Critical perspectives on refugee policy in Australia : proceedings of the Refugee Rights Symposium hosted by the Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Faculty of Arts, Deakin University, December 5, 2002

Keynote addresses: What next for Australia's refugee policy? / Peter Mares -- One year after Tampa: refugees, deportees and TPVs / Chris Sidoti -- Academic papers: The tension of re-other-ing bodies / Snezana Dabic -- Acting for asylum: the nexus of pro-refugee activism in Melbourne / Helen Hintjens & Alison Jarman -- Biopolitics and the 'problem' of the refugee / Matthew Holt -- Temporary protection of refugees: Australian policy and international comparison / Fethi Mansouri & Michael Leach --The not-so-special benefit and non-mutual obligation: refugees on a TPV and income support arrangements / Greg Marston -- Family separation: Somali women in Melbourne / Celia McMichael & Malyun Ahmed -- Embodying exile: protest, performance, trauma and effect in the formation of East Timorese refugee identities / Amanda Wise -- Personal and Community Sector Perspectives -- A personal experience of the TPV policy / Mueen Al-Breihi -- A city of refuge?: protecting the social and cultural rights of refugees in Brisbane / Renae Mann -- Temporary protection visas, recovery from trauma and personal identity / Helen Martin -- All I ask for is protection: young people seeking asylum in Australia / Samira Mohamed.

Elucidation of defence responses and signalling pathways induced in Arabidopsis thaliana following challenge with Phytophthora cinnamomi

Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) Col-0 was inoculated with Phytophthora cinnamomi to assess the interaction and defence responses involved. Pathogen ingress and asexual reproduction occurred on root tissue but not leaf tissue. The colonisation of root tissue did not cause disease symptoms or plant death, indicating that Arabidopsis Col-0 was tolerant of the infection. The induction of several plant defence responses including the expression of defence-related genes were found, with differences displayed between inoculated root and leaf tissue. Arabidopsis defence-related gene mutant/over-expressing lines were also inoculated with P. cinnamomi but none of the lines tested exhibited a marked increase in susceptibility to the pathogen.

The use of public transport in coastal Australia : modes of travel to work and greenhouse emissions

Commuting to work is one of the most important and regular routines of transportation in towns and cities. From a geographic perspective, the length of people’s commute is influenced, to some degree, by the spatial separation of their home and workplace and the transport infrastructure. The rise of car ownership in Australia from the 1950s to the present was accompanied by a considerable decrease of public transport use. Currently there is an average of 1.4 persons per car in Australia, and private cars are involved in approximately 90% of the trips, and public transportation in only 10%. Increased personal mobility has fuelled the trend of decentralised housing development, mostly without a clear planning for local employment, or alternative means of transportation. Transport sector accounts for 14% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions. Without further policy action, Australia’s emissions are projected to continue to increase. The Australian Federal Government and the new Department of Climate Change have recently published a set of maps showing that rising seas would submerge large parts of Victoria coastal region. Such event would lead to major disruption in planned urban growth areas in the next 50 years with broad scale inundation of dwellings, facilities and road networks. The Greater Geelong Region has well established infrastructure as a major urban centre and tourist destination and hence attracted the attention of federal and state governments in their quest for further development and population growth. As a result of its natural beauty and ecological sensitivity, scenarios for growth in the region are currently under scrutiny from local government as well as development agencies, scientists, and planners. This paper is part of a broad research in the relationship between transportation system, urban form, trip demand, and emissions, as a paramount in addressing the challenges presented by urban growth. Progressing from previous work focused on private cars, this present paper investigates the use of public transport as a mode for commuting in the Greater Geelong Region. Using a GIS based interaction model, it characterises the current use of the existing public transportation system, and also builds a scenario of increased use of the existing public transportation system, estimating potencial reductions in CO2 emissions. This study provides an improved understanding of the extent to which choices of transport mode and travel activity patterns, affect emissions in the context of regional networks. The results indicate that emissions from commuting by public transportation are significantly lower than those from commuting by private car, and emphasise that there are opportunities for large abatment in the greenhouse emissions from the transportation sector related to efforts in increasing the use of existing public transportation system.