Democracy and Work

As the UK adjusts to life during COVID-19, one of the unexpected features is that it has created a better appreciation of workers in low-skilled, poorly paid and precarious work. For example, the BBC One Panorama programme ‘Lockdown UK’ referred to hospital cleaners and supermarket workers as ‘minimum wage heroes’¹ and food delivery drivers were added to the government’s list of key workers. Yet as Jason Moyer-Lee of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain points out, although these workers are doing essential jobs, they have the least rights and little or no job security.

Range extension of the Short-beaked Echidna Tachyglossus aculeatus (Monotremata: Tachyglossidae) and the Northern Brown Bandicoot Isoodon macrourus (Marsupialia: Peramelidae) in Queensland: Mua (Moa Island), Torres Strait

Until recently there have been no confirmed records of medium-sized native terrestrial mammals from the Torres Strait Islands, far north Queensland. The Short-beake Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus Shaw, 1792) and the Northern Brown Bandicoot(Isoodon macrourus Gould, 1842) are reported here occurring on Mua (Moa Island). This is the most northerly known occurrence of these species in Australia; both also occur in New Guinea