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About the House, your free, colour magazine
 About the House is a free colour feature magazine produced five times a year by the Liaison & Projects Office of the House of Representatives. It covers the varied work of Members of the House, especially Committee investigations.
The magazine is available through the offices of every Member of the House of Representatives, or can be ordered directly through the Liaison & Projects Office (tel: 02 6277 2122, email: liaison.reps@aph.gov.au).
The current About the House magazine is the August 2005 edition (Issue 24).
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In the current edition (August 2005)
Cover story:
Feature articles:
Previous editions
Cover Story - August 2005:
10 fixes for our health system
There are ten steps to improving our health system, writes the Director of the Australian Health Policy Institute at the University of Sydney, Professor Stephen Leeder, in his submission to the House of Representatives Health and Ageing Committee’s inquiry into health funding.
Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund in Manhattan (www.cmwf.org), an agency strongly committed to improving health services worldwide through research into health policy and practice, nominated from her observations ten steps that health services can take to control costs and improve efficiency. Because Davis is fully informed about international trends in health care, her observations are relevant for Australia as well.
First, Davis argues that many patients—between one quarter and one half—admitted to hospital, for example with heart failure, could be better and much more cheaply treated with proper monitoring and care at home. She quotes a study that found that annual health care costs for frail elderly people could be cut by 36 per cent if they and their families were visited regularly by nurse practitioners. In Australia, health service financing is not yet tuned to the needs of the growing numbers of people with serious and continuing illness. Medicare does not generally reimburse nurses. Adjusting these arrangements would give better care and save money.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Nuclear reaction
The controversial issue of uranium mining forms the start of an inquiry by the House of Representatives Industry and Resources Committee into non-fossil fuel energy. Geoffrey Maslen reports.
Even buried deep in the ground, uranium is still an explosive element. Number 92 on the periodic table has the capacity to generate enormous heat—and not just in nuclear power plants or atomic bombs but between opponents and supporters of its use as an alternative fuel. Opponents point to fearful images of mushroom clouds and scenes of utter devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They couple the haunting pictures with references to the partial meltdown of the American Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979 and the Russian Chernobyl explosion in 1986.
Then there are the widespread concerns over nuclear waste—the Achilles heel of the industry—with fears of contamination from poorly-stored containers and the threat of waste being converted by terrorists into nuclear weapons. Those fears have led to mass protests around the world.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
What's skilling rural Australia?
The House of Representatives Agriculture Committee is investigating the training and research rural Australia needs to meet its skills requirements. Wayne Cornish looks at some of the issues confronting the committee.
For decades, rural society and production was self-sustainable in terms of the workforce and the interaction between towns, ‘farms’ and production. Whether this was really true or part of folklore, it is a nostalgic view.
Over the past decade, there has been a change in the way training and skills improvement has been developed and delivered, as competency based training has come to the fore. Extensive changes have been made to the design and delivery of training and education throughout Australia. Skills development, workplace readiness and delivery of training have changed dramatically.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Job ready
Migrants wanting their skills recognised in Australia often face a number of hurdles. Dr Bob Birrell examines the complexities involved.
The recognition of credentials is crucial to the migrant settlement experience. If migrants with trade or professional credentials gained overseas cannot translate them into appropriate employment, the economic wellbeing of their families is likely to be threatened. It can also be a demoralising experience for a migrant, who has previously enjoyed a professional status before coming to Australia, to be forced into a routine and low status job.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Without reserve
Public hearings by the House of Representatives Economics Committee have opened the Reserve Bank of Australia to greater public scrutiny. The Reserve Bank gives its perspective on appearing before the committee twice a year.
During the 1990s the practice of central banking underwent significant reform in many countries. Broadly speaking, the changes introduced in the past 15 years or so included adoption of inflation targeting in the framework of monetary policy and in some countries the separation of banking supervision from central banking. The changes were generally associated with a marked shift towards greater openness and transparency, when previously there was thought to be considerable mystique in central banking; importantly, they included more accountability to the wider community.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Korea unmasked
For many Australians, South Korea is the place where their Hyundai cars, their LG televisions or their Samsung computers are made. Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, Colin Heseltine, reveals there is a whole lot more to Australia’s relations with South Korea.
n 1904, an Australian photographer named George Rose captured scenes of Korean children at play and merchants on the streets of Seoul. His photographs are among the few remaining that document Korean life during the early 1900s, and provide an early tangible link between our two countries. A century later, these links are flourishing.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
A symbol built to last
In 1980, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser turned the first sod for the construction of Australia’s new Parliament House. On the 25th anniversary of the event, the building’s design architect, Aldo Giurgola, talked to Peter Cotton about his enduring passion for the structure.
Danish architect Jorn Utzon had a wretched time in Australia implementing his design for the Sydney Opera House, but his bad experience had an unexpected beneficiary: the architect of Canberra’s new Parliament House, Aldo Giurgola.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Long shot
Innovators speak out about our future as the clever country. Story: Andrew Dawson
Sirtex Medical is a small Australian company with big ambitions. From its headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove, Sirtex aims to become the world leader in liver cancer treatment products.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Polls apart
Problems with postal voting at the last federal election are being investigated by a parliamentary inquiry, which is getting a range of suggestions on how to improve the conduct of our elections. Chris Uhlmann reports.
There’s a commonly-held belief that Australia is blessed by one of the best electoral systems in the world. But submissions to a parliamentary inquiry into the 2004 federal election suggest there is plenty of room for improvement.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
House Rules
In the August 2005 issue of About the House, the House Rules section reports on a presentation by Professor Geoffrey Lindell to a Canberra evaluation forum. To read the presentation, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
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