‘It would be okay if they came through the proper channels’: community perceptions and attitudes toward asylum seekers in Australia

Australia's humanitarian programme contributes to UNHCR's global resettlement programme and enhances Australia's international humanitarian reputation. However, as the recent tragedy on Christmas Island has shown, the arrival of asylum seekers by boat continues to stimulate debate, discussion and reaction from the Australian public and the Australian media. In this study, we used a mixed methods community survey to understand community perceptions and attitudes relating to asylum seekers. We found that while personal contact with asylum seekers was important when forming opinions about this group of immigrants, for the majority of respondents, attitudes and opinions towards asylum seekers were more influenced by the interplay between traditional Australian values and norms, the way that these norms appeared to be threatened by asylum seekers, and the way that these threats were reinforced both in media and political rhetoric.

Benchmarks of Victorian commercial goat meat enterprises

The Australian goat meat industry has mostly processed feral goats for export. As goat meat markets mature there will be an increased demand for farmed goats to meet supply, especially into niche markets. Production benchmarking showed that Victorian commercial goat meat producers are located generally in areas with <500 mm rainfall, usually in conjunction with other livestock and cropping enterprises. On average, 67% of farm area, equal to 701 ha (range 55 – 4400 ha) was allocated to the goat enterprise. Commercial producers used Boer bucks, at an average mating rate of 2.2%, over Boer X or feral X does. Weaning rates averaged 99% (range 51 - 165%). There was a large range in husbandry ($0 - $3.07) and supplementary feeding ($6.75 - $9.60) expenditure. Fifty percent of producers indicated that they carried out regular faecal egg counts to assess worm burdens. Seasonal supply patterns showed that producers were supplying Christmas and Easter markets with a live weight range of 12 - 40 kg and an overall average live weight of 26 kg. The issues of concern identified by commercial growers were: internal parasitism, doe fertility, kid predation, kid growth rates, Johnes disease, and fencing security. This study indicated that there is considerable scope to improve the productivity of the Victorian commercial goat meat industry. Most producers supply smaller carcases on a strong seasonal basis. This supply pattern inhibits industry development.

Found Found Found

Through time-lapse and pixilated animation, recorded on the run through Serbia, Europe, international air travel through Australasia, and including recordings at the 2013 Christmas Markets in Dusseldorf, this short roaming personal narrative contemplates our current pre-occupation with mobile technologies and the concomitant reshaping of everyday life and public space. It features one extreme response to technological and political change: Alex Jones’ Infowars radio program. The film suggests surveillance, metamorphosed from avant-garde and minimalist cinema, as the ‘new norm’, and witnesses the new stasis that hypermobility institutes globally and the florid thinking it elicits.

The whiteness of David Bowie

During the 1980s, in particular, Bowie embodied particular notions of white masculinity that were on the one hand supportive of its idealized hegemony, and on the other subverted its normative power. I will take 1983 as the year when his whiteness is particularly visible and unstable. Bowie, as either the blonde dandy from Let’s Dance; the enigmatic character, Maj. Jack 'Strafer' Celliers from Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983); or the simmering vampire, John Blaylock from The Hunger (1983), crystlised the pure qualities of white masculinity while demonstrating its violent, queer and subversive nature. The chapter will suggest that Bowie has constantly operated along a white continuum, self-consciously embodying it, granting it carnal and ideological power, while drawing attention to its death-like instinct, its anti-reproductive progeny, its implicit queerness.I have chosen to read Bowie’s whiteness through this shortened window of temporality to enable me to draw into the analysis the historical and cultural issues of the period in question. 1983 registers as the year in which whiteness is acutely imagined to be under threat from the Asian tiger and transforming geo-political realities, its own languid anti-corporeality, the AIDS ‘epidemic’, and from the rise of racism in Europe and elsewhere - realities which require it to re-position its power relations with the sexual, and ethnic Other. The whiteness in/of David Bowie speaks particularly eloquently to this historical moment.

Potential for agricultural production on disturbed soils mined for apatite using legumes and beneficial microbe

Christmas Island has been mined for rock phosphate for over 100 years, and as mining will finish in the next few decades there is a need to develop alternative economies on the island, such as high value crop production. However, to conserve the unique flora and fauna on the island, only land previously mined will be considered for this purpose. As these soils have been severely perturbed by mining, strategies to improve soil quality parameters need to be undertaken before plant based industries can be considered. For instance, legumes and beneficial microbes have demonstrated a positive role in the remediation of degraded soils. Therefore, this study aimed to establish the scientific basis upon which agriculture can effectively be developed on s oils post phosphate mining. Six legume species (Glycine max (Soybean), Vigna radiata (Mungbean), V. unguiculata (Cowpea), Phaseolus vulgaris (Navybean), Cajanus cajan (Pigeon pea), and Lablab purpureus (Lablab)) were sown onto a two ha rehabilitated site t hat had previously been mined for rock phosphate. The soil had a pH of 7.0, and was high in P but low in Bo, Cu, K, Mg, N and S and had low organic C. The legumes were inoculated with their respective rhizobial inoculant or co-inoculated with the rhizobia and a plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) at three different fertilizer rates (nil, a low rate, and five times the low rate). With the exception of P. vulgaris, all the legume species survived. The application of fertilizer was essential for maximum biomass yields 18 weeks after sowing, however the lower fertilizer rate was sufficient to obtain maximum yields for some cultivars. The PGPB increased yields and nodulation of some of the legumes at different fertilizer levels. Although the legumes (except P. vulgaris) grew in the Christmas Island environment, selection of appropriate legume cultivars and inoculants plus optimization of the fertilizer regime is required for reliable agricultural productivity on the island.