This report is a response to the NSW Government's Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW (Wood report). It outlines the Government's five-year action plan to improve the safety and wellbeing of children and young people in NSW.

Parliamentary privilege concerns the powers, privileges and immunities from aspects of the general law conferred on the Houses of Parliament, their members, officers and committees. This paper starts by defining the subject, before looking at parliamentary privilege in the context of a wider constitutional setting, in relation to its underlying purpose, by reference to such...

Applying the usual international criteria, Australia and NSW have a public hospital system of high standard. What then is the public to make of the alarming reports which regularly appear in the media and suggest quite the opposite? One explanation is that even the best systems are not immune from crises and the public health...

Priority Schools Programs support government schools serving the highest densities of low socio-economic status families in New South Wales and comprise the Priority Schools Funding Program and the Priority Action Schools Program. Priority Schools Programs resources include: direct grants to schools staffing supplementation to improve the ratio of staff to students consultancy support through targeted...

This briefing paper outlines significant developments in the laws relating to political donations in NSW that have occurred since the publication in June 2007 of the Parliamentary Library's briefing paper on Election Finance Law. It has been written in the context of further discussion of reform at the state and federal government levels including the...