Access to parental leave in Australia: evidence from Negotiating the Life Course

Although unpaid parental leave has been available to most Australian employees for more than a decade, and public sector legislation and company policies provide at least some employees with an entitlement to paid parental leave, there is as yet little information available on accessibility, take-up rates or the extent to which current leave provisions meet the needs of parents. In this paper, data from the Negotiating the Life Course survey are used to examine the first of these issues: accessibility. Variations in perceptions of access to paid and unpaid parental leave are examined in bivariate and multivariate analyses, which emphasise marked divisions in the Australian labour market between permanent and casual status. The data also suggest that access to unpaid parental leave is more variable than might be expected from a reading of formal legislative provisions, and raise questions over the accessibility of paid parental leave to those who need it most-employees with young children.

Enacting cultural diversity through multicultural radio in Australia

Australia is second only to Israel in being the world’s most culturally diverse nation, based largely on high levels of immigration in the second part of the 20th century. From the 1970s onwards, Australia formally recognized the massive social changes brought about by postwar immigration, and provided legislation to incorporate cultural diversity into everyday lives. One such ‘legislative’ enactment saw the establishment of multicultural broadcasting in Australia, as arguably a world-first, both in its comprehensiveness and diversity. Today, Australia has a public sector corporation, the Special Broadcasting Service, administering five radio services in 68 languages. Also, the Community Radio sector produces multicultural programming in 100 languages through a number of its 330 broadcast and 207 narrowcast stations. This article examines the relationship between radio and its communities. It argues that despite the ‘profile’ of SBS television, radio is much closer to its constituent communities, and therefore plays a greater role in enabling those communities to speak their own histories, beyond the confines of a consensual Anglophile paradigm.

Does being against euthanasia legislation equate to being anti-euthanasia?

This study investigated issues raised in qualitative data from our previous studies of health professionals and community members, which suggested that being opposed to euthanasia legislation did not necessarily equate to being anti-euthanasia per se. A postal survey of 1002 medical practitioners, 1000 nurses and 1200 community members was undertaken. In addition to a direct question on changing the law to allow active voluntary euthanasia (AVE), four statements assessed attitudes to euthanasia with or without a change in legislation. Responses were received from 405 doctors (43%), 429 nurses (45%) and 405 community members (38%). Compared with previous studies there was a slight increase in support for a change in the law from medical practitioners, a slight decrease in support from community members and almost no change among nurses. Different interpretations of the results of the four attitude questions are possible, depending on the perspective of the interpreter.

Approaches to environmental noise policy in Australia

Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. Legislation for environmental noise is the responsibility of each of the Australian states and territories. The Federal government has the responsibility for national issues such as aircraft noise and also to encourage harmonisation of the legislation and regulations among the states and territories. For some decades there has been a document on environmental noise produced by Standards Australia but it is up to each state or territory to call up part or all of this Standard. For general environmental noise some states use comparison with background as the criteria while others define the criteria levels based on land use zones. Both approaches have their advantages and drawbacks. This paper will compare and contrast the different legislation and regulations and discuss the issue of 'cross border' disputes.

Comparing the conditions for small business and entrepreneurship in Sweden and Australia: Lessons for the European Charter for Small Enterprises

A growing body of literature is concerned with explaining cross-national performance of small business and entrepreneurs in advanced economies. This literature has considered a range of policy and institutional variables which create an environment supportive of small firms and entrepreneurial activities including macroeconomic variables such as taxation, labour market regulation, social security and income policy; regulatory factors such as establishment legislation, bankruptcy policy, administrative burdens, compliance costs, deregulation and competition policy; and cultural factors such as social and cultural norms that support entrepreneurship. However, this literature has not always distinguished between the policy environment of small firms operating in different industry sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional and policy environment of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors. The characteristics of the business environment of particular relevance to knowledge intensive firms are somewhat different from the conditions for entrepreneurship and small business success more generally. This paper compares the science, technology and industry infrastructure of Australia, Denmark, Sweden with other OECD countries. The purpose of the paper is to identify cross-national differences in the business environment of small knowledge intensive firms. The paper seeks to explore whether particular institutional environments appear to be more supportive of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors.

Demonstrations during Marshall Ky's visit to Brisbane, Australia in 1967

Demonstrations during visit of former South Vietnamese vice president Nguyen Cao Ky to Australia in January 1967.

Peace march 1964 Brisbane Australia

Marchers during the 1964 peace march, Brisbane, Australia, holding banners and placards

Biopolitics meets Terrapolitics: Political Ontologies and Governance in Settler-Colonial Australia

Crises persist in Australian Indigenous affairs because current policy approaches do not address the intersection of Indigenous and European political worlds. This paper responds to this challenge by providing a heuristic device for delineating Settler and Indigenous Australian political ontologies and considering their interaction. It first evokes Settler and Aboriginal ontologies as respectively biopolitical (focused through life) and terrapolitical (focused through land). These ideal types help to identify important differences that inform current governance challenges. The paper discusses the entwinement of these traditions as a story of biopolitical dominance wherein Aboriginal people are governed as an “included-exclusion” within the Australian political community. Despite the overall pattern of dominance, this same entwinement offers possibilities for exchange between biopolitics and terrapolitics, and hence for breaking the recurrent crises of Indigenous affairs.

Movements of feral camels in central Australia determined by satellite telemetry

Movements of two female one-humped camels in central Australia were tracked using satellite telemetry between March 1986 and July 1987. During that time both animals travelled a minimum distance of over 1000 km within a radius of 125 km for one animal, and 200 km for the other. However, their movements were uite punctuated and both animals spent periods of up to several months in rleatively small areas before moving over longer distances to new areas. Both camels moved at greater rates overnight. An activity index, probably measuring feeding rate, declined during the study period for both animals. Patchy and sporadic rainfall may explain some of these results.

Aboriginal Art Collection: Highlights from Australia's Public Museums and Galleries

Contents: Introduction SUSAN COCHRANE National Gallery of Australia, Canberra WALLY CARUANA National Museum of Australia, Canberra DAVID KAUS Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin MARGIE WEST Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney HETTI PERKINS AND KEN WATSON Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney BERNICE MURPHY Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane MARCO NEALE Queensland Museum, Brisbane RICHARD ROBINS National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne JUDITH RYAN Museum Victoria, Melbourne GAYE SCULTHORPE Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart KIM AKERMAN AND DAVID HANSEN Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth MICHAEL O'FERRALL AND BRENDA L. CROFT Western Australian Museum, Perth ROSS CHADWICK AND MANCE LOFGREN Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide JANE HYLTON South Australian Museum, Adelaide PHILIP A. CLARKE List of Plates Bibliography Editor's Acknowledgments Contributors Index

Moratorium march September 18 1970 in Brisbane

Protestors with banner during the Moratorium march in Brisbane Australia, September 18 1970.

Leaflets left in gutter after Ky demonstration Brisbane, Australia

Leaflets in gutter after demonstration of former South Vietnamese vice president Nguyen Cao Ky to Brisbane, Australia in January 1967.

Group of marchers during Mayday procession 1966 Brisbane, Australia

Group of marchers during Mayday procession 1966 Brisbane, Australia including children and dog. The group is passing Pearl Assurance House in Queen Street, Brisbane. Marchers have flags and banners relating to anti war and anti nuclear tests.