Griffith University and Gilmour Space Technologies are pleased to announce the winners of a mission patch design competition for ‘Joey’ — a small satellite bus demonstrator, jointly developed by Gilmour Space and Griffith, that will be launched to space in 2022.
The winners are 16-year-old Wypaan Ambrum, a Kuku Djungan woman from Trinity Bay State High School, Far North Queensland; and 17-year-old Kate Deane, a Trawlwoolway woman from Marist Regional College in Lutruwita (Tasmania). Both students are members of CSIRO’s Young Indigenous Women’s STEM Academy, which runs Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) programs for First Nations female students across Australia.
“We received some fantastic design submissions to represent the launch of our first 100-kilogram Australian made G-class satellites to space,” Shaun Kenyon, Program Manager for Satellites at Gilmour Space, said.
Professor Paulo De Souza
“Australia’s First Nations people have long been described as the world’s first astronomers, and it is only fitting that these designs by First Nations young women Wypaan and Kate will represent the two iterations of Joey that will be launched from Australia.”
The two winners will be invited to join a new Griffith University STEM program related to Space in 2022.
“Griffith University is pleased to offer this exciting experience to such talented and passionate students,” Professor Paulo de Souza,who heads Griffith University’s School of Information and Communication Technology, said.
“Our partnership with Gilmour Space Technologies is the first of its kind in Australia.”
“These students will come on board as part of our satellite development team, where, jointly with Gilmour, we will develop the largest satellite ever built in Australia.
“We look forward to sharing more news about this terrific initiative in 2022.”
16-year-old Wypaan Ambrum
Ms Ambrum explained her design choices.
“I wanted Indigenous art to be the focus in my patch design so non-Indigenous people can see we are still here,” she said.
“We are the longest living continuous culture in the world. I am a part of the Kuku Djungan tribe, and a part of the Young Indigenous Women’s STEM Academy.
“The figure at the top of the triangle is an Aboriginal symbol to represent a star. On the base of the triangle, you can see multiple circles representing different landforms which the satellite will monitor.”
Kate Deane’s design.
“I love science, mainly biology and chemistry, and I also love art,” Ms Deane said.
“I am gradually incorporating my Indigenous identity into these endeavours. My design depicts a hexagonal patch, in the shape of the spacecraft.
“It features the spacecraft travelling through the night sky, and land and waterways below. I wanted to incorporate the richness of Country, with bold earthy red hues of ochre deposits and strong blue water, sustaining life. I incorporated styles and patterns similar to those found in petroglyphs throughout Tasmania.”
17-year-old Kate Deane
Susan Burchill, Director of CSIRO Education and Outreach said it had been an amazing experience for the members of their Young Indigenous Women’s STEM Academy.
“It all started with a virtual STEM experience in September, including a tour of Gilmour Space, which the young women found very inspiring,” she said.
“That led to the mission patch competition, and the opportunity for the winners now to learn more about space technology from Griffith University and to visit Gilmour Space in person.”
Institute for Glycomics researchers have been awarded more than $1.1 million in National Health and Medical Research Council(NHMRC) grant funding to develop new antibiotics for the treatment of multi-drug resistant gonorrhoea infections.
Institute for Glycomics Director Professor Mark von Itzstein AO
The team will be able to delve further into the chemistry and potential application of new “zinc-binder” drugs under development to target a range of significant drug resistant bacterial infections.
Sexually transmitted disease gonorrhoea is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng). Most gonococcal infections are asymptomatic and can lead to pelvic disease, infertility and increased risk of HIV co-transmission.
The recent emergence of multi-drug resistant superbugs means ‘Ng’ is now classified as an immediate public-health threat. No vaccine is available.
“Applying our extensive experience in the fields of drug discovery and Neisseria research, we aim to develop a novel class of antibiotics to treat gonorrhoea and other bacterial infections,’’ Professor von Itzstein said.
Since the last entirely original class of antibiotics was discovered in the late 1980s, no new classes of antibacterial agents or drugs have been brought into medical use.
Professor Michael Jennings, Deputy Director of the Institute for Glycomics
Professor Michael Jennings, Deputy Director of the Institute for Glycomics and a Chief Investigator on the grant, said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that there were 106 million cases of gonorrhoea worldwide annually.
“Since this disease was first treated with penicillin in the 1940s, this bacterium has become resistant over the decades to each successive class of antibiotics that have been developed.
“New antibiotics are now needed to treat the infections with multi-drug resistant strains that have emerged and are becoming more widespread,” he said.
Professor von Itzstein said that their ‘zinc-binder’ drug candidate approach has found great use in tackling drug resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumanni infection, published recently in Cell Reports and mBioas part of collaborative research with University of Melbourne and University of Queensland.
“Building on our Institute’s world-leading expertise in gonorrhoea research, this NHMRC grant will allow us to apply our zinc-binder drug discovery approach to drug resistant gonorrhoea infections and provides an exciting opportunity to develop a new solution for the treatment of a significant antibiotic-resistant infection, leading to commercialisation income for Australia,” he said.
ABOUTGONORRHEA
More than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are acquired every day worldwide. Gonorrhoea represents a major proportion of these STIs, making it a global health priority. Gonorrhoea is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae(Ng) which primarily infects the female cervix and the male urethra.
Mothers with gonorrhoea can pass the bacteria to their baby during birth, resulting in neaonatal blindness. Moreover, gonorrhoea can cause long-term damage to the reproductive tract, leading to infertility. The US Centre for Disease Control and WHO list ‘Ng’ as an urgent antibiotic resistance threat. Gonorrhoea infection also causes a higher risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV. There is no vaccine for gonorrhoea.
Griffith University researchers will lead 17 new Discovery Projects across a broad field of knowledge after being awarded over $6.96 million from the Australian Research Council.
Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research Professor Sheena Reilly AM said the outstanding results placed Griffith in the top ten in Australia for the number of grants awarded and success rate.
“Our researchers are at the forefront of discovery.”
“These high impact research projects will not only expand our knowledge and understanding across a broad spectrum of areas, but give solutions and better outcomes both in Australia and internationally.”
Australian Research Council Discovery Projects (DP22) led by Griffith University researchers
Dr Kirsten Besemer and Professor Susanne Karstedt (Griffith Criminology Institute, AEL) awarded $229,029 for the project Lifting the burden of imprisonment: Creating safer and stronger communities. This project aims to identify how a reduction in imprisonment rates could benefit Australian communities and enhance their safety and wellbeing. It will link a range of statistical data sources on imprisonment, crime and community wellbeing. We will, for the first time, comprehensively demonstrate the impact of imprisonment on individuals and communities in Australia and beyond. Expected outcomes of this project include expansion and innovation of coercive mobility theory, novel integration of data, and a forecasting tool to assess the impact of imprisonment reduction on communities.
Professor Julian Meyrick (Creative Arts Research Institute/Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL) awarded $165,000 for The impact of immigrant theatre artists on Australian culture 1919-1949. Using an innovative mixed-methods research design, this project aims to investigate the lives and impact of immigrant theatre artists working in Australia from 1919 to 1949, focusing on the influential Latvian “power couple” Dolia and Rosa Ribush. After 1918, increased migration flows led numbers of foreign artists to come to Australia. These have been studied individually but never as a network, so their contribution to Australian culture has been greatly undervalued. Benefits of the project include better understanding of the way Australian theatre has been creatively shaped by diverse patterns of immigration.
Dr Jacqueline Drew (Griffith Criminology Institute, AEL) awarded $296, 730 for the project Innovation in police gender equity management: Looking back, moving forward. This project aims to investigate gender equity recruitment and career support policies in all nine Australian and New Zealand policing agencies. A wide range of equity initiatives that have been implemented across police agencies will be examined, along with affirmative action measures including recent 50/50 male/female recruitment targets. (With Professor Timothy Prenzler, University of Sunshine Coast).
Professor Sue Trevaskes (Griffith Criminology Institute and Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL) awarded $228,000 for China’s Law-Based Governance Revolution under Xi Jinping. To sustain its unmitigated power, the Chinese Communist Party is transforming its legal ideology and governance focus to make politico-legal institutions more capable of supervising and moulding people’s behaviour and beliefs. This project aims to examine how this transformation is constructed by key institutions and digested into public policy and legal decision-making guidelines. It expects to generate new knowledge on how Xi Jinping-era legal ideology guides policy and decision-making in China. The expected outcomes include an enhanced conceptual and empirical understanding of politico-legal change in China. This project has significant implications for Australia given China’s increasingly assertive role in international governance. (With Associate Professor Delia Lin, The University of Melbourne and Professor Zhiyuan Guo, China University of Political Science and Law).
Professor Sara Davies (Centre for Governance and Policy and Griffith Asia Institute, Business), Dr Cosmo Howard andDr Jessica Kirk (Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Business) awarded $230,329 for the project The politics of expertise during COVID-19. Experts play a crucial role during crises. This project aims to examine how four governments (Australia, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States) have incorporated public health expertise into their decision making during COVID-19. These countries have similar economic resources, liberal democratic institutions, health system capacities and pandemic preparedness. Yet, their governments responded differently to COVID-19. (With Associate Professor Clare Wenham, The London School of Economics and Political Science; Dr Jeremy Youde, University of Minnesota and Dr Rachel Irwin, Lund University).
Dr Cosmo Howard (Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Business)andProfessor Juliet Pietsch (Griffith Asia Institute and Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Business) awarded $233,777 for Understanding the Antipodean ‘Fair Go’. There is bipartisan support for the ‘fair go’ in Australia and New Zealand, but what does the fair go actually mean? This project aims to generate new knowledge about the role of the fair go in political debate and policy making. It will examine the values that have been historically connected to the fair go. It will assess how the public and politicians currently understand the fair go and will investigate how the fair go has influenced public policies. (With Professor Jennifer Curtin, The University of Auckland).
Dr Lee Morgenbesser (Griffith Asia Institute and Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Business) awarded $166,134 for Agents of Disinformation: The Rise of Counterfeit Election Observers. This project investigates the rise of “counterfeit” election observers as agents of disinformation. Using four case studies and four qualitative methods, it identifies how autocratic regimes entice partisan individuals to imitate genuine international observers. The expected project outcome is an explanation for the origins, features and impact of counterfeit election observers that is practically applicable to our foreign affairs and national intelligence communities as well as genuine observation organisations. The knowledge gained from this project will not only help defend Australia from malign disinformation, but advance its interest in the promotion of good governance and stronger democratic institutions everywhere.
Associate Professor Thomas Haselhorst (Institute for Glycomics, Sciences)andDr Christopher Day (Institute for Glycomics, Sciences) awarded $523,000 for the project Glycan-based prebiotic approaches to increase food safety in Australia. Since the launch of the first Australian Animal Sector National Antimicrobial Resistance Plan (2018) several approaches have been suggested to reduce the use antibiotics in agriculture, however no alternatives to antibiotics have been suggested or trialled. In this proposal we aim to develop a novel glycan-based prebiotic strategy to reduce Campylobacter jejuni colonisation in chicken and poultry by disrupting important glycan-glycan interactions. Outcomes of this proposal is a cost-effective antibiotic- and vaccine-independent animal feed supplement strategy that will decrease the risk of human food-borne illness and therefore promoting food safety and public health in Australia.
Professor Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck (Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Health) andDr Jaimee Stuart (School of Applied Psychology, Health) awarded $320,639 for Parenting in an unsteady world across nations. Overinvolved and overcontrolling parenting seems to be on the rise as families are confronted with an unsteady world. This project aims to investigate how overparenting affects youth’s achievements and well-being as they transition out of secondary school, and will isolate societal and cultural determinants of overparenting. This project will generate new knowledge on family influences on youth’s progress, and will substantially contribute to an existing multinational study to identify macro social-cultural determinants of overcontrolling parenting. (With Dr Stijn Van Petegem, Free University of Brussels; A/Prof Bart Soenens, Ghent University; Prof Grégoire Zimmermann, University of Lausanne).
Professor David Lambert (Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Sciences) awarded $430,182 for The genetics of four ancient ‘Kings’ of Sahul and Sunda. This project aims to recover all the genetic information from four ancient humans. Two of these iconic specimens come from Australia and two from Malaysia. We will sequence the entire DNA (genomes) and proteins (proteome) of Mungo Man (Willandra), the Yidinji King (Cairns), the Deep Skull (Borneo) and the Bewah specimen (Malaysian Peninsula). This will provide a better understanding of the settlement of Australia and new knowledge about the ancient people of Australasia and their relationship to other human populations worldwide. The research will use cutting-edge methods of DNA and protein sequencing of ancient human material and will provide critical reference genomes / proteomes that will anchor future research. (With Associate Professor Craig Millar, The University of Auckland; Dr Edinur Atan, University of Science Malaysia; Prof Enrico Cappellini and Prof Eske Willerslev, University of Copenhagen; Mr Gudju Gudju Fourmile, ABRICULTURE).
Professor Nam-Trung Nguyen, Dr Chin Hong Ooi andAssociate Professor Helen Stratton (Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Sciences) awarded $495,000 for Microfluidics with core-shell beads: handling liquids like solids. Reducing waste of consumables in chemical reactions promises to solve environmental problems as well as enable novel applications in space. This project aims to establish a revolutionary fluid handling technology that lowers waste in the labs and in satellites. The project deciphers the fundamental physics behind our recent discovery of encapsulating a tiny liquid content in a solid shell, allowing for handling liquid samples like solid particles. Examples of the benefit of this project are more precise detection of bacteria on earth and compact reactors in space. The research outcomes are instrumental for promoting a clean environment, good health, and creating new business opportunities, particularly in space industry, for Australians. (With Professor Dr Volker Hessel, The University of Adelaide).
Professor Maxime Aubert (Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL), Professor Adam Brumm (Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Sciences), Dr Tim Maloney andDr Andrea Jalandoni (Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL) awarded $848,116 for Early art, culture and occupation along the northern route to Australia. This project aims to uncover archaeological evidence for early humans in Indonesia’s northern island chain (from Borneo to West Papua). This poorly known region harbours the world’s earliest known figurative cave art (>45,500 years old), and it is also the most likely maritime route used by modern humans during the initial peopling of Australia ~65,000 years ago. The project aims to use cave excavations and rock art dating to fill the 20,000 year gap between the earliest known archaeological evidence from these islands and the oldest human site in Australia. Expected outcomes include new insight into the ancient past of Indonesia and a greatly improved understanding of the art and cultural lifeways of the ancestors of the First Australians. (With Associate Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University; Dr Rebecca Jones, Australian Museum; Mr Marlon Ririmasse, Indonesian National Research Center for Archaeology; Dr Pindi Setiawan, Bandung Institute of Technology).
Professor Dzung Dao and Professor Nam-Trung Nguyen (Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Sciences), Associate Professor Erik Streed (Centre for Quantum Dynamics and Institute for Glycomics, Sciences) andDr Yong Zhu (Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Sciences) awarded $585,000 for Nano optoelectronic coupling: towards an ultrasensitive sensing technology. This project aims to elucidate ultrasensitive mechanical and thermal sensing effects that are tens of thousands of times better than conventional sensing technologies. This is achieved through controlling interactions between photons and electrons at the interface of two semiconductors. Outcomes of this project include scientific breakthroughs that are expected to revolutionise and disrupt the established sensing technologies. Microscopic low power mechanical and thermal sensors with ultra-high sensitivity have great value to enhance safety, security, and productivity of industry and society. (With Dr Toan Dinh, University of Southern Queensland).
Associate Professor Susan Bengtson Nash (Centre of Planetary Health and Food Security, Sciences) awarded $724,450 for the project Uncovering Antarctica’s Secret Chemical Voyagers for Expedited Regulation. This project aims to strengthen global chemical policy by rapidly identifying chemicals that demonstrate environmental persistence and mobility, two requisite risk criteria for regulatory action. It will take the novel approach of applying powerful non-target chemical screening approaches to Antarctic environmental media, leveraging the remoteness of Antarctica to derive unambiguous evidence against the key risk criteria. Research will uncover a new catalogue of proven persistent and mobile chemicals, and further assess their ubiquity and biomagnification potential in the Antarctic system. (With Dr Xianyu Wang, The University of Queensland; Dr Pernilla Bohlin-Nizzetto and Dr Martin Schlabach, Norwegian National Institute for Air Research; Dr Derek Muir, Environment Canada).
Professor Howard Wiseman (Centre for Quantum Dynamics, Sciences) awarded $512,835 for Heisenberg-limited lasers: building the revolution. The project aims to design and build a revolutionary new type of laser based on the ground-breaking 2020 Nature Physics paper by the two Chief Investigators. The significance of this work is that it overturns 60 years of theory about the limits to laser coherence, by applying 21st century quantum theory and quantum technology to the problem. This project expects to greatly advance the theory and, by instigating a collaboration with world-leading experimentalists working with superconducting quantum devices, to demonstrate a laser with coherence beyond what was thought possible. Benefits of the project should flow from the manifold applications for highly coherent radiation, including scaling up superconducting quantum computing. (With Associate Professor Dominic Berry, Macquarie University; Professor Benjamin Huard and Dr Audrey Bienfait, ENS Lyon; Dr Mazyar Mirrahimi, National Research Institute in Digital Sciences and Technologies).
Professor Bernd Rehm, Dr Frank Sanisbury andDr Shuxiong Chen (Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Sciences) awarded $560,000 for Bioengineering self-assembly of innovative core-shell nanomaterials. This project aims to generate new knowledge in nanoscale bioengineering. It expects to develop a disruptive platform technology for design and manufacture of advanced nanomaterials to provide solutions for unmet needs in industry. It will explore an innovative bioengineering concept that merges biopolymer synthesis with virus-like particle self-assembly to produce innovative tunable core-shell nanomaterials. Expected outcomes are the development of advanced techniques for design and manufacture of innovate nanomaterials with enhanced stability and performance. This innovative platform technology for precision engineering of high-performance nanomaterials should provide significant benefits for biotechnological and agricultural industries.
Professor Sally-Ann Poulsen andProfessor Katherine Andrews (Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, Sciences) awarded $415,495 for Chemical probes to dissect the cell cycle of globally important parasites. This project aims to develop new reagents, called chemical probes, to visualise key biological events in globally important pathogens. We will use innovative chemistry to modify the building blocks of DNA and provide researchers with essential tools to ‘see’ DNA synthesis in order to study growth and replication of pathogens in combination with microscopy. This project expects to support a major technical advance that will address important gaps in our understanding of many pathogens (e.g. those that cause malaria and tuberculosis), at both the cellular and molecular levels. This should provide significant benefits by enabling researchers worldwide to identify new intervention opportunities that target unique aspects of pathogen biology. (With Dr Martin Blume, Robert Koch Institute).
Australian Research Council Discovery Projects (DP22) with Griffith University researchers as team members
Associate Professor Kylie Burns (Law Futures Centre, AEL and Menzies Health Institute Queensland) is part of a team led by UNSW’s Prof Jill Hunter awarded $540,000 for the project titled, Judges’ work, place and psychological health – a national view.
Dr Margaret Gibson, (Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL) is part of a team led by UNSW’s Prof Michael Balfour awarded $300,000 for the project titled, Future stories: creating virtual worlds with young people in hospital.
Dr Natalie Osborne, (Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, AEL) is part of a team led by the University of Sydney’s A/Prof Thom van Dooren awarded $427,000 for the project titled, Narrative Ecologies of Warragamba Dam.
Associate Professor Fuwen Yang (Institute of Integrated and Intelligent Systems, Sciences) is part of a team led by QUT’s Prof Yu-Chu Tian awarded $490,000 for the project titled, Mitigating the risks of cyberattacks on cyber-physical power systems.
Griffith University experts have delivered training to Indonesian decision makers on how to turn the country’s waste into energy.
“WTE is a process to generate electricity or heat from residual wastes generated from agriculture, industry and communities,” Associate Professor Kaparaju said.
“The energy can be recovered as solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels, or as heat and can replace fossil fuels and decarbonise the energy and transport sector.
“Indonesia has a large amount of waste that can be turned into energy to power homes and small-scale industries, the cement industry and replace fossil fuels in passenger vehicles.”
The South East Asian country, known for its surfing spots and rice fields, generates an extraordinary amount of waste each day – approximately 190,000 tonnes.
Of the 25,000 tonnes of daily plastic waste, 20 per cent ends up in rivers and coastal waters.
The Indonesian government has approved the construction of 12 WTE plants, spending $1 billion on the initiative with an aim to reduce 70 percent of waste by 2025.
Participants in the Griffith-led virtual course, which included experienced engineers, policy makers, regulators and administrators in waste management and WTE projects, engaged in open discussions with industry leaders and guest presenters from Australia and Indonesia.
The training was held virtually due to COVID-19.
Working in groups, the participants developed Award Projects which involved plans to implement within their organisations.
During this process, they were encouraged to speak to Australian WTE experts and collaborate with the Indonesian Ministries and local governments in developing large-scale WTE infrastructure projects.
“Networking and interaction with Australian WTE experts and engaging in virtual site visits to some of the advanced WTE facilities across Australia through this course should give confidence to our participants when developing the policies and regulations for implementing these projects in Indonesia,” Associate Professor Kaparaju said.
Course co-lead, Associate Professor Sunil Herat, said course participants were now well equipped to meet challenges and drive solutions.
“Through this program we have managed to create much needed ‘local champions’ in this field,” Associate Professor Herat said.
Griffith University viral immunologist Professor Suresh Mahalingam has been appointed to a World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group tasked with combatting viruses like dengue and Zika.
The Technical Advisory Group on the Global Integrated Arboviruses Initiative (GIAI) will provide advice to WHO on arboviruses, which are transmitted by mosquitoes and ticks and cause human disease like dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, Zika and Ross River viruses.
“It is very satisfying to realise the work I have done over the last 20 years on understanding how arboviruses cause disease and on development of vaccines and antivirals now gives me the opportunity to be involved in this important WHO program,” Professor Mahalingam said.
“I am very excited to be in a position to make a real difference to global health in the field of arboviruses.”
Professor Mahalingam said his appointment to the WHO Technical Advisory Group would allow him to guide policy, research into new vaccines and drugs to combat arbovirus infections like dengue.
“Dengue virus is the most important arbovirus in terms of human health,” he said.
“It affects many tropical and subtropical regions globally, with around 100 million cases each year.
Arboviruses are transmitted by arthropod vectors like mosquitoes.
“Dengue infections range from mild, febrile flu-like illness through to very severe disease that can result in death.
“Despite many years of research, there is still no effective vaccine or treatment for dengue.
“In this position, I will be able to advise WHO about developments in the field and the best approaches for new products, as well as helping WHO select the best projects for further support and accelerate their development.”
Professor Mahalingam is an internationally recognised expertise in arbovirus disease.
His research program at Griffith University has led to a vaccine development program and the re-purposing of anti-inflammatory drugs to treat arbovirus diseases.
“One important goal of this work will be to facilitate passage of new products through clinical trials and the regulatory approval process, before entering into the market,” he said.
“Successful experience in applying my research places me in a strong position to advise others on the best strategy for vaccine and drug development for arbovirus infections.”
Griffith Business School has established a new research and policy hub to help create sustainable energy solutions.
Griffith Vice Chancellor Professor Carolyn Evans with CAEEPR members at the launch of the Centre.
Griffith University’s world-class research will underpin policy advice and thought leadership, helping guide Australia’s transition to clean power generation and transmission.
Griffith Business School (GBS) energy economist Professor Paul Simshauser AM helped broker the collaboration between Griffith University and a diverse group of industry partners.
“This would never have got off the ground unless industry were right there at foundation stage,” Professor Simshauser said.
“The electricity industry is going through an enormous transformation at the moment as it decarbonizes. It’s one of the key sectors of the economy and you need to have it firing on all cylinders.
“To hit net zero emissions you need to work out how best to get the grid operating on a largely carbon free basis.
“We have the industry backing and academic expertise to address these big challenges.”
Professor Paul Simshauser
CAEEPR is home to the country’s leading energy industry experts, including Professor Simshauser, Associate Professor Tim Nelson, Associate Professor Joel Gilmore and Dr Phillip Wild.
Professor Simshauser said CAEEPR provided an important pathway for postgraduate students, doctoral candidates and researchers.
“The Centre only launched a couple of months ago, but we’re already getting people putting their hand up for PhDs and postgraduate research.
“We have a pretty impressive group of people involved — from the Griffith University academics and adjuncts to the industry participants.
“We’re able to deal with the issues facing industry, government and policymakers in real time.”
“And with electricity market reforms and all of the climate change implications, there’s no end to the help and advice that governments will need to navigate this, because it’s really complex.”
CAEEPR member Adjunct Professor Rod Welford
GBS Adjunct Professor Rod Welford is a long term supporter and adjunct of the University who is committed to applied energy research. He said it was exciting to see the launch of CAEEPR at Griffith.
“We want our research capability to be able to unpack and resolve some of the big challenges that we’re facing in the electricity and energy industry,” he said.
“The starting point is that the center has access to high-definition data about energy use across the Queensland electricity grid.
“Drawing on that data will allow us to identify solutions to the big challenges that need to be addressed.”
Professor Welford said Griffith was a natural home for CAEEPR, given the University’s commitment to climate change solutions.
“Sustainable energy is the biggest game in town at a state and national level in Australia,” he said.
“It’s wonderful that a university like Griffith that is renowned for its environmental focus also has a capacity to contribute to the design of a national electricity grid.”
“For young energy engineers or economists, this is an opportunity to get in the box seat of a field of knowledge that is going to be critical in the years ahead.”
In the race to take action against climate change a lot of terms are thrown around – “net zero”, “carbon neutral”, “carbon negative”. But what do they even mean? We unpack some of these terms and ask the question – what can humans actually do to reverse the negative impact on the environment?
Featuring: Assoc Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton from Griffith University and YouTuber Julian O’Shea who break down the concepts and help us understand what’s behind the language, and how you can take action.
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Over the past two years, our lives have changed in unprecedented ways. In the face of the pandemic, we have been required to obey demanding new rules and accept new risks, making enormous changes to our daily lives.
These disruptions can challenge us to think differently about ethics – about what we owe each other.
As we head into the third year of the pandemic, debates continue to rage over the ethics of vaccine mandates, restrictions on civil liberties, the limits of government power and the inequitable distribution of vaccines globally.
With so much disagreement over questions like these, has the pandemic fundamentally changed the way we think about ethics?
Ethics became more visible
In daily life, ethical decision-making often isn’t front of mind. We can often just coast along.
But the pandemic changed all that. It highlighted our human inter-connectedness and the effects of our actions on others. It made us re-litigate the basic rules of life: whether we could work or study, where we could go, who we could visit.
Because the rules were being rewritten, we had to work out where we stood on all manner of questions:
is it OK – or even obligatory – to “dob” on rule-breakers?
how far can our freedoms be rightly restricted in the name of the public interest and the greater good?
At times, politicians tried to downplay these ethically-loaded questions by insisting they were “just following the science”. But there is no such thing. Even where the science is incontrovertible, political decision-making is unavoidably informed by value judgements about fairness, life, rights, safety and freedom.
Ultimately, the pandemic made ethical thinking and discussion more common than ever — a change that might well outlast the virus itself. This might itself be a benefit, encouraging us to think more critically about our moral assumptions.
Image from @annastaciamp Twitter page https://twitter.com/AnnastaciaMP/status/1481160264221446145/photo/1
Who to trust?
Trust has always been morally important. However, the pandemic moved questions of trust to the very centre of everyday decision-making.
One good thing about trustworthiness is that it’s testable. Over time, evidence may confirm or refute the hypothesis that, say, the government is trustworthy about vaccine health advice but untrustworthy about cyber privacy protections in contract tracing apps.
Perhaps more importantly, one common concern throughout the pandemic was the unprecedented speed with which the vaccines were developed and approved. As the evidence for their safety and effectiveness continues to mount, quickly developed vaccines may be more readily trusted when the next health emergency strikes.
Legitimacy, time and executive power
When we’re thinking about the ethics of a law or rule, there are lots of questions we can ask.
Is it fair? Does it work? Were we consulted about it? Can we understand it? Does it treat us like adults? Is it enforced appropriately?
In the context of a pandemic, it turns out that delivering good answers to these questions requires a crucial resource: time.
The development of inclusive, informed, nuanced and fair rules is hard when swift responses are needed. It’s even more challenging when our understanding of the situation – and the situation itself – changes rapidly.
This doesn’t excuse shoddy political decision-making. But it does mean leaders can be forced to make hard decisions where there are no ethically sound alternatives on offer. When they do, the rest of us must cope with living in a deeply imperfect moral world.
All of this raises important questions for the future. Will we have become so inured to executive rule that governments feel confident in restricting our liberties and resist relinquishing their power?
“On a different front, given the enormous costs and disruptions governments have imposed on the public to combat the pandemic, is there now a clearer moral obligation to marshal similar resources to combat slow-motion catastrophes like climate change?”
Ethics and expectations
Expectations, in the form of predictions about the future, are rarely at the forefront of our ethical thinking.
Yet as the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued, disruption is inherently ethically challenging because people build their lives around their expectations. We make decisions, investments and plans based on our expectations, and adapt our preferences around them.
When those expectations are violated, we can experience not only material losses, but losses to our autonomy and “self efficacy” — or our perceived ability to navigate the world.
This plays out in several ways in the context of vaccine mandates.
For example, it’s not a crime to have strange beliefs and odd values, so long as you still follow the relevant rules. But this creates problems when a new type of regulation is imposed on an occupation.
A person with strong anti-vaccination beliefs (or even just vaccine hesitancy) arguably should never become a nurse or doctor. But they may well expect their views to be a non-issue if they are a footballer or a construction worker.
While there are powerful ethical reasons supporting vaccine mandates, the shattering of people’s life expectations nevertheless carries profound costs. Some people may be removed from careers they built their lives around. Others may have lost the sense their future is able to be predicted, and their lives are in their control.
What does the future hold?
It’s possible current social shifts will “snap back” once the threat recedes. Emergency situations, like pandemics and war, can have their own logic, driven by high stakes and the sacrifices necessary to confront them.
Equally though, learned lessons and ingrained habits of thought can persist beyond the crucibles that forged them. Only time will tell which changes will endure — and whether those changes make our society better or worse.
Author
Dr Hugh Breakey is Senior Research Fellow in moral philosophy at Griffith University’s Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law. His research spans political theory, normative ethics, governance studies and applied philosophy, exploring the ethical challenges in such diverse fields as peacekeeping, argument, institutional governance, climate change, sustainable tourism, private property, professional ethics and international law. He is President of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics.
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Recent media attention has exposed some of the issues that face New Zealand’s dairy industry and the impact it is having on the nation’s highly prized waterways.
In April, a report by ABC Australia’s Foreign Correspondent program provided a revealing insight into the state of New Zealand’s rivers. It linked the expansion of the dairy industry to rapid degradation of freshwater water quality, but it did not address some of the primary causal factors.
In the early to mid-2000s, the New Zealand dairy industry expanded rapidly, driven mostly by demand from China for milk powder. Existing dairy farms expanded and intensified their operations while sheep farms were converted to dairy in many areas of the country. Large tracts of plantation forest were also converted to dairy farms in the central North Island. From 2004 to 2015 Landcorp, a New Zealand government state-owned enterprise, cleared plantation forests to establish pasture for 17,000 cows in the catchment of New Zealand’s longest river, the Waikato. Concurrently – in 2011 – the first tranche of funding for river restoration was being delivered by the Crown as part of a $210 million treaty settlement with five Māori tribes along the Waikato River.
Waikato dairy farmland south of Cambridge, Waikato region. Dark areas are where pasture has been ‘strip-grazed’. Cows are represented by the high-density dark dots in discrete areas. Photo: Google Earth image 8/2018
In the mid-2000s I voiced that a moratorium on new dairy developments would allow time to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the environmental effects of dairy expansions. By 2020 the total dairy cow herd had exceeded 6 million, equivalent to a human effluent load of approximately 100 million. Dairy – the main consumer of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser – has undergone rapid intensification, and between 1990 and 2015 nitrogen fertiliser use increased by 627 per cent. At the same time the irrigated land area in New Zealand nearly doubled, mostly in response to dairy expansion into drier central and eastern areas of both the South and North Islands.
Grass growth slows in winter in the temperate climate of New Zealand and farmers have traditionally had to constrain stock densities, depending on access to local winter feed (e.g., hay, silage). However, import of relatively cheap palm kernel (for example, 1.8 million tonnes in 2020), which began in 2004, has had several adverse or potentially adverse effects. It has allowed farmers to increase stock densities, resulting in deterioration of soil health and ‘pugging’ in wetter areas of the country.
It has also increased the export of pathogens from manure and nitrogen in urine. The nitrogen is particularly problematic because urea in urine is converted by soil microbes to highly leachable nitrate that rapidly contaminates aquifers in alluvial floodplain areas, such as Canterbury, which has been subject to some of the highest rates of growth in cow numbers.
Palm kernel, aside from the questions about the sustainability of its importation, represents a significant biosecurity risk. Indonesia, the primary source of palm kernel for the New Zealand dairy industry, has a long history of foot-and-mouth disease. Higher stocking densities, often associated with ‘strip-grazing’ using temporary electrified fences (see figure), may also be a source of animal stress and infection (e.g., mastitis) that is commonly treated with antibiotics, with estimates of at least 85 per cent of cows treated with antibiotics at ‘dry off’.
The New Zealand government has responded to pressure from scientists, Māori and community groups by developing a new regulatory framework for freshwater, the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, to strengthen the existing Resource Management Act that has failed to address the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ syndrome from ongoing land use change and intensification.
Opinion polls have consistently shown that New Zealanders rate pollution of rivers and lakes as the most worrying environmental issue nationally – and they should be concerned – while New Zealand’s mountains and some of its South Island alpine lakes are largely in a natural state, its lowland rivers and lakes are in dire trouble.
The government seeks to arrest the decline of water quality in five years and to restore water quality within a generation. These goals will not be realised, partly because of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ of catchment water management.
Farmers will not disinvest from dairy conversions after installation of costly milking platforms and irrigation infrastructure, and, if land use change does occur, the land and water will need time to heal, particularly where water takes many years and decades to flow from the land, through groundwater, and into lakes and the coastal environment. A major legacy from the past 20 years of unsustainably managed dairy conversion and intensification will be the enormous restoration costs, which will only be escalated by any delay and inaction.
Author
David Hamilton is the Deputy Director and a Professor in the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University. He has held positions in Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Australia and Biological Sciences at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He was appointed as the inaugural Bay of Plenty Regional Council Chair in Lake Restoration at the University of Waikato in 2002 and held this position for 15 years, until his current appointment. His research has involved testing and modelling of lake restoration actions and more generally, documenting the restoration and recovery of freshwater ecosystems. In recent years he has been closely involved in management and policy implementation for freshwater ecosystems, holding appointments with the Ministry for the Environment (NZ) and advisory roles for regional councils and industry groups in New Zealand and Australia.
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The economic impact of winning the Olympics
In July 2021, during the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the worst kept secret in international sport was announced. Brisbane (Australia) had been granted the rights to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games.
Despite grumblings about Queensland Premier Palaszczuk travelling to Tokyo for the announcement that was considered a forgone conclusion, the reaction to the announcement was predictable. Politicians cheered and congratulated each other on a job well done, sports-mad fans gathered for celebratory fireworks and the Queensland media went crazy – trumpeting that the announcement was “A win for our athletes, a win for the community”.
For the politicians involved, legitimising the decision to bid for the right to hold an Olympic Games was also predictable. As with all these things there was a large amount of talk about all the economic benefits that would surely flow to the regions, the wider Queensland state economy and of course the national economy. For the Brisbane region and South-east Queensland more generally, everyone would be a winner.
The problem with mega-events like the Olympic Games is that they rarely live up to the hype that is used to legitimate them. Sure, there is a lot of money attached to the Olympics, but as we read here ‘The issue is that it tends to slosh upward into the pockets of those who are already rich’.
‘Volunteer president who gets an annual “allowance” of US$251,000 (2016) and lives rent-free in a five-star hotel and spa in Switzerland’.
We also read about media companies who make record advertising revenue, and the local political and economic elites who are well-positioned and tied into public-private partnerships that are massively lopsided in favour of the private entities.
What we don’t read about are the small local businesses ‘making a killing’ or the disadvantaged local communities benefiting, despite what the politicians say. That is because many ‘benefits’ are grossly overstated.
Consider this. The last two significant mega-sporting events to be held in Australia were the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney and the 2018 Commonwealth Games held in the South East Queensland city of the Gold Coast. Each of these were heralded as offering wide ranging economic benefits for the host cities, yet some assessments suggest otherwise.
Assessing recent mega-events
Giesecke and Madden suggest that in terms of measurable economic welfare, the Sydney Olympics came as a cost to Australians, reducing the present value of real private and public consumption by $2.1billion.
In a related media report the authors point out that the Sydney Olympics ‘failed to increase employment or meaningfully boost tourism’ and “…the studies … suggested that we were no more on the tourism map than we were before the Games.”
Similar stories emerged about the 2018 Commonwealth Games which was held in the Gold Coast. Looking at this report we learn that:
51% of businesses surveyed reported that their business was impacted very negatively;
23% somewhat negatively;
16% felt no impact; and
9% of respondents were somewhat positive with only 1% very positive.
The negative impacts, according to businesses were because of a change in customer numbers and a significant reduction in sales numbers. A far cry from what the hype around holding the game have suggested.
The gist of these findings is that sports fans are not the same as leisure tourists. As the authors of the report put it ‘they are not buying coffees in shopping precincts. Additionally, it was found that ‘a lot of locals left town during the event. Businesses got a double whammy in that they didn’t get the normal local trade and they didn’t get the tourism trade’.
So, if the economic hype doesn’t always add up and the money seems to flow up rather than trickle down, what about the benefits for the broader community? Does the average citizen benefit in significant ways?
There may, as this paper argues, be a ‘feelgood’ factor in hosting sporting mega events, but as others have pointed out “Simply put, working-class people do not benefit from the Olympics. They’re told that they’ll benefit from the Olympics when they’re in the bidding stage, in an attempt to get the local population on board, but the benefits are always overstated.”
The uneven outcomes often hit our most disadvantaged. There is plenty of evidence where disadvantaged communities have lost out as the result of hosting an Olympics.
Consider this:
Some 1.5 million residents were displaced for Beijing 2008;
Favelas were flattened for “white elephant” stadiums, which sit empty after events end, destroying the homes of 77,000 people and accelerating policing, ahead of Rio 2016;
Residents were evicted to facilitate Olympic development in East London for 2012;
Time will on tell what the impact of the Brisbane Olympics has our local communities. Sure, the city will get some nice updated sports infrastructure, but in communities where families struggle to get by day-to-day it is difficult to see how they will even be able to afford a ticket to watch Olympic events at these new stadiums, let alone benefit in any real meaningful way.
Regardless, those pushing for the Olympics and other mega-events will try to legitimate them via a raft of statements about social and economic benefits for all.
There is no denying that hosting the 2032 Olympics might bring a lift to some unmeasurable metric like ‘national pride’, but more so seems like a magic trick – look at my right hand and ignore what my left hand is doing. While people are cheering, others are running away with the loot.
If politicians want to leave a legacy from their time in office, then they should start by addressing some of the seriously pressing social and economic issues that exist, rather than trying to hoodwink us with another sporting mega-event.
Author
Professor Scott Baum is a member of Griffith University’s Cities Research Institute and Policy Innovation Hub. He is trained in economics and sociology. His research focuses on understanding the economic and social outcomes of change across the settlement system. Most recently he has been involved in studying the impacts of local labor markets on the individual socio-economic outcomes.
Dr Hugh Breakey
Professor Scott Baum