Latest Government of Australia Stories

Replaces clipboards and paper forms with Apple iPad, Google Android, or Microsoft Windows tablets running smart electronic forms. Sydney, Australia and Denver, CO (PRWEB) October 02, 2012 Avoka Technologies, a leader in helping large organizations transform their paper-based business processes into intelligent data collection applications that make data collection quick, error free, and device independent today announced the availability of its new SmartForm FieldWorker App on the Google...

The Australian government has stopped the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd from using unmanned drones over the Antarctic. The Australian Antarctic Division told the group the drones must have an urgent environmental impact assessment if they are to be used in Antarctic Treaty waters. The drones were used by the group in December to find the factory ship Nisshin Maru before it made it into Antarctic waters. The Australian government requires anyone going to the far south from an...

Farmers in eastern Australia are battling a plague of locusts, which have infested a 190,000 square mile stretch from central Queensland all the way south to the capital of Melbourne."What we've got certainly is a very large and widespread infestation," Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) chief Chris Adriaansen told AFP reporters on Wednesday. "It's simply a reflection of the fact that we've had widespread rain across that entire area."According to Adriaansen,...

According to scientists on Sunday, a drought that has been ongoing in the southwestern region of Australia for more than 30 years has been linked to higher snowfall in East Antarctica, a phenomenon that may be tied to global warming. The southwestern drought, where rainfall has declined 15 to 20 percent in recent years, is very unusual when compared to normal activity over the past 750 years, researchers Tas van Ommen and Vin Morgan of the Australian Antarctic Division told AFP. In a report...

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Group of 20 nations should set a path for economic growth that balances developed and emerging economies.The G20 nations should seek a new, sustainable growth model for the future, that helps correct massive financial imbalances, between export-based, manufacturing nations, like China, and import-based, consumer-oriented economies like the United States, Rudd said.Otherwise we may be looking at the prospect of flat global growth for a while to come,...

A German doctor and his family have been denied permanent residency in Australia because one of his sons has Down syndrome. Dr. Bernhard Moeller told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he is angry because the Immigration Department did not take into account the service he provides in an area in Victoria with few doctors. John Brumby, the Victorian prime minister, called the decision "stupid." Department officials defended their decision, saying Australian law requires them to take into...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Supreme Court has given three young Australians death sentences for heroin trafficking, after prosecutors appealed against an earlier cut in their life jail terms, a court official said on Wednesday. A fourth Australian man was also given a death sentence after appealing against his life term, Zarof Ricar, director of criminal justice at the Supreme Court, told reporters. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told parliament in Canberra he had no...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Supreme Court has given three young Australians death sentences for heroin trafficking, after prosecutors appealed against an earlier cut in their life jail terms, a court official said on Wednesday. A fourth Australian man was also given a death sentence after appealing against his life term, told reporters. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told parliament in Canberra he had no confirmation of news reports of the death sentences. But...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A powerful decade-long alliance between Australia's Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello has come to an end, Australia's media declared on Tuesday, with the pair at odds over a leadership succession deal. Howard and Costello will face each other at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, a day after the treasurer publicly contradicted his leader, saying Howard had pledged in 1994 to hand him the top job after one-and-a-half terms in government. The two...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A powerful decade-long alliance between Australia's Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello has come to an end, Australia's media declared on Tuesday, with the pair at odds over a leadership succession deal. Howard and Costello will face each other at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, a day after the treasurer publicly contradicted his leader, saying Howard had pledged in 1994 to hand him the top job after one-and-a-half terms in government. The two...