Australians’ trust in government at an all-time low

The percentage of Australians who say they have trust in their governments has declined to 35 percent. The metric is contained in the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, which measures public trust in four types of institution across 28 countries. The result in Australia comes despite the overall level of trust is government across all countries […]

Productivity Commission savages financial regulatory system

Australia’s ‘Four Pillars’ banking policy is redundant, there is not enough competition in the insurance industry, and the banks are using their market power to gouge their customers. That’s what the Productivity Commission thinks. The independent government agency has released its Draft Report on Competition in the Australian Financial System. It does not paint a […]

Extreme Weather conference extremely timely

Extreme weather events are becoming more common. Heatwaves, floods bushfires and cyclones are more prevalent than ever, with Australia on the sharp end. Government News is a partner with the first Xtreme Weather Australia Conference, being held at Brisbane’s Sofitel Hotel on 20 March 2018. Join Australia’s leading experts and communicators for the full day […]

Councillors not in ‘office of profit’

Australia’s High Court has said that mayors and other councillors are eligible to stand for state and federal parliaments, ruling that they do not hold ‘an office of profit under the Crown’. The judgement came with a unanimous decision by the Court in a case brought by One Nation against Devonport mayor Steve Martin, who […]

National Electricity Market ‘broken’ – Tasmania wants out

The National Electricity Market (NEM) is under fire from many quarters. A new parliamentary report has criticised many aspects of its operation, and now Tasmania’s Liberal Government has said that if returned to office after the 3 March election it will withdraw the state entirely from the NEM by 20121. Tasmania, which has abundant hydroelectric […]

Armidale policy will ‘undermine public confidence’ in local government

In 2016 the NSW Government amended the Local Government Act to change the legal definition of the role of councillors in the state. As well as motherhood statements such as being active and making considered decisions, one of the new responsibilities was “to uphold and represent accurately the policies and decisions of the governing body” […]

State action needed for real reporting reform

Last week the NSW Audit Office released its first performance audit into NSW Local Government covering council reporting on service delivery. The report said most councils need to do a better job. The findings come as no shock to sector professionals, who believe there needs to be a reduction in the overall reporting burdens on […]

Commonwealth Games transport changes – winners and losers

The Queensland Government has announced major changes to transport in South East Queensland during the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, which will be held 4-15 April. The biggest change will be a tripling of services on the Brisbane to Gold Cost train line, with trains operating 24 hours a day. There will be 176 extra services […]

You are about to land at Avalon International Airport

Avalon airport, between Melbourne and Geelong, has been struggling a little in recent years. But that will change soon. Budget Malaysian carrier AirAsia has announced it will move its twice daily Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur flights there from Tullamarine by the end of the year. Airport owners Linfox will build a new $20 million international […]

Governments to increase spending on cloud, cybersecurity and analytics

Gartner’s Rick Howard Leading IT analyst group Gartner predicts that cloud computing, cybersecurity and data analytics will be the top technology spending priorities in the public sector CIOs in 2018. And data centre infrastructure will be the most commonly targeted technology for cost savings. A global Gartner survey of government CIOs found that 16 percent […]

More procurement from SMEs to ‘boost innovation’

The Federal Government’s new report on ways to boost innovation in Australia has called for more government procurement from SMEs (small and medium enterprises). Government agency Innovation and Science Australia (ISA) has released a report, ‘Australia 2030: Prosperity through Innovation’, making 30 recommendations on how to improve Australia’s poor performance in innovation. On most international […]

NSW councils need better reporting, says Auditor-General

The NSW Auditor-General has released a major new report which says that councils in the state are not doing a very good job when it comes to reporting on how they deliver services. It is the first such report the Auditor-General has released. “Councils could do more to demonstrate how well they are delivering services […]

PC Report on Government Services – Child care, education and training

The final section of the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services (RoGS) has been released, covering child care, education and training (CCET). Expenditure on CCET services is significant. Total government expenditure on the sector was just under $71 billion in 2016-17, around 31.6 percent of total government expenditure on service. School education was the largest […]

Governments failing on road safety, says AAA

Detailed analysis by Australia’s peak motoring body shows that nearly 90 percent of the targets in the 2011 National Road Safety Strategy will not be met. This is because governments are failing to fulfill the commitments made, according to the analysis. The findings are contained in the report Benchmarking the Performance of the National Road […]

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