The Melbourne Newsroom

The groundbreaking book ‘Worlds in Transition’, which explores democratic decision-making from local to planetary scale, will be launched at the University of Melbourne today. Co-authors Professor Jim Falk from the University of Melbourne and Professor Joseph Camilleri, from La Trobe University, have been praised for their work, providing ‘insights into the perils of our era’ and ‘issuing a clarion call for a system of multi-tiered governance to address them.’

With the Federal Government set to resume debate today on proposed changes to taxes on alcopops, Professor Rob Moodie, Chair of Global Health at the University of Melbourne, discusses the benefits of such a tax.

Professor Moodie says there is independent evidence that the alcopop tax does work in reducing consumption, with independent studies revealing 165 million fewer spirit-based drinks were drunk by Australians when the tax was enforced between May 2008 and January 2009.

Australia well prepared to face swine flu outbreak, says Director of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Professor Graham Brown

Professor Brown says he is not surprised that the World Health Organisation has called the recent outbreak of swine flu a public health emergency of international concern.

This has been noted as an epidemic of potential concern as the World Health organisation want to act early; because the flu has traveled outside Mexico, there is a risk of it becoming a pandemic, he says.