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Motivating government on threatened species through electoral systems

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Conservation Science and Practice
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Abstract and Figures

Many of the proposed solutions to the global biodiversity crisis rely on national governments to act. The conservation movement needs to motivate governments or face an ongoing extinction crisis. Here we explore how linking biodiversity to electoral systems may assist in motivating government action. Using Australia as a case study, we analyze the intersection of 151 electoral districts and 1651 threatened species. We show all districts contain at least 14 threatened species. Half of the species analyzed (n = 801, 49%) are confined to one district (n = 44), with 1345 (81%) species intersecting with less than five. This geographical information shows that alongside local social and economic issues, the threatened species crisis can be made relevant to all Australian elected representatives. Locally relevant information can encourage integration of species needs into the scope of political representation. As such, linking biodiversity to political geography offers a potential pathway to creating transformative change.
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CONTRIBUTED PAPER
Motivating government on threatened species through
electoral systems
Gareth S. Kindler
1,2
| Alexander M. Kusmanoff
3
| Stephen Kearney
1,2
|
Michelle Ward
1,2,4
| Richard A. Fuller
1,2
| Thomas J. Lloyd
1,2
|
Sarah A. Bekessy
3
| Emily A. Gregg
3
| Romola Stewart
4
| James E. M. Watson
1,2
1
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation
Science, The University of Queensland, St
Lucia, Queensland, Australia
2
School of the Environment, The
University of Queensland, St Lucia,
Queensland, Australia
3
ICON Science, School of Global, Urban
and Social Studies, RMIT University,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
4
WWF-Aus, Brisbane, Queensland,
Australia
Correspondence
Gareth S. Kindler, Centre for Biodiversity
and Conservation Science, The University
of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072
Australia.
Email: g.kindler@uq.edu.au
Abstract
Many of the proposed solutions to the global biodiversity crisis rely on national
governments to act. The conservation movement needs to motivate govern-
ments or face an ongoing extinction crisis. Here we explore how linking biodi-
versity to electoral systems may assist in motivating government action. Using
Australia as a case study, we analyze the intersection of 151 electoral districts
and 1651 threatened species. We show all districts contain at least 14 threat-
ened species. Half of the species analyzed (n=801, 49%) are confined to one
district (n=44), with 1345 (81%) species intersecting with less than five. This
geographical information shows that alongside local social and economic
issues, the threatened species crisis can be made relevant to all Australian
elected representatives. Locally relevant information can encourage integration
of species needs into the scope of political representation. As such, linking bio-
diversity to political geography offers a potential pathway to creating transfor-
mative change.
KEYWORDS
biodiversity, democracy, elected representatives, electoral accountability, electoral districts,
political representation, science-policy interface, threatened species
1|INTRODUCTION
The global species extinction crisis is being driven by insuf-
ficient responses to historical and ongoing human-led
impacts on biodiversity (IPBES, 2019). There are five well-
established interventions directed at policy-makers for
addressing the deterioration of nature, namely incentives
and capacity building, cross-sectoral cooperation, pre-
emptive action, decision-making in the context of resilience
and uncertainty, and environmental law and implementa-
tion (IPBES, 2019). The existence and global emphasis of
these interventions highlight the importance of policy
design and implementation, and the role of governments
that institute them in delivering conservation outcomes
(Rose et al., 2018). For successful management to occur at
the scale needed to recover threatened species, relevant
levels of government need to implement transformative
conservation plans founded on effective interventions
(Díaz et al., 2020;IPBES,2019;Sutherlandetal.,2018).
Research to explore and improve the activities that happen
at the science-policy interface will be critical to motivate
these interventions (Rose et al., 2018; Toomey et al., 2017).
Received: 3 August 2023 Revised: 27 June 2024 Accepted: 18 July 2024
DOI: 10.1111/csp2.13206
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
© 2024 The Author(s). Conservation Science and Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.
Conservation Science and Practice. 2024;6:e13206. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/csp2 1of11
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13206
National governments often determine the trajectory
of progress in nature conservation (Watson et al., 2021)
and thus are a common focus for advocates looking to
address the extinction crisis. Central to the activities of
most national governments are elected representatives
since they play a role in the design, oversight and imple-
mentation of policies that are currently constraining better
outcomes for species (IPBES, 2019). In many democracies,
representatives are elected based on principles of geo-
graphical representation which identifies a region from
which the constituency expresses approval for agents to
stand for and act on their behalf (Brenton, 2010;
Urbinati & Warren, 2008). This provides an incentive for
elected representatives to represent the interests and opin-
ions of their constituents. The system supplies elected rep-
resentatives with an opportunity for ownership of, and
responsibility for, social, economic, and environmental
issues within the region represented. Thus, there is sub-
stantial scope for motivated electoral constituents to
demand action from representatives for recovery of their
local threatened species. However, this can only be
achieved if the conservation movement, electoral constitu-
ents, and their representatives better understand the rela-
tionship between threatened species, geographical
electoral systems, and civic engagement (Rose et al., 2018).
An explanation for the pattern of poor progress on spe-
cies conservation is that constituents lack localized informa-
tion needed to motivate elected representatives. Here we
show how primary information needed to link threatened
species and elected representatives can be derived at the
local scale, highlighting the opportunity for including spe-
cies in the current scope of political representation.
Australia has been a representative liberal democracy for
over a century and is also at the forefront of the extinction
crisis (Creswell et al., 2021). We compare how threatened
species vary across Australia's Commonwealth Electoral
Divisions (CED), also known as electoratesor electoral
districtsand the extent to which they are associated with
the area of a CED, and its demographic profile. Given the
global crisis facing threatened species, we use the contextual
information generated here to explore two objectives. First,
we discuss what elected representatives can do to combat
the current constraints on conservation progress. We then
highlight the mechanisms to generate action, accountabil-
ity, and leadership from representatives and government.
2|METHODS
2.1 |Australian threatened species
We used the Species of National Environmental Signif-
icance (SNES) database listed by the Australian
Department of the Environment and Energy's Threat-
ened Species Scientific Committee and Minister under
the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conser-
vation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) (Commonwealth of
Australia, 2021) (retrieved July 1, 2021). There were
1961 threatened species listed at the time of analysis,
with 1633 (83%) distributions generalized to 1 km grid
cells and 328 (17%) sensitive species generalized to
10 km. Following Lloyd et al. (2020), we used species
or species habitat is likely to occur within areadistri-
butions as this is the more definitive (than may
occur) and represents an approximation of the area of
occupancy of species as opposed to their extent of
occurrence. We confined the data to species relevant
to the geographical electoral system. Species with no
recorded threatened status, or with the Extinct, or
Conservation Dependent statuses were removed (Ward
et al., 2021) such that only Vulnerable (VU), Endan-
gered (EN), and Critically Endangered (CR) listings
remained. We restricted the data to species that
inhabit terrestrial and freshwater regions, this
excluded marine species and cetaceans or those that
share boundaries with terrestrial regions
(e.g., shorelines). The marine or marine overfly attri-
butes of the species data were not reliable and in the
case of the Red Knot (Calidris canutus), Curlew Sand-
piper (Calidris ferruginea),GreatKnot(Calidris tenuir-
ostris), manual filtering occurred.
2.2 |Australia's federal electoral system
Australia's parliament operates on a bicameral system,
which involves citizens voting for two houses of
parliament. The continent of Australia, Tasmania and
numerous smaller islands are divided into 151 single-
representative CEDs for elections to the House of Repre-
sentatives (the other house is the Senate) (Parliament of
Australia, 2018). The CEDs are drawn on human popula-
tion distribution with quotas for the states and territories
of the Commonwealth prior to an election. We used the
House of Representatives 2021 federal electoral bound-
aries and their demographic classification drawn for the
2022 election (Australian Electoral Commission, 2022).
The spatial CED data was cropped to include mainland
Australia, Tasmania, and offshore territorial islands
(i.e., Torres Strait islands, Kangaroo Island) and exclude
remote external territories (i.e., Christmas, Cocos, and
Norfolk Islands) for simplicity. Due to the non-uniform
human population distribution across Australia, CEDs
vary in size. The largest CED is Durack (1,387,445 km
2
,
Western Australia [WA]), which is over 50,000 times the
size of the smallest, the inner metropolitan CED of
2of11 KINDLER ET AL.
Sydney (28 km
2
, New South Wales [NSW]). The median
size of CEDs is 363 km
2
. The Australian Electoral Com-
mission categorizes CEDs into four demographic classifi-
cations: inner metropolitan, outer metropolitan,
provincial, and rural. CEDs of provincial (25) and rural
(38) demography represent 42% of all CEDs (n=151,
Table S1), yet account for 99% of the total area of CEDs
in Australia. CEDs of inner (45) and outer metropolitan
(43) demography account for 0.37% of the total area of
CEDs in Australia (Table S1). These classifications are
assigned on proximity to metropolises, suburban history,
and voting enrolment criteria (Australian Electoral
Commission, 2022).
2.3 |Spatial analysis and modeling of
CEDs and threatened species
After filtering for EPBC listed species that intersect with
CEDs, 1651 species remained to be used in this study
(Table S2). All spatial and statistical analysis was con-
ducted in R (v4.2.1; R Core Team, 2021), using tidyverse
(Wickham et al., 2019) and sf (Pebesma, 2018) packages.
We identified the species with ranges that intersected
with each CED (7815 unique species-CED combinations)
to create a list of each CED's species. From this, we sum-
marized the CED coverage of each species based on the
number of CEDs they intersected with. To quantify
the spatial overlap, we calculated the intersection of spe-
cies' distributions and CEDs, and used this to filter for
CED endemism.We define CED endemismin this
study as species with 100% of their geographic distribu-
tion within a single CED or whose (terrestrial and
freshwater-based) range only intersects with a
single CED.
We used the Dorling equation (Dorling, 1996) to rede-
fine the spatial shape of each CED to the weighted vari-
able of number of threatened species within them. This
enables static mapping of Australia's CEDs as due to the
large size differences they are not conducive to a choro-
pleth map (Jeworutzki, 2020; Tennekes, 2018). We used
the empirical cumulative distribution function to display
the proportion of threatened species at each possible
number of CEDs within a species' range. To test the rela-
tionship between number of species within each CED
and their area, we used the logarithmic (log
2
) form of the
power model, commonly used to describe the species-
area relationship (Matthews et al., 2019). We used a log
2
transformation to address the order of magnitude differ-
ences between the areas of CEDs and enable visual com-
parisons between the four demographic classifications on
a scatterplot.
3|RESULTS
3.1 |Threatened species within CEDs
Threatened species occurred in all 151 CEDs, with a
range of 14271 and median of 39 (Figure 1; Table S1).
The CED of O'Connor (WA), the third largest, contained
the most (n=271) threatened species, whereas Hind-
marsh (South Australia [SA]) contained the fewest
(n=14) (Figure 1).
The number of threatened species present in a CED
increased with its area (Figure 2), with size alone
explaining 70% of the variation. The CEDs of O'Connor
and Durack, both in Western Australia, have similar
sizes to some other large remote CEDs (e.g., Lingiari
and Grey), yet they have an unusually high number of
threatened species, with 271 and 255 species, respec-
tively (Table S1). Although demographic class
(i.e., inner metropolitan, outer metropolitan, provincial,
and rural) of CEDs provides an indication of population
and land characteristics they are overlapping in areas
and have an uneven distribution (Figure 2). There are
fewer provincial CEDs (25) than the other three classes:
inner metropolitan (45), outer metropolitan (43), and
rural (38). We found that there are 1564 (95%) species
that intersect with rural CEDs, 431 (26%) with provin-
cial, 302 (18%) with outer metropolitan, 233 (14%) with
inner metropolitan. The 10 CEDs which intersect with
the most threatened species are all classed as rural
(cumulative total of 1134 of 1651 threatened spe-
cies, 69%).
3.2 |Single and multi-CED species
A total of 801 (49%) threatened species listed on the
EPBC Act are confined to or intersect with a single CED
(Figures 3and 4). Of these CED endemicspecies,
763 are within rural CEDs (Figure 4), 26 in provincial
CEDs, and 11 in outer metropolitan CEDs, and one in
inner metropolitan CEDs. A total of 48 CEDs harbor
CED endemicspecies within their boundaries
(Figure 4). Of these 48 CEDs, 33 are rural, eight are pro-
vincial, six are outer metropolitan, and one is inner
metropolitan.
The rural CED of O'Connor (WA), with 271 species,
harbors the most CED endemics,including the Kylor-
ing or Western Ground Parrot (Pezoporus flaviventris)
and the Arid Bronze Azure (Ogyris subterrestris petrina).
The CEDs of Lyons (rural, Tasmania [TAS]) and Lei-
chardt (rural, Queensland) are far smaller CEDs, yet they
contain among the most endemics (Figure 4; Table S1).
KINDLER ET AL.3of11
Leichardt contains 14 EN endemics such as the Cape
York Rock-Wallaby (Petrogale coenensis) and Whiskered
Rein Orchid (Habenaria maccraithii).
A total of 544 (33%) threatened species intersect with
two to four CEDs (Figure 3; Table S2). For example, the
Baw Baw Frog (Philoria frosti) occurs across two CEDs,
Casey and Monash (Victoria [VIC]). A total of 306 (18%)
species cover > four CEDs such as the Golden Sun Moth
(Synemon plana), which covers 34 CEDs (Figure 3;
Table S2). Some threatened species such as Australasian
Bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus) and Australian Painted
Snipe (Rostratula australis) are distributed across
145 CEDs, the highest number of CEDs any Australian
threatened species' covers.
4|DISCUSSION
A major challenge of the conservation movement is moti-
vating national governments to address the threatened
species crisis (IPBES, 2019). Encouraging them to act is a
crucial step towards transformative change. In the con-
text of Australia, we found that every electoral district
contains at least 14 threatened species. This suggests that
all national elected representatives could assume an
active role in representing those species found within
their districts, thereby contributing to resolving the crisis
on a national and global scale. We also found a spatial
scale mismatch in the number and endemism of threat-
ened species across districts (Figures 14), which implies
FIGURE 1 Non-overlapping circles (Dorling) cartogram of threatened species occurrence within the 151 Commonwealth Electoral
Divisions (CEDs) and a map showing the geographical boundaries in the background. Bubbles correspond in color and size to the number of
threatened species found within the CED. Bubbles represent the geographic region of the CEDs and are arranged as close as possible to the
original location of the CED. Heavy clustering of bubbles occurs in metropolitan areas (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne) where CEDs are too
small to be represented alongside their rural counterparts on an untransformed scale. Labels are unique abbreviations of the CED name
(Table S1 provides the exact number of threatened species and the full names of CEDs).
4of11 KINDLER ET AL.
some representatives have a greater opportunity than
others. These results create information that can be used
to motivate concern for species from representatives, thus
influencing the insufficient government responses to date
(Australian National Audit Office, 2022; Samuel, 2020).
Here we discuss how this information may influence
modifications in government leadership and
accountability.
4.1 |How elected representatives can
influence conservation
Elected representatives can impact conservation out-
comes in numerous ways. They are instrumental in gen-
erating legislative and policy reform that encourage
species recovery and persistence. Representatives can use
this pathway to deliver incentives, capacity building and
pre-emptive action to support these goals (IPBES, 2019;
Leclère et al., 2020). Specific reforms could focus on
ensuring offsetting is effective (Evans, 2023) eliminating
subsidies to harmful practices (Dempsey et al., 2020), and
incentivizing transparency of environmental outcomes
(Australian National Audit Office, 2022; Garnett
et al., 2018; Hawke, 2009; Samuel, 2020). Identifying spe-
cies through electoral districts allows representatives to
actively engage with local, state and national legislation
that threaten their local species' critical habitat (Reside
et al., 2019). Nations with lower biodiversity levels than
Australia might not have as many species for identifying
through electoral systems, yet our approach retains its
value as even a few species present an opportunity for
elected representatives to engage with. Influencing the
delivery of policies assistive to conservation is the most
influential action representatives can take to transform
conservation outcomes.
Elected representatives also influence the public
debate around issues through discussion of their priori-
ties in parliament or the media, often with a local agenda.
In Australia, elected representatives often advocate for
social issues such as health care and educational infra-
structure, yet for the most part they neglect local owner-
ship of the biodiversity crisis (though we note the
representative for Mayo [South Australia] requested
information on the species found within their district in
2019 [Parliament of Australia, 2019]). This analysis pro-
vides the information that motivated representatives can
leverage to advocate for change. For example, one
can imagine the representative for Lingiari (Northern
Territory) making the case for action to safeguard the
Yellow-snouted Gecko Lucasium occultum (Endangered)
a species only found in Lingiari. A sense of pride and
FIGURE 2 Relationship between Commonwealth Electoral Divisions (CEDs) area (xaxis, km
2
,n=151, log
2
scale) and number of
threatened species (yaxis, n=1651, log
2
scale (F¼349, p<:001, 95%CI for β13:55,3:93½). The plot shows CEDs (dots), demographic class
of CED (color), estimated mean (solid line), and 95% confidence interval (gray area). The same relationship has been displayed on an
untransformed scale (Figure S1).
KINDLER ET AL.5of11
ownership of their district can stimulate representatives
becoming species champions(Scheele et al., 2018).
Champions are an important ingredient in success
stories. The actions of motivated representatives in
encouraging other less motivated and like-minded col-
leagues to adopt a similar approach by means of social
contagion could become an important ingredient for spe-
cies conservation success (Ognyanova, 2022).
4.2 |How the constituency can
influence elected representatives
We envisage this information being used to educate and
mobilize the local constituency, who elect representa-
tives. The interests of a constituency contribute to shap-
ing the perspectives and actions of elected
representatives. A constituency with a shared under-
standing and motivation to address a specific problem
can lead to public will that can drive policy change (Raile
et al., 2014). Purpose-driven research such as public
health and climate change are increasingly recognizing
and incorporating an understanding of public will into
their theories of change (Han & Barnett-Loro, 2018). For
example, Cullerton et al. (2016) mapped the enablers and
barriers to public will for influencing nutritional policy.
The conservation movement could adopt similar strate-
gies to enhance public engagement and elevate the
threatened species crisis on the agenda of elected repre-
sentatives (Borg et al., 2023). An informed and motivated
constituency has the potential to influence their repre-
sentative to include biodiversity into their scope of
representation.
Individuals tend to discount events or objects that are
spatially, temporally, and socially distant (Gifford
et al., 2009; van der Linden et al., 2015), with the effect
that they may be less likely to take action (Spence
et al., 2012). This means that emphasizing the local
occurrence of a threatened species may help decrease this
psychological distanceand improve message
FIGURE 3 The cumulative proportion of threatened species (n=1651) coverage across Commonwealth Electoral Divisions (CEDs)
(n=151). Each species' CED coverage is the sum of distinct CED(s) their range intersects with. The inset is the zoomed proportion of
species with fewer than or equal to 10 coverage (n=1517). Species that have greater than 10 coverage (n=134) are excluded from the inset
graph but included in the overall proportion. The number of species found at each increment of possible electorate coverage (n=151) were
converted to proportions using the empirical cumulative distribution function to represent which proportion of species are at or below the
given number of electorate coverage.
6of11 KINDLER ET AL.
effectiveness (Kusmanoff et al., 2020). As individuals
experience place attachment (Anton & Lawrence, 2014),
a threatened species found within a district may be more
likely to engender pride, responsibility, stewardship, and
connection. It may be that larger districts with sparsely
distributed human populations and a greater number of
threatened species benefit less from such a strategy,
though we note that rural people often experience
increased place attachment (Anton & Lawrence, 2014)
which is itself correlated with environmental advocacy
(Brown & Raymond, 2007). A large district with a caring
constituency and representative has the potential to ben-
efit many species. The creation of localized information,
as we have done here, could be important in rallying con-
stituents and elected representatives towards conserva-
tion (Garnett et al., 2018; Selinske et al., 2018).
Dissemination of localized information also provides
an opportunity to incorporate other communication
FIGURE 4 Locations of Commonwealth Electoral Divisions (CEDs) (n=48) that contain threatened species that are only found within
their boundaries (CED endemics). Examples of some of these CED endemics and which CED they are located shown. CR, critically
endangered; EN, endangered; VU, vulnerable. Image credits: Potorous gilbertii by Dick Walker (Gilbert's Potoroo Action Group), Lucasium
occultum by Chris Jolly, Cophixalus concinnus by Anders Zimny, Rhizanthella gardneri by Jean and Fred Hort, Pseudophryne corroboree by
John Spencer (NSW Department of Planning Environment), Asterolasia beckersii by Geoff Derrin.
KINDLER ET AL.7of11
approaches aimed at promoting specific behaviors
(e.g., Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely [EAST] [The
Behavioural Insights Team, 2014]). This could likely
include identifying specific actions (e.g., Selinske
et al., 2020) and assigning responsibility for that action.
For example, the statement We call on Mr Duckling as
the member for Delilah to demand the government stop the
habitat destruction at Leigh Peak which will decimate
the critically endangered Glorious Finchis more likely to
achieve the action we seek (i.e., demanding a stop to the
habitat clearing) than the generic statement We want
our local member to support threatened species.Before
assigning representatives or electoral districts responsibil-
ity for specific species, adopting a prioritization method-
ology which incorporates geographical, ecological, and
social variables is a necessary step.
Effectively mobilizing constituents to sway the deci-
sions of elected representatives will require strategic
planning and an understanding of diverse constituent
motivations. Demographic classifications of electoral dis-
tricts and their constituents is an important characteristic
that can inform the tailoring of messaging campaigns to
these motivations. Increasing both the frequency and the
quality of communication between motivated constitu-
ents and their elected representatives is important
(Pitkin, 1972; Rose et al., 2018; Woinarski et al., 2017).
Accountability institutions such as media platforms
(Hackett et al., 2017), alongside advocacy campaigns, can
serve as potent mediums for promoting information like
what we provide on localized threatened species. Pairing
localized information with those species which are most
charismatic may attract conservation attention to regions
where lower conservation engagement is present
(Marris, 2013). The spread of this knowledge has the
potential to alter how sympathetic but unmotivated
decision-makers engage with the biodiversity crisis. A
key research topic moving forward will be understanding
the conditions that enable constituents to induce elec-
toral accountability and whether better information
results in improved representation (Pande, 2011).
4.3 |How elected representatives can be
held accountable
Publicized measurement of government activities at the
scale of the electoral district provides an essential mecha-
nism to encourage political accountability in addressing
the species extinction crisis (Doherty et al., 2018).
Although accountability around biodiversity loss occurs
at national scales (Collen et al., 2009), there are new tools
that enable within-country measurement that can use the
principles and information we use here. These include
indicators reflective of the policy and promises of elected
representatives and their political affiliations such as the
annual League of Conservation Voters Scorecard (League
of Conservation Voters, 2022), aperiodic WWF Scorecard
(World Wildlife Fund, 2016), and continual They Vote
For You platform (They Vote For You, 2022) that aim to
facilitate the constituency being more aware of the
stances of representatives on issues. The conservation,
geographic, and demographic information we have pro-
vided can help inform these performance metrics and
scorecards on a local scale. This contributes to the ability
of constituents to hold representatives accountable
(Pitkin, 1972), thereby working towards incentivizing
government action.
5|CONCLUSION
Although individuals and non-governmental organiza-
tions have mustered substantial on-the-ground effort for
many species across the world (Grace et al., 2021), trans-
formative recovery is impossible without government
action. Our research shows the relevance of electoral sys-
tems in encouraging stronger government action to
address the biodiversity crisis. We argue that political
geography and localized information can have a signifi-
cant role in mobilizing constituencies and inspiring
elected representatives to prioritize conservation. We
have also illuminated the preliminary complexities and
opportunities associated with leveraging this influence.
This type of analysis provides a path forward in elevating
our response to human-led impacts as a priority of repre-
sentative democracies. The path contains the first step
towards encouraging more-than-human representation
in political systems.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
G.S.K and J.E.M.W conceived of and designed the research.
G.S.K drafted the work. G.S.K, A.M.K, S.K, M.S.W and
J.E.M.W. worked on acquisition, analysis, and interpreta-
tion of data. All authors contributed to the article with sub-
stantial revisions and approved the submitted version.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country
throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea
and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past
and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples today, and note that sover-
eignty was never ceded. This research is supported by an
Australian Government Research Training Program
(RTP) Scholarship. Open access publishing facilitated by
The University of Queensland, as part of the Wiley - The
8of11 KINDLER ET AL.
University of Queensland agreement via the Council of
Australian University Librarians.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Raw data were generated by various Australian Govern-
ment sources, this information can be found in the
methods and references of the article. The code that was
used to process the raw data is openly available on the
OSF at https://osf.io/7uzcd/, DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/
7UZCD. The analysed data that support the findings of
this study are openly available as supplementary or on
the above OSF repository.
ORCID
Gareth S. Kindler https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6333-
3473
Alexander M. Kusmanoff https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
1344-1767
Stephen Kearney https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0026-
970X
Richard A. Fuller https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9468-
9678
Emily A. Gregg https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0144-7854
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION
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