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What is the relationship between Australia's system of compulsory preferential voting and the ideological stance of elected members? Utilising a unique dataset of social media communication from the 2013 federal election, we show how preference flows influence parliamentarians' subsequent communications to voters. MPs who were behind on the first count but gained sufficient preferences to win a seat – whom we call 'come-from-behind' winners – adopted distinctively centrist communication strategies, occupying an ideological 'cross-over zone' between the most right-leaning Labor member and most left-leaning Coalition member. Most of these 'come-from-behind' winners today are Labor MPs, illustrating the changing partisan impact of compulsory preferential voting, from historically advantaging the conservative side of politics to now clearly benefitting Labor and, to a lesser extent, independent candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of the study was to describe and compare the confidence and knowledge of health professionals (HPs) with and without specialized speech-language training for communicating with people with aphasia (PWA) in a metropolitan hospital setting.Methods: Ninety HPs from multidisciplinary teams completed a customized survey to identify their demographic information, knowledge of aphasia, current use of supported conversation strategies and overall communication confidence when interacting with PWA using a 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS) to rate open-ended questions. Conventional descriptive statistics were used to examine the demographic information. Descriptive statistics and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to analyse VAS confidence rating data. The responses to the open-ended survey questions were grouped into four previously identified key categories.Results: The HPs consisted of 22 (24.4%) participants who were speech-language pathologists and 68 (75.6%) participants from other disciplines (non-speech-language pathology HPs, non-SLP HPs). The non-SLP HPs reported significantly lower confidence levels (U = 159.0, p < 0.001, two-tailed) and identified fewer strategies for communicating effectively with PWA than the trained speech-language pathologists. The non-SLP HPs identified a median of two strategies identified [interquartile range (IQR) 1-3] in contrast to the speech-language pathologists who identified a median of eight strategies (IQR 7-12).Conclusion: These findings suggest that HPs, particularly those without specialized communication education, are likely to benefit from formal training to enhance their confidence, skills and ability to successfully communicate with PWA in their work environment. This may in turn increase the involvement of PWA in their health care decisions. Implications for Rehabilitation Interventions to remediate health professional’s (particularly non-speech-language pathology health professionals) lower levels of confidence and ability to communicate with PWA may ultimately help ensure equal access for PWA.Promote informed collaborative decision-making, and foster patient-centred care within the health care setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on various events to welcome the start of Australia's 2012 National Year of Reading (NYR), an initiative adopted at the first Alia Public Libraries Summit in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory in July 2009. It mentions the support of prime minister, federal arts minister, celebrities and other leaders for the NYR, all attending campaign launch events throughout the country. It notes that the launch events, which took place in shopping malls, libraries, schools, and other community venues across the country, provided the opportunity to talk about all the activities which people have planned for 2012.

The article offers the author's insights on how Australian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine (ACNEM) developed its relevance and reach. He mentions several organizations in which ACNEM has established a relationship with including Aust Academy of Anti-Ageing Medicine, Bio-Balance Health and Complementary Healthcare Council. He adds that ACNEM has been working on their member services particularly communications strategy and widened its exposure to the publications.