Surge of respiratory viruses infecting millions worldwide in first weeks of 2025

Benjamin Mateus

In the wake of the holiday season, respiratory illnesses that include COVID-19, flu and RSV are once again on a rapidly accelerating trajectory in the US, Europe and China. Vaccines are available for these pathogens and the means to quickly contain their spread are well-established. But instead, capitalist governments have abandoned sound public health measures, and the “let-it-rip” policy is on full display, given political cover by a massive disinformation campaign. 

Virus detections by subtype reported to FluNet, January 1, 2019 to December 23, 2024. [Photo: World Health Organization]

In the US, many hospitals in the upper Midwest and Northeast are scrambling to reinstitute mask mandates amid fears of what is being called the quad-demic (COVID-19, RSV, influenza and Norovirus, a stomach flu that is passed through the oral-fecal route for which a vaccine is currently in phase two studies). The rising number of emergency room visits speaks to the failure to address respiratory pathogens through public health measures. 

Two large health systems in the metro Detroit area, the Detroit Medical Center and Corewell Health, are restricting the number of visitors they allow at their facilities. Dr. Rachel Klamo, president of the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, told the Detroit Free Press, “Our hospitals are busy. Hospitals in southeast Michigan, for sure, are operating at pretty high capacity. There’s just a high burden of illness right now, and a lot of it is respiratory. We’re seeing high rates of influenza type A and B, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, and then COVID-19 as well. There are hospitals in southeast Michigan with an extremely high burden of COVID right now and have a lot of patients who are very, very sick with COVID. We are at higher levels than we’ve been in some time.”

In the last three months of 2024, between October 1, and December 14, 2024, during the last lull in COVID infections, the CDC estimated there were 9.3 million cases of flu, 4.2 million doctor visits, 140,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths. For RSV, in the same period, there were 1.2 million cases, 60,000 hospitalizations, and 3,100 deaths. For COVID, the figures were 4.9 million cases, 1.1 million visits, 130,000 hospitalizations and 15,000 deaths. 

Levels of Respiratory Illness Activity in the US as of December 28, 2024

With respect to the UK, retired physician, Dr. Evonne Curran, who worked at Glasgow Royal Hospital from 1988 to 2022, told The I Paper that she had never before encountered a winter infectious disease crisis like the one that is currently inundating health systems there. Curran said of the four viruses “floating around hospitals at absolutely high levels … When you have so many infections coming in through hospital doors, what you would normally do to contain infections is to shut that bay and shut that ward. But when you have got 12 ambulances lined up outside A&E and are desperate to place patients in beds, you are going to use beds wherever you can and put patients anywhere. I think it is understandable that people are terrified of going into hospital at the moment. I wouldn’t want to go into hospital in the current situation.”

The wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson (of the “let the bodies pile high in their thousands”), 38-year-old Carrie Johnson, was admitted for almost a week after contracting the flu and pneumonia. She was having severe labored breathing. This only underscores the seriousness of these pathogens to one’s well-being. While the rich and famous have access to boutique health care facilities with physicians at their beck and call, for most working class people, lack of prompt access to physicians means they will keep working and see their health dangerously deteriorate before seeking care at crowded emergency rooms.

Inevitably, the current wave of infections will only be aggravated by the return of students to school and university after the holiday break.

As Curran correctly observed, “Everyone [still] thinks it is people not washing their hands—that’s not the case. These are airborne viruses and even norovirus is found in the air for several hours and is more likely to be inhaled. So, the more people we have in hospital with an infection, the more contamination we have got in the air. You can’t hand wash your way out of this quad-demic because it is mainly spread by what you breathe in and what you breathe out.”

Given the repeated waves of COVID, each with higher rates of hospitalization and deaths than flu, the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains a formidable pathogen, and the population should take heed to avoid infections by masking with well-fitting N95 respirators and using HEPA filters in indoor environments. Vaccines continue to afford important protections against severe disease and death, and development of Long COVID from these infections.

Perhaps more daunting, fewer than 40 percent of all Americans have planned to obtain the latest COVID vaccine and just over half reported they might get the flu shots. According to an October Pew Research Center survey, “Smaller shares say they will get an updated vaccine (24 percent) or have already received one (15 percent).” 

The majority of those choosing not to receive COVID boosters erroneously believe that “it isn’t needed” despite the numerous studies that have demonstrated the rising risk of cardiac disease, neurological consequences, Long COVID, and potential risks of cancers associated with repeat infections. These disparities between the science of COVID and the public’s understanding is the result of the ferocious bipartisan attack on science and public health that has shaped the response to the ongoing COVID pandemic. 

Percent of tests positive for respiratory viruses. [Photo: CDC]

For instance, a recent study on cognitive impairments with neurological Long COVID, published in Nature, found that these patients exhibited higher rates of fatigue, depression and anxiety and did worse on cognitive tests. They had impairments in their mental flexibility, verbal short-term memory, working memory, and processing speed. These studies have their corollary in real-life experiences of workers. In another study published by Ohio State University researchers, Long COVID was continuing to cause significant daily disruptions in COVID survivors’ personal and professional lives, despite most having been infected in 2020.

The report noted, “For those who continued working after their COVID-19 infection, the effort and energy required for work left little capacity to participate in other life activities and made it difficult to attend recommended health care appointments. Participants reported financial impacts of changes in employment including loss of income and changes in insurance, which were compounded by high health care costs.”

Furthermore, the study continued, “A quarter of the patients who took part in the study reported significant activity limitations and two-thirds reported having a disability. Those with Long COVID show a lower likelihood of full-time employment and higher potential for unemployment compared to those without Long COVID.”

Most egregious, in the climate of COVID denialism, has been the inability of Long COVID survivors to address their health needs. The study’s lead author, Dr. Sarah MacEwan, told Ohio Capital Journal, “One thing we’ve uncovered through this work is people not being believed by their providers about their symptoms or being brushed off or pushed into other diagnoses that they feel don’t reflect their experience.” According to MacEwan, “It’s a real question of whether they are getting what they need from the providers they’re able to reach where they are.”

US COVID-19 transmission the past 12 months and forecast. [Photo: Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative]

At present, the average number of coronavirus infections per person across the US stands at 3.55 according to the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC), led by Dr. Mike Hoerger, a leading international expert on health analytics and COVID-19 modeler at Tulane. In the US, the XEC strain of the virus accounts for nearly 50 percent of all current COVID infections and continues to dominate the respiratory landscape. In their latest report, the PMC note that COVID infections have risen back to approximately 1 million cases per day and could top 1.5 million daily at the peak of the 10th wave.  

What is particularly disconcerting however, as some have observed, the troughs (lows) continue to rise with each COVID wave, underscoring the lunacy of attempting to define this virus as endemic, as though it had stabilized or was under control. What remains undefined are the long-term implications of repeat infections with SARS-CoV-2 on overall population health. The evidence suggests that infectious diseases may be one of the primary causative factors of non-communicable diseases.

A study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that there was a positive correlation between early childhood infection burden and subsequent infection risks, and systemic antibiotic use later in childhood. Among 614 children who were part of a study conducted in Copenhagen, the authors noted that children with a high infection burden (equal to or more than 16 episodes) in the first three years of life showed a significantly increased risk (2.39 times) of moderate to severe infections and systemic antibiotic treatments (1.34 times) later in childhood. The findings highlight the importance of infection prevention, not mass infection (aka “herd immunity”) as a public health policy.

The upcoming confirmation hearings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has advanced anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and an assortment of anti-scientific conceptions, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, raises important political and social issues, threatening the advances in public health that have increased life expectancy and well-being for working people throughout the world.

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New Caledonia government installs anti-independence president

John Braddock

Following the collapse of New Caledonia’s government on Christmas Eve, the French Pacific colony’s cabinet has installed an anti-independence loyalist as its new president. Alcide Ponga, 49, is the first indigenous Kanak to lead the pro-France Le Rassemblement party.

New Caledonian President Alcide Ponga [Photo: Facebook/Alcide Ponga]

Ponga was appointed by the Congress’s newly elected executive on January 8, replacing outgoing President Louis Mapou of the pro-independence Parti de Libération Kanak (Palika). Mapou had bitterly declared, “It’s a dirty political blow to the country.”

Le Rassemblement, which is affiliated with the fascistic Les Républicains (LR) in France, is allied with the colony’s “Loyalist” bloc that includes Les Républicains Calédoniennes (LRC), Générations NC, and Mouvement populaire calédonien (MPC). Supported by wealthier French expatriates, including descendants of settlers known as Caldoches, and the business elite, they are overwhelmingly right-wing and fiercely anti-independence.

From a prominent Kanak family, Ponga studied political science in France and made his career in the nickel industry before entering politics in 2014. His uncle, Maurice Ponga, served as a minister in the first two governments established after the 1998 Nouméa Accord in which anti-independence politicians held a majority within the executive. He was a member of the European Parliament for 2009-19.

Last July Alcide Ponga was defeated in polling for the snap elections for France’s National Assembly, which saw a surge in support for the territory’s pro-independence candidates. Standing in the heavily Kanak Northern constituency, his home, Ponga decisively lost to Emmanuel Tjibaou of the pro-independence Union Calédonienne (UC), by 57.01 to 42.99 percent of the votes.

The sharp shift within New Caledonia’s political establishment, after seven months of violent unrest by impoverished and alienated Kanak youth, is an expression of what the WSWS has characterised as “the violent lurch of bourgeois politics to the right around the world.” It coincides with the resignation of Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following the collapse of governments in Germany, France and Austria.

The colony’s Mapou government was toppled after environment and sustainable development minister Jérémie Katidjo-Monnier, the sole representative from the pro-France Calédonie Ensemble, resigned and his party refused to nominate a replacement.

New Caledonia’s 11-member cabinet is made up from the parties represented at the Congress. It ostensibly operates under a proportional principle of “collegiality,” implying that the multi-party executive, which includes both supporters and opponents of independence, works together.

The arrangement is a product of the “power sharing” Nouméa Accord, initiated by the French Socialist Party government of Lionel Jospin in 1998, which ended nearly a decade of civil unrest. The nationalist leadership abandoned its struggle for independence in return for a place in office and access to business opportunities, including a stake in the vital nickel industry, while enabling France to maintain overall colonial control.

The 54-member Congress reconvened after Christmas to vote on the new cabinet. The Loyalists-Rassemblement bloc, including Ponga, won four seats. A joint list of the anti-independence Calédonie ensemble (CE) and Eveil Océanien (EO, Oceania Awakening) took two; the pro-independence UC-Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) three, and the Union nationale pour l’Indépendance (UNI) two.

Ponga’s elevation to the presidency came after the first attempt failed to reach a majority. The next day, during a contentious meeting convened by French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc, Ponga defeated the UC candidate Samuel Hnepeune by 6-3 votes.

According to Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan, Hnepeune, a leading Kanak businessman and former head of the domestic airline Air Calédonie, won the three votes of his UC-FLNKS faction. However, the two members of the UNI abstained, reflecting ongoing tensions between UC and Palika, the two largest members of the now broken FLNKS coalition.

The months of unrest have produced a crisis of rule within the colony’s bourgeois elite, including the pro-independence movement itself. While a level of “surface calm” is now being reported, the riots have left 14 dead, hundreds arrested, businesses shuttered and the economy on its knees. Some 6,000 French security forces remain deployed, enforcing what French President Emmanuel Macron has previously referred to as “Republican order.”

There are simmering tensions within the pro-France bloc. CE’s Philippe Dunoyer resigned when he was not offered the portfolio of finance and economy. Dunoyer and CE had proposed a program including market reforms, a new relationship with Paris and major cuts to government spending and the public service, but they could not reach agreement with the Loyalists and Rassemblement.

Amid the ongoing popular unrest, the official pro-independence bloc has suffered a series of reversals. In a surprise vote in August, Congress President Roch Wamytan of the FLNKS was replaced by Veylma Falaeo from EO. The EO’s three members had previously provided a majority for the pro-independence faction, but Falaeo won the support of the Loyalists to shift the paper-thin majority in their favour, enabling her to take over the Congress presidency.

The EO’s electoral base is in the community from the neighbouring French territory of Wallis and Futuna and it had sought to promote a “middle way” between the contesting blocs. The Loyalist parties declared their “joy” at the ending of Wamytan’s five-year presidency and denounced what they described as his “guilty silence in the face of the ongoing violence since 13 May.”

New Caledonia faces an immediate economic crisis with an estimated €2.2 billion in damage. An emergency €231 million French government payment has been reduced by one third. The aid package to allow essential public services to keep operating was endorsed in an eleventh-hour vote at the National Assembly, just before the French government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier fell to a motion of no confidence. New Caledonia’s Congress failed to endorse the third and last tranche of a financial “reform package” which was a precondition of the aid.

Nothing has been done to resolve the fundamental issues behind the unrest, triggered by poverty, inequality, unemployment and social desperation. The rebellion brought a substantial section of Kanak youth into conflict, not only with French colonial oppression, but with the territory’s political establishment. The official independence movement was exposed by the movement that erupted from below and outside its control, as well as by its subsequent efforts under orders from Macron to rein it in.

In November, the four-party FLNKS split apart after multi-party talks, which the FLNKS parties embraced, began with France’s far-right Barnier government regarding the future of the territory. Following separate party congresses, two of the “moderate” FLNKS components, the Melanesian Progressive Union (UPM) and PALIKA, declared they did not recognise the way the “hard line” UC had been operating during the riots.

Responding, UC secretary-general Dominique Fochi said the FLNKS was the “national liberation movement” recognised as the official representative of the Kanak people. “This is the message we want to convey to New Caledonians, and… the French State,” he declared. He insisted the FLNKS remained the only “interlocutor bearing the voice of the… anti-colonial movement regarding [New Caledonia’s] political future.”

Negotiations between all the parties, pro-and anti-independence, and the French State were initially expected to begin before Christmas but the Barnier government’s defeat in December brought this to a halt. The installation of a new minority French government under Prime Minister François Bayrou has strengthened the hand of the far-right.

During the French elections, the “left” New Popular Front (NFP) coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, now supporting the new government from the outside, issued meaningless calls for “dialogue” and “consensus” over the colony’s crisis. However, the effective opposition leader, the National Rally’s fascistic Marine Le Pen, has previously warned that New Caledonia is “French” and will not see independence for “30 or 40 years.”

Australian Labor government’s school funding model entrenches underfunding and inequality

Patrick O’Connor

The Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently established a new school funding model that will entrench the systematic underfunding of public schools over the next decade. With private schools continuing to enjoy lavish government funding, the Australian school system remains among the world’s most socially polarised and unequal.

Before the 2022 federal election the Labor Party postured as a supporter of public education, lies that the Australian Education Union promoted while spending $3.5 million on pro-Labor election campaigning. For more than two years after that, the Albanese government maintained without revision the previous Liberal-National government’s funding arrangements. Only on the final day of parliament last year did the government legislate a new funding system—with this essentially amounting to tweaks to a few provisions of the former setup.

Previous governments, both Labor and Liberal, were responsible for engineering an unprecedented crisis in the public education system. While elite private schools provide the best education money can buy for children of the upper middle class, numerous public schools, especially those in working class areas, are increasingly dysfunctional. Excessive workloads and inadequate support for teachers has created a national workforce shortage, hiking class sizes and causing widespread disruption to student learning. Ageing and inadequate infrastructure is rife within public schools, while student support services such as psychologists are grossly inadequate, with mental health episodes and serious behavioural issues emerging in classrooms daily.

This status quo is set to continue under the Albanese government. The so-called Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) will see the government increase federal government funding of public schools from 20 percent of the nominal total to 22.5 percent, reportedly involving a nominal increase in government spending of $16 billion.

Australian federal Minister for Education Jason Clare [Photo: X/@JasonClareMP]

Education minister Jason Clare claims that this as the largest ever increase in school funding. In reality, this funding represents a drop in the bucket. The $16 billion figure is for the next ten years, divided between the states and territories, and is nowhere near what public schools require.

The Albanese government has also maintained mechanisms enacted by the previous Liberal-National government that allow the states and territories to claim as school funding various expenses that are not directly related to public schools’ operations. Trevor Cobbald of the Save Our Schools organisation has characterised this “accounting trick” as a “swindle,” which he estimated “have defrauded public schools of $13.1 billion over the last six years [and] will defraud public schools of at least $13.3 billion over the next five years.” Substantially more, in other words, than Jason Clare’s “record” $16 billion funding allocation.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement also requires state and territory governments to adhere to new obligations that undermine the public education system. Clare has emphasised that “additional funding is not a blank cheque,” with new measures purportedly meant to “help lift student outcomes, sets targets and improves school funding transparency.” This is all centred on the even more extensive extraction of standardised test data, adding to teacher workloads while narrowing the curriculum. Among the new requirements is a Year 1 phonics test, which is part of the push to mandate regressive pedagogical literacy approaches in public schools.

So far governments in Western Australia, Tasmania, and the two territories have signed on to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, with those in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia holding out. These state governments want the federal government to increase its share of public school funding to 25 percent, instead of the offered 22.5 percent. This demand has also been advanced by the Greens and the teacher unions, which are falsely posturing as advocates for public education.

Even if the 25 percent federal spending share was reached, this would remain grossly inadequate.

This is because the percentage is calculated on the basis of the School Resource Standard (SRS). The SRS formula was devised in 2011 by David Gonski, a leading corporate executive who was tasked by then Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard with drafting a new school funding model. Essentially, the SRS establishes a per student annual funding baseline target—currently $13,977 for primary students and $17,565 for secondary students—with additional “loadings” for remote schools and students who are disabled, indigenous, or experiencing “socio-educational disadvantage.”

The establishment of the SRS has done nothing to reduce school inequality. On the contrary, state and federal governments have continued to lavish funds on private schools, including the most exclusive where families pay $50,000 in annual tuition fees. Australia has one of the world’s most privatised school systems, with 42 percent of all secondary students now in the private sector.

The school funding model is designed to funnel ever greater numbers of students into the private sector. Numerous families feel compelled to send their children to private schools due to the disaster within the public education system. 

Whereas only 1.3 percent of public schools are funded to the SRS benchmark, 98 percent of private schools are. Numerous private schools receive government funding significantly in excess of the SRS, including the most exclusive. Lavish facilities have been developed using this surplus government funding. An Age report earlier this year revealed that five private schools in Victoria and New South Wales spent more on capital works than 3,300 public schools did, more than half the country’s total.

The SRS funding benchmark is directly tied to the regressive NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) standardised test. It is based on calculations regarding how much spending is required to have at least 80 percent of students recording above minimum NAPLAN test scores for reading and numeracy. In other words, the demands of the teacher union bureaucracies and the Greens for “fully funded schools,” based on Gonski’s SRS, are for a school funding model that potentially leaves 20 percent of students with sub-par literacy and numeracy skills.

No-one within the political and media establishment ever criticises the SRS or the NAPLAN testing regime that the funding model is tied to. Neither is there any discussion on the level of funding that is required to provide every young person with the quality of education currently reserved for the wealthy minority able to access elite private schools.

New Zealand government’s “foreign interference” bill prepares new attacks on democratic rights

Tom Peters

Composite image of National Party leader Christopher Luxon and Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins. [Photo: Christopher Luxon Facebook September 21/Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins Facebook September 7]

New Zealand’s right-wing National Party-led coalition government, with the support of the opposition Labour Party, is pushing through draconian legislation against so-called “foreign interference,” which will be used to significantly curtail freedom of speech and other basic political and democratic rights.

The Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in parliament on November 19 and was referred to the Justice Select Committee for discussion.

The former Labour Party government, which lost the election in 2023, first proposed the law change, following a campaign by the intelligence agencies and the corporate media, which have repeatedly made lurid and unsubstantiated claims about Chinese and Russian “influence” or “interference.”

The new legislation is part of the drive to integrate New Zealand more closely with US imperialism and its allies—including Australia and Canada, which passed their own “foreign interference” laws in 2018 and 2024—as Washington escalates its far-advanced preparations for war against China.

The ruling elite has been alarmed by the eruption of mass protests over the past year against the US-Israel genocide in Gaza, which New Zealand’s government supports. The Foreign Interference Bill creates a mechanism for the criminalisation of opposition to militarism and war in the working class and among young people.

The Crimes Act already includes laws against espionage and treason. Treasonous actions include overthrowing the government by force, conspiring to do so, and providing assistance to “any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities.”

The Foreign Interference Bill goes much further. Under the draft law, someone who “owes allegiance” to New Zealand (e.g. a citizen) commits an offence if they engage in “improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” in order to “compromise a protected New Zealand interest.” The maximum punishment for someone found guilty is 14 years in prison.

The definition of “improper conduct” is extremely broad and open to interpretation. It includes behaving in a corrupt, “coercive,” “deceptive” or “covert” manner, such as “concealing” one’s identity, “obscuring the existence of an association or relationship,” and “collecting or sharing information about a person without their knowledge or consent.”

Corruption is defined as using a position of authority to exert “undue influence or control” over someone to oppose New Zealand interests.

The bill states that these definitions exclude conduct such as “the protection of trade secrets, commercially sensitive information, journalists’ sources, or legally privileged communications.” But the legislation could clearly be used to criminalise political activists and organisations deemed to be acting in the interests of a foreign power.

It could also be used to accuse teachers and academics of using their position to exert “undue influence” over students, for instance by criticising New Zealand’s military alliances or the government’s support for Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians.

The Security Intelligence Service, the domestic spy agency, asserted in a 2023 report that “New Zealand’s academic sector—encompassing institutions, employees and students” was being targeted by foreign states to exert “influence” using “deceptive, corruptive or coercive means.” No evidence was provided to substantiate this claim.

Acting against a “protected New Zealand interest” is defined in a very broad manner. It includes undermining the country’s “security,” its “economic well-being” and “international relations,” as well as interfering in the conduct of elections and jeopardising the safety and rights of the population.

The law could be used to criminalise strikes and protests, including anti-war rallies, which might be deemed harmful to New Zealand’s international alliances, “national security” and the economy, i.e. corporate profits.

During World War I and II this is precisely what happened. Strikes were outlawed as damaging to the war effort and providing aid to the “enemy.” Sedition laws were used to suppress anti-war and socialist publications and to imprison hundreds of socialists and pacifists.

In prosecuting someone for “foreign interference,” the state would not be required to prove any actual connection to a foreign state. The bill says that a person commits an offence if “the person knows, or ought to know, that they are engaging in the [improper] conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” (emphasis added).

Nor would the state have to prove any intent to harm a “protected New Zealand interest.” A person can commit an offence if they are “reckless as to whether [their conduct] is likely to compromise a protected New Zealand interest.”

The government is also seeking to amend the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to expand warrantless search powers to enable the police and other agencies to spy on people suspected of “foreign interference.” This will mean a further increase in state surveillance of workers, students and young people who become politically active.

Thomas Beagle, chair of the NZ Council for Civil Liberties, told journalist Mick Hall that the Foreign Interference Bill “obviously risks being in breach of the government’s obligations under the NZ Bill of Rights Act to protect freedom of expression and freedom of association. New Zealanders clearly have the right to differ with the government of the day on what New Zealand’s interests are.”

Beagle said the bill could be used against people “working internationally with members of political parties that are aligned on issues of interest to New Zealanders.” He noted that environmental activists, who often work with overseas groups, are already accused of harming New Zealand’s economic interests.

In 2023 Hall was the target of a McCarthyite campaign by politicians and media pundits, who smeared him as a “Russian agent” because of his factual reporting on the origins of the war in Ukraine and the extreme right-wing character of the Zelensky regime. He was forced to leave his job at state-owned broadcaster Radio NZ. In future, such reporting could trigger prosecution for “foreign interference.”

The bipartisan support in parliament for the Foreign Interference Bill is a warning that there is no constituency in the New Zealand ruling class for the maintenance of basic democratic rights. There has been no critical reporting on the bill in the corporate media, which agrees with its contents.

Speaking on November 19, senior Labour MP David Parker suggested that the bill should go further by including provisions to control speech on the internet. Social media, he declared, was being used by foreign powers “to influence people and to influence opinions.”

The Green Party was the only party that voted against the bill. Its MP Teanao Tuiono noted in parliament that New Zealand was already subject to foreign influence by the United States through its membership in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, which also includes the spy agencies of Australia, Canada and the UK. He also criticised the anti-China AUKUS military pact—which the government has indicated it is prepared to join—and said New Zealand should have an “an independent foreign policy” focused on the Pacific region.

All of this is thoroughly hypocritical. The Greens were a coalition partner in the 2017-2023 Labour government, which strengthened ties with US imperialism and called for the military to be equipped and prepared to join a war against China. The Greens explicitly supported a major spending increase on the military to defend New Zealand’s neo-colonial interests in the Pacific region.

Australia: Labor government’s NDIS overhaul excluding thousands of children from disability support

Max Boddy & Martin Scott

The federal Labor government is carrying out a drastic overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aiming to cut $60 billion from projected disability spending over the next decade.

The cost-cutting restructure was made possible by legislation passed in August with the support of the Liberal-National opposition. It will involve removing thousands of people from the NDIS, while dramatically reducing funding for those who remain on the scheme.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten addressing Australian parliament, August 22, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/BillShorten]

While the new cost-cutting planning framework is not set to be fully in place until September, the Labor government has already started kicking thousands of children off the NDIS. According to the Saturday Paper, the Labor government intends to slash spending by $500 million in the next year through the campaign to exclude children.

Last month, the government announced it would spend $280 million in 2025–26 to establish a 1,000 person workforce to re-assess the eligibility of NDIS participants according to stricter new criteria.

Late last year, more than 1,000 automated letters a week were being sent out to families of children with disabilities and adults with permanent and profound impairments, in what one NDIS participant described to the Saturday Paper as a “fishing exercise.”

The letters demand that the recipients produce “evidence” of their continued eligibility within just 28 days—even over the Christmas holiday period—or face being thrown off the scheme. No details of why participants’ eligibility is being questioned, or what additional “evidence” is needed, are contained in the letters.

The use of automated letters, without any follow-up via phone to ensure that participants understood what was being demanded of them, recalls the “Robodebt” scheme implemented by the previous Liberal-National Coalition government. Between 2015 and 2019, the automated system unlawfully extracted almost $2 billion from more than 433,000 welfare recipients, devastating lives and driving some to suicide. Despite the notorious reputation of “Robodebt,” the Labor government continues to employ similar punitive methods to slash welfare costs.

In the six weeks to 9 November, 7,487 of these “reassessments” were performed. 5,872 concerned 7- and 8-year-old children, at least 48 percent of whom were dumped from the NDIS.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the NDIS, claimed in its 2023–24 annual report, published in late December, that “increased numbers of participants [were] leaving the NDIS as their support needs stabilise, including children who leave the NDIS after achieving their goals.” The actual number of children who “no longer need supports” is listed as “not available” in the report, supposedly due to a computer glitch.

The Saturday Paper cites rejection letters from the NDIS admitting that children thrown off the scheme still require “intensive support,” but that this is the responsibility of other departments to provide. This is despite the acknowledgement that areas such as the “Health System may not be equipped with ‘enough’ funding to appropriately support an individual’s needs.”

These cuts have been applied immediately, although state government funded “foundational supports,” which are supposed to replace services no longer funded by the NDIS, are only scheduled to start in July. Moreover, no detail has been made public about what these “foundational supports” actually are or who will be able to access them.

As early as September last year, the AEIOU Foundation for Children with Autism reported a dramatic, unannounced reduction in the annual funding for children with autism, whose NDIS plans were cut by up to 60 percent, throwing families into acute crisis.

The Labor government’s attack on the support provided for children with disabilities is part of a broader drive to slash NDIS spending.

A confidential internal brief from the Department of Social Services, obtained by the Saturday Paper in December last year, revealed the introduction of a rigid “needs assessment” framework, which is designed to slash the already paltry supports people with a disability receive by transforming the way funding is allocated.

Under the existing scheme, participants who qualify receive a set amount of money to pay for various support services. The Labor government’s latest cost-cutting overhaul transforms this voucher-based system into a ration-based one.

The new model introduces a strict “needs assessment” framework, based on detailed reviews of participants’ everyday activities. For instance, the assessment will count how many times each day a person needs assistance to get out of bed, shower, or leave the house. Funding will then be tightly linked to these specific actions.

The model also shifts from annual plan reviews to long-term budgets lasting up to five years, forcing NDIS participants to undergo a reassessment process in which they will be required to estimate precisely what services they will require over potentially a five-year period.

The NDIS was never designed to deliver the high-quality care and support promised to people with disabilities. Instead, the underlying premise was always to eliminate government-funded disability services and funnel vast sums of public money into corporate providers, under the guise of establishing a “market.”

From the outset, access to the scheme was deliberately restricted and the number of support plans capped. Many people were excluded, particularly those with psychosocial disabilities or who were classified as having “low-level” support needs.

Although an estimated 5.5 million Australians have a disability, fewer than 700,000 are covered by the NDIS.

The social consequences have been devastating. Essential services across the country have been dismantled, including long-standing disability support facilities for individuals with complex and multiple disabilities. Residents have been relocated to underfunded, privately operated group homes. Many have died in the process.

The private disability market has proven wholly inadequate to address the complex needs of people with disabilities. Numerous reports reveal participants dying while waiting for essential equipment to be provided.

Labor’s assault on disability supports is an essential element in its broader austerity agenda. Amid rising inflation, homelessness and unemployment, Labor has targeted cuts for welfare recipients, asylum seekers and immigrants, education and health services, while ensuring massive tax breaks for the wealthy and setting aside billions for US-led war preparations against China.

The latest massive cost-cutting exercise is framed as an effort to ensure the NDIS’s “sustainability” under the pretext of soaring costs due to widespread fraud and rorting.

This is a sham, aimed at covering up the fact that cost blowouts are an inevitable consequence of privatisation and the transformation of vital public services into profit-generating endeavours.

The only “solution” to this under capitalism is the one adopted by the Labor government—the broad-scale disqualification of people with disabilities from support measures.

This will result in a massive increase in inequality, with only the wealthy able to afford private disability support services, while working-class families are forced to make do with whatever limited assistance is available from the overcrowded and underfunded public health and education systems, or appeal to charity organisations.

Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine ends

Jason Melanovski

Blue flame coming out of a gas stove burner. [Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis/Flickr / CC BY 4.0]

The transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine has ended following the expiration of a five-year agreement on January 1. This marks the end of Ukraine’s long-standing role as a key energy route to Europe.

Following the outbreak of the ongoing NATO proxy war against Moscow in February 2022, the EU—with the full backing of the United States—worked rapidly to lower its energy use from Russian sources.

According to a recent Energynews report, Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine had already dropped “from 117 billion cubic meters in 2008 to just 14.65 billion in 2023, underscoring the decline of this historical corridor for Russian gas to Europe.” The EU has reported that Russian sources have come to constitute just 10 percent of its gas imports compared to 40 percent in 2021 prior to the war.

While Brussels claims that its member states are prepared for the now total cutoff of Russian gas, Moldova, which is not part of the EU, is experiencing shortages following Gazprom’s refusal to offer the country an alternate delivery route. The Russian energy company claims it did so due to Moldova’s failure to make payments.

As a result of the energy conflict, 51,000 apartments and 1,500 buildings have been left without heat in the Russian-backed breakaway Transnistria region of Moldova. Moscow and Chisinau are trading accusations as the crisis unfolds.

President Maia Sandu, who won a controversial election last November after EU officials publicly intervened against the pro-Russian candidate Alexander Stoianoglo, accused Moscow of “blackmail.”

'To call things by their names, this is an opportunity for them to create an energy crisis in Moldova, she said, adding, “This is another lesson for us—not to have one source of energy supplies that blackmails us every time.”

Just prior to the end of the agreement, speculative reports appeared in both Ukrainian and Western media suggesting that Azerbaijan would attempt to take up Russia’s role as a gas supplier to Europe via Ukraine or that a last-minute extension would be negotiated between the EU and Moscow.

Despite Russia’s assurances that it was more than willing to conclude a deal with the imperialist powers and continue sending gas to Europe, those reports have yet to come to fruition, as NATO moves forward with its long standing plans to decouple Russia from European energy markets.

In October of last year, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal publicly ruled out an extension of the now-expired gas transit agreement, when he met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Western Ukraine. “Ukraine once again says it will not continue the transit agreement with Russia after it expires,” Shmyhal told reporters, adding, “Ukraine's strategic goal is to deprive the Kremlin of profits from the sale of hydrocarbons which the aggressor uses to finance the war.”

Previously, in 2020, Ukraine and Russia were able to reach a last-minute deal after “five days of non-stop bilateral talks in Vienna” led by European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.

At that time, Russia supplied Europe with 40 percent of its natural gas and was nearing completion of the now-destroyed Nord Stream 2 pipeline but had momentarily paused the latter’s construction due to the imposition of US sanctions included in the massive $738 billion 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

Without those sanctions, it is unlikely that the deal that has now ended between Russia and Ukraine would have ever been signed. Moscow was previously only willing to offer one-year agreements, while Ukraine sought one that would last for 10 years.

Under the terms of the old arrangement, Russia sent 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas through Ukraine in 2020 and 40 bcm of gas from 2021 to 2025. In exchange, a cash-strapped Ukraine received around $7 billion in much-needed transit fees.

Prior to that deal, gas supplies to Europe had already been interrupted twice in the previous 13 years, as tensions escalated between Moscow and Western-backed governments in Kiev.

While the majority of EU countries have already significantly cut their use of Russian gas , the Ukrainian transit route still met 65 percent of demand in 2023 in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, according to the European think tank, Bruegel.

In November of last year, Russia cut off its supplies to Austria, a move which the country’s leader claimed would have no impact. “No home will go cold ... gas-storage facilities are sufficiently full,” Karl Nehammer told reporters at the time.

Hungary no longer receives significant natural gas through Ukraine’s pipeline and has shifted its Russian natural gas deliveries to the TurkStream pipeline that runs along the bed of the Black Sea.

Slovakia alone continued up to now to receive Russian gas via Ukraine, but has likewise switched to receiving Russian gas supplies via the TurkSteam pipeline. It has said, however, that it would prefer an alternate route through Germany that has yet to be used.

The fallout from the ending of the gas agreement continues to exacerbate already existing tensions between the Ukrainian government and neighboring Slovakia, which is both a NATO and EU member.

In addition to using Russian gas for its own needs, Slovakia also served as the main gas entry point to the EU from Ukraine and earned transit fees from sending the resource along to Hungary, Austria and Italy.

The Slovakian government, led by Prime Minister Robert Fico, has warned that the end of the agreement between Ukraine and Russia will have “drastic” consequences for EU countries. He has threatened to shut off electricity supplies to Ukraine, which is already suffering from rolling blackouts due to the war.

Earlier in December, Fico, one of the most vocal opponents of the Ukraine war within the EU, pledged that Ukraine would never be welcomed to NATO, a central goal of the Zelensky government. “Ukraine won’t be invited to NATO. It will lose a third of its territory. There will be foreign military forces there,' Fico said while addressing Slovakia's Parliamentary Committee for European Affairs.

He later made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, contradicting the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, by which all member states are expected to abide.

Last year, Fico survived an assassination attempt by 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, who was angered over the leader’s opposition to continued military aid to Ukraine.

In response to Fico’s criticisms of the gas deal’s termination, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Fico of “dragging Slovakia into Russia's attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians.”

On the military front, the situation continues to be going poorly for Ukraine. The one remaining active metering station, located at Sudzha, of Russian gas to Ukrainian pipelines was taken by Ukrainian forces during Zelensky’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk incursion in August. However, Russian forces are continuing to advance in the Donbass, where the Ukrainian military is facing manpower and ammunition shortages.

Russia just claimed the strategically important town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region. While Ukraine has yet to acknowledge the fact, a well-known right-wing Ukrainian military blogger, Yury Butusov, confirmed the town has been “effectively lost.”

Aware of the impending loss in Kurakhove, on Sunday the Ukrainian army launched another offensive in the Kursk region. Russia reports that in response it has destroyed, four tanks, two infantry combat tanks, 16 armored combat vehicles and a mine clearance vehicle.

As is typical of the PR-driven Zelensky government, the attack on Russian territory was timed to coincide with and counter the breaking news of the loss of Kurakhove and demonstrate to incoming US President Donald Trump that Kiev can wage an offensive, no matter how minor to the overall trajectory of the war or how many of its own troops it loses.