How Australia Compares is a handy reference that compares Australia with 17 other developed democracies on a wide range of social, economic and political dimensions. Whenever possible, it gives not ...only snapshot comparisons from the present, but charts trends over recent decades or even longer. Its scope is encyclopaedic, offering comparative data on as many aspects of social life as possible, from taxation to traffic accidents, homicide rates to health expenditure, and international trade to internet usage. It uses a highly accessible format, devoting a double-page spread to each topic, with tables on one page and a clear explanation and analysis on the facing page. In each discussion the focus is to put the Australian experience into international perspective, drawing out the implications for its performance, policies and prospects.
"This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the 2016 Australian federal election. Won by the Liberal–National Coalition by the slimmest of margins, the result created a climate of political ...uncertainty that threatened the government’s lower house majority. While the campaign might have lacked the theatre of previous elections, it provides significant insights into the contemporary political and policy challenges facing Australian democracy and society today. In this, the 16th edited collection of Australian election studies, 41 contributors from a range of disciplines bring an unprecedented depth of expertise to the 2016 contest. The book covers the context, key battles and issues in the campaign, and reports and analyses the results in detail. It provides an evaluation of the role of political actors such as the parties, independents, the media, interest groups and GetUp!, and examines election debate in the online space. Experts from a range of policy fields provide an analysis of election issues ranging from the economy and industrial relations to social policy, the environment, and gender and sexuality. Each of the chapters is written on the basis of in‑depth and original research, providing new insights into this important political event."
A popular fascination with fame and stardom has existed in Western culture since the late eighteenth century; a fascination that, in the twenty‑first century, reaches into almost every facet of ...public life. The pervasive nature of stardom in modern society demands study from the perspectives of a range of distinct but thematically connected disciplines. The exploration of intersections between broader considerations of stardom and the discourses of popular music studies is the genesis for this volume. The chapters collected here demonstrate the variety of work currently being undertaken in stardom studies by scholars in Australia. The contributions range from biographical considerations of the stars of popular music, contributions to critical discourses of stardom in the industry more broadly, and the various ways in which the use of astronomical metaphors, in both cultural commentary and academic discourse, demonstrate notions of stardom firmly embedded in popular music thought. Not only do these chapters represent a range of perspectives on popular music, stars and stardom, they provide eloquent and innovative contributions to the developing discourse on stardom in popular music.
Important policy problems rarely fit neatly within existing territorial boundaries. More difficult still, individual governments or government departments rarely enjoy the power, resources and ...governance structures required to respond effectively to policy challenges under their responsibility. These dilemmas impose the requirement to work with others from the public, private, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or community spheres, and across a range of administrative levels and sectors. But how? This book investigates the challenges—both conceptual and practical—of multi-level governance processes. It draws on a range of cases from Australian public policy, with comparisons to multi-level governance systems abroad, to understand factors behind the effective coordination and management of multi-level governance processes in different policy areas over the short and longer term. Issues such as accountability, politics and cultures of governance are investigated through policy areas including social, environmental and spatial planning policy. The authors of the volume are a range of academics and past public servants from different jurisdictions, which allows previously hidden stories and processes of multi-level governance in Australia across different periods of government to be revealed and analysed for the first time.
The Australian Defence Force, together with military forces from a number of western democracies, have for some years been seeking out and killing Islamic militants in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, ...detaining asylum seekers for periods at sea or running the judicial systems of failed states. It has also been ready to conduct internal security operations at home. The domestic legal authority cited for this is often the poorly understood concept of executive power, which is power that derives from executive and not parliamentary authority. In an age of legality where parliamentary statutes govern action by public officials in the finest detail, it is striking that these extreme exercises of the use of force often rely upon an elusive legal basis. This book seeks to find the limits to the exercise of this extraordinary power.
The Lives of Stories traces three stories of Aboriginal–settler friendships that intersect with the ways in which Australians remember founding national stories, build narratives for cultural ...revival, and work on reconciliation and self-determination. These three stories, which are still being told with creativity and commitment by storytellers today, are the story of James Morrill’s adoption by Birri-Gubba people and re-adoption 17 years later into the new colony of Queensland, the story of Bennelong and his relationship with Governor Phillip and the Sydney colonists, and the story of friendship between Wiradjuri leader Windradyne and the Suttor family. Each is an intimate story about people involved in relationships of goodwill, care, adoptive kinship and mutual learning across cultures, and the strains of maintaining or relinquishing these bonds as they took part in the larger events that signified the colonisation of Aboriginal lands by the British. Each is a story in which cross-cultural understanding and misunderstanding are deeply embedded, and in which the act of storytelling itself has always been an engagement in cross-cultural relations. The Lives of Stories reflects on the nature of story as part of our cultural inheritance, and seeks to engage the reader in becoming more conscious of our own effect as history-makers as we retell old stories with new meanings in the present, and pass them on to new generations.
"The Australian Federal Native Title Act 1993 marked a revolution in the recognition of the rights of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The legislation established a means whereby Indigenous ...Australians could make application to the Federal Court for the recognition of their rights to traditional country. The fiction that Australia was terra nullius (or ‘void country’), which had prevailed since European settlement, was overturned. The ensuing legal cases, mediated resolutions and agreements made within the terms of the Native Title Act quickly proved the importance of having sound, scholarly and well-researched anthropology conducted with claimants so that the fundamentals of the claims made could be properly established. In turn, this meant that those opposing the claims would also benefit from anthropological expertise. This is a book about the practical aspects of anthropology that are relevant to the exercise of the discipline within the native title context. The engagement of anthropology with legal process, determined by federal legislation, raises significant practical as well as ethical issues that are explored in this book. It will be of interest to all involved in the native title process, including anthropologists and other researchers, lawyers and judges, as well as those who manage the claim process. It will also be relevant to all who seek to explore the role of anthropology in relation to Indigenous rights, legislation and the state."
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