The idea of recasting the Australian political landscape to incorporate an increased recognition of regions is both longstanding and intriguing. For example, in his introduction to 'New Australian States', U. R. Ellis (1933: 9) observed that while "no complete history of the fight for local self-government in Australia has ever been written ... the Riverina and New England movements date back more than seventy years ... and the desire for domestic independence in Central and North Queensland has existed for almost as long". Couched in these terms, arguments for increasing the number of states, based upon regional self-identification, were embedded in federalism as political theory. This theory recognised both the validity of the concept of local autonomy, or what Ellis (1933: 9) then referred to as "home rule" (see, for example, Grant and Dollery, 2012), as well as the dangers of an "unbalanced federalism", whereby regional and rural areas within states became subservient to the electorally-dominant industrialised cities.

Local government financial viability measurement in an accrual budgeting environment poses complex challenges. Financial measures frequently generate conflicting results. A rating scale to assess financial management, constructed originally for South African municipalities (Dollery & Graves, 2009), represents a useful tool to analyze financial health trends. Applying a "Likert-like" scale to financial performance measures to assess "funding compliance", the model in this article assists municipalities to avoid financial difficulties. To demonstrate the applicability of this model, we apply the model to the Brisbane City Council and the Sydney City Councils. Results show that the model represents a valuable aid to financial management decision-making.

In its 'Better, Stronger Local Government', the Independent Local Government Review Panel (2012a, 2012b) advanced several claims regarding the performance of New South Wales (NSW) local government, including the supposed need for additional "sub-council" governance structures. This article argues that there is no need to "reinvent the wheel" in NSW local government by introducing additional "sub-council" structures since existing regulation already enables local authorities to engage in local co-governance. Using the example of the Lake Macquarie City Council ("LakeMac") "delegation model", the article shows that LakeMac has been successful in its endeavors to engage widespread community participation in co-governance to manage council facilities.

Like numerous other local government systems in developed countries, Australian local government confronts daunting financial problems, perhaps most acutely evident in the emer-gence of a severe backlog in local infrastructure maintenance and renewal. Australian local government policy makers have relied to an unusual and extreme degree on compulsory coun-cil consolidation as the main policy instrument to tackle the financial crisis. This paper sets out the dimensions of the financial crisis and the attendant heavy reliance on forced amalgamation and then goes to consider the efficacy of compulsory council consolidation as a means of improving financial viability in Australian local government through the prism pro-vided by eight national and state-based public inquiries into financial sustainability in local government over the past decade. With one exception, these inquiries are skeptical of the abil-ity of forced amalgamation to improve local authority financial viability.

While tensions between the imperatives of regional, state and national development and local autonomy are common, there is no necessary trade-off between the two since regional development can co-exist with a vibrant system of local government. However, this is often not readily appreciated in Australian policy debates, which frequently juxtapose regional and local governance structures. This paper examines two cases studies of this approach in Tasmania, which have generated bitter controversy, in the form of the Southern Tasmania Council Association (STCA) sponsored Independent Panel into local government in the Southern Tasmania regional area which produced a Final Report (the 'Munro Report') Independent Review of Structures for Local Governance & Service Delivery in Southern Tasmania and the Tasmanian Division of the Property Council of Australia sponsored Deloitte Access Economics (2011) Report entitled Local Government Structural Reform in Tasmania. It is argued that both documents err poorly in both conceptual and empirical terms and this renders their recommendations for radical local government amalgamation fatally flawed.

We investigated the association between religious involvement and life satisfaction using panel data from the 2004, 2007, and 2010 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Our study provides strong evidence of an association between attendance at religious services and life satisfaction in the Australian social context. While social resources mediate this association, there appears to be a remaining direct influence of attendance at religious services on life satisfaction. To unravel this association, there is a need to disentangle and separately assess the influence that 'religious social resources' and 'secular social resources' may have on life satisfaction.

The existence of a financial crisis in Australian local government cannot be gainsaid. Over the past decade, a host of state and national inquiries have established that not only do a large number of local councils suffer straitened financial circumstances, but an immense local infrastructure backlog has also developed. Moreover, the infrastructure shortfall is intensifying as local authorities divert funds away from desperately needed infrastructure investment and maintenance in an effort to maintain current service provision. As a result, the funding required for local infrastructure now exceeds the financial capacity of most local councils using 'own-source' revenue. Despite almost universal agreement on the causes and consequences of the fiscal crisis, no corresponding consensus holds on the most suitable public policy measures for remedying the problem. Numerous solutions have been advanced, from 'internal' reform aimed to improve asset management, through to 'external' funding derived from Commonwealth and state transfers. While debate on optimal public policy has been vigorous in the popular press, substantive contributions have been scattered in copious and often obscure official documents issued by public agencies, departments and inquiries, as well as articles in far-flung academic journals. This has led to a curious fragmentation of the debate and a dearth of serious engagement between protagonists of different public policies.

For decades Australian policy-makers have relied on the blunt instrument of forced amalgamation to reform local government. However, a host of recent public inquiries has demonstrated that despite compulsory mergers in all states, except WA, financial unsustainability has become more acute. Using the case study of the successful achievement of ongoing financial sustainability by Lake Macquarie City Council in NSW through its resourceful "bottom-up" use of the "top-down" financial parameters set for NSW local government, this paper argues that state governments should concentrate on "process change" by establishing sound "top-down" regulatory frameworks thereby enabling "bottom-up" ingenuity by local authorities rather than "structural change" through compulsory mergers.

Objective: This study investigated the association between body mass index (BMI) and changes in BMI over time with health-related quality-of-life data among a general and representative sample of the Australian population. Methods: The sample consisted of respondents between the ages of 18 and 79 who completed the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey in 2007 and 2009. These respondents completed the SF-36 questionnaire and provided data on their height, weight, medical conditions, and sociodemographic characteristics. SF-36 questionnaire responses were converted into health state utility values using the SF-6D algorithm. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between BMI and utility, controlling for a range of obesity-related medical conditions and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: Obese men (BMI value ≥30) had, on average, a lower utility score (-0.0190, P < 0.001) than men within an "acceptable" BMI range (BMI 18.5 to <25). Obese women (BMI value ≥30) also had, on average, a lower utility score (-0.0338, P < 0.001) than women within an acceptable BMI range (18.5 to <25). Although BMI was not associated longitudinally with utility, there was a statistically significant negative longitudinal relationship between arthritis (-0.0153, P < 0.01) and depression/anxiety disorders (-0.0358, P < 0.001) and utility. Conclusions: Cross-sectional results suggest that BMI is negatively associated with utility and that further investigation of the longitudinal relationship between BMI and utility is warranted.