forest in Victoria.

It requires large fires to create a specific habitat: big dead trees provide hollows for shelter and nesting, and insects feeding on burnt wood and carcasses provide a food source.

But for the Leadbeater’s possum to benefit from the fire regime, bushfires should be infrequent – perhaps every 75 years – allowing time for the forest to grow back. If fires are too frequent, larger trees will not have time to establish and hollows will not be created, causing the species’ numbers to decline.

Similarly in NSW, at least 50% and up to 80% of the habitat of threatened species such as the vulnerable rufous scrub-bird was burnt in the recent fires, an environmental department analysis found.

Looking ahead

Only time will tell whether biodiversity in these areas is forever damaged, or will return to its former state.

Large fires may benefit some native species but they also provide food and shelter for predatory species, such as feral cats and foxes. The newly open forest leaves many native mammals exposed, changing the foodweb, or feeding relationships, in an ecosystem.

This means we may see a change in the types of birds, reptiles and mammals found in forests after the fires. And if these areas don’t eventually return to their pre-fire state, these environments may be changed forever – and extinctions will be imminent.

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

– ref. These plants and animals are now flourishing as life creeps back after bushfires – https://theconversation.com/these-plants-and-animals-are-now-flourishing-as-life-creeps-back-after-bushfires-130293

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzie Gibson, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Charles Sturt University

The gothic developed as a European architectural phenomenon in 12th-century France, where awe-inspiring cathedrals reflected a world drenched in religious piety and superstition.

Its veneration was revisited in 18th-century English literature, when writers sought to inspire a comparable sense of wonder by setting scenes in ruined abbeys, haunted castles and spectacular natural landscapes.

Books like Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764), Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) appealed to a wide readership, but were dismissed as superficial sensationalism by the literary establishment.

The Australian gothic is unique from its northern counterparts. Instead of grand churches and castles, Australian writers dramatised remote towns, evoking a deep sense of malevolence operating beneath the veneer of ordinary life.

An Australian literary tradition

One of the first writers to embrace the gothic sensibility down under was Marcus Clarke. His extraordinary For the Term of His Natural Life (1872) chronicled the terrible physical and psychological torment of protagonist Rufus Dawes, convicted of a crime he did not commit and exiled to Australia’s penal colonies.

Rufus’s aristocratic identity is concealed as a testament to his fortitude and heroism. The plot’s many twists and turns centre on his efforts to escape from penitentiaries.

He is propelled by an abiding love for a young damsel whom he tries unsuccessfully to protect from ruthless villain Maurice Frere — his jailer and his cousin.

The Australian landscape features prominently. The harsh penal colonies of Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur test the boundaries of human valour, Clarke critiquing a brutal convict system that demoralised and dehumanised.

Tasmanian readers rejected Clarke’s bleak vision of their isle, but For the Term of His Natural Life paved the way for other writers to explore the dark shadows amid the bright Australian light.

Barbara Baynton’s utterly devastating The Chosen Vessel (1896) reveals the depths of human malice. A mother is left alone to fend for herself and newborn baby while her husband works elsewhere. She is left vulnerable, and is raped and killed by a lone swagman.

In Baynton’s outback setting, male characters are not protagonists: they are antagonists who belittle and kill. Similar to Clarke’s hostile audience, readers were troubled by her grim vision.

Read more: Refuge in a harsh landscape – Australian novels and our changing relationship to the bush

The most celebrated Australian gothic novel is Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967), telling the story of the inexplicable disappearance of a group of schoolgirls and their mathematics teacher.

Adapted for the screen by Peter Weir in 1975, Picnic at Hanging Rock plays on the gothic’s romantic sensibility by featuring a number of beautiful young women – pure Botticelli angels – stalked by monsters.

One such monster is the Australian landscape. The film, driven by Russell Boyd’s astute cinematography, suggests it was the rock itself that devoured the schoolgirls and teacher Miss McCraw.

The gothic aesthetic has been especially notable in Australian cinema.

Long Weekend (1978), Shame (1988), Wolf Creek (2005) and Van Diemen’s Land (2009) followed in the wake of Weir’s masterpiece. Astonishing landscapes entrap, stymie agency and foster humanity’s worst traits.

Across these texts is the singularly Australian fear of being lost in the bush.

In her book White Vanishing, Elspeth Tilley argues this fear resonates with white guilt about the attempted genocide of countless Indigenous peoples. Indeed, the gothic genre was a colonial import along with this genocide.

From silver screen to your headphones

The Oz Gothic podcast series, out now through the ABC, adds to this long line of a uniquely Australian gothic style.

Produced by Camilla Hannan, Oz Gothic features six distinctive stories by Tony Birch, Maria Tumarkin, Julie Koh, Lachlan Philpott, Alicia Sometimes and Krissy Kneen. Each contributes to this Australian history of gothic storytelling.

The stories traverse the suburbs to rural towns. We hear the voices of women, Indigenous people, and multicultural Australians.

Ordinary life can have an edge of malice. Some of the stories evoke Baynton’s bleak vision of women’s assault and murder. Others channel influences from Hitchcock to Wake in Fright (1971).

Nothing is exaggerated. The writers capture the truth of humanity’s vulnerability and, in particular, women’s exposure to male violence. The writers invest welcome strains of empathy and compassion for the disenfranchised and dispossessed: they are still the victims of crime, but here empowered to tell their own stories.

Read more: How to listen to podcasts

Oz Gothic astonishes in its deft use of sound: high heels echo on loud surfaces; guns discharge from attempted suicides; magpies chortle in small communities; lawnmowers drone and chainsaws buzz in suburban streets.

This pared-back power returns the gothic to its medieval origins, where acoustic language dominated over printed and visual forms.

In the wake of a long history, this new series takes the Australian gothic into new territory.

– ref. Podcast series Oz Gothic breathes new life into Australian gothic storytelling – https://theconversation.com/podcast-series-oz-gothic-breathes-new-life-into-australian-gothic-storytelling-131676

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

The federal court’s rejection of the ABC case against the Australian Federal Police raid on its Sydney headquarters in June 2019 reveals two issues of great importance to freedom of the press in Australia:

• the laws criminalising journalism are working exactly as the government intended, and

• the legal protections for journalists’ confidential sources are seriously deficient.

The ABC challenged the validity of the search warrant under which the raid took place. By the time the raid was over, the police had downloaded 89 documents onto two USB sticks. They have been sealed pending the outcome of this case.

The raid was part of a criminal investigation into two ABC journalists, Dan Oakes and Sam Clark. A year earlier, they had broken a story containing allegations that Australian soldiers committed war crimes while on tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Police justification for the raid

To obtain the warrant for the raid, the police applied to a local court registrar in Queanbeyan. It was issued for the purpose of investigating whether Oakes had unlawfully obtained military information under section 73A(2) of the Defence Act):

A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person obtains any plan, document, or information relating to any fort, battery, field work, fortification, or defence work, or air force aerodrome or establishment, or to any of the defences of the Commonwealth or any other naval, military or air force information; and

(b) that conduct is unlawful.

The warrant was also issued to investigate whether Oakes had dishonestly received stolen property from one of his sources, former Defence Department lawyer David McBride (contrary to section 132.1 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code).

McBride has outed himself as a source for the story and in separate proceedings has pleaded not guilty to five charges. His trial is to start on March 2.

ABC’s challenge to the warrant

In its case against the federal police, the ABC initially included a contention that section 73A(2) of the Defence Act is invalid because it violates the constitution’s implied right of free speech on matters of government and politics.

The ABC did not persevere with this aspect of its argument, demonstrating once again how limited and largely ineffectual that implied right is.

Ultimately, the ABC challenged the validity of the search warrant on five grounds:

• it was not authorised by the relevant law (section 3E of the Crimes Act),

• it was too wide-ranging,

• it was expressed in vague and uncertain language,

• it authorised seizure of material that could not provide evidence supporting the charges brought against Oakes, and

• it was legally unreasonable.

Read more: Explainer: what are the media companies’ challenges to the AFP raids about?

Why ‘shield laws’ aren’t relevant in this case

Justice Wendy Abraham rejected all five of these grounds. In doing so, she drew attention to a huge gap in the protection afforded to journalists’ confidential sources under what are called “shield laws”.

They are set out in the Evidence Acts of the Commonwealth and all states except Queensland.

Basically, “shield laws” give journalists the right to ask the court to excuse them from revealing the identity of a confidential source on the ground that to do so would be a serious breach of professional ethics.

Read more: Why shield laws can be ineffective in protecting journalists’ sources

In deciding whether to grant this so-called privilege, the court must balance the public interest in the administration of justice against the public interest in the media’s being able to obtain information.

The court must also take into account the possible consequences for the source and the journalist of a forced disclosure.

Abraham has pointed out that while these shield laws apply in court proceedings, they do not apply to search warrants, except in Victoria.

This case fell under Commonwealth law, meaning the shield laws did not apply. As such, protecting the confidentiality of the ABC’s sources was not a relevant consideration.

The enormity of this deficiency in the law is immediately obvious. If the shield laws are to offer even the most rudimentary protection, they need to be extended beyond courtroom proceedings to include search warrants and other instruments of investigation.

What happens next

It is very likely the documents seized from the ABC will contain clues that enable the police to identify the journalists’ sources.

While McBride has outed himself as a source in this case, Abraham’s judgement does not discount the possibility there may be others.

McBride’s future is already playing out in the courts. Whether Oakes and Clark follow him into the dock is now in the hands of the AFP and, ultimately, Attorney-General Christian Porter.

The AFP has said many times – with the endorsement of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton – that journalists are not above the law.

Read more: Australian governments have long been hostile to media freedom. That’s unlikely to change any time soon

Meanwhile, we await the report of the press freedom inquiry conducted last year by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and now three months overdue.

The inquiry was precipitated by public outrage over the AFP raids on the ABC and the home of a News Corp reporter, Annika Smethurst.

In its response to the Smethurst raid, News Corp has been more direct than the ABC. It has gone straight to the High Court, arguing that the raid itself – never mind the documentation behind it – was a violation of the implied right of free speech on matters of government and politics, a doctrine the High Court itself developed in 1997.

That matter is still to be decided. When it is, Australians will have another opportunity to assess just how free their press really is.

– ref. Court ruling against ABC highlights the enormous deficiency in laws protecting journalists’ sources – https://theconversation.com/court-ruling-against-abc-highlights-the-enormous-deficiency-in-laws-protecting-journalists-sources-131991

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By S. Anna Florin, PhD candidate, The University of Queensland

Australia’s first people ate a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other plant foods, many of which would have taken considerable time and knowledge to prepare, according to our analysis of charred plant remains from a site dating back to 65,000 years ago.

We already know the earliest Aboriginal Australians arrived at least 65,000 years ago, after voyaging across Island Southeast Asia into the prehistoric supercontinent of Sahul, covering modern mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea.

But while the timing of this journey is becoming relatively clear, we know comparatively little about the people who made it, including their culture, technology, diet, and how they managed to thrive in these new landscapes.

Read more: Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years

Our research, published today in Nature Communications, describes charred plant remains found at the archaeological site of Madjedbebe, a sandstone rock shelter on Mirarr country in western Arnhem Land. It provides the earliest evidence for plant foods consumed by humans outside of Africa and the Middle East and tells an important story about the diet of the earliest known Aboriginal people in Australia.

What is the evidence?

While animal bones do not survive in the earliest levels of Madjedbebe, remarkably, plant remains do survive as a result of charring in ancient cooking hearths.

We recovered these remains using a simple yet effective method. By immersing the samples in water, the light charcoal pieces float and separate easily from the heavier sandy sediment in which they are buried.

Among the charred plant remains are fruit pips, nutshells, peelings and fibrous parts from tubers, and fragments of palm stem. These are the discarded leftovers of meals cooked and shared at the rockshelter tens of thousands of years ago.

Read more: Friday essay: when did Australia’s human history begin?

Today, the Madjedbebe rockshelter and the environments around it are just as culturally and economically significant to the Mirarr people as they were in the deep past. Our research is the result of a partnership with the Mirarr, bringing together Indigenous and scientific knowledge.

With the help of traditional owners and research colleagues, May Nango and Djaykuk Djandjomerr, we identified the modern-day plants that would have been eaten at Madjedbebe, and the cooking techniques needed to make them edible. Some foods, such as fruits, required minimal processing. But others, such as the man-kindjek or cheeky yam, needed to be cooked, leached and/or pounded before being eaten. Some of these preparation techniques can take up to several days.

We studied the charred plant remains under the microscope, identifying them by matching their features with the modern-day plant specimens. Using this technique we identified several fruits and nuts, including “plums” (Buchanania sp., Persoonia falcata, Terminalia sp.), and canarium (Canarium australianum) and pandanus nuts (Pandanus spiralis); three types of roots and tubers, including an aquatic-growing species; and two types of palm stem.

What does this tell us about early Aboriginal lifestyles?

Several of these plant foods would have required processing. This included the peeling and cooking of roots, tubers and palm stems; the pounding of palm pith to separate its edible starch from less-digestible fibres; and the laborious extraction of pandanus kernels from their hard drupes. We could only accomplish the latter feat with the help of an electric power saw, although they were traditionally opened by pounding with a mortar and pestle.

There is also evidence for the further processing of plants, including seed-grinding, left as microscopic traces on the grinding stones found in the same archaeological layer at the site. This represents the first evidence of seed-grinding outside Africa.

Along with other technology found at the site, such as the oldest known edge-ground axes in the world, it demonstrates the technological innovation of the first Australians. They were investing knowledge and labour into the acquisition of plant starches, fats and proteins, as well as into the production of the technologies required to procure and process them (axes and grinding stones).

These findings predate any other evidence for human diet in this region, including Island Southeast Asia and New Guinea.

It calls into question the theory that humans migrating through Southeast Asia fed themselves with as little effort as possible, moving quickly along coastal pathways eating shellfish and other easy-to-catch foods.

Read more: Island-hopping study shows the most likely route the first people took to Australia

Contrary to this, the plant remains found at Madjedbebe suggest that the first Aboriginal people were skilled foragers, using a range of techniques to eat a diverse range of plant foods, some of which were time-consuming and labour-intensive to eat.

Their ability to adapt to this new Australian setting had little to do with a “least effort” way of life, and everything to do with behavioural flexibility and innovation, drawing on the skills and knowledge that allowed successful migration across Island Southeast Asia and into Sahul.

This required the first Australians to pass their knowledge of plants and cooking techniques down through the generations and apply them to new Australian plant species. Along with the innovation of new technology, this allowed them to get the most out of the Australian environment.

– ref. 65,000-year-old plant remains show the earliest Australians spent plenty of time cooking – https://theconversation.com/65-000-year-old-plant-remains-show-the-earliest-australians-spent-plenty-of-time-cooking-131761

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Biddle, Associate Professor, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

Last month, the Australian National University contracted with the Social Research Centre (SRC) to survey more than 3,000 Australian adults about their experiences and attitudes related to the bushfires.

The study is the first of its kind to gauge how people were affected by the crisis and how it changed their views on a range of subjects, from climate change to the government response.

More than half of Australians felt anxiety

Our research shows the vast majority of Australians were touched in some way by the fires. We asked about eight different forms of impact, from lost property to disrupted holiday plans to difficulty breathing from the smoke.

About 14.4% of our respondents experienced direct exposure to the fires, either through their property damage or evacuations.

We can extrapolate further by looking at population estimates from the ABS and the number of visitors to areas impacted by the bushfires from the National Visitors Survey to estimate the total number of people directly affected at around 3 million.

And 77.8% of our respondents reported indirect exposure to the fires, such as having a friend or family member with damaged or threatened property, having travel or holiday plans disrupted, being exposed to the physical effects of smoke or feeling anxious or worried about the fires.

Read more: Bushfires won’t change climate policy overnight. But Morrison can shift the Coalition without losing face

Breaking the data down by individual category, the severity of the public health challenges becomes more clear.

Nearly six in 10 respondents (57%) said they were physically affected by the smoke, while 53.6% said they felt anxious or worried about the fires.

Confidence in the government declined

The long-running Australian Election Study has shown that confidence in the federal government has declined substantially in the past few decades.

Crises have the potential to restore some of this trust if dealt with effectively and transparently. However, the government’s handling of the recent bushfire crisis seems to have had the opposite effect.

Confidence in the federal government declined by 10.9 percentage points from 38.2% in our survey in October 2019 to 27.3% by January 2020.

Confidence in other institutions, meanwhile, was quite stable over the four-month period, and higher than for the federal government. Rural fire-fighting services had the highest level of public trust in our survey at 92.5%.

We also found a significant decline in the percentage of people who said they would vote for the Coalition if an election was held that day. This dropped from 40.4% in October 2019 to just 34.8% in January 2020 – nearly even with those who said they would vote for Labor in January (33.4%).

Significant increase in concern over global warming

We also tracked significant changes in people’s attitudes towards the environment.

For instance, 49.7% of people reported the environment as one of the top two issues facing Australia in January 2020, compared to 41.5% of respondents in October 2019.

Another interesting finding: 10.2% reported fires, natural disasters or extreme weather as the most or second-most important issue facing Australians, up from nearly nonexistent in October 2019.

Read more: After the fires, a reason for optimism: our civic engagement has never been higher

Our findings showed consistently higher concern among Australians when it comes to specific environmental issues. Comparing responses from our January 2020 survey and a 2008 ANUpoll, we saw two large increases in concern for loss of native vegetation, animal species or biodiversity (13 percentage points) and drought and drying (nine percentage points).

There was an even larger increase in the proportion of people who believe global warming or climate change will impact their lives.

Nearly three-quarters (72.3%) of respondents said global warming was a very serious or fairly serious threat, a substantial increase from the 56% who said so in 2008.

The majority of those living in capital cities said they felt global warming was a very serious problem (62%) or a threat (74.9%). Perhaps even more surprising, however, was the fact these views were shared by people in non-capital cities (52% said it was very serious, 65.5% said it was a threat).

Support for new coal mines has also declined sharply over the past eight months. In our January survey, 37% of respondents said the government should allow the opening of new coal mines, down from 45.3% in an ANU survey from June 2019.

While being exposed to the bushfires appears to have made people more aware of environmental issues, the drop in support for new coal mines does not appear to have been driven by the crisis itself. Rather, it appears to be consistent across the population, with the biggest decline occurring among those who voted for the Coalition in the 2019 federal election (57.5% supported new mines in January 2020, down from 71.8% in June 2019).

There is still much work to be done to fully understand people’s attitudes towards climate change and how this correlates with natural disasters like bushfires.

But the data in our survey provide opportunities for future research and new insights and will be made available through the Australian Data Archive. Future surveys could test for changes in people’s attitudes taking into account different variables and track how those attitudes change over time.

– ref. Nearly 80% of Australians affected in some way by the bushfires, new survey shows – https://theconversation.com/nearly-80-of-australians-affected-in-some-way-by-the-bushfires-new-survey-shows-131672

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Davis, Professor of Law, UNSW

In his Closing the Gap speech to parliament last week, the prime minister injected some order and transparency back into the constitutional recognition process.

The PM anchored his government’s work on the co-design of a Voice to Government back to the 2018 parliamentary inquiry led by Senators Pat Dodson and Julian Leeser. By doing this, he recognised the trajectory of hard work undertaken by politicians and the public for nearly a decade.

The Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples reviewed the Referendum Council’s report and Uluru Statement from the Heart. It produced the most recent report in a long list of public processes on Indigenous constitutional recognition.

In the past nine years, there have been five formal, taxpayer-funded, government-endorsed processes, a legislated framework, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 (the Act of Recognition) and eight reports.

The game-changer, Leeser and Dodson acknowledge, was the Referendum Council’s work.

Read more: Ken Wyatt’s proposed ‘voice to government’ marks another failure to hear Indigenous voices

The Dodson-Leeser report found that a Voice to Parliament (as opposed to government) was the only viable reform proposal following the Referendum Council’s deliberative process of 2016 and 2017. It recommended that:

following a process of co-design, the Australian government consider, in a deliberate and timely manner, legislative, executive and constitutional options to establish the Voice.

Symbolism is not enough

This is why so many people were utterly confounded when Ken Wyatt, the minister for Indigenous Australians, unilaterally decided there would be a referendum on Indigenous recognition with a symbolic proposal – likely a statement of recognition – that no one was advocating for.

This proposal was recently rejected by the constitutional dialogues and in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart. It was also rejected before that in the 2015 Kirribilli Statement.

Then, last month, the minister announced a firm deadline for a referendum on symbolism to be held in mid-2021. Confusion reigned.

The consistent rejection of symbolic recognition proposals is poorly understood. One of the challenges of this work has been the very word “recognition”, as adopted by the then prime minister, Julia Gillard, in 2010.

Read more: More First Nations people in parliament matters. Here’s why.

“Recognition” is a term commonly used in constitutional law and political science, and it has a technical meaning in the context of power relations.

Recognition can come in a weak form, such as symbolism. (It’s weak because it does not change the status quo.) Or it can be a strong form, such as designated parliamentary seats, a voice or even an autonomous region.

However, the dictionary meaning of recognition is “acknowledgement”. Until the Uluru Statement, in the absence of an agreed model of recognition, the public discussion on Indigenous recognition reverted to this meaning – acknowledgement.

However important symbols are to Aboriginal people, nine years of this work shows, incontrovertibly, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples do not seek more symbols. And certainly not in the constitution, which distributes power across the federation. They seek change that can make a concrete difference to their lives.

The only viable option for constitutional reform

The critical moment when Indigenous leaders expressly disavowed symbolic recognition came in 2015.

Leaders from across Australia gathered to speak with the then prime minister, Tony Abbott, and the then opposition leader, Bill Shorten, at Kirribilli House to talk about the direction recognition was headed, with fears there were plans for more symbolism.

The 40 Indigenous leaders present adopted the Kirribilli Statement. It read:

[…] [A]ny reform must involve substantive changes to the Australian Constitution. It must lay the foundation for the fair treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples into the future.

A minimalist approach that provides recognition in the Constitution’s preamble, removes section 25 and moderates the race power section 51(xxvi) does not go far enough, and would not be acceptable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

During the Kirribilli meeting, we requested a new and ongoing dialogue between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the government to negotiate the proposal to be put to referendum. They listened. The Referendum Council was set up.

Read more: The Indigenous community deserves a voice in the constitution. Will the nation finally listen?

The constitutional dialogues confirmed there was no appetite for symbolic gestures. After the final constitutional convention at Uluru, the Referendum Council recommended a referendum be held to provide in the constitution for a representative body that gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a Voice to Parliament.

Dodson and Leeser’s report found the Voice was the only viable option for constitutional reform. The report recommended a co-design before deciding on the legal form.

It’s a critical point not readily understood that the Voice, which is a simple enabling provision in the constitution, is regarded as both substantive and symbolic recognition.

Mixed messages on recognition

Almost a decade of work has gone into this issue, including extensive consultation with Indigenous peoples and the wider Australian public, education programs and the design of constitutional proposals and referendum ballot papers. Australians from all walks of life, including politicians from across the political spectrum, have contributed to this body of work.

After Dodson and Leeser recommended co-design and then consideration of the legal form to follow in December 2018, the 2019 federal budget contained funding for this and a referendum. Leading into the 2019 election, the ALP committed to holding a referendum on the Voice to Parliament.

Following the election, however, matters became less clear.

Wyatt confused many because of his inconsistent public pronouncements. Unusually for an Indigenous affairs minister, he did not reply to a letter from key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders from land councils, native title bodies and peak organisations seeking a meeting to clarify his thinking until he was prompted by the media many months later.

This year began with the minister stating once again that a constitutional Voice, a Makarrata Commission and truth-telling were off the table, disavowing entirely the past nine years of work and the Uluru Statement.

His co-design process talks of a “Voice to Government”, not a Voice to Parliament. The minister has also pre-empted the co-design by insisting the Voice to Government would use existing institutions and structures.

This is the complete opposite of the sentiment of the Uluru dialogues, which stated that no existing organisation or entity represents their Voice.

Read more: Ken Wyatt’s proposed ‘voice to government’ marks another failure to hear Indigenous voices

Wyatt’s decision to set a firm deadline of mid-2021 for a referendum on a proposal no one wants was bewildering.

His own party room said they had not been consulted on this. Setting hard timelines for negotiations creates unnecessary pressure for any government. It is notable a spokesperson for the minister quietly retracted that firm deadline the next day.

The one reform Australia has never tried

This week signifies a restoration of order to constitutional recognition. The prime minister and opposition leader both presented important speeches on Closing the Gap. Labor is consistently supportive of a constitutionally enshrined Voice.

Scott Morrison reverted to the two-pronged approach, which is co-design and then decide the legal form. Many mob chipped the prime minister this week for deploying the language of listening and empowerment when Commonwealth policies and initiatives, such as the Indigenous Advancement Strategy and Closing the Gap, demonstrate governments and bureaucrats do not listen to our voice and cannot deliver change. Even so, his important intervention was welcomed.

In the absence of a constitutionally entrenched Voice, there is no obligation on the state to listen. I have consistently argued as a constitutional lawyer, as others have, that structural reform is what is required for transformative change.

This is the one reform Australia has never tried. This is why the Uluru Statement invites all Australians to walk with us now for the structural change that many have been working hard on for almost a decade.

– ref. Constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians must involve structural change, not mere symbolism – https://theconversation.com/constitutional-recognition-for-indigenous-australians-must-involve-structural-change-not-mere-symbolism-131751

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Woods, Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney

Heavily subsidised aged care services used to be seen as a right and entitlement for all older Australians. But as aged care demand grows and costs rise, it’s becoming increasingly clear the current system isn’t sustainable.

The family home has always been a central part of the debate over how much older Australians should contribute to their aged care services. But it has largely been protected from means tests.

It’s time for Australians who own their own home to contribute more to the cost of their aged care – and there are fair and equitable ways to go about this.

Read more: Nearly 2 out of 3 nursing homes are understaffed. These 10 charts explain why aged care is in crisis

How does the system currently work?

Currently, taxpayers pay the majority of the cost of subsidised aged care services.

In 2017-18, the total cost was A$21.4 billion; the Australian government paid A$16.6 billion, or 77% of that total.

Older people pay less than 10% of the cost of home support and home care.

For residential care, they still only pay around a quarter of the cost (27%). Most of their payment is for meals, cleaning, laundry, and so on – things they would have done or paid for when living at home.

What aged care services are means tested?

There are different consumer contribution arrangements for the three main aged care programs: home support, home care packages and residential aged care homes.

Only one – residential care – takes into account the value of a person’s home.

The home is not counted in the assets test if a partner or dependent children live there, or (with conditions) a carer or close relative lives there.

Further, the value of the home used for the assets test is limited to only A$169,079.20. This may be the total value of the home for those living in poorer areas or rural communities. But it represents only a tenth of the value or less for wealthy home-owners, so it fails to take into account a large proportion of their wealth.

Why the current system isn’t working

The current system isn’t sustainable. The federal government’s budget outlook shows taxpayer expenditure on aged care services will grow rapidly from A$16.8 billion in 2017-18 to A$24 billion by 2022-23 and will continue growing thereafter.

Without change, these aged care subsidies will become an increasingly larger part of Australia’s total economy, growing from around 1% of GDP now to a projected 1.7% of GDP by 2054-55. As such, more of the economy’s production will be devoted to aged care at the expense of other goods and services.

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

The family home’s special treatment isn’t even supported by the not-for-profit sector.

The Council on the Ageing (COTA) recently told the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety that the current levels of taxpayer subsidies are likely to become unsustainable into the future.

COTA said consumer contributions should be more equitable and have regard to their total wealth, including their “real property” – read “the family home”.

Catholic Health Australia, in a submission to the federal government, similarly said it would publicly support including the full value of a person’s former home in the residential care assets test.

So what should we do?

To overcome the current inequities and improve the sustainability of the system, we need to broaden the assessment of an older person’s capacity to pay, by taking greater account of their wealth.

The first step should be to raise the cap on the value of the home in the current residential care assets tests, potentially to the full value of the home.

An assets test could also be included for consumer contributions to home care packages.

Read more: So you’re thinking of going into a nursing home? Here’s what you’ll have to pay for

A second issue is for an older person to draw more readily on their wealth to pay for goods and services, including aged care services, without having to sell their home during their lifetime.

One way forward is greater use of the Pension Loans Scheme, which enables older Australians to receive a voluntary non-taxable fortnightly loan from the government using their home as security.

Given the imperative for greater quality and safety in aged care, and the rising use and cost of these services, the government should publicly explore these options and open up the modelling to community debate. Budget sustainability and the equitable treatment of all older Australians demand nothing less.

– ref. Home-owning older Australians should pay more for residential aged care – https://theconversation.com/home-owning-older-australians-should-pay-more-for-residential-aged-care-131565

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carla Liuzzo, Sessional Lecturer, School of Business, Queensland University of Technology

As a parent, I find it so frustrating to take my children shopping, reusable bags in hand, only to be offered plastic toys at the checkout. It’s an incredibly confusing message to be sending kids. And it seems Coles is confused too.

Last year the company stated it wants to be “Australia’s most sustainable supermarket”. But with last week’s relaunch of “Stikeez” – yet another plastic collectables range off the back of their Little Shop promotion – Coles is showing dogged commitment to unsustainable marketing.

Stikeez are 24 plastic characters (plus four rare ones) in the shape of fruit and vegetables, aimed at encouraging kids to eat healthy food.

Read more: Why and how retailers turn everyday items into ‘must-have’ collectables

After petitions against previous plastic “mini” campaigns by Coles and Woolworths, Coles will make the Stikeez characters returnable in store for recycling.

But this misses the point. Coles is generating waste needlessly in the first place. Surely it’s time to move beyond plastic freebies as a way of boosting sales?

Irresponsible marketing

We have a waste problem in this country. Australians are the third highest producers of waste per person, after the US and Canada. Some councils are having to stockpile plastic, there’s a federal plan to phase out exporting waste overseas and we have high rates of contamination of recyclables.

And Coles, one of Australia’s supermarket giants, sent almost 100,000 tonnes of waste to landfill in 2019. That’s 274 tonnes per day.

Read more: Stop shaming and start empowering: advertisers must rethink their plastic waste message

But after their Little Shop collection provoked a consumer backlash, Coles took steps to reduce waste generated from their latest campaign. Stikeez wrapping contains partially recycled content, and Coles is providing in-store collection points where Stikeez can be returned and repurposed into shoe soles, in partnership with Save Our Soles.

Certainly this is preferable to throwing the items into the rubbish, but repurposing the plastic is not without environmental cost. Fuel is required to transport the waste and the process of repurposing plastic uses energy.

What’s more, asking shoppers to bring back their Stikeez puts the onus on consumers, rather than the company, to dispose of the items responsibly. And as we’ve seen by the low rates of recycling of soft plastics on a national level – recycling soft plastics is also offered in store – it’s far more convenient to throw items in the bin.

Coles is also missing the point of the consumer backlash. When a company already generates huge quantities of waste in its core business and says it wants to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket, it cannot generate additional waste on plastic marketing.

Boosting the bottom line

Last year Coles’ Little Shop put many parents offside. But Coles earned around A$200 million in extra revenue as a result of the original promotion.

Coles reported an increase in the first quarter of 2019 in sales of 5% and gained a competitive advantage over rival Woolworths, which managed only 1.5% in the same period. Obviously the bump in sales was too hard for Coles to resist.

It’s difficult to get an accurate figure on what waste this latest Stikeez campaign will generate. Coles haven’t publicised data about how many collectables they will produce. And waste contractors to Coles haven’t revealed how many collectables ended up in landfill last year, though there have been reports of Little Shop items ending up on beaches in Bali.

Last year, Coles said 94% of Little Shop collectables were either kept or given to family or friends. But University of Tasmania marketing expert Louise Grimmer discredited this data, saying it was not based on any meaningful longitudinal research that would allow such claims.

Stikeez undermines Coles’ sustainability efforts

If organisations produce plastic for marketing purposes, it’s difficult to see how we can achieve plastic recycling rates of 70% by 2025. This target – set by federal and state governments and which Coles has signed on to meet – also stipulates the removal of “problematic and unnecessary” single use plastic packaging.

Federal Assistant Minister for Waste, Trevor Evans, said finding a sustainable way to manage plastics was a major challenge and requires a coordinated effort. As a powerful household brand, Coles must unequivocally be part of this effort.

Read more: How recycling is actually sorted, and why Australia is quite bad at it

Coles’ environmental policy says it’s “committed to doing business in an environmentally responsible manner”. But plastic freebies fly in the face of this policy.

Better waste regulation

Voluntary initiatives for companies to reduce packaging and plastic waste, which Coles have signed on to, have not produced meaningful results.

Currently only one-third of all plastic packaging in Australia is recycled.

Overseas countries have moved away from voluntary frameworks to more structured and enforceable regulations to reduce plastic production and waste. In fact, Europe voted to ban single use plastics last year.

As long as Australia lags on waste regulation, organisations such as Coles will continue to contravene their own environmental policies.

The Conversation contacted Coles for comment. Its response is as follows:

Customers have told us that they use Stikeez as a fun tool to encourage kids to eat more types of fresh foods. The collectibles form part of the Coles Fresh 5 Challenge which encourages kids to eat all the Five Food Groups daily. We made changes to the Stikeez campaign this year to ensure it’s more environmentally sustainable.

Stikeez collectibles, including those customers have from last year, can now be recycled at all Coles supermarkets. We have partnered with Australian recycling group Save our Soles so that Stikeez can be recycled through the same process that is used to recycle footwear in Australia since 2010 to create useful products like anti-fatigue mats, gym matting, retail flooring and carpet underlay.

– ref. Coles says these toys promote healthy eating. I say that’s rubbish – https://theconversation.com/coles-says-these-toys-promote-healthy-eating-i-say-thats-rubbish-131667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Whitten, Ph.D Candidate, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne

Victoria’s government finds itself in a big hole with its West Gate Tunnel project. As diggers lie idle in a dispute over what to do with contaminated soil, it’s facing long delays and billions in extra costs. But the government appears locked into a contentious project that was put to it as a market-led proposal, an arrangement that bedevils transport projects across Australia.

Australian governments look increasingly to mega-projects to solve urban and regional transport problems. These projects are city-shaping. They can transform how entire urban regions function.

The public has a clear stake in these projects, but unsolicited market-led proposals are subverting planning processes that are meant to protect the public interest.

Read more: Market-led infrastructure may sound good but not if it short-changes the public

Market-led proposals are unsolicited bids to government by private firms to provide public services or infrastructure. Policies governing market-led proposals were introduced in 2014 and 2015 by state governments across Australia to promote innovation in service delivery and value for money for taxpayers.

The increasing use of market-led proposals for transport mega-projects raises important questions. How are policies governing these managed, to what end, and for whose benefit?

In Melbourne, the tensions between toll road operator Transurban and the Victorian government over the West Gate Tunnel highlight a fundamental shortcoming of market-led proposals. Bluntly, these are not suited to the planning of transport mega-projects because governments can become “locked in” with questionable benefits. Lock-in has been defined as “the escalating commitment of decision-makers to an ineffective course of action”.

The case of the West Gate Tunnel

Transurban’s builders of the West Gate Tunnel, John Holland and CPB Contractors, laid off 137 workers last month in a dispute about liability for contaminated soil. This is bad press for the state government, which touted job creation and training as key project benefits.

The dispute could add to delays and costs on top of two earlier changes related to the project. The first was a ten-year extension to Transurban’s CityLink tolling concession that will cost road users billions of dollars. The second was an increase in construction costs from A$5.5 billion to A$6.7 billion to extend tunnels to save a public park.

Explanations for the dispute include the Environmental Protection Authority tightening soil disposal requirements, difficulties determining site conditions during the environmental assessment process, and insufficient foresight and planning for these risks.

Another explanation for what happened is “lock-in”. Evidence of lock-in on the West Gate Tunnel points to deeper systemic problems with market-led proposals for transport mega-projects in general.

How does lock-in happen?

Lock-in can occur when powerful corporations partner with governments in circumstances that enable them to exploit vulnerabilities in our public institutions. Some of these vulnerabilities include increasing reliance by governments on private finance, and the short period between elections compared to the time it takes to deliver bold public works programs.

Lock-in happens when the real decision to build a project is made well in advance of processes that are publicly declared to inform that decision. Once governments are locked in to a project, it can make alternatives appear increasingly unviable, if not unthinkable.

There is strong evidence to suggest this happened with the West Gate Tunnel. Significant concerns were raised early on that the project might not provide its claimed public benefits.

Read more: Impending traffic chaos? Beware the problematic West Gate Tunnel forecasts

What makes market-led proposals different?

Market-led proposals differ from government-led projects because planning is effectively outsourced to the private sector.

Market-led proposals also differ from public-private partnerships, like Melbourne’s CityLink tollway. In such cases, government plans these projects, but private firms deliver and operate them. (At least CityLink was part of a long-standing, if largely discredited, strategic plan.)

Revelations that Transurban acted in secretive and strategic ways to secure support for its West Gate Tunnel raise serious ethical questions. What does it mean to be a “good partner” to government? How should powerful private corporations obtain a “social licence” to operate?

These questions draw attention to problems inherent in Victoria’s opaque market-led proposal process. The government’s caution about the AirRail consortium’s unsolicited bid for Melbourne’s airport rail link points toward some of these dangers.

Read more: Transurban’s West Gate tollway is a road into uncharted territory

What’s wrong with this approach?

Government policies for assessing market-led proposals give powerful private firms like Transurban influence over strategic planning. This contrasts with the relatively limited influence granted to affected communities and stakeholder groups advocating for sustainable transport solutions.

Acceptance of Transurban’s bid allowed a multi-billion-dollar toll road to override plans that had been taken to an election. These plans were simpler and far less expensive. The plans had been developed with the local community to better manage freight traffic by upgrading access to existing freeways.

The West Gate Tunnel process involved expedited planning that bypassed broad-based community consultation. John Holland and CPB Contractors were selected in April 2017 “to get to work” on the project. That was five months before public hearings concluded in September. Over 500 submissions were received.

Add to this the suppression of independent and critical oversight and a heavily redacted business case, and a very concerning picture of Victoria’s market-led process emerges.

Read more: Sidelining citizens when deciding on transport projects is asking for trouble

Wanted: an integrated transport plan

Because governments are ultimately responsible for their partnerships, the Victorian government should demonstrate stronger accountability and leadership. Victorians are still waiting for an integrated transport plan, as is required to be prepared under the 2010 Transport Integration Act. Instead of outsourcing transport problems to private firms, the government should develop a statewide, genuinely consultative, evidence-based plan.

An integrated transport plan would allow Victorians to see how future mega-projects, regardless of who proposes them, might serve everyone’s interests.

– ref. West Gate Tunnel saga shows risk of ‘lock-in’ on mega-projects pitched by business – https://theconversation.com/west-gate-tunnel-saga-shows-risk-of-lock-in-on-mega-projects-pitched-by-business-131210

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology

The jingle used to tell us we loved “football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars”.

These days we love Japanese utes and small Toyotas, Hyundais and Mazdas more.

Monday’s announcement from General Motors, Holden’s US parent, that the brand brand will be “retired” and local design and engineering operations cease is doubtless based on strong financial reasoning, but poor brand management is also part of it.

The numbers didn’t stack up

Sales of Holden vehicles and a shift from large sedans to small and medium sized cars and sportscars and SUVs didn’t help.

At its peak, between 2002 and 2005, Holden sold more than 170,000 vehicles a year. By 2019 it sold less than 40,000; none of them made here.

In November, it sold just 2,668 cars, down from 5,125 the previous November.

Global competition from Japan, Korea and Thailand for brands like Kia and Hyundai, added to its woes.

Internationally, Holden was only present in two small markets, Australian and New Zealand, which between them don’t even account for 1% of global sales, and require steering columns on the right hand side of car. It has made Holdens hard to internationalise.

Monday’s press release blamed “highly fragmented right-hand-drive markets”, the cost of growing the brand, and the unlikelihood of achieving a decent return on the investment if it tried.

General Motors isn’t even going to bother to sell foreign-made sedans in Australia, although it will continue to sell speciality vehicles.

Yet its brand is ingrained in Australian history.

Holden defined a brand

Brands are a combination of tangible and intangible elements. Among the tangible elements are visual design elements, like logos, colour, images and packaging, such as the Holden “Lion and Stone” and distinctive product features, such as the feel of the leather, the sound of a roaring V8 and the quality of the duco.

But that is only part of what makes a brand. Tangible elements can be easily copied and are a feature of nearly all products. The challenge is to develop and leverage intangible qualities.

These can include experiences (such as service) and feelings such as reputation, personality and values.

Nostalgia is a Holden value. It’s rich history, dating back to 1856, has helped define the brand.

Many of us who grew up in the 1970s remember family car trips to the beach in a Kingswood station wagon. In the 1980s, we watched Brock, Richards and Perkins win Bathurst. Movies like Puberty Blues made the Holden Sandman panel van every young man’s dream, and every parent’s worse nightmare.

General Motors killed it

Being Australian was at the core of that identity.

General Motors took it away.

On October 20, 2017 it stopped production of all Australian-made vehicles and began importing Commodores from Germany.

Then in December last year it axed the Commodore, after 41 years.

It killed the value that was left in the brand.

We fell out of love with Holden because it fell out of love with us.

– ref. Why Australians fell out of love with Holdens – https://theconversation.com/why-australians-fell-out-of-love-with-holdens-131907

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Wilson, Director of the European Union Centre, RMIT University

Climate change is set to become an inescapable part of negotiations now underway over an Australia-European Union free trade agreement, and also negotiations over the Australia-UK agreement necessitated by Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Both agreements are needed to help shore up the world trading system which has been without an effective enforcement system following the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw support from the World Trade Organisation.

In public, the major issue in the EU negotiations has been its determination to enforce so-called “geographical indications”, which limit the use of common names for products such as “champagne”, “feta” and “prosecco” to products made in those places, over and against our access to the wealthy EU market.

Read more: Key trade rules will become unenforceable from midnight. Australia should be worried

An agreement protecting the integrity of both French and Australian wine regions has been in place for more than 25 years. The EU wants to extend it to cheese, other foodstuffs and other beverages.

But it’s climate change that’s likely to be the biggest sticking point, with Australia appearing to drag its feet on its Paris commitments, and our catastrophic bushfires drawing the world’s attention to our government’s record.

Australia will be pressured on climate

Britain will host this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow in November.

The European Union is embracing climate action as a matter of policy, partly for environmental reasons and partly as an element of what it sees as economic sustainability.

In January, under the new leadership of Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission launched what it called the European Green Deal.

It aims to make Europe carbon-neutral by 2050, committing to a trillion-Euro public-private fund to transitions away from carbon. Crucially, it embeds climate action into trade policy.

We might face carbon border adjustments

The most intriguing, and complex, proposal is for a “carbon border adjustment” – a tax, levied on imports from countries without carbon pricing mechanisms.

The Commission also requires ratifying and effectively implementing the Paris Climate Accords as a precondition of trade agreements.

France has been especially bellicose on this point. In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged not to “sign commercial agreements” with nations that did not respect the Paris Agreement.

In November 2019 the French Foreign Minister insisted the Australia-Europe trade agreement include both ambitious climate targets and sanctions for failing meet them.

Read more: Arrogance destroyed the World Trade Organisation. What replaces it will be even worse

In November, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham fobbed off the French demands, insisting that Australia would meet its targets without difficulty, a statement that might have said more about government messaging to a domestic audience than the state of progress.

Also complicating the talks is the requirement that once negotiations are concluded, the deal still needs the approval of the European Parliament.

Europe wants enforceable commitments

Left and Greens members have raised concerns already that the deal could result in increased Australian beef and sheep meat production which would boost methane emissions and emissions due to land clearing and transport.

Optimists in Europe see the negotiations as a way to get Australia to lift its environmental game. In an earlier round of negotiations, it reportedly pushed Australia on its poor fuel quality, labelling this a “technical barrier to trade”.

Negotiations with Australia could turn into a test case for Europe’s climate strategy. Successfully holding Australia to account on its Paris commitments and turning it towards a sustainable economy would be a decisive statement for Europe’s ambitions to lead the world on the climate crisis.

– ref. Our trade talks with Europe and Britain are set to become climate talks – https://theconversation.com/our-trade-talks-with-europe-and-britain-are-set-to-become-climate-talks-130544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donna Mazza, Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts, Edith Cowan University

Warning: this piece features frequent coarse language that may offend some readers.

Since Adam Mansbuch’s 2011 bestseller, Go the Fuck to Sleep, book titles have been swearing profusely to grab audience attention. The author followed up on the winning formula with You Have to Fucking Eat and Fuck, Now There Are Two of You.

Book covers compete with a barrage of information and images, so it’s no wonder many writers resort to shock tactics. It works. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck is testament to this, selling 2 million copies and translated into 25 languages. Without the “Fuck” this would very likely have been a different story.

Presumably hoping to ride on the back of this success, upcoming releases include Fuck Happiness and The Middle Finger Project.

In the English language, at least, fuck and other words on the more extreme end of profanity are the last frontier of using language to shock. In 2020, we find ourselves in a place of extremes so they come in quite handy.

But with so many fucks on book covers, where do writers go from here to express our fear, horror, rage and disgust?

Heard it all before

Eventually we become desensitised to the overuse of words. Shit, a taboo for older generations, is now so lacking as an obscenity it is written on the covers of notebooks and pencil cases available in stationery chain stores popular with schoolchildren, such as Typo.

According to a 2019 ABC study of 1,538 subjects, Australians are seeing and hearing more coarse language than they did five years ago, both in the media and in public.

“In line with this normalisation of coarse language, concerns relating to the use of coarse language in the media have diminished over time,” the study found. Of people studied, 38% were offended by coarse language on TV, radio or the internet in 2019, compared with 47% in 2011.

Tennis, one of the last bastions of politeness, does constant battle with players like Nick Kyrgios who rack up massive fines for dropping the F-bomb on the court.

Fines, like detention, seem to be on the train that has left the station when you consider reputable online booksellers currently carry almost a hundred books with fuck in the title. Most of these are self-help books, because we are, obviously, quite fucked and need help, and cookbooks, such as Yumi Stynes’ The Zero Fucks Cookbook. Kitchens seem to be a hotbed of fucks, a trend set some time ago by Gordon Ramsay.

Meaning and language are in a constant evolution and can act as a moral barometer. Expressing the fears and horrors of her times 200 years ago, author Mary Shelley created a “fiend”, formed through “unspeakable” horrors. Some initially derided the work as “disgusting”, but the extremes of her Frankenstein left an impact on literature and society of mythic proportions, without resorting to profanity or cheap tricks. She left the unspeakable to our imaginations, yet it broke boundaries and challenged our understanding of life and human nature.

In 1959, the unabridged edition of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was published with several instances of fuck. The edition was banned. In 1963, fuck was included in the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, triggering complaints to schools, libraries and the police.

Taboos and standards are forever in flux and younger generations always seek a boundary to break through. In our times of consumption and greed, we are eating our way through those boundaries at a great rate, along with as many of the Earth’s resources as we possibly can.

What now?

Several hundred book covers later, fuck is completely worn out.

Sure, there is still coarser language that will work for a few years until it also becomes a meme; until we wear it out as a book title or, perhaps, if we think too hard about what it means and how we might use it.

Language can only evolve creatively with a dynamic culture, deep education and critical practitioners of the literary arts, within and outside of the academy. Words are weapons; they are our way of making sense of life and without them we are unspeakable.

Language and how we use it really matters. It creates knowledge, culture and community. If we are to navigate our way through the future and avoid reaching a place of anarchy, we need a language for it.

Resorting to coarse language on book covers could be a symptom of society’s collective misery, but it could also be attributable to the starvation of the arts by government and a desperate need to grab readers’ attention. If literature loses the power to shock then it loses an important mode of engagement, according to postcritical theorist Rita Felski. It’s enough to make you want to swear and curse and scream. Unfortunately, as a word to save for extremes, we have really fucked up fuck.

Donna Mazza’s new novel has an f-word in the title but it’s Fauna.

– ref. Books in a post-f@#^ world. Are we all sworn out yet? – https://theconversation.com/books-in-a-post-f-world-are-we-all-sworn-out-yet-130948

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Jones, Climate Scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology

After the intensely dry conditions of 2019, January and February have brought much-needed rain. Dams in many cities and towns were replenished and some farmers may be able to grow a crop for the first time in several seasons. So does this mean the drought has broken?

The answer is not straightforward. There is no single definition of drought, and the impact of rain varies enormously depending on where it falls.

The assessment of drought conditions involves not just rainfall, but other factors such as water supplies and soil moisture.

The Bureau of Meteorology reports on “meteorological drought” – that is, drought considered purely from the perspective of rainfall deficits. Totals in the lowest 10% of historical observations are considered a serious to severe rainfall deficiency. The bureau does not have responsibility for declaring drought, which is complex and reflects both demand and supply of water, as well as social and economic factors.

Read more: Weather bureau says hottest, driest year on record led to extreme bushfire season

In the three years to January 2020 some 33% of Australia and 96% of New South Wales had serious or severe rainfall deficiencies. In the most-affected regions, rainfall over the past three years was around half the long-term average.

Based on rainfall so far in February, the areas suffering serious to severe deficiencies has only slightly improved (to around 30% of Australia and 90% of NSW).

In other words, while some areas have seen excellent rainfall, others have not – so the overall relief from meteorological drought so far this year is modest.

The big dry

To understand the impact of the recent rain, we need to understand the extent of the drought gripping much of the continent.

Last year was Australia’s driest on record, intensifying one of the most severe droughts of the past century.

In eastern Australia, the dry contributed to the severe 2019-20 fire season. It also challenged town water supplies, and contributed to mass fish die-offs, falls in agricultural production and drying wetlands.

Read more: The science of drought is complex but the message on climate change is clear

The dry conditions were intense and persistent. The Murray-Darling Basin experienced above-average rainfall in just five months from 2017 to 2019. The total three-year rainfall was a record low 917mm – that’s 548mm below average.

Dry conditions have also affected all east coast urban regions south of Townsville, including Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

Then the rains came

Rainfall associated with low pressure systems affected Victoria, northeast NSW and inland Queensland in January. Monsoon conditions, coupled with tropical cyclones Claudia and Damien, also marked the late onset of wet season rainfall for tropical areas.

The national rainfall for January was slightly above average (89mm), though NSW, South Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin again recorded below average rainfall overall.

Read more: The winter was dry, the spring will likely be dry – here’s why

The first half of February has seen good rain across South Australia and inland Western Australia, and heavy rainfall along the east coast (seaward of the Great Dividing Range).

Rainfall was heavy around Sydney, the Illawarra and northeast NSW/southeast Queensland. Several local rainfall records were broken, while Sydney saw a remarkable 392mm fall over four days – more than the city received in the second half of 2019.

But the rain did not fall evenly across the eastern states. Many places in southern and western NSW have received only patchy falls. For example, Broken Hill has received just 8mm since the start of the year. These areas will need more rain to ease drought conditions.

More than rain

Drought is not just about rainfall but also about the water available in dams, in the soil and in our groundwater systems.

At the end of 2019, soil moisture reserves across large parts of the country were close to zero. In recent weeks, absolute soil moisture across Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Victoria has improved.

While the east coast is now generally very wet, conditions are more varied inland reflecting the patchy nature of summer storms.

Inland rain led to local flash-flooding and triggered high river flows in several areas. Previously dry stretches of the Condamine River in Queensland have flooded, and the Namoi and Castlereagh Rivers in NSW have had their first flows in many months.

A small volume of water will likely make it down the Darling, it will take more than a month. This is because losses to evaporation and seepage into the riverbed will be high.

But not enough rain has fallen in the right places to significantly impact dam levels in northern NSW, which have been critically low over the past year.

Collectively, storage volumes in major dams in the northern Murray Darling Basin have only increased by around 5%. The heaviest inland rain was downstream on the plains rather than on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, which feed the dams.

There have, however, been notable increases in dam levels along the east coast where the best rain fell. Since the start of February, water storage volumes have increased from 42% to 79% in the Greater Sydney region and from 56% to 67% in south east Queensland.

Rain in the season ahead

Some areas have seen heavy rainfall which has brought drought relief. But others will need more rain in coming months to ease drought conditions.

A natural climate driver, known as the Indian Ocean Dipole, fuelled very dry conditions in Australia in the second half of 2019. That event has now finished, and climate drivers are expected to remain “neutral” in the coming months. This means they are not expected to strongly influence our weather and climate.

The autumn 2020 rainfall outlook shows a mixed picture. In the northern and inland western areas of the continent above-median rainfall is favoured.

Elsewhere, the probability of above-median rainfall is near or below 50%. This suggests drought relief may be slow and patchy overall.

– ref. Rain has eased the dry, but more is needed to break the drought – https://theconversation.com/rain-has-eased-the-dry-but-more-is-needed-to-break-the-drought-131660

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Robinson, Lecturer, Department of Occupational Therapy, Monash University

When people think about Australian Rules Football injuries, they tend to think about head injuries and the long-term effects of concussion. Or they might think of the potentially lengthy recoveries after hamstring, shoulder or ankle injuries.

But our recently published research found another leading cause of injury serious enough to take players to the emergency department – injuries to the hand or wrist.

These cost one Victorian public health network between about A$250 (for a single emergency department consultation) and about A$5,300 (for surgery and rehabilitation) each time. And many of these injuries can be prevented or better managed.

Read more: Aussie Rules rules thanks to the eight-hour working day

What causes these injuries?

Australian Rules Football or Aussie Rules involves a mix of physical endurance, high-speed running, frequent changes of direction, jumping, sudden and forceful collisions, aggressive tackling, as well as kicking and ball-handling skills.

The sport’s distinctive rules and physical demands exposes players to both unique and uncommon injuries compared to those sustained in other football codes, for instance in gridiron football played in the United States and Canada or Gaelic football played in Ireland.

Put simply, the 360-degree nature of the game (unlike rugby which is played mainly in straight lines up and down the pitch), can result in fingers, hands and wrists to be pulled, jarred, kicked and crushed.

Players’ hands and wrists can also be injured by other players, when falling on the grass pitch or when in contact with the hard leather ball.

Read more: Explainer: what is traumatic brain injury and how is it treated?

More and more people playing around the country

Research published in the 1990s found hand fractures were the second most frequent injury, behind concussion, for amateur Aussie Rules players.

Since then, the game has become much more popular. Nationally, it’s the third most popular organised sport for children (behind swimming and soccer).

And the number of women playing the amateur game has increased since the introduction of the women’s professional league, the AFLW.

Read more: Growth of women’s football has been a 100-year revolution – it didn’t happen overnight

This rise in participation at an amateur level is likely to have impacts on the number of injuries presenting to emergency departments.

We weren’t aware of Australian data looking at people with sports and exercise-related hand and wrist injuries who presented to the emergency department. So we decided to establish baseline data so that we could track patterns over time.

What we found

Our study used diagnostic codes and billing records at one Victorian public health network. Over a year, we identified and tracked 692 people with a sport and exercise-related admission to the emergency department following a hand or wrist injury.

People playing amateur Aussie Rules were the largest group (20.2%) followed by cyclists (15.9%).

The most common injuries were finger dislocations, with or without fractures, to the proximal interphalangeal joint (the middle joint on the x-ray shown) of the little and ring fingers. Next came metacarpal fractures (in the bone below the knuckles).

The total cost of all sport and exercise-related injuries during the year for the health network was A$790,325, with Aussie Rules accounting for close to A$167,000 alone.

Read more: Get a grip: the twist in the wrist that can ruin tennis careers

As Australia’s national injury database does not capture specific hand and wrist injury data, we cannot compare injury patterns from sports and exercise across states and territories.

But if our study was repeated in New South Wales, for example, where other football codes are more popular, we’d expect to see a different injury profile.

Read more: Rugby World Cup injuries: That’s gotta hurt

Could we prevent or better manage these injuries?

Nevertheless, our finding that Aussie Rules accounts for one in five sport and exercise-related hand and wrist injuries highlights the need for further action.

Preventing these injuries would be challenging for a number of reasons. These include the fast pace of the game, the number of players on the pitch, and the unpredictable bounces that come with using an oval shaped ball.

Yet several strategies might help reduce the frequency and impact of these injuries, as well as their health-care costs.

These include training players from junior grassroots level the correct way to tackle, handball and mark.

For example, when tackling, players need to avoid catching their fingers in another player’s clothing as it could lead to dislocation; players can avoid handballing with the thumb in the palm; and they can hold their fingers to the sky and their body behind their hands when marking where possible.

Clubs could ensure ground conditions are safe, for instance by providing padding on goal posts and avoiding playing on hard, concrete cricket pitches.

And, on the ground, we could ensure there are enough club trainers or health professionals experienced in diagnosing and managing these types of hand injuries. This would reduce the risk of misdiagnosis and exposure to further injury.

Both of us have treated injuries made worse by a well-meaning trainer who has, for example, treated a fracture as a dislocation, leading to further displacement of the bone fragments.

– ref. Aussie Rules players risk injuring hands and wrists too – https://theconversation.com/aussie-rules-players-risk-injuring-hands-and-wrists-too-131386

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bénédicte Cenki-Tok, Associate professor at Montpellier University, EU H2020 MSCA visiting researcher, University of Sydney

As the world shifts away from fossil fuels, we will need to produce enormous numbers of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles and batteries. Demand for the materials needed to build them will skyrocket.

This includes common industrial metals such as steel and copper, but also less familiar minerals such as the lithium used in rechargeable batteries and the rare earth elements used in the powerful magnets required by wind turbines and electric cars. Production of many of these critical minerals has grown enormously over the past decade with no sign of slowing down.

Australia is well placed to take advantage of this growth – some claim we are on the cusp of a rare earths boom – but unless we learn how to do it in a responsible manner, we will only create a new environmental crisis.

What are critical minerals?

“Critical minerals” are metals and non-metals that are essential for our economic future but whose supply may be uncertain. Their supply may be threatened by geopolitics, geological accessibility, legislation, economic rules or other factors.

One consequence of a massive transition to renewables will be a drastic increase not only in the consumption of raw materials (including concrete, steel, aluminium, copper and glass) but also in the diversity of materials used.

Three centuries ago, the technologies used by humanity required half a dozen metals. Today we use more than 50, spanning almost the entire periodic table. However, like fossil fuels, minerals are finite.

Read more: Metals and minerals will be the next finite resource shortfall

Can we ‘unlearn’ renewables to make them sustainable?

If we take a traditional approach to mining critical minerals, in a few decades they will run out – and we will face a new environmental crisis. At the same time, it is still unclear how we will secure supply of these minerals as demand surges.

This is further complicated by geopolitics. China is a major producer, accounting for more than 60% of rare earth elements, and significant amounts of tungsten, bismuth and germanium.

This makes other countries, including Australia, dependent on China, and also means the environmental pollution due to mining occurs in China.

The opportunity for Australia is to produce its own minerals, and to do so in a way that minimises environmental harm and is sustainable.

Where to mine?

Australia has well established resources in base metals (such as gold, iron, copper, zinc and lead) and presents an outstanding potential in critical minerals. Australia already produces almost half of lithium worldwide, for example.

In recent years, Geoscience Australia and several universities have focused research on determining which critical minerals are associated with specific base ores.

For example, the critical minerals gallium and indium are commonly found as by-products in deposits of lead and zinc.

To work out the best places to look for critical minerals, we will need to understand the geological processes that create concentrations of them in the Earth’s crust.

Critical minerals are mostly located in magmatic rocks, which originate from the Earth’s mantle, and metamorphic rocks, which have been transformed during the formation of mountains. Understanding these rocks is key to finding critical minerals and recovering them from the bulk ores.

Fuelling the transition

For most western economies, rare earth elements are the most vital. These have electromagnetic properties that make them essential for permanent magnets, rechargeable batteries, catalytic converters, LCD screens and more. Australia shows a great potential in various deposit types across all states.

The Northern Territory is leading with the Nolans Bore mine already in early-stage operations. But many other minerals are vital to economies like ours.

Cobalt and lithium are essential to ion batteries. Gallium is used in photodetectors and photovoltaics systems. Indium is used for its conductive properties in screens.

Critical minerals mining is seen now as an unprecedented economic opportunity for exploration, extraction and exportation.

Recent agreements to secure supply to the US opens new avenues for the Australian mining industry.

How can we make it sustainable?

Beyond the economic opportunity, this is also an environmental one. Australia has the chance to set an example to the world of how to make the supply of critical minerals sustainable. The question is: are we willing to?

Many of the techniques for creating sustainable minerals supply still need to be invented. We must invest in geosciences, create new tools for exploration, extraction, beneficiation and recovery, treat the leftover material from mining as a resource instead of waste, develop urban mining and find substitutes and effective recycling procedures.

In short, we must develop an integrated approach to the circular economy of critical minerals. One potential example to follow here is the European EURARE project initiated a decade ago to secure a future supply of rare earth elements.

More than ever, we need to bridge the gap between disciplines and create new synergies to make a sustainable future. It is essential to act now for a better planet.

– ref. Critical minerals are vital for renewable energy. We must learn to mine them responsibly – https://theconversation.com/critical-minerals-are-vital-for-renewable-energy-we-must-learn-to-mine-them-responsibly-131547