Our lucky country finds itself paying increasing attention to what was far distant problems elsewhere in the world as they’ve inevitably reached our shores. If Australia is to be resilient in these uncertain times and thrive, we need more initiatives that focus on future industries. Ones that build the nations skills of the future offering services that can be exported globally as a premium resource rather than a commodity price tag subject to the whims of others.
Take note that we do have a way to go. WEF’s Global Competitiveness index rank Australia 16th overall out of 141 economies in 2019. WIPO’s Global Innovation Index places Australia 22nd out of 129 economies in 2019.
CISRO’s excellent 2019 Australian National Outlook and Future report series point to necessary shifts for a more prosperous Australia. It asks us the question – do we want to live up to our potential or face a slow decline? Will we take up that challenge?
https://lnkd.in/g62uQi2
https://lnkd.in/gJ5SXmS
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#economyrecovery#CISRO#skillsforthefuture
Month: July 2020
Jobseeker should stay stronger for longer for those excluded from other payments – The Guardian
Both our major political parties need to move away from the false equivalency of household debt and the ephemeral federal deficit. Thatcher’s and Regan’s true legacy has been in delivering an ideology that bamboozled the masses and consigned generations to poverty.
As a country we will continue to fumble our way into the future, only every partially living up to our potential, failing to tackle mass unemployment, skills for the future, poor infrastructure, environmental policies that fail to address climate change and a health and well-being safety net with holes too large to catch the most disadvantaged in our nation.
Unless of course both parties change their simplistic jingo’s, a false narrative that fiscal discipline requires that we must spend only what we gained in taxes and take heed of modern monetary theory. We have a sovereign currency, there is little outlook of inflation, and we have a pressing need that requires courage and foresight. It’s time for both political parties to put the ideologies of yesteryear aside.
https://lnkd.in/ghpR_GY #economy
Stopping koala extinction is agonising simple. But here’s why I’m not optimistic – The Conversation
No other animal captures Australian’s essence across the world than the Koala. Can you imagine an Australia without Koalas? Well at this rate its likely only 30 years away – within our lifetime unless 42 recommendations for change are acted upon. Whether there’s is an appetite to do something meaningful with land clearing where there is existing koala habitats remains to be seen. Will conservationists or developers and industry win? Better go out and see this functionally extinct race before its too late and we witness its pitiful demise. https://lnkd.in/gsHgxnU
NSW Parliamentary Inquiry report:
https://lnkd.in/gS-bgFt #extinction #koala #conservation
By persisting with COVIDSafe Australia risks missing out on globally trusted contact tracing – The Conversation
Time to evolve and pivot the COVIDSafe app to use “Gapple” APIs. This is even more apparent and inevitable when you look at the roadmap that Google and Apple have stated to embed key contact tracing functionality into their base platforms. Heck, you can still call it the COVIDSafe app and accept a more trustworthy decentralised model.
“In the second phase, available in the coming months, this capability will be introduced at the operating system level to help ensure broad adoption, which is vital to the success of contact tracing. After the operating system update is installed and the user has opted in, the system will send out and listen for the Bluetooth beacons as in the first phase, but without requiring an app to be installed. If a match is detected the user will be notified, and if the user has not already downloaded an official public health authority app they will be prompted to download an official app and advised on next steps. Only public health authorities will have access to this technology and their apps must meet specific criteria around privacy, security, and data control.” – Exposure Notification FAQ Apple and Google
https://lnkd.in/gDGPvpT #covid19au
Teleworkability in Australia: at 41% if full-time and 35% of part-time jobs can be done at home – The Conversation
After years of prevarication its taken Covid-19 to finally reshape cultural attitudes to working from home with all the benefits that ensue. Some analysis from Deakin and Ghent Universities on what percentage of workers could work from home on either a part-time or full-time basis. They’ve mapped US O*Net occupations to ANZSCO codes to help achieve that. Now if only we had decent and affordable NBN infrastructure to support these new ways of working… https://lnkd.in/gV7jd9d #covid19australia #futureofwork #remotework
Why we need to debunk the deficit myth – BBC
Modern Monetary Theory is getting more attention and could be the lens we need to promote a return to full employment, infrastructure and ecological investment and the support of the most vulnerable and invisible in society. Perhaps its time to put to rest the dogmatic ideology of a balaced budget and austerity measures that do nothing for the vast majority of the population. An ideology that has helped only a privileged few at the best of times while whittling away the living standards and opportunities of the many. Great short video on the topic and plenty to explore. https://lnkd.in/g_4yX7a #economyrecovery #covid19recovery #covid19australia
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08jbbry/why-we-need-to-debunk-the-deficit-myth-
The Spoken Word 