Introduction : women as cause – media, gender, responsibility

Introduces the five chapters on Australian media representations of women and men, with a current events related examination of today's news, especially in relation to Prime Minister Julia Gillard's now famous "Misogyny Speech" in Federal Parliament in 2012.

What's 'childless' got to do with it?

Childlessness is increasing in Australia and has resulted in an upsurge of media commentary on the lives of childless women, This paper investigates the use of the label 'childless' in the Australian print media by drawing meaning and understanding from these representations within the context of pronatalist ideologies. Our analysis suggests that childless(ness) is used as an irrelevant descriptor and as a discreditable attribute, which fudher serves to perpetuate negative othering stereotypes of childless women. This is particularly exemplified through the representation of Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard by the print media. This analysis highlights the continued positioning of women in regards to their reproductive status.

Definition of homelessness changes but problems remain

According to the best estimates at the time, almost 105,000 Australians were homeless on census night in August 2006. This promoted then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to make the ambitious commitment to accommodate all people sleeping rough and halving the number of homeless in Australia by 2020.

Repositioning Malaysian foreign policy

This book addresses a diverse range of issues and influences on Malaysian foreign policy. It attempts to put into context Malaysian Foreign Policy since Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak came into office. Many of the changes that have been instituted could be regarded as engaging diplomacy with innovation in such issues as culture, networks, and globalization. In the forefront are the new diplomatic initiatives as the articulation of the New Economic Model, the APEX University in Malaysian higher education, and the ‘One Malaysia’ programme and its impact on the people. Taken together, they represent a noticeable shift in emphasis with the need to combine the domestic dictates of policy and the translation of Malaysia’s larger interests externally. Issues are discussed and analyzed within a historical and future perspective without sidelining the traditional concerns of Malaysian Foreign Policy: The centrality of ASEAN, the need for foreign direct investment, and engagement with the world. The book, therefore, serves a wide readership deeply interested in keeping up with the pace of reforms within the country’s foreign policy and public diplomacy.

Would you like some gender with that leadership?

The recent toppling of Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, continues to raise questions about women and leadership. Gillard was regarded as smart, capable and resilient. However, a string of bad decisions and broken promises had the public and politicians questioning her capacity to lead. In her final exit speech before Kevin Rudd took her place, Gillard responded to the “gender wars” discourse that had come to represent her leadership, saying that “the reaction to being the first female PM”—in other words, gender—did not explain everything nor did it explain nothing.

The experience of Singapore in raising awareness of natural and cultural resources

The city-state of Singapore has a major role in the urban development. Majority of the innovative projects are initiated by the government agencies. For this paper, I would like to highlight the two distinct themes of innovation that, I believe preoccupied the authority for its urban issues, they are innovation which concern nature and culture. Land in Singapore is scarce. Natural resources are strictly protected. At the same time they are challenged to return the maximum benefit to their own population. The water catchment area and the prime forest on the whole island is the most valuable natural resources to be preserved. The paper will demonstrate how Singapore challenges with its own resources (water and greenery) in which the holistic planning around these themes become more than just spaces of protection but integrated with the public space system and turned into more valuable spaces for the well being of its population. The second theme is the issue related to culture. Singapore's economy is the most advance compare to other Southeast Asian countries, however when it comes to culture and identity, the city state struggles with the over constructed image of branding Singapore's culture. The paper will discuss several examples around the theme of arts and culture, how the city state bench-mark itself with the world class cities. It is one of the most challenging topic in urban planning and policy making. It is worth discussing on its success and failure. We can learn form Singapore that innovation at the level of policy maker can be achieved in some urban aspects such as the management of natural resources and urban design projects related to it. However when it comes to the issue related to art and culture, the top down policy alone cannot assure the achievement of city's identity as it aspired. Tracing the historical development of the environmental and cultural policies of Singapore the paper intends to study and analyze various case studies reflecting these attempts of natural and cultural instillation. In the process of comparison of these two drastically contrasting actors and approaches, the paper will argue that it has mostly been driven by economic aims, and careful thought. The results have been limited and restrictive. Further arguing that 'creativity' is the essential factor of arts and culture, it evaluates the authenticity and the ultimate implications on cultural spirit.

Stanley Melbourne Bruce : Australian internationalist

Australia's Prime Minister and premier diplomat in the 1930/1940s, this new biography presents him as a consistent internationalist and places him in a global context.

Is journalism still a men's club?

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard says in her memoir that the quality of national debate is limited by the male domination in journalism.

How serious is the inequality in our newsrooms? Is it essentially a blokes club?

Louise North is senior research fellow in journalism at Deakin University, and the author of The Gendered Newsroom: How Journalists Experience the Changing World of Media.

Australia-Malaysia security cooperation as a pivotal component for more stable bilateral relations

In the 1980s and 1990s, Australian-Malaysian relations reached a critical juncture due to a series of crises, such as the 1986 capital punishment of convicted drug smugglers Barlow and Chambers, and the 1993 "recalcitrant" jibe by Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. Following the election of the Howard government in 1996, relations continued to be on a roller coaster with the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad leading anti-Australia protests over the "Howard Doctrine," the Australian leadership of the 1999 intervention in East Timor, and the "Deputy Sheriff" controversy. Despite this, defense relations between the two remained strong. The success of this cooperation rests on shared political commitment to the security of the region. This article examines the impact that positive cooperation in "high politics" has had in mitigating the negative aspects of crises in "low politics." It argues that close bilateral defense relations have worked to prevent the emergence of further critical junctures in 2012 following the collapse of the Australian-Malaysian refugee swap deal and statements by Australian politicians about Malaysia's poor treatment of asylum seekers, and in 2013 over the overt support by many Australian politicians of the opposition, especially Anwar Ibrahim, during the Malaysian general elections.

Spectres of labourism

In March this year, prime minister Julia Gillard boasted that she led a Labor government, not a social democratic one or a progressive one. She described Labor as ‘politically, organisationally, spiritually and even literally, the party of work’. Her academic admirers were in agreement, with labour historian Nick Dyrenfurth arguing that, unlike that latter-day Trotsky, Kevin Rudd, ‘Gillard “gets” the labour movement’.

Unsettling India: affect, temporality, transnationality

In the last 20 years, India has witnessed visible, and often acrimonious, contests between global and local, modernity and tradition, markets and the State. The economic domain has seen a shift from a protected capitalist economy that tried to mix planning with a market-based economy, to a regime increasingly marked by neoliberalism and declining welfare state. This is a period of high economic growth, prosperity for some groups, and an increase in inequality levels in the country. We also witness an ongoing agrarian crisis in rural India, where the majority lives, contributing to more than 200,000 farm suicides in the last two decades. In the political domain, there is a distinct rightward shift with an unprecedented rise of Hindu majoritarianism that has recently culminated in the elevation of Narendra Modi to the post of Prime Minister. On the one hand, the new India is trying to be assertive as it tries to find its place as a global power and is stridently militaristic in its geopolitical interactions. On the other hand, it is trying to integrate into the global capitalist economy to catch up with the richer nations of the world as it strives for greater growth. In the socio-cultural sphere, marketization comes mixed with emphases on Hindu notions of good life and India’s mythical past, as the country witnesses a heady cocktail of religion and neoliberal capitalism that defines its political economy.

Is creativity a matter for cultural leaders?

A climate of change in the arts in the 1990s, including a growing recognition of the need for creative management, has raised the issue of how not-for-profit art museum directors use creativity in their managerial role. Traditionally, the prime function of art museums has been to gather, preserve and study objects. The perception of directors as keepers of collections and creativity as residing in the object has evolved. Creativity is increasingly seen as residing in the managers of organizations. A survey of Australian and New Zealand art museum directors revealed six strategic responses to change, indicating the extent to which they used creativity in their leadership role: economic emphasis, market orientation, audience development, collaboration, accessibility and community relations. The question this paper poses is whether the change in the director's role has overturned the traditional view of creativity as focused on the art work rather than on management initiatives. The proposed answer is that it has been not so much overturned as extended: directors now balance the development and preservation of creative art works with creative management of the art museum as a market-facing organization.

Integrated governance: a possible solution for a sustainable private sector led development in Bangladesh?

In the quest for 'good governance', the developing countries have embarked on ambitious NPM style market-oriented reform policies mainly advocated by international development agencies (IDA) over the last two decades. Bangladesh has been pursuing decades of market-oriented reforms advocated by IDAs with the prime objectives of achieving an efficient, cost effective service delivery through increased involvement of the private sector. The shift towards marketisation has led to a complex, horizontal and networked structure of partnerships between state and non state actors. The private sector and NOOs are now delivering goods and services which were once the exclusive domain of the state. These changes have however, not been associated with changes in institutional arrangements, safeguards and regulation required to support the private sector led development, which is not sustained independently of the context in which it operates. Using the agriculture input sector as an exemplar, this paper explores the constraints of sustainable private sector led development. The paper argues that the main impediment to private sector led development in this sector centre on lack of good governance. In addition, lack of an integrated market structure, market information, capacity and awareness building are other factors that are inhibiting the private sector led development. We argue that a functional governance model is required in Bangladesh that engages the state, civil society and the private sector to work effectively in a participatory approach to deal with the constraints of private sector led development and for improving good governance.

Consequences of immunodominant epitope deletion for minor influenza virus-specific CD8+-T-cell responses

The extent to which CD8+ T cells specific for other antigens expand to compensate for the mutational loss of the prominent DbNP366 and DbPA224 epitopes has been investigated using H1N1 and H3N2 influenza A viruses modified by reverse genetics. Significantly increased numbers of CD8+ KbPB1703+ , CD8+ KbNS2114+, and CD8+ DbPB1-F262+ T cells were found in the spleen and in the inflammatory population recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage from mice that were first given the -NP-PA H1N1 virus intraperitoneally and then challenged intranasally with the homologous H3N2 virus. The effect was less consistent when this prime-boost protocol was reversed. Also, though the quality of the response measured by cytokine staining showed some evidence of modification when these minor CD8+-T-cell populations were forced to play a more prominent part, the effects were relatively small and no consistent pattern emerged. The magnitude of the enhanced clonal expansion following secondary challenge suggested that the prime-boost with the -NP-PA viruses gave a response overall that was little different in magnitude from that following comparable exposure to the unmanipulated viruses. This was indeed shown to be the case when the total response was measured by ELISPOT analysis with virus-infected cells as stimulators. More surprisingly, the same effect was seen following primary challenge, though individual analysis of the CD8+ KbPB1703+ , CD8+ KbNS2114+, and CD8+ DbPB1-F262+ sets gave no indication of compensatory expansion. A possible explanation is that novel, as yet undetected epitopes emerge following primary exposure to the -NP-PA deletion viruses. These findings have implications for both natural infections and vaccines.

An evaluation of Sea Search as a citizen science programme in Marine Protected Areas

Citizen science involves collaboration between multi-sector agencies and the public to address a natural resource management issue. The Sea Search citizen science programme involves community groups in monitoring and collecting subtidal rocky reef and intertidal rocky shore data in Victorian Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), Australia. In this study we compared volunteer and scientifically collected data and the volunteer motivation for participation in the Sea Search programme. Intertidal rocky shore volunteer-collected data was found to be typically comparable to data collected by scientists for species richness and diversity measures. For subtidal monitoring there was also no significant difference for species richness recorded by scientists and volunteers. However, low statistical power suggest only large changes could be detected due to reduced data replication. Generally volunteers recorded lower species diversity for biological groups compared to scientists, albeit not significant. Species abundance measures for algae species were significantly different between volunteers and scientists. These results suggest difficulty in identification and abundance measurements by volunteers and the need for additional training requirements necessary for surveying algae assemblages. The subtidal monitoring results also highlight the difficulties of collecting data in exposed rocky reef habitats with weather conditions and volunteer diver availability constraining sampling effort. The prime motivation for volunteer participation in Sea Search was to assist with scientific research followed closely by wanting to work close to nature. This study revealed two important themes for volunteer engagement in Sea Search: 1) volunteer training and participation and, 2) usability of volunteer collected data for MPA managers. Volunteer-collected data through the Sea Search citizen science programme has the potential to provide useable data to assist in informed management practices of Victoria’s MPAs, but requires the support and commitment from all partners involved.