Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts

Wednesday 26 April 2023

Long COVID aka post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) in 2023: no you are not imagining it nor being a malingerer. However research is in its infancy with regard to your often debilitating illness

 


First the good news. On 24 April 2023 the Minister For Health & Labor MP for Port Adelaide Mark Butler announced that The Australian Government will provide a further $50 million from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) for research into post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) – commonly known as Long COVID.


Bringing the Long COVID research funding pool to a total of $66.6 million and proving that parliamentary committee's can sometimes galvanise government.


The following is a slightly more mixed message, as at this stage prevention of Long COVID seems to rely on the implementation of public health measures the states and territories have long since abandoned in practice.

April 2023
CANBERRA





The 213-page report to the Australian Parliament by the House of Representatives Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport can be read and downloaded at:
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportrep/RB000006/toc_pdf/SickandtiredCastingalongshadow.pdf

The Committee accepts the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition of Long COVID as being the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation. Debilitating symptoms can be wide ranging with over 200 being recorded by WHO.

It further accepts that the number of people in Australia who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and were at risk of or possibly went on to develop Long COVID could be anywhere between 228,039 to 2,280,399 individuals. The difficulty in tying down a more definitive figure when it comes to the number of Long COVID suffers is apparently hampered by the paucity of data which has been collected to date.

The report goes on to inform government that:

At this stage it does seem that specific treatments require more evidence of benefit before being specifically recommended, but this will become clearer over time. Certainly, most of the care needs to be provided by the primary care system, such as by GPs, nurses, and allied health professionals.


We will need to help schools, universities, and workplaces adapt to allow the gradual return of people with long COVID. We will also need to train health professionals in how to diagnose and manage long COVID patients.


Mental health issues are clearly an area of concern too, particularly as many suffering from long COVID are aged between 20 and 50 years old and have many concerns, such as family and/or work responsibilities, which place additional stresses on them.....

It is also of concern that women seem more likely to be affected by long COVID than men.

The Committee is also of the view that when it comes to infectious disease and its aftermath:

the development of a national Centre for Disease Control (CDC) within the Department of Health and Aged Care would be the most appropriate mechanism for data collection and linkage with the states and territories.


Likewise, there is much that we do not understand about the virus, such as the fact that it is likely changing from being an acute pandemic virus to now an endemic form.


Research will be very important in helping us understand the best ways and means of managing its ongoing effects, particularly including long COVID. Research should include individuals from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and other high-risk groups including those who are immunosuppressed.


A research program should be established to nationally coordinate and fund research into long COVID and COVID-19 generally. This could be led by the Department of Health and Aged Care — ideally the CDC — and should be the for the longer term.


Clearly, there has been a number of issues raised about reducing transmission of COVID19, such as improving air quality to reduce aerosol spread and this also has reference to broader health outcomes and requires investigation. 


In addressing the prevention of Long COVID the report states quite clearly:


The committee received evidence that emphasised that the best way to prevent long COVID is to prevent an initial COVID-19 infection.


For example, Professor Margaret Hellard, Director of Programs at the Burnet Institute, argued that while we don’t have a full understanding of long COVID, the most effective way to avoid it is to ‘try and stop COVID and reduce the number of COVID infections.


This position is supported by the National Clinical Evidence Taskforce on COVID-19 (NCET), which recommended the Australian Government clearly communicate to the public and to health care providers ‘that prevention of COVID-19 is the most-effective method of preventing long term health issues’ resulting from the virus.


However, this is difficult to achieve without access to other preventative methods given the highly infectious nature of current Omicron variants circulating in the community.


The NCET summarised:

With the shift away from mandated mask use and regular reporting of COVID-19 cases, and the recent removal of the requirement for isolation following confirmed infection, people may have the highly inaccurate impression that COVID-19 is over”. There is a lack of messaging that potential health risks related to COVID19 continue to be relevant and that vaccines, mask use in crowded indoor spaces, testing and isolation are still a valuable way to decrease the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and mitigate the impact of long COVID.


The importance of mask wearing, physical distancing, hygiene and taking other health precautions when visiting high-risk settings cannot be underestimated.


However, the enforcement of these health measures is largely at state and territory government discretion, and to varying extents, now a matter of individual responsibility.


As for the Committee’s view on COVID-19 vaccination:


Booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are important to prevent waning immunity against the rapidly mutating COVID-19 virus.


On 8 February 2023 the Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Aged Care, announced that from 20 February 2023 all adults who have not had a COVID-19 booster or a confirmed case in the past six months are eligible for a COVID-19 booster, irrespective of how many doses that person has received. Additional boosters for people under the age of 18 have not yet been announced, except where children aged 5 to 17 have health conditions that would put them at risk of severe illness.


Although COVID-19 vaccines are widely available and accessible, data suggests that many people are not electing to receive additional doses for which they are eligible. Professor Crabb AC suggested that this may be due to people becoming less aware of the risks associated with COVID-19 infections as the pandemic continues and commented on a general lack of motivation experienced by many people who received their first two doses but ‘don’t see the benefit’ in receiving booster doses......


The Committee made 9 recommendations to government which can be found on xxi & xxiv of the report.



Monday 4 April 2022

Just in time for consideration before Australia goes to the polls to decide on which party will govern the nation, a study is published analysing Liberal Party violence against its female MPs & Senators

 

On 23 March 2022 the Australian Journal of Social Issues published the study The cost of doing politics: A critical discursive analysis of Australian liberal politicians’ responses to accusations by female politicians of bullying and intimidation”, authored by Jasmin Sorrentino (Uni of Adelaide), Martha Augoustinos (Professor, School of Psychology, Uni of Adelaide) and Amanda Le Couteur (Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Uni of Adelaide).


This study focussed on a six week period in August to September 2018 and analysed data comprised of transcripts extracted from the electronic parliamentary database, ParlInfo, as well as television and radio interviews, media announcements, speeches and doorstop interviews. This period coincided with the weeks following Scott Morrison's Liberal partyroom election to the prime ministership


A total of 601 transcripts were found and reduced by selecting transcripts that included direct speech from Liberal Party members, featured the search terms as a topic within the content of the transcript (and not simply the title) and by removing duplicates. Thus the final number of transcripts was reduced to 46, included 19 television, 19 radio and doorstop interviews.


Analysis of the data found two repertoires that were routinely mobilised by Liberal Party (LP) members to deny and mitigate accusations by female Liberal MPs of bullying and intimidation in their party: (1) a gender-neutral repertoire (13 instanceswhereby reported incidents of bullying were argued to apply equally to men and women and (2) a ‘politics is tough’ repertoire (16 instancesthat involved the normalisation of intimidation as part of political culture. Although there is some overlap between the two repertoires (i.e., the ‘politics is tough’ repertoire was commonly deployed alongside the gender-neutral repertoire), the repertoires were recognisable and distinct ways in which party members routinely made sense of gender discrimination.


The study Introduction states of the the background of research:


Recent conversations prompted by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have put issues of workplace sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault into the global spotlight. Women from various sectors, including film and television, technology, business and politics have spoken out on social media and other public spaces about their experiences of harassment or assault, and the problematic culture of their respective workplaces (Collier & Raney, 2018). In early 2021, new and historic sexual assault and rape allegations emerged in the Australian Parliament reigniting discussion about the political culture, including long-held debates about sexism and misogyny. Allegations included a young staffer's claims of rape by a senior colleague in 2019, and a 33-year-old claim of rape against Attorney-General, Christian Porter, from a woman who has since taken her own life (Nine News, 2021). In March 2021, PM Scott Morrison addressed the allegations, which he had previously dismissed as not requiring his immediate attention (Crowe, 2021). Commenting that the government would work towards addressing cultural issues around the treatment of women within parliament, he stated “blokes don't get it right all the time, we all know that, and … what matters is that we're desperately trying to and that's what I’m trying to do. And we will get this right. And we need to focus on that.” (Lowrey & Snape, 2021).


Despite the growing literature on violence against women in politics (VAWIP), little is known about how politicians understand and respond to acts of VAWIP. This study contributes to the emerging literature by analysing the public discourse of Australian Liberal Party (LP) members as they made sense of, and responded to, accusations by female Liberal MPs of bullying and intimidation in their party. The role of such discourse in legitimating and reproducing the status quo in terms of gender inequality will be examined…..


In 1.4 Background to the current study it further states:


In 2018, four female Liberal MPs in Australia made accusations of bullying and intimidation against their male colleagues and members of other parties. These accusations were made days after the swearing-in of Scott Morrison as Australia's 30th Prime Minister (PM) following a turbulent four-day leadership spill. Backbencher Julia Banks announced her resignation from the Liberal Party in August 2018, describing behaviour displayed during the leadership spill as “the scourge of cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation [that] continues against women in politics, the media, and across business” (Banks, 2018). In September 2018, former Liberal Deputy Leader and Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop5 spoke about the underrepresentation of women in parliament, stating that the behaviour towards women “would not be tolerated in any other workplace across Australia” (Branley, 2018). In February 2019, Bishop announced that she would not contest the next election. Liberal Senators Linda Reynolds and Lucy Gichuhi also called out bullying and intimidation of women within the party in August and September 2018, respectively, threatening to go public with details (Grattan, 2018; Karvelas, 2018a). They later chose not to ‘name names’ in parliament and instead agreed to follow an internal complaints process (Karp, 2018). Although media attention largely focussed on the Liberal Party's ‘woman problem’ (Maley, 2018), it was a period in which women across party lines began denouncing sexism and harassment in the Australian Parliament.


In 3.1 Redefining bullying: gender-neutral formulations the study observed:


LP members’ responses to questions posed by interviewers about accusations of bullying and intimidation in their party made by female MPs. LP members routinely produced responses that rejected categorising what had occurred as ‘bullying’, followed by a redefinition of the behaviour as something else. Specifically, reported incidents of bullying were minimised by providing alternative descriptions such as ‘pressure’ (n = 7) and ‘robust discussion’ (n = 6). Accounts typically involved the use of gender-neutral pronouns or gender-equivalent descriptions, that served to make the gendered nature of the bullying and intimidation irrelevant within the political context. The extracts presented below illustrate how gender-neutral accounts were used to discount the validity of claims of bullying by denying the relevance of gender. Such positioning fosters the conclusion that claims of bullying by female MPs are unfounded because men and women are equal in their experiences.


Extract 1 illustrates the way questions posed by interviewers about bullying and intimidation were routinely redefined as matters involving ‘pressure’ and as having been experienced by both men and women. The extract comes from an Australian news and current affairs talk show, The Project (2018). Panel members, Gorgi Coghlan and Hamish Macdonald ask PM, Scott Morrison, about accusations made by female Liberal MPs that bullying occurred during the leadership spill. The ‘politics is tough’ and gender-neutral repertoires simultaneously deny and minimise accusations of bullying towards female MPs.


EXTRACT 1. Scott Morrison 6 September 2018….


In this extract, PM Morrison's account in response to a question from the interviewer (Coghlan) is a denial that bullying of female MPs occurred. His description of the nature of politics as “ferocious” (l.5), and the “last decade” (l.6) as being exceptional in this regard (“the most ferocious period” l.5–6) serves not only to dismiss Coghlan's question about women being bullied during the specific time of the leadership spill (l.2–4) but also to normalise politics as a uniquely difficult environment. On line 9, Morrison downgrades his initial specification of the “ferocious” (l.5, 8) nature of politics by describing the period of voting during a leadership spill (“these ballots” l.18) as involving “a lot of pressure”. This term is recycled at lines 17 and 19, where Morrison responds to the interviewer's question (“Were women bullied in the Liberal Party to vote a certain way?” l.4). Morrison does not pick-up the gender category introduced by Coghlan (“women” l.4), but turns a gendered account into a gender-neutral one by redefining the proposed bullying as something that affects both “men and women” (l.9). This gender-neutralising account invalidates claims that female MPs were bullied by representing both men and women as equal in their experience of “pressure” in politics. Morrison further undermines claims of bullying by constructing a version of the context of the behaviours’ occurrence as distinct from the normal business of politics: “these difficult periods” (l.25).


Extract 2 illustrates another way LP members made sense of bullying claims: redefining bullying as a matter of people speaking strongly. Across the data corpus, variants of this pattern included descriptions of “robust discussions”, “vigorous debates”, “robust argument”, “intense lobbying” and people trying to “persuade each other”. The extract below comes from an interview segment on Sky News Australia, between Victorian Liberal Party State President, Michael Kroger, and host, Laura Jayes (Jayes, 2018). Prior to this segment, Jayes had asked Kroger whether he believes the LP is facing some problems, given that Julia Banks resigned from politics citing bullying as a key reason. Kroger responded by stating that he had spoken to a female MP who said she had not observed any evidence of bullying. The extract below continues this discussion.


EXTRACT 2. Michael Kroger 29 August 2018…..


Kroger's response involves a combination of denial that bullying occurred, the redefinition of intimidation as a matter of (gender-neutral) “people” “speaking strongly to one another”, and the normalisation of such behaviour in politics. His account is built using consensus and corroboration (“I’ve spoken to a number of people” l.2), and extreme case formulation (“none of them” l.2), with both devices functioning to present his argument as widely shared and valid. Notably, Kroger's denial of bullying is not limited to women as targets; he claims that both men and women (l.3) have denied experiencing bullying and intimidation, which also builds the credibility of his account. On line 4–5, Kroger redefines the behaviour in question as being “people speak[ing] strongly to one another”, with a variation at line 10 (“people raise their voice”) which is treated as normal, expected, and appropriate in a political context (“seriously this is politics “l.4, “That's what happens” l.7). These constructions function to do three things. First, and consistent with Extract 1, the gender-neutral account undermines and negates the veracity of bullying accusations by making the salience of social group memberships irrelevant. As Riley (2002) noted, the use of category-neutral terms over social categories (e.g., age, sex or ethnicity) works to mask the potential common experience that members might share. Such gender-neutral terminology also undermines an alternative version—that female members of the LP experience gender-based discrimination—and the seriousness of the behaviour in question. Second, Kroger's redefinition positions such behaviour (e.g., people speaking strongly) as hegemonic, rather than controversial and requiring explanation. Third, Kroger tries to deflect and distract from the issue at hand by referencing the opposition party's widely acknowledged bitter leadership changes (l.7–8), building a case for the normality of “strong feelings” at such times, and thus undermining the need for change.


The study also addressed the nature of violence against women in politics (VAWIP) and broadly accepted internal political party VAWIP as “behaviour that specifically targets women as women to leave politics by pressuring them to step down as candidates or resign a particular political office”.


Going on to state:


VAWIP can have profound effects on women. Those who have been the targets of gender-based violence have reported feelings of loneliness and work dissatisfaction, frustration due to the barriers impeding their political contributions, as well as a desire to leave politics (Krook, 2020). VAWIP also has broader societal impacts in terms of electoral integrity (i.e., procedural fairness and equality of opportunity) and democracy. In other words, VAWIP violates principles of equality because women—by virtue of their gender—are the targets of violence.

See: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajs4.209


Morrison quoted and critiqued in Crikey, 31 March 2022 concerning an incident which occurred in the Senate on the evening of Friday 29 March:


There’s an ever-growing list of women claiming bullying is rife in the Liberal Party, and in a blistering post-budget take-down, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells joined the ranks. It didn’t take long for Scott Morrison to deflect the claims with his reliable and oft-used spin of a woman scorned.


I know Connie is disappointed,” the prime minister said.


Those five words are all it takes to tell a story of a bitter, rejected woman, as if losing her Senate ticket alone would inspire Fierravanti-Wells to stand up in Parliament and tear Morrison and others to shreds. Her detailed account of toxic factional dealings reduced to an emotional outburst with just one short retort.


It’s no surprise that Morrison wasn’t going to cop the accusations on the chin and instead direct any “specific complaints” of bullying to internal party mechanisms.


His handling of the matter is reminiscent of the treatment of former MP Julia Banks. While Banks and Fierravanti-Wells don’t have much in common politically, the dismissal of their serious and scathing accusations of bullying carry plenty of similarities.


When Banks announced she was not contesting the 2019 election, Morrison quickly took up the line that Banks was struggling personally. “I’m supporting Julia and I’m reaching out to Julia and giving her every comfort and support for what has been a pretty torrid ordeal for her,” he said.


His “concern” framed Banks as a woman unable to cope with the fallout of Malcolm Turnbull’s losing the prime ministership. But in fact — as Banks made abundantly clear in her book Power Play — it was her three months under Morrison’s leadership that led her to call it a day. She described him as “menacing, controlling wallpaper” in her book.


Banks has reflected on how Morrison controlled the narrative to try to get ahead of the bullying accusations, with the story that Banks was “this weak petal that hadn’t coped with coup week”.


Fierravanti-Wells on the other hand was able to get her shots in before she could be framed as mentally unstable, so instead she’s received the straight-up scorned woman framing. Either way the dismissal is the same. Whether before or after the fact, Morrison resorts to the narrative of the emotional woman, too fragile to deal with politics, lashing out without reason……


Thursday 5 November 2020

AUSTRALIA: the 13th Climate of the Nation annual research report was published in October 2020


The Australia Institute released its Climate of the Nation 2020 annual research report this month.


This is the third year the Institute has published this research, the ten years previous to 2018 the survey was published by the Climate Institute.


The quantitative survey was conducted on the YouGov Galaxy Online Omnibus between 14 July and 22 July 2020 and the sample comprised 1,998 Australians aged 18 years and older distributed throughout Australia.


While the qualitative survey comprised of four online focus groups were carried out on 31 August and 1 September 2020. The groups were conducted over Zoom with 21 participants in total. The target group was female swing voters from the federal electorates of Lindsay and Macquarie in NSW, and Lilley and Petrie in Queensland who believe in human caused climate change.



Key Findings In "Climate of the Nation 2020":


80% of Australians think we are already experiencing the impact of climate change


82% of Australians are concerned that climate change will result in more bushfires


83% of Australians support a phase-out of coalfired power stations


79% of Australians rank solar in their top three preferred energy sources


40x is the factor by which Australians overestimate gas industry employment


45x is the factor by which Australians overestimate the oil and gas industry’s contribution to Commonwealth revenue


65% of Australians support the introduction of a levy on Australia’s fossil fuel exports to help pay for climate disasters


65% of Australians think the Australian Government should stop new coal mines


71% think Australia should be a world leader in finding solutions to climate change


72% of Australians believe mining companies should be liable for any land or water contamination caused by fracking


74% of Australians believe governments should plan to phase out coal mining and transition to other industries


68% of Australians support a national target for net zero emissions by 2050


77% of Australians agree tackling climate change creates opportunities in clean energy for new jobs and investment


75% of Australians would consider reducing electricity during times of high demand if they were paid to do so


12% of Australians would prefer Australia’s economic recovery to be primarily powered by gas, compared to 59% who prefer it to be powered by investment in renewables


The Australia Institute: Climate of the Nation 2020 research report by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/482520496/The-Australia-Institute-Climate-of-the-Nation-2020-research-report


Sunday 8 March 2020

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre to close because the Morrison Government refuses to consider funding it further


In 2015 the Abbott Coalition Government changed guidelines for government-industry-community cooperative research centres.

This change was implemented by the federal Department of Industry and Science.

At the time the 2015/2016 Federal budget planned to cut $26.8 million of CRC funding (over four years).

In spite of the original budget cut less than two years into its existence, the 
Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC) went on to do sterling work in cooperation with federal and state governments, industry, non-government organisations and international bodies.

This was Australian Prime Minister on 7 February 2020 according to the 
BNHCRC website: 


CRC Chair Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, CRC Research Director Dr John Bates and Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews.


Prime Minister Scott Morrison invited the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC to Parliament House to discuss current and future contributions of research to the bushfire response and recovery. 

CRC Chair Dr Katherine Woodthorpe and Acting CEO and Research Director Dr John Bates met with Prime Minister Morrison and the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews on 5 February to talk about building a bushfire-resilient Australia. 

After the meeting Prime Minister Morrison posted the above picture on his Facebook page, saying: 

“Today Minister Karen Andrews and I also met with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC to discuss their important work to assist with the bushfire response and improve preparedness for future fire seasons. We talked about making a more bushfire-resilient Australia and how it can support the proposed Royal Commission.” 

The CRC was invited to discuss how it could support the Royal Commission using its research knowledge and expertise, and through the Inquiries and Reviews database that catalogues over 300 inquiries and reviews of emergencies and disasters caused by natural hazards across all jurisdictions in Australia between 1886 and 2017. The database captures the findings of previous royal commissions and other bushfire inquiries.

What Scott Morrison was well aware of, and most ordinary voters hadn't realised, was that the 2015 change to those guidelines meant that the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre would cease to receive federal government funding as of 30 June 2021 and inevitably will have to close its doors.

On the heels of a devastating 2019-2020 bushfires season, marked by mega wildfires burning across millions of hectares, this Senate Estimates hearing (below) is how the Australian public became widely aware that one of the supports enabling emergency services to fight such fires was being withdrawn.
On 2 January 2020 The Australian reported that the Insurance Council of Australia had urged the federal government to commit to keep funding this key bushfire research organisation.

This call seems to have had no effect on Scott Morrison and his government - it appears that he is still intent on burning Australia back to nothing but bare barren earth.

Wednesday 26 February 2020

It appears that almost singlehandedly Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have sunk his own government.


"Around 77.8 per cent of the population reported indirect exposure, by having a friend or family member that had property damage; friend/family that had property threatened; had their travel/holiday plans affected; were exposed to the physical effects of smoke; or felt anxious or worried. This equates to around 15.4 million adults." ["Exposure and the impact on attitudes of the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires" 2020]

In January 2020 the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and the Social Research Centre collected data from more than three thousand Australian adults from the probability sample ‘Life in Australia’ about their exposure to the bushfires that occurred across the spring and summer of late 2019 and into early 2020. 

Researchers also asked about a range of attitudes towards the environment, institutions, and political issues. 

Data from the January 2020 ANU poll was able to be linked to previous polls at the individual level.

This is the result........

Biddle, N, Edwards, B, Herz, D & Makkai, T, (2020) "Exposure and the impact on attitudes of the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires":

Abstract 

The bushfires that occurred over the 2019/20 Australian spring and summer were unprecedented in scale and wide in their geographic impact. 

Between 20 January and 3 February 2020, the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods and the Social Research Centre collected data from more than three thousand Australian adults about their exposure to the bushfires, as well as a range of other attitudes and beliefs. 

We estimate that the vast majority of Australians (78.6 per cent) were impacted in one way or another either directly, through their family/friends, or through the physical effects of smoke. 

Furthermore, we estimate that around 2.9 million adult Australians had their property damaged, their property threatened, or had to be evacuated. 

This is the first estimate of self-reported impacts on that scale from a nationally representative, probability-based survey. 

Our survey findings also show that subjective wellbeing amongst the Australian population has declined since the start of spring 2019, people are less satisfied with the direction of the country, and have less confidence in the Federal Government. 

People are more likely, however, to think that the environment and climate change are issues and a potential threat to them, with a significant decline in the proportion of people who support new coal mines. 

By linking individuals through time, we are also able to show that some of these changes are attributable to exposure to the bushfires.

DOCUMENT Exposure_and_impact_on_attitudes_of_the_2019-20_Australian_Bushfires_publication.pdf (PDF685.59 KB):


General satisfaction with life before and after the bushfire season 

In the October 2019 ANUpoll 65.2 per centsaid they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the way the country is heading. By January 2020 this had declined to 59.5 per cent of adult Australians. 

Over the same period, there was a small (but significant) average decline in life satisfaction from 7.05 (on a scale from 0 to 10) to 6.9. 

Levels of confidence in institutions 

Confidence in the federal government declined by 10.9 percentage points from October 2019 to 27.3 per cent by January 2020. 

Confidence in other institutions was quite stable over the period, and higher than for the Federal Government. In January 2020: 

• 48.8 per cent of the population had confidence in the public service (52.1 per cent in October 2019); 

• 73.8 per cent had confidence in the police (75.8 per cent in October 2019); 

• 40.4 per cent had confidence in the State/Territory Government where they lived (not asked in 2019); and 

• 93.0 per cent reported confidence in organisations responsible for firefighting in regional or rural areas (not asked in 2019). 

Voting patterns between October 2019 and January 2020 

The per cent of people who said they would vote for the Coalition if an election was held that day declined from 40.4 per cent in October 2019 to 34.8 per cent in January 2020. 

The largest relative increase (8.8 per cent to 10.5 per cent) was for those who would vote for a party other than the Coalition, Labor, or the Greens. 

Views on party leaders between June 2019 and January 2020 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s average rating declined from 5.25 to 3.92 out of 10. 

Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese’s average rating increased from 4.87 to 5.04. 

Changes in attitudes towards the environment 

49.7 per cent of people reported aspects of the environment as the most important issue or second most important issue facing Australia in January 2020 compared to 41.5 per cent in October 2019. 

Reporting fires, natural disasters or extreme weather as the most or second most important issue were close to non-existent in October 2019. This increased to 10.2 percent by January 2020. 

Concern about most specific issues increased from 2008 to January 2020, with the greatest increase for: 

• loss of native vegetation or animal species or biodiversity (a 13 percentage point increase); 

• drought and drying (a 9 percentage point increase). 

Support for new coal mines have declined since the May 2019 election. In June 2019 45.3 per cent said yes to the question ‘In your opinion, should the Government allow the opening of news coal mines?’. This had declined to 37.0 per cent in January 2020.

Capital cities versus the rest 

There is majority support by residents in both capital and those living outside of capital cities that global warming is very serious, and that global warming will be a threat to them. These views are more strongly held by capital city residents. 

Only 35.6 per cent of capital and 40.1 per cent of non-capital city residents support new coal mines and there is no statistically significant difference in views between the two. 

Did exposure to the bushfires affect changes in satisfaction, confidence or voting intentions? 

Direct or indirect exposure to bushfires did not statistically affect changes in life satisfaction between October and January. 

Indirect exposure to the bushfires affected levels of confidence in government and satisfaction with the direction of the country. Those exposed reported greater declines in both confidence and satisfaction. 

Although there was no significant direct affect from the bushfires on reporting a change in voting intention, exposure to the bushfires was associated with a significant decline in the likeability of Prime Minister Scott Morrison......

It appears that almost singlehandedly Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison - aka #ScottyFromMarketing - may have sunk his own government.

Tuesday 7 May 2019

Lobby group giving farmers a bad name



The Guardian, 2 May 2019:

The Queensland farm lobby AgForce has deleted more than a decade worth of data from a government program that aims to improve water quality in the Great Barrier Reef, in response to state government moves to introduce new reef protection laws.

Guardian Australia revealed in June that the state’s auditor general had raised concerns that agriculture industry groups had refused to share data from the “best management practices” program due to privacy concerns.

In recent months, AgForce and others had campaigned against the imposition of new reef protection regulations, which set sediment “load limits” in reef catchments and impose new standards on farmers.

The proposed new laws, which have been introduced to state parliament, also include a provision to allow the environment minister to obtain data from agricultural groups……

The Queensland environment minister, Leeanne Enoch, told the Courier-Mail the decision flushed “so much work and the taxpayer dollars that have been supporting it out to sea”.

“AgForce often claims that they are true environmentalists but this decision is not the action of a group that wants to protect the environment,” she said.

The Queensland audit office last year found that the success of the best management practices program could not be properly measured because the agricultural groups that receive government funding would not provide data on whether producers had actually improved their practices.

“This detailed information is currently held by the industry groups,” the report said. “Despite this work being funded by government, the information is not provided to government due to privacy concerns from the industry.

“These data restrictions mean government does not have full visibility of the progress made and cannot measure the degree of practice change or assess the value achieved from its investment of public funds.

“This means that the reported proportion of lands managed using best management practice systems could be overstated.”

Monday 9 April 2018

Land degradation will be main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050



IPBES: Science and Policy for People and nature, media release, 26 March 2018:

Worsening Worldwide Land Degradation Now ‘Critical’, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People

Main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050 In landmark 3-year assessment report, 100+ experts outline costs, dangers & options

Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and restoration.
The dangers of land degradation, which cost the equivalent of about 10% of the world’s annual gross product in 2010 through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, are detailed for policymakers, together with a catalogue of corrective options, in the three-year assessment report by more than 100 leading experts from 45 countries, launched today.
Produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the report was approved at the 6th session of the IPBES Plenary in MedellĂ­n, Colombia. IPBES has 129 State Members.

Providing the best-available evidence for policymakers to make better-informed decisions, the report draws on more than 3,000 scientific, Government, indigenous and local knowledge sources. Extensively peer-reviewed, it was improved by more than 7,300 comments, received from over 200 external reviewers.

Serious Danger to Human Well-being

Rapid expansion and unsustainable management of croplands and grazing lands is the most extensive global direct driver of land degradation, causing significant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services – food security, water purification, the provision of energy and other contributions of nature essential to people. This has reached ‘critical’ levels in many parts of the world, the report says.

“With negative impacts on the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, the degradation of the Earth’s land surface through human activities is pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction,” said Prof. Robert Scholes (South Africa), co-chair of the assessment with Dr. Luca Montanarella (Italy). “Avoiding, reducing and reversing this problem, and restoring degraded land, is an urgent priority to protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and to ensure human well-being.”

“Wetlands have been particularly hard hit,” said Dr. Montanarella. “We have seen losses of 87% in wetland areas since the start of the modern era – with 54% lost since 1900.”
According to the authors, land degradation manifests in many ways: land abandonment, declining populations of wild species, loss of soil and soil health, rangelands and fresh water, as well as deforestation.

Underlying drivers of land degradation, says the report, are the high-consumption lifestyles in the most developed economies, combined with rising consumption in developing and emerging economies. High and rising per capita consumption, amplified by continued population growth in many parts of the world, can drive unsustainable levels of agricultural expansion, natural resource and mineral extraction, and urbanization – typically leading to greater levels of land degradation.

By 2014, more than 1.5 billion hectares of natural ecosystems had been converted to croplands. Less than 25% of the Earth’s land surface has escaped substantial impacts of human activity – and by 2050, the IPBES experts estimate this will have fallen to less than 10%.

Crop and grazing lands now cover more than one third of the Earth´s land surface, with recent clearance of native habitats, including forests, grasslands and wetlands, being concentrated in some of the most species-rich ecosystems on the planet.

The report says increasing demand for food and biofuels will likely lead to continued increase in nutrient and chemical inputs and a shift towards industrialized livestock production systems, with pesticide and fertilizer use expected to double by 2050.

Avoidance of further agricultural expansion into native habitats can be achieved through yield increases on the existing farmlands, shifts towards less land degrading diets, such as those with more plant-based foods and less animal protein from unsustainable sources, and reductions in food loss and waste.

Strong Links to Climate Change

“Through this report, the global community of experts has delivered a frank and urgent warning, with clear options to address dire environmental damage,” said Sir Robert Watson, Chair of IPBES. 

“Land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment. We cannot afford to tackle any one of these three threats in isolation – they each deserve the highest policy priority and must be addressed together.”
The IPBES report finds that land degradation is a major contributor to climate change, with deforestation alone contributing about 10% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Another major driver of the changing climate has been the release of carbon previously stored in the soil, with land degradation between 2000 and 2009 responsible for annual global emissions of up to 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2.

Given the importance of soil’s carbon absorption and storage functions, the avoidance, reduction and reversal of land degradation could provide more than a third of the most cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation activities needed by 2030 to keep global warming under the 2°C threshold targeted in the Paris Agreement on climate change, increase food and water security, and contribute to the avoidance of conflict and migration. 

Projections to 2050

“In just over three decades from now, an estimated 4 billion people will live in drylands,” said Prof. Scholes. “By then it is likely that land degradation, together with the closely related problems of climate change, will have forced 50-700 million people to migrate. Decreasing land productivity also makes societies more vulnerable to social instability – particularly in dryland areas, where years with extremely low rainfall have been associated with an increase of up to 45% in violent conflict.”

Dr. Montanarella added: “By 2050, the combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce global crop yields by an average of 10%, and by up to 50% in some regions. In the future, most degradation will occur in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – the areas with the most land still remaining that is suitable for agriculture.”

The report also underlines the challenges that land degradation poses, and the importance of restoration, for key international development objectives, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. “The greatest value of the assessment is the evidence that it provides to decision makers in Government, business, academia and even at the level of local communities,” said Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of IPBES. “With better information, backed by the consensus of the world’s leading experts, we can all make better choices for more effective action.”

Options for Land Restoration

The report notes that successful examples of land restoration are found in every ecosystem, and that many well-tested practices and techniques, both traditional and modern, can avoid or reverse degradation.
In croplands, for instance, some of these include reducing soil loss and improving soil health, the use of salt tolerant crops, conservation agriculture and integrated crop, livestock and forestry systems.
In rangelands with traditional grazing, maintenance of appropriate fire regimes, and the reinstatement or development of local livestock management practices and institutions have proven effective.

Successful responses in wetlands have included control over pollution sources, managing the wetlands as part of the landscape, and reflooding wetlands damaged by draining.
In urban areas, urban spatial planning, replanting with native species, the development of ‘green infrastructure’ such as parks and riverways, remediation of contaminated and sealed soils (e.g. under asphalt), wastewater treatment and river channel restoration are identified as key options for action.   
   
Opportunities to accelerate action identified in the report include:

Improving monitoring, verification systems and baseline data;
Coordinating policy between different ministries to simultaneously encourage more sustainable production and consumption practices of land-based commodities;

Eliminating ‘perverse incentives’ that promote land degradation and promoting positive incentives that reward sustainable land management; and

Integrating the agricultural, forestry, energy, water, infrastructure and service agendas.
Making the point that existing multilateral environmental agreements provide a good platform for action to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and promote restoration, the authors observe, however, that greater commitment and more effective cooperation is needed at the national and local levels to achieve the goals of zero net land degradation, no loss of biodiversity and improved human well-being.

Knowledge Gaps

Among the areas identified by the report as opportunities for further research are:

The consequences of land degradation on freshwater and coastal ecosystems, physical and mental health and spiritual well-being, and infectious disease prevalence and transmission;

The potential for land degradation to exacerbate climate change, and land restoration to help both mitigation and adaptation;

The linkages between land degradation and restoration and social, economic and political processes in far-off places; and

Interactions among land degradation, poverty, climate change, and the risk of conflict and of involuntary migration.

Environmental and Economic Sense

The report found that higher employment and other benefits of land restoration often exceed by far the costs involved.  On average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher than the costs (estimated across nine different biomes), and, for regions like Asia and Africa, the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at least three times higher than the cost of action.

“Fully deploying the toolbox of proven ways to stop and reverse land degradation is not only vital to ensure food security, reduce climate change and protect biodiversity,” said Dr. Montanarella, “It’s also economically prudent and increasingly urgent.”

Echoing this message, Sir Robert Watson, said: “Of the many valuable messages in the report, this ranks among the most important: implementing the right actions to combat land degradation can transform the lives of millions of people across the planet, but this will become more difficult and more costly the longer we take to act.”

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See:

Unedited advance Summary for Policymakers of the regional assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services for Asia and the Pacific

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Unedited advance Summary for Policymakers of the thematic assessment of land degradation and restoration
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