Executive summary The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is not a health scheme. The NDIS funds disability support and a range of related services designed to maximise the independence of a person with a disability. Health care is a specific exclusion. The NDIS is organisationally...

Executive summary Public patients are routinely being treated in Australian private hospitals. Some jurisdictions have large-scale, planned programs where private or not-for-profit hospitals are contracted by the public sector to treat public inpatients (for example, Queensland’s Surgery Connect program). Often, however, ‘contracting’ is done on...

Executive summary Rural Australians generally experience poorer health than their city counterparts. Rural Australia is a vast geographical region, with significant diversity, where there is good health and prosperity, as well as disadvantage. The purpose of this issue brief is to provide evidence on how...

After years of highly charged political and public debate on tackling climate change, Australia started taxing carbon emissions on 1 July 2012. Under the carbon tax, Australia’s biggest carbon emitting companies will pay a fixed-price levy on their carbon emissions for three years. At the...

Under Australian mental health laws, people with schizophrenia can only be involuntarily committed to a mental health facility if they are assessed and it is determined that their illness is making them dangerous to themselves or others.