8 February 2010

The Report on Government Services 2010 has been released. This is the fifteenth edition of the Report, produced by a Steering Committee of senior officials from Australian, State and Territory governments for the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

The Steering Committee is chaired by Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks.

The Report promotes open and informed debate about the performance of government services across the country. The information in this Report is important to us all. Everyone relies on government services at different stages of their lives. Such services are particularly important for the more disadvantaged members of society. Improving government services is therefore important to the community. It is also important economically. Governments spent over $136 billion on the services covered in this year’s Report, equivalent to around 13% of Australia's national income.

During 2009, COAG endorsed a high level officials’ review of the Report, which found that it had made an important contribution and should continue to be the key tool to measure and report on the efficiency and effectiveness of government services. There is a link to the review report on the Steering Committee website.

There are significant improvements in this year’s Report, including alignment of education and training performance indicators with those in the related National Agreements. (The Steering Committee collates National Agreement performance information for the COAG Reform Council.)

Other improvements include new information on access to aged care residential services for veterans, new juvenile justice performance indicators, enhancement of the health preface to include data on risk factors and new data on housing access and affordability.

Reporting on services to Indigenous Australians has improved over recent years and remains a priority. Developments in this Report include: enhanced reporting of participation by Indigenous people in the VET system and additional reporting of Indigenous recipients of Extended Aged Care at Home Dementia services.

The report is available at http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2010.

In an attempt to contain rising trends in obesity and associated chronic diseases, many governments have implemented a range of policies to promote healthy lifestyles. These efforts have been hindered by the limited availability of evidence about the effectiveness of interventions in changing lifestyles and reducing obesity.

Evaluations of the cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts of such interventions are even fewer and narrower in terms of numbers of options considered. An economic analysis was developed jointly by the OECD and the WHO with the aim of strengthening the existing evidence-base on the efficiency of interventions to tackle unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles. The analysis was broadly based on the WHO-CHOICE (CHOosing Interventions that are Cost-Effective) approach, and it aimed at assessing the efficiency of a range of policy options to tackle unhealthy lifestyles and related chronic diseases. Additionally, compared to the traditional CHOICE framework, the analysis assessed the distributional impacts of preventive strategies on costs and health outcomes.

Most of the preventive interventions evaluated as part of the project have favourable cost-effectiveness ratios, relative to a scenario in which no systematic prevention is undertaken and chronic diseases are treated once they emerge. However, since the determinants of obesity are multi-factorial and affect all age groups and social strata, interventions tackling individual determinants or narrowly targeted to one groups of individuals will have a limited impact at the population level, and will not reduce significantly the scale of the obesity problem.

Although the most efficient interventions are found to be outside the health sector, health care systems can have the largest impact on obesity and related chronic conditions by focusing on individuals at high risk. Interventions targeting younger age groups are unlikely to have significant health effects at the population level for many years. The cost-effectiveness profiles of such interventions may be favourable in the long-term, but remain unfavourable for several decades at the start of the interventions. Preventive interventions do not always generate reductions in health expenditure, when the costs of treating a set of diseases that are directly affected by diet, physical activity and obesity are considered.

The Joint Standing Committee on Migration, as part of its inquiry into immigration treatment of disability, is investigating the assessment of the health and community costs associated with a disability as part of visa processing in Australia.

Submissions to the JSCM in response to its inquiry are available at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/mig/disability/subs.htm.

For further information, contact CCI Migration Services (MARN 0318589) on (08) 9365 7521 or email migration@cciwa.com.

The Australian Government has recently released its Intergenerational Report 2010, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges that Australia will face over the next 40 years, including managing the pressures of an ageing population.   

According to the Intergeneration Report 2010,

- Immigration plays a role in ameliorating the ageing of the population because migrants tend to be younger on average than the resident population.

- Currently around 89% of migrants are aged less than 40 years of age when they migrate to Australia. This compares to around 55% aged less than 40 years for the resident Australian population.

The report also highlighted that net overseas migration (which is mainly comprised of permanent migration (including skilled and family) and temporary migration (including temporary skilled and students) is expected to continue at a rate equivalent to 0.6% of the total population per annum on average, as per the average of the past 40 years.

A copy of the IGR 2010 publication is available here

For further information, contact CCI Migration Services (MARN 0318589) on (08) 9365 7521 or email migration@cciwa.com.

Up to 20,000 Abu Dhabi construction workers will have Australian solar technology to thank for their hot showers with one of the world's largest commercial installations officially launched.
 
Solahart Industries international manager Mark Perger said the multimillion dollar facility launched at the World Future Energy Summit required the installation of large, centralised Australian-made water storage systems, providing millions of litres of hot water to thousands of site workers every day. 
 
“From an environmental perspective, we estimate the installation will save more than 12,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere each year.  This is the equivalent of taking about 4,000 cars off the road,” said Mr Perger.
 
Austrade Trade Commissioner for Abu Dhabi Elizabeth Gordon said the innovative product was a great example of Australian expertise in the renewable energy and clean technology space.
 
“Australia is a sunny place - consequently our solar industry is quite sophisticated in its expertise,” said Ms Gordon.
 
“This positions us well to sell our expertise to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Solar energy is a natural play in the Middle East/North Africa region, which experiences intense solar radiation for approximately 350 days per year.”
 
An estimated investment of more than $3 billion has been planned by the UAE to generate approximately 1GW power from solar PV in the next four years.
 
“The UAE has become the largest investor in renewables in the Gulf and in mid-2009 it won the right to host the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA),” said Ms Gordon.
 
“In addition, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi has set a target of 7% of total energy production to be derived from renewables by 2020. The UAE is exploring global investment opportunities across many of the renewable energy segments and there is a particular interest in solar and wind energy.”

Did you know that Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC) produces World Risk Developments newsletter, a free monthly update on developments in the world economy and the ever-changing commercial risks to be managed when doing business in international export markets?

Written by EFIC's economists, Roger Donnelly and Dougal Crawford, World Risk Developments is candid, informative and wide-ranging. It’s crucial reading if you are currently or considering, exporting or expanding your operations overseas.

For more information go to www.cciwa.com/trade.

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In a series of pre-Australia Day speeches across Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, has promised major health reform in 2010. 

However he also warned that health spending would soon outstrip revenue from state taxes. The preferred solution to this issue, the PM suggests, is to boost productivity to help raise tax revenues in the face of an ageing population and meeting their health needs.  Not to do so would require pensions to be cut, health and aged care services to be reduced and massive deficits incurred.

Currently state and territory revenues are growing at around 3- 4% per annum compared to 11% growth in health spending.  According to the PM, if current revenue and health spending rate trends continue, it is projected by Treasury that the total health spending of all states will exceed 100% of their tax revenues by 2045-46, or earlier.  This is why health reform must be tackled now. And the major issue is the carve-up of commonwealth and state responsibilities for the funding and running of state public hospitals.  Much of this will be discussed at the next COAG meeting in February.

The PM promised during the last election campaign to take over funding of hospitals if the states failed to improve their performance. It is now time for decisions about funding and governance with the option of the Commonwealth funding and the states running hospitals being canvassed. There is support for a single funder as this would help stop the ‘blame game’ that has for a long time been played between the states and commonwealth. With a single funder, the Commonwealth would purchase health services for which the states would have responsibility and accountability.

Other major health reforms that need to be tackled in 2010 include primary care and who other than doctors should have access to Medicare payments for their patients.  Aged care providers are also seeking reform to the sector to help fund new infrastructure as the population ages as well as nursing home bonds for high care patients.

The Health Minister Nicola Roxon has indicated that in response to the pressing need to meet the health needs of the ageing population, private hospitals may be paid by government to take public patients which would also boost competition between the sectors. Ms Roxon indicated that private hospitals have spare capacity that could be used. She reiterated the PM’s view that reform is needed and the health system cannot continue the way it is now.

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In an important ruling, Fair Work Australia (FWA) has found that an employer’s dismissal of 10 mineworkers was not a case of genuine redundancy because the employer still required that the job be performed by someone.

The company, Xstrata Coal Pty Ltd (Xstrata), was undergoing a restructure which involved:

a) reducing the number of employees in its underground mining crews;

b) outsourcing ancillary and intermittent functions on the mine site such as cleaning, yard and stores functions;

c) increasing the proportion of employees with trade’s qualifications in underground crews; and

d) redistribution of labour.

Post restructure, some 38 mineworker positions (including 19 fixed term positions and 19 permanent positions), six staff positions and 75 contractor positions were deemed to be surplus to the requirements of Xstrata and were subsequently made redundant.

Xstrata’s desire to increase the proportion of mineworkers with trade qualifications on underground work crews resulted in an increase of trades qualified mineworker positions, whilst unskilled/unqualified mineworker roles were made redundant. Subsequently, there was much contention as to whether a ‘genuine redundancy’ had occurred.

Section 389 (1) (a) of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the Act) specifies that a ““person’s dismissal was a case of genuine redundancy if the person’s employer no longer required the person’s job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s enterprise…”

Consideration was given by FWA to the term “where the job is no longer required to be performed by anyone” as the outsourcing of ancillary functions to contractors would suggest that the jobs are still being performed by someone. Prior decisions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission[1], and the full court of the Federal Court of Australia[2] were considered in which it was established that the customary usage and application of the term ‘redundancy’ extends to where the job is no longer needed to be performed by the employees of an employer, even if the work is to be provided in future by a contractor; and any terminations resulting from the introduction of contractors would fall within the definition of ‘genuine redundancy.’

Members seeking advice on redundancies are encouraged to contact CCI’s Employee Relations Advice Centre on (08) 9365 7660 or advice@cciwa.com.

[1] Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association v Bunnings Building Supplies Pty Ltd (134 IR 237).

[2] Dibb v Commissioner of Taxation [2004] (136 FCR 388),

Planning Minister John Day has released an industrial land strategy for public comment to ensure the necessary planning is in place to meet the industrial land needs of the Perth and Peel regions for the next 20 years.

The strategy focuses on general and light industry needs. Forty sites have been identified that have the potential to be developed for industrial land uses, including sites which are extensions to existing industrial areas; and six sites, comprising more than 4,000 hectares, have been short-listed as priorities for detailed feasibility assessment.

Public comment on the Industrial Land Strategy 2009 Perth and Peel is invited until Friday 12 March 2010. See http://www.planning.wa.gov.au/comment.

The Department of Agriculture and Food has been participating in the study and aims to further build on the ILS findings by identifying sites suitable for the agri-food sector based on sector specific criteria and feedback from industry.

DAFWA will jointly hold an information session with the Department of Planning on the Perth and Peel Industrial Land Strategy for the food industry sector from 4pm Friday 12 February 2010, at the Department of Agriculture and Food, 3 Baron-Hay Court, South Perth.

Contact Department Agriculture and Food senior industrial planner Trina Anderson on (08) 9368 3640 or trina.anderson@agric.wa.gov.au by Tuesday 9 February 2010 to RSVP or to provide food industry sector comments.

For more information contact CCI’s Warren Barbetti on (08) 9365 7720 or email warren.barbetti@cciwa.com.