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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 December 2003 edition (Issue 19).
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In the current edition (December 2003)
Cover story:
Feature articles:
Previous editions
Cover Story - December 2003:
Understanding Indonesia
Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee is examining Australias relationship with Indonesia. Dougal McInnes says developing a better understanding of our neighbour will take time, but it will be time well spent.
Speaking in Canberra recently, Professor Amein RaisSpeaker of Indonesias Peoples Consultative Assembly and 2004 presidential aspirantlikened the consolidation of Indonesian democracy to the pendulum of a clock. During the Suharto regime, the pendulum swung too far right. Now, under President Megawati, it has moved leftwards with the transition to democracy. Ironically, the pendulum may well need to move rightwards again as hard decisions need to be made. At any rate, the image of the pendulum highlights the key ingredient of time in Indonesias struggle towards democratic government.
For Australia, the opportunities stemming from a stable Indonesia and robust Indonesian-Australian relations are great. As the 2003 Foreign Affairs and Trade White Paper notes, Indonesia is Australias tenth largest export market and eighth largest foreign direct investor. Trade between the two neighbours totals more than A$7 billion per year.
By the same token, an unstable Indonesia and strained Indonesian-Australian relations is potentially damaging. The Bali and, to a lesser extent, Marriott Hotel bombings have added greater urgency to the need for stability and better relations. Indeed, Indonesian-Australian relations have been under constant pressure from a troubled past. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the 1998 fall of Suharto and the Australian-led INTERFET operation into East Timor in 1999 have all contributed to a decline in relations.
Stemming from these events, several observations capture the current state of Australian-Indonesian relations. First, public support within Australia for the relationship has never been very strong. Secondly, the Indonesian-Australian relationship is grounded on the necessity of overlapping interests and geography, rather than overtly shared values. And thirdly, the current period of change is a tremendous opportunity for a new beginning in relations between the two countries.
Just as democracy in the worlds fourth most populous state will take time to consolidate, so too the building of bilateral relations requires a patient and sensitive approach. The following five points outline the key challenges confronting the Australia-Indonesia relationship, and suggest some policy proposals for Australia as it seeks to assist Indonesia in its historic transition to democracy.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Cities fit to live in
A century ago, our forebears took urban planning action to address urgent public health issues in our cities. We must now act to address new public health epidemics such as obesity and depression, or face the consequences, writes Tony Capon.
The current House of Representatives Environment Committee inquiry into the sustainability of Australian cities enables us to ask a critical question: are we developing cities that will protect and promote the health of our nations people?
There are many known influences on health in the urban environment. These include:
- physical activity;
- social cohesion;
- personal safety;
- food supply;
- air and water quality; and
- open space.
Evidence is mounting about links between contemporary public health epidemics, such as obesity and depression, and aspects of our urban environment. For example, a recent large study across 448 local government areas in the United States concluded that patterns of suburban sprawl influence how active people are, and the nature of their heart disease risk profiles (obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc).
Historically, we know that rapid urbanisation during the industrial revolution in 19th century Europe was associated with epidemics of infectious diseases due to overcrowding, contaminated water and lack of sanitation. Similar health issues were encountered in Australia and gave impetus to the early development of our urban planning profession.
Urban planning responses to these public health issues included the separation of residential areas from unhealthy industries. Industrial pollution controls were put in place. Water supplies were protected and treated. Sanitation systems were developed.
By the early 20th century, those who could afford to were moving out of the crowded and unhealthy inner cities into new garden suburbs with more space. Subsequently, public health imperatives in urban planning diminished.
However, by the end of the century concerns about air and water quality in our cities were back on the agenda.
Air pollution is now known to exacerbate asthma and other respiratory conditions. Although emission controls on motor vehicles have improved air quality, the total number of kilometres traversed in our cities is rising with increasing population and growing car dependency. Air quality is inevitably deteriorating.
Water quality issues are arising again with increasing frequency. A boil-water order was imposed in Sydney for several months in 1998 as a response to concerns about microbial contamination of the city water supply. A large outbreak of hepatitis A linked to seafood consumption in New South Wales in 1997 was caused by effluent contamination of our fisheries associated with coastal urban development.
These concerns aside, arguably our most pressing current public health dilemmas are epidemics of obesity (and its attendant risks of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers), and depression and anxiety (and their association with drug and alcohol use). These have emerged in parallel with the increasing suburbanisation of Australian cities.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
More and better jobs
How can we get more people into paid work? Iain Campbell considers the issues confronting the latest investigation by the House of Representatives Employment and Workplace Relations Committee.
Increased participation in paid work has been widely promoted as a goal of public policy, both in Australia and in many of the other industrialised societies, grouped together in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Agreement on the importance of this goal seems to extend across the political spectrum, embracing researchers and policy makers from the social-democratic Left to the neo-liberal Right.
One reason for encouraging greater participation in paid work, highlighted in the recent Intergenerational Report, stems from demographic projections. It is argued that as the proportion of the population in the working-age group declines, it becomes more and more necessary to boost participation in order to sustain the expanding numbers in the older-age groups. However, this is not the only relevant argument. Plenty of other reasons support a goal of increased participation in paid work. Often paid work is vital for individuals as a source of financial independence, as a means of exercising knowledge and skills, as a path for pursuit of occupation and self-development, as a source of personal self-worth and dignity, and as an avenue of social inclusion. In addition, increased participation can be important for households in securing more income and a more equitable distribution of responsibilities and opportunities amongst household members. Similarly, it has advantages for individual enterprises and industries in expanding the supply of skills and capacities. More broadly, it can also be central to efforts to improve the functioning of the economy and the society. In short, enhancing the ability of individuals to participate in paid work can be seen from many points of view as a worthwhile objective.
What does increasing participation in paid work mean? It is sometimes identified just with an increase in employment rate, ie the proportion of the working-age population in paid work. Conversely, it is identified with a reduction in the proportion of the working age population that is jobless, whether they are classified as unemployed or simply as not in the labour force. But this can only be a starting point. The discussion demands a richer concept of participation, which takes into account the characteristics of the job and their long-term implications for the worker. We need to accommodate the basic point that placing a jobless individual in a job with short hours, as little as one hour a week, may effectively increase the employment rate but it does not really count as an advance in participation. Similarly, placing a jobless individual in a very short-term job or in a dangerous job is generally of little help and may even be an impediment to genuine, long-term participation in paid work. The theme of participation reminds us once again of the foolishness of the slogan that says: any job is a good job. We need to move beyond a static view of labour markets towards a more dynamic perspective, which is concerned not only with the quantity of jobs but also with the quality of these jobs, measured in terms of characteristics such as underemployment, employment instability and work insecurity.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Resolving deadlocks
Section 57 of the Australian Constitution contains the mechanism for resolving deadlocks over proposed laws between the two Houses of our federal parliament. The Prime Minister recently released a discussion paper outlining possible changes to Section 57, and is seeking public comment. About the House outlines the current system, the Prime Ministers proposals, and some of the reaction and alternatives that are being raised.
Crisis. Deadlock. Early election. The headlines are predictable, and have been seen at some stage during almost every parliament in the last few decades.
Its media coverage that happens whenever there is a protracted disagreement between the House of Representatives and the Senate over a law or laws proposed by the government.
That such disagreements occur under our system of adversarial politics is hardly surprising. It is especially so as the governing party or parties have not controlled the Senate as well as the House at the same time for more than 20 years and, in fact, for only eight of the last 45 years.
This is essentially the result of the House and the Senate being elected under differing electoral systems (see How they are elected). As well as being elected via differing voting systems, in normal circumstances only 40 of the 76 senate positions are up for grabs at an election (a half-senate election), while the entire House faces the voters at each election.
The House of Representatives is the chamber where government is formed. After a general election the political party (or coalition of parties) with the support of a majority of members in the House of Representatives becomes the governing party and its leader becomes the Prime Minister. Because of its majority, the government can be expected, ultimately, to have its way in the House on any matter it considers important. After the last election, the Liberal-National Party coalition held 82 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, and formed government.
Once the government proposes a law and passes it through the House of Representatives, it is then considered by the Senate. After the last election, the government parties held 35 of the 76 Senate seats four short of a majority. Thus the potential exists for government legislation to be held up or defeated in the Senate by the combined non-government majority.
This was a circumstance anticipated by the drafters of the Constitution, who, in Section 57, set out a constitutional procedure for solving disagreements between the Houses.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
A House for the Nation
The history of the House of Representatives is now more easily accessible, thanks to a unique multimedia project on the Houses first century.
Alfred Deakin, Australias second Prime Minister, loved books and letters, kept an extensive diary of his spiritual reflections and believed firmly in ghosts.
Thats one of the revelations in a new four episode documentaryA House for the Nationthat traces the development of the House of Representatives from 1901 to 2001.
Just released for public sale through Ronin Films and to be screened on the Sky News channel in December, the documentary looks at what has shaped todays House of Representatives and how the House has helped to shape Australia.
Its part of a multimedia project that includes a comprehensive CD-ROM, a website and a touch screen kioskall aimed at making the history of the House more accessible.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document, or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
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