Short-term exposure to high levels of air pollution kills 1 million globally every year: Monash University
- Asia accounted for approximately 65.2 per cent of global mortality due to short-term PM2.5 exposure
- Africa 17.0 per cent
- Europe 12.1 per cent
- The Americas 5.6 per cent
- Oceania 0.1 per cent
Blood-based marker developed to identify sleep deprivation: Monash University
Cost of living and digital economy shape 2024-25 compliance and enforcement priorities: ACCC
Fertility: Skin Cell Turned Into an Egg - Research sheds light on new strategy to treat infertility
Indigenous fire management began more than 11,000 years ago: new research
Cassandra Rowe, James Cook University; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University, and Michael Bird, James Cook UniversityWildfire burns between 3.94 million and 5.19 million square kilometres of land every year worldwide. If that area were a single country, it would be the seventh largest in the world.
In Australia, most fire occurs in the vast tropical savannas of the country’s north. In new research published in Nature Geoscience, we show Indigenous management of fire in these regions began at least 11,000 years ago – and possibly as long as 40,000 years ago.
Fire and humans
In most parts of the planet, fire has always affected the carbon cycle, the distribution of plants, how ecosystems function, and biodiversity patterns more generally.
But climate change and other effects of human activity are making wildfires more common and more severe in many regions, often with catastrophic results. In Australia, fires have caused major economic, environmental and personal losses, most recently in the south of the country.
One likely reason for the increase of catastrophic fires in Australia is the end of Indigenous fire management after Europeans arrived. This change has caused a decline in biodiversity and the buildup of burnable material, or “fuel load”.
While southern fires have been particularly damaging in recent years, more than two-thirds of all Australia’s wildfires happen during the dry season in the tropical savannas of the north. These grasslands cover about 2 million square kilometres, or around a quarter of the country.
When Europeans first saw these tropical savannas, they believed they were seeing a “natural” environment. However, we now think these landscapes were maintained by Indigenous fire management (dubbed “firestick farming” in the 1960s).
Indigenous fire management is a complex process that involves strategically burning small areas throughout the dry season. In its absence, savannas have seen the kind of larger, higher-intensity fires occurring late in the dry season that likely existed before people, when lightning was the sole source of ignition.
We know fire was one of the main tools Indigenous people used to manipulate fuel loads, maintain vegetation and enhance biodiversity. We do not know the time frames over which the “natural” fire regime was transformed into one managed by humans.
A 150,000-year record of fire and climate
To understand this transformation better, we took an 18-metre core sample from sediment at Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin. Using this sample, we developed detailed pollen records of vegetation and charcoal, and paired them with geochemical records of climate and fire to reveal how fire patterns have changed over the past 150,000 years.
Now surrounded by suburbs, Girraween Lagoon (the “Place of Flowers”) is a significant site to the Larrakia and Wulna peoples. It is also where the crocodile-attack scene in the movie Crocodile Dundee was filmed.
The lagoon was created after a sinkhole formed, and has contained permanent water ever since. The sediment core we took contains a unique 150,000-year record of environmental change in Australia’s northern savannas.
The core records revealed a dynamic, changing environment. The vegetation around Girraween Lagoon today has a tall and relatively dense tree canopy with a thick grass understory in the wet season.
However, during the last ice age 20,000–30,000 years ago, the site where Darwin sits now was more than 300 km from the coast due to the sea level dropping as the polar ice caps expanded. At that time, the lagoon shrank into its sinkhole and it was surrounded by open, grassy savanna with fewer, shorter trees.
Around 115,000 years ago, and again around 90,000 years ago, Australia was dotted with gigantic inland “megalakes”. At those times, the lagoon expanded into a large, shallow depression surrounded by lush monsoon forest, with almost no grass.
When human fire management began
The Girraween record is one of the few long-term climate records that covers the period before people arrived in Australia some 65,000 years ago, as well as after. This unique coverage provides us with the hard data indicating when the natural fire regime (infrequent, high-intensity fires) switched to a human-managed one (frequent, low-intensity fires).
The data show that by at least 11,000 years ago, as the climate began to resemble the modern climate that established itself after the last ice age, fires became more frequent but less intense.
Frequent, low-intensity fire is the hallmark of Indigenous fire regimes that were observed across northern Australia at European arrival. Our data also showed tantalising indications that this change from a natural to human-dominated fire regime occurred progressively from as early as 40,000 years ago, but it certainly did not occur instantaneously.
Unlocking Girraween’s secrets with modern scientific techniques has provided unprecedented insights into how the tropical savannas of Australia, and their attendant biodiversity, coevolved over millennia under this new Indigenous fire regime that reduced risk and increased resources.
The rapid change to a European fire regime – with large, intense fires occurring late in the dry season – abruptly regressed patterns to the pre-human norm. This ecosystem-scale shock altered a carefully nurtured biodiversity established over tens of thousands of years and simultaneously increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Reversing these dangerous trends in Australia’s tropical savanna requires re-establishing an Indigenous fire regime through projects such as the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement managed by Indigenous land managers. By implication, the reintroduction of Indigenous land management in other parts of the world could help reduce the impacts of catastrophic fires and increase carbon sequestration in the future.
Cassandra Rowe, Research Fellow, James Cook University; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University, and Michael Bird, JCU Distinguished Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
2024 could be the year the Fair Work umpire properly values women’s work – here’s how
Lisa Heap, RMIT UniversityThis International Women’s Day, it is time to call on Australia’s workplace umpire, the Fair Work Commission, to finally close the gender pay gap.
Half a century after the commission’s predecessor granted women “equal pay for equal work” in a landmark case in 1969, the gap remains between 12% and 21%.
Amendments to the Fair Work Act by the incoming Labor government in 2022 gave it new tools to close the gap by addressing the undervaluation of work in traditionally female-dominated occupations.
If it uses these tools to their full potential, 2024 will be a landmark year in the genuine achievement of equal pay for equal work.
What we’ve been doing hasn’t much worked
Traditionally in Australia, addressing gender-based undervaluation has relied on two approaches.
The first has been to argue the business case for gender equality – convincing employers they’ll be rewarded for “doing the right thing”.
The second has been to bring equal pay cases to tribunals.
Unfortunately, neither approach has been successful. In particular, pushing for equal remuneration through tribunals has been time-consuming and expensive.
These tribunals, historically working on models of male full-time wage earners, have struggled to understand the undervaluation of work performed predominantly by women.
The commission’s new tools
The commission’s act has been rewritten to require it to
promote job security and gender equality.
It also has the power to make equal remuneration orders either on its own initiative or on application in order to bring about equal pay for work of equal or comparable value.
A further new development is the establishment of expert panels to assist in gender-related cases. Advice from gender experts should assist in overcoming historical gender biases in commission decisions.
Perhaps the most promising tool is the change to the commission’s modern awards objective, which requires it to eliminate gender-based undervaluation of work and provide workplace conditions that facilitate women’s full economic participation each time it reviews an award.
Among other things, this requirement is likely to result in provisions that ensure part-time work is treated equally to full-time work and ensure a better balance between work and caring responsibilities.
Amending awards is likely to be particularly important for women given that almost three in five of the workers on awards are women. Men are mainly on negotiated agreements.
If the commission wanted to, it could hold a wide-ranging inquiry into the many factors that have contributed to gender-based undervaluation of women’s work.
It could also review entire industries and occupations that are female-dominated, upgrading multiple awards at the same time. This would avoid lengthy and costly reviews of individual awards.
What’s likely in 2024
The Fair Work Commission’s resolve to make lasting change will be tested by several matters currently before it.
The commission is due to issue its final decision in the case lodged by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the Health Services Union, and the United Workers Union on the value of the work done by workers in aged care.
An initial interim decision delivered in 2022 awarded some – but not all – of these workers a 15% increase, finding that work in feminised industries had been historically undervalued and the reason for that undervaluation is likely to be gender-based".
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke backed the decision, saying it was merely the “first step”.
Another application, for nurses and midwives outside of aged care, was lodged by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation in February this year.
The commission has already started the process of grappling with gender-based undervaluation in modern awards, commissioning research that documents the segregation of women and men into different occupations and industries.
Further research documenting the history of a select group of female-dominated modern awards and identifying the extent to which common elements indicate gender-based undervaluation, is due to be released in April.
It will feed into the annual wage review due by the middle of the year.
How to be bold
Gender-based undervaluation of women’s work won’t be eradicated by incremental adjustments.
Here are three bold steps the commission could take:
grant a minimum interim 12% increase (one estimate of Australia’s national gender pay gap) across the board for female-dominated awards in this year’s annual wage review
develop new systems for classifying work and ascribing work value, breaking with the previous standards built around skills and qualifications in male dominated occupations
better consider the uneven bargaining power in industries such as nursing where governments fund care work and try to restrain costs.
The changes to the Fair Work Act that allow multi-employer bargaining are a start, but unlikely alone to correct the undervaluation of women’s work.
In female-dominated industries where collective bargaining is non-existent or ineffective, the commission should step in and further increase wages.
The Fair Work Commission has been given the tools. This should be the year it applies them.
Lisa Heap, Doctoral Researcher RMIT University; Senior Researcher Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, RMIT University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Australia’s restrictive vaping and tobacco policies are fuelling a lucrative and dangerous black market
James Martin, Deakin University and David Bright, Deakin UniversityAustralia currently has the most restrictive tobacco and vaping policies in the developed world. Australian smokers are taxed at one of the highest rates among comparable nations, with taxes set to further increase at rate of 5% per year. Meanwhile, Australia is the only country to have a prescription model for accessing vaping products.
These policies have begun to attract international attention. The UK government, for example, recently announced increased taxes on tobacco and vaping products, while the Labour opposition has vowed to emulate Australia’s prescription model if it wins this year’s election.
Australia’s policies have been backed by some medical experts as a means to drive down and eventually eliminate smoking and vaping. There has been much alarm around youth vaping, in particular.
While arguably well-intentioned, the increasing taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and vaping products have resulted in an unintended and dangerous outcome – the rise of a lucrative and expanding black market for these products.
Tobacco ‘war’ unfolding in Victoria
Emerging black markets tend to attract established organised crime groups, which have the capacity to use violence to enforce contracts, collect debts and threaten competitors.
Over the past six months, for instance, there have been more than 40 firebombings of stores selling illicit tobacco and vapes across Victoria. In October, police said the killing of Melbourne man in a drive-by shooting was also linked to the underworld war over illegal tobacco products. Reports of standover tactics and extortion targeting tobacco shop owners are also on the rise.
According to police, this serious criminal activity is being committed at the behest of rival criminal networks who are engaged in a “turf war” for control of the lucrative trade.
Since October, police have searched almost 70 stores believed to be involved in the illegal tobacco trade, seizing more than 100,000 vapes with an estimated street value of A$3.2 million, along with 3.2 million cigarettes.
While most of the violence associated with the black market appears to be taking place in Victoria, this is a national problem. Last month in Sydney, health authorities seized over 30,000 vapes and 118,000 cigarettes with a estimated street value of $1.1 million.
These numbers may sound impressive, but they represent a drop in the ocean of the total black market. Authorities estimate the size of the illicit vape market could be worth up to $500 million in Victoria alone.
The economics of the black market
The black market for illicit tobacco and vaping products has been driven by economic forces on both the supply and demand side.
On the demand side, smokers are disproportionately concentrated among lower socio-economic groups. Many are unable or unwilling to pay the ever-increasing prices for cigarettes.
People who vape are also largely rejecting the government’s prescription model, with 87% reporting they source their vapes illegally.
This demand is only likely to increase as cigarette prices increase further and prescription vapes become even less appealing with the introduction of new flavour restrictions.
On the supply side, economic models suggest traffickers of illicit products are attracted to opportunities that present the lowest risks and highest rewards.
Similar to drugs like cocaine, the importation of illicit tobacco offers attractive profits. The difference is that while importing large quantities of cocaine can lead to substantial prison sentences, the penalties for the importation of illicit tobacco are not as severe.
Vapes are similarly low risk and highly profitable. They can be purchased wholesale from China for as little as $2.50 and sold “on the street” in Australia for more than ten times that amount.
The limits and dangers of prohibition
These economic realities suggest it is unlikely law enforcement agencies will be able to effectively tackle the black market under current government settings.
The Australian Border Force is already stretched beyond capacity tackling the booming illicit drug market. So, even if eight out of ten consignments of illicit vapes are intercepted at the border (an unrealistically high proportion on the best of days), the two that make it through are sufficient for traffickers to make a profit.
And while law enforcement agencies have made inroads with arrests of black marketeers and seizures of their products, these are often quickly replaced so trafficking operations can continue unabated.
As previous examples of prohibition on alcohol and other drugs have demonstrated, the dangers of black markets extend beyond systemic violence. Other harms include the influx of inferior and adulterated products, which can pose even more health risks than legal tobacco products. Young people also have greater access to vapes as black market retailers ignore restrictions on sales to minors. (It should be noted, though, that many retailers may be doing so under duress.)
Added to this is the risk of criminalisation of consumers. A teenager in NSW was recently arrested, for example, following an altercation with police over his possession of a vape.
Then there is the lost tax revenue from tobacco goods sold under the counter, which the Taxation Office estimated at $2.3 billion in 2021-22.
The Australian public and policymakers, as well as other countries considering emulating our policies, need to be mindful of these risks and the implacable economic forces that are driving the black market.
Australia’s tobacco and vaping policies have transformed two largely legal and peaceful markets into increasingly dangerous and uncontrolled ones. The situation could even get worse in the absence of meaningful legislative reform, enhanced multi-agency cooperation, nationally consistent policy platforms and the winding back of some restrictions.
As the history of prohibition has taught us time and again, there is a “sweet spot” in restricting the sale of harmful products – one that limits access and reduces harm, but is not so onerous as to create a large black market. The violence unfolding on our streets suggests our current tobacco and vaping polices are failing to strike this balance.
James Martin, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University and David Bright, Professor of Criminology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Prefabricated and build-to-rent houses could help bring rents down
Ameeta Jain, Deakin UniversityThis article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.
Australia’s rental vacancy rate has hit a historic low of close to zero. The latest estimate from SQM Research is 1.1%. The latest estimate from the property listing firm Domain is 0.7%.
As would be expected with hardly any of Australia’s rental properties vacant and available for rent, rents have soared – at first in 2022 only for newly advertised properties, and later for properties in general as measured by average rents.
The Bureau of Statistics measure of average capital city rents climbed 7.3% throughout 2023. It would have climbed by more – by 8.5% – had the bureau not taken account of the increased rent assistance in the May budget, which depressed recorded rents by 1.2%.
Demand surged while new supply sank
Vacancy rates have fallen and rents have climbed because the demand for living space has surged; at first in the aftermath of lockdowns as Australians sought accommodation with fewer housemates and more home office space, and later as borders reopened and Australia’s population swelled.
At the same time, the number of dwellings completed dived in response to shortages of both labour and materials.
Before COVID about 50,000 new dwellings were completed per quarter. Since then, completions have rarely exceeded 45,000.
Tweaking tax concessions would do little to help
While the Australian Greens are pressing the government to wind back capital gains tax concessions and limit negative gearing in order to wind back home prices, there’s little reason to think the changes would do much to reduce rents.
Half of all Australian landlords negatively gear by making a net loss on rental income in order to profit later from concessionally taxed capital gains. Attacking these tax concessions would be likely to cause some of them to reconsider being landlords.
But if they sold, more renters would be able to buy and stop renting, leaving the balance of renters and properties for rent little changed.
Rent assistance and caps won’t much help either
While there is popular support for increasing rent assistance, and while it has materially cut rents paid over the past year, it won’t create more rental properties.
Very big increases in rent assistance might even lift rents further by increasing the amount renters are able to pay. However, the effect is unlikely to be big because Commonwealth rent assistance is restricted to welfare recipients.
Rent caps or freezes don’t increase supply either, and run the risk of encouraging a black market in bidding to pay rents over the legally sanctioned cap.
What’s needed is more homes, in the right places
The government’s new Housing Australia Future Fund and associated agreements are intended to support the delivery of 20,000 new social and 20,000 new affordable homes over the next five years.
Separately, the Commonwealth and the states have agreed to an ambitious target of 1.2 million “new well-located homes” over the next five years, up from 918,200 over the past five years.
The Commonwealth has set aside A$3 billion for “performance-based funding” to the states paid at the rate of $15,000 for each new well-located home they deliver in excess of their share of 1 million new homes in five years.
If the states and territories are able to deliver 1.2 million homes over five years rather than 1 million, Grattan Institute analysis suggests rents will be 4% lower than they would have been.
NSW is displaying the sort of initiative that will be needed. The state is allowing developers of projects worth more than A$75 million to build taller buildings with more accommodation as long as they use 15% of the floor space for affordable housing.
NSW is also allowing denser development within 400 metres of 31 train stations.
Build-to-rent would help
In Australia, most rental properties (even apartments) are owned by individual so-called “mum and dad” investors.
Overseas in the United States and Europe, they are more likely to be owned by corporations who build entire blocks to lease.
These corporations are more concerned about long-term returns than individual owners who want the flexibility to sell, so they tend to offer long-term leases on better terms.
In last year’s budget the government offered build-to-rent tax rules which the Property Council of Australia says could create thousands of extra homes.
On one hand, they are unlikely to be homes for low-income renters. Developers require commercial returns. On the other hand, an increasing number of renters have high incomes.
The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute says while in 1996 households with incomes worth $140,000 a year or more in today’s dollars accounted for only 8% of renters, by 2021 they accounted for 24%.
Pre-fabs could also help, and more apprentices
Another thing that would help is encouraging the use of prefabrication to cut construction times and costs, using locally sourced materials.
Prefabricated homes were used to house migrants after the second world war. More recently they have been used to house NSW flood victims.
They will still require skilled builders and tradespeople, who are in short supply. Only about half of enrolled apprentices complete their training, and the dropout rate has been climbing.
The government has announced an in-depth review of Australia’s system of apprenticeship support. It’s due to report later this year.
It might also help to prioritise the migration of tradespeople. It’s hard to build more homes in the right places, but that’s what we need.
Ameeta Jain, Associate Professor, Deakin Business School, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Let’s not kid ourselves that private investors or super funds will build the social housing we need
Brendan Coates, Grattan Institute and Joey Moloney, Grattan InstituteThis article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is leading a push to get private investors to help build more social and affordable housing. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves about where the money will come from.
The defining feature of social and affordable housing is a big rental subsidy for the tenant, which no private investor will ever volunteer to pay. In the end, government – that is, taxpayers – will always foot the bill.
The sooner we accept this, the better. Wishful thinking that private investors will wear the cost of rental discounts risks making the limited government subsidies available for housing less effective.
We need more social housing
Social housing – where rents are typically capped at 30% of tenants’ incomes – makes a big difference to the lives of many vulnerable Australians.
Yet Australia’s stock of social housing – currently about 430,000 dwellings – has barely grown in 20 years, during which time the population has increased by 33%.
A stagnant stock means there is little “flow” of available housing to catch people going through hardship, who then face prolonged, agonising waits while struggling to afford to keep a roof over their head.
But it’s expensive
The main reason our social housing stock has stagnated is the expense.
Social housing offers a big rental discount, or subsidy, to tenants.
In Australia, the gap between the subsidised rent and the private market rent is about $15,000 per rental per year.
Because the subsidy to tenants is ongoing, the cost to governments is ongoing. That means that every extra 100,000 social housing dwellings costs an extra $1.5 billion every year.
The same goes for subsidised “affordable” housing, where rents are typically set at 20-25% below the market rate, and which are available to many low- and some middle-income earners.
If the tenant is getting a discount on the market rate, the government will pay for that somewhere along the line.
Private investors won’t wear the subsidy gap
Australia has $3.5 trillion of superannuation savings – the fourth-largest retirement savings pool in the world – but practically none of it is invested in Australian housing. The Treasurer wants to change that.
He’s talked a big game about encouraging private capital, including super funds, to invest specifically in social and affordable housing.
But no super fund should forego returns for its members by paying the subsidy gap for social or affordable housing out of members’ pockets.
It would be incompatible with superannuation funds’ core objective – maximising returns for their members – which funds are obligated by law to prioritise.
Private investors prefer affordable to social housing
If we make encouraging private investment in social and affordable housing the goal, we risk misallocating the scarce government subsidies we have.
Most super funds, and other investors, would typically prefer to invest in affordable, rather than social housing.
Doing so lets investors finance more homes for any given quantity of government housing subsidies that are available, while taking on less-disadvantaged tenants who are seen as less risky.
We’ve been here before: the National Rental Affordability Scheme spent $3.1 billion channelling subsidies to private investors for affordable housing.
Grattan Institute estimates suggest the scheme paid an extra $1 billion in windfall gains to investors, above and beyond the cost of the discounted rents offered to tenants, who typically weren’t the most needy.
Super funds could make social housing more expensive
Super funds can help finance the construction of new social housing via loans to community housing providers – as four major funds have recently agreed to do.
But these loans are likely to be on fully commercial terms.
They are deals attractive to federal and state governments worried about taking on more debt.
But they are also likely to make social housing more expensive to deliver because governments can borrow at lower rates than the returns sought by funds.
Governments can’t avoid their responsibility
Ultimately, governments have to foot the bill for social and affordable housing. And our priority should be social, rather than affordable housing, since its targeted at people at serious risk of becoming homeless.
The sooner that truth is acknowledged, the sooner we can get on with funding subsidies and the less time we will waste on trying to coax private investors into being something they’re not.
The best way to boost funding for social housing would be to double the size of the Housing Australia Future Fund from $10 billion to $20 billion
The government-owned fund uses borrowed money to invest in stocks and bonds and uses the income to cover the social housing subsidy gap.
It makes use of the higher return the government can get from investing than from retiring debt, in the same way as the government’s Future Fund.
Doubling the size of the Housing Australia Future Fund could support the building of up to an extra 30,000 social dwellings over the next five years.
Coupled with a further big boost to Commonwealth Rent Assistance, it could really help low-income renters.
Brendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute and Joey Moloney, Deputy Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Hundreds of tariffs to go from July 1 in biggest unilateral tariff cut in decades
Michelle Grattan, University of CanberraThe Albanese government will abolish almost 500 so-called “nuisance” import tariffs from July 1.
Items set to become tariff-free include toothbrushes, hand tools, fridges, dishwashers, clothing, and menstrual and sanitary products. The tariff on such products is 5%. The cost to the budget has not yet been announced, partly because the plan is subject to consultations.
The decision will be the centrepiece of a speech Treasurer Jim Chalmers will make to a business audience in Sydney on Monday. Later, in another speech this week, Chalmers will set out some directions for the May budget.
The government says this is “the biggest unilateral tariff reform in at least two decades”, hailing it as a gain for productivity.
“It will cut compliance costs, reduce red tape, make it easier to do business, and boost productivity,” the government said in a statement, adding these tariffs do not protect Australian businesses.
The reforms were an important step in simplifying Australian trade, and would particularly assist small and medium-sized firms.
“After successive trade agreements, most goods are now imported duty-free. This means that businesses spend time and money proving their imports are eligible for existing tariff preferences and concessions, a compliance cost they often pass on to consumers, ” the statement said.
Cheaper toothbrushes, tools and tampons
Chalmers said: “Tariff reform will also provide a small amount of extra help with the cost-of-living challenge by making everyday items such as toothbrushes, tools, fridges, dishwashers and clothing just a little bit cheaper”.
The changes will scrap 14% of Australia’s total tariffs, streamlining about $8.5 billion worth of annual trade. Businesses will save more than $30 million in compliance costs each year, on the government’s estimate.
A Productivity Commission report in 2020 defined nuisance tariffs as
tariffs that raise little revenue, have negligible benefits for producers, but impose compliance burdens
It said the administrative costs of collecting these tariffs amounted to $11 million to $20 million per year.
The government gave the following list of examples of products set to see the removal of the 5% customs duties and what revenue the tariffs currently raise annually:
Washing machines with annual imports worth over $490 million, raise less than $140,000 in revenue per year
Fridge-freezers with imports worth over $668 million – less than $28,000
Tyres for agricultural vehicles, tractors or other machines with imports worth over $102 million – less than $10,000
Protective footwear with imports worth $160 million – less than $112,000
Toothbrushes with imports worth over $84 million – less than $22,000
Menstrual and sanitary products with over $211 million worth of imports – less than $3 million
X-ray film with over $160,000 in imports – less than $200
Chamois leather with $100,000 in imports – less than $1,000
Pyjamas with almost $108 million in imports – less than $120,000
Fishing reels with over $50 million in imports – less than $140,000
Rollercoasters with over $16 million in imports – less than $40,000
Dodgem cars with over $2 million in imports – less than $15,000
Ballpoint pens with imports worth over $57 million – less than $95,000
Toasters with imports worth over $49 million – less than $1,000
Electric blankets with imports worth over $31 million – less than $5,000
Bamboo chopsticks with over $3 million in imports – less than $3,000.
Removing tariffs on menstrual and sanitary items will align tariff policy settings with changes previously made to the GST.
The government said consultation on the proposed initial reforms is underway, with submissions open on the Treasury website and closing on April 1.
“The tariffs identified have been selected because their abolition will deliver benefits for businesses without adversely impacting Australian industries or constraining Australia in sensitive FTA negotiations,” the government said in its statement.
The full list of abolished tariffs will be finalised and provided in the May budget.
Chalmers said:“This is meaningful economic reform that will deliver meaningful benefits to businesses of all sizes around Australia.
"These tariffs impose a regulatory burden on Australian businesses and raise the costs of imported goods but they do little to protect our workers and businesses because they apply to goods that are mostly already eligible for duty-free importation.
"These tariff reforms will be better for businesses, better for consumers and better for the economy.”
Trade Minister Don Farrell said: “With one in four Australian jobs trade-related, and 27% of Australia’s economic output supported by trade, the importance of trade to Australia’s national wellbeing cannot be overstated.
"Trade that is simple, fast, and cost-effective can boost Australia’s international competitiveness, help create jobs, and reduce cost of living pressures.”
The Whitlam government began the journey to cut protection by cutting tariffs 25% across-the-board. The Hawke-Keating governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s undertook comprehensive tariff reductions and the elimination of import quotas.
The Howard government cut most tariffs to no more than 5% and many to zero.
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ACCC extends wholesale price controls to superfast fixed-line broadband networks
NBN upgrade: what a free speed increase for fast broadband plans would mean for consumers and retailers
Mark A Gregory, RMIT UniversityThe National Broadband Network may offer a significant speed boost to many users, if a plan from NBN Co, the operator of the network, is implemented. NBN Co’s proposed upgrade would provide download speeds up to five times faster for users on its three fastest home services (Home Fast, Home Superfast and Home Ultrafast).
The speed boost would come at no extra wholesale cost to retailers. On its face, this is an exciting announcement that aims to meet consumer demand for higher speed broadband connections to the internet.
NBN Co has highlighted the rationale for this move. The average Australian household now has around 22 internet-connected devices, and this is expected to grow to 33 by 2026. Data usage per household has doubled in the past five years, and now averages 443 gigabytes per month.
Why do people want more data?
Higher data usage is being driven by new applications, entertainment and online gaming. For example, game updates can be as large as 30 or more gigabytes today. If games update regularly, the amount of data used each month increases quickly.
Entertainment too is using more data. Most streaming video today is provided in a 720p format, but newer televisions can display content at the higher-resolution 4K format. With faster broadband speeds becoming more common, consumers should anticipate more 4K content becoming available.
Likewise, virtual reality and augmented reality are relatively new technologies that are slowly becoming integrated with gaming and business systems. These high data usage technologies are likely to become more present in our daily lives over the next decade.
When would the upgrades happen?
NBN Co has indicated it would like to start providing the new higher speed products later this year, or early next year. The upgrade would be achieved by increasing the overall capacity of the NBN, which could then be “shared out” to consumers.
The NBN Co announcement is something the service providers should have expected at some point soon.
NBN Co’s announcement, coming only months after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) approved a proposal for major annual price increases, may not be welcomed by all broadband retailers.
A spokesperson for the second largest broadband retailer, TPG Telecom, told CommsDay yesterday:
It took more than two years to finalise [the new pricing approved by the ACCC] and only three months for NBN Co to undermine the certainty it was supposed to create. We will always welcome opportunities to deliver greater service and speed to our customers, but NBN’s monopolistic whims make genuine collaboration with them very difficult.
Retailers understandably want certainty in wholesale pricing. One difficulty in achieving this is the high cost of “backhaul” in Australia: this is an intermediate connection between service providers and the NBN itself. Larger retailers have their own backhaul infrastructure, but smaller retailers must pay a third party.
If the NBN offers higher speed broadband connections, smaller retailers may end up paying more for backhaul – and will be faced with a dilemma over whether to pass these extra costs to consumers.
Telstra and Optus have broadly supported the plan by NBN Co to move to new technologies that offer the higher speed capabilities.
A faster network may entice consumers
Aussie Broadband Group managing director Phillip Britt told Gizmodo Australia:
Aussie Broadband is still understanding the detail of NBN Co’s speed proposal, but on the face of it, it could represent one of the most exciting steps in technology adoption for Australian households and businesses.
For NBN Co, the boost for the higher-speed plans may entice consumers to move from basic 50 Mbps plans to the upgraded Home Fast plan (which will offer download speeds of 500 Mbps, up from the current 100 Mbps).
NBN Co may also hope this encourages the remaining consumers with copper “fibre to the node” connections to move to “fibre to the premises” by taking advantage of one of the low or no cost upgrade offers available through retailers.
NBN Co has issued a consultation paper to retailers, asking for their feedback on the proposed changes to the high speed products by April 19 2024.
Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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