The Hon Bruce Billson MP, tabled the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme's (NDIS's) Progress Report on the implementation and administration of the NDIS.

The report identifies learnings from the early roll-out of the scheme and offers a number of

recommendations on how to give the scheme the best chance of success.

The report has also identified a number of challenges that still need to be addressed if the scheme is to succeed. Some of the issues include:

• transition of people from state support to the NDIS
• development and readiness of service providers and the capacity of the disability
• interface of the NDIS with mainstream services
• resolving transport issues for both participants and providers
• ensuring those in Indigenous and remote and regional areas have access to the scheme as soon as possible.

The report provided 12 recommendations including that the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Department of Social Services carry out more in-depth research to assess the viability of various Local Area Coordination delivery models before any commitment is made.

The committee will continue to monitor the issues identified and, over the coming year, will particularly focus on accommodation, mental health and indigenous issues.

The full report is available on the committee's webpage on the Parliament of Australia website.

Australia's peak infrastructure body Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) and the Water Services Association of Australia - the peak body for water utilities - have presented a major report to the Commonwealth Government calling for fundamental change to urban water.

The report says that, despite its importance, Australia's urban water sector faces significant unresolved challenges to its operation and long-term financial viability. It calls for deliberate and sustained microeconomic reform to equip water utilities with the financial resources they need to meet growth requirements and properly utilise water resources-tempered by the right regulatory structure to protect customers and economic value.

The report goes on to provide three recommendations:

• that Australia needs national leadership in urban water policy
• that Urban water reform needs a permanent national champion
• that the Commonwealth develop a reform incentive framework, with funding for state governments linked to urban water reform milestones.

A full copy of the report is available on the IPA website.

The second meeting of the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council for 2015 was held on 5 November in Canberra, where disaster funding reforms were discussed.

Ministers agreed to continue to investigate a new model where the Commonwealth would provide recovery funding to states for the reconstruction of essential public assets based on upfront damage assessments and pre-determined reconstruction costs.

The communique issued by the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council is available on its website.

World Town Planning Day, celebrated on 8 November, is an annual opportunity to recognise the significant role of planning in shaping our towns through the creation of strong communities that are vibrant, well-connected and sustainable.

In recognition of those involved in planning, including local government, the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) held several planning awards ceremonies across the country. Several councils in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania have been recognised for planning excellence through the awards.

Winners include the City of Prospect, which won the SA Public Engagement & Community Planning Award for its Memorial Gardens Master Plan that demonstrated a proactive and creative approach to creating a vibrant and exciting park, and the Shire of Kalamunda in WA for its Forrestfield Skate Park and Youth Space, a project that is an exemplary demonstration of participatory budgeting and community democracy.

More information on the winners across the country is available on the PIA website.

The 4th meeting of the Transport and Infrastructure Council was held in Adelaide last Friday. The council includes Transport, Infrastructure and Planning Ministers from the Commonwealth, States and Territories, New Zealand and the Australian Local Government Association.

During the meeting, the council approved the National Remote and Regional Transport Strategy, which outlines high-level actions that seek to address the significant transport challenges faced in remote and regional Australia. It also considered the National Road Safety Strategy Implementation Status Report and noted the strong results to date in reducing road deaths, with the total in 2014 (1,155) reduced by 19 per cent under the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020. The National Road Safety Strategy Implementation Status Report is available on the new National Road Safety Strategy website.

The Council also agreed that the Austroads Framework for Guiding Private Sector Participation be adopted by road managers to provide more certainty of process for all parties in negotiations on paying for improved high productivity vehicle access on public roads.

The full communique from the meeting of the Transport and Infrastructure Council is available at this link.

A Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) report has identified the long-term trends in urban traffic growth, and estimated the consequent impacts of that traffic growth on road network congestion levels within the Australian capital cities.

The report found that the avoidable cost of congestion for the Australian capital cities is estimated to be around $16.5 billion for the 2015 financial year, having grown from about $12.8 billion for 2010.

The Australian Logistics Council (ALC) said the report serves as a timely reminder to governments to give equal consideration to the movement of freight as is given to the movement of people.

“Addressing congestion in our cities requires a multi-faceted approach from all levels of government, and the fact that the Commonwealth has strongly committed to investing in our cities is a welcome development, particularly in light of these new congestion cost figures," Michael Kilgariff, Managing Director of the ALC, said.

The BITRE report is available on the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development website.

This week's launch of the new framework to prevent violence against women and their children provides a timely opportunity to highlight local government's efforts in this important and enormous task.

The Municipal Association of Victoria's prevention of violence against women program launched in 2012 takes a “whole-of-life” approach from maternal and early childhood health, youth services to aged care. Through this program, VIC councils have led the work in their communities to prevent violence against women and promote gender equity.

In September and October this year, the "safer families, better communities" initiative by the Local Government Association of QLD saw individual QLD councils hold rallies that sent the clear and powerful message that violence against women would not be tolerated.

Councils across NSW have also employed Community Safety Officers using grants provided under the NSW Stop the Violence, End the Silence campaign. The CSOs participate in a range of local partnership networks putting them at the grassroots of initiatives to prevent violence against women and their children.

Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS)  is holding its inaugural National Research Conference into Violence against Women and their Children in Melbourne from 23-25 February 2016. It has extended an invitation to policy-makers, practitioners and researchers from the three tiers of government to share ideas on how research can drive evidence-based policy development, service responses and practice.

For more information on the conference please visit www.anrowsconference.org.au or email caryn.morgan@anrows.org.au.

Wildlife researchers are urging councils to help facilitate the monitoring of rabbit numbers during the impending release (Autumn 2016) of a Korean strain of the Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus, known as RHDV1 K5, which aims to boost the effectiveness of the current RHDV1 strain released in 1996.

Councils, landholders, farmers and community groups have been invited to express their interest in participating in the final stages of the research to support the release of K5.

Andreas Glanznig, CEO of the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre said: "Rabbits don’t stop at fence lines and we need landholders, landcare groups and councils alike to take a coordinated community-led approach to assist in monitoring the effectiveness of our management methods."

The Surf Coast Shire Council in Victoria, which indicated its interest in participating in the project, has already received responses from more than 30 landholders who have expressed an interest as rabbit monitoring sites.

Councils that are interested in participating in the project can find more information on the Pest Smart website.

Local governments can play a major future role in improved road safety from the very start of new residential development planning, according to Adam Mularczyk, the Team Coordinator, Engineering Assessments at the Wyong Council.

Mr Mularczyk told the 2015 Conference of the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia - NSW that far greater benefits are realised through early intervention, such as considering less cross intersections and more 'T' intersections.

"We may request the all-important Road Safety Audits at a later stage of a subdivision, but sometimes when these elements are too far progressed to be changed," he said.

He said that local government can also boost road safety  by:

• fleet management principles through buying the highest safety rating vehicles possible for employee protection
• buying lighter coloured vehicles with Daylight Driving Lights
• increasing reflectivity or providing retro-reflective markings on vehicles, particularly those operating at night
• targeting high risk employee groups, like young males.

More information about the IPWEA October 2015 Annual Conference is available at this link.

Washington DC has unveiled its US$470 million waste-to-energy project that produces a net 10 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the wastewater treatment process.

The project provides clean, renewable energy to power one-third of the water treatment plant's energy needs, and is the first utility provider to bring the technology to North America. The facilities include a de-watering building, 32 thermal hydrolysis vessels, four concrete 24-metre high anaerobic digesters that hold 14,000 cubic metres of solids each and three turbines the size of jet engines.

George Hawkins, CEO and General Manager of DC Water, said: "This project embodies a shift from treating used water as waste to leveraging it as a resource. We are proud to be the first to bring this innovation to North America for the benefit of our ratepayers, the industry and the environment."

Find out more about DC Water's project here.