Mandatory reporting laws

As part of the effort to protect children from significant abuse and neglect, each state and territory in Australia has enacted legislation commonly known as "mandatory reporting laws". There is much confusion about the nature and effects of these laws, both generally and within each jurisdiction. Accordingly, the main aim of this chapter is to review and explain the legislative principles across Australia. In doing so, the chapter will identify differences between the state and territory laws and will situate the laws as part of a system of responses to the whole spectrum of child abuse and neglect. We will also highlight the need for effective reporter training and public awareness, especially given the tension between the widely perceived need for a community response to child abuse and neglect and the simultaneous concern to avoid unnecessary reporting of innocuous events and situations.

Loss Control

A exhibition of sculptural assemblages that continue my exploration of self-portraiture and the sculptural object. The work specifically extends the formal vocabulary of my studio to incorporate smaller composite arrangements with an emphasis on the sculptural support. Small objects that are either modelled or cast from life are assembled into four tableaux that respond to the object-relations that arise through the production process. The resulting exhibiton thus acts a meditation on the ontology of art practice, conceived as a topology of objects.

The dynamics of cellular automata on 2-manifolds is affected by topology

In this paper, we demonstrate that the distribution of Wolfram classes within a cellular automata rule space in the triangular tessellation is not consistent across different topological general. Using a statistical mechanics approach, cellular automata dynamical classes were approximated for cellular automata defined on genus-0, genus-1 and genus-2 2-manifolds. A distribution-free equality test for empirical distributions was applied to identify cases in which Wolfram classes were distributed differently across topologies. This result implies that global structure and local dynamics contribute to the long term evolution of cellular automata.

On the effect of topology on cellular automata rule spaces

This thesis presents an empirical study of the effects of topology on cellular automata rule spaces. The classical definition of a cellular automaton is restricted to that of a regular lattice, often with periodic boundary conditions. This definition is extended to allow for arbitrary topologies. The dynamics of cellular automata within the triangular tessellation were analysed when transformed to 2-manifolds of topological genus 0, genus 1 and genus 2. Cellular automata dynamics were analysed from a statistical mechanics perspective. The sample sizes required to obtain accurate entropy calculations were determined by an entropy error analysis which observed the error in the computed entropy against increasing sample sizes. Each cellular automata rule space was sampled repeatedly and the selected cellular automata were simulated over many thousands of trials for each topology. This resulted in an entropy distribution for each rule space. The computed entropy distributions are indicative of the cellular automata dynamical class distribution. Through the comparison of these dynamical class distributions using the E-statistic, it was identified that such topological changes cause these distributions to alter. This is a significant result which implies that both global structure and local dynamics play a important role in defining long term behaviour of cellular automata.

The corporate governance effects of audit committees

Arguments associated with the promotion of audit committees in many countries are premised on their potential for alleviating weaknesses in corporate governance. This paper provides a synthesis and evaluation of empirical research on the governance effects associated with audit committees. Given recent policy recommendations in several countries aimed at strengthening these committees, it is important to establish what research evidence demonstrates about their existing governance contribution. A framework for analyzing the impact of audit committees is described, identifying potential perceived effects which may have led to their adoption and documented effects on aspects of the audit function, on financial reporting quality and on corporate performance. It is argued that there is only limited and mixed evidence of effects to support claims and perceptions about the value of audit committees for these elements of governance. It is also shown that most of the existing research has focused on factors associated with audit committee existence, characteristics and measures of activity and there is very little evidence on the processes associated with the operation of audit committees and the manner in which they influence organizational behaviour. It is clear that there is no automatic relationship between the adoption of audit committee structures or characteristics and the achievement of particular governance effects, and caution may be needed over expectations that greater codification around factors such as audit committee members’ independence and expertise as the means of ‘‘correcting’’ past weaknesses in the arrangements for audit committees. The most fundamental question concerning what difference audit committees make in practice continues to be an important area for research development. For future research we suggest: (i) greater consideration of the organizational and institutional contexts in which audit committees operate; (ii) explicit theorization of the processes associated with audit committee operation; (iii) complementing extant research methods with field studie, and; (iv) investigation of unintended (behavioural) as well as expected consequences of audit committees.

An observational analysis of the impact of board dynamics and directors’ participation on perceived board effectiveness

This study addresses calls for closer examination of board dynamics by offering an inside view of director interactions. Video-observations of three board meetings at each of two Australian corporations matched with director interviews and secondary data reveal distinct patterns of director interactions, their sources of variation and impact on perceived board effectiveness. Our data reveal that director interactions are multi-dimensional and dynamic: while group interactions across agenda items are similar, with a few directors leading the discussion, the contributing directors change across items. Moreover, directors’ inclusiveness and evenness of participation are associated with higher perceptions of board effectiveness. Last, we find that director interactions change with the nature of the items, board climate and board meeting arrangements. The study contributes to the literature by moving beyond the individual-level analysis of directors’ skills or independence, and offering a detailed view of how the joint group and individual dimensions of board dynamics affect board functioning.

The future Australian paramedic workforce : a snapshot of undergraduate paramedic students

Objective Describe the demographics of undergraduate paramedic students enrolled at a major Queensland University and explore the potential impact of demographic change in the paramedic workforce of the future. Method A retrospective, descriptive analysis of de-identified, routinely collected administrative data on students enrolled in the paramedic undergraduate degree program at Queensland University of Technology was undertaken for the period 2005-2013. Quantitative data were examined using the Statistical Package for Social Science version 21. Results A total of 914 students had commenced the paramedic degree since 2005, of whom slightly more than a third (33.4%; SD 9.5%) were enrolled in the double degree with nursing beginning from 2009. Half of the student cohort (52.1%;, SD 4.8%) were female, with the majority (82.9%;, SD 3.4) aged under 25 years old. Most (45.2%;, SD 13) of the student admissions were for graduate entry [i.e. prior tertiary education had been completed], while secondary education entry represented 35.9% (SD 14.9%). Conclusion By contrasting the results of our study to the most recent demographic data of the Australian paramedic workforce, a significant difference in the demographic characteristics of the current and future paramedic workforce is noted. Due to these differences, the need for increased flexibility in employment arrangements should be anticipated. This presentation will explore these characteristics and provide a complementary evidence base on which workforce planning within ambulance services can be conducted.

Improving the shear capacities of lipped channel beams with web openings using plate stiffeners

Cold-formed steel lipped channel beams (LCB) are used extensively in residential, industrial and commercial buildings as load bearing structural elements. Their shear capacities are considerably reduced when web openings are included for the purpose of locating building services. Past research has shown that the shear capacities of LCBs were reduced by up to 70% due to the inclusion of these web openings. Hence there is a need to improve the shear capacities of LCBs with web openings. A cost effective way of eliminating the detrimental effects of large web openings is to attach suitable stiffeners around the web openings and restore the original shear strength and stiffness of LCBs. Hence detailed experimental studies were undertaken to investigate the behaviour and strength of LCBs with stiffened web openings subject to shear, and combined bending and shear actions. Both plate and stud stiffeners with varying sizes and thicknesses were attached to the web elements of LCBs using different screw-fastening arrangements. Simply supported test specimens of LCBs with aspect ratios of 1.0 and 1.5 were loaded at mid-span until failure. Numerical studies were also undertaken to investigate the strength of LCBs with stiffened web openings. Finite element models of LCBs with stiffened web openings under shear, combined bending and shear actions were developed to simulate the behaviour of tested LCBs. The developed models were then validated by comparing their results with experimental results and used in further studies. Both experimental and finite element analysis results showed that the stiffening arrangements recommended by past research and available design guidelines are not adequate to restore the original shear strengths of LCBs. Therefore new stiffener arrangements were proposed based on screw fastened plate stiffeners. This paper presents the details of this research study and the results.

The ethics, aesthetics and practical politics of ownership in co-creative media

What is ‘best practice’ when it comes to managing intellectual property rights in participatory media content? As commercial media and entertainment business models have increasingly come to rely upon the networked productivity of end-users (Banks and Humphreys 2008) this question has been framed as a problem of creative labour made all the more precarious by changing employment patterns and work cultures of knowledge-intensive societies and globalising economies (Banks, Gill and Taylor 2014). This paper considers how the problems of ownership are addressed in non-commercial, community-based arts and media contexts. Problems of labour are also manifest in these contexts (for example, reliance on volunteer labour and uncertain economic reward for creative excellence). Nonetheless, managing intellectual property rights in collaborative creative works that are created in community media and arts contexts is no less challenging or complex than in commercial contexts. This paper takes as its focus a particular participatory media practice known as ‘digital storytelling’. The digital storytelling method, formalised by the Centre for Digital Storytelling (CDS) from the mid-1990s, has been internationally adopted and adapted for use in an open-ended variety of community arts, education, health and allied services settings (Hartley and McWilliam 2009; Lambert 2013; Lundby 2008; Thumin 2012). It provides a useful point of departure for thinking about a range of collaborative media production practices that seek to address participation ‘gaps’ (Jenkins 2006). However the outputs of these activities, including digital stories, cannot be fully understood or accurately described as user-generated content. For this reason, digital storytelling is taken here to belong to a category of participatory media activity that has been described as ‘co-creative’ media (Spurgeon 2013) in order to improve understanding of the conditions of mediated and mediatized participation (Couldry 2008). This paper reports on a survey of the actual copyrighting practices of cultural institutions and community-based media arts practitioners that work with digital storytelling and similar participatory content creation methods. This survey finds that although there is a preference for Creative Commons licensing a great variety of approaches are taken to managing intellectual property rights in co-creative media. These range from the use of Creative Commons licences (for example, Lambert 2013, p.193) to retention of full copyrights by storytellers, to retention of certain rights by facilitating organisations (for example, broadcast rights by community radio stations and public service broadcasters), and a range of other shared rights arrangements between professional creative practitioners, the individual storytellers and communities with which they collaborate, media outlets, exhibitors and funders. This paper also considers how aesthetic and ethical considerations shape responses to questions of intellectual property rights in community media arts contexts. For example, embedded in the CDS digital storytelling method is ‘a critique of power and the numerous ways that rank is unconsciously expressed in engagements between classes, races and gender’ (Lambert 117). The CDS method privileges the interests of the storyteller and, through a transformative workshop process, aims to generate original individual stories that, in turn, reflect self-awareness of ‘how much the way we live is scripted by history, by social and cultural norms, by our own unique journey through a contradictory, and at times hostile, world’ (Lambert 118). Such a critical approach is characteristic of co-creative media practices. It extends to a heightened awareness of the risks of ‘story theft’ and the challenges of ownership and informs ideas of ‘best practice’ amongst creative practitioners, teaching artists and community media producers, along with commitments to achieving equitable solutions for all participants in co-creative media practice (for example, Lyons-Reid and Kuddell nd.). Yet, there is surprisingly little written about the challenges of managing intellectual property produced in co-creative media activities. A dialogic sense of ownership in stories has been identified as an indicator of successful digital storytelling practice (Hayes and Matusov 2005) and is helpful to grounding the more abstract claims of empowerment for social participation that are associated with co-creative methods. Contrary to the ‘change from below’ philosophy that underpins much thinking about co-creative media, however, discussions of intellectual property usually focus on how methods such as digital storytelling contribute to the formation of copyright law-compliant subjects, particularly when used in educational settings (for example, Ohler nd.). This also exposes the reliance of co-creative methods on the creative assets storytellers (rather than on the copyrighted materials of the media cultures of storytellers) as a pragmatic response to the constraints that intellectual property right laws impose on the entire category of participatory media. At the level of practical politics, it also becomes apparent that co-creative media practitioners and storytellers located in copyright jurisdictions governed by ‘fair use’ principles have much greater creative flexibility than those located in jurisdictions governed by ‘fair dealing’ principles.

Exploring the usefulness of structural–functional approaches to analyse governance of planning systems

Existing planning theories tend to be limited in their analytical scope and often fail to account for the impact of many interactions between the multitudes of stakeholders involved in strategic planning processes. Although many theorists rejected structural–functional approaches from the 1970s, this article argues that many of structural–functional concepts remain relevant and useful to planning practitioners. In fact, structural–functional approaches are highly useful and practical when used as a foundation for systemic analysis of real-world, multi-layered, complex planning systems to support evidence-based governance reform. Such approaches provide a logical and systematic approach to the analysis of the wider governance of strategic planning systems that is grounded in systems theory and complementary to existing theories of complexity and planning. While we do not propose its use as a grand theory of planning, this article discusses how structural–functional concepts and approaches might be applied to underpin a practical analysis of the complex decision-making arrangements that drive planning practice, and to provide the evidence needed to target reform of poorly performing arrangements.

On the efficacy of key corporate governance recommendations in mid-tier companies : window-dressing or value-adding?

This paper examins the relationship between firm performance and key board and audit committee variables in a sample of mid-tier listed Australian firms. Unlike the UK where the corporate governance Code specifically outlines special arrangements for companies outside the FTSE 350 index, the ASX Corporate Governance recommendations make no special provisions for mid-tier companies. Consequently, mid-tier Australian companies may be expending scarce resources in conforming with recommendations that are not value-creating.

Do not-for-profits need their own conceptual framework?

This paper raises the issue of whether not-for-profit (NFP) organisations require a conceptual framework that acknowledges their mission imperative and enables them to discharge their broader accountability. Relying on publicly available documentation and literature, it suggests that current conceptaul Frameworks for the for-profit and public sectors are inadequate in meeting the accountability needs of broader NFP-specific accountability and the formulation of NFP-appropriate reporting practice, including the provision of financial and non-financial reporting. The paper thus theoretically challenges existing financial reporting arrangements and investes debate on their future direction.

OHS Regulation for a Changing World of Work

This volume assesses the legacy of the Robens Report, the intellectual foundation of modern OHS law and practice in Australia and many other countries, following the Report’s 30th anniversary. The authors confront the challenges facing OHS regulators and stakeholders in a new and different world dominated by service industries and globalisation rather than manufacturing industries and protection. They explore new models of OHS regulation that take account of gaps and deficiencies in the current arrangements. The authors bring international expertise from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Scandinavia as well as Australia. They focus on the kinds of regulatory strategies, including both OHS law and enforcement policy, that are most likely to produce good OHS outcomes in this changing world of work. Particular topics examined are: The type, mix, content and coverage of OHS standards, Systematic OHS management and the development of organisational capability, Strategies for effective worker participation and representation, Models for achieving small business compliance, Regulatory responses to changes in work organisation, Responsive enforcement and adapted inspection, and Restorative justice.

Beyond Employment: The Legal Regulation of Work Relationships

Australian labour law, at least from the mid-twentieth century, was dominated by the employment paradigm: the assumption that labour law’s scope was the regulation of employment relationships –full-time and part-time, and continuing, fixed term or casual – with a single (usually corporate) entity employer. But no sooner had the employment paradigm established and consolidated its shape, it began to fall apart. Since the 1980s there has been a significant growth of patterns of work that fall outside this paradigm, driven by organisational restructuring and management techniques such as labour hire, sub-contracting and franchising. Beyond Employment analyses the way in which Australian labour law is being reframed in this shift away from the pre-eminence of the employment paradigm. Its principal concern is with the legal construction and regulation of various forms of contracting, including labour hire arrangements, complex contractual chains and modern forms like franchising, and of casual employment. It outlines the current array of work relationships in Australia, and describes and analyses the way in which those outside continuous and fixed term employment are regulated. The book seeks to answer the central question: How does law (legal rules and principles) construct these work relationships, and how does it regulate these relationships? The book identifies the way in which current law draws the lines between the various work relationships through the use of contract and property ownership, and describes, analyses and synthesises the legal rules that govern these different forms of work relationships. The legal rules that govern work relationships are explored through the traditional lens of labour law’s protective function, principally in four themes: control of property, and the distribution of risks and rewards; maintenance of income security; access to collective voice mechanisms, focusing on collective bargaining; and health, safety and welfare. The book critically evaluates the gaps in the coverage and content of these rules and principles, and the implications of these gaps for workers. It also reflects upon the power relationships that underpin the work arrangements that are the focus of the book and that are enhanced through the laws of contract and property. Finally, it frames an agenda to address the gaps and identified weaknesses insofar as they affect the economic wellbeing, democratic voice, and health and safety of workers.