This post draws on a research article ‘State power, the politics of debt and confronting neoliberal authoritarianism’ that will be published in a special issue of Law and Critique on Forms of Authority Beyond the Neoliberal State (vol. 29(3)). The article is currently available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-018-9233-z.
Neoliberal authority
Recently, a growing body of legal scholarship has begun to consider the role of law in neoliberal governance (Brabazon 2017; Golder and McLoughlin 2018). In a forthcoming article in the journal Law and Critique, I explore the connections between neoliberalism as an intellectual, political and legal project and the consolidation of state authority (Butler 2018). While its tendencies toward economic deregulation, the commodification of public services and the undermining of collective systems of social welfare superficially suggest a reduction in state power in comparison to the Keynesian welfare state, it has been clear from the early 1980s that one of neoliberalism’s primary concerns has been the reshaping of state power to engineer specific social outcomes. Contrary to the commonplace ideological presentation of neoliberalism as dependent on the return of a classical liberal nightwatchman state, state institutions have played a crucial role in securing the dominance of market rule, the privatisation of collectively owned assets and the defence of private property rights. Indeed, active interventions of the state have been an essential prerequisite for the progressive neoliberalisation of social relations in areas such as criminal justice, social welfare, systems of urban governance, the policing of organised labour and the normalisation of entrepreneurial forms of citizenship.
The contribution of the state to the rolling out and entrenchment of processes of neoliberalisation is a topic of crucial importance in an era where the subjection of social relations to the logic of the market appears to be increasingly accompanied by political and bureaucratic forms of authoritarianism. Indeed, numerous scholars have noted that, from the outset, neoliberal governance has been premised on an implicit need for the reorganisation and strengthening of state power (Bonefeld 2010, 2017; Mirowski 2009). So perhaps it is not surprising that parallel forms of aggressive neoliberal interventionism have become firmly established across numerous fields of social ordering and policy formation in the decade which has followed the financial crisis of 2008. Contemporary examples of these authoritarian tendencies in the exercise of state power include the extension and deepening of regimes of austerity in the provision of social services, public education and healthcare, the progressive weakening of democratic controls over executive decision-making and the activities of non-market institutions, and the fusing of technocratic governance with authoritarian populist policies such as the militarisation of national territory and migration (Harvey 2005, Brenner 2004; Peck and Tickell 2002; Wacquant 2009; Pugliese 2013).
Debt, guilt and austerity
One important recent contributor to the study of state power under neoliberalism has been Maurizio Lazzarato, who has drawn on the work of Foucault, Deleuze, Nietzsche and Marx in explaining neoliberalism as an explicitly authoritarian imposition of the creditor-debtor relation on society (Lazzarato 2012, 2015). Lazzarato describes the relationship between creditor and debtor as the contemporary ‘archetype of social relations’ and as morally
producing a mode of subjectivity which is premised on ‘work on the self’; an ‘ethico-political labor constitutive of the subject’ (Lazzarato 2012: 33). Through our promises to honour our debts into the future, we are all transformed into indebted economic and political subjects whose tendencies towards potentially unpredictable or insurrectionary behaviour are kept under control. Accordingly, the neoliberal debt economy expands through a dual ‘exploitation of subjectivity’, both ‘extensively’ (through infiltrating the entire corpus of social activities), and ‘intensively’ by framing the relationship to the self
in the guise of the entrepreneur of the self — who is at once responsible for ‘his’ [sic] capital and guilty of poor management — whose paradigm is the ‘unemployed’. (Lazzarato 2012: 52)
There are certainly dangers in framing contemporary social relations solely in terms of debt and subsuming all political struggles to a terrain defined by the imperatives of finance capital. Nevertheless, Lazzarato’s approach provides a useful lens through which to view certain instances of punitive forms of austerity which rely upon an intimate association between debt and guilt.
Robo-debt and the politics of austerity
A recent demonstration of this association can be observed in the recent controversy over the implementation of an automated debt recovery system by the Australian Department of Human Services. Promoted by the Government on its introduction in late 2016, the ‘Online Compliance Intervention’ (OCI) system was projected to raise $2.1 billion by 2020, by eliminating welfare fraud and recouping overpayments of benefits (Morrison and Cormann 2016, p. 24). In practice, the OCI raised less than a quarter of the projected revenue during its first year of operation, but has generated thousands of incorrect debt notices to ‘customers’ who have been identified as owing debts for past overpayments of unemployment benefits. The Department of Human Services has been subjected to widespread criticism from activists in the welfare sector, commentators and legal academics for the system’s multiple design flaws and the aggressive way it has dealt with the process of debt collection (ACOSS 2017; Carney 2018; Hanks 2017).
While the Department had been using manual processes of cross-matching of declared income and taxation records since the early 2000s, the OCI system has removed previously necessary stages of human oversight, which ensured that an average of only seven percent of data discrepancies were pursued as formal debts. The new algorithms used by the OCI’s ‘robo-debt’ system average out yearly income into fortnightly amounts and effectively generate false discrepancies in any case where a person’s pay, employment or training circumstances have varied throughout the year. These design flaws and the removal of stages of data-checking has allowed for a massive increase in debt notifications sent to welfare recipients of up to 20,000 per week. This can be compared with around the same number of notifications annually, when the previous manual system of checking discrepancies was in operation.
The OCI system has effectively shifted the onus of proof of establishing whether a ‘debt’ actually exists, or whether the amount alleged is accurate, to the person who is notified of the ‘debt’, who then has the obligation to pay the debt, challenge its existence or dispute the amount which is owed. This is a very serious issue for the individuals involved because the inaccurate data used by the OCI algorithms has often either falsely generated debts, or grossly inflated the amounts of money alleged to be owed. In testimony before the Senate Committee Inquiry into the OCI system, the Department’s Secretary acknowledged that in ‘approximately 20 per cent of cases where an individual has received an initial letter identifying a discrepancy’ between [income and taxation records], the debt had been cancelled after they provided information clarifying their circumstances (Senate Community Affairs References Committee 2017: 32-33; McKinnon 2017).
Questions have been raised about the legality of this shift in the onus of proof onto welfare recipients and the state’s avoidance of its responsibility to prove the existence and size of a debt, given that there is no provision under the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) which authorises the creation of a debt solely on the basis of a discrepancy revealed by data-matching technology, without further investigation (Carney 2018: 6). The robo-debt system provides a real-time demonstration of how neoliberal governance has aggressively harnessed emerging forms of digital technology and the management of large data sets to implement reductions in public sector staffing, and retrospectively impose responsibilities on welfare consumers (Galloway 2017; Desai and Kroll 2017; Coglianese and Lehr 2017). Perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, the shift in the onus of proof that is built into the system reveals the use of these technologies to administratively assign guilt for the provision of past welfare benefits as a reminder to the recipient that they will perpetually remain in the public’s debt. In this way, the robo-debt system can be seen as more than an administrative machinery to enhance financial accountability, but demonstrates the authoritarian character of the politics of austerity under neoliberalism.
References
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS). 2017. Submission to Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into the Better Management of the Social Welfare System, 21 March 2017, available at: https://www.acoss.org.au/acoss-reports-submissions/.
Bonefeld, Werner. 2010. Freedom and the strong state: On German ordoliberalism, New Political Economy 17(5): 633-656.
Bonefeld, Werner. 2017. Authoritarian liberalism: From Schmitt via ordoliberalism to the euro, Critical Sociology 43(4-5): 747—761.
Brabazon, Honor, ed. 2017. Neoliberal legality: Understanding the role of law in the neoliberal project. London: Routledge.
Brenner Neil. 2004. New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Butler, Chris. 2018. State power, the politics of debt and confronting neoliberal authoritarianism’, forthcoming in Law and Critique, 29(3), available at available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-018-9233-z.
Carney, Terry. 2018. The new digital future for welfare: Debts without legal proofs or moral authority? University of New South Wales Law Journal Forum March: 1-16.
Coglianese, Cary, and David Lehr. 2017. Regulating by robot: Administrative decision making in the machine-learning era, Georgetown Law Journal 105: 1147-1223.
Desai, Deven, and Joshua Kroll. 2017. Trust but verify: A guide to algorithms and the law, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 31(1): 1-64.
Galloway, Kate. 2017. Big Data: A case study of disruption and government power, Alternative Law Journal 42(2): 89—95.
Golder, Ben, and Daniel McLoughlin, eds. 2018. The politics of legality in a neoliberal age. London: Routledge.
Hanks, Peter. 2017. Administrative law and welfare rights: A 40-year story from Green v Daniels to robo-debt recovery, Australian Institute of Administrative Law Forum 89: 1-15.
Harvey, David. 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lazzarato, Maurizio. 2012. The making of the indebted man: An essay on the neoliberal condition, trans. Joshua David Jordan, Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Lazzarato, Maurizio. 2015. Governing by debt, trans. Joshua David Jordan. South Pasadena: Semiotext(e)
McKinnon, Alex. 2017. Debt.Recovery. The Monthly, August, available at: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/august/1501509600/alex-mckinnon/debt-recovery
Mirowski, Philip. 2009. Postface: Defining neoliberalism, in The road from Mont Pèlerin: The making of the neoliberal thought collective, eds. Philip Mirowski, and D. Plehwe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press: 417-456.
Morrison, Scott, and Mathias Cormann. 2016. Mid-year economic and fiscal outlook 2016—17, Statement, December 2016, available at: https://budget.gov.au/2016-17/content/myefo/html/.
Peck, Jamie and Adam Tickell. 2002. Neoliberalizing space, Antipode 34(3): 380—404.
Pugliese, Joseph. 2013. Technologies of extraterritorialisation, statist visuality and irregular migrants and refugees, Griffith Law Review 22(3): 571-597.
Senate Community Affairs References Committee. 2017. Design, scope, cost-benefit analysis, contracts awarded and implementation associated with the Better Management of the Social Welfare System initiative (2017), Parliament of Australia, available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/SocialWelfareSystem/Report.
Wacquant, Loïc. 2009. Punishing the poor: The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Initial success in human clinical trials has given hope for the next stage in the development of a new malaria vaccine.
In a world first, researchers from Griffith University’s Institute forGlycomicstrialed the use of a whole parasite blood-stage malaria vaccineinhuman volunteers that has yielded safe and immunogenic outcomes.The study team also included clinicians from the Gold Coast University Hospital.
A single dose of the trial vaccine was administered to volunteers at Griffith’s Clinical Trial Unitwho were healthy, malarial-naïve males aged 18-60 and it induced a broad parasite-specific cellular immune response thatrecogniseddifferent malaria parasites and did not adversely affect the volunteers.
The results of the trial have been published inBMC Medicine.
“We are hopeful that the immune response induced by the vaccine would be able to kill the parasite if recipients were exposed to the parasite out in the field,” DrStanisicsaid.
DrStanisicsaid previous trials of sub-unit malaria vaccines have often included a limited number of proteins from the malaria parasite, and these proteins are often variable between different parasite strains present in the field.
“When sub-unit malaria vaccines have been tested in the field, because of the variability in the vaccine proteins between parasite strains, up until now they have shown limited or noefficacy,” DrStanisicsaid.
“Sothe idea behind a whole parasite vaccine is that you’ve got thousands of proteins in the vaccine, some of which are going to be the same between different parasite strains, so hopefully these proteins would be the target of protective immune responses and the vaccine would provide broader coverage and protection when it’s tested in the field.”
Professor Michael Good and Dr Danielle Stanisic.
The next stage in the malaria vaccine trial process is to determine if the immune response from the vaccine canactually killthe parasites in humans as it has been shown to do in laboratory animals. Once it has been established that it is safe and effective in human volunteers, the vaccine would be trialed in a malaria-endemic area then across multiple sites in multiple countries.
Dr John Gerrard, Director of Infectious Diseases at Gold Coast Health said the opportunity to oversee the transition from laboratory to human volunteers has been inspiring.
“An effective vaccine against malaria is a Holy Grail of medical research,” Dr Gerrard said.
“Gold Coast Health is supportive of such innovative research of global significance.
“This is the type of groundbreaking research that will help us attract medical leaders to the Gold Coast.”
Professor Good expressed great thanks to the volunteers and praised the hard work of the team over many years to get to this point.
“It is wonderful to have the community so much behind this important project. We allrealisewhat a devastating disease malaria is for so many people around the world,”he said.
Prof Mark vonItzstein, Director of the Institute forGlycomicsis delighted with this significant milestone in the development of the world’s first blood stage malaria vaccine.
“This is a tremendous advance in the development of a blood stagemalaria vaccine and as the Director of the Institute, I am thrilled to see this very important study now published” Prof vonItzsteinsaid.
There are approximately 3.2 billion people living in malaria endemic countries worldwide and of the 500,000 sufferers who die each year, 80 per cent are young children who are not strong enough to fight off the killer parasite.
The next step in the development of the vaccine is a 30-person trial at Griffith’s Clinical Trial Unit which will involve evaluating its effectiveness.
This project is being enabled by the Malaria Vaccine Project, which is a partnership between Rotary District 9640 and the Institute for Glycomics that aims to raise funds to support the clinical trial.
Memes, selfies, cyber-hate, big data, slow fashion and the global war on waste are some ofthe key themes that will be explored during the first dedicated schools day at GriffithUniversity’s 2018 Integrity 20 conference.
The dynamic one-day event will kick-start the annual Integrity 2018 conference at theQueensland Conservatorium (October 24-26).
Integrity 20 chair, Professor Paul Mazerolle, said the schools’ program was designed to explore issues of particular interest and concern to young people.
“Students will have the extraordinary opportunity to hear, learn from, and talk to, leadingthinkers from Australia and around the world.
“The speakers attending are at the forefront of their fields and can offer amazing insightsand in-depth analysis of some of our greatest global challenges.”
The day opens with a series of fast-paced lightning talks hosted by futurist, inventorand broadcaster Mark Pesce , before students break into small groups for roundtablediscussions and workshops.
The day closes with an interactive forum examining our increasingly complex relationship with technology, led by former Google data analyst SethStephens Davidowitz (US) and philosopher and ethicist Matt Beard .
The stellar line-up of speakers also includes US-based North Korea expert Jean Lee (US),renowned philosopher Julian Baggini (UK), ethical fashion advocate and podcaster ClarePress , founder of The Australian Leadership Project Victor Perton , and freedom of speech advocate Jodie Ginsberg (UK).
Professor Mazerolle said the Integrity 20 program would extend to the general public onThursday October 25 and Friday 26 October where a further 250 students in years 11 and 12would be in attendance.
Under the theme of ‘a world divided’ the Integrity 20’18 program explores issues such asthe crisis of democracy and the unaccountable power of the digital giants, to the increasingpolarisation in public and political debate.
Integrity 20’18 will be held at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, SouthBank, October 24 -26.
About
The annual Integrity 20 conference is the flagship event in Griffith University’s Integrity 20program, which also features a series of stand-alone ‘integrity conversations’ eventsthroughout the year. The program covers issues which reflect many of the significant social, moral and political challenges we face as a global community.
There’s no time like the present to make a positive lifestyle difference, and a group of Griffith academics will be highlighting exactly that with their game-changing research during the two-day Change 2018 event at South Bank this month.
Presented by Social Marketing @ Griffith, Change 2018 highlights how leading change experts from around the world have developed lasting partnerships to engage people and organisations to deliver change for the better.
With more than 100 participants registered, Change 2018 will include keynote speeches, networking opportunities, groundbreaking ideas and two one-hour workshops for every delegate.
The event promises to inspire Founders, Entrepreneurs, Directors, Managers and Officers teaching delegates new ways to create, implement, and evaluate successful change initiatives.
As one of the event’s keynote speakers, Social Marketing @ Griffith Director Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele will discuss the need for organisations to change the way they practice, moving beyond the mere act of reinforcing the notion that change is good to actually altering practices to more effectively deliver change over time benefitting the communities served.
“I planned this event to equip delegates with the tools and thinking needed for their practice,” Professor Rundle-Thiele said. “Change is a challenging area to work in and great care needs to be taken at every step if we are to effectively engage people and organisations to embrace the change needed.
“We want social change practitioners to centre people at the heart of everything they do, and Change 2018 delivers practical techniques that delegates can immediately start to apply.”
Professor Rundle-Thiele has led multiple projects over the past 24 months, includingWaste Not Want Not, a food waste reduction program educating people about how to most efficiently use the food they have in their fridge to create nutritious, delicious meals, and Leave It, a program based in the Redlands to help reduce native wildlife deaths in the region by implementing training programs for dogs, their owners and their trainers.
Some of her Social Marketing @ Griffith team –Dr Joy Parkinson (Senior Lecturer), Dr Timo Dietrich (Lecturer), Dr Julia Carins (Senior Research Fellow) and Mr Ville Lahtinen (Research Fellow) – will also will deliver keynotes showcasing projects they lead. Among topics to be discussed are the role of gamification and case studies outlining changes in areas such as obesity and healthy eating.
Dr Parkinson champions wellness and healthy behaviours. She is playing a leading role in Queensland’sMy Health for Life program, which aims to see 10,000 Queenslanders complete a lifestyle behaviour change program over three years in the hopes of reducing their risk of developing chronic diseases.
My Health for Life was based on consumer-centred design research led by Dr Parkinson and Diabetes Queensland. The program has already seen sustained changes in behaviours such as increased fruit and vegetable consumption and increased physical activity.
Dr Dietrich, a gamification expert, has led the delivery ofBlurred Minds, a one-day alcohol and drug education program in Australian secondary schools to thousands of students. The program, which includes the use of VR goggles to simulate a house party scenario, is delivered in a fun and interactive manner, teaching students about the realities of drug and alcohol consumption.
Dr Carins leads a social marketing program to improve eating behaviour in such a way that not only individuals benefit, but society at large. Engaged in a collaborative research agreement between the University and the Defence Science & Technology Group, Dr Carins’ Go Food project delivers eating environment changes to support better nutrition and eating habits.
Originally from Finland, Mr Lahtinen is undertaking several social marketing projects. His PhD project involved the design, delivery and evaluation of theViisi Per Päivä (Five a Day) campaign, which got young subjects excited about tasting and eating different fruits and vegetables.
Griffith’s social marketing gurus are joined by invited industry experts who offer a wealth of experience in delivering change. Leading academics including Professor Gerard Hastings, Professor Alan Tapp, Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science), Professor Linda Brennan (RMIT), Associate Professor Ross Gordon (Macquarie University), Professor Rebekah Russell-Bennett (QUT) and more will share their recent advances.
Change 2018 willbe held from 25-26 October at Griffith University’s South Bank campus.
Natasha Akib (Community Engagement — Digital Storytellers) Luke van der Beeke (Co-founder, Marketing for Change) A/Prof Svetlana Bogomolova (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science) Penny Burke (Director, Essence Communications) Melanie Butcher (Director, The Social Deck) Prof Linda Brennan (RMIT) Dr Julia Carins (Senior Research Fellow, Social Marketing @ Griffith) Matthew Cox (Director, Logan Together) Peter Cunningham (Strategic Director, Redsuit) David Defranciscis & Scott Robinson (Sugar Cane Growing Changers) Dr Timo Dietrich (Lecturer, Social Marketing @ Griffith) A/Prof Ross Gordon (Macquarie University) E/Prof Gerard Hastings (Founder, Institute for Social Marketing) Dr Amantha Imber (Founder and CEO, Inventium) Mr Ville Lahtinen (Research Fellow, Social Marketing @ Griffith) Dr Joy Parkinson (Senior Lecturer, Social Marketing @ Griffith) Prof Sharyn Rundle-Thiele (Director, Social Marketing @ Griffith) Prof Rebekah Russell-Bennett (QUT) Prof Alan Tapp (UWE-Bristol) Joan Young (CEO, Colmar Brunton) George Zdanowicz (CEO, Enhance Research)
Griffith has collaborated with film schools in China and South Korea to make a screen trilogy that bridges language barriers, cultural clashes and the tyranny of distance.
Head of Griffith Film School Professor Herman Van Eyken said the international co-production was designed to spark a cross-cultural conversation and provide a model for future collaborations.
“This is a world-first achievement for Griffith Film School, and it reflects the university’s long and proud history of engaging in the Asia-Pacific,” he said.
“This co-production is part of our partnership with film schools across the region, and it has provided our students with the opportunity to gain new perspectives, broaden their world view and ensure they leave their degrees armed with unique knowledge and skills.”
Thinking big
The Australian section of the film was filmed in Brisbane with an all-star cast including Alastair Osment (Deadline Gallipoli, Home and Away), Emily Gruhl (Picnic at Hanging Rock) and David Soncin (River, Love Child).
The film follows John, a former journalist who now makes a living as an Uber driver. John is a man on the edge – facing a relationship breakdown, increasing debt and mental health issues – and when he picks up the man responsible for the loss of his job, all hell breaks loose.
It was developed by Griffith Film School post-graduate students Morgan Healy and Elizabeth Simard, with Adjunct Professor Trish Lake acting as a consulting producer and GFS alumnus Anthony Mullins from Matchbox Pictures serving as script consultant.
On The Move director Morgan Healy said it was exciting to see the film with local audiences, after shooting on location around South East Queensland.
“It’s really exciting to be part of an international co-production like this,” he said.
“You are usually constrained by time and money, but when you join forces with other film schools, you can think bigger.
“The shoot was an amazing experience – we had a big crew and a cast that really gave their all.
“We filmed in Brisbane’s CBD, along the Mt Lindsay Highway and out at Archerfield, and had roads closed down, a police escort…it was intense!”
Morgan said he believed the story would resonate with audiences around the world.
“Each of the short movies looks at the people left behind by the big technological changes that have transformed our society – something that concerns all of us.”
Bachelor of Business student Katie Curtis found herself in a dream position as the second season of the ground-breaking AON Women’s Rugby Uni 7s Series kicked off. As co-captain of the 2018 Griffith team she headed to Hobart a day early for the official Captain’s Call photoshoot that set the wheel in motion last August.
With a strong showing under her belt from the Uni 7s inaugural season, the 19-year-old took to the field at University of Tasmania the following morning rippling with ambition for the campaign ahead. Less than two games in and Katie’s campaign was sidelined.
“I hyper-extended my elbow in a tackle and ruptured two ligaments. My arm was in a brace for five weeks,” Katie, who majors in Sport Management at Griffith Business School, says. “It made for quite a challenging year for me compared to last year when I played all of the games.”
Katie only gained medical clearance to take to the field again last week, and has resumed full activity with a 24-strong squad that has demonstrated a genuine depth of talent as injury and national call-ups have challenged resources during the first four rounds. After strong showings in rounds one and two, Griffith put back-to-back series wins together in Queensland to charge to the top of the ladder ahead of this weekend’s final round of games.
“There has been no change to our game plan this week,” Katie says. “As with other weeks we’ve focused on the little things. We’ve reviewed the last tournament, looked at our tackles and turnover rate which was good last time out, and we’re looking to top that this weekend.
“We’ve been super lucky to come out on top in the last two series. I think it reflects the hard work within the group, two field sessions a week, three gym sessions. Over the last few weeks it has really started to come together both on and off the field.”
The group has gelled strongly with themed dress-up nights a part of the dynamic. Maria Sharapova and Stephanie Gilmore are among the star names to have made ‘aspirational appearances’ during the past three months. “We have a team culture where we come together both on and off the field. We train hard together but we also have fun together, and this has had a massive role in getting us over the line during the year.”
Katie Curtis will travel to Adelaide this weekend as the 13th player, ready to step in should any ailment or bad fortune befall any teammate. She will be one of six current students on the plane covering Public Relations and Communication, Oral Health Dental Science, Education, Sport Development, Exercise Science and Sport Management.
Griffith opens the final instalment of the 2018 AON Series against University of New England on Saturday (9.30am), followed by games against Bond University (1.50pm), University of Queensland (3.50pm) and University of Canberra in Round 5 on Sunday morning (8.50am).
Director of the Griffith Sports College, Duncan Free OAM, congratulated the Griffith players and coaching team on their progress to the top of the competition ladder leading into the final series of games this weekend. “High performance levels have been maintained throughout the AON Series by the entire squad. I’ve no doubt, while keeping their feet on the ground, this group will bring the same standards to this week’s exciting challenge. Griffith Sports College wishes them the very best.”
Griffith Squad: Ivania Wong, Charlotte Kennington, Kiri Lingman (captain, Public Relations and Communication), Rhiannon Blair-Revell, Laura Waldie (vice captain, Oral Health Dental Science), Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea, Kahli Henwood (Education), Eliza Flynn (Sport Development), Kirby Sefo, Sophie Quirk (Exercise Science), Alana Elisaia, Georgia Devlin, Katie Curtis (13th player, Sport Management).
Scientists hard pressed to find a way to switch off forces that keep molecules stuck to 2D materials at the nanoscale say they have understood how it is possible, paving the way for the development of better filters that could be used to remove toxins from the air or store hydrogen and greenhouse gases.
The research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences points to a reassessment of how van der Waals forces function, with potentially significant implications for nanotechnology and nanomedicine.
The collaboration between Griffith University, Shanghai University and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) used the concept of a Faraday Cage to theoretically model switching off the van der Waals forces that exist between molecules that, although considered weak, act as a “glue” keeping things stuck to them.
However, functionality is limited. So things stick, but stay stuck. What is needed is a way to release them on demand.
Co-author Emeritus Professor John Dobson from Griffith University says van der Waals force is usually thought of as being cumulative like gravity, “the more mass that comes together, the greater the force”.
“The insights revealed here have come following 20 years of research into the van der Waals force, showing that it is not always cumulative, unlike gravity. It is possible to switch it on and off and to amplify it, one just needs the right nanostructures,” he said.
PhD student Musen Li from Shanghai University, who conducted the research, took two silica bilayers, mimicking 2D materials of possible use in filters and other devices, and inserted in between them a sheet of graphene.
“First-principles quantum mechanical calculations using Dr Tim Gould’s code then showed how the quantum van der Waals force could be switched off by the graphene acting as a classical Faraday Cage,” he said.
“To make this work in practice now presents an engineering challenge. We need a way of inserting graphene between one 2D material to which the desired molecules have stuck, and a backing large material that provide the van der Waals force for the sticking.”
Lead researcher Dr Tim Gould, from Griffith University’s Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, developed the methods used to model switching-off the van der Waals forces, bridging Professor Dobson’s higher theory with practical calculations.
“The fact that we know you can model it means that the engineers will someday find a way of doing it,” he said. “In particular, if you could switch this effect on and off you would have a way of storing stuff on a surface then releasing it in a controllable way.
“The next question is well what can we do with this. And the obvious one is we can control filtration — we can create systems where we can make things stick and then unstick, or we can make better glues, increase friction or reduce friction.
“There’s no evidence that you can switch off gravity, and previously people thought you couldn’t switch off van der Waals forces — we now have understood how you can. This opens up a wide range of new nanotechnologies that could exploit this effect. Rather than having to rely on mechanical release or by heating things up, processes that cost a lot of energy, you might be able to rely on the intrinsic properties of the materials you’ve got.”
“The Faraday Cage Effect is well known. Examples of it include the blocking of radio signals by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as well as the metal shielding that surrounds MRI machines in hospitals, used to reduce interference from microwave signals” he said.
“If we could replicate this at the nanoscale, using 2D materials such as graphene, then we could capture and ‘unstick’ molecules we want to remove on demand, making 2D filtering technologies feasible in principle.”
Professor Dobson said that, for more than a century, thinking about the van der Waals force as being cumulative, like gravity, has led to a great wealth of understanding concerning chemical, biochemical, and materials function.
“It is more subtle than that though, and we are just beginning to understand its potential as a control element in nanotechnology and nanomedicine,” he said.
Exciting new research from Griffith University is providing new hope for those with acquired brain injuries.
International trailblazer in stem cell rehabilitation and Griffith University Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim will explore the exciting opportunities being opened up by new research in neuroplasticity – at the National Brain Injury Conference at the Princess Alexandra Hospital on November 13 & 14.
“It’s very difficult to treat because the brain is such a complex organ it’s millions of cells connected to thousands of cells each of them,” Professor Mackay-Sim said.
“It gets damaged and then you have this inflammation reaction which causes more damage as the active brain cells change. The question is can you get the brain to work around that problem and recover function?
Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim
“So it’s not simply learning in circuits that are already there, but it’s getting other circuits involved, getting other circuits to change their functions to work around the problem.”
The 2017 Australian of the Year is one of a cohort of Griffith researchers taking part in the National Brain Injury Conference.
Griffith Business School students led by Dr Barry Fraser are assisting the conference via the school’s Work Integrated Learning program and GBS staff are also lending their expertise to ensure the conference is a success.
Professor Heidi Zeeman is also bringing her expertise in rehabilitation from the Menzies Health Institute and Hopkins Centre to the discussion on neuroplasticity.
She says the design of our buildings and spaces have an enormous and often underestimated impact on people’s recovery from catastrophic injuries.
“Urban design is at risk of becoming homogeneous and distracting, disengaging, at a time when there’s increasing need for our cities to be more inclusive,” Professor Zeeman said.
“We know that architecture can be cognitively supportive of cognitively stressful.
“The first area of focus really is the rehabilitation ward itself.
“A lot of what we think doesn’t matter actually does, the quality of sleep people have in these places, and it’s variable for people in there there’s lots of beeping in there at night.
“We have to focus on how much our environment can focus on those feelings of wellbeing.
Professor Heidi Zeeman
“Accessibility does not make inclusion. Accessibility is almost a work health and safety promise it’s also very focused on physical disability ramps and such but alongside that is cognitive disability. There can be a lot more done. And also with spatial design, disorientation, problems with way finding they’re all issues that people with brain trauma experience.”
Conference organiser Nick Rushworth knows all too well the impact that one moment in time can have on the rest of your life.
He sustained a severe traumatic brain injury after a bike accident in 1996.
He’s been the Executive Officer of Brain Injury Australia since 2008.
Mr Rushworth said this conference is a crucial forum for people to hear the latest research into the treatment of brain injury.
“For a lot of brain injury Australia’s constituents their injury is the watershed event of their life that divides their life in two.”
“For that reason a lot of people find it difficult to engage with not only the service system but also the wider world it’s referred to as the invisible disability.”
When the decision to go to uni happens a little further down the track, the application process can loom as a potentially daunting experience.
Griffith University will host a series of Application Support Nights at its South Bank, Logan and Gold Coast campuses during the coming week to make it all a little easier.
The drop-in events are geared towards people who have no recent experience of high school and the guidance counsellors who put Year 12 students on the right path in terms of the dos and don’ts of applying.
Matthew Sue Yek (27), who is completing an honours year in a Bachelor of Languages and Applied Linguistics, believes this kind of support is invaluable for prospective students who don’t always have anywhere or anyone obvious to turn to for help.
Matthew (left) graduated from high school in 2008 and immediately entered the workforce as a pastry chef in the hospitality industry. Five years down the track and the seed had been sown in his mind to go to university. Matthew started to transition to study in 2013, eventually leaving work to become a full-time student in 2015.
“It was a different world and an entirely new experience for me alongside people younger than me fresh out of high school,” he says.
“It was quite challenging in ways I had not anticipated. The application process would not have felt as straightforward for me as it would have for a Year 12 student.
“I think the Application Support Nights are a great initiative and will be very useful for anyone who drops in.”
Non-school leavers and potential mature age students are invited to attend any of the Application Support Nights between 4.30pm and 6.30pm at South Bank (Tues, Oct 23), Logan (Wed, Oct 24) and Gold Coast (Thurs, Oct 25).
Expert study advisers from Griffith University and QTAC will be on hand to offer personalised advice and guidance.
There is also a bonus for the first 100 visitors on each night who are not currently in Year 12 who will receive a voucher code to cover the $99 fee difference for post-early bird QTAC applications.
We have seen some amazing opportunities and outcomes for Queensland College of Art (QCA) staff and students recently.
We are currently gearing up for our annual QCA Graduate Exhibitions, which showcase the outstanding work of our graduating students. The exhibition will open at 6 pm on 1 November at South Bank, and 6.30 pm on 2 November at the Gold Coast campus. Both events promise to be a spectacular evening of art, design, photography, food and entertainment. I welcome you all to attend.
To keep pace with demand, we have appointed four new Academic staff to the Fine Arts area and we will be making further academic appointments across the College in the coming months.
Further afield, the QCA recently attended the Georgetown Festival in Penang, Malaysia, which showcased our 3D design work, photography, as well as slam poetry.
The Australian Embassy also invited the QCA to participate in Beijing Design Week, a ten-day showcase festival in China that is always highly attended. Additionally, QCA art and design students are studying alongside their counterparts at Shandong University of Arts this month, as part of a 20-year partnership between the Queensland College of Art and Griffith University.
Our photography students are soon to jet off to New York on a highly anticipated study tour.
Closer to home, the QCA Pop Gallery has relocated to 381 Brunswick Street and is now open from Tuesday — Saturday, from 10 am – 4 pm. Our newest gallery, on the South Bank campus, is due to open this month.
I encourage you to follow our primary social media channels — Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — for the latest news, events and information from QCA.
Professor Derrick Cherrie
Director, Queensland College of Art (QCA)
Griffith University
“I hyper-extended my elbow in a tackle and ruptured two ligaments. My arm was in a brace for five weeks,” Katie, who majors in Sport Management at Griffith Business School, says. “It made for quite a challenging year for me compared to last year when I played all of the games.”
Katie only gained medical clearance to take to the field again last week, and has resumed full activity with a 24-strong squad that has demonstrated a genuine depth of talent as injury and national call-ups have challenged resources during the first four rounds. After strong showings in rounds one and two, Griffith put back-to-back series wins together in Queensland to charge to the top of the ladder ahead of this weekend’s final round of games.
Matthew (left) graduated from high school in 2008 and immediately entered the workforce as a pastry chef in the hospitality industry. Five years down the track and the seed had been sown in his mind to go to university. Matthew started to transition to study in 2013, eventually leaving work to become a full-time student in 2015.