Tim Woodruff, David Legge, Rod Wilson, and Fiona Armstrong propose a new model for healthcare funding and administration to address the inequities and inefficiencies in our health system: We propose shifting the focus of the health system to a regional level, where locally determined health data and the input of local communities are used to drive change. It is a proposal for significant structural change which also allows for gradual introduction to allow capacity building, and the retention of the many excellent elements of the current health system. It uses the equitable and evidence based distribution of funds to locally governed entities to address both inequity and inefficiency.

CPD fellow Eva Cox assesses the Rudd Government's performance on Indigenous issues, income support, child care and parental leave: Rudd has apologised to the Stolen Generation, signed Kyoto and fixed some of the worst conditions for asylum seekers. These actions seemed to suggest a serious change in political directions, but other signs show he is leading a government designed to avoid scaring off the Howard voters. This is worrying as the social agenda of the government could be defined as a more modern form of social conservativism, with some residual neo-liberal tendencies. It lacks the fire and imagination that would challenge some of the retrograde social assumptions that drove most of the last government’s policies.

Stephen Leeder and Lesley Russell review the Rudd Government's year in health policy: The Rudd Government’s first year has brought a mixed record in health policy – a grab-bag of small, uncoordinated initiatives have been announced, but major election commitments to reform remain unfulfilled, awaiting reports from a raft of advisory groups.

CPD fellow James Arvanitakis writes: I am trying to figure out what the Rudds were thinking when they decided to announce a $1.5 billion injection into First Home Owners Grant (FHOG). This seems like sausage factory policy to me, no matter what is happening in the broader local or global economy. Before presenting my thinking on this, I want to emphasise that I am not against government injecting funds into the economy - but only when the policy implications are well thought out. The Rudds seem to have got it right with well-targeted payments to pensioners, low-income households and carers.