Corporate liability for workplace deaths and injuries-reflecting on Victoria's laws in the light of the Esso Longford explosion

The purpose of this article is to consider some different legal models for the liability of corporations for the deaths and serious injuries of their employees, with particular emphasis on the law in Victoria.

Two recent developments in Victoria prompt this consideration. First, on 30 July 2001, the Victorian Supreme Court handed down its sentencing decision in the case arising from the explosion on 25 September 1998 at the Longford gas plant operated by Esso Australia Pty Ltd. The decision marked the end of the formal public consideration of a devastating event in Victorian industrial history, which began with the Royal Commission set up on 20 October 1998 to investigate the causes of an explosion in which two workers died and eight others were injured. Second, in early 2002, the Victorian Government failed in its attempt to introduce new criminal offences for corporate employers whose employees are killed or seriously injured at work. In spite of their failure to be passed by the Legislative Council in Victoria, these proposals warrant consideration. They represent a growing trend by policy makers in attempting to address more effectively the question of the liability for deaths and serious injuries of workers to employers who operate through the corporate form.

Modification of wool fiber using steam explosion

Wool fiber was modified by steam explosion in this study. SEM results show that some scales on the fiber surface were cleaved and tiny grooves generated during the explosion. FTIR results suggest no evident changes in the chemical composition of the fiber after the explosion treatment. However, the crystallinity of the fiber decreased slightly as the steam pressure increased based on the X-ray results. In the thermal analysis, DSC results show that the temperature corresponding to vaporization of absorbed water and cleavage of disulfide bonds respectively decreased as the steam pressure increased. The reduction in thermal decomposition energy of the treated fiber indicates that steam explosion might have destroyed some crystals and crosslinks of macromolecular chains in the fiber. The treatment also led to some alterations of the fiber properties, including reduction in strength, moisture regain and solubility in caustic solution.

Explosion 02 SFX

Explosion 02 SFX is a sound effect of an explosion.

The right to privacy: appealing, but flawed

The right to privacy is not recognised at common law. However, like many  other rights, it has gained increasing prominence and legal recognition  since the explosion in rights-based normative discourse following the  Second World War. Rights-based moral theories are appealing because their language is individualising; promising to expand the sphere of liberty and protection offered to people. It is therefore not surprising that we as  individuals are attracted to such theories - they allow us a vehicle through  which we can project our wishes and demands onto the community. While in abstract the right to privacy sounds appealing, it has many potential  disadvantages. This article examines the justification for the right to privacy. It argues that either the right is illusory (devoid of an overarching doctrinal rationale) or at its highest the right to privacy is an insignificant right - one which should rarely trump other interests. It follows that there is a need to re-assess the desirability of introducing a separate cause of action protecting privacy interests.

Human carrying capacity and human health

The silence around overpopulation prevents the global health community from making the necessary link between the planner's limited ability to support its people and health and development crises. The author describes how popular thinking on population control has been shaped over the last 200 years and how out failure to address the population explosion may be one cause of recent epidemics and social unrest.

Human carrying capacity and human health

The issue of human overpopulation has fallen out of favor among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become a taboo topic. Yet, this taboo has major implications for public health.

The silence around overpopulation prevents the global health community from making the necessary link between the planet's limited ability to support its people (its carrying capacity—see sidebar on following page) and health and development crises. In this article, I describe how popular thinking on population control has been shaped over the last 200 years, and how our failure to address the population explosion may be one cause of recent epidemics and social unrest.

Mobile payments (mPayments)- an exploratory study of emerging issues and future trends

With the growing momentum of wireless revolution and mCommerce explosion, it is evident that mobile devices are becoming a critical component of the new digital economy. As mobile markets continue to mature, being able to pay using the mobile handset will be key to the development of next generation services. The current market penetration of mobile phones in conjunction with the expected growth of mCommerce, offers high potential for mPayment growth over the next few years. When mobile phones are equipped with a device to protect personal information, the security level of an entire service, including the network, improves considerably. However, the mobile payments market today is typical of an emergent one, encumbered with an abundance of approaches and concepts that may not interoperate. In this paper, we have explored the broad range of available mPayment methods, emerging issues in standardization, security and some proposed/ existing solutions.

Data infrastructure for evidence-based local government policy

This paper outlines an approach for collecting and integrating data useful for evidence based planning and decision making in the not-for-profit sector, in particular for local government policy and planning. Given the methodological advances in multi-level analysis and the nature of rigorous policy analysis, leading academics and practitioners are advocating that policy driven research to be undertaken at a number of levels of analysis. Recent years have brought an explosion of public domain data in many aspects of social, economic and cultural aspects of society (cites and examples) and with this comes the opportunity, as outlined here, to integrate relevant public domain data in order to construct community profiles for local government areas in Victoria.

Re-emerging conflict in the Solomon Islands? The underlying causes and triggers of the riots of April 2006

The recent tensions in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, in April 2006 provide a clear warning that despite the presence of the Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands, led by the Australian government, many of the issues that led to prolonged conflict in 1998 have not yet been adequately addressed. This piece of research examines the root causes of continued conflict as experienced by the people themselves, and the triggers for the sudden explosion of violence in April 2006. It offers insights into the successes and failures of the international presence in the Solomon Islands, as well as presenting local opinions on the likelihood of further conflict. Based on the findings some suggestions are made regarding the targeting of programs, and the adaptations that may need to be made in the approach adopted by the international community.

Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked : therapeutic jurisprudence and international human rights law as applied to prisoners and detainees by forensic psychologists

Objectives. There has been an explosion of interest in therapeutic jurisprudence as both a filter and lens for viewing the extent to which the legal system serves therapeutic or anti-therapeutic consequences. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of therapeutic jurisprudence on questions of international human rights law and the role of forensic psychologists. The paper aims to provide an intersection between human rights, therapeutic jurisprudence, and forensic psychology.

Method. Human rights are based on legal, social, and moral rules. Human rights literature generally considers legal rights but such policy statements do not provide principles to guide forensic psychologists in addressing moral or social rights. Therefore, a framework to guide forensic psychologists is required.

Conclusion. As duty-bearers, forensic psychologists need to address the core values of freedom and well-being in rights holders (in this instance, prisoners and detainees with a mental illness). The paper proposes that human rights principles can add to the normative base of a therapeutic jurisprudence framework, and in-turn, therapeutic jurisprudence can assist forensic psychologists to actively address human rights.

Retinex reflux

Over the last 30 years Melbourne-based film-maker, writer and academic Dirk de Bruyn has made numerous experimental, documentary and animation films and videos. In his first visit to Wellington he presents Retinex Reflux; a live film performance that uses multiple 16mm film projectors in an explosion of light, colour and sound. Described as "explosively anarchic" De Bruyns films are cut-up collages that draw on animation, found footage and fragments of dialogue.

The sustainability of Fiji's budget deficit : an econometric analysis

The sustainability of Fiji's budget deficit is examined here within the framework of inter-temporal budget constraint theory, where government revenue is modelled as a function of government expenditure. An error-correction mechanism test for cointegration finds that government revenue and expenditure are cointegrated, which provides some support for the position that Fiji's budget deficit is sustainable in the long run. It is argued that more government expenditure on capital investment will ensure a broader revenue base and reduce the risk of a budget deficit explosion.

Garden & landscape heritage:a crisis of tangible & intangible comprehension and curatorship

The cultural landscape of George Town, Penang, Malaysia, embraces the historic enclave of George Town as well as a range of other significant colonial vestiges adjacent to the entrépôt. Many of these landscapes cannot be isolated from the énclave as they are integral to and part of its cultural mosaic and character. Perhaps the most important are the Penang Hill hill-station landscape and the 'Waterfall‘ Botanic Gardens. The latter is an under-valued 'garden of the empire‘—a garden that significantly underpinned the development and historical and botanical stature of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.This paper reviews the cultural significance of colonial botanic gardens as they were established around the world during the scientific explosion of the late 1800s. It addresses their position within World Heritage listings, and considers the role, significance and importance of the 'Waterfall‘ Botanic Gardens within this context, within the concept of 'cultural landscapes‘, and critiques its absence from the recent World Heritage Listing of the colonial enclaves of Georgetown and Meleka in Malaysia.