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'.

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.

There have many requests for information relating to the Government interventions in the Northern Territory. Key reports including Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle "Little children are sacred" are available online and via the Library catalogue.

There are many information resources that provide useful research and background information relevent to government actions in relation to Aboriginal communities. The Australian Parliamentary Library publishes a Bills digest. Documents relating to the recent measures can be quickly located and downloaded. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Township Leasing) Bill 2007 , the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander) Consequential, Transitional and Other Measures Bill 2006 and the Corporations Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Corporations) Bill 2006 are all available from this site. The Parliamentary Library also publishes Research briefs on many political and social issues. The Domestic violence e- brief provides links to earlier reports on conditions in Aboriginal communities.

Recently released reports and papers have again put teaching and education in the media spotlight. The Future of Schooling in Australia – a report by Australia's States and Territories produced by the Council for the Australian Federation, reviews the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. The report includes sections on benchmarking, challenges to schools in 2007 and action plans for varied aspects of schooling and educatiion.
The Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) has just released the first paper of the Blueprint for Tomorrow's Schools.. The paper entitled Paper One: Training and Professional Development includes discussion on merit based incentives for teachers.