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En ny klassiker kan man kalla det. Jag tog två kakor och slog ihop till en. I botten är det mördeg och ovanpå en havrekaka. Det blev en av mina favoritkakor. Lätta att göra är de också. Recept Ugnstemperatur 175 Läs mer…
Nyheter och länkar - en bra startsida helt enkelt |Oculus lyx vitae
En ny klassiker kan man kalla det. Jag tog två kakor och slog ihop till en. I botten är det mördeg och ovanpå en havrekaka. Det blev en av mina favoritkakor. Lätta att göra är de också. Recept Ugnstemperatur 175 Läs mer…
Nigeria removed fuel subsidies entirely in May 2023. This came as a surprise because of the political risks associated with subsidy removal. Previous administrations were reluctant to jettison the subsidies.
The subsidies had been in place since the 1970s, when the government sold petrol to Nigerians at a price below cost – though most consumers weren’t aware of this.
The 1977 Price Control Act made it illegal for some products (including petrol) to be sold above the regulated price. The Olusegun Obasanjo regime introduced this law to cushion the effects of inflation, caused by a worldwide increase in energy prices.
Fuel subsidies have been controversial in Nigeria, and some analysts see them as inequitable. Very few Nigerians own vehicles. Nigeria is among the countries with the least number of vehicles per capita, with 0.06 vehicles per person or 50 vehicles per 1,000 Nigerians.
Read more:
Nigeria’s fuel subsidy is gone. It’s time to spend the money in ways that benefit the poor
So critics have argued that the subsidies benefited mainly the elites even though they could afford to buy fuel at market prices.
The subsidies were also considered to be a drain on public finances, costing the government US$10 billion in 2022. About 40% of Nigeria’s revenue in 2022 was spent on fuel subsidies.
Fuel subsidies in Nigeria were notorious for their opacity and graft. Billions of dollars were said to have been lost through corrupt practices in the payment of the subsidies.
These are some of the reasons they were removed.
But now questions are being asked about the way it was done. In a public opinion poll conducted last year, 73% of Nigerians said they were dissatisfied with the manner in which the fuel subsidy was removed.
As an economist who has studied the Nigerian economy for over four decades, I can see why the fuel subsidy had to go.
As I argued in a previous article, fuel subsidies were bad for the Nigerian economy. They worsened budget deficits and the country’s debt profile, encouraged corruption, and diverted resources away from critical sectors of the economy. They were also inequitable, transferring the national wealth to elites.
But, as has become clear from the unprecedented inflation in the country partly caused by the removal of fuel subsidies, the abrupt removal of the subsidy was not the best strategy to use.
I believe this action should have been staggered over several months. This would have provided a soft landing, and gradually exposed Nigerians to the full market price of fuel. Doing so in one fell swoop amounts to shock therapy that is very traumatic for an already beleaguered and impoverished citizenry.
Read more:
Fuel subsidies in Nigeria: they’re bad for the economy, but the lifeblood of politicians
Why removing the subsidy should have been gradual
The Bola Tinubu administration could have chosen from various mechanisms to minimise the negative impact of subsidy removal.
As proposed by the World Bank, a temporary price cap would have ensured that fuel price increases did not inflict too much pain on consumers. This approach would also have enabled the government to significantly reduce, but not eliminate, the fiscal burden of the subsidy.
Another approach is periodic price adjustments: setting the price based on a moving average of previous months’ import costs. These adjustments could have been made together with a price cap. The Philippines is one country that successfully removed fuel subsidies in the 1990s, using the price adjustment mechanism.
Gradually phasing out subsidies would have been a better approach for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Nigerians had become suspicious of government’s intentions, given their economic experiences with the previous administration of Muhammadu Buhari. Those experiences include high inflation and unemployment rates, rising poverty and insecurity.
Tinubu should have re-established government credibility and good intentions first. He could have offered economic succour such as cash transfers and food subsidies for poor Nigerians, wage increases for workers and retirees, scholarships or tuition waivers for indigent students in tertiary institutions, free lunches for primary and secondary students in public schools, and subsidised public transport.
After demonstrating he meant well, he should have gradually rolled out the subsidy removal. Nigerians would have been psychologically prepared for what was coming, including inflation.
The inflationary impact of subsidy removal would have been less severe. Nigerians would have been more tolerant of difficult economic policies. People will accept difficult economic policies if they know their government is humane and pro-people.
Secondly, an incremental approach would have enabled the government to come up with programmes targeted at those most likely to be hurt by subsidy removal. This would have ensured buy-in. The “palliatives” introduced by the Tinubu administration and state governments are temporary and have a limited reach.
Gradual subsidy removal would have enabled the government to engage with groups that would be affected by the policy. Groups representing labour, manufacturers, students, women and others could have provided insights into what would be needed to help their members adjust.
This interactive approach would have promoted transparency and credibility in the conduct of government policies.
Many vulnerable Nigerians were already under severe economic pressure. Apart from high unemployment and poverty rates, inflation was biting very hard.
The abrupt removal of fuel subsidies, without first putting in place shock-absorbing measures, will make it more difficult for the government to achieve the policy’s long-term aims: fiscal sustainability; higher levels of investment in productive sectors of the economy; economic growth; and investment in renewable energy.
Read more:
Nigeria’s transport grant isn’t the best way to allocate fuel subsidy savings: here’s what is
Minimising the negative impact of subsidy removal
Tinubu should minimise the negative impact of subsidy removal and liberalisation of the foreign exchange market. These two phenomena interact to cause the inflation that the country is facing.
First, savings from ending the subsidy should be used to develop productive capacities in agriculture, labour-intensive manufacturing and services.
Manufacturing activities like agro-processing, textiles, footwear, leather products, arts and crafts should be targeted for development. This would generate high-paying jobs that might help Nigerians to cushion the effects of inflation.
In an economy that’s functioning well, wages always adjust to reflect price increases. In Nigeria, however, too many people are either unemployed or in the informal sector, with limited opportunities to adjust their earnings to reflect inflation.
Funds saved from subsidy removal should be invested in public infrastructure (mass transportation, road construction, electricity generation, water supply).
Funds should also be used to develop people’s capabilities through massive investment in health and education. Part of the savings should be used to support and sustain the student loan programme announced by the Tinubu administration.
Successful radical economic reforms, such as the ones implemented in Rwanda, usually give people an incentive to be more productive, creative and innovative. But policies that are punitive, with marginal or no benefits, are unlikely to succeed.
It remains to be seen whether Tinubu’s economic policies will spur sustained and inclusive economic growth, as well as alleviate poverty. Läs mer…
In recent years, Antarctica has experienced a series of unprecedented heatwaves. On 6 February 2020, temperatures of 18.3C were recorded, the highest ever seen on the continent, beating the previous record of 17.5C which had only been set a few years earlier.
Around February 2022, another strong heatwave in Antarctica led to record-breaking surface ice melt. In March of the same year, East Antarctica saw its strongest ever heatwave, with temperatures soaring to 30C or 40C higher than the average in some areas.
Over the last year, we have seen the lowest levels of Antarctic sea ice coverage since records began.
Record-breaking temperatures during the heatwave on 6 February 2020.
González-Herrero et al. (2022)
Events in recent years have bordered on the unbelievable, and it is difficult not to link them to climate change. In fact, studies have already emerged that clearly attribute some of these heatwaves to global warming: one of our investigations strongly suggests that without the influence of climate change, 2020’s record-breaking temperatures would not have occurred.
Read more:
A heatwave in Antarctica totally blew the minds of scientists. They set out to decipher it – and here are the results
Antarctica’s changing climate
In 2009, a study quantified the speed of ecosystem migration due to climate change on a global scale, and documented, essentially, the speed at which certain species have to move to ensure their survival. It concluded that biomes were moving at a speed between 0.8 and 12.6km per decade, with an average speed of 4.2km per decade.
In our more recent study, published in February 2024, we adapted this measurement of speed and applied it to the edges of Antarctica. To do this, we tracked the southward migration of the zero-degree isotherm.
The zero-degree isotherm is an imaginary line that encloses the areas that are at zero degrees or lower. Its southward movement means that the area with temperatures below zero Celsius in Antarctica is getting smaller and smaller. Given that water freezes at zero degrees, this movement will have serious consequences for ecosystems and for the cryosphere (areas of the Earth where water is frozen).
Our calculations show that the zero-degree isotherm has moved at a speed of 15.8km per decade since 1957 in the area surrounding the Antarctic, while on the Antarctic peninsula itself it has moved at 23.9km per decade. As a result, it now sits over 100km south of where it was in the mid 20th century.
These measurements show that the speed of climate change on the edge of Antarctica is four times faster than the average of other ecosystems.
Evolution of the annual and seasonal position of the zero-degree isotherm in Antarctica between 1957 and 2020. The initials indicate the seasons for each measurement. MAM: autumn, JJA: winter, SON: spring, DJF: summer.
González-Herrero et al. (2024)
The effects of emissions
To predict the consequences of the southward migration of the zero-degree isotherm, we ran our data through twenty different climate models. Although there is some variation in the shift of the isotherm among the models, all agree that it will move significantly further southward over the next few decades.
The models also predict that, over the coming decades, the isotherm’s movement will accelerate regardless of emissions. However, the extent of its southward movement in the second half of the 21st century will depend on how much carbon we emit.
If we continue at our current rate of emissions, the zero-degree isotherm will continue to advance at a similar rate before slowing down during the second half of the 21st century. However, if emissions are higher, the isotherm’s migration will accelerate continuing its southward movement until the end of the century.
Change in the summertime position of the zero-degree isotherm over the course of the 21st century. Based on IPCC climate scenario SSP5-8.5, whereby current emission levels are approximately doubled by 2050.
Adapted by González-Herrero et al. (2024)
Impacts on the cryoshpere and ecosystems
The zero-degree isotherm’s southward movement will not remain solely in the atmosphere, it will also affect the cryosphere (all of the frozen areas of Antarctica) and the biosphere (the species that live there).
Changes in the isotherm’s position will mean more liquid rain instead of snow in the outermost regions of the continent, though it may in fact cause increased snowfall in other areas.
Reduced snowfall on the frozen sea – which acts as insulation – may lead to accelerated loss of sea ice during summer thaw periods.
Although the effects on permafrost, ice shelves and continental ice are still uncertain, it will undoubtedly affect the peripheral glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula. These constitute one of the largest potential sources of sea level rise in the coming decades.
Changes in the cryosphere will also lead to changes in ecosystems. New areas will become habitable thanks to thawing ice, but with more areas above zero degrees, invasive species from warmer, more hospitable continents may be able to settle, and they will compete with native species for resources. Läs mer…
Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re going down.
The good news is contained in two separate draft decisions today by the Australian Energy Regulator and Victoria’s Essential Services Commission, on the maximum price energy retailers can charge electricity consumers under a specific plan that must be offered to all consumers.
The price is officially known as the “default market offer”. It’s the price you’re charged on a “default” plan with an electricity retailer – in other words, the plan customers are on if they haven’t shopped around to find a better deal from competing retailers. The bottom line is, most of these residential electricity customers should receive price reductions of between 0.4% (A$13) and 7.1% ($211) next financial year. In most cases that’s less than the rate of inflation.
The relief is largely the result of a drop in wholesale prices – that’s the price paid to the generators producing electricity. Unfortunately, however, at the same time transmission and distribution prices – or network costs – have gone up. So the savings won’t be as great as they might have been.
A big improvement on previous years
This is the sixth year in which regulators have set default market offers for retail electricity customers. They do it where there is competition in the sector: so in southeast Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and, separately, Victoria.
It does not include Tasmania, the ACT, Western Australia or the Northern Territory, where the relevant regulator sets the prices and there’s no or very little competition.
About 5-10% of consumers across the states involved are on default plans. The rest have a contract arrangement with a retailer. But the draft decision, if enacted, still directly affects hundreds of thousands of people. And as commentators have observed, it sends an important market signal about the general direction of electricity prices.
The Australian Energy Regulator says most residential customers on the default market offer can expect to save on their electricity bills in 2024-25. But the offers vary depending where you live.
Have a look at the table above to see what residential customers without “controlled load” can expect. That covers most households. (Controlled load is when you also have an off-peak tariff for hot water heating.)
Some customers will be paying more for electricity. In Southeast Queensland, residential customers will pay 2.7% more, which is an extra $53 on average.
Using an inflation forecast of 3.3%, the Australian Energy Regulator also calculates what they call the “real” year-to-year variation in prices. So even if there’s a small increase in the price for a particular area, it’s less than the rate of inflation. For that example in southeast Queensland, it equates to a decrease of 0.6% and a saving of $12 in real terms.
Residential customers on the Victorian default market offer can expect to save 6.4%. The retail power prices in Victoria are slightly better than in the other states largely because there are lower wholesale power prices.
All in all it’s a big improvement on the price hikes of last year and the year before that.
The final default market offer prices will be released in May, but we can expect little change.
Read more:
The government will underwrite risky investments in renewables – here’s why that’s a good idea
Network prices are up
Regulators set the default market offer by itemising all costs retailers are likely to incur in the course of running their business. From that, they calculate the fair price retailers should offer customers on default plans.
Wholesale electricity costs, incurred when retailers buy electricity from generators on the wholesale market, make up maybe 30–40% of your bill.
The other major cost retailers face is for the electricity transmission and distribution network – that is, the “poles and wires”. These also comprise around 40% of your bill.
The network price is driven by inflation and interest rate rises, and also includes the costs of maintenance, and building new transmission infrastructure to connect renewable energy generators to the grid.
The easing of wholesale prices since their 2022 peak has been offset by increases in these network prices. In fact, network prices have increased by almost as much as wholesale prices have come down.
Read more:
Wholesale power prices are falling fast – but consumers will have to wait for relief. Here’s why
A difficult ask
Responding to the draft decision on Tuesday, Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said it showed the Albanese government was stabilising energy prices.
But Bowen came to office promising to cut power bills by $275 by 2025. That deadline is not very far away.
Bowen made that commitment in December 2021. Very soon after, electricity prices shot through the roof. It’s becoming very difficult to see how the $275 cost reduction will be achieved by next year.
The bottom line is prices have stabilised after a couple of bad years and hopefully the worst is behind us. But, it would be a brave person who attempts to predict where they go from here. There are too many moving parts. Governments should stay the course on policies, and consumers, worried about electricity prices, should go online, compare offers, and to find the best possible deal.
Read more:
Unsexy but vital: why warnings over grid reliability are really about building more transmission lines Läs mer…
The January attack by Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi on commercial ships crossing the Red Sea shows how economic and geopolitical forces intersect in Israeli and Palestinian conflict. The group is part of Iran’s alliance of anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance regional militias. Supposedly aimed at harming Israel’s allies’ economy, the attack has caused disruptions to international maritime transport.
As a result, some major logistics, as well as oil and gas companies, paused their shipping, resulting in rising prices worldwide. The US and UK – often seen as Israel’s allies – responded to the attack with multiple military strikes.
Read more:
Why US strikes will only embolden the Houthis, not stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea
Geoeconomic ambitions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts
Israel seeks to cooperate with Egypt and Saudi Arabia as it shares geoeconomic interests in developing an integrated economic zone in the Suez Canal and optimising the economic potential of the Red Sea region.
Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea
The development of the Suez Canal went on for decades through the construction of the integrated Sinai project area that began from 1982 to 2014.
An agreement consented by Cairo and Riyadh in 2016 reassigned ownership of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. This agreement opens up long-term investment opportunities for the Gulf countries for its potential to become an integrated economic zone.
The ambition to develop the Middle East’s economy does not go unnoticed by Israel as the country engages in regional development cooperation despite its long history of conflicts with Arab states.
Israel engaged in a war with the coalition of Arab states – particularly Egypt, Syria and Jordan – in 1967. The six-day war – an escalated tension over territorial disputes in the region – led to over 300,000 Palestinians being displaced from the West Bank.
Despite the conflicts, the countries in the region have been pushing to restore security by constructing a maritime route as a major economic integration area.
When the Suez Canal was closed for eight years as a result of the Israel-Arab war, it cost the world US$1.7 billion in lost trade.
Israeli economic interests in Palestinian soil
The Eastern Mediterranean region – which includes Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Cyprus, and Greece – is a region rich in gas resources.
Egypt’s ambition to connect the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal is an opportunity for Israel to develop Leviathan, an offshore gas field in the Levantine Basin, part of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Located at the sea border between Israel, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Cyprus, the Leviathan is a giant natural gas field discovered in 2010 with a potential production of millions of barrels of oil.
Israel’s interest in developing its energy sector raises speculations that its bombing campaign in Gaza is not only to fight Hamas and prevent further deadly attacks such as Oct. 7 but also to take control of the Gaza Strip, a strategic location that is directly connected to the Mediterranean sea.
The map of Levantine Basin, where the Leviathan gas field is located.
US EIA
Middle Eastern responses
The escalation of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict adds tensions in the region.
Due to geopolitical instability, the ongoing conflict in Palestine has affected the supply of Middle Eastern oil and gas resources as the world’s leading energy exporter.
Countries such as Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen support Palestine. Like the preceding conflicts, Egypt still focus on promoting diplomacy, settling border disputes and distributing aid.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has said it will recognise Israel as a sovereign state only if the conflict is over and Palestine is recognised as a state.
Experts gathered at last year’s Doha Forum in Qatar say that the Middle East countries are reluctant to normalise relations with Israel and recognise it as a sovereign state.
This is because the current conflict has created a multipolar world, referring to the condition of the numerous poles of power influencing the international political order.
The alleged genocide committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians has also shifted how the world’s view of Israel.
Despite US support for Israel, demonstrated by the use of its veto in the UN Security Council to reject the call for a ceasefire, most of the EU countries, which are important trading partners with Israel, support a ceasefire.
Protests against Israel by the international community have been linked to various transnational movements, including boycotting of pro-Israeli products, causing losses to several multinational companies in multiple countries.
The ongoing conflict affects not only Middle Eastern countries but also the US.
The US taking Israel’s side opens up a huge opportunity for China and Russia to expand their political-economic influence in the Middle East – increasingly expanding the poles of interest in the region – such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Those countries are beginning to lean to the BRICS, an intergovernmental organisation comprising the world’s most important developing countries founded in 2006 with Brazil, Russia, India and China its initial members.
With rivalries between China, Russia and the US, this will be a burden of economic interests that potentially undermine the US’ influence as Israel’s main ally. Läs mer…
Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio?
It can’t be because of the money.
In Australia they are paid at rates so low they come close to making streaming services look generous. By law, no radio station can be made to pay no more than 1% of the station’s gross revenue for all of the music it plays, even if it is an all-music station. By the time the labels have had their cut, the artists get a lot less.
Legislation now before the Senate would remove the ceiling, allowing radio stations and the representatives of musical artists to negotiate freely, with a final decision made by a tribunal in cases where they can’t reach agreement.
It’s a bit like the legislation set up to arbitrate disputes between platforms such as Facebook and news organisations about the amount to pay for news.
The parallels tell us an awful lot about where the power lies in disputes between platforms and providers. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t lie with providers, whether they provide music, or news, or, for that matter, fruit to Coles and Woolworths.
Radio pays little for music, and always has
Here’s what happened with radio.
Legislation dating back to 1968 has given Australian radio stations a blanket right to play whatever music they want so long as they negotiate a payment rate with the relevant collecting society.
If the station and collecting society can’t agree on the rate, the decision is made by an independent tribunal, but, for commercial stations, the tribunal is limited to awarding no more than 1% of the station’s gross revenue, and for ABC stations, a mere half of one cent per Australian resident per year.
The Attorney General introduced the ceilings to “allay the fears” of radio stations and initially promised a review after five years, a provision he later dropped from the final draft of the legislation. A half a century of inflation has rendered the ABC’s ceiling of half a cent per person worth a fraction of what it was.
The ABC pays half a cent per person
All of ABC radio, including triple-j, pays a total of half a cent per Australian.
ABC
The ceilings only apply to radio stations and only to the recordings. Television stations (including ABC stations) pay much more per track.
And composers, who are paid separately with no legislated limit, get much more.
This means the composers of You’re the Voice get paid quite well, but the performer, John Farnham, does not.
The record industry has tried time and time again to remove the ceiling.
In 2010 it even went to the High Court, arguing along the lines of the case depicted in the movie The Castle that the constitution prevented the Commonwealth from acquiring property other than “on just terms”.
The High Court said “no”, finding copyright wasn’t property.
Now, independent Senator David Pocock is trying again.
‘Fair pay for radio play’
Pocock’s Fair Pay for Radio Play bill would remove the ceilings, allowing the radio industry and the record industry to negotiate “a fair rate” subject to adjudication by the Copyright Tribunal.
The radio industry says, if that happens, it will play less Australian music. It would also ask to be freed from the legislated requirement to play Australian music.
The recording industry talks as if the radio industry is bluffing.
Annabelle Herd, head of the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, told the Senate hearing
even if the radio networks stopped playing all Australian music, they would still have to pay to play UK music, Canadian music and music from pretty much every other country in the world.
It’s a point she might not want to push too far.
In 1970 that’s exactly what happened. In response to what it felt was an over-large demand from the Phonographic Performance Company, the commercial radio industry said no, and refused to play any of its music.
Instead, it played records from independent Australian labels who didn’t charge and got their records pressed in Singapore, and American music, lots of it.
While the industry couldn’t play music from the UK, Canada and a bunch of other countries that were signatories to the relevant copyright treaty, it could play music from the United States, which didn’t charge, and wasn’t.
When radio called the labels’ bluff
A disc jockey quoted at the time said he didn’t think the average listener would notice, and there’s nothing on record to suggest the average listener did.
The Beatles album Let it Be was released on May 8. The record ban, as it was called, came into force on May 16. The Long and Winding Road cracked the top five just about everywhere it was released, apart from Australia.
Five months later, the record companies caved. The only thing the radio industry offered it was a guaranteed number of advertisements per week. Which had been the radio industry’s point all along. The record companies needed ratio play for exposure. Without it, people were unlikely to buy their discs.
Read more:
Facebook won’t keep paying Australian media outlets for their content. Are we about to get another news ban?
It’s possible to stretch parallels too far, but when Facebook temporarily stopped linking to pieces from Australian news sites in 2021, traffic to those sites slid 13%.
The common theme is that – as unfair as it seems – platforms have an awful lot of power over providers. If Coles and Woolworths say no, fruit growers won’t be able to distribute their product; if radio stations say no, artists won’t be as widely disseminated; and if Facebook and its ilk say no, news sites will get fewer clicks.
Facebook has been paying millions of dollars to Australian news sites since the news media bargaining code began in 2021. In February it said when the agreements expire, it will pay no more.
The code allows the government to force Facebook to pay, but only if it continues to link to news, and it has given every indication it won’t. Läs mer…
The federal government has flagged draft legislation on religious freedom but Anthony Albanese this week personally told Peter Dutton he won’t proceed with it without opposition approval.
The PM raised the matter with Dutton when they were both aboard a VIP flight on Monday going to the funeral of former Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s son Jack.
One piece of legislation would amend the Sex Discrimination Act that allows religious schools to discriminate on the basis of their values.
The government would remove the right of schools to discriminate against children on any ground but would retain the schools’ right to preference in hiring staff of their faith or who support their values.
The other piece of legislation is a religious discrimination bill that would add faith to the attributes (such as sex and sexuality) on which people are protected from discrimination.
Albanese told caucus on Tuesday: “If there is bipartisan agreement we will proceed. If there is not agreement, now is not the time to have a divisive debate, especially with the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia”.
He indicated support from the Catholic church, Sydney Anglicans and imans for the government’s approach.
Labor promised before the election it would bring in legislation on religious discrimination.
The attempt by the Coalition government to legislate in this area ended in political disaster for then prime minister Scott Morrison when a number of Liberals crossed the floor over the issue of transgender children. Morrison then pulled the bill.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to advise the government on how to protect students and teachers against discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identification, while also enabling schools to maintain their religious ethos.
The report will be tabled Thursday – the deadline for doing so.
Dutton, at a news conference later on Tuesday, accused Albanese of a “set up”. He claimed the PM was trying to find a way out of his pre-election promise by saying he couldn’t proceed without bipartisan support. This “talks to the character of the Prime Minister”, who couldn’t be taken at his word.
Dutton said Albanese, who had not given him any document, had made it clear he would not support any parliamentary committee inquiry into the legislation. The Opposition Leader said he had treated the conversation as confidential.
Defending its position that it would not have a parliamentary inquiry into the legislation, the government says that since 2016, there have been at least 10 inquiries, more than 260 hearings and consultations and over 70,000 submissions into religious discrimination and removing discrimination exemptions from the Sex Discrimination Act.
In an article in the West Australian on Tuesday Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash posed several issues about the as-yet-unseen legislation.
“First, will the government’s reforms drive school fees up? If the government winds back existing protections, it will increase their exposure to litigation, ” she asked.
“Second, how will religious schools be able to maintain their values?
”Third, could religious schools now be sued for teaching religious doctrines?
”Fourth, can you now be sued for comments about religion under the proposed legislation?” Läs mer…
The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that it’s time to stop using the term “long COVID” has made waves in Australian and international media over recent days.
Gerrard’s comments were related to new research from his team finding long-term symptoms of COVID are similar to the ongoing symptoms following other viral infections.
But there are limitations in this research, and problems with Gerrard’s argument we should drop the term “long COVID”. Here’s why.
A bit about the research
The study involved texting a survey to 5,112 Queensland adults who had experienced respiratory symptoms and had sought a PCR test in 2022. Respondents were contacted 12 months after the PCR test. Some had tested positive to COVID, while others had tested positive to influenza or had not tested positive to either disease.
Survey respondents were asked if they had experienced ongoing symptoms or any functional impairment over the previous year.
The study found people with respiratory symptoms can suffer long-term symptoms and impairment, regardless of whether they had COVID, influenza or another respiratory disease. These symptoms are often referred to as “post-viral”, as they linger after a viral infection.
Gerrard’s research will be presented in April at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Read more:
I have COVID. How likely am I to get long COVID?
After the research was publicised last Friday, some experts highlighted flaws in the study design. For example, Steven Faux, a long COVID clinician interviewed on ABC’s television news, said the study excluded people who were hospitalised with COVID (therefore leaving out people who had the most severe symptoms). He also noted differing levels of vaccination against COVID and influenza may have influenced the findings.
In addition, Faux pointed out the survey would have excluded many older people who may not use smartphones.
The authors of the research have acknowledged some of these and other limitations in their study.
Ditching the term ‘long COVID’
Based on the research findings, Gerrard said in a press release:
We believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long COVID’. They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with this virus. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery.
But Gerrard and his team’s findings cannot substantiate these assertions. Their survey only documented symptoms and impairment after respiratory infections. It didn’t ask people how fearful they were, or whether a term such as long COVID made them especially vigilant, for example.
Tens of thousands of Australians, and millions of people worldwide, have long COVID.
New Africa/Shutterstock
In discussing Gerrard’s conclusions about the terminology, Faux noted that even if only 3% of people develop long COVID (the survey found 3% of people had functional limitations after a year), this would equate to some 150,000 Queenslanders with the condition. He said:
To suggest that by not calling it long COVID you would be […] somehow helping those people not to focus on their symptoms is a curious conclusion from that study.
Another clinician and researcher, Philip Britton, criticised Gerrard’s conclusion about the language as “overstated and potentially unhelpful”. He noted the term “long COVID” is recognised by the World Health Organization as a valid description of the condition.
A cruel irony
An ever-growing body of research continues to show how COVID can cause harm to the body across organ systems and cells.
We know from the experiences shared by people with long COVID that the condition can be highly disabling, preventing them from engaging in study or paid work. It can also harm relationships with their friends, family members, and even their partners.
Despite all this, people with long COVID have often felt gaslit and unheard. When seeking treatment from health-care professionals, many people with long COVID report they have been dismissed or turned away.
Read more:
Social media, activism, trucker caps: the fascinating story behind long COVID
Last Friday – the day Gerrard’s comments were made public – was actually International Long COVID Awareness Day, organised by activists to draw attention to the condition.
The response from people with long COVID was immediate. They shared their anger on social media about Gerrard’s comments, especially their timing, on a day designed to generate greater recognition for their illness.
Since the start of the COVID pandemic, patient communities have fought for recognition of the long-term symptoms many people faced.
The term “long COVID” was in fact coined by people suffering persistent symptoms after a COVID infection, who were seeking words to describe what they were going through.
The role people with long COVID have played in defining their condition and bringing medical and public attention to it demonstrates the possibilities of patient-led expertise. For decades, people with invisible or “silent” conditions such as ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) have had to fight ignorance from health-care professionals and stigma from others in their lives. They have often been told their disabling symptoms are psychosomatic.
Gerrard’s comments, and the media’s amplification of them, repudiates the term “long COVID” that community members have chosen to give their condition an identity and support each other. This is likely to cause distress and exacerbate feelings of abandonment.
Terminology matters
The words we use to describe illnesses and conditions are incredibly powerful. Naming a new condition is a step towards better recognition of people’s suffering, and hopefully, better diagnosis, health care, treatment and acceptance by others.
The term “long COVID” provides an easily understandable label to convey patients’ experiences to others. It is well known to the public. It has been routinely used in news media reporting and and in many reputable medical journal articles.
Most importantly, scrapping the label would further marginalise a large group of people with a chronic illness who have often been left to struggle behind closed doors. Läs mer…
In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to be of national or regional significance.
The Fast-track Approvals Bill, introduced under urgency on March 7, would take precedence over several current environmental laws and give ministers the power to skirt existing approval processes.
Leaders of ten scientific societies that conduct biodiversity research in Aotearoa New Zealand, representing thousands of members (ourselves included), have called on the government to slow down the pace of reform.
They warn that decision-making criteria are weighted towards
development, not environmental protection or sustainable resource use, and undermine New Zealand’s obligations to protect the country’s unique and threatened biodiversity.
New Zealand’s economy relies on the environment in many ways. One study estimated New Zealand’s land-based ecosystem services contributed NZ$57 billion to human welfare in 2012 (27% of the country’s GDP). This includes services such as crop pollination by insects, erosion control by plants and flood regulation by wetlands.
New Zealand’s fruit growers and farmers rely on pollination by insects.
Getty Images/GomezDavid
The fast-track bill requires expert panels to provide recommendations to the relevant ministers within six months of a project being referred to them. This time frame is wholly unsuitable to making proper assessments of environmental impacts, including those on plants and animals, as surveys will likely be conducted at inappropriate times of the year.
No time for on-site ecological assessments
A key requirement of assessing impacts on biodiversity is to undertake new ecological surveys of the project site and surrounds. Such surveys identify the threatened species and ecosystems found on the site, catalogue where they are found and estimate their population numbers.
This information is then used to determine how those species and ecosystems could be affected, and whether the project could be modified to avoid or mitigate these impacts.
There are currently no directions in the bill for the expert panel to commission new ecological surveys. However, even if panels could do this, the six-month time frame precludes robust ecological surveys.
Read more:
Without a better plan, New Zealand risks sleepwalking into a biodiversity extinction crisis
Thorough ecological assessments involve conducting surveys at multiple times throughout the year because certain species will only be present during particular seasons.
For instance, reptiles, frogs, invertebrates and migratory species of birds are usually only detectable during warmer times of the year. Surveys for them during winter are unlikely to find these species.
Many species, including migratory birds such as bar-tailed godwits, are only present during particular seasons.
Getty Images/Imogen Warren
Even certain plants, such as orchids that can lie dormant underground as a tuber, have life cycles that make them difficult to detect. Many grasses are best identified when they are in flower.
In many cases, restricting consenting to just six months means expert panels would have to make their assessments based only on existing ecological information. This is known as a “desktop assessment”.
While a useful first step, these are not a replacement for on-the-ground surveys. This is particularly the case in New Zealand, where we have limited data on many species and for many parts of the country. For example, we don’t have sufficient data on most of New Zealand’s reptiles.
Evidence-based decisions are critical
Apart from the proposed fast-tracking of resource consents, the government has already repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act. Both were enacted only last year as part of a new resource management regime.
The government also plans to replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, which provides direction to local authorities on how to manage activities that affect the health of lakes and rivers.
None of the recent and proposed changes to environmental legislation are responsive to the dual biodiversity and climate crises. They are also inconsistent with the government’s own stated goal of evidence-based decision making.
Read more:
Restoring ecosystems to boost biodiversity is an urgent priority – our ‘Eco-index’ can guide the way
New Zealand’s plants, animals, fungi and ecosystems are globally unique. They underpin key economic sectors, especially primary production and tourism. But they are also threatened with extinction.
More than 75% of New Zealand’s native species of reptile, bird, bat and freshwater fish are either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.
New Zealand has international obligations to conserve biodiversity under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed in 1993. In 2022, New Zealand joined almost 200 member nations in adopting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which commits countries to protect 30% of land and ocean globally by 2030.
Read more:
Despite its green image, NZ has world’s highest proportion of species at risk
Much of New Zealand’s most at-risk indigenous biodiversity is found on private land and may be subject to detrimental impacts from land use and development pressures.
The fast-tracking agenda threatens to undermine New Zealand’s progress on biodiversity protection and other key environmental issues. It erodes rather than sustains the natural capital on which the economy depends.
New Zealand’s scientific societies are urging the coalition government to allow adequate time for appropriate parliamentary select committee processes and thorough public consultation on the bill.
They call for a comprehensive legislative and policy framework, centred on the protection of environmental values and sustainable resource management, to ensure development occurs in ways that don’t further degrade natural capital.
The authors thank Dr Fleur Maseyk for her comments and discussions on this piece. Läs mer…
1 § Denna förordning innehåller bestämmelser om statsbidrag
till vissa organisationer inom det civila samhället som
arbetar med att samordna förmedling av ideella insatser
(volontärsamordning).
Bidrag enligt denna 2024-03-14
1 § Denna förordning innehåller bestämmelser om statsbidrag
till organisationer som företräder urfolket och den nationella
minoriteten samer.
Denna förordning är meddelad med stöd av 8 kap. 7 §
regeringsformen. 2024-03-14