Freedom of information implications of information sharing networks for critical infrastructure protection

Protection of “critical infrastructure” has become a major issue for govern- ments worldwide. Yet in Australia, as in many other countries, including the United States, an estimated 90% of critical infrastructure is privately owned or operated commercially – in other words, critical infrastructure protection is not the exclusive domain of government. As a result, information sharing between government and the private sector has become a vitally important component of effective risk management. However, establishing effective arrangements of this kind between the public and private sector needs to take account of existing regimes of access and public disclosure which relate to government-held documents; in particular, that which is established by freedom of information (FOI) legislation. This article examines the extent to which the current Commonwealth FOI regime is likely to act as an impediment to the private sector operators of critical infrastructure participat- ing in government-operated information sharing arrangements. By examining developments in other jurisdictions, principally the United States, the article considers whether amendments to the current Australian FOI regime are necessary to ensure effective participation, consistent with the underlying object and purpose of FOI.

Diagramming the interior

Mark Taylor's new essay assesses the impact of the diagram on interior design from the late 19th century to the present. Taylor identifies the pop-cultural discourse of advice writing in both books and magazines as a starting point for his analysis. Drawing on diverse sources, his analysis focuses on texts relating to the dynamics of use and flexibility by Catherine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Haweis and Christine Frederick among others. The examples in these texts use the home, domestic housekeeping and kitchens as the sites and practices of intervention through which interior design innovations can be enacted. Taylor's analysis identified the innovations in both the social and the political aspects of space and the critique of static space behind these seemingly amateurish and innocuous texts. Identifying these contributions as early precursors of Modernism's open-plan and flexible, dynamic spaces, Taylor also interprets them with a critical concern for the oppositions and hierarchies that can exist in spatial design, and which are the hallmarks of recent Postmodern, phenomenological approaches to interior design and its theorisations. The progressive and subversive "paradigms for living" implicit in these diagrams can be argued to present a model of greater economic, social and political equality as well as representing a more balanced set of power relations in the home. Progressing through the 20th century to the present, Taylor's analysis shifts byond the dressed body and on to the more intimate rituals of the revealed body to further examine how diagrams of the interior, and the interior as a set of diagrams, are also mediators, sites and grounds for the design of social and sexual intimacy. Through a consideration of the link between design, indentity and intimacy (whether of the invisible, fashioned or sexualised body), the diagrms of interiors are reconfigured as radical and critical tools for an animate, material and emancipatory "redressing" of the balance between the body, identity, sexuality, gender, function, mis(use), aesthetics and the interior.

Youth media production and technology skills acquisition : opportunities for agency

This chapter explores youth media production involving video games within a formal media education context. It investigates the possibilities for agency in student production contexts where emphasis is on the acquisition of technological skills. It explores alternatives to the well-established approach to media education that aims to develop students’ critical reading capacities as a means to agency. The chapter discusses some of the implications of the differences between youth production with ‘older’ technologies like video and new forms like multimedia production. It also discusses theories of agency as they relate to media education and the challenges of considering agency in relation to new media production. Post structuralist concepts are introduced and used as the basis to explore opportunities for agency in the context of students designing and producing aspects of video games. The chapter argues that the creative and experimental work students undertake while using software to make games artefacts opens up possibilities for agency.

Critical discourse analysis and political economy of communication : understanding the new corporate order

This article uses critical discourse analysis to analyse material shifts in the political economy of communications. It examines texts of major corporations to describe four key changes in political economy: (1) the separation of ownership from control; (2) the separation of business from industry; (3) the separation of accountability from responsibility; and (4) the subjugation of ‘going concerns’ by overriding concerns. The authors argue that this amounts to a political economic shift from traditional concepts of ‘capitalism’ to a new ‘corporatism’ in which the relationships between public and private, state and individual interests have become redefined and obscured through new discourse strategies. They conclude that the present financial and regulatory ‘crisis’ cannot be adequately resolved without a new analytic framework for examining the relationships between corporation, discourse and political economy.

Some critical legal issues affecting insurance transaction globally

Increasingly, major insurers and reinsurers are operating on a global basis. For example, General Re Corporation and Cologne Re operate in almost 150 countries : see "General Re Corporation 1999 Annual Report". This is also true for the world's major brokers, and the emergence of large broking conglomerates such as Aon and Marsh are good examples of global service providers. Against the background of this increasingly global insurance market with global participants, there are a range of common legal issues in this article but a selection of certain critical matters are canvassed in the secitons below. First there are a range of regulatory issues that must be addressed. Secondly globalisation of the industry does create added incentive for a common legal regime to cover the formation of insurance transactions and the resolution of disputes about claims, coverage and termination. In this contect codifcation of insurance laws is a critical issue. Thirdly, major advances in genetic research and biotechnology over recent years have resulted in a dramatic increase in the availability of genetic testing. These developments have given rise to concerns worldwide about the potential for misuse of genetic information by third parties such as insurers and employers. Fourthly, the essence of an insurance transaction is the transference of risk from one person to anther. It is generally accepted that this transference should occur in informed circumstances and without undue advantage being bestowed upon either party. Finally this article will consider some legal matter in relation to transacting insurance on the internet

Critical social theory and transformative learning : evidence in pre-service teachers' service-learning reflection logs

This paper reports on the opportunities for transformational learning experienced by a group of pre-service teachers who were engaged in service-learning as a pedagogical process with a focus on reflection. Critical social theory informed the design of the reflection process as it enabled a move away from knowledge transmission toward knowledge transformation. The structured reflection log was designed to illustrate the critical social theory expectations of quality learning that teach students to think critically: ideology critique and utopian critique. Butin's lenses and a reflection framework informed by the work of Bain, Ballantyne, Mills and Lester were used in the design of the service-learning reflection log. Reported data provide evidence of transformational learning and highlight how the students critique their world and imagine how they could contribute to a better world in their work as a beginning teacher.

A critical analysis of sperm donation practices : the personal and social effects of disrupting the unity of biological and social relatedness for the offspring

This thesis critically analyses sperm donation practices from a child-centred perspective. It examines the effects, both personal and social, of disrupting the unity of biological and social relatedness in families affected by donor conception. It examines how disruption is facilitated by a process of mediation which is detailed using a model provided by Sunderland (2002). This model identifies mediating movements - alienation, translation, re-contextualisation and absorption - which help to explain the powerful and dominating material, and social and political processes which occur in biotechnology, or in reproductive technology in this case. The understanding of such movements and mediation of meanings is inspired by the complementary work of Silverstone (1999) and Sunderland. This model allows for a more critical appreciation of the movement of meaning from previously inalienable aspects of life to alienable products through biotechnology (Sunderland, 2002). Once this mediation in donor conception is subjected to critical examination here, it is then approached from different angles of investigation. The thesis posits that two conflicting notions of the self are being applied to fertility-frustrated adults and the offspring of reproductive interventions. Adults using reproductive interventions receive support to maximise their genetic continuity, but in so doing they create and dismiss the corresponding genetic discontinuity produced for the offspring. The offspring’s kinship and identity are then framed through an experimental postmodernist notion, presenting them as social rather than innate constructs. The adults using the reproductive intervention, on the other hand, have their identity and kinship continuity framed and supported as normative, innate, and based on genetic connection. This use of shifting frameworks is presented as unjust and harmful, creating double standards and a corrosion of kinship values, connection and intelligibility between generations; indeed, it is put forward as adult-centric. The analysis of other forms of human kinship dislocation provided by this thesis explores an under-utilised resource which is used to counter the commonly held opinion that any disruption of social and genetic relatedness for donor offspring is insignificant. The experiences of adoption and the stolen generations are used to inform understanding of the personal and social effects of such kinship disruption and potential reunion for donor offspring. These examples, along with laws governing international human rights, further strengthen the appeal here for normative principles and protections based on collective knowledge and standards to be applied to children of reproductive technology. The thesis presents the argument that the framing and regulation of reproductive technology is excessively influenced by industry providers and users. The interests of these parties collide with and corrode any accurate assessments and protections afforded to the children of reproductive technology. The thesis seeks to counter such encroachments and concludes by presenting these protections, frameworks, and human experiences as resources which can help to address the problems created for the offspring of such reproductive interventions, thereby illustrating why these reproductive interventions should be discontinued.

Difference and dispersion : educational research in a postmodern context

Difference and Dispersion is the fourth in a series of annual research papers produced by doctoral students from The Graduate School of Education, The University of Queensland, following their presentation at the School’s annual Postgraduate Research Conference in Education. The work featured herein celebrates the diversity of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds of education researchers who come from as far afield as Germany, Hong Kong, China, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and of course different parts of Australia. In keeping with a postmodern epistemology, ‘difference’ and ‘dispersion’ are key themes in apprehending the multiplicity of their research topics, methodologies, methods and speaking/writing positions. From widely differing contexts and situations, these writers address the consequences, implications and possibilities for education at the beginning of the third millennium. Their interest ranges from location-specific issues in schools and classrooms, change in learning contexts and processes, educational discourses and relations of power in diverse geographical settings, and the differing articulations of the local and the global in situated policy contexts. Conceived and developed in a spirit of ongoing dialogue with and insight to alternative views and visions of education and society, this edited collection exemplifies the quality in diversity and the high levels of scholarship and supervision at one of Australia’s finest Graduate Schools of Education.

Critical review of Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission Inquiry into abuse of children in foster care : social work's contribution to reform

This paper profiles Queensland's recent Crime and Misconduct Commission Inquiry into the abuse of children in foster care. The authors welcome the outcome as an opportunity to highlight the problems encountered by child protection jurisdictions in Australia and internationally, and they applaud some of the Inquiry's findings. However, the paper argues that the path to reform is hampered by insufficient accountability by government and management, and an inadequate challenge to the ideologies underpinning contemporary child protection policy and practice. The authors conclude with a call to value and assert social work's contribution to child protection systems so as to vastly improve outcomes for children and families.

Will the Australian national curriculum up the intellectual ante in classrooms?

A critical review of the current and potential impacts of the Australian National Curriculum on the enacted curriculum in primary schools, with specific attention to issues of equity and social justice.