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About the House, your free, colour magazine
 About the House is a free colour feature magazine produced up to 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 November 2005 edition (Issue 25).
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In the current edition (November 2005)
Cover story:
Feature articles:
Previous editions
Cover Story - November 2005:
Cities worth living in
Millions of Australians living
in our cities are facing a
bleak future. But they won’t
need to if concerted national
action is taken soon to alleviate a multitude
of looming problems in our cities. Andrew Dawson reports.
That is the stark message coming
from a new bipartisan parliamentary
report Sustainable cities by the House of
Representatives Environment and Heritage
Committee. The 187-page report details a
litany of environmental statistics that paint
a damning picture of extensive unsustainable
practices in many of our cities.
On average each Australian creates
620kg of waste annually, second only to
the United States. Australians are using
1,540 kilolitres of water per person, the
most in the world—even more than
those traditional champions of excess the
US at 1,510kl or Europe’s 665kl.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (322 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Parents under pressure
Childcare is the critical issue in finding a balance between work and family,
say mums and dads. Katherine Power reports.
Are we doing the right thing?
Can we afford it? What are
the alternatives? The dilemmas
of modern Australian family
life as faced by those parents
who have to make the hard decision
about whether they should let
someone else look after their children
while they go to work.
Childcare or the lack of it looms
as a major economic stumbling block
for Australia.
According to business strategists
Aegis Consulting, the national
average cost per annum in 2004 for
two children in long day care (90
hours per week) was about $18,000.
This cost can increase to $33,000 in
Melbourne and $46,000 in Sydney.
Aegis says the affordability of
childcare remains the key factor
determining the workforce participation
rate of women.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (127 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
The Prank that's still ruffling feathers
One man's prank at Sydney airport has had far bigger consequences than he imagined. Chris Uhlmann reports.
They call it the streaker’s defence: “It
seemed like a good idea at the time”.
Perhaps that’s why a Sydney airport
baggage handler removed a camel’s
suit from some checked baggage and wore the
head as he drove about the tarmac, to the
amusement of his colleagues, the bemusement
of passengers and the astonishment of the owner
of said suit.
But the incident proved to be one of the
straws that broke the camel’s back for federal
parliament’s Public Accounts and Audit
Committee, which has reopened its inquiry into
aviation security.
It did not help that a month before the
incident lawyers for Australian Schapelle Corby
claimed their client, languishing in a Bali jail
cell on drug charges, had been the victim of a
drug smuggling operation involving baggage
handlers.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (117 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Less than a super future
Lifestyle spending by Generation X and Y may leave them short in retirement, unless action
is taken now to boost savings, warns superannuation expert Ross Clare.
One of the hardy perennials of public policy
debate is what to do about baby boomers.
There are an awful lot of them about, and
accordingly their needs, expectations and what
they are able to contribute to society and the
economy forms a crucial part of public debate. Many
policy makers and policy commentators are also baby
boomers, also heightening the interest in that group.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (140 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
For the long haul
The integration of regional road and rail networks is a major
national challenge currently being investigated by the House of
Representatives Transport and Regional Services Committee.
Geoffrey Maslen reports.
Since the first humans trod the earth,
transport has been as essential to our
survival as sex and shelter. The
caveman dragging an animal carcass to
his family started it all, using the only
form of transport he knew. Then along
came the genius who imagined a wheel being cut
from a rolling log—and suddenly legs gave way
to new forms of locomotion.
Today, we have machines to take us and our
goods wherever we want—under the ground or
on the surface, in the sea or in the air. While
most people are more concerned about cars,
trains and planes for their personal transport
needs, it is the movement of materials that keeps
the nation's economic clock ticking faster.
Half a million trucks rumble up and down
the roads of Australia, each travelling an average
20,000 kilometres a year fully laden. As well,
2,000 locomotives drag 100,000 freight wagons
from one end of the country to the other,
moving 600 million tonnes annually along
40,000 kilometres of rail. And there are the ships
that, mostly unseen, carry vast quantities of ore,
coal, grain and animals around the coast and
across the oceans to far-off lands.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (129 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Against the odds
A parliamentary inquiry into overseas adoption has heard a raft of criticisms
about the existing state-based process, which has been described as slow, costly,
confusing and in desperate need of reform. Georgie Oakeshott reports.
Parents adopting a child from overseas
experience the same eager anticipation as
biological parents approaching their baby’s
due date, but they also experience
enormous costs and frustrations
associated with a lengthy, cumbersome and
bureaucratic approval process.
For some it’s a maze, for others it’s a nightmare.
Very few submissions to a parliamentary inquiry
into overseas adoptions have anything positive
to say.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (122 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
Job Satisfaction
Success stories in
Indigenous employment
provide benefits that reach
far beyond the individual. Peter Cotton reports.
Priscilla Collins remembers the first
time she saw an Aboriginal person
working in a bank and the impact it
had on her. “For me, it was a huge
thing,” said Ms Collins, “When
young [Aboriginal] kids see an Aboriginal
person working, they say: ‘If they can do it,
we can do it’.”
Ms Collins, who is the Chief Executive
Officer of the Central Australian Aboriginal
Media Association (CAAMA), was giving
evidence in Alice Springs to an inquiry into
Indigenous employment. The inquiry is
being conducted by the House of
Representatives Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Affairs Committee.
To read the entire article, you can open this pdf document (221 kb), or ask the Liaison & Projects Office for a copy of the magazine.
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