Land Release
State and territory governments oversee the release into the market of non-residential land for development through land-use rezoning and development consent which can influence the type and location of new housing supply.

Local government is responsible for the administration of state/territory planning laws and, in some jurisdictions, can set additional requirements. These laws may determine building sizes, heights and qualities (including building materials). Planning overlays may also restrict what types and sizes of developments are possible in specified streetscapes and historical precincts.

There is an opportunity for genuinely better public services if governments can operate real-time services.

Citizens could be proactively told about a change to their entitlements because a child has reached school age, or to track the exact stage their application is at, rather than pick up the phone. Businesses could be started in real-time and those businesses could benefit from real-time tax calculations.

Public servants and politicians could spot problems with a service before they become a nationwide problem, and improve their policies on a cycle of weeks and months not years.

Denmark's digital strategy
Denmark has had clear and careful digitalization goals in place for over 20 years. In their Digital Denmark: Conversion to the network society report (1999), the Ministry of Research and Information Technology outlined many objectives that established the path the Danish Public Sector would walk over the next two decades. These included:
• Life-long learning: “Denmark [should] be the first country in the world, to ensure its citizens access to life-long learning via the network society.”
• Digital administration: “at the latest by 2003, Danish public administration is to provide the best and most efficient public service in the Nordic countries with the help of digital administration.”
• Danish internet initiatives: “participation in democracy, open decision-making processes and Danish cultural activities to be supported by new and interactive Internet services for all citizens by 2003 at the latest.”

These goals set the foundation that facilitated Denmark’s rise to becoming a world leader in digital government.


1. Denmark's digitalization saves huge sums
The time and resource saving benefits of digitalization are often touted in reports and surveys, but Denmark’s digitalization offers a real-world example of just how profound the benefits can be.
Government data shows Denmark’s digitalization effectively saves 296 million EUR ($317.7 million USD) annually and has reduced processing time by 30% across departments.

2. Denmark's public services create satisfied & trusting citizens
Reports indicate citizens who are satisfied with public services are nine times more likely to trust their government than those who are not.

First, by educating citizens about digitalization, they ensured digital technology could be used by the public with less friction.

Second, by committing to digital administration, they set out update legacy systems and create efficient and effective digital public services for citizens and government employees.

And third, by incorporating the internet into their democracy and cultural activities, they made not just top-down political changes, but citizen-centered cultural changes.

Today, Denmark’s Agency for Digital Government continues to update its digital strategy with new reports every 4 years. It regularly engages in public-private partnerships to boost its digital capabilities. And it consistently improves services with a focus on inclusion and engagement for citizen centricity.


Is this the case for Denmark?

Well, in Denmark, 91% of citizens who accessed an authority’s website or used self-service solutions were satisfied. The European Commission ratedDenmark’s digital public services a score of 87.1, 19 points above the EU average of 68.1.
Across the four major areas of public service delivery, Denmark (displayed below in orange) outperforms OECD averages (displayed in green).

While there’s no way to trace a direct link, the Danish government has some of the highest levels of citizen trust in the world. 72% of Danish citizens express trust in their government, compared to the OECD average of just 51%.

Additionally, 81% of Danes trust the Danish authorities to handle their personal information carefully.

This trust has a cyclical effect. The trust Danes have in government means they’re more likely to embrace government initiatives. This makes government initiatives more likely to succeed. When these initiatives succeed, Danes are more likely to feel that their government works for them. And this circles back to building more trust.
Creating trust in government is always important, but as we’ll get into, it becomes essential during times of crisis.

3. Denmark's digital government proves it pays to be prepared
Denmark’s Government's advanced digitalization meant when COVID-19 hit, they were well prepared.
Not only were all their public services already accessible online, but their NemID system helped them become one of the first countries in the world to introduce COVID-19 passports.

The existing eID infrastructure allowed these COVID passports to be created more easily in a secure way citizens were already familiar with. In just 11 months, citizens accessed COVID-19 passports and test results 100 million times.
Throughout the uncertainty of the pandemic, the Danish Government used Digital Post to communicate updated rules and restrictions and inform citizens about stimulus benefits, vaccines, and public health strategies.

When the government distributed stimulus benefits, they already had everyone in the country’s NemKonto, a ready-to-go bank account for them to deposit funds into. In Autumn 2020, this enabled the automatic payment of government stimulus checks to two million inhabitants in less than 8 days.

With a massive 90% of Danes reporting trust in the Danish health authorities, citizens were more prepared to follow health advice. At the height of the pandemic, more than 60% of Denmark’s adults were getting weekly COVID-19 tests.

And finally, when vaccination registrations were announced, the Danish government avoided the website crashes and issues faced across the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Instead, they had a virtual waiting room in place that ensured their registration website remained online and citizens received fair and equal access to the essential service.

Safe and affordable housing is central to the security and dignity of all Australians. However, Australia is experiencing significant housing challenges.
The government is taking a national leadership role by implementing a range of measures to address Australia’s housing challenges, with a focus on helping those most in need.
The government is also partnering with all tiers of government, the private sector and the not for profit sector to increase the supply of safe, secure and affordable housing.
The Treasury supports the government’s housing agenda by providing advice and analysis across a range of housing related issues, including housing supply and affordability.

The Australian Government has agreed to a National Housing Accord (Accord) with states and territories, local government, institutional investors and the construction sector.

The Social Housing Accelerator payment was delivered to the states and territories in June 2023 so they could start investing in building new homes straight away.
This investment will:
• create around 4,000 homes for Australians on social housing waiting lists
• permanently increase the stock of social housing.

“Streaming data” or “real-time data” is dynamic data that is continuously generated from a variety of sources like sensors, cameras, social media feeds, and cameras. Examples of real-time data are e-commerce purchases, geo-location tracking, server activity, health data, website activity, weather events, and utility service usage.

When companies can process all that data as it’s coming in, they can near-instantaneously gain insight and understand exactly what’s going on with their customers or internal business processes.

Traditionally, data analysis happens once the data has been captured and stored. Then any business insights are pushed out from storage. But real-time data analysis replaces that process, helping companies make more accurate decisions and take action significantly faster.

Companies can use real-time data analytics to:
• Predict customer behaviours
• Solve the technical problems associated with typical data batching processing
• Scale faster
• Make better business decisions
• Act proactively to maximise customer satisfaction
• Increase reaction time
• Create more intelligent products and services
• Improve and automate business processes

In Australia, you are not required to work with a professional when designing most residential structures. Here, the main consideration is whether the proposed structure complies with local planning requirements. If it does, it does not matter who was responsible for developing the design.

You can choose between engaging an architect, working with a building designer, or choosing a design and build builder. Each of these options has its benefits and can deliver a high-quality, bespoke home.

Real-Time Technology has the power to revolutionize the creative process across all industries. Being able to make instantaneous decisions within an interactive environment is utterly transformative. It empowers you to make big changes and see them immediately in context. This is a better, quicker, and much more efficient way of creating content.

Transitional housing is an important form of housing assistance within Australia’s housing system. Transitional housing is for people with an urgent need for housing, typically people who are experiencing homelessness or have a very high risk of homelessness.

Appropriate short to medium term housing, along with tailored support services, helps people to stabilise their lives before moving into longer term housing.

As part of a transitional housing tenancy agreement, tenants are engaged with specialist homelessness services or support providers who will help develop a case plan to assist them to move forward and access suitable long-term secure and affordable housing. That may include connecting tenants to other services to help them get back on their feet and into training or employment.

Homelessness is a growing issue in Australia. If you don’t have access to conventional shelter, especially at night, or are couch surfing with friends, or living with violence in your home and needing to leave, you may be considered to be homeless.
There are many causes of homelessness. It can be anything from escaping from a troubled relationship or a situation that is violent to unemployment, to relationship breakdown.
There are many programs in Australia that aim to relieve homelessness. The services include advice, financial support and temporary accommodation.

Social housing is government subsidised short and long-term rental housing. In Australia in recent decades, it has mainly been available to people on very low incomes, and who often have experienced homelessness, family violence or have other complex needs.

Social housing is made up of two types of housing:
public housing, which is owned and managed by State and Territory Governments, and
community housing, which is managed (and often owned) by not-for-profit organisations.

Social housing differs from private rental in that housing is allocated according to need, rather than by households competing in a market, and from emergency accommodation in that it provides longer term and secure rental housing.

In 2005, a meeting of Australian Housing, Local Government and Planning Ministers had described affordable housing as ‘housing which is affordable for low and moderate income households across home ownership, private rental as well as public rental tenures … The benchmark for affordability is 25 to 30 per cent of the income of these target groups.’

The now discontinued National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) considered affordable housing as having rents lower than the prevailing local market rate, with the Scheme capping rents at 20 per cent below market rates to eligible tenants for a 10-year period.

While this was a welcome form of assistance, depending on location, the reduced rents were not always 'affordable' in absolute terms. In higher rent regions (such as capital cities and some regional coastal cities) low-income households receiving such assistance to make their housing ‘affordable’ could still be in housing affordability stress (i.e. paying more than 30% of income in housing costs). In other words, housing may be considered affordable when compared to the market rent, but it may not be affordable relative to the residents’ income.

In such areas affordable housing schemes may operate as a way to support rental housing for key workers (usually people working in lower paid, but key civic jobs such as police, health and education workers), rather than delivering housing that is affordable to very low and low-income households.

Residential aged care is for senior Australians who can no longer live in their own home. It includes accommodation and personal care 24 hours a day, as well as access to nursing and general health care services. We subsidise aged care homes to provide residential care to eligible people.

Retirement villages and residential aged care facilities are designed for people at different stages of life and with very different needs.

Retirement villages are made up of private homes and usually offer a range of shared facilities for recreation and relaxation, including pools, community centres, gymnasiums and sports facilities such as bowling greens or tennis courts. They often also have spaces for doctors, physiotherapists, hairdressers and other ‘come to you’ services.

Unlike retirement villages where you may or may not require additional care or support, residential aged care provides accommodation, health care and support services to seniors requiring round-the-clock supervision and assistance.

Although the housing situation of First Nations people has improved – for example with rises in home ownership and falling levels of homelessness – it has been recognised that First Nations people have significantly less access to affordable, secure and quality housing (AIHW 2019a; AIHW and NIAA 2020). As such, governments are increasingly targeting housing as an essential policy area for improving the health and wellbeing of First Nations people.
This page focuses on housing tenure (including ownership, rental, and social housing), housing affordability, housing assistance, housing quality (including facilities and structural soundness) and overcrowding. It also looks at homelessness and the use of relevant services by First Nations people.

With around 60 per cent of Indigenous Australians living in rental accommodation (compared to around 30 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians who rent) understanding what makes Indigenous tenancies work successfully is vital, new AHURI research has confirmed.

We identified that cultural differences between the way Indigenous and Western families use housing were not adequately accounted for in rental housing service provision and tenancy agreements,’ says Dr Moskos. ‘For example, the traditional responsibilities of Indigenous tenants to house extended family members when needed can conflict with the expectations of landlords around visitors and overcrowding, and thus threaten tenancy arrangements.’
Issues around communication and the ability of tenants to understand the implications of their tenancy agreements were also highlighted.
To find ‘what worked’, the research looked closely at three case studies in different regions of Australia and identified some common factors in successful tenancies:
• the way that services were delivered; central to this was the importance of having the correct policy settings that supported the programs in prioritising and responding to the circumstances of individual tenants was highlighted
• the staffing of the programs; having the right staff was a vital component of the success of the case-study programs. Staff with previous experience in community housing were considered to be valuable, as well as those who were willing to spend time with tenants and be flexible in the delivery of services to deliver positive housing and non-housing outcomes.
• linkages with other service providers (e.g. broader health and community services) enabled a joined-up approach to service delivery.

CORE works with members and stakeholders on innovative solutions to challenging soil related issues. From enhancing agricultural soils to treating complex soil contamination issues, CORE develops solutions using methods and technologies involving bio-products tailor-made for the situation.

Our Circular Economy goals are to help with decontaminating waste through Case Studies from our Pilots to prove systems and innovations that help change habits in the workplace which will then ripple out to the home, while creating new industries, jobs and entrepreneurship in our region.

Reef Catchments is the Natural Resource Management (NRM) organisation for the Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region. We facilitate change and work for long-term solutions to sustain, protect, and improve our region’s natural resources and environment, both now and into the future.

What is Circular Economy?
We think it’s important to recognise that circular economy initiatives fall under the ‘sustainability’ umbrella, but not all sustainability initiatives are circular.

For the purpose of the Queensland Circular Economy (Industry-Research) program, initiatives supported should fit within the Queensland Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy’s definition of the circular economy where: products and materials keep circulating within the economy at their highest value for as long as possible, through reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, delivering products as services, and sharing. Also for inclusion are initiatives which address avoiding the waste of products and materials.

In a practical sense that means the principal aim of initiatives or proposals will be around addressing waste and retaining value of materials and products; and any water and energy efficiency benefits will be seen as a bonus.

We are looking for those initiatives that will contribute to Queensland being a zero-waste society by reducing material and products going to landfill.

Gulf Savannah NRM is a natural resource management organisation delivering projects in Queensland's Northern Gulf region to support sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and healthy landscapes and waterways.

Climate-KIC Australia orchestrates collaborative efforts to deliver connected and coordinated climate action. We work across multiple levers of change, including technology, business models, markets, finance and investment, policy and regulation, knowledge and skills, organisational culture and ways of working.

Organic waste makes up around half of what Queenslanders throw away each week in their kerbside waste (red lid) bin. Diverting organic material from landfill presents numerous environmental and economic benefits, ranging from significant landfill methane emissions reduction to the generation of a value-added product.

The Queensland Government supported Townsville City, Rockhampton Regional and Lockyer Valley Regional Councils to undertake the trials.

As part of the trial, each council provided an additional bin to a sample of households to test collection frequencies, equipment types and community engagement methods.

The trials successfully diverted hundreds of tonnes of organic waste from landfill. The information gathered from the trials is being used by the Queensland Government and councils to assess the suitably of ongoing FOGO collections in Queensland.

The trials were made possible due to the dedicated waste management teams in the local governments who have been on the ground every day ensuring that their communities embrace new ways of managing their waste.

With an ongoing annual investment of $80 million, the Skilling Queenslanders for Work initiative assists disadvantaged Queenslanders to gain skills, qualifications, and experience to enter and stay in the workforce.
The initiative funds community organisations to deliver training and support programs to up to 15,000 unemployed or underemployed Queenslanders, focusing on:
• young people (including those in and transitioned from out-of-home care)
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• people with disability
• mature age job seekers
• women re-entering the workforce
• veterans and ex-Australian Defence Force (ADF) members and their families
• people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• recently released prisoners.