European football: Bayern draw delays Guardiola leaving party

Celebrations will have to wait for Bayern Munich. After three eventful years, manager Pep Guardiola is not quite guaranteed to leave the Bundesliga on a high just yet.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1rpFElU

Russia Grand Prix: Rosberg in pole position while Hamilton withdraws from qualifier

Nico Rosberg sailed through the qualifying rounds in Sochi, but Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton suffered another setback.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/24rMN39

Leicester City: Could this be sport's greatest triumph?

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1TaeuW3

FIA president: 'We need to increase the use of electric cars'

There are no defined lanes for the rush-hour traffic that rumbles across the Place de La Concorde in Paris, instead there is a cacophony of angry car horns and impatient engines.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1VX53QQ

Twitter hack could cost Tunsil millions after pot video goes viral

The case of Laremy Tunsil is another example of the perils of social media.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/26B69oB

'The Hulk' racks up 100 races

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1QFePi9

Agassi to play in 1996 rematch

It's been 10 years since Andre Agassi emotionally bid farewell to tennis, leaving behind a career that produced eight major titles, the world No. 1 ranking and an Olympic gold medal.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1T9T37G

South Korea unveils Zika proof uniform

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SygX0I

Ill Williams to miss Madrid Open, Federer in

Serena Williams' health woes continue in 2016 after she pulled out of the Madrid Open, one of the biggest events outside the four majors.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1pNXVb4

Buddhist monks and karma power Leicester to glory

Leicester City stand on the brink of footballing and sporting history.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1NZj8ou

Liverpool's emotional night ends in defeat

Liverpool will need to stage another comeback at home after suffering an agonizing injury-time defeat at Villarreal, whose fans had paid tribute to the victims of the Hillsborough tragedy.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1VVCiUS

The tech that could save lives

Horse racing can be a dangerous sport. CNN Winning Post presenter Aly Vance visits a facility in Sydney that's improving riding equipment to save lives.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SNLGpj

Against all odds: Football fairytale is 'like a dream'

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/23ayoWw

5 things you never knew about Muhammad Ali

There's not much that hasn't been written about Muhammad Ali -- but his lifetime friend and biographer has revealed five things you probably don't know about the legendary boxer.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1pKmmpR

Tiger Woods: Golfer snubs beer from John Daly

They are two golfers at the opposite ends of the lifestyle spectrum.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1N2rykf

'I don't know if I'm an alcoholic'

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1qXmymH

Will you board the UBERyacht?

Recent podcasts: Sanders Demands Clinton Apologize | Guns in America | Radical Islam in America



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1WssXSO

APS begins long journey back to leading on gender equality

[Opinion: Dr Sue Williamson, University of NSW Canberra]

Minister for Women Michaelia Cash this week released a new gender equality strategy for the Australian Public Service [APS].

The importance of this strategy cannot be underestimated. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Australian public sector was lauded as being a model employer for women. In 1973, the Australian government legislated to provide paid maternity leave for its female employees – a landmark achievement at the time. Good conditions of employment, decent pay and job security resulted in increasing numbers of women joining the APS.

From the 1980s, however, the rhetoric of “New Public Management” gained pace. This ethos dictated that the public sector should become more like the private sector – leaner, more productive and more competitive with the private sector in the provision of public services. The role of the public sector as a model employer progressively decreased as services were outsourced and public sector budgets were reduced. Terms and conditions of employment continued to be female-friendly, but arguably major gains were made through collective bargaining, rather than through government or agency policy.

Simultaneously, some organisations introduced gender equality provisions more beneficial than those found in the APS, such as providing 26 weeks paid parental leave, “shared care” leave which provides fathers with up to 50 per cent of their salary for up to six months, making all jobs flexible, and domestic violence leave. The APS was in danger of being left behind.

The new plan

The new strategy is built around five pillars:

• Driving a supportive and enabling workplace culture
• Achieving gender equality in APS leadership
• Working innovatively to embed gender equality in employment practices
• Increasing take-up of flexible work arrangements by both men and women, and
• Measuring and evaluating actions.

The aim of the strategy is to achieve culture change across the public service, harnessing gender equality initiatives to increase performance and productivity in the APS.

The five pillars of the strategy reflect some existing approaches to achieving gender equality in the APS, such as a focus on leadership and culture change.

The strategy, however, also contains new approaches at organisational, APS-wide and national levels. These include:

• The introduction of “panel pledges”, whereby senior managers can ask members of recruitment panels how they will achieve gender balance on a panel
• Working with the public sector in other jurisdictions to “prioritise gender equality in public sector leadership”
• Implementing training on how to conduct gender analysis on government policy, an important function which academics and women’s organisations claim has been downgraded over the years
• Working towards becoming an Employer of Choice as determined by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Currently public sector agencies are exempt from reporting to this agency, and
• Working with the Australian Public Service Commission to evaluate and report on progress.

This strategy presents a new approach to implementing gender equality in the APS, combining culture change, practical initiatives, evaluation, and showcasing best practice. The release of the strategy follows Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s address to the APS last week, where gender equality was dominant, including the need for targets, flexible working arrangements and mentoring for women.

Recently, one commentator lamented the lack of any progress on gender equality in the APS, noting that the levels of women in the more senior levels of the Senior Executive Service continued to be low and that many jobs continued to be based on the full-time male breadwinner model. Additionally, the Community and Public Sector Union has criticised the government’s position on collective bargaining in the APS, claiming the government has attempted to remove or reduce family friendly working arrangements contained in enterprise agreements.

Initial research I have conducted on publicly available documents showed some innovative gender equality initiatives, such as agencies providing domestic violence leave to their employees or formally enabling them to work from home. These are important provisions, though they were only available to employees in select agencies, and additional innovative provisions had yet to surface.

Some agencies, however, do appear to be already leading the way and are adopting a more holistic approach. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently released a far-reaching Women in Leadership strategy. Similarly, over the last five years the Department of Defence has implemented a comprehensive gender equality strategy for its APS employees.

While these initiatives are important and necessary, gender equality in the APS will best be achieved through an APS-wide approach. Until now, there has been a lack of any whole-of-government strategy for gender equality for APS employees. This new strategy signals a welcome change and may well result in the APS once again being a model employer for women.

Dr Sue Williamson is a lecturer in human resource management at the University of NSW Canberra, who is researching best-practice HR policies for women in the public sector.

The post APS begins long journey back to leading on gender equality appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/245eIcu

More consumer leasing spivs than ever; but welfare cash flow down

 

Labor’s Shadow Human Services Minister Senator Doug Cameron has again hit out at the large amount of cash being funnelled from welfare recipients to controversial consumer leasing companies via the Department of Human Services‘ Centrepay automatic deduction facility – but the large amount of bad publicity the high price schemes attract might just be starting to have an impact on their popularity.

Answers to Questions on Notice to Senate Estimates hearings just published reveal a whopping $23.6 million was transferred by Human Services to consumer leasing providers in January 2016 alone, but the welfare payments juggernaut says both the value and volume of payments are now trending down rather than up.

Consumer leasing deals have long been on the nose with social justice advocates, the Opposition and financial regulators because they lock customers into deals that charge huge effective interest rates, sometimes as high as 884 per cent a year for simple household goods like washing machines.

The lucrative schemes have successfully operated in a grey area of the law that skirts the boundary of credit rules by marketing what are effectively high interest loans to buy goods as rental agreements to economically marginalised people with poor financial literacy.

But while the level of controversial welfare payments to companies like Thorn Group’s Radio Rentals – which was recently busted by ASIC for overcharging customers $1.2 million – remains high, Human Services’ latest answers seem to point to a tapering of popularity.

With Estimates given evidence last year that $350 million in welfare money was shelled-out to consumer leasing brokers, the $23.6 million revealed for January 2016 extrapolates to $283.2 million if annualised by multiplying by 12, a fairly reasonable decline.

“The trend for the number of customers using Centrepay to pay for consumer leases, for the period September 2015 to January 2016, is going down,” Human Services said in evidence. “The trend for the amount being disbursed by Centrepay for consumer leases, for the period September 2015 to January 2016, is going down.”

Intriguingly one area that is going up is the number of consumer leasing providers registered to accept payments from Centrepay which jumped from 198 from the last tally last year to 251 in January.

Presumably that means that a shrinking put of money is now being spread more thinly between a bigger number of consumer leasing providers – the consequences of which are still a little unclear.

Meanwhile, Senator Cameron is continuing to direct heavy fire at so-far taciturn Human Services Minister Alan Tudge, Human Services senior management and the Turnbull government.

“While they fiddle at the edges and defend the indefensible, people are being exploited, $23 million per month is being paid out at exorbitant interest rates via Centrepay,” Senator Cameron said, saying Labor would cut off welfare access for consumer leasing companies he said charged exorbitant amounts.

“It could be ended today, if the Minister [Tudge] showed the slightest bit of concern for vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians,” Senator Cameron said.

Mr Tudge’s office has been approached for comment.

The post More consumer leasing spivs than ever; but welfare cash flow down appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1UiOey9

National security triggers airport strike ban, spray by Fair Work

National security is a live wire. (Pic: ABF)

 

The Community and Public Sector Union has suffered a big tactical loss in its highest profile industrial action campaign within the Australian Public Service, after the Fair Work Commission banned further strikes at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, including Border Force, for 90 days on national security grounds.

Fair Work on Wednesday issued an interim decision that suspends protected industrial action at DIBP for 90 days after the department took its case to the industrial umpire complaining that national security arrangements could be compromised or diminished because of union strikes and bans.

Until now airport strikes had been one of the most potent weapons in the CPSU’s dispute arsenal because of their high public profile and impact which demonstrated that those at the coalface of national security have been offered such a dud workplace deal they were left with no option but to strike.

The CPSU throughout its campaign has insisted that the strikes and bans imposed by its members do not compromise security arrangements but rather just slow down processing and screening, sometimes by applying more of it.

However the union’s argument has been hit for six by Commissioner Nick Wilson who found that the CPSU’s evidence “did not persuasively address the matter of how the design and delivery of the protected industrial action impacted upon the ABF’s [Australian Border Force] risk profile.”

[Read the full decision here]

The core of the decision – which will likely be appealed by the CPSU – appears to be a rejection of the argument that operations at the border can be disrupted without hitting risk profiles, especially if the CPSU escalation tactics were aimed at countering the effectiveness of so-called “surge staff” deployed by DIPB and Border Force to counteract the impact of legal walk-offs.

“The evidence compellingly illustrates a highly sophisticated plan for industrial action in which staff may be withdrawn at many locations, for many hours of the day. A consideration for when there were to be walk-offs was the level of impact it would have at that time,” Commissioner Wilson found.

“It also compellingly shows that the intention of the action was to wear down the capacity of the ABF to avoid the action through deployment of surge staff, for reason of the action being sustained for an ongoing period. Without question, the evidence shows the protected industrial action to have had a suffocating effect. The capacity of the ABF to undertake its core functions was seriously affected,” Commissioner Wilson said.

The Fair Work decision is a real problem for the CPSU at DIPB and Border Force because it effectively draws a line under the union’s ability to gradually ratchet up its campaign of stoppages.

Importantly, Fair Work found that the longer that protected stoppages went for, the more the risk of compromised national security was aggravated.

“It becomes foreseeable that criminal or terrorist opportunistic behaviours become more likely as a result, since systemic weaknesses can be more easily identified and exploited. The evidence shows this risk is not merely foreseeable, but that such behaviour more than likely occurred within the recent period of protected industrial action,” Commissioner Wilson wrote.

Although a clear tactical win for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, the latest Fair Work decision doesn’t itself get to the crux of the dispute between CPSU members and their employer that hinges on the dilution and removal of workplace conditions and departmental restructuring that could cost former Customs staff as much as $8000 in take home pay a year.

The already bad blood between the CPSU and DIPB’s senior management is also likely to be exacerbated after the union yielded to a request from the government via Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to voluntarily halt strikes it had previously planned that would have taken place in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels airport terror attacks.

On Thursday there were already back room rumblings that the government will now increasingly seeking to exploit fears over national security and portray union members as militant hot heads that put their own pay ahead of the safety of others.

There are also rumours that the airports dispute and Fair Work’s findings will be used in anti-union online ‘attack ads’ after the Turnbull government declares an election date.

Despite copping a legal bruiser, the CPSU isn’t backing down and greeted the Fair Work decision and order with “extreme disappointment”.

“We’re disappointed with this decision but not surprised by it, given the inherent seriousness of matters related to national security and counter terrorism,” said CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood.

“We are carefully examining the full ruling and taking legal advice to consider whether there may be grounds for an appeal, given the significant inaccuracies in the Commonwealth’s case.”

“We agree our members’ industrial action was designed to have a significant impact on the Border Force and the Government, but categorically reject that this action would have posed a risk to the Australian community,” Ms Flood said.

“We absolutely reject any suggestion that the CPSU or our members in Border Force have done or ever would do anything other than act lawfully and responsibly to fight for their rights, conditions and take-home pay.”

The CPSU immediately hit back at Commissioner Wilson’s decision, saying it contained “significant errors in key planks” and similarly blasted DIPB’s evidence as containing “significant inaccuracies.”

The CPSU said that assertions in evidence of an increased risk to national security had been contradicted by when “Border Force said something different to their own staff in writing” – a fact it says Fair Work ignored.

“We will have more to say in coming days and are looking forward to being able to expose the serious issues raised by the conduct of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Border Force in this case,” Ms Flood said.

In the meantime, politicians preparing to go into an election campaign after next week’s Budget can fly safe in the knowledge they won’t be hit by strikes at the nation’s airports.

The post National security triggers airport strike ban, spray by Fair Work appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1qW9YE3

Better call Saul! Atletico sees off Bayern

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/26vhcjg

Musical golfer: 'We know how to party'

Her country has plenty of political problems ahead of the Rio Olympics but golfer Victoria Lovelady says Brazil's "happy culture" will ensure a "good time" Games.

Popular: Guns in America | Sanders Demands Clinton Apologize | Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1qUPATN

'Despicable' treatment of Hillsborough victims

The way Hillsborough victims' families were treated for more than 20 years by the police, the judiciary, the media -- the establishment -- has been despicable, says CNN's Don Riddell.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1qQayDt

'Castro' caught partying in Las Vegas

International rugby player Martin Castrogiovanni has been suspended by his club after being pictured partying in Las Vegas the same weekend his teammates contested a semifinal match in Europe's top competition.

Recent podcasts: Bernie gets the Axe | Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Graham Opposes GOP Leader



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Wqbavo

Syrian refugee carries Olympic torch

Popular: Radical Islam in America | Graham Opposes Republican Leader | Guns in America



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SAKC67

Nadal wants his drug test results made public

Rafael Nadal is suing the former French health minister for claiming he failed a drug test. And now, in an unprecedented move in tennis, the Spaniard wants the sport's international governing body to make public all of his drug test results.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1pF3OXY

Brazil's Olympics chaos

If opening ceremonies define a nation, Rio's could be chaos.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1T4pELZ

Coach suspended over para-athletes 'gimp' slur

Just days after becoming embroiled in a potentially damaging sexism row, British Cycling is now investigating further allegations of discrimination from within the organization.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SAkXdz

Budget double standard: Victoria’s local councils

 

The peak body for Victorian local government has accused State Premier Daniel Andrews of presenting a budget that squeezes local councils while using its budget surplus to spend up big on other areas.

President of the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) Bill McArthur said he welcomed expenditure on infrastructure, childcare, schools, sport and public transport but said councils were still being left to do the heavy lifting when it came to funding core community services, something that will become harder for them to do since as a 2.5 per cent rate cap kicks in.

Mr McArthur said the State Budget showed Victoria was in a strong financial position but councils were still suffering from cost-shifting.

“However, there’s a worrying budget double standard at play,” Mr McArthur said. “The Government reaped 15 per cent growth in property taxes over the past year while imposing a 2.5 per cent cap on council rates, leaving ratepayers to fund the State’s shortfalls for maternal and child health, school crossings and public libraries.”

He said “massive infrastructure investment” which would boost Victorian jobs and productivity but lamented that the government had “failed to restore equitable funding for core community services co-funded with councils.”

“When the State is in such a strong financial position, there is no excuse for the continued cost shifting onto ratepayers, while maintaining a pretence that the Government is on the side of ratepayers,” he said.

“The budget doesn’t deal with the State’s massive under-investment in recurrent operational funding for public libraries. Ratepayers continue to shoulder an unfair 82 per cent of the financial burden, while the State’s contribution has dwindled from 50 per cent to just 18 per cent.”

Mr McArthur said there were other positives for councils in the budget, such as $4.2 million in planning support for councils, $4 million for councils to manage roadside weeds and pests and $8.2 million for the operation of rural kinders and occasional care.

The Premier will also increase investment in maternal and child health to $133 million, which Mr McArthur called “a step towards restoring 50:50 funding.”

“Councils will also welcome the strong investment in public transport, together with $10 million for early learning centres in growth areas, a $50 million Growing Suburbs Fund, $22.4 million in capital funding for public libraries and continued investment in sporting facilities,” he said.

MAV is keen to sign formal agreements for the community services it delivers in partnership with the state.

“As a matter of principle, local government investment should only continue as long as the Government maintains its matched funding contribution.”

Mr McArthur said the government should also reinstate the $160 million Country Roads and Bridges to help rural communities.

“Rate capping has placed enormous strain on rural shires who have limited revenue, small populations and extensive road networks.”

“Doing more with less only stretches so far. Without extra State investment, rural people face living in a two-tier society as councils struggle to maintain local roads and provide core services. Victorians have a right to expect a minimum level of community services, regardless of where they live.”

The post Budget double standard: Victoria’s local councils appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1NSa44P

Hen parties the new air rage scourge: Aussie airlines

Air rage incidents are down but Australian airlines say they are still wrestling with a steady stream of badly behaved passengers in mid-air.

An Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) report released this week, Responding to Unruly Airline Passengers: The Australian Context, has found that although air rage incidents have fallen over the last seven or eight years, Australian airlines are still dealing with a hardcore group of offenders.

During a roundtable discussion convened by the AIC in June 2015, which brought together Australian airlines, the police and other government agencies involved in airline security, one airline said it dealt with an average of 30 incidents of air rage a month.

Unruly passengers were defined as  people who “through their demeanour, behaviour or failure to comply with cabin crew directions, present a threat to the safety or security of the aircraft or those on board, but who are not engaged in an act of sabotage or terrorism.”

The AIC report also used results from international studies on air rage to inform its study, partly due to the paucity of Australian information on the topic.

Air rage can take its toll on flight crew and passengers alike, such as physical and psychological injury; crew error, plunging crew moral and the cost of diverting the plane to offload a disruptive passenger, not to mention the dangers of an out of control passenger breaching the flight deck.

Bad behaviour

Incidents ranged from the mildly offensive, like swearing at cabin crew or other passengers and refusing to follow instructions to producing a weapon, physical or sexual assault or barging into the cock pit.

Airlines and security agencies discussed a number of incidents including:

Deliberately damaging the aircraft
Tampering with emergency or safety equipment
Breaching the cock pit
Abusive language
Making threats
Obscene or lewd behaviour to other passengers or crew
Intoxication
Smoking on planes
Refusing to fasten seatbelts

Who is doing it?

Historically, men aged between 18 and 35 have been the worst offenders but more women are now joining the fray.

While Australian airline representatives generally agreed that poor behaviour could not be predicted along the lines of characteristics such as gender or ethnicity, certain groups were seen as a bigger risk, including sports teams, fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) mine workers, buck’s or hen’s parties or those flying to a partying destinations, like Bali.

Some airlines have mitigated this risk by, for example, working with mining companies to restrict alcohol access and establishing expectations before take-off, or enforcing uniform wearing during travel.

“Airline representatives noted that spikes in the rate of unruly passenger incidents over the year were associated with an increased volume of passengers travelling to leisure destinations or to major sporting or entertainment events.”

Why are they doing it?

Outburst can be triggered by an intersection of personality, being drunk or high and environmental factors such as bad airline service, rows over seating and the behaviour of other passengers – such as arguments over fully reclined seats.

Contributing factors identified by a 2006-2007 US study included mental health problems and/or substance use; environmental factors such as a cabin being too hot or cold, people being cooped up in confined spaces or carry-on baggage restrictions.

Last year’s Australian airline roundtable revealed that there was no major difference between the level of air rage on high cost and low cost services, possibly because of high levels of service.

Managing unruly passengers: how airlines reduced air rage

Anecdotally, airlines and government agencies suggested a cluster of measures were effective: responsible service of alcohol, identifying and engaging groups of travellers, such as sports teams and previously disruptive passengers; in-flight warnings, employee training, observing passenger behaviour on the ground; passenger bans; use of restraint equipment; incident reports and watch lists.

Roundtable participants said putting in place responsible service of alcohol policies in terminals and on planes had cut the number of incidents on aircraft fuelled by drunkenness, although they also noted it was difficult to tell whether or not a passenger was drunk before they boarded, particularly with more people checking in online or at kiosks.

The AIC report said: “in the absence of breathalysers, even trained personnel are unlikely to accurately judge intoxication levels. At altitude, even passengers with low blood alcohol concentration levels can show impairment, making it harder for aircrew to determine their level of intoxication.

“Given aircrew may find it difficult to detect passenger intoxication, restricting passenger access to alcohol is perhaps the most effective means of reducing intoxication-related incidents.”

Airlines which let travellers use their personal electronic devices, such as tablets and smartphones in flight-mode during the flight reported a drop in incidents.

But passenger frustration bubbled to the service on those airlines that didn’t let people use their devices (because staff hadn’t completed safety requirements) and air rage rose as passengers disobeyed cabin crew.

Conclusions

The AIC report identified a much more co-ordinated, proactive approach from the Australian airline industry to manage unruly passengers but suggested developing a best practice framework to standardise how flight crew managed unruly passengers.

More research and information was also needed on: understanding catalysts for incidents; identifying a passengers’ behaviour, level of intoxication and demeanour before boarding; the nature of and response to incidents and how they’re triggered at rural and metro airports, develop incident resolution policy to provide consistency and direction for airlines, police and regulatory bodies.

The post Hen parties the new air rage scourge: Aussie airlines appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1QzEeK1

Recycling monster truck tyres: big challenge, huge rewards

 

There’s no denying the national scourge of tyre dumping and disposal is a massive environmental problem, but magnify rubber radials to the size of those used on gigantic mining trucks, earth-movers and big tractors and you’ve literally got a monster-size problem.

As Australia’s mining boom cools, resources companies and local councils are being forced to grapple with how to safely and sustainably deal with the estimated 155,000 tonnes of giant rubber – known as Off the Road Tyres or OTRs – discarded each year which are just too big and expensive to move.

Big tyres claim a big chunk of tyre waste stream too, making the problem of OTR disposal as colossal as the giant rubber wheels themselves.

Government commissioned research estimates OTRs make-up close to a third of the toxic spent tyre load, proving size really does matter.

Worse still, OTRs are so big and so heavy that the main way miners get rid of them is by digging an even bigger hole on-site and then just dumping them there – hardly an environmentally sensitive solution.

But that could be about to change.

Australia recycling company, Green Distillation Technologies (GDT) – which first came to attention for pioneering a method to chemically deconstruct old tyres into re-usable oil, carbon and steel – has declared it’s going to try and hit the big time with its unique re-processing approach.

Craig Dunn, GDT’s chief executive, told Government News his company has signed a deal with Tytec Logistics, which deals with big-tyre logistics and remanufacturing, to try and find a way to deconstruct big rubber by applying his company’s technology.

Dunn says that although GDT’s everyday tyre recycling technology is proven, the handling of the oversize tyres so far isn’t – a situation that presents a big opportunity to build a commercial prototype.

“Currently there are no means of recycling these very large tyres and the usual means of disposal is burial in a dump on the mine site, or in an EPA nominated dump,” Dunn says.

“The test plant for the world’s first processing plant for OTR tyres is being built at the GDT complex in Warren, Western New South Wales, with the first OTR operating plant to be built in Perth in 2017.

“Our first concepts have entailed placing our processing chamber horizontal to the ground, rather than the vertical position used for recycling car and truck tyres and using a fork lift and tractor to feed the OTR tyres into the chamber and that approach appears to work quite well, but we need to make it more mechanised.”

The commercial incentive to be able to break down big tyres isn’t hard to figure out.

According to GDT, a tyre that weighs 3.5 tonnes that is broken down using its processes can give back 1500 litres of oil, 1.5 tonnes of carbon plus the steel reinforcing that goes back to the tyre manufacturer for reuse.

Another incentive is that because sustainability is a hotter issue than ever, miners and mining equipment makers have a very real motivation to invest in a process that stops huge tyres from being

buried in mega graveyards all over the world.

Dunn sees strong export potential.

“We believe that after the first operating plant has been built in Perth, there will be a need for other OTR plants in Australia, as well as the United States and South America,” Dunn says.

If that comes off, it could be a lucrative as well as sustainable innovation that bubbles for years to come.

The post Recycling monster truck tyres: big challenge, huge rewards appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1YSIQRy

Ronaldo missing as Real held

It was supposed to be the meeting of two European super powers -- in the end it was one of the most turgid and uninspiring Champions League semifinal contests in recent memory.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1YSuNLz

'Despicable' treatment of Hillsborough victims

The way Hillsborough victims' families were treated for more than 20 years by the police, the judiciary, the media -- the establishment -- has been despicable, says CNN's Don Riddell.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1qQayDt

Tennis champs' $2.9M prize

The world's top tennis players will compete for a bumper $2.9 million after Wimbledon hiked its top prize ahead of the season's third grand slam tournament.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SxzxCA

Global reaction to stadium tragedy verdict

The Hillsborough stadium disaster of 1989 was a tragedy that transcended sport.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Tbd6TE

29 amazing sports photos

Take a look at 29 amazing sports photos from April 19 through April 25.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/24hxEkS

Hillsborough verdict: Criminal prosecutions could follow

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1UeFzwC

Hillsborough disaster: Mom 'denied final cuddle with dead son'

Margaret Aspinall lost her son James in the Hillsborough soccer stadium disaster and has battled for justice through the Hillsborough Family Support group.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1WnH382

Rugby on the rise in Hong Kong

CNN World Rugby explores how the professionalization of rugby in Hong Kong is helping the game grow

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Tuqfts

Hillsborough: 96 soccer fans unlawfully killed, jury finds

After more than two years, a British inquest into the 1989 Hillsborough soccer stadium tragedy in which 96 men, women and children died, has delivered its verdicts on a series of key questions. It is the longest case heard by a jury in British legal history.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/26qOXlF

Rates time bomb for NSW mega councils

Pic: Defusable Alarm Clock by Nootropic Design.

 

A four-year freeze on rates for newly merged NSW councils is a ticking time bomb, says the state’s local government peak body.

Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) held a public forum today (Tuesday) to thrash out possible changes to how rates are calculated, including examining how NSW Premier Mike Baird can impose the extended freeze on amalgamating councils’ rates and whether  councils should be able to apply for a special rate rise during this time.

Read more about the inquiry here.

Mr Baird has said he wants merging councils to stick to a rating trajectory as if they had not merged and he is under pressure to keep his promise that rates will not rise – and may even fall – under new mega councils.

Shaun McBride, Senior Strategy Manager at Local Government NSW (LGNSW), called it “bad policy” and said: “Apart from freezing [rates], you almost set a time bomb for the end of year four”, when he said ratepayers could be hit with sudden rate hikes.

“This policy is going to mean harmonisation doesn’t really commence until year four, when I think you should be completing the rate structure harmonisation by the end of year four,” he said. “We can foresee all types of problems with this.”

Mr McBride said the rates freeze conflicted with the stated main aim of the Fit for the Future program, which was to make councils financially stable.

“It will create and perpetuate division in the community between councils with higher or lower rate structures and prolong the process.

“At the end of the four-year period councils might go for a one-off increase in special rate variations and the difference between high rating [councils] and low rating has probably grown in that period.”

LGNSW President Keith Rhoades said the terms of reference for the inquiry directed IPART to recommend the best way to freeze rate paths for four years.

“It’s understandable that the State Government wants to be seen as the good guys in this exercise – but the reality is that a four-year rate path freeze for amalgamating councils will only exacerbate the very real problems the review is supposed to help fix,” Mr Rhoades said. “We’re undermining the chance of a comprehensive solution before we start.”

“It’s easy to label councils greedy or lazy in a three-second sound-bite, but that sort of superficial approach achieves nothing,” he said.

“It certainly doesn’t deliver the outcome we all want, which is a financially sustainable local government system able to deliver the right level of services to residents and ratepayers.”

Rates are one of the many complicated issues that merging councils need to address. There may be large differences in rates and service levels between merging councils, as well as differences in fees and charges, such as parking fines.

The aim is to equalise these elements over the years under the new, larger councils but it is up for debate how gradually this should be done and when the transition should begin.

LGNSW has argued the last three decades of ratepegging, combined with freezing the indexation of Financial Assistance Grants and higher levels of cost-shifting from state and federal government onto local councils has caused a hefty infrastructure backlog and misery for local councils.

The organisation backs a proposal allowing merging councils to apply for special rate variations under a broad range of circumstances, including to finance new infrastructure or to renew existing infrastructure.

Other subjects for discussion during the IPART review include changing the method used to calculate rates. One suggestion is to base them on the Capital Improved Value (CIV) of land – more easily understood by the public as the market value – rather than the Unimproved Land Value.

NSW Valuer General Simon Gilkes said that developing a database capable of capturing this information – would cost “tens of millions”, although this could obviously be balanced by any increases in revenue if the system was introduced.

Victoria, which bases its rates on the CIV, has had a database capturing property improvements since the 1960s.

“We need to capture a lot of data to move to a new capital improvement value system. It’s complex and expensive,” Mr Gilkes said.

It is a switch that many local councils support, particularly those in high density areas, as it would push apartment owners to pay higher rates, although it could also discourage people from doing renovations.

There was also heated debate over whether the raft of organisations entitled to rate exemptions should change, this includes schools, hospitals, churches and charities.

Local government is also pushing the state to fully fund rate rebates given to pensioners, which is currently a 50:50 deal in NSW but fully funded in other states, such as South Australia and WA.

The General Manager of Tumut Shire Council, Bob Stewart, said 62 per cent of his council’s area was unrateable as it contained thousands of kilometres of state forest, national parks and dams. Mr Stewart said that some commercial companies were exempt from rates, despite turning a profit and using council-provided services.

Mr McBride said some rating exemptions were a hangover from the late 1800s and they were overdue for a rethink. LGNSW backs partials or scaled exemptions or rate rebates to “better target exemptions” instead of the current system.

Submissions to the IPART rates review close on May 13 and an interim report expected to land on NSW Local Government Minister Paul Toole’s desk in June. The final report is expected in December 2016.

The post Rates time bomb for NSW mega councils appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1Vzkpuo

NFL star's 'Deflategate' ban reinstated

A federal appeals court on Monday ruled in favor of the NFL in the "Deflategate" case, reinstating New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's original four-game suspension imposed by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1MTHzZM

Tennis star Nadal sues politician over doping claims

Rafa Nadal is so tired of rumors linking him to doping that he has launched a defamation lawsuit against a former French health minister.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SJ71mZ

Juventus: Italy's 'Old Lady' claims fifth straight Serie A title

Juventus claimed its fifth consecutive Serie A title Monday without kicking a ball, after nearest rival Napoli was beaten 1-0 by Roma in the Italian capital.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1pyzCxO

Pele: Biopic brings Brazilian great to tears

To any fan of the beautiful game, Pele is much more than just a retired footballer: He's a global icon.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1XSaQV0

You've never seen flags like these

Hidden within London's Maritime Museum is a treasure trove of hundreds of vintage sea flags. We unravel their secret meaning.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SICq9c

Amid tight security, electric race breathe new life into Paris

France remains in a state of high alert after last November's terror attacks and choosing to stage a major sporting event in the heart of the capital is a nerve-wracking affair.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1rcB6Pw

Conor McGregor: Diaz rematch is back on

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Sn2moK

'Go and have a baby' spurned Olympic cyclist told

British cyclist Jess Varnish says the team's technical director told her she was "too old" and to "go and have a baby" after she was cut from the Olympic squad.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1YPYrRR

Would Sonny Bill model underwear?

They both rugby sevens superstars at the top of their game, but how well do Sonny Bill Williams and Niall Williams know each other?

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Sn2moG

Nate Ebner: NFL to rugby sevens

CNN's Christina Macfarlane catches up with NFL to rugby sevens convert, Nate Ebner, on the sidelines of the Hong Kong Sevens

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1YPYugs

Snakeskin superfan who won over NBA

Basketball's number one superfan just embarked on his annual playoff pilgrimage, launching with a whopping 16 games in two weeks. Stops include Oakland, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles, where he lives high in the most tasteful -- and architecturally iconic -- bachelor pad in town.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/230yhNl

Nadal ties tennis legend with Barcelona title

Rafael Nadal matched a tennis legend Sunday and laid down another marker ahead of his attempt to win a 10th French Open title.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1TrH7B6

Stand-in Ulloa doubles up as Leicester closes on title

Leicester City's improbable march towards the English Premier League title gathered more pace Sunday with a 4-0 victory over Swansea at the King Power Stadium.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1NqK8SW

UFC chief hits back in Conor McGregor row

The organizers of the Ultimate Fighting Championship have confirmed that mixed martial artist Conor McGregor will be replaced in an upcoming fight due to his failure to appear for promotional engagements.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1UaXEM7

Kenyan double in London after start from space

British astronaut Tim Peake provided the countdown for the 36th London Marathon on Sunday before running his own virtual version of the race on a treadmill hundreds of miles above the Earth.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1pvfv3r

Rafael Nadal one match from equaling clay-court record

Rafael Nadal continued his flawless start to the European clay-court season by beating Philipp Kohlschreiber to book his place in the Barcelona Open final Saturday.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1QuL8jI

Goal-machine Luis Suarez keeps Barcelona top

Luis Saurez scored four goals for the second game in a row as Barcelona thrashed Sporting Gijon 6-0 at the Nou Camp Saturday.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1MPIudJ

Late Anthony Martial goal puts Manchester United in FA Cup final

Anthony Martial scored an injury time goal to give Manchester United a dramatic 2-1 victory over Everton Saturday and with it a place in the FA Cup final for the first time in nine years.

Recent podcasts: Bernie gets the Axe | Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Graham Opposes GOP Leader



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1QuL6Iu

Formula E falls in love with Paris

Paris has plenty of world-famous landmarks but it can now add a Formula E race to its list of attractions.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1VPCioI

Liverpool's Sakho faces UEFA doping probe

Liverpool defender Mamadou Sakho is being investigated by UEFA over a possible anti-doping rule violation, the club has confirmed.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SWMnJR

Tiger Woods: Is golfer close to a comeback?

Is he, or isn't he?



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1Tnp3YV

Barca can still achieve "brilliant season" says Puyol

Despite a difficult few weeks, Barcelona legend Carles Puyol believes his former club can still achieve a "brilliant season."



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1XN5p9V

Formula E: Paris transformed for historic first ePrix

Formula E can expect a certain je ne sais quoi as the championship prepares for first Paris ePrix.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1VMh6Qh

Racing fast boats: Competing for the money and the glory

With the biggest single prize purse in world sailing - $1 million - The World Match Racing Tour is encouraging skippers and teams to compete at the highest level of racing.

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SAXa2D

2016 World Match Racing Tour: The First event

Join CNN's Shirley Robertson in Fremantle, Australia, at the first event of the new look tour as she talks to some of the world's greatest sailors about competing for glory.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1TnbvfO

Hamilton and Vettel would have 'hard time' in Formula E

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have won seven Formula One world titles between them but could they replicate their success in motorsport's Formula E series?

Podcast favorites: Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Bernie gets the Axe | Guns in America



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1VpFjMo

Stephen Curry makes Time's 100 Most Influential list

As though captaining the Golden State Warriors to the greatest season in NBA history is not enough of an achievement, Stephen Curry has now made Time's 100 Most Influential People list.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1YKwj2s

Why icy roads breed F1 champions

Valtteri Bottas on the secret behind Finland's Formula One success.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1T2RB7q

Queensland to overhaul complaints system governing councillors

Overhauling complaints system, Jackie Trad. Pic: Facebook

 

 The Queensland state government will recalibrate how local councils deal with complaints about mayors and councillors.

The Palaszczuk government has ordered a review into the way complaints are managed in-house, procedures left unchanged since 2009 when they were introduced.

QLD Deputy Premier Jackie Trad said she had rethought her original decision to disallow a review after getting feedback from local government stakeholders, including the Local Government Managers Association (LGMA) and Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ).

Ms Trad had previously declined to conduct a review into local government complaints, calling the current procedure “adequate.”

But she said she changed her mind after LGMA contacted her expressing concern about the potential for conflicts of interest for local council general managers and CEOs when handling and managing complaints.

She was also swayed by LGAQ’s voicing concerns over there being no scope to review or appeal decisions and to  “better ensure natural justice is afforded to all parties.”

“These procedures have not been comprehensively reviewed since they were introduced in 2009 and this review is timely to ensure there is a modern, fair, transparent and accountable system in place to manage complaints,” Ms Trad told Parliament.

“The review will examine the statutory provisions relating to complaints to assess the effectiveness of the current legislative and policy framework and make recommendations about policy, legislative and operational changes required to improve the system of dealing with complaints about councillors’ conduct,” she said.

The review will be conducted by an independent panel led by former Integrity Commissioner David Solomon. The panel will also include former Noosa mayor Noel Playford and former Logan City chief executive Gary Kellar with a report expected within six months.

LGAQ chief executive Greg Hallam said the need for a review of the complaints process was highlighted by “a high level of smear against candidates” during recent local government elections in Queensland.

“We want the process tightened so it can’t be used as a political tool and that is why this review is welcome,’’ Mr Hallam said.

“At the moment, there are some complaints that go to the Remuneration and Discipline Tribunal, some that are dealt with by the councils themselves and still others handled by the local government department. Trying to decide who has the remit can be difficult.”

 

 

The post Queensland to overhaul complaints system governing councillors appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1SzH7SI

International flights could take off as Hobart Airport runway extended

An extra 500 metres of runway could transform Hobart Airport into Hobart International Airport and allow flights between the Asia-Pacific region and Tasmania.

The federal government has approved a 500-metre extension to the runway at Hobart Airport, in a move which could electrify Tasmania’s already buoyant tourist economy.

Tasmania already enjoys an excellent reputation with tourists, with its accent on pristine natural beauty, gourmet produce, world-class wines and old-fashioned charm alongside the expanding global reputation of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art.

Tourism & Transport Forum Australia (TTF) welcomed the runway extension and said tourism had been “a standout performer for the state’s economy.”

According to TTF’s most recent research, international visitors to Tasmania are increasing – up an impressive 20 per cent to 212,000. The money they spend is not to be sniffed at either, with $351 million lavished in the apple isle, up a whopping 34 per cent and the strongest performer of all the States and Territories.

“The approval of the extension of Hobart Airport’s runway is fantastic news that will only help to boost the Tasmanian visitor economy even more,” said Margy Osmond, TTF CEO.

“TTF has been a vocal advocate of the need to upgrade visitor infrastructure in Tasmania and provide better access for international visitors.

“How exciting that we are getting so close to the point of finally being able to light up ‘international’ in Hobart International Airport.”

Ms Osmond praised Federal Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester and Tourism Minister Richard Colbeck for sealing the deal and said it had “the potential to turbocharge the Tasmanian visitor economy and open new opportunities.”

“Tassie is becoming an international visitor magnet, so it makes sense for the government to get moving on providing the infrastructure that will finally connect Hobart with the largest international visitor markets for Australia in our broader region,” Ms Osmond said.

“Imagine what could happen if you could get on an aeroplane in China and fly direct to Tasmania – it would be an absolute boon for the apple isle. Every aeroplane that lands loaded with international visitors at Hobart Airport is more jobs and more economic opportunity for Tasmania.”

She said that direct international flights into Hobart could also generate a financial windfall to the Tasmania’s regional economies.

The post International flights could take off as Hobart Airport runway extended appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/23MWmg8

In 650 words Conor McGregor says he's not retiring ... and more

Irish mixed martial artist Conor McGregor said Thursday in an expletive-laden Facebook post, "I AM NOT RETIRED."

Popular: Radical Islam in America | Graham Opposes Republican Leader | Guns in America



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1SwbiHh

Sepp Blatter: 'My phone is still ringing'

Sepp Blatter may be exiled from football but the former FIFA president says his phone hasn't stopped ringing since he was deposed as the leader of the game's global governing body.



source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/1QpQHzU

Olympic flame lit

source CNN.com - Sport http://ift.tt/24469eK

Labor vows to kill toxic APS bargaining policy

Let it rip: Brendan O’Connor (pic: Facebook)

 

Labor’s Shadow Employment Minister Brendan O’Connor has finally put Australian Public Service chiefs on notice an election win by his party would immediately junk the current deadlocked bargaining policy and offer a better pay deal.

The declaration by the Opposition creates a fresh headache for agency heads still officially tasked with attempting to secure workplace deals before the commencement of a pre-election caretaker period because it could force them to make an invidious gamble on which political side may win.

“A Shorten Labor Government will remove the Abbott-Turnbull Government requirement that forces agencies to strip rights and we will provide a fair pay outcome that will ensure workers do not go backwards in real terms, unlike the Abbott-Turnbull Government,” Mr O’Connor said in a statement.

It is understood some senior public servants had been hoping attempts to force the divisive bargaining process to a conclusion would be effectively parked by both the Coalition and Labor until after the anticipated July election, giving both the bureaucracy and whoever is elected clear air to reset the deadlocked process.

Mr O’Connor’s statement on Thursday followed an extensive speech by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the public service the day before which conspicuously blanked the issue of bargaining and strikes and instead painted a broad picture of need for performance improvements that could be delivered by technology.

Mr Turnbull’s speech was interpreted by many as a nuanced signal bargaining parameters would be substantially recalibrated in the event the Coalition is returned.

With an election looming, Labor’s Shadow Employment Minister was not about to let the opportunity of highlighting one of the Turnbull government’s enduring problems slip away.

“Mr Turnbull is blackmailing workers,” Mr O’Connor said.

“Thousands of workers have already lost important workplace rights and many thousands more face doing so as the way out of the Abbott-Turnbull Government’s imposed wage freeze.”

Labor is yet to put a number on what a new pay offer may look like, although the prominent commitment to come up with an offer that is not negative “in real terms” suggests it will need to be at least as good as inflation –which remains at record lows.

A major absence from Mr O’Connor’s pledge is any commitment to back pay, an issue the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is likely to pursue in the event of a Labor win.

The CPSU immediately welcomed Mr O’Connor’s stand.

“Public sector workers and their bosses will both welcome Labor providing a sensible solution to this two-year bargaining dispute caused by the hard-line ideology of the Abbott-Turnbull Government,” said CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood.

“It’s an absolute mess, with over 120,000 employees still without a new agreement.”

The post Labor vows to kill toxic APS bargaining policy appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/26gJYUA

Turnbull to APS: get smart get creative prosper

 

[analysis + speech]

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched a pre-emptive strike on long-running industrial discontent in the Australian Public Service, albeit not a stated one.

Using an address to hundreds of bureaucrats summoned to Parliament House’s Great Hall under the auspices of the Institute for Public Administration Australia on 20^th April, the PM sought to paint a conciliatory and positive picture of what’s expected under his current and potential future leadership.

As enterprise bargaining negotiations remain painfully deadlocked after two years, the vision now being pushed from the top is that substantial change and improvements are expected from the APS, they should come from public servants being more creative, open minded and smarter about how they work to achieve outcomes – rather than just working harder and longer.

While bargaining and APS industrial relations were glaringly absent from the PM’s speech, clearly a deliberate omission, the broader narrative being put forward is that improvements in service delivery, the quality of advice and policy development will now necessarily come from technological uplift rather than demanding the public service makes sacrifices on conditions.

“We must all commit to learn about the technology at our disposal. That is non-negotiable,” Mr Turnbull said before calling out the Digital Transformation Office as a catalyst for that change.

“Program analytics, decision-making times, application and processing times can all be improved,” Mr Turnbull said.

“These will deliver more accurate insights and, most importantly, better outcomes for the public. More accurate insights, more real time insights are much more useful for all of us to make the decisions that Australia depends upon, because after all that’s our core mission – to improve the lives of the people we serve – the Australian public.”

The conspicuous push for older senior public servants (apparently that’s now over 40) to start becoming much smarter consumers of technology – and that includes its internal development – is a marked change in tone, and one that matters.

At its core is a departure from the punitive rhetoric about comparatively low productivity rates, overly cushy or obstructive workplace conditions and an adversarial relationship between the broader APS workforce and ministers and senior management who feel a whip needs to be cracked to frighten unsackable employees into performing.

In its place is a direct appeal to the workforce to lose much of the baggage and resistance to new methods of working that although unfamiliar, will produce better, faster outcomes and logically take some of the traditional workload pressure off.

Implicit in that appeal is that these changes are, through external pressures, largely unavoidable and will flow with tide of generational change even if initially resisted.

“Plenty of course changing for the APS in 2016 – digital disruption; greater transparency in data and information; contestability of advice; and rising community expectations for fast and personalised government services, are just a few of the challenges you face,” Mr Turnbull said.

“These are not challenges to be avoided or regretted, they must be embraced.  In this new economy, we need Australians to be more innovative more entrepreneurial – and government should be the catalyst.”

The absence of any reference to bargaining or industrial relations will necessarily be interpreted by the Labor Opposition and the Community and Public Sector Union as a deliberate avoidance and wilful ignorance by Turnbull of a hardline workplace policy that sought to make the public service the exemplar for a broader industrial relations push to chase unions out of private sector workplaces.

In many respects it is, but the motivation for the omission of IR more likely comes from convenience rather than conspiracy; it’s simply more practical for Turnbull to ignore and blank the obvious mistakes of his predecessors and call his own tune, thereby avoiding rubbing salt into lingering internal animosities.

For Turnbull to publicly repudiate the government’s long running bargaining position, one largely constructed by a former minister removed from the front bench with the blessing of a former Prime Minister that scared his own side so much he was dumped, would merely hand a potent political bludgeon to Labor with no upside.

Far shrewder to let able and willing ministers like Michaelia Cash take the heat – and paint an alternative picture on the sideline.

If the disruptive workplace changes Turnbull is talking about take hold, they could fundamentally challenge the relevance of unions that have quite logically resisted the introduction of automation technologies – because they reduce the number people needed to do a job.

Former Employment and Public Service Minister Senator Eric Abetz was the biggest gift to Community and Public Sector Union recruiters in a decade.

Turnbull knows far better than to revive him through acknowledgement.

Here’s the transcript of Prime Minister’s speech in full to the APS in full:

 

PRIME MINISTER: Well thank you very much Martin, I am delighted to be here today to share with you all, and as Glenys Beauchamp just advised me, the three and a half thousand watching this event on the internet, I want to share with you my vision for a twenty first century Public Service. And there are so many great Public Servants here today. But I just want to acknowledge one, in particular, who has been of enormous assistance and support to me and the Government, since I became Prime Minister, and that is of course the former Secretary of the Department of Communications, Drew Clarke, who is my Chief of Staff. I want to thank Drew for his great support in providing the benefit of years of experience and wisdom in providing a very keen understanding, and a strong link to the Australian Public Service so that the Prime Minister’s office and the APS work together each I trust getting the best out of the other in the national interest.

Now there is no doubt that we live in a time of rapid transformation.

The world, let alone the APS, is in uncharted territory in many respects. Just like the economy, the Australian Public Service is disrupted by forces which it cannot control.  One might say therefore that there has never been a more exciting time to be a member of the Australian Public Service.

The challenges of these circumstances are many and complex.  The best tools we have in times like this, in times of volatility, are resilience, agility and adaptability.

At the most fundamental level, our democracy depends on a reliable, dedicated and responsive bureaucracy.  A robust political environment, and a well-functioning Public Service, can, and indeed must, co-exist.

Now, the meaning of ‘responsive’ of course may have changed for the Public Service from a century ago.  My own Department’s role has changed significantly, from that which managed the sale of wool to Britain and, on Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce’s directive, supplied ships at sea, and I quote, each day with “…full reports of the important cricket matches’.

Those of you who are not involved in central agencies may have wondered what they do, well there you go, there’s an important central agency responsibility.

One hundred years ago, no-one could have foreseen the breadth that the Australian Public Service now encompasses. Now, more than 150,000 professionals with experience in areas as diverse as foreign policy, climate change, aged care, cybersecurity, digital transformation, advise on and implement public policy. The reality is, the Government could not formulate or implement any policy of substance without our Public Service. And I can tell you that my Government knows and respects the true value of the Australian Public Service.

We know that we are fortunate to have at our disposal the knowledge, the experience the passion of people who have chosen to serve the government of the day and, in turn, the Australian community who put them there.  And we want to hear your advice. We want you to tell us what you believe is best for Australia, not what you think the adviser in your minister’s office wants to hear.

You work for the Australian people and if you have that at the heart of all policy development, we will get the frank and fearless, apolitical advice that has been the hallmark of the APS over its lifetime. And in the midst of rapid change, that attribute should remain a constant. And plenty of course changing for the APS in 2016 – digital disruption; greater transparency in data and information; contestability of advice; and rising community expectations for fast and personalised government services, are just a few of the challenges you face.

These are not challenges to be avoided or regretted, they must be embraced.  In this new economy, we need Australians to be more innovative more entrepreneurial – and government should be the catalyst.

For those who want an insight into just how government can stymie innovation and entrepreneurship, I recommend Marcus Westbury’s book, Creating Cities. Marcus Westbury was the brains behind the highly successful ‘Renew Newcastle’ project, which used the ideas and imaginations of the city’s residents to revitalise the city’s abandoned CBD. But the success of the project was in spite of government, not because of it.

Westbury said that finding answers to simple questions about zoning and leasing of empty shops and offices was virtually impossible. For any doubters, he challenged them to call a government switchboard and find the right person to give you both a definitive and comprehensible answer.

Government has to do better. The new economy, our future depends on it. The prosperity of our nation depends on it. We are already of course seeing instances of government transforming the way we do business.

My own department, for example, not traditionally known for cutting-edge, risk-taking behaviour, has begun to explore a new approach to IT projects.  My department is collaborating with the Department of Social Services, using a small, low-cost project to improve the management of grants.  It’s a ‘learn fast, keep moving’ approach, modelled on good private sector practice.  It uses off-the-shelf products that are configured rather than coded.  This saves development time and cost; enables the latest internet-based business processes; and improves both user and provider experience.

Now that’s why I have placed the Digital Transformation Office in my Portfolio, and appointed an Assistant Minister to focus on the task.  I want digital transformation. Digital transformation must be at the heart of government, and therefore it must be whole-of-government.

Program analytics, decision-making times, application and processing times can all be improved.  These will deliver more accurate insights and, most importantly, better outcomes for the public. More accurate insights, more real time insights are much more useful for all of us to make the decisions that Australia depends upon, because after all that’s our core mission – to improve the lives of the people we serve – the Australian public.

I know that innovative thinking is not new to the Public Service.  Every year, for the past 14, the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in the Public Sector have showcased exceptional innovation at every level of government. Last year’s awardees included my old Department of Communications, which completed the world’s largest free-to-air spectrum switch without disrupting broadcasters or viewers. And the Tasmanian Department of Education received the Gold award for a web portal that provides school leaders with real-time data about every single student in their school.

It takes a high standard of leadership, planning and governance to bring these ideas to fruition, but the results are outstanding and I want to see more of this within the APS.

Of course, innovation and technology go hand-in-hand.  An unwillingness to embrace technology is, to put it bluntly, is simply not acceptable. Cities expert and futurist, Dr Chris Luebkeman, who was in Australia, recently, spoke of a ‘clay layer’ in some businesses. This layer consists in some instances of managers – in the 40 plus age bracket – who did not grow up with the digital technology of today, do not fully understand it and, in some instances, fear it. And that fear, according to Dr Luebkeman, acts as a barrier to its implementation, and not only does a disservice to the managers, but inhibits the success of their business.

Dr Luebkeman suggested it’s time for some reverse mentoring; for baby boomers and Gen X to swallow their pride and call on the millennials to share their experience of the technology that is second nature to them. Now we may not all understand instantly new technology, but we can learn and we must, because technology and data will transform the way we work.  It will make our interactions with the public better, and it will help us to deliver services more efficiently.

We must all commit to learn about the technology at our disposal. That is non-negotiable. You have a fantastic service at your disposal, here in the APS, to support you on this journey – the Digital Transformation Office – and I encourage you all to familiarise yourselves with their work and engage with them directly. And as somebody who is well over forty, but also reasonably adaptive to technology, let me give you a key.

My old partner in OzEmail, Sean Howard, always used to say there was plenty of technology. But what was in short supply was technological imagination. This is a very important point.  So what that means is, understand the functionality of what is on offer and then open your mind and imagine what you can do with it. You can make a difference. Plenty of technology, plenty of imagination, not enough technological imagination. Open your minds and be bold.

Now when the Australian Public Service Commissioner, John Lloyd, released the State of the Service Report last year, he said the APS is well positioned to meet the challenges of today but cannot be complacent. It must identify gaps in capability, performance and productivity and strive for improvement.

But some of those capability gaps will be found in the use of technology. Some will be in training. Some will be in leadership. Such is the rapid and exhaustive nature of the changes we face.

I encourage each of you to take stock of your leadership skills and see where you can improve – and I mean each and every member of the APS. Because I expect leadership to be shown at every level.

I also expect to see more leadership on gender equality in the Public Service.  While the number of women at all levels from APS 1 to EL 1 has now reached parity with or succeeded men, women still fall behind from EL 2 and into senior leadership.

Now last month my Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash – I should say later this month – Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash will release the APS Gender Equality Strategy, which will set out how we can create an APS where both men and women have the same opportunity to develop and lead. You have seen an example of the Government’s intentions and ambitions in this regard, with the way in which we have set out a clear goal of 50 per cent women for appointees to government boards. That should be the target. That should be the target, we won’t always reach it but that should clearly be the target. Gender equality is an important, a critical objective in the APS. This is an opportunity to drive lasting change to remove gender bias from recruitment, promotion and retention and to do away with practices that operate sight unseen, to steer women into certain public service roles and men into others. Reporting on gender equality at all levels in agencies, adopting flexible-by-default policies and measuring progress, are some elements that will see the APS lead again as a workplace of the future – for women and for men.

I know Martin Parkinson, as a Champion of Change, led the way with an “if not why not” approach to flexible work at Treasury.  I commend him for challenging accepted norms, and for introducing gender targets for the first time in the Treasury’s history. It is that sort of leadership we need by all Secretary’s, agency heads, managers and supervisors across the APS if we are going to drive further transformative change.

Now let me say something further about workplace flexibility. We have the ability to be very flexible in 2016. Now the technology of course enables that. I can tell you from my own experience, through Lucy and my experience, through all the different businesses we’ve run and been responsible for over the years. We’ve always focussed on workplace flexibility, because we know that it enables gender equality and it enables workers, men and women to have a much better family-work balance. This is absolutely critical. As Jack Fergusson the old deputy-premier of New South Wales and father of Mark and Laurie, and the rest of the Fergusson clan said to me in 1976 when I was a young political journalist; he said “Malcolm. Young Malcolm”, he said – he always used to called young Malcolm and I suppose I was then – “young Malcolm,” he said, “peace on the home front is worth ten percent on the basic wage.”

[Laughter]

It was a very wise insight and its one that stuck with me ever, it’s one that stuck with me ever since. It is a really important priority – as a leader, as a manager of a business, of a Department, of an agency, of a unit of a section – part of your job is as far as you can, to make sure that the people that you are responsible for are able to get the right balance between home and work. Of course you can’t make people happy if they’re not happy and so forth. But it’s really, it is a very important criterion, it’s a very important objective. It’s one I’ve always taken very seriously and I know that it results in better teams, more successful teams, better productivity, better output. It’s not a worthy objective, in the sense of being idealistic, and just some kind of ideal objective. It is worthy of course but it is also a very practical one and I encourage you to think about it. Just keep that in your mind.

Now we’ve also got to study and understand what has worked and what has failed in public policy around the world.  That should be a core competence of policy-makers – to learn from the experience of others.

This leads me to collaboration. One area of public policy where collaboration and learning from others is critical, is our cities agenda. In our quest to build more liveable, accessible, productive cities – smart cities if you will- the centrepiece of the agenda will be the concept of the ‘city deal’.

The city deal approach used in the United Kingdom has been instrumental in the renaissance of Manchester and Glasgow, and we believe there are many elements that can be applied in Australia.

But it requires a firm commitment to collaboration.  Success is dependent on federal, state and local governments agreeing on a set of long-term goals for cities, and the investments, policies and regulatory settings to achieve them. In this way we can leverage our infrastructure and services to drive national priorities, such as job creation and affordable housing.

And the private sector, which also stands to benefit from city deals, must see itself as a partner.

What this all amounts to is, we simply cannot do business the way we used to.  Government can’t, industry can’t and the Public Service can’t.

I talk a lot about people being this country’s greatest asset. Because the next boom is the ideas boom. It is one limited only by our imagination and our enterprise. So it is the one boom that can go forever.

Now I want the APS to be part of that boom.  That is why one of the pillars of the Government’s Innovation Agenda is ‘government as an exemplar’. I want you to be bold in your thinking.  I want you to lead by example.

The APS and, likewise, the Government and the public, must accept that we may not get policy right the first time.  We may have to rethink a policy or program if it is not getting the desired result. The world is changing too rapidly for policy to be ‘set and forget’.

Adaptive government encourages experimentation on a small scale so that, in the case of a policy not working, the losses are also small in scale. There is no shame in adjusting a policy. There is shame in ignoring the fact it is not working, knowing we are wasting taxpayers’ money, and doing nothing about it.

Certainly, innovative thinking must be grounded in robust evidence and we must not be restricted by the way things were done in the past. This is a new era for the Public Service and, if I may paraphrase Robert Browning, your reach, our reach should exceed our grasp. This is a time for ambitious leadership and that is my wish for the APS. I want to see Commonwealth Public Servants who are filled with a curiosity and a true desire to make a difference.

My expectations for you, the APS are high because I know what it is you’re capable of doing. While efficiency will always be important, in the long run, it will be quality that makes the difference. And experience is one of the foundations of quality.  Just as it is important for the long-serving managers to listen to the ideas of younger tech-savvy staff, the newer APS officers have much to learn from those who hold the institutional memory and have experience of the policy creation and implementation process.

Laura Tingle’s Quarterly Essay, Political Amnesia, highlighted the hazards of the APS losing the power of the anecdote when trying to influence a minister and the ability to remember what Tacitus called the “dangerous past” –  that which gives us a conscious and unconscious context for our understanding of contemporary events.

I cannot stress enough the importance I place on mentoring and on being mentored.

It is through that process that knowledge is transferred, talent identified, and that is critical because talent is the real asset of the APS. The APS’s asset is you. It’s the human capital just like Australia’s greatest asset, the 24 million Australians, not the rocks under the ground.

We need an APS that believes in continuous improvement – staffed by intelligent, motivated officers – as much in touch with the local community as they are with the global community.

My Government is determined to grasp the enormous opportunities presented by this time of rapid change and I expect nothing less from the Australian Public Service.

The key to success for a 21st century APS is to embrace innovation and technology – to think big and bold and to be committed to learning and leadership at every level.

I want to thank you all, every one of you, for your role in good government and I thank you too for your dedication, often in a whole lifetime’s career, to serving the Australian people. Thank you.

[Applause]

DR MARTIN PARKINSON: Prime Minister, thank you for those thoughtful words and especially encouragement for us to be bold and imagining a better future. Two things that are probably worth noting in that respect is the Secretaries Board at its last meeting agreed to establish a diversity council. Of all of the secretaries and some external members, in part as we have agreed as a group on the importance of us stepping forward as leaders to lead the policies that Minister Cash will announce on behalf of your Government. And we also agreed to establish a talent council to be led by Finn Pratt, to seek out and build the leadership capability that we think will be needed in this new environment. These are two initiatives that the board has agreed in the last month and are evidence I think of the recognition on our behalf that we need to do things differently. The world has changed and you are spot on.

We’ve now got time for some questions from the audience. Given the time constraints, IPAA has asked for questions to be submitted in advance and our questioners are ready to go and the first question is from Chris Legg from Treasury. Chris.

CHRIS LEGG: Thank you. Prime Minister, thank you very much for a very impressive presentation. As an ageing baby boomer I’m especially challenged on the boldness on the imagination front but I feel there is a very strong message I want to take on.

Compared to many of your predecessors and all that I can think of, you bring a much wider range of professional experience to this role from outside of politics and I would be interested in knowing what you think that broader range of experience brings to the way you approach the job. Although I’d also be interested in if there are insights that you bring from the role itself that surprised you about the public policy process and whether you can share those with us as well.

PRIME MINISTER: Well thank you very much Chris. Yes I’ve had a diverse career; I’ve done a lot of things, different things over the years. The Press Gallery of course, feel that I started off with a thoroughly reputable profession as a journalist and it’s just been a slide downhill ever since. [laughter]

Let me make a couple of observations. I think one important point that some of you may have heard me make before is that public policy and you can make the same point about politics, is much more parochial than business is in the 21^st century. Many businesses are of course global firms, in fact, increasingly that is the case, if you have a manufacturing business in Australia, most, many services, business, professional businesses, you are inevitably going to be dealing one way or another internationally.

I think in terms of our development of public policy, we pay insufficient attention to what is happening in other jurisdictions. I have been surprised, for example, over the years, how little is known or how little attention is paid, particularly by previous, I’m obviously talking about previous Labor governments naturally [laughter] to previous, how little attention is paid to what has worked and what hasn’t worked in other places including somewhere as close as New Zealand, for example. Often not enough attention is paid to what is going on in the States and I say the Australian States let alone the United States. I think there is a very important and this is not an invitation for you know mass exodus on fact finding missions because [laughter] there are, you know there is the internet and even the telephone for those that are frightened by the internet [laughter]. But we do, it is really important to examine policy experiences in other places, because most countries, certainly all developed countries are grappling with pretty much the same policy challenges and everyone has got different responses from which we can learn.

So I think there is a need to be very, to be more open minded. The other thing I would say as you know – and I said this at the time I became PM and it is something I’m very committed to – I am a very strong believer in the Cabinet process, in the traditional Westminster Cabinet process. It can be very fleet of foot, obviously and again, 21^st century technology, but our tradition of collective decision making is a very valuable one. There are very few propositions that are not improved by discussion and debate.

DR MARTIN PARKINSON: Thanks PM. The next question is from Maree Bridger of Immigration and Border Protection.

MAREE BRIDGER: Good morning Prime Minister. I like you have also spent some time in the private sector and I think there is much the public sector and the private sector can learn from each other and given that, my question is; innovation and agile policy development relies on risk taking and occasional failure by departments and their ministers. So how can ministers best support this in a political and media landscape which relies on ‘gotcha’ moments and characterises any changes in policy direction as ‘backflips’?

PRIME MINISTER: Maree that’s an excellent question. Really you put your finger on a very important question, an important issue. Now this is and again I’ve addressed this before but I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. We have to be very up front and we’ve got, we being the Ministers, we’ve got to say when we produce a new policy, we’ve got to say that this is the best policy solution we have available to us today. This is our best solution, our best idea if you like and we’ve looked at it very carefully.

But if it turns out to be deficient in some respects then we will change it and if doesn’t work at all then we will dump it and if we find that somebody else is doing, addressing the same problem better and more cost effectively then we will happily plagiarise them. In other words you’ve got to ultimately, the obligation, is to do the right thing by the Australian people. Now what I’ve described and you may recall me making pretty much those remarks when we announced our Innovation & Science Agenda, I know some of the Press Gallery found that a bit shocking. The reality is this is how the real world operates.

Every business is constantly calibrating whether the measures they have are working and if they don’t work they change them because they’re driven by that strong KPI, that strong measure of the bottom line and of course the measure, the measures of success, in public policy are more complex and you’re dead right if you get yourself into a position as a politician where any change of policy, where you’re going to be putting yourself in a position where any change of policy is seen as a backflip then of course that means that you become completely inflexible. You may end up defending something not because it’s working but because it’s a proposal that you had in the past.

Agility and being very open about it is very important. What Australians need and demand from me as the Prime Minister and my Ministers and from the Government more broadly, including the APS, is that at any given time we are delivering the best policies we can put together and we can afford to meet the problems that we face. That’s our job. That is our job and that means that those policies will change and evolve in the light of experience. The alternative is you never take a risk, you never change anything and you know, organisms that are not changing are dead. So let’s be frank about that. So agility and responsiveness are absolutely critical and we should be very upfront about it. So thank you for that question.

DR MARTIN PARKINSON: Thanks PM. The next question is from Julia Landford at Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Julia Landford: Thank you very much. Good morning Prime Minister. This question relates to women in leadership. There are now six women in your cabinet and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is taking a proactive approach to engaging women in leadership roles and I’d like to ask you, including the appointment of women to boards for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. What tangible strategies can be developed to further increase the number of women in leadership roles across the APS? And are you in favour of introducing targets to address this issue?

PRIME MINISTER: I certainly am in favour of targets. I think it’s very important and it’s important if you have a target then you have to report on it and then if you’re missing your target, then people have got to you know ask why. You’ve got to examine why you have missed it and what you can do to change. There are a whole range of issues in this regard. I think one of the most important ones is to recognise the importance of role models and leadership and mentoring. The role model is enormously important. We, as you know, as you’ve said we have six women in my Cabinet. We have Australia’s first woman as Foreign Minister, first women as Defence Minister.

Now without singling those two out, Julie and Marise, that is, they are very powerful role models. They really are. Right at the top of those very important portfolios, very, very important role models and if you look at the strength of the leadership for example that Michaelia Cash has shown in the very, in the very challenging area of employment policy, in particular with her advocacy over the RSRT and the ABCC over the last few weeks. Again that is great, that’s a great model, great leadership. So I think there are many measures, we talked earlier about flexibility in workplaces. I guess you’ve got to step back as a leader, as a manager and ask yourself this question – what are we trying to achieve?

Well our goal is to have as close as possible to 50 per cent men and women in leadership positions. That’s our target. Then you’ve got to say what are we doing that is either calculated to, or is having the effect of making the attainment of that target less likely? And then you make those changes and so you’ve got to start with your objective and then work through all of the measurers that are likely to create you know barriers. So I think it’s a broad range of I’d just say mentoring, role models, flexibility, are very, very important elements but there obviously many others and strong female leaders but also men have to be strong champions of change. That is absolutely critical too and lead by example.

DR MARTIN PARKINSON:Thank you PM that’s music to my ears. We have some more questions but I’m conscious of the time and the Prime Minister has to get to another engagement. So Prime Minister I’d like to thank you for your time today. You can see the Public Service has turned in droves both physically and through streaming to hear you speak and I think everybody will leave this session with much to consider.

[ends]

The post Turnbull to APS: get smart, get creative, prosper appeared first on Government News.

source Government News http://ift.tt/1YIJKA1