The differential impact of monetary policy announcements and explanatory minutes releases on the Australian interest rate futures market

Unlike US and Continental European jurisdictions, Australian monetary policy announcements are not followed promptly by projections materials or comprehensive summaries that explain the decision process. This information is disclosed 2 weeks later when the explanatory minutes of the Reserve Bank board meeting are released. This paper is the first study to exploit the features of the Australian monetary policy environment in order to examine the differential impact of monetary policy announcements and explanatory statements on the Australian interest rate futures market. We find that both monetary policy announcements and explanatory minutes releases have a significant impact on the implied yield and volatility of Australian interest rate futures contracts. When the differential impact of these announcements is examined using the full sample, no statistically significant difference is found. However, when the sample is partitioned based on stable periods and the Global Financial Crisis, a differential impact is evident. Further, contrary to the findings of Kim and Nguyen (2008), Lu et al. (2009), and Smales (2012a), the response along the yield curve, is found to be indifferent between the short and medium terms.

Fertility in Australia: The role of policy and the labour market

One of the most discussed topics in labour and demographic studies, population ageing and stability, is closely related to fertility choices. This thesis explores recent developments in the fertility literature in the context of Australia. We investigate individual preferences for child bearing, the determinants of fertility decisions and the effectiveness of policies implemented by the government aimed at improving total fertility. The first study highlights the impact of monetary incentives on the decision to bear children in light of potentially differential responses across the native and immigrant population. The second study analyses the role of unemployment and job stability on the fertility choices of women. The final study examines whether the quality-quantity trade-off exists for Australian families and explores the impact of siblings on a child's health and educational outcomes.

Clustering acoustic events in environmental recordings for species richness surveys

Environmental acoustic recordings can be used to perform avian species richness surveys, whereby a trained ornithologist can observe the species present by listening to the recording. This could be made more efficient by using computational methods for iteratively selecting the richest parts of a long recording for the human observer to listen to, a process known as “smart sampling”. This allows scaling up to much larger ecological datasets. In this paper we explore computational approaches based on information and diversity of selected samples. We propose to use an event detection algorithm to estimate the amount of information present in each sample. We further propose to cluster the detected events for a better estimate of this amount of information. Additionally, we present a time dispersal approach to estimating diversity between iteratively selected samples. Combinations of approaches were evaluated on seven 24-hour recordings that have been manually labeled by bird watchers. The results show that on average all the methods we have explored would allow annotators to observe more new species in fewer minutes compared to a baseline of random sampling at dawn.

A Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 (# ACTA)

“If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like? This is pretty close.” David Fewer “While European and American IP maximalists have pushed for TRIPS-Plus provisions in FTAs and bilateral agreements, they are now pushing for TRIPS-Plus-Plus protections in these various forums.” Susan Sell “ACTA is a threat to the future of a free and open Internet.” Alexander Furnas “Implementing the agreement could open a Pandora's box of potential human rights violations.” Amnesty International. “I will not take part in this masquerade.” Kader Arif, Rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the European Parliament Executive Summary As an independent scholar and expert in intellectual property, I am of the view that the Australian Parliament should reject the adoption of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. I would take issue with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s rather partisan account of the negotiations, the consultations, and the outcomes associated with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. In my view, the negotiations were secretive and biased; the local consultations were sometimes farcical because of the lack of information about the draft texts of the agreement; and the final text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 is not in the best interests of Australia, particularly given that it is a net importer of copyright works and trade mark goods and services. I would also express grave reservations about the quality of the rather pitiful National Interest Analysis – and the lack of any regulatory impact statement – associated with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. The assertion that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 does not require legislative measures is questionable – especially given the United States Trade Representative has called the agreement ‘the highest-standard plurilateral agreement ever achieved concerning the enforcement of intellectual property rights.’ It is worthwhile reiterating that there has been much criticism of the secretive and partisan nature of the negotiations surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. Sean Flynn summarizes these concerns: "The negotiation process for ACTA has been a case study in establishing the conditions for effective industry capture of a lawmaking process. Instead of using the relatively transparent and inclusive multilateral processes, ACTA was launched through a closed and secretive “‘club approach’ in which like-minded jurisdictions define enforcement ‘membership’ rules and then invite other countries to join, presumably via other trade agreements.” The most influential developing countries, including Brazil, India, China and Russia, were excluded. Likewise, a series of manoeuvres ensured that public knowledge about the specifics of the agreement and opportunities for input into the process were severely limited. Negotiations were held with mere hours notice to the public as to when and where they would be convened, often in countries half away around the world from where public interest groups are housed. Once there, all negotiation processes were closed to the public. Draft texts were not released before or after most negotiating rounds, and meetings with stakeholders took place only behind closed doors and off the record. A public release of draft text, in April 2010, was followed by no public or on-the-record meetings with negotiators." Moreover, it is disturbing that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 has been driven by ideology and faith, rather than by any evidence-based policy making Professor Duncan Matthews has raised significant questions about the quality of empirical evidence used to support the proposal of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011: ‘There are concerns that statements about levels of counterfeiting and piracy are based either on customs seizures, with the actual quantities of infringing goods in free circulation in any particular market largely unknown, or on estimated losses derived from industry surveys.’ It is particularly disturbing that, in spite of past criticism, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has supported the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011, without engaging the Productivity Commission or the Treasury to do a proper economic analysis of the proposed treaty. Kader Arif, Rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the European Parliament, quit his position, and said of the process: "I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly. As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.” Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications. This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade." There have been parallel concerns about the process and substance of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 in the context of Australia. I have a number of concerns about the substance of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. First, I am concerned that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 fails to provide appropriate safeguards in respect of human rights, consumer protection, competition, and privacy laws. It is recommended that the new Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights investigate this treaty. Second, I argue that there is a lack of balance to the copyright measures in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 – the definition of piracy is overbroad; the suite of civil remedies, criminal offences, and border measures is excessive; and there is a lack of suitable protection for copyright exceptions, limitations, and remedies. Third, I discuss trade mark law, intermediary liability, and counterfeiting. I express my concerns, in this context, that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 could have an adverse impact upon consumer interests, competition policy, and innovation in the digital economy. I also note, with concern, the lobbying by tobacco industries for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 – and the lack of any recognition in the treaty for the capacity of countries to take measures of tobacco control under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Fourth, I note that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 provides no positive obligations to promote access to essential medicines. It is particularly lamentable that Australia and the United States of America have failed to implement the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health 2001 and the WTO General Council Decision 2003. Fifth, I express concerns about the border measures in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. Such measures lack balance – and unduly favour the interests of intellectual property owners over consumers, importers, and exporters. Moreover, such measures will be costly, as they involve shifting the burden of intellectual property enforcement to customs and border authorities. Interdicting, seizing, and destroying goods may also raise significant trade issues. Finally, I express concern that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 undermines the role of existing international organisations, such as the United Nations, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization, and subverts international initiatives such as the WIPO Development Agenda 2007. I also question the raison d'être, independence, transparency, and accountability of the proposed new ‘ACTA Committee’. In this context, I am concerned by the shift in the position of the Labor Party in its approach to international treaty-making in relation to intellectual property. The Australian Parliament adopted the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, which included a large Chapter on intellectual property. The treaty was a ‘TRIPs-Plus’ agreement, because the obligations were much more extensive and prescriptive than those required under the multilateral framework established by the TRIPS Agreement 1994. During the debate over the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, the Labor Party expressed the view that it would seek to mitigate the effects of the TRIPS-Plus Agreement, when at such time it gained power. Far from seeking to ameliorate the effects of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004, the Labor Government would seek to lock Australia into a TRIPS-Double Plus Agreement – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. There has not been a clear political explanation for this change in approach to international intellectual property. For both reasons of process and substance, I conclude that the Australian Parliament and the Australian Government should reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011. The Australian Government would do better to endorse the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2011, and implement its outstanding obligations in respect of access to knowledge, access to essential medicines, and the WIPO Development Agenda 2007. The case study of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement 2011 highlights the need for further reforms to the process by which Australia engages in international treaty-making.

Evaluation of Australian Performing Arts Market 2014-2018: APAM inter-year report 2015

In the awarding of the tender for APAM by the Australia Council to Brisbane Powerhouse for the delivery of the market in 2014-2018, a requirement is that a formal evaluation of the three iterations of APAM be undertaken by the Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty, under the leadership of Associate Professor Sandra Gattenhof. The agreed research model delivers reporting on outcomes not only in the year in which APAM is delivered (2014, 2016, 2018) but also in the years between (2015, 2017). This inter-year report focuses on the domestic and international touring outcomes resulting from engagement in the 2014 Market and responds two of the three key research foci for the evaluation that are articulated in the Brisbane Powerhouse Tender (2011) document as: • Evaluation of international market development outcomes through showcasing work to targeted international presenters and agents • Evaluation of national market development outcomes through showcasing work to national presenters and producers. The reporting for mid-year 2015, a non-APAM year, collects data from two key sources – six identified case study productions that have been tracked for eighteen months, and an online survey delivered to all APAM 2014 delegates. This inter-year report is a six month follow-up with delegates and identified case studies companies that track the ongoing progress of market outcomes and levers for ongoing improvement of the APAM delivery model that was tabled in the Year One Report delivered to Brisbane Powerhouse in October 2014.

Does size matter? An assessment of quota market evolution and performance in the Great Barrier Reef fin-fish fishery

In fisheries managed using individual transferable quotas (ITQs) it is generally assumed that quota markets are well-functioning, allowing quota to flow on either a temporary or permanent basis to those able to make best use of it. However, despite an increasing number of fisheries being managed under ITQs, empirical assessments of the quota markets that have actually evolved in these fisheries remain scarce. The Queensland Coral Reef Fin-Fish Fishery (CRFFF) on the Great Barrier Reef has been managed under a system of ITQs since 2004. Data on individual quota holdings and trades for the period 2004-2012 were used to assess the CRFFF quota market and its evolution through time. Network analysis was applied to assess market structure and the nature of lease-trading relationships. An assessment of market participants’ abilities to balance their quota accounts, i.e., gap analysis, provided insights into market functionality and how this may have changed in the period observed. Trends in ownership and trade were determined, and market participants were identified as belonging to one out of a set of seven generalized types. The emergence of groups such as investors and lease-dependent fishers is clear. In 2011-2012, 41% of coral trout quota was owned by participants that did not fish it, and 64% of total coral trout landings were made by fishers that owned only 10% of the quota. Quota brokers emerged whose influence on the market varied with the bioeconomic conditions of the fishery. Throughout the study period some quota was found to remain inactive, implying potential market inefficiencies. Contribution to this inactivity appeared asymmetrical, with most residing in the hands of smaller quota holders. The importance of transaction costs in the operation of the quota market and the inequalities that may result are discussed in light of these findings

Automating marine mammal detection in aerial images captured during wildlife surveys: A deep learning approach

Aerial surveys conducted using manned or unmanned aircraft with customized camera payloads can generate a large number of images. Manual review of these images to extract data is prohibitive in terms of time and financial resources, thus providing strong incentive to automate this process using computer vision systems. There are potential applications for these automated systems in areas such as surveillance and monitoring, precision agriculture, law enforcement, asset inspection, and wildlife assessment. In this paper, we present an efficient machine learning system for automating the detection of marine species in aerial imagery. The effectiveness of our approach can be credited to the combination of a well-suited region proposal method and the use of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs). In comparison to previous algorithms designed for the same purpose, we have been able to dramatically improve recall to more than 80% and improve precision to 27% by using DCNNs as the core approach.

Assistive classification for improving the efficiency of avian species richness surveys

Avian species richness surveys, which measure the total number of unique avian species, can be conducted via remote acoustic sensors. An immense quantity of data can be collected, which, although rich in useful information, places a great workload on the scientists who manually inspect the audio. To deal with this big data problem, we calculated acoustic indices from audio data at a one-minute resolution and used them to classify one-minute recordings into five classes. By filtering out the non-avian minutes, we can reduce the amount of data by about 50% and improve the efficiency of determining avian species richness. The experimental results show that, given 60 one-minute samples, our approach enables to direct ecologists to find about 10% more avian species.

Smarten up! Applying market design theory to housing supply

PROBLEM Cost of delivering medium density apartments impedes supply of new and more affordable housing in established suburbs EXISTING FOCUS - Planning controls - Construction costs, esp labour - Regulation eg sustainability

Human mating in the informal market for sperm donation: Preferences and decision making

Choosing a mate is one of the largest (economic) decisions humans make. This thesis investigates this large scale decision and how the process is changing with the advent of the internet and the growing market for online informal sperm donation. This research identifies individual factors that influence female mating preferences. It explores the roles of behavioural traits and physical appearance, preferences for homogamy and hypergamy, and personality, and how these impact the decision to choose a donor. Overall, this thesis makes contributions to both the literature on human behaviour, and that on decision-making in extreme and highly important situations.

Mitigating undesirable impacts in the marine environment: A review of market-based management measures

Internationally, marine biodiversity conservation objectives are having an increasing influence on the management of commercial fisheries. While this is largely being implemented through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) other management measures, such as market based instruments (MBIs), have proved to be effective at managing target species catch in fisheries and reducing environmental impacts in industries such as mining and tourism. Market-based management measures aim to mitigate the impacts of activities by better aligning the incentives their participants face with the objectives of management, changing their behavior as a consequence. In this paper, we review the potential of MBIs as management tools to mitigate undesirable environmental impacts associated with commercial fishing. Where they exist, examples of previous applications are described and the factors that influence their applicability and effectiveness are discussed. Several fishing methods and impacts are considered and suggest that whilst no single approach is most appropriate in all circumstances either replacing or complementing existing management arrangements with MBIs has the potential to improve environmental performance. This has a number of implications. From the environmental perspective they should enable levels of undesirable impacts such as damage to sensitive habitat or the bycatch of protected species of turtles, marine mammals, and seabirds to be reduced. The increased flexibility MBIs allow industry when developing solutions also has the potential to reduce costs to both the industry and managers, improving the cost-effectiveness of regulation as a result. Further, in the increasingly relevant case of MPAs the need for publicly funded compensation, often paid to industry when vessels are excluded from grounds, may also be significantly reduced if improved environmental performance makes it possible for some industry members to continue operating.

Destination image: identifying baseline perceptions of Brazil, Argentina and Chile in the nascent Australian long haul travel market

While the popularity of destination image research has increased exponentially in the literature, there has been relatively little published about perceptions held by international consumers of destinations in South America. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a research project that aimed to identify the baseline market perceptions of Brazil, Argentina and Chile amongst Australian residents, at the time of the emergence of this long haul market. Of interest was the extent to which Australians differentiate the three distinct countries versus perceiving the continent as a gestalt. These baseline perceptions enable the effectiveness of future marketing communications in Australia by the three national tourism offices to be monitored over time. Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) is used as a practical analytical tool to guide decision makers. In terms of operationalising destination image, a key research finding was the very high ratio or participants using the ‘Don’t know’ (DK) option for each destination performance scale item. This finding has practical implications for the destination marketers, as well as for researchers engaged in destination image research in long haul and/or emerging markets.

The potential for consumer segmentation in the Finnish housing market

This article examines whether cluster analysis can be used to identify groups of Finnish residents with similar housing preferences. Because homebuilders in Finland have been providing relatively homogeneous products to an increasingly diverse population, current housing may not represent the occupiers' preferences so a segmentation approach relying on socioeconomic characteristics and expressed preferences may not be sufficient. We use data collected via questionnaire in a principal component analysis followed by a hierarchical cluster analysis to determine whether different combinations of housing attributes are important to groups of residents. We can identify four clusters of housing residents based on important characteristics when looking for a house. The clusters describe Finnish people in different phases of the life cycle and with different preferences based on their recreational activities and financial expenditures. Mass customization of housing could be used to better appeal to these different clusters of consumers who share similar preferences, increasing consumer satisfaction and improving profitability.

Selling surf, sun and fitness: Queensland's mass-market fashion

How two powerhouse brands, Billabong and Lorna Jane, took the quintessential Queensland lifestyle to the world stage.