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Posts from the ‘Author is External News’ Category

Jul 16

Why plastic bag bans triggered such a huge reaction

The Conversation, 16 July 2018
Woolworths’ and Coles’ bans on plastic bags have been applauded by environmental groups, but were reportedly met with abuse and assault and claims of profiteering. Even comedians saw value in the theatre of the bag ban. This reaction is due to supermarkets breaching their “psychological contract” with customers. When both major supermarkets appeared to back flip in the face of irate customers it only compounded the problem”.
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Jul 12

Can the share bike business survive in Australia?

ABC News, 12 July 2018
After months of damaged and discarded bikes on city streets, it now looks like three of the four major firms who launched app-based bike sharing schemes last year have pulled up stumps.
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Jul 11

No sugar coating oil shock pain

Business News, 10 July 2018
Celebrations to mark the breakthrough in Western Australia’s long-running GST dispute might be premature because another, perhaps more economically damaging, problem has returned as a growth-blocker – an oil shock of the sort not seen since the 1970s. In what looks like a repeat of actions taken in late 2011 through 2012, Iran is threatening to close the world’s most important shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz at the eastern end of the Persian Gulf.
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Jul 10

Social housing protects against homelessness – but other benefits are less clear

The Conversation, 4 July 2018
Social housing, managed by governments and the community sector, provides a safety net to vulnerable Australians. A person living in social housing is far less likely to experience homelessness than someone battling it out in the private rental market.

And some argue social housing comes with a host of other benefits, such as improvements to employment, education, incarceration rates and health outcomes.

But our research failed to find evidence of social housing residents achieving better outcomes in any of these other areas than similar residents in the private market – at least in the short run.
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Jul 10

Driverless cars really do have health and safety benefits, if only people knew

The Conversation, 5 July 2018
Driverless cars promise many benefits, including an improvement in safety, but new research shows many people are still not aware of this. A paper, co-authored by me and published today in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, reports that almost two thirds (63%) of the 1,624 people surveyed had neutral or negative attitudes towards driverless cars.
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Jun 28

Vertical retirement villages are on the rise, and they’re high-tech too

The Conversation, 27 June 2018
It is no secret people are living longer, thanks to advances in medical technology. Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts we are approaching a point of breaking even – where for every year lived, science can extend lifespans by at least that much. And more than 80% of Kurzweil’s predictions have so far proved correct. But length of life and quality of life are not the same thing. For good quality of life as one ages, there must be optimal retirement options. The default is to stay in one’s current home for as long as possible, or downsize. Some will settle into the quiet life of a retirement village on the urban fringes.
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Jun 28

Growing cities face challenges of keeping the masses moving up, down and across

The Conversation, 4 June 2018
Cities worldwide face the problems and possibilities of “volume”: the stacking and moving of people and things within booming central business districts. We see this especially around mass public transport hubs. As cities grow, they also become more vertical. They are expanding underground through rail corridors and above ground into the tall buildings that shape city skylines. Cities are deep as well as wide.
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Jun 28

Seven reasons why the Internal Combustion Engine is a dead man wlaking

Tom Raftey’s internet of things, 27 June 2018
The age of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is over. Electric cars are the future. The transition has just begun, but the move from ICE vehicles to Electric will happen sooner and more quickly than most people suspect. What are the factors that lead me to say this with such confidence?
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Jun 19

Higher density and diversity: apartments are Australia at its most multicultural

The Conversation, 19 June 2018
Increasing numbers of city dwellers live in apartments. This is particularly the case for migrants. And that makes apartment buildings important hubs of multiculturalism in our cities. However, our recent research shows that researchers and policymakers have largely overlooked the implications of this combination of increasing cultural diversity and increasing housing density. We live in an environment of increasing cultural diversity. But we also see increasing racism in Australian society, as well as a rise in racialised tension about Chinese property buyers.
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Jun 12

Time to rethink your SUV? Australia’s cars among the dirtiest, new report warns

Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2018
Australia’s car emissions are dirtier than those of Europe and the US, with experts pointing to Australians’ love of SUVs. In Australia, cars last year had a carbon emissions intensity of 171.5 grams per kilometre – 45 per cent higher than Europe (118.5gm/km), a new National Transport Commission report warns. This was also higher than the US, according to a separate analysis by an independent nonprofit, International Council on Clean Transportation, which set the measure for vehicle efficiency at 141g/km.

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