Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

With 54% of the vote counted at the New South Wales election held today, the ABC is currently projecting 45 of the 93 lower house seats for the Coalition, 35 for Labor, three Greens, three independents and two Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. Five seats remain undecided. Coogee is the only current clear Labor gain from the Coalition.

Forty-seven seats are needed for a majority, but the Coalition is in a strong position to form a minority government if it falls short. This will be the Coalition’s third term in NSW. It is the first time the Coalition has won a third term in NSW since 1971; the last time the Coalition won a third term in state government in Australia was in 1980.

All crossbenchers in the current parliament retained their seats. The Greens won Newtown, Balmain and Ballina. The Shooters retained Orange, which they had won at a byelection, and gained Murray from the Nationals. Independents retained Sydney, Lake Macquarie and Wagga Wagga (also won at a byelection).

The ABC’s projection of final primary votes are currently 41.7% Coalition (down 3.9% since the 2015 election), 33.4% Labor (down 0.7%), 9.9% Greens (down 0.4%) and 3.1% Shooters. If the projection is accurate, it is an indictment on Labor that their primary vote fell. The two party statewide result will not be available for a long time, but the Coalition probably won by about 53-47, a swing of about 1.5% to Labor.

Late campaign mishaps probably cost Labor in NSW. On March 18, Labor leader Michael Daley was revealed to have made comments in September 2018, before he became leader, that could be perceived as anti-Asian. On March 20, during a leaders’ debate, Daley could not recall details of funding for his party’s policies.

The final NSW Newspoll gave the Coalition a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since eleven days ago. Primary votes were 41% Coalition (up one), 35% Labor (down one) and 10% Greens (steady). Reflecting his bad final week, Daley’s net approval plunged 14 points to -15, while Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s net approval dropped five points to +1. That Newspoll was taken March 19-21, and the momentum towards the Coalition appears to have carried over into the election results.

Two days before the 2015 Queensland election, Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk was unable to name the GST rate in an interview. Yet Labor ousted the LNP at that election on a massive swing.

I believe the difference between Queensland 2015 and NSW 2019 is that voters are more inclined to forgive politicians who make a mistake that is perceived to be out of character. Daley has only been the NSW Labor leader since November, and his anti-Asian video revealed something that voters did not like. It is probably more dangerous for a left-wing leader to be perceived as racist than a right-wing leader.

I will update this article tomorrow with more complete details of the lower house and a look at the upper house.

MORE TO COME

– ref. Coalition wins a third term in NSW with few seats changing hands – http://theconversation.com/coalition-wins-a-third-term-in-nsw-with-few-seats-changing-hands-113035

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

The April 2 budget will provide about A$600 million to pursue wrongdoers and help restore trust in Australia’s financial system.

The budget, which will be a launching pad for the election, likely to be announced the following weekend, is set to include another round of tax cuts but it will also contain strong warnings about a deterioration in Australia’s economic outlook.

“The near term economic outlook is looking softer since [the December budget update], with the economy facing some emerging risks,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in an interview with The Conversation.

“We are concerned about the impact of [falling] housing prices spilling over into the real economy through lower household consumption and building approvals – and this matters because household consumption is close to 60% of GDP”.

The international outlook had been deteriorating, with growth figures revised down, he said.

Frydenberg said the budget’s measures were “focussed on driving down the cost of living , driving productivity and growth and creating more jobs”. It will forecast a long-awaited return to surplus and its spending will be “very targeted”.

Read more: No surplus, no share market growth, no lift in wage growth. Economic survey points to bleaker times post-election

Following the Hayne royal commission’s indictment of the banks and other financial institutions, the government will give the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) more than $400 million in additional funding over four years to 2022-23. On average, this is a rise of about a quarter in its annual funding over the forward estimates compared to 2017-18.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) will receive $150 million extra – an increase of about 30% in its annual funding over the budget period, compared with 2017-18.

Taxpayers, however, will eventually get back the funds provided to ASIC and APRA – the financial industry will be levied for the cost, with the largest institutions paying the most.

Also, the government will provide more than $35 million to support the expansion of the federal court’s jurisdiction to include corporate crime. The expansion will include the appointment of two new judges, the engagement of 11 registry and support staff, and the building of new facilities.

The court’s new role will mean institutions and individuals breaking the corporate law can be prosecuted faster than under the current system.

The government says the ASIC funding will support expanded regulation of financial services and “a new, more hardline, proactive and accelerated enforcement strategy including implementing a ‘why not litigate?’ approach”. There will be greater on-site supervision of larger institutions.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Josh Frydenberg has a great job at the worst time

The APRA funding will support, among other initiatives, its response to areas of concern highlighted by the commission, including governance, remuneration, and culture in financial institutions.

As the government beds down a budget crucial to its efforts to revive its electoral fortunes, Frydenberg said it would help “frame” the election contest.

“It will be about what kind of nation Australians want over the next decade. On our side it’s about balancing the books, growing the economy with more jobs and lower taxes, guaranteeing essential services, hospitals, roads and schools, all without increasing taxes,” he said

“There’s been a bit of a debate over real wages and the key to real wages is not high taxes – it’s through decreasing taxes and targeted spending on infrastructure and more trade and getting people into work,” Frydenberg said.

He said the Australian economy’s fundamentals were sound. Growth, at 2.3% per cent through the year, was second only to the United States among G7 countries. This week’s figures showed unemployment falling to 4.9%, the lowest in eight years. Youth unemployment was the lowest in seven years.

Read more: Ultra low wage growth isn’t accidental. It is the intended outcome of government policies

But there was a slowdown in the global economy, with global trade volumes down more than 3% since August. Trade tensions continued and there was uncertainty over Brexit. The International Monetary Fund and the OECD had downgraded their 2019 growth numbers.

“Japan is only growing at around 1% and had a negative quarter last year. The Euro area has been growing at less than 2% and had a negative quarter last year. Germany had a negative quarter last year and China itself set a lower growth target,‘ he said.

At home, “falls in dwelling investment detracted 0.2% from growth in the December quarter. The impacts of the drought have seen farm GDP down by 5.8 % through the year and the impacts of the flood have still yet to fully flow through.”

Frydenberg said the situation was “all manageable – but only with a strong economic plan that gives business confidence to invest and consumers the confidence to spend. It requires a pro-growth agenda, which is exactly what you’ll see in this year’s budget”.

The budget numbers are being held up by strong growth in nominal GDP, which determines revenue numbers.

Frydenberg said returning the budget to surplus was “more significant than just a number because it’s actually showing that we’ve turned a corner.”

“Surpluses will continue to grow over the medium term, and the goal is to bring net debt down to zero.”

Frydenberg stressed the government’s commitment was for a surplus in 2019-20, declining to rule in or out a surplus for the current financial year. He pointed out there had been “issues’ in this financial year, especially the drought and other natural disasters, but also higher schools payments and various other commitments the government had made.

– ref. Funding boost for policing finance sector, in budget that warns of economic softening – http://theconversation.com/funding-boost-for-policing-finance-sector-in-budget-that-warns-of-economic-softening-114093

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Haynes, PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong

Sign up to Beating Around the Bush, a series that profiles native plants: part gardening column, part dispatches from country, entirely Australian.

Chances are you’ve walked over silver moss (Bryum argenteum) countless times without giving it a second glance. This moss, at home in moist environments as well as hot and cold deserts, is also a common denizen of cities worldwide and finds shelter in our pavement cracks.

Also known as silvery thread moss and silvergreen bryum moss, it grows in all states and territories of Australia, particularly in towns and cities.

Read more: Antarctica’s ‘moss forests’ are drying and dying

The Conversation

To the naked eye, it appears as a tiny silvery green ribbon or small cushion, with stems up to 1.5cm tall, but often only a few millimetres high. With a hand lens, its crowded, tight buds are visible, while a microscope reveals the reason for its silvery appearance: cells in the top portion of its minute leaves do not have chloroplasts (and therefore no chlorophyll) and do not appear green, but instead make a transparent silvery tip. This portion of the leaf protects the chloroplasts deeper down from harsh sunlight.

Like many others in its genus, the leaves have a rounded appearance with a central rib, or costa, that ends well before the tip. As with most moss, these simple leaves are only one cell layer thick, so it exchanges gases and water with the exterior by diffusion.

The silver moss is a survivor. We remove native vegetation from our cities and clear forest canopies but it can cope with this new version of home. We swap forest floor for hard, impervious surfaces that utterly change how water moves across the landscape – for instance, evaporating much more quickly – but this moss makes use of water when it can, switching on its photosynthesis processes when there’s enough water, and hunkering down when there’s not.

Read more: What’s behind Japan’s moss obsession?

This cycle can occur over the duration of a day, with photosynthesis starting in the early morning light when there’s a little dew on the leaves, and closing down as the day progresses and the moss dries, but it can also play out over much longer periods, even years.

It can do this thanks to its particularly strong tolerance for desiccation, a trait which varies across moss species. This isn’t just the ability to withstand drought. It’s more radical than that. It is the ability to shut down all metabolic processes in the absence of water, and start them up again when water is available. This might not sound too impressive, but in the majority of plants drying out totally involves serious damage at the cell level, with membranes and cell organelles becoming brittle and breaking and macromolecules such as DNA being damaged beyond repair.

Silver moss growing on a Wollongong basketball court. Alison Haynes, Author provided

Silver moss uses sugars to create protective glass-like compounds to protect its cells from irreparable damage. Because of its tough nature, the silver moss is widely studied to further understanding of how plants cope with a range of other stresses too, from UV-B radiation and sand burial to trace metals and excessive light.

Silver moss is not showy and quite often looks rather dusty in city environments, but it’s nice to know that the 19th century botanist Ferdinand von Mueller collected it twice in 1852, in Adelaide, five years after his arrival from Germany. He moved to Melbourne that year, was appointed government botanist, and founded the National Herbarium of Victoria a year later, in 1853. These two samples must have been among the first deposited there, making them our oldest specimens of this species in Australia.

While I don’t know exactly what species were used, Aboriginal Australians took advantage of the moisture that moss collects. In Queensland, for instance, Indigenous people used to squeeze out water from a moss clump then replace it carefully, to use again.

Read more: War and peat: how bog moss helped save thousands of lives in World War I

For me, moss is on the cusp of the macro and micro world. Just big enough to see with the naked eye, it nonetheless draws you in and down to a smaller world. I’ve become a moss tourist. Whenever I go to a city, I don’t just look up at the sights, I also look down! Mosses like Bryum argenteum remind me of the wild even within the depth of a city landscape. They are a reminder that we may remove native forests, but still the most minute spores of living organisms will come in and find a place to live, if not thrive.

Sign up to Beating Around the Bush, a series that profiles native plants: part gardening column, part dispatches from country, entirely Australian.. Read previous instalments here.

– ref. Silver moss is a rugged survivor in the city landscape – http://theconversation.com/silver-moss-is-a-rugged-survivor-in-the-city-landscape-113459

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

Earth is often in the firing line of fragments of asteroids and comets, most of which burn up tens of kilometres above our heads. But occasionally, something larger gets through.

That’s what happened off Russia’s east coast on December 18 last year. A giant explosion occurred above the Bering Sea when an asteroid some ten metres across detonated with an explosive energy ten times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

So why didn’t we see this asteroid coming? And why are we only hearing about its explosive arrival now?

Read more: Look up! Your guide to some of the best meteor showers for 2019

Nobody saw it

Had the December explosion occurred near a city – as happened at Chelyabinsk in February 2013 – we would have heard all about it at the time.

Plenty of people observed and captured the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion.

But because it happened in a remote part of the world, it went unremarked for more than three months, until details were unveiled at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference this week, based on NASA’s collection of fireball data.

The 173kt fireball blast off Russia’s eastern coastline in December was the largest recorded since 2013’s fireball over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Center for Near Earth Object Studies

So where did this asteroid come from?

At risk from space debris

The Solar system is littered with material left over from the formation of the planets. Most of it is locked up in stable reservoirs – the Asteroid belt, the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud – far from Earth.

Those reservoirs continually leak objects into interplanetary space, injecting fresh debris into orbits that cross those of the planets. The inner Solar system is awash with debris, ranging from tiny flecks of dust to comets and asteroids many kilometres in diameter.

The vast majority of the debris that collides with Earth is utterly harmless, but our planet still bears the scars of collisions with much larger bodies.

The largest, most devastating impacts (like that which helped to kill the dinosaurs 65 million years ago) are the rarest. But smaller, more frequent collisions also pose a marked risk.

In 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia, a vast explosion levelled more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest. Due to the remote location, no deaths were recorded. Had the impact happened just two hours later, the city of St Petersburg could have been destroyed.

In 2013, it was a 10,000-tonne asteroid that detonated above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. More than 1,500 people were injured and around 7,000 buildings were damaged, but amazingly nobody was killed.

The meteor trail taken about 200km away from Chelyabinsk a minute after the blast in 2013. Flickr/Alex Alishevskikh, CC BY-SA

We’re still trying to work out how often events like this happen. Our information on the frequency of the larger impacts is pretty limited, so estimates can vary dramatically.

Typically, people argue that Tunguska-sized impacts happen every few hundred years, but that’s just based on a sample of one event. The truth is, we don’t really know.

What can we do about it?

Over the past couple of decades, a concerted effort has been made to search for potentially hazardous objects that pose a threat before they hit Earth. The result is the identification of thousands of near-Earth asteroids upwards of a few metres across.

Once found, the orbits of those objects can be determined, and their paths predicted into the future, to see whether an impact is possible or even likely. The longer we can observe a given object, the better that prediction becomes.

But as we saw with Chelyabinsk in 2013, and again in December, we’re not there yet. While the catalogue of potentially hazardous objects continues to grow, many still remain undetected, waiting to catch us by surprise.

If we discover a collision is pending in the coming days, we can work out where and when the collision will happen. That happened for the first time in 2008 when astronomers discovered the tiny asteroid 2008 TC3, 19 hours before it hit Earth’s atmosphere over northern Sudan.

For impacts predicted with a longer lead time, it will be possible to work out whether the object is truly dangerous, or would merely produce a spectacular but harmless fireball (like 2008 TC3).

For any objects that truly pose a threat, the race will be on to deflect them – to turn a hit into a miss.

Searching the skies

Before we can quantify the threat an object poses, we first need to know that the object is there. But finding asteroids is hard.

Surveys scour the skies, looking for faint star-like points moving against the background stars. A bigger asteroid will reflect more sunlight, and therefore appear brighter in the sky – at a given distance from Earth.

As a result, the smaller the object, the closer it must be to Earth before we can spot it.

Objects the size of the Chelyabinsk and Bering Sea events (about 20 and 10 metres diameter, respectively) are tiny. They can only be spotted when passing very close to our planet. The vast majority of the time they are simply undetectable.

As a result, having impacts like these come out of the blue is really the norm, rather than the exception!

The Chelyabinsk impact is a great example. Moving on its orbit around the Sun, it approached us in the daylight sky – totally hidden in the Sun’s glare.

For larger objects, which impact much less frequently but would do far more damage, it is fair to expect we would receive some warning.

Why not move the asteroid?

While we need to keep searching for threatening objects, there is another way we could protect ourselves.

Missions such as Hayabusa, Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx have demonstrated the ability to travel to near-Earth asteroids, land on their surfaces, and move things around.

This artist’s concept shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft contacting the asteroid Bennu. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

From there, it is just a short hop to being able to deflect them – to change a potential collision into a near-miss.

Read more: How the dinosaurs went extinct: asteroid collision triggered potentially deadly volcanic eruptions

Interestingly, ideas of asteroid deflection dovetail nicely with the possibility of asteroid mining.

The technology needed to extract material from an asteroid and send it back to Earth could equally be used to alter the orbit of that asteroid, moving it away from a potential collision with our planet.

We’re not quite there yet, but for the first time in our history, we have the potential to truly control our own destiny.

– ref. Why dangerous asteroids heading to Earth are so hard to detect – http://theconversation.com/why-dangerous-asteroids-heading-to-earth-are-so-hard-to-detect-113845

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohamad Abdalla, Founding Director of the Centre for Islamic Thought and Education, University of South Australia

Following the tragic attack in Christchurch that killed 50 people as they prayed, I felt compelled to visit the injured in hospital, and meet their family and friends.

I also visited others in their homes, alongside an elder and pioneer of the New Zealand Islamic community, the man who helped establish Al Noor Mosque where most of the victims were killed.

Their stories of survival are moving, sometimes remarkable and often deeply sad.

Read more: How to take care of your mental health after the Christchurch attacks

But the common thread in their response to the horrific events of March 15 is profound bravery, deep consideration and thoughtfulness, and a complete lack of desire for vengeance.

At the hospital, I met Ahmad, a middle-aged man from an Afghani background. He said he survived because he was buried under the dead bodies that piled up in the mosque. Although he was shot twice in the back and was lucky to survive, he was not angry or resentful.

When asked about his abiding thoughts now he said:

terrorism must not scare us. Racism must not divide us.

I then visited Fuad, another middle-aged man originally from Afghanistan who also escaped death. He had been struck by a bullet in the back and another just missing the back of his head.

His wounds were visible. He told me, with four children, he was just grateful to be alive. Not resentful or vengeful, he was full of praise for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her deep expression of humanity.

Mustafa, a young university student of Turkish heritage, was shot in the legs. One of the bullets exploded in his leg and it is difficult to know the long-term impacts – but he smiles and is cheerful, kind and respectful to the nurses who care for him.

Like the other two, he was not hateful. He said:

We trust in God. Don’t be scared to go to Mosques and schools.

He was quick to point out terrorism would serve its purpose if it made people afraid – our fear is their victory.

A cyclist prepares to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial near the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Rd in Christchurch, New Zealand, Tuesday, March 19, 2019. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Still in shock from seeing the events at Al Noor mosque unfold, Burhan, a Sudanese man in his 60s, stood in the hospital corridor. That Friday at the mosque, he heard the shooting but was not sure if it was real.

He then saw two men shot dead, one on his right and the other behind him.

He ran outside and hid behind a car but could see the shoes of the terrorist as he continued to fire. He watched as a father ran out with his three-year-old daughter in his arms calling out “my daughter!”.

Both had been shot multiple times and both remain in critical care.

A young man in his 20s whom I had met when we completed the hajj pilgrimage last year, witnessed the gunman as he shot that young father and child.

Not unscathed, he too was shot in the hip and shoulder and his father only survived by pretending to be dead.

Without anger and strong in his faith he said:

the Prophets of God were tested more severely.

Down every corridor the message was the same – the survivors urged unity and the strength to resist hatred, racism and vengeance.

At the community centre later that day I met Adnan Ibrahim the father of the youngest of the 50 victims killed at the two mosques. His son, Mucad Ibrahim, was only three years old.

Before he was killed, he had run toward the gunman thinking it was a game.

As Adnan retold the events, everyone became very silent. In deep pain and sorrow, he showed grace and dignity.

Verily we belong to God and to Him we shall return.

His most present thoughts were about the sad condition of humanity, that such things could happen.

Read more: The psychology of fear and hate, and what each of us can do to stop it

On my way to the carpark, I met Matiullah, a young man under 20 years old. I greeted him and asked if he lost anyone. He told me his father was killed while standing in prayer at the mosque. I embraced him and was struck by his gentleness and calmness.

The community elder Dr Hanif Quazi took me to see Ambreen Nadeem, who lost both her husband and her 21-year-old son, Talha.

Talha was completing an engineering degree. The entire family were planning to visit Pakistan in June and the tickets were booked.

As I met her with her two remaining sons, 17 and seven years old, I was filled with sadness.

Grief lined her dignified face.

And she said:

I pity the killer because his heart was filled with hate, not love.

“Pray for us,” she added quietly. I did.

At a time when we could expect that anger, vengeance and resentment could take hold in a community so demolished by violence, I found the exact opposite.

They were compassionate. They were forgiving. They were humane. And this is what we need right now.

– ref. Finding dignity and grace in the aftermath of the Christchurch attack – http://theconversation.com/finding-dignity-and-grace-in-the-aftermath-of-the-christchurch-attack-114072

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini talks about the week in politics with Michelle Grattan. They discuss the aftermath of the tragedy in Christchurch, hate speech in politics, Australia’s relations with Turkey ahead of ANZAC day, the government’s changed migration program and the coming NSW election.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the aftermath of the Christchurch tragedy, and the NSW election – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-aftermath-of-the-christchurch-tragedy-and-the-nsw-election-114076

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alessandro R Demaio, Australian Medical Doctor; Fellow in Global Health & NCDs, University of Copenhagen

Alessandro Demaio addressed the National Press Club today, alongside Karen Carey (former chair of the Consumers Health Forum) and Stephen Duckett (head of the Health Program at the Grattan Institute), to outline the key health issues ahead of the 2019 federal election. This is an edited transcript of Alessandro Demaio’s speech.

The year is 1980, and a small number of vulnerable Australian children begin to show early signs of a quiet but dangerous disease. Affecting their kidneys, their hearts and even their brains, this disease has known causes – and solutions. But little or nothing is done and it doesn’t even make the headlines.

Jump forward to 1995, the disease is spreading. From just a handful of children in every hundred, this condition is now affecting one in five. Driven by a lack of opportunity and heavily concentrated in our poorest communities, the burden sees a steep rise in type 2 diabetes and other serious complications.

This is a disease that soon sees young people developing illnesses previously thought of as older age ailments. And it’s one that singles out Indigenous kids, rural and remote kids, and poorer kids. In fact by 2013, nearly one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian children and adolescents are affected.

Read more: Before pregnancy even starts, healthy weight in mums and dads lowers obesity risk in children

Jump forward to 2011, and we have now allowed one in four children across Australia to be affected by this chronic condition. We have stood back for so long that 25% of our kids are now living with daily discrimination and long-term, often irreversible health challenges.

We don’t know the exact number of children affected by this serious health challenge today, but we know it has surpassed 25%.

What is truly irresponsible is that we don’t even have a clear plan for addressing this rising epidemic now affecting hundreds of thousands of Aussie kids.

The condition is excess weight, and obesity.

If this were any other serious, debilitating, rapidly rising health challenge, we would be calling a national emergency. We would be rallying the troops and putting every resource possible into finding a solution.

We have solutions available that are costed, proven, and endorsed by the highest global health agencies, including the United Nations. We now need to implement them.

Read more: How obesity causes cancer, and may make screening and treatment harder

Other nations have stepped up

Research shows advertising increases the consumption of junk foods and drinks, even in children as young as two.

England is banning all junk food advertising on the London transport system and implementing strict rules on children’s TV.

Chile has banned the use of cartoon characters on junk foods, including sugary cereals that can contain more than the recommended daily sugar intake in a single serve. Cartoons attract young minds and incentivise nagging for already busy parents.

When kids see junk food advertised on TV, they want it. From shutterstock.com

Meanwhile in Australia, our governments continue to allow some of the highest levels of junk food advertising during children’s TV programming in the world. Some 44% of food advertisements seen by kids are for unhealthy foods. And despite whatever industry will tell you, between 2011 and 2015 no reduction was seen in the rate of unhealthy food advertising.

Chile is implementing mandatory and clear front-of-pack labels that make it easy for young consumers to understand what is and isn’t healthy. This has cut the likelihood of people choosing sugary breakfast cereals by 11% and sugary juices by almost 24%.

Peru and Uruguay are following.

Ecuador has clear “traffic light” labels indicating sugar, salt and fat content in products.

Read more: Broad range of prevention efforts need to target obesity in children

These countries have a plan. Here in Australia we continue to argue about a voluntary system that experts agree is a good start but too weak, and all while we attack the public health sector for their efforts.

We continue to insult every parent and young child by projecting an untruthful dogma that child obesity should be blamed on poor choices or poor parenting.

This ignores the fact that junk-food outlets disproportionately saturate poorer neighbourhoods, or that one of the strongest predictors of dying early from weight-related chronic disease is your postcode.

We need to tax sugary drinks

At latest count, at least 49 countries now have a form of tax on sugar-sweetened beverages – or junk drinks. Evidence from the World Health Organisation clearly shows we need to reduce kids’ sugar consumption. It is linked with type 2 diabetes, which in turn is linked to early death and decades of suffering. It is also a major contributor to missing school, through dental illness.

Increasing the price of sugary drinks protects public health.

And while some will tell you such a tax will bankrupt farmers, leaders like Professor Stephen Duckett from the Grattan Institute have shown this is not the case.

Others will tell you a tax will hit the poorest hardest, but this is untrue too. The poorest households in Australia generally consume the highest amounts of sugary drinks and suffer from the greatest burden of costly, diet-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease. They have the most to gain.

Obesity among children in Australia is a much bigger problem than it used to be. From shutterstock.com

Evidence from Mexico suggests just that. The poorest communities consumed almost 20% fewer sugary drinks as a result of the increase in price within two years of the change.

In Philadelphia, the much-needed income from a small price increase in soft drinks was used to subsidise physical activity programs for kids, and childcare for families.

Read more: Lessons for Australia from US reversal of childhood obesity

Here in Australia, false facts and conflicts of interest drive futile discussions that result in continued inaction.

Our health minister makes proud announcements hand in hand with industry, while those same industry players are shown to be funding fake research and manipulating both national governments and United Nations agencies.

Meanwhile, junk food fuels two in three adults being overweight, and these overweight adults are malnourished in key nutrients.

Why invest in prevention?

Australia’s government spends less than about $0.02 of every health dollar on prevention each year. This equates to A$89 per person – considerably less than Canada or New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the economic burden of treating obesity-related diseases is estimated to rise from A$12 billion in 2014 to A$21 billion in 2025.

In other words, for every dollar we are spending on prevention, we’ll soon be losing A$10 for our lack of action on obesity.

Read more: Even if obesity were a disease, exercise may be too bitter a pill

For decades our governments have sat back and allowed a preventable epidemic. Adult-onset diabetes is being renamed as it now affects younger and younger members of our community. Bowel cancer is becoming more common in adolescents. And fatty liver disease, once almost unheard of in children, is now increasing.

The longer we wait, the longer we go without a plan, the longer we fail to invest in prevention, the longer our kids suffer needlessly. For the health of Aussie kids and our nation, we need a comprehensive plan for prevention.

– ref. More than one in four Aussie kids are overweight or obese: we’re failing them, and we need a plan – http://theconversation.com/more-than-one-in-four-aussie-kids-are-overweight-or-obese-were-failing-them-and-we-need-a-plan-114005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Battersby, Police Teaching Fellow, Massey University

Up until Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement of a ban on military-style weapons yesterday, New Zealand had a system of licensing firearms holders and used a process of application, vetting, reference checks and attendance at firearms safety lectures.

Knowledge of the Firearms Code was required and tested. A firearms license holder was able to then legally acquire any number of firearms. New Zealand has not set up an arms register since the Arms Act was enacted in 1983.

There is no tally of how many firearms are in New Zealand, and no log of how many firearms any individual may have. There is an estimated 1.3 million firearms legally owned in New Zealand, and nothing beyond speculation about how many illegal weapons have found their way in.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces a ban on military style semi-automatic weapons and assault firearms.

Read more: Will the New Zealand gun law changes prevent future mass shootings?

Loop holes in gun laws

With a certain class of license, military style semi-automatic weapons (in unlimited numbers) could be acquired legally. Some 14,000 of these weapons are thought to be legally owned in New Zealand.

Loop holes in current legislation abound. These make it possible to modify weapons and obtain large magazines, and even to buy armour-piercing bullets. Why, in a peaceful, democratic and open society, does anyone need a military-style automatic weapon and armour piercing ammunition?

Prime Minister Ardern has shown the decisive leadership we should see from a leader who genuinely cares about the people she leads. She has finally grasped the nettle, exploiting the current situation to drive through the changes New Zealand should have made 23 years ago following the Port Arthur massacre. She has outwitted those who might oppose her move, because there is no argument that anybody could muster now that would in any way resonate with the vast majority of New Zealanders.

Ardern has announced the ban on a number of weapons, signalled changes to the firearms licensing regime and the need to keep tabs on the national recreational arsenal. But there is a tough road ahead.

Read more: When gun control makes a difference: 4 essential reads

Rural, recreational use of firearms

Politicians have an unquestioning faith that legislation is sufficient, but it is largely impotent without adequate resourcing for the enforcement of new rules. With only an estimate to work on, New Zealand Police (the administrators of firearms regulations) will have to identify and locate the owners of these weapons and implement the buy-back and amnesty that will be required.

Many owners will give them up. Their humanity will outdo their desire to have them, but the shocking reality of panic buying of semi-automatics since the Christchurch tragedy signals that clearly there are those who will seek to subvert the government’s intent. Police will have to investigate those who fail to cooperate, safely seize the weapons and prosecute the offenders.

Most firearms license holders in New Zealand do not own military style semi-automatic weapons. Many are rural, recreational hunters or use their weapons on ranges. They look after their weapons responsibly, secure them safely, own them legally and use them at no risk to the general public.

Most who own semi-automatic weapons are no different. We should not demonise a section of society simply because of the horrific, obscene and brutally inhuman actions of one lonely individual who no more represents gun owners than he does any other group of New Zealanders.

Illegal weapon imports

But this is not the issue. The issue is that the privilege of owning a certain class of weapons is not worth the terrible cost of 50 people being gunned down in prayer. New Zealand is already seeing the steady illegal importation of firearms, often tied to the increasing movement of illicit narcotics. Banning semi-automatics will increase the demand for the importation of these weapons illegally, adding extra pressure on law enforcement agencies.

Read more: Why overhauling NZ’s gun and terrorism laws alone can’t stop terrorist attacks

For a ban on military style semi-automatics to have meaning, New Zealand’s long coast line, its airports and sea ports, through which illegal commodities are moving, will need resources that allow fit-for-purpose enforcement powers, people and tactics.

The changes New Zealand will now make will not guarantee it will be free of terrorism in the future. Other countries have much stricter firearms regulations, having taken far stronger measures years ago, but they have still suffered terrorist attacks. Firearms reform is one small step for a country that will need to address a plethora of gaps in its security approach.

New Zealand’s terrorism legislation is inadequate. It was found wanting when police attempted to apply it in 2007 during the “Urewera raids”, but charges could not be laid then. New Zealand’s then Solicitor General David Collins described the Terrorism Suppression Act then as incoherent and unworkable. How New Zealand manages social media needs review, and the traditional minimalist approach to national security will no longer suffice.

New Zealand has faced security crises before during the Russian scare in the 1880s and the second world war in the 1940s. It has often been caught out doing “too little, too late” to be saved only by its distance from any potential threat. The internet has extinguished that distance. It has brought the ills of the rest of the world to us. It is already too late. We must ensure that what we do now, is not too little.

– ref. Why NZ needs to follow weapons ban with broad review of security laws – http://theconversation.com/why-nz-needs-to-follow-weapons-ban-with-broad-review-of-security-laws-114022

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Arianrhod, Adjunct Associate , School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University

Three centuries ago, when modern science was in its infancy, the gender disparity in education was not a gap but an abyss: few girls had any decent schooling at all.

The emerging new science was clearly a male enterprise.

But it arose from a sense of curiosity, and women, too, are curious. If you look closely enough, it’s clear women played an important role, as both readers and authors, in the history of science writing.

New vs old ideas

Both science and science writing were up for grabs in the 17th century. Technology was rudimentary and researchers struggled to obtain even the simplest observational evidence, and then searched for ways to make sense of it.

Read more: How not to write about science

You can see this struggle in the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei’s famous Dialogues of 1632 and 1638. He painstakingly and somewhat tortuously tries to justify his arguments for heliocentrism – in which the planets go around the Sun – and the nature of motion and gravity.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Engraved by R Hart and published in The Gallery Of Portraits With Memoirs encyclopedia, United Kingdom, 1833. Shutterstock/Georgios Kollidas

Tortuously, not only because he was bending over backwards to please the censors – heliocentrism was held to defy scripture – but especially because most of the experiments, methods, and even the mathematical symbolism of modern science did not yet exist.

So although yesteryear’s scientific content was simple compared with today’s overwhelming complexity, Galileo’s Dialogues show that the lack of data, methods and scientific language presented its own problems for science communication.

Conversation in science

Galileo resorted to the Socratic device of a conversation, in which he debated his ideas in a long dialogue between an innovative philosopher, Salviati, and two (male) friends.

In trying to convince even the least scientifically learned of his interlocutors, Galileo was writing what we might call popular science (although the more complex parts of the 1638 Dialogue read more like a textbook).

There were no scientific journals then, and there wasn’t quite the same distinction between the announcement of scientific discoveries to colleagues and the communication of those ideas to a wider public.

Perhaps the first mass-market popular science book was another dialogue related to heliocentrism, Frenchman Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle’s 1686 Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds.

It was a runaway success that helped non-specialists accept the Copernican system – a Sun-centred solar system – rather than the time-honoured, seemingly self-evident geocentric one with Earth at the centre.

The hero of Fontenelle’s story, too, is a male philosopher – but this time he is conversing with a pretty marquise, who is spirited and quick to grasp new facts. Although its style was flirtatious, Fontenelle’s book was a significant recognition that women are curious and intelligent.

Science gets complex

Then, the very next year, everything changed. The English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton published his monumental Principia Mathematica. Suddenly science became a whole lot more complex.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727). Engraved by E Scriven and published in The Gallery Of Portraits With Memoirs encyclopedia, United Kingdom, 1837. Shutterstock/Georgios Kollidas

For instance, Fontenelle’s explanation of the cause of heliocentrism had been based on Frenchman René Descartes’ notion that the planets were swept around the Sun by gargantuan cosmic ethereal vortices.

Newton replaced this influential but unproven idea with his predictive theory of gravity, and of motion in general, which he developed in 500 dense pages of axioms, observational evidence, and a heap of mathematics.

Principia provided the modern blueprint for experimentally based, quantitative, testable theories – and it showed the fundamental role of mathematics in the language of physics.

The trouble was that only the best mathematicians could understand it. It was so innovative (and tortuous in its own way) that some of the greatest of Newton’s peers were sceptical, and it took many decades for his theory of gravity to become universally accepted in Europe.

Science writers played a key role in this process.

Something ‘for ladies’

The earliest popularisations of Newton’s work were short or semi-technical, such as that by the French mathematician Pierre-Louis Moreau Maupertuis.

In the 1730s, Maupertuis tutored a real-life marquise, Émilie du Châtelet, but she was of a very different calibre from Fontenelle’s fictional student – or indeed the curious but rather flighty marquise in another mass market popularisation: the Italian Francesco Algarotti’s Newtonianism for “the ladies”.

Translated from the original French: l newtonianismo per le dame ovvero dialoghi sopra la luce e i colori. Google Books

Newtonianism here referred not just to Newton’s theory of gravity. As its somewhat patronising title might suggest, it focused mostly on his more accessible 1704 work, Opticks, which explains his experiments on the behaviour of light and the nature of colour. But these, too, were controversial, and Algarotti was an expert in optics.

He had been inspired to address “the ladies” by two outstanding female contemporaries: his French mathematical friend Émilie du Châtelet, and the Italian physicist Laura Bassi. But both women disliked his book’s flirtatious style.

An oil painting of Madame Du Châtelet at her desk. Wikimedia

Du Châtelet and her lover Voltaire were writing their own more serious (and non-gendered) popularisation of Newton’s work. Du Châtelet later wrote a very successful popular synthesis of the scientific ideas of Newton and his German rival Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Bassi used the Italian translation of it in her own teaching.

Du Châtelet then went on to produce the first translation of Principia outside Britain – an insightful work that is also interesting in the context of popular science writing. She appended a 110-page commentary, summarising Newton’s method in everyday language, and explaining more recent applications of his theory.

The self-taught science writers

Nearly a century later, the Scottish mathematician Mary Somerville felt the same compulsion to reach out to the non-specialist reader – male and female – in the introduction to her book explaining the latest developments of Newton’s theory, Mechanism of the Heavens.

Oil painting of Mary Somerville who was a largely self-taught in science. National Galleries of Scotland

It is worth celebrating the fact that Somerville’s Mechanism was used at Cambridge as an advanced textbook in celestial mechanics – and at a time when women were not allowed to attend university.

Like Du Châtelet, Somerville was mostly self-taught. She understood the importance of science writing in educating the public, especially those denied formal education, and went on to write two best-selling popular science books: On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences and Physical Geography.

Another successful British female science writer in the early 19th century was Jane Marcet. Unlike those of Du Châtelet and Somerville, Marcet’s two books – Conversations on Chemistry and Conversations on Natural Philosophy – were aimed particularly at women.

They were built around conversations between two teenage girls and their female teacher. Unlike Fontenelle’s and Algarotti’s works for “the ladies”, these books were down-to-earth, non-patronising attempts to educate women in practical chemistry and physics.

But like those of Fontenelle and Algarotti, Marcet’s books proved popular with male lay readers, too – including the self-taught British physicist and chemist Michael Faraday, who went on to become co-discoverer of electromagnetism.

Read more: Let there be light! Celebrating the theory of electromagnetism

Biology was also progressing in the 19th century, but this had a downside for women. The discovery that women had smaller brains was used to reinforce the stereotype that women were incapable of intellectual study.

Somerville wrote movingly on how this affected her life. She would have been thrilled to read this year’s book by female neuroscientist Gina Rippon, The Gendered Brain, which asserts that brain plasticity and connectivity should displace old notions of gendered brains.

Do women and men have different brains? An interview with Gina Rippon.

Rippon’s is one of a growing number of female-authored popular science books on all aspects of science, and it is also an example of how women can contribute important new perspectives to scientific topics.

Another example is the ecological perspective of pioneering biologist and science writer Rachel Carson, whose 1962 Silent Spring played a leading role in launching the modern environmental movement.

Scientific understanding is often driven initially by a reductionist approach, and Carson was the first to clearly point out the role of artificial pesticides on the whole food chain.

Read more: Who writes science and technology stories? More men than women

Then there’s the question of ethics in science. Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the little-known story of the 1951 illegal harvesting and selling of cells from poor black farmer Henrietta Lacks.

Having diverse voices of all kinds in science and science writing is a good thing for science, as even a brief look at history shows. As far as women’s participation goes, we’ve come a long way.

But we still need more women to help shape and tell the story of science.

– ref. A brief history of science writing shows the rise of the female voice – http://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-science-writing-shows-the-rise-of-the-female-voice-112701

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

No sooner had the US midterm elections for Congress concluded than jockeying began for the presidential elections in 2020. Barring either impeachment, which seems unlikely, or a health crisis, Donald Trump will seek re-election.

Although the last sitting president not to be re-elected was George Bush Sr in 1992, polls suggest Trump is consistently disliked by a majority of Americans.

Democrats see a remarkable opportunity to regain the White House.

It’s all about the Electoral College

In last November’s elections for the House of Representatives, Democrats out-polled the Republicans nationally by millions of votes. But because each state has two senators, a third of whom are elected every two years, this did not translate into control of the Senate – probably the most powerful upper house in the world.

Democrats are hoping for continued success in the 2020 election. David Maung/AAP

That imbalance is reflected in the presidential system, in which each state has votes in the Electoral College equivalent to their total representation in Congress.

Because votes are tallied by states, Hillary Clinton out-polled Trump by three million votes, but did not win the Electoral College. Her majority was too concentrated in large states like California and New York.

Read more: Trump will likely win reelection in 2020

A crowded field of Democrats

The lure of the presidency can attract otherwise rational people to illusions of grandeur. Rolling Stone lists 24 declared or potential candidates.

Among those who have declared themselves as candidates for the Democratic nomination are Tulsi Gabbard, member of the House of Representatives from Hawaii, and the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg.

According to the polls the two frontrunners are both men well into their seventies: Bernie Sanders, who came close to winning the nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden. Other frontrunners include three women senators: most notably, Kamala Harris, who is from California – the largest state and a Democrat stronghold.

There are other candidates with home state advantages: Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) and Beto O’Rourke (Texas). None are as well-known as Sanders or Biden, which presumably explains their current lead in opinion polls. Despite Clinton’s defeat, I suspect at least one woman will be in a winnable position by March.

Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California, pictured with Reverend Al Sharpton, has announced her candidacy for president of the United States. Justin Lane/EPA

Read more: The US midterms show the power of Trump’s divisive messages

The primaries

California matters in the primaries because the nominee is chosen in a series of primary elections and caucuses, beginning in February. Primary elections are open to anyone who declares themselves Democrat when registering to vote. The process can be bizarre, and it varies from state to state, but it allows far greater participation than anything in Australia’s much more regulated system.

Cruelly, the first two decisions come in deep winter in Iowa and New Hampshire, essentially winnowing out the also-rans. But the crucial date will be March 3 2020, with primaries in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia.

By then enough votes will likely be decided to narrow the field to two or three, who may battle out the nomination until the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee in July. The choice of Wisconsin reflects the reality that, along with Michigan and Ohio, it is one of the mid-west states that voted for Obama and was then narrowly won by Trump in 2016.

A shift to the left

The centre of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved to the left since Clinton beat Sanders for the nomination. Other than Biden, the leading candidates have embraced many of the positions Sanders took last time.

The dilemma for them is that what appeals to voters in party primaries may make them vulnerable to attacks from the right in a presidential election. This could make it hard for them to win the states regarded as crucial by both sides, such as Pennsylvania and Florida.

Trump will go into the 2020 election with money, enthusiasm and apparently unchallenged support from most Republicans, including some who declared him unfit to serve two years ago. The sheer number of potential Democrats may mean the party will find it easier to unite than it did last time, when some of Sanders’ most enthusiastic supporters seemed to loathe Clinton more than Trump.

Much commentary suggests Democrats must choose between rallying their base – which means African-Americans, college-educated women and the young – versus a more direct pitch to working class voters in declining industries. But this is a false dichotomy: large numbers of Americans are disadvantaged by both economic and social structures.

Read more: Latinos can be an electoral force in 2020

Obama showed it was possible to build an alliance of minorities and white union members, of affluent liberals and struggling workers. Defeating Trump demands a candidate who both promises to restore political civility and is not cowed by Trump’s narcissist exhibitionism.

Voting in the United States is not compulsory, and Republican dominated legislatures have made it difficult for people of colour and the poor. Cynicism about the political process is understandably considerable. Trump will be defeated if the Democrats nominate a candidate able to persuade enough people who regard politics as irrelevant to their lives to make the effort to turn out.

– ref. Sanders, Harris, Biden… can anyone beat Donald Trump to become the next US president? – http://theconversation.com/sanders-harris-biden-can-anyone-beat-donald-trump-to-become-the-next-us-president-113345

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fatima Junaid, Lecturer, Massey University

Today, many Muslims in New Zealand will be returning for Friday prayers. Some might feel anxious, others may feel it’s important to go as a sign last Friday’s terror attack has not affected their resolve or faith.

At the same time, many might have returned, or are thinking of returning to their workplaces – resuming work with fears, anxieties and post-traumatic stress. On top of all this, there will be all the usual stresses of their work.

Collectively, these can be detrimental for both the employees and the organisations. Stressed employees are often not very productive. They can also behave in unpredictable and sometimes even destructive ways.

Trauma of losing loved ones

Losing a loved one is traumatic. The people of Christchurch already know that. However, trauma due to man-made disaster (such as last Friday’s act of terrorism) may be different from the trauma that results from a natural disaster like the sequence of earthquakes Christchurch has experienced. Terrorism instigates fear. The malevolent intent of harming others and the helplessness of the victims can cause anger that can lead to hatred.

Read more: How to take care of your mental health after the Christchurch attacks

The Friday attack clearly affected victims and their families in Christchurch and the wider Muslim community, but the event has also had an effect on the rest of the New Zealand population. There are many layers in which it has affected people, and it is important to understand the ways in which it will continue to do so.

Many migrants to New Zealand fled their home countries and came to New Zealand because it is a peaceful place. For them, this event means remembering the horrors they might have lived through before they came to New Zealand. This gives them a heightened sense of danger.

It is different from the population in New Zealand at large because many New Zealanders have not known what it means to feel unsafe. The families of the victims of Friday’s shootings, and many in the Muslim community, know this feeling too well. Now they are reminded of it.

How organisations can help

Organisations can provide a sense of safety and security to their employees and communities in general. They can brief them about the safety and security measures that have been put in place. Research has shown when people feel physically safe in a place, they feel less stressed. We should follow the New Zealand prime minister and constantly remind people they are safe.

Notwithstanding this, there will be people suffering from post-traumatic stress, which can often go undetected. Those suffering from it may not even know it. But it often surfaces in different ways and manifests itself in various behaviours.

The Friday attack might have caused trauma to many beyond the victims and their families. Some might have greater psychological resilience to combat the traumatic stress; those who don’t can collapse. Psychological resilience comes (or can be built) through social support, from community and also from organisational support.

Organisations and workplaces should allow those employees who want to return to work to come back, but then provide them with space, time and support so they can go through their grief in their own ways. They may come back seeming fine – but this may not be the full story. They may be desensitised to violence due to multiple exposures, or simply developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Organisations can offer flexible work hours or flexible work days in times of grief to enable people to continue working. Many people will choose to come to work, rather than stay at home. Work can provide a sense of meaning and also a sense of control over their life because disaster trauma leads to a sense of loss of control (real and perceived).

Having a sense of control over some things can be emotionally strengthening because everything else seems to be very out of control. The routine nature of a job can provide a sense of normalcy, in an emotionally chaotic time.

Read more: How to move beyond simplistic debates that demonise Islam

Impact of terrorism

The altruism and demonstrations of solidarity that have been borne out of this suffering may actually unite people. That surely would be everyone’s hope.

Thousands of New Zealanders have laid flowers at mosques and attended vigils in solidarity with the Muslim community. AAP/Mick Tsikas, CC BY-SA

But not all Western media internationally have communicated this event with the same humanity that has characterised coverage in New Zealand. There will be people who see the perpetrator and feel encouraged to do the same. There will be others who see the victims and feel angry and revengeful, which means the division, ugly insensitivity and hate may find more fuel.

Terrorism is known to lead to political extremism, dividing communities with a strong feeling of “them” and “us”. This has been evident in many incidents in many countries.

So we should take this opportunity to increase our communication with and engagement in our communities, at work and outside of it. Embrace the diversity in your organisation – talk to someone who’s different in colour, in religion, in background.

From my own experience of losing my father in a suicide bombing during the Friday prayers in a mosque in Pakistan, I know what support can do. I had the support of my colleagues and my organisation – it helped me heal and grow.

I know many who didn’t have this support. They still suffer from post-traumatic stress, and some have gone on to be a destructive force in their own lives without realising it. There is much we can do as organisations and individuals to make people feel connected and supported, and to build their psychological resources.

– ref. As many Muslims return to mosques today, they will need ongoing support – http://theconversation.com/as-many-muslims-return-to-mosques-today-they-will-need-ongoing-support-114003

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Power, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

One in two Australian men aged 18 to 55 have experienced sexual difficulty in the past 12 months, according to data released this week.

The findings are drawn from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health, which included more than 12,000 men. Overall, 54% of sexually active men reported having at least one specific sexual problem lasting three months or more.

The men reported a range of difficulties:

• 37% said they reached climax too quickly
• 15% could not climax or took too long to climax
• 17% lacked interest in sex
• 11% felt anxious during sex.

Erectile dysfunction – defined as trouble getting or keeping an erection – tends to be the focus of media and public discussion about male sexual “problems”. But in this study, only 20% of men aged between 45 to 55 reported erectile dysfunction, and only 14% across all age groups.

Why do so many men report sexual difficulties?

Male sexual difficulties are associated with a range of physical, psychological or social factors including anxiety, stress and relationship difficulties.

In the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health, men who rated their overall health to be poor were more likely to report one or more sexual difficulties. Disability, mental health diagnoses, obesity, drug and alcohol use, and daily use of pain medication were all associated with an increased likelihood of some form of sexual difficulty.

Read more: Erectile dysfunction may be more than just a problem in bed

The inability to have a satisfying sexual life can negatively impact quality of life. Discussing concerns about men’s sexual lives should form part of general clinical care, particularly for men with other health conditions that may cause sexual difficulties.

Performance or pleasure?

The medical diagnosis of male sexual difficulties or problems tends to be based on performance (erectile function and ability to climax) rather than pleasure or intimacy.

This rests on assumptions that the primary, if not only, source of sexual pleasure for men comes from the performance of sexual penetration – which requires an erection and orgasm.

Many concerns about sexual function relate to performance rather than pleasure. Fergus Coyle/Shutterstock

However, studies show many men define sexual pleasure and sexual satisfaction in other terms. This includes the experience of desire, disinhibition, peace and happiness, as well as by giving pleasure and feeling bonded with another person.

While achieving orgasms is part of this, it’s not necessarily the primary goal.

Masculinity and male sexuality

The dominant cultural image of masculine sexuality is one of omnipresent sexual desire. Male vitality and virility are associated with a high sex drive. And it’s often assumed men will initiate and lead sexual encounters with women.

Sexual intercourse (penetrative sex with a penis and vagina) is positioned as the most desired and important sexual act for heterosexual couples.

These images are created and reinforced through media messages – advertising, film and television – as well as through marketing of medical “solutions” to male sexual problems. These increasingly come in the form of drugs such as Viagra that promote a sustained erection as the ultimate goal for male sexual satisfaction.

Read more: Weekly dose: the hard facts on Viagra

Even if a man’s personal experience of sexual pleasure and desire is more nuanced or passive, cultural images of sexuality set normative standards for the ways people make sense of their own bodies, sexual desires and sexual experiences.

So it makes sense that men might feel anxious about their sexual performance and be concerned about a lack of sexual desire, not climaxing at the right pace (or at all), or not being able to sustain an erection.

This doesn’t mean these issues aren’t genuine challenges or problems for these men. Rather, it points to cultural pressure on men to enact a particular type of sexuality.

A 2014 Australian study investigated the effects of these pressures on the sexual function of 140 male participants. The researchers found men who were exposed to cultural images of traditional masculinity had significantly higher levels of sexual beliefs that increase vulnerability to sexual dysfunction than those who weren’t.

Challenging gendered sexual stereotypes

Expectations of masculinity shape the way men understand sexuality and their bodies in the same way feminine stereotypes affect women’s experiences of sex, sexuality and their bodies.

It’s time to rethink our cultural concepts of male sexuality. Tim Marshall

Expectations of masculinity also obscure the sexuality and experiences of people whose gender or sexual identity doesn’t fit the traditional male/female gender binary.

Feminist thinking and activism has exposed the emotional and social impact of unrealistic feminine sexual stereotypes. It also provides a platform for questioning the impact of male sexual stereotypes.

Read more: Clementine Ford reveals the fragility behind ‘toxic masculinity’ in Boys Will Be Boys

If more than half of Australian men are concerned about some aspect of their sex lives, we need to closely examine the cultural and political context of male sexuality. Medical or psychological definitions of male sexual difficulties only tell part of the story.

– ref. More than half of Aussie men report experiencing sexual difficulties – http://theconversation.com/more-than-half-of-aussie-men-report-experiencing-sexual-difficulties-113848

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pauline Lenancker, PhD student in biology and ecology, James Cook University

Tropical fire ants (Solenopsis geminata), originally from central and South America, are a highly aggressive, invasive ecological pest. Our new research has shed light on how they successfully establish new colonies.

An allergic reaction to painful tropical fire ant bites. Pauline Lenancker, Author provided

While we don’t know exactly how widespread tropical fire ants are in Australia, they are well established around Darwin and Katherine, as well as on Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef. Disturbing one of their nests will result in many workers inflicting painful stings on the intruder, and can trigger an allergic reaction in some people.

When invasive ants move to a new region, the pioneers may be one or a few colonies. Because these pioneers are isolated, they often inbreed, which causes genetic problems in their offspring. But our new research, published in Scientific Reports, reveals how tropical fire ants use cannibalism to survive and spread, despite their low genetic diversity.

Read more: Eradicating fire ants is still possible, but we have to choose now

Sons and daughters

Founding new colonies is how fire ants spread. Queens fly off to start their own colonies just after they have mated. It is a perilous journey – they need to avoid predators and find a good spot to start laying eggs. If queens do not quickly rear daughters that can forage, called workers, they will starve to death.

Queens can lay two different types of eggs: fertilised eggs, which will develop into workers, and unfertilised eggs, which will develop into males. Therefore, female workers have two copies of each gene (diploid), while males have a single copy of each gene (haploid). However, when an ant queen and her mate are closely related, a flaw in the sex determination system of ants causes half of the fertilised eggs to develop into diploid males instead of workers.

The role of males is only to mate with queens – they do not forage, and they die after they have mated. Queens founding a colony have no interest in producing males, because males will not feed them. What’s more, diploid males are often sterile, and their larvae are larger than worker larvae. Therefore, queens can waste precious resources feeding fat useless sons instead of workers.

We wanted to find out how common diploid males are in field colonies, and how queens could successfully start colonies despite them. Understanding how tropical fire ants spread, we hope, can help us stop them expanding their range.

Abandoned and eaten

Our field sampling of tropical fire ant colonies around Darwin revealed eight out of ten colonies produced diploid males.

We collected 1,187 queens that had just mated, and assigned them to start colonies on their own or with other queens.

We observed that in 34% of colonies producing diploid males, diploid male larvae were placed in the colony trash pile by the queens instead of being kept with the worker larvae. It is usual for ants to keep dead individuals away from the rest of the colony, but when we looked at some of these abandoned larvae under a microscope, we realised they were still alive.

Read more: Curious Kids: do ants have blood?

Queens not only abandoned their sterile sons, they ate them. Three-quarters of the 109 sterile male larvae disappeared from the colonies within 12 days of when we first observed them. Because the queens were the only adult ants present in the colony, this means the queens were eating their diploid males or feeding them to their worker larvae.

This cannibalistic behaviour allowed the queens to redirect nutrients towards themselves or productive members of their colony. Diploid male larvae require more food than worker larvae to develop, so we expected queens from diploid male producing colonies to lose more weight than queens from colonies that only produced workers, but we found that was not the case. Queens with diploid males lost less weight or as much weight as queens from regular colonies, probably because they ate their sterile sons.

We also found queens who worked together in groups to start a colony reared more workers. Therefore, queens in groups would likely have a better chance of survival even if they produced sterile males. But in 6% of colonies, queens did not tolerate having housemates and dismembered other queens.

A queen dismembered by a tetchy rival. Pauline Lenancker, Author provided

For tropical fire ants, cannibalising sterile sons and cooperative brood rearing among queens are two behavioural mechanisms for avoiding inbreeding costs. A third possible mechanism for the queens is to “sleep around”.

Promiscuity would increase the chance of mating with a genetically different male, and reduce the likelihood of producing diploid sons.

Queens only mate right before starting their colony and store the sperm in an organ called the spermatheca. We genetically analysed sperm from the spermatheca of 40 queens, but found no evidence queens had mated with more than one male.

Tropical fire ants are currently established on Ashmore Reef, a protected Australian Marine Park which is an important breeding site for seabirds and turtles. The invasive ant threatens this sanctuary by attacking seabird and turtle hatchlings. Accidental spreading of tropical fire ants to suitable habitats in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia would threaten invaluable ecosystems as well as our health and lifestyles.

Read more: How we wiped out the invasive African big-headed ant from Lord Howe Island

The current eradication program for the closely related red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) in Queensland has been granted A$411 million over ten years, and failure to eradicate red imported fire ants could cost Australia A$1.65 billion per year in damaged crops, livestock harmed and people treated. The more we learn about invasive ant biology, the closer we are to new methods of preventing their spread.

– ref. Cannibalism helps fire ants invade new territory – http://theconversation.com/cannibalism-helps-fire-ants-invade-new-territory-113752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Moore, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia

In recent months, we have been confronted by events that make the world seem unsafe. Among these are the horrific stories of child sexual abuse, the rise in Aboriginal youth suicide and the tragedy of mass killings at the hands of an Australian terrorist in Christchurch.

Many of us feel anger, despair, hopelessness and grief as we are hit by what feels like a constant barrage of bad news. It’s important to take care of our mental health during such times, but it’s also vital to think about how children and young people are experiencing and responding to difficult events, and the ensuing emotions.

Read more: How to take care of your mental health after the Christchurch attacks

During the life of the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, we conducted a study to better understand how children and young people conceptualise and experience safety. We wanted to know what they believed adults might do to both keep them safe and help them feel safe.

We spoke to 121 children and young people aged 4-18 in the ACT, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The participants represented various institutional contexts, including having attended early learning centres, schools, sporting groups, holiday camps, church groups, out-of-home care and hospitals.

Below are some key messages children and young people wanted to get across to the adults in their lives.

Children know the risks, but might misjudge the extent of the danger

In addition to snakes, ghosts, escaped tigers and bullies, participants raised concerns about child abusers and abductors, online dangers, wars and terrorism. They said they learnt about these threats by hearing things directly from parents, siblings and peers (including quiet discussions that weren’t for them), the television and radio, and social media.

Many children and young people felt they were exposed to so much information about risk, they often found it difficult to determine how pressing the danger was. When their parents, teachers and other trusted adults failed to talk to them about the issues, they said they often imagined the worst-case scenario.

Young people said:

Sometimes we freak out when we don’t need to. We might have heard something and now we think that it’s a huge risk but it could turn out that we’ve heard the wrong thing or that it’s not really a problem.

No one really talks to kids about what really could happen or tell them not to worry when the thing they’re scared about ain’t gonna happen. So kids are all stressing about the wrong things and they don’t know what to do if something real bad happens, because no one talked to them about it.

Young people believed children lacked the ability to accurately assess threat. When news reporting was coupled with fictional movies and urban legends, and when children were not given context, their perceptions were skewed.

Read more: A guide for parents and teachers: what to do if your teenager watches violent footage

Help children articulate and process their fears

Children and young people told us they were often overwhelmed by the risks that surrounded them. Young women, in particular, said they were constantly worried about threats to their physical and emotional safety.

Children felt this lack of safety in their bodies – they sweated, felt butterflies in their stomachs, found it hard to settle and concentrate, and were easily frightened. They demonstrated these fears in their behaviours – by being restless, feeling tired and fighting with others.

They said it was often difficult to articulate their emotions and they needed adults to help them find the words. They needed help to understand the links between their lack of security and their response.

Children said they often had trouble articulating their fears. from shutterstock.com

Don’t downplay children’s concerns

Children and young people felt adults often too readily dismissed their concerns and downplayed the impact their fears were having on them. One young person said:

Not everything they (children) fear is imaginary. That’s what parents get wrong. They think that cause they’re little they’re not telling the truth or they’ve imagined it but most of the time they’re telling the truth but people don’t believe them because they’re little. And anyway it’s real to them so adults should listen.

Participants said trusted adults should listen and acknowledge their feelings, and take their fears and concerns seriously. They wanted adults to let the child voice their thoughts and feelings before trying to solve them and to respect the child’s experience.

They felt it was sometimes appropriate for adults to distract a child to help them calm down. But they also believed adults should return to the conversation when the child was calm to help them make sense of their fears and feel acknowledged.

Tell young people what is being done to protect them

Participants observed the information they were given was often restricted to the risk or danger, but they weren’t being told what was being done to protect them.

Participants said they had heard a lot about the threat of child abduction, for instance, but no one had told them there were more police stationed around schools, that teachers were more vigilant and that policies were in place to reduce the likelihood a child could be harmed.

Young people reflected that when adults didn’t inform them of how they were responding, children had little confidence adults fully appreciated the risk or were adequately equipped to keep them from harm.

Read more: What parents need to know about the signs of child sexual abuse

Many participants also believed adults could not always be around to help protect them and it was important for children and young people to be skilled to deal with issues themselves. This was seen as particularly important for older young people who were more likely to be alone and who would more likely want to deal with issues themselves rather than seek support.

They advocated for more classes on how to assess and respond to risks, giving examples of drills, role plays and lessons from others who had confronted similar challenges. It was important the recommended strategies were effective because young people felt the consequences of doing the wrong thing when they were unsafe would be significant.

They’ve gotta get it right or we’re fucked, you know. It’s better to feel scared and to watch out for things than to feel comfortable because someone has told you not to worry and then you end up in a bad situation because you got the wrong advice.

Ultimately, children and young people need adults who are there for them, who discuss their fears, provide them with enough information to deal with potential threats but not cause them unnecessary worry, and help them understand how other adults and the community around them are keeping them safe.

The study in this article was commissioned by the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse. It was conducted by the Australian Catholic University, and peers from Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology.

– ref. ‘It’s real to them, so adults should listen’: what children want you to know to help them feel safe – http://theconversation.com/its-real-to-them-so-adults-should-listen-what-children-want-you-to-know-to-help-them-feel-safe-113834

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

In the days before the mass shootings in Christchurch I was visiting Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in a school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018. I was recording a story about how those survivors and their allies built a global movement against gun violence. I met students, teachers and supporters.

These American students knew all about Australia’s gun laws. “How did you get such strong laws?” they would ask. And I would tell them about the Port Arthur massacre and how our conservative prime minister acted. “We haven’t had a gun massacre since,” I proclaimed. Days later, I felt shame at my hubris – an Australian has been charged with the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Read more: Parkland shooting: One year later, Congress still avoids action on gun control

Lessons from a ‘high-security’ suburb

We have so much to learn from Parkland. And it’s not simply how they built a remarkable social movement. Some lessons become visible only when you actually see the place.

Parkland is a suburb close to the Everglades, 30 minutes from the beach and an hour north of Miami. It is a wealthy, majority-white neighbourhood. But the thing that overwhelmed me when I was driving around is that it is a gated community.

The entire suburb is broken up into large blocks, and at the centre of each block is a single entrance for cars. The road has a security hut, large barriers stretching across and there is a large gate. You need a PIN code to go inside.

When you go through, the homes and streets are beautiful. Green grass, and every home has one of those white mailboxes with a red flag that turns up when the mail arrives.

These gated communities tell you something. Parents choose to live behind walls to create a nice way to live and keep their family safe.

But in Parkland all that security didn’t keep them safe. Darkness found a new way in – and everyone is still feeling the murderous pain.

The limits of security and walls offer a profound lesson for us in Australia as we work out how to respond to the terrorism in Christchurch. Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to lock up our places of worship – particularly mosques. He wants police with guns and security checks. It’s like he wants to build religious gated communities.

Read more: Morrison announces $55 million for security at religious premises and warns against “tribalism”

This approach is consistent with his other policies – use the navy to stop boats, use cages to stop refugees. Our prime minister has only one register – security.

But if Parkland showed anything, it’s that gated communities don’t stop violence. The violence just moves and shifts. An aggressive security response might make you “feel” safer, but it doesn’t make you safe.

At the same time, security heightens the tension. And it does nothing to deal with the causes of the violence.

So how do we respond to the causes of the violence? In Parkland, the main issue was access to guns. The March for Our Lives students called this out quickly. They gained traction because they bravely and forcefully condemned the National Rifle Association for creating the context for mass shootings – easy access to guns.

Parkland school students mobilised the March for Our Lives movement for gun control. Shawn Thew/EPA

Read more: We must not punish content creators in our rush to regulate social platforms

It started with the demonisation of others

Our context is different. The issue in Christchurch was about guns, yes, but equally it was about motive. As Australians, one of our citizens “radicalised” themselves to such a point that they massacred other people. How did this happen?

White supremacy. OK, but how do we unpack white supremacy? Who emboldened this? Who made it OK to demonise Muslims – to say they don’t belong?

First, people looked to Pauline Hanson and Fraser Anning. The social movement around #EggBoy shows people’s anger at extremism.

But it’s more than that. Murdoch news media have been running a crusade against Muslims for years. The Coalition has brutalised Muslims and refugees for votes since September 11 2001. And the Labor Party has given bipartisan support to the offshore detention of predominantly Muslim refugees.

Read more: Christchurch attacks are a stark warning of toxic political environment that allows hate to flourish

Come together in love to overcome hate

But knowing who prosecutes hate is not enough. Hate can’t drive out hate. As Martin Luther King junior said, only love can do that.

How do we bring love into our work to stop race being used as a divisive power? I wish I had the answer. But I do know that building love is something that can happen everywhere all the time – not just at vigils or special services.

Can we build a movement that would amplify love at work, in our community, in our schools, where we have intentional conversations to talk about what Christchurch meant and why the Muslim community was targeted?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has led the way in embracing Muslims in New Zealand – ‘they are us’. Boris Jancic/AAP

The Muslim community are in pain. We – especially white people like me and some of you – have to do the heavy lifting on this one. We can take the lead on doing something about white supremacy and dividing people by race and religion.

Imagine if we could take the pain of this moment and turn it into a real reckoning for our country. For as long as white people have stood in Australia we have caused harm to others. But too often we shrug off responsibility through phrases like “the most successful multicultural country in the world”. Or we get scared off the conversation by phrases like the “history wars”.

Yes, the shock jocks will berate and the trolls will yell. But let’s have them yell at white people taking on white supremacy instead of Muslim and other leaders of colour.

It’s time to act. The election is one place – we need to vote for leaders who stand with Muslims because “they are us”.

But this is more than just electoral politics. It’s about a movement committed to connection, understanding, listening, respect and love. And that’s love as a verb, love as action.

A year after the mass shooting, Parkland is still a torn community. Many are still deeply active in social movements pushing for gun law reform. And many others are still healing.

In Parkland the lesson is that they were forever changed, not because of the hate that was inflicted, but because of the love they cultivated in response.

– ref. What Parkland’s experience tells us about the limits of a ‘security’ response to Christchurch – http://theconversation.com/what-parklands-experience-tells-us-about-the-limits-of-a-security-response-to-christchurch-113912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Australia’s Fairwork Commission has so far this year examined more than a dozen cases of wage theft. Those cases involve hundred of workers and millions of dollars in underpayments.

And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

A significant report on the exploitation of migrant workers in Australia has been published this month. After a two-year inquiry by the federal Migrant Workers’ Taskforce, the report concludes that wage theft is widespread. Possibly as many as half of all temporary migrant workers are being underpaid.

Read more: We need to hear the stories of exploited unlawful migrant workers, not just deport them

The federal government has agreed “in principle” to act on all of the report’s 22 recommendations. Attracting most media coverage is the recommendation to introduce criminal penalties for deliberate and systemic exploitation. Employer groups oppose this.

But this debate should not distract us from other important principles that need action.

Equality before the law

Of foremost importance is the principle of equality. The federal government’s response to the report rightly declares that all workers, no matter their background, should be able to work without fear of exploitation.

Here the report contains two crucial recommendations.

The first is to amend the Fair Work Act so it expressly states it covers migrant workers. The second is to extend coverage of the federal Fair Entitlements Guarantee program, which covers the cost of entitlements left unpaid when a worker is left high and dry by an employer going into liquidation or bankruptcy.

The report also stresses the need for migrant workers to be adequately informed of their workplace rights. It proposes a “whole of government” approach to inform and educate workers.

Social licence

Another critical principle of the report is that of redress.

It recommends that the effectiveness of the small claims process under the Fair Work Act be reviewed.

It also recommends increasing penalties under the Fair Work Act. These include giving courts the power to impose an adverse publicity order, requiring an offending business to notify the public it has cheated workers; and for the most serious cases of exploitation, of course, it has suggested criminal sanctions.

For four high-risk industries – horticulture, meat processing; cleaning and security – the report recommends a National Labour Hire Registration Scheme. Companies failing to comply with workplace laws would face potential deregistration.

Read more: Cheating workers out of wages is easier than ever

It also asks the government to explore ways by which employers found to have underpaid workers can be banned from employing anyone for a specific period.

These last two proposals speak to a deep moral truth. The ability to operate a business is a social licence. Those who systematically disregard the rights of workers forfeit their right to this licence.

While noting the important work undertaken by the Fair Work Ombudsman, the report queries whether the office’s funding, functions and power are equal to addressing the problem of wage theft. It recommends a public capability review to ensure the regulator is “fit for purpose”.

Wider responsibilities

There should be little doubt that systemic industry practices (particularly in the agriculture and hospitality sectors) and business structures (such as franchises and labour-hire companies) are contributing to the problem.

Equally clear too is that the big end of town bears culpability. The roll-call of companies implicated in breaches include Caltex, Domino’s Pizza, Woolworths and Pizza Hut. Restaurants owned by celebrity chefs Heston Blumenthal and George Calombaris have been found underpaying employees.

Read more: What is going rotten in the franchise businesses plagued by scandals

The report makes clear it is not just employers and the Fair Work Ombudsman that must ensure compliance with workplace laws. Other institutional actors are also responsible.

It recommends, for instance, businesses that outsource workers be deemed accessories to any crime of wage theft committed by labour-hire companies.

Significantly, it also draws attention to the responsibility of the higher education sector, given the sector profits from about 800,000 fee-paying international students in Australia. Many of these students take part-time jobs, and they are particularly vulnerable to being exploited. The report recommends education providers be obliged to provide information to them, and to assist them when they experience workplace issues.

A powerful blueprint

The report is clearly not meant to be the final word on dealing with wage theft. Its first recommendation is that the federal government establish a “whole of government mechanism” to continue the taskforce’s work.

For this work to be meaningful, another principle of the report must be acted upon: the need for systematic data collection and analysis. Without this we risk being blind to what is happening right before us. Consider, for example, the growing use of migrant labour as domestic workers badged as “au pairs”.

The report is certainly not without limitations. It could have gone much further on immigration law reform, given the pernicious role certain visa conditions have in encouraging exploitation. It fails to specifically discuss the crucial role of trade unions in protecting workers.

It is nonetheless a powerful blueprint to address the rampant problem of wage theft, which undermines the integrity and cohesion of our labour markets. It is incumbent upon all those in power to act on it.

– ref. We’ve let wage exploitation become the default experience of migrant workers – http://theconversation.com/weve-let-wage-exploitation-become-the-default-experience-of-migrant-workers-113644

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Pocock, Emeritus Professor University of South Australia, University of South Australia

This is the third in a three-part mini-symposium on Wages, Unemployment and Underemployment presented by The Conversation and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Read the other pieces in the series here.

For the moment, Australia’s unemployment rate has a “4” in front of it. The rate for February, released on Thursday, came in at 4.9%. It’s the first time the rate has begun with a four since the Rudd/Gillard government when it dipped below 5% several times, and since the Howard and Rudd governments in the leadup the global financial crisis when it usually began with a four and at one point dipped to 3.9%.

It’d be good news were it not for another, almost as important, indicator – the underemployment rate.

Workers are underemployed when they are working fewer hours than they want to. They might be working part-time instead of full-time, or part-time for 10 hours a week instead of 20, or full-time at 35 hours instead of 40.

ABS Labour Force

Over the past five years the proportion of the workforce underemployed has climbed from 7.2% to 8.1% while the unemployment rate has climbed from 5.2%, then fallen, hitting 4.9%.

The underemployed are disproportionately women (60%), and are concentrated in the retail, health care and hospitality industries. Their jobs are more likely to be insecure, with inadequate hours often accompanied by unpredictable or uncertain hours.

They are in industries that have seen growth in temporary migrant workers and the systematic underpayment of workers, reflecting changes in the temporary visa system as well as weaknesses in the enforcement of wage laws.

Wages are the other side of the bad news. No one who has made a regular appearance at the plethora of parliamentary inquiries that have accompanied the rewriting of Australia’s industrial relations system over the past 23 years would be surprised that wage growth is bumping along at historic lows.

The reworked industrial relations system – and the social, cultural, economic and labour market context in which it sits – has reshaped power at work. Wave after wave of change has had the end result of shifting power to employers. And it is that change in power that, more than anything, explains the stalling of wages growth.

Open letter in Tuesday’s Financial Review. AFR

As 124 labour market experts said in their open letter in support of wages growth published in the Australian Financial Review this week, we are witnessing the longest sustained rate of slow wage growth since the end of the Second World War.

It certainly isn’t the result of falling productivity, which has actually climbed 39% in the past two decades while real wages have climbed only 14%.

The feminisation of employment has also helped shift the power balance at work. Women’s share of the total workforce climbed from 43% to 47% between 1999 and 2019.

Research in many countries tells us that women are no less inclined to join a union and have no less an appetite to improve their working conditions than men. However, women’s caring responsibilities and the practical demands they face, along with the nature of the industries in which they work, often make it harder for them to bargain or to take industrial action.

ABS wage price index

Analysts focus on the causes of this historic wages stall. Reserve Bank Governors caution about its consequences for the economy. But in thousands of households across Australia, a five-year stall in wages growth exacts a high human cost. It particularly affects those already on low pay, for whom a few dollars a week mean the difference between making rent, paying for school excursions or filling the fridge. ‘Frugal comfort’ of the kind promised by Justice Higgins in 1906 (to full-time men at least), is a long way from the anxiety that flatlining wages mean for many Australians.

The wage system shapes the fortunes of Australian households. Its reverberations have become more powerful with the growing number of two-earner households and a retirement incomes system that increasingly mirrors wage earnings.

The growing awareness of wage inequality and unevenly rewarded productivity, in combination with increasing job insecurity and weakening protections at work, is likely to feed into the election campaign.

Redressing the basic and widening power imbalance that underlies the employment and wage statistics has become a public necessity that has supporters in some surprising places. It is overdue.

The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia is one of Australia’s four learned academies. The ASSA coordinates the promotion of research, teaching and advice in the social sciences, promotes scholarly cooperation across disciplines, comments on national needs and priorities in the social sciences, and provides advice to government on issues of national importance.

– ref. Jobs but not enough work. How power keeps workers anxious and wages low – http://theconversation.com/jobs-but-not-enough-work-how-power-keeps-workers-anxious-and-wages-low-113360

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

Before her death in 2010 my paternal grandmother gave me a box of family photographs. It contained mostly black and white images taken between 1950 and 1975.

As a child I had often sorted through these photographs, intrigued by what they portrayed of my family’s migration from a small village in Lebanon to the southern suburbs of Sydney. I was especially fond of seeing my father as a small boy, climbing trees or riding go-karts in what was still our street in Peakhurst.

Snapshot of Fahd’s father as a boy circa 1957. Author provided

One person in the photographs intrigued me more than any other – my grandfather, who I knew I had met as a baby but had no recollection of. I knew the story of his death was a sad one, but I didn’t appreciate just how sad it had been until I saw it captured in a set of extraordinary photographs I discovered in that box.

On arriving home with my grandmother’s heirlooms, I was keen to reconnect with my family’s history. It had been over 20 years since I had seen these photos. Rummaging through the box, I noticed a crumpled envelope made of aged brown paper hidden beneath those familiar images. Inside were 24 carefully hand-printed, black and white shots.

The original photographs as they were found in their envelope. Author provided

These images took my breath away. They made me weep. My first impression was that they were so desolate, yet, they were beautiful, accomplished and unique in what they represented.

Taken on October 29, 1975, these photographs documented the funeral and burial of my paternal grandfather.

On an ordinary evening of October 26, my grandfather was hit by a car in front of his house. He died the next day in hospital and was buried at Rookwood Cemetery in Lidcombe. Captured in the photographs was my family deep in mourning; expressing their grief physically, in an ever-so public way.

The burial at a Sydney cemetery in 1975. Author provided

The images were hard to look at. Difficult because they revealed my father’s grief, which had remained hidden for over four decades. He was a young man, only 26 at the time. They also showed my mother, a young woman of 24, with weary eyes hidden behind dark, “Jackie O” sunglasses. She was heavily pregnant with my sister who would be born two weeks later.

Inescapably, they revealed my grandmother’s trauma. Despite living with my family for 28 years, she had never discussed her loss or this day with us.

The photos reveal the author’s grandmother’s grief at losing her husband. Author provided

The photographs also showed the cultural customs of grief; an entire Lebanese community dressed in mourning clothes, the customary black attire creating a scene that can be likened to a Hollywood Mafia film or a Fellini production.

What I was witnessing in these photographs was an experience I knew had really taken place and yet the precision of these images – their characters, costumes, scenes, plot and the frozen emotions – were perfectly staged, as though a masterful director were pulling the strings, creating the scenes of death’s sorrow.

After carefully studying the photographs in the privacy of my room, I decided to hide them in a drawer under my bed. This is where they remained for the next seven years. I knew that by hiding them I would continue my grandmother’s legacy of keeping them private.

Asking questions, sharing stories

In late 2017, I felt a scholarly urge to study these photographs, and from their hiding place I sought them. I also searched for other funeral photographs, looking in online archives, institutional collections such as Trove, and at sellers flogging vintage images on eBay.

I asked family and friends whether they had seen photographs such as these and whether it was common practice in the 1970s to photograph funerals. My search yielded no results.

I decided to ask my father. He admitted he knew of the photos but had forgotten about them – he was glad I had them. I offered to show them to him but warned they were upsetting.

The images look like something out of a Fellini film. Author provided

In the end, we sat around the kitchen table and looked at them. I asked questions and he shared stories. He did not remember who the photographer was, thinking a friend of the family took them but not recalling much else.

Later, his elderly uncle who also features in the photographs would remember a first name, perhaps Jilal, perhaps a friend of my grandfather’s but not from “our” village.

Despite my desperate need to know who took these images and why, I never spoke to my grandmother about them. After all, she had given them to me and, in a way, covertly indicated that she did not want to talk about them.

Fahd eventually shared the images with her father. Author provided

Around the same time that I shared the photos with my father, I showed them to a friend and curator I had worked with in the past, Daniel Mudie Cunningham. I knew he had a personal and professional interest in grief as well as a fascination with family snapshots. It was through our conversations and the process of writing that I began to consider the possibility of making these images public.

After consulting my father and gaining his consent, I sought to make this very private story and our intimate family photographs into artwork for the exhibition that Daniel would curate at Carriageworks for The National 2019: New Australian Art. I titled the artwork Apókryphos which comes from the Greek to mean “hidden, concealed, obscure”.

The tension of the unseen

Photography and death have long been acquainted. The most influential photographic text ever written, Roland Barthes’ 1980 work Camera Lucida was a nod to this pairing. Written in the wake of Barthes’ mother’s death, the philosopher reflects on a private photograph of his mother as a young child.

This photograph, which he refers to as the “Winter Garden” becomes an object of mourning, from which he may find his mother, reclaim her and assuage his loss. Despite devoting half the book to the Winter Garden photo, he never shows us the image.

I liken the tension of never seeing Barthes’ mother to the tension of never seeing my grandfather. In the photographs he resides in the coffin, which resides in the confines of the image.

Cherine Fahd’s father reaching down to his father’s coffin. Her grandmother is being held up by friends. Author provided

We also never see the photographer. What we do see however, is what we rarely ever see in the West: a person openly and publicly grieving; grief outwardly expressed in the body and face, and all the other emotions that follow it – anger, fear, melancholia, depression.

There is an unwritten contract that grief is private. Even in the family album it is kept hidden. These albums create our ancestral mythology. They are filled with photographs celebrating the happy times and the high points in our lives. My family albums portray and celebrate our moments of togetherness; birthdays, holidays and weddings as well as ordinary moments of domestic life.

But what of death? What of images of grief and loss? Where is their place in the family archive? While many in the 19th century had a fascination with post-mortem photography or “mourning portraits”, these focused on the deceased. Rarely seen in the family album are photographs of funerals, burials and the suffering of those who are left to mourn.

The Western world has an unwritten rule that says grief should be private. Author provided

Showing these photographs and telling their story is a provocation in a culture that is afraid of revealing grief. My project has helped me and my family to reconcile the unhappy moments with the happy ones. I have shared them with my siblings, my uncle and cousins, and with my children, who will one day share them with their children.

Through sharing these photographs, we re-visualise our family album to include more difficult images, and to reflect a life that makes a place for difficult stories and difficult emotions.

I now share them with you. Collectively we can move toward acknowledging the grief that is pictured in these and all the other hidden moments of mourning.

Cherine Fahd’s photo series Apókryphos (2018–19) is on display at Carriageworks in Sydney as part of The National 2019 from March 29-June 23. The book Apókryphos will launch at Carriageworks May 4 and is published by M.33 Melbourne.

– ref. Friday essay: images of mourning and the power of acknowledging grief – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-images-of-mourning-and-the-power-of-acknowledging-grief-112129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim McCreanor, Professor Race Relations, Health and Wellbeing, Massey University

An escalating crisis at Ihumaatao, near Auckland’s airport, is challenging the commercial development of Māori land that is part of a rare cultural heritage landscape.

Transnational corporation Fletcher Building Limited has the legal consent to build 480 dwellings on 32 hectares of land confiscated from local iwi (Māori tribe) in 1863. Mana whenua (local Māori) were shut out of the consenting processes for the development and left without any viable legal remedy.

Last week supporters of the mana whenua-led, community-supported campaign Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL) presented a near 18,000-strong petition to the New Zealand government, urging it to intervene to protect the land for future generations. SOUL wants the government to either buy the land or mandate a process that can produce an outcome all parties can live with.

Read more: Indigenous peoples are crucial for conservation – a quarter of all land is in their hands

Nation’s history at Ihumaatao

The unfolding events are a reminder that, for indigenous peoples, colonisation is unending. Mana whenua were expelled by force at the start of the colonial invasion of the Waikato in 1863, making them landless and impoverished. In the intervening decades, their sacred mountains were quarried for roading, and their food-gathering places and fishing grounds plundered. Now commercial development of their confiscated lands and resources threatens their survival and status.

Ihumaatao is among the oldest continuously occupied areas in Aotearoa New Zealand. Polynesian voyagers arrived on this peninsula in the eastern Manukau Harbour about 800 years ago at the beginning of human settlement of Aotearoa. They cleared land, raised families and prospered. For centuries, Māori lived in this special place; gardening, hunting, gathering seasonal foods from nearby forests and harvesting kaimoana (seafood) from the estuaries.

The oldest investigated middens have been carbon dated to the 12th century. Archaeologist Dave Veart says the currently contested block is an inseparable part of “our Stonehenge”, the adjacent Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve. Rich in ancient sites of significance, the reserve already has heritage protection because of its value for the study of the origins of human settlement of Aotearoa.

New Zealand is the last major landmass to be settled, and this area is recognised internationally for its cultural heritage and status as the final step in the global human diaspora.

Confiscation history

When settlers arrived in the fledgling town of Auckland in the 1840s, mana whenua began commercial production of livestock, potatoes, wheat and maize to meet the burgeoning market. But the settler demand for control and ownership of land and resources quickly escalated into tensions and conflict with Māori, as the newcomers sought to impose their vision of what Pākehā (non-Māori) historian James Belich has called a “better Britain” in the south seas.

In 1852, despite the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi, Britain passed the New Zealand Constitution Act, handing “responsible settler government” to the colonial enterprise. Settler control fomented agitation over land, war in Taranaki in 1860, and three years later, the invasion of the Waikato.

Read more: Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi

Pākehā historian Vincent O’Malley suggests these wars created a watershed of aggression that radically disrupted the peaceful Māori communities to the south of Auckland. On July 9, 1863, Governor George Grey issued a proclamation requiring Manukau Māori to swear allegiance to the Crown or retire south of the Waikato boundary.

The freshly-minted New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 was used as a colonial mechanism to confiscate their lands and other possessions. Through the so-called “compensation court” provisions of the act, the land was claimed for the Crown and granted to settlers.

At Ihumaatao, where 1100 acres were confiscated, Gavin Struthers Wallace from County Argyle in Scotland, obtained 81 acres of prime Māori horticultural land, complete with a permanent spring and Māori stonewall garden infrastructure in 1867. Knowingly or otherwise he acquired confiscated land without the agreement of mana whenua; they have never received an acknowledgement, an apology or redress.

Colonial settlement and unending injustice

The deposed owners of the now disputed land at Ihumaatao returned from the Waikato from 1864 to eke out a subsistence existence as labourers on their former estates. Meanwhile, settlers and the colonial state prospered. For a time, the sea and home gardens on a tiny reservation provided meagre sustenance, but soon urban sprawl encroached. As Auckland boomed after the second world war, their ancestral cone Maungataketake was levelled to make runways for Auckland’s airport and the city’s sewage treatment plant was established on their territory near Puketutu Island, polluting their fishing grounds and creating other nuisances.

Despite ongoing resistance and inquiries dating from 1865, the Crown has never addressed the injustices endured by mana whenua. Instead, the Crown hides behind a “one-size-fits-all” Treaty of Waitangi policy under which privately owned land will not be considered for settlements.

Read more: Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi

This bare sketch cannot convey the anguish, loss and trauma endured over generations. The 1985 Waitangi Tribunal investigation of the Manukau Harbour claim summed up the situation:

At Ihumatao … the inhabitants [were] attacked, their homes and property destroyed and their cattle and horses stolen, but then they were punished by confiscation of their lands, for a rebellion that never took place.

The Fletcher plan – injustice redoubled

In 2014, Wallace’s descendants, the Blackwells, working with Fletcher and Auckland Council, used the fast-tracked, developer friendly Special Housing Areas Act to designate the land as a special housing area. The act bypassed long-established planning protections and consenting processes, curtailing requirements for consultation with Māori.

In the face of Auckland’s housing crisis, 10,000 affordable new dwellings are planned for nearby Mangere. This makes Fletcher’s low-density, high-cost proposal seem even more of an anachronistic injustice than it was when first mooted.

As pre-development work on the land is due to begin, mana whenua and the broader community are mobilising to face down the bulldozers.

– ref. Local Māori urge government to address long-running dispute over rare cultural heritage landscape – http://theconversation.com/local-maori-urge-government-to-address-long-running-dispute-over-rare-cultural-heritage-landscape-113122

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

With the election likely to be called in about a fortnight – the weekend after the April 2 budget – behind the scenes Labor is “measuring the curtains” of government.

Any sign of hubris must be avoided, but a prudent opposition – especially with polls suggesting it’s soon likely to be the executive – needs to be well prepared for the first days of office.

One advantage Labor has is that its leader and many senior figures have been in power before. They have experience in setting up offices, establishing relations with the bureaucracy, working out early priorities.

Labor’s main frontbenchers would move into the ministries they’ve been “shadowing”. But there will inevitably be some shuffling.

One question the government keeps asking (not unreasonably) is who would hold the key Home Affairs post.

There is no current “shadow” for Home Affairs. Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus has the national security area – Dreyfus is expected in government to be attorney-general but not home affairs minister.

The Home Affairs department, controversial since its inception, is itself in the frame.

Labor’s platform commits it to review the Home Affairs portfolio arrangements “to ensure they are fit for purpose”. Assuming the department survived, a major issue would be whether it lost oversight of two key agencies, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

The Australian Federal Police Association recently called for the AFP to be shifted back as a stand-alone agency under the attorney-general’s umbrella, saying this should be done “to protect its organisational independence”.

ASIO – like the AFP, formerly under the attorney-general – also does not look comfortable under Home Affairs.

In the security community the future of the department’s secretary Mike Pezzullo under a Shorten government is a matter of intense interest.

Pezzullo has a past with Labor (in the office of opposition leader Kim Beazley); now he’s strongly identified with the Coalition’s harsh asylum seeker policy, as well as being seen as one of the toughest operators in the bureaucracy.

Labor sources say “there is a debate” about what should be done with Pezzullo. Retaining him would have the advantage of sending a signal to the people smugglers about no weakening in border policy, something Labor would want to do from the start.

One senior public servant certainly for the chop (if he doesn’t quit first) under Labor is Treasury secretary Phil Gaetjens. He was chief of staff to Scott Morrison when Morrison was treasurer, and the opposition regarded his appointment as highly partisan.

Read more: Changing of the guard at the Treasury department

Among the names being canvassed to replace him are Jenny Wilkinson, head of the Parliamentary Budget Office (which is doing the opposition’s policy costings); Steven Kennedy, secretary of the Infrastructure department, and Blair Comley, a former departmental head sacked by Tony Abbott who became secretary of the NSW Premier’s department and is now in the private sector.

If Wilkinson got the job, she’d be the first female head of Treasury. If she didn’t, she’d be presiding over a PBO with an expanded role. Labor has said it would transfer the budget’s macro-economic forecasting to the PBO to remove the number-crunching from political influence.

Of course all this is running in front of the story. As the election contest turns into the home straight, Shorten is several lengths ahead in the polls. But he still has to win the race.

Read more: Poll wrap: Labor gains in Newspoll after weak economic report; Labor barely ahead in NSW

Labor will have to navigate some difficult policy announcements in coming weeks.

On climate change, it must outline final details of what it would do – in particular, the measures it would take in the non-electricity sectors (transport, large industry, land) as part of reaching its ambitious target of reducing economy-wide emissions by 45% by 2030. It is also to reveal whether it would use Australia’s Kyoto credits to help meet the target.

On industrial relations, Labor has flagged it would change the legislation governing the Fair Work Commission’s setting of the minimum wage, to achieve a more generous deal for the low paid. But it has yet to say precisely what new principles it would insert. And it will have to be more specific about the extent of its support for the return of what it calls “multi-employer” bargaining.

An especially sensitive announcement will be the date for the commencement of the crackdown on negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. When the policy was unveiled in the last term, the housing market was over-heated. The situation has transformed, with downturns led by Sydney and Melbourne.

Setting an appropriate implementation date will require careful judgement about likely future trends in the market and the policy’s impact on them.

Arguably, it would be politically savvy for Labor to make one or more of these announcements quickly, before the campaign proper.

The government will try to use the budget to change the game as much as it can, and Labor can’t anticipate how far that will happen.

The budget is expected to contain big tax cuts. Shorten will possess the fiscal capacity to match these, but Labor will have to decide whether and how it would distribute them differently.

An ardent practitioner of continuous electioneering, one would expect Shorten to put in a disciplined performance during the actual campaign.

Labor can be confident he’d never have anything as excruciating as NSW opposition leader Michael Daley’s experience this week during a people’s forum with Gladys Berejiklian, when he couldn’t recall key details from his education promises.

Confronted over one number, Daley said “I’ll just check that figure and get back to you”; he didn’t remember another “off the top of my head”.

Still, campaigners are obstacle courses even for the most seasoned players.

The election result will show whether the voters are willing to go along with Labor’s bold policies. We do know these have been carefully thought out, not made up on the run. We can expect Labor’s transition-to-government plans to be given similar attention.

But there is another challenge a prospective prime minister needs to think about.

With a fickle electorate, an often feral media, and the torment of regular opinion polls, how does a government handle the public impatience that can make the business of governing for the long term so difficult, sometimes nearly impossible, these days?

This feature of modern politics can be as testing as winning an election.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Shorten’s not getting ahead of himself, but the tape measure is out – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-shortens-not-getting-ahead-of-himself-but-the-tape-measure-is-out-114030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

As she foreshadowed in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre last Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just announced a ban in that country on specific military-style firearms. It will soon become an offence to own or possess semi-automatic firearms and shotguns with detachable magazines capable of firing more than five cartridges.

Later this month, the government will consider further changes to the law that will tighten licensing requirements and impose limits on certain types of ammunition. There will be a gun buy-back scheme in place in due course that will provide compensation to those who possess soon-to-be-illegal guns. Preliminary advice suggests that might cost the country between NZ$100 million and NZ$200 million.

Read more: Why overhauling NZ’s gun and terrorism laws alone can’t stop terrorist attacks

Thoughts immediately go to the aftermath of the 1996 Port Arthur tragedy in Australia. Then-Prime Minister John Howard had been elected only six weeks before the Tasmanian horror unfolded. He immediately set in train the gun control measures that no previous government, conservative or progressive, would ever have thought possible.

The government placed a ban on the sale, transfer, possession, manufacture, and importation of all automatic and most semi-automatic rifles and shotguns (and their parts, including magazines). More than 640,000 such weapons were thereupon surrendered and later destroyed at a cost to the taxpayer of around A$250 million.

In Australia today, there continues to be bipartisan political consensus and broad community support for what was titled the National Firearms Agreement (NFA). In 2017, it was reaffirmed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

There has been some criticism that certain aspects of the original agreement have been watered down in some jurisdictions in recent years, but the requirements outlined by the agreement generally remain intact.

Did the Australian gun ban and buy-back scheme make inroads into the rate of firearm-related deaths? Did it prevent mass shootings? Jacinda Ardern appears to be convinced that answers to both questions are in the affirmative. Let’s look at the evidence from the past 23 years in this country to test her assumptions.

Read more: No massacres and an accelerating decline in overall gun deaths: the impact of Australia’s major 1996 gun law reforms

Gun violence in Australia since the buy-back

It is unequivocal that gun death rates in Australia have been falling consistently since 1996. Some commentators object to the connection between this trend and the NFA, saying the downturn was simply a continuation of a long-term decline in gun violence generally.

But recent research found that, compared with the trend before 1997, there was a more rapid decline in firearm deaths after the implementation of the NFA.

However, this conclusion was quickly challenged by another researcher, who argued these findings were simply a consequence of the rarity of these events, and that the data were thus skewed.

The researchers on the first paper then set out to test the null hypothesis: that is, that the rate of mass shootings would remain unchanged after the introduction of the NFA. They concluded that while a definitive causal connection between this legislation and the 22-year absence of mass firearm homicides was not possible, there was nevertheless evidence that before 1996, approximately three mass shootings took place every four years. Had they continued at that rate, 16 incidents would have been expected by February 2018, but that pattern did not play out.

The evidence from the National Homicide Monitoring Program, collated by the Australian Institute of Criminology, concurs with the evidence provided by these authors. Its data indicate that the share of murders committed with firearms dropped significantly around the time of the buyback scheme. Indeed, the number of homicide incidents involving a firearm decreased by 57% between 1989-90 and 2013-14.

In 1989-90, firearms were used in 24% of homicides. In 2013-14, the figure was 13%.

Incidentally, in the United States, 60% of homicides are committed by firearms. To the extent that correlations are useful, there should be no surprises here. The US gun ownership rate (guns per 100 people) is more than five times the Australian rate.

Reducing access to firearms lowers the risk of gun deaths

The evidence that countries with higher levels of gun ownership have higher gun homicide, gun suicide, and gun injury rates is convincing. Anyone advocating gun ownership as a means of lowering levels of violence and crime is arguing against the weight of research.

Read more: Christchurch attacks are a stark warning of toxic political environment that allows hate to flourish

Jacinda Ardern’s initiative cannot do her country any harm. Twenty-three years after Port Arthur and the NFA, firearm involvement in homicide incidents in Australia, including the involvement of handguns, remains at an historic low.

While it would draw too long a bow to assert conclusively that the downturn in firearm deaths in Australia can be attributed to the gun law reforms alone, the implementation of the NFA can be closely associated with the reductions in mass shootings and firearm deaths.

The choices made by the Ardern government to eliminate certain firearms from New Zealand to improve community safety are consistent with the long-term evidence from Australia.

– ref. Will the New Zealand gun law changes prevent future mass shootings? – http://theconversation.com/will-the-new-zealand-gun-law-changes-prevent-future-mass-shootings-113838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University

The future management of New South Wales’s national parks is one of the issues on the line in Saturday’s state election. Other states will be watching the outcome closely.

Depending on who wins, the outcome for Kosciuszko National Park spans from restoration and recovery to ongoing environmental decay, with feral horses given priority over native species.

Read more: Low-key NSW election likely to reveal a city-country divide

All political parties have been well informed about the science behind feral horses in the Australian Alps. The peer-reviewed literature shows that:

• feral horse impacts put multiple species at greater risk of extinction

• streams and bogs are degraded, threatening water quality, and will require restoration

• even small numbers of horses lead to cumulative environmental degradation

• a range of high and low elevation areas are severely degraded by feral horses; it is not clear whether any areas can withstand horse impacts

• rehoming and fertility control are not effective control methods when horses number in the thousands and are hard to reach

• aerial culling is humane, effective, and cheaper than other methods.

But despite the clarity of recommendations emerging from research, political parties have taken a broad range of approaches.

A feral horse exclusion fence. But which side of the fence are the major parties on? Author provided

Liberal/National Coalition

The Liberal/National coalition has pledged to enact its Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Bill, which was passed by the state parliament last year and aims to “recognise the heritage value of sustainable wild horse populations within parts of Kosciuszko National Park”.

This legislation would ensure several thousand feral horses remain in the park, potentially compromising the conservation goals of the park’s management plan.

Read more: Passing the brumby bill is a backward step for environmental protection in Australia

This month, Deputy Premier John Barilaro said the government would “immediately” reduce horse numbers by 50%, through trapping, rehoming, fertility control, and relocating horses to “less sensitive” areas. Although he appeared to endorse an ultimate population target of 600 feral horses in front of an audience that was receptive to that idea, under pressure from the pro-brumby lobby, he later clarified that the coalition would aim to keep 3,000-4,000 feral horses in Kosciuszko.

Labor

Labor, along with the Greens and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, has pledged to repeal the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Bill if it wins the election, and has committed A$24 million to restore the national park.

Its six-point national parks restoration plan bans aerial culling, instead proposing to control horses using rehoming, while expanding research on fertility control.

Labor’s plan also mentions active management of feral horses in sensitive ecosystems, and ensuring large horse populations do not starve to death. It plans to achieve these two goals by trapping and rehoming brumbies. Labor also plans to keep a “smaller population” of feral horses in areas within the national park “where degradation is less critical”.

Greens

The NSW Greens has arguably the most evidence-based policy, aiming to reduce horse numbers by 90% in three years, with a longer-term goal of full eradication.

This means national parks would be managed for native Australian species. That is important in NSW, where only 10% of the state has been allocated to protected areas, well below international standards of 17%. They would achieve this reduction using all humane methods currently available, including trapping, rehoming, mustering, and ground-based and aerial shooting.

The Greens would also fund rehabilitation of damaged habitat, and has flagged substantial funding for conservation initiatives.

The Greens aim to put native species, such as the broad-toothed rat, back at the centre of national parks policy. Ken Green

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party supports immediate action to reduce feral horse numbers using humane methods, including ground shooting, but not aerial culling.

The party, which holds one lower house seat and has two upper house members, has announced no plans for restoration of the national park.

Animal Justice Party

The Animal Justice Party, which has just one upper house member in the parliament, has endorsed “non-lethal control measures” in areas that are clearly being degraded by feral horses. It says this should be achieved entirely using fertility control and relocation. The party has also described brumby culling proposals as “horrific” and called for urgent national legislation to protect them.

Read more: Why do brumbies evoke such passion? It’s all down to the high country’s cultural myth-makers

There is pressure from pro-brumby lobbyists to keep feral horse populations in Guy Fawkes, Barrington Tops, Oxley Wild Rivers, the Blue Mountains, and other NSW national parks. In Victoria, a pro-brumby pressure group will take Parks Victoria to the Federal court later this year to prevent removal of a small but damaging horse population on the Bogong High Plains in the Alpine National Park.

When NSW voters decide the fate of Kosciuszko National Park on Saturday, their verdict could have broader ramifications for protected areas throughout Australia.

– ref. NSW election: where do the parties stand on brumby culling? – http://theconversation.com/nsw-election-where-do-the-parties-stand-on-brumby-culling-114008

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fron Jackson-Webb, Deputy Editor/Senior Health + Medicine Editor

This week, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety hearings focused on aged care in the home.

Most Australians want to stay in their homes for as long as possible as they advance in age. And the nation’s aged care system provides subsidies to support this choice. But the commission heard evidence that ageing Australians face an average wait of 18-24 months for a home care package.

Those who have secured a package report problems with poorly trained staff, high management fees and unnecessary bureaucracy, such as having to call a 1800 number to change the time someone comes to help them shower.

So how does Australia’s aged care system provide services in the home and why is it under so much pressure?

Read more: As home care packages become big business, older people are not getting the personalised support they need

An alternative to residential care

Australia’s aged care services are delivered through a mix of community and residential services. The three main types of care are:

• home support: provides basic support, such as help with food preparation and transport, for older Australians in their own homes
• home care: provides older people with more complex needs with four levels of care options, from basic care (level 1) which is assistance with tasks such as bathing and transport, to more complex needs (up to level 4) such as nursing care
• residential care: provides care and accommodation for people who can no longer live independently in their own homes.

Read more: Explainer: what is a home care package and who is eligible?

In the 2017-18 financial year, more than 1.2 million Australians used some form of aged care service – with the majority receiving home-based support or care.

As at September 2018, there were 90,646 people receiving one of the government’s subsidised home care packages.

Most people who receive home care packages (about 63%) are aged 80 years or over. The number of women receiving home care packages is almost double the number of men.

In 2016-17, the average length of time a person received home care was just under 19 months, compared to about 30 months for someone in residential care.

The number of older Australians accessing home care packages is rising. During the 2017-18 financial year, 116,843 people accessed home care packages.

Due to the increasing demand, the government funded an extra 14,000 home care places over four years in the 2017-18 budget.

But more than 127,000 people were on the waiting list to access their preferred level of care in December 2018. Of those, about 29,000 have been placed in interim care. This means they’re receiving a home care package below the level they’ve been approved for.

People who apply for home care packages above level 2 usually wait more than 12 months to receive a package at their approved care level.

The number of home care service providers has increased significantly in recent years. More than 900 approved providers now offer home care packages, up from around 690 in March 2017.

Home care providers made an average net profit (before tax) of A$2,832 per consumer in 2016-17. This was a slight decrease of 0.8% from the previous financial year, mainly due to the large increase in the number of home care consumers in 2016-17.

But if we look at the financial performance of home care providers by ownership type, we see there is a significant difference in the margins between the for-profit providers and the not-for-profit and government providers.

Home care providers can charge consumers with three types of fees:

• a basic daily fee of A$10.54 per day
• an income-tested care fee
• additional fees for care or services not covered by the home care package.

The basic daily fee for a home care package is 17.5% of the single person rate of the basic age pension. From 20 March 2019, the fee is A$10.54 per day (A$147.56 per fortnight).

The income-tested care fee is dependent on the income of the recipient, and is in addition to the basic daily fee.

The Australian government subsidises the costs of home care packages. The amount of the subsidy depends on the level of care received.

In the 2016-17 financial year, the Australian government provided A$1.6 billion in funding towards home care packages.

Read more: Would you like to grow old at home? Why we’re struggling to meet demand for subsidised home care

Read more: Don’t wait for a crisis – start planning your aged care now

– ref. Confused about aged care in the home? These 10 charts explain how it works – http://theconversation.com/confused-about-aged-care-in-the-home-these-10-charts-explain-how-it-works-113923

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

When Judge Peter Kidd sentenced Cardinal George Pell last week, it was broadcast live on radio and television. It was a stark contrast to the preceding trial, which was subject to a suppression order that prevented any coverage of the proceedings.

Today on Media Files we look at the suppression order that prevented the Australian media reporting the case, even when the verdict was widely known and was being circulated on social media and on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

On the day of the Pell sentence the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism brought together several experts with wide-ranging experiences of suppression orders to discuss how they affect the public’s right to know and whether the laws should be reformed.

The panellists are:

• Associate Professor Jason Bosland, Co-Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School, where he teaches media and communications law. His primary research interests lie in media law, including defamation and privacy, open justice and the media, contempt of court and freedom of speech

• Melissa Davey, Melbourne bureau chief for The Guardian. She is an experienced news journalist who previously worked as a reporter for Fairfax newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun Herald. She sat through every day of the George Pell trial

• Lucie Morris-Marr, a reporter who, like Melissa, sat through the entire Pell proceedings. She worked at the Daily Mail, London, Marie Claire Australia and the Herald Sun in Melbourne before covering the Pell trial for the New Daily. She is the author of a book on Pell entitled Fallen: The inside story of the secret trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell

• Frank Vincent AO QC, who served 16 years as a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria followed by a further eight years as a judge of the Court of Appeal. He was Deputy Chair and then Chair of the Victorian Adult Parole Board, a position he occupied for 17 years. In 2017 he conducted a review of court suppression orders and the Open Courts Act 2013.

The forum was chaired by Dr Denis Muller of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.

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Recorded at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. Producer: Andy Hazel.

Theme music by Susie Wilkins.

Image:

PAUL TYQUIN/AAP

– ref. PODCAST: Pell trial reporters, a judge and a media lawyer on why the suppression order debate is far from over – http://theconversation.com/podcast-pell-trial-reporters-a-judge-and-a-media-lawyer-on-why-the-suppression-order-debate-is-far-from-over-111634

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Wescott, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

Victoria is struggling with biodiversity conservation, according to a State of the Environment report tabled in parliament this week. While the scorecard is bleak – not one of the state’s key biodiversity indicators ranks as “good” – the report itself gives some hope.

For the first time the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, who prepared the report, offers proactive recommendations to the Victorian government for improving its performance, and has linked these goals to international sustainability targets. It’s an comprehensive and ambitious effort, and offers some good lessons to the rest of Australia.

Read more: Australia among the world’s worst on biodiversity conservation

Alarming results

Victoria is the most densely populated state in Australia, the most cleared of native vegetation, and has the smallest percentage of public land.

The State of the Environment report uses a traffic light method to summarise the status, trend and data quality of 170 indicators spread over 12 scientific assessment areas (everything from general air and water quality to specific environments such as marine and coasts, plus issues such as waste and energy).

The indicators paint a picture that does not look good for biodiversity. None of these indicators are rated “good”; seven are “fair”, 21 “poor”, and seven “unknown”. In terms of trends, just one is improving, seven are stable, and 18 are deteriorating (nine are unclear).

National park declarations have slowed substantially on land in recent years – the first Andrews government (2014-18) was the first Victorian government in a quarter of a century not to increase national parks. Not a single additional marine area has been protected since 2002.

In contrast, conservation on private land is fair and trending upward according to the report card (probably largely due to the efforts of Trust for Nature). A substantial cash injection for the trust from Victoria’s rolling fund would likely see outsized results, although this is not a specific recommendation in the report.

The reports offers two critical recommendations for improving biodiversity:

• increase private land conservation and invest in local government capability to enforce existing protective guidelines, and

• appoint a Chief Biodiversity Scientist to counsel the Secretary and Environment Minister to improve the impact of biodiversity research.

Creating a Chief Biodiversity Scientist is a good starting point for an area that has received decreasing effort, over the past decade in particular. However, it must be only the first step in raising the lowly position of biodiversity conservation, not only in the environment department but across the entire government.

Beyond passive reporting

This years report moves beyond simply relaying data in two ways: first, with 20 specific recommendations to the government, and secondly by using the United Nation’s framework of environmental accounting to tie the report to the global Sustainable Development Goals.

The report claims this is the first attempt to apply the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to a sub-national environmental report. Given the number of federated nations around the world (the United States, Brazil and Canada, for a start), putting the spotlight on state or provincial environmental responsibilities is a significant and laudable step.

In the more immediate future, the report gives the Victorian government 20 recommendations linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, across a range of categories: Traditional Owner leadership, climate change, air and water quality, land, forests, fire, marine and coastal environments, water resources, waste and resource recovery, energy, transport, and “megatrends”.

The 20 recommendations are solidly based on the findings across the 12 assessment areas. These show that only 11% of status indicators are “good”, whereas 32% are “poor”, with the trend demonstrating only 10% are improving, 30% stable and 30% deteriorating.

Read more: Why biodiversity is key to our survival

While the State of the Environment report naturally focuses on Victoria, there are plenty of lessons and ideas here for the rest of the country.

Now the onus is firmly on the self-proclaimed “most progressive government in Australia” to act.

– ref. What Australia can learn from Victoria’s shocking biodiversity record – http://theconversation.com/what-australia-can-learn-from-victorias-shocking-biodiversity-record-113757

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Crosby, Professor, Monash University

In 2013 I wrote a piece on The Conversation arguing that foreign exchange trading should be much more tightly regulated.

In particular, I said that retail (mum and dad) investors should only be allowed to trade foreign currencies in limited circumstances. Since then there has been little change. It is still shockingly easy for a retail investor with a very limited understanding of foreign currency to trade foreign exchange, as was demonstrated on ABC 7.30 on Wednesday night.

There is a basic difference between foreign exchange trading and other forms of investment such as share trading. Over time, share markets tend to rise, so that if an investor buys a diversified basket of shares, or even an individual share, they should expect a positive return over time. Of course markets go up and down, and individual share trades can go wrong, but in the long run the market tends to rise.

Share trading it isn’t

Foreign currency markets are fundamentally different, in that there is no reason to expect exchange rates such as the Australian-US dollar rate to rise or fall over any short- or medium-term trading horizon.

For 30 or more years, academics have tried to build models to predict exchange rates. None of them work. If even the most sophisticated academic or trader built a model to predict whether the AUD/USD would go up or down tomorrow, they would get it wrong 50% of the time – exactly the same as a coin toss. This means trading foreign exchange on the basis of whether major currencies will go up or down is exactly the same as playing two-up!

Losses can exceed what you put in

The second reason that retail investors should be wary of foreign exchange trading is that many promoted products are highly leveraged – funded by borrowing. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has clear warnings about foreign exchange trading on its Moneysmart webpage, including a case study of a typical trader who invests A$500 to borrow to buy A$100,000 at an exchange rate of 91 US cents.

With this contract, a fall in the USD/AUD exchange rate to 88.5 US cents sees this trader lose A$2,825, meaning they have to pay another A$2,325 in addition to the original A$500 to close out the contract.

How to lose a lot from a little. ASIC MoneySmart

If foreign exchange trading is so risky, and in my view no different to playing two-up or roulette, why do we allow retail investors to leverage into these products?

The problem, as I see it, is that regulators can take one of two approaches to investors. The traditional view is that if investors have enough information they will make informed choices in their own best interests. Economists describe this as behaving rationally. The ASIC approach is very much based on this view: provide good information and let investors make informed choices.

Information isn’t enough

There is a second view that is gradually replacing this view of individuals as rational. The “behavioural economics” approach examines the psychology and actual approaches of individuals in different circumstances, to explore departures from rationality. Unsurprisingly, in many arenas people are irrational, creatures of habit, ill-informed, and so on.

An implication is that sometimes people ought to be protected from their own poor decisions, even though that might limit choice. I would argue strongly that there is no reason for retail investors to trade foreign exchange, and certainly no reason to borrow to do it. Measures to limit such trading, except in circumstances where an investor can demonstrate their expertise, ought to be encouraged.

We’re a magnet for promoters

This is very far from the case in Australia currently. In fact Australia is seen as an attractive location for firms offering retail foreign exchange trading. Websites offer “training and tips” and then allow trading inside 24 hours.

I have spent 30 years studying foreign exchange markets and would still say that I’m not sophisticated enough to trade them. Maybe I’m dumb, but I’m not crazy enough to trade foreign exchange.

Read more: Gambling on the dollar: time to reign in forex trading

– ref. No better than roulette. How foreign exchange trading rips off mum and dad investors – http://theconversation.com/no-better-than-roulette-how-foreign-exchange-trading-rips-off-mum-and-dad-investors-113743

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

Your lipstick and foundation will be less likely to come at the expense of animal welfare, thanks to Commonwealth legislation that passed in recent weeks.

The legislation, which will come into play on July 1, 2020, follows a commitment the Coalition government made during the 2016 election campaign to introduce a ban on cosmetic testing on animals, backed by strong public support. The RSPCA asserts 85% of Australians oppose testing cosmetics on animals.

The legislation was a long time coming – it was first introduced in June 2017 – and is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough.

Read more: Australia will finally ban cosmetic testing on animals

Animals are sentient creatures – they feel pain and distress just as humans do. Given the increasing recognition of the extent of animal sentience, reflected by various international laws, it is well and truly time to rethink our approach to testing on animals for any reason.

Cosmetics are often tested on rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats and mice. It commonly involves applying chemicals to the shaved skin or eyes of rabbits, force feeding, and testing to determine what dose of chemical will cause death.

Such testing causes significant pain and distress for the animals involved and most animals are killed following an experiment. According to Humane Society International, around 100,000 to 200,000 animals suffer and die for cosmetics around the world each year.

A protest of animal testing in cosmetics in Melbourne, 2018. Penny Stephens/AAP Image

The federal ban will impact a wide range of products.

The legislation defines “cosmetic” as “a substance or preparation intended for placement in contact with any external part of the human body” with the aim of altering odour, changing appearance, cleansing, maintaining, perfuming or protecting it. Make-up, facial cleansers, soap, deodorant, perfume and moisturisers are all included under this definition.

But only chemicals intended for use in cosmetics will be affected. Chemicals in household cleaning products, for instance, are found in many cosmetics, and will not be impacted by the new legislation.

This is a significant loophole, as most chemicals using animal test data are used for a variety of purposes.

Read more: Of mice and men: why animal trial results don’t always translate to humans

The international trend

Australia is not alone in banning the testing of cosmetics on animals, and the recent legislation shows our effort to join the international trend.

The European Union banned cosmetics testing on animals in 2009 and extended the ban to imports in 2013. The European Union also called for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics and proposed drafting an international convention.

Bans have been introduced in Israel, India, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan, parts of Brazil, Switzerland and Guatemala. Last year, California became the first state in America to ban the sale of animal tested cosmetics.

Non-cosmetic animal testing

When discussing the new legislation in parliament, then Assistant Minister for Health, David Gillespie, said:

Australia is moving away from the use of animal test data for other purposes, so that animal test data, like in the EU, would be used as a last resort where science has not yet developed valid alternatives that can assure continued protections for human health, worker safety and the environment.

The RSPCA estimates between 4 and 5 million animals are used to help develop medicines, test the harmfulness of chemicals and drugs, and for education and training each year.

Animals are also commonly used in ways that aren’t directed at saving lives. Agricultural research, for instance, might be aimed at increasing the productivity of animals used for the production of human food.

Animals are also often used in high school and university science classes. The dissection of frogs, for instance, helps students understand anatomy. But most of the time, these classes aren’t associated with training students for veterinary or medical practice, according to Animals Australia.

Read more: The next pharmaceutical revolution could be 3D bioprinted

For non-cosmetic animal testing, the internationally accepted approach to better animal welfare follows “The 3Rs”.

• Replacement: using alternative means to animal testing

• Reduction: using fewer animals in testing

• Refinement: using methods that reduce potential pain and suffering of animals subject to testing

The 3Rs are incorporated in the Australian Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes. Other jurisdictions incorporating these principles include a European Union directive on the protection of animals, the UK’s Animal (Scientific) Procedures Act and in Japan via The Law for the Human Treatment and Management of Animals 2005.

To progress further down the path of banning all animal testing, it is critical to develop and authorise alternatives to animals in testing, such as the use of computer models, cell cultures and human tissues.

As the RSPCA advocates, Australia should ensure there is dedicated government funding for developing these alternatives, implement a national strategy to reduce animal use and establish a national centre to implement the 3Rs.

– ref. Australia’s animal testing laws are a good start, but don’t go far enough – http://theconversation.com/australias-animal-testing-laws-are-a-good-start-but-dont-go-far-enough-113112

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Rassell, Nanoartist and creative-practice based researcher in Media, RMIT University

As an experimental video-maker working at scales smaller than molecules, I surround myself in a variety of scientific visualisations.

In reading popular media on scientific discoveries, I sometimes encounter claims that a particular scientific visualisation is, in fact, a photograph, for example: “first ever photograph inside a hydrogen atom”.

Read more: Looking at the universe through very different ‘eyes’

A photograph is an image made from photons of light reflecting off an object and striking a photosensitive surface such as a film or a digital sensor. Because light carries information relating to shape, texture and colour, photographs are representations (images of the object) that retain some semblance of the original.

However, we live in a post-photographic world; a world in which visualisations use different ways of “seeing” data and scientific phenomena.

The following visualisations cover a range of scales, from geological to quantum. They were made using techniques that illustrate the vast differences between the processes of photography and scientific visualisation – and in some cases the potential for blending the two.

1. Australia from 700km above Earth

12 months Over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Grayson Cooke, Author provided (No reuse)

Grayson Cooke is a media artist working with data from satellites in low Earth orbit. These satellites have sensors that record electromagnetic radiation, including ultraviolet, infrared and visible wavelengths of light.

This still image, from Cooke’s Open Air project, is made up of multiple frames captured over a year over the Gulf of Carpentaria, and combines infrared and visible wavelengths.

This image can be considered part photograph, because it is partially made using visible light. But it is also part data visualisation, because it utilises invisible infrared radiation, data that has been given the visible quality of colour.

2. Fluorescing rat retina

On the other side of a molecular divide, digital micrograph (2013) Andrea Russell, Author provided (No reuse)

Confocal microscopy is a technique that uses fluorescent dyes — commercially manufactured antibodies with fluorescent molecules attached — to specifically bind to cell and tissue proteins in biological specimens. The fluorescent molecules become visible when they are excited by lasers from the microscope, and can be imaged using a photodetector or a camera.

In this example of a rat retina, different cell-surface proteins have been targeted, and antibodies with coloured molecules have been used to differentiate the types of cell in the retina, revealing the layered structure of the tissue. The image is a photo of fluorescent molecules, but not directly of the tissue itself.

3. Graphene under an atomic force microscope

Video still from Movement I: Nanomorphology (2018) Andrea Russell, Author provided (No reuse)

Above is a micrograph of graphene, a substance with multiple layers of carbon lattices stacked like sheets of paper. The image was taken with an atomic force microscope.

Microscopic imaging is traditionally a direct optical image-capture process. Light waves are reflected off an object and amplified via lenses in the microscope, allowing the viewer to directly observe details in a magnified state.

However, this process does not work for phenomena at the nanoscale (a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre). Light waves in the visible spectrum are too large to strike objects under 400 nanometres in size, and therefore cannot be reflected back to be captured by a light microscope.

The atomic force microscope uses an alternative method of detection — a probe that functionally resembles a stylus on a record player, to scan and “feel” its way across a sample.

The sharpness of the probe tip, typically a few nanometres wide, determines the resolution of the micrograph. This allows visualisation of phenomena smaller than anything that could be detected with light.

The spatial data the instrument produces — values corresponding to depth, width and height — are translated via a number of instrumental and computational processes to create the micrographs. This process translates tactile data into visual data.

4. X-rays scattered by a protein

Nanocrystallography of the GroEL protein (2011) Andrew Martin, Author provided (No reuse)

X-ray scattering simulations are a common technique for determining the form of a molecule. This example shows a simulation of the X-ray scattering pattern of a protein (known as GroEL), which is about 60,000 atoms (10 nanometres) in diameter.

This type of visualisation is created when a beam of X-rays is directed at a protein sample. The X-rays scatter, changing direction depending on their interaction with the atoms in the protein. These atoms may be more or less dense in certain areas.

The patterns of the X-ray scattering can be measured and reverse-engineered to figure out the structure of the protein that created them. Crystallographers use computational analysis to recover the three-dimensional structure of the protein.

5. Theoretical images of molecules

Fluorobenzene, calculated image (2011) Ula Alexander, Author provided (No reuse)

This is a calculated image of a fluorobenzene molecule at 25℃.

Calculated images are used to determine the changes that occur during a molecule’s rotation as it interacts with light. They are made using data from experiments, and the information in the calculation is modified until the calculated pattern matches the experimental one.

The image is a probability map of how likely the molecule is to absorb and emit light, and the artificial colourisation is assigned based on how likely this is. This is dependent on the molecule’s shape, the atomic vibration inside the molecule, and the rotation of the molecule in space.

The image is constructed from a series of horizontal one-dimensional images, which are stacked together to form the two-dimensional pattern. Following the dots in any of these series is like following an energy ladder corresponding to the initial amount of rotation of the molecule.

If the molecules are cold, and therefore not rotating much, these series are short, whereas warmer, faster rotating molecules will create a longer series of dots.

6. Bubble pathways of particles

Neutrino interaction in the Fermilab 15-foot Bubble Chamber (1976) Fermilab

A bubble chamber is a cylinder filled with pressurised liquid that forms bubbles in response to particles moving through it. While the particles themselves cannot be photographed, these paths of bubbles can.

Particle beams flow into the chamber, and the formed bubbles are allowed to grow to about 1mm before flash photographs are taken from multiple angles.

Through looking at how these “images” are constructed, we can see that they are often not really images at all in the traditional sense of the word.

Rather than capturing “how something looks”, data visualisation involves translation of a feature into a visual form, or by finding a physical process that can be visualised.

Sitting alongside these images of complex, small-scale scientific phenomena are numerical data, tables, graphical representations and interpretations. And so perhaps it is true that scientific visualisations alone cannot represent what is, but merely give a sense of what is.

– ref. Six images reveal how we ‘see’ data and capture invisible science – http://theconversation.com/six-images-reveal-how-we-see-data-and-capture-invisible-science-102769

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edwina Pio, Professor of Diversity and University Director of Diversity, Auckland University of Technology

New Zealand is a religiously and ethnically diverse country with an almost negligible global terrorism index. Muslims have lived in New Zealand, peacefully, for more than a century.

In the latest census, Muslims represent 1.07% of New Zealand’s population, with the majority of Asian (63.1%) and Arab (21%) descent. Among the 46,000 Muslims in New Zealand, there are people from European countries, Māori and Pasifika Muslims, and those from Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Read more: Four lessons we must take away from the Christchurch terror attack

Anti-Muslim sentiment

Worldwide, faith based violence is on the increase. It is fuelled by extremist ideologies such as those held by Boko Haram, ISIS, jihadism and the pursuit of a global Caliphate or dominance by brutal behaviours and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam.

The term Islamophobia has emerged in public policy during the late 20th century. It has multiple connotations linked to anti-Muslim sentiment, discrimination, hatred, fear, harassment and exclusion of Muslims from public life.

Extremism such as violent jihadism and Islamophobia tend to feed off each other. This stokes white supremacists and encourages a general misunderstanding of the large majority of Muslims who are ordinary people like everyone else. The hesitation to include Muslims in public life is based on stereotypical notions, limited understanding of history and ignorance of multiple cultures.

The perceptions of Islam are often closely aligned with violence, hegemonic structures, jihadi actions, oppression of women, honour killings and intolerance. This means Muslims are often seen as a threat rather than as a disadvantaged minority.

But the Muslim diaspora means that people live in many parts of the world, either as migrants, refugees, expatriates or business partners. Their experiences are shaped by both their source country and their new home.

Disrupting Islamophobia

Islam is often presented as a monolithic religion. This ignores the diversity of religious interpretation, ethnicity, culture and source country. Friday’s terror attack can serve as a catalyst to pledge diversity and different narratives.

While there is no singular frame for disrupting Islamophobia, we can actively seek to move beyond simplistic debates that demonise Islam. We can reduce Islamophobia through a suite of diversity initiatives.

Three diversity initiatives are helpful tools for disrupting Islamophobia:

1) Emphasising positive counter narratives

This can be done by acknowledging diversity in each of us and our communities. We are all more than a singular identity, for example as a Muslim/Christian, a parent, a migrant, a scholar, a poet, a holder of a New Zealand passport and a citizen of the world.

Strategies to achieve this can include legitimising difference, encouraging and rewarding generosity, and training programmes about different religions and cultures.

Brutality disguised in the name of Islam must be counteracted through positive communication about Islam’s contribution to astronomy, medicine, altruism and business.

2) Creating compassionate disruptors

This can be done by focusing on kindness in organisations, particularly business and educational institutions, so people learn to embrace diversity. Performance management can include how diversity is implemented and the benefits of multi-ethnic teams.

3) Highlighting social cohesion

When powerful figures in organisations call out discrimination and make sure their teams represent a diverse workforce, they broadcast positive stories of difference.

We must remember that civic disengagement, anger and lack of community provoke and promote terrorism and can result in Islamophobia.

Communities and nations that foster an environment of diversity in everyday life tend to enhance security of their people and diffuse a climate of extremism and Islamophobia.

As a final thought it is poignant to remember that the word Islam means peace.

– ref. How to move beyond simplistic debates that demonise Islam – http://theconversation.com/how-to-move-beyond-simplistic-debates-that-demonise-islam-113768