One of the things still worrying me about robodebt was the attention to detail. By that, I am not referring to the crude system by which hundreds of thousands of Australians on benefits received letters between 2016 and 2019, wrongly demanding they repay Centrelink money they did not owe. I…
In Part 1 of our series on productivity, Sean Innis reflects on why this key driver of Australia’s economic performance has fallen. Australia’s economy sails under uncertain skies. To tame inflation, interest rates have been increased. This has hurt households and a recession lurks. Globally, the lingering economic impact of…
There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in history. While the federal government has been working to address this problem through legislation and multi-sector consultation, it is up to the corporate sector to take a proactive leadership role in eradicating slavery from supply chains…
If our response to the royal commission’s findings is limited to punitive and technocratic measures we will miss a major opportunity. We must use it as a foundation for better government. Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ report reveals technical, legal and ethical failures and provides an opportunity to move past the obsolete…
In the wake of the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation verdict, some serious questions must be addressed. The attacks of 9/11 triggered a chain of events that eventually ended in ignominy for the West and its coalition of the willing, when its forces in Afghanistan were expelled in a chaotic withdrawal a…
Addressing long-term cost blowouts in the National Disability Insurance Scheme means more than cracking down on rorts and inefficiencies. It means addressing the dissonance between the scheme’s legislated objective to use insurance principles with early intervention and its ongoing devolution into an uncapped social welfare program. The desirability of an…
Is the AI apocalypse upon us? A quick read of each day’s media and social media articles on the topic shows a bewildering variety of views. In our careers as data scientists, we have been building machine learning models (a subset of AI) for production applications for over a decade.…
Commentators and science nerds have been telling us for years that artificial intelligence (AI) will ‘one day’ arrive and disrupt human economies and communities. That day is here. ChatGPT has fuelled public awareness, but large language models are just the canary in the coal mine. Despite great uncertainty in precisely…
Two reports published last week demonstrate that modern slavery is a real and present problem in Australia and that our current laws are not doing enough to address it. Shockingly, the Global Slavery Index 2023, released last week, estimated 41,000 people in Australia are living in slavery, and that Australians…
It was with relatively little fanfare that the federal government released the draft Data and Digital Government Strategy: The data and digital vision for a world-leading APS to 2030 alongside the Budget. The strategy deserves attention, however. It does not overstate the case when it says that data and digital…
Like every other consulting company, we have a conflict. At least we are open about it. If you want a different outcome, you have to do something different — and now would seem to be a good time to try. Consulting companies are not your friends. The bigger the company,…
Among many other things, the federal government is confronting the issue of unscrupulous labour-hire arrangements. This will likely have various unintended consequences for small business people. I hope these would be unintended, not deliberate. Many of the changes unnecessarily add further complexity to workplace regulations in response to union demands.…
You might not have noticed, but the second thing the treasurer said on Tuesday night was that the Budget delivers a historic investment in the care economy. In my 25 years in the sector, this is the first time I can remember a government linking the care economy to the…
The big news out of yesterday’s Budget is that in 2022-23, the current financial year, there is a small budget surplus forecast. The treasurer says this is due to a surge in revenue to the tune of $146.5 billion, driven by strong employment and wages growth, as well as high…
“Equity” is the principle of fairness and justice in the distribution of resources, opportunities and privileges among individuals or groups, taking into account their different backgrounds, needs and abilities. It is often used as a means of addressing systemic and structural inequalities, such as discrimination based on race, gender, socioeconomic…