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The Adani megamine has been given most of the approvals it needs. With both major parties refusing to stop the project, we must keep pushing until we #StopAdani and win a clean energy, safe future.

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The Adani megamine has been given most of the approvals it needs. With both major parties refusing to stop the project, we must keep pushing until we #StopAdani and win a clean energy, safe future.

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Aboriginal People Respond To “Australia Day”

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Waste disposal and recycling in Australia 

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Waste disposal and recycling in Australia 

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ABC iview : War On Waste Stories - Series 1 Ep 3: Plastic Bag Tracking

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War On Waste Stories - Series 1 Ep 3: Plastic Bag Tracking : Craig follows another GPS tracked recycled plastic bag straight to answers from a major retailer.

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Waste disposal and recycling in Australia 

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Waste disposal and recycling in Australia 

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The warehouse in Melbourne's outer north was supposed to be filled with scrap metal and broken glass, overflow storage for a nearby recycling business.

It wasn't until the company collapsed into insolvency six months later, that the warehouse doors were opened to reveal a potential health and environmental disaster on Melbourne's suburban fringe: pallets of steel drums and plastic tubs, stacked to the ceiling, filled with mercury, contaminated powders, leaking batteries, and suspected X-ray machine parts. Almost 800 containers of highly toxic material, abandoned by a company that no longer operated.

Is NSW a major bushfire risk this summer?

EPA officers with abandoned steel drums containing toxic material found in a warehouse in the northern Melbourne suburb of Campbellfield. Photo: Supplied

Melbourne's waste and recycling industry is rife with shady deals and shocking environmental damage - infiltrated by cowboy operators and organised-crime figures attracted by easy money and lax enforcement of regulations.

In most cases, landlords or local councils are forced to clean up the mess.

The Campbellfield site was occupied by CMA Ecocycle, which was placed into insolvency but is now owned by an unrelated business that uses the same name. The new owners voluntarily helped cover the cost of recycling the mercury in the warehouse, which reduced the estimated clean-up bill from more than $1 million.

"CMA was a well-known operator in the area, so we didn't think we'd have any problems," said Lili Sandiford, a member of the family that owns the warehouse.

"The Environmental Protection Agency says we were responsible because it's our land. The whole thing has turned into a nightmare," said Ms Sandiford, who was forced to pay the $330,000 cost of removal and remediation.

The Campbellfield drums were filled with mercury, contaminated powders, leaking batteries and suspected X-ray machine parts. Photo: Supplied

Grant Musgrove, chief executive of the Australian Council of Recycling, says waste management has long attracted unscrupulous operators since the mafia imposed itself on the industry in Chicago and New York in the 1960s.

"People make waste go away and charge a fee for it. It's a very profitable business model," Mr Musgrove said. "It's a well-established business model for organised crime."

This has led to industrial estates and vacant land in the city's outer suburbs and in rural areas becoming illegal dumping grounds.

Warehouses have been filled to the rafters with toxic rubbish; properties the size of the MCG are piled with tens of thousands of tonnes of building debris; factories and fields store toxic waste such asasbestos.

The EPA says council areas such as Hume, Brimbank, Wyndham and Manningham are favoured "hotspots" for the illegal dumping of construction and demolition waste.

Among skip-bin operators, dumping is so widespread the EPA now simply warns the public to beware of companies that offer suspiciously cheap prices.

"You only have to catch the train up to Bendigo and you can see it, all the waste that's been dumped off the back of a trailer," said Andrew Tytherleigh, executive officer at the Victorian Waste Management Association.

"Over the years there's been anecdotal evidence that a group of them operate outside of the law - they are the mice and rats of the industry."

How illegal dumping turns a profit

The scam is simple, lucrative and extremely difficult to stop.

Cowboy operators offer services for skip-bins, disposal, sorting or recycling at below-market rates, undercutting the cost of legitimate and licensed businesses.

The waste is stockpiled or dumped on rented properties or public land in the outer suburbs or regional areas.

"The operator can disappear, but the landowner can't. So they are often left holding the baby," says one council waste officer.

And, given the heavy commercial and industrial activity in these kind of commercial areas, it doesn't have to be done in the dead of night.

Last year, after word spread that a new "recycling centre" had opened in Thomastown offering discount rates, heavy trucks loaded with debris from building sites began arriving from around the city.

An abandoned warehouse in Thomastown that is completely full of rubbish. Photo: Joe Armao

But very little of the material that went into the facility leased by Moon Transport ever came out.

"It was a seven-day-a-week operation," said the landlord, who asked not to be named. "It was very fast, very professionally done."

In just three months, the operators had allegedly stockpiled an estimated 30,000 tonnes of rubbish, bulldozing it into massive mounds on the sprawling industrial property, as well as filling an on-site warehouse and a series of shipping containers.

"If I hadn't seen what was happening and stopped them myself, the entire place would have been filled," the landlord said.

Moon Transport manager Ibrahim Ibrahim disputes this account, saying he was not given an opportunity to properly set up the business before he was locked out in early 2016.

"You have to have a lot of quantity to cover the cost. Of course we're dumping a lot of material. After we [would] rent the machine [to sort the waste]," Mr Ibrahim said. "One hundred per cent it was a misunderstanding."

Mr Ibrahim, who has operated a string of waste-related companies, has also been linked to potential dump sites elsewhere in Melbourne and Geelong, although he said incidents on those properties were also due to a misunderstanding with the landlord or misconduct by other parties.

Vasileios Koloutsos is working to clean up the dumped rubbish left on the private property in Thomastown. Photo: Joe Armao

Moon Transport, which is registered in the name of Mr Ibrahim's brother Mahmoud, was used to lease the Thomastown site because Mr Ibrahim's previous waste business was forced into insolvency with debts of nearly $350,000 shortly before he opened the new operation.

The clean-up at the Thomastown property, which involves machine-sorting all the rubbish and collecting any valuable materials for sale, is expected to cost the landlord at least $500,000. If the waste was taken directly to a licensed tip, the bill would likely be more than $2 million.

"What can you do? I'm not allowed to leave it like this. I have to clean it up, then go to court and try to get the money back from Moon Transport," the landlord said.

But taking legal or compliance action requires that there is a business entity that can be pursued by landowners, the council or the EPA.

Many operators dump and run, only to emerge under a new business name elsewhere.

The process is known as "phoenixing" - the corporate entity responsible is abandoned along with the contaminated site, while the operators go on to register a new business that opens at a new location. It makes enforcing fines and clean-up notices extremely difficult.

"Phoenixing is one of the oldest business models," ACOR's Grant Musgrove said.

Bill Patten on land he leased to a Melbourne company he says dumped asbestos-riddled rubbish and walked away. Photo: Justin McManus

One alleged victim is Bill Patten, who leased his Ardeer property to Dirty Harry's bin hire in 2014. The company dumped about 8000 cubic metres of asbestos-riddled rubbish on his property and promptly walked away, he said.

The company had been prosecuted in the courts, Mr Patten said, and multiple clean-up orders had also been issued by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and the EPA.

But the director had quickly shut the company down and reopened under a different name, avoiding having to clean up the dump.

"I believe that the worst possible outcome may well become reality, and I will then be held personally responsible for removing the rubbish and asbestos from the property - which I have had costed at an estimated $2 million dollars," Mr Patten said.

Organised crime

The involvement of organised crime groups is an open secret in the waste industry, insiders and experts say.

"It's a well-established business model for organised crime," the Australian Council of Recycling's Grant Musgrove said.

A Middle Eastern crime gang has been dumping asbestos in warehouses and factories in Mill Park, Doreen and Campbellfield for more than two years. Much of the toxic waste comes from its contacts in the construction and demolition industries.

The owner of a large warehouse was recently threatened by the gang, after discovering thousands of used tyres had been dumped on his property and warning he would make a report to the EPA.

Another notorious operator in regional Victoria was planning to fill a trench with asbestos, seal it with earth and conceal it under a stack of commercial waste on rented land, but abandoned the scheme in the midst of a council investigation into his facility.

Last week, Fairfax Media revealed a dispute over control of a northern suburbs rubbish tip had escalated into a physical altercation between two shady figures involved in the deal.

Former biochemist and convicted drug trafficker Shane Charter represented a syndicate buying the Bulla Tip and Quarry from its current owners, who have close links to the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang.

The transaction was complicated by the involvement of gangland figure Fedele D'Amico, who placed a caveat over the property in a bid to thwart the sale.

At a recent meeting at the Bulla Hungry Jacks franchise, attempts to mediate the dispute failed dramatically when Mr D'Amico attacked Mr Charter with a chair.

Bulla Tip and Quarry had previously attracted the scrutiny of EPA officers, when video emerged of asbestos being broken up by an excavator.

In 2015, the EPA uncovered "irregularities in licence approval" at the Bulla tip, which prompted an independent review into landfill licences across the state.

Whose responsibility?

Victoria's waste management framework is extremely complex, with responsibilities split between the EPA and local government.

Typically, the authority deals with high-level waste and waste that poses an imminent threat to the environment. Councils are generally responsible for rubbish that does not pose an environmental risk.

"The system is very complicated and convoluted," EPA chief executive Nial Finegan said.

But ultimately, Mr Finegan is keen to stress, responsibility for what happens on a site goes back to the landowner.

"Under the act, the polluter is responsible. Failing that it falls to the landlord.

"My advice to property owners and the like is they do their due diligence. They have an obligation and a responsibility as to how their property is being used.

"The community should not pick up the bill to clean up your land. Why should the taxpayer pick it up when the person has received a commercial benefit?"

The EPA has received funding from the state government for an Illegal Dumping Strikeforce program, which includes the use of drones to inspect suspected dump sites. In the 2015-16 financial year, the agency inspected 233 suspected sites and issued 98 remedial (or clean-up) notices and 24 penalty infringement notices.

Yet the system is failing to keep up with the problem, judging by the number of illegal dump sites still operating or abandoned around the state.

Brimbank council mayor John Hedditch believes at least 50 illegal dumps are dotted about his shire alone. "It's been a really big problem for us over the years and it continues to be," he said.

The council received about 3500 reports of littering and illegal dumping last year, and spends about $700,000 annually cleaning up the mess.

The ruins of Carlton's illegally demolished Corkman Irish Pub, including asbestos, were found dumped at a construction site in Brimbank owned by the same developer.

"We want legislation strengthened so the book can be thrown at these rogue operators," Cr Hedditch said.

Do you know more? Contact chouston@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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Illegal dumping is swamping Victoria's waste industry

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The warehouse in Melbourne's outer north was supposed to be filled with scrap metal and broken glass, overflow storage for a nearby recycling business. It wasn't until the company collapsed into insolvency six months later, that the warehouse doors were opened to reveal a potential health and environmental disaster on Melbourne's suburban fringe: pallets of steel drums and plastic tubs, stacked to the ceiling, filled with mercury, contaminated powders, leaking batteries, and suspected X-ray machine parts.

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http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/1239528/putting-a-cap-on-bottled-water

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/inventions-that-clean-the-ocean_us_5938be94e4b0b13f2c66ee01

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Climate Change 101 with Bill Nye | National Geographic

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Emma Gonzalez questions NRA spokeswoman | CNN Politics

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At a CNN town hall following the Parkland school shooting, survivor Emma Gonzalez presses National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch on the NRA’s stance on banning the purchase of semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons.

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After a student gunned down 10 people Friday at a high school in suburban Houston, some Texas elected officials are resurrecting the idea, which has been floated by President Trump and debated across the country since the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February.

But in state after state, the proposal so far has largely failed to gain traction.

In the three months since Parkland, 14 states have proposed 25 bills or resolutions related to arming school personnel, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only one of these measures has been voted into law -- in Florida, where lawmakers in March passed a bill which arms some teachers if both the local school district and local sheriff's department agree.

A spokeswoman for the nation's largest teachers union says it's no surprise these legislative efforts are failing.

"The overwhelming majority of teachers oppose being armed," said Mary Kusler, senior director for the National Education Association's Center for Advocacy. "Teachers want to be in their classrooms to teach their children ... it is incredibly hard to do that when you're packing heat."

The NEA polled 1,000 of its members in March and found that 82% said they would not carry a firearm in school.

Among teachers who owned guns, 63% opposed being armed in the classroom, and almost two-thirds of teachers polled said they would feel less safe if they and other school personnel were allowed to carry guns.

Teachers have lobbied against these bills in state legislatures, effectively killing lawmakers' appetite for the measures, Kusler said.

"It's not the answer," she told CNN. "It's not the way we are actually going to keep kids safe."

Locals are taking matters in their own hands

Some local officials disagree. In several states, including Texas, counties aren't waiting for state lawmakers to act.

The school board in Fannin County, Georgia, voted unanimously this month to arm teachers who volunteer to carry guns, provided they've been approved by the board and the county sheriff.

A school district in Wyoming last month passed a similar measure, provided the teachers get at least 18 hours of firearms training

And in one school district in North Texas, educators have had firearms on campus for years. About four years ago the Callisburg Independent School District launched a "guardian" program -- a small force of volunteer school staff allowed to carry a concealed firearm on school grounds. "We'll do whatever's necessary to protect our kids and staff," school superintendent Steve Clugston told CNN.

Florida lawmakers passed a school-safety bill less than a month after 17 people were fatally shot February 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In addition to allowing some teachers to carry firearms, it also set aside millions of dollars for enhanced school security, mental health assistance in schools and some modest gun control measures.

What happens next

Most state legislatures have wrapped their sessions for 2018, and it's not clear how the Santa Fe attack will impact any future efforts to arm schoolteachers.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has planned a series of roundtable discussions this week that will bring together lawmakers and community members to begin work on "swift solutions to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again."

"We have to arm our teachers. ... If another person has a gun, the best way to stop that person is with another person with a gun," Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Sunday.

Asked what school-security measures the NEA would like to see, Kusler mentioned stricter gun control and more funding for school counselors to help keep troubled students from becoming disengaged and alienated.

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14 states have introduced 25 measures to arm teachers and staff. only 1 has passed - cnn

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Since Parkland, 14 states have introduced 25 measures to arm teachers and staff. Only 1 has passed

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After a student gunned down 10 people Friday at a high school in suburban Houston, some Texas elected officials are resurrecting the idea, which has been floated by President Trump and debated across the country since the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February.

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Chilling animation: Parkland shooter's movements in school

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11-year-old says 'never again for those girls too'

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Updated February 01, 2018 14:01:49

On January 26, 1788, the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales.

On the anniversary of this event every year, we get a public holiday to celebrate the country's national day.

There are calls to change the date of Australia Day to make it a celebration that is inclusive of the people who lived here before those ships arrived.

For Indigenous Australians, the historic date of January 26 was the day when their land was no longer only theirs and in the years since there have been several calls to stop marking the day with celebration but with "mourning and protest".

There are, of course, arguments against a change.

Last year, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said: "We recognise the complexities and the challenges of our history. But on Australia Day, we recognise the greatness of our achievement as Australians."
Either way, these are some of the alternative dates being discussed.
January 1

This one comes from historian and writer Aron Paul, who penned his thoughts for the ABC this week.
Why?
Paul Argues that January 1 is the most fitting date because it's the day the Commonwealth of Australia came into being in 1901.

"The founding document - a piece of paper signed by the hand of Queen Victoria - sits as evidence of this fact in the federal parliament. To pretend otherwise is to deny history," he says.

"The Commonwealth is still not perfect, but on that New Year's Day, Australians joined their destinies together."
The Problems?
New Year's Day is already a holiday, leaving the question of when another public holiday would be slotted into the calendar.

January 28

This is the date the City of Fremantle council chose to use this year after it scrapped Australia Day celebrations last year
Why?
It keeps the date in January, but moves it away from the 26th.

This year the council chose to hold what it called One Day on January 28, a "culturally inclusive" celebration which this year includes a concert from Kate Miller-Heidke, DJ Kevin Parker of Tame Impala and Arnhem Land hip-hop artist Baker Boy.

March 12

This date would broaden a day already celebrated in the Australian Capital Territory.
Why?
On this date in 1913, Canberra was officially named and Australia's capital city was born.

The ACT celebrates Canberra Day on the second Monday of March every year - often falling on or close to March 12.

May 9

Fairfax's national affairs editor Mary Kenny made the case for this date in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Why?
Kenny:

"The same day in 1901 when we became a self-governing federation; again in 1927, when the Parliament shifted to Canberra (from Melbourne); and finally, in the bicentennial year of 1988, when the current Parliament House was opened."

"What better way to celebrate the great milestones of nationhood than its formalisation as an institutional democracy empowered to make its own national laws under its own constitution?"

The Problems?
May 9 often falls on the second Sunday of the month/that date none of us should forget/Mother's Day.

May 27

This date has a prominent backer in broadcast Eddie McGuire.
Why?
On May 27, 1967, Australia held a referendum to include Indigenous Australians in the census count and to give Federal Parliament the power to specifically legislate for them.

Almost 91 per cent of Australians voted Yes, with every state voting heavily in favour of the changes.

It also kicks off National Reconciliation Week every year.

Some other ideas:

Topics: government-and-politics, national-days, community-and-society, australia

First posted January 25, 2018 11:04:34

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Vote: If Australia Day was moved, which other date would you prefer?

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Updated February 01, 2018 14:01:49 On January 26, 1788, the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales. On the anniversary of this event every year, we get a public holiday to celebrate the country's national day.

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According to the Australia Day website:

"The tradition of having Australia Day as a national holiday on 26 January is a recent one. Not until 1935 did all the Australian states and territories use that name to mark that date. Not until 1994 did they begin to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on that date."

That means that the Day of Mourning (1938) is only 3 years younger than 'Australia Day' as we know it today, and everyone having Australia Day on the 26th of January has happened notably less times than I have celebrated my birthday.

It's worth noting that it was on the third ever national 'Australia Day' that a notable Indigenous protest was created. A protest that has never dissipated in the decades that followed. The most media attention that these protests ever gained was in 1988, the infamous Bicentennial, where the phrase 'White Australia has a Black History" entered our collective consciousness, but they have always been there in one form or another, whether they are noticed by media or not. Though it has been a staple of Australian media in recent decades to run a few stories acknowledging the existence of Indigenous people protesting Australia Day in one form or another (this year it was the Lamb ad and the Aussiebum undies ordeal - so far), but that's about it.

Even in 1938, on the first Day of Mourning, Australia Day was referred to as the "anniversary of the whitemen's seizure of our country", and nothing about that sentiment has really changed that much in the decades that followed. It is the plain and simple truth of what the 26th of January represents, regardless of how you phrase it.

Before then, in the lead to the 1888 celebrations, Henry Parkes the premier of NSW at the time was asked if he was planning anything for Aboriginal people on Australia, to which he simply retorted, ' And remind them that we have robbed them? '. He knew that Australia Day was not a celebratory day from an Aboriginal perspective, and did not bother with the pretense that it ever could be.

It is not just Indigenous people who have a long history of opposition to this date. Given how NSW centric the day has historically been, most other states and territories also had a long history of opposition to it being the day that we celebrate Australia.

The Australia Day website also claims that "On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what's great about Australia and being Australian." What's so great about the 26th of January that it would make us "come together as a nation"? What about that day says "what's great about Australia and being Australia"?

If we want to see Australia as a colonial outpost for the British then maybe that day makes sense, but if we want to regard Australia as a 'vibrant multicultural nation', and if we want to regard Indigenous peoples as a core part of the modern Australian identity then it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have Australia Day on that date.

A common alternative that people suggest is Federation which will never happen, mostly because it is on the 1st of January, but even if it wasn't is that really a day that would inspire us all want to 'come together as a nation'? The first act that was passed after Federation was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, commonly referred to as the White Australia Policy.

Wouldn't the day that Australia abolished this act and, on paper at least, welcomed non-white migrants into Australia make more sense as a day to celebrate 'what is great about Australia and being Australian'. Wouldn't that send a better message to everyone that Australia Day is a day intended for ALL Australians to celebrate?

Australia has only had 21 years of holding Australia Day on the 26th of January, surely that isn't too many years to acknowledge that it was a poor choice and move it to a better day.

Most people don't even care about that actual date, they just want a day off work, or to have a few drinks, or to have a barbecue, or whatever it is that people do. None of those things can only be done on the 26th of January, and if it was on any other day then maybe more Indigenous people would feel like celebrating with the rest of the nation.

The 26th of January is a day that will always live in infamy. It is not that a date that will ever be forgotten. It will always be Invasion Day, Survival Day, a Day of Mourning. It will always be the day that the First (not really) Fleet came to Australia. It will always be a day of protest for as long as there are things that need to be protested against.

The unfortunate reality for the Australia Day Council, and for the rest of the nation, is that this isn't an issue that is ever going to go away. The only way to aspire towards a day where we can 'come together as a nation' is to change the date. There is literally no other way.

Even then, it won't make it a perfect day where we will all hold hands and sing "We are the voice", but at least you could make a decent case for the idea that it is a day created for such a lofty purpose as 'celebrating what is great about Australia and being Australian.'

Changing the date would show that we have aspirations for this country to become greater than it is. Our treatment of Indigenous peoples, of asylum seekers, of the homeless, of the unemployed, of women, of veterans, of pensioners (the list goes on and on) is not great. It is not something that is worth celebrating, and there is nothing about the arrival of the First Fleet that gives pause to reflect on what it would take to become great. Maybe that is why the day is filled with little more than jingoistic flag waving and mass consumption of alcohol, to distract us from the fact that we aren't as great a country as some would otherwise like to think.

Maybe then we might see people who aren't fascists and racists declaring themselves 'patriots'.

This is a critical time in Australian history. It is a time when we are seeing rights and freedoms for all except the wealthiest Australians (and foreign companies) removed. We are seeing the modest improvements in Indigenous rights eroded and dismantled. To change this we need a lot more than just changing the date of Australia Day, but to change this we might need a catalyst. Not a symbolic gesture of empty emotions, but an evocative and confrontational (for some) wake up call. A catalyst for debate, an opportunity for change. A catalyst that will make us pause, reflect upon, and discuss what sort of country we have been, where we are today, and where we want to be in the future.

There is no greater opportunity for that conversation than one simple question: What date should Australia Day be held on?

The answer will tell us all we need to know about how 'great a country Australia is'.

Read more about why we need to change the date of Australia Day:
Keeping politics out of Australia Day
What is Australia Day for?
On this Invasion Day, I am angry. Australia has a long way to go
Just Another Australia Day Post Hoping To Make You Feel All The Feels.

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Why we need to change the date of Australia Day

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According to the Australia Day website: "The tradition of having Australia Day as a national holiday on 26 January is a recent one. Not until 1935 did all the Australian states and territories use that name to mark that date. Not until 1994 did they begin to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on that date."

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change the date? the arguments for and against australia day - cnn

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Change the date? The arguments for and against Australia Day

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The day before Australia celebrated its national day Friday, a statue of British explorer James Cook in Melbourne was vandalized, covered with pink paint and the words "No pride."

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TONY Abbott has argued the events of January 26, 1788, were a "good thing" for Aboriginal people.

The former prime minister defended his view that the controversial date - which marked the beginning of British settlement and kicked off a massacre of indigenous people - was the best date to mark Australia's national day in a radio interview on Monday morning.

"What happened on the 26th of January, 1788, was on balance, for everyone, Aboriginal people included, a good thing," Mr Abbott told 2GB host Ray Hadley.

"It brought Western civilisation to this country. It brought Australia into the modern world."

While a campaign is under way to have Australia Day shifted from the anniversary of the First Fleet's arrival, which many Aboriginal people have come to refer to as "Invasion Day", Mr Abbott has become a vocal supporter of keeping things as they are.

"It's very rarely a one-way street, so to speak, but if you look at the Australian achievement over the last couple of centuries, it is overwhelmingly a positive story, and increasingly it's a positive story for indigenous Australians as well," he said.

Mr Abbott's comments followed his robust defence of Australia Day published in The Australian on Monday in which the Liberal backbencher argued the benefits of British settlement to all Australians.

"It's hard to imagine a better Australia in the absence of the Western civilisation that began here from that date," he wrote. "The rule of law, equality of the sexes, scientific curiosity, technological progress, responsible government - plus the constant self-criticism and lust for improvement that makes us so self-conscious of our collective failings towards Aboriginal people - all date from then; and may not have been present to anything like the same extent had the settlers fanning out from Sydney Cove been other than British."

Mr Abbott suggested all Australians "grow up and treat Australia Day as a good time to reflect on how far we've come as country and, for those in public life, how far we've yet to go".

"There are 364 other days of the year when we can wear a black armband and strive to overcome our national failures," he wrote.

Mr Abbott has become a leading voice against the push to change the date of Australia Day as support for it increases.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale earlier this month launched the party's campaign to change the date and Greens councillors across the country have begun local campaigns.

After reading Mr Abbott's defence of the date on Monday, Senator Di Natale suggested another occasion was worthy of national celebration.

"If we want a national holiday to unite the country, let's celebrate the day he retires," he tweeted.

A survey by The Australia Institute last week revealed that only 38 per cent of people knew what January 26 commemorated, and 58 per cent said they didn't mind when Australia Day was held.

Neither Labor nor the government endorse a date change.

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Tony Abbott says January 26 was 'a good thing' for Aboriginal people

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TONY Abbott has argued the events of January 26, 1788, were a "good thing" for Aboriginal people. The former prime minister defended his view that the controversial date - which marked the beginning of British settlement and kicked off a massacre of indigenous people - was the best date to mark Australia's national day in a radio interview on Monday morning.

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These talented young women performed a chilling spoken word poem on America's gun violence crisis...

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Welcome to English for Media Literacy, a course created by the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. To enroll in this course for free, click on "Enroll now" and then select "Full Course. No certificate." This course is designed for non-native English speakers who are interested in learning more about U.S. media literacy. In this course, you will explore different types of mass media, such as newspapers, magazines, television, and social media. This course will also give you the opportunity to develop a broader understanding of the role media plays in our lives, while building your vocabulary and giving you the language skills needed to analyze what you read and watch. The first unit in this course will provide an introduction to media literacy and give you an opportunity to evaluate your own media literacy level. In unit 2, you will learn how to identify facts versus opinions in the media. The next unit in the course will focus on the differences between social media and traditional media, while unit 4 will look at how gender and identity are covered in the media. In the final unit of the course, you will demonstrate your increased media literacy by through a culminating final project on social media. Development of this course was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Office of English Language Programs. Unless otherwise noted, all course materials are available for re-use, repurposing and free distribution under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license.

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Race and Ethnicity in the Media - Diversity and the Media | Coursera

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"African youth gangs" all over the news? It must be an election year.

Footy, kangaroos, meat pies and shameless displays of racist fear mongering in an election year - ah, the quintessential Aussie experience.

Over the past week the Australian media has been losing it over a supposed gang crime wave orchestrated by "African youth". The Herald Sun has been running front page story after front page story calling on the state Labor government to take stronger action against "out-of-control African teens" and The Age has called for a "whole of government response" to "African gangs".

Victoria has an unprecedented crime crisis. Daniel Andrews and Labor will never solve it, only a change of government will. #MakeVictoriaSafe pic.twitter.com/zIcf6P6ME6

- Matthew Guy MP (@MatthewGuyMP) January 1, 2018

While the media has whipped itself, politicians on all sides, and no doubt a decent chunk of the public, up into a frenzy the Victorian Police have actually been begging everyone to stop using the term "gang" because it doesn't accurately represent the nature of the problem, and could actually make things worse.

To get to the crux of what's really going on here it's important to understand two things. Firstly, Victoria is having a state election later this year, and secondly, if there's one thing conservatives love doing in an election year it's breaking the emergency glass and pushing the giant red button labelled "race".

Before we get into the politics of the situation, it's worth taking a sober look at the crime stats to see if we can figure out what everyone is getting worked up about.

Over in The Guardian, Calla Wahlquist has pointed out that the overall crime rate has dropped in Victoria in the past 12 months, as has the proportion of crimes being committed by people under the age of 25. So on first glance, there's not much evidence to suggest any kind of youth gang crisis.

Sudanese Australians, who are the cohort the media is generally referring to when they talk about "Africans" in this context, make up about 1.5 percent of Victorian criminal offenders. While that technically means that community is overrepresented in crime figures (they make up 0.1 percent of the population), again the raw numbers don't seem to align with the intense media and political response to the so-called crisis.

There are a bunch of factors that help explain the overrepresentation of Sudanese Australians in the criminal justice system, including poverty and a lack of job and education opportunities, but the number of offences being committed doesn't explain all the attention the issue is receiving.

The current flare up is reminiscent of the Apex gang stories throughout 2016 and 2017. According to the media, in particular the Herald Sun, the alleged gang was made up of young Sudanese men and responsible for a raft of brawls, riots and petty crimes across Melbourne.

The Herald Sun continued to report on gang last year even though police said back in April the group was a "non-entity" and was never predominately made up of people with African backgrounds.

So we've got a pretty well-established pattern where sections of the media are willing to ignore crime stats as well as the police in order to construct a narrative about alleged migrant crime. All that's missing are a few politicians willing to escalate racial tension in order to snare a few extra votes. Thankfully, since this is Australia, we didn't have to wait long.

Back in the mid-1990s former Prime Minister John Howard was regularly accused of "dog whistling". It's a political metaphor used to describe policies and rhetoric that use coded language to tap into the anxieties and fears of a particular subset of voters. Howard deployed these kinds of tactics regularly, especially on issues of race and immigration.

The thing about dog whistling is that you aren't supposed to say "I think black people are criminals and we should jail them all". That kind of gives the game away. Instead you talk about stuff like the need for "strong borders to protect Australia's integrity". Sounds more reasonable, but you're basically saying "Fuck off, we're full".

On New Year's Day the federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, said that "African gang crime" was "out of control" and blamed Premier Daniel Andrews. Now that's less a dog whistle and like that enormous speaker from Back to the Future Marty blows up at the beginning of the film.

Sure enough, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull followed suit and similarly blamed the apparent rise in gang crime on the Victorian government. The federal government even threw its support behind the Victorian opposition's plan for tougher sentencing laws, just in case you weren't clear enough that this extremely obvious intervention was about damaging the state Labor government in an election year.

The insidious thing about this kind of craven political campaigning is that the details and facts don't matter. The conservatives think that as soon as the topic shifts to law and order, as opposed to things like health and education policy, they win. When both sides start talking about getting "tough on crime", the thinking is that voters will drift towards the Liberals, because they trust them to be "tougher" more than they trust Labor. The trick for Labor is try and avoid fighting on this confected law and order turf in the first place.

Unfortunately, it looks like they've fallen into the trap. Labor's federal deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, accused Hunt and Turnbull of being all talk and no action, and slammed them for cutting funding to the Australian Federal Police.

.@tanya_plibersek says if the government was concerned about gang crime, it would not have cut the Federal Police's budget. MORE: https://t.co/dxbaStgIGu pic.twitter.com/enTapWFIuy

- Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) January 2, 2018

Victorian Labor MPs have also been anonymously backgrounding the Herald Sun, criticising Andrews for not getting "on top" of the issue earlier.

So far it appears that the Liberal's gambit has paid off. The biggest debate in the country is about an 'African gang crime crisis' that even the police say doesn't exist, and they've managed to get at least some in the Labor party to dance to their tune.

But of course it was going to pay off. It always does. Politicians love using immigrants and Indigenous Australians as punching bags when they're desperate for votes. Look at Abbott's embrace of '"stop the boats" in 2013, or the NT intervention in 2007. Ripping into minorities to try and win elections is part and parcel of our political DNA.

One of the common straw man arguments used by conservatives in this discussion is to accuse people who aren't buying into the narrative of an African gang crime wave of "burying their heads in the sand". The left, they argue, is so desperate to be "politically correct" they won't even condemn crime.

But this isn't about denying the existence of crime. It's about injecting reality in the discussion, and questioning whether a particular community deserves to be demonised for base political reasons, just because a small proportion of that group have been found guilty of committing crimes.

If you're still not convinced this is about race, let's take a look at the nature of the crimes committed by the so-called gangs.

In the past month young Sudanese Australians have been accused of trashing an AirBnB property, assaulting a police officer and taking part in a street brawl. These incidents are essentially the genesis for the current crop of "gang crisis" stories flooding the news. Questioning whether these incidents deserve the the focus of the national media and federal representatives of both major political parties isn't the same as saying "no crimes have been committed", as conservatives try to argue.

Compare the response to these alleged crimes to the way the media covered the huge beach brawl in Sydney on Christmas Day. Three thousand people, predominantly backpackers, gathered on Little Bay beach, broke the law by drinking in an alcohol free zone and scuffled with police who were attempting to break up the party.

Two people were later charged after assaulting police officers and throwing bottles at them. It took the police nearly three hours to clear the area.

The media referred to the largely English backpackers as "Christmas revellers" (if their skin was a different colour I imagine we would have called them "rioters"), no state or federal politicians felt the need to respond, despite the fact thousands of immigrants had broken the law and two police officers had been assaulted, and the story disappeared after one day.

A sustained media and political campaign against the backpackers would have been absurd and ultimately useless, even if the differing reactions point to a hypocrisy in the way Australia talks about crime. But what are the potential consequences of the current campaign against alleged gang crime in Melbourne?

The Victorian opposition, with the support of the federal government, is calling for harsher sentences, stricter bail conditions and more police resources. Hopefully Labor will resist the pressure to take a 'lock them up and throw away the key' approach, and acknowledge that investing in education, employment and poverty reduction is a smarter solution to reducing crime than jailing kids.

After all, surely the only thing worse than desperately flicking the switch to "we're tough on crime" in response to a gang crisis is doing it in response to a gang crisis that doesn't exist.

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The Recent Obsession With "African Gangs" Betrays A Sad Reality About Australian Politics

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"African youth gangs" all over the news? It must be an election year. Footy, kangaroos, meat pies and shameless displays of racist fear mongering in an election year - ah, the quintessential Aussie experience. Over the past week the Australian media has been losing it over a supposed gang crime wave orchestrated by "African youth".

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News is a money making industry. One that doesn't always make the goal to report the facts accurately. Gone are the days of tuning in to be informed straightforwardly about local and national issues. In truth, watching the news can be a psychologically risky pursuit, which could undermine your mental and physical health.

Fear-based news stories prey on the anxieties we all have and then hold us hostage. Being glued to the television, reading the paper or surfing the Internet increases ratings and market shares - but it also raises the probability of depression relapse. In previous decades, the journalistic mission was to report the news as it actually happened, with fairness, balance, and integrity. However, capitalistic motives associated with journalism have forced much of today's television news to look to the spectacular, the stirring, and the controversial as news stories. It's no longer a race to break the story first or get the facts right. Instead, it's to acquire good ratings in order to get advertisers, so that profits soar.

News programming uses a hierarchy if it bleeds, it leads. Fear-based news programming has two aims. The first is to grab the viewer's attention. In the news media, this is called the teaser. The second aim is to persuade the viewer that the solution for reducing the identified fear will be in the news story. If a teaser asks, " What's in your tap water that YOU need to know about?" a viewer will likely tune in to get the up-to-date information to ensure safety. The success of fear-based news relies on presenting dramatic anecdotes in place of scientific evidence, promoting isolated events as trends, depicting categories of people as dangerous and replacing optimism with fatalistic thinking. News conglomerates who want to achieve this use media logic, by tweaking the rhythm, grammar, and presentation format of news stories to elicit the greatest impact. Did you know that some news stations work with consultants who offer fear-based topics that are pre-scripted, outlined with point-of-view shots, and have experts at-the-ready? This practice is known as stunting or just-add-water reporting. Often, these practices present misleading information and promote anxiety in the viewer.

Another pattern in newscasts is that the breaking news story doesn't go beyond a surface level. The need to get-the-story-to-get-the-ratings often causes reporters to bypass thorough fact-checking. As the first story develops to a second level in later reports, the reporter corrects the inaccuracies and missing elements. As the process of fact-finding continually changes, so does the news story. What journalists first reported with intense emotion or sensationalism is no longer accurate. What occurs psychologically for the viewer is a fragmented sense of knowing what's real, which sets off feelings of hopelessness and helplessness - experiences known to worsen depression.

An additional practice that heightens anxiety and depression is the news station's use of the crawl, the scrolling headline ticker that appears at the bottom of the television, communicating "breaking news." Individuals who watch news-based programming are likely to see one, two, or even three crawls scroll across the screen. The multitasking required to read the crawls and comprehend the actual newscast comes easy to some viewers, whereas others report feeling over-stimulated. One could easily change the channel to interrupt the transmission of such information. However, crawls are not relegated to just news channels. Unlike the viewing experience of the past, crawls are now more prominent during entertainment programs and often serve as commercials for nightly newscasts or the upcoming weekly news magazine show. The crawls frequently contain fear-driven material, broad-siding an unsuspecting viewer.

It's been said that fear-based media has become a staple of popular culture. The distressing fall-out from this trend is that children and adults who are exposed to media are more likely than others to

(a) feel that their neighborhoods and communities are unsafe

(b) believe that crime rates are rising

(c) overestimate their odds of becoming a victim, and

(d) consider the world to be a dangerous place.

News media needs to return to a sense of proportion, conscience, and, most important, truth-telling. Until that happens, help inoculate yourself against feeling overwhelmed by doing the following:

Consider limiting your exposure to media. Give yourself a set time once or twice a day to check in on local and global happenings.

Consider choosing print media for your information gathering rather than visual media. This can reduce the likelihood that you get exposed to emotionally laden material. Home pages on the internet can give you an overall sense of what's going on, as can headline news channels that update stories on the hour.

Remember that you have the power to turn off the remote, link out of a website or change the radio station. Don't let yourself be passive when you feel media is overwhelming you.

Know that other people will have a different tolerance for media stories and their details. If someone is expressing too much of a story for your own comfort, walk away or communicate your distress.

Consider having an electronic-free day, and let your senses take in the simpler things in life.

Citations
Altheide, D. (2002). Creating fear: News and the construction of crisis. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Gerbner, G., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1999). Profiling television violence. In K. Nordenstreng & M. Griffin (Eds.), International media monitoring (pp. 335-365). Hillsdale, NJ: Hampton Press.

Glassner, B. (1999). The culture of fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things. New York: Basic Books.

Kovach, B., & Rosenthal, T. (2001). The elements of journalism: What news-people should know and the public should expect. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Serani, D. (2008). If it bleeds, it leads. The clinical implications of fear-based programming in news media. Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, 24(4), 240-250..

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If It Bleeds, It Leads: Understanding Fear-Based Media

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News is a money making industry. One that doesn't always make the goal to report the facts accurately. Gone are the days of tuning in to be informed straightforwardly about local and national issues. In truth, watching the news can be a psychologically risky pursuit, which could undermine your mental and physical health.

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Updated June 15, 2018 15:00:03

This week, a man allegedly raped and murdered a young woman - emerging comedian Eurydice Dixon - as she walked home from a comedy gig. Nineteen-year-old Jaymes Todd has since been charged with one count of murder and one count of rape.

In the wake of yet another tragic - but, importantly, not unavoidable - loss of a woman's life, police predictably advised people to "stay safe" by engaging in a range of "protective" strategies.

The social media response was swift, with the police comments quickly denounced as yet another example of the ways in which we deflect the blame for men's violence back onto women.

So why do we keep telling women to "stay safe", and why is it such a problem?

Women's 'safekeeping' strategies
Walk with your keys between your knuckles, text a friend when you arrive home safely, don't drink too much, keep an eye on your drinks, be aware of your surroundings, don't have headphones in, there's safety in numbers, don't go out after dark, don't dress too "provocatively"...
As decades of feminist research has documented, women, for the most part, already engage in these extensive "safekeeping" routines. Many women have been taught from a young age that they are responsible for avoiding the violence that men perpetrate against us. At best, this makes safety "advice" redundant.

When women don't use these routines, it's often because they are with people they trust or in familiar places, making the use of such routines seem unnecessary.

But unfortunately, as the statistics on violence against women show all too clearly, those we trust are among the most likely to hurt us - feeling safe is unfortunately not the same as being safe. Some women also reject or challenge such "advice" on the basis that it is ineffective and burdensome.

Women also routinely experience harassment and threats in public space that remind us of the possibilities of what could happen - and cases such as the recent incident in Melbourne confirm these.

Indeed, as I walked home that night, I found myself questioning whether I should take my usual route home through the park as the twilight dissipated into darkness, and the usual crowd of joggers slowly thinned out, my world instantly becoming a little smaller:
What if this happens to me? Am I being reckless? If something does happen, will it be my fault?
This highlights the impossible double bind women face in engaging in "safety" routines: if we use them, we restrict our worlds and possibilities. Often, women are positioned as "overreacting" and "hysterical" in relation to their wariness and hyper-vigilance in public places.

Yet, if we don't engage in these routines, we are positioned as being to blame for what happens to us. Fiona Vera-Gray refers to this delicate balancing act as having "the right amount of panic".

While "safety" routines limit women's lives, they are also paradoxical. For example, using these routines made women in my own research feel safe, enabling them to access spaces and engage in activities they perhaps otherwise would not have. They simultaneously contract and expand our possibilities for being.

This presents a more complex picture - although ultimately these routines are an imposition, offering women an impoverished or partial freedom at best.

A sense of control

So, why do women use these routines, and why is this type of "advice" trotted out in the aftermath of such incidents?

One potential answer lies in the fact that using these strategies often fosters a sense of (mostly) false control over our worlds. This is referred to as a "belief in a just world" - that if we do all of the "right" things, bad things won't happen to us (and, if they do, we did not deserve them and were not to blame).

It's also very difficult to know to what extent such routines are effective. Some feminist researchers have argued that "random" acts of violence perpetrated by strangers against women in public places may be comparatively rare, precisely because women are so adept at using safety strategies and avoidance routines. This argument is almost impossible to verify. After all, how do you measure something that hasn't happened?

In other research, women encountered various forms of sexual harassment and violence regardless of whether they had used different safety strategies or not.

Sadly, this was also illustrated in Eurydice Dixon's case. While police encouraged citizens to have a phone on them at all times, Eurydice had herself used this strategy, texting a friend to say that she was almost home safely. This suggests such strategies are limited in effectiveness.

Prevention or avoidance?

Even if some women are able to effectively harness "safety" strategies in some situations, this is not effective as a prevention tool. At best, it could be thought of as victimisation avoidance.

Teaching women to enact safety strategies relies on the inevitable possibility that there is a willing perpetrator out there whom we need to avoid. While safety strategies may allow individuals to avoid or deflect a perpetrator, this may simply displace harm onto a more vulnerable target.

Ultimately, the focus on safekeeping routines are problematic in that they shift responsibility for men's violence back on to women, and distract us from the difficult and long-term conversations and deep-seated cultural, social, and structural changes that need to happen to truly prevent this violence from occurring in the first place.

For what it's worth, I did walk home through the park alone in the end: a small act of feminist resistance in honour of all the women who should have made it home safely.
Bianca Fileborn is a lecturer in criminology at UNSW. This piece was first published at The Conversation.
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, sexual-offences, women, community-and-society, safety-education, melbourne-3000, australia, vic

First posted June 15, 2018 14:44:31

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The impossible double bind women face to stay safe

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Updated June 15, 2018 15:00:03 This week, a man allegedly raped and murdered a young woman - emerging comedian Eurydice Dixon - as she walked home from a comedy gig. Nineteen-year-old Jaymes Todd has since been charged with one count of murder and one count of rape.

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Shortly before midnight on Tuesday Eurydice "Ridi" Dixon texted a friend to say she was almost home.

The comedian had finished a gig at the Highlander Bar in the city and was making her way across Princes Park in Melbourne's north.

Thousands make similar journeys through the popular park every day and night - students from the nearby University of Melbourne, runners, cyclists, commuters heading to and from the city.

A 3am her body was found on the grass of the park's soccer pitch. She had been raped and murdered.

Within 24 hours and following a comprehensive media campaign, 19-year-old Jaymes Todd, a stranger to Dixon, had handed himself in to police and been charged with her murder.

But as people were still laying flowers and notes of tribute in the park, police delivered a message that left many women feeling anger alongside their grief. By Friday the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, was forced to intervene with something of a rebuke to Superintendent David Clayton's comments.

Before Todd's arrest Clayton told reporters that because the park was an area of "high community activity" women needed to aware of who may be around them.

"So just make sure you have situational awareness, that you're aware of your surroundings," Clayton said. "If you've got a mobile phone carry it and if you've got any concerns, call police."

It was a message that Andrews would have found jarring. He made addressing violence against women an election issue before becoming premier in 2014, and his government is in the process of implementing all 227 of the family violence royal commission's recommendations.

The implication that women are in some way responsible for the harm inflicted on them is one his government has fought for almost four years to counteract. As they mourned Dixon, many shared their disbelief on social media that women were still having to deal with comments from police that there was somehow something more they should be doing to keep themselves safe.

"She had a phone," Andrews wrote on Facebook. "She was using it. She was keeping an eye on her surroundings. Looking out for herself. Being responsible. Doing everything we expect.

"But Eurydice did not make it home safe.

"We'll keep asking 'Why was she alone in the dark?' instead of asking 'Why was he?'. We'll keep ignoring the real problem, instead of actually fixing it. So our message to Victorian women is this: Stay home. Or don't.

"Go out with friends at night. Or don't. Go about your day exactly as you intend, on your terms. Because women don't need to change their behaviour. Men do."

It was not the first time police asked women to evaluate their role in the crimes perpetrated against them.

"I suggest to people, particularly females, [that] they shouldn't be alone in parks," Detective Inspector Mick Hughes told ABC radio after the brutal and random murder of 17-year-old schoolgirl Masa Vukotic in 2015. She was killed in broad daylight while she was out walking as part of her usual exercise routine, in a much less busy park than the one Dixon was killed in.

Meshel Laurie (@Meshel_Laurie)
When I was a 22 year old comedian, I constantly walked home alone from gigs in the middle of the night because I couldn't afford tram fare, let alone taxis. Should we allow murderous rapists and poverty to ensure we're locked inside for our entire lives? https://t.co/d7dKoafCKt
June 14, 2018

The CEO of Australia's national organisation to prevent violence against women, Our Watch, said regardless of the circumstances in which women were murdered, these messages from police that women should be more vigilant were disappointing and problematic.

"These recommendations for public safety that only seem to apply to women are a clear symptom of a gender-unequal society," Patty Kinnersly told Guardian Australia.

"Women are already cautious. Telling women to behave more cautiously will not reduce violence against them, but rather will limit their freedom and reinforce the belief that if violence is perpetrated against them, it is their fault."

Women are not always safe when they stay at home.

According to Bureau of Statistics data, of the women who reported being physically assaulted, 92% said the most recent assault was perpetrated by someone she knew. Sixty-five percent of these women said the assault occurred at home.

When they are out, be it during the day or at night, women take an extraordinary number of measures to protect their own safety, numerous surveys show, from carrying pepper spray, ensuring their phone is unlocked and ready to make a call for help, avoiding poorly-lit streets, being mindful of what they wear, or clutching car-keys in their hands ready to use as a weapon.

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Police on patrol near a growing makeshift memorial for Eurydice Dixon at the Princes Park. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

Still, they are harmed and killed, and don't feel safe regardless of whether they walk or take transport. The latest Victorian crime statistics show sexual offences rose 13.4% in the past year.

And a report from the development and humanitarian organisation Plan International published in May that found one-quarter of women surveyed in Sydney said they were harassed on the street once a month or more. Of survey respondents, 92% said they felt unsafe on public transport at night, almost on par with reports from women in developing cities such as Delhi and Lima. And 81% felt unsafe using taxis and ride-sharing services alone at night.

freya 🐊 (@freyalogann)
A lot of women will feel the death of Eurydice Dixon personally, not because we know her but because her murder is the summation of fears we govern our own lives by every single day.
June 14, 2018

Kinnersly said women felt - and often were - unsafe in such a range of environments because their safety had nothing to do with their own actions.

"Violence against women can and will be prevented when we look to its key driver: gender inequality," she said. "To prevent horrific crimes like the rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon, what we, as a society, must do is keep working to address the power imbalances, attitudes and behaviours that lead to violence against women and their children in the first place.

"There is so much good work already being done to challenge the dangerous stereotypes that drive gendered violence, and teach our children about healthy, respectful relationships from a young age. Horrendous crimes like this show us how important it is that we keep working toward a future where women can live without fear of violence."

Comments like Kinnersly's have been echoed by findings from Victoria's royal commission into family violence which had extensive coverage in the media, largely thanks to advocates such as Rosie Batty. A key finding of the commission was that gender inequality and community attitudes underpinned violence perpetrated against women.

And yet when a woman was killed, authorities still sometimes resorted to messages that women should take more personal responsibility, a professor of social work, Cathy Humphreys, said.

"I feel a bit despairing about the police reaction," Humphreys said.

"This is a men's problem and we need men to be stepping up. We need men to be actively supporting respectful relationships and a non-violent agenda.

"It doesn't mean we need more and more police at every park corner. What we need to do is examine why men think any woman walking around is fair game. That's not a policing problem, it's a social problem."

Alex Lee (@alex_c_lee)
My first stand up set when I was the same age as Eurydice Dixon, was about being afraid walking home at night. Making jokes about it was a way to feel slightly empowered instead of small and frightened. Mourning for this young comedian who was entitled to feel safe.
June 14, 2018

Change takes time. In the absence of total equality and as education and respectful relationships programs are rolled out in schools, is it fair enough for police to urge women to keep themselves safe in the aftermath of a brutal crime?

"I don't think so," said Dr Laura Tarzia, of the University of Melbourne's Research Alliance to End Violence against Women and their Children.

Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford)
1. Some thoughts. It was not a lack of 'situational awareness' that ended the life of Eurydice Dixon - it was a person who made a conscious choice to exercise extreme violence against her. #eurydicedixon
June 14, 2018

"Women already know. They're not careless, they're constantly policing their own behaviour and doing all the so-called 'right things'. The message around behaviour needs to be directed at men."
* If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au Topics

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'Men need to change': anger grows over police response to Eurydice Dixon's murder

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Shortly before midnight on Tuesday Eurydice "Ridi" Dixon texted a friend to say she was almost home. The comedian had finished a gig at the Highlander Bar in the city and was making her way across Princes Park in Melbourne's north.

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What are women's human rights?

Women's rights are the fundamental human rights that were enshrined by the United Nations for every human being on the planet nearly 70 years ago. These rights include the right to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination; to be educated; to own property; to vote; and to earn a fair and equal wage.

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The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hold real promise to embed advances in women's rights, and include a specific goal (Goal 5) for gender equality. Goal 5 is more broad-based than the last gender goal and includes targets on ending gender-based violence, eliminating child marriage and female genital mutilation, and ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health. It also includes equal access to education, expanding women's economic opportunities, and reducing the burdens of unpaid care work on women and girls. Now it is up to all of us to hold governments accountable for their commitments and make sure the goals are met. Involving women - and funding the solutions of grass-roots women's groups - will be critical to success.

What does the future of women's rights look like?

The future of global women's rights is at stake. The U.S. administration's proposed cuts to foreign aid and stringent policies-from abortion and refugee resettlement to climate change- pose a direct threat to the health, dignity, and well-being of women and girls everywhere. We must reflect: Will women globally lose hard-won rights, or will the backlash instead catalyze new wins?

This moment calls for energizing new efforts and focus on strengthening women's movements to help lead the charge for social change on the most pressing issues of our time. Global Fund for Women is committed to turning these challenges into opportunities for women to assert their leadership, action, and voice. By 2020, Global Fund for Women will ensure that movements for women's rights are powerful, influential, and achieving lasting gains. Now is the time to stand with the global women's movement.

Global Fund for Women is working for a world where every woman and girl can realize and enjoy her human rights.

Only when women and girls have full access to their rights - from equal pay and land ownership rights to sexual rights, freedom from violence, access to education, and maternal health rights - will true equality exist. Only when women have taken leadership and peacemaking roles and have an equal political voice will economies and countries be transformed. And only then will all women and girls have the self-determination they are entitled to.

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Women's Human Rights and Gender Equality | Global Fund for Women

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Watch Musimbi Kanyoro's new TED Talk What is isirika? Watch Global Fund for Women's President and CEO, Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro's new TED Talk - which was released on International Women's Day - to learn more about her inspiring philosophy of isirika, or equal generosity, as a way to make a greater difference for and with the world's women and girls.

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Should religion be taught in public schools?

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Debate.org is a dynamic social community where you can voice your opinion on today's hottest issues.

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Our religious education system is out-dated and it needs to change. Religious image from www.shutterstock.com

It might come as a surprise to most Australians that our religious education system is not only out-moded but is doing damage to students, families and teachers.

Special Religious Instruction (SRI) is a flawed model of segregated and unprofessional religious education, catering to the interests of religious organisations.

Under the system as it stands, state government schools must allow non-teacher volunteers from religious organisations into classrooms to instruct students on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, valuable class time is disrupted and students who do not participate are often stopped from completing any meaningful learning.

Schools have no option over whether religious instruction is delivered. Principals and school councils must put the wishes of their communities aside and allow religious volunteers into classrooms each week, irrespective of how many students' parents elect for them to participate.

Students are also segregated according to religious belief contributing to stereotyping and suspicion of minorities and risking promoting religious exclusion. This is a system that hardly fosters religious and cultural diversity. Not to mention that it does not honour the central tenet of Australia's democracy - the separation of church and state.

In New South Wales there is an alternative. Primary Ethics is a course taught by volunteers and available to students who "opt out" of SRI. But the course is only available in a fraction of state schools and there have clearly been problems with meeting demand.

While it might seem better than no alternative at all, in fact the Primary Ethics course legitimises the place of religious groups who are intent on proselytising our youngest children.

The exclusive nature of these programmes has also raised concerns that first, students who elect to sit out are being discriminated against and second, that these programs do not adequately meet the needs of a multicultural society, where students should be encouraged to learn about diverse religious and ethical traditions.

In addition, the exclusive nature of many of these programmes risks exacerbating social problems such as prejudice, racism and religious vilification.

Scholars and community members are becoming increasingly uncomfortable that religious groups are able to proselytise our children in classes in what should be a secular education system.

Such activities are prohibited in American schools and the UK shifted away from exclusive Christian education to world religions education in the mid-1970s. Legal opinion here in Australia suggests that the laws as they stand are illegitimate and open to challenge.

The 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians made a clear commitment "to nurture an appreciation of and respect for religious diversity". It is time public education clearly stepped up to that commitment and ended this practice in our state schools.

It's also time to understand that families are in the best position to provide specific religious education. They can guide their children either in the home or through special after school activities or in their own church, synagogue, mosque or temple.

We need to trust families to do the task of looking after the faith education of their own children. If we don't leave it to families and ask public education to become responsible, we forfeit a lot, including the secular nature of public education.

Australian public school students are participating in an outdated model of religious education, which presents children with a singular, and in many cases, an exclusive faith perspective, presented in pedagogically unsound ways.

Access Ministries, which provides 90% of all religious instruction in our public schools is unambiguous about its "mission" for volunteer "teachers" who are " fishing for souls ".

When they say, "Every day of the school year, our teachers are sharing God's love with over 130,000 young Victorians ... helping students explore their lives with meaning and purpose" they do not mean that they want to "educate" children. They mean that they want children to believe in the religious doctrines that they do.

Access Ministries defines its role as "converting" children in a "cross cultural mission", since "without Jesus, our students are lost."

This is wrong and completely at odds with Australian state and federal governments' commitment to promoting a socially inclusive society. This must be changed before too much damage is done to students and to the public education system as a whole.

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Religion should be taught in the home, not at school

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It might come as a surprise to most Australians that our religious education system is not only out-moded but is doing damage to students, families and teachers. Special Religious Instruction (SRI) is a flawed model of segregated and unprofessional religious education, catering to the interests of religious organisations.

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Denmark has banned the wearing of face veils in public, joining France and other European countries in outlawing the burka and the niqab worn by some Muslim women to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values.

Parliament voted on Thursday for the ban proposed by the centre-right Government, which said veils were contrary to Danish values.

Opponents said the ban, which will take effect on August 1, infringed on women's rights to dress as they chose.

Under the law, police can instruct women to remove their veils or order them to leave public areas. Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen said that officers would in practice fine them and tell them "to go home".

Fines would range from 1,000 Danish crowns ($207) for a first offence to 10,000 crowns for a fourth violation.

France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria have all imposed some restrictions on full-face veils in public places.

Explained: the differences between the burka, niqab, hijab, chador and dupatta.(ABC News: Lucy Fahey)

Denmark has struggled for decades with how to integrate non-Western immigrants into its welfare state. Public debate intensified in 2015 with the arrival of large groups of refugees from conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The anti-immigrant Danish People's Party became the second-largest party in an election that year and now supports the coalition Government in Parliament.

Zainab Ibn Hssain, who lives in Copenhagen and has been wearing the niqab for the last year, said: "It's not nice. It will mean that I won't be able to go to school, go to work or go out with my family."

"But I won't take my niqab off so I have to find another solution," the 20-year-old added.

Pape Poulsen, who leads the conservative party in the coalition, has described keeping one's face hidden in public as "incompatible with the values of Danish society or respect for the community".

Ms Ibn Hssain rejected suggestions that wearing the veil symbolised the rejection of Danish values or oppression of women.

"It has nothing to do with integration or that we're oppressed. For me it is a war on Islam," she said.

Human rights group Amnesty International called the ban "a discriminatory violation of women's rights ... all women should be free to dress as they please and to wear clothing that expresses their identity or beliefs".

Ms Ibn Hssain, who said she had been yelled at and spat at in public for wearing the niqab, said she would stay for now in Denmark despite the ban.

"If I leave Denmark the politicians win. I feel what they deep down want is for Muslims to leave Denmark," she said.
Reuters

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Denmark bans wearing of face veils in public to uphold 'Danish values'

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Denmark has banned the wearing of face veils in public, joining France and other European countries in outlawing the burka and the niqab worn by some Muslim women to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values. Parliament voted on Thursday for the ban proposed by the centre-right Government, which said veils were contrary to Danish values.

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Do drones herald a more sanitized and efficient form of war, or do they represent the dystopian reign of uncaring technologies?

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, aka 'drone,' is increasingly the weapon of choice in America's military operations. Many laud its ability to maintain our global power while reducing human and financial costs. By the same token, however, this safe and secretive weapon may in turn cause civilians to disengage ever more from the politics of war. What are the responsibilities of civilians in the face of this 'Revolution in Military Affairs'? And how have drones transformed the face of battles for soldiers themselves? John and Ken ask about war in the age of intelligent machines with Bradley Strawser from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, editor of Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military. Sunday 5/27 at 11 am and Tuesday 5/29 at 12 noon.

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Philosophy Talk: The Ethics of Drone Warfare

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Do drones herald a more sanitized and efficient form of war, or do they represent the dystopian reign of uncaring technologies? The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, aka 'drone,' is increasingly the weapon of choice in America's military operations. Many laud its ability to maintain our global power while reducing human and financial costs.

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The Library began collecting the personal diaries and correspondence of men and women who served in the First World War soon after the Armistice.

The World War I collecting project was initiated by Principal Librarian William Ifould. Ifould's intention was to acquire the original diaries and letters written during the conflict from servicemen and women returning from the War. Ifould wanted to capture the authentic voices of those who served for future generations.

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The Library began collecting the personal diaries and correspondence of men and women who served in the First World War soon after the Armistice was declared in November 1918.

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Malcolm Turnbull has refused to rule out sending more troops to Afghanistan and emphasised the "very, very strong" relationship with the United States in a sign Australia could contribute to Donald Trump's planned surge.

Responding to Trump's announcement on Tuesday that the US would reorient the mission towards "killing terrorists" rather than nation building, the Australian prime minister promised to "work through" any request for an increased troop commitment.

At a doorstop in Tumut on Wednesday, Turnbull repeated the line of Australia's defence ministers that Australia makes one of the most substantial contributions to the coalition effort in Afghanistan and had increased its presence already.

On the changed nature of the mission, Turnbull said that "what the president is doing is showing a resolve to ensure that the terrorists in Afghanistan are not able to regroup and once again ... threaten us from Afghanistan as they did in the past".

On troop numbers, Turnbull said he was "not ruling anything out ... I am not going to speculate on what the additional resources we would bring to bear would be, but as to timeline I think the coalition commitment to Afghanistan would be very long term, as it has been".

Turnbull said "I'm not ruling anything out" and observed that Trump had not yet set out what additional resources the US will commit.

Asked about the Australian defence force's capacity, Turnbull said "it depends how much, and for how long and what other calls on the ADF's resources are present, but again, we will work through [any request], rather than speculate".

"We'll be having close consultation with the US, and the outcome of those may result in additional resources being deployed to Afghanistan but I don't want to speculate on it, we are very very staunch allies ... in the global war to defeat terrorism."

Turnbull has been a staunch supporter of US foreign policy under Trump. In August he committed Australia to be involved in any conflict in the event North Korea attacks the US, earning a sharp rebuke from North Korea that supporting Trump would be "suicidal".

Leaked transcript of a telephone call in January between Turnbull and Trump to discuss the two countries' refugee swap deal revealed that, after thanking Trump for honouring the deal, the Australian prime minister promised to be there "again and again" for him.

Asked on Wednesday about whether it was wise to be "joined at the hip" with the US, Turnbull said: "The US alliance is the bedrock of our national security, we are staunch allies, strong allies, none stauncher or stronger."

On Tuesday the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, signalled that although Labor was not minded to give a blank cheque to Trump it did support Australia's contribution in Afghanistan and would back the government's ultimate decision.

"Australians should know that my track record when it comes to national security and the deployment of ADF has been to work with the government of the day because our ADF expects nothing less from the government and their opposition," he said.
Topics

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Turnbull says Australia may send more troops to Afghanistan under Trump surge

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Malcolm Turnbull has refused to rule out sending more troops to Afghanistan and emphasised the "very, very strong" relationship with the United States in a sign Australia could contribute to Donald Trump's planned surge.

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The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 marked the end of the World War II, and the beginning of the age of nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, the policy of mutually assured destruction between the US and the Soviet Union - appropriately referred to as "MAD" - meant that if one nation used nuclear weapons on another, then an equal response would have been doled out as soon as possible.

Over the course of the Cold War, and several times after it, the citizens of the world were forced to hold their breath as the superpowers came close to nuclear war.

Here are nine times the world was at the brink of nuclear war - but pulled back:

October 5, 1960 - The moon is mistaken for missiles

Early warning radar quickly became one of the most important tools in the nuclear age. American radar stations were built all around the world with the hope that they would detect incoming Soviet missiles, warning the homeland of a strike and allowing for the president to form a response.

On October 5, 1960, one such warning was issued from a newly constructed early warning radar station in Thule, Greenland (now called Qaanaaq). Dozens of missiles were reportedly detected, and at one point were said to reach the US in 20 minutes.

A panic ensued at the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) HQ in Colorado, and NORAD was placed on its highest alert level.

The panic was put to rest when it was realised that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was visiting New York at the time. A later investigation found that the radar had mistaken the moon rising over Norway as Soviet missiles.

November 24, 1961 - A single switch causes a mechanical failure

Just over a year later, Strategic Air Command (SAC) HQ in Omaha, Nebraska lost contact with the Thule radar station. SAC officials then tried to contact NORAD HQ in Colorado, but the line was reportedly dead.

It was determined before that the probability that both Thule and NORAD's communications would shut down due to technical malfunction was very low, making SAC believe that an attack was underway.

SAC's entire alert force was ordered to prepare for takeoff, but crisis was averted when a US bomber managed to make contact with Thule and confirm no attack was underway.

It was later discovered that a single malfunctioning switch managed to shut down all communications, even emergency hotlines, between SAC, Thule, and NORAD.

October 25, 1962 - A bear almost turns the Cuban Missile Crisis hot

The Cuban Missile Crisis is perhaps the closest the world has ever come to global nuclear war. Four instances over the 13-day event stand out in particular, the first one happening on October 25, 1962.

Tensions were already high during the crisis, and the US military was placed on DEFCON 3, two steps away from nuclear war.

Just after midnight on October 25, a guard at the Duluth Sector Direction Center in Minnesota saw a figure attempting to climb the fence around the facility. The guard, worried that the figure was a Soviet saboteur, shot at the figure and activated the sabotage alarm.

This triggered air raid alarms to go off at all air bases in the area. Pilots at Volk Field in neighbouring Wisconsin to panic, since they knew that no tests or practices would happen while the military was on DEFCON 3.

The pilots were ordered to their nuclear armed F-106A interceptors, and were taxiing down the runway when it was determined the alarm was false. They were stopped by a car that had raced to the airfield to tell the pilots to stop.

The intruder turned out to be a bear.

October 27, 1962 - A Soviet sub almost launches a nuclear torpedo

Two of the instances actually occurred on the same day - October 27, 1962, arguably the most dangerous day in history.

On the morning of October 27, a U-2F reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by the Soviets while over Cuba, killing its pilot, causing tensions to escalate to their highest point.

Later, a Soviet submarine, the B-59, was detected trying to break the blockade that the US Navy had established around Cuba. The destroyer USS Beale dropped practice depth charges in an attempt to make the submarine surface.

The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, thought the submarine was under attack and ordered to prepare the submarine's nuclear torpedo to be launched at the aircraft carrier USS Randolf.

All three senior officers aboard the B-59 had to agree to the launch before it happened. Fortunately, the B-59's second in command, Vasili Arkhipov, disagreed with his other two counterparts, and convinced the captain to surface and await orders from Moscow.

October 27, 1962 - The US Air Force sends out nuclear armed fighters

On the very same day, US Air Force pilots almost caused WW III to break out over the Bering Sea, the body of water between Alaska and Russia.

A US Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was en route to the North Pole for an air sampling mission. The spy plan accidentally crossed into Soviet airspace and lost track of its location, spending 90 minutes in the area before turning East to leave.

As it did so, at least six MiG fighter jets were sent to shoot down the U-2 while it was trespassing. Strategic Air Command, worried about the prospect of losing another U-2, sent F-102 Delta Daggers armed with nuclear Falcon air-to-air missiles.

Upon learning of the situation, Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara reportedly yelled "this means war with the Soviet Union!" President John F. Kennedy reportedly said that "there's always some son of a b-- that doesn't get the word."

Luckily, the F-102s never encountered the MiGs, and escorted the U-2 back to Alaska.

October 28, 1962 - Radar operators get confused over an unknown satellite

One day after those events, radar operators in Moorestown, New Jersey reported to NORAD HQ just before 9:00 AM that Soviet nuclear missiles were on their way, and were expected to strike at exactly 9:02 near Tampa, Florida.

All of NORAD was immediately alerted and scrambled to respond, but the time passed without any detonations, causing NORAD to delay any actions.

It was later discovered that the Moorestown radar operators were confused because the facility was running a test tape that simulated a missile launch from Cuba when a satellite unexpectedly appeared over the horizon.

Additional radars were not operating at the time, and the Moorestown operators were not informed that the satelite was inbound because the facility that handled such operations was on other work related to the situation in Cuba.

November 9, 1979 - A training drill almost turns real

At 3:00 AM on November 9, 1979, computers at NORAD HQ lit up with warnings that thousands of nuclear missiles had been launched from Soviet submarines and were headed for the US.

SAC was alerted immediately and US missile crews were on the highest alert level possible, and nuclear bombers were preparing for takeoff.

The National Emergency Airborne Command Post, the aeroplane that is supposed to carry the president during a nuclear attack to ensure his command over the nuclear arsenal even took off, though without President Jimmy Carter on board.

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski knew that the president's decision making time was somewhere between three to seven minutes, and so decided to hold off telling Carter in order to be absolutely sure there was a real threat.

Six minutes of extreme worry passed, and satellites confirmed that no attack was taking place. It was later discovered that a technician had accidentally inserted a training tape simulating such a scenario into one of the computers.

Marshall Shulman, then a senior US State Department adviser, reportedly said in a now-declassified letter that was designated Top Secret that "false alerts of this kind are not a rare occurrence. There is a complacency about handling them that disturbs me."

September 26, 1983 - A Soviet colonel makes the biggest gamble in history

Just after midnight on September 26, 1983, Soviet satellite operators at the Serpukhov-15 bunker just south of Moscow got a warning that a US Minuteman nuclear missile had been launched. Later, four more missiles were detected.

Tensions between the US and Soviet Union were strained earlier in the month, when the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Sakhalin Island, killing all 269 people on board - including US Congressman Larry McDonald.

The commanding officer at the bunker, Stanislav Petrov, was to inform his superiors of the launches, so an appropriate response could be made. Soviet policy back then called for an all-out retaliatory strike.

Knowing this, Petrov decided not to inform his superiors. "All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders - but I couldn't move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan," he recalled of the incident.

He reasoned that if the US were to strike the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons, they would send hundreds of missiles, not just five.

But Petrov had no way of knowing if he was right until enough time had passed, by which time nuclear bombs could have hit their targets, arguably making his decision the biggest gamble in human history.

After 23 minutes, Petrov's theory that it was a false alarm was confirmed. It was later discovered that a Soviet sattelite had mistaken sunlight reflecting off the top of clouds as missiles.

January 25, 1995 - Nuclear worries remain after the Soviet Union

Four years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation's first president, Boris Yeltsin, almost started a nuclear war.

Russian early warning radar detected a launch of a missile with similar characteristics to a submarine-launched Trident missile off the coast of Norway.

The detected missile was actually a Norwegian Black Brant scientific rocket which was on a mission to study the aurora borealis. Norwegian authorities had informed the Kremlin of the launch, but the radar operators were not informed.

Yeltsin was given the Cheget, Russia's version of the nuclear briefcase (sometimes known as the Football), and the launch codes for Russia's missile arsenal. Russia's submarines were also placed on alert.

Fortunately, Yeltsin's belief that it was a false alarm proved correct, and Russian satellites confirmed that there was no activity from US missile sites.

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9 times the world was at the brink of nuclear war -- and pulled back

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The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 marked the end of the World War II, and the beginning of the age of nuclear weapons.

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Posted May 15, 2018 10:50:43

Down a steep tunnel, underneath a main square in Stockholm, Sweden, are the vast subterranean chambers of the Klara nuclear bunker.

One of thousands of shelters across the country, it was designed and built during the Cold War to house terrified inhabitants fleeing incoming missiles.

The Klara bunker is 50 metres deep and can shelter 8,000 people. While parts of it are now used as a car park, Sweden is one of few countries with functioning nuclear shelters.

The bomb, by numbers

The atom bombs dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only two to have been used in war.

The first released 15 kilotons of nuclear energy. The second, 21 kilotons. Between them they killed at least 129,000 people when they fell, and up to 225,000 people in the ensuing weeks.

Today's hydrogen bombs are 80 per cent more powerful.

From a high of about 70,000 nuclear warheads globally in the mid-1980s, there are now about 14,000.

More than 90 per cent are in the hands of the USA and Russia, but the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea also have nuclear capability.

Of those latter countries, the last four have not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970. North Korea did, but withdrew in 2003.

Two minutes to midnight

The first atomic bomb was developed under the auspices of The Manhattan Project.

After World War II, scientists from the project founded a publication, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, best known for creating the Doomsday Clock in 1947.

The distance of the clock's hands to midnight is a metaphor for "how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making".

In the early 1960s, after the Cuban Missile Crisis when war was only narrowly averted, the hands stood at nine minutes to midnight.

On January 25, 2018, the Bulletin placed them at two minutes off the hour, citing some leaders' "provocative actions" which they said "increased the possibility of nuclear war".

But how ready is the the world for a renewed arms race, an escalation in proxy wars and - the worst-case scenario - a nuclear war?

Cold War 'back with a vengeance'

Sweden, neutral since 1814, has a history of civil protection and currently has 65,000 nuclear bunkers, enough for about 70 per cent of its population.

In December 2017, after a hiatus of 15 years, Sweden's Defence Commission recommended building new shelters.

Sweden has also reintroduced partial military service.

Rolf Nordengren works at the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) which oversees the country's civil protection and disaster relief. He says the mix of military and civil defence is part of the country's commitment to protecting its population. According to Nordengren, it's all about being ready for a breakdown of normal society, whether, through war, civil unrest, terrorism or a natural disaster.

As a neutral country that isn't part of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation], Sweden has to be self-sufficient.

Swedes, he says, would argue that neutrality does not equate with pacifism or passivity. It's about keeping your population safe from bombs and fallout, to rise out of the ground and fight another day.

"In Sweden we have total defence."

Sweden's forward planning and increased alertness hasn't come out of a blue sky; since Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea and incursions into the Ukraine, and incursions in to Swedish air and submarine space, the country has been extra wary of its traditional enemy.

Russia's relationship with the USA and its Western allies has gone from bad to worse in the past two years, escalating over the past few months. Its involvement in the civil war in Syria, cyber warfare, alleged meddling in the elections of foreign powers, and the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK have all contributed to the hostile atmosphere.

In April, the UN Director General Antonio Guterras warned that 'the Cold War is back with a vengeance'.

Guterras added a rider to his statement.

"The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present," he said.

Are nuclear bunkers back in style?

Professor David Lowe, a historian and Cold War expert at Deakin University, says the variation between countries' readiness for nuclear war is huge.

Alongside Sweden, Switzerland stands out as having the best civil protection scheme, with coverage for its entire population.

"It dwarfs what other countries did," Professor Lowe says.

"Even today, if you build a new house you either have to have some form of bunker or you have to make a donation to a communal bunker."

Other countries that maintain nuclear bunkers include South Korea, but then it is, technically, still at war with its volatile Communist northern neighbour, whose nuclear capability is another very real cause for alarm.

Many countries in war-torn regions have shelters for conventional warfare and disaster, but, given the Cold War ended more than a quarter of a century ago, it's not surprising that many countries that had nuclear shelters gave them up decades ago.

In some cities you can see the old signs for them up on walls; relics of a time when nuclear war seemed very real.

In New York these old signs recently made news, when they were finally taken down in December 2017; they were deemed misleading as they pointed to shelters that had long ago ceased to exist.

Other countries, the UK included, only ever had nuclear shelters for its military, government and Royal Family.

Unless you were near an underground station - which would protect from the blast but not contaminated air - the population were given instructions on how to build a shelter by taking the doors off their hinges and making a fallout cubby house.

In Australia, says Lowe, despite Prime Minister Robert Menzies being keen for Britain to test and store weapons on Australian soil in the 1950s - the latter never eventuated - the country was seen as being too far away and too large for there to be a need for shelters.

In fact, even the government in Canberra lacked, and still lacks, a nuclear shelter.

"On the Beach probably sums up how Australia felt," he says, referencing the Neville Shute 's 1957 post-apocalyptic novel and subsequent Hollywood film.

The book delves into the last remnant of the world's population surviving in Melbourne before they too succumb to radiation poisoning.

"Were they to run, they would probably run to the farthest part of Australia from which radioactive clouds might drift," he says.

Topics: world-war-2, world-war-1, unrest-conflict-and-war, nuclear-accident, sweden, united-kingdom, australia

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Where's your nearest public nuclear shelter? Sweden, probably

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Posted May 15, 2018 10:50:43 Down a steep tunnel, underneath a main square in Stockholm, Sweden, are the vast subterranean chambers of the Klara nuclear bunker. One of thousands of shelters across the country, it was designed and built during the Cold War to house terrified inhabitants fleeing incoming missiles.

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Does it sometimes feel like every second tv commercial is for makeup or cleaning products, and features fluffy puppies, dimpled babies or smiling women washing their hair in slow motion? The pastel colours and cutesy soundtracks of these ads are meant to inspire us with trust, and a 'warm and cosy' feeling...

But sadly, the reality is anything BUT cosy for the millions of animals - including rabbits, cats, dogs and mice - who are burned, poisoned and killed in painful and unecessary experiments every year in order to test the products featured in those ads.

"The Draize Test: used in cosmetics testing, this cruel procedure involves applying a potentially toxic substance to the eye or skin of a restrained, conscious animal (usually an albino rabbit although other species, including dogs, are used) and monitoring its effects.

Animal testing feels so out-dated and cruel that many people are surprised to learn that lots of the big name products on our supermarket shelves and in our department store cosmetic counters are STILL being tested on animals.

But the good news is that finding out which products and brands are cruelty-free is easy. And best of all? The cruelty-free list gets bigger and bigger every year as customers and companies embrace an animal-friendly way of life!

In the latest development, global giant Unilever, which owns many of the best-known cosmetics and household brands - such as Dove, Rexona, Sunsilk and Vaseline - has announced its support for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics! With big names like this speaking out, an end to animal testing for cosmetics may be in sight...

We're very hopeful that through collaboration - amongst companies, NGOs and Governments - it will soon be possible to assess the safety of all cosmetics products without any need for animal testing anywhere in the world. author=David Blanchard, Chief Research and Development Officer at Unilever

How to shop cruelty-free!

A great place to start is downloading the free iPhone/iPad/Android app from our friends at Choose Cruelty Free. It's an at-your-fingertips list of products (including make-up, skincare, deodorants, household cleaners and car care) that haven't been tested on animals!

No apps? No worries. Check out the Cruelty Free List online here!

Companies that still use animal testing

Some tests are standard practice for such companies and brands, while other animal tests are carried out because of local laws in importing countries (such as China) that require all beauty products to be tested on animals before they are allowed to be sold in that country.
So while some companies and brands may state they don't support animal testing, they may not make it on to the cruelty-free list because they choose to sell their products in countries that do require animal testing.

The following list shows companies that use animal testing, as well as particular brands that are likely to test on animals due to importing laws in countries like China.

Click to view: Companies that still conduct cruel tests on animals "

PETA2 also keeps an updated list of companies that DO conduct cruel tests on animals here. Check in regularly!

You can help spare animals from cruel tests

Consider that every dollar you spend is a vote for a kinder world. Next time you purchase makeup or cleaning products, will you vote for cruelty or kindness?

Pledge to use non-animal tested products!

If after reading this you've struck a cruel company off your shopping list, please contact their customer feedback team to let them know why you won't buy into animal cruelty

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Animal testing: how to spot it - and how to avoid it!

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Does it sometimes feel like every second tv commercial is for makeup or cleaning products, and features fluffy puppies, dimpled babies or smiling women washing their hair in slow motion? The pastel colours and cutesy soundtracks of these ads are meant to inspire us with trust, and a 'warm and cosy' feeling...

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A while back I posted a haul of pretty products I bought from cosmetics brand Urban Decay and the post raised the issue of animal testing in the cosmetics industry.

Although Urban Decay does not test its products on animals, and they have a whole bunch of vegan products in their range, some people don't consider them a "cruelty-free" brand. This was something I was interested in looking into further.

The Urban Decay brand is certified as cruelty-free by both the Leaping Bunny program and PETA's Beauty Without Bunnies program. The company's website states the following about their policies:

Urban Decay is a cruelty-free brand and is committed to ending animal testing. We do not test our products on animals, nor do we allow others to test on our behalf. Additionally, we require our suppliers to certify that the raw materials used in the manufacture of our products are not tested on animals.

However, the issue was raised due to the controversial purchase of the brand by cosmetic giants The L'Oréal Group back in 2012.

L'Oréal has a huge market in China where - under federal law - it is mandatory to test all cosmetic products on animals before they can be sold to the public. L'Oréal's website states:

The [L'Oréal] Group no longer tests on animal[s], anywhere in the world, and does not delegate this task to others.

An exception could be made if regulatory authorities require it for safety or regulatory purposes.

That is, "We still test all products that we sell in China before they hit the shelves." (You can read their full statement on animal testing here.)

So after seeing their "cruelty-free" label revoked and causing mass consumer outrage by those who had long used and trusted the brand when making ethical beauty choices, Urban Decay pulled all plans to retail in China.

So are they still cruelty-free if they don't use animal testing themselves but their parent company does?

The brand is against animal testing and they even removed themselves from one of the world's largest consumer markets in order to stay true to their cruelty-free ethos. Due to this, no Urban Decay products are subject to animal testing anywhere in the world.

Yet they still "sold out" to big, bad L'Oréal.

This ethical dilemma isn't exclusive to Urban Decay. There are a long list of certified cruelty-free brands also owned by animal-testing parent companies: As of publication, NYX Cosmetics and The Body Shop are also owned by The L'Oréal Group, Aveda and Smashbox are owned by Estee Lauder, NARS and Bare Minerals are owned by Shiseido, and Burt's Bees is owned by Clorox (just to name a few).

So is it okay to purchase products from brands like Urban Decay and The Body Shop if you want to be cruelty-free? Therein lies the ethical conundrum...

There are two sides to this argument:

Firstly, if you purchase products from the cruelty-free brands owned by big corporations then you may argue that you're supporting the parent company that does test products on animals in some parts of the world. So your money may indirectly go towards the funding of animal testing even though the brand that you actually purchased products from has been certified as cruelty-free.

However, the counter-argument is that by buying only from the cruelty-free brands under a parent company's corporate umbrella (rather than boycotting them altogether), you're showing the big guys that this is what consumers want. You're showing that more and more people are choosing cruelty-free products over their animal testing counterparts; Urban Decay over Maybelline, Smashbox over MAC, or The Body Shop over Garnier.

So yes, brands like Urban Decay may have "sold out" to bigger corporations. But the fact that they listened their consumers and refused some of that corporation's policies for the sake of staying true to their cruelty-free values - and in doing so greatly reducing their international reach and revenue - is pretty admirable.

Like Urban Decay, I'm not perfect. Far from it. I can't honestly say that my make-up bag is 100% cruelty-free. However, I'm trying to educate myself more and I'm gradually phasing out products and brands that don't fit with my ideals.

I do, of course, own products from independent beauty brands like e.l.f. Cosmetics and benecos who are pretty clear on their cruelty-free stance but for now, the jury is still out on Urban Decay and the other guys sheltering under those bigger corporate umbrellas.

When it comes down to making ethical beauty decisions, ultimately, the choice is yours. And any movement towards a more ethical, animal-friendly lifestyle is a good one.

PIN IT!

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Animal Testing in Cosmetics - The Parent Company Debate

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A while back I posted a haul of pretty products I bought from cosmetics brand Urban Decay and the post raised the issue of animal testing in the cosmetics industry. Although Urban Decay does not test its products on animals, and they have a whole bunch of vegan products in their range, some people don't consider them a "cruelty-free" brand.

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While Australia is overwhelmingly a nation of animal lovers, unfortunately there are still some in our community who treat animals cruelly. The RSPCA is committed to helping those animals in need through our state-based Inspectorate services.

Nationally, the RSPCA employs over 100 Inspectors throughout the country. Every year, they take on the challenging task of responding to approximately 50,000 reports of animal mistreatment.

The Inspectorate plays a vital role within the RSPCA, and maintaining their presence is essential in providing continuity of animal welfare services to the community.

Unfortunately it costs a lot to maintain this service. The associated costs of funding just one RSPCA Inspector can be as much as $100,000 each year, which constitutes a large part of each Society's annual budget. While each state and territory RSPCA struggles to raise enough funds for its existing Inspectors, the sad reality is that, more inspectors are desperately needed.

Report animal cruelty

It can be difficult to witness animal cruelty but the best chance of it not happening again is by reporting it to your local RSPCA.

What is animal cruelty?

Acts of violence towards animals, animal neglect and even psychological harm are all forms of animal cruelty and can result in large fines or imprisonment. Each state and territory has legislation that prohibits animal cruelty.

What is animal cruelty?

Our powers

RSPCA Inspectors have a range of powers to enforce animal welfare law and investigate animal cruelty offences. The Inspectorate works with animal owners to educate and advise them on appropriate animal care.

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While Australia is overwhelmingly a nation of animal lovers, unfortunately there are still some in our community who treat animals cruelly. The RSPCA is committed to helping those animals in need through our state-based Inspectorate services. Nationally, the RSPCA employs over 100 Inspectors throughout the country.

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MORE than 1000 people have rallied in central Adelaide as part of a national protest against live animal exports to the Middle East.

Protesters gathered outside Parliament House, on North Terrace, on Saturday to vent their fury against the controversial practice.

The CBD rally was one of five organised for Saturday. Thousands of protesters also took to the streets in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.

RSPCA South Australia's Animal Welfare Advocate, Dr Rebekah Eyers, spoke to the crowd where she condemned the "cruel" practice.

"Politicians will have the choice to either contribute to the end of what is one of the most shameful chapters of animal treatment in our nation's history - or be remembered for allowing it to continue on their watch," she said.

The RSPCA said the last ship to leave Port Adelaide loaded with South Australian sheep and cattle, was the Al Shuwaikh, which is now in the Middle East where temperatures can hit 45C.

The practice has provoked heated national debate - the National Farmers' Federation has argued against a ban while animal welfare groups want the trade to end.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud last month announced harsher penalties for exporters who did not protect the welfare of animals.

It came after the McCarthy Review made 23 recommendations to improve live sheep exports and animal welfare standards on overseas shipments.

The review was prompted by video footage that showed sheep dehydrated and dying on board the Awassi Express on a three-week journey to the Middle East.

Hundreds of animal welfare advocates called for the trade to be banned as 1400 cattle and 23,000 sheep were loaded on to the Bader III in Port Adelaide in April.

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Protesters: End 'shameful chapter' of live exports

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MORE than 1000 people have rallied in central Adelaide as part of a national protest against live animal exports to the Middle East. Protesters gathered outside Parliament House, on North Terrace, on Saturday to vent their fury against the controversial practice. The CBD rally was one of five organised for Saturday.

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RSPCA Australia and Macquarie University's Centre for Legal Governance
The Future of Animal Law Conference
Thursday 18 October 2012
The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street, Sydney NSW

What are animals' rights? Is animal welfare a matter for the state rather than one of personal morals? Does Government have a responsibility to intervene on behalf of animals in commercial and domestic settings?
RSPCA Australia and Macquarie University's Centre for Legal Governance's The Future of Animal Law conference will challenge current thinking and explore the sometimes conflicting and controversial topic of animal law.
Speakers at the conference will explore future directions and implications of animal law as a growing area of research and practice.
The keynote speaker for the conference is Professor Robert Garner from the University of Leicester. His talk will distinguish a political from an ethical account of animal protection, arguing that animal welfare is a matter of state concern rather than simply one of personal morals. To support this he is developing a theory of justice for animals as opposed to simply a theory of ethical conduct - providing a welcome perspective to the way society should treat animals more broadly.

Other presentations will include:

Shifting Responsibility for the Welfare of the Beast - Ms Elizabeth Ellis, University of Wollongong, Bearing the Burden

Animal Welfare Policy in the Australian Agricultural Sector - Mr Phillip Glyde, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

Captured by Design: The Story of Farm Animal Welfare Regulation in Australia - Mr Jed Goodfellow, Macquarie University and RSPCA Australia

What Indeed has Athens, Jerusalem and Bodhgaya to do with Animal Law? Religion and its Relationship with the Future of Animal Law - Ven. Alex Bruce, Australian National University

Improving Welfare Outcomes in the Live Export Trade? The Supply Chain Assurance Framework One Year On - Ms Celeste Black, University of Sydney

Strategic Public Interest Litigation - Mr Graeme McEwen, Victorian Bar & Barristers Animal Welfare Panel

Intensive Factory Farming, Administrative Law Values and the Rule of Law - Dr Melisa Perry QC, NSW Bar

Animal Welfare: Lost in Translation - Ms Kathleen Plowman, Australian Pork Limited

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Animal rights - the future of animal law

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RSPCA Australia and Macquarie University's Centre for Legal Governance The Future of Animal Law Conference Thursday 18 October 2012 The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street, Sydney NSW What are animals' rights? Is animal welfare a matter for the state rather than one of personal morals?

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Updated April 20, 2018 14:09:07

Dozens of dogs, some of which were believed to have been used for fighting, have been seized after RSPCA inspectors and police executed warrants at four Queensland properties.

An RSPCA spokesman called it "the first major breakthrough in 10 years".

"In the past week, a property near Richmond in western Queensland, two in Logan, and one in the Redlands were raided and numerous dogs, believed to be used for fighting, were seized," spokesman Michael Beatty said.

A number of other dogs were also taken from the properties due to welfare concerns.

Mr Beatty said a total of 56 dogs were now in the care of the RSPCA.

"A lot of them had quite extensive scarring, particularly on their faces and front legs ... and there was some dog fighting paraphernalia confiscated as well, treadmills, breaking sticks and the like," he said.

The raids were carried out after an extensive task force investigation into alleged dog fighting rings.

Investigations are ongoing.

Topics: animals, human-interest, animal-welfare, law-crime-and-justice, brisbane-4000, qld

First posted April 20, 2018 13:53:54

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RSPCA, police seize dogs believed to be used for fighting

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Updated April 20, 2018 14:09:07 Dozens of dogs, some of which were believed to have been used for fighting, have been seized after RSPCA inspectors and police executed warrants at four Queensland properties. An RSPCA spokesman called it "the first major breakthrough in 10 years".

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Each year, around three million live sheep, cattle, buffalo and goats are exported from Australia to be slaughtered for meat overseas. Taken from Australian farms, or mustered from the bush, these animals endure a horrific journey .

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Australia's live export trade is arguably the worst in the world because of the high number of animals exported and the extreme distances they travel. 5

The longest journey

Professor Clive Phillips, Director of the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics at the University of Queensland, explains the incredible length and trials of the live export journey:

"It begins with the mustering of the stock, often on remote properties, and it ends with animal slaughter in the country of destination. In between, the stock will be handled at least a further five or six times and the whole process is likely to last between one and two months. Little is known about the cumulative effects of these combined stresses on the welfare of the animals but it is possible that multiple stressors could make the animals anxious, depressed or enter a phase of learned helplessness."

Before animals even board a ship, they may be stressed by food and water deprivation, high stocking densities and high temperatures while being transported by road or rail for up to 50 hours. 7 These stresses can cause dehydration, bruising and salmonellosis in sheep and respiratory disease in cattle. 8

Suffering at sea

Animals shipped live from Australia can be confined on vessels for up to three weeks - that is 504 consecutive hours. 9

High temperatures and poor ventilation can contribute to fatal heat stroke in cattle, particularly in those breeds whose physiology is ill-suited to hot climates.

Sheep are transferred from a pasture-based diet to concentrated pellets - a change which some animals reject. Failure to eat can lead to salmonellosis and even death, with around half of sheep mortalities occurring this way.

Tens of thousands of animals die every year in transit, 15 yet the live export industry argues that it is achieving good welfare outcomes because these animal deaths are a small proportion of the total shipped. 16 The fact remains that as many as 20,000 sentient animals die at sea from disease or injury each year. 17 Their deaths are no less tragic or unethical because their peers survived.

Furthermore, these mortality rates do not reflect morbidity. Many more animals are likely to suffer the diseases and poor states of welfare described above without dying and 'becoming a statistic'.

Indonesian outrage

In May 2011, ABC's Four Corners broadcast revelations that Australian cattle were subject to gross cruelty in Indonesian abattoirs. The majority of live cattle exported from Australia are sent to Indonesia, with more than 6.4 million shipped there over the 20 years prior to this exposé. 18

The program aired footage obtained by Animals Australia, which filmed 50 slaughters in 10 different locations. 19 Analysis of the recordings by the Chief Scientist of RSCPA Australia, Dr Bidda Jones, showed that:

"Painful handling techniques, such as the use of physical force (poking, hitting, kicking, tail twisting) to move animals were observed in 90% of locations."

"Techniques that cause extreme pain and injury (eye gouging, tail bending or breaking and tendon slashing) were used when difficulties arose moving or handling animals."

It took an average of 11 cuts to the throat and a maximum of 33 to slaughter fully conscious cattle.

The breadth of the investigation strongly suggested that these cruelties were "reflective of the treatment of Australian cattle in general in that country."

Within days of the program airing, hundreds of thousands of Australians called for a ban on live export by signing a petition, 27 attending public rallies 28 and inundating politicians with emails, letters and phone calls. 29

The Federal Government suspended the trade to Indonesia in June 2011 30 before resuming it just one month later. 31 Two bills opposing live export were put before Parliament without success 32 and the Government confirmed that it was "committed to supporting the continuation of the livestock export trade." 33

The failure of regulation

In an attempt to regulate the welfare of Australian animals in destination markets, the Government has implemented the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS). Requirements include transport, handling and slaughter which comply with OIE welfare standards, control and traceability through the supply chain and independent auditing. 34

While ESCAS may seem to provide animal protection and accountability, its requirements are inadequate in several important ways:

Exporters are not required to disclose important matters of welfare such as the health of animals at loading and unloading or the conditions and method of slaughter.

It does not apply to the export of breeder animals such as dairy cows.

ESCAS purportedly aims to detect animal cruelty, however the system fails to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Gross animal suffering continues to occur under this regulation:

In February 2012, when ESCAS was already in place for Indonesia, Australian cattle were shown to be cruelly treated in two of that country's slaughterhouses. Up to 46 different breaches of ESCAS were identified.

It was later reported that around 9,000 of the sheep had been killed by order of the Pakistani Government, which also suspected that the animals were diseased. 44 A recording of their slaughter showed brutal treatment at the hands of untrained workers. 45 "Like a giant mass of wool, bloodied and filthy, they lay in trenches - slit open, stabbed or clubbed to death, while many still wriggled with some life left in them, soon to be buried alive." 46 The Australian Government tried to intervene and stop the cull but, despite its efforts, all of the remaining 12,000 sheep were eventually killed. 47

In September 2012, it was reported that Australian sheep were being inhumanely slaughtered in Kuwait's Al Rai market which is banned by ESCAS. Footage appeared to show one sheep being clumsily killed with up to 24 cuts to the throat. Another investigation reported in January 2013 that Australian sheep continued to be sold at the market.

Most of these incidents were not detected through the Government's own monitoring and only came to light through investigations by the charitably funded group, Animals Australia. Clearly the Government's own regulation is failing to prevent or detect cruelties in the live export trade.

The trade must end

A 2012 survey found that 78 per cent of Australians believed live exports were cruel - a majority consistent with another poll from 2011 - and 74 per cent were more likely to vote for a political candidate who promised to end live animal export. 50

"The paramount consideration must now be the ethical one. The live export trade as currently carried out is indefensible. It must stop," argues Voiceless Patron and former High Court Justice, the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG. 51

What you can do

Take action by signing this petition calling for an end to the live export industry in Australia.

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Australia's live export trade is arguably the worst in the world because of the high number of animals exported and the extreme distances they travel.

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The Problem. Millions of our sheep and cattle suffer unnecessarily during live export because of the unbearable conditions on board. The extreme...

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The company behind the shocking footage showing Australian sheep being boiled alive on a live export ship to the Middle East has had its licence to export suspended, after the regulator discovered new historical breaches of animal welfare conditions. Sources said investigators were closely looking at the company's documents and statements on past shipments to check the accuracy of the number of sheep reported to have been onboard. The decision comes just days after another major live export company, LSS, pulled out of the summer trade to the Middle East. Sources estimated this could mean two thirds of the entire Australian live trade to the Middle East had effectively been knocked out.

I don't know that the live trade industry can survive much longer if this latest claim proves true.

The Turnbull Government will really have to sell the changes it recently announced if it wants to convince voters that animals will be far better housed and monitored - and monitored independently.

But those changes - including more space for sheep - seem to be already ending the live trade to the Middle East by making it uneconomic:

LSS said it would be redirecting its trade to South America because according to the industry the strict new rules the government imposed in the wake of the Awassi Express tragedy had meant a reduction in the number of sheep they could export by about a third. ..Fairfax Media has previously revealed that if the full suite of recommendations made in the review commissioned after the Awassi Express disaster came to light, the stricter animal welfare conditions would make the entire trade economically unviable, because the number of sheep that could be allowed onboard could be slashed by as much as 85 per cent.

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The company behind the shocking footage showing Australian sheep being boiled alive on a live export ship to the Middle East has had its licence to export suspended, after the regulator discovered new historical breaches of animal welfare conditions.

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Live animal export trade. Australian standards for the export of livestock (ASEL). Mortality investigations.

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The death penalty may not lower murder rates, but it is unlikely that anything will. There will always be messed up people in this world who will murder, no matter the consequences. Murder has tragically been in existence since the beginning of time and will, most likely, never go away. Therefore, the consequence our country decides to use should not be based off of an attempt to stop murder, but rather what is appropriate for a man or women who has taken the life of another.
Also, one must think about the family and friends of the victim. When someone's loved one has been tragically killed, he/she must deal with grief and anger. He/she must also deal with the knowledge that their loved one is dead while the murderer is still living. For taking a life that was not yet meant to be taken, the murderer should be killed.

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The death penalty may not lower murder rates, but it is unlikely that anything will. There will always be messed up people in this world who will murder, no matter the consequences. Murder has tragically been in existence since the beginning of time and will, most likely, never go away.

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Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments - Death Penalty - ProCon.org

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Should the death penalty be allowed? Morality Constitutionality Deterrence Retribution Irrevocable Mistakes Cost of Death vs. Life in Prison Race Closure for Victims' Families Attorney Quality Physicians at Execution 1. Morality "[W]e reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most brutal and conscienceless murderers.

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In some countries it is legal to kill someone if they have committed a terrible crime. This is called a death sentence, or the death penalty.

It is not legal in Britain.

There are lots of reasons why people think it's right or wrong.

Here are some of the arguments:

Arguments for the death penalty

If someone murders someone else, they have given up their human rights, including the one to stay alive themselves

The punishment should 'fit the crime' - if you have killed someone, you should be killed too

Giving a killer the death sentence will stop them - and others - doing it again

The very small chance of executing the wrong person is balanced by the benefits to society of putting off other murderers

Arguments against the death penalty

The death penalty goes against our most basic human right - the right to life

Being killed by lethal injection or being electrocuted is not always smooth and painless, sometimes it causes a painful death

No-one has ever proven with numbers that killing murderers stops other people committing similar crimes

Mistakes are sometimes made in the law - what if someone is killed who is actually innocent?

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The death penalty - the arguments for and against - CBBC Newsround

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In some countries it is legal to kill someone if they have committed a terrible crime. This is called a death sentence, or the death penalty. It is not legal in Britain. There are lots of reasons why people think it's right or wrong.

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Study: 88% of criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent

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A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists ,…

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No 1: today's smokers are all hard core, addicted smokers who can't or won't give up. Zentinel/Shutterstock

Last week, I wrote about factoid-driven myths that just refuse to die. In less than a week, the piece has had more than 1.184 million readers.

There's plainly a big appetite for smoking myth busting, so here are 10 more.

1. Today's smokers are all hard core, addicted smokers who can't or won't give up

This claim is the essence of what is known as the " hardening hypothesis ": the idea that decades of effort to motivate smokers to quit has seen all the low-hanging fruit fall from the tree, leaving only deeply addicted, heavy smokers today.

The key index of addicted smoking is the number of cigarettes smoked per day. This creates a small problem for the hardening hypothesis: in nations and states where smoking has reduced most, the average number of cigarettes smoked daily by continuing smokers has gone down, not up. This is exactly the opposite of what the hardening hypothesis would predict if remaining smokers were mostly hard core.

2. Smoking is pleasurable

Repeated studies have found that around 90% of smokers regret having started, and some 40% make an attempt to quit each year. There's no other product with even a fraction of such customer disloyalty.

But I'm always amused at some die-hard smokers' efforts explain that they smoke for pleasure and so efforts to persuade them to stop are essentially just anti-hedonistic tirades. Many studies have documented that the "pleasure" of smoking centres around the relief smokers get when they have not smoked for a while. The next nicotine hit takes away the discomfort and craving they have been experiencing.

This argument is a bit like saying that being beaten up every day is something you want to continue with, because hey, it feels so good when the beating stops for a while.

3. Light and mild cigarettes deliver far less tar and nicotine to the smoker than standard varieties

Several nations have outlawed cigarette descriptors such as "light" and "mild" because of evidence that such products do not deliver lower amounts of tar and nicotine to smokers, and so are deceptive.

The allegedly lower yields from cigarettes labelled this way resulted from a massive consumer fraud.

Cigarette manufacturers obtained these low readings by laboratory smoking machine protocols which took a standardized number of puffs, at a standardized puff velocity. The smoke inhaled by the machine was then collected in glass "lungs" behind the machine and the tar and nicotine weighed to give the readings per cigarette.

But the companies didn't tell smokers two things. So-called light or mild cigarettes had tiny, near-invisible pin-prick perforations just on the filter (see picture). These holes are not covered by the "lips" or "fingers" of the laboratory smoking machine, allowing extra air to be inhaled and thus diluting the dose of tar and nicotine being collected.

But when smokers use these products, two things happen. Their lips and fingers partially occlude the tiny ventilation holes, thus allowing more smoke to be inhaled. Smokers unconsciously "titrate" their smoking to obtain the dose of nicotine that their brain's addiction centres demand: they can take more puffs, inhale more deeply, leave shorter butt lengths or smoke more cigarettes.

Today, where use of these descriptors has been stopped, the consumer deception continues with the companies using pack colours to loudly hint to smokers about which varieties are "safer".

Author collection

4. Filters on cigarettes remove most of the nasty stuff from cigarettes

We've all seen the brown stain in a discarded cigarette butt. But what few have seen is how much of that same muck enters the lungs and how much stays there.

This utterly compelling video demonstration shows how ineffective filters are in removing this deadly sludge. A smoker demonstrates holding the smoke in his mouth and then exhales it through a tissue paper, leaving a tell-tale brown stain. He then inhales a drag deep into his lungs, and exhales it into a tissue. The residue is still there, but in a much reduced amount. So where has the remainder gone? It's still in the lungs!

5. Governments don't want smoking to fall because they are addicted to tobacco tax and don't want to kill a goose that lays golden eggs

This is perhaps the silliest and most fiscally illiterate argument we hear about smoking. If governments really want to maximise smoking and tax receipts, they are doing a shockingly bad job of it. Smoking in Australia has fallen almost continuously since the early 1960s. In five of the 11 years to 2011, the Australian government received less tobacco tax receipts than it did the year before (see Table 13.6.6).

Plainly, as smoking continues to decline, diminishing tax returns will occur, although this will be cushioned by the rising population which will include some smokers.

In the meantime, tobacco tax is a win-win for governments and the community. It reduces smoking like nothing else, and it provides substantial transfer of funds from smokers to government for public expenditure.

Those of us who don't smoke do not squirrel away what we would have otherwise spent on smoking in a jam jar under the bed. We spend it on other goods and services, benefiting the economy too.

6. Most smokers die from smoking caused diseases late in life, and we've all got to die from something

Smoking increases the risk of many different diseases, and collectively these take about ten years off normal life expectancy from those who get them.

Smoking is by far the greatest risk factor for lung cancer. In Australia, the average age of death for people with lung cancer is 71.4 (see Table 4.2), while life expectancy is currently 80.1 for men and 84.3 for women.

This means that, on average, men diagnosed with lung cancer lose 8.7 years and women 12.9 years (mean 10.8 years). Of course, some lose many more (Beatle George Harrison died at just 58, Nat King Cole at 45).

If a 20-a-day smoker starts at 17 and dies at 71, 54 years of smoking would see 394,470 cigarettes smoked. At ten puffs per cigarette, that's some 3.94 million point-blank lung bastings.

It takes about six minutes to smoke a cigarette. So at 20 a day, smokers smoke for two hours each day. Across 54 years, that's a cumulative 1,644 days of smoking (4.5 years of continual smoking if you put it all together).

So by losing ten years off life expectancy, each cigarette smoked takes about 2.2 times the time it takes to smoke it off the life expectancy that might otherwise have been enjoyed.

7. Smokers cost the health system far less than the government receives from tobacco tax

In June 2015, a senior staff member of Australian libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm, Helen Dale tweeted:

In Australia, a now old report looking at 2004/05 data estimated the gross health care costs attributable to smoking "before adjustment for savings due to premature death" were $A1.836 billion. In that financial year, the government received $A7,816.35 billion in customs and excise duty and GST on tobacco.

Someone who thought that the fiscal ledger was all that mattered in good government might conclude from this that smokers easily pay their way and perhaps we should even encourage smoking as a citizen's patriotic duty.

With smokers being considerate enough to die early, these noble citizens lay down their lives early and thus contribute "savings due to premature death" like failing to draw a state pension or needing aged care services late in life. Philip Morris notoriously gave this advice to the new Czech government in 1999.

Other assessments, though, might well point to the values inherent in such assessments. History's worst regimes have often seen economically non-productive people as human detritus deserving death. Primo Levi 's unforgettable witnessing of this mentality in Auschwitz comes to mind.

8. Big Tobacco is starting to invade low-income nations, now that smoking is on the wane in the wealthiest nations

Sorry, but US and British manufacturers have been aggressively marketing cigarettes in places such as China since the early years of last century. These collectable posters show many featuring Chinese women.

The large populations, the often lax tobacco-control policies and the higher corruption indexes of many low- and middle-income nations makes many of these nirvanas for Big Tobacco.

There are fewer more nauseating experiences than reading the corporate social responsibility reports of tobacco transnationals and then seeing how they operate in smokers' paradises such as Indonesia. This documentary says it all.

9. Millions of cigarette butts on the world's beaches leach lots of toxic chemicals into oceans

Cigarette butts are the most discarded items in all litter. Every year uncounted millions if not billions are washed down gutters in storm water and find their way into rivers, harbours and oceans. Cigarette filters and butts contain toxic residue and experiments have shown that placing laboratory fish in containers for 48 hours with leachate extracted from used cigarette butts, 50% of the fish die. From this, we sometimes hear people exclaim that cigarette butts are not just unsightly, but they "poison the oceans".

But a confined laboratory container does not remotely mirror real life exposures in oceans or rivers. There are some 1,338,000,000 cubic kilometers of water in the world oceans, so the contribution of cigarette butts to the toxification of all this could only excite a homeopath.

If we want to reduce tobacco litter, we need not wander into such dubious justifications. The best way by far is to keep reducing smoking. Industry attempts at portraying themselves as corporately responsible by running dinky little clean-up campaigns or distributing personal butt disposal canisters avoids their efforts to keep as many smoking as possible.

10. Tobacco companies care deeply about their best customers dying early

Naturally, all businesses would rather their customers lived as long as possible so that the cash registers can keep ringing out long and loud. Tobacco companies wish their products didn't kill so many, but worship the god nicotine for its iron grip on so many.

Visit any tobacco transnational's website and you will find lots of earnest and caring talk about the companies' dedication to doing all they can to reduce the terrible harm caused by their products. All the major companies have now invested heavily in electronic cigarettes, so isn't this a sign that they taking harm reduction seriously?

It might be if the same companies were showing any sign of taking their feet off the turbo-drive accelerator of opposing effective tobacco control policies. But they are doing nothing of the sort. All continue to aggressively attack and delay any policy like tax hikes, graphic health warnings, plain packaging and advertising bans wherever in the world these are planned for introduction.

For all their unctuous hand-wringing about their mission to reduce harm, they are all utterly determined to keep as many smoking as possible. Big Tobacco's business plan is not smoking or ecigarettes. It's smoking and ecigarettes. Smoke when you are able to, vape when you can't. It's called dual use and some 70% of vapers are doing just that. The tragedy now playing out in some nations is that too many gormless tobacco control experts are blind to this big picture.

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Ten more myths about smoking that will not die

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Last week, I wrote about factoid-driven myths that just refuse to die. In less than a week, the piece has had more than 1.184 million readers. There's plainly a big appetite for smoking myth busting, so here are 10 more.

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People living in apartments are much more likely to experience secondhand smoke wafting into their homes and across shared areas. It's an issue that can divide neighbours and leave strata managers overwhelmed.

Apartment residents need sensible smoking regulations that balance personal freedoms in the home and public health interests. Our newly published research paper, Sharing the Air, shows the law is letting them down.

Read more: We can't afford to ignore indoor air quality - our lives depend on it

Sharing the air

Residents are right to be concerned. For three decades we've known that secondhand smoke increases the risks of lung cancer and heart disease in adults; asthma and breathing problems in children; and SIDS in babies.

In higher-density housing, tobacco smoke is notoriously difficult to contain - and there is no known safe level of exposure.

Despite the harms of secondhand smoke, only New South Wales tackles the issue of smoking in its strata law. In all other Australian jurisdictions, residents and owners are left confused about their rights and responsibilities.

Neighbours at war

In many cases, people in strata-titled properties who are affected by smoke have to prove it is a legal nuisance or hazard before any action can be taken.

However, case law from courts and tribunals reveals an awkward tension between the legal concept of "nuisance" and the science on the harms of secondhand smoke.

In one Queensland case, a man wanted to stop smoke infiltrating his bedroom from his neighbour's balcony as this made him unwell.

Although the tribunal accepted that smoke often entered his bedroom, he was found to have an "abnormal sensitivity". Nuisance could only be established if the smoke was of such volume or frequency that it was an unreasonable interference. And this was to be determined objectively through the prism of an ordinary, healthy person.

But what is a reasonable standard of exposure to secondhand smoke when no safe level has been established?

Smoking restrictions

These neighbour disputes are more easily resolved if the apartment complex has a smoking bylaw that can be enforced.

Apartment residents share spaces and infrastructure, and so bylaws are used to balance the rights of all residents. Contentious issues such as pets, display of laundry, car parking, floor coverings and rubbish disposal are covered.

Although it is usually possible and lawful for the owners' corporation to add a smoking bylaw, there are three main barriers:

Strata laws in all Australian jurisdictions empower owners' corporations to make bylaws for the good management of the scheme, but these powers vary in scope.

Working out whether the owners' corporation has power to make a particular smoking bylaw is not a straightforward task. In all jurisdictions, it has power to "control" common property, but there is only a power to "control" private lots in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

There are other statutory limitations on powers to make bylaws. Although these differ between jurisdictions, the main principles are that bylaws must not be inconsistent with strata law and other laws; unreasonable or oppressive; or discriminatory. These are all potentially relevant to smoking bylaws.

On the issue of consistency, there is a question whether a smoking bylaw might be inconsistent with state laws on smoke-free areas. These prohibit smoking in public places and workplaces, but may specifically exempt residential premises.

As for reasonableness and oppressiveness, a blanket ban on smoking is probably more vulnerable to challenge on this ground because it could prevent a resident from smoking even where neighbours will not realistically be affected.

Smokers are not a protected class under anti-discrimination legislation. While they are not prevented from living in an apartment complex with a smoking bylaw, they must comply with the bylaws.

A better way?

A model or default bylaw on smoking can be included in strata legislation or regulations to provide clear guidance. Existing owners' corporations can choose to adopt the smoking bylaw by special resolution, confident that it is valid and enforceable. Many new developments would adopt the smoking bylaw from the start.

Through more direct and immediate enforcement, disputes about smoking can be resolved more quickly.

In NSW, for example, a model smoking bylaw presents two options:

The first prohibits smoking on common property and requires smokers (and their guests) to ensure that smoke does not penetrate to common property or other lots.

The second is the same, except it permits smoking on common property if authorised or within a designated area.

The NSW example only prohibits smoking in a private lot if smoke is infiltrating other lots, and therefore affecting neighbours. In this way, it appears to strike an acceptable balance between the need to minimise apartment residents' exposure to secondhand smoke while respecting personal freedoms in private property.

Strata law reform is under way across Australia. In the interests of all apartment residents, smoking can no longer be ignored.

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Apartment residents need better protection from secondhand smoke

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People living in apartments are much more likely to experience secondhand smoke wafting into their homes and across shared areas. It's an issue that can divide neighbours and leave strata managers overwhelmed. Apartment residents need sensible smoking regulations that balance personal freedoms in the home and public health interests.

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New South Wales' smoke-free outdoors legislation will be one of the most comprehensive in Australia. Jess J/Flickr

The NSW government will introduce a smoke-free outdoors law this year, making it the sixth state or territory to have some variation of this kind of legislation. The announcement shows that community health and common sense can override the vested interests and powerful lobbying of Big Tobacco.

While New South Wales has been late in introducing these laws compared with other states, the legislation will be one of the most comprehensive.

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said the legislation - covering smoke-free children's playgrounds, sporting fields when sports are being played, and covered bus shelters and taxi ranks - will be introduced in the spring session of parliament. The bans for smoking in commercial outdoor dining areas will come into effect in 2015.

Legislating for smoke-free outdoor areas is an important advance in reducing society's entanglement with tobacco. As we have come to understand more about cancer, tobacco and the effects of second-hand smoke, there's been a gradual shift in how society has viewed smoking. We have gone from a cigarette love affair in the 20th century, where Australia resembled a scene out of the heavy-smoking television show Mad Men, to viewing it as a potentially deadly habit with no benefits.

Thirty years ago, smoking in the workplace or on public transport was fine. Now, we wouldn't even consider it.

The change in New South Wales started at the grassroots level. Some local councils took the initiative (even before smoke-free laws were introduced in other states) to go smoke-free in outdoor areas, such as parks and bus shelters, demonstrating its feasibility. Similar moves have been made in Victoria by local councils that have banned smoking in public places, such as playgrounds and outdoor eating areas.

Following the example set by local councils, some New South Wales café owners decided to ban smoking in alfresco dining areas, prioritising the health of their customers. In fact, a survey commissioned by the Cancer Council NSW showed eight out of ten café and restaurant owners believed that the smoke-free dining decision should not be left to councils, but should be legislated by state government.

The rest of the community also wants this type of legislation; a Newspoll survey conducted in New South Wales in February 2011 found four out of five people support smoke-free outdoor dining and more than nine out of ten adults believe playgrounds should be smoke-free.

So the New South Wales government is merely reflecting community sentiment with its announcement about the legislation, and there are strong grounds for other governments to do the same.

lanier/Flickr

No doubt there will be the usual cries about the nanny state from those with a vested interest in perpetuating tobacco use. But let's consider some of facts.

Smoking is a known carcinogen that, to put it bluntly, kills. Breathing second-hand smoke is not just an unpleasant experience, it can also lead to serious life-threatening health problems, including cancer, heart disease and asthma. So it makes sense to not expose our kids to second-hand smoke when, for instance, they're playing in parks or playgrounds.

And for those wanting to give smoking up, it's that much more difficult to quit when surrounded by smokers in playgrounds or while enjoying an alfresco meal.

Businesses can be reassured that the announcement will be good for them; the 2008 New South Wales population health survey showed that for every person who objects to smoke-free dining, seven people favour the move. This means smoke-free dining is good for health, good for dining and good for business.

Soon smoke-free outdoor areas will be a normal part of life. Cigarettes will be out of sight and hopefully out of mind. Kids can play in a smoke-free environment and meals can be enjoyed without a side order of smoke. And that's a cause for celebration.

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Smoke-free outdoor laws herald better community health

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The NSW government will introduce a smoke-free outdoors law this year, making it the sixth state or territory to have some variation of this kind of legislation. The announcement shows that community health and common sense can override the vested interests and powerful lobbying of Big Tobacco.

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Australian Government Department of Health

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Don't Make Smokes Your Story - National Tobacco Campaign

TV commercial - 48 seconds

Ted and his family sitting on the back steps with his guitar.
Voiceover: Family is everything to me.
We see Ted in the kitchen with his extended family.
Voiceover: I can't imagine life without them, to be honest.
We see Ted in the hospital with an oxygen mask on his face. A close up of his finger with a pulse monitor attached.
Voiceover: I've had my battles with smokes.
We see Ted's wife standing at his hospital bedside.
Voiceover: My lungs got pretty bad
We see a close up of Ted's face with the oxygen mask.
Voiceover: Sometimes I could hardly breathe and that was tough on everyone.
In a flashback, we cut to a younger Ted at a skate park, smoking with a mate. We then see them passing cigarettes to each other as they sit in the skate bowl.
Voiceover: I'm not sure why I smoked; I just did.
We see Ted playing with his children in the backyard.
Voiceover: My kids, Jarrah and Yani, I wanted to be there for them, so I quit. Quitting was tough, I just kept trying.
We see Ted kicking a football with his children.
Voiceover: now I can keep up with them in the yard....
Ted helps his children riding their bikes on the street.

Voiceover: ...and I've got more money to spend on better things.

We see Ted standing in front of his house taking a selfie with his Mum.
Voiceover: Mum and the Aunties are pretty happy that I quit.
We see Ted with his extended family in the kitchen.

Voiceover: They didn't want me to die from smokes like Dad did.

We see Ted's face and a shot of Ted standing in front of his house with his children playing football behind him.
Voiceover: My name is Ted, and family is my story. Voiceover: DON'T MAKE SMOKES YOUR STORY. Voiceover: For help, download the My Quit Buddy app, call the Quitline, or visit quitnow.
Federal Government logo, Quitline Logo and My QuitBuddy logo
Voiceover: Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra.
Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra. Spoken by F. Leone

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Ted and his family sitting on the back steps with his guitar. Voiceover: Family is everything to me. We see Ted in the kitchen with his extended family. Voiceover: I can't imagine life without them, to be honest. We see Ted in the hospital with an oxygen mask on his face.

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A variety of conditions affect our ability to drive, including poor sleep, some prescription medications and alcohol. Cannabis is another.

Many people use cannabis for medical reasons, others for recreation. Figuring out whether someone should avoid driving can be tricky because of the variety of chemicals contained within the plant, the different ways people use cannabis and the fact that regular users can develop tolerance.

With Canada on the verge of legalizing and regulating cannabis - and modifying its Criminal Code to cover drug-impaired driving - it's important to figure out how to determine whether someone is impaired.

At Toronto Rehab, we have the most advanced driving simulator in Canada - and we are testing people's driving abilities after they have used various types of cannabis.

Underground lab

The iDAPT DriverLab contains a complete Audi A3, 360-degree field-of-view projection screen, surround-sound system, one-of-a-kind rain and glare simulators and a large seven-degree-of-freedom motion system.

In 2015, police reported 72,039 impaired driving incidents in Canada, with nearly 3,000 involving drug-impaired driving.

We use the iDAPT DriverLab to assess various conditions that affect driving performance, including cannabis use for both for medical and recreational purposes.

In Canada, the Senate has passed the federal government's Bill C-45, which will legalize and regulate cannabis, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has set Oct. 17 as the day Canadians will be able to legally consume marijuana. Another bill, C-46, will create new provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada for drug-impaired driving.

Even after the regulations are set for smoking cannabis, edible forms still won't be approved until the federal government can set rules on packaging, potency and health warnings.

Effects of cannabis

Cannabis is a plant that contains more than 500 chemicals. Two that are being used for medicinal purposes are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD.

THC is the substance that gives the "high" or euphoria, while CBD reduces the psychoactive effects of THC. Both THC and CBD are used for medical purposes such as relieving pain from multiple sclerosis or nausea from chemotherapy.

Recent data from the Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey indicates that 12 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older had used cannabis in the past 12 months. By comparison, the past-year use of other drugs, including crack, ecstasy, speed or methamphetamines, hallucinogens or heroin, was two per cent.

Some academics and policy makers speculate that more people will experiment with cannabis after it becomes legal, which means that more people who aren't currently using the drug may get behind the wheel.

The effects of cannabis in the brain are different from alcohol. It can affect attention, vigilance, perception of time and speed, and the use of knowledge.

Read more: Why we need better, smarter, panic-free education on cannabis

Drivers under the influence of alcohol tend to drive faster and closer to the cars in front of them. But those under the effects of cannabis tend to have lower reaction times, they drive slower and keep a larger distance from the car ahead.

The brain effects of cannabis also vary with how the drug is absorbed - via the lungs, digestive tract or the skin. The effects of smoked cannabis can be felt within minutes, while the effects after ingesting cannabis is only apparent after at least 30 minutes and last for hours.

The concentration of THC within the blood also determines the size of the effect. The more there is, the greater the detrimental effects .

However, regular use of cannabis leads to tolerance. That may explain why people who use marijuana for medical purposes are generally not impaired. But it may also be due to the type of cannabis they use, and whether it has low concentrations of THC and higher concentrations of CBD.

Under the influence, or not?

So when it comes to cannabis and driving, how do you measure impairment?

THC levels can be detected using saliva, urine or blood. But the way cannabis is used - smoking or vapourizing, eating leaves (in brownies), drinking oils, using topical creams or taking pills containing synthetic cannabinoids - affect how quickly the drug enters the body and gets to the brain.

The inhaled forms of cannabis reach receptors in the brain within a few minutes and are able to produce the highest euphoric effects. Edibles have a delayed onset of action. Maximum THC blood levels occur between one and six hours later, and the effects that may last for up to 20 hours.

(Shutterstock)

There are other questions also worth asking.

How long should someone wait, once they use cannabis, until they drive or work in a safety-sensitive job?

Is there a maximum level of THC that a person can reach until they are considered impaired? How can law enforcement professionals test drivers on the roadside, to determine impairment by cannabis? And finally, what happens when drivers mix alcohol with cannabis?

There are no definite answers to these questions.

Six-hour wait, or more?

The current recommendations from the evidence-based Canadian Low Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines endorses not driving for at least six hours after using cannabis. But the wait time can be longer depending on the user and the properties of the specific cannabis product used.

Police forces across the country have announced that they will start testing saliva THC levels when they suspect someone of cannabis-impaired driving.

For now, police officers are using the standardized field sobriety test - a series of roadside challenges, including the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, the walk-and-turn test and the one-legged stand test.

However, as there is no evidence that cannabis affects the same areas of the brain as alcohol, these tests may not reveal impairment or may downplay the degree of impairment.

Using the iDAPT Driver Lab, we plan to answer these questions and others, including whether, from a driving perspective, it is safer to treat pain with medical cannabis or opioids.

Read more: Legal weed: An accidental solution to the opioid crisis?

We'll also test in-vehicle technologies and roadside devices to detect impairment, such as cognitive tests, as well as devices that can prevent accidents, such as forward and lateral collision mitigation systems.

Until then, it's probably best not to toke and drive or to operate heavy machinery.

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Even if cannabis is legal, please don't toke and drive

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A variety of conditions affect our ability to drive, including poor sleep, some prescription medications and alcohol. Cannabis is another. Many people use cannabis for medical reasons, others for recreation. Figuring out whether someone should avoid driving can be tricky because of the variety of chemicals contained within the plant, the different ways people use cannabis and the fact that regular users can develop tolerance.

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Greens leader Richard Di Natale wants Australia to legalise cannabis for personal use, regulated by a federal agency. This proposal is for legalisation of recreational use for relaxation and pleasure, not to treat a medical condition (which is already legal in Australia for some conditions).

According to the proposal, the government agency would licence, monitor and regulate production and sale, and regularly review the regulations. The agency would be the sole wholesaler, buying from producers and selling to retailers it licences.

The proposed policy includes some safeguards that reflect lessons we've learned from alcohol and tobacco. These include a ban on advertising, age restrictions, requiring plain packaging, and strict licensing controls. Under the proposal, tax revenues would be used to improve funding to the prevention and treatment sector, which is underfunded compared to law enforcement.

Read more: Greens want cannabis to be made legal

Cannabis legislation around the world

In Australia, cannabis possession and use is currently illegal. But in several states and territories (South Australia, ACT and Northern Territory) a small amount for personal use is decriminalised. That means it's illegal, but not a criminal offence. In all others it's subject to discretionary or mandatory diversion usually by police (referred to as "depenalisation").

Several jurisdictions around the world have now legalised cannabis, including Uruguay, Catalonia and nine states in the United States. Canada is well underway to legalising cannabis, with legislation expected some time this year, and the New Zealand prime minister has flagged a referendum on the issue.

In a recent opinion poll, around 30% of Australians thought cannabis should be legal. Teenagers 14-17 years old were least likely to support legalistaion (21% of that age group) and 18-24 year olds were most likely to support it (36% of that age group).

Read more: Australia's recreational drug policies aren't working, so what are the options for reform?

In the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey, around a quarter of respondents supported cannabis legalisation and around 15% approved of regular use by adults for non-medical purposes.

What are the concerns about legalisation?

Opponents of legalisation are concerned it will increase use, increase crime, increase risk of car accidents, and reduce public health - including mental health. Many are concerned cannabis is a "gateway" drug.

The " gateway drug " hypothesis was discounted decades ago. Although cannabis usually comes before other illegal drug use, the majority of people who use cannabis do not go on to use other drugs. In addition, alcohol and tobacco usually precede cannabis use, which if the theory were correct would make those drugs the "gateway".

AAP/Lukas Coch

Read more: Could a regulated cannabis market help curb Australia's drinking problem?

There is also no evidence legalisation increases use. But, studies have shown a number of health risks, including:

around 10% of adults and one in six teens who use regularly will become dependent

regular cannabis use doubles the risk of psychotic symptoms and schizophrenia

teen cannabis use is associated with poorer school outcomes but causation has not been established

driving under the influence of cannabis doubles the risk of a car crash

smoking while pregnant affects a baby's birth weight.

What are the arguments for legalisation?

Reducing harms

Australia's official drug strategy is based on a platform of harm minimisation, including supply reduction, demand reduction (prevention and treatment) and harm reduction. Arguably, policies should therefore have a net reduction in harm.

But some of the major harms from using illicit drugs are precisely because they are illegal. A significant harm is having a criminal record for possessing drugs that are for personal use. This can negatively impact a person's future, including careers and travel. Decriminalisation of cannabis would also reduce these harms without requiring full legalisation.

Reducing crime and social costs

A large proportion of the work of the justice system (police, courts and prisons) is spent on drug-related offences. Yet, as Mick Palmer, former AFP Commissioner, notes "drug law enforcement has had little impact on the Australian drug market".

Decriminalisation may reduce the burden on the justice system, but probably not as much as full legalisation because police and court resources would still be used for cautioning, issuing fines, or diversion to education or treatment. Decriminalisation and legalistaion both potentially reduce the involvement of the justice system and also of the black market growing and selling of cannabis.

Read more: Assessing the costs and benefits of legalising cannabis

Raising tax revenue

Economic analysis of the impact of cannabis legalisation calculate the net social benefit of legalisation at A$727.5 million per year. This is significantly higher than the status quo at around A$295 million (for example from fines generating revenue, as well as perceived benefits of criminalisation deterring use). The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates tax revenue from cannabis legalisation at around A$259 million.

Civil liberties

Many see cannabis prohibition as an infringement on civil rights, citing the limited harms associated with cannabis use. This includes the relatively low rate of dependence and very low likelihood of overdosing on cannabis, as well as the low risk of harms to people using or others.

Many activities that are legal are potentially harmful: driving a car, drinking alcohol, bungee jumping. Rather than making them illegal, there are guidelines, laws and education to make them safer that creates a balance between civil liberties and safety.

What has happened in places where cannabis is legal?

Legalisation of cannabis is relatively recent in most jurisdictions so the long-term benefits or problems of legalisation are not yet known.

But one study found little effect of legalisation on drug use or other outcomes, providing support for neither opponents nor advocates of legalisation. Other studies have shown no increase in use, even among teens.

The research to date suggests there is no significant increase (or decrease) in use or other outcomes where cannabis legalisation has occurred. It's possible the harm may shift, for example from legal harms to other types of harms. We don't have data to support or dispel that possibility.

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Legal highs: arguments for and against legalising cannabis in Australia

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Greens leader Richard Di Natale wants Australia to legalise cannabis for personal use, regulated by a federal agency. This proposal is for legalisation of recreational use for relaxation and pleasure, not to treat a medical condition (which is already legal in Australia for some conditions).

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A collection of CNN stories about the marijuana legalization debate.

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Cannabis causes 32 deaths each year in New Zealand... Really? | NZ Drug Foundation - At the heart of the matter

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No - cannabis and its derivatives do not cause 32 deaths per year in New Zealand. This number distorts the harm profile of the drug and subsequent policy priorities. Toxic overdose should be the only definition or criteria used to count drug-related deaths.

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Most students believe that people under the age of 18 should not be placed on the sex offender register or be charged with child pornography offences for peer-to-peer sexting according to a survey undertaken by University of New South Wales.

Of the 1,000 students (aged between 12 and 17) surveyed, half had experienced or knew someone who had experienced cyber bullying and over a third had been asked, or knew someone who had been asked to engage in sexting.

Most thought that sexting and cyber bullying should be against the law, but the study found many young people are still unaware of the criminal nature of these online behaviours.

Read more at UNSW

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Young people think sexting and cyber bullying penalties are too harsh

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Most students believe that people under the age of 18 should not be placed on the sex offender register or be charged with child pornography offences for peer-to-peer sexting according to a survey undertaken by University of New South Wales.

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One in five 14- to 15-year-olds have been cyberbullied. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

Social media has revolutionised how we communicate. In this series, we look at how it has changed the media, politics, health, education and the law.
Bullying is among parents' greatest concerns. And little wonder. It's the biggest modifiable risk factor for children and adolescents developing mental illnesses. Every few weeks there are reports of children and teens who have taken their lives, allegedly due to bullying and cyberbullying.

One in five (21% of) 14- to 15-year-olds report having been cyber bullied, up from 4% in eight- to nine-year-olds. Bullies post threatening messages, spread rumours and share humiliating images via sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram for teenagers, and Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin for pre-teens.

But contrary to public perception, bullying via social media is not as common as traditional forms of face-to-face bullying.

It's natural for parents to want to protect their children and teens from bullying on social media, but simply taking their devices away is not the solution.

Who is cyber bullied?

Students who are bullied online are also likely to be victims of traditional bullying and most know the perpetrator in real life.

Like traditional bullying, the highest risk time for cyberbullying is at transition to high school.

Children and teens are also more likely to be bullied on social media if they:

Victims of cyberbullying report high rates of anxiety and depression.

But the evidence is mixed about whether cyber or traditional bullying impacts more on mental health. It's likely that both have a serious impact.

There is also a cumulative effect: the more experiences of bullying (whether cyber or tradtional), the worse the mental health risk.

Social media can be good and bad

Most Australian children (78%) have used social media by the ages of eight or nine. Usage increases during teenage years, with most 16-17 year olds (92%) accessing it at least once a month, and around half with daily access.

When parents see a problem, it's sometimes tempting to try to ban children from using social media. But a ban is difficult to enforce, given the reliance on the internet for education.

It may also be counter-productive. Most 14- to 17-year-olds report that the internet is very important to them, saying it improves their wellbeing and relationships.

A recent review of international research confirms that participation in social media can increase teenagers' feelings of self-esteem, support, and fitting in with a group. Children relate to each other through social media, for good and for bad.

Setting up safe processes

You can help your child from being targeted by adequately supervising them when they're online, only providing access to social media sites that are appropriate for their level of maturity, and maintaining good lines of communication.

To help decide whether social media sites are appropriate for your child's age, read the "terms of use" and check the minimum age. You can then help your child to set an appropriate privacy setting.

It's important to educate you child about about internet safety. This includes ensuring they only "friend" people they know in real life, and that they consider the possible impacts of information before posting.

Good cyber-safety resources include the Office of the eSafety Commissioner's downloadable brochures and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation's eLicence. School-based education programs have also been shown to reduce cyberbullying.

Try keeping computers only in the common area of the house, friending or following your child online, and occasionally checking their online profile.

Over time, you can give your child more independence as they develop their skills to manage more complicated situations online. But try to maintain good communication so they can come to you with any problems - this includes listening without overreacting.

Look out for signs of distress, such as greater emotional reactivity, avoiding school or social situations, sleep disturbance, or a drop in school marks.

If your child is unwilling to speak with you, they may be willing to call a support service such as the Kids Helpline.

What if your child has a problem?

If the problem involves someone he or she knows in real life, your child might be able to sort out the problem directly. Or you can ask the school for help.

You can help your child decide whether to block or unfriend online users who are causing distress. It's wise to keep a record of problems, by taking screen shots. Offensive content can be reported to the website or carrier, and if not addressed, can be reported to the Children's eSafety Commissioner.

If you think your child is in danger, contact the police or Crimestoppers.

Finally, if your child suffers ongoing distress, consider getting professional help from a psychologist, psychiatrist or your GP.

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Blocking kids from social media won't solve the problem of cyberbullying

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Social media has revolutionised how we communicate. In this series, we look at how it has changed the media, politics, health, education and the law. Bullying is among parents' greatest concerns. And little wonder. It's the biggest modifiable risk factor for children and adolescents developing mental illnesses.

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Homophobic bullying is a problem that needs urgent attention in Queensland schools. Bullying image from www.shutterstock.com

There has been a series of disturbing homophobic bullying incidents in Queensland schools in recent months.

Some of the cases reported in the media included a Brisbane student being allegedly told by male teachers she would burn in hell, and a boy having excrement wiped on his bag by students who believed he was gay.

Unlike in many other states, the Queensland government's education policies and training programs have no explicit consideration of homophobic bullying or its prevention.

In addition, teachers are given no specific training on the issues of homophobic bullying which research shows has significantly increased over the past decade.

Only Queensland's Inclusive Education Statement lists an appreciation of "sexuality" within indicators of inclusive education. But this is the only Queensland policy document that comes close to dealing with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex (GLBTIQ) students in any sense at all. And just the one mention of "sexuality" - a vague term which could be interpreted to just mean "sexually active students" or "pregnant students" - clearly falls short of the standards set in other states.

One such example is Victoria's eight page Supporting Sexual Diversity in Schools policy and detailed guidelines on students with a transgender or intersex status.

Unfortunately, research shows Queensland teachers generally only understand the Inclusive Education Statement and its related resources as relevant to students with disabilities.

My PhD research uncovered that Queensland GLBTIQ students were the most likely of all students (across all states and territories) to say their school did not provide sexuality education, and did not provide any relevant sexuality education around GLBTIQ topics.

Over one tenth of Queensland GLBTIQ students received no sexuality education at all throughout their entire schooling, and this rose to 23% of students in Queensland Catholic schools.

Only 13% of Queensland students were taught that homophobia is wrong - far fewer than in Victorian or NSW schools.

Oddly enough, there have actually been some incredibly promising curricula module topics in Queensland's older Health and Physical Education syllabus covering same-sex attraction and gender identity. But the study of the modules is not mandated and teachers haven't received adequate training on the diversity content in order to cover them, unlike in NSW schools for example.

A further issue is the misconception that tackling bullying "in general" is the same as tackling homophobic bullying specifically. Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has voiced his opposition to bullying in any form, calling it "unacceptable". He sees Queensland as leading the rest of Australia in the fight against school bullying because it has "more than twice the number of students taking part in the National Day of Action Against Bullying than any other state or territory".

His passion for tackling bullying is certainly commendable. But we must remember that there are school staff and students who simply do not consider homophobic violence or verbal abuse as bullying.

These are turbulent times in Australia wherein moral perspectives on gay marriage and gender norms are under heated and constant debate in the media, and some politicians and religious groups think little of making extremely homophobic statements - presenting poor examples for school staff and students who might parrot these perspectives in the classroom.

So Queensland schools are falling short. This is due to a lack of explicit anti-homophobia policies, a very limited model of "inclusive education", a lack of mandated sexuality education and teacher training, and too broad an approach to bullying which does little to impact systematic and institutional homophobia.

It is essential for the Queensland education department to remind staff in no uncertain terms that regardless of their personal opinions or private moral values, they have responsibilities under international human rights treaties to provide education and training to "prevent discrimination and stigmatisation of LGBT and intersex people".

They also have legal and professional duties not to discriminate and to ensure that the school environment is a safe and supportive space for their GLBTIQ students; indeed, for any student who may be subjected to homophobia regardless of their sexual orientation.

Only once this is recognised, can the Queensland education system be in the best position to tackle homophobic bullying head on.

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Why Queensland schools are failing gay students

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There has been a series of disturbing homophobic bullying incidents in Queensland schools in recent months. Some of the cases reported in the media included a Brisbane student being allegedly told by male teachers she would burn in hell, and a boy having excrement wiped on his bag by students who believed he was gay.

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The assumption that banning the use of smartphones at school will fix the problem of bullying is "extremely naive".

So said NSW Secondary Principals Council president Chris Presland, who nevertheless welcomed moves by the NSW Government to review the use of smartphones in schools.

"But it has to be a more informed debate about the issues surrounding smartphones and bullying in general," he said.

"We don't believe that banning smartphones is actually the solution to the problem of bullying.

"Bullying is a societal issue. It is something that happens in every walk of life. It is not just a school issue.

"School students are children who model the behaviour that they see from an adult around them.

"So whether we talk about politicians, or the media or parents on the side of football fields on the weekends, or road rage or shops or whatever.

"This whole issue is a societal one and it's a problematical one for a society which is under pressure.

"If the assumption is that we are going to fix up the problem of bullying by banning smartphones, it is extremely naive.

"It is a more complex problem."

If the assumption is that we are going to fix up the problem of bullying by banning smartphones, it is extremely naive.
Chris Presland

Mr Presland added that there are certainly advantages and an educational value for students if smartphones are used properly.

This view is supported by a number of teachers, including The Wheel founder Michael de Main.

The Illawarra-based teacher previously told the Mercury he spent a lot of time with students teaching them how to use social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook business accounts to better promote themselves.

But South Coast MP Shelley Hancock, who taught at Ulladulla High School for 27 years, is all for banning smartphones in school.

The Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly supported organisations such as the Carly Ryan Foundation and the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children in calling for action on cyberbullying of young people.

"I am pleased the NSW Government has taken the first steps which will see real action in reducing the insidious effect cyberbullying has on our children," Mrs Hancock said.

The Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW president Susie Boyd said she would be interested to see what the upcoming review recommends.

"There should be a robust policy in place over the use of smartphone technology in schools, and any such policy should have the welfare of students front and centre," Mrs Boyd said.

Catholic Schools NSW (CSNSW) also backs the review, which will be led by leading child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg.

Education Minister Rob Stokes said smartphones provide opportunities for students and parents to stay connected, but can also create other problems.

He said the review will investigate the risks versus rewards of mobile phone usage inside the school gates.

It will examine the impact of the use of devices in schools on students of different ages in terms of educational outcomes and child development, as well as their potential benefits when used as part of contemporary teaching practice, particularly for students in the latter years of high school.

The review will also consider social media age restrictions, student online safety, the prevalence of cyberbullying on school grounds, restricting the use of mobile phones at primary schools and the importance of students being contactable while travelling to and from school.

Students, teachers and principals will be consulted, while the review will also seek advice from local and international experts in the fields of child development, cyberbullying, teaching practice and technology.

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Will banning smartphones at school prevent cyber bullying?

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The assumption that banning the use of smartphones at school will fix the problem of bullying is "extremely naive". So said NSW Secondary Principals Council president Chris Presland, who nevertheless welcomed moves by the NSW Government to review the use of smartphones in schools.

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By Melissa Cunningham

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Deaths from heroin overdoses in north Richmond have risen sharply.
Photo: Eddie Jim

Drug users will be allowed to consume ice under medical supervision at Melbourne's new safe injecting room, despite previous state government assurances that it would be banned from the centre.

Users will be able to take up to three grams of drugs such as heroin or ice into the injecting centre without penalty.

The government released regulations for the North Richmond Centre late on Tuesday afternoon that revealed there will be no restriction on the drugs of dependence that can be used in the injecting room.

It come after Mental Health Minister Martin Foley said last October there would be protocols developed to keep ice and amphetamines out of the centre.

The government defended the backflip on Tuesday and said the decision to allow the use of all drugs of dependence was in line with international best practices and mirrored the protocols of Sydney's safe injecting room in Kings Cross, which allows drug users to inject ice.

No-one has died at the Kings Cross injecting room despite thousands of overdoses.

Staff at the Sydney centre ask clients what substances they intend to consume on site and what they have previously taken in the last 24 hours.

"We have acted on the advice of an expert panel made up of health professionals, law enforcement and the community sector," Mr Foley said.

"This is all about reducing harm and saving lives by giving people in the grip of addiction an opportunity to get off the streets, and turn their lives around."

He said the regulations also aligned with the findings of a recent bipartisan parliamentary inquiry into drug law reform.

The regulations stipulate that only less than traffickable amounts of a drug of dependence will be allowed in the injecting room.

Under Victorian law, possession of three grams or more of drugs such as heroin and methamphetamines is deemed a trafficable offence.

People with a criminal history will not be allowed to work at the centre, while those known to be on parole, bail, or subject to any other order of court or tribunal will not be allowed to access the room to inject drugs.

Drug users must also give their full names to access the safe injecting room.

A 16-year spike in Victorian heroin deaths prompted fresh calls for a safe injecting centre.

The government announced last year it will run a two-year trial centre at heroin hotspot North Richmond under a bold plan that includes tougher penalties for drug traffickers.

Thirty-four people died from heroin overdoses in a four-block area near Victoria Street in 12 months, compelling the state coroner to call for a trial last year.

The government said security staff would be at the centre at all times during opening hours, but refused to reveal the number of staff or whether security would be beefed up due to the increased risk of violence posed by people using ice.

Dr Marianne Jauncey, medical director of the Kings Cross injection room, said while the centre provided ongoing training for de-escalation techniques, "staff had not experienced a relationship between the use of crystal meth amphetamine and incidents onsite".

Melissa Cunningham reports breaking news for The Age.

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Ice will be allowed in Melbourne safe injecting room

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By Melissa Cunningham Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Drug users will be allowed to consume ice under medical supervision at Melbourne's new safe injecting room, despite previous state government assurances that it would be banned from the centre.

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The Victorian government recently announced a medically-supervised injecting centre for North Richmond, an inner-city area plagued by drug overdoses. While some may argue the establishment of such facilities normalises drug use, the centres offer an essential service to keep people who use drugs and the community safe.

A medically-supervised injecting centre is a physical space where it's legal for people who inject drugs to come with pre-obtained substances and inject themselves. The key point is that rather than just being supplied with clean injecting equipment and then sent away to inject elsewhere (as is the case with needle syringe programs across Australia for the last 30 years), people are also provided with a safe space to inject.

Read more: A medically supervised injection facility matters for Victoria - and for more inclusive mental health support

How does the service work?

Stage 1

Walking in the front door, visitors probably feel they're in the reception area of a typical health service. There are paintings on the wall, and someone smiling from behind a reception desk asking how they can help. A first time visitor will be taken aside to register with the service, which involves a conversation with one of our trained nursing or counselling staff, and a brief medical history being taken. Most of our clients have been injecting drugs for over a decade, and have complex histories, with mental health and childhood trauma both common features.

People are not required to leave either their full name or their real name, nor give us their Medicare details. Instead, they give us a password and we provide them with a unique number used for any subsequent visits. This option for anonymity is to encourage people who might be unsure about using our service.

Once registered, people are asked what drug they're seeking to use, as well as what other drugs they've used recently. This gives staff a sense of what to expect in stage two, where supervised drug injection takes place. Testing of the drugs is not part of what an injecting centre traditionally does, due to the time and expense associated with it. The aim of an injecting centre is to physically accommodate the injection of drugs that would normally occur somewhere inherently more dangerous, and often public.

Stage 2

In stage two, staff provide clean injecting equipment. Typically this takes the form of small 1ml syringes, swabs to clean the skin, a tourniquet, water, filters and a spoon. Clients sit at one of eight stainless steel booths, then use this equipment to inject themselves. Staff are not legally able to inject a client, but their role as clinicians trained in harm reduction is to reduce the risks associated with that injection.

This may involve talking to someone about where and how they inject, encouraging them to wash their hands and use swabs, ensuring they don't share any equipment, and other techniques aimed at ensuring they understand the risks of blood-borne virus transmission. Because there is no quality control for illicitly sourced drugs, part of the harm comes from simply not knowing what may or may not be in the mixture, so staff are always on the look-out for unexpected reactions.

This area can be really quite confronting. For health professionals working in the field of drugs, we have never been present for the actual injection of any drug. Why? Because this is illegal. So despite handing out injecting equipment to drug users over many years for the specific purpose of injecting drugs, we've never been able to provide additional care when it's really needed. Instead, we've been forced to tell people to go elsewhere.

An injecting centre provides the setting and the possibility for a new type of connection with our clients. The power of suspending judgement for those who are the most judged and vilified in our society can be transformative.

Read more: Why Australia needs drug consumption rooms

Stage 3

After the injection, clients safely dispose of their used equipment, and move to the next room, known as stage three. This is a more relaxed space, where we run all sorts of activities to engage people in conversations about their health and wellbeing. It may be a quiz, creative writing or art, or instructing people on appropriate overdose responses and showing them the recovery position and rescue breathing.

All staff have relevant experience and additional training to ensure they're skilled in opening up conversations with the people they see. This therapeutic relationship is essential to make effective referrals into other treatment, care and support services.

Referrals may be for specialised treatment for addiction (from detoxification services and rehabilitation, to methadone and buprenorphine - slow-release oral opioids), or to relapse prevention and other types of counselling. It may be for a range of other medical services such as mental health treatment, dental services, hepatitis C treatment, or wound care.

Preventing overdose

In all stages of the service, there is always a risk of overdose, and staff are trained to intervene immediately. Crucially, no one has ever died from a drug overdose in any such facility anywhere in the world (there are now more than 110 services internationally).

Whether it's illicit heroin or pharmaceutical morphine, all opiate drugs switch off the part of the brain that reminds you to breathe. If no one intervenes in an opiate overdose, oxygen will be depleted and eventually the heart will stop, causing death. But if someone is present, recognises what is happening and intervenes appropriately, the person can be saved.

Our staff protect a person's airway, provide supplemental oxygen, even artificially breathe for them via bag/valve/mask resuscitation. Nursing staff can also administer naloxone (narcan), which is an opiate antidote. This drug reverses the effect of any opiate drug, and the brain is reminded to breathe again.

Read more: Weekly Dose: Naloxone, how to save a life from opioid overdose

An injecting centre is very much a practical and evidence-based response, effective in areas with highly concentrated public drug use and overdose. It has been shown that an injecting centre does not create a honeypot for more drug use, rather it assists in addressing existing problems. They are well supported by police, as well as their local communities.

But it won't make the problem vanish, nor get everyone instantly off drugs. Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing health problem that needs long-term commitment and encouragement in order to see change.

We need a wide range of affordable treatment and support services for people with problematic drug use, and treatment needs to be available and accessible to people when they need it. An injecting centre is only ever going to be one part of the larger jigsaw puzzle - but without it, people may die before they get the help they need.

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What goes on inside a medically supervised injection facility?

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The Victorian government recently announced a medically-supervised injecting centre for North Richmond, an inner-city area plagued by drug overdoses. While some may argue the establishment of such facilities normalises drug use, the centres offer an essential service to keep people who use drugs and the community safe.

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While Sydney's medically supervised injecting centre has had positive results, we need drug consumption rooms all over the country. AAP/Paul Miller

As senior law enforcement officials line up to say Australia cannot arrest its way out of our illicit drug problems, some politicians have expressed opposing views about drug consumption rooms. This debate is now raging in Melbourne.

Drug consumption rooms enable people to use drugs under the supervision of trained staff. Generally established close to large drug markets, they have been shown to reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, reduce deaths and injuries due to drug overdose, reduce ambulance call-outs, increase referral to health and social services including detoxification and drug addiction treatment and reduce public drug injecting and numbers of discarded needles.

The annual cost of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre is about A$3 million, roughly equivalent to the annual cost of imprisoning about 30 people. While the benefits of incarceration can be difficult to identify, the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre produces larger financial savings than it costs to run.

Another benefit of drug consumption rooms is providing authorities with rapid feedback about the drugs currently used in the street.

Drug consumption rooms are remarkably effective at attracting isolated people with almost no contact with any health or social service. Many have off-the-scale mental and physical health problems.

Some drug consumption rooms only focus on supervised drug consumption and emergency care in the event of an overdose. Others also provide a wide range of health and social supports. The range of additional services can include counselling, health education, food, referral to health care including drug treatment and social assistance, shower and clothes wash, the use of a phone, and referral to work or social integration services.

The first official drug consumption rooms established in Bern, Switzerland, in 1986. There are now 88 drug consumption rooms operating in 58 cities in nine countries. Most drug consumption rooms are in Europe. Outside Europe there is only one drug consumption room in Sydney and another in Vancouver. Canada wants to open more drug consumption rooms while France, Ireland, Slovenia and Portugal are all planning to open drug consumption rooms this year.

The best evaluations of drug consumption rooms were carried out in Sydney and Vancouver. These found no evidence of increased crime in the vicinity, and no evidence for increased drug use or delayed entry to drug treatment. Fears that the problems of drug markets might be exacerbated have proved groundless.

In some European cities, inhalation of drugs such as crack cocaine, heroin and ice has become more common than injecting. Consequently, drug consumption rooms are now being set up to provide supervised inhalation.

These drug consumption rooms may be a great help in Australia, where there is considerable anxiety about ice - a drug that is often heated, releasing a vapour that is then inhaled. In order to avoid occupational health problems for staff, drug consumption rooms providing supervised inhalation have powerful ventilation and extraction systems.

The Melbourne debate

Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett has been strongly advocating the establishment of a Melbourne drug consumption room since visiting the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Sydney's Kings Cross in 2015. After 15 years of work on mental health at Beyondblue, Kennett understands how tough life is for people who attend a drug consumption room.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews made an election promise not to establish a drug consumption room in the state. However, he could make a commitment - preferably a bipartisan one - to establish a drug consumption room in Melbourne after the next state election. The case for drug consumption rooms is now extremely strong and the case against them is remarkably weak.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle is strongly against establishing a drug consumption room in the city. He argues that drug consumption rooms don't break the crime nexus. While that is true, this was never their objective. It is equivalent to objecting to safety belts because they don't stop car crashes.

Doyle's claims that drug consumption rooms don't get people off drugs is simply incorrect. They increase referral to treatment in a population with almost zero current access to treatment, and there is plenty of evidence treatment helps people to come off drugs.

His argument that drug consumption rooms are "not a silver bullet" conveniently set up a straw man: no serious advocate has made this claim.

Doyle's claim that drug consumption rooms are still experimental is irreconcilable with their 30-year history and the impressive evidence of their impact.

He was closer to the mark when he argued that services for drug users should be better co-ordinated, but why not improve co-ordination and establish a drug consumption room? His claim that a single drug consumption room doesn't reach "all addicts" is true, but neither does a single police station.

Doyle's most interesting suggestion was his surprising defence of prescription heroin treatment. Trials of heroin-assisted treatment in six countries involving a total of more than 1,670 severely dependent heroin users who never responded to previous treatment provided substantial health and crime-reduction benefits. The Howard government was wrong to stop Australia's trial 19 years ago; the Turnbull government would be agile, nimble and innovative to allow a heroin trial to now proceed.

Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre began operating in 2001. Despite the strong evidence of its benefit, it is still the only one in the country. A country that based drug policy on evidence would have established additional drug consumption rooms years ago.

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Why Australia needs drug consumption rooms

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As senior law enforcement officials line up to say Australia cannot arrest its way out of our illicit drug problems, some politicians have expressed opposing views about drug consumption rooms. This debate is now raging in Melbourne. Drug consumption rooms enable people to use drugs under the supervision of trained staff.

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Last week in my music of video games course at Queen's University, we examined first-person shooter (FPS) games. As might be expected, the discussion turned to the subject of violence in video games, but also about what it really means to be "immersed."

My students pointed out that immersion involves both emotional and imaginative components, but they also said an important part of immersion for them was that it generated a sense of "escapism and freedom from reality."

Opponents to violence in video games believe players are more violent than non-players. They believe that because players replicate violent actions in a game they will do so in real life. For example, the U.S. governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, said this recently:

"I'm a big believer in the First Amendment and right to free speech, but there are certain things that are so graphic as it relates to violence ...There is zero upside to any of this being in the public domain, let alone in the minds and hands and homes of our young people... (These games) celebrate the slaughtering of people. There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside of schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who's lying there begging for their life."

To all those political opportunists who are seizing on the tragedy in Las Vegas to call for more gun regs...You can't regulate evil...
- Governor Matt Bevin (@GovMattBevin) October 2, 2017

While many of these games could be seen as being in poor taste, studies on whether violent games cause real-life violence have had mixed results at best.
What is the immersive fallacy?
How can video games be confused for reality when its players view them as escapism and freedom from reality? In their book Rules of Play, scholars Katie Salen Tekinbaş and Eric Zimmerman argue that there are significant flaws in our understanding of video games and what exactly constitutes immersion.

The idea video game players can reach a state where they forget they are playing a game is a common misconception. Salen and Zimmerman call this the "immersive fallacy."

That is, the idea that players believe their gaming "reality is so complete...that the player truly believes that he or she is part of an imaginary world" is false.

Instead Salen and Zimmerman say players are "well-aware of the artificiality of the play situation." In fact, this artificiality is one of the things that makes games so entertaining.

Let's take an example.

In this scene from Battlefield 1 (2016), a first-person shooter is set during the First World War and player action and interaction shifts between several roles.

Players start by driving a tank and firing at enemies, but when the tank gets stuck in mud an enemy attack at close quarters quickly follows.

Ominous, indistinct music begins as the player is trapped in the tank, but the sounds of gunshots overwhelm the action. Soon, however, the character is deafened by a gunshot.

Ambient noise of weapon fire is silenced to reveal underlying music featuring trumpet and trombone flares, giving it a militaristic feel.

The player releases a messenger pigeon, and a shift of character occurs. Keenly aware of this shift because the style of gameplay completely changes, the player's role is now to fly the pigeon to its destination, seeing the world literally from a bird's-eye view.

The style of the music also shifts significantly, morphing from a claustrophobic, dark atmosphere (in the tank) with percussive gun hammering and low-register brass and strings to a calm, serene piano melody for the bird flight.

The bird is oblivious to anything but its destination. The clear, simple harmonies of the music during flight suggest it is revelling in its freedom. Once again, the atmosphere is in stark contrast to the men trapped below. When the bird lands, the music returns to its previous ominous brass swells and more chaotic rhythm.

Battlefield 1 is often called an immersive game by its players, but an understanding of immersion that relies on players believing that the game is reality would imply that players identify as First World War-era soldiers.

In such a situation, the shift to a bird's eye view would be jarring and would break the gamer's sense of immersion.

My students observed the dramatic shift of music immediately upon becoming the bird, an observation also made by players online. This musical contrast - the softer, more tonal music and the shift to a brighter sky - heightens the sense of peace during flight.

The contrast with the dark tank environment further reinforces the sense of otherness that being the bird entails.

Salen and Zimmerman explain that "players always know that they are playing," and are therefore free to move among the different roles. Players embrace this flexibility and can come in and out " of moments of immersion, breaking the player and character frames."

In other words, players are completely aware that they're playing within a fictional world, and that this fiction can provide experiences and viewpoints not possible in real life.

The shift of viewpoint and complete unexpectedness of playing as a bird in the middle of a wargame is a flexibility that makes the pigeon scene extremely effective, creating the dramatic contrasts that boost our emotional response to this part of the game.
Players know their games are not reality
It's not surprising the general public is confused about immersion. Even gamers don't really have a consistent understanding of what "immersion" means, partly because they use the word in two different ways.

Anecdotally, gamers often use the term to refer to the depth and level of detail of the game world, but colloquially it's also used to refer to how addicting a game is. This ambiguity is also brought up in a 2008 study in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies that examines how exactly to measure immersion.

Players might describe how they were "totally immersed" in a rousing game of Tetris, but this hardly means they believe they exist in a universe where four-unit blocks might crush them at any point while accompanied by a Russian folk song, for example.

Gamers talk about Skyrim as having an immersive game world, with its own politics, religions and even literature (reading the books you find in Skyrim is surprisingly entertaining). But part of the appeal of Skyrim are the unique features of that game world: The ability to cast spells, treasure hunt and play as non-human races.

The players' questing is made easier by the text menus that they regularly access to complete most actions in the game. The constant visual presence of the menus on the screen is a clear and regular reminder that this definitely isn't reality.

As my students and I have been exploring the interaction of game plot, visuals and music over the last few weeks, I've become increasingly convinced that it's actually the escape from reality that creates effective gameplay.

And as Salen and Zimmerman argue: "The many-layered state of mind that occurs during play is something to be celebrated, not repressed...."

Much like a good book or movie provides the framework for a world to give the audience a unique viewpoint, games provide a frame for the imagination, while still remaining firmly fictional.
/Beyond is ScienceAlert's new section covering the wider world of gadgets, games, and digital culture.
Stephanie Lind, Associate Professor, Queen's University, Ontario
This article was originally published by The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Why Violence in Video Games Isn't Really a Problem

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Last week in my music of video games course at Queen's University, we examined first-person shooter (FPS) games. As might be expected, the discussion turned to the subject of violence in video games, but also about what it really means to be "immerse

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One-by-one, experts speaking to a federal school safety commission addressed factors commonly blamed for school shootings: bullying, mental health issues, violent video games, and media coverage.

All of those issues require a thoughtful, research-based response, the panelists told the commission, chaired by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, but tackling any single factor alone will not be enough to eliminate school violence.

"The fact is people never commit serious acts of violence, such as school shootings, because of one factor in their lives," said L. Rowell Huesmann, the director of the Aggression Research Program at the University of Michigan.

While they addressed a wide array of issues, the panelists spoke on some common themes: Students need supportive relationships both in and out of school to help buffer risk factors to violence; access and exposure to weapons can be a risk factor; and a federal response should include funding for research to provide evidence-based solutions to schools.

The hearing was attended by DeVos, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and high-level officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security. The White House formed the commission in response to the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and tasked it with exploring a wide range of issues, including school discipline, the use of antipsychotic drugs, and consumption of violent media. The group has held one public hearing, heard from shooting survivors and relatives of victims, and visited a school district that practices Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, a common school climate strategy.

Why do school shooters act violently?

People act violently because exposure to violence in their families and in their communities create scripts in their brains that violence or aggression is a solution to problems, Huesmann told the commission. Those experiences may also rewire their norms, convincing them that violence is more acceptable or that the world is more hostile than others believe it to be, he said.

"We know a lot about what increases the risk that a person will behave violently, but knowing what increases the risk is a long way from complete prevention," he said.

Low self-esteem alone isn't a risk factor, and neither is mental illness as people with mental health diagnoses do not commit violence at higher rates than the rest of the population, Huesmann said.

The best predictor of violence is past violent behavior, he said. And students are more likely to commit violence with weapons if they've been exposed to violence with weapons, he said, pointing to youths' access to guns as a factor.

Is fictional violence in entertainment like video games and movies as problematic as exposure to violence in real life?

Christopher Ferguson, associate psychology professor at Stetson University, said that's a common assumption that isn't consistently supported by research.

"This pool of research has been generally inconsistent," Ferguson said, adding that many studies that have purported to find a link between video games and violence can't be replicated, which calls into question the validity of their results.

Countries like South Korea, whose residents play the most video games per capita, have some of the lowest rates of violence, he said. And the assumption that mass shooters play video games often comes from a confirmation bias: When mass shooters are young, people make that assumption, Ferguson said. But video games are never an assumed factor when gunmen are older.

Sessions asked if playing violent video games could present a heightened risk for people who are predisposed to violence. Huesmann said it could, but Ferguson disagreed.

"The question is, do they perceive it as representative of the real world or not?" Huesmann said.

Does media coverage motivate school shooters?

Coverage of school shootings may have a contagion effect, sparking increased threats and acts of violence if it is not handled carefully, said Jennifer B. Johnston, assistant professor of psychology at Western New Mexico University.

Studies have shown that media coverage following mass shootings typically portrays the shooter much more prominently and frequently than the victims, she said. And that coverage, combined with the spread of speculation and discussion on social media, can motivate would-be mass shooters, who may be narcissistic, suicidal, and socially isolated, further studies have found.

"For some reason, I think they see fame as a remedy to the suffering and their suicidal state of mind," Johnston said, noting that the gunman at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando checked his social media feeds in the middle of the shooting to see if his name was circulating.

Ben Fernandez, chair of the National Association of School Psychologists School Safety and Crisis Response Committee, said media coverage "can make these events feel closer to home and much more personal" and "perpetuate the belief that schools are dangerous places." But federal data show that, in many ways, students are actually safer in school than they are outside of it.

Public officials, including DeVos and Sessions, also play a role in responsibly framing the public conversations, Fernandez said. And he favors guidelines for media coverage over restrictive mandates.

"While irresponsible reporting [on school shootings] can cause harm, responsible reporting can help communities heal," Fernandez said.

While there's been a growing push to change the way the media identifies and covers mass shooters-particularly since the 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.-those standards have not been as thoroughly established or widely enacted as guidelines for the responsible reporting of suicide. Prevention organizations have asked media outlets not to specifically mention the manner of a suicide, not to lionize the victims, and to provide resources alongside their coverage to address the contagion effects.

Johnston said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to deploy a panel of experts to create a similar set of guidelines for covering mass shootings. She also pointed out that school threat assessment programs, designed to address the needs of students who may pose harm to themselves or others, are a strong prevention strategy.

Can positive school climates help prevent violence?

Threat assessment relies on the notion that when students "see something" they will "say something" to a responsible adult. That's because federal analyses of mass shootings show that gunmen don't act impulsively. Most of them "leak" their intentions beforehand to at least one friend or loved one.

And students are more likely to take those concerns to adults if their school has a strong, trusting environment between teachers and students, the panelists said.

"I like the term 'askable adult,' " said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at Florida Atlantic University. That means every student needs to know there's an adult they can ask about relationship issues, bullying, academics, and other life concerns, and they need to trust that adult will respond to those concerns, he said.

The commission was specifically tasked with exploring cyberbullying, but students who are bullied online are typically bullied in person as well, Hinduja said.

Schools often rely on feel-good, one-time approaches, like school assemblies, to address bullying, he said. But those approaches can sometimes do more harm than good by conveying to students that adults don't take the problem seriously. Researchers have found broader strategies, like social-emotional learning, can help address not only bullying but other youth risk factors as well.

Researchers need more funding to evaluate programs and disseminate proven strategies to schools, Hinduja said.

Some researchers have been concerned that a focus on school safety programs and hardware in recent months has come at the expense of research and evaluation to determine what actually works to make schools safer. In March, the leader of the American Educational Research Association, expressed concern that $75 million from the federal Comprehensive School Safety Initiative had been shifted entirely to help fund the new STOP School Violence Act.

The Comprehensive School Safety Initiative was created after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown to fund implementation and evaluation of programs that explore a variety of school safety concerns, ranging from bullying prevention to relationships between school police and students to comprehensive campus safety plans.
If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741 Photo: Students are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Feb. 14, after a shooter opened fire on the campus. --Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
Related reading on school shootings, school safety:
Follow @evieblad on Twitter or subscribe to Rules for Engagement to get blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.

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Video Games? Media? Bullying? No Single Cause for School Shootings, Experts Tell Safety Commission

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One-by-one, experts speaking to a federal school safety commission addressed factors commonly blamed for school shootings: bullying, mental health issues, violent video games, and media coverage. All of those issues require a thoughtful, research-based response, the panelists told the commission, chaired by U.S.

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Research suggests violent videogames such as Hitman don't make people antisocial, so is it time to change the debate? Michael Heilemann

Earlier this week on The Conversation, Morgan Tear wrote a terrific article calling into question the supposed negative effect of videogame violence on players' behaviour. And I would argue we could use Tear's argument as a launch pad to broaden the debate on why we should care about media violence in general.

Tear's call to pay more attention to studies that find no negative behavioural effects from playing violent videogames - the so-called null effect - was based on research he published in the journal PLoS One with a co-author, Mark Nielson, presenting three experiments that failed to find evidence that violent games make violent gamers.

Tear and Nielson findings that, among other things, experimental subjects who played the game Grand Theft Auto were just as likely to help others ( prosocial behaviour) when experimenters deliberately dropped pens on the floor as were those who played cutesy titles involving animal care, has already caused international ripples, including being picked up by Time Magazine earlier this month.

Tear lucidly outlines why the behavioural effects of playing violent video games are hard to pin down. In that respect, it's important to add to the conversation by noting that media influence isn't just about behaviours. In fact, some researchers have argued the main effect of long-term, extensive exposure to media violence is that it makes people do nothing at all.

It's worth pursuing this line, since not everyone in the gaming community will find solace in Tear's results. Behavioural responses aren't what concern people who love games but worry about the content that they occasionally encounter.

Rebooting the debate

After the Newtown massacre last year - in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut - games journalist Nathan Grayson called for a reboot of the whole violence debate.

Whatever the problems with the effects case, the position that gaming violence is nothing but harmless fun didn't make sense to Grayson:

... it would be impossible for frequent immersion in violent scenarios - fictional or not - to not have some kind of effect on us [...] Western (and especially American) culture treats violence like it's perfectly normal. It's just ... there.

The idea that the sheer prevalence of media violence is unsettling to those who love gaming chimes with Tear and Nielson's PLos One study, for which they struggled to find a suitably benign game to test with.

Nothing doing

The first step here is to consider the possibility that media violence is a political narrative about what the world is like: who has power, who does not; who we can trust, who we cannot; who counts, and who is disposable.

Hungarian/American media scholar George Gerbner spent six decades arguing this, putting an intriguing spin on the null hypothesis. He thought the main effect of media violence was that it made audiences politically subservient.

Yes. Media violence matters precisely because it makes people do nothing. There's a certain echo of this idea in contemporary games criticism.

One of the "effects" of videogame violence is that it creates communities of people who can agitate for change in public culture. And the most interesting thing to note is that these communities do seem to be motivated by a concern they should be more active in demanding greater accountability from the gaming industry.

Let's think a bit more about Nathan Grayson's response to the Newtown massacre, outlined above, and what effects studies say about the link between gaming and rampage killings.

In seeking positive effects, Tear and Nielsen could at least measure the exact thing they were looking for: the link between violent gameplay and being helpful.

Researchers who test for aggression as a result of videogames are confined to dubious proxies for the real thing, such as blasting people with white noise after playing the fighting game Mortal Kombat.

When it comes to the link between gaming and school shootings, we face a litany of problems.

As US researchers Christopher Ferguson and James Ivory have pointed out, this problem is compounded by:

publication bias towards studies of dangers over benefits

weak correlations in studies that claim to have found significant effects of violence

the insidious politics of a paradigm that usually gets motoring when real violence shocks because it happens in affluent places.

But wrangling over the finer technical details of effects methods can be a distraction. Media violence might matter for other reasons.

Some view media violence as a cultural phenomenon. When violence is seen to mean something rather than do things to people, understandings of its significance change.

A search for meaning

As with videogames, television wrestling has also been blamed for real-life tragedies. But in an academic study of of "backyard wrestling" in 2007, Lawrence McBride and Elizabeth Bird found young amateur wrestlers were more interested in putting on a good show than in hurting others.

To them, wrestling was closer to ballet than fighting. Backyard wrestling circuits were communities in which people looked after one another.

But if media violence is about meaning and community, qualms about its influence remain. In a public debate at Monash University last month, games researcher Brendan Keogh expressed his outrage at the latest version of videogame Hitman. The new title lets players murder bondage-clad nuns, if they want to.

Keogh didn't fear such scenes would inspire misogyny - but observed that they wouldn't do anything to confront the normalisation of violence toward women in media either. Keogh's point was that such content is offensive and irresponsible, because gaming can make gamers think about the morality of violence that is de rigeur elsewhere.

Does this line of reasoning sound odd given Keogh is the author of the 2013 book Killing is Harmless? Not really, as the book explains how well-crafted game violence encourages gamers to think about about a world where many are needlessly slaughtered.

Look at beliefs, not behaviours

Gerbner's most well-known argument was that people who watched a lot of television also consumed a lot of violence. This violence taught the lesson that the world was a dangerous place, and heavy viewers tended to be more fearful, cynical and less empathetic than light viewers. He named this the Mean World Syndrome.

Many gamers would, of course, reject the idea that gaming makes them fearful, distrustful and antisocial; indeed the popularity of multi-player online gaming shows the reverse is often true. But there are a couple of convergences between Gerbner's ideas and today's gaming activists.

First among these is the fear that immersion in media violence affects how people engage with society, in ways they do not fully understand.

Also, Gerbner's ambition was to make audiences demand change from media industries. He would have run a million miles from a title like Killing is Harmless, but he'd endorse its sentiment: that people should take their fun seriously, and confront media content that does not respect social equality.

If one of the effects of gaming is to get audiences to reflect on why media violence prospers, who profits most from its presence, and to demand accountability from media industries, then perhaps the time has come to dwell on those "effects", rather than perceived shortcomings of aggression studies, and the question of behaviours, good or bad.

Further reading:
See more Conversation coverage on videogame research.

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When videogame violence has no effect, should we worry?

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Earlier this week on The Conversation, Morgan Tear wrote a terrific article calling into question the supposed negative effect of videogame violence on players' behaviour. And I would argue we could use Tear's argument as a launch pad to broaden the debate on why we should care about media violence in general.

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Auto related crimes have increased 20 per cent in Melbourne over the last five years with police citing 16,000 cars stolen in 2015. And Victoria's Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton is reportedly attributing a rise in thefts and burglaries to the " Grand Theft Auto generation ".

Victorian police, like many other politicians and police chiefs, cite violent films such as the Fast and the Furious series and video games such as Grand Theft Auto V as factors inciting youths to commit "stylized" crimes.

Mind you, Commissioner Ashton went on to tell 3AW that, "We're not actually dealing with more youth offenders but the youth offenders we've got are committing more and more offences."

There seems to be more to this story than just violent video games.

Violence and video games

First person shooter games such as Call of Duty - where violence is viewed from the player's perspective - are often used to explain violent gun crimes.

And the Grand Theft Auto series is commonly used to explain crimes such as auto theft because the game revolves around three criminals who drive around and steal cars. Grand Theft Auto V was the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, selling over 60 million copies.

Regardless of the crime, violent video games are commonly used as a scapegoat to explain youth violence because it's easy to draw mental comparisons between what an individual does on screen and what they do in real life.

Although studies show that playing violent video games does increase short term aggression, there's no evidence that the effect is greater than other aggressive triggers (like getting cut off in traffic). And it's important to remember studies exploring aggression only asked players to undertake relatively trivial acts, like blasting another player with a loud horn or making them eat chilli peppers. Although uncomfortable, these are far from being acts of violence.

Studies exploring the relationship between actual violent acts and video games show a very different story.

By exploring the sales of violent video games along with patterns in violent crimes, US researchers have shown that violent crimes actually decreased in areas where video games were more popular.

Another study found no evidence of an increase in crime associated with increased playing of video games and perhaps even a decrease.

A similar relationship was found when exploring violent crimes and movies.

ReneSchroeder, CC BY

When delving deeper into relationships, researchers often find that video games alone aren't enough to trigger long-term aggressive behaviour and that violent video games often need to be paired with family violence and innate aggression, as well as poor communication with parents to have an impact on a child. Thise means that things are more complicated.

Victoria's Assistant Commissioner Robert Hill is also quoted saying that burglars were taking inspiration from movies including Fast and the Furious and Grand Theft Auto. But there is no evidence supporting the claim that games like Grand Theft are the cause of increased violence.

What's going on?

The increase in car thefts in the Melbourne area is reportedly attributed to the Apex gang.

Police say the Apex gang largely comprises of individuals between the ages of 12 and 19 of South Sudanese, Pacific Islander, Maori, and Anglo-Australian decent. They come largely from the Dandenong, a relatively poorer suburb compared to say, Templestowe, where some of the crimes are occurring.

A recent ABC interview with "James", reportedly an Apex gang member, indicated that he viewed life in Dandenong as hard. There were, he said, "no jobs". The gang, he said, "is just a group of youths. Everyone's got to have friends, you know. It means brotherhood. Everyone looks after each other."

Although Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews has said that that neither he nor Victorians are interested in " these 'poor me' stories " of disadvantage, there is plenty of evidence that wealth disparity is a fundamental cause of increases in violent crimes.

Ground breaking studies by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in the 1980's demonstrated that those who had fewer opportunities and lacked viable options to increase their status in life were more likely to commit violent crimes. They went further to demonstrate that income inequality could explain the high variation in homicide rates between the US and Canada.

What needs to be done?

What's currently happening in Melbourne is unacceptable. But blaming video games is a pathetic attempt to steer the public's eyes away from larger problems: disparity in wealth, youth unemployment, lack of decent schooling and general societal detachment.

But understanding the relationships between poverty, family relationships, education and crime is much more complicated. And more importantly, it requires more serious solutions such as the reorganisation of social and educational systems.

It's far easier and simpler to blame the so-called "Grand Theft Auto Generation".

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Grand Theft Auto doesn't cause crime, but poverty and alienation will

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Auto related crimes have increased 20 per cent in Melbourne over the last five years with police citing 16,000 cars stolen in 2015. And Victoria's Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton is reportedly attributing a rise in thefts and burglaries to the " Grand Theft Auto generation ".

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Public debate on the effects of violent video games can become especially contentious in the wake of a rampage shooting, such as the recent killing of nine people in Munich.

If it is later discovered the perpetrator was a fan of violent video games, as was the Munich killer, it is tempting to think that perhaps violent games "caused" the rampage shooting.

But rampage shootings are rare and complex events caused by multiple factors acting together. One can't accurately predict a rampage shooting based on exposure to violent video games or any other single factor. But this doesn't mean there isn't a link between violent video games and aggression.

Experimental quandaries

Laboratory experiments are used to make firm and causal conclusions about violent video game effects. Here, researchers randomly assign participants to play a violent or nonviolent game, while holding all other variables (such as instructions given to participants) constant.

Although one can't test whether violent video games cause violent criminal behaviour in laboratory experiments, researchers have conducted hundreds of experiments on less serious forms of aggression.

Aggression, which is any behaviour intended to harm someone, has typically been measured in labs using electric shocks. Researchers will look at the number, intensity and duration of shocks the person studied gives to a research accomplice pretending to be another participant in the video game.

SVEN HOPPE/EPA/DPA

Other studies have measured aggression by having participants punish accomplices in the games by blasting them with loud noise through headphones, forcing them to eat hot sauce and putting their arm in icy water.

In field experiments (conducted outside the lab) involving children, aggression has been measured by observing behaviours in interactions with other children, such as pushing, kicking, tripping and hitting.

Reviews of these experiments, called meta-analyses, show violent video games increase aggression in males and females of all ages, regardless of where they live. Violent games also desensitise players, making them numb to others' suffering.

Aggression and violence

Lab experiments can't be used in every instance. The researcher might not be able to control some variables (such as what video games participants play), to randomly assign participants groups (to play a violent or nonviolent game), or to measure violent behaviour, such as assault.

These difficulties could be overcome by conducting cross-sectional, correlational studies that measure the variables of interest (such as exposure to violent video games and aggressive behaviour) and potentially confounding factors (such as intellectual functioning and poverty). Measurements are taken at one point in time and analysed to see if they are correlated when confounding variables are controlled.

Longitudinal studies are like the correlational studies except researchers take multiple measurements on the same group over an extended period of time - months, years or decades. Longitudinal studies allow researchers to look at possible long-term effects of violent video games.

When different research methods yield similar results, one can have more confidence in them. Very similar results have been obtained for experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal violent video game studies.

from shutterstock.com

While there isn't complete consensus in any scientific field, a study we conducted showed more than 90% of paediatricians and about two-thirds of media researchers surveyed agreed that violent video games increase aggression in children.

Additionally, several cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have found that while exposure to violent media isn't "the" cause of extreme violent behaviour, they do increase the risk of such behaviour.

These do tend to find weaker relations for violent behaviour - which is a more extreme form of aggression that can lead to injury or death - than for aggressive behaviour.

This makes sense as violent behaviour is more difficult to predict because it is more rare and complex.

Theoretically, it makes sense

There are theoretical and practical reasons to believe exposure to violent video games is a risk factor for aggression and violence.

For decades, both therapists and researchers have argued that observing violence increases the likelihood of a child being aggressive, whether they observe it at home or school. Why would observing violence in mass media not have the same impact?

Of course, there is a difference between the virtual and real world, but no theory would predict that exposure to violent media should not impact the way children think, feel and behave.

Practically, most people are immersed in the media. American children between eight and 18 years spend more than seven and a half hours per day consuming mass media on average - more time than they spend in school.

Recent studies show American adults may spend even more time consuming media than children. Violence is a dominant theme in many forms of media, such as television and music, and I can't think of an activity that people engage in for at least seven hours per day that would have no effect on the way they think and behave.

The human brain is plastic and its structure is shaped by experiences. Indeed, people expect to be affected by the media and if they are not they become bored and turn off the screen.

Exposure to media violence is also one of the few risk factors for aggression and violence that policymakers, professionals and parents can actually do something about. Other risk factors - such as being male or living in poverty - are much more costly and difficult (or even impossible) to change.

We might never know the cause of a shooting rampage such as the one in Munich. And while there is evidence that exposure to violent video games is linked to aggression, this does not always translate to violent behaviour. And it is rarer still for violent behaviour to translate to a mass shooting.

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Violent video games and real violence: there's a link but it's not so simple

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Public debate on the effects of violent video games can become especially contentious in the wake of a rampage shooting, such as the recent killing of nine people in Munich. If it is later discovered the perpetrator was a fan of violent video games, as was the Munich killer, it is tempting to think that perhaps violent games "caused" the rampage shooting.