Authored by University of Melbourne Associate Professor John Fitzgerald, this brief explores financing options in health care and calls for a closer examination of funding that links objectives to outcomes, including social impact bonds.

This discussion paper notes a key role for Primary Health Networks in realising effective and lasting improvement in mental health outcomes, through adopting a person-centred approach in service design and enabling integration across service providers in local health systems.

This paper reflects on the lessons learnt from previous organised primary health care models in Australia and considers the factors that are essential for Primary Health Networks to create true public value.

Addressing the low literacy levels of many children from disadvantaged backgrounds requires identifying and removing barriers these children face when starting school and will also require greater partnerships and collaboration between schools and early years services.

The paradox of service delivery for children and families is that vulnerable families – that is, those families with the greatest needs – are also the least likely to be able to access those service.

This report reviews what is known about community engagement in wind energy industry and identify what we still need to understand. After briefly presenting the relationship between wind farms and society as a significant one, we will recapitulate what strains that relationship and how community...

This Evidence Brief considers the evidence regarding economic incentives to prevent obesity in the form of targeted taxes and subsidies on food and beverages.

This paper describes key features of hospital redesign processes in Australia by analysing Victorian, NSW and other models.

This policy brief explores four key issues pertaining to the future of early childhood education and care in Australia: the importance of early childhood, quality early childhood education and care, service integration, and the inclusion of children with disability and developmental delays.

This publication provides a snapshot of who is driving, doing and supporting place-based approaches to improve children’s outcomes.

This report provides recommended action to accelerate place-based efforts to improve children’s wellbeing and address inequalities in Australia, based on project findings.

This paper examines how policy-makers, government and non-profit organisations can use the philosophies underpinning the Family Partnership Model to engage communities in a way that respects and encourages self-determination.

It is five years since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and its knock-on effects are still playing out in ways that are likely to have longer-term implications than those purely financial in nature; namely, its impact on the green agendas of governments and industries and the brake it has placed on an emerging green economy.

This issue presents an overview of the early intervention policy landscape in Australia, and then looks to the literature in order to answer two questions: firstly, what factors affect the formation of children’s psychological well-being, behaviour and socialisation? Secondly, how effective have Australian early childhood intervention programs been?

This review of 112 papers from 1979-2014 suggests that smaller class sizes in the first four years of school can have an important and lasting impact on student achievement, especially for children from culturally, linguistically and economically disenfranchised communities.

Research reports, or grey literature as they are also known, are an essential part of many disciplines including public policy. While access to these reports has become easier in many respects, online publishing presents many challenges as well, particularly for collecting organisations. Reports...

This article reports the findings of an online survey designed to investigate how Australian women use pregnancy and parenting apps, their attitudes about the information provided and data privacy and security related to such use, and what features they look for in these apps.

The native budworm (Helicoverpa punctigera or, as it was known, Heliothis punctigera) is native to Australia and is distributed, particularly during spring, throughout much of the central and southern regions of the country. It is the major pest of all grain legumes, although pea weevil is equally...

Accurate, early estimations of grain yield and crop loss are important skills in grain production and extensive personal experience is essential for estimating yields at early stages of growth.

Accurate assessment of growth stage is important because the cereal plant's response to herbicide, growth regulator or fertiliser application depends on its stage of development.

Scald is a common foliar disease in Victorian barley crops as the majority of current varieties are susceptible. Scald severity varies greatly from crop to crop depending on variety resistance, paddock history and local climate. Scald is more likely to be a problem when a susceptible barley variety...

Many important diseases of pulses can be seed-borne. Pulse growers can minimize losses from these diseases by using high quality seed. Seed testing is required to establish whether seed is infected. Seed health tests are currently available to detect the most important seed-borne pathogens of...

The Victorian Pulse Disease Guide provides information on disease management and the disease resistant ratings for pulse crops.

This Agriculture note lists the common pests and diseases of Rubus crops in Australia. It is not a comprehensive list of all rubus diseases found worldwide, nor a full description of the life cycle of disease organisms. Life cycles of all major and minor rubus diseases can be found in Compendium of...

The cultivated blackberries are hybrid plants of the genus Rubus, subgenus Eubatus. They are only distantly related to the weed species, Rubus fructicosus Agg. The following varieties are found in commerce. Descriptive notes are based on performance in Southeast Australia. Fruiting season is...