The role of legislative, executive and judicial mechanisms in ensuring a fair and effective asylum process

A good faith reading of core international protection obligations requires that states employ appropriate legislative, administrative and judicial mechanisms to ensure the enjoyment of a fair and effective asylum process. Restrictive asylum policies instead seek to ‘denationalize’ the asylum process by eroding access to national statutory, judicial and executive safeguards that ensure a full and fair hearing of an asylum claim. From a broader perspective, the argument in this thesis recognizes hat international human rights depend on domestic institutions for their effective implementation, and that a rights-based international legal order requires that power is limited, whether that power is expressed as an instance of the sovereign right of states in international law or as the authority of governments under domestic constitutions.

The limits of competition : reasserting a role for consumer protection and fair trading regulation in competitive markets

In this paper we advocate for the continued need for consumer protection and fair trading regulation, even in competitive markets. For the purposes of this paper a ‘competitive market’ is defined as one that has low barriers to entry and exit, with homogenous products and services and numerous suppliers. Whilst competition is an important tool for providing consumer benefits, it will not be sufficient to protect at least some consumers, particularly vulnerable, low income consumers. For this reason, we argue, setting competition as the ‘end goal’ and assuming that consumer protection and consumer benefits will always follow, is a flawed regulatory approach. The ‘end goal’ should surely be consumer protection and fair markets, and a combination of competition law and consumer protection law should be applied in order to achieve those goals.

A Fair Go Beyond the School Gate? Systemic factors affecting participation and attainment in tertiary education by Queensland students from LSES backgrounds

The purpose of this project was to conduct an empirical study that would result in findings that inform systemic policy development aimed at improving tertiary participation and attainment by students from low socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds in Queensland. The project focuses on systemic policy, initiatives and programs that encourage tertiary education participation and attainment by individuals from LSES backgrounds, rather than on institution-specific initiatives or programs. While the broad remit was to consider tertiary education participation, the study particularly highlights issues pertaining to LSES student participation and attainment in the higher education sector, given the notable under representation of this demographic subgroup in Australian universities. This study supports the strategic priority of addressing professional skills shortages and innovations aiming to improve human and social capital in the state of Queensland. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the enhancement of Queensland’s education and training system by maximising participation and attainment by people from LSES backgrounds in higher education, thereby improving their quality of life and future life choices and opportunities. The study addressed the following five research questions: 1. What are the major factors that promote or inhibit participation and attainment in tertiary education by LSES students in Queensland? 2. To what extent do systemic policies or practices(systemic factors) of Queensland’s tertiary education system promote or inhibit participation and attainment by LSES students? That is, what features of Queensland’s tertiary education system have a significant effect on participation and attainment by LSES students? 3. What system policies or practices are found to boost participation and attainment by LSES students in other jurisdictions? 4. What evidence is there to suggest that policies or practices that have boosted participation and attainment by LSES students in other jurisdictions would be successful if implemented in Queensland? 5. What are the implications of the research findings for Queensland’s tertiary education system to improve participation and attainment by LSES students? The project adopted a mixed methods approach to data collection. A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted to identify relevant state, national and international literature. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to collect data from a range of key stakeholders.

"Fair" government contracts for community service provision : time to curb unfettered executive freedom?

All Australian governments are significantly increasing the use of contracted community service provision through not for profit (NFP) organisations. These transactions occur through grant arrangements which take the form of standard contracts or deeds rather than drawing on statutory authority. Government inquiries bodies have consistently reported and raised concerns about the fairness of such standard grant contract terms, but failed to provide any mechanism whereby fairness can be assured. The Productivity Commission has suggested that the resulting poor relationship results in inappropriate risk transfer, micro-management, disincentives to innovate and poor service provision. This paper develops and tests a fairness measure based on the principles of the Australian Consumer Law which legislates fairness protections for standard consumer contracts.  

Bailing out the FEG : is the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (formerly GEERS) approaching its own fiscal cliff?

This article discusses what recent statistics and public reports reveal about the funding of GEERS (now the FEG) and its bottom line. The article examines (1) whether there has been a “blowout” in the scheme which guarantees the recovery of employee entitlements in liquidations and (2) what might be done to put the scheme on a firmer fiscal footing.

Gender-based undervaluation and the equal remuneration powers of Fair Work Australia

We investigate gender-based wage undervaluation in light of FairWork Australia’s major recent decision for social and community service workers. Using regression methods, we demonstrate that wages for employees in female-dominated occupations are significantly lower than for comparable employees in male-dominated and integrated occupations. This undervaluation is present for both male and female employees, and persists after controlling for industry of employment. We then estimate the undervaluation within industry and juxtapose the results with evidence on the industry distribution of award reliance, a proxy for Fair Work Australia’s equal remuneration powers. There is not a strong relationship within industries between the extent of gender-based undervaluation and award reliance. This suggests that ‘equal remuneration for work of equal or comparable value’ is unlikely to be achieved universally by Fair Work Australia without substantial spillovers between awards and non-award agreements.

Google Books wins ‘fair use’ but Australian copyright lags

Australia wants to foster innovation in a digital economy, but our copyright laws discourage businesses from investing in new technologies and make it harder for individuals to access the knowledge upon which innovation is based. Yesterday’s US decision in the Google Books case shows why US copyright law is much more supportive of innovation than ours. This article argues that if the government is serious about encouraging private innovation, introducing fair use is crucially important.

Teachers as researchers : a ‘fair dinkum’ learning legacy

As we encounter a policy landscape where increasingly the education lexicon includes keywords such as data, evidence, quality, standards, it is interesting to revisit Garth Boomer's contribution regarding teachers as researchers. As an early-career classroom teacher in the mid-1970s, I was inspired by Boomer's provocation to engage with research as a practitioner seeking evidence of learning (or not learning). Since that time, convinced of the power of teacher research in enhancing both student and teacher learning, I have devoted a good deal of my academic life to finding ways of supporting teachers to engage in research - from finding funds to facilitate teacher-researcher networks, through designing research projects with teacher-researchers as key collaborators, to embedding practitioner inquiry in university courses wherever possible pre- and in-service.

The only way to fix copyright is to make it fair

Everyone knows there’s a problem with copyright. Artists get paid very little for their work, and legitimate consumers aren’t getting a very fair deal either. Unfortunately, nobody agrees about how we should fix it. Speaking at the Australian Digital Alliance forum last Friday, the Attorney-General and Arts Minister George Brandis said we might have to ask Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to police copyright, in order to deal with “piracy”. In 2012, the High Court in the iiNet case thought it wasn’t a good idea to make ISPs responsible for protecting the rights of third parties...

The transformation of Sweden from a haven for online pirates to the hope of the digital music industry [Musikbranschens föregångsland]

1974 was the year when the Swedish pop group ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton and when Blue Swede reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Although Swedish pop music gained some international success even prior to 1974, this year is often considered as the beginning of an era in which Swedish pop music had great success around the world. With brands such as ABBA, Europe, Roxette, The Cardigans, Ace of Base, In Flames, Robyn, Avicii, Swedish House Mafia and music producers Stig Andersson, Ola Håkansson, Dag Volle, Max Martin, Andreas Carlsson, Jorgen Elofsson and several others have the myth of the Swedish music miracle kept alive for nearly more than four decades. Swedish music looks to continue reap success around the world, but since the millennium, Sweden's relationship with music has been more focused on relatively controversial Internet-based services for music distribution developed by Swedish entrepreneurs and engineers rather than on successful musicians and composers. This chapter focusses on the music industry in Sweden. The chapter will discuss the development of the Internet services mentioned above and their impact on the production, distribution and consumption of recorded music. Ample space will be given in particular to Spotify, the music service that quickly has fundamentally changed the music industry in Sweden. The chapter will also present how the music industry's three sectors - recorded music, music licensing and live music - interact and evolve in Sweden.

Fair use and the future of copyright

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s Final Report, Copyright and the Digital Economy, recommends the introduction of a flexible fair use provision. In doing so, it has sought to develop a technology-neutral approach to copyright that is adaptive to new technologies and which promotes innovation.

A fair e-tendering protocol

Implementation of an electronic tendering (e-tendering) systems requires careful attention to the needs of the system and its various participants. Fairness in an e-tendering is of utmost importance. Current proposals and implementations do not provide fairness and thus, are vulnerable to collusion and favourism. Dishonest participants, either the principal or tenderer may collude to alter or view competing tenders which would give the favoured tenderer a greater chance of winning the contract. This paper proposes an e-tendering system that is secure and fair to all participants. We employ the techniques of anonymous token system along with signed commitment approach to achieve a publicly verifiable fair e-tendering protocol. We also provide an analysis of the protocol that confirms the security of our proposal against security goals for an e-tendering system.

Haven

In Haven, a female voice guides a meditation while an abstract animated form progressively morphs from geometric to irregular on screen. As the video develops, the tone shifts from relaxation to seduction and, eventually, to hints of mild contempt. Through its subtle shifts in tone and form, the work plays with the relationships between self-help, self-absorption and self-pity. Its verbal and visual references gently suggest a disjunction between internalised thoughts and external realities. In doing so, it also alludes to the ways that desire and doubt can inform quests for inner peace.

Fair Dealing Exceptions Submission to ALRC IP 46

This submission is directed to issues arising in respect of the need to ensure users are able to access copyright works and as such address the following questions only: Question 6-1: What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with vested property rights is justified? Question 6-2: Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with vested property rights, and why are these laws unjustified?