Back to the future : the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties

This comment looks at the capacity of the Australian Constitution to protect the civil liberties of a small number of citizens and would be citizens whose lives have been forever changed by recent acts of terror and the legislative and executive actions taken by the Commonwealth in response to those terrorist acts. These legal changes have included the creation of specific "terrorism" offences, the legislative proscription of two foreign organisations and, most notably, a significant expansion of ASIO's investigative powers.1
Whilst the Constitution contains a number of provisions and principles protective of civil liberties, in most instances they cannot resist government action expressly aimed at curtailing or infringing individual rights and freedoms. To this end, steps ought to be taken to strengthen existing institutions and mechanisms capable of providing meaningful civil rights scrutiny of government legislation. The comment begins with an examination of the close historical and legal parallels that exist between the present day and the Cold War era and suggests how the High Court might interpret the defence power should a terrorist attack occur on Australian soil. It concludes with a proposed reform. The reform involves vesting Ch III courts with the power to measure Commonwealth laws against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights when determining a legal controversy. This may operate to secure better legislative outcomes from a civil liberties perspective without compromising the supremacy of Parliament.

Water repellency, near-saturated infiltration and preferential solute transport in a macroporous clay soil

Little attention has been paid to the possibility that soil water repellency could enhance non-equilibrium water flow and solute transport through macropores present in structured clay soils. In this study, we measured infiltration and solute transport in a clay soil under near-saturated conditions in both the field using tension infiltrometers and in the laboratory on undisturbed soil columns. Measurements were made on adjacent plots under grass and continuous arable cultivation. Steady-state field infiltration rates measured using water and ethanol as the infiltrating fluids demonstrated that the soil macroporosity under grass was better developed, but that much of the structural pore system was inactive due to water repellency. No water repellency was detected on the arable plot disturbed by tillage. Dye tracing showed that the conducting macroporosity was largely comprised of earthworm channels in the grassed plot and inter-aggregate voids resulting from ploughing in the arable plot. Tracer breakthrough curves measured on field-dry soil indicated rapid macropore transport in columns taken from both plots, although the degree of non-equilibrium transport appeared somewhat stronger under grass. This result, which was attributed to water repellency, was also consistent with the larger flow-weighted mean pore size found in the field infiltration experiments. It is concluded that water repellency in undisturbed structured clay soils can have significant effects on the occurrence of non-equilibrium water and solute transport in macropores.

A warrior nation

Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia today appears to have turned away from Asia, returning to a Western oriantation. Has racial invasion fear, once expressed in the 'White Australia' policy, been the determinant of relations with Asia? I argue, in contrast, first, that invasion fear preceded race fear and, second, that Australia was unlucky, in coming to nationhood during the eras of Social Darwinism and New Imperialism, scaling ideas of race citizenship into its national formation. It was unlucky to associate national 'manhood' with Gallipoli and war, making the national tradition expeditionary nationalism, or ANZAC. War is central in national memory and public patriotism, primarily because war has been carried out overseas rather than through fighting on Australian soil, and the devastation of Australian cities. Even after the retreat of Western empires in Asia, and of racial ideology, why has this romantic and foolish view of war as an expression of the nation persisted? Paradoxically, Australians romanticise war even though, after 1788, there has been no other invasion of a continent which is harder to invade than it is to defend.

Cross-Territorial heritage sites : towards a cross-cultural heritage practice

This paper will describe a current research project at Deakin University’s Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific which aims to develop our current understanding of heritage beyond the national frame usually given to it. The project focuses on a number of heritage sites associated with Australia’s war time heritage. However, all of these sites are located on foreign soil, in land which is not owned by the Australian government. Moreover, because of their location, these sites may or may not have significance for the countries where they are located or to other participants in the same war. Their location in another country and in other people’s narratives poses a complex problem for those who want to conserve, manage and interpret these sites in a manner which preserves their significance to Australia. Is it possible to do this while also recognising other people’s investment or lack of, in these sites? What do we need to think about when recognising the existence of dissonant heritage not only within a nation but across nations? And can this dissonance be used to encourage crosscultural dialogue? Using current understandings of heritage as potentially dissonant, and accepting the need to work within a pluralist frame which supports and argues for cultural diversity, this project explores what happens when this dissonance and diversity occurs not simply within a nation but across national borders. The paper will explore these issues by looking at the interpretation of the Thai-Burma railway, one of a handful of sites which Australians use to mark Anzac Day, the national day of remembrance for those who died fighting for their country.

Telescope

Telescope is a feature length time lapse of reflections, changes in sunlight of my backyard, assembled over 20 years. Telescope starts in Super 8 and ends with digital video, shot mostly while the family were themselves at work, somewhere else. It is an emptied landscape. When people think of Australia they imagine open space and bush. But really most Australians inhabit or were born in suburban spaces, often with backyards with fences, big enough for fruit trees, lawns and clotheslines. I consider this a place of absence that speaks to many things that our culture avoids.The backyard as emblem of a White Australia that hit its highpoint in the 1950s, for example. Australia is a migrant culture settled by waves of newcomers escaping, running away from somewhere else, leaving to forget. Another story concerns the continued invisibility of the indigenous people. When the British first planted the Union Jack on Australian soil and said "there is nothing here" they set up a tradition of denial as our founding principle. This still plagues us. What is festering in Australian backyards are these denials and erasures that I try to bring out in the soundtrack, that plays like the radio that meanders through a lazy Sunday afternoon. Such sounds try to tell stories of absence, of occupation, and of a nostalgia for an Australia that no longer exists, but still palpably reverberates around the suburban backyard.

FEM calibrated ARMAX model updating method for time domain damage identification

Due to environmental loads, mechanical damages, structural aging and human factors, civil infrastructure inevitably deteriorate during their service lives. Since their damage may claim human lives and cause significant economic losses, how to identify damages and assess structural conditions timely and accurately has drawn increasingly more attentions from structural engineering community worldwide. In this study, a fast and sensitive time domain damage identification method will be developed. To do this, a finite element model of a steel pipe laid on the soil is built and the structural responses are simulated under different damage scenarios. Based on the simulated data, an Auto Regressive Moving Average Exogenous (ARMAX) model is then built and calibrated. The calibrated ARMAX model is used to identify different damage scenarios through model updating process using clonal selection algorithm (CSA). The results demonstrate the application potential of the proposed method in identifying the pipeline conditions. To further verify its performance, laboratory tests of a steel pipe laid on the soil with and without soil support (free span damage) are carried out. The identification results of pipe-soil system show that the proposed method is capable of identifying damagein a complex structural system. Therefore, it can be applied to identifying pipeline conditions.

Mapping potential risk for housing damage from ground movement due to climate change

The performance of footings in residential construction is influenced by the degree of ground movement, particularly in reactive soils, which is driven by the magnitude of change in soil moisture. New patterns of climate are affecting residential foundations and causing serious and expensive damage. This paper produces a map of potential risk for housing damage from ground movement due to climate change. Using a geographic information system, it combines information on (1) soil moisture change related to climate, using TMI as the indicator, and (2) population growth. Preliminary results, having Victoria, Australia, in the last decade as the case study, suggest that effects of climate change on soil, and resulting impacts on house foundations, are not being taken into consideration in current planning strategies for urban development. Most of the urban growth priority zones in the study area are susceptible to medium and high risk for damage. Producing new and renovated buildings that are durable in the long term is essential for the economy, environment and social welfare. The map presented here can assist policies and strategies towards urban resilience in the context of climate change.