Last week, the “super trawler” Abel Tasman left Australia, with far less fanfare than you might have expected. Many hail this as good news for Australian fisheries, but we believe it could be a great step…
Peter Shergold, pictured here at COAG with former prime minister John Howard, was Australia’s top public servant from 2003-2008.
AAP/Alan Porritt
In 2007, soon after becoming prime minister, Kevin Rudd found himself unable to attend the Christmas party of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) of which I was the secretary. This…
It takes more than a code of conduct to foster good departmental relationships.
AAP/Alan Porritt
The role of ministerial advisers and their relationship to public servants has been the subject of aserious public debate in recent weeks. Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott caused…
The Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott has called for a debate over the role of Australia’s public service.
The provocative address by Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott to the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) International Congress in Melbourne yesterday achieved something…
Leave “wicked” to the witches and let’s get on with the job of policy research.
Witches image from www.shutterstock.com
Wicked problems, so we are told, are everywhere. Climate change, conflict, an ageing population, obesity… the list goes on. The debate over asylum seekers, difficult and important and politically charged…
There is a larger absolute increase in mortality after a bone fracture among Canadian First Nations peoples (Canadian Indigenous…
The Wonthaggi desalination plant was proposed as Victoria’s solution to water security, but has been the subject of community concern and protest.
AAP/Thiess
What is the best solution to the problem of water security in Australia? Finding an answer to this question is no easy matter. There is still much we don’t know about the nature and impact of climate change…
Time to get our eyes back on the prize: the pragmatic, results-focused, multi-sector research effort of recent decades has stalled.
Welcome to Part Two of Professor Andrew Campbell’s special report on the troubling plight of irrigation research and development in Australia. In part one, Professor Campbell argued that despite an unprecedented…
Efficient water use is ever more important, yet budgets for vital irrigation R&D are declining.
A. Campbell
Welcome to a two-part special on the troubling plight of irrigation R&D, by Professor Andrew Campbell of Charles Darwin University. Research into the smartest, most efficient and sustainable ways to…
No such thing as a free lunch: nuclear power can do what many renewable energy systems have not yet done on a large scale - deliver.
Flickr/Gretchen Mahan
To paraphrase George Orwell: “All electricity is created equal, but some of its generating technologies are more equal than others”. This is a crucial point – emphasised but typically overlooked – in the…
Beware the hyperbole: Campbell Newman has vowed to axe the Wild Rivers legislation, but what’s the reality beneath the rhetoric?
AAP/Alan Porritt
Those who follow the Wild Rivers debates in Queensland probably know better than to trust the headlines. When, in January 2010, Tony Abbott announced a federal intervention into the state’s environmental…
Australia’s energy security will fall again after Caltex’s decision to shut its Sydney plant at Kurnell (pictured), but the Federal Government is yet to have a coherent stance on domestic refining capacity.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Last week, Caltex decided to close its Kurnell refinery in Sydney. This closure follows a recent decision by Shell to close its refinery at Clyde in Sydney and it will leave the city without any oil refineries…
No simple matter: logging and conservation are not polar opposites, and controlled harvesting can fund the protection of forests.
AAP/Greenpeace/Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
Is there a role for logging in ensuring the future of the world’s tropical forests and their rich diversity of plants and animals? For many this idea is absurd, because timber production achieving conservation…
World of bag people: a million a minute are used globally, with Australians churning through almost one a day on average.
Flickr/Heal the Bay
Between 30 million and 50 million plastic bags enter the environment as litter in Australia each year. These environmentally damaging bags - produced to be used once and then thrown away - are a symbol…
Tony Abbott described the carbon tax as a python that would strangle the economy, but it’s more of a lolly snake.
Flickr/anenomeprojectors
Some critics of carbon pricing have pointed out that, over time, the carbon price will increase to a much higher level and devastate the economy. Indeed, the image of a python squeezing the life out of…
Extinct: the Christmas Island Pipistrelle.
Lindy Lumsden
When it comes to mammal extinctions, Australia’s track record over the last 200 years has been abysmal. Since European settlement, nearly half of the world’s mammalian extinctions have occurred in Australia…
Time for real change: the Government’s new draft National Food Plan puts the interests of big business ahead of health, equity, and food security.
Flickr/mermaid99
The Federal Government released on Tuesday the green paper for Australia’s first-ever National Food Plan. According to Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig, this plan “will ensure Australia has a sustainable…
Unsafe: thousands of Port Pirie children have been poisoned over decades, and yet government after government fails to stop it.
Flickr/Viola Ng
It is shocking to discover that more than 3000 children have been lead poisoned in the South Australian town of Port Pirie during the last decade. Whilst Australia continues to be a world leader in lead…
These foxes are worth $10 each when killed and scalped, is it really worthwhile in controlling fox numbers, and is $10 worth the effort?
David Peacock
The Victorian government has introduced bounties for foxes and wild dogs, $10 for the scalp of a fox, and $50 for that of a dog. Bounties have been tried before, and failed to control these pests, but…
Sold to the lowest bidder! The carbon price will not transform Australia’s power supply without further steps to help low-emission technologies into the market.
Flickr/sashafatcat
When it comes to reducing emissions, most serious analysts agree: the market works best, but the market is not enough. The International Energy Agency, the OECD, leading British climate economist Nicholas…
Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Associate Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Environment, Science and Engineering, and Fellow of the Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University