Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Professor of Environmental Science and Human Health, Macquarie University

Australians are eating and inhaling significant numbers of tiny plastics at home, our new research shows.

These “microplastics”, which are derived from petrochemicals extracted from oil and gas products, are settling in dust around the house.

Some of these particles are toxic to humans — they can carry carcinogenic or mutagenic chemicals, meaning they potentially cause cancer and/or damage our DNA.

We still don’t know the true impact of these microplastics on human health. But the good news is, having hard floors, using more natural fibres in clothing, furnishings and homewares, along with vacuuming at least weekly can reduce your exposure.

What are microplastics?

Microplastics are plastic particles less than five millimetres across. They come from a range of household and everyday items such as the clothes we wear, home furnishings, and food and beverage packaging.

We know microplastics are pervasive outdoors, reaching remote and inaccessible locations such as the Arctic, the Mariana Trench (the world’s deepest ocean trench), and the Italian Alps.

Our study demonstrates it’s an inescapable reality that we’re living in a sea of microplastics — they’re in our food and drinks, our oceans, and our homes.

Read more: We estimate up to 14 million tonnes of microplastics lie on the seafloor. It’s worse than we thought

What we did and what we found

While research has focused mainly on microplastics in the natural environment, a handful of studies have looked at how much we’re exposed to indoors.

People spend up to 90% of their time indoors and therefore the greatest risk of exposure to microplastics is in the home.

Our study is the first to examine how much microplastic we’re exposed to in Australian homes. We analysed dust deposited from indoor air in 32 homes across Sydney over a one-month period in 2019.

We asked members of the public to collect dust in specially prepared glass dishes, which we then analysed.

We found 39% of the deposited dust particles were microplastics; 42% were natural fibres such as cotton, hair and wool; and 18% were transformed natural-based fibres such as viscose and cellophane. The remaining 1% were film and fragments consisting of various materials.

Between 22 and 6,169 microfibres were deposited as dust per square metre, each day.

Homes with carpet as the main floor covering had nearly double the number of petrochemical-based fibres (including polyethylene, polyamide and polyacrylic) than homes without carpeted floors.

Conversely, polyvinyl fibres (synthetic fibres made of vinyl chloride) were two times more prevalent in homes without carpet. This is because the coating applied to hard flooring degrades over time, producing polyvinyl fibres in house dust.

Microplastics can be toxic

Microplastics can carry a range of contaminants such as trace metals and some potentially harmful organic chemicals.

These chemicals can leach from the plastic surface once in the body, increasing the potential for toxic effects. Microplastics can have carcinogenic properties, meaning they potentially cause cancer. They can also be mutagenic, meaning they can damage DNA.

Read more: Why ocean pollution is a clear danger to human health

However, even though some of the microplastics measured in our study are composed of potentially carcinogenic and/or mutagenic compounds, the actual risk to human health is unclear.

Given the pervasiveness of microplastics not only in homes but in food and beverages, the crucial next step in this research area is to establish what, if any, are safe levels of exposure.

Read more: You’re eating microplastics in ways you don’t even realise

How much are we exposed to? And can this be minimised?

Roughly a quarter of all of the fibres we recorded were less than 250 micrometres in size, meaning they can be inhaled. This means we can be internally exposed to these microplastics and any contaminants attached to them.

Using human exposure models, we calculated that inhalation and ingestion rates were greatest in children under six years old. This is due to their lower relative body weight, smaller size, and higher breathing rate than adults. What’s more, young children typically have more contact with the floor, and tend to put their hands in their mouths more often than adults.

Children under six inhale around three times more microplastics than the average — 18,000 fibres, or 0.3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per year. They would also ingest on average 6.1 milligrams of microplastics in dust per kg of body weight per year.

For a five-year-old, this would be equivalent to eating a garden pea’s worth of microplastics over the course of a year. But for many of these plastics there is no established safe level of exposure.

Our study indicated there are effective ways to minimise exposure.

First is the choice of flooring, with hard surfaces, including polished wood floors, likely to have fewer microplastics than carpeted floors.

Also, how often you clean makes a difference. Vacuuming floors at least weekly was associated with less microplastics in dust than those that were less frequently cleaned. So get cleaning!

– ref. We’re all ingesting microplastics at home, and these might be toxic for our health. Here are some tips to reduce your risk – https://theconversation.com/were-all-ingesting-microplastics-at-home-and-these-might-be-toxic-for-our-health-here-are-some-tips-to-reduce-your-risk-159537

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

“The warfare of the 21st century” is going to be “fought in cyberspace before kinetic shots are fired” says leading national security expert David Irvine.

And perhaps the fight has already begun, with Australia’s institutions, businesses, and citizens subject to a near constant barrage of cyber attacks.

Previously chair and now a board member of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, Irvine has a deep knowledge of the cyber risks posed to Australia and Australians by both nation states and criminals.

His career has included heading both ASIS, which manages Australia’s overseas spying activities, and ASIO, responsible for domestic protection.

Irvine describes cybercrime as a “massive issue”, and say that compared to countries like “China, Russia,[…]Iran, and North Korea” the West is lagging behind in its defensive cyber capability.

“I think almost every Western country is probably behind the game in its defences.”

Part of this is the nature of cyber incursions. “One of the rules in cybercrime is that the criminal is always half a step ahead of the protector.”

What can be done? Last year the government committed $1.67 billion over 10 years to combating cybercrime, but Irvine calls in particular for a “public awareness campaign” to get the message through strongly.

“I think back to the old days of HIV and the Grim Reaper, and my sense is that we actually need a very hard hitting campaign that brings home to individuals and businesses[…] the threat that they are under and the sort of resilience that they need to develop as individuals, as companies, and as a nation.”

Irvine is also chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board, and is a former ambassador to China. He says of the current tensions with China, and warnings about “the drums of war”:

“Ultimately, I think we depend on China and the United States to develop a modus vivendi which concedes some interests but protects others. Because the alternative is really too horrendous to contemplate.”

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: former ASIO head David Irvine on the cyber threats Australia faces – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-former-asio-head-david-irvine-on-the-cyber-threats-australia-faces-159931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajib Dasgupta, Chairperson, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University

With more than 300,000 new COVID cases a day and hospitals and crematoria facing collapse, Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called the situation in India “beyond heartbreaking”.

India’s government has blamed the people for not following COVID-safe public health directives, but recent data shows mask use has only fallen by 10 percentage points, from a high of 71% in August 2020 to a low of 61% by the end of February.

And the mobility index increased by about 20 percentage points, although most sectors of the economy and activity had opened up. These are modest changes and do not adequately explain the huge increase in cases.

Read more: After early success, India’s daily COVID infections have surpassed the US and Brazil. Why?

A more likely explanation is the impact of variants that are more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Variants in India

Viruses keep changing and adapting through mutations, and new variants of a virus are expected and tracked in a pandemic situation such as this.

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), a group of ten national laboratories, was set up in December 2020 to monitor genetic variations in the coronavirus. The labs are required to sequence 5% of COVID-positive samples from states and 100% of positive samples from international travellers.

The United Kingdom is currently testing about 8% of its positive samples and the United States about 4%. India has been testing about 1% altogether. INSACOG has so far tested 15,133 SARS-CoV-2 genomes. This means of every 1,000 cases, the UK has sequenced 79.5, the US 8.59, and India only 0.0552.

In the final week of December, India detected six cases of the UK variant (B.1.1.7) among international travellers.

Read more: What’s the new coronavirus variant in India and how should it change their COVID response?

The current second wave started in the northwestern state of Punjab in the first half of February and has not yet plateaued. One of the advisers to the Punjab government confirmed that more than 80% of the cases were attributed to the UK variant.

Significantly, the most affected districts are from Punjab’s Doaba region, known as the NRI (non-resident Indian) belt. An estimated 60-70% of the families in these districts have relatives abroad, mostly in the UK or Canada, and a high volume of travel to and from these countries.

Read more: India’s staggering COVID crisis could have been avoided. But the government dropped its guard too soon

B.1.617, or what has been called the “Indian double mutation”, has drawn attention because it contains two mutations (known as E484Q and L452R) that have been linked to increased transmissibility and an ability to evade our immune system.

Many experts in India now think this is driving the surge.

Even as India’s health ministry announced the detection of the mutants on March 24, it went on to add:

[…] these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states.

The head of the Indian Council of Medical Research said there was no reason for panic because mutations are sporadic, and not significant. That day, the states of Maharashtra and Punjab accounted for 62.5% and 4.5% of 40,715 new cases, respectively.

Read more: As India’s COVID crisis worsens, leaders play the blame game while the poor suffer once again

Across the world, several key mutant strains have emerged thanks to ongoing virus replication in humans. Both ability to replicate and transmit, and a better ability to escape our immune systems, led to the variants establishing themselves as dominant strains across geographies and populations.

The UK variant (B.1.1.7) is at least 30% more transmissible. At a recent webinar, Indian experts observed the “Indian strain” (B.1.617) is similarly transmissible to the UK variant, but there is little evidence so far of it being more lethal than the original virus.

Why higher transmissibility is so concerning

According to epidemiologist Adam Kucharski at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the conundrum is this:

[…] suppose 10,000 people are infected in a city and each infects 1.1 other people on average, the low end for the estimated rate of infection in England. After a month, 16,000 people would have been infected. If the infection fatality rate is 0.8%, as it was in England at the end of the first wave of infections, it would mean 128 deaths. With a variant that is 50% more deadly, those 16,000 cases would result in 192 deaths. But with a variant that is 50% more transmissible, though no more deadly, there would be 122,000 cases after a month, leading to 976 deaths.

In all likelihood, this is the current Indian scenario: a higher overall death count despite the variants being no more fatal in relative terms.

Setting up a genomic surveillance system and consistently testing 5% of the positive samples is an expensive but important tool in the journey ahead. This can help us identify emerging hotspots, track transmission and enable nimble-footed decision-making and tailored interventions.

– ref. Why variants are most likely to blame for India’s COVID surge – https://theconversation.com/why-variants-are-most-likely-to-blame-for-indias-covid-surge-159911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University

Apple users across the globe are adopting the latest operating system update, called iOS 14.5, featuring the now-obligatory new batch of emojis.

But there’s another change that’s arguably less fun but much more significant for many users: the introduction of “app tracking transparency”.

This feature promises to usher in a new era of user-oriented privacy, and not everyone is happy — most notably Facebook, which relies on tracking web users’ browsing habits to sell targeted advertising. Some commentators have described it as the beginnings of a new privacy feud between the two tech behemoths.

So, what is app tracking transparency?

App tracking transparency is a continuation of Apple’s push to be recognised as the platform of privacy. The new feature allows apps to display a pop-up notification that explains what data the app wants to collect, and what it proposes to do with it.

There is nothing users need to do to gain access to the new feature, other than install the latest iOS update, which happens automatically on most devices. Once upgraded, apps that use tracking functions will display a request to opt in or out of this functionality.

How does it work?

As Apple has explained, the app tracking transparency feature is a new “application programming interface”, or API — a suite of programming commands used by developers to interact with the operating system.

The API gives software developers a few pre-canned functions that allow them to do things like “request tracking authorisation” or use the tracking manager to “check the authorisation status” of individual apps.

In more straightforward terms, this gives app developers a uniform way of requesting these tracking permissions from the device user. It also means the operating system has a centralised location for storing and checking what permissions have been granted to which apps.

What is missing from the fine print is that there is no physical mechanism to prevent the tracking of a user. The app tracking transparency framework is merely a pop-up box.

It is also interesting to note the specific wording of the pop-up: “ask app not to track”. If the application is using legitimate “device advertising identifiers”, answering no will result in this identifier being set to zero. This will reduce the tracking capabilities of apps that honour Apple’s tracking policies.

However, if an app is really determined to track you, there are many techniques that could allow them to make surreptitious user-specific identifiers, which may be difficult for Apple to detect or prevent.

For example, while an app might not use Apple’s “device advertising identifier”, it would be easy for the app to generate a little bit of “random data”. This data could then be passed between sites under the guise of normal operations such as retrieving an image with the data embedded in the filename. While this would contravene Apple’s developer rules, detecting this type of secret data could be very difficult.

Read more: Your smartphone apps are tracking your every move – 4 essential reads

Apple seems prepared to crack down hard on developers who don’t play by the rules. The most recent additions to Apple’s App Store guidelines explicitly tells developers:

You must receive explicit permission from users via the App Tracking Transparency APIs to track their activity.

It’s unlikely major app developers will want to fall foul of this policy — a ban from the App Store would be costly. But it’s hard to imagine Apple sanctioning a really big player like Facebook or TikTok without some serious behind-the-scenes negotiation.

Why is Facebook objecting?

Facebook is fuelled by web users’ data. Inevitably, anything that gets in the way of its gargantuan revenue-generating network is seen as a threat. In 2020, Facebook’s revenue from advertising exceeded US$84 billion – a 21% rise on 2019.

The issues are deep-rooted and reflect the two tech giants’ very different business models. Apple’s business model is the sale of laptops, computers, phones and watches – with a significant proportion of its income derived from the vast ecosystem of apps and in-app purchases used on these devices. Apple’s app revenue was reported at US$64 billion in 2020.

With a vested interest in ensuring its customers are loyal and happy with its devices, Apple is well positioned to deliver privacy without harming profits.

Should I use it?

Ultimately, it is a choice for the consumer. Many apps and services are offered ostensibly for free to users. App developers often cover their costs through subscription models, in-app purchases or in-app advertising. If enough users decide to embrace privacy controls, developers will either change their funding model (perhaps moving to paid apps) or attempt to find other ways to track users to maintain advertising-derived revenue.

If you don’t want your data to be collected (and potentially sold to unnamed third parties), this feature offers one way to restrict the amount of your data that is trafficked in this way.

But it’s also important to note that tracking of users and devices is a valuable tool for advertising optimisation by building a comprehensive picture of each individual. This increases the relevance of each advert while also reducing advertising costs (by only targeting users who are likely to be interested). Users also arguably benefit, as they see more (relevant) adverts that are contextualised for their interests.

It may slow down the rate at which we receive personalised ads in apps and websites, but this change won’t be an end to intrusive digital advertising. In essence, this is the price we pay for “free” access to these services.

Read more: Facebook data breach: what happened and why it’s hard to know if your data was leaked

– ref. Apple’s new ‘app tracking transparency’ has angered Facebook. How does it work, what’s all the fuss about, and should you use it? – https://theconversation.com/apples-new-app-tracking-transparency-has-angered-facebook-how-does-it-work-whats-all-the-fuss-about-and-should-you-use-it-159916

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Fischetti, Professor, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Human and Social Futures, University of Newcastle

In late 2019, New South Wales announced it would make maths compulsory all through school. Victoria will have an additional, easier, year 12 maths subject in 2023 to boost the numbers of maths students in senior levels.

Moves to push more students into senior maths partly stem from the idea students need to be equipped with skills for jobs of the future, largely driven by automation. The federal government considers STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills as “crucial for Australia’s changing future”. A resource kit for STEM educators, developed by the federal government, states:

It’s predicted that future workers will spend more than twice as much time on job tasks requiring science, maths and critical thinking than today.

But the number of students taking higher level maths has bottomed-out. Nationally, less than 30% of students choose upper level, calculus based, maths — down dramatically in the past 20 years.

There are many arguments for how to get more students to take senior maths. They include making the subject more engaging, ensuring enough specialist teachers and, of course, making maths compulsory.

Read more: Fewer Australians are taking advanced maths in Year 12. We can learn from countries doing it better

At the moment, only Tasmania requires students to take basic maths through to year 12. Students in the ACT and NSW can finish studying maths in year 10 if they choose to. South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland require students to take just one unit of maths in the two final years of high school.

But how important is it for every student to have graduated school with high level maths?

Maths and the future of work

The argument every student needs advanced maths for his or her career doesn’t always hold. A 2013 study of 2,300 workers in the United States found less than 25% of them use maths beyond fractions in their current jobs.

But we’re told the nature of work is rapidly changing and that employment in jobs requiring STEM skills is growing faster than in others. This may be true. Although the federal government also highlights growing industries aren’t all focused on STEM skills. They include:

• health care and social assistance

• education and training

• construction

• customer service.

Most of these jobs will require strong numeracy and computational thinking skills, including problem-solving that can come from subjects outside maths.

A Deloitte report into the future of work also noted the importance of human skills in automated industries:

[…] jobs increasingly need us to use our hearts — the interpersonal and creative roles, with uniquely human skills like creativity, customer service, care for others and collaboration.

A federal government report echoes this by advising those looking for work to:

remember to emphasise your employability skills, rather than just the technical skills […] Communication, reliability, team work, patience, resilience and initiative are required for all jobs, and this will continue to be the case in the future […] Some 75% of employers considered employability skills to be as important, if not more important, than technical skills.

Maths is embedded in most of these skills. But it’s certainly not the only subject that teaches them.

What subjects can give students the skills they need?

Broadly speaking, some of the skills students will need in their future — in both their work and daily life — include:

• cognitive flexibility: the ability to adapt to the changing world and information around you; to be a lifelong learner

• traditional and digital literacies: basic literacy, numeracy and media literacy (including the use of technology)

• creativity and imagination: the human traits that separate us from machines and bring a human perspective to our work

• computational thinking: problem solving processes we need in our work and life

• ethical and sustainable practice: a commitment to do no harm to each other or the planet

• Indigenous perspectives and cultural competence: promoting reconciliation and working successfully and respectfully across cultures and customs

• well-being: taking care of our minds, bodies and our mob.

These skills are not taught just in maths but across the disciplines, including science, geography, visual arts, health and physical education, languages, history and design.

What kind of maths skills do students need?

In his 2016 book, The Maths Math: And Other STEM Delusions, bestselling US author Andrew Hacker proposes we allow students to explore their passions in the latter school years instead of pushing advanced maths onto them.

He also recommends we teach basic maths so well students gain computational and critical thinking skills they can use throughout their lives.

Computational skills are the ability to understand a complex problem, develop possible solutions and then present these solutions in a way a computer, human, or both, can understand.

These skills are what primary maths should aim toward, emphasising interdisciplinary connections across key learning areas. And strong basic numeracy skills build a foundation for a lifetime.

Read more: Don’t just solve for x: letting kids explore real-world scenarios will keep them in maths class

But NAPLAN numeracy results in the past decade, as well as scores in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, indicate many teachers are not prepared to teach primary maths effectively to an increasingly diverse student population.

Current maths assessments tend to limit the possibilities and the interdisciplinary connections by teaching math discretely.

Many schools are using projects and portfolios to develop these relevant skills, with learning outcomes based on ‘doing’ rather than regurgitating facts. This is not a move away from the goal of traditional numeracy skills. Rather, it’s the way we teach them and honour their relevance in multiple contexts outside of maths that makes the subject more engaging.

It’s important then for maths-related lessons to allow students to create, design, make, build, exhibit and present.

These ideas are at the heart of the current reviews into the NSW Curriculum and the Australian curriculum.

Armed with these foundational “basics”, all students could connect their passions as teenagers with the STEM skills they need for the future they envision – and many may then choose advanced maths courses with confidence.

– ref. Not every student needs senior maths, but we can make maths more engaging in the earlier school years – https://theconversation.com/not-every-student-needs-senior-maths-but-we-can-make-maths-more-engaging-in-the-earlier-school-years-150631

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Maritz, Professor of Entrepreneurship, La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University

Bill Gates was 21 when he and Paul Allen registered Microsoft. Steve Jobs was 22 when he and Steve Wozniak launched Apple. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his Harvard dormitory.

The biographies of these tech billionaires who achieved great success in their twenties has helped cement the perception that entrepreneurship is a young person’s game.

Not true. Such stories are the exception rather than the norm.

Starting young can have some clear advantages. For one thing, it gives you much more time to fail the several times most enterprenuers do before they put it all together and succeed.

But overall, the research suggests, older age is associated with higher levels of entrepreneurial success.

That’s an important policy point for governments that want people to keep working (and paying taxes) longer even though employment prospects for job seekers decline significantly from about the age of 45.

Rather than just putting money into “job ready” programs or subsidies to employers to hire older workers, more should be invested into programs to support the demographic with the best chance of successfully starting new businesses.

Read more: Employers need more than money to hire older workers

Mature-aged enterprise growing

My research with Bronwyn Eager (University of Tasmania) and Saskia De Klerk (University of Sunshine Coast) suggests mature-aged entrepreneurship – after the age of 50 – is growing faster than among any other age group in Australia.

Mature-aged entrepreneurs run about a third of all businesses that are less than three years old. (All up, mature-aged entrepreneurs have started about 380,000 businesses with a turnover of about A$12 billion a year.)

Younger entrepreneurs do have some advantages. As a group, they are healthier and tend to have fewer family obligations. They may be less risk averse, often because they have less to lose. The may also benefit from others’ positive perceptions of them as “youthful”.

But mature-aged entrepreneurs have three key advantages: human capital, social capital and financial capital.

Our research involved surveying more than 1,000 mature entrepreneurs and correlating the results to other studies on entreprenuers. Our findings indicate older entreprenuers have accumulated business and life experience, knowledge and skills, social networks and resources that better equip them for success. They tend to have better social skills, and are better able to regulate their emotions, than those younger.

They do have a lower risk tolerance than younger entrepreneurs, but that is offset by other factors, such as confidence in their abilities and experience. Their fear of failure is thus less than their younger counterparts.

Read more: Keeping mature-age workers on the job

The numbers are with them

Our research supports previous studies finding no evidence to suggest younger entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed than those in middle age.

MIT Sloan School of Management professor Pierre Azoulay and colleagues, for example, analysed the data on 2.7 million founders of US companies between 2007 and 2014 that went on to employ at least one person. The average age at founding was 41. For the “1 in 1,000” highest-growth ventures, the average age was 45.

The authors conclude “all evidence points to founders being especially successful when starting businesses in middle age or beyond, while young founders appear disadvantaged”.

Indeed, they found the “batting average” for creating successful firms rose dramatically with age. A 50-year-old founder was 1.8 times more likely to achieve “upper-tail growth” than a 30-year-old founder. Those in their early 20s had the lowest likelihood of success.

Read more: Most successful entrepreneurs are older than you think

How government can help

Entrepreneurship may therefore be a viable alternative to mature-aged unemployment.

There is, however, compelling evidence that aspiring mature-aged entrepreneurs require specialised government support and incentives, both to start their businesses and grow their businesses.

Government initiatives such as the Entrepreneur’s Program (formerly the Entrepreneurship Infrastructure Program) and Entrepreneurs Facilitators, for example, could be better designed to account for the specific needs of mature-aged entrepreneurs.

Such support will both enhance the success of these businesses – and employment prospects for young and old.

– ref. Contrary to popular belief, middle-aged entrepreneurs do better – https://theconversation.com/contrary-to-popular-belief-middle-aged-entrepreneurs-do-better-159906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosalie Gillett, Postdoctoral research fellow, Queensland University of Technology

Dating apps have been under increased scrutiny for their role in facilitating harassment and abuse.

Last year an ABC investigation into Tinder found most users who reported sexual assault offences didn’t receive a response from the platform. Since then, the app has reportedly implemented new features to mitigate abuse and help users feel safe.

In a recent development, New South Wales Police announced they are in conversation with Tinder’s parent company Match Group (which also owns OKCupid, Plenty of Fish and Hinge) regarding a proposal to gain access to a portal of sexual assaults reported on Tinder. The police also suggested using artificial intelligence (AI) to scan users’ conversations for “red flags”.

Tinder already uses automation to monitor users’ instant messages to identify harassment and verify personal photographs. However, increasing surveillance and automated systems doesn’t necessarily make dating apps safer to use.

User safety on dating apps

Research has shown people have differing understandings of “safety” on apps. While many users prefer not to negotiate sexual consent on apps, some do. This can involve disclosure of sexual health (including HIV status) and explicit discussions about sexual tastes and preferences.

If the recent Grindr data breach is anything to go by, there are serious privacy risks whenever users’ sensitive information is collated and archived. As such, some may actually feel less safe if they find out police could be monitoring their chats.

Adding to that, automated features in dating apps (which are supposed to enable identity verification and matching) can actually put certain groups at risk. Trans and non-binary users may be misidentified by automated image and voice recognition systems which are trained to “see” or “hear” gender in binary terms.

Trans people may also be accused of deception if they don’t disclose their trans identity in their profile. And those who do disclose it risk being targeted by transphobic users.

Increasing police surveillance

There’s no evidence to suggest that granting police access to sexual assault reports will increase users’ safety on dating apps, or even help them feel safer. Research has demonstrated users often don’t report harassment and abuse to dating apps or law enforcement.

Consider NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller’s misguided “consent app” proposal last month; this is just one of many reasons sexual assault survivors may not want to contact police after an incident. And if police can access personal data, this may deter users from reporting sexual assault.

With high attrition rates, low conviction rates and the prospect of being retraumatised in court, the criminal legal system often fails to deliver justice to sexual assault survivors. Automated referrals to police will only further deny survivors their agency.

Moreover, the proposed partnership with law enforcement sits within a broader project of escalating police surveillance fuelled by platform-verification processes. Tech companies offer police forces a goldmine of data. The needs and experiences of users are rarely the focus of such partnerships.

Read more: Australian police are using the Clearview AI facial recognition system with no accountability

Match Group and NSW Police have yet to release information about how such a partnership would work and how (or if) users would be notified. Data collected could potentially include usernames, gender, sexuality, identity documents, chat histories, geolocation and sexual health status.

The limits of AI

NSW Police also proposed using AI to scan users’ conversations and identify “red flags” that could indicate potential sexual offenders. This would build on Match Group’s current tools that detect sexual violence in users’ private chats.

While an AI-based system may detect overt abuse, everyday and “ordinary” abuse (which is common in digital dating contexts) may fail to trigger an automated system. Without context, it’s difficult for AI to detect behaviours and language that are harmful to users.

It may detect overt physical threats, but not seemingly innocuous behaviours which are only recognised as abusive by individual users. For instance, repetitive messaging may be welcomed by some, but experienced as harmful by others.

Also, even as automation becomes more sophisticated, users with malicious intent can develop ways to circumvent it.

Read more: Tinder’s new safety features won’t prevent all types of abuse

If data are shared with police, there’s also the risk flawed data on “potential” offenders may be used to train other predictive policing tools.

We know from past research that automated hate-speech detection systems can harbour inherent racial and gender biases (and perpetuate them). At the same time we’ve seen examples of AI trained on prejudicial data making important decisions about people’s lives, such as by giving criminal risk assessment scores that negatively impact marginalised groups.

Dating apps must do a lot more to understand how their users think about safety and harm online. A potential partnership between Tinder and NSW Police takes for granted that the solution to sexual violence simply involves more law enforcement and technological surveillance.

And even so, tech initiatives must always sit alongside well-funded and comprehensive sex education, consent and relationship skill-building, and well-resourced crisis services.

– ref. NSW Police want access to Tinder’s sexual assault data. Cybersafety experts explain why it’s a date with disaster – https://theconversation.com/nsw-police-want-access-to-tinders-sexual-assault-data-cybersafety-experts-explain-why-its-a-date-with-disaster-159811

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia A. O’Brien, Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University, and Adjunct Professor in the Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is fond of describing Papua New Guinea as “family”. He did so recently when announcing Australia’s assistance with PNG’s COVID-19 outbreak. The urgent support for PNG in the form of vaccines, testing kits, medical personnel and training was “in Australia’s interests”, Morrison said, because it threatens the health of Australians, “but equally our PNG family who are so dear to us”.

These familial bonds are “born of history and geography”. PNG is Australia’s closest neighbour. Only 4 kilometres separate the two countries in the Torres Strait, a fluid border that has been redefined numerous times (most recently in 1985). It is currently closed due to the COVID outbreak.

But what about the long histories Australia and PNG’s share? The fluid border acknowledges ancient, unbroken Indigenous connections. This history is deep, fraught, complex and the very foundation for the present relationship. This past needs considered attention now to strengthen ties at this pivotal time and in the future.

As early as the 1850s, nationalists envisioned “the great island of New Guinea […] will naturally […] fall into the hands” of Australia, forming part of an Australian Pacific empire. These ideas gained traction in the 1860s with the commencement of the Queensland labour trade, which controversially supplied the colony’s plantations with islander labourers.

In 1878, a Queensland gold-seeking expedition attempted to establish a colony near Port Moresby. Though Britain disallowed the venture, Queensland persisted, securing the Torres Strait Islands in 1879 and extending its border to virtually New Guinea’s shoreline, as it is today.

Politicians began championing “Australia’s Monroe Doctrine” that, like the US’s 1823 declaration for the Americas, held that Australia exclusively presided in its region. Britain relented to Australian colonial pressures in 1883. Despite Australia’s rhetorical muscle-flexing, New Guinea was partitioned three ways in 1884 into German New Guinea (the north-east and surrounding archipelagoes), British New Guinea (the south-east) and Dutch New Guinea (in the west, the present-day troubled provinces of Indonesia).

Read more: ‘A dam has been breached’: a COVID crisis on our doorstep shows how little we pay attention to PNG

Despite its name, British New Guinea was administered and funded by Australia. From the outset, a pattern of harsh colonial rule took root, exemplified by infamous episodes of collective punishment known today as massacres. Goaribari Islanders suffered three in as many years, with more than 150 dead according to contemporary accounts and inquiries.

Following Federation, Australia assumed control over this territory, renamed Papua, in 1906. Politicians debated how to govern Papua more “gently” to better reflect Australia’s modern national image. Yet Papuans were barred from entering under the White Australia policy even though some politicians argued New Guinea belonged to Australia as much as Tasmania. Even today, Australian population figures reflect New Guineans’ continuing exclusion.

Read more: Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy

In 1908, Hubert Murray was permanently appointed lieutenant-governor of the territory to implement a more benevolent colonial rule. Though violence and exploitation reduced in Papua during Murray’s long tenure (1908-1940), the “Murray Method”, as it became known throughout the empire, was replete with paternalistic attitudes. Most damning was his belief Papuans need only be educated to elementary levels and employed in menial jobs.

In 1914, Australia’s presence in New Guinea dramatically expanded when Australian forces captured German New Guinea in the nation’s first action of the first world war. The seven-year rule (1914-1921) of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) became notorious for flogging and labour recruitment practices. Murray, blaming unchecked settler colonial attitudes, was the ANMEF’s loudest critic.

Prime Minister Billy Hughes argued at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that Australia was owed New Guinea as compensation for blood and treasure expended in the first world war. Securing it was also vital for national defences, as Australia now had a new foe: Japan.

In May 1921, the ANMEF was disbanded, when the League of Nations mandates system commenced. This meant Australia could now enact its own laws, but with international oversight. It was governed separately, and differently, from Papua until the eve of the Pacific War.

The discovery of gold in the mandate in 1926 triggered an unprecedented flood of Australians, also into back-country areas. Cycles of violence, often sparked by violations of women, escalated. A punitive expedition to avenge the killings of four prospectors (who were war veterans), known as the Nakanai Massacre, was launched. So great was the outcry, not least because a machinegun was used against people armed with spears, that many feared Australia would lose New Guinea to Germany.

Murray was again vocal in his criticism of the mandate. The mistreatment of local people was not only inhumane, it was detrimental to Australia’s interests, because New Guineans were “dying out”.

Mistreatment only accelerated this demise. Murray (and many others) were convinced “industrial races of Asia” would take their place and “menace the Commonwealth”. New Guineans did not die out, the mandate remained shadowed by colonial violence, and the predictions of New Guinea being a defence buffer for Australia came to fruition from 1942. The ensuing second world war history is the most remembered of Australia’s New Guinea past.

In 2018, Morrison made a landmark speech called “Australia and the Pacific: A New Chapter”. In it, he talked of “family” and the Pacific as “our patch” in his reworking of the 150-year-old imperial idea in the time of China’s rise. The speech was delivered in Townsville, the epicentre of the Pacific labour trade, though it or other defining histories were not mentioned. Australia’s historical debt went unacknowledged.

With PNG’s COVID crisis, Australia is commendably acting on this rhetoric. But if a truly equitable new “chapter” in the relationship is to be forged, Australia must – urgently and aggressively – confront the Pacific’s needs, especially its highest-priority concern: climate change.

– ref. If Papua New Guinea really is part of Australia’s ‘family’, we’d do well to remember our shared history – https://theconversation.com/if-papua-new-guinea-really-is-part-of-australias-family-wed-do-well-to-remember-our-shared-history-159528

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

The Tasmanian election will be held on Saturday, with polls closing at 6pm AEST. A uComms poll for the left-wing Australia Institute, conducted April 21 from a sample of 1,023, gave the Liberals 41.4%, Labor 32.1%, the Greens 12.4%, Independents 11.0% and Others 3.1%.

This poll is in marked contrast to the last publicly available Tasmanian poll: an EMRS poll in February that gave the Liberals 52%, Labor 27%, Greens 14% and 7% for all Others.

The uComms poll is likely to be the only poll of the election campaign. There will be no pre-election EMRS poll, and Newspoll did not do a pre-election survey in 2018.

Analyst Kevin Bonham says there are many reasons to doubt this uComms poll. If previous uComms polls in November 2019 and 2020 are benchmarked against comparable EMRS polls, the Liberal vote is well below EMRS – and EMRS understated the Liberals by an average 1.8% at the last four Tasmanian elections.

Another reason to be sceptical is that Labor’s vote is only so high owing to the 7% who said they were initially undecided. When pushed, 67% of them backed Labor, implying a soft Labor vote. Polls that are not media-released should be treated cautiously, whether the commmissioning source is left or right-wing.

Bonham’s seat model has the Liberals winning around 12 of the 25 Tasmanian lower house seats if the uComms poll is correct, denying them a majority.

Read more: As Tasmanians head to the polls, Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein hopes to cash in on COVID management

Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system

Tasmania uses the same five electorates for federal and state elections. At state elections, five members are elected per electorate using the Hare-Clark system, for a total of 25 lower house members.

If ordered from most Liberal to least at the 2019 federal election by Liberal vs Labor two party vote, the electorates are Braddon (53.4% to Liberal), Bass (50.4%), Lyons (44.8%), Franklin (37.8%) and Clark (33.8%). Independent Andrew Wilkie won Clark, but the two party vote ignores independents. The Liberal vote in Lyons would probably have been higher if not for candidate issues.

At the 2018 Tasmanian election, the Liberals won 13 of the 25 seats, to ten for Labor and two Greens. The Liberals won three seats in each of Bass, Braddon and Lyons, and two in both Franklin and Clark (called Denison then). Statewide vote shares were 50.3% Liberal, 32.6% Labor and 10.3% Greens.

With five members per electorate, a quota is one-sixth of the vote, or 16.7%. Tasmania uses the Hare-Clark system with Robson rotation, which randomly orders candidates within a party group on ballot papers. This means there is no advantage to being the top candidate for your party.

Hare-Clark is a candidate-based system; people vote for candidates, and there is no above the line box to vote for your party. A formal vote requires at least five preferences in Tasmania.

For the distribution of preferences, all candidates who achieve a quota at any stage are elected, and their surplus over one quota transferred. When nobody remaining has a quota, candidates are eliminated, starting with the person with the lowest vote. Owing to exhaustion, final candidates elected often have less than a full quota.

Votes can leak out of a party’s ticket, costing them seats where they appeared ahead on first preferences. If votes split evenly among a bigger party’s candidates, those candidates can defeat a smaller party even if the smaller party was closer to quota. For instance, one party could have 1.8 quotas, but their two candidates have 0.9 quotas each, beating another party that had 0.85 quotas.

At this election, most electorates will feature Liberal vs Labor vs Greens contests, but Clark has two prominent independents: former lower house Speaker Sue Hickey, who sometimes opposed her Liberal party’s positions, and quit the party when she was not preselected; and local mayor Kristie Johnston.

These independents could explain the high vote for independents of 11% in the uComms poll, but Bonham is still sceptical. Polls that ask specifically for independents draw voters who will back independents if one that suits their politics stands. But as suitable independents don’t usually exist, they underperform their polling.

Read more: Coalition and Morrison gain in Newspoll, and the new Resolve poll

Upper house elections

Two or three of Tasmania’s 15 single-member upper house seats are up for election every May for six-year terms, and this time the upper house elections will occur concurrently with the lower house.

This year, elections will occur in Derwent and Windermere. In Mersey, left-leaning independent Mike Gaffney was re-elected unopposed. That means nobody else nominated to run, so Gaffney was declared elected without an election.

Derwent has been held continuously by Labor since 1979, and they outpolled the Liberals 45.4% to 41.9% in 2018, despite the statewide thrashing. Windermere was held by retiring conservative independent Ivan Dean; in 2018, the Liberals won 54.6%, Labor 30.6% and the Greens 7.5%. The most likely outcome is Labor retaining Derwent while the Liberals gain Windermere.

According to Bonham, the upper house currently has five Labor, three Liberals, four left independents, two centre-right independents and one conservative independent. The 9-6 left majority could be reduced to 8-7 if the Liberals upset Labor in Derwent.

Bonham’s Tasmanian election guide, with links to both the lower and upper house electorates, has been of great assistance for this article.

Federal Essential poll and additional Newspoll questions

In this week’s federal Essential poll, conducted April 21-26 from a sample of 1,090, 42% said they would get vaccinated as soon as possible (down five since March), 42% said they would get vaccinated but not straight away (up two) and 16% said they would never get vaccinated (up four).

The bad publicity for the AstraZeneca vaccine over the blood clots issue has had an impact, with 27% saying they would be willing to get the Pfizer vaccine, but not AstraZeneca.

43% thought the vaccination rollout was being down efficiently (down 25 since early March), 63% thought it was being done safely (down ten) and 52% thought it would be effective at stopping COVID (down 11).

In Newspoll, 70% approved of Scott Morrison’s handling of the COVID pandemic, while 27% disapproved. That’s down from 82-15 approval last June. By 53-43, voters were satisfied with the vaccine rollout.

– ref. Tasmanian election preview: commissioned poll has Liberals likely short of majority – https://theconversation.com/tasmanian-election-preview-commissioned-poll-has-liberals-likely-short-of-majority-159630

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brianna Chesser, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Justice, RMIT University

Last week’s sentencing of a Wellington man for rape was legally significant for being New Zealand’s first successful prosecution for what is known as “stealthing”.

Stealthing occurs when a condom is removed without consent during sexual intercourse. In these cases, a person may have consented to sex but only under certain conditions — for example, with the use of a condom.

In this case, Jessie Campos was found guilty of raping a sex worker in a Lower Hutt brothel in late 2018, and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. The court was told he was made aware on several occasions a condom was legally required and he agreed to use one.

The two had consensual sex with protection, but when they had sex again Campos removed the condom. The woman indicated he had acted inappropriately and made him put the condom back on. Without her knowledge, Campos again removed the condom and ejaculated inside her. The woman ran to her manager’s office and the police were called.

Judge Stephen Harrop said sex workers were no less victims than any other survivor. He also rejected the defence claim that the stealthing was not premeditated and that cultural factors were relevant to the sentencing (Campos arrived in New Zealand from the Philippines in 2016).

Judge Harrop said Campos was told multiple times that a condom was necessary, adding: “I can’t proceed on the basis that raping sex workers is any more acceptable [in the Philippines] than it is here.”

The judge also said the sexual assault had risked the woman’s physical health and had caused her ongoing mental harm. In her victim impact statement, she said her world view has changed, she has had to cease work and almost never leaves home alone.

Recognising stealthing as a crime

The conviction is significant because it recognises everyone has a right not only to choose to consent to sexual activity, but also to choose what conditions are placed on that consent.

This is also significant for the New Zealand police who have been accused of not taking reports of stealthing seriously in the past.

Furthermore, the landmark New Zealand judgment paves the way for other countries to reconsider their laws. There is currently a proposal to outlaw stealthing “as a factor that negates consent” before the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.

Read more: Case in Victoria could set new legal precedent for stealthing, or removing condom during sex

Last year, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission also suggested changes to the state’s legislative regime. These would mean sex with a condom is legally defined as a specific activity that can be consented to, without consenting to any other sexual activity, such as sex without a condom.

So far, only one Australian case has made it to court, with a Melbourne man charged with rape in 2018 after allegedly removing a condom without consent. The trial has been delayed by the pandemic.

Further afield, Switzerland, Canada and Germany have all seen convictions for stealthing.

Physical and psychological risk

While these proposed changes are a step in the right direction, it is clear stealthing is still not well understood. This is perhaps not surprising, as issues of consent in general remain a real problem in the community and the courts.

As the acclaimed TV drama series I May Destroy You powerfully depicted, stealthing is about dominance and power and can happen to anyone. While most people will agree that “no means no”, it’s less clear what “yes” can mean.

Specifically, what conditions have been placed on that “yes”? Situations where the agreed conditions have changed – such as when a condom has been removed – should require “fresh consent” from both partners.

Read more: Teaching young people about sex is too important to get wrong. Here are 5 videos that actually hit the mark

Beyond the moral, ethical and legal considerations, stealthing poses real risks to the physical and psychological well-being of the survivor, including sexually transmitted infections, HIV, unplanned pregnancy, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Fundamentally, stealthing violates the dignity and autonomy of survivors and is a violation of a person’s right to self-determination. The apparent unwillingness of police to prosecute, combined with a lack of public awareness, has undoubtedly meant stealthing has been under-reported in the past.

It is to be hoped the recent New Zealand conviction increases community awareness and encourages other survivors to come forward and tell their stories. Ultimately, it should lead to other jurisdictions recognising stealthing as a sexual crime and changing their laws to reflect this.

– ref. New Zealand’s first successful ‘stealthing’ prosecution leads the way for law changes in Australia and elsewhere – https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-first-successful-stealthing-prosecution-leads-the-way-for-law-changes-in-australia-and-elsewhere-159323

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Latoya Aroha Rule, PhD Candidate, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody are often given as statistics. But behind those numbers are real people and an indescribable impact on the families and communities who loved them. They are the strongest advocates for those who have died in custody, and in reform of the system.

The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report — whose 30th anniversary was observed on April 15 — makes recommendations that address the necessity of self-determination for Aboriginal families and communities.

However, acts of self-determination, such as calls for community-led changes to the justice system, have been ignored.

Indigenous-led solutions

Only a handful of the 339 recommendations of the royal commission relate to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities grieving a death in custody.

Many of these are concerned primarily with consultation between families and relevant authorities regarding the circumstances of their loved one’s death. Recommendation 188 of the royal commission’s report requested:

that governments negotiate with appropriate Aboriginal organisations and communities to determine guidelines as to the procedures and processes which should be followed to ensure that the self-determination principle is applied in the design and implementation of any policy or program or the substantial modification of any policy or program which will particularly affect Aboriginal people.

Read more: Not criminals or passive victims: media need to reframe their representation of Aboriginal deaths in custody

Despite this, and the ongoing leadership Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families have shown, families continue to report their frustration with a lack of consultation by governments. This was exemplified recently by Prime Minister Scott Morrison refusing to see the families of people who died in custody.

Calls from the community and their allies for the government to meet with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families have become louder. One example is the recent open letter by 15 families working in conjunction with the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Legal Service.

In this document, they outline ten goals to address the deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody. These include reallocating public funds away from violent punitive policies including prisons (especially for-profit prisons) and focusing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led, grassroots solutions.

A history of families fighting for justice

The royal commission itself was the result of continual campaigning by the families of those who died in custody and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

The Dixon family in Adelaide, led by Kaurna mother and grandmother, the late Alice Dixon, were among the families to call for systemic change. In July 1987, Ms Dixon lost her 19-year-old son, Kingsley Dixon, whose case was one of the 99 deaths investigated by the royal commission.

After her son’s death, Ms Dixon joined the National Committee to Defend Black Rights, established in 1983 by Helen Corbett, a Yinggarda and Bibbulman woman. Together Ms Dixon, Ms Corbett, and others from the national committee spoke at the United Nations on human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It is because of their efforts and the strategic calls of many other families the government was forced to establish the royal commission in 1987.

Over time, more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families experienced the tragic deaths of their loved ones at the hands of police and prison officers. Communities like Redfern continued to organise against the police brutality of young Black people, such as 17-year-old TJ Hickey, who died following a police pursuit in 2004.

Their resistance contributed to the establishment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led justice programs and reflected the strong will of the community to govern their own affairs.

In October 2016, the first of the Australian Black Lives Matter rallies against Aboriginal deaths in custody was organised in Adelaide on the steps of the South Australian parliament. The national rallies were sparked by the death of Wayne Fella Morrison a month earlier. Morrison died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital as a remandee after being restrained by multiple South Australian correctional officers with a spithood and flexicuffs.

Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, an Aboriginal activism group, brought together families of those who had died in custody, those who were calling for the release of their loved ones and those who had suffered through state-sanctioned brutality themselves — including police shootings — and lived to share their stories.

By June 2020, following the death of George Floyd in the US, there was increased momentum in the Black Lives Matter movement across Australia, with rallies attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters.

Throughout this time, the families of many others, including David Dungay Jr, Nathan Reynolds, Tanya Day, Tane Chatfield and Sherry Fisher have continued advocating for justice in their cases and for systemic transformation.

Read more: The backlash against Black Lives Matter is just more evidence of injustice

Advancing ‘Blak space’

Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou iwi woman Linda Tuhiwai Smith, professor of Indigenous education at University of Waikato, explains

imperialism and colonialism are the specific formations through which the west came to ‘see’, to ‘name’ and to ‘know’ Indigenous communities.

If Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are seen as empowered, self-determining experts, this inherently disrupts the perception they need to be governed by external bodies.

Mx Rule, the sibling of Wayne Fella Morrison, brings an important standpoint to their research and advocacy in this area. They conceptualise what they and many other Aboriginal people work to open up through resistance to police and corrections violence, particularly as family members of those who have passed in custody. They name this “Blak space”,

where Aboriginal people exist, survive and thrive. It is itself counter-discourse of Aboriginal peoples as displaced; non-belonging; non-sovereign

The articulation and analysis of “Blak space” is something Mx Rule is continuing to develop through their doctoral studies at the University of Technology Sydney.

When will families be heard as constituents with long-standing experience and solutions to ending the deaths of community members in custody?

The role of government in supporting self-determination efforts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families toward ending deaths in custody continues to be an important aspect of inquiry. Especially because Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are dying more frequently now than at the time of the royal commission.

However, the labour of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families continues to be denied. The state refuses to provide space to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – to grieve, heal, organise, advocate and overcome.

Much lip service is given to the idea of self-determination, especially by government. It is not enough.

Instead, self-determination needs to be conceptualised as “Blak space”, a place where the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are central and privileged for their lived experience and knowledge.

The families of those who have died in custody, and the communities who are supporting them, need to be at the table. It is time for governments to listen.

– ref. The families of Indigenous people who die in custody need a say in what happens next – https://theconversation.com/the-families-of-indigenous-people-who-die-in-custody-need-a-say-in-what-happens-next-159127

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hall, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology

When it comes to climate change, money talks. Climate finance is critical for enabling a low-emissions transition. This involves investment and expenditure — public, private, domestic and transnational — that demonstrably contributes to climate mitigation, adaptation or both.

As New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told US President Joe Biden’s virtual Leaders’ Summit on Climate last week:

Finance, both our financial systems and financial flows […] is at the heart of that transition [to low carbon economies].

She’s right. All the plans and strategies in the world are of no practical worth unless someone invests in the outcomes. The word “finance” means to finish, to settle, to close the deal. Indeed, finance and finish have the same Latin root in fin, the end.

Without finance, without investment, we have only unfinished business. And with official data showing New Zealand’s emissions on the rise, the need to invest in the low-emissions transition is more vital than ever.

Nature as a climate solution

In a recent report for the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge, I identified a considerable shortfall in financing for nature-based solutions to climate change.

Nature-based solutions involve working with and enhancing nature to help address societal challenges, not least the parallel crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

This includes forest restoration, riparian planting and urban green infrastructure, as well as enhancing wetlands, mangroves, shellfish beds, kelp forests and various other natural or semi-natural ecosystems.

Read more: New Zealand’s COVID-19 budget delivers on one crisis, but largely leaves climate change for another day

Such activities not only sequester and store carbon, they also contribute to the resilience of landscapes and seascapes in a warming world. In short, biodiversity is vital for climate adaptation.

A recent analysis estimated financial flows into global biodiversity conservation need to increase five to seven-fold to meet current needs. The global financing gap is between US$598–824 billion per year.

Scaling up investment

Although no comparable analysis exists in New Zealand, there is strong evidence the same shortfall exists.

The COVID-19 recovery stimulus saw an unprecedented NZ$1.245 billion investment in nature-based solutions through the Jobs for Nature programme. But this is a one-off grant which neither reaches the requisite scale, nor guarantees long-term funding by future governments.

Read more: Q+A: Joe Biden’s Earth Day summit – what could it achieve for action on climate change?

There are transformative opportunities for scaling up investment in climate resilience. For example, the Hauraki Gulf, a marine ecosystem that supports an economy worth at least NZ$2 billion annually, is seriously endangered by sedimentation and water-borne pollutants. This will worsen as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense.

The government could raise debt through a “blue bond” to implement the recommendations of the Sea Change — Tai Timu Tai Pari Hauraki Gulf marine spatial plan, especially through water upgrades and targeted changes to land use.

Changing the system

But this is where the issue of climate finance intersects with the broader issue of government spending. Will Ardern’s government continue with its strict self-imposed debt limit, or might “responsible fiscal management” be interpreted to include reducing the country’s exposure to climate-related risks?

After all, if prudence is the relevant virtue, then we surely fall short by leaving future generations with a fossil-dependent energy system and deficits in climate-resilient infrastructure.

Of course, the low-emissions transition should not be left to public spending alone. As the OECD has argued, private investment can create scale where constrained public sector budgets cannot. Moreover, private sector action is demanded on ethical grounds, in terms of private capital’s ability to pay, its contributions to past emissions and its gains from resource exploitation.

Read more: Ardern’s government and climate policy: despite a zero-carbon law, is New Zealand merely a follower rather than a leader?

If capital and debt markets have a role to play, this doesn’t mean governments have no role in creating market solutions. On the contrary, the state has an integral role, not only as regulator but also as market maker.

It can play these roles well or poorly, but it cannot help but play them. The UK’s landmark Dasgupta Review details the tools governments have at their disposal to redirect the financial systems. These include taxes, subsidies, regulations, prohibitions, target setting, debt forgiveness, direct grants, technical assistance, credit enhancements, biodiversity offsetting schemes and payments for ecosystem services.

Financing the transformation

I believe a biodiversity payment is the single most effective lever to address the disadvantage natural ecosystems currently face relative to modified land uses.

Such a payment would monetise the value of biodiversity and enable communities to invest time and resources in successful restoration and conservation. This could be funded through emissions pricing, or an environmental footprint tax as proposed by the Tax Working Group.

New Zealand needs systemic change to produce an investable project pipeline in climate adaptation and nature-based solutions. Aotearoa Circle’s Sustainable Finance Forum produced a promising road map for changing mindsets, transforming the financial system and financing that transformation.

Only a few years ago, the climate finance landscape was largely bare, with only a few green shoots showing. This has since improved dramatically, with some genuine policy innovations such as making climate-related financial disclosures mandatory.

But the only real measure of success is the redirection of financial flows away from the problems and toward the solutions. We have some way to go yet.

– ref. Without the right financial strategies, NZ’s climate change efforts will remain unfinished business – https://theconversation.com/without-the-right-financial-strategies-nzs-climate-change-efforts-will-remain-unfinished-business-159625

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Archa Fox, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Given the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is no longer recommended for under-50s following news of very rare blood clots, Australia is looking to other vaccines to plug the gap.

Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine will become the mainstay of the rollout, with 40 million doses expected to arrive before year’s end.

But Australia isn’t the only country eager to get its hand on this vaccine.

Skyrocketing demand coupled with shortages of vital components is leading to bottlenecks in the supply chain of this and other mRNA vaccines, delaying vaccine supplies.

The Victorian government also announced last week it would provide A$50 million to set up local manufacturing of mRNA vaccines in Australia. It’s feasible supply chain issues could also impact local manufacturing of mRNA vaccines.

So what are the missing supplies for making mRNA vaccines?

Read more: What is mRNA? The messenger molecule that’s been in every living cell for billions of years is the key ingredient in some COVID-19 vaccines

The shortages slowing mRNA vaccine production

1. mRNA manufacturing and capping

Manufacturing mRNA vaccines is kind of like making a car, with an assembly line and many steps. Each step needs to lead to the next and flow smoothly to make the final product.

COVID mRNA vaccine manufacturing starts with making the “messenger RNA”, the instructions that tell our cells to make the coronavirus’ spike proteins. The mRNA is produced in reactor vessels, where protein enzymes track along a DNA template and copy that DNA sequence into RNA form.

The first shortage is in sterile, single-use plastic bags which sit inside the metal reactor vessels used for making the mRNA, almost like a bin liner. Several suppliers of these plastic liners are ramping up production so it’s anticipated this shortage won’t last too long.

The second main shortage relates to “capping” the mRNA at one end. Capping involves adding a chemical molecule to the mRNA which stops the mRNA breaking down too quickly and helps our cells use the mRNA to make protein. Early on during the worldwide upscaling of mRNA manufacturing, rumours abounded that the enzymes and raw materials to make the mRNA cap were running short, given related enzymes used for COVID tests were also in short supply.

However, while only a few players dominate the field, this doesn’t seem to be a bottleneck now. But it does still remain one of the most costly parts of the mRNA production process.

2. Lipids in nanoparticles

The main bottleneck right now is the supply of some of the lipids making the nanoparticles that protect the mRNA and deliver it into our cells.

One lipid in particular, a so-called “cationic lipid”, wraps around the mRNA and then releases it inside the cell. Several chemical synthesis steps are required to make these cationic lipids, and prior to COVID only a handful of manufacturers worldwide were making these, and only on a fairly small scale.

Upscaling this production of cationic lipids has been even harder than setting up the mRNA production. Currently, four companies — Croda/Avanti, CordenPharma, Evonik and Merck — are the main manufacturers of these lipids.

As an indication of how serious this shortfall in lipids is, in December 2020 former US President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to assist Pfizer in accessing more lipids.

Why do we have these shortages?

The reasons for these shortages are complex. In most cases, demand has outstripped supply. In some cases, some countries or companies have been stockpiling some of these components. “Operation Warp Speed”, initiated by the Trump administration to speed up COVID vaccine development, used its financial clout throughout 2020 to buy up and secure many vaccine components including vials and lipids. This has put the vaccine manufacturers based in the United States in a good position, including Moderna and several Pfizer sites.

For some materials, the reason for the shortfall is simply that they’re hard to make. The bespoke cationic lipids are chemically synthesised in ten steps that all have to performed under strict quality control. Even if the equipment is ready, setting up such a manufacturing process takes months.

How could these shortages impact future mRNA manufacturing in Australia?

When Victoria’s new mRNA manufacturing facility comes online, hopefully in the next 12-24 months, some of these global shortages may still be plaguing the worldwide supply chains. This shouldn’t stop our efforts on that front as raw material supplies are rapidly increasing.

Australia should also do more manufacturing of small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients, that is, the biologically active component in each drug, including lipids and other building blocks of mRNA. Australia imports over 90% of its drugs from overseas. Making active pharmaceutical ingredients is important, not just for COVID vaccines but more generally.

Australia nearly ran out of some essential drugs, like ventolin, in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. This was due to both Australians’ panic buying, as well as COVID-hit Chinese factories slowing down their manufacturing, leading to a lack of access to these ingredients for our most commonly used drugs. The added benefits of locally based manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients is we’d be part of the solution when components are in short supply in future.

Australia also has a very strong research community in mRNA and nanomedicine. There are several world-leading groups working on creating better lipid nanoparticles for the delivery of mRNA and other medical products.

Having access to local manufacturing capability of active pharmaceutical ingredients would therefore transform the ability of Australian researchers to lead the way in developing the next blockbuster medical technology based on mRNA or nanoparticle delivery.

Read more: 3 mRNA vaccines researchers are working on (that aren’t COVID)

– ref. The world is hungry for mRNA COVID vaccines like Pfizer’s. But we’re short of vital components – https://theconversation.com/the-world-is-hungry-for-mrna-covid-vaccines-like-pfizers-but-were-short-of-vital-components-159143

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Baker, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

Australia has a rich diversity of mammals, with around 320 native, land-based species, 87% of which are found here and nowhere else. Many of these mammals are secretive, only active at night, and small, weighing less than one kilogram.

Mammals are “endotherms”, which means they must generate their own heat and maintain the temperature within a narrow range. This requires a lot of food.

For small mammals, which have a high surface area to volume ratio, the energetic cost is even higher. This makes them particularly prone to heat gain and loss, putting them in peril every night.

So how on earth do they cope?

Well, there are some advantages to being small. It’s harder to be seen by predators, and there are more places to hide. If the soil type is right, there’s no shortage of cracks and holes to slip into.

Such habitats not only keep small mammals concealed from predators during the day and parts of the night, but the temperature and humidity is also more stable underground, which means they expend less energy in maintaining body temperature.

To further conserve energy, many small mammals will also enter “torpor” — an inactive period that slows down their energy-burning metabolism. Torpor is like a mini hibernation that typically lasts for hours, rather than days.

For small mammals — prone to losing heat and needing to catch and eat up to half their body weight in food each night — having some periods of down-time during energy-conserving torpor can mean the difference between life and death.

In addition to the nightly challenge of finding enough food to maintain a stable body temperature, keep a complex brain functioning and have enough energy to move up to several kilometres, Australia’s small mammals face a host of human-caused threats. These include habitat clearing, climate change and feral predators.

The combined pressures have too often proven insurmountable. With 34 species lost forever, Australia has the worst modern-day mammal extinction record of any country on Earth.

So how can we turn this appalling situation around?

First, we humans must appreciate these unique animals and decide they need to be saved. That requires knowledge and understanding, so let’s get to know some of these mysterious mammals a little better.

1. Long-tailed planigale (Planigale ingrami)

Weight: 2.6-6.6 grams (up to two 10c coins)

Can you imagine a mammal that can weigh less than a ten-cent piece yet leaps five times its own height to bring down prey far larger than itself with persistent, savage biting to the head and neck?

This is the long-tailed planigale, the smallest Australian marsupial and one of the world’s smallest mammals.

They are ferocious predators, and anything that can be subdued is viciously attacked, including large centipedes, spiders, insects, small lizards, and even other small mammals.

They live in narrow crevices of cracking clays in blacksoil plains and move below and above the surface at night in search of food. Here, they run the risk of being eaten by predators, such as owls and feral cats.

Read more: Photos from the field: zooming in on Australia’s hidden world of exquisite mites, snails and beetles

The conversion of grassland to agriculture and cattle grazing causes the soil to become compacted, which also poses a threat to this species.

2. Little forest-bat (Vespadelus vulturnus)

Weight: 2.6-5.5 grams (up to two 10c coins)

The little forest-bat is a denizen of various forest types found throughout southeastern Australia.

Its activity depends on temperature — in some parts of southern Australia, during cold periods, individuals may not emerge from roosts for several weeks.

This species feeds exclusively on flying insects, including moths and mosquitoes.

And they’re not considered threatened — unlike most Australian mammals, they appear to be tolerant of disturbance and will utilise agricultural or urban landscapes if no woodland habitat is available.

3. Eastern pebble-mouse (Pseudomys patrius)

Weight: 10-19 grams (up to seven 10c coins)

This is one of four species of tiny native mice that construct mounds of pebbles that comprise conical, volcano-like ramparts built around burrow entrances. This is unique behaviour among the world’s mammals.

The pebble mounds can be large, weighing more than 50 kilograms and encompassing 10 square metres — astonishing constructions given the architects weigh as little as 10 grams!

Mounds are energetically expensive to build. They are a critical limiting resource for eastern pebble-mice because females raise their litters in the mounds and their female offspring tend to disperse only as far as the next available mound. Some mounds may even remain in use for centuries, re-used by successive generations.

The erosion of hills and spread of dune fields in arid Australia are reducing the distributions of pebble-mice.

4. Mountain pygmy possum (Burramys parvus)

Weight: 30-82 grams (up to nine $1 coins)

The famously adorable mountain pygmy possum is the only Australian mammal limited to alpine and sub-alpine regions, where snow covers the ground for up to six months of the year.

The possums may move more than one kilometre each night in search of food, which includes seeds, fruits, spiders and insects. They have a preference for Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa).

They double their body weight prior to hibernation, which lasts between five and seven months. During this time, their body temperatures may drop down to 2℃ for up to 20 days at a time.

This species is endangered, and there may be as few as several thousand individuals in total across three isolated populations.

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

Their biggest threats include droughts due to climate change, predation by feral cats and foxes, and habitat destruction, particularly after the devastating 2019-20 bushfires razed 15% of the species’ range.

5. Silver-headed antechinus (Antechinus argentus)

Weight: 16-52 grams (up to six $1 coins)

The 15 species in the genus Antechinus are “suicidal reproducers”. All males drop dead at the end of the breeding season, poisoned by their own raging hormones.

This is because the stress hormone cortisol rises during the two-week breeding period. At the same time, surging testosterone from the super-sized testes in males causes a failure in the biological switch that turns off the cortisol. The flood of unbound cortisol results in systemic organ failure and the inevitable death of every male.

But this happens only after they’ve unloaded their precious cargo of sperm, mating with as many promiscuous females as possible in marathon sessions lasting up to 14 hours.

Silver-headed antechinuses are found only patchily in a few isolated populations of high-altitude wet forest in mid-eastern Australia. They eat mostly insects and spiders and are likely preyed upon by owls and feral cats.

The silver-headed antechinus is endangered and threatened by climate change. The species lost almost one-third of its core habitat in the 2019-20 megafires.

Yet, torpor can assist here as well, even after such extreme events. Antechinuses (and other small mammals) are known to use torpor more often after fire, when food is scarce and the risk of predation is higher, as there are fewer places to hide in a scorched landscape.

Read more: Animal response to a bushfire is astounding. These are the tricks they use to survive

– ref. Meet 5 of Australia’s tiniest mammals, who tread a tightrope between life and death every night – https://theconversation.com/meet-5-of-australias-tiniest-mammals-who-tread-a-tightrope-between-life-and-death-every-night-159239

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael F. Braby, Associate Professor, Australian National University

It might sound like an 18th century fashion statement, but the “pale imperial hairstreak” is, actually, an extravagant butterfly. This pale blue (male) or white (female) butterfly was once widespread, found in old growth brigalow woodlands that covered 14 million hectares across Queensland and News South Wales.

But since the 1950s, over 90% of brigalow woodlands have been cleared, and much of the remainder is in small degraded and weed infested patches. And with it, the butterfly numbers have dropped dramatically.

In fact, our new study has found it has a 42% chance of extinction within 20 years.

It isn’t alone. Our team of 28 scientists identified the top 26 Australian butterfly species and subspecies at greatest risk of extinction. We also estimated the probability that they will be lost within 20-years.

Without concerted new conservation effort, we’ll not only lose unique elements of Australia’s nature, but also the important ecosystem services these butterflies provide, such as pollination.

Only six are protected under law

We are now sounding the alarm as most species identified as at risk have little or no management underway to conserve them, and only six of the 26 butterflies identified are currently listed for protection under Australian law.

The good news is there’s still a very good chance of recovery for most of these species, but only with new targeted conservation effort, such as protecting habitat from clearing and weeds, better fire management and establishing more of the right caterpillar food plants.

Let’s meet a few at-risk butterflies

The butterflies identified are delightful and fascinating creatures, with intriguing lifecycles, including fussy food preferences, subterranean accommodation and intimate relationships with “servant” ants.

The Australian fritillary

Our most imperilled butterfly is the Australian fritillary, with a 94% chance of extinction within 20 years. Like many of our butterfly species, a major threat facing the fritillary is habitat loss and habitat change.

The swamps where the fritillary occur have been drained for farming and urbanisation. At remaining swamps, weeds smother the native violets the larvae depend on for food.

No one has managed to collect or take a photo of a fritillary in two decades, although a butterfly expert observed a single individual flying near Port Macquarie in 2015.

It might already be extinct, but as it was once quite widespread at swampy areas along 700 kilometres of coastal Queensland and NSW, we have hope there are still some out there.

The fritillary has impressive jet black caterpillars with a vibrant orange racing stripe and large spikes along their back, which transform into stunning orange and black butterflies.

Anyone who thinks they have seen a fritillary should record the location, try to photograph it and the site and immediately contact the NSW Department of Planning Industry and Environment.

The fritillary is among many butterflies with specific diets. And these preferences can make species vulnerable to environmental changes such as vegetation clearing, weed invasions and fires.

Read more: Photos from the field: zooming in on Australia’s hidden world of exquisite mites, snails and beetles

The small bronze azure

Caterpillars of the small bronze azure — found on Kangaroo Island (and a few other patches in South Australia and Victoria) — only eat common sourbush.

Following the extensive 2020 fires, the butterfly hasn’t been found in areas where the sourbush burnt. Luckily, it’s been found in small patches of unburnt vegetation, so for now it’s hanging in there.

Like many butterflies, the lifecycle of the small bronze azure is enmeshed with a specific species of ant.

By day the butterfly larvae shelter underground in sugar ant (Camponotus terebrans) nests, then at night they’re escorted up by the ants to feed on the sourbush. For their care the ants are rewarded by a sugary secretion the caterpillars produce.

The eastern bronze azure

Some relationships with ants are even more unusual. Kangaroo Island’s other imperilled species — the eastern bronze azure — stays underground in sugar ant nests for 11 straight months. We don’t yet know what they eat.

In a macabre twist, they may be eating their hosts — the ants or the ant larvae. So why the ants carry them down and look after them is also a mystery.

It might be for sugary secretions, like with the small bronze azure, but the caterpillars could also be using chemical trickery, mimicking the scent of ant larvae to fool the ants.

Adults of the eastern bronze azure emerge only to flutter about for a few weeks in November, so at the time of the Kangaroo Island fires in January the entire population was safely underground in ant nests. And as the larvae don’t come up to feed on plants, they weren’t impacted by the loss of vegetation.

It’s not too late to save them

By raising awareness of these butterflies and the risks they face, we aim to give governments, conservation groups and the community time to act to prevent their extinctions.

Local landowners and Landcare groups have already been playing a valuable role in recovery actions for several species, such as planting the right food plants for the Australian fritillary around Port Macquarie, and for the Bathurst copper.

Indeed, most of the identified at-risk species occur across a mix of land types, including conservation, public and private land. In most cases, conservation reserves alone aren’t enough to ensure the long-term survival of the species.

Many landowners don’t realise they’re important custodians of such rare and threatened butterflies, and how important it is not to clear remaining patches of remnant native vegetation on their properties and adjoining road reserves.

People wanting to learn more about the butterfly species near them can use the free Butterflies Australia app to look up photos and information. You can also be a citizen scientist by recording and uploading sightings on the app.

Read more: Curious Kids: Do butterflies remember being caterpillars?

– ref. Next time you see a butterfly, treasure the memory: scientists raise alarm on these 26 species – https://theconversation.com/next-time-you-see-a-butterfly-treasure-the-memory-scientists-raise-alarm-on-these-26-species-159798

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Hurley, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

A globally rampant COVID-19 pandemic and problems with Australia’s vaccine roll-out suggest our international education sector is facing a continued fall in enrolments through 2021 and into 2022. New research from the Mitchell Institute forecasts the sector’s biggest losses are yet to come. It has found a third academic year of no international students would cost Australia about A$20 billion a year, half its pre-pandemic value.

This is not just a university problem. Most of the economic value of the international education sector comes from students’ spending in the wider economy.

It’s becoming clear the fate of the international education sector rests on Australia’s border policy. The most important factor in the sector’s recovery is the rate at which both new and returning international students can enter the country.

Read more: The government keeps shelving plans to bring international students back to Australia. It owes them an explanation

What is happening to enrolments?

International student enrolments fell 14% between November 2019 and November 2020, from 586,724 to 502,202.

This fall is likely to continue as new students fail to take the places of those who are finishing.

The chart below shows the trends in enrolled international students since November 2020 when many were due to finish their course. It also includes forecast new students based on the average number of new enrolments between July and November 2020.

Our modelling suggests international student enrolments will continue to fall as currently enrolled students finish their courses. Some new students are enrolling online. However, their numbers are not enough to replace those finishing their courses.

Australian government data suggest the number of new students enrolling online while overseas is actually quite low.

Between July and November 2020, about 17,000 new students enrolled while overseas. During the same period in 2019, about 115,000 new students enrolled.

How will this affect the value of international education?

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data show the value of Australia’s onshore international education sector before the pandemic was A$40.3 billion. By the end of 2020, this had fallen by A$8.6 billion, or 21%, to A$31.7 billion.

Read more: COVID to halve international student numbers in Australia by mid-2021 – it’s not just unis that will feel their loss

However, it is important to note the value of the 150,000 international student visa holders who are outside Australia. While these students are not spending in the Australian economy, they are paying fees.

ABS data show the value of international students studying online while offshore increased from A$9 million in 2019 to A$3.3 billion in 2020.

This rise was largely caused by existing students stuck abroad and shifting to online learning, not new students.

The contribution of students studying online has helped to stem education institutions’ losses. However, the Mitchell Institute research suggests the biggest falls are yet to come.

The chart below uses available data sources to estimate the change in the value of the international education sector in 2021 and 2022.

It shows online enrolments have reduced losses in the sector, particularly in 2020. However, this is unlikely to continue.

Read more: 2021 is the year Australia’s international student crisis really bites

If borders remain largely closed through 2022, the economic value of the international education sector is on track to shrink by almost 50% to A$20.5 billion by the end of 2022.

It’s all about the rate of return

Allowing some international students into the country will not be enough to halt the decline in enrolments. What will be most important is the rate at which new international students can return.

Between March 2020 and March 2021, the number of international student visa holders dropped by about 140,000. This suggests about 70,000 new international students need to enter Australia every six months simply to stop enrolments falling further.

It is far from clear this will happen. For instance, in February 2021, the limit on all international arrivals into Australia was about 6,300 per week.

At this rate, it would take about six months using Australia’s entire hotel quarantine capacity simply to process the current backlog of the 150,000 international student visa holders who are outside Australia.

This is before dealing with the challenge of enabling new students to enter Australia.

Read more: How unis can use student housing to solve international student quarantine issues

The chart below shows the monthly arrivals in Australia since July 2017. Two groups are shown: Australian residents returning from long-term trips and holidays, and visitors whose main reason for travel to Australia is education-related.

The chart shows the strong seasonal element to international arrivals for both residents and non-residents, with peaks coinciding with school and university holidays.

It also shows the dramatic impact of the pandemic on arrival numbers. Arrivals by both residents and international students have fallen by over 99%.

Australia’s border policy will affect any part of society or the economy that relies on the movement of people across borders. This includes international tourism, skilled migrants and the aviation sector.

If Australia can find a way for international students to enter the country safely, Australians might also be able to come and go in greater numbers.

– ref. As hopes of international students’ return fade, closed borders could cost $20bn a year in 2022 – half the sector’s value – https://theconversation.com/as-hopes-of-international-students-return-fade-closed-borders-could-cost-20bn-a-year-in-2022-half-the-sectors-value-159328

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pasi Sahlberg, Professor of Education Policy, UNSW

More than nine out of ten parents think digital media and technologies are a negative distraction in their lives. And 83% think their children are also negatively distracted by digital devices.

These are some of the findings from our Growing Up Digital Australia study. In 2020 we surveyed nearly 2,500 parents, grandparents and caregivers across Australia. This yielded data about 5,000 children aged 5-17 on their use of digital devices at home during the pandemic.

Our study shows more than 80% of children in this age group own a screen-based device and that children today, on average, have three different digital devices. Our data show children start owning devices from as early as four years old.

Only 46% of parents said their child could spend a whole day without using a digital device.

One parent told us:

It is addictive. I yearn for more time away from it for me and my family.

But we found positives too. Most parents believe the impact of digital media and technologies on their children’s maths, reading abilities, social skills and friendships is more positive than negative.

Read more: How creative use of technology may have helped save schooling during the pandemic

And 90% of parents feel digital technologies make it easier to stay in touch with family and friends.

Digital dependency

Learning and working from home during the pandemic made digital tools more common among children and parents. Smartphones and laptops connected to the internet have been a lifeline for many families during the past year or so.

At the same time, our research shows, most families seem to suffer from drawbacks associated with being dependent on digital media at home.

One parent said about her teenage daughter:

I am concerned at the amount of time my daughter spends on her phone. She is no longer interested in the activities she used to enjoy before she had a phone.

Our earlier research showed 84% of Australian teachers observed students being distracted by digital media and technologies. And three out of five believed students weren’t ready to learn when they came to school.

Our new data suggest a relationship between young people’s educational performance and how frequently they sleep with a device. Almost 60% of parents whose child was struggling with school say they always allow them to use digital devices in bed.

Read more: Students less focused, empathetic and active than before – technology may be to blame

About one-third of Australian parents said their children go to bed with a smartphone or other device every night. This was more common in lower-income families. In general, children in low-income families use digital devices more, with less parental guidance.

Many parents also told us they hoped schools would focus more on children’s digital well-being and cybersafety.

One parent said:

As a parent I need to know how to work the programs and sites the kids access to be able to protect them. I do not assume they are safe.

What parents say about their own use

Most families use digital devices as a babysitter to help them get things done at home. Our survey shows more than half of parents mainly use digital devices to entertain their kids, and only one in five use them mostly to support learning.

Around 72% of parents said they recognise their own digital habits influence those of their children.

Parents often have different views about their children’s use of digital devices. 65% of parents said they find themselves disagreeing with their partner about how best to set limits and regulate their children’s use of technology.

Read more: Banning mobile phones in schools can improve students’ academic performance. This is how we know

This is what we all can do

With physical distancing affecting our social interactions, time spent on watching TV and using other digital devices has significantly increased. For example, the Royal Children’s Hospital’s National Child Health Poll, found half of Australian children had spent more time on digital screens for entertainment in June 2020 compared to the same period before the COVID-19 pandemic. And 42% of children spent less time being physically active.

This is not a simple challenge to solve. Certainly, one-size-fits-all solutions like turning off the home wi-fi or hiding digital devices from children rarely work.

But there are some small steps all families can try. The key is that we all must take those steps together.

1. Take an honest look at current digital habits and screen time in your family. Agree on some concrete actions that would limit the time each family member spends with their digital device

2. have at least two hours without digital screens before going to bed. Keep all smartphones and other mobile devices away from bedrooms

3. focus on overall digital wellness by finding a healthy balance between time on digital gadgets and social time with family. Have digital-free weekends and holidays whenever possible.

Most parents included in our study felt they needed help to find healthier ways to live with digital media and technologies with their children. Close collaboration with schools can be a significant help in promoting a healthy relationship with technology.

– ref. Children own around 3 digital devices on average, and few can spend a day without them – https://theconversation.com/children-own-around-3-digital-devices-on-average-and-few-can-spend-a-day-without-them-159546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Howell, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University

The fifth film in the Mad Max action franchise, Furiosa, has been greenlit for production and will reach theatres in June 2023. Like the critically acclaimed Fury Road (2015), Furiosa will blend Australian and international talent and funding, and is anticipated to be the largest film ever produced in New South Wales.

A cinematic success story, the Mad Max franchise also presents something of a challenge. Since the 1970s, Australian cinema has been dominated by a national identity agenda, while the action genre has always been more about entertainment than identity; more about commerce than culture.

Indeed, in 2016, when David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz reviewed the best Australian productions of the previous year, Stratton questioned whether Fury Road could even “count” as an Australian film.

But action is an important part of Australia’s cinematic origin story. Charles Tait’s sensational 1906 bushranger film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, believed to be the world’s first feature length production, is also a notable forerunner of the action genre.

George Miller — the creator, writer and director of the Mad Max franchise — describes the spectacular entertainment delivered by the action film as “elemental”. For Miller, action is cinema and has been since the silent era.

Giving action an Australian accent

The action film is commonly regarded as the “other” of national cinema, thanks to its limited interest in developing complex characters and narratives. Nevertheless, the Mad Max franchise gave action an Australian accent — even if that accent was inexplicably overdubbed by the US distributor that introduced Americans to Mad Max.

Miller’s 1979 Mad Max stands out from the Australian genre films of the 1970s and 1980s now commonly referred to as “Ozploitation”.

Like other Ozploitation films, Mad Max was the product of low budget guerrilla style film-making. Where it differed was in its quality and the level of success achieved in overseas markets.

In a decade filled with car chases and crashes, Mad Max stood out in the international market for the inventiveness of its spectacular vehicular mayhem, ultimately grossing almost 500 times its budget of $200,000 in the worldwide box office.

Mad Max 2 (1981) made the most of its much larger budget effectively inventing, as academic Adrian Martin points out, the post-apocalyptic genre of action cinema.

Mad Max 2 set the tone for the rest of the franchise. Here, Miller reimagined the Australian outback as an anarchic wasteland populated by sado-masochistic punk villains and ocker clowns. Max is no longer the ex-cop seeking revenge, but instead a solitary survivor, reluctantly turned hero.

The story of reluctant heroism continues to be retold throughout the Mad Max films. In Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Max is once again transformed into a figure of myth, after helping a group of feral children escape the post-apocalyptic desert. In Fury Road, Max starts the film strapped to the front of a car as a human-hood-ornament-cum-blood-bag, and ends once again as something like a hero, after ferrying wise and fertile women to where new life might grow.

Read more: Stanza and deliver – the filmic poetry of Mad Max: Fury Road

In each, there is an echo of those Australian bushranger films whose anti-heroic protagonists are forced to violence by circumstance. And sometime become mythic heroes in the process.

But more importantly, the franchise continues to explore the visceral pleasures and possibilities of action, in the midst of social and natural threats.

Action as a global genre

Furiosa will be a prequel to Fury Road. Miller has described Fury Road as “almost a western on wheels”, harking back to one of the most popular genres of the silent era: the chase film.

Its visual shocks and surprises are delivered primarily through elaborate stunt work, a signature element in the Mad Max franchise — and Australian action more generally.

Action films centre on the spectacle of bodies in motion. With stories often simplified to clashes of good versus evil, they works to surprise and shock with death-defying feats and scenes of violent destruction.

Consequently, what Sight and Sound critic Larry Gross has dubbed “the Big Loud Action Movie” can break through barriers of language and culture.

Focused on visual spectacle, the action genre is well suited to those multimedia marketing campaigns crucial to blockbuster films’ success. Looking at a list of all time top grossing films worldwide, we see that the action genre outperforms any other single film genre at the box office, accounting for seven titles in the top 10.

Outward looking cinema

Since the mid-2000s, there has been a move toward an increasingly commercial and explicitly outward looking Australian cinema. The result has been a boom in Australian genre film making distinguished by a focus on higher budgets and transnational productions, such as Stuart Beattie’s I, Frankenstein (2014) and Gary McKendry’s Killer Elite (2011).

There were three decades between the release of Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road. This 2015 reboot became an important milestone Australian cinema’s “international turn”. These films, and the Mad Max franchise more generally, offer a distinctively Australian take on the action genre.

Read more: What do Mad Max’s six Oscars mean for the Australian film industry?

In 2018, Fury Road topped a list of the best Australian films of the 21st century chosen by critics, including Stratton — who once questioned if it was Australian at all.

The fifth film, Furiosa promises to be yet another action blockbuster extravaganza of the sort that dominates the box office worldwide. Shifting the franchise focus from reluctant hero Max to the renegade Furiosa, it will continue a widespread trend toward putting more female action heroes on screen.

And whatever else Furiosa may be, we can count on being spectacularly entertained.

– ref. Our enduring love of Mad Max’s Australian outback: an anarchic wasteland of sado-masochistic punk villains and ocker clowns – https://theconversation.com/our-enduring-love-of-mad-maxs-australian-outback-an-anarchic-wasteland-of-sado-masochistic-punk-villains-and-ocker-clowns-159441

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Baker, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Auckland

Liam’s* crowdfunding campaign page is direct: his “sole purpose is to survive”.

Before his diagnosis with inoperable brain cancer, Liam was a “healthy, fitness and sports minded 44-year-old, [who gave] his time and skills away freely by being a regular at charity events, fundraising for a number of organisations and more recently sponsoring amateur athletes”.

Holly, Liam’s friend, caregiver and now crowdfunding campaign manager, appeals to the crowd: “It’s time for us to come together and help this amazing man out.”

This narrative may be familiar — it provides a window into the high-stakes world of medical crowdfunding. In our new research, we explore who the people behind these campaigns are and how they work to capture the crowd’s attention in a competitive environment.

Crowdfund like your life depends on it

A study of medical campaigns in the US suggests crowdfunding has become a “gap-filler” or an entrepreneurial safety net for people without health insurance. Crowdfunding is less prevalent in the UK because universal healthcare is available, but nevertheless, it has helped raise at least £8m for alternative cancer treatments since 2009.

Weak or non-existant reporting requirements make it difficult to know the exact volume and growth of medical crowdfunding internationally. But on most donation-based crowdfunding platforms, medical or health-related campaigns vie for being the largest category. A glance at GoFundMe (the platform with 80% of the global market share) reveals the scale and variety of medical crowdfunding campaigns.

While Liam’s campaign raised over NZ$30,000 in three months, many campaigns are not so successful. Indeed, there’s a wide range in the ability of campaigners to capture the hearts, and open the wallets, of the crowd.

Read more: Giving in the pandemic: More than half of Americans have found ways to help those hit by COVID-19 hardship

Inside medical crowdfunding campaigns

The majority (71%) of medical crowdfunding campaigns in New Zealand are associated with illnesses, rather than accidents, longer-term disabilities or other health needs.

Most campaigns are not organised directly or solely by the person who is unwell. The overwhelming majority are constructed and managed by a family member, friend or other third party on behalf of the funding recipient.

For example, on New Zealand’s largest crowdfunding platform Givealittle, this applied to 83% in June 2020. Young adults are more likely to run their own campaigns than those in other age groups.

Despite the importance of the campaigner’s work, little is known about the experiences and perspectives of campaigners themselves. Through first-hand accounts of 15 crowdfunding campaigners on Givealittle, our research reveals campaigners take on considerable work and shoulder responsibilities at particularly challenging times in their lives.

Read more: Crowdfunding: when the government fails to act, the public wearily steps up

Among our participants, the difference in financial success between campaigns was significant: amounts raised ranged from NZ$1,000 to $90,000, but most fell into the $10,000 to $30,000 range.

A majority of people running campaigns said the money raised largely came from friends and family rather than strangers. This suggests it is difficult getting people to donate money for someone they don’t actually know. Funders are often not a faceless crowd at all — they are family, friends and acquaintances.

Framing illness to captivate the crowd

Pushing beyond one’s immediate networks and into the larger, anonymous reaches of the crowd means navigating a mine field of social biases about who deserves assistance and who doesn’t.

Campaigners work hard to frame illnesses in ways that resonate. These framings speak volumes not only about them, but about us: the crowd.

Crowdfunding campaigners have to demonstrate that the recipient “deserves” the financial support. This applies to both the illness (or disability, or other health need) and the person or family experiencing them.

This is often done by describing the funding recipient as “hard-working” and “community minded”. Many successful campaigners emphasised the funding recipient had become ill “through no fault of their own”, or as a result of “bad luck”. This framing establishes the recipient as the subject of misfortune, rather than personal irresponsibility, and therefore deserving of the crowd’s sympathy.

These criteria of “choice” and “responsibility” were seen by participants to affect which illnesses were most readily marketable in a crowdfunding context. While $90,000 was raised for a child with a rare form of cancer in just three weeks, a mother raising money for her child’s anorexia nervosa treatment described the “uphill battle” of fundraising for a misunderstood and often stigmatised illness, raising just $3,000 over six months.

Burdens of responsibility

Constructing crowdfunding campaigns takes time and energy, burdening campaigners when many struggle with increased care duties and continuing work commitments. The campaigners we interviewed reflected on how much effort went into crafting the perfect narrative on the crowdfunding platform.

Work on the campaign didn’t stop once the money came in. Many campaigners described a sense of duty in remaining accountable to their donors, providing updates and assurance that they were using funds responsibly.

We know from existing research that medical crowdfunding campaigns tend to compound economic inequality. People occupying positions of relative privilege are more likely to be connected to others with the means to donate.

Read more: Medical crowdfunding supports the wealthy and endangers privacy — here’s how to make it more ethical

Our research reveals an additional set of inequalities that appear to be exacerbated through crowdfunding: uneven distribution of time, physical and emotional energy, linguistic skills and advertising savvy — and the ability of particular illnesses and bodies to elicit care from others. This includes the age, gender and ethnic appearance of the recipient, as well as their type of need.

Success is deeply contingent on the skills of the campaigner, the traits of the recipient and the moral sensibilities of the crowd. The uncertainty of whether or not these three things will align can be taxing.

Campaigners and recipients are no doubt grateful for the existence of crowdfunding platforms and the charity of individual crowdfunders. At the same time, charitable donations cannot alleviate the wider structural inequalities that propel people towards this time-consuming strategy for meeting life-and-death needs, and which replicate the same inequalities.

*Names have been changed

– ref. How crowdfunding campaigners market illness to capture the attention of potential donors – https://theconversation.com/how-crowdfunding-campaigners-market-illness-to-capture-the-attention-of-potential-donors-159197

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

All flights from India have been suspended until May 15, to take pressure off the quarantine system especially in Sydney and at the Howard Springs centre in the Northern Territory.

Scott Morrison on Tuesday also announced an initial package of supplies to assist the crisis-ridden country, including 500 non-invasive ventilators, gowns, goggles, gloves, masks, and face shields.

With an acute shortage of oxygen in Indian hospitals, the government will also procure 100 oxygen concentrators, with tanks and consumables for them.

The suspension and the aid package were ticked off by the federal cabinet’s security committee.

More than 9,000 Australian citizens and residents are registered in India including 650 considered vulnerable.

Morrison said the decision would affect two passenger services into Sydney and two repatriation flights into Darwin, involving about 500 people.

Last week the government cut arrivals and flights from India but has decided on the suspension because those coming from there are forming such a high proportion of COVID cases.

Morrison said 95% of the cases among recent arrivals into the Howard Springs facility were people from India.

He said the future of flights from India would be reviewed before May 15.

The passengers on all future flights, when and if these were resumed, would be required to have both a negative PCR test and a negative rapid antigen test before leaving, Morrison said.

Indirect entry to Australia from India through Singapore, Doha, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur is also blocked, because “we are aware flights to and from these transit points and India have been paused by the respective governments”.

Australia is restricting exemptions for travel to India to essential travel only.

Since March last year the federal government has facilitated 38 flights out of India.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australian posts in India “will be redoubling their efforts” to maintain contact with Australians there, to ensure they know about travel settings, any changes and available assistance.

Morrison said the government would also reach out to the local Indian community in Australia.

Asked about the position of the Australia cricketers now in India Morrison said they would get no special priority when flights resume. Priority would go to vulnerable people.

“This wasn’t part of an Australian tour. They’re under their own resources. And they’ll be using those resources to, I’m sure, to see them return to Australia in accordance with their own arrangements.”

The latest daily number of new cases in India reported on Tuesday for the previous 24 hours was more than 323,000, down from the more 350,000 reported on Monday.

Before last week’s announcement the government had eight government- sponsored flights from India planned for the month of May.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the decision to suspend flights “will be difficult for families, but it is the right decision at this time”.

– ref. Flights from India suspended until at least mid-May – https://theconversation.com/flights-from-india-suspended-until-at-least-mid-may-159820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University

Imagine you are in a large building near Parliament House in Canberra filled with irreplaceable objects. Not jewels, medals or paintings, but a collection of letters, tapes and documents of Australian life.

The collection contains letters written to and from prime ministers, and recordings of their speeches. It has historic episodes of the ABC television programs Four Corners and Countdown. Audio recordings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Your grandmother’s migration records. Your uncle’s military service records. Covert ASIO surveillance footage of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. Letters from women living under the shadow of domestic violence, written to the Royal Commission on Human Relationships.

These are just some of the things to be found in the National Archives of Australia. Its role is to collect, manage and preserve records generated by the Australian government. This sounds dull, but it is anything but.

It is not merely a “politician’s archive”: while the NAA is famous for its annual release of cabinet records on January 1 each year, some of the collection’s richest records are those that offer insights into the lives of ordinary Australians. Whether they were migrating to Australia, registering for military service, or writing to the prime minister to demand that he fund women’s refuges, ordinary citizens generated paper trails that have been preserved in the NAA’s collections. As a resource for understanding the ways that government works, and the ways that citizens interacted with it, the NAA is a peerless resource. The material it houses belongs to all of us.

Now imagine burning this building to the ground, destroying almost everything inside. Last week, historians around the world watched in horror as the Library at the University of Cape Town burned down, taking with it thousands of irreplaceable historical records. Thanks to years of underfunding, Australia is on track to see a similar, though less spectacular, destruction of historical records, unless the federal government makes an urgent injection of funds.

Read more: Cabinet papers 1998-99: how the GST became unstoppable

Over the past few years, both Labor and Liberal governments have repeatedly cut funding to our national cultural institutions, including the National Archives. All commonwealth agencies have been subject to so-called “efficiency dividends” since 1987. This means that each year they receive a reduction in funding.

While this is intended to drive savings, in effect, according to a 2019 parliamentary inquiry, it has had a “significant and compounding effect” on cultural institutions over the last decade. This was made even worse in 2015-16, when the Turnbull government imposed an additional 3% “efficiency target” on national cultural institutions.

This means institutions like the National Archives have been forced to shed expert staff and reduce services to users. In 2013, the archives had 429 staff around Australia but by 2019, this had shrunk to just 308. This has made it more difficult for people to access material at the archives, as opening hours have been reduced. Users report long delays when they request materials; obtaining digital copies of files can cost you hundreds of dollars. This user-pays system has further restricted access to collections.

Even more urgently, these funding cuts are also taking irreplaceable audio visual collections to the brink of a “digital cliff”: that is, where a combination of material fragility and redundant technology will destroy a huge audio visual archive. Australia’s audio-visual collections will hurtle over this digital cliff by 2025 if no action is taken.

Let’s think for a moment about what this means.

Australia has experienced a century of profound and rapid transformation, all of it captured by the mass media. Television, film and audio show us how people in the past moved, sounded and spoke: they offer vivid and compelling evidence of life in the past that is impossible to obtain any way.

This kind of footage is the mainstay of documentaries. Archival footage can light a fire of curiosity about our past, especially in those who might never pick up a history book. It is crucial especially for engaging young people in history. Brazen Hussies, the recent documentary about the history of women’s liberation, was so successful because of its use of vivid, rarely-seen archival footage, much of it held in the National Archives.

Filmmakers would struggle to create lively historical documentaries if we allow the archival film held by the National Archives to be destroyed. It would be disastrous for our historical understanding.

What is so astonishing is that the amount of money required to pull us back from the digital cliff is relatively small. The government has committed $500m to an expansion of the Australian War Memorial : the Tune Review of the National Archives, released in March this year, recommended the government fund a seven year program to urgently digitise at-risk materials. The cost? Just $67.7 million.

The National Archives is a crucial democratic institution. It plays an important role in holding the state to account, encouraging broad participation in civic life by facilitating access to records generated by the Australian government. This gives it enormous power to control – and limit – access to government records.

Yet it has not always exercised this power wisely.

Given the enormous financial pressures on the National Archives, its decision to fight Professor Jenny Hocking’s bid to access the so-called “Palace Letters”, a legal dispute that cost the archives more than $1 million, was a deeply misguided use of precious funds.

Read more: Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the ‘Palace letters’ should matter to all Australians

Similarly, many historians have criticised the archives’ overly cautious approach to clearing records for access, which has led to huge backlogs of unprocessed requests. Its practice of sending records back to the department that originally created them means documents can languish, unchecked, for months or even years.

As the Australian Historical Association noted in its submission to the Tune review,

A process which restricts or even refuses access to government documents without adequate justification does not reflect an open and free democratic process.

The National Archives has much work to do to improve access to the records it holds. But it is also clear it has been denied essential funding for many years, and this has taken a toll.

The archives contains irreplaceable records that are important to every Australian. It is the government’s role to fund our national cultural institutions adequately so they can preserve and maintain this material: not just for citizens today, but for the citizens of the future.

– ref. Our history up in flames? Why the crisis at the National Archives must be urgently addressed – https://theconversation.com/our-history-up-in-flames-why-the-crisis-at-the-national-archives-must-be-urgently-addressed-159804

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carey Wilson, PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were concerned infection control measures such as extra hand washing and social distancing might compound the distress of people living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Early anecdotal evidence and case studies reported an apparent increase in OCD relapse rates and symptom severity.

But a year on, we’re learning this is not necessarily the case, and research is giving us a more nuanced understanding of what it’s like to have OCD during a pandemic.

Read more: Hoarding, stockpiling, panic buying: What’s normal behavior in an abnormal time?

What is OCD?

OCD is a common and disabling condition, affecting roughly 1.2% of Australians.

It’s characterised by obsessions (repetitive intrusive thoughts) and compulsions (physical actions or mental rituals) that attempt to quell these preoccupations.

There are several subtypes of OCD, including:

• contamination: characterised by obsessions and compulsions centred around washing, cleaning and concerns around personal hygiene and health

• overresponsibility: encompassing pathological doubt, concerns over unintentional harm to others or oneself, and persistent urges to check things

• symmetry: obsessions about things feeling “just right” (for example, uniform and/or symmetrical), resulting in ritualistic behaviours including counting and ordering

• taboo: characterised by unwanted intrusive thoughts that are often violent, sexual or religious in nature.

Although we don’t fully understand what causes OCD, research points to abnormal activity of specific brain networks, including a network called the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical loop.

This network connects key emotional, cognitive and motor hubs in the brain, and it’s particularly important for higher-order cognitive tasks such as thinking flexibly.

No, people with OCD aren’t ‘quirky’

There are several prevailing stereotypes about what it means to live with OCD, such as a belief people with the disorder are just a bit quirky, overly particular, “neat freaks” or “germ-phobic”.

Such ideas are frequently promulgated in popular culture. For example, in 2018 Khloe Kardashian promoted her “KHLO-C-D” branding for an online miniseries in which she gave tips on home organisation and cleanliness. The campaign was widely criticised.

While contamination fears and an affinity for symmetry are better recognised in the community (perhaps owing to portrayals in TV and film), the “taboo” and “overresponsibility” dimensions of OCD are far less understood and are therefore subject to higher levels of stigma.

Are we all OCD now?

The global response to COVID-19 has blurred the line between pathological behaviours and adaptive health and safety measures.

Behaviours that were previously linked to psychiatric illnesses, such as repetitive washing and sanitising rituals, are now encouraged (at least to some extent) by health authorities.

While infection control directives such as social distancing and hand hygiene play an essential role in our fight against the virus, they take a psychological toll too.

The pandemic has had a profound effect on mental health due to increased stress and lifestyle changes. Indeed, scientists have recently proposed a condition called “COVID-19 stress syndrome”. Some of the symptoms significantly overlap with anxiety disorders and OCD.

While we don’t all have OCD now, it’s unquestionable our collective behaviour has changed in ways that make the distinction between “normal” and “pathological” much more complex.

In this light, the International College of Obsessive–Compulsive Spectrum Disorders has highlighted the unique challenges the pandemic poses for accurately diagnosing OCD.

Read more: You can’t be ‘a little bit OCD’ but your everyday obsessions can help end the condition’s stigma

Living with OCD in a pandemic

Having a pre-existing mental health condition appears to be the single most influential predictor of high stress levels during COVID-19.

However, recent evidence from well-controlled studies doesn’t find compelling evidence that people with OCD have been affected by COVID-19 to a greater extent than those with other psychological conditions (such as depression or general anxiety).

One study published in January compared OCD severity in a large group before and during the pandemic. It found the stress induced by COVID-19 increased measures of mental distress across all OCD symptom dimensions (not only those directly related to a public health crisis).

The authors suggested the increase in OCD symptom severity was likely a “non-specific stress-related response”. In other words, it’s the general stress of the pandemic that has worsened OCD in some cases; not the increased focus on infection control.

Another recent study found the pandemic didn’t lessen the benefits of treatment in a large outpatient group with OCD in India.

Interestingly, the researchers from this study also found prior incomplete disease remission (cases of OCD that persisted even with treatment) and general stress were the best predictors of OCD relapse during the pandemic, rather than “COVID-specific” stress, per se.

After the pandemic

These findings don’t suggest there’s a specific vulnerability to COVID-related stress for people with OCD.

But it’s worth noting cognitive inflexibility, a symptom often seen in OCD, may make it more difficult for people with the disorder to “unlearn” temporary public health directives.

So it’s important we continue to monitor the effects of COVID-related stress on OCD and similar disorders, particularly as we slowly transition from the pandemic.

There’s much we can learn from the study of OCD during COVID-19. Most notably, it appears an “intuitive” understanding of the disorder doesn’t sufficiently capture the breadth of individual OCD experiences.

A deeper understanding of the variability of OCD presentations, and a move away from stereotyped perceptions, may encourage more people to openly discuss their own OCD experience and seek treatment.

Read more: My skin’s dry with all this hand washing. What can I do?

Need support?

If you live in Australia, call Lifeline (13 11 14), Kids Helpline (1800 551 800) or BeyondBlue (1800 512 348). Alternatively, “OCD STOP!” is a free online program designed to help you better understand and manage OCD.

If you simply want to learn more about OCD, online resources are available at SANE Australia and Beyond Blue.

– ref. No, OCD in a pandemic doesn’t necessarily get worse with all that extra hand washing – https://theconversation.com/no-ocd-in-a-pandemic-doesnt-necessarily-get-worse-with-all-that-extra-hand-washing-157961

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Not long ago it seemed as if the future was going to get better and better — not long ago at all.

For me the high point was around 2005, fifteen years ago.

I don’t know if you can remember how you felt at the time, but for me the surge in living standards, driven by an ever-building surge in output per working hour (“productivity”) suggested things were building on themselves: each new innovation was making use of the ones that had come before to the point where….

Ray Kurzweil, now the director of research at Google, summed it up in a book released in 2005 itself, titled The Singularity Is Near.

Singularity was “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed”.

Changes would build on each other to the point where everything changed at once.

Kurzweil dubbed it the “law of accelerating returns”.

Year by year in the leadup to 2005, Australia’s productivity growth had accelerated to the point where in the 15 years to 2005 it had grown 37%.

If it kept accelerating…

In the 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes foresaw “ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed”. On average the working week might fall to 15 hours.

In the 1970s, futurologist Alvin Toffler spoke of a four-hour working day.

And then from 2005 on productivity growth collapsed. In the 15 years since, Australia’s output per working hour (productivity) has grown by just 17%.

Thirty seven per cent turned out to be the high point.

Long-run productivity growth, Australia

And not only here. In the United States and other developed economies productivity growth is divided into “before 2005” when it was rapid, and “after 2005” when it collapsed.

2005 is when Apple got serious about developing the iPhone. It was when many of our technological innovations really did start building on themselves.

2005 is when things were meant to take off

In his impressive book The Rise and Fall of American Growth economist Robert Gordon rightly points out that things like the iPhone are nothing like as genuinely useful as the innovations in the leadup to the 1940s.

Gordon says not a single urban home was wired for electricity in 1880, but by 1940 nearly 100% had mains power, 94% had clean piped water, 80% had flush toilets and 56% had refrigerators.

He says whereas as all of us could quite happily travel back in time 60 years from today and enjoy a recognisable lifestyle, we couldn’t have done it if we travelled back 60 years from the 1940s.

Instead, they stagnated

It’s as if the innovation we’ve had has been less useful. As if, in the words of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”.

Or it might be that the things we do these days are harder to automate.

A century ago roughly half the Australian workforce worked in service jobs — doing things such as hairdressing and writing reports. Today it’s 80%.

Back then, 45% of us worked in farming or manufacturing. Today it’s not even 10%

Services such as hairdressing, nursing and aged care are about as productive as they will ever be. It’s possible to cut hair or consult patients faster, but what’s lost is the time and personal attention spent doing it, which is part of the service.

We might be reaching hard limits

If productivity is output (the service) per unit of input (time spent), it doesn’t make sense to measure it where much of the output is the input.

That’s one of the reasons the Bureau of Statistics provides measures of what it calls multi-factor productivity for industries such as agriculture and mining, but not for “health and social assistance” which is Australia’s biggest employer.

The Bureau is working on a measure for health, but it thinks it will have to use as the output changed life expectancy or surveys of patient “satisfaction” with their treatment.

Read more: Have we just stumbled on the biggest productivity increase of the century?

In the US as many as 30% of workers now work in “persuasive industries” including advertising, public relations and the law.

It is almost impossible to measure their output — is it success in persuading people to change their minds?

For public servants and writers it is possible to measure output in terms of words produced, but deeply unhelpful. It is far from certain these workers would be more productive if they worked faster.

Technology might even be sending us backwards

Which is a way of saying that we might be coming up against hard limits in the amount we can squeeze out of each hour of paid work. Or perhaps not. The Singularity promises us robots that can talk to dementia patients and bots that can write political news.

And the application of technology might even be sending productivity backwards.

British economics writer Tim Harford points out that what drove the really big advances in productivity in manufacturing was specialisation.

The father of capitalist economics Adam Smith famously observed that a pin factory employing 10 specialists could produce 48,000 pins a day.

An individual who did all of those jobs working without specialised equipment could scarcely “with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty”.

Harford says technology is turning us into generalists.

“Computers have made it easier to create and circulate messages, to book travel, to design web pages,” he says. “Instead of increasing productivity, these tools tempt highly skilled, highly paid people to noodle around making bad slides.”

It’ll matter for living standards

I could say worse about smartphones and the 140 (now 280) characters in Twitter.

They might be taking away more from our work-day output than they add to it.

This failure of ever increasing amounts of technology to do anything like what was expected matters because productivity growth is what we were counting on to drive economic growth and the ability of future generations to support increasing numbers of retirees.

Over four intergenerational reports the government has revised down its estimates of productivity growth and the size of the economy in four decades time. The next five-yearly report is due later this year.

– ref. Why productivity growth has stalled since 2005 (and isn’t about to improve soon) – https://theconversation.com/why-productivity-growth-has-stalled-since-2005-and-isnt-about-to-improve-soon-159706

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mathew Marques, Lecturer in Social Psychology, La Trobe University

The Apollo moon landings were faked, Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone to assassinate JFK, governments are hiding the existence of UFOs.

These are some classic conspiracy theories that almost everyone has heard about, and a sizeable number of people agree with. But little research has investigated “homegrown” conspiracy theories in Australia and New Zealand, and what drives people in these countries to believe in conspiracies. Are we much different from conspiracy believers elsewhere?

Our new research published in the journal Political Psychology delved into “homegrown” conspiracy beliefs of everyday Aussies and Kiwis, shedding light on which ones we buy into and which we put in the “tin foil hat” basket.

What conspiracies to Aussies and Kiwis believe?

When it comes to specifically Australian and New Zealand conspiracies, we found a majority of people in both countries (56.7% of Aussies and 50.1% Kiwis) endorsed at least one of the ones we asked about.

Sporting conspiracy theories were the most believed. For instance, almost one third of Aussies believed the racehorse Phar Lap’s sudden death in San Francisco in 1932 was the result of poisoning by US gangsters.

Read more: Sport is full of conspiracy theories – Chris Froome’s horrific cycling crash is just the latest example

The most popular conspiracy theory amongst Kiwis was the All Blacks were deliberately poisoned prior to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final, which they narrowly lost to hosts South Africa.

These are relatively innocuous narratives that perhaps are not all that surprising, given how central sports are to national identity.

But there was also a sizeable minority of people (8-12%) who believed in darker and more sinister conspiracies, such as the Port Arthur and Christchurch massacres were false flag operations by government agents with the aim of further restricting gun ownership.

Also, troublingly, 20% of Australian respondents and 16% of New Zealanders believed their governments were covering up the health risks of the new 5G cellular network.

Why do people believe in conspiracies?

Conspiracies are found to be true on occasion, which renders them no longer “theories”. For example, in the 1960s and 70s, the CIA really did engage in secretive experiments to identify drugs to force confessions (Project MKUltra).

But what is surprising is the degree to which people seem to believe in unfounded conspiracies, especially given the lack of evidence.

Previous research has highlighted three potential motives for why people buy into conspiracy theories.

First, people may latch onto conspiracy theories as a way of understanding and explaining a chaotic world, drawing links between unconnected events to create a sense of certainty.

For example, studies show people who prefer an intuitive style of thinking — “going with their gut” — are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, while those who engage in more deliberative, analytic thinking are less convinced.

Second, for some people, believing in conspiracy theories gives them a greater sense of safety and control over the unknown. Central to this is a distrust of the “other” — as in, different types of people or groups.

Some researchers have pointed to this being evolutionary — a psychological mechanism that aims to minimise the risk of threats from enemies and maintain a safe environment for one’s “tribe”.

Read more: In defence of conspiracy theories (and why the term is a misnomer)

Lastly, conspiracy theories may serve as a way for people to maintain a positive sense of self and their identity as a member of a social group. This meets a fundamental human need for belonging. For example, those who felt socially excluded have been found to be more likely to engage in conspiracies.

In our research, we found evidence for all three motives being associated with belief in conspiracy theories.

We asked participants a series of validated questions and looked at their associations with beliefs in conspiracies. Those who were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories were less analytical in their thinking, less trusting of others, or felt alienated from mainstream society.

What does this mean for combating conspiracies?

Research has shown that belief in conspiracy theories, on balance, is harmful to society. Climate change conspiracy theories can motivate people away from social action, while conspiracy theories about 5G telecommunications have been associated with support for violent tendencies.

Also, research shows people who believe in one conspiracy theory tend to believe in others.

Read more: How misinformation about 5G is spreading within our government institutions – and who’s responsible

Our other recent research shows people who engage in some kinds of conspiratorial thinking are also more likely to reject beneficial scientific innovations.

For example, those who believe in criminal conspiracies within governments and conspiracies related to restrictions on personal health practices and liberties are more likely to reject childhood vaccinations.

Trying to extricate friends and family from these webs of conspiracies can be difficult. But appealing to why they believe in them — rather than just what they believe — may be more effective at countering these beliefs.

Research suggests avoiding ridicule, showing empathy, affirming critical thinking and appealing to trusted message sources can help when talking to someone who believes in conspiracy theories.

We are currently planning and conducting further research to track people’s beliefs over time so we can pinpoint the key ingredients to their continued endorsement of conspiracies — and what convinces them to climb out of the rabbit hole.

We hope this will help counter the pernicious effects conspiracy theories have on societal cohesion.

– ref. Was Phar Lap killed by gangsters? New research shows which conspiracies people believe in and why – https://theconversation.com/was-phar-lap-killed-by-gangsters-new-research-shows-which-conspiracies-people-believe-in-and-why-158610

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Associate Professor, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

In late November, I led a participatory performance, A Proxy for a Thousand Eyes, at the Sydney Opera House. Among the performers were three videographers and two photographers. Their role was to record a loosely choreographed routine of touching between myself and the participants who joined me at the specially designed, Covid-safe screens.

The pandemic has highlighted the desire and need for physical contact and the integral role touch plays in socialisation and well-being. COVID-19 has not only forced us to be physically apart but to perceive bodies — both our own and others — as risky.

Despite the risks, I was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House to respond creatively to the pandemic. My approach focused on social distancing and its alienating impact on communal gathering. Shielded by vinyl plastic, complete with the ritual of hand sanitising, I persuaded 50 people to act as my touching playmates on the day. Some were friends and acquaintances. Many were strangers.

Each participant was separated from me by a sheet of plastic. I stood on one side and they stood on the other. Despite the squeaking and slippery sensation of the plastic, I made sure the palms of our hands connected, our fingers and faces conjoined, the tips of our noses and lips caressed.

At the heart of this work is the desire to feel good. In a year of great uncertainty and grief, creativity has an enormous role to play in articulating the unspeakable, the unthinkable and what is often suppressed in traumatic times.

I wanted first and foremost for the participants to feel safe, to feel cared for and to trust me. And in return, to touch me so we could be together and safely apart.

The photographs and footage revealed the most tender encounters. An intimate and playful game of surrender is now a ten-minute video piece portraying touching as a form of public yearning.

Cherine Fahd’s ten-minute video piece Play Proximus will feature in Returning: Chapter 1 on Stream, part of Sydney Opera House’s new digital commissions launching on 30 April 2021 co-presented with the Japan Foundation Sydney.

An essay reflecting on this project will appear in Dystopian and Utopian Impulses in Art Making: The World We Want, edited by Grace McQuilten and Daniel Palmer, to be published by Intellect in 2022.

– ref. Yearning for touch — a photo essay – https://theconversation.com/yearning-for-touch-a-photo-essay-159704

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam David Hines, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

Many of us will undergo general anaesthesia at some point in our lives — losing consciousness so we can be operated on painlessly. But although humans have used general anaesthesia for more than 150 years, we still don’t fully understand how it affects the brain.

To find out, we turned to a genus of stony coral called lobed brain coral (Lobophyllia). Using a unique fluorescent molecule present in lobed brain coral, we managed to isolate an important target of general anaesthetic drugs in fruit fly brains. Our findings could help develop safer anaesthesia for humans.

Glow-in-the-dark coral

Lobed brain corals are bioluminescent, which means they can naturally produce and emit light. They’re found in the Indian and Pacific oceans, alongside other similar scientifically valuable creatures such as the crystal jelly Aequorea victoria.

Bioluminescent ocean-dwellers have equipped researchers with a powerful toolkit of fluorescent molecules to study and track biological processes. They even inspired the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the green fluorescent protein.

The fluorescent molecule found in the lobed brain coral, Eos, has a rather surprising feature: it can change colour. This lets scientists observe the movement of proteins within living cells — something that was previously impossible.

Imagine you have a Christmas tree covered with lights but they were all lit the same colour; the tree might appear a bit blurry from afar. If one of the lights were to switch to a different colour, however, you’d spot it easily.

The same principles apply when scientists try to track moving proteins in cells. Proteins perform multiple vital tasks for a cell and tracking them can help us understand their function, but they’re usually too small to see with regular microscopes.

Using the Eos molecule, we can develop super-resolution microscopes that reveal even the smallest elements within cells, including proteins.

A sleeping brain isn’t ‘inactive’

Anaesthesia today generally involves injecting a patient’s vein with a dose of a sedative drug and painkiller. For instance, the combination of propofol and fentanyl will make you unconscious and prevent you from feeling pain.

Sedative drugs, including sleeping pills, use your brain’s natural ability to put you to sleep. They target the circuits in your brain that regulate wakefulness and stop them from being active.

However, the brain activity of a sleeping person is very different to that of someone under anaesthesia. A sleeping brain performs many tasks and is quite active. A brain under anaesthesia is largely unresponsive.

Why aren’t we able to be woken up while under general anaesthesia? To find out, scientists need to identify what else in the brain, apart from sleep pathways, is targeted by general anaesthetic drugs.

Read more: Why our brain needs sleep, and what happens if we don’t get enough of it

Anaesthesia stunts the brain’s processing power

Neurons, the cells in the brain, communicate with each other through a process known as synaptic neurotransmission. This is the main way our brains process information.

For neurotransmission to occur, specialised proteins within neurons must release chemicals called neurotransmitters (such as dopamine or glutamate). Proteins are dynamic. They can move freely inside neurons and are often needed in different parts of the cell.

For our research, we took the Eos molecule and attached it onto a protein called “syntaxin1A” — which is responsible for facilitating neurotransmission — to see how general anaesthetic drugs might affect its normal function in the brains of fruit flies.

We found syntaxin1A dynamics were altered with general anaesthetic drugs such as propofol and isoflurane. The protein became trapped in clusters of proteins and its movement was therefore restricted.

This may have been what reduced the efficiency of neurotransmission, preventing the brain from processing complex information.

Read more: Gene editing is revealing how corals respond to warming waters. It could transform how we manage our reefs

A goal to develop new, safer drugs

Many proteins apart from syntaxin1A are involved in neurotransmission. So it’s likely others are also affected by anaesthetic drugs.

This new way to observe individual protein behaviour in intact brain tissue will hopefully uncover more drug targets and explain the precise mechanisms that underpin general anaesthetics.

Consequently, this knowledge will aid in the development of safer drugs with fewer side effects. And targeted drug development could help prevent the abnormally long recovery times observed in some patients who undergo general anaesthesia.

– ref. How lobed brain corals are helping solve the mystery of what general anaesthesia does to the brain – https://theconversation.com/how-lobed-brain-corals-are-helping-solve-the-mystery-of-what-general-anaesthesia-does-to-the-brain-159541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eddie Clark, Senior lecturer, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Promised changes to New Zealand’s hate speech regulations have been slower to emerge than first anticipated. But a recently released cabinet paper finally gives some idea of what is being considered.

The proposals were originally intended to be made public by late 2019 in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attacks. In the end, it took until December 2020 for the matter to get to cabinet.

The delay, however, meant officials and ministers had the report of the royal commission of inquiry into the attacks (released in November 2020) to guide them.

The resulting proposals pull in two different directions: on one hand tightening definitions of what qualifies as hate speech, on the other significantly broadening the categories to which it can apply.

What the law says now

New Zealand currently has no comprehensive hate speech laws. The closest are provisions within section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993 which prohibit incitement of racial disharmony.

These make it a criminal offence for a person to publicly use language which is “threatening, abusive, or insulting” to a group of people on the basis of their “colour, race, or ethnic or national origins”, and which is intended to “excite hostility or ill will against, or bring into contempt or ridicule” that group.

This is punishable by a fine of up to NZ$7,000 or up to three months imprisonment.

Read more: The gender gap in Australia’s hate speech laws

The Human Rights Act also contains a civil liability provision allowing individuals to complain to the Human Rights Commission about incitement of racial disharmony. Unlike the act’s criminal provisions, this doesn’t require intent — it focuses only on the likely effect of such incitement.

A complaint to the Human Rights Commission might involve its mediation services in the first instance, but can also result in the matter being referred to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

If the tribunal upholds the complaint, it can offer a variety of remedies, including ordering a person to cease the offending speech, undertake training or pay monetary damages.

What the proposed reforms would do

As part of its broader recommendations to promote social cohesion, the royal commission suggested some reasonably narrow changes to the existing Human Rights Act provisions:

• add incitement of disharmony on the basis of religion
• move the criminal offence to the Crimes Act 1961 and increase the penalty
• tighten the definitions within the provision.

The proposals in the cabinet paper would do all this, specifically increasing the punishment to a fine of up to $50,000 or maximum of three years imprisonment. This would put hate speech punishment in the same general league as making a false declaration or assault with intent to injure.

The language would also be revised to make it an offence to intentionally “stir up, maintain, or normalise hatred” against a nominated group through “threatening, abusive, or insulting communications, including inciting violence”.

This is narrower than the existing law, meaning speech intended to bring a group into “contempt or ridicule” would no longer be covered.

Read more: We tracked antisemitic incidents in Australia over four years. This is when they are most likely to occur

Where the cabinet paper goes significantly further than the royal commission is in its recommendation the new law be extended beyond race and religion to cover all categories protected under section 21 of the Human Rights Act. These include age, sex, disability, religion, race, sexual orientation, political opinion and a number of others.

The paper also proposes a similar expansion of the civil provision in the Human Rights Act (largely ignored by the royal commission), and adding a prohibition on incitement of discrimination.

It also proposes clarifying the grounds of discrimination to specifically include gender identity and sex characteristics.

A risk of over-reach

By and large, this is a measured proposal. The threshold for criminal liability is very high, requiring a high degree of animosity and an effect far beyond offending an individual.

Despite some claims to the contrary, the proposed laws would not cover (for example) the unkindness and rudeness implicit in casually mis-gendering a trans person.

But by including every ground of discrimination under section 21 of the Human Rights Act, there is some risk the proposed changes become overly broad. In particular, political opinion is an area in which robust, even hostile, debate is important, and there is potential for a “chilling effect”.

Reasonable people may well disagree on this and other aspects of the proposal. But at this stage the cabinet paper is just that — a set of proposals. A more detailed discussion document will be put out for public consultation. One would hope it will include a more precise draft of the proposed legislation.

Hate speech regulation is a fraught topic with important considerations on all sides. It deserves serious consideration and public debate before these proposals finally become law.

– ref. NZ’s hate speech proposals need more detail and wider debate before they become law – https://theconversation.com/nzs-hate-speech-proposals-need-more-detail-and-wider-debate-before-they-become-law-159320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lester, PhD candidate, University of Tasmania

Tasmanian Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein is gambling on an early election to cash in on his government’s popularity due to its management of the COVID pandemic. It is a reasonable strategy, given how voters in Queensland and Western Australia have rewarded their governments in recent months.

Gutwein announced the May 1 election on March 26 – a year earlier than it is due. This was possible because, while Tasmania has a four-year maximum term, it does not have a fixed term, unlike all other states and territories.

In 2018 the Liberals, under then-Premier Will Hodgman, were returned to government with a bare majority of 13 of the 25 members of the lower house. Gutwein took over the premiership following Hodgman’s resignation in January 2020.

Over the past three years, the majority government has at times looked shaky. This was typified by maverick Liberal Clark MP Sue Hickey winning the speakership ballot with the support of Labor and the Greens against her party’s candidate. She has since voted against government legislation and policy on a number of policy and social reform issues.

Five days before calling the election Gutwein informed Hickey she would not get Liberal re-endorsement for the next election. She resigned from the party, putting the government into minority.

Having engineered a minority government and, despite written assurances from Hickey and ex-Labor, independent MP Madeleine Ogilvie on confidence and supply, Gutwein then called the election to secure “stable majority government”. His reasoning was that this would keep Tasmania in safe hands for ongoing management of COVID.

Read more: Morrison’s ratings take a hit in Newspoll as Coalition notionally loses a seat in redistribution

A few days later, Ogilvie was endorsed as a Liberal candidate for Clark. This underlined the artificiality of the minority government argument.

Under Tasmania’s Hare-Clark proportional electoral system, five members are elected to each of five multi-member seats. These are Bass in the north, Braddon in the north west, Clark and Franklin in the greater Hobart and southern region, and the sprawling Lyons across the middle of the state.

Going into this election, the Liberals had 12 seats, Labor nine, Tasmanian Greens two and there were two independents.

In March 2020, before the pandemic, Labor leader Rebecca White was matching first Hodgman and then Gutwein as preferred premier.

However, that changed after Gutwein declared a state of emergency and the “toughest border restrictions in Australia”.

Like his counterparts in Queensland and WA, the hard-line stance was widely interpreted as keeping the state safe. Gutwein polled as high as 70% as preferred premier in opinion polls throughout 2020.

The election announcement caught Labor unprepared. The start of its campaign was sidetracked by factional battles over preselection of high-profile Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter for the seat of Franklin. It also had to deal with the resignation of state ALP president Ben McGregor from the campaign over crude text messages he sent to a female colleague some years ago.

The Liberals also have had their share of problems. Franklin candidate Dean Ewington was forced to resign when it was revealed he had attended anti-lockdown rallies against Gutwein’s policy. Ex-minister and now Braddon candidate Adam Brooks also faces police charges over alleged contraventions of gun storage law.

Tasmania has has three minority governments in the modern era. These are the 1989 Labor-Green Accord government, the 1996 Liberal minority government and the 2010 Labor-Green quasi-coalition government. In each case voters punished the major governing party at the following election.

Consequently, the prospect of a hung parliament is always a central election issue in this state. Both Labor and the Liberals have pledged to govern in majority or not at all. However, in their one campaign debate to date, both Gutwein and White indicated they would resign the leadership rather than lead a minority government. This seems to leave open the door for their replacements to take up negotiations to form government.

Federal issues and federal political leaders have had a minimal impact on the Tasmanian election. So far, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not visited the state during the campaign, even for the Liberal campaign launch. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has visited twice, including for Labor’s launch.

While Tasmania’s economy has held up surprisingly well during the pandemic – due in no small part to Commonwealth JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments – the end of those payments is likely to have a negative impact on the state’s economy. Some have pointed to this as an underlying reason for going to an election early.

Concerns about delays to the roll-out of COVID vaccinations and the possible distraction from the key state Liberal campaign theme of management of the pandemic may be another reason for keeping federal ministers away.

Read more: WA election could be historical Labor landslide, but party with less than 1% vote may win upper house seat

For its part, Labor has campaigned on state Liberal failure to reduce hospital and housing waiting lists and the lack of action on a range of key infrastructure development promises made at the 2018 election. The opposition has also raised concerns about future budget spending cuts to fund high-cost COVID economic stimulus measures, TAFE privatisation and delays in replacing the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, which are vital for interstate transport, tourism and freight.

The Greens and key high-profile independent candidates such as Hickey and popular Glenorchy Mayor Kristie Johnston in Clark have raised concerns about government secrecy, ministerial accountability and the state’s weak laws on political donations and, associated with that, poker machine licensing reforms.

There have been no public political opinion polls so far during this campaign. However, successive surveys by Tasmanian pollsters EMRS throughout 2020 placed the Liberals as likely to win more than 52% of the vote state-wide.

Since, historically, a party winning anything over 48% is likely to secure majority government in Tasmania, if those polls are reflected in the election outcome on May 1, another majority Liberal government seems likely.

– ref. As Tasmanians head to the polls, Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein hopes to cash in on COVID management – https://theconversation.com/as-tasmanians-head-to-the-polls-liberal-premier-peter-gutwein-hopes-to-cash-in-on-covid-management-159526

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ivan Charles Hanigan, Data Scientist (Epidemiology), University of Sydney

Climate change not only poses enormous dangers to the planet, but also harms human health. In our study published today, we show some of the first evidence climate change has had observable impacts on Australians’ health between 1968 and 2018.

We found long-term heating is associated with changed seasonal balance of deaths in Australia, with relatively more deaths in summer months and relatively fewer deaths in winter months over recent decades.

Our findings can be explained by the gradual global warming associated with climate change. Over the 51 years of our study, annual average temperatures increased by more than 1°C in Australia. The last decade (2011 to 2020) was the hottest in the country’s recorded history.

If we continue on this trajectory, we’re likely to see many more climate-related deaths in the years to come.

What we did and found

Using the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and other sources, we gathered mortality data for people aged 55 and over between 1968 and 2018. We then looked at deaths in summer compared to winter in each year.

We found that in 1968 there were approximately 73 deaths in summer for every 100 deaths in winter. By 2018, this had risen to roughly 83 deaths in summer for every 100 deaths in winter.

The same trend, albeit of varying strength, was evident in all states of Australia, among all age groups over 55, in females and males, and in the three broad causes of death we looked at (respiratory, heart and renal diseases).

Hot and cold weather can have a variety of direct and indirect effects on our health. Winter death rates generally exceed those in summer months because infectious diseases, like influenza, tend to circulate more in winter. Meanwhile, heat stress can exacerbate chronic health conditions including heart disease and kidney disease, particularly for older adults.

But the gap between cold-related deaths and heat-related deaths appears to be narrowing. And when we compared deaths in the hottest summers with the coldest winters, we found particularly warm years increase the likelihood of seasonal mortality ratios approaching 1 to 1 (meaning equal deaths in summer and winter).

With summers expected to become hotter, we believe this is an early indication of the effects of climate change in the future.

Read more: Too hot, heading south: how climate change may drive one-third of doctors out of the NT

Our research is unique

Globally, our study is one of very few that directly shows the health impacts of climate change. Most other studies examine the effects of past weather or climate conditions on health and extrapolate these into the future based on projected climate change scenarios, with associated uncertainties. For example, demographic characteristics of the population are likely to change over time.

Climate change occurs slowly, so typically, we need at least 30–50 years of records to accurately show how climate change is affecting health. Suitable health information is seldom available for such periods due to a variety of challenges in collecting electronic health data (especially in low- and middle-income countries).

Further, long-term health trends can be influenced by numerous non-climate related factors, such as improvements in health care.

In our study, we used Australian mortality records that have been collected with remarkable consistency of detail and quality over the last half century. And by focusing on the ratio of summer to winter deaths within each year, we avoid possible confounding associated with, say, improvements to health care.

Read more: Seriously ugly: here’s how Australia will look if the world heats by 3°C this century

However, we were unable to consider some issues such as the different climate trends in small areas within each state/territory, or the effects of changing temperatures on different occupation groups, such as construction workers.

Our data also don’t allow us to account for the possible effects of people’s adaptation to warmer temperatures in the future.

Looking ahead

The changing ratio of summer to winter deaths has previously been identified as a possible warning sign of the impact of climate change on human health.

In one study on the topic, the authors found Australia may initially experience a net reduction in temperature-related deaths. That is, increased deaths from heat during summer would be offset by fewer deaths in winter, as winters become more mild.

However, they predict this pattern would reverse by mid-century under the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with increases in heat-related deaths outweighing decreases in cold-related deaths over the long term.

Our findings support these worrying predictions. If warming trends continue, it’s almost certain summer deaths will increase, and come to dominate the burden of temperature-related deaths in Australia.

We found the speed of change in the ratio of summer to winter deaths was fastest in the hottest years within each decade. This strengthens our conclusion we’re observing an effect of long-term climate change.

Read more: The rise of ‘eco-anxiety’: climate change affects our mental health, too

Besides helping to answer the question, “does climate change affect human health?”, we believe our findings should inform planning for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The implications are considerable for the planning of hospital services and provision of health care, as well as for emergency services, housing, energy supply, holiday periods and bushfire disaster preparedness.

– ref. More people die in winter than summer, but climate change may see this reverse – https://theconversation.com/more-people-die-in-winter-than-summer-but-climate-change-may-see-this-reverse-159135

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

In case you missed it, a major A$1 billion energy deal between the Morrison and the South Australian government was revealed recently.

The bilateral deal represents a key driver for the national economic recovery from COVID. It promises to provide jobs in the energy sector and contribute to South Australia achieving net 100% renewables by 2030.

But there’s a big caveat: the agreement involves a joint commitment to accelerate new gas supplies into the east coast market.

With so much money on the table and other nations recently doubling down on climate commitments, let’s look at the good and bad bits of this landmark deal in more detail.

A gas-led economic recovery

The agreement was announced ahead of US President Joe Biden’s climate summit last week, which saw Australia spruik technology growth to cut emissions instead of committing to new climate targets.

In total, the federal government will contribute A$660 million and the South Australian government A$422 million towards the new deal.

Both governments have also agreed to a gas target of an additional 50 petajoules of energy per year by the end of 2023, and 80 petajoules by 2030. Their rationale is the need to improve energy security and reliability.

This focus on gas in the agreement stems from the federal government’s much-criticised, gas-led economic recovery plan, which argues new gas supplies are vital for future energy security.

Read more: Australia is at a crossroads in the global hydrogen race – and one path looks risky

In February, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission outlined a potential shortfall of 30 petajoules of gas for the east-coast market leading up to 2024. This shortfall could impact energy supply, and the federal government has used this to help justify opening new gas reserves.

However, nothing is certain — COVID has reduced global demand for gas so any shortfall will likely be deferred. Meanwhile, renewable technology and hydrogen production and use are rapidly advancing.

Bad: investing in gas

With the seismic shift in the economics of renewables over the past decade, investing in new gas supply is unnecessary and retrograde. In fact, it’s now more expensive to transition from coal to gas than from coal to renewables.

Read more: 4 reasons why a gas-led economic recovery is a terrible, naïve idea

For example, the cost of lithium ion batteries used for battery storage has fallen over the past decade by nearly 90%. But the cost of gas — both economically and environmentally — has steadily risen. This inevitably means means its role in the energy market will diminish.

Eventually, gas generators will be retired without replacement. Victoria’s March quarter data, for example, shows black coal generation volumes dropped by 9.5% and gas generation dropped by 43%. Meanwhile, rooftop solar went up 25%, utility solar up by 40% and wind power by 24%.

And at the end of the day, gas is still a fossil fuel. There are approximately 22 major gas production and export projects proposed for Australia. A report from The Australia Institute in September 2020 suggested that, if produced, these projects could lead to about half a billion tonnes of emissions.

If all potential gas resources in Australia were tapped, the report indicates it could result in emissions equivalent to three times the current annual global emissions.

Good: investing in critical infrastructure

The energy deal sets aside $50 million towards the new $1.5 billion electricity interconnector between South Australia and NSW. This is critical infrastructure that will allow South Australia, Victoria and NSW to share energy reserves.

Indeed, the Australian Energy Market Operator has reported in excess of 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects near the proposed interconnector. This means South Australian wind and solar could contribute more significantly to electricity generation in both Victoria and NSW.

In turn, this will have a positive effect on pricing. Forecasts suggest the proposed new interconnector could reduce power bills by up to $66 a year in South Australia and $30 in NSW.

The energy deal also reserves funding for “investment priority areas”, which include carbon capture storage, electric vehicles and hydrogen. For example, $110 million is allocated for energy storage projects. This level of funding will help develop a world-class hydrogen export industry in South Australia.

The verdict

The energy deal is a funding win for renewable energy and technology, with energy technology advancing much faster than anticipated. However, its focus on gas is environmentally and economically regressive.

It’s completely inconsistent with the powerful climate plan announced by the Joe Biden administration at the Climate Summit last week, which includes a pause and review of oil and gas drilling on US federal land and doubling energy production from offshore windfarms by 2030.

Read more: More reasons for optimism on climate change than we’ve seen for decades: 2 climate experts explain

In March, the European Union’s parliament voted in favour of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. This will impose a tariff on products being sold into the EU according to the amount of carbon involved in making them. The Biden administration in the US has announced a similar plan.

What’s more, the European Union and the US, as outlined at the recent Climate Summit, are planning to impose fees or quotas on goods from countries failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations. This may mean Australian manufacturers will end up paying for the governments failure to take rapid action to drive down emissions.

Bilateral agreements provide critical planning and funding for Australia’s energy progression. However, they should not prolong the use of fossil fuels under the guise of energy security. To do so undermines global climate change imperatives and hinders Australia’s progress in a new energy era.

– ref. This $1 billion energy deal promises to cut emissions and secure jobs. So why on earth is gas included? – https://theconversation.com/this-1-billion-energy-deal-promises-to-cut-emissions-and-secure-jobs-so-why-on-earth-is-gas-included-159342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By S. Travis Waller, Professor and Head of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW

Uber, Ola, Car Next Door, GoGet, Urbi and Shareabike have transformed the mobility experience for millions of people, but are just the tip of the looming iceberg of changes in transport. Globally, 93 million travellers use the Uber app on a monthly basis. More Australians use Uber (22.9%) than taxis (21.8%).

The public clearly has an appetite for mobility as a service (MaaS). People want to plan, book and pay for various forms of transport via a digital platform.

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

However, mobility service providers are actors in search of a stage. As with software, computing and entertainment, only when a properly designed and managed platform underpins all the services will the real transformation be unlocked.

The 3 pillars of the platform

MaaS is part of a broader evolution as novel technologies have driven the rapid transformation of products and offerings into collections of services. Smartphone applications rely on digital distribution platforms such as Google Play Store, Apple Store, Microsoft Store and Amazon Cloud. Similarly, the evolving technologies and mechanisms of mobility systems require a platform for distribution.

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

The platform concept should include at least three key elements:

1. integrated ticketing and payment: user payments are managed in a uniform and adaptable manner across all providers

2. accessible, standardised regulations with open data: regulations and data are managed to be accessible/plug-n-play, secure and equitable

3. reputation management: reputations of providers and users are managed in a scalable, fair and efficient way.

If the platform is designed poorly, markets will be distorted, privacy will be violated, and escalating infrastructure costs will continue to burden taxpayers.

Moving towards integrated payment

Historically, the transport platform has simply been the physical networks – roads, walking paths, cycle paths, rail and so on – and the ancillary infrastructure such as stations, airports, ports, vehicle storage and parking. Governments must reimagine existing physical infrastructure as part of the mobility services platform.

Recent innovations have focused not only on infrastructure development – autonomous vehicle systems, for example – but also on managing existing infrastructure. For example, cities around the world have moved towards rail automation and smart ticketing for public transport (Opal, Oyster, Octopus and Myki cards). The smart cards market for public transport in the US alone was valued at US$57.2 billion (A$73.9bn) in 2018.

Setting up seamless payment across services is the first pillar of the platform needed to support mobility as a service. It removes a major barrier to entry for service providers and users.

Significant efforts to integrate payments are ongoing. The other two essential pillars of a MaaS platform require much more attention.

Mobility as a service is seen as a solution to various transport problems, particularly by reducing private vehicle use. Customers are being promised efficient door-to-door multi-modal travel through a single holistic application. In reality, the infrastructure to achieve this is not yet present.

Research has raised questions about its benefits, social impacts and governance. For instance, emphasising smaller-scale, more flexible mobility services in unideal environments can increase congestion and undermine urban planning goals.

Why regulation is essential

The value and risks the platform creates for mobility providers, users, disadvantaged groups and society must all be kept in mind. The aim should be to create a fair marketplace that enables participation, innovation, equity and quality service.

Read more: Billions are pouring into mobility technology – will the transport revolution live up to the hype?

The second pillar, accessible, standardised regulations with open data paradigms, will enable service providers to participate in a market that delivers societal benefits. Innovations by providers must conform to a common “plug-n-play” approach that meets the mobility needs of the community as efficiently as possible. Crowd-sourced data (such as from Google or TomTom), user demand data from travel cards and traffic volume data should be available in the one platform for all service providers.

This is a complex undertaking, and data privacy must be a core component. It calls for strong professional leadership.

A big part of the challenge is that civil infrastructure cannot be unified in the same way as IT infrastructure or cloud computing. Civil infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure, is also expensive to build and maintain over its long lifespan, so the MaaS platform must be able to help optimise existing infrastructure to meet public mobility needs.

Regulation based on the protection and service of society is the only way to achieve this. The regulatory framework must be standardised, fair and accessible. This means any service providers adhering to the standards can join (and leave) the market without “insider” barriers.

Balancing profit with public benefits

Though it is a difficult task, we should apply the “everything as a service” concept with clear standardisation and regulation to deliver equitable and sustainable transport services.

This also offers a way to integrate profit maximisation and social welfare within transport but also involving adjacent services such as parking.

In the rail industry, standardisation has enabled more commoditised heavy and light rail systems and vehicles. Commoditisation is a process that creates reliable nearly identical products – rail services in this case – in the eyes of consumers. They can choose between these competing products based on cost and which best suits their needs at the time. This process has improved the economics, safety, accessibility and technology of rail services.

Over the past decade, the European Commission has implemented laws and policies to create a Single European Railway Area. The goal is to revitalise the sector by creating a single market for interoperable rail services that are more innovative and competitive.

Managing reviews and reputations

Finally, reputation management is essential for a mobility infrastructure platform. Reviews and reputation management have been a driving force for Uber, Amazon, eBay, iTunes, Airbnb etc.

A user-driven reputational management system must be trustworthy, scalable and resistant to tampering and malignant reviews. Blockchain technologies could help build the required trust.

Mobility will increasingly be delivered as a service to travellers. New technologies combined with social awareness and strong professional leadership will all be needed to develop the platform.

This article was co-authored by Victor Prados-Valerio, a Senior Associate at the advisory firm TSA Management, who has been a project manager and senior rolling stock engineer on train, light rail and depot procurement projects in Australia and overseas.

– ref. All your transport options in one place: why mobility as a service needs a proper platform – https://theconversation.com/all-your-transport-options-in-one-place-why-mobility-as-a-service-needs-a-proper-platform-157243