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Vaccination: perspectives of Australian parents
No full textThe latest Australian Child Health Poll has revealed a worrying pattern of practice in Australian health care, in which some unvaccinated children are being refused care by health care providers.
The poll found that one in six Australian children who are not up-to-date with their vaccines have been refused care by a health care provider.
Director of the Child Health Poll, Dr Anthea Rhodes, said that while in the United States a clinician’s right to refuse care to an unvaccinated child has been a topic for some time, this poll suggests a worrying pattern of practice not previously identified in Australia.
Among children whose parents reported them as not being up-to-date with their vaccines, children under six were most likely to be refused care by a health care provider (25 per cent), followed by 21 per cent of primary school-aged children and five per cent of teenagers.
The latest Australian Child Health Poll also found:
The vast majority of Australian parents support childhood vaccination and keep their children’s vaccines up-to-date.
74 per cent of parents believe they should be informed about the number of children not up-to-date with vaccines in their child’s school, kindergarten or child care centre.
Seven out of ten parents said that knowing the percentage of under-vaccinated children in a school or centre would influence their decision to send their child to that facility.
Nearly three quarters of parents across Australia support a ‘No Jab, No Play’ policy, believing children who are not up-to-date with vaccines should be refused access to child care or kindergarten.
Many Australian parents are confused about whether to delay vaccines when a child has a minor illness with nearly half (47 per cent) incorrectly saying vaccination should be delayed in a well child on antibiotics, and one in five (22 per cent) in a child who has had a local reaction to a previous vaccine, such as swelling or redness.
Despite extensive medical research showing no causal link, one in ten Australian parents believe that vaccines can cause autism, and a further 30 per cent are unsure
Inquiry into the retirement housing sector
No full textVictoria’s population is ageing and causing significant growth in demand for retirement housing. At the same time, residents have heightened expectations about the services that will be delivered.
This creates a range of challenges for government and industry, and also prompted significant public interest in this Inquiry. It’s important for the Victorian Government to ensure that legislation keeps pace with change, and in a way that protects consumers and provides the sector with the certainty it needs to grow.
A variety of issues and problems were raised in evidence or through submissions. Contracts are complicated and are not always well understood by all parties. Reliable legal access may be hard to access. There are significant cost of living pressures for those on fixed incomes. Relationships between residents and management are sometimes fractious and existing options to resolve disputes are poorly regarded by many residents.
The Committee was not tasked with solving every problem identified by those who contributed to the Inquiry. It was not charged with undertaking a wholesale review of the various pieces of legislation that are relevant to retirement housing in Victoria.
The Committee has identified several opportunities for improvement and has made recommendations accordingly.
The current supply of retirement housing is failing to keep pace with growth in demand, and without supply side changes, this gap will increase. The Committee recommends the Planning Minister examine ways to address this supply shortage, possibly through establishing Retirement Housing Zones.
While the Committee received evidence that most residents are happy in their retirement community, it’s clear that dispute resolution processes need to improve, as does training for those who work in and provide advice to the industry.
The Committee recommends the Law Institute of Victoria support better training for the legal profession, and also recommends that training for village managers be expanded. In addition, the Committee recommends the establishment of a low cost, accessible and binding dispute resolution process, either by expanding the jurisdiction of an existing Ombudsman, or through the creation of a new Ombudsman.
The Committee received many submissions about the issue of differential rates. The case for a rates discount for residents of retirement villages is appealing, as so many services are provided by the village and not the local council, but such a recommendation was not made. As the MAV told us, rates are not levied on a fee for service model, and in the current rate capping environment imposed by the State Government, any reduction in revenue from one source would merely cost shift to other ratepayers.
Victorians deserve to feel confident that should they choose to move into a retirement village or park, they will find a suitable home where they will feel safe and enjoy their retirement years, and where this does not occur, there are processes in place to address these concerns. The recommendations we have made are aimed at improvements to provide that confidence.
 
Returning to work after armed robbery in the workplace
No full textArmed robbery exposes workers to serious harm in an environment where day-to-day safety is not normally a concern, and can have a wide range of negative consequences for employees. Victims may find it difficult to return to or cope at work.
This research examined a sample of 93 victims of armed robbery in the workplace from the AIC’s Database of Victimisation Experiences to determine what helped or hindered their return to work. The results are discussed in the context of enhancing how small businesses respond to and support victims of armed robbery in the workplace
Fraud within the Commonwealth: a census of the most costly incidents 2014
No full textForeword
From financial years 2010–11 to 2014–14, Commonwealth entities experienced 9,467 incidents of internal fraud, with losses of over $12.7m.
This study analysed information about the most costly incidents each entity experienced each year and those who perpetrated these. The majority of the 166 frauds related to employee entitlements or financial benefits, and most were committed through the misuse of documents or technology.
The findings provide an insight into the fraud risks facing the Commonwealth and how these might best be addressed
A former leader’s advice: in a crisis, have the courage to break with the past
No full textIN OCTOBER 1970, a young Laurie Oakes interviewed an old Sir John McEwen, the legendary leader of the Country Party (now the Nationals), long-time deputy and strong right arm of Sir Robert Menzies. One of the things the old warrior had to tell him was why he admired so much his former adversary, the Labor leader John Curtin.
“Curtin found himself prime minister while we were at war, and his party was completely unprepared for the violent policies necessary,” said McEwen. “He had never been a minister, and he had to handle the crisis by introducing conscription and wage-fixing policies completely repugnant to the Labor Party. He faced up to this without a flinch, and I admire his courage and sense of duty…”
Read the full article via link
How will the NDIS change Australian cities?
No full textPeople with disability represent a fifth of the Australian population (AIHW 2015), and this proportion is expected to increase with population ageing. With the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) being progressively rolled out across Australia, this is a particularly appropriate time for the Australian urban research agenda to engage with disability in more meaningful ways.
Considered one of the most significant social policy reforms in Australian history, ‘epochal’ (Goggin and Wadiwel 2014) in its scale and transformative potential, the NDIS will directly affect the lives of close to half a million people with a disability as well as their formal and informal support providers. As one of the most urbanised countries in the world, these impacts will be profoundly influenced by the urban contexts in which the NDIS will operate. In turn, Australian cities themselves are likely to change as they adapt to the significant social, economic and political transformations facilitated by the NDIS.
This Issues Paper sets out a research agenda for examining the impacts of the NDIS on Australian cities over the first decade of its full implementation (from 2019 onwards). The impacts of deinstitutionalisation, the last paradigmatic shift in disability policy, are drawn upon to consider possible changes in the lives of individuals, communities and cities in the imminent NDIS era. Since Australian cities of the early 21st century have significantly changed in terms of society, economy, governance and spatial disparities over the past 30 years, we begin to explore how the NDIS reforms might work within rapidly evolving cities. The Issues Paper addresses two primary questions: first, how will outcomes for NDIS participants vary in different urban contexts and domains? And, second, in what ways will the NDIS drive wider change in Australian cities affecting people both with and without disability?
The NDIS was initiated in 2013 to transform an ‘inequitable, underfunded, fragmented, and inefficient’ (Productivity Commission 2011, p. 5) support services system for people with disability in Australia. Annual funding for disability services will increase from a total of 22 billion in 2019-20, when the scheme is fully operational nationally. Currently, the majority of disability services are block funded. In contrast, most NDIS funding will be allocated to people with disability as individualised funding. This fundamental shift was designed to facilitate greater choice and control for people with disability, enabling them to purchase their preferred support services in a quasi-market system (as opposed to administrative allocation of services). Promoting independent living and community participation are two of the scheme’s primary objectives (Productivity Commission 2009).
The term people with disability is very broad and used in reference to highly diverse populations. Approximately a fifth of the Australian population (four million people) have a disability. Of these, only 460 000 people are expected to be eligible for individualised NDIS funding. This group (often referred to as NDIS participants) includes people with a significant and ongoing disability, under 65 years old at the time of entering the scheme. The majority, an estimated 70%, of NDIS participants will be people with intellectual disability. In addition, the NDIS Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program will provide grant funding for projects that assist in building personal and community capacity that enhance community inclusion for all Australians with disability (Bonyhady 2016).
In the first part of the paper, we briefly revisit earlier Australian and international studies on deinstitutionalisation. This relatively recent and substantial comparator of a paradigm shift in the disability sector that was researched within its urban contexts in Australia and internationally, provides an explanatory social scientific base and lessons to draw upon. In the second part, we refocus on the NDIS and consider the key areas in which it is likely to facilitate urban change in Australia, including housing, employment, urban renewal initiatives, governance, mainstream services and multiculturalism
Why did quality media lose trust?
No full textWhy did quality media lose peoples trust? Why is a big part of the audience listening more to lies and accusations than to well curated and fact based journalism?
At a lecture given to a visiting group of leading Danish reporters and editors at LSE professor Charlie Beckett elaborated on the ethical and emotional element of online news consumption. Journalism content now gets blended into people’s personal life in new ways.
At the same time people are sharing stories not only for the information but also for the emotions and to signal their own values. In that case, it’s not adequate for journalists only to focus on the facts or content of the journalism. They must also rely on deep insight in the users evolving behavior and motives.
Beckett’s angle seems crucial to understand the current media world – and not only in the countries of Brexit and Trump. I am from Denmark where the news media are decreasingly being read or seen in their own well defined domain. Instead they mix through social media into a much more personal space surrounded by conversations with family, peers and (usually) likeminded friends.
This has a wide range of far reaching consequences. It’s not only closely connected to broken business models on print as well as in digital. It’s has also proven to play an important part of Western countries increasing problems with having a constructive democratic debate
Roof-top solar hits a crossroad – Are smart meters the answer?
No full textAustralian rooftop solar is now at a crossroads – but it’s all positive. New technologies mean big data can be gathered from systems so that performance can be monitored and alerts raised if problems occur.
Dr Deo Prasad writes about the benefits of solar monitoring systems and the possibilities for commerical customers to become more sustainable and create their own electricity and keep costs down.
Read the full article on Sourceable
Vision or hallucination? Some reflections on the Gonski Review
No full textThe highlight of the TJ Ryan Foundation’s 3rd anniversary event was a keynote address from Dr Ken Boston, former Director-General of Education in South Australia and New South Wales, and member of the Gonski Review panel. Dr Boston spoke on the topic of \u27Gonski Report: Vision or Hallucination?\u27
The key messages from his address are:
Neither the “last two years of Gonski funding”, nor reducing overall funding to the wealthiest schools, will solve the real problem facing Australia’s schools. Nor will cosmetic changes to Commonwealth/State governance and funding arrangements with regard to education;
Any long-term solution must be based on the assessment of the needs of individual schools – treating government, Catholic and independent schools in exactly the same way;
The most recent iteration of the My School website gives detailed information on government recurrent funding for every school in the country. This information is validated by schools and systems, accurate, and available online. No longer need we rely on broad statements, averages or generalisations about school funding, from the Productivity Commission, the Commonwealth Government or other sources. We are now in a position to make evidence-based statements about the funding of schools, based on publicly available data at the level of the individual school;
While the existence of Catholic and independent schools might be justified on other grounds, they can no longer be justified on the grounds that they are saving taxpayers’ money. Catholic and independent schools are now receiving virtually the same amount of government funding as government schools serving similar SES communities;
Five years after Gonski, Australia has two virtually government-funded systems. One is open to all, takes students from all sections of the community, and has several accountabilities to government. The other – state-funded to nearly the same extent – sets and charges fees; has a selective enrolment process; has a statutory exemption from certain anti-discrimination provisions; can borrow money, and because the high-level of government funding covers their recurrent teaching costs, can apply their fees to servicing loans on major capital works;
In suburbs and towns across Australia, adjacent schools receiving similar levels of taxpayer support now operate under quite different conditions, in facilities of sharply differing standards, and with clientele deeply divided on the basis of class, ethnicity and income;
Both the Rudd/Gillard Government and the Turnbull Government failed to implement Gonski. Radical change - along lines I will discuss – is now urgent
The Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey: 2016 data
No full textThe survey has run nationally every year since 2011 in response to growing concern about principals’ occupational health, safety and wellbeing. Since the project began, approximately 50% of Australia’s 10,000 principals have taken part. Many have completed multiple surveys.
The aim of this research project is to conduct a longitudinal study monitoring school principals and deputy/assistant principals’ health and wellbeing annually. Principals and deputy/assistant principals’ health and wellbeing in differing school types, levels and size will be monitored, along with lifestyle choices such as exercise and diet and the professional and personal social support networks available to individuals. The turnover of principals and deputy/assistant principals within schools will allow investigations of moderator effects, such as years of experience prior to taking up the role. The longitudinal study will allow the mapping of health outcomes on each of these dimensions over time.
Each survey participant received a comprehensive, individual report from his/her own survey responses. The report is an interactive secure webpage allowing participants to compare their scores on 45 separate dimensions with the general population, other principals and themselves over time. The other form of feedback is a red flag indicator that has been programmed to be automatically triggered by the survey system if a participant reported either consideration of self-harm in the week preceding completing the survey, or if their combined answers to the quality of life questions add to a total score that falls two Standard Deviations below the mean score for principals. A ‘red flag’ email is then generated and sent to the participant outlining his or her individual result and includes a list of support services available in the local area. This is done anonymously so participants can choose what course of action to take