Industry News

The Federal Government has announced the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will start from July 2013 in up to four locations across the country.

Coverage will extend to 10,000 people with significant permanent disabilities by 2013, with that figure set to rise to 20,000 by July 2014.

“The timeframe announced today means the first stage of an NDIS will be delivered a full year ahead of the timetable set out by the Productivity Commission,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a statement.

The Federal Government has announced it will fund its share of the cost of the initial stage of the NDIS in the coming May Budget.

The initial launch locations will be determined in consultation with the states and territories - who have all agreed their shared responsibility for the fundamental reform of disability care and support.

Sydney Water has awarded Abigroup Water a new scope of works for the construction for a wastewater treatment plant in Sydney as part of the ongoing Odour Management Program Alliance.

The work will be carried out at Cronulla Wastewater Treatment Plant and will consist of an upgrade to the plant’s odour management system and to the existing civil, mechanical and electrical infrastructure to improve life and operability.

OMP Alliance Manager Sam Quagliata, from Abigroup Water, said, “This is a pleasing result realised through the collaborative working environment within the Alliance and the broader Sydney Water Cronulla plant operators. 

 “The Alliance has worked very closely with Sydney Water to achieve this positive outcome which will ultimately benefit the operators, the local community and the new residential development in Green Hills, Sydney.”

The project forms part of Abigroup’s $100 million contract to upgrade Sydney Water’s wastewater treatment plants as part of the Sydney Odour Management Program in Sydney and the Illawarra.

The five year OMP Alliance between Sydney Water, Abigroup and CH2M Hill will reduce odour at the plants through capture and treatment.

A new book produced by the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre has challenged existing approaches to diabetes and obesity treatments and presented a strategy with the potential to revolutionise the way our society approaches weight management.

In A Modern Epidemic – Expert Perspectives on Obesity and Diabetes, researchers and clinicians from across the University and elsewhere have joined forces to tackle these major health challenges from a more holistic perspective.

Summary of key findings

• We don't need to count kilojoules or weigh portion sizes in order to reduce weight just eat only if you feel comfortably and physically hungry, and stop when you feel genuinely satisfied, not over satisfied.
• Constant overconsumption of a high fat-high sugar diet triggers similar changes in the brain to those seen in drug addiction. These changes can override the biological weight-control systems, driving the development of compulsive overeating and excessive weight gain.
• Community pharmacists as a valuable resource of trained healthcare professionals can be utilised to provide prevention and care services as part of an integrated primary care sector approach.
• Obesity is linked to changes in the nutritional balance of our diet, with a primary role for protein appetite driving excess energy intake. Small changes in the percentage of protein in the diet can potentially yield big effects on intake, with consequences - both good and bad - for weight management.
• The link between epigenetic changes and obesity and the troubling possibility that obesogenic diets not only render individuals incapable of losing excess weight, but they may also affect ensuing generations with residual weight problems.
• Weight-loss approaches that recognise the individual struggle with gender and the influence of other social structures may be an alternative to current, largely unsuccessful treatments of obesity.
• There are a range of psychological problems associated with obesity, such as low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, depression and eating disorders. In fact the most prevalent recognised obesity-related complications in childhood and adolescent are psychosocial issues.
• Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), where the child has pauses in their breathing during sleep that may be severe enough to result in reduced oxygen to the brain, is up to 30 times more common in obese children and adolescents than in normal weight youngsters. Difficulties with concentration secondary to sleep deprivation from obstructive sleep apnoea may contribute to poor academic performance.
• The stigma associated with obesity is considerable and comparable to racial discrimination. Discrimination against obese individuals is evident in all areas of life including social life, parenting practices, education, employment and healthcare. Furthermore the stress which obese individuals are exposed to as a result of negative societal attitudes and behaviours can lead to further weight gain, and worse health outcomes.
• Promising societal and environmental responses to overweight and obesity include redesigning the built environment, providing active transport options, promoting the availability and accessibility of healthy food choices, restricting promotion of unhealthy foods, and implementing ongoing social marketing strategies to influence sustained healthy eating and physical activity behaviours. Government leadership, social planning and urban renewal that engage communities, businesses and other relevant stakeholders are fundamental to the process.

The precarious decline in children's participation in mathematics can only be reversed by tackling a complex mix of factors, including positive and negative attitudes of a student's parents, peers and teachers, new research has found.

The study, published in the International Journal of Educational Psychology, is the first to reveal that 'switching off' and 'switching on' to maths needs to be addressed in different ways.

"A two-pronged approach is essential. Not only is it crucial to stop students disengaging, but it is also necessary to take deliberate actions to 'kick start' their engagement in mathematics," chief investigator Associate Professor Janette Bobis said.

The study was prompted by ongoing concerns about school and post-school participation in mathematics. In 2010, a panel of the nation's top mathematicians described maths participation as being at 'dangerously low levels'.

"'Switching off' from mathematics is a significant factor in the declining trend in the mathematical performance of children in Years 6 to 8," said Associate Professor Bobis. "Previously, experts have just focused on either switching off or switching on, or have assumed both are the same."

With co-researchers Professor Andrew Martin, Associate Professor Judy Anderson and Dr Jenni Way, Associate Professor Bobis investigated the motivations and behavior of 1601 students in Years 6 to 8 from 200 classrooms in 44 Australian schools.

At home, parents' interests in mathematics and in helping their children with mathematics were major factors affecting middle year students' engagement and disengagement.

According to Associate Professor Bobis: "Parents can have a really positive role to play - including stressing positive attitudes to mathematics and building up their child's self-belief.

"But almost all major contexts in a student's life were found to affect their engagement and disengagement: home, school, class. Other factors relate to a student's personal attributes, such as their confidence to do mathematics, the value they placed on the subject, their enjoyment level and, in the case of switching off mathematics, their anxiety level."

While the study involved Australian students, the implications have enormous international significance for reducing student disengagement in mathematics and promoting more positive intentions for students' involvement in mathematics at school and beyond.

Global engineering consultancy firm GHD has announced a new technological innovation that will allow continuous water pump monitoring in real time.

GHD’s Pump Efficiency Meter System has been developed by the company’s Cazenovia operations with support from GHD’s Innovation Program. The system is designed to integrate with existing pump control systems to optimise the use of a water facility’s pumps, allowing real time updates to be delivered to technicians when a pump’s performance has deteriorated and requires maintenance.

"Most pump systems operate in a lead/lag configuration where a lag pump only runs when the lead pump fails or cannot keep up with demand. The problem with existing control systems is that they don’t know why the lead pump can’t keep up - is the pumping demand really that high, or has the capacity of the lead pump degraded?" GHD’s Project Manager Energy Services Tom Devine said.

"The causes of pump inefficiency are not typically visible to the naked eye and existing pump control systems do not generate alarms or warnings until there is an actual pump failure. Our system continuously monitors pump performance and generates an alarm before there is a failure – allowing operators to be proactive in their maintenance."

The Federal Government has officially opened the Ballina Bypass to traffic after four years of construction, allowing 1,500 trucks a day to bypass the town.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era.  The Ballina Bypass is no longer an aspiration or a line on the map.  It is a real road being used by real trucks and cars delivering real benefits,”  Page MP Janelle Saffin said.

“I also acknowledge the 1,800 people who worked on this large and complex engineering project.  It was because of their expertise and hard work that the bypass has been completed on budget and ahead of schedule.”

The new Ballina Bypass was jointly funded by the Federal ($450 million) and NSW ($190 million) governments and built by an alliance involving RMS, Leighton Contractors, AECOM, SMEC and Coffey Geotechnics.

Unions are calling for a National Asbestos Authority to manage the mandatory removal of the deadly chemical from all Australian buildings by 2030.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said Australia has the world’s highest per capita rate of asbestos-related deaths, with up to 18,000 more Australians expected to have died from mesothelioma by 2020.

“This is an abysmal reality that we must change. That is why unions want Australia’s built environment to be asbestos-free by 2030 and we are calling for a stand-alone National Asbestos Authority to make it happen,” she said.

Ms Kearney said to achieve an asbestos-free Australia, there must be a national audit of all asbestos containing material, starting with government buildings and dump sites.

“The Government must initiate a prioritised removal program, to be carried out only by licensed removalists,” she said.

Ms Kearney said unions also reiterated their call for a home audit scheme, which would require home owners to have their houses checked by a registered practitioner prior to selling or leasing out their property.

There was also a need for a co-ordinated education and awareness campaign so that home owners and home renovators are aware of not only the dangers of asbestos contamination, but of how to have it safely removed.

In Australia, the workplace related death toll is estimated to be more than 4.7 times higher than the Australian road toll.  In 2008 there were 1464 road deaths, while Government statistics show there are up to 7000 work related deaths each year.  

The South Australian Government has announced an agreement as been reached with the conservation, recreational and commercial fishing sectors on the future zoning approach for South Australia’s marine parks.

Premier Jay Weatherill and State Ministers Paul Caica and Gail Gago released the details of the agreement and plans for the next stage of public consultation to create the parks.

Leaders from the conservation, recreational and commercial fishing sectors met Minister Caica and Minister Gago earlier this month and have agreed on priority areas for conservation after the State Government announced in November it was postponing draft plans to allow further discussions with these groups.

“Through detailed discussions at a two-day forum this month, the sector leaders considered the areas of high ecological significance, research, education and ecotourism value – as well as the social and economic implications and management considerations such as compliance and monitoring,” Mr Weatherill said.

The State Government will now prepare a draft management plan and impact stations to be released for public consultation. 

The New South Wales Government has announced a $100 million blitz of the state’s public transport, with an aim to improve services and undertake much-needed upgrades.

The blitz forms part of a wider push by the State Government to deliver integrated transport infrastructure as part of the new Transport Access Program.

The program will see Transport ofr NSW take over the planning and organisation of improvements that were previously delivered under six separate programs by different agencies.

The works that have already been outlined are:

• Stations that are accessible to the disabled, ageing and parents with prams
• Modern buildings and facilities for all modes that meet the needs of a growing population
• Modern interchanges that support an integrated network and allow seamless transfers between all modes for all customers
• Safety improvements including extra lighting, help points, fences and security measures for car parks and interchanges, including stations, bus stops and wharves 
• Signage improvements so customers can more easily use public transport and transfer between modes at interchanges
• Other improvements and maintenance such as painting, new fencing and roof replacements.

The Victorian Government has announced a $1.86 million research initiative to help strike a balance between the needs of the state’s threatened species and those of the timber industry.

State Minister for Environment Ryan Smith said the research would form the largest program of threatened species surveys undertaken by the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) in over a decade.

"The project will involve gathering up-to-date information on the distribution and habitat of key threatened fauna species in public native forests in eastern Victoria," Mr Smith said.

"The species being surveyed include the Smoky Mouse, Long-footed Potoroo, Leadbeater's Possum, Powerful Owl, Sooty Owl, Masked Owl and Galaxias.

"The research is being conducted by DSE's Arthur Rylah Institute with funding from the Department of Primary Industries.

"This project will enable DSE to develop a policy and regulatory framework for threatened species management based on the newest information and most up to date science.

This project is delivering on actions outlined in the Victorian Government's Timber Industry Action Plan, which was released in December 2011. The Timber Industry Action Plan provides a long term plan for a productive, competitive and sustainable timber industry for Victoria.

As part of a new National Partnership Agreement (NP) on Mental Health, the Labor Government will provide the NSW Government with $57.6 million over 5 years for three new projects that will improve the care and support provided to people living with severe mental illness.

Under the NP, NSW is receiving the largest share of funding of all states and territories.

The following projects will receive Commonwealth funding:

• $35.2 million for the expansion of the existing NSW Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative (HASI) to enable more people to live in the community in stable and secure accommodation, with links to clinical mental health and rehabilitation services for people who require 16 or 24 hour support.
• $12.3 million for the provision of intensive, family focussed support to mothers with mental illness and their children to keep them together, through the provision of high, medium and low packages of care and short term housing.
• $10.2 million for in-reach support services to boarding house residents who have been assessed as having mental health issues, through the provision of 200 continuous and ongoing new low support packages.

Federal Minister for Mental Health and Ageing Mark Butler said the NP was a key feature of the Government’s $2.2 billion mental health package.

“Our agreement with NSW will ensure we respond better to the needs of people with severe and debilitating mental illness so they stay well and lead functional lives,” Mr Butler said.

“Together, we’re investing in projects that break new ground and expanding existing services that we know work well. For example, one of the projects we’re funding will ensure that more mothers living with mental illness and their children get intensive, family focussed support and access to stable accommodation.

Child and maternal health workers and other frontline health workers will soon have access to new free information resources on the perinatal mental health disorders women can face during pregnancy and after birth.

These new resources have been developed in consultation with Australia’s leading perinatal experts. The resources include fact sheets and other quick-reference tools like scoring wheels and questionnaires to help healthcare workers detect and discuss depression, anxiety and other mental health problems with pregnant women and new mothers.

Speaking at the launch of these resources, Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, said the new resources would be extremely useful to frontline primary health care professionals.

“These new resources will equip GPs, midwives, obstetricians and child and maternal health workers who work on the frontline with the right knowledge and tools to undertake screening for perinatal depression, and provide a better understanding of safe and effective treatments for mothers and their babies,” Mr Butler said.

“It’s critical that mothers who are showing signs of depression or anxiety are treated quickly and effectively. These resources will result in more women being screened, symptoms being detected earlier and most importantly, more women getting the care and support that they need.”

The Labor Government provides $30 million to the states and territories under the National Perinatal Depression Initiative to help roll out routine and universal screening for perinatal depression, for support services and to train health professionals to treat the condition.

A team of scientists from the CSIRO and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from California has documented changing patterns of salinity in the global oceans over the past 50 years in a paper published in the journal Science.

Lead author, Dr Paul Durack, said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has strengthened by four per cent from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models.

"Salinity shifts in the ocean confirm climate and the global water cycle have changed,” Dr Durack said.

"These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming," said Dr Durack, a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With a projected temperature rise of 3ºC by the end of the century, the researchers estimate a 24 per cent acceleration of the water cycle is possible.

Scientists have struggled to determine coherent estimates of water cycle changes from land-based data because surface observations of rainfall and evaporation are sparse. However, according to the team, global oceans provide a much clearer picture.

"The ocean matters to climate – it stores 97 per cent of the world’s water; receives 80 per cent of the all surface rainfall and; it has absorbed 90 per cent of the Earth's energy increase associated with past atmospheric warming," said co-author, Dr Richard Matear of CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

The Federal Government has outlined plans to protect the country’s most at-risk koala populations after moving to include them on the national list of threatened species.

Federal Minister for the Environment Tony Burke announced the Government will list koala populations in the ACT, New South Wales and Queensland as vulnerable under national environment law.

"My decision to list the koala under national environment law follows a rigorous scientific assessment by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee which gathered information from a variety of experts over the past three years,” Mr Burke said.

"Koala populations are under serious threat from habitat loss and urban expansion, as well as vehicle strikes, dog attacks, and disease.

"However, koala numbers vary significantly across the country, so while koala populations are clearly declining in some areas, there are large, stable or even increasing populations in other areas.

"In fact, in some areas in Victoria and South Australia, koalas are eating themselves out of suitable foraging habitat and their numbers need to be managed.

"But the Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory koala populations are very clearly in trouble, so we must take action.

"That is why the scientific committee recommended to me to list the Queensland, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory populations as threatened, rather than to list the koala as nationally threatened across its full range."

Mr Burke said the Gillard Government had committed $300,000 of new funding under the National Environmental Research Program Emerging Priorities to find out more about koala habitat.

"This funding will be used to develop new survey methods that will improve our knowledge of the quality of koala habitat using remote sensing, and help fill important data gaps to enhance our understanding and ability to protect the species," Mr Burke said.

"The new funding is in addition to more than $3 million we have invested since 2007 to ensure the resilience and sustainability of our koala population."

The Victorian Government has confirmed $4.5 million in funding for a biomass plant that will convert organic waste into electricity.

State Energy and Resources Minister Michael O’Brien said the Government had made the initial offer last year, but an agreement had taken months to finalise for stage payments to Pacific Pyrolysis and its partners for the project.

"This innovative renewable energy technology will access under-utilised waste organics resources," Mr O'Brien said.

The pilot plant will use non-crop organic material such as green waste and waste wood from demolished buildings to power a renewable electricity pilot plant with a capacity of about one megawatt.

The project will offer local employment opportunities, as well as sub-contracting. A site is yet to be selected, but will be in outer metropolitan Melbourne.

The plant will produce a by-product called biochar, which can provide a long-lasting boost to soil fertility and provide a carbon sequestration tool for primary industry.

"The Pacific Pyrolysis biomass pilot plant has the potential to deliver a win-win by producing clean energy as well as providing benefits for Victoria's primary industry sector."

The plant will provide an advanced processing alternative for wood waste and green waste which would otherwise end up in landfill where it would produce greenhouse gases.

Researchers from the Institute and the University of Melbourne are hoping to shape the future of adolescent health, by bringing into focus the risks and issues associated with this vulnerable age group.

In a special series on adolescent health published in The Lancet, Australian authors Professor George Patton and Professor Susan Sawyer are calling for worldwide investment in the health and future of adolescents, based on research and grounded evidence about what works.

Approximately half of the world's population is younger than 25 years, with 1.8 billion adolescents.  Today's adolescents are facing unprecedented changes in the world's social and physical environments. These changes are transforming adolescent development and, in so doing, changing the prospects for health now and in the future.

In the first paper of the series, which was led by Professor Sawyer, researchers say adolescents are now more exposed than previous generations to harmful alcohol consumption, illicit drug use, tobacco use and sexually transmitted infections, among other risks.

Professor Sawyer says the paper combines a wide range of research which shows there is a lack of focus on adolescent health, and that the preventable health risks initiated during adolescence commonly have lifelong consequences for health, highlighting the need to address the issue.

"Adolescence could be described as a missing link in the life course approach to health.  The impacts of health-related behaviours that start in adolescents have impacts throughout their lives, for instance tobacco and alcohol use or obesity and physical inactivity contribute to the epidemic of non-infectious disease such as heart, disease, cancer, diabetes and lung disease," he said.

At least 70 per cent of premature adult deaths reflect behaviours started or reinforced during adolescence. The link between adolescent and adult health suggests that evidence based investments in healthy adolescent development have enormous implications for future global health.

Australia’s medical workforce has grown steadily in the 10 years to 2009 with the number of female working doctors increasing to make up more than one-third (36 per cent) of all working doctors.

A new report by Health Workforce Australia, Australia’s Health Workforce Series: Doctors in focus, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of Australia’s medical workforce from 1999 to 2009.

Doctors in focus shows the increasing participation of women in the medical workforce over the decade to 2009. In 1999, women comprised 29 per cent of all working doctors compared with 36 per cent, or more than one-third, by 2009. Figures show the participation of women is still increasing at a greater rate than men.

In 2009, women accounted for 39 per cent of primary care practitioners (who are mostly GPs) and 47 per cent of hospital non-specialists but were least represented among specialties, accounting for one-quarter of specialists.

In 2009 there were 82,895 doctors registered in Australia with 90 per cent of them in the medical labour force, a 44 per cent increase on the number of doctors registered in 1999 (57,553).

Doctors in focus also shows the number of clinicians has increased, including primary care practitioners, specialists and specialists-in-training, while among the 54 fields of medical specialty, most doctors are concentrated in 10 areas.

The Doctors in focus workforce profile is the first in the Australia’s Health Workforce Series which will increase the understanding of the existing medical, nursing and allied health workforces and their characteristics.

The Federal Government has released the final report of the independent Convergence review Committee.

“The Convergence Review’s final report sets out the Committee’s recommendations for the future of the media and communications industry,” Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy said.

“In preparing their recommendations the Convergence Review engaged in a comprehensive nationwide consultation program with stakeholders and the Australian public, including three separate written submission processes.”

“The Government’s approach to regulatory reform builds on our substantial communications reform agenda, which includes the delivery of the NBN and digital television switchover.”

The Convergence Review Final Report can be found at: www.dbcde.gov.au/convergence

The Federal Government has released legislation for public consultation that will see superannuation funds be obliged to disclose executive remuneration information.

The draft legislation requires superannuation funds to publish on their websites:

• details of director and executive pay;
• details of what assets the fund has invested in; and
• an up-to-date 'product dashboard', setting out information on target investment returns, past performance against targets, investment risk, liquidity and fees, in relation to each product offered by the fund.

“In the wake of collapses such as TRIO, it is important for Australians to know where their super savings are being invested. I also think it's valuable to understand how we can extend these standards outside super,” Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Bill Shorten said.

“I will be holding more discussions with key stakeholders on how to further improve transparency and governance in the superannuation industry. Better representation of women on super boards and requiring more regular board renewal are amongst these issues.”

The legislation also provides for the APRA to undertake enhanced data collection and publish a wider range of superannuation information, including quarterly data on MySuper products. Further, more detailed transparency requirements will be able to be specified in regulations.

The exposure draft can be found here

A group of leading Australian scientists have come together to further the development of lower-cost, flexible optoelectronic  devices that promises to transform the country’s consumer electronics industry.

The Transparent Electrodes for Plastic Electronics Research Cluster brings together leading scientists from the University of Queensland, the University of Technology Sydney and Flinders University.

With over $3 million in funding contributed to the research cluster by CSIRO Flagship Collaboration Fund and a further $3 million from the partnering Universities, the project will run until June 2014.

One of the cluster’s key goals is to produce cheap, flexible optoelectronic devices such as displays and lighting based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), solar cells, plastic electronics and sensors – technologies for use in products ranging from plastic solar cells to flexible televisions.

Dr Calum Drummond, Group Executive of CSIRO Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals, said the research cluster provided a new and very unique combination of skills and technical capability in Australia.

 “The cluster consists of leading Australian scientists with individual specialist skills in areas such as nanoscience, thin film deposition and characterisation, chemical physics and electrical engineering,” he said.

“This is a novel partnership and one which is essential to the development of new commercial products such as plastic solar cells, solid-state lighting, flexible TV screens, computer displays and beyond,” said Dr Drummond.