Disability insurance scheme 'to blow out'

THE National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will become a monster program that will probably blow out by more than $7 billion annually when fully operational, a think tank says.

A Centre for Independent Studies report says the scheme will become "the new leviathan of the Australian welfare state".

It cites a secret review by the Australian Government Actuary (AGA) released under freedom of information that revealed the NDIS will provide disability care to 441,000 people at a cost of $22 billion a year or $50,000 per person when it is fully operational in 2018-19.

"However, these estimates also likely underestimate the cost of the scheme beyond," says the report, released on Thursday.

"The AGA's estimates do not include potential financial risks to the scheme ... the impact of scheduled increases in the pension age from 2017 to 2023."

The AGA's figures are substantially larger than the Productivity Commission's estimate that the scheme would cost about $15 billion a year and cover 411,000 people in 2019-19 when the scheme is fully operational, the report says.

It says the Productivity Commission's figures do not take into account wage increases in the community services sector, price inflation, or population growth from 2009-10 to 2018-19.

The report estimates the scheme is likely to support around 500,000 people at a cost of about $29.5 billion per year in 2023-24, which includes the administration costs of employing more than 8000 bureaucrats to run it.

Report author Andrew Baker said there was pressure to expand eligibility to the 600,000 people aged 65 and older with a severe or profound disability who would be excluded from the scheme.

Despite question marks about how it will be paid for, Mr Baker said it was a worthwhile program that would improve the lives of thousands.

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Small business pessimistic about economy

SMALL businesses remain pessimistic about trading conditions, with concerns about the Chinese and European economies and the high Australian dollar hurting confidence.

The BankWest Business Challenges Survey, released on Wednesday, found 72.7 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME's) believed they faced more challenges compared to a year ago.

BankWest business chief executive Ian Corfield said that was an improvement compared to last year when 80.1 per cent believed conditions were more challenging compared with 2010.

"A big chunk of SME's think that conditions will be tougher over the next year compared to the last year, but what has changed since last year is that the proportion who think that has declined quite significantly," he told AAP.

"I guess what that is telling us is that there is some optimism creeping back in."

Mr Corfield said the survey showed the biggest concern for small business was the general economic environment, particularly China and Europe, and the high value of the Australian dollar.

He said attracting and maintaining customers and the high cost of utility prices were also major concerns.

The survey showed that 39.1 per cent of businesses felt growth opportunities in their sector were improving, up from 35.2 per cent last year.

Mr Corfield said one of the key drivers for growth was technological changes.

"A third of small businesses say that changes in technology are a key driver in business growth for them," he said.

"Quite often we talk about the impact of online sales on retailers but we ignore the general beneficial effects to a lot of other businesses across the economy."

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Primary education standards improving

THE COAG Reform Council is disappointed that there has been little improvement in education outcomes since 2008 but deputy chairman Greg Craven says there are enough positive results to suggest good things are happening.

The Council of Australian Governments' annual report on school education, released on Wednesday, says Year Three reading and Year Five numeracy improved in 2011 but overall there was little change in students' results from 2008.

It also said the Year 12 completion rate needs to improve faster than it did over the past decade to meet COAG's target of 90 per cent attainment in 2015.

However, school participation rates for 15 to 19-year-olds recently increased following a COAG agreement to lift the school leaving age to Year 10 and ensure young people are either earning or learning after that.

Professor Craven said a higher participation rate could increase Year 12 completions but there would be a three-year lag before any change was noticeable.

"The council probably had hoped for better news in this education report," he told reporters in Canberra.

However, he said it was a positive sign that improvements were happening at primary school level.

"We all know that the way to improve education is to improve it early, fast and effectively," he said.

"There is enough positive results in there to show that there are some good things happening."

Prof Craven said that for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, education offered a path out of entrenched and multigenerational disadvantage.

"These figures indicate that for many of those students, that path is still not clear," he said.

The report showed some encouraging improvements for indigenous students but attendance rates generally did not improve in most areas and actually declined for Year 10.

However, the gap between Year 12 completion rates for indigenous and non-indigenous students was narrowing.

Professor Craven said no one would pretend the need to boost indigenous performance and attendance was a short-term issue.

But he was confident that with more sophisticated data being gathered, governments would be able to come up with more targeted policy initiatives to try to turn things around.

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Xmas shopping by smart phones set to boom

ABOUT 40 per cent of Australians are expected to use their smart phones and tablets to shop over Christmas - more than double last year's figure.

Google Australia research has found that there is a 20 per cent increase in shopping related searches year on year and that 40 per cent of all shopping searches now come from smart phones or tablets.

"What we see is we're getting a growth of 20 per cent, year on year, for shopping related searches and mobile devices searches have more than doubled in the last 12 months," Google Australia leader for local and retail Ross McDonald said.

Mr McDonald said with the recent release of the iPhone5 and an increasing number of Australians buying iPads he expected the number of mobile searches to increase more rapidly this Christmas.

"We reckon there will be close to a million new devices turned on between now and Christmas when you think about the iPad launch and the new iPhone launch," he said.

"That means there will be more and more Australians using them to make decisions on what they're going to buy for Christmas.

"The last three years the highest number of searches we've had on mobiles have been in the week before Christmas and we estimate that in the week before Christmas this year we will get 50 per cent of our queries through mobile devices."

Mr McDonald said even people who were buying in store still did their research online and used their smart phones and devices to find relevant stores.

"On a big screen people do their product research, then they use a mobile to work out where they're going to go, when the store is open and what offers they have," he said.

He said while some retailers, especially smaller ones, may not be interested in selling online they should still have a mobile friendly website to advertise because that was where most shoppers looked for information about stores and products.

"What we measure is bounce rate and what we see is bounce rates are very, very high if the website is not optimised for a mobile screen," he said.

"If it's not accessible for a mobile, people will very quickly bounce off it and go and look up something else."

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Missing young people baffle COAG council

A GROUP of young Australians who are neither earning nor learning has the COAG Reform Council baffled.

The council's latest reports into skills and education found the proportion of 18 to 24 year-olds fully engaged in employment, education or training has dropped to 72.5 per cent in 2011.

Most of this was down to a fall in full-time employment.

But the council also found that nationally, there was no significant increase in the rates of young people who finished Year 12 or equivalent between 2008 and 2011.

The results were surprising given the genuine focus by all governments on education and training, council deputy chairman Greg Craven told reporters in Canberra.

"If young Australians are not earning or learning, that begs the question - what are they doing?" Professor Craven said.

"We need to focus very, very carefully on making sure that all Australians are equipped to participate and benefit from both the society and the economy."

It was not a disaster that the council was unable to track this group, but they did want to find out what the young people were doing and whether their needs were being met, Prof Craven said.

The reports also showed disadvantaged groups were still fighting disproportionately to overcome barriers to further education.

People from the most disadvantaged areas were the least likely to be studying for further qualifications, with only 55.1 per cent seeking higher skills compared to 76.5 per cent of those in the least disadvantaged regions.

Almost two in five indigenous people held post-school qualifications, compared with almost three in five non-indigenous people.

"That progress that we are making among disadvantaged groups is not fast and it is a worry that there are particular groups that are not benefiting in the same level as other Australians," Prof Craven said.

The report on skills also found the reduction in the number of people without any kind of higher-level qualification was happening too slowly to meet COAG's 2020 target.

The proportion of working Australians without at least a Certificate III dropped between 2008 and 2011, but the trend rate indicated there would still be one-third of Australians without such a qualification in 2020 - 10 points higher than the target level.

Prof Craven said the council was "very, very hopeful" a new national agreement signed in April would improve this result.

He said it was especially important people got more skills with the economy in transition and employers needing a pool of skilled workers to be able to take advantage of new opportunities.

"Against the background of the Asian century white paper that demand is only going to continue to grow so that it's absolutely imperative that we see the rates of skilled Australians rise to meet the challenge."

One highlight in the report was that Australia is well on track to meet COAG's target to double diploma and advanced diploma completions by 2020.

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Artificial pancreas hope for diabetes

AUSTRALIAN researchers believe they are one step closer to developing an artificial pancreas for people with diabetes.

A Sydney-based diabetes expert and a Queensland artificial intelligence specialist have tested the prototype of a software program that could replicate the role of a human pancreas.

If a clinical trial works as well as the prototype, it could be a breakthrough for the lives of those with type 1 diabetes who have to inject insulin daily, they say.

Jenny Gunton from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Nigel Greenwood of the University of Queensland say the device would work by measuring a patient's blood glucose levels and delivering the dose of insulin required - as a normally-functioning pancreas does.

"The ultimate aim for a 'mechanical cure' for type 1 diabetes would be to have a closed loop system - where you have an insulin pump which knows how much insulin to give at the right time," said Associate Professor Gunton.

"So you have glucose monitoring and insulin administration in the same machine, with very smart pump software keeping people's blood glucose normal."

In the project, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, two virtual patients had data supplied from real people with diabetes. Their medical data, including blood glucose levels, was then simulated.

The software developed by Dr Greenwood, called Neuromathix, calculated suggested insulin dosages for the patients and their blood glucose was analysed over 55 simulated days.

The researchers found that target blood glucose levels were achieved over 90 per cent of the time - compared to the average person with diabetes who hits the target 60 per cent of the time.

"What we have just done couldn't have been done 10 years ago. We are dealing with a profoundly complex model involving many unknowns," said Dr Greenwood.

He hopes the software will reach the market in 2016 after a clinical study and trial.

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Aussie time-wasting at work costs $87b

AUSTRALIANS are more productive in the workplace than what they were a year ago but time-wasting still costs organisations $87 billion a year, a new report claims.

The average amount of time wasted in the workplace has fallen by four per cent since October 2011, the Ernst & Young Australian Productivity Pulse report found.

That may not sound like much, but it's not a bad boost considering Australian workplaces have been operating in a declining productivity environment for about 10 years, Ernst & Young managing partner Neil Plumridge says.

"We're producing more from the same amount of hours worked than 12 months ago," Mr Plumridge said.

"An extra 15 minutes of productive time every day at work can mean a great deal for individuals as well as the organisations they work for."

Four out of five Australian workers surveyed took productivity very seriously and were making a real effort to work "smarter" to get more out of the day.

But bludgers, who make up just five per cent of the workforce, account for more than 20 per cent of time wasted across the day, the report found.

Unnecessary meetings, unimportant emails and the use of social media at work were the biggest time-killers, costing businesses big dollars in lost wages.

Tasmania was ranked the most productive state, and healthcare and social workers the most gung-ho employees.

NSW was the least productive state, with finance and insurance workers the least time-efficient.

West Australians, motivated by job security, clocked the longest hours, while their South Australian counterparts clocked the least.

The findings were based on a survey of more than 2100 employees across seven industries in both the public and private sectors.

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IT tech convicted in 'Vatileaks'

A VATICAN court has convicted a Holy See computer technician of helping the former papal butler in the theft of confidential papal documents and given him a two-month suspended sentence.

Claudio Sciarpelletti, an Italian who is a computer program analyst in the Vatican's Secretariat of State, had testified earlier that he had played no role in helping to spirit out confidential documents in a scandal involving alleged corruption in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted last month in a separate trial for the theft of the documents and is serving a 18-month prison sentence in Vatican City.

Top Vatican security officials, including the head of Pope Benedict XVI's bodyguards, as well as his convicted former butler were the witness list in the latest trial in the leak of confidential papal correspondence.

The witnesses had been called to testify earlier in the week in a Holy See courtroom, but the judge told them to come back Saturday to give more preparation time for the defence.

The stolen documents formed the basis of an Italian journalist's book about alleged corruption at the Vatican.

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Prince Charles thanks 'kind' Aussies

Prince Charles thanked Australians for being "wonderfully kind", as he and wife Camilla wrapped up a six-day tour which has taken them from the Outback to Bondi Beach.

Hundreds of people came to see the royal couple at their final destination in Canberra, with one woman offering the prince a packet of chocolate Tim Tams -which he had said he hoped someone would allow Camilla to try.

"You're very kind," Charles told Alyson Richards, 25, as she handed over the biscuits and wished him a happy birthday for next week.

At a lunch at Government House, Charles said it had been a joy to visit Australia, where the couple had met hundreds of community volunteers, as well as been able to see the local wildlife, including koalas and kangaroos, up close.

"When we finally get back, after a very, very, long journey, if I'm still reasonably compos mentis by then and haven't completely lost my marbles to jet lag, I will report back to Her Majesty your wonderfully kind thoughts and expressions after our visit," he said.

He said while the tour had not allowed them to visit as many places as they would have liked, it enabled them to "witness so many of the changes that have happened here since I was here last".

"And to witness... the extraordinary vibrancy of the multicultural society which Australia is and which of course has stood Australia in such remarkable stead in terms of the richness and diversity which you can see only too well."

Earlier, Charles watched as one of the terraces of Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin was named after the Queen, following a tradition of naming the terraces after Australia's monarchs since the country became a federal state in 1901.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the renaming would "remind future generations that for more than half of our journey as a united nation, Elizabeth the Second has been our monarch."

The royal couple arrived in New Zealand late onSaturday on the last leg of their tour marking the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and were met at a military air base in Auckland by Prime Minister John Key.

They will formally begin their six-day visit with a traditional Maori welcome today at the Auckland War Memorial Museum where they will also commemorate Armistice Day.

They will then travel to Wellington and tour Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop to inspect costumes and props used in The Hobbit movies before moving to Christchurch, the scene of devastating earthquakes last year that claimed 185 lives.

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Europe to hold auto industry crisis talks

AS Europe's once powerful auto sector struggles against falling sales, EU industry commissioner Antonio Tajani says ministers will draw up plans by December 10 to save their carmakers.

"It is the European Commission's duty to prevent carmakers from leaving the Union," said Tajani after the loss of thousands of jobs in recent weeks at Ford plants and France's Peugeot Citroen.

"Each closure of a plant is like an injury," he added.

"If we don't act, we risk facing a plant closure a month."

Tajani said he would gather car producers, trade unionists and government officials by the end of the month to draw up a co-ordinated response to the crisis, looking at over-capacity, investment and state aid measures.

Among measures are plans to build greener and safer cars, strike trade deals to improve access to emerging markets and harmonise rules and regulations.

One of the biggest industries in Europe, the auto sector provides over 12 million jobs, directly and indirectly, with about 180 vehicle plants and more than 700 billion euros ($A864 billion) in turnover.

It is also the top private R&D investor and spent about 30 billion euros in 2010.

"Because of the multiplier effect it has in the economy, the car industry should provide a strong impetus to maintain a strong industrial base in Europe," Tajani said, adding that he hoped to draw up a coordinated plan before the talks.

Car sales have been on the decline for five years and are expected to fall by almost 8.0 per cent this year, with no hope of a return to pre-crisis levels for up to a decade on some markets.

"We are not just talking about Fiat, Volvo or Daimler, but thousands and thousands of small- and medium-sized businesses," Tajani added.

European manufacturers welcomed the EU's so-called Cars 2020 plan for action but called for urgent measures to cope with the social and economic consequences of current restructuring and cautioned against "unbalanced" trade agreements.

"We cannot afford to open up our markets in times of crisis unless there is a level playing field," European Automobile Manufacturers' Association head Ivan Hodac said.

But it backed proposals to make 'clean vehicles' an investment priority and to improve competitiveness in trade, transport, energy and climate policy.

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