Intra-party democracy: a revisionist perspective from below

Contrary to the expectations of many people, China's recent economic growth has not led to the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, the party has recently carried out a peaceful and orderly transition to the so-called fourth generation of leadership, has revitalised itself, and created a new, younger and better trained cadre corps. Despite this successful transformation, there continue to be many problems that the party will need to overcome if it is to remain in power, including pressures for democratisation in both urban and rural areas, widespread corruption, the emergence of new social groups, and increasing dissatisfaction among workers who seem to be losing out in the present transition processs. This book explores the current state of the Chinese Communist Party and the many challenges which it faces.

Moral rights: a brief excursion into Canadian history

In 1931, Canada was the first of the copyright countries to adopt a moral rights provision, closely modeled on Article 6bis of the Berne Convention, into its legislation. But this was not the first step that Canada had taken towards the legislative protection of moral rights. Not only had certain provisions protective of the non-economic interests of authors been included in the federal Criminal Code and in the legislation of Quebec prior to 1920, but during the 1920s a sustained effort had been made to give these interests more explicit and systematic protection under the Copyright Act. The present article focuses on a series of bills put to the Canadian Parliament from 1924 onwards. Not only would they have provided increased protection for the non-economic interests of authors but they would have given a legislative definition to the term "moral right". These bills, framed in the absence of any influence from Article 6bis, provide a glimpse of what "moral rights" might have been. They support the view that Canada was moving towards the express legislative protection of these rights significantly earlier that is commonly thought.

Related party transactions under Pt 2E of the corporations act: time for reconsideration

The related party provisions under Pt 2E of the Corporations Act 2001 were introduced in 1992 to protect the resources of companies and shareholder interests by requiring that directors disclose financial benefits given to 'related parties' -- those capable of exercising significant influence over the giving of such benefits. The contention of the authors in this article is that Pt 2E has been unsuccessful in achieving its intended purpose, and should be repealed in its entirety. The authors argue that the various provisions of Pt 2E are so confusing and convoluted that they potentially violate the rule of law virtue that laws must be promulgated in a manner that is clear, so that it is apparent from reading the laws what one must do. Further, [*2] the manner in which Pt 2E is presently drafted, especially the definition of related party, fails to reflect the purpose behind the provisions, making the overall operation of Pt 2E ineffective. It is also argued that Pt 2E is superfluous since the fiduciary duty of directors to disclose a conflict of interest, and to a lesser extent the requirement for disclosure of material personal interests under s 191 of the Corporations Act, adequately deal with the transactions presently attracting the attention of Pt 2E. In light of all this, it is contended that the law would be demonstrably improved by repealing Pt 2E.

A legacy of assimilation : abuse in Canadian native residential schools

Unlike the position in Australia, Canada has appropriately responded to the revelations of forced removal of indigenous children by apologising to those persons who suffered through the Native Residential Schools - Canada has also sought to facilitate settlements with many of these persons with validated claims.

To hold up prisms: Australian and Canadian indigenous publishing for children

Bradford discusses Thomas King's exhortation to writers that is directed specifically to Canadian First Nations writers, which captures the importance of language as the primary means by which individual and group identities are formed. He mentions the important contribution that Indigenous publishers make to children's literature.

"To GAAR or not to GAAR-that is the question:" Canadian and Australian attempts to combat tax avoidance

In both Canada and Australia the relevant governments found their initial legislative attempts to combat tax avoidance to be ineffective. In time in each country it was concluded that the respective general avoidance provisions were of limited application and avoidance provisions were of limited application and ineffective to combat the sophisticated tax avoidance schemes promoted by tax advisers. In Canada it was determined that Income Tax Act, R.S.C 1985, s. 245(1) would be repealed and replaced with a general anti-avoidance rule ('GAAR') contained in a new s. 245 ITA. The Australian government similarly decided to replace Income Tax Assessment Act, Cth. 1936, s. 260 with a new general anti-avoidance measure, Part IVA ITAA. This article compares and contrasts the Canadian and Australian GAARs. Through the evaluation of each regime the article seeks to identify which model is most effective. It will be sen which model is most effective. It will be seen that both regimes have some features that are preferable to the other and thus both GAARs might be improved by incorporating aspects of the other anti-avoidance model.

Mad hatter's corporate tea party

This paper aims to provide an insight into the corporate greed and consequent corporate collapses of companies such as HIH, One.Tel and Harris Scarfe in Australia, while concurrently, Enron, WorldCom and other companies were attracting the attention of the accounting profession, the regulators and the general public in the USA. It is argued that the rise in economic rationalism and the related increased materialism of both the public and company directors and managers, fed the corporate excesses that resulted in spectacular corporate collapses, including one of the world’s largest accounting firms. The opportunistic behaviour of directors, and managers and the lack of transparency and integrity in corporations, was compounded by the failure of the corporate watch-dogs, such as auditors and regulators, to protect the public interest. If the history of bad corporate behaviour is not to be repeated, the religion of materialism needs to be recognised and addressed, to ensure any corporate governance reforms proposed for the future will be effective.

A social identity approach to party drug use and associated harm minimisation

This project investigated party (club) drug use and associated harm minimisation strategies of party drug users (N = 72), by gender and sexual
orientation, to determine whether drug use and harm minimisation behaviours differ in particular social groups.Adopting a social identity approach, this project also explored the existence of a party drug user social identity in relation to harmful party drug behaviours and harm minimisation
strategies.Results indicated that males and females showed similar patterns of harmful party drug use and harm minimisation, whilst heterosexuals and homosexuals differed slightly in their patterns of harmful party drug use, and more substantially in their patterns of harm minimisation.Furthermore, results showed some evidence for the existence of a party drug user social identity, which was related to party drug use within a clear social context, and to experiencing fewer party drug related problems.The authors conclude that harm minimisation initiatives need to be designed for particular social groups, such as heterosexuals or homosexuals, targeting their particular patterns of party drug use, and
suggest that effective harm minimisation strategies should incorporate both the social context in which the behaviour occurs, and the social norms of party drug use by particular social groups.

Projecting the trend in the Canadian gender wage gap 2001-2031: will an increase in female education acquisition and commitment be enough?

The paper projects the gender wage gap for 25-64 year-olds in Canada over the period 2001-2031. The empirical analysis uses the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics together with Statistics Canada demographic projections. The methodology combines the population projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to first project the future distribution of human capital skills and, based on these projections, the future size of the gender wage gap. The projections suggest continued gender wage convergence produced by changing skills characteristics. However, a substantial pay gap will remain in 2031.