THE House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport will be holding a roundtable public hearing in Canberra on Friday, 26 October 2018, as part of its Inquiry into the Aged Care Amendment (Staffing Ratio Disclosure) Bill 2018.
The Committee Chair, Trent Zimmerman MP, stated, "As part of this roundtable public hearing, the Committee will hear from aged care providers, government agencies, peak bodies, and professional nursing and medical associations. The inquiry is expected to provide the Committee with a range of perspectives on the Bill, including whether or not it should be passed and also highlight broader issues regarding levels of staffing for aged care services."
Further information about the Committee’s inquiry, including the public hearing program, is available on the Committee’s website.
THE Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has today announced it will help build Australia’s first Business Renewables Centre to encourage Australian businesses to make the switch to renewable energy.
On behalf of the Australian Government, ARENA will provide $500,000 in funding to Climate-KIC Australia, WWF-Australia and UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures for the project.
The New South Wales and Victorian Governments have each provided $150,000 in funding to the Project.
The Business Renewables Centre Australia will be a resource centre and an online marketplace platform designed to accelerate the purchase of renewable energy by Australian business.
The $1.74 million project aims to make it easier for Australian corporates and local councils to purchase or procure renewable energy through corporate Power Purchase Agreements. The initiative will establish an online resource centre and a marketplace platform, and will be supported by face to face events for its industry members.
The goal is to help Australian businesses and local governments procure 1GW of installed renewable energy by 2022 and 5GW by 2030.
The Centre draws on the proven model of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Centre in the USA, to provide members with information, a network of energy buyers and project developers, inexpensive training and advice on power purchase agreement requirements.
Last year, ARENA previously released a report on the Business of Renewables which outlined how Australia’s biggest businesses were falling behind their global peers in transitioning to renewable energy.
The report also found that Australian consumers support businesses making the switch, with more than three quarters of Australian consumers surveyed saying they would buy a product or service powered by renewables over one that wasn’t.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the Business Renewables Centre Australia would have a wealth of knowledge to draw upon.
“The future for energy is a large number of smaller renewable generating facilities often developed by non-generating entities. The Business Renewables Centre will help in that transition in using its vast expertise in running programs, entrepreneurship, innovation, education and other sustainability objectives to make it easier for companies and councils to enter into the renewables market,” Mr Miller said.
WWF Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman said that the Business Renewables Centre Australia will build on the success of WWF’s Renewable Energy Buyers Forum, which now comprises over 230 members organisations, as well as the growth in corporate renewable Power Purchase Agreements in the last 12 months.
“The future of renewables in Australia looks positive because it makes sound business sense. Contracting for long-term renewable energy will save customers money and will support growth in renewable energy infrastructure across Australia,” Mr O'Gorman said.
Climate-KIC Australia CEO Christopher Lee said that the BRC would drive capacity building in the industry.
“We are excited to be collaborating with industry players from small and large scale renewable energy developers, service providers and corporate buyers to build capability across the industry and lower the cost of transactions. Our partners bring a broad breadth of experience and look forward to driving the uptake of renewables,” Mr Lee said.
Professor Stuart White, Director of the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures said: “There’s a lot of interest in renewable energy PPAs, but they’re new to Australia and the key decision-makers often lack the information they need. We will be applying a model that’s been successful in the US to give companies the tools and resources they need to make the shift to renewable energy.”
A REPORT from the Gonksi Institute for Education at UNSW Sydney released on Monday calculates that Australia could add more than $50 billion to its annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by improving educational outcomes for students in regional, rural and remote areas of the country.
The Economic Impact of Improving Regional, Rural & Remote Education in Australia – Closing the Human Capital Gap Report shows there is a $56 billion difference in earnings potential between rural, remote and regional students and their urban counterparts.
To put the figure in perspective, $56 billion is larger than the contribution of the entire Australian tourism industry and four times the size of the Australian beef industry.
The report is the first major analysis from the Gonski Institute for Education, which was officially launched during an event on Monday. Based in the UNSW Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Institute brings together scholars, policy-makers and practitioners to conduct research that will help improve academic and well-being outcomes particularly for disadvantaged students and those who live in rural and remote Australia.
Adrian Piccoli, director of the Gonski Institute for Education, said it is widely acknowledged that closing the attainment gap is an educational and social imperative and the report further bolsters the argument by quantifying enormous financial gains.
“The typical policy approach to improving economic growth, increasing employment opportunities and improving the standard of living in regional Australia is characterised by major investments from governments into regional infrastructure like roads, rail and hospitals,” Mr Piccoli said. “These investments are welcome, but the huge economic effect of investment in education is often underestimated and undervalued.”
The report, led by UNSW Economics professor Richard Holden, analysed 2017 NAPLAN test scores to measure the educational attainment gap between nonurban and urban students. Using comparable data from the United States measuring differences in educational attainment and the earnings gap between black and white students, researchers scaled Australian results proportionally to determine that the earnings gap between rural, remote and regional Australia compared with urban Australia due to differences in human capital formation is 18.3 percent.
Prof. Holden then mapped the result into economic outcomes by observing how much of economic output is earnt by labour, as opposed to other factors of production.
In Australia, this is currently 57 percent, according to ABS figures. Applying the share of the population living in rural and regional areas in Australia (31.5%) equals an economic gap attributable to differences in human capital of 3.3 percent of GDP. This implies that closing one-third of the gap between rural-remote-regional and urban human capital attainment would increase Australian GDP by 1.1 percent or $18.5 billion. Fully closing the gap represents a $55.5 billion GDP improvement.
Prof. Holden said the report’s findings are conservative as there is also a multiplier effect throughout the economy from increased productivity and wages.
“This report highlights the potential benefits to closing the urban and non-urban education gap, while also pointing to the types of interventions that need to be taken to do so,” Prof. Holden said.
“These are only the direct effects, on wages, of closing the human capital gap. There are important spill-overs in addition to this, such as improvements in physical and mental health and enrichment of communities.”
THE ACCC will not oppose the proposed $6.6 million acquisition by Cabcharge Australia Limited (ASX:CAB) of Mobile Technologies International Pty Ltd (MTI).
MTI is the most widely used provider of taxi dispatch systems to taxi networks in Australia.
The ACCC found that it was unlikely that the acquisition would result in Cabcharge supplying inferior dispatch systems or withholding technology features from rival networks.
“Alternative dispatch system providers are available in Australia and the threat of network switching is likely to provide sufficient constraint on Cabcharge,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said.
The ACCC also investigated concerns that Cabcharge could put rivals at a competitive disadvantage by accessing the dispatch data of competing networks through the MTI system.
“Cabcharge is unlikely to be able to substantially lessen competition through any use of the data. Because of the threat of networks switching to alternative providers, we consider Cabcharge is unlikely to use the data to harm its competitors,” Mr Sims said.
The ACCC also considered whether Cabcharge could harm rival providers of taxi dispatch systems and payment systems by bundling the supply of the MTI dispatch system with its payment terminal.
“It is unlikely that Cabcharge would engage in anti-competitive bundling, as this would risk degrading its payment processing business. Further, drivers generally have another payment terminal available in their vehicles,” Mr Sims said.
Cabcharge is an ASX-listed company that provides services, including booking and dispatch services and taxi network services to its network-affiliated taxi operators and drivers.
Cabcharge does not have its own dispatch technology and uses MTI’s taxi dispatch system and equipment to provide booking and dispatch services to taxis in its network.
MTI is a privately owned Australian company that provides technology for the processing, management and distribution of bookings to the taxi industry.
THE Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources Committee will hold a public hearing in Canberra on Wednesday, 24 October 2018 as part of its inquiry into mining sector support for regional businesses.
The committee will meet with the Minerals Council of Australia, the industry body representing many major mining companies, to discuss ways the mining industry can contribute more to the communities where resources are extracted.
“There’s a lot more mining companies could be doing to help the regions,” said Committee Chair, Barnaby Joyce MP.
“This might be through increasing local procurement and employment, investing in training and skill development, and providing fair payment terms.”
Origin Energy will also be giving evidence at the hearing.
Public hearing details: 10:45am to 12pm, Wednesday, 24 October 2018, Committee Room 1R3, Parliament House, Canberra.
The hearing will be broadcast live at www.aph.gov.au/live
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