Results from Australia's 2014 report card on physical activity for children and youth

Background: 

Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change : precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia

Housing, employment and economic conditions in many nations have changed greatly over the past decades. This paper explores the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households, using Australia as a case study. The paper finds a substantial number and proportion of low income Australians have been affected by housing and employment that is insecure with profound implications for vulnerability. Importantly, the paper suggests that in Australia the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated as greater employment security for some on low incomes, but not all. Enhanced access to employment in this period was differentiated by gender, with women largely missing out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose. The paper finds low income lone parents were especially vulnerable because they were unable to benefit from a buoyant labour market over the decade 2000–2010. They were also adversely affected by national policy changes intended to encourage engagement with paid work. The outcomes identified for Australia are likely to have been mirrored in other nations, especially those that have embraced, or been forced to adopt, more restrictive welfare and income support regimes.

The gender of “soft” and “hard” news

Research from around the globe has long emphasised the problem of vertical segregation in the news media where women remain largely absent from key editorial decision-making roles. Horizontal segregation, however, where there are gendered divisions of tasks associated with reporting, is also an ongoing issue and has been highlighted in a recent large-scale survey of female journalists in Australia. To date, just one other small industry survey in 1996 has asked female journalists in Australia about the types of stories that they cover and raised the implications of gendered inequity. This current survey finds that while more female reporters appear be covering hard news rounds like politics and business, the majority are still assigned to cover the bulk of the soft news areas of features, the arts, education and health—and most perceive that female reporters remain pigeon-holed in those traditionally female story areas. Respondents understand soft news as less important within the organisation in comparison to the highly valued areas of politics and sports that male reporters most often cover. This paper analyses female journalists' responses to the gendered nature of the soft news–hard news binary and the ramifications of such disparity.

Retrials of persons acquitted of indictable offences in England and Australia: exceptions to the rule against double jeopardy

Jury directions in relation to the issue of consent in trials of sexual offence cases are mandated in two jurisdictions in Australia (Victoria and the Northern Territory). The Australian Law Reform Commission, in conjunction with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission, has recommended that provisions similar to those in Victoria should be contained in relevant legislation in all States and Territories. However, a recent series of cases in Victoria has revealed significant problems in relation to the mandatory jury directions. These difficulties have generated increasingly elaborate and complex directions. The complexity of these directions not only presents considerable challenges for judges but also may overwhelm, rather than assist, members of the jury. The Court of Appeal of Victoria has called for "urgent and wholesale reform". In the light of these concerns, it is suggested that the Victorian mandatory directions do not provide a model for other jurisdictions. Rather, the Victorian experience can be seen as a cautionary tale of the problems and pitfalls of such directions. Recently, the Victorian government has passed the Jury Directions Act 2013. This Act sets out "guiding principles" that should determine the content, and use, of jury directions. These guiding principles should form the basis for any jury directions with respect to sexual offences.

Integrated practice in the early years in Australia: The assumptions, omissions and contradictions of policy reform

The aim of this article is to examine current national early years’ policy reform, which emphasises the importance of service integration, national quality standards and a quality knowledge base for educators concerning the provision of early childhood education and care. Using Queensland, Australia, as an example, a policy discourse analysis identifies two problematics of implementing current national policy – the early childhood education and care problematic and the integration problematic. The article argues that speedy implementation of a national policy in order to meet national targets has unintended consequences for the knowledge base of educators and the possibility of collaboration within service provision. Although government commitment in this area is evident, these consequences and the current difficulties surrounding integration are the result of the lack of a specific integration strategy, and government investment focussed on the development of an integrated workforce.

Cost and outcomes associated with participating in the community fireguard program: experiences from the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia

There is increasing recognition of the importance of shared responsibility between community and government in supporting community preparedness in disaster risk reduction programs. However, there is limited evidence to support decision making about how best to allocate resources. This paper presents an economic analysis of the Community Fireguard Program coordinated by the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia. The economic analysis evaluates the costs and benefits of the Community Fireguard program (estimated in 2012 Australian dollars) to determine the efficiency of the program in terms of its outcomes of loss of life and property loss in the event of a bushfire. We take a societal perspective, including all costs and benefits regardless of who bears the costs, who receives the benefits or who provides the resources. The analysis uses data from a previous review of the program and estimates of costs and benefits over ten years, assuming each region faces a 10-year risk of major bushfire and the CFG group learnings would last ten years. Totalled over ten years, the cost per Fireguard Group for the program is $10,884, with a range of $2697-$19,071, and in the event of a major bushfire the predicted savings from reduced property loss is $732,747 and from reduced fatality $1.4 million. Even if the risk of major bushfire event in a region were one in 100 years, the estimated cost savings in a 100-year period is $217,116 per group. The value of the psychosocial impacts was not calculated, as quantitative data are currently not available.

Measuring community and service provider attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote indigenous communities in Western Australia

This study aimed to evaluate a scale to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse (CSA) in remote Australian Indigenous communities. The scale was developed to gauge attitudes that may be inhibiting the reporting of cases of CSA to police, as well as to evaluate whether interventions that focused on collaborative relationships between community members and police resulted in changes in attitudes. Participants included service providers living outside the community (58%), community members (living within the community; 9%), and service providers who were also community members (33%); 18% of participants identified as Indigenous. Principal components analysis revealed a nonintuitive six-factor solution that did not support the original four concepts. Four intuitive factors emerged from an abridged version of the scale: entrenched issues, personal understanding and knowledge, communication between community and government, and community action. The scale detected significant differences between community status and between Indigenous status groups on some factors.

Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change: precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia

 Housing, employment and economic conditions in many nations have changed greatly over the past decades. This paper explores the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households, using Australia as a case study. The paper finds a substantial number and proportion of low income Australians have been affected by housing and employment that is insecure with profound implications for vulnerability. Importantly, the paper suggests that in Australia the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated as greater employment security for some on low incomes, but not all. Enhanced access to employment in this period was differentiated by gender, with women largely missing out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose. The paper finds low income lone parents were especially vulnerable because they were unable to benefit from a buoyant labour market over the decade 2000–2010. They were also adversely affected by national policy changes intended to encourage engagement with paid work. The outcomes identified for Australia are likely to have been mirrored in other nations, especially those that have embraced, or been forced to adopt, more restrictive welfare and income support regimes.