Australian nursing informatics competency project

A study of Australian nurses on their use of information technology in the workplace was undertaken by the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) in 2007. This study of over 4000 nurses highlighted that nurses recognise benefits to adopting more information technology in the workplace although there are significant barriers to their use. It also identified gross deficits in the capacity of the nursing workforce to engage in the digital processing of information. Following the release of the study last year, the ANF commenced work on a number of key recommendations from the report in order to overcome identified barriers and provide opportunities for nurses to better utilise information technology and information management systems. One of these recommendations was to seek research funding to develop national information technology and information management competency standards for nurses. This project has now received Federal Government funding to undertake this development. This project is being developed in collaboration with the ANF and the Queensland University of Technology. This paper will discuss the methodology, development and publication of the Australian Nursing Informatics Competency Standards Project which is currently underway and due for completion in May 2009. The Australian Nursing Informatics Competencies will be presented at the conference.

Lifting the lifegiving dollar : case samples of creative practice in health and medical research philanthropy

This study aims to stimulate thought, debate and action for change on this question of more vigorous philanthropic funding of Australian health and medical research (HMR). It sharpens the argument with some facts and ideas about HMR funding from overseas sources. It also reports informed opinions from those working, giving and innovating in this area. It pinpoints the range of attitudes to HMR giving, both positive and negative. The study includes some aspects of Government funding as part of the equation, viewing Government as major HMR givers, with particular ability to partner, leverage and create incentives. Stimulating new philanthropy takes active outreach. The opportunity to build more dialogue between the HMR industry and the wider community is timely given the ‘licence to practice’ issues and questioned trust that applies currently somewhat both to science and to the charitable sector. This interest in improving HMR philanthropy also coincides with the launch last year by the Federal Government of Nonprofit Australia Limited (NAL), a group currently assessing infrastructure improvements to the charitable sector. History suggests no one will create this change if Research Australia does not. However, interest in change exists in various quarters. For Research Australia to successfully change the culture of Australian HMR giving, the process will drive the outcomes. Obviously stakeholder buy-in and partners will be needed and the ultimate blueprint for greater philanthropic HMR funding here will not be this document. Instead it will be the one that wears the handprint and ‘mindprint’ of the many architects and implementers interested in promoting HMR philanthropy, from philanthropists to nonprofit peaks to government policy arms. As the African proverb says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go with others’.

Challenges in land use planning around Australian airports

The privatization of major Australian airports in the late 1990s unleashed an unprecedented development wave as corporate lessees implemented ambitious business plans. While planning and environmental regulations governing on-airport development were significantly enhanced, there has been national disquiet about a governance regime that remains under the auspices of the federal government and is not effectively integrated into state and local decision-making machinery. Tensions in major airport regions have been exacerbated by the building of highly conspicuous non-aeronautical developments approved with no determining input by local decision-makers as well as the growing pressures on off-airport locations for aviation-related development. This paper canvasses this context and overviews the evolving structure of planning controls for Australia’s privatized federal airports. A range of issues surfacing through the National Aviation Policy Review process in 2008–2009 is described.

The constitutional power to make war: domestic legal issues raised by Australia's action in Iraq

The legal power to declare war has traditionally been a part of a prerogative to be exercised solely on advice that passed from the King to the Governor-General no later than 1942. In 2003, the Governor- General was not involved in the decision by the Prime Minister and Cabinet to commit Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq. The authors explore the alternative legal means by which Australia can go to war - means the government in fact used in 2003 - and the constitutional basis of those means. While the prerogative power can be regulated and/or devolved by legislation, and just possibly by practice, there does not seem to be a sound legal basis to assert that the power has been devolved to any other person. It appears that in 2003 the Defence Minister used his legal powers under the Defence Act 1903 (Cth) (as amended in 1975) to give instructions to the service head(s). A powerful argument could be made that the relevant sections of the Defence Act were not intended to be used for the decision to go to war, and that such instructions are for peacetime or in bello decisions. If so, the power to make war remains within the prerogative to be exercised on advice. Interviews with the then Governor-General indicate that Prime Minister Howard had planned to take the matter to the Federal Executive Council 'for noting', but did not do so after the Governor-General sought the views of the then Attorney-General about relevant issues of international law. The exchange raises many issues, but those of interest concern the kinds of questions the Governor-General could and should ask about proposed international action and whether they in any way mirror the assurances that are uncontroversially required for domestic action. In 2003, the Governor-General's scrutiny was the only independent scrutiny available because the legality of the decision to go to war was not a matter that could be determined in the High Court, and the federal government had taken action in March 2002 that effectively prevented the matter coming before the International Court of Justice

The determinants of multinational contractors' willingness to bid for Australian public sector major infrastructure projects : towards deploying the eclectic paradigm of internationalisation

Against a background of already thin markets in some sectors of major public sector infrastructure in Australia and the desire of Australian federal government to leverage private finance, concerns about ensuring sufficient levels of competition are prompting federal government to seek new sources of in-bound Foreign Direct Income. The aim of this paper is to justify and develop a means to deploying the eclectic paradigm of internationalisation that forms part of an Australian federally funded research project designed to explain the determinants of multinational contractors' willingness to bid for Australian public sector major infrastructure projects. Despite the dominance of the eclectic paradigm as a theory of internationalisation for over two decades, it has seen limited application in terms of multinational construction. It is expected that the research project will be the first empirical study to deploy the eclectic paradigm to inbound FDI to Australia whilst using the dominant economic theories advocated for use within the eclectic paradigm. Furthermore, the research project is anticipated to yield a number of practical benefits. These include estimates of the potential scope to attract more multinational contractors to bid for Australian public sector infrastructure, including the nature and extent to which this scope can be influenced by Australian governments responsible for the delivery of infrastructure. On the other hand, the research is also expected to indicate the extent to which indigenous and other multinational contractors domiciled in Australia are investing in special purpose technology and achieving productivity gains relative to foreign multinational contractors.

Untangling the Net : The Scope of Content Caught By Mandatory Internet Filtering

The following report considers a number of key challenges the Australian Federal Government faces in designing the regulatory framework and the reach of its planned mandatory internet filter. Previous reports on the mandatory filtering scheme have concentrated on the filtering technologies, their efficacy, their cost and their likely impact on the broadband environment. This report focuses on the scope and the nature of content that is likely to be caught by the proposed filter and on identifying associated public policy implications.

Implications of the National Rental Affordability Scheme on the valuation of residential property

The provision of shelter is a basic need and in Australia there has been a history of home ownership. However recent economic growth and rising construction costs, particularly over the past decade, has placed home ownership out of reach for some. In response to increased affordability pressures, the Australian Federal Government established the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) in 2008. The aim of establishing the NRAS initiative is to stimulate the supply of new affordable rental dwellings, targeting 50,000 new properties by June 2012, through the provision of a National Rental Incentive for each “approved” dwelling. To be approved the dwelling must be newly constructed and subsequently rented to eligible low and moderate income households at rentals no greater than 80 percent of market rates. There is a further requirement that the accommodation be provided as part of the scheme for no less than 10 years. The requirement to provide new residential accommodation at below market rentals for no less than 10 years has an impact on value and as such the valuation methodologies employed. To give guidance to valuers this paper investigates the scheme, the impact on value and expectations for the future.

Carbon financing and the Australian emissions trading scheme : less emissions, more opportunities?

The introduction by the Australian federal government of its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was a decisive step in the transformation of Australia into a low carbon economy. Since the release of the Scheme, however, political discourse relating to environmental sustainability and climate change in Australia has focused primarily on political, scientific and economic issues. Insufficient attention has been paid to the financial opportunities which commoditisation of the carbon market may offer, and little emphasis has been placed on the legal implications for the creation of a "new" asset and market. This article seeks to shed some light on the discernable opportunities which the Scheme should provide to participants in the Australian and international debt markets.

Developing the eclectic paradigm of internationalization on the issue of multinational contractors bidding for Australian infrastructure

Against a background of already thin markets in some sectors of major public sector infrastructure in Australia and the desire of the Australian federal government to leverage private finance, concerns about ensuring sufficient levels of competition are prompting federal government to seek new sources of in-bound foreign direct income - as part of attracting more foreign contractors and consortia to bid for Australian public sector major infrastructure. As a first step towards attracting greater overseas interest in the Australian public sector market infrastructure market, an improved understanding of the determinants of multinational contractors’ willingness to bid in this market is offered by Dunning’s eclectic paradigm and which have has been a dominant approach in international business for over 20 years and yet has been little used in the context of international contracting. This paper aims to develop Dunning’s eclectic framework and also gives a brief outline of a research plan to collect secondary data and primary data from international contractors around the globe in pursuance of testing the eclectic framework.

Data-driven accountability in Australia : an unfolding story with lessons for leaders

Throughout the world, state and nation standardised testing of children, has become a "huge industry" (English, 2002). Although English is referring to the American system which has been involved in standardised testing for over half a century, the same could be said of many other countries, including Australia. It has been only in recent years that Australia has embraced national testing as part of a wider reform effort to bring about increased accountability in schooling. The results of high-stakes tests in Australia are now published in newspapers and electronically on the Australian federal government's MySchool website (www.myschoold.edu.au). MySchool provides results on the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) for students in Years 3,5, 7 and 9. Data are available that compare schools to statistically similar schools. This more recent publication of national testing results in Australia is a visible example of "contractual accountability", described by Mulford, Edmunds, Kendall, Kendall and Bishop (2008) as " the degree to which [actors] are fulfilling the expectations of particular audiences in terms of standards, outcomes and results" (p.20).

‘I can’t get no satisfaction’...or can I? A study of satisfaction with financial planning and client wellbeing

This paper reports findings from an ongoing collaborative research project with the Financial Services Council (FSC), which contributed funding and facilitated the survey of financial planners’ clients through FSC member organisations. The article draws on the report to the FSC that was prepared by the QUT researchers, reporting findings on the initial exploratory stage of the project.1 The lyric in the title of this paper has become a catchcry for consumers dissatisfied with a range of financial services and products, and, as recent Federal Government inquiries have revealed, there is some truth to the claim. But as financial planning undergoes a series of reforms, including increased professionalism (FPA 2009) and improved quality of advice (Australian Government 2011), there are good reasons to explore the conditions under which clients report satisfaction with their financial planners; not least because the provision of effective financial planning and advice, delivered in accordance with, or transcending, the rules and norms of industry best-practice has the potential to benefit clients, not just financially, but across a number of life domains. In this paper, we report findings from an exploratory study investigating whether financial planning and advice contribute to client well-being, beyond effects on financial well-being. While anecdotal evidence supports psychological benefits such as a sense of security, little research has explored these links in any systematic or theoretically driven way. However, theory and research from cognate disciplines, such as psychology, indicate clear links between planning, goal setting and well-being that are likely to arise in the financial planning domain. Surveyed clients were asked to indicate their satisfaction with their financial advisers, the planning process and the advice they received. Clients responded to items designed to reflect key areas for financial planners in the shift towards increased professionalism, improved disclosure and greater client focus (e.g. FPA 2009). Clients also reflected on their financial situations before and after seeing their advisers, and considered the impact of their financial situations on a number of life areas including family relationships, mental health and well-being, and overall life satisfaction.

Trade barriers: to invest, or not to invest, in a trade as a career

This paper highlights ongoing concern in Australia about the contested terrain of skills shortages, particularly as they apply to particular trades. The paper reports on a school-based study of student career choice that was undertaken for the federal government to inform its deliberations. Drawing on the study, the paper examines key issues related to students' preparedness, and schools' readiness, to pursue school-based apprenticeships in traditional trades, reflecting the hope of attenuating the much touted gaps in labour supply and avoiding the social and fiscal effects of skills shortages, matters to which the nation has been alerted.

Understanding the diversity of non-specialised units within Australian property degrees

Building on the recommendations of the Bradley Review (2008), the Australian Federal government intends to promote a higher level of penetration of tertiary qualification across the broader Australian community which is anticipated to result in increased levels of standardisation across university degrees. In the field of property, tertiary academic programs are very closely aligned to the needs of a range of built environment professions and there are well developed synergies between the relevant professional bodies and the educational institutions. The strong nexus between the academic and the professional content is characterised by ongoing industry accreditation which nominates a range of outcomes which the academic programs must maintain across a range of specified metrics. Commonly, the accrediting bodies focus on standard of minimum requirements especially in the area of specialised subject areas where they require property graduates to demonstrate appropriate learning and attitudes. In addition to nominated content fields, in every undergraduate degree program there are also many other subjects which provide a richer experience for the students beyond the merely professional. This study focuses on the nonspecialised knowledge field which varies across the universities offering property degree courses as every university has the freedom to pursue its own policy for these non-specialised units. With universities being sensitive to their role of in the appropriate socialisation of new entrants, first year units have been used as a vehicle to support students’ transition into university education and the final year units seek to support students’ integration into the professional world. Consequentially, many property programs have to squeeze their property-specific units to accommodate more generic units for both first year and final year units and the resulting diversity is a feature of the current range of property degrees across Australia which this research will investigate. The matrix of knowledge fields nominated by the Australian Property Institute for accreditation of degrees accepted for Certified Practising Valuer (CPV) educational requirement and the complementary requirements of the other major accrediting body (RICS) are used to classify and compare similarities and differences across property degrees in the light of the streamlining anticipated from the Bradley Review.

Towards testing the eclectic paradigm on multinational contracting: an approach to reviewing and analysing secondary data

In response to the need to leverage private finance and the lack of competition in some parts of the Australian public sector major infrastructure market, especially in very large economic infrastructure procured using Pubic Private Partnerships, the Australian Federal government has demonstrated its desire to attract new sources of in-bound foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Australian construction market. This paper aims to report on progress towards an investigation into the determinants of multinational contractors’ willingness to bid for Australian public sector major infrastructure projects and which is designed to give an improved understanding of matters surrounding FDI into the Australian construction sector. This research deploys Dunning’s eclectic theory for the first time in terms of in-bound FDI by multinational contractors and as head contractors bidding for Australian major infrastructure public sector projects. Elsewhere, the authors have developed Dunning’s principal hypothesis associated with his eclectic framework in order to suit the context of this research and to address a weakness arising in Dunning’s principal hypothesis that is based on a nominal approach to the factors in the eclectic framework and which fail to speak to the relative explanatory power of these factors. In this paper, an approach to reviewing and analysing secondary data, as part of the first stage investigation in this research, is developed and some illustrations given, vis-à-vis the selected sector (roads, bridges and tunnels) in Australia (as the host location) and using one of the selected home countries (Spain). In conclusion, some tentative thoughts are offered in anticipation of the completion of the first stage investigation - in terms of the extent to which this first stage based on secondary data only might suggest the relative importance of the factors in the eclectic framework. It is noted that more robust conclusions are expected following the future planned stages of the research and these stages including primary data are briefly outlined. Finally, and beyond theoretical contributions expected from the overall approach taken to developing and testing Dunning’s framework, other expected contributions concerning research method and practical implications are mentioned.

The future of the internet economy : addressing challenges facing the implementation of the Australian national broadband network

Innovation is vital for the future of Australia.s internet economy. Innovations rely on businesses. ability to innovate. Businesses. ability to innovate relies on their employees. The more these individual end users engage in the internet economy, the better businesses. engagement will be. The less these individual end users engage, the less likely a business is to engage and innovate. This means, for the internet economy to function at its fullest potential, it is essential that individual Australians have the capacity to engage with it and participate in it. The Australian federal government is working to facilitate the internet economy through policies, legislation and practices that implement high-speed broadband. The National Broadband Network will be a vital tool for Australia.s internet economy. Its .chief importance¡® is that it will provide faster internet access speeds that will facilitate access to internet services and content. However, an appropriate infrastructure and internet speed is only part of the picture. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development identified, appropriate government policies are also needed to ensure that vital services are more accessible by consumers. The thesis identifies essential theories and principles underpinning the internet economy and from which the concept of connectedness is developed. Connectedness is defined as the ability of end users to connect with internet content and services, other individuals and organisations, and government. That is, their ability to operate in the internet economy. The NBN will be vital in ensuring connectedness into the future. What is not currently addressed by existing access regimes is how to facilitate end user access capacity and participation. The thesis concludes by making recommendations to the federal government as to what the governing principles of the Australian internet economy should include in order to enable individual end user access capacity.