The opposition's deputy leader and foreign affairs spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, reaffirmed her calls for the government to overcome "impediments" and send health workers to west Africa to help contain the outbreak, which had killed more than 4,500 people.
The government would focus on governance and regulatory impediments, trade facilitation, infrastructure, water, private sector development, agri-food, fisheries and services, and empowering women to engage in economic activities.
One is that over the past year the impediments placed by Iraq before the UN inspectors monitoring the weapons made their job virtually impossible, and now they have been thrown out.
But had the negotiations been starting now, such gross impediments to trade might well have been on the agenda.Another straw in the wind is the difficult progress of some regional trade agreements.
Yet, Bagehot submits, recent briefings against the shadow chancellor from within Mr Miliband's camp suggest a growing impatience with his performance that could sweep those impediments aside.
Future generations will thank us.John KjellmanHenniker, New HampshireSIR – In fairness and morality we should strive to eliminate all harmful practices that produce impediments for future generations.
New impediments—subsidies to domestic firms, for instance, local content requirements, bogus health-and-safety requirements—have gained popularity.
Will increasing marginal tax rates undermine such activity?One of the greatest impediments to starting a new business venture is lack of available capital.
At the same time local companies were eager to raise money for capital investment but faced bureaucratic impediments to issuing public securities.
This means a lot of foreign investment that might want to go to Indonesia now goes elsewhere.And then there are continuing problems of corruption and what Mr Castle calls "non-transparent random regulations", which he says are the biggest impediments to business.
The structural impediments to investment in India have been eased but not removed.
