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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Read more: Life on Earth still favours evolution over creationism

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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”.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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”?

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

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Mahony, Senior Lecturer in Education, Charles Sturt University

Almost one in two marriages in Australia end in divorce. It’s estimated that in Australia, one in five children under the age of 18 have a parent living elsewhere. This represents around one million Australian children.

For many children, their parents’ separation and divorce is a stressful time. Children have different experiences and reactions and bring these into their classrooms. Children’s social and emotional well-being, and learning can be affected for many years. At this time, it may be difficult for parents to provide the support their children need as they deal with their own stress.

Read more: How will my divorce affect my kids?

Teachers and schools can help children make positive adjustments. Teachers see these children the most each day apart from their parents. They’re in an ideal position to provide support when needed. But they may not know how to help in these situations. Our study provides some helpful strategies that have proven to be successful for teachers.

Negative impacts of divorce

Much is known about the short-term and long-term effects of separation and divorce on children’s social and emotional well-being and learning. But there is little known about these children’s experiences at school. There is even less known about how their teachers work with them.

Related studies have shown having a support network that includes children’s teachers can promote resilience.

Another study found children talked to their teacher so their teachers were aware of their situation. Teachers could then offer support if needed.

Other studies showed children felt secure when the daycare and school environment was friendly, structured and predictable. While these studies provide some awareness, little is known about teachers and their interactions with these children to promote well-being and learning. This provided the motivation for our study.

Our study

Grounded theory research design was applied in this study. Grounded theory is a useful methodology to use when little is known about the topic. It explores the perspective of participants – this could be through interview, focus groups, journalling or observation, although many researchers rely on interviews.

Read more: How to tell your child you’re getting divorced

In our study, teachers from multiple government schools in regional Victoria were interviewed. During the interviews, teachers talked about their experiences with children in their class whose parents were separated or divorced.

Useful strategies for teachers

Our study showed teachers were firstly concerned with children’s social and emotional well-being. They believed when children felt safe and secure they could learn. Importantly, the support teachers in our study provided varied depending on the different needs of children and their families, as it should.

Useful and effective actions teachers in our study took included:

• developing an understanding of children’s reactions to their parents and divorce by reflecting on their observations and conversations with children

• developing an understanding of the type and effect of parents’ stress

• having private conversations with children, asking if they are OK, being a good listener, letting children talk, and providing reassurance

• arranging one-on-one time with a teacher aide to provide emotional support or to help them settle into the day

• being available for children and parents to speak to

• creating a safe, friendly environment where children feel free to talk

• developing friendships with children and families so they can feel safe and secure to talk to them

• communicating with parents about how their child is going emotionally, socially and academically at school

• referring children to the student welfare coordinator when necessary for additional support

• talking about catastrophic scales to help children put their problems into perspective on a scale from zero to ten where zero is no problem and ten is the worst problem ever

• being consistent with school routines, rules and expectations

• making sure the child is included in supportive friendship groups, both in the classroom and playground

• making activities and communication inclusive – for example, not always saying “tell mum” but instead saying “tell the person who packs your lunch” or “does your homework with you”

• having flexible expectations with the child’s school work

• arranging tutoring for the child with the teacher, other parents, peers, and teacher aides

• getting financial support through the school welfare budget or community organisations for resources, food and to help pay for school excursions and camps

• providing encouragement for children to make good decisions and to manage their own behaviour.

Read more: How to co-parent after divorce

Teachers can buffer the stress of divorce or separation and help children adjust to their changed family arrangement. The strategies for teachers identified in this study can help teachers support children and families through these unsettled times.

The actions teachers take are important in increasing the bonding between children, families and teachers. Teachers must consider the uniqueness of children and their family situation as they promote resilience and coping skills, encourage a realistic and positive outlook, and decide which of these strategies to use.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Whitzman, Professor of Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

Imagine planning a public transport system for a large city by providing one bus at a time on one route that might serve a few dozen people (but nobody knows how many). That is what planning for housing affordability looks like in most Australian capital cities: innovative projects take years to develop and never get scaled up into a system.

Who can we learn from? In July, the lead author returned to three cities comparable to Melbourne that she visited in 2015 – Vancouver, Portland and Toronto – to re-interview key housing actors and review investment and policy changes over the past three years. All have big housing affordability problems, caused by a strong economy and 30 years of largely unregulated speculative housing. A lack of federal government involvement has exacerbated these problems.

But these four cities have recently developed very different approaches to housing systems planning, with increasingly divergent results. Toronto has gone backwards. Vancouver and Portland, though, are reaping the rewards of good metropolitan policy, from which we have drawn ten lessons for Melbourne.

Before we discuss these, let’s take stock of the affordable housing challenge in Melbourne.

Who needs affordable housing, and how much of it?

The Victorian state government has recently defined affordable housing incomes and price points for both Greater Melbourne and regional Victoria for households on very low (0-50% of median income), low (50-80%) and moderate (80-120%) incomes. It has enshrined “affordable housing” as an explicit aim in the Planning and Environment Act. Better protection for renters has also been developed.

These are great steps, but we need to go further in the next term of government.

The Australian government estimated that 142,685 lower-income renter households in Victoria were in housing stress in 2015-16. Over 30% and in many cases over 50% of their income was going to rent or mortgage payments.

Our research team at Transforming Housing has more recently calculated a deficit of 164,000 affordable housing dwellings. Over 90% of the deficit is in Greater Melbourne.

A simplified version of the price points necessary for households to avoid housing stress (one that leaves out household size and additional costs and risks of poorly located housing on the city fringe) looks like this:

Affordable home ownership bears no resemblance to the current market in which the median unit price is well over $700,000. Median rents are affordable to many moderate-income households, at about $420 a week. Whether such housing is available, with a vacancy rate of less than 1%, is another issue, particularly for very low-income households.

The Victorian government has a metropolitan planning strategy that states the need for 1.6 million new dwellings between 2017 and 2050. That’s almost 50,000 new homes a year. Using the new definitions, we can calculate ideal ten-year new housing supply targets to meet the needs of all residents of Greater Melbourne.

The biggest problem is not overall supply. In the six months from February to July 2018, there were 28,602 dwelling unit approvals in Greater Melbourne. At that rate there would be 572,040 new units by 2028, which is more than the total need projected by Plan Melbourne.

The problem is that the price points of these dwellings are beyond the means of 64% of households – 456,295 would need to be affordable, appropriately sized and located to meet most people’s needs. All too many will be bought as investments and remain vacant.

Plan Melbourne doesn’t provide targets for affordability, size or location. This is left to six subregions, each with four to eight local governments, which have not produced these reports in the 18 months since the plan was released.

Affordable housing targets that exist in state documents are woefully inadequate. Homes for Victorians has an overall target of 4,700 new or renovated social housing units over the five-year period 2017-22.

An inclusionary zoning pilot on government-owned land might yield “as many as” 100 social housing units in five years. Public housing renewal on nine sites is expected to yield at least a 10% uplift, or 110 extra social housing units, in return for sale of government land to private developers. This is certainly not maximizing social benefit.

What can we learn from Vancouver and Portland?

Although Vancouver has huge housing affordability issues, it has been able to scale up housing delivery for very low-income households – about 15 times as much social and affordable housing as Melbourne over the past three years. Both Vancouver and Portland have ambitious private sector build-to-rent programs, with thousands of new affordable rental dwellings near transport lines.

Both cities have influenced senior governments. Canada is investing C$40 billion (A$42.6b) over the next ten years in its National Housing Strategy.

In contrast, Toronto has had a net loss of hundreds of units of social housing. This is due to disastrous lack of leadership at local and state (provincial) levels.

Our new report highlights 10 lessons for the Victorian government:

1. Establish a clear and shared definition of “affordable housing”. Enabling its provision should be stated as a goal of planning. This has been done.

2. Calculate housing need. We have up-to-date calculations, broken down by singles, couples and other households, as well as income groups, in this report

3. Set housing targets. Ideally, you would want a target of 456,295 new units affordable to households on very low, low and moderate incomes. Both Infrastructure Victoria and the Everybody’s Home campaign have suggested a more attainable ten-year target: 30,000 affordable homes for very low and low-income people over the next decade. This would allow systems and partnerships between state and local government, investors and non-profit and private housing developers to begin to scale up to meet need.

4. Set local targets. The state government, which is responsible for metropolitan planning, should be setting local government housing targets, based on infrastructure capacity, and then helping to meet these targets (and improve infrastructure in areas where homes increase). We have developed a simple tool we call HART: Housing Access Rating Tool. It scores every land parcel in Greater Melbourne according to access to services: public transport, schools, bulk-billing health centres, etc.

5. Identify available sites. We have mapped over 250 government-owned sites, not including public housing estates, that could accommodate well over 30,000 well-located affordable homes, with a goal of at least 40% available to very low-income households. Aside from leasing government land for a peppercorn rent, which could cut construction costs by up to 30%, a number of other mechanisms could quickly release affordable housing. Launch Housing, the state government and Maribyrnong council recently developed 57 units of modular housing on vacant government land, linked to services for homeless people. The City of Vancouver and the British Columbia provincial government recently scaled up a similar pilot project to 600 dwellings built over six months.

6. Create more market rental housing. Vancouver has enabled over 7,000 well-located moderately affordable private rental apartments near transport lines in the past five years, using revenue-neutral mechanisms. Portland developers have almost entirely moved from speculative condominium development to more affordable build-to-rent in recent years.

7. Mandate inclusionary zoning. This approach, presently being piloted, could be scaled up to cover all well-located new developments. Portland recently introduced mandatory provision of 20% of new housing developments affordable to low-income households or 10% to very low-income households. If applied in Melbourne, this measure alone could meet the 30,000 target (but not the current 164,000 deficit or 456,295 projected need).

8. Dampen speculation at the high end of the market. This would help deal with the oversupply of luxury housing. Taxes on luxury homes, vacant properties and foreign ownership could help fund affordable housing.

9. Have one agency to drive these changes. The impact of an agency like the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency is perhaps the most important lesson. The Victorian government has over a dozen departments and agencies engaged in some aspect of affordable housing delivery. We suggest repurposing the Victorian Planning Authority with an explicit mandate to develop and deliver housing affordability, size diversity and locational targets set by the next state government.

10. A systems approach is essential to build capacity. It will take time, coordination and political will for local governments to meet targets, non-profit housing providers to scale up delivery and management of social housing, private developers and investors to take advantage of affordability opportunities, and state government to plan for affordable housing. Eradicating homelessness and delivering affordable housing for all Victorians is possible. But it needs a systems approach.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics and PLuS Alliance Fellow, UNSW

The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is set to deliver its interim report no later than September 30.

There have already been plenty of consequences for industry participants from the proceedings thus far. But the ugly facts that have been uncovered obscure the larger, and in many ways more important, picture. What will be the inquiry’s long-term economic impact?

Any royal commission has two faces. In one way it’s like a coronial inquest; the facts of the case need to be established – perhaps in gruesome detail. In another way it’s an exercise in public catharsis, shedding light on hard truths so society can collectively move forward.

If ever there was a case study in how these two aspects can conflict, it’s this royal commission. At this point we can only speculate about the precise contents of the interim report. Based on what we’ve learned from the proceedings, however, it will cover charging fees to dead people, breaches of anti-money-laundering obligations, and the relentless pushing of unsuitable financial products on unsuspecting consumers.

Read more: There is nothing sacrosanct about corporate culture; we can and must regulate it

Let’s be clear: that is all very bad, and there’s no excuse for it.

Furthermore, I’ve been consistently critical about less sensational but probably more damaging behaviours, such as imprudent lending practices. The massive amount of interest-only loans, which require borrowers to only repay the interest, risk detonating the Australian financial system the way sub-prime loans what’s this? did in the US a decade ago.

If all the royal commission achieved was to stop the financial services sector doing these unacceptable and unwise things, it would serve a useful purpose.

The danger of scaring bankers too straight

But it’s likely to do much more than that. It will causes bankers to pull back from public view like frightened turtles.

Why risk making a loan that could possibly go bad, even if on balance it’s a good idea for both borrower and lender? Why risk offering a financial product to someone who may not fully understand the implications? In short, why take much risk at all?

Now it may be that banks have taken too much risk in certain instances, but overall their job is to take risk. A bank that never makes a bad loan is not lending enough. The supply of credit in the economy depends on financial institutions being willing to balance the upsides and downsides of risk.

The royal commission has every chance of causing a big overreaction, with banks and other financial institutions being far too cautious in its wake.

The people who will lose from this excess caution are not the wealthy and financially sophisticated. They will still be prized customers – perhaps even more so. The people who will lose are the “marginal” borrowers – the young, the less affluent, the less educated, those with insecure employment, those newly arrived in Australia.

These folks face being functionally excluded from the modern economy for half a generation or more – pressed up against the glass, looking in on the benefits that accrue to those banks deem worthy credit risks in the post-commission environment.

Read more: What if we expected financial services to be more like health services?

It’s also worth reflecting on what the commission might not do.

So far the boards and directors presiding over incentive schemes both facilitating and encouraging all kinds of bad, even illegal, behaviour have escaped relatively unscathed.

What about the regulators?

The royal commission is not set up to deal with such matters. The corporate and prudential regulators are. At least in principle. Yet the commission has barely touched on their failings.

This is the commission’s big omission. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority have been, to put it politely, asleep at the switch. All this bad stuff happened on their watch. Worse still, it was entirely predictable. And one can only presume that neither side of politics took it seriously because neither, when in government, chose to put serious people in charge of these organisations, nor resource them properly.

The US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandies once famously observed that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Quite so. But too much sunlight gives you skin cancer. The most enduring legacy of the banking royal commission might be the cancer of caution it will engender in the financial services industry.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck, University of London

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, sexual sadism was widely discussed in Australian newspapers. Ironically, attempts to ban the Marquis de Sade’s books gave journalists an excuse to write about them, thus spreading knowledge of this “perversion”. Public awareness of sadism also incited social panic, provoked by a series of highly publicised murders of Australian women.

One of these was the mutilation and killing of Dorothy (“Dot”) May Everett in Newcastle in November 1937. Everett was a 27-year-old kitchenmaid who worked at the Broughton Church of England School for Boys. After a night at the theatre, she was last seen walking home.

At eight the following morning, her naked body was found. Her clothes had been ripped from her body, there were teeth marks on her chest, and one nipple had been bitten off. She had been strangled with her own stockings.

This was a particularly brutal murder, made worse by the fact that it took place in one of the most fashionable areas of Newcastle. Women living in the city were reported to be extremely frightened: they were reluctant to go out at night without a male escort. A “School Killer” (later sensationalised as the “Vampire Killer”) was at large.

One word dominated discussions of Everett’s murder: sadism. All the newspapers agreed that the perpetrator was “of no ordinary type”: he was “someone known as a sadist”, a “person of abnormal tendencies, a pervert, and a sadist”. Newspapers warned that “A SADIST of a type not previously known in the State is being sought”, and if this “sex-maniac” was not caught soon “he might commit similar horrible crimes”.

Everett herself seems to have been a fairly typical young woman. She was a bit moody, in part because she shared a room that was only 12 feet wide and contained two beds. She was said to have been frightened after an unknown man had attacked her only a fortnight before her murder. Tragically, she had not reported this to the police “because of the fuss it might have caused”.

It was discovered that dozens of other women in Newcastle had also endured sexual attacks at the time, but none had officially reported the assaults for fear of publicity. In the words of a headline in Brisbane’s Telegraph, a “Wave of Sex Assaults Revealed After Murder of Newcastle Woman”.

Read more: Between innocence and experience: the sexualisation of girlhood in 19th century postcards

Eventually, 34-year-old Leonard (“Len”) William Roberts, a former gardener at the school, was charged with her murder. The main evidence was the bite marks. The man who had bitten Everett had no teeth in his lower jaw and Roberts had no teeth at all (although he habitually wore false teeth in his upper jaw).

After consulting leading British and American forensic texts, the detectives asked Roberts to bite the “fleshy” chest of Police Sergeant Stephen Pender in an attempt to match the teeth marks. In court, Pender claimed that Roberts had merely “simulated” biting him.

There was, however, a secret witness: “Miss X” whose identity was never disclosed on the grounds that her reputation would otherwise have been destroyed. “Miss X” regularly engaged in sexual intercourse with Roberts and claimed that he was perverted.

She told police that Roberts had beaten her with a rolled newspaper and threatened her in other ways as well. There were things he had done to her that were “too horrible to tell”. When she heard about the murder, the first thing she asked was: “Was Dot bitten?”

The problem with all this evidence was not only that it was circumstantial, but that Roberts didn’t fit the image of a sadistic monster. He made an impression in court, appearing (in the words of one journalist) “faultlessly dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt and collar and striped blue tie. He was clean shaven. His hair was neatly brushed and he looked well.” Indeed, there were demonstrations in his favour outside the court.

At the end of the trial, Roberts left the courtroom an innocent man.

From de Sade to sadists

Reportage on the Everett murder was fairly typical and reveals a lot about the moral panic about sadism in the first half of the 20th century. Although there was huge interest in the concept of the “sadist” in Australia, journalists nevertheless felt obliged to explain what “sadism” actually involved. This suggests it was a fairly new word for many Australians. Newspapers informed their readers that a “sadist” was “a person who experienced pleasure when inflicting pain on another” and it was derived from the French nobleman, the Marquis de Sade.

They noted that there was a continuum in cruelty – from the sadist who murdered women to those who believed that naughty children should be caned. In Australian publications, as well as in British and American ones, there was also a constant conflation of sadists and homosexuals. Indeed, in 1952, the Psychiatric Section of the West Australian branch of the British Medical Association used the term “sadist” and “queerness” interchangeably.

Where were journalists getting information about sadists? In Australian publications, the most common authorities mentioned were European psychiatrists Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Albert Moll and Ivan Block.

Of these, Krafft-Ebing is mentioned the most frequently, especially his view that sadism arose from biological degeneracy. A sadist’s parents and other relatives were likely to have been insane, syphilitic, epileptic, or “constitutionally neuropathic”. Sadists possessed the “seed” of their perversion from birth.

Read more: From reproducers to ‘flutters’ to ‘sluts’: tracing attitudes to women’s pleasure in Australia

Other commentators maintained that sadism arose from a mixture of causes. In 1930, for example, an unnamed “leading Sydney psychiatrist” interviewed about the sadistic strangling of some young girls claimed that the “Melbourne murderer” must have had his “natural instincts repressed” as a young person, and these instincts “found an unnatural outlet” in a fetish for suffocating girls with their own stockings.

This psychiatrist also believed that in “most cases of sadism” there would be “a taint of insanity in his ancestry”, a history of “intermarriage of close relatives”, or even evidence of “an injury to the head during childhood”.

The anxiety-inducing conclusion, therefore, was:

Any one of us is capable of sadism … We might acquire it through an accident, or through the repression of our natural instincts.

Monsters and men

Most commentators believed that sadists were outwardly normal men. This may seem strange, given the overblown language of monstrosity that was routinely applied to them, particularly in the sensationalist or tabloid press. After all, lurid descriptions of the “Vampire Killer” (as Everett’s killer was called) and “bestial” murderers boosted sales. It gave licence for prurient descriptions of wounds, torn flesh and gaping holes.

One example is the way Sydney’s Truth newspaper reported the “Devilish Murder and Mutilation” of Rebecca May Andersen, who was tortured, mutilated, then killed near Long Bay Prison in Malabar (Sydney) in May 1924. Readers were told the murderer had to be “lust-mad”, or a “revengeful demonical monster with an appetite for inhuman atrocity”: he suffered from “a perverted, depraved, sexual degeneracy”.

However, at the same time, these reports suggested sadists could be “any of us” – that is, a male “us”. They possessed a normal outward appearance, the sadist being “a monster in human form”. In the words of a psychiatrist explaining a brutal abduction, rape and torture of a woman in Corrimal (northern suburb of Wollongong) in 1946:

People capable of sadistic acts like the Corrimol crime would never be noticed in a crowd. They would appear quite normal individuals. But the latent tendency to sadism comes out if the opportunity arises. Some sadists suffer from the “tough guy” complex. By inflicting pain on a weaker person, most often a woman, they boost their own ego. But usually sadists are sexually frustrated people, who express their perversion in bodily cruelty.

Alcohol abuse was often blamed for transforming a “normal” man into a sadistic one. This was the explanation given by Sir John Macpherson, the first professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney and the author of Mental Affections: An Introduction to the Study of Insanity (1899). Referring to the sadistic attack on Andersen, Macpherson observed:

Some of the most extraordinary and dastardly crimes in history have been committed by alcoholics who, under the influence of the drink, perform deeds which, in their normal state, they would shrink from contemplating.

This was the explanation for the sadistic violence of Roy Governor, an Indigenous Australian. After drinking half a bottle of wine, Governor had raped an elderly, white, disabled woman. In his statement from the dock, Governor explained:

When I drink wine my sex controls me; I have no control over it; I am what they call a sadist; I have read a lot of books on sex things … I am a funny man when I drink wine I want with a woman.

Curiously, sadism was conceived of as an excess of normal male sexuality. In other words, a sadist would not harm anyone if he could be “relieved” of his “natural” passions by regularly engaging in sexual intercourse with a “legitimate” partner. In 1920, for example, Perth’s Truth concluded that sadism was the “Cave-Man Kink”. The journalist contended that the perversion was:

more common than is generally supposed. The nips and pinches and the playful slaps, that in many cases mark the preliminary stages of love’s young dream likewise denote a tendency towards that kink. Fortunately for the happiness of mankind, or rather womankind, this tendency becomes weaker in the vast majority of cases, and mostly dies away altogether with the satisfaction of the sexual appetite. Should it persist, however, it eventually develops into plain brutality, usually of a most revolting type.

Blaming the victims

Disturbingly, victims were often said to be partly responsible for their fate. Of course, there were degrees. The press failed to find anything salacious about Everett, for example. But Andersen was “fair game”. “Big Nose May”, as she was known, was castigated as a slut and “insatiable” alcoholic. Newspapers even speculated that she might have been murdered because she stole money from one of her customers or had given them a sexually transmitted disease.

Finally, sadists were a type of person, as opposed to a practice. In particular, he had a racial identity: he was “foreign”. In writing about Everett’s cruel murder, readers were informed that the perpetrator had probably arrived recently in the Newcastle port. There was nothing “Australian” about such perversions.

More importantly, newspaper reports increasingly focused less on the victim’s sufferings and more on the identity of the perpetrator. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the perpetrator had been labelled a sadist because of the mutilation and extreme violence done to the victim. Increasingly, though, the victim’s pain became secondary to the perpetrator’s identity and, in particular, his fantasies.

Indeed, to be labelled a “sadist” a man did not even have to harm anyone. Sadistic acts became secondary to a sadistic identity, which was located in the fantasy life of the perpetrator. This medicalisation of perpetrators of extreme violence had the effect of silencing the victims of sadism.

Women like “Dot” Everett were doubly silenced – both by their murderer and by newspaper reportage that was more interested in speculating about the “sadist” than his victims.

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

The ABC’s former chairman, Justin Milne, has propelled himself from obscurity to infamy in just four days. Along the way, he has ended the tenure of the ABC’s first female managing director, prompted two federal inquiries, revealed the dysfunctional relationship between the national broadcaster’s board and its upper management, and laid bare the politicised climate in which the ABC operates.

But on the positive side, it’s just possible that he has opened up a discussion that’s sorely needed about the independence of the ABC and the pressures that work to undermine it.

Milne’s position became untenable following leaks that appeared to reveal serial interventions in day-to-day management. These included petitioning former managing director Michelle Guthrie to sack senior journalist Emma Alberici and to “shoot” political editor Andrew Probyn because the government didn’t like them.

Read more: Justin Milne quits as ABC chairman after furore over attack on political editor

The leaked emails suggest Milne wanted particular staff removed to protect the ABC from its many strident critics in the federal Coalition government, and that he actively lobbied on a wide range of causes, including Triple J’s decision to move the Hottest 100 from Australia Day. He opposed the move because it offended his friend, the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The ABC board met today without Milne and asked him to stand aside. But Milne instead offered to resign. Afterwards, he told ABC journalist Leigh Sales:

Clearly there is a lot of pressure on the organisation. My aims have been to look after the interests of the corporation. And it’s clearly not a good thing for everyone to be trying to do their job with this kind of firestorm going on so I wanted to provide a release valve.

Milne’s resignation has provided some resolution. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s hope that “normal transmission” will now resume is the wishful thinking of a government that desperately hopes the ABC won’t become an election issue, either in the impending Wentworth by-election or at next year’s general poll.

The government has announced an inquiry, to be conducted by Mike Mrdak, secretary of the Department of Communications and the Arts. Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said it would determine the facts and restore confidence in the national broadcaster.

But as several critics have pointed out, a review conducted by someone who answers to the minister is unlikely to considered independent, especially as it was the government that Milne was seeking to appease.

Labor’s Communications spokesperson, Michelle Rowland, and others have dismissed the proposed inquiry. Paul Murphy, chief executive of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, labelled it a “whitewash” and called for a full public inquiry.

The Opposition and the Greens have supported a separate Senate inquiry to investigate the issue with wider scope and greater powers. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said it was needed “so we can question members of the board about what has really been going on”.

She also called for a clean sweep of the entire board because of questions about what it knew about Milne’s interventions and its failure to protect staff:

We need a broom through the board and we need to give the public broadcaster a fresh start.

ABC’s independence under threat in other ways

This chaotic week has exposed the increasingly politicised climate in which the ABC now operates and the inconsistencies in the government’s narrative about the independence of the national broadcaster.

Both Fifield and Morrison have declared their support for the ABC and suggested that Milne’s reported interventions were unacceptable. But the party they represent is at the same time attacking the ABC on numerous fronts.

It has several pieces of legislation before the parliament that seek to undermine the ABC’s role or change its editorial charter, some at the behest of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Read more: A public broadcaster that bows to political pressure isn’t doing its job

It has cut the ABC’s budget by a reported A$83 million, and subjected the broadcaster to reviews into its efficiency and competitive neutrality, at the request of its commercial competitors.

Fifield is himself a regular complainant about ABC journalists on the grounds that they have not reported on the Coalition fairly.

On Monday, which now seems so long ago, the former ABC staff-elected director Matt Peacock observed that for all her faults, Guthrie did at least stand up for the ABC’s independence. He told the Media Files podcast that Guthrie understood its importance and did her best to defend it. It was an astute observation, given that independence has become the dominant theme of this unedifying week.

This is hopefully the main topic that will be explored in the impending inquiries. The issue of independence transcends the appointment of a new chairman or managing director, although clearly the next permanent occupants of those roles need to understand what a public broadcaster does and the importance of fearless, civic-minded journalism.

Read more: Why the ABC, and the public that trusts it, must stand firm against threats to its editorial independence

Questions about independence go to the way appointments are made to the board – a process that has been politicised by both major parties. It is about what a public broadcaster is and whether governments are prepared, on the one hand, to support and fortify the ABC against its critics and, on the other, to leave it alone to do its job.

Others have called today for the government to ensure board members are appointed at arm’s length, as is meant to happen under existing rules, and to appoint directors who have media experience and a passion for public broadcasting.

As Marcus Strom, president of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, told ABC News, the staff deserve better and are sick of being treated like “political footballs”.

For the millions of Australians who care about the ABC, this has been a wearying week in which odd alliances have emerged. It’s a strange day, for example, when an editorial in The Australian concurs with the unanimous sentiment of ABC staff.

But the disruption won’t have been in vain if more awareness emerges about the fragility and importance of the ABC’s editorial independence.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Professor John Pollaers OAM, Melbourne Enterprise Professor, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne

There has been no shortage of inquiries into the aged care system over the past few decades. That shocking systemic problems of neglect and abuse remain, as revealed by the ABC’s recent Four Corners expose, highlights the failure of government and industry to act on the recommendations arising from these investigations.

We can only be optimistic that the royal commission into the quality and safety of aged care will help change that. A royal commission will capture the public consciousness in a way other inquiries have not. It will document hundreds, if not thousands, of individual stories. Its proceedings will lead to extensive media coverage, and invite a national conversation. Its recommendations should prove harder for governments to shelve.

But there is no reason for government and industry to wait years for the royal commission to hand down a report. They can act now to make real progress, based on what we know already.

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

Three months ago the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce, which I chaired, delivered its report on ways to improve aged care. Based on listening to thousands of people throughout the aged-care sector over nine months, our report outlines 14 areas for action to support Australia’s aged care workforce in their essential role of caring for some of the frailest, most vulnerable members of society.

There is no need to wait on making the changes our report recommends.

By acting immediately, meaningful strategic reform can be implemented within the next three years. It can make a real difference to the quality of aged care well before the royal commission has completed its work.

Fragmented industry needs a unifying code

The aged care industry is fragmented, made up predominantly of small to medium enterprises spread across community, home and residential care settings. It relies on a diverse workforce under pressure from rising expectations and other changes much outside its direct control.

Read more: Aussies are getting older, and the health workforce needs training to reflect it

Our report’s central recommendation is the need for the aged care industry to embrace a voluntary code of practice. This code can help focus the minds of care providers on standards, workforce practices and commitments to quality and safety. This in turn will focus attention on the need to attract and retain committed, high-quality staff.

We are pleased the industry has embraced this idea. Industry leaders have also supported initiatives to improve the skills and qualifications the industry demands of its workers.

There is a need for the education and training sector to get on board, ensuring graduates have the skills and knowledge that support safe, quality care.

We need a holistic approach to care

One important finding from our investigation is that those in care, and their families, want a more holistic approach to caring. What they don’t want is narrow “clinical” care, one that treats mental health with a pill or judges a meal just on its calories. Well-designed care needs to consider all aspects of health, as well as cultural needs and aspirations around “living well”.

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

There are clear funding implications. To provide holistic care requires changing how money is spent, as well as how much.

Simply stated, as a society we have been short-changing the elderly.

That is why our first recommendation is the need for a concerted social change campaign to reframe caring and promote the importance of aged care as a work vocation.

As the report notes, shifting negative attitudes towards ageing, the elderly, death and dying is a social challenge:

It begins with understanding that care for older people is broader than organised, professional care. These factors contribute to the perception that aged care is not a career of first choice. The opportunities that ageing and aged care present in terms of employment, research, contribution to the economy and as a driver for innovation also go largely unrecognised.

The spotlight the royal commission will place on aged care should help provoke some serious social soul searching. We need a national conversation about our attitudes to ageing. We need to recognise the problems besetting the industry are but a subset of a wider attitudinal problem that has undervalued the elderly.

But the royal commission must not be used as an excuse to procrastinate. There are actions now we know we can take. We should take them.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Beckett, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Melbourne

Selena Scola worked as a public content contractor, or content moderator, for Facebook in its Silicon Valley offices. She left the company in March after less than a year.

In documents filed last week in California, Scola alleges unsafe work practices led her to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from witnessing “thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence”.

Read more: Facebook is all for community, but what kind of community is it building?

Facebook acknowledged the work of moderation is not easy in a blog post published in July. In the same post, Facebook’s Vice President of Operations Ellen Silver outlined some of the ways the company supports their moderators:

All content reviewers — whether full-time employees, contractors, or those employed by partner companies — have access to mental health resources, including trained professionals onsite for both individual and group counselling.

But Scola claims Facebook fails to practice what it preaches. Previous reports about its workplace conditions also suggest the support they provide to moderators isn’t enough.

It’s not the first time

Scola’s legal action is not the first of its kind. Microsoft have been involved in a similar case since December 2016 involving two employees who worked in their child safety team.

In both cases the plaintiffs allege their employer failed to provide sufficient support, despite knowing the psychological dangers of the work.

Both Microsoft and Facebook dispute the claims.

How moderating can affect your mental health

Facebook moderators sift through hundreds of examples of distressing content during each eight hour shift.

They assess posts including, but not limited to, depictions of violent death – including suicide and murder – self-harm, assault, violence against animals, hate speech and sexualised violence.

Studies in areas such as child protection, journalism and law enforcement show repeated exposure to these types of content has serious consequences. That includes the development of PTSD. Workers also experience higher rates of burnout, relationship breakdown and, in some instances, suicide.

Aren’t there workplace guidelines?

Industries including journalism, law and policing have invested a significant amount of thought and money into best practice policies designed to protect workers.

In Australia, for example, those working in child safety opt-in to the work rather than cases being assigned. They are then required to undertake rigorous psychological testing to assess if they are able to emotionally compartmentalise the work effectively. Once working, they have regular mandated counselling sessions and are routinely reassigned into other areas of investigation to limit the amount of exposure.

The tech industry has similar guidelines. In fact, Facebook helped create the Technology Coalition, which aims to eradicate online child sexual exploitation. In 2015, the coalition released its Employee Resilience Guidebook, which outlines occupational health and safety measures for workers routinely viewing distressing materials. While these guidelines are couched as specific to workers viewing child pornography, they are also applicable to all types of distressing imagery.

Read more: Facebook’s moderation rules prove it’s OK with being a hostile place for women

The guidelines include “providing mandatory group and individual counselling sessions” with a trauma specialist, and “permitting moderators to opt-out” of viewing child pornography.

The guidelines also recommend limiting exposure to disturbing materials to four hours, encouraging workers to switch to other projects to get relief, and allowing workers time off to recover from trauma.

But it’s not just about guidelines

Having support available doesn’t necessarily mean staff feel like they can actually access it. Most of Facebook’s moderators, including Scola, work in precarious employment conditions as outside contractors employed through third party companies.

Working under these conditions has been shown to have a detrimental impact on employee well-being. That’s because these kinds of employees are not only less likely to be able to access support mechanisms, they often feel doing so will risk them losing their job. In addition, low pay can lead to employees being unable to take time off to recover from trauma.

Insecure work can also impact one’s sense of control. As I’ve previously discussed, moderators have little to no control over their work flow. They do not control the type of content that pops up on their screen. They have limited time to make decisions, often with little or no context. And, they have no personal say in how those decisions are made.

According to both the filing, and media reports around Facebook’s moderator employment conditions, employees are under immense pressure from the company to get through thousands of posts per day. They are also regularly audited, which adds to the stress.

Where to from here?

Adequate workplace support is essential for moderators. Some sections of the industry provide us with best case examples. In particular, the support provided to those who work in online mental health communities, such as Beyond Blue in Australia, is exemplary and provides a good blueprint.

Read more: ‘Haters gonna hate’ is no consolation for online moderators

We also need to address the ongoing issue of precarity in an industry that asks people to put their mental health at risk on a daily basis. This requires good industry governance and representation. To this end, Australian Community Managers have recently partnered with the MEAA to push for better conditions for everyone in the industry, including moderators.

As for Facebook, Scola’s suit is a class action. If it’s successful, Facebook could find itself compensating hundreds of moderators employed in California over the past three years. It could also set an industry-wide precedent, opening the door to complaints from thousands of moderators employed across a range of tech and media industries.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Jones, Lecturer in Musical Theatre, Griffith University

Review: Man With The Iron Neck, Brisbane Festival (preview performance).

In the foyer of the Brisbane Powerhouse, the audience is greeted by a statement from co-creators Ursula Yovich and Josh Bond: “This story. Not black but white as well. To open up a conversation and come out the other side together.”

Legs On The Wall’s Man With The Iron Neck deals with the important but taboo topic of youth suicide, particularly in the Indigenous community. With a script by Ursula Yovich alternating between naturalistic dialogue and poetic monologues, stunning visual design by Joey Ruigrok, Matt Marshall, Emma Vine and Sam James, and extraoardinary physical performances by the cast (Ursula Yovich as Mum Rose, Kyle Shilling as Bear, Tibian Wyles as best friend Ash, and Caleena Sansbury as Evelyn), this piece gives the audience 80 minutes of gripping, confronting and moving physical theatre at its best.

Before the piece began, Uncle Stephen Coghill Senior, of the Jagera people, gave a Welcome to Country speaking of reconciliation. As the performance deals with very sensitive issues, Legs on the Wall Theatre have provided a range of support materials for the audience, including a booklet for personal reflection on the themes of the piece and counselling on hand if needed. A firepit was also planned to enable audiences to burn their own offerings in a symbolic ritual of “letting go”. This work spans much more broadly than what is being presented on stage and the company’s commitment to opening a conversation about suicide is tangible.

One of the most striking features of this production is Sam James’ stunning use of cinematic video projection on the curved back wall, immediately creating a sense of place as well as reflecting the character’s inner thoughts with evocative and sometimes disturbing imagery. The familiarity of the Australian bush engulfs the action and draws the audience into the world of the play.

One of my concerns with physical theatre, at times, is that the physical elements can outweigh the dramatic elements. Man With The Iron Neck, however, seamlessly interweaves extraordinary aerial and physical work with a beautifully written narrative. In an interview about the piece, Ursula Yovich states, “This is not just a kitchen table drama. This is a work of scale.” It is the physical elements that transcend the domestic scenes.

Yovich’s moving monologue about giving birth to twins Bear and Evelyn is breathtakingly amplified by an aerial ballet performed by Kyle Shilling and Caleena Sansbury. The iconic Australian Hill’s Hoist is used throughout the work as a type of aerial trapeze; first as Bear relives the horror of his own father’s suicide and later as Ash spins into a cyclonic whirl in the wake of Bear’s suicide.

Australian Rules Football is both the saviour and destroyer of these characters. Much of the humour and energy of the piece comes from the family’s recreation of great football moments, tagging significant Indigenous footballers such as Adam Goodes, Buddy Franklin and Daniel Rioli. The tragedy in the story, however, starts with Bear’s reaction to a racial slur on the field, with direct reference to the famous incident involving Adam Goodes in 2013, in which a 13 year old supporter called the footballer an “ape” on the field.

The powerful dialogue that follows explores the ideas of assimilation and having to “pretend to be something you’re not”.

The depiction of grief and guilt in this work is heart-wrenching. Yovich is literally swallowed by the couch in her Valium haze into a nightmare world of suicide, layered with images of historic Indigenous oppression.

Sansbury’s Evelyn struggles to write her brother’s eulogy: “How can I leave anything out? He was more than that.” Wyles repeats the story of “The Great Peters”, an early 20th Century circus star who defied death as his own coping mechanism, each time layering more information about his friend’s suicide until finally asking, “Why did you do it, Bear?”.

Despite a few rogue microphone crackles in this performance, the sound design by Michael Toisuta and Jed Silver finely balances naturalistic speech with an evocative soundtrack (composed by Iain Grandage and Steve Francis) while also providing an incredibly memorable moment as Evelyn tries to chop down the tree responsible for the death of her father and brother while screaming “I’m here, Mum. I’m still here”.

Hope comes at the end of the piece when Ash asks Mum Rose how she coped with her husband’s suicide. Her simple response is “Every day I had to choose whether to give up or just keep going.” Ash letting go of his grief leads to an extraordinary moment as Bear swiftly flies into the rafters of the theatre. Although the metaphor of the morning star feels a little rushed, the final image of the night sky and Ash’s audible exhale is a fitting conclusion.

The basic premise that “physicality takes over when the words are not enough” is explored to its full extent in Man With The Iron Neck and at the conclusion of this preview performance the cast and riggers received a well-earned standing ovation.

Man With The Iron Neck is being staged as part of the Brisbane Festival until September 29.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic Tran, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 63% of Australian adults are overweight or obese.

But it’s much harder to estimate how many are within a healthy weight range but have poor diets or sedentary lifestyles. These can cause significant health problems that will often be missed because the person appears to look “healthy”.

Read more: I’m not overweight, so why do I need to eat healthy foods?

How do we judge the health of weight?

Obesity statistics often take estimates of body fat using body mass index (BMI). Although BMI isn’t perfectly correlated with body fat percentage, it’s a quick and easy method for collecting data using just the person’s height and weight. If the BMI is higher than 25, a person is considered “overweight”. If it’s above 30, they’re considered “obese”. But BMI doesn’t tell us how healthy someone is on the inside.

Using additional lifestyle measures, such as diet and exercise frequency over the last year, a recent report from the Queensland Health department estimated 23% of those who are not currently overweight or obese are at risk of being so in the future.

These figures indicate that the percentage of unhealthy-weight individuals does not accurately capture the percentage of unhealthy-lifestyle individuals, with the latter number likely to be much higher.

Read more: We asked five experts: is BMI a good way to tell if my weight is healthy?

If you’re not overweight, does a healthy lifestyle matter?

Many people think if they’re able to stay lean while eating poorly and not exercising, then that’s OK. But though you might appear healthy on the outside, you could have the same health concerns as overweight and obese individuals on the inside.

When considering risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke or cancer, we often think about health indicators such as smoking, cholesterol, blood pressure, and body weight. But poor diet and physical inactivity also each increase the risk for heart disease and have a role to play in the development of some cancers.

So even if you don’t smoke and you’re not overweight, being inactive and eating badly increases your risk of developing heart disease.

Little research has been done to compare the risk diet and exercise contributes to the development of heart disease in overweight versus skinny but unhealthy individuals. However, one study measured the risk of different lifestyle factors associated with complications following acute coronary syndrome – a sudden reduction in blood flow to the heart.

It found adherence to a healthy diet and exercise regime halved the risk of having a major complication (such as stroke or death) in the six months following the initial incident compared with non-adherence.

Unhealthy diets are bad for your body, but what about your brain?

Recent research has also shown overconsumption of high-fat and high-sugar foods may have negative effects on your brain, causing learning and memory deficits. Studies have found obesity is associated with impairments in cognitive functioning, as assessed by a range of learning and memory tests, such as the ability to remember a list of words previously presented some minutes or hours earlier.

Notably, this relationship between body weight and cognitive functioning was present even after controlling for a range of factors including education level and existing medical conditions.

Of particular relevance to this discussion is the growing body of evidence that diet-induced cognitive impairments can emerge rapidly — within weeks or even days. For example, a study conducted at Oxford University found healthy adults assigned to a high-fat diet (75% of energy intake) for five days showed impaired attention, memory, and mood compared to a low-fat diet control group.

Another study conducted at Macquarie University also found eating a high-fat and high-sugar breakfast each day for as little as four days resulted in learning and memory deficits similar to those observed in overweight and obese individuals.

These findings confirm the results of rodent studies showing specific forms of memories can be impaired after only a few days on a diet containing sugar water and human “junk” foods such as cakes and biscuits.

Body weight was not hugely different between the groups eating a healthy diet and those on high fat and sugar diets. So this shows negative consequences of poor dietary intake can occur even when body weight has not noticeably changed. These studies show body weight is not always the best predictor of internal health.

We still don’t know much about the mechanism(s) through which these high-fat and high-sugar foods impair cognitive functioning over such short periods. One possible mechanism is the changes to blood glucose levels from eating high-fat and high-sugar foods. Fluctuations in blood glucose levels may impair glucose metabolism and insulin signalling in the brain.

Many people use low body weight to excuse unhealthy eating and physical inactivity. But body weight is not the best indicator of internal well-being. A much better indicator is your diet. When it comes to your health, it’s what’s on the inside that counts and you really are what you eat.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, University of Western Australia

Visual skills are essential for a sophisticated workforce, yet we offer so little education in the vital skills of learning to see and developing the ability to interpret and critique our image-saturated world.

In the global marketplace, the economy of the cultural industries is growing in importance, and visual expression is part of everyday communication. For Australia to compete in this marketplace, visual acuity, visual literacy and the ability to communicate visually must be recognised as an equally fundamental skill to those of language and numeracy. These can all be taught through grounding in the visual arts.

There is a growing body of international and Australian research that demonstrates a direct link between an arts-rich education from an early age and an increase in students’ confidence, their intellectual abilities across all learning areas, problem-solving skills, and general life skills.

The visual arts provide a vital cultural component and deliver on a range of important skills otherwise missing from the curriculum. They also provide a platform for addressing the important issues of our times; they build self-reflective, empowered communities; and, let’s not forget, they also bring great joy and reassurance in times of anxiety.

Future skills

As the 2016 World Economic Forum report on The Future of Jobs predicted, the top necessary skills required for the fourth industrial revolution will be complex problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity, alongside emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility.

Read more: Fourth industrial revolution: sorting out the real from the unreal

Highly specialised, rigidly structured degree courses aimed at a specific job outcome will be redundant in this emerging environment. But degrees with a strong visual arts foundation will ensure individuals will flourish, not flounder, under the impact of disruptive technologies and when confronted by new ways of working.

Steve Jobs said he employed people at Apple with passion, particularly for problem-solving, “having a vision, and being able to articulate it so people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision”. It’s why Jobs also said he wanted to see applicants’ drawing portfolios before he employed them.

Work in the visual arts also generates new images and develops new ideas. These have the potential for commercialisation at a time when the government is pursuing its agenda on innovation and promoting the creative industries. For instance, several of the residencies through the Australian Network for Art and Technology Synapse program have led to further research and potential commercialisation.

Ever-expanding digital platforms will also need more and more creative content, requiring that all employees in every profession have opportunities to develop these skills.

We must then ensure that the creative arts are a core component of the curriculum so that all students will become more resourceful and better equipped to successfully manage change.

As well as teaching us vital skills, the arts also enrich, enhance and transform individual lives. This is the intrinsic benefit of the arts, which also has a value to the wider community.

It’s not just about individual pleasure, though. The arts change attitudes, and by so doing they can transform society. An education in the visual arts provides students with a better chance of achieving these shifts in our collective consciousness.

Read more: Friday essay: can art really make a difference?

Embedding arts at universities

Studying the visual arts provides the hothouse environment that brings the instrumental and intrinsic benefits of the arts into unison. It becomes a forum in which to explore new possibilities and critique existing presumptions and preconceptions about art and life.

Our challenge is to find ways of integrating the visual arts into the core curriculum and at the heart of the student experience. This includes an object-based learning approach to teaching (for instance, including study of artworks and artefacts).

Internships, courses that integrate the arts within other disciplines, and collaborative projects designed for students across discipline areas are just some examples of strategies already employed at universities.

That is our challenge, to work collaboratively across academic disciplines to re-imagine the role of the visual arts in the 21st century university.

This article is an edited extract from a keynote address to the Australian Council of University Art & Design Schools (ACUADS) annual conference being held in Perth on September 27-28.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kath O’Brien, PhD Candidate – School of Human Movement & Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland

This weekend’s rugby league Grand Final sees the Sydney Roosters face the Melbourne Storm in front of a stadium crowd of thousands – and even more on television. All eyes will be on the referee to make sure the play is fair.

Like elite athletes, the reputation of these full-time professional refs is often summarised by their performance in high-pressure, high-stakes events – watched by people they can never impress.

Over the past three years, I have spent countless hours studying how NRL referees learn their craft.

So, ahead of this year’s NRL grand final, here are some aspects that might help you see the game from a ref’s point of view.

Read more: Split-second decisions with little praise: so what does it take to ref a game of NRL

1. Mt Everest moment

The Grand Final is the ultimate. It is the pinnacle of a referee’s work over the course of the year. Everyone wants to make it, to earn the right to rule.

But they may never reach that pinnacle again.

So remember that they want the best: they really want to represent the game, the two teams involved, the fans and those referees who didn’t make the final, to the best of their ability.

2. You only see it once

Referees make split-second decisions. They only see things once, often only a small movement, and usually at speed.

They have to calculate the right moment to strike. They don’t have the luxury of multiple video replays to get it right.

Even without the involvement of the bunker – a centralised facility that records the game from several angles and to which refs can refer decisions for review – consider how hard this is to maintain faultlessly (and fearlessly) over two 40-minute blocks.

3. They never fly solo

During the course of a game, lead referees have to cope with listening to their assistant referee, two line judges, the matchday referee coach, players yelling at them, and occasionally spectators who provide their own helpful advice.

They also have to call for assistance, knowing that this may overrule something on which they have already made a ruling.

Remember, few of us hold jobs where people are simultaneously speaking to us, where we have to demand a second opinion, and where we can be called out for our mistakes on national television.

4. Reading their mind

Each referee’s decision-making prowess is strongly predicated on their ability to read the game. They need to “feel” situations as they dynamically unfold with respect to players’ actions, movements and tensions.

Refs need to internally interpret, process and recall important variables and situations and to then blend these into accurate, constructive decisions that affect a given action or outcome both now and into the future of the game.

5. Collectively attuned

The lead and assistant refs in a Grand Final know their roles individually and collectively. On match day, they are tightly woven, well-attuned to each others nuances and thoughts.

Their thinking in action also imperceptibly defines and shapes a tone and rhythm for how the game unfolds.

But remember, they constantly formulate these actions in the context of the whole, never as individuals, but rather as part of the overall fabric of the game.

6. Refereeing is hard work

NRL referees run about 8.2km per game. They consistently manage around 282 rucks and 36 kicks in play.

They also spend a staggering 31% of their game time in high anaerobic heart rate sectors of 170 beats per minute (BPM) or above.

At the same time, referees are dynamically adjusting their field positions to continually remain alongside the play, all while making decisions at speed.

When was the last time you ran this far while also completing several intermittent sprint efforts, and making mentally taxing decisions all the while?

7. They love the game

Referees are passionate about rugby league. Many played the game as juniors, while others have family members involved.

They also love the challenge and excitement of league and the camaraderie that comes with such a high-profile sport.

But referees are expected to look serious, lack personality and ignore the distractions from both participants and spectators.

Remember, they are not permitted to publicly express their support, or otherwise, for particular teams or results, or provide insights into how they feel about their sport.

Be gentle

So, remember that referees are just people – albeit people who are extremely driven, focused, energetic athletes who are strongly anchored to performing the perfect game.

Read more: Whether teams win or lose, sporting events lead to spikes in violence against women and children

They work as hard as elite players, both physically and mentally, to store and retrieve rules, learn new rules, learn every player’s name, stay fit, and make correct decisions at lightning speed.

Remember too that on Grand Final Day, most fans’ satisfactions are often driven by how well their team performs – which means it is often easier (and more acceptable) to ignore the loss if it can be blamed on the referees, rather than your own team’s play.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Fray, Professor of Journalism Practice, University of Technology Sydney

Behind the extraordinary events engulfing the national broadcaster lies a rather ordinary and clear statement of principle enshrined in the ABC Act. It clearly stipulates that one of the functions of the board is to maintain the corporation’s independence and integrity.

Has Justin Milne, as chairman of the board, done that?

Reports from Fairfax Media this week revealed email correspondence between Milne and the then managing director, Michelle Guthrie. In the emails, Milne called for chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici to be sacked over a report on government funding for research and innovation.

Then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had complained about the article; this followed complaints in February about two other pieces by Alberici on corporate tax, also critical of government policy. The ABC amended and reposted one of these pieces and eight days later republished the other, an analysis.

An internal ABC review found fault with both earlier articles, which had attracted considerable attention.

Another report this week in The Daily Telegraph makes further claims that Milne later demanded the resignation of ABC political editor Andrew Probyn, following anger from Turnbull. “You have to shoot him”, Milne is claimed to have said to Guthrie.

Read more: ABC Board Chair over-reaches in a bid to appease hostile government

On one view, the performance of a journalist is an operational matter for the MD or other executives, not a strategic matter, and there was no cause for intervention by Milne.

But others might ask, isn’t it the role of the board to intervene if there’s possibly severe reputational damage to the organisation and executives are not acting?

Both points seem reasonable, but this is the ABC, not a commercial operation.

It’s hardly contentious to say that its journalistic role distinguishes a news organisations from other businesses. Watchdog, fourth estate – however we describe it – news media are different. Editorial independence, along with editorial standards, is important.

But this is even more pronounced for public broadcasters. While government funds the ABC and SBS using public money, these are not state broadcasters. Being free from state control is a part of the legislation under which the ABC operates. It’s when we look at the ABC Act that we see the problem for Milne.

Although we often speak of the ABC “charter”, this is really just section 6 of the ABC Act. It sets out the functions of the ABC and it’s where we find reference to the ABC providing “innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard”.

But important obligations are found elsewhere. The requirement to provide a news service, for example, is in a later, operational section.

And it’s section 8 where we find the twin requirements of independence and editorial standards. These are worth setting out in full:

• 8(1)(b) to maintain the independence and integrity of the Corporation

• 8(1)(c) to ensure that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism

The problem for Milne is that these obligations are not imposed on the ABC as an organisation. They are imposed on the board. The lead-in to section 8 is: “It is the duty of the Board…”

Read more: Media Files: ABC boss Michelle Guthrie sacked, but the board won’t say why

Returning then to the emails, at issue was a report by Alberici on the main 7pm television news bulletin on May 6. According to the Fairfax report, Turnbull sent an email to news director Gaven Morris the next day complaining about the report.

Morris sent it to Guthrie, who contacted Milne. Milne responded, saying “they [the government] hate her” and “get rid of her”.

This apparently is before Communications Minister Mitch Fifield complained about the same report on May 9 and before the ABC’s complaints review unit had a chance to assess the complaint. When it did, it found no problem with the article except for one inaccuracy – certainly nothing that would justify the dismissal of the journalist.

It appears Milne acted to protect the reputation of the ABC. He and the board are required to do that – protecting its “integrity” is a part of their statutory duties. And the board also has a role in upholding standards.

Had the ABC’s complaints unit found there was a serious problem for a second time and executives had failed to act, maybe the board would have been right to intervene. But that step – assessing the validity of the complaint – was skipped, and it seems the main reason for proposing Alberici’s dismissal was to appease the government.

In this case, “independence” should have trumped the reputational aspect of “integrity”, especially when the risk was political. Instead, the chairman of the ABC may have compromised both values.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Associate Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has floated the idea of a new national holiday to recognise the achievements of Indigenous Australians. The proposal is a pre-emptive strike against what he called the “indulgent self-loathing” of those who want to shift Australia Day from 26 January to a date that is inclusive and respectful of Indigenous people.

There is much in Australia’s history to celebrate. There is much that is shameful. The choice of a national day is a statement about what it means to be Australian and, by extension, who is left as an outsider. This is more than just symbolism.

In recent years, the movement to “change the date” of Australia Day has gained significant momentum. Attendance at Invasion Day rallies now numbers in the thousands across the country.

Read more: Indigenous recognition in our Constitution matters – and will need greater political will to achieve

The Byron Shire Council in NSW recently announced it will stop holding Australia Day celebrations on 26 January. The federal government swiftly moved to remove the council’s rights to hold citizenship ceremonies – a common Australia Day practice that many councils across the country have discontinued in recognition of what the day may mean for Indigenous people.

In the past, public discussion about the appropriateness of the date of the national day usually only happened in the days leading up to 26 January. It is significant that only weeks into his prime ministership and four months before the day, Morrison has chosen to intervene in a debate that he could easily have left alone.

His move suggests that the balance of opinion is shifting, and some concession to Indigenous objections to Australia Day is required to preserve the acceptability of the national holiday to a growing number of Australians.

Beyond the debate over Australia Day

But an alternative holiday for Indigenous people doesn’t address the fundamental arguments against celebrating nationhood on a day that cannot avoid causing offence to some citizens.

The only moral defence in favour of celebrating Australia Day on 26 January is to somehow find a way to make it genuinely inclusive. Proponents of the day, particularly Morrison, need to show the political vision that takes the country beyond the dispossession and exclusion that Australia Day represents for some people.

In response to the idea of a separate day to celebrate Indigenous achievements, Indigenous Invasion Day rally co-organiser Tarneen Onus-Williams said :

It’s about genocide, it’s not about our achievements.

Celebration is hard when government agencies themselves admit that the systematic exclusion of Indigenous peoples from public decision-making persists and partly explains the depth of policy failure in Indigenous affairs.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart shows that this exclusion is neither necessary nor inevitable. Yet celebration is hard to align with the government’s continued rejection of a guaranteed Indigenous voice to parliament and Morrison’s false claim that this would constitute a “third chamber”.

Read more: First reconciliation, then a republic – starting with changing the date of Australia Day

Labor MP Linda Burney, the first Indigenous woman elected to the federal House of Representatives, has argued that Uluru’s substantive constitutional and political proposal is vastly more important than changing the date of Australia Day, which she says is “a very narrow way to look at the issue of Indigenous affairs”.

Indeed, raising public awareness of the lasting impacts of colonisation has been an ongoing process for many years. Reconciliation gained momentum with the Mabo and Wik decisions of the High Court, and the inquiries into Indigenous deaths in custody and the removal of Indigenous children from their families.

However, much work remains to be done. True reconciliation requires serious political transformation to allow Indigenous peoples real authority over their own affairs and capacities to participate in public decision-making.

The importance of symbolism

Celebrating Australia Day on 26 January, in its current form, is an obstacle to reconciliation.

But substance, symbol and celebration are closely related. It is still reasonable for an inclusive and respectful nation to aspire to celebrate its national day. Australia’s national day needs to be forward-looking and aspire to inclusive nationhood.

Read more: Why Australia Day survives, despite revealing a nation’s rifts and wounds

January 26 is an important day of reflection and commemoration. A day of public memory where one thinks about the good and the bad in the development of Australian nationhood. It ought not be a day where the good is celebrated and the not so good hidden away. Rather, it needs to be a day of truth-telling – a path to what the Uluru Statement calls Makarrata:

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

“Coming together” is a difficult, though worthy aspiration. Its achievement partly depends on what the country chooses to celebrate on its national day and why. This is more than just symbolically important – it has deep, practical implications for what it means to be part of a national community.

If, as Morrison has acknowledged, white settlement of Australia involved “a few scars from some mistakes and some things that you could’ve done better”, he might develop a meaningful plan for doing better.

If we need an alternative to 26 January as the day to celebrate Indigenous Australians, we are saying that a common and shared nationhood is not possible – a very clear statement of who is in and who is out.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ingrid Piller, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Macquarie University

A growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people.

– Senator Pauline Hanson, Senate speech, September 19, 2018

One Nation Party leader and Senator for Queensland Pauline Hanson is urging a rethink on Australia’s immigration policy, including changes to the “number and mix” of migrants coming to the country.

In a Senate speech, Hanson outlined a number of concerns she has with what she described as Australia’s “failed immigration policy”, including issues with social integration and the establishment of “culturally separate communities”.

The senator said a “growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people”.

Is that right?

Checking the source

In response to The Conversation’s request for sources and comment, an advisor to Senator Hanson accurately cited Census data showing the number of people who self-reported they spoke English “not well” or “not at all” was 820,000 in 2016, up from 655,000 in 2011 and 560,000 in 2006.

To reach a calculation of “over a million people” in 2018, Hanson’s office:

• added 66,000 people to the 2016 Census results, based on the assumption that the growth in the number of people in this category would be the same between the 2016 and 2021 Census as it was between 2011 and 2016, and

• added a further 149,294 people to the 2016 results, based on the assumption that 10% of the 1,492,947 people who didn’t respond to the question in the Census about language proficiency did not speak English “well or at all”.

You can read the full response from Hanson’s office here.

Verdict

Senator Pauline Hanson said “a growing number of people in Australia cannot speak English well or at all, over a million people”.

The most up to date information available on this question comes from the 2016 Census. The data show that the number of people who self-reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” in that year was 820,000.

Hanson was correct to say that number has been growing, from 560,000 people in 2006 to 820,000 people in 2016. This amounts to a rise from 2.8% of Australian residents in 2006 to 3.5% in 2016.

Over the same time, among people who speak a language other than English at home, the percentage of people who self-reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” fell, from 17.5% in 2006 to 16.6% in 2016.

It’s important to keep in mind that self-reporting is not the most accurate measure. Some people will over-estimate their language capabilities, while others will under-estimate theirs.

What do the data show?

In its five-yearly Australian Census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics asks people who speak a language other than English at home to state how well they speak English.

Respondents can choose from four options: “very well”, “well”, “not well”, or “not at all”. The categories “not well” and “not at all” are reported together.

In the 2016 Census, 4.9 million people reported speaking a language other than English at home.

Of those people, the number of people who reported they spoke English “not well” or “not at all” was 820,000.

Hanson was correct to say the number of respondents who ticked the “not well” or “not at all” categories has been rising – from 560,000 people in 2006, to 655,000 people in 2011 and 820,000 in 2016.

But of course, the overall Australian population has also grown over that time. So let’s look at the numbers as a proportion of the broader Australian population. On this measure, it amounts to a rise from 2.8% of all Australian residents in 2006 to 3.5% in 2016.

Over the same time, the percentage of bilingual residents who reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” fell slightly, from 17.5% in 2006 to 16.6% in 2016.

That means within the bilingual population, there was an improvement in perceived English language skills between 2006 and 2016.

Hanson said there were now “over a million” people in Australia who “cannot speak English well or at all”. There are two potential problems with the calculations made to come to this conclusion.

Firstly: the calculation assumes the same rate of growth in the number of people who speak English “not well” or “not at all” between 2016 and 2021 as it was between 2011 and 2016.

The number of people with little or no English language capability is largely a function of the overall migrant intake. As our overall migrant intake has increased, the absolute number of new arrivals with little or no English language capability has also increased.

However, since the 1990s, our migration program has become increasingly selective and the English language requirements for permanent residency have risen.

Second, the projected growth rate suggests that not speaking English well is an unalterable characteristic, and that new entrants with little English capability simply add to the existing number.

This assumption doesn’t account for the likelihood that many recent immigrants who responded that they did not speak English well or at all in the 2016 Census will have improved their English (or their confidence, or both) by 2021 and will respond that they speak English “well” or “very well” then.

How accurate are the data?

The Census data provide us with a rough guide to English language proficiency, but it’s not a particularly valid or reliable measure.

That’s because the judgements made in the survey are subjective. There’s no definition around what speaking English “well” or “not well” means. One person may overestimate their English proficiency, while another person may underestimate theirs.

As noted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

… one respondent may consider that a response of ‘Well’ is appropriate if they can communicate well enough to do the shopping, while another respondent may consider such a response appropriate only for people who can hold a social conversation.

As such, these data should be interpreted with care.

Self-assessment can be a valid tool in determining language proficiency. But for that to be the case, the questions need to be much more detailed and sophisticated.

So while we can state that 820,000 Australians reported speaking English “not well” or “not at all” in the 2016 census, it’s not possible to determine what that means in terms of their actual ability to communicate in their everyday lives.

Most bilingual residents speak English ‘well’ or ‘very well’

The vast majority of bilingual Australian residents report speaking English “well” or “very well” – more than 4 million out of 4.9 million.

Evidence of a certain level of English language proficiency is a visa requirement for most permanent migrants, and many temporary migrants. The key exceptions are humanitarian and family reunion migrants, whose reasons for admission supersede the immediate language requirements.

New citizens are also subject to an Australian citizenship test, which is an implicit English language test, requiring a certain level of English language proficiency to pass.

The number of people in Australia with little or no English language capability depends not only on the number and mix of new migrants admitted, but the English language training provisions made available to those people when they arrive. – Ingrid Piller

Blind review

I agree with the verdict of this FactCheck. The sources used and conclusions drawn are correct. – Amanda Muller

The Conversation’s FactCheck unit was the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. Read more here.

Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.

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

Reports of the contents of leaked emails written by ABC Board Chair Justin Milne provide a powerful insight into how governments of the day can exert influence over what parliament had intended to be an independent agency.

The emails have emerged in the wake of the ABC board’s termination of ABC managing director, Michelle Guthrie.

Read more: Government sets up inquiry into embattled ABC chairman’s email

Milne is correct in asserting that the ABC Act requires the board “to independently govern the Corporation, protect its best interests, ensure that it is well funded, well managed and that our content is of the highest standards”.

But it doesn’t operate in exactly the same way as other corporate boards.

The ABC board is different

For example in most corporations, commercial or otherwise, boards exercise control over management by using specific delegations and determining corporate policy.

Boards also appoint the chief executive and in some instances other members of the management group.

However that’s not the case for the ABC.

The ABC Act provides that on advice of the prime minister and communications minister respectively the governor general appoints both the chair and managing director.

Partly non-political

The Act bars former members of parliament and senior political staffers (for a time) from being appointed to either position.

Appointments to all other ABC board positions, including the chair, must follow a merit-based process with candidates interviewed in a process that the government does not control.

But that requirement does not apply to the managing director, potentially giving the government of the day the unusual ability to reach inside the organisation to appoint the most senior executive.

And partly political

This is highly problematic because of real (but usually latent) potential that a managing director might arrive with an agenda to undermine the board’s statutory role and parliamentary-determined Charter to be an independent public broadcaster.

The potential conflict is more acute because at the ABC the managing director is designated in the Act as the editor-in-chief.

Because the managing director is responsible for content, the reported instances of the Chair pressuring the managing director to remove individual journalists and approaching ABC editorial staff are inappropriate.

Setting the scene for conflict

The Act sets up a conflict between most of the ABC directors (who essentially have a trustee role) and the allegiances and agendas of a managing director who might be a non-merit based political appointee.

Governments used to avoid this conflict by sticking to the public service tradition of appointing technocrats. It has been customary for the ABC board to run the recruitment process for the managing director and then for the board to recommend the successful candidate to the government.

But over time perceptions about the appointment have become increasingly politicised.

As Marco Bass, ex head of ABC news and current affairs Victoria has written, the temptation to control the news is becoming harder to resist:

What [Guthrie and Shier] shared was an implicit brief to disrupt the ABC, dismantle internal fiefdoms and, importantly, bring the news and current affairs division under control.

Make no mistake, federal governments, regardless of political complexion, don’t care about Peppa Pig. They care about political coverage by the ABC’s journalists and broadcasters.

These idiosyrantic governance rules amplify flaws in the design of boards on which both executives and non executives sit.

Other boards have similar problems

As I and colleagues have written previously, mixing executive and non-executive directors on a single board creates governance problems.

On corporate boards managers who are also directors can (and usually do) position themselves as very powerful gate keepers and dominate both other directors and senior executives.

Read more: Solving deep problems with corporate governance requires more than rearranging deck chairs

This was a problem at the Commonwealth Bank and from some reports was becoming a problem at the ABC.

If a government can use the idiosyncrasies of the the ABC Act to cower a much-loved and very public institution like the ABC, imagine how pliable agencies like APRA, ASIC and ACCC might be in accommodating the views of a government who might not want to deal with the political fallout of, for example, tough but necessary decisions such as cancelling banking or superannuation licences.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Associate Professor, Curtin University

Just a little to the left of the leftmost part of the “W” in the constellation Cassiopeia lies a binary system of a neutron star in a 27-day orbit with a more massive, rapidly rotating star.

It’s from here we’ve detected radio jets – material travelling close to the speed of light and emitting radio waves – with details published today in Nature.

But the find was something not predicted by current theory. This particular neutron star has a very strong magnetic field, yet jets from neutron stars had only previously been observed in systems with magnetic fields about 1,000 times weaker.

Read more: Explainer: what is a neutron star?

Neutron stars are dense stellar corpses, with about one and a half times the mass of the Sun squeezed into a sphere just ten kilometres across.

With enormous densities (similar to that of an atomic nucleus), they are the densest objects that can support themselves against their own gravity. If they were any denser they would collapse to form a black hole.

A Swift discovery

This particular binary system, known as Swift J0243.6+6124, was first discovered on October 3, 2017, by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. This satellite, known as Swift, continuously scans the sky looking for new, bright sources of X-ray emission.

After a bright new burst of X-rays was detected from the location of this binary system, astronomers from across the world trained their telescopes on the source to try to determine what was producing them.

It turned out that the strong gravity of the neutron star in this system was capturing material thrown off by the rapid rotation of the other star. For many years this gas had been piling up in a disk of matter swirling around the neutron star.

When enough matter had accumulated, it all started to move inwards at once. We’re all familiar with a weight thrown from the top of a hill picking up speed as it falls. The physics behind this everyday phenomenon is the release of gravitational energy, which is converted into the energy of motion.

In exactly the same way, the gravitational energy of the mass was released as it fell in towards the neutron star. That energy was initially converted into motion, and eventually into X-ray radiation, which was what the Swift satellite detected.

Closer inspection

Our team, led by PhD student Jakob van den Eijnden from the University of Amsterdam, also detected radio waves from the source, using the Karl G Jansky Very Large Array observatory, in New Mexico.

The brightness of the radio emission tracked the brightness of the X-rays from the source as the burst rose and then faded away over a period of a few months. The behaviour of the radio emission led us to conclude that it was coming from jets.

Jets are narrowly-focused beams of matter and energy that travel outwards at close to the speed of light. They carry away some of the gravitational energy released when matter falls in towards a central object, such as a black hole or neutron star.

The jets deposit this energy into the surroundings, often at very large distances from the launch point.

In neutron stars and black holes that are only a few times more massive than the Sun, this energy can be transported many light years away. For supermassive black holes that lie at the centres of galaxies, the jets can carry away energy to hundreds of thousands of light years from the galaxy centre.

The first jet was discovered 100 years ago by the astronomer Heber Curtis, who noticed a “curious straight ray” associated with the nearby galaxy M87. Since the dawn of radio and X-ray astronomy in the middle of last century, jets have been studied extensively.

They are produced whenever matter falls onto a dense central object, from newly-forming stars to white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. The one exception had been neutron stars with strong magnetic fields – around a trillion times stronger than that of the Sun.

Against the theory

Despite decades of observations, jets had not been detected in these systems. This had led to the suggestion that strong magnetic fields prevented jets from being launched.

Our detection of jets from a neutron star with a strong magnetic field disproved the idea that had held for the past several decades. But it requires a re-examination of our theories for how jets are produced.

There are two main theories explaining how jets are launched. If a magnetic field threads the event horizon of a spinning black hole, the rotational energy of the hole can be extracted to power the jets.

But as neutron stars have no event horizon, their jets are instead thought to be launched from rotating magnetic fields in the inner part of the disk of gas surrounding it. Particles can be flung out along magnetic field lines in much the same way as a bead will move outward on a wire that you whirl around above your head.

If a neutron star’s magnetic field is sufficiently strong, it should prevent the disk of matter from getting close enough to the neutron star for this second mechanism to work. We therefore need another explanation.

Recent theoretical work has suggested that under certain circumstances it might be possible to launch jets from the extraction of the neutron star’s rotational energy.

Read more: Once upon a time … ‘sleeping beauties’ and the importance of storytelling in science

In our case, this could have been enabled by the high rate at which matter was falling inwards. It would also explain why the jets that we saw were about 100 times weaker than seen in other neutron stars with weaker magnetic fields.

Whatever the explanation, our result is a great example of how science works, with theories being developed, tested against observations and revised in light of new experimental results.

It also provides us with a new class of sources to test how magnetic fields affect the launching of jets, helping us to understand this key feedback mechanism in the universe.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin University

Australian rural communities face hardships during extended drought, and it is generally appropriate that governments then provide special support for affected landholders and communities.

However, some politicians and commentators have recently claimed that such circumstances should be addressed by circumventing environmental laws or management – by, for example, reallocating environmental water to grow fodder or opening up conservation reserves for livestock grazing.

But subverting or weakening existing protective conservation management practices and policies will exacerbate the impacts of drought on natural environments and biodiversity.

Read more: Giving environmental water to drought-stricken farmers sounds straightforward, but it’s a bad idea

Drought-related decline in wildlife

Impacts of severe weather on some natural systems are obvious and well-recognised. For example, during periods of elevated sea temperature, coral bleaching may conspicuously signal extensive environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

On land, however, the impacts of comparable extreme climatic events on natural systems may be less obvious, even if of comparable magnitude.

Nonetheless, the record is clear: drought leads to extensive and severe declines in many wildlife species.

Early observers in Australia reported the collapse of bird communities (“the bush fell silent”) and other wildlife across vast areas during the Federation Drought.

There were comparable responses during the Millennium Drought.

Unsurprisingly, wetland environments, and species dependent on them, may bear the brunt of impacts. That said, impacts are pervasive across all landscapes exposed to drought.

Drought contributed to the extinction of one of Australia’s most beautiful birds, the Paradise Parrot. For example, the pastoralist and zoologist Charles Barnard noted:

Previous to the terrible drought of 1902 it was not uncommon to see a pair of these birds when out mustering … but since that year not a single specimen has been seen … For three years… there had been no wet season, and very little grass grew, consequently there was little seed; then the worst year came on, in which no grass grew, so that the birds could not find a living, and … perished … they have not found their way back.

After the long droughts break, native plant and animal species may take many years to recover, and some never recover or return to their former range.

Threatened plant and animal species – with an already tenuous toe-hold on existence – are often the most affected.

Days of extremely hot temperatures also exceed the thermoregulatory tolerance of some species. That means mass mortality for some animals; and large numbers of even hardy native trees may be killed by heat and lack of rain across extensive areas.

Furthermore, water sources can disappear from much of the landscape. Organisms dependent on floods are now more vulnerable, given that overallocation of water from rivers has increased drying of wetlands.

Drought is not new in Australia, but the stresses are greater now

Of course, drought has long been a recurrent characteristic of Australia. Indeed, many Australian plants and animals are among the most drought-adapted and resilient in the world. But drought impacts on wildlife are now likely to be of unprecedented severity and duration, for several reasons:

1. with global climate change, droughts will be more severe and frequent. There will be less opportunity for wildlife to recover in the reduced interval between drought periods

2. feral cats and introduced foxes now occur across most of Australia. In drought periods, these hunt more effectively because drought reduces the ground-layer vegetation that many native prey species rely upon for shelter. Cats and foxes also congregate and hunt more efficiently as wildlife cluster around the few water sources that are left

3. prior to European settlement, the reduction in vegetation during drought would have been accompanied by natural feedback loops, notably reduction in the density of native herbivores. Now, livestock are often maintained in drought-affected areas, with supplementary food provided, but they also graze on what little native vegetation remains. Now, wildlife must compete with feral goats, camels and rabbits for the last vestiges of vegetation

4. clearing of native vegetation across much of the eastern rangelands means it will now be much harder for species lost from some areas during drought to recolonise their former haunts after drought. The habitat connectivity has been lost

5. many wildlife species could previously endure drought by maintaining a residue of their population in small refuge areas, where nutrients or moisture persisted in an otherwise hostile landscape. Now, livestock, feral herbivores and predators also congregate at these areas, making them less effective as native wildlife refuges

6. in at least woodland and forest habitats, droughts may interact with other factors. Notably, drought increases the likelihood of high intensity and extensive bushfires that can cause long-lasting damage to wildlife and environments.

Read more: Australia burns while politicians fiddle with the leadership

Our intention here is not to downplay the needs or plight of rural communities affected by drought.

Rather, we seek to bring attention to the other life struggling in that landscape. Australia should bolster, not diminish, conservation efforts during drought times. If we don’t, we will suffer irretrievable losses to our nature.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Power, Senior Research Fellow, Geography and Urban Studies, Western Sydney University

The New South Wales government has introduced a bill to reform the Residential Tenancies Act. This act sets out the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants in private rental accommodation in NSW.

The bill’s proposed limit on rent increases to one in every 12 months is essential, as are the proposed minimum standards for rental accommodation. However, my ongoing research with single older women renting in Sydney points to an urgent need for a cap on the value of rent increases and for an end to “no grounds” eviction. Victoria adopted these measures earlier this month.

Reform is essential. Growing numbers of Australians rent their housing and increasing proportions are expected to rent long-term. This makes it essential that private rental housing meets the need that every person has for a secure and affordable home.

Read more: An open letter on rental housing reform

It’s getting harder for older renters

It is getting harder for older renters to find adequate, appropriate and secure housing. Older women – the focus of my work – are at particular risk. This is due to longer life expectancy, lower incomes across the life course, and less access to benefits like superannuation. Women also experience a greater loss of income and housing standard than men do after relationship breakdown, and are at greater risk of domestic violence.

Their stories point to the role of flaws in the Residential Tenancies Act in compounding housing insecurity.

Rising rents add to hardship

Rising rents were a problem for nearly all women I spoke with. They depleted women’s budgets, leaving little money to buy food or pay for utilities. Many relied on local charities for food and help to pay energy bills.

One woman described how she would add protein to her meal by buying a single chicken breast, slicing it thinly and freezing each piece separately to be defrosted over the next week or so. Another relied on vegetables the local greengrocer bundled and discounted before throwing out.

In winter, when heating bills mounted, she relied on a local church with a weekly food pantry. This food, donated by local supermarkets and community members, was frequently past its “best before” date. As a low-paid community worker living in an area with a significant number of disadvantaged families, she collected food alongside her clients.

Two women coped by moving into their cars. They subsisted on tins of food that they could hide in the car. At night they kept themselves safe by parking in familiar locations.

Read more: More and more older Australians will be homeless unless we act now

Living with substandard conditions

Rent rises also made it difficult to find appropriate housing. Affordable housing was often substandard. Many had difficulties getting landlords to agree to repairs.

One woman described how her rented unit began leaking. The leak was severe and lasted for nearly two years. In this time she lived with increasing mould and lost access to nearly 40% of her home. She sought repairs from the landlord, but only cautiously, because she was afraid of eviction.

When the leak was eventually fixed her rent went up 20%. That left her with only A$30 a week after rent, essential bills and transport. She couldn’t afford food and relied on local charities until she found cheaper housing in a distant, transport-poor suburb.

Another described a similar leak:

When it rained the water would come straight down into the doorway. And that was the only way you could get into the house […] it was in the house and even in the bedroom.

Despite this the owner increased the rent. The real estate agent notified her of the increase by letter, but distanced herself from repair requests when confronted in person stating: “Well, we can’t do anything [to fix the property] until the owner says we can.”

The agent helped the landlord to make more money from their investment, while illegally blocking this woman’s entitlements to secure and usable property. The impact on her capacity to take care of herself was significant. Living with the leak risked her health. However, challenging the landlord – pushing them to repair the leak – risked eviction.

Read more: Rental insecurity: why fixed long-term leases aren’t the answer

Rethink the value of rental housing

These stories show the need to rethink how we value and regulate private rental housing. It is time that we recognise the fundamental role that housing plays in our ability to meet basic needs – for shelter, warmth, food and above all a sense of security and home.

When housing is too expensive, unsafe or inadequate, our capacity to meet our care needs deteriorates and our health suffers. For women in my research their capacity to age in place – and even to remain housed – was challenged.

This is not good for tenants or landlords. Although popular wisdom suggests tenants and landlords have different interests, they in fact have very similar concerns: both benefit from secure tenancies and rental properties that are well maintained and cared for.

The proposed amendments to the act are a good starting point.

Restrictions on the number of rent increases in a year are essential. However, the women in my research struggle not just because of the number of rent increases they face. They find themselves in precarious situations because of the size of the increases, which in some cases left them unable to afford necessities like food.

Minimum housing standards are also essential. The women in my research cannot begin to maintain their health or age well at home if their home leaks or does not meet other basic standards.

Read more: Dickensian approach to residential tenants lingers in Australian law

But perhaps more pressing is the need to end no grounds evictions. For women in my research, repair requests carried the risk of eviction. This left many afraid to ask for repairs. They lived in unhealthy and unsafe housing rather than risk eviction in a market with few affordable options.

Landlords in many areas can readily replace tenants. And an evicted older woman can easily end up living in her car.

Ending no grounds evictions will have no impact on landlords who do the right thing. They will still be able to terminate a lease on reasonable grounds such as renovating or moving into the property. It would, however, help put an end to retaliatory evictions, which in turn would support efforts to maintain minimum housing standards.

This article is based on research findings presented in a talk by the author at an event, Fair for Everybody: Reforming Renting in NSW, hosted at Parliament House on Wednesday.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Associate Professor in Marketing and International Business, Queensland University of Technology

Is it act of malicious stupidity or evil genius? The strawberry sabotage crisis is no doubt hurting individual growers in the short term, but in the long term it may prove a huge win for the industry.

Few crimes are as easy to commit, yet so seriously endanger public safety and threaten such commercial damage, as malicious food tampering. The perpetrators’ motivation is typically to create fear and hurt a company or industry. Yet history illustrates that, over time, the opposite occurs.

This crisis began in early September with the discovery of sewing needles embedded in strawberries bought at a Woolworths store in Brisbane. What started as an isolated incident thought to involve a disgruntled employee at one Queensland farm quickly turned to national crisis. Consumers were advised to dispose of, or return strawberries bought from supermarkets in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Then needles showed up in strawberries in Western Australia and Tasmania. Within a week, dozens of cases of fruit contamination had been reported around the country, as well as in New Zealand.

Read more: Strawberry sabotage: what are copycat crimes and who commits them?

Product tampering’s long and pointless history

One of the earliest recorded incidents of product tampering was in 1982. Seven people in Chicago died after taking tablets of Tylenol laced with potassium cyanide. Though a man was convicted of attempting to extort US$1 million from Tylenol’s maker, Johnson & Johnson, he was never charged over the deaths.

Johnson & Johnson responded to the crisis quickly. It withdrew more than 30 million bottles of the medication, advertised widely to warn consumers of the danger, suspended production and changed its packaging to make it tamper-proof. It cost the company more than US$100 million. But its commitment to customers’ safety ended up enhancing its brand reputation. Tylenol regained its market share within a year.

There have also been attempts to hold pharmaceutical companies to ransom in Australia. In 2000, paracetamol capsules made by Herron Pharmaceuticals were laced with strychnine. Following Johnson & Johnson’s example, Herron immediately pulled the product from store shelves. A few months later SmithKline Beecham International (now GlaxoSmithKline) was threatened. It recalled its best-selling Panadol paracetamol capsules as a precaution. In both cases public trust in each company was enhanced.

Food scares make hearts grow fonder

If extortion is the motivation, threatening a pharmaceutical company has some logic. Contaminating food seems to make less sense.

In 1977 Australia’s biggest biscuit maker, Arnott’s, dumped $10 million of biscuits due to the threat of poisoned biscuits. In this case, bizarrely, the extortionists were demanding a convicted criminal be released from prison.

In 2007, Masterfoods pulled Mars and Snickers chocolate bars from the shelves due to fears some might have been poisoned.

In both cases, by acting quickly and following textbook crisis management – protect customers first, brand second and shareholder interest third – neither company suffered long-term damage. Australians continue to buy their biscuits and bars by the millions.

In every case, history illustrates the targets of product contamination bounce back, often with sales even stronger than before.

There is good reason to believe, therefore, that the enduring result of the strawberry contamination crisis is that Australians will grow fonder of the fruit.

How consumers respond to group trauma

Research suggests there is a four-stage pattern of social behaviour after traumatic social events, such as a natural disaster or terrorist act.

• first, a few days of shock and idiosyncratic individual reactions to attack

• second, one to two weeks of establishing standardised displays of solidarity

• third, two to three months of high solidarity

• fourth, a gradual decline toward normalcy in six to nine months.

The “cut them up, don’t cut them out” pro-strawberry campaign fits into the second stage. What we are observing now is a move into a phase of strong national consumer solidarity.

Read more: VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on strawberries, Sudmalis, schools, and the au pair affair

While strawberry growers suffered a few weeks of devastating losses, sales have bounced back quickly. In some cases people are making a concerted effort to buy even more strawberries than they would have.

An outpouring of strawberry solidarity

Already searches for the recipes using strawberries have risen markedly on the popular cooking website taste.com.au. Social media hashtags #SmashaStrawb and #saveourstrawberries have trended. Celebrities and politicians have appeared in the media happily eating strawberries. Media outlets are hosting special awareness and fundraising events.

Strawberry festivals are attracting strong crowds from Fremantle to Bundaberg in Queensland Farmers have opened their gates to families wanting to pick their own fruit. This is the sort of emotional connection other primary producers can only dream about. It helps that strawberry farms are generally close to towns and cities, and that you don’t need to climb or dig to harvest the fruit.

Because we are creatures of habit – the reason we return so quickly to buying products after a contamination scare – there is a good chance this enthusiasm for strawberries, if sustained for a few months, will translate into higher habitualised consumption in the longer term.

So if the intention of the original strawberry saboteur was to damage a specific strawberry grower, it is likely to prove an intensely stupid scheme. On the other hand, as a perverse act of strategic marketing it has a touch of evil genius.

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

With Scott Morrison flagging his government will take a hard line on industrial relations, especially the CFMEU, Labor’s shadow minister for employment and workplace relations, Brendan O’Connor will have a tough job ahead of the election.

O’Connor says Labor remains totally opposed to the government’s Ensuring Integrity legislation, which the Coalition wants to resurrect. “I can’t see this bill in any way being salvageable, and that’s why of course it sat for a year without the Senate debating it,” he says.

O’Connor acknowledges there have been problems with “civil breaches” by the Construction division of the CFMEU but insists the claims of bad behaviour have been “highly exaggerated”. “It is very hard to take this government seriously when it politicises institutions it establishes and uses those institutions for political purposes … this government really has no standing and no regard for the rule of law when it actually acts unlawfully itself and then wants to attack other institutions for acting unlawfully,” O’Connor says.

With his brother Michael the CFMEU’s national secretary, O’Connor indicates that in government he would recuse himself from decisions made by the minister himself – though not from general workplace policy relevant to the union. “I would consider the situation and if I thought there was a perceived conflict or a conflict I certainly would of course absent myself,” he said.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Wishart, La Trobe University

Almost every inquiry into financial institutions, no matter the country, finds evidence of systemic misconduct. Customers overcharged, deceived and defrauded. At the root of the problem is organisational culture.

It’s a safe bet Australia’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry will find the same. So what to do about it?

Banks say good culture cannot be regulated into existence. As the G30 Banking Conduct and Culture Report states boldly: “Culture cannot be regulated.” Governments tend to agree. Regulators insist they won’t “prescribe risk culture”.

But this is a furphy. We can and should regulate for good corporate culture.

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Netherlands’ central bank which also acts as prudential regulator of financial services, has for seven years explicitly regulated the internal cultures of Dutch financial institutions.

Identifying high-risk behaviour

DNB has a specialist unit of trained organisational psychologists who work within institutions to identify patterns of individual and group behaviour that increase the risk of misbehaviour.

The unit operates independently of the DNB’s ordinary supervisory functions such as checking financial performance and compliance. It is especially interested in observing how those in leadership roles behave. Rules and policies might look good on paper but when bosses tolerate misconduct or reward excessive risk-taking there is a greater chance rules will be broken.

Read more: Five steps business can take to ensure aggressive performance targets don’t drive bad behaviour

Rather than just checking a bank’s board is expert (compliance checking), the DNB psychologists will observe the group dynamics of a board meeting. They assess things like its “communication climate”. Do the financial experts on the board get annoyed when non-experts ask fundamental but important questions? Can board members challenge the leader or the opinion of others?

The psychologists scrutinise body language such as facial expressions, posture and listening behaviour. This enables them to “zoom in” on underlying behavioural patterns that pose risks. For example, investigators might find one or two people dominate meetings, or that there is a culture of blaming, withholding information or competition between coalitions within organisational groups.

Having identified problems in an organisational culture, DNB investigators propose actions to reduce the risk of misconduct. They recommend changes to the financial institution’s supervisory board. If the culture is deemed high risk, the DNB will intervene directly.

Actions speak volumes

Paradoxically while the prevailing view in Australia is that corporate culture cannot be regulated, the corporate and prudential regulators are following the Dutch example.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission is embedding agents in the five biggest financial institutions. The commission’s new head, James Shipton, has cited what the Dutch central bank does to support the idea of these agents sitting in on board meetings.

Read more: Embedding regulators in banks can help change cultures of wrongdoing, despite the risks

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has copied the DNB process even more explicitly. In 2017 it began a pilot program to assess risk culture. The assessment included interviewing staff and observing board interactions. Behavioural psychologists were employed to assist in these “cultural reviews”.

The program was openly based on the DNB model, though with important differences. There was no separate review unit, for example.

APRA has also ventured into cultural regulation through its inquiry into bad behaviour at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The inquiry’s final report excoriated the bank’s culture. In an enforceable undertaking the bank agreed to develop a remedial plan, approved and monitored by APRA, to fix its culture.

Given this, it might be considered odd APRA’s report still denies culture can be regulated. “The onus falls squarely on CBA itself,” it states, before approvingly quoting the G30 report: “Supervisors and regulators cannot determine culture.”

But in our view, no matter what ASIC and APRA say, these processes are clearly exercises in regulating for good corporate culture.

The core feature is that outside agents have the authority to assess behaviour within an organisation, and the power to make that organisation change the way it does things.

Resistance is ideological

The reluctance to admit this can and is being done, we think, is because it impinges on a “sacrosanct” idea about the sovereignty of how corporations run their internal affairs. We have argued this claim is more about ideology than logic.

APRA is now “re-scoping” its cultural-review program because it thinks it too costly. Meanwhile the royal commission continues to show the high cost of not intervening in corporate culture.

The evidence from the royal commission shows regulators must do more. Without doing something to regulate the cultures that lead to corporations behaving badly, any other new regulation will achieve little.

A step away from full DNB-style cultural reviews would be a step in the wrong direction. APRA needs the resources to follow the Dutch lead. An autonomous supervisory unit, separate from APRA’s other supervisory teams, working a similar way to the DNB specialist unit, is the way forward.

The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Smith, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University

In Boys Will Be Boys, Australia’s most prominent contemporary feminist, Clementine Ford, works toward dismantling the idea that feminism is harming men. Instead, she proposes — as feminists have consistently maintained — that a patriarchal society can be as harmful and destructive for individual men as it can be for women.

Ford considers how “toxic masculinity” is shaped from the moment of a boy’s “gender reveal” to her closing chapter, which – simply and powerfully — lists the names of more than 50 famous men who have been publicly accused of sexual assault and their alleged criminal acts.

She traces how gendered inequalities in the way we socialise children at home and via pop culture directly shape harmful adult behaviours. These include “the embrace of online abuse, rape culture, men’s rights baloney and even the freezing out of women from government and leadership”. Ford sets out to demonstrate not only how “toxic male spaces and behaviours … codify male power and dominance” but also how they serve to protect men from any consequences.

In a chapter on domestic labour, A Woman’s Place, Ford shows how gendered division of housework and childcare informs assumptions about adult roles. In a claim that will no doubt be quoted by many “Angry Internet Men” (as Ford refers to them), she proposes that heterosexual women are better placed living alone and inviting men “into our houses as guests occasionally”.

Her point is not that there is no pleasure to be had for a woman cohabiting with a man. Instead she highlights that managing “the gendered conditions of domestic labour … takes a fuckton of work”. This work happens regardless of whether women are consistently fighting for help with washing the dishes or changing nappies, or have begrudgingly accepted that the unending cycle of housework is their burden to shoulder.

Read more: Friday essay: talking, writing and fighting like girls

Short of raising a child in the wilderness, far from an internet connection, television signal or cinema complex, children are inducted into gender norms by the popular culture they consume. In her chapter about Girls of Film, Ford reflects on the experience of a 1980s childhood in which the blockbuster films for young people all required girl viewers to imagine themselves in the place of active male heroes.

Unlike girls, boys are not conditioned to identify with girls and women on screen. This, Ford argues, results in the marginalisation of stories about girls, which “are considered niche and peripheral, in the same way stories about people of colour or stories about disability or queerness are”.

We only have to look to the dramatic online overreaction to the news of a female-lead Ghostbusters reboot, which resulted in the stars of the film receiving sexist and racist abuse. This suggests that many men’s inability to see value in “stories about anything other than themselves” is entwined with the devaluation of women themselves.

Inevitably, Ford must consider the men who lead these online crusades against the imagined oppression of men. She devotes significant attention to Milo Yiannopoulos, who has become a figurehead of the men’s rights movement. When Leslie Jones, the African-American actress who starred in Ghostbusters, shared some of the abuse she received at the hands of Yiannopoulos and his followers, he accused her of “playing the victim”.

And yet, as Ford identifies, Yiannopoulos resorted to framing himself as a victim when his Twitter account was removed in 2016. In a telling assessment, Ford argues that these men are not united in their “iron-clad fortitude but by extreme fragility, and this is what bonds them together beneath men like Yiannopoulous”.

Read more: #MeToo is not enough: it has yet to shift the power imbalances that would bring about gender equality

One of the most frustrating modern retorts to any attempt to discuss gendered violence, discrimination and outright sexism is that “#NotAllMen” are responsible for these acts and attitudes. However, as Ford cuttingly observes, women do not need a directive to “look for the goodness in men, because we try our damnedest to find it every day”.

Women already know that not all men are guilty of the brutal sexual assaults, for instance, that Ford details in her interrogation of rape culture. The difference for women is that “we know that any man could be [a threat]”. The magnitude of living with such a gendered power imbalance impacts every woman’s thoughts and movements.

While Ford writes with great humour about the abuse she has received and anti-feminist rhetoric more generally, the overwhelming gravity of a world overcome by toxic masculinity permeates this book.

Margaret Atwood’s famous comment that men are afraid that women will laugh at them, while women are afraid that men will kill them, is no more painfully examined than in discussion of the brutal rape and murder of Aboriginal woman Lynette Daley. One of the killers, in his explanation of events to police, stated: “These things happen … girls will be girls, boys will be boys.”

As Ford rallies us to understand, being a boy need not pose a danger to women nor encompass the harms that patriarchy enacts on men, such as increased risk of suicide or the impact of violence.

With an epilogue comprised of a loving letter to her young son, Ford asks us to imagine a different definition of boyhood, in which being sensitive, soft, kind, gentle, respectful, accountable, expressive, loving and nurturing are no longer framed as incompatible with being a man.