Wastewater irrigation: the state of play

As demand for fresh water intensifies, wastewater is frequently being seen as a valuable resource. Furthermore, wise reuse of wastewater alleviates concerns attendant with its discharge to the environment. Globally, around 20 million ha of land are irrigated with wastewater, and this is likely to increase markedly during the next few decades as water stress intensifies. In 1995, around 2.3 billion people lived in water-stressed river basins and this could increase to 3.5 billion by 2025. We review the current status of wastewater irrigation by providing an overview of the extent of the practice throughout the world and through synthesizing the current understanding of factors influencing sustainable wastewater irrigation. A theme that emerges is that wastewater irrigation is not only more common in water-stressed regions such as the Near East, but the rationale for the practice also tends to differ between the developing and developed worlds. In developing nations, the prime drivers are livelihood dependence and food security, whereas environmental agendas appear to hold greater sway in the developed world. The following were identified as areas requiring greater understanding for the long-term sustainability of wastewater irrigation: (i) accumulation of bioavailable forms of heavy metals in soils, (ii) environmental fate of organics in wastewater-irrigated soils, (iii) influence of reuse schemes on catchment hydrology, including transport of salt loads, (iv) risk models for helminth infections (pertinent to developing nations), (v) microbiological contamination risks for aquifers and surface waters, (vi) transfer efficiencies of chemical contaminants from soil to plants, (vii) health effects of chronic exposure to chemical contaminants, and (viii) strategies for engaging the public.

Reconnaissance limnology of Tasmania VIII. Tasmanian coastal lagoons - epicentres of endemism in the Australian aquatic microbiota

Two clusters of coastal lagoons, one near Strahan on Tasmania's west coast, the other near St Helens on the north-east coast, are the prime known epicentres of novelty and endemism in the Australian freshwater algal flora. The algae inhabiting these acid, dystrophic lagoons have a very limited distribution. Other dystrophic lagoons may have one or two, but not all, of this suite of endemics. The Strahan dune lakes, especially Lake Garcia, also have the greatest microfaunal diversity yet recorded from any Tasmanian waterbody, including several endemic species. The St Helens sites are less rich in species of microfauna, perhaps because of climatic differences or perhaps because of less intensive sampling there, but they, too, contain endemic taxa. The lagoons in both areas lie outside the formal protection of national parks, but present land management does provide a measure of protection.

Wellbeing of Australians : work, wealth and happiness : part A

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index monitors the subjective wellbeing of the Australian population. Our first survey was conducted in April 2001 and this report concerns the 17th survey, undertaken in April 2007. Our previous survey had been conducted six months earlier in October 2006. This intervening period was relatively uneventful in terms of events likely to change population wellbeing. A new leader of the opposition Labor Party was appointed (Kevin Rudd) who seemed more likely than
his predecessors to wrest power from long-serving Prime Minister John Howard (Liberal Party) in an election to be held around the end of 2007.
Each survey involves a telephone interview with a new sample of 2,000 Australians, selected to represent the national population geographic distribution. These surveys comprise the Personal Wellbeing Index, which measures people’s satisfaction with their own lives, and the National
Wellbeing Index, which measures how satisfied people are with life in Australia. Other items include a standard set of demographic questions and other survey-specific questions. The specific topics for Survey 17 are time at work, and anticipated happiness at doubling or halving household income.

John Howard, Australian conservative

John Howard was the first elected Australian prime minister to identify himself as a conservative; he claimed to be a liberal in economic policy and a conservative in social policy.

Your genre is black : indigenous performing arts and policy

In February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian people. Now what? In this Platform Paper, mid-career Indigenous performing artists think about their post-apology future. Indigenous theatre blossomed in the 1990s when it was grasped as a means to expose social issues and advance the goals of Reconciliation. Now that generation of artists questions these motives. For some, history and community are central; others are impatient with 'your genre is black' and demand the professional respect they have earned. "Indigenous artists", says director Wesley Enoch, "have been asked for decades to work at their slowest, to bring everyone along with them. It's the equivalent of asking Cathy Freeman to run slowly, so that everyone can keep up with her." Glow and Johanson provide a forum for practitioners like Rachel Maza-Long, David Milroy, Stephen Page and Rhoda Roberts. Together they call for an end to second-best; and for measures that respond with post-apology confidence to the vision and inspiration that, in the opinion of the Australia Council, "remain at the heart of Australia's culture" .

Employer matters in 2007

The year 2007 may well be remembered as one being short on major industrial disputation, yet one where industrial relations itself dominated public discussion and political life of the country like no other time in Australia's history. It was a year dominated by the electoral cycle, with both organized labour as well as major employers playing their cards very carefully, lest they provide political ammunition to their political and industrial opponents. Thanks largely to the effectiveness of the union movement's anti Work Choices campaign, major employer groups and their political allies the Howard government found themselves fighting a rearguard, and ultimately losing, battle, valiantly trying to defend the Work Choices regime. At year's end, the Liberal government had lost office, Prime Minister John Howard had lost his own seat in Parliament, and the Rudd Labor Government had been swept to power with a clear mandate to dismantle the Work Choices regime. Yet despite this conclusion to a year dominated by debate over industrial relations, it seems that employers had nevertheless lobbied Labor party leaders successfully enough to secure the continuation of many key components of the former Howard government's industrial relations regime.

Entrepreneurship in Mexico : lessons for stakeholders in New Zealand

A “neighbour” separated by 6,000 km of Pacific, Mexico is by far New Zealand’s largest trading partner in Latin America and its 15th largest overall. With two-way trade worth NZ$584 million in 2002, many Mexicans grow up on New Zealand milk powder and baby formula. Not only is Mexico’s population of 100 million a huge potential economic partner in its own right, through its network of free trade agreements, Mexico has preferential access to 860 million consumers in 32 countries covering sixty percent of the world’s GDP.

Like New Zealand, Mexico is a “New World” country open to new ideas and innovation. Also like New Zealand, Mexico is known internationally for economic reforms that have created two outward-looking, world-trading, and competitive economies. During the last 50 years, the Mexican economy has shifted away from the once dominant sectors of agriculture and mining toward more industrial activities, especially in the major urban centres of Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, and other regional centres, where entrepreneurs are concentrated. With this shift, a new class of entrepreneurs arose with the support of the government.

One of those regional centres is the State of Sinaloa, with its capital city, Culiacán. Spearheaded by a visionary government and personified by the Secretary of Economic Development, Heriberto Felix Guerra. Secretary Felix is himself restaurant entrepreneur who owns a growing chain of “concept food” restaurants in the region.

It is no accident that when New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark visited Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada on 15 November 2001, one of the topics of conversation was the fact that very day their two countries had been benchmarked as two of the world’s most entrepreneurial countries in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 survey.

More germane, both countries have low-aspiration entrepreneurs who generate low levels of wealth and have low potential for growth. Both are dominated by micro-businesses that do not have high-value-added components and are not investment-ready and pre-qualified for risk capita.

This leads to the question, what can New Zealanders learn from the experience of Mexican entrepreneurship?

Treaties as tools of foreign policy : a psychopolitical inquiry via Keatings's vision for Australia

Paul Keating will be remembered by some Australians as a visionary. As Prime Minister he outlined the structure of external and domestic reform that he believed would guarantee global security for all Australians. Driving these reforms, more often than not, were interstate agreements, often in the form of multilateral treaties, sometimes in the guise of bilateral compromise, rarely as unilateral declarations. In areas as diverse as collaborative scientific research or the protection of children in the workplace, the Keating Executive set out, through codification, to transform Australia’s political landscape. The fields of trade, military, environmental and human rights were all included in the attempts by Keating to forge a new image of and for Australia in the Asia Pacific region. Treaties were vital agents of change in this milieu in the bid to reformulate regional perceptions of Australia. The path of inquiry in this thesis stemmed from a quest to examine the origin, role, purpose and efficacy of treaties in the Keating Government’s foreign policy aimed at regional military security. In order to make this examination it develops a polyphonic1 analytical model whose purpose is to explore the psychopolitical underpinnings of these agreements. Thus the thesis has a two fold task. To develop an analytical model of how treaties work as tools of foreign policy and to outline and assess the Keating treaty strategy. Its principal contribution is on the theoretical side.

Role of school principals within a context of changes in the management of Victorian education 1982-1992

Change occured rapidly and was far reaching in Victoria's educational system in the 1980's and early 1990s. The Labour Party for the first time in 27 years formed a government in 1982. The Educational Minister sought input from many of the groups within the education community and the resulting Ministerial Papers set scence for change. Principles of Victorian Schools were now required to operate within a climate of participative democrary and this brought changes to the way ion which they had been used to operating. As more and more changes took place there were some changes of direction which affected the context within which affected the context within which principals principals operated. How did this affect the role of of the principals? What were the changes in their practices and organisation of work?

Long lived multi-isotype anti-HIV antibody responses following a prime-double boost immunization strategy

Despite decades of work, an effective HIV vaccine remains elusive. In an effort to elicit protective immunity, investigators have sought to define vaccines able to elicit durable HIV-specific B-cell and T-cell activities. Additionally, vaccines are sought which can induce antibodies of a variety of isotypes, as each isotype possesses unique attributes in terms of opsonization, Fc receptor binding capacity, complement fixation and location. One prominent new vaccine strategy, applied to numerous distinct antigenic systems is the prime boost-regimen, with DNA, vaccinia virus (VV), and/or purified recombinant protein. To examine the durability, location and isotype distribution of responses induced by prime-boost regimens, we tested successive immunizations with DNA, VV and protein (D-V-P), comparing three forms of protein inoculations: (i) purified protein administered intramuscularly with complete Freunds adjuvant, (ii) purified protein administered intranasally, and (iii) purified protein conjugated to oxidized mannan, administered intranasally. We found that all three protocols elicited serum antibodies of multiple isotypes, with serum IgA being most prominent among mice immunized with mannan-conjugated protein. All D-V-P protocols, regardless of protein form or route, also elicited antibody responses at mucosal surfaces. In bronchoalveolar lavage, a tendency toward IgA production was again most prominent in mice boosted with the protein–mannan conjugate. Both B-cell and T-cell responses were sustained for more than 1 year post-immunization following each form of vaccination. Contemporaneous with long-lasting serum and mucosal antibodies were antibody forming cells in the bone marrow of primed animals. Results highlight the D-V-P vaccination strategy as a promising approach for attaining durable, multi-isotype B-cell and T-cell activities toward HIV.

Generational change : regional security and Australian engagement with Asia

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has recently announced plans to develop greater regional integration and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Historically, Australian opinion, however, has expressed some anxiety about forging closer economic, political and security ties with Asia. Using trend data from the Australian Election Study and the Lowy Institute Poll, this article examines changes in Australian public opinion on closer engagement with Asia and whether the Australian public is likely to support the Rudd government’s push towards developing deeper regional diplomacy. The article finds a shift in opinion since the 1990s with a younger generation of voters who are moderately supportive of Australia’s engagement with Asia.

The equipping inclusion studies : assistive technology use and outcomes in Victoria ; key findings and policy implications, study 1 - the equipment study, study 2 - the economic study

Approximately one in five of the Australian population lives with disability (AIHW 2006a; ABS 2003). Of these, almost 1.9 million rely on assistive technologies to live independently (Hobbs, Close, Downing, Reynolds & Walker 2009).

Assistive Technology (AT) is defined as,

‘any device, system or design, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified or customised, that allows an individual to perform a task that they would otherwise be unable to do, or increase the ease and safety with which a task can be performed’ (Independent Living Centres Australia n.d).

‘Assistive Technology solutions’ have been defined as entailing a combination of devices (aids and equipment), environmental modifications (both in the home and outside of it), and personal care (paid and unpaid) (Assistive Technology Collaboration n.d).

Despite a large number of Australians relying on AT, there is little data available about life for these Australians, the extent of AT use, or unmet need for AT. Existing research in Australia suggests that aids and equipment provision in Australia is ‘fragmented’ across a plethora of government and non government programs (AIHW 2006a:35). In Victoria, one of the prime sources of government funding for AT is the Victorian Aids and Equipment Program (VAEP) which is a subsidy program for the purchase of aids and equipment, home and vehicle modifications for people with permanent or long term disability. Recent research suggests that waiting times for accessing equipment through the VAEP are high, as is the cost burden to applicants (Wilson, Wong & Goodridge 2006). In addition, there appears to be a substantial level of unmet need (KPMG 2007).

Additionally, there is a paucity of literature around the economic evaluation of AT interventions and solution packages, resulting in little evidence of their cost-effectiveness credentials.

The equipping inclusion studies : assistive technology use and outcomes in Victoria ; key findings and policy recommendations

Approximately one in five of the Australian population lives with disability (AIHW 2006a; ABS 2003). Of these, almost 1.9 million rely on assistive technologies to live independently (Hobbs, Close, Downing, Reynolds & Walker 2009).

Assistive Technology (AT) is defined as,

‘any device, system or design, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified or customised, that allows an individual to perform a task that they would otherwise be unable to do, or increase the ease and safety with which a task can be performed’ (Independent Living Centres Australia n.d).

‘Assistive Technology solutions’ have been defined as entailing a combination of devices (aids and equipment), environmental modifications (both in the home and outside of it), and personal care (paid and unpaid) (Assistive Technology Collaboration n.d).

Despite a large number of Australians relying on AT, there is little data available about life for these Australians, the extent of AT use, or unmet need for AT. Existing research in Australia suggests that aids and equipment provision in Australia is ‘fragmented’ across a plethora of government and non government programs (AIHW 2006a:35). In Victoria, one of the prime sources of government funding for AT is the Victorian Aids and Equipment Program (VAEP) which is a subsidy program for the purchase of aids and equipment, home and vehicle modifications for people with permanent or long term disability. Recent research suggests that waiting times for accessing equipment through the VAEP are high, as is the cost burden to applicants (Wilson, Wong & Goodridge 2006). In addition, there appears to be a substantial level of unmet need (KPMG 2007).

Additionally, there is a paucity of literature around the economic evaluation of AT interventions and solution packages, resulting in little evidence of their cost-effectiveness credentials.

Recent developments in wool related research in Australia

Fibre related research in Australia is entering a new era. In May 2010, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Kevin Rudd, announced a $37 million grant under the Education investment Fund (EIF) scheme to establish the Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre (AFFRIC) at Deakin University’s Geelong Campus. This is $102 million joint initiative between Deakin University, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and the Victorian Centre for Advanced Materials Manufacturing (VCAMM). Wool related research fits within two of the four program areas under AFFRIC: green natural fibres and functional fibrous materials. Selected examples of our recent wool related research are discussed, with a focus on the work involving researchers at Deakin University.

What counts as higher education? Pursuing intellectually compelling ideas

A few months ago I was sitting in a graduation ceremony considering the nature of universities; what it means to do academic work and how this constitutes some higher form of education. Unlike some of my more astute colleagues who had remembered to bring their current reading (copies of Giroux or Gelemter nestled within their graduation programs) to while away the time between applauds for graduates and speeches, I was confined to my own thoughts on matters of importance for universities and their constituents. The ceremony provided critical moments for reflection--for me, centred around the politics of meaningmincluding: the presentation to a colleague of the Vice-Chancellor's award for teaching excellence; the conferring of an honorary doctorate on the guest speaker, Fiji's Prime Minister Major-General Rabuka, for his involvement in restructuring Fiji's system of governance; and the celebration of his visit by the Vice-Chancellor, himself a would-be reformer of systems as a member of the West Review of Australian higher education.