By Paul Hemsley Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made an ambitious bid to get Labor’s trailing electoral fortunes back on track on the East Coast by pitching the big-picture infrastructure vision of High Speed Rail against Tony Abbott’s smaller target Paid Parental Leave scheme as a better use of taxpayers money. Mr Rudd yesterday committed […]
27 August, 2013
By Paul Hemsley The Local Government Association of South Australia (LGA) wants patchy mobile phone coverage to be a thing of the past after it welcomed the federal Opposition’s plan worth $100 million to improve cellular reception across regional, remote and outer metropolitan communities. The federal Coalition announced the plan as a campaign promise that […]
16 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The saying goes that all politics is local and Queensland Minister for Local Government Community Recovery and Resilience, David Crisafulli is clearly a believer. The man put in charge of deconstructing the former Labor government's deeply unpopular policy of welding local governments together has wasted no time in reminding his state’s councils […]
8 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The Rudd government has announced that cornerstone research and development body National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) will get a further $42 million in funding over 2015 to 2016 as Labor moves quickly to press home its perceived electoral advantage on technology and skills development. Minister Assisting for the Digital Economy, […]
7 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski and Paul Hemsley Anger within the Commonwealth public service over fresh funding cuts by the Rudd government has boiled over after the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) announced it had “voted to extend the suspension of all CPSU election campaigning in protest at Government plans to cut $1.8 billion from federal […]
6 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Councils across Australia will soon be forced to explain to ratepayers how much of their money was spent pushing the ‘Yes’ case for the proposed referendum on financial recognition for local government in the Constitution after the poll officially bit the dust on Sunday. The announcement of a 7th September election date […]
6 August, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales has come out fighting in support of the ‘yes’ case for the local government referendum, claiming residents stand to lose at least $3 million a year if federal money dries up. The Mayor of Lake Macquarie, Cr Jodie Harrison, has warned the “really […]
30 July, 2013
By Paul Hemsley A key economic indicator from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s securities arm Commsec has confirmed that continued political uncertainty ahead of the federal election this year is acting as a handbrake on business investment, which has been impeding the prosperity of the state economies. The latest quarterly
23 July, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has thrown down the gauntlet to Commonwealth Public Service executives to start extracting much greater efficiency and productivity gains from technology and software or face the prospect of hundreds of upper-level forced redundancies. Mr Rudd and Treasurer Chris Bowen on Tuesday revealed well-anticipated expenditure reduction measures aimed at […]
16 July, 2013
By Paul Hemsley and Julian Bajkowski The mayor of Sydney’s City of Ryde, Ivan Petch, and other five councillors are facing a public inquiry by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) as part of investigations into allegations of a raft of dodgy and improper activities. A statement issued by the ICAC on […]
16 July, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski The chairman of the Coaltion’s deregulation taskforce, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, has outlined a raft of changes to how businesses sell into the federal government as part of a bid to lower the cost of doing business with Canberra. The Coalition is proposing to set up a central register of federal government suppliers […]
12 July, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski Coalition support for the ‘yes’ case in the referendum on Constitutional recognition for local government has edged one step closer to official collapse after Opposition leader Tony Abbott intensified his attack on the poll process amid growing internal pressure to withdraw bipartisan support. Speaking at a press conference in Whittlsea, Victoria, Mr […]
2 July, 2013
By Julian Bajkowski and Paul Hemsley Australia’s 565 councils and shires have been handed their third federal minister for Local Government in as many months on the back of an inevitable reshuffle following the second incarnation of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. Member for Ballarat, Catherine King has been elevated into Cabinet under a simplified […]
2 July, 2013
By Staff Writers Newly appointed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced his Cabinet line-up, Minstries and Parliamentary Secretaries. As a number of official government and departmental websites are still in the process of being updated, as a service to readers Government News has published the full ministry list supplied to us by the Prime Minister's […]
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