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Proponents of development projects (e.g., new roads, mines, dams) are frequently required to assess and manage their impacts on threatened biodiversity. Here, we propose that the environmental legislation and standards that mandate such assessments are failing those threatened species and ecological communities listed as vulnerable. Using a case study of Australia's key environmental legislation, we highlight that vulnerable ecological communities receive no statutory protection, while vulnerable species are held to a less stringent standard in the impact assessment process compared with those that are endangered or critically endangered. In the 19 years since Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 was enacted, four times as many vulnerable species have declined in their threat status than have improved. Beyond Australia, we demonstrate the global relevance of this issue, as it applies to internationally recognized best practice impact assessment guidelines. These cases provide a cautionary tale: without greater attention and stricter assessment criteria in the impact assessment process, the vulnerable species of today risk becoming the endangered species of tomorrow, with all the attendant costs and missed opportunities for recovery that this implies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a randomised controlled trial, the internet-based ResilienceOnline (ROL) program was evaluated among sales managers from an Australian industrial organisation. This program is designed to enhance resilience by teaching seven skills to help improve ability to cope with challenges and setbacks and maximise potential achievements. Sales managers were allocated to complete the ROL program (n = 26) or to be in a waitlist-control condition (n = 27) and were compared on pre- and post-intervention measures of happiness, quality of life, depression, anxiety, stress and work performance. Sales managers found the resilience training very enjoyable and believed it would improve their work performance and life skills. However, a high proportion of sales managers did not complete the ROL program and it was not found to significantly reduce distress or improve quality of life or work performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the outcomes of the recent COAG meeting are implemented, Australia will have a new set of benchmarks for its health system within a few months. This is a non-trivial task. Choice of benchmarks will, explicitly or implicitly, reflect a framework about how the health system works, what is important or to be valued and how the benchmarks are to be used. In this article we argue that the health system is dynamic and so benchmarks need to measure flows and interfaces rather than simply cross-sectional or static performance. We also argue that benchmarks need to be developed taking into account three perspectives: patient, clinician and funder. Each of these perspectives is critical and good performance from one perspective or on one dimension doesn't imply good performance on either (or both) of the others. The three perspectives (we term the dimensions patient assessed value, performance on clinical interventions and efficiency) can each be decomposed into a number of elements. For example, patient assessed value is influenced by timeliness, cost to the patient, the extent to which their expectations are met, the way they are treated and the extent to which there is continuity of care. We also argue that the way information is presented is important: cross sectional, dated measures provide much less information and are much less useful than approaches based on statistical process control. The latter also focuses attention on improvement and trends, encouraging action rather than simply blame of poorer performers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]