Workplace "bargaining" and the wages/working time nexus: counting the cost of decentralisation

The impact of deregulation on dispersion of earnings in Victoria has been
acknowledged in the findings of the recent task force enquiry into industrial relations in Victoria. This paper argues that the link between hours worked and rates of pay has played a significant role in this increased dispersion. Drawing upon detailed analysis of hours and wages in Victorian agreements, data is presented on declining take-home pay flowing from the loss of penalty rates. This, we argue, is attributable to
the lack of substantive and procedural protections available to Victorian workers under schedule 1A of the Workplace Relations Act, and formerly under the Victorian Employee Relations Act, 1992. We contrast these findings with collective agreements trading off penalty rates certified by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and Australian Workplace Agreements approved by the Office of the Employment
Advocate. We conclude by suggesting there is a scale of fair outcomes attached to the wages/hours trade-off, directly attributable to the various institutional mechanisms now influencing Australian wage determination.

Crime stories: posnerian pragmatism, Rawlsian pure procedural justice, and the fictional problem

There are many different ways in which law and truth may be said to be related. It is perhaps in the criminal trial that connections between them are of most significance. An orthodox way of describing a criminal trial is that the criminal procedure is seeking to establish the truth concerning some past event, and that success of the procedure is measured by how close its outcome converges with that truth. Criminal justice presents the community with challenging dilemmas in this regard, such as those arising from the notion of double jeopardy. This paper discusses the Rawlsian notions of 'imperfect', 'perfect' and 'pure' procedural justice, and suggests against Rawls that it is pure procedural justice that best represents what we want from a criminal justice system. Good procedure makes good criminal law. A comparison is made with the writings of Habermas and Posner, and given that pure procedural justice eschews transcendental truths, some brief comments are made on the convergence of that position with the realm of the fictional.

Private protected areas? Assessing the suitability for incorporating conservation agreements over private land into the National Reserve System : a case study of Victoria

All Australian governments are committed to the establishment of a  comprehensive, adequate and representative system of conservation  reserves. Many of the most threatened species and communities throughout Australia occur mainly or wholly on private land. A range of mechanisms has been developed to achieve conservation on private land. This article  assesses the legal security, permanence and management intent of such mechanisms in Victoria, in relation to protected area criteria. The  implications of this analysis for the Australian National Reserve System and landowners with these mechanisms on their properties are discussed.

Procedural learning in children with developmental coordination disorder

Despite the fact that developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is characterised by a deficit in the ability to learn or automate motor skills, few studies have examined motor learning over repeated trials. In this study we examined procedural learning in a group of 10 children with DCD (aged 8–12 years) and age-matched controls without DCD. The learning task was modelled on that of Nissen and Bullemer [Cognitive Psychology 19 (1987) 1]. Children performed a serial reaction time (SRT) task in which they were required to learn a spatial sequence that repeated itself every 10 trials. Children were not aware of the repetition. Spatial targets were four (horizontal) locations presented on a computer monitor. Children responded using four response keys with the same horizontal mapping as the stimulus. They were tested over five blocks of 100 trials each. The first four blocks presented the same repeating sequence, while the fifth block was randomised. Procedural learning was indexed by the slope of the regression of RT on blocks 1–4. Results showed that most children displayed strong procedural learning of the sequence, despite having no explicit knowledge about it. Overall, there was no group difference in the magnitude of learning over blocks of trials – most children performed within the normal range. Procedural learning for simple sequential movements appears to be intact in children with DCD. This suggests that cortico-striatal circuits that are strongly implicated in the sequencing of simple movements appear to be function normally in DCD.

Public satisfaction with police : using procedural justice to improve police legitimacy

Policing research and theory emphasises the importance of supportive relationships between police and the communities they serve in increasing police effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder. A key reason people support police is that they view police as legitimate. The existing research literature, primarily from the United States, indicates that the most important factor in public assessments of police legitimacy is procedural justice. The present study is the first in an Australian jurisdiction to examine the effect of procedural justice and police legitimacy on public satisfaction with police. Using responses to a large postal survey (n = 2611), findings show that people who believe police use procedural justice when they exercise their authority are more likely to view police as legitimate, and in turn are more satisfied with police services. This study differs to US-based research in the greater importance of people's evaluations of instrumental factors in judgments of police legitimacy. The findings are important as they confirm that people's assessments of fair and effective policing in Australia will be enhanced by policing strategies that emphasise the use of procedural justice in encounters with the public.

The influence of procedural and interactional justice, and disconfirmation on customers post recovery satisfaction evaluations

This study examines the influence of distributive and interactional justice and disconfirmation on customers’ postrecovery satisfaction evaluations, and in so doing, combines, for the first time, two existing instruments to operationalise the interactional justice construct. Using Structural Equation Modelling, the findings suggest that while both disconfirmation and justice are important predictors of satisfaction, distributive justice has the greatest influence. The research presented here reports on a section of a larger experiment-based study examining how customers’ postrecovery satisfaction evaluations are influenced by the way in which the organisation responds to the failure.

Procedural trained, procedural remain : the first report from 'A census of doctors who have been awarded the Graduate Diploma in Rural General Practice (GDRGP)'

Aims & rationale/Objectives : To document the practice of initial cohorts receiving the Graduate Diploma in Rural General Practice
Methods : With the co-operation of the National Rural Faculty (NRF) of Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), a census by questionnaire was conducted on 279 graduates. The response rate was 70%.
Principal findings : The target doctors are young (65% < 40 years old). Under half (42.3%) have completed Advanced Rural Skills terms in >1 discipline. Of the total 272 posts recorded from 174 respondents, the most popular advanced skill is anaesthetics, followed by obstetrics. The ARSP increased confidence in 96.3% of respondents. Two thirds of doctors trained in a procedural skill remain practicing procedural General Practice.
Discussion : The GDRGP was the qualification developed to recognise competency gained as a result of a series of rural training initiatives begun within the RACGP Training Program in 1992. Its delivery has continued under the new GPET Training Program. Outcomes from the range of initiatives leading to the GDRGP are currently emerging in an environment which has seen significant changes within vocational training, and within the context of a rising focus on indemnity. Doctors who undertook this training have mostly retained procedural practice. In addition, RACGP rural initiatives successfully achieved increase confidence prior to rural work in advanced areas of practice, with >95% reporting an increase.
Implications : Changes within vocational training were accelerated without analysis of existing initiatives such as the GDRGP. Funding for the GDRGP was, as a result, withdrawn prematurely. These changes also saw the entrant of a second College with an interest in rural procedural practice. This research show that the GDRGP offers, and offered, a clear vocational pathway that will guide a doctor to a career as a rural doctor, and provide them with the advanced skills they need to practice confidently in the bush. It is important to capitalise on past success before deconstructing professional concepts of practice further.
Presentation type : Paper

Regional trade agreements : performance evaluation and research agenda

This paper proposes a broad model for key success factors in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). Current literature is relatively limited in its focus on largely economic consequences of RTAs and the externalities are mostly ignored. This model incorporates five predictor dimensions forming the character of a RTA as follows: (1) Economic, (2) Socio-Cultural, (3) Negotiation, (4) Country Objectives and (5) Review process. It proposes a methodology for the empirical testing of the proposed model. The proposed model, potentially, facilitates the measurement of the character of a RTA and its association with various RTA objectives.

Public satisfaction with police : the importance of procedural justice and police performance in police-citizen encounters

A large body of literature has demonstrated that when authorities use procedural justice with those they regulate, people will be more satisfied with those authorities and will be more willing to cooperate and comply with their directions and rules. In the context of policing, procedural justice has also been shown to be important for shaping citizens’ views about police legitimacy, their satisfaction with police and also in fostering cooperation with police. What remains largely unexamined, however, is whether the positive effect of procedural justice varies across different types of police–citizen encounters. Using survey data collected from a national sample of 1,462 Australians, the present study will examine the relative importance of procedural justice on overall ratings of police satisfaction across two types of police–citizen encounters (citizen-initiated contacts and police-initiated contacts). It will be shown that procedural justice is most important in police-initiated contacts, while police performance is most important in citizen-initiated contacts.