When selecting projects, councils are strongly urged to consider the likelihood they will reduce fatalities and serious injuries. The Australian Government’s ongoing funding commitment will ensure local councils are better able to decide what local roads are priorities and how money should be spent.

Obtaining detailed information on project outcomes is critical to ensuring the Australian Government is delivering the most robust road upgrade projects to demonstrably reduce the number of serious crashes across the Australian road network.

To that end the new R2R Statement of Expectations will require council input on the benefits their completed projects have provided as a condition of funding in future years. More information on the statement of expectation is available at: investment.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure_investment/roads_to_recovery/

The Australian Energy Market Commission released a rule requiring retailers to notify electricity and gas customers when their energy discounts are about to finish or change. 

This is the direct result of the actions of the Coalition Government to ensure consumers are not paying more for energy than they need to.

In August, the Prime Minister secured a commitment from major energy retailers to support a range of actions to put downward pressure on prices, including the rule change.

This rule means that, for the first time, retailers will be required to notify customers ahead of time, when a benefit in their contract is about to end or change.

This will put consumers in a strong, informed position to consider their energy options and to shop around for a better deal.

The rule change will start on 1 February 2018, with retailers required to provide further detailed information to consumers from October 2018, about how much consumers will pay if they stay on the same deal.

The Government continues to proactively engage with retail energy companies to deliver on the remaining retailer commitments to put families and small business first, including retailers contacting nearly two million households to let them know there are better deals.

On top of this most recent action, the Government has abolished the ability of energy networks to appeal the decisions of the Australian Energy Regulator. This reform is critical as network costs make up around half of the household bill. Previously, networks have used the appeals mechanism to add $6.5 billion on to consumers’ electricity bills.

To further put downward pressure on electricity prices, the Government has secured more gas supplies through tough new regulations in the gas sector to give Australian customers priority access to gas before it is exported overseas.

The Coalition Government has released the terms of reference for an independent inquiry into the data and methodology used to determine specific components of Commonwealth funding for non-government schools.

The review of the socio-economic status (SES) score methodology by the National School Resourcing Board would look into the way SES scores are calculated and used to assess the capacity of families to contribute to the running costs of their non-government school. For more information and the terms of reference visit:  www.education.gov.au/school-resourcing-board