Health News at Your Fingertips

Peter Hannam

Australia’s trade surplus swells, aided by gas exports

Trade figures out from the ABS earlier today showed Australia’s trade surplus rose about 42% in September to $12.4 bn from August, with higher gas exports one factor.

Economists had tipped a surplus of about $9bn. Exports were up 7% for the month and imports were flat.

LNG exports were up almost a fifth in value terms, and 8.5% in volume, a notable spurt given gas in the news a bit.

Thermal coal used in power stations were down by 21.5% in quantity, thanks in part to the massive floods that continue to bedevil eastern states. In value terms, that type of coal was up 6.7%.

In a sign that higher interest rates are beginning to bite, imports of passenger cars slumped almost 15% and other consumer goods about 13%, CBA noted.

The trade figures will also factor into GDP figures. With the September quarter trade surplus was higher by historical standards, at $30.2bn, it was down almost a third from the record $43.7bn in the June quarters.

“This reflected a pull-back in commodity prices, on global recession fears, as well as a surge in import volumes,” Westpac said. The price of goods we export versus the price of imports – the terms of trade – fell about 6% in the quarter.

A smaller surplus will be a drag on GDP growth for the quarter, lopping about 0.75 of a percentage point. (We won’t see the GDP figures until 7 December.)

Another interesting element to the trade info, is that Australia’s net foreign liabilities – what we owe the rest of the world relative to what foreigners owe us – is now at about the lowest levels of GDP on record, ANZ noted.

Up to 2013, non-residents typically owed a larger stake in equities in Australia than Australians owned overseas.

With the superannuation industry expanding to hold assets of more than $3.5tn, and investing about one-sixth of that abroad, the ledger of holdings has shifted, hence those record low levels (vs GDP).

Plan to end family violence ‘big on words and small on dollars’, Larissa Waters says

Greens Senator and spokesperson on women Larissa Waters has responded to Amanda Rishworth’s National Press Club address.

Rishworth spoke about the Labor government’s national plan to end family violence, which includes an additional $100m in commonwealth funding to deliver up to 720 safe places for women and children fleeing violence.

But Waters says the plan falls short of what’s needed to protect women.

Like the Women’s Budget last week, the Minister’s National Press Club address was big on words and small on dollars and actions.

Additional funding for emergency housing is welcome, but when the waiting list for social housing is over 50,000 in Queensland alone, $100m for 720 houses is a drop in the ocean.

The housing crisis is felt even more acutely by women and children experiencing family and domestic violence. Women are forced to choose between abuse or homelessness, because there is nowhere to go.

Women on low wages or income support are especially vulnerable without the resources to escape violent situations. Yet this government persists with the cruelty of keeping income support payments like JobSeeker below the poverty line, and has the audacity to cry poor while dishing out hundreds of billions in tax cuts and investment property perks for the rich.

The women’s safety sector has repeatedly called for a $1B per year to ensure funding meets demand. Even with the budget’s re-badged Morrison government funding commitments, a small increase in frontline workers, and partial indexation, the amount still only adds up to $300m each year.

Australian scientists have made a major breakthrough on seaweed that can be fed to cattle and drastically reduce their methane emissions.

The researchers are confident they have cracked the genome code for Asparagopsis.

The species of seaweed produces a chemical compound called bromoform, which prevents the formation of methane during the digestion of food.

Feeding the red seaweed to livestock can slash methane emissions by more than 80 per cent.

An international research team has spent three years studying the genetics of the warm water seaweed, which is native to Australia.

The team has figured out how to grow high quality crops quickly and in big volumes.

“So we’ve got the genome blueprint for us to be able to fast track the development of the seaweed,” marine scientist Prof Nick Paul said.

Paul, from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said the research began after it was discovered that different seaweed produced different levels of bromoform, depending on how it was farmed and processed.

The researchers from Australia, New Zealand and Japan also found some female seaweed performed better than male seaweed in helping to remove methane from the atmosphere.

“The active ingredient that reduces methane in the rumen of the cattle is about 20 per cent higher in females than it is in males” Paul said.

“If we can make all females then that gives us a 20 per cent boost.”

The team has been gathering specimens in an “underwater wonderland” off a rocky shoreline at Moffat Beach near Caloundra in Queensland.

The 12-person team then cultured the seaweed in a laboratory as well as large outdoor tanks.

The research was focused on ways to grow enough Asparagopsis to have a meaningful impact on global greenhouse gas emissions.

– via AAP

Queensland rejects tourist levy but considers national park fee changes

A tourism levy managed by Queensland councils has been rejected by the state government but changes to national park fees are being considered.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has released a 10-year plan to develop the tourism sector ahead of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane.

Two new fundraising measures were floated in a report by the government’s Tourism Industry Reference Panel in June.

A proposal to allow local governments to impose a levy on tourists to pay for infrastructure and attractions has been rejected by the state government.

Tourism minister Stirling Hinchliffe says councils have other ways to raise money for tourism in their regions.

“Our commitment to there being no new taxes means that we won’t see a tourism levy supported by the Queensland government,” he told reporters on Thursday.

The government is still actively considering the expert panel’s suggestion it revises fees for national parks and protected areas.

The revenue would be used to pay running costs and reinvest in natural attractions.

– via AAP

Australia’s largest salmon producer Tassal is heading for foreign ownership after shareholders voted in favour of a $1.1bn takeover by Canadian company Cooke Aquaculture.

The takeover has been approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board, but requires final court approval at a hearing in early November.

But conservationists including the Bob Brown Foundation have raised concerns about Cooke’s environmental track record and potential expansion in Tasmania.

In a legal settlement with the Washington Department of Ecology in 2019, the company paid a $US332,000 ($A518,000) penalty after the collapse of a pen released 250,000 non-native fish.

In 2019 it was also fined by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection over multiple violations at farming sites in the US state, including having too many fish in pens.

Bob Brown Foundation campaigner Alistair Allan said:

Despite a growing global movement of salmon farming being banned or phased out, Tasmania is opening the door to this environmental vandal.

– via AAP

NSW floods update two: flooding to continue over coming days as SES receives more than 400 calls for assistance

Steph Cooke said significant flooding would continue across numerous inland catchments in the coming days.

“We are continuing to see peaks roll through the system even though there isn’t water falling from the sky at the moment,” she said.

The SES’s Ben Pickup said significant flooding is impacting all major river systems across New South Wales.

Major flooding on the Lachlan River on Thursday is causing inundations in the town of Nanami.

Further downstream, major flooding is also occurring on the Lachlan River at Condobolin, with the river not expected to fall for weeks.

The Murrumbidgee River has also burst its banks, with major floods peaking at Gundagai on Wednesday night, and major peaks possible at Wagga Wagga on Thursday night.

Cooke expressed her sympathies for the Gunnedah community, which has been hit by seven floods in recent weeks, and Wagga Wagga, which faces its fourth inundation since August.

Renewed, moderate flooding is also occurring at Albury and Corowa on the Murray River after widespread falls.

Ongoing significant flooding is continuing in the border town of Moama, where water levels are likely to remain high through to next week.

Clean-up efforts are continuing in the Riverina town of Cootamundra after thunderstorms and flash flooding on Monday.

Rapid damage assessments by the SES and Fire and Rescue NSW found 23 properties were destroyed and 37 damaged.

The SES has received 431 calls for assistance and conducted 15 flood rescues in the past 24 hours.

NSW floods update: hundreds under evacuation orders as rivers peak

I have a big update on the New South Wales floods from AAP. I am going to post it in two parts.

Hundreds of residents across inland NSW are under evacuation orders as rolling peaks continue to hit swollen rivers, inundating towns across southern and central-western NSW.

In the wheat belt town of Forbes in the state’s central-west, about 600 people have been told to evacuate their homes by 4pm Thursday as rising waters threaten to cut off homes and strand residents.

“I appreciate that communities right across the central and southern NSW are exhausted,” the emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, said on Thursday.

Everyone is flood weary but we need to keep working through this. We need to keep working together.

Whilst we are starting to see blue skies emerge … the flooding risk is very, very high at the moment.

The NSW SES zone commander, Ben Pickup, said record flooding was expected at Forbes on Friday night as the Lachlan River peaked at levels not seen since 1952.

He said peaks would continue through to Saturday morning.

“I really encourage the community of Forbes – please listen to the warning information,” he said.

“Please, please follow that messaging.”

Hello everyone, this is Cait. A big thanks to blog queen Natasha for taking us through the morning.

First up, I have this from AAP on electric vehicles:

Two in three Australians support changes to speed up the switch to electric vehicles, including discounts to lower their prices and a fuel efficiency standard to see more models arrive in the country, a new study has found.

More than 60% of Australians also support a ban on new petrol car sales by 2035.

The findings, from the Australia Institute’s climate of the nation report, showed wide support for more electric vehicle charging stations in Australia as well electric buses and the introduction of high-speed rail.

But the report showed backing for electric transport dropped when it came to removing tax breaks for large, fuel-hungry four wheel drives and utes.

Report author and Australia Institute transport lead, Audrey Quicke, said the survey of more than 2,600 people clearly showed Australians wanted “to reap the benefits of the transition to clean transport”.

I am signing off for this afternoon and handing you over to the fabulous Cait Kelly.

See you tomorrow morning!

Commemorations marking 80 years since end of Kokoda campaign under way

The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, is in attendance for the commemorations to mark 80 years since the end of the Kokoda campaign in second world war.

Amanda Rishworth has avoided giving my colleague Amy Remeikis a firm answer on whether she believes the jobseeker rate needs to be increased.

Remeikis:

Given your portfolio crossover, do you believe the rate needs to increase?

Rishworth:

I will be working across the board with my state…

Remeikis:

A simple yes or no.

Rishworth:

I will be working with the whole of government about what women’s economic security will look like. We will keep working on that. Throughout my whole portfolio, working about how we can prevent poverty as well as how we lift people out of poverty. That is something I am very aware of and continue to work across government.