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).

National Ports Strategy and planning

On 7 January 2011, the Government released its new National Ports Strategy. The strategy proposes to clear freight bottlenecks and ensure urban development does not stall the ability to expand port facilities, through the implementation of planning buffer zones around ports along with streamlined environmental approval processes.

Dams and floods

The present floods in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia have caused substantial damage to life and property. Questions have been raised as to whether the impacts of the floods could have been better mitigated. Are levees or dams the answer?

Large increase in stimulant use for ADHD in Australia: new study

A new study has shown that between 2002 and 2009, dispensing of stimulant medication in Australia—the majority of which is thought to be for the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)—has increased considerably.

The study, Australian national trends in stimulant dispensing: 2002-09, published in the Early Online edition of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (ANZJP), used data from the Department of Health and Ageing to report trends in dispensed stimulant prescriptions between 2002 and 2009 by gender and age.

Marketing obesity

Image sourced from: free-extras.com

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. In 2010, world-wide there were an estimated 42 million children under five years old who were overweight, and this figure is increasing at an alarming rate.

Children who are overweight or obese are likely to grow into obese adults who risk developing a number of chronic non‐communicable ailments, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. As these diseases add billions in health costs to national economies, it is clearly desirable both for individuals and for society overall, to devise and introduce policies which prohibit or limit their proliferation.

Financing of aged care - recommendations from the Productivity Commission

The draft report of the Productivity Commission’s (PC) Inquiry into Caring for Older Australians, released on 21 January 2011, provides a sobering assessment of the current state of the aged care system. It argues that the current system can not withstand future challenges without comprehensive reform. A staged implementation plan over five years of the Commission’s recommendations has been put forward to address this. The PC’s report has been met with broad support from stakeholders with many welcoming the ‘bold’ proposals for reform.

Emissions performance standards for Australian coal-fired power

On 30 November 2010, the Government released its discussion paper: A Cleaner Future for Power Stations. The paper proposes that all new power stations be required to meet a minimum emissions performance standard and be capable of retrofitting carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies when these become commercially available (which is expected to occur within the lifetime of new power plants). The Parliamentary Library has produced a Background Note, Performance standards to reduce energy emissions, that sets out the backdrop against which an Australian emissions performance standard might be explored.

The curious case of Julian Assange

Over the last few months there has been an enormous amount of material written in Australia and abroad about Julian Assange and the possible legal consequences that may flow from the publication of classified government material on his now famous WikiLeaks website. Similarly, and coinciding with this interest in WikiLeaks, there has been a huge amount of speculation in the media about his alleged sexual activities in Sweden earlier in the year and about the case being prepared by the Swedish public prosecution office in relation to a number of alleged sexual offences. This FlagPost entry will not draw upon such speculation or attempt to add to it. Rather, it will simply examine the ambit of Sweden’s sexual crimes legislation as it may apply to Assange.

New paper on revenue forecasting accuracy and the independence of forecasters

Thiess Buettner and Bjoern Kauder have released a paper in the September 2010 edition of the journal Fiscal Studies on government revenue forecasting practices and the consequences of forecasting performance. The object of analysis is the one-year ahead deviation of the forecast from the actual outcome, and various descriptive statistics. Revenue forecast errors for twelve OECD countries (including two competing institutions in the United States, the Congressional Budget Office which deals with the legislative branch of government, and the Office of Management and Budget, which is a part of the executive branch) are examined using panel data estimation techniques.

When is government paternalism justifiable?

A core assumption of liberal societies is that individuals are the best judge of their own interests and therefore are best placed to make choices about how to live their lives. But what if a choice—say, to take adictive drugs or to smoke—is likely to be detrimental to the person involved? Can governments be justified in interfering with individual choices in the interests of the person concerned? This question is examined in the new Parliamentary Library Research Paper, Paternalism in social policy—when is it justifiable? 

Department of Health's FOI release - challenges ahead for health reform

Various government departments have made publicly available incoming government briefs that have been released under Freedom of Information. Despite sections of the briefs having been blacked out they provide an insight into the workings of government and the advice provided to Ministers in the post-election environment. The Department of Health and Ageing’s (DoHA) incoming government brief provides an overview of the health system and arrangements for implementing health reforms begun during the previous parliament. The brief also lists key decisions for the Minister to make in the first four months.

Islamic finance

In October 2010, the Board of Taxation published a discussion paper on the Review of the Taxation Treatment of Islamic Finance. This discussion paper was in response to the Australian Financial Centre Forum (AFCF) which recommended in its November 2009 report that the impediments to Islamic finance in Australia be considered by the Board of Taxation. The AFCF was established in September 2008 by the then Assistant Treasurer to discuss options for positioning Australia as a leading financial services centre. This post presents some of the key characteristics of Islamic finance and the opportunities for reform in Australia.

Perceptions of Australia's health care system

Perceptions of the health care system are difficult to measure and there is very little comprehensive information about how Australians perceive the heath care system. The Menzies Centre for Health Policy and the Nous group recently completed a survey (Menzies-Nous 2010 survey) on Australians' attitudes to the health care system. This is a repeat of the survey completed in 2008, on which the 2010 survey was based.