Last month, when releasing the census with great fanfare, Peter Costello once again took credit for the recent slight rise in the birth rate. For the record, Australia’s fertility rate increased to 1.81 births per woman in 2005, up from 1.77 the year before. The replacement rate (the average number ofContinue Reading
This week I renewed my annual Sydney public transport ticket. Because of where I live, I catch all three possible forms of government owned public transport – trains, buses and ferries (and the two private ones too – monorail and light rail, but that’s a story for another post). BecauseContinue Reading
There have been quite a few articles recently (all behind subscription walls, alas) about low cost housing in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald (in the Good Weekend last week) had an article about the fabulous Department of Housing apartments that still exist in Sydney’s Rocks area. Some with magnificent HarbourContinue Reading
It’s graduate recruitment season, and I’ve been talking to lots of people about how to get the best graduates I can find into my team (I recruit about two a year, depending on how good the candidates are). I’ve been unpleasantly surprised at how often the conversation turns to race.Continue Reading
Last week, after a week of sustained rain (and fortunately not too much more flooding), Sydney’s dam levels got to 50%. The last time they were that high was May 2004*. For the past three years, Sydney has had ever increasing levels of worry about our water crisis. People haveContinue Reading
I had a to make a speech at work today to six hundred odd people – a new record for me. I’ve got better at speeches over the years, but they still have about the level of excitement of going to the dentist. The person managing the event (I was oneContinue Reading
The recent horrendous floods in the Hunter Valley have reminded me (again) of another example of insurance market failure – flood insurance. It hasn’t hit the headlines yet, but it will. In the Australian insurance market, it is pretty close to impossible to buy insurance against flood. Wordings vary, butContinue Reading
The other morning, Hungry Boy was sick. For a change in our house, it was nothing serious, but someone had to stay home with him. He couldn’t go to preschool, as was the usual plan that day. Mr Penguin, who is the primary carer in our house, also does quiteContinue Reading
As the baby boomer bulge works its way through the workforce, with fewer and few new entrants, (in 10 years time, there will be half the new entrants to the workforce each year that there were this year) it becomes more important for companies to figure out how to makeContinue Reading
There’s a great opinion piece (from Lenore Taylor) in the AFR this weekend about the school vouchers that were snuck into the budget this year. Briefly, $475 million has been budgeted to provide $700 tutoring vouchers to the parents of children who fail national reading and maths tests. The articleContinue Reading