thegoodwills.com - Page 21 of 56 - Witty, thought-provoking songs + reflective essays

Gorgeous gorges revisited

isla-gorgeous-gorge — Isla Gorge photo BW).

This week I promised you one from the archives. The topic of gorges nicely coincides with a visit to Isla Gorge, located in sandstone country between Taroom and Theodore. More about that next week, when we have reliable WiFi.

July 13, 2018: Although I clearly remember rubbishing the concept of a “bucket list”, it appears we may have had one all along, namely a list of famous Australian gorges.

This week’s visit to much-lauded Cobbold Gorge, south-east of Georgetown in Savannah country, turns out to be the 10^th gorge we have visited from a debatable list of 14 “must-do” destinations. Despite its remoteness, privately-owned Cobbold Gorge attracted 11,500 visitors last year and judging by our two days staying in the bush caravan park, they’re on track for another good year.

Most Australian gorges of any merit are enshrined within national parks, with Cobbold Gorge the exception, through an agreement with the Queensland Government where a tourism venture is allowed to exist within a pastoral lease. The Terry family own the 330,000ha Robin Hood station, with 4,720ha set aside as a nature reserve. The family run 4,000 head of Brahman cattle on the property, which they have owned since 1964. They are the second European owners, after the Clark family who owned it since 1900 and the Ewamian, the traditional owners.

Robin Hood station, even today, is accessible only by a partially sealed road from Georgetown to Forsayth and then 41 kms of dirt road. The land in this region is cut off in the wet season (December to March). It’s not difficult to imagine the hard life out here before electricity, before a proper road was formed from an existing bullock track.

Like most gorges, Cobbold was formed millions of years by water scouring out a channel through a basalt cap then down into the sandstone and gravel escarpment. This is a narrow gorge, 2m wide in some places, which gives rise to the theory that it is relatively young.

Last week, we spent a couple of days at Porcupine Gorge, a National Park between Hughenden and The Lynd. Porcupine Gorge is sometimes referred to as Australia’s ‘mini Grand Canyon’ as its canyon walls are wide apart, eroded over millions of years by Porcupine Creek, a tributary of the Flinders River. We took the walk down into the gorge, a mere 1.2 kilometres, except for the 1,800-step uphill return walk. It cost about $25 to stay here two nights – stunning location but a bit short on facilities (hybrid dunnies). You have to come prepared, carrying your own water, food and power source.

By contrast, Cobbold Gorge tours have to be booked and paid for ahead of time and there is no alternative to a guided tour. Now that I’ve seen the infrastructure the Terry family have built there and taken the tour, I have no argument at all with the $92 fee (and $41 a night for a powered site). The facilities (the village also has motel units) and amenities are first-class.

Most of the information here was gleaned from a bit of note-taking and chatting to the guide, Graham, after the tour. The owners invested a lot of money to set up this eco-tour without any security of tenure. It was only recently that the Queensland government came to an agreement that the family would be compensated if at some future point the gorge becomes a National Park. As it stands, the nature reserve, a tract of old growth bush, can also be used for grazing and water can be taken from the Robinson River. No felling is allowed though, so the bush is allowed to regenerate.

We put this landmark on our list when last in the Savannah country circa 2007. We’d bumped into old newspaper contacts at Undara Lava Tubes. They told us they’d just come from Cobbold Gorge and said it was a special place and a must-do experience. It seems this natural gorge became a tourist attraction largely by word of mouth. The first white people to see the gorge were the Terry family’s teenage children who apparently drove a truck far enough in to carry a dinghy to the gorge and go exploring. It wasn’t long before friends and family started asking if they could visit and that led to the establishment of the tourism enterprise in 1994 (200 people visited in the first year).

The tour involves a short journey by four wheel drive bus, a walk up the sandstone escarpment to see the gorge from above then a ride on a flat bottomed boat (powered by whisper-quiet electric motor).

The walls rise up to 30m and at times the gorge is so narrow you can almost touch both sides. Spiders sit patiently waiting by their intricately spun webs. There’s a Jurassic vibe about this gorge, silent and still except for a freshwater crocodile which retreated beneath a rock ledge as we approached.

Last year, Etheridge Shire Council proposed making an application to have 49,000ha of the shire listed by UNESCO as a Geopark. The ABC reported that local graziers were worried what impact this could have on pastoral activities. The proposal caused deep divisions in the shire, but the plan was not progressed.

One could see why Etheridge Shire would want the region to become ever-more attractive to international eco-tourists. The famous Undara Lava Tubes are also within Etheridge Shire, which encompasses an area two-thirds the size of Tasmania. For all its size, the shire has only 1,500 ratepayers and has to rely on grants from State and Federal governments.

Our previous visits to well-known gorges like Carnarvon (Qld), Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge, NT), Wattarka (Kings Canyon, NT) and Karajini and Widjana (both in WA), have mostly involved independent exploration. Hiking in outback gorge country is not without its risks. You can get lost, run out of water, have a fall or be bitten by a venomous snake.

No wonder Cobbold Gorge asks hikers to sign in and out when exploring the bush tracks. They also have a ‘no-selfie’ rule when standing atop the escarpment! It makes you think how the early explorers got by on horseback carrying water in canvas dilly bags, living off damper and bully beef, perpetually in a quest for the next waterhole.

I expect this won’t be the last gorge we visit on our six-week adventure. There’s Barron and Mossman further north and Cania Gorge on the way back home.

When you visit one of Australia’s remote National Parks, with or without gorges, it is hard not to soak up the timeless influence of the First Nations people. Cobbold Gorge was named after the famous Australian pastoralist Francis Cobbold. The Ewamian tribe were the original inhabitants of this land and there is a section on the gorge tour where guides tell visitors the Ewamian have asked them not to interpret the site or allow people to enter and take photographs.

A few months back, Aboriginal journalist Jack Latimore wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian Weekly, noting that two mountains in central Queensland were to revert to their Aboriginal names.

Jack thinks all Australian landmarks and monuments should revert to their first nation names, but he doesn’t stop there. Boring names like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (all named after British Lords and Sirs), should also be given their native monikers. How about Mianjin instead of Brisbane?

Asylum seekers and the seven-year itch

asylum-seekers-seven-years — Asylum seekers and refugee rally – photo by John Englart flickr.com

If Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton ever had a lapse in judgement, it would be thinking that asylum seekers and their supporters have given up. Over a seven-year span, Mr Dutton and his predecessors have exposed asylum seekers to a punitive system (which is outside the UN Convention on Refugees).

As you may hear this weekend, Sunday marks seven years of detention for those who were sent to centres on Manus Island and Nauru. At the time, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that people arriving by boat to seek asylum would be processed offshore and never be allowed to resettle in Australia. #7yearstoolong

Four administrations later (Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison), the unconscionable treatment of people seeking refuge from persecution, torture and ethnic cleansing in their homelands has barely changed.

The now-famous author Behrooz Bouchani chronicled his torturous life on Manus Island in the award-winning book, ‘No friend but the Mountain’. in 2019, Australians became more aware of the effects of despair and mental health issues suffered by asylum seekers in our offshore detention centres. There was a seemingly effective campaign to Get the Kids Off Nauru. All the while, the Australian government continued to be responsible for those much-criticised centres (outsourcing the task to private security firms). Along the way, the government re-opened, closed and then re-opened again the Christmas Island detention centre, Christmas Island being an Australian protectorate.

During the past seven years, the numbers of people who have started or joined an existing asylum seeker support group have grown, to include such organisations as Rural Australians for Refugees.

This national movement started with a campaign by the good folk of Biloela, who took in a Sri Lankan family. You’d know about this saga, where authorities came in the early hours and removed the couple and their two children, taking them into detention. Over time, the family of four ended up being the only detainees in the Christmas Island Detention Centre, at a reported cost to the taxpayer of $27 million a year.

Closer to home, a Kangaroo Point motel has become the focus of the protest movement which wants to see an end to our egregious treatment of people whose only possible mistake was to pay a people smuggler to bring them to Australia – irregular, but not illegal.

Asylum seeker supporters fought long and hard to challenge the government to bring unwell detainees from offshore detention centres. This resulted in a new Act which forced the government’s hand. Even though people needing medical attention were brought to Australia, it seems that few of those brought here under the Medevac Bill have been released from detention. A lot of those people ended up at a motel in the Brisbane inner city suburb of Kangaroo Point.

As Hannah Ryan wrote in The Guardian last month , the Australian government engaged private guards and assigned them to the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel & Apartments, describing it as an “alternative place of detention”. Here, 120 people who had been detained on Manus Island or Nauru and were sent to Australia for medical treatment, are being kept indefinitely. They are not allowed to leave, as Ryan says “not even to visit the KFC across the road”.

Since COVID-19 raised its head in March, they are not allowed visitors either. Over the year or so this has been going on, some detainees took to holding up placards from the motel balconies, when allowed out for fresh air. Support networks got wind of this and a series of rallies began, not without some risks. At a rally on June 29, 40 protesters were arrested for staging a sit-in after the two-hour permit had expired.

Public protests aside, Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton is pressing on with a draft Act designed to crack down on drug dealing and the development of terrorist cells. The draft Act would make it illegal for people in detention to have a mobile phone.

Just think about that for a minute, while realising how crucial your mobile phone has been to you through the COVID-19 lockdown.

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow made a submission to a Parliamentary committee, saying that the bill should not proceed. Writing in the Canberra Times, Santow said:

“The Commission recommends that risks be considered on a case-by-case basis. If a particular person in detention has used their phone to commit illegal activity or endanger the security of Australia, this would be a reason to prohibit them from having a phone. But it would not justify a ban that applies to other people who haven’t been shown to be a risk.”

The government said when introducing this Bill that it did not plan to introduce a blanket ban on mobile phones, rather to address risks to health, safety, and security.

Those protesting on Sunday have made it clear what they want – an end to indefinite detention. As stated in Green Left Weekly (where you will find a list of rallies and gatherings and their locations): “Free the refugees and bring those still on Manus Island and Nauru to Australia now.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences have pushed this issue onto the media back-burner. The recent closure of some media outlets and the migration of others to online only has further diluted the message.

So emerged the hashtag #7yearstoolong on social media as volunteer groups try to raise awareness of institutionalised inaction.

While the government continues to take a hard line stance, a survey last year showed that attitudes towards refugees are hardening. Part of a global study on attitudes, it shows that 44% of Australians think borders should be closed, up 5% on the 2017 survey.

Globally, 54% of people doubted whether refugees coming into their country were really genuine and not arriving just for economic reasons. Australians’ doubts about people’s motives rated lower, at 49%. About 42% of Australians agree that refugees successfully integrate (a drop of three points since 2017).

Refugee Council of Australia statistics show that at March 31, 2020, there were 1,373 people held in onshore detention centres. Apart from any other consideration, it is costing Australia an estimated $137.34 million a year to keep refugees in domestic detention, based on figures provided by the Kaldor Centre.

And, did you know that 64,000 foreigners have overstayed their Australian work or tourist visas, with up to 12,000 believed to have been here for 20 years or more?

All of the above, I contend, should be seen in the context of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to allow Hong Kong Chinese safe haven in Australia. (Ed: “Probably because they would be well off financially”

Oh, that’s right, we are still in thrall of the ultimate strong leader (John Howard), who said in 2001 his government had an irrevocable view on border protection: “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

Every leader from Kevin Rudd onwards has toed the same Sovereign Borders line. If you are expecting anything different from the Leader of the Opposition, should he ever win an election, do not hold your breath.

Further reading: This Australian Government policy paper sets out the facts and dispels myths about asylum seekers and refugees.

We are travelling in remote western Queensland, so expect one from the archives next Friday.

*Tom Hanks’ companion in Castaway was a volleyball, not a football as I wrote last week (and the Hug Patrol photo was from 2012, not 2019).

Why Human Beings Need a Hug

hug-isolation-love — The Hug Patrol. Photo contributed by Arcadia Love

Forgive me, dear readers, for I have sinned (giving a hug in the privacy of my own home). A friend I had not seen for six months came to visit and the impulse to hug was too strong. We did the right thing to a degree, our heads facing away from each other, so the droplets would disperse in the same room, (where other people freely mingle).

You may have seen examples of people not observing the 1.5m COVID-19 physical distancing rule. Sneaks have taken phone footage in Brisbane nightclubs which show people mingling in close quarters and not sitting down to dance, as the Queensland Premier suggested.

The universal advice to maintain a physical distance of 1.5m from another person outside your immediate family makes sense. But it is hard to do and harder still to keep it up over an extended period.

The main reason is that human beings are just not designed to avoid physical contact with others.

New York Times writer Jane Brody writes that “social interaction is a critically important contributor to good health and longevity”.

Referring to a long-term study by Lisa F. Berkman and S. Leonard Syme, Brody said findings drawn from 7,000 participants concluded that “people who were disconnected from others were roughly three times more likely to die during the nine-year study than people with strong social ties”.

Physical contact can mean hugging, as championed by American folk songwriter Fred Small in his catchy ditty, The Hug Song. This version is by Brisbane musicians Donald McKay and Rebecca Wright, who compiled this video exclusively for FOMM. Warning: it’s an ear worm.

Late last year, we moved from a small village where, for a certain proportion of the community, hugging is the first thing you do on encountering friends, whether or not you saw them yesterday or six months ago. These are not perfunctory hugs either, but warm, tight embraces that last, well, sometimes they last longer than one party would prefer. I have it on good authority that the public hugging habit has abated in the village these past few months.

If you were a regular festival-goer in the first part of the new millennium. you might recall the Hug Patrol, initiated at Woodford in 2001 by actor/comedian Arcadia Love. Street performers roamed in small packs through the dusty byways of Woodford Festival, approaching just about anybody with open arms (asking permission first). The Hug Patrol is still turning up at festivals, carnivals, fetes, shows – anywhere where there is a crowd. Arcadia is understandably frustrated with the hug-less nature of 2020, saying that ‘virtual’ hugs are just not the same. The Patrol’s last live gig was at the Northey Street summer solstice in December 2019. The Hug Patrol’s deeds have touched people deeply, as writer Sandy McCutcheon said in a testimonial:

“This extraordinary group of individuals has probably no idea of just what a positive impact they have. I was fortunate to witness (at Woodford) the effect they had on a large group of refugee women from Afghanistan. For women whose lives are in tatters, families are scattered or dead, the rare moment of physicality was of tremendous importance.”

Meanwhile The Conversation this week asked the most obvious question: “why are we all not wearing masks?”

There’s no doubt masks help stop the spread. A World Health Organisation study showed that face masks reduce the risk of infection with viruses such as COVID-19, by 67%, if a disposable surgical mask is used, and up to 95% if specialist N95 masks are worn.

The mask subject comes up often in community choir circles, where rehearsals are mostly still on hold and actual performances are being deferred to 2021. The theory about singers (and you’d have to ask why is it not the same for footballers who sprint 100m to score a try to be then piled upon by team members), aerosols can be spread up to 8m by singers (who don’t so far as I know, spit on the ground, or on the dressing room floor, or do that disgusting nose clearing thing ).

Plainly, a lot of people in Melbourne have not been maintaining physical distancing; nor, it would seem, have they been adhering to medical advice about social gatherings. The critical issue is, if you are feeling at all under the weather but have not been diagnosed, stay at home.

After the first month of the COVID-19 lock-down, the most common response you would get is, “I’m over it”.

Some of us spent 14 days in isolation, but in fairly comfortable circumstances, apart from not being able to leave home (except to walk the dog or buy groceries). I feel for residents in the public housing towers in North Melbourne, who up until today were not even allowed to do that. (One of the nine towers is still in very restrictive lock-down, the others have moved to ‘stage three’, like the rest of Melbourne.)

A Science Alert article on this subject (isolation and its ill-effects), said researchers based in Antarctica found that loneliness could be the most difficult part of the job.

Israeli adventurer and author Yossi Ghinsberg, who survived weeks alone in the Amazon, suffered loneliness, even creating imaginary friends to keep himself company. Which somehow reminded me of that Tom Hanks movie, where he is stranded on a desert island, alone except for a football called Wilson.

The degree to which isolation bothers you depends on your personality type (extroverts hate it). and your peer group. A report from Byron Bay about a ‘doof’ party that attracted thousands of young dance party goers, is an extreme example of how certain age groups find isolation and government-imposed health advice too inhibiting.

On the other hand, if you are a 70+ introvert with absorbing hobbies that can be performed alone in one room (Ed: who could he be talking about), the COVID-19 lock-down might not bother you at all.

So how much physical and social interaction does one have, in a typical day? If you are a checkout operator or a drive-through bottle shop attendant, quite a lot. Unemployed gamer, maybe not.

An academic study involving 7,290 participants was carried out in 2008 by researchers interested in reducing the spread of flu-like diseases. The first large-scale study of its kind, it found that respondents had on average 13.4 physical and non-physical contacts each day. The researchers recruited 7,290 people from eight European countries. They asked participants to keep a diary documenting their physical and non-physical contacts for a single day. Physical contacts included interactions such as a kiss or a handshake. Non-physical contacts, for example, might included a two-way conversation without skin-to-skin contact. The researchers concluded that the study provided a “deeper understanding of the transmission patterns of a hypothetical respiratory epidemic among a susceptible population”.

If you take this study as a ‘norm’, how do these average interactions compare with 1,000 young people at a dance party or, as happened in Auckland on June 14, 43,000 people attending a rugby game?

We are not out of the woods yet, people, hugs or no hugs.

FOMM back pages

It’s a Nation, Not Just an Economy

economists-recession-covid-19 — Recession? What recession? Image by www.pixabay.com

It’s traditional to write about economics and economists at this time of year, the end of the financial year in most jurisdictions. Publishers like to ask economists to offer their predictions for the year. The cruel editors then go back a year later and mark their score cards.

Forecasts are all very well in ‘normal’ times, but few had forecast a deadly global pandemic that (so far) would infect 10.5 million people and kill 511,000. Even in Australia, where the progress of the virus has been carefully monitored, we have had 7,832 infections and 104 deaths. The long-term effect on economies – ours and every other country’s – is yet to be seen.

Trying to forecast economic trends for the next year or two has been rendered difficult by the ongoing effects of COVID-19. Nevertheless, economists will try, because they are (in my experience) optimistic people. Before we go to our panel of experts (he said, sounding like David Speers on Sunday morning), let’s recap what the politicians are saying.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently promised to lift economic growth by “more than one percentage point above trend” (an average 4% per year), to 2025.

Economists from 16 universities in seven states came to a less ebullient conclusion, forecasting annual GDP growth averaging 2.4% over the next four years, “tailing off over time”.

22 economists were polled by The Conversation, an independent alliance of journalist and academics, and delivered their forecasts for the next four years.

The headline view is a weak recovery, getting weaker as time goes by, amid declining living standards. The panel expects weak economic growth in all but one of the next five years. The panel comprises macro-economists, economic modellers, former Treasury, IMF, OECD, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA),. financial market economists and a former member of the RBA board.

The panel included well-known doomsayer Steve Keen, who writes for Crikey and other publications. Keen was the economist who in January forecast a 75% probability of a recession.

The ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy Visiting fellow Peter Martin wrote an 18-page report on the survey, warning that the results imply living standards 5% lower than what the PM expects. Moreover, the panel expects unemployment to peak at 10% and to be still above 7% by the end of 2021. Wages are unlikely to grow beyond 0.9% in 2020, lower than the rate of inflation (expected to be 1.2%).

I’m frankly surprised The Conversation found 22 economists prepared to forecast the future, particularly as it seems a second wave of COVID-19 is upon us. One economist withdrew from the panel before the poll saying, “It’s a mug’s game now”. Another who did participate said forecasting had been reduced to “guessing”, in the context of an unprecedented event.

The panel more or less agreed on expectations for incomes and production. They expect those figures to shrink when the June quarter figures are released, confirming that Australia is in a recession. The panel forecast an average 4.5% decline in GDP for 2020.

So what’s the good news?

The Government’s budget deficit will be easily financed, with the 10-year borrowing cost at 0.9% and the panel forecasting 1.4% per year thereafter and not expected to rise until late 2021.

The RBA has made a commitment to buy as many bonds as needed to keep the figure low. For this reason alone, Australia has maintained its AAA credit rating.

Mining investment is expected to continue its recovery in 2020 into 2021, after huge falls between 2014 and 2019, the latter attributed to the collapse in infrastructure projects and large LNG plants being completed.

It might be bread and circuses, but don’t forget the Federal Government is unleashing a second round of stimulus payments on July 10. Those eligible received the first payment between March and April. Stimulus payments include $750 for eligible pensioners, seniors, carers, student payment recipients and concession card holders.

Two stimulus payments totalling $1,500 might not seem like much but in terms of people with no disposable income, it is an absolute windfall.

A homeless person could spend his or her $750 on a swag or a Himalayan standard sleeping bag, fleecy pants and jacket, thick socks, underwear and a cheap pre-paid phone. They might even have money left over for smokes. If you are employed but have no disposable income, you might be tempted to yield to those ‘sale ends tomorrow’ exhortations to buy a smart TV, laptop, tablet or mobile phone.

Whether you are unemployed and poor or the working poor, the main problem is a lack of disposable income. The Conversation’s panel expects disposable income to fall on average 4.5% for the year to December 2020. Most also expect household spending to decline in calendar 2020 (by 4.3% on average).

Gloomy as this picture may be, it redresses the balance between reality and the daily ‘spin’ from State and Federal governments.

In his 1964 book, A Lucky Country, Donald Horne said Australia was “a lucky country run by second-rate people”. By that he meant that Australia was lucky to be blessed with natural resources and agricultural wealth, despite its second-rate political and economic system. Decades later, it seems, more Australians agree with Horne’s harsh assessment, which has been a set text in universities since it was published.

A 2018 survey showed that 40.56% of Australians have lost faith in the notion of democracy since 2007. Successions of administrations – Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Gillard, Turnbull and Morrison – have evidently lost a lot of the people somewhere along the line. The Guardian mentioned this survey in a story about politicians billing taxpayers for doubtful travel expenses.

Trust and Democracy in Australia shows a majority of Australians have lost faith in democracy, from a high of 86.5% trusting in 2007 to 40.56% in 2018. As The Guardian’s Christopher Knaus and William Summers comment in their article on travel rorts, “On current trends, that would leave fewer than 10% of Australians trusting politicians and political institutions by 2025”.

We who live in this vast, under-populated democracy should be grateful for what we have. The sun is still shining, the water is potable, it’s a mild winter thus far; the supermarkets have replenished their shelves; the footy is back and life continues relatively untrammelled. (Ed: Broncos fans may not agree).

All up, Australia is a considerably better place to be than the favelas of Rio De Janeiro, the slums of Kolkata or Mexico City or even one of Donald Trump’s Republican States that thought the coronavirus was ‘fake nooz’.

Even in the UK, our far away traditional Motherland, last month’s relaxing of the COVID19 lockdown appears to have led to the emergence of 10 new hotspots across England. This unhappily coincides with news that the level of public debt has surpassed the UK economy for the first time since the 1960s.

If you are still feeling besieged, spare a thought for migrants forced out of Yemen at gunpoint by the Iran-backed Houthi militia that controls most of northern Yemen. The militia has expelled thousands of migrants since March, blaming them for spreading the coronavirus. According to a report in the New York Times this week, they were dumped in the desert without food or water.

Compare that to young Queenslanders complaining about not being allowed to dance at their local nightclub.

It’s all about perspective

(The Democracy 2025 report is available for download here):

FOMM back pages (despite the headline, this is about economics)

Cyber attacks and the Faraday cage

cyber-attacks-hackers — Image: Antoine Tevaneaux, Wikipedia CC: these women are protected from the electric arc by the Faraday Cage. (Palais de la Découverte in Paris.)

Just as I was thinking about the unexpected email from the Australian Taxation Office, She Who Mocks ScoMo called me in to watch a live press conference about cyber attacks.

Beware of State-based actors with sophisticated means to hack Australian infrastructure, began the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (ScoMo).

“He’s dog-whistling,” interjected SWMS. This of course sent me off to google what ‘dog-whistling’ meant. After discounting a video of a wizened old Kiwi farmer in gumboots and a Swanndri using two-fingered whistling to direct his sheep dogs, I alighted upon this:

dog–whistle: a type of doublespeak used in political messaging. Dog whistles work by employing language that has normal meanings to the majority, but can be implied or loaded to mean very specific things to intended recipients.

In this context, there were several observations to be made – what was the government seeking to do by causing fear and trembling in a community already alarmed about the coronavirus? What news did the government not want to get out, hiding behind the ‘cyber-attack’ smokescreen?

I asked a couple of IT gurus I know what they made of it all.

“Whatever it is, just sandbox it,” said one (which means isolating the malicious email/code and testing it in a non-network environment).

“Well if Scotty from marketing says there are more state actors right now. you gotta believe him,” said our resident geek boy.

“I might even quit my day job and go after my real dream as a state actor. Hopefully they do the Scottish play. .. I know that one well.”

Chin up Scotty, they’re not taking you seriously – should they?

After analysing the press conference on Friday morning, I tend to agree with ScoMo’s “it hasn’t just started” caveat. The controversy over Russia’s involvement in social media manipulation of the 2016 US election is one example alone. CSO Australia recently listed the top 15 cyber security breaches of the last 20 years, ranked by the number of people whose personal data was stolen. Data belonging to 3.5 billion people was compromised in the top two alone (Adobe and Adult Friend Finder). Well-known names on the list include LinkedIn, Yahoo, eBay and Marriott International.

The PM refused to be drawn on which ‘State-based actor’ was the villain of the piece but journalists have, of course, made much of the role of China as the state power with the ability and the motive.

If there is anything useful to be drawn from ScoMo’s cyber attacks warning, it is perhaps to remind computer and smart phone users to do a regular Wi-Fi security audit.

The growing popularity of smart devices (Wi-Fi speakers, smart TVs, household appliances that take verbal orders and Bluetooth-enabled devices has just added new vulnerabilities to the wired household.

I use Bluetooth to hook up my phone in the car but I also to stream music to wireless speakers. No problem, you’d think.

Technology writer Dave Johnson says, rather colourfully in this article for howtogeek.com, that “Bluetooth is about as secure as a padlock sculpted from fusilli pasta.”

Johnson recently attended the Def Con 27 security conference where the first order of business was to ask delegates to disable Bluetooth while attending the conference.

Tyler Moffitt, a senior threat research analyst at Webroot, says there are “zero regulations or guidelines” as to how Bluetooth vendors should implement security. He also warned that smart phone users might not know that using Bluetooth with earbuds disables the smart lock, leaving the phone open to abuse.

Moving right along, the other security threat which bothers experts is the proportion of social media users who do not use or understand privacy settings. Password manager LastPass revealed in a recent blog how careless people are with their private information. A survey showed that 52% of respondents set their social media profiles to ‘public’ (open to FB’s 1.7 billion account holders!) The survey showed that 51% of social media users had shared vacation photos, an open invitation to burglars who troll social media. About 20% shared pictures of their house or neighbourhood and 25% shared pictures of their pets or kids).

The government’s over-kill way of bringing cyber security to ‘front of mind’ was timely, in that June and July are the peak scam months.

Our end of financial year reminder from the ATO did seem genuine, given it was addressed to the recipient by name. We became suspicious in that the email encouraged clicking on links to ‘learn more’ – something the ATO says it never does.

That is an example of the common email scam known as ‘phishing’, an attempt by someone posing as a legitimate institution to trick individuals into providing sensitive data. An article from The Conversation, titled “Don’t be phish food!” cited below, summarises why you should be suspicious of bogus emails. Phishing scammers are not afraid to impersonate government agencies, banks or large institutions – even your own ISP!

If it looks real but you were not expecting it – be wary.

The very least you can do to avoid cyber attacks is change your computer logon passwords. This was one of the key messages from The Australian Cyber Security Centre. ACSC’s website advisory says the attackers are primarily using “remote code execution vulnerability” to target Australian networks and systems. That is, the attacker attempts to insert their own software codes into a vulnerable system such as a server or database, thus taking control. That, folks, is why Windows 10 keeps updating your operating system.

While you are at it, change all of the passwords you use for social media, web-based email and any website which holds your financial information. Make them complex passwords of at least 8 and preferably 10 characters. Check your social media settings and ensure that you are set to private and friends only (or at worst, friends of friends). If you are on the Facebook app Messenger, don’t open videos, even if they are sent by your lover or maiden aunt. Much-circulated ‘joke’ videos containing malicious code are often used to hack someone’s Facebook account. (What – you didn’t know that?)

If all else fails, you could purchase a Faraday Cage, invented in the late 1800s by an English scientist (Faraday). The cage is an enclosed space made of conductive material that blocks electromagnetic signals. Wi-Fi and cellular signals are rendered useless inside the cage.Any spy worth his 2020 clearances would have mini-Faraday cages at home and work in which to keep smart phones and other hackable devices safe from cyber attacks.

Coincidentally, this week we just started watching season five of the quality French spy thriller, The Bureau*, where the Faraday Cage got a mention in episode one or two. This up to the minute drama, while fictional, nonetheless references present day political pariahs including Trump, Putin and Assad.

In the early episodes we see one of the protagonists in a Russian troll factory – a vast air conditioned room where drones fly a circuit to make sure the worker bees are not eating baklava at their keyboards.

If you are really concerned about cyber attacks, you could get an engineer, an architect and a builder to collaborate on the hacker-proof house, modelled on the Faraday Cage.

Shouldn’t cost that much.

(By all means, watch ‘The Bureau’, but only if you don’t mind numerous gratuitous sex scenes. It is French, after all. And you can improve your French language skills too, if you don’t look at the sub-titles. Ed.)

The Listener and The Discerning Reader

The-Listener-magazines-discerning — A selection of the hundreds of magazine titles on offer in Australia (image courtesy of TSG Lotto Express, Warwick)

One of my research assistants asked this week if I wanted his back issues of The Listener. I’m now regretting my luke-warm response, given that it is barely two months since the owner, Bauer Media, closed down New Zealand’s 81-year-old current affairs magazine.

German-owned Bauer Media had been trying to sell its magazines in Australasia for a while. Things came to a head with COVID-19, as magazines were not considered “essential” under NZ’s strict level four restrictions. Print publication ceased abruptly and although all of Bauer’s magazines still have an online presence, editorials have not been updated since April 1. A sale of Bauer’s Australian and New Zealand magazines, has, meanwhile, been moved to the front-burner.

The German media group pulled the pin on its New Zealand titles on April 2. The first inkling staff had was an early morning Zoom conference call which put everyone out of work.

Titles axed by Bauer Media included New Zealand Listener, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Metro, North & South, Next, Fashion Quarterly and many others. This week, news broke that the German publisher has agreed to offload its Australian and New Zealand magazines, including The Australian Woman’s Weekly and New Idea, to buyout fund Mercury Capital.

The Hamburg based family-owned publisher had owned these magazines since 2012, when it paid Nine Entertainment Co $525 million for its magazine division. In the eight years since, Bauer Media has closed many titles including Dolly, Cleo, Cosmopolitan and tabloid mags People and Picture.

The New Zealand Herald this week speculated that Mercury Capital might run into some obstacles in getting its New Zealand magazines up and running, as many former staffers have moved on to other projects.

The most recent editor of The Listener, Paul Little, believed the lost magazines “contributed to New Zealand’s cultural landscape”.

In a Hawkes Bay Today editorial, Little rightly noted that Australia has no equivalent of The Listener, Metro or North & South. Little said the titles reflected New Zealand concerns in a way other media don’t. “They allow voices to be heard that will now be silenced.”

I grew up in a newspaper-reading household, one in which the weekly copy of The Listener, New Zealand’s only national current affairs magazine, was eagerly shared (once Dad was finished with it).

The core of The Listener was a national TV and radio guide, tucked at the end of the magazine with the crosswords and Sudoku.

According to an official history, The New Zealand Listener, launched in 1939, soon expanded beyond its original brief to publicise radio programmes. It became the country’s only national weekly current affairs and entertainment magazine.

The Listener’s paid circulation peaked at 375,885 in 1982; but even after losing its TV guide monopoly, it was still one of the country’s top-selling and best-loved magazines.

Paul Little defended his former stable of quality, independent magazines as “essential to diversity”.

“They provide a home for ideas that’s not duplicated anywhere else. They have also been, in my experience, editorially independent.”

Little described the government’s decision to treat magazines as “non-essential” as “precipitate”.

“Magazines have survived this long because they do something unique. They have a singular, almost intimate relationship with their readers.”

Whatever the fundamental problem with magazines in 2019-2020, readership is not the issue. Roy Morgan data for the year to December 2019 found that six out of New Zealand’s top 10 magazines increased readership. The top three were AA Directions, NZ Woman’s Day and New Zealand Listener.

Likewise in Australia, Roy Morgan readership figures published for the year to June 30, 2019, revealed that 15,227 million Australians aged 14+ (73.7%) read magazines in print or online, either via the web or an app. This number is up 1.2%, or 187,000, from a year ago.

The best-read (paid) magazines in Australia are Better Homes and Gardens and The Woman’s Weekly (Coles Magazine is the leading free publication with five million readers).

Some magazines continue to thrive as a result of what researchers call “cross-platform audience” – e.g. someone who lives in Kingaroy reading the online editions of quality magazines like The Atlantic, Time or The New Yorker.

Given recent media sales and buyouts in the magazine world you’d have to say the industry is in a state of flux.

Time magazine has a global print edition readership of 23 million and while it has, in recent years, cut its print circulation to two million, it is still the magazine considered as a world leader, even though it ranks only 10^th in circulation in the US.

Two recent changes of ownership magnify the trend towards digital magazines and a heavier focus on lifestyle and entertainment. In November 2017, Meredith Corporation announced its acquisition of Time, Inc., backed by Koch Equity Development. In March 2018, only seven weeks after the closure of the sale, Meredith announced that it would explore the sale of Time and sister magazines Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated as they “did not align with the company’s lifestyle brands”.

Newspaper and magazine owners are notorious for giving little or no notice before closing down publications. Cases in point include The Listener et al (2020), Brisbane’s tabloid The Daily Sun (1991) and Australia’s oldest print magazine, The Bulletin (2008). The latter was closed by press release a day after the last edition hit the news-stands. Although winning journalism awards under its last editor (John Lehmann, now editor of The Australian), it was considered not financially viable with a circulation of only 58,000.

This is a global problem, spelt out in numbers in a Guardian report last year. The top 10 chart of consumer titles that readers buy or subscribe in the UK recorded a total circulation of 4.7m in the first half of 2019, compared with 9.4m in the first six months of 2001.

Marie Claire (the thinking woman’s magazine), shut down its UK edition last year after 31 years of expanding female horizons (although it is still published here). Other British magazines to succumb to the digital revolution included the venerable music mag NME and so-called ‘Lad’s Mags’ FHM, Loaded, Maxim, Nuts and Zoo. Female-focused titles such as More!, Look, Instyle, She magazine and Reveal also closed.

One might be able to predict the inevitable populist trend in magazines and the drift to digital-only by watching what happens to Time after two ownership changes in three years.

In September 2018, Meredith announced that it would re-sell Time Inc. and its stable of titles to internet billionaire Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne for $190 million. The deal was completed on October 31, 2018.

In whatever form it survives, Time will be remembered for its enduring ‘Man of The Year’ cover tradition (changed to ‘Person of the Year’ in 1999).

FOMM readers who delight in well expressed prose will enjoy this comment about Time:

Time’s early writing style apparently made regular use of inverted sentences, much less so after being parodied in 1936 by Wolcott Gibbs in The New Yorker:

“Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind […] Where it all will end, knows God!” Gibbs quoth.

Last week: Yes, of course Ed’s comments were not meant to be there at the end. You may note the suggestions were studiously ignored.

FOMM back pages

Arts Take Virtual Performance To Another Level

One evening in April, a Kiwi songwriter friend living in London posted a YouTube video by the London Humanist Choir, performing a love song in Māori. The video of New Zealand’s unofficial anthem, Pokarekare Ana, was, as we are now accustomed, a multi-screen video with choir members recording their parts remotely. I shared this with a few Kiwi friends who live elsewhere, knowing it would tug at the tendrils of homesickness, which are almost always waving in the breeze.

This video has had some 37,000 views – not bad for an arts group with 322 subscribers. The group’s social media curator coined the cute phrase, ‘Choir-antine’.

The group’s leader, Alex Jaye, started by giving the choir singers notes on how to record, mostly to minimise unwanted noise, distortion and filtering. Once he received the 20+ videos, he used EQ and compression to correct problems detected in the audio (often due to mobile phone microphones).

“Very little corrective editing (on individual videos) was used as it kills the sense of there being a choir – which does invite blemishes naturally as part of the sound.

Mr Jaye used iMovie to edit the video, utilising picture-in-picture, a technique often used in sports broadcasts.

“Overall it was around a day’s worth of work, however mostly due to video editing not being my forte, so I would say all told five to six hours’ worth of editing.”

In the same vein, a virtual video by Camden Voices does Cindi Lauper’s True Colours a lot of justice.

Like Alex Jaye, the UK choir’s director Ed Blunt started by giving singers instructions for filming the videos to a click track (metronome).

“It was a steep technological learning curve for me as I only had limited experience with video editing.”

He also converted the individual video formats into a uniform file type. The video was synchronised separately from the audio and the different grids were arranged and then exported (one at a time) to an editing programme (Premiere Pro). The audio tracks were synced and mixed in Logic.

My point, before we get too much further into this topic, is the value of such contributions to the community in general. True Colours (this version) has had 1.64 million views. If even 10% of the people who watched this sent Camden Voices $1, they would be able to top up their larder, probably bare these past months from a lack of paid performances.

True Colours:

Sunshine Coast choir director Kim Kirkman concurs with the complexities involved in editing a virtual video. He produced a Zoom video for female barbershop group Hot Ginger Chorus, performing Cindi Lauper’s Time after Time.

“The audio part is the challenging part for me. I have to put 25 voices in line with each other and check that they are all correct. That takes quite a lot of time. The visual is very easy. I just do two runs through Zoom and then stitch that together over the top of the audio that I’ve done previously.”

Time after Time:

Musicians, performing artists, actors and dancers were quick to adapt the technology to the life of isolation. Anyone with a smart phone and the ability to film themselves could play. The production values on numerous videos by orchestras, jazz bands, country musicians and choirs have, for the most part, been outstanding.

The ‘Quarantunes’ series by the Nelson family (Willie and sons Lukas and Micah) is worth a look. Lukas, who wrote a lot of the music for the hit movie A Star is Born, is the one singing, in case you were wondering!

Turn off the TV and build a Garden:

Queensland Ballet is a local example of an arts company creating ‘mini-ballets’ to keep subscribers’ appetites whetted for next year’s season. On May 21, QB made the difficult announcement that it was postponing its 2020 season to 2021.

Queensland Ballet Artistic Director Li Cunxin AO said the company was planning a reintroduction of activity “in a cautious and methodical manner to optimize dancer and community safety”.

Mr Li said in a statement that the decision was also based on feedback from patrons that they may wish to wait until 2021 to enjoy ballet again.

“We have also undertaken economic modelling which has considered potential social distancing restrictions that would render any return to the stage as extremely costly and potentially detrimental financially to the company.”

If you are a ballet fan (and FOMM’s research suggests that readers are more likely to follow the arts than the NRL), you can donate money this month and a benefactor will quadruple your gift. So your humble $25 turns into $100 and so on. To keep the faith, QB is posting 60 short dance videos through the month of June.

Britain’s National Theatre has been filming live performances and streaming them every Thursday. The most recent play is Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, starring Tom Hiddleston. There was also a performance of Frankenstein starred Benedict Cumberbatch as the monster. Imagine!

This is high art delivered with a generosity of spirit while the theatre is closed to patrons until at least August 31. If you think about what tickets to live theatre cost in Australia, you could log on to PayPal and send them a few quid!

I rather liked comedian Sammy J’s Antique Roadshow piss-take recently where he evaluated the worth of a pair of tickets to a live event. As the faux antique owner says, “you mean people used to leave their houses?”

We might bear this satire in mind, given that this week the first patrons will be allowed into live rugby league games. The National Rugby League apparently pointed out that pubs and clubs were allowed to have up to 50 patrons on their premises (subject to social distancing rules). So, the NRL said, it was only fair that rugby league fans to be allowed in limited numbers, confined to the catering sections of stadiums.

It will be interesting to see if Fox Sports abandons its naff ‘virtual crowd’ audio, the sports equivalent of canned laughter in a comedy show where there is no audience.

Andrew Moore of the ABC’s sports show Grandstand left no room for ambiguity when he commented on this during a lull in play.

“When two players are down injured like this (a head clash known as ‘friendly fire’), the crowd would normally go quiet. Let’s have a listen (pushes window open). Nah, nothing! No fake crowd noise on the ABC, folks.”

Which is as good a point as any to observe that while arts communities were getting creative through the March/April covid-19 restrictions, the best Channel Nine (the home of rugby league) could come up with was re-runs of State of Origin matches from bygone eras. the transition over the next 12 months.

The best advice to choirs and singers in general is dire – there is no safe way to practice public singing while the coronavirus is active.

Dr Lucinda Halstead, one of the experts quoted in this paper, says physical distancing on a stage for a choir would not be possible:

“You would need a football stadium to space apart the Westminster choir”.

The reality is that normal transmission will not be resumed until social distancing ends (as is now the case in New Zealand).

Kia kaha (be strong).

Not everyone has Internet access

I visited my local library last week for the first time in months and noticed that public internet access (computers, desks and chairs), had been removed. Desks, tables and chairs had also been removed from the reading room, where one could sit for hours browsing newspapers and magazines or working on jigsaw puzzles.

“That’s not very fair on people who don’t have a computer or access to WIFI,” said She Who Believes in Equality.

A survey published in March this year, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics data, showed that 2.5 million Australians are not online. Reasons given by respondents included affordability issues, location (poor signal or no signal), or that they lacked the 21^st century skill called ‘digital literacy’.

The Centre for Social Inclusion (CSI) produces the National Digital inclusion Index, based on data from Roy Morgan Research.

Since data was first collected in 2014, Australia’s overall digital inclusion score has risen by 7.9 points, from 54.0 to 61.9. Improvements have been evident across all three categories: Access, Affordability and Digital Ability. CSI notes in its 2019 report that those with the lowest ADII score are in the lowest socio-economic demographic (income under $35,000), with a score of 43.3 points. The Northern Territory is excluded from the research (sample too small), but indigenous Australians living elsewhere scored 55.1.

The digital divide is an obvious social strata marker, with a 30.5 point difference between the lowest income demographic (43.3) and the highest (73.8).

The 2019 survey shows that all segments of the digital access market improved on their 2018 score. Scores are allocated to particular geographic regions and socio-demographic groups, over a six-year period from 2014 to 2019. People aged 65 and over are the least digitally included age group, with a score of 48 (13.9 points below the national average).

I know a few elders who, for one reason or another, refuse to engage with the digital world, clinging on to old analogue TV sets and VCRs, eschewing mobile phones and in some cases, not even having an answering machine. The NBN is relentlessly catching up with this cohort. Moreover, financial institutions are forcing these older customers to abandon time-honoured way of paying bills (by cheque and in person).

As an aside, when I first tried to source the CSI report, I was ironically greeted with the message, “bandwidth exceeded, try later”.

We’re all getting a lot of messages like that with the weight of people using Facebook, Twitter and their affiliates 24/7, not to mention streaming movies, TV series and engaging in bandwidth-using virtual performances and community catch ups.

Last time I wrote about this subject, 90,000 Australians were still using dial-up modems to surf the Internet. That annoying yet welcoming modem squeal is heard no longer, at least not by Telstra customers. Telstra retired its dial-up service In December 2015, citing a sharp drop off in the numbers of people still using dial-up in favour of a variety of connectivity options.

When I last worked for the now mostly digital regional news services, when we went to public meetings in rural areas, we’d take a portable modem. The mid-1980s version was a device you clamped to the handset of a (dial up) phone and then transmitted your news report from the laptop. News organisations spent a fortune equipping field reporters with clunky laptops which weighed at least 10kg and cost thousands. When the technology inevitably did not work, reporters simply called a ‘copy-taker’ at HQ and dictated the story.

Copy-takers are long gone, and the rest of the old school cohort who had not already taken a redundancy package will most likely be swept out the door in the latest media shakeout.

But getting back to the 2.5 million Australians who told survey takers they do not have access to the Internet.

A group of 30 community organisations has called for urgent efforts to help Australians not connected to the internet. The group told the Sydney Morning Herald that the pre-existing problem was heightened during the pandemic, hindering access to government services; for example, children trying to undertake online education and people needing access to telehealth services.

The group asked Communications Minister Paul Fletcher to consider ‘targeted low-cost broadband’ connections for eligible households, a relief package of basic telecommunications equipment and a telephone service for people with low digital literacy.

Of those Australians who do have Internet access, more than four million use mobile only to ‘gain access to the internet’ (note how I refuse to verb a noun). This means they have a mobile phone or mobile broadband device with a data allowance, but no fixed connection. This cohort rated a low ADII score of 43.7, some 18.2 points below the national average (61.9). Mobile data costs substantially more per gigabyte than fixed broadband, which means mobile-only users are unlikely to be binge-watching Narcos, House of Cards or Killing Eve.

Mobile-only use is linked with socio-economic factors, with up to a third of people in low-income households, those with low levels of education and the unemployed more likely to be using mobile-only.

Now here’s what at first sight seems to be an anomaly. You would know the oft-quoted homeless numbers in Australia – around 116,000 at the last Census. However, as the survey found, homeless people find phones essential for survival and safety, job prospects and for moving out of homelessness.

Consumer advocate The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), cited a Sydney University study that found 92% of Australians who identify as homeless (95% in Sydney and Melbourne), own a mobile phone. The homeless favour smart phones (77% of those surveyed had a pre-paid plan for a smart phone). They typically use free WIFI and public access (libraries) to keep costs down.

You might well ask, “How can a homeless person afford a smart phone?”

Well, I bought one last week for $29! It is destined to replace an unreliable IPod as a portable music player. But it also has all of the apps anyone needing a survival tool could ever use. And you can use it to call someone or send a text!

Apps take up most of the memory in this bargain phone. But even so, a minimum $10 a month would make this a handy ‘Where am I sleeping tonight?’ tool.

The annual Deloitte Australia Mobile Use Survey’s key finding is that mobile penetration in Australia has maxed out at 91% (about 20 million users), and accordingly, sales are slowing. The main reason for this is that Australians are holding on to their phones longer (three years on average).

If you are at all interested in how mobile technology is developing, this report (you need to sign up to download it), is illuminating.

For example, did you know that mobile is starting to lose ground to voice-assisted speakers (a 51% increase since 2018), as the preferred user method of ‘gaining access to’ home services and entertainment?

(“OK, Google, play ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen” – but you have to train the thing to recognise your accent…Ed)

As an observation on the recent move by News Ltd to shut down many print titles and move most of the survivors online, mobile remains our preferred device to consume news. Having said that, Australians are less interested in tuning in at all, with only 39% reading the news weekly, compared to 48% last year.

And, as if we did not already know, 27% of Australia’s 17.9 million smart phone owners use their device at least once a week to watch a TV series or movies, up from just 5% in 2015! I relate to this statistic, as I covertly watch Killing Eve on my smart phone, as She Who Believes in Equality chooses not to watch.

Bandwidth exceeded – try later.

FOMM back pages: https://bobwords.com.au/friday-on-my-mind/ Hold the phones 2014

A doggy tale in the time of covid-19

By Guest FOMMer Laurel Wilson

dogs-covid-19 — Rex and assorted Canadian children

As anyone who knows me would realise, I love dogs and have had various four-legged companions ever since I can remember. ‘Foxie’ was the first one − a small, non-descript, furry golden mutt, who apparently decided our place was an improvement on her previous abode.

Then came ‘Rex the wonder dog’ (or at least, that’s what I called him), also a mutt, but who looked quite a bit like a Border Collie. As is the case with most dogs surrounded by small children, he was the soul of patience and accepted with good grace my various attempts to dress him up or get him to do tricks. He had an endless capacity for ‘shake a paw’.

Then came a hiatus of quite a few years, involving moving to Australia, going to high school and later university, when I was either not living at home or too broke to contemplate acquiring a dog of my own. (There was a brief interlude with a cat called Pith, but it just wasn’t the same…)

dogs-covid-18 — Tilbi and pups, including “Ankle-biter”

When I was more settled and could afford it, the sweetest dog I’ve ever known came into my life. This was ‘Tilbi’ (which I believe means ‘duck’ in one of the Aboriginal languages). This was an appropriate name for a Golden Retriever, although, apart from one embarrassing incident with a couple of tame ducks, she never got to follow that particular life path.

The closest she came to it was when the occasional ‘chook show’ was held at the Showgrounds over the road from our old place. Tilbi and her daughter Finis were in ecstasy whenever that event occurred, whining and scratching at the gate in a desperate effort to ‘retrieve’ those feathered objects of doggy lust. Apart from that, she was a most obedient and loving dog, who was fond of all humans, from toddlers to the rather ancient fellow who lived over the back fence. (Ed: One day Tilbi came home with a pot roast in her mouth (a neighbour left it on the window sill to cool).

A few years later, the most independent-minded dog I’ve ever experienced became part of the household. This was ‘Kia’, the German Shepherd (named before the vehicle of that make became popular, I might add – it was more a nod to our Kiwi rellies, as in Kia Ora, or ‘Hello’). She was obedient to a point, especially if she was in reach, but coming back when called was an optional extra, as far as she was concerned. But she was a very intelligent dog. For instance, in her later, more arthritic years, she struggled to get into the back of the station wagon, so we put a box down in front of the open tail-gate. She got the idea almost immediately. And she had a sense of humour. One of her favourite games was to play ‘chasey’ around the car when we were trying to catch her before going out. She’d eventually take pity on us and let herself get caught.

The latest four-legged addition is Nib, the mostly Staffie brindle ‘brick on legs’, who spends much of the evening acting as my own personal knee blanket. It’s wonderful in winter, not so good in summer. He is without a doubt the most obedient dog I’ve ever come across – for which we take no credit. He is most reliable about coming back when called, walks nicely on the lead, doesn’t respond if other dogs bark at him, goes outside when asked, gets out of the kitchen when I’m cooking, and seems to have quite a good grasp of various other commands, or as I like to put it, polite requests. His only fault is that, like most other Staffies, he ‘sings’, especially when he is in the car. And his ‘song’ is not pleasant to the ear…

See, I managed to get all this way without mentioning ‘Iso’ or ‘Covid’, but dogs have apparently come into their own during this period. Those with dogs are thankful for their company and the impetus to go for a walk. Many of those without dogs are apparently taking the opportunity to acquire one while they have the time to welcome one into their lives. Hopefully, they head to a nearby Animal Shelter to pick out their new friend, and hopefully, these new pets won’t find their way back there post-Covid.

I make no claim to the following observations being original, but I too have noticed that people have turned into dogs – roaming around the house all day, looking for something to eat; rushing to the front door when anyone knocks; peering through the window at the unusual sight of a passer-by; and getting terribly excited at the prospect of going for a drive in the car…

Here’s to all the dogs I have met in my life, including Bindi, Logan, Tosca, Patch, Stella, Moet, Dante, Winnie (the poodle – which scores the prize for cleverest name), Motek, Joey, Fleur, Spud, Darcy, Wally and all those friendly pooches who accept a pat from a passing stranger.

Postscript by Bob (taking a break this week while dreaming up new topics).

Our first dog was a cocker spaniel named Lady who was left with a family friend in Scotland when we all caught the migrant boat in 1955. Dad was heartbroken but the alternative was quarantining an old dog for six weeks at sea and then a month on land.

Once settled in New Zealand we acquired a fox terrier with the imaginative name of Spot. He could be a crabby critter and Mum didn’t like him much for his habit of lying on the front step and then snarling when she tried to step over him.

He was a wee bit epileptic, Spot, and also had a habit of eating grapefruit then spitting shredded citrus out all over the lawn.

As an older adult I took up with She Who Tried For Best In Show who owned Tilbi. Later we acquired a litter of eight Golden Retriever puppies, keeping one (Finis).

Now we find ourselves in 2020, as SWTFBIS points out, responsible for a rising nine-year-old Staffie who is quite needy but also quite endearing. He is slowly adjusting to life in the suburbs where people walk past the house (don’t bark, good dog, treat).

I usually cannot resist clicking on the many dog videos, gifs and memes which have proliferated as Iso forces dog owners to spend more time with their furry pals. I like the mindlessly cute ones where cats (or dogs) jump over increasingly higher stacks of toilet rolls.

If you have not seen the videos of Scottish sports commentator Andrew Cotter turning the daily antics of his two dogs into a sports call, there are quite a few. He may be bored but he definitely loves these Labradors – and, as with all dogs, it is mutual.

*Correction: In last week’s blog about the coronaconomy, I mentioned Jobseeker in the third paragraph and again near the end. It should have read Jobkeeper.

How deep is the financial hardship well?

financial-hardship-savings — How many weeks your savings will last without income – graph provided by The Grattan Institute

It is probably no comfort to anyone to reflect on the year when investors could get 14.95% on a bank term deposit. It was January 1991, the recession Paul Keating said we had to have. People with personal loans and credit card debt watched horrified as repayment rates went to 20% and beyond. The average variable mortgage rate rose to 17.5% at the same time. The gap between the haves and have-nots in that era was painfully obvious.

In the early 1990s, financial hardship forced many younger Australians, unable to service their mortgage repayments, to walk out of their mortgaged houses, leaving the house keys on the bank’s counter. Meanwhile, the lucky worker/investor with a lazy $100k to invest could earn $14, 950 in interest (the price of a new car), over 12 months with no risk whatsoever. Except, of course, if the deposit was with one of the eight financial institutions that went broke in that era.

In 2020, the COVCID-19 pandemic has certainly made it clear how many Australians are suffering financial hardship. At one end of the scale, you have self-funded retirees, on the pig’s back, really, but struggling with the collapse in the value of shares and difficulties finding safe places to store their cash for a return of more than 1.75%.

At the other end of the generational spectrum, while the official unemployment figure is an improbably low 6.2%, it does not reflect the one million casuals who not only lost their jobs, but did not qualify for the Federal Government’s safety net, Jobkeeper.

COVID-19 struck at a time when the Australian household savings rate had dropped to 3.6% (20% is the ideal), and is forecast to drop to 2% or lower in 2021-22. The rate is calculated as a percentage of the amount saved from disposable income.

Meanwhile household debt – most of it linked to mortgages – is at a high of 119.60% of GDP. Economist Gerard Minack told the 7.30 Report in November that household debt at 200% of household income was a “massive macro risk”.

Then came COVID-19 and an economic shutdown the likes of which the country has not seen since the 1930s.

I’m running these confronting numbers past you because there is a lot of nonsense written about Poor Pensioners vs Irresponsible Millenials. Also, some commentators, particularly in the housing sector, are ‘talking it up’ at a time when worst-case scenarios predict a 30% drop in prices.

Conversely, stock market analysts are talking the market down, even as it keeps (slowly) recovering. You have to wonder why.

In mid-April the share market was officially proclaimed a “bull market’’ by the Australian Financial Review (AFR), because share prices had jumped 20% since mid-March.

What’s amazing is that the market has rallied at the same time that Australian superannuation funds paid $9.4 billion in financial hardship paymentsto approximately 1.17 million fund members. Australian super funds have a large exposure to equities, so they have managed the payments so far by selling investments, including shares and holdings in managed funds.

They also asked for help. As the AFR’s exceptionally well-informed Chanticleer observed, The Australian Superannuation Fund Association (ASFA) put a proposal to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to allow the Australian Taxation Office to cover the hardship withdrawal payments. The plan was super funds would repay the payments over a period of time. The industry also called on the Reserve bank of Australia to provide a liquidity buffer. None of this happened, but Australian funds are expecting a continuation of the rush to withdraw hardship payments.

Under the COVID-19 measures, individuals whose income has been affected can withdraw up to $10,000 of their superannuation balances prior to June 30. They can, if necessary, apply for a further $10,000 after June 30.

There are ordinarily a few hoops to jump through to apply for an early-release hardship payment. As we know, superannuation is meant to be locked away until you retire or reach an age when you can officially tap the fund for money. But in these dire times, super funds worked with the Australian Tax office and other government departments to expedite hardship payments.

By close of business on May 7, ASFA made around 1,175,000 individual payments, totalling around $9.4 billion in temporary financial support. ASFA estimated that 98% of applications were paid within five working days.

Applying for a super hardship payment is a risky business if you are under 35. According to AMP, the average super balance for people aged 25-29 is $23,371 for men and $19,107 for women. In the age group 30-34, the average balance for men is $43,583 and for women $33,748. So it does not take too many trips to the hardship well to run out of cash. I used those age groups deliberately, as most pollsters agree that so-called Millennials are people now aged between 22 and38.

But it is not just the young that have little in the way of savings. According to the Grattan Institute, 50% of working households have less than $7,000 in savings. This probably explains the rush of super fund hardship applications. The Institute admits the data is a few years old, but says the scenario is unlikely to have changed much.

“As you might expect, working households on lower incomes tend to have less in the bank. Among working households in the bottom fifth of household income, the median total bank account balance is just $1,350.

“The meagre savings of many low-income workers are a big worry because they are most likely to be employed as casuals and therefore not have paid sick leave or annual leave.”

The Grattan Institute makes the point that as the lockdown drags on, more people will start to run out of ready cash.

“Our analysis shows that half of working households have five to six weeks’ income or less in the bank. The bottom 40% of working households has about three weeks’ income or less in the bank. A quarter of all working households have less than one week’s income in the bank.”

This last figure may bring your head up, if you remember news stories from New York, which we found shocking, of people with less than $400 in the bank.

Sometimes I think about these matters when doing the weekly grocery shopping, where retail prices are clearly outpacing inflation. (Ed: We did score a large pumpkin from a roadside stall for $3, so you can get lucky).

Those with a job who have not had a pay increase in years can justifiably feel cheated. Admittedly, the Federal Government came to the National Cabinet table with an extraordinary rescue package. But while one of these measures temporarily doubled the unemployment payment overnight, it now seems to be flawed piece of legislation.

People may rightly point out that employers are obliged to pass on the Jobkeeper payment of $1,500 a fortnight, regardless of what the employee was being paid previously. At some stage, these payments will stop and we will revert to the status quo. Will recipients who were technically overpaid have to repay some of this money, or does it just go to the deficit?

Robodebt II, coming soon to a cinema near you.

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