Hired Guns: Local Government Mergers in New South Wales and the KPMG Modelling Report

© 2017 CPA Australia Across the developed world, including Australia, public policymaking now rests heavily on commissioned reports generated by for-profit consultants, contrasting starkly with the earlier customary reliance on the civil service to provide informed policy advice to political decision makers. Dependence on commercial consultants is problematic, especially given the moral hazards involved in ‘hired guns’ providing support for policy ‘solutions’ desired by their political paymasters. This paper provides a vivid illustration of some of the dangers flowing from the use of consultants by examining the methodology employed by KPMG in its empirical analysis of the pecuniary consequences of proposed municipal mergers as part of the New South Wales’ (NSW) Government's Fit for the Future local government reform program. We show that the KPMG (2016) modelling methodology is awash with errors which render its conclusions on the financial viability of the NSW merger proposals fatally flawed

Comparative study of conceptual versus distributed hydrologic modelling to evaluate the impact of climate change on future runoff in unregulated catchments

The application of two distinctively different hydrologic models, (conceptual-HBV) and (distributed-BTOPMC), was compared to simulate the future runoff across three unregulated catchments of the Australian Hydrologic Reference Stations (HRSs) namely Harvey catchment in WA, Beardy and Goulburn catchments in NSW. These catchments have experienced significant runoff reduction during the last decades due to climate change and human activities. The Budyko-elasticity method was employed to assign the influences of human activities and climate change on runoff variations. After estimating the contribution of climate change in runoff reduction from the past runoff regime, the downscaled future climate signals from a multi-model ensemble of eight GCMs of the CMIP5 under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios were used to simulate the future daily runoff at the three HRSs for the mid-(2046–2065) and late-(2080–2099) 21st-century. Results show that the conceptual model performs better than the distributed model in capturing the observed streamflow across the three contributing catchments. The performance of the models was relatively compatible in the overall direction of future streamflow change, regardless of the magnitude, and incompatible regarding the change in the direction of high and low flows for both future climate scenarios. Both models predicted a decline in wet and dry season's streamflow across the three catchments

Obesity-related health impacts of active transport policies in Australia - a policy review and health impact modelling study

To review Australian policies on active transport, defined as walking and cycling for utilitarian purposes. To estimate the potential health impact of achieving four active transport policy scenarios.A policy review was undertaken, using key words to search government websites. Potential health benefits were quantified using a cohort simulation Markov model to estimate obesity and transport injury-related health effects of an increase in active transport. Health adjusted life years (HALYs) gained and healthcare cost savings from diseases averted were estimated. Budget thresholds to achieve cost-effectiveness were estimated for each scenario.There is broad recognition of the health-related benefits of active transport from all levels of Australian government. Modelling results suggest significant health-related benefits of achieving increased prevalence of active transport. Total HALYs saved assuming a one-year effect ranged from 565 (95%UI 173-985) to 12,105 (95%UI 4,970-19,707), with total healthcare costs averted ranging from $6.6M (95$1.9M-11.3M) to $141.2M (95$53.8M-227.8M).Effective interventions that improve rates of active transport may result in substantial healthcare-related cost savings through a decrease in conditions related to obesity. Implications for public health: Significant potential exists for effective and cost-effective interventions that result in more walking and cycling