The states’ handover of driver licence data for a beefed up national facial biometric matching capability would only bring existing arrangements into ‘real time’.
A plan to fine hospitals for avoidable hospitalisations and pay GPs to prevent them has many issues. The main problem is that it’s impossible to measure the outcomes of health care in Australia.
Australia has enough gas reserves to supply the next 25 years’ demand. Federal pressure to lift state bans on onshore gas development is pointless, risky – and won’t bring prices down.
Proposed new laws will restrict parole and bail to those merely associated in some way with terrorism, even when they have not be arrested for – or convicted of – a specific terrorism offence.
States and territories have agreed to strengthen their laws to ensure a presumption against granting bail or parole when people had ‘demonstrated support for, or have links to, terrorist activity’.
The federal government has fallen behind Labor in Newspoll for the first time under Malcolm Turnbull, with Labor now leading 51-49% on a two-party basis.
Premiers and chief ministers on Friday delivered a humiliating public blow to Malcolm Turnbull, bluntly telling him they didn’t want even to think about his “big idea” to allow them to raise income tax…
States will receive an additional A$2.9 billion from July 2017 to June 2020, with growth in Commonwealth funding capped at 6.5%. The Conversation’s experts respond.
The prime minister’s proposal to cease federal funding for public schools is a response to a budgetary problem, not a way to improve educational outcomes.
Giving states the power to levy income tax won’t make up for the shortfall in health and education funding and it could mean poorer states are worse off.
Malcolm Turnbull is the venture capitalist of politics who, with his bid to force the states to raise a slice of income tax, has invested heavily in a risky enterprise.
Malcolm Turnbull’s bold plan to give states the power to levy income tax is a risky move, and the latest in a string of attempts to ‘fix’ federal-state relations that have not succeeded.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne