Tag Archives: fear

Why the federal government’s COVID-19 fear appeal to Sydney residents won’t work

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Australian Government

Jane Speight, Deakin UniversityOn Sunday July 11, the federal government released two new COVID-19 campaigns.

The first, shared across Australia, is a call to “arm yourself” (and others) against the virus by getting vaccinated as soon as you’re eligible.

The second is a graphic fear appeal, broadcast only in New South Wales, which shows a young woman in a hospital bed struggling to breathe. The advert has the caption: “COVID-19 can affect anyone. Stay home. Get tested. Book your vaccination”.

It’s clearly intended to leave the NSW audience shaken by the severity of the virus, and with the knowledge that residents, particularly younger people, are susceptible to the virus.

It’s easy to see why fear-based campaigns are appealing. Some may even think focusing the public’s attention on the severity of COVID is necessary to combat complacency in the wake of the low number of deaths in Australia overall.

Unfortunately, a fear appeal about COVID, particularly in NSW at this point in time, is highly unlikely to be effective, and certainly not as effective as some other approaches could be.

Fear appeals can have unintended consequences

The underlying assumption of fear appeals is that, when people are confronted emotionally with the potential severity of a threat, they will act accordingly to prevent it. The reasoning is simple enough, but it’s only true when certain other conditions are met.

This COVID vaccine advert addresses motivation, but it ignores other key elements of behaviour change. That is, do people have the capability and opportunity to make the change(s)?

When one or both are absent, people are likely to react defensively. They tend to become more, not less, distressed, and this doesn’t necessarily translate to behaviour change.

Indeed, increasing fear may actually be unhelpful. Fear drives panic, stigma and further fears. It acts as a barrier to an effective community response.

Fear can discourage people from adopting protective behaviours, such as hand hygiene, physical distancing or self-isolation; from seeking health-care for screening or treatment; and from disclosing their illness, to avoid discrimination and/or abuse. There are also numerous accounts of people panic-buying in supermarkets.

Psychological theory and evidence do not support fear appeals overall.

Threatening communications are effective only when people have high “self-efficacy” to undertake the behaviours. This means the target audience needs to be confident they can actually change their behaviours.

Can people change their behaviour in this context?

When we examine the three behaviours the federal government promotes in this campaign, it’s clear that capability and opportunity are, at best, variable across the community.

Let’s take a look:

1. “Stay home”

People’s ability to stay home is based not only on their perception of threat, but also on their personal, economic and social circumstances.

For example, it has been evident during the pandemic that some people cannot or do not stay at home because they have insecure or low-paid work with no sick leave entitlements.



Read more:
‘Far too many’ Victorians are going to work while sick. Far too many have no choice

2. “Get tested”

When people know they have engaged in potentially risky behaviours, like shopping or visiting family and friends, they are likely to be anxious about what a COVID test will reveal. This can lead to avoidance of the test.

They may well also be concerned about the potential consequences beyond the threat to their health. They might wonder whether they will be punished with fines they cannot afford, or shamed by the media for their behaviour.



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10am brunch, 1pm Kmart: when the media pokes fun at someone’s lifestyle, it’s harder for the next person to get COVID tested

3. “Book your vaccination”

Australia’s problem with vaccine hesitancy is well-documented. But, we need strategies to encourage people to make the right decisions, not beat them into submission.

Especially so, given the federal government’s vaccine supply and rollout program, which is currently an international embarrassment. According to the latest figures, Australia has delivered 35 vaccine doses per 100 people. That compares to 126 in Israel, 118 in the UK, 99 in the USA, and 44 worldwide.



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Australia has not learned the lessons of its bungled COVID vaccine rollout

In many ways, this campaign is unethical

It’s also unethical to use distressing campaigns when many people, particularly younger people, are already experiencing considerable mental health impacts due to the pandemic. When many don’t have the financial security to stay at home. When they are genuinely confused by the risks associated with the vaccines, and many remain unable to access the vaccine. When the reality is the Australian health-care system has the capacity (currently) to ensure no-one would be left alone in hospital gasping for breath.

And when the NSW government itself has done a 180-degree turnaround in its messaging in a single day from: we may need to give up on lockdown and live with the Delta variant to NSW “can’t live reasonably” with the Delta variant — and now expects a similarly rapid U-turn from the public.

It’s not surprising young people (and many others) are already expressing their outrage at this government advert.

We need the government to leave behind the draconian fear appeals of the 1980s, and instead embrace the lessons learned about “gain-framing” from multiple, evidence-based mass communication campaigns.

Gain-framed messages focus on the positive consequences of adopting the behaviour rather than on the losses associated with not doing the behaviour.

Recent COVID vaccine campaigns in Europe have been uplifting. Some dare us to dream of a COVID-free future, for example one French campaign.

And some, like one UK campaign, even use a little humour.

At this point in the pandemic, we don’t need scare tactics. What we need is for everyone to feel encouraged, empowered and supported to do the right thing to protect their own health and that of the wider NSW and Australian community.

And we need governments to understand and use the theory and evidence supporting an effective approach.The Conversation

Jane Speight, Foundation Director, Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes, Deakin University

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

Australians fear China-US military conflict but want to stay neutral: Lowy 2021 Poll

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Michelle Grattan, University of CanberraChina’s aggressive stands and the sharp deterioration of the bilateral relationship are flowing through strongly to produce record negativity by Australians towards our biggest trading partner.

The Lowy Institute’s annual poll for the first time finds most Australians (52%) see “a military conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan” as a critical threat. This is 17 points up on just a year before.

More than half (56%) think Australia-China relations pose a critical threat.

The poll, “Understanding Australian attitudes to the world”, was done in the second half of March with a sample of 2222. The report is authored by Natasha Kassam. The results on climate and COVID have already been published.



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China-Australia relations have plummeted in recent years, with obstacles currently in place against a range of Australian exports, frequent denunciations of Australia by China, and its government’s continued refusal to return Australian ministers’ calls.

Since the poll was taken, the bilateral relationship has worsened; Scott Morrison at the G7 emphasised the challenge China presented and rallied support for resisting its economic coercion.

Trust in China has continued “its steep decline” according to the poll, reaching a new low. Only 16% of Australians trust China to act responsibly in the world, a 7-point decline from last year. As recently as 2018, 52% trusted China.


Lowy Institute

Just 10% of Australians have confidence in China’s president Xi Jinping to “do the right thing regarding world affairs”. This has halved since 2020 (22%) and fallen 33 points since 2018.

While people were critical of China on almost everything they were asked about in the poll, a majority do not want Australia dragged into a military conflict between China and the United States – 57% say Australia should remain neutral in such a conflict, well above the 41% who believe Australia should support the US.

There is a big age difference on this question: only 21% of those aged 18-29 say Australia should support the US in a conflict, but 58% of those over 60 believe it should.

In one small sign of optimism about China, 72% say it is possible for Australia to have good relations with both the US and China – although this is 15 points lower than in 2013.

China has fallen to the bottom of the Lowy Institute’s “feelings thermometer”, with a 7-point drop to 32 degrees – a 26 degree decline from 2018. This compares, for instance, with the rating of India (56 degrees), Indonesia (55 degrees), and the US (62 degrees),

Asked whether China is more of an economic partner to Australia or a security threat, more than six in ten (63%) see China as “more of a security threat” – a 22-point rise from last year. In contrast, only a third (34%) say China is “more of an economic partner to Australia”. This is 21 points lower than last year.


Lowy Institute

Some 56% believe China is more to blame than Australia for the bilateral tensions, although 38% attribute blame equally.

Having an increasingly negative influence on views of China are its investment in Australia (79%), its environmental policies (79%), its system of government (92%) and its military activity in the region (93%).


Lowy Institute

“Even in relation to China’s strong economic growth story, Australian attitudes have shifted significantly in recent years’, the Lowy report says.

“In 2021, less than half the population (47%) say China’s economic growth has a positive influence on their view of China, a steep 28-point fall since 2016”

The replacement of US president Donald Trump by Joe Biden has been wholeheartedly welcomed by Australians, the poll shows.

Some 69% have confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs, 39 points higher than Australians’ confidence in Trump last year. More than six in ten (61%) now trust the US, 10 points higher than last year, but 22 points lower than reached in Barack Obama’s presidency.

There is strong support for the importance of the US alliance (78%), steady since last year) and confidence America would come to Australia’s defence if it were under threat (75%).

Commenting on the poll results, Kassam said “Australia’s China story has changed dramatically since 2018, from one of economic opportunity to concerns about foreign interference and human rights.

“Views of China are to some extent inseparable from the crackdown in Hong Kong, the detention of Uighurs, the disappearance of Australian citizens in China…” she said.

“A year of targeted economic coercion has clearly left its mark on the Australian public, and in a remarkable shift, now even China’s economic growth is seen as a negative. It would also appear that the uptick in China’s military incursions in the Taiwan Strait has not gone unnoticed by the Australian public, though the majority would still prefer to avoid a conflict between the superpowers.”



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Chinese-Australians have a sense of dual ‘belonging’: Lowy poll

China ‘dogged by insecurity’, says outgoing secretary of foreign affair department

China, despite being a great power, was still “dogged by insecurity as much as driven by ambition,” the outgoing secretary of the foreign affairs department, Frances Adamson, said on Wednesday.

In an address before leaving the department later this week, Adamson – a former ambassador to Beijing – said China “has a deeply defensive mindset, perceiving external threats even as it pushes its interests over those of others”.

“It is too ready to suspect ‘containment’ instead of judging issues on their individual merits,” she told the National Press Club.

“And I always find it useful to remind myself when faced with strident official representations that the pressure exerted outwards on other countries must also be felt within, at an individual level, by those subject to that system.

“Insecurity and power can be a volatile combination, more so if inadvertently mishandled. We need to understand what we are dealing with.”

Lamenting the shrinking number of Western journalists in China, Adamson also said less access and less dialogue meant less understanding.

“This siege mentality – this unwillingness to countenance scrutiny and genuine discussion of differences – serves nobody’s interests.

“It means, among other things, that China is undergoing a steep loss of influence in Australia and many other countries.” This was confirmed, she said, by the Lowy poll showing Australians’ trust in China down to record lows.

“What we tell the Chinese government is that we are not interested in promoting containment or regime change.

“We want to understand and respond carefully – for shared advantage. Not to feed its insecurity or proceed down a spiral of miscalculation.

“Nor do we see the world through a simplistic lens of zero-sum competition.

“What we are interested in, and will continue to strive for, is a peaceful, secure region underpinned by a commitment to the rules that have served all of us – China included.”

Adamson said China might hope for Australia to have a fundamental rethink of policy but such hopes would be in denial of the impact of China’s behaviour on Australia, and the broad bipartisanship of its most fundamental policy settings.

“So we approach China with confidence, realism, and an open mind.

“National resilience and internal cohesion are important when dealing with China – but that doesn’t mean we should demand uniformity of viewpoint,” she said.

“Debate about our approach is a strength, not a weakness. Indeed, in an era when political and social freedoms are being rolled back in many parts of the world, a healthy open debate is one of the hallmarks of a liberal system.

“And the best policy always comes from contestability. This is as true of the China challenge as it is of economic or social policy.”

Adamson has been appointed governor of South Australia.The Conversation

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

‘I have never felt so frightened’: Australia’s coronavirus schools messaging must address teacher concerns

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Claire Hooker, University of Sydney

Parents have heard confusing messages from federal and state governments around sending children to school. As students in Victoria started term two on Wednesday, the state government told parents to keep children at home if they can.

In some cases there have been reports of children being told they have to study at home even though parents want to send them to school as they find it hard to work otherwise.

But in a Facebook video this week Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government wanted schools to open up for all students in three to four weeks.

And in a later press conference he maintained expert advice has consistently been that schools are a safe space for children.

[…] teachers are more at risk in the staff room than they are in the classroom when it comes to how the health advice plays out and the impact of this virus on children as opposed to teachers.

That means that we need to have proper arrangements in place for teachers and other staff in schools […] to protect their work environment, but […] that doesn’t lead to the same rules applying for students because they have a different level of risk.

While Morrison may be communicating the correct information, his message keeps being rejected by many Australian parents and teachers. This is because of mishandled communication that conveyed confusing and contradictory information, leaving teachers feeling unconsulted, scared and outraged.

Schools are safe, or are they?

There is good evidence for keeping schools open, including a recent rapid review of several studies on the topic, that indicated closing schools contributes very little to reducing the spread of the disease.



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Other countries are shutting schools – why does the Australian government say it’s safe to keep them open?

And yet school closures have been among the most contentious and emotive issues in Australia’s COVID-19 strategies. This has resulted from significant failures in risk communication from the government, including many inconsistencies in messages about transmission risks.

For example, when the Prime Minister made a statement banning indoor gatherings greater than 100 people (including staff), he did not even mention schools except to say later that they would remain open.

This is despite the fact schools involve gatherings of greater than 100 people. And the design of many make implementing recommended social distancing measures impossible.



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No, Australia is not putting teachers in the coronavirus firing line. Their risk is very low

Morrison’s statements also expressed concern about kids infecting grandparents, but not about kids infecting older teachers, some of whom are also grandparents. This caused outrage among many teachers.

President of the NSW Teacher’s Federation Angelo Gavrielatos who reportedly sought a response to such contradictions tweeted:

The response from the Commonwealth Deputy Chief Medical Officer was “Sorry. I can’t reconcile the contradictions”.

These inconsistencies left parents and teachers – especially those who face significant health issues themselves or in their immediate family – feeling both terrified and unvalued. Twitter account Stories From Teachers, contain heartfelt expressions of teachers’ fear. One said

I have never felt so frightened, disregarded and psychologically mangled in my whole entire life.

Any government plans to return students to school will require careful communication to be acceptable to many teachers and parents.

How governments should respond

People show decreased cognitive processing in high concern situations. This means we should expect many teachers will experience heightened perceptions of risk in their workplace. The best response is to tolerate any early over-reactions.

Effective communication requires emotional intelligence as well as compassion and empathy (practising non-judgment and avoiding sympathy).

Handbooks on risk communication, such as the WHO Guideline, emphasise communication is a two-way street. This means government and school leaders need to focus as much on what teachers and parents can or need to hear, as on what information they want to convey.

The basis for effective pandemic communication is trust. Trust is fundamental to achieving a coherent public response in an uncertain and unfolding situation. Without it, messages may be ignored or outright rejected.



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To rebuild trust, communication will need to begin with listening to the concerns of parents and teachers. All discussions about schools, such as the release of any new modelling, need to explicitly acknowledge the implications for these groups.

Showing respect for teachers and parents requires authorities to trust them by sharing information early, and being transparent and open about deliberation and decision making. Being explicit and honest about uncertainty is particularly important.

If the government doesn’t know the answer to questions such as “how many school-based transmissions have occurred in other countries?”, that needs to be stated clearly.

It’s getting better but we need action

In the prime minister’s video message, he thanked teachers, saying what they do each day “matters amazingly”. Showing value for teachers was a good start.

But his words will prove insincere if teachers don’t see them backed up with actions in the actual environments where they work.

Actions can communicate more strongly than words. Teachers will only feel their concerns have been heard if they see actions that mitigate and monitor risk.

Actions that can be considered include:

  • extensive additional testing for teachers and students

  • partial return to school to reduce crowding

  • giving staff extra sick leave without requiring medical certificates so they can remain at home if symptomatic

  • making it easier for teachers to work from home if they have demonstrated health needs.

Perceptions of risk decrease as people gain an increased sense of control. So school leadership can support staff to take actions that give them a greater sense of safety. These include staggering bell times or spending five minutes of lesson time with students cleaning desks and chairs.

Actions that show value for staff might include additional professional development days where teachers decide on their individual best use of the time.

Communicating value for teachers will be the key to successful communication around schools in the weeks to come.The Conversation

Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of Sydney

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

Peter Dutton is whipping up fear on the medevac law, but it defies logic and compassion

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The medevac law was passed to streamline the process for emergency medical evacuation of refugees from Manus Island and Nauru. Thirty-one people have been transferred since its passage.
Refugee Action Coalition

Alex Reilly, University of Adelaide

With all the hyperbole about the medevac law, it is easy to lose sight of its purpose.

Refugees have been transferred off Nauru and Manus Island for emergency medical treatment since offshore detention restarted on these islands in 2013. The Department of Home Affairs reported to Senate estimates that 898 refugees and asylum seekers had been sent to Australia for medical treatment prior to the passage of the medevac law earlier this year. Of those, 282 were returned to Manus and Nauru after receiving treatment, and the rest remained in Australia in detention.

These transfers occurred in response to pleas from doctors and health professionals on an ad hoc basis. And it was up to the Home Affairs Department and Minister Peter Dutton whether to comply with such a request. Medical emergencies could include life-threatening brain or heart conditions, complex abortions, or emergency psychiatric care for children at risk for suicide – all of which are beyond the capacity of the health systems on Nauru and Manus to treat.

Although some refugees were granted emergency medical evacuation, many others were not. In response, legal cases were brought against the government for breaching its responsibility to care for the refugees.



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Explainer: how will the ‘medevac’ bill actually affect ill asylum seekers?

This required the federal court to convene at short notice to hear cases. It also required the expenditure of huge amounts of taxpayer money to call expert medical witnesses and file thousands of pages of supporting documentation.

Because of the delays in treatment, these legal battles were enormously risky for those in need of medical care.

Through these early cases, the court established that it was a breach of the government’s duty not to provide refugees with emergency medical treatment. And yet, the Home Affairs Department continued to fight applications for transfers for emergency medical treatment, only to be overturned by the courts, time and time again.

How the process works under the medevac law

The medevac law was passed due to concerns the department was rejecting transfer applications for political rather than medical reasons. The point was to provide an expedient, objective process to determine whether transfers were required.

And despite the Coalition government’s opposition to the bill, the process for determining which refugees are moved off Nauru and Manus for treatment remains highly deferential to the minister and Department of Home Affairs.



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Australia’s asylum seeker policy history: a story of blunders and shame

There are two stages to this process.

First, two doctors must assess the person and make a recommendation for transfer. The federal court recently ruled it was possible to make this medical assessment based on documentation alone, as opposed to an in-person or teleconference assessment. This was a necessary adjustment to the law, given that the Nauru government has banned teleconferences for residents.

The minister is required to approve or refuse the recommendation for transfer within 72 hours. There are three grounds for refusal:

  1. the person is deemed a security risk
  2. the person has a “substantial criminal record” (which equates to having been convicted of an offence with a sentence of imprisonment for 12 months or more)
  3. the minister does not accept the transfer is necessary on medical grounds.

If the minister rejects the transfer on medical grounds, the second stage of the process kicks in, with an independent health advice panel (IHAP) assessing the doctors’ recommendation. It is important to note that this panel is comprised of government medical officers and other health professionals appointed by the minister.

To date, there have been 31 medical transfers under the law. In addition, nine recommendations were refused by the government. The panel of health experts upheld seven of the minister’s refusals, and overturned two.

Dutton’s claims don’t stand up under scrutiny

Dutton has made a number of claims about the impact of the medevac law that he argues justify its repeal. All defy reason and logic.

First, the minister has claimed “activist doctors” were using the law to bring people to Australia when they do not require emergency medical care.

This is frankly highly offensive to the medical profession in Australia, and contradicts the clear intention of the law to take politics out of transfer decisions. Even if doctors making the initial recommendation are too left-leaning for Dutton, the expert panel is stacked with medical practitioners of his choosing.



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Second, the minister has argued that the capacity to be transferred to Australia for emergency medical treatment will lead to a resumption of the people-smuggling trade.

This is patently absurd. It is true that people smugglers can make up all sorts of stories about Australia relaxing its policies and it being easier to get to Australia. But the facts are crystal clear: the Coalition government maintains a policy of boat turn-backs and indefinite offshore detention for anyone thinking of making the journey.

Medical transfers to Australia are for a temporary period. Once people have been treated, they are returned to detention on Nauru or Manus. It is true that many asylum seekers have remained in Australia for extended periods for ongoing treatment, but these refugees remain within the immigration detention system. They are escorted to medical appointments and remain under guard while receiving treatment. They are given no hope of putting down roots in Australia.

The deterrent to people smugglers remains overwhelming. And, unsurprisingly, we have not seen a restarting of boat arrivals following the passage of the medevac law. Dutton’s own department has signalled this is unlikely in a briefing:

[Potential illegal immigrants] will probably remain sceptical of smuggler marketing and await proof that such a pathway is viable, or that an actual change of policy has occurred, before committing to ventures.

The only possible messaging that people smugglers might use to persuade people to get on a boat is the Coalition government’s own dire warnings of reopening the floodgates and political stunts like the brief resurrection of the Christmas Island detention centre at the staggering cost to taxpayers of over A$180 million.

Dutton’s third claim is that some refugees are refusing resettlement offers in the US because of the medevac law.

Again, it defies logic for refugees to refuse the US option – it is the only hope of resettlement currently on offer. One wonders whether the minister is using this claim as a cover for the fact that transfers to the US have come to a grinding halt under President Donald Trump.

The medevac law and human compassion

For over six years, successive Australian governments have maintained an unwavering narrow focus on stopping refugee boats with no concern for the victims of this policy – the innocent people on Manus and Nauru.

These people are under Australia’s care. It is Australia that pays the governments of Nauru and PNG to house offshore detention centres to create the disincentive for others to travel by boat to Australia. It is Australia that pays the security companies to keep them detained. And so it is Australia that is responsible for the dramatic decline in their mental and physical health.

It is the narrowest of concessions to offer emergency medical treatment in Australia to people we have so mistreated.The Conversation

Alex Reilly, Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide

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

The psychology of fear and hate, and what each of us can do to stop it

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File 20190316 28468 1elsvdi.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has travelled to Christchurch after yesterday’s terror attacks.
NZ Prime Minister’s office, CC BY-SA

Stephen Croucher, Massey University

As an immigrant to New Zealand, I am saddened and outraged by the events in Christchurch. The apparent innocence of New Zealand has been stripped away by acts of cowardice and evil.



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Police remain on high alert and authorities are still responding to events following the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch that took the lives of 50 people and seriously injured many more. Three people have been arrested, and one, an Australian living in New Zealand sporadically, has appeared in court on murder charges.

My research focuses on how members of a majority perceive a growing immigrant population, and what we can all do to keep fear and hatred in check.

Migrants target of hate

The alleged gunman (whom the Conversation has chosen not to name) is a self-identified white supremacist. Before the attacks he posted an 87-page manifesto online. In his manifesto and social media accounts, he refers to the rise of Islam, and to towns and cities being shamed and ruined by migrants.

He posts photos of ammunition, retweets alt-right references and praises other white supremacists. The manifesto includes references to “white genocide,” which is likely a reference to a conspiracy theory embraced by the alt-right and white supremacists that “non-white” migration dilutes white nations.

The gunman’s motivations seem to echo those of other white supremacists who have committed similar atrocities: the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, the Charlottesville attacker, the Charleston church shooter, and attackers in Sweden, Quebec and Norway.

In each of these cases, the attackers voiced hatred toward minorities or immigrants and expressed a belief that their way of life, the “white” way, was being destroyed by these groups who were infiltrating their societies.

Over the past decade, my team has conducted research in India, France, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, analysing how members of the dominant group perceive minorities and immigrant groups. The research has shown that many dominant group members, often white Christians in the countries studied, express fear of immigrants in their nations. In particular, respondents have voiced fear of immigrants changing their cultural, political, and economic way of life.



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Combating fears to reduce hate

Normally such fears are benign and lead only to misunderstanding or lack of interaction. But as we have seen too often, they can lead to prejudice, hatred and much worse.

Recently, such fears have become more visceral with the proliferation of social media platforms. With the use of social media, individuals can easily find others who share their feelings, and therefore not feel alone. The ability to find a community that shares one’s feelings provides a sense of security and validates ones fears and feelings of hate.



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In our increasingly connected world, it’s essential we take steps to combat these fears to reduce the chances of such atrocities happening in the future. First, how families talk about minorities and immigrants is critical. In work that we conducted in Finland, we found prejudicial opinions of Finns toward Russian immigrants are largely shaped during adolescence. It’s incumbent upon parents to be role models for their children and adolescents and to promote tolerance and mutual respect early.

Second, in an increasingly computer-mediated world, it is our shared responsibility to challenge racist and hateful cyber messages. If you see a YouTube clip that you deem abusive or offensive, report it.

Third, the more contact we have with each other and learn about one another, the less likely we are to fear one another. This may sound trite, but the more we know about other groups, the more likely we are to pass that information onto one another and improve overall social cohesion. In turn, we are better able to identify and challenge those bent on dividing society. It is our collective responsibility as diverse societies to recognise our diversity and to face the psychology of hate that would attack our home and us.The Conversation

Stephen Croucher, Professor and Head of School of Communication, Journalism, and Marketing, Massey University

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

National security is too important to be abandoned to the politics of fear

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File 20190214 1758 1gg9bf4.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Scott Morrison’s claim that Operation Sovereign Borders is the country’s great national security achievement overlooks all that has been achieved in a complex area.
AAP/Lukas Coch

Greg Barton, Deakin University

This is part of a major series called Advancing Australia, in which leading academics examine the key issues facing Australia in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election and beyond. Read the other pieces in the series here.

No-one wants to feel insecure. The foundational element of the social contract between people and government is security. National security, then, must reasonably be one of the central concerns of both government and opposition.

Scott Morrison understood this well when he used an address to the National Press Club in February 2019 to launch his government’s program on national security.

This comes at a time when national security has been defined all too narrowly in Australian political discourse. The prime minister’s linking of multiple domains of security alongside concerns about violent extremism and terrorism should be welcomed. This moves national security beyond the current narrow focus of government to a more holistic framing, in line with global practice and as used by leading institutions such as the ANU’s National Security College.



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It’s an important refocusing. And it’s timely when women are dying every week in domestic violence attacks, and cybercrime and cyber espionage loom as increasing threats to nation, society and business. It is not only reasonable but necessary to weigh up spending on countering terrorism and violent extremism alongside other pressing matters of national security.

But, after a promising start, the prime minister’s vision statement quickly deteriorated into point scoring designed to wedge the opposition on medical evacuations from Manus Island and Nauru.

Morrison’s bold assertion that Operation Sovereign Borders represents Australia’s greatest national security achievement overlooks all that’s been achieved in responding to the insidious and resilient threat of terrorism.
It also offers no accounting of the real price of the indefinite detention of asylum seekers arriving by boat.

In a summer of unprecedented heat, bushfires in rainforests in Tasmania and catastrophic floods in Queensland, the PM’s vision statement talked only of “natural disasters”. He avoided all reference to climate change until pressed by a final questioner.

Even then, this unprecedented threat to national security was treated dismissively, with glib lines about “smashing goals” and meeting the Paris targets “in a canter”.

Moving national security beyond the cynicism of everyday politics

Morrison’s address served as a reminder of why Australians are so sceptical of politicians talking about national security. Little wonder, then, that the important work of counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism is saddled with so much baggage. A lack of trust, and a sense of being scapegoated on the part of migrant and Muslim communities in particular, threatens to unravel the good work done by community groups and police alike.

But it is not simply the politics of fear that drives scepticism about responses to terrorism. The reality of more than 17 years of the misnamed “global war on terror” provides good grounds for being critical about how resources are used and threats are framed.

In an important report last November, the Watson Institute at Brown University calculated that the financial cost to the US federal government alone of the so-called war on terror exceeded US$5.9 trillion.

Far worse, it estimated that around half-a-million lives had been lost in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan as a direct result of the fight against al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Half of them were civilians. And the conflict had driven at least 21 million people from their homes. But to what end?

Another report last November by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University found that, despite the tremendous price paid in dollars and lives, there were almost three times as many Salafi jihadi terrorists in 2018 as there were at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The number of Salafi jihadi terror groups around the world had almost doubled.

Studies such as this make it clear that victory in the “war on terror” is no more likely than it is in “the war on drugs”.

A large element in all of this is the reality, now almost universally acknowledged, that the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a colossal mistake. Engagement in Iraq came at the cost of military operations in Afghanistan. The latter mission was altogether more rational in the wake of the September 11 attacks, especially in combination with nation-building efforts.

Despite investments equivalent to the post-second world war Marshall Plan in Europe, continuous operations in Afghanistan since 2001 have failed to achieve what the Marshall Plan was able to do. Incredibly, in Afghanistan, there has been no strategic plan guiding this longest of all modern wars.

Despite being the longest modern war, there has never been a strategic plan guiding operations in Afghanistan.
AAP/EPA/Hedayatullah Amid

This is why many would insist that talk of terrorism and counter-terrorism at home and military engagement abroad is a mistake and a waste of resources: that it all contributes little to national security. The truth is much more complex. Certainly, one lesson of the past two decades is that military engagement should only be used sparingly and to a clear political end.

Expecting a decisive victory in Afghanistan is unrealistic. But withdrawing international forces now would render hopes of achieving a lasting peace through negotiation with the Taliban lost in capitulation to powerful militias by removing checks and balances.

And although many mistakes have also been made in counter-terrorism closer to home, it would be wrong to deny that much has been achieved.



Read more:
How Indonesia’s counter-terrorism force has become a model for the region

Today, lone-actor attacks are a pressing concern because terrorists have been stopped from carrying out more ambitious plans. Al-Qaeda was never able to repeat the large-scale attacks of 2001 in New York and Washington, 2004 in Madrid and 2005 in London. The return of larger attacks in 2015 and 2016 came only because of the strength of IS in Syria and Iraq.

Acknowledging counter-terrorism successes

Police and government agencies today face a workload that is an order of magnitude larger than it was before the rise of IS. But through effective intelligence work they have managed to contain the threat of large-scale terror attacks outside of conflict zones.

In Australia, the efforts of many to counter violent extremism are seldom recognised or properly understood. But the level of security that has been achieved in the face of the resilient threat of terrorism is a substantial achievement.

Much good has come out of all these efforts, not least the cooperation of the Australian Federal Police with counterparts around the world, particularly Indonesia in the wake of the Bali bombings of October 2002.

Similarly, Australian government-backed initiatives in working with civil society groups to counter violent extremism have achieved a great deal in terms of responding to threats and building understanding across communities.

The conflation of national security with strong borders, and a fetish with arrivals by sea, leads to disproportionate and wasteful spending. It plays into the demonising of those fleeing persecution and seeking asylum.

The simplistic, dehumanising focus on “keeping bad people out” not only justifies cruelty, but contributes to unhealthy lack of transparency in the work of agencies and contractors.

Everyone deserves to live in a society as secure as can reasonably be achieved. National security is too important to be used as a mere political instrument. The cynical politics of fear threatens both to undo the good work being done by so many for so long and to turn Australian society against itself.The Conversation

Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation; Co-Director, Australian Intervention Support Hub, Deakin University

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

Gun Sales Soar in US

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Following the horrific massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, gun sales have soared across the US as enthusiasts fear the introduction of new gun laws. The link below is to an article that looks at the situation.

For more visit:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-gun-sales-soar-as-owners-fear-new-rules-20121225-2butv.html