More than 12% of students with disability are being refused school enrolment, and over 40% are being excluded from school events and activities.
These are some of the findings from a survey published today by the national organisation Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA). More than 500 young people with disability, and families of students with disability, shared their experiences with the education system over the past year.
The system of both mainstream and segregated schooling is often claimed to be a result of parent choice. But families in the survey said students were denied enrolment for reasons including schools advising they lack the necessary resources.
These reports suggest illegal practices. Unless the situation is extreme, Australian education providers are legally obliged to accept all students, and provide “reasonable accommodations” and appropriate adjustments and support to facilitate access, participation and inclusion.
Under extreme circumstances, a case can be made the enrolment of a particular student will result in an “undue burden” or “unjustifiable hardship”.
A family member of a child aged 7-9 atttending a special school in rural WA said:
I applied to 36 schools in WA, have attended four, [of] which two have removed him and three would not meet his needs and assaulted him.
Another family member of a child aged 4-6 in a NSW regional, special school said:
Schools didn’t appear resourced or confident to accept borderline level 3 autism.
The majority of the families surveyed reported students were segregated or excluded some or all of the time. One in four students attended a segregated setting (a “special school”) all or some of the time. An additional 15.5% of students were educated in a segregated classroom (“special unit”) for some or all of the time.
These families came from all Australian states and territories, across metropolitan, regional, rural and remote locations. The students were aged 4 to 25.
A further 16.6% of students were only permitted to attend school part time, and 14.7% of students were suspended (1.8% expelled) this year.
Families reported a student with disability as young as 11 being suicidal. They also reported that student feedback often focused only on behaviour, not educational achievement.
The findings of enrolment refusal are consistent with previous Australian research which found a majority of families across all Australian states and territories reported experiencing gatekeeping and restrictive practices.
Restrictive practices
A recent analysis of student placement data in Australia and the United States found segregation in education was increasing in Australia, in contrast to international trends towards inclusive education.
Almost half of students in the CYDA survey were reported to have experienced restraint or seclusion, with nearly 12% reporting experiencing both. Physical restraint was the most common form of restraint reported.
Social (not allowing the child to participate in activities), mechanical and chemical were other types of restraint reported. Seclusion included supervised or unsupervised solitary confinement.
One family member of a child aged 7-9 in a mainstream QLD school said:
Initially the school tried to encourage […] me to have my son placed on Ritalin. But […] it is not required for my son’s condition and only works on children with ADHD, which my child does not have.
Another family member of a child aged 10-12 in a mainstream SA school said:
In the disability unit he was left in a room on his own and when he became agitated and broke a window they rang me and suspended him on two occasions. If I left him there any longer he would have been expelled.
The reports showed a culture of exclusion at schools. Around half of families reported experiences of student bullying. Nearly one-quarter disagreed they were made to feel welcome, and 18.2% disagreed the student was welcome at school.
More than half of families disagreed teachers and other staff had adequate education to enable them to provide “a supportive and enriching education environment for students with disability”.
The majority of families reported some support (79%) and specific funding (60%) was provided to support the student at school. But nearly half (48.9%) disagreed adequate support was provided.
The majority of families (57.2%) reported they had needed to pay for support themselves to enable access and participation.
Fundamentally, these issues stem from the ongoing option to exclude students from mainstream schools. This option is provided through the perpetuation of parallel systems of education, including “special schools”, in Australia.
Benefits of inclusive education
A report also out by CYDA today examined more than 400 research papers on the evidence base for inclusive education. The report findings align with the findings of the survey. Both demonstrate similar trends towards exclusion of students with disability as in the past.
The report’s analysis confirms inclusive education considerably benefits the academic, behavioural, social, communication, and physical development for students who experience disability.
These positive outcomes have been found regardless of disability label. They are positive including when students are labelled as having “severe” or “multiple and profound” disability.
There are often concerns raised that inclusive education may be detrimental to students without disability. But the research provides evidence inclusive education leads to increased and improved learning opportunities and experiences for students without disability.
Overall genuine inclusive education is more sensitive to differing student needs for all students.
Recalling his early days in television as a “best boy” on The Sullivans (1976-1983), Adelaide-based Richard Rees-Jones remembers a time when lighting departments were teams of just two. At Crawford Productions, two gaffer/best boy teams would work either in the studio, shooting videotape, or on location, shooting film.
Rees-Jones, now a sought-after gaffer of vast experience (Snowtown in 2011, Hotel Mumbai in 2018) whose son has grown up in the family business, explains the origins of the term:
The gaffer got his name from the long, hooked pole he carried, like a fisherman’s gaff. Early on, in the theatre, they used gaffs to adjust lights suspended from rigs above the stage.
Continuing the seafaring theme, Rees-Jones describes the best boy as “like the gaffer’s first mate”.
Agile and quick
When a gaffer needed help, Rees-Jones explains, he might say “send me your best boy”. Such a boy would need to be strong, agile, and quick; unafraid of heights, and accustomed to heavy work. He would have to work in cramped conditions with dangerous equipment, control crude lanterns, and be immediately responsive to instruction.
The role and its responsibilities grew with the advent of film, alongside fast developing technology. While not necessarily electricians, best boys require a detailed working knowledge of electricity, calling in qualified electricians as required. The skill set may extend further, to colour theory, the use of natural light, and divining the movement of clouds.
A best boy may be skilled in colour theory and divining the movement of clouds.www.shutterstock.com
By the time I, as a young actor, understood the role, best boys were multi-skilled, and indispensable. They drove heavy vehicles, carried 30 kilogram coils of cables without effort, and led other men in muscling into place lamps weighing twice as much. They could supervise or run generator trucks, and trim fiercely burning arc lamps that turned night into day. They murmured quietly into radios in a sovereign language that spoke of “brute-arcs”, “HMIs” and “Molebeams”.
At the end of a 12-hour day, they could pack four tonnes of equipment into trucks in 30 minutes. Such men were often rewarded with slabs of beer – wrap drinks – before their long drive to motel beds bereft of springs, the alarm before dawn, and the chance to do it all again.
Best men, sometimes women
While many go on to become gaffers or key grips, best boys can forge long careers in film and television.
Alan Dunstan’s career began on Storm Boy (1976) as an electrician. He was still working as a best boy on The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003). From Melbourne, Peter Moloney’s career spanned The Getting of Wisdom (1977), Muriel’s Wedding (1997), and The Secret Life of Us (2001). Sydney-based Grant Wilson’s credits reveal a start as technician on the miniatures unit of Moulin Rouge (2001); last year he was best boy on Ladies in Black (2018).
Best boys work in environments with clear hierarchies. This does not preclude women. Some sources refer to best girls but the term “best boy” may be used for both genders on set. Some women enter film via concert lighting. More recent and specialised technical roles may see more women in electrics; currently they are better represented in camera and other departments.
Not just muscle
On big budget films especially, large lighting crews require efficient management. When the gaffer appoints a best boy, it might not be because he is the most expert in a particular skill, but because he is an effective manager. The management function may even be divided, and two best boys appointed.
The result when set lighting is expertly planned and executed, on the set of TV series Hunters (2015) shot in Melbourne.Photo: Richard Rees-Jones, Author provided (No reuse)
The management function may even be divided, and two best boys appointed. The term best boy grip is frequently used.
Its wider use reflects its definition as a management term, rather than functions peculiar to one department or another, much as gaffer has come to mean boss (no pole required!) One on-set, as foreman of a team under the direction of the gaffer (but with licence to manage the team himself). The other, perhaps more suited to working alone, off-set, as personnel manager, secretary and administrator, managing maintenance schedules, time-sheets, materials orders, all from the back of the truck; liaising closely with the production office in response to schedule changes, location challenges, or the hire of additional hands. CUT
Best boys are alert to the balance of personalities, to the challenges of life on the road, and the physical demands of taxing work. Almost invisibly to other film crew, members of a lighting department might be spelled for an hour, given lighter duties, as the best boy ensures that the heavy lifting is shared.
A sweaty ballet
There is a point in the filmmaking process when the best boy’s role and personal qualities are most easily observed. Rehearsing film and television is a brief and structured process. Quiet is called. After an initial “line-run” between actors, a “block-through” determines their movement within the set or location.
Camera angles are discussed, agreed, and announced, whereupon the first assistant director declares “a lighting set”. At this point, actors are invited to relax (code for “get off the set, you’re in the way”). Now, the best boy marshals the lighting build, work that must be done quickly, but which cannot be rushed. It is a period of high activity, of the movement of unwieldy objects in confined spaces. It has often seemed to me vaguely balletic, if sweat, balance and lifts are measures.
The lighting set offers a brief window on film’s intersection between manufacturing and art, for with the best boy’s cry of “coming up!” switches are thrown, lights glow, and that window suddenly warms like Vermeer’s, or Hopper’s, or those of our childhood.
Conflict resolution is sometimes part of the best boy’s remit.
With LED lighting replacing older style lamps, film sets are much cooler places than they once were. But best boys have always been cool.
In my experience, the commonly recited answer to the question “why are you called the best boy?” has always been the same. With studied nonchalance, shrugging under the weight of something preposterously heavy, the best boy grins.
Our research shows not only do more students travel by car to private secondary schools in Australia, their car trips are almost twice as long as for government school students. As these trips are in peak hour, private schooling has a disproportionate impact on traffic congestion.
But what if, in weighing up the pros and cons of private schooling, and in calculating their economic costs versus benefits, we’ve all missed something rather important? Until now, no one has considered the impacts on city traffic.
We’re helping the Queensland government improve its main transport models for Brisbane and southeast Queensland. Experts use these models to assess the best policies and projects to try to save us from congestion and to provide access to the goods, jobs and services we all need in life.
What did the research find?
We are looking at how one might better model school travel. To do so we explored the latest data from the Queensland Household Travel Survey. The datasets include all the trips to school made by over 3,000 primary and secondary school children. These surveys do not report if the child went to a public or private school. But we used advanced computing methods to match the school trip destinations with a set of known public and private school locations in the South East Queensland region. This created the first set of public-versus-private school trips we know of.
We could then look at the share of trips made by walking, cycling, public transport and car. We were also able to report the distances travelled to the different school types.
At the primary school level, where fewer children attend private schools and the lower-cost Catholic school system plays a bigger role, the differences are modest. A slightly greater share of children are driven to private schools, but the average distance for those car trips is only around one kilometre more. It’s a problem, but one of similar scale to the unsustainable and unhealthy journeys made to public primary schools across Australia.
At secondary school level, where the non-Catholic independent schools have greater market share, only 1.5% more children are driven to private secondary schools (56.5% to 54.9%) and a few more drive themselves. But the car trips to those schools are almost twice as long as to the public schools.
The private secondary school children are travelling 7.8km each way, on average, to get to and from school. As this is school travel, it happens in the morning peak hour, the worst time for traffic congestion in our cities. Private secondary schooling appears to have a highly disproportionate impact.
The landscape of private schooling in southeast Queensland is problematic. Newer private schools have opened in odd locations on the edges of existing communities, or well beyond the suburban fringe. Even some of the older established GPS schools (the “elite” ones) are far from public transport. A few offer private buses, but many parents are left with little choice. They have to chauffeur their children.
Education departments probably don’t care. But if governments are focused on reducing congestion, which their transport departments all are, and if they are looking to reduce school-related congestion effects, then private secondary schools are the worst offenders.
We can’t just look to the transport departments to fix such problems. They’re not responsible for creating the unsustainable car-based schooling landscape they somehow must try to serve.
It should also worry us for the individuals involved. Car-based travel is far from optimal for children’s development.
Given road congestion costs in Australia are expected to exceed A$30 billion a year by 2030, we suggest the congestion costs of Australia’s private school funding model should be fully calculated, costed and included when we weigh up the costs and benefits. The Commonwealth has options should it wish to tighten up in other ways. This would include not financially supporting any new private schools located far from existing communities or good public transport services.
Democracy 2025 is an initiative by the Museum of Australian Democracy and the University of Canberra, which aims to stimulate a national conversation on the state of our democracy, including the trust divide between the political class and everyday citizens.
A just-released report by the project gives the perspective of federal politicians – key voices in the debate.
Members of the last federal parliament were surveyed on their attitudes to democracy, the faults they see in the present political system, and how they thought it could be improved. Some 43% of the parliamentarians replied to the survey, done shortly before the election.
Professor Mark Evans and Professor Gerry Stoker, two of the authors of the report, join Michelle Grattan on this podcast to discuss the findings, and share their thoughts on the future of Australian democracy.
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Tess Ryan, Project Officer- Building Cultural Capacity Project Learning and Teaching Centre, Australian Catholic University
In 2006, an African-American woman, Tarana Burke, started the #MeToo movement on social media, a call for victims of sexual violence and harassment to share their experiences.
Yet, 11 years later, when #MeToo became a global phenomenon after celebrities like Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan and others shared their own stories of sexual assault and harassment, Burke was left largely unacknowledged.
Women of colour the world over were angry but not surprised. The #MeToo movement is about power imbalance, after all, and women of colour are used to their voices being silenced.
In a forthcoming book on #MeToo and social change, I cite this example to demonstrate how the movement goes beyond violence and harassment for black women.
The extent of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia is harrowing. A 2018 report stated that Indigenous Australians are 3.4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted as non-Indigenous Australians.
So for many black women, the #MeToo movement requires a larger discussion about power imbalances in society, the lack of representation of black woman in leadership positions and the denial in mainstream society to accept black bodies.
This is necessary to fully understand why we have never consented to various forms of oppressive power, and why #MeToo is more than just person-to-person abuse.
Colonial legacy of oppression
Indigenous women have been pushing back against oppression and power since colonisation.
Around the world, colonisers sought to destroy Indigenous populations through oppressive government control, political violence and false representations of First Nations peoples as being promiscuous, lazy, untrustworthy savages.
This long history also included demonising, sexualising and fetishising black bodies. We were to be controlled or eradicated, but not before the coloniser had their taste of smooth “Black Velvet”.
Black women who have experienced the trauma of sexual violence and harassment know all too well where the seeds of this oppression began. When you are at the hands of someone who exoticises the black body while simultaneously demeaning its worth, you are trapped in a cycle of abuse that began with colonisation and has never left.
In modern-day society, black people continue to be viewed by governments and those in positions of power as disposable commodities. In Australia, this interplay frequently feels similar to an abusive and controlling relationship.
The government has consistently worked to undermine Indigenous people’s experiences through policy constraints and a refusal to recognise our unique culture and knowledge system. And in taking action without consultation, the government denies Indigenous peoples the right of reply and consent.
The recent protests by the DjabWarrung people trying to save sacred trees from being bulldozed to build a road in Victoria illustrates the nature of this relationship.
The DjabWarrung women were not asked how they felt about the government’s action and its cultural impact on their community. They did not give consent.
Power, leadership and underrepresentation
The lack of representation of black women in high-level positions in government, business and society is also missing in this conversation. Black women are rarely shown to be leading.
In 2017, the cover story in Business Chicks magazine featured various women working to tackle discrimination in Australia, including journalist Tracey Spicer. Spicer had just started the NOW campaign aimed at ending sexual harassment in the workplace – an Australian response to the #MeToo movement.
But the cover came under fire for its lack of diversity. No women of colour were represented as being on the front line in the battle against oppression.
If the representations we see of black women in Australia only focus on disadvantage and deficit – not success and excellence – how do we expect stereotypes to change? How do we shift the power imbalance?
As an Indigenous woman who has written specifically on leadership, I can attest that many black women are already acting behind the scenes in leadership roles.
The announcement of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, for instance, was undertaken by two Indigenous women, Pat Anderson and Megan Davis, who have fiercely campaigned to achieve constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.
Black women fight back
Responses from black women to #MeToo in both Australia and the US have demanded a deeper interrogation into the power dynamics and entrenched racial stereotypes that have contributed to this culture of sexual violence and harassment.
In Australia, there are numerous examples of this pushback occurring. In 2018, South African comedian Trevor Noah faced criticism after a YouTube clip surfaced of him saying he’d “never seen a beautiful Aborigine” and making sexual jokes about the didgeridoo.
Outraged Indigenous women said that as a man of colour himself, Noah should be familiar with how the black body is viewed by society. Academic Chelsea Bond and commentator Angelina Hurley, hosts of the radio show Wild Black Women, interviewed Noah and explained why the joke was inappropriate.
In this country, white men have long joked about their entitlements upon sexual violence towards Aboriginal women … There’s really offensive terms that are still used in this country that Aboriginal women are not necessarily desirable or attractive, but they are good for something else and that is all.
The ways in which Indigenous women called out this behaviour are important to the broader conversations around #MeToo. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, our fight goes deeper into the roots of colonial power to which we have never consented.
Research across many years and many cultures has found around 35-40% of people say they feel insecure in their adult relationships. While 60-65% experience secure, loving and satisfying relationships.
How secure or insecure we are with our romantic partners depends, in part, on how we bonded with our parents at a young age. From the day we were born we turned to our parents (or guardians) for love, comfort and security, especially in times of distress. For this reason we call them “attachment figures”.
When our attachment figures respond to our distress in ways that meet our needs, we feel comforted and supported, our distress is reduced, and we learn our attachment figures can be counted on in stressful times.
But if parents often respond to a child’s distress by downplaying their emotions, rejecting their pleas for help, or making the child feel foolish, the child will learn not to trust their attachment figures for help, and to suppress their worries and emotions and deal with them alone. These downplaying strategies are called “deactivating attachment strategies”.
For others, parents respond to a child’s distress by being inconsistent in the support they provide, or not providing the right kind of support. Perhaps they sometimes recognise their child’s distress; other times they don’t acknowledge the distress, or focus on how the distress made them feel rather than helping the child manage their feelings.
Or, some parents might provide support but it’s not what the child needs. For example, a child might need encouragement to deal with a challenge, but the parent tries to be sympathetic and agrees the child can’t deal with the challenge. Regular exposure to these kinds of parenting experiences means those children can experience excessive worry, especially when stressed, and go to a lot of effort to be very close to their attachment figures. These strategies of increasing worry and seeking excessive closeness are called “hyperactivating strategies”.
If a parent consistently ignores a child’s distress, the child will grow to learn they can’t trust their attachment figures to help them.from www.shutterstock.com
What are the attachment styles?
These strategies, along with people’s thoughts and feelings about relationships, form the basis of a person’s attachment style in adulthood.
Our own attachment style is the result of how we rate on two factors – attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Attachment anxiety ranges from low to high, with people high on attachment anxiety exhibiting a high need for approval, an intense desire to be physically and emotionally close to others (especially romantic partners), and difficulties containing their distress and emotions in relationships.
Attachment avoidance also ranges from low to high, with people high on attachment avoidance exhibiting a distrust of others, a discomfort being intimate and emotionally close to others, excessive self-reliance, and a tendency to suppress their worries and emotions.
People who rate low on both attachment anxiety and avoidance have a secure attachment. They’re trusting of others, comfortable with sharing emotions and being close to others, and tend not to downplay or exaggerate their distress. They also feel confident in problem-solving challenges and life stressors as well as turning to others for support.
Research suggests that although attachment styles can become harder to change as we age, life events and experiences that challenge our pre-existing beliefs about relationships can bring about changes in our attachment style.
Getting married and developing shared goals that reinforce a love and commitment towards another have been found to reduce attachment insecurity. But events that are viewed as threats to one’s relationship or the loss of connection (such as experiencing partner rejection) can increase attachment insecurity.
When love and commitment is reinforced, like through marriage, an insecure attachment style can shift over time to a secure attachment.from www.shutterstock.com
Unsurprisingly, those who have a secure attachment style tend to fare best in romantic relationships. They report the highest relationship satisfaction, tend to deal with conflicts by engaging in constructive behaviours, listen to their partner’s point of view, and do a good job of managing their emotions. These people also effectively support their partners both in times of distress and success.
When it comes to relationship initiation, these people tend to more confidently interact with potential partners. They also engage in an appropriate amount of disclosure about themselves. When they break up from a relationship, they tend to experience fewer negative emotions, engage in less partner-blaming, and are more likely to turn to people for support. They also demonstrate a greater willingness to accept the loss and start dating sooner than some insecurely attached people.
Those who experience attachment insecurity tend to report less relationship satisfaction. Those high on attachment anxiety tend to engage in conflict and do so in a destructive way that includes the use of criticism, blame, and trying to make the other feel guilty.
When they engage in support, they can be overhelpful and so the support can come across as smothering or overbearing. In terms of initiating relationships, these people can come across as very friendly and likeable but can over-disclose too early in the relationship and may try to pursue the relationship at a fast pace.
When it comes to break-ups, they can find it hard to let go, experience a high degree of distress, and try different tactics to get back with their partner.
Those high in attachment avoidance tend to avoid conflict by withdrawing from their partners, emotionally shutting down, and refusing to discuss issues when they arise. They also find it difficult to provide support, and if they are obliged to help their partner, they do so in a withdrawn and uninvolved way.
Those with secure attachments are likely to start dating again sooner.from www.shutterstock.com
In terms of initiating relationships, those high on attachment avoidance seem emotionally uninvolved and detached in the early stages of a relationship, and can try to present an over-inflated self-image.
In terms of relationship break-up, people high on avoidance tend to report experiencing low levels of distress and do not pursue former partners. If a break-up is to occur, they tend to go about it in a round-a-bout way to avoid openly saying they want the relationship to end, to avoid conflict and uncomfortable discussions.
The differences in the way securely and insecurely attached people behave in their relationships are most obvious in times of stress. Many studies have shown stress increases the risk of negative outcomes for insecure people: reductions in relationship satisfaction and increases in destructive conflict behaviours.
Increasing someone’s sense of security can be done in a variety of ways. One involves exposure to words or pictures that promote feelings of love, comfort and connection (such as showing people a picture of a mother holding a child, a couple embracing, or words such as “hug” and “love”). Another is to have them recall past events when a person comforted them.
Another line of research has investigated how partners can best support each other to either reduce or minimise attachment insecurity. Preliminary research suggests making people feel safe and boosting their self-confidence is a good strategy for those high in attachment anxiety.
For those high in attachment avoidance, not being as attacking and critical during conflicts or when dealing with emotional issues may be the best way.
Within the field of relationship counselling, a therapeutic approach called Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) has been developed to address the negative impact of attachment insecurity in romantic couples, and has been found to be effective.
EFCT focuses on disrupting cycles of negative interactions between partners and getting both members of the couple to deal with each other’s attachment fears and concerns such as rejection and abandonment. Couples then learn from a therapist how to communicate their attachment needs for love, comfort and security more effectively to one another.
The pursuit of secure and loving human connection is a real challenge for some, but positive future relationship experiences have the power to move people from a place of insecurity to one where love, acceptance, and comfort can be found.
In the past two decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the area of blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) plantations in southern Australia. In southwest Victoria alone, some additional 80,000 hectares of commercial blue gum have been planted.
This expansion has significantly increased the habitat available for koalas. In fact, my research, published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, has found there are more koalas in plantations than in surrounding native habitat.
More koalas may seem like a good thing, but perversely this could ultimately harm their welfare (and the welfare of other native animals and plants), and disrupt the plantation industry.
Blinky Bill had to leave his home after the trees were bulldozed.
Plantations
Koalas are protected in Victoria, so when plantation managers harvest the mature trees they must have a permit and a koala management plan. These plans focus on locating koalas, ensuring that the trees koalas are sitting in at harvest are not felled, and post-harvest surveys to find any injured koalas.
However, these plans don’t consider where the koalas go after the the plantation has been cut down, and what effects their movement has on the landscape and surrounding native vegetation.
A recently harvested blue gum plantation showing remnant trees left due to koalas.Author provided
To work out how factors such as plantation cover affect koala populations, my colleagues and I surveyed 72 sites across southwest Victoria. We found more koalas in plantations than in blocks of native vegetation or in native roadside vegetation.
We then spatially modelled koala numbers for the region, and found several high-priority areas for population management, as well as significant conservation habitat for koalas and other wildlife in the region that overlap with high koala population densities.
Our mapping predicted high koala numbers in the southeast, where there are important remnant bushland areas such as Kurtonitj Indigenous Protected Area and Mount Napier State Park. This highlights the importance of considering the overall landscape when establishing and harvesting plantations, and the arrangement of plantations near remnant forest.
Harvest rates in much of southwest Victoria are set to increase. This may result in increased koala numbers in the native vegetation surrounding harvested sites, which could then put pressure on food trees in remnant forests.
Local landholders are already seeing the effect of more koalas on native vegetation. Many trees on private land or beside roads are being stripped of leaves.
Canopy defoliation of remnant trees due to increased numbers of koalas in south-west Victoria.Author provided
More koalas are also likely to mean more injuries or other welfare issues. As plantations have a responsibility to avoid these, koala injuries could threaten the future of one of the main industries in this region. More than 4,000 people are directly employed in the regional forestry industry, with a further 4,500 in associated service industries.
To meet this challenge, we argue management plans need to consider the larger landscape. What native forest is near a plantation? Where are the koalas likely to go after the harvest? How might they affect other native species?
A female koala being released in Bessiebelle, south-west Victoria, after undergoing a health check.Esther Wong, Author provided
Such plans could include some areas of plantations set aside for koala habitat, harvesting plans that consider adjacent habitat that koalas may move into, or increasing areas of native food trees. These would all benefit other wildlife in the area, as well as koalas.
Currently, there is something of a negative feedback loop in southwest Victoria. When plantations are established koalas move in and reproduce. When plantations are later harvested, the koalas move into surrounding areas. As a result, populations can rapidly increase in some areas, affecting native trees and creating welfare issues for the forest industry.
We have seen the devastating effects high density koala populations can have on native forests in places like Cape Otway, which saw mass starvation and widespread forest death in 2013 and 2014. Current state regulations could disrupt the forestry industry, especially with koala numbers increasing in plantations but with no plan to really manage koala numbers in southwest Victoria in sight.
When we think about animals storing food, the image that usually comes to mind is a squirrel busily hiding nuts for the winter.
We don’t usually think of a small songbird taking down an enormous invertebrate, tearing it into pieces and hiding these titbits in the branches of trees to snack on later in the day. But this is also a form of caching behaviour, where food is handled and stored for later consumption.
For caching animals, the ability to recall where food is hidden is crucial for survival. My research into the spatial memory performance of a caching songbird, the New Zealand robin (Petroica longipes), shows male birds with superior memory abilities also have better breeding success.
Male toutouwai with better spacial memory also raise more chicks.Supplied, CC BY-ND
Why memory matters
There’s no argument that New Zealand is home to a host of unusual birds, including the nocturnal, flightless parrot kākāpō (Strigops habroptila), or the hihi (Notiomystis cincta), the only bird in the world known to mate face to face.
By outward appearances, the small, grey toutouwai (Māori name for P. longipes) is not particularly remarkable. But its noteworthy behaviour includes feasting on some of the world’s largest invertebrates. There is only so much of a 30cm earthworm a 30g bird can eat, and rather than waste the leftovers, toutouwai will cache any surplus prey they don’t want to eat immediately.
Toutouwai are the only known caching species in New Zealand.
For selection to act on a trait, there must be individual variation that is passed onto offspring and that influences survival and reproduction. While researchers had looked at how spatial memory influences winter survival in caching mountain chickadees, no one had examined whether memory performance influences reproductive success in any caching species. Our research tackles this issue.
We measured the spatial memory performance of 63 wild toutouwai during winter. We gave the birds a circular puzzle that had a mealworm treat hidden inside one of eight compartments. For each bird, we put the puzzle at the same location in their territory several times in a single day, with the food always hidden in the same spot.
Wild toutouwai looking for a hidden mealworm treat.SOURCE
Over time, toutouwai learned the location of the hidden treat and began opening fewer compartments to find the mealworm. We then followed these same birds through the next breeding season and looked at whether their spatial memory performance (measured as the number of compartments they had to open to find the mealworm) was linked to their ability to feed chicks, and whether it influenced the survival of their offspring.
Our results suggested that spatial memory performance influences reproductive success in toutouwai. Males with more accurate memory performance successfully raised more offspring per nest and fed larger prey to chicks.
By contrast, we did not find the same patterns for females. This is the first evidence that spatial memory is linked to reproductive fitness in a food caching species.
If there is such a great benefit for males in having an accurate recall of locations, why aren’t all males the best they can possibly be in terms of spatial memory performance? In other words, why didn’t all the male toutouwai we tested ace our memory task?
Intriguingly, our results suggest a role for conflict between the sexes in maintaining variation in cognitive ability. We found no effect of memory performance on female reproductive success, suggesting that the cognitive abilities that influence reproductive behaviour may well differ for females.
Such a difference between the sexes would ultimately constrain the effect of selection on male spatial memory, preventing strong directional selection from giving rise to uniformly exceptional memory in our toutouwai population.
Our work produced some tantalising evidence for both the causes and consequences of variation in cognitive ability, but it also raises several more questions. For example, while we’ve shown that memory performance matters for males, we still need to examine how it influences caching behaviour.
Another mystery that remains is why spatial memory ability may have less of an influence on female toutouwai fitness. One possibility is that longer-term spatial memory for specific locations (rather than the short-term memory we measured) may matter more for female reproduction, because females do all of the nest building and incubation.
So far, we’ve only provided one piece of the puzzle. To get the full picture of how cognition evolves, we have many more avenues left to explore.
A plan to provide homeless people with overnight beds and shelter in car parks might sound like a good idea but it does little to solve their problem in the long term.
There are other proven ways we can help those sleeping rough to break out of the homelessness cycle. And Australia certainly has the wealth to back such schemes.
That’s why it’s important to treat homeless and roofless people as more than charity cases.
The charity Beddown started a two-week trial with Secure Parking to invite people sleeping rough to spend the night on inflatable mattresses in a car park in Brisbane’s CBD. It hopes to run similar trials in Melbourne and Sydney.
Some of the creators of these charities even receive prestigious national awards.
How to really end homelessness
Instead of pop-up beds in car parks and mobile laundries and showers, which all start with the best of intentions, as a society we can and should immediately end homelessness for people sleeping rough.
This is not utopian nor is it unrealistic. We have rigorous evidence, based on research with programs in Australia’s capital and regional cities, that demonstrate we can permanently end homelessness for people on the streets and those who have experienced chronic homelessness.
The results show between 80% and 90% of people who are supported to exit rough sleeping through Housing First programs sustain their housing for at least 12 months.
Three things are critical.
The first is assertive street outreach that systematically works to identify and support people to get off the streets. Some models consist of clinicians working in street outreach teams to help overcome the health barriers to people exiting the streets.
Second is the accessibility and availability of long-term and affordable housing. People need to access housing as a tenant, not as a client of a conditional program. The availability of housing is essential to ensure assertive outreach is able to offer people what they need.
Third is a flexible model of integrated social support and health care for people after they are housed. The ongoing support needs to be driven by the tenant, not mandated, and available for as long as required.
Action saves money
When we do not change our systems and practices to enable people sleeping rough to access housing, we waste money responding to the consequences of our failed policy decisions.
Australian research using government administrative data showed an average annual saving to government services of A$13,100 per person for ending their homelessness with permanent supportive housing.
When people are housed they use less criminal justice and health services than when living on the streets.
Given the evidence and technical knowledge we have for ending homelessness, it is important to consider whether charity models such as Beddown and others that offer temporary solutions run the risk of adverse unintended consequences.
The uncritical praise and celebration these endeavours attract can let governments off the hook for their responsibility to provide affordable housing to homeless people.
Credit Suisse says Australians have the highest median average wealth per adult in the world, ahead of Switzerland.
So we clearly have both the wealth and technical knowledge to end homelessness, particularly for the estimated 8,200 people the Australian Bureau of Statistics identified as sleeping rough on the 2016 Census night.
Providing mattresses in car parks may make volunteers and the public feel good, but we have to recognise that people who are homeless access this resource as charity recipients, who may feel inferior, especially when they cannot reciprocate.
If we don’t provide enough access to housing, one of the consequences is that people who are homeless become dependent on the goodwill of volunteers who provide bedding and washing facilities.
Rough sleepers need to be seen as people who require housing to enable them to control the conditions of their lives. Charities and their motivated volunteers are well positioned to innovate and push governments to do what they have otherwise been unwilling to do: create housing for all Australians.
“We should work to live, not live to work,” declared Britain’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell last month, as he announced the British Labour Party would reduce the standard working week to 32 hours, without loss of pay, within 10 years of winning office.
Skidelsky is a member of the House of Lords and a biographer of John Maynard Keynes, who in 1930 predicted a 15-hour working week would be possible within a few generations.
The report deals specifically with British conditions but presents an agenda with universal appeal.
It describes fewer work hours as a win-win – improving productivity for employers while giving employees what they want.
It says
People should have to work less for a living. Having to work less at what one needs to do, and more at what one wants to do, is good for material and spiritual well-being. Reducing working time – the time one has to work to keep ‘body and soul alive’ – is thus a valuable ethical objective.
Arguments for fewer working hours usually focus on the “economic” benefits, in the sense of resource allocation that maximises satisfaction.
But Skidelsky’s report says there is a more important reason: that it is ethically desirable.
Ethical desirability is not just a matter of costs and benefits. It is also a matter of justice and realising common goods (shared goods that require collective deliberation and action).
An insufficient argument
Reducing working hours will only promote those ends if accompanied by deeper social and cultural changes.
Skidelsky’s argument for the ethical desirability of working fewer hours is essentially this:
people are generally happier when spending time on what they want to do, rather than on what they have to do to earn an income
less time spent on work, and more free time, will thus promote happiness (or well-being)
promoting happiness (or well-being) is ethically desirable, so it is ethically desirable to reduce the number of hours a person has to work.
A variant of this argument – used, for example, by the Autonomy think tank in its proposal for a shorter working week – substitutes freedom for happiness.
On this view, less time spent on work (which is necessitated by an external reason – income) means more time to do what one wills.
Robert Skidelsky’s argument is based on people being happier when they spend time on what they want to do, not what they have to do.Shutterstock
From a philosophical point of view, neither argument is sufficient.
One problem is that reducing the amount of time spent in work doesn’t necessarily increase the amount of time available for doing what you want.
Work is not the only context in which action is subject to external constraints.
Much family life, for example, involves doing things that need to be done rather than want to be done.
Another problem is that ethical desirability is not just a matter of increasing the total amount of a good (such as happiness or freedom).
It also concerns the good’s distribution. An outcome must be not merely optimal but also just.
The issue of distribution
There is an argument shorter working hours are ethically compelling for precisely this reason: they correct an injustice arising from the unequal distribution of free time.
Studies, for example, show free time is unequally distributed between the sexes. Men enjoy a larger share of socially available free time, because women spend more time outside paid work on duties related to child rearing and care giving.
Working fewer hours might give women more free time. But it won’t of itself distribute free and unfree time more equally. To address the injustice in the unequal apportionment of free time, some equalising redistribution is needed.
It could be that men, given more free time, will do more non-autonomous activity in the domestic sphere. But that’s a presumption. If a man is putting his feet up on Saturday and Sunday, why expect something different if he also gets Friday off?
Something more fundamental than the amount of time needs to change.
So reducing working hours has benefits, but it does not address deeper problems of inequality in the activity of work itself. It does nothing to stop the production of harmful things, or things that go against the common good.
The ethically desirable goals of equality and the realisation of common goods require deeper social changes in the way work is done and what it is done for. Real progress lies in realising equality and common goods through work as much as gaining more time for non-work.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Mooney Taylor, Sessional Academic in Creative Writing and Literature, Swinburne University of Technology
Norman Lindsay’s novel for children, The Magic Pudding, turned 100 last year and was widely celebrated. But the Lindsay family’s auction of three previously unseen manuscripts could help us gain a greater understanding of his novels for adults.
The manuscripts were held by Lindsay’s family since his death in 1969, and they have never been seen, aside from a few close friends and members of Lindsay’s family who were trusted readers.
They were auctioned by Sydney Rare Books in June, and all three were purchased by the State Library of New South Wales for the Mitchell Library Rare Manuscripts Collection, which has significant Lindsay holdings.
Turning brittle pages
Lindsay published eleven works of fiction from 1913 to 1968, including Redheap, the first novel by an Australian-born writer to be banned for import into Australia in 1930 from English publisher Faber and Faber after it was declared obscene by authorities.
His writing generally focused on small groups of friends, schoolmates or families and their complex relationships. The struggle for independence from the dominating and restrictive family is a constant theme in his work. These threads also tie the newly emerged manuscripts together.
To a literary archival researcher, these manuscripts are golden and shining and magnificent. To the average reader, though, they are a bit on the scrappy side.
Lindsay sewed his manuscripts together with thread, and then bound the spine in leftover canvas scraps he had lying around his studio. These bindings still hold, but not securely.
As the pages turn, the age of the manuscripts can be felt in the brittle fold – rather than bend, of the paper. There are brown cigarette burns on some of the pages, notes and even the sketch of a female face on others.
Norman Lindsay with wife Rose, circa 1920. Photoraphed by Harold Cazneaux.State Library of NSW
Three novels
Previously unseen novel Uncle Ben shows Lindsay’s cheeky side.National Library of Australia
The three novels, Bungen Beach, Landfalls and Uncle Ben, were written between 1940 and Lindsay’s death in 1969. Bungen Beach, was refused for publication by Angus and Robertson. They took another of his novels, Dust or Polish? instead, and released it in 1950.
The novels are a thematic continuation of the issues Lindsay addressed in his earlier, published, works; the restrictions of domesticity on the intellectual and sexual development of adolescents, the importance of homosocial relationships, artistic freedom and the social restrictions of small-town life.
The bigger story these manuscripts tell is one of a writer, an artist, who couldn’t let his mind or hands rest, who needed to be creating constantly. He had themes of creative and intellectual, as well as sexual and social, freedom on his mind. From Landfalls:
‘Hanged if I believe that only getting food out of it, and making a joke of it, solves the problem of life,’ he said.
‘And what is the problem of life?’ asked Cardigan blandly.
‘Well, hang it, developing – expressing yourself somehow. I mean, if you have something to say – if you want to write, for instance. Hang it, even developing a faculty – medicine, for instance…’
This drive led him to write novels when the dusk fell and the light on his hilltop studio at Springwood was no longer conducive to painting.
Even though the narratives in two of these novels repeated many of the themes, and sometimes even the scenes, of novels he had written before, he was compelled to write them, to see if he could find a more effective form for his stories.
Bungen Beach follows two families living in a small community on the New South Wales coast, and the gradual sexual awakening of two women in those families, Vera and Norina.
This theme is one found in other Lindsay works, including Redheap, Pan in the Parlour, The Cousin from Fiji, and Miracles by Arrangement. Bungen Beach begins with two male escapees from the city, Archer and Pilbury, who add tension and humour to the narrative.
Landfalls, the novel dedicated to Lindsay’s biographer John Hetherington, returns to the town of Redheap to explore similar themes of sexual awakening, the ignominy of social and class restrictions, and the necessary escape from the home:
‘Well, they’re that high,’ said Elfie, which rewarded Ronald’s diplomacy with a smooth section of her midriff for investigation.
Instantly Mucker said ‘Let’s have a feel of high stomach’s on you, Trix,’ which abated Trixy’s primness to a squeal of ‘Ouch – that’s my real stomach.’
Fido passionately desired to approve himself an easy fellow on those terms, but his speechless adoration of Queenie could not bear to take liberties with her anatomy…
This novel is less cohesive than Bungen Beach or Uncle Ben, and the cast of characters sometimes feel outside the author’s control.
Scene of the crime
The return to Redheap as a setting is significant as it is the first time Lindsay returned to the fictional town after the novel of the same name was censored. Two of his other novels, Saturdee and Halfway to Anywhere, follow the same themes as Redheap and can be considered with it as a Bildungsroman trilogy – a literary coming-of-age genre – but their fictional township remains unnamed.
Lindsay felt the impact of the censorship keenly; he was worried he would be arrested and decided to leave the country, sending a telegram to The Daily Telegraph as his ship sailed:
Goodbye to the best country in the world, if it was not for the Wowsers.
The decision to revisit the fictionalised space that caused so much trauma would have been loaded with both emotion and rejuvenation.
Lindsay sets sail, circa 1930.National Library of Australia
Of the three novels, however, it is Uncle Ben that is the most polished and well-executed. It brings in new characters and themes as well as drawing on Lindsay’s expertise in ships (he made models of them) and mining (his hometown of Creswick was a gold-mining town).
Seated on the slips of the boat shed, he and Ben smoked their dark plug tobacco while they recalled remembered ship’s runs, of which old sailors have the phenominal [sic] memory that a cruder faculty in the world of sport transfers to the pedigrees and performances of racehorses. But the record of a ship’s run is not merely a dry entry in her log, but a testimony to her lines, her masting and sailing plan, and the skill of those who handled her, vindicating a tradition in sea craft from Odysseus to Captain Walgett of the Cutty Sark.
The character of Uncle Ben, a wanderer and adventurer who returns to his family home following a mining accident, is richly drawn and complex, as well as having Lindsay’s signature humour and cheek. In one scene, Uncle Ben collects all the leftover food on the dining room table onto his plate, covers it in tomato sauce, and eats it noisily and joyously, to the discomfort of his snobbish nephews and nieces.
These new novels, each bringing their own clues from Lindsay’s rich imagination and unique perspective, add depth and understanding to research and study of Lindsay’s creative output.
University of Canberra Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher and Michelle Grattan discuss the fallout from Pauline Hanson’s deal with the agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie regarding the dairy code. They also talk about John Setka’s resignation from the Labor Party, and what that means for opposition leader Anthony Albanese.
Barely six months after Facebook announced its own digital currency, a plan heralded as the beginning of the end for central banks and government controls over the money supply, the whole thing is looking like a house of cards.
The project, named Libra, was taken seriously in part because it had the support of major players in global electronic payments, including Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Stripe. But now they are dropping like flies.
Two weeks ago Paypal pulled out, followed by Visa, Mastercard and Stripe, as well as eBay, Mercado Pago (Latin America’s most popular e-commerce platform) and Booking Holdings (owner of travel booking websites including booking.com).
They appear to be spooked by the scrutiny Facebook’s operations are attracting from regulators around the world.
Backlash
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defends the Libre before the US Congress on Thursday.MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA
European leaders are threatening to do all they can to thwart the Libra plan.
France’s minister for the economy, Bruno Le Maire, said his government would not allow a private company “to have the same monetary power as sovereign states” and would join with Italy and Germany “to show clearly that Libra is unwelcome in Europe”.
Does it mean Libra is dead on arrival?
Not necessarily. The companies backing away from it might change tack again. Visa, for example, has said its door is still open to Libra.
Others have signalled the same.
What it does means is that governments wanting to mitigate the threat from platforms such as Libra are probably going to have to do more.
The stage is set for central banks seeking to pull the rug from under Libra by issuing their own digital currencies.
What’s got governments worried
Right now, unless you use a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, any transaction you make involves a central-bank-issued currency. It doesn’t matter if you never touch cash. Even if you pay for everything electronically, it involves technical transfers of government-backed cash, overseen by banks.
Libra’s plan would have made it possible to buy (and sell) things without ever using a national currency.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies showed this was possible, but they lacked the stability of government-backed currencies – their value fluctuated enormously.
Libra promised to overcome that by being a “stablecoin”. It’d be pretty steady. That’s what made people take notice of it, and made governments concerned. If it caught on, governments could lose control of money. They might lose revenue from consumption taxes. They’d find it harder to fight crime.
The initial enthusiasm for Libra, both from key players in the electronic transactions and the public, shows there is demand for something that cuts out the middlemen. If Libra fails, that threat won’t vanish. It will simply be postponed.
So governments are now considering developing their own central bank issued digital currencies. In the United States two members of the US House of Representatives (one a Republican, the other a Democrat) have written to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell to press the issue:
We are concerned that the primacy of the US Dollar could be in long-term jeopardy from wide adoption of digital fiat [government created] currencies. Internationally, the Bank for International Settlements conducted a study that found that over 40 countries around the world have currently developed or are looking into developing a digital currency.
How would a central bank-issued digital currency differ from the electronic money we use now every time we transfer something from one bank to another?
It would be issued directly to the public and would not be linked to paper money at all. Transactions with it would not need to involve a bank. But the supply of it would be in the hands of governments. They’d get in first.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fabien B. Vincent, Research Fellow; Rheumatology Research Group, Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, Monash University
Arthritis is a broad term to describe inflammation of the joints which become swollen and painful. There are many different kinds. Osteoarthritis, the most common, is caused by wear and tear.
This is followed by rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition where the person’s immune system mistakenly attacks and damages its own joints and other organs.
Rheumatoid arthritis is relatively common, affecting around one in 100 people, including young people and even children.
Researchers do not fully know what causes rheumatoid arthritis, but suspect certain genes may trigger it when combined with environmental and lifestyle factors such as smoking or infections.
How does it feel?
People commonly experience joint pain, but it is particularly bad in the mornings and when they rest. Joints in the hands, feet, wrists, elbows, knees and ankles may be stiff for hours at a time. But unlike osteoarthritis, the pain can actually get better with movement.
If the inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis is not controlled, people experience joint pain, stiffness, fatigue and can almost feel like they have the flu.
The inflammation can lead to damage to the bones and cartilage (cushion) in joints causing deformity and disability. This can affect work, and social and family life.
In 18% to 41% of patients, the condition can cause inflammation in other parts of the body, such as the lungs (this may cause a condition called interstitial lung disease) and the blood vessels (leading to a condition called vasculitis).
People with severe rheumatoid arthritis also have an increased risk of developing lymphoma, a type of cancer of the lymphatic system, which helps rid the body of toxic waste.
How is it diagnosed?
When a GP suspects someone has rheumatoid arthritis, the patient is referred to a rheumatologist for a detailed physical examination focusing on joint pain, tenderness, swelling and stiffness.
The person may also have an x-ray of the affected joints (if the symptoms have been present for more than three months) to look for signs of cartilage thinning and bone erosion (small bites out of the bone).
Ultrasound and MRI are less useful for diagnosis, but can sometimes be used to monitor the condition.
How is it treated?
While there is no cure for rheumatoid arthritis, medicines can effectively control the condition and stop visible signs of damage.
With good treatment, it’s now very rare to see deformed joints or people in wheel chairs.
Treatments should start as early as possible and will vary according to how active and severe the condition is. Some people need only a small amount of medicine whereas others will try many different medicines, sometimes in combination.
Because the immune system is overactive and mistaken in its target, the treatment approach is to dampen the immune response.
Initial treatment may include a low dose of steroids called prednisolone, as well as an immune-suppressing drug such as methotrexate or leflunomide, to control the inflammation.
If the condition is not controlled by these drugs, then other medicines, mostly injections, called “biological” drugs, can be added. These mimic substances naturally produced by the body and block specific substances in the immune system. Very recently, some newer tablets have been approved for rheumatoid arthritis.
Pain management may also be needed with medicines like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen.
Inflamed, swollen joints can also periodically be treated by local joint injection of steroids.
If the first line treatments aren’t providing relief, others are progressively added.Hriana/Shutterstock
People with rheumatoid arthritis will also greatly benefit from physiotherapy and occupational therapy. They will learn exercises to maintain joint flexibility, as well as alternative ways to perform daily tasks that may be difficult or painful.
But the fatigue is very difficult to treat. Gentle graduated exercise programs, a good healthy diet, understanding of the condition and its treatment, as well as psychological support, can help with fatigue.
Most people with rheumatoid arthritis can no longer be distinguished from people without the condition and live full and active lives. However, for a small percentage of unlucky patients who have aggressive disease or cannot tolerate any of the medicines, the course can be more difficult.
In the varied responses to the ABC’s report into the fate of ex-racehorses, the consensus was that something should be done. Many have called for racehorse slaughter to be banned outright.
This reaction differed significantly from that to footage of the mistreatment of livestock. Cattle and sheep are equally sentient as horses, yet exposés of livestock cruelty don’t lead to calls to ban their slaughter altogether.
And despite industry and government condemnation of activists who obtain covert footage of livestock abuse, few people have criticised those who filmed horses being mistreated and killed.
These responses reveal a double standard, and suggest we care more about what racehorses mean to us than what’s necessarily best for the animal.
A race at Geelong Cup Day this month.Michael Dodge/AAP
The assumption underpinning such arguments is that because racehorses provide a “service” to their owners, punters and the industry – including winning substantial prize money – we have a moral duty to protect them from slaughter.
This is a human-centred bias. It views racehorses through a prism of their value to us: what they mean to us and how they make us feel, rather than on what they mean to themselves as sentient creatures with their own needs and wants.
A truly horse-centred bias would prioritise finding homes that meet their mental and behavioural needs. This may involve allowing them to behave naturally without having to serve as competition or riding horses. It might also mean killing an ex-racehorse humanely if a good home cannot be found.
A jockey celebrates after riding a horse to victory at the Geelong Cup this month. Some have suggested that we owe a moral duty to prize-winning horses to keep them from being slaughtered.Michael Dodge/AAP
Not all racehorses will have a good retirement
Just because a horse has been spared slaughter does not guarantee it will have a good quality of life. Inexperienced owners, inadequate diets, bad training practices, economic hardship and drought can all lead to poor welfare outcomes for ex-racehorses. For example, research shows that full-time stabling prevents a horse from grazing and moving, which can lead to health issues.
Industry actions to increase re-homing rates are commendable – especially if efforts are made to ensure new owners have the appropriate skills and finances. But the sheer number of racehorses retiring each year and their longevity – 25 years or more – means it’s unlikely all thoroughbreds needing a home will find one, even on industry retirement properties.
Abattoirs and knackeries will probably always be dealing with unwanted racehorses. So it is crucial the transport and slaughter of horses is conducted according to best practice.
Horse slaughter done humanely
Horses are at risk of poor welfare during transport and processing. They are easily frightened and can bolt, buck, rear or freeze when scared. This can lead to injury in confined spaces at the abattoir, slippery concrete floors or transport vehicles.
Horses confined in small spaces with unfamiliar horses become highly stressed and aggressive, often leading to injury. Horses sent for slaughter may suffer from untreated injuries making them vulnerable to further welfare insults in transit or at the plant.
A stablehand tends to a horse ahead of Sydney’s Everest race this month. Horses stabled for long periods can develop health problems.Dean Lewins/AAAP
Transport is a significant stressor and welfare risk. Voluntary guidelines in the Land Transport of Animals welfare standard should be mandatory. The code should be updated to ban group penning during long-distance transport and mandate partitions between horses as is practised in the European Union.
Rules should be enforced to ensure horses that are lame, injured, emaciated or heavily pregnant are not transported long distances. This would reduce the risk of horses arriving in poor condition, or dying en route as depicted in the ABC report.
Real time monitoring via CCTV as now occurs in the UK should be immediately implemented.
Welfare standards at all horse-slaughter facilities should be best-practice and informed by science. They should be enforced with the same vigour as food safety regulations, including random audits by independent inspectors. And the use of electric prods on horses should be banned.
Creating a culture of respect for animal welfare amongst abattoir workers can be challenging due to the nature of the work, which results in the normalisation of callous attitudes and animal mistreatment. Researchers have explored how to achieve worker compliance and attitude change about animal welfare and their findings should inform training programs.
A horse at Moonee Valley Racecourse in Melbourne this month.VINCE CALIGIURI/AAP
Where to now?
Banning the slaughter of thoroughbreds could expose unwanted horses to prolonged neglect or mistreatment if their owners can’t keep or rehome them. It would also do nothing for the welfare of other horse breeds that could still legally be slaughtered.
If good homes can’t be found for all racehorses, it is up to society, which has given horse racing its social licence to operate, to ensure they are given a good death.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History Deputy Head of School, The University of Queensland
Orpheus and Eurydice, directed by Yaron Lifschitz, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
The story of Orpheus’ descent into the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice has fascinated people for centuries.
Plato wasn’t a fan. He thought Orpheus took the easy way out. He reasoned if Orpheus really wanted to be with Eurydice, he should have just killed himself and joined her in death forever. Descending into the underworld, so he could recover his wife and still enjoy an earthly existence, showed only half-hearted devotion. He saw it as a case of Orpheus wanting to have his cake and eat it too.
It was the Roman poet Ovid who made this tale into the romantic story we know today. In his version, the god of love refuses to let Orpheus reconcile himself to the death of his wife and inspires him to make the journey to the underworld. Orpheus charms the rulers of the underworld and their attendant Furies with his passionate song. They weep tears for his loss, and allow him to take Eurydice back into the sunlight.
The only proviso was the famous interdiction: Orpheus must never look back as he undertakes the treacherous climb to the mortal realm. Despite this warning, overcome by his passion and fearful he might lose his beloved, Orpheus makes the fatal mistake of turning to look at his wife. In doing so he loses her for eternity.
On many levels, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice doesn’t make sense. Why throw away at the last minute everything you’ve struggled so hard to get? The composer Offenbach memorably thought the story fundamentally absurd and lampooned it in his comic opera Orpheus in the Underworld, an opera best known these days for giving us the music of the can-can.
This is a radical reinterpretation of the myth and the opera.Jade Ferguson/Opera Queensland
Offenbach’s is just one of dozens of operas based on the Greek myth. But the most enduring is by 18th century composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.
An exploration of tragedy
Underpinned by Ovid’s version of the story, Gluck’s opera is on now in Brisbane in a radical reinvention by Opera Queensland and Circa. It is raw, physical, and confronting.
Gluck is famous for adding a happy ending to Ovid’s tale. In his opera, the goddess of Love is so moved by Orpheus’ despair at his double loss she violates the laws of Hell and reunites him with Eurydice at the end.
This production resists such moments of unadulterated joy. This version is interested in exploring the tragedy implicit in this story. Is this myth about the power of love or the triumph of death? This production argues it is both.
The opera may be called Orpheus and Eurydice, but this opera is no two-hander. The dramatic centre of the opera is the figure of Orpheus, played with intense vulnerability, passion and desperation by British countertenor, Owen Willetts.
This concentrated focus on the figure of Orpheus is reinforced in this production by the decision to set the opera in a stark, bare asylum. At times, there is nothing on stage but white walls and Orpheus’ anguish.
This production sets the story in a bare, white-walled asylum.Jade Ferguson/Opera Queensland
Orpheus’ descent into Hell is envisaged as a descent into madness. Staging the opera as a form of psychodrama permits a clever casting move in allowing Circa artistic director Yaron Lifschitz to combine the roles of Love and Eurydice. This creates a much more substantial female role that serves to balance Orpheus. The twin roles are sung by a highly assured Natalie Christie Peluso.
Orpheus and Eurydice is not an opera traditionally associated with powerful physicality, so the decision to pair opera singers with circus performers is an interesting one. On the whole it is a successful partnership, but at times the novelty of the acrobatics threatens to draw attention away from the singing and the drama.
It is hard to lament for the death of Eurydice when you also want to applaud the triple somersault you’ve just caught out of the corner of your eye. The vibrant athleticism of the circus performers also has a tendency to show up the chorus. As they roll, tumble, leapfrog, and pirouette on stage, the circus troupe makes the largely static chorus look decidedly flat-footed.
Yet, as the opera progresses, the value of the collaboration begins to show itself. Watching Orpheus and Eurydice physically clamber up the bodies of the acrobats and stumble as they take each precarious step – balancing on shoulders, heads and outstretched arms – powerfully evokes the physical demands of descending into the underworld.
The final act of a ‘twin triumph of love and death is a remarkable piece of performance.’Jade Ferguson/Opera Queensland
The final act in which chorus, principals and circus performers combine to stage the twin triumph of love and death, is a remarkable piece of performance. Completely captivating and deeply moving.
Lifschitz and his production team should be applauded for attempting to take this story seriously. In situating this opera between the opposing poles of love and death, they have produced a cerebral drama that invites us to reflect on what it means to be mortal.
We all know our memories get worse as time goes on – your recollection of what you did yesterday is probably a lot better than for the same day three years ago.
And yet we often have moments where old and seemingly forgotten memories pop back into mind. Perhaps you have visited your childhood home, walked into your old bedroom, and been hit with a wave of nostalgia. What triggers this rush of memories, and how can you suddenly remember things you may not have thought about for decades?
Researchers are realising that the context in which memories are created is crucially important in remembering them later. This idea is known as “contextual-binding theory”, and it boils down to three components: context learning, context change, and memory search.
Let’s start with learning. It is well established that learning in the brain happens by a process of association. If A and B occur together, they become associated. Contextual-binding theory goes a step further: A and B are associated not just with one other, but also with the context in which they occurred.
What is context? It’s not just your physical location – it’s a mental state that also comprises the thoughts, emotions, and other mental activity you’re experiencing at a given moment. Even as you read this page, changes in your thoughts and mental activity are causing your mental context to change.
As a consequence, each memory is associated with different states of context. However, some context states will be similar to each other – perhaps because they share the same location, or mood, or have some other factor in common.
This similarity between contexts is important when it comes to retrieving memories. Your brain’s memory search process is rather like a Google search, in that you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for if your search terms closely match the source content. During memory search, your current mental context is your set of search terms. In any given situation, your brain is rapidly rifling through your memories for ones that most closely resemble your current state of context.
Simple but deep
These mechanisms are simple, but the implications are profound. According to the theory, you’re most likely to remember memories from contexts that are similar to the context you’re in now. Because your mental context is always changing, your mental context will be most similar to recently experienced memories. This explains why it’s harder to remember older events.
But, of course, older memories aren’t permanently forgotten. If you can change your context to resemble those from seemingly long-forgotten memories, you should be able to remember them. This is why those old memories come flooding back when you step into your childhood bedroom or walk past your old school.
The happiest days of your life, right?Giedre Vaitekuna/Shutterstock
Context-dependent memory was confirmed by an ingenious 1975 experiment in which divers memorised lists of words and were then tested both on land and underwater. On land, their recall was best for the words they had learned on land, whereas underwater they were better at remembering the word lists they learned underwater.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to physical locations. You may have noticed that when you’re sad about something, you tend to remember other sad events from your life. This is because your mood and emotions also comprise your mental context. Experiments have confirmed that memory is enhanced when your current mood matches the mood in which you learned the information.
More than a century’s worth of studies have confirmed we are also better at remembering things if we experience them at different times, rather than repeatedly in quick session. This is one of the main reasons why, when preparing for exams, a regular study routine is more effective than cramming.
According to the theory, rapidly repeated material is associated with a single state of context, whereas material repeated across different times and events is associated with several different states of context. This pays off later, when you’re sitting in the exam hall desperately trying to recall the chemical formula for potassium permanganate, because your current state of context will be more likely to match one of the many states of context in which you so diligently did your chemistry revision.
A competing theory, known as systems consolidation theory, instead proposes that memories are initially stored in the hippocampus but are gradually transferred and strengthened in other brain regions over time.
However, contextual-binding theory can also potentially explain this benefit. Resting immediately after learning, as opposed to carrying on shovelling facts into your brain, means fewer memories share the same context, making them easier to distinguish when you revisit that context later.
This also explains why rest is also beneficial before learning, as well as after. And it underpins the tried and tested advice for hardworking students everywhere: don’t forget to get lots of sleep!
Since before the 2019 election, the Morrison government has been keen to introduce a new scheme that would allow government agencies, telecos and banks to use facial recognition technology to collect and share images of people across the country.
While there are some benefits to such a system – making it easier to identify the victims of natural disasters, for example – it has been heavily criticised by human rights groups as an attempt to introduce mass surveillance to Australia and an egregious breach of individual privacy.
The plan hit a roadblock when the government-controlled Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) handed down an extensive report calling for significant changes to the legislation to ensure stronger privacy protections and other safeguards against misuse.
The identity-matching bills aim to set up a national database of images captured through facial recognition technology and other pieces of information used to identify people, such as driver’s licenses, passports, visa photos. This information could then be shared between government agencies, and in some cases, private organisations like telcos and banks, provided certain legal criteria are met.
The proposed database follows an agreement reached by the Commonwealth and the states and territories in 2017 to facilitate the “secure, automated and accountable” exchange of identity information to help combat identity crime and promote community safety.
Critical to this agreement was that the system include “robust privacy safeguards” to guard against misuse.
The agreement gave the federal government the green light to introduce laws to set up the identity-matching system.
Access to the service could potentially encompass a wide range of purposes. For example, a government agency could use the system to identify people thought to be involved in identity fraud or considered threats to national security.
But the bill also includes more pedestrian uses, such as in cases of “community safety” or “road safety”.
The proposed laws contain some safeguards against misuse, including criminal sanctions when an “entrusted person” discloses information for an unauthorised purpose. In addition, access by banks or other companies and local councils can only occur with the consent of the person seeking to have their identity verified.
However, much of the detail about precisely who can access the system and what limits apply is not set out in the bills. This will be determined through government regulation or subsequent intergovernmental agreements.
Concerns about scope and safeguards
The Coalition government’s bills were first introduced in 2018, but didn’t come up for a vote. After the government reintroduced the bills in July, the PJCIS launched an inquiry and invited public submissions.
Legal bodies have argued that amendments are needed to tighten the boundaries of who can access the identity-matching services and for what purposes. They note that as currently drafted, the proposed laws give too much discretionary power to government officials and actually create opportunities for identity theft.
This is particularly problematic when coupled with the potential for the rapid spread of facial recognition technology in Australian streets, parks and transport hubs.
The Human Rights Law Centre said the proposed system is “more draconian” than the one launched in the UK. Another concern is that it could be used by a wide range of agencies to confirm the identity of any Australian with government-approved documentation (such as a passport or driver’s license), regardless of whether they are suspected of a crime.
The Australian Human Rights Commission also pointed to research suggesting the software used to capture or match facial imagery could result in higher error rates for women and people from certain ethnic groups.
What’s next for the bills?
When handing down the committee’s unanimous report, Andrew Hastie said the broad objectives of the identity-matching system were sound, but key changes were needed to ensure privacy protections and transparency.
The states and territories also have an interest in ensuring a national identity-matching scheme gets the balance right when it comes to addressing identity crime and assisting law enforcement and protecting individual privacy.
The question is whether these calls for improvements will be loud enough to put these bills back on the drawing board.
The future of the legislation will tell us something important about the strength of human rights protections in Australia, which rely heavily on parliamentary bodies like the PJCIS to help raise the alarm when it comes to rights-infringing laws.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
by Patricio Zamorano From Washington DC
The media had to double down through a constant barrage of violent photos and videos arriving through social networks so that especially non-Chileans, who are accustomed to the mythical image of a stable and exemplary country, could internalize and believe the spectacle of fire and blood on their screens.
The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, realized a feat impossible to imagine after almost 30 years since the return of democracy: provoke street clashes between Chilean youth, who were not raised during the dictatorship, and military troops, while enforcing a curfew, a state of emergency, and the suspension of some constitutional guarantees. These measures create a ghostly continuum of the dictatorship embedded in the Chilean collective psyche.
Destruction of Metro stations in Santiago: The fare increase was the drop that caused an overflow of the frustration held back during the 30 years of post-dictatorship (Photo-credit: Luciano Candia. Instagram: @lcn_fotos)
The outcome thus far will go down in history: as of October 23rd, the official count is 16 deaths (5 of them by military and police forces), 226 wounded and 1,692 detained.[1] In addition to the human cost, more than 70 metro stations were damaged, with 20 set on fire, and some trains destroyed. A large amount of public and private infrastructure has also been destroyed.
Of course, the analysis by apologists for the government, that this was all a surprise, is meant for foreign consumption. Last weekend Chileans knew all too well what was coming. The population of the country has been subjected to state violence for decades. The images of these past days are the same ones seen during the painful protests of the ‘80s, when the country seethed from the poverty and desperation produced by the political and economic repression of the Pinochet dictatorship. The images recall the state repression inflicted against secondary school students 10 years ago during the so called “Penguin Revolution” (“penguin” is a nickname for students, based on the colors of school uniforms), when children were attacked by police dogs. And the images also remind us of the legal coercive methods such as the violence of the anti-terrorist law applied to the Mapuches in southern Chile.
The president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, realized a feat impossible to imagine after almost 30 years since the return of democracy: provoke street clashes between Chilean youth, who were not raised during the dictatorship, and military troops, while enforcing a curfew, a state of emergency, and the suspension of some constitutional guarantees.
The Chilean police, called “carabineros,” have always been a repressive force, adding to the other repressive institutions that have converted Chile into a great pressure cooker. The government struggles to maintain a made-up face before the international community. Far from creating a narrative of reconciliation in response to social upheaval, the government uses the idea of “war” against an “internal enemy.”[2] Pinochet used this painful metaphor to justify the violation of human rights of Chileans and provide a moral basis for soldiers to exercise repression directly against their compatriots.
Reliving the social trauma: Chilean soldiers once again in the streets as security and to impose a curfew. (Photo-credit: Luciano Candia. Instagram: @lcn_fotos)
One has to remember that despite the advances of the social agenda since the end of the dictatorship, Pinochet managed to implant neoliberal privatizations that still impact the daily lives of 17 million Chileans. He privatized education and created an underfinanced public sector that compromises the well being of millions of children, condemning them to substandard technical-professional training that leaves them ill-prepared to compete with the sons and daughters of the national elite. He privatized health care making it into a totally regressive system, creating constant desperation for the nation’s majority who must either use the public system — slow, bureaucratic, and of poor quality — or pay for private care. He also privatized pensions, which regressively provides benefits according to the level of one’s lifetime income and personal savings, favoring the privileged.
Social trauma generated by the economic and political model
All of these privatizations have been creating a social trauma that one can breath in on each visit to Chile. It is a feeling of permanent institutional harassment by economic pressures and by the news media. The Chilean soul has been converted into an expression of permanent frustration.
Salaries are at pauper levels. A study by the Sol Foundation shows that 70% of Chileans earn less than $700 dollars per month, and 50% earn less than $500 dollars, little more than the minimum wage.[3] The lives of middle class Chileans are plagued by chronic debt, with millions of people trying to attain a quality of life similar to that projected by the media of those living in higher income neighborhoods.
Chronic debt and generalized depression
Approximately half of the 9 million Chilean workers[4] are in debt.[5] A June 2017 study showed that 31% of those in debt have a financial burden greater than 40% of their income, and 22% of debtors have a financial burden greater than 50%. Also, 43% of debtors have monthly income less than 500,000 pesos, equivalent to a little less than $700 according to present exchange rates.[6] It is simply impossible to make ends meet with peace of mind.
The barricades multiply throughout the country. The scene in the city of Valparaiso. (Photo-credit: Loyka Manuelle. Instagram: @a.loyka)
A 2014 international study places Chile in second place in Latin America for credit card debt per capita.[7] Under these conditions, the possibility of saving or spending on leisure are very difficult.
This situation has repercussions for mental health in the country. Chile has one of the highest rates of depression in the world, afflicting more than 18% of the population. And this is a problem affecting mostly the poor in Chile. Mariane Krause, psychologist and director of the Instituto Milenio de Depresión y Personalidad, points out that high income sectors have an 8% rate of depression, while the poor reach a rate of 25%. This is to say, shockingly, that one of every four persons living in poverty suffers from depression in Chile.[8]
The reasons for the social debacle of recent days leaves no room for doubt. The extraordinarily high rate of chronic stress may even be under-represented considering the limited access to mental health services in a privatized system.
Transportation: a sensitive topic
The topic of the cost of riding the metro as well as other public transportation is not merely symbolic or just a matter of an increase of a few cents by decree. One needs to study the details. To figure out the real cost, note that a worker spends on a daily basis between $3 and $6 dollars combined on public transportation, depending on the distance between home and work, and the number of trips taken, for work or other daily activities (picking up children from school, errands, emergencies, shopping, etc.). This is between $60 and $120 per month. About 50% of workers earn less than 500,000 pesos, a little less than $700 per month. If a father or mother are the only breadwinners, and there is a son or daughter that needs paid transportation, for example, to attend university or take care of some business or go out to eat some night . . . the picture emerges of constant financial pressure on millions of families.
Let’s compare this to a city like Washington, DC. A young worker with some experience can aspire to a salary of $4,000 per month. The metro in DC is expensive and in one day can cost about $10 for two trips or $200 per month. Yet that cost does not come to even 5% of monthly salary of the worker in Washington.
Not everything was violence. Here scenes of peaceful demonstrations. (Photo-credit: Luiseduardo Arturo Quijada Mejias. Instagram: @gualloo)
Chile: the same recipe as Ecuador and Argentina
This system of institutional violence is based on the impunity of the elite. As Professor Javier Ruiz Tagle of the Universidad Católica points out, the extent of sacking of public funds revealed by prosecutions of large Chilean corporations has exceeded $4 billion over the last few years.[9] This includes tax evasion, price fixing, and illegal monopolies, all of which involve large business groups, including that of Piñera himself.
The social explosion under the government of Piñera is not isolated from the international context. In Ecuador, the government of Lenin Moreno has reversed the social policies of his progressive predecessor, Rafael Correa. Moreno, for example, decreed a tax amnesty for the bank system and other large corporations that have not paid taxes for decades. This loss in State revenue comes to more than $4 billion.[10] Lenin Moreno transferred this debt of the private finance sector to the Ecuadorian people, along with the elimination of gas subsidies. This blow to the population was felt immediately only a few days ago, especially among the indigenous peoples. More than 500 were wounded and several killed. This was a crude reminder of the instability suffered by Ecuador for decades and the cost of the structural adjustment package and conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The approval rating of Lenin Moreno has fallen to as little as 20%, one of the worst on the continent.[11]
A parallel situation has occurred in Argentina. The fiscal and monetary policies of President Macri have dismantled almost entirely the subsidies and social programs of the former progressive government.[12] Macri eliminated subsidies for public transportation, water, natural gas, and electric services, provoking a 500% rise in the cost of the latter.[13] The looting and despair could not wait.[14] Just this past month, an enormous demonstration demanded measures that would stave off hunger among the population.[15] The IMF is also behind these fiscal policies of austerity in social spending, despite the fact that the banking system brought in $170 billion in profits in 2018, 120% more than the 2017 figure.[16] What is the result of these social policies? The poverty rate in Argentina exceeds 30%,[17] childhood poverty is at 50%, and one in six children experiences hunger.[18]
Chile’s regressive tax system: economic violence
In Chile, the neoliberal economic model, has been perpetuated by all presidents (including the socialists Lagos and Bachelet) since the Pinochet dictatorship without any significant structural changes The taxation feature of this model places excessive weight on citizens and a minimal burden on companies. More than 40% of the tax collection in Chile comes from VAT (sales tax for products and services). The burden falls on citizens, not companies. This regressive and unfair situation disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. People with higher incomes only represent 9% of tax revenue[19]. Companies in Chile also have great advantages when filing taxes that, in some cases, allow them to pay as little as 0%[20] . Companies in the mining sector, one of the most important sources of revenue for the country, have also greatly benefited. According to a study by economist Eduardo Titelman, between 2004 and 2009, the state stopped receiving more than $10 billion due to special dispensations offered to mining companies, privileges that few Chileans have[21] .
Everything leads to inequality. According to a 2019 ECLAC report, the richest 1% of Chile hold 26% of the nation’s wealth[22] . And Chile ranks seventh among the most unequal countries on the planet, as reported by the World Bank in 2018[23] .
More than 40% of the tax collection in Chile comes from VAT (sales tax for products and services). The burden falls on citizens, not companies. This regressive and unfair situation disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. People with higher incomes only represent 9% of tax revenue
The economic model then, is based on a regressive tax policy that exacerbates inequality. The system is so rooted in the Chilean socio-political culture, that there are no institutional mechanisms in place to transform this model of economic violence into one that is more equitable and fair. The electoral route, in that sense, has been totally incapable of bringing about a change that benefits the whole country. Street mobilization and violence appears, then, as the only way out, the cry of despair in the face of the chronic stress of daily life. And as we have seen, other governments in the region, also faced with the lack of substantive tools to respond to these crises, are also resorting to extraordinary measures such as, in the case of Piñera, using curfews, military troops, the state of emergency or the anti-terrorism law.
Youth face water cannon of the Carabinero police. (Photo-credit: Luciano Candia. Instagram: @lcn_fotos)
A fury fueled by 30 years and the recipe for change
As in the cases of Argentina and Ecuador, both governed by right-wing presidents, Piñera impacted a basic service of critical importance to the population, by increasing the price of the Metro ticket and the public transportation system of Transantiago. Although the increase was only a few cents, it precipitated the people’s fury against “30 years of state violence”, as the popular slogans on the streets say. Piñera and the powerful financial sector he represents are incapable of providing a solution to the Chilean problem. Chileans gain nothing by appealing to Piñera for a lasting solution; it would be tantamount to shooting themselves in the foot.
The recipe is clear: the corporate groups ( Angelini’s, Luksic’s, Piñera’s and a long etcetera), must voluntarily cede part of their factual power and allow a real tax reform that floods the state coffers.
The privatization of the health system must be reversed immediately, and a universal insurance system must be created that covers all the needs of the population. That is, health care is a human right. It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel: it prevails in Canada, Europe, and even in embargoed Cuba.
The pension system must also be universal, although mixed variants should be allowed that provide the option of private pension accounts for those who can collect more as a fair reward for their previous income. But the state must guarantee a fair and substantial fund for every retiree in the country. All proceeds from the investment operations of these public funds must be returned to each citizen.
And the salary structure must be urgently reformed. The objective is to create income and consumption conditions that foster a strong domestic market, unlike the one now based on chronic indebtedness. The structure of consumption in Chile is based on the permanent debt of the middle and working classes, which is not only unsustainable but keeps the domestic market permanently depressed. The current equation exhausts the population by a constant sense of job insecurity, harming productivity, professional morale, and the quality of life of families. If large business groups want more commerce, more dynamism, more production, it is incomprehensible why they opt for the economic repression of millions of potential consumers. Simply put, there is conformity with the current profit levels, and even greater conformity with the submissive passivity suffered by millions of workers in the country.
Scenes of repression recall the worst of the state violence during the Pinochet dictatorship. (Photo-credit: Luciano Candia. Instagram: @lcn_fotos)
Economic freedom, only for the elite
The most important challenge is to produce a new mindset of the Chilean business elite. By supporting and financing the political and economic values of the Pinochet dictatorship, the holders of big Chilean capital opted for repressive and often lethal social control by the State, while pretending to advance the values of individual development and “freedom” championed by free market economists Milton Friedman and his followers. Non-intervention of the State in the economy is a myth. In reality, the State intervenes strongly to guarantee a permanent position of economic privilege of a specific sector of the population. The way in which this logic has been developed for more than four decades leaves no doubt. There is no interest in developing the productive potential of the Chilean people. There is a huge distrust in the population that is perceived by the ruling elites as a mass that must be controlled and rendered docile.
By supporting and financing the political and economic values of the Pinochet dictatorship, the holders of big Chilean capital opted for repressive and often lethal social control by the State, while pretending to advance the values of individual development and “freedom” championed by free market economists Milton Friedman and his followers.
Chile’s low quality and expensive private health system keeps them sick and indebted with the private hospital system. The educational system frustrates the vast majority of young people and keeps them under-employed and under-educated. They are locked in a stagnant and insufficient salary structure, which prevents the accumulation of capital and savings, and truncates the possibility of sufficiently financing leisure, spiritual and creative activities. The electoral system does not provide an avenue for profound structural changes. It does not matter if the governments are nominally socialist, social democratic or right-wing; oligarchic rights are maintained at the expense of civil society. The law and constitutional coercive measures are used to crush the expression of social protest, leaving the door open to the raw expression of violence.
The Chilean explosion this weekend is not a new phenomenon. It has always been present, latent, sometimes submerged, but ready to overflow the streets. The international community generally misconstrues Chilean reality, convinced by the mirage created by macroeconomic figures. Thus Santiago suffers, destroyed and rebuilt several times a year, in a cadence of rage that has already become a painful litany. The Chilean people, hardworking and persevering in a land full of natural calamities, political calamities and social calamities, got tired this October of 2019, of turning the other cheek.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
Foto-Reportaje | La furia de Chile tras el lente
Four young Chilean photographers lived the days of violence directly, documenting dramatic moments of social outbreak that still persist: a curfew, state of emergency, and the military on the streets in public security functions for the first time since the end of the dictatorship. More than a dozen dead, hundreds arrested and injured. COHA prepared a critical analysis on the meaning of the social crisis that Chile suffered this week of October, and also shares the photographic work of Luciano Candia, Loyka Manuelle, Luiseduardo Quijada and María Catalina Godoy.
Cuatro fotógrafos jóvenes chilenos vivieron la jornada de violencia directamente, documentando días de estallido social que aún persisten. Toque de queda, decreto de estado de emergencia, los militares en las calles por primera vez en funciones de seguridad pública desde el fin de la dictadura. Más de una decena de muertos, cientos de arrestados y heridos. COHA preparó un ensayo de análisis sobre el significado de la crisis social que sufrió Chile esta semana de octubre, y a continuación comparte el trabajo fotográfico de Luciano Candia, Loyka Manuelle, Luiseduardo Quijada y María Catalina Godoy.
[All images protected by copyright of their authors. Reproduction is not allowed without the author’s consent]
[Todas las imágenes protegidas por el derecho de autor de cada fotógrafo. Prohibido su uso sin autorización expresa del autor]
18 de octubre. El Sindicato de Trabajadores de Metro realiza un video expresando su opinión y postura respecto a las evasiones masivas ocurridas en las horas previas. Estación de metro La Moneda, Santiago.18 de octubre. Un joven rompe parte de la infraestructura de la estación de metro Los Héroes, en el contexto de la jornada de evasión masiva. Santiago.18 de octubre. Un joven es detenido por las Fuerzas Especiales en el contexto de la jornada de evasión masiva. Estación de metro Los Héroes, Santiago.18 de octubre. Dueño de un kiosko ubicado frente al Palacio de La Moneda observa cómo Carabineros hace uso de gases lacrimógenos para dispersar a la gente. Santiago18 de octubre. Manifestantes y transeúntes huyen luego de que Carabineros hiciera uso de gases lacrimógenos para dispersar a la gente fuera de la Torre Entel, Santiago20 de octubre. Militares custodian la estación de metro Universidad de Chile en el contexto de estado de emergencia decretado por el Presidente Sebastián Piñera. Santiago20 de octubre. Militares custodian la estación de metro Santa Ana en el contexto de estado de emergencia decretado por el Presidente Sebastián Piñera. Santiago.21 de octubre. Manifestantes empujan al carro lanza aguas para que abandone la manifestación que se desarrollaba entre Universidad Católica y Baquedano. Santiago.21 de octubre. Cientos de manifestantes se reúnen entre Plaza Italia y alrededores para expresar su disconformidad ante los acontecimientos desencadenados en los últimos días. Santiago21 de octubre. Funcionario de Fuerzas Especiales hace uso de su armamento para dispersar a los manifestantes. Plaza Italia, Santiago.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
By Wilma Salgado, PhD
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno has been cutting government spending since signing an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in February of this year. This policy has benefited multinational corporations, the banks, and in general, powerful economic groups at the expense of the middle and working classes, who are being pushed toward poverty and extreme poverty.
In the context of the IMF negotiations the administration issued a law ironically called “the Organic Law to Foster Productivity, Attract Investment, and Create Jobs, Stability, and a Balanced Budget,” which has been in force since August of 2018. The law brought neoliberalism back to the country by instituting a policy to reduce the budget deficit and national debt, which have now become the top priorities. The law contemplates the collection of interest, fines, and other charges for outstanding obligations with several government institutions: the Internal Revenue Service (SRI), decentralized autonomous governments, the Office of the Superintendent of Businesses, the Ecuadorian Institute of Credit for Education and Scholarships, state enterprises, and even the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS).
On the day that the Law entered into force the private sector owed the government US$4,291,200,00 (almost $4.3 billion)—for unpaid income tax alone—not counting interest. This figure is higher than the total credit granted by the IMF. The IMF loan is for $4.2 billion and will be paid in installments if the country is deemed to be complying with the IMF conditions.
The list of big winners from the new policy is topped by fossil fuel corporations: Andes Petróleum Ecuador LTD , which owed US$396.2 million, of which US$228.3 million would be forgiven; Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados, OCP, which owed US$347.7 million and would be forgiven US$194.4 million; Consorcio Petrolero Bloque 16, which owed US$141.6 million and would be forgiven US$78.7 million; AGIP OIL Ecuador, which owed US$96.1 million and would be forgiven US$61.5 million; Repsol Ecuador S.A. which owed US$93.7 million and would be forgiven US$52.2 million, just to name a few. A second tier of winners includes the offshore phone company OTECEL S.A., which owed US$78.4 million and was forgiven US$38.9 million; Exportadora Bananera Noboa S.A., that owed US$71.1 million and will be forgiven US$41.2 million. There are several private banks, including: Banco Pichincha that owed US$39.6 million and will be forgiven US$18.3 million; Banco de la Producción S.A. Produbanco, which owed US$29.3 million and will be forgiven US$14.9 million; Banco de Guayaquil which owed US$6.3 million and will be forgiven US$3.9 million. It bears mention that this list of beneficiaries only includes income tax debt. ODEBRECHT is also on the list, owing US$11.8 million of which US$4.5 million will be forgiven. And Mr. Alex Bravo, former manager of Petroecuador, who is known to still have accounts in offshore tax havens even though he is in prison, owes US$6.3 million and would be forgiven US$3.9 million. [1]We should also remember the acts of corruption associated with Odebrecht operations, for which Ecuadoran beneficiaries and accomplices have yet to stand trial. This stands in stark contrast with how this was handled in other countries, such as Peru.
The protests in Ecuador against the government of Lenin Moreno have left five dead and hundreds wounded and arrested. The photos in this article cover the large funeral procession of Inocencio Tucumbi, Indigenous leader assassinated during the confrontations between protesters and the police forces of the government. (Photo credit: Santiago Villacis)
Once these debts were collected, the SRI reported that US$1.25 billion[2] had been taken in. However, it did not explain what happened with the rest of the US$3 billion, which is twice the amount that the government estimates it will save from the fuel subsidies it eliminated as of October 1, 2019—US$1.3 billion[3].
The total amount of debt collected by other public entities included in the aforementioned law is not known, nor is there any information on how much the many tax exemptions included in the law cost the government. There has been an utter lack of transparency in both the approval of the law and its true scope.
The legislature passed this law without requesting even the basic information outlined above. It did so with the votes of Alianza País (the movement started by former President Rafael Correa, with only the votes of the Moreno supporters in the Assembly after the defection of all of Correa’s supporters), and with the Social Christian Party.
While the most powerful economic interests in the country have been enjoying debt reduction and tax exemptions, the current administration has been punishing the middle and working classes by cutting government spending under the agreement signed with the IMF.
IMF CONDITIONALITY IN MOU AND LETTER OF INTENT
The Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policy gives details about “the public policy program for the next three years,” which includes targets for reducing the fiscal deficit and national debt. These are much more drastic than the targets the IMF set for Argentina.
Target for reducing the debt to GDP ratio:
In Argentina debt was to be reduced to 55.8% of GDP over three years, that is by 2021;[4]
In Ecuador debt is to be reduced to 40% of GDP over three years, by 2022; in 2018 debt was close to 60% of GDP.[5]
Target for reducing the budget deficit:
In Argentina the primary fiscal deficit for 2018 was 2.7% of GDP, and the country was given two years to eliminate it, which meant a 1.35% reduction per year;
In Ecuador the primary fiscal deficit was estimated at 7% of GDP in 2018 (at the time of the IMF negotiations) and is to be eliminated over three years, which means a 2.3% reduction each year.
In order to reduce the debt burden and budget deficit, under its agreement with the IMF the government has been cutting spending by laying-off government workers, eliminating subsidies, and drastically cutting programs. Cumulative reductions since 2016 amount to 75%, from US$6,1 billion[6] in 2016 to US$773 million as of July 2019, which amounts to approximately US$1.5 billion in 2019.
The last package announced by President Moreno on October 1, 2019 included the elimination of gasoline and diesel subsidies, causing their prices to go up 24% for gasoline (from $1.85 to $2.30), while premium diesel went up 119% (from $1.037/gallon to $2.27/gallon)[7]. The government expects this measure to bring in additional funds of $1.3 billion/year.
In addition to the elimination of these fuel subsidies, the announced package includes a broad array of measures, including: new tariff reductions on raw materials and capital goods imports for the agricultural and industrial sectors; reduced import taxes on vehicles priced under US$32,000; elimination of advance payment of income taxes by companies; elimination of taxes on technology imports (cell phones, computers, and tablets); 50% tax cut on foreign exchange being used to import raw materials and capital goods; 20% cut in compensation for government employees; increase in the number of beneficiaries of the human development bonus; and loans at 4.99% interest under the Own Your Own Home plan—just to mention some of the bigger programs[8].
Elimination of the fuel subsidies is what is hitting the poor the hardest. Ecuadorians have already been impacted by a stagnant economy and competition from imported goods, especially from neighboring Colombia and Peru whose currencies have been devalued in recent months. The border provinces, particularly El Carchi on the border with Colombia, have been clamoring for government relief from a deep economic crisis, even resorting to ad hoc measures sometimes.
People’s reaction to the IMF austerity package was immediate, particularly in the organized social movements: transport workers, the indigenous movement, workers’ organizations, and social movements in general.
The IMF agreement also includes the following elements:
The transfer of profitable businesses from the Ecuadoran State to the private sector, resulting in decapitalization and the loss of future revenue, which harms public finances;
The opening of markets with Ecuador joining the Pacific Alliance, and the negotiation of free trade agreements with the United States and even with China;
Extensive labor reform to make employment and the labor market more precarious;
Tax reform to increase excise taxes that punish the most vulnerable sectors of society and make taxation even more regressive, instead of correcting it by increasing income taxes on the wealthy; and
Greater financial deregulation by eliminating taxes on foreign exchange leaving the country, which has allowed interest rates to reach their currently usurious levels. Interest rates are set by the monetary authority at almost 25% annually for loans to microenterprises, despite the fact that the economy is dollarized and there is no risk of inflation or devaluation. For every 1% of interest collected by the financial system, US$422 million is extracted from the economy as a whole, considering the balance of credit to the private sector as of July 31, 2019[9]. This means that with a 3% interest rate, banks extract $US1.266 billion, which is close to the US$1.3 billion that the government estimates the fuel subsidies cost. A 4% reduction in interest rates would be like injecting US$1.688 billion into the economy. Or a tax on the excessive fees charged by financial intermediaries could give the government more revenue than the US$1.3 billion it expects to save by eliminating the fuel subsidies.
Meanwhile, government spending on agricultural development in the first half of 2019 was a paltry US$53 million, or US$106 million annually—just a quarter of the US$422 million the financial system collects for every 1% of interest it charges customers. This is surprising given that the agricultural sector is such an important source of employment, accounting for 28.3% of jobs in the country.
Ecuador is in dire need of far-reaching financial reforms, including drastic cuts in interest rates—rates which everywhere else in the world go down when there is a need to stimulate the economy and boost production.
The policies the government has implemented under the IMF agreement have brought the economy to a standstill. The IMF itself predicts a 0.5% reduction in GDP this year[10]. Unemployment has continued to rise (only 37.9% of the economically active population has adequate employment[11], that is, with salaries above minimum wage and benefits, as of June 2019). The poverty rate has risen from 35.3% of the population in December 2014 (5.6 million poor people in a total population of 15.9 million), to 43.8%[12] in June 2019—that means 2 million more people have fallen into poverty, for a total of 7.6 million Ecuadorans living in poverty out of a total population of 17.3 million people.
The IMF policies are still geared toward serving the interests of creditor countries and toward reducing the national debt. The objectives are as follows:
Generate surpluses in the debtor countries and transfer them to the creditor countries through deficit reduction policies and by reducing the debt to GDP ratio at the expense of the middle and working classes;
Expand profitable business options for foreign capital and for national capital allied with foreign capital by privatizing profitable state enterprises and assets;
Expand export markets for the developed countries that are the IMF’s biggest contributors by opening markets while giving nothing in return, putting sectors and businesses that cannot compete with exports at risk of collapse. Many of these imports are highly subsidized or come from countries that have devalued their currency, while Ecuador’s economy is dollarized.
The policies adopted under IMF austerity packages do not resolve fiscal crises. Rather, they heighten them, forcing privatizations and the opening of the economy to foreign capital. Meanwhile, the structural problems in the intervened countries grow worse. The labor market becomes precarious, poverty and extreme poverty rise, there is a greater concentration of wealth, and the economy de-industrializes and reverts to raw materials. This encourages an intensification of mining and fossil fuel extraction—extractivism—with its multiple harmful impacts on the environment and a deterioration of the living conditions of the people living in countries where these policies are imposed.
In the case of Ecuador, the economic policies implemented by the government of Lenin Moreno are in perfect conformity with the IMF’s neoliberal recipe. This context explains the huge social mobilization this past week, especially of Indigenous groups and other sectors impacted by the elimination of gas and other energy subsidies and the government’s repressive response to the civil outcry. President Moreno’s approval rating has reached a historic low of 30%[13], and as this article goes to press, the political repression of the State security forces has resulted in egregious social costs, with five deaths[14], hundreds of wounded and almost five hundred persons arrested[15].
Wilma Salgado holds a Doctorate in Economics, is former Minister of Economic Affairs of Ecuador and an expert on fiscal affairs under various administrations.
Translated from the original Spanish version by Jill Clark-Gollub.
[1] “Trole 3. 50 beneficiario de la remisión tributaria: hacer más ricos a los más ricos”. Observatorio de la dolarización. En https://dolarizacion.ec/2018/06/21/trole-3-50-beneficiarios-de-la-remision-tributaria-hacer-mas-ricos-a-los-mas-ricos/ [2] “SRI recaudó más del doble de lo esperado por remisión tributaria”, Enero 15 del 2019. https://www.sri.gob.ec/web/guest/detalle-noticias?idnoticia=616&marquesina=1 [3] “Eliminación de subsidio a gasolina y diésel, entre medidas económicas del Gobierno de Ecuador”. 1 de octubre 2009. eluniverso.com [4] Salgado Tamayo Wilma. “Paquetazo para toda una vida” Ley orgánica para el fomento productivo. En Revista ECUADOR DEBATE NO. 104, Quito/Ecuador/Agosto 2018. [5] Carta del Ministro de Finanzas y la Gerente del Banco Central a la Directora Gerente del Fondo Monetario Internacional del 1 de marzo 2019 y Memorando de Políticas Económicas y Financieras. https://bit.ly/2YnejCi [6] Información Estadística Mensual del Banco Central del Ecuador, No. 2010, Agosto 2019, Cuadro 2.2.1 Operaciones del Presupuesto General del Estado, millones de dólares. [7] “El nuevo precio de las gasolinas extra y eco país es USD 2,39; el diésel 2 y Premium costará USD 2,30”, Diario El Comercio, 3 de octubre 2019, elcomercio.com [8] “Lenin Moreno anuncia 6 medidas económicas y 13 propuestas de reforma”, Diario El Comercio, 1 de octubre de 2019, elcomercio.com [9] Fuente: Información Estadística Mensual del Banco Central del Ecuador, No. 2010, Agosto 2019, Cuadro 1.1.2 Captaciones y crédito del panorama financiero por sectores, millones de dólares (al final del período). Crédito al sector privado, al 31 de Julio 2019, 42.216.4 millones de dólares. [10] “FMI prevé decrecimiento en Ecuador de 0.5% en 2019 y subida de 0.2% en 2020”, La República, 9 de abril 2019, larepublica.ec [11] Fuente: Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos, INEC, Boletín Técnico No. 03-2019-ENEMDU. ENCUESTA Nacional de Empleo, Desempleo y Subempleo (ENEMDU), Junio 20191, 4 Componentes del empleo. 1.4.1 Empleo adecuado [12] Acosta Alberto. “Ajuste del FMI: Cuentas sin cuadrar y una caja de pandora”. https://ecuadortoday.media/2019/08/19/ajuste [13] Cuesta: “Distintas encuestadoras demuestran que el Presidente tenía una aceptación del 70%, que ha caído al 30%”. http://www.ecuadorchequea.com/2018/10/02/lourdescuesta-encuestas-aceptacion-leninmoreno-ecuador/ [14] Las protestas contra Lenín Moreno en Ecuador dejan al menos cinco civiles muertos https://www.france24.com/es/20191010-ecuador-protestas-lenin-moreno-civiles-muertos [15] “Cifra de arrestados por protestas en Ecuador sube a 477 personas: ministra Interior” https://lta.reuters.com/articulo/ecuador-protestas-detenidos-idLTAKBN1WM1EJ-OUSLT
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton suggested earlier this week that DNA testing would be needed to verify Australian citizenship claims of ISIS brides trapped in Syria.
There are some people who may claim to be Australian citizens — we don’t know whether they are […] You would need DNA testing and you’d need other checks to be made.
But no DNA testing is going to determine if a person is a citizen. DNA testing can, in theory and in specific circumstances, determine who is related to whom. Yet, there would be so many legal and practical barriers to carrying it out under these circumstances, it’s unlikely Mr Dutton’s proposal would ever get off the ground.
While we don’t know the specifics, Mr Dutton is likely suggesting so-called ISIS brides have their DNA tested to determine parentage or who is closely related to them.
The most common technique is short tandem repeat or STR testing. This looks at parts of a person’s DNA, half of which is inherited from the mother, the other half from the father, at the moment that person was conceived. This DNA varies between people and is found in the nucleus of almost every cell in your body.
Broadly speaking, the more closely two people are related, the more of their STRs they share in common.
But STR tests are of limited value in determining distant family relationships; every “degree of separation” between two people reduces the amount of DNA they have in common by half.
So, in this case, it would be difficult to see how STR testing would give any useful information to connect someone in Syria with relatives much beyond siblings or parents in Australia. For example, two cousins may only have between one 16th and one quarter of their STRs in common, which is far from a convincing “match”.
Sometimes a lab may decide to look at someone’s mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, instead. This is only inherited from someone’s mother. This method is nowhere near as discriminating as STR testing, but can help identify maternal relatives.
In Australia, the scope of DNA testing in criminal investigations is tightly controlled by state and commonwealth legislation. Only STRs from certain convicted criminals can be stored on a database; other DNA samples (from victims, acquitted people) cannot be retained; and there are limitations on the covert collection of samples.
In civil matters, laboratories cannot test samples not provided voluntarily, unless under a court order. DNA information from these tests cannot be shared with police.
In both civil and criminal investigations, the collection of DNA samples (usually saliva or cheek cells) is strictly controlled by legislation to ensure the integrity of the sample.
So, what does this mean for Mr Dutton’s suggestion?
The following constraints make it difficult to envisage how Mr Dutton’s proposal could be implemented:
samples from the so-called ISIS brides in the Middle East would need to be collected by authorised personnel. But this government is resisting sending officials to that region for safety reasons
extensive paperwork would need to be designed, or modified from existing forms, to ensure the integrity of the samples and confirm the identity of the donor
samples would need to be quickly and securely transported to Australia
DNA samples are only useful if you have something to compare it to. How many (if any) of the “IS brides” have their DNA on a criminal database in Australia?
if there was no DNA in a criminal database, then close relatives (for instance parents, known siblings) would also need DNA testing. STR testing in these circumstances would provide valuable information of the relationship. However, legally these relatives cannot be compelled to cooperate, unless by court order. Which court would order them to do so, under what legislation?
mtDNA testing might may be of little value when large family groups are involved, for instance when testing large family groups either held in the Middle East or when comparing with large family groups in Australia
who will do this testing? Will the burden be placed on the already overworked state or federal government labs, or will private labs do the work?
How will this help?
Even if we were to overcome all these considerable hurdles, what then? How will a DNA test help repatriate the “right” ISIS brides and their families?
No DNA test is going to determine whether a person is a citizen or not. Australia does not collect DNA samples (or fingerprints) from its citizens, be they naturalised or born here. So what’s the point?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Bolleter, Deputy Director, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, University of Western Australia
Any moves to greatly increase the population of northern Australian by 2060 could have a devastating impact on the local environment without long-term careful planning by all tiers of government.
That’s the finding of research that looked at several scenarios to increase the population of the north to 5 million people.
That’s an extra 3.7 million people, or an almost four-fold increase in the current population of northern Australia.
But, given the potential impact of climate change on northern Australia, we could see population movement the other way as people in the north head south.
Northern exposure
The region of Australia above the Tropic of Capricorn covers an area of 3,500,000km² – about 45% of Australia’s landmass – yet it houses only 5% of its population.
Proponents of development envisage extreme population growth because of the region’s growing geopolitical importance.
It’s also described as the largest intact “savanna remaining on Earth […] with a rich biodiversity of international significance”.
Current federal government planning for northern Australia is in the Our North, Our Future white paper, released in 2015.
The report adopts a pro-development stance, seeing the north as a place of economic bounty and opportunity.
While it is mute on issues of settlement patterns, there are statements that allude to the government’s support for significant urbanisation:
We need to lay the foundations for rapid population growth and put the north on a trajectory to reach a population of four to five million by 2060.
The white paper also refers to “the development of major population centres of more than a million people”. Such cities would be around six times the size of the current largest northern city of Townsville, population about 180,000.
Three plans for growth
Given the existing city planning documents do not countenance the scale of population growth projected in the white paper, we developed three scenarios for how the federal government could distribute this northern Australian population of 5 million by 2060.
Economic and lifestyle factors concentrate the increased population in the four dominant northern cities of Darwin, Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. Each would have populations of more than a million by 2060.
This figure is in line with the Australian government’s vision of northern cities with “more than a million people”.
The fate of the north
Irrespective of the scenario, our findings show population growth will not be good for the local environment without any overarching long-term planning frameworks to steer urbanisation.
This is particularly the case for scenarios 1 and 3 where the required increase in urban area either outstrips, or is only just commensurate with, the availability of cleared land adjacent to Darwin, Cairns and Townsville.
As such, population growth at the scale proposed by the white paper could result in substantial destruction, degradation and fragmentation of peri-urban ecosystems – where urban meets rural – by urban development and expanding road networks.
Scenario 1: Growth for Darwin.Julian Bolleter, Author provided
In Darwin’s case, in Scenario 1 the additional 925km² of urbanisation required would sprawl south of the city in a corridor to as far as Humpty Doo (1) and down to Acacia Hills (2).
Scenario 1: Growth for Townsville.Julian Bolleter, Author provided
In Townsville, in Scenario 1 for growth, the additional 925km² of urbanisation would result in sprawling along the coast and around the existing centres of Giru (1) and Woodstock (2), and around Mount Surround (3).
While Townsville has 957km² of cleared land and theoretically could just accommodate this growth, it is likely to cause extensive damage to the local environment through land degradation and fragmentation by urban development.
Scenario 3: Concentrated Growth for Darwin.Julian Bolleter, Author provided
In Darwin, with Scenario 3 and concentrated growth, the urban expansion required for the city is 1,500km². This would dwarf the city’s 296km² of developable land and result in substantial clearing of remnant vegetation.
Proper planning required
Clearly then, if the scale of population growth envisaged in the white paper occurs without any comprehensive planning, the result will be harmful for the north.
To avoid this fate we need a bipartisan settlement strategy (most closely resembling Scenario 2) to steer the urbanisation of northern Australia.
Policymakers and planners should develop this strategy based on a comprehensive landscape analysis of northern Australia. If the scale of population growth envisaged in the white paper occurs without such planning, the result will be ruinous for one of the world’s last great wildernesses.
But the federal government should also decide whether a population of 5 million in the north is something we should aspire to at all.
If the worst climate change projections are borne out, we could end up with migration from cities such as Darwin to cities further south, even into the southern states.
We ask experts for advice all the time. A company might ask an economist for advice on how to motivate its employees. A government might ask what the effect of a policy reform will be.
To give the advice, experts often would like to draw on the results of an experiment. But they don’t always have relevant experimental evidence.
Collecting expert predictions about research results could be a powerful new tool to help improve science – and the advice scientists give.
Better science
In the past few decades, academic rigour and transparency, particularly in the social sciences, have greatly improved.
Yet, as Australia’s Chief Scientist Alan Finkel recently argued, there is still much to be done to minimise “bad science”.
He recommends changes to the way research is measured and funded. Another increasingly common approach is to conduct randomised controlled trials and pre-register studies to avoid bias in which results are reported.
Expert predictions can be yet another tool for making research stronger, as my co-authors Stefano DellaVigna, Devin Pope and I argue in a new article published in Science.
Why predictions?
The way we interpret research results depends on what we already believe. For example, if we saw a study claiming to show that smoking was healthy, we would probably be pretty sceptical.
If a result surprises experts, that fact itself is informative. It could suggest that something may have been wrong with the study design.
Or, if the study was well-designed and the finding replicated, we might think that result fundamentally changed our understanding of how the world works.
Yet currently researchers rarely collect information that would allow them to compare their results with what the research community believed beforehand. This makes it hard to interpret the novelty and importance of a result.
The academic publication process is also plagued by bias against publishing insignificant, or “null”, results.
The collection of advance forecasts of research results could combat this bias by making null results more interesting, as they may indicate a departure from accepted wisdom.
Changing minds
As well as directly improving the interpretation of research results, collecting advance forecasts can help us understand how people change their minds.
For example, my colleague Aidan Coville and I collected advance forecasts from policymakers to study what effect academic research results had on their beliefs. We found in general they were more receptive to “good news” than “bad news” and ignored uncertainties in results.
Forecasts can also inform us as to which potential studies could most improve policy decisions.
For example, suppose a research team has to pick one of ten interventions to study. For some of the interventions, we are pretty sure what a study would find, and a new study would be unlikely to change our minds. For others, we are less sure, but they are unlikely to be the best intervention.
If predictions were collected in advance, they could tell us which intervention to study to have the biggest policy impact.
Testing forecasts
In the long run, if expert forecasts can be shown to be fairly accurate, they could provide some support for policy decisions where rigorous studies can’t be conducted.
For example, Stefano DellaVigna and Devin Pope collected forecasts about how different incentives change the amount of effort people put into completing a task.
As you can see in the graph below, the forecasts were not perfect (a dot on the dashed diagonal line would represent a perfect match of forecast and result). But there does appear to be some correlation between the aggregated forecasts and the results.
Reproduced with permission from DellaVigna and Pope.
A central place for forecasts
To make the most of forecasts of research results, they should be collected systematically.
Over time, this would help us assess how accurate individual forecasters are, teach us how best to aggregate forecasts, and tell us which types of results tend to be well predicted.
We built a platform that researchers can use to collect forecasts about their experiments from researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and other important audiences. The beta website can be viewed here.
While we are focusing first on our own discipline – economics – we think such a tool should be broadly useful. We would encourage researchers in any academic field to consider collecting predictions of research results.
The Social Science Prediction Platform, https://socialscienceprediction.org/.
There are many potential uses for predictions of research results beyond those described here. Many other academics are also exploring this area, such as the Replication Markets and repliCATS projects that are part of a large research initiative on replication.
The multiple possible uses of research forecasts gives us confidence that a more rigorous and systematic treatment of prior beliefs can greatly improve the interpretation of research results and ultimately improve the way we do science.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roberta Ryan, Professor, UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance and UTS Centre for Local Government, University of Technology Sydney
As regional Australian towns face the prospect of running out of water, it’s time to ask why Australia does not make better use of recycled wastewater.
The technology to reliably and safely make clean, drinkable water from all sources, including sewage, has existed for at least a decade. Further, government policy has for a long time allowed for recycled water to ensure supply.
The greatest barrier to the widespread use of recycled wastewater is community acceptance. Research from around the world found the best way to overcome reluctance is to embrace education and rigorously ensure the highest quality water treatment.
In 2006 Toowoomba voted against introducing recycled water, despite extensive drought gripping the area.Allan Henderson/Flickr, CC BY
Why not use stormwater?
Many people are happy to use recycled stormwater, while being reluctant to cook, drink or wash with recycled household wastewater. But there are technical, cost and supply issues with relying on stormwater to meet our country’s water needs. Stormwater has to be cleaned before it is used, the supply can be irregular as it is reliant upon rain, and it has to be stored somewhere for use.
On the other hand, household wastewater (which is what goes into the sewerage system from sinks, toilets, washing machines and so on) is a more consistent supply, with 80% or more of household water leaving as wastewater.
Furthermore, wastewater goes to treatment plants already, so there is a system of pipes to transport it and places which already treat it, including advanced treatment plants that can treat the water to be clean enough for a range of purposes. There are strong economic, environmental and practical arguments for investing more effort in reusing wastewater to meet our water supply needs.
This water can be used for households, industry, business and agriculture, greening public spaces, fighting fires, and topping up rivers or groundwater.
The water cycle
Technically, all water is recyled; indeed we are drinking the same water as the dinosaurs. Put very simply, water evaporates, forms clouds and falls as rain, and is either absorbed into the earth and captured underground or filtered through rock and goes back again into oceans and rivers.
When we capture and reuse water, we are not making more water, but speeding up the water cycle so we can reuse it more quickly.
Not pictured: the many, many animals and people every drop of water has passed through over millennia.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
We do already reuse wastewater in Australia, with many parts of regional Australia cleaning wastewater and releasing it into rivers. That water is then extracted for use by places downstream.
Despite this, there have been significant community objections to building new infrastructure to reuse wastewater for household use. In 2006, at the height of the Millennium drought, Toowoomba rejected the idea entirely.
However, since then a scheme has been successfully established in Perth. We must examine these issues again in light of the current drought, which sees a number of Australian regional centres facing the prospect of running out of water.
Singapore has had enormous success in reusing wastewater for all kinds of purposes.EPA/HOW HWEE YOUNG
Despite initial reluctance, many places around the world have successfully introduced extensive wastewater recycling. Places such as Singapore, Essex, California, New Mexico, and Virginia widely use it.
Firstly, the language we use is important. Phrases like “toilet to tap” are unhelpful as they don’t emphasise the extensive treatment processes involved.
The social media and news outlets can play an significant role here. In Orange County, California, wastewater was introduced through a slow process of building acceptance. Influential individuals were enlisted to explain and advocate for its uses.
Secondly, communities need time and knowledge, particularly about safety and risks. Regulators play an important role in reassuring communities. In San Diego, a demonstration plant gave many people the opportunity to see the treatment process, drink the water and participate in education.
We need to go beyond information to deep consultation and education, understanding where people are starting from and acknowledging that people from different cultures and backgrounds may have different attitudes.
El Paso successfully introduced wastewater through strong engagement with the media and significant investment in community education, including explaining the water cycle.
Finally, quality of the water needs to be great and it needs to come from a trustworthy source. The more it happens, and people know that, the more likely they are to feel reassured.
It’s clear the public expect governments to plan and act to secure our future water supply. But we can’t just impose possibly distasteful solutions – instead, the whole community needs to be part of the conversation.
In some classrooms, students learn writing techniques and then apply them to a writing assignment. In others, students are given freedom over their writing with little teacher intervention.
Both approaches work to develop the writing craft, for similar reasons they work for authors. Authors learn discrete techniques from mentors to improve their skills and also write freely to experiment with style.
Studies show teachers who identify as writers have a positive impact on their students’ writing. This is because they empathise with the experiences of writers at different stages of the writing process.
I conducted a study to help teachers understand what the creative writing experience is like for the students they teach. I interviewed eight children in Year 6 (10-11 years old) throughout a creative writing unit in class to find out.
Another world
When children write freely, they often feel as though they’re stepping into a different world. All kids I spoke to talked about this experience, with one student summarising it this way:
I feel like I’m in that place, another world, another zone. So I go into that place where I’m writing. I take my characters there, this large meadow or something. When I come back I’m like, where’s the meadow gone?
Most feel as though writing is a momentary “escape from your everyday thinking”. One student felt they don’t need to think very hard, because “my head is creating that and not me”.
Where’s the meadow gone?from shutterstock.com
This other-world experience is like watching a movie in vivid detail. Ideas “come out of the blue” and “pop in and out like a slideshow”. One student said ideas “flow into words like water, through your brain and onto your page”.
Of course, you can sit down and have something you want to say. But then you must let its expression be born in you and on the paper. Don’t hold too tight; allow it to come out how it needs to rather than trying to control it.
My thoughts have been caged up
All students I spoke to talked about the frustration of being pulled out of this other world. One student recounted moments when he thought his writing ideas did not meet the task set by his teacher:
My mind is stuck inside, like, a perfect writing thing. It’s like all those sections where all my thoughts have been […] have to be caged up.
All caged up.from shutterstock.com
For these children, it is impossible to be a student and a writer at the same time. Being a student means maintaining awareness of task requirements, grade-level standards and rules of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Addressing school requirements made one student feel as though they “need to put away good ideas, and think of what would give me an A”. Another said doing this means they “can’t let my brain fly” and “can’t add my own words”.
This leads to “so many mental blanks because I’m afraid I’m gonna fail”.
Balancing the student and the writer
Most students I spoke to expressed being frustrated when free writing time gets interrupted.
A progressive view of teaching suggests teachers allow children to explore their writing world, encouraging them to make decisions at each stage of the writing process. This is called the process approach to writing and it helps kids develop their writer identities.
A traditional view favours providing students with fundamental writing skills aimed at developing a finished product, known as the product approach. This develops kids’ knowledge of texts.
But are writing identities and knowledge mutually exclusive?
The students I spoke with understood the need to learn explicit knowledge such as text structures, vocabulary and literary techniques to grow as writers. But they did not think of these things when writing freely.
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.
We can teach kids to think more like authors.
The solution may be in striking a balance between kids as students and kids as writers. Kids, like published authors, need space to write freely first without distraction from teachers and expectations. This helps them generate ideas, motivating them to find a purpose for their writing.
Then they become students. They write another draft, but this time they seek advice from teachers to use literary techniques, like authors and their mentors.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University
Ask any economist a question, and you will usually get the answer: “productivity”.
The winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, Paul Krugman, set the standard in 1994:
Productivity isn’t everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.
The new head of Australia’s treasury, Steven Kennedy, said much the same thing this week:
The most important long-term contribution to wage growth is labour productivity.
For my money, they could say the same about “carbon productivity”, a idea that is going to matter to us more.
Labour productivity is notoriously hard to measure; measuring changes in it is harder still.
It’s relatively easy to measure in the jobs we are doing less of these days, such as making washing machines; harder to measure in the jobs we are doing more of, such as caring for people.
And it’s less important than you might think. People aren’t a particularly finite resource. Allowable carbon emissions are.
Carbon is the input that matters
Economist Paul Krugman. ‘In the long run productivity is almost everything.’CHRISTOPHER BARTH/EPA
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says net carbon emissions will have to be reduced to zero.
That means we’ve a carbon budget, a limited amount of greenhouse gas we can emit from here on. It would make sense to use it wisely.
What I am proposing is a target for “carbon productivity”, the amount of production we achieve from each remaining unit of emissions – as a means of helping us cut overall carbon emissions.
It’s easy to calculate: gross domestic product divided by net emissions. We already measure GDP, and we already measure emissions in tonnes, albeit unevenly.
We are going to need huge increases in carbon productivity, much more so as a result of cutting emissions than increasing production.
Things that are good for labour productivity might well be bad for carbon productivity. For example, replacing a sweeper with an air blower is good on the first count, bad on the second.
Measuring carbon productivity…
If introduced at a national level, a target, or at least a widely published measure, could start to focus government minds on what’s important and what’s not, and assist in allocating resources. Solar farms would become more likely to gain support than coal-fired power plants.
Regulatory resources might be redirected in surprising ways. While a small number of large emitters constitutes an easy target for policymakers, if those large emitters are efficient, the government might find it has to move its focus to the larger number of small inefficient emitters.
It could also help us think about how we resolve the conflict between the perceived need for economic growth and the need to substantially cut emissions. Both would be important, the measures that achieved both would be the most important.
Giving national attention to measuring carbon productivity would put more pressure on more firms to measure all of their emissions. Many already measure their “scope 1” direct emissions. A smaller number measure “scope 2” emissions (from things such as electricity used by the firm).
A much smaller number measure “scope 3” emissions (from sources they do not own, such as air travel, waste and water). They’re the hardest to measure.
…might just produce results
For some, sustainable economic growth is a contradiction in terms.
They argue that economic growth is incompatible with ecological survival.
But the population appears to want both, and the political and social consequences of failing to achieve both could be devastating for democratic society and the planet. It has already been established that rising unemployment reduces support for action on climate change.
The race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination is hotting up, and so is academic debate about one of the leading contender’s signature proposal – a wealth tax.
The US Democratic primary is becoming a race of four (odds in parentheses): Elizabeth Warren (34%), Joe Biden (25%), Bernie Sanders (12%), and Pete Buttigieg (12%).
The statistical front-runner, Warren, wants to impose a wealth tax of 2% on all Americans with wealth in excess of US$50 million.
They believe it would generate as much as US$187 billion a year, along with another US$25 billion from a separate so-called “billionaire surcharge” in the first year.
They’ve got their own ideas for taxing the better-off, which include boosting auditing resources for the Internal Revenue Service, cracking down on corporate tax shelters, ending loopholes for private equity and hedge fund managers, and eliminating special deals for real estate investors and investors who bequeath capital gain.
They reckon their ideas would raise more than even the rosiest estimates of Warren’s wealth tax.
But what about the theory?
There are four main arguments in favour of a wealth tax:
it will raise money that can be spent on socially useful programs like universal childcare
it will limit the political power of the uber-wealthy
it will enhance fairness
it will have few negative side effects on innovation because it’s small, relative to the massive pay packets taken home by the Jeff Bezos’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s of the world.
In terms of revenue raising, nobody on the progressive side of politics seriously disputes the social value of programs like universal childcare. What’s at issue is the best way to pay for them.
Each argument has a counter argument
As to limiting the political power of the uber wealthy, they would still have a lot. Lobbyists don’t cost much, and corporations themselves will still be able to spend as much as they like thanks to the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that found it was unconstitutional to restrict independent expenditures on political communications.
Fairness could be enhanced by a wealth tax that collected a good chunk of revenue, but it could also be enhanced by the other measures on offer.
The effects on innovation are hard to discern. It certainly seems as if Amazon president Jeff Bezos would be as motivated by US$80 billion per year as by US$120 billion.
But it mightn’t be that simple. For highly valuable people (lots of “human capital”) passing up a certain high salary (perhaps at a university) for an uncertain higher one is a risk. A cut in the uncertain payoff might tip the balance in favour of caution.
And then there’s politics
If it did tip the balance in favour of caution, a wealth tax might lead to less innovation, but the size of the effect is hard to guess at.
While economists like to muse about these issues, it’s the politics that matter.
A wealth tax polls well among American voters, even among millionaires, but Donald Trump might be able to turn that around.
It’s the politics as well as the economics that will matter, and symbolism will matter a lot.
Kerouac answered Allen’s question about the Beat generation he was supposed to have defined with a resigned air. Allen tinkled on a set of keys an age away from the hip vibe he was trying to get at, Kerouac oozed cool without really trying, describing Beat in one word as “sympathetic”.
Allen moved on to asking Kerouac how long it took him to write On the Road. “Three weeks”. And how long he was on the road for? “Seven years”.
Living the life always takes a little longer.
I’m thinking of this as I watch a young girl twirling the tail of her sparkling mermaid at the Coolangatta airport – already the sequins have started to fall off, blue and pink trails under her feet. I smile at her mother. Falling in love with other people’s kids for 30 seconds at a time is easy when you’re in transit.
I couldn’t trail a kid around for all that and that’s partly why I don’t have any kids trailing after me at all. At 22 I fell in love with another kind of life, the kind described to me in books like On The Road and Fear and Loathing.
Kerouac declaring that God is Pooh Bear and Thompson’s arsenal of drugs in the boot of that Chevrolet Caprice read like a litany against conformity – that hallucinatory run on Route 66 with the bats swirling and the crazy lawyer ranting took me down another path.
Right now, a strong latte and a couple of hastily popped pharmies is about the best I can do. No one is ever gonna out-do that car boot. And maybe that’s OK. Maybe I dug these stories more when I was in my 20s and the romance of the legends hadn’t waned like they kind of have now.
These were the big stories we supped on when shirtless young men used to sit on the front verandas of my share houses in the sunshine drinking cups of tea. Back then they looked like Dean Moriarty looked to Jack. Then those same boys became Hare Krishnas and the rest of us got real jobs.
The most cake
Both Hunter and Kerouac ended up at the bottom of bottles that couldn’t be tilted right. Hunter had to get Johnny Depp to shoot him out of his. While I know I’ll be sidling up to as many free booze ships as I can find on this trip, when it comes to the books, maybe now, I want a different modus operandi.
Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). In 2017 Depp’s former managers alleged he spent $3 million firing the late author Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes from a cannon.
It’s easy when you’re younger to glorify the edge. When it comes to living it before you write it, I still rate the philosophy that Hunter and Kerouac understood: to get at the subject, sometimes you have to cave in and be seduced. But that kind of thinking ended up killing them both.
I’ve pushed the envelope. On writing assignments or residencies I’ve ended up at the top of exclusive nightclubs in Dubai drunk and bemused, being sexually harassed in expat mansions in Hanoi, fearing for my life but still laughing with carloads of Irish comedians on skinny roads outside Monaghan. All of it grist for the mill. When the pieces I filed came out nobody I was with could believe I remembered any of it.
Alcohol and other mind-bending substances often play a role. Writers are less likely to be concerned with routines, with their speaking schedules or the tedious festival hierarchies when they’re feeling loose, when they’re looking for something else, getting reminded of why they’re even at this festival in the first place. Even when you push it too far, when it comes to art, the edge is everything.
I’m reminded of the love-hate intersection I have with limits at the Australian Short Story festival in Melbourne where the vibe is intimate and generous but the opening night party dies by 9pm.
The wives of male writers are up the back holding the babies. Just me and a Canadian writer task ourselves with holding up the bar for everyone else. On the second night, I bail out after the readings, which are great but go on too long. I find a party for an old friend with a fellow edge skater. When we arrive, everyone’s in fancy dress and we aren’t. Lady Gaga answers the door, Freddie Mercury is on the DJ decks and we dance until 3am with a perfectly bedraggled looking Courtney Love. I wanna be the girl with the most cake.
But then I’m hungover and have a 10.30am session and want to die, especially when my phone rings while I’m reading a story off it and it’s Lady Gaga from the night before. I tell her to say hello to the crowd.
Wish you were here
I wanna be like the writer Elizabeth Costello in Coetzee’s book of the same name, going for her last supper alone at a little Italian joint in New York. It’s her last book tour, her last trip around the world. I want to look at cityscapes and handsome waiters and cutlery like that – as if everything is remarkable again.
Or be like Joan Didion, writing about the world as if she’s always looking at it through the panorama of a windscreen – Californian nights and blue days, oversized sunglasses on, looking hard, sentences forming in her head as sharp as knives.
It was the road that saved French author Violette Leduc. After months of touring the European countryside, she walked right into a small town and found an old villa and a sun-browned man after years in Paris slicing off the mouldy edges of small blocks of cheese. Those failed books sank like stones.
It was the road and that house she found by accident and Simone de Beauvoir depositing money into her account she said was from the publisher that allowed Violette to get out from the city that didn’t know it wanted her – eating apples on hillsides, writing La Batarde in her notebook – and a man who lifted her skirt in just the right way and exactly how her ex-husband never did.
Skin, air and something new that poured forth a book that made her a household name.
In Ubud, land of expat yogis and digital nomads, I’m seated next to an Instagram star. Both our laptops are open – me writing this and she set on ratcheting up the followers on her account.
The perfect, bulbous mounds of her fake tits feature heavily in shots of her swinging over rice fields or waterfalls that she doesn’t need to filter or hovering above her matcha shakes and gogi bowls.
The 16th Ubud Writers and Readers Festival is exploring the concept of karma.
What to pack
So, I guess being on the road means something else now. It’s not Kerouac and Moriarty in Cadillacs driving away from the thrilling sadness of fucking each other’s wives with “all that road going and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it”.
The road is this woman in athleisure wear and a guy writing for The Writing Cooperative in an article extolling the virtues of five essential items the travelling writer should carry.
Fieldnotes pocket books because “they look and feel amazing”. A Parker Pen Jotter and a Parker Pen Classic “for more sophisticated writing,” which he describes as his letters and correspondence rather than his actual writing. Bose noise cancelling headphones which you must use with caution because when wearing them “you’re essentially deaf to everyday life”. A newspaper because it’s important to take “screen breaks”. Finally, a reMarkable tablet because “imagine being able to hand write something you can publish on the internet without having to transcribe it? So valuable”.
My soul dies a little. So, despite the risks, despite the possibility I might do or say something I’ll regret at 3am at the wrong decibel level, and despite the fact that it might be unfashionable, I resolve to keep the spirit of On the Road and Fear and Loathing alive.
Because followers and implements are starting to matter more than being able to listen with your ears and see out of your own eyes. I’m going to go to that closing night party of the Ubud Writers and Reader’s Festival. Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh is rumoured to be DJing and I’m gonna scratch out notes on someone else’s wrist, undo my belt and look for trouble. Hopefully, I’ll see you on the other side.
John Howard is an icon for the Liberals and a confidant for Scott Morrison. So he was the obvious choice to star at last week’s dinner to mark the 75th anniversary of the party’s founding by Robert Menzies.
Howard joined the celebratory tone of the night, declaring “Morrison, you were magnificent” in a play on Menzies’ mythical message to Liberal MP Jim Killen when victory in Killen’s seat enabled the Coalition to hang on at the 1961 election.
But the former PM also delivered some clear messages to the party. A couple are particularly pertinent.
Looking back on history, Howard said, he not only honoured Menzies, but “I also honour the coalition with the National party, previously the Country party”.
“That association is hugely important and I know the value that Scott Morrison attaches to it.”
Maybe he does. But discontented Nationals feel any such attachment hasn’t stopped Morrison crowding them out so they can’t adequately display their political wares. Drought is the particular policy area where they feel he has failed to give them sufficient “ownership”.
Indeed the drought has suddenly become an all-consuming issue for the government, in policy and politics, and in juggling sensitivities within both the Coalition and the Nationals (where it has been weaponised in a wider bitter internal war).
The more the government does, the greater the demands put on it. Expectations simply can’t be met.
The other notable Howard message went to hubris and the risk of underestimating your opponents.
“The Labor party is not dead. The Labor party will come back fighting again,” Howard said. “Deep down, we should never imagine that we are immune from hubris, that we are never going to lose an election”.
This fits neatly with Morrison’s regular party room lectures against complacency.
But despite his warnings to his troops Morrison, pumped by his victory, exhibits his own form of the hubris disease. He’s inclined to come across as believing he’s the miracle worker rather than the leader who pulled off a miracle.
At the moment, it’s not just over-confident Liberals who’d be writing off Labor. Quite a few within the opposition are very pessimistic about their prospects, although the government has a tiny majority.
Anthony Albanese had that glow of promise when he was positioning as the alternative to Bill Shorten late last term. Now in the job at last, he already finds himself under internal as well as external criticism.
In part he’s victim of today’s unrelenting media cycle, in the age of the instant. Critics are demanding an election-ready opposition leader for an over-the-horizon poll.
This week he had a useful win when militant construction union official John Setka finally quit the ALP, ahead of expulsion. Albanese’s determination to rid the party of Setka was significant because it went to Labor’s values and standards.
But victory on Setka can’t distract attention from Albanese’s tougher hurdles.
The election postmortem prepared by former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill and former federal minister Craig Emerson is set to be released early next month.
Albanese is scheduled to appear at the National Press Club on November 8, where he will have to turn negative findings into positive signals.
It’s clear enough now why Labor failed. An unpopular leader. An over-heavy policy agenda with too many losers and uncertainties. Not enough credibility on economic management. A poor campaign. A very savvy opponent.
While understanding past mistakes is vital, that’s only a first step towards crafting a future pitch. Labor’s policy process shouldn’t be rushed. But taking time leaves a vacuum, requiring holding positions that are by nature unconvincing, especially when the government is good at wedge politics.
Albanese will try to fill the space with a series of “vision statements”. The first will be on Tuesday in Perth, about job creation and the future of work and training. This will be followed by an address on the economy, to be made in Brisbane, and another on issues relating to democracy, media freedom and constitutional change, delivered in Sydney.
The idea of “vision statements” is good in principle (though not new – Howard went down that path in opposition). The challenge, however, is the execution. Unless a leader is on a roll, vision statements risk being attacked as too thin. They need meat, just when “meat” is scarce because policies are still in the making.
In a speech last month Labor frontbencher Mark Butler said the ALP’s “only three victories over Liberal governments since World War II all involved an immensely popular leader [Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Kevin Rudd], a compelling national vision and a superior campaign”.
All three are vital but the most crucial test of Albanese will be whether he is seen as a match for Morrison.
Albanese and Morrison share certain political qualities. They’re both solid and stolid, with the ability to relate to ordinary people. Neither is easily spooked – each is by nature resilient. They are also, in their own ways, a touch old fashioned.
One question mark about Albanese is whether as the election approaches he will be seen as representing Labor’s past rather than its future. The opposition could have opted for a new generation leader in Jim Chalmers. In the end he didn’t run (Albanese always had the numbers) and now serves as shadow treasurer. If Chalmers had taken over he’d probably be having as much of a struggle as Albanese is. Labor could have burned a future leader.
The new rules put in place under Rudd give security to a leader. They do not – as Albanese’s supporters pointed out when he had his eyes on Shorten’s position – provide an absolute guarantee.
If Albanese were looking bad a few months out from the election, it would be possible – albeit admittedly ectremely difficult – to change leaders.
As for now, all that can be said is that Albanese is battling in the rough current of a devastating election defeat, and it is too early to predict whether he can navigate it to put Labor in a competitive position.
Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Ergin and NZ Gov General Dame Patsy Reddy.
OPINION by Ahmet ERGİN, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey
Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Ergin and NZ Gov General Dame Patsy Reddy.
Recent developments with regard to Operation Peace Spring in north-east Syria has garnered plenty of coverage both internationally and locally. I wish to impart my perspective for a more balanced understanding of what is really happening on the ground.
Since the conflict began in Syria, almost 9 years ago and after Syria, her neighbours have suffered the most. As the conflict protracted, terrorist organisations found safe haven there and built up organisational and military capabilities. In the last two years, alone, PYD/YPG a branch of the PKK terrorist organisation, perpetrated over 300 terrorist attacks targeting civilians in Turkey and Syria.
Turkey bore the financial and social burden of Syrians fleeing their country, receiving rather modest support from the international community. The number of refugees Turkey is hosting is nearing the population of New Zealand.
Refugee flows, terrorist threats and instability have reached an unbearable level for Turkey. The best way to eradicate terrorist threats is to establish a safe zone along the border. This would encourage voluntary repatriation of around one million Syrian refugees.
Turkey, since the conflict began, has made every effort to ensure its security and find a solution for the refugees, but without result. As a last resort, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring The Turkish-US Joint Statement 1 and the Memorandum of Understanding agreed to between Turkey and the Russian Federation 2 on north-east Syria demonstrates that Turkey prefers diplomacy and peace, over use of force.
These documents essentially suggest Turkey put Operation Peace Spring on hold for an agreed period on condition the US and RF facilitated PYD/YPG’s withdrawal from the agreed area. Turkey made it clear that if the provisions agreed failed the Operation would continue because the threat is a matter of national security. Since the provisions are in place and have held steady, Turkey put an end to the Operation. Operation Peace Spring may not have been necessary, had these agreements come earlier.
In spite of these facts, reaction to the Operation was unfair and far removed from reality. I would like the opportunity to clarify.
The Operation was not against Syrian Kurds but PYD/YPG terrorists.
PYD/YPG forms the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces who are inseparable with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK in Turkey. New Zealand, the US and, the EU recognise the PKK, a major threat to the territorial integrity of Syria, as a terrorist organisation. PYD/YPG do not only conduct terrorist attacks in Turkey, but also recruit children as fighters 3 intimidating its dissidents, and repressing populations under its rule, in Syria.
Moreover, if Turkey was an enemy of Syrian Kurdas and targeting them, Turkey would not be hosting, hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds who sought refuge in Turkey, throughout the conflict.
PYD/YPG is blackmailing the international community by using DAESH
Turkey is a member of the Global Coalition Against DAESH and the only member of the Coalition whose soldiers fought chest-to-chest against them.
Operation Peace Spring aims to remove all terrorist elements, including DAESH. In 2017, Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria was an Operation that saw significant numbers of DAESH terrorists seized and imprisoned. In spite of Turkey’s dedicated fight against DAESH, PYD/YPG has spread baseless claims that DAESH prisoners may flee, taking advantage of Turkey’s latest Operation. DAESH prisoners can only flee if PYD/YPG frees them. Turkey is committed to her promises and have officially assumed the responsibility of DAESH prisoners where she controls. The international community must not be deceived by PYD/YPG blackmail.
Protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure is Turkey’s top priority.
In compliance with international law, Turkey conducted Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016-2017 and Operation Olive Branch in 2018 and this latest Operation to protect civilians. Turkey has implemented a humanitarian aid campaign in coordination with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) and other relevant international organisations.
Turkey has been fighting against PKK terrorism for 40 years now and will continue to take all necessary actions to ensure its security and fight against terrorism. I believe the international community should be on the right side in the fight against terrorism.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Revill, Senior Medical Scientist at VIDRL, Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Hepatitis B is blood-borne virus that packs a punch. Worldwide, more than 1.3 billion people have been infected with hepatitis B, and 257 million people have developed a life-long infection. This includes 240,000 Australians, many of whom are Indigenous.
Globally, transmission most commonly occurs from mother to baby or in early life. But it’s possible to be infected in adulthood, through sex or blood-to-blood contact.
Most people who are infected in adulthood develop a short infection which their immune response controls. But in around 5% of adults and 90% of babies, the immune response is ineffective and chronic infection develops.
Hepatitis B virus causes almost 40% of all liver cancer, which is the fifth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide.
Australian discovery
Hepatitis B virus was discovered in the serum of an Indigenous Australian in 1965 and was first known as the “Australia antigen”.
This quickly led to the development of an effective vaccine in the 1980s, which is now available worldwide. The vaccine has been given to Australian infants since May 2000.
(If you weren’t vaccinated as a baby, you might want to consider doing so through your GP, particularly if you plan to travel to Asia and Africa where hepatitis B is common.)
Unfortunately the vaccine doesn’t do anything for the 240,000 or so Australians who currently live with chronic hepatitis B. Only around 60% of these people have been diagnosed; the rest don’t know they’re infected and don’t receive appropriate care.
How is it currently treated?
There is no cure for chronic hepatitis B virus.
In most cases, treatment requires taking a pill every day for life to remain effective and to reduce the risk of liver cancer. Even then, it doesn’t eliminate the risk.
Chronic hepatitis B hasn’t been cured so far in part because current therapies have failed to destroy the viral reservoir, where the virus hides in the cell.
This is in contrast to hepatitis C virus, which has no such viral reservoir and can now be cured with as little as 12 weeks of treatment.
Despite the huge human and economic toll of chronic hepatitis B, research to cure the disease remains underfunded. There is a misconception that because there is a vaccine, hepatitis B is no longer a problem.
The availability of effective cures for the unrelated hepatitis C virus has also led people to believe that “viral hepatitis” is no longer a problem.
Experts estimate that liver cancer deaths will substantially increase in coming decades without a cure for hepatitis B, despite deaths from most cancers decreasing.
Some exciting research is underway around the world, including the recent identification of the “cell receptor” which allows the virus to infect the body. This has enabled studies of the complete virus replication cycle including the viral reservoir that is untouched by current therapies.
New approaches to a possible cure include mechanisms to block the virus’ entry into the cell and to stop the virus from making the proteins it needs to replicate and infect new cells.
Studies are also underway to enhance patients’ immune responses so their own natural defences can control or even eliminate the virus. This is similar to immunotherapies already being used to treat some cancers.
It’s likely a hepatitis B cure will require a dual-pronged approach, directly targeting the virus while also enhancing the immune response in people who are infected.
The goal is to reduce the amount of virus in the body and restore the person’s immune responses. This is called a “functional cure” and is similar to what happens when a person naturally gets rid of the virus. It would also mean they didn’t need to take drugs any more.
Some of these approaches are now in early stage human clinical trials. More than 30 drugs have been developed and are being tested in people with chronic hepatitis B. However, much more work needs to be done to achieve a cure.
This week, the Seven Network was found liable to pay a workers’ compensation claim brought by Nicole Prince, one of the contestants on its renovation reality television show, House Rules.
Prince suffered a major depressive episode, and symptoms consistent with post traumatic stress disorder after she and her partner were cast as the “mean girls” in the 2017 season of the series.
She provided convincing evidence program directors manipulated series content to ensure the pair appeared to be hypercritical of other contestants, drawing not only their hostility, but also an avalanche of hateful social media comment. (Channel Seven refused to remove the offensive and often violent posts.)
However it raises the prospect of potential common law claims by other reality TV “stars” who have been treated badly. In the wake of the ruling, fellow reality TV contestants including Tracey Jewel from Married at First Sight have floated the possibility of legal action.
On the books
Prince’s success depended upon a finding she was an employee according to the common law test that defines employment. The difference between an employee and independent contractor is based on multiple factors and has developed with court decisions over time. To make a determination, courts look at each case and the overall “vibe” of the relationship between the parties.
Contestants Fiona Taylor and Nicole Prince (right) were portrayed as villains on the renovation reality show.Channel 7
Employees are also owed duties of care under tort law (which determines civil liability) and contract law (which governs agreements).
An employer who exposes an employee to unnecessary risk of foreseeable harm can also be held liable at common law for damages that can extend to lost earnings. In this case, Prince gave evidence she had been unable to find employment following her disastrous experience on the show.
The prospect for these kinds of claims has long been recognised in the United States, where claims by contestants (or their surviving family members) have been brought against television production companies, although rarely successfully.
In 2017, the US reality dating show Bachelor in Paradise was suspended for nine days pending allegations of sexual misconduct (later dismissed). Two contestants on the show had engaged in sexual activity under the influence of alcohol.
The scandal raised the question of when reality TV producers should intervene to protect contestants.
The sticking point in the US cases has been the ability of networks to disclaim employer status in their written contracts with contestants. In Australia, however, employment status cannot be avoided by contractual disclaimers if the court decides the relationship bears the hallmarks of employment, established in a number of High Court cases.
House Rules
The Workers Compensation Commission found Prince was engaged for remuneration ($500 a week plus $500 in allowances) to serve Seven’s business. Seven exerted control over when she worked, what she wore, and which tools she used.
As a featured personality, Prince was an integral part of their business. She was required to provide exclusive service, and give up her normal occupation, during filming.
Finally, Prince bore none of the entrepreneurial risks that would be involved were she engaged in her own business.
These factors were said to “overwhelmingly” indicate she was employed by Seven.
The original House Rules cast.IMDB
Once it was established she was an employee it was a straightforward matter to find her psychiatric illness was a consequence of her employment. While the Commission made no findings as to fault (statutory Workers Compensation claims are not fault-based), certain observations made in the reasons suggest Prince may well be able to demonstrate the harm she suffered was foreseeable.
The commission concluded Seven deliberately manipulated her on-screen portrayal as a nasty person, and was made aware of the torrent of abuse she was receiving as a consequence. It refused to take any steps to ameliorate the harm, no doubt because this kind of conflict and outrage is a calculated part of such shows’ audience appeal.
A legal landmark
This appears to be the first successful claim of this nature in Australia.
It’s possible claims brought by contestants who are physically harmed could be settled by the insurers.
This one, involving the infliction of psychological harm, opens a wide door to more potential claims from contestants who naively expect to be able to present themselves as their usual loveable selves on the television, and end up as social pariahs.
The amount Prince is to be compensated has not yet been determined. But in 2011, a NSW woman who suffered psychiatric illness and was unable work after she had been subjected to workplace bullying and harassment was awarded $438,000.
Reality television stars are frequently subject to online abuse.www.shutterstock.com
This case also raises some very interesting questions about whether reality TV contestants might bring other claims related to employment. Minimum wages, perhaps? Or superannuation entitlements?
Prior to the Prince decision, the Law Society of NSW published a tongue-in-cheek piece that flagged a shopping list of potential legal claims reality stars might pursue.
Those claims may be far-fetched, but the refusal of Seven’s insurer to pay Prince’s compensation claim – which set this legal precedent in motion – has opened up a proverbial can of worms for reality television producers.
Discussion of the environment is embedded in our culture as public awareness over issues such as climate change and plastic pollution has grown. Advertisers are not shy about tapping into this concern for their own benefit.
A Twitter analysis last year revealed that in the UK at least, the environment was a current and growing issue. Between January 2015 and March 2018, discussion on Twitter about single-use plastic, for example, increased by an incredible 5,543%.
Advertisers are already highly skilled at the power of narrative: reducing complexity and helping us make sense of their message. This power is amplified when the narrative taps into culture. A brand message, if successful, then becomes part of people’s conversations rather than interrupting them with ads they don’t care about.
Advertisers who tell a good story can persuade the public of all sorts of things. Some messages are positive and constructive. But a few are disingenuous and misleading.
The latter is especially true in the case of recycling, where advertisers often imply that consumers, not corporations, are responsible for the huge amounts of plastic waste a product creates.
A CocaCola recycling campaign that ran in the 2019 European summer.Supplied by author
Plastic pollution is a big deal
Australia’s National Waste Report last year found 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated in 2016-17 – or 103kg for each person. Most of it was only used once, and just 12% was recycled.
Coca-Cola says by the end of 2019, 70% of its plastic bottles in Australia will be made entirely from recycled plastic. The company in August released a video in Australia thanking people for recycling.
It follows a European campaign launched by the company in June with the tagline “Don’t buy Coca-Cola if you’re not going to help us recycle”.
Absolut Vodka this year launched a new limited edition bottle made of 41% recycled glass – like all of its bottles – accompanied by a “Guide to a Circular Living Together”. The company told customers: “Now’s your time to shine on stage – rocking the recycling lifestyle as a true #RecyclingHero!”
Coca-Cola Australia | Thanks For Recycling Campaign, 2019.
On the face of it, such campaigns might seem virtuous, especially following China’s 2018 policy limiting the import of low-quality mixed recyclables. But in fact they continue a long history of framing consumers as the main waste culprits.
The practice began in the US in the 1950s when Keep America Beautiful was formed. The non-profit consortium included Coca-Cola and tobacco manufacturer Phillip Morris, among others. Its campaigns, such as the 1971 “Crying Indian” ad, tapped into a shared cultural guilt for polluting the environment and, in this case, mistreating native people.
But guilt is not a good predictor of people’s behaviour. A 2001 study found individuals must feel ethically validated, not guilty, to behave in an environmentally friendly way.
Consumers are not the villains
Manufacturers of consumer products obviously play a major role in the growing plastic problem. This is reflected in the Australian Packaging Covenant, an agreement between government and industry.
It says responsibility for packaging should be shared by companies throughout the supply chain. Consumers, waste service providers, recyclers and governments also have roles to play.
Researchers have noted that a permissive legal framework has allowed plastic pollution to rise despite the obvious harm it causes to communities and marine life.
…the federal government has been absent from the conversation about waste, while Australians are operating in a culture where ‘we don’t do what we’re not forced to do’.
Plastic waste is on the radar of Australian governments. State and federal environment ministers last year set a target that all packaging be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025 or earlier.
But critics say rather than set targets, the federal government must mandate the use of recycled plastic in packaging to ensure the waste problem is addressed.
Fish swimming along a coral reef near a water bottle label and a plastic bag off the coast of the Red Sea resort town of Naama Bay, Egypt.Mike Nelson/EPA
Recycling campaigns done right
Companies such as Coca-Cola are embracing the concept of sustainability to some extent. But better still, other brands have sought to fix recycling systems themselves.
In February Unilever “paid” people in Buenos Aires, Argentina for their household recyclables with discount coupons redeemable against its products at selected retailers.
In the UK, Burger King last month announced it was scrapping plastic toys from kids’ meals and invited the public to bring in old plastic toys from any restaurant meal. The plastic will be remade into “interactive play opportunities” for families at their restaurants.
Consumers do have a role to play in waste reduction, including by recycling or demanding that companies find alternatives to single-use plastics. But if companies want to respond meaningfully to the plastic crisis, they must accept ultimate responsibility for their packaging and work towards zero-waste.
Koman dedicated her award to the victims of a security crackdown in West Papua due to riots taking place there.
– Partner –
“Especially the dozens who have died at the hands of security forces, and the 22 political prisoners charged with treason over the past couple of months,” she said in an acceptance speech on Wednesday.
“I have the West Papuan people to thank for changing my life. They have taught me how to be resilient, how to keep fighting, how to keep going in circumstances where many outsiders may feel they have to stop.”
Marc Purcell, the chief executive of the Australian Council for International Development, which awards the prize, said the award represented “the strength and bravery of all people who defend the human rights of West Papuans, who will not be silenced, and who will work towards a world where the human rights of all are protected and upheld”.
“Veronica has shone a light on violations of the rights of the West Papuan people at great personal cost,” he said.
He also called on Australia to protect Koman and urge Indonesia to drop the charges against her.
In September, Koman was named as a “suspect” by Indonesian authorities who accused her of provoking recent unrest, after she published reports on the protests and on a racist attack against Papuan students in Java.
Regarding Koman’s claims about receiving death threats and other intimidating messages, a spokesman for East Java police, which has been investigating Koman, denied that officers would be behind such actions and told Reuters that Koman had made many enemies.
The Sir Ronald Wilson Human Rights Award is presented annually to an individual or organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to advancing human rights.
This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
Simpson@8 investigated the allegations of mismanagement that had accrued over professor Chandra’s tenure. Video: Simpson@8
By Sri Krishnamurthi
Staff and students at the University of the South Pacific have said poor governance, nepotism and negligence were rife at the institution under the leadership of the previous Vice-Chancellor, Professor Rajesh Chandra.
The current Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Pal Ahluwalia raised his concerns in a paper titled ‘Issues, Concern and Breaches of Past Management and Financial Decisions’ which Auckland Accounting firm BDO was asked to investigate and report on.
Professor Ahluwalia listed 26 allegations of mismanagement by professor Chandra who held office from 2008 to 2018.
The BDO report found governance was weak across USP and implicated some members of USP’s senior management team who were alleged beneficiaries or decision makers.
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“Oversight, governance and control is a key weakness across USP. Current policy framework is outdated and isn’t fit for purpose,” the BDO report said.
Frustrated staff such as Dr Morgan Tuimalealiifano, Professor and coordinator of history at USP told a Fijian TV current affairs show Simpson@8, which investigated the allegations of abuse, the incidences had accrued over professor Chandra’s tenure.
“The evidence of our awareness comes from the numerous complaints, the way staff members were treated and the way some decisions were over-ruled, overturned,” Professor Tuimalealiifano told the programme.
“Over the years they accumulated and very little was being done. Sometimes when complaints were lodged the general response was ‘we have to check on our procedures to make sure they were working’, this was getting a bit tiresome.”
Dr Sunil Kumar, an economics lecturer, was more forthright in his assessment of what went on the university which is owned by 12 Pacific countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa.
‘Widespread mismanagement’
“The indications are clear, there has been widespread instances of mismanagement of policies, funds and all kind of resources we are familiar with at USP,” Dr Kumar told the TV programme.
“When there is mismanagement of resources then obviously the university will go through constraints. We were all faced with constraints particularly those who were engaged in delivering the mainstream objectives of the institution.
“There were very basic things we were stifled of, for instance we would not be allowed to buy text books or reference books or our printer material …which means the money was draining out elsewhere and mainstream materials weren’t available as they should have been.”
He said staff had spoken out about governance issues.
“A lot of our staff members have been expressing the element of bad governance that has been happening over the last five, six or seven years during the last Vice-Chancellor’s period.
“The institution suffered very drastically under the former Vice-Chancellor’s leadership.”
New Zealand, which is a key funding partner having signed a $5.15 million agreement with the university back in February, is likely to be concerned about the events that have transpired at USP.
Chandra’s opinion piece
Professor Chandra in an opinion-editorial in the Fiji Sun on September 14 claimed that the BDO Report into allegations of USP mismanagement had found nothing against him.
However, 500 staff and students released a rebuttal, contesting his claims of being “vindicated” from mismanagement during his time at the university.
“Chandra claims that Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) found no corruption, fraud or abuse of office after two months of investigation. This is not borne out by the FICAC letter to USP, namely, that FICAC has not ceased work but merely suspended its investigation to avoid duplication.
“For FICAC to demonstrate it’s independence it must insist on getting the BDO report and formulate appropriate charges. We are quite certain this will happen in due course, if not in Fiji, then in any jurisdiction of an appropriate member country of USP,” the rebuttal said.
It raised other instances specific of mismanagement.
“When he took professional development leave in September, three months before his retirement in December 2018, one could ask, was that leave for the good of the University? Part of the reported leakages of money would have included Chandra going on USP-paid training leave on the verge of his retirement and keeping his housemaid in a student accommodation facility,” the rebuttal said.
Allegations of negligence
The rebuttal also alleged negligence in infrastructure management.
“Before Chandra’s appointment as the VC and current setbacks under his watch, the University had maintained steady growth and expansion for 40 years.
“The Solomon Islands campus in Honiara has been delayed for at least five years while more funds were channelled to the Laucala Bay fourth campus costing $4.1 million. This point is vindicated by the number of written petitions to Council and formal complaints against him during his term in office.
“During his 10-year term, the facilities used intensely by thousands of students and staff, such as the gym, the dining hall and the student halls, fell into disrepair. Many staff were evicted from quarters because of required maintenance work. Instead, many houses remain derelict and unoccupied.
“On the other hand, the Vice-Chancellor’s residence was always renovated on time at considerable cost to the university. During Cyclone Winston, a power generator installed at the VC’s residence ensured his house was lighted while the campus was in darkness.”
It warned that the USP will have to take care of increased costs for the upkeep of the facilities.
“USP will have to pay more as a result of the deferred maintenance costs now. We lost an iconic building on the campus on the eve of Chandra’s departure, which clearly happened as a result of lack of maintenance and upgrade.”
Current VCP thanked
The rebuttal went on to thank the new VCP for his role for taking on perceived mismanagement at USP.
“The staff appreciate VCP Ahluwalia’s role in drawing the USP Council’s attention to alleged irregularities at the university. We look forward to strengthening of USP’s governance system for posterity which the review commission is tasked to do.”
The committee that the USP Council has set up to make changes is to be chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna and Fiji’s Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
How does an optical illusion work? – Scarlett, age 8, Shellharbour, NSW.
Take a look at this image and move your eyes across the pattern:
Your eyes tell the brain what it sees and the brain fills in the missing information.Shutterstock
Do you see something moving? Well, it’s not really moving. It’s just your brain being confused by what your eyes tell it.
The confused brain
Our brain is like a blind supercomputer; it’s very smart, but it can’t see. It’s just a really smart blob.
To figure out what it needs, our eyes tell our brain what the things around us look like. The problem is our eyes only know a handful of words to describe what they see.
Sometimes, our brain gets confused by what the eyes are trying to tell it.
This can mean the brain thinks things are moving when actually they’re still. Or you might “see” shapes, shades or colours that aren’t really there.
For example, look at Square A and Square B in this picture:
Our eyes and brain speak to each other in a very simple language, like a child who doesn’t know many words. Most of the time that’s not a problem and our brain is able to understand what the eyes tell it.
The colour of an orange, the size of a chair, how far away the door is – your brain knows all these things because the eyes told it so in simple language.
But your brain also has to “fill in the blanks” meaning it has to make some guesses based on the simple clues from the eyes. Mostly those guesses are right (for example, I can see the door looks about this big and the light falls on it that way, so my brain is taking these simple clues and guessing the door is about one metre away).
A wrong guess
Sometimes, however, the brain guesses wrong.
Our eyes and brains evolved to be quite sensitive to movement, even when it is not really there.Shutterstock
For example, it thinks our eyes told it something is moving but that’s not what the eyes meant to say to the brain. (Our brains and eyes evolved to be quite sensitive about movement because in pre-historic times it was a big help if you could spot movement early and often. A slight rustle in the bushes could mean a predator was nearby and it was time to run away. Spotting movement early could save your life!)
Optical illusions happen when our brain and eyes try to speak to each other in simple language but the interpretation gets a bit mixed-up.
But how and why?
A lot of scientists have worked very hard for many years trying to understand how optical illusions work. But the truth is, in many cases, we still don’t know for sure exactly how our brain and eyes work together to create these illusions.
We know that information that our eyes gather goes on a long, complicated journey as it travels to the brain. Some of the confusion happens early in that journey. Other optical illusions can only be explained by really complicated processes way down the line in that journey.
In general, the further down the line these “confusions” occur, the less scientists tend to know about exactly how they happen.
But who knows? Maybe you will grow up to be part of the research team that cracks the code.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
“Remaining and expanding”. The propaganda tagline of Islamic State (IS) has rung hollow since the collapse of the physical caliphate. But recent developments in north-eastern Syria threaten to give it fresh legitimacy.
The US recently removed 1,000 troops from Syria, abandoning their Kurdish allies. Turkish forces – a hybrid of Turkish military and Free Syrian Army rebels, including jihadi extremists – then surged across the Turkish border and began intense bombardment of towns and cities liberated from IS.
Just how quickly and how far IS will rise from now remains unclear. One thing that’s certain, however, is that IS and the al-Qaeda movement that spawned it, plan and act for the long-term. They believe in their divine destiny and are prepared to sacrifice anything to achieve it.
In speaking about the resurgence of IS, we risk talking up the IS brand, the very thing it cares so very much about. But the greater risk is underestimating the capacity for reinvention, resilience and enduring appeal of IS.
And complacency and short-sighted politics threaten to lead us to repeat the mistakes of a decade ago that saw a decimated Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) insurgency roar back to life.
From violent beginnings
In 2006, Sunni tribes in north-western Iraq killed or arrested the majority of ISI fighters with US support, reducing their strength from many thousands to a few hundred.
But with no backing for the Sunni tribes from the poorly functioning, Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, the outbreak of civil war in Syria, and the draw-down of US troops, ISI launched an insurgency in Syria before rising triumphant as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
ISIS quickly became the most potent terrorist group in history, drawing more than 40,000 fighters from around the world, and seizing control of north eastern Syria and north western Iraq.
The final defeat of the IS caliphate in north eastern Syria came after five hard years of fighting and 11,000 lives from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), largely composed of members of the Kurdish YPG.
To the US, the SDF fighters were local partners and boots-on-the-ground after multiple false starts and expensive mistakes from allying with rebel groups in the Free Syrian Army. Without this SDF alliance, the IS caliphate could not be toppled.
Trump’s betrayal could open up ISIS recruitment
US President Donald Trump’s betrayal of the SDF in recent weeks is disastrous on several levels. It ignores the threat IS represents and validates ISIS’s central narrative.
What’s more, it contributes to the very circumstances of neglect, cynical short-term thinking and governance failures that lead to giving the IS insurgency an open pathway for recruiting.
Trump’s reckless move to withdraw 1,000 special forces troops from Syria comes from an impatience to end an 18-year long “Global War on Terrorism” military campaign of unprecedented expense.
Donald Trump withdrew 1,000 troops from Syria.EPA: Michael Reynolds
This is somewhat understandable. After almost US$6 trillion of US Federal expenditure and two decades of fighting, surely enough is enough.
But the inconvenient truth is IS and al-Qaeda jihadi fighters around the world have increased, in some estimates nearly four-fold, since September 11.
Still, betraying the SDF and pulling out of Syria for small short-term savings risks jeopardising all that has been achieved in defeating the IS caliphate in north-western Iraq.
IS hardliners in overcrowded camps
IS will never return to its days of power as a physical caliphate, but all the evidence points to it tipping past an inflection point and beginning a long, steady resurgence.
IS has thousands of terrorist fighters still active in the field in northern Iraq. They’re attacking by night and rebuilding strength from disgruntled Sunni communities, as well as having thousands of fighters lying low in Syria.
But in recent months, the tempo of IS attacks has shifted from Iraq to Syria with the previously hidden insurgency reemerging.
As many as 12,000 terrorist fighters, including 2,000 foreigners, are detained in prisons run, at least until this week, by the SDF. Many are located in the border region now being overrun by the Turkish military and the Syrian jihadi it counts as loyal instruments.
Elsewhere, in poorly secured overcrowded camps for internally displaced peoples (IDPs), tens of thousands of women, many fiercely loyal to IS, and children are held in precarious circumstances.
In the Al Hawl camp alone there are more than 60,000 women and children linked to IS, including 11 Australian women and their 44 children, along with 10,000 IDPs.
The IS hardliners not only enforce a reign of terror within the camps, but are in regular communication with IS insurgents. They confidently await their liberation by the IS insurgent forces.
Liberated ISIS fighters
The hope of being freed is neither naive nor remote. Already, hundreds of fighters and IDPs have escaped the prisons and camps since the Turkish offensive began.
From mid-2012 until mid-2013, IS ran an insurgent campaign called “Breaking the Walls”. It saw thousands of hardened senior ISIS leaders, and many other militants who would later join the movement, broken out of half a dozen prisons surrounding Baghdad.
Suicide squads were used to blast holes in prison walls. Heavily armed assault teams moved rapidly through the prisons, blasting open cells and rushing the hundreds of liberated terrorist fighters into tactical four-wheel-drives. They were to be driven away in the desert through the night to rebuild the senior ranks of ISIS.
The liberated fighters were not only more valuable to ISIS after their time in prison, with many switching allegiances to join the movement, they were better educated and more deeply radicalised graduating for what they refer to as their terrorist universities.
It would appear the same cycle is now being repeated in north-eastern Syria.
