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Andrews Labor Government response to the independent inquiry into the Environment Protection Authority
No full textThe Independent Inquiry into Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) was undertaken over ten months from June 2015 to March 2016 by a Ministerial Advisory Committee chaired by Penny Armytage. The inquiry made 48 recommendations to government about how the EPA can be equipped to meet the environment and human health challenges of today and the future. This document sets out the Andrews Labor Government’s response to each of the inquiry’s recommendations.
Through the inquiry, government has heard clear views from experts, community, industry and stakeholders about the importance of a strong, modern and mature EPA within a growing and transitioning Victoria. Government has heard that an EPA that delivers efficient, proportionate and consistent regulation is vital for business and to ensure Victoria is an attractive place for investment. Government has heard that the Victorian community wants an EPA that effectively and proactively protects their health and their environment from harm.
The reforms set out in this response will deliver:
• a proactive and strategic EPA focussed on preventing harm to human health and the environment
• an EPA that provides business with clarity, certainty and support to comply, and holds polluters to account
• modern, fit-for-purpose legislation
• greater responsiveness to local and regional issues that matter to communities
• strengthened governance for the EPA, providing independence and accountability
• a trusted and authoritative source of science and technical knowledge and advice.
The reforms will transform Victoria’s approach to environment protection over a number of years. Implementation will include consultation with business, community and stakeholders, and be guided by core principles:
• reform will deliver better environment and human health outcomes for Victorians
• reform will build trust of community and industry in the EPA and government
• regulatory approaches will be targeted, proportionate, risk-based and cost-effective
• regulation will be monitored and evaluated to ensure systems remain fit for purpose as circumstances change
• role clarity will be increased and all opportunities taken to simplify and streamline processes.
The EPA has played a vitally important role for Victoria since it came into operation in 1971, and these reforms will ensure that it continues to do so
Internet/broadband fact sheet
No full textThe internet represents a fundamental shift in how Americans connect with one another, gather information and conduct their day-to-day lives. For more than fifteen years, Pew Research Center has documented its growth and distribution in the United States. Explore the patterns of internet and home broadband adoption via the link
Healthy communities - better for everyone
No full textIn a healthy community, no-one would get stuck facing long-term disadvantage. We are all challenged by life’s ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, but for some people the ‘downs’ are much deeper and longer lasting. Early, intergenerational and locational disadvantages constrain opportunities and limit social mobility. This isn’t just bad luck for the people involved; we are all worse off when our social systems don’t protect vulnerable people.
This is because the impacts of poverty and disadvantage do not just fall upon the individual; the gap between social groups has a major effect upon community health. Research has shown that more unequal societies have greater problems with health, mental illness, addictions, crime and other social issues. There is also a direct negative impact on local economic growth. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Every year, the State Budget gives the Victorian Government an opportunity to address the most pressing problems in our communities and shape the future of the state. The Salvation Army’s 2017-18 Victorian State Budget Submission offers a vision of healthy communities where our most disadvantaged citizens get a fair go, allowing them to break out of cycles of disadvantage. Giving priority to those left furthest behind isn’t just the right thing to do for them; it’s the way we build a society that’s better for everyone.
The submission is based on a series of consultations with Victorian Salvation Army services that highlighted three key groups of people who, without adequate supports, are likely to remain in entrenched disadvantage:
Rough sleepers with complex needs;
Young people leaving state care; and
People exiting prison.
When they need our help the most, the services available to these groups are too few and too inadequately resourced. It is here that the gaps in our social safety nets are widening; where we have failed to live up to our own standards that give everyone in our community a fair go.
When we fail groups of people such as these, we are all worse off. Ignoring long-term social disadvantage creates higher costs in tertiary systems, such as hospitals and prisons. But attending to them proactively builds social cohesion and healthier communities for everyone
Australia target for cyber spying says Ambassador for Cyber Affairs
No full textThe new Ambassador for Cyber Affairs says Australia is a target for cyber espionage, but he has not singled out any specific nation as a threat.
As the United States is grappling with explosive findings that Russia engaged in hacking during the Presidential election, the British Government has launched a national inquiry to assess how the UK is protected against an ever increasing tide of attacks
Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?
No full textDo you know where and how you want to be buried?
Will you choose an elaborate Victorian-style headstone, or do you prefer a “green” burial, with only a GPS tracking signal indicating your location? Or you may elect to purchase a Bios Urn, a 100% biodegradable capsule you plant in the ground with cremated ashes and a seed of your choice which will one day grow into a tree.
Issues of mortality and access to burial space are not typically dinner party conversations or at the top of government agendas. And, until recently, its priority as a future challenge in planning has been virtually non-existent.
Sydney’s 2014 strategic plan, A Plan for Growing Sydney, recognises the need for studies of cemetery capacity and demand to identify future land requirements. Such studies are likely to reveal spatial variances across larger cities due to differences in age and religious and cultural communities.
The last major changes to the cemetery landscape in Australian cities occurred in the late 1800s. At this time, the crowded and unsanitary conditions of churchyard burial grounds required the dedication of considerable burial land on what was once the urban fringe.
Many of these cemeteries continue to serve society’s burial needs. For the past century, there has been no pressing need to plan cities for the dead. It therefore comes as no surprise that consideration of a cemetery as essential public infrastructure has fallen through the cracks.
We have reached a point where this must change. The lifespans of existing cemeteries in major Australian cities are severely limited. In Sydney, according to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, the metropolitan region’s 310,000 to 330,000 available plots will likely be exhausted by 2050.
Annual numbers of deaths are predicted to double between 2011 and 2051. Despite a shift towards cremations over the last century (Sydney’s cremation rate is 66%), our cities’ diverse religious and cultural communities will always require space for burial.
This issue raises two important considerations. Where will we bury? And how will we bury?
Follow the link to read the full article at The Conversatio
Australia state of the environment 2016: overview
No full textIn the past five years (2011–16), environmental policies and management practices in Australia have achieved improvements in the state and trends of parts of the Australian environment. Australia’s built environment, natural and cultural heritage, and marine and Antarctic environments are generally in good condition.
There are, however, areas where the condition of the environment is poor and/or deteriorating. These include the more populated coastal areas and some of the growth areas within urban environments, where human pressure is greatest (particularly in southeastern Australia); and the extensive land-use zone of Australia, where grazing is considered a major threat to biodiversity.
In Australia, the key drivers of environmental change are population growth and economic activity. The extent to which these drivers lead to environmental impacts depends on a range of factors, including:
how many of us there are
where and how we live
the goods and services we produce (for both domestic and export markets) and consume
the technologies we use to produce our energy, food, materials and transport
how we manage the waste we produce.
Keeping impacts within limits is one key to a sustainable future.
If not managed well, drivers can generate pressures that have immediate and long-term negative consequences for the environment. If managed well, however, drivers can be harnessed to achieve environmental benefits.
The main pressures facing the Australian environment today are the same as in 2011: climate change, landuse change, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and invasive species. In addition, the interactions between these and other pressures are resulting in cumulative impacts, amplifying the threats faced by the Australian environment.
Evidence shows that some individual pressures on the environment have decreased since 2011, such as those associated with air quality, poor agricultural practices, commercial fishing, and oil and gas exploration and production in Australia’s marine environment.
During the same time, however, other pressures have increased—for example, those associated with coalmining and the coal-seam gas industry, habitat fragmentation and degradation, invasive species, litter in our coastal and marine environments, and greater traffic volumes in our capital cities.
For some parts of the Australian environment, at least, effective policy and management have contributed to improved outcomes for the environment and for people. For example, early indications are that environmental watering in the Murray–Darling Basin driven by the 2012 Murray–Darling Basin Plan, along with the effects of natural floods, have contributed to ecological benefits for stream functioning and biodiversity. In the marine environment, the formation of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority in 2012 has increased scrutiny of offshore petroleum environmental management. This has resulted in better understanding of activity impacts, greater focus on industry compliance and increased levels of preparedness for unplanned events.
However, a number of key challenges to the effective management of the Australian environment remain:
An overarching national policy that establishes a clear vision for the protection and sustainable management of Australia’s environment to the year 2050 is lacking. Such a program needs to be supported by
specific action programs and policy to preserve and, where necessary, restore natural capital and our unique environments, taking into account the need to adapt to climate change
complementary policy and strengthened legislative frameworks at the national, state and territory levels
efficient, collaborative and complementary planning and decision-making processes across all levels of government, with clear lines of accountability.
Poor collaboration and coordination of policies, decisions and management arrangements exists across sectors and between different managers (public and private).
Follow-through from policy to action is lacking.
Data and long-term monitoring are inadequate.
Resources for environmental management and restoration are insufficient.
The understanding of, and capacity to identify and measure, cumulative impacts is inadequate, which reduces the potential for coordinated approaches to their management.
Meeting these challenges requires:
integrated policies and adaptive management actions that address drivers of environmental change and the associated pressures
national leadership
improved support for decision-making
a more strategic focus on planning for a sustainable future
new, reliable sources of financing
Disability information and advisory services and needs assessment and service coordination review – a proposed design and framework
No full textOverview
This report is the result of the Ministry of Health\u27s independent review, undertaken by Sapere Research Group, of disability information advisory services (DIAS) and needs assessment service coordination (NASC) functions. The report will help inform the work the Ministry is doing over the next few years to transform the disability support system. It identifies how the interface between disabled people and support services can be improved to better support people to have a good life.
This is the final conclusion and recommendation paper in the independent review of the framework for DIAS and NASC for disability support services. This paper has Sapere’s options and analysis of the potential impacts for a revision of the framework.  
2017 affordability report
No full textThe 2017 edition of A4AI’s annual Affordability Report, released 20 February 2017, examines the state of policy progress toward affordable internet across 58 low and middle-income countries. The report finds that, despite having pledged to achieve affordable, universal internet access, governments are failing to back these promises with concrete action. Just 19 countries surveyed can claim to have affordable internet (i.e., 1GB of mobile broadband priced at 2% or less of average monthly income). Despite this, policies in the sector have barely changed since we started assessing policies for this report in 2014 — in the years since, the average increase in policy scores across all areas was only 10%.
This year’s report finds additional signs of this inaction:
National broadband plans have never been developed or are badly outdated in 41% of countries.
Universal Service and Access Funds — designed to extend connectivity to those who cannot afford access or who live in areas without needed infrastructure — either don’t exist or are dormant — in over a third of countries.
Effective, funded schemes to offer free or subsidised access to the internet in public places exist in only half the countries surveyed
Here's what non-fake news looks like
No full textJournalists literally \u27make\u27 news. They do not find it. They do not publish transcripts of reality. Even in their best efforts, they would not provide a copy of reality, but reality in a frame, reality enhanced, reality reconfigured by being heightened on a page or a screen, reality retouched by the magic of publication itself.
Whether it is Macedonian teenagers wanting to make a buck or far-right conspiracy-minded partisans trying to roil the waters, “fake news” is even more a part of today’s vocabulary than “truthiness” was a decade ago. The big difference is that the current President of the United States likes to grab headlines with reckless assertions that he then peddles to the public without evidence.
Presidents have a bully pulpit. When they place troops on a battlefield, even many people who saw no point in war rally round the flag; when they have potentially cancerous polyps removed from their colons (Ronald Reagan), thousands of people pick up the phone and make colonoscopy appointments. If a President can inadvertently push people to undergo colonoscopies, what else might a President do by example or by words? When a President declares the news media the “enemy of the American people,” what might otherwise reasonable citizens be inclined to think?
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Timing it wrong: benefits, income tests, overpayments and debts
No full textUEXPECTED bills can be a challenge for any household. But for people who rely on social security payments, unexpected news of a significant debt – sometimes dating back years – can be bewildering, to say the least. This is exactly what tens of thousands of Australians have experienced in recent months.
Since just before Christmas, Centrelink’s new automated data-matching system has resulted in a significant increase in the number of current and former welfare recipients assessed as having been overpaid and, thus, in debt to the government. The data-matching system seems to have identified people with earned income higher than the amount reported when their benefits were calculated…
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