Frederick McCoy`s Mount Macedon Property

In the later part of his life Frederick McCoy selected and developed a bush block on the slopes of Mount Macedon. The conditions for purchase required him to plant and foster the growth of various northern hemisphere trees and shrubs. He duly cleared part of the block, planted trees, shrubs and
grass, put up fencing, constructed a small reservoir and laid pipes. In 1876, having fulfilled government requirements, he purchased the property and retained ownership until 1890.

Basic Needs, Property Rights and Degradation Of Commons

A major problem in many developing countries is the degradation of commons. This degradation has occurred on account of the lack of fulfilment of the basic needs of the poor, free riding and ill–defined property rights. As these goods are essential for the survival of these people, they have to access these items from commons. This results in regular raids to common land for resources and also to private houses (for example, in New Delhi) which are not guarded for water. A variant of the agricultural household model is used to analyse the above problem. Several propositions are established and it is demonstrated that degradation can occur at both a low and high price of basic needs. This result has important policy implications as it demonstrates that land or common degradation cannot be solved by just using the price system. Properly defined property rights and provision of basic goods in kind may resolve the problem of degradation of commons.

Permutations with a distinct difference property

The topic of this paper arose out of a consideration of Costas sequences, which are used in sonar and radar applications. These sequences have the defining property that all differences of elements the same distance apart, are different. Several infinite families of Costas sequences are known; but there are many existence questions for length greater-or-equal to 32. In this article, we restrict ourselves to sequences with the weaker property that all adjacent differences are different. We give a recursive construction for these, as well as building several infinite families.

Prediction error property of the Lasso Estimator and its generalization

The lasso procedure is an estimator-shrinkage and variable selection method. This paper shows that there always exists an interval of tuning parameter values such that the corresponding mean squared prediction error for the lasso estimator is smaller than for the ordinary least squares estimator. For an estimator satisfying some condition such as unbiasedness, the paper defines the corresponding generalized lasso estimator. Its mean squared prediction error is shown to be smaller than that of the estimator for values of the tuning parameter in some interval. This implies that all unbiased estimators are not admissible. Simulation results for five models support the theoretical results.

Feudal tenure and native title: revising an enduring fiction

This article argues that the feudal doctrine of tenure continues to endure as the foundation for Australian land law despite its obvious social and historical irrelevance. The doctrine of tenure is a derivation of feudal history. The article examines some of its historical foundations with the aim of highlighting the disparity between the fiction of this inherited form and the reality of a colonial Australian landscape. Particular attention is given to the fact that Australian feudal tenure was always a passive framework. It was disconnected with the landscape and therefore incapable of responding to the needs of colonial expansion. This resulted in a clear disparity between feudal form and the reality of a land system populated by statutory grants. The article argues that feudal tenure was never truly devised as a responsive land system but rather, adopted as a sovereignty device. In this sense, legal history was utilised with the aim of promoting imperial objectives within colonial Australia. Tenure was equated with absolute Crown ownership over all Australian territory despite the fact that this was inconsistent with the orthodox tenets of feudal tenure.
The article argues that the consequence of adopting feudal tenure and absolute Crown ownership has been the estrangement of indigenous rights, title and culture. The creation and legitimisation of a land framework with a fundamentally Eurocentric perspective completely destroyed indigenous interests during the settlement and colonial era. It created an imperial ideology where colonists silently accepted the denial of indigenous identity. The decision of the Mabo High Court to reassess this historical perspective and accept the validity of proven native title claims clearly disturbed tenurial assumptions. However, the High Courts' reification of the feudal form created a fundamental paradox: indigenous title was accepted as a proprietary right within a framework incapable of and unequipped to recognise the fundamentally different cultural perspectives of customary ownership. The article argues that native title cannot evolve within a common law framework that regards ownership as a derivation of the English Crown. It is suggested that ultimately, a pluralist property culture, where indigenous and non-indigenous title exist as equalised entities, can only be properly nurtured with the full and absolute abolition of the feudal doctrine of tenure.

The gender composition of boards of property trust IPOs in Australia from 1994 to 2004

This study investigates the gender composition of the boards of directors of Australian property trust IPOs from 1994 to 2004. Like mining and industrial company IPOs, we find that property trust IPOs in Australia generally do not require female directors for the initial equity capital raising. We also find that larger IPOs during 1994 to 1999 tended to engage more women directors but that this relation was not significant in property trust IPOs from 2000 to 2004.

Introduction: Lambert and lampposts: the end of equality in Anglo-Australian matrimonial property law

This contribution introduces the volume by classifying the collection into 3 categories: (i) examinations of the area of property law which focus on the relationship between the decisions in White, Figgins and Lambert; (ii) reactions to the implications of McFarlane, Parlour for the evolution of spousal maintenance; (iii) more general theoretical considerations of ‘fairness’. It is argued that the judicial response to the breadth of the discretion provided by the respective legislatures has been to create ‘rules of thumb’; and that the absence of any serious examination of underlying principles has been to permit opportunistic cross-referencing between the jurisdictions. In this context it is argued that (analogously with the introduction of no-fault divorce) the recent attraction of ‘equality’ as a governing principle owes more to the incapacity and/or unwillingness of the forensic process to evaluate contribution in a coherent manner than to any genuine commitment to substantive equality.

Do shares constitute property? Reconsidering a fundamental, yet unresolved, question

The author deals with a question that has challenged and troubled commercial law scholars for some time: do shares constitute property? The author explores some of the arguments that have been raised for why shares do not constitute property, but ultimately concludes that there are strong reasons – supported by prominent jurisprudential writing and judicial pronouncements – for why shares do indeed constitute property.

Economic performance analysis of the Australian property sector using input-output tables

The property sector has played an important role with its growing contribution in the national income and employment in the Australian economy. There is an increasing research need in measuring and analysing the economic performance of the Australian property sector at a country level and input-output tables are considered as an appropriate tool. This paper aims to analyse and measure the performance and sectoral linkages of the Australian property sector using the five latest input-output tables compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Findings suggested that the Australian residential property sector had played a more important role than the commercial sector in the economy. The backward linkage of the residential property sector showed a decreasing economic pull, while that of commercial property presented an upward pattern. Moreover. the Australian property sector showed a medium economic push to the national economy over the examined period. Findings can aid policy makers, the property sector and researchers in evaluating the competitive ability of the property sector in Australia.

The pricing of property trust IPOs in Australia

Following Brounen and Eichholtz (2002) this paper adds to the international literature investigating the underpricing of REIT initial public offerings (IPOs), with a study into Australian property trusts. This study finds that initial day returns can in part be explained by forecast profit distributions (or dividends) and the market sentiment towards property trusts from the date of the prospectus to the date of listing. There is some support for the “winners curse” explanation of underpricing with evidence that large investor or institutional involvement at the outset of the IPO also has some explanatory power.

The costs of raising equity capital by Australian property trust initial public offerings

This paper reports some of the direct costs of raising equity capital by property trust initial public offerings (IPOs) in Australia from 1994 to 2004. It also documents the amount of underpricing by these IPOs. The results indicate the average fees paid to underwriters and/or stockbrokers in managing and marketing the issue was around 3.3% of the public equity capital raised. The average fees paid to legal firms, accounting firms and valuers for their professional involvement and expert reports were 0.4%, 0.2% and 0.1% respectively, totaling 0.7% of the equity raised. Other fees such as printing, listing fees, postage, distribution and advertising cost around 2.1%. The total average direct costs amounted to around 6.1% of the proceeds raised. The average underpricing by these property trust IPOs was 2.6%. This paper also investigates the hypotheses that the percentage direct capital raising costs are influenced by the size of the IPO and whether the IPO is underwritten. This study confirms that larger property trust equity capital raisings have lower percentage total direct cost;, however, it does not find that underwriting significantly influences the percentage of total direct costs for these property trust IPOs.

Factors influencing money left on the table by property trust IPO issuers

While previous listed property trust (LPT) initial public offering (IPO) studies have identified low under pricing returns, this study specifically examines the amount of money left on the table by the pre-IPO owners in this category of IPO. This study investigates 58 property trust IPOs in Australia from 1994 to 2004 and finds that the amount of money left by LPT IPOs is considerably less than industrial company IPOs, implying considerably less uncertainty about the valuation of such IPOs compared to industrials. We also find that more recent (post 2000) LPT IPOs in Australia appear to be significantly different to previous LPT IPOs in both money left and under pricing terms.

Effect of the thermomechanical processing parameters on the microstructure-property relationships in C-Mn-Si TRIP steel

In this work a wide range of roughing (deformation in the austenite recrystallised region) and finishing (deformation in the non-recrystallised region) strains and isothermal holding times were used to clarify the effect of processing parameters on the transformation kinetics and mechanical properties of 0.2C-1.55Mn-1.55Si (wt%) TRIP steel. The results have highlighted the complex relationships between multi-phase microstructure and mechanical properties of TRIP steel. The presence of the triclinic carbides, formed during isothermal holding, deteriorated the mechanical properties of steel studied.