The review of Australia's asylum laws and policies: a case for strengthening Parliament's role in protecting rights through post-enactment scrutiny

The central contention of this article is that there is a need for greater involvement of legislators in overseeing a systematic and rights-based scrutiny of the impact of legislation and policy. The recent operation of Australia s asylum laws and policies, in particular provides an illustration of the reforms required. Challenges to the rights of non-citizens in Australia and other jurisdictions serve as a reminder of the extent of change required before rights are firmly entrenched in the processes of government. A useful step forward would be to enhance the role of legislators in setting the criteria and agenda for post-enactment scrutiny in light of issues raised during pre-legislative scrutiny.

Preventing injuries on a state-wide basis : researchers and parliamentary committees are partners in turning injury prevention and safety research into practice and policy

Context: Parliamentary committees established in Westminster parliaments, such as Queensland, provide a cross-party structure that enables them to recommend policy and legislative changes that may otherwise be difficult for one party to recommend. The overall parliamentary committee process tends to be more cooperative and less adversarial than the main chamber of parliament and, as a result, this process permits parliamentary committees to make recommendations more on the available research evidence and less on political or party considerations. Objectives: This paper considers the contributions that parliamentary committees in Queensland have made in the past in the areas of road safety, drug use as well as organ and tissue donation. The paper also discusses the importance of researchers actively engaging with parliamentary committees to ensure the best evidence based policy outcomes. Key messages: In the past, parliamentary committees have successfully facilitated important safety changes with many committee recommendations based on research results. In order to maximise the benefits of the parliamentary committee process it is essential that researchers inform committees about their work and become key stakeholders in the inquiry process. Researchers can keep committees informed by making submissions to their inquiries, responding to requests for information and appearing as witnesses at public hearings. Researchers should emphasise the key findings and implications of their research as well as considering the jurisdictional implications and political consequences. It is important that researchers understand the differences between lobbying and providing informed recommendations when interacting with committees. Discussion and conclusions: Parliamentary committees in Queensland have successfully assisted in the introduction of evidence based policy and legislation. In order to present best practice recommendations, committees rely on the evidence presented to them including the results of researchers. Actively engaging with parliamentary committees will help researchers to turn their results into practice with a corresponding decrease in injuries and fatalities. Developing an understanding of parliamentary committees, and the typical inquiry process used by these committees, will help researchers to present their research results in a manner that will encourage the adoption of their ideas by parliamentary committees, the presentation of these results as recommendations within the report and the subsequent enactment of the committee’s recommendations by the government.

Government community service contracts : restraining abuse of power

The use of grant contracts to deliver community services is now a significant feature of all Australian government administrations. These contracts are the primary instrument governing the provision of such services to citizens and are largely outside the usual parliamentary review mechanisms and constraints. This article examines the extent of the erosion of fundamental constitutional principles facilitated by the use of private contracts, by applying the principles used in scrutiny of delegated legislation to standard form federal and State community service contracts. It reveals extensive executive power which, if the relationship were founded in legislative instruments rather than in private contract, would have to be justified to Parliament at least and possibly not tolerated.

Learning how to be responsive to public policy issues affecting SSSI members

Human survival depends on human ingenuity in using resources at hand to sustain human life. The historical record – in wrings and archaeological artefacts – provides evidence of the growth and collapse of political organisations and societies. In the institutions of Western civilisation, some traditions have endured over millennia where the roles of monarchs and public officials have been organised in perpetual succession. These roles were developed as conventions in the British Parliament after 1295 and provided the models of corporate governance in both public and private enterprise that have been continuously refined to the present day. In 2011, the Queensland Parliament legislated to introduce a new and more open system of scrutiny of legislation through a system of portfolio-based parliamentary committees. The committees began to function more actively in July 2012 and have inviting submissions from stakeholders and experts in a structured way to consider the government’s priorities in its legislative programme. The questions now are whether the Surveying and Spatial Sciences can respond expertly to address the terms of reference and meet the timetables of the various parliamentary committees. This paper discusses some of the more important and urgent issues that deserve debate that the profession needs to address in becoming more responsive to matters of public policy.

Preventing public sector corruption : the relationship between parliamentary committees and corruption commissions

Parliamentary committees fulfil several important functions within the Parliament, with one of these being the oversight of various agencies including those that are designed to reduce corruption within the police service and other public sector agencies. The cross-party nature of committees combined with the protections of Parliament make them powerful agencies. Prenzler & Faulkner (2010) suggest that the ideal system for an agency that has oversight of a public sector integrity commission should include monitoring by a parliamentary committee, with an inspector attached to the committee. This occurs in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. There has been very little research conducted on the role of parliamentary committees with oversight responsibilities for public sector integrity agencies. This paper will address this gap by examining the relationship between a parliamentary committee, a parliamentary inspector and a corruption commission. Queensland’s Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC/the Committee) and the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commissioner (the Commissioner) provide oversight of the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC). By focussing on the PCMC and the Commissioner, the paper will examine the legislative basis for the Committee and Commissioner and their respective roles in providing oversight of the CMC. One key method by which the PCMC provides oversight of the CMC is to conduct and publish a review of the CMC every three years. Additionally, the paper will identify some of the similarities and differences between the PCMC and other committees that operate within the Queensland Parliament. By doing so, the paper will provide insights into the relationships that exist between corruption commissions, parliamentary committees and parliamentary inspectors and demonstrate the important role of the parliamentary committee in preventing instances of public sector corruption.

Parliamentary committee reviews of police oversight agencies : a Queensland case study

The suggested model of an ideal public sector corruption commission includes oversight by a parliamentary committee with an attached parliamentary inspector (Prenzler, 2009). However, little research has been conducted on parliamentary oversight of corruption commissions. In Queensland, a role of the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee, which has the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commissioner attached, is to review the Crime and Misconduct Commission every three years. This paper considers the public written and oral submissions made to the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee in the four reviews of the Crime and Misconduct Committee conducted to date (2004, 2006, 2009 and 2012). By doing this, the paper will begin to identify the gaps in our understanding of the relationship between parliamentary committees and public sector corruption commissions and the processes used by parliamentary committees to provide oversight of corruption commissions.

Submission for the Queensland Government Parliamentary Inquiry into personal health promotion interventions using telephone and web-based technologies

Telephone and web-based technologies such as SMS, smartphone apps, gamification, online/mobile games, online quizzes and tools can be used in personal health interventions in two ways: health promotion or social marketing. In response to the Queensland government's call for submissions to the parliamentary inquiry, a social marketing and design submission from four of the faculties at Queensland University of Technology was submitted. There appears to be a great deal of confusion in government circles about the terms ‘social marketing’ and ‘health promotion’ and often they are used interchangeably when they are actually significantly different approaches. Social marketing is the science and practice of behaviour change and involves goods and services that offer a value proposition, and which incentivises citizens to change their behaviour voluntarily. However, social marketing is often mistakenly used to describe advertising and communication or social media marketing. This submission contains an overview of how technology interventions need to be implemented to be successful, provides examples of the evidence that telephone and web-based interventions can effectively influence public health outcome. This submission poses seven critical factors.

Managing in the “Golden Cage” An Ethnographic Study of Work, Management and Gender in Parliamentary Administration

Parliaments are political institutions, but they are also places where people work; the MPs and the people who are employed there work, albeit in rather different ways. In this research the focus is on those in a Parliament who work there as employees and managers, and thereby, in some senses, run the organisation. Accordingly, this involves seeing the Parliament as a working environment, for MPs and employees, for men and women. The institution of Parliament is thus here examined by looking at it from a different and new angle. Instead of the usual focus on politicians the focus is on the administration of this institution. The aim is, amongst other things, to increase knowledge and offer different perspectives on democracy and democratic institutions. Unpacking the nearly mythical institution into smaller, more digestible, graspable realities should at the very least help to remind the wider society that although nations, to a certain extent, do need national institutions they should not become mystified or seen as larger than life. Institutions should work on behalf of people and thus be accountable to these same people. The main contribution of this work is to explore and problematise how managing and working is done inside an institution that both largely fulfils the characteristics of a bureaucracy and yet also has added special features that seem to be rather far removed from clear bureaucratic structures. This research offers a new kind of information on working life inside this elite institution. The joys and the struggles of working and managing in this particular public sector organisation are illustrated here and offer a view, a glimpse, into the experiences of managing and working in this House.

World parliament – fact or fiction? On the feasibility of world parliamentary models

Cosmopolitan ideals have been on the philosophical agenda for several millennia but the end of the Cold War started a new discussion on state sovereignty, global democracy, the role of international law and global institutions. The Westphalian state system in practice since the 17th century is transforming and the democracy deficit needs new solutions. An impetus has been the fact that in the present world, an international body representing global citizens does not exist. In this Master’s thesis, the possibility of establishing a world parliament is examined. In a case analysis, 17 models on world parliament from two journals, a volume of essays and two other publications are discussed. Based on general observations, the models are divided into four thematic groups. The models are analyzed with an emphasis on feasible and probable elements. Further, a new scenario with a time frame of thirty years is proposed based on the methodology of normative futures studies, taking special interest in causal relationships and actions leading to change. The scenario presents three gradual steps that each need to be realized before a sustainable world parliament is established. The theoretical framework is based on social constructivism, and changes in international and multi-level governance are examined with the concepts of globalization, democracy and sovereignty. A feasible, desirable and credible world parliament is constituted gradually by implying electoral, democratic and legal measures for members initially from exclusively democratic states, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and other groups. The parliament should be located outside the United Nations context, since a new body avoids the problem of inefficiency currently prevailing in the UN. The main objectives of the world parliament are to safeguard peace and international law and to offer legal advice in cases when international law has been violated. A feasible world parliament is advisory in the beginning but it is granted legislative powers in the future. The number of members in the world parliament could also be extended following the example of the EU enlargement process.

Idea Competitions under scrutiny: Acquisition, intelligence or public relations mechanism?

Idea Competitions (ICs) are becoming a popular mechanism chosen by firms to perform Open Innovation. They are a way to engage with external sources of knowledge such as individual entrepreneurs and small firms who are asked to submit ideas and compete for a prize. However, little is known about the success of ICs as acquisition mechanisms. The researchers conducted interviews in five multinational companies to evaluate the effects of using ICs as an acquisition mechanism. Although still preliminary, the results of this study show that the success of ICs as an acquisition mechanism remains uncertain because their output (i.e. the number of ideas acquired) is often low compared to the input (i.e. the number of ideas submitted) and effort required to run them (e.g. to vet ideas). Across the cases observed, ICs appear to be more successful at identifying and acquiring early-stage ideas, particularly those outside the current business focus. The study shows that ICs deliver other functional benefits such as improved intelligence and public relations and that these need to be considered as part of the evaluation of the IC's success. The paper concludes by discussing the conditions in which ICs are implemented and the implications for Open Innovation theory. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Representing Europe's Citizens? Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation

Scully, Roger, Farrell, David, Representing Europe's Citizens? Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp.xiii+230 RAE2008

Parliamentary party loyalty and party family: the missing link?

info:eu-repo/semantics/inPress