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Are pensioners really impoverished?
Jessica.Brown | July 6, 2009Confusing the average median income with the poverty line is sloppy statistics.
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Brain health is important too!
Glenn Rees | July 6, 2009How’s your health? Have you thought about it lately? Remember to mind your mind.
You’ve probably thought about what you can do to stay physically healthy. But what about your brain health? Have you given it much thought?
If you haven’t, then now is the time to start. Even though you may feel perfectly healthy now, the changes that lead to dementia could already be occurring in your brain.
Australia’s population is ageing, and with it the prevalence of dementia is increasing. Dementia is a general term for more than 100 conditions causing progressive deterioration in thinking, memory and everyday abilities. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia.
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Drawing Level VS Closing the Gap
Bruce R | July 6, 2009Meaningful change needs to be a two-way street.
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UncategorisedGovernment 2.0 Taskforce Announced
editor | July 1, 2009On Monday 22 June 2009, Open Forum was represented by Sally Rose at the Public Sphere Event: Government 2.0 hosted by Senator Kate Lundy, where the Hon. Lindsay Tanner MP made the exciting announcement about the new Government 2.0 Taskforce. Hopefully this new government body, chaired by Dr Nicholas Gruen, will encourage many more departments and agencies to embrace the benefits of web 2.0 tools.
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Cash has done its dash
quagga | June 30, 2009When you consider all these benefits of a cashless society it is obvious that very soon cash will be a thing of the past.
Recently a significant milestone was achieved in the field of computer operating systems: the OKL4 operating system kernel. The most significant point to understand about the OKL4 kernel for this article is that it guarantees by way of solid mathematical proofs that programs can run on it in isolation and safe from interference from any other programs including viruses – this is something that no other publicly available operating system provably guarantees!
So what has this talk about operating systems got to do with CASH – the subject of the title of the article?
Well this technology in combination with the following facts leads to some very exciting possibilities:
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The Ageing Workforce
Christine Harley | June 30, 2009If you make hiring decisions in the finance or finacial services sector, then Christine Harley wants to know more about how you relate to the ageing workforce.
I’m researching the views of employers (those who make the final decision whether to hire one person over another) as opposed to HR people (who generally filter applicants and compile short lists of candidates for the consideration of the final decision-maker) in the finance/financial services sector. A survey I’m using can be found by clicking here.
It is now well acknowledged that the Australian population is ageing. The number of older adults living in Australia is steadily increasing meaning that the age of our workforce will also increase. The baby boomers are approaching the traditional retirement age, most within the next two decades.
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Women For Wik: What’s Working?
Women for Wik | June 28, 2009
Originally formed to support Native Title Legislation 12 years ago, Women For Wik are back in action to talk about What’s Working.Women For Wik is a network which respects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s rights and capacities to control their lands and communities. Despite the apology, progress has been slow and sometimes policies have gone backwards; often because of relentlessly negative reporting of crises and deficits. These ‘stories’ have led to drastic interventions, takeovers and funding shifts which weaken localcommunities and undermine the often under-reported progress.
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Is it time for a bill of human rights in Australia?
Matthew Tukaki | June 28, 2009What does a BoR's mean to us and what lessons can we learn from other similar countries?
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Consultation receives over 34,000 submissions
Fr Frank Brennan | June 26, 2009The National Human Rights Consultation Committee announced that they had received over 34,000 submissions as part of a nation-wide consultation on human rights in Australia.
I would like to thank all those who have participated in our blog these past weeks. There has been some very informed discussion.
I and my committee members now look forward to the public hearings in the Great Hall of Parliament House next week.
There will be plenty of opportunity for public involvement at the hearings from 1-3 July.
You can register for the public hearings at the National Human Rights Consultation website.
The program is available here.
After the hearings, I and the committee will be able to settle down to the task of writing a report drawing on the 35,000 submissions received and the 70 community consultations attended by 4,300 persons.
The National Human Rights Online Consultation was closed at 5:00pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on Friday, 26 June 2009.
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Razzle Dazzle’em.
Susan Merrell | June 24, 2009What's really going on whilst we're all entralled by the high drama of Utegate?
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We Need an Australian Bill of Human Rights
Bill Miller | June 22, 2009I am in no doubt that we need to enact an Australian Bill of Human Rights. The behaviour of State and Federal Governments over the past decade attest to that.
Thomas Jefferson’s famous aphorism ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance‘ applies to the struggle for the protection of human rights.
The struggle for a single law protecting human rights is, of necessity, eternal. There will always be people who will argue that it is unnecessary or unworkable or too costly and or deny that the unimaginable happens.
We delude ourselves when we argue that human rights abuses haven’t, couldn’t, wont, happen in Australia, committed here and elsewhere by Australians. It has happened and it will again. It is part of the human condition it seems. So we must protect ourselves from ourselves.
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Rights of Indigenous Australians
lucyv | June 18, 2009The suspension of the racial discrimination act and mandatory detention in the NT have important implications for the National Human Rights Consultation.
