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Antarctica, the world’s most remote, harsh and pristine continent, is not free from marine pollution. Where human activity goes, plastic debris inevitably follows.

What might the early explorers of this icy wilderness think today, upon discovering a continent transformed by permanent fishing activities, research stations, military presence, tourism, and all their environmental impacts? Among these, plastic pollution stands out, as it has created a unique new ecological niche in the ocean.

Once it gets into the water, plastic debris provides surfaces that can be quickly colonised by microbial communities, forming a biofilm. This plastic-borne community is known as the plastisphere, and it poses a serious threat to marine ecosystems, particularly in the cold, understudied waters of the Southern Ocean.

The plastisphere: an emerging threat

As plastic debris drifts through the ocean, the plastisphere develops through typical ecological succession, eventually becoming a complex and specialised microbial community. Plastics not only provide shelter for these microorganisms but also act as a vector, allowing potentially harmful pathogens like Vibrio spp., Escherichia coli, and bacteria carrying antibiotic resistance genes, to spread across marine environments, even reaching remote, untouched areas.

Beyond being a home for microbes, the plastisphere can disrupt the natural balance of ocean life at the microscopic level. These changes don’t stay in the water, as they can spread outward, potentially affecting how the ocean absorbs carbon and produces greenhouse gases. This has consequences for the air we breathe around the world.

However, it’s not all bad news, as bacteria known for their potential to degrade plastics or hydrocarbons – such as Alcanivorax sp., Aestuariicella sp., Marinobacter sp. and Alteromonas sp. – are frequently identified on plastics.

The Antarctic plastisphere under the microscope: bacteria colonizing polystyrene.
Author’s own

A hostile research environment

We currently know very little about the plastisphere, especially in the Southern Ocean, where uncovering its dynamics is key to understanding its impacts on one of the planet’s most remote and vulnerable marine environments. For this reason, our recent study sought to investigate the abundance and diversity of microbial communities in the Southern Ocean plastisphere, particularly following the initial colonisation of plastic debris.

Working in Antarctica is not an easy task. Just reaching this continent is a challenge, and once there, scientists have to contend with harsh environmental conditions: freezing temperatures, powerful winds, icebergs, and the constant pressure of limited time to carry out their work. These challenges make every moment in the field both demanding and invaluable.

This is why we approached our study with a controlled and manageable experiment. We set up aquariums filled with seawater collected near the Spanish research station on Livingston Island, South Shetlands. Inside, we placed small, rounded pellets of the three most common types of plastic polluting the sea – polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene. We left them at environmental conditions (around 0 ºC and between 13 – 18 h of sunlight) for 5 weeks, aiming to recreate the most plausible outcomes in the field.

We compared the colonisation of plastics with glass, an inert surface. Samples of plastics and glass were collected periodically to track bacterial colonisation.

Plastisphere dynamics in Antarctica

Studying bacteria means making the invisible visible, so we combined several techniques to get a better picture of the plastisphere. Using scanning electron microscopy, we obtained biofilm images. We combined flow cytometry and bacterial culture to count total cells and colonies, and we sequenced the 16S rRNA gene to identify the succession of bacterial settlers.

This meticulous approach revealed that time was the key driver of change. Microbes quickly colonised the plastic, and within less than two days, bacteria like genus Colwellia were already fixed in the surface, showing a clear progression from initial settlers to a mature diverse biofilm including other genera like Sulfitobacter, Glaciecola or Lewinella.

These species, although also detected in water, show a clear preference for the social life of a biofilm community. Moreover, we did not detect clear differences between the bacterial communities from plastics and glass, suggesting that any stable surface can host these communities.

While similar processes happen in the other oceans, in Antarctica the process seems slower. The region’s lower temperatures slow bacterial development.

Plastic-eating bacteria?

One key discovery was the presence of Oleispira sp. on polypropylene. This bacteria is hydrocarbon-degrading, meaning it belongs to a group of microorganisms that can break down oil and other pollutants.

Their role within the Antarctic plastisphere raises important questions, like whether these kinds of bacteria could mitigate the impacts of plastic pollution. If so, they could be key to the future of Antartica and our oceans.

However, there is still much to be discovered, particularly regarding their potential for bioremediation in extreme environments. Understanding these processes could pave the way for innovative strategies to address the growing challenge of plastic waste in marine ecosystems. Läs mer…

Victoria Police has announced it’s treating the Melbourne synagogue fire as a terrorist attack.

The blaze at the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea soon appeared to many, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to be motivated by terror, but it took authorities four days to declare it.

To the casual onlooker, this might seem odd. On December 6, masked men were seen pouring liquid on the floor while people were inside, before the building burst into flames. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, among others, was adamant it was clearly an act of terror.

But whether or not something is terrorism isn’t always easy to determine, nor is the current political argument about it very useful. If holding those responsible is the goal, careful investigation from the outset is the only way to achieve it, even if it means waiting longer.

Read more:
Albanese announces antisemitism taskforce, as synagogue firebombing investigation upgraded

What have police said?

In a press conference, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett outlined how the investigation has been upgraded from arson to counter-terrorism, based on investigations over the weekend.

The main thing that changes operationally is unlocking more resources: more people with specific expertise, more federal and state cooperation and more agencies involved, including ASIO.

Legally, it means those responsible potentially face harsher penalties. Any charges laid would likely be related to terrorism rather than regular arson or property destruction.

Police have identified three suspects, but have said little about them. This is usual practice in these sorts of investigations as they don’t want to alert the perpetrators that authorities are onto them.

While police haven’t explicitly said so, it’s likely they’ve found evidence of the suspects’ motivations. This could include finding their online footprints, social media posts and communications with each other, presumably discussing what they’d done.

Terrorism, hate crime, or both?

The key to establishing that something is a terrorist attack is to find the motivation of the attacker. This is what distinguishes a terror crime from a hate crime.

A hate crime is an unlawful act perpetrated against someone out of personal malice because of their specific, inherent characteristics, whether that’s race, religion, sexuality or something else.

The Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed on December 6.
Con Chronis/AAP

People who commit hate crimes are typically angry and violent, seeking to take that out on the subject of their hatred.

Terrorists, however, are significantly different. They’re typically angry and violent too, but they are also motivated by a belief their actions will create political change. They act as part of a larger political project with its own goals and values.

In investigating crimes, police look for evidence of this overarching belief system before declaring something a terrorist attack.

In some cases, the evidence is formalised and explicit. In the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack, Brenton Tarrant had a clear manifesto.

Read more:
Why is the Sydney church stabbing an act of terrorism, but the Bondi tragedy isn’t?

But it doesn’t have to be that obvious. Often it’s simply boasting in a text group chat that’s evidence enough of the larger goal.

The need to establish motivation is unusual in Australian law. Why someone did something is usually dealt with when they’re being sentenced for a crime, not before they’re charged with it.

But intent is what makes a terrorist, a terrorist.

Why does it take so long?

It’s easy to forget that police work in the early stages is crucial for prosecuting perpetrators down the line. Anything done now must hold up in court later.

Finding strong evidence can be difficult, especially in this case, where it’s not immediately clear who’s responsible.

In the Wakeley church stabbing earlier this year, authorities had a pretty clear-cut case. The teenage attacker was recorded speaking on camera, was apprehended at the scene, and spoke openly about what he was trying achieve. This all enabled police to declare it a terrorist incident within hours.

The distressing events at the synagogue weren’t nearly as straightforward.

If police declared it was a terrorist attack but turned out to be wrong, it would have two major repercussions.

The investigation has been upgraded to a count-terrorism case.
Con Chronis/AAP

First, it would undermine the legal case. Recklessly assuming motivation, without strong evidence to back it up, would seriously jeopardise the likelihood of the perpetrators being successfully prosecuted.

Second, it could diminish the seriousness of terrorism in general. Police don’t want to be the boy who cried wolf, leading to public complacency.

So while it’s understandable a frightened public would want to refer to a clearly abhorrent act using the most serious term we have, there are multiple factors at work behind the scenes to determine whether terrorism is the most accurate descriptor, and what that means for the investigation.

The politics of terrorism

It can be frustrating when legal definitions and common sense don’t seem to match up.

But definitions exist for a reason. The ultimate goals are to prevent this sort of despicable act from happening again and to break the cycle of radicalisation. Muddying the waters doesn’t help achieve those.

Nor does politicking about who has best responded to a tragedy. Putting pressure on police to make a terrorism announcement prematurely can be counterproductive, especially remembering the long-term legal case at play.

An attack on a synagogue is a horrible crime. Such crimes need to be prevented, regardless of whether they’re deemed terrorist attacks or something else.

Dealing with events like this should be beyond party politics. While Australia has had a good track record on this, the discussion of this attack hasn’t been a shining moment in our political discourse. Läs mer…

Who could have predicted that after nearly 14 years of civil war and five years of stalemate, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria would collapse in just a week? With Assad’s departure, the pressing question now is what lies ahead for Syria’s immediate future.

When opposition fighters led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the major city of Aleppo in late November with minimal resistance, commentators widely believed it marked the beginning of the Assad regime’s downfall. Many anticipated a bitter fight to the end.

Assad was caught off guard, and his forces were clearly unprepared. He withdrew his remaining troops from Aleppo to regroup and gain time for reinforcements to arrive from Russia and Iran, and hope the opposition fighters would stop there.

It wasn’t to be. Emboldened by their swift success in Aleppo, HTS fighters wasted no time and advanced on Hama, capturing it with ease. They quickly followed up by seizing Homs, the next major city to the south.

Russia provided limited air support to Assad. But Iran, having depleted its forces in Hezbollah’s defence against Israel in Lebanon, was unable to offer significant assistance and withdrew its remaining personnel from Syria. Meanwhile, Assad’s frantic calls for support from Iraq did not go anywhere.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the morale of Assad’s forces and leadership plummeted. Fearing retribution in the event of the regime’s collapse, defections began en masse, further accelerating Assad’s downfall.

And on the last day, Assad fled the country, and his prime minister officially handed over power to HTS and its leadership. It marked the end of 54 years of Assad family rule in Syria.

Opposition fighters tear up a huge portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo.
Mohammed Al-Rifai/EPA

The Assad legacy

The Assad family, including Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, will likely be remembered by the majority of Syrians as brutal dictators.

The modern state of Syria was established in 1920 following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in the aftermath of the first world war. Syria became a League of Nations mandate under French control, only gaining independence in 1944. Following a tumultuous period, including a failed unification with Egypt, the Ba’ath Party seized control in 1963 through a coup that involved Hafez al-Assad.

In 1966, Hafez al-Assad led another coup alongside other officers from the Alawite minority. This ultimately resulted in a civilian regime, with Hafez al-Assad becoming president in 1970.

Hafez al-Assad portrait, taken sometime before 1987.
Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

Hafez al-Assad established himself as an authoritarian dictator, concentrating power, the military and the economy in the hands of his relatives and the Alawite community. Meanwhile, the Sunni majority was largely marginalised and excluded from positions of power and influence.

Hafez al-Assad is most infamously remembered for his brutal suppression of the opposition in 1982. The uprising, led by the Islamic Front, saw the opposition capture the city of Hama. In response, the Syrian army razed the city, leaving an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 civilians dead or disappeared and decisively crushing the rebellion.

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, and, the least likely candidate, his younger son, Bashar al-Assad, assumed the presidency. Having been educated in the West to become a doctor, Bashar al-Assad projected a moderate and modern image, raising hopes he might usher in a new era of progress and democracy in Syria.

However, Bashar al-Assad soon found himself navigating a turbulent regional landscape following the September 11 2001 terror attacks and the US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, after the United States imposed sanctions on Syria, Assad sought closer ties with Turkey. He and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became friends, removing visa requirements between their countries and making plans to establish economic zones to boost trade.

Erdoğan and Assad then had a falling out during a series of events in 2011, a year that marked a turning point for Syria. The Arab Spring revolts swept into the country, presenting Assad with a critical choice: to pursue a democratic path or crush the opposition as his father had done in 1982.

He chose the latter, missing a historic opportunity to peacefully transform Syria.

The consequences were catastrophic. A devastating civil war broke out, resulting in more than 300,000 deaths (some estimates are higher), 5.4 million refugees, and 6.9 million people internally displaced. This will be Assad’s legacy.

A man rides a bicycle through Homs, Syria, in 2014. The city was devastated by the country’s civil war.
Dusan Vranic/AP

Syria’s immediate challenges

Syria now has a new force in power: HTS and its leadership, spearheaded by the militant leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. They will face immediate challenges and four key priorities:

1) Consolidating power. The new leadership will now try to ensure there are no armed groups capable of contesting their rule, particularly remnants of the old Assad regime and smaller factions that were not part of the opposition forces.

Critically, they will also need to discuss how power will be shared among the coalition of opposition groups. Al-Jolani is likely to become the founding president of the new Syria, but how the rest of the power will be distributed remains uncertain.

It seems the opposition was not prepared to take over the country so quickly, and they may not have a power-sharing agreement. This will need to be negotiated and worked out quickly.

The new government will likely recognise the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the territories it controls as an autonomous region within Syria. An independent Kurdish state, however, will be strongly opposed by Turkey, the main external backer of the opposition.

Yet, history seems to be moving in favour of the Kurds. There is now the eventual possibility of an independent Kurdish state, potentially combining northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into a single entity.

Syrian-Kurdish children stand outside their tent at a refugee camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, in 2014..
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

2) International recognition. Syria is a very complex and diverse place. As such, the new government can only be sustained if it gains international recognition.

The key players in this process are Turkey, the European Union, the United States and Israel (through the US). It is likely all of these entities will recognise the new government on the condition it forms a moderate administration, refrains from fighting the Kurdish YPG, and does not support Hezbollah or Hamas.

Given their unexpected success in toppling Assad so quickly, the opposition is likely to accept these conditions in exchange for aid and recognition.

3) Forming a new government. The question on everyone’s mind is what kind of political order the opposition forces will now establish. HTS and many of the groups in its coalition are Sunni Muslims, with HTS having origins linked to al-Qaeda. However, HTS broke away from the terror organisation in 2016 and shifted its focus exclusively to Syria as an opposition movement.

Nevertheless, we should not expect a democratic secular rule. The new government is also unlikely to resemble the ultra-conservative theocratic rule of the Taliban.

In his recent interview with CNN, al-Jolani made two key points. He indicated he and other leaders in the group have evolved in their outlook and Islamic understanding with age, suggesting the extreme views from their youth have moderated over time. He also emphasised the opposition would be tolerant of the freedoms and rights of religious and ethnic minority groups.

The specifics of how this will manifest remain unclear. The expectation is HTS will form a conservative government in which Islam plays a dominant role in shaping social policies and lawmaking.

On the economic and foreign policy fronts, the country’s new leaders are likely to be pragmatic, open to alliances with the regional and global powers that have supported them.

4) Rebuilding the country and maintaining unity. This is needed to prevent another civil war from erupting — this time among the winners.

A recent statement from HTS’s Political Affairs Department said the new Syria will focus on construction, progress and reconciliation. The new government aims to create positive conditions for displaced Syrians to return to their country, establish constructive relations with neighbouring countries and prioritise rebuilding the economy.

Syria and the broader Middle East have entered a new phase in their modern history. Time will tell how things will unfold, but one thing is certain: it will never be the same. Läs mer…

Who could have predicted that after nearly 14 years of civil war and five years of stalemate, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria would collapse in just a week? With Assad’s departure, the pressing question now is what lies ahead for Syria’s immediate future.

When opposition fighters led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized the major city of Aleppo in late November with minimal resistance, commentators widely believed it marked the beginning of the Assad regime’s downfall. Many anticipated a bitter fight to the end.

Assad was caught off guard, and his forces were clearly unprepared. He withdrew his remaining troops from Aleppo to regroup and gain time for reinforcements to arrive from Russia and Iran, and hope the opposition fighters would stop there.

It wasn’t to be. Emboldened by their swift success in Aleppo, HTS fighters wasted no time and advanced on Hama, capturing it with ease. They quickly followed up by seizing Homs, the next major city to the south.

Russia provided limited air support to Assad. But Iran, having depleted its forces in Hezbollah’s defence against Israel in Lebanon, was unable to offer significant assistance and withdrew its remaining personnel from Syria. Meanwhile, Assad’s frantic calls for support from Iraq did not go anywhere.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the morale of Assad’s forces and leadership plummeted. Fearing retribution in the event of the regime’s collapse, defections began en masse, further accelerating Assad’s downfall.

And on the last day, Assad fled the country, and his prime minister officially handed over power to HTS and its leadership. It marked the end of 54 years of Assad family rule in Syria.

Opposition fighters tear up a huge portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo.
Mohammed Al-Rifai/EPA

The Assad legacy

The Assad family, including Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, will likely be remembered by the majority of Syrians as brutal dictators.

The modern state of Syria was established in 1920 following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in the aftermath of the first world war. Syria became a League of Nations mandate under French control, only gaining independence in 1944. Following a tumultuous period, including a failed unification with Egypt, the Ba’ath Party seized control in 1963 through a coup that involved Hafez al-Assad.

In 1966, Hafez al-Assad led another coup alongside other officers from the Alawite minority. This ultimately resulted in a civilian regime, with Hafez al-Assad becoming president in 1970.

Hafez al-Assad portrait, taken sometime before 1987.
Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

Hafez al-Assad established himself as an authoritarian dictator, concentrating power, the military and the economy in the hands of his relatives and the Alawite community. Meanwhile, the Sunni majority was largely marginalised and excluded from positions of power and influence.

Hafez al-Assad is most infamously remembered for his brutal suppression of the opposition in 1982. The uprising, led by the Islamic Front, saw the opposition capture the city of Hama. In response, the Syrian army razed the city, leaving an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 civilians dead or disappeared and decisively crushing the rebellion.

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, and, the least likely candidate, his younger son, Bashar al-Assad, assumed the presidency. Having been educated in the West to become a doctor, Bashar al-Assad projected a moderate and modern image, raising hopes he might usher in a new era of progress and democracy in Syria.

However, Bashar al-Assad soon found himself navigating a turbulent regional landscape following the September 11 2001 terror attacks and the US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, after the United States imposed sanctions on Syria, Assad sought closer ties with Turkey. He and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became friends, removing visa requirements between their countries and making plans to establish economic zones to boost trade.

Erdoğan and Assad then had a falling out during a series of events in 2011, a year that marked a turning point for Syria. The Arab Spring revolts swept into the country, presenting Assad with a critical choice: to pursue a democratic path or crush the opposition as his father had done in 1982.

He chose the latter, missing a historic opportunity to peacefully transform Syria.

The consequences were catastrophic. A devastating civil war broke out, resulting in more than 300,000 deaths (some estimates are higher), 5.4 million refugees, and 6.9 million people internally displaced. This will be Assad’s legacy.

A man rides a bicycle through Homs, Syria, in 2014. The city was devastated by the country’s civil war.
Dusan Vranic/AP

Syria’s immediate challenges

Syria now has a new force in power: HTS and its leadership, spearheaded by the militant leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. They will face immediate challenges and four key priorities:

1) Consolidating power. The new leadership will now try to ensure there are no armed groups capable of contesting their rule, particularly remnants of the old Assad regime and smaller factions that were not part of the opposition forces.

Critically, they will also need to discuss how power will be shared among the coalition of opposition groups. Al-Jolani is likely to become the founding president of the new Syria, but how the rest of the power will be distributed remains uncertain.

It seems the opposition was not prepared to take over the country so quickly, and they may not have a power-sharing agreement. This will need to be negotiated and worked out quickly.

The new government will likely recognise the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the territories it controls as an autonomous region within Syria. An independent Kurdish state, however, will be strongly opposed by Turkey, the main external backer of the opposition.

Yet, history seems to be moving in favour of the Kurds. There is now the eventual possibility of an independent Kurdish state, potentially combining northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into a single entity.

Syrian-Kurdish children stand outside their tent at a refugee camp in Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, in 2014..
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

2) International recognition. Syria is a very complex and diverse place. As such, the new government can only be sustained if it gains international recognition.

The key players in this process are Turkey, the European Union, the United States and Israel (through the US). It is likely all of these entities will recognise the new government on the condition it forms a moderate administration, refrains from fighting the Kurdish YPG, and does not support Hezbollah or Hamas.

Given their unexpected success in toppling Assad so quickly, the opposition is likely to accept these conditions in exchange for aid and recognition.

3) Forming a new government. The question on everyone’s mind is what kind of political order the opposition forces will now establish. HTS and many of the groups in its coalition are Sunni Muslims, with HTS having origins linked to al-Qaeda. However, HTS broke away from the terror organisation in 2016 and shifted its focus exclusively to Syria as an opposition movement.

Nevertheless, we should not expect a democratic secular rule. The new government is also unlikely to resemble the ultra-conservative theocratic rule of the Taliban.

In his recent interview with CNN, al-Jolani made two key points. He indicated he and other leaders in the group have evolved in their outlook and Islamic understanding with age, suggesting the extreme views from their youth have moderated over time. He also emphasised the opposition would be tolerant of the freedoms and rights of religious and ethnic minority groups.

The specifics of how this will manifest remain unclear. The expectation is HTS will form a conservative government in which Islam plays a dominant role in shaping social policies and lawmaking.

On the economic and foreign policy fronts, the country’s new leaders are likely to be pragmatic, open to alliances with the regional and global powers that have supported them.

4) Rebuilding the country and maintaining unity. This is needed to prevent another civil war from erupting — this time among the winners.

A recent statement from HTS’s Political Affairs Department said the new Syria will focus on construction, progress and reconciliation. The new government aims to create positive conditions for displaced Syrians to return to their country, establish constructive relations with neighbouring countries and prioritise rebuilding the economy.

Syria and the broader Middle East have entered a new phase in their modern history. Time will tell how things will unfold, but one thing is certain: it will never be the same. Läs mer…

A national Newspoll, conducted December 2–6 from a sample of 1,258, had a 50–50 tie, a one-point gain for Labor since the previous Newspoll in early November. Primary votes were 39% Coalition (down one), 33% Labor (steady), 11% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (up two) and 10% for all Others (down one).

The primary vote changes don’t suggest a two-party gain for Labor from the previous Newspoll, but the previous two Newspolls probably had Labor’s two-party estimate rounded down.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval was up one point to -14, with 54% dissatisfied and 40% satisfied. Peter Dutton’s net approval slid one point to -12. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by 45–38 (45–41 previously).

Here is the graph of Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll. The plus signs are the Newspoll data points and a trend line has been fitted. The last three Newspolls have all had Albanese below -10 net approval, so the trend line is going down.

Albanese Newspoll ratings.

While Newspoll had a slight improvement for Labor, the Resolve poll below was Labor’s worst this term, and other recent polls have been poor for them. A key finding from Resolve was that by 59–13 voters said they were worse off rather than better off since the last election.

Labor’s worst Resolve poll this term

A national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted December 4–8 from a sample of 1,604, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead by 2022 election preference flows, a one-point gain for the Coalition from the November Resolve poll estimate. This is Labor’s worst result in Resolve this term.

Primary votes were 38% Coalition (down one), 27% Labor (down three), 12% Greens (up one), 7% One Nation (up two), 11% independents (steady) and 5% others (up one).

Albanese’s net approval slumped 12 points to -26, with 57% rating him poor and 31% good. Dutton’s net approval dropped seven points to -2. Albanese and Dutton were tied as preferred PM 35–35 (a 37–37 tie in November).

By 59–13, respondents said they were worse off rather than better off since the 2022 election with 28% about the same. By 36–27, they thought the Coalition and Dutton were more likely to make them better off in the next three years than Labor and Albanese. By 56–21, they thought Labor did not have their back.

The Liberals led Labor by 41–23 on economic management (41–27 in November). On keeping the cost of living low, the Liberals led by 38–22, a big swing in their favour from 35–28 previously.

Resolve was taken after GDP figures were released last Wednesday. Negative media coverage of these figures may have affected voting intentions.

In additional questions from the November Resolve poll, voters supported the HECS funding changes that the government announced by 54–27. On university fees, 45% wanted them reduced with subsidies or caps, 26% wanted them completely scrapped and 19% kept the same.

Essential poll: Coalition regains lead

A national Essential poll, conducted November 27 to December 1 from a sample of 1,123, gave the Coalition a 48–47 lead including undecided (48–47 to Labor in mid-November). Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 32% Labor (up two), 11% Greens (down two), 8% One Nation (up one), 1% UAP (down one), 9% for all Others (up one) and 5% undecided (steady).

The primary votes suggest little two-party change from mid-November, but respondent preferences were stronger for the Coalition.

The government was rated poor by 54–20 on increasing the amount of affordable housing, but good by 39–28 on protecting children on social media.

Over 75% thought Australia was free on religious freedom, freedom of association (right to join a union), freedom to access an abortion, freedom to protest and freedom of speech. Voters thought we had freedom from surveillance by 56–34.

Morgan poll and GDP figures

A national Morgan poll, conducted November 25 to December 1 from a sample of 1,666, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the November 18–24 Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 38.5% Coalition (up 1.5), 30% Labor (down 1.5), 12.5% Greens (steady), 6.5% One Nation (steady), 8.5% independents (steady) and 4% others (steady).

The headline figure uses respondent preferences. If preferences were allocated using 2022 election flows, there would be a 50–50 tie, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported last Wednesday that GDP grew 0.3% in the September quarter, up from 0.2% in the June quarter. In the 12 months to September, GDP increased 0.8%, its lowest since the COVID recession in 2020.

The household savings ratio improved 0.8% since June to 3.2%, implying that people were saving money from real wage growth and the stage three tax cuts, rather than spending it.

MRP poll: Coalition would win more seats than Labor

A national Multilevel Regression with Post-stratification (MRP) poll was jointly conducted by Redbridge and Accent Research from October 29 to November 20 from a sample of 4,909. MRP use modelling to estimate the outcomes of individual seats.

This MRP poll estimated the Coalition would win 64–78 of the 150 House of Representatives seats if an election had been held in November, with Labor winning 59–71. The Coalition would have an 82% chance of winning more seats than Labor, but only a 2% chance of winning the 76 seats needed for a majority.

In the first wave of this MRP poll, taken from February to May, Labor led the Coalition in a point estimate of seats by 78–56, but their lead dropped to 71–66 in August and now the Coalition has a 71–65 seat lead. Substantial swings to the Coalition in regional and outer suburban seats are driving its gains.

In the MRP poll, the Tasmanian regional seat of Lyons was likely to be a Coalition gain from Labor. However, an EMRS poll of the five federal Tasmanian seats has Labor well ahead in Lyons, particularly with new candidate the former Tasmanian state Labor leader Rebecca White. This poll was reported by The Australian on Friday.

Redbridge Victorian and NSW polls

The Poll Bludger reported on December 2 that a Redbridge Victorian state poll, conducted November 6–20 from a sample of 920, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, unchanged since early October. Primary votes were 43% Coalition (up three), 30% Labor (steady), 14% Greens (up two) and 13% for all Others (down five).

A byelection in the Greens-held Victorian state seat of Prahran will occur in early 2025 after the resignation of Green MP Sam Hibbins. At the November 2022 state election, the Greens defeated the Liberals by 62.0–38.0 in Prahran from primary votes of 36.4% Greens, 31.1% Liberals and 26.6% Labor. Labor won’t contest the byelection.

A Redbridge New South Wales state poll, conducted November 6–20 from a sample of 1,088, gave Labor a 50.5–49.5 lead, implying a four-point gain for the Coalition since the March 2023 state election. Primary votes were 41% Coalition, 37% Labor, 9% Greens and 13% for all Others.

South Korean and French government crises

In South Korea, the conservative president declared martial law on Tuesday, but avoided been impeached. In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s PM was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence motion. I covered these crises for The Poll Bludger on Sunday. Läs mer…

Rising homelessness across Australia is overwhelming the capacity of services to offer emergency help. New evidence in the Australian Homelessness Monitor 2024, released today, confirms homelessness has soared well above pre-pandemic levels in most parts of the country.

Complementing the report’s findings from a survey of local governments, a majority of homelessness services agencies also report “significantly increased” numbers of people seeking assistance over the past 12 months alone.

Much of this escalation likely reflects the sheer lack of rental homes available and the extraordinary rent inflation experienced across Australia since 2020. National median advertised rents have jumped 51% since March 2020. Even when adjusted for inflation, the increase is 29%.

A welcome increase in government investment in social housing offers the prospect of some limited relief in the next few years. However, as none of the recent spending commitments extends far into the future, and because they generally lack any evidence-based logic, there is a high risk this recovery will prove short-lived.

Agencies are feeling the strain

Recent market conditions have created a perfect storm for homelessness services agencies. In parallel with the rising need for crisis assistance, there is less scope to help clients into secure housing. Some 76% of services were finding it “much harder” to find suitable housing for clients in mid-2024 than a year earlier.

Agency monthly caseloads are up 12% since 2019–20. There’s also a big increase in the average time clients receive support: up by 44% in the five years to 2022–23. This has forced agencies to reduce intakes of new clients seeking help.

The sector has a backlog, causing agencies to struggle to meet demand. They have been triaging applications for help. This means giving priority to people who are already homeless rather than at risk of homelessness.

While justifiable in the circumstances, this damages agencies’ ability to prevent – as opposed to relieve – homelessness.

The rental market pressures fuelling this crisis have continued to intensify, well over two years after Australia’s post-COVID reopening.

These problems would have been even worse without “extraordinary” boosts to Commonwealth Rent Assistance sanctioned by Treasurer Jim Chalmers in 2023 and 2024. In combination with routine indexation, these have raised maximum payments by 45% since early 2022.

Rising homelessness has longer-term causes too

The housing market impacts of COVID-19 disruption have aggravated homelessness in the early 2020s. But it’s only the latest phase in a much longer-term trend. This is because the housing market drivers of the problem are not (only) cyclical but structural; that is, built into how the system operates.

Housing demand and market supply have been out of sync for decades. As a result, house prices have continued to increase faster than incomes. This puts home ownership increasingly out of reach for moderate income earners.

With the path from private renting to first home ownership increasingly obstructed, even for moderate to high income earners, overall demand for tenancies has grown. This inflates sector-wide rent prices, further reducing availability of rentals affordable for people on lower incomes.

These housing market dynamics have been an underlying driver of rising rental housing stress and homelessness since the 1990s.

All the while, these tendencies have been underpinned by key tax and other policy settings that inflate housing demand and restrict supply. The federal government’s promised National Housing and Homelessness Plan must acknowledge, analyse and reconsider these policy settings.

Governments have begun to respond

As the 2022 and 2020 editions of the Homelessness Monitor identified, signs of stepped-up engagement with homelessness as a policy priority began to emerge among governments as early as 2016 in states such as New South Wales and Victoria.

Then, in 2020, several states launched large-scale, widely welcomed pandemic emergency accommodation programs for people sleeping rough and others who were homeless.

More recently, in a notable policy reversal highlighted by our new research, both federal and state governments have pledged appreciable investment in long-term social housing.

Initially led by Victoria and Queensland, followed by the Commonwealth and NSW, this new investment should deliver around 60,000 new social homes by 2030, by far the sector’s largest influx of new stock this century.

At least for a few years in the late 2020s, the promised programs might halt – at least temporarily – the trend of social housing dwindling from over 6% of all homes in the 1990s to barely 4% today. Yet any gains will remain modest relative to the scale of unmet need. Referencing this, housing and homelessness advocates have called for social rental homes to form 10% of all housing.

Even so, we should see, at least for a few years, a marked uptick in scope to help people who are homeless into secure and affordable homes. This will be the result of a surge of newly-built social units supplementing existing homes being re-let. And for more of those helped in this way, these will be homes designed and built to modern standards.

Australia can still do much better

Problematically, though, these developments have come about through incremental and disconnected policymaking. Other than in Queensland, there has been a lack of any stated rationale, strategic framing or evidence-based scaling of social housing programs.

In most cases, there has been no explicit recognition or acknowledgement of the need to keep investing much more in social housing than in the recent past. This investment must be enough, at the very least, to prevent a resumption of sector decline. Ideally, it should cover an expansion of social housing in line with known long-term needs.

It would surely be logical to include a statement of aspiration along these lines in the government’s promised National Housing and Homelessness Plan.

We cannot measurably reduce and then prevent homelessness without reducing poverty and expanding access to secure and affordable homes. Just as the current situation has come about thanks to mistaken policy choices of the past, these are challenges that could be squarely addressed by course corrections today. Läs mer…

In Busan, South Korea, talks on a global treaty on plastic pollution, which were held from November 25 to December 1, ended in failure. Negotiations are due to resume at a later date.

At the negotiations, competing narratives clashed over the causes of the plastic pollution crisis and the appropriate solutions to remedy it.

The focus on plastics recycling and waste management affects millions of waste pickers in Asia, South America and Africa. These informal workers, often living in extreme poverty, recover, reuse or resell plastics, textiles, aluminium and other valuable materials from waste.

They are at the heart of the waste economy, where they play an essential role.

If these informal workers are to be recognised, if their working conditions are to be improved and if they are to benefit from a fairer ecological transition, policy solutions in a treaty on plastic pollution must go beyond market mechanisms and profit-driven strategies.

Otherwise, efforts to promote more inclusive recycling and a just circular economy risk reinforcing the very injustices they claim to combat.

Read more:
Plastic pollution: Why doing nothing will cost us far more than taking action

Who are informal waste pickers?

Waste pickers – and others working with them in informal and cooperative settings – do a large part of the world’s recycling work. They significantly reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans.

Despite this, and because they do “dirty work” and live in “dirty places”, they are often blamed for plastic pollution. Their work has long been derided as unskilled and inefficient in municipal and national policy discourses. The lack of official recognition of their work makes their livelihoods particularly unstable and precarious. Environmental regulations can exacerbate these threats by accelerating the privatisation of waste management.

As efforts to combat plastic pollution gain ground, informal waste pickers face dual pressures:

They must protect their access to waste, as it is one of the few means of subsistence they have.
At the same time, they seek to improve their living and working conditions.

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Informal recyclers, represented by the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, have leveraged the plastic treaty negotiations to demand recognition of their work. They have asked for their “historic contributions to plastic pollution reduction” to be explicitly recognised and for a just transition objective to be included in the plastics treaty.

In a circular economy, does everyone win?

Just transition is a principle championed by labour groups and social justice advocates to ensure that ecological transition policies protect, enhance and fairly compensate the livelihoods of affected workers and communities.

Waste pickers have used this term to call for a plastics treaty that includes provisions that improve their livelihoods. They demand that the treaty incorporate informal workers to a greater extent in waste management systems, and that extended producer responsibility (EPR) programmes also support workers in the waste sector, particularly women and other vulnerable groups.

Surprisingly, these demands have gained support from a wide range of powerful stakeholders, including the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, the UN Environment Assembly and even the petrochemical industry.

Some of these demands were incorporated into the draft treaty text discussed during the negotiations in Busan, which represents a major victory for workers in the informal sector.

There is an emerging consensus that an inclusive circular economy can benefit the environment, the economy and workers by improving pollution management, livelihoods and economic growth opportunities for businesses.

However, these promises need to be verified on the ground. And that’s where things get complicated.

A win-win, but for whom?

In my book Recycling Class, I look at how inclusive recycling efforts have been implemented in Bengaluru, one of India’s largest cities.

In the book, I argue that inclusion in market-driven circular economy programmes is not a silver bullet solution to the injustices embedded in systems of production, consumption and disposal.

Most circular economy and inclusive recycling policies are based on market mechanisms, operating on the assumption that creating markets for waste materials will incentivise market actors to efficiently recover waste and convert it into resources.

To fulfil their EPR obligations, brands can then commit to purchasing recycled plastics or choose to finance waste collection by buying plastic credits, thereby offsetting their pollution impact.

This approach aims to improve the price of waste, increase wages and encourage collection efforts, while attracting investment to fund infrastructure and technology improvements.

However, market-driven approaches exacerbate existing inequalities in market access. Efforts to prioritise traceability and transparency – with the aim of improving market efficiency and regulatory compliance – often disadvantage informal workers, who lack the resources and technical capacity to adopt complex monitoring systems and thus find themselves excluded from formalised processes. Venture capital-funded start-ups and large companies, then, take over the recycling sector.

What’s more, multinationals prefer to partner with technology start-ups that offer “value-added” services such as environmental indicators and dashboards, enabling companies to perform sustainable brand identities. These new entrants, whose owners and employees are often educated and from privileged backgrounds, compete with existing informal workers, subordinating them in the process.

Women and members of ethno-racial and religious minorities, who make up the majority of workers in informal waste economies, face additional obstacles. These include entrenched social stigmas that limit their ability to participate on a level playing field in these emerging markets. They often remain relegated to the same arduous manual tasks, albeit under slightly improved working conditions.

The plastics industry maintains the “status quo”

Despite good intentions, terms such as “inclusive circular economy” are all too often used for greenwashing and even “justice-washing” purposes, while workers continue to endure difficult conditions. A study by Circle Economy points out that most jobs in the circular economy sector remain ad hoc and informal and lack the guarantees of a decent job.

Ultimately, informal workers are faced with a difficult choice: either accept exploitative terms of inclusion or risk losing their livelihoods altogether.

Current systems of production and consumption shift the burden of waste onto indigenous and ethno-racially marginalised communities, creating areas that are called sacrifice zones. This shift sustains profitability while perpetuating social inequalities and environmental damage.

Places where waste accumulates before recycling (such as this meadow in Brazil) can be seen as ‘sacrificed’ zones.
juerginho/Shutterstock

By promoting unproven chemical recycling technologies and expanding plastics markets, petrochemical and plastics companies are appropriating the language of the circular economy. This enables them to give their proposals a green veneer while maintaining the status quo on inequalities.

Meanwhile, the High Ambition Coalition, several NGOs and even some waste pickers are also invoking the circular economy as a solution to the plastic crisis, with an emphasis on repair, reuse and inclusive recycling.

Holding polluters accountable rather than relying on market efficiency

For the circular economy to go beyond simply protecting fossil capitalism, it must take into account informal waste collectors and recyclers in the Global South and recognise the limits of market-driven approaches. This is as true for the effort to agree an international treaty on plastic pollution as it is for regional approaches such as the EU circular economy action plan.

Indeed, any market-based, profit-driven strategy to combat plastic pollution is likely to reproduce these patterns of inequality and, at the same time, perpetuate the systemic injustices that sustain the status quo. Market-driven approaches such as plastics credits pose environmental risks and uncertainties and might fail to deliver on the required pollution reduction. For a truly effective and just transition, the fight against plastic pollution must not become an opportunity for economic growth or profit.

We need an approach focused on reparation. This begins with recognising the historical contributions of informal plastic collectors and the harm they suffer. Then, we must develop policy solutions to redistribute power and resources to those most affected and create systems that prioritise environmental restoration and social justice over corporate profit.

A well-funded circular economy should first empower workers, improve infrastructure capacity and reduce the concentration of toxic chemical waste, rather than relying exclusively on market-driven solutions that exacerbate inequality.

The real solutions lie in holding polluters accountable and adopting circular approaches based on sufficiency and reparations, not market efficiency. Läs mer…

Rates of hunger in Africa are unacceptably high and getting worse.

The UN State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report reveals that food insecurity in Africa is the highest of any world region. The prevalence of undernourishment is 20.4% (some 298.4 million Africans) – over twice the global average. The figure has grown steadily since 2015.

Climate change and conflict are contributing to this problem. But I suggest that something more fundamental lies at the heart of the challenge: the ideas and plans used in the postcolonial period to guide how Africa produces food and seeks to reduce malnutrition. While rates of food insecurity vary across the continent, and are worse in central and west Africa, this is a region-wide challenge.

I’m a scholar of African food security and agriculture. In a new book, Decolonising African Agriculture: Food Security, Agroecology and the Need for Radical Transformation, I argue that to feed Africa better, decision-makers and donors ought to:

reduce the focus on commercial agricultural production as a way to address food insecurity
stop thinking that agricultural development is solely about commercialising farming and supporting other industries
adopt an agroecological approach that uses farmer knowledge and natural ecological processes to grow more with fewer external inputs, such as fertilisers.

Conventional approaches have failed across various contexts and countries. I look at what’s going wrong with how governments think about agriculture – and where the focus needs to be instead to tackle Africa’s hunger crisis.

Focus on production agriculture

Many of the core ideas around agriculture date back to the colonial era.

Modern crop science, or agronomy, was developed in Europe to serve colonial interests. The goal was to produce crops that would benefit European economies. Although this approach has been criticised, it still heavily influences agriculture today. The idea is that producing more food will solve food insecurity.

Food security has six dimensions. While increased food production might address one of these dimensions – food availability – it often fails to address the other five: access, stability, utilisation, sustainability and agency.

Food insecurity is not always about an absolute lack of food, but about people’s inability to get the food that is there.

Unstable prices may be one reason. Or people may not have cooking fuel. Agricultural practices may be unsustainable. This often happens when farmers have limited control over how and what they farm.

The west African nation of Mali, for example, has focused on cotton exports based on the idea that it would bolster economic growth and that cotton farmers could use their new equipment and fertiliser to grow more food. Research shows, however, that this led to the destruction of soil resources, indebtedness for farmers, and alarming rates of child malnutrition.

Another example is South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform initiatives, which adopted a large scale commercial agricultural model. This has led to high rates of project failure and has done little to address high rates of malnutrition.

Agriculture as a first step

The second major challenge in addressing Africa’s high malnutrition rates is that many countries and international organisations don’t value agricultural development for itself. It’s seen as the first step towards industrialisation.

Commercial agriculture has become paramount. It tends to focus on a single crop, with expensive inputs (like fertilisers) and with connections to far-away markets. Smaller farms, focused on production for home consumption and local markets, are less valued. These farms may not add to national economic growth in an important way, but they help the poor achieve food security.

For example, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa funded a rice commercialisation project in Burkina Faso. Women farmers were encouraged to leave traditional practices behind, buy inputs, work with improved seeds, and sell to bigger urban markets. Sadly, research I worked on revealed that this didn’t provide great nutritional gains for the participants.

In another case, as its diamond exports boomed, Botswana largely gave up on pursuing food self sufficiency in the 1980s. Crop agriculture was not seen as a significant contributor to the economy. This undermined the food security of poorer rural inhabitants and women.

Agroecology as the way forward

Mounting evidence of failure suggests it’s time to try a different way of addressing Africa’s food security woes.

Agroecology – farming with nature – is a more decolonial approach. It covers formal research by scientists and informal knowledge of farmers who experiment in their fields.

Agroecologists study the interactions between different crops, crops and insects, and crops and the soil. This can reveal ways to produce more with fewer costly external inputs. It’s a more sustainable and cheaper option.

Common examples of agroecological practices in African farming systems are polycropping – planting different complementary crops in the same field – and agroforestry – mixing trees and crops. These diverse systems tend to have fewer pest problems and are better at maintaining soil fertility.

No African country has fully embraced agroecology yet, but there are promising examples, many unplanned, that point to its potential.

In Mali, for example, farmers briefly abandoned cotton in 2007-2008 due to low prices. There was then an upsurge in sorghum production. This largely saved the country from the social unrest and food price protests that happened in most neighbouring countries.

A few land reform projects in South Africa allowed larger farms to be split into smaller plots, which had higher rates of success and more food security benefits. This suggests that a different, less commercial approach is in order.

The beginning of a revolution

Agroecology is a promising way forward in addressing Africa’s worsening food crisis.

It also has the backing of many African civil society organisations, such as the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and Network of West African Farmer Organisations and Agricultural Producers.

African government leaders and donors have been slower to recognise the need for a different approach. We are beginning to see signs of change, though. For example, Senegal’s former agriculture minister, Papa Abdoulaye Seck, trained as a traditional agronomist. He now sees agroecology as a better way forward for his country. And the European Union has also begun funding a small number of experimental agroecology programmes.

It’s time for a major shift in perspective. We will hopefully look back on this era as the turning point that ended intellectual colonisation in the agronomic sciences. Läs mer…