Australian print media framing of mandatory reporting

Mandatory reporting is a key aspect of Australia’s approach to protecting children and is incorporated into all jurisdictions’ legislation, albeit in a variety of forms. In this article we examine all major newspaper’s coverage of mandatory reporting during an 18-month period in 2008-2009, when high-profile tragedies and inquiries occurred and significant policy and reform agendas were being debated. Mass media utilise a variety of lenses to inform and shape public responses and attitudes to reported events. We use frame analysis to identify the ways in which stories were composed and presented, and how language portrayed this contested area of policy. The results indicate that within an overall portrayal of system failure and the need for reform, the coverage placed major responsibility on child protection agencies for the over-reporting, under-reporting, and overburdened system identified, along with the failure of mandatory reporting to reduce risk. The implications for ongoing reform are explored along with the need for robust research to inform debate about the merits of mandatory reporting.

Incremental and inevitable: Contextualising the Threshold Learning Outcomes for law

This article situates the development of the Threshold Learning Outcomes for law in relation to broader national and international trends in legal education and higher education regulation. It also addresses the significance of recent changes to the Australian higher education regulatory landscape catalysed by the current Government's commitment to reducing regulation and red tape for the sector.

WIL-power: Developing journalism students' intercultural communications and international reporting skills on field trips to Vietnam

This article examines journalism students' learning experience that is intercultural, immersive and intensive. Accounts of 'intercultural' experience date back to Herodotus of Halicarnassus; 'immersion' is integral to contemporary practice in language learning; and 'intensive' delivery has been refined to an art by postgraduate business education. Together they can be grouped under the broader pedagogical concept of work-integrated learning (WIL). This article examines two WIL projects that involved field trips by journalism students to Vietnam in 2012 and 2014, and their implications for future WIL initiatives.

Lecturing for non-law background students: Assessing the cognitive load of case and legislation-based lecturing approaches

Lecturing is a traditional method for teaching in discipline-based teaching environments and its success in legal discipline depends upon its alignment with learner backgrounds, learning objectives and the lecturing approaches utilised in the classes. In a situation where students do not have any prior knowledge of the given discipline that requires a particular lecturing approach, a mismatch in such an alignment would place learner knowledge acquisition into a challenging situation. From this perspective, this study tests the suitability of two dominant lecturing approaches—the case and the law-based lecturing approaches. It finds that a lecturer should put more emphasis on the case-based approach while lecturing to non-law background business students at the postgraduate level, provided that such an emphasis should be relative to the cognitive ability of the students and their motivation for learning law units.

The culture of young women's drinking: Implications for developing effective policing strategies. Report to National Drug Strategy Law Enforcement Committee

Alcohol-related mortality and morbidity represents a substantial financial burden on communities across the world. Adolescence and young adulthood is a peak period for heavy episodic alcohol consumption, with over a third of all people aged 14-19 years having been at risk of acute alcoholrelated harm at least once in the previous 12 months (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2011). Excessive alcohol consumption has long been seen as a male problem; however, a gradual shift towards a social acceptance of female drunkenness has narrowed the gap in drinking quantity and style between men and women (Grucza, Bucholz, Rice, & Bierut, 2008). The presented data point to the vulnerability of women to the consequences of acute alcohol intoxication and indicate that alcohol-related offending by women is on the rise. Taken together, these findings reveal that alcohol-related harms and aggression for young women are becoming more prevalent and problematic. This report addressed these issues from a policing perspective...

Where to after Drink Rite: An evaluation of opportunities for police and community promotion of an anti-drink driving message in the licensed venue setting. Report to the National Drug Strategy Law Enforcement Funding Committee

Estimating the prevalence of drink driving is a difficult task. Self‐reported drink driving indicates that drink driving is far more common than official statistics suggest. In order to promote a responsible attitude towards alcohol consumption and drink driving within the Queensland community, the Queensland Police Service, Queensland Health and Queensland Transport developed the ‘Drink Rite’ program (Queensland Police Service information sheet, 2009). However, the feasibility of the program is now in doubt as the National Health and Medical Research Council’s guidelines for alcohol consumption changed in 2009 to state “For healthy men and women, drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol‐related injury arising from that occasion” (NHMRC Publication, 2009, p. 51). As such, adhering to the NHMRC guidelines places restrictions on how the existing Drink Rite program can be operated (i.e. by reducing the number of standard drinks provided to participants from eight to four). It is arguable that a reduction in the number of alcoholic drinks provided to participants in the program will result in a large reduction in observed BAC readings. This, in turn, will lead to a potential loss of message content when discussing the variation in the effects of alcohol.

Children with gender dysphoria deserve better from the law

An increasing number of Australian children are accessing specialist health services for gender dysphoria treatment, largely because of a growing awareness among doctors about available specialist health services. But the law is not in step with the needs of these children...

The dawn of the age of the drones:An Australian privacy law perspective

Suppose a homeowner habitually enjoys sunbathing in his or her backyard, protected by a high fence from prying eyes, including those of an adolescent neighbour. In times past such homeowners could be assured that they might go about their activities without a threat to their privacy. However, recent years have seen technological advances in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (‘UAVs’), also known colloquially as drones, that have allowed them to become more reduced in size, complexity and price. UAVs today include models retailing to the public for less than $350 and with an ease of operation that enables them to serve as mobile platforms for miniature cameras. These machines now mean that for individuals like the posited homeowner’s adolescent neighbour, barriers such as high fences no longer constitute insuperable obstacles to their voyeuristic endeavours. Moreover, ease of access to the internet and video sharing websites provides a ready means of sharing any recordings made with such cameras with a wide audience. Persons in the homeowner’s position might understandably seek some form of redress for such egregious invasions of their privacy. Other than some kind of self-help, what alternative measures may be available?

Emissions Trading and WTO Law: A Global Analysis

Emissions trading schemes have been introduced throughout the world in order to achieve an environmental end. In the pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these schemes will have a direct impact on the global economy. This book examines the details of emissions trading schemes through the lens of the World Trade Organization (WTO) law. Emissions trading schemes both implemented and proposed will be deconstructed to understand whether they will have a single uniform legal status within the WTO law, or indeed whether the legal status of the units of trade will differ on a case-by-case basis. This book examines non-discrimination provisions and exceptions within four significant WTO ‘covered agreements’. This analysis will be undertaken with a goal to understand how emissions trading scheme measures may be labelled and treated by WTO dispute settlement bodies. Moreover, the narrative of this publication demonstrates where decisions must be made by WTO Members in relation to the legal treatment of emissions trading units and liabilities. The aim of the book is to consider the issues associated with emissions trading that arise within the existing WTO law. This monograph will consider emissions trading schemes through the lens of WTO law to establish how these schemes will be defined, where they may potentially breach the non-discrimination provisions of the law and, whether the WTO law should be amended through Member agreement in order to accommodate these schemes. The book is an adaptation of a PhD thesis, which is an analysis of one emissions trading framework – the Australian Clean Energy Package – using WTO law as the theoretical framework. The aim of the proposed monograph is to increase the scope of analysis from the Clean Energy Package to emissions trading schemes more generally. It is envisaged that to do this effectively, examples of frameworks that have been proposed and implemented by various WTO members must be used as case studies for both WTO compliance and non-compliance.

Property law reforms in Queensland: Is the regulatory burden on land transactions reduced?

The reduction of unnecessary regulation was a clear policy objective of the Queensland government during 2014. In the area of property sales significant reforms were introduced from 1 December 2014. This article examines the key aspects of these reforms and whether there has been a reduction in red tape for sellers and buyers of land.

Rediscovering law students as citizens: Critical thinking and the public value of legal education

In a series of publications over the last decade, Australian National University Professor Margaret Thornton has documented a disturbing change in the nature of legal education. This body of work culminates in a recently published book based on interviews with 145 legal academics in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada. In it, Thornton describes a feeling of widespread unease among legal academics that society, government, university administrators and students themselves are moving away from viewing legal education as a public good which benefits both students and society. Instead, legal education is increasingly being viewed as a purely private good, for consumption by the student in the quest for individual career enhancement.

The ethics of corporate governance: A (South)African perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the developments in South African corporate governance since the end of apartheid, with a view to identifying themes and points of convergence and/or divergence with other models. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a critical review of South African corporate governance in the context of political and economic developments. Where relevant, aspects of corporate governance theory (in particular the stakeholder and shareholder debate) are considered in the South African context. Findings – South African corporate governance can be seen to broadly follow Anglo‐American examples with the notable exception of the stakeholder approach of the two King reports. This approach emphasises the responsibilities of companies to various stakeholders and encourages stakeholder engagement as an integral element of company strategy. There has not, however, been any substantial incorporation of stakeholder interests into formal corporate governance structures such as board structure and financial reporting. Practical implications – The ongoing consideration of corporate governance developments in South Africa is important for its continued development in the country and the region. Originality/value – A review of South African corporate governance is timely given the probable release of the third King report in 2009, together with new company legislation.

What is Statutory Interpretation? A Primer QUT law students

In this Primer, our aims are to explain what statutory interpretation is and why it is important. We also aim to note some of the more difficult concepts and ideas you will need to understand when reading a statute, when deciding if it is relevant to a legal problem, and, if so, how it applies to that problem. We do not aim to provide an overview of the rules of Statutory Interpretation, but only to focus on areas that have created well-known difficulties for students and practitioners alike, such as the concept of the intentions of Parliament and the correct use of intrinsic materials.

Evolution of self-reporting methods for identifying discrete emotions in science classrooms

Emotion researchers have grappled with challenging methodological issues in capturing emotions of participants in naturalistic settings such as school or university classrooms. Self-reporting methods have been used frequently, yet these methods are inadequate when used alone. We argue that the self-reporting methods of emotion diaries and cogenerative dialogues can be helpful in identifying in-the-moment emotions when used in conjunction with the microanalysis of video recordings of classroom events. We trace the evolution of our use of innovative self-reporting methods through three cases from our research projects, and propose new directions for our ongoing development and application of these methods in both school and university classrooms.

A virtual environment for medical radiation collaborative learning

Asoftware-based environment was developed to provide practical training in medical radiation principles and safety. The Virtual Radiation Laboratory application allowed students to conduct virtual experiments using simulated diagnostic and radiotherapy X-ray generators. The experiments were designed to teach students about the inverse square law, half value layer and radiation protection measures and utilised genuine clinical and experimental data. Evaluation of the application was conducted in order to ascertain the impact of the software on students’ understanding, satisfaction and collaborative learning skills and also to determine potential further improvements to the software and guidelines for its continued use. Feedback was gathered via an anonymous online survey consisting of a mixture of Likert-style questions and short answer open questions. Student feedback was highly positive with 80 % of students reporting increased understanding of radiation protection principles. Furthermore 72 % enjoyed using the software and 87 %of students felt that the project facilitated collaboration within small groups. The main themes arising in the qualitative feedback comments related to efficiency and effectiveness of teaching, safety of environment, collaboration and realism. Staff and students both report gains in efficiency and effectiveness associated with the virtual experiments. In addition students particularly value the visualisation of ‘‘invisible’’ physical principles and increased opportunity for experimentation and collaborative problembased learning. Similar ventures will benefit from adopting an approach that allows for individual experimentation while visualizing challenging concepts.