Flagpost is a blog on current issues of interest to members of the Australian Parliament
Blog entries
21 August 2018 marks the 75th anniversary of the election of the first women to the Commonwealth Parliament. Enid Lyons of the United Australia Party and Dorothy Tangney of the Australian Labor Party were both elected on that day in 1943; Lyons to the House of Representatives and Tangney to the Senate. In addition, Dr Mehreen Faruqi (Australian Greens, NSW), who was sworn in as a senator on 20 August 2018, is Australia’s 100th female senator. Read more...
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provides monthly updates of labour force data, but what do these numbers mean and how are they interpreted? Previous posts have provided background information on the Labour Force Survey and on employment figures. This post focuses on the key unemployment numbers and rates. Read more...
Australia’s population has hit the 25 million mark, based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ population clock—an estimate of growth based on latest official data on births, deaths and net overseas migration. Australia’s annual population growth was 1.6 per cent in 2017. How did Australia look when we reached previous population milestones? Read more...
My Health Record (MHR) was introduced in June 2012 by the Gillard Labor Government originally as an opt-in system known as the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) before legislative amendments in 2015 introduced by the Abbott Coalition Government renamed it and laid the groundwork for it to become an opt-out system. Law enforcement access to MHR data is among the privacy concerns raised about the program, but this provision was in the original legislation and received little attention when the Bill was debated. Read more...
Senators David Leyonhjelm and Richard Di Natale have both recently made moves towards legalising at the Commonwealth level the use of cannabis for recreational purposes in Australia. They have done so for largely different reasons, and by advocating almost diametrically opposed approaches. On the 9th of May, Senator Leyonhjelm introduced a Bill to the Parliament that would amend several Commonwealth acts under which cannabis is treated as a controlled drug with associated penalties. As such, the Bill would effectively remove Commonwealth barriers to the legalisation, regulation and taxation of cannabis. Currently, cannabis use for recreational purposes is illegal in all Australian jur... Read more...
With the announcement of the final boundaries for electorates in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the electoral redistributions of the 45th Parliament have now been completed. The addition of a seat each to Victoria and the ACT, and the loss of a seat in South Australia, will see 151 House of Representatives seats up for election at the next federal election—the largest number in the history of the Parliament. Read more...
On 19 June 2018, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud announced that the Government would extend the time-limit for receipt of the Farm Household Allowance (FHA) from three to four years. The FHA is an income support payment, paid at the same rate as Newstart Allowance (or Youth Allowance if the recipient is aged under 22 years), which supports eligible farmers and their partners who are experiencing financial hardship. A Bill to extend the limit, the Farm Household Support Amendment Bill 2018, was introduced to the Parliament on 20 June 2018. Read more...
This Bill seeks to extend the Cashless Debit Card to the Federal electorate of Hinkler in Queensland, an area that includes Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. As well as specifying the location of the new trial site, the Bill sets out criteria that determine which income support recipients will be required to participate in the trial. It also sets out details of how the trial will be administered in the Hinkler trial site. The Bill also makes some changes that affect the Cashless Debit Card Scheme as a whole. It includes provisions that will ensure merchants are able to decline Cashless Debit Card transactions where the cardholder tries to use the card for gambling, alcohol, or gift ca... Read more...
The prospect of a new global deal to halt and reverse the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs raises the question of what role Australia might play in supporting such an agreement. While remaining ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the likelihood of an effective and durable agreement, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has stated in the wake of the recent ‘Singapore Summit’ that the Australian Government is assessing whether it could offer expertise to assist with the verification of any future North Korean actions to dismantle its nuclear capability. Read more...
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provides monthly updates of labour force data, but what do these numbers mean and how are they interpreted? An earlier post provided background information on the Labour Force Survey. This article focuses on the key employment numbers and rates produced from that survey. Read more...
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