1 in 3 Australian Jobs in Past Year Created by Taxpayer-Funded NDIS

Extraordinary

New research has found that the taxpayer-funded National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was the main driver of employment in the Australian economy in the past year, creating approximately one-third of the new jobs.

This comes as the federal Labor government is struggling to contain the growth of NDIS, which is expanding by over 14 percent each year.

The NDIS is a government-funded program that aims to help improve the quality of life of people with disability by providing a wide range of services, including education, employment, social participation, independence, living arrangements and health and wellbeing.

At present, over half a million Australians participate in the program.

A study by investment bank Jarden revealed that around 130,000 of the 437,000 jobs generated in the year to February 2024 were in industries related to the NDIS, as reported by the Australian Financial Review newspaper.
Despite accounting for one-third of the new employment in the past year, NDIS-related work only represented around six percent of the total jobs, raising concerns about the stability of the job market.

Jarden economist Carlos Cacho said the blowout in NDIS funding was mainly responsible for the job growth.

At the same time, he and his colleague, Anthony Malouf, noted that the rise in the public job sector, which NDIS is a part of, had masked the slowdown of the private job sector, including the hospitality and construction industries.

According to the latest employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate dropped from 4.1 percent in January to 3.7 percent in February.

“All else being equal, without jobs growth in NDIS-related areas, the unemployment rate would be 4.6 percent ... whilst this is unrealistic, given some workers would have moved into other jobs, it illustrates how much support the program is providing to the labour market and economy,” Mr. Cacho said.

“Consumer-exposed retail and hospitality employment is now falling, whilst construction employment has slowed to flat.”
Government Struggles to Contain NDIS Growth

Jarden’s research comes as NDIS expenditures are becoming increasingly bloated.

In the recent federal budget paper, the cost of NDIS was forecasted to reach $42 billion (US$27.3 billion) in the 2023-2024 financial year before soaring to $97 billion by 2032-2033.

In addition, the forecast showed that the scheme had blown out by about $978 million a month compared to the previous Coalition government’s budget.

Amid the cost pressure, the Labor government announced a plan to save more than $74 billion in NDIS funding over the next decade by reducing its annual funding target in May 2023.
The government aimed to reduce NDIS’s annual growth rate from the current 14 percent to 8 percent.

Amid the cost-cutting measures, Treasurer Jim Chalmers assured the public that the government would not tighten eligibility for the NDIS and would remain committed to the future of the disability scheme.

Following a recent review of the program, the government has introduced legislation to pave the way for an NDIS overhaul, raising fears among states and territories about potential impacts on their budgets.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/ndis-created-1-in-3-australian-jobs-in-past-year-5620675

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There has never been a worse time to invest in solar panel production. But we’re wasting $1b on it

Leftist site "Crikey" gets some things right

As we’ve been writing for a while now, the last thing Australia needs is to invent new industries to employ workers, who are becoming an increasingly scarce commodity. Both sides of politics want us to get into building and crewing nuclear submarines. Peter Dutton wants a whole new nuclear power industry. And Labor is now throwing $1 billion at manufacturing solar panels — all part of our effort to be a “renewable superpower”, and also because, apparently, Australia invented the solar panels before losing control of the technology, so we’re really just bringing solar panels “home”.

The $1 billion price tag is small compared to the tens of billions Dutton’s nuclear fantasy will cost and insignificant compared to the waste of money involved in AUKUS, but Albanese’s solar panel investment might be the dumbest of the lot.

Why? Because other, much bigger governments, especially China, are also subsidising solar panel production — resulting in a huge production glut right at the time when Australia, belatedly, is joining in the stupidity.

A fortnight ago there was a rush of reports about massive job cuts at the world’s biggest solar panel maker, LONGi Green Energy Technology of China — perhaps up to one-third of its workforce. LONGi rejected the reports and said it was only planning to cut 5% of its total headcount of 80,000. The reason is the surge in global supplies of solar energy cells.

As the Financial Times noted, LONGi was part of Xi Jinping’s quest for self-sufficiency and even mastery of crucial renewable technology sectors. As protectionism always does, that has prompted China’s competitors, the European Union and the United States, to hit back both with their own subsidies and with blocks on Chinese exports, although these appear to be doing little to curb China’s growing dominance of the solar panel sector. But there is now a massive global oversupply of solar panels.

As a result, there’s never been a better time to buy solar panels — and never been a worse time to get into the production of them.

If, as Albanese says, the expenditure in solar panel manufacturing is about securing supply chains, that could easily be accomplished by redirecting that $1 billion to buying up Chinese solar panels so cheap they’re now being used as garden features, and storing them for use on Australian rooftops. But that lacks the political appeal of last week’s announcement in the Hunter Valley.

So what will we do with all the Australian-manufactured solar panels? Force the local industry to use them, pushing up the costs of renewables at a time when they should be falling?

Labor’s obsession with manufacturing — one that the Coalition for the most part shares, despite Tony Abbott chasing the car industry out of Australia — continues to reflect both the power of the (climate denialist) Australian Workers Union on the right of the party, and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union on the left. It also reflects the mindset of many not just within the union movement or Labor, but more broadly, that manufacturing is somehow a more real economic activity than services industries or extractive industries.

The story of the Australian economy over the past 30 years has been the rise and rise of extractive industries and service industries. Our mining industry is very, very efficient, and the iron ore industry is cutting edge technologically: it is far advanced in areas like remote-controlled trains and autonomous vehicles compared to other countries — though that doesn’t stop it from being derided as merely “ripping dirt out of the ground”. Our agricultural industry, while not producing anywhere near as much in terms of export values, has enjoyed massive productivity growth and now exports and produces far more, with far fewer workers and less water per unit of production, than it ever used to.

And our services industries in areas like education and tourism are also massive export earners, reflecting Australia’s natural advantages in education and lifestyle.

Meanwhile, like every other western country, the proportion of the economy and workforce devoted to services has grown massively, with the new frontier of employment being caring services, from early childhood to old age and everywhere in between — all heavily feminised workforces.

But ignore all that, Labor is saying let’s invest more in traditional male-dominated manufacturing, despite Australia being hopelessly uncompetitive in production costs and scale, and not having enough workers for the rest of the economy let alone new industries.

And all of this, despite this being literally the worst time in history to invest in solar panel production. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/04/04/solar-panel-investment-albanese-waste-money/#:~:text=But%20there%20is%20now%20a,into%20the%20production%20of%20them .

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Experts call for more research into long COVID, as study reveals high prevalence in W.A.

Researchers say more support is needed for patients suffering from long-term illness associated with a COVID-19 infection, with new data showing a large number of West Australians have been left unable to work due to their crippling symptoms.

The Australian National University (ANU) study surveyed 11,000 people who tested positive to COVID during a significant outbreak of the Omicron variant in WA in 2022.

The study published in March found almost 20 per cent of those patients were still suffering symptoms of fatigue, memory loss and concentration difficulties three months after they first became sick.

Lead researcher Mulu Woldegiorgis said there was little pre-existing data available on the topic, but that the new research suggested there was a high rate of long-term COVID-19 symptoms in WA.

"It is more than double the prevalence reported in a review of Australia data from earlier in the pandemic, and higher than similar studies done in the UK and Canada," she said.

In their report, Dr Woldegiorgis and her colleagues acknowledged one of the limitations of the ANU survey was that it relied on subjective symptom descriptions from patients, and the reported impact of their symptoms on work or study was not independently verified.

Dr Woldegiorgis said it was important for patients' symptoms to be taken seriously. "I think it's real and it needs more investigation," she said.

"When we see its impact on work or study, more than one in six of those who used to work before their infection were not able to fully return to work or study due to their ongoing symptoms."

'Life has become small'

Joanna Lewis caught COVID almost two years to the day. When she still had symptoms weeks later she thought she might have contracted Ross River virus again. "I could be standing at the kitchen bench and I'd feel short of breath," she said.

"It was almost like my body had forgotten to breathe, which is really bizarre."

She experienced tachycardia and POTS – postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome – which meant her heart rate shot up more than 30 beats a minute when she sat or stood up.

She had to take leave from work and suffered financially, burning through her savings and taking on students as boarders to bring in enough money to survive.

These days the 42-year-old is most afflicted by fatigue.

"I do have, I've found, about six hours on average … upright, I do have to spend probably most of my day lying down and resting," she said. "It just means life becomes very small."

Government urged to do more

Rural GP Michael Livingston said he was seeing large numbers of people through his practice in Narembeen, in WA's Wheatbelt, with unexplained fatigue and brain fog. "I'm seeing younger people who just aren't bouncing back the way they thought they would do," he said.

"Some people think they have dementia, such is their concern about their memory and ability to recall simple tasks."

Dr Livingston suspects long COVID could be to blame and urged people not become complacent about COVID prevention. "We really need to be questioning the why of this and what personal choices we're making and how complicit we are being around this," he said.

Dr Livingston said authorities should develop a "clean air policy", and could consider fitting classrooms, workplaces and public transport with specialised air filters.

WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the government was keeping a close eye on any evidence relating to long COVID. "I think there's some conflicting views globally around the impact of long COVID but we continue to watch it closely," she said at a press conference on Tuesday.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-03/research-finds-long-covid-rates-high-in-wa/103647042

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Rights groups welcome review of NSW 'anti-protest' laws

Laws that threaten jail time for unauthorised protests on major roads will undergo fresh scrutiny in NSW, pleasing civil libertarians.

The two-year-old laws criticised by rights groups including Amnesty International were introduced with bipartisan support following a series of environmental protests that disrupted traffic and Sydney's main port.

Two elements of the changes have since been invalidated by the NSW Supreme Court for interfering with the implied right to political communication.

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley has confirmed a review would occur to determine whether the laws remained fit for purpose.

The statutory review led by the justice department will involve public consultation.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties was among the 37 organisations and 1000 individuals who wrote to the attorney-general this week demanding the review.

"These laws create a chilling effect on civil movements and social progress," president Lydia Shelly said on Friday.

"Whilst we haven't yet overturned the laws, we have achieved a major milestone today and it is worth a pause to celebrate."

Extensive disruptions to ports and roads including a three-day blockage of Port Botany prompted the rapid passing of the laws carrying penalties of up to two years in jail and fines of up to $22,000.

"Enough is enough," Police Minister Paul Toole said in 2022.

"These kinds of acts are just disgraceful."

Critics say the laws are being used to excessively police peaceful protests including those at Port Botany related to the Gaza conflict.

"This review will provide an opportunity for people at the grassroots to share their experiences and record the disproportionate response from the frankly ridiculous bail conditions and charges resulting from these unjust and unnecessary laws," Australian Democracy Network protest rights campaigner Anastasia Radievska said on Friday.

The results of the review will be tabled in parliament in October.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8582181/rights-groups-welcome-review-of-nsw-anti-protest-laws/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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