Australia-Malaysia asylum seeker transfer agreement



Image source: The Star Online

 On 25 July 2011 the Governments of Australia and Malaysia signed an agreement concerning the transfer and resettlement of asylum seekers and refugees between the two countries.

The agreement was first announced on 7 May 2011 when Prime Minister Julia Gillard released a Joint Statement with the Prime Minister of Malaysia stating that the two countries would enter into a bilateral arrangement concerning the transfer of asylum seekers and refugees. The signing of the final agreement follows months of negotiations between the two countries, also involving the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), both of which will be involved in the operation of the arrangement.

Carbon pricing mechanism—personal income tax reform

Image source: yourhome.gov.au

As part of its Clean Energy Future package, the Government has announced a series of personal income taxation reforms. This will involve increases to the marginal taxation rates in 2012-13 and 2015-16, as well as changes to the tax free threshold and low income tax offset.

The Parliamentary Library has prepared a brief on the proposed changes, which is available on its climate change website. The brief presents the details of the proposed tax reform, compares it to the personal income tax reform proposed by the Australia's Future Tax System review, and presents the changes to the marginal income taxation rates and thresholds since 1983-84.

Re-counting the homeless





Image source: SA Government



Counting the Homeless reports provide the most comprehensive picture of homelessness in Australia today. However, recently the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a discussion paper that calls into question the methodology underpinning Counting the Homeless figures. In the paper, the ABS proposes a new methodology for estimating the number of homeless Australians which, if it were implemented, would result in a statistically significant reduction in the estimate of homeless Australians.

How healthy is the Australian Federation?

Image source: City of Norwood

 It’s a resilient if somewhat lethargic beast, but a recent check of Australian federalism’s pulse suggests that improvements to its fitness are in order.

The report of the Senate Select Committee on Reform of the Australian Federation concludes that Australia has been served well by its system of government—no coups or civil war, and a history of stable and prosperous democracy. But the Committee also says that to sustain dynamic collaboration and cooperation between governments at various levels, and to prevent outmoded governance arrangements from stemming the flow of benefits potentially available to the nation, urgent reforms are needed. The changes needed do not all require constitutional amendment—which is a plus given Australia’s poor record of change through constitutional referendums. Here’s what the Committee had to say.

Pre-selecting candidates using US-style ‘primaries’

Image source: Parliamentary Education Office

At its recent State Conference the NSW Branch of the ALP decided to trial US-style primaries for preselections. Primaries are candidate preselection processes that tend to involve more people than just, say, party delegates, officials or financial members of parties. The NSW trial process—in five electorates—would give members of the community a 50 per cent say in the selection of the candidates.

School chaplains

Image source: Queensland Government

In August, the High Court will hear Queensland parent Ron Williams’ constitutional challenge to the validity of the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP). The Commonwealth Ombudsman is also investigating the NSCP as a result of a recommendation made by the Northern Territory Ombudsman in her report on the NSCP’s operation in the Northern Territory (NT).

Carbon Pricing Mechanism—editorials and opinion pieces

Image source: National Library of Australia

For easy access to commentary on the Carbon Pricing Mechanism, the Parliamentary Library has prepared a page of press editorials and opinion pieces following the Government’s announcement of its Clean Energy Plan on Sunday 10 July 2011. The page covers the week following the announcement, that is, from Monday 12 July 2011 to Friday 15 July 2011, and contains newspapers representing all the states and territories. The press editorial and opinion pieces page and other information on the Carbon Pricing Mechanism are available on the Parliamentary Library's climate change website.
The press editorials and opinion pieces page is only available to Senators and Members and their staff. The Parliamentary Library's climate change website and briefs on the Carbon Pricing Mechanism are available to the general public.

Carbon Pricing Mechanism—Assistance to welfare recipients

(Image: Clean Energy Future website)

The Government has announced a package of measures aimed at providing assistance to households to compensate for the cost of living impact of the carbon price. Assistance will be delivered through permanent increases to welfare payments and tax cuts. The Parliamentary Library has published a short brief outlining the assistance provided to welfare recipients.

The brief notes that, according to the Government’s modelling, welfare recipients will be overcompensated for the expected cost of living impact of the carbon price. Indeed, it appears that welfare recipients will also effectively be compensated more than once when normal processes of payment indexation are taken into account. The brief also notes that pensioners receive more assistance than other welfare recipients (such as jobseekers) and that this essentially reflects the fact the current differences in rates of payment between different categories of welfare recipient.

Carbon Pricing Mechanism—CPRS and Carbon Pricing Mechanism: comparison of selected features



Image source: Treasury



Image source: Clean Energy Future website



To assist comparison of the previous Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the proposed Carbon Pricing Mechanism, the Parliamentary Library has prepared a table of selected features from each scheme. The table shows side-by-side the architecture of each scheme in relation to coverage, caps, permit prices, international linkages, impact on the Budget, household and industry assistance and compensation, and more. Other briefs on the Carbon Pricing Mechanism are available from the Parliamentary Library's climate change website.

Carbon Pricing Mechanism—Which 500 companies pay the tax?

Image source: NSW Government

The Government has been clear that only Australia’s 500 biggest ‘carbon polluters’ will be directly affected by the proposed Carbon Pricing Mechanism (CPM). This is down from the 1000 that would have been liable under the previous Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, mainly due to the exclusion of fuels from the CPM. There has been some speculation as to which companies would be included in the Government’s list of 500, and which ones are Australia’s ‘top 50 carbon polluters’. The Parliamentary Library has published a short brief with some information on determining which corporations are likely to be included, and an explanation on why a definite list of 500 companies is not publicly available.

Carbon Pricing Mechanism



Image source: Clean Energy Future website

On Sunday 10 July 2011, the Australian Government released the Clean Energy Plan, a package of measures that includes a Carbon Pricing Mechanism. The policy is the outcome of several months of consideration by the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (MPCCC), which was established after the 2010 election to determine key elements and complementary measures needed for an Australian carbon price. The scheme, to start in 2012, borrows some definitions and decisions of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme but outlines a new emissions trading scheme starting with a three-year fixed price term. The policy's development was based on information provided by the Garnaut Climate Change Review Update, and scientific advice provided by expert advisors to the MPCCC.

Over the coming days and weeks, the Parliamentary Library will be publishing FlagPosts on specific issues relating to the Government's proposed carbon pricing scheme. Useful information and background on climate change can also be obtained from the Parliamentary Library's climate change website. Stay tuned...

Informal votes - if they don't scrub up, should we let them into the election ball



Image source: AEC

At every federal election hundreds of thousands of citizens are lodging votes that don’t count towards the election of their representatives. These are votes that don’t meet the requirements to be considered ‘formal’—and their number is growing. At the 2010 election, 729 304 House of Representatives votes were declared informal—equivalent in number to the formal votes cast in 7.8 average electorates. This informality was 5.5 per cent of the vote—the highest level since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924. The only other election with such unusually high levels of informality was at the 1984 election when the new Senate voting system was introduced, and many people were confused by the changes. Of course, voters may deliberately choose to cast an informal vote. At the 2010 election the Australian Electoral Commission considered 48.6 per cent of informal votes to be deliberately informal.

Trafficking in Persons Report 2011



Image source: Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department

On 27 June, the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, released the 11th Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report assessing the effort and achievements of 184 governments around the world in combating trafficking in persons.


Each year since 2001, the US Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has produced a report outlining major trends and issues in combating trafficking and providing country by country analyses and ratings. The TIP reports have evolved over time, and have increased in breadth of coverage and depth of analysis. The US Government regards this report as its "principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking".

Legislation to means test the private health insurance rebate re-introduced—debate continues

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

As the Government signalled in the last budget, legislation to means test the private health insurance rebate has been re-introduced into Federal Parliament. This is the third time the Government has attempted to implement this 2009–10 budget initiative; previous attempts were blocked by the Senate as this earlier Flagpost outlines. As before, three Bills have been introduced: the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011, the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2011, the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2011. Details and analysis of the earlier bills can be found in these three bills digests, available here, here and here.

Australia New Zealand Therapeutics Agency - possible challenges ahead?



Image source: Therapeutic Goods Administration

One of the announcements coinciding with the Prime Minister of New Zealand’s visit to Australia was the establishment of the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency. This will be a joint agency that regulates therapeutic goods, replacing the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia and Medsafe in New Zealand (NZ). Implementation will be progressive with ‘information sharing’ to commence from July 2011. It is expected the new agency will be fully operational within five years. It will be accountable to both governments.

What's the future for income management in the Northern Territory?

In her foreword to the Government’s recent discussion paper on the future of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, argued that lack of consultation had caused ‘ongoing anger, fear and distrust among indigenous people’ and that the next stage of the NTER would need to be based on ‘partnership with Aboriginal people’. To this end, the Government plans to consult with Aboriginal people over coming months about ‘what has worked well and where improvements can be made’.

Interestingly, the paper does not include income management as one of its ‘eight areas for future action’. Indeed, the paper argues that ‘as income management applies in other areas of Australia it is no longer part of the [NTER]’.

Raising awareness on palm oil

On 23 June 2011, the Coalition joined with the Greens and the independent Senator Nick Xenophon to ensure the Senate passed the Food Standards Amendment (Truth in Labelling—Palm Oil) Bill 2011 (the private members’ Bill has yet to be introduced into the House of Representatives). There are two main issues identified with palm oil: the environmental effects of plantations (including loss of tropical rainforest), and the health effects of palm oil versus other vegetable oils.