Australia must control its killer cat problem. A major new report explains how, but doesn't go far enough

Australia is teeming with cats. While cats make great pets, and can bring owners emotional, psychological and health benefits, the animals are a scourge on native wildlife.

Cats kill a staggering 1.7 billion native animals each year, and have played a major role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions. They continue to pose an extinction threat to at least another 120 species.

A recent parliamentary inquiry into the problem of feral and pet cats in Australia has affirmed the issue is indeed of national significance. The final report, released last week, calls for a heightened, more effective, multi-pronged and coordinated policy, management and research response.

As ecologists, we’ve collectively spent more than 50 years researching Australia’s cat dilemma. We welcome most of the report’s recommendations, but in some areas it doesn’t go far enough, missing major opportunities to make a difference.

Night Curfews Aren’t Good Enough

The report recommends Australia’s 3.8 million pet cats be subject to night-time curfews. This measure would benefit native nocturnal mammals, but won’t save birds and reptiles, which are primarily active during the day.

Pet cats kill 83 million native reptiles and 80 million native birds in Australia each year. From a wildlife perspective, keeping pet cats contained 24/7 is the only responsible option.

It’s clearly possible: one third of Australian pet cat owners already keep their pets contained all the time.

Stopping pet cats from roaming is also good for the cats, which live longer, safer lives when kept exclusively indoors. It would also substantially reduce the number of people falling ill from cat-dependent diseases each year.

Read more: Cats carry diseases that can be deadly to humans, and it's costing Australia $6 billion every year

Other strategies for improving pet cat management proposed in the report include pet cat registration, subsidised programs for early age desexing, public education campaigns to promote responsible pet cat ownership, and improving the consistency of rules and legislation nationally.

The report is also unambiguously opposed to “trap-neuter-release” programs, in which un-owned cats in urban areas are desexed and then released. We agree with this finding, as these programs aren’t effective at reducing the population of stray cats, nor preventing those cats from killing wildlife and spreading disease.

We Need More Wildlife Havens

One of the inquiry’s flagship recommendations is a national conservation project dubbed “Project Noah”. This would involve an ambitious expansion of Australia’s existing network of reserves free from introduced predators, both on islands and in mainland fenced areas. The reserves provide havens — or a fleet of “arks” — for vulnerable native wildlife.

This measure is vital. 2019 research found Australia has more than 65 native mammal species and subspecies that can’t persist, or struggle to persist, in places with even very low numbers of cats or foxes. This includes the bilby, numbat, quokka, dibbler and black-footed rock wallaby.

Australia already has more than 125 havens, 100 of which are islands. These have prevented 13 mammal species from going extinct, such as boodies and greater stick-nest rats. In total, these havens have protected populations of 40 mammal species susceptible to cats and foxes.

This is a good start, but we need more investment in havens to prevent extinctions. More than 25 species are highly sensitive to cat and fox predation, but aren’t yet protected in the haven network. This includes the central rock-rat, which is more likely than not to become extinct within 20 years without new action.

What’s more, some species, such as the long-nosed potoroo, exist in just one haven. To avoid issues such as inbreeding and to ensure disasters like a fire at any single haven don’t take out an entire species, each species should be represented across several havens, in reasonable population sizes.

The report didn’t specify how the havens network should be expanded. But 2019 research found to get each species needing protection into at least three havens, Australia requires at least 35 new, strategically located islands or mainland fenced areas.

What About The Rest Of The Country?

Havens cover less than 1% of Australia. So what we do in the other 99% of the landscape — including across conservation reserves like national parks — is vital.

Yet the parliamentary inquiry report lacks clear recommendations to expand cat control more broadly, including at important conservation sites such as in Kakadu National Park.

The report reaffirms the need to cull feral cats, and to set new targets for culling, without specifying what those targets are. We agree some culling is important, especially at sites with very vulnerable threatened wildlife.

But in many parts of Australia, broad-scale habitat management is a more cost-effective way to reduce cat harm. This involves making habitat less suitable for cats and more suitable for native wildlife, for example, by reducing rabbit numbers, fire frequency and grazing by feral herbivores such as cattle and horses.

Research has shown fewer rabbits leads to fewer cats. Rabbits are a favoured prey of many cats, so they boost feral cat numbers, which then also hunt native wildlife.

Read more: One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your pet, it's a killing machine

And cats gravitate to areas with less vegetation because it’s easier to catch prey. These areas include those with frequent fires, or where feral herbivores have reduced vegetation through grazing and trampling.

Better habitat with more vegetation gives native animals places to hide from predators, and more food and shelter. It’s a bit like giving the last little pig a house of bricks instead of trying to fist-fight the wolf.

A Major Step Forward

Over the past two decades, Australia has slowly woken up to the damage cats cause to nature. This has led to more research, management and policy to address the problem.

Some state governments, environment groups and scientists have worked hard to develop feral cat control options, and the 2015 Australian Threatened Species Strategy did much to focus national attention and resourcing to the issue.

Read more: Don't let them out: 15 ways to keep your indoor cat happy

The parliamentary inquiry is a major step forward, and many recommendations are sound. But overall, its recommendations call for incremental improvement.

Australia’s laws clearly fail to provide a safety net for wildlife. The cat issue is part of a larger problem with how we manage habitat, biodiversity and threats to nature – and fixing that requires wholesale change.

Sarah Legge, Professor, Australian National University; Chris Dickman, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, University of Sydney; Jaana Dielenberg, University Fellow, Charles Darwin University; John Woinarski, Professor (conservation biology), Charles Darwin University, and Tida Nou, Project officer, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The US jumps on board the electric vehicle revolution, leaving Australia in the dust

The Morrison government on Friday released a plan to reduce carbon emissions from Australia’s road transport sector. Controversially, it ruled out consumer incentives to encourage electric vehicle uptake. The disappointing document is not the electric vehicle jump-start the country sorely needs.

In contrast, the United States has recently gone all-in on electric vehicles. Like leaders in many developed economies, President Joe Biden will offer consumer incentives to encourage uptake of the technology. The nation’s entire government vehicle fleet will also transition to electric vehicles made in the US.

Electric vehicles are crucial to delivering the substantial emissions reductions required to reach net-zero by 2050 – a goal Prime Minister Scott Morrison now says he supports.

It begs the question: when will Australian governments wake up and support the electric vehicle revolution?

A Do-Nothing Approach

In Australia in 2020, electric vehicles comprised just 0.6% of new vehicle sales – well below the global average of 4.2%.

Overseas, electric vehicle uptake has been boosted by consumer incentives such as tax exemptions, toll road discounts, rebates on charging stations and subsidies to reduce upfront purchase costs.

And past advice to government has stated financial incentives are the best way to get more electric vehicles on the road.

But government backbenchers, including Liberal MP Craig Kelly, have previously warned against any subsidies to make electric cars cost-competitive against traditional cars.

Read more: Scott Morrison has embraced net-zero emissions – now it's time to walk the talk

Releasing the government’s Future Fuels Strategy discussion paper on Friday, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said subsidies for electric vehicles did not represent good value for money.

(As argued here, the claim is flawed because it ignores the international emissions produced by imported vehicle fuel).

The Morrison government instead plans to encourage business fleets to transition to electric vehicles, saying businesses accounted for around 40% of new light vehicle sales in 2020.

The government has also failed to implement fuel efficiency standards, despite in 2015 establishing a ministerial forum to do so.

The approach contrasts starkly with that taken by the Biden administration.

Biden’s Electrifying Plan

Cars, buses and trucks are the largest source of emissions in the US. To tackle this, Biden has proposed to:

• offer new consumer incentives to support electric vehicle purchases, beyond the existing $US7,500 tax credit

• electrify the government’s 650,000-strong fleet

• establish ambitious fuel economy standards

• build an extra 500,000 public charging stations for electric vehicles by 2030

• provide incentives for US manufacturers to build electric vehicles and parts

• make all new US-built buses zero-emissions by 2030, and electrify the nation’s 500,000 school buses

• invest $US5 billion into battery research to further reduce electric vehicle prices

• ensure every American city with 100,000 or more residents has high-quality, zero-emissions public transport options.

And by committing to carbon-free electricity generation by 2035, the Biden administration is also ensuring renewable energy will power this electric fleet.

This combined support for electric vehicles and renewable energy is crucial if the US is to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Read more: Clean, green machines: the truth about electric vehicle emissions

Made In America

US companies are getting on board to avoid missing out on the electric vehicle revolution.

The day after Biden announced his fleet transition plan, General Motors (GM) - the largest US vehicle manufacturer and a major employer - announced it would stop selling fossil fuel vehicles by 2035 and be carbon-neutral by 2040.

This aligns with plans by the US states of California and Massachusetts to ban the sale of fossil fuel vehicles by 2035.

GM is serious about the transition, committing $US27 billion and planning at least 30 new electric vehicle models by 2025. And on Friday, the Ford Motor Company said it would double its investment in vehicle electrification to $US22 billion.

Opportunities And Challenges Abound

Using government fleets to accelerate the electric vehicle transition is smart and strategic, because it:

• allows consumers to see the technology in use

• creates market certainty

• encourages private fleets to transition

• enables the development of a future second-hand electric vehicle market, once fleet vehicles are replaced.

Biden’s fleet plan includes a clear target, ensuring it stimulates the economy and supports his broader goal to create one million new US automotive jobs. Prioritising local manufacturing of vehicles, batteries and other components is key to maximising the benefits of his electric vehicle revolution.

On face value, the Morrison government’s business fleet plan has merit. But unlike the US approach, it does not involve a clear target and funding allocated to the initiative is relatively meagre.

So it’s unlikely to make much difference or put Australia on par with its international peers.

Australian Governments Must Wake Up

Compounding the absence of consumer incentives to encourage uptake in Australia, some states are mulling taxing electric vehicles before the market has been established.

Our research shows this could not only delay electric vehicle uptake, but jeopardise Australia’s chances of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

Australia is already a world leader in building fast-charging hardware, and manufactures electric buses and trucks. We could also lead the global electric vehicle supply chain, due to our significant reserves of lithium, copper and nickel.

Despite these opportunities, the continuing lack of national leadership means the country is missing out on many economic benefits the electric vehicle revolution can bring.

Australia should adopt a Biden-inspired electric vehicle agenda. Without it, we will miss our climate targets, and the opportunity for thousands of new jobs.

Read more: Wrong way, go back: a proposed new tax on electric vehicles is a bad idea 

Jake Whitehead, Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow & Tritum E-Mobility Fellow, The University of Queensland; Dia Adhikari Smith, E-Mobility Research Fellow, The University of Queensland, and Thara Philip, E-Mobility Doctoral Researcher, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s gold industry stamped out mercury pollution — now it's coal's turn

Mercury is a nasty toxin that harms humans and ecosystems. Most human exposure comes from eating contaminated fish and other seafood. But how does mercury enter the Australian environment in the first place?

Our recent research dug into official data and past research to answer this question.

In some rare good news for the environment, it turns out one Australian industry – gold production – has brought mercury emissions down to almost zero. But more can be done about mercury emitted from coal-fired power stations.

Australia is one of the few developed countries yet to ratify the United Nations’ Minamata Convention on Mercury, which aims to reduce mercury in the environment. But once we deal with emissions from coal burning, we’ll be closer than ever to addressing the problem.

Where Does Mercury Pollution Come From?

Mercury is a heavy metal that cycles between the atmosphere, ocean and land. It occurs naturally but can be toxic to humans and wildlife.

Most human-caused mercury emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels and the mining and production of gold and other metals.

What’s more, items such as light bulbs and thermometers dumped in landfill can release mercury 30-50 years later.

Read more: Climate change and overfishing are boosting toxic mercury levels in fish

Once in the air, mercury can float around for months, crossing oceans and continents to end up back on the ground, far from where it was emitted.

It’s eventually taken up by soils, water and plants, then slowly released back to the atmosphere.

A Success Story

Estimates vary on the exact amount of mercury that Australian activities release to the air. Studies we reviewed put the figure at anywhere between 8 and 30 tonnes each year.

Our analysis shows the figure is likely at the low end of that range – largely due to a single success story.

In 2006, a gold production facility in Kalgoorlie was thought to cause half of Australia’s industrial mercury emissions. The massive operation includes the Fimiston Open Pit, or “Super Pit”, purportedly so large it can be seen from space.

Gold ore naturally contains mercury. To extract the gold, the ore is typically roasted at temperatures of up to 600℃. During this process, the mercury escapes into the atmosphere. Most mercury pollution from Australia’s gold industry came from a single roaster at the Kalgoorlie site.

But over one decade, mercury emissions from the operation dropped from more than 8 tonnes to just 250 kilograms. This was largely due to a technology upgrade in 2015, when the roaster was replaced by a grinding process.

This success means coal-fired power plants are now Australia’s largest controllable source of mercury emissions. They emit between two and four tonnes of mercury every year (along with other air pollutants).

Other Sources Of Mercury Emissions

Other natural and human activities release mercury into the air. They include:

Bushfires: Mercury is usually released to the environment over decades. But the process can be much more rapid if the vegetation burns in a bushfire.

Our research found most estimates of bushfire emissions fall between 4 and 40 tonnes each year. But this work relied on measurements from overseas. New measurements from Australian ecosystems suggests past estimates are probably too high – possibly due to lower mercury concentrations in some Australian vegetation.

Soils and unburnt vegtation: Only one study has calculated the mercury released from Australian soils and unburnt vegetation, which it put at a whopping 74 to 222 tonnes per year.

Read more: Plants safely store toxic mercury. Bushfires and climate change bring it back into our environment

When that research was published in 2012, there were no Australian data to test the model behind these numbers. We still don’t have many measurements, but most data we do have show Australian soils and vegetation take up about as much mercury as they release.

The one exception is “enriched” soils, which contain more mercury than other soils. This is because they are located over natural mineral belts and at former mining sites. At one location in northern New South Wales, enriched soils emitted more than 100 times as much mercury as nearby unenriched soils.

Mercury from elsewhere: Mercury released by other countries can travel to Australia in the air. The levels are tough to quantify, but we are currently using models to produce an estimate.

It’s Time To Act

Even with our new, lower estimates, Australia’s per capita mercury emissions remain higher than the global average, likely due to our reliance on coal burning. Technology can lower these emissions.

Some mercury emitted by power plants isn’t in the air for long before it falls to Earth. This can harm nearby people and ecosystems.

The federal government recently banned mercury-containing pesticides used in sugar cane farming. With gold production also taken care of, reducing mercury emissions from power plants is the logical next step.

It’s also time for Australia to formally commit to the Minamata Convention. Once we ratify the deal, we’ll be bound to control mercury emissions under international law – and that’s good for humans and wildlife everywhere.

Read more: Ban on toxic mercury looms in sugar cane farming, but Australia still has a way to go 

Jenny Fisher, Associate Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Wollongong and Peter Nelson, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hundreds of fish species, including many that humans eat, are consuming plastic

Trillions of barely visible pieces of plastic are floating in the world’s oceans, from surface waters to the deep seas. These particles, known as microplastics, typically form when larger plastic objects such as shopping bags and food containers break down.

Researchers are concerned about microplastics because they are minuscule, widely distributed and easy for wildlife to consume, accidentally or intentionally. We study marine science and animal behavior, and wanted to understand the scale of this problem. In a newly published study that we conducted with ecologist Elliott Hazen, we examined how marine fish – including species consumed by humans – are ingesting synthetic particles of all sizes.

In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.

Solving The Plastics Puzzle

It’s not news that wild creatures ingest plastic. The first scientific observation of this problem came from the stomach of a seabird in 1969. Three years later, scientists reported that fish off the coast of southern New England were consuming tiny plastic particles.

Since then, well over 100 scientific papers have described plastic ingestion in numerous species of fish. But each study has only contributed a small piece of a very important puzzle. To see the problem more clearly, we had to put those pieces together.

This story is part of Oceans 21
Our series on the global ocean opened with five in depth profiles. Look out for new articles on the state of our oceans in the lead up to the UN’s next climate conference, COP26. The series is brought to you by The Conversation’s international network.

We did this by creating the largest existing database on plastic ingestion by marine fish, drawing on every scientific study of the problem published from 1972 to 2019. We collected a range of information from each study, including what fish species it examined, the number of fish that had eaten plastic and when those fish were caught. Because some regions of the ocean have more plastic pollution than others, we also examined where the fish were found.

For each species in our database, we identified its diet, habitat and feeding behaviors – for example, whether it preyed on other fish or grazed on algae. By analyzing this data as a whole, we wanted to understand not only how many fish were eating plastic, but also what factors might cause them to do so. The trends that we found were surprising and concerning.

A Global Problem

Our research revealed that marine fish are ingesting plastic around the globe. According to the 129 scientific papers in our database, researchers have studied this problem in 555 fish species worldwide. We were alarmed to find that more than two-thirds of those species had ingested plastic.

One important caveat is that not all of these studies looked for microplastics. This is likely because finding microplastics requires specialized equipment, like microscopes, or use of more complex techniques. But when researchers did look for microplastics, they found five times more plastic per individual fish than when they only looked for larger pieces. Studies that were able to detect this previously invisible threat revealed that plastic ingestion was higher than we had originally anticipated.

Our review of four decades of research indicates that fish consumption of plastic is increasing. Just since an international assessment conducted for the United Nations in 2016, the number of marine fish species found with plastic has quadrupled.

Similarly, in the last decade alone, the proportion of fish consuming plastic has doubled across all species. Studies published from 2010-2013 found that an average of 15% of the fish sampled contained plastic; in studies published from 2017-2019, that share rose to 33%.

We think there are two reasons for this trend. First, scientific techniques for detecting microplastics have improved substantially in the past five years. Many of the earlier studies we examined may not have found microplastics because researchers couldn’t see them.

Second, it is also likely that fish are actually consuming more plastic over time as ocean plastic pollution increases globally. If this is true, we expect the situation to worsen. Multiple studies that have sought to quantify plastic waste project that the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean will continue to increase over the next several decades.

Risk Factors

While our findings may make it seem as though fish in the ocean are stuffed to the gills with plastic, the situation is more complex. In our review, almost one-third of the species studied were not found to have consumed plastic. And even in studies that did report plastic ingestion, researchers did not find plastic in every individual fish. Across studies and species, about one in four fish contained plastics – a fraction that seems to be growing with time. Fish that did consume plastic typically had only one or two pieces in their stomachs.

In our view, this indicates that plastic ingestion by fish may be widespread, but it does not seem to be universal. Nor does it appear random. On the contrary, we were able to predict which species were more likely to eat plastic based on their environment, habitat and feeding behavior.

For example, fishes such as sharks, grouper and tuna that hunt other fishes or marine organisms as food were more likely to ingest plastic. Consequently, species higher on the food chain were at greater risk.

We were not surprised that the amount of plastic that fish consumed also seemed to depend on how much plastic was in their environment. Species that live in ocean regions known to have a lot of plastic pollution, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the coasts of East Asia, were found with more plastic in their stomachs.

Effects Of A Plastic Diet

This is not just a wildlife conservation issue. Researchers don’t know very much about the effects of ingesting plastic on fish or humans. However, there is evidence that that microplastics and even smaller particles called nanoplastics can move from a fish’s stomach to its muscle tissue, which is the part that humans typically eat. Our findings highlight the need for studies analyzing how frequently plastics transfer from fish to humans, and their potential effects on the human body.

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Our review is a step toward understanding the global problem of ocean plastic pollution. Of more than 20,000 marine fish species, only roughly 2% have been tested for plastic consumption. And many reaches of the ocean remain to be examined. Nonetheless, what’s now clear to us is that “out of sight, out of mind” is not an effective response to ocean pollution – especially when it may end up on our plates.

Alexandra McInturf, PhD Candidate in Animal Behavior, University of California, Davis and Matthew Savoca, Postdoctoral researcher, Stanford University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

States housed 40,000 people for the COVID emergency. Now rough sleeper numbers are back on the up

Australian governments acted to protect homeless people from COVID-19 in 2020 on an even larger scale than previously thought. In the first six months of the pandemic, the four states that launched emergency programs housed more than 40,000 rough sleepers and others.

The states were anxious about rough sleepers’ extreme vulnerability to virus infection and the resulting public health risk to the wider community. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia acted fast to provide safe temporary housing, mainly in otherwise empty hotels.

Read more: The need to house everyone has never been clearer. Here's a 2-step strategy to get it done

Drawing on previously unreleased official statistics, our newly published international comparative research reveals the people these programs helped in Australia outnumbered the 33,000 rough sleepers and others housed in England by the equivalent Everyone In initiative. Australia’s population is less than half that of England.

What Happens When Emergency Housing Ends?

The numbers Australia’s emergency housing program needed to shelter showed our homelessness problem is much larger than often imagined. The 8,200 people counted as sleeping rough on census night 2016 were only the tip of the iceberg.

Attempts to transfer people from emergency accommodation to longer-term tenancies have also generally been far less successful than in England. By the end of 2020, England’s local authorities had moved two-thirds of their former rough sleepers from temporary placements to more stable housing. As our research shows, despite determined efforts, Australian state governments managed this for less than a third of rough sleepers departing emergency hotel stays in 2020.

Many will have returned to the streets or to homeless shelters. Rough sleeper numbers once again increased in Adelaide and Sydney after mid-year.

To a great extent Australia’s poor showing reflects our growing social housing deficit, as well as inadequate rent assistance and other social security benefits (at their standard rates). All of these factors are barriers to helping low-income Australians into stable long-term housing.

Read more: Coronavirus lays bare 5 big housing system flaws to be fixed

Eviction Bans And Rent Variations Defer Problems

Alongside protecting rough sleepers, Australian government actions to shield vulnerable renters who lost jobs and incomes in the pandemic were also relatively effective. These efforts include federal income protection (JobKeeper and Coronavirus Supplement) and state and territory restrictions on evictions.

The short-term success of these measures is clear. Despite a substantial rise in unemployment, there has been – as yet – no sign of any up-tick in homelessness.

At the same time, though, ministerial advice that tenants with COVID-triggered income losses should negotiate rent reductions with landlords came with few ground rules on how to reach such settlements.

Survey evidence shows many property owners refused to reduce rents. At least one in four renters lost income during the pandemic, but no more than 16% (and possibly as few as 8%) got a rent variation. And many variations were only in the form of rent deferrals, not reductions.

The survey data imply at least 75,000 tenants, and possibly as many as 175,000, have been accumulating deferral-generated arrears. These mounting debts could put some at risk of losing their home when eviction moratoriums end. That’s early in 2021 in most states and territories.

Read more: Cutting JobSeeker payments will cause crippling rental stress in our cities

Hands-Off Commonwealth Makes Things Worse

Our research also highlights the unusually small direct contribution of the Australian government to protecting homeless people during the pandemic. Even in other federations – Canada and the United States – national governments played a significant role.

In Australia, the Commonwealth government made no direct input to covering the substantial costs involved. Nor did it play any part in even monitoring, let alone co-ordinating, the remarkable efforts of the active states.

Canberra has also steadfastly rejected calls for a social housing stimulus program for national economic recovery. This disengagement fits with a now-familiar refrain from federal ministers. Housing and homelessness, they repeat time and again, are constitutional obligations of state and territory governments.

Read more: Why the focus of stimulus plans has to be construction that puts social housing first

Read more: Why more housing stimulus will be needed to sustain recovery

Granted, that’s an accurate statement for housing and homelessness service delivery. But, especially given the Commonwealth’s control of the vital policy levers of tax and social security, the two levels of government must in reality share responsibility for housing outcomes.

The Victorian government’s A$5.4 billion Big Housing Build shows states may commit to investment in social rental housing on a scale far beyond what had been thought possible. But the fact remains that state and territory governments have much less financial firepower than our national government. It’s fanciful to imagine significant programs being widely initiated or maintained without hefty federal backing.

Read more: Victoria's $5.4bn Big Housing Build: it is big, but the social housing challenge is even bigger

For all of these reasons, when the pandemic has finally subsided, it’s only with federal government leadership that we can effectively tackle the fundamental flaws in Australia’s housing system. These have been glaringly exposed by the public health crisis of the past 12 months. Without purposeful re-engagement by our national government, Australia’s housing policy challenges will only continue to intensify.

Read more: Australia's housing system needs a big shake-up: here's how we can crack this 

Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW and Chris Martin, Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

5 twinkling galaxies help us uncover the mystery of the Milky Way's missing matter

We’ve all looked up at night and admired the brightly shining stars. Beyond making a gorgeous spectacle, measuring that light helps us learn about matter in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

When astronomers add up all the ordinary matter detectable around us (such as in galaxies, stars and planets), they find only half the amount expected to exist, based on predictions. This normal matter is “baryonic”, which means it’s made up of baryon particles such as protons and neutrons.

But about half of this matter in our galaxy is too dark to be detected by even the most powerful telescopes. It takes the form of cold, dark clumps of gas. In this dark gas is the Milky Way’s “missing” baryonic matter.

In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, we detail the discovery of five twinkling far-away galaxies that point to the presence of an unusually shaped gas cloud in the Milky Way. We think this cloud may be linked to the missing matter.

Finding What We Can’t See

Stars twinkle because of turbulence in our atmosphere. When their light reaches Earth, it gets bent as it bounces through different layers of the atmosphere.

Rarely, galaxies can twinkle too, due to the turbulence of gas in the Milky Way. We see this twinkling because of the luminous cores of distant galaxies named “quasars”.

Astronomers can use quasars a bit like backlights, to reveal the presence of clumps of gas around us that would otherwise be impossible to see. The challenge, however, is that it is very rare to catch quasars twinkling.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do stars twinkle?

This is where the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) comes in. This highly sensitive telescope can view an area about the size of the Southern Cross and detect tens of thousands of distant galaxies, including quasars, in a single observation.

Using ASKAP, we looked at the same patch of sky seven times. Of the 30,000 galaxies we could see, six were twinkling strongly. Surprisingly, five of these were arranged in a long, thin straight line.

Analysis showed we’d captured an invisible clump of gas between us and the galaxies. As light from the galaxies passed through the gas cloud, they appeared to twinkle.

At the centre is one of the strongly twinkling galaxies. The colours represent brightness, as it fluctuates between shining brightly (red) and more faintly (blue).

A Clump Of Gas Ten Light Years Away

The cloud of gas we detected was inside the Milky Way, about ten light years away from Earth. For reference, one light year is 9.7 trillion kilometres.

That means light from those twinkling galaxies travelled billions of light years towards Earth, only to be disrupted by the cloud during the last ten years of its journey.

By observing the sky positions of not just the five twinkling galaxies, but also tens of thousands of non-twinkling ones, we were able to draw a boundary around the gas cloud.

We found it was very straight, the same length as four Moons side-by-side, and only two “arcminutes” in width. This is so thin it’s the equivalent of looking at a strand of hair held at arm’s length.

This is the first time astronomers have been able to calculate the geometry and physical properties of a gas cloud in this way. But where did it come from? And what gave it such an unusual shape?

It’s Freezing Out There

Astronomers have predicted that when a star passes too close to a black hole, the extreme forces from the black hole will pull it apart, resulting in a long, thin gas stream.

But there are no massive black holes near that cloud of gas — the closest one we know about is more than 1,000 light years from Earth.

So we propose another theory: that a hydrogen “snow cloud” was disrupted and stretched out by gravitational forces from a nearby star, turning into a long thin gas cloud.

Snow clouds have only been studied as theoretical possibilities and are almost impossible to detect. But they would be so cold that droplets of hydrogen gas within them could freeze solid.

Some astronomers believe snow clouds make up part of the missing matter in the Milky Way.

It’s incredibly exciting for us to have measured an invisible clump of gas in such detail, using the ASKAP telescope. In the future we plan to repeat our experiment on a much larger scale and hopefully create a “cloud map” of the Milky Way.

We’ll then be able to work out how many other gas clouds are out there, how they’re distributed and what role they might have played in the evolution of the Milky Way.

Read more: Half the matter in the universe was missing – we found it hiding in the cosmos 

Yuanming Wang, PhD student, University of Sydney and Tara Murphy, Professor, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As new probes reach Mars, here's what we know so far from trips to the red planet

Three new spacecraft are due to arrive at Mars this month, ending their seven-month journey through space.

The first, the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Probe, should have made it to the red planet this week. It will stay in orbit and study its atmosphere for one complete Martian year (687 Earth days).

China’s Tianwen-1 mission also enters orbit this month and will begin scouting the potential landing site for its Mars rover, due to be deployed in May.

If successful, China will become the second country to land a rover on Mars.

These two missions will join six orbiting spacecraft actively studying the red planet from above:

• NASA’s Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN Orbiter
• Europe’s Mars Express
• India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)
• the European and Russian partnership ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

The oldest active probe - Mars Odyssey - has been orbiting the planet for 20 years.

Read more: How to get people from Earth to Mars and safely back again

The third spacecraft to reach Mars this month is NASA’s Perseverance rover, scheduled to land on February 18. It will search for signs of ancient microbial life but its mission also looks ahead, testing new technologies that may support humans visiting Mars one day.

Laboratories On Wheels

NASA has an impressive track record for landing on Mars. It has operated all eight successful missions to the Martian surface.

What began with the two Viking landers in the 1970s continues today with the InSight lander, which has studied the daily weather on Mars and detected Marsquakes for the past two years.

Perseverance will be the fifth rover to arrive on Mars that’s capable of venturing across the surface of another planet.

These amazing laboratories on wheels have extended our knowledge of a faraway world. Here’s what they’ve told us so far.

The First Rover - Sojourner

Twenty years after Viking 1 & 2 landed stationary probes on Mars, a third spacecraft finally reached the planet, but this one could move.

On July 4, 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder literally bounced onto the Martian surface, safely enclosed in a giant set of airbags. Once stable, the lander released the Sojourner rover.

The first rover on Mars could move at a maximum speed of 1cm a second and was about as long (63cm) as a skateboard — smaller than some of the boulders it encountered.

Sojourner explored 16 locations near the Pathfinder lander, including the volcanic rock “Yogi”. Pictures of its landing site, Ares Vallis, showed it was littered with rounded pebbles and conglomerate rocks, evidence of ancient flood plains.

The Geologists - Spirit And Opportunity

A pair of upsized rovers arrived on Mars in early 2004. Spirit and Opportunity were geologists, searching for minerals within the rocks and soil, hidden clues that dry, cold Mars may once have been wet and warm.

Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a 150km-wide crater created billions of years ago when an asteroid crashed into Mars.

Spirit discovered evidence of an ancient volcanic explosion, caused by hot lava meeting water. Small rocks had been thrown skyward but then fell back to Mars. Examination of the impact or “bomb sag” showed the rock had landed on wet soil.

Even when things went wrong, Spirit made new discoveries. While dragging a broken front wheel, Spirit churned up a track of soil revealing a patch of white silica.

This mineral usually exists in hot springs or steam vents, ideal environments where life on Earth tends to flourish.

The Rover That Kept On Going

Opportunity arrived on Mars three weeks after Spirit. Its original three-month mission was extended to 14 years as it travelled almost 50km across the Martian terrain.

Landing in the small Eagle Crater, Opportunity went on to visit more than 100 impact craters. It also found a handful of meteorites, the first to be studied on another planet.

The rover was descending into Endeavour Crater when a dust storm ended its mission. But it was along the crater’s edge that Opportunity made its biggest discoveries.

It found signs of ancient water flows and discovered the crater walls are made of clays that can only form where freshwater is available — more evidence that Mars could well have been a place for life.

The Chemist - Curiosity

Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012, and continues to explore the region today. During the coronavirus pandemic, scientists and engineers have been commanding the rover from their homes.

In a first for space exploration, NASA’s Curiosity was lowered to the Martian surface using a “sky crane”. After a successful soft landing, the crane’s cables were cut and the spacecraft’s descent stage flew away to crash elsewhere.

Curiosity is a fully equipped chemical laboratory. It can shoot lasers at rocks and also drill into the soil to collect samples. It’s confirmed ancient Mars once had the right chemistry to support microbial life.

Curiosity also found evidence of ancient freshwater rivers and lakes. It seems that water once flowed towards a basin at Mount Sharp, a central peak that rises 5.5km from within Gale Crater.

From being on the surface of Mars, we’ve learned it was once very different to the dry, dusty planet it is today.

Read more: The Conversation Weekly podcast Ep #1 transcript: Why it's a big month for Mars

With flowing water, possible oceans, volcanic activity and an abundance of key ingredients necessary for life, the red planet was once much more Earth-like. What happened to make it change so dramatically?

It’s exciting to consider what the Perseverance and Taiwen-1 rovers may discover as they explore their own patch of Mars. They might even lead us to the day when humans are exploring the red planet for ourselves.

Tanya Hill, Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You can't have a Hollywood meet cute on a dating app — but is that such a bad thing?

The “meet cute” is the moment in which two unlikely people encounter each other while going about their ordinary lives, and something extraordinary begins.

In the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), Arthur (Eli Wallach) describes it thus to Iris (Kate Winslet):

It’s how two characters meet in a movie. Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in, and they both go to the same men’s pyjama department. And the man says to the salesman, “I just need bottoms”. The woman says, “I just need a top”. They look at each other, and that’s the meet cute.

The meet cute is a magical moment of happenstance. The people involved aren’t looking for love (at least, not right then).

In 1991, Roger Ebert rather prosaically described the meet cute as:

a comic situation contrived entirely for the purpose of bringing a man and a woman together, after which they can work out their destinies for the remainder of the film.

However you describe it, the meet cute is unexpected. It happens when romance is the furthest thing from the characters’ minds. But in real life, in the age of online dating, more Australians meet their partner online than through friends and work (let alone, while buying pyjamas).

So can you have a meet cute when you are looking for love? Is it possible to have a meet cute on a dating app?

Searching For Romance

Driven by new year’s resolutions, holiday break-ups, and the desire for a Valentine’s Day date, the “busy” period for dating apps in Australia spans from Christmas Day through to mid-February. Across this period in 2020, Australians sent over 52.8 million messages on dating app Bumble.

In many ways, finding a valentine is easier than ever. But dating apps aren’t conducive to stumbling into just the right person precisely when you weren’t looking for them.

They rely on a logic of active choice: you sign up to the app in pursuit of some form of coupledom. In interviews one of us, (Lisa), conducted with dating app users, many described these apps as pre-meditated and strategic.

When talking about what they might want in a relationship, many participants specifically desired a “Hollywood moment”, but felt this could never happen via a dating app.

Read more: Loving Captivity review: a delightful rom-com captures life under coronavirus

Simultaneously, many felt meet cutes weren’t something that could ever happen to them: meet cutes were reserved for “special” people, not ordinary ones.

People seeking romance on dating apps are caught between two opposing forces: they feel apps provide the best opportunity to meet someone, but also that apps close down the possibility of a rom-com-style romance they dream of.

How Fictional Meet Cutes Adapted To Online Dating

In the most famous rom-com featuring online dating, You’ve Got Mail (1998), Joe (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen (Meg Ryan) don’t meet on a dating site. They meet in an over-30s chatroom and pursue a correspondence, not realising they’re business rivals in real life.

They might have met online, but neither was looking for love - and their business rivalry makes them very unlikely lovers.

More recently, Netflix’s Love, Guaranteed (2020) pairs a man suing a dating site for failing to find him love (Damon Wayans Jr) with his lawyer (Rachael Leigh Cook). They meet because of the site — but because they’re suing it, not because they matched on it.

We see similar patterns in popular romance fiction. In Christina Lauren’s My Favorite Half-Night Stand (2018), the heroine finds love via online dating — but with her best friend, who she already knew.

In Kristin Rockaway’s How to Hack a Heartbreak (2019), the heroine creates her own dating app, but her happily ever after is with the guy who sits in the next cubicle.

Some romance novels are beginning to emerge where the protagonists do meet solely because of apps, such as Alisha Rai’s The Right Swipe (2019), where the protagonists meet via an app — and then meet again in the boardroom.

Conflict Or Compatibility?

Meeting someone via an app might never feel exactly like the Hollywood rom-com meet cute participants in Lisa’s research were looking for — but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Romance narratives are driven by conflict. There’s usually a reason the two people can’t be together, a conflict they spend the whole story overcoming.

In Notting Hill (1999), Will (Hugh Grant) and Anna (Julia Roberts) have a classic meet cute when they bump into each other and he spills his orange juice all over her. But then they have to overcome the obstacles posed by the very different lives they lead in order to be together.

On dating apps, those looking for a relationship are searching for compatibility and chemistry, not conflict — for someone they could build a connection with, not the most unlikely person possible.

In other words: finding a valentine via an app is a lot more likely than running into them on the street or getting trapped in a lift with them.

And if it doesn’t feel quite like a rom-com, it might just be because we haven’t quite worked out how to tell that kind of story yet.

Lisa Portolan, PhD student, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University and Jodi McAlister, Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From lurid orange sauces to refined, regional flavours: how politics helped shape Chinese food in Australia

In this series, our writers explore how food shaped Australian history – and who we are today.

The first whiffs of Chinese cooking in mid-19th century Australia would have emanated from tiny huts owned by Chinese workers in the goldfields. There, they faced racial hostility from the European miners, culminating in the Lambing Flat riots in New South Wales in 1860-61, where Chinese residents of the fields were physically assaulted and had their camps set on fire.

Chinese cooks were also employed in farms and factories and sold food from “cookshops” in the various urban centres for other migrants, such as Sydney’s Chinese furniture factory workers.

Locally sourced meat, seafood and vegetables were complemented by imported ingredients such as Cantonese sausage, tofu, lychee nuts, black fungus and bamboo shoots.

By the late 1800s, about a third of commercial cooks in Australia were Chinese.

But when it came to the development of Chinese cuisine here, food and politics were deeply entangled. The White Australia Policy of 1901, its amendment in the 1930s and abolition in 1973; the Tiananmen Square protest and other political developments all had consequences for Australia’s Chinese restaurant trade.

From The Mines To The Cities

When the gold rush years ended, Chinese miners flocked to the cities to start restaurants. The public taste in the first half of 20th century Australia shifted from mutton to lamb, before shifting further. While there were newspaper caricatures of Chinese people eating or selling cats and rats, some Anglo-Australians were soon attracted to flavours other than the one meat and three veg.

Read more: Friday essay: the story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria's Chinese detective

Anti-Chinese sentiment and other factors led to the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 – known as the White Australia Policy — restricting migration from Asia and the Pacific.

Most of Australia’s Chinese population before the White Australia policy were from Guangdong and served Cantonese fare. It was this food which took a foothold.

From the early 1900s, Chinese restaurants were concentrated in Chinatowns in Australia, as happened elsewhere around the world. Alongside food, these enclaves provided networks for Chinese labour, trade and provisioning Chinese ingredients.

The Australian public started eating at Chinese restaurants from the 1930s, or brought saucepans from home for takeaway meals. Chicken chow mein, chop suey and sweet and sour pork were the mainstays.

The latter — together with other dishes smothered in sweet sticky sauces — became the lurid-orange epitome of Chinese cuisine for many Anglo Australians.

This fondness was aided and abetted by Chinese cooks who thought this sweetness was what Westerners thought of — and wanted from — Chinese food.

After White Australia

When the White Australia Policy ended, a new wave of more educated and affluent Chinese arrived. Settling in suburbs, they did not require the infrastructure of Chinatown. Later, from the 1980s, international Chinese students took up residence near university campuses.

With this, Chinese restaurants and provision stores were no longer found only in Chinatown. Still, the survival of Chinatowns depends on the Chinese food industry: in restaurants, cafes and grocery shops. The majority of Chinese restaurants in Australia are of the mum-and-dad variety and not part of global fast food conglomerates.

Read more: Sydney's Chinatown is much more of a modern bridge to Asia than a historic enclave

Both resident and transient Chinese consume and purchase Chinese goods in Chinatown for two reasons: to consume the familiar foods of home or childhood and to reconnect with their culture. And in eating Chinese meals in Chinatown, Australians show off their global palate by tasting a foreign and yet familiar cuisine.

Tiananmen And Hong Kong

Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest, the Australian government granted permanent residence to 20,000 Chinese international students.

They brought food practices from many different regions of China. Importing their own particular ingredients and cooking methods, restaurants started offering cuisines from Hunan, Sichuan, Beijing and Shanghai.

In the years before and after Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, numerous Cantonese chefs migrated to Australia. Locals at the time boasted that the best Hong Kong Cantonese food in the world was found in Perth’s Northbridge.

Today the discerning restaurant diner in Australia looks more for regional foods from China: the hot chilli lamb and noodles from Uyghur cuisine, the delicate dumplings of Shanghai, the Beijing hot pot. “Chinese food” is no longer a good enough descriptor for the variety of cuisines available in Australia.

But while Australians can now eat Peking duck and xiao long bao (soup dumplings), the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant — with its sweet and sour pork and chow mein — still exists across Australia in a culinary time warp. It is evidence of the enduring love for Chinese food here.

The COVID-19 pandemic means this week’s Lunar New Year will be different. Usually marked by an obligatory reunion dinner, this year not every family member will be at the dining table — but every dining table is sure to be piled high with food.

Cecilia Leong-Salobir, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How historically accurate is the film High Ground? The violence it depicts is uncomfortably close to the truth

The Australian film High Ground, set mostly at a mission in Arnhem Land in the 1930s, blends stories (and languages) from Indigenous Nations across the region.

It is a fictionalised story, inspired, says director Stephen Maxwell Johnson, by “true history”. At times, the film resembles a shoot-em-up Western. But it gets a lot right.

High Ground was written by Chris Anastassiades and co-produced by Witiyana Marika, (a founding member of Yothu Yindi), who appears in a supporting role as Grandfather Dharrpa and was the film’s senior cultural advisor. It tells of a police massacre of Aboriginal people and the repercussions that follow.

Massacres at the hands of police and settlers were tragically common through northern Australia. The opening scene, depicting a massacre beside a waterhole in 1919, echoes the 1911 Gan Gan Massacre in which mounted police killed more than 30 Yolngu people in a “punishment expedition”.

The Mission

In the film, a young boy, Gutjuk, who survives the massacre of his family, is taken to a mission. The Roper River Mission (now Ngukurr), established in 1908 and run by the Church Missionary Society, really did take in Aboriginal children who had either lost kin, or been forcibly removed from their families.

By the 1920s, there were so many children at Roper River that the society established a new mission just for them on Groote Eylandt. Another mission opened at Oenpelli (now Gunbalanya) in 1925, the subject of our recent book.

Parts of High Ground were shot in the vicinity of Oenpelli, which likely inspired the mission in the film.

The Real Station

Before it was a mission, Oenpelli was a cattle station and buffalo shooters’ camp run by a man named Paddy Cahill. In the film, a young woman, Gulwirri, who fights to defend her people, has worked as a “house girl” on a station and speaks of the violence she experienced.

Cahill had a reputation for brutality. He wrote of chaining Aboriginal people by the neck. The community remembers how he used to shoot people’s dogs, and his son was known to give workers a “hiding”. There are rumours, too, that Paddy was involved in a massacre.

Provoked by his behaviour, traditional owners instigated a plot to take out Cahill and his household. In 1917, strychnine was mixed into the family’s butter, killing their dog, and making Paddy’s wife Maria and two Aboriginal housemaids, Marealmark and Topsy seriously ill. Punishment for those Cahill suspected to be responsible was swift and violent.

In High Ground, the police officers’ earlier experience as soldiers fuels their bloody tactics. After Cahill left Oenpelli in 1922, caretaker Don Campbell managed the station until missionaries arrived. Campbell, too, was a returned serviceman, described as violent. Incoming missionary, Rev Alf Dyer wrote:

There are plenty [of Aboriginal people] about. Mr. Campbell said he had about 300 last Christmas. His policy has been to hunt them, because of the cattle killing; as you read between the lines you will see plenty of problems for the Superintendent of Oenpelli — we will have an uphill fight.

The Real Missionaries

In High Ground, the mission is run by a young brother and sister team. The latter, Claire, speaks the local language.

The original missionaries at Oenpelli were an older, socially awkward couple with prior experience: Alf and Mary Dyer.

Some have questioned whether a missionary woman would have learned language in the 1930s. But the character of Claire resembles the real figure of Nell Harris, who arrived at Oenpelli in 1933, aged 29.

Read more: Friday essay: dreaming of a 'white Christmas' on the Aboriginal missions

Thanks to her Aboriginal teachers, Harris quickly began learning Kunwinkju and, together with local women Hannah Mangiru and Rachel Maralngurra, translated the Gospel of Mark.

The Real Gutjuk

In the film, Gutjuk (played as an adult by Jacob Junior Nayinggul), grows up at the mission. He uses this affiliation to work for the interests of his kin in defending themselves against the police, who come looking for his uncle, Baywara, a warrior and survivor of the 1919 massacre.

This reminds us of a real historical figure, Narlim. Narlim was eldest son of senior traditional owner of the land at Oenpelli — Nipper Marakarra. Narlim was born in 1909, making him around the same age as the fictional Gutjuk.

Narlim grew up at the mission because, after working for Cahill, Nipper saw strategic value in an alliance with missionaries. He also wanted his children to learn to read and speak English. This alliance was a way to ensure continued life on Country and to maintain sovereignty as traditional owners.

But, as in the film, missionary cooperation with police was disastrous for Narlim. When a policeman visited in the late 1930s, he found Narlim had an infectious disease. The policeman handcuffed Narlim, intending to chain him with a group of others to be sent to Darwin.

The missionaries said the chains were unnecessary as Narlim “would behave”, but they did not save him. Narlim was exiled from the mission and his country under police escort, baby daughter on one shoulder and spears on the other, never to return.

His daughter, Peggy eventually came home and became a strong community leader.

The Real ‘Punishment’ And ‘Peace’ Expeditions

In 1932, Yolngu warriors killed a party of Japanese pearlers trespassing on their country. Constable Albert McColl was sent in; he too was speared. So police proposed a “punishment expedition”, not unlike those depicted in High Ground.

Read more: How Dr G.Yunupiŋu took Yolŋu culture to the world

After a humanitarian outcry, the society proposed a “peace expedition” instead. The expedition went unarmed to the Yolngu warriors. Unlike events depicted in the film, three were convinced to come to Darwin for trial. The men were found guilty but eventually released. Yet one, Dhakiyarr, disappeared after his release. The open secret in Darwin was that Dhakiyarr was drowned in the harbour in an extra-judicial police killing.

The film gets right the ambiguous missionary relationship to violence. Missions were meant to be a refuge from inter-tribal and settler violence. Missionaries understood their humanitarian and evangelistic work as seeking to atone for the bloodshed of colonisation.

But they also relied upon and enabled the ongoing violence of settler authorities. As “Aboriginal Protectors” missionaries functioned as local sheriffs and carried guns. Missionaries would send Aboriginal people for trial in Darwin, or else implement their own punishments.

As portrayed in the film, missionaries joined expeditions to capture supposed lawbreakers. Alf Dyer, for instance, led the so-called “peace expedition” to convince Yolngu men to face trial in white courts.

The Historical Record

High Ground also shows how self-conscious white authorities were creating a historical record.

The chief of police, played by Jack Thompson, seems to be always directing a photographer to take portraits. These images were good for fund raising, for impressing officials. They do not reflect the full story of the community. But they do give us a glimpse of the complex relationships in Arnhem Land in the 1930s.

High Ground, of course, is a highly dramatised piece of art. But, as the filmmakers have said, it’s closer to uncomfortable historical truths than we might expect. By showcasing such stories, the film will hopefully encourage broader reflection on Australia’s violent history, and its enduring legacies.

Laura Rademaker, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Research Centre for Deep History, Australian National University; Julie Narndal Gumurdul, Senior Traditional Owner, Gunbalanya community, Western Arnhem Land, Indigenous Knowledge, and Sally K. May, Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.