U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis popularised the idea of the states being the ’laboratories of democracy‘, which seems like a good way to describe the moves towards electronic voting in NSW state elections. The 2015 NSW state election to be held on 23 March will involve what will be one of the largest binding elections involving remote internet voting in the world. While remote internet voting was used in the NSW state election in 2011 on a smaller scale, the NSW Electoral Commission estimates that up to 200,000 voters will use iVote in the 2015 election. The success of the iVote system will be keenly watched by those with an interest in electronic voting. Read more...
With the theme ‘Empowering Women – Empowering Humanity: Picture It!’, International Women’s Day 2015 was celebrated internationally on 8 March with thousands of events to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. This Flagpost documents the current state of play of female participation in Australian state and federal politics, and how Australia compares internationally. According to Australian Parliamentary Library data (as of February 2015) Australian parliaments (Commonwealth and State) are 30.9 per cent female, compared to 29.4 per cent in February 2014. The highest proportion of women is in the Victorian Parliament, which is composed of 37.5... Read more...
The 2015 intergenerational report (IGR), released more than one month after the legislated timeframe in the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998, is the fourth such report. Previous IGRs have been published in May 2002, April 2007 and January 2010. The basis for conducting such an analysis is the principle of intergenerational equity—that actions benefiting current generations should not compromise future generations. The purpose of the IGR is to examine the impact of population ageing on the Commonwealth’s financial position while holding the expenditure policy settings unchanged over a 40-year timeframe. All of the analysis is largely on the expenditure side, with this IGR&md... Read more...
On 25 February 2015, the Government released an options paper titled ‘Strengthening Australia’s Foreign Investment Framework’ that proposes a series of new policy positions regarding acquisitions of real estate property, farm land and businesses by foreigners. The proposed changes include the introduction of a new fee paying foreign investment application regime, enabling Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to enforce a penalty regime and reducing monetary thresholds for screening of investment applications for certain agricultural land and business by foreign private investors, both from free trade agreement (FTA) and non-FTA partner countries. Read more...
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