This brief is presented as a synopsis of key policy issues that may either support or hinder efforts to reduce urban heat through increased green infrastructure. It highlights the need for co-ordinated efforts and identifies specific portfolio barriers and opportunities.

Rationing healthcare in some form is inevitable, even in wealthy countries, because resources are scarce and demand for healthcare is always likely to exceed supply. This means that decision-makers must make choices about which health programs and initiatives should receive public funding and which ones should not. These choices are often difficult to make, particularly...

Increasingly, partnerships and collaborations are becoming more common, and they will continue to do so because they provide for a strategic approach to the development of common agendas and pooled resourcing, to improve health outcomes. The Peninsula Model for Primary Health Planning is a good example of this approach, using the Commonwealth’s commissioned logic model...

This briefing note argues that, despite the Queensland Treasurer calling for cost benefit analysis to be done for all major government projects, there has been no economic assessment for the Abbot Point expansion proposals. Key points Environmental risks of Abbot Point port expansion have been well publicised, but economic costs to Queensland taxpayers have not...

Recurrent expenditure on school education in Australia is over $44 billion each year, around $36 billion of this provided by governments. These are considerable sums, more often than not expressed as a cost rather than an investment – especially when it doesn’t always seem to deliver noticeable improvements in student results.