Fiscal policy levers to improve diets and prevent obesity

Preventing obesity is a high priority for Australian governments. While individuals have a responsibility to manage their own diet and weight, governments also have a role to play. Governments can enable individual health promoting behaviours through a range of means including: the physical environment (for example, by providing access to cycle paths that are safe), economic incentives (for example, by imposing taxes on unhealthy foods), policies (for example, by funding health services that help people lose weight), and social-cultural factors (for example, advertising campaigns designed to change attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, values and norms of the societal or cultural group). This paper considers the evidence regarding economic incentives in the form of targeted taxes and subsidies on food and beverages

Analogue RF over fibre links for future radar systems

The distribution of analogue RF signals within a high performance radar system is challenging due to the limited space available and the high levels of performance required. This work investigates the gain, linearity and noise performance that can be achieved by an externally modulated direct detection link designed for operation up to 20 GHz using commercially available components. The aim was to assess the suitability of such links for use in future radar systems. Good correlation has been shown between modelled and measured results demonstrating that the performance should satisfy the linearity requirements for many radar applications

Negotiating healthy trade in Australia: health impact assessment of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Drawing on leaked texts of potential provisions of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, this health impact assessment found the potential for negative impacts in the cost of medicines, tobacco control policies, alcohol control policies, and food labeling. Overview The Centre for Health Equity Training Research and Evaluation (CHETRE) has been working with a group of Australian academics and non-government organisations interested in the health of the Australian population to carry out a health impact assessment (HIA) on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiations. In the absence of official publicly available drafts of the trade agreement, the health impact assessment drew on leaked texts of potential provisions and formulated policy scenarios based on high priority health policies that could be affected by the TPP. The HIA found the potential for negative impacts in each of the four areas under investigation: the cost of medicines; tobacco control policies; alcohol control policies; and food labeling. In each of these areas, the HIA report traces the relevant proposed provisions through to their likely effects on the policy scenarios onto the likely impact on the health of Australians, focusing particularly on vulnerable groups in the Australian community. The report makes a number of recommendations to DFAT regarding the TPP provisions and to the Australian Government regarding the TPP negotiating process

Capitol Reef: the Forgotten National Park

The purpose of this study was to examine the changing relationship between the National Park Service and the residents of Wayne County, Utah. In 1937, Capitol Reef National Park was created as a result of the efforts made by local residents looking for a solution to their economic problems. Over the next five decades, the anticipated economic upturn spurred by the National Park did not develop. Instead, the relationship between the parties involved underwent a radical change because of conflicts over private landholdings, grazing and mineral rights, expansion, development, and road building. While this study does trace the growth of Capitol Reef into a national park, it is not an administrative history of the site. Its focus is on failure of the Park to live up to the expectations of its early supporters and the resulting deterioration of the relationship between local residents and the National Park Service

Neoliberal discourse, actor power, and the politics of nutrition policy: a qualitative analysis of informal challenges to nutrition labelling regulations at the World Trade Organization, 2007-2019

Unhealthy diets are increasing contributors to poor health and mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Government interventions targeting the structural drivers of unhealthy diets are needed to prevent these illnesses, including nutrition labelling regulations that create healthier food environments. Yet, implementation remains slow and uneven. One explanation for slow implementation highlights the role of politics, including powerful ideological discourse and its strategic deployment by economically powerful actors. In this article, we advance research on the politics of nutrition policies by analysing political discourse on nutrition labelling regulations within an influential and under-studied global institution: the World Trade Organization (WTO). We identified WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee meeting minutes with reference to nutrition labelling policies proposed by Thailand, Chile, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uruguay (2007–2019; n = 47). We analysed the frames, narratives, and normative claims that feature in inter-country discourse within TBT meetings and examined how actors mobilize ideological and material sources of power via these statements. We find that informal government challenges to nutrition labelling proposals within the Committee featured a narrative that individualized the causes of and solutions to poor diet, downplayed harms from industrialised food products, and framed state regulation as harmful and unjust. These non-technical claims mobilised neoliberal ideology and rhetoric to contest the normative legitimacy of members’ proposals and to de-socialize and de-politicize poor diets. Furthermore, high-income countries (HICs) re-framed policy goals to focus on individual determinants of poor nutrition whilst calling for their preferred policies to be adopted. Patterns of discourse within TBT meetings also had striking similarities with arguments raised by multi-national food corporations elsewhere. Our findings suggest that non-technical and ideological arguments raised during TBT meetings serve as inconspicuous tools through which nutrition labelling policies in LMICs are undermined by HICs, industry, and the powerful ideology of neoliberalism