Critical Reflections on Australian Public Policy Selected Essays
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Health Reform in Australia and the Place of E-Health
International Medical Community Health Reform in Australia and the Place of E-Health JMAJ 53(3): 193–198, 2010 Mukesh C. HAIKERWAL*1 Introduction: Health needs reform activity to be measured, clinical information to be electronically transferred and shared (with Health is of great importance for Australians. strict security, privacy, confidentiality and stan- Politically, health, the health system and funding dards—technical and ethical—applying). The use for it are major issues. Elections can be influenced of e-Health enables the reform process but also by health policy1: the 2010 Australian Federal supports the processes of health care improving election, not to mention the 3 State elections the patient journey, patient outcomes and health in Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria this professional effectiveness, efficiency and argu- year will see Health as a key policy area being ably satisfaction. considered by voters. The reasons for the need for health reform are The system of health care in Australia con- widely recognised across the globe. tinues to evolve. People in Australia see health as They relate to: an investment and as economic status improves, • growing demands for health care and services they pay for more health services. The election • greater expectations of consumers from these of a new Government in November 2007 in Aus- services tralia signaled reform to the Health Care system. • a need for consumer centred health care, self- The new Labor government has declared its care and health literacy intention to be a reforming administration which • research and medical advances that drive best intends to plan the health system of the future. -
Record of Proceedings
ISSN 1322-0330 RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS Hansard Home Page: http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/hansard Email: [email protected] Phone (07) 3553 6344 FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY-SIXTH PARLIAMENT Tuesday, 26 March 2019 Subject Page ASSENT TO BILLS ............................................................................................................................................................... 603 Tabled paper: Letter, dated 7 March 2019, from His Excellency the Governor to the Speaker advising of assent to certain bills on 7 March 2019. .......................................................................... 603 PRIVILEGE ........................................................................................................................................................................... 603 Comments by Minister for Police and Minister for Corrective Services, Clarification .................................. 603 SPEAKER’S STATEMENT ................................................................................................................................................... 604 New Zealand, Shootings ................................................................................................................................... 604 Tabled paper: Letter, dated 15 March 2019, from the Speaker, Hon. Curtis Pitt, to the Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Trevor Mallard, expressing the sorrow of the members of the Queensland parliament regarding the events in Christchurch -
SM Bruce: the Businessman As Treasurer
SM Bruce: the businessman as Treasurer John Hawkins1 Stanley Melbourne Bruce, a wealthy businessman with an aristocratic air, served as Treasurer in 1922, bringing down one budget, during his meteoric rise to the prime ministership. He stressed the need to bring ‘businesslike’ practices into government and promote development under his slogan ‘men, money and markets’. A number of commissions and inquiries were set up to inform policymaking, and Bruce looked favourably on establishing independent boards to manage some government operations. Bruce established a sinking fund to retire the debt accumulated during the First World War. He also tried to rationalise industrial relations arrangements. Source: National Library of Australia. 1 The first draft of this article was prepared when the author was in the Domestic Economy Division, the Australian Treasury. He thanks Anthony Goldbloom for assistance in tracking down references from The Economist, and for helpful comments. The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Australian Treasury. 71 SM Bruce: the businessman as Treasurer Introduction Stanley Melbourne Bruce PC CH MC, later Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, preferred to be known as ’SM’ than ’Stanley’. (He was never called ’Stan’.) His wealth and interests set him apart from the average Australian.2 Even at the time, he seemed like he had stepped out of a Wodehouse novel. He was the only Prime Minister to come to the job already with a valet, a butler and a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. His sports were riding, rowing, golf and royal tennis. He was always immaculately attired, and had impeccable manners and what some regarded as matinee idol looks. -
1 21/10/2016 “We Will End up Being a Third Rate Economy …A Banana Republic”: How Behavioural Economics Can Improve Macroec
1 Australian Economic Review Forthcoming 21/10/2016 “We will end up being a third rate economy …a banana republic”: How behavioural economics can improve macroeconomic outcomes Ian M McDonald University of Melbourne Abstract To address the economic problems facing Australia in 1986 required wage restraint which required in turn overcoming loss aversion by workers with respect to their wages. The Prices and Incomes Accord was able to do this. Attempts to address Australia’s current economic problems are stymied by tax resistance. Addressing tax resistance requires overcoming loss aversion by voters with respect to their post-tax incomes. The success of the Accord suggests that Accord-type policies could reduce tax resistance by broadening people’s perspective beyond their post-tax incomes to the broader spread of benefits for them and others. Short abstract The Prices and Incomes Accord overcame loss aversion and delivered wage restraint. Can Accord-like policies overcome loss aversion and deliver the increases in taxation that will address Australia’s current economic challenges? 2 “We will end up being a third rate economy …a banana republic”: How behavioural economics can improve macroeconomic outcomes 1 Ian M McDonald University of Melbourne 30 years ago, faced with a large fall in the terms of trade occurring in a situation of high unemployment, high inflation, a high government budget deficit and a high current account deficit, Paul Keating, the Treasurer of Australia, warned the public that Australia faced the prospect of becoming a banana republic.2 Keating's iconic statement arose in the context of an elaborate economic program, called The Prices and Incomes Accord, aimed at improving Australia's economic performance. -
RVN2: the Riverina's Own Television Service
The Riverina’s Own Television Service CSU Regional Archives Summer Research Project By Maikha Ly 2008/09 RVN2 – Riverina’s Own Television: By Maikha Ly Page 1 of 27 Contents Introduction Page 3 Formation of Television in Australia Page 4 Formation of Television in the Riverina Page 4 Opening Night Page 6 RVN‐2 in the Community Page 8 Television’s Impact Page 10 RVN‐2/AMV‐4 Merger Page 11 Paul Ramsay and The Prime Network Page 13 Aggregation Looms Page 15 Changes for the future Page 17 RVN‐2 Today Page 18 Appendixes Page 19 RVN2 – Riverina’s Own Television: By Maikha Ly Page 2 of 27 Introduction RVN‐2 was established in 1964 as Wagga Wagga’s dedicated local Television Station, providing a television service to the people of the Riverina and South‐ West Slopes area of New South Wales, both in the production of local television programs such as the news service, and the broadcasting of purchased television programs seen to Metropolitan Audiences. RVN‐2 refers to the broadcast license call sign of the station, “2” being the channel number of the frequency. However, RVN‐2 was also the name and reference attributed to the station and the channel for many decades amongst viewers, and up to today, those who experienced RVN‐2 sometimes still refer to the channel as that. RVN‐2 was more than just a television service. Its identity on air and its Kooringal Studio facility became local institutions equivalent to that of a landmark. The station was a major local industry, at one time employing 150 local people in various roles from production to technical to clerical, as well as providing an introduction and training ground for young television employees. -
History Sydney Film Festival
HISTORY OF THE SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 1954 - 1983 PAULINE WEBBER MASTER of ARTS FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 2005 For John and David ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank David Donaldson, Valwyn Wishart, John Baxter, Dorothy Shoemark, Tony Buckley, David Stratton and many others involved in the SFF during its formative years who gave generously of their time and knowledge during the preparation of this thesis. I am especially grateful to Trish McPherson, who entrusted me with the SFF memorabilia of her late husband, Ian McPherson. Thanks also to my supervisor, Professor Elizabeth Jacka, for her enthusiasm and support, and to Associate Professor Paul Ashton and Raya Massie who undertook to read the final draft and who offered invaluable advice. TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Abbreviations i Sydney Film Festival: A Chronology 1954-1983 ii Abstract vi Introduction 1 An International Context; A Local Context Chapter One Art Form of a Generation: The Early Years 1954-1961 18 Reinventing Australia: 1946-1954; Connections and Divisions; Olinda 1952; From Concept to Reality; The First Festival; The Festival Takes Shape; Is it Here? Does it Look like Arriving?; Here to Stay; From Crisis to Cohesion Chapter Two Expansion and Consolidation: 1962-1975 57 Coming of Age; The Times They Are A-Changin’: 1962-1967; The Proliferation of Unacceptable Thoughts; Communal Rapture: The Start of the Stratton Era; The Anxious Years: 1968-1972; Throwing Down the Gauntlet; Going Global; The Festival at the Top of its Form; The Best and the Most Interesting; A Rising Clamour to be Seen and Heard Chapter Three Beguiling Times: The SFF and Australian Cinema 121 The Old and the New; The Film Buffs, the Festival People, the Trendies, the Underground; The Short Film Awards; A Thrilling New Wave: The Film Revival and After Chapter Four Change and New Directions: 1976-1983 149 A Lean Operation; Some of the People, Some of the Time; Backing Winners; Old Problems, New pressures; A Sort of Terrible Regression; The Last of the Stratton Years; 1983; 1984: Brave New World. -
65 Watching Television in Australia: a Story of Innocence and Experience
Watching Television in Australia: A Story of Innocence and Experience Susan Bye School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry La Trobe University Abstract The excitement and naiveté of early viewers have become central to narratives of the Australian viewing past. These stories are of simpler times when the pleasure of watching television was unmediated by modern self-consciousness and cynicism. This popular way of ‘remembering’ television seems both natural and inevitable, but its role as a discursive strategy is highlighted by the alacrity with which TV columnists sought to bestow a sense of experience on fledgling Sydney viewers. In this paper, I focus on the way that the regular TV column worked to stitch readers into the daily business of television. Moreover, from the beginning of regular broadcasting, TV columnists challenged the idea that watching television was an identity- subsuming process and invited their readers to assume an active connection with television and its culture. Keywords: Audiences, Australian Television, Everyday Life, TV Columns Introduction The construction of television viewing history as progressive or developmental is not peculiar to the Australian context but, in the Australian situation, the popular association of early television with the fifties has allowed it and its audience to be collapsed into the ‘fifties story’. Imagined simultaneously as a time of innocence and a period of narrow-mindedness, the dominant narrative of Australia in the fifties involves a perception of a simple and insular people readily committing to family life in the suburbs (White 1983). This monochromatic understanding of suburban life in fifties Australia has effortlessly intersected with a similarly tidy conception of the relationship of early TV viewers to the new technology of television. -
(Maintaining Income Thresholds) Bill 2018
Chapter 1 Social Services Legislation Amendment (Maintaining Income Thresholds) Bill 2018 1.1 The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Maintaining Income Thresholds) Bill 2018 (Bill) extends an indexation pause on certain higher income limits for the following family payments: • Family Tax Benefit Part A (FTB A) • Family Tax Benefit Part B (FTB B) • Paid Parental Leave (PPL) and • Dad and Partner Pay (DAPP). 1.2 The Bill also pauses indexation for the annual FTB A and FTB B supplements. 1.3 Indexation for each payment will not recommence until 1 July 2021. Background 1.4 This Bill implements a measure titled 'Family Tax Benefit and Paid Parental Leave — maintaining income thresholds' which was announced in the 2017 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.1 1.5 Indexation is the automatic increase of certain amounts in line with inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index. A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 provide for regular indexation and specify the method of indexation.2 Family Tax Benefit payments 1.6 FTB A and FTB B are payments that help to defray the cost of raising children. The rate of FTB A a family is eligible for depends on the family's adjusted taxable income and the number and age of the children they have. The rate of FTB A payable varies from nil to $237.86 a fortnight per child depending on the age of the 3 child and the family's adjusted taxable income. 1 The Hon. Scott Morrison MP, Treasurer of Australia and Senator the Hon. -
Howard Government Retrospective II “To the Brink: 1997 - 2001” Old Parliament House 14-15 November 2017 Howard Government Retrospective II
Howard Government Retrospective II “To the brink: 1997 - 2001” Old Parliament House 14-15 November 2017 Howard Government Retrospective II Conference Broadcast Partner: 2 University of New South Wales Canberra To the brink: 1997 - 2001 The Howard Government Retrospective Conference Series he Liberal-National Party Coalition was elected Tto office on 2 March 1996 and continued in power until 24 November 2007. UNSW Canberra is holding a series of retrospective conferences to assess the performance of the four Howard Governments. Each event provides the basis for collections of essays contributed by principal participants, key public servants, leading commentators and notable scholars drawing on documents in the John Howard Collection held at the Defence Force Academy Library. The intention is for this series to become the ‘standard’ treatment of the Howard years. Contributors have been asked to focus critically on the Coalition’s policies and performance to reveal the Government’s shortcomings and failures. This commitment to a candid critique will attract the attention of the press and current-serving politicians, guaranteeing the volumes a substantial public profile at the time of their release. UNSW Press is the series publisher. The first conference and volume covered the 1996 election, the Coalition’s readiness for office, the main policy decisions and practical challenges of the first year of the Howard Government, including gun control and ministerial responsibility. The second conference and volume deals with the second and third years of the Coalition’s first term in office (1997-98) and most of its second term (1998-2001). Volume II will include coverage of Wik and native title, the Patricks waterfront dispute, the constitutional convention, the Coalition’s near defeat at the 1998 poll, the Government’s response to post-independence violence in East Timor, and the introduction of the GST. -
Reconsidering the Challenges of Earmarked Taxes for Highways
Reconsidering the Challenges of Earmarked Taxes for Highways David Gellman prominent theme in US federal infrastructure policy is the near-term insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), the dedicated fnancing stream for highways and public transit. The HTF is projected to exhaust its reserves by 2022 and require more than $170 billion in cumulative Ageneral revenue transfers by 2029, leading to widespread funding uncertainty for nationally-signifcant surface transportation infrastructure and a dramatic increase in the national debt. This paper examines three countries—Japan, England, and Australia—that chose to eliminate earmarked taxes for highways and examines whether their infrastructure benefted as a result. International outcomes were mixed as to whether federal investments in highways and road quality remained robust following the intervention. But such a solution, with stringent safeguards, could provide an answer to the HTF solvency issue in upcoming surface transportation reauthorization legislation. Gellman 1 Featured Articles Despite bipartisan interest in infrastructure reform, there is little agreement on how to accomplish it. Members of Congress, the President, and leaders on both sides of the aisle generally agree that our aging infrastructure needs a signifcant federal investment in order to achieve a state of good repair, clear a multimillion-dollar maintenance backlog, and meet the economic challenges of the future. However, views difer widely as to whether and how the government will be able to regularly fund the American transportation network for generations to come. Specifcally, the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), the dedicated fnancing source for the construction and maintenance of surface transportation, is nearing insolvency, meaning that obligations from the Fund will soon exceed revenues fowing into it. -
2003-2004 Annual Report (Complete Report)
through australian eyes The National Broadcaster through australian eyes Eric Campbell ANNUAL REPORT 04 australian broadcasting corporation Annual Report 2003-04 through australian eyes Over the last seven years Eric Campbell has Eric Campbell reported to Australians from some of the most remote and challenging places on earth. ‘To me, Foreign Correspondent as a journalist, being a foreign correspondent is the pinnacle. You get entrée to extraordinary people and places and to intense experiences. It’s special. You are doing something that people in other parts of the industry are not. It’s very rare to meet a reporter from another Australian network.’ His assignments have included reporting the wars in Chechnya, Afghanistan and the Balkans, tracking polar bears in the Arctic, filming at secret military bases in central Russia and travelling by sled with nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia. Eric joined the ABC in 1986 and worked with The Investigators and Quantum as well as news and current affairs. He applied for several overseas positions, ‘I spent a year learning Japanese thinking I’d probably go there’. Finally in 1996 he was given the Moscow posting for three years. He found it very interesting although, ‘when I was there it was still fairly grim—they were trying to come to terms with the new order.’ In marked contrast to correspondents from overseas networks ABC reporters operate as a compact unit—usually just the reporter and a cameraman. ‘ABC foreign correspondents are on duty 24/7. Most days are 12 to 14 hours, but if travelling, an 18-hour day is not unusual.’ Eric is writing a book about the last seven years, there are so many stories and memories and friendships. -
Melbourne Tv Guide Sbs
Melbourne tv guide sbs Continue National Public Television Network in Australia SBSCountryAustraliaBroadcast areaNationwideNetworkSBS TelevisionSloganA World DifferenceHeadquartersArtarmon, New South WalesProgrammingLanguage (s)EnglishPicture format1080i (HDTV) (selected channels only; reduced to 16:9 576i for SDTV)OwnershipOwnerSpecial Broadcasting ServiceSister channelsSBS HDSBS VicelandSBS World MoviesSBS FoodNITVHistoryLanched24 1980; 39 years ago (1980-10-24)Former namesSBS Ethnic TV (1979)Experimental multicultural television - MTV2 (1980)Channel 0/28 (1980)Network 0-28 (1983-1985)SBS TV (1985-2009)SBS ONE (June 12 20 4 July 2015)LinksWebsitewww.sbs.com.auAccessacenceTerlestorDVB-T7Freeview SBS (virtual)03Freeview SBS HD (virtual)30CableFoxtel/Optus (virtual)104TransACT (virtual)3SatelliteFoxtel (virtual)104VAST (virtual)3 SBS is the national public television network in Australia. Established on October 24, 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division and is available nationally. In 2018, SBS's share of the audience was 7.9%. History Origins SBS began test broadcasts in April 1979 as SBS Ethnic Television when it showed various foreign language programs on ABV-2 Melbourne and ABN-2 Sydney on Sunday mornings. Full-time transmission began at 6.30 p.m. on 24 October 1980 (United Nations Day) as channel 0/28. At the time, SBS was broadcasting on UHF Channel 28 and VHF Channel 0. Bruce Gyngell, who introduced television to Australia back in 1956, was tasked with introducing the first batch of programs on the new station. The first program shown was a documentary about multiculturalism entitled Who are we? which was organized, produced and directed by renowned Australian journalist Peter Luck. When the show starts during the night, the opening ad will be as follows with Fanfare for the common man Aaron Copeland playing in the background: Welcome to Channel 0/28 multicultural television, Sydney and Melbourne.