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

The Morrison government today announced A$1.9 billion over ten years to develop clean technology in industry, agriculture and transport. In some ways it’s a step in the right direction, but a far cry from what’s needed to drive Australia’s shift to a low emissions economy.

The big change involves what the money is for. The new funding will enable the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to support technologies such as green steel production, industrial processes to reduce energy consumption and somewhat controversially, carbon-capture and storage and soil-carbon sequestration.

This is a big move away from ARENA’s current investment priorities. Importantly it means ARENA will continue to operate, as it is running out of money now.

However technology development alone is not enough to cut Australia’s emissions deeply and quickly – which is what’s needed to address the climate threat. Other policies and more money will be needed.

New role for ARENA

ARENA will receive the lion’s share of the money: A$1.4 billion over ten years in guaranteed baseline funding. ARENA has spent A$1.6 billion since it was established in 2012. So the new funding is lower on an annual basis. It’s also far less than what’s needed to properly meet the challenge, in a country with a large industrial sector and huge opportunities for zero carbon production.

To date, ARENA’s investments have focused on renewable energy supply. Prime Minister Scott Morrison today said the renewables industry was enjoying a “world-leading boom” and no longer needs government subsidies. Critics may be dismayed to see ARENA steered away from its original purpose. But it is true solar parks and wind farms are now commercially viable, and technologies to integrate large amounts of renewables into the grid are available.

So it makes sense to spend new research and development (R&D) funding on the next generation of low-emissions technologies. But how to choose what to spend the money on?

A few simple principles should inform those choices. The spending should help develop new zero- or low-emissions technologies or make them cheaper. It should also enable the shift to a net-zero emissions future, rather than locking in structures that continue to emit. The investment choices should be made by independent bodies such as ARENA’s board, based on research and expert judgement, rather than politically determined priorities.

For the industrial sector, the case for supporting zero-emissions technologies is clear. A sizeable share of Australia’s total emissions stem from fossil fuel use in industry.

Read more: No, Prime Minister, gas doesn’t ‘work for all Australians’ and your scare tactics ignore modern energy problems

In some cases, government-supported R&D could help lay the foundation for zero-emissions industries of the future. But in others, what’s needed is a financial incentive for businesses to switch to clean energy or zero-emissions production methods, or regulation to require cleaner processes.

Green steel is a perfect example of the positive change that is possible. Steel can be made using clean hydrogen and renewable electricity, and the long term possibility of a green steel industry in Australia is tantalising.

A future for fossil fuels?

The government’s support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be highly contested, because it’s a way to continue using fossil fuels at reduced – though not zero – emissions. This is achieved by capturing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and storing it underground, a technically feasible but costly process.

CCS will not perpetuate fossil fuel use in the energy sector, because renewables combined with energy storage are now much cheaper. Rather, CCS can be an option in specific processes that do not have ready alternatives, such as the production of cement, chemicals and fertiliser.

One step further is so-called “carbon capture and use” (CCU), where carbon dioxide is not pumped underground but turned into products, such as building materials. One program announced is for pilot projects of that kind.

Read more: Yes, carbon emissions fell during COVID-19. But it’s the shift away from coal that really matters

A different proposition is the idea of hydrogen produced from coal or gas, in which some resulting emissions are captured. This method competes with “green” hydrogen produced using renewable electricity. It seems the government for now intends to support fossil fuel-derived hydrogen.

Reducing fossil fuel use, and using CCS/CCU where it makes sense, will not get the world to net-zero emissions. Emissions from other sources must be cut by as much as technically possible, at justifiable cost. Remaining emissions must then be negated by drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Such “negative emissions” can be achieved through technological means, and also by permanently increasing the amount of carbon stored in plants and soil.

The new funding includes support for increasing the amount of soil carbon. This method may hold promise in principle, but in practice its effectiveness is uncertain, and hard to measure. At the same time, the large emissions from agriculture are not yet addressed.

A piecemeal effort

The spending amounts to A$140 million per year for ARENA, plus about A$500 million all up through other programs. A dose of reality is needed about what this money can achieve. It will create better understanding of options, some technological progress across the board and surely the occasional highlight. But a much greater effort is likely needed to achieve fundamental technological breakthroughs. And crucially, new technologies must be widely deployed.

For a sense of scale, consider that the Snowy 2.0 scheme is costed at around A$5 billion, and a single 1 gigawatt gas power plant, as mooted by the government for the Hunter Valley, would cost in the order of A$1.5 billion to build.

As well as additional spending, policies will be needed to drive the uptake of low-emissions technologies. The shift to renewables is now happening in the energy sector without government help, though some hurdles remain. But we cannot expect the same across the economy.

Governments will need to help drive uptake through policy. The most efficient way is usually to ensure producers of emissions pay for the environmental damage caused. In other words, putting a price on carbon.

The funding announced today is merely one piece of a national long-term strategy to deeply cut emissions – and not a particularly big piece.

Read more: Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt

– ref. ‘A dose of reality’: Morrison government’s new $1.9 billion techno-fix for climate change is a small step – https://theconversation.com/a-dose-of-reality-morrison-governments-new-1-9-billion-techno-fix-for-climate-change-is-a-small-step-146341

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

The Morrison government today announced A$1.9 billion over ten years to develop clean technology in industry, agriculture and transport. In some ways it’s a step in the right direction, but a far cry from what’s needed to drive Australia’s shift to a low emissions economy.

The big change involves what the money is for. The new funding will enable the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to support technologies such as green steel production, industrial processes to reduce energy consumption and somewhat controversially, carbon-capture and storage and soil-carbon sequestration.

This is a big move away from ARENA’s current investment priorities. Importantly it means ARENA will continue to operate, as it is running out of money now.

However technology development alone is not enough to cut Australia’s emissions deeply and quickly – which is what’s needed to address the climate threat. Other policies and more money will be needed.

New role for ARENA

ARENA will receive the lion’s share of the money: A$1.4 billion over ten years in guaranteed baseline funding. ARENA has spent A$1.6 billion since it was established in 2012. So the new funding is lower on an annual basis. It’s also far less than what’s needed to properly meet the challenge, in a country with a large industrial sector and huge opportunities for zero carbon production.

To date, ARENA’s investments have focused on renewable energy supply. Prime Minister Scott Morrison today said the renewables industry was enjoying a “world-leading boom” and no longer needs government subsidies. Critics may be dismayed to see ARENA steered away from its original purpose. But it is true solar parks and wind farms are now commercially viable, and technologies to integrate large amounts of renewables into the grid are available.

So it makes sense to spend new research and development (R&D) funding on the next generation of low-emissions technologies. But how to choose what to spend the money on?

A few simple principles should inform those choices. The spending should help develop new zero- or low-emissions technologies or make them cheaper. It should also enable the shift to a net-zero emissions future, rather than locking in structures that continue to emit. The investment choices should be made by independent bodies such as ARENA’s board, based on research and expert judgement, rather than politically determined priorities.

For the industrial sector, the case for supporting zero-emissions technologies is clear. A sizeable share of Australia’s total emissions stem from fossil fuel use in industry.

Read more: No, Prime Minister, gas doesn’t ‘work for all Australians’ and your scare tactics ignore modern energy problems

In some cases, government-supported R&D could help lay the foundation for zero-emissions industries of the future. But in others, what’s needed is a financial incentive for businesses to switch to clean energy or zero-emissions production methods, or regulation to require cleaner processes.

Green steel is a perfect example of the positive change that is possible. Steel can be made using clean hydrogen and renewable electricity, and the long term possibility of a green steel industry in Australia is tantalising.

A future for fossil fuels?

The government’s support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be highly contested, because it’s a way to continue using fossil fuels at reduced – though not zero – emissions. This is achieved by capturing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and storing it underground, a technically feasible but costly process.

CCS will not perpetuate fossil fuel use in the energy sector, because renewables combined with energy storage are now much cheaper. Rather, CCS can be an option in specific processes that do not have ready alternatives, such as the production of cement, chemicals and fertiliser.

Read more: Yes, carbon emissions fell during COVID-19. But it’s the shift away from coal that really matters

One step further is so-called “carbon capture and use” (CCU), where carbon dioxide is not pumped underground but turned into products, such as building materials. One program announced is for pilot projects of that kind.

A different proposition is the idea of hydrogen produced from coal or gas, in which some resulting emissions are captured. This method competes with “green” hydrogen produced using renewable electricity. It seems the government for now intends to support fossil fuel-derived hydrogen.

Reducing fossil fuel use, and using CCS/CCU where it makes sense, will not get the world to net-zero emissions. Emissions from other sources must be cut by as much as technically possible, at justifiable cost. Remaining emissions must then be negated by drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Such “negative emissions” can be achieved through technological means, and also by permanently increasing the amount of carbon stored in plants and soil.

The new funding includes support for increasing the amount of soil carbon. This method may hold promise in principle, but in practice its effectiveness is uncertain, and hard to measure. At the same time, the large emissions from agriculture are not yet addressed.

A piecemeal effort

The spending amounts to A$140 million per year for ARENA, plus about A$500 million all up through other programs. A dose of reality is needed about what this money can achieve. It will create better understanding of options, some technological progress across the board and surely the occasional highlight. But a much greater effort is likely needed to achieve fundamental technological breakthroughs. And crucially new technologies must be widely deployed.

For a sense of scale, consider that the Snowy 2.0 scheme is costed at around A$5 billion, and a single 1 gigawatt gas power plant, as mooted by the government for the Hunter Valley, would cost in the order of A$1.5 billion to build.

As well as additional spending, policies will be needed to drive the uptake of low-emissions technologies. The shift to renewables is now happening in the energy sector without government help, though some hurdles remain. But we cannot expect the same across the economy.

Governments will need to help drive uptake through policy. The most efficient way is usually to ensure producers of emissions pay for the environmental damage caused. In other words, putting a price on carbon.

The funding announced today is merely one piece of a national long-term strategy to deeply cut emissions – and not a particularly big piece.

Read more: Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt

– ref. Morrison government’s new $1.9 billion techno-fix for climate change is a small step – https://theconversation.com/morrison-governments-new-1-9-billion-techno-fix-for-climate-change-is-a-small-step-146341

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Irina Vetter, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, The University of Queensland

Australia is home to some of the world’s most dangerous wildlife. Anyone who spends time outdoors in eastern Australia is wise to keep an eye out for snakes, spiders, swooping birds, crocodiles, deadly cone snails and tiny toxic jellyfish.

But what not everybody knows is that even some of the trees will get you.

Our research on the venom of Australian stinging trees, found in the country’s northeast, shows these dangerous plants can inject unwary wanderers with chemicals much like those found in the stings of scorpions, spiders and cone snails.

The stinging trees

In the forests of eastern Australia there are a handful of nettle trees so noxious that signs are commonly placed where humans trample through their habitat. These trees are called gympie-gympie in the language of the Indigenous Gubbi Gubbi people, and Dendrocnide in botanical Latin (meaning “tree stinger”).

A casual split-second touch on an arm by a leaf or stem is enough to induce pain for hours or days. In some cases the pain has been reported to last for weeks.

A gympie-gympie sting feels like fire at first, then subsides over hours to a pain reminiscent of having the affected body part caught in a slammed car door. A final stage called allodynia occurs for days after the sting, during which innocuous activities such as taking a shower or scratching the affected skin reignites the pain.

Read more: ‘The worst kind of pain you can imagine’ – what it’s like to be stung by a stinging tree

How do the trees cause pain?

Pain is an important sensation that tells us something is wrong or that something should be avoided. Pain also creates an enormous health burden with serious impacts on our quality of life and the economy, including secondary issues such as the opiate crisis.

To control pain better, we need to understand it better. One way is to study new ways to induce pain, which is what we wanted to accomplish by better defining the pain-causing mechanism of gympie-gympie trees.

How does these plants cause pain? It turns out they have quite a bit in common with venomous animals.

The plant is covered in hollow needle-like hairs called trichomes, which are strengthened with silica. Like common nettles, these hairs contain noxious substances, but they must have something extra to deliver so much pain.

Earlier research on the species Dendrocnide moroides identified a molecule called moroidin that was thought to cause pain. However, experiments to inject human subjects with moroidin failed to induce the distinct series of painful symptoms seen with a full Dendrocnide sting.

Finding the culprits

We studied the stinging hairs from the giant Australian stinging tree, Dendrocnide excelsa. Taking extracts from these hairs, we separated them out into their individual molecular constituents.

One of these isolated fractions caused significant pain responses when tested in the laboratory. We found it contains a small family of related mini-proteins significantly larger in size than moroidin.

We then analysed all the genes expressed in the gympie-gympie leaves to determine which gene could produce something with the size and fingerprint of our mystery toxin. As a result, we discovered molecules that can reproduce the pain response even when made synthetically in the lab and applied in isolation.

The genome of Dendrocnide moroides also turned out to contain similar genes encoding toxins. These Dendrocnide peptides have been christened gympietides.

Gympietides

The gympietides have an intricate three-dimensional structure that is kept stable by a network of links within the molecule that form a knotted shape. This makes it highly stable, meaning it likely stays intact for a long time once injected into the victim. Indeed, there are anecdotes reporting even 100-year-old stinging tree specimens kept in herbariums can still produce painful stings.

What was surprising was the 3D structure of these gympietides resembles the shape of well-studied toxins from spider and cone snail venom. This was a big clue as to how these toxins might be working, as similar venom peptides from scorpions, spiders, and cone snails are known to affect structures called ion channels in nerve cells, which are important mediators of pain.

Specifically, the gympietides interfere with an important pathway for conducting pain signals in the body, called voltage-gated sodium ion channels. In a cell affected by gympietides, these channels do not close normally, which means the cell has difficulty turning off the pain signal.

Read more: Explainer: what is pain and what is happening when we feel it?

Better understanding may bring new treatments

The Australian stinging trees make a neurotoxin that resembles a venom in both its molecular structure and how it is deployed by injection. Taking these two things together, it would seem two very different evolutionary processes have converged on similar solutions to win the endgame of inflicting pain.

In the process, evolution has also presented us with an invaluable tool to understand how pain is caused. The precise mechanisms by which gympietides affect ion channels and nerve cells are currently under investigation. During that investigation, we may find new avenues to bring pain under control.

– ref. Australian stinging trees inject scorpion-like venom. The pain lasts for days – https://theconversation.com/australian-stinging-trees-inject-scorpion-like-venom-the-pain-lasts-for-days-146115

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bassina Farbenblum, Associate professor, UNSW

In early April, Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent a clear message to temporary visa holders that if they were no longer financially solvent to ride out the pandemic, they were not welcome in Australia.

As much as it’s lovely to have visitors to Australia in good times, at times like this, if you are a visitor in this country, it is time […] to make your way home.

As our new research published today shows, this statement fuelled feelings of abandonment and worthlessness among temporary visa holders who have been left out of the government’s economic support schemes during the COVID-19 crisis.

In our survey of more than 6,100 temporary visa holders (including international students, backpackers and holiday workers), many used stark, dehumanising language to describe how they’ve felt since the pandemic began in Australia six months ago:

• like we do not exist

• aliens who don’t belong here

• inanimate objects

• discarded, unimportant and expendable

• garbage

• dirt.

Others recounted harrowing experiences of racist attacks — being punched, kicked, shoved and deliberately spat at or coughed on by passers-by — as well as a range of xenophobic slurs.

For many of our respondents, this has destroyed their sense of belonging in Australia and fundamentally changed their perceptions of the country and its leaders.

Read more: ‘I will never come to Australia again’: new research reveals the suffering of temporary migrants during the COVID-19 crisis

‘ATMs of the Australian government’

Our earlier research, and that of other scholars, has documented how temporary visa holders have suffered financially during the crisis.

These visa holders include international students, backpackers, graduates, sponsored workers and refugees. Many work in casualised industries, such as hospitality and retail, lost their jobs and struggled to meet basic living expenses.

There are more than one million temporary visa holders in Australia — who may comprise up to 10% of Australia’s workforce — but they have been excluded from the federal JobKeeper and JobSeeker support schemes.

Read more: 4 out of 5 international students are still in Australia – how we treat them will have consequences

In our latest survey, thousands of respondents voiced their distress and anger at the government’s lack of support during lockdown. Many felt their only value to Australia was as a revenue stream, since they worked here and paid taxes or spent considerable sums to study at universities.

A striking number used words such as “cash cows”, “money-making plants”, “ATMs of the Australian government” and “walking moneybags”.

Many felt callously used for their cheap labour. A Russian master’s student said:

We paid taxes. We did all dirty work Australians don’t want to do and what about us? […] It is nice to have invisible cheap workers that will be silently committing to work when you and your family can stay at home or work from home and get government support and don’t lose any money.

International students, in particular, have been encouraged by the government and universities to invest heavily in Australia — often spending their life savings — to set up new lives here. Many stay for at least five years — a three-year bachelor’s degree followed by a two-year temporary graduate visa.

As one French graduate visa holder put it:

some of us have been here for years and consider Australia like our home now. Quitting everything we have done and been through is just unimaginable.

Racist slurs and taunts

For some, their experiences have gone beyond social exclusion to overt racism. Almost a quarter of our respondents said they had been subjected to racist verbal abuse since the pandemic began in March. And a quarter said people avoided them because of their appearance.

More than half (52%) of Chinese respondents reported experiencing at least one of these forms of racism, as did more than 40% of those from other East Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

We also received more than 1,600 personal accounts of targeted xenophobic slurs, such as people saying “coronavirus”, “Chinese virus”, “Asian virus” or worse to them in public or at work.

One Chinese woman noted:

a stranger shouted in my face that I am the virus in the supermarket.

Another international student observed this kind of harassment

is a regular thing for Asian people in Australia.

In an echo of the prime minister’s words, many respondents from a range of nationalities reported being told to “get out of Australia”.

As one Colombian student put it,

I received many comments from Australian[s] telling me leave the country, go back your home, ask you[r] family for money, respect the Australian people.

An Indian student recalled being told

to go back to my country by random strangers on the street while working as an Uber Eats delivery man.

Abandoning people in their time of need

Clearly, the impact of the exclusion felt by these temporary visa holders will far outlast the pandemic.

The government’s failure to support these vulnerable people has the potential to profoundly impact Australia’s global reputation. The country’s education and tourism sectors will also likely suffer the economic consequences for years to come.

Of the students and working holiday makers in our survey, 60% indicated they are now less likely or much less likely to recommend Australia as a place to study or work.

This includes international students from important education markets like China and Nepal (76% and 69% less likely to recommend Australia, respectively).

Read more: We know racism and recessions go together. Australia must prepare to stop a racism spike here

Our survey reveals the financial situation of many respondents is rapidly worsening, with more than a third of international students indicating they will run out of funds by next month.

The government must use the October budget to rectify the exclusion of temporary migrants from social support measures.

If it is not compelled to act for ethical or diplomatic reasons, it should at least listen to the observations of one survey respondent. This is emblematic of the sentiments expressed by thousands more:

Australia showed its true colours when it came to international students. They call us friends but then abandon us in our time of need. I think Australia will struggle to attract international students after the disgraceful treatment and lack of compassion shown during COVID.

– ref. ‘Garbage’ and ‘cash cows’: temporary migrants describe anguish of exclusion and racism during COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/garbage-and-cash-cows-temporary-migrants-describe-anguish-of-exclusion-and-racism-during-covid-19-146098

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Savulescu, Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

Melbourne’s lockdown has been described as one of the harshest in the world. And jurisdictions outside Australia have taken other measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 once case numbers have eased.

So, in the absence of a reliable COVID-19 treatment or licensed vaccine, is lockdown still worth it?

To answer this, we not only need scientific evidence, we need ethics to decide which factors should weigh most heavily in our decision-making.

Some of these factors are not so obvious.

How should we measure the impact of COVID-19?

Clearly, when measuring the impact of COVID-19, cases and deaths are relevant. But a case is not necessarily “bad”. Although estimates vary, about 40-45% of cases are asymptomatic. And it’s not death (in itself) that matters.

Death is bad because it denies us life we could have had. But if you die one second earlier than you could have died, this is not particularly bad. What matters, ethically, is not death per se, but years of life lost.

Even this is not what ultimately matters. If you could live an extra 20 years in a coma, you would hardly call this a win. What matters is years of good (enough) life lost.

Read more: ‘Died from’ or ‘died with’ COVID-19? We need a transparent approach to counting coronavirus deaths

How much should we pay to save a life?

In an ideal world, how much it costs to save a life would be irrelevant. But we operate with limited resources.

So, the concept of “Quality Adjusted Life Years” or QALY lets us put a price on life, or at least to how much we will spend on trying to save one. This is a year of life, adjusted for its quality. A year in perfect quality of life is 1, coma is close to zero.

This idea is understandably controversial, not least because it assigns a lower value to a year spent living with a disability.

Nevertheless, how much quality of life we save is relevant. Before the pandemic, Australia’s public health spending was typically no more than A$50,000 per QALY.

At the end of March, US-based economists estimated large-scale COVID-19 measures such as lockdowns cost between US$75,000 and US$650,000 per QALY (about A$102,000 to A$888,000).

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has said the cost per QALY Australia has spent so far during the pandemic exceeds our usual standards:

Even if mandatory shutdown in Australia really was all that avoided the initially predicted 150,000 deaths, that still works out at about $2 million per life saved. And if the average age of those who would have died is 80, even with roughly 10 years of expected life left, that’s still $200,000 per quality life year or substantially beyond what governments are usually prepared to pay for life-saving drugs.

But evaluating the cost of lockdown is not so simple. We also have to weigh the potential cost of not having a lockdown.

One goal of lockdown is to protect health systems from being stretched beyond breaking point. If COVID-19 escalates out of control, we would lose many more lives, with vast suffering and grave risks to social stability. The cost in life years and financial losses would be staggering.

Read more: Open letter from 265 Australian economists: don’t sacrifice health for ‘the economy’

Initial data also appears to refute the idea public health and economic health are fundamentally at odds. A well-controlled virus may keep more money coming in, in the medium term. If lockdown is the only way to achieve control, it may be warranted economically as well as in terms of health.

But if there are other effective health measures that are less economically damaging, they would be preferable.

So how do we account for the cost per QALY of lockdown? This is an uncomfortable and difficult issue. But it needs to be addressed.

The flipside of lockdown

While lockdown may limit our exposure to COVID-19, it can be bad for our health.

In lockdown, we’re less likely to access health care for seemingly less urgent issues. Cancer detection rates are currently well below expected, potentially leading to a rise in preventable deaths.

There have also been concerns about increases in suicide, alcohol abuse, other mental health issues, and domestic violence.

We may not know the mental and social toll of lockdown for some time. But we should attempt to include these effects in our assessment. Poor mental health outcomes can shorten lives, or reduce their quality significantly. Poor social outcomes can impact for generations.

Read more: COVID lockdowns have human costs as well as benefits. It’s time to consider both

What alternatives achieve the same goal for a lower cost?

We should not merely compare lockdown to doing nothing, but weigh it against other strategies. Here we can learn from other countries and how other policies might replace lockdown once numbers are manageable.

Although South Korea’s vigorous track-and-trace program raised privacy concerns, it targeted social distancing to keep deaths to around 370 so far.

Iceland, Vietnam, Singapore and Taiwan used methods such as mass testing, contact tracing, and strictly enforced self-isolation. In Singapore, breaches were punished with up to six months’ jail.

Read more: Another day, another hotel quarantine fail. So what can Australia learn from other countries?

True, there have been some costly mistakes. Singapore, for example, allowed returning citizens to quarantine with other family members who were not themselves isolated, prompting a partial lockdown. Nevertheless, these countries appear to have been able to regain control.

Even if the number of life years saved by these alternative strategies and lockdown is the same, these alternative strategies, when implemented well, are preferable. That’s because they impose fewer costs: economically, socially, and in lost freedom.

Which value do you value?

The use of QALYs as an outcome measure faces staunch criticism. Often, there is an irresolvable conflict between maximising QALYs and giving every person an equal chance at living their longest, best quality life.

Imagine a doctor is faced with the choice of giving their last ICU bed to a person who is 30, in complete health, with two children and job, or an 85-year-old with advanced dementia, who does not recognise herself or her family.

A QALY-maximisation approach says admit the 30-year-old; if you favour equality, toss a coin. The COVID pandemic forces us to get off the fence on whether all lives are equally valuable, or equally worth saving.

Then there’s fairness or justice (or what philosophers call “desert”). Young people have had less good life than older people, and have more ahead of them. They are at little risk of dying. Yet during the pandemic, they have had to make significant sacrifices in the quality of their lives, whether that’s through job losses, lost opportunities or curtailment of movement. If we value “desert”, we value the idea young people deserve to be favoured.

This takes us to the value of liberty. Lockdown, curfew and restriction of freedom of movement, association and protest are arguably among the most severe restrictions possible. So we should be restricting people’s liberty as least as possible, using this strategy sparingly, locally, and for a specific purpose.

So, where does this take us?

To answer whether lockdown is worth the cost, we need to agree on how we should evaluate outcomes (cases, lives, life years lost, QALYs) and what other ethical principles matter (equality, liberty, desert).

The right strategy will vary. A short, sharp, early lockdown might stamp out the virus and allow life for everyone to continue as normal and preserve the economy. Longer lockdown may be necessary when the health system is threatened; this might prevent huge loss of life across all diseases. A lockdown to give time to establish other more nuanced systems to be put in place effectively also has value.

But lockdown is a sledgehammer of a solution. For most countries now, other strategies are likely to be of more value to the community.

– ref. Is lockdown worth the pain? No, it’s a sledgehammer and we have better options – https://theconversation.com/is-lockdown-worth-the-pain-no-its-a-sledgehammer-and-we-have-better-options-145555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lachlan G. Howell, PhD Candidate | School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

In the next few weeks, federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley will decide whether to approve a New South Wales quarry expansion that will destroy critical koala breeding grounds.

The case, involving the Brandy Hill Quarry at Port Stephens, is emblematic of how NSW environment laws are failing wildlife — particularly koalas. Efforts to erode koala protections hit the headlines last week when NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro threatened to detonate the Coalition over the issue.

Read more: The NSW koala wars showed one thing: the Nationals appear ill-equipped to help rural Australia

Koala populations are already under huge pressure. A NSW parliamentary inquiry in June warned the koala faces extinction in the state by 2050 if the government doesn’t better control land clearing and habitat loss.

Ley could either continue these alarming trends, or set a welcome precedent for koala protection. Her decision is also the first big test of federal environment laws since an interim review found they were failing wildlife. So let’s take a closer look at what’s at stake in this latest controversy.

The Brandy Hill Quarry expansion

The NSW government gave approval to Hanson Construction Materials, a subsidiary of Heidelberg Cement, to expand the existing Brandy Hill Quarry in Seaham in Port Stephens.

The project would provide concrete to meet Sydney’s growing construction demands, as the state fast-tracks infrastructure projects to help the economy recover from COVID-19.

The approval came despite the known presence of koalas in the area. A koala survey report, completed on behalf of the developer in 2019, determined the project would “result in a significant impact to the koala”.

The report recommended the quarry expansion be referred to the federal Environment Minister under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999, for its potential impacts on “Matters of National Environmental Significance”.

Read more: View from The Hill: Barilaro keeps Nationals in the tent; koalas stay in limbo

The expansion site intersects habitat with preferred high quality koala feed and shelter trees. This habitat is established forest containing various key mature Eucalyptus trees, including the forest red gum and swamp mahogany.

The survey report didn’t propose any mitigation strategies to sustain the habitat. Instead, it suggested minimisation measures, such as ecologists to be present during habitat clearing, low speed limits for vehicles on site, and education on koalas for workers.

A disaster for koalas

In support of a community grassroots campaign (Save Port Stephens Koalas), we produced an report on the effect of the quarry expansion on koalas. The report now sits with Ley ahead of her decision, which is due by October 13.

The expansion will clear more than 50 hectares of koala habitat. We found koalas breeding within 1 kilometre of the current quarry boundary, which indicates the expansion site is likely to destroy critical koala breeding habitat.

During the breeding season, male koalas bellow to attract females. Within 1km of the boundary we observed a female koala and a bellowing male koala 96m apart. A second male was reported bellowing 227m from the quarry boundary.

What’s more, the site expansion occurs within a NSW government listed Area of Regional Koala Significance. The expansion site actually has higher average koala habitat suitability than all remaining habitat on the quarry property.

CSIRO research from 2016 suggests koalas in Port Stephens can move hundreds of metres in a day and up to 5km in one month. Movement is highest during the breeding season. This potential for koalas to move away was a key reason the NSW government approved the expansion.

Koalas can move in to the remaining property to breed, or they can move away from it. But habitat outside the expansion site is, on average, lesser quality, and this is where the expansion would force the koalas to move to.

Read more: Stopping koala extinction is agonisingly simple. But here’s why I’m not optimistic

This habitat fragmentation would not only result in lost access to potential breeding grounds, but also further restrict movement and expose koalas to threats such as predation or road traffic.

Lastly, the expansion would sever a crucial East–West corridor koalas likely use to move across the landscape and breed.

Approved under the state’s weak environmental protections

It may seem surprising this destructive project was approved by the NSW government. But it’s a common story under the state’s protections.

Alarm over the weaknesses of NSW environmental protections has been raised by NSW government agencies including the Natural Resources Commission and NSW Audit Office.

Read more: Our laws failed these endangered flying-foxes at every turn. On Saturday, Cairns council will put another nail in the coffin

The expansion approval is an example of how the NSW government relaxed the regulatory requirements for land clearing between 2016 and 2017. This led to a 13-fold increase in land clearing approvals, and tipped the balance away from sustainable development.

The expansion shines another spotlight on NSW’s poor biodiversity offset laws.

Biodiversity offsets involve compensating for environmental damage in one location by improving the environment elsewhere. Under the expansions approval, the developer was required to protect an estimated 450 hectares of habitat as offset.

But the recent parliamentary inquiry into NSW koalas recommended offsetting of prime koala habitat — such as that involved in the quarry expansion — be prohibited, which would mean not destroying the habitat in the first place.

Read more: Let there be no doubt: blame for our failing environment laws lies squarely at the feet of government

The NSW decision also does not account for the Black Summer Bushfires which claimed 5,000 koalas and burned millions of hectares of koala habitat. The Port Stephens population was unburned but more than 75% of its habitat has been lost since colonial occupation. Securing this population is important for the overall security of koalas in the state.

The koalas are in Sussan Ley’s hands

Sussan Ley will now assess the expansion under the EPBC Act. A recent interim report into the laws said they’d allowed an “unsustainable state of decline” of Australia’s environment.

Rejections under these laws are rare; just 22 of 6,500 projects referred for approval under the act have been refused. However, it’s not impossible.

Earlier this year Ley rejected a wind-farm in Queensland which threatened unburned koala habitat. If Ley gives full consideration to the evidence in our report, she should make the same decision.

Read more: Be worried when fossil fuel lobbyists support current environmental laws

– ref. Environment Minister Sussan Ley faces a critical test: will she let a mine destroy koala breeding grounds? – https://theconversation.com/environment-minister-sussan-ley-faces-a-critical-test-will-she-let-a-mine-destroy-koala-breeding-grounds-145839

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Seadon, Senior Lecturer, Auckland University of Technology

New Zealand’s government recently put more than NZ$160 million towards developing a domestic recycling sector to create jobs as part of its economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Zealanders recycle 1.3 million tonnes of materials each year, but 70% is currently exported. A recent NZ$36.7 million funding boost to upgrade recycling plants throughout the country followed a NZ$124 million injection into recycling infrastructure to grow processing capacity onshore. The investment signals a focus on supporting services that create employment and increase efficiency or reduce waste.

The potential for expansion in onshore processing of recyclable waste is enormous – and it could lead to 3.1 million tonnes of waste being diverted from landfills. But it will only work if it is part of a strategy with clear and measurable targets.

COVID-19 impacts

During New Zealand’s level 4 lockdown between March and May, general rubbish collection was classed as an essential service and continued to operate. But recycling was sporadic.

Whether or not recycling services continued depended on storage space and the ability to separate recyclables under lockdown conditions. Facilities that relied on manual sorting could not meet those requirements and their recycling was sent to landfill. Only recycling plants with automated sorting could operate.

New Zealand’s reliance on international markets showed a lack of resilience in the waste management system. Any changes in international prices were duplicated in New Zealand and while exports could continue under tighter border controls, it was no longer economically viable to do so for certain recyclable materials.

International cardboard and paper markets collapsed and operators without sufficient storage space sent materials to landfill. Most plastics became uneconomic to recycle.

In contrast, for materials processed in New Zealand — including glass, metals and some plastics — recycling remains viable. Many local authorities are now limiting their plastic collections to those types that have expanding onshore processing capacity.

Soft packaging plastics are also being collected again, but only in some places and in smaller quantities than at the height of the soft plastics recycling scheme, to be turned into fence posts and other farm materials.

Read more: What happens to the plastic you recycle? Researchers lift the lid

The investment in onshore processing facilities is part of a move towards a circular economy. The government provided the capital for plants to recycle PET plastics, used to make most drink bottles and food trays. PET plastics can be reprocessed several times.

This means items such as meat trays previously made from polystyrene, which is not recyclable from households, could be made from fully recyclable PET. Some of the most recent funding goes towards providing automatic optical sorters to allow recycling plants to keep operating under lockdown conditions.

Regulation changes

The government also announced an expansion of the landfill levy to cover more types of landfills and for those that accept household wastea progressive increase from NZ$10 to NZ$60 per tonne of waste.

This will provide more money for the Waste Minimisation Fund, which in turn funds projects that lead to more onshore processing and jobs.

Last year’s ban on single-use plastic bags took more than a billion bags out of circulation, which represents about 180 tonnes of plastic that is not landfilled. But this is a small portion of the 3.7 million tonnes of waste that go to landfill each year.

More substantial diversion schemes include mandatory product stewardship schemes currently being implemented for tyres, electrical and electronic products, agrichemicals and their containers, refrigerants and other synthetic greenhouse gases, farm plastics and packaging.

An example of the potential gains for product stewardship schemes is e-waste. Currently New Zealand produces about 80,000 tonnes of e-waste per year, but recycles only about 2% (1,600 tonnes), most of which goes offshore for processing. Under the scheme, e-waste will be brought to collection depots and more will be processed onshore.

Landfilling New Zealand’s total annual e-waste provides about 50 jobs. Recycling it could create 200 jobs and reusing it is estimated to provide work for 6,400 people.

Read more: Waste not, want not: Morrison government’s $1b recycling plan must include avoiding waste in the first place

But all these initiatives are not enough. We need a coordinated strategy with clear targets.

The current Waste Strategy has only two goals: to reduce the harmful effects of waste and improve resource use efficiency. Such vague goals have resulted in a 37% increase in waste disposal to landfill in the last decade.

An earlier 2002 strategy achieved significantly better progress. The challenge is clear. A government strategy with measurable targets for waste diversion from landfill can lead us to better resource use and more jobs.

– ref. New Zealand invests in growing its domestic recycling industry to create jobs and dump less rubbish at landfills – https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-invests-in-growing-its-domestic-recycling-industry-to-create-jobs-and-dump-less-rubbish-at-landfills-143684

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

Many parents are worried the disruptions of COVID lockdowns and school closures may affect their children’s mental health and development.

In the Royal Children’s Hospital’s National Child Health Poll in June 2020, more than one-third of parents reported the pandemic has had negative consequences on their children’s mental health. Almost half of parents said the pandemic had also been harmful to their own mental health.

Many parents spent at least some months this year supporting their children to learn from home (and still are, in Victoria). This already substantial challenge was complicated by children not being able to go out and play with other children. In Victoria, such restrictions are still in place, although some have been relaxed and playgrounds are open.

Still, it’s fair to say that across the country, some children are not socially engaging with their peers in the same way they did before. This is not only detrimental to children’s learning but also their physical and mental health. It is understandable if parents are worried.

What social isolation means for kids

In June 2020, in the context of COVID-19, a group of researchers in the UK reviewed 80 studies to find how social isolation and loneliness could impact the mental health of previously healthy children. They found social isolation increased the risk of depression and possibly anxiety, and these effects could last several years.

Read more: How to help young children regulate their emotions and behaviours during the pandemic

The review also concluded loneliness puts children’s well-being at risk of these things long after the social isolation period is over.

The impact of social isolation may be particularly significant for children with special educational needs, when support provided at school to them is interrupted.

Other children – perhaps those living in medium and high-density housing with limited access to outdoor play space – may also be particularly vulnerable to the effects of social isolation.

Some parents with only one child have also voiced concerns about loneliness.

It is difficult to substitute what real human interaction with peers means to a child. Active engagement in creative play alone or physical activity with parents can be helpful for children who miss the company of their friends.

The power of play

What could possibly fix this situation? The answer is: help children play.

The benefits of regular play are many and they are well documented in research. Paediatricians say play improves children’s language skills, early maths knowledge, peer relations, social and physical development and learning how to get new skills.

When children can’t play for any reason, anxiety and toxic stress can harm the healthy development of social behaviours.

Read more: Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop

During the pandemic, play can be an effective tonic for stress and can encourage the development of positive behaviours.

When children play together, play effects become even more powerful. Experts say social play can help children develop skills in cooperation, communication, negotiation, conflict resolution and empathy.

In social play, children can rehearse and role play real-world situations safely. Through play, they make sense of the world and process change. Parents playing with their children help children play better with their peers.

Now is the time to stress the importance of play. A survey done by the Gonski Institute in 2019 showed four out of five Australians believe today’s children are under pressure to grow up too quickly. More than 70% think the lifelong benefits children gained from play, such as creativity and empathy, are mostly ignored today.

Research from previous pandemics shows we need well-planned and coordinated solutions to potentially long-term emotional issues. We can embrace the role of play to mitigate the losses children have experienced while living through a pandemic.

What can parents do?

Children need both guided indoor play and free play ourdoors. Playing with family members at home, or with friends at school, are good for social play.

Digital devices can provide children a way to play together with their friends when they can’t meet with them. But the benefits of play are more long-lasting through social play in person.

Parks, green spaces and quiet streets are suitable for outdoor play. Natural environments both soothe and stimulate children, while connecting them to their environment and community. So here are four things you can do to encourage play.

1. Make time for play

The most important thing you can do is to make time every day for your children to play. Take play time seriously and show your children you value it for the benefit of their well-being, health and learning.

2. Set clear guidelines to technology use at home

It is important to talk with your children about safe and responsible use of digital media and technology. This may require agreeing to put some limits to the use of screens at home, and encourage children to actively engage with friends by playing interactive games when using digital devices.

Read more: Child’s play in the time of COVID: screen games are still ‘real’ play

3. Go out whenever possible

A recent review of nearly 200 studies found “green time” — time in parks, nature reserves and woods — appeared to be associated with favourable psychological outcomes, while high levels of screen time appeared to be associated with unfavourable psychological outcomes.

Parks and playgrounds are open now in Victoria, while in other states they have been for some time.

So find fun outdoor exploratory activities for your children, and where possible bring other kids along.

4. Be a role model of all of the above

Children often mimic their parents. The best way to ensure children grow up healthy and happy is to be a role model to them. More play, and enough quality time outdoors with children is good for your own health and happiness, too.

For more see the Raising Children Network and the Gonski Institute.

– ref. Are the kids alright? Social isolation can take a toll, but play can help – https://theconversation.com/are-the-kids-alright-social-isolation-can-take-a-toll-but-play-can-help-146023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Stone, Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Transitions and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Swinburne Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology

New research released today asked Australians how well current housing met their needs and their ideals, both in the short and longer-term.

We found safety and security was the main aspiration of householders across age groups. Given the turbulent year for many households, we wished to explore how the pandemic might change what people want from their homes.

What do people want from a home?

We surveyed more than 7,400 Australians in young, mid-life and older households, including Indigenous, non-Indigenous and widely diverse Australians, online or in interviews.

We asked what they want from housing, and the constraints that mean they haven’t been able to get there.

We found “safety and security” were fundamental to the housing aspirations of young, mid- and later life Australians. Some 75% of respondents indicated these basic characteristics were the key housing attributes they value. For a majority of Australians, these attributes were associated with home ownership.

The figure below shows four in five Australians are satisfied with their current housing in the short term, but when they consider their longer term needs these levels of satisfaction drop considerably. This is particularly so among renters, linked to a lack of security in the tenure.

The survey asked participants to choose their ideal housing in terms of location, tenure, dwelling type and number of bedrooms. The results showed there was a preference for owning a house with three or more bedrooms within the suburbs of capital cities, with a notable number also showing a preference for regional living.

But not all households believe they can attain this ideal with rising inequality also fuelling the housing aspirations gap. When we asked households what they need to achieve their ideal housing, results show targeted support is critical — such as assistance with up-front deposits, fees or bonds, and support to manage ongoing housing costs in the context of disruptions such as COVID.

What about post-COVID?

If anything, the pandemic has reinforced trends in housing aspirations.

First, housing security matters. The disruptions of 2020 have highlighted housing insecurity, particularly among those with precarious incomes. Government interventions including JobKeeper, JobSeeker, evictions moratoria and schemes such as the Victorian Rental Relief Grant have been necessary to keep renters in their homes, with banks having deferred mortgage payments for tens of thousands of additional households.

Read more: 400,000 women over 45 are at risk of homelessness in Australia

Second, walkable neighbourhoods are the way of the future. COVID-19 reaffirms the importance of local neighbourhoods as amenity centres. This includes local areas that include green space, local produce and a sense of community. Our findings show suburban living and regional towns are attractive options for households across all ages, including younger adults.

Third, adaptable living is key. Home has never been as important as a hub of both productivity and care. Working from home and online education have become the norm for many households in Australia and globally. This requires adequate space, quality digital connectivity and adaptable living areas that can accommodate the whole family and different activities.

Young adults have needed to relocate quickly in some cases, with households at mid-life finding themselves potentially housing both young adult children (and maybe grandchildren) as well as elderly parents. As fears rise about the safety of existing aged care residences, housing that supports home-based elder care also becomes critical.

Creating a better housing future

Our research shows safety and security is key to what people want from housing, so reducing entry costs to home ownership and delivering rent-buy models (that enable people to transition from renting to buying) are important policy directions.

Improving housing knowledge and housing market skills to enable households to explore options, make more informed housing decisions and plan for their housing futures are also key elements. Creating optimal housing requires collaborating with residents as experts, on what they value.

Read more: ‘Uprooting, no matter how small a plant you are, is a trauma’: older women renters are struggling

– ref. How might COVID-19 change what Australians want from their homes? – https://theconversation.com/how-might-covid-19-change-what-australians-want-from-their-homes-145626

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Robertson, Professor, University of Western Australia

Businesses are protesting vociferously about Victoria’s extended lockdown. It’s “gut-wrenching,” “devastating,” a “trainwreck,” a “death knell”.

Yet businesses and shareholders are far from representative of those most at risk.

The best evidence we’ve got suggests the hardest hit are Victoria’s already disadvantaged.

Those arguing for extended lockdowns make the point that they are not as costly as they might seem (to anyone) because their effects need to be compared not with business as usual, but with business in which a pandemic encourages people to stay at home and reduce spending.

Australia’s recession began during the March quarter, almost all of which was before the lockdowns began on March 24.

Victoria’s job losses accelerated well ahead of the renewed Stage 3 and then Stage 4 lockdowns which began on July 8 and August 2.

In the United States it has been found that lockdowns only had a modest effect on job losses compared to what came before; one estimate is 10%.

Lockdowns hurt some more than others

But these are overall measurements. Lockdowns hurt some much more than others.

A study of 29 European Union nations found that people with high levels of education were twice as likely as people with low education to be able to work through lockdowns.

A British study found employees in the bottom 10% of earnings were seven times as likely as those in the top 10% to work in a sector that had been shut down.

An Australian study found low income workers were three times as likely as high earners to face a high risk of losing their jobs.

Mobility data shows it

This isn’t obvious from mobility data, which seems to show the opposite.

Google statistics on the movement of people with Android phones show that residents of Melbourne’s most disadvantaged suburbs have restricted their travel the least.

The most likely reason that economically and socially disadvantaged Melbourne residents are still moving is that they are in jobs that don’t allow them to work from home.

A World Bank study finds the same thing on a larger scale. The extensive voluntary reductions in activity that proceeded lockdowns were present in only rich nations, not in developing ones.

This means, in the words of a Harvard University study, that in countries where many people live at or close to subsistence, it isn’t possible to save people from the pandemic without condemning them to deprivation.

The story is as old as the plague itself.

Read more: Why coronavirus will deepen the inequality of our suburbs

During the Black Death of 1348 to 1349, King Edward fled London with his relics and staff for the safety of his country estates. The poor had nowhere to flee. Even though the odds of surviving the year in London were less than 50%, the odds of surviving without work weren’t much different.

During Great Plague of London in 1655, so many people of means deserted the city that it was dubbed “the poore’s plague”.

Throughout history and across countries, disadvantaged groups necessarily have fewer choices and hence carry a greater share of the burden of quarantine-type measures.

We should expect business to represent the interests of its shareholders – and business claims should be viewed through that lens, but there are other victims of lockdowns, less able to provide ready quotes.

However well intentioned the lockdowns are, the already-disadvantaged are likely to be hurting the most.

– ref. Who suffers most from Melbourne’s extended lockdown? Hint: they are not necessarily particularly vocal  – https://theconversation.com/who-suffers-most-from-melbournes-extended-lockdown-hint-they-are-not-necessarily-particularly-vocal-145938

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Hayes, Academic, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden has been described as “the most significant children’s book of the 20th century.”

First published in 1911, after being serialised in The American Magazine, it was dismissed by one critic at the time as simple and lacking “plenty of excitement”. The novel is, in fact, a sensitive and complex story, which explores how a relationship with nature can foster our emotional and physical well-being. It also reveals anxieties about national identity at a time of the British Empire, drawing on ideas of Christian Science.

The Secret Garden has been read by generations, remains a fixture on children’s publishing lists today and has inspired several film versions. A new film, starring Colin Firth, Dixie Egerickx and Amir Wilson, updates the story in some ways for modern audiences.

The book opens as nine-year-old Mary Lennox is discovered abandoned in an Indian bungalow following her parents’ deaths during a cholera outbreak. Burnett depicts India as a site of permissive behaviour, illness and lassitude:

[Mary’s] hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another.

Mary is “disagreeable”, “contrary”, “selfish” and “cross”. She makes futile attempts at gardening, planting hibiscus blossoms into mounds of earth. The Ayah tasked with caring for Mary and the other “native servants … always obeyed Mary and gave her her own way in everything.”

On the death of her parents, Mary is sent to live with her reclusive uncle Archibald Craven at Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire.

Mary’s arrival in England proves a shock. The “blunt frankness” of the Yorkshire servants – in contrast to those in India – checks her behaviour. Martha Sowerby, an outspoken young housemaid, presents Mary with a skipping rope: Yorkshire good sense triumphing over Mary’s imperial malaise.

Also in the manor is Colin, her 10-year-old cousin. Hidden from Mary, she discovers him after hearing his cries at night.

Colin is unable to walk and believes he will not live to reach adulthood. Sequestered in his bedroom, Colin terrorises his servants with his tantrums: he performs “hysterics” in the model of Gothic femininity.

Read more: The Yellow Wallpaper: a 19th-century short story of nervous exhaustion and the perils of women’s ‘rest cures’

Transformation

Perhaps the most famous image associated with Burnett’s text is the locked door leading to the eponymous garden.

This walled garden had formerly belonged to Colin’s mother, Lilias Craven. When she died after an accident in the garden, her husband, Archibald, locked the door and buried the key.

After Mary unearths the key, she begins to work in this mysterious, overgrown garden along with Martha’s brother, Dickon. Eventually, she manages to draw Colin out of his room with the help of Dickon, and the garden helps him to recover his strength.

Burnett draws upon the cultural connection between childhood and nature, highlighting Edwardian beliefs about the importance of the garden. Like other Edwardian texts, such as Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908) and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), The Secret Garden also explores an English turn-of-the-century interest in paganism and the occult, expressed through the book’s fascination with the Greek god Pan.

Dickon, who shares an affinity with animals and the natural world, is first introduced as he sits under a tree “playing on a rough wooden pipe” reminiscent of Pan’s flute.

Mary and Colin are both physically and psychically transformed through working in the garden. The stifling rooms and constricting passages of Misselthwaite Manor are contrasted to the freedom of the secret garden.

At first it seemed that green things would never cease pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in the crevices of the walls. Then the green things began to show buds and the buds began to unfurl and show colour, every shade of blue, every shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson.

Read more: B&Bs for birds and bees: transform your garden or balcony into a wildlife haven

The children are healed by gardening in the “fresh wind from the moor”. Both gain weight and strength and lose their pallor. Colin’s gardening suggests mastery of the space as he plants a rose – the floral emblem of England.

Mary is subordinated as Colin’s healing becomes the text’s main focus; Colin gains the ability to walk and – importantly – to win a race against her.

‘Just mere thoughts’

The Secret Garden emphasises the power of positive thinking: “thoughts – just mere thoughts – are as powerful as electric batteries – as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison”.

This focus on the power of positive thoughts highlights Burnett’s interest in New Thought and Christian Science. New Thought teaches that people can enhance their lives by altering their thought patterns. It was developed by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby in the 19th century, and one of Quimby’s students was Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. While Burnett did not join either religion, she acknowledged that they influenced her work. Both religions often reject mainstream medicine.

Read more: Why you should know about the New Thought movement

Belief in the healing power of thoughts is reflected as Colin chants about the “magic” of the garden.

The sun is shining – the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growing – the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic – being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me… It’s in every one of us.

The Secret Garden today

Written in a time of British imperial expansion, The Secret Garden’s anxieties around national identity are evident. It draws implicit (and explicit) distinctions between the sickliness and languor of India, and the health and vitality associated with life on the Yorkshire moors.

Yet The Secret Garden still resonates with contemporary audiences. This new adaptation elaborates upon the “magic” associated with the healing power of thoughts, introducing a fantastic element to the story as Mary, Colin and Dickon enter a secret garden filled with otherworldly plants.

Director Marc Munden’s new adaptation also appears to revisit the colonialist emphasis of Burnett’s text. The adaptation shifts the time period during which the film is set to 1947, the year of the Partition of India.

This temporal change suggests an alteration to the original text’s ideas about national identity. While Burnett’s 1911 text considered Britain’s relationship with India at the height of British imperialism, Munden’s adaptation situates the narrative in the period of India gaining independence from Britain.

This new film suggests a desire to ensure The Secret Garden’s continued relevance to today’s audiences, who may be attuned to the book’s colonialist ideologies.

The Secret Garden opens in select cinemas today.

– ref. Guide to the Classics: The Secret Garden and the healing power of nature – https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-secret-garden-and-the-healing-power-of-nature-132269

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

The government has unveiled a $1.9 billion package of investments in new and emerging technologies, and reinforced its message that it is time to move on from assisting now commercially-viable renewables.

The package will be controversial, given its planned broadening of the remit of the government’s clean energy investment vehicles, currently focused on renewables, and the attention given to carbon capture and storage, which has many critics.

The latest announcement follows the “gas-fired recovery” energy plan earlier this week, which included the threat the government would build its own gas-fired power station if the electricity sector failed to fill the gap left by the scheduled closure of the coal-fired Liddell power plant in 2023.

Read more: Morrison government threatens to use Snowy Hydro to build gas generator, as it outlines ‘gas-fired recovery’ plan

Unveiling the latest policy, Scott Morrison said solar panels and wind farms were commercially viable “and have graduated from the need for government subsidies”.

The government was now looking to unlock new technologies “to help drive down costs, create jobs, improve reliability and reduce emissions. This will support our traditional industries – manufacturing, agriculture, transport – while positioning our economy for the future.”

An extra $1.62 billion will be provided for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to invest.

The government will expand the focus of ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to back new technologies that would reduce emissions in agriculture, manufacturing, industry and transport.

At present ARENA can only support renewable energy and the CEFC can only invest in clean energy technologies (although it can support some types of gas projects).

The changes to ARENA and the CEFC will need legislation.

The government says it will cut the time taken to develop new Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) methods from two years or more to under a year, involving industry in a co-design process.

This follows a review of the fund, which is a centrepiece of the Coalition’s emissions reduction policy. The cost of the changes is put at $24.6 million. The fund has had trouble attracting proposals from some sectors because of its complex administrative requirements.

Other measures in the policy include a new $95.4 million Technology Co-Investment Fund to support businesses in the agriculture, manufacturing, industrial and transport sectors to take up technologies to boost productivity and reduce emissions.

A $50 million Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund will pilot carbon capture projects. This technology buries carbon but has run into many problems over the years and its opponents point to it being expensive, risky and encouraging rather than discouraging the use of fossil fuels.

Businesses and regional communities will be encouraged to use hydrogen, electric, and bio-fuelled vehicles, supported by a new $74.5 million Future Fuels Fund.

A hydrogen export hub will be set up, with $70.2 million. Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has been a strong advocate for the potential of hydrogen, saying Australia has competitive advantages as a future hydrogen exporter.

Some $67 million will back new microgrids in regional and remote communities to deliver affordable and reliable power.

There will be $52.2 million to increase the energy productivity of homes and businesses. This will include grants for hotels’ upgrades.

The government says $1.8 billion of the package is new money.

Here are the details of the package:

– ref. Government targets emerging technologies with $1.9 billion, saying renewables can stand on own feet – https://theconversation.com/government-targets-emerging-technologies-with-1-9-billion-saying-renewables-can-stand-on-own-feet-146327

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

The Coalition is having yet another go at crafting an energy policy. Faced with the huge economic challenges presented by COVID, the government this week announced its “gas-fired recovery”.

But the policy is already under fire from both environmentalists and coal advocates, and the energy sector warns it could discourage investors.

Part of the announcement was a threat – the government will build a gas generator in the Hunter Valley if the private sector fails to fill the gap in power supply that will be created by the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power plant.

This dramatic form of intervention would seem very much against the Liberal grain.

But Energy Minister Angus Taylor says: “Our focus is on good competitive markets. That’s a Liberal Party philosophy.

“Our belief is in the importance of affordable, reliable energy – we want the private sector to deliver it. That’s their obligation to their customers, we believe. But if they don’t, we will step in.”

Despite the focus on gas, Taylor said renewables would play their role in the future. “I’ve always been enormously enthusiastic about renewables, but I also see that what we need is a mix.

“And when people talk about a single technology as the answer to all our problems, I am sceptical.

“I’m not sceptical of balance and having a range of different technologies…a balance that includes hydro, solar and wind, gas, coal, batteries starting to play a role, particularly over the very short term, to help support, secure, the market.”

Additional audio

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Angus Taylor on the ‘gas-fired’ recovery – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-angus-taylor-on-the-gas-fired-recovery-146328

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

The federal government, under pressure to expand and accelerate the return of stranded Australians, has pre-empted national cabinet by announcing the “cap” on these arrivals will be expanded from about 4,000 up to 6,000 a week.

After the announcement Western Australia immediately hit out, saying the national cabinet process was being flouted.

More than 25,000 people are presently registered as having expressed a wish to return, and there have been numerous hardship cases in the media and in representations to MPs offices.

The government says the new weekly caps will be: NSW 2,950 (present cap is 2,450), Queensland 1,000 (500), South Australia 600 (500), and Western 1,025 (525). Victoria, struggling out of its second wave, will not have any arrivals.

This adds up to only 5,575 but the government hopes the other jurisdictions will take some people, although there are not commercial airline services into the ACT, the Northern Territory or Tasmania.

The government wants the higher numbers operating by late this month.

The caps were imposed at the request of states, which were concerned at pressure on their quarantine facilities, in particular when Victoria, where there was a quarantine breakdown triggering the second wave crisis, stopped taking any returnees.

People wanting to come home are not just facing the problem of the cap but the difficulty of securing flights, and at reasonable prices.

Unveiling the higher cap Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, who has responsibility for aviation, said he had written to premiers and territory leaders to tell them the caps for international flights based on quarantine levels.

“Not every Australian will be able to come home by Christmas, I accept that. But we want to get as many of those who need to come home, want to come home, paid for a ticket to come home, to be able to do so”, McCormack said.

The federal government says it has constitutional power over quarantine, and so does not need the states’ approval. But it will take the new quotas to Friday’s national cabinet.

Under the existing deal the states make the quarantine arrangements and carry the cost – although they are now charging returnees.

The opposition has called for the government to use RAAF planes to return some people. But the government says there are thousands of unused commercial seats, and the VIP fleet has only very small capacity. It also rejects calls for the use of federal facilities for some of the returnees, saying they are not available or suitable.

Attorney-General Christian Porter, asked on Perth radio whether WA had agreed, said he did not know but “we very much hope they will”.

WA premier Mark McGowan said he had not known about the announcement beforehand and described it as “very directly outside the spirit of the national cabinet”.

“I don’t really like the fact that this has been sprung via a press conference without a discussion with the people actually required to implement it,” McGowan said.

He warned of the risks of putting pressure on hotel quarantine and said using Commonwealth facilities should be looked at.

The federal government says it would consider ADF assistance with more quarantine, noting ADF personnel have been helping WA with hotel quarantine for weeks.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook said it was extraordinary the matter was being dealt with through a letter from McCormack and said Scott Morrison should call “his dogs off” and work with the premiers.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said that after a request from the prime minister “I consulted my relevant ministers and the police commissioner, who is in charge of quarantine, and everybody said they could take on that extra load”. Her agreement was on the basis other states agreed.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk also indicated her government was willing to take more people.

– ref. Federal government pre-empts national cabinet to raise the cap for returning Australians – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-pre-empts-national-cabinet-to-raise-the-cap-for-returning-australians-146312

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

The federal government has announced a plan to increase the sharing of citizen data across the public sector.

This would include data sitting with agencies such as Centrelink, the Australian Tax Office, the Department of Home Affairs, the Bureau of Statistics and potentially other external “accredited” parties such as universities and businesses.

The draft Data Availability and Transparency Bill released today will not fix ongoing problems in public administration. It won’t solve many problems in public health. It is a worrying shift to a post-privacy society.

It’s a matter of arrogance, rather than effectiveness. It highlights deficiencies in Australian law that need fixing.

Read more: Australians accept government surveillance, for now

Making sense of the plan

Australian governments on all levels have built huge silos of information about us all. We supply the data for these silos each time we deal with government.

It’s difficult to exercise your rights and responsibilities without providing data. If you’re a voter, a director, a doctor, a gun owner, on welfare, pay tax, have a driver’s licence or Medicare card – our governments have data about you.

Much of this is supplied on a legally mandatory basis. It allows the federal, state, territory and local governments to provide pensions, elections, parks, courts and hospitals, and to collect rates, fees and taxes.

The proposed Data Availability and Transparency Bill will authorise large-scale sharing of data about citizens and non-citizens across the public sector, between both public and private bodies. Previously called the “Data Sharing and Release” legislation, the word “transparency” has now replaced “release” to allay public fears.

The legislation would allow sharing between Commonwealth government agencies that are currently constrained by a range of acts overseen (weakly) by the under-resourced Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

The acts often only apply to specific agencies or data. Overall we have a threadbare patchwork of law that is supposed to respect our privacy but often isn’t effective. It hasn’t kept pace with law in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

The plan also envisages sharing data with trusted third parties. They might be universities or other research institutions. In future, the sharing could extend to include state or territory agencies and the private sector, too.

Any public or private bodies that receive data can then share it forward. Irrespective of whether one has anything to hide, this plan is worrying.

Why will there be sharing?

Sharing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it should be done accountably and appropriately.

Consultations over the past two years have highlighted the value of inter-agency sharing for law enforcement and for research into health and welfare. Universities have identified a range of uses regarding urban planning, environment protection, crime, education, employment, investment, disease control and medical treatment.

Many researchers will be delighted by the prospect of accessing data more cheaply than doing onerous small-scale surveys. IT people have also been enthusiastic about money that could be made helping the databases of different agencies talk to each other.

However, the reality is more complicated, as researchers and civil society advocates have pointed out.

Why should you be worried?

The plan for comprehensive data sharing is founded on the premise of accreditation of data recipients (entities deemed trustworthy) and oversight by the Office of the National Data Commissioner, under the proposed act.

The draft bill announced today is open for a short period of public comment before it goes to parliament. It features a consultation paper alongside a disquieting consultants’ report about the bill. In this report, the consultants refer to concerns and “high inherent risk”, but unsurprisingly appear to assume things will work out.

Federal Minister for Government Services Stuart Roberts, who presided over the tragedy known as the RoboDebt scheme, is optimistic about the Bill. He dismissed critics’ concerns by stating consent is implied when someone uses a government service. This seems disingenuous, given people typically don’t have a choice.

However, the bill does exclude some data sharing. If you’re a criminologist researching law enforcement, for example, you won’t have an open sesame. Experience with the national Privacy Act and other Commonwealth and state legislation tells us such exclusions weaken over time

Outside the narrow exclusions centred on law enforcement and national security, the bill’s default position is to share widely and often. That’s because the accreditation requirements for agencies aren’t onerous and the bases for sharing are very broad.

This proposal exacerbates ongoing questions about day-to-day privacy protection. Who’s responsible, with what framework and what resources?

Responsibility is crucial, as national and state agencies recurrently experience data breaches. Although as RoboDebt revealed, they often stick to denial. Universities are also often wide open to data breaches.

Proponents of the plan argue privacy can be protected through robust de-identification, in other words removing the ability to identify specific individuals. However, research has recurrently shown “de-identification” is no silver bullet.

Most bodies don’t recognise the scope for re-identification of de-identified personal information and lots of sharing will emphasise data matching.

Be careful what you ask for

Sharing may result in social goods such as better cities, smarter government and healthier people by providing access to data (rather than just money) for service providers and researchers.

That said, our history of aspirational statements about privacy protection without meaningful enforcement by watchdogs should provoke some hard questions. It wasn’t long ago the government failed to prevent hackers from accessing sensitive data on more than 200,000 Australians.

It’s true this bill would ostensibly provide transparency, but it won’t provide genuine accountability. It shouldn’t be taken at face value.

Read more: Seven ways the government can make Australians safer – without compromising online privacy

– ref. Towards a post-privacy world: new draft legislation would spur open data sharing between agencies – https://theconversation.com/towards-a-post-privacy-world-new-draft-legislation-would-spur-open-data-sharing-between-agencies-146292

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evita March, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Federation University Australia

There is an urgent need to understand why people troll.

Recent Australian estimates show about one in three internet users have experienced online harassment.

Across several research studies, I have attempted to construct the psychological profile of those who trolls to harm others.

In my most recent study, I wanted to see if trolling could be linked to self-esteem. Do people troll because they have low self-worth?

What is trolling?

In scientific literature, internet trolling is defined as a malicious online behaviour, characterised by aggressive and deliberate provocation of others. “Trolls” seek to provoke, upset and harm others via inflammatory messages and posts.

Read more: Online trolling used to be funny, but now the term refers to something far more sinister

Trolling can refer to a variety of online behaviour. In some circumstances, the intent of the trolling behaviour may even be to amuse and entertain. However, in my research, I have explored trolling as a malevolent behaviour, where the troll wants to hurt their online victim.

Why is trolling a problem?

Trolling can cause significant harm and distress. It is associated with serious physical and psychological effects, including disrupted sleep, lowered self-esteem, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and in some cases, even suicide.

In 2019, The Australia Institute estimated trolling and online abuse had cost the Australian economy up to $3.7 billion in health costs and lost income.

Alarmingly, it is extremely common to experience trolling. Combined with the psychological and economic costs of trolling, this demonstrates the urgency of understanding why people troll.

If we can understand why people troll, this can inform management and prevention.

Researching trolls

In my latest study, I explored gender, psychopathy, sadism and self-esteem as predictors of engaging in malevolent trolling.

Psychopathy is characterised by callousness, deceitfulness and a lack of personal responsibility. Sadism is characterised by enjoyment of physically and/or psychologically harming other people.

The study recruited 400 participants via social media advertisements. Almost 68% of participants were women, 43% were Australian, while the average age was 25. They completed an anonymous, confidential online questionnaire, which assessed personality and self-esteem.

Read more: Women troll on dating apps just as often as men

The study also measured the extent to which participants displayed troll-like behaviours. For example:

I enjoy upsetting people I do not personally know on the internet

although some people think my posts are offensive, I think they are funny.

What the study found

Results showed that gender, psychopathy, and sadism were all significant independent predictors of malevolent trolling. That is, if you are male, have high psychopathy, or high sadism, you are more likely to troll.

The most powerful predictor of trolling was sadism. The more someone enjoys hurting others, the more likely it is they will troll.

Self-esteem was not an independent predictor of trolling.

However, we found self-esteem interacts with sadism. So, if a person had high levels of sadism and high self-esteem, they were more likely to troll. This result was unexpected because low self-esteem has predicted other antisocial online behaviour, such as cyberbullying.

What does this mean?

These results have important implications for how we manage and respond to trolling.

First, based on the results of psychopathy and sadism, we understand the internet troll as someone who is callous, lacks a sense of personal responsibility and enjoys causing others harm.

The significance of psychopathy in the results also indicates trolls have an empathy deficit, particularly when it comes to their ability to experience and internalise other people’s emotions.

On top of this, the interaction between high sadism and high self-esteem suggests trolls are not trolling because they have low self-worth. In fact, this is quite the opposite. The more someone enjoys hurting others and the better they feel about themselves, the more likely they are to troll.

So, how can we use this information?

Unfortunately, the psychological profile of an internet troll means you will not get far appealing to their sense of humanity. And don’t just brush off the troll as someone who has low self-worth. Their character is far more complex, which makes managing the behaviour all the more challenging.

Previous research has found showing the troll they have upset you may only reinforce their behaviour.

It appears the popular refrain is correct: don’t feed the trolls and give them the hurt or angry response they are looking for.

This does not mean we should just ignore this behaviour. People who commit this type of cyber abuse should still be held accountable for their actions.

I propose we change the narrative. Trolls are not to be feared — their power lies in the reactions they cause.

Read more: ‘Don’t feed the trolls’ really is good advice – here’s the evidence

One way we can start is to become active bystanders. Bystanders are those who witness the trolling. Active bystanders intervene and say “this is not okay”.

Don’t fight fire with fire. Respond with outward indifference and strict no tolerance. Let’s work together to dismantle the power of the troll and take back the internet from their influence.

It is not only up to the person experiencing the trolling to respond and manage the behaviour. We all need to take responsibility for our online environment.

– ref. New research shows trolls don’t just enjoy hurting others, they also feel good about themselves – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-trolls-dont-just-enjoy-hurting-others-they-also-feel-good-about-themselves-145931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgia Atkin-Smith, Research scientist, La Trobe University

I know veins are made out of cells but what are cells made out of? It’s very tricky to answer that — Bea, 4 years old

That is a great question, Bea!

The human body is just like a big puzzle, but with billions of tiny pieces called cells. Our cells come in many different shapes and sizes. Together, they make up all of the parts of our body, from our veins to our brain.

Our cells are really, really small. For example, look at how thin a single strand of your hair is. Although it’s so thin, nearly 20 cells could fit across it. That’s how small they are.

Scientists have discovered cells are made from different building blocks we call molecules, such as water, plus other types like proteins, fats and DNA.

Just like our body, which has different parts that all work together, our cells also have different parts too. Let’s take a closer look.

Cells have skin

The outside skin of a cell is called the plasma membrane. It is made mainly of molecules called fats. This skin forms a bubble around the outside of the whole cell and holds it together.

Plants also have cells. But plant cells have an extra layer of skin called the cell wall which is strong and tough, not soft like a bubble, which explains why plants like trees can grow so tall.

Cells have skeletons

Like the bones inside our body, cells also have a kind of skeleton called the cytoskeleton (which means “cell skeleton”). It is made from molecules called proteins. The cell’s skeleton makes it strong, and also helps our cells move around the body.

Cells have brains (sort of)

One of the most important molecules in a cell is its DNA, made from a type of building block called nucleotides. DNA is like an instruction book for everything our cells have to do (including making more cells, moving, and fighting germs). As the nucleus stores most of our DNA, it’s just like the brain of the cell.

You might have heard of genes (not the ones you wear, but the ones inside you). They are just like a recipe your cells use to make you! They decide how tall you will grow, what colour your eyes or hair are, and more.

Our genes are made of DNA and we get this DNA from our mum and dad. For example, if a dad has brown eyes, he can pass on the recipe in his DNA to his child which tells their cells how to make brown eyes. This explains why we can look similar to our parents.

Cells have stomachs

When you’re hungry, you eat! Your stomach then breaks down your food, in a process called digestion. Just like this, your cells also have their own mini stomachs which are important to digest the food and waste from the cell and keep them happy.

Cells make energy

If you turn on a light switch, the room quickly lights up. This is because of electricity which is a type of energy, made in big powerhouses. We use electricity for so many things like lights but also TVs, phones, heating and cooling.

Nearly everything that happens inside a cell needs energy too. Therefore, cells have special sections in them called mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of the cell and make all the energy the cell needs to work.

Cells can talk to each other!

If our cells are so tiny and our body is so big, how can all of our cells work together? The answer is they can talk … well, kind of.

Instead of picking up the phone to talk to each other, our cells have to send messages. These messages are made of molecules that help cells communicate.

Here is a cool example. If you get stung by a bee (ouch!) your skin will start to go red and puffy. This may look scary but actually, it is your body helping you. The cells in this area are quickly sending out messages for help. Cells in other areas get these messages and then go in for the rescue.

As scientists, we know a lot about cells. But we still don’t know everything. That’s why we need young kids to stay curious and ask questions, like Bea!

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: what are cells made out of? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-are-cells-made-out-of-142728

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Rich, Senior lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University

US President Donald Trump heralded nothing short of “the dawn of a new Middle East” as the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements normalising ties with Israel during a ceremony at the White House this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that sentiment, saying “this day is a pivot of history”.

The diplomatic detente is significant — the UAE and Bahrain will join Egypt and Jordan as the only Arab countries to officially recognise the Jewish state. This will strengthen economic and security ties that have existed tacitly for years and establish diplomatic missions in the respective capitals.

But despite Trump’s grandiose statements, these agreements are little more than a footnote in the wider chaos of contemporary Middle Eastern affairs.

Less important than you’d think

The broader Arab-Israeli conflict has been dormant for decades, as the main players have been preoccupied by the threats of internal dissent and civil strife, rather than one another.

Beyond this, the UAE and Bahrain were never central to Arab hostilities with Israel. Historically, they acted as cheerleaders and financiers for the front-line states during the Cold War, such as Syria and Egypt.

The two Persian Gulf monarchies are not great powers, either. The UAE certainly swings above its weight, but its small size means it will never be a major factor in regional events.

Read more: Why increasing Arab-Israeli closeness matters

In geopolitical terms, Bahrain is far less notable — it’s effectively a vassal of Saudi Arabia.

Regardless of the immediate changes brought by these diplomatic moves, the bigger question is how Saudi Arabia will respond in the coming months.

It is rare in foreign relations to see “beta testing” of bold ideas, but the UAE and Bahrain have provided just such a test case for Riyadh in its own fraught push to normalise relations with the Jewish state.

The enemy of my enemy

Since the ascendance of the aggressively reformist Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in 2015, Saudi Arabia has made moves behind the scenes to strengthen ties with Jerusalem.

From the outset, the prince showed little interest in hostile relations with Israel, instead perceiving a natural partner in containing Iran, a rival to both states.

This led to an informal arrangement between the Saudis and Israelis, along with the United States and a number of smaller Gulf states, aimed at confronting the Iranian challenge together.

An outright solidification of an alliance between the Saudis and Israelis would allow for greater cooperation and coordination in regional security, diplomacy and trade — and build a more unified and effective front against the threat posed by Iran’s growing influence in the region.

Jumping the gun on diplomacy

But previous attempts by Israel and Saudi Arabia to warm relations have proved challenging, to say the least.

In 2018, bin Salman made the unprecedented move of declaring Israel’s right to exist, extending a clear olive branch meant to open the door to further opportunities to strengthen ties between the two countries.

Read more: Saudi Arabia’s ‘liberal’ Crown Prince is a year into his tenure – how is he doing?

However, the prince may have jumped the gun with the statement, which was met with ambivalence by the Saudi public and other Arab states.

Many felt the move too sudden and incongruous with the kindgom’s longstanding position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Saudis have long demanded the creation of a state for the Palestinians before any sort of formal sovereign recognition could be offered to Israel.

Ultimately, this led to an embarrassing intervention by the prince’s father, King Salman, who publicly walked back his son’s statements, in part due to fears of eroding the monarchy’s domestic legitimacy.

Following his chastisement, the prince went silent on the issue for over a year. He also took a less prominent position in the public eye, a significant departure from his normal flamboyant style.

New year, new opportunities

This year, things have changed. With King Salman ailing, the prince consolidating his position within the country further and the ever-present threat of Iran across the gulf, there are new opportunities for Saudi Arabia to potentially re-engage with Israel.

New challenges have also presented themselves. The ravages of COVID-19 and a vulnerable oil market have left the kingdom in a far more precarious position than just two years ago. In such an environment, the risk of losing legitimacy from such a deal could prove far more catastrophic to the authoritarian regime.

Read more: Saudi and Iran: how our two countries could make peace and bring stability to the Middle East

Bin Salman may be up to the task, though. The prince has demonstrated a growing aptitude to navigate complex political situations.

Over the past year, for instance, he has curtailed his characteristic brashness, avoiding the blunders seen early on in his reign that damaged Saudi prestige on the international stage and drew ire from his father.

Since his 2018 Israeli misfire, the prince has displayed a more reserved and circumspect demeanour in his public activities and foreign engagements — sending a message he intends to serve out a long and productive term.

Canaries in the diplomatic coal mine

Having learned from past mistakes, a more prudent bin Salman is likely to approach a rapprochement with Israel with greater caution than before.

If people in the UAE and Bahrain prove amenable or indifferent to the warming relations between their countries and Israel — and all signs thus far suggest they do — it may encourage the prince to try his plan again.

While many on the Saudi street still oppose Israel in theory, the issue lacks the salience it once did. There is an exhausting array of crises in the region — from Yemen to Syria, Libya to COVID-19 — that have become far more immediate priorities.

Thanks in part to to a concerted propaganda effort by bin Salman, the Saudi public is also increasingly in tune with the ruling elite when it comes to the desire to counter Iran as a national security concern.

As a small country on the Mediterranean sharing no borders with the Saudis, Israel simply doesn’t pose the same kind of threat in the popular imagination as the looming expansionist giant just across the gulf.

With these political dominoes in line, the coming months may prove a far more fortuitous time for bin Salman to pursue a Saudi detente with Israel.

Such a development would not only be historically significant, but would pave the way for an Arab-Israeli alliance — the likes of which has never been seen before.

– ref. Is it too soon to herald the ‘dawn of a new Middle East’? It all depends what the Saudis do next – https://theconversation.com/is-it-too-soon-to-herald-the-dawn-of-a-new-middle-east-it-all-depends-what-the-saudis-do-next-146153

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

Many products we use each day contain compounds taken from nature. Aspirin, for example, is derived from willow trees. And nanofibres from spinifex grass in Queensland is added to bitumen to make stronger roads.

But throughout history, native plants, animals and other biological materials have been removed without the consent of Indigenous people. In many cases, Indigenous knowledge was also taken without permission – and Indigenous people rarely benefited from the commercial products developed as a result.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have strong connections to country, and totemic relationships with certain plants and animals. If these are removed without permission, Indigenous people suffer significant spiritual harm. And using Indigenous knowledge without permission perpetuates the social and economic injustices of colonisation.

With those important considerations in mind, the Queensland government last month reformed a law governing “biodiscovery” – the taking, analysing and using of native biological material. It should serve as a model for other states to follow.

A leader in biodiscovery law

In 2004, Queensland was the first Australian jurisdiction to regulate biodiscovery. Since then, the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments have also passed biodiscovery laws.

Queensland’s original Biodiscovery Act was beset with limitations, such as:

• it did not cover traditional knowledge. This meant Indigenous people were left out of benefit-sharing negotiations

• it didn’t meet all requirements of the 2014 Nagoya Protocol, which sets conditions for access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge

• the approvals process for biodiversity researchers was burdensome

• only biological materials from state land or waters were regulated – not those from private or Indigenous land.

The Queensland government wanted to rectify these issues. During the reform process, it consulted widely – including with Indigenous people, scientists, and experts on intellectual property and Indigenous rights.

So what’s changed?

Under the revised law, anyone engaging in biodiscovery must take all reasonable measures to form agreement with the custodians of Indigenous knowledge being used. This includes a benefit-sharing agreement.

The act now aligns with the Nagoya Protocol. This is important for those in the Queensland biodiscovery industry who want to export to countries that have ratified the protocol, such as in Europe. The approvals process has also been streamlined.

Read more: ‘All things will outlast us’: how the Indigenous concept of deep time helps us understand environmental destruction

Finally, the Queensland government is designing a “Traditional Knowledge Code of Practice” in consultation with Indigenous communities and other experts. The code will aim to help the biodiscovery industry work more inclusively with traditional knowledge custodians. It will be important to monitor whether the code meets these aims.

Collaboration is key

The Queensland government hopes the reforms will lead to more biodiscovery activities. These will often rely on the knowledge and practices of Indigenous people.

As well as custodians of Indigenous knowledge, others involved in the biodiscovery process include:

• scientists researching the properties of native biological materials

• businesses that commercialise new products

• consumers who buy the products

• government officials who grant regulatory approvals.

Collaboration between all these groups is key. One good example of this involves the Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation and researchers at the University of South Australia. In 2013, the partners began work on a biodiscovery project in the Kuuku I’yu Northern Kaanju homelands in Cape York. It investigated traditional medicinal plants used to treat ailments such as psoriasis, a skin condition.

Read more: Strength from perpetual grief: how Aboriginal people experience the bushfire crisis

David Claudie – a coauthor of this article and Kuuku I’yu Northern Kaanju Traditional Owner – knows how to use local plants as medicine. Working together, traditional knowledge custodians and scientists collected medicinal plants and analysed them in a lab. This approach drew on both Indigenous and Western perspectives, and led to plant-based medicinal products being developed.

The project also protected Indigenous intellectual property and negotiated an agreement to share commercial benefits. Claudie is named as an inventor on the patents and an author of scientific articles published from the collaboration.

An important example

Australia is one of 17 countries considered “megadiverse”. It is home to up to 700,000 species, many found nowhere else in the world. This means the biodiscovery industry has big potential in Australia – but Indigenous knowledge must be protected.

Queensland’s reforms to biodiscovery laws set an important example. Other Australian states should follow Queensland’s lead and develop better legal protections for Indigenous knowledge. These should take into account both Indigenous and Western perspectives, for the benefit of all.

– ref. Australia’s plants and animals have long been used without Indigenous consent. Now Queensland has taken a stand – https://theconversation.com/australias-plants-and-animals-have-long-been-used-without-indigenous-consent-now-queensland-has-taken-a-stand-144813

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Jin Kang, Lecturer, Computing and Security, Edith Cowan University

The philanthropic foundation of mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has unveiled a plan to transform how Australia responds to bushfires.

The Fire Shield project aims to use emerging technologies to rapidly find and extinguish bushfires. The goal is to be able to put out any dangerous blaze within an hour by 2025.

Some of the proposed technology includes drones and aerial surveillance robots, autonomous fire-fighting vehicles and on-the-ground remote sensors. If successful, the plan could alleviate the devastating impact of bushfires Australians face each year.

But while bushfire behaviour is an extensively studied science, it’s not an exact one. Fires are subject to a wide range of variables including local weather conditions, atmospheric pressure and composition, and the geographical layout of an area.

There are also human factors, such as how quickly and effectively front-line workers can respond, as well as the issue of arson.

Read more: Humans light 85% of bushfires, and we do virtually nothing to stop it

A plan for rapid bushfire detection

The appeal of the Fire Shield plan is in its proposal to use emerging fields of computer science to fight bushfires, especially AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) network.

While we don’t currently have details on how the Fire Shield plan will be carried out, the use of an IoT bushfire monitoring network seems like the most viable option.

The IoT network is made of many wireless connected devices. Deploying IoT devices with sensors in remote areas could allow the monitoring of changes in soil temperature, air temperature, weather conditions, moisture and humidity, wind speed, wind direction and forest density.

The sensors could also help pinpoint a fire’s location, predict where it will spread and also where it most likely started. This insight would greatly help with the early evacuation of vulnerable communities.

Data collected could be quickly processed and analysed using machine learning. This branch of AI provides intelligent analysis much quicker than traditional computing, or human reckoning.

A more reliable network

A wireless low power wide area network (LPWAN) would be the best option for implementing the required infrastructure for the proposal. LPWAN uses sensor devices with batteries lasting up to 15 years.

And although a LPWAN only allows limited coverage (10-40km) in rural areas, batteries sustaining a network with more coverage would need to be replaced more often — making the entire system less reliable.

In the event of sensors being destroyed by fire, neighbouring sensors can send this information back to the server to build a sensor “availability and location map”. With this map, tracking destroyed sensors would also help track a bushfire’s movement.

Dealing with logistics

While it’s possible, the practicalities of deploying sensors for a remote bushfire monitoring network are hugely challenging. The areas to cover would be vast, with varying terrain and environmental conditions.

Sensor devices could potentially be deployed by aircrafts across a region. On-ground distribution by people would be another option, but a more expensive one.

However, the latter option would have to be used to distribute larger gateway devices. These act as the bridge between the other sensors on ground and the server in the cloud hosting the data.

Gateway devices have more hardware and need to be set up by a person when first installed. They play a key role in LPWAN networks and must be placed carefully. After being placed, IoT devices require regular monitoring and calibration to ensure the information being relayed to the server is accurate.

Weather and environmental factors (such as storms or floods) have the potential to destroy the sensors. There’s also the risk of human interference, as well as legal considerations around deploying sensors on privately owned land.

Read more: There’s only one way to make bushfires less powerful: take out the stuff that burns

Unpredictable interruptions

While statisticians can provide insight into the likelihood of a bushfire starting at a particular location, bushfires remain inherently hard to predict.

Any sensor network will be counter-acted by unpredictable environmental conditions and technological issues such as interrupted network signals. And such disruptions could lead to delays in important information reaching authorities.

Potential solutions for this include using satellite services in conjunction with an LPWAN network, or balloon networks (such as Google’s project Loon) which can provide better internet connectivity in remote areas.

But even once the sensors can be used to identify and track bushfires, putting a blaze out is another challenge entirely. The Fire Shield plan’s vision “to detect, monitor and extinguish dangerous blazes within an hour anywhere in Australia” will face challenges on several fronts.

It may be relatively simple to predict hurdles in getting the technology set up. But once it is and a bushfire is detected, it’s less clear as to what course of action could possible extinguish it within the hour. In some very remote areas, aerial firefighting (such as with water bombers) may be the only option.

That begs the next question: how can we have enough aircrafts and controllers ready to be dispatched to a remote place, at a moment’s notice? Considering the logistics, it won’t be easy.

– ref. Andrew Forrest’s high-tech plan to extinguish bushfires within an hour is as challenging as it sounds – https://theconversation.com/andrew-forrests-high-tech-plan-to-extinguish-bushfires-within-an-hour-is-as-challenging-as-it-sounds-146194

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Ka’ai-Mahuta, Senior Lecturer in Māori Language Revitalisation, Auckland University of Technology

Editor’s note: This article marks Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. You can read the full article in English here.

Nō te tīmatanga o tēnei tau, i tūtaki au ki tētahi tangata nō Tāmaki-makau-rau, nā tōna ngākaunui ki te ao K-pop i a ia e taitamariki ana i tipu ai te aroha ki te reo me te ahurea Kōrea, nāwai nāwai ka tahuri ia ki te ako i te reo Kōrea hei reo tuarua.

Nā konā taku whakaaro he aha ētahi akoranga hei tautoko i te whakarauoratanga o te reo Māori. Inarā, i runga anō i te hiranga o ngā taitamariki i aua mahi whakarauora, he aha ngā akoranga o te āhuatanga e kīia nei ko te “Ngaru Kōrea” me tana whakararu i te reo Pākehā hei reo matua i te ahurea o te marea?

Kua tīmatahia kētia ngā mahi o tēnei kaupapa. Ko te iho o tā Tākuta Hinurewa Poutu rangahau Kairangi o te tau 2015, ko te āta waihanga i ētahi kaupapa kia kite ai te rangatahi i te “pārekareka” o te reo Māori.

Hei tāna i taua wā:

Mātua whakamahi ai te reo Pākehā i ngā wā o te whakahoahoa, i te mea kāore he nui ngā wā e rongo ai i te reo Māori i ngā wā whakahoahoa, te ako rānei i ngā kīanga Māori o te pahupahu ki ō hoa, o te whakaipoipo, me te tākaro. Mō te nuinga o ngā tamariki, ka kōrerotia te reo Māori i ngā wā ōkawa anake.

Kia pārekareka te reo Māori

Ka hipa te rima tau, e kawe ana a Te Ipukarea o AUT i tētahi kaupapa rangahau me te pātai me pēhea e kaha ake ai te taunaki o te reo Māori i te oranga o te rangatahi. He kaupapa tēnei i tautokona e te pūtea o Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, ko tōna ariā, ko te reo o te taiohi te tūāpapa o te reo ōpaki o te pakeke.

Arā, ko te reo ōpaki o te whakahoahoa, o te whakakatakata, o te whakaipoipo, o ngā kare ā-roto, me te hauora hinengaro, te kaiwhakamahere i te reo pakeke o ia rā.

E whakaatu ana ā mātou kitenga tuatahi i te hiranga rautaki o te reanga rangatahi i ngā kaupapa whakarauora i te reo Māori. Ko te taitamariki he reanga whakatau he aha te haere – nā reira, he pānga nui a rātou (me te whakaaweawetia nuitia o rātou) ki te wāriu matawhānui o te reo Māori, arā, ki tōna mana.

Heoi anō, e whakaatu ana ngā hua o tētahi atu rangahau o Te Ipukarea, inā te ngōuruuru o ngā rauemi reo Māori me ngā kaupapa reo Māori (ngā pakimaero, ngā hōtaka pouaka whakaata, ngā waiata, ngā kēmu) e hāngai ana ki tēnei reanga.

Read more: K-pop fans are creative, dedicated and social – we should take them seriously

Ka tino kitea tēnei i te wā ka whakataurite ki ngā rauemi o te reanga tamariki, arā, o ngā ākonga kōhungahunga.

I a tātou e whakaaro ana, he aha i kīia ai tētahi mea he mea “pārekareka”, nā, mārama ana te kite i te whakaaweawe o te ao ngahau, o ngā pae pāho pāpori, me te ahurea o te marea, i ngā rangatahi. Nō taku tūtakitanga ki te pia reo Kōrea, aroha nui ki te K-pop, i tīmata ai au ki te whakaaro ka pēhea te kaupapa whakarauora reo Māori whakaoho ai i taua reanga rā: arā, te rangatahi whakatau he aha te haere, whakatipu apataki whakamaimoa.

Te wero i te whakatuanuitanga o te reo Pākehā

E wero atu ana te Ngaru Kōrea i te whakatuanui o te reo Pākehā hei reo matua i te ao ahurea o te marea. Ko te rongonui o te K-pop, o ngā K-drama (he maha ngā hōtaka kua hokona e Netlix, he kaha hoki tā rātou tuku i te pūtea tautoko), me ngā kiriata pēnei i a Parasite (te kiriata whakaihuwaka ki ngā Oscars 2020, te kiriata “reo tauiwi” tuatahi ki te whakawhiwhia ki tēnei taonga), i waenga i ngā iwi atu i a Kōrea e whakaatu ana ehara te reo i te tauārai nui pēnei i ngā wā o mua.

Kua hanumi noa ēnei momo whakangahau me te ahurea whānui o te marea. Hei tauira, tērā te rōpū Kōrea o BTS (e kīia ana i ētahi wā ko Bangtan Boys) – i tēnei wā tonu, ko rātou tētahi o ngā tino rōpū pao nui o te ao, he rite tonu tā rātou eke ki ngā taumata pao, me te poipoi i tētahi apataki whakahara ao whānui.

Read more: Māori loanwords in NZ English are less about meaning, more about identity

Ka taea e BTS te waiata ki te reo Pākehā, engari i te nuinga o te wā ko ā rātou waiata me ā rātou momo kaupapa pāpāho katoa (he hōtaka ngahau, he hōtaka tipi haere, he kiriata, he hōtaka o ngā mahi atu i ngā mahi o te atamira) ka waihanga ki te reo Kōrea. I tēnei tau i whakaputa i a rātou te rauemi Learn Korean with BTS, he tohu e whakaatu ana i te hāngai o te Ngaru Kōrea me te nui haere o te hunga e hiahia ana ki te ako i te reo Kōrea.

Te aro atu ki tētahi ngaru Māori hou

E ariari mai ana ngā rerekētanga o te reo Kōrea ki te reo Māori. Kei te whakamāui tonu te reo Māori, he reo ririki, engari te reo Kōrea, neke atu i te 50 miriona ngā kaikōrero ki Kōrea ki te Tonga anake.

Heoi anō, mehemea e whakakipakipatia ana te rangatahi o Aotearoa e te ahurea o te marea o Kōrea ki te ako i te reo Kōrea, mā te aha i te māramatanga ka ahu mai i ngā akoranga ka taea e te kaupapa whakarauora reo Māori te ako mai i te Ngaru Kōrea.

Read more: Kia ora: how Māori borrowings shape New Zealand English

Ko te Ngaru Kōrea anō te whakatinanatanga o te angitu o te rautaki matua i kōkiritia e te kāwanatanga o Kōrea ki te whakahorapa i tō rātou ahurea ki te ao me te whakakaha i tōna “mana whakaaweawe”. Inarā, ko te whāinga o Kōrea, kia tū ko rātou te ahurea pārekareka katoa huri noa i te ao.

Ki te whai haere i tērā whakaaro, me mātāmua te tautoko mārika o te waihanga rauemi reo Māori mō te ahurea o te marea, i roto i ngā mahere katoa kua whakaritea mō te whakapoapoa i te reanga taiohi.

Ko taku tumanako, tērā tētahi rā, ka rite tonu te eke o ngā waiata reo Māori ki ngā taumata pao, ka kī pohapoha taku rārangi Netflix ki ngā hōtaka reo Māori, ā, ka whakatairangatia, ka whakanuitia hoki tētahi kiriata reo Māori rite tonu ki te kiriata Kōrea, ki a Parasite.

– ref. Kia pārekareka te reo Māori: ko ngā akoranga o te Ngaru Kōrea mō te whakarauoratanga o te reo – https://theconversation.com/kia-parekareka-te-reo-maori-ko-nga-akoranga-o-te-ngaru-korea-mo-te-whakarauoratanga-o-te-reo-146198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Joseph, Professor of Human Rights Law, Griffith University

COVID-19 has caused a global public health emergency, a global economic emergency, and a global human rights emergency. The crisis is detrimentally affecting all recognised human rights in every country.

Unrestrained spread of COVID-19 is prejudicial to the human rights to life and health. All governments have human rights obligations to take appropriate measures to combat the spread of the virus.

Human rights v COVID-19

COVID-19 restrictions have imposed extraordinary restrictions on countervailing human rights. COVID measures interfere with economic, social and cultural rights, such as rights to work, adequate standards of living, education, and mental health. They also interfere with civil and political rights, such as freedoms of movement, association, assembly, the right to a fair trial, as well as the rights of families and children.

In response to recent questions about the human rights compatibility of the curfew in Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews bluntly responded that the curfew was “not about human rights”, but rather “human life”. That is a stark dichotomy, which leaves little space for human rights arguments. However, human rights are not optional extras, even in this pandemic.

Limits to human rights

Most internationally recognised human rights can be limited in certain circumstances. Even the right to life, globally recognised in Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is subject to limitations. A person must not be “arbitrarily” deprived of life, so “non-arbitrary” deprivations are permissible.

Indeed, every government routinely balances the interest in preserving life against other societal benefits in their calibration of numerous everyday policies, such as those regarding speed limits.

Of course, the nature of the right to life dictates that few limitations are tolerable. Furthermore, a COVID outbreak has the potential to be catastrophic, costing many lives, causing debilitating long-term illness to many more, and overwhelming health systems.

But there must be some limit, even in the context of COVID-19. Human rights law does not mandate harsh lockdowns until elimination of COVID-19 or the development of a cure or vaccine. The question becomes one of just how much increased sickness and death, or risk thereof, is permissible under international human rights law?

The flipside of that question is to ask what human rights restrictions are permissible to suppress COVID-19 and decrease the risk of sickness and death?

Proportionality, risk and catastrophe

A key concept in working out the appropriate limitations to rights is that of proportionality: are the limiting measures reasonably necessary for the achievement of a legitimate purpose?

A key consideration in the test of proportionality is how important the limitation might be. The purpose of stopping the spread of COVID-19 is vitally important. But a more precise way of phrasing the purpose of most restrictions is to “stop the risk of the spread of COVID-19”.

For example, the quarantining of a person known to have COVID-19 contains spread, whereas the quarantining of someone who might have it contains risk. As it is impossible to know who might have COVID-19, it may be assumed that containment of spread is the same as containment of risk. But is this so? Not all risks are the same.

Consider the following example. Most Australian states and territories have imposed border restrictions (of varying degrees of strictness and geographic impact) to stop infections from being introduced from interstate. These measures restrict freedom of movement and forcibly separate families and friends.

Sarah Caisip is a Canberra woman who was unable to attend her father’s funeral and comfort her family in Queensland. She was refused an exemption from hotel quarantine due to the potential risk that she might introduce infection to Queensland. Was this a breach of her right to family life?

The ACT has not recorded a positive COVID diagnosis for months. The risk posed by Caisip is tiny: there is virtually no chance she has COVID-19. So the chance she would transmit the virus and cause a serious or catastrophic outbreak was infinitesimal. The problem is every single catastrophic outbreak, anywhere, has logically been sparked by a single case.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: When grief meets politics, it is sad and ugly

So in the Caisip example there is, on the one hand, a miniscule risk, but on the other, the potential for devastating outcomes if the risk materialises. Furthermore, the stakes seem amplified when COVID-19 is under ostensible control, as in Queensland and the less populous states: few decision-makers want to risk the replacement of a situation of control with one of a lack of control.

If decisions can be justified by the possibility of catastrophic outcomes from tiny risks, they can logically be justified if risks are larger, even if still very small. However, there is the danger any measure can be justified based on its marginal impact, or even potentially marginal impact, on reducing the risk of catastrophic outbreak.

For example, Victoria’s curfew has been criticised on human rights grounds. The virus is not more infectious at night. The curfew was not requested by either Victoria’s health authorities nor its police.

However, perhaps the curfew prevented an illicit party which might have led to further extensive spread and longer lockdown in Victoria. Alternatively, that illicit party may have simply moved to the daytime. Regardless, does the possibility of a benefit make the curfew “worth it”?

What of the lockdown of public housing towers in inner Melbourne without notice in early July? It seems doubtful this unique imposition of mass home detention without notice was justified by the chance a COVID-positive resident would abscond and spread the virus.

If we accept anything that might reduce the risk of COVID-19 infections is permissible, we may effectively permit extreme measures with only marginal, and perhaps no actual, benefit. Proportionality is reduced to a rubble, and human rights considerations are effectively jettisoned. If so, the most vulnerable and marginalised are those most likely to have their rights abused.

Read more: Melbourne tower lockdowns unfairly target already vulnerable public housing residents

Government officials deserve some sympathy in having to engage in a wicked “balancing” exercise involving a novel deadly pathogen. But it is very likely some laws and decisions have overreached, and important human rights have been displaced by restrictions with dubious benefit.

It is vital governments face scrutiny and remain accountable over the human rights compatibility of COVID measures.

Systems matter

Under international human rights law (and some domestic laws), Australian governments must take all reasonable measures to prevent and manage COVID infections. Requisite measures extend beyond coercive restrictions to the establishment of appropriate systems to control spread of the virus.

This is particularly important as system failure has contributed greatly to the spread of the virus in Australia and beyond. There are major weaknesses in the regulation of aged care homes, where there has been a devastating death toll in Melbourne. Hotel quarantine failure sparked the Victorian second wave, while sub-optimal contact tracing failed to detect extensive spread before it was too late.

Communications strategies must ensure public health messaging reaches all parts of society. Indeed, the pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of public services globally in coping with an emergency after years of austerity policies.

While some institutional reforms necessarily take time, some can happen quickly. For example, Victoria has probably significantly improved its contact tracing capacities already.

System improvements will help to ensure against further major outbreaks in Australia. Lockdowns and other general human rights restrictions are not the only tool in the kitbox. System improvements should give Australian governments greater confidence in managing the risks associated with any easing of coercive restrictions.

Balancing the right to life with the right to live

Sensibly, Australians are prioritising safety for themselves and their communities over freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic. But how much risk avoidance is sustainable socially, economically, politically, and even legally, if COVID cures and vaccines remain unavailable?

The continued adoption of an extreme precautionary approach could mean Australia remains balkanised, loved ones (including the vulnerable) separated, livelihoods destroyed, and coercive measures tolerated where they offer little benefit. And the countervailing human rights issues will only loom larger and larger. The human right to life is vitally important, but there is also a human right to live.

– ref. COVID-19, risk and rights: the ‘wicked’ balancing act for governments – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-risk-and-rights-the-wicked-balancing-act-for-governments-146014

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Shulmeister, Professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Canterbury

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

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

What is the impact of temperature increases in the tropics? How likely is it that regions along the Equator will be uninhabitable due to high wet bulb temperatures such as 35℃ and more in places like Singapore? Do we have models that suggest how likely this is and at what time frames?

More than 3.3 billion people live in the tropics, representing about 40% of the world’s population. Despite some areas of affluence, such as Singapore, the tropics are also home to about 85% of the world’s poorest people and are therefore particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change.

The tropics are expected to experience rising temperatures and changes to rainfall, and the question is whether this could make this region uninhabitable. How would this happen?

Heat stress

Humans regulate their body temperature in warm conditions through sweating. The sweat evaporates and cools the skin. But if conditions are humid, sweating and evaporation are much less effective.

Humans can survive and function in quite high temperatures if humidity is low, but as humidity increases our ability to function decreases rapidly. This effect is measured by a heat stress index which shows the apparent temperature you feel under different relative humidity conditions.

From a human health point of view, the wet bulb temperature is critical. This is the temperature a thermometer covered in a wet cloth would measure, and it reflects the maximum amount of cooling that can be achieved by evaporation.

High wet bulb temperatures are more problematic to human health than high absolute temperatures. Wet bulb temperatures above 35℃ are life-threatening because they cause hyperthermia, which means the body cannot cool down and the internal body temperature exceeds 40℃.

Climate modelling predictions used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the period from 2080-2100 suggest warming in the tropics of about 1.6℃ under mid-range emissions scenarios and up to 3.3℃ under high emissions scenarios, with error margins of about 0.5℃ on both predictions.

Read more: Siberia heatwave: why the Arctic is warming so much faster than the rest of the world

Different parts of the world respond in different ways to warming from greenhouse gas emissions. The projected warming in the tropics represents about 40% of the expected temperature rise in the Arctic.

High-latitude regions – far north or south of the Equator – warm more rapidly than the global average because excess heat in the tropics creates a temperature and pressure gradient. This drives heat up to higher elevations and higher latitudes through an atmospheric circulation called the Hadley cell.

The stronger the gradient, the more heat is exported.

Hot in the city

There is one additional factor: urbanisation. Singapore is a good place to look at actual climate change in the tropics.

Records from Singapore indicate temperatures have increased by 1.1℃ over 42 years to 2014. This is nearly twice the average global rate of warming over recent decades and is opposite to expectations.

The difference appears to be due to a heat island effect caused by the city itself. This is important because changes in land use amplify background global climate change and put tropical cities at greater risk of extreme heat. As populations are concentrated in cities, this increases the risk to human health.

The mean average temperature for Singapore is about 27℃, whereas Jakarta in Indonesia is slightly warmer. At the scale of predicted mean annual temperature change, neither of these cities would become uninhabitable. But even a small temperature increase would make life more challenging.

This is made worse in at least some parts of the tropics, because total rainfall is increasing, suggesting a long-term rise in humidity. For example, average rainfall in Singapore increased by more than 500mm from 2,192mm in 1980 to 2,727mm in 2014.

Read more: Urban growth, heat islands, humidity, climate change: the costs multiply in tropical cities

Deadly heat

People working outdoors are at higher risk, as are vulnerable populations, including the elderly. Under the IPCC’s high-emission trajectory, heat-related deaths in Jakarta in August are expected to rise from about 1,800 in 2010 to nearly 27,000 in 2050.

Even allowing for a significant increase in elderly people as the Indonesian population ages, this means about 15,000 excess deaths in this month. Estimates under high-emission predictions for the tropics and mid-latitudes suggest about a 40% decline in the ability to undertake manual work during the warmest month by 2050.

These impacts will be stronger in the seasonally wet tropics (such as the Northern Territory of Australia), where more extreme warming is expected than in the equatorial zone.

Predictions for Darwin, in northern Australia, suggest an increase in days with temperatures above 35℃ from 11 days a year in 2015 to an average of 43 days under the mid-range emission scenario (IPCC’s RCP4.5 scenario) by 2030 and an average of 111 (range 54-211) days by 2090. Under the higher emission scenario (IPCC’s RCP8.5), an average of 265 days above 35℃ could be reached by 2090.

In summary, while absolute temperatures are expected to rise more slowly in the tropics when compared with higher latitudes and polar regions, the combination of heat and rising humidity will make life challenging, but not impossible.

– ref. Climate explained: will the tropics eventually become uninhabitable? – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-will-the-tropics-eventually-become-uninhabitable-145174

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Callie Little, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of New England

Early childhood education and care is widely regarded as helping children’s academic, cognitive and social development. Our study, published in the journal Behavior Genetics, looked into whether attending preschool or childcare influences later academic achievement.

We found no statistically significant difference between the literacy and numeracy scores of school children who had attended preschool or childcare and children who didn’t. Nor did the duration of preschool or childcare attendance have an impact on later literacy and numeracy scores.

We did not look at the relations between social and emotional skills, and early childhood education and care.

How we got our findings

We used data from the Academic Development Study of Australian Twins, which has been following children since 2012 to investigate how genes and environments influence their literacy and numeracy abilities in primary and secondary school.

As part of this study, we collected detailed information about children’s “dose” of early childhood education and care. This included the hours per week they attended childcare or preschool and the duration in months.

We analysed the NAPLAN results of around 2,279 twins from Years 3 to 9 (sample size varied by grade level) as related to their dose of early childhood education and care. No attendance at all was zero dose, while for example, twins who attended for a total of eight months at 15 hours per week had a dose of 120.

The early childhood education and care settings we looked at included preschools attached to schools, stand-alone preschools, daycare centres and family daycare.

Read more: What is family day care? And how is it different to long day care in a child care centre?

Around 10% of the children in our sample had not attended any preschool or childcare at all. The rest varied from attending a few hours per week for a year or less, to many hours per week for two years or more.

We statistically controlled for socio-economic status of the children’s families looking at parents’ years of education, although influences of preschool or childcare were essentially the same with and without this control.

Our results showed no influence of preschool or childcare on later NAPLAN literacy and numeracy results. The correlations between preschool dose and NAPLAN results from Years 3 to 9 for all test domains (reading, spelling, grammar, writing and numeracy) were mostly near zero, and not statistically significant.

Children who attended preschool or childcare at any dose scored, on average, fewer than five NAPLAN points higher or lower than their non-attending peers. Overall, preschool or childcare attendance accounted for less that 1% of the total variability in school achievement.

What other research says

The first analysis in Australia to evaluate the impact of attending preschool on Year 3 NAPLAN scores was conducted in 2013 by the Melbourne Institute. It showed children who attended preschool scored higher in Year 3 NAPLAN, but this was mainly the case in children who had attended preschools with the best-qualified staff.

Read more: Should you hold your child back from starting school? Research shows it has little effect on their maths and reading skills

We could not determine the qualifications of the early childhood education and care staff in the places children in our sample attended. But we have reason to believe this limitation does not undermine our conclusions. Staff quality is irrelevant for children who didn’t attend any early childhood education and care. And at least a portion of those who attended at some dose would have had well-qualified staff to lift them above children without any exposure. But the stay-at-home children in our study performed nearly the same in NAPLAN as those who attended some preschool.

Another Australian study conducted in 2015, which used the same dataset as the Melbourne Institute Study (the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, or LSAC) showed there was a small positive impact of attending early childhood education and care on aspects of non-verbal intelligence. But there was no impact of attending preschool on academic skills assessed at seven years old.

A study in the United States used the gold standard for assessing whether a certain intervention caused a later effect, rather than was just associated with it — a randomised controlled trial. More than 3,000 children were involved in the study. Some were assigned to attending the Tennessee Prekindergarten Program, which focuses on the neediest children using quality teachers licensed in early childhood development and education. Others did not attend the program.

The group that went to preschool made some gains in literacy-related measures by the end of the preschool year, as compared to the group that didn’t. But there were no differences in literacy, language, numeracy and social skills between the groups in the two following school years. This suggests formal school instruction may have compensated for any early disadvantage in the children who missed out on preschool.

It’s not all about literacy and numeracy

It’s important to remember early childhood education and care settings play an important role in how children develop socially and emotionally. This association may matter just as much, if not more, than the absence of any academic advantage.

Read more: Report finds every $1 Australia spends on preschool will return $2, but this won’t just magically happen

In the present study, however, we did not include any measures of social or behavioural outcomes. So we are unable to provide any evidence for or against an association between these important skills and early learning.

Our data are not the last word on the links between preschool attendance and academic achievement either. There is continual pressure to upgrade the qualifications of staff preschool facilities, and the more this happens, the more academic benefits may follow for children.

However, our evidence suggests parents need not worry that failing to enrol a child in preschool will undermine future prospects in the core school domains of literacy and numeracy. We hope this message might allay some concerns, especially now when childcare centres are closed across Victoria and fewer children are attending across the country.

– ref. Preschool and childcare have little impact on a child’s later school test scores – https://theconversation.com/preschool-and-childcare-have-little-impact-on-a-childs-later-school-test-scores-146003

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saul Eslake, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Tasmania

For two decades now, meaningful tax reform has proved elusive.

At the federal level, there hasn’t been any comprehensive reform since the Howard government’s New Tax System of 2000, the one that brought in the goods and services tax.

It’s much the same for the states.

With the exception of the reforms that accompanied the introduction of the GST in 2000, state tax systems haven’t changed much since the 1970s, which began with the transfer of payroll tax from the Commonwealth to the states, and ended with the abolition of death duties.

For their part, state governments have spent most of the following four decades narrowing the bases of the few taxes over which they do have control, in order either to curry favour with important groups of voters such as small business people and home owners, or to compete with other states to attract employers.

Australia’s two largest states have become increasingly reliant on a tax uniformly condemned as a “bad tax” – stamp duty on the transfer of land.

Read more: Abolish stamp duty. The ACT shows the rest of us how to tax property

The next two largest states have ridden booms in royalties from mining and gas which have, for the most part, allowed them to avoid the need for even thinking about reforming their taxes.

Only in the Australian Capital Territory has there been a genuine (so far successful) effort to undertake a reform that enjoys almost unanimous support among economists, the replacement of stamp duties on land transfers with a broadly-based land tax.

The fact that the ACT government is also in effect the Canberra city council has allowed it to accomplish this by raising rates rather than breaking the taboo of imposing land tax on the “family home”.

Tasmania specialises in bad taxes, and the GST

The Tasmanian government raises less from its own resources (taxes, royalties, user charges and dividends) than any other jurisdiction except the Northern Territory.

That’s largely because, as identified by the Commonwealth Grants Commission in its annual reviews, Tasmania’s revenue-raising capacity is less than that of any other state or territory, although it also partly reflects decisions by successive Tasmanian governments of both political persuasions to raise less than they could.

Perhaps because Tasmania has been able to rely on GST allocations and other grants from the Commonwealth, there have been no serious conversations about its tax system since a tri-partisan parliamentary inquiry was abruptly terminated almost nine years ago.

Read more: Our states are crying poor. They wouldn’t if they charged for rezoning

Since then, Tasmania’s political parties have been more anxious to make commitments about what they would not do, than to outline plans for what was needed.

That complacency is likely to be challenged by the abrupt decline in revenue from the goods and services tax as a result of the current recession, as well as by its longer-term decline as a share of GDP for reasons recently identified by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

The collapse in GST revenue will hurt Tasmania’s budget more than that of any other state or territory (other than the Northern Territory).

Goods and services tax revenue as a proportion of GDP

There’s a way out

The report I’ve written for The Australia Institute published this morning entitled Reforming Tasmania’s state tax system: Some options notes that Tasmania gets a higher proportion of its total state tax take from “bad taxes” (stamp duty on land transfers, and taxes on insurance premiums) than any state or territory except Victoria.

It gets a smaller proportion of its tax take from what are generally thought to be “good taxes” (payroll tax and land tax) than any state or territory except Queensland.

It proposes three reforms which can be implemented by a Tasmanian government without requiring a lead from the larger states.

Read more: Models only give part answer to real tax reform

None would require financial assistance from the Commonwealth (although that would be helpful, especially with transitional arrangements, if the Commonwealth is as serious about encouraging productivity-enhancing reform as the Treasurer says he is).

1. Land tax instead of stamp duty

The first is to replace existing “conveyancing duties”, as stamp duties on the transfer of land are officially called in Tasmania, with a land tax whose base should include owner-occupied homes and “shacks”, which are currently exempt or otherwise not taxed.

It should be levied on individual land holdings (rather than the aggregate of them) at progressive rates on the per-square-metre value of each holding.

There would need to be a transitional provision, such as a credit for stamp duty paid on recently-acquired property.

And there would need to be a deferral provision for “asset rich, income poor” homeowners such as pensioners. Both are possible.

Read more: Ideas for Australia: Five ideas to help fix Australia’s tax system

The average residential land-owner would not have paid more in land tax under this proposal than he or she would have by way of stamp duty on the purchase of the property until he or she had lived in it for more than nine years.

By that time, as the recent Thodey Report to the NSW government points out, any reasonable interpretation of “fairness” demands owners should be paying more than they currently do.

2. Proper payroll tax

The second proposed reform is cutting the threshold for payroll tax to the average annual earnings of five Tasmanian employees from its current level, which is equivalent to the average annual earnings of 36 employees.

The extra revenue would be used to lower the rate from what is currently the second-highest in Australia to what would likely be the second-lowest, and to exempt new businesses from payroll tax altogether for the first so many years of their existence, where the number of years could be, for example, three or five.

This will produce howls of outrage from small businesses, a larger proportion of which are exempt from payroll tax in Tasmania than in any other state, and from others who (wrongly) believe that small business is the engine room of the economy.

My report shows that exempting small business from payroll tax has not done anything to enhance job creation, innovation or any of the other blessings commonly claimed.

On the contrary, Bureau of Statistics figures show that over the four years to 2018-19, during which time Tasmania’s economy in many respects out-performed the rest of Australia, small business was responsible for only 13% of Tasmania’s net increase in private sector employment.

Big businesses (who had to pay the second-highest payroll tax in Australia) were responsible for 34%.

Medium-sized businesses, many of whom also had to pay the second-highest payroll tax in Australia, accounted for 52%.

Indeed, over the 12 years to 2018-19, employment at Tasmanian small businesses declined by 11.6% – more than double the national average – despite Tasmania having the most generous payroll tax concessions for small businesses.

Of course the fact that payroll tax is paid in the first instance by employers doesn’t mean that it is a “tax on jobs” any more than is the goods and services tax, which in the first instance is paid by shoppers.

Preferencing new businesses would do far more to spur entrepreneurship and to stimulate job creation and innovation than preferencing small ones simply because they’re small.

Read more: Memo to Australia’s states: try renovating your tax system before asking for a new one

It would also cost less: which would mean the special treatment for new businesses could be more generous, if desired.

And since new businesses can’t prevent themselves from becoming an old businesses, other than by going out of business, there would be no perverse incentives such as those that currently result in small businesses ceasing to grow at just below the point at which they become ineligible for preferential treatment.

3. Death duties on estates over $1 million

The third, and probably the most controversial, proposal is the reintroduction of death duties: specifically, on estates valued at over A$1 million (which would exclude 91% of the estates granted probate by Tasmania’s Supreme Court over the past three years), at rates ranging from 5% on amounts between $1 million and $5 million, 10% on the next $5 million, and 20% on anything over $10 million (which in Tasmania has been just 10 estates, 0.1% of the total, over the past three years.

However, the report also proposes that people whose estates would be liable to such a tax could obtain a credit against it (a reduction) for donations to Tasmanian-based deductible gift recipients – up to the point where, if they wished, they could completely extinguish their liability.

Read more: House prices and demographics make death duties an idea whose time has come

Such an arrangement would provide a powerful incentive for philanthropy in Tasmania, as it has in the United States.

There will of course be predictable cries of outrage against such a proposal, not so much perhaps from those whose estates would be subject to the tax as from their children and others who hope to benefit the inheritances without sharing any of the windfall – a requirement a surprising number of Americans don’t seem to find at all objectionable.

No doubt opponents of such a proposal will also find it convenient to ignore the stipulation that fewer than 10% of estates would be liable for the tax, or the suggestion that estates passing to surviving spouses (though not to other people) would be exempt.

This needn’t mean more tax, or less tax

All or any of these proposals could be used to raise more revenue than Tasmania’s present tax system.

Or they could be used to raise less revenue, by a party that wanted to argue that reducing the overall state tax burden would improve Tasmania’s competitiveness.

My report doesn’t take a position in favour of either option, instead it advocates for a fairer system.

Read more: Rethink inheritances. These days they no longer help the young, they go to the already middle-aged

The system I propose would be more efficient in the sense of doing less to distort the choices businesses and households make as to how they allocate their capital, where they live, how often they move home and how they do other things.

And it would make Tasmania’s financial position less vulnerable to forces entirely beyond its control or influence.

Which is another way of saying it would represent real reform: something that has been sorely lacking, no less in Tasmania than anywhere else, for 20 years.

– ref. Tasmania’s tax system is broken: here are three ways to fix it – https://theconversation.com/tasmanias-tax-system-is-broken-here-are-three-ways-to-fix-it-146186

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

The wild fires that have ravaged the US west coast, turning skies orange, are a lurid reminder that climate change looms ever larger as an economic threat.

This week has seen a flurry of announcements reflecting that reality.

Read more: Coping with Western wildfires: 5 essential reads

New Zealand’s government has declared it will become the world’s first country to require its financial sector to report on climate risks.

A collaboration between Australian banks, insurers and climate scientists – the Climate Measurement Standards Initiative – has issued the nation’s first comprehensive framework to assess climate-related risks to buildings and critical infrastructure.

And another of Australia’s largest superannuation funds, UniSuper, has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions from its investment portfolio by 2050.

UniSuper, the industry fund for university workers, is the third major Australian super fund to make such a commitment.

Read more: UniSuper take note: there’s no retirement on a dead planet

The first was HESTA, the industry super fund for health and community sector workers, in June. The second was CBus, the construction and mining industry super fund, last month. “The reality is that things are coalescing fast around us,” said Kristian Fok, CBus’ chief investment officer at the time.

While the superannuation industry remains very much in transition, analysis by ClimateWorks Australia and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute indicates a new determination among Australia’s 20 largest Registrable Superannuation Entity licensees to act on climate change risks.

These 20 licensees represent about 55% of all superannuation investments in Australia, worth a total of about A$2.7 trillion.

Along with the 2050 commitments by HESTA, CBus and UniSuper, another 13 funds are actively looking to reduce their portfolio’s emissions intensity. For example, Aware Super (formerly First State Super) announced in July it would divest from thermal coal miners and reduce emissions in its listed equities portfolio by at least 30% by 2023.

Only four of the 20 – Colonial First State, IOOF, Nulis and OnePath – still have no emissions reduction targets or activities.

Managing risk

This flurry of announcements reflects a changing context.

In the past, fund managers sometimes argued that, in a heavily regulated industry, their legal responsibilities prevented them from committing to emissions reductions. They were tasked, they said, with protecting their members’ finances, not guarding the environment.

Until about 2017, super funds tended to limit action to asking companies in which they owned shares to disclose their climate risks and to offering voluntary sustainable investment options to their members.

But since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, targets of net zero emissions by 2050 (or earlier) have been adopted by governments, businesses and investors. More than 100 countries and all Australian states and territories have net zero targets in place. So do some major companies, such as BHP and Qantas.

Many businesses now recognise the financial implications of global warming. ANZ, for example, this month announced it expected the 100 biggest-emitting customers to have a plan to adapt to a low-carbon economy – something the bank’s chief executive, Shayne Elliot, said was simply “good old-fashioned risk management”.

This accords with the perspective of regulators, with Australian Prudential Regulation Authority regarding global warming not as a moral issue but one “distinctly financial in nature”.

This means asset managers are increasingly thinking about how more frequent and extreme weather events will devalue property and infrastructure. They are also thinking about the future worth of companies rusted to fossil fuels as the global economy shifts to net zero emissions.

Investors must also consider the possibility of litigation. For example, 24-year-old Brisbane council worker Mark McVeigh has taken the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust to court on the basis it has failed to protect his savings from the financial consequences of ruinous climate change.

Creating the new normal

Understandably, many funds are hesitant to commit to net zero emission portfolio targets without knowing how those targets might be achieved.

But by setting targets, super funds can create a norm that spurs investment in the ways and means to achieve those goals.

With the manifestations of that warming becoming ever more apparent, pressure will grow on super funds to make net zero pledges across their entire portfolios – and then to back these pledges with both interim commitments and detailed transition strategies.

Read more: California is on fire. From across the Pacific, Australians watch on and buckle up

As Kristian Fok says, change is coalescing fast. We’re seeing promising signs of the super funds responding. But we’ll need to see more yet.

– ref. Super funds are feeling the financial heat from climate change – https://theconversation.com/super-funds-are-feeling-the-financial-heat-from-climate-change-146191

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sin Wen Lau, Senior Lecturer in China Studies, University of Otago

Disney’s live-action adaptation of Mulan was released last week amid much controversy. Accusations of Disney bowing to the Chinese Communist Party emerged when the trailer was released.

Many were outraged to learn the movie was partially filmed in Xinjiang, where at least one million Uighurs have been forced into internment camps. They also objected to actress Liu Yifei’s reported support of the Hong Kong police during the 2019 protests.

Criticisms of the movie include its historical and geographical inaccuracies, an undertone of Islamophobia, and a misrepresentation of qi (life force).

Also concerning, but less visible, is how Disney’s Mulan is a more conservative telling of an ancient story – and the place of women – than some historical Chinese renditions. While Mulan might claim to be a tale of female empowerment, ultimately this film is about how women will only be rewarded if they know their place.

A 1,500-year-old tale

The 2020 adaptation of Mulan follows the basic plot of the 1998 Disney animation. The dutiful heroine cross-dresses as a man to take her father’s place in the army. She returns victorious.

The original ballad Mulan shi (“The Ballad of Mulan”) dates back to the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534), a period of warfare and instability. Readers of this poem are exposed to the painful emotions that surround Mulan’s decision to go to war.

In early renditions, Mulan was a Northerner of unspecified ethnicity, and some retellings cast her as a resistor to the imperial court.

Scholars have likened Mulan to a blank canvas. The freedom to tell her story in different ways has contributed to its popularity. By the 20th century, the ethnicity of this female warrior was designated as Han, and her loyalty allied with the central government.

In Mulan Joins the Army (1939), Mulan’s filial piety was emphasised as a service to the country.

Similar themes were explored in Lady General Hua Mu-lan (1964) and Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009). Disney’s 1998 animation was the first major non-Chinese adaptation of the Mulan story.

In these retellings, Mulan had fully transformed into a defender of the state.

‘Know your place’

Early in the new film, the village matchmaker tells 16-year-old Mulan (Liu Yifei) a good wife is “composed, graceful, polite” and “when a wife serves her husband, she must be silent, invisible.”

Mulan fails to embody these long-held virtues of an ideal Chinese girl, and her father exhorts Mulan to hide her special qi. This masculine power has no place in a girl’s life. The only way she can honour her family is through marriage.

Read more: A booming international movie market is transforming Hollywood

However, Mulan ultimately brings honour to her family by demonstrating that she is “loyal, brave and true” – qualities engraved on her father’s sword. Mulan knows her crippled father will die in battle if he is conscripted into the army. Taking his place, she leaves home in the middle of the night with the sword.

As a reward for her courage and leadership in saving the Emperor, he bestows her an official position in the imperial guard, but Mulan rejects the offer in order to return home.

The Emperor sends his men to offer Mulan a new sword. In addition to the three qualities, the new sword is engraved with a fourth virtue, xiao (“filial piety,” translated in the film as “devotion to family”). The men urge her to reconsider the Emperor’s offer and join the guard.

The film ends with the phoenix, Mulan’s ancestral guardian, circling above her. This creature has been her guide and its reappearance signals her acceptance of the offer. Because her love interest, Honghui, is an imperial soldier, it is implied she will fulfil her romantic desires as well.

Mulan is rewarded for knowing her place and for her xiao: by working within the dominant patriarchal system, she is a woman who “can have it all.”

A 17th century band of sisters

Within the film, the villain Xianniang (Gong Li) provides a powerful contrast to Mulan.

Xianniang invites Mulan to join forces and rebel against the Emperor. She wants to build a kingdom where strong women like them are accepted for who they are, but Mulan responds, “I know my place” – emphasising her duty is to serve her Emperor.

Ultimately, Xianniang sacrifices herself to save Mulan. By refusing to work within the system, Xianniang’s death signifies the failure of her radical approach.

Rather than being a story of female empowerment, Mulan promotes the idea that women must put male authority figures before themselves to achieve recognition.

The story of Mulan hasn’t always sent this message. In a version by the 17th century author Chu Renhuo, set at the end of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), Xianniang is a warrior princess who becomes Mulan’s sworn sister. They lead a group of women soldiers and travel together. This friendship is absent from the Disney film.

– ref. Disney’s Mulan tells women to know their place – https://theconversation.com/disneys-mulan-tells-women-to-know-their-place-146017

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Ka’ai-Mahuta, Senior Lecturer in Māori Language Revitalisation, Auckland University of Technology

Editor’s note: this article marks Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. You can read the full article in Māori here.

Earlier this year, I met an Aucklander whose teenage passion for K-pop sparked an interest in the Korean language and culture in general, and led to them learning Korean as a second language.

It made me wonder what lessons could be learnt for the revitalisation of the Māori language. Specifically, given the importance of teenagers in those revitalisation efforts, what can we learn from the way the so-called “Korean Wave” is subverting the English language as the language of popular culture?

There is already work being done in this area. The central argument of Dr Hinurewa Poutu’s PhD research in 2015 concerned the need to create opportunities for Māori to be considered “cool” by adolescents.

As she stated at the time:

English tends to be used socially, as there aren’t enough opportunities to hear Māori in social situations or to learn Māori expressions for gossiping with your friends, courting, playing. For most kids, te reo Māori is used in formal contexts only.

Making Māori cool

Five years on, AUT’s Te Ipukarea Research Institute is leading a project looking at how the Māori language can be better supported in the lives of adolescents. Funded by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, this research is based on the idea the Māori language of adolescence forms the building blocks of non-formal adult language.

In other words, it is about the informal language of friendship, humour, relationships, emotions and mental health that sets a pattern for everyday use later in life.

Our preliminary findings show the potential strategic importance of the adolescent age group for Māori language revitalisation. Teenagers are trendsetters – as such, they can have an impact on (and be influenced by) the perceived value of the Māori language and therefore its status.

However, a previous study by Te Ipukarea found there are few Māori language resources and not much Māori language content (novels, TV, music, games) aimed at this age group.

Read more: K-pop fans are creative, dedicated and social – we should take them seriously

This is especially true when compared to the resources available to younger age groups, such as early childhood learners.

When it comes to what is considered “cool”, of course, the influence of entertainment, social media and pop culture on adolescents is clear. After meeting the K-pop-loving Korean language graduate, I began to imagine what it might look like if the Māori language revitalisation movement tapped into that age-group: trendsetting, fandom-building teens.

Challenging English language dominance

The Korean Wave is challenging the dominance of English as the lingua franca of pop culture. The rise in popularity of K-pop, K-dramas (which Netflix has acquired and invested in) and films such as Parasite (winner of the 2020 best picture Oscar, the first “foreign language” film to do so) with non-Korean audiences shows language is no longer the barrier it once was.

These forms of entertainment have simply become part of the wider popular culture. Take Korean group BTS (also known as the Bangtan Boys) – currently among the biggest pop acts in the world, consistently breaking records and garnering a huge worldwide fan base.

Read more: Māori loanwords in NZ English are less about meaning, more about identity

BTS can sing in English but choose to release the majority of their music and other content (a variety show, a travel show, movies, behind-the-scenes footage) in Korean. This year they released Learn Korean with BTS, underscoring the link between the Korean Wave and the uptick in numbers learning the Korean language.

Towards a new Māori wave

There are obvious differences between Korean and Māori. Māori is still a recovering, minority language, while Korean has over 50 million speakers in South Korea alone.

However, if young people in Aotearoa are inspired by Korean pop culture to learn the Korean language, it at least provides an insight into what the Māori language revitalisation movement can learn from the Korean Wave.

Read more: Kia ora: how Māori borrowings shape New Zealand English

The Korean Wave is actually the result of a hugely successful strategic push by the Korean government to export its culture to the world and boost its “soft power”. In other words, Korea set out to be the coolest culture in the world.

With that in mind, strategically resourcing the production of Māori language content for pop culture needs to be a priority in any plan to capture the adolescent age group.

I hope that one day Māori language music will consistently enter the charts, my Netflix list will be full of Māori language dramas, and a Māori language film will be promoted and celebrated the way Parasite has been.

– ref. Making te reo Māori cool: what language revitalisation could learn from the Korean Wave – https://theconversation.com/making-te-reo-maori-cool-what-language-revitalisation-could-learn-from-the-korean-wave-145833

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia

From 11.59pm tomorrow (September 16), regional Victoria will take the third step out of COVID-19 restrictions, Premier Daniel Andrews announced today.

According to the roadmap revealed last weekend, the move to step 3 in regional Victoria could happen when the daily average number of cases for the previous 14 days was less than five, and there were zero community cases without a known source for 14 days.

Regional Victoria actually reached the 14-day moving average target on September 10, with 4.5, and by today the average had dropped to 3.6. They were just waiting to hit the mystery cases target.

Among the restrictions to be eased under step 3, up to ten people will be allowed to gather outdoors, and hospitality venues will be able to open again for sit-down service. Beauty salons and hairdressers will also reopen, and people who live in regional Victoria will be able to travel to other regional areas in the state.

Heading in the right direction

This easing of restrictions is undoubtedly good news for regional Victoria. But it’s also reason for people in Melbourne to be optimistic.

Certainly, regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne are quite different in terms of the epidemiology of their respective second waves. But the targets set out in the roadmap do appear to be achievable.

The 14-day moving average of daily case numbers for Melbourne is currently at 52.9, and needs to drop below 50 to reach the target for step 2.

Based on my modelling of the 14-day moving average, Melbourne could reach this target as early as Thursday.

This model takes the 14-day moving average for the last 30 days, and it assumes the continuing downward trend is exponentially decreasing. That is, it plots a slow downward curve that approaches zero.

The target to move to step 3 is a 14-day moving average of fewer than five cases per day statewide. A similar modelling strategy shows this is likely to occur on about October 22.

Save the date (or don’t)

Notably, there was no date set for the move to step 3 in regional Victoria, which is very different to the roadmap set out for metropolitan Melbourne.

In Melbourne, the second step is not due to occur until September 28, and the third step not until October 26 – and only then if case numbers have dropped below designated thresholds.

The key question for the Victorian government is whether to stick to this time frame, or allow for an earlier move to the second and third steps if Melbourne achieves the moving average targets ahead of time.

Read more: Victoria’s path out of COVID-19 lockdown – quick reference guides

In a recent article on The Conversation, I called for a more nuanced approach to lifting restrictions. In other words, the government shouldn’t be too rigid with the roadmap.

The people of Victoria have been asked to make enormous sacrifices to get the outbreak under control, and it’s working. I believe the Victorian government should be willing to reward Melburnians by moving to the third step when they reach the relevant case threshold, regardless of the date.

What now?

It’s essential that over the next few weeks, Melbourne residents continue to stick to the restrictions, to help hit the targets as soon as possible.

The numbers of COVID-19 tests has dropped off in the past few days, averaging about 14,000 tests a day. With the lower number of cases and fewer people with respiratory symptoms now winter is over, this is not really surprising. But it’s vital high rates of testing continue, with a focus on hotspot areas, such as the Casey local government area.

Read more: ‘Slow and steady’ exit from lockdown as Victorian government sets sights on ‘COVID-normal’ Christmas

As for regional Victoria, people there must also stick to the remaining restrictions. This will give them the best chance of moving towards step 4 and beyond.

– ref. On the road to COVID normal: the easing of regional Victoria’s restrictions signals hope for Melbourne too – https://theconversation.com/on-the-road-to-covid-normal-the-easing-of-regional-victorias-restrictions-signals-hope-for-melbourne-too-146203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor, Macquarie University

It is virtually impossible for anyone to travel to Australia at the moment due to COVID-19 restrictions — let alone those seeking asylum. But even before the pandemic, it was very difficult for asylum seekers to make their way here.

With our borders completely shut, this is an opportune time to reflect on what our asylum seeker policy could look like in a post-pandemic world.

Completely closing our borders to those in need of protection is neither sustainable nor defensible as long-term policy. Australia cannot expect other countries to step up and provide protection while we turn our backs to those in need.

Our current system is arbitrary and ad hoc

The major political parties have made it clear they do not want to see asylum seekers coming to Australia by boats again. But it is hypocritical to take such a position without providing alternative safe pathways for asylum seekers to get here.

One such pathway is air travel. Before the pandemic, it was possible for people who qualified for tourist, student or other types of visas to fly to Australia and subsequently apply for protection.

But those coming by plane typically faced pre-screening and were often denied boarding – precisely because they fit the profile of someone who might claim asylum.

Read more: Refugees need protection from coronavirus too, and must be released

At Australian airports, border officials also use a highly discretionary system to identify and cancel the visas of potential asylum seekers before even considering their protection claims. This places these individuals at serious risk of refoulement to persecution or other serious harm.

This process has resulted in refugees being handcuffed and detained, simply for raising a protection claim in the airport. Some are only detained briefly and promptly placed on a flight home, while others spend months or years in immigration detention while their claims are assessed.

These policies not only prioritise removal or visa cancellation over protection, but actually serve as a disincentive for people to apply for protection at the airport.

Ensuring access to protection

With COVID-19, we have a rare opportunity for a policy reset. Maintaining the integrity of the system is important, and we do not dispute the need to have systems in place to fairly and efficiently distinguish between those who need protection and those who do not.

The problem is the discretionary nature of the present system has given rise to an arbitrary approach that places too much power in the hands of border enforcement officials with no background or training in identifying people in need of protection.

Read more: How refugees succeed in visa reviews: new research reveals the factors that matter

In our new policy brief for UNSW’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, we make several recommendations for how to improve the system.

First, we argue people’s visas should not be cancelled while they are in immigration clearance solely because they seek to lodge a protection claim in Australia.

This a breach of the UN Refugee Convention, which prohibits penalising asylum seekers for “irregular entry or presence” in a country where they are looking for protection. It also goes against the principles of non-discrimination in international human rights law.

We also argue Australia should pass new legislation to improve screening procedures for asylum seekers at airports, including these changes:

• applicants should be interviewed by a trained official from the humanitarian program section of the Department of Home Affairs.

• the threshold for referring applicants to the full asylum procedures should be set low. Only those who are clearly not refugees or whose claims are clearly fraudulent should be screened out at the airport.

• applicants should have access to legal advice, competent interpreters and officials from UNHCR during both the preliminary decision and review stages. Asylum seekers who raise a protection claim at the airport should be informed of this right and given help to seek such assistance.

• detention should only be used as a last resort. If it is required, it should be for the shortest time necessary, proportionate and subject to regular independent review.

• applicants should not be removed from Australia until their protection claims have been finally determined, including any available judicial review.

Better tracking of people being turned away

In addition to these changes to the screening process, it’s imperative airlines are not fined for carrying passengers who ultimately receive protection in Australia.

And the Department of Home Affairs needs to improve its data collection practices to start recording reasons for visa cancellations — both within and outside Australia — as well as outcomes of all screening decisions.

This should include establishing a method for recording all protection claims made at or before immigration clearance, and recording all removals of travellers “screened out” after making a protection claim.

Read more: ‘People are crying and begging’: the human cost of forced relocations in immigration detention

The government has conceded it does not accurately collect such data. This information is critical to assessing the extent to which Australia is complying with its domestic and international obligations.

Australia cannot permanently keep its borders shut to asylum seekers. It’s not only inhumane, but it also goes against our obligations under international refugee and human rights law. When travel to Australia resumes, we need to prioritise protection over deflection and removal.

– ref. With our borders shut, this is the ideal time to overhaul our asylum seeker policies – https://theconversation.com/with-our-borders-shut-this-is-the-ideal-time-to-overhaul-our-asylum-seeker-policies-146016

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

The federal government today announced it will build a new gas power plant in the Hunter Valley, NSW, if electricity generators don’t fill the energy gap left by the Liddell coal-fired station when it retires in 2023.

The government says it’s concerned that when the coal plant closes, there’ll be insufficient dispatchable power (that can be used on demand) because the energy sector is focused on accelerating renewable energy at the expense of reliability. So electricity generators are required to come up with a plan to inject 1,000 megawatts of new dispatchable energy into the national grid.

Read more: Morrison government threatens to use Snowy Hydro to build gas generator, as it outlines ‘gas-fired recovery’ plan

This is tantamount to an ultimatum: if we must have renewables, then prove they generate the same amount of electricity as fossil fuel or we will go back to fossil fuel.

The government’s joint media release has this to say:

This is about making Australia’s gas work for all Australians. Gas is a critical enabler of Australia’s economy.

But under a rapidly changing climate, the issue is not just about keeping the lights on. We not only want energy, we also want to breathe clean air, have enough food, have clean and available water supplies, preserve our habitat and live in a sustainable community. So no, gas doesn’t “work for all Australians”.

Adapting to a new energy future is a complex process our national government must not only support, but progress. It should not be hijacked by fossil fuel politics.

Scare-tactics won’t resolve the climate emergency

The government’s scare tactic completely ignores the two fundamental imperatives of modern energy.

Read more: 4 reasons why a gas-led economic recovery is a terrible, naïve idea

The first is the critical importance of decarbonisation. Energy production from fossil fuels is the most carbon intensive activity on the planet. If we are to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and stay within 2℃ of global warming, we cannot burn fossil fuels to produce energy.

The government shouldn’t revert to outdated fossil fuel rhetoric about “reliable, dispatchable power” during an accelerating climate emergency.

The second is it’s in the public interest to support and invest in energy that’s not only environmentally sustainable for the future, but also economically sustainable. Demand for fossil fuels is in terminal decline across the world and investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure may lead to stranded assets.

We need to address the ‘energy trilemma’

The question the government should instead focus on is this: how can the government continue to supply its citizens with affordable, reliable electricity but also maintain a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and high air quality standards?

Answering this question involves addressing a three-part set of tensions, known as the “energy trilemma”:

1. sustainable generation that is not emission intensive
2. infrastructure reliability and
3. affordability.

The energy trilemma is a well-known tool in the sector that powerfully communicates the relative positioning of each tension. No single axis is necessarily more important than the other two. The aim is to try to balance all three.

Constructing a new gas plant seeks to address the second pillar at the expense of the first. This isn’t good enough in the face of the climate emergency.

Gas fired electricity can emit methane. Over a 20-year period, methane is 84 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat, and 28 times more effective over 100 years.

Read more: Australia has plenty of gas, but our bills are ridiculous. The market is broken

The affordability pillar is also important. Morrison says constructing the plant will prevent energy price spikes. But research clearly confirms renewable energy generation is cheapest.

What is it with the federal government and gas?

After first informing us gas will help bolster the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, this new announcement makes it clear the federal government is firmly wedded to gas.

This may be because the federal government regards adherence to gas as a compromise between the renewable sector and the demands of the fossil fuel industry.

In any case, we cannot and must not revert to fossil fuel energy generation. We must abandon past behaviours if we’re to adapt to a changing climate, which is set to hit the economy much harder than this pandemic.

Most Australians have derived their assumptions about energy security from fossil fuel dependency, because this is what they have known. The good news is this is changing.

Increasingly, the global community understands it’s not sustainable to burn coal or gas to generate energy just because we want to be “sure” we can turn the lights on. Consumer preference is shifting.

Read more: Why it doesn’t make economic sense to ignore climate change in our recovery from the pandemic

This is something BP recognises in its 2020 Energy Outlook report, which outlines three scenarios for the global energy system in next 30 years.

Each scenario shows a shift in social preferences and a decline in the share of hydrocarbons (coal, oil and natural gas) in the global energy system. This decline is matched by an increase in the role of renewable energy.

I’ll say it again: renewable energy is the future

The technology underpinning renewable energy production from clean, low-cost generation such as wind, solar, hydro-electricity, hydrogen and bio-mass is advancing.

Renewable energy generation is sustainable, better for the environment, low in emissions, and affordable. Reliability is improving at a rapid rate. A recent report indicates electricity generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind farms from 2026 will overtake the combined power production from coal and gas.

The combined solar and wind capacity will grow to an estimated 41.4 gigawatts in 2023 from 26.4 gigawatts this year. By contrast, coal and gas capacity will shrink to 35.3 gigawatts in 2023 from 39.1 gigawatts this year.

The report is based on the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) Step Change Scenario, which models a shift to renewables. It includes rapid adjustments in technology costs and a “well below 2℃” scenario as part of its 20-year planning blueprint.

Read more: Here’s what the coronavirus pandemic can teach us about tackling climate change

Yes, there are challenges in shifting from a centralised grid and developing new transmission capacity.

But these are the challenges we need to be investing in. Not a new gas plant that’s likely to be a stranded asset in the not-too-distant future.

– ref. No, Prime Minister, gas doesn’t ‘work for all Australians’ and your scare tactics ignore modern energy problems – https://theconversation.com/no-prime-minister-gas-doesnt-work-for-all-australians-and-your-scare-tactics-ignore-modern-energy-problems-146196