Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Gambling operators often seek to persuade governments and the public of their virtue by funding “good causes”. Lotteries, for example, have been used to fund such things as the Sydney Opera House, hospitals in Queensland and health, arts, sport and education initiatives in the UK.

In Australia, and other countries, gambling operators are also required by law to donate some of their revenue for community and charitable purposes. In Victoria, for example, club pokie operators must document their contributions annually. This qualifies them for a reduction in gambling tax.

Our recently published research examined three years of these contributions in the state of Victoria. We sought to determine how much of the money claimed as benefits to the community did, in fact, reach such charitable or philanthropic causes.

What we found was that clubs donated mostly to themselves. Operating expenses accounted for the vast majority of ‘community benfits’. This is permitted under the regulations, but is strongly at odds with the claim that that clubs provide significant support to the community.

What clubs are required to give under the law

These charitable contribution schemes tacitly acknowledge that gambling is a harmful activity. It has significant costs to individuals, families, communities and government.

In Victoria, a study funded by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation estimated the social costs of gambling in the state at $7 billion for 2017. These costs include health impacts, relationship breakdowns and divorce, neglect of children, loss of major assets, bankruptcy, crime and imprisonment, and suicide.

Because of this, it’s important to know whether community contributions from gambling actually offset some or all of this harm.

Gambling losses in Victoria in 2017, meanwhile, totalled $5.5 billion, and total state government revenue from gambling was $1.9 billion.

Read more: The Crown allegations show the repeated failures of our gambling regulators

The Victorian community benefits scheme is unique in its relative transparency. Clubs are required by law to spend at least 8.33% of total pokie losses on community contributions.

These community benefits are defined by a ministerial direction, last amended in 2012. This allows clubs to claim philanthropic, charitable, or benevolent contributions, as well as operating expenses.

If this target is met and documented, clubs enjoy an 8.33% tax break compared to hotel operators. The law requires clubs to provide an annual statement of contributions and these reports are published online.

We used these records, published by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, as the basis for our research.

Clubs fall far short in charitable giving

In the three-year period from July 2012 to June 2015, Victorian clubs took in net gambling revenue of $2.6 billion (adjusted for inflation at 2014-15 values).

From this amount, they claimed $853 million (32.5%) as benefits provided to the community.

Our research sought to determine the actual extent to which claimed benefits were, in fact, provided to charitable or philanthropic purposes. Considerable media attention (and some previous research) has suggested that such benefits may be largely illusory.

We found that contributions to charitable or philanthropic purposes amounted to just $38.7 million, or 1.5% of total net gambling revenue. This is obviously far less than the mandated 8.33%.

Read more: The odds you’ll gamble on the Grand Final are high when punting is woven into our very social fabric

In contrast, venue operating costs amounted to $602.5 million, 70.7% of all community benefit claims. This included wages and on-costs, capital costs, outfitting and update of club equipment, insurance and utilities.

This is indeed permitted under the ministerial direction. But when these operating costs are taken into account, the clubs are falling well short of their claims of contributing substantially to the philanthropic or charitable needs of their communities.

In a statement in response to our research, Community Clubs Victoria refuted suggestions

there is such little community benefit to club members and the local communities from the revenues derived from clubs with gaming.

The group said the gaming machines allow it to pay for, among other things, maintenance of sporting fields, team jumpers for junior sporting members, opportunities for volunteers and sporting competitions.

What AFL, golf and racing clubs gave

We also examined three categories of clubs that operate pokies in greater detail – AFL clubs, golf clubs and racing clubs.

Golf clubs spent 96% ($109 million) of their supposed community contributions on business operating costs. Direct contributions to the community in the form of donations to charities and other community-based organisation, for example, amounted to just $1.6 million, or 0.75% of net gambling revenue.

Racing clubs spent 94% ($211.5 million) of their community contribution claims on business operating costs. Their direct donations to communities were $1.7 million (0.45% of net gambling revenue).

AFL clubs claimed a more modest 74% ($38 million) of community contributions as business operating costs. These clubs donated $6.7 million directly to communities, or 2.7% of net gambling revenue.

Although Victorian clubs did not give the required 8.33% of total pokie losses on what might reasonably be regarded as actual community contributions, they did claim the 8.33% tax break offered by the state.

This meant the clubs received a tax discount of $217.4 million over the three-year period. Note that clubs, as mutual organisations, do not generally pay corporations tax. This is despite many operating as highly profitable businesses.

Similar disparities in other states

Our research is backed up by the Productivity Commission, which was scathing of the community benefit schemes operating in most Australian states:

The (gross) value of social contributions by clubs is likely to be significantly less than the support governments provide to clubs through tax and other concessions.

Given this, there are strong grounds for the phased implementation of significantly lower levels of gaming revenue tax concessions for clubs, commensurate with the realised community benefits.

Indeed, this is not just a problem of the Victorian system. The ACT auditor-general raised similar concerns in a 2018 review of the charitable giving regulations there.

Betty Con Walker, a former NSW state treasury officer, criticised the system in NSW, as well. She noted that claims for business expenses by gambling operators in that state also far exceeded contributions to actual community purposes.

Read more: Australia has a long way to go on responsible gambling

The Victorian community contributions scheme allows for scrutiny of charitable giving to a much greater extent than other states.

However, from examining the available data, we know that claims of community benefits in NSW amounted to just $120 million in 2015, or 2.1% of net pokie revenue. And in Queensland, community contributions amounted to $36.5 million in 2012, or 1.9% of total pokie revenue.

It may be that pokie operators do support worthy causes. However, in the absence of readily available and transparent data, we don’t know.

Data about how much benefit clubs provide to the community are not presented transparently. They do not accord with a straightforward understanding of what constitutes community benefit.

Because of this, an accurate assessment of the costs and benefits to the community of the gambling industry is close to impossible. What is certain, however, is that the amounts actually contributed to good causes by gambling operators are a tiny fraction of the money lost by people using pokies. They are also a miniscule proportion of the best available estimate of social harms.

If we persist with the idea that gambling can support community causes, we need community benefit systems that demonstrably deliver such benefits. Instead, we have what appears to be a smokescreen.

Behind this, industry claims to support communities, while redirecting most of the money back to themselves. Governments receive significant tax revenue from gambling. They need to make sure that they are not justifying their dependence on harmful products with such schemes.

A transparent scheme that defines community benefits clearly, and in line with reasonable community expectations, is long overdue.

– ref. New research shows pokie operators are not nearly as charitable as they claim – http://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-pokie-operators-are-not-nearly-as-charitable-as-they-claim-124085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Tran, Senior Research Officer and Pharmacist, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, University of Sydney

Vaccines have long been available from GPs and nurses. But in recent years, laws have changed to add pharmacists to the list of health professionals who can give select vaccines without a prescription.

This may improve vaccination coverage against the flu, whooping cough and measles. But there’s a chance it could cost you more than if your saw your GP for the same shot.

Overcoming resistance

Before 2014, pharmacists couldn’t give vaccinations in Australia. Then a pilot study allowed a select group of Queensland pharmacies to offer the flu vaccine.

By this time, pharmacists had been giving certain vaccines in Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom for some years.

But in Australia, pharmacists didn’t have the skills and the law didn’t allow it. Another barrier was the attitudes of other health professionals, such as doctors, that pharmacists couldn’t or shouldn’t give vaccinations.

Read more: How rivalries between doctors and pharmacists turned into the ‘turf war’ we see today

The Queensland pilot study concluded pharmacists could safely and effectively administer certain vaccines to adults, once they were trained. This training included how to administer injections and what to do if something went wrong, such as managing anaphylaxis and performing CPR.

State and territory regulations have changed since 2014 and pharmacist vaccination services have quickly grown. In Victoria, for example, the number of pharmacies registered to give vaccines grew, from 36 in 2017 to 489 in July 2019.

What vaccines can you get at the pharmacy?

The rules vary in each state and territory. Generally, if you’re 16 and over, pharmacist immunisers can give you the following three vaccines:

• influenza (flu)
• diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) – except Tasmania
• measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) – except Tasmania and the ACT.

These are important vaccines that are sometimes needed if adults missed doses earlier in life or have waning immunity. The influenza vaccine needs to be given every year in a short time frame.

Read more: Health Check: are you up to date with your vaccinations?

There are some further exceptions.

In the Australian Capital Territory, pregnant women can’t be vaccinated by a pharmacist.

In Tasmania and Western Australia, the flu vaccine can be given by a pharmacist to those aged ten and over.

Pharmacist immunisers are gradually being allowed to give more types of vaccines. In Western Australia, for example, pharmacists can now deliver the meningococcal ACWY vaccine to those aged 16 and over. This vaccine protects against around half of the strains that cause meningococcal disease in Australia.

Read more: What is meningococcal disease and what are the options for vaccination?

It might cost you more

Some vaccines that would be free from your GP, practice nurse or immunisation clinic will need to be paid for if given at a community pharmacy. That’s because pharmacist immunisers aren’t able to access the government-funded vaccines that your clinic can.

Victoria is an exception – pharmacists can give select government-funded vaccines. And in the ACT and WA, the over-65s can access government-funded flu vaccines at pharmacies.

The cost of vaccines at pharmacies varies. In Victoria, for example, the total fee charged for people not eligible for a government-funded vaccination is around A$20 for influenza and A$43 for pertussis (whooping cough).

Even if the vaccine is free, the pharmacy may still charge a consultation fee.

If you see your GP, they may either bulk bill you for the appointment or charge a consultation fee.

The best thing is to check ahead about any out-of-pocket expenses for vaccination when you make your booking.

Do you need to see a GP?

Pharmacy vaccination increases access to preventative health care, especially for those living in rural and remote areas, where it’s difficult to visit a doctor or clinics are infrequent.

Having pharmacists as immunisers also increases the immunisation workforce capacity for public health responses. To help address an outbreak of meningococcal disease last year in Tasmania, pharmacist immunisers administered the meningococcal ACWY vaccine to people aged 10 to 21.

Going to the pharmacist for some vaccines may take some pressure off family doctors and free GPs to deliver more complex care that only they can perform.

Read more: The role of pharmacists should be overhauled, taking the heat off GPs

But there may be instances when it’s better to go to your GP for a vaccination, for example, if you’re pregnant, have a chronic health condition or need some blood tests related to vaccination. Or you might have other things to discuss with your doctor other than vaccines.

– ref. Pharmacists can vaccinate adults against whooping cough, measles and the flu, but it might cost you more – http://theconversation.com/pharmacists-can-vaccinate-adults-against-whooping-cough-measles-and-the-flu-but-it-might-cost-you-more-122191

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Ridoutt, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Agriculture, CSIRO

Our diets can have a big environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and transporting various foods has been well researched, but have you ever thought about the water-scarcity impacts of producing your favourite foods? The answers may surprise you.

In research recently published in the journal Nutrients, we looked at the water scarcity footprints of the diets of 9,341 adult Australians, involving more than 5,000 foods. We measured both the amount of water used to produce a food, and whether water was scarce or abundant at the location it was drawn from.

The food system accounts for around 70% of global freshwater use. This means a concerted effort to minimise the water used to produce our food – while ensuring our diets remained healthy – would have a big impact in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

Biscuits, beer or beef: which takes the most water to produce?

We found the average Australian’s diet had a water-scarcity footprint of 362 litres per day. It was slightly lower for women and lower for adults over 71 years of age.

A water-scarcity footprint consists of two elements: the litres of water used, multiplied by a weighting depending on whether water scarcity at the source is higher or lower than the global average.

Foods with some of the highest water-scarcity footprints were almonds (3,448 litres/kg), dried apricots (3,363 litres/kg) and breakfast cereal made from puffed rice (1,464 litres/kg).

In contrast, foods with some of the smallest water-scarcity footprint included wholemeal bread (11.3 litres/kg), oats (23.4 litres/kg), and soaked chickpeas (5.9 litres/kg).

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

It may surprise you that of the 9,000 diets studied, 25% of the water scarcity footprint came from discretionary foods and beverages such as cakes, biscuits, sugar-sweetened drinks and alcohol. They included a glass of wine (41 litres), a single serve of potato crisps (23 litres), and a small bar of milk chocolate (21 litres).

These foods don’t only add to our waistlines, but also our water-scarcity footprint. Previous studies have also shown these foods contribute around 30% of dietary greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.

The second highest food group in terms of contributing to water-scarcity was fruit, at 19%. This includes whole fruit and fresh (not sugar-sweetened) juices. It should be remembered that fruit is an essential part of a healthy diet, and generally Australians need to consume more fruit to meet recommendations.

Dairy products and alternatives (including non-dairy beverages made from soy, rice and nuts) came in third and bread and cereals ranked fourth.

The consumption of red meat – beef and lamb – contributed only 3.7% of the total dietary water-scarcity footprint. These results suggest that eating fresh meat is less important to water scarcity than most other food groups, even cereals.

How to reduce water use in your diet

Not surprisingly, cutting out discretionary foods would be number one priority if you wanted to lower the water footprint of the food you eat, as well as the greenhouse gas emissions of production.

Over-consumption of discretionary foods is also closely linked to weight gain and obesity. Eating a variety of healthy foods, according to energy needs, is a helpful motto.

Aside from this, it is difficult to give recommendations that are relevant to consumers. We found that the variation in water-scarcity footprint of different foods within a food group was very high compared to the variation between food groups.

Read more: Curious Kids: why can’t we just build a pipe to move water to areas in drought?

For example, a medium sized apple was found to contribute a water-scarcity footprint of three litres compared with more than 100 litres for a 250 ml glass of fresh orange juice. This reflects the relative use of irrigation water and the local water scarcity where these crops are grown. It also takes more fruit to produce juice than when fruit is consumed whole.

Two slices of wholegrain bread had a much lower water-scarcity footprint than a cup of cooked rice (0.9 litres compared with 124 litres). Of the main protein sources, lamb had the lowest water-scarcity footprint per serve (5.5 litres). Lambs are rarely raised on irrigated pastures and when crops are used for feeding, these are similarly rarely irrigated.

Consumers generally lack the information they would need to choose core foods with a lower water-scarcity footprint. Added to this, diversity is an important principle of good nutrition and dissuading consumption of particular core foods could have adverse consequences for health.

Perhaps the best opportunities to reduce water scarcity impacts in the Australian food system lie in food production. There is often very large variation between producers in water scarcity footprint of the same farm commodity.

For example, a study of the water scarcity footprint of tomatoes grown for the Sydney market reported results ranging from 5.0 to 52.8 litres per kg. Variation in the water-scarcity footprint of milk produced in Victoria was reported to range from 0.7 to 262 litres. This mainly reflects differences in farming methods, with variation in the use of irrigation and also the local water scarcity level.

Water-scarcity footprint reductions could best be achieved through technological change, product reformulation and procurement strategies in agriculture and food industries.

Not all water is equal

This is the first study of its kind to report the water-scarcity footprint for a large number of individual self-selected diets.

This was no small task, given that 5,645 individual foods were identified. Many were processed foods which needed to be separated into their component ingredients.

Read more: Climate explained: what each of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint

It’s hard to say how these results compare to other countries as the same analysis has not been done elsewhere. The study did show a large variation in water-scarcity footprints within Australian diets, reflecting the diversity of our eating habits.

Water scarcity is just one important environmental aspects of food production and consumption. While we don’t suggest that dietary guidelines be amended based on water scarcity footprints, we hope this research will support more sustainable production and consumption of food.

– ref. It takes 21 litres of water to produce a small chocolate bar. How water-wise is your diet? – http://theconversation.com/it-takes-21-litres-of-water-to-produce-a-small-chocolate-bar-how-water-wise-is-your-diet-123180

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amina Youssef-Shalala, Lecturer, Australian Catholic University

Have you ever thought about how your brain works when you study? Knowing this may improve your ability to retain and recall information.

There are three main memory structures: sensory, working and long-term memory. Using these tips, you can activate all three to enhance how you study.

1. Try to learn the same content in different ways

Activating your sensory memory is the first step. Sensory memory relies on the senses, which I’m sure you know are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

So think about it – to activate your sensory memory, you should activate as many senses as possible. We mainly use visual and and auditory (sound) aids when learning but many subject areas also make use of more than these two senses. For example, visual arts would require touch.

Instead of just reading your textbook, try learning using podcasts, visual aids such as posters, presentations and online blogs.

When we activate our sensory memory, we engage in the processes of attention and perception.

Humans must pay attention to learn and the more cognitive resources we allocate to a task, at any given time, the faster we learn. This is why it makes sense to study in an environment conducive to learning, such as a quiet room in your home or library.

Sensory and working memory are so limited, learners need to allocate their resources to important information as selectively as possible and with minimal distraction.

Read more: Study habits for success: tips for students

How we interpret information is based on what we already know and our prior experiences. One way we can make use of this is by sharing knowledge with someone else before starting a new or unfamiliar task. So, try to review what you’ve learnt with a friend or parent before going on to learn something new.

If you don’t understand something in the first instance, it may be because you haven’t paid enough attention or you haven’t perceived the question or problem correctly. Try to clear your mind (take a break) and consciously think about how much attention you are paying to the question.

If that still doesn’t work, ask for advice or seek help to ensure you are on the right track.

2. Learn easier parts first, then build on them

After a learner perceives and pays attention to learning material, the information is transferred to working memory. This is where your conscious processing takes place.

When you are sitting an exam, your working memory is what decides what your answer is going to be and how you are going to structure your response.

What many learners don’t realise is that, after a long period of study, you can begin to feel like you are not learning as much as you initially did. This is due to what is known as cognitive overload.

Your working memory can only hold a limited number of bits of information at any given time. The exact size of these bits depends on your level of prior knowledge. For example, a child learning the alphabet won’t have much prior knowledge, so each letter is stored individually as, say, 26 bits. As they become more familiar, the letters come together to become one bit.

Read more: Comic explainer: how memory works

For your working memory to be more efficient, consider the type of information you are learning. Is it low or high in the “bits” department? Is what you are trying to learn something you need to master before you can move on to more challenging parts? If the answer is “yes”, then you are using up a lot of “bits” of memory.

Try master the smaller bits first, so you can recall that information more swiftly without using unnecessary cognitive resources. Then move on to the harder bits.

This type of mastery is known as automation.

Learning something to the point it becomes an automatic thought or process allows the learner to then allocate more cognitive resources to tasks that use up more memory “bits”. This is why at school, we’re encouraged to learn our multiplication tables off by heart, so we free-up cognitive resources to solve the more difficult maths problems.

Working memory is limited, which is why you want to get the information into your long-term memory, which has infinite storage capacity.

For information to be stored there permanently, you must engage in the process of encoding. A lot of things teachers make you do, such as past papers and writing an essay plan, are actually encoding strategies.

Another encoding strategy is the Pomodoro technique. Here, you use a timer to break down study into intervals, usually 25 minutes, separated by short breaks. Used effectively, Pomodoro can reduce anxiety, enhance focus and boost motivation.

Read more: We’re capable of infinite memory, but where in the brain is it stored, and what parts help retrieve it?

What you do at the time of encoding affects the transfer of information from your long-term memory to your working memory, which then gives you answers to questions. You remember better when when conditions at the retrieval match those at encoding.

This is why when we study, we often like to replicate a quiet environment to study in, because it’s going to be similar to the exam setting.

3. Link new information to things you already know

Instead of reviewing exam notes, try to explain what you’ve learnt to someone with no knowledge of the content. If you are capable of teaching someone effectively that means you yourself have a sound understanding.

Your long-term memory generally has infinite capacity, but it’s only a storage structure. So, just because you have something stored there, doesn’t mean you can effectively and efficiently retrieve it.

Most of us have had the experience of studying but then not being able to retrieve the information we’ve learnt. Or we’ve retrieved the information incorrectly, meaning we got the wrong answer.

Read more: HSC exam guide: what to eat to help your brain

This may be because we learnt the material on a shallow level, as opposed to a deeper level of processing. Rote learning material the night before means we haven’t linked the information to the established knowledge structure.

You can help yourself by linking new information to old information you already have stored in your long-term memory, such as by drawing an analogy between the new thing and something you already know.

Knowing all this about memory helps you understand why some methods of study are more or less effective than others. Studying for exams or not, it is important we think about how our brain functions and how we, as individuals, learn best.

– ref. Studying for exams? Here’s how to make your memory work for you – http://theconversation.com/studying-for-exams-heres-how-to-make-your-memory-work-for-you-124586

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Gao, Associate Professor of Law, Singapore Management University

Whether China is a “developing” or a “developed” country for the purposes of the World Trade Organisation matters a lot to the US president.

President Donald Trump ignited a new front in the US-China trade war in July by tweeting that the world’s richest nations were masquerading as developing countries to get special treatment.

They were “cheating”, according to Trump.

He directed the US Trade Representative to “use all available means to secure changes” at the WTO.

Then Australia joined in. While in the United States, Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to China as a “newly developed economy”, and backed Trump, saying that “obviously, as nations progress and develop then the obligations and how the rules apply to them also shift”.

China is digging in. It hasn’t resiled from a statement by its commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng in April:

China’s position on WTO reform has been very clear. China is the largest developing country in the world.

But what’s at stake? In practical terms, almost nothing. Trump and Morrison are demanding something that would give them little.

What does “developing” even mean?

In the WTO, developing countries are entitled to “special and differential treatment” set out in 155 rules.

However, none of those rules define what a “developing country” is.

Instead, each member is able to “self-designate”, subject to challenges from other members.

Being recognised as a developing country was one of the three key principles China insisted on when negotiating to join the WTO in 2001.

It faced resistance. Several members cited “the significant size, rapid growth and transitional nature of the Chinese economy”.

In response the WTO took what it called a “pragmatic approach,” meaning that China got hardly any of the special treatment that would normally be accorded to a developing country.

Read more: Vital Signs. Blame Trump, not China for the looming trade and currency war

For example, under the Uruguay Round of tariff reductions that applied to developing countries already in the WTO, China would have only needed to cut its average industrial tariff from 42.7% to 31.4%. Instead, it agreed to cut it to 9.5%.

Similarly, it agreed to cut its agricultural tariff from 54% to 15.1%, instead of the 37.9% that would have been required had it already been in the WTO. These put its commitments on par with those of developed rather than developing countries.

On some issues, China’s commitments far exceeded those of even developed countries. For example, it agreed to eliminate all export subsidies on agricultural products, an obligation that developed countries were only able to accept 14 years later.

It also undertook to eliminate all export taxes, which are still allowed under WTO rules and still widely used by many governments.

Many of China’s WTO commitments were imposed only on it or modified the general rules to either impose heavier obligations on it or confer less rights on it.

Contrary to popular belief, China has received hardly any of the benefits that accrue to developing countries when it became a WTO Member, other than the ability to use the title “developing country”.

It’s more about identity than benefits

After its accession, China acted as a member of the developing country group and pushed hard for its interests. In 2003 it joined India and Brazil in pushing developed countries to reform their agricultural trade policies while retaining flexibility for developing countries, a push that has yet to achieve success.

In the meantime, it enjoys little preferential treatment for itself, partly because it has eschewed special benefits, partly because most of the transition benefits that were available to it have expired, partly because some of the provisions available to it are essentially voluntary on the part of the country offering them, and partly because many of the benefits available to developing countries are not available to developing countries with large export shares.

Read more: Barley is not a random choice – here’s the real reason China is taking on Australia over dumping

At times it has actively forgone important benefits, such as by not invoking its right to receive technical assistance under WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.

However, on some other issues, the sheer size of China has made it difficult to accommodate China’s claim for developing country treatment. One example is the negotiation on fisheries subsides, which would not be able to move without substantial commitments from China, which operates one of the largest subsidies in the world.

Identity matters to China

In its position paper on WTO Reform, China says it “will never agree to be deprived of its entitlement to special and differential treatment as a developing member”.

At the same time, it says it “is willing to take up commitments commensurate with its level of development and economic capability”.

It remains far less developed than traditionally developed countries. In purchasing power terms, its standard of living is about one-third of that in the United States.

Although not practically important in terms of its obligations under the WTO, its developing country status is useful to it in other ways, giving it the opportunity to gain meaningful advantages in other international organisations such as the Universal Postal Union.

It costs the rest of the world little to accommodate China’s wish to be described as a developing country. If Trump and Morrison got what they wanted, they would find little had changed.

– ref. Myth busted: China’s status as a developing country gives it few benefits in the World Trade Organisation – http://theconversation.com/myth-busted-chinas-status-as-a-developing-country-gives-it-few-benefits-in-the-world-trade-organisation-124602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Shiels, Lecturer – School of Art, RMIT University

Visual arts and performance have always been central to protest and resistance movements in Australia. Posters, street theatre, music and symbolic actions are part of the vocabulary of calls for social and political change.

The cardboard placards, banners and chants of September’s massive school strike for climate connected with this rich creative history. Now Extinction Rebellion — or XR — has gone a step further, purposefully creating a unified, easily identifiable appearance. A look at the group’s practices shows a new approach to arts activism.

Museums of modern protest

Public institutions document our protest history with exhibitions drawing on substantial collections of ephemera: last year the Tasmanian Art Gallery and Museum installed “We’re not going to the mainland” to mark three decades of campaigning for LGBTI rights, while exhibitions like Revolutions: Records and Rebels and We Protest in Melbourne, and The art of sedition festival in Sydney, celebrated the vibrancy of protest in those cities since the 1960s. No doubt there will be more exhibitions next year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam Moratorium.

These retrospectives show us what activism looks like and reveal how the arts shape the visual and cultural expressions of each movement.

XR, the new kid on the block, has gone a step further, purposefully creating a unified, easily identifiable appearance. Its style verges on corporate branding, which is ironic given that XR identifies as a “do it together movement” and makes all its design and artwork free for non-commercial use “for the purpose of planet saving”.

Looking good

XR is an international movement that promotes civil disobedience and non-violent direct action in an effort to compel urgent action in climate change. In April this year, it shut down key parts of London with two weeks of rolling protests. More than 1000 activists were arrested in the process.

Although XR has only been present in Australia since January, it has already established more than 18 chapters and launched actions in every state. Last week, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton called for protesters to have welfare payments cancelled and the Queensland government has signalled new police powers following XR protests. XR’s presence is likely to be felt more keenly during a new global “rebellion” beginning today.

No doubt many supporters are drawn to XR because they feel its disruptive tactics match the urgency of the climate emergency. But XR’s distinctive look also helps raise its profile. According to Clive Russell, a graphic designer working with XR’s arts group, the aim was to design something that looked nothing like previous movements. Eco and punk aesthetics were intentionally avoided.

The stylised hourglass of the distinctive XR symbol was conceived in 2011 by the UK street artist ESP. Its use on a swathe of multi-coloured flags makes an XR action immediately identifiable. The palette is vibrant and extensive, but distinguishes itself from the rainbow colours associated with the LGBTQI+ movement or with a hippie-style counter culture.

The designers use a font that has a slight retro feel, and were influenced by the graphics of the Paris protests of 1968 and by the design style of the Situationist International artist collective. They wanted to communicate the angry but non-violent values of the rebellion.

Guided, collaborative, noncommercial

Any group or individual wanting to make posters or flyers can draw on the Design Guide and a library of illustrations that resemble woodblock prints.

There are illustrations of skeletons and bones, and of animals and plants facing extinction. There is an open invitation to improvise and extend this visual library, and local artists are contributing images of endangered Australian flora and fauna. Some have been converted into actual woodblocks to print images on clothing at events, but these are never for sale. Part of the “good faith” agreement with street artist ESP is that the XR symbol is never used for commercial purposes, including fundraising.

The Red Rebels performance group is another initiative that is shared and interpreted by XR groups internationally. Consisting of a silent choir of witnesses, the performers use Butoh-inspired gestures to communicate the tragedy of ecological collapse and climate catastrophe. This emphasis on the theatrics of disruption is a signature of the movement.

While XR disruption manifests in a very public way, there is a subterranean complexity and organisational nous that connects the autonomous groups that make up each geographically defined XR chapter. Along with face-to-face meetings, interaction occurs over a digital platform with multiple channels that operate like chat rooms. Musicians, performers, writers, singers, sewers, crafters and artists engage in this chaotic virtual village square to develop shared creative projects.

XR’s cultural activism has generated choirs, performance groups, a gamelan orchestra, sculptures, props and banners. The self-organising principles that underpin the movement encourage participation, similar to the way community art was realised in the late 20th Century and to its more contemporary manifestation as social engaged practice. Yet there are no lead artists nor arts funding here — all infrastructure and materials are donated, and all work is voluntary.

Shared aesthetic, shared vision

Despite the urgency of addressing climate change, marches, speeches and petitions have so far achieved little. Faced with government inaction, XR promotes non-violent civil disobedience as a necessary response. Here too, XR draws on a long and rich history: the civil rights movement in the US, the international anti-apartheid campaign, the Vietnam Moratorium and the Franklin River blockade all used similar tactics.

People of all ages are joining XR, and many are ready to be arrested in line with their convictions. A much larger number will stand behind them, showing support in a multitude of creative ways.

XR has three demands: tell the truth about what is happening to the planet and declare a climate emergency; act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; reform democracy to create a citizens assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Whether XR’s creative processes, aesthetic choices and non-violent direct action can galvanise a shared vision and push climate politics in a new direction remains to be seen. Perhaps, 50 years from now, museums will be mounting exhibitions to showcase the aesthetics of XR — and celebrate its success as a movement.

– ref. Extinction Rebellion: how to craft a protest brand – http://theconversation.com/extinction-rebellion-how-to-craft-a-protest-brand-123084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Allen, Swinburne Space Office Project Coordinator | Manager Swinburne Astronomy Productions, Swinburne University of Technology

Thanks to the audio recordings of distant rumblings on Mars released this week by NASA, we finally know what the red planet sounds like.

NASA’s InSight lander captured a range of sounds, most tantalisingly the low rumbles of “marsquakes” – seismic ripples rumbling through Mars’ interior.

So does this mean Mars is noisy, or quiet? Do these terms even make sense on a different planet? Does sound travel in the same way on Mars?

If a tree falls in Australia (even if no one is there to hear it), it makes a whooshing sound followed by a ground-shaking thud. These sounds travel by causing air molecules to vibrate, which in turn cause their neighbours to vibrate, and before you know it you have a sound wave.

Mars certainly doesn’t have any trees that we know of, but many things can cause vibrations, such as wind. Mars has an atmosphere too, albeit quite different from the air here on Earth. For a start, there’s a lot less of it and it’s more spread out. It’s also made mostly of carbon dioxide, whereas our air thankfully contains plenty of oxygen.

These important details affect how those vibrations travel as sound waves. If you were to drop a tree on Mars (let’s pretend the gravity is the same), the whoosh would be much quieter. But that doesn’t mean it’s less likely to drown out other sounds, because they would all be quieter too.

Sounds and vibrations are important, they tell us about the medium they’re travelling through. With some very sensitive tools, we can hear the sounds of Mars like never before. So what do these martian sounds tell us?

The song of its history

On the surface, Mars looks like a planet long past its prime. There is no water, no lush forests, not much of an atmosphere, and the Solar system’s biggest volcano lies dormant.

But we do see clues it has had an interesting history. It has water ice at its poles, and its surface shows signs flowing liquid water was once present.

Read more: I’ve Always Wondered: Why are the volcanoes on Earth active, but the ones on Mars are not?

What makes this red world so different from our own? To answer this, astronomers need to know more about how Mars formed.

We are pretty certain all four of the rocky or terrestrial planets formed in a similar way (well, maybe not Mercury, but we’ll leave that for another day). We’re also pretty sure their interiors have similar structures: rocky outer crust, liquid rock mantle, and metallic core.

These layers form as the molten planets cool down in the aftermath of their violent formation. Denser elements such as metals sink to the centre; whereas lighter materials rise up to form the outer layers.

While we can confirm this for Earth, doing so for the other planets requires we go there and listen to them.

Insights from InSight

When NASA’s InSight lander touched down on Mars almost a year ago, its aim was to probe the interior of the red planet to understand more about its formation and current geological activity. Equipped with sophisticated instruments, InSight could measure vibrations from things like wind above ground and detect any rumblings from beneath the surface too.

In the same way we monitor earthquakes on Earth, InSight’s seismometer would be able to detect even very weak “marsquakes” – seismic waves travelling through the red planet. These waves would reveal information about Mars’ interior and could confirm whether its structure is similar to Earth’s.

It took months for InSight to sense anything below the surface. But since April 2019 it has made more than 100 detections. Not all of them are marsquakes – there are other sounds too. Meteor impacts on Mars’ surface would also cause sound waves to traverse the planet. And InSight itself pings and creaks as its parts move and its components expand and contract with the changes in temperature.

To understand just what was detected, NASA’s scientists had to decode the data.

A sleeping giant

This week, engineers and scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed at least 20 of the detections are bona fide marsquakes. The quakes are very weak and would only register around a magnitude 3 on our earthquake scale.

This remarkable achievement highlights the sensitivity and capability of InSight’s German-made seismic sensor. The next step is to try to understand exactly what caused these mini-marsquakes. This is quite challenging with only one instrument on the planet and hopefully more detections will help reveal the cause of these soft vibrations.

Read more: Discovered: a huge liquid water lake beneath the southern pole of Mars

But what about our original question? What does it sound like on Mars? Thanks to InSight, we can hear the martian wind, the pings and scrapes of Insight’s movements, and now even the planet’s faint seismic heartbeat.

While the vibrations have been altered a bit so our ears can actually pick them up, you can now hear the marsquakes for yourself!

While it may not have the sounds of life we hear on Earth, Mars is far from quiet. And its sounds are helping us learn even more about the red planet.

– ref. Red planet rumbles: NASA’s recordings of ‘marsquakes’ let us listen to the martian heartbeat – http://theconversation.com/red-planet-rumbles-nasas-recordings-of-marsquakes-let-us-listen-to-the-martian-heartbeat-124589

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini discusses with Michelle Grattan the consequences of the New York Times revelation that Donald Trump called Scott Morrison to assist with an inquiry looking into the origins of the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. They also talk about the Prime Minister’s address at the Lowy Institute, in which he warns against “negative globalism”, and the Reserve Bank’s latest interest rate cuts.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Scott Morrison’s controversial phone call with Donald Trump – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-scott-morrisons-controversial-phone-call-with-donald-trump-124700

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miriama Young, Acting Head of Composition, Lecturer in Music, University of Melbourne

Diaspora, a production by Chamber Made, sets out to explore the nature of consciousness as society moves closer to the post-human digital realm.

It is a concept inspired by Australian Greg Egan’s eponymous science fiction novel. As creator Robin Fox (who collaborated with artistic director Tamara Saulwick and co-composer Erkki Veltheim) explains, “Diaspora is a science fiction revelation which we are already experiencing”.

A feast for the senses reminiscent at times of an all-night rave or the film Bladerunner, the work bathes the entire SUBSTATION space with broad spectrum frequencies of light and sound.

Fox delivers full sonic immersion through sub-bass pulsations – felt by the audience’s bodies more than heard – using undulating “old-school” synthesizers to represent the past’s vision for our future-present. The moog analog synthesizer and ondes musicales (a 1920s electronic keyboard) are beautifully played by Madeline Flynn.

Alongside her theremin (an instrument noted for its eerie tones and hands-free playing technique), Georgina Darvidis’ compelling vocals – filtered through synthesizer and a vocoder to reduce their bandwidth – create the sonic illusion of a posthuman melody for Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

The treatment is reminiscent of Max Matthews’ 1961 synthesised voice on Bicycle Built for Two, made famous in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Another sonic layer features the extraordinarily virtuosic electric violin of Veltheim, which helps to bridge digital and analogue sound worlds. At one point a Bach partita emanates from his violin, but so heavily filtered that only fragments could be heard. The effect was ethereal.

But despite the impressive sonic techniques, the highlight of the performance was the high definition suspended three-dimensional hologram-like image. This centrepiece evolves over the course of the show from an embryo to an artificially intelligent consciousness.

Beginning as nucleus it moves from womb to human brain to the representation of active neural networks engaged in transmitting complex code. Eventually is morphs into a single suspended eyeball, reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s plays or Janet Frame’s short story Solutions, in which the body is gradually deconstructed over the course of the work.

Conversely, Diaspora gradually constructs, piece by piece, a virtual being. Using a 19th-century theatrical illusion technique known as Pepper’s Ghost, Fox alongside video artist and system designer Nick Roux create effective illusions by bouncing images off Perspex surfaces to produce a spectre performer.

As a musician, I became aware I was continually drawn to the visual, fixated by the projections. The music, then, sonifies these images, creating a multidimensional sensory environment in which ultimately the visual reigns.

The eyeball becomes a writhing three-armed figurine, gliding sensually to the rhythms supplied by only vaguely human musicians. The glitchy, distorted human voice becomes the ultimate sonic metaphor for the posthuman body. We still hear Roland Barthes’ Grain of the Voice, but in this choppy, vocoder rendition, it no longer communicates in a language we understand.

Other disembodied limbs start to dance, suspended in midair, accompanied by an upbeat jig on the fiddle, drum machine, and synthesised vocals reminiscent of Paul Lansky and Laurie Anderson.

Finally, out of a lit galaxy of zeros and ones, a lifelike apparition emerges, set against a raw, palpably human vocal canon, poignantly singing No Place Like Home. Is this the artificial, genderless, multitudinous consciousness singing from its soul? And where is this “home” they speak of? Is it made of the stars from which we all ultimately emerged? The audience might feel the urge, as I did, to plunge hands and feet into real soil, to feel firm ground.

As our society frets about the potential power of artificial intelligence, Fox urges us not to “overlook the prospect that technology could not only save us, but could also be a beautiful moment in the evolution towards an ethereal and non-body consciousness”.

Diaspora is quixotic, atmospheric, visually and sonically spectacular. It is a powerful immersion for the senses, a meditation on a posthuman future that is upon us. Does this work’s digital dream represent the promised utopia that it sets out to portray? This rendition seems chillingly apocalyptic.

The work aims to show the evolution of a new lifeform, but ultimately, through sensory saturation, it is the audience themselves who achieve the altered state of consciousness – a profoundly moving out-of-body experience.

Diaspora is at The SUBSTATION until 6 October

– ref. Diaspora review: a rave for the senses, a future that has already arrived – http://theconversation.com/diaspora-review-a-rave-for-the-senses-a-future-that-has-already-arrived-123356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jayashri Kulkarni, Professor of Psychiatry, Monash University

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.

Why does my older sister, aged 13, not want to play LEGO with me anymore and stays in her room the whole day? – Beth, age 10, Australia.

I am sorry to hear your 13-year-old sister does not want to play LEGO with you anymore and stays in her room all day. This must make you feel sad and maybe a bit rejected.

It is not your fault. There are many reasons why this could be happening and I can’t say for sure what it is. In this article, I am going to talk mostly about one of the possible reasons that could be involved (but it may not explain everything).

Like many 13-year-old girls, your sister is going through a change in her mind and body called puberty. It may be making her behave differently. Puberty is when your body changes from being a child to becoming an adult.

Read more: Curious Kids: does the Sun spin as well as the planets?

What is puberty?

During puberty, a person’s brain and body suddenly starts to produce a lot more hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers that send signals from the brain to body glands.

The main hormones that cause puberty changes are found in two parts of the brain – the hypothalamus and the pituitary. These brain parts make hormones called luteinising hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. The main puberty gland in girls are the ovaries, and in boys it is the testes.

In girls, eggs are stored in the ovaries, which are in the lower belly. The ovaries make other hormones called estrogen and progesterone.

Estrogen and progesterone in girls cause lots of body changes like growing breasts and having periods (bleeding from the vagina) once a month.

Hormones can affect how we feel

The increase in all of the hormones in the brain also affects other parts of the brain to cause some people (girls and boys) to become sad and angry. They might be upset at times or really happy at other times.

As hormone levels go up and down, that can trigger changes in brain chemicals called “serotonin” and “dopamine”. Serotonin and dopamine can change a person’s mood and behaviour. Some people get very moody and feel really irritated by small things that did not bother them before.

Puberty changes in the brain can also make kids start to feel more grown up. Your sister might also look more like an adult woman in her body and feel that she is too grown up to play LEGO anymore. She might want more of her own space to chill out.

But it is important for your parents to find out why she is staying in her room so much – in case she is feeling too sad or actually depressed (which is severe sadness) and wanting help.

What do you do now?

I suggest that you keep being nice to your sister and let her know that you care about her. Try waiting for her to chat to you. Change is tough for everyone. Your sister is trying to cope with the changes of puberty, and you are trying to deal with the changes in your sister.

Most brothers and sisters end up being good friends again – but it can take a bit of time.

Hang in there!

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do people grow to certain sizes?

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

– ref. Curious Kids: why does my older sister not want to play LEGO with me anymore and stays in her room? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-does-my-older-sister-not-want-to-play-lego-with-me-anymore-and-stays-in-her-room-122791

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Keane, Professor of Politics, University of Sydney

This exclusive interview with Martin Lee took place in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district last weekend.

Martin Lee Chu-ming is affectionately known as the “grandfather of Hong Kong democracy”.

A practising barrister, former parliamentarian and founding chairperson of the United Democrats, Hong Kong’s first political party, Lee played a leading role in the group that drafted the Basic Law that specified the fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens when the former British territory was handed back to China in 1997.

Now in his ninth decade, Lee still looks boyishly young and he is still heavily invested in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. As the unrest in the city enters its fifth month, Lee says the “fortunes of democracy are everywhere now at rock bottom.”

“That’s why what’s happening here is so important,” he tells me at a cafe in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district last weekend. “We’re proving that Beijing’s power is not invincible or inevitable. We’re demonstrating that failure is not falling down but refusing to stand up.”

Lee says he’s not surprised by the rising levels of counter violence from the protesters, who are known as martyrs, or their active cooperation with the “peaceful, reasonable and non-violent” (he uses the Cantonese words wo lei fei) citizens who ferry helmets, goggles, bricks, sticks and railings to the front line.

“[Chief Executive] Carrie Lam’s administration is dysfunctional. The police are now in effect governing Hong Kong. The extreme tactical force they’re using has bred public loathing and resentment.”

He sees no end to the police’s use of rubber bullets, tear gas, sponge grenades and blasts of cobalt-blue water mixed with pepper spray. The protesters’ street fires, rock throwing and petrol bombs will continue, too. Lee fears the violence on both sides will soon spiral out of control.

“Each evening I watch the live television coverage and don’t go to bed until I see the kids have made it home safely.”

‘Long litany of broken promises of democracy’

Lee dislikes the way Beijing and local officials are whipping up talk of “riots”, “chaos” and “terrorism” and mischievously conflating the legally significant difference between acts of “violence against persons” and “damage to property”.

And he understands why surveys show that a majority of Hong Kong citizens, among them growing numbers of schoolchildren, support the uprising through thick and thin.

“We’ve won the hearts of people, even though there’s violence. Citizens say that if we go back to the old peaceful ways, they’ll simply ignore us.

Read more: New research shows vast majority of Hong Kong protesters support more radical tactics

Public anger has been deepened by Beijing’s slow-motion strategy of degrading Hong Kong institutions by pressuring them to clamp down on the uprising. Many of these institutions once enjoyed strong public support – bodies such as MTR public transport, Cathay Pacific, the police and the District Court.

“China is acting as if the 1997 Joint Declaration no longer applies,” he says. He feels certain Beijing wants further crackdowns, for instance, banning people from wearing masks at public gatherings. Their ultimate aim is to weaken and destroy the spirit and substance of rule-of-law democracy.

“The kids know it. We all know it. We fear Hong Kong will become just another Chinese city.”

The primary cause of the unfinished uprising is the “long litany of broken promises of democracy”, Lee continues.

The British were never angels with luminous wings, he explains.

“We now know that in the early 1970s, as a concession to China, they removed Hong Kong from the United Nations list of colonies entitled to self-government. During the early handover negotiations, their diplomats often said we were only interested in money, not democracy.

“When it came to introducing elections, they dragged their feet. There should have been free and fair elections right from the beginning of the handover negotiations. The British delayed and delayed, until it was too late.”

Beijing’s weaknesses

Lee is just as tough on Beijing. He played a leading role in the opening negotiations about the future of Hong Kong with top Communist Party officials who gave reassurances, he says, that little would change.

“They urged us to be confident about Hong Kong’s autonomy. Only the flag and the governor would change, they said. I compared our situation to a see-saw game: balancing big China and little Hong Kong required granting us democracy and limited interference by Beijing. They understood.”

Read more: With no end in sight and the world losing interest, the Hong Kong protesters need a new script

But a flip-flop happened. Beijing began gradually to clamp down on Hong Kong’s vibrant civil society. Lee says the half-million-strong demonstration that forced the scrapping of a draft anti-subversion law in 2003 was the tipping point.

“[Chinese] Premier Wen Jiabao happened to be here. On the day of the massive rally, instead of returning to Beijing, he watched the day’s events live on television, from just across the border in Shenzhen. He was told by his officials that there were at most 50,000 demonstrators. He saw otherwise.

“From that moment, things changed. Beijing went from hands-off to hands-on Hong Kong.”

Understating Hong Kong’s importance

The legacy of broken past promises is taking its toll, the veteran democrat says. Things are now coming to a head. Chinese President Xi Jinping “will soon make up his mind about what is to be done”, Lee says.

But Xi faces formidable obstacles. The secret deployment of extra mainland troops to Hong Kong isn’t going to work.

“If Xi orders a full crackdown there’s a good chance things will calm down. But that will kill Hong Kong.”

Lee also doubts the viability of the Communist Party’s State Council plan to integrate the southern mainland city of Shenzhen with neighbouring Hong Kong and Macau.

“We were never consulted about this ‘one country, three systems’ plan, which would make Hong Kong citizens subject to Beijing’s new social credit scheme. The plan seriously underestimates Hong Kong’s strategic economic importance.”

Read more: Hong Kong is one of the most unequal cities in the world. So why aren’t the protesters angry at the rich and powerful?

Lee points out that when handover negotiations began in the early 1980s, Hong Kong produced 20% of China’s GDP. It reached a peak of 27% in 1993, but today is only around 3%.

But what’s important is that a great deal of foreign direct investment is still sluiced through Hong Kong and the city’s currency is pegged to the US dollar, with backing from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the local currency regulatory body.

A full Beijing takeover of Hong Kong faces other obstacles. Internet cables in the city are locally owned, and new super-fast data circuits linking Hong Kong to the wider Asia-Pacific region are planned.

Lee agrees that Hong Kong is up against an emergent Chinese global empire. Another Cold War with the United States seems “inevitable”, he says, which is why there’s rising global awareness of what’s at stake in Hong Kong.

What happens next

He’ll soon visit the US in support of Congress’s Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which he believes has a fighting chance of becoming law.

Then there’s the unfinished business of Hong Kong elections. District Council elections are scheduled for late November, and he says pro-democrats will for the first time contest every seat.

“[These elections are] pretty important. And Legislative Council elections are coming next year.”

As for where the current protest movement is headed, Lee tells me “talk of revolution is just talk. It’s out of the question.” He pauses. “Things look impossible”, he says. “We need miracles.”

With street battles in Wan Chai again about to rage long into the night, I press him to be more exact. Can the birds of civil society, free elections and constitutional democracy now move mountains, a few stones at a time? What are their chances of success?

His eyes light up. “I’d say 1%”, he replies. “That’s quite high, don’t you think?”

– ref. ‘We fear Hong Kong will become just another Chinese city’: an interview with Martin Lee, grandfather of democracy – http://theconversation.com/we-fear-hong-kong-will-become-just-another-chinese-city-an-interview-with-martin-lee-grandfather-of-democracy-124635

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Maguire, Associate Professor, University of Newcastle

Extradition cases are relatively rare but often controversial. Many in Australia are following the case of former Melbourne principal Malka Leifer, currently under house arrest in Israel. Leifer is wanted for extradition to Victoria on 74 charges of child sexual assault.

It is widely accepted that offenders should not be able to evade justice by crossing borders. Over thousands of years, countries have developed processes to apprehend and transfer accused and convicted people to other jurisdictions to face trial and/or imprisonment.

In the contemporary process of extradition, the “requesting state” is the country where a relevant crime has been committed. The “extraditing state” is the country from which extradition is requested.

Extradition in international and Australian law

Extradition is a matter of international law, in the sense that it requires the participation of two or more countries. It also relies on principles that have emerged through international customary and treaty law.

The key related concept is jurisdiction. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter makes clear the significance of political independence, territorial integrity and domestic jurisdiction to the status of a country. The international legal system is built on an assumption that states (countries) are equally entitled to non-interference in their domestic affairs.

According to the territoriality principle, crimes committed within a country’s territorial jurisdiction are subject to prosecution there. This is so whether the person accused of the crime is a national of the prosecuting country or not.

Read more: Explainer: why the government ‘pulled’ Australia’s extradition treaty with China

However, extradition as a process is not governed by an international treaty regime or overseen by the United Nations. It typically involves a treaty between two states. If one country agrees to extradite a person to another, this is done as a matter of comity rather than because of a legal obligation.

Australian law governs extradition through the Extradition Act 1988. The act sets a framework for courts to determine if a person is to be extradited from Australia. It also empowers the government to make extradition requests of other governments.

The Australian government can consider extradition requests from countries designated under domestic regulations as extradition countries. The majority of these are countries with which Australia has bilateral extradition treaties.

Australia also has extradition obligations through multilateral treaties that focus on specific forms of crime. It may consider extradition requests from other Commonwealth countries through the non-binding London Scheme.

In a case where Australia is the requesting state, it can request extradition from any other country. However, it cannot expect extradition.

How are extradition decisions made?

Under the Extradition Act, extradition matters are formally dealt with by the Commonwealth Attorney-General. Exceptional arrangements operate with New Zealand, with extradition matters largely being dealt with police-to-police rather than between the national governments.

If another country makes an extradition request of Australia, the Attorney-General will issue a written notice to the Federal Circuit Court. A judge must then determine if the person subject to the request is eligible to be extradited.

In making this decision, a judge will consider:

• dual criminality – an act must be criminal under Australian law as well as under the law of the requesting state

• if any extradition objections exist – Australia will refuse extradition if, for example, a person has already been punished for the offence in Australia or is unlikely to receive a fair trial if extradited

• whether a person will face execution if extradited – Australia would not permit extradition if capital punishment was a possible outcome.

After a judge finds a person is eligible for extradition, the Attorney-General has the final say.

In the reverse case, where Australia is the requesting state, the process will depend on the law of the extraditing state. This is painfully apparent in the Leifer case for her alleged victims.

Leifer fled to Israel in 2008 when allegations first surfaced publicly. Israeli police arrested her in 2014 following Australia’s 2013 extradition request. However, she was later bailed. She has claimed to be too unwell to attend multiple subsequent hearings and over 30 psychiatrists have given various reports of her mental health.

In 2018, Leifer was again jailed when it emerged she had been living and socialising normally in an orthodox Israeli settlement. This week, she was again bailed into house arrest with her sister.

Israel’s Deputy Health Minister has been accused of altering medical records to insure against Leifer’s extradition.

Attorney-General Christian Porter has committed to personally raising the case when he visits Israel this year. He said this week the lack of progress towards Leifer’s extradition is “regrettable”, considering Australia lodged its request with Israel in 2013.

Indeed, the substantive issues in Australia’s extradition request have not yet been addressed at all in the Israeli courts. A December hearing will determine if Leifer is mentally fit to face trial.

Dassi Erlich, one of Leifer’s alleged victims, called the latest decision to release Leifer “intolerable” and reported it was a “massive betrayal of justice” that “left us reeling”.

Should Leifer eventually face extradition proceedings in an Israeli court, some special features will apply under Israeli law. The court must determine a clear case exists against Leifer to permit extradition. Israel may also require Australia to stipulate it will return Leifer to Israel to serve any term of imprisonment.

Extradition is inherently political

At any given moment, cases around the world highlight the deeply politicised nature of extradition.

Australian national Julian Assange, now serving a prison sentence in England for parole violations, will face likely extradition to the United States once that term ends. His lawyers will surely argue that he would face a political prosecution in the US.

Read more: Julian Assange has refused to surrender himself for extradition to the US. What now?

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, mass protests have continued for almost five months. The spark for the protest movement was an attempt by the the Special Administrative Region government to amend its extradition law and permit extradition to Taiwan and mainland China.

Australia and all countries must tread carefully when managing extradition requests or amending extradition laws. When problems arise, they reveal the frustration inherent in a system that relies on good will and cooperation between countries.

International law supposes that cooperation is a shared and essential goal. Yet domestic political concerns so often trump good intentions.

– ref. Explainer: what is extradition between countries and how does it work? – http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-extradition-between-countries-and-how-does-it-work-124637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adele Pentland, PhD candidate, Swinburne University of Technology

The most significant pterosaur fossil ever discovered in Australia has been unearthed in the Winton area of central western Queensland.

The newly discovered species, which my colleagues and I have named Ferrodraco lentoni, had a wingspan of about 4 metres. It lived around 96 million years ago, and was surprisingly similar to other pterosaurs from England, suggesting that these huge flying reptiles could traverse the globe with relative ease.

Pterosaurs are quite rare in the fossil record, as their bones are hollow and the outer bone in most instances is only 1mm thick. Only 15 pterosaur specimens have ever been scientifically described from Australia, many of them incomplete.

Until recently, only two species of Australian pterosaur had been described: Mythunga camara and Aussiedraco molnari, both based on fossil skull fragments.

Although more complete fossils of similar pterosaurs are known from Brazil and China, until this discovery, our understanding of the pterosaurs that lived in Australia during the Cretaceous period was limited.

Read more: Hundreds of pterosaur eggs help reveal the early life of flying reptiles

The new pterosaur specimen, unveiled today in the journal Scientific Reports, includes a partial skull, five partial neck vertebrae, and bones from both the left and right wings.

This particular individual represents a fully grown adult, based on the fusion seen in several bones. Judging by its wing bones and the dimensions of similar pterosaurs, Ferrodraco would have had a wingspan of about 4 metres, with a skull probably reaching 60cm in length. It is likely that it ate mainly fish.

The genus name Ferrodraco refers to the fact that this winged reptile was found preserved in ironstone. And the species name lentoni honours former Winton Shire mayor Graham “Butch” Lenton, in recognition of his service to the community. The Winton area has within recent decades produced several well-preserved dinosaur fossils.

Ferrodraco lived 96 million years ago, around lake and river systems surrounded by conifer forests. Based on other fossil evidence, this pterosaur shared its environment with several dinosaurs including the sauropods Diamantinasaurus and Savannasaurus, theropods such as Australovenator, ornithopods and ankylosaurs. Competing with Ferrodraco for fish in the freshwater river systems were crocodylomorphs (such as Isisfordia) and plesiosaurs.

Game-changer

The Ferrodraco specimen was discovered by Winton grazier Bob Elliott in April 2017 when he was spraying weedkiller along the banks of a creek on Belmont Station. It’s not the first major fossil find on Belmont Station – the unique sauropod dinosaur Savannasaurus elliottorum was discovered just 10km from the pterosaur site.

Unlike other fossil sites in the Winton area, the pterosaur remains were found in the banks of a creek and had likely been exposed to the elements for several years. One bone from the wing had even been kicked away from the main site by livestock travelling through the creek. Had the bones not been infiltrated by iron-rich fluids, which ultimately became ironstone, these precious fossils would have been lost to erosion many years ago.

Unlike many other fossils, the bones were covered by a thin layer of rock. This meant that Ferrodraco had an unusually quick journey (by palaeontological standards) from discovery to scientific publication.

Preparation of the specimen was finished within a week by preparator Ali Calvey. Even before the bones had been fully prepared, our team was able to make detailed observations and determine which family of pterosaurs this specimen belonged to.

Surprisingly, Ferrodraco shows closer ties with similarly aged pterosaurs from England than it does to those from South America. This suggests that these pterosaurs, collectively known as ornithocheirids, could easily fly across oceans and disperse between continents.

Read more: Pterosaurs should have been too big to fly – so how did they manage it?

This idea has been put forward by other palaeontologists, but the dearth of material from Australia had made it difficult to verify until now.

Ferrodraco has changed the game in that regard, demonstrating that it was living at least as recently as its Northern Hemisphere ornithocheirid cousins. In fact, it might represent one of the geologically youngest ornithocheirids ever found. Although more work needs to be done to demonstrate this, Ferrodraco is nevertheless one of the most important pterosaur specimens ever found in Australia.

– ref. 4-metre flying reptile unearthed in Queensland is our best pterosaur fossil yet – http://theconversation.com/4-metre-flying-reptile-unearthed-in-queensland-is-our-best-pterosaur-fossil-yet-124581

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis Altman, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe University

The next 13 months will see American politics completely dominated by the fate of Donald Trump. As the House of Representatives moves towards impeaching him, leading to a hearing which then moves to the Senate, the Democrats will be engaged in an increasingly bitter contest for the nomination to run against Trump in the November 2020 elections.

At this stage, it appears there are the numbers in the house for impeachment, which entails formally charging the president with “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Their indictment then moves to the Senate, which can remove the president by a two-thirds majority, in a hearing chaired by the chief justice.

Because 2020 is an election year, both sides will manage proceedings with an eye to the November poll. It is possible the house will vote before the end of the year: the decision to impeach Bill Clinton for lying under oath was made in the last three months of 1998.

Read more: 8 reasons why impeaching Donald Trump is a big risk for the Democrats (and 3 reasons why it’s not)

Clinton was cleared by the Senate by the following February, so it is also possible the Senate will hold its own proceedings before most of the presidential primaries commence. It takes two-thirds of the Senate to remove a president from office, which has never happened.

While several Republican house representatives have expressed concern about the president’s behaviour, the overwhelming majority of Republican politicians are either supporting him or remaining silent.

Rather as Boris Johnston seems to have captured the British Conservative Party, so Trump has imposed himself on the Republicans. Those who three years ago assailed his unfitness for the presidency, such as Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, are now his loudest defenders. Meanwhile, several of his opponents are withdrawing from political office.

However, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for president in 2012, has indicated his disquiet, which is almost certainly shared by others. If the house uncovers more apparently illegal activity on Trump, and if public opinion seems to be turning against the president, there are several other senators who may follow, if only to preserve their own positions. Republican senators are facing re-election in states such as Colorado, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina, where they are increasingly vulnerable.

There is an odd historical parallel with the history of Senator Joe McCarthy, who led increasingly virulent anti-Communist crusades in the early 1950s and whose protégé, Roy Cohn, in turn influenced Trump.

Eventually, Republican senators turned on McCarthy, and censured but did not expel him. But this happened only once it was clear that public support for McCarthy was collapsing, which is so far not evident for Trump.

Faced with possible impeachment and loss of support, Richard Nixon resigned. It is difficult to see Trump doing this – it is more likely he will become even more irrational and vengeful as the process winds on. Right-wing media will echo the president’s claim that the impeachment hearings represent treason, with real danger of violent clashes between supporters and opponents of Trump.

For the Democrats, the best outcome would be a split within Republican ranks, which leaves Trump in office but weakened and vulnerable to a challenge for re-nomination. Removing Trump would place Vice President Mike Pence in office, and presumably ensured of nomination in 2020.

The dilemma for the Democrats is that the impeachment process will dominate the news cycle as they jockey for position going into next year’s long battle for the presidential nomination. Trump will use the allegations to focus attention on former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son’s business dealings in Ukraine triggered the impeachment inquiry.

Biden may hope this will allow him to emerge as the injured defender of political propriety, but he will be tarnished through guilt by association, and is likely to slip further in the polls. Biden represents some of the traditional working class and African American base of the Democratic Party, and how they react could determine the ultimate Democrat candidate.

At the moment, Elizabeth Warren challenges Biden’s lead in the polls, with Bernie Sanders the only other candidate consistently supported by more than 10% of Democrats. None of the others in a crowded field — 12 have qualified to take part in the next televised Democratic debate — have much support, and they will start to drop out once the primary season begins in February 2020.

Read more: In the Democrats’ bitter race to find a candidate to beat Trump, might Elizabeth Warren hold the key?

If Biden continues to lose support, there is room for someone to emerge as the moderate front-runner, given that both Warren and Sanders represent the more radical instincts of the party. This is presumably why so many candidates are determined to continue campaigning, even when some of them rarely muster 2% in the polls.

Were Sanders’ current health problems to lead to his withdrawal most of his support would presumably switch to Warren. Predictions are risky, and my record is poor. But it is increasingly likely that the Democrats will nominate someone other than an old white man in 2020, betting on a figure like Barack Obama who can galvanise a bitterly divided nation and persuade people to turn out and vote.

– ref. How the impeachment inquiry might affect Trump’s 2020 re-election chances – http://theconversation.com/how-the-impeachment-inquiry-might-affect-trumps-2020-re-election-chances-124424

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Waldby, Professor and Director, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University

This is one of our occasional Essays in Health. It’s a long read. Enjoy!

I think they collected […] maybe, six eggs. I think we got four embryos out of that […] One was transferred and three were frozen. So, the fresh cycle didn’t work. Tried a frozen one, didn’t work. Went to try the third frozen and they told me that one didn’t survive unfreezing, so then we had one left and that didn’t work, so we had no embryos left. So we did a fresh egg cycle again, and they got even less this time […] So I was thinking this is all going to be wasting time. But […] I think they fertilised four eggs, and then there was only one viable one, which is my baby.

Eva, a teacher in her early 30s, describes in my recent book The Oocyte Economy: the Changing Meaning of Human Eggs, a very common experience for women who have fertility treatment.

Many women and couples, encouraged by success stories and marketing, hope their years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive a child naturally are over, and fertility treatment will work.

Assisted reproductive technologies cover a range of procedures, including in vitro fertilisation or IVF. And they are big business. Australia’s fertility industry is estimated to generate revenues of A$550 million a year and A$630 million by 2022. Some of the biggest clinics are publicly listed companies.

Globally, the industry is estimated to be worth US$25 billion and is predicted to grow to US$41 billion by 2026.

But it’s easy to forget that before the business of IVF, human egg cells were just that — cells. Not an entity to be manipulated in the laboratory, not something to be bought or sold, not a valuable commodity that crosses international borders.

The story of how human eggs went from cells to valuable commodity starts in a unlikely place: the sex lives of farm animals. How far the commodification of human eggs will go is up to us, as a society, to decide.

Read more: Considering using IVF to have a baby? Here’s what you need to know

How did we get here?

From the 1920s, farmers used techniques like artificial insemination for their animal herds. And from the 1950s, scientists in the US, UK and Australia developed in vitro fertilisation techniques to harvest eggs from rabbits, mice, sheep and dogs, fertilise them in a laboratory, then implant the embryos into the uterus (womb).

The birth of healthy animals through these techniques reassured some doctors and scientists the approach could be adapted for humans.

But it took over 20 years of experiments and failed treatments, involving thousands of women, before the first IVF baby was born, Louise Brown, in 1978.

At first, IVF was controversial. After Pope Paul VI condemned it in 1968, Catholic bishops in Australia, the UK and the US said IVF was contrary to moral and natural law. Some feminists condemned IVF as experiments on “test-tube women”.

Eventually, the controversy died down. In 2017,a total of 14,882 babies were born in Australia through assisted fertility technology, including IVF.

Bought, sold, interstate and internationally

Since the early days of IVF, human eggs have become valuable commodities, but in many different ways.

Australia’s Medicare subsidises fertility treatments for couples diagnosed with medical infertility. But there are few public fertility clinics. So most people go to private clinics, at considerable expense.

At Australian private clinics in 2018, patients paid an average A$3,500-$5,000 per stimulated cycle (from hormone treatment to egg collection).

By the time you’ve added fees for anaesthesia, embryo storage and other costs, patients can spend tens of thousands of dollars if they have more than one cycle.

Read more: Financial motives drive some doctors’ decisions to offer IVF

Then there’s the market for eggs. In some parts of the world, women who cannot conceive with their own eggs can buy someone else’s. This service is also used by gay or straight couples when engaging a surrogate.

If you live in California, New York, and many other states in the US, you can buy eggs from young women, usually students trying to pay for tuition or student debt, in your own state.

Usually a woman will ovulate one egg per menstrual cycle. But if she is donating eggs, she can take medication to produce several eggs at once.

A cycle of eggs costs US$6,000-$15,000 depending on the qualities of the egg provider and where the clinic is. If the donor is athletic, beautiful, musical and has good university grades, she may be able to command a higher price.

If you live in Australia, it is illegal to exchange money for eggs. However, eggs can be donated, in the same way that blood or kidneys are donated: as a gift. Donors may be compensated for direct expenses.

As egg donation is a difficult, time consuming medical procedure, few Australian women are prepared to donate them. In Australia in 2017, 983 cycles (from hormone stimulation to egg collection) were carried out on women prepared to give their eggs.

Read more: Don’t dismiss conflict-of-interest concerns in IVF, they have a basis

Then there’s the international market for eggs. This is when women and couples from more restrictive countries such as Australia, Germany or France, which prohibit egg purchase, can contact clinics overseas in countries that are less restrictive, like some states in the US, Spain and South Africa.

They can arrange to buy eggs from younger, more fertile, and generally poorer women, and have IVF in an overseas clinic. As couples travel to escape national regulation, there are no reliable estimates of the market value of this cross-border fertility travel.

Couples generally want a donor who resembles them, as they often don’t want others to know that their child is not their genetic offspring. So clinics specialise in matching patients’ looks and colouring (for instance, blue eyes, black hair, tall).

In some places, like California, patients can request a range of other qualities (a doctorate, for example), if they are prepared to pay for them.

The big freeze

Since about 2010, women have been encouraged to freeze their own eggs while young (and fertile) to thaw and use years later when their fertility would otherwise decline.

This “personal” or “social” egg freezing is different to freezing eggs for medical reasons, when women undergoing cancer treatment have their eggs frozen beforehand, as chemotherapy and radiotherapy can destroy egg fertility in even very young women and girls.

Fertility clinics now offer personal egg freezing as a standard service. Clinics generally don’t advertise the cost of egg freezing directly. But at the clinic in London where I interviewed women who had frozen their eggs, the cost per cycle was £6,000 and £500 for annual storage.

In Australia it is estimated to be around A$10,000. Women may be advised to have two or three cycles, depending on their age. The older they are, the less likely any individual egg will be fertile.

Read more: Fertility miracle or fake news? Understanding which IVF ‘add-ons’ really work

The take-up for personal egg freezing is increasing every year. In 2015 in Australia and New Zealand, there were 1,213 egg-freezing cycles. By 2017, there were 2,113.

In Victoria in 2018, 2,411 women had frozen eggs in storage, and 134 cycles of IVF used previously frozen eggs.

A ‘smart, stylish career-girl move’

Egg freezing for personal or social reasons has become a popular topic in women’s magazines, like Vogue and Glamour, where the prospect is framed as a smart, stylish career-girl move.

In 2014, the media reported how Google, and other big technology and law firms, offered egg-freezing to its new female staff as part of their remuneration package.

In the US, where maternity leave is not mandatory, an egg freezing package means women can delay having children until their careers and finances are more established. The idea is they can use their frozen eggs in their 30s or 40s to conceive.

Read more: Egg freezing won’t insure women against infertility or help break the glass ceiling

In a more recent development, egg freezing “boutiques” in the US are challenging the fertility clinic sector for what is seen as a more and more lucrative business.

These facilities include spa treatments, in house vitamin supplements and yoga classes. They’re attracting both venture capital and women’s fees.

Women in their 20s and 30s are persuaded, at glamorous information nights to use these facilities.

The boutiques even offer fertility loans to younger clients, who lack the disposable income of their older ones.

Clients go into debt for frozen eggs they may never use. We can see how 20-something women could readily end up with student loans and egg freezing debts, making it even harder for them to become financially independent.

It’s unclear whether boutique private egg freezing clinics could be set up in Australia.

No wonder women need help conceiving

For many women, by the time they finish university education, establish their careers, find a partner and create a stable household before they can consider children, time has marched on.

As housing becomes less affordable, people are studying for longer and the demands of the workplace escalate, it becomes more and more difficult for women to have children when their eggs are fertile, during their 20s or early 30s.

As more women choose later childbearing, they look to fertility clinics and egg freezing as a way to manage their dwindling fertility.

Read more: Maxine Peake brings warmth and likeability to raw, bitter pain in a candid tale of IVF failure

However, once they start treatment, women rapidly discover no medical procedure can compensate for declining fertility of their own eggs. IVF can produce more eggs in a cycle than women routinely produce via normal ovulation (that is, one). However, it cannot make eggs themselves more fertile.

We know that women’s fertility declines after the mid-thirties. So IVF success rates drop rapidly by the age of 40, and by 45, conception with women’s own eggs is very rare.

Read more: Five traps to be aware of when reading success rates on IVF clinic websites

As eggs become more and more precious, women will pay well, if they can, to preserve and manage them. If that’s not possible in their home country or state, the hunt for eggs can take them overseas or interstate, again for a price.

More public fertility clinics, as recommended by a recent Victorian report, might change the landscape. The same report recommended a public sperm and egg bank.

Such moves might give women access to evidence-based treatments without running up huge bills. It might provide fertility preservation services that are less likely to send clients into debt and less likely to be driven by the need to pay dividends to shareholders or return profits on private equity. A public egg bank might also encourage altruistic egg donation, although the demanding nature of such donation will always remain.

However, the very best way to decommodify eggs, would be to have social policy that supports women who want children to conceive before their fertility declines. More generous and extended maternity leave would be a good start.

– ref. The business of IVF: how human eggs went from simple cells to a valuable commodity – http://theconversation.com/the-business-of-ivf-how-human-eggs-went-from-simple-cells-to-a-valuable-commodity-119168

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ted Lefroy, Associate Head Research, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania

American farmer and poet Wendell Berry said of the first Europeans in North America that they came with vision, but not with sight. They came with vision of former places but not the sight to see what was before them. Instead of adapting their vision to suit the place, they changed the landscape to fit their vision.

The same can be said of the first Europeans in Australia. They modified the landscape to suit their domesticated plants and animals. They sowed seeds to create pasture for sheep and cattle and opened up areas to cultivate crops brought from the northern hemisphere.

This eye for the open parts of the Australian landscapes likely contributed to a view that Aboriginal people, too, almost exclusively preferred open vegetation types such as woodland and grasslands.

But findings from our recently published study of archaeological records challenge this notion. They show that Aboriginal people also inhabited Tasmania’s forests, in particular wet sclerophyll forests.

It’s important to understand how people used, affected and related to the natural environment. The way Tasmanian Aboriginal people hunted, gathered and used fire had a major influence on the structure, function and distribution of today’s plant and animal communities. This has big implications for conservation today.

Read more: Explainer: the evidence for the Tasmanian genocide

A renaissance in understanding

In recent years, a series of books have examined Aboriginal land management over at least 50,000 years. Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia, and Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu have all helped us read the country as a cultural landscape that Aboriginal people managed intensively – shaping it intelligently over tens of thousands of years through fire, law and seasonal use.

Gammage in particular emphasised Aboriginal people’s unvarying dependence on open vegetation sustained by frequent burning. Our findings question this dogma, which has prevailed for centuries.

Our research suggests imposed visions of former places – and the nostalgic license of colonial artists – had previously skewed our perception of preferred Aboriginal landscapes towards those that match a northern hemisphere ideal of human habitat, rooted in the theory of prospect and refuge.

Prospect refers to a view over open ground affording sight of game and forewarning of danger. Refuge refers to features offering safety such as easy-to-climb trees. The ideal combination of prospect and refuge is a view of water over closely cropped grass, framed by the horizontal branches of a mature tree. This ideal dominates real estate advertising to this day.

What we found will surprise you

Our study used archaeological data in an ecological model to identify habitats most likely occupied by Aboriginal people in Tasmania during the Holocene – the last 10,000 years of the Earth’s history following the end of the last ice age.

Read more: Friday essay: Dark Emu and the blindness of Australian agriculture

The model identified the environmental characteristics of 8,000 artefact sites in the Tasmanian Aboriginal Heritage Register, including features such as altitude, slope, aspect, soil type, pre-1750 vegetation, distance to the coast and distance to fresh water. We then mapped all parts of the island that shared the environmental characteristics associated with artefact sites.

The spread of artefacts showed us that while Tasmanian Aboriginal people occupied every type of habitat, they targeted coastal areas around the whole island, and drier, less steep, environments of the central lowlands.

Few archaeological materials from the last 10,000 years of the Holocene have been found in the wet, rugged western interior. However archaeological materials from the preceding Pleistocene period indicates the western interior was more intensively occupied during the last ice age.

The most important finding of our analysis, however, is that physical aspects of landscape proved to be stronger predictors of Tasmanian Aboriginal occupation than vegetation type. The strongest predictors proved to be flat ground, clay soil as an indicator of fertility, low altitude, proximity to the coast and proximity to inland waters. In particular, our results indicate Holocene Tasmanian Aboriginal people exploited wet eucalypt forests as much as open vegetation types.

Why these findings matter

This result points to a more complex and interesting relationship between Tasmanian Aboriginal people and forests, such as if and how frequently fire was used in these environments.

Read more: Aboriginal fire management – part of the solution to destructive bushfires

More archaeological surveys, particularly in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, are needed to test whether our analysis is a true reflection of Aboriginal resource use. An upside to the recent bushfires in Tasmania is that such surveys are more easily carried out in burnt environments. So we have a perfect opportunity to discover more about how Aboriginal people shaped their island home.

Our research contributes to restoring Tasmania’s cultural heritage, reclaiming the history of the island and dispelling the myth of the nomad. All of this supports Tasmanian Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people in working towards culturally sensitive conservation and land management.

– ref. New research turns Tasmanian Aboriginal history on its head. The results will help care for the land – http://theconversation.com/new-research-turns-tasmanian-aboriginal-history-on-its-head-the-results-will-help-care-for-the-land-124285

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elisa Palazzo, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW

The impacts of climate change on weather, sea levels, food and water supplies should be seen as an investment opportunity for our cities, says global investment banking firm Goldman Sachs.

In a report out last month the bank says cities need to adapt to become more resilient to climate change and this could “drive one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in history”.

The bank says cities will be on the frontline of any need to adapt because they are home to more than half the world’s population and generate roughly 80% of global GDP.

Read more: A landmark report confirms Australia is girt by hotter, higher seas. But there’s still time to act

The state of the debate

The report comes at a time when scepticism and wait-and-see approaches are still permeating the debate on climate action globally. The discussion on reducing emissions is dogged by disagreement on targets and actions to be undertaken.

On the contrary, less emphasis has been placed on adapting to global warming, the consequences of which will play out for decades to come even if we meet the goals of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Goldman Sachs has already said it acknowledges the scientific consensus that climate change is a reality and human activities are responsible for increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

Much global attention has focused so far on the need for climate change mitigation and the reduction of CO₂ emissions. But the bank’s latest report addresses the urban adaptation strategies that are urgently required:

Greater resilience will likely require extensive urban planning, with investments in coastal protections, climate-resilient construction, more robust infrastructure, upgraded water and waste-management systems, energy resilience and stronger communications and transportation systems.

It acknowledges mitigation measures are essential to reduce global temperature in the medium and long term. But it argues we need to act immediately to minimise the current and future effects of climate change in urban areas.

The question is, why would a bank would endorse such a vision?

Banking on climate change

The bank’s report is a collection of data and analysis on climate change from well-known sources, such as the IPCC, and a detailed list of expected impacts on cities.

For example, higher temperatures, more frequent and intense storms, and rising sea levels could affect economic activity, damage infrastructure and harm vulnerable residents.

Does the report represent a last call to brace for impact? Or is a more nuanced and somehow optimistic view of the process emerging?

In reality, it’s not surprising this call is coming from an international financial institution such as Golden Sachs. This report needs be read in parallel with the environmental policy framework of the bank which is its “commitment to addressing critical environmental issues”.

The latest report identifies urban adaptation responses and initiatives as market solutions and financial opportunities. It clearly points out where investments should be addressed.

The directions outlined range over infrastructural initiatives to measures that require financial investment. Our cities need better coastal protection, more resilient buildings and open spaces, sustainable water and waste management, and upgraded transport systems.

A call for action

There is a positive takeaway emerging from the bank’s viewpoint which is a pragmatic call for action.

This could reinstate a more optimistic view of climate change. It could overcome the wait-and-see approach by moving the discussions beyond mitigation only.

And the report has the merit to outline some major challenges emerging from the need of financing a comprehensive urban adaptation.

Read more: Design for flooding: how cities can make room for water

First, the need for innovative sources of financing and new ways to support climatic transition.

Secondly, the need to look at equity issues emerging from an adaptation process. For example, should a city strengthen flood defences in the CBD or should it upgrade public housing in flood-prone areas? Given the scale of the aims we need to evaluate carefully where best to invest the limited resources available.

But in this respect, no solutions are proposed.

This report is one of the many financial reports on climate change we have seen recently, about the risks and opportunities for the banking and insurance system. It’s probably the first to acknowledge clearly the need for comprehensive adaptation investments to make our cities more resilient.

But in concentrating on the infrastructure needs for cities, the report seems to miss the big picture.

There is still a need to understand how more integrated actions will include the social and environmental dimensions of adapting to climate change to create more sustainable and equitable cities.

– ref. Global bank urges cities to invest in new infrastructure to adapt to climate change – http://theconversation.com/global-bank-urges-cities-to-invest-in-new-infrastructure-to-adapt-to-climate-change-124488

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

With the Reserve Bank of Australia cutting official rates to 0.75% on Tuesday, has been a wave of commentary about the move doing little to help the economy apart from boosting housing prices.

Read more: 0.75% is a record low, but don’t think for a second the Reserve Bank has finished cutting the cash rate

There are two parts to assessing this claim. First, do rate cuts drive up property prices? Second, is that all they do?

Do rate cuts drive up property prices?

Economists have a precise answer to this question, and also a more practical one.

The precise answer is that all assets – stocks, bonds, property, stamps, vintage baseball cards, you name it – can be priced using what is known as the stochastic discount factor (SDF).

This says that in pricing an asset you should factor in all the future cash flows the asset will generate (rent or dividends or capital gains) and then translate those returns into today’s money, adjusting for the riskiness of those cash flows.

An easier way to think about how rate cuts might affect property prices – consistent with the asset-pricing approach – goes like this.

People look at how much money they can borrow based on what they can afford to pay back. An interest rate cut boosts their borrowing power.

Even though the major banks have only passed on about half of the Reserve Bank’s latest cut (owner-occupied mortgage rates have been cut by 13-15 basis points), that’s enough to give a household with income of $150,000 about another $12,000 to $14,000 in borrowing power.

Read more: Vital Signs: APRA is going to make it easier to borrow. It could be another one of its bad calls

They thus spend more and, because there is a limited supply of properties, this pushes prices up. So, yes, lower interest rates do tend to boost property prices.

Is that all rate cuts do?

But boosting property prices is not all that rate cuts do.

Higher prices for new dwellings help developers. They often lead to an increase in construction jobs as developers anticipate better conditions for selling properties. New property construction has a number of other effects, too, such as changing the average quality of the rental stock and spurring more retail spending (because those new homes need to be furnished).

Perhaps even more important is the pseudo-psychological effect of existing home owners feeling wealthier when house prices go up. This can lead to increased consumer spending – and this can have a big economic effect, given consumer spending accounts for about 60% of GDP.

Read more: Why falling house prices do less to improve affordability than you might think

This “wealth effect”, rational or not, seems to be real. It is part of the reason the Reserve Bank’s governnor, Philip Lowe, appeared to be concerned about Sydney and Melbourne house prices falling in the past couple of years. It is also why federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is happy to see property prices again on the rise.

Finally, lower interest rates do make business investment cheaper.

Would corporate tax cuts provide a bigger boost to investment? You bet. Are there diminishing returns to rate cuts as the cash rate approaches zero? That’s very likely to be the case.

But would businesses invest more if rates were two percentage points higher? No way. And would business like rates to be higher? I seriously doubt it.

Rate cuts do something to drive down unemployment, drive up consumer prices, and boost investment generally.

Are rate-cut driven prices increases bad?

But they certainly do also drive up residential property prices.

The important question is whether that’s bad or not. The answer to this question is a little murkier.

Let’s start with the fact borrowers should be thinking about how much to borrow.

If they borrow too much and are unable to repay their loans, that’s very bad news for them. Defaulting on a mortgage is a wrenching experience. Most people try hard to avoid that.

That said, sometimes people make poor choices through lack of information, lack of thought or lack of willpower. Occasionally an unscrupulous third party will encourage them to borrow more than they should.

Read more: Cutting interest rates is just the start. It’s about to become much, much easier to borrow

But it’s not in the interest of banks to make too many loans that don’t get repaid. If borrowers are the first line of defence again bad price increases, lenders are the second line of defence.

There is a third line of defence: prudential regulation. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission are charged with enforcing “responsible lending laws” and ensuring the animal spirits and (sometimes) bad incentives of borrowers and lenders don’t get out of control.

So property prices increasing a few percent on the back of the rate cuts is unlikely to be problem – though as the Reserve Bank governor is fond of saying, “time will tell”.

– ref. Vital Signs: yes, house prices will rise with lower interest rates, but that’s not the only effect – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-yes-house-prices-will-rise-with-lower-interest-rates-but-thats-not-the-only-effect-124600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ella Donald, Tutor in Communications and Arts, The University of Queensland

At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, gymnastics got what it was looking for: an image.

Romania’s Nadia Comăneci was a tiny 14-year-old, leaping on the floor with a pixie-like grace, moving between the bars with lightning fast precision. On her first bar routine, she received a perfect ten: the first ever ten in Olympic Gymnastics.

She would go on to receive seven perfect tens over the course of the 1976 games.

Comăneci became an icon for the sport, and the image of a young, lithe girl, has endured.

Even through the loss of the perfect ten and the introduction of open scoring – favouring strength and power – women’s gymnastics is still too often dismissed as a sport of frivolity, dominated by children, meek and prepubescent, discouraged from expressing themselves.

Simone Biles – a confident, powerful woman at the peak of her powers in her early 20s – is a change to gymnastics that was inevitable, but is simultaneously one she has come to symbolise.

She is both the greatest gymnast ever, and unlike any gymnast the world ever has seen.

A punishing gymnastics monarch

Comăneci had her run in ‘76 thanks to husband-and-wife coaching team Bela and Márta Károlyi. To understand the pair is to understand the image of the Olympic champion.

Bela was a former boxing champion and member of the national hammer throwing team, later studying gymnastics while at the Romania College of Physical Education.

In his final year at the college he coached the women’s team, which included Márta. After starting their own class in the town where Bela grew up, they were invited to create a national school for gymnastics.

It was when he was training young girls, handpicked for the sport based on their specific body types, he first encountered six-year-old Comăneci.

The Karolyis produced outstanding athletes who seemingly achieved the impossible with focus and ease. In 1981, they defected to the United States, and continued their reign in a new country, building a gym in rural Texas they named Károlyi Ranch. By 1984, Bela had coached new Olympic champions in Mary Lou Retton and Julianne McNamara.

In 1999, Bela was appointed the national team coordinator; and the isolated Károlyi Ranch was designated as the US Women’s National Training Centre. For many years, this gym was a mythologised site of gymnast creation: it would later extensively figure into the sexual abuse trial of former national team doctor Larry Nassar.

The Károlyis had exacting – and often damaging – standards. Gymnasts felt compelled to train and compete with broken bones and other injuries. They divested from the diverse body shapes which once filled the sport for a perpetual state of prepubescence, maintained by punishing overtraining and disordered eating: 1996 Olympic champion Dominique Moceanu has said the athletes were restricted to 900 calories per day.

Numerous former athletes – including Romanian team members Rodica Dunca, Emilia Eberle, and Ecaterina Szabo – claim they were subject to regular beatings for making mistakes; and Joan Ryan’s headline-making 1995 book Little Girls in Pretty Boxes contained various allegations of verbal and psychological abuse.

As hundreds of women would later say in victim impact statements against Nassar, this environment would not only create the “ideal” gymnastic body, but would also create demure girls taught to never talk back.

In 2008, Moceanu spoke about the abuse she had faced as a young gymnast – in 2018 she told Deadspin this decision to speak out had ruined her career.

Read more: Nassar’s abuse reflects more than 50 years of men’s power over female athletes

Some of the Karolyis’ athletes have only praised them; others, like Betty Okino in Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, have argued the medals justified the means.

But under their reign from the 1980s until Martha’s retirement in 2016, the US women’s gymnastics team became a superpower.

Competing until they break

Gymnastics is a sport requiring strength and endurance to withstand the G-forces of landings onto the floor, a narrow bar, or thin mat. But it had come to favour bodies possessing neither. As a result, young bodies were pushed to breaking point – with athletes disappearing from the sport in their mid-teens.

Within three years of commencing her senior career, Retton won two American Cups, two American Classics, the all-around competition at the Olympics, and retired.

Within two years, Okino had won two National Championship medals, three at World Championships, contributed to the first American Olympic team victory in 1992, and retired.

In 2016, Laurie Hernandez made her senior debut, winning the City of Jesolo Trophy in Italy, gold for the team at the Pacific Rim Championships, four medals at the US Nationals, and a gold and a silver at the Olympics. She hasn’t competed since.

Countless others followed the same trajectory.

It remains a sport of youth. Olympic gold medallist Jordyn Wieber joined the elite level of the sport at 11, and at 13 she became the second youngest American Cup champion ever; her fellow 2012 gold Olympian, Kyla Ross was 12 when she beat more seasoned future teammates Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney at the US Classic.

Biles bucked the trend from the beginning. When she was 13, she placed 44th in the pre-elite national championships.

In 2013, when they were both 15, Katelyn Ohashi won gold at the American Cup and Biles won silver. It would be Ohashi’s last elite competition.

It was also the last time anyone would ever beat Biles at the all-around event.

At 19-years-old at the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was already considered old for the sport. She collected five medals – four of them gold.

It was a performance of a lifetime.

A new mould of gymnast

Watching Biles is the opposite to watching Comăneci.

Like the Romanian, she stands under five feet at 142 centimetres – diminutive when compared to many other athletes.

However, Biles has something the 1976 champion did not – explosive strength. She is, as Deadspin describes her, a “power gymnast” who “racked up difficulty on beam using tumbling skills instead of dance elements”.

Comăneci was a consummate performer, but frequently displayed a sense of apprehension, as though liable to snap from a bad landing: a body not built to withstand the force demanded of it.

But Biles competes with the muscle mass and power of male athletes, performing with toned quads, pectorals, and triceps. Her skills defy gravity, going beyond what was thought to be possible in the sport.

Frequently possessing so much energy she bounces out of bounds even after a long pass, she gives a feeling of boundless possibility.

In gymnastics, a new skill becomes named after the first athlete to perform it at an intentional competition. “The Biles” on floor is two flips and half a twist, in a laid-out position, backwards.

At the 2019 World Championships, we will likely have the Biles II: three twists and two flips. Watching footage of this pre-championships, you get the sense she needs to add at least another twist.

But she is not only a revelation in her difficult skills. Her candour – playfulness, jazzy artistry, and irresistible entertainment value – is refreshing, a departure from the strait-laced discipline viewers had become accustomed to, freely incorporating Latin-inspired beats and choreography.

The racism Biles has faced is often disguised as critiques not of her, but of her athleticism and performance. In 2013 David Ciaralli, the Italian Gymnastics Federation’s spokesperson, wrote on Facebook:

the Code of Points is opening chances for coloured people (known to be more powerful) and penalising the typical Eastern European elegance, which, when gymnastics was more artistic and less acrobatic, allowed Russia and Romania to dominate the field.

As recent as this past August, former US National coordinator Valeri Liukin said:

In the Code of Points, difficulty is very valued now. Of course, this suits African Americans. They’re very explosive – look at the NBA, who’s playing and jumping there?

Showing the difficulty

The child prodigies of the sport once telegraphed an air of effortlessness: a confidence and ease that presented tumbling across an inches-wide bar as little more than frivolity in the playground.

But as Biles constantly pushes higher difficulty, she also performs with the gravitas of effort. Despite her ability to turn an exhausting tumbling pass and still be left with energy to burn, she exudes difficulty.

After close to a decade in the training cycle of elite gymnastics – a lengthy tenure in a world of quick rises and falls – her body is likely growing tired from repetitive pounding, regardless of deft pacing.

But there’s another difference to Biles that has become more pronounced with the passing of time: her personality.

Just as the sport was previously a place for girls’ bodies, the athletes were expected be softly spoken with childlike politeness.

But Biles is brave and outspoken.

When Mary Bono was appointed CEO of USA gymnastics in 2018, she lasted three days after Biles publicly called her out for racism against black athletes.

In the wake of the Nassar sexual abuse scandal embroiling peak body USA Gymnastics, Biles has been a rare and consistent voice from a current elite athlete – vocal at competitions and on social media as more failings of accountability and athlete welfare emerge, wisened and hardened with each new revelation.

“You had one job,” she said in August.

You literally had one job and you couldn’t protect us, and it is just really sad because now every time I go to the doctor or training, I get worked on. I don’t want to get worked on, but my body hurts, I’m 22 and at the end of the day that’s my fifth rotation and I have to go to therapy.

In January 2018, as Nassar was being sentenced, Biles tweeted a statement about the trauma she associated with the Károlyi Ranch:

It breaks my heart even more to think that, as I work towards my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused.

This would not eventuate. Thanks to Biles’ criticism, USA Gymnastics ended its nearly four-decade relationship with the Károlyi Ranch.

The end of an era

Biles has declared the 2020 Olympics will be her last meet.

“I feel like my body’s gone through a lot and it’s kind of just falling apart – not that you can actually tell but I really feel it a lot of the time,” she said in London last year.

If only measuring her career with the hardware she has collected, it would be remarkable – even now, as she goes into the preliminary rounds of the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, she stands with the most all-around titles in the history of the competition – and the most decorated American gymnast of all time.

But the way Biles has shaped the sport with her displays of strength – as an athlete and as an advocate – will arguably be the biggest mark she leaves on the sport.

Biles is a far cry from Comăneci and the diminutive gymnasts of the 70s. But the world of gymnastics is also changing around her.

Internationally, she’s far from the oldest current competitor – in recent years, smaller programs have nurtured more and more experienced athletes through their 20s, 30s, and beyond in the name of retaining top talent.

Among others, at the 2019 Championships Biles will compete against the Netherlands’ Sanne Wevers (aged 28), Germany’s Kim Bui (30), Brazil’s Jade Barbosa (28), and longtime fan-favourite Aliya Mustafina (25) from Russia, who declared “it was easier to give birth than to restore inbars” when recommencing training as a new mother in 2017.

Also competing will be Oksana Chusovitina – 44 years old, in her 17th World Championships, and still one of the best vaulters in the world.

Biles heads into the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships as firm favourite. She is 22, and at the peak of her powers. By this time next year, we will have seen her perform for the final time, undoubtedly having added a new clutch of medals to her collection and leaving more eponymous skills behind.

It’s difficult to predict who will follow in her footsteps, but she’ll leave behind a legacy to be felt for years to come: a trend of women staying in the sport longer, training smarter, and owning their strength as athletes, and as women.

Diversity in race and physique among elite gymnastics is becoming increasingly common. It’s a far cry from decades ago – the US didn’t have Luci Collins, its first African-American Olympic gymnast, until 1980.

For the spectators, the sport is perhaps now less about the artistry of gymnastics, and more about gymnastics as a sport of agility and strength.

Today, 43 years after Comăneci became the face of gymnastics, the sport has a new image.

– ref. From delicate teens to fierce women: Simone Biles’ athleticism and advocacy have changed gymnastics forever – http://theconversation.com/from-delicate-teens-to-fierce-women-simone-biles-athleticism-and-advocacy-have-changed-gymnastics-forever-124485

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

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has foreshadowed his government will have Australia play a more active role in seeking to set global standards.

Delivering the Lowy Lecture on Thursday night, Morrison said Australia “cannot afford to leave it to others to set the standards that will shape our global economy”.

He has asked the foreign affairs department for an audit of global institutions and rule-making processes where Australia had the greatest stake, and he plans to tap Australian expertise in expanding its role.

Morrison’s initiative, which follows his recent United States trip and his criticisms during it of China’s behaviour on trade, has particularly in mind the World Trade Organisation which is seen to need reform.

In comments that seemed to have an eye to Brexit and Donald Trump’s recent comments lauding patriotism over globalism, Morrison said that “Australia does and must always seek to have a responsible and participative international agency in addressing global issues.” He dubbed this “practical globalism”.

Australia was not served by isolationism and protectionism, he said. “But it also does not serve our national interests when international institutions demand conformity rather than independent cooperation on global issues.

“The world works best when the character and distinctiveness of independent nations is preserved within a framework of mutual respect. This includes respecting electoral mandates of their constituencies.

“We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill defined borderless global community. And worse still, an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy. Globalism must facilitate, align and engage, rather than direct and centralise. As such an approach can corrode support for joint international action.

“Only a national government, especially one accountable through the ballot box and the rule of law, can define its national interests,” he said. “And under my leadership Australia’s international engagement will be squarely driven by Australia’s national interests.”

The Prime Minister sought to put a positive spin on his comments in the US last week about China as a “newly developed” economy – which the Chinese contest.

“China has in many ways changed the world, so we would expect the terms of its engagement to change too. That’s why when we look at negotiating rules of the future of the global economy, for example, we would expect China’s obligations to reflect its greater power status.

“This is a compliment, not a criticism.

“And that is what I mean when describing China as a newly developed economy.

“The rules and institutions that support global cooperation must reflect the modern world. It can’t be set and forget,” he said.

Morrison told his audience that his passions had always been for domestic politics – he did not naturally seek out international platforms. But as prime minister he had to be directed by Australia’s national interest.

He said he would be visiting India in January and also Japan early next year. This follows a busy international schedule in 2019.

– ref. Scott Morrison warns against “negative globalism” – http://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-warns-against-negative-globalism-124651

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

In this age of celebrity, Jacqui Lambie fits the narrative to a tee in the political sphere. She’s a rough-talking woman with a struggle-town back story who has landed centre stage because she has a lot of power – and sometimes the crucial vote – on contested issues in the Senate.

You get the impression Lambie loves both the drama and the influence. She revelled in getting the government to deliver big money to obtain her vote on the tax relief legislation. With chutzpah, she later lamented coming cheap.

But soon Lambie will face a decision with more complexities than tax cuts, affecting relatively few lives but those lives in a huge way. As things stand she’ll be the determining vote on the legislation to repeal medevac, the law that facilitates medical transfers from Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Lambie, everyone says, is “keeping her cards close to her chest”.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes a race is on to get as many people as possible with medical needs to Australia ahead of the vote, in case the government wins Lambie’s support.

A Senate inquiry on the repeal legislation is due to report on October 18. The government could try to push through its bill in the week of October 21-24.

Those pursuing transfers on behalf of applicants claim the government is attempting to “run down the clock”, dragging out the transfers where it can.

Read more: Peter Dutton is whipping up fear on the medevac law, but it defies logic and compassion

The number of people offshore is now relatively small, after 632 have departed to the United States (with another 263 going through the approval process) and more than 1000 transfers, including accompany family members, to Australia over the years (these mostly not under the new legislation).

According to government figures as of Thursday, there are 281 people in Papua New Guinea (including refugees, non-refugees and some that are still being processed) and 279 in Nauru.

In relation to medevac, the government says there have been 283 notifications for medical transfer, with 127 transferred, 23 in the process of transfer and “numerous others” engaged at various levels. It says the minister has refused 54 cases for transfer and the Independent Health Advisory Panel (IHAP) agreed with the refusal.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (which is a member of the Medical Evacuation Response Group set up to manage transfer requests under the medevac law), operating on slightly different figures – its numbers were as of September 29 – says the minister had given approval in 133 cases, while in 15 cases, the minister had been overridden by the IHAP. Refusals had numbered 39, ASRC says.

It says some 79% of all medevac applications that had been determined won approval. In 71% of cases decided, the minister approved the application in the first instance.

The medevac legislation passed when the Coalition was in minority at the end of the last parliamentary term. The government at the time warned of dire consequences, including that rapists and paedophiles would get to Australia.

It re-opened Christmas Island and said transferees would be sent there. No one has been. (Only the Tamil family is there. That family has lived in Australia for years but has failed in its bids for refugee status and will be deported if it loses its current court case.)

The government insisted medevac would trigger a reopening of the people smuggling trade. That hasn’t happened, and the several boats (not a flotilla) that have set out in recent months have been intercepted by the efficient turnback operation. Any “pull” factor is also offset by the medevac law only applying to people who came before it passed.

Read more: Lambie’s vote key if government wants to have medevac repealed

Is medevac a way of clearing everyone from PNG and Nauru by the backdoor? No and yes. Not directly, because people have to be demonstrably ill. But after so many years, most of these people are or will be sick, mainly though not entirely with mental illnesses. Which of us would not be, in their circumstances?

Given there is not evidence medevac has compromised border security since its passage early this year, the government’s quest to repeal the legislation seems driven by anger (that it was imposed on it by Labor and the crossbench), ideology and politics.

If it were looking at the matter strictly logically, surely it would reason that the remaining people offshore present, in policy terms, what the political scientists call a “wicked problem” which medevac is helping solve.

These people can’t stay where they are for ever (and should not have been there anything like this long). More have been transferred to Australia than are now offshore. People who’ve been brought here under medevac remain in detention facilities (various places can be designated a detention facility) at the discretion of the minister.

If the medevac law helps end the offshore issue, isn’t this an upside for Australia without a demonstrable downside? That’s just putting things in crude policy cost-benefit terms. Behind this, of course, lies the compelling humanitarian case.

Read more: Explainer: how will the ‘medevac’ bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?

In the end, everyone waits on Lambie. The government is in her ear. So are those wanting medevac preserved. Her office says she is still taking “soundings”, although there has been a long time to get across the arguments, which aren’t particularly complicated. The Senate inquiry, chaired by the government, can be expected to come down on party lines, rather than adding much new.

Gross horse trading is now a feature of dealing with legislation in the Senate. While sometimes the Senate acts as a genuine house of review, at others it seems the proportional representation voting system, which has delivered so much clout to crossbenchers representing relatively few voters, has a lot to answer for.

No doubt the government would be willing to put a feast on Lambie’s table to get a win on what has become this totemic issue for it.

But this is a piece of legislation on which Lambie should not contemplate any deals, whether in response to carrots for Tasmania or anything else the government might hold out or she might want.

The key crossbencher’s decision should involve only judgements about morality, the medical needs and future lives of vulnerable people, and border security. On those criteria how she should vote seems pretty clear, even while she keeps everyone guessing how she will vote.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Jackie Lambie should not horse trade on medevac repeal bill – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-jackie-lambie-should-not-horse-trade-on-medevac-repeal-bill-124639

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

Research Checks interrogate newly published studies and how they’re reported in the media. The analysis is undertaken by one or more academics not involved with the study, and reviewed by another, to make sure it’s accurate.

Judging by some media headlines this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking researchers, clinicians and the Australian Dietary Guidelines have it all wrong when it comes to eating red and processed meat:

But that’s not the case.

The World Cancer Research Fund continuously evaluates the evidence. To reduce your risk of bowel cancer they advise limiting your weekly intake of unprocessed cooked red meat to 350-500g. For processed meat, the advice is to eat little, if any at all.

This is consistent with advice in the Australian Dietary Guidelines to reduce risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

So, why all the headlines?

This week’s coverage comes from four systematic reviews published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The four reviews looked at the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers and death (during the follow-up period) among those with the highest versus lowest intakes of red and processed meats.

The authors also published recommendations advising that people shouldn’t change their meat eating habits, implying they shouldn’t cut back on meat. This is in direct opposition to national and international guidelines.

Let’s take a closer look at what the evidence says and how the authors got to their conclusions.

Read more: Here’s what you can eat and avoid to reduce your risk of bowel cancer

Review 1: heart disease, diabetes and cancer

This systematic review of 105 existing studies looked at associations between low and high intakes of red and processed meat combined, rates of death during the study follow-up, and getting heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

When the authors pooled data from all studies, they found lower intakes of red and processed meats were associated with significantly lower relative risks of many conditions, although absolute risks were small.

Relative risk compares disease rates in one group (high meat eaters) to another group (lower meat eaters), while absolute risk takes into account how common the disease or likelihood of dying from the condition is in the first place.

Compared to people who ate the most red and processed meat, people with lowest intakes were:

• 24% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes
• 14% less likely to die from heart disease
• 13% less likely to die from any cause
• had a 15% lower risk of a non-fatal stroke.

Read more: Will a vegetarian diet increase your risk of stroke?

Review 2: cancer

This review examined the relationship between intake of red and processed meat, and cancer incidence and death. It included 118 studies from 56 groups of people.

This review looked at the data in a slightly different way. Risk was assessed based on reducing intakes of meat to three serves per week. This level of intake was set based on the authors’ conclusion that people weren’t likely to reduce their intakes below this level. However, it’s unclear exactly how much meat those with “high intakes” consumed.

The results indicated that lower intakes of red meat were associated with a 7% lower risk of death from any cause compared to those with higher intakes. For processed meat, there was an 8% lower risk of dying from any type of cancer and a 23% lower risk of dying from prostate cancer.

Review 3: heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes

This systematic review examined the association between red and processed meat, and a lower life-expectancy, heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. There were 61 studies on 55 cohorts of people.

This review also looked at health risk, with the lowest-intake group consuming three serves a week.

For a lower intake of red meat, there was a 7% lower relative risk of death from any cause, a 10% lower risk of dying from heart disease, a 6% lower risk of stroke, a 7% lower risk for having a heart attack, and a 10% lower risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

For processed meat, a lower intake was associated with an 8% lower risk of dying from any cause, a 10% lower risk for dying of heart disease, a 6% lower for having a stroke, a 6% lower risk of having a heart attack, and a 22% lower risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

Review 4: low vs high intake in randomised trials

This review evaluated the impact of lower – versus higher – red meat intakes on the incidence of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer outcomes in 12 randomised trials.

Randomised trials are a type of study where one group is given a treatment or intervention at random; the other group is given a different or no intervention, or given usual medical care or advice.

While the researchers identified 12 eligible trials, they were so varied – ranging from having just 32 participants followed for one year, up to over 48,000 women followed over eight years – that it makes the review results almost meaningless.

The recommendation ended up being predominantly based on that one large trial – of postmenopausal women advised to follow a low-fat diet. The authors found no difference in health outcomes when they compared the combined red and processed meat intakes of women in the low-fat group compared to the usual-care group.

What’s the problem?

The studies include a number of shortcomings.

First, red and processed meat were not consistently separated out across the reviews. This is a problem because research shows processed meats increase the risk of health problems from very low intakes. For red meat, health risks don’t increase until a certain threshold. That’s why red and processed meat cannot be considered the same food group.

Second, the researchers decided to exclude cohort studies (where participants are observed over time without any specific intervention) with fewer than 1,000 participants. This means some fairly large studies will have been excluded, which could alter the results.

Third, when talking about a small reduction in absolute risk, the researchers don’t acknowledge the potential impact at the population level.

In these studies, the difference in the actual number of diagnosed diseases or deaths was relative small between those with the lowest meat intakes compared to the highest. This difference ranged from three fewer people per 1,000 people having a stroke, to 15 fewer per 1,000 people dying from any cause.

But a small reduction in disease at the population level can translate to thousands of people not experiencing a particular health condition over time.

Finally, the authors don’t present full diagrams, called Forrest Plots, to allow us to see how much individual studies influence the overall results. This would show whether the studies are all having about the same effect, or if the results are due to just one or two particular studies.

Read more: Health Check: does processed meat cause bowel cancer?

How did they come to their conclusions?

While the authors of these reviews used similar data to other international reviews such as that undertaken by the World Cancer Research Fund, a major difference is in how the results are interpreted.

The researchers used an extremely stringent approach to evaluate the quality of the evidence. This led to authors downgrading every outcome to a “low” or “very low” certainty of evidence.

Based on their assessment of the evidence, the authors advised adults to continue their current unprocessed meat and processed meat intakes, which they termed as a “weak recommendation” with “low certainty evidence”.

Read more: Confused about your cancer risk from eating meat? Here’s what the figures mean

While the authors question the validity of observational cohort studies, the reality is that long-term randomised controlled trials would be impossible, and unethical to conduct. You can’t assign large numbers of people to a lifetime diet high in processed and red meat, versus a low meat diet, and then wait for ten to 20 years or more to see what diseases they get and what they die from.

Poor diets are a leading contributor to chronic disease and need to be addressed with preventative health policies. If all Australians ate like the current dietary guidelines, we could expect to see heart disease drop by 62%, as well as 41% less type 2 diabetes, 34% fewer strokes and 22% less bowel cancer. – Clare Collins

Blind peer review

This is a reasonable critique of these reviews and has picked up the fact that the methodology used to assess studies automatically graded the results from cohort trials as low or uncertain. This ignores the fact that large, long-term, well-conducted cohort studies involving over six million people have yielded valuable data on dietary patterns and health.

There are many criticisms of the reviews include that the authors:

• omitted some studies and rejected others such as the Lyon Heart Study because its results seemed to be too good to be true
• excluded studies comparing vegetarian diets with those containing meat
• ignored social, political and economic factors that influence food selection
• ignored the fact that no diet can be judged on the basis of a single food.

Part of the recommendation was based on their paper which found that most meat-eaters were reluctant to eat less meat and doubted their ability to prepare meals without meat.

The self-appointed panel who did these the reviews did not agree on the conclusions, with three out of the 14 recommending a reduction in red and processed meat. Interestingly, only two of the 14 personally consumed more than the amount of red meat recommended in most dietary guidelines.

A previous paper by some of the same authors rejected guidelines that recommend consuming less sugar. On that occasion, four of the five authors declared funding during their study from the International Life Sciences Institute, a major lobby group for processed food companies. – Rosemary Stanton

– ref. Yes, we still need to cut down on red and processed meat – http://theconversation.com/yes-we-still-need-to-cut-down-on-red-and-processed-meat-124486

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kotzmann, Lecturer in Law, Deakin University

After a chimpanzee named Flint recently lost his mother, renowned primatologist Dr Jane Goodall wrote:

the last short journey he made, pausing to rest every few feet, was to the very place where Flo’s body had lain. There he stayed for several hours, sometimes staring and staring into the water. He struggled on a little further, then curled up—and never moved again.

Dr Goodall’s anecdote of Flint’s grief illustrates the concept of animal sentience – that animals have their own subjective experiences and feelings, including positive feelings like happiness and pleasure, as well as negative feelings like pain and suffering.

Read more: Here’s what the science says about animal sentience

In this respect, scientific research is clear that most animals are sentient. In particular, many animals are able to experience physical and psychological pain in a similar manner to humans.

In fact, the concept of animals’ sentience has become increasingly important and was recently enshrined in law in the Australian Capital Territory, an Australian first. Here’s what that means for animals, and for future legislation.

What the law says

After the amendments to the Animal Welfare Act 1992 (ACT) come into effect, its purposes will include to:

recognise that animals are sentient beings that are able to subjectively feel and perceive the world around them.

The Act will also recognise the “intrinsic value” of animals and impose a “duty of care” on people to ensure good animal welfare.

But while the legislation will acknowledge animal sentience, it’s really only likely to impact our pets. The term “animal” is defined in the legislation to broadly include vertebrates such as mammals (excluding human beings), birds, fish and reptiles.

Read more: Not just activists, 9 out of 10 people are concerned about animal welfare in Australian farming

However, the animal welfare offences created by the act don’t apply where the relevant conduct is in accordance with a code of practice. In other words, animal industry practices that might otherwise be considered animal cruelty are exempted from the requirements of the legislation.

The ACT is the first Australian jurisdiction to recognise animal sentience, but many other countries have already done so.

The European Union first recognised animal sentience in 1997 in the Treaty of Amsterdam. And it was recognised by New Zealand in 2015 in its Animal Welfare Act 1999, and by Quebec in a 2015 amendment to its Civil Code.

The international organisation World Animal Protection views animal sentience recognition as so important it’s the first indicator in its Animal Protection Index, which ranks 50 countries on the basis of their legal and policy commitments to animals.

Animals as property

For animals in Australia, legal recognition of their sentience is a small but important step forward because it indicates a shift in thinking about the relationships between humans and animals.

Although animals’ ability to feel emotions may seem self-evident, historically the law has categorised animals as property. In other words, a dog is no more a legal person than the bed she is lying on.

Read more: The ban on live sheep exports has just been lifted. Here’s what’s changed

While recognising animal sentience does not mean animals are persons under the law, it does represent a shift away from categorising them as property.

Legally recognising animals as sentient is primarily a symbolic gesture. Nevertheless, this does not mean such recognition will have no real consequences.

Analysis of the European Union provision, for example, indicates it has played a role in assisting legislative interpretation and in motivating further legislative protections for animals.

And New Zealand jurisprudence suggests the purpose of the New Zealand Act, including recognition of animal sentience, will have some influence on interpretation of the Act’s provisions. This may also be the case with the ACT legislation.

Will other states follow the ACT?

It seems likely other Australian states will follow the ACT’s lead in this area. Both the ACT and Victoria have already recognised animal sentience in their policy, although the ACT amendments are the first time it will be recognised in Australian law.

Read more: Can meat exports be made humane? Here are three key strategies

In the Northern Territory, a number of submissions were made to the Social Policy Scrutiny Committee when undertaking an Inquiry into the Animal Protection Bill 2018 to legally recognise animal sentience.

Those making submissions in favour of legal recognition of animal sentience included the Animal Law Institute, RSPCA, Australian Veterinary Association and Lawyers for Animals. Ultimately, however, the committee declined to recommend recognition of animal sentience in the bill, because:

[the committee was] of the view that recognition of such is implicit in the Bill and does not need to be explicitly stated.

The committee’s view, unfortunately, overlooks the deeper meaning of recognising animal sentience. Anti-cruelty legislation tends to focus on preventing physical harm to animals. Acknowledging sentience, however, recognises that animals feel emotions too, which should be taken into account in regulating human conduct towards animals.

Still, following the ACT’s lead may be attractive given the view recognition is largely symbolic. It means states and territories would be able to boast of their animal welfare credentials without putting animal-related industries offside.

Read more: Simply returning rescued wildlife back to the wild may not be in their best interest

We can hope the international trend towards legal recognition of animal sentience is continued in other Australian states and territories. But what’s more important will be the extent to which the scientific consensus that most animals are sentient can actually change human relations with animals.

In this respect, we are long overdue to rethink the manner in which humans use animals that have their “own rich, complex emotional and social lives”.

– ref. ACT’s new animal sentience law recognises an animal’s psychological pain and pleasure, and may lead to better protections – http://theconversation.com/acts-new-animal-sentience-law-recognises-an-animals-psychological-pain-and-pleasure-and-may-lead-to-better-protections-124577

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amandine Denis, Head of Research, ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University

Corporate Australia is taking action on climate change. Most recently, at the UN Climate Summit, Atlassian cofounder Michael Cannon-Brookes announced the A$26 billion Australian software company’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050.

Net zero pledges like this are becoming more common but currently there is no way to really track momentum towards net zero emissions across different sectors of the economy.

Read more: We can be a carbon-neutral nation by 2050, if we just get on with it

Now, a Net Zero Momentum Tracker initiative has been established by ClimateWorks Australia and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute to track emissions reduction commitments made by major Australian companies and organisations, as well as state and local governments.

The tracker aims to place all commitments to net zero emissions in Australia in one place and evaluate how well they align with the Paris climate goals.

Property sector tracking towards net zero emissions

We began by assessing Australia’s property sector. Last week we released a report examining all property companies listed in the ASX 200, plus all of those required to report their emissions under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act.

Among the companies we looked at are Dexus, Mirvac, Stockland Corporation, GPT Group, and Lendlease. They develop, own or manage some of Australia’s largest corporate offices, commercial properties, retail centres, retirement villages, and residential developments.

Read more: Whichever way you spin it, Australia’s greenhouse emissions have been climbing since 2015

The report found almost half – 43% – of Australia’s largest listed property companies have made commitments that closely align with the Paris Climate Agreement, aiming to achieve net zero greenhouse emissions before 2050 for their owned and managed assets.

Significantly, the six companies with the most ambitious net zero targets represent 36% of the ASX 200 property sector. Among these six, several major companies – Dexus, Mirvac, GPT Group, and Vicinity – are aiming for net zero emissions by 2030, demonstrating the business case for strong climate action.

Sector leaders can inspire copycat action

By highlighting what action organisations are taking and how, the Net Zero Momentum Tracker initiative aims to encourage more organisations to make and strengthen commitments to reduce their emissions, in line with the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

For example, Australia’s largest owner and manager of office property, Dexus, has a comprehensive strategy for reaching its goal of net zero emissions across the group’s managed property portfolio. This includes reducing energy use, shifting to renewable electricity, electrifying their buildings, and reducing their non-energy emissions from waste, waste water and air conditioning.

Of particular significance is Mirvac’s pledge to be “net positive” by 2030. This means the company aims to go beyond net zero, reducing emissions by more than its operations emit. Mirvac has established an energy company to install rooftop solar on their commercial buildings and is selling power to occupants, among other initiatives. The company also has a “house with no bills” pilot project, to explore how their upstream indirect emissions can be minimised for residential developments.

Read more: Green buildings must do more to fix our climate emergency

Another major company, the GPT Group, has extended its commitment beyond the assets it owns and manages to all buildings it has an ownership interest in, including buildings it co-owns or does not manage.

These companies will get multiple benefits from their action, including reduced operating costs, better health and productivity for occupants, and increased sales prices, rents and occupancy rates.

Need to accelerate action

While many property companies are tracking in the right direction, none of the companies we considered had net zero targets which comprehensively covered all of their emissions – such as those from co-owned assets, their supply chains and investments.

There is still significant opportunity for property companies to strengthen their commitments towards net zero emissions. This requires targets which address the full scope of direct and indirect emissions within each company’s influence, supported by detailed plans to achieve this.

Read more: Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?

By making these public commitments to reduce emissions, the property sector is helping build momentum towards achieving this goal across the entire Australian economy.

The next assessments to be undertaken by the Net Zero Momentum Tracker initiative include the banking sector and state and local governments.

– ref. Australia’s biggest property companies are making net-zero emissions pledges – now we can track them – http://theconversation.com/australias-biggest-property-companies-are-making-net-zero-emissions-pledges-now-we-can-track-them-124264

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ruby, Lecturer in Psychology, La Trobe University

Between the rise of plant-based sausages and veggie burgers that “bleed”, vegan protesters at supermarkets, and Disney adding hundreds of vegan items to its theme park menus, veganism is in the news. Not to mention the woman trying to sue her neighbours for their meat-grilling ways. For a group once perceived as placid and potentially anaemic, vegans have sure been making a lot of noise.

Who are the “new vegans” and what is behind their rise in prominence?

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

Origin story

The term “vegan” was coined in 1944 by a group of people in the UK to describe a diet excluding meat, fish, dairy, and eggs. In 1988, the UK Vegan Society settled on a definition of veganism that described it as:

“… a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose”.

For many years, veganism had relatively few adherents, and was largely dismissed as a fringe movement, if not met with outright hostility.

In his 2000 book, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain, didn’t mince his words:

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Bourdain was by no means alone in his view of vegans. An analysis of stories run in UK national newspapers in 2007 that used the words “vegan”, “vegans”, or “veganism” found that 74% of articles portrayed veganism negatively – describing vegans as hostile, oversensitive, or ridiculous.

Despite an initial bad rap, interest in veganism has been growing, particularly in the past decade. Data from Google Trends indicates that the relative frequency of Google searches for “vegan” has approximately quadrupled since 2012.

A number of prominent public figures, such as Moby, Angela Davis, Bill Clinton, and Ellen Degeneres, have drawn attention to veganism. At the same time, numerous studies and reports have discussed links between meat consumption and health and environmental outcomes.

Media outlets such as The Guardian, NBC, and The New York Times have run stories on the mistreatment of animals on factory farms. Furthermore, popular movies such as Okja, about a young girl and her pig-like best friend, have been credited with turning people toward plant-based diets.

Challenging stereotypes

As veganism becomes more prominent, a number of people are challenging conventional beliefs, particularly the idea that one needs to eat animal products to be strong and healthy.

Touring at film festivals in 2018, and reaching mainstream Australian cinemas in August, The Game Changers draws on a mixture of dramatic footage, scientific studies, and celebrity glamour.

Executive produced by a team including James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic, and Chris Paul, The Game Changers bills itself as “a revolutionary new documentary about meat, protein, and strength”, and challenges the old stereotype of vegans as weak.

The film follows combat instructor and UFC fighter James Wilks as he travels around the world meeting people like world surfing champion Tia Blanco, eight-time US national cycling champion Dotsie Bausch, and strongman Patrick Baboumian. Sitting down with the chair of nutrition at Harvard University, Dr Walter Willett, Wilks discusses the benefits of plant-based diets.

Motivation and location

Although vegans are often motivated by some combination of concern for animal welfare, animal rights, health, and environmental sustainability, individuals often emphasise particular motivations more strongly than others.

Chef and activist Bryant Terry has written and spoken extensively on the health and food justice aspects of veganism. Youth climate activist Greta Thunberg adopted a vegan diet for environmental reasons. The Forest Green Rovers Football Club transitioned the food in their stadium to be 100% vegan in 2015, out of concern for animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

Other common motivations are religious and spiritual beliefs, adherence to social norms, a preference for the taste, smell, and texture of plant foods, and an explicit rejection of mainstream industries that treat animals like commodities.

East meets West

Although veganism is often discussed through a Western cultural lens, several Eastern philosophies – such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Taoism – favour plant-based diets. Hinduism, practiced by the majority of India’s population, has a history of plant-based diets extending across thousands of years.

While in many Western countries, vegans may be negatively stereotyped or face social alienation, responses to those following plant-based diets in other cultures differ markedly.

In India, for example, the present day food hierarchy places a plant-based diet at the top as it is associated with a higher status. The slaughter of animals and meat-eating is associated with a certain baseness and physical and spiritual pollution.

Similarly, many people in China regard plant-based eating as central to physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. In 2016, the Chinese government released updated dietary guidelines encouraging their population of more than 1.3 billion to reduce their meat consumption by 50% between now and 2030 for primarily health-related reasons.

Reaction to veganism in other cultures is not always positive though. Japanese media has expressed concern about how vegan tourists and locals can maintain their diet in a nation “hooked on meat”.

Is the future plant-based?

Today, countries with traditionally meat-based diets – such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and South Africa – are among the world’s top ten when it comes to the global share of vegan product launches.

The adoption of plant-based diets and lifestyles is projected to keep rising. For example, the percentage of Italians who identified as vegan nearly doubled from 2016 to 2018, and the number of vegans in the UK quadrupled between 2014 and 2018.

In 2017, the global plant protein market was valued at US$10.5 billion (A$15.65 billion) and this number is predicted to increase to USD $16.3 billion (A$24.3 billion) by 2025.

In the future we can expect to see and hear more from those who choose not to consume animal products.

– ref. The vegans are coming! What’s fuelling the interest in plant-based eating? – http://theconversation.com/the-vegans-are-coming-whats-fuelling-the-interest-in-plant-based-eating-123869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Matthews, Research Associate | Councillor, University of Adelaide

Australia’s space industry is set to grow into a multibillion-dollar sector that could provide tens of thousands of jobs and help replenish the dwindling stocks of precious resources on Earth. But to make sure they don’t flame out prematurely, space companies need to learn some key lessons about sustainability.

Sustainability is often defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Often this definition is linked to the economic need for growth. In our context, we link it to the social and material needs of our communities.

We cannot grow without limit. In 1972, the influential report The Limits to Growth argued that if society’s growth continued at projected rates, humans would experience a “sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity” by 2070. Recent research from the University of Melbourne’s sustainability institute updated and reinforced these conclusions.

Our insatiable hunger for resources increases as we continue to strive to improve our way of life. But how does our resource use relate to the space industry?

Read more: Dig deep: Australia’s mining know-how makes it the perfect $150m partner for NASA’s Moon and Mars shots

There are two ways we could try to avert this forecast collapse: we could change our behaviour from consumption to conservation, or we could find new sources to replenish our stocks of non-renewable resources. Space presents an opportunity to do the latter.

Asteroids provide an almost limitless opportunity to mine rare earth metals such as gold, cobalt, nickle and platinum, as well as the resources required for the future exploration of our solar system, such as water ice. Water ice is crucial to our further exploration efforts as it can be refined into liquid water, oxygen, and rocket fuel.

But for future space missions to top up our dwindling resources on Earth, our space industries themselves must be sustainable. That means building a sustainable culture in these industries as they grow.

How do we measure sustainability?

Triple bottom-line accounting is one of the most common ways to assess the sustainability of a company, based on three crucial areas of impact: social, environmental, and financial. A combined framework can be used to measure performance in these areas.

In 2006, UTS sustainable business researcher Suzanne Benn and her colleagues introduced a method for assessing the corporate sustainability of an organisation in the social and environmental areas. This work was extended in 2014 by her colleague Bruce Perrott to include the financial dimension.

This model allows the assessment of an organisation based on one of six levels of sustainability. The six stages, in order, are: rejection, non-responsiveness, compliance, efficiency, strategic proactivity, and the sustaining corporation.

Sustainability benchmarking the space industry

In my research, which I presented this week at the Australian Space Research Conference in Adelaide, I used these models to assess the sustainability of the American space company SpaceX.

Using freely available information about SpaceX, I benchmarked the company as compliant (level 3 of 6) within the sustainability framework.

While SpaceX has been innovative in designing ways to travel into space, this innovation has not been for environmental reasons. Instead, the company is focused on bringing down the cost of launches.

SpaceX also relies heavily on government contracts. Its profitability has been questioned by several analysts with the capital being raised through the use of loans and the sale of future tickets in the burgeoning space tourism industry. Such a transaction might be seen as an exercise in revenue generation, but accountants would classify such a sale as a liability.

The growing use of forward sales is a growing concern for the industry, with other tourism companies such as Virgin Galactic failing to secure growth. It has been reported that Virgin Galactic will run out of customers by 2023 due to the high costs associated with space travel.

Read more: NASA and space tourists might be in our future but first we need to decide who can launch from Australia

SpaceX’s culture also rates poorly for sustainability. As at many startups, employees at SpaceX are known to work more than 80 hours a week without taking their mandatory breaks. This problem was the subject of a lawsuit settled in 2017. Such behaviour contravenes Goal 8 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which seeks to achieve “decent work for all”.

What’s next?

Australia is in a unique position. As the newest player in the global space industry, the investment opportunity is big. The federal government predicts that by 2030, the space sector could be a A$12 billion industry employing 20,000 people.

Presentations at the Australian Space Research Conference by the Australian Space Agency made one thing clear: regulation is coming. We can use this to gain a competitive edge.

Read more: From tourism to terrorists, fast-moving space industries create new ethical challenges

By embedding sustainability principles into emerging space startups, we can avoid the economic cost of having to correct bad behaviours later.

We will gain the first-mover advantage on implementing these principles, which will in turn increase investor confidence and improve company valuations.

To ensure that the space sector can last long enough to provide real benefits for Australia and the world, its defining principle must be sustainability.

– ref. Space can solve our looming resource crisis – but the space industry itself must be sustainable – http://theconversation.com/space-can-solve-our-looming-resource-crisis-but-the-space-industry-itself-must-be-sustainable-124576

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Ringland, Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University

For autistic children, online social interactions can be just as fraught as those in the offline world. The community at Autcraft, which is built around a customised version of the popular game Minecraft, has set out to create a safe virtual playground.

In the process, they may be demonstrating the kind of filtered, structured environment in which more and more socialisation will occur as online and offline worlds collide.

In my research, I have worked with members of the Autcraft community to better understand how they are keeping autistic children safe while they play. I found they use a combination of modifying the software of Minecraft itself (called “modding”) and social structure or rules.

Autcraft uses Minecraft to do four key things for autistic children: it gives them structure, creates a safe social space, lets them filter their experience in various ways, and helps them unleash their imaginations.

A structured playground

The Minecraft game world is structured to begin with, as the game contains boundaries and rules that players must follow. The Autcraft community uses extra software plug-ins to make the game world a little easier, especially for younger players.

For example, players can mark out their own plots of land so that they, and specified friends, are the only ones who can build there. This keeps other players from changing their houses and other creations without permission.

Read more: Minecraft can increase problem solving, collaboration and learning – yes, at school

On top of this sort of “physical” structure, the Autcraft community also has social structure. This takes the form of rules that all community members must follow, as well as norms around friendliness and helpfulness. These norms are built into the game through tools such as community chests where players can leave things they no longer need for others to use.

Autcraft uses the game world of Minecraft as a safe social space. Children come to play with friends after school – often friends they only know through the game, not in the physical world. Hanging out in Minecraft looks like hanging out in the playground. Some children are building, some are playing games such as hide and seek, and some are just hanging out and talking via text chat.

Filtered interactions

Minecraft, as a game, filters and simplifies things in ways that can be helpful for autistic players. Characters are fairly crude representations of people. They do not have facial expressions or much in the way of body language. Everything is communicated through character movements (such as jumping around or giving away items) or via text.

While the text chat can be overwhelming at times (even for a researcher such as me), it’s still a filtered version of human interaction that makes socialising less stressful and more fun for autistic youth.

Read more: Stop worrying about screen ‘time’. It’s your child’s screen experience that matters

People with autism also often need to adjust their sensory intake to suit their needs. Volume and brightness can easily be adjusted in Minecraft, and players also vary their sensory intake by moving their characters around. For example, I saw one player bury their character underground to make their screen go dark for a small visual sensory break.

Autcraft has also built virtual sensory rooms that offer a variety of sensory inputs and moods, ranging from a bright multicoloured room with spider webs for texture to a serene garden, rooms where the door shuts for darkness, and a cozy library.

Just as important for many players is unleashing their imaginations.

In Autcraft I saw buildings that looked like giant pink ponies, statues of people the size of buildings, Doctor Who’s TARDIS, and everything in between. Community members would sometimes work alone, but also worked together, forming teams to accomplish building goals.

I interviewed autistic youth who would take on leadership positions to lead their friends to finish large castles and create whole villages together. For children who have difficulty communicating, making friends, and learning in a classroom environment, this is a very big deal.

The shape of things to come?

Minecraft is much like a playground in the physical world. This allows for a deeper engagement for the player, and deeper learning as well.

This is especially true for the autistic youth of Autcraft, who use the accessible interface of Minecraft to help support their social play – without some of the barriers that can make offline play difficult for them.

As physical and virtual spaces blend together, filtered ways of socialising and interacting will become a norm for everyone. We can expect the already tenuous distinction between “virtual” and “real” life to dissolve further – and worlds like Autcraft will simply be a part of life.

– ref. How a Minecraft world has built a safe online playground for autistic kids – http://theconversation.com/how-a-minecraft-world-has-built-a-safe-online-playground-for-autistic-kids-124492

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose Cairns, Lecturer in Pharmacy, University of Sydney

Fears switching the painkiller codeine to a prescription only medicine would lead to more people misusing stronger painkillers are unfounded, according to research published today.

Our research, in the journal Addiction, found the 2018 switch resulted in a 50% drop in codeine overdoses and sales. There was also no increase in overdoses with stronger opioids or high strength codeine, as some had feared.

Read more: Trust Me I’m An Expert: The science of pain

Remind me again, how did we get here?

Australia has a love affair with codeine. It has historically been our most used opioid, and 2013 data showed we took more codeine as a country than the USA, despite having roughly 7% the population.

However, from February 2018, you could only buy codeine in Australia with a prescription. Before then, you could buy low strength codeine (up to 15mg per tablet) in combination with paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin over-the-counter (OTC) at pharmacies. Higher strength codeine has always required a prescription.

The 2018 change was not an overnight decision. Codeine has been on the government’s radar for over a decade; the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) set up a codeine working party in 2008 in response to increasing misuse. Codeine is an opioid analgesic, meaning people can become dependent on it, and there is a risk of harm from overdose.

Read more: Why making codeine products prescription-only is a good idea

There was also an earlier attempt at reducing harm when in 2010, all codeine painkillers were moved behind the counter at pharmacies. Before that, the lower strength products could be picked up off the pharmacy shelf without consulting a pharmacist.

Unfortunately, our previous study showed this move to stocking codeine behind the counter had little impact. Other studies also showed that deaths from codeine continued to increase.

The 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported codeine available from behind the counter at a pharmacy was the most misused legal opioid in Australia and misuse was particularly common in adolescents.

This left the TGA with little choice but to bring Australia in line with most other countries that restrict codeine to prescription only. The TGA announced the change in December 2016 following a lengthy consultation, and the change took effect on February 1, 2018.

Not everyone was happy

The announcement divided community and health-care professional groups. Pharmacy organisations opposed the change, whereas GPs were in favour.

There were also fears the change would lead to a massive burden on GPs as patients came to request codeine.

Read more: Three claims used to justify pulling codeine from sale without a prescription, and why they’re wrong

Some people were concerned the move would drive people to use higher strength codeine. This was because people wanting codeine would need to see their doctor, so they might request the stronger products that had always been prescription only. There was also concern the change would push people towards even stronger painkillers, like oxycodone and morphine.

What happened next?

In our work at the NSW Poisons Information Centre we get hundreds of calls about opioid overdoses every month. So we were keen to evaluate whether the change in codeine availability affected the number of overdoses. We, like others, were also worried there might also be unintended consequences of the change in its availability.

In the year after the change, we saw a 51% drop in codeine poisonings overall. This mainly affected low strength preparations (the category no longer available without prescription), where poisonings dropped by 79%.

There was no increase in poisonings with high strength codeine or other opioids. Similarly, sales data showed overall use of codeine dropped by almost 50%, with use of low strength codeine most affected, dropping by 87%. Again, there was no increase in use of high strength codeine.

Your genetics are also important

Concerns over misuse and addiction were not the sole reason behind the change in codeine availability. A person’s response to codeine is determined by their genes, specifically a gene that codes for the enzyme CYP2D6. This enzyme activates codeine by converting it to morphine in the body.

Read more: Weekly Dose: codeine doesn’t work for some people, and works too well for others

So, depending on their DNA, some people don’t get any effect from codeine, some get a “normal” effect, while others find it toxic at what is normally considered a safe dose.

The latter is the most dangerous scenario, and has resulted in several deaths. This has included a newborn baby who died after their mother had a normal dose of codeine for pain after childbirth. The mother was later found to have the gene that results in excessive codeine activation, and a lethal dose of morphine was transmitted to her baby in her breast milk.

Even if the misuse problems disappeared overnight, people who advocated codeine be available only by prescription argued that a medicine with such a variable effect should only be available after seeing a doctor.

How about unintended consequences of the codeine switch?

Future research needs to look into possible unintended consequences of the change in codeine availability.

For instance, people may have switched to simple analgesics, like paracetamol and ibuprofen. These don’t have the same potential to be abused, are generally safer, and are more effective than low-strength codeine products. Yet they can still be toxic when overdosed.

Our research didn’t look at whether the codeine switch led to more people using paracetamol or ibuprofen, or were harmed by them.

Limiting availability works

Prescription drug misuse and overdoses are problems that are very much driven by drug availability. And when the availability of other medicines in Australia and internationally have been restricted, we’ve seen the benefits, namely reductions in misuse and poisoning.

This has happened with the opioid painkillers tramadol, hydrocodone and dextropropoxyphene; and the benzodiazepine alprazolam.

Our study shows a good example of how effective simple strategies can be in tackling opioid misuse. Codeine is just one small piece of the puzzle, and we would like to see further investment and a systematic strategy to address causes of the rise in fatal poisonings from prescription drugs in the past decade.

We would like to see a National Centre for Poisoning Research set up, which would bring together and support existing and new researchers. This would focus on preventing and managing poisoning, to provide a national response to this clinical and public health problem.

– ref. Here’s what happened when codeine was made prescription only. No, the sky didn’t fall in – http://theconversation.com/heres-what-happened-when-codeine-was-made-prescription-only-no-the-sky-didnt-fall-in-124169

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgia Rose Grant, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Paleontology Team, GNS Science

We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago.

Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise by as much as 20 metres above present levels in coming centuries.

We were able to measure past changes in sea level by drilling cores at a site in New Zealand, known as the Whanganui Basin, which contains shallow marine sediments of arguably the highest resolution in the world.

Using a new method we developed to predict the water level from the size of sand particle moved by waves, we constructed a record of global sea-level change with significantly more precision than previously possible.

The Pliocene was the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were above 400 parts per million and Earth’s temperature was 2°C warmer than pre-industrial times. We show that warming of more than 2°C could set off widespread melting in Antarctica once again and our planet could be hurtling back to the future, towards a climate that existed three million years ago.

Read more: Not convinced on the need for urgent climate action? Here’s what happens to our planet between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming

Overshooting the Paris climate target

Last week we saw unprecedented global protests under the banner of Greta Thunberg’s #FridaysForFuture climate strikes, as the urgency of keeping global warming below the Paris Agreement target of 2°C hit home. Thunberg captured collective frustration when she chastised the United Nations for not acting earlier on the scientific evidence. Her plea resonated as she reminded us that:

With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO₂ budget [1.5°C] will be entirely gone in less than eight and a half years.

At the current rate of global emissions we may be back in the Pliocene by 2030 and we will have exceeded the 2°C Paris target. One of the most critical questions facing humanity is how much and how fast global sea levels will rise.

According to the recent special report on the world’s oceans and cryosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), glaciers and polar ice sheets continue to lose mass at an accelerating rate, but the contribution of polar ice sheets, in particular the Antarctic ice sheet, to future sea level rise remains difficult to constrain.

If we continue to follow our current emissions trajectory, the median (66% probability) global sea level reached by the end of the century will be 1.2 metres higher than now, with two metres a plausible upper limit (5% probability). But of course climate change doesn’t magically stop after the year 2100.

Read more: With 15 other children, Greta Thunberg has filed a UN complaint against 5 countries. Here’s what it’ll achieve

Drilling back to the future

To better predict what we are committing the world’s future coastlines to we need to understand polar ice sheet sensitivity. If we want to know how much the oceans will rise at 400ppm CO₂, the Pliocene epoch is a good comparison.

Back in 2015, we drilled cores of sediment deposited during the Pliocene, preserved beneath the rugged hill country at the Whanganui Basin. One of us (Timothy Naish) has worked in this area for almost 30 years and identified more than 50 fluctuations in global sea level during the last 3.5 million years of Earth’s history. Global sea levels had gone up and down in response to natural climate cycles, known as Milankovitch cycles, which are caused by long-term changes in Earths solar orbit every 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years. These changes in turn cause polar ice sheets to grow or melt.

While sea levels were thought to have fluctuated by several tens of metres, up until now efforts to reconstruct the precise amplitude had been thwarted by difficulties due to Earth deformation processes and the incomplete nature of many of the cycles.

Our research used a well-established theoretical relationship between the size of the particles transported by waves on the continental shelf and the depth to the seabed. We then applied this method to 800 metres of drill core and outcrop, representing continuous sediment sequences that span a time period from 2.5 to 3.3 million years ago.

We show that during the Pliocene, global sea levels regularly fluctuated between five to 25 metres. We accounted for local tectonic land movements and regional sea-level changes caused by gravitational and crustal changes to determine the sea-level estimates, known as the PlioSeaNZ sea-level record. This provides an approximation of changes in global mean sea level.

Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level rise

Our study also shows that most of the sea-level rise during the Pliocene came from Antarctica’s ice sheets. During the warm Pliocene, the geography of Earth’s continents and oceans and the size of polar ice sheets were similar to today, with only a small ice sheet on Greenland during the warmest period. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet would have contributed at most five metres to the maximum 25 metres of global sea-level rise recorded at Whanganui Basin.

Of critical concern is that over 90% of the heat from global warming to date has gone into the ocean. Much of it has gone into the Southern Ocean, which bathes the margins of Antarctica’s ice sheet.

Read more: New research shows that Antarctica’s largest floating ice shelf is highly sensitive to warming of the ocean

Already, we are observing warm circumpolar deep water upwelling and entering ice shelf cavities in several sites around Antarctica today. Along the Amundsen Sea coast of West Antarctica, where the ocean has been heating the most, the ice sheet is thinning and retreating the fastest. One third of Antarctica’s ice sheet — the equivalent to up to 20 metres of sea-level rise — is grounded below sea level and vulnerable to widespread collapse from ocean heating.

Our study has important implications for the stability and sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet and its potential to contribute to future sea levels. It supports the concept that a tipping point in the Antarctic ice sheet may be crossed if global temperatures are allowed to rise by more than 2℃. This could result in large parts of the ice sheet being committed to melt-down over the coming centuries, reshaping shorelines around the world.

– ref. If warming exceeds 2°C, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could raise seas 20 metres in coming centuries – http://theconversation.com/if-warming-exceeds-2-c-antarcticas-melting-ice-sheets-could-raise-seas-20-metres-in-coming-centuries-124484

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Ann Wheeler, Professor in Water Economics, University of Adelaide

Australia has one of the most sophisticated water markets in the world, particularly notable for the ways in which government can return water to the environment.

Water markets allow the return of this water through two main mechanisms. The first is buybacks, in which the government purchases water licences directly from willing irrigators via an open tender process.

The second involves subsidising irrigation infrastructure on (and off) farms to improve water efficiency, with a percentage of the assumed water savings being transferred to a licence held by the government.

Read more: The Darling River is simply not supposed to dry out, even in drought

However, open tender buybacks essentially stopped in 2014 in favour of infrastructure projects. This was due to the widespread belief that buybacks were inflating the price of water and causing economic hardship in rural communities.

Our research, published in Resource and Energy Economics, set out to test this assumption of the impact of water recovery on water markets. We found that water scarcity (due to seasonal change or water allocation reductions) had far more influence on water prices than government water recovery. In fact, voluntary, open tender buybacks are the most cost-effective and low-risk option for increasing river flow.

By ignoring this option, we are hamstringing Australia’s ability to flexibly cope with drought conditions and long-term climate change.

Lessons from 20 years of data

My colleagues and I wanted to understand the impact of government water recovery on the Murray-Darling Basin’s water markets. To do so, we needed to understand the dynamics and drivers of the markets both before and after buybacks began.

We looked at monthly prices over twenty years in the Goulburn catchment in New South Wales (1A Greater Goulburn) – both for permanent water markets (where a water licence is permanently transferred) and temporary ones (a seasonal transfer of water).

The drivers of water market prices in temporary and permanent water markets are different, but market dynamics are similar: market volatility shocks go from prices to volumes.

Temporary water trade is driven by water scarcity, caused by factors such as seasonal fluctuation in water allocated to licences and the weather. Conversely, permanent water trade is influenced by a combination of past prices and temporary water prices.

What about government intervention?

We found no evidence that government water recovery influenced water prices in either market in a statistically significantly way.

However, we did find that increases in the amount of water recovered by the government reduced the volume of temporary water traded. This is probably due to the fact that many irrigators who sold water to the government had been selling surplus temporary water, and this volume was then taken out of the market.

We also found that government water recovery increased the volatility of temporary market prices and volumes, signalling potential increased risk and uncertainty for irrigators engaging in temporary water markets.

These results are significantly different to previous estimates by consultants, some of which suggest government buybacks cause temporary water market prices to double.

Our findings contradict this. Our results are in line with and reinforce other peer-reviewed economic literature, which has shown buyback of water entitlements had far less impact on rural communities than commonly claimed.

This is partly because government buybacks simply do not create large enough changes in the amount of seasonal water available to affect prices, given that variability. A 1% increase in water buybacks caused a 0.1% drop in temporary water volume traded. In addition, farmers are very good at adapting to changes in water, and have a number of strategies and options available to them in most years.

Unfortunately, commonly held perceptions about the impacts of buyback on rural communities and water markets has had serious policy ramifications.

Irrigation schemes are not enough

As noted earlier, buybacks are now off the table. Funding for water recovery is now directed exclusively to infrastructure projects, which are deficient in a number of key respects.

Since water buybacks started in 2008, A$2.5 billion has been spent to recover 1,227 gigalitres of water licences. At the same time, A$3.9 billion has been spent so far on things like lining channels and building dams, which has saved 695 gigalitres.

Water recovery by infrastructure schemes now cost at least three times as much as buybacks per megalitre recovered. These infrastructure projects may not return as much water to the environment as assumed, while they also also create the risk of environmental harm.

Irrigation infrastructure subsidies can also expand total irrigation areas and increase water use, and encourage a conversion from seasonal crops to permanent plantings such as orchard trees. These permanent crops demand a fixed amount of water every year, making farms less adaptable in the face of drought and climate change.

How did policy get this wrong?

The results of our water market study show that there are key differences between high quality, peer-reviewed economic science on the one hand, and short-term consultancies and people’s perceptions on the other.

High quality economic science takes time, expertise and requires reputable, consistent and long-term datasets that control for the myriad of influences on economic change. Short-term consultancies and inquiries (such as the Northern Basin Review) are often rushed, not representative and are often not based on reliable datasets.

Inquiries also often amplify the voices of lobby groups and the people who are most aggrieved by water recovery, while other voices – floodplain irrigators, indigenous representatives, irrigators who want water reallocated to the environment – may be silenced.

Read more: Aboriginal voices are missing from the Murray-Darling Basin crisis

There are currently two inquiries looking at water markets and socio-economic conditions in the basin. It is vitally important they capture all voices equally and are supplemented by independent, high quality analysis.

If we can’t understand the real drivers of change in the Basin, we can’t identify the best options for improving the social and economic health of its communities – particularly in the face of drought and climate change.

– ref. Scarcity drives water prices, not government water recovery: new research – http://theconversation.com/scarcity-drives-water-prices-not-government-water-recovery-new-research-124491

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Bero, Chair professor, University of Sydney

This article is part of a series on academic freedom where leading academics from around the world write on the state of free speech and inquiry in their region.

Over the last two decades, industry funding for medical research has increased globally, while government and non-profit funding has decreased. By 2011, industry funding, compared to public sources, accounted for two-thirds of medical research worldwide.

Research funding from other industries is increasing too, including food and beverage, chemical, mining, computer and automobile companies. And as a result, academic freedom suffers.

Industry sponsors suppress publication

An early career academic recently sought my advice about her industry-funded research. Under the funding contract – that was signed by her supervisor – she wouldn’t be able to publish the results of her clinical trial.

Another researcher, a doctoral student, asked for help with her dissertation. Her work falls under the scope of her PhD supervisor’s research funding agreement with a company. This agreement prevented the publication of any work deemed commercial-in-confidence by the industry funder. So, she will not be allowed to submit the papers to fulfil her dissertation requirements.

Read more: Influential doctors aren’t disclosing their drug company ties

I come across such stories often and they all have one thing in common. The blocked publications present the sponsoring companies’ products in an unfavourable way. While the right to publish is a mainstay of academic freedom, research contracts often include clauses that give the funder the final say on whether the research can be published.

Early career researchers are particularly vulnerable to publication restrictions when companies fund their research. Scientific publication is vital to their career advancement, but their supervisors may control the research group’s relationship with industry.

Senior researchers can also be vulnerable to industry suppressing their research. In the 1980s, a pharmaceutical company funded a researcher to compare their brand’s thyroid drug to its generic counterparts. The researcher found the generics were as good as the branded products.

The funder then went to great lengths to suppress the publication of her findings, including taking legal action against her and her university.

And there is little institutional oversight. A 2018 study found that, among 127 academic institutions in the United States, only one-third required their faculty to submit research consulting agreements for review by the institution.

And 35% of academic institutions did not think it was necessary for the institution to review such agreements. When consulting agreements were reviewed, only 23% of academic institutions looked at publication rights. And only 19% looked for inappropriate confidentiality provisions, such as prohibiting communication about any aspect of the funded work.

Industry sponsors manipulate evidence

The definition of academic freedom boils down to freedom of inquiry, investigation, research, expression and publication (or dissemination).

Read more: Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook

Internal industry documents obtained through litigation have revealed many examples of industry sponsors influencing the design and conduct of research, as well as the partial publication of research where only findings favourable to the funder were published.

For instance, in 1981 an influential Japanese study showed an association between passive smoking and lung cancer. It concluded wives of heavy smokers had up to twice the risk of developing lung cancer as wives of non-smokers and that the risk was dose related.

Tobacco companies then funded academic researchers to create a study that would refute these findings. The tobacco companies were involved in every step of the funded work, but kept the extent of their involvement hidden for decades. They framed the research questions, designed the study, collected and provided data, and wrote the final publication.

This publication was used as “evidence” that tobacco smoke is not harmful. It concluded there was no direct evidence passive smoke exposure increased risk of lung cancer. The tobacco industry cited the study in government and regulatory documents to refute the independent data on the harms of passive smoking.

Industry sponsors influence research agendas

The biggest threat to academic freedom may be the influence industry funders have on the very first stage in the research process: establishing research agendas. This means industry sponsors get unprecedented control over the research questions that get studied.

We recently reviewed research studies that looked at corporate influence on the research agenda. We found industry funding drives researchers to study questions that aim to maximise benefits and minimise harms of their products, distract from independent research that is unfavourable, decrease regulation of their products, and support their legal and policy positions.

In another tobacco-related example, three tobacco companies created and funded The Center for Indoor Air Research that would conduct research to “distract” from evidence for the harms of second-hand smoke. Throughout the 1990s, this centre funded dozens of research projects that suggested components of indoor air, such as carpet off-gases or dirty air filters, were more harmful than tobacco.

The sugar industry also attempted to shift the focus away from evidence showing an association between sugar and heart disease. It was only recently revealed that, in the 1960s, the sugar industry paid scientists at Harvard University to minimise the link between sugar and heart disease, and to shift the blame from sugar to fat as being responsible for the heart disease epidemic

Read more: Essays on health: how food companies can sneak bias into scientific research

The paper’s authors suggested many of today’s dietary recommendations may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry. And some experts have since questioned whether such misinformation can have led to today’s obesity crisis.

Coca-Cola and Mars have also funded university research on physical activity to divert attention away from the association of their products with obesity.

How do we protect academic freedom?

In a climate where relations between academia and industry are encouraged and industry funding for research continues to grow, academics must guard against threats to academic freedom posed by industry support.

Academic freedom means industry funding must come with no strings attached. Researchers must ask themselves if accepting industry funding contributes to the mission of discovering new knowledge or to an industry research agenda aimed at increasing profits.

Governments or independent consortia of multiple funders, including government and industry, must ensure support for research that meets the needs of the public.

When research is supported by industry, funders should not dictate the design, conduct or publication of the research. Many universities have and enforce policies that prevent such restrictions, but this is not universal. Open science, including publication of protocols and data, can expose industry interference in research.

Scientists should never sign, or let their institution sign, an agreement that gives a funder power to prevent dissemination of their research findings. Universities and scientific journals must protect emerging researchers and support all academics in fending off industry influence and preserving academic freedom.

Read the first article in the academic freedom series here

– ref. When big companies fund academic research, the truth often comes last – http://theconversation.com/when-big-companies-fund-academic-research-the-truth-often-comes-last-119164

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Kelly, Human Geographer, Deakin University

You would think a city that each year hosts Australia’s largest conference for people with disability would be the most accessible for all people.

Not according to our research which highlights 119 issues that need fixing if Geelong, Victoria, wants to be a model “city for all”.

Clearly there’s a shortfall between aspiration and reality, which is surprising given that in the last Census count, about 6% of Geelong’s population reported they needed help because of disability. That’s higher than the national figure of 5.1%.

Read more: Don’t blame parcel delivery vans for clogging up city traffic, look to the tradies

Geelong is also home to the National Disability Insurance Agency, WorkSafe, and the Traffic Accident Commission, so it should be a shining example of what is termed access and inclusion (A&I) for people with a disability.

A city for everyone

The challenge for Geelong is to identify what is a model city for people with a disability.

There are a few examples to consider. Many cities around the world have tackled disability access through technological solutions to help people get around, such as personal navigation with smartphones.

Melbourne introduced beacons that connect to a smartphone app, to help vision-impaired people navigate their way inside Southern Cross Station and some other stations.

Overseas, the city of Breda, in the Netherlands, was this year declared Europe’s most accessible city. It has done several things to improves access, such as smoothing the centuries-old cobbled pathways, providing ramps, and rolling out digital navigation across the city.

Central to all these efforts is the collaborative design of solutions, working with people who have experience of disability access.

The need for change

In Geelong, more than 100 people responded to a visitor’s survey, and 75 people with experience of disability participated in a series of three workshops and three focus groups.

We found there are a series of things that could be implemented to improve accessibility and exclusion in Geelong.

Some things are simple, such as providing ramps instead of steps, and adequate restroom facilities; others involve remaking the city and may seem more difficult.

But the response from people with disability was typically modest, with one participant saying “we don’t expect the Taj Mahal”.

In all, we recommend six priority areas for action.

A number of problems continue to undermine efforts to rectify city-wide problems and these must be addressed. These include amendments to legislation to define and ensure “access” and “inclusion” are within the planning framework.

There also needs to be significant change to the business-as-usual approaches to housing, instead prioritising the supply of public and community housing in general, but especially for people with disability.

On employment, we need to co-design workplace arrangements so both the needs of people with disability and employers are met. This is key to ensuring those with a disability who seek work are able to attain it.

Access to information

One action identified was to build an Inclusive Geelong Visitor Centre (IGVC) run and managed by people with disability, with accessibility support staff. The centre would provide accessibility information and serve as a landing pad where people can gather information before exploring the city.

Many participants noted this idea has been discussed in various forums for the past 30 years, but nothing had ever happened.

Projects like this are often seen as luxuries that are more symbolic than tangible. Our analysis shows that if implemented in coordination with a series of other actions, such as providing disability support services and empowering people with disability to lead conversations, it could encourage further change and reform.

In isolation, an IGVC was evaluated by the community as having a high impact rating (10/10), but a low feasibility rating (3/10). The low perception of feasibility perhaps explains why this project has never come to fruition.

At a bare minimum, an IGVC must have a full suite of accessibility support services and provide spaces for all abilities where people can access up-to-date information and plan activities for the length of their stay.

Read more: Buried beneath the trees: a plan to solve our shortage of cemetery space

The centre would allow people with disability to make informed choices about accessible travel, accommodation, services, and other aspects of urban participation.

It should be staffed by qualified support workers and people with disability, connect people to different support agencies and work with providers to bring accommodation up to accessible standard.

But no meaningful impact can be realised by isolating any actions from the list of fixes. There needs to be consideration of how all other factors relate to issues of accessibility and inclusion across multiple scales.

These lessons are not just for Geelong, other cities could also follow these steps to make themselves more inclusive and accessible.

– ref. Making our cities more accessible for people with disability is easier than we think – http://theconversation.com/making-our-cities-more-accessible-for-people-with-disability-is-easier-than-we-think-124420

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lin Crase, Professor of Economics and Head of School, University of South Australia

The bipartisan parliamentary vote to transform the A$3.9 billion Building Australia Fund into a pot of cash to drought-proof Australia, the Future Drought Fund, should not be taken as universal endorsement.

Labor opposed the idea before caving in, saying it did not “want to be painted as a party that opposes support for farmers”.

Rather, it simply shows that Australian politicians coalesce on some things: few miss the opportunity to be photographed with an affectionate child, and even fewer are willing to be critical of public funds being handed to drought-stricken farmers.

But support something (or feeling too scared not to oppose something), doesn’t necessarily make it the right policy.

Read more: Drought is inevitable, Mr Joyce

Australian governments have sought to drought-proof parts of inland Australia through publicly funded irrigation schemes for much of the past century.

Whenever dryland farmers experienced drought, they were viewed as having experienced a natural disaster, even though the variability of dryland rains was well understood.

Then, from the 1960s, things changed.

First there was a growing realisation that public monies spent on irrigation were not the best means of dealing with a variable climate.

We’ve moved away from thinking about drought as disaster

Second, governments started to describe drought differently, culminating in a 1992 National Drought Policy that required farmers to be more self-reliant and absorb the impacts of drought as something to be expected.

The decades that followed continued this trend with all states and the Commonwealth agreeing on national principles in 2013. Concessional loans and a farm management deposit scheme with taxation advantages were available to help farmers, but would only be useful to those that were viable in the long term.

A Farm Household Allowance, set at the level of Newstart and available for up to four years in return for setting out a plan to improve the farmer’s financial circumstances, was also introduced in 2015 and refined in 2018.

Part of the thinking was that climate change is expected to make droughts more common and severe, although there are good reasons for encouraging adaptation to the existing climate in any case.

Read more: Helping farmers in distress doesn’t help them be the best: the drought relief dilemma

However, getting the balance right between “supporting” farm businesses and encouraging them to adapt and be self-reliant isn’t straightforward, especially when the climate and political cycles coincide.

It’s hard to imagine politicians being fiscally prudent when they know they have access to a drought slush fund and are heading into an election during a drying phase.

So, what’s wrong with the new drought fund?

First, there is mounting evidence that farm businesses can actually benefit from drought in the longer term. This seems to occur because businesses that go through a drought develop coping strategies that when invoked in good years produce much greater profits.

That is not to say that droughts are financially a good thing – but it does mean that shielding farm businesses from drought runs the risk that they will not adapt.

Second, an obsession with drought undoes much of the good work done in reclassifying it as something to be expected rather than a natural disaster. Nearly all of the natural disaster payments made in the decade leading up to 2012-13 – one of the driest on record – were spent on rebuilding after floods and storms rather than droughts.

Third, while repurposing the Building Australia Fund as the Future Drought Fund is designed to appeal to rural and regional voters, it is unlikely to help them. Agriculture simply does not generate the jobs that it once did and public pronouncements about drought-proofing will not change the underlying economics of farm businesses and regional communities.

Read more: Droughts, extreme weather and empowered consumers mean tough choices for farmers

Farming is generally helped by scale, and that means bigger farms with bigger machines displacing smaller farms. The upshot is fewer jobs and the shutdown of small towns, allowing only the larger regional centres to survive. Finding ways to manage this social phenomenon should be the priority rather than shielding farms from drought.

But it’s hard to be optimistic. Politicians love handing cheques to farmers as much as they love photographs with adoring children.

– ref. Just because both sides support drought relief, doesn’t mean it’s right – http://theconversation.com/just-because-both-sides-support-drought-relief-doesnt-mean-its-right-121744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Golding, Senior lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology

The product of hundreds of years of musical and storytelling tradition married to computer technology, video game music has gone from a technological curio to something vitally creative. Next week in Melbourne, some of the nation’s best video game composers will gather at the APRA AMCOS High Score conference to discuss the state of the industry.

How did the sound of video games go from beeps and wipe-out sounds to complex musical scores in their own right?

A tale told musically

In one sense, video game music is closely related to the classical composition of film soundtracks, opera, and ballet – musical scores created to accompany and complement a story that is being told by other means.

Video game music often follows in this tradition. There are musical melodies for characters, for places, even for themes, that mirror what is referred to as the leitmotif in opera, ballet or film scores. Wagner gave Siegfried a melody for The Ring Cycle; John Williams gave Darth Vader an Imperial March; and in video games, our heroes and villains get their own musical brands, too.

But for all its similarities, video game music has always been a different beast. The music does more than just accompany images and narratives, it reacts to the action too.

This is because players don’t just watch when it comes to video games. They also perform actions – they press buttons, they move characters, they make decisions. In turn, video games respond by acting on the player – displaying choices, providing rewards and taking them away. Music must exist as part of this delicate system.

Rolling the dice

Responsiveness changes the nuts and bolts of how making video game music works. How do you write a melody for a game menu that might be left on screen by a player for five seconds, or three hours? How do you develop a theme for a character that some players might spend hours with, but other players will speed by on their way to another scene? How does suspense music work if you aren’t sure how scared your players will be, or for how long?

Perhaps the earliest example of reactive music came about accidentally. In 1978, the musical tempo of Taito’s arcade game Space Invaders steadily increased as players got further into the game. The more alien spaceships the player shot down, the faster the music played. That this was partially due to a quirk of the game’s hardware (fewer on-screen enemies meant that the game ran more easily) did not lessen its impact on the games industry.

Today, things can be a bit more complicated. For my own work on the recently released Untitled Goose Game, I split a piece of music for solo piano written by composer Claude Debussy more than a century ago into several hundred two-to-three second sections. Then I created two performances of each: one with high energy and one with low energy. The game’s developers used this music to design a system that allows the software to choose whether it will play the high or low energy performance – or even silence – at any given moment.

The result is something that sounds a little bit like a pianist is in the corner of your room, watching you play the game, like an accompanist from a silent movie hall a hundred years ago. But it’s the result of a lot of code, a lot of problem solving, and a lot of creative thinking. This kind of approach has more in common with the avant-garde music of a John Cage, or a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, who pioneered aleatoric music, where some element of the performance was left to chance, such as the rolling of dice.

Tradition meets technology

There is far from one model of video game music, though, and the four decades since Space Invaders have seen an impossible variety of not just different technical approaches, but different musical sounds.

Melbourne-made video games alone have featured funk from The Bamboos for De Blob 2, an orchestral score played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, and an emotive work for cello and piano for Florence. We also have a thriving “chiptune” scene, where people make new music from samples via old video game consoles.

Around the world, the sound of the video game has become a kind of lingua franca for more than one generation of players. Videogame music is sometimes seen through a nostalgic haze. Director Edgar Wright described Nintendo’s music as “the nursery rhymes of a generation”, while making his film Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Indeed, it’s hard to overstate just how integral a lot of video game music has become to players’ lives. A simple YouTube search for cover versions of the music from Nintendo’s Zelda franchise for example, yields more than six million results, with top videos including videos featuring guitars, a capella singing, marimbas, and even one musical performance on wine glasses.

Video game music is the sound of one of our most popular contemporary cultural forms. Anchored by history and tradition, and enabled by cutting edge technology. Video game composers today create musical worlds loved by millions.

– ref. Music that you help make: composition for video gaming draws on tradition and tech – http://theconversation.com/music-that-you-help-make-composition-for-video-gaming-draws-on-tradition-and-tech-124282

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

Tim Watts is Labor member for the Victorian seat of Gellibrand, one of the most diverse electorates in Australia. His own family is a microcosm of diversity – Watts comes from a long line of Australians with some ancestors deeply rooted in the old attitudes of “white Australia”, while his wife is from Hong Kong, and his children Eurasian-Australian.

In his new book, The Golden Country, Watts reconciles the past and present in his family, as well as examining immigration, race and national identity in modern Australia.

In this podcast with Michelle Grattan he also explores the “bamboo ceiling” in our politics, business and other areas, and talks about his efforts to encourage Asian-Australians to climb the ranks in Labor, which presently has ALP Senate leader Penny Wong as the only Asian-Australian face among its federal MPs.

New to podcasts?

Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Politics with Michelle Grattan on Pocket Casts).

You can also hear it on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Politics with Michelle Grattan.

Additional audio

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

Image:

AAP/ Erik Anderson

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tim Watts on Australia’s changing identity – http://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-tim-watts-on-australias-changing-identity-124590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor | Program Director, Undergraduate Pharmacy, University of Sydney

Ranitidine is a medicine used for the short-term treatment of heartburn. Available in supermarkets and pharmacies, a prescription is only needed when a higher dose of the medicine is required over a longer period of time.

Ranitidine (sold under brand names Zantac, Rani 2, and Ausran) is currently in the news because regulators have found that most formulations are contaminated with a chemical called NDMA, which is as a probable carcinogen.

The drug has been recalled by the manufacturers in some countries. Two generic brands – Apotex Ranitidine and Sandoz Ranitidine – have been recalled in Australia so far, with more recalls likely.

Read more: How safe are heartburn medications and who should use them?

When was it developed?

Ranitidine was first reported in the scientific literature in 1976, and became available in 1981.

Peptic ulcer disease had been a significant health issue affecting millions of people around the world and at the time of ranitidine coming to market, approximately four million people in the United States had active peptic ulcers, which resulted in 6,000 deaths per year.

At one stage, ranitidine, as sold under the Zantac brand name, was the best selling drug in the world.

However, the drug is now off-patent (available in cheap generic formulations) and is included on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of essential medicines as an anti-ucler medicine.

How and why is it used?

Antacids work by either neutralising acid or reducing the production of stomach acid.

Ranitidine reduces the amount of acid produced in the stomach and is part of a larger family of drugs called H2-histamine receptor antagonists.

It is a type of antihistamine, but not the type used for treating allergies. This is because the chemical histamine, although involved in allergic reactions, also stimulates the production of stomach acid. So blocking the effect of histamine also reduces the production of stomach acid.

Ranitidine is commonly used to relieve the symptoms of heartburn and indigestion but has also been used in the past to treat more serious conditions, such as peptic ulcers.

In recent times, longer lasting medications called proton pump inhibitors, that are more effective at reducing acid production, have largely replaced ranitidine for more serious conditions.

The most common formulations of ranitidine sold in pharmacies are oral tablets. For those patients who have difficulty swallowing, the medicine is also available as effervescent tablets (fast dissolving in a glass of water) and as a pre-prepared oral liquid.

What’s the link with cancer?

Ranitidine is currently in the news after the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) issued an alert stating many formulations of the drug were contaminated with a chemical called N-nitrosodimethylamine, abbreviated as NDMA. This should not be confused with the illegal party drug MDMA (ecstasy), which is a completely different chemical.

Read more: Weekly Dose: ecstasy, the party drug that could be used to treat PTSD

Similar alerts have been issued by the US Food and Drug Administration, and Health Canada.

Contamination of ranitidine formulations is a problem because the World Health Organisation lists NDMA as a probable carcinogen, meaning it may cause cancer.

But it’s important to note most people are exposed to NDMA as part of their normal lives. NDMA can be found in cooked and smoked meats, from smoking cigarettes, beer, and even some toiletry and cosmetic products.

It’s not clear how the ranitidine formulations have become contaminated with NDMA. A similar chemical, dimethylamine, is used in the synthesis of ranitidine, and it may be possible some NDMA is created when the drug is made. Alternatively, ranitidine may be broken down, producing NDMA, during storage.

It will be important to determine the source of the contamination if new formulations are to be made free from NDMA.

The response in many countries has been the recall of ranitidine formulations. In the United States, the companies Sandoz and Apotex have voluntarily withdrawn their brands from sale. In Canada, the government has asked companies to stop distributing the medicine.

On September 17, Australia’s TGA said it anticipated a recall of ranitidine and until then would be working with international regulators and companies to investigate the problem. The TGA also announced it was doing batch testing of products to determine the extent of the contamination in Australia.

Since that announcement two products have been recalled, Apotex Ranitidine and Sandoz Ranitidine, but further recalls and shortages may occur.

What if you’re currently taking ranitidine?

If the medicine works for you and you wish to keep taking it, there is no immediate health risk. The only issue is from long-term use and could mean a possible increase in your risk of cancer later in life.

If you do wish to stop taking ranitidine, your pharmacist or general practitioner will be able to recommend other heartburn medicines that may be effective for you.

– ref. Weekly Dose: ranitidine, the heartburn medicine being recalled because of cancer-causing contamination – http://theconversation.com/weekly-dose-ranitidine-the-heartburn-medicine-being-recalled-because-of-cancer-causing-contamination-124578