Supporting Social Research

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a new report on welfare spending by governments in Australia; it documents spending increases over the past 8 years and shows families and the aged as the major beneficiaries. The report titled Welfare Expenditure in Australia 2005-06 provides estimates of welfare expenditure in Australia for the period 1998-99 to 2005-06 and is available online from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's website. On a related topic is a recent research report by Peter Saunders from The Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW. The report is called Towards New Indicators of Disadvantage, Deprivation and Social Exclusion in Australia and is available from the centre's website. To check Fisher Library's catalogue holdings in this research area search under the subject heading 'Public Welfare Australia'.

Did you miss Foreign Correspondent last Tuesday? Need to follow television coverage of the 2007 Election! Do you or your students need access to Australian television news, current affairs and selected documentaries for teaching and research? You can access this content via a new database, TVNews. This database is on trial until 31 December 2007.

Earlier this month the Australian Parliamentary Library released the research paper Electoral division rankings: Census 2006. This paper is one of many sources that will be of interest to anyone researching the current election and electoral information. The paper "provides an analysis by Commonwealth electoral division of socio-demographic data from the first release of the 2006 Census of Population and Housing." The rankings provide an interesting electoral snapshot on a range of variables. Which electorate has the most children aged under 5 years, persons born overseas, the highest median weekly family income, lone person households or households with an internet connection? Rankings are available for the following categories: population, religion, ethnicity, families, income, education and dwellings.