150 years of democracy? The case of New South Wales

New South Wales has a rich history of parliamentary democracy. As the oldest of the Australian States, it has provided a microcosm of the evolution of modern British-style democracy from the ‘hustings’ of the early colonial to the harbour views of the contemporary politicians’ offices. New South Wales’ political history is also rich with experimentation. The early introduction of the secret ballot, payment for members, the abolition of plural voting, and adult suffrage are well known. Although it needs to be recognized that it followed slightly behind that ‘ Paradise of Dissent’ South Australia on all those features.

Equally fascinating is the role of the Labour Party, whose campaigning on behalf of adult suffrage and payment for Members is fairly well known. Less known, but of great interest, were its activities on behalf of electoral reform, political accountability and easier enrolment and voting, particularly for ‘ itinerants’ at a time when its political base was in the rural workforce. New South Wales Labour was significant for its decision to stand alone, in contrast with its Victorian and New Zealand counterparts, which threw in their lot with the Progressives.

Investigating health, economic and socio-political factors that need consideration when establishing Victorian Aboriginal land management projects

This article focuses on three Victorian Aboriginal¹ groups (Bangerang, Boonwurrung and Yorta Yorta) to explore elements that provide or discourage development of land management projects. Results from this small qualitative study show that a number of distinct health, socio-political and economic factors need to be considered when developing Aboriginal land management projects. This study indicates that a greater involvement in Aboriginal land management projects -- critical to Aboriginal peoples' health, economic and social structures - will only occur through increased community consultation, respect, training, consistency between all stakeholders involved, resources and the provision of employment opportunities. Further research is required to strengthen this evidence, allowing policy-makers to be progressive when developing land management projects for Aboriginal Victorian people as a health promoting tool.

Political patriotism

As evidenced by the reactions to Martha Nussbaum’s famous essay of 1996, patriotism is a contested notion in moral debate. This paper explores the suggestion made by Stephen Nathanson that patriotism might be understood as “love of one’s country”, and suggests that this phrase is misleading. It suggests that patriotism, like love, is not rational, and it fails to distinguish two kinds of object for that love: one’s cultural community and one’s political community. Accordingly, this phrase can lead to a kind of nationalism which involves chauvinism and militarism and that is, therefore, morally objectionable. The problem arises from ambiguities in the notion of “country” which is said to be the object of such love. Moreover, “love” is not the appropriate term for a relationship whose central psychological function is that of establishing an individual’s identity as a citizen. I suggest that the proper mode of attachment involved in patriotism is identification with one’s political community, and that the proper object of a patriot’s allegiance is the political community thought of without the emotional, nationalistic and moralistic connotations that often accompany the concept of community. The “political patriotism” that arises from such an attitude is sceptical of “the national interest” and does not accept that our moral responsibilities to others stop at national borders. In this way political patriotism is consistent with a cosmopolitan stance towards human rights and global justice.

More than a mere story : social and political markers in Australian short fiction of the 1980's

This thesis is a literary history which argues that much of the short fiction published in Australia during the 1980s was deeply influenced by the rapid social and political changes during that decade. My argument concentrates on links between the short stones of the period and the socio/political environment into which they were written. The decade was marked by massive changes in technology, the workplace, and in all other areas of social life. In general terms, the ideology of the 'market' predominated over notions of small 'l' liberalism and the last vestiges of state intervention in the economy. The Australian short story benefited from the social 'experiments' of the 1970s in that its concerns became broader - encompassing the onslaught of feminism, the foregrounding of 'multicultural' concerns, and a move away from the bush into the city as a primary site for narratives. The decade was a rich period for the genre. Why was there a tolerance for a new diversity, in literary terms, when the social and political environment was turning to the right? This is a central question of the thesis. I argue that instead of the 'base' determining the 'superstructure' (i.e. culture) the superstructural changes were essential to the deconstruction of the social and political landscape. This thesis contends that a relationship always exists between the 'literary' and 'the social'. I argue, among other things, that many of the short fictions were influenced by 'postmodern' theory to the extent that they became a form of traumatic note-taking, which masked a late romanticism beneath a fear of the sovereign subject. The fear of 'closure' which insinuated itself into many of the texts, besides being a form of academic corrective, was also a flight from emotional candor. I argue that storytelling was, in many cases, the loser.

Creating the political will necessary for achieving multilateral disarmament : the need for a peace-industrial complex

This dissertation deals with the failure to end the central arms race and provides some alternative proposals. Chapters 1 and 2 look at the failure of governmental disarmament negotiations and the ineffectiveness of the non-governmental peace movement. Chapter 3 outlines the author's recommended comprehensive strategy for ending the arms race? both the need for the US to make a dramatic unilateral initiative to break the deadlock (Super GRIT) and a detailed disarmament treaty. The main problem, as argued by the author, is more one of political will and so it is necessary to find a way of creating the political will to stimulate the US to make that dramatic unilateral initiative. He calls for the creation of a Peace-Industrial Complex. The intellectual arguments for the potential basis of such a complex are to be found in the research done by the United Nations; this is examined throughout Part II (Chapters 4-7). Unfortunately very little attention has been paid by governments to this work. Part III (Chapters 8 and 9) deals in more detail with the recommended Peace-Industrial Complex. Chapter 8 looks at its possible creation and method of work. Chapter 9 suggests that the proposed complex creates a transcending vision: from ‘uclear winter’to ‘nuclear spring’.

Earthquake fatalities : the interaction of nature and political economy

To say that the level of fatalities resulting from an earthquake is inversely related to a country's per capita level of income is hardly novel. What makes our approach novel is that we relate fatalities to both per capita income and the level of inequality that exists within a country through their joint impact on the likelihood of collective action being taken to mitigate the destructive potential of quakes. We first develop a theoretical model which offers an explanation as to why, in some environments, different segments of society prove incapable of arriving at what all parties perceive to be an agreeable distribution of the burden of the necessary collective action, causing the relatively wealthy simply to self-insure against the disaster while leaving the relatively poor to its mercy. Following this, we test our theoretical model by evaluating 269 large earthquakes occurring worldwide, between 1960 and 2002, taking into account other factors that influence a quake's destructiveness such as its magnitude, depth and proximity to population centers. Using a Negative Binomial estimation strategy with both random and fixed estimators, we find strong evidence of the theoretical model's predictions. That is, while earthquakes themselves are natural phenomena beyond the reach of humankind, our collective inaction with respect to items like the creation and enforcement of building codes, failure to retrofit structures and to enact quake-sensitive zoning clearly plays a part in determining the actual toll that a given quake takes. And, it is through these and other examples of collective inaction that limited per capita income and inequality couple together with a given quake's natural destructive power in determining the actual fatalities resulting from a quake.

Avoiding the cause : Australia and political persecution in West Papua

Despite formally acknowledging that political persecution exists in West Papua by granting 43 West Papuans TPVs on the grounds that if they were forcibly returned they would face a well founded fear of persecution, the Australian Government treats the symptoms of the problem - deterring further boat people by making it more difficult for them to assert their asylum claims - than its cause - Indonesia's persecution of independence activists in the province

Babylonia : reconfiguring the Australian political novel in the 'postfeminist', 'postmodern', 'postcolonial' era

The thesis comprises the comic novel "Babylonia", set in the Northern Territory, the Middle East and the United States in August 1990 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the accompanying exegesis that links "Babylonia" to selected Australian fiction and to political and cultural concerns of the current era.

Human nature in Hobbes's political thought

This study of Thomas Hobbes's political thought maintains that, in Hobbes's abstract and historically presented view, short-sighted and self-absorbed people engaged in war to their ultimate harm. In Hobbes's societal remedy, citizens submissively obeyed centralised rule. Their compliance, and detachment from the political process, satisfied their wish for peace.

Citizenship and the political institutions of cultural diversity in Australia

This thesis uses political theory to analyse and compare the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia. It argues that 'self-determination' and 'multiculturalism' in practice hide the power of the Anglo-Australian dominant culture and stifle the possibilities of more viable intercultural political innovation.

Visualising clientelism in the Indonesian political tabloids 1998-2001

The thesis uses a discourse analysis approach to examine the visual grammar and the political meanings of the front cover designs of the Indonesian political tabloids in the period 1998-2001 and argues that the meanings show that Indonesian politics operates on the basis of clientelism.