Alternative vote for the UK?

On 16 February 2011 the UK Parliament passed legislation providing for a referendum to be held on 5 May 2011 regarding possible changes to the UK electoral system. This was a key constitutional reform identified in the Coalition programme for government formulated by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats following the 2010 election. However, the parties hold opposing views on the form of the electoral system to be adopted. The Conservatives support the current electoral system, First-past-the-post, while the Liberal Democrats support the Alternative Vote, similar to the Australian system.

History of Australian pensions

 The long running Parliamentary Library publication Social Security Payments for the Aged, People with Disabilities and Carers 1901 to 2010 has been updated to include policy changes since 2006.

ALP's 2010 National Review

On Friday 18 February part of a review commissioned by the ALP's National Executive was released. The public section of the report deals with the future of the ALP and the changes that the Review Committee recommends for the party to 'survive and prosper'.

How do school systems improve?

A new report, which so far does not appear to have received much attention but is certainly deserving of more consideration, is How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better. This report from McKinsey & Co. builds on the work of an earlier report, How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top (2007), which examined the common attributes of ‘excellent’ school systems.

This time 20 significantly ‘improving’ school systems, as measured by national and international standards of assessment, and which are at different stages across a performance spectrum (from poor to excellent), were examined to see what reform interventions are working—in all some 575 reform interventions were investigated.

Will access to ‘gap year’ Youth Allowance improve regional students participation in higher education?

In the recent Senate debate on Senator Nash's private member’s bill to extend the criteria for Independent Youth Allowance to Inner Regional students the issue of why so few regional students go on to tertiary education was raised and an argument made that the ability to take a gap year and qualify for Youth Allowance would improve regional students’ access to and participation in higher education.

Radical new structure proposed for the ACT public service

A recently-released review of the ACT public service (ACTPS) has made an unusual recommendation: the abolition of the existing public service structure and the re-establishment of the ACTPS as a single agency. The proposed single agency would comprise a Chief Minister’s Department and several directorates covering portfolio responsibilities. The ACTPS employs around 20 000 staff and comprises nine departments and various agencies.

Medicare Locals and reform of primary care

In their joint statement about the Agreement signed at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 13 February 2011, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health stated that one of the aims of the reform package was to ‘shift the centre of gravity from hospitals towards primary health care’. To that end, the Government has committed to: increasing the number of Medicare Locals (MLs) that are to be established as a result of the health package announced by the Government in March 2010, bringing forward the establishment of more MLs, fast-tracking reforms to after-hours GP care and ensuring that local communities have more information about their local primary health care services.

Is there too much middle class welfare in Australia?

'Middle class welfare' has recently reemerged as an issue in Australian politics, primarily as a result of debates about how the Australian Government should fund infrastructure reconstruction following the floods in Queensland and Victoria. Criticisms of middle class welfare are often premised on the idea that it is a particular problem in Australia. But what is the extent of middle class welfare in Australia and should access by people on middle incomes to welfare benefits and services necessarily be seen as a matter for concern?

The new COAG health agreement: is it really health reform?

After marathon negotiations over the weekend, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) announced a revised health reform package. The new deal jettisons some of the more contentious and what had become unworkable elements of the previous National Health and Hospitals Agreement: some of the most problematic elements were the requirement that states dedicate a portion of their GST to health, and plans for the Commonwealth to takeover primary health care and fund capital investment in public hospitals through the ‘user cost of capital’ method.

Hung parliaments and minority governments

A recent Parliamentary Library paper examines the hung Commonwealth Parliament, the formation of the minority ALP Government, and voting dynamics in the House of Representatives together with a number of related issues such as the next federal election and hung parliaments and minority governments at the state/territory level.

After a hung Parliament emerged from the 2010 federal election (the first in almost 70 years), both the ALP and the Opposition engaged in negotiations with the cross-bench parliamentarians in order to form government. The ALP was ultimately successful, forming government in mid-September 2010 after signing agreements with the Australian Greens and with three of the other cross-bench members. These agreements provide a basic level of support for the Government and cover a range of matters including working relationships between the signatories, parliamentary reforms and policy agendas.

Local government and the Commonwealth

A recent Parliamentary Library paper on Local government and the Commonwealth: an evolving relationship follows the historical development of this relationship and explores some contemporary issues such as constitutional recognition.

Local governments in Australia have been established since the nineteenth century. Each state and the Northern Territory has a system of local government established under their respective legislation. The growth in local government activity since 1945 has encouraged local authorities to seek increasing subsidies from the Commonwealth government. Because local government is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution the Commonwealth government has generally been compelled to provide subsidies to local government indirectly: that is through the states. The Commonwealth government’s involvement with local government has increased markedly since Prime Minister Gough Whitlam showed unprecedented interest during the 1970s.

Opposition Youth Allowance Bill inquiry to report next week

An issue facing Parliament on return next week will be the Youth Allowance. The Senate may need to decide if it will debate the Private Member’s Bill introduced by Senator Nash in October last year. The Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010 seeks to fulfil a Coalition election commitment to ‘relax the eligibility criteria for the Independent Youth Allowance which will be extended to students in the Inner Regional Category’.

Trade union membership standards for Not for Profit regulation

Recommendations adopted by the Australian Senate Economics Committee’s inquiry into the regulation of the Not for Profit (NFP) sector and developed by the Productivity Commission in its 2010 report on the NFP sector invite questions as to how governance arrangements applying to NFP entities might materialise under any forthcoming regulatory scheme. A recent Parliamentary Library research paper examines the governance aspect of the proposed NFP regulation, putting the case for entities, which comprise the NFP sector, to adopt constitutions, objects and rules for administration upon registration. Entities registered under the proposed scheme would meet standards for their governance.

Recent statistics on aged care

The annual Report on Government Services (ROGS) produced by the Steering Committee for the Review on Government Service Provision (SCRGSP) provides an overview of expenditure and delivery of government services. The most recent report reflects the new terms of reference for the ROGS reporting framework agreed at COAG in December 2009. For aged care, this means that there is additional information such as: information about compliance with service standards for all community care packages (including National Respite for Carers Program), selected adverse events in aged care and the number of hospital patient days for patients waiting for residential aged care (these are indicators for aged care in the National Healthcare Agreement) and time series data to enable comparisons across years from programs such as the Home and Community Care program (HACC).