Full Transcript for APAC Weekly - Episode 8

prosperity as they move into the future. 00:07:25:01 - 00:07:58:03 Martin Wolf On the other side of the coin, however, there are a lot of countries that have successfully decoupled their economic growth from environmental degradation. These are countries like Denmark whose economy is growing and their quality of life is increasing while they're successfully on track to meet many of the internationally agreed upon sustainability targets. And another really interesting point, and something that I find quite optimistic is that we found a strong correlation between the happiness of residents within the country and their overall EPI score. 00:07:58:08 - 00:08:21:14 Martin Wolf So by that I mean people living in countries with stronger environmental performance end up being happier. And this makes sense from a psychological perspective. We know how beneficial it can be to our mindsets and our happiness. So I think that there's a whole range of arguments to made for pursuing a more sustainable pathway towards a more sustainable future. 00:08:22:03 - 00:08:34:08 Martin Wolf It's not only environmentally beneficial, but it's also economically beneficial. And from a public health and mental health perspective, it can be beneficial in these rates as well. 00:08:35:09 - 00:08:58:08 Oriel Morrison The COVID 19 pandemic has had a notable effect on the way we work from the remote working garment to Zoom meetings and increasing demands for flexibility. But for some corporates, drawing people back to the office is essential and involves a new way of thinking when it comes to office space. From support spaces to respite rooms and cafes, spaces are being designed to be as flexible and adaptable as possible. 00:08:58:23 - 00:09:13:15 Oriel Morrison Well, to talk more about the new work order, I'm joined by Professor Lan Snell, head of the business school and Dean at the University of Southern Queensland. Professor, welcome. Great to have you back with us today. What is the new work order? 00:09:15:09 - 00:09:54:10 Lan Snell Well, the new work order is a new way of working and living and learning. And COVID has really brought this upon us. And it now asks us to re-examine the very definition of what his work. In your introduction, you mentioned how the office world has changed fundamentally. I mean, even before COVID hit, we saw the leading organizations of global tech, for example, trying to entice and retain talent via beanbags, vending machines, you know, open spaces in collaboration with COVID came along and everyone had to go home and, you know, stay home in lockdowns, etc.. 00:09:54:19 - 00:10:17:01 Lan Snell What does that new workspace look like going forward? Well, I think the answer to that is anything goes. It is definitely hybrid. But when you come into the office, what do you actually do in the office? If you come into the office and sitting alone in your silos space, tapping away at your computer, well, that's really not what we're wanting out of our work force now anyway. 00:10:17:06 - 00:10:42:18 Lan Snell So this is about team collaboration. So I do think it is a redefinition of the meaning of work itself. In addition to that, if I may add, there are three other elements that when we consider this new work order, these are characters characteristics, including the creative economy. So we've had this sort of shift in, say, the gig economy, the sideline hustles to now this whole thing about creating your own content. 00:10:42:18 - 00:11:15:10 Lan Snell Content is king and certainly now with the different platforms available, have Tic Toe, I can become my own influencer and my own business. So the Creative Economy is in full play right now. We're also seeing really I guess, conceptualization of from jobs of the future to jobs with a future. So we're talking about the future proofing of yourself as a professional and then finally talking about the whole premium of learning as attract and retain your talent. 00:11:16:00 - 00:11:29:03 Oriel Morrison So, so adding to this conversation and then, Professor, the actual engagement and communication and the different ways of doing that, whether or not you're working remotely or working from a new type of office space. 00:11:30:09 - 00:11:57:21 Lan Snell Yeah. And that's that's such an important aspect. And what we've learned most is, is that regular frequent communication be that by Zoom or other mechanisms or other tools is crucial. One other  interesting development that we've seen through our research is the importance of lived in experience in that authentic communication. So it's not just it's not good enough for me to check in on my team as a leader by just asking, you know, inauthentic questions, you know, how are you going? 00:11:57:21 - 00:12:11:18 Lan Snell I know it's hard, but to share my own vulnerabilities. And in doing so, that communication piece becomes a lot more relevant and resonates more. And that point of communication and connectivity has a new dimension entirely. 00:12:12:09 - 00:12:22:05 Oriel Morrison So what should companies, what should corporates be doing now to essentially future prove to you use your own words and to identify areas where they need to change? 00:12:23:03 - 00:12:47:02 Lan Snell Yeah, it's a common pain point across a lot of organizations. Big or small, public or private, is how might I attract and retain talent through professional and continuous learning? You know, if we to accept the literature findings in terms of even Gen X being a two year itch or switch, why would I invest in my people? 00:12:47:02 - 00:13:08:03 Lan Snell They're just going to go somewhere else. So the question is, is that I want to make sure that there is continuous growth there. So how might I do this? Some of the best practices that we're seeing from organizations is creating some sort of like a resource mapping hub area where we're going to look at each individual who's got that potential to grow within the organization.

00:13:08:10 - 00:13:20:16 Lan Snell Now, their current skillset may be redundant in 2 to 3 years because of automation and digital disruption and so therefore it's incumbent on us as an organization to support their training and pivot them in other ways. 00:13:26:12 - 00:13:48:24 Jason Dasey A new scientific paper labeled 'The Talking Dead' has shed new light on the cultural practices of the earliest humans of Southeast Asia. Australian National University's Dr. Sophia Semper-Carro is the author of the paper and she joins me now. Sophia, let's start with your team's amazing discovery on Alor Island in Indonesia. What exactly did you find? 00:13:50:02 - 00:14:17:20 Sofia Semper-Carro Well, it was, as you just said, it was a really exciting discovery. So what we found was three different burials that each of them were from a different time period, but they were all in the same exact in the same kind of rock shelter and in the same position. So it was really interesting to find these three different burials that we know they are from two different periods, but all located in specifically the same rock shelter. 00:14:18:17 - 00:14:23:13 Jason Dasey And what state were the bones in, given the huge amount of time they'd been there? 00:14:24:18 - 00:14:35:21 Sofia Semper-Carro Well, they were pretty good, I would say. I would say so they were quite good. And that gave us the opportunity to study their living conditions before we found them in the burials. 00:14:36:21 - 00:14:42:00 Jason Dasey How could you verify the timing, the exact years of how long they were there for? 00:14:43:05 - 00:15:06:07 Sofia Semper-Carro Well, what we use is what is called relative chronology. So what we usually use is material that we find in the same archeological context, for example, charcoal, or sometimes we can date that death from the individuals or some artifacts that are related to individuals. So for example, ornaments, things that we know, they kind of belong to the same individual. 00:15:06:15 - 00:15:13:14 Sofia Semper-Carro So we get that date from that material and then we can kind of extrapolate to the burial and how old they are. 00:15:14:09 - 00:15:23:00 Jason Dasey So what are we learning from all of this? Tell us why the discovery was so significant to our understand of the early human population in the region. 00:15:23:13 - 00:15:53:06 Sofia Semper-Carro They are showing us different cultural practices, so they are showing us how these different communities were burying their dead people. Right. Their relatives we assume. And to me that tells a lot about the society, because the way we look after our relatives or the way we interact with buried these people that were important for us, I believe it tells a lot about how people behave, what kind of social constructions we have, what type of cultural beliefs we have. 00:15:53:19 - 00:16:14:06 Sofia Semper-Carro So what was really interesting was to find that each of these burials represent a different type

of burial, right? So one of them wer buried in a way that they remove some of the bones and they live some of them in the ground, or they buried some of them and the other ones were removed. Another one was buried in a seated position. 00:16:14:06 - 00:16:39:18 Sofia Semper-Carro So they somehow managed to wrap the body to make it sit before they buried. And the bottom one, she was buried ... the oldest one, the 13,000 year old one. She was buried on the side. But also with all these ornaments, with fishhooks, all these really valuable artifacts that obviously inform us on how important this person would have been for that community or that group. 00:16:40:05 - 00:16:46:08 Jason Dasey Well, it was published in a scientific journal, PLoS One. You called it The Talking Dead. Why was that? 00:16:47:14 - 00:17:03:13 Sofia Semper-Carro Well, because I wanted to make this the picture, this idea of these burials, the people that in the evidence at the end, they are talking to us. They are telling us, giving us information on how they were living. So that's why I called it that. 00:17:03:22 - 00:17:09:24 Jason Dasey And what did you learn about the migratory nature of the people during the Pleisticine to the Holocene periods? 00:17:10:14 - 00:17:37:19 Sofia Semper-Carro So well, what I found really interesting was when I started looking at how they were buried, I could see that this type of burials, they happened in different islands around or in other islands or in mainland Southeast Asia, for example. But they covered in different time periods and some of them seem to come, let's say, east, west. So this tradition seems to come from PNG or what was in the time called sahool. 00:17:38:03 - 00:18:11:19 Sofia Semper-Carro So coming from the East Coast, West mainland, Southeast Asia, while some of some of these traditions, they appear earlier in mainland Southeast Asia, and then we find them in the islands, then we compare this information from the burials, from the cultural practices to what we know from the genetics. And it kind of confirm or support our idea of there is this that island, Southeast Asia, was this area where people were moving east, west, west, east, going around and migrating and sharing or bringing with them all this knowledge and all these practices. 00:18:12:08 - 00:18:39:17 Oriel Morrison The search for hand-drawn artwork produced by the Australian First Nations children who were forcibly taken from their families in the 1940s, continues. A selection of the landscapes found have been displayed in an exhibition run by Curtin University in the UK. The project soon moving to Scotland, where it's hoped more drawings and paintings will be found. Joining us now is Michelle Broun, John Curtin, Gallery's Australian First Nations art curator. 00:18:39:24 - 00:18:46:06 Oriel Morrison Michelle, welcome. Such a pleasure to have you with us today. Tell us about this global search. 00:18:47:22 - 00:19:18:24 Michelle Broun Well, in the early 1950s,

an English philanthropist visited Perth and came across an article about artworks being created at a native settlement in the south west in the Great Southern region. And she found an incredible cohort, I guess a group of young teenage children and younger with their teacher. 00:19:19:05 - 00:19:40:13 Michelle Broun And she purchased some of the artworks and she toured them all around the world. The artworks that touring at the moment are part of a collection that returned to Western Australia from New York. They had been in the stores for nearly 40 years. The old girl fell ill and then sold them to an American collector. 00:19:40:18 - 00:19:48:01 Oriel Morrison Michelle, what sort of outcome do you hope will come from this search and from these displays? 00:19:49:13 - 00:20:22:05 Michelle Broun Well, what we hope is that we can, I guess, recover or rediscover some of the artworks that were sold in the early 1950s in the UK. We are appealing to families, to communities, even to institutions, maybe triggering some people's memories that may have been to exhibitions or even purchase some of those works with the idea of reconnecting those works to the families here. 00:20:22:20 - 00:20:58:16 Michelle Broun Because in Western Australia there are many descendants of the  children of the child artists and we see that as being an important part of a process of truth telling. And part of the journey of healing for those families. And we hope that that's the case. So there is a big call out, but there's also lots of conversations these exhibitions are facilitating around Empire and the Stolen Generations and the impact that's had on on our communities. 00:20:59:06 - 00:21:08:22 Michelle Broun So there is a broader conversation happening around the exhibition that really the focus is to, I guess, recover some of those artworks. 00:21:09:09 - 00:21:21:11 Oriel Morrison What sort of response are you getting at this point in time to the exhibition and what sort of response do you hope to get in terms of retrieving some of this lost artwork? 00:21:21:21 - 00:21:53:05 Michelle Broun Well, both of the venues and their staff are really on board with that, that objective.  And so they're they're helping with that appeal and even putting the signage outside the Portico Library, for example. The conversations really help to stimulate and broaden that conversation and reach people that may not necessarily be able to get to the gallery itself. 00:21:53:19 - 00:22:04:17 Michelle Broun And so we think the more people that we can reach, the better chance we have of locating some of those artworks.  00:22:05:10 - 00:22:15:18 Oriel Morrison Michelle, what sort of outcomes do the daughters, the sons, the families of the artist hope to achieve from this exhibition? 00:22:16:17 - 00:22:48:13 Michelle Broun Look, I'm not going to really speak on their behalf because I think that requires us to pick up on those conversations more locally. But from our perspective and the reference group perspective, there's a lot of value in reconnecting with material cultures of our people, especially because they've been created by children who were stolen from their parents and experiencing a lot of trauma. 00:22:48:14 - 00:22:59:21 Michelle Broun And that the artwork actually quite often and not in all cases but quite often gave them at the outset that they needed to help with their trauma. 00:23:03:16 - 00:23:25:14 Jason Dasey Bangladesh has started laying the groundwork for its first fully fledged trade agreement, soon to begin negotiations with India. The leaders of the two nations have agreed to sign a comprehensive economic partnership. Our Bangladesh correspondent Redwan Ahmed joins us now. Redwan, welcome once again. What stage is the significant trade agreement currently at? 00:23:27:04 - 00:23:54:22 Redwan Ahmed  Thanks for having me here, Jason. So as you know, this kind of joint agreement only gets momentum when top level government officials get together. In 2021, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra modi visited Bangladesh and then the prime minister of Bangladesh and Modi, they decided they would be doing this joint feasibility study on a free trade agreement between the two countries. 00:23:55:11 - 00:24:11:19 Redwan Ahmed  Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, visited India last month and in the end of the meeting with Prime Minister Modi they issued a joint statement that the bilateral negotiations would start happening at the end of this year. 00:24:12:02 - 00:24:21:18 Jason Dasey I mean, the country has been lobbying with major trading partners for years to get free trade agreements signed. Why has it been so difficult, do you think? 00:24:21:24 - 00:24:51:23 Redwan Ahmed  Well, Bangladesh has been trying to get into a lot of FTAs but only have a handful of regional blocs. But no Bangladesh has no bilateral free trade agreement with any countries. So there are a few domestic issues as well. So whenever this kind of idea has happens and the country has to cut the revenue on tariffs, the duty isdecreased. 00:24:51:23 - 00:25:09:09 Redwan Ahmed  And there's also few issues like the country has to refine a lot of like international agreements, like, you know, labour rights, good governance, a protection of the environment and protection of human rights. So, you know, there's a lot of factors that Bangladesh is still working on. 00:25:09:22 - 00:25:15:15 Jason Dasey So once the deal with India is finally inked, what does the upside look like for Bangladesh and its people? 00:25:16:15 - 00:25:46:01 Redwan Ahmed  India is Bangladesh's second biggest trading partner after China. So, you know, if if there is an agreement like that, we are calling the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Act, which is also called CEPA. This FTA. So Bangladesh's GDP might increase by 1.72%. And, you know, Bangladesh already does a lot of trading with India. It's only recently in the last fiscal year, they hit 2 billion U.S. dollars export income. 00:25:46:06 - 00:25:50:14 Redwan Ahmed  So this will significantly go up once this agreement comes to effect. 00:25:51:06 - 00:26:02:05 Jason Dasey How would you say this agreement will play into Bangladesh making the UN's status graduation from an LDC a 'least developed country' to a developing nation by 2026? 00:26:04:02 - 00:26:29:08 Redwan Ahmed  Well, this is, in fact, a very big reason the experts have suggested and asked Bangladesh to join this free trade agreement. India will have slightly more gain from this agreement because, you know, already they have a very diversified export portfolio. Bangladesh might see a slight decrease in their revenue or income temporarily. 00:26:29:13 - 00:26:36:16 Redwan Ahmed  Bangladesh will gradually graduate from least developed country to a developing nation by the end of 2026. 00:26:37:20 - 00:27:01:08 Oriel Morrison Thank you for joining us on APAC Weekly I'm Oriel Morrison. To stay across the important conversation shaping our future, visit us at APAC network dot com.