Retirement travel

This paper outlines the post retirement travel entitlements provided to former parliamentarians, discusses recent policy developments and provides links to material that explains retirement travel in greater detail.IntroductionFormer parliamentarians are provided with a post retirement travel, severance travel or Life Gold Pass (LGP) entitlement depending on when they entered or retired from the Parliament and the length of their service in the Parliament. Retirement travel, like other parliamentary entitlements, is governed by legislation, determinations of the Remuneration Tribunal, procedural rules and decisions of the Executive. Recent reforms to retirement travel aim to limit the benefits: closing off the entitlement to the LGP to prospective members of parliament and limiting the entitlement to severance travel by former senators and members.Following the recommendations of the Committee to Review Parliamentary Entitlements (Belcher Review) the Remuneration Tribunal (The Tribunal) conducted a work value assessment of parliamentary remuneration. The Tribunal released its initial report on the 15 December 2011 and made a statement outlining its recommendations. The recommendations included:the prospective closure of the LGP schemetermination of the present Overseas Study Travel entitlement andgreatly limited severance travel entitlementThe Government accepted all of the recommendations of the Tribunal and introduced the necessary legislation in February 2012. This background note outlines the entitlements, discusses recent policy developments and provides links to material that explains retirement travel in greater detail

Parliamentary remuneration and entitlements: 2014 update

Introduction: The issue of parliamentary salaries, allowances and entitlements continues to generate interest and comment. This research paper sets out major changes to the parliamentary remuneration and entitlements regime, including the authority and governing legislation and explains how different aspects of parliamentary remuneration and entitlements are regulated. Executive responsibility The responsible Ministers, with selected administered legislation, are: The Prime Minister, the Hon Tony Abbott, MP Governor-General Act 1974, Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973, Remuneration and Allowances Act 1990 The Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann Parliamentary Allowances Act 1952, Parliamentary Superannuation Act 2004, Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Act 1948, Parliamentary Entitlements Act 1990, Ministers of State Act 1952, Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) Act 2002, Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984. The Special Minister of State, the Senator the Hon Michael Ronaldson has specific responsibility for administering some allowances and benefits under this legislation. Parliamentary departments The Department of the Senate and the Department of the House of Representatives pay the base salary and electorate allowance to parliamentarians and additional salary to ministers and parliamentary secretaries and Parliamentary office holders. The Parliamentary Departments also pay some other benefits such as postage. Department of Finance Ministerial and Parliamentary Services (M&PS) in the Department of Finance (Finance) provides advice on entitlements to the responsible Minister and to senators, members, office holders and their respective staff. M&PS also oversees the provision of a number of senators’ and members’ entitlements and administers the accountability mechanisms.[2

2014 Superannuation benefits for senators and members elected before 2004

Introduction: This research paper provides a summary of Commonwealth parliamentary superannuation benefits in place prior to the 2004 general election. It provides explanation, hyperlinks and documents pertaining to the operation of the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme (the PCSS). A table of eligibility requirements and benefits under the Scheme is given.   &nbsp

The base salary for senators and members: 2014 update

Introduction: Senators and members receive an annual allowance by way of basic salary—$195,130 from 1 July 2014.1 This research paper explains the legislative basis, fixing and linking mechanisms for the allowance. Adjustments to the base salary since 1968 are provided in Table 1 and Graph 1 of the report. Information on the base salary of state and territory members of parliament is available in a companion Research paper, Parliamentary remuneration and entitlements. &nbsp

Contraception, punishment and women who use drugs

BACKGROUND In light of the recent debate on the use of financial incentives to promote long-acting contraception and sterilisation among women who use illicit drugs we discuss attitudes to contraception, pregnancy and parenting among Australian women who inject drugs. METHODS Qualitative interviews were conducted with 90 women of reproductive age about contraceptive use, preferences, reproductive histories, attitudes to and experiences of parenting. All women were either currently, or had previously injected drugs. The in-depth, semi-structured interviews were compared and contrasted for themes relating to drug use, contraception, pregnancy and parenting. RESULTS Participants aspired to control their fertility, expressed individual contraceptive preferences and concerns for their children (both born and unborn). Most had tried a number of contraceptive methods interspersed by periods of non-use related to experiences of side-effects, being single or abstinent, believing that they were infertile and trying to conceive. Attitudes varied from woman to woman and in the same individual over their life course. Some believed that they were not likely to be capable, but most aspired to be successful mothers. CONCLUSIONS Women's drug use should not automatically be associated with an inability to make informed health care choices or to care for children. Evidence suggests that women who use drugs do not need to be paid to limit or end their fertility. Rather, programs that aim to reduce barriers to obtaining free, non-discriminating reproductive advice and parenting assistance would better utilise women's agency to improve their own reproductive health.We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Health and Medical Research Council who funded this research

The EMT-activator ZEB1 is unrelated to platinum drug resistance in ovarian cancer but is predictive of survival

The IGROVCDDP cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell line is an unusual model, as it is also cross-resistant to paclitaxel. IGROVCDDP, therefore, models the resistance phenotype of serous ovarian cancer patients who have failed frontline platinum/taxane chemotherapy. IGROVCDDP has also undergone epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). We aim to determine if alterations in EMT-related genes are related to or independent from the drug-resistance phenotypes. EMT gene and protein markers, invasion, motility and morphology were investigated in IGROVCDDP and its parent drug-sensitive cell line IGROV-1. ZEB1 was investigated by qPCR, Western blotting and siRNA knockdown. ZEB1 was also investigated in publicly available ovarian cancer gene-expression datasets. IGROVCDDP cells have decreased protein levels of epithelial marker E-cadherin (6.18-fold, p = 1.58e−04) and higher levels of mesenchymal markers vimentin (2.47-fold, p = 4.43e−03), N-cadherin (4.35-fold, p = 4.76e−03) and ZEB1 (3.43-fold, p = 0.04). IGROVCDDP have a spindle-like morphology consistent with EMT. Knockdown of ZEB1 in IGROVCDDP does not lead to cisplatin sensitivity but shows a reversal of EMT-gene signalling and an increase in cell circularity. High ZEB1 gene expression (HR = 1.31, n = 2051, p = 1.31e−05) is a marker of poor overall survival in high-grade serous ovarian-cancer patients. In contrast, ZEB1 is not predictive of overall survival in high-grade serous ovarian-cancer patients known to be treated with platinum chemotherapy. The increased expression of ZEB1 in IGROVCDDP appears to be independent of the drug-resistance phenotypes. ZEB1 has the potential to be used as biomarker of overall prognosis in ovarian-cancer patients but not of platinum/taxane chemoresistance

An Examination of Concepts of School Readiness Among Parents and Educators in Ireland

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs commissioned research through the Irish Research Council (IRC) to examine concepts of school readiness as they are understood by early years educators and managers, primary school principals, junior infant teachers and parents of children participating in the first Free Preschool Year in Ireland. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, involving interviews, an online survey and “draw and tell” sessions with children. Representative samples of FPSY settings and primary schools were selected and an online survey based on the findings of the qualitative phase was sent to 500 pre-primary settings and 500 primary schools. In this study, the concept of school readiness as understood by parents of children availing of the FPSY, and early years educators and managers, emerged as a multi-faceted and complex concept, influenced by and entwined with a range of interrelated factors at macro (policy), meso (interrelationships) and micro (pre-primary and primary) levels. These factors included children’s social and emotional skills, dispositions, language development, self-help skills, appropriate classroom behaviour and pre-academic skills. School readiness was clearly located along a maturationist-environmentalist continuum where readiness was associated with a child’s age as well as external evidence of the acquisition of specific skills. Interview and survey participants articulated a range of school readiness indicators, with significant differences in some instances between the importance allocated to these indicators by individual participant groups

Less is more: neural mechanisms underlying anomia treatment in chronic aphasic patients.

Previous research with aphasic patients has shown that picture naming can be facilitated by concurrent phonemic cueing [e.g.initial phoneme(s) of the word that the patient is trying to retrieve], both as an immediate word retrieval technique, and when practiced repeatedly over time as a long-term anomia treatment. Here, to investigate the neural mechanisms supporting word retrieval, we adopted—for the first time—a functional magnetic resonance imaging task using the same naming procedure as it occurs during the anomia treatment process. Before and directly after a 6-week anomia treatment programme, 18 chronic aphasic stroke patients completed our functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol—a picture naming task aided by three different types of phonemic cues (whole words, initial phonemes, final phonemes) and a noise-control condition. Patients completed a naming task based on the training materials, and a more general comprehensive battery of language tests both before and after the anomia treatment, to determine the effectiveness and specificity of the therapy. Our results demonstrate that the anomia treatment was effective and specific to speech production, significantly improving both patients’ naming accuracy and reaction time immediately post-treatment (unstandardized effect size: 29% and 17%, respectively; Cohen’s d: 3.45 and 1.83). Longer term gains in naming were maintained 3 months later. Functional imaging results showed that both immediate and long-term facilitation of naming involved a largely overlapping bilateral frontal network including the right anterior insula, inferior frontal and dorsal anterior cingulate cortices, and the left premotor cortex. These areas were associated with a neural priming effect (i.e. reduced blood oxygen level-dependent signal) during both immediate (phonemically-cued versus control-cue conditions), and long-term facilitation of naming (i.e. treated versus untreated items). Of note is that different brain regions were sensitive to different phonemic cue types. Processing of whole word cues was associated with increased activity in the right angular gyrus; whereas partial word cues (initial and final phonemes) recruited the left supplementary motor area, and right anterior insula, inferior frontal cortex, and basal ganglia. The recruitment of multiple and bilateral areas may help explain why phonemic cueing is such a successful behavioural facilitation tool for anomia treatment. Our results have important implications for optimizing current anomia treatment approaches, developing new treatments, and improving speech outcome for aphasic patient

Impact of Optimized Breastfeeding on the Costs of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Extremely Low Birthweight Infants

To estimate risk of NEC for ELBW infants as a function of preterm formula and maternal milk (MM) intake and calculate the impact of suboptimal feeding on NEC incidence and costs

Australian Democrats: the passing of an era

This paper traces the rise and fall of the Democrats, Australia\u27s longest-surviving minor party, examining the sources of its support and the reasons for its decline. The Australian Democrats are the longest surviving and most successful minor party in federal politics. The party was created as a ‘centre’ party. Two distinctive features of the party were: adherence to the principle of parliamentary democracy and the ability of parliamentary representatives to vote according to their conscience. The Democrats won seats at each Senate election from 1977 to 2001. Support for the party mainly came from middle class, urban-based, educated and younger voters who were disillusioned with the major parties. The Democrats held the balance of power in the Senate either solely or with other minor parties or independents from July 1981 to 2004. They were able to influence the legislative agenda. The party led the way in promoting women to leadership positions. Many factors played a part in the decline of the Democrats. Many commentators point to the Democrats support in the passing of the Goods and Services Tax legislation in 1999 as a key factor. Other issues relate to the turnover of parliamentary leaders, not getting their message heard and the rise of the Australian Greens. From 1 July 2008 no Democrats are represented in the Federal Parliament