The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Bant, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne

Here are three simple steps to address the widespread misconduct revealed in the interim report of the banking royal commission, arising out of research I have undertaken with my colleague Associate Professor Jeannie Paterson.

While not exhaustive, they are good places to start:

Step 1: back to basics

Commissioner Hayne is spot on when he says that simply adding more regulation is not going to do the job.

In fact, more regulation can be more damaging than helpful.

There are literally dozens of overlapping state and federal statutes that prohibit misleading or deceptive conduct, and they often use subtly but significantly different language and impose different penalties.

This “legislative porridge” splits the regulation of financial services and products in ways that defy rational justification.

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Read more: Banking Royal Commission’s damning report: ‘Things are so bad that new laws might not help’

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The result is protracted and cripplingly expensive litigation to determine who is covered by what prohibition.

This plays perfectly into the hands of well-funded corporations who know that delaying tactics and the limited resources of regulators and commercial and consumer are likely to produce soft settlements, “agreed penalties” and no real pressure to change behaviour – all while profits continue to flow in.

So we need to get back to basics. Simple, overarching prohibitions contained in one or two pieces of key legislation, which apply to every trader and corporation who engages in trade or commerce. No exceptions. No carve outs. No special treatment. The same penalties and remedies. Simple, powerful and unavoidable.

Step 2: calling out deceptive conduct

For many years, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has concentrated its relatively meagre litigation efforts on proving “misleading” conduct by corporations. This is probably because it is notoriously difficult to prove the personal dishonesty traditionally required to prove fraud (the “deceptive” part of the prohibition on “misleading or deceptive” conduct).

Part of the problem has been that corporations are artificial persons and so need to operate through directors, managers, employees and agents.

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Read more: Fees for no service: how ASIC is trying to make corporate misconduct hurt

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Nailing down instances of individual personal dishonesty, intention and responsibility is often impossible.

Misleading conduct, by contract, is relatively easy to prove, because it focuses on the objective meaning of conduct, does not require proof of fault – and does not require ASIC to identify the personal intentions of individuals behind the conduct.

But, focusing on misleading conduct comes at the cost to effective regulation.

The reputational damage flowing from a finding of misleading conduct is very low.

As Commissioner Hayne has noted, corporations are quick to characterise this sort of conduct as involving “mistakes”, to apologise and to promise reform.

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Read more: Hayne holds fire, but the banks’ day of reckoning is coming

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It is time to face the reality that what matters is the behaviour of corporations rather than what is in their (artificial) minds.

It isn’t brain surgery.

As the commissioner himself as noted, you don’t need legal advice to know that “charging for doing what you do not do is dishonest”. Much of the reported conduct “ignores basic standards of honesty”.

A change in focus from personal intention to objective standards of honest conduct is needed to address what the commissioner identifies as “the root causes of conduct, which often lie within the systems, processes and culture cultivated by an entity”.

Step 3: genuine punishment

The final piece of the puzzle (missing from the otherwise incisive discussion in the interim report) is to bring courts on board.

Australian courts have been very cautious in awarding penalties for misleading conduct, and give substantial weight to mitigating factors such as expressions of remorse and cooperation with regulators.

They have said repeatedly that the focus of penalties should be on deterrence rather than punishment.

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Read more: How courts and costs are undermining ASIC and the ACCC’s efforts to police misbehaving banks and businesses

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Their approach may be entirely appropriate in cases where courts are dealing with human defendants facing personal ruin. But when applied to corporations, it can undermine the legitimate role of punishment in changing repeated and longstanding corporate misbehaviour.

Again, there are some simple changes to the law that could address this problem.

One is to clarify that punishment is an important aim of the civil penalties regime, required for “public denunciation” of bad behaviour and to provide effective deterrence.

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Read more: The problem with Australia’s banks is one of too much law and too little enforcement

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Another is for courts to frame penalties with a strong eye to the profits amassed as a result of the breach. Often the profit earned will be larger than the damage to consumers. Misconduct cannot be allowed to make good financial sense.

Yet another (also not yet on the commission’s radar) is to seriously consider expanding private rights of redress to include additional, punitive damages in cases of serious misconduct.

Not only would this make private claims more feasible for commercial victims. The recent launch of group proceedings by Slater & Gordon shows that, when brought together, private litigants are capable of sharing the regulatory burden of keeping banks on the straight and narrow: it needn’t all be done by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

There are important issues to consider about the strengths and dangers of group litigation, currently the subject of review by the Australian Law Reform Commission.

But if it can be done properly, the deep pockets of banks might well meet their match in well organised teams of lawyers and litigation funders, aggressively seeking justice both in the interests of their clients and for their own financial reward.

– Three simple steps to fix our banks
– http://theconversation.com/three-simple-steps-to-fix-our-banks-103999]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen S Holden, Adjunct Professor, Macquarie Graduate School of Management

The American Medical Association recently retracted six papers co-authored by food consumption and psychology researcher, Brian Wansink, in three of its journals. These studies include two showing that large bowl sizes encourage us to eat more, and that shopping when hungry leads us to buy more calorie-dense foods.

A prolific academic researcher, Wansink has provided many thought-provoking ideas about the psychology of food consumption through more than 500 publications which have been collectively cited more than 25,000 times.

His research has shown that people will eat a lot more from a bottomless soup bowl; they will eat more from larger portions, even if it is stale popcorn or food served in a dark restaurant; and they will eat less if a portion is made to appear larger using visual illusions.

Retractions are a permanent means by which journals endeavour to preserve the integrity of scientific literature. They are typically issued for some form of misconduct, but it does not necessarily mean the results are false.

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Read more: Use your illusion: how to trick yourself and others into eating less

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Are retracted studies false?

A number of challenges have been made against more than 50 of Wansink’s publications. At present, 15 corrections have been published and 13 retractions have been made.

The retractions follow a range of allegations of misconduct including autoplagiarism (copying your own work), data mismanagement and data manipulation. But none of this means Wansink’s results are entirely discredited.

The American Medical Association made its retractions based on Cornell University (Wansink’s employer) being unable to provide an independent evaluation in response to an Expression of Concern regarding Wansink’s studies issued in May.

The absence of evidence does not prove his results are false.

Science relies far more on whether results are repeatable than retractions. And many of Wansink’s results – including some which have been retracted – have been replicated.

Two of the most recently retracted studies showing that adults and children eat more from larger bowls form a part of a larger literature and have been cited nearly 300 times and 40 times respectively.

The bigger the plate size, the more people will eat (if they serve themselves). NeONBRAND/Unsplash

Multiple reviews of the scientific literature reveal that others have replicated the findings of Wansink and colleagues on how the plate or bowl size affects consumption.

In a meta-analysis I authored with others, the combined studies in this area show that doubling the plate size increases consumption by 40% on average. Though this is only the case if people are serving food onto the plate themselves. (Disclosure: this meta-analysis was published in a journal issue for which Wansink was one of the editors).

Replication is more important than retraction

The problem of reproducing findings in science is a much bigger issue than retractions. Retractions attract attention, but are relatively minor; replication does not attract attention, and is critically important.

The replication crisis facing social sciences, health and medicine suggests that 50% or more of published findings may not be repeatable.

In social science, a team replicated 100 studies published in three high-ranking journals. The results showed only 36% of the replications found statistically significant results, and the average size of the observed effects was half of that seen in the original studies.

Wansink has published more than 500 articles. If 250 of them prove to be false in the sense that the results cannot be replicated, then he is on par with social and medical science in general.

The retraction of thirteen of Wansink’s articles – some of which have been replicated by others – is a blip receiving much more attention than it deserves.

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Read more: The science ‘reproducibility crisis’ – and what can be done about it

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The high rate of replication failure arises, in part, from the arcane statistical approach used for analysing research data. In essence, researchers seek statistically significant findings. Statistical significance is typically defined as when the probability (p-value) of the observed data assuming there was no effect is less than 5%.

Journals and academics wish to publish novel, statistically significant results. They tend to ignore studies with null results, putting them in a file-drawer.

Replications that are successful add nothing new, and replications that fail (not statistically significant) are uninteresting to publishers albeit critically important to science.

A related problem is that academics may dredge through data and cherry pick statistically significant results, a practice called p-hacking.

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Read more: One reason so many scientific studies may be wrong

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The misconduct of journals and academics through their obsessive focus on statistically significant findings is widespread. If Wansink differs from others, it is in his disarming honesty admitting to data dredging in a 2016 blog post which attracted intensive scrutiny from his peers.

Science makes mistakes and missteps. The advances are achieved through new ideas and repeated testing.

Retractions may be important signals of reduced confidence in a finding, but they do not prove a finding false. This requires replication.

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Read more: Oh, the uncertainty: how do we cope?

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Science doesn’t provide certainty. Claims of absolute certainty made by authoritative figures are probably false.

As Tim van der Zee, one of Wansink’s lead detractors states on his website “I am wrong most of the time.” The challenge for scientists is to believe this.

– Retraction of a journal article doesn’t make its findings false
– http://theconversation.com/retraction-of-a-journal-article-doesnt-make-its-findings-false-103829]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University

This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

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Assuming feathers are superior to fur in terms of water protection and insulation, I’ve always wondered: why did mammals go the fur route, rather than developing feathers? – Shane, Perth

One of the main characteristics that distinguish mammals from birds, and other animals, is that mammals have hair or fur, and birds have feathers.

Why? The short answer is: evolution. Mammals evolved from the synapsid dinosaurs (such as the finback, Dimetrodon) between 320 and 315 million years ago, while birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs (like T.rex) around 150 million years ago. So hair and feathers evolved separately from different groups of dinosaurs.

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Read more: Curious Kids: How many dinosaurs in total lived on Earth during all periods?

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While each group of animals requires varying degrees of insulation and waterproofing, the different animals also use hair and feathers for additional purposes – like sensing their environment, and courting displays. Together, all these roles affect an animal’s chances of survival and finding a mate to successfully reproduce with.

Both fur and feathers are part of the integumentary system, associated with the external covering of the body.

Hair for heat control

Often, we associate hair or fur with insulation. Sheep hair, called wool, is well recognised for its capacity to insulate, and humans have built whole industries based on its properties.

Of course, the number, type and colour of hair differs among mammalian species, and these characteristics are based on the specific mammal’s needs.

Hairs are always associated with sebaceous glands (that produce sebum, a water repellent-like substance) and sensory receptors.

The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber), a blind subterranean mammal, has some scattered hairs (despite its name) – it uses these to navigate through associated sensory receptors.

Despite its name, hairs on the naked mole rat provide sensory information to help it navigate underground. from www.shutterstock.com

Elephants also appear essentially hairless; however, they are covered in hair of varying lengths and densities. Like their ancestors the mammoths, modern day elephants have a large volume-to-surface-area ratio. So rather than an insulator, modern-day elephant hair enables heat loss and aids cooling.

Individual hair strands are different colours. The outer portion of the hair strands are responsible for the general appearance of the animal, and hence, its overall colouration. The inner portion of the hair strand is responsible for insulation.

Hair or coat colour affects the ability of hair to reflect solar radiation and insulate. Dark hair absorbs more radiant heat than lighter hair. For example, in the arid zones of outback Australia, the darker euro (also referred to as the common wallaroo, Macropus robustus) avoids heat behaviourally by moving out of the sun. The lighter-coloured red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) spends more time in open areas.

So hair colour is important for species who use basking in the sun to warm themselves and conserve energy.

Just catching some rays – because I can. from www.shutterstock.com

Hair for defence

Zebras (Equis species) have black and white striped fur to reduce insect attack and confuse biting flies. Scientists have found all white or all dark coloured horse species and related species are more readily bitten by flies than striped zebras.

Hair can also play a role in defence for species such as porcupines, echidnas and hedgehogs. Porcupines have modified hairs called quills, while echidnas and hedgehogs have hollow spines, both covered in a thick layer of keratin. The animals also have bristles, underfur, and/or hair among their quills or spines, and on their bellies.

Hedgehogs roll into a tight ball and expose their spiny backs towards predators. Smilarly, echidnas can curl into a ball or will bury themselves and leave their spiny backs exposed as protection from predators.

Echidna quills are actually modified hairs. 148286771@N02/flickr, CC BY-NC

Types of feathers

So, what about feathers? Just like mammals have sensory receptors associated with hairs, birds have sensory receptors associated with feathers. These enable birds to sense objects such as biting flies and other parasites.

There are two main types of feathers: vaned feathers and down feathers.

Vaned feathers have a rachis or shaft, with barbs branching off, and smaller barbules branching off the barbs. Down feathers lack barbles, and are fluffy in appearance.

Down feathers are responsible for insulation, and are the feathers we use in our doonas, whilst vaned feathers aid flight.

Different types of feathers suit different purposes – flight, warmth and mating displays. 1 – contour/flight feather, 2 – steering feather (tail feather), 3 – covering feather, 4 – piliform feather, 5 – bump feather, 6 – down feather. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

In some birds, the barbles on vaned feathers produce a powder that aids waterproofing.

Birds also have a uropygial gland located towards the base of their tail. It provides wax-like substances to aid feather preening and maintenance, and likely provides an additional water proofing as well.

There is one further type of feather, that is very specialised: the piloplume. These feathers are used by males to display to females and attract a mate. Generally speaking, this is why male birds are often more colourful than female birds.

These tail feathers have the sole function of looking good. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Mammals use different methods to display to females and to attract mates. Deer display strength and agility to females through antlers, whales use song, while other mammals, such as cats, use scent.

Finding a mate is of course essential to produce the next generation. And feathers and fur play key roles in making sure that happens.

New Guinea’s spectacular birds of paradise.

– I’ve Always Wondered: why did mammals go the fur route, rather than developing feathers?
– http://theconversation.com/ive-always-wondered-why-did-mammals-go-the-fur-route-rather-than-developing-feathers-103905]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Jennings, Adjunct Lecturer in Religious Studies, Murdoch University

Since Scott Morrison became prime minister last month, much has been made about his religious beliefs and the impact they are likely to have on his leadership.

Understanding Morrison’s faith and how it influences his worldview requires some basic knowledge about Pentecostalism and how it differs from other forms of Christianity.

Pentecostalism has 300 million adherents worldwide, with most found in the United States, South America, Africa and parts of Asia. When combined with Charismatic Christians, who share many of the characteristics of the Pentecostals, this number rises to over half a billion.

As of the 2016 census, only 1.1% of Australians identify as Pentecostal. However, the religion commands significant media attention in Australia, largely because some of Australia’s largest churches – such as Morrison’s own Horizon Church – are Pentecostal.

A brief history of Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism has no universally accepted origin story. Perhaps the best-known starting point is the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906, where the movement emerged under the leadership of African-American pastor William Seymour.

However, some Pentecostal denominations trace their roots to the Welsh Revival of 1904. The first Pentecostal church in Australia was an Aboriginal congregation meeting in Queensland in 1904, an offshoot of the Welsh Revival.

Still another origin story dates back to a bible school in Kansas where a young woman, Agnes Ozman, spoke in an unknown language after receiving the Holy Spirit in 1901. This became known as “speaking in tongues”, or “glossolalia”, and it became an early hallmark of the movement. The first Pentecostals regarded this enigmatic phenomenon as the “initial evidence” that one had received the blessing of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

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Read more: What kind of prime minister will Scott Morrison be?

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The Biblical foundation for this is a passage in Acts 2:1-13, which explains how the first Christians experienced the blessing of the Holy Spirit. As a result of this blessing, the members were able to speak in other languages, enabling them to be understood by diaspora Jews gathered in Jerusalem to observe the feast of Pentecost (from which the movement takes its name).

In the early 20th century, Pentecostals believed the blessing was a sign of the second coming of Jesus and the end of history was imminent. This led to Pentecostals being very active in evangelism, which also helps explain the movement’s rapid growth.

From their beginnings, Pentecostals have emphasised what they often call “encounter” with God – a direct experience of God’s presence.

This experience, which is central to Pentecostal worship, is understood to be the empowerment not only for speaking in tongues, but also divine healing and even exorcism. Pentecostals tend to take a literal, “common sense” approach to the Bible, believing that if speaking in tongues and miracles are recorded in the New Testament, these things should continue to be experienced today.

What does this mean for Morrison’s politics?

It might be difficult to claim that Morrison’s policies have been directly formed by his faith, as he has emphasised that the Bible is “not a policy handbook”. However, it is likely his beliefs have had some influence on his policy decisions and viewpoints.

Pentecostals tend to take a socially conservative position toward issues such as same-sex attraction and marriage. This is based on a literal approach to the Scriptures, together with a “restorationist” view that the social and ethical norms of the era of the New Testament should still apply today.

Many LGBTIQ Pentecostals have ended up leaving their congregations as a result of these views. There are, however, a handful of “affirming” (that is, inclusive of LGBTIQ people in ministry) Pentecostal churches in Australia.

The dominant conservative view on same-sex marriage is consistent with Morrison’s abstention from the marriage equality bill. He has also indicated he would enact “preventative regulation” to ensure greater religious freedoms.

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Read more: ‘Welcoming, but not affirming’: being gay and Christian

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Pentecostals have been accused of taking an uncritical view of money and capitalism. An often cited example of this is “prosperity theology”, which links financial success and physical wellbeing to God’s blessing. Prosperity theology is, however, a phenomenon that emerges more from American Evangelicalism rather than Pentecostalism.

A better example is the Pentecostal phenomenon of “pastorpreneurs” – a term coined to describe a neoliberal approach to faith emphasising financial growth and entrepreneurial risk-taking.

During his time in politics, Morrison has demonstrated a neoliberal view on economic policies, once referring to welfare recipients as “the taxed-nots”.

His oft-repeated mantra “a fair go for those who have a go,” while reflecting Pentecostal pragmatism, also suggests a viewpoint that only those who contribute financially to the country should reap the rewards of lower taxation.

His maiden speech as prime minister reinforces this message:

I think that’s what fairness means in this country. It’s not about everybody getting the same thing. If you put in, you get to take out. And you get to keep more.

This also relates to one of Morrison’s most controversial positions – his prominent role in the Coalition’s “Stop the Boats” policy.

In his first speech to parliament, he outlined his beliefs as such:

So what values do I derive from my faith? My answer comes from Jeremiah, chapter 9:24: ‘I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord’.

However, the asylum seeker policy that Morrison strongly defended during his time as immigration minister seems to run counter to this belief in compassion and justice for those in need.

Also, Morrison’s participation in a multicultural Pentecostal church has thus far not led him to publicly challenge or critique his immigration policies.

There is no unanimity in Pentecostalism on the issue of asylum seekers, and many Pentecostals have been involved in movements such as Love Makes a Way, which seek to end immigration detention.

Current Australian asylum seeker policy does not reconcile easily with the Christian tradition. In relation to this issue and other areas, our new prime minister may seek to make a sharp distinction between faith and politics.

– Explainer: what is Pentecostalism, and how might it influence Scott Morrison’s politics?
– http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-pentecostalism-and-how-might-it-influence-scott-morrisons-politics-103530]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carmel Laragy, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) began a full national rollout in July, 2016 based on a fundamental principle to give those with a disability choice and control over their daily lives. Participants can use funds to purchase services that reflect their lifestyle and aspirations. Two years on, how is the scheme faring?

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The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is required by law to provide “reasonable and necessary supports” to help eligible people with a disability live more independently. Determining what supports are reasonable and necessary involves subjective assessments by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the scheme, or its contractors. This makes for a tricky process.

The NDIS has two arms. There are individual support packages available to around 475,000 people with high levels of assessed needs. There is also the more recently introduced Information Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program, which aims to assist all 4.3 million Australians aged 16-65 with a disability. This promotes inclusion of all people with disability into their communities by helping individuals and by building the community’s capacity to welcome them.

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Read more: Understanding the NDIS: how does the scheme work and am I eligible for funding?

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The NDIS hopes the links created through the ILC program will reduce reliance on specialist disability supports and individual support packages over time. Most of the media stories detailing failures concern people missing out on individual support packages and the lack of alternative supports available.

So, are NDIS participants receiving the necessary and reasonable supports they need to live a quality life?

What makes supports reasonable and necessary

The NDIS uses tight definitions when it determines reasonable and necessary supports and allocates individual support packages. It doesn’t duplicate other formal supports such as health and education. Nor does it pay for day-to-day living costs or informal supports already available from family and friends.

It is contrary to the NDIS philosophy to have a formula that dictates reasonable and necessary supports for a particular type and severity of disability – nor is it practical. Two people with the same type and severity of disability may have different goals and so different support needs. One person may want to pursue education and employment, while another may want more community activities.

The NDIA administering the NDIS is governed by the NDIS Act, the Rules and the Operational Guidelines.

These regulations require planners employed or contracted by the agency to help each applicant identify their goals and draft a plan. The plan sets out the supports needed to achieve their goals. Participants are then allocated funds for these supports, which must represent value for money. Funds can only be used to achieve the goals in the NDIS plan.

The guidelines say the NDIA will fund daily living activities, social activities, aids and equipment and home modification. Though in practice, it’s the NDIA assessor who determines what is reasonable and necessary for an individual, and whether the person gets an individual support package or misses out.

Satisfaction ratings

The NDIA commissioned Flinders University to provide an independent evaluation of how the scheme was faring. Published in February 2018, it found most NDIS participants were satisfied with their supports. It also identified a range of problems and around 9% of respondents were dissatisfied with the support they received.

These findings were based on a satisfaction survey, which asked participants, their family and carers for their opinions. Satisfaction surveys have limitations because people can be grateful for the services they receive and not know they are entitled to more. We might therefore expect the satisfaction ratings reported to be on the high side.

The findings were reassuring, in that people who were in the scheme for longer gave higher satisfaction ratings. The researchers concluded that people learned about NDIS processes and became better at negotiating the support they wanted over time. The higher levels of satisfaction correlated with people receiving increased support and having more choice and control over their support.

The lowest satisfaction scores came from adults with an intellectual disability (which includes Down syndrome), followed by those with issues related to mental health. This may have been due to the NDIS disrupting services previously provided to these two groups. Day centres, holiday camps and drop-in centres are no longer block-funded, and now rely on people with individual packages selecting them. With increased options and competition some services are considering closing. This uncertainty is causing concerns for some people using these services and their families.

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Read more: Understanding the NDIS: the challenges disability service providers face in a market-based system

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The highest satisfaction scores came from the families of children with a developmental or congenital disability. They received Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) support for children under six years to develop skills needed for daily activities. The NDIS insurance approach is investing in young children to maximise their abilities and minimise future demands on the scheme.

There were several reasons participants gave low scores. These included having inadequate funding to meet their needs, planners not understanding their disability, planners producing inconsistent plans, and a lack of transparency as to how decisions were made. These findings support concerns expressed in the sector that staff implementing the NDIS don’t have the necessary skills, training, experience, and resources (including time) to assess reasonable and necessary supports.

Disadvantaged groups

Participants and families who were confident, educated and able to articulate their support needs were more satisfied than those who were unable to navigate the NDIA website to obtain information about services and providers. The report concluded that the NDIS needs to provide better advocacy, advice and assistance for plan development and coordination, especially for disadvantaged people.

The NDIA has since developed a new access strategy for disadvantaged groups including people with complex needs, psychological and social disabilities, those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, people living in remote and very remote communities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.

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Read more: Understanding the NDIS: many eligible people with disabilities are likely to miss out

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The strategy will offer these groups face-to-face meetings with one worker for all NDIS contacts, replacing phone contacts which was often with different workers. The allocated worker will help plan NDIS supports and liaise with other government departments such as health, education and transport services to assist the person access services and community activities.

The future

The latest Council of Australian Governments Quarterly Report tells of many positive achievements. While this is not an independent assessment and tends to emphasise the positive aspects and overlook the problems, the stories reflect the statistics in the independent evaluation. One example was a man who said:

I’ve been able to use my funding to help me find a job and settle down. The NDIS has changed my life!

The NDIS has achieved much over the past five years but acknowledging its achievements doesn’t deny its many problems. The scheme is still in its infancy and has a long way to go to change old cultures, establish new processes, train staff and shape community expectations.

A major concern is that the government will not provide enough funds for the NDIS to overcome establishment difficulties and reach its potential. The Council of Australian Governments says the NDIS is on track to stay within its A$22 billion annual budget. This is despite more people joining the scheme and less people leaving than expected.

A new NDIS price guide has increased the rates for some NDIS supports. Hopefully this will reduce workforce and service shortages by paying higher wages and costs. It may also deplete the NDIS budget faster and result in each person receiving less funding. Anecdotal reports say that funding for individual plans is being cut. This is certainly something to watch.

– The NDIS is delivering ‘reasonable and necessary’ supports for some, but others are missing out
– http://theconversation.com/the-ndis-is-delivering-reasonable-and-necessary-supports-for-some-but-others-are-missing-out-97922]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenni Downes, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Australia’s government has announced new planned waste recycling targets, as part of its response to the crisis prompted by China’s decision to crack down on recycling imports earlier this year.

The wider goal of Australia’s plan to update the National Waste Policy is to embrace circular economy principles.

That process is now in train. Following engagement with industry and government working groups, a proposed update to the policy is now open for public comment.

So how well does the proposed new policy incorporate circular economy principles? The short answer is, not well enough.

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Read more: Explainer: what is the circular economy?

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A circular economy is centred on keeping products, components and materials circulating in use for as long as possible, through long-lasting design, repair, reuse, re-manufacturing and recycling. The ultimate aim is to minimise the amount of resources consumed, and waste generated, by our economic activities.

The proposed principles, targets and strategies are a good start. They will help tackle a range of issues, including:

• dealing with China’s recycling imports crackdown by improving local capacity
• increasing the currently limited responsibility for products at end of life
• focusing on organic waste (such as food and textiles), one of the major obstacles to current recovery rates
• reducing litter and marine plastic debris
• harmonising the various disparate state policies.

Synthesis of proposed National Waste Policy. UTS Institute for Sustainable futures adapted from Department of Environment and Energy

Yet these proposals, while all crucial, represent only a moderate evolution from our current situation, rather than the revolution needed to truly embrace the circular economy.

The policy’s major focus is still on recycling and recovery, and while recycling is certainly a “circular” activity, the circular economy involves so much more than simply improving how we reclaim and reprocess unwanted materials.

A truly circular society aims to transform our whole system of production and consumption, with innovative approaches like “products as services” (through leasing or collaborative consumption) and designing for next life and new life (through repairability, modularity and disassembly).

Linear, recycling and circular economies. Adapted by ISF from Netherlands Government-wide Programme for a Circular Economy

Global changes, local opportunities

The proposed policy misses the opportunity to focus on innovation and create a step change in not only the resource recovery industry, but our whole economy and broader society.

The public arguably has more awareness of this issue than ever before, thanks to the continuing emergence of sustainability as a concept, combined with China’s shock to our recycling industry and the media focus afforded by campaigns such as the ABC’s War on Waste documentary series.

Public awareness and expectation is one thing, but to deliver on these goals the national waste policy must strengthen the explicit adoption of circular economy principles and significantly increase support to transition towards it.

This includes such things as:

• appointment of a Commissioner for Circular Economy
• explicit targets for reuse, repair, reassembly and remanufacture
• “Circular” procurement of goods and infrastructure
• support for innovation in business models for circular economy
• standards for imports, not just local production
• federal tax incentives, funding, and research and development to enable all of the above.

Australia has a unique opportunity to lay the building blocks for the type of economy and society we want. Let’s hope we can get it right.

– The planned national waste policy won’t deliver a truly circular economy
– http://theconversation.com/the-planned-national-waste-policy-wont-deliver-a-truly-circular-economy-103908]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glen Fuller, Associate Professor Communications and Media, University of Canberra

It’s a local government truism that Australian city dwellers care about only three things – rates, rubbish and parking. They want lower rates, the freedom to turf out as much trash as they like, and convenient free car parking. The arrival of dockless share bikes set these attitudes towards parking and rubbish on a collision course.

Dockless bike sharing was quickly embraced as a neat solution to a complex urban transport problem and then just as quickly condemned as a blight on the landscape. Its key advantage over its docked competitor turned out to be its key weakness in the Australian market.

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Read more: Oh no, oBikes are leaving Melbourne! But this doesn’t mean bike sharing schemes are dead

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Our ongoing research project looks at the future of cycling in Australia. Dockless bikes are the most prominent recent re-imagining of how cycling functions in our cities. Our research indicates that culture isn’t the problem so much as infrastructure – namely, a lack of bike parking.

* Excludes pay-for-access Parkiteer stations or private parking. ** Light rail network has six ‘bike sheds’ with multiple parking hoops *** Numbers based on news reports at time of introduction to each city and middle-of-the-road estimates where projected numbers may not have been met **** Estimates of rates of cycling can be problematic as there is no standard or nationally applied method for determining these, and cycling is a shared concern between portfolios like transport, public health and sport/recreation Author provided

From go to whoa in a year

Singaporean company oBike launched the first commercial dockless bike venture in Australia in June 2017. Mobike, Reddy Go and Ofo soon followed. At A$2-$2.50 for 30 minutes, the bikes offered an affordable alternative to carbon-based transport for short trips within cities.

Yet, by July 2018, oBike, Ofo and ReddyGo, after placing upwards of 10,000 bikes on Australia’s streets, had announced they were leaving. The dream of enhanced city mobility was reduced to a luminous pile of unwanted bikes.

For the moment it looks like the experiment failed. The obvious reason, rarely mentioned, is the lack of bike parking in Australian cities. Dockless bikes exist in limbo between disposable and valuable, which makes them a target for abuse and abandonment.

The key attraction of dockless bikes is convenience – they can be left anywhere. However, this can be enraging for non-users who see parked bikes as rubbish, and not a standing reserve of cheap transport. They see bikes left in parks, against shop windows, in front gardens, hanging from fences and in building entrances as an unwelcome disordering of a highly ordered space.

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Read more: To end share-bike dumping, focus on how to change people’s behaviour

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More dockless bicycles were introduced to Sydney and Melbourne than there were parking spaces. But councils in both cities introduced guidelines that made operators responsible for bike parking and placement, requiring them to liaise with municipal authorities and public landholders to provide solutions.

In late 2017, six Sydney councils introduced guidelines on dockless bikes. Other jurisdictions followed. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in Victoria introduced rules that led to oBike withdrawing from Melbourne.

That the EPA, rather than a transport authority, made rules about dockless bikes says a great deal about their status. In the eyes of many Australians the bikes are rubbish first and transport second.

A failure of infrastructure

Secure bike parking is provided in both cities, generally around public transport networks. However, Sydney has fewer than 100 individual secure spaces while greater Melbourne has around 70 secure “Parkiteer” sites.

These facilities require users to pay a bond – $50 for Parkiteer – so serve a particular kind of bicycle commuter rather than the public at large. Sydney’s main train stations, Central and Redfern, have fewer than 100 public bicycles spaces between them. It’s common to see bikes chained to fences and railings around these stations.

The failure to find a dockless bike parking solution demonstrates the naivety of the operators. It also indicates that if Sydney and Melbourne were to miraculously achieve their mode-share goals, the failures of their infrastructure’s capacity would be made painfully apparent.

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Read more: Cycling and walking are short-changed when it comes to transport funding in Australia

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If dockless bikes failed because they were always “matter out of place”, as Mary Douglas famously put it, then who is responsible for providing places for dockless bikes? Blame has largely been placed on users, who are deemed irresponsible. Thus, it must be a social problem.

But Australian cities don’t provide enough bike parking. The City of Sydney says it has 2,500 spaces, but these are spread out over 25 square kilometres (inner-city Copenhagen is 8.8 square kilometres).

Our cities did little to lay the groundwork for dockless bike ventures. At first glance it might seem that the bike companies should have to provide parking spaces for their bikes. By that logic car rental companies ought to provide parking spaces for their cars.

Councils provide parking spaces for cars, regardless of who owns them, so why not for dockless bikes?

Back active transport goals with investment

All major cities in Australia aim to increase active transport such as cycling and walking. Bike parking should be seen as a necessary cost of achieving that goal.

Councils once welcomed dockless bikes as a cheap private solution to a public problem. Yet they now frame regulations to contain the unwanted problem of bike parking rather than promoting the highly desirable solution of fewer cars in the city.

The Active Travel Office of Transport Canberra announced a trial of the city’s first dockless bike share program concurrently with new guidelines. The first item on the list is bike parking. The guidelines insist on a collaborative response to “enable the ACT Government to determine and mark appropriate locations where dockless share bikes may be parked”.

Underlying these guidelines is the anxiety that dockless bikes are only ever a hair’s breadth away from ceasing to be convenient forms of transport and becoming inconvenient forms of rubbish. Maintaining an orderly streetscape has clear priority over cheap, non-carbon-based public transport. Dockless bikes are to be contained as litter rather than upscaled as convenient transport.

As we’ve argued previously, Australia’s bike infrastructure won’t cope with even the smallest increase in bike trips. Policy on bike infrastructure is framed as demand-driven, but the infrastructure is already overwhelmed.

The only way we’ll see a step change in bikes replacing cars is if investment in bike infrastructure is greatly increased.

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Read more: Here’s what bike-sharing programs need to succeed

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The City of Sydney’s goal is for 10% of all trips in the city to be made by bicycle. On 2013 numbers this equates to 1.6 million trips a day. The City of Melbourne’s target is 8%, or 68,305 weekday bicycle trips. It has only about 2,700 bicycle parking hoops.

In both these cities, trips already made by bicycle greatly outnumber parking spaces. Despite their active transport ambitions, through lack of foresight Australian cities have laid bare the failures of their bicycle infrastructure.

What is the price of this failure? Hundreds of needless car trips every day that could easily be done by bike if adequate parking and lockers were available.

– The problem isn’t dockless share bikes. It’s the lack of bike parking
– http://theconversation.com/the-problem-isnt-dockless-share-bikes-its-the-lack-of-bike-parking-102985]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Linden, Sessional Lecturer, PhD (Management) Candidate, School of Management, RMIT University

The evidence presented in the first four rounds of the Royal Commission into Banking and Financial Services was harrowing.

It would be a mistake to think the appalling misbehaviour uncovered so easily by the Commission was unconnected, just a few bad apples, as the banks and their supporters had been claiming.

It’s a mistake Commissioner Hayne doesn’t make in his interim report, describing the misconduct as systemic, orchestrated as a matter of corporate policy, and against the law.

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Read more: Banking Royal Commission’s damning report: ‘Things are so bad that new laws might not help’

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So shocked is he about what he concludes is law-breaking sanctioned at the highest levels that he asks rhetorically whether there would be any point in new laws, given the old ones were often ignored by banks and are not enforced by regulators.

The law already requires entities to “do all things necessary to ensure” that the services they are licensed to provide are provided “efficiently, honestly and fairly”. Much more often than not, the conduct now condemned was contrary to law. Passing some new law to say, again, “Do not do that”, would add an extra layer of legal complexity to an already complex regulatory regime. What would that gain?

He makes no recommendations in his three-volume 1000 page interim report, instead drawing together a long list of questions he intends to answer in his final report, due in February.

Before then, the bank chief executives appearing in the Comission’s final round of hearings will be asked some very tough questions.

No more convivial chats

It won’t be like the convivial chats the bank executives are used to with the heads of regulators, eager to please their ministers in love with financial innovation and the concept of Australia becoming a global financial centre, a new City of London in the East.

Nor will it be like the “I’m sorry, I’ll take that on notice” parliamentary hearings the government arranged a year or two ago in an effort to fend off the Commission.

We’ve always had the evidence

For decades few have thought to ask why Australia’s big banks have been consistently among the world’s most profitable.

Certainly not shareholders who loved the returns and wanted more.

Too many middle and higher level employees were happy to take the bonuses.

Now a new treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who wasn’t centrally involved in fending off the Royal Commission, appears to have got the message.

Whatever the criticisms are of the regulator, we should remember actually who perpetrated the wrong conduct. And that was the financial institutions themselves. So they are ultimately, and the individuals involved, ultimately the ones who must be held accountable and responsible for their actions. The regulators need to enforce the laws they have at their disposal, impose the penalties that are available to them, and in doing so we are more likely to see a culture of compliance than what we have seen.

Commissioner Hayne has framed the fundamental problem as one of greed overriding respect for the law and respect for customers.

We allowed greed to become good

Hayne asks how that could change.

We have argued with reference to AMP and IOOF that while greed might be an ever present part of the human condition, it can be suppressed or contained.

Greed-induced systemic financial crises were common before the 1940s and after the 1970s, but not during the war or in the decades immediately after the war.

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Read more: Britain’s broken corporate governance regime

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The 1980s saw a sea change in attitudes to greed, brought about by financial deregulation and the popularising of the view taught in economics classes that pursuit of individual self interest was in society’s best interest.

Rules, codes and views about what constituted good governance came to be based on a theory that gave a central role to greed, maximising shareholder returns and incentivising managers.

Boards were encouraged to think that putting shareholders first was more important than following directors duties and the law.

Bureaucratically, there was an unrelenting policy preference for self-governance, light touch regulation and cooperation with wrongdoers rather than enforcement.

It’s hard to change

Relying on good character (individual virtue) isn’t enough when corporate structures and policies facilitate systematic misconduct.

It’s impossible to buy organisational culture off the shelf. It is a product of many things.

Changing culture requires more than better professional credentialing, increased financial literacy and embedding regulators inside banks. By themselves, these measures are unlikely to be systemically effective.

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Read more: Trust has to be as important as profit if banks and their boards are to regain their corporate legitimacy

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We need to change the rules by which boards operate.

Containing greed requires many, many eyeballs, not just those of shareholders and consumers, but also employees, unions, customer advocacy organisations, regulators and the parliament, as well as clear and well-designed rules, active enforcement, appropriate rewards and strong consequences, and a new shared ethos of prudence, responsibility, honesty, service and fairness.

It is possible, but difficult.

– Hayne holds fire, but the banks’ day of reckoning is coming
– http://theconversation.com/hayne-holds-fire-but-the-banks-day-of-reckoning-is-coming-104055]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Isaacs, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Sydney

What makes a film a classic? In this column, film scholar Bruce Isaacs looks at a classic film and analyses its brilliance.

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Requiem for a Dream, 2000.

Requiem for a Dream is often described as one of the most disturbing and “hard-to-watch” films ever made. Darren Aronofsky’s second feature film, based on Hubert Selby Jr.‘s novel of the same name, follows four characters as they plunge to depressing depths from their drug addiction. The follow up to his debut feature, Pi, established Aronofsky as a highly imaginative filmmaker with a distinctive style.

In this sequence we follow Marion (Jennifer Connelly) as she exits a building. On paper, it is a relatively simple setup. But Aronofsky’s unique style and unconventional use of camera creates a stunning scene that is almost unbearable because of its intensity.

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See also:

The great movie scenes: Hitchcock’s Vertigo
The great movie scenes: Antonioni’s The Passenger
The great movie scenes: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The great movie scenes: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
The great movie scenes: Hitchcock’s Psycho
The great movie scenes: The Godfather
The great movie scenes: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
The great movie scenes: Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette

– The great movie scenes: Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream
– http://theconversation.com/the-great-movie-scenes-darren-aronofskys-requiem-for-a-dream-103916]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Ralston, Professor of Finance, Monash University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg moved very quickly to deliver the interim report of the Royal Commission into Financial Services to the public. It was submitted to the Governor General, tabled in parliament (out of session), and made public on the same afternoon – Friday September 28.

The three-volume report is limited to findings from the first four rounds of hearings, on consumer credit, financial services, lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises, and experiences with regional and remote communities.

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So far the commission has received almost 10,000 submissions, mainly related to banking (67%), superannuation (12%), and financial advice (9%). Most address issues relating to personal finance, superannuation, or small business finance.

In receiving the interim report, Frydenberg reiterated its key message that financial institutions have put “profits before people”.

It’s about the money

According to the report, poor culture and conduct in banks have been driven by their remuneration policies, with almost every instance of misconduct being directly linked to monetary benefit.

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Read more: Banking Royal Commission’s damning report: ‘Things are so bad that new laws might not help’

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The interim report is also highly critical of the regulators, painting a disconcerting picture of their determination to detect and monitor misbehaviour and enforce compliance with the law.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission comes in for particular scrutiny, with Commissioner Kenneth Hayne noting that where the law had been broken, “little happened beyond an apology from the entity, drawn-out remediation, and an infringement notice or an enforceable undertaking that acknowledged no more than ASIC had reasonable concerns about the entity’s conduct”.

The penalties imposed were often immaterial, given the size of the institutions involved.

The letter of the law can smother its spirit

It’s hard to know how to regulate. On occasions, as with the Future of Financial Advice legislation, the spirit of the law has been lost in complexity about prescribed behaviour, and of course so-called “grandfathering provisions” which ensure commissions that began in the past can continue even though they would no longer be legal.

The interim report asks whether, rather than more legislation, the answer lies in less: in simplifying the laws to better reflect their intentions.

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Read more: Royal Commission shows banks have behaved appallingly, but we’ve helped them do it

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It is something Labor had in the original version of the financial advice legalisation – an overarching obligation on advisers to act in their client’s “best interests”, an obligation the Coalition tried to remove on attaining office, arguing that specific provisions would do the job just as well.

On releasing the interim report, Frydenberg was asked where our regulators had been ineffective because they had been captured by industry or had inadequate resources.

Frydenberg replied that culture was indeed substandard, but that giving the regulators more resources would be seriously examined.

The government has already given ASIC and APRA more.

In August, ASIC received A$70 million in additional funding to strengthen supervision and give it the capability to embed its staff members inside major banks.

Earlier this year the government appointed a second ASIC deputy chairman, Daniel Crennan QC, to bolster its enforcement credentials.

The new chairman James Shipton appears to be reshaping the ASIC culture.

But that’s only the beginning of the changes we are likely to see.

It’s our turn now

Public submissions in response to the interim report are now open and are due by Friday October 26, 2018.

Two more rounds of hearings are yet to be held, with the final report due by February 1, 2019.

– The problem with Australia’s banks is one of too much law and too little enforcement
– http://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-australias-banks-is-one-of-too-much-law-and-too-little-enforcement-103996]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Grant, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney

The term deposit has matured. Initial scepticism over the timing, scope, and overall need for a royal commission into financial services has transformed into deep concern about the culture and practices in one of our most important industries.

Malcolm Turnbull, the (perhaps not coincidentally) ex-prime minister, admitted it had been a “political mistake” to delay the royal commission by nearly two years.

None of the major banks have escaped the Commission’s ire.

Perhaps that’s because none of them have had an incentive to behave better. There’s been little financial reward for being the bank to improve.

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Read more: Banking Royal Commission’s damning report: ‘Things are so bad that new laws might not help’

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Australian banks generate the second-highest returns on equity in the world, and so far none has been keen to let those returns go.

In his interim report, Royal Commissioner Kenneth Hayne pilloried them for their greed, putting profits before customers. He hinted that submissions he has not yet fully examined may uncover even more misconduct.

Conflicts in providing credit

Are loan providers offering customers what’s best for them, or what’s best for the bank?

A disproportionate share of loan products recommended by mortgage brokers working for firms affiliated with banks are produced by other firms affiliated with those banks.

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Read more: Consumers need critical thinking to fend off banks’ bad behaviour

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Mortgage brokers currently help originate more than half of all new loans. They operate under an opaque commission structure with rewards that are unlikely to align with the customer’s best interests.

A change to up-front, transparent commissions should be mandated, and enforced by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Irresponsible Lending

ASIC guidelines merely require banks to offer customers products that are “not unsuitable” for their needs.

The guidelines allow banks to do things such as using rough guides for household expenditure rather than individually examining the circumstances of each borrower.

Some have argued that this is a better practice than making inquiries of borrowers, who are likely to exaggerate their ability to repay loans. But it runs the risk of constituting a dangerous form of financial advice.

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Read more: How ‘liar loans’ undermine sound lending practices

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If a loan is recommended to a customer, they might infer from that the bank has deemed it as being appropriate for their needs, rather than merely “not unsuitable”.

In several instances detailed to the commission, customers borrowed as much as they have been to allowed by banks, only to later blame the banks for not protecting them from themselves.

Banks also argue that there is a trade-off between obtaining accurate documentation and processing loans quickly.

Reformed?

Inadequate internal processes have led to customers being offered products that they can’t use, such as financial advice for dead people, or insurance that’s impossible to claim against.

These failings have been rightly condemned by the commissioner, even if they might not have affected a significant portion of the banks’ clients.

Ahead of the report, the banks have been trying to pre-empt its findings by arguing that their primary focus has moved from “sales” to “service”.

They say their internal processes have already improved, and bad apples weeded from the staff.

It’s our fault, too

Commissioner Haynes said that one obstacle to greater consumer power is an alarming lack of financial literacy among consumers, which has also been unearthed by the commission.

Banks exploit our loyalty, our inertia, and our inability to negotiate.

They also help exacerbate these things, by offering too many products that are too hard for the average person to compare.

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Read more: Financial literacy is a public policy problem

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If we educated ourselves, many of the problems identified by the Royal Commission would disappear.

Making public the actual interest rates paid on our loans, the fees paid to advisers and brokers, and consumer credit scores would help as well.

But it will only help us if we are willing to help ourselves.

The community rightly expects a lot from banks, but a second thread running through the Royal Commission’s interim report is that but we need to expect more from ourselves as well.

– Royal Commission shows banks have behaved appallingly, but we’ve helped them do it
– http://theconversation.com/royal-commission-shows-banks-have-behaved-appallingly-but-weve-helped-them-do-it-103998]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Dell, Associate Professor/Discipline Leader Accident Investigation and Forensics, CQUniversity Australia

One of the issues raised in the investigation of a Melbourne air crash that killed five people was the importance of pilots sticking to any pre-flight checklists.

Pilot Max Quartermain and four American tourists died when a Beechcraft B200 Super King Air VH-ZCR crashed into the DFO shopping centre shortly after takeoff from Essendon Airport on February 21, 2017.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report into the crash found the pilot did not detect that the aircraft’s rudder trim was not in the correct position before take-off. This rudder trim helps a pilot control an aircraft.

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Read more: The black box: an Australian invention that nearly didn’t happen

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With the rudder trim incorrectly set, the report found, this adversely affected the aircraft’s take-off performance and ability to climb.

While not apportioning blame, the ATSB report said the rudder trim’s incorrect position was a contributing factor to the crash.

The ATSB’s chief commissioner Greg Hood said this accident emphasised the importance of having a cockpit checklist applicable to an aircraft’s specific and current modification status.

The report said it was not known whether the pilot had used a checklist on the day of the crash, but Mr Hood added:

In this particular tragic accident there were opportunities in the checklist that existed for the pilot to ensure the rudder trim was set to neutral prior to take-off.

Checklists for pilots

The use of checklists in single-pilot operations has been a contentious issue over the years. From the beginning of flight training, pilots are taught to memorise key checklists so they can readily recall and perform the required checks accurately.

In simpler cockpits, this process can provide reliable results. As the complexity of the aircraft systems and the cockpit controls increases, the inadequacy of solely relying on memory and recall becomes evident.

To minimise the likelihood of configuration errors in two-pilot airline operations, it is usual practice in each phase of flight for the cockpit to be initially configured by the pilots by recall.

The correct configuration is then checked by the two pilots by running through the applicable checklist.

The pilot not flying will usually call the item, both pilots will then check the appropriate switch or control setting. The pilot flying will verbally respond to the call to confirm the correct setting.

For a configuration error to occur in that environment, the setting has to be made incorrectly from recall, or omitted, in the first instance. Then both pilots have to miss the incorrect setting when the checklist call is made and responded to.

This method – sometimes referred to as a “challenge and response” method – provides two levels of procedural redundancy to guard against human errors that might otherwise lead to incorrect settings.

Single pilot operations

The challenge arises when considering how to achieve the same level of error-proofing in single-pilot operations. For example, a 2005 study for the NASA Ames Research Centre said:

… the failure to execute a checklist can cause readily detectable problems to remain undiscovered. Beyond simply being required, executing checklists is recognized by everyone as being essential to safe aircraft operation, and yet, checklist processing omissions and errors continue to be a factor in aircraft incidents and accidents.

New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority, in its advisory on single-pilot operations, said:

… the pilot is very reliant on the use of checklists to provide a suitable structure to replace the “Challenge and Response” checklists used in the multi-pilot cockpit.

Further, in discussion of single-pilot flying techniques, the US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association said:

… proper checklist use is a skill with some overlooked subtleties. First, though, the pilot must be committed to, and recognize the need for, disciplined checklist use. Industry working groups have recognized that single-pilot adherence to checklist usage is an area with some room for improvement. Especially in new light jets with highly automated systems, pilots can develop complacency regarding checklist usage that grows with time and familiarity.

The drift into failure

Many years ago I delivered a paper at a safety conference in which I argued that deviation from approved procedures and practices erodes the safety margins that were afforded by the system. The magnitude and criticality of the reduction in protection was unknown until the margins had eroded to zero and an accident occurred.

More recently, safety expert Sidney Dekker described this phenomenon in his 2011 book Drift into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems.

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Read more: SharkSpotter combines AI and drone technology to spot sharks and aid swimmers on Australian beaches

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One of the biggest problems with single-pilot operations is the fact that it is very difficult to self-diagnose errors and omissions, and to recognise the associated drift into failure.

Just telling people about error, as tends to be the case sometimes in industry, does not immunise them from making errors or omissions of their own.

The systems and procedural environment in which a person functions needs to help provide those checks and balances. In short, rigorous use of checklists by pilots in single-pilot operations is really the only protection available to prevent critical errors.

– Lessons learned from the Essendon air crash: the importance of pilot checklists
– http://theconversation.com/lessons-learned-from-the-essendon-air-crash-the-importance-of-pilot-checklists-103834]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol Harrington, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, Victoria University of Wellington

Feminists are celebrating a new generation of women who fearlessly share their stories of sexual violence on social media and other digital platforms, confronting established limits on talking about rape.

But as past analyses conclude, not all forms of speaking out challenge the gendered power relations that perpetuate sexual violence.

Politics of speaking out about rape

The feminist movement of the 1970s broke ground by publicly telling personal stories of sexual violence. Those women described the problem as one of patriarchal power and women’s oppression. Yet as public attention to sexual violence became increasingly common in the late 20th century, it came to be depoliticised as an issue of individual trauma, a starting point for personal self-transformation and empowerment that sat well with neoliberalism.

A new generation of sexual violence survivors have been speaking out on social media, most famously with the #MeToo movement, which gained mainstream media attention. However, ordinary people have been telling their sexual violence stories online, sometimes anonymously but in many cases not, in ways that have garnered less attention.

One trend I recently investigated is the “my rape story” genre of YouTube videos. I analysed 48 such videos by 40 individual creators, along with the creators’ YouTube channels and linked social media.

“My rape story” videos are typically produced by regular YouTubers who maintain a channel where they post stories about themselves, expound on various topics, and promote products or services while exhorting viewers to “click, comment, subscribe”. These videos mostly appear on channels where other posts seem designed to attract female viewers, with a focus on female fashion, shopping, and in some cases motherhood.

A few are on channels of aspiring singers, writers or actors. Most such YouTubers do not win huge followings or become celebrities, although many seem to hope to.

YouTubers’ rape stories

In one example, Esther’s (all names are pseudonyms) YouTube channel includes many reviews of cosmetics and links to her beauty website, which promotes various products. A vivacious speaker, Esther posts videos in which she tells stories about her life. Her rape story video begins by promoting one of her other videos and asking viewers to share her videos so her channel can grow. She concludes her story by reminding viewers she posts new content every day.

In another, Destiny’s YouTube channel markets her weight loss advice, including a self-published book on weight loss. She also offers advice on positive thinking and self-branding. She presents herself as healthy and resilient, referring to herself as a guru. She tells her rape story calmly, without tears, saying she is sharing it so others can learn from her experience.

In a third, Emogirl’s videos present her as vulnerable and in need of support. Pale, with heavy black eyeliner, her first ever YouTube video told of her rape as a teenager. She followed this up with videos telling of how she was bullied at school following her rape and how she started to self-harm and attempted suicide.

Rape stories and self-branding

In their rape story videos, creators usually show their face and speak directly to the camera, although some like Emogirl use cue cards – holding up handwritten messages and telling their story a few words at a time.

Most film themselves at home, often from their bedroom. These videos share a DIY aesthetic, which characterises much YouTube vlog content. They appear as homemade productions, crafted by ordinary people with a simple digital camera. This aesthetic, now often imitated by corporate and mainstream media, lends the content a sense of authenticity.

The videos unfold in similar ways, with the storyteller describing how she knew the perpetrator, the events leading to the rape, the rape itself in varying levels of detail, and the aftermath of the rape. Only two of the videos I analysed told of a rape by a stranger. Most told of rape by someone close to the storyteller – a relative, friend or boyfriend. Some told of rape by someone they had recently met, typically a date.

Why do people tell such personal stories on YouTube? Social media incites self-disclosure by requiring users to self-consciously construct online personae through carefully curated personal sharing. Such personal sharing serves to construct an online personal brand by creating a particular emotional experience and connection with followers.

Both Destiny and Esther say they feel an obligation to share their rape story so their followers can know them better. Their stories serve Destiny’s self-positioning as a guru who can guide others in self-transformation, and Esther’s as a girlfriend who gives cosmetic and hairstyling tips while occasionally delving into deeper territory.

Emogirl’s rape story video was her first. In subsequent videos she tells followers how important their emotional support is for her, and encourages them to visit her Instagram, where she posts her artwork. Thus, the circulation of these stories speaks to the commodification of personal experience encouraged by social media.

Wrestling with self-blame

The rape stories YouTubers tell mostly treat rape as an individual trauma perpetrated by, in the words of one, “shitty people”. The videos’ main theme typically revolves around the storyteller’s efforts to “take back control” of her life. Many tell of how the experience made them stronger and situate it as part of their journey to wisdom and self-reliance.

Few link their experience with wider social patterns or treat sexual violence as a social problem with political solutions. Rather, they treat it as a risk women must manage. They urge other women to avoid drinking too much, to watch their drink when socialising, and to be cautious about trusting men – even those they think they know. Thus, these video creators often fall into self-blame and reiterate well-worn rape myths that suggest their own behaviour (drinking, trusting too easily) contributed to their rape.

Nevertheless, some feminist influence appears in these videos insofar as the creators push back against slut-shaming and victim-blaming. Most seem painfully aware of how others could blame them for their rape. They urge other women to speak out about their own rape and to not blame themselves, no matter how drunk they were or what they were wearing.

These videos thus intertwine a kind of female solidarity and resistance to rape myths with neoliberal therapeutic thinking and social media incitements to self-branding.

– Speaking out about sexual violence on social media may not challenge gendered power relations
– http://theconversation.com/speaking-out-about-sexual-violence-on-social-media-may-not-challenge-gendered-power-relations-102563]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Hurley, Visiting Fellow, Lecturer & Consultant (Writing Clear Science), UNSW

Sign up to the Beating Around the Bush newsletter here, and suggest a plant we should cover at batb@theconversation.edu.au.

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Stinging trees grow in rainforests throughout Queensland and northern NSW. The most commonly known (and most painful) species is Dendrocnide moroides (Family Urticaceae), first named “gympie bush” by gold miners near the town of Gympie in the 1860s.

My first sting was from a different species Dendrocnide photinophylla (the shiny-leaf stinging tree). It was like being stung by 30 wasps at once but not as painful as being stung by D. moroides, which I once described as the worst kind of pain you can imagine – like being burnt with hot acid and electrocuted at the same time.

An excerpt from a French documentary ‘Plant Secrets’ by director François-Xavier Vives.

I agreed to study stinging trees even after being badly stung. The puzzle was – what was eating the stinging tree? Stinging trees often have huge holes but no-one knew what was eating them. What could possibly eat the leaves that were so painful to touch? (Read to the end to discover the answer).

My first sting was from a different species Dendrocnide photinophylla (the shiny-leaf stinging tree) Marina Hurley, Author provided

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Read more: Grass trees aren’t a grass (and they’re not trees)

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Stinging trees grow in light-filled gaps in the rainforest understorey and come in many different shapes, sizes and species (seven in Australia).

Dendrocnide moroides Marina Hurley, Author provided

I studied two species for my PhD, Dendrocnide moroides and Dendrocnide cordifolia which is often mistaken for Dendrocnide moroides. Both species are shrubs that grow to three metres with heart-shaped, serrated-edged, dark-green leaves that can grow from the size of a thumbnail to over 50 cm wide.

The sting is caused by stinging hairs that contain toxin and densely cover the leaves, stems and fruit. The thick covering of the hairs makes the leaves look as though they are covered with soft, downy, fur and may give the impression they are inviting to touch.

The fruit of D. moroides is similar to a bright red-dark purple raspberry with long stems, while the fruit of D. cordifolia is always green with short stems that give the fruit a clumped appearance.

The fruit and leaves of Dendrocnide cordifolia. © Marina Hurley

What it’s like to be stung

Even the slightest touch of a D. moroides leaf can cause excruciating pain. An intense stinging, burning pain is felt immediately, then intensifies, reaching a peak after 20 – 30 minutes.

The hairs can remain in the skin for up to six months, with stings recurring if the skin is pressed hard or washed with hot or cold water.

Not only do you feel pain from where you are stung, if it is a really bad sting, within about 20 minutes your lymph nodes under your arms swell and throb painfully and feel like they are being slammed between two blocks of wood.

The intense throbbing pain from both the sting and from your lymph nodes can last anywhere from 1-4 hours, depending upon what species you touched, the amount of skin that was stung, and how hard you came into contact with the plant.

How it works

The stinging hair structure is complex and consists of a tip, shaft and bulb composed of silica, calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.

The tip of the hair is a small bulb that breaks off on contact, then the hair penetrates the skin injecting toxin. The structure and function of Dendrocnide stinging hairs is similar across five plant families and is described as similar to a hypodermic needle.

The composition of the toxin is also complex and still not well understood, including exactly what components actually cause the stinging sensation.

The toxin is stable and heat resistant and retains its pain-producing properties for decades. Dried botanical specimens collected over 100 years ago, can still sting you.

An electron micrograph of stinging hairs. © Marina Hurley

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Read more: Welcome to Beating Around the Bush, wherein we yell about plants

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Sting stories

My worst sting was from a dead, dried-up leaf on the forest floor. I dropped my glove and then drove my finger through the leaf when I went to pick it up. As I was alone at the time, I had to drive to the hospital with one hand.

During my research in the late 80s-early 90s, I heard dozens of stories about people getting badly stung including a letter from an ex-serviceman, Cyril Bromley, who said he was stung after falling into a stinging tree while crossing a creek near the Barron River (North Queensland) in 1941. He said the pain was so bad they had to tie him to his hospital bed for three weeks. He also recounted how an officer had shot himself because he could not stand the pain.

The less well-known and very disturbing thing about stinging trees is they cause intense sneezing, nose bleeds, and possibly major respiratory damage, if you stay close to them for more than about 20 minutes without protection.

The reaction starts with your nose tingling, then dripping continuously. After a short period, you start to sneeze – not just mild sneezing but intense, harsh and continuous bouts of sneezing.

Marina Hurley wore a particle face mask and welding gloves when working with stinging trees. © Marina Hurley

This happened to me and my field assistants when in close proximity to the plant, either in the rainforest or in the laboratory. Wearing particle face masks helps but they need to be regularly replaced. I believe that this reaction is caused by breathing in the hairs that become air-borne but I have never been able to substantiate this.

Researcher W.V. MacFarlane described his reaction in detail when working with hairs and leaves of D. moroides:

Mucous membranes are affected by dust or spray from the leaves… Initially they produced sneezing, but within three hours there was diffuse nasopharyngeal pain, and after 26 hours a sensation of an acute sore throat… aching sensations in the sinuses occurred… and a watery nasal discharge that persists for two days. The nasal mucous membranes then begin to slough together with blood, pus and inspissated (thickened) mucus… and discharge of sloughing tissue for 10 days.

Dozens of these nocturnal beetles (Prasyptera mastersi) were found eating the leaves. © Marina Hurley

The mystery solved

I found out what was eating them: a nocturnal leaf-eating chrysomelid beetle and many other leaf-chewing insects and sap-suckers.

Also, surprisingly, both species of stinging tree were voraciously eaten by the red-legged pademelons that occasionally stripped entire plants of their leaves overnight.

A red-legged pademelon. These tough guys eat stinging leaves. Shutterstock

Meanwhile, if you are out and about in the rainforest, stay on the designated paths, and wear closed shoes and long pants.

– ‘The worst kind of pain you can imagine’ – what it’s like to be stung by a stinging tree
– http://theconversation.com/the-worst-kind-of-pain-you-can-imagine-what-its-like-to-be-stung-by-a-stinging-tree-103220]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nabin Sharma, Senior Lecturer, UTS School of Software, University of Technology Sydney

Four tiger sharks have now been captured and killed following two separate attacks off the coast of North Queensland last week. Despite being relatively rare, shark attacks – or the threat of attacks – not only disrupt recreational beach activities, but can affect associated tourist industries.

Shark nets are a common solution to preventing shark attacks on Australian beaches, but they pose dangers to marine ecosystems.

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Read more: Not just nets: how to stop shark attacks without killing sharks

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Seeking a cost-effective way to monitor beach safety over large areas, we have developed a system called SharkSpotter. It combines artificial intelligence (AI), computing power, and drone technology to identify and alert lifesavers to sharks near swimmers.

SharkSpotter was named the national AI or Machine Learning Innovation of the Year at the Australian Information industry Association (AIIA) annual iAwards this month.

The project is a collaboration between the University of Technology Sydney and The Ripper Group, which is pioneering the use of drones – called “Westpac Little Ripper Lifesavers” – in the search and rescue movement in Australia.

A shark spotting drone

SharkSpotter can detect sharks and other potential threats using real-time aerial imagery. The system analyses streaming video from a camera attached to a drone (an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV) to monitor beaches for sharks, issue alerts, and conduct rescues.

Developed using machine learning techniques known as “deep learning”, the SharkSpotter system receives streaming imagery from the drone camera and attempts to identify all objects in the scene. Once valid objects are detected, they are put into one of 16 categories: shark, whale, dolphin, rays, different types of boats, surfers, and swimmers.

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Read more: A guide to using drones to study wildlife: first, do no harm

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If a shark is detected, SharkSpotter provides both a visual indication on the computer screen and an audible alert to the operator. The operator verifies the alert and sends text messages from the SharkSpotter system to the Surf Life Savers for further action.

SharkSpotter in action.

In an emergency, the drone is equipped with a lifesaving flotation pod together with an electronic shark repellent that can be dropped into the water in cases where swimmers are in severe distress, trapped in a rip, or if there are sharks close by.

A new age of accuracy

The development of SharkSpotter involved several stages.

Among the most time-consuming tasks was collecting and annotating the necessary data. The data were collected by The Ripper Group by flying a drone with a camera attached to it above different Australian beaches.

We then manually annotated each video to indicate the specific location of sharks and other objects. The video frames and the annotations were then used to train the deep learning algorithm to correctly identify and classify objects.

These advanced machine learning techniques significantly improve aerial detection to more than 90% accuracy. That’s much better than conventional techniques such as helicopters with human spotters (17.1%) and fixed-wing aircraft spotters (12.5%).

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Read more: How drones can help fight the war on shark attacks

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We tested the system at different Australian beaches to determine the varying parameters, such as camera resolution, height above sea level (which can affect the vision clarity of drones), speed and flight duration.

After successful trials and fine-tuning of the system, SharkSpotter was used across a dozen popular beaches in New South Wales and Queensland last summer.

The system was developed to help Surf Life Savers monitor the beach more effectively – as opposed to replacing them – and has been received positively by end-users and communities alike, according to a survey conducted by The Ripper Group.

Saving lives

In January 2018, the Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver was used to rescue two young swimmers caught in a rip at Lennox Head, NSW.

The drone flew down the beach some 800 metres from the lifeguard station, and a lifesaving flotation pod was dropped from the drone. The complete rescue operation took 70 seconds.

We believe SharkSpotter is a win-win for both marine life and beachgoers. From a technology perspective, it has demonstrated how to detect moving objects in a complex, dynamic marine environment from a fast-moving drone.

This unique technology combines dynamic video image processing AI and advanced drone technology to creatively address the global challenge of ensuring safe beaches, protecting marine environments, and enhancing tourism.

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The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr Paul Scully Power, co-founder of The Ripper Group, who partnered in the development of SharkSpotter.

– SharkSpotter combines AI and drone technology to spot sharks and aid swimmers on Australian beaches
– http://theconversation.com/sharkspotter-combines-ai-and-drone-technology-to-spot-sharks-and-aid-swimmers-on-australian-beaches-92667]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bede Harris, Senior Lecturer in Law, Charles Sturt University

The recent report by the Human Rights Commission that 71% of people have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives raises the question of why there appears to be no effective legal remedy for such conduct in Australia.

In the age of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, we seem to be finally acknowledging and coming to terms with the extent of sexual harassment in society. So, why are offenders able to engage in such behaviour with impunity?

In Australia, the answer lies in part with the limited reach of sexual harassment laws and the time-consuming procedures involved in bringing complaints. Yet if we adopted into our law a doctrine that exists in legal systems based on Roman law, victims would have an easier way to obtain redress.

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Read more: Sexual harassment is too much – and not enough – about sex

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The Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 makes sexual harassment unlawful only in a narrow range of circumstances. These are in employment, education, and trading in public goods and services.

Furthermore, because the Human Rights Commission is not a court, it lacks the power to award damages in cases like these. So even if a victim makes a complaint to the HRC and engages in a time-consuming conciliation process, the perpetrator may still not agree to pay compensation. The only avenue for the plaintiff to recover damages then is to incur the expense of bringing a case to the Federal Circuit Court.

State and territory tribunals can award damages, but again only after going through a lengthy process of attempted conciliation. These procedures end up being a deterrent to plaintiffs, and a shield for perpetrators.

Sexual assault, “upskirting” and indecent exposure are criminal offences, but many other forms of harassment are not. A successful criminal prosecution also requires proof beyond reasonable doubt, and does not lead to financial compensation for the victim.

If anti-discrimination legislation and criminal law do not provide a remedy, what about suing for damages under the law of torts?

Unfortunately, our English-based common law system does not offer adequate protection against sexual harassment. One can recover damages for assault, but there are few remedies for harassment falling short of that.

A different approach under Roman law

Things are very different in legal systems based on Roman law. From its earliest codification in the Twelve Tables of 450BC, Roman law gave people a right to recover damages for personal injury.

The law expanded over the centuries to protect an increasingly wide range of personal rights by means of an action known as the actio injuriarum (or action for injuries). By the time of the publication of the Digest of Justinian in 533AD, the action protected three groups of rights: corpus (bodily integrity), fama (reputation), and dignitas (dignity).

This is where the major difference lies between our English-based law of torts and Roman law: although the law of torts allows a plaintiff to sue for bodily injury and defamation, it offers no protection for dignity and therefore no right to sue for verbal insult, no matter how offensive.

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Read more: We need to do more about sexual harassment in the workplace

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The actio injuriarum lives on in modern legal systems. A good example is South Africa, whose legal system is based on Roman law. There, the action has been used to recover damages for sexist verbal insults, unwelcome propositioning for sexual intercourse, and unwelcome exposure to pornography. The action also protects privacy, so it has been used to recover damages in cases involving peeping Toms, stalking, and the publication of intimate facts about people’s private lives.

Whether a plaintiff can recover damages depends on the application of a test of reasonableness. The leading case on the matter in South African law states:

This is an objective test. It requires the conduct complained of to be tested against the prevailing norms of society (ie. the current values and thinking of the community)… To address the words to another which might wound his self-esteem but which are not, objectively determined, insulting … cannot give rise to an action.

This test of reasonableness is no different from that applied by courts in Australia to determine whether the language used in defamation cases harms the reputation of the plaintiff.

How this could be work in Australia

Could such an action become part of Australian law? The answer is yes, because under the common law system the courts are free to develop tort law to meet new situations. The High Court has previously indicated that a tort of invasion of privacy might be developed in a suitable case.

There would therefore be nothing to prevent the courts from expanding the range of interests protected by the law to include personal dignity.

There are good reasons why that should be done. Our law protects defamation victims for two reasons – defamatory words affect what others think about the victim, and cause emotional harm due to the knowledge that their reputation has been harmed. So, if the plaintiff in a defamation action is awarded damages (at least in part) because they have experienced an affront, why shouldn’t the same be possible in a harassment case?

There will be cases in which it will be difficult to identify perpetrators. But that is an issue of evidence, not an argument against the principle that victims should be able to recover damages.

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Read more: Women in rural workplaces struggle against the ‘boys club’ that leads to harassment

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In any event, identification is not as problematic as one may think. Some perpetrators will be identified because incidents are witnessed by bystanders, as happened in a much-publicised incident in Paris when a woman rebuked her harasser for suggestive comments, and he retaliated by striking her.

Others will be traceable electronically when they engage in online harassment.

Sexual harassment has devastating psychological effects on its victims. The risk of financial liability undoubtedly has a modifying effect on human behaviour. While common decency does not act as a restraint on the conduct of harassers, the threat of being subject to the sting of monetary damages certainly will.

– How the laws of ancient Rome could help victims of sexual harassment in Australia
– http://theconversation.com/how-the-laws-of-ancient-rome-could-help-victims-of-sexual-harassment-in-australia-103301]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Long, Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University

How can the development of motorcycles have anything to do with the story of the evolution of life on Earth? You need a palaeontologist to help answer that question, and one with a love of motorcycles.

The article is part of our occasional long read series Zoom Out, where authors explore key ideas in science and technology in the broader context of society and humanity.

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Thousands of people around the world will don some of their finest clothes and ride motorcycles this weekend in the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. The goal is to raise funds and promote awareness of men’s health issues.

I’m taking part, having been a motorcycle enthusiast since I got my first bike in 1975. Motorcycles are great fun, but there’s also a lot you can learn from riding one.

John Long on his motorcycle. John Long, Author provided

The late author Robert M Pirsig’s 1974 classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance exemplified this perspective. Pirsig contrasts the rational and romantic sides of human nature as he describes his motorcycle journey of self-discovery.

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Read more: Curious Kids: How many dinosaurs in total lived on Earth during all periods?

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I’ve recently been contemplating similarities between the evolution of life and the early development of motorcycles, and what a motorcycle ride can teach us about the history of life.

A ride across Australia shows the deep time of evolution

The oldest life on Earth is shown in fossils of stromatolites, mounds of layered mats of blue green algae found in the Pilbara district of Western Australia, dated at around 3,500 million years ago.

Today similar life forms can be seen thriving in Shark Bay and in some of the estuarine lakes around WA.

Living colonies of stromatolites at Shark Bay in Western Australia. Dr Ken McNamara, Author provided

By sheer coincidence, the distance from Perth to Melbourne is about 3,500km, a route I travelled on my motorcycle back in 1996. Thus, every kilometre I did on that transcontinental ride represents a million years of Earth’s history since life first evolved. Thus, every metre represents a millennium, and every millimetre a year.

Let’s use this metaphor of time and distance to highlight the big milestones of the evolution of life on such a ride. Travelling along at 100kmh we’d pass through 100 million years of Earth history each hour of riding.

If we are at the origin of life in Perth (at 3.5 billion years ago), the next milestone we encounter is the development of cells with a nucleus, or eucaryotes. These appeared about 2 billion years ago, which on our ride would be around Ceduna in South Australia.

Not much happens until we cross the border into South Australia. Flickr/Brian Yap, CC BY-NC

The dawn of complex multicellular animal life (called metazoans), is seen by our famous Ediacaran fossils of the Flinders Ranges. Recent research has just proven these are the oldest true animals. This event – dated at around 560 million years ago – is the equivalent of arriving at the town of Keith, South Australia, on our ride.

If we deviate south and travel into the Coonawarra, famous today for its fine wines, we reach the time of the great Cambrian explosion of life, starting about 540 million years ago. This is when nearly all the major groups of marine animals appeared on Earth.

How a ride across Australia (about 3,500km) translates into a true analogy of evolutionary deep times, where 1km of travel represents 1 million years of time passing. John Long, Flinders University, Author provided

The origin of backboned animals (vertebrates) is another milestone represented by appearance of the first fishes. This happens as we drive across the border into Victoria on the road to Casterton.

Fishes left the sea and invaded land as early four-limbed tetrapods by the time we reach Hamilton, and we enter the age of dinosaurs and the first mammals as we cruise the backroads into Skipton, about 230 million years ago.

If our journey is to end precisely at the Melbourne Post Office (GPO) on Elizabeth Street, then the appearance of our immediate human ancestors, the australopithecines, will occur at a spot on the road about 3.5km from the GPO, on State Route 30.

Approaching the Melbourne GPO building. Wikimedia/Donaldytong, CC BY-SA

We park the bike near the GPO and walk towards it. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared on Earth about 315,000 years ago, or just 315 metres from our destination. To mark the point in time when the first peoples arrived in Australia, around 60,000 years ago, we reach a point just 60 metres from our final destination.

Finally, we take five large steps, each a metre, to reach the front door of the GPO and in this final act we’ve gone through most of recorded human civilisation, taken from the first step pyramid of Djoser about 5,000 years ago in Egypt, to today.

You have reached your destination – The Melbourne GPO building is now a shopping centre. Flickr/, CC BY-NC-SA

The rate of evolution of life compared with early motorcycles

As a palaeontologist who studies life of the past, I see evolution in action all around me. Not just in species of animals and plants that have adapted as their environments, but also through fossil species that couldn’t adapt and went extinct.

I’m now going to explore the metaphor of how the history of motorcycle development shows a similar tempo for diversification as that of early life, even if it is on a totally different scale of time.

Motorcycles, like life, had a long, slow history of development – followed by sudden explosions of innovative engineering diversification. Let’s arbitrarily start the clock from the invention of the first atmospheric combustion engine, the Newcomen steam engine, in 1712.

Early steam-driven motorcycles, such as Sylvester Roper’s steam velocipede, were hazardous, as the metal boiler building up pressure was positioned between the rider’s legs – not something our safety advisers would like today.

The Roper steam velocipede, an early steam-powered motorcycle (c 1886). Wikimedia

The machine could run at speeds of 64kmh for up to an hour, becoming the first non-railed machine that could power a human at far greater speeds than just running.

The next major milestone is the creation of the fuel-air compressed combustion engine by Beau de Rochas in 1862. Our modern four-stroke engine was developed by Nicklaus Otto around 1864 with help from Eugen Langden.

The first motorcycle

The first ridden two-wheeled machine with handlebars and a combustion engine powered by this engine was Wilhelm Maybach and Gottleib Daimler’s Reitwagen or “riding car” – considered to be the world’s first motorcycle.

A test vehicle for the high-speed four-stroke engine invented by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. The ‘riding car’ is also considered the world’s first motorcycle. Daimler

The first trial ride was particularly exciting, as Daimler’s son Paul, aged 17, drove it for 12km on November 18, 1885. It was an unexpectedly eventful journey as the rider’s seat caught fire due to the hot tube ignition system wedged immediately below it.

It took another decade before Hildebrand and Wolfmuller of Germany would commercially produce a powered motorcycle that was freely available on the open market in 1894.

Just like the sudden Cambrian explosion of life, the next few years saw a sudden great explosion of motorcycle diversity as expressed by varied engine types – a time when efficient four-stroke combustion engines of many kinds and varieties were fitted into strengthened bicycle-type frames.

Motorcycles of nearly all modern configurations then suddenly appeared between 1900 and 1912 from manufacturers in England, Europe and the United States.

Varied engine positions were trialled, from up high on the handlebars, or attached to either the front or rear wheels, but eventually the engine position stabilised (evolved) in a slung frame at the centre of the bike.

The 300cc Cyclon made in Berlin (1900) had the engine mounted above the handlebars. Many experimental bike designs were trialled. John Long, with permission of NSU Museum, Neckarsulm, Germany, Author provided

We find examples of single-cylinder engines of many types (vertical, sloping, horizontal), twin engines (upright, in line V-twin, transverse and inline; flat horizontal twins), radial engines, even three and four cylinder engines.

The first working two stroke engine bikes were commercially available in 1908. The British motorcycle manufacturer Humber had an electric-powered bicycle on the scene around 1897. Even the first rotary engine motorcycle, invented by Felix Millet in 1889, went into production in 1900.

The 1912 Verdel 5 cylinder radial engine motorcycle. John Long, with courtesy Sammy Miller Museum, UK, Author provided

Rates of evolution: motorcycles vs early life

I’m now going to measure the rate of motorcycle evolution from the first atmospheric combustion steam engine in 1712 through to an arbitrary milestone in the 20th century that represents the emergence of the first highly complex modern motorcycle.

I’m choosing the appearance of Guilio Carcano’s V8 double overhead cam 499cc Moto Guzzi racer of 1955 to represent the dawn of the modern superbike.

A 1955 Moto Guzzi V8 (500cc), perhaps the world’s first superbike, at the Moto Guzzi Museum, Mandello Del Lario, Italy. John Long, Author provided

Using this analogy, the time and tempo for motorcycle development (scaled between 1712-1955) follows a very similar pattern of diversification as the evolution of life over 3.5 billion years.

Since the invention of the first steam engine in 1712, it took about 160 years for the first steam-driven motorcycle to appear (about 62% of the time), and 182 years until the first commercial combustion-engine motorcycles were sold in 1894 (about 75% of the time).

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Read more: Life on Earth still favours evolution over creationism

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The peak of early motorcycle diversification at around 1908 took place at exactly 80% of the time elapsed, almost exactly at the same time ratio as the Cambrian explosion of life took place since life first appeared on Earth.

A comparison showing the long slow development and then sudden diversification of life (top) with a similar pattern for the development of the combustion engine and motorcycle diversification (below). John Long, Author provided

Uncanny similarity perhaps?

I can probably find other comparison tales in the development of aircraft, ships, trains, cars or in any form of technology. But it’s a good example of how transdisciplinary knowledge can inform two disparate topics, seemingly not related, but with learning benefits on each side.

Something to think about next time you see or ride a motorcycle.

On the road! Flickr/Su Yin Khoo, CC BY-NC-SA

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On Sunday September 30, 2018, more than 120,000 gentlefolk in 650 cities worldwide will take part in the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride to raise funds and awareness for men’s health.

– What evolution and motorcycles have in common: let’s take a ride across Australia
– http://theconversation.com/what-evolution-and-motorcycles-have-in-common-lets-take-a-ride-across-australia-95880]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University

Like sport or hate it, it’s hard to deny the role that sporting lingo plays in our daily lives.

Corporate language everywhere groans with references of people leveling playing fields, getting balls rolling, moving goal posts, lighting fires under their teams, blocking and tackling, even touching base offline – and of course it’s all done by the playbook and at close of play.

Perhaps it’s just not cricket, but politics is also rife with sporting lingo. Shirtfronting has escaped the on-field aggression of the AFL to cover diplomatic spats. Both the captain’s pick and captain’s call have slipped out of sporting jargon and onto the political football field. Political parties have even been accused of ball-tampering.

And so, we say to you, tenez! (“take, receive”), as a 14th century tennis player is believed to have called out before serving a ball (a French cry that reputedly gave tennis its name).

Allow us to bandy around (a tennis term) a few ideas here as we run with (a football term) a brief review of sporting lingo inside the bloody arena and throughout our daily lives.

Tickets and etiquette in ‘disport’

The word sport is a shortening of an earlier term disport, which from the 14th century broadly encompassed any form of relaxation or diversion.

In fact, from the 15th century, one meaning of sport was a playful reference to romance and lovemaking. This died off in the 18th century, but another 15th century meaning, “activity of skill and exertion with set rules or customs”, has withstood the test of time.

At sports events, you might see the reverse side of your ticket setting out rules of etiquette for spectators. Both derive from an Old French word estiquette meaning “note or label”. The word etiquette emerged in late 17th century French as a note detailing the rules and customs for engaging with the Spanish court.

But etiquette in modern sporting contests includes being nice to umpires. Sure, they make some tough calls, but so do we as English speakers.

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Read more: Why AFL commentary works the same way as Iron Age epic poetry

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After all, the word umpire actually derives from the Norman French noumpere, corresponding to “non-peer”, the one who stood out among peers. (Linguistic boundary lines have been problematic for some time — but that, as the saying goes, is a whole nother story.)

Umpires try to keep the peace, but more than a few words derive from the punishing and warlike nature of sport. Melbourne Demons coach Simon Goodwin said his team would learn from the “drubbing” they received from West Coast.

We can only hope he intended the modern meaning of drub (“beat badly in a sporting contest”), and not the meaning associated with drub‘s 17th century Arabic origins (“the flogging of feet”).

Sporting language in everyday speech

We’re surrounded by sporting language, much of it from sports to which we no longer pay much heed — some forgotten entirely.

Archery has been quiet contributor over the years. The verb to rove “wander about with no purpose in mind”, for instance, comes from a 15th century archery term meaning “shoot arrows randomly at an arbitrarily selected target”.

The original upshot was the final shot in a match (a closing or parting shot). The first bolt was a crossbow projectile.

Even those disapproving of the “sport” of hunting have to admire its contributions to language. A tryst, now “an assignation with a lover”, was originally “an appointed station in hunting”. A ruse, these days a general term for “deception”, was the detour hunted animals made to elude the hounds.

These sagacious “acute-smelling” hounds would occasionally run riot “follow the scent of animals other than the intended prey”. Retrieving was flushing out their re-found quarry and worry “seize by the throat” was what they did to it once they got it.

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Read more: Get yer hand off it, mate, Australian slang is not dying

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Hawking or falconry must have once played a central role in our lives for this sport has donated a number of expressions. Haggard was originally used to describe wild hawks, and to pounce derives from their pounces or fore-claws.

And reclaim or rebate referred to calling the hawk “back from flight”. It was carried out by a special pipe known as a lure, which is now a general word meaning “magnetism” or “attraction”.

Pall-mall player. Wikimedia Commons

Some sports have completely disappeared but have left behind relics in some common expressions. Pall-mall (probably from Middle French pale-mail “ball-mallet”) was a croquet-like lawn game in the 16th and 17th centuries. It gave its name to straight roads or promenades (such as Pall Mall in London), before it then morphed into the shopping malls of modern times.

Even the medieval jousting tournament is the source of a few current expressions like break a lance, tilt at and at full tilt, meaning “at full speed”. (The tilt was originally the barrier separating the combatants and later was applied to the sport itself.)

These days, jousting refers generally to any sort of banter or sparring between individuals who might have thrown down or taken up the gauntlet, meaning “challenged” or “accepted a challenge”. (The gauntlet refers to the knight’s mailed glove).

Unlucky players might end up being thrilled (originally pronounced “thirled”), which doesn’t mean ecstatic, but rather pierced by a lance or spear.

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Read more: ‘Too fat to get drafted’: the worrying body-image pressures in the AFL

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Up there Cazaly!: on with the ‘people’s tournament’

And so we cry Up there Cazaly! (after the famed footballer Roy Cazaly) — on with the Grand Final, a.k.a. the big dance.

A mob football match in 18th century London. Wikimedia Commons

And spare a final thought for the “people’s tournament” — the medieval game that gave us the word football. As Heiner Gillmeister points out, there is evidence this game was also opened by the cry tenez!

Whether it was played in the monastery cloisters (the arches forming the original goals) or in an open space (so-called “mob football” played between two villages — a tough gig for the boundary umpire), it was a bloody and riotous affair getting that ball full of wynde to the target area.

As Sir Thomas Elyot put it in The Boke Named the Governour (1531):

Nothinge but beastly furie, and exstreme violence

Like sport or hate it, we hope you’ve found our linguistic shirtfronting here gentle, fun and appropriate as far as captain’s calls go.

– A history of sporting lingo: a linguistic ‘shirtfronting’ for lovers and haters of sports alike
– http://theconversation.com/a-history-of-sporting-lingo-a-linguistic-shirtfronting-for-lovers-and-haters-of-sports-alike-102478]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Trigg, Research Associate, London School of Economics and Political Science

ABC’s Four Corners coverage showing mistreatment of residents in Australia’s aged care facilities has led to much discussion about ideas to improve care. One proposal is to introduce ratings, which would provide a score reflecting the quality of residential aged care services.

Ratings have come up before in reports about aged care in Australia – in the 2004 “Hogan Review”, the Productivity Commission’s 2011 Caring for Older Australians inquiry and, most recently, in the 2017 Carnell-Paterson Review, which led to the government establishing a new Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. These reports all refer to the ratings system used in England.

In Australia, aged care homes are expected to meet 44 accreditation standards, receiving either a pass or fail for each one. These standards will be replaced in 2019 with new aged care quality standards, but homes will still only be expected to pass or fail each standard.

In the past, virtually all providers passed accreditation. This means it has been impossible to tell the difference between providers that excel and those that just scrape through.

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Read more: We’ve had 20 aged care reviews in 20 years – will the royal commission be any different?

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England has had two attempts at using ratings since 2004. The current system was introduced in 2014 by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – the body responsible for inspecting care in nursing homes. During CQC inspections, each home is given a rating against five questions: is it safe, is it effective, is it responsive, it is caring and is it well led?

The four ratings are: outstanding, good, requires improvement, or inadequate. At the end of the inspection, the home is given an overall rating. Homes are legally required to display their ratings, both at the home’s location and on its website.

Recent research shows these ratings are a good indicator of how residents feel about their quality of life in the home. Unsurprisingly, homes with lower rates of staff turnover and fewer staff vacancies also tend to perform better.

So, what are the lessons for Australia?

1. Ratings rarely affect consumer choice; they improve provider quality

Consumers don’t usually use ratings to find care. Choosing an aged care home is not like choosing a hotel or restaurant.

People looking for care are often in the middle of a crisis, such as the death of a partner or an unexpected stay in hospital. The older person is too unwell to make the decision themselves. All too often, families simply choose the closest home or settle for any home that has a place.

Ratings work mostly because they change the behaviour of care providers. When a previous system of ratings in England was abandoned in 2008, providers that had been sceptical of the ratings beforehand argued for their re-introduction.

People I interviewed for my research said this was because homes with the best ratings could negotiate better rates for care, and care home companies could use the ratings to set goals and targets for their staff.

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Read more: Essential reading to get your head around Australia’s aged care crisis

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2. Quality is subjective, but only for the little things

Discussions about quality in aged care often come back to the issue that everyone has personal preferences and it is difficult to agree on one definition of quality. The sort of example that comes up is whether a resident would be more interested if a home had Foxtel or Sky or if wine was served with meals.

These are not the sorts of questions that need ratings. Older people, or more frequently their families, can answer these questions themselves by visiting homes, trying the food, seeing the quality of accommodation and asking questions about, for instance, en-suite bathrooms and menu options.

Most people enter aged care when they are too unwell to shop around. from shutterstock.com

What people need help with is understanding what they cannot easily judge for themselves. Such as:

• does the home have enough staff and the right mix of skills?
• does the home support its staff to form meaningful and supportive relationships, not only with the residents but also with families and with each other?
• does the home use good practice in supporting people living with dementia, or in caring for people at the end of their lives?

This is where the right sorts of ratings can help shed light on the parts of care that are difficult to assess. Most importantly, it gives providers a good steer on where to focus their efforts.

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Read more: Seven steps to help you choose the right home care provider

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3. Be prepared to publicise poor care

An important feature of the system in England is that the CQC regularly draws attention to poor care. It does this not just through the ratings but also through other reports it produces about care in England, such as the annual State of Care report. The CQC also provides reports on specific issues – for instance, the difficulties older people with dementia face when they move between care homes and hospitals.

In the first three years of the current ratings scheme, while most homes were rated “good”, 21% of providers received “inadequate” or “requires improvement” ratings, something highlighted in the State of Care report. While about a fifth of the homes rated “inadequate” stayed the same at re-inspection, the CQC found 82% had improved their overall rating. Of the homes rated “requires improvement”, 58% improved at the next inspection.

Such transparency is currently impossible in Australia as the Aged Care Act 1997 restricts what can be made public about poor care in the first place.

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Read more: How our residential aged-care system doesn’t care about older people’s emotional needs

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4. Ratings are part of a package

While not perfect, the ratings system in England has helped to communicate what good care looks like and given providers something to aim for. This is demonstrated by the popularity of practice guidance on how to get an “outstanding” rating.

But Australian policymakers need to assess other differences with England’s system. The CQC has considerable enforcement and legislative powers when compared to the Aged Care Quality Agency in Australia. The CQC can shut down providers and even bring criminal charges. Australia’s Quality Agency has to refer providers to the Health Department for action.

The UK also has a raft of rights-based legislation to protect vulnerable residents, such as the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. In Australia, reports into human rights and elder abuse have highlighted the gaps in the legislation to protect the rights of older people.

There are also more organisations involved in care in England and the CQC’s activity is supplemented with safeguarding and quality monitoring by local councils, which organise care.

Ratings may be useful for improving quality in Australia, but should be seen as only one part of a very large and complex puzzle.

– Four lessons for Australia from England’s system of rating its aged care homes
– http://theconversation.com/four-lessons-for-australia-from-englands-system-of-rating-its-aged-care-homes-103688]]>

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Turney, Professor of Earth Science and Climate Change, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW

In the late 19th century, the irrepressible Mark Twain is reputed to have said in a speech:

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.

He’s said to have borrowed that quote from a friend, but if Twain were alive today he would no doubt have more to say on the subject. In a time when we are becoming increasingly accustomed to extremes in the climate system, the events of this year have risen above the background noise of political turmoil to dominate the global headlines.

While global leadership in dealing with climate change may be depressingly limited, I can’t help but wonder if 2018 will be the year our global tribe feels threatened enough to act.

Encouragingly, there may be a historical (and largely unknown) precedent for tackling climate change: Victoria London’s handling of the “Great Stink”, where growth had turned the River Thames into an open sewer.

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Read more: Lowy Institute Poll shows Australians’ support for climate action at its highest level in a decade

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Climate system extremes

2018 is breaking all manner of records.

In January, the eastern USA and western Europe fell under persistent frigid Arctic conditions brought about by a weakening of the polar vortex.

Six months later, the north has been experiencing exceptional hemispheric-wide summer warming and drought, most likely amplified by a weakening of Atlantic Ocean circulation – the latter (ironically) being expressed by unusually cool surface ocean waters.

In recent weeks, Florence, Mangkhut and Helene have become the latest household names to mark a succession of storms battering the USA, Asia and Europe this year.

A pastoralist stands at the bottom of one of his empty dams on his property at Langawirra Station north of Broken Hill, New South Wales in 2018. AAP Image/David Mariuz

Closer to home, New South Wales is now suffering a state-wide drought, along with other regions in Australia. Early wildfires and the threat of more to come has resulted in the earliest government total fire ban on record.

As the crisis deepens, it’s worth reflecting on Victorian London’s “Great Stink” sewage problem – where things finally got so bad that authorities were forced to accept evidence, reject sceptics, and act.

A ‘deadly sewer’

In the Victorian age, London’s growth had turned the River Thames into an open sewer. Conditions were so bad they inspired many to write on the risks to public health.

‘The silent highwayman’, an 1858 cartoon from Punch magazine, commenting on the deadly levels of pollution in the River Thames. Wikimedia, CC BY

Charles Dickens provided a lurid description in Little Dorrit, describing the Thames as a “deadly sewer” while the scientist Michael Faraday wrote to The Times of London that:

if we neglect this subject, we cannot expect to do so with impunity; nor ought we to be surprised if, ere many years are over, a hot season give us sad proof of the folly of our carelessness.

An 1855 cartoon from Punch Magazine in which Michael Faraday gives his card to ‘Father Thames’, commenting on Faraday gauging the river’s ‘degree of opacity’. Wikimedia

In 1854, medic John Snow demonstrated the source of cholera in the London suburb of Soho was a local water pump. To test his ideas, officials removed the handle on the pump, and the number of cases all but disappeared.

Sewage sceptics

But there was an intransigence about meeting the threat. Ignoring scientific evidence, “sewage sceptics” held the view that poor air quality – so called “miasma”– was the cause of the frequent outbreaks of cholera and other diseases.

They convinced the government to reject the evidence, considering there to be “no reason to adopt this belief”. The scale of the sewage problem in London was considered too large to be solved, possibly encouraged by political pressure from the thriving water industry that delivered direct to those who could afford it. For several more years, this view persisted.

That was until the year of the “Great Stink”.

The ‘Great Stink’ arrives

In the summer heatwave of 1858, the Thames’ sewage turned noses across London. Conditions were so bad, teams of men were employed to shovel lime at the many sewage outlets into the capital’s river in a vain attempt to stop the smell.

Even the national legislators were not spared, with the windows of the Houses of Parliament covered in lime-soaked sack cloths. Serious thought was even given to relocating government outside London, at least until the air had cleared. The conditions created a heady stench that cut through the politically charged rhetoric of the day, and forced a rethink.

Within nine years of the “Great Stink”, the 900-kilometre London Sewage Network was constructed – an engineering marvel of the Victorian age. The politicians at the time weren’t immediately convinced the new infrastructure would help public health but the disappearance of disease accepted as the norm for the capital convinced even the most ardent of sceptics. No one talks about miasma as a real thing anymore.

The Great Stink of 1858 overturned beliefs founded on misinformation. A challenge considered impossible, was solved.

Our generation’s ‘Great Stink’

Fast forward 160 years and the recent spate of climate headlines is on the back of an increasing trend towards greater extremes, with all the associated human, environmental, and financial costs.

In August of this year, the Actuaries Climate Index – which monitors changes in sea level rise and climate extremes for the North American insurance industry since the 1960s – reported that the five-year moving average reached a new high in 2017. This year promises to continue the trend and is no single outlier.

Will 2018 be the year when the world does something about climate change?

Will 2018 be our generation’s “Great Stink”?

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Read more: While nations play politics, cities and states are taking up the climate challenge

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– Will 2018 be the year of climate action? Victorian London’s ‘Great Stink’ sewer crisis might tell us
– http://theconversation.com/will-2018-be-the-year-of-climate-action-victorian-londons-great-stink-sewer-crisis-might-tell-us-102114]]>