Is there a need to reform the corporate class action procedure in Australia?

This article argues for a need to reform the corporate class action procedure in Australia. The reason is that the statutory procedure for an “opt out” class action is beginning to appear more like an “opt in” class action. The confusion relates to the poor drafting of Part IVA of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976, which contains the class action procedure. The involvement of a commercial litigation funder has also contributed to the complexity in the interpretation of the law. The article provides a review of why s 33J and s 33E are conceptually difficult to apply. It highlights the key areas that require legislative amendments in order for the class action procedure to operate more effectively.

Contributing to health reform : urban Aboriginal women speak out

In this thesis, the researcher shares their own personal journey as an Aboriginal researcher walking the borderlands between academic and Indigenous worldviews.  Indigenous Methodologies and Talking Circles provided a culturally safe environment for urban Aboriginal women to collectively develop and share their strategies to enable health care providers, educators, and policy makers to provide respectful non-racist, non-disciminatory health care.

Is Web 2.0 a threat to representative democracy? A deliberation through the Australian carbon tax debate

The influence of social media is intensifying in global societies. As the technologies become cheaper and the acceptance of Web 2.0 becomes widespread, the power of social media on citizens, particularly the integrated influence of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs cannot be underestimated. In this paper, we attempt a deliberation through the lens of carbon tax debate in Australia where the influence of social media has perhaps begun to portend the role of elected representation in this representative democracy.

Homicide law reform in Victoria, Australia from provocation to defensive homicide and beyond

Homicide law reform surrounding the partial defences to murder currently animates legal stakeholders in Australia and the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to cases of lethal intimate partner violence. In 2005, the Victorian Government implemented a series of homicide law reforms, central to which was the abolition of the partial defence of provocation and the instatement of an offence of defensive homicide. This article, based on a larger qualitative research study with British, Victorian and New South Wales legal stakeholders, explores experiences and perceptions of reforms in Victoria. An analysis of the impact of homicide law reform, using Hudson's principles of discursiveness and reflectiveness as a framework for analysis, reveals some dissonance between the intent and outcomes of these legal reforms. This study concludes that reforms crafted to counter gender bias in the operation of homicide law have produced mixed results for female victims of intimate partner homicide and related case law.

Mathematics curriculum reform : reproducing social inequalities

This book is essential reading for Australasian mathematics educators and other researchers with an interest in the history of mathematics curriculum, the culture of mathematics, gender, and social justice issues in mathematics. Drawing on the results of research conducted by the Educational Outcomes Research Unit at the University of Melbourne and historical documents, Richard Teese argues that the education system fails to diffuse the economic and cultural benefits assumed to flow from the completion of secondary schooling.

The aftermath of provocation : homicide law reform in Victoria, New South Wales and England.

Over the past decade, homicide law reform surrounding the partial defences to murder has animated debate among criminological scholars and legal stakeholders in Australia and the United Kingdom. In response to these debates, criminal jurisdictions have conducted reviews of the partial defences to murder and implemented reforms targeted at reducing gender bias in the law which has played out through the operation of the partial defence of provocation. This research examines the different approaches taken to addressing the problem posed by provocation in Victoria, New South Wales and England. In doing so, it explores questions around the need for reform to the law of homicide, the effects of these reforms in practice, and the influential role of sentencing in questions surrounding homicide law reform. Throughout the analysis key frameworks of criminological thought in relation to feminist engagements with the law, the conceptualisation of denial and the influence of law and order politics upon the development of criminal justice policy are applied. By drawing on 81 in-depth interviews conducted with legal stakeholders across the three jurisdictions under study, and an analysis of relevant case law, this research concludes that reforms implemented to counter gender bias in the operation of homicide law have produced mixed results in practice, particularly in connection to the law’s response to three key categories of person in the courtroom: the jealous man, the female victim of homicide, and the battered woman.

The tax-spending nexus : evidence from a panel of US state–local governments

We re-examine the tax-spending nexus using a panel of 50 US state–local government units between 1963 and 1997. We find that, unlike tax revenues, expenditures adjust to revert back to a long-term equilibrium relationship. The evidence on the short-term dynamics is also consistent with the tax-and-spend hypothesis. One implication of this finding is that the size of the government at the state–local level is not determined by expenditure demand, but rather by resource supply. This is consistent with the fact that many US state and local governments operate under constitutional or legislative limitations that seek to constrain deficits.

Health system reform and social capital

The pressures for health system reform have reached a critical stage over the past ten years as our understanding of the determinants of health has increased and deepened. Far from being conjecture and theory, the evidence for a broad range of determinants of health, from the biological and medical through to a broad range of economic and social determinants, has mounted.

Have we really thought through health reform?

With all the discussion around about health care reform in Australia we are missing a fundamental issue about health and illness. They are not the same! There is a disconnect between the rhetoric of reform, the apparent political support for prevention and health promotion, and the realities of decisions being taken and understanding of the underlying assumptions of health determinants.Preventing ill health and promoting health have been seen as the point of departure for good health care, at least rhetorically, ever since the Alma Ata Declaration (1978) and the Ottawa Charter (1986). Australia along with other member states of the WHO is signatories to both and they have underpinned official health policy with a rhetorical flourish in many a document since.

Health system reform and social capital

Jim Hyde suggests that the research on building the capacity of communities and the accumulation of social capital shows that how we organize our health systems - in both micro and macro contexts - is important. He argues that collaboration, flexibility and community participation must become central in health structures.