bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Performance of Australia's Ethical Funds
Authors: Tippet John
Published: March 2003

Australia's three major public ethical investment funds achieved mixed financial success in the seven years to 30 June 1998, though on average the funds underperformed relative to the market. For the four‐year and five‐year holding periods to 30 June 1995 and 1996 respectively, the average holding‐period returns for the three funds were less than the risk‐free rate. This is strong evidence of investors incurring a financial discount for investing ethically and, with respect to the ethical investor's utility function, it is evidence of the marginal utility increasing as the ethical attributes of assets increase.
Industrial Relations Reform in Australia: Causes, Consequences and Prospects
Authors: Wooden Mark
Published: March 2003

This article reviews Australia's experience with industrial relations reform since the late 1980s. The key conclusion is that claims made about both the costs and benefits of reform have been exaggerated.
Progressivity of the Commonwealth Personal Income Tax, 1917–1997
Authors: Smith Julie P.
Published: March 2003

This article assesses changes in personal income tax progressivity since 1916–17. Before World War II, legislative action changed tax progressivity; after, declines mainly reflected tax policy inertia.
Use and Misuse of Tax Compliance Costs in Evaluating the GST
Authors: Tran‐Nam Binh
Published: March 2003

This article examines the use of tax compliance costs in evaluating tax reform and seeks to demonstrate that the Government's current approach is flawed.
Economic Issues in Health Policy: Comment
Authors: Withers Glenn
Published: March 2003

This article reviews the adequacy of policy targeting of health market failures and the sector's positioning for the challenges ahead.
The Impact of Children on the Lifetime Earnings of Australian Women: Evidence from the 1990s
Authors: Chapman Bruce , Dunlop Yvonne , Gray Matthew , Liu Amy , Mitchell Deborah
Published: March 2003

This article presents estimates of the consequences of having children for the lifetime earnings of Australian women in the late 1990s.
The Cost of Monopoly in Australian Manufacturing
Authors: Dixon Robert , Gunther Alan , Mahmood Muhammad
Published: March 2003

This article looks at the deadweight loss arising from monopoly elements in Australian manufacturing under various assumptions and its relationship with the level of concentration.
Moving from Unemployment to Permanent Employment: Could a Casual Job Accelerate the Transition?
Authors: Chalmers Jenny , Kalb Guyonne
Published: March 2003

This article compares the time taken to exit from unemployment to permanent work with the time taken to exit from unemployment to permanent work through casual work.
The Growth of Jobless Households in Australia
Authors: Dawkins Peter , Gregg Paul , Scutella Rosanna
Published: March 2003

In this article it is shown that individual‐based measures of joblessness and household measures of joblessness have diverged over the last twenty years with joblessness becoming increasingly concentrated in certain households.
Childcare Policy: An Introduction and Overview
Authors: Wooden Mark
Published: March 2003

This article summarises the case for public involvement in the provision of childcare and provides an overview of the contributions to the Policy Forum.
Demand for Childcare Services and Labour Supply in Australian Families
Authors: Doiron Denise , Kalb Guyonne
Published: March 2003

This article provides empirical findings on non‐parental childcare use and simulates the effect of childcare costs on labour supply in Australia.
Childcare and the ‘Care Gap’ in the United States and Australia
Authors: Drago Robert
Published: March 2003

This article discusses solutions to the care gap. The alternatives of on‐site and employer‐funded, inclusive and mixed‐type, and universal childcare are discussed.
Equity and Australian Development: Lessons from the First Century
Authors: Garnaut Ross
Published: March 2003

Australians’ commitment to equitable distribution means that in the twenty–first century we will have all or none of economic reform, income security, full employment and strong economic growth.
Introduction to the Policy Forum on Commonwealth–State Funding Arrangements
Authors: Johnson David
Published: March 2003

This article introduces the Policy Forum on funding arrangements between the Commonwealth and the States.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)Survey: Wave 1
Authors: Wooden Mark , Freidin Simon , Watson Nicole
Published: March 2003

In 2001 the first wave of the HILDA Survey, Australia’s first large–scale household panel survey, was conducted. This article summarises the key features of that survey.
The Public Accounts and Fiscal Policy
Authors: Makin Tony
Published: March 2003

This article discusses the economy–wide effects of fiscal policy and major features of public outlays, receipts and debt trends in Australia.
The Lifetime Distributional Impact of Government Health Outlays
Authors: Harding Ann , Percival Richard , Schofield Deborah , Walker Agnes
Published: March 2003

This article examines the lifetime redistributive impact of government health outlays and finds that such outlays redistribute income from the lifetime rich to the lifetime poor and from men to women.
The GST and Vertical, Horizontal and Reranking Effects of Indirect Taxation in Australia
Authors: Creedy John
Published: March 2003

This article examines the orders of magnitude of three different components of redistribution in the context of indirect taxation and changes arising from the introduction of the GST.
Reviewing the Trade Practices Act: The Dawson Committee Inquiry
Authors: King Stephen P.
Published: March 2003

The Dawson Committee is currently reviewing Australia’s competition laws. This article introduces the Policy Forum and considers how the economics of the law can aid the review.
The Role of the ACCC in Australian Competition Policy
Authors: Jones Ross
Published: March 2003

This article examines the ACCC’s enforcement of competition policy, the need to strengthen its anti‐competitive provisions and the criticism of the ACCC’s power.
A Critique of the Role, Powers and Activities of the ACCC: The Business View
Authors: Kates Steven
Published: March 2003

This article explains why better governance of the ACCC is needed, and argues that the additional powers the ACCC seeks—the effects test, cease and desist, criminal sanctions —ought never be given.
Towards Full Employment
Authors: Dawkins Peter , Freebairn John
Published: March 2003

Faster economic growth and wage restraint, especially for the low skilled, are necessary to increase employment. The tax and social security systems are more appropriate ways to compensate those with low incomes.
Infrastructure Spending and Unemployment: Government Responsibility for Growth and Jobs
Authors: Kenyon Peter
Published: March 2003

Australia has not had full employment for 20 years. Reliance on growth through microeconomic reform has failed. To restore full employment, the government must pursue a judicious program of infrastructure spending.
Taxation in Australia
Authors: Johnson David
Published: March 2003

The Australian taxation system is described, and problems with it are explained.
Inventing Australia: a Critique of Recent Cultural Policy Rhetoric
Authors: Mcleay Colin
Published: March 2003

This paper provides a critical analysis of the cultural and arts policies released by the Keating Labor government of the early 1990s and the current Howard Coalition government. While official definitions of Australian national identity promoted multiculturalism, analysis of Creative Nation, Labor's 1994 cultural policy, and recent statements from the Coalition, exposes the partiality of recent constructions. Both Labor and the Coalition's constructions of identity were based on an economism that was linked to traditional, masculine myths of egalitarianism and ‘mateship’. Such constructions show that neither party has embraced multiculturalism to the degree suggested by policy rhetoric.
A Generic Method for Identifying Regional Koala Habitat using GIS
Authors: Bryan Brett Anthony
Published: March 2003

The conservation status of the koala in Australia is not a homogeneous entity but is subject to regional variation according to the predicament of each population with respect to disease and habitat availability. Habitat is the primary factor affecting koala population dynamics in both critical decline and expansion. Key koala management and planning decisions necessitate a regional identification of potentially suitable koala habitat. The environmental factors constituting preferred koala habitat were identified and existing GIS databases used to combine Eucalyptus species preferred and utilised by koalas with soil properties to predict optimal, sub‐optimal and unsuitable koala habitat in the southern Mt. Lofty Ranges. The methodological framework is flexible and particularly suited to regional koala management in Australia.
The Distribution and Environmental Relationships of Native Grasslands on the Lowland Gippsland Plain, Victoria: an Historical Study
Authors: Lunt Ian D.
Published: March 2003

Historical survey plans were studied to document the distribution and ecological relationships of treeless native grasslands on the lowland Gippsland plain, eastern Victoria. Grasslands occupied about 600 square kilometres, mostly in the Sale—Maffra—Heyfield area, which receives about 600 mm mean annual rainfall. All grassland regions have been developed for irrigation farming and not a single remnant is known to survive. Topography and soils appear to be the major factors promoting grasslands. They occurred on flat plains on clay loam and loam topsoils, above a clay subsoil. Burning by Aboriginals probably affected plant composition but appears unlikely to have been the principal factor leading to treelessness.
Nest–site Selection and Breeding Success of Wedge–tailed Shearwaters Puffinus pacificus at Heron Island
Authors: Carter Jenny
Published: March 2003

The nest‐site selection and the reproductive success of the Wedge‐tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) were examined at Heron Island. Thirteen habitat variables were measured and grouped statistically into four composite variables, which were related to nest‐site selection and breeding success in two structural equation models. Both models showed that substrate moisture was negatively related to nest‐site selection, although one model revealed an additional positive effect of soil strength. Hatching success was associated with high substrate moisture and with low density of nesting birds. Burrows are probably sited where excavation is easiest and eggs laid where collapse is least likely. Some small‐scale competition for nest–sites may occur.
Committed to Conserve: the Western Lands Act, 1901, and the Management of the Public Estate of the Western Division of New South Wales
Authors: Quinn Michael
Published: March 2003

Modern perceptions of a past characterised by ignorance and disregard for the environment overlook widely supported attempts by Europeans to protect Australia’s biophysical resources. An environmental and financial crisis in the rangelands of the Western Division of New South Wales was investigated by the Royal Commission into the Condition of the Crown Tenants of 1901. This crisis and royal commission are famous evidence of a profound mismatch between early pastoralism and the land. But, less famously, the royal commission and the subsequent Western Lands Act, 1901, were part of a widely supported and deep commitment to better adapt pastoralism to its environment. The failure of this commitment to achieve lasting change to the way the land was used over succeeding decades illustrates the intransigence of our basic systems of land use.
Health in Papua New Guinea: a Decline in Development
Authors: Connell John
Published: March 2003

Papua New Guinea has experienced the start of an epidemiological transition in health status from infectious towards non‐communicable diseases, though the latter were absent until the post‐war years. This transition is particularly marked in urban and coastal areas, where life expectancies are higher and mortality rates lower. Tropical diseases remain significant, malaria has worsened and new mobility has increased the severity of epidemics of influenza and measles. Indigenous medical systems have increasingly given way to modern medical systems, though disease aetiology is usually perceived through traditional cognitive models. Modern medical systems were mainly developed in the 1960s and 1970s, on either side of independence, but despite an official focus on primary health care, have had much reduced effectiveness since the 1980s. Rural health centres have been poorly maintained and serviced, and health workers have limited skills and access to resources. The health budget has been increasingly concentrated in urban areas, though the bulk of the population and of the health problems are in rural areas, resulting in a worsening ‘inverse care law’, that is particularly significant for women. Overall health status has declined in the past decade despite overseas advocacy of new policies and the prospects for improvement are poor.
Pathways to Homelessness: a Comparison of Gender and Schizophrenia in Inner‐Sydney
Authors: O’Dwyer Bronwen
Published: March 2003

The study compares residential ‘pathways’ into homelessness of a sample of 50 homeless people in inner city Sydney, in an attempt to see whether gender difference or schizophrenia is more important in the determination of mobility patterns leading in and out of homelessness. Three structural processes contributing to the present pattern of homelessness in inner Sydney are identified, providing the context for observed differences in residential histories leading to inner city homelessness. A hypothesis of the study is that women would be likely to experience different factors in the pathway to homelessness such as child raising or partnerships that may influence their residential history. However, after the breakdown of marriage, partnerships appear to play a minor role in the residential mobility of both schizophrenic women and men.
Aboriginal Participation in Environment Planning
Authors: Lane Marcus B.
Published: March 2003

The efforts to involve Aboriginal people in the development of a management plan for a newly created World Heritage Area (WHA) in northern Queensland are examined. Although the management agency expended considerable effort to encourage the participation of local Aboriginal people the program was flawed and served to marginalise some Aboriginal groups from the management of their traditional lands. The management agency failed to understand the nature of contemporary and traditional Aboriginal social organisation. Insensitivity to the diverse nature of Aboriginal social organisation, and ignorance of the complexity of Aboriginal representation, rendered the interests of some groups with traditional interests invisible to the management agency. Because the management agency uncritically accepted the claims to a mandate for regional representation by one Aboriginal lobby group, this group was able to assume a dominant position in liaising with the management agency.
Tree Densities Last Century on the Lowland Gippsland Plain, Victoria
Authors: Lunt Ian D.
Published: March 2003

Tree densities in the mid 1800s were calculated for 16 areas on the lowland Gippsland plain, Victoria, using data on historical maps. The plotless, closest individual method was used on map data, which listed the distance and compass bearings of trees from allotment corners. Densities ranged from 2 to 59 trees per hectare, with most estimates below 30 trees per hectare. Sparsest trees were in and near areas mapped as ‘open plains’ and the densest tree cover was on seasonally flooded river flats. Whilst it seems prudent to treat such figures as indicative rather than precise, this simple method holds considerable promise for obtaining quantitative estimates of tree densities before widespread clearing.
Towards and Integrated Sustainable Development Management Strategy for Torres Strait
Authors: Seebohm Kym , Morvell Gerry
Published: March 2003

Lying between mainland Australia and Papua New Guinea, Torres Strait is a region of high environmental value faced by a plethora of environmental management issues. Although the environment is protected to some extent by the Torres Strait Treaty, the situation is complicated by the desire of the traditional inhabitants for political and economic autonomy and by the involvement of three levels of government, two sovereign nations and a wide range of sectoral interests in environmental management. The failure to extend the moratorium on mining exploration and exploitation of the seabed may act as a catalyst for the development of an integrated and sustainable approach to environmental management in the region. Nevertheless, there are significant constraints which may prevent this. These include the politicisation of environmental issues, lack of effective environmental management at the local level and pressure for the exploitation of natural resources.
The Geographer as Itinerant: Peter Scott in Flight, 1952–1996
Authors: Rimmer Peter J. , Davenport Sandra M.
Published: March 2003

Mobility is the keystone of the ‘new’ regional geography. Attention is drawn to the outpouring of work on travellers throughout history. Surprisingly, little mention is made of geographers who have crossed borders, been immigrants and have engaged in writing about movement. As is evident from Peter Scott's pocket log diary of air travel and airports, there is scope for a study of the whole range of spatial practices of individual geographers through an examination of maps, diaries, stories, books and television programs. As all geographers are travellers, it is perhaps more appropriate to create the spirit of the time so that we can position ourselves in the bigger picture and enjoy our private reveries. This paper, therefore, seeks to recreate the air transport geography of the mid‐1960s and to list key changes over the following thirty years, before examining air transport geography in the mid‐1990s. Attention is paid to advertising signs and images of each period.
Air Services in Australia: Growth and Corporate Change, 1921–1996
Authors: Quinlan Howard G.
Published: March 2003

The growth of Australian internal passenger airlines in the seventy‐five years between 1921 and 1996 has been spectacular with 381 airlines having been part of this evolution. The end of 1996 saw 44 passenger airlines operating, but the nine that made up the two principal airline families performed 98 per cent of total passenger‐kilometres. This paper considers the factors which have moulded the industry and the changes which have occurred in its corporate structure, especially those that led to the formation of the present duopoly. The growth of the industry has not resulted in marked spatial changes apart from a 48 per cent decline in the number of airports served since 1963–64. The proportion of total traffic passing through the busier airports has increased over the last thirty years.
Remote Runways: Air Transport and Distance in Tonga
Authors: Ward R. Gerard
Published: March 2003

Air transport brings areas 'closer together'. But it leaves some places relatively more isolated than when all depended on other modes of transport. Improved technology accentuates this tendency. Where traffic is low and distance long, the maintenance of links is costly. These issues are examined at both international and national scales in the case of Tonga, using several measures of distance and relative accessibility.
Distributing Spatial Information to Georaphically Disparate Users: A Case Study of Ecotourism and Environmental Management
Authors: Kirkby S.D , Pollitt S.E.P.
Published: March 2003

Ecotourism can be defined as nature‐based tourism that involves environmental education, interpretation of the natural environment and ecologically‐sustainable management of the environmental resource (Preece et al., 1996). An environmental information system aimed at satisfying the needs of both ecotourists and environmental managers must provide spatial and non‐spatial information in an accessible manner. In an attempt to provide this, a hypertext/hypermedia markup language using a World Wide Web browser as the interface has been integrated with a geographical information system to provide spatial resource information together with text, audio and graphic information. Flexibility in the system design enables the targeted user groups to select information of interest to them. This descriptive case study shows how changes in technologies delivering spatial and aspatial data enable multiple concurrent views of a data set by a geographically disparate set of domain‐specific users.
Empire and Domestic Space in the Fiction of Jamaica Kincaid
Authors: Hughes R. B.
Published: March 2003

Three novels by Jamaica Kincaid are critically investigated for their representation of colonial and domestic space. Aspiring middle‐class Afro‐Caribbean families in the patriarchal‐colonial society of 1950s and 1960s British Antigua occupied social spaces gendered largely according to western design. In Kincaid’s fiction, the house and yard are designated as feminine and reproductive spaces, while outside the home lies the public world of employment, administration, formal education and migration opportunity, all of which are governed by the norms and expectations of a white Eurocentric culture. Kincaid’s female characters display strategies of subversion and resistance which disrupt the homogeneity of territorial and cultural colonisation.
The Eppalock Soil Conservation Project, Victoria, Australia: The Prevention of Resevoir Sedementation and the Politics of Catchment Management
Authors: Davis Jennifer A. , Rutherfurd Ian D. , Finlayson Brian L.
Published: March 2003

The Eppalock Soil Conservation Project (ESCP) is a celebrated ‘whole‐of‐catchment’ management project implemented upstream of Lake Eppalock reservoir in Victoria, Australia. In 1959, a Victorian Parliamentary Public Works Committee (PPWC) found that the enlarged reservoir would be endangered by sedimentation as a result of severe erosion in the catchment. One of the main objectives of the ESCP was therefore to minimise the amount of sediment entering Lake Eppalock. The reservoir has not subsequently filled with sediment, and this fact has been used to suggest that the catchment scheme was successful in preventing reservoir sedimentation. It is argued here, however, that the estimate of sedimentation presented by the PPWC was inflated and that, even in the absence of a catchment management scheme, Lake Eppalock was not in danger of losing a significant proportion of its capacity to sedimentation. The proponents of the ESCP may have overstated the sedimentation threat to provide justification for what has become an outstanding catchment management project. Prior to the ESCP and despite overpowering evidence, successive governments had failed to respond to the threat of soil erosion. The immediate threat to a large public asset provided the politically powerful lever that was required to justify a total catchment approach to erosion control. Given the circumstances leading up to the 1959 PPWC Inquiry, the actions of the ESCP proponents cannot be criticised. However, this study provides a timely reminder that we cannot accept the apparent achievements of natural resource management projects without first examining the science and politics driving the project.
The Production of Climbing Landscapes‐as‐Texts
Authors: Nettlefold P. A. , Stratford E.
Published: March 2003

Climbing landscapes are represented by climbers in a highly textualised manner. In particular, published climbing guidebooks record the name and graded level of difficulty of each climbing route, and details which link those routes to the ‘identity’ of the first ascendant(s). Climbing landscapes can then literally be read as if they were texts. These landscapes provide a spatial record of, and may ultimately naturalise and commemorate, the first‐ascent‐oriented history of climbing.
Children’s Diminishing Play Space: a Study of Inter‐generational Change in Children’s Use of their Neighbourhoods
Authors: Tandy C. A.
Published: March 2003

A survey of 421 children and 165 parents from three suburban primary schools in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia has provided information on the nature and location of children’s play, both at present and a generation ago. Although modern children have greater access to individual transport in the form of higher bicycle ownership, other constraints appear to have restricted their play space. These include the availability of home‐based leisure technology such as computer games and greater parental restriction on where children might play. The results of the survey would appear to indicate that children prefer to play at home. However, analysis of the children’s stories and drawings suggests that, given the chance, a majority of children would choose to engage in outdoor activities in the bush, in parks or on the beach. Their actual choice of play space may thus be determined by a knowledge of parental constraints.
Studies in Urban Ecology: Strangler Figs in the Urban Parklands of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Authors: McPherson J. R.
Published: March 2003

This study investigated the establishment dynamics of strangler figs and the constraints on their development in the urban parklands of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Of 3580 trees and palms in the study parks, approximately 5% support at least one Ficus species. Six Ficus species occur epiphytically in older parkland. Four are Brisbane natives: F. macrophylla, F. obliqua, F. platypoda and F. virens; and two are from elsewhere in Australia: F. benjamina and F. rubiginosa. A lack of pollinator wasps in the Brisbane area prevents exotic and other native Ficus spp. from reproducing. Though they form predominantly open communities, the percentage of phorophytes (support trees) in the study parks is similar to that associated with natural, closed communities. Ficus spp. become established in structural features that accumulate humic soil, such as the forks of trunks and branches on trees, and behind marcescent leaf bases on palms. Plants with few humus pockets support few Ficus species. Environmental factors such as atmospheric quality, canopy shade, bark texture and whether or not a park is irrigated, seem not to be consequential to Ficus establishment. Significantly greater numbers of Ficus occur on deciduous trees, perhaps because avian seed dispersers favour them as perches over evergreen trees. Ficus also occur significantly more frequently on the western sides of palms with marcescent leaf bases. These western flanks offer shelter from the prevailing sea breezes: fewer Ficus are therefore likely to be torn from these sides in strong winds.
‘The Sun Always Shines in Perth’: a Post‐Colonial Geography of Identity, Memory and Place
Authors: Taylor A.
Published: March 2003

In this paper I explore some of the textual possibilities of post‐colonial geography. Using the conceptual tool of place as a palimpsest, I trace some geographies of memory across selected colonial and post‐colonial texts. By focusing on the relationship between representations of ‘sunny Perth’ and ‘Nyungah Perth’, I tease out some of the more general theoretical issues which pertain to a politics of place and space within this (post)colonial Australian context. The nexus of memory, place and cultural identity is central to my analysis. I give particular attention to the ways in which cultural memories are inscribed in some very specific and very ordinary places, and how these places become site‐markers of the remembering process and of identity itself.
The Experience of Waterfalls
Authors: Hudson B.J.
Published: March 2003

Landscape beauty has long been a concern of geographers and other scholars, but relatively little work has been done on the aesthetic analysis of specific landscape features such as mountain peaks and waterfalls. In Australia, as in many other parts of the world, waterfalls are popular scenic attractions, and this paper attempts to explain the widespread appeal of these landforms by examining them in the light of theories of landscape aesthetics, from the Picturesque and Sublime to arousal and prospect‐refuge. While no single theory offers a complete explanation of our experience of waterfalls, this paper suggests that by using several theoretical approaches to the subject we are more likely to gain a full understanding of the way we respond to these landscape features.
Financial Exclusion in Rural and Remote New South Wales, Australia: a Geography of Bank Branch Rationalisation, 1981–98
Authors: Argent N.M. , Rolley F.
Published: March 2003

The provision of financial services in rural Australia is a significant public policy issue, reflected in the high level of media and political interest in the recent spate of branch closures. There are, however, many aspects of the current debate regarding the delivery of financial services to rural communities that are, at best, less than ideal and, at worst, erroneous. Using telephone directories for New South Wales, non‐metropolitan bank branch listings for the period 1981 to 1998 were collated. A recategorisation of these data according to the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas classification reveals, amidst a spatial realignment of financial service provision, that rural and remote New South Wales have been disproportionately affected by a relatively recent and concerted withdrawal of services. The research demonstrates that corporate‐level responses to increased competition within the financial system are significantly more important in deciding rural access to banking services than local and regional population trends. Indeed, two‐thirds of rural localities that have lost branches had experienced healthy population growth during the study period. In the wake of the post‐deregulation reconfiguration of the bank branch network, the socio‐economic marginalisation of rural communities is being compounded, a process of ‘financial exclusion’ recognised in other parts of the developed world.
Ways of Whiteness: Harlemising Sydney’s Aboriginal Redfern
Authors: Shaw W. S.
Published: March 2003

The inner Sydney Aboriginal settlement known as The Block has been monitored by police, the media and welfare organisations since its inception in the early 1970s. The Block is the subject of an ongoing commentary, a ‘discourse of decline’ about a place that is commonly considered to be Australia's own Harlem‐like ‘black ghetto’. In stark contrast, the predominantly non‐Aboriginal suburbs of Darlington, Redfern and Chippendale, which surround The Block, are undergoing gentrification. Within this zone of gentrification there are complex and seemingly confused responses to the presence of The Block. The responses challenge and/or embellish the official (‘white’) narrative that The Block is imploding in a sea of drugs, crime and cultural inferiority.
Beyond Kyoto? Media Representation of an Environmental Issue
Authors: McManus P. A.
Published: March 2003

Human‐induced climatic change, and particularly the enhanced greenhouse effect, became significant environmental issues in the 1990s. They were given prominent coverage in the Australian media at the time of the Third Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (COP3) in Kyoto in 1997, when Australia obtained permission for an 8 per cent increase in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Meanwhile, other major emitters of greenhouse gases were accepting targets of significantly reduced emissions. Given the controversy associated with this, it might have been expected that the Australian media's coverage of COP4 in Buenos Aires, only 11 months later, would have been extensive. This was not the case. Analysis of seven Australian newspapers shows that, with the exception of an alternative weekly newspaper, the coverage of COP4 was an example of ‘embodiment’ (the uncritical acceptance of certain assumptions and practices) and ‘distanciation’ (the separation of cause and effect in regard to an issue).
Clubs, Spades, Diamonds and Disadvantage: the Geography of Electronic Gaming Machines in Melbourne
Authors: Marshall D.C. , Baker R.G.V.
Published: March 2003

Opportunities to gamble, particularly on electronic gaming machines (EGMs) have been rapidly increasing in Australia during the 1990s. The increase in expenditure on gambling and the related problems have subsequently become a growing concern, particularly in relation to disadvantaged sectors of the population. Given this, the development of a geography of gambling is an important step in understanding the implications of this rapidly expanding industry. This paper addresses this issue at two distinct geographical scales in metropolitan Melbourne and considers the distribution of EGMs in relation to levels of economic well‐being. Findings suggest that patterns evident at the wider Melbourne scale of greater concentration of EGMs in less advantaged regions are also reflected at a local level. These findings are related to the wider issues of accessibility to gambling facilities and problem gambling.
Frontiers, Borders, Edges: Liminal Challenges to the Hegemony of Exclusion
Authors: Howitt Richie
Published: March 2003

Spatial metaphors that presuppose exclusion and separation rather than interaction and co‐existence dominated in representations of landscape on Australian frontiers prior to the 1990s legal, parliamentary and social recognition of native title. Metaphors of co‐existence have emerged from the public debate about native title. This constitutes a major challenge to previously hegemonic ideas that indigenous Australians were marginal to the Australian national identity.

This paper reviews the implications of metaphors used to represent frontiers, borders, boundaries, edges and complex relations within and between indigenous and non‐indigenous territories in Australia. It argues that the liminal notion of co‐existence unsettles many of the hidden legacies of colonial exploitation infecting Australian geographical imaginations to the detriment of reconciliation and sustainability. This opens avenues for geographers to address the burdens the discipline carries from its roles in creating geographies of exclusion.
Travel Blending: Whither Regulation?
Authors: Ferretti Donna , Bonham Jennifer
Published: March 2003

Travel blending, as a form of travel demand management, has in recent times been celebrated by transport planners as a means of shaping travel behaviour without regulation. Accordingly, travel blending is said to overcome the problems of the state bureaucracy imposing its will upon the individual’s travel choices. In this paper we introduce a Foucauldian analysis to the field of transport in order to examine the assertions made by proponents of travel blending that they are not exercising power in the course of shaping travel behaviour. In particular, we use recent elaborations of Foucault’s work on governmentality to explore the ways in which the sites, subjects and objects of travel are discursively constituted within travel blending thereby enabling new ways of intervening upon the travelling subject. We suggest that a governmentality approach not only provides a fertile means of investigating transport but also reveals travel blending as a regulatory practice serving to structure the individual’s field of action.
‘Torrents of Terror’: the August 1998 Storm and the Magnitude, Frequency and Impact of Major Floods in the Illawarra Region of New South Wales
Authors: Reinfields Ivars , Nanson Gerald C.
Published: March 2003

The Illawarra Region some 80 kilometres south of Sydney is characterised by a prominent coastal escarpment that rises to 700 m within 12 km of the coast and forms a locus for frequent, high intensity rainfall events. One of the most recent recorded events occurred on 17 August 1998 with rainfall intensities at several pluviometers exceeding 120 mm hr‐1 over a duration of one hour, with up to 249 mm falling in 3.5 hours during the main storm burst. Detailed pluviometer data indicate that the storm was non‐stationary and moved down catchment producing a widespread zone of 120 mm hr‐1 intensity rainfall over a 30 minute duration across mid‐lower catchment areas after similar intensity but longer duration rainfall in catchment headwaters. Slope‐area reconstructions of peak discharge indicate that small catchments on the escarpment within the zone of maximum intensity experienced close to 100% rainfall‐runoff relationships, with peak discharges correlated to short duration (<1 hr) peak rainfall intensities. Widespread erosion occurred particularly where urban development had encroached on natural water courses. Debris/hyperconcentrated flows originating from both anthropogenic and natural sediment sources caused damage to urban areas. This paper provides an overview of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the 17 August 1998 storm, the hydrologic and geomorphic response of the streams, and the nature of damage to urban areas. It reassesses the frequency of recent high‐magnitude rainfall/flood events in the region, discussing the relationships between rainfall intensities, estimates of flood magnitudes and stormwater channel capacities.
Geography’s Emerging Cross‐Disciplinary Links: Process, Causes, Outcomes and Challenges
Authors: Holmes J.H.
Published: March 2003

In Australian universities the discipline of Geography has been the pace‐setter in forging cross‐disciplinary links to create multidisciplinary departments and schools, well ahead of other disciplines in humanities, social sciences and sciences, and also to a greater extent than in comparable overseas university systems.

Details on all cross‐disciplinary links and on immediate outcomes have been obtained by surveys of all heads of departments/schools with undergraduate Geography programs. These programs have traced their own distinctive trajectories, with ramifying links to cognate fields of enquiry, achieved through mergers, transfers, internal initiatives and, more recently, faculty‐wide restructuring to create supradisciplinary schools.

Geography’s ‘exceptionalism’ has proved short‐lived. Disciplinary flux is now extending more widely within Australian universities, driven by a variety of internal and external forces, including: intellectual questioning and new ways of constituting knowledge; technological change and the information revolution; the growth of instrumentalism and credentialism, and managerialism and entre‐preneurial imperatives; reinforced by a powerful budgetary squeeze.

Geographers are proving highly adaptive in pursuit of cross‐disciplinary connections, offering analytical tools and selected disciplinary insights useful to non‐geographers. However, this may be at cost to undergraduate programs focussing on Geography’s intellectual core. Whereas formerly Geography had high reproductive capacity but low instrumental value it may now be in a phase of enhanced utility but perilously low reproductive capacity.
Australian Geography and Geographic Information Systems
Authors: Lees B.G.
Published: March 2003

In Australian universities geography has had traditional links with geology, environmental science and the social sciences. Human geographers’ pursuit of links into the humanities has distracted many of them from understanding the implications of the increasing interest shown by computer science, geomatics and other disciplines in geography. The emergence of a dialogue overseas between the humanities and the geographic information systems community is an important development which may result in this new grouping colonising some of the traditional disciplinary areas of human geography. It is clear that although this emerging cross‐disciplinary linkage has not had any influence on the current phase of mergers and cross‐disciplinary linkages in Australia, it will undoubtedly become important locally in the future.
Spatial Modelling in Decision Support for Land‐Use Planning: a Demonstration from the Lal Lal Catchment, Victoria, Australia
Authors: Allan Ian , Peterson Jim
Published: March 2003

The outcomes of selected, contested development permit appraisals in a Victorian water catchment show that implications regarding the development status of other land parcels were not examined during negotiation and/or appeal. Given access to an adequate spatial data base, Geographical Information System (GIS) technology can be used to model such implications rapidly enough to be useful in decision support, thereby significantly widening the common ground that can be sought while seeking resolution to land‐use planning conflicts.
Impacts of Human Activity on Landscapes in Central Brazil: a Case Study in the Araguari Watershed
Authors: Rodrigues S.C.
Published: March 2003

This paper outlines the main geomorphological characteristics of the Araguari River Basin and describes the human‐induced changes to the landscapes. This region, naturally occupied by savannas, has been strongly altered by human activities over the previous 40 years. Summarised information is derived from geomorphological, geological and pedological maps, supported by field work. The paper is divided into two main parts. The first shows the natural arrangement of the landscapes in the hydrographic basin, demonstrating the relationships between structural and geomorphic units. Information about superficial materials and current processes and some observations on the evolution of these landforms are presented here. The second part describes the changes in the basin due to anthropic activities, considering types of erosion, channel changes and urban problems. These activities are divided between rural and urban areas, showing the differences between the operations of these sensitive systems. The paper also notes the main research in progress in this basin, presents some partial results and comments on future perspectives.
Rural Transformation and Cultural Industries: Popular Music on the New South Wales Far North Coast
Authors: Gibson Chris
Published: March 2003

This article explores the emergence of popular music as a niche cultural industry, connected to economic and social transformations on the New South Wales Far North Coast (also known as the ‘Northern Rivers’ region). The various images of the New South Wales Far North Coast as a ‘lifestyle’ region, ‘alternative’ locale and coastal retreat have attracted a diverse mix of ex–urban professionals, unemployed persons, youth subcultures, backpacker tourists and retirees. Yet, despite population growth, the region continues to suffer unemployment rates among the highest in Australia. Against this backdrop, diverse popular music ‘scenes’ have emerged, constituting an industry with linkages to cultural production in Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. While the region’s unique cultural mix has been suggested as a key site of comparative advantage, future employment is likely to remain transient, insecure, and governed by industry–wide labour relations. This case study illustrates some of the complexities underpinning contemporary urban–regional change in Australia, and provides cautious assessment of the capacity of the cultural industries to reinvigorate rural economies.
Towards Decolonisation of Australia's Protected Area Management: the Nantawarrina Indigenous Protected Area Experience
Authors: Muller Samantha
Published: March 2003

Management of Australia's National Parks and Protected Areas originally developed according to the United State's ‘Yellowstone’ model. Aimed primarily at preserving ‘wilderness’ areas, this form of protected area management has excluded indigenous habitation and land management, effectively colonising these landscapes. Since the 1980s indigenous exclusion from protected area management has been contested in the public sphere. Indigenous peoples have become involved in protected area management in various ways, such as the joint management of national parks. However, greater indigenous control is necessary to truly decolonise protected area landscapes and fully recognise the importance of indigenous Australians in land management.

This paper explores a new initiative in protected area management: the Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) program. IPAs are established through voluntary declaration of indigenous land with the aim of enhancing indigenous control of protected area landscapes. Nantawarrina, the first declared IPA, is considered as a case study. Although some manifestations of colonialism are still evident in the Nantawarrina IPA, the program has made some significant contributions to the decolonisation of protected area management in Australia.
Using GIS as an Aid to Understanding Urban Consolidation
Authors: Holloway Darren , Bunker Raymond
Published: March 2003

Major initiatives to encourage urban consolidation in Sydney have been undertaken by the New South Wales Government in the last twenty years. The contribution of the research described in this article is to show the central importance of GIS in the methodology of analysing the policies, processes and outcomes of this urban consolidation activity. While the use of GIS to interrogate data from the Population Censuses conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to describe spatial distributions and characteristics is reasonably common, it can be used with local records to build up a picture of the character and impact of building the different kinds of dwellings defined as constituting urban consolidation. In this way ABS data can be used as a context within which to place GIS analysis of the registers of development applications as indicated in studies of three local councils in the south and south–west of Sydney. This approach shows the usefulness of using similar but not completely congruent data sets to investigate complex phenomena such as urban consolidation. It also highlights the importance of classifying and recording local information about urban development and change in a form that enables more proactive programs of policy formulation and operation.
A GIS Atlas of the Fossil Pollen and Modern Records of Ficus and Related Species for Island South–East Asia, Australasia and the Western Pacific
Authors: Jago L.C.F. , Boyd W.E.
Published: March 2003

Ficus has been described as a keystone genus in the tropics. This paper reviews the Quaternary palynology literature, and vegetation research literature in Island Southeast Asia, Australasia and the Western Pacific with the aim of increasing the knowledge of the distribution history for Ficus and related species within this area. Specifically, this paper describes a GIS atlas designed to aid further analysis of the history and spread of Moraceae species. This research project synthesises the knowledge of the distribution and history of Ficus and related species in the greater Australasian area through the production of a GIS atlas, and describes the project, specifically focusing on the data collation and production of the GIS.
Economics of new technologies for sustainable agriculture
Authors: Zilberman David , Khanna Madhu , Lipper Leslie
Published: March 2003

Sustainable agriculture is prescribed as a policy approach that maximizes economic benefits while maintaining environmental quality. It is argued that this approach is human capital–intensive and encourages new scientific developments. To attain sustainability, economic incentives for the development and adoption of precision technologies (with minimal residues that cause environmental damage) have to be developed. Taxation and tradeable permits are desirable policies to attain first–best solutions; however, when heterogeneity and lack–of–information problems are significant, alternative institutions have to be developed. The paper presents and discusses such institutions.