Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Flew, Professor of Communication and Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology

With concerns growing worldwide about the economic power of digital technology giants such as Google and Facebook, there was plenty of interest internationally in Australia’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) inquiry was seen as undertaking a forensic account of market dominance by digital platforms, and the implications for Australian media and the rights of citizens around privacy and data protection.

The inquiry’s final report, released last month, has been analysed from perspectives such as competition policy, consumer protection and the future of journalism.

Read more: Consumer watchdog calls for new measures to combat Facebook and Google’s digital dominance

But the major limitation facing the ACCC, and the Australian government, in developing new regulations for digital platforms is jurisdictional authority – given these companies are headquartered in the United States.

More ‘platform neutral’ approach

Among the ACCC’s 23 recommendations is a proposal to reform media regulations to move from the current platform-specific approaches (different rules for television, radio, and print media) towards a “platform-neutral” approach.

This will ensure comparable functions are effectively and consistently regulated:

Digitalisation and the increase in online sources of news and media content highlight inconsistencies in the current sector-specific approach to media regulation in Australia […]

Digital platforms increasingly perform similar functions to media businesses, such as selecting and curating content, evaluating content, and ranking and arranging content online. Despite this, virtually no media regulation applies to digital platforms.

The ACCC’s recommendations to harmonise regulations across different types of media draw on major Australian public enquiries from the early 2010s, such as the Convergence Review and the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of the national media classification system. These reports identified the inappropriateness of “silo-ised” media laws and regulations in an age of digital convergence.

Read more: What Australia’s competition boss has in store for Google and Facebook

The ACCC also questions the continued appropriateness of the distinction between platforms and publishers in an age where the largest digital platforms are not simply the carriers of messages circulated among their users.

The report observes that such platforms are increasingly at the centre of digital content distribution. Online consumers increasingly access social news through platforms such as Facebook and Google, as well as video content through YouTube.

The advertising dollar

While the ACCC inquiry focused on the impact of digital platforms on news, we can see how they have transformed the media landscape more generally, and where issues of the wider public good arise.

Their dominance over advertising has undercut traditional media business models. Online now accounts for about 50% of total advertising spend, and the ACCC estimates that 71 cents of every dollar spent on digital advertising in Australia goes to Google or Facebook.

All media are now facing the implications of a more general migration to online advertising, as platforms can better micro-target consumers rather than relying on the broad brush approach of mass media advertising.

The larger issue facing potential competitors to the digital giants is the accumulation of user data. This includes the lack of transparency around algorithmic sorting of such data, and the capacity to use machine learning to apply powerful predictive analytics to “big data”.

In line with recent critiques of platform capitalism, the ACCC is concerned about the lack of information consumers have about what data the platforms hold and how it’s being used.

It’s also concerned the “winner-takes-most” nature of digital markets creates a long term structural crisis for media businesses, with particularly severe implications for public interest journalism.

Digital diversity

Digital platform companies do not sit easily within a recognisable industry sector as they branch across information technology, content media, and advertising.

They’re also not alike. While all rely on the capacity to generate and make use of consumer data, their business models differ significantly.

The ACCC chose to focus only on Google and Facebook, but they are quite different entities.

Google dominates search advertising and is largely a content aggregator, whereas Facebook for the most part provides display advertising that accompanies user-generated social media. This presents its own challenges in crafting a regulatory response to the rise of these digital platform giants.

A threshold issue is whether digital platforms should be understood to be media businesses, or businesses in a more generic sense.

Communications policy in the 1990s and 2000s commonly differentiated digital platforms as carriers. This indemnified them from laws and regulations relating to content that users uploaded onto their sites.

But this carriage/content distinction has always coexisted with active measures on the part of the platform companies to manage content that is hosted on their sites. Controversies around content moderation, and the legal and ethical obligations of platform providers, have accelerated greatly in recent years.

To the degree that companies such as Google and Facebook increasingly operate as media businesses, this would bring aspects of their activities within the regulatory purview of the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA).

The ACCC recommended ACMA should be responsible for brokering a code of conduct governing commercial relationships between the digital platforms and news providers.

Read more: Consumer watchdog: journalism is in crisis and only more public funding can help

This would give it powers related to copyright enforcement, allow it to monitor how platforms are acting to guarantee the trustworthiness and reliability of news content, and minimise the circulation of “fake news” on their sites.

Overseas, but over here

Companies such as Google and Facebook are global companies, headquartered in the US, for whom Australia is a significant but relatively small market.

The capacity to address competition and market dominance issues is limited by the fact real action could only meaningfully occur in their home market of the US.

Australian regulators are going to need to work closely with their counterparts in other countries and regions: the US and the European Union are the two most significant in this regard.

– ref. Australian media regulators face the challenge of dealing with global platforms Google and Facebook – http://theconversation.com/australian-media-regulators-face-the-challenge-of-dealing-with-global-platforms-google-and-facebook-121430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marija Taflaga, Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National University

Last week, two former Liberal Party staffers, Dhanya Mani and Chelsea Potter, made claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault against two Liberal party staff members.

It highlighted again how hostile political life can be for women and the fact the Liberals lack any mechanism to manage sexual harassment and assault claims. In response, the party’s federal council has decided to introduce a new code of conduct, likely by the end of the year.

But the Liberals’ “woman” problems go deeper than this. There has been sustained criticism of the party for its under-representation of women in parliament and claims of a bullying culture dominated by a “boys’ club.”

Will a code of conduct help to change this culture? And how well do these kinds of codes actually work?

A problem across the political spectrum

Decades of research have shown how legislatures continue to be hostile work environments for women. In Australia, research by Marian Sawer and Marian Simms, for instance, has catalogued multiple instances of sexism and sexual harassment in the Australian federal parliament.

The Liberal Party is hardly the only political organisation to be confronted with this issue. Virtually all major Australian political parties have faced scandals relating to sexual harassment in recent years.

The Nationals were criticised last year for their handling of a complaint against Barnaby Joyce. In the Labor party, former NSW leader Luke Foley resigned after allegations that he inappropriately touched an ABC journalist.

Read more: Quotas are not pretty but they work – Liberal women should insist on them

The Greens have been wracked by internal infighting over allegations of sexual harassment, resulting in the development of both formal and informal complaints processes.

The varied nature of these cases alone shows just how complex – and all too common – the problem remains.

Sexual harassment of women in politics is not limited to Australia, either, as the “sex-pest” scandal in the UK and recent sexual misconduct allegations against two MPs in Canada have demonstrated.

Given the prevalence of sexual harassment scandals, what is the most effective way for legislatures and political parties to respond?

The role of the parties

Organisationally, political parties straddle ambiguous ground. Parties are professional organisations that employ small numbers of staff and are subject to regulations and rules. Yet, they are also civic institutions that rely on volunteer labour. Their budgets fluctuate wildly from feast to famine. Further, political staff are paid for by the taxpayer, but they are not considered public servants.

As such, it is not always clear what recourse is available to party members who want to file a complaint for sexual harassment. For the most part, they are entirely reliant on whatever processes have been put in place by the parties.

Read more: Party leaders need to address federal parliament’s intolerable workplace culture: Phelps

Perhaps it’s this complexity, as well as the fact that countless organisations seek to cover up bad behaviour, that has led so many in the Liberal Party to argue these matters should be referred to police.

It raises the issue of what responsibilities and obligations the parties have when it comes to managing sexual harassment complaints.

This is not an abstract question. There are implications for how safe people feel in their workplaces and within their civic institutions. It also has implications for which MPs are selected and elected to represent us.

How Canada’s code of conduct works

Canada has been a pioneer in this regard. In 2015, the country was the first with a Westminster-style government to adopt a legislative-wide code of conduct to govern all non-criminal sexual harassment between MPs, regardless of party.

Following the claims of sexual harassment against the Liberal MPs Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews, the Canadian House of Commons adopted the code in June 2015. It includes a series of measures aimed at preventing sexual harassment, as well as a specific rule that prohibits one MP from sexually harassing another. When a claim is made, the code spells out a seven-step resolution process.

Research by Canadian political scientists Cheryl N. Collier and Tracy Raney identifies some issues with the code of conduct that could be useful to consider for those seeking to implement a similar code in Australia.

One is the distinction between criminal and non-criminal sexual harassment. The Canadian code specifically addresses non-criminal actions. If a criminal offence has occurred, the matter will only be referred to the “appropriate law enforcement agency” if the complainant agrees.

But this distinction between non-criminal and criminal is blurry. Confusion over where criminal behaviour begins may prevent victims from using the code if they are unsure how to categorise their specific experience.

This is especially relevant given the recent cases of Mani and Potter in Australia. They were advised to go to the police when they made an internal party complaint. They have strongly argued, as has Liberal party veteran Kathryn Greiner, that such advice allows the party to sidestep responsibility for its culture.

Problems with the Canadian model

The Canadian code of conduct also delegates responsibility to party whips to facilitate conversation, mediation, investigation and resolution of complaints. Whips are elected offices, held by politicians. Their main job is to ensure party discipline, which might conflict with addressing claims of sexual harassment.

This may result in quick and quiet resolutions to ensure that minimal damage is done to the party. If the code is simply used to keep people quiet, this would do little to bring about a meaningful resolution process.

Further, the adoption of a code of conduct that emphasises confidentiality raises issues about what is in the public interest. This could mean the public will never know if an MP has been found to have sexually harassed someone. And this information, many would argue, is intrinsically in the public interest.

Read more: How to ensure more women run for public office

A final important lesson from the Canadian code of conduct relates to parliamentary privileges. Importantly, it does not cover speeches inside the House of Commons, meaning that MPs can use any language they want without fear of reprisal.

As David Leyonhjelm’s use of a sexist slur against Sarah Hanson-Young in the Australian Senate last year shows, this freedom of speech can create a sexist and toxic working environment for women.

This incident, as well as previous scandals, has shone a light on the fact that political parties, just like other civic institutions, need to think about how they will respond to abuse perpetrated within their organisations.

However, as the Canadian example demonstrates, adopting a set of rules is not enough if there aren’t transparent pathways toward a resolution.

Strong leadership is also critical

This lies at the heart of Mani and Potter’s advocacy for rules that extend beyond the individual parties and would cover the behaviour of all MPs. To that end, they are trying to create a forum for women to share their stories and organise.

It also helps explain why these cases have so quickly been linked to the ongoing debate about gender quotas within the Liberal Party. The aim is to change the norms of acceptable behaviour within the party, not just deal with individual complaints of harassment when they happen.

We already know it’s hard for women in political life. While a code of conduct is a step in the right direction, it is unlikely to change the internal culture of the Liberal Party, or any other party.

What’s needed is strong leadership and sustained public pressure that makes it is harder for political parties to turn a blind eye to sexual harassment and assault.

After all, it’s difficult to know how many budding careers have come to an end because of this kind of behaviour across the political spectrum. As Mani herself put it, when describing the party response to her allegations:

I was told ‘You do realise you could ruin his life and he could lose his job, don’t you?’ No one seemed to care about my life, or my career.

– ref. Why a code of conduct may not be enough to change the boys’ club culture in the Liberal Party – http://theconversation.com/why-a-code-of-conduct-may-not-be-enough-to-change-the-boys-club-culture-in-the-liberal-party-121365

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

As we age, we’re more likely to need a prosthesis to help us function like we used to. It may be a hip or knee prosthesis to replace a worn-out joint, a new lens after a cataract has been removed, or a pacemaker or cardiac stent after a heart attack.

Australian prosthesis prices are high by international standards, and these costs come on top of the surgeon’s fees and the hospital’s charges.

Prostheses accounted for more than 10% of the growth in private health insurance costs over the past decade.

Read more: Is a 5.6% increase in private health insurance premiums justified?

Australia’s current approach to paying for prostheses in the private health sector incorporates all the wrong incentives and leads to poor outcomes for patients, health insurance members, and taxpayers.

Grattan Institute has today released a proposal for fundamental reform of prosthesis pricing which can help rein in rising private health insurance costs and provide patients with better quality devices at lower costs.

This plan includes setting a benchmark price, factoring quality into the pricing system, and allowing payments to be bundled so patients can avoid unexpected out-of-pocket costs.

Step 1: set a benchmark price

Australia’s approach to prosthesis pricing in the private health system is heavy on regulation, exemplified by a 1,000-page spreadsheet of regulated prices, which includes more than 10,000 centrally determined prices. It’s reminiscent of Soviet-era central planning at its worst.

Prostheses manufacturers or their Australian agents lodge proposals with a government-appointed committee. The committee evaluates the bid and, if approved, recommends the prosthesis be added to the list and the price private health insurers must pay for it.

One useful, if modest, reform would be to modernise the approach to prosthesis pricing, incorporating innovations from pricing of other medical interventions and treatments.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), which subsidises Australians’ medications, for example, has a system of Therapeutic Group Premiums. Prices for drugs with a similar therapeutic effect are compared, and where there appears to be no incremental benefit within the therapeutic group, the government price is set at the benchmark for all medications in the group.

Adopting a similar approach would create a benchmark price for hip prostheses, and all other hip prostheses could be priced relative to that benchmark price.

Step 2: factor in quality

Another improvement – which could be made immediately – would be to use information about the effectiveness of the prosthesis when setting prices.

Information contained in procedure registries such as the Australian joint registry could be used to estimate the cost-effectiveness of prostheses over patients’ lifetimes.

All hip prostheses, for example, have a small risk of needing to be replaced after three to five years. But some prostheses have significantly higher rates of needing to be replaced (“revised”) than others.

Read more: What is the Medical Technology Association and how does it wield its power?

Under a “lifetime” pricing approach approach, the price for a prosthesis would take account of the likelihood that a revision might be required.

The cost of a revision, including the cost of the hospital admission, is many times the cost of the initial prosthesis. Incorporating revision risk into initial pricing would start to send signals about the importance of long-term costs.

Interestingly, at least one US hospital group has introduced a lifetime hip and knee guarantee, under which the hospital group bears the full cost of any revision. This is a welcome development as it provides a clear incentive for the hospital to chose the prostheses with the lowest revision rates.

About three-quarters of prostheses orthopaedic surgeons choose to implant in their patients are not among the top ten options, in terms of quality as measured by revision rates. It’s unlikely those surgeons have fully informed their patients of the choices and risks they’ve imposed on the patients’ behalf.

Surgeons might chose a prosthesis out of habit and may not have checked the average performance of their favoured prosthesis.

Interestingly, there is no evidence that better performing prostheses are more expensive than others.

Step 3: cut red tape and bundle payments

A bedrock principle of most markets is that the purchaser expects to accrue utility from their purchase. This is not how prosthesis pricing works.

The surgeon is the one who chooses the prosthesis; in the private market, a private hospital purchases the prosthesis; the private health insurer pays for the prosthesis; but it is the patient who wears the cost of any failure of the prosthesis.

This creates an agency problem and is almost guaranteed to lead to problems.

Read more: Waiting for better care: why Australia’s hospitals and health care are failing

Fundamental reform is needed to erase the excessive red tape and regulation of prosthesis pricing.

In the public sector, the government pays hospitals for each procedure it performs, based on the patient’s diagnosis and the procedure they’re having.

These payments can be bundled together to include the procedure and the device. So the payment for a hip replacement includes a prosthesis. Or the payment for a cataract operation includes lenses.

The same rigour, and the ability to bundle payments, should be applied in the private sector.

This would mean private hospitals would be required to tell patients whether they will be hit with any out-of-pocket costs associated with the prosthesis, and what alternative prostheses might be available which involve no out-of-pocket cost, or which are less likely to require a revision. This will help to drive up quality.

Private hospitals – which purchase the prosthesis – would then have an incentive to ensure their surgeons select better-performing prostheses.

Or throw the current system in the bin

Prosthesis pricing in Australia is stuck in an out-dated regulatory approach. It’s not providing best value to taxpayers, health insurance members, or patients.

There are ways to improve the existing regulation, but they should be seen only as patch-ups of a rickety system.

That rickety system deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history and replaced by a fundamentally different approach to paying for surgical care which bundles prosthesis costs into a single price.

– ref. We can cut private health insurance costs by fixing how we pay for hip replacements and other implants – http://theconversation.com/we-can-cut-private-health-insurance-costs-by-fixing-how-we-pay-for-hip-replacements-and-other-implants-121172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abigail Powell, Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW

A need to manage waiting lists, rather than ensuring positive outcomes for tenant households, strongly influences social housing policy, newly published research finds. This situation is not only a result of operational policies, but also a shortage of social housing stock that is suitable for tenants and a lack of viable alternatives – namely affordable, safe and secure private housing. Eligible applicants who don’t have a “priority need” can wait up to ten years to be housed. They face strict eligibility checks just to remain on the waiting list.

Since the large-scale post-war expansion to house working-class families, the social housing sector has shrunk relative to the rest of the housing system. More than 140,000 people are on public housing waiting lists.

Importantly, this figure does not capture unmet demand such as people sleeping rough and very low-income households in housing stress who are not on waiting lists.

Read more: Homelessness: Australia’s shameful story of policy complacency and failure continues

Waiting lists also don’t include hidden demand such as people suspended from waiting lists or excluded by their visa status.

The supply of social housing stock simply does not match the growing numbers of households experiencing housing affordability problems. Between 2011 and 2016, government spending on social housing fell by 7% from A$1.42 billion to A$1.32 billion. Today, social housing is provided to over 800,000 tenants in more than 400,000 households – 76% in public housing, 20% in community housing and 4% in Indigenous housing.

The expansion of public housing (delivered by state and territory housing authorities) to community housing and Indigenous housing (delivered by non-profit community organisations and Indigenous organisations) has transformed social housing. Community housing has increased by 121% between 2008-09 and 2017-18. This growth includes tenanted stock transfers from public housing.

Read more: Australia’s social housing policy needs stronger leadership and an investment overhaul

Against this background, policymakers are increasingly seeking to promote housing “pathways”. Operational housing policies are intended to improve tenant housing and social outcomes (such as well-being and economic participation), but also to manage long waiting lists and make the system more efficient.

These policies shape housing pathways, determining how tenants and households move into, within and out of social housing. But these pathways are also influenced by household relationships and a household’s changing needs. What a tenant or family need from their housing changes when, for example, relationships break down, new relationships begin, children are born or children leave home.

Our research sought to better understand the policy context behind housing pathways and their impacts on tenants’ experience.

Getting in

Pathways into social housing begin with application, which is a centralised process in most states and territories (apart from the Northern Territory). Prospective tenants apply once through a single portal, with information shared between government housing departments and community housing providers.

The success of an application depends on a range of eligibility criteria (see Table 1), starting with income and assets. Even if a prospective tenant meets the income criteria, priority is given to people and households with specific or complex needs. What constitutes “specific or complex needs” varies, but generally includes disability, poor physical or mental health, experience of family violence, exiting institutions, or being homeless or at risk of homelessness (the most common pathway into social housing).

Other criteria include citizenship and residence status (including restrictions based on permanent residency/citizen status), age and tenancy history.

An applicant’s place on the waiting list is continually checked. If an applicant is found to be ineligible, or simply does not respond, they may be suspended or removed from the list.

Staying in

Most states and territories have policies on the eligibility of tenants to continue in public housing. Criteria include income levels, use of the premises, and household change. What criteria are reviewed, and how often, varies widely.

Eligibility reviews mean tenants fear any extra income might result in an end to their tenure or having to make higher rent contributions. This potentially undermines their preparedness to undertake education and training, or take up work opportunities that might lead to greater independence.

Moving within

Policies allow tenants to apply for a transfer if household circumstances have changed. A dwelling might no longer be suitable – for example, as a result of overcrowding or family violence.

In practice, however, supply constraints make this challenging. Policies that transfer public housing properties to community housing providers result in tenants becoming less mobile as moving between public and community housing is not possible.

Landlord-initiated transfers can also occur. For example, property or housing estate renewal might require tenant relocation. A transfer might also be a result of tenant conduct or changes in eligibility status.

Moving out

Exits from social housing may occur when a tenant chooses to move to private housing or is evicted. Eviction may result from issues such as neighbourhood disputes, anti-social behaviour, rental arrears, a lease coming to an end, or changes to eligibility.

Tenants who are no longer eligible for social housing based on their income may also be evicted. These tenants often still have limited capacity to take on and manage a private rental tenancy.

Policy levers to help with moves out of social housing include: selling dwellings to tenants; providing private rent subsidies; rental transition programs; financial planning; and client-based needs planning. Some policies also target private landlords with a goal of increasing housing affordability and therefore pathways out of social housing.

By far the biggest obstacle to moving out of social housing, however, is the lack of affordable housing alternatives.

Read more: Can the private rental sector provide a secure, affordable housing solution?

What this means

While operational policy establishes formal pathways (by setting eligibility criteria and so on), what happens in practice may be different, as service providers can interpret and implement policies in different ways, with different effects for tenants.

Further, what is known about the housing pathways of tenants moving in, within and out of social housing is based on partial evidence. It comes from social housing providers themselves (missing information about events prior to and following occupancy), or from survey research seeking to fill some of the data gaps. Many blind spots exist in the housing pathways evidence base.

Optimal policy development requires clear, up-to-date evidence on how we might understand social housing pathways within a changed housing policy and housing assistance context. We also need to consider what advances in administrative and longitudinal data can tell us about how policy innovation might improve social housing pathways.

Read more: Is social housing essential infrastructure? How we think about it does matter

– ref. Focus on managing social housing waiting lists is failing low-income households – http://theconversation.com/focus-on-managing-social-housing-waiting-lists-is-failing-low-income-households-120675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Peterie, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

The “job snobs” are back on the agenda.

With some in the Australian government’s own ranks arguing for a lift in the unemployment benefit, senior ministers appear to be upping the rhetoric about joblessness being a matter of choice for many.

“There are jobs out there for those who want them,” the federal minister for employment, Michaelia Cash, has told The Australian.

Yesterday the Murdoch-owned newspaper published her comments in a front-page story that suggested Department of Employment research showed almost half of all employers were finding it difficult to hire workers due to “lack of interest” – or because applicants did not have adequate qualifications.

The article was vague on which issue was the bigger problem, but it led with the claim “job seekers are actively snubbing work opportunities”.

Such rhetoric is not new. Since the 1980s, governments have increasingly stressed “the best form of welfare is a job”.

Requirements that claimants show they are actively looking for work have become more onerous. Yet talk about job snobs and dole bludgers continues.

The research, however, suggests these perceptions are largely a myth.

Between 2015 and 2018, we were part of a team studying the well-being, social networks and job search experiences of unemployed Australians.

Our study, funded by the Australian Research Council, involved policy analysis, surveys and in-depth interviews. We talked to employment service providers and 80 job seekers in regional and urban areas of New South Wales and Queensland.

We found no evidence job-seekers preferred not to work. In fact, based on the considerable “job search activity” required of them to meet Centrelink’s stringent “mutual obligation” conditions, it was hard not to conclude that, whatever the reasons for their joblessness, lack of willingness to work was not one of them.

Entry-level jobs

While Australia’s official unemployment rate is 5.2% – a relatively low figure historically – structural labour market issues create serious hurdles for some.

One is for older people. Another is for people without experience. A 2017 study by Anglicare, for example, found the proportion of entry-level vacancies slipped from 22% to 15% over a decade. This means just one entry-level job for about every five entry-level job seekers.

Read more: Young people still find it hard to get a job, despite using the same tactics as older job seekers

This helps explain why employers quoted in The Australian’s story spoke more about “lack of job-readiness” being a problem, rather than lack of interest.

For the manager of an inner-Sydney restaurant “sifting through stacks of resumes”, the problem might have something to do with those on Newstart having to apply for so many jobs.

Moving to where the jobs are

One trope used to suggest there are “job snobs” is to invoke job vacancies in regional and rural areas.

Last year the federal government declared job-seekers would have their unemployment payments reduced or withdrawn if they refused work on farms. Those on taxpayer support, said the prime minister, Scott Morrison, had “no excuse to refuse opportunities”.

Read more: Cut the pension, boost Newstart. What our algorithm says is the best way to get value for our welfare dollars

Packing up and moving for work, however, isn’t necessarily that simple.

The vast majority of job-seekers in our study expressed a strong general willingness to move for work, and many had relocated in the past.

But whether they would move for a particular opportunity depended on the sorts of factors the rest of us would consider.

They were cautious about moving for short-term, temporary roles given the the cost of moving, for example. Hitting “the Harvest Trail” was seen as an expensive and risky proposition. Some individuals had no spare cash to move even if they wanted to.

Read more: Are most people on the Newstart unemployment benefit for a short or long time?

Also important were family considerations – such as maintaining stability for children in school, or caring for ageing parents.

Some feared they would not be able to find rental accommodation as affordable as what they had. Many younger people still living with their parents were wary of moving away from family support, particularly if they didn’t own a car.

Many of our interviewees also expressed feelings of depression, perhaps reflecting underlying economic insecurity and uncertainty. Long-term unemployment and poverty are associated with poor mental health, which could affect someone’s willingness to leave support networks of family and friends.

Shifting responsibility

Our research on the complex reasons that might prevent job-seekers from seizing every job opportunity points to the dangers of making punitive generalisations such as “there are jobs out there for those who want them”.

Such rhetoric glosses over the lived realities of being unemployed. It ignores the conditions of individuals’ lives. It obscures the structural realities of competitive labour markets. It shifts responsibility for unemployment to the individual.

A richer understanding of the realities of unemployment and poverty, as well as a broader conception of well-being, is needed to solve the problem.

– ref. These ‘job snob’ claims don’t match the evidence – http://theconversation.com/these-job-snob-claims-dont-match-the-evidence-121429

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

In a previous century, I conducted doctoral fieldwork among the abandoned warehouses, smoky pubs and crumbling squats of the British post-punk, independent rock scene. How strange that I should become re-acquainted with that scene at the shimmering Sydney Opera House.

The occasion was Joy Division Orchestrated, performed not long after the 40th anniversary of the band’s landmark debut album Unknown Pleasures. Joy Division has been described as being “like the centre of a wheel” in continuing “to influence not just music, but graphic design, literature, film and more” four decades after the band died, along with its lead singer, Ian Curtis.

Saturday night’s show was only a remnant of the original group from Salford in Greater Manchester, as founder member Peter Hook substituted his estranged ex-bandmates with guest singers and musicians, not least the Metropolitan Orchestra. Of necessity, the show was radically different from the grungy club experience of its origins. In the hands of orchestrator/conductor Tim Crooks and musical director David Potts, the music was less angular and industrial.

With flesh-and-blood, classically-trained musicians replacing synthesisers, the sound was lush and tonally rich. Guest singer Mica Miller provided a different gender dimension to the songs of an all-male group. She and Hook took Curtis’s vocal role alongside Bastien Marshal, who sounds and looks like him.

Joy Division classics abounded, like the brooding Atmosphere and the disconcerting She’s Lost Control. Inevitably there was Love Will Tear Us Apart which, a decade after its release, came first in the inaugural Triple J Hottest 100, and again the following year. Plus whimsical surprises, like the bizarre, Malcolm McLaren-inspired mashup of that song and Captain and Tennille’s Love Will Keep Us Together.

But the music alone, despite its unquestionable and enhanced majesty, cannot entirely explain the enduring appeal of a band that existed for barely two years before Curtis took his own life.

Joy Division’s flame has been partially kept alive by its successor, New Order, formed in 1980 by the surviving members of the band: Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris. New Order broke up a couple of times but is still going, though now without Hook. He and the band have had a long running legal dispute that was reportedly settled in 2017.

New Order’s innovative mix of electropop and dance music has been much more commercially successful than its parent band, which produced only two albums of original music and a handful of EPs and singles. But it could never compete with the power of Joy Division mythology.

In a familiar rock narrative of the beautiful corpse, the premature demise of Ian Curtis and Joy Division offered both pathos and mystery. Neither singer nor band could make embarrassing mistakes or reach some notional use-by date, touring the nostalgia circuit like the Sex Pistols, who inspired them to form in the first place.

Images of Joy Division, usually black-and-white, reveal four intense young men in the kind of authentic, working-class environment immortalised by The Smiths a few years later outside the Salford Lads Club. That famous picture was dominated by Morrissey – who has lived long enough to besmirch his own reputation – just as the glowering Ian Curtis compulsively draws the eye in Joy Division’s still photographs and videos.

When Curtis died, I recall a distraught letter to the New Musical Express, the most influential rock newspaper of the time, claiming that “he died for us”.

Even without such Christ-like imaginings of their late singer, Joy Division’s songs – by turns doomy and angry, edgy and reflective – still resonate in these paranoid times.

Produced under Thatcherism and Reaganism, amid the Cold War, deepening social inequality and the rise of the surveillance state, songs like Disorder, Dead Souls, Atrocity Exhibition, and Isolation exude disquiet and alienation. They could have been written today.

But at a deeper level the aura that formed around the band, and especially its tortured vocalist, evocatively expresses rock’s romantic mythology of dissident youth. It registers in Anton Corbijn’s film about the band, Control, and in the representation of Manchester’s Hacienda scene in which Joy Division is featured, in the film 24 Hour Party People.

Myth-laden yearnings aside, Joy Division’s slim back catalogue still repays repeated listening. Songs like Decades, from the epic album Closer, will resonate with inquisitive listeners yet to be born.

In the end, time and earthly foibles caught up with Joy Division. Punk was supposed to rewrite the rules of the decadent music business, and post-punk to take it beyond the frenetic world of One Chord Wonders into something more existentially enduring.

The known-unknown pleasures of Joy Division Orchestrated are reminders of why the music of this short-lived band remains potent even if the human relationships that made it possible have been torn apart. Again.

Peter Hook presents Joy Division Orchestrated can be seen in Perth on August 9 and Melbourne August 11.

– ref. Will time time tear us apart? Exploring the appeal of Joy Division 40 years on – http://theconversation.com/will-time-time-tear-us-apart-exploring-the-appeal-of-joy-division-40-years-on-121314

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathalie Butt, Postdoctoral Fellow, The University of Queensland

According to records compiled by the campaign group Global Witness, 1,738 people described as environmental defenders were killed between 2002 and 2018, across 50 countries.

Their latest report for 2018, released last week, identified 164 killings

Although the figure is slightly down on that for 2017, the group says the number of reported deaths has been increasing over time with about three people killed each week on average.

Yet the campaign group says only about 10% of these killings from 2002-2013 resulted in a conviction, compared with about 43% on average for global homicide convictions in 2013.

Read more: Koala-detecting dogs sniff out flaws in Australia’s threatened species protection

In a study of the group’s data from 2002-2017, published today in Nature Sustainability, we found many of the deaths related to conflict over natural resources, including fossil fuels, timber and water. All but three of the countries where deaths were recorded are classed as highly corrupt, according to their Corruption Perceptions Index score.

What’s an environmental defender?

The term environmental defenders can include anyone involved in protecting land, forests, water and other natural resources.

Environmental defenders can be community activists, Indigenous peoples, lawyers, journalists or non-governmental organisation (NGO) staff. They are defined not by job title or political identity, but by their struggles to protect the environment or land rights. Many are part of collective struggles: they do not act alone.

One of the most well-known murdered defenders is Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist. He was killed in 1988 for his work protecting the Amazon and advocating for the rights of local people.

More recently, in another corner of the Brazilian Amazon, José Claudio Ribeiro and Maria do Espirito Santo were killed in 2011 for defending their forests against illegal loggers.

In Cambodia, Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group and a critic of military and government corruption in illegal logging, was shot and killed in 2012.

Berta Cáceres was murdered in 2016 for her fight against a dam that encroached on the water and land rights of the Lenca people of Honduras. Her death led to international movements calling for justice.

While some of the killings have sparked international outcry, others led to much more localised repercussions. Still others remain unreported and are not accounted for in the Global Witness database.

A conflict of interest

Conflicts over natural resources are often the underlying cause of the violence against environmental defenders. They are linked to different resources and sectors, such as fossil fuels, minerals, agriculture, aquaculture, timber and to the land or water from where these resources can be extracted.

We can see these conflicts as the continuation of historical colonial land use and appropriation. Today, the environmental footprint arising from the resource consumption of high-income countries is effectively outsourced to less wealthy nations and regions.

This is where raw materials are sourced in a country separate to where the resulting product or service is consumed.

Resource extraction is often carried out by companies or groups without legitimate rights to that resource. Examples include illegal logging in community forests. There is also the consumption of water from rivers that traditionally supplied villages or towns, for example, foreign mining companies in Bolivia.

While some of these natural resource drivers are local or national, in many cases it is multinational companies that are directly outsourcing their resource needs that play a role in violence against environmental defenders.

But who is actually doing the killing?

Violence against defenders may be carried out by those representing their own interests, such as illegal loggers or miners, or on behalf of government interests.

In one case, it’s alleged it was police in Pau D’Arco, Brazil who killed ten land defenders in May 2017, and in Chut Wutty’s case it’s alleged it was the military police who carried out the killing.

In our study we found weak rule of law and corruption in a country is closely correlated with environmental defender deaths.

We also found that indigenous people represent a disproportionate percentage of the defenders who are killed. About 40% of deaths recorded in 2015 and 2016, and about 30% in 2017, were indigenous people.

Indigenous people manage or have tenure over about a quarter of the world’s surface (about 38 million square kilometres. Conflict over natural resources is often related to a lack of recognition or acknowledgement of these rights.

A well-known recent example in the United States,Standing Rock involved resistance of the Sioux tribe, and allies, to the North Dakota Access Pipe Line. The aggressive response of the authorities, lead to the hospitalisation of many demonstrators.

Read more: What are native grasslands, and why do they matter?

We believe companies that profit from natural resources extracted under conditions that disregard the rights of environmental defenders are complicit in driving violence through their supply chains. They have a responsibility to act ethically.

There is an urgent need for a global perspective on natural resource conflicts. What is currently happening, in terms of the displacement of environmental and social damage, is a result of globalisation, and is increasing with trade and consumption.

The voices of those trying to defend the environment are being silenced. Low conviction rates show few people are being held accountable for these killings. This cycle of violence and impunity affects entire communities, creating a climate of fear. Despite their fear, many continue to fight for social and environmental justice.

– ref. More than 1,700 activists have been killed this century defending the environment – http://theconversation.com/more-than-1-700-activists-have-been-killed-this-century-defending-the-environment-120352

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heiko Timmers, Associate Professor of Physics, UNSW

Last year Australia sold more than 7,000 tonnes of uranium, at a value of nearly A$600 million.

This uranium produced nearly as much energy as Australia uses in a year, but with less than 10% of the carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations.

Geoscience Australia has estimated Australia could mine up to 1.27 million tonnes of uranium at a reasonable cost. At the current export rate this would last for more than 150 years.

Read more: Nuclear becomes latest round in energy wars

The question of whether Australia could be using all this uranium more efficiently – as a low-carbon and reliable alternative domestic power source – will no doubt be discussed in an inquiry set up by federal energy minister Angus Taylor last week.

Travel down this road again

The parliament’s environment and energy committee will consider the economic, environmental and security repercussions of nuclear power in Australia. The committee’s advice is expected before Christmas.

The inquiry will build on a 2006 report on nuclear power initiated by Prime Minister John Howard and the suggestions from a 2016 royal commission in South Australia on the nuclear fuel cycle.

While we wait for the committee’s report, past investigations and what we know about the nuclear industry leads us convincingly to two basic conclusions: enriching uranium in Australia is not economically feasible, but storing nuclear waste is.

Read more: Is nuclear power zero-emission? No, but it isn’t high-emission either

Nuclear fuel needs processing

Unlike coal, which can be used in a power station without much processing, nuclear reactors cannot simply be fuelled with uranium ore.

The nuclear fuel cycle begins when mined uranium ore is converted to yellowcake, which contains about 90% uranium oxides.

This is the only step of the nuclear fuel cycle that already exists in Australia. It is profitable, but expanding exports is unlikely. International demand and uranium prices are flat due to the decommissioning of old European power stations and only modest growth in Asia.

While this may change over the next two or three decades, at the moment the commercial opportunities for selling more uranium do not exist.

Enriching uranium in Australia is not an option

After being sold overseas, Australian yellowcake is converted to uranium hexafluoride in one of a few global facilities. Next is enrichment, when the crucial fissile isotope U-235 is increased from a natural concentration of 0.7% to an artificial 3-4%. Finally, the enriched uranium is incorporated into zirconium alloy fuel elements.

This processing often happens in multiple countries. Australian uranium may, for example, be bought by a Japanese power company, shipped to Canada for conversion, be enriched in France, and then incorporated in fuel elements for a reactor in Japan. To prevent Australian uranium ending up in nuclear weapons, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has complex safeguards to keep track of it all.

Read more: Nuclear weapons? Australia has no way to build them, even if we wanted to

The South Australian royal commission considered the possibility of enriching uranium in Australia, which would in principle vastly increase its value.

But the commission found that while Australia could easily build the technical capacity, the global market is already oversupplied. There is currently no commercial market for more enriched uranium, and it’s unlikely to grow significantly.

Nuclear reactors are expensive, but renewables need more poles and wires

Every part of the nuclear fuel cycle, apart from mining ore and turning it into yellowcake, takes place overseas. Nuclear power in Australia would effectively be an import business.

This can be expected to considerably add to costs that are not at all balanced by Australia’s natural abundance of uranium ore. Compared with countries such as France or the UK, which have established nuclear industries and pre-processing facilities, operating nuclear reactors in Australia would at least initially be much more expensive.

The main argument for nuclear power in Australia is therefore that it can provide low-carbon power with little changes required to the existing distribution network of poles and wires.

In contrast, renewables such as wind and solar require significant upgrades to this network – including massive infrastructure projects like Snowy 2.0 – and a stronger focus on demand management.

The considerable improvement of renewable technologies in recent years has brought the cost down to levels competitive with coal and nuclear. However the infrastructure costs of replacing coal-generated electricity with renewables could be huge. These costs may possibly exceed those of building nuclear power stations.

Read more: The demise of US nuclear power in 4 charts

Storing radioactive waste makes ethical, environmental and commercial sense

While nuclear power in Australia has a somewhat shaky business case, a much stronger argument can be made for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle: storing nuclear waste.

Australia’s incredibly stable geology offers the opportunity to build a radioactive waste disposal facility similar to the repository under construction in Onkalo in Finland.

Pursuing this option would complement Australia’s uranium exports, as nuclear fuel would be taken back once exhausted. Such a repository would in fact give a new marketing edge to the successful yellowcake business.

It also addresses Australia’s responsibility for any environmental consequences of sending uranium into the world. Importantly, supplying the world’s carbon-free nuclear reactors and managing their waste responsibly could be an important plank in Australia’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Read more: Why would the world accept Australia’s offer to store nuclear waste?

It would not be surprising if the current inquiry in federal parliament suggests a radioactive waste repository is the necessary condition for contemplating any domestic nuclear electricity generation.

The successful and profitable operation of such a disposal facility in Australia might provide the strong argument for building nuclear power reactors that is presently lacking.

– ref. Australia should explore nuclear waste before we try domestic nuclear power – http://theconversation.com/australia-should-explore-nuclear-waste-before-we-try-domestic-nuclear-power-121361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hocking, Postdoctoral fellow, Monash University

Some people don’t like sharing their food – we all have a friend who gets cranky when you steal a chip from their plate. For wild animals, this makes sense, because any food shared is energy lost that could otherwise have been used to pursue more food.

So it was a big surprise to discover wild leopard seals feeding alongside one another while eating king penguins at South Georgia, a remote island in the southern Atlantic Ocean. On top of this, they may have even been cooperating with each other to eat these enormous seabirds.

We report this fascinating observation in a new study published today in the journal Polar Biology.

Can’t we just all get along?

Leopard seals have a ferocious reputation as one of the top predators in the Antarctic ecosystem. They are infamously the “principal enemy of the penguin”, as immortalised in the film Happy Feet.

Read more: When mammals took to water they needed a few tricks to eat their underwater prey

But when they eat penguins, leopard seals are normally highly territorial, scaring off rivals by lunging at them with a fearsome set of teeth. Animal-mounted cameras have even revealed that leopard seals ambush each other to steal captured prey.

But that’s not what was seen when the film crew working on the Netflix documentary series Our Planet visited South Georgia. Instead, they were astonished to find wild leopard seals floating alongside one another dining together on a king penguin carcass, taking it in turns to tear off pieces of food.

Too costly to fight

Given how aggressive leopard seals normally are around food, why were these seals behaving so out of character?

Consider this: if you were at an all-you-can-eat buffet and a stranger sat at your table and began eating your food, would you chase them away or let them share with you, knowing you could easily get more afterwards?

When food is very abundant, it may well be cheaper to share than to fight. Penguin colonies offer a near-constant supply of potential prey, attracting scores of predators. In this case, up to 36 leopard seals were seen near the colony at the same time.

So if a seal paused feeding to scare or fight off a rival, there is a good chance a third seal would sneak in and steal the food. In this situation it makes more sense to focus on eating as much as possible, as fast as possible – tolerating some food theft if necessary so as to avoid wasting energy on fighting that would risk losing the prey altogether.

The seals didn’t get along perfectly all the time. We saw some aggression, but perhaps this is to be expected if they are just tolerating each other out of necessity.

Do leopard seals cooperate to eat large prey?

Another explanation for these unexpected observations is that leopard seals might be cooperating to make it easier to consume such large prey.

Unlike northern seals, leopard seals don’t have clawed paws to help them hold prey. Instead, they have paddle-like flippers with tiny claws, forcing them to vigorously thrash the prey from side to side in their teeth to tear it into pieces small enough to swallow. This energy-intensive eating style is even harder when the prey is large – like adult king penguins.

Alternatively, if two animals hold the prey between them, one can act as an anchor while the other tears off a chunk of meat. This saves a lot of energy that would otherwise be wasted shaking the prey around.

This type of cooperative food processing is actually quite common among aquatic top predators, such as killer whales and crocodiles, that can’t easily hold onto food.

The unusual case of the sharing seal

This last possibility made us rethink the interpretation of a famous encounter between a wild leopard seal and National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen. On entering the water, Nicklen was repeatedly approached by a seal that appeared to be trying to feed him a penguin in an act of unexpected altruism. But perhaps this was not a free gift, but an offer to cooperate.

Read more: The birdlife of South Georgia is handed another chance

The latest discovery is a great example of how new technology can help researchers make close-hand observations of wild animals. By using a camera drone, the film-makers could fly above the animals without disturbing them, allowing them to observe behaviours that have so far gone unnoticed.

The remoteness of Antarctic ecosystems can make it hard to connect with the wildlife there, but these advances in technology are helping to provide new windows into this icy world.

– ref. Buffet buddies: footage reveals that fierce leopard seals work together when king penguin is on the menu – http://theconversation.com/buffet-buddies-footage-reveals-that-fierce-leopard-seals-work-together-when-king-penguin-is-on-the-menu-121186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien Manuel, Director, Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University

It was bound to happen, and it did. Poorly crafted legislation – designed to allow national security agencies to collect information with the aim of protecting Australians from terrorists – is now reportedly being exploited by a range of different government agencies for other purposes.

It has been widely reported that the Veterinary Surgeons Board of WA, Victorian Fisheries, Liverpool City Council, and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority are among the entities that have requested access to metadata.

Read more: Benign and powerful: the contradictory language of metadata retention

Under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, only agencies tasked with enforcing criminal law are entitled to access metadata from telecommunications companies.

Metadata is the information recorded by the telco when you make a call or use the internet. It can include information such as where you are, whom you called or texted, how long you talked for, how frequently you called or texted someone, what services you used, what websites you visited and when, and much more besides.

Under the legislation there are 22 criminal law enforcement agencies that can legally access these metadata. They include the federal police, state police forces, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, federal and state police integrity commissions, state anti-corruption bodies, and parts of the Australian Border Force.

The federal home affairs minister also has the power to declare other agencies as “enforcement agencies” under the law.

Why is data being accessed?

Generally, enforcement agencies are entitled to access metadata if it is either given to them voluntarily, or if they issue a formal request for information they believe is required to perform their duty.

The definition of an enforcement agency was narrowed in 2015, at the same time the federal government introduced the controversial mandatory data retention framework, which requires telcos to retain customers’ metadata for at least two years.

Before the definition was tightened, an estimated 80 different agencies were covered by the previous laws. They included not just criminal and national security investigators, but also a wide range of agencies pursuing financial matters such as unpaid fines or taxes.

Since 2015, however, most of those agencies found themselves excluded by the new definition of an enforcement agency, but could use a range of laws that still grant powers to request metadata directly. One example is Section 20 of the New South Wales Fair Trading Act 1987. According to the submission made by the Australian Communications Alliance to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, 60 federal and state agencies have sought access to metadata via this mechanism.

What is metadata anyway?

The information contained in metadata was infamously described by former Attorney-General George Brandis as the “material on the front of the envelope” (rather than the contents of the letter itself). But in reality it is much, much more.

Of course, metadata can be useful to help telcos improve their services, by revealing peak calling times or popular locations on the network. But you can also think of metadata as a digital breadcrumb trail that each of us leaves in our wake as we go about our lives.

It can provide enough information to establish a detailed picture of someone’s life: their daily routine, relationships, interests, preferences, and behaviour. It can even reveal someone’s location, to whom they have spoken, and for how long.

It seems excessive that two years’ worth of someone’s metadata can be kept on file and then obtained without a warrant. Although the low access threshold was called out in submissions before the law was passed, there was no public discussion of the implications for privacy and liberty.

If properly understood, the metadata access regime would not pass the pub test.

How is metadata really being used?

The federal home affairs department’s 2017-18 annual report lists a range of offences for which metadata has been sought by various agencies.

The report says that information was sought in relation to a total of 23,586 criminal offences including homicides, abductions, sexual assaults, fraud, robbery and drug offences.

The report also reveals that 300,781 items of metadata were disclosed during the reporting period in total across all categories.

Law enforcement agencies have claimed that metadata helps to eliminate suspects by revealing their networks and contacts. But there is no information regarding the use of metadata by government bodies that are not officially enforcement agencies within the meaning of the data retention laws.

In simple terms, there is no central public report that outlines how all state and federal agencies are accessing and using this information.

Metadata stored is available to any enforcement body with the power (under state or federal law) to request or require the information. By tightening its definition of “enforcement agencies” in 2015, the federal government denied many smaller agencies the right to access metadata directly, but did not prevent them from getting it via other means. As a consequence they were also excluded from supervision by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Read more: Is it possible to circumvent metadata retention and retain your privacy?

One interesting exception is that civil courts are prevented from obtaining metadata as evidence in civil proceedings, unless the metadata was collected and held by the telco for some purpose other than the mandatory data retention regime. Given the huge range of other authorities that can access it, this seems rather arbitrary and unfair.

So where to from here? Besides amending the law, it is also time for a wider public debate over the correct balance between our privacy and civil liberty on one hand, and our protection and national security on the other. This is especially important as we become more and more reliant on digital technology to live and work. Just imagine the privacy implications with 5G, when more personal devices are connected to the internet like your smart meter, light bulbs and toaster.

This article was coauthored by Patrick Fair, Chairman of the Communications Reference Panel, Communications Alliance.

– ref. Think your metadata is only visible to national security agencies? Think again – http://theconversation.com/think-your-metadata-is-only-visible-to-national-security-agencies-think-again-121253

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Anderson, Professor of Sports Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

When two swimmers refused to acknowledge victories by Chinese swimmer Sun Yang at the last month’s world swimming championships, the very public protests riveted the swimming world and cast a spotlight (again) on suspected doping in sport.

But in the midst of the drama, a separate, failed drug test was slightly overshadowed. Uzbek wrestler Artur Taymazov became the 60th athlete – and seventh gold medallist – to retrospectively test positive for doping from samples taken at the 2012 London Olympics.

In addition to the nine athletes caught doping during the games themselves, that brings the total number of disqualified athletes from London to 69 – more than triple the number caught doping at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

When did retrospective testing begin?

That athletes from the 2012 Olympics are still being caught cheating might come as surprise. But the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC 2015) provides for a 10-year window following a competition to test athletes’ samples for a possible doping violation. This is known as retrospective testing.

Under the old regime, authorities had eight years to test samples. This means that samples from the 2012 London Olympics can be tested until 2020.

The WADC’s limitation period first came to prominence in 2010, with the release of Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open. In it, the tennis star admitted to taking a banned drug, crystal methamphetamine, in 1997. He also revealed he avoided suspension by the tennis authorities, who, in confidence, accepted his plea that the positive test had resulted from a drink spiked by one of his entourage, known as “Slim”.

The then-head of WADA, John Fahey, wrote to the tennis authorities for an explanation of “Slim’s spiked soda”, but further investigation was barred because the WADC’s statute of limitations had long since expired.

Read more: Russian Olympic doping saga shows need for a radically different approach

In another prominent case in 2012, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) argued it should be able to expunge all of cyclist Lance Armstrong’s competitive results from 1998 onwards – including all seven of his Tour de France victories. This was due to evidence that Armstrong’s cycling team had run

the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.

USADA acknowledged this would be in breach of the WADC’s statute of limitations, but justified the move on the grounds that Armstrong had fraudulently concealed his doping for many years. The International Cycling Union did not challenge USADA’s interpretation of the time limitation rule and Armstrong’s results were subsequently erased.

Due to the level of doping in the sport at the time, no retrospective champion was declared for the seven Tours between 1999-2005.

How many athletes have been caught?

The reason the 10-year window exists is because drug testing has failed to keep pace with cheating. There is a lag period between WADA both becoming aware of a new performance-enhancing substance that it needs to prohibit and developing a test that can, with scientific accuracy, detect it.

Put simply, the 10-year limitation period allows anti-doping authorities to retrospectively test samples of athletes after new methods allow them to do so, thus acting as a deterrent against doping in the future.

In 2017, WADA testing figures revealed that of the 322,050 samples taken in and out of competitions that year, only 1.43% led to an adverse analytical finding. But some research indicates the prevalence of doping among athletes may be much higher than that.

Read more: The science of doping and how cheating athletes pass drug tests

The hit rate of retrospective testing in the Olympics has increased in recent years. The International Olympic Committee began storing samples and allowing retrospective testing from the Athens Olympics in 2004. Five athletes were caught retrospectively from those games, followed by 65 from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and now 60 (and counting) from London.

And in theory, USADA’s interpretation in the Armstrong decision – which was supported by rulings in the Court of Arbitration for Sport – leaves open the possibility that the statute of limitations for drugs violations could be extended even beyond ten years.

In theory, this could allow the International Olympic Committee to revisit the results from the Olympics of the 1970s and 1980s, where there is documented evidence – from Stasi files, for example – that countries such as East Germany engaged in a state-sponsored doping program to achieve sporting success.

Interestingly, one of the first former Australian Olympians to support Horton in his protest last month at the world swimming championships was Raelene Boyle, who has long claimed she was denied two gold medals at the 1972 Olympics by East German athletes suspected of doping.

Limitations of retrospective testing

Although more cheats are being caught, this doesn’t mean the system of retrospective testing is working perfectly.

For starters, a decade-late public declaration that an athlete was the rightful winner of a championship offers some recompense, but the denial of immediate glory often has severe financial and even health consequences.

Moreover, having to correct the result of races held years previously may be adding to a growing public indifference to doping in sport. The men’s 94-kilogram weightlifting event from the 2012 Olympics shows just how little confidence remains in certain sports: all three medallists were disqualified for doping, as were the fourth-, sixth- and seventh-place finishers.

Finally, there is one strange quirk within WADA’s system of retrospective testing. If, for example, Australian swimmer Shanya Jack loses her appeal following her positive test for ligandrol, then her samples, as with all proven cases, will be destroyed.

This is a questionable, unnecessary practice. Although the scientific integrity of the anti-doping testing regime has greatly improved thanks to WADA, the system still has flaws.

Read more: More Olympic drug testing than ever, but why do we bother?

Former Liverpool FC player Mamadou Sakho, for instance, is suing WADA for an alleged drug-test blunder. And Chinese swimmer Sun Yang was permitted to compete at last month’s world swimming championships after a tribunal ruled in his favour over another questionable testing procedure.

WADA protocol could easily be changed to mandate that all samples be maintained for ten years to allow athletes who have been punished for a positive test to later challenge that sanction, with the aid of advancing technology.

The strength of any justice system lies not only in how often it closes cases against athletes rightly accused of doping, but how open it is to giving athletes the opportunity to the show that, on occasion, the system got it wrong.

– ref. Why drug cheats are still being caught seven years after the 2012 London Olympics – http://theconversation.com/why-drug-cheats-are-still-being-caught-seven-years-after-the-2012-london-olympics-121123

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University

Australian women want to breastfeed but many struggle. And the most disadvantaged face the biggest challenges.

Among them are mothers who are involved with the child protection and criminal justice systems, who need extra support. But such support has been lacking.

However, Australia’s new National Breastfeeding Strategy, released on Saturday, is the first of its kind in the world to directly call for health, justice, and child protection systems to support women to breastfeed.

The plan is to keep mothers and babies together as much as possible, and provide them with skilled breastfeeding support.

Read more: Babies and toddlers are living with their mums in prison. We need to look after them better

How many infants does this affect?

In Australia, 14,000 infants are involved with child protection services, and about 2,000 are in foster care.

Breastfeeding is often abandoned despite the best interests of the child and the mother’s wish to breastfeed. Milk that mothers express isn’t always transported to infants in foster care, and women can be actively discouraged from breastfeeding during contact visits.

Read more: Complex trauma: how abuse and neglect can have life-long effects

We don’t know how many Australian infants are affected by their mother’s incarceration; police, court and prison systems do not routinely collect information on whether these women even have children.

However, extrapolation from Western Australian research suggests perhaps as many as 600 children aged 0-2 years have mothers in prison nationally. These children are hidden victims of crime, punished by judicially enforced separation. While their mother’s imprisonment may be as little as a few weeks, this separation can severely disrupt the mother-child relationship, and can end breastfeeding.

Why supporting breastfeeding is important

Breastfeeding provides vital protection against infectious and chronic diseases, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome (or SIDS). All of these are more common in disadvantaged families.

Breastfeeding is also important as it affects a mother’s ability to provide care. Women who interact with the child protection and justice systems often have experienced poverty, domestic violence, and childhood abuse. These traumas can make it hard for them to look after their babies.

Breastfeeding helps by reducing stress responses, enhancing mothers’ desire to be with their babies, and promoting maternal behaviours. These behaviours include affectionate touch, eye contact, speaking gently, and responding to the baby, the types of behaviours that build healthy attachments between mother and child. In vulnerable mothers, breastfeeding can greatly reduce rates of maltreatment, particularly neglect.

A 2015 expert report for the South Australian Royal Commission on child protection highlighted breastfeeding’s important role in a “good childhood”, not only for nutrition, infection risk, and healthier development, but also for encouraging secure attachment and infant mental health.

The same evidence was provided to policymakers on women’s prisons:

“…it is clearly established that breastfeeding is in the best interests of the child”.

What can we do to support breastfeeding?

We need child protection policies that recognise the importance of breastfeeding and the role it plays in protecting child health and strengthening maternal care giving. Skilled breastfeeding support should form part of early intervention services for vulnerable mothers.

In child protection investigations, every effort should be made to keep mother and child together including in supervised mother-baby residences. Where physical separation is necessary, mothers should be given support to express milk to be delivered to their infants.

Contact visits where direct breastfeeding can occur should be frequent. Foremost in mind should be that if child protection interventions result in a mother stopping breastfeeding and the child is returned to her care, the intervention has increased the child’s risk of abuse and neglect.

In the justice system, incarceration of mothers should be avoided whenever possible. If mothers are imprisoned, mother-baby units, where women keep their babies with them, should be routinely available, including to those on remand. Crucially, programs in mother-baby units should involve intensive parenting support, including for breastfeeding. This helps infants thrive despite their mother’s history of trauma.

Mother-baby units also provide broader social as well as economic benefits; they reduce the likelihood of women re-offending saving A$90,000 per prisoner per year (the average cost of having a person in prison).

Read more: The National Breastfeeding Strategy is a start, but if we really valued breast milk we’d put it in the GDP

Yes, there are challenges

There are challenges to implementing support for breastfeeding in the child protection and criminal justice systems.

Integrating services in health, child protection and the justice system can be difficult. The logistical problems of supporting breastfeeding when mother and child are physically separated are significant. Maternal drug use (whether that’s illicit, prescribed or alcohol) can also be a concern. Although this does not necessarily mean mums who use drugs are prohibited from breastfeeding.

Read more: Breast milk banking continues an ancient human tradition and can save lives

There may be a place for milk banks to fill gaps; even at A$200-300 a litre, donor milk for newborns may still provide ample return in social, economic and health benefits to the wider community. These can range from reduced health care costs to better child development and educational achievement, and improved child health.

Breaking the cycle

Supporting breastfeeding for mothers in child protection and the justice system is not easy, but worth it. It would improve maternal health and reduce health and development disadvantage for the most vulnerable children. Evidence tells us it will also reduce reoffending, the cost of prisons, and foster care. Everyone wins.

Former executive director of UNICEF James P Grant, said:

Breastfeeding is a natural ‘safety net’ against the worst effects of poverty … breastfeeding goes a long way toward cancelling out the health difference between being born into poverty and being born into affluence … It is almost as if breastfeeding takes the infant out of poverty … to give the child a fairer start in life and compensate for the injustice of the world into which it was born.“

Breaking the cycle of disadvantage, child abuse and crime starts with helping vulnerable mothers provide “good enough” care to their babies. Supporting breastfeeding is part of helping mothers to do this.

– ref. Mums in prison or whose babies are in care need breastfeeding support too – http://theconversation.com/mums-in-prison-or-whose-babies-are-in-care-need-breastfeeding-support-too-121039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Associate Professor at La Trobe University. Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University

You don’t need to look far to find doom and gloom stories about traditional media in the digital age. Yet linking media hardship to a view that investigative journalism is dying is a misconception.

Yes, media outlets face many challenges. Last week’s 600-page ACCC report showed traditional media organisations face a difficult economic environment as advertising and audiences have migrated to online tech giants like Google and Facebook.

Since the turn of the century, media companies’ revenue has been in free fall. Thousands of journalism jobs have gone, scores of mastheads have closed. Certain types of reporting, particularly on regional and local news, remain under threat for established Australian media outlets.

Then there were the recent Australian Federal Police raids on News Corp and ABC journalists, highlighting the political and legal pressures reporters face in the post-September 11 era.

Read more: Media raids raise questions about AFP’s power and weak protection for journalists and whistleblowers

By doing their jobs reporting on stories in the public interest, journalists risk fines or even jail time. And their sources, the whistleblowers, face similar or worse fates.

Media freedom is a pressing global problem. Using the Australian example, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney warned at the recent Defend Media Freedom conference in London that the decline in press freedom is not limited to non-democracies like North Korea.

Another gloomy tale for news outlets is falling levels of public trust as more fake news confuses people about what is real and what is not. In turn, powerful world leaders from Donald Trump to Rodrigo Duterte weaponise the term “fake news” to weaken news media’s legitimacy.

These pressures on journalists matter because, as the ACCC reported, the news media play an important role in our democratic health. They inform us, and hold the powerful to account.

Notwithstanding the market failure of news, my new book, Investigative Journalism, Democracy and the Digital Age, finds that the watchdog role of journalism – investigative reporting – is adapting to its austere media environment. It is enduring, even thriving, in the digital age.

I undertook a nine-year study of investigative journalism in liberal democracies. This showed that journalists and their outlets undertake investigative reporting – which I define as a relatively uncommon form of journalism requiring more time and effort to unearth public interest information that others prefer were kept hidden – for different reasons. Some are commercial, to increase revenues; others are purely ideological with a commitment to be the “fourth estate”; others are a mix of the two.

In any case, we are witnessing a seismic shift in reporting practice. The old model of single-newsroom investigations marked by cut-throat rivalry has given way to a new model of multiple newsrooms cooperating and sharing information to expose systemic wrongdoing. A case in point is The Age and Sydney Morning Herald teaming up with Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes this week to expose the dodgy dealings of Crown Casino and apparent regulatory failure.

Investigative collaborations can challenge global power in ways not previously possible. For example, the reporting of the Panama Papers brought together almost 400 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) members to shine a spotlight on global tax avoidance. These stories led to governments recovering US$1.2 billion through lost taxes and penalties.

The ICIJ is just one example of more than 100 non-profit investigative reporting organisations in 50 countries driving the new model of global investigative journalism.

Through 50 interviews with media experts, including investigative journalists from across the globe, analysing six decades of Australian newspapers, and analyses of prestigious journalism awards in Australia, Britain and the USA, I find that although traditional media has experienced immense hardship, it’s time to debunk the myth that investigative journalism is dying.

Instead, investigative journalism is often protected from newsroom cost-cutting.

It is in better shape than other forms of journalism because of its value to corporate branding and/or the public interest. Evidence-based investigative reporting re-establishes its publishers as quality media outlets in the digital age – when competition for attention is fierce – by offering unique public interest stories for which audiences are prepared to pay.

Here are seven of the book’s key findings.

1. The digital age is a renaissance period for investigative reporting. This has been made possible through collaboration and scaling up investigations to national and transnational levels.

2. The downside to scaling up investigations is that local inquiries may suffer. Investigations may also be more narrowly targeted to assure a story outcome. This means there is less tolerance for “fishing exercises” than in more profitable times for media.

3. There are different models of collaboration and established media play a critical role in all of them. Some partnerships have been more successful than others. WikiLeaks collapsed, in part, because power in the partnership was not distributed equally, and personal relationships were strained.

4. Data journalism plays a vital role in enabling reporters to interrogate information and find patterns in the data indicating systemic wrongdoing. This includes incorporating social science methods such as statistical analysis to reveal “hidden truths”.

5. Mass anonymous data leaks combined with large-scale investigative collaborations push back against national governments’ national security laws that hamper journalists’ access to, and use of, sensitive documents and hinder whistleblowers’ capacity to speak out.

6. Investigative journalism is evidence-based reporting. This makes it a vital counter-narrative to fake news. Verified news returns authority to mastheads and media brands, which can offset falling public trust in media. This is illustrated by the “Trump bump” – an increase in donations and newspaper sales for outlets undertaking investigative reporting. ProPublica, a specialist US investigative reporting bureau, tripled its philanthropic income from US$14.3 million in 2016 to US$43.5 million in 2017 after Trump’s election and demonisation of journalists.

7. There is no single solution for funding news or investigative journalism this century (yet). Rather, what is evident is the role of experimentation, adaptation and flexibility to find effective ways to fund investigative reporting. These include crowdsourcing, philanthropy and paywalls. Typically, news outlets adopt a hybrid funding model that relies on multiple revenue streams.

Read more: How ‘access journalism’ is threatening investigative journalism

While my book does not ignore limitations to investigative reporting, the evidence gathered suggests watchdog reporting’s future is one of optimism.

This matters because, in the words of one interviewee, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Brant Houston, when all other means of redressing injustice fail, investigative journalism is the “court of last resort”.

– ref. Why investigative reporting in the digital age is waving, not drowning – http://theconversation.com/why-investigative-reporting-in-the-digital-age-is-waving-not-drowning-121045

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Romane H. Cristescu, Posdoc in Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

In a country like Australia – a wealthy, economically and politically stable nation with multiple environmental laws and comparatively effective governance – the public could be forgiven for assuming that environmental laws are effective in protecting threatened species.

But our new research, published recently in Animal Conservation, used koala-detecting dogs to find vulnerable koalas in places developers assumed they wouldn’t live. This highlights the flaws of environmental protections that prioritise efficiency over accuracy.

Environmental impact assessments

Every new infrastructure project must carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to see whether it will affect a threatened species. If this is the case, the logical next step is to try to avoid this by redesigning the project.

But this rarely happens in reality, as we saw recently for the endangered black-throated finch.

Read more: Adani’s finch plan is approved, just weeks after being sent back to the drawing board

More often, when the EIA suggests an unavoidable impact the response is to identify mitigation and compensation measures, often in the form of “offsets”. These are swathes of comparable habitat assumed to “compensate” the impacted species for the habitat lost to the development.

To take koalas as an example, developers building houses might be required to buy and secure land to compensate for lost habitat. Or a new road might need fencing and underpasses to allow koalas safe passage across (or under) roads.

These steps are defined in environmental regulations, and depend on the results from the original EIA.

Read more: Safe passage: we can help save koalas through urban design

An issue of assumptions

With koala numbers still declining, we investigated whether current survey guidelines for EIA were indeed adequate.

Read more: A report claims koalas are ‘functionally extinct’ – but what does that mean?

For an EIA to be effective, it is fundamental the environmental impact of a future development can be accurately anticipated and therefore appropriately managed. This relies, as a first step, on quantifying how the project will affect threatened species through ecological surveys of presence and extent of threatened species within the project’s footprint.

There are government guidelines to prescribe how these ecological surveys are performed. Every project has time and budget constraints, and therefore survey guidelines seek efficiency in accurately determining species’ presence.

As such, the Australian guidelines recommend focusing survey effort where there is the highest chance of finding a species of concern for the project. This sounded very logical – until we started testing the underlying assumptions.

We used a very accurate survey method – detection dogs – to locate koala droppings, and therefore identify koala habitat, in the entire footprint of proposed projects across Queensland. We did not target our efforts in areas we expected to be successful – therefore leaving out the bias of other surveys.

Unpredictable koalas

We found koalas did not always behave as one would expect. Targeting effort to certain areas, the “likely” koala habitat, to try increase efficiency risked missing koala hotspots.

In particular, the landscape koalas use is intensely modified by human activity. Koalas, like us, love living on the coast and in rich alluvial plains. That means we unexpectedly found them right in the middle of urban areas, along roads that – because they have the final remaining trees in dense agricultural landscapes – are now (counterintuitively) acting as corridors.

Read more: Koalas can learn to live the city life if we give them the trees and safe spaces they need

Assumptions about where koalas live can massively underestimate the impact of new infrastructure. In one case study, the habitat defined by recommended survey methods was about 50 times smaller than the size of the habitat actually affected.

If surveys miss or underestimate koala habitat while attempting to measure development impact, then we cannot expect to adequately avoid, mitigate or compensate the damage. If the first step fails, the rest of the process is fatally compromised. And this is bad news for koalas, among many other threatened species.

All parts of the landscape are important

What is needed is a paradigm shift. In a world where humans have affected every ecosystem on Earth, we cannot focus on protecting only pristine, high-quality areas for our threatened species. We can no longer afford to rely on assumptions.

This might seem like a big, and therefore expensive, ask. Yet ecosystems are a common resource owned by all of us, and those who seek to exploit these commons should bear the cost of demonstrating they understand (and therefore can mitigate) their impact.

The alternative is to risk society having to shoulder the environmental debt, as we have seen with abandoned mines.

Read more: What should we do with Australia’s 50,000 abandoned mines?

The burden of proof should squarely reside with the proponent of a project to study thoroughly the project impact.

This is where the issue lies – proponents of projects are under time and budget constraints that push them to look for efficiencies. In this tug of war, the main losers tend to be the threatened species. We argue that this cannot continue, because for many threatened species, there is no longer much room for mistakes.

The environmental regulations that define survey requirements need to prioritise accuracy over efficiency.

A review of Australian’s primary environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is due to begin by October this year. We call on the government to use this opportunity to ensure threatened species are truly protected during development.

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Dr David Dique and Russell L. Miller to this research and the two original papers this piece is based upon (feature paper and response).

– ref. Koala-detecting dogs sniff out flaws in Australia’s threatened species protection – http://theconversation.com/koala-detecting-dogs-sniff-out-flaws-in-australias-threatened-species-protection-121118

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University

Among the many touching gifts following the March 2019 shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, were two paintings by artists from South Australia’s remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands.

The paintings showed a honey grevillea shrub, a native Australian plant that produces long spikes of striking yellow and green flowers in winter. These canvasses depicted the sorrow of a people separated by sea and culture, but united in humanity.

Artworks such as these are an important source of creativity and identity for Indigenous Australians (a term used here to refer to Australia’s First Peoples or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples).

They date back around 40,000 years and include paintings, drawings, etchings, sculptures, screen printing, weaving, pottery, jewellery and other traditional artefacts such as spears, boomerangs, canoes and fish traps.

Indigenous art also provides important economic benefits. When the art market peaked in 2007, Indigenous art was estimated to generate some A$400-500 million a year. This supported 110 Indigenous art centres and about 5,000 art workers (artists).

Most Indigenous artworks are produced in around 90 art centres located in very remote regions of Australia. These centres represent a viable pathway to address the extreme economic exclusion experienced by residents of Australia’s remote Indigenous communities.

A 2012 government report noted “art sales (were) the primary or only source of non-government income” for remote Indigenous communities.

The art centres also provide meaningful employment opportunities for Indigenous women – who make up around 70% of artists.

But Indigenous art centres are facing significant challenges. Due to issues including the global financial crisis and quality control, average prices for paintings have almost halved since their peak. The Indigenous Australian art market is still rebuilding.

There is also a lack of appropriate apprenticeship programs for Indigenous artists, and effective management and salesmanship. The vocational education and training (VET) sector must work together with key members of remote Indigenous communities and the art sector to deliver training that addresses the needs of remote Indigenous artists.

Staffing issues and culture clashes

Remote Indigenous art centres are typically incorporated organisations whose members are artists. Members elect a governing body that employs staff. There is limited commercial experience among members.

This fact, combined with the nature of the Indigenous art market, which is volatile and reliant on one-to-one agreements between art centres and city galleries, means the board normally employs non-Indigenous managers to manage art centres.

Read more: For Aboriginal artists, personal stories matter

Most Indigenous art centres are in remote regions. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) classifies “remote” as four hours’ drive or more from an urban centre and “very remote” as more than four hours’ drive from a range of services with restricted accessibility by ordinary vehicles.

This poses challenges for attracting, retaining and training suitably qualified art centre managers. Most managers work for around two to three years before leaving.

They are mainly young women with fine arts degrees who have lived most of their lives in urban settings. They find it challenging to work across cultures. And these managers are often ill-prepared for their role, which includes many non-art-related tasks like developing viable business models.

Art centre managers are also responsible for training Indigenous artists. A small minority of Indigenous artists do formal, vocationally related training with certificates in arts administration or visual arts.

But artists are more likely to do non-formal, on-the-job training and participate in workshops and artist-in-residence programs.

Much of this training adapts traditional skills of Indigenous Australians to produce commercial artworks. For example, artists from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers adapt traditional women’s skills such as spinning human hair to weaving in contemporary materials.

Read more: The Tjanpi Desert Weavers show us that traditional craft is art

How VET can help

Indigenous Australian artists are still heavily connected to traditional knowledge systems and practices and serve long cultural apprenticeships. But these are often not compatible with, nor recognised by, mainstream education or training systems.

Research shows the overwhelming majority of Indigenous artists receive irregular incomes and, over the course of their careers, small returns. For instance, only just over 5% of Indigenous artists receive A$100,000 or more over the length of their careers.

The often lengthy time it takes to make art, sell it and get paid for it also means some Indigenous artists have had negative experiences of the art market. This includes being exposed to exploitative art dealers who promise dubious incentives outside of the art centre system.

While most of the training of Indigenous artist is non-formal, governments and Indigenous art peak bodies have also recognised the importance of formal learning.

Most states offer VET-level qualifications in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Arts but mainly at the certificate level. And not all these courses are available in remote communities and not all states subsidise students.

Read more: Rise of Indigenous art speaks volumes about class in Australia

A small number of artists aspire to become art centre managers. So they need more formal training in higher-level administrative and management positions. The VET sector should collaborate with various stakeholders to help more artists upgrade their skills via diploma and degree programs.

Over time, these artists can move into management positions in art centres (or other arts and cultural organisations). This would also help reduce the turnover problems experienced by the sector.

A recent review of the Australian vocational education and training sector recognised the challenges Indigenous Australians face when engaging with vocational education, particularly in rural and remote areas. Some factors in this included low levels of basic literacy and numeracy, and training methods not tailored to meet the needs of some Indigenous Australian learners, particularly in remote areas.

Without waiting for the government to carry out the review’s recommendations, some Indigenous arts bodies have already implemented innovations, working with art centres and the VET sector to reconcile accredited and non-accredited training.

One example is Desart (Alice Springs, NT), a peak body for Central Australian Indigenous art centres, which facilitates the Aboriginal Arts Worker Program. This coordinates training and provides support for artists in the area.

Desart’s Art Worker Program offers these artists a customised program that includes accredited training co-designed and delivered in partnership with the Batchelor Institute over four weeks per year. This is supplemented by non-accredited training, which includes workshops delivered at the art centre.

Initiatives such as these, which involve collaboration between the Indigenous art industry, the VET sector and government, are ideal examples for government-funded pilot programs in remote Indigenous communities. These models will be increasingly important if we want to help keep remote communities afloat.

Tim Acker, Principal and Lead Consultant with Tracker Development, was also a co-author for this article.

– ref. Indigenous art centres that sustain remote communities are at risk. The VET sector can help – http://theconversation.com/indigenous-art-centres-that-sustain-remote-communities-are-at-risk-the-vet-sector-can-help-121179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elyse Warner, Lecturer in Health and Social Sciences, Deakin University

Newer high-rise developments in Australia’s inner-city areas are increasingly home to parents raising young children. In the 2016 Census, family households represented nearly half of apartment residents. Close to one in ten children aged 0-4 live in apartments in Australia.

Our research, recently published in Health and Place, explored parents’ experiences of raising preschool-aged children in newer, private high-rise apartments. The parents experienced a range of barriers to making social connections both within their developments and with the surrounding community.

Read more: With apartment living on the rise, how do families and their noisy children fit in?

This reflects the fact that most newer high-rise dwellings in Australia have been developed for residents without children. Several studies indicate that this leads to potential issues for families raising children in high-rise settings, including social connectedness among older schoolchildren.

Apartment living through parents’ eyes

Our study used Photovoice to explore parents’ experiences of raising children in apartments in the City of Yarra, Melbourne. Apartments represent 46% of available housing) in this inner-city municipality. Parents took ten photographs of the positive and challenging aspects of apartment living.

We then used these images to guide both individual and group interviews. Parents recognised that the shared experiences of raising a young child in the City of Yarra fostered social connections, particularly at mothers’ groups and local parks. One parent explained:

So this is my mothers’ group … It’s such a great community to have. I mean we’re kind of a close group now and we’ve just spent the last year growing our kids together … there was people from all different walks of life … and the only thing connecting us is just that we had a child in Yarra at the same time …

But parents felt that space constraints in high-rise developments limited opportunities for play dates between children. The connections parents developed were also lost when other families planned to leave the community, or had already left, in search of larger homes and outdoor space.

Read more: ‘Children belong in the suburbs’: with more families in apartments, such attitudes are changing

The design of developments did not encourage incidental social interaction with neighbours either. One parent captured this in a photograph titled “Hallway of death”.

It’s a nothing space, right? … You cannot stand and have a conversation there, you feel weird … cos you’re in the vortex of death … and if it was a nice space we might go out and he could crawl and that might make people stop and maybe we’d get to know the other people living on the floor …

The closeness of apartments was also problematic. On one hand, parents wanted to connect with their neighbours. On the other hand, they were concerned about overstepping others’ boundaries, particularly when neighbours were often short-term renters without children. One parent’s photograph, “Close proximity but anonymous”, captured this.

… despite being so close to each other there is a huge level of anonymity … It would be nice to not feel that we might be being disruptive or people are forming judgments about us based on what they see … And because it’s anonymous and there’s a lot of turnover you never really form relationships with people to know what they’re really thinking, so you second-guess it …

Everyone wants some privacy and maybe when you’re right on top of each other you feel like you’ve got to guard your privacy, but my preference would be for it to be a little more connected than it is.

Families need social support

Parents of preschool-aged children often experience changes in their social networks at the same as they feel an increased need for social support. Connections also need to be closer to home, due to the “place-anchoring” nature of young children and use of local services.

Not having strong social connections with other parents, whether within their own high-rise development and/or the local community, is therefore a problem. It could lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation. These could, in turn, contribute to psychosocial and health issues for parents and poorer health, well-being and education outcomes for children.

What could help?

Recent Victorian apartment design guidelines briefly acknowledge the importance of ensuring accessibility for families with young children. However, much more can be done to support families in inner-city high-rise developments. This includes fostering social connections.

Read more: More children are living in high-rise apartments, so designers should keep them in mind

Local governments can provide further social events in their communities, create infrastructure in parks and playgrounds to encourage families to gather for longer, and require developers to adopt more family-friendly design guidelines than currently apply.

Developers could also provide more favourable communal spaces inside dwellings for interaction to occur. Body corporate organisations could encourage longer-term leases that allow for the extended tenure needed for residents to form stronger connections.

Guidelines, including in regards to noise, could also be made more flexible to accommodate the increasing number of families with young children taking up residence.

The study was carried out with Dr Fiona Andrews from the School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University.

– ref. Apartment life for families means living at close quarters, but often feeling isolated too – http://theconversation.com/apartment-life-for-families-means-living-at-close-quarters-but-often-feeling-isolated-too-120983

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Smith, Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University

Australia’s new National Breastfeeding Strategy sets ambitious goals. By 2022 it wants 40% of Australian babies to exclusively breastfeed until they are six months old. At present it’s 25%.

By 2025 it wants 50%.

Beyond that it wants non-exclusive breastfeeding up until at least 12 months of age, and beyond that for as long as both mother and child want.

It notes that what’s important is the first 1000 days (from conception to the end of the child’s second year).

It quotes with approval a finding that human breast milk is

not only a perfectly adapted nutritional supply for the infant, but probably the most specific personalised medicine that he or she is likely to receive, given at a time when gene expression is being fine-tuned for life

The goals are welcome. But one of the reasons we need them is because we don’t properly value what is just about our most valuable nutritional resource. Statistically, breast milk is almost invisible.

If it’s not counted…

That’s partly because a lot of what women produce isn’t counted.

My estimates, based on the price of the human milk that is traded, suggest that the 44 million litres produced per year in Australia is worth A$3 billion.

By comparison, the commercial formula sold in stores is a few hundred million dollars per year.

The number of diseases breast milk prevents in both mothers and children and its personalised nature (delivering what’s needed when it is needed) means it is probably worth more than A$3 billion.

…we act as if it doesn’t count

Ever since the global financial crisis, we’ve been trying to boost GDP (gross domestic product) in order to ensure we don’t have a recession.

But because GDP excludes some of what’s most valuable (breast milk and the home production of services such as childcare) and includes alternatives that are at best unimportant and at worst damaging (such as formula milk) boosting GDP can hit the wrong targets.

An OECD study finds that as we have switched away from using services that are not measured towards using those that are our estimates of true economic growth have become inflated.

That’s why two Nobel Prize winners, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, agree on including human milk in conventionally-defined GDP. They say its exclusion distorts priorities.

What if the uncounted shrinks?

The latest data from Victoria and NSW suggests rates of full breastfeeding are shrinking. While more mothers are deciding to give breastfeeding a go, more infants are leaving hospital having consumed formula.

Time is probably a factor. Breastfeeding takes time, and women bear the cost of that time unless compensated by paid maternity leave and lactation breaks. Longer leave makes for more milk.

Lack of skilled and knowledgeable support from health workers is a probably another factor, especially when combined with inappropriate promotion of commercial formula to health workers. Although more professional bodies are refusing industry sponsorship, health workers remain an important channel for formula marketing.

Future GDP suffers

A new study by World Bank economist Dylan Walters and colleagues finds that the economic costs of not breastfeeding globally amounts to US$1 billion a day.

They are not only the treatment costs for infectious illness, but also the costs of higher rates of maternal diabetes and breast cancer as well as the costs of higher childhood obesity and chronic disease, and the lifelong economic consequences of cognitive losses in children who were not sufficiently breastfed.

A 2016 study in The Lancet estimates the global cost of the cognitive loss associated with not breastfeeding at US$302 billion per year in lost labour productivity; about 0·49% of world gross national income. For Australia, it is around A$6 billion per year.

Later life maternal breast-cancer is also a major economic cost, mostly concentrated in high income countries with low breastfeeding rates such as Australia.

Read more: Breastfeeding isn’t just about the baby – women’s bodies matter too

Importantly, these estimates are likely to understate the costs of low breastfeeding by ignoring the cost of the unpaid time women spend caring for sick children.

The World Bank as well as the World Health Organization are leading a call for increased investments in all countries to raise the proportion of children exclusively breastfed in the first six months of life from 37% to at least 50%.

We shouldn’t blame mothers

Australia’s new strategy reflects an important shift.

It responds to evidence suggesting that that breastfeeding practices are strongly influenced by commercial factors such as marketing, as well as by the employment and financial and healthcare environment mothers find themselves in. An international review has found that these findings are relevant to Australia.

It makes a strong case for funding for breastfeeding information and education, especially in communities where breastfeeding is at risk.

It could have also made a strong case for more wide ranging financial support of breast milk production, along the lines of Australia’s historical support of dairy farmers.

Or for including breast milk in GDP. The home production of other food products is included in GDP, including the cows milk produced and consumed on farms. Leaving out breast milk distorts goals and helps distort incentives.

Its time that making mothers’ milk counted, and governments invested.

Read more: Breast milk banking continues an ancient human tradition and can save lives

– ref. The National Breastfeeding Strategy is a start, but if we really valued breast milk we’d put it in the GDP – http://theconversation.com/the-national-breastfeeding-strategy-is-a-start-but-if-we-really-valued-breast-milk-wed-put-it-in-the-gdp-121302

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Hausler, PhD Candidate, Researcher, and Sessional Lecturer in Japanese Studies, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland

Today (August 5) marks the 75th anniversary of Australia’s largest prison escape: the Cowra breakout, in New South Wales, during the second world war. In fact, it is one of the largest prison escapes in world history, but unless you are a keen war historian you may have never heard about it.

A small farming community was forever changed in 1944, when the sound of a bugle cut through the crisp night air at the Cowra Prisoner of War camp.

Shortly before 2am, hundreds of Japanese prisoners of B Camp ran towards the barbed wire fences brandishing makeshift weapons such as sharpened table knives and clubs.

Rushing through a hail of bullets fired by the Australian guards, hundreds of prisoners escaped into the countryside. In the following days, 334 prisoners were recaptured.

Read more: The Australian Dream is must-see for lovers of football and this country

Four Australian soldiers and at least 231 Japanese prisoners were killed, while a further 108 prisoners and three guards were wounded. No civilian casualties or injuries were recorded.

As the dust settled, many would question why the prisoners would attempt such a bold and ultimately lethal escape plan. How do we as a society make sense of such bloodshed?

From non-fiction to fiction

While there have been a number of non-fiction works written on this event by authors such as Hugh Clarke, Charlotte Carr-Gregg, and Harry Gordon, it is works of fiction that have sought to fill in the gaps of history. They give us a way of understanding the incomprehensible.

The first author to do so was Australian poet and novelist Kenneth Seaforth Mackenzie. Mackenzie was stationed at Cowra during WWII and was on duty the night of the breakout.

His novel Dead Men Rising was based on his experiences. Because of this, the book was initially halted from Australian release due to the publisher’s fears of libel claims.

The book was released in the UK and USA in 1951 but Australian readers had to wait until 1969, several years after Mackenzie’s death, to read his interpretation of the event.

Dead Men Rising is largely focused on camp life through the eyes of the guards in the lead up to the break out. There is little interaction with the Japanese inmates who are represented as “un-human”, “animal-like” and “unpredictable”.

Mackenzie depicts them as utterly foreign and incomprehensible to the Australian soldiers. This narrative likely reflects attitudes at the time with anti-Japanese sentiment still high in the early post-war years.

A Japanese perspective

Several years later, Japanese author and former military doctor Teruhiko Asada, wrote Hiroku Kaura no Bōdō a title that translates as “The Secret Record of the Cowra Riot” in 1967.

It was received eagerly by English speaking audiences when it was translated by former Australian soldier and interpreter Ray Cowan in 1970 under the sensationalist title The Night of a Thousand Suicides.

Presented as a first-person narrative, the story had an intimate feel lacking in previous accounts, which led to some claiming the book was more fact than fiction, no doubt reinforced by Cowan’s inclusion of photographs from the Australian War Memorial. But this attribution is problematic given Asada was never imprisoned at Cowra.

The breakout was again revisited by authors in the 1980s. The Naked Sun, published in 1980 by British author Lord Ted Willis, uses a split narrative.

Alternating between an Australian and a Japanese perspective of the war, this novel highlights the unlikely similarities shared between the story’s two opposing protagonists, an ex-farmer from occupied New Guinea and an imprisoned Japanese Sergeant.

Childhood memories

Later that decade, British-Australian author Jim Anderson (of OZ Magazine fame) draws on his own memories of the Cowra breakout as a child in his 1989 novel Billarooby.

The coming of age novel depicts a young boy who seeks to help the “samurai” escape from the POW camp, amid a backdrop of familial trauma and the hardships of rural life.

The boy’s innocence highlights the inherent racism, bigotry and violence that permeate the town’s pleasant façade, disrupting the notion that the “enemies” are the ones behind the barbed wire fence.

In 1989 Thomas Keneally revised and republished his 1965 novel The Fear.

The 1965 edition drew upon his boyhood memories of the breakout with this work briefly depicting the camp and subsequent breakout in the latter half of the book.

But in the revised 1989 edition, which was renamed By the Line, he omits any mention of the camp entirely. The author later said this early depiction was largely inaccurate.

With this fresh perspective, Keneally returned again to the breakout in 2013 with Shame and the Captives which is set in the town of Gawell, a fictionalised version of Cowra.

Keneally said in his introduction that now, rather than drawing on his faulty memories of childhood, he spent considerable time researching the historical event which informs his work.

By aiming to create a “a truth in this fiction” Keneally hoped to “interpret the phenomenon of Cowra”. His reimagining included explorations of Italian and Korean POWs who were also held at Cowra, but whose stories are often overlooked.

The most recent work which revisits the breakout is by Wiradjuri author Anita Heiss.

Her 2016 work Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms provides an Indigenous voice to the history of Cowra, a voice that has often been silenced in accounts of Australian history.

Issues of race, discrimination and loyalty take on a new sense of urgency in this wartime setting, yet also highlight that while much has changed in the last 75 years, so much has stayed the same.

Heiss echoed this view when she asserted there “are lessons still to be learned from the history of Cowra”, lamenting the regression in Australia’s treatment of detainees in centres such as Manus Island or Don Dale.

Cowra today

From this bloody chapter of history, the township of Cowra – today, a four hour drive inland from Sydney – has moved forward to promote itself as a beacon of peace, friendship, and understanding.

Read more: Love in the time of racism: ‘Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms’ explores the politics of romance

In a show of respect for the dead, the Cowra RSL Sub-branch cared for the Japanese burial ground informally until eventually the graves were relocated to what is now the Cowra Japanese War Cemetery, which opened in 1964.

In 1979 the Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre opened, and is considered to be a “tangible monument to peace and reconciliation”.

The gardens and the cemetery were symbolically linked by an avenue of cherry blossoms in 1988, and in 1992 Cowra was awarded further recognition to its peace efforts with The Australian World Peace Bell.

Festivals such as the Sakura Matsuri festival and the Festival of International Understanding further showcase Cowra as a “unique place … of reconciliation”.

– ref. The Cowra breakout: remembering and reflecting on Australia’s biggest prison escape 75 years on – http://theconversation.com/the-cowra-breakout-remembering-and-reflecting-on-australias-biggest-prison-escape-75-years-on-120410

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

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese says an Indigenous “Voice” to parliament must be enshrined in the Constitution.

His position, spelled out in a speech to be given on Saturday to the Garma Festival, makes it difficult to see how he and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be able to agree on a referendum question.

Albanese says in his address, released ahead of delivery:

With a Voice in place, there can be truth-telling, and there can be Makaratta. […] It is clear to me that enshrining that Voice in the Constitution is what must come first.

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: Anthony Albanese on Labor’s hard times

Morrison has been adamant there should be no reference to a Voice in what is inserted in the Constitution to recognise Australia’s First Peoples.

Without bipartisan support, a referendum would not have a chance of success and, indeed, would not be put.

Indigenous leaders in the Uluru Statement from the Heart called for “the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution”.

Albanese says:

I want a Voice and Truth then Treaty to be part of our nation’s journey, part of our national life. It’s not just about respect and redress. It’s about progress and change. It’s about moving out of the darkness

Although there is a gulf between Albanese and Morrison over what should go into the constitution, Albanese says he still hopes for bipartisanship.

“We have not yet had true reconciliation, and a country that is not truly reconciled is not truly whole. And until we are whole, we will never reach our truest potential as a nation – and we have so very much potential,” he says.

But how can we have reconciliation when one side has no voice?

The Voice is the bedrock upon which we must build.

I will take the fight to the government on so many things; never have any doubt about that. But on this we must work together. We must be together. My hope we can have bipartisanship on this remains alive.

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: Ken Wyatt on constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians

Albanese says he is encouraged by “the tentative moves towards constitutional change” by the Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt. “I hope he gets the support he needs and deserves from his colleagues.”

He says he is also encouraged by “the epiphany experienced by Barnaby Joyce.

“After being part of the chorus pushing the myth that a Voice would amount to a third chamber in parliament, Mr Joyce did something unusual. He stopped. He listened. He asked questions from people with knowledge. […]

“Mr Joyce then went on television to own up to his mistake, and to explain why he’d been wrong. And he encouraged others who’d made the same mistake to follow his example.”

At Tuesday’s caucus meeting Pat Dodson, the opposition spokesman on Indigenous recognition, said constitutional recognition had now been decoupled from everything that was in the Uluru statement. Uluru had now shifted to “co-design with select individuals”, he said.

Dodson said there was no structure for formal consultations with First Nations. “Apparently the minister has a plan for consultation with the Coalition backbench and apparently with Pauline Hanson”, he said.

The challenge now was to “assist the minister without walking away with all the fleas and ticks that would undermine a principled position”, Dodson said.

– ref. Albanese says Voice must be in the Constitution – http://theconversation.com/albanese-says-voice-must-be-in-the-constitution-121380

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqui Pich, Lecturer in Nursing, University of Technology Sydney

Yesterday’s strike by NSW hospital staff over security concerns has highlighted just how serious the issue of workplace violence has become for health-care workers.

The Health Services Union, whose members include administration, cleaning and security staff, as well as paramedics and other health professionals, has reportedly called for measures including 250 more security guards across the state to better protect workers.

But tackling the growing problems of violence in our hospitals is about more than beefing up security numbers. Violence in our health-care system is also not limited to inner city hospitals, and it doesn’t just affect staff in emergency departments.

Read more: I was stabbed 14 times at the hospital where I work. I survived, but not everyone is so lucky

How big a problem is violence in our hospitals?

The levels of violence in hospitals have been steadily increasing across Australia.

For example, in NSW there was a 50% increase in the number of police-recorded assaults on hospital premises between 1996 and 2006. This number has continued to rise with an average increase of 5.8% a year between 2010 and 2015. In Western Australia, there was a 38% increase in assaults on nurses between 2017 and 2018.

Patients are the main source of this violence, and this includes the parents of children admitted to hospital.

Violence against health-care workers is also recognised internationally. The World Health Organisation sees it as a significant issue. And a US government report says many health-care workers see it as an inevitable part of their job.

Read more: A soldier and a sex worker walk into a therapist’s office. Who’s more likely to have PTSD?

Media attention is often focused on high-risk areas like the emergency department and mental health settings. However, violence occurs everywhere in the health-care system, from the community to hospital wards, even birthing suites.

The impact of violence on health-care staff includes physical and psychological reactions. Symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder such as sleeplessness, nightmares and flashbacks have been reported and can persist for up to 12 months.

Violence towards health-care staff has also been linked to perceived poorer patient care.

Where do security guards fit in?

Rising levels of violence against health-care workers suggest current security measures are not a sufficient deterrent.

Despite union calls for more security guards, an interim report NSW Health commissioned looking at how to improve hospital security did not recommend this.

But an increase in security guards is warranted when you consider that some rural and regional hospitals have minimal, or no security presence; staff in these facilities have to rely on the police for help if they encounter a violent patient.

In fact, staff in regional and remote areas experience the same levels of violence as their metropolitan colleagues.

A NSW Health spokesperson says the author of its hospital security report is visiting hospitals in rural and regional areas to understand their security challenges and this information will be included in the final report, due by the end of the year.

Read more: The problems with Australia’s hospitals – and how they can be fixed

While an added security presence may be warranted in some circumstances, more security guards would not impact staff working outside hospitals, including paramedics and community nurses.

Then there’s the quality of security guards. Health is a unique environment where traditional security measures can be counter-productive. For instance, if guards use inappropriate communication when people are anxious and stressed they can increase the chance of a situation escalating.

What’s needed are specially trained health security guards, working with doctors and nurses, as part of a multidisciplinary rapid response team. This doctor-led team would be called in to manage violent behaviour, for instance to “take down” a violent patient.

Read more: Alcohol leads to more violence than other drugs, but you’d never know from the headlines

The Health Services Union has reportedly called on the NSW government to commit A$50 million for a proactive security team at hospitals, including staff trained in mental health, drug and alcohol abuse.

This makes sense as patients under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, including ice, and those with mental health issues, are the ones most likely to be violent.

It’s not just about emergency departments

A spokesperson for NSW Health says A$19 million has been invested to improve security in emergency departments at public hospitals, and more than A$5 million to upgrade duress alarms for staff in emergency departments.

However violence in health care extends beyond the emergency department to all clinical specialities and beyond the walls of a hospital.

In a recent study of NSW nurses and midwives, staff discussed the physical design and layout of wards, and areas that should be secure but aren’t, as reasons they felt unsafe at work.

In particular, they described feeling unsafe returning to the car park in the dark, often with no security personnel present and in poorly lit conditions. Lack of duress alarms, poor placement of duress alarms or non-functioning duress alarms were also an issue.

Read more: Violence against nurses is on the rise, but protections remain weak

Time for governments to act

The NSW interim report into hospital security acknowledges some shortcomings in the current management of violence in health care and as such is a positive step in reducing the risk to staff.

However, the persistent nature and increasing levels of the violence mean that the state government needs to prioritise the safety of all health-care staff.

– ref. Beefing up security isn’t the only way to make hospitals safer – http://theconversation.com/beefing-up-security-isnt-the-only-way-to-make-hospitals-safer-121301

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Giesecke, Professor, Centre of Policy Studies and the Impact Project, Victoria University

China now buys almost a third of Australia’s exports – about twice the value bought by second-placed Japan, and about nine times fifth-placed United States.

It’s a situation that sparks fears of a Chinese economic slowdown, or a backlash if we offend China’s government in some way, such as by criticising its actions in Xinjiang or in the South China Sea.

In February and March customs officials in Chinese ports reportedly held up Australian coal imports. This was interpreted as a signal from Beijing about moves in Canberra to limit Chinese influence in Australia.

Read more: The Chinese coal ‘ban’ carries a significant political message

The Chinese government has a track record of using economic muscle to apply diplomatic pressure, including against Canada, South Korea and Palau.

“We are incredibly dependent on China – in some ways we are a state of China,” said business commentator Robert Gottliebsen. “China is now the world’s number two country and they will not stand for being lectured to by anyone — let alone a minnow like Australia.”

Is Australia really that dependent on China?

As a commodity exporter, Australia is vulnerable to any downturn in global markets due to a Chinese economic slump. This makes the fallout from the US-China trade conflict concerning.

Read more: What’s worse than the US-China trade war? A grand peace bargain

But being penalised as a supplier by China for some perceived diplomatic slight is a different matter.

Using a global economic model with many commodities and countries, we modelled the effect of Beijing permanently cutting China’s imports of Australian coal by 25%.

Australia’s coal exports to China in 2018 were worth about A$15 billion – or about 1% of what the nation spends on private and public consumption in a year.

One might think losing a quarter of coal exports to China will knock about 0.25% off our spending capacity. In economic terms that’s a big number. Our results, however, point to a much smaller loss – just 1/6th the impact, or about 0.04% lower national consumption. That equates to every person having $24 less to spend in a year.

Four determining factors

Any economic model necessarily abstracts from potentially important real-world elements, so its potential accuracy depends on the detail and data that goes into it.

So perhaps more important than the specific results of a cut to coal exports is how our modelling shows four interconnected factors determine to what degree the economy will be hurt by sanctions on any export.

The first factor has to do with the capacity to redirect exports to other markets. How easily can exporters find other buyers? How much will the price need to be cut to interest buyers? We call these “trade diversion effects”.

If Australia could not divert exports elswehere, China buying 25% less coal would see the volume of total Australian coal exports fall by about 6%. Our modelling shows the likely fall would be about 1/12th of this, at 0.5%.

The chart below shows our results. The blue line shows the effect on the total value of coal exports. The stacked columns show the effect of China’s cutback being offset by sales to other markets – notably Japan, South Korea and countries in Southeast Asia.

To sell more to another buyer, it’s likely exporters will need to reduce prices. Our model anticipates the Australian coal price will fall by about 3%.

The second factor is how easily resources can switch from coal production to other activities.

For any resource that can move to alternative uses, the impact of the trade sanction will be reduced. Labour is an example. A miner no longer needed to meet demand for coal will generally have skills transferable to other jobs, although this might require working at a lower wage in another region.

For any resource that cannot easily move – the capital invested in specific coal-mining equipment or transport infrastructure, for example – lower export revenue will mean lower profits from these assets.

How do lower profits affect Australian living standards? This depends on who owns the affected assets, and how much tax they pay.

So the third factor is the level of foreign ownership. More foreign ownership means more profits go overseas. This dampens any impact of lower profitability on Australian living standards.

For our modelling, we set foreign ownership of the coal industry at 80%, based on Reserve Bank of Australia estimates and an analysis of mine ownership in New South Wales coalfields. With just 20% of the after-tax profits staying in Australia, the impact of any change is minor.

The local economy, however, can also suffer due to lost taxes on the income of those foreign owners.

Taxation effects are the fourth factor.

Australian governments collect taxes through mining royalties (a tax on the value of production), corporate tax (on profits), and withholding tax (on interest and unfranked dividends).

We set the coal royalty rate at 8% of the value of coal production, and the taxation rate on foreign capital at 17% because the effective tax rate on foreign capital is about half the corporate tax rate.

A smaller cost than some think

With all these factors in play, our modelling suggests there is less to fear from the Chinese government throwing its economic weight around than some think.

We think our conclusions probably hold for many of Australia’s exports to China, but acknowledge our investigation is preliminary.

For example, what would happen if the Chinese government decided to restrict the number of Chinese students studying in Australia? Finding new markets for education services might be tougher than for primary products. Resource redeployment might be easier, however.

Read more: The world has a hard time trusting China. But does it really care?

Notwithstanding these caveats, this type of modelling could provide a clear framework to assess Australia’s economic vulnerabilities.

Perhaps no price should be put on upholding and expressing our liberal democratic and human rights values, and protecting our security interests, but the cost of economic sanction might well be less than many fear.

– ref. Australia depends less on Chinese trade than some might think – http://theconversation.com/australia-depends-less-on-chinese-trade-than-some-might-think-120423

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Rodrigues, Consultant Dermatologist, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne

Recent news that more than a dozen cosmetic beauty operators have been shut down across Victoria in the last year will give many people cause for concern.

One beauty therapist was allegedly found to be operating at the back of a jewellery store, offering risky procedures including mole removal, facial fillers and skin tightening. In many cases, plastic surgeons and dermatologists have been required to treat the damage caused at these rogue salons, including swelling, scarring, and infection.

While low-cost procedures can be alluring, there are several things to keep in mind to ensure the treatments you’re getting are safe and reputable.

Read more: Injecting regulations into cosmetic medicine

Regulation

The skin is the largest and most accessible organ of the body, making skin procedures like laser, dermabrasion, microneedling, skin peels, toxin injections and fillers very common among unqualified or minimally qualified people and clinics.

The Medical Board of Australia, supported by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), are the governing bodies for medical professionals. They register practitioners, and enforce guidelines for cosmetic medical and surgical procedures, which serve to protect the community.

There have been cases where registered medical practitioners, including general practitioners, have performed procedures outside their area of expertise or have not conformed with codes of conduct, sometimes with tragic consequences. But in many of these cases, the regulations in place have helped to identify offending practitioners and ensure disciplinary action is taken.

Yet for non-medical operators, for the most part, no training or educational requirements need to be met, no uniform national professional standards or codes of conduct exist, and there is no governing body to whom people can direct concerns.

Essentially, these beauty salons and non-medical clinics are simply not regulated by an external body or organisation.

The importance of medical training

The skin is an organ, just like the heart or lungs. Its structure and function is complex. In order to practise as a dermatologist, a person needs to first complete their medical degree, and then complete a further six years of specialist training in all matters related to the skin, hair and nails.

Laser treatment is commonly offered to treat things like redness on the skin, brown spots, and to improve skin texture and tone.

In order to deliver safe laser treatments, an accurate diagnosis is important. Is the brown spot on your cheek you want to remove a freckle, melasma (a discolouring of the skin) or a melanoma? A person without a medical background could easily mistake a melanoma for a freckle, which could be deadly.

Even if you do have just a freckle, what laser settings will be safe and effective? An intimate understanding of the structure and function of the skin and the physics of the laser is necessary to make these important decisions.

Read more: Friday essay: toxic beauty, then and now

The regulations surrounding who can operate a laser differ from state to state. In Western Australia, unless you’re a medical doctor, nurse, or hold a diploma or certificate IV in beauty therapy (or equivalent) with a licence, you cannot operate a laser for the purpose of hair removal. Further restrictions apply to the use of lasers for cosmetic procedures and tattoo removal. In Queensland and Tasmania, only those with relevant licences can operate laser devices.

For the rest of the country, no regulation exists. This means anyone can offer skin treatments – a person who has done some online training or a weekend course could hang a “laser certificate” on the wall and start using lasers and other devices to treat skin.

The same can be said for microneedling, the insertion of very fine, short needles into the skin for the purposes of rejuvenation or to reduce acne scarring. While some states regulate procedures involving skin penetration, particularly around infection control, no uniform minimum training requirements exist for providers.

The depth of penetration of the microneedling device, the type of needle chosen, and pre- and post-treatment care are critical to maximising the benefits and minimising the risks of the procedure.

Similarly, for anti-wrinkle injections and fillers, an intimate understanding of facial anatomy is required to ensure safe and successful treatment. Complications can range from local injection site infection through to blindness. To have people performing these procedures who are not medically trained is very risky.

Medical professionals take precautions to minimise the risk of complications and are trained to recognise and deal with complications that will inevitably occur from time to time. They can also prescribe relevant medications to help with things like infection or pain, if necessary. Non-medical providers cannot.

Read more: Will microdermabrasion or skin needling give me better skin?

Equipment and sanitation

There are hundreds of different lasers, microneedling and skin care devices around. There are different brands, different models, and different safety features. So, varying outcomes can be seen with different devices.

Any piece of equipment that penetrates the skin needs to be sterilised in a medical-grade steriliser. Sterilising the equipment prevents the transmission of blood-borne infections like hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Failing to sterilise properly or not doing so at all places patients and the community at risk.

It must be said that there are many trained non-medical practitioners who adhere to infection control measures, understand what is safe and what is not, and who administer treatments in sanitary conditions.

What needs to change?

Regulatory bodies and the government need to work together to safeguard the community. We need to better regulate who can operate lasers and other skin devices, who can inject, cut and treat skin and in what type of environment this can take place. And we even need to regulate advertising – who can use the words “skin specialist”, “medical grade skin peels”, and so on. Because right now, anyone can.

Read more: Safety before profits: why cosmetic surgery is ripe for regulation

So how can a consumer know how to access treatment from a qualified practitioner? Given there are little or no regulations in some parts of the country, it’s very hard to be sure, but these tips can help:

• if you want to be treated by a medical practitioner, look up the APHRA website to see if the practitioner you are going to consult with is registered
• you only get what you pay for. If consultations and treatments are very cheap, you may want to look into the quality of the equipment and the experience of the provider
• don’t believe everything you read online. Medical professionals are not allowed to have testimonials on their websites, so don’t decide on a provider on this basis
• trust your gut – if something doesn’t feel right about the place or person, walk away.

– ref. Want to avoid a botched beauty procedure? This is what you need to be wary of – http://theconversation.com/want-to-avoid-a-botched-beauty-procedure-this-is-what-you-need-to-be-wary-of-120970

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

As an astronomer, I’m used to talking about the stars – the ones above, the distant suns and the worlds that orbit them. But this week, I’ve been swept along in discussions of an entirely different kind of star – and it’s all thanks to a reality TV show called The Bachelor Australia.

The reason? This year’s Bachelor is Matt Agnew, who just finished his PhD at Swinburne University. I had the great privilege of helping to supervise Matt’s studies, so it’s been really bizarre to see him in a whole new light, handing out roses rather than prospecting for alien worlds.

While he’s reportedly already chosen one of the 28 candidates on the show, I know Matt is also passionate about the search for alien worlds, with TESS (as I’ll explain in a moment).

Read more: Curious Kids: can Earth be affected by a black hole in the future?

Our latest Bachelor did some amazing work for his PhD – and if his very public search for true love helps to also spread the word of his amazing research, then that’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned!

So what did Matt do, before he became a heart-throb? And who, or what, is TESS?

Helping to prospect for alien worlds

Astronomers searching for planets around other stars face a big problem. Simply put, we are finding planets around huge numbers of stars, at an ever-accelerating rate.

But there are far too few facilities available on the ground to follow up on all those planetary systems and learn more about them. As a result, we have to find ways to work smarter, not longer – to make our searches ever more efficient and effective.

That problem will only become more pronounced in the coming years, with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (that’s TESS) expected to discover thousands of new alien worlds.

Launched in April last year, TESS has already found 28 confirmed planets, but a further 993 remain as “candidates” that need urgent ground-based follow-up.

That’s where Matt’s PhD research comes into play. My colleagues and I have, for the past decade or so, used computer modelling of proposed planetary systems to separate the wheat from the chaff – to identify planetary systems that are not all they seem to be.

By studying how the proposed planets in a given system would interact with each other over millions of years, we can show that some of those systems simply don’t work. The planets we thought were there just don’t exist.

From a certain point of view

Matt turned this idea on its head. If you turn this technique around, you can predict the best places to search for new alien worlds.

Imagine that we find a new planetary system, with a huge planet, maybe as big as Jupiter, moving on an orbit that takes 100 days to complete around its host star. That planet will exert a strong gravitational pull on other objects in the same system, stirring them up, and clearing the space around it.

Now imagine you want to search for other planets in that system. Where should you look?

One approach would be just to study the star continuously, watching day-in, day-out, for any sign that it hosts additional planets. That allows you to find planets on a wide variety of orbits, from those close to their host to those that lurk in the icy depths, far from the star.

But that method is really resource-intensive and inefficient.

Imaginary planets

That’s where Matt’s work came in. We can simulate the effect of the first planet we discover on imaginary planets moving on a wide variety of orbits around their host star. With modern computers, we can run simulations that cover millions of virtual years in just a few hours, or a few days at most.

That allows us to discover which of those imaginary planets could actually exist. Those that aren’t feasible might crash into their host star, or collide with the known planet (in the simulation).

In other words, they aren’t physically feasible. So there’s no point spending huge amounts of precious resources (telescope time) searching for planets that can’t be there in the first place.

Matt published his work in four peer-reviewed papers, which are freely available online (here, here, here and here).

They’re well worth a read, and tell a fantastic story of how we can use theoretical methods, and fast computers, to help make the search for alien worlds an easier and more productive game.

The future – planets and roses

Matt did fantastic work during his PhD – and I’m confident his work will be important in the years to come. We’re implementing his results into our work with the new Minerva-Australis observatory, our very own planet-finding facility.

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

By making sure we only search for planets that could realistically exist, we’ll be able to scour the sky more efficiently, helping us to find and characterise as many alien worlds as possible.

Hopefully, his time on The Bachelor will be as productive. While I’ve seen and heard conflicting views among scientists as to the value of having an astrophysicist front and centre on that kind of show, I’m personally really positive about it.

I’d like to think Matt will be a fantastic advocate for science and astronomy. He’s an eloquent communicator, and passionate about our search for new worlds and for life elsewhere.

In much the same way the particle physicist Brian Cox (who also happens to be a famous rock star) has been able to engage huge numbers of people in science who might previously have had little interest, it might well be that Matt’s stint as The Bachelor will encourage his audience to learn more about the universe around them.

Even if it just helps people to learn the difference between astronomy and astrology, I’d consider that a win.

– ref. An astronomy expert explains how The Bachelor’s research will help us discover new planets – http://theconversation.com/an-astronomy-expert-explains-how-the-bachelors-research-will-help-us-discover-new-planets-121312

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini discusses the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They examine Anthony Albanese’s approach to passing legislation, given the hard reality for Labor in the senate. They also talk about Barnaby Joyce’s support for an increase in Newstart and Julie Bishop’s appointment as the first female chancellor of ANU.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Labor’s hard reality – and Barnaby Joyce supporting an increase to Newstart – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-labors-hard-reality-and-barnaby-joyce-supporting-an-increase-to-newstart-121360

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Tattersall, Postdoc in urban geography and Research Lead at Sydney Policy Lab. Host of ChangeMakers Podcast., University of Sydney

The past few weeks has seen a drastic escalation in violence on the streets of Hong Kong. On Tuesday night, a police officer aimed a shotgun at protesters who had gathered outside a police station, while a car launched fireworks into the crowd.

Days earlier, the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters trying to reach the Chinese government’s office.

And the week before, following a protest of 430,000 people, vigilante thugs, dressed in white and carrying bamboo sticks, beat up democracy protesters at a train station.

This long summer of protests began in response to a proposed extradition bill just days after the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. But now, over eight weeks on, the protesters continue to take to the streets with a broader set of demands – and the confrontations with police are threatening to spiral out of control.

With reports of a build-up of Chinese forces on the Hong Kong border, and no end in sight to the demonstrations, many are now asking – how will this end?

Conflict arising from the Umbrella movement

Protest is a familiar tactic in Hong Kong, but this movement has adopted a series of new approaches from the lessons of other protests over the last 30 years – in particular the failures of the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

In doing so, they are building something that is – at least until now – showing resilience to Beijing’s authoritarianism.

The current protest movement isn’t a single movement. It has two dominant wings – one is passive, the other more militant. These wings accept and recognise each other’s role.

This is new. In 2014, Hong Kong democracy leaders staged a 79-day occupation to fight for universal suffrage. Called the Umbrella Movement, the occupation had two sets of leaders – older democracy leaders (known as the Occupy Trio) and younger student leaders (notably Joshua Wong and Nathan Law).

Originally, the Occupy Trio had planned a multi-year campaign to build public and political pressure for universal suffrage, but the students were more confrontational. They staged a sit-in at Civic Square on Hong Kong Island and the occupation was off and running.

During the occupation, these different views led to irreconcilable conflict, making it impossible to talk about overall strategy. When the occupation finally ended – without achieving universal suffrage – there was great acrimony between the groups that lasted for years.

A new set of principles

Realising how counter-productive this split was, the protesters were keen not to let strategic differences get in the way this time around.

As organisers made plans for the June 9 rally against the extradition bill, several new principles emerged to define how the different groups could work together and avoid falling into the deep conflict of the past.

They included such maxims as “respect the role of the different groups”, “we all lead”, “no one is left behind” and “be water” (as in, to flow from place to place, building continuous pressure). More than the power of any individual leader, these principles came to define how the movement would function and grow.

The principles reinforced one another. The decision not to have a single leader was born from the experience of the Umbrella movement. Every visible leader of that movement was jailed or threatened with jail following the occupation. (Two of the Occupy Trio received 16-month jail sentences this year).

The Extradition movement learned it was too dangerous to have figurehead leaders. If everyone led, what could Beijing do? They couldn’t jail everyone.

And when it came to respecting the role of different groups, this principle allowed those who wanted to pursue a more militant strategy to do so without fear of rebuke. Everyone was encouraged to do what they thought was needed.

On June 9, two movements launched: a peaceful protest of more than one million people, as well as a more militant movement of young people.

The confrontational wing was battle-ready. They had re-purposed everyday items like medical masks, plastic wrap, helmets, goggles, umbrellas and towels into tools of protest. The Umbrella occupation had taught them the police would likely use excessive force – so they dressed accordingly.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was unmoved by a million-person march, but did shift her position and suspend the extradition bill when faced with a street confrontation. This sent a loud message to the protesters about what it will take to win under her authoritarian government – militancy was more potent than passive protest.

Protesters got the message. Every mass protest since then has seen these two protest wings in operation. As an elected member of Hong Kong’s government explained to me, they are “codependent” – they need each other to exist.

The two wings initially unsettled Beijing. Every time there was militancy – most dramatically when the Legislative Council Building was vandalised on July 1 – Beijing thought it could be used to their advantage.

The government aired the violence on television, hoping it would turn public opinion against the protesters and split the movement. Yet, older democracy leaders did not criticise the students, instead reiterating that “everyone in the movement has their place.”

Popular opinion is still with the protesters, and the protests are still enormous.

Flowing from protest to protest

Another form of protest also emerged to supplement the two-wing approach – the movement turned “to water”.

The protests now have a flow they didn’t have during the Umbrella occupation. Protesters don’t simply show up for weekly mass marches and then go home; they have begun organising smaller protests in their districts on a daily basis.

“Lennon walls” featuring thousands of protest messages have emerged, for instance, in every one of Hong Kong’s districts. Random Airdrop notifications share details about impromptu protests, such as last week’s sit-in at the airport. With everyone leading and the action constantly flowing from one place to the next, this protest is hard to stop.

The Umbrella movement, in contrast, was physically fixed in three locations and maintained with tents and nightly sleep-outs. The rigidity of the occupation was exhausting and took a toll on the participants.

A government can wait out an occupation, but how do you capture something that is constantly moving?

Where will it end?

Its hard to predict where the current protest movement goes next. At the moment, there are no negotiations between the government and protest leaders. The protest movement has five key demands that continue to sit on the table, ranging from withdrawing the extradition bill completely to an independent investigation into police brutality to Lam’s resignation.

But it is unclear whether the protests would end even if the demands are agreed to. All the while, Beijing makes infrequent statements in support of Lam, but it also has thousands of troops already stationed in Hong Kong – and a build-up of more across the border.

What is certain is that a long-standing democracy movement has powerfully connected to the next generation. Young students are terrified about their future and feel they have to do everything they can to fight for their rights.

But the stakes are extremely high. Is it possible for water to move so quickly that it escapes the barrel of the gun?

– ref. The Hong Kong protesters have turned militant and more strategic – and this unnerves Beijing – http://theconversation.com/the-hong-kong-protesters-have-turned-militant-and-more-strategic-and-this-unnerves-beijing-121106

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaz Ross, Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of Tasmania

This week, a heated row blew up in the senate and on social media when Shadow Home Affairs Minister Kristine Keneally demanded that a controversial political figure, Raheem Kassam, be denied a visa to speak at a political event in Australia.

Many Australians have never heard of Kassam, although he’s known in the UK for his hard right “politically incorrect” views on migration, Muslims, and women. He’s also posted offensive anti-Semitic comments online.

The Kassam visa dispute has now developed into a “free speech versus hate speech” debate on the international stage, with Donald Trump Jnr tweeting his support of Kassam.

Read more: Friday essay: networked hatred – new technology and the rise of the right

In Australia, Senator Mathias Cormann labelled Kassam’s views as disgusting, while also defending the decision to let Kassam in on the basis of freedom of speech, thought and expression.

Meanwhile, Labor senators have described the event Kassam is attending as “normalising the extreme right wing in Australia”. And Kassam’s co-hosts in Australia have ridiculed Keneally for calling a man who was raised Muslim an Islamophobe.

This isn’t the first time in the past year that controversial right-wing speakers have faced visa bans. Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolous, conspiracy theorist David Icke and western chauvinist Proud Boy Gavin McInnes have all been turned away. And each time we see a re-run of the “free speech vs hate speech” debate.

So who is Raheem Kassam?

Raheem Kassam is a British political activist with a decade-long involvement in political campaigns on the hard right in the UK.

Now an atheist, he describes himself as philosophically conservative but radical in practice. He is notorious for provocative public statements.

His most well-known roles have been as a senior adviser to Nigel Farage during the 2015 general election and as a (failed) candidate for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leadership. Echoing Trump, his election slogan was “Make UKIP great again.”

He is a strong nationalist and an anti-refugee critic of immigration.

We should be proud of what I call Faragism – a belief in your country, a belief in your culture, a belief in the people of this great nation.

Kassam is deeply embedded in the far-right ecosystem of anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-feminist sentiment. And until 2018, he was the London-based editor of the American far-right media outlet Breitbart, one of the most influential media outlets, under the guidance of Steve Bannon.

While at Breitbart, Bannon mentored controversial figures like Yiannopolous to engage with extreme right and supremacist groups.

Read more: Booksellers, the alt-right and Milo Yiannopoulos

As an ex-Muslim who is not white, Kassam operates as a provocateur in much the same way as the openly gay (with a black husband) Milo Yiannopolous. Both use their identity to counter criticism of their extreme views as racist or intolerant.

Despite being from an immigrant background and having Muslim parents, Kassam has published books strongly against Muslim immigration. He has called the Koran “fundamentally evil”, and Islam a “fascistic and totalitarian ideology.”

Why do Labour want to keep him out?

Keneally says Kassam’s extensive track record of vilifying others on the basis of race, religion, sexuality and gender makes him a “career bigot”.

She has asked Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton to deny Kassam a visa under Section 501 of the Migration Act on the grounds that he is at risk of vilifying others, inciting discord, and putting sections of the community in danger if he is let into Australia. As a result, Kassam has threatened to sue Keneally for defamation.

Read more: Why Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views

For Labor, Kassam’s presence at the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is symbolic and significant for more than just his views.

CPAC: the ‘dark arts of hate speech’?

CPAC brings together a range of like-minded conservative politicians and lobbyists from Britain, the USA and Australia for the first time.

The list of speakers is a who’s who of hard conservative politics in Australia: One Nation’s Mark Latham, MP Craig Kelly, Senator Amanda Stoker, Tony Abbott, Campbell Newman, Ross Cameron, Peta Credlin, Janet Albrechtsen, and Rohan Dean. And visiting speakers include influential republican congressmen Matt Gaetz and Mark Meadows, and UK Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage.

The aim of CPAC is to establish a solid base for conservative lobbying and campaigning in Australian elections. Its motto is “Protect the future – fight on”, and one full day is dedicated to grassroots political campaigning.

Keneally describes this inaugural Australian CPAC as an attempt to normalise the extreme right in Australia and a “cavalcade of intolerance at the CPA talkfest of hate.” Labor Senator Penny Wong has called the annual CPAC in the USA as an extremist breeding ground of bigotry, and the “dark arts of hate speech”.

Hate speech vs free speech?

Canadian far-right anti-Islam provocateurs Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern jointly toured Australia in 2018..

Before his ban in 2019, Milo Yiannopolous toured in 2017 and even spoke in Parliament House at the invitation of Senator David Leyonhjelm.

Read more: Governments are making fake news a crime – but it could stifle free speech

Both tours generated violent clashes between opposing groups of protesters and fans. Both tours were costly in terms of police resources and security. And inflammatory, insulting and derogatory statements targeting Aborigines, women, Muslims and LGBTIQA people were made by all three speakers.

There is no evidence that Kassam uses the same extreme strategies to stir up audiences. But it’s clear he acts as an agent to goad opponents and push a hard-right conservative agenda.

Read more: Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook

It’s also clear the American-style campaigning of inaugural Australian CPAC has truly arrived. This is a style marked by divisive and hate-filled campaigns designed to increase divisions with society using the mass circulation of highly partisan and fake news on social media.

It could be a defining moment in Australian politics.

– ref. Who is Raheem Kassam? Calls to ban the far-right speaker blur line between free speech and hate speech – http://theconversation.com/who-is-raheem-kassam-calls-to-ban-the-far-right-speaker-blur-line-between-free-speech-and-hate-speech-121309

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University

In the weeks after the 2019 federal election, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the turn-out of voters was the lowest since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1925.

It also reported there had been high rates of absenteeism of young voters who, while willing to participate in the recent marriage equality survey, had “turned their back on democracy” in the federal election.

Read more: Election explainer: why do I have to vote, anyway?

The article continues a narrative about a decline in voter participation, which the federal parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) review of the the 2016 election described it as a “concerning trend”.

But it turns out the SMH report – which was based on the actual vote count undertaken by the Australian Electoral Commission – got it wrong, because it reported on the 2019 result before the count had been completed. In fact, voter participation in 2019 was actually 0.88% higher than in 2016.

Despite this, the national participation rate hasn’t returned to the 95% rate achieved in 2007. So what’s behind the apparent decline in civic duty?

Political disengagement is one factor, but data show that low turn-out also happens in seats with a high proportion of Indigenous people, and seats with a high proportion of renters.

Electorates with the lowest participation

Looking at the participation performance of individual federal electorates can show what might be happening.

Among the litany of divisions with the lowest participation rates, two distinct electorate clusters emerge of what might be thought of as under-performing seats.

By far the most consistent under-performing seats are remote regional districts including Lingiari and Solomon (Northern Territory), Durack (Western Australia and previously known as Kalgoorlie) and Leichhardt (Queensland).

These are also the four federal seats with the highest proportion of voters who identify as Indigenous, according to the 2016 Australian census. In the case of Lingiari, 44.5% of residents identified as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, 17.9% in Durack, 9% in Solomon and 6% in Leichhardt.

Read more: Book extract: From secret ballot to democracy sausage

The next cluster of persistent under-performing seats are inner urban divisions whose residents are among the best educated and most affluent in the nation. This includes Sydney, Wentworth, Melbourne and Melbourne Ports (these days known as Macnamara).

They are also characterised by their comparative youthfulness. These are seats that have significantly larger proportions of citizens in the 19 to 39 year age groups than the national age distribution and, indeed, seats like Lingiari and Durack.

The relatively low turn-out rate and youthfulness of these inner urban electorates supports the argument that young people are enrolling, but not voting.

While this might be the case, it’s also true that the rate of participation in the inner urban cluster of seats is much stronger than for the remote rural cluster.

In short, lower election turn-out rates tend to be associated more with seats with comparatively higher proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voters than with youthful electoral districts.

This is an interesting aspect to electoral behaviour, especially when there is so much debate about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders could be given greater input to the political process by way of reforming the Australian constitution.

The role of renting

These two clusters of seats could not be more different from each other. And yet they do share a significant socioeconomic characteristic.

Both the inner urban and remote seat clusters are characterised by the comparatively large number of citizens with rented, rather than purchased, accommodation.

Read more: Avoid the politics and let artificial intelligence decide your vote in the next election

The 2016 census found that slightly more than 30% of Australians were renters. In contrast, 60% of residents in the seat of Sydney and 52.9% of residents in Lingiari were renting.

With renting comes the possibility of citizens changing their residential address and this, in turn, can make it difficult to maintain the electoral roll.

A political crisis?

Are these trends a sign of a political crisis, or are they simply “concerning” (to borrow from the JSCEM report)?

If the data indicates disengagement, it’s doing so at a fairly minimal rate. And at the last election, attendance rates improved compared with the previous election.

What’s more, the correlation of renters to under-performing electoral districts might even indicate that the problem is administrative rather than the product of civil disobedience.

Read more: You are what you vote: the social and demographic factors that influence your vote

Having said that, if the government feels the need to address the turn-out rate, they can use coercive powers to reinforce compulsory voting. This would involve imposing bigger fines for those who do not turn up to vote.

The existing legislation allows for a significant fine to apply (one penalty unit) when a voter hasn’t turned up. But the law as it currently stands does allow a wide range of excuses to permit a much less onerous sanction of a A$20 fine.

Were the parliament to be truly concerned about participation it could seek to alter the act and strengthen the hand of the AEC.

– ref. Renters hold the key to low voter turn-out at federal elections – http://theconversation.com/renters-hold-the-key-to-low-voter-turn-out-at-federal-elections-120494

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Loughran, Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Hype continues to surround the roll-out of 5G technology in Australia and across the world.

While there is promise of faster network speeds, and talk of exciting technologies like driverless cars, there’s also a growing movement to stop the implementation of 5G due to concerns about the effects it may have on our health.

But the scientific evidence we’ve got assures us there’s no reason to worry. The radio frequencies powering 5G will be well below the exposure limits known to cause harm.

Read more: Do Wi-Fi and mobile phones really cause cancer? Experts respond

What is 5G and how does it work?

5G is the 5th generation of mobile phone technology. All generations of mobile phones work using what’s called electromagnetic energy. The specific type of electromagnetic energy used by mobile phones is known as radiofrequency, sometimes called radio waves.

This type of radiation is non-ionising, so it doesn’t damage our DNA like ionising radiation can, such as that from the sun or x-rays. Ionising means there’s enough energy to remove electrons from the atoms they are attached to. This makes them unstable and is something non-ionising radiation, such as that used by mobile phones, lacks the power to do.

Initially, 5G will use the same type of radio waves as used in 4G. But in the future it will operate at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies allow for faster connections and response times, while also increasing capacity for more users to be connected.

The higher the frequency, the shorter the distance the radio waves travel. As the 5G frequencies will be higher than those used by previous mobile phone technologies, a lot more mobile phone base stations will be required.

Much of the public concern has centred around these two new elements – that the frequencies used will be higher, and that there will be more mobile phone base stations. While some people believe these two factors alone will lead to higher exposures, the reality is actually very different.

Read more: Can you be allergic to your Wi-Fi?

Higher frequencies don’t travel as far, meaning exposure is not as deep as previous generation technologies. This results in more superficial exposures which are mostly absorbed by the skin rather than deeper in the body.

The idea that more base stations lead to higher exposures is also a common misconception. A larger number of base stations will actually provide a more efficient network. This means mobile phones can operate at a reduced power, which is likely to result in reduced overall personal exposure.

Research and regulation

Importantly, we have no evidence of any established health effects from the exposures related to mobile phones, despite extensive research. This consensus has been reiterated by independent international expert bodies.

We know a lot about how radiofrequency interacts with the human body. Health effects occur from exposure when there is a large rise in body temperature. But this will only be seen at power levels far higher than those used in telecommunications, like from a microwave oven.

The temperature changes associated with mobile phones are very small, especially when compared with normal day-to-day or exercise-induced temperature variations.

Exposures from mobile phones and their base stations are tightly regulated. In Australia, safety standards are set by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).

These standards are based on the current scientific evidence. They also cover the new frequencies that will be used by 5G. Importantly, the safety limits are set well below levels known to cause harm. And although technology can legally run at the safety limit, in reality, exposures are typically hundreds of times below these safety limits.

Challenging misconceptions

There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding 5G, and the electromagnetic energy associated with telecommunications more generally. While there’s no evidence of harm from such electromagnetic energy, there is evidence fear and anxiety can be harmful to our health and overall well-being.

While anti-5G sentiment and campaigning might be well-intentioned, without the scientific evidence to back these sentiments, it’s likely doing more harm than good. The challenge we now face is counteracting the misinformation out there.

Read more: What is a mobile network, anyway? This is 5G, boiled down

– ref. There’s no evidence 5G is going to harm our health, so let’s stop worrying about it – http://theconversation.com/theres-no-evidence-5g-is-going-to-harm-our-health-so-lets-stop-worrying-about-it-120501

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Henley, Research Fellow in Climate and Water Resources, University of Melbourne

Melbourne’s existing water supplies may face pressure if global warming hits the 2℃ level, according to our new research published today in Environmental Research Letters.

The effects of drying and warming in southern Australia are expected to reduce natural water supplies. If we overshoot 2℃ of warming, even the desalination plant might not provide enough drinking water to a growing population.

However, keeping warming to 1.5℃ would help avoid many of these negative consequences. This brings home the local benefits of acting swiftly to limit global warming. Luckily, there are options available to secure our water supply.

Warming and drying effects

The Earth has warmed by about 1.1℃ since pre-industrial times, causing ongoing global changes to our atmospheric composition. The Paris Agreement commits the world to holding the increase to “well below” 2℃, and “pursuing efforts” to limit the increase to 1.5℃.

While we’re confident there will be more hot extremes and fewer cold extremes as global temperatures rise, the consequences of further global warming for other climate extremes – such as drought – in different parts of the world are harder to pinpoint.

Read more: Is Australia’s current drought caused by climate change? It’s complicated

Our study uses climate models to identify the possible changes in average rainfall and temperature in four different worlds:

• the “Natural” world, where humans have had no influence on the climate,

• the “Current” world, which approximates the impacts humans have had to date, and

• two future worlds, which are “1.5℃” and “2.0℃” warmer than pre-industrial times.

In line with previously published results, southern Australia is projected to undergo drying and warming. But we are not alone. The Mediterranean and Southwestern North America are also predicted to dry out.

Desalination is increasingly important

Most Australians recall the severity and length of the Millennium Drought. This event severely stressed agricultural and natural systems, and led to the commissioning of desalination plants in the five largest cities in Australia, at a cost of several billion dollars.

Desalination offers an important lifeline. Although it comes with high short-term costs, it supplies vital water security over the long term. Successful efforts to improve water-use efficiency have reduced per capita demand rates, but growing populations in major centres will lead to increasing water demand.

Right now, large parts of southeastern Australia are in the grips of another drought. Although drought is a common natural feature of Australia’s climate, in recent decades we have observed long-term drying trends over much of southern Australia.

Currently, all capital city urban reservoir systems in southern Australia are below 60%, and several are nearing or below 50%. The Victorian government recently ordered 125 gigalitres of water from the desalination plant.

With these challenges in mind, our paper explores the effects of future climate change on the surface water supply infrastructure for Melbourne.

Climate models and hydrological models together indicate future declines in catchment inflows as global warming increases from 1.5℃ to 2℃. The good news is when desalination is added to the mix, which it is, pressure on our water storage is dramatically reduced. However, population growth and climate change remain key challenges into the future.

The buffer is shrinking

The take-home message is, if global warming approaches 2℃ and beyond, the combined impacts of climate change and population growth will ultimately begin to outstrip the buffer desalination provides for us without ongoing investment in water security. Fortunately, desalination plants, storm water, water recycling and continuing to improve efficiency are all viable options.

To ensure our water security, and with it, the safety and prosperity of the urban centres which are the engine houses of the Australian economy, we all need to be vigilant in managing water resources.

We also all need to play an active part in the global effort to reduce the impacts of climate change. The commitments by the world’s nations for the 2020-30 period remain insufficient to achieve the temperature goals. Global emission rates continue to rise, and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are steadily accelerating.

The task of turning around our emissions in time to avert many of the serious impacts of climate change is becoming ever more implausible. In the coming 10–20 years, we expect to shoot past 1.5℃.

Read more: Meet El Niño’s cranky uncle that could send global warming into hyperdrive

With so much momentum in both human and natural systems it is becoming increasingly unlikely that we will avoid warming beyond 1.5℃. However, if we can achieve it, the list of benefits includes greatly reduced stress on the water supplies we rely on for our very existence.

– ref. 2℃ of global warming would put pressure on Melbourne’s water supply – http://theconversation.com/2-of-global-warming-would-put-pressure-on-melbournes-water-supply-118389

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Wilks, Adjunct Professor, Southern Cross University

Australia has been ranked as one of the top destinations to study internationally. The QS Best Student Cities Ranking released yesterday, which incorporates feedback from more than 87,000 current and prospective international students, ranked Melbourne as the third-best city to study. Sydney came in ninth.

London and Tokyo were number 1 and 2 respectively out of the world’s 120 top student cities. Melbourne and Sydney were joined in the top 50 globally by Brisbane (22), Canberra (23), Adelaide (26, up 15 places from last year) and Perth (41).

These results are rigorous and evidence-based, drawing on a variety of indexes (such as livability and affordability) and the student survey. When it came to the quality of life index (known as desirability), QS director of research Ben Sowter said:

Six of the world’s 30 highest-performing cities for our Desirability indicator are Australian: a record bettered by no other nation.

These results are highly influential and clearly drive education decision-making. We know students wishing to study overseas take serious account of universities that score well on independent rankings, for instance, and there’s no reason why these should be any different.

Read more: Melbourne or Sydney? This is how our two biggest cities compare for liveability

So the performance of Melbourne and Sydney on this international platform speaks volumes for the position of the country as a study destination.

What makes a good student city?

QS uses six metric groups to compile the ratings:

1. desirability: will students enjoy a high quality of life here? Do students want to study in this city?

2. university rankings: how many top-ranked universities are in the city?

3. employer activity: will a chosen city have job opportunities after graduation?

4. student mix: what proportion of a city’s population is made up of students? How diverse is that student population?

5. affordability: can students afford to study here?

6. student voice: what do students studying in this city think of it?

So, how should we read this?

In assessing quality of life the QS looks to measures such as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index where in 2018 Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide were in the top ten of the 140 cities surveyed.

Melbourne held the top spot for seven consecutive years, only this year being edged out by Vienna by 0.7 of a percentage point.

Ben Sowter said:

This year’s edition of the QS Best Student Cities Ranking indicates that one of the primary incentives for any prospective international student to study in Australia is the high quality of life on offer there.

Quality of life includes a range of elements such as recreation facilities, public services and transport, housing and the natural environment. According to Mercer’s 2019 Quality of Living City Rankings, Melbourne and Sydney are in the top 20 worldwide.

And then there is safety.

There have been some recent challenges for Australian universities in the area of student safety, including robberies and attacks on international students at a Melbourne university.

No destination can completely guarantee the personal safety of its residents and visitors. But looking at a variety of sources and the comments of students themselves, the evidence suggests Melbourne and Sydney in particular are very safe cities overall, ranking in the top 12 worldwide for digital, health, infrastructure and personal security.

Read more: Recent campus attacks show universities need to do more to protect international students

When it comes to the student mix indicator, the QS ranking puts Melbourne as the world’s best city. This is a measure that includes tolerance and inclusion, reflecting the importance for many international students of choosing a study environment that is likely to be hospitable to their own cultural background, lifestyle and identity.

While there are admittedly periodic reports in the media about racist behaviour in Melbourne, and the government is well aware of this, Melbourne is widely recognised as culturally diverse, tolerant and welcoming. On these measures we can trust the QS ranking.

Melbourne came third in the student voice, which accounts for the experience and study destination preferences of more than 87,000 students.

Sydney ranked second on student mix and ninth on employer activity, obtaining a job at the end of their studies being a very important consideration for international students.

The QS results are in keeping with the high levels of international student satisfaction reported for Australian higher education, especially for safety, living, learning and support.

Where we can improve?

The 2019 QS ranking shows Australian universities are at a slight global disadvantage on measures of affordability. This is an observation previously made in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Australian costs are generally comparable to those of the US and the UK, but far higher than Japan, Spain, Germany or Russia, which are all serious competitors in the international student market.

But cost is not the only consideration. A benchmark HSBC report of 4,592 parents in 15 countries around the world said they would consider sending their child abroad for a better university education.

And this is where Australia has a competitive advantage.

We make up for cost when it comes to education quality. The QS results endorse government initiatives such as Study Melbourne and Study Sydney that provide international students with employment assistance, career guidance and day-to-day living support – all of which contribute to a positive international student experience.

Read more: ‘I’m an international student in Australia. How do I tell my parents the pressure they put on me is too much?’

While the results are commendable we, shouldn’t be complacent. We know the biggest concerns for prospective students relate to everyday life rather than their studies.

Issues around the cost of living, finding accommodation and employment, and safety rank among the greatest concerns. In the Australian context dealing with racism needs to be urgently addressed.

– ref. International students rank Melbourne and Sydney in world’s top cities – but we can make them feel safer – http://theconversation.com/international-students-rank-melbourne-and-sydney-in-worlds-top-cities-but-we-can-make-them-feel-safer-121238

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Walters, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Queensland

The battle for domination of the physical and digital public realms has been crucial to the fortunes of the Hong Kong protesters. Their overwhelming numbers in the tense stand-off with the might of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has captured our attention over the past eight weeks.

However, there are less obvious dynamics at work as protesters use public space – both physical and digital – to maintain their advantage. An understanding of these public realms is critical to understanding why freedom of expression either flourishes or dies in particular urban contexts.

Hong Kong protesters have drawn the world’s attention to the fragile state of democratic rights in this Special Administrative Region of China. As many as 2 million people, out of a population of 7.5 million, have poured into the streets, protesting the erosion of their special status.

Read more: Hong Kong: why the ‘one country, two systems’ model is on its last legs

These protests have been remarkably effective in the face of a PRC-aligned Hong Kong leadership, which has for now backed down on a contentious proposal to make it easier to extradite Hong Kong residents to mainland China.

In physical terms the public realm means places to gather freely with diverse others with high visibility. This makes them a focus for expressions of democratic conviction. Many great cities of the world contain iconic public places, such as Taksim Square in Istanbul, the National Monument in Jakarta, Trafalgar Square in London and, of course, Tiananmen Square in Beijing. But with varying levels of surveillance and restriction, not all of these places qualify as functioning public realms.

Read more: How city squares can be public places of protest or centres of state control

Taking to the streets …

Hong Kong, one of the most densely built and populated cities in the world, has few recognisable public places. None is capable of holding even a fraction of the numbers of protesters that have mobilised.

For that reason, crowds have taken to the streets. These are usually a degraded form of public space, but protesters have turned them from thoroughfares for vehicles to a vibrant public realm, allowing an impressive show of willpower.

The protests have been well organised and until last week were free from violence. The involvement of alleged China-backed triad criminals escalated the risk for ongoing demonstrations and the fragile public realm in Hong Kong is now threatened.

… and digital space

The success of the protests is not entirely dependent on the use of physical space. The speed and coordination of the protests would not have been possible without access to a public realm in the abstract. We see it in an active and independent press and media, and in the ability of protesters to communicate with each other quickly and freely through the digital public realm provided by social media and encrypted messaging apps.

The sheer volume of people on the streets implied spontaneous anarchy. However, the use of social media, even in the presence of covert and overt surveillance by security forces and China-friendly media, enabled organisers and protesters to retain a tactical advantage.

They have been using anonymous calls in encrypted chat applications like Telegram and Signal to coordinate efforts. These apps allow users to create public and anonymous channels to share information, as well as smaller, more private, group chats.

Read more: How a cyber attack hampered Hong Kong protesters

The protest was coordinated visibly on LIHKG, an online forum that ranks posts by popularity in a similar manner to Reddit. These forums allow protests to move fluidly and quickly, responding to changing conditions on the ground.

Protesters used social media to rapidly distribute photos to counter security authorities’ attempts to deliberately and drastically underestimate crowd numbers to downplay the strength and size of the opposition.

There was also a need to avoid particular technologies. China employs sophisticated surveillance of its citizens.

Read more: China’s Social Credit System puts its people under pressure to be model citizens

However, protesters have taken effective evasive measures. These included simple physical acts such as standing in huge queues at the Metro for paper tickets to avoid being tracked on transit smart cards. Protesters also used umbrellas, face and eye masks to prevent facial recognition and to shield themselves from teargas attacks and drone surveillance.

The digital public realm has been used successfully in other contexts as a potent intensification of physical protest. Digital spaces can amplify, broadcast and coordinate physical action.

For example, social media catalysed the Black Lives Matter protests in the US. In 2016 Philando Castile’s death was live-streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend after police shot him through the open window of his vehicle. Twitter was used extensively to publicise and coordinate the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests.

Read more: Black Lives Matter is a revolutionary peace movement

Co-opting spaces as public

Urban protests in many cities, like Hong Kong, are defined by their limited access to sanctioned public space. The co-opting of other public commons like highways and inner-city roads becomes necessary. This has been particularly successful in the American context where public space is degraded or privatised, and roads are “neutral” space.

Public space does not always look the way we imagine it. When access to public space is untenable, protesters with sufficient will can turn privatised or commercial space into a new public realm.

The Hong Kong protests have turned the international airport terminal into a temporary public realm for this purpose. The “yellow shirt” protesters did the same in Bangkok in 2008. The continued visibility of these public sites and the desire by security forces to close down protest create an uneasy stand-off, testing authorities’ resolve to respond under international scrutiny.

There is now more to the public realm than just a place to gather. Protesters need to combine their determination with a sophisticated appreciation of the digital environment and the nature and limits of public and private space.

Read more: Surprise! Digital space isn’t replacing public space, and might even help make it better

– ref. How Hong Kong protesters have been winning the battle for public space – http://theconversation.com/how-hong-kong-protesters-have-been-winning-the-battle-for-public-space-121251

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

Over the past two days the 20 leading contenders for the role of the US Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidate have faced off in two debates.

The exchanges between them – sometimes sharp – revealed a stark divide on economic matters. In many ways, the party’s core economic narrative is up for grabs for the first time since Bill Clinton reshaped it in the early 1990s.

There were so many contenders that there had to be two rounds, each with 10 candidates, over two nights.

But it was debate 1 in Detroit that was perhaps the most revealing about the distinct economic philosophies.

Read more: Two dozen candidates, one big target: in a crowded Democratic field, who can beat Trump?

(Aside: debate 2 also had big names and serious contenders like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, so it was also important, but it didn’t add much that would illustrate the economic divide.)

Debate 1 featured self-avowed “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, the man who was Hillary Clinton’s bete-noire in the 2016 primaries. In addition, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Congressman Beto O’Rourke – all names even ordinary Americans might be familiar with.

Less well known, but critical, players in the opposing economic philosophies are Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman John Delaney.

You really don’t need to focus much on the other participants like the quirky but entertaining self-help guru Marianne Williamson, and the very likeable and reasonable Tim Ryan and John Hickenlooper.

The biggest battle line

The biggest distinction is between those candidates who believe in markets and those who basically don’t.

Sanders and Warren basically don’t. They want the US government to rail against corporations making lots of money. They think those companies make that money by corrupting politics. They want to aggressively tax the wealthy.

Delaney has a lot more faith in markets and free enterprise. He was an entrepreneur who took two companies public before the age of 40 and has a net worth of US$65 million.

Klobuchar doesn’t have the same background (she was a prosecutor before entering politics) but also doesn’t think government should do everything.

Buttigieg (or “Mayor Pete” as he is commonly known) was a McKinsey consultant (and Afghanistan War veteran) who is more technocratic, thinking that a good Excel spreadsheet piloted by smart folks can solve a lot of problems.

The two main issues that illustrate the big divide healthcare and taxation.

Medicare makes the difference stark

On healthcare there is no dispute that it should be universal, that every American should be covered.

The divide is between those who want there to be only government-provided health insurance, and those who want there to be a mix of government and privately-provided insurance.

A little background. “Medicare” in the US is a government-provided free plan for those 65-years and older. Other Americans get their health insurance either through their employer, don’t have health insurance, or since the advent of “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) buy it themselves with a subsidy.

Read more: What the US could learn from Thailand about health care coverage

Sanders and Warren want what they call “Medicare for all”. By that they mean a single-payer system with no private insurance, everyone on Medicare.

Delaney, Klobuchar and others (especially Joe Biden from debate 2) think that’s nuts. That’s because it implies that the millions of Americans who have and value private insurance would lose it, either because bit was made illegal or because Medicare would price it out of the market.

They say they want a mere public “option”: if you like your insurance you can use it instead of Medicare, otherwise otherwise you use Medicare.

That’s a pretty stark distinction: between banning private commerce and not.

Over tax, the differences are just as stark

On taxation, again there is some agreement. All the candidates agree that wealthy Americans should pay more. What’s in dispute is how, and how much.

Warren wants a wealth tax that would take 2% of people’s wealth (not income) in excess of US$50 million (and take 3% of wealth in excess of US$1 billion).

The idea has been heavily criticised by luminaries such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who say it won’t raise much money and will dampen incentive. They are pushing for laws which will close loopholes and tax shelters instead.

Read more: So you want to tax the rich – here’s which candidate’s plan makes the most sense

The idea has also been sharply opposed in the debate by John Delaney, who wants instead to increase the rate of capital gains tax (which, as in Australia, is lower than the income tax rate) and reverse Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Here again, the contrast is between candidates trying to get more money from the wealthy while preserving incentives and candidates who see significant wealth as essentially immoral.

For years to come, the winner will take all

In essence the 2020 candidates are arguing about whether the third-way, market-oriented approach that Bill Clinton brought to the Democratic Party will endure, or be replaced with democratic socialism that “soaks the rich” and views private enterprise with scepticism.

At this stage there’s no telling which side will prevail. The result will have profound consequences for Americans for years to come.

Read more: US Democratic presidential primaries: Biden leading, followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris; and will Trump be beaten?

– ref. Vital Signs: the battle for the soul of the US Democrats that’s taking place before our eyes – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-us-democrats-thats-taking-place-before-our-eyes-121298