time
1. This week 10 years ago, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard announced that 12 per cent of the Australian Public Service (APS) would be free to work from home or elsewhere outside the office by 2020 as part of the National Digital Economy Strategy.
Ms Gillard said staff would use broadband and digital technology to perform their work either at home or at other locations, with several Departments and Agencies to conduct trials in the first half of 2013.
She said the NBN would help unlock the potential for telework to boost productivity in the workplace, reduce commuting time and urban congestion, and allow employers to compete for the best employees, no matter where they were located.
2. Minister for the Environment, Tony Burke announced the establishment of a national network of wildlife corridors to protect the environment.
Mr Burke said the current map of reserved areas looked like someone had dipped a toothbrush in paint and splattered unconnected dots across the land; the new corridors were about connecting those dots.
“Over time, a network of wildlife corridors will be established across Australia, benefiting our biodiversity, and our agricultural and built environments,” Mr Burke said.
“It’s a way of improving resilience and ensuring that we are protecting nature in a way that preserves it for generations to come.”
3. Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission (TAC) launched the “How Safe is Your Car” website to help Victorians find out how safe their preferred car was after research revealed a worrying number of young men did not consider safety features when buying a car.
TAC said the mobile website gave consumers a fast and easy way to check the safety ratings of a range of new and used cars.
It said in a bid to reduce youth road trauma, the website had been specifically designed for young Victorians who might be car shopping with their iPhone or iPad.
4. More than 150 south-east Queensland landowners had expressed interest in the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection’s Koala Habitat Program.
Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection, Andrew Powell said the Department had allocated $22.5 million over the next three years to buy land and expand koala habitat in areas where their territory was under significant pressure.
“Purchased properties will undergo rehabilitation and may be gazetted as national park, nature refuge or a reserve for community use and there will be recreational opportunities for the community wherever possible,” Mr Powell said.
5. South Australian Premier, Jay Weatherill launched a long-term strategy for the State to become a significant partner with India, identifying the key sectors of the economy that would best be able to take advantage of India’s rapid development, which was seeing it transform into the world’s third largest economy.
Mr Weatherill said the 10-year plan held the promise of creating jobs in South Australia and was focused on aerospace and defence, energy and natural resources, education and training, and clean technology.
“This is the first strategy of its type that makes fine-grain choices about how a small State can engage with such a large country for our benefit,” Mr Weatherill said.
6. Also a decade ago, South Australia became the first Australian State, and only the third jurisdiction in the world, to recognise and compensate firefighter cancer.
Premier, Jay Weatherill said the State Government would ensure firefighters were compensated for the high-risk work they did, and he did not want to see a repeat of the tragic circumstances that surrounded people working with asbestos.
“Scientific studies across the world have demonstrated that firefighters are at greater risk of developing certain types of cancer through direct exposure to materials as part of their job,” Mr Weatherill said.
He said if firefighters developed those types of cancers they should be compensated.
