Review of Supermarket Competition Policy

The ACT Government has appointed formed ACCC Commissioner John Martin to review supermaket competition policy in the ACT. The terms of references for the review are:

• the extent of competition in the ACT supermarket grocery sector in the light of the findings of the 2008 ACCC Inquiry into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries;
• likely future trends in the structure of the ACT and Australian supermarket grocery sector;
• how the ACT Government can support effective and sustainable competition in the grocery sector;
• policies that might be applied on a site by site basis to ensure site allocation supports the ACT Government’s longer term policy objectives to promote competition and diversification; and
• any other additional measures that might be considered by the ACT Government to support a diverse and competitive retail grocery sector over the medium to longer term.

It’s critical we have healthy competition in the supermaket sector here in Canberra, with room for majors, independents and locally run stores.

There will be a series of community consultations on the review next week at the following locations:

• Tuggeranong
  Date: 13 July 2009
  Time: 12.30–2.30 pm
  Venue: The Vikings Town Centre
  Cnr Athlon Drive & Rowland Rees Crescent Greenway ACT 2900
• Woden
  Date: 13 July 2009
  Time: 6.30–8.30 pm
  Venue: Canberra Southern Cross Club
  92–96 Corinna Street Woden ACT 2606
• Gungahlin
  Date: 14 July 2009
  Time: 12.30–2.30 pm
  Venue: Gungahlin Lakes Golf Club
  Cnr Gungahlin Drive & Gundaroo Road Nicholls ACT 2913
  
• Belconnen
  Date: 14 July 2009
  Time: 6.30–8.30 pm
  Venue: West Belconnen Leagues Club
  Hardwick Crescent Kippax ACT 2615
• Civic
  Date: 16 July 2009
  Time: 5–7 pm
  Venue: The ACT Legislative Assembly Building
  London Circuit, Canberra ACT 2601

Written submissions will also be accepted up to Friday 24 July. The email address for these and to RSVP for the public forums is supermarketreview@act.gov.au

ACT Solar Power Facility Public Consultation

The first round of public consultations for the ACT solar power facility finished last week. I’ve attached a PDF of the slideshow for info:

Solar_Facility_Powerpoint_Presentation_June_2009

The criteria listed for selection of the site are:

• Cleared land with no significant shading
• Level land with a gentle gradient, preferably north-facing
• Land suitable for access roads
• Located near a connection point to a high voltage transmission network
• Access to a suitable gas supply
• Assess to a water supply and waste water disposal
• Separation from domestic residences
• Not overlooked by significant population centres
• Located way from major plumes or sources of dust; and
• Appropriate zoning and environmental considerations

To my untrained eye, the site at Ingledene Forest would appear to be more appropriate than Kowen Forest. The Ingledene area looks like this:

Whereas, Kowen is more heavily wooded:

(Oh, and one minor Gov2.0 gripe, why have a jpg of Ingledene and a pdf of Kowen, both nearly half a meg in size? Doesn’t make them quickly viewable or comparable for most people… I’ve converted the Kowen pdf to jpg and compressed it so it’s more easily read on this page).

New grants to help prevent falls

The ACT government has recently announced grants totalling over $144k to help prevent falls, a major cause of serious injury in older people and people with a disability. I know because my Nanna was in robust good health until at the age of 96 she fell and broke her hip. Infection set in and unfortunately she never recovered.

The one that caught my eye was the Tai Chi program at the YMCA. Weight-bearing exercise can help prevent osteoporosis and Tai Chi helps maintain flexibility and balance. The ability to maintain core strength as people get older is really important and its great to see focused funding to help provide access to programs such as these.

According the ACT Health site, the grants are broken up as follows:

	Project	Amount Funded 09/10
Arthritis ACT	More Ways to help our members stay on their feet	$26,478
Morshead Home	Blood Pressure and Staff Work Practices in Falls Prevention	$30,000
National Brain Injury Foundation	Restoring and Maintaining Balance while living with a disability/brain injury	$21,980
Therapy ACT	Falls Prevention Program for Aging Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in ACT	$46,508
YMCA Of Canberra	Tai Chi for Falls Prevention Training and Programs- Extension	$19,600
	Total Funded 2009/10	$144,566

Culture change for Government 2.0

View more Microsoft Word documents from Stephen Collins.

Energy Efficiency = Lower targets for renewables

My fave insightful webtoonist Stuart McMillen published his treatise on energy efficiency back in April. I thought it was worth reproducing here.

The fundamental tenet is that as we continue to innovate appliances to reduce their energy usage, we can reduce our energy demand to a level that can be met by renewables.

Public Sphere #2

Senator Kate Lundy has attracted wide interest in her Public Sphere initiative, with the 2nd event being held tomorrow at Parliament House. Seats for the camp are booked out but people can still participate through Twitter (#publicsphere), videofeed and liveblogging through Sen. Lundy’s website.

The debate on how citizens effectively engage with Government is not new, but what is new is the ability to use technology and advances in communication as enablers to improve transparency, engagement and innovation.

The focus of Public Sphere 2 is “Government 2.0: Policy & Practice” and the Public Sphere team have assembled an impressive list of speakers. I’ve grabbed the agenda and speaker list below for info.

Further ideas and discussions on Gov2.0 can be found at the Gov2.0Australia Group.

Time	Who	Role	Subject
0900	Senator Kate Lundy	Senator for the ACT	Opening remarks and welcome
0905	William Perrin	Secretary of the Power of Information Taskforce	Gov 2.0 in the UK: Policy and Status *
0915	Michael de Percy	University of Canberra	Citizen Engagement & Policy Learning: Forming, storming, norming and performing
0930	James Dellow	Headshift	If it isn’t broken, why fix it?
0945	Stephen Collins	Founder Acidlabs	What culture change is needed for Government 2.0?
1000		Break and networking
1015	Des Walsh	Former APS and NSW public servant	Why parliamentarians and public sector managers need to participate actively in social media (briefing papers and slideshows won’t cut it)
1030	Lynelle Briggs	APS Commissioner	Citizen-centric public engagement *
1040	Martin Stewart-Weeks	eGovernment Head CISCO	New models of public governance in The Connected Republic
1055	Dr Owen Cameron	Program Manager, CCRSPI (Climate Change Research Strategy for Primary Industry) Coordinator, Primary Industry Adaptation Research Network	New media and NRM policy consultation – meeting, listening and hearing to enhance service delivery
1110		Break and networking
1120	Professor Brian Fitzgerald	Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation, QUT	Copyright Strategies for Government 2.0
1130	Peter McEvoy	Executive Producer Q&A	Old media/New media – tools for political engagement
1145	Minister Tanner Minister Ludwig	Minister for Finance and Deregulation Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary	The Rudd Government and the Government 2.0 agenda
1200		Lunch
1250	Justin Freeman	Agileware	Bringing Web 2.0 to Defence and other Government agencies
1255	Zachary Zeus	BizCubed	Open Tools for Open Government
1300	Raul Vera	Engineering Manager, Geospatial	Victorian bushfires case study: Lessons learned for online public engagement
1315	Nerida Hart	LWA	Case study: Knowledge for Regional Natural Resource Management program
1330	Marghanita da Cruz	Consultant	Local Community Engagement 2.0
1345	Reem Abdelaty & Diana Mounter	Local Government Web Network	Challenges in Local Government (NSW) with regard to Gov 2.0, community engagement and other aspects of government online
1400		Break and networking
1410	Matthew Landauer	OpenAustralia	Open access to government data, open source software in government
1425	Damien Donnelly	TweetMP	Ways of increasing civic engagement through Twitter
1430	Ben Searle	Office of Spatial Data Management	Spatial data for Gov 2.0 – the role of Government
1445	Roxanne Missingham	The Parliamentary Library	APH website – Federal experience of digital engagement with citizens
1500	Dr Crispin Butteriss	Bang the Table	Bang the Table – Local government experience with online public consultation
1510		Afternoon tea
1525	Andrew Boyd	Independent consultant	The importance of user experience in Government 2.0
1540	Sally Rose	Open Forum	National Human Rights Committee online forum
1555	James Purser	Collaborynth	Open source, Open standards, Open Government
1610		Break and networking
1620	John Shanahan	CEO Colmar Brunton	Online communities – linking the citizens and customers into decision making in a totally new way.
1625	Kevin Cox	GreenID	Identity by presence versus identity by name.
1630	Shoaib Burq	GeoLabs	Opening of geographic data
1635	John Haining	Director of Innovation for Michael Johnson Associates	Helping government understand the Web 2.0 needs of businesses.
1640	Mark Spain	Global Learning	Community participation in building a sustainable future.
1645	Tom Worthington	Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the ANU	m-Government 2.0 – Making government accessible online on your phone
1700	Senator Kate Lundy	Senator for the ACT	Closing remarks and farewell

Wordle Cloud

For a bit of fun, I’ve wordled my blog to see how it comes out. The latest posts certainly seem to get priority…

www.wordle.net

World Blood Donor Day

Tomorrow is World Blood Donor Day and I’d like to encourage everyone who can donate blood to book in and donate on a regular basis.

As I have O- blood type, my blood can be given to anyone (as seen below in the blood type chart from the Red Cross site), so I try to donate my half a litre as regularly as possible. Recently we implemented a program in our business to encourage staff to give blood regularly during work hours.

The World Blood Donor Day is held each year on the 14th of June, which is the birthday of Dr Karl Landsteiner (1868 – 1943), the Austrian Nobel Prize winner who discovered the ABO blood group system in 1901.

Do Solar Flares cause global warming?

Race for 12th A-League Team hots up

You’ve got to love the attitudinal arrogance of Sydney towards the 12th A-League team. “Unbackable choice” screamed the SMH last week of western Sydney’s chances of picking up the 12th spot from the 10/11 season on. But you get the sense they’re a little nervous of Canberra’s bid. And so they should be.

Ivan Slavich is leading the way in pushing hard for a Canberra A-League team:

“We’ve demonstrated to the FFA that there is support for football in the region, we’ve got the financial backing and we’ve got strong support from the local government, so we’ve got all the criteria covered,” he said

“Our distinct preference is to be included for the 2010-11 season, and the concern I have is that if we don’t get admitted, there will be a consolidation period and no more expansion for a few years.

“That would leave the 700,000 people in our area without a team to support. That would be a great opportunity lost for the sport and for Canberra. And let’s not forget there’s already a team in Sydney.”

The decision keeps being pushed back. Latest word in the CT today is that the decision will be made in July, only giving the 12th team 13 months to prepare.

The Canberra A-League bid site can he found at A-League4Canberra.com.au.