Equal Pay Confirmed for Australia’s “Matildas”

The bosses of Australia’s national football team have laid-down a new deal for the female Matildas meaning they will get the same 24% share of commercial revenue as the male team.

The new deal comes following the Matildas’ campaign during the Women’s World Cup this summer for female football players to receive fairer pay. The World Cup gained more support and viewership than ever before, with over 82 million people watching the final between the USA and the Netherlands – A 56% uplift on the previous games in 2015.

The public’s increased interest and support hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the game, with FIFA

Gianni Infantino, Piotr Drabik, Flickr Creative Commons

President Gianni Infantino pledging to spend $1 billion on women’s football over the next four years.

However, Football Federation Australia’s decision is the first of its kind, with clear ambitions to set precedent on how women could be paid more fairly further afield than football. The worldwide movement originally gained most of its traction in America, where the game is very big business.

Along with the issue of cash, the national team are also addressing the current differences in training between the two teams, with women set to receive the same coaching as their male counterparts; better negotiating of sponsorship deals; and providing greater parental support systems to help the players return to the game post-partum.

The female players will also be afforded the luxury of flying business class when travelling for games – a luxury previously reserved for only the male team.

Main Image: Australia’s Matildas at the Women’s World Cup 2019, Liondartois, Wikimedia Commons

By Sofi Summers

All-Female Sailing Team ‘eXXpedeition’ on a Mission to Clean Up Our Oceans

10 eager members of the public have set off on the first leg of an around the world journey to research and assess the extent of the plastic pollution in our oceans, and to explore creative solutions to clean it up. The team hope to build knowledge to inform scientists, legislators and the public alike on how the problem can be tackled for generations to come.

The all-female and multidisciplinary crew departed from Plymouth, UK – the same port that 18th century explorer Captain Cook set sail from on his round the world journey – and will sail for a planned 11 days to the Azores before their first stop. The Azores are a group of 9 islands, which are volcanic in origin and a famed north-east Atlantic deep-sea coral hotspot.

eXXpedition ©

Each of the 13 legs around the world will see a new set of women set sail for the cause, and in total over 300 women will participate in the project which is expected to take 2 years to complete.

Mission Director Emily Penn’s motivations don’t stop there – eXXpedition also hopes to raise awareness of a lack of female participation in STEM professions, to research female-specific diseases caused by plastic and chemical pollution in greater depth, and to encourage female participation and positive coverage in all-female sailing and the wider sporting community.

The UK registered Community Interest Company have been sailing for these causes since 2014, though this is their first journey of such scale. The team are supported by multiple sponsors from environment companies to firms in the technology and legal sector. Many of the ladies on board are also sponsored personally by smaller community groups and businesses local to their homes.

eXXpedition ©

Each stop along the voyage will not only involve research, but also talks, panel discussions, community clean-ups and send-off parties in hope of bringing together passionate individuals who are all working towards solving the plastic pollution crisis.

You can follow the progress of the boat, S.V. TravelEdge, and all of the fantastic ladies on their regular blog which they are completing at sea, no matter how perilous the conditions!

All images courtesy of eXXpedition

By Sofi Pickering

Gold Prospector Finds Gold Nugget Worth Over A$100,000

Gold fever is running high this week after a Gold Prospector, who wishes to remain anonymous, unearthed a chunk of Gold weighing 1.4 kilograms (just over 3lbs) in Western Austrialia. The cigarette-packet-sized piece was removed from less than a metre below the surface, and within 100km of the city Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Gold Prospecting – the act of searching for gold – has become a popular recreation in the area, with people flocking from all over Australia and from overseas hoping to get lucky. The permit to do so costs just $25, and allows the prospector to find and remove up to 20 kilograms of the precious metal.

The current price of Gold is around £32,500 per kilogram (nearly $60,000AUD). However the question is whether he intends to sell it or sit on it – the price of gold has dramatically increased over the last 20 years, and due to it’s finite supply and increasing demand, is only likely to become more scarce and more valuable! Matt Cook, of prospecting equipment company Finders Keepers, has also pointed out that collectors typically pay a premium of 15 to 20 per cent on top of the gold value for rare specimens.

Mineral-rich Australia is the second largest Gold producer in the world after China. Other mining operations include metals such as Copper, Silver, Iron Ore and Uranium among others, and also gemstones such as Diamonds and Opals.

Will you be taking your detector, pick, pan and shovel out any time soon?

By Sofi Pickering

What’s Happening In New South Wales For 2019

With a host of exciting electrifying events and a calendar bursting with exciting anniversaries, it’s never been a better year to explore New South Wales.

Holiday-makers visiting in 2019 can take advantage of the array of events across these areas; including Byron Bay’s Bluesfest’s 30th anniversary and the inspiring Vivid Sydney Festival, as well as exploring some of the hottest new hotel openings and tourism experiences.

Home to Australia’s largest and liveliest city, Sydney, and the glorious Bondi Beach, New South Wales also features some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, from the Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley vineyards to sun-kissed coastlines and endless outback vistas. Please see below for a roundup of some of the State’s most exciting news for 2019.

Vivid Sydney 2019

Australia’s largest festival returns from 24 May – 15 June 2019 to transform the city into a colourful canvas of light, music, ideas and a major celebration of the creative industries. Vivid aims to define the cultural identity of Sydney, with a grand platform for out-of-the-box thinkers, artists, musicians, creative professionals and educators to showcase their talents to local and international audiences. The festival comprises of three main elements; Vivid Light, Vivid Music and Vivid Ideas. Every evening, light installations and projections illuminate Sydney’s most famous sites including the Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Darling Harbour and Taronga Zoo.

The Reinvention Of Darling Harbour Continues In 2019

The picturesque Harbourside location has undergone extensive renovations and a vibrant new space packed with unique restaurants, bars and stylish hotels is being revealed.

In 2019, the final touches will be put on the new Darling Square neighbourhood, on the site of the old Entertainment Centre. The Steam Mill Lane dining precinct was the first to be completed and it will be joined by Little Hay Street, a strip of al fresco cafes and shops that links Darling Harbour and Chinatown. Darling Harbour is also set to be the city’s new hotel hub. The high-rise Sofitel Darling Harbour led the way and will soon be joined by Vibe Darling Harbour and the five- star W Sydney in the striking Ribbon Building in 2019 or 2020.

Parramatta Cements Its Position As Sydney’s Second CBD

The west’s most stylish watering hole has recently opened its doors, on the 26th floor of Parramatta’s new V by Crown development. Nick & Nora’s is a 300-seat rooftop bar from The Speakeasy Group (behind Eau de Vie and Mjolner) and is styled like a New York penthouse. There are more than 50 Champagnes on the menu, 300 spirits and cocktails made with liquid nitrogen.

Sports fans will find plenty to love in Western Sydney too. The new £165 million Western Sydney Stadium (which replaced Parramatta Stadium) will be completed in 2019. Its 30,000 seats sit at a 34-degree angle, making it the steepest stadium in the world, and there are lots of high-tech amenities across the ground.

Upgrades Completed To Manly Wharf

Passengers getting off the ferry in 2019 will walk into a completely redeveloped Manly Wharf complex. The $9 million facelift has seen a second storey added and existing facilities upgraded. Saké and El Camino have opened new restaurants on the second floor, joining Merivale’s Queen Chow which took over from Papi Chulo in late 2018. Over on the beach side, the three-level Manly Greenhouse has an Italian restaurant on the ground floor, a grill on the middle level and an open-air rooftop cocktail bar.

Byron Bay Bluesfest Celebrates 30th Anniversary In 2019

Byron Bay Bluesfest, one of Australia’s original outdoor music festivals, is marking its 30th anniversary in 2019. Held over the Easter long weekend, the festival showcases blues and roots music from around the world with more than 200 performances over five days. The anniversary show is set to be the biggest yet, with artists like Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Ray LaMontagne, Kasey Chambers and George Clinton to perform.

Upgrades To Walking Tracks Along The NSW South Coast

Hikers should plan a trip to the South Coast in 2019 with the completion of a £2.1 million upgrade to the Great Southern Nature Walk in the Royal National Park. Work is also continuing along the Royal Coast Track, which is set to be finished in 2020. An upgrade to Wollongong’s Blue Mile Patch has been completed with the new path linking Belmore Basin where walkers can stop for lunch with the local pelicans and North Wollongong Beach, ideal for families to play in the rockpools and shallow waters.

More Information

Destination New South Wales
Destination New South Wales is the lead government agency for the New South Wales (NSW) tourism.

First Mammal Species Recognised As Extinct Due To Climate Change

The government of Australia has officially recognised the Bramble Coy melomys as extinct. The small rodent, found solely on a single island in the Eastern Torres Strait of the Great Barrier Reef, is the world’s first mammal to become a casualty of climate change.

Bramble Cay, the name of both the animal and its home, is at most only 10 feet above sea level. Since 1998, the section of the island that sits above high tide has shrunk from 3.9 hectares to 2.5 hectares – the rodents therefore losing approximatively 97% of their habitat.

The animal was last seen by a fisherman in 2009 and failed attempts to it down in 2014 led scientists to believe it was likely extinct.

“The key factor responsible for the extirpation of this population was almost certainly ocean inundation of the low-lying cay, very likely on multiple occasions, during the last decade, causing dramatic habitat loss and perhaps also direct mortality of individuals,” claimed a state government report.

The loss of an animal little known in the public mind has caused sadness and regret in Australia and abroad.

“The Bramble Cay melomys was a little brown rat,” said Tim Beshara, a spokesman for advocacy group The Wilderness Society.

“But it was our little brown rat and it was our responsibility to make sure it persisted. And we failed.”

By Natarsha Brown

Australia Day: Inventions you didn’t know you had Oz to thank for

It’s time to thank the many Australian inventors who have quite literally changed our world… here’s a list of the top 14 essential gizmos and gadgets that can trace their roots Down Under (and which without – our day-to-day lives would be very different).

The Electric Drill

Hailing from Scotland (but an honourary Aussie), Arthur James Arnot touched down on the sun-kissed soil of Australia in 1889. He came to build a power plant for the Union Electric company in Melbourne, but fate had other ideas, and he created one of the most useful tools that is still used universally today.

The drill designed by Arnot wouldn’t exactly fit in your toolbox today as it was designed to drill rock and coal so was rather cumbersome. Yet, within six years, a miniature version was on the market.
And the rest, as they say, is history.

Wi-Fi

Sullivan had his eyes to the skies in 1977. His work as an electrical engineer led him to investigate how a tool called a Fourier Transform, which breaks waveforms down, could be applied to radio astronomy.

His discoveries turned out to have a much wider application. They formed the core technology, patented in 1996, which made wireless LAN fast and reliable.

And today there’s just the small matter of 8 billion devices using Wi-Fi across the globe, with more than $420 million having been banked thanks to the patent held by the national science agency, CSIRO.

Plastic Banknotes

Way back in 1968 the increasing number of forged and counterfeit bank notes led to a skilled team of individuals being appointed to develop an alternative to paper banknotes: polymer banknotes.

These notes incorporate many security features not available with paper banknotes and last significantly longer.

It took twenty years until the world’s first ever plastic banknote was released into circulation in Australia during 1988.

Worldwide now you will find some three billion polymer notes in service in 22 countries, including right here in the UK.

Google Maps

Australians Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma co-founded a mapping-related startup in 2003. It wasn’t long before their invention, quite literally, placed Australia on the map.

Google bought the company in 2004 and, using the Where 2 Technologies software, created Google Maps, which is now used all over the world. In fact, it has almost replaced the paper map entirely in some countries.

There are 4,632,704 live websites that currently integrate Google Maps, and who knows how many of us have reached our intended destination thanks to it?

There’s more!

Here are some other notable inventions we have Australia and Australians to thank for.

Pharmacologist and pathologist Howard Florey shared a Nobel Prize in 1945 for his work extracting penicillin
David Ronald de Mey Warren invented the ‘black box’ flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder in 1958
Ian Frazer invented a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in 2006
Notepads (1902)
The tank (1912)
Aspirin (1915)
The pacemaker (1926)
The wine cask – or Goon Bag, as it is affectionately called in Australia (1965)
The bionic ear (1978)
Dual-flushing toilets (1980)

Post thanks to Distant Journeys

The Great Barrier Reef undergoes world’s biggest IVF procedure

A ground-breaking coral reef experiment, likened to the world’s biggest IVF procedure, could be the answer to a healthy future for the Great Barrier Reef which, at 70 million football fields in size, is the world’s largest living organism and a natural asset valued at $56 billion.

Professor Peter Harrison, the marine scientist who co-discovered coral spawning 35 years ago, conducted the oversized “fertility treatment” at the Heron Island Research Station with help from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. The experiment was first trialled in November 2016 when millions of microscopic sperm and eggs were harvested from last year’s annual coral spawning event, and placed into giant tanks for fertilisation. The subsequent coral larvae were then planted back onto the reef.

Professor Peter Harrison on Heron Island

Based on the learnings from the 2016 trial, Professor Harrison this month captured and reared more larvae, taken from the 8th-9th November 2017 spawning event, in a larger-scale study that has already shown signs of successful larval settlement. This time round, mesh tents were used to veil the planted larvae to prevent them from floating to the surface, which Professor Harrison says assists the larvae to attach and settle onto the reef and form juvenile colonies.

“This is the first large-scale study of its kind and our research shows that we can help corals reproduce successfully by increasing larvae settling on the Great Barrier Reef and allowing them to develop into juvenile corals,” said Professor Harrison. “From our previous studies, we know that microscopic larvae, once settled, can grow into dinner plate size corals in just three years and become sexually reproductive.”

“The success of this project on Heron Island could increase the scale of coral restoration on the Great Barrier Reef in future; if we can fast track coral growth and regeneration and apply this to other areas of the reef, we hope to see larger areas of healthy coral that can be enjoyed by generations to come.”

Heron Island

The success of the larval reseeding project at Heron Island is a marker of hope for restoring areas of the Great Barrier Reef previously affected by coral bleaching. Like any parent-to-be, Professor Harrison will continue to anxiously monitor the growth of both coral colonies and refine techniques for future application to other areas of the Great Barrier Reef.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation Managing Director Anna Marsden said Heron Island, once rated by Jacques Cousteau as one of the Top 10 dive sites in the world, was well qualified for pioneering reef studies. “It’s not only tourists who come from all over the world to experience the sheer magic of the Great Barrier Reef at Heron Island, marine scientists also flock to the island to access one of the best reef research laboratories in the world, the University of Queensland Research Station,” said Anna.

“Researchers on the island are looking at innovations like larval reseeding to help coral reefs rebuild and adapt so they can live through everything the world is throwing at them and to survive into the future.”

Acropora valida

Professor Harrison and the team at the Heron Island Research Centre worked alongside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on the project, which was made possible through a donation by Stephen Fitzgerald, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Australia and New Zealand.

More Information

Tourism and Events Queensland
The official site of all things Queensland and tourism.