As successive governments have committed to reducing the regulatory burden on business, so too they need to give equal priority to working with the community sector on reforms that will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector’s operating environment. The Productivity Commission clearly showed the most significant areas of ‘red tape’ in the community...

The findings of these visits to detention centres by Amnesty International is that indefinite and prolonged detention of asylum seekers in Australia is a failed policy that contravenes human rights standards. The most serious and damaging conditions faced by asylum seekers in immigration detention are the length of time and the indefinite nature of their...

This consultation paper introduces, and seeks comment on, Australia's National Research Priorities. A process to refresh the National Research Priorities (NRPs) is being undertaken as recommended by the Focusing Australia’s Publicly Funded Research Review (21). The NRPs are: An Environmentally Sustainable Australia Promoting and Maintaining Good Health Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries...

Economic modelling can and often does make a useful contribution to policy debates, but the fact that it sometimes can should not be confused with the conclusion that it always will. Economic modelling has, for many people involved in Australian policy debates, become synonymous with the process of serious policy development. Proponents of policy change...

Australia’s strategy for managing national security is set out in a number of complex and interrelated policy documents that span multiple agencies. This paper summarises key parts of the federal critical infrastructure protection policy trajectory in the period 1978 – 2010. The research was designed to answer the following questions: 1. How has Australia’s federal...