A recent Parliamentary Library paper on Local government and the Commonwealth: an evolving relationship follows the historical development of this relationship and explores some contemporary issues such as constitutional recognition. Local governments in Australia have been established since the nineteenth century. Each state and the Northern Territory has a system of local government established under their respective legislation. The growth in local government activity since 1945 has encouraged local authorities to seek increasing subsidies from the Commonwealth government. Because local government is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution the Commonwealth government has generally be... Read more...
An issue facing Parliament on return next week will be the Youth Allowance. The Senate may need to decide if it will debate the Private Member’s Bill introduced by Senator Nash in October last year. The Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010 seeks to fulfil a Coalition election commitment to ‘relax the eligibility criteria for the Independent Youth Allowance which will be extended to students in the Inner Regional Category’. The Government’s reforms of student income support were implemented in March 2010 with the passage of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2010. The Bill passed after an agreement was r... Read more...
Recommendations adopted by the Australian Senate Economics Committee’s inquiry into the regulation of the Not for Profit (NFP) sector and developed by the Productivity Commission in its 2010 report on the NFP sector invite questions as to how governance arrangements applying to NFP entities might materialise under any forthcoming regulatory scheme. A recent Parliamentary Library research paper examines the governance aspect of the proposed NFP regulation, putting the case for entities, which comprise the NFP sector, to adopt constitutions, objects and rules for administration upon registration. Entities registered under the proposed scheme would meet standards for their governance. Trade uni... Read more...
The annual Report on Government Services (ROGS) produced by the Steering Committee for the Review on Government Service Provision (SCRGSP) provides an overview of expenditure and delivery of government services. The most recent report reflects the new terms of reference for the ROGS reporting framework agreed at COAG in December 2009. For aged care, this means that there is additional information such as: information about compliance with service standards for all community care packages (including National Respite for Carers Program), selected adverse events in aged care and the number of hospital patient days for patients waiting for residential aged care (these are indicators for aged car... Read more...
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