Investigating genetic discrimination in Australia: Opportunities and challenges in the early stages

Genetic discrimination, defined as the differential treatment of individuals or their relatives on the basis of actual or presumed genetic differences, is an emerging issue of interest in academic, clinical, social and legal contexts. While its potential significance has been discussed widely, verified empirical data are scarce. Genetic discrimination is a complex phenomenon to describe and investigate, as evidenced by the recent Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry in Australia. The authors research project, which commenced in 2002, aims to document the multiple perspectives and experiences regarding genetic discrimination in Australia and inform future policy development and law reform. Data are being collected from consumers, employers, insurers and the legal system. Attempted verification of alleged accounts of genetic discrimination will be a novel feature of the research. This paper overviews the early stages of the research, including conceptual challenges and their methodological implications.

A Complementary Economy? National Markets and International Product in Early Australian Theatre Managements

The international circulation of commercial theatre in the early twentieth century was driven not only from the centres of Great Britain and the USA, but by the specific enterprise and habitus of managers in ‘complementary’ production sites such as Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. The activity of this period suggests a de-centred competitive trade in theatrical commodities – whether performers, scripts, or productions – wherein the perceived entertainment preferences and geographies of non-metropolitan centres were formative of international enterprise. The major producers were linked in complex bonds of partnerships, family, or common experience which crossed the globe. The fractures and commonalities displayed in the partnerships of James Cassius Williamson and George Musgrove, which came to dominate and shape the fortunes of the Australian industry for much of the century, indicate the contradictory commercial and artistic pressures bearing upon entrepreneurs seeking to provide high-quality entertainment and form advantageous combinations in competition with other local and international managements. Clarke, Meynell and Gunn mounted just such spirited competition from 1906 to 1911, and their story demonstrates both the opportunities and the centralizing logic bearing upon local managements shopping and dealing in a global market. The author, Veronica Kelly, works at the University of Queensland. She is presently undertaking a study of commercial stars and managements in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia, with a focus on the star performer as model of history, gender, and nation.

Reflections on the development and implementation of an early warning system for ecstasy and related drug markets in Australia

Regular and systematic monitoring of drug markets provides the basis for evidence-based policy. In Australia, trends in ecstasy and related drug (ERD) markets have been monitored in selected jurisdictions since 2000 and nationally since 2003, by the Party Drugs Initiative (PDI). The PDI maximises the validity of conclusions by triangulating information from (a) interviews with regular ecstasy users (REU), (b) interviews with key experts and (c) indicator data. There is currently no other system in Australia for monitoring these markets systematically; however, the value of the PDI has been constrained by the quality of available data. Difficulties in recruiting and interviewing appropriate consumers (REU) and key experts have been experienced, but largely overcome. Limitations of available indicator data from both health and law enforcement continue to present challenges and there remains considerable scope for enhancing existing routine data collection systems, to facilitate monitoring of ERD markets. With an expanding market for ecstasy and related drugs in Australia, and in the context of indicator data that continue to be limited in scope and detail, there is a strong argument for the continued collection of annual, comparable data from a sentinel group of REU, such as those recruited for the PDI.