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

Young people don’t see private health insurance as good value for money. And they’re right: the cost of their expected use of private health care is significantly below what they pay in insurance premiums.

Unsurprisingly, more and more young people are turning their backs on private health insurance: dropping it, or opting not to take out a policy in the first place.

This youth exodus has put the private health insurance system into a “death spiral”. As younger, healthier people drop their insurance, the insurance risk pool gets worse, premiums go up, more young people drop out, and the cycle continues.

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

If Australia’s private health care system is to remain viable, the youth exodus has to be stopped. A new Grattan Institute report, released today, proposes a fundamental change to the way health insurance premiums are set that aims to make private insurance fairer and better value for younger Australians.

The risk rating spectrum

Private health insurance premiums in Australia are mostly set on the average experience of the whole insured community – by a system of so-called “community rating”. Under this arrangement younger and healthier people subsidise the costs of older and sicker people.

But this is the fatal flaw of community rating: the cross subsidy only works if younger and healthier people still think the product is valuable.

Young people’s views on this are changing. Many are dropping their cover which means there are fewer and fewer young people to cross subsidise the costs of older people.

Community rating contrasts with a “risk rating” approach, whereby the premium is set based on the specific risk of the insured person. Most insurance products, including home and car insurance, work this way.

Systems for setting insurance premiums lie on a spectrum, with a pure community rating at one end, and risk rating at the other. Australia’s private health insurance system lies close to the community-rated end.

However, youth discounts introduced in April – and differential products where young people are more likely to choose “Basic” products and older people more likely to choose “Gold” – mean that policies are already partially risk-rated.

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

The Grattan Institute proposes a further shift towards age-based risk rating in our private health insurance system. This change would allow private health insurers to reduce the premiums of people under 55 while leading to only small increases in premiums for people aged 55 and over.

Age-based risk rating for people under 55

If health insurance premiums for people under 55 were deregulated and insurers allowed to charge an age-based premium, the cost of premiums for this age group would fall significantly.

We propose that the government subsidy for private health insurance, the private health insurance rebate, be withdrawn from this age group. Even without a subsidy, premiums for this group would fall.

With a lower price that is more closely aligned to their expected benefits, young people would see private health insurance as a better deal, and would be more likely to retain their insurance or, indeed, take it out again if they’d previously dropped it.

Community rating for people 55 and over

The private health insurance subsidy costs taxpayers around A$6 billion every year.

Although this subsidy is probably not good value from a taxpayer’s point of view, there is some uncertainty about whether abolishing it would represent an overall saving once the cost of increased demand for public hospital care is taken into account.

Erring on the side of caution, the Grattan Institute proposes redirecting most of the rebate to premium subsidies for people over 55.

The increased subsidy for older people would mean premiums for that group would increase marginally, but potentially less than the increases which will occur if the youth exodus continues.

Community rating would be retained for people 55 and over, since premiums for the very old would become prohibitively expensive without it.

The premium subsidy for people 55 and over would continue to increase in line with inflation, and the means-tested component currently in place for premium subsidies would remain.

The private health insurance death spiral is real, albeit slow. Without policy change, the youth exodus will continue. Insurance premiums will continue to go up and private health coverage will decrease overall. A fundamental industry shakeup is required to address the inherent adverse dynamics.

The industry should also rely more on providing good value products to customers rather than depending on people to take out a policy simply because they’ve been forced to do so. As in any other industry, private insurance companies should be encouraged – and allowed – to compete, based on the value they can provide to customers.

Read more: Greedy doctors make private health insurance more painful – here’s a way to end bill shock

– ref. How do you stop the youth exodus from private health insurance? Cut premiums for under-55s – http://theconversation.com/how-do-you-stop-the-youth-exodus-from-private-health-insurance-cut-premiums-for-under-55s-128101

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Moynihan, Assistant Professor, Bond University

While there’s much to celebrate in medicine, it’s now beyond doubt that we have too much of it. Too many tests, diagnoses, pills and procedures are wasting resources that could be better spent meeting genuine need.

As a recent OECD report concluded, up to one-fifth of health spending may be wasted, and many patients “unnecessarily harmed” by treatments they didn’t need.

Antidepressants, for example, can be life-savers for some people. But drug company-funded studies have overplayed their benefits and downplayed their harms, contributing to overuse and unnecessary side effects.

Read more: Antidepressants may not be as effective as we thought, and shouldn’t be the only treatment for depression

Widespread industry influence is jeopardising the integrity of research and medical education, and threatening the quality of patient care.

Today in The BMJ a global group of researchers, doctors, editors, regulators and advocates outline key strategies to reduce the financial entanglement with industry. The first step is ensuring the evaluation of any new tests, treatments and technologies are free from industry influence.

Distorted research, education and clinical practice

A huge proportion of medical research is currently funded by industry – in the United States almost 60%. Yet there’s a mountain of evidence that company-sponsored studies tend to overstate product benefits and playdown harms.

One example is cholesterol-lowering drugs, or statins. A review analysing almost 200 studies of statins found that company-sponsored studies were much more likely to find results favourable to the sponsors’ drug.

There’s similar distortion with devices, like pelvic mesh, used to treat pelvic organ prolapse. In this case, poor testing meant many women received the mesh without knowing the risks of horrendous harms, including severe pain, infection, and repeated surgery.

Read more: Vaginal mesh controversy shows collective failure of the TGA and Australia’s specialists

Those same companies then sponsor the “education” of your doctor, often with the evidence they’ve funded, and good food and wine.

As a study of 280,000 doctors reveals, accepting just one sponsored meal is associated with higher prescribing of the sponsor’s products: a 20% increase in statins, and a doubling of antidepressants.

Industry argues it’s information helps patients, but a systematic review found differently. Doctors who accept marketing, including sales representatives, tend to prescribe more, at higher cost, and lower quality, such as prescribing an inappropriate drug, or prescribing that is not in line with guidelines.

Read more: Who’s paying for lunch? Here’s exactly how drug companies wine and dine our doctors

Just look at the opioid epidemic in the United States. One study found the amount of marketing, including payments to doctors, was associated with small but significant increases in both prescriptions and deaths from overdose.

How to end commercial influence

Evidence of the dangers of financial relationships with industry has caused many groups to seek more freedom. As we show in today’s BMJ Analysis, there are signs of change.

In Norway, industry-supported education can no longer be used formally by doctors, and the government funds independent drug information.

Some medical journals no longer accept drug company advertising. Citizen groups like the US National Women’s Health Network accept no funds from companies selling healthcare products.

The biggest challenge is working out ways to evaluate tests and treatments, free from the influence of companies developing them. But radical reform is in the wind in many places.

In Italy, the promotional budgets of drug companies are taxed to create a pool for independent research.

In Britain, Labour is proposing the government funds clinical trials and creates state-owned pharmaceutical makers.

More needs to be done

Our proposals are from a team with expertise across medicine, law, and philosophy and includes people from The BMJ and the World Organisation of Family Doctors.

We argue the pathway to independence includes three key reforms:

• government policies ensuring the evaluation of tests, treatments and technologies is free from sponsor influence

• reforms to ensure medical education is free from industry support and on-going professional accreditation can’t be gained from company-sponsored events

• new rules to end marketing interactions between industry and prescribing doctors, such as sales representatives’ visits.

In our view, tackling the current epidemic of medical excess can only work if decision-makers within health care seek much more independence from those profiting from that excess. And if you want to help develop more detailed recommendations for reform, and support the campaign launched in BMJ today, you can do so here.

Read more: We need new rules for defining who is sick. Step 1: remove vested interests

– ref. Time to end drug company distortion of medical evidence – http://theconversation.com/time-to-end-drug-company-distortion-of-medical-evidence-127495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Gibbs, Senior Lecturer in Geography, University of Wollongong

As Australians look forward to the summer beach season, the prospect of shark encounters may cross their minds. Shark control has been the subject of furious public debate in recent years and while some governments favour lethal methods, it is the wrong route.

Our study, published today in People and Nature, presents further evidence that lethal shark hazard management damages marine life and does not keep people safe.

We examined the world’s longest-running lethal shark management program, the New South Wales Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program, introduced in 1937. We argue it is time to move on from shark nets and invest further in lifeguard patrol and emergency response.

Managing shark bite

In NSW, 51 beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong are netted. The nets don’t provide an enclosure for swimmers. They are 150 metres long and suspended 500 metres offshore. In the process of catching targeted sharks they also catch other animals including turtles, rays, dolphins, and harmless sharks and fish.

Catching and killing sharks might seem a commonsense solution to the potential risk of shark bite to humans. But the story is not so simple.

Read more: Poor Filipino fishermen are making millions protecting whale sharks

Multiple factors influence shark bite incidence, including climate change, prey species distribution and abundance, water quality, human population, beach-use patterns, and lifeguard patrols.

Most research and public debate focuses on human safety or marine conservation. Our research sought to bring the two into conversation. We considered a range of factors that contribute to safety and conservation outcomes. This included catch of target and non-target species in nets, damage to marine ecosystems, global pressures on oceans, changing beach culture, human population growth and changes in lifeguarding and emergency response. Here’s what we found.

Fewer sharks, fewer bites

As the graph below shows, shark catch in the NSW netting program has fallen since the 1950s. This includes total shark numbers and numbers of three key target species: white shark (also known as great white or white pointer), tiger shark and bull shark.

This suggests there are fewer sharks in the water, which is cause for alarm. The three target species are recognised by Australian and international institutions as threatened or near-threatened.

Our analysis shows shark bite incidence is also declining over the long term. The trend isn’t smooth; trends rarely are. The last two decades have seen more shark bites than the previous two. This is not surprising given Australia’s beach use has again grown rapidly in recent decades.

But if we take a longer term view, we see that shark bite incidence relative to population is substantially lower from the mid-20th century than during the decades before.

The decline in shark bite incidence is great news. But key points are frequently overlooked when society tries to make sense of the figures.

Lifeguard patrol and emergency response are key

In NSW, lifeguard beach patrol grew over the same time period as the shark meshing program. More people swam and surfed in the ocean from the early 20th century as public bathing became legal. The surf lifesaving and professional lifeguard movements grew rapidly in response.

Today, 50 of the 51 beaches netted through the shark meshing program are also patrolled by lifeguards or lifesavers. Yet improved safety is generally attributed to the mesh program. The role of beach patrol is largely overlooked.

Read more: Some sharks have declined by 92% in the past half-century off Queensland’s coast

So, claims that shark bite has declined at netted beaches might instead be interpreted as decline at patrolled beaches. In other words, reduced shark interactions may be the result of beach patrol.

More good news is that since the mid-20th century the proportion of shark bites leading to fatality has plummeted. This is most likely the result of enormous improvements in beach patrol, emergency and medical response.

It’s time to move on from shark nets

Debate over shark management is often polarised, pitting human safety against marine conservation. We have brought together expertise from the social sciences, biological sciences and fisheries, to move beyond a “people vs sharks” debate.

There is no reliable evidence that lethal shark management strategies are effective. Many people oppose them, institutions are moving away from them, and threatened species are put at risk.

Read more: SharkSpotter combines AI and drone technology to spot sharks and aid swimmers on Australian beaches

The NSW Department of Primary Industries, manager of the shark meshing program, is investing strongly in new non-lethal strategies, including shark tagging, drone and helicopter patrol, personal deterrents, social and biophysical research and community engagement. Our study provides further evidence to support this move.

Investing in lifeguard patrol and emergency response makes good sense. The measures have none of the negative impacts of lethal strategies, and are likely responsible for the improved safety we enjoy today at the beach.

– ref. Shark nets are destructive and don’t keep you safe – let’s invest in lifeguards – http://theconversation.com/shark-nets-are-destructive-and-dont-keep-you-safe-lets-invest-in-lifeguards-127453

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Heyes, Head of School of Food and Advanced Technology@ISHS_CMFV, Massey University

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

According to the United Nations, food shortages are a threat due to climate change. Are food shortages a major threat to New Zealand due to climate change?

Climate change is altering conditions that sustain food production, with cascading consequences for food security and global economies. Recent research evaluated the simultaneous impacts of climate change on agriculture and marine fisheries globally.

Modelling of those impacts under a business-as-usual carbon emission scenario suggested about 90% of the world’s population – most of whom live in the least developed countries – will experience reductions in food production this century.

New Zealanders are fortunate to live in a part of the world blessed with relatively fertile soils, adequate water supplies and mild temperatures. This gives us a comparative advantage for agriculture and horticulture over many other countries, including our main trading partner, Australia.

New Zealand produces more than enough food for its population. Exports exceed local consumption, and climate-change induced food shortages should not be an imminent risk for New Zealand. But behind every general statement like this lies some rather more troubling detail.

Read more: Feeding the world: archaeology can help us learn from history to build a sustainable future for food

Overcoming domestic challenges

As residents of a developed country, we are accustomed to accessing the world’s resources through supermarkets. New Zealanders take for granted that most foods (even those we do not produce, like rice or bananas) will be available all year round.

Asparagus, new potatoes and strawberries are examples of foods New Zealanders may expect to see only at particular times of the year, but if apples or kiwifruit are out of stock, people usually complain. Our expectations are based on imports of products when they are out of season in New Zealand. The availability of those imports may be seriously compromised by climate change.

A recent Ministry for the Environment report describes climate impacts, including detailed projections of the average temperature increase and changes in rainfall patterns across New Zealand. The consistent trends are towards wetter conditions in the west, drier in the east and the largest average temperature rises in the north.

Implications for agriculture are manifold. For example, many temperate crops require cool autumn or winter temperatures to initiate flowering or fruit ripening. Orchards may need to be relocated further south, or novel low-chill varieties may need to be bred, as is already happening around the world.

Read more: Climate explained: regenerative farming can help grow food with less impact

Insect pests and diseases are normally controlled by our low winter temperatures, but they may become more of a problem in the future. Introduced pests and diseases include fruit flies that have a major impact in Australia and other more tropical countries, but struggle to establish breeding colonies in New Zealand. Strong biosecurity controls are our best bet for reducing this risk.

What matters more than the gradual increase in temperature predicted by climate change models, is the greater frequency of extreme weather events. These include droughts, floods and hail, which can lead to total crop losses in particular regions. One obvious mitigation strategy is to expand the provision of irrigation in our drier eastern regions, but concerns over water quality in our rivers mean this is not a popular option with the public – for example on the Heretaunga Plains or in Canterbury.

Risks to imported products

New Zealand is a net exporter of dairy, beef, lamb and many fruit and vegetables, but for some products, we depend heavily on imports. Figures from the US Department of Agriculture are not perfect, but they highlight trade imbalances for major commodities.

New Zealand imports all rice and most of its wheat. It is a net importer of pork products. Horticultural data released annually in Fresh Facts show New Zealand’s major horticultural imports are (in order of value) wine, nuts, processed vegetables, coffee, bananas and table grapes. These imported products come primarily from Australia, China, the US and Ecuador – all countries that may be less resilient to climate change than New Zealand.

As a recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explains, rising temperatures, rising seas and the increasing frequency of adverse weather events will interact to reduce agricultural and horticultural productivity in many regions around the world. While New Zealand is unlikely to experience food shortages in the near future as a direct result of climate change, the price and availability of imported products may increase significantly.

Read more: Feeding cities in the 21st century: why urban-fringe farming is vital for food resilience

Food poverty

Unfortunately, there is another important consideration. Some New Zealanders already experience food insecurity. The 2008/9 Adult Nutrition Survey found 14% of New Zealand households reported running out of food often or sometimes due to lack of money.

Perhaps rather than worrying about the future impact of climate change on the price or availability of imported rice or bananas, we should be paying more attention to this social inequity.

As a wealthy agricultural nation and a net exporter of food, it does not seem right that one sector of our society is already regularly experiencing food shortages.

– ref. Climate explained: how climate change will affect food production and security – http://theconversation.com/climate-explained-how-climate-change-will-affect-food-production-and-security-128106

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mitchell Scovell, PhD candidate, James Cook University

Most Australians know cyclones can cause serious damage to housing. Insurance premiums in cyclone-prone regions are among the highest in the country. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

Some predict as many as 10% of houses in Australia may become “uninsurable” by 2100. However, the good news is home owners can do many things to reduce cyclone risk. Even better, this will help reduce their insurance premiums.

The start of cyclone season should remind many Australians to start preparing. Home owners are usually told to trim their trees and prepare their emergency kits. While these activities can help keep people safe during and after a cyclone, it’s just as important to improve resilience for the long term. Consider adding cyclone shutters, upgrading older roofs, etc.

Unfortunately, it often takes a disaster to motivate change. Following Cyclone Tracy, which devastated Darwin in 1974, Australia developed a much stronger building code. As a result, all houses built in cyclone-prone regions after 1982 have cyclone-ready roofs. This has reduced damage to these newer houses in cyclones.

But many houses still do not have cyclone-ready roofs – up to 60% in Queensland. In addition, post-cyclone damage surveys have shown all houses – not just older ones – are vulnerable to broken windows and damage when water gets inside (e.g. wind-driven rain).

Thankfully, a range of other structural upgrades can reduce this damage. For example, cyclone shutters protect windows from being smashed by flying debris. However, the uptake of voluntary structural upgrades like cyclone shutters has been low.

Our research recently examined how Queensland home owners think about these measures and how to get more people to implement them. The main findings (see full reports part 1 and part 2) suggest a need to improve both messaging and policy.

How can we improve messaging?

1. Think and talk about cyclones more often

One way to encourage preparedness is to get people to think and talk about cyclones more often – not just once a year when the cyclone season starts.

Installing structural upgrades takes time. It is too late to upgrade a roof when a cyclone is approaching.

2. Provide location-specific wind-speed information

Cyclone wind speeds differ greatly depending on distance from the eye of the storm. So while the same cyclone may affect people living in different towns, not everyone will experience the same wind speed.

For example, while people in Townsville experienced Cyclone Yasi (a category 5 cyclone), the wind speed in Townsville was equivalent to a category 2 cyclone. But this information was not easily accessible. This may explain why 74% of the people we surveyed recalled that wind speeds from Cyclone Yasi were at least one category higher than what they experienced in their location.

We should, instead, provide people with location-specific information about cyclones. This will allow people to make more informed decisions about their own level of risk.

3. Show structural upgrades are effective

Acknowledging cyclones as a threat is one thing, but home owners need to be convinced that structural upgrades are useful. Without experiencing a broken window, for example, it is difficult to imagine why cyclone shutters would be useful.

We need to show people structural upgrades reduce damage and keep them safe. A video, like the one below, is one way of showing this.

What can better policy achieve?

Improved messaging is only one side of the story. Although measures to reduce cyclone damage are cost effective overall, many home owners see structural upgrades as too expensive. For example, a full roof upgrade can cost around A$30,000.

Our research found owners are more likely to install structural upgrades if they consider it a worthwhile investment. Subsidising the price of these upgrades is one way to help with the upfront costs.

The Queensland government’s recent Household Resilience Program was one example of a policy that promoted structural upgrades. Under this program, lower-income homeowners could receive grants of up to A$11,250. It was so popular that it created market competition among builders, which lowered the price of roof upgrades.

Many Queensland insurance companies also offer reduced premiums for structural upgrades. But home owners must still pay the upfront costs. Regardless of the incentive program, insurance companies need to make it clear to customers that they value structural mitigation.

Like most campaigns to change behaviour, promoting structural upgrades will require both policy and messaging changes. If we want to reduce damage in the North, we need to think about cyclones as a long-term threat and remember that preparation starts before the cyclone season begins.

– ref. Homes can be better prepared for cyclones. But first we must convince the owners – http://theconversation.com/homes-can-be-better-prepared-for-cyclones-but-first-we-must-convince-the-owners-126515

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle

In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.

The ancient worlds of Greece and Rome have perhaps never been as popular as they presently are. There are numerous television series and one-off documentaries covering both “big picture” perspectives and stories of ordinary people.

Neaera was a woman from fourth century BCE Athens whose life is significant and sorrowful – worthy to be remembered – but may never feature in a glossy biopic.

Possibly born in Corinth, a place where she lived from at least a young age, Neaera was raised by a brothel-keeper by the name of Nicarete.

Her predicament was the result of her being enslaved to Nicarete. While we don’t know the reason for this, we do know that foundlings were common in antiquity. The parents of baby Neaera, for whatever reason, left her to fate – to die by exposure or be collected by a stranger.

From a young age, Neaera was trained by Nicarete for the life of a hetaira (a Classical Greek term for “courtesan”). It was Nicarete who also named her, giving her a typical courtesan title: “Neaera” meaning “Fresh One”.

Ancient sources reveal Naeara’s life in the brothel. In a legal speech by the Athenian politician and forensic orator, Apollodorus, the following description is provided:

There were seven young girls who were purchased when they were small children by Nicarete … She had the talent to recognise the potential beauty of little girls and knew how to raise them and educate them with expertise – for it was from this that she had made a profession and from this came her livelihood.

She called them ‘daughters’ so that, by displaying them as freeborn, she could obtain the highest prices from the men wishing to have intercourse with them. After that, when she had enjoyed the profit from their youth, she sold every single one of them …

The occasion for the passage from Apollodorus is a court case that was brought against Neaera in approximately 343 BCE. Neaera was around 50-years-old by the time of her prosecution, which took place in Athens.

Read more: The grim reality of the brothels of Pompeii

Trafficking and abuse

The circumstances of her trial are complicated, involving the buying, selling, trafficking and abuse of Neaera from a very young age.

Piecing together the evidence from Apollodorus’ prosecution speech, which has come down to us with the title, “Against Neaera”, it transpires that two of her clients, who shared joint ownership of her, allowed her to buy her freedom around 376 BCE.

Afterwards, she moved to Athens with one Phrynion, but his brutal treatment of her saw Neaera leave for Megara, where circumstances caused her to return to sex work.

Further intrigues involving men and sex work saw Neaera eventually face trial on the charge of falsely representing herself as a free Athenian woman by pretending to be married to a citizen.

The charge of fraud was based on the law that a foreigner could not live as a common law “spouse” to a freeborn Athenian. The fact that Neaera also had three children, a daughter by the name of Phano, and two sons, further complicated the trial and its range of legal entanglements.

While we never discover the outcome of the trial, nor what happened to Neaera, the speech of the prosecutor remains, and reveals much about her life. Unfortunately, the speech of the defence is lost.

We do know, however, that the man with whom Neaera cohabitated, Stephanus, delivered the defence. Of course, he was not only defending Neaera – he was defending himself! Should Neaera have been found guilty, Stephanus would have forfeited his citizenship and the rights that attended it.

Stephanus had a history of legal disputes with the prosecutor, Apollodorus. He also had a history of being in trouble with the law. For example, he had illegally married off Phano – not once, but twice – to Athenian citizens. Shady “get rich quick” schemes motivated such activities, and it seems that Stephanus was adept at using both his “wife” and his “daughter’ for bartering and personal profit.

Another accusation revealed during the trial alleged that Stephanus arranged for Neaera to lure men to his house, engage them in sex, and then bribe them. And while Apollodorus provides no evidence for such a scam ever having taken place, judging by Stephanus’ track-record, it does not seem implausible.

Read more: Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek ‘gay utopia’

Remembering Neaera

Reading through the long, complex and damnatory speech of Apollodorus, we risk of losing sight of the woman at the centre of it. Caught amid petty politics, sex scandals, and personal vendettas is a woman who becomes peripheral to the machismo being played out in court.

Yet, somewhat ironically, this is the only ancient source we have that records not only Neaera and the life she was forced to lead – but the life of a hetaira from infancy, girlhood, middle-age and, ultimately, past her “use by” date.

Had she not been taken to court as part of the factional fighting of ancient Athens, had she not had her reputation annihilated so publicly, we would have never known about Neaera.

Were it not for Apollodorus and his ancient version of “slut-shaming”, Neaera’s story would have been lost.

But it hasn’t been lost. Somewhere, amid the male rhetoric, her story endures. Unfortunately, her voice is not preserved. All we can read in the speech, “Against Neaera” are the voices of men; her prosecutor and the witnesses he calls to the stand.

Ironically, these testimonies and accusations – so casually introduced in ancient Athens, but received so differently today – emphasise the inhumanity of the sex trade in an antiquity too often and too unthinkingly valorised.

The document known as “Against Neaera” is the only record we have of this (almost) hidden woman. It prompts us to remember. And it’s important to remember Neaera.

– ref. Hidden women of history: Neaera, the Athenian child slave raised to be a courtesan – http://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-neaera-the-athenian-child-slave-raised-to-be-a-courtesan-126840

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Thomson, Deputy CEO (Research), Australian Council for Educational Research

Australian 15-year-old reading scores are way below those of their peers in ten countries – including Singapore, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Korea and Poland.

And around 41% of Australian 15 year olds have failed to meet the minimum national standards in reading – up from 31% in 2000.

These are some of the results from the OECD’s 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) released today, which tested the performance of education systems across 79 countries and economies.

Since PISA first assessed reading literacy in 2000, Australia’s mean score has declined by the equivalent of around three-quarters of a year of schooling.

In maths, Australia trailed 23 countries including Singapore, Japan, Korea, Estonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland. And in science, we were behind 12 countries including Singapore, Estonia, Japan, Finland, Canada, Poland and New Zealand.

The latest results put Australia in 11th place in reading – on par with China, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This placement doesn’t sound bad, but compared to the highest performing OECD countries, Australia is about seven months in reading and 12 months in science behind Estonia, and 15 months behind Japan in maths.

In science, maths and reading, Australia’s students today are almost a full year behind those of more than a decade ago.

Australia’s performance on a downward trajectory

PISA is a two-hour test to see how well 15-year-old students in (randomly selected) secondary schools across all 36 OECD countries, and 43 other countries or economies, can apply reading, maths and science to real-life situations.

The three assessment domains are rotated every three years, so one domain is the major focus (the major domain). A larger amount of the assessment time is devoted to this domain compared to the other two (the minor domains). This year, reading was the major domain.

Read more: PISA results don’t look good, but before we panic let’s look at what we can learn from the latest test

Australian students did achieve an average of 503 points in reading. The OECD average – the benchmark against which each country’s performance in PISA 2018 can be compared – was 487 points in reading.

The four provinces of China which participated (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) had the highest mean reading score of 555 points. Singapore was the highest performing country with an average of 549 points.

The results also show 20% of Australian students did not meet the international level of reading proficiency on the PISA performance scale. This is the level the OECD determines a student needs to actively participate in life. In 2000, 12% of Australian students didn’t attain this level in reading.

Australia’s 2018 performance was above the OECD average in science, but it fell to be at the OECD average in maths.

The PISA results show 46% of Australian 15 year olds failed to meet the minimum national standards in mathematics and 42% fell short in science.

Read more: The PISA world education test results are about to drop. Is Australia getting worse?

Over the 15 years of measuring maths literacy, Australia’s performance has declined by the equivalent of about one and one-quarter years of schooling. And over the 12 years of measuring science literacy, Australia’s performance has declined by almost one full year of schooling.

Female students across all countries and economies participating in PISA 2018 outperformed male students in reading. In Australia, girls were around the equivalent of one year of schooling ahead of boys.

How we compare across the nation

Based on the latest scores, the OECD has labelled Australia as having a “high quality – high equity” education system because scores on both were above the OECD average.

But there was a difference of about three years of schooling in each subject area between students in the highest socioeconomic quarter (advantaged students) and those in the lowest socioeconomic quarter (disadvantaged students).

The OECD labels students who have not reached the baseline level of proficiency required to participate fully in modern society as “low performers”.

In reading, one in three disadvantaged students was classed as a “low performer”, compared to just one in ten advantaged students. In maths, the numbers are even more sobering: 37% of disadvantaged students were low performers, compared to 11% of advantaged students.

Indigenous students were between two and three years behind their non-Indigenous peers across all areas – with 43% (compared to 18%) classed as low performers in reading, 48% (compared to 21%) in maths and 44% (compared to 18%) in science.

How we compare internationally

If excelling by international standards means performing to a standard similar to the Asian powerhouses, we have a great deal of work ahead.

The combined four provinces of China that participated – Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang – while by no means representing China as a whole, represent more than 180 million people, and have an average income well below the OECD average.

Their scores are about one and a half years of schooling higher than Australia in reading, three and a half years higher in maths, and three years higher in science.

Participation in international studies such as PISA enable us to stop and look at how Australia’s education system stacks up against those of other countries – including our trading partners.

These findings show, again, that achievement in reading, maths, and science has been in steady decline for many years. We need to push the pause button and take stock of our curriculum, teaching and assessment methods.

– ref. Aussie students are a year behind students 10 years ago in science, maths and reading – http://theconversation.com/aussie-students-are-a-year-behind-students-10-years-ago-in-science-maths-and-reading-127013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brigid Maher, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, La Trobe University

In our series, Guide to the classics, experts explain key works of literature.

Many young children have flirted with the notion of escaping, once and for all, those stifling rules and obligations invoked at dinnertime: eat your greens, finish everything on your plate…

Few (thankfully) will have the kind of commitment required to take this rebellion to the extremes of Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, protagonist of Italo Calvino’s enchanting novel, The Baron in the Trees.

The meal in question is indeed stomach-turning: snail soup followed by a main course of snails.

But when, one momentous day in 1767, the 12-year-old Cosimo pushes away his plate and refuses to touch his food, no admonitions from his appalled parents will change the boy’s mind. He runs from the family home and climbs a large holm oak on their estate, never again to come down to earth.

Calvino wrote the novel in 1957, and it remains one of his most loved. The story of Cosimo’s astonishing existence among the trees, where he lives through to adulthood and old age, during times of great turmoil, combines the bizarre imaginative flair of a folktale with a profound meditation on questions of isolation and human interaction.

The man behind the novel

Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 to Italian parents who were working there as scientists, but the family moved back to Italy just two years later. His childhood was spent in the small coastal city of Sanremo (Liguria) on the Italian Riviera, very close to the French border.

The landscape of Liguria – in an imagined and idealised form that has since been lost to development – forms the luxuriant setting for Cosimo’s arboreal adventures.

The baron’s (fictional) village of Ombrosa is rich in vegetation, and trees of every kind – oaks and mulberry trees, magnolias and Indian chestnuts, pines and olives – become Cosimo’s kingdom.

The important link to the environment

Life in the treetops is not without its challenges. Part of the charm of the novel lies in the way Calvino is able to use allegory to explore the human condition, without sidestepping a depiction of how Cosimo manages the practicalities of his peculiar existence.

Many of the funniest moments lie in Cosimo’s ingenuity and determination as he makes himself a permanent, and surprisingly comfortable, home in the trees. Hunting polecats and badgers affords him the fur jacket, hat and leather shoes required for spending cold winters out in the elements, while also lending him an eccentric appearance that little befits a baron.

Yet his life is nothing if not civilised. He comes up with strategies for washing, cooking and toileting; he can access drinking water, and even trains a goat to climb a short way up an olive tree so he can reach down to milk it.

But Cosimo’s day-to-day existence is not focused solely on surviving in his new habitat. He engages in many intellectual pursuits, becoming an avid reader of literature and philosophy. When he befriends the brigand Gian dei Brughi, on the run from the law, the two share this passion for books and soon, procuring reading material for the fugitive is almost a full-time job for Cosimo.

This love of the written word ultimately proves to be Gian dei Brughi’s undoing. He begins to neglect his brigandage and loses all fascination in the eyes of the local people.

When the once-elusive dei Brughi is finally captured, it is because he is too desperate to get back to his novel (Richardson’s Clarissa) to successfully carry out a burglary, and his erstwhile accomplices hand him over to the authorities.

Cosimo, by contrast, has a greater capacity for balance. His extreme rebellion against the strictures of his noble upbringing is never an outright rejection of society or community. He is an eccentric and a free spirit, a true nonconformist, but not an individualist.

Indeed, from his position high in the leaves, Cosimo is often the one to bring the community together. He is a born leader, and is able to organise the villagers into firefighting squads during a time of drought.

Because, for all its fantastical setting and implausible adventures, The Baron in the Trees is still a novel with a political edge, or what in Italian literature is called impegno (political commitment).

The baron’s life embodies the struggle of the intellectual to contribute meaningfully to society, albeit from a position of isolation and distance. This was a struggle Calvino himself had to contend with. He entered adulthood towards the end of World War II, having spent well over a year in the Resistance.

Earlier works

His early work was strongly marked by political themes, but by the 1950s he had begun to see the nexus between politics and literature somewhat differently.

Baron in the Trees, as well as the novels immediately preceding and following it (The Cloven Viscount and The Non-Existent Knight), with which it is now often published as a trilogy of sorts under the title, Our Ancestors) mark the beginning of a move from realism towards a more allegorical and, later, experimental kind of writing.

All three books are deeply philosophical, yet at the same time easy to read and entertaining.

Lightness was a key literary value for Calvino, specifically “the search for lightness as a reaction to the weight of living”, as he put it in Six Memos for the New Millennium.

Cosimo is the very embodiment of this search. Even the baron’s final moments are both poetic and principled as, despite old age and infirmity, he manages to find a way never to return to earth, not even in death.

The Baron in the Trees appeared in English translation (by Archibald Colquhoun) just two years after its original publication in Italy. Fifty years on, a new translation, by Ann Goldstein, has appeared, testament to the novel’s enduring popularity. For despite its historical-fantastical setting, there is a message for our times in this novel, which asks us to question our anthropocentric view of our environment.

The longer Cosimo spends in the trees, the greater his identification with the natural world. His eyes are said to have become like a cat’s or an owl’s, and he begins making speeches and distributing pamphlets advocating greater communion between humans and birds.

Some townspeople view this as a sign of madness but Cosimo is a deeply rational man who believes that “anyone who wishes to look closely at the earth must keep at a necessary distance”.

We, too, have something to learn from Cosimo and the natural world.

– ref. The Baron in the Trees: a deeply serious arboreal adventure with a message for our times – http://theconversation.com/the-baron-in-the-trees-a-deeply-serious-arboreal-adventure-with-a-message-for-our-times-100450

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elisa Bayraktarov, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Conservation Biology, The University of Queensland

Australia’s threatened birds declined by nearly 60% on average over 30 years, according to new research that reveals the true impact on native wildlife of habitat loss, introduced pests, and other human-caused pressures.

Alarmingly, migratory shorebirds have declined by 72%. Many of these species inhabit our mudflats and coasts on their migration from Siberia, Alaska or China each year.

Read more: For the first time we’ve looked at every threatened bird in Australia side-by-side

These concerning figures are revealed in our world-first Threatened Bird Index. The index, now updated with its second year of data, combines over 400,000 surveys at more than 17,000 locations.

It’s hoped the results will shed light on where conservation efforts are having success, and where more work must be done.

Bringing conservation efforts together

The index found a 59% fall in Australia’s threatened and near threatened bird populations between 1985 and 2016.

Migratory shorebirds in South Australia and New South Wales have been worst hit, losing 82% and 88% of their populations, respectively. In contrast, shorebirds in the Northern Territory have increased by 147% since 1985, potentially due to the safe roosting habitat at Darwin Harbour where human access to the site is restricted.

Habitat loss and pest species (particularly feral cats) are the most common reasons for these dramatic population declines.

Many of Australia’s threatened species are monitored by various organisations across the country. In the past there has never been a way to combine and analyse all of this evidence in one place.

Read more: Scientists re-counted Australia’s extinct species, and the result is devastating

The Threatened Species Recovery Hub created the index to bring this information together. It combines 17,328 monitoring “time series” for threatened and near threatened bird species and subspecies. This means going back to the same sites in different years and using the same monitoring method, so results over time can be compared.

Over the past year the amount of data underpinning the index has grown considerably and now includes more than 400,000 surveys, across 43 monitoring programs on 65 bird species and subspecies, increasing our confidence in these alarming trends.

About one-third of Australia’s threatened and near threatened birds are in the index but that proportion is expected to grow. As more quality data becomes available, the index will get more powerful, meaningful and representative. For the first time Australia will be able to tell how our threatened species are going overall, and which groups are doing better or worse, which is vital to identifying which groups and regions most need help.

Finding the trends

Trends can be calculated for any grouping with at least three species. A grouping might include all threatened species in a state or territory, all woodland birds or all migratory shorebirds.

The 59% average decrease in threatened bird relative abundance over the last 30 years is very similar to the global wildlife trends reported by the 2018 Living Planet Report. Between 1970 and 2014, global average mammal, fish, bird, amphibian and reptile populations fell by 60%.

One valuable feature of the Threatened Species Index is a visualisation tool which allows anyone to explore the wealth of data, and to look at trends for states and territories.

For instance, in Victoria by 2002 threatened birds had dropped to a bit more than half of their numbers in 1985 on average (60%), but they have remained fairly constant since then.

We can also look at different bird groups. Threatened migratory shorebirds have had the largest declines, with their numbers down by more than 72% since 1985. Threatened terrestrial birds, on the other hand, have decreased in relative abundance by about 51% between 2000 and the year 2016, and show a relatively stable trend since 2006.

Making the index better

The index is being expanded to reveal trends in species other than birds. Monitoring data on threatened mammals and threatened plants is being assembled. Trends for these groups will be released in 2020, providing new insights into how a broader range of Australia’s threatened species are faring.

This research is led by the University of Queensland in close partnership with BirdLife Australia, and more than 40 partners from research, government, and non-government organisations. Collaboration on such a scale is unprecedented, and provides extremely detailed information.

Read more: Citizen scientists count nearly 2 million birds and reveal a possible kookaburra decline

The index team are continuing to work with monitoring organisations across Australia to expand the amount of sites, and the number of species included in the index. We applaud the dedicated researchers, managers and citizen scientists from every corner of the country who have been assembling this data for the nation.

We’d also like to hear from community groups, consultants and other groups that have been monitoring threatened or near-threatened species, collecting data at the same site with the same method in multiple years.

The Threatened Species Index represents more than just data. Over time it will give us a window into the results of our collective conservation efforts.

This article also received input from James O’Connor (BirdLife Australia) and Hugh Possingham (The Nature Conservancy).

– ref. Australia’s threatened birds declined by 59% over the past 30 years – http://theconversation.com/australias-threatened-birds-declined-by-59-over-the-past-30-years-128114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Baer Arnold, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of Canberra

In politics, when you have little to show for your achievements, you can release a “roadmap” for what will supposedly be achieved in the future.

You can look on the bright side. Use phrases such as “ontology of capabilities”, and disregard a number of crashes, traffic jams, protests and policy detours.

This is what we’re seeing with the national government’s Digital Transformation Strategy Update and subsequent planned two-year rolling roadmap, announced last week by Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert.

When the strategy was launched last year, it was described as offering a “clear direction” for the government’s digital efforts over the next seven years. It would ensure Australia’s place as one of the “top three digital governments” by 2025.

Read more: What Australia can learn about e-government from Estonia

It purportedly offers a “complete view of digital activities” occurring across national government agencies, in the form of a roadmap spanning the next two years.

But if you’re someone who interacts with government, it’s worth asking questions about the basis of the strategy, and how Canberra communicates the often bumpy road to e-government.

E-government is a mantra, both a process and goal. In essence, it involves using digital technologies, notably the internet, to streamline interactions between government agencies and the public. Examples include payment of licences and taxes, business registration and allowance claims.

And taking that activity online should force bureaucracies to take a hard look at how they operate.

Problems on the transformation highway

Overall, there are benefits for national productivity and the taxpayer in taking government online. Most of us love the convenience of getting rid of paper and queues.

However, we should ask whether government as a whole needs to lift its game in how it deals with the public when transforming, and how it develops its priorities. Those priorities need to be more than “we can do it”, plus media opportunity.

If we look at what’s happening on the transformation highway, we might be sceptical about the value of the minister’s roadmap.

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), the latest iteration of government re-engineering agencies since the Paul Keating era, was championed by Malcolm Turnbull.

Without prime ministerial support, it has consistently underperformed in bureaucratic infighting. The Australian Taxation Office, and departments of human services, home affairs and defence have gone their own way.

It has also been affected by churn among senior staff, including several chief executives.

Former DTA executive David Shetler damned the strategy as lacking substance. That is a valid criticism of the document and associated “roadmap” report, which presents isolated projects across government as proof of a coherent strategy that is being delivered effectively.

In practice, digital initiatives originate and are implemented at department level. This reflects the authority and ambitions of individual ministers.

Read more: What a ‘digital first’ government would look like

It also reflects the imperatives of their departments and own agencies, administering statutory powers surrounding responsibilities such as migration, taxation and education.

The strategy thus resembles the traditional agreement to agree (rather than a coherent central direction), where different ministers and departments will continue their individual plans, while merely paying lip service to a whole-of-government approach.

It’s not something for which Robert can take much credit. And it doesn’t acknowledge concerns about underperformance.

A challenging road

E-government has been a mantra in all advanced economies for the past 20 years. Australia has discovered the road to e-government is more challenging than the maps provided by consulting or ministerial media advisors.

The expectation is that digital transformation will radically improve services to everyone who interacts with government. Ideally, it will reduce costs, increase consistency of services, and provide rich pools of data to enable smarter policy development.

It will get rid of paper, use large-scale data matching to detect criminal activity, and strengthen Australia’s artificial intelligence industry.

The vision is founded on a innovative whole-of-government approach. In practice, it is a document with little strategy. It essentially bundles initiatives “owned” by different ministers and put into action by separate departments in fierce competition for funds.

We need to look beyond a roadmap in which the government (and minister) claims credit for initiatives that are episodic, rather than strategic. Government doing what it’s meant to do, working smarter for us, is not a cause for celebration.

Transformation for whom?

“Transformation” has produced some clear winners, independent of the strategy.

Commercial service providers have done well out of each department’s programs. Transformation has been great for the likes of SAP, ORACLE, KPMG and Amazon Web Services: large multi-year contracts for system design, maintenance and connectivity.

Has it been great for you and me in terms of value for money, respect and good governance?

Read more: Digitising social services could further exclude people already on the margins

In looking at the roadmap, remember CensusFail and billion-dollar e-health project, which faced consumer backlash.

What about the misery-causing RoboDebt initiative damned by the Federal Court last week?

The national auditor recurrently criticises inadequate e-government planning such as a biometric scheme damned as “deficient in almost every significant respect”.

Benefits for citizens through interagency data sharing do not include greater government accountability. That’s unsurprising, given the government’s hostility to freedom of information requests.

The e-government vision requires learning from mistakes. Sadly, that’s ignored by the strategy.

– ref. The government is hyping digitalised services, but not addressing a history of e-government fails – http://theconversation.com/the-government-is-hyping-digitalised-services-but-not-addressing-a-history-of-e-government-fails-128117

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Becher, Associate Professor of Business Law, Victoria University of Wellington

Earlier this year, the New Zealand-based pizza chain Hell Pizza offered a limited-edition “Burger Pizza”. Its customers weren’t told that the “meat” was plant-based.

Some customers complained to the Commerce Commission, which enforces consumer law in New Zealand. Yet, others did not mind – or even appreciated – the move. The Commerce Commission, however, warned that the stunt likely breached consumer protection law.

Hell Pizza’s ruse should catalyse discussion around the scope and purpose of consumer law, the culture of meat consumption and the future of animal farming. Under current law, “teaching through deception” is not possible. But we argue that consumer law needs to adopt a more nuanced approach.

Read more: What’s made of legumes but sizzles on the barbie like beef? Australia’s new high-tech meat alternative

Traditional legal approach

In October, the Commerce Commission warned the pizza chain that it had probably breached the Fair Trading Act 1986. In particular, it had likely made false or misleading representations.

The Commerce Commission stated that a “burger traditionally includes a patty of minced beef” and “medium-rare is a term associated with meat, usually beef”.

As a result, the pizza chain advised it had no intention of engaging in this kind of campaign again. Interestingly, the pizza company has recently announced that the Burger Pizza is back on the menu.

Australia’s consumer law around misleading and deceptive conduct is notably similar to New Zealand’s. In Australia, debates around the meaning of the terms “milk”, “seafood” and “meat” are taking place. These discussions present an opportunity to rethink some of our conventions.

When is meat meat?

The traditional need to protect consumers from deceptive practices is clear. That said, it is perhaps also time to nudge consumers to reconsider their preconceptions and consumption of meat.

Hell Pizza said it launched its plant-based meat product out of concerns for the future of the planet. According to the company, 80% of consumers did not have an issue with being duped, and 70% would order the pizza again.

There are a few good reasons to reduce the amount of meat we eat. Research shows that meat consumption is putting pressure on the environment. The amount of food and water required to raise animals for consumption exceeds the nutrient value humans get from consuming meat. Further, livestock create waste and emissions that contribute to climate change.

Plant-based meat may be more environmentally friendly. It also eliminates concerns around animal rights. Additionally, it is often perceived as a healthier alternative.

Read more: Is vegetarianism healthier? We asked five experts

Future foods

The plant-based meat industry faces two immediate challenges. The first is taste. If meat substitutes do not taste as good as animal-based meat, people will be less willing to consume them.

The second main challenge is cost. If plant-based meat is significantly more expensive than animal-based meat, consumers may opt for the latter.

The cost of plant-based meat has become affordable enough for prominent market players, such as Dominoes Pizza and Burger King, to offer plant-based products.

Hell Pizza was not the first New Zealand company to offer its consumers plant-based meat products. In another controversy, Air New Zealand offered plant-based burgers in the business cabin on selected flights. This led to some criticism, including the deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, who was acting prime minister at the time, complaining that it was a “bad look” for the airline not to promote New Zealand meat.

Such a response is short-sighted. Animal farming is an important industry in New Zealand, contributing significantly to the economy and social fabric. Because of its importance, New Zealanders should take seriously the potential impact of plant-based meat and the consequences of this emerging market.

Market disruption

Some companies have already stated their aspiration to completely replace animals as a food production technology by 2035. The meat industry is likely to use its power to protect its interests. But these interests are not the only ones that should be voiced and considered.

Instead of merely criticising companies that offer meat alternatives and use innovative marketing tools to do so, we should embrace these initiatives as an opportunity to rethink some of our conventions. We need to adapt to new realities in ways that make our societies more ethical, while also encouraging consumers to be more mindful of the environment and health-related aspects of their foods.

The boundaries of consumer law should reflect this. The law regulates against misleading and deceptive conduct mainly because it is purportedly bad for consumers. However, the law should adopt a more holistic approach – one that considers the motivation for the allegedly misleading behaviour.

Protecting consumers from deceptive conduct is not an end in itself. Perhaps the degree and context of the misleading behaviour should be considered against other legitimate objectives. We believe that such legitimate objectives include caring for the environment, minimising animal cruelty and advancing public health.

– ref. How plant-based meat is stretching New Zealand’s cultural and legal boundaries – http://theconversation.com/how-plant-based-meat-is-stretching-new-zealands-cultural-and-legal-boundaries-127901

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark McGovern, Visiting Fellow, QUT Business School, Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology

We are used to being able to pay for things with legal tender.

Other than in special circumstances, refusing to accept cash can have legal consequences.

The Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 at present before the Senate seeks to make it an offence to use “too much cash” to pay your bills.

The intent is clearly stated in Section 4:

This Act places restrictions on the use of cash or cash-like products within the Australian economy. The Act imposes criminal offences if an entity makes or accepts cash payments in circumstances that breach the restrictions.

The proposed limit is A$10,000. Section 8 would make it an offence to make or accept cash payments of $10,000 occurring either one off or in a linked sequence.

In parliament the minister said the $10,000 limit would not apply to person-to-person transactions, such as private sales of cars.

But these exceptions are not included in the the Bill. What is included is the phrase “specified by the rules”. Section 20 puts those rules in the minister’s hands. Future ministers may narrow exceptions and change rules.

It would remain legal to withdraw and hold more than $10,000. The stated intent of this Bill is to modify the use of cash, not the holding of cash.

All Australians will continue to be able to deposit and withdraw cash in excess of $10,000 into and from their accounts, and to store more than $10,000 of their money outside a bank.

Cash overboard

What’s proposed would limit competition (Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal would face a lesser competitor, for example) and limit long-held rights.

Everyday behaviour at present protected by the law would be criminalised.

In some cases, and perhaps many, the onus of proof would be reversed, with an “evidential burden” imposed on cash-using defendants.

As stunning is the assignment of “vicarious criminal liability” in Section 16.

Each partner in a partnership, each committee member of an incorporated association and each trustee of a trust or superannuation fund might become individually culpable for their entity’s use of cash.

Read more: Depending on who you are, the benefits of a cashless society are greatly overrated

Oddly, “bodies corporate and bodies politic” are treated differently (Part 3), and the government itself cannot be prosecuted, an uneven application of the law which has attracted little attention.

In my submission to the Senate inquiry (Submission 146) I argue the provisions would, among other things:

• weaken the workings of monetary policy

• undercut the ability of the Reserve Bank to deal with a banking crisis

• funnel more financial traffic through the equivalent of private toll roads

• remove a guaranteed and always available fallback from electronic transactions

• increase societal ill-ease and polarisation as citizens realise their rights have been eroded for not particularly compelling stated reasons.

Each point and many presented in other submissions need serious consideration, including in public Senate hearings.

The rationale presented

The speech to parliament introducing the bill was built around the hardly-new observation that cash payments can be “anonymous and untraceable”.

The government’s Black Economy Taskforce produced no detailed analysis but recommended the ban as a means of fighting tax avoidance, to:

make it more difficult to under-report income or charge lower prices and not remit good and services tax.

The speech also asserted that “more crucially” the ban would fight organised crime syndicates, although organised crime was not mentioned in the part of the taskforce report that dealt with the problem the limit was meant to address.

The guarantee dishonoured

Every pound note and then every dollar note issued by the Commonwealth Bank and then Reserve Bank of Australia bears this unconditional promise signed by the head of the bank and the head of the treasury:

This Australian note is legal tender throughout Australia and its territories.

The bank’s website suggests the promise is ongoing:

All previous issues of Australian banknotes retain their legal tender status.

Its note printing arm was mortified earlier this year at the apparently accidental omission of the last letter “i” from the word “responsibility” on the new more secure $50 note.

The Bill before the Senate contains many and much more serious errors.

Cash has been one of the few things we can absolutely rely on, whatever our status, situation or access to other payment means.

Removing (and dishonouring) that guarantee, while criminalising reliance on it, should not be done lightly in a mad rush to an arbitrary date.

Until now public debate about the proposal has been light, but concern is growing, even among quiet Australians.

Each Senator should ensure that last “i” in responsibiliy isn’t missing here either.

– ref. Limiting cash payments to $10,000 is more dangerous than you might think – http://theconversation.com/limiting-cash-payments-to-10-000-is-more-dangerous-than-you-might-think-128094

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Carter, Senior Research Fellow, Monash University

This year, a Chinese patient known only as Mr Yan became a medical pioneer. He agreed to have electrodes surgically inserted into his brain, allowing his surgeon, by touching the screen of a simple tablet computer, to change the emotions that Yan feels.

The treatment aims to help Yan conquer his methamphetamine addiction, but it comes at a substantial cost: Yan must trust someone else to manage his emotions.

Electrically stimulating the brain to treat addiction is a very new technique and its effectiveness is still unknown, but it is currently being trialled in animals and humans.

The technology prompts some difficult questions around responsibility. If Yan relapses, who is responsible? If he commits a crime while implanted with the device, how should he be treated by the courts? And where should neuroscientists draw the line when their research involves desperate and vulnerable people?

Read more: Deep brain stimulation: the hidden challenges of a technological fix

These questions are growing more pressing all the time. Neuroscientific innovations similar to Yan’s electrodes are no longer restricted to the lab, and are already an integral part of many people’s lives. It is already common practice to treat the tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease by placing an electrode in the brains of affected patients. And the medical applications are still expanding: these innovations are seen as a potential treatment for an array of conditions, from anorexia to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Neurological disorders are a leading — and increasing — cause of global disease, contributing more than 10% of disease burden. Governments around the world, including the US BRAIN Initiative, the European Union’s Human Brain Project, and the Australian Brain Alliance, have invested more than US$7 billion globally in what’s been described by neuroscientists as a 21st-century medical “moon shot”. There has also been a rapid growth in the market for medical “neurointerventions”, such as brain stimulation and recording devices, estimated to be more than US$13.3 billion by 2020.

Better living through electricity

There is even more potential beyond simply treating medical conditions. Neuroscience might one day also boost our existing mental abilities, such as memory and concentration. Headband-like wearable devices that use transcranial direct current stimulation – in which an electric current is passed across the surface of the brain – are currently commercially available and claim to improve concentration and memory. Devices that allow you to track the electrical patterns in your brain have entered the market and claim to maximise your cognitive potential.

These technologies hold great promise. Devices and technological innovations that teach us about ourselves, overcome deficits and enhance mental capacities are clearly attractive consumer items. But Australia is currently dangerously unprepared for the rapid innovation and commercialisation of these neuroscientific advances.

There is insufficent national regulatory oversight of the safety or effectiveness of many commercially available neuroscientific technologies. This leaves consumers vulnerable to fraudulent claims and unwarranted risks.

For example, there is little evidence that the promised memory and concentration enhancements will be realised in the retail versions of transcranial direct current stimulation devices. These devices are not without risk and may cause itching, burns, and headaches and impaired mood, memory and cognition. Appropriate guidelines and regulations are necessary to ensure the public reaps the benefits while minimising the harms.

Australia also does not have clear regulations to compel companies to inform users how their data may be collected and used. When this data concerns our brains, the potential uses and abuses are hard to predict, but early signs are troubling. Smartphones and wearable devices generate data that can be used to identify the warning signs of Parkinson’s disease, depression, dementia, and future suicide risk.

Consumers deserve to know whether this information is being shared with their health insurer, employer, or other third parties.

Time to get hands-on

The researchers and engineers who develop neurotechnologies do not routinely consult with the people who might end up using them. The danger is that this gap is filled by vested interests such as industry advocates, research institutes or regulators.

The Australian Academy of Science recently called for a new charter for responsible innovation that will help involve the public in scientific innovation. There are promising signs that this is indeed starting to happen in neuroscience.

The Australian Brain Alliance, a coalition of more than 30 national universities, medical research institutes and commercial companies, has proposed national guidelines for responsible neuroinnovation, in consultation with patient advocates. This week the Australian Neuroethics Network, with support from the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and the Law, Health and Well-being Group at Monash University and the ARC Centre for Integrative Brain Function, will hold its annual conference on the topic of neuroscience and responsibility to inform decision makers on the influence of neuroscience on Australian society.

Read more: Brain stimulation is getting popular with gamers – is it time to regulate it?

However, there is much more to be done. Realising the full benefits of neuroscientific advances, while minimising the harms, requires careful consideration, and a well-informed public who can actively participate in the discussion.

Brain stimulation and other neuroscientific advances could one day be an integral part of our lives. Now is the best time to ensure they serve all of our interests.

– ref. Stimulus package: brain stimulation holds huge promise, but is critically under-regulated – http://theconversation.com/stimulus-package-brain-stimulation-holds-huge-promise-but-is-critically-under-regulated-127726

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Derya Iner, Senior Lecturer, Charles Sturt University

The second Islamophobia in Australia Report launched last month, in the same week a graphic video showing a pregnant Muslim woman being punched and stomped on circulated widely on social media.

Earlier in October another video went viral, showing two New South Wales police officers verbally abusing two Muslim women, threatening to falsely charge them as an accessory to murder.

Read more: These young Muslim Australians want to meet Islamophobes and change their minds. And it’s working

In both cases, the victims were women and visibly Muslim, wearing a head covering (hijab), and the perpetrators were white men. These examples correlate with the report’s findings, where 71% of perpetrators were male and 72% of victims were female.

Alarmingly, most Islamophobic attacks occurred in public, and yet only 14% of bystanders got involved or intervened. And of those, only one in three defended the victim. The majority of witnesses simply passed by without paying attention.

Islamophobic incidents recorded nationwide

The second biennial Islamophobia in Australia report analysed 349 Islamophobic incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register of Australia, from 2016-2017. Combined with the previous report, 592 online and offline cases were recorded in the last four years. But this represents only the tip of the iceberg.

Both reports conclusively show Islamophobia in Australia does exist and is a persistent social issue, one that overwhelmingly targets women, a vulnerability that stems from being identifiably Muslim when wearing a hijab.

It is also alarming that the incidents in public spaces not only continued to occur regularly, but their prevalence increased since the previous report.

Guarded places, such as shopping centres, train stations and other crowded areas saw 60% more harassment than unguarded places – an increase of 30% since the previous report. Islamophobia in shopping centres was most common, accounting for 25% of reported incidents.

Read more: Islamophobia is still raising its ugly head in Australia

This could be because public spaces give more opportunity for Islamophobic people to cross paths with Muslims. Yet, the presence of a crowd, CCTV cameras and guards didn’t appear to deter them.

What you can do if you see an attack

Hate crimes are rarely prosecuted in Australia, and together with the lack of bystander intervention and pervasive negative stereotypes of Muslims, perpetrators seem more emboldened.

But public opinion is where the most important opportunity to prevent Islamophobia lies. If witnesses to Islamophobic hate incidents intervene, it would strongly discourage perpetrators and others with similar sentiments.

So, if you see an Islamophobic incident in a public, guarded place like a shopping centre, the first thing you can do is directly report to the security guards, who can take the perpetrator away.

Witnesses should also consider reporting the incidents to the Islamophobia Register and the police. In fact, witnesses reported 41% of all physical cases recorded in the report.

The second thing you can do is comfort the victims. Victims, who were often left in tears, say they felt traumatised, deeply disappointed, publicly ridiculed and, as a result, extremely distressed.

A smile or simply saying, “don’t worry, this is your country just like all other Australians”, would go a long way to alleviate the intense feeling of not being accepted.

Read more: How to tackle Islamophobia – the best strategies from around Europe

And third, witnesses should get involved. In one reported case, when a Muslim mother with her three children was severely abused, the support from surrounding people discouraged the perpetrator, who quickly left.

Here, the mother describes the support she received afterwards.

I was really upset and crying and my kids were in shock […] Everyone was looking at us and the woman from Donut King came over and offered a seat, a cup of tea and some drinks for my kids.

Security moved us to the management office soon after that but not before a sister who I happened to sit next to said she had removed her hijab and abaya because she was tired of being harassed.

Another beautiful lady gave me a much-needed hug and some kind words only someone who knows discrimination could share and another wanted to buy my kids donuts. The staff in the management were very kind and gave my children colouring in.

In another case, high school students defended their Muslim friend, whose name was scribbled on a toilet door, calling her a terrorist.

Her friends scribbled over it and wrote if u knew her u wouldn’t say that about her.

The presence and behaviour of the police is another key factor. Victims reported immense relief and trust in Australia and its institutions when they felt police showed understanding, even if the case couldn’t lead to a criminal charge.

But police attended only half of the 22% of the incidents reported to them. And in some cases, police explained to victims how there’s freedom of speech in Australia and they can’t do much.

In 11% of the cases where police became involved, they were constructive and comforted the victim.

What you can do if you experience Islamophobia

First – stay strong and know you’ve done nothing wrong just for being a Muslim. Remembering this can give you the courage to call for help from bystanders.

In the earlier case of the Muslim mother with three children, it was her firm and loud response to the abuser that attracted attention and led to people offering help.

Victims should also report the cases to the police and to the third-party reporting platforms, such as Islamophobia Register Australia.

Even if the incident doesn’t fall into a crime category, it can still be helpful for police to monitor the perpetrator, while the register can provide advocacy and use the reported incidents to raise public awareness in its reports.

And victims should seek counselling from organisations in every state and territory designed to help victims, such as Victim Services in NSW. The Australian Human Rights Commission also receives complaints and provides advocacy services across Australia.

Read more: Why Muslim women wear a hijab: 3 essential reads

The Islamophobia Register Australia page provides detailed information about where to report and All Together Now gives instructive advice on tackling racism.

Mosques and Muslim organisations can also provide a safe space for victims to talk about their experiences. Even if you don’t feel the need for counselling, discussing the experience can help make sense of it all in a meaningful way.

Islamophobia in Australia is a social problem that affects a significant portion of society. Recognition of Islamophobia does not diminish the achievements of Australian society and the success of its multiculturalism.

It will merely highlight a social problem that cannot be ignored or downplayed any longer.

– ref. Islamophobic attacks mostly happen in public. Here’s what you can do if you see it or experience it – http://theconversation.com/islamophobic-attacks-mostly-happen-in-public-heres-what-you-can-do-if-you-see-it-or-experience-it-127807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

It’s happened to many of us at some point in our lives: we finish our bowel movement, look down in the bowl and have a moment of panic when we see an unusual colour.

Poo can be found in many colours other than brown, with green poo often eliciting concern. But it’s surprisingly common and is usually no reason to be alarmed.

Read more: Do we have to poo every day? We asked five experts

Why poo is usually brown

The brown colour of poo initially comes from the red of blood. Haemoglobin is the red protein in blood that transports oxygen around the body. It’s eventually broken down into a substance called bilirubin.

In the liver, bilirubin is used to form bile and is released into the small bowel to help digest food. Bile then passes into the colon and the bilirubin is broken down by bacteria.

The final stage in the process is the addition of a substance called stercobilin, which gives poo its brown colour.

All shades of brown are considered normal.

Green poo in adults

Stool colour is very heavily influenced by the substances in the gut that digest food and what you eat.

Green stools contain significantly more bile acids than brown stools. If food is moving through the bowel very quickly – if you have diarrhoea, for instance – there isn’t enough time for the green bile to break down completely, giving stools a green colour.

Green leafy vegetables such as spinach and lettuce contain large amounts of chlorophyll (green pigment) bound to magnesium. This can lead to stools turning green.

Some green food dyes such as natural green 3 contain chlorophyll (green pigment) bound to copper which can turn stools a dark green.

Why do babies have green poo?

A newborn’s first stool, called meconium, is very often dark green.

Green stools in formula-fed infants are often due to formulas containing high amounts of iron.

But even for breastfed infants it’s normal to have yellow-green or green poo.

In fact, it’s normal for babies’ poo to be many different colours. One study found pale stools were caused by partially digested milk fats, yellow stools were due to stercobilin (which is also involved in making poo brown) and other similar compounds, and dark stools due to bilirubin or the presence of meconium.

What about other colours of poo?

Blue

Some food dyes, food additives and naturally occurring colours are unable to be completely broken down in the gut and this can distinctly colour poo. Children who have consumed a lot of blue-coloured drinks, for instance, often poo blue.

Read more: Curious Kids: how does my tummy turn food into poo?

Blueberries can also turn poo blue because of a type of antioxidant called anthrocyanin. Most anthrocyanins in blue berries are broken down by the time they reach the colon, so kids with blue poo will either have consumed quite a lot or the berries are moving quickly through the gut.

Children with diarrhoea have a very rapid gut transit and stools often come out the same colour as the food that went in.

Orange

Orange stools can be due to beta carotene, a compound found in particular vegetables such as carrots and butternut pumpkin.

Poo can also be orange because of the effects of antacids containing aluminium hydroxide, a naturally occurring salt.

Yellow

Yellow-coloured poo is often normal but a greasy, foul-smelling yellow stool that floats on the toilet water can mean it contains an excess of fat.

Occasionally, this can arise from conditions such as undiagnosed coeliac disease, where the immune system reacts abnormally to gluten and the small bowel doesn’t properly absorb fat.

Pale, cream or clay-cloured

Abnormally pale or clay-coloured stools can indicate a blockage of bile from the liver to the small intestine. This means it doesn’t go through the last stage of getting its brown colour, through the addition of stercobilin. This results in poo having a very distinct pale cream appearance.

One in 14,000 Australian babies are born with a condition called biliary atresia, where the bile ducts outside and inside the liver are scarred and blocked. Bile is unable to flow out of the liver, which can lead to liver scarring. Biliary atresia can be treated with surgery but early diagnosis is important.

Pale coloured poo may also indicate the presence of an intestinal parasite or bacteria.

Red

Red poo could be due to red food colouring, tomato juice and beetroot.

However, bright red blood in the poo usually means internal bleeding from the bowel.

Causes of red blood in the poo can include conditions such as haemorrhoids and anal fissures (small, thin tears) but may be the sign of a more sinister bowel cancer.

Read more: Your poo is (mostly) alive. Here’s what’s in it

Black

There can be a number of harmless causes for black poo such as eating black licorice.

Medications are another reason. Iron tablets and many antibiotics can turn poo black. (Antibiotics are also known to turn poo into different shades of green, white, pink and orange.)

Black, tar-like poo can indicate bleeding from higher up in the digestive tract, such as from an oesophageal or stomach ulcer.

Should you be worried?

Changes to the colour of your poo are usually temporary. Getting rid of the culprit – by finishing the medication or removing the responsible food from the diet, for instance – should be able to return poo colour to its normal shade of brown.

If the odd colour persists, it may signify an underlying medical condition and warrant further investigation.

Black, red and very pale poo are the more concerning colours and should be checked out by your GP.

– ref. Why is my poo green? – http://theconversation.com/why-is-my-poo-green-120975

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Hales, Director Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University

Almost 200 world leaders gather in Madrid this week for climate talks which will largely determine the success of the Paris agreement, and by extension, the extent to which the planet will suffer under climate change.

Negotiations at the so-called COP25 will focus on finalising details of the Paris Agreement. Nations will haggle over how bold emissions reductions will be, and how to measure and achieve them.

Much is riding on a successful outcome in Madrid. The challenge is to get nations further along the road to the strong climate goals, without any major diplomatic rifts or a collapse in talks.

What COP25 is about

COP25 is a shorthand name for the 25th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (or the nations signed up to the Paris agreement).

After Paris was signed in 2015, nations were given five years in which to set out bolder climate action. Current targets expire in 2020. At next year’s November COP in Glasgow, nations will be asked to formally commit to higher targets. If Madrid does not successfully lay the groundwork for this, the Glasgow talks are likely to fail.

Read more: The most important issue facing Australia? New survey sees huge spike in concern over climate change

The United Nations says the world must reduce overall emissions by 7.6% every year over the next decade to have a high chance of staying under 1.5℃ warming this century.

The 1.5℃ limit is at the upper end of the Paris goal; warming beyond this is likely to lead to catastrophic impacts, including near-total destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.

Presently, emissions reduction targets of nations signed up to Paris put Earth on track for a 3.2℃ increase.

A global carbon market

Parties will debate the mechanism in the Paris agreement allowing emissions trading between nations, and via the private sector.

Such mechanisms could lower the global cost of climate mitigation, because emissions reduction in some nations is cheaper than in others. But there are concerns the trading regime may lack transparency and accountability.

Read more: Double counting of emissions cuts may undermine Paris climate deal

Among the risks are that emissions cuts are “double counted” – meaning both the buying and selling nation count the cuts towards their targets, undermining the aims of the agreement.

Help for vulnerable nations

Small island states say COP25 is the last chance to take decisive action on global emissions reduction.

Fossil fuel burning in the developing world is largely responsible for the carbon dioxide that drives global warming. Developing nations are particularly vulnerable to the loss and damage caused by climate change.

Parties will discuss whether an international mechanism designed to assess and compensate for such damage is effective.

Developing nations are expected to contribute to the Green Climate Fund to help poorer nations cope with and mitigate climate change. Some 27 nations contributed US$9.78 billion in the last funding round.

Some nations have indicated they will not contribute further, including Australia, which says it already helps Pacific nations through its overseas aid program.

Arguments about cost

Nations opposed to adopting stronger emissions reduction targets often argue the costs of decarbonising energy sectors, and economies as a whole, are too high.

However, recent cost benefit analysis has found not taking action on climate change will be expensive in the long run.

Realisation is also growing that the cost of emissions reduction activities has been overestimated in the past. In Australia, prominent economist Ross Garnaut recently said huge falls in the cost of equipment for solar and wind energy has created massive economic opportunity, such as future manufacturing of zero-emission iron and aluminium.

The shift in the cost-balance means nations with low ambition will find it difficult to argue against climate mitigation on cost grounds.

Australia’s position at Madrid

At the Paris talks, Australia pledged emissions reduction of 26-28% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. The Morrison government has indicated it will not ramp up the goal.

About 68 nations said before COP25 they will set bolder emissions reduction targets, including Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand. This group is expected to exert pressure on laggard nations.

This pressure has already begun: France has reportedly insisted that a planned free trade deal between Australia and the European Union must include “highly ambitious” action on climate change.

Read more: A hot and dry Australian summer means heatwaves and fire risk ahead

The Climate Action Tracker says Australia is not contributing its fair share towards the global 1.5℃ commitment. Australia is also ranked among the worst performing G20 nations on climate action.

The Madrid conference takes place amid high public concern over climate change. Thousands of Australians took part in September’s climate strikes and the environment has reportedly surpassed healthcare, cost of living and the economy as the top public concern.

Climate change has already arrived in the form of more extreme weather and bushfires, water stress, sea level rise and more. These effects are a small taste of what is to come if negotiations in Madrid fail to deliver.

Johanna Nalau, Samid Suliman and Tim Cadman contributed to this article.

– ref. Earth has a couple more chances to avoid catastrophic climate change. This week is one of them – http://theconversation.com/earth-has-a-couple-more-chances-to-avoid-catastrophic-climate-change-this-week-is-one-of-them-128120

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Alterator, Research Fellow (Learning Environments Applied Research Network); Director at Innovation Design Education;, University of Melbourne

Australia has scheduled up to A$11 billion on new schools and facility upgrades between 2016 and 2026. We need as many as 750 new schools to accommodate an additional 650,000 students.

Part of this spend must go towards improving school facilities, especially for students with a disability. In 2017, around 18.8% of school students in Australia were provided with adjustments at school – to participate on the same basis as other students – because of disability. The majority of these attend mainstream public schools.

This means every school (not just those for students with special education needs) should be designed with students of varying abilities in mind. We need to find ways to make all schools inclusive so children with mild and severe disabilities are not disadvantaged by facilities or services.

Read more: Most Australian teachers feel unprepared to teach students with special needs

School facility design has not kept pace with Australian inclusive education policies over past decades. Considering the diverse needs of children with disability, inclusive school architecture needs to learn from the best of what already exists to improve learning spaces for all students.

Vague universal principles

Designing more inclusive schools is possible, but complicated. When a school is designed and built in Australia, architects are often directed to follow the 7 Principles of Universal Design.

These include:

• equitable use (the design must be useful to people of diverse abilities)

• flexibility in use (the design must accommodate a range of preferences and abilities)

• simple and intuitive use (the design can be easily understood by everyone)

• perceptible information (there is effective communication on how to use the design, regardless of the user’s limitations)

• tolerance for error (the design minimises accidents)

• low physical effort (the design can be used without causing fatigue)

• size and space for approach and use (anyone can reach anything regardless of their size or height).

These are useful as a general guide but they are too abstract to offer direction for designers, especially when student needs may shift from one year to the next.

Some examples

Two schools, Officer Specialist School in Australia and The Willows School (P-12) in the UK, offer tips about designing better facilities for inclusive education. Each sit on a mainstream school site, allowing disabled students to share facilities and participate in mainstream learning where possible or deemed appropriate.

Officer Specialist School provides adaptable facilities and spaces to respond to varying and sometimes competing needs. These include classrooms that can be configured to suit individual students’ learning needs through mobile furniture and adaptive technologies. Tactile walls and pause places where students can stand back and get their bearings play a crucial role too.

Read more: How autism-friendly architecture can change autistic children’s lives

The school has designed visual and performing arts spaces for restricted mobility, hearing and sight impairments. Consulting rooms are available for health-service delivery.

Outdoor spaces also offer varying degrees of challenge for motor skills development. Sensory environments are designed to stimulate and calm students at different times of the day. This could involve stimulus shelters for quiet time or sensory rooms for physical stimulation. Labyrinth-style walks are popular with students as calming settings.

At The Willows, one wing of the school provides facilities specifically for disabled students, including a multi-sensory environment (relaxing spaces that help reduce agitation and anxiety). There are also soft play rooms and classrooms with integrated ceiling hoists and specific heating needs for students sensitive to thermal conditions.

The school worked with disabled artists to create sensory elements. The results included textured patterns along walls that support navigation across the school.

What can we learn?

Both schools were designed through consultation processes involving families, educators and service providers. Architects took the time to build trust between key stakeholders and listen to their varied perspectives.

There is no ideal school design, nor any one school that exemplifies all that is best about design for inclusive education. Making conclusions about what works is also limited by a lack of structured evaluation programs.

We need more evidence to generate a better understanding of the complex needs of all students and the role of design in supporting inclusive education.

Designing explicitly for inclusion will benefit everyone. To do this properly will need commitment from governments and schools, feeding evidence-based insights back into school systems, consultations with disabled and other students and designs that are responsive, offering multiple solutions of learning spaces.

We are developing projects at the Learning Environments Applied Research Network and the Bartlett Global Centre for Learning Environments in collaboration with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project to find out what best works for students with disability, and indeed all students.

– ref. Students with disabilities need inclusive buildings. We can learn from what’s already working – http://theconversation.com/students-with-disabilities-need-inclusive-buildings-we-can-learn-from-whats-already-working-126755

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Crystal Legacy, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

The privatisation of services in Australian cities has weakened public control of key infrastructure. This is likely to accelerate as governments look to market-led proposals to provide infrastructure.

For nearly three decades, the rationale for privatisation has been competition. Competition was expected to keep costs down, foster innovation and ensure the public interest was preserved.

Read more: Stumbling into the future: living with the legacy of the great infrastructure sell-off

Now, the increasing resort to market-led infrastructure proposals means even the minimal safeguard of “competition” is disappearing. These unsolicited proposals by private firms have not been subject to competitive assessment.

Market-led proposals present a risk for how our cities function. If infrastructure is built in the interests of private actors, the outcomes will favour them, not citizens. Privatising key public assets that are natural monopolies, such as railways, opens the door to rent-seeking.

While allowing governments to conveniently avoid the capital costs appearing on public balance sheets, market-led proposals seem engineered to deliver monopoly rents from users to private interests.

To stop this exploitation, governments need to reassert the public interest in procuring and operating key infrastructure. This includes ensuring new infrastructure is integrated with existing networks and meets the needs of all citizens. Governments must explicitly guard against financial or user-charging arrangements that disguise exploitative rents to private operators.

A lack of transparent government oversight will result in even more public protest and resistance in the planning of cities.

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

Who plans the future city?

Concerns about market-led proposals are important because the planning of Australian cities and regions is no longer the sole domain of government. Often market-led proposals emerge where governments have vacated policy and planning by simply not having a plan.

At the national scale, a consortium of property interests has proposed the CLARA (Consolidated Land and Rail Australia) project to build high-speed rail between Melbourne and Sydney. The scheme would give the consortium the monopoly right to develop land, building new “CLARA” cities along the route.

In the capital cities, private consortia are filling voids in government planning by proposing, planning and building “city-shaping” infrastructure. We see this in Melbourne, where market-led proposals to build an airport rail link and the West Gate Tunnel have appeared in the absence of a metropolitan transport plan.

Read more: Victoria needs a big-picture transport plan that isn’t about winners v losers

Although the Victorian government has been considering preferred options for an airport rail line, a private consortium has produced an unsolicited proposal along an alternative route.

Comprising Melbourne Airport, Southern Cross Station, Metro Trains Australia and IFM Investors, AirRail Melbourne’s A$5 billion bid is being assessed under the Victoria government’s market-led proposal guidelines.

If approved, the AirRail model would hand control of a key link in Melbourne’s metropolitan rail network to a private company, allowing monopoly pricing and servicing that puts profit before public interest. The consortium is proposing a fare of up to A$20, thus placing the link outside the zone-based public transport ticketing system. Currently, travel is viewed as a public service available to all passengers at a uniform fare.

In both Sydney and Brisbane, privatised airport rail lines operate on separate fare structures that reflect their private financing.

Lack of transparency is a problem

According to the Victorian guidelines, unsolicited proposals are meant to follow “a transparent and fair process while maintaining the highest level of probity and public accountability”.

But there are plenty of examples of problems wrought by market-led proposals.

For instance, just last week the state auditor-general was highly critical of the A$6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel project, which was approved in 2017. This project has been criticised before for lacking transparency about the financial benefits – more than A$37 billion in additional toll revenue – reaped by its proponent, Transurban.

This lack of transparency raises questions about the impacts market-led proposals have on the integrity and effectiveness of infrastructure planning. How can the public interest be defended if the mechanisms in place to ensure this are compromised?

An earlier auditor-general’s report concluded:

In terms of transparency, government has yet to finalise how it communicates the costs, funding, rationale and expected benefits of committed unsolicited proposals. Current approaches to reporting on infrastructure projects do not adequately convey this information to the community.

The auditor-general’s report on market-led proposals last week also raised doubts about the assessment process for the West Gate Tunnel. The project was nominally “bundled” with the Monash Freeway widening, with the latter gifting its higher benefits to the tunnel project.

Concerns have also been raised at the national level.

In 2016, the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Simms, warned against a model of privatisation that gives monopolies and oligopolies control over pricing the maintenance of what are really public assets.

Read more: Making sense of the global infrastructure turn

Public interest planning must be restored

We haven’t yet lost all public control of our cities. But if we are not paying attention, the path we are on is a worrying one.

A sure way to avoid further erosion of the public good in infrastructure planning is to abandon the approach of market-led projects. These shadowy, inequitable processes are surely undermining public confidence in the governance of cities, and in government in general.

We urge governments not to further privatise more public, especially monopoly, assets, as proposed in the airport rail bid. Governments must ensure infrastructure is built in the public interest, not shaped by the needs of private capital.

– ref. Market-led infrastructure may sound good but not if it short-changes the public – http://theconversation.com/market-led-infrastructure-may-sound-good-but-not-if-it-short-changes-the-public-127603

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ronald F Pol, Senior researcher NZ – views expressed are author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of, La Trobe University

The charges surrounding Westpac’s alleged 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering laws have been called “about as serious as it gets”. They include, in the words of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, giving “a free pass to paedophiles”.

But the Westpac case obscures another serious issue: the anti-money laundering system’s compliance focus has a puny impact on crime, including child sex trafficking.

Compliance culture

Symptomatic of a compliance culture measuring activity rather than results is the sheer number of Westpac’s alleged breaches.

Read more: How Westpac is alleged to have broken anti-money laundering laws 23 million times

The 23 million figure really involves a handful of different types of breach.

About 19.5 million alleged breaches involve what are known as “international funds transfer instructions” (IFTIs). These are arrangements between Westpac and overseas banks (known as correspondent banks) to process each others’ customer transactions. These must be reported to AUSTRAC within ten days, with funds origin details included in data passed on to other banks for processing.

AUSTRAC’s claim says Westpac reported 19,489,427 incoming and 10,771 outgoing transfer instructions late (often very late). It says another 10,521 were given to correspondent banks without information about the money’s origin.

Westpac also allegedly didn’t report 2,314 outgoing transfer instructions sent through its “LitePay” international funds transfer system.

Read more: Westpac’s panicked response to its money-laundering scandal looks ill-considered

A further 3,516,238 alleged breaches involved the bank’s data retention system deleting records of incoming transactions before the seven years required.

Many reports, few arrests

Westpac’s alleged “free pass to paedophiles” isn’t about these millions of transactions. It’s about 3,057 transactions with 12 customers.

AUSTRAC expects transactions matching patterns known to have been used by criminals to be reported as “suspicious” (not necessarily criminal). AUSTRAC says the relevant transfers were made to countries with known risks, consistent with known patterns indicative of child exploitation. Average payments for the 12 customers were between A$43 and A$333. One customer, with ten payments totalling A$2,612, had a prior conviction.

Westpac shirking its reporting responsibilities is bad, obviously. But the context is also important. Consider the sheer number of reports banks are expected to file automatically with the number of reports involving suspicious transactions, and the number leading to actual arrests and convictions.

In 2018, according to AUSTRACs annual report, 155 million transfer instructions and 246,458 suspicious matter reports were filed (the latter is a fraction of millions of alerts initially raised by banks’ systems and staff).

According to its annual report, this led AUSTRAC’s joint taskforce with Australian law-enforcement agencies to arrest ten people over alleged criminal activities relating to 163 bank transactions.

AUSTRAC’s Fintel Alliance with public and private sector agencies (including Westpac) also contributed to 73 arrests, with 35 victims saved or protected from child exploitation.

This is not an exhaustive account of AUSTRAC’s successes, because it also helps investigations by other agencies in Australia and overseas, but it indicates the tiny proportion of reported transactions leading to arrests.

Needles in haystacks

Don’t get me wrong. The system catches some criminals. That’s a good thing. But very little of the vast amounts of data generated points to crime. Sure, it can be said that if Westpac reported on time, more crime might have been found. (And hindsight and a multi-million litigation budget makes it easier afterwards). But it’s a big ‘might’. If Westpac had filed everything on time, it would still have been like searching for a proverbial needle in a continent of haystacks.

Read more: The global war on money laundering is a failed experiment

Overall, there’s almost no impact on crime. As I’ve noted previously, in 2011 the United Nations estimated just 0.2% of the global proceeds of crime were seized by anti-money laundering efforts. My update of the UN’s estimate (not yet published) suggests the figure might be 0.1% or less. Other research, albeit with poor data, suggests Australia’s recovery rate might be 0.38%.

The bottom line is simple, if stark. The modern anti-money laundering experiment finds some criminals but is terrible at finding enough to have any real impact on crime. Banks are a much easier target for regulators.

Knowing the unknowns

The trouble with looking for transactions that can be ticked off against regulatory checklists is that countless legitimate payments exhibit similar features.

It also means banks have little incentive to figure out better ways to find the “needles”, because they still must deliver the whole field of haystacks or face serious consequences not reporting everything “consistent” with “known” patterns “indicative” of payment to “known” risk countries.

Law enforcement has always been focused on crime, but the overlay of modern anti-money laundering regulations rewards compliance, and punishes non-compliance. Catching criminals features more in well-meaning intent and rhetoric than system design.

Read more: Westpac’s scandal highlights a system failing to deter corporate wrongdoing

My specialty is policy effectiveness and outcomes. This means not just asking if we have rules, or if firms comply. We need to ask if the rules work. When “success” is measured by compliance activity and notching up record penalties against banks, we’re stuck with lousy results.

We might see justice for some people and discomfit for banks, but the real tragedy is the harm we fail to stop: almost all of it.

Right now the system penalises banks for not ticking boxes that scarcely prevent crime. We need to stop mostly focusing on the “known” patterns of crime and think more about the 99.9% “unknown” zone where most criminals actually operate.

– ref. Westpac ticking every anti-money-laundering box wouldn’t make much difference to criminals – http://theconversation.com/westpac-ticking-every-anti-money-laundering-box-wouldnt-make-much-difference-to-criminals-127988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University

Review: Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines, National Gallery of Victoria

In the 1980s, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were the bad boys of the New York art scene who meteorically rose from street art notoriety to main street fame and glory.

In recent years, the National Gallery of Victoria has established a reputation for bold, startling and unexpected pairing of artists, for example Escher X Nendo or the Terracotta Warriors and Cai Guo-Qiang. With Basquiat and Haring, it is a case of natural selection.

The two artists were friends and occasional collaborators. They both – to some extent – came from a street art graffiti background. They were both exceptionally prolific. They both combined image and text and they were active participants in “the scene” where Andy Warhol was the undisputed godfather. They also both died tragically young – Basquiat was 27 and Haring 31.

However, the two artists each developed a unique and distinctive pictorial language that had a profound impact on the course of American art and, more broadly, on art internationally. The vigour and energy of punk music, dress and dance, and the broader frame of reference of street culture morphed into an art form that found a place in museums.

New York art of the preceding generation saw the triumph of formalism – abstraction primarily concerned with the properties of the medium or Euclidean geometry, but turned away from society and the economic and political reality of the day. From the outset Basquiat and Haring engaged with everyday reality and shone a light on social and political causes. The world was out of joint and they each saw themselves as having a role in doing something about it.

Basquiat, in particular, fought against racism in America and against apartheid in South Africa. Haring fought the discrimination experienced by the gay and lesbian communities. Both were opposed to state coercion and police violence and protested the oppressive policies of Ronald Reagan with the punitive and destructive effects of Reaganomics.

It is possible America under Trump brings back echoes of America under Reagan, making this exhibition appear particularly timely and relevant. There is nothing dated about this show – it tragically strikes as being about the here and now.

Raw and uncompromising

The National Gallery of Victoria exhibition brings together over 230 of the most significant works by the two artists. There is visual overload as the show snakes along from the early graffiti-like images (Haring reputedly did about 10,000 subway drawings), through to the classic hard-hitting paintings of the mid-80s, the spectacular “black light” room and their final works.

After Basquiat’s death from an overdose on 12 August 1988, Haring painted A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat – a stunningly powerful work which, with visual lucidity, distilled Basquiat’s crown emblem into a tortured triumphant monument. Almost simultaneously, realising he was losing his battle with AIDS, Haring painted some of his final testament pieces before his own death on 16 February 1990.

Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines may well be the riskiest exhibition the NGV has staged in its more than 150-year history. It is a raw and uncompromising show tackling many of the critical social, ethical and sexual issues that confront society head-on.

I spent quite a bit of time in New York in the 1980s, viewing a fair amount of the work of both artists, both inside and outside the galleries, and saw the Basquiat retrospective at the Whitney in 1992. However, nothing quite prepares you for the impact of this exhibition. It is confronting, highly emotional, intimate, intensely personal and, at times, excruciatingly honest.

Basquiat was an intellectual artist. When confronting one of his major paintings, there is a considerable amount of unpacking of his rich frames of reference. These include not only his well-thumbed copy of Gray’s Anatomy or references to the writer, poet and intellectual William Burroughs, but also Fyodor Dostoevsky and a broad cross-section of art history.

Haring stripped his images down to bare essentials with a starkness and deceptive simplicity. Both artists had developed their own repertoire of emoji, or little visual ideograms – for example Haring’s radiant child and Basquiat’s crown – and these constantly recur throughout their art. Neither artist practised self-censorship and there is a substantial flow of consciousness in their art characteristic of artists coming from a graffiti background.

Considerable effort has been made in the display to provide a rich context for the show. This is done partly through video installations, including one showing Haring being arrested for drawing graffiti in subways, as well as others with dance and fashion sequences.

There are also numerous exquisite photographs from “the scene”, not only with the omnipresent Andy Warhol, but also of Basquiat’s girlfriend, later better known as the pop singer Madonna, and of Haring’s collaboration with the singer and performer Grace Jones. A beautifully edited, user-friendly and well-written, brick-like catalogue accompanies the show.

This exhibition may not be for everyone, but those who are fortunate enough to see it are unlikely to ever forget it.

Kieth Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines, National Gallery of Victoria (International), St Kilda Road, Melbourne, 1 December 2019 – 13 April 2020.

– ref. ‘Nothing quite prepares you for the impact of this exhibition’: Haring Basquiat at the NGV – http://theconversation.com/nothing-quite-prepares-you-for-the-impact-of-this-exhibition-haring-basquiat-at-the-ngv-128100

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

Can prison rehabilitation programs work, and is it sensible to try and rehabilitate seriously radicalised individuals convicted on terrorism charges?

These are questions not just for Great Britain, in the wake of the second London Bridge attack over the weekend, but for the entire world, including Australia and its near neighbours.

There are no easy answers and no simple options. As the numbers of people detained and eventually released on terrorism charges mount up around the world, so too does the question of what to do with them. Politicians find it easy to speak in terms of “lock them up and throw away the key”. But our legal systems don’t allow this and the results, even if allowed, would almost certainly be worse.

Read more: Australia isn’t taking the national security threat from far-right extremism seriously enough

Some answers, and some difficult questions, can be found in the lives of four participants in Saturday’s tragic drama in London: Jack Merritt, Saskia Jones, Marc Conway and James Ford.

All four were participating in an event organised to reflect on the first five years of the University of Cambridge’s Learning Together program. Merritt was a young graduate who was helping coordinate the program. Jones was a volunteer in the program. Tragically, their idealism and desire to give back to society saw them lose their lives to a man whom they thought they had been able to help.

Merritt’s father told the media:

Jack lived his principles; he believed in redemption and rehabilitation, not revenge, and he always took the side of the underdog.

In her tribute to her murdered daughter, Jones’s mother said:

Saskia had a great passion for providing invaluable support to victims of criminal injustice, which led her to the point of recently applying for the police graduate recruitment programme, wishing to specialise in victim support.

Jones, 23, and Merritt, 25, were both Cambridge University graduates working at the Learning Together program. They lost their lives to a knife-wielding terrorist murderer who does not deserve to have his name remembered. Their 28-year-old assailant had been released from prison 12 months earlier, having served but eight years of a 16 year sentence.

In a catastrophic system-failure, his automatic release was processed without his case ever being reviewed by a parole board, despite the sentencing judge identifying him as a serious risk who should only ever be released after careful review. He had gamed the system, presenting himself as repentant and reformed.

In fact, he had never undergone a rehabilitation program in prison and only had cursory processing on his release. Systemic mistakes and the lack of resources to fund sufficient and appropriate rehabilitation programs meant he was one of many whose risk was never adequately assessed.

Conway had formerly served time at a London prison and is now working as a policy officer at the Prison Reform Trust. He witnessed the fatal attack and rushed directly towards the attacker, joining others who sought to pin him down.

Another man participating in the offender rehabilitation event was James Ford. He too saw the attack unfolding and immediately confronted the assailant.

In a deeply tragic irony, the two victims who lost their lives to a man who made a mockery of their idealism were assisted by two others who appear to have genuinely benefited from prison rehabilitation programs. But even here, the complexities and ambiguities of this sort of difficult endeavour were played out as clearly as any playwright could ever conceive of scripting.

Ford was a convicted murderer attending the Learning Together conference on day-release. He had brutally killed 21-year-old Amanda Campion, a young women who was particularly vulnerable because of her intellectual disability. In the eyes of Campion’s family, Ford is no hero.

However, Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University David Wilson, who chairs the Friends of Grendon Prison program, says that Ford underwent extensive rehabilitation initiatives, including an intensive period of psychotherapy.

On this occasion, the convicted murderer did the right thing. Even though this doesn’t make him a hero, it does give some reason for hope. For Wilson, the murderous terrorist and the convicted murderer who rushed to contain him represent a tale of two prisoners:

I know through my work that people do change and they change as a consequence of innovative but challenging regimes such as the one at HMP Grendon.

In the wake of the attack, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the cases of 74 people released early after being jailed for terror offences will be reviewed. This is certainly sensible and necessary, but much more is required. Indefinite detention is not an option in the majority of cases, and the UK is dealing with hundreds of people convicted of terrorism offences either currently in prison or recently released. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48185759

The numbers in Australia are only a fraction of this but still run into the high dozens and are growing every year. For Australia’s near neighbours, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the numbers, including projected returnees from the Middle East, run into the thousands.

Read more: How Indonesia’s counter-terrorism force has become a model for the region

Professor Ian Acheson, who has advised the government on how to handle extremist prisoners, told the BBC it was not “a question of an arms race on sentencing toughness”, but about what is done when offenders are in custody.

Acheson said his panel’s recommendations had been agreed to but not implemented due to “the merry-go-round of political replacements of secretaries of state”, and the “fairly recalcitrant and unwilling bureaucracy”. He also cited “crazy failed and ideological austerity cuts” to the police, prison and probation services.https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47225797 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/02/criminals-going-unpunished-because-of-cuts-says-police-chief https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/28/britains-police-chiefs-leader-sara-thornton-says-she-wants-end-to-blame-culture

Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones were not naïve idealists. They had studied the problem closely and believed rehabilitation programs could make a difference. Their tragic deaths speak to the challenges involved. To give up and do nothing is not merely cynical, but self-defeating. Without adequate resourcing and reforms the problem everywhere will only become much worse.

– ref. Lessons on terrorism and rehabilitation from the London Bridge attack – http://theconversation.com/lessons-on-terrorism-and-rehabilitation-from-the-london-bridge-attack-128108

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mina Bakhit, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Bond University

The antibiotic resistance threat is real. In the years to come, we will no longer be able to treat and cure many infections we once could.

We’ve had no new classes of antibiotics in decades, and the development pipeline is largely dry. Each time we use antibiotics, the bacteria in our bodies become more resistant to the few antibiotics we still have.

The problem seems clear and the solution obvious: to prescribe our precious antibiotics only when absolutely needed. Implementing this nationally is not an easy task. But Australia could take cues from other countries making significant progress in this area, such as Sweden.

Read more: Five of the scariest antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the past five years

The Swedish example

Antibiotic use was rising steadily in Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s, causing an increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria. A group of doctors mobilised to tackle this threat, and brought together peak bodies across pharmaceuticals, infectious diseases and other relevant areas to form a national coalition.

The Swedish Strategic Programme Against Antibiotic Resistance (Strama) was founded in 1995.

Since then, Strama has been working on a national and regional level to reduce antibiotic use. Between 1992 and 2016, the number of antibiotics prescriptions decreased by 43% overall. Among children under four, antibiotics prescriptions fell by 73%.

Levels of antibiotic use and resistance in Sweden are now among the lowest of all OECD countries, both in humans and animals.

What has Australia done so far – and what more can we do?

In 2017, Australia’s chief medical officer sent a letter to all high-prescribing general practitioners. Over the following six months, this resulted in around a 10% reduction in antibiotic prescriptions among those GPs.

While an excellent start, this is just one of several interventions needed to avert the looming antibiotic crisis.

Read more: Drug resistance: how we keep track of whether antibiotics are being used responsibly

Audit and feedback

The idea of audit and feedback sees GPs provided with a summary of their antibiotic prescribing rates over a specified period of time.

In Australia, antibiotic prescribing data are currently collected by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and periodically used by the National Prescribing Service (NPS MedicineWise) to provide feedback to some GPs.

In Sweden, regular meetings between local Strama members and primary health care clinics serve to reinforce treatment guidelines. Strama representatives review individual doctors’ antibiotic prescribing as well as trends across the area, and discuss targets for optimal prescribing.

This results in some decrease in antibiotic use; a small but desirable effect if combined with other interventions.

Restrict access to specific antibiotics

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care keeps a list of antibiotics that should only be used as a last line of defence. An example is meropenem, which is commonly used to treat infections with multidrug-resistant organisms such as septicaemia.

Current restrictions stipulate these antibiotics can only be used in hospitals under the supervision of a hospital antimicrobial stewardship team. This team usually consists of an infectious disease specialist, a microbiologist and a pharmacist. The team reviews the request and either approves it or recommends using another antibiotic.

Strama takes a similar approach.

But the way this is enforced differs between Australian hospitals. We may need to strengthen these restrictions if resistance continues to increase.

Stop default repeat prescriptions

Prescriptions which include a “repeat” could leave patients believing another course of antibiotics is needed, when this is not always the case. They may hold on to the prescription with a “just in case” attitude to take when they feel it’s necessary, or even give the prescription to someone else.

In Sweden, there are no default repeat prescriptions for antibiotics and this is reinforced by appropriate package size.

Read more: Why the health and agriculture sectors need to work together to stop antibiotic resistance

Pleasingly, Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee has recently recommended the removal of default repeat options for a range of common antibiotics in high usage, where no repeats are deemed clinically necessary.

Delayed prescribing

Delayed prescribing is when a GP provides a prescription during the consultation, but advises the patient to see if the symptoms will resolve first before using it (a “wait-and-see” approach).

GPs use delayed prescribing in situations of uncertainty as a safety measure, or when patients appear anxious and require additional assurance antibiotics are accessible in case the infection gets worse.

A systematic review found delayed prescribing resulted in 31% of people taking the course of antibiotics compared to 93% who were prescribed them normally.

In Sweden, national treatment guidelines for common infections in primary health care support GPs delaying antibiotic prescribing.

Public engagement

To change public attitudes around antibiotic use and preservation, it’s important to communicate the negative effects of the unnecessary use of antibiotics and the risk of antibiotic resistance for the individual as well as the community.

Continuous awareness campaigns are essential (for example, via the media) to keep the public tuned in to the issue. The French campaign “antibiotics are not automatic” is a good example.

Read more: Why GPs prescribe too many antibiotics and why it’s time to set targets

Further, enabling patients to be involved in the decision of whether to use antibiotics or not encourages discussion between the doctor and the patient around the benefits and harms of potential treatments. Using shared decision making in consultations has proven effective in reducing antibiotic prescribing by about one-fifth.

Each of these strategies contributes a small amount to improving antibiotic usage. Like the Swedish Strama program, the combination will need to be sustained and reinforced over many years to reach levels of antibiotic use comparable to the lowest prescribing OECD countries, like Sweden.

– ref. We can reverse antibiotic resistance in Australia. Here’s how Sweden is doing it – http://theconversation.com/we-can-reverse-antibiotic-resistance-in-australia-heres-how-sweden-is-doing-it-123081

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roslyn Petelin, Course coordinator, The University of Queensland

How many of these words, shortlisted by The Macquarie Dictionary in its search for the 2019 Word of the Year, have you used? Anecdata, big minutes, cancel culture, cheese slaw, cleanskin, drought lot, eco-anxiety, flight shaming, healthwashing, hedonometer, mukbang, ngangkari, robodebt, silkpunk, thicc, and whataboutism?

I confess the only one on this list (whittled down from 75 words), that has passed my lips has been “cleanskin”, but I wasn’t referring to someone with no tattoos – the new definition.

I may not have used these shortlisted words, but I have certainly experienced the effect of some of them and can appreciate the value of others. (“Whataboutism”, for instance, a technique used “in responding to an accusation, criticism or difficult question in which an opposing accusation or criticism is raised”, will come in very handy when describing many politicians. )

I doubt, though, whether I’ll be able to remember and use many of these words, colourful and tinged with negativity as many are.

The Macquarie Dictionary committee has chosen “cancel culture” as its Word of the Year. The term is used to describe community attitudes that

…call for or bring about the withdrawal of support from [for] a public figure, such as cancellation of an acting role, a ban on playing an artist’s music, removal from social media, etc., usually in response to an accusation of a socially unacceptable action or comment by the figure.

Unfortunately, there have been any number of recent examples in Australia of ostracism through “cancel culture”, whose cases have progressed to the courts. I hesitate to mention Geoffrey Rush here.

Read more: Tarantino has a questionable record in the #MeToo context, so should we boycott his new film?

‘The zeitgeist’

The committee chose “cancel culture” because it believes the term “captures an important aspect of the past year’s zeitgeist”.

In looking over the list, I’m not sure that I like any of these words. I think a couple of them are ridiculous, in particular “hedonometer”, an algorithm using language data from Twitter to analyse levels of happiness.

To qualify as Macquarie’s word of the year, a word must be newly added to the dictionary in that year or, as is the case with “cleanskin”, an old word with an additional new meaning.

Macquarie points out that it differs from other dictionaries, as some simply choose the most common word being searched, or most topical word, regardless of its status as “new”. The people at Cambridge Dictionary, which chose “upcycling” for 2019, relied on their Instagram account to make the call.

If the Macquarie committee had done this, its 2019 Word of the Year would have been “cheese slaw” (a salad of grated carrot, grated cheese, and mayonnaise), which it admits would have been a “niche and controversial” choice.

Macquarie has posted a photo on its website of a cheese slaw (stuffed into a sandwich), as well as an equally unappetising photo of a companion food word “mukbang”. A mukbang, by the way, describes a live online broadcast in which someone eats, often a large amount, while simultaneously speaking to their audience.

Criteria apart from “new” for Macquarie appear to be that a word is ubiquitous, timely, influential, and makes a valuable contribution to Australian English. So, does “cancel culture” qualify? Kind of.

Macquarie sorts the year’s new words into 15 categories, and one could spend an enjoyable time and several hours cruising through them: agriculture, arts, business, communications, eating and drinking, environment, fashion, health, politics, sport, and technology.

ngangkari and thicc

Two of the most interesting new additions – both runners-up as word of the year (along with eco-anxiety) – are “ngangkari”, adopted unaltered from Pitjantjatjara, for an Indigenous practitioner of bush medicine, and “thicc” from African American English, which “celebrates body positivity that does not conform to conventional white standards of beauty”.

The environment figures strongly in this year’s shortlist, in “eco-anxiety”, “flight shaming”, and “drought lot”. Still, the folk at Collins Dictionary named their Word of the Year for 2019 as “climate strike”. The Oxford Dictionary chose “climate emergency” as its Word of the Year.

Read more: Why declaring a national climate emergency would neither be realistic or effective

The Macquarie Committee has now opened the voting for People’s Choice Word of the Year 2019. Only once in the past five years has the committee’s and the people’s choice aligned. In 2015, “captain’s call” won both categories.

You may wonder why the competition is even called “word of the year” when it comprises two words, or even three. In 2016 the people’s choice was “halal snack pack”. As the website points out, it’s the lexical unit of meaning that the committee considers, what’s called the “headword” in a dictionary.

In the meantime, if you are interested in chasing up the Macquarie shortlist and maybe voting, you have until midnight on Sunday December 8 to do so.

– ref. Cancel culture, cleanskin, hedonometer … I’m not sure I like any of Macquarie Dictionary’s words of the year – http://theconversation.com/cancel-culture-cleanskin-hedonometer-im-not-sure-i-like-any-of-macquarie-dictionarys-words-of-the-year-128109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Collard, Canada Research Chair in Human Evolutionary Studies, and Professor of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University

The remains of thousands of Aboriginal Australians are scattered around the world in museums and universities. Many institutions accept these remains should be returned to descendant communities, but it’s not always easy to do.

A major problem is that we often lack detailed information about where in Australia the remains came from. It has been estimated that up to a quarter of the human remains in Australian museums have poor contextual information.

Recently, we completed an Australian Research Council-funded project project that focused on human remains from the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, in collaboration with several local Aboriginal communities.

What we found suggests no single method such as DNA testing or using geological clues will be enough to reliably determine the origin of remains – an interdisciplinary approach using all available evidence will be required.

Read more: Mungo Man returns home: there is still much he can teach us about ancient Australia

DNA evidence alone won’t be enough

Over the past few years there has been considerable interest in the possibility that genetic testing can solve the repatriation problem. One aim of our project was to see if this approach would work in the Australian context.

In a study reported last year, we extracted genetic information from ancient human remains of known provenance and compared them to genomes obtained from living Aboriginal Australians.

We looked at two different kinds of DNA: nuclear DNA (this is the DNA that contains the genetic code for building your body) and mitochondrial DNA (the DNA of the tiny cell units called mitochondria that help to power your body’s cells).

When we used nuclear DNA, we were able to link ancient remains and living individuals from the same area with a high degree of accuracy. But when we only employed mitochondrial DNA from the ancient remains, the accuracy dropped markedly. The nuclear DNA analyses had a success rate of 100%, whereas the mitochondrial DNA analyses failed to identify a region of origin for 31% of the individuals and suggested the wrong region for 7% of them.

This is an issue because, for very old remains, it’s much more likely that we will be able to recover mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA. The reason is simply numbers: each cell contains hundreds or thousands of copies of the mitochondrial DNA but only one or two of the nuclear DNA.

There are other problems with relying solely on DNA for repatriation. The complexities of human social life (such as inter-tribal marriage) and the impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal Australians (such as displacement) mean that even full genome comparisons may not correctly identify an individual’s tribal affiliation.

Mapping strontium also won’t be enough

Another way to get information about where human remains are from is to measure the strontium in their bones and teeth.

Strontium is a common element, and our bodies use it as a building block. There are different types of strontium, called isotopes, and the ratio of these isotopes in the ground varies from place to place. So, if you measure the strontium isotope ratios in some remains and have a map of the different ratios at different places, it can help you work out where the remains came from.

Strontium isotope ratios have been used to guide repatriation elsewhere in the world, but our research in Cape York suggests this approach also won’t solve the problem of repatriating Australian Aboriginal remains by itself.

In the course of our Cape York project, we completed the first regional scale analysis of strontium isotope variability in Australia. This involved collecting a large number of water, soil, and plant samples and creating a strontium isotope map or “isoscape”.

We found that locations often did not have unique values. This suggests that strontium ratios can narrow down the range of possible areas to which a set of remains could be returned, but on their own they are unlikely to pinpoint the exact area.

Read more: Where did you grow up? How strontium in your teeth can help answer that question

Genomes and isotopes together

Based on the results of our studies with genomes and isotopes, we think a reliable protocol for repatriating Aboriginal remains will take more than one scientific technique. Genomics alone won’t solve the problem. Nor will isotope geochemistry.

Instead, we need to develop an integrated interdisciplinary approach using DNA, isotopes, and whatever other lines of evidence are available (such as detailed analysis of bones, and even linguistics).

In order for this approach to work, we need to avoid creating a hierarchy among the scientific disciplines involved and focus instead on how they complement each other. In addition, we need to devise mechanisms that encourage sustained interaction and knowledge transfer between scientists from different disciplines.

Aiming higher

We drew another major conclusion from our Cape York project: those of us involved in repatriation projects should aim higher. We need to put more time and energy into developing new techniques and assessing the accuracy of existing ones.

Equally importantly, we need to seek new ways of fostering collaboration among scientists from different fields and between scientists and Aboriginal communities.

Lastly, the repatriation of Aboriginal remains deserves the same level of rigour as the repatriation of historical military remains and modern missing person cases. Crucially, this means that we should employ the standard of proof for coronial investigations, which is “on the balance of probabilities”.

– ref. Returning to country: we should use genetics, geology and more to repatriate Aboriginal remains – http://theconversation.com/returning-to-country-we-should-use-genetics-geology-and-more-to-repatriate-aboriginal-remains-125557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Australian National University

Using hydrogen as a clean fuel is an idea whose time may be coming. For Australia, producing hydrogen is alluring: it could create a lucrative new domestic industry and help the world achieve a carbon-free future.

The national hydrogen strategy released last month argues Australia should be at the forefront of the global hydrogen race. Led by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, the strategy takes a technology-neutral approach, by not favouring any one way of making “clean” hydrogen.

But it matters whether hydrogen is produced from renewable electricity or fossil fuels. While the fossil fuel route is currently cheaper, it could end up emitting substantial amounts of carbon dioxide.

Not all ‘clean’ hydrogen is the same

Hydrogen can be produced using electricity through electrolysis, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. When renewable electricity is used, this does not produce any carbon dioxide and is known as green hydrogen.

Hydrogen can also be produced from coal or gas. This process releases carbon dioxide. Most hydrogen produced today is made this way.

Some – but critically, not all – carbon dioxide from this process can be trapped and stored in underground reservoirs – a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Read more: 145 years after Jules Verne dreamed up a hydrogen future, it has arrived

But CCS is technically complex and expensive. Only two plants producing hydrogen from fossil fuels currently use it: one in Canada, with a carbon dioxide capture rate of 80%, and one in the US with a lower retention rate.

In Australia, the only operating large-scale CCS project is Chevron’s Gorgon gas (not hydrogen) project in Western Australia. After a significant delay, and three years since the project started supplying gas, carbon capture and storage began this year.

High carbon-capture rates are not assured

The hydrogen strategy uses the term “clean hydrogen” for hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, and from coal or gas with carbon capture. And it assumes a “best-case” scenario where 90-95% of carbon dioxide is captured from fossil fuels.

Such rates are technically possible, but have not been achieved to date. Lower capture rates are not examined in the strategy.

At 90-95% capture rates, coal- and gas-based hydrogen is much less carbon-intensive than traditional fossil fuel uses. But a capture rate of 60% means hydrogen from coal has a similar emissions-intensity to burning natural gas directly.

The national strategy does not describe a mechanism to ensure best-case capture rates are met. Production of hydrogen might ramp up much faster than the facilities required to capture emissions, allowing large amounts of greenhouse gas to enter the atmosphere – similar to the Gorgon case.

Another risk is that carbon capture will not be able to achieve the best-case rates for technical or cost reasons.

Towards zero-emissions exports

Countries including Japan, South Korea and Germany are exploring the possibility of using hydrogen in a range of ways, including in power generation, transportation, heating and industrial processes.

Some future importers may not care how cleanly our hydrogen is produced, but others might.

To illustrate why carbon-free exports matter, we calculated emissions if Australia produced 12 million tonnes of hydrogen for export per year – equivalent to about 30% of our current liquified natural gas exports and in line with production estimates in the national strategy.

Read more: Enough ambition (and hydrogen) could get Australia to 200% renewable energy

It would require roughly 37 million tonnes of natural gas or 88 million tonnes of coal. If 90% of carbon dioxide was captured, emissions from gas would total 1.9% of Australia’s current (2018) annual greenhouse gas emissions, or 4.4% using coal.

If only 60% of the carbon dioxide was captured, hydrogen from gas and coal would account for an additional 7.8% and 17.9% of current national emissions respectively – making it much harder for Australia to achieve existing and future emissions targets.

Where to invest

Right now, producing hydrogen from fossil fuels is cheaper than from renewables, even with carbon capture and storage.

Australia also has large and ready reserves of brown coal in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley that will not be used by the declining coal-fired power industry. Captured carbon could be stored under Bass Strait. And the nation’s plentiful gas reserves could be turned into hydrogen, in addition to or partly replacing liquefied natural gas exports. So, it is unsurprising that the national strategy left all options on the table.

Read more: Hydrogen fuels rockets, but what about power for daily life? We’re getting closer

However establishing hydrogen production facilities with carbon capture would mean huge spending on equipment with very long lifetimes. This is risky, as the capital would be wasted if the market for emissions-intensive hydrogen collapsed, either through public attitudes or a global imperative to move to zero-emissions energy systems.

The world is already far off the pace needed to meet its emissions reduction targets, and must ultimately get to net-zero to prevent the worst climate change impacts.

Australia should invest in research and development to make green hydrogen cheaper. This requires driving reductions in the cost of electrolysis, and further reductions in large-scale renewable energy production. It could lead to big benefits for the climate, and Australia’s future export economy.

– ref. For hydrogen to be truly ‘clean’ it must be made with renewables, not coal – http://theconversation.com/for-hydrogen-to-be-truly-clean-it-must-be-made-with-renewables-not-coal-128053

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janine M. Cooper, Founder, Everyday Neuro & Honorary Fellow Manager, Clinical Sciences, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

As smartphone ownership surges, we’re seeing a drastic rise in the use of mobile apps, many of which are marketed towards impressionable young audiences.

One such app is Episode – Choose Your Story, a free game with more than 50 million downloads and five million weekly users.

Episode is coming under scrutiny by parents and users, many as young as 10, for its inappropriate themes. Such apps are far-reaching, and parenting their use can be tricky.

According to a US report published this year, which surveyed 1,677 kids, 41% of tweens (aged 8-12) and 84% of teens (aged 13-18) owned a smartphone.

There’s an increasing number of games targeted at these age groups, of which many follow a “choose your story” format.

The stories are divided into episodes and the user, or “reader”, can interact with storylines and even create their own. Readers can choose from a list of responses to influence things such as a character’s appearance, dialogue and reaction to events.

While most storylines focus on romance and high school relationships, many have raised alarm bells in parents. A number of parents have voiced concerns on Common Sense Media, a leading source of entertainment recommendations for families.

What your child engages with online

Episode features numerous storylines about sexual discrimination, underage sex and pregnancy. Many of these glorify adultery and are potentially promoting reckless decision making, pettiness and unkind acts.

On inspection, there are several issues with the app.

First, storylines can be written by anyone, even those aged 13-17. And while there are more than 12 million creators, there is little content regulation, even when the Episode community expresses concern.

One story regarding sexual consent raised uproar with users, who were concerned at the poor moral message of a young female character being “blind drunk” and not consenting to a sexual liaison with an older male character.

Yet, the story was not removed, and the author did little to address the backlash.

Another concerning aspect of the game is that in many situations, users have to pay money to make morally correct decisions, yet reckless choices are free. This reinforces inappropriate reactions to events. This is also where players can unwittingly spend huge amounts of money.

Read more: The app trap: how children spend thousands online

What about parental guidance ratings?

On the Common Sense Media website, parents have given Episode a parental advisory rating of 14+, whereas kids have rated it suitable for ages 13+.

On the Apple App Store, the game is rated 12+ and on Google Play it’s rated “Mature”.

That said, players of Episode are often impressionable older children and teens. A 12+ rating offers little guidance to parents, and ratings overall don’t seem to deter children from playing.

This is hardly surprising. At this stage of development, peer relationships are highly rewarding. Many players are introduced to apps such as Episode by siblings or friends, and are enticed by the excitement they offer.

Research shows several areas of the brain make adolescents more sensitive to the rewards of peer relationships than adults. This motivates teens to focus on their peers in decision-making situations that involve risky behaviour.

This is apparent in one comment from a 13-year-old made on a Common Sense Media forum about Episode:

WOW!!! The best app!!!!! I love it!!!!! P.S. – kids, make sure your parents don’t know you’re using Episode! 😉

No universal standard

Although different countries offer their own classifications for online sites and gaming, there’s no universal standard apps have to meet in order to establish suitability for children and teens.

Read more: Is that porn your child is watching online? How do you know?

Due to the discrepancy in app store ratings, the best prevention of a child or teen using inappropriate apps is to refer to guidance sites such as Common Sense Media.

But an even better defence is for parents to test questionable apps themselves. From those adults who offer valuable feedback online for childrens’ apps, many are parents who have personally tried the apps.

Until there’s an improved consensus on app classification, parental monitoring remains best practice.

Other things parents can do

To prevent the use of unsuitable apps by children and teens, parents can try establishing a verbal and written contract with their child before they are allowed to own a smartphone, or other smart device.

It should contain guidelines for when, how long and what can be viewed on the device. There should also be transparency around what’s being downloaded, with parents checking the device(s) on a regular basis.

Furthermore, due to the tendency of apps such as Episode to encourage consumerism, children and teens should not buy gems, tokens, cards or any app-related digital currency, without first discussing this with an adult.

As it is, the estimated daily revenue of Episode is US$105,000.

Passive versus interactive

A major criticism of screen time and app use is that it’s passive and requires little or no involvement from users.

Research suggests typing on a keyboard to calculate times tables, rather than writing by hand or using a smartphone, can hinder long-term learning and memory.

Instead of encouraging device usage, children benefit from more reading, storytelling and imaginative play. As they mature, such activities enable greater fluency, theory of mind (which is understanding that others may have different beliefs and desires to you), and moral reasoning abilities.

Read more: Five reasons why you should read aloud to your kids – and pick their favourite book

The good news is, app developers have also started to heed such advice, with many promoting the interactive components of their product.

And this isn’t just to appease parents.

Apps that encourage storytelling, many led by research and developed by educators, are popular with children and teens too.

– ref. Episode – Choose Your Story: are your kids cheating on their virtual partners? – http://theconversation.com/episode-choose-your-story-are-your-kids-cheating-on-their-virtual-partners-127445

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Willis, Professor of Architecture and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, University of Melbourne

Welcome to the first article of our Designing Hospitals series, where we explore how architecture and design shape our hospitals and medical centres. Today, we look at changes in hospital design since convict times, from simple huts to supportive spaces that reduce patient anxiety and stress.

Although architecture surrounds us and we engage with it daily, most assume design is benign or inert. Yet it shapes our actions and interactions. In the hospital, design can make the difference between life and death.

Architecture has played a crucial role in the hospital: as an instrument of status, of hygiene, of therapy, of control and, more recently, of support.

Read more: Not just a pretty interface: good design goes beyond looks

As far as we know, the first hospital in Australia was built in Sydney in 1788 and Governor Phillip quickly prioritised building it. It was just the third permanent building colonists erected after the governor’s house and commissariat store (which provided food and other supplies).

The hospital was little more than a dirt-floored hut. It was soon replaced by a prefabricated hospital that arrived with the Second Fleet.

Sydney’s third hospital — the infamous Rum Hospital — was a grand Georgian-style edifice.

The creation and design of these three hospitals said much about their status as key buildings in the colony, but little about the care provided within.

The design of early hospitals in Australia was based on military barracks, rather than the hospital design traditions of Britain. They housed the sick and dying with minimal, if any, provision made for adequate ventilation, sanitation, treatment or medical supervision.

Florence Nightingale revolutionalised design

Reform of hospitals came with the work of nurse Florence Nightingale. Her experiences in the Crimean War led her to write Notes on Hospitals (1858), which revolutionised the way hospitals were designed.

The Nightingale ward was a pavilion containing 24-30 beds in two rows, with a nurses’ station and public entry at one end and an ablution (washing) block at the other.

Windows were placed between each bed, and each bed was a set distance apart, to minimise cross-infection. Each pavilion was separate, for ventilation purposes; later examples stacked the still-separated pavilions into multi-storey blocks.

Australian hospitals from the 1870s to the early 1920s used Nightingale’s principles and are known as pavilion hospitals. You can still see examples at the former Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne, and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

Then our understanding of how disease was transmitted changed. We moved away from the theory of miasma (where bad air was thought to carry disease), undermining the need for the Nightingale ward.

Instead, the work of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister, reinforced by microbiologist Robert Koch in the 1870s, became prominent. This was the idea that certain diseases were caused by germs invading the body.

Nevertheless, emphasis was still placed on a “broad environmentalism” for the hospital. This included ventilation, hygienic surfaces, and restorative natural settings such as gardens.

Technology and therapy shaped design

In the 1920s, two distinct trends in hospital design were evident.

In the first, the Americans focused on technology (ventilation, air conditioning, therapeutic and diagnostic equipment), efficiency (industrial kitchens and laundries, centralised stores) and scale (planning, position, function). One example was the behemoth of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York (1928).

In the second, the Europeans were designing hospitals as instruments of therapy. Patients had access to fresh air and sunlight (heliotherapy, particularly to treat tuberculosis and skin diseases).

To directly access sun and air, bed-bound patients were placed on wide balconies and fully glazed rooms (solaria). Examples here include the Krankenhaus Waiblingen, Germany (1928-30), and the Paimio Sanatorium, Finland (1929-32).

By the early 1930s, these trends had been distilled by the entrepreneurial architect Arthur Stephenson into a series of world-leading Australian hospitals. These included the Mercy Hospital, Melbourne (1933-35), and the King George V Hospital for Mothers and Babies, Sydney (1939-41).

Off to surgery

Inside the hospital, design made a dramatic difference to patients. In the operating theatre, for example, the needs of both patient and surgeon dictated design innovations.

The presence of oxygen and ether (for anaesthesia) made explosion a distinct possibility. So designers paid particular attention to flooring (to minimise the buildup of static electricity) and the temperature and humidity of the air (to minimise sparks).

Lighting had to be shadowless, dustless and not too hot; the surgeon and anaesthetist needed to be able to see but not be blinded by the lights.

Instruments had to be sterile, operating theatre personnel needed to scrub and gown up, and air needed to be purified.

This led to the first air-conditioned spaces in the hospital and experimentation with paraboloid-shaped theatres with embedded lighting; green walls, drapes and gowns (to minimise eye fatigue) became ubiquitous; and there were separate pathways or systems for instruments, patients, staff, and air handling (such as HEPA filters) to maintain the highest possible levels of cleanliness.

For the patient, these innovations increased their likelihood of survival and decreased their rates of infection.

Towards sealed boxes

The development of drug-based therapies, particularly penicillin, from the 1950s meant hospitals no longer needed balconies for sun therapy. And the push to air-condition the whole hospital led to them becoming hermetically sealed boxes.

Less emphasis was placed on the restorative and healing power of the environment, more on precision and efficiency of medical practice.

Architecturally, hospitals serviced the needs of medicine rather than the patient. Concern was for efficiency of the doctor or nurse, with a focus on function rather than feeling.

Hospitals became systems, concerned with productivity and flexibility, such as the McMaster University Health Sciences Centre, Canada (1967–72). In Australia, the uncompromising style of the Footscray Psychiatric Centre (about 1969) demonstrated the closed box the hospital had become.

The human element

From the 1970s, there was increasing understanding of the interconnections between humans, health and environments.

A seminal paper in 1984 on how a view from a hospital window could influence recovery from surgery validated the links between patient outcomes and building design. Hospital design needed to change to benefit patients.

Like shopping malls, for the people

A revised approach was evident from the 1980s. This saw the public spaces of hospitals consciously de-institutionalised and modelled as shopping malls — busy places of apparent normality.

More recently, there has been emphasis on patient-centred design that considers ways hospital design can support patients at every point, reducing stress and anxiety and making them more receptive to treatment.

Australian hospitals have led the way in this approach, such as the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne (2016) and Queensland Children’s Hospital (2014), Brisbane.

Architecture has played an active role in the effectiveness of hospitals over centuries. They’ve not just been containers for care. Hospital design has enabled, encouraged and supported patients and medics to better standards of therapy and treatment.

– ref. From army barracks to shopping malls: how hospital design has been a matter of life and death – http://theconversation.com/from-army-barracks-to-shopping-malls-how-hospital-design-has-been-a-matter-of-life-and-death-123377

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin University

It’s well established that unsustainable human activity is damaging the health of the planet. The way we use Earth threatens our future and that of many animals and plants. Species extinction is an inevitable end point.

It’s important that the loss of Australian nature be quantified accurately. To date, putting an exact figure on the number of extinct species has been challenging. But in the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, our research has confirmed that 100 endemic Australian species living in 1788 are now validly listed as extinct.

Alarmingly, this tally confirms that the number of extinct Australian species is much higher than previously thought.

The most precise tally yet

Counts of extinct Australian species vary. The federal government’s list of extinct plants and animals totals 92. However 20 of these are subspecies, five are now known to still exist in Australia and seven survive overseas – reducing the figure to 60.

An RMIT/ABC fact check puts the figure at 46.

The states and territories also hold their own extinction lists, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature keeps a global database, the Red List.

Our research collated these separate listings. We excluded species that still exist overseas, such as the water tassel-fern. We also excluded some species that, happily, have been rediscovered since being listed as extinct, or which are no longer recognised as valid species (such as the obscure snail Fluvidona dulvertonensis).

We concluded that exactly 100 plant and animal species are validly listed as having become extinct in the 230 years since Europeans colonised Australia:

• 38 plants, such as the magnificent spider-orchid
• 1 seaweed species
• 34 mammals including the thylacine and pig-footed bandicoot
• 10 invertebrates including a funnel-web spider, beetles and snails
• 9 birds, such as the paradise parrot
• 4 frogs, including two species of the bizarre gastric-brooding frog which used its stomach as a womb
• 3 reptiles including the Christmas Island forest skink
• 1 fish, the Pedder galaxias.

Our tally includes three species listed as extinct in the wild, with two of these still existing in captivity.

The mammal toll represents 10% of the species present in 1788. This loss rate is far higher than for any other continent over this period.

The 100 extinctions are drawn from formal lists. But many extinctions have not been officially registered. Other species disappeared before their existence was recorded. More have not been seen for decades, and are suspected lost by scientists or Indigenous groups who knew them best. We speculate that the actual tally of extinct Australian species since 1788 is likely to be about ten times greater than we derived from official lists.

And biodiversity loss is more than extinctions alone. Many more Australian species have disappeared from all but a vestige of their former ranges, or persist in populations far smaller than in the past.

Dating the losses

Dating of extinctions is not straightforward. For a few Australian species, such as the Christmas Island forest skink, we know the day the last known individual died. But many species disappeared without us realising at the time.

Our estimation of extinction dates reveals a largely continuous rate of loss – averaging about four species per decade.

Continuing this trend, in the past decade, three Australian species have become extinct – the Christmas Island forest skink, Christmas Island pipistrelle and Bramble Cay melomys – and two others became extinct in the wild.

The extinctions occurred over most of the continent. However 21 occurred only on islands smaller than Tasmania, which comprise less than 0.5% of Australia’s land mass.

This trend, repeated around the world, is largely due to small population sizes and vulnerability to newly introduced predators.

We must learn from the past

The 100 recognised extinctions followed the loss of Indigenous land management, its replacement with entirely new land uses and new settlers introducing species with little regard to detrimental impacts.

Introduced cats and foxes are implicated in most mammal extinctions; vegetation clearing and habitat degradation caused most plant extinctions. Disease caused the loss of frogs and the accidental introduction of an Asian snake caused the recent loss of three reptile species on Christmas Island.

The causes have changed over time. Hunting contributed to several early extinctions, but not recent ones. In the last decade, climate change contributed to the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys, which lived only on one Queensland island.

The prospects for some species are helped by legal protection, Australia’s fine national reserve system and threat management. But these gains are subverted by the legacy of previous habitat loss and fragmentation, and the ongoing damage caused by introduced species.

Our own population increase is causing further habitat loss, and new threats such as climate change bring more frequent and intense droughts and bushfires.

Environment laws have demonstrably failed to stem the extinction crisis. The national laws are now under review, and the federal government has indicated protections may be wound back.

But now is not the time to weaken environment laws further. The creation of modern Australia has come at a great cost to nature – we are not living well in this land.

The study on which this article is based was also co-authored by Andrew Burbidge, David Coates, Rod Fensham and Norm McKenzie.

– ref. Scientists re-counted Australia’s extinct species, and the result is devastating – http://theconversation.com/scientists-re-counted-australias-extinct-species-and-the-result-is-devastating-127611

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Thomson, Deputy CEO (Research), Australian Council for Educational Research

The OECD will release the results from PISA (its Programme for International Student Assessment) 2018 tomorrow evening. This is the seventh time PISA has been administered and the results usually cause a barrage of attention from governments, and those interested in education, for years to come.

What many are wondering about the results tomorrow include

• where does Australia’s education system sit internationally?
• which countries are doing better than we are and which are doing worse?
• how are we doing internally – across states and territories, between girls and boys, or children from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds?

The last PISA 2015 report, published in 2016, showed Australia was behind countries such as Singapore, Canada and China in maths and science, and below Singapore, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland in reading.

Read more: PISA results don’t look good, but before we panic let’s look at what we can learn from the latest test

The first PISA test was in 2000. The three assessment domains are rotated every three years, so one domain is the major focus (the major domain). A larger amount of the assessment time is devoted to this domain compared to the other two (the minor domains).

Reading was the major domain in 2000 and 2009, and again in PISA 2018. This means Australia will now have PISA reading results from three different time points. This allows us to investigate trends in average performance (up or down or flat) as well as look at reading in greater detail.

The last cycle showed Australia had slipped in each domain since 2012, which means we were getting worse at preparing students for the everyday challenges of adult life. All eyes with be on this report to see whether these declines have been arrested.

What is PISA?

PISA is a two-hour test to see how well students in secondary schools across all 36 OECD countries, and 43 other countries or economies, can apply reading, maths, science and other skills to real-life situations.

Rather than focusing on a particular grade or year level, PISA tests 15 year olds – or more specifically, students who are between 15 years and three months and 16 years and two months at the beginning of the testing period and are enrolled in an educational institution, either full-time or part-time.

This is because, in many of the countries that participated in PISA in the early years, students of this age are usually nearing the end of their compulsory schooling.

The assessment takes place every three years and students are tested in the three areas each cycle. Assessments areas such as financial and computer literacy, or collaborative problem-solving, change from cycle to cycle.

It would be hugely costly and time-consuming to test every 15 year old in the more than 70 participating countries. So a representative random sample of schools is drawn from all schools in each system being tested. Then, a representative sample of students is drawn from within each of those schools.

PISA was not designed to provide scores for individual students or schools – students don’t even complete the same test as the other students in the room. In PISA 2018, for example, there were more than 36 different test forms, covering different parts of the assessment.

In Australia, 740 schools and just over 14,200 students participated in PISA 2018.

What the test looks like

There is major difference between PISA and some other international student assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This focuses on how well students have learned the content of a defined curriculum.

Read more: Why global education rankings don’t reveal the whole picture

PISA questions are designed to test students’ applied knowledge in reading, mathematics or science.

For instance, a science question (below) in the last cycle concerned bird migration.

Most migratory birds gather in one area and then migrate in large groups rather than individually. This behaviour is a result of evolution. Which of the following is the best scientific explanation for the evolution of this behaviour in most migratory birds?

• birds that migrated individually or in small groups were less likely to survive and have offspring

• birds that migrated individually or in small groups were more likely to find adequate food

• flying in large groups allowed other bird species to join the migration

• flying in large groups allowed each bird to have a better chance of finding a nesting site.

The next question asks students to identify a factor that might make the volunteers’ counts of migrating birds inaccurate, and explain how that will affect the count.

The type of testing has also changed in line with the way our societies have changed in the two decades PISA has been around. Students now take the assessments using computers, for instance.

The nature of reading has changed too, drastically. In the past, reading was mainly about extracting knowledge from linear texts in established sources. When students did not know the answer to a question, teachers could direct them to look in an encyclopaedia and the answer would be trustworthy.

Read more: Reading progress is falling between year 5 and 7, especially for advantaged students: 5 charts

Today, digital search engines provide students with millions of answers, and it is up to students to figure out what is accurate and what is misleading and potentially dangerous. PISA is now testing how students navigate multiple-source texts, deal with ambiguity, distinguish between fact, opinion and sensationalism, and triangulate different sources to construct knowledge.

Why we need PISA

There are many criticisms of PISA. From the fact the OECD allows some countries to test just regions – like B-S-J-Z (China) – to criticisms of the argument an increase in a country’s PISA scores will result in an increase in that country’s economic wealth.

Despite these criticisms, PISA is robust, and provides an idea of how countries are performing comparative to each other. It provides a birds-eye view of a country’s average student performance, or a state’s average student performance.

This allows us to look deeply and identify groups that might not be performing as well as we hope, or skill areas students aren’t grasping well.

And by the way, the answer to the bird question is option one.

– ref. The PISA world education test results are about to drop. Is Australia getting worse? – http://theconversation.com/the-pisa-world-education-test-results-are-about-to-drop-is-australia-getting-worse-127011

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hayley Henderson, Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University

In the 1990s, central Dandenong in Melbourne’s southeast was in decline. But, over the past decade and a half, this trend has been halted and in some areas reversed. Our research has identified key elements in this revitalisation, including strong roles for both public sector and non-government participants.

Importantly, the approach has delivered new opportunities for the culturally diverse local community.

Read more: Kebab urbanism: Melbourne’s ‘other’ cafe makes the city a more human place

At the time these efforts began, a shrinking manufacturing sector and poor urban planning decisions had drained vitality from the centre. New shopping malls and suburban estates enticed people to live and shop elsewhere. Public spaces were dilapidated. Many retail buildings were vacant.

Unsurprisingly, local population levels were stagnating. Affordable rents and a community with strong networks of support attracted some new residents, most from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. However, once settled, many people faced barriers to employment, training and adequate public facilities.

Who is behind the project?

The Victorian government and the City of Greater Dandenong were keen to reverse these trends. They wanted to reinstate the neighbourhood as Melbourne’s second-most-important urban centre. The state government funded the Revitalising Central Dandenong project from 2006.

Since then, and particularly since 2011, the process has also been propelled by local government action and the coordinated efforts of local leaders. They represent business, education, faith communities and social services. These interlinked activities across sectors have arguably been effective in kick-starting the project.

However, some important shortcomings have limited the potential for revitalisation. In particular, the benefits have not reached all of the community.

For example, many female migrants have not had access to suitable employment opportunities. Services are lacking for some marginalised community members, including asylum seekers.

Other concerns include persistent barriers to retail activation (including rising rents and parking costs), emergent threats of gentrification and a lack of major private investment in residential and office development.

Our research briefing explains our findings in detail, including some of these problems.

Read more: New creatives are remaking Canberra’s city centre, but at a social cost

What are the key elements that work?

1. A commitment to redistributive policy

A significant one-off Victorian government investment of A$290 million was the cornerstone of the project, and it has been carefully designed. Experienced professionals appointed to the government development agency, then known as VicUrban, crafted the program.

The early focus was on catalyst projects and the removal of roadblocks to the considered development to follow. These actions included:

• special zoning
• transferring planning powers to the state government
• acquiring about 150 sites for reconfiguration and development.

Given the entrenched decline, revitalisation was unlikely to occur without significant public commitment.

Following the state government’s energetic program start, the local government has taken the reins since 2011. The council gave priority to revitalising works in the centre (see the table of major project spending below) and to covering gaps in the original strategy. This included a housing strategy in response to emerging gentrification.

Because macro-policy in urban planning often fluctuates, local communities cannot depend on secure, long-term funding for discretionary renewal projects. To achieve revitalisation through redistribution, local government leadership is vital for maintaining focus on one area over others.

Refined skills in urban planning strategy and financial management have also been indispensable to the project.

2. Strong local networks

The public program was enhanced because community leaders already knew each other and were predisposed to work together. They ranged from education providers (such as Chisholm TAFE and Deakin University) and faith groups (such as Interfaith Network) to trade associations (such as South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance) and private sector groups (such as the Committee for Dandenong). These groups worked both together with and separately from the publicly funded program.

Active and organised local leaders provided vital input on strategy design, partnered or led delivery of specific initiatives and put their organisations to work on gaps in the program. They also powerfully advocated for governments to remain focused on revitalisation.

Overall, these strong local networks enabled smoother policy development and delivery. Having an organised and receptive community to engage with was important.

Our research underscores the value of acknowledging the effectiveness of existing local strategies and community capacities. It highlights the need to work collaboratively. This includes a focus on the “soft side” of practice – that is, building relationships.

Read more: Create to regenerate: cities tap into talent for urban renewal

3. A focus on pluralism

Enhanced opportunities have been created for many culturally and linguistically diverse communities. How so?

1. Policies generally support cultural pluralism, as diversity is accommodated and promoted.

2. Affordability across diverse housing types has been maintained. This supports social mixing between people and a place identity based on cultural diversity.

Diversity in housing types in Dandenong and Greater Melbourne

1. The well-curated mix of land uses in the centre brings in many people and activates public spaces. This approach supports safety, casual encounters and understanding between people.

1. We found some local services also provided opportunities for people to make lasting connections – for example, language courses run by churches and neighbourhood houses.

2. Many migrants took up local education, training and employment opportunities (with some important exceptions, especially female migrants).

Read more: When neighbourhoods become dangerous, look to local strengths for a lifeline

Our forthcoming analysis on Policy Forum further explains the ethic of cultural pluralism in policy and society.

Overall, urban centres cannot avoid fallout from broader economic restructuring, nor are they immune to poor strategic planning decisions or funding cuts that affect their prospects. Central Dandenong shows revitalisation can occur despite significant disadvantage. It has been achieved through a combination of public sector leadership and an interconnected and active local community.

– ref. Comeback city? Lessons from revitalising a diverse place like Dandenong – http://theconversation.com/comeback-city-lessons-from-revitalising-a-diverse-place-like-dandenong-126927

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Findlay, Honorary Professor of Economics, Australian National University

Productivity growth matters. In advanced economies over the past 15 years it has fallen by half.

Which is why it doesn’t make much sense to risk damaging one of the most important potential sources for future growth in productivity: the rollout of 5G.

5G is the next generation of wireless technology. Download speeds will be many times faster than what is possible under 4G.

And it’s not just speed. It’ll cut latency, which is the time it takes for signals to start travelling – something that will be critically important for the Internet of Things.

Forbes magazine

Nurtured well, 5G has the potential to become a “general-purpose technology”, analogous to electricity.

It holds open he possibility of creating new markets for goods and services that we can’t yet imagine.

The best suppliers of the gear required for 5G are in China, most notably Huawei, which has made the heaviest investments in the relevant technology but the problem is that Huawei caught up in security concerns.

Read more: What is a mobile network, anyway? This is 5G, boiled down

It has been banned from work on Australia’s national broadband network and from helping build Australia’s 5G networks.

In the US the president issued an executive order last May prohibiting transactions with providers subject to direction by foreign adversaries.

Britain has the matter under consideration, although there are signs it might allow Huawei in to some parts of the network.

Huawei is setting standards

Industry experts rank Huawei highly.

Its competitors are China’s ZTE, the Swedish multinational Ericsson, Korea’s Samsung and Finland’s Nokia.

There are none yet from the United States, although reports say Apple will release 5G phones next year.

But the main issues are in the 5G infrastructure where Huawei holds more of the critical patents than others. Globally, it appears to be winning the most contracts.

There is a risk that the rejection of Huawei by some will end up, in the longer term, dividing the world into zones committed to different standards, limiting interconnection.

Standard-setting bodies have expressed concern.

Different standards could constrain the development of global supply chains, pushing up prices. They could impede the scale of application and diffusion of new technologies, limiting what 5G is capable of achieving.

One estimate suggests that banning Huawei could push up costs 30%.

Huawei poses risks…

In announcing what amounted to bans on Huawei (and also China’s ZTE), the Australian government said 5G required a change in the way the networks operate compared to previous mobile technologies.

These changes will increase the potential for threats to our telecommunications networks, and these threats will increase over time as more services come online.

The government had found “no combination of technical security controls that sufficiently mitigate the risks”.

Vendors likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from foreign governments risked failure to adequately protect 5G networks from unauthorised access or interference.

Huawei said those security concerns could be managed, as do British cyber-security chiefs.

…which can be mitigated

Europe has noted the risks and is developing a risk mitigation strategy.

Southeast Asian economies are considering degrees of engagement with Huawei.

Worth continuing attention by Australia is what former US defence secretary Robert Gates calls the “small yard, high fence” approach.

It means defining exactly where the risks lie and intervening directly to manage them, something Europe is working on.

The US appeared to be struggling after Trump’s May order. The Commerce Department was given 150 days to come up with regulations to implement it. It released a draft only last week.

Read more: US ban on Huawei likely following Trump cybersecurity crackdown – and Australia is on board

There were reports of tension in the US between those who would take the risk-based approach and others who would simply keep Huawei on the banned provider list.

Commerce has, finally, proposed a case by case approach, and has not named any particular provider. But the Federal Communications Commission has banned Huawei from access to its universal services subsidies.

International cooperation could give us room to solve the problem. It could include cooperation with China. China and Australia share concerns about cybersecurity and could together in the same way as we do over other standards to facilitate trade.

Attempting to completely eliminate risk could lumber us with big costs. Some would be financial, others might come from stunting the next technological revolution.

– ref. Banning Huawei could cut off our nose to spite our face. Good 5G matters – http://theconversation.com/banning-huawei-could-cut-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face-good-5g-matters-125946

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, University of Melbourne

Review: Hugh Ramsay, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Hugh Ramsay’s Two girls in white, known for many years as The sisters, is one of my first memories of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I was intrigued by these women wearing fancy clothes, who were interesting rather than pretty.

Later I came to appreciate how Ramsay used obvious strokes of paint to imply texture, as well as the many different colours that were white. When I studied art history, I realised the painting was in part an homage to the virtuoso treatment of fabric by John Singer Sargent and the tonality of James McNeil Whistler.

However, the faces don’t fit the model of fashionable Edwardian portraiture. There is no flattery here. Their strong, raw features imply honesty and strength of character. Who were they, and why were they staring so intently?

The answer lies in the date, 1904, two years before Ramsay died of tuberculosis at the age of 28.

Two girls in white is a composite study of three of Ramsay’s sisters, looking at the brother who has been told that the decision to paint them will shorten his life. And those red flushed cheeks on one of the two? The figure on the right is a combination of the elegant Madge and Jessie, who nursed the acutely ill Ramsay when he returned from Paris. Jessie died four years later from the same illness. Rosy cheeks are one symptom of the disease.

The Ramsay exhibition is a visual record of the pathways leading to this work.

It opens with the rigorous but dull teachings of
Bernard Hall at Melbourne’s National Gallery School. Ramsay excelled in painting the precise backs of nudes so valued by his teacher, but he recognised the limitations of Hall’s pedagogy.

Instead, he sought the company of artists recently returned from Paris, befriending the older John Longstaff, who would become a lifelong mentor.

Ramsay’s father, who had brought the family from Scotland when the artist was a baby, objected to his career choice. He had some financial help from an older brother but the young artist raised most of his own money to travel to Paris. The cold and malnutrition he experienced as a result of poverty was one of the triggers for his final illness.

With the exception of some commissions, most of Ramsay’s subjects were his sisters, his friends, and himself. One advantage of such a limited repertoire is that it is easier to track how his art developed in Paris.

There is a liberation of paint, but a continuance of the muted palette first seen in Melbourne. He ventured into fashionable decorative symbolism, but for the most part he placed himself in the academic tradition of Velázquez, with a nod to Whistler and sometimes Sargent with his virtuoso frills and furbelows.

At NGA, a series of self-portraits dominates one wall, each giving subtly different approaches to tone, using his body as an element in the overall composition.

There is no figure in Interior of an artist’s studio, but this exquisite small study, balancing forms and shapes in tonal harmony, gives an idea of one direction his art may have taken if illness had not intervened.

Then there is the deliberately angular Jeanne, a Whistler inspired portrait of his concierge’s daughter. The muted tones of the thinly applied paint are lifted by the red bow in the little girl’s hair.

Australians in Paris looked out for each other. Ramsay’s friends included George and Amy Lambert, Ambrose Patterson and J. S. MacDonald.

The grandest of patrons was Patterson’s relative by marriage, Nellie Melba. The exhibition includes a small study for the grand portrait that Ramsay planned to paint of her. He travelled to London for the commission but just as his talents were being noticed, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Melba lent him money to return to Australia, where she hosted a solo exhibition at her house in Toorak. She continued her support him with commissions to paint a portrait of her ailing father and her niece, Nellie Patterson.

It seems Ramsay was determined to leave a legacy that would endure. After he was told painting would exacerbate his illness, Ramsay painted his largest work, An equestrian portrait, a study of his doctor’s son.

He painted portraits of his sisters, culminating in Two girls in white, which he completed in 1904. It is not his final painting. There was another, incomplete, self-portrait, focusing on his solemn face, looking at the underlying structure of his bones, painted just months before his death.

Ramsay was perhaps luckier in his afterlife than in his life. For well over a century, his family have worked to ensure his place in Australian art history. As well as donating many works to public collections, they have endowed the Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History.

If he were not such an outstanding artist this familial devotion to his memory would be awkward. As it is, the Ramsay family have done us all a service in keeping Ramsay’s name alive in the narrative of Australia’s art history.

Hugh Ramsay is showing at the National Gallery of Australia until March 2020

– ref. Hugh Ramsay review: a virtuoso of white on white who left the art world too soon – http://theconversation.com/hugh-ramsay-review-a-virtuoso-of-white-on-white-who-left-the-art-world-too-soon-126587