Medical research is a significant winner in the federal budget: we’re told, (probably falsely), that the government will establish the largest medical research fund in the world ($20 billion by 2023…
Ever thus… there is a quite a history of the federal government pulling funding from the states.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The states have some justification in being annoyed about being stripped of $80 billion worth of federal funding for health and education funding. These programs were negotiated on the basis of shared…
In the wake of the budget, disapproval of Prime Minister Tony Abbott has skyrocketed.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The budget has driven the government’s vote down and pushed Bill Shorten decisively ahead of Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, in two polls today. The Nielsen poll in Fairfax Media has the opposition…
First ministers have met to discuss the Coalition plan to cut $80 billion of Commonwealth health and education funding.
AAP Image/Daniel Munoz
Angry first ministers have flatly rejected Tony Abbott’s claim that the budget cuts will not hit states and territories immediately and again demanded he call an urgent meeting of the Council of Australian…
Attorney General George Brandis will be expected to lead the culture change to one of open information.
Stefan Postles/AAP
Tony Abbott’s 2013 election platform promised to “restore accountability and improve transparency measures to be more accountable to you”. In spite of this promise the first Abbott government budget will…
The federal budget shows that Tony Abbott is now committed to a strong division of responsibility between the Commonwealth and the states, rather than a more centralised model.
AAP/Alan Porritt
When treasurer Joe Hockey detailed his first budget on Tuesday, the announcement that the states and territories were to be stripped of A$80 billion in federal health and education funding agreed to with…
University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker and University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the difficult politics of the budget for the Abbott government, the push toward…
Has Education Minister Christopher Pyne destroyed the equity of Australia’s higher education system?
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In Hinduism Lord Brahma is the creator, Lord Vishnu is the preserver, and Lord Shiva is the destroyer and transformer. Here are rich models for contemporary leaders, whether they were raised in the Hindu…
Opposition leader Bill Shorten attacked the government’s budget as ‘ideological’, but his own vision in the battle of ideas is far less clear.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Opposition leader Bill Shorten was emphatic in his budget in reply that the Abbott government’s first budget was an “attack” on the Australian way of life. In his speech on the floor of parliament last…
Treasurer Joe Hockey’s personal crusade against the age of entitlement has infused the government’s policy and rhetoric.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Despite its agonising birth, Joe Hockey will harbour hopes his first budget has taken him one step closer to his goal of eventually becoming prime minister. Any doubt about the Treasurer’s ambition would…
The federal budget has shifted costs rather than controlling them.
Quentin Jones/AAP
It was only seven years ago, but it seems like a lifetime; then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd was promising to end the “blame game” in health-care funding. Fast forward a few years, he’d received a report…
Many people prefer casual work and a phased approach to retirement.
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The norm of permanent full-time terms of employment is under serious challenge. In Australia today more than one-third of employed people work on more variable terms – in particular as casuals (19%), independent…
Loss of the service will impact Australia’s international image, media diversity in the region and coverage of news from the Pacific.
dithern
The termination in the 2014 budget of the ABC’s international television broadcasting contract to run the federal government’s Australia Network service, barely a year into its ten-year term, was hardly…
Opposition leader Bill Shorten delivered his first budget in reply speech on the floor of parliament tonight.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has vowed to oppose funding cuts to hospitals, schools and higher education in his budget in reply speech, threatening more than A$10 billion in budget savings proposed by…
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has savagely attacked the Abbott government’s first budget.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has pledged Labor will vote against budget cuts to university funding and student support, declaring that it “will not support a system of higher fees, bigger student debt…
CSIRO research is crucial amid a business culture that is reluctant to embrace research, its chairman says.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The federal government’s cuts to CSIRO will make it more difficult for the organisation to fill the research and development gap left by Australian businesses, according to CSIRO chairman Simon McKeon…
The budget calls for the creation of a medical research future fund from estimated savings in health expenditure.
AAP/Lukas Coch
One of the few real surprises in the budget was the creation of medical research future fund, to be partly funded by the introduction of a $7 GP co-payment. This injection of money provides an opportunity…
A student protester confronts a grim reaper with the face of Education Minister Christopher Pyne…has the budget killed your prospect of a debt-free future?
AAP
Education minister Christopher Pyne has released new public subsidy rates for domestic students in degrees offered by universities, to take effect from 2016. As a budget saving the government aims to lower…
Private investment needed for future of highspeed broadband network.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Abbott Government’s first federal budget has allocated funds for capital investment into the National Broadband Network (NBN) to continue up to 2017-18 but with a cap of A$29.5 billion. This falls…
Australia’s public service broadly lacks in a number of key areas that are necessary for the Abbott government’s vision of a small government to become a reality.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The 2014-15 federal budget, released by treasurer Joe Hockey earlier this week, set out a vision of government that is leaner, meaner and more efficient. It built on the Coalition’s “Smaller Government…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne