Archive for February, 2012
Local Government does great work consulting with its local communities. But as these communities change and become increasingly diverse, is the public consultation process keeping up with this trend?
Last week I received an email from Harvey. He wrote that he’s a regular reader of our blog and hoped we would publish a post about his new non-profit Liberty City Group. It’s objective is to gather support for building a new city in Australia’s unpopulated north. I thought – wow – this man has grand ambitions! I read his blog, passed it on to some of my colleagues and it generated a heap of discussion about the merits of the idea and the details of the one proposed by Harvey. We thought our readers might like to join in the discussion.
No, it’s not a rhetorical question from a 1960s folk song, though the answer is based in that era. It’s a question we often get asked when we make presentations to local communities around Australia. It seems many local areas had decreasing populations of 25-34 year olds in the 2001-2006 Census period. Because people aged 25-34 are a key demographic with a high participation in the workforce, this sometimes causes some angst. The usual reason suggested for the decline is a “lack of affordable housing”, and it is true that in that age range many people are looking for housing, particularly to buy their first home. While there may be different reasons in different areas, the main source of this change is actually a bit simpler.
We are living longer than ever before but there is significant controversy regarding the likelihood of continued increases in life expectancy. In general terms, survival rates (share of persons living to next year by age) have increased in all age groups leading to higher life expectancy for both men and women. How much older can we get?
The proverb ‘Curiosity killed the cat…’ is no doubt full of wisdom as proverbs are, but I frequently despair at the lack of curiosity people display. Who would discourage anybody from being curious? Being curious is the key to being creative. Not being curious is a dull way to approach life.
economy.id is a fantastic resource for helping a Local Government Area describe, explore and promote the local economy. We’ve just rolled out a set of changes to make it even better. These changes have resulted from client feedback, and also input from our economic modellers, NIEIR. Here we’ll go through the main changes and how best to make use of them.
At .id we are keen users of Census data and are eagerly anticipating the release of 2011 data in June. However, it’s not as if the ABS sits around twiddling its thumbs in non-Census years – they have an active demography program with regular releases to keep the Australian public, business and governments information of the latest trends. We use a lot of this data at .id in our products and services. What are some of the more important releases, what information do they contain, and where can I find them?
