What’em with the apology? : the National Apology to the Stolen Generations two years on

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Apology to Australia’s Stolen Generations, delivered on 13 February 2008, is both personal and political to me just as the people who talk about it make it political and personal through their actions. This paper represents my attempt to turn the gaze through articulating some of my thoughts on the Apology, policy statements (Close the Gap) and the inconsistencies within the leadership of the present governments. I have endeavoured to do this through exploring the articulations of others and by sharing examples and personal experiences. In bringing forth some analysis to the literature, examples and experiences, I reveal the relationships between oppression, white race privilege and institutional privilege and the epistemology that maintains them. In moving from the position of being silent on the Apology, and my political experiences, to speaking about them, I am able to move from the position of object to subject and to gain a form of liberated voice (hooks 1989:9). Furthermore, I am hopeful that it will encourage others to examine their own practices within political parties and governments and to challenge the domination that continues to subjugate Indigenous peoples. It is only through people enacting their responsibilities and making changes in their daily lives and through the institutions and organisations to which they belong (the personal and political), can the Apology move beyond symbolic to action.

“Filming in Progress”: New spaces for multimodal designing

Global trends call for new research to investigate multimodal designing mediated by new technologies and the implications for classroom spaces. This article addresses the relationship between new technologies, students’ multimodal designing, and the social production of classroom spaces. Multimodal semiotics and sociological principles are applied to a series of claymation movie-making lessons in an upper primary school in Australia. The analysis focuses on the social meanings embedded in the multimodal spaces of the classroom—dialogic, bodily, embodied, architectonic, and screen spaces. The findings demonstrate how the uses of new technologies and the students’ multimodal learning were tied to important transformations of space.

Research training and national innovation systems in Australia, Finland and the United States : a policy and systems study supported by 30 case studies of research students in the fields of geospatial science, wireless communication, biosciences, and materials science and engineering

Reforms to the national research and research training system by the Commonwealth Government of Australia sought to effectively connect research conducted in universities to Australia's national innovation system. Research training has a key role in ensuring an adequate supply of highly skilled people for the national innovation system. During their studies, research students produce and disseminate a massive amount of new knowledge. Prior to this study, there was no research that examined the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system despite the existence of policy initiatives aiming to enhance this contribution. Given Australia's below average (but improving) innovation performance compared to other OECD countries, the inclusion of Finland and the United States provided further insights into the key research question. This study examined three obvious ways that research training contributes to the national innovation systems in the three countries: the international mobility and migration of research students and graduates, knowledge production and distribution by research students, and the impact of research training as advanced human capital formation on economic growth. Findings have informed the concept of a research training culture of innovation that aims to enhance the contribution of research training to Australia's national innovation system. Key features include internationally competitive research and research training environments; research training programs that equip students with economically-relevant knowledge and the capabilities required by employers operating in knowledge-based economies; attractive research careers in different sectors; a national commitment to R&D as indicated by high levels of gross and business R&D expenditure; high private and social rates of return from research training; and the horizontal coordination of key organisations that create policy for, and/or invest in research training.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's health strategy

The Strategy presented in this report was developed through the Australian Women’s Health Network Talking Circle in 2009-2010. Over 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were involved in the consultations. The Action Areas and Recommendations presented in this Strategy were raised and discussed by the women who contributed to the Talking Circle. This Strategy is not intended to replace any other national or state/territory identified priorities or needs. Instead, this Strategy supplements other work. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience extremely poor health outcomes. They have a right to determine for themselves what their health system will look like. This Strategy is part of that process. If Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women continue to have their sense of identity marginalised and eroded, they will continue to have the poorest health of any group of women in Australian society.

Will the Australian national curriculum up the intellectual ante in classrooms?

A critical review of the current and potential impacts of the Australian National Curriculum on the enacted curriculum in primary schools, with specific attention to issues of equity and social justice.

State of the arts and innovation : before and after the review of the national innovation system

This article examines the relationship between the arts and national innovation policy in Australia, pivoting around the Venturous Australia report released in September 2008 as part of the Review of the National Innovation System (RNIS). This came at a time of optimism that the arts sector would be included in Australia’s federal innovation policy. However, despite the report’s broad vision for innovation and specific commentary on the arts, the more ambitious hopes of arts sector advocates remained unfulfilled. This article examines the entwining discourses of creativity and innovation which emerged globally and in Australia prior to the RNIS, before analysing Venturous Australia in terms of the arts and the ongoing science-and-technology bias to innovation policy. It ends by considering why sector-led policy research and lobbying has to date proved unsuccessful and then suggests what public policy development is now needed.

A national evaluation of the Australian Occupational Therapy Competency Standards (1994): a multistakeholder perspective

This paper summarises results from an evaluation of the adequacy and utility of the Australian Competency Standards for Entry-Level Occupational Therapists © (OT AUSTRALIA, 1994a). It comprised a two-part study, incorporating an online survey of key national stakeholders (n = 26), and 13 focus groups (n = 152) conducted throughout Australia with occupational therapy clinicians, academics, OT AUSTRALIA association and Occupational Therapy Registration Board representatives, as well as university program accreditors. The key recommendations were that: (i) urgent revision to reflect contemporary practice, paradigms, approaches and frameworks is required; (ii) the standards should exemplify basic competence at graduation (not within two years following); (iii) a revision cycle of five years is required; (iv) the Australian Qualifications Framework should be retained, preceded by an introduction describing the scope and nature of occupational therapy practice in the national context; (v) access to the standards should be free and unrestricted to occupational therapists, students and the public via the OT AUSTRALIA (national) website; (vi) the standards should incorporate a succinct executive summary and additional tools or templates formatted to enable occupational therapists to develop professional portfolios and create working documents specific to their workplace; and (vii) language must accommodate contextual variation while striking an appropriate balance between providing instruction and encouraging innovation in practice.

Air vehicle simulator : An application for a cable array robot

The development of autonomous air vehicles can be an expensive research pursuit. To alleviate some of the financial burden of this process, we have constructed a system consisting of four winches each attached to a central pod (the simulated air vehicle) via cables - a cable-array robot. The system is capable of precisely controlling the three dimensional position of the pod allowing effective testing of sensing and control strategies before experimentation on a free-flying vehicle. In this paper, we present a brief overview of the system and provide a practical control strategy for such a system. ©2005 IEEE.

Optimal mission path planning (MPP) for an air sampling unmanned aerial system

This paper presents advanced optimization techniques for Mission Path Planning (MPP) of a UAS fitted with a spore trap to detect and monitor spores and plant pathogens. The UAV MPP aims to optimise the mission path planning search and monitoring of spores and plant pathogens that may allow the agricultural sector to be more competitive and more reliable. The UAV will be fitted with an air sampling or spore trap to detect and monitor spores and plant pathogens in remote areas not accessible to current stationary monitor methods. The optimal paths are computed using a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs). Two types of multi-objective optimisers are compared; the MOEA Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms II (NSGA-II) and Hybrid Game are implemented to produce a set of optimal collision-free trajectories in three-dimensional environment. The trajectories on a three-dimension terrain, which are generated off-line, are collision-free and are represented by using Bézier spline curves from start position to target and then target to start position or different position with altitude constraints. The efficiency of the two optimization methods is compared in terms of computational cost and design quality. Numerical results show the benefits of coupling a Hybrid-Game strategy to a MOEA for MPP tasks. The reduction of numerical cost is an important point as the faster the algorithm converges the better the algorithms is for an off-line design and for future on-line decisions of the UAV.

Reflections on the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework and Educator's Guide

To promote and support informed discussion, we look here at the experiences of some services in the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework, and the more recent trial of the supporting draft Educator's Guide. Reflecting on these experiences, the paper offers some examples of how a service can 'get started' with the EYLF.

Meeting and greeting : activities in public outdoor spaces outside high-density urban residential communities

This paper examines the opportunities for social activities in public outdoor spaces associated with high-density residential living. This study surveyed activities in outdoor spaces outside three high-density residential communities in Brisbane. Results indicated that activity patterns in public outdoor space outside residential communities are different to general urban public outdoor space. This broadly but not fully supports current theories concerning activities in public space. That is some environmental factors have impacts on the level of social interaction. The relationship between outdoor space and a residential building may have a significant impact on the level of social activities. As a consequence, a new classification of activities in public space is suggested. In improving the level of social contact in public outdoor space outside a residential community, the challenge is how to encourage people to leave their comfortable homes and spend a short time in these public spaces. For residential buildings and public space to be treated as an integrated whole, the outdoor open spaces close to and surrounding these buildings must have a more welcoming design.

The Remnant

An Interactive Installation with holographic 3D projections, satellite imagery, surround sound and intuitive body driven interactivity. Remnant (v.1) was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and presented at a remnant block of subtropical rainforest called ‘Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve’ - located 100kms north of Brisbane near the township of Maleny. V2 was later commissioned for KickArts Gallery, Cairns, re-presenting the work in a new open format which allowed audiences to both experience the original power of the work and to also understand the construction of the work's powerful illusory, visual spaces. This art-science project focused upon the idea of remnant landscapes - isolated blocks of forest (or other vegetation types) typically set within a patchwork quilt of surrounding farmed land. Participants peer into a mysterious, long tunnel of imagery whilst navigating entirely through gentle head movements - allowing them to both 'steer' in three dimensions and also 'alight', as a butterfly might, upon a sector of landscape - which in turn reveals an underlying 'landscape of mind'. The work challenges audiences to re-imagine our conceptions of country in ways that will lead us to better reconnect and sustain today’s heavily divided landscapes. The research field involved developing new digital image projection methods, alternate embodied interaction and engagement strategies for eco-political media arts practice. The context was the creation of improved embodied and improvisational experiences for participants, further informed by ‘eco-philosophical’ and sustainment theories. By engaging with deep conceptions of connectivity between apparently disparate elements, the work considered novel strategies for fostering new desires, for understanding and re-thinking the requisite physical and ecological links between ‘things’ that have been historically shattered. The methodology was primarily practice-led and in concert with underlying theories. The work’s knowledge contribution was to question how new media interactive experience and embodied interaction might prompt participants to reflect upon appropriate resources and knowledges required to generate this substantive desire for new approaches to sustainment. This accentuated through the power of learning implied by the works' strongly visual and kinaesthetic interface (i.e. the tunnel of imagery and the head and torso operated navigation). The work was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and the second version was commissioned by Kickarts Gallery, Cairns, specifically funded by a national optometrist chain. It was also funded in development by Arts Queensland and reviewed in Realtime.

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Health Strategy

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Health Strategy was launched at the Australian Women’s Health Network (AWHN) National Conference in Hobart on the 19 May 2010. It is important to note that this Strategy does not replace other national or State and Territory documents which identify priorities and needs. The aim is to supplement existing work and contribute to the new National Women's Health Policy (NWHP) being developed. This article will outline the process of the Strategy’s development and its uses for the future.

Terminally-ill people living alone without a caregiver: an Australian national scoping study of palliative care needs

Home-based palliative care services are facing increasing challenges in servicing the needs of clients who live alone and without a primary caregiver. The findings from the analysis of 721 services’ records from three Australian states, and feedback from health professionals in interviews and postal surveys, demonstrated that there were aspects of being on one’s own with a terminal illness and living at home that require a specialised approach and support. This study explored the issues of palliative care patients living alone, from a service provider perspective, and provided evidence-based information to assist with service planning. The study made recommendations to the Australian Department of Health and Ageing about services considered important in developing support structures for this growing population.