Donor identification 'kills gamete donation'? A response

Two Australian government inquiries have recently called for the release of information to donor-conceived people about their gamete donors. A national inquiry, recommended ‘as a matter of priority’ that uniform legislation to be passed nationwide. A state-based inquiry argued that all donor-conceived people should have access to information and called for the enactment of retrospective legislation that would override donor anonymity. This paper responds to an opinion piece published in Human Reproduction in October 2012 by Professor Pennings in which he criticized such recommendations and questioned the motives of people that advocate for information release. I answer the arguments of Pennings, and argue that all parties affected by donor conception should be considered, and a compromise reached. The contact veto system is one such compromise. I discuss the education and support services recommended by the Victorian government and question Pennings' assertions that legislation enabling information release will lead to a decrease in gamete donation. Finally, I rebut Pennings' assertion that there is a ‘hidden agenda’ behind the call for information release. There is no such agenda in my work. If there is from others, then it is their discriminatory views that need to be addressed, not the move toward openness and honesty or the call for information by donor-conceived people.

Ecology / economy

This work speaks to ideas of nurturing and embodiment. In one half of the screen we see a father massaging his child with coconut oil, a common practice in Fijian families, and an early investment in the health and spiritual wellbeing of the child. In the next frame we see the other end of the life cycle and an imagined re-enactment of the folding of the Fijian flag, as in the American military tradition for fallen service people. Here Bolatagici refers to the number of Fijians fighting for foreign armies, including the United States.

A governance of denial: hate crime in New Zealand and Australia

In Australia and New Zealand, the strategies employed by governments to remedy prejudice, intolerance and hatred occur on a continuum; ranging from global mission statements about multiculturalism/ biculturalism, through to the enactment of civil anti-discrimination and anti-vilification legislation. In some jurisdictions, these civil remedies have been extended to criminal codes and sentencing legislation, and enshrined in human rights charters. In the place of a comprehensive outline of each of the nine jurisdictions, case studies from throughout the region are presented as exemplars of the strategies employed and barriers faced in reducing prejudice-related violence.

The differences between the Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions belies a common theme that frames the delay in developing legislative responses to hate crime and the paucity of cases to reach the point at which they begin to establish an agreed set of norms and values about the abhorrence of prejudice and hatred. At most turns—whether political or public rhetoric, or legislative and policy development - there is a frontier denial, minimisation and negation of prejudice and hatred.

What a wreck!

Re-enactment of the JC Scammell shipwreck at Point Danger in 1883 : Community Performance written and directed by Wendy Grose with choreography by Jacqui Dreessens and music led by Michele Barnes

The common law principle of legality

In this age of statutes and human rights the common law principle of legality has assumed a central importance. The principle holds that '[u]nless the Parliament makes unmistakably clear its intention to abrogate or suspend a fundamental freedom, the courts will not construe a statute as having that operation.' This development has occurred throughout the common law world most relevantly in New Zealand and the United Kingdom where its re-emergence coincided with the enactment of statutory bill of rights. It is however the aim of this article to outline the nature and scope of the principle of legality in contemporary Australian law.

Beckett and Bion: The (Im)patient voice in psychotherapy and literature

This book focuses on Samuel Beckett’s psychoanalytic psychotherapy with W. R. Bion as a central aspect both of Beckett’s and Bion’s radical transformations of literature and psychoanalysis. The recent publication of Beckett’s correspondence during the period of his psychotherapy with Bion provides a starting place for an imaginative reconstruction of this psychotherapy, culminating with Bion’s famous invitation to his patient to dinner and a lecture by C.G. Jung. Following from the course of this psychotherapy, Miller and Souter trace the development of Beckett’s radical use of clinical psychoanalytic method in his writing, suggesting the development within his characters of a literary-analytic working through of transference to an idealized auditor known by various names, apparently based on Bion. Miller and Souter link this pursuit to Beckett’s breakthrough from prose to drama, as the psychology of projective identification is transformed to physical enactment. They also locate Bion’s memory and re-working of his clinical contact with Beckett, who figures as the 'patient zero' of Bion’s pioneering postmodern psychoanalytic clinical theories.

Photosharing on Flickr: intangible heritage and emergent publics

This paper argues that Flickr, a popular ‘photosharing’ website, is facilitating new public engagements with world heritage sites like the Sydney Opera House. Australian heritage institutions (namely libraries and museums) have recently begun to employ Flickr as a site through which to engage communities with their photographic archives and collections. Yet Flickr is more than an ‘online photo album’: it is a social and cultural network generated around personal photographic practices. Members can form ‘groups’: self‐organised communities defined by shared interests in places, photographic genres, or the appraisal of photographs. These groups are public spaces for both visual and textual conversations – complex social negotiations involving personal expression and collective identity. For one group, the common interest is the Sydney Opera House, and their shared visual and textual expressions – representations of this building. This paper argues that such socio‐visual practices themselves constitute an intangible heritage. By drawing on the work of scholars Jose Van Dijck and Nancy Van House, Dawson Munjeri and Michael Warner, the paper proposes that this enactment of intangible heritage is implicated in the broader cultural value of the Sydney Opera House

‘Global’ is not just ‘out there’ but also ‘right here’

This paper reports on a study into how the cultural expectations of the roles of students and teachers impact on the lived experience of higher education students. Specifically, the paper discusses ways in which academics and students perceive the theoretical and practical sides of the front-end loading programs in which they are involved. The paper takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach in drawing from data sets collected from students and staff in both a UK medicine program and also an Australian teacher education program. As such, it responds to the aim of the AARE-APERA conference to enrich global cooperation in educational research. Giddens’ (2003) sociological theory of “structuration” was selected as a framework for the study because it enables insight into how individuals make meaning and identity through their circumstances and endeavours. The theory provided useful in demonstrating how we understand, and thus educate for, the roles of professionals, including doctors and teachers, in society. The discussion and findings of the paper contribute to the international literature on professional culture and identity, work-integrated learning and the enactment of theory and practice in university front-end loading programs.

A tale of two expropriations: Newcrestia and Agrizania

A comparison will be made between the decision of the High Court of Australia in Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd v The Commonwealth1 (“Newcrest”) and the decisions of the South African Courts in the Agri South Africa line of cases.2 Although the mineral law systems of the two countries differ insofar as historical development and content,3 the simplified facts of the Newcrest and Agri SA decisions and principles of expropriation law are similar enough to draw an interesting comparison between the respective cases. Both cases dealt with the issue of whether the mineral rights/mining rights of private holders were expropriated by legislation which prohibited mining in one way or another. A comparison between the cases shows the approaches towards the issues and what exactly constitutes deprivation and/or acquisition of property for purposes of expropriation and whether deprivation and/or acquisition actually took place.The differences between the mineral law systems of Australia and South Africa (before the enactment of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (hereafter “MPRDA”)) and the protection afforded against the resumption/expropriation of mineral rights or mining rights will be set as background information for a better understanding of the respective decisions. The facts of the two cases will first be set out and simplified for comparative purposes before the respective decisions are discussed. At the end, a comparison will be made between the decisions and a conclusion reached about the similarity of principles and the correctness of the respective decisions.

BI-based organizations : a sensemaking perspective

Business intelligence (BI) offers opportunities for managers to master vast data resources for operational and strategic gains, and allows BI-based organizations to generate significant business value. While several researchers emphasized the importance of BI to assist making quality decisions, no study explored the use of BI for improved understanding of business before such decisions are made and assessing the impact of the actions derived from these decisions. To fill this gap we use the theory of organizational sensemaking. The presented research uses hermeneutic phenomenology to study the experiences of decision-makers in using BI-generated insights to guide their actions while altering business processes, structures and information. The study emphasizes the necessity of using BI in the creation and maintenance of individual and organizational identity, as well as, enactment of this identity on the business and its environment, which need to be molded in response to changing circumstances.

The construction of power in family medicine bedside teaching: a video observation study

INTRODUCTION: Bedside teaching is essential for helping students develop skills, reasoning and professionalism, and involves the learning triad of student, patient and clinical teacher. Although current rhetoric espouses the sharing of power, the medical workplace is imbued with power asymmetries. Power is context-specific and although previous research has explored some elements of the enactment and resistance of power within bedside teaching, this exploration has been conducted within hospital rather than general practice settings. Furthermore, previous research has employed audio-recorded rather than video-recorded observation and has therefore focused on language and para-language at the expense of non-verbal communication and human-material interaction. METHODS: A qualitative design was adopted employing video- and audio-recorded observations of seven bedside teaching encounters (BTEs), followed by short individual interviews with students, patients and clinical teachers. Thematic and discourse analyses of BTEs were conducted. RESULTS: Power is constructed by students, patients and clinical teachers throughout different BTE activities through the use of linguistic, para-linguistic and non-verbal communication. In terms of language, participants construct power through the use of questions, orders, advice, pronouns and medical/health belief talk. With reference to para-language, participants construct power through the use of interruption and laughter. In terms of non-verbal communication, participants construct power through physical positioning and the possession or control of medical materials such as the stethoscope. CONCLUSIONS: Using this paper as a trigger for discussion, we encourage students and clinical teachers to reflect critically on how their verbal and non-verbal communication constructs power in bedside teaching. Students and clinical teachers need to develop their awareness of what power is, how it can be constructed and shared, and what it means for the student-patient-doctor relationship within bedside teaching.

A visual language and environment for enterprise system modelling and automation

Objective: We want to support enterprise service modelling and generation using a more end user-friendly metaphor than current approaches, which fail to scale to large organisations with key issues of "cobweb" and "labyrinth" problems and large numbers of hidden dependencies. Method: We present and evaluate an integrated visual approach for business process modelling using a novel tree-based overlay structure that effectively mitigate complexity problems. A tree-overlay based visual notation (EML) and its integrated support environment (MaramaEML) supplement and integrate with existing solutions. Complex business architectures are represented as service trees and business processes are modelled as process overlay sequences on the service trees. Results: MaramaEML integrates EML and BPMN to provide complementary, high-level business service modelling and supports automatic BPEL code generation from the graphical representations to realise web services implementing the specified processes. It facilitates generated service validation using an integrated LTSA checker and provides a distortion-based fisheye and zooming function to enhance complex diagram navigation. Evaluations of EML show its effectiveness. Conclusions: We have successfully developed and evaluated a novel tree-based metaphor for business process modelling and enterprise service generation. Practice implications: a more user-friendly modelling approach and support tool for business end users.

Performing citizenship down under: educating the activist citizen

In democracies such as Australia and New Zealand, education policy increasingly seeks to foster active citizens who are committed to social justice and change. Whilst many aspects of these initiatives are to be applauded for their commitment to empowering young people, in this paper we describe some of the ambiguities that attend young people’s experiences of civic engagement and active citizenship. In doing so, we draw on Isin’s (2008) reconceptualization of citizenship as something that is, above all, performed or enacted. Isin’s focus is upon ‘acts of citizenship’ which he argues are best understood by examining their grounds, effects and consequences. Drawing on illustrations of young people’s global and local citizenship actions in schools in Australia and New Zealand, we examine some of the contradictions and tensions that lie within the enactment of such ‘performed’ curricula. We conclude by reflecting on the opportunities that exist within school and community spaces for the active citizen to perform acts of citizenship.

Teachers’ professional growth through engagement with lesson study

Lesson study is highly regarded as a model for professional learning, yet remains under-theorised. This article examines the professional learning experiences of teachers and numeracy coaches from three schools in a local network of schools, participating in a lesson study project over two research cycles in 2012. It maps the interconnections between their experiences and their beliefs and practices, using Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (Teach Educ 18(8):947–967, 2002)Interconnected Model of Professional Growth. Analysis of interview data and video-recordings of planning meetings, research lessons, and post-lesson discussions reveals the development of teachers’ collaborative planning skills, increased attention to students’ mathematical thinking, use of orchestrated whole-class discussion based on anticipated student solutions and focused questioning, and the enhancement of collaborative practices for teacher inquiry. Our findings illuminate the interplay between the External Domain, the Personal Domain, the Domain of Practice, and the Domain of Consequence, in the teaching and learning change environment, and the mediating processes of enactment and reflection. Changes in the domains across the period of the lesson study provide evidence of teachers’ professional growth, with the iterative processes of enactment and reflection being critical in mediating this professional growth.

The distinctive politics of campaign finance reform

This article presents a unified theory explaining several conflicting empirical observations in the politics of campaign finance. It identifies those circumstances that foster or frustrate the enactment of financing laws that increase the competitiveness of elections. I argue that the competitiveness of financing laws is a result of three strong incentives when they operate in differently structured party systems. First, lawmakers have an incentive to make laws to protect their incumbency from competitors. This incentive generally overwhelms the (weaker) incentive to enact popular, competition-enhancing reforms. Secondly, lawmakers, when they act through political parties, have an incentive to cooperate with rivals to reduce the costs of political defeats. Thirdly, lawmakers seek to enact reforms that are consistent with their normative goals. These incentives combine with several party system variables to determine when campaign finance reform is likely to occur and how it will impact on the competitiveness of elections.