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A Good Year for Youth?
Clive Leach | August 11, 201112 August is International Youth Day and also marks the end of the United Nations International Year of Youth. Not a good end to the year for the UK it seems. But what about Australia? This time last year I highlighted in my blog ‘Celebration, Commitment or Cuts’ both the opportunities and risks faced by young people and the youth services designed to advocate on their behalf and help increase their life chances.
Life chances include having autonomy; engaging in positive social and community networks; accessing education and employment opportunities; being economically stable; experiencing health, well-being and resilience; and living in a safe environment.
The Australian Government shares these aspirations. The first National Strategy for Young Australians was launched in April 2010 underpinned by a vision that all young people should be able to grow up safe, healthy, happy and resilient.
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Happy Science Week
Helen Gardiner | August 11, 2011Helen Gardiner, Chair of the National Science Week Committee in Victoria, encourages you to participate in an array of inspiring activities as Australia celebrates science and innovation from 13-21 August.
Under Brazil’s new ‘Science Without Frontiers’ program, 100 000 students are being given scholarships to attend the world’s best universities. Why? According to Brazil’s science and technology minister Aloizio Mercadante, Brazil lags behind in innovation because it is not up to date with world trends in science, engineering and technology. Like all such policy-makers, the minister knows that such an investment enriches the investors in many ways.
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Long-term Disability Care and Support Scheme report released today
Les Pickett | August 10, 2011The Australian Government Productivity Commission report on a long-term disability care and support scheme released today. Read the Executive Summary or Full Report.
Most families and individuals cannot adequately prepare for the risk and financial impact of significant disability. The costs of lifetime care can be so substantial that the risks and costs need to be pooled.
The current disability support system is underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient, and gives people with a disability little choice and no certainty of access to appropriate supports. The stresses on the system are growing, with rising costs for all governments.
Cloud Standards: What, Why, How and Who
Bob Hayward | August 9, 2011Bob Hayward, chief technology & innovation office CSC Australia & CSC Asia delivered the following address at Global Access Partner’s Workshop on Cloud Computing in Sydney on Friday 24 June 2011.
Standards are really important. We wouldn’t have the internet if it wasn’t for standards. Those of us that have been in the industry a long time can recall even things like TCP and IP; the fundamental plumbing of the internet. It was a standard. It wasn’t until that standard became adopted and endorsed and used that we really had interoperability across networks.
Latest highlights
editor | August 9, 2011• Making headway in 25 years of Daffodil Day -Dr Andrew Penman »» Today on the 25th anniversary of Daffodil Day, we celebrate hope. Hope for better outcomes for cancer patients, hope for better understanding of all cancers and ultimately, hope for a cancer free future.
Let’s create a Constitution free from racial discrimination
Jacqueline Phillips | August 8, 2011Jacqueline Phillips, National Director of ANTaR, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's rights and reconciliation advocacy organisation, highlights the importance of International Day of the World's Indigenous People for the Australian Constitution.
The Australian Constitution forms the basis of our laws and political system. In fact, it has been described as the ‘fabric’ of our nation. Given this, most Australians would be surprised to learn that our Constitution permits racial discrimination. They might also think that its silence regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, status and rights reflects an outdated (and racist) blindness from which we have matured as a nation.
Implications of Cloud Computing for Consumers
Peter Kell | August 7, 2011Peter Kell, Deputy Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) delivered the following presentation at the Global Access Partners Workshop on Cloud Computing on 24 June 2011.
Cloud Computing offers clear benefits and opportunities for consumers. However, it will be important for regulators to facilitate appropriate market conduct to ensure that these benefits are achieved. In this context cloud computing poses some new regulatory challenges for all stakeholders to ensure consumers remain adequately protected.
The ACCC will be closely watching key areas of interest as Cloud computing becomes more widespread. The ACCC’s aim in consumer protection regulation is to ensure that consumers can benefit from innovation and competition through minimising the impact of market failures, information problems and rogue traders.
Data in the cloud
Timothy Pilgrim | August 5, 2011Technological advancements and the protection of personal information are not irreconcilable goals. When we take the effort to implement new technologies correctly, they can actually be complementary.
Take cloud computing[i], whereby the computing capabilities from an organisation or agency’s in-house facility are transferred to third parties, generally using the internet to transport data.
Cloud computing can raise important privacy questions such as:
The trouble with pessimism
patrickcallioni | August 4, 2011This week I will be considering the plague of pessimism that appears to be infecting our media, aided and abetted by that spreader of (often concocted) bad news, the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.
Am I the only one who can see that pessimism about our present and our future is largely unwarranted? Am I the only one who can see that if we stay on this path of gloom we will do our nation enormous damage?
Surely not, but reading the press or watching TV I get that impression, sometimes.
What I see and hear is one tale of gloom after another, with each would be opinion leader striving to outdo all others in denigrating our country, our government and our capacity to think for ourselves.
Historical insights into the Census
Les Pickett | August 3, 2011Australia’s national census will take place on Tuesday 9 August and celebrates 100 years of information gathering.
Around 14.2 million census forms will be delivered to Australia’s 9.8 million households with more than 46 million pages of data transported and processed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Almost 30 per cent of the population are expected to fill out their forms online using eCensus.The first population counts of Australia were known as musters and were conducted as early as 1788. Musters involved all members of the community gathering at specified locations to be counted. These were important as a means of matching food and other supplies to the number of people needing them. From 1795 the convict population was mustered on an annual basis.
Best Practice for Cloud Security and Privacy
Alan Bennett | August 2, 2011Alan Bennett, vice president, Enterprise Services Hewlett-Packard South Pacific delivered the following address at Global Access Partner’s Workshop on Cloud Computing in Sydney on Friday 24 June 2011.
