Supporting Social Research

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.

Interested in International comparisons between Australia and other countries? Australia Fair: International Comparisons 2007 released by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) on the 30th of August uses current data to compare a range of social indicators with the situation in other OECD countries.

"Since 1995, full-time jobs for older Australians have risen by more than one million but declinded by 14,000 for teenagers and 52,000 for young adults."

A new report released by the Public Education Alliance'Making Federalism Work for Schools: Due Process, Transparency, Informed Consent' by Dr Lindsay Connors is now available from the New South Wales Teachers Federation website. The report covers issues relating to funding, disadvantage, federal arrangements for schools and the need to reform these arrangements.

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.

The Federal budget papers 2007-08 are available online www.budget.gov.au . You can also download budget papers via the Library catalogue, or one of the several official mirror sites. These include the Department of Finance and Administration, Australian Taxation Office, National Library of Australia and the Parliament of Austalia
The Budget website includes all documents relating to the budget including the Budget Overview, Budget Speech and Budget at a Glance.