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  Uncategorised

  Australia, Ethanol and its dependence of Crude Oil

  GavanS     |      April 20, 2008

  The most impressive thing about search engines is that one can quickly find relative topics on subjects of interest within milliseconds. With 1000 "brain-stormers" in action on the weekend, I'm totally stunned  there is not a mention of Ethanol apart from the fact that one Australian car manufacturer is working towards exporting cars that include […]
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  Uncategorised

  HECS and Stopping the Brain Drain

  Robert_Pitts     |      April 20, 2008

  Putting HECS payments into a trust fund and potentially rolling them over into superannuation may help to slow or prevent the "Brain Drain" from Australia.

  There has been much talk about the HECS debt burden placed on students and how much it impacts on their lives. However, Australia suffers another problem with many of our best graduates being drawn overseas to pursue careers because of better remuneration.

  An alternative which might help to address both of these problems would be to maintain HECS fees in trust for a period of say ten years after graduation. After that time, if the graduate has residence and a job within Australia, the HECS monies plus interest are rolled into the graduate’s superannuation fund.

  If however the graduate is employed outside Australia by a foreign company, their initial HECS fee is retained by the government for the benefit of Australia.
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  • Business

  User Centric ID management – Heading for New Zealand

  Malcolm Crompton     |      April 19, 2008

  The upcoming identity conference in New Zealand is going to be a high spot for ID management in this part of the world; indeed anywhere.
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  Uncategorised

  Fair go for the over 45’s

  Catriona     |      April 18, 2008

  The government should create mandatory protection for any investment or business purchase made by a person who is investing life savings or the family home.  If the investment is being made by an over 45 individual then this advice should be free but also tax deductable for every one.  Independent banking and legal advice should […]
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  Uncategorised

  proposal to ease longterm rental for public housing

  studio24     |      April 18, 2008

  To eliviate the chronic housing shortage in Australia I propose a system where public investments is tied to public realestate, where industries and companies who flote a share issue on the stockmarket are required to invest a fixed percentage of the raised capital into realestate for public rental purposes. ownership is retained as part of […]
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  Uncategorised

  De link Tax collection and Welfare payments

  TheTribe     |      April 18, 2008

  Many people in society including myself support the idea of "From those according to their ability to pay and to those according to their need".

  However in reality what we actually practice is "To those according to their ability to pay".
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  Uncategorised

  A “Business” approach to the business of Social Inclusion

  mbagshaw     |      April 18, 2008

  By Dr Mark Bagshaw

  Social Inclusion has emerged at the top of Australia's political agenda, and the business sector in "making complex things happen" has much to offer.

  After such a long, dark period in Australia's social development history, it feels so good to feel the warmth of the social inclusion agenda. Michael Chaney, until recently the President of the Business Council of Australia, couldn't have said it better in his final address at the BCA Annual Dinner last year when he said that, after a significant period of change that had delivered enormous benefits for the business sector and those who benefit most from its success personally, it is now time that our wealthy nation applied its capacity to make things happen to sorting out some of the nation's most pressing social challenges.

  And to me it doesn't matter what the driving force for this shift in thinking is-the economic imperative of the skills shortage, pressure from those who have been excluded, or a genuine recognition across the community there are real solutions to even our most pressing social problems-the fact is that for the first time in a long time our nation is poised for a new and exciting period of genuine social reform.
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  Uncategorised

  Phys Ed in primary schools

  jean mcphee     |      April 17, 2008

  In the early 1970’s my training was at Melbourne University  Diploma of Phys Ed , teaching based course in which we learned how to deliver  broad based, inclusive ,and comprehensive programs which were designed to  deliver a range of enjoyable  Physical activities to students.

  I was Primary school based and we covered all kinds of activities and sports  in seasonal blocks ,ball skills major games (cricket netball hockey  etc) ,minor fun games,simple gymnastics ,athletics, dance and music  & swimming and life saving  . Now there are many more activities which could be included, like yoga or fitness programs

  Every pupil was involved in 20 -30 minutes of activity every day, as well as sport once a week ,and it was designed to cater for all shapes and sizes and abilities in small groups  .
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  Uncategorised

  Spray cans to be removed from public display

  Garth     |      April 17, 2008

  GRAFFITI Perhaps this subject has been covered by someone else. It is important. The commonest type of graffiti are performed by persons using spray cans. One assumes that these persons have not paid for their spray cans, but have stolen them. Such is the nature of graffiti writers, one would assume. My submission is that […]
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  Uncategorised

  Government / university partnerships

  Kerry Cox     |      April 17, 2008

  

  Education and training in their many forms, appropriately contextualised, will be the great enablers to facilitate the generation of more inclusive, more prosperous, and more sustainable communities throughout the world.

  Within the Australian context, policy, strategic and funding positions need to be established to allow universities to develop course profiles which meet the needs of individuals, groups, businesses and industries in the communities each university was established to serve. The discussion gathering momentum since the election of the Rudd Government of establishing a tertiary advisory group positioned between each university and the Federal Government, is likely to be a more effective way to encourage universities to develop and adjust appropriate profiles of courses to meet the needs of their communities.

  With respect to research, far greater emphasis needs to be given to research at exacting international standards which, in addition, is likely to be of benefit to the communities, in real time, that each university was established to serve.
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  Uncategorised

  A national information policy?

  Nicholas Gruen     |      April 16, 2008

  

  Sometimes a little leadership is all it takes to nudge market forces along. 

  150 years after Adam Smith first expounded the miraculous way the market's ‘invisible hand' transforms private self interest into social prosperity, some economists argued that we could achieve the same result with sufficiently sophisticated government planning.

  Enter the Austrian émigré Friedrich Hayek . . . who showed that markets achieve their efficiency by utilising information which is distributed throughout the economy and so often unavailable to government. 

  Traders and entrepreneurs become aware of new information constantly.  In seeking only his own advantage a trader who is hoarding grain as a result of some impending local crop failure, contributes to the common good because his hoarding drives up grain prices and this broadcasts the increasing scarcity of grain to all in the market.

  Market participants need not know why grain has become scarcer, only that it now costs more, to build that information into their own decisions.  Hayek showed how deeply dysfunctional an economy robbed of this intelligence would be, an insight ultimately vindicated by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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  • Uncategorized

  New dogs, old tricks

  editor     |      April 15, 2008

  

  By Greg Eatock

  Little children ARE sacred, which is why the NT intervention has to stop.

  The Howard government’s decision to create a blanket punitive approach to instances of child abuse in the Top End has been a disaster for Aboriginal communities throughout the Northern Territory.

  Garnishing welfare payments, and returning to a system of ration cards has forced a tremendous upheaval and heartache. Not only is it degrading and humiliating for many Aboriginal people to be using the cards rather than controlling their own money, it is also forcing thousands to flee remote communities for urban settings, which were already over crowded and bereft of basic services.