http://oliebol.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/498935 Unfortunately the account given on Stateline by one mother of her daughter’s experience in the system is not a one-off. She was just the one who went public—and good on her. Anyone with friends in that unit know how the system treats people—and that the fault does not lie with the nursing staff, who are doing the best they can with the facilities and resources they have. The ACT has the highest rate of long-term mental health and behavioural conditions (13.8% of the population in 2004–05) in the country. This is clearly an area that we need to do more in

Fortunately mental illness no longer carries the stigma that it did even a decade ago, but it is still difficult for people with an illness. The first episode can bring feelings of deep shame that do not accompany an episode of the flu or cancer, making it socially isolating and deeply traumatic for people who are unwell and their friends and family alike. Unfortunately the ACT mental health system does not seem to have caught up with the wider community.

Families have difficulty getting appropriate diagnosis and treatment for their children, being told that the behaviour is just characteristic of ‘a difficult child’ or ‘typical for a teenager’. The focus needs to be on early detection and intervention, community care and appropriate and caring acute care where this is necessary, and on the family and supporting family as the primary caring unit

The government, for example, has been promising an acute care psychiatric facility for children for more than four years, but has not yet delivered. The high dependency unit (once known as the locked ward) is as dangerous as it has ever been. Our first step will be to look at all the multi-million dollar promises for infrastructure and facilities, and sit down with patients, their families and nursing staff and, if necessary, redesign the proposed facilities to create something that will work.]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:01:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/498935 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/495727
Months ago the "new" parties would not have rated at all and now they do. Also months ago most voters would have only indicated support for Labor, Liberal or Greens. The growth of support for the "others" will continue, as we get closer to polling day and voters (particularly the undecided) make more informed decisions. So the more unknown you are, the more likelihood of improvement, the only way I can go is up. :)

From the article there is somewhere between a 9% and 25% undecided response and the article says that these voters have been allocated to parties "according to which party the respondent would prefer formed government", which again inflates the Labor, Liberal and Green support. The undecided vote in pre-election polls predominantly goes to the smaller parties on polling day.

The Greens do seem to be doing remarkably well. And good on them! A third party is better that the two majors. Of course the greens have their faults which I won’t discuss in this post. However we will have to wait and see if the support for the Greens is real or not. If it is, then the Community Alliance will struggle, but it is likely that much of the Greens support at this stage is a protest vote, it means not Labor and not Liberal as the Greens are the next best recognized party.

The comment in the Canberra Times article about a coalition government is just uninformed crap! It just goes to show how little most of these ‘commentators’ know about the possibilities of our ACT Electoral System. The fantastic system here in the ACT allows the Assembly Members to choose a government without a coalition so why would Labor or Liberal make a non-party Member a Minister? And why would any party tie themselves into a non-flexible arrangement of having to support another party as government? Majority government whether as a coalition or not has the failings that are making Labor unpopular right now. I would be quite concerned about a Greens coalition government.
]]> Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:03:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/495727 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494273 Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:56:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494273 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494301 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:07:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494301 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494303 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:20:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494303 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494305
]]> Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:25:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494305 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494307
]]> Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:27:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494307 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494259
]]> Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:35:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494259 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494257
]]> Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:28:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494257 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494237 ]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:41:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494237 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494255
I have been lobbied the ACT government to do this for a long time. It is silly how much organic waste goes into land fill every day. There is a real lack of genuine, practical measures that Canberrans can use to help address climate change. This is why the See-Change groups are so critical in getting everyone to reduce their environmental foot print.
The majority of our compostable house hold waste continues to be heaped in with the rest of our landfill waste. We really need to achieve a genuine reduction in waste going to landfill.

My ideal programs' purpose is to reduce the amount of waste shipped to landfills by turning organic waste into compost. The program would collect kitchen and related organic waste (pet waste, sawdust, and garden waste) using the a waist-high green curbside bin. The pickup of the waste would be on a frequent basis, fortnightly at this stage, along with other garbage and recycling collecting. We would then collect to a single point an composts it in an industrial composting facility. While it is true that backyard composting can also serve this purpose, the Green Bin programs are more convenient and more inclusive of source materials.
]]> Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:22:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494255 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494221 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:09:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494221 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494169

]]> Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:51:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494169 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/404193
Voters have got no way of knowing because we have to rely on the government to actually tell us how much CO2 has been reduced. The only "proof" we have that greenhouse emissions have been reduced is that everything gets more expensive! Carbon dioxide has no taste, no smell, you can't see it and it's mostly emitted a long way from where people live.

The problem with carbon trading is that it puts all the power and knowledge about how to reduce emissions into the hands of bureaucrats and big companies. They are asking us to trust them to reduce greenhouse gases, without giving us any proof back that they are actually doing it except increased prices. We know they can increase prices already for no reason, we don't need another demonstration!

A scheme should give everyone direct ownership for reducing their emissions, by making it easy for them to make lifestyle decisions to produce less emissions. We keep getting told that this is a global problem for the whole of humanity, if that's the case we need a scheme where we can all help, and not get screwed by businessmen. Our scheme would actually put responsibility for climate change into everyone's hands, instead of just talking about it. Our scheme is as follows:

1. Start switching all our power generation over to renewable, and develop the technology enough so it can, but the technology to meet base load does already exist, like solar storage, hot rocks, hydro.
2. Switch our interstate freight transport infrastructure over to be based on rail
3. Switch our intracity transport over to electric cars and compressed air cars as well as electric light rail. Electric cars have a short range but can be recharged at home from power generated by renewables.
4. Help people to change habits in home, and use new technologies to reduce emissions in the home.
5. Work with businesses so that the development of ALL new technologies and production methods are considered for their greenhouse impact. This would help to avoid problems like we saw yesterday with this new gas, Nitrogen Triflouride, being used by makers of plasma screens, which is the worst greenhouse gas yet known, with 17 thousand times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide.
]]> Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:29:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/404193 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494247
I’ve been really concerned by comments in the media telling us that we need a desalination plant which is essentially the same as a water recycling plant. i really hope that we are not getting a water recycling plant by subterfuge. It’s not as easy as it sounds to remove eight semi-trailer loads of salt from our water every day and deal with it in an environmentally friendly way. A good proportion of the salt is naturally occurring and the rest comes in to the system through the waste water system (detergents and washing powder). We need a holistic approach to the problem. We need to attack the amount of salt going in to the system trough education and promotion of low salt detergents.

There are so many questions that we need to ask about this water deal such as. What would be the costs of running a desalination plant? How much salt we need to remove? What steps it has taken to prevent the salt entering our waste water? Is this just an excuse to build a water purification plant? How will they dispose of the salt abstracted?

I understand the need for a range of extra water supply options for the ACT to secure our water supply, such as the proposed pipeline from the (upper) Murrumbidgee River at Angle Crossing to the Googong Dam and an enlarged Lower Cotter Dam on the grounds of increasing water security at a reasonable cost. Other options will be thoroughly investigated and reviewed.

I will work to halt the proposed water purification plant at the Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre and the proposed desalination plant until there has been a satisfactory demonstration of the need, economic viability and safety for people and the environment.]]> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:59:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/494247 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/495895
Lifeline tells us that you have a much higher chance of being hit by lightening in Australia (1 in 1,603,250) than winning Powerball (1 in 54,979,15). Also there is absolutely no skill involved in poker machine gambling. Nothing you do to the machine will influence the result of your game. The outcome of any one game is randomly generated and is not influenced by previous plays. A poker machine that has not paid out in a while is no more likely to pay out than one that just hit the jackpot. Australian’s spent almost $15.5 billion in 2004 on gambling. We spent around $6.5 billion on Gas and Electricity in the same year. 80% of problem gamblers who seek help state it is because of a problem with poker machines alone.One in eight regular gamblers is a problem gambler and they contribute 30% of the total gambling revenue. Around 6000 Canberra residents are thought to have a significant gambling problem. For each problem gambler, approximately 7 others are also affected. The suffering of addicts' families in all social classes stays hidden: those children are often the very poorest, whatever their apparent household income. The more gambling there is, the more addicts are created. Why would a Labor government committed to abolishing child poverty encourage yet more?

There has been a great expansion of gambling, mainly through "pokies" now means more than 10% of government revenues come from gambling. The Terratory has become addicted to the nation's gambling habits. No future government could decide gambling was damaging its people and seek to reduce it. How could they afford to lose those revenues? Better by far to try to hold down gambling as best a government can - and it can. In the US both houses have now passed a bill effectively stopping online gambling by banning banks from paying credit-card debts to any online gaming sites. Why can't we? Instead, we are allowing television to advertise gambling for the first time - but only "socially responsibly". How unusual is that Labor has had nothing whatever to say about any of it. Not a word! It may not be easy to know what to do about squalid and unmerited ill-gotten gains, but the first step is to talk about it and join the widespread disgust at this growing social problem.
]]> Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:20:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/495895 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/397309
As part of the plan, the CAP will re assess ACT government laws and taxes, in order to reduce barriers for small technology startup firms. If this is not done, the knowledge and information will "leak" to where demand is highest and the barriers are lowest.

At ANU, two technologies stand out as examples of Australian ideas that are internationally competitive:

Seeing Machines is an award winning company that designs vision based human machine interfaces, and grew out of research work at the ANU. It now employs a considerable amount of people and has a client list including some of the world's biggest car manufacturers and their suppliers.

The Solar sliver cell technology is a unique design for flexible, inexpensive and efficient solar cells, developed by Professor Andrew Blakers and Dr Klaus Weber of the ANU. Sliver cells are being commercialised by Origin Energy, who have built a pilot manufacturing plant in Adelaide.

The second stage of the project would utilise urban design to maximise human capital - a key component of value in a knowledge-based economy. Measures to be included would focus on housing, lifestyle and communications infrastructure which would allow people to work from home. Cultural and social design issues that improve cultural openness and social connections within a community would also be considered. Such measures are key to the informal information flows that help a knowledge economy to thrive.

what I mean is that in order to retain and build upon our existing high quality of life in Australia, we need to develop our knowledge economy. Australians are great at coming up with innovative, practical solutions, but we are terrible at making money from these ideas. Business clusters will help Canberra to develop our great ideas and get the rewards in the marketplace.
]]> Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:59:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/397309 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/397317
The Australia's Health 2008 report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released yesterday shows that some of the greatest improvements to the health of Australians can be made by helping people change their lifestyle.

What I mean is that In the ACT we have a Department of Health which is in reality a Department of Illness. I would like to establish a Wellness Department which would have as its mission the improvement of health and wellbeing for all ACT residents. We need to recognises that most people find it difficult to make lifestyle changes, so we want to help people to make these changes.

The new Wellness Department would introduce schemes to help Canberrans improve their nutrition, increase physical activity and reduce or eliminate alcohol and tobacco use, in line with the recommendations from the AIHW report. The schemes would be voluntary, and free or inexpensive to access. Basically We know the causes of ill health, we know the lifestyle changes needed to improve health, so what are we waiting for?"
]]> Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:06:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/397317 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/389369 Haven for the have-nots

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/haven-for-the-havenots/789430.aspx

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REPLY

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Great article James, its good to see that someone is noticing the good work that they do at Havelock house. Well done! Affordable housing is such a complex issue even the term ‘affordable housing’ is assertoric. Affordable to whom? Its disturbing to me that many of the people I speak to see homelessness as just a ‘welfare issue’ and that they have very little idea of the larger impact. Housing is a critical determinant not only, of social cohesion and household well-being but also of labour market efficiency. A serious shortage of affordable rental housing represents an increasing constraint on economic growth in Canberra and significant barrier to the economic and social participation of residents. The housing market in Canberra is failing to provide affordable rental accommodation close to the labour markets that depend on a lower-skilled, part-time and casual labour force. Recent research clearly demonstrates that ‘affordable’, private, low-rent housing is concentrated in our urban fringe As a result, tenants face geographical barriers to the low-wage jobs in the Civic and other town centres. Current taxation arrangements do not stimulate investment in the supply of low rent housing. Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) similar to that of the USA Tax Reform Act of 1986 would be one way of tackling the issue. As per the proposal put forward by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 2004 the LIHTC could be made available for housing delivered to low-income households by community housing organisations, funded in part by changes to the Building Write-Off Allowance this will make an impact on the current lack of supply and could be introduced in the next Commonwealth budget.]]> Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:45:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/389369 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/380333 ]]> Thu, 29 May 2008 19:51:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/380333 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/369003 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:06:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/369003 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/368961 Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:20:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/368961 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/368959
The number of publicly owned dwellings as a proportion of all housing stock has fallen from 11% to 9%, and is still falling. This decline must be reversed, so public and community housing levels stabilise at 10% or higher. The ACT has the highest proportion of tenants in public housing who are not receiving a rent rebate. This is because the ACT Government has no strategy to assist public tenants who have long-term stable employment to enter the private housing market, including through purchase of their ACT Housing dwelling. It is pretty clear that more public housing is needed to replace stock sold off in the last ten years or so. It makes sense that the number of public and community managed dwellings should keep pace with population growth, because the number of homeless is still rising. As the needs of the community change, public and community housing should be adaptable so it can accommodate older people and those with disabilities.

All newly purchased housing should be located close to shops, schools, and public transport routes. It would be beneficial if the ACT Government would build most of the housing acquired by ACT Housing so they are not competing with first home buyers for the cheaper properties, and at least half of the dwellings they acquire having accessible design. This would also go some way in helping the house construction market slowdown. We should promote schemes to assist long term tenants with adequate incomes to move out of public housing, to make room for those on the public housing waiting list who are suffering housing-related poverty. The simple equation is that there needs to be ore public housing and better management of public stock and tenancies.


]]> Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:16:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/368959 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/354869
I think that these people get these ideas from the European model of public transport which seems to work so well. I think that the major flaw to most of this thinking is the fact that European cities have always been densely populated (at least for the past few hundred years) so all of the agriculture, housing, general lifestyles of the people who live around the city have been concentrated on that particular city as its centre. Is not a difficult intellectual problem to put a bus service or a train service in to meet up with these traditional routes.

However here in Australia our population spread out along the transport corridors as they were formed, Sydney is a great example. As railways where built the suburbs sprang up around them Here in Canberra we have a ideal transport corridor and that is the railway/highway route to Sydney where there seems to be a lot of people living these days and into the future more and more people come to live in the small towns in the Southern Highlands and Southern tablelands.

I actually think the opposite before going to make Canberra in the capital region work as a metropolitan centre the population needs to stay a spread out as possible. The simple reason for this, is the problem with water that we have here in the southern tablelands. I mean we can go on building dam after them but if the catchment that we are trying to get the water from has a static or diminishing rainfall them all of our efforts will be in vain. It seems to me that the best way forward for a sustainable population is to increase the water catchment area for the population size.

Therefore a fast rail system between be small towns and cities of the Southern tablelands and capital region would be an ideal situation to progress this. Especially with the new diesel electrics that are coming out Rail is the most environmentally sustainable way the transport large amounts of people over 100km. We could utilise the used and disused rail infrastructure, such as the railway line out to Captains Flat the railway line out a Goulburn and the railway line south to Cooma. We could actually get a rail service that would allow people to commute from places like Goulburn and Cooma in less than half an hour. Even if the commute was up to an hour this would not be all that ridiculous to many people. This would also be able to solve a lot of the housing problems that we have here in the ACT because houses in these smaller towns and cities are significantly cheaper than that of the ones that are closer to the city centre of Canberra. Moreover I think that we should build two new railway lines to fully utilise the local capital region population base. One line would go from Civic through Gungahlin Gundaroo and Gunning. The other would go from the city centre through Belconnen and Murranbateman to Yass. We would then be able to linkage of these main carrier lines with light rail through to the other centres in Canberra such as Tuggeranong Woden Manuka Dickson.


]]> Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:14:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/354869 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667 http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/354871
What can any government do to help out the situation? Stuffing around with people's house prices is not really that good things the government to do. Its frustrating that many people believe that price of housing is the only way to affect things such as standard of living, quality of life and attracting people to the ACT to work. Because the ACT government actually owns all the land in the ACT there is a lot of pressure from many groups for the ACT government to play a larger role in fixing people's housing prices, or not fixing people's housing prices depending on which side the argument you standing on. I really do believe that the way to attack housing affordability, quality of life and lowering the barriers to participation to the workforce in the ACT is to actually attack the housing market from the rental side of things.

I won't go into the public housing versus social housing argument because I feel strongly about as well. But I really do believe that the way to solve the rental market in the ACT in the sort term, without affecting people's house prices too much, is to actually build a significant amount of full-time students housing, close to the Universities and strictly controlled for only full-time students only. We have a large amount of students here in the ACT, because of the six large tertiary institutions. If we were able to provide a significant amount of housing at a very low cost (I'm talking around $50 - $75 a week) student accommodation that was very basic, I think that there would be a large number of students that would move out of the group houses in the inner suburbs to move closer to university(into this Student accommodation) primarily because it would be cheaper. This would free up a lot housing in the inner suburbs and hopefully bring down rental prices slightly which would allow young families to actually rent houses in the inner suburbs (going some way to addressing the 'greying' of the suburbs phenomenon that is responsible for things such as closing schools and declining services). In saying this we would need to have an investigation and also look at some economic modelling so that we wouldn't do a great deal of harm. But we need to encourage more people to study the ACT through cheaper accommodation, for younger families to move into the inner suburbs and for the entry-level of the workforce 23yo - 30yo to be able to afford housing so that they can work in Canberra.
]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:15:00 EDT http://oliebol.tigblog.org/post/354871 -35.2833333 149.2166667-35.2833333149.2166667