Latest Story
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What do ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day mean to our sense of wellbeing as a nation?
David McLachlan | November 12, 2011As Australian's pause to honour the members of our armed forces who have died in the line of duty since World War I, David McLachlan encourages us to reflect on the ANZAC spirit and how we can make a difference through volunteering.
Australia’s national sense of well-being has been growing year on year for many years according the Australian Unity Well-being Index. Many factors influence this sense of well-being, but one thing that has been proven time and again is that helping others increases people’s individual well-being.
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UncategorisedHave your say on proposed changes to the road rules
editor | November 11, 2011
The Australian road rules could be improved to ensure their benefit to the community, according to a National Transport Commission (NTC) discussion paper released on 2 November.
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UncategorisedCelebrating Australian talent around the world
editor | November 10, 2011
The Advance Global Australian Awards celebrate Australians living overseas, who exhibit remarkable talent, exceptional vision, ambition and who are future leaders and innovators in their chosen field. They are the only awards to recognise the important contributions of the more than 1 million Australians living abroad.
The Awards are open to all Australians citizens or a non-Australian alumnus of an Australian university, working outside of Australia.
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Saying goodbye to the greed of Gordon Gekko
Connie Comber | November 9, 2011Fictional Wall Street character, Gordon Gekko, famously said that "Greed is good", and for a while the business world seemed to agree. Connie Comber believes the time has now come for a more gentle business environment that is a better fit with our post-GFC sensibilities.
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Cloudy with a chance of data loss – addressing the future of cloud computing
Lisa Middlebrook | November 9, 2011With the launch of the cloud computing report last week, and the announcement of Global Access Partners’ national standard committee on cloud computing, Lisa Middlebrook reflects on the importance of exploring the future of this expanding service.
Let’s start with a couple of quotes:
"The overall magnitude of this tragedy and the loss is simply incalculable, and we are distressed by the actions of the parties responsible for this reprehensible act." Distribute IT June 2011
"After these horrific attacks it’s evident that our Government needs to be transformed to meet the new challenges of this dangerous world." George Pataki, New York Governor, September 11, 2001
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The idea of progress in history – how far have we come?
Mike Salvaris | November 8, 2011The idea of including human wellbeing in measuring societal progress is not new, but it is being re-thought in the 21st century. Prof Mike Salvaris looks at the history of ideas about human progress and explores their relevance today in this adaptation of a paper he wrote for the Australian Bureau of Statistics report, ‘Future Directions in Measuring Australia’s Progress’.
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Seven billion people and counting – when will rational thinking prevail?
Alex Dunnin | November 7, 2011Last week the media celebrated the landmark birth of a baby girl in India, claiming her arrival brought the world population to seven billion. The event re-kindled age-old concerns that the current global birthrate is unsustainable. Alex Dunnin is still waiting for the rational population debate in Australia to begin.
The world population just ticked over to seven billion people, and the race was on to find just who the lucky person was. Low and behold, it was a child in India.
But don’t tell that to the parents of Danica May Camacho, who was born “amid an explosion of media flash bulbs” and “a celebratory cheer at a packed government-run hospital” in Manila, the Philippines.
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Is optimism American? Thoughts from a citizen of the best country on earth
Victor Perton | November 4, 2011Australians like to think of themselves as easy-going and optimistic. But does that image still work for us in 2011? Victor Perton argues that, with the help of the media, Australia is in danger of becoming a nation of pessimists.
Recently to end an email debate, a Scandinavian friend wrote, "I guess you’ve become American; I just asked an American friend here to go out with me tomorrow, nobody is more optimistic than Americans!"
No doubt, she was right about my optimism. I am an optimist, even possessing a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses with rose-coloured lenses to augment my general world view. Was she right that optimism was an American trait, and my years of living in the states had further (rose) coloured my views?
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Are we driving towards a car-free future?
Catherine Simpson | November 3, 2011When the Ford Motor Company introduced the large-scale manufacturing of cars in the 1900s, the American economy was booming and fuel prices were low. More than a century later the impact of cars has been keenly felt around the world. Catherine Simpson shows how our dependence on the 'tin monster' might be a thing of the past.
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Strong need to revitalise professional music education
Ralph Evans | November 2, 2011Our conservatoriums of music have not done well since John Dawkins merged them into universities 20 years ago. They have become internationally uncompetitive in the teaching hours they provide, especially one-on-one hours, argues Ralph Evans.
I had the privilege to chair the taskforce that produced the report "20 Years after the Dawkins Report – Tertiary Music Education in Australia". I am not part of the music world, but just one of the great unwashed, a business person who became involved through chairing the Board of Advice at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Recently, I was prompted to reflect on the background to the situation the report examined.
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Measuring our quality of life — why is the world looking beyond GDP?
Stephen Bartos | November 1, 2011When the term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was developed in the 1930s the market value of all goods and services produced within a country was considered to be the best indicator of a country’s standard of living. Now it’s widely recognised that other factors have to be taken into account when looking at a country’s success as a happy, safe place to live. Prof Stephen Bartos, advocates exploring how the ‘economics of happiness’ can be used to inform national policy.
Gross domestic product per capita is a useful, measure of national well-being from an economic perspective.
The severity of the 1930s Great Depression highlighted the need for a tool to assist policy makers to understand the state of their economies, and most importantly whether the policies they had in place were effective.
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Setting a new direction for public and private transport in Sydney
Fergus Neilson | October 31, 2011
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