Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 80
September 25, 2012
Ian Dunlop | SMH News Review, 22 Sept 2012
As climate change shifts into “a new and dangerous phase,” CPD Fellow Dunlop reveals alarming new climate change projections, and marvels at continued inaction by the political, business and NGO institutions that might be expected to lead an urgent response.
… on current trends the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015 and ice-free all year by 2030 – events that were not expected to occur for another 100 years…
Australian leaders glibly talk about adapting to a 4-degree world with little idea of what it means – which is a world of 1 billion people rather than the present 7 billion.
The article was heavily edited, but please find the original opinion piece for download below.
Access the Sydney Morning Herald article here
September 24, 2012
Caroline Hoisington | Tasmanian scientist slams supertrawler delay
CPD Fellow and marine economist defends proposed marine reserves, as the FV-Margiris exits stage-left…
…leaving in its wake heated national debate over sustainable fishing practices. Following the passage of legislative sanctions preventing the Dutch supertrawler from fishing in Australian waters, discordant scientific opinion has surfaced over the foresight, or lack thereof, of the government’s last-minute back-flip.
The controversy over the supertrawler’s capacity for overfishing has re-directed media interest towards the broader issue of sustainable marine reserves. CPD Fellow Caroline Hoisington was on hand to dispel exaggerated claims made by the commercial fishing groups opposed to the reserves.
Caroline Hoisington | ABC Rural, 12 September 2012
…leaving in its wake heated national debate over sustainable fishing practices. Following the passage of legislative sanctions preventing the Dutch supertrawler from fishing in Australian waters, discordant scientific opinion has surfaced over the foresight, or lack thereof, of the government’s last-minute back-flip.
The controversy over the supertrawler’s capacity for overfishing has re-directed media interest towards the broader issue of sustainable marine reserves. CPD Fellow Caroline Hoisington was on hand to dispel exaggerated claims made by the commercial fishing groups opposed to the reserves.
Mark Bahnisch | Crikey, 12 September 2012
Adverse stakeholder reaction to the government’s health policy could determine the political health of the government itself, according to CPD Fellow Mark Bahnisch. Vast budget cuts and departmental restructuring have raised the ire of health sector representatives who predict that a “tsunami of ill health” will be visited upon the state’s population.
The forceful criticism directed at the new government by medical groups and esteemed and senior clinicians points to a need to strike a balance between centralised policy and oversight – and regional and local autonomy and flexibility.
“The questions Minister Springborg and Premier Campbell Newman need to answer go to whether the changes to Queensland Health have been driven by a political narrative of ‘Labor debt’ and what could almost be characterised as palliative care to keep healthcare rage off the front pages and the radio waves.”
September 23, 2012
Public works need public sector skills – the lost lessons of the BER program
Despite significant public attention over the last two years, the lessons of the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program remain poorly understood. While there were major differences between BER outcomes in different states, most media coverage failed to focus on the reasons why some states performed so much better than others.
Evidence from the BER program leads to two major conclusions:
• Successful governments didn’t try to be too small: The state governments that were able to manage the risks of the program internally – instead of paying the private sector to take primary responsibility for program management – performed better; and
• Participation matters: Close consultation with the final users of the infrastructure, the school principals and school community was another key to good performance.
In this paper CPD fellow Tim Roxburgh looks at moves in Australia and internationally to rebuild the skills needed for the public sector to deliver successful public infrastructure projects. He warns that hard-learned lessons on the dangers of insufficient in-house capacity may now fall victim to sweeping cuts aimed at reducing the overall size of the of the public sector wage bill.
Download Public works need public sector skills (PDF)
Read Tim Roxburgh’s article in the Canberra Times today: Public service cuts may cost more than they save
September 17, 2012
remoteFOCUS | Fixing the hole in Australia’s Heartland
Fixing the hole in Australia’s Heartland is a major new independent report which recommends sweeping changes to the way residents and communities in remote areas are consulted, treated and serviced by governments. The result of more than three years’ consultation and research by the remoteFOCUS Group facilitated by Desert Knowledge Australia, the report was launched at Parliament House, Canberra on 10 September.
“Is the current governance of remote Australia good, or even adequate? We think not. Is it fair and just? We think not,” says The Hon Fred Chaney, AO, a former Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Chair of Desert Knowledge Australia and CPD Patron.
Desert Knowledge media release for Fixing the hole in Australia’s Heartland here
Chris Bonnor | Why our teachers are not top of the class
Australia flags in OECD International Student Assessment rankings
Teachers in Shanghai and Korea spend significantly less class time with their students than their counterparts in Australia and yet the two countries, along with Finland, Singapore and Hong Kong have placed in the top 5 of the OECD’s rankings.
While Finnish teachers have masters degree qualifications and enjoy high social status, “Australia does not value teaching as a profession in the same way,” CPD Fellow Chris Bonnor said in an article that calls for a fundamental reform of teachers’ salaries.
“According to OECD figures, an experienced Australian teacher earns $47,000 a year, 30 per cent less than the average salary, compared with $81,000 in Korea, three times more than the average salary, or $59,000 in Finland, almost 40 per cent more than the average.”
September 14, 2012
Caroline Hoisington | Canberra Times, 15 September 2012
While arguments against the unsustainable fishing operations of supertrawlers like the Margiris have, predictably, been based on environmental grounds, comparatively little analysis is given to why supertrawlers are also bad news for our economy. CPD Fellow Caroline Hoisington draws on her expertise as a marine economist to add a fiscal dimension to the debate by citing the fishing communities of West Africa and the South Pacific that welcomed supertrawlers, only to have their fish stocks dramatically depleted, to the detriment of local industry.
“When a trawler like Margiris comes to waters like Australia’s to scoop up low-value feed fish, it suggests that its business model is on the way out.”
With its track record for devastating fishing communities, and destabilising the biodiversity of local marine life, media scrutiny of the supertrawler’s presence and the consequent public outcry has seen the government impose a 2-year ban on the Margiris. But when this ban expires, the compelling economic arguments against supertrawlers should not be forgotten.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opini...
September 12, 2012
Verona Burgess | Australian Financial Review, 7 September
Verona Burgess has presaged an upcoming paper by CPD fellow Tim Roxburgh which analyses lessons which should have been learnt from the Building the Education Revolution program. In his paper, Tim Roxburgh highlighs that state governments that managed risks internally performed better than those that outsourced primary responsibility for program management to the private sector.
Download the scanned article (Verona Burgess, State Govts did better, AFR 7 Sept) here
Carmen Lawrence and Chris Bonnor | Education gap widening between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’
School children struggle to carry the weight of disadvantage
Statistics compiled for the Gonski Review of Funding for Schools have revealed stark inequities in the Australian school system, where students from disadvantaged backgrounds are up to three years behind privileged students in their literacy levels.
CPD fellow and Gonski Review panel member Carmen Lawrence said that the figures, which compare the academic performance of disadvantaged and privileged children, “don’t make pretty reading.”
For a long time there has been a wilful denial that there is a problem.
In turning up such inequities in our education system, the Gonski findings challenge what is at the heart of our national ethos: a fair go for all.
Children come to us in our classrooms with what has been called the ‘invisible backpack’ and some come with their backpack full of privilege and others come with a backpack of disadvantage. – David Zyngier, senior lecturer, Monash University
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