Financial structure and policy of Australia's retirement system

Inoreasing life expectancies for both males and females in the Asia-Pacific region have resulted in an ageing population. Given an ageing p'opulation, adequate income is of increasing importance to people who will experience longer periods in retirement. This paper provides an overview of the structure of the Australian retirement system which includes a means-tested government provided age pension, retirement savings and voluntary savings. Despite policy Initiatives to boost retirement savings and income, it is concluded that due to the relative immaturity of this system it will fail to provide many community groups (baby-boomers, females, low income earners, long-term unemployed, part-time workers) with an adequate retirement income.

The role of Australia's public broadcasters in development and democracy

In this article I investigate the ways in which the ABC and SBS use the internet. I predominantly focus on how the public broadcasters’ promote an informed citizenry though participation online. Such online participation further develops a second vital role of public broadcasting which is to develop a sense of nationhood—through Australian content (which can include information and communication in languages other than English) and which provides for local and international communities in rural and metropolitan areas to engage with each other. In order to understand the capacity for the public broadcasters to enhance online public communication and democratic participation, I firstly examine general internet theory and evaluate how liberating the internet has been for those living in countries where the state and political alliances control traditional broadcast and print media. For this analysis, the key aspects of virtual communication and cyber-democracy are explored as they are relevant to the services the public broadcasters could provide. Furthermore, case examples of current practical work undertaken in these areas are examined. The framework of the ‘virtual agora’ is considered because it represents the ideals of a public sphere in cyberspace where people are currently able to discuss and debate key issues. The theory is then related to activities undertaken through the ‘vortals’ of the ABC and SBS. Finally, the extent of political intervention and commercial influence is evaluated.

A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms

This presentation reports on the methodological issues confronting an Australian-German-Taiwanese team planning comparative video ethnographic research into primary science classrooms. The issues that will be canvassed include: the benefits of cross-cultural comparisons in providing perspectives on local practice, the theoretical justifications of such comparisons, selection of cases for comparison and possibilities for claiming cultural representativeness, the planning of appropriate data sets, the different comparative stories offered by different analytical frames, practical issues of communication and data sharing, and issues of entanglement of language and culture in the analysis.

Politics of accommodation of the Rise of China : the case of Australia

In the context of the rise of China, Southeast Asian countries and Australia have begun shifting towards an accommodation policy. Robert Ross examines the accommodation policy in South Korea, Mochizuki discusses Japanese accommodationists, and Manicom and O’Neil show some evidence of Australian accommodation of Chinese strategic preferences. The scholarship has, however, narrowly focused on and overestimated the role of security. Through a study of the origin, process, structural conditions and impacts of accommodation policy, this paper broadens the concept of accommodation to capture its multiple meanings and practices. It finds that a selective accommodation policy and strategy toward the rise of China developed in Australia is a sign of the changing power relations under which the mainstream paradigms of containment and engagement, hard balancing or bandwagoning, have proved inadequate to the task of dealing with China, and that economic interdependence has driven the politics of accommodation in Australia and several Asian countries.

How many of Australia's ground-nesting birds are likely to be at risk from the invasive Cane Toad (Rhinella marina)?

Cane Toads (Rhinella marina; hereafter 'toads') are large, toxic American anurans that were introduced to Australia in 1935. Research on their ecological impact has focussed on the lethal ingestion of toxic toads by native frog-eating predators. Less attention has been paid to the potential impacts of Cane Toads as predators, although these large anurans sometimes eat vertebrates, such as nestling birds and bird eggs. We review published and unpublished data on interactions between Cane Toads and Australian ground-nesting birds, and collate distributional and breeding information to identify the avian taxa potentially at risk of having eggs or chicks eaten by Cane Toads. Cane Toads are currently sympatric with 80 ground-nesting bird species in Australia, and five additional species of bird occur within the predicted future range of the toad. Although many species of bird are potentially at risk, available data suggest there is minimal impact of Cane Toads on ground-nesting species. Future research could usefully address both direct and indirect impacts of the invasion by Cane Toads, ideally with detailed field observations of these impacts on nesting success and of changes in bird breeding success as a function of invasion by toads.

The state of Australia's performing arts centres, and what it tells us about the state of the Australian arts

 In December 2010 the Albany entertainment centre opened in its harbour-side city, at the bottom of southern Western Australian. Featuring a bold, angular design by architects Cox Howlett and Bailey Woodland, the complex contains a 620-seat theatre and a 200-seat studio. Needless to say, these spaces are described by the centre as 'state of the art'.