Public policy and USM : an approach to fit a renewed sense of public purpose

Malaysian Higher educational reform is an important and central aspect of the broader Malaysian public policy focus on excellence, development and national growth. This proposed paper intends to discuss analyze and critique the APEX program for Malaysian Universities. In particular the paper will investigate and discuss the way Universiti Sains Malaysia has interpreted and developed its strategic goals in light of its award of APEX status. Specifically I intend to discuss the strengths and limitations of the Universiti Sains Malaysia agenda, and contextualize it within a broader discussion about the directions of Malaysian Higher Education, in conditions of globalization, network society, and the knowledge economy. The challenges faced by the reform agenda at USM are significant and it is important that any understanding of the USM agenda be informed by deep reflection on the underlying philosophical aims and justifications for its direction. In this way my paper will attempt to show how the USM project is both an important part of Malaysian national development and a critical response to contemporary globalization, while at the same time an innovative and challenging intervention into public policy debate in Higher Education. The values and objectives of USM in regards to its strategic reorientation have implications far beyond the Higher Education sector and these implications will also be discussed.

The equipping inclusion studies : assistive technology use and outcomes in Victoria ; key findings and policy implications, study 1 - the equipment study, study 2 - the economic study

Approximately one in five of the Australian population lives with disability (AIHW 2006a; ABS 2003). Of these, almost 1.9 million rely on assistive technologies to live independently (Hobbs, Close, Downing, Reynolds & Walker 2009).

Assistive Technology (AT) is defined as,

‘any device, system or design, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified or customised, that allows an individual to perform a task that they would otherwise be unable to do, or increase the ease and safety with which a task can be performed’ (Independent Living Centres Australia n.d).

‘Assistive Technology solutions’ have been defined as entailing a combination of devices (aids and equipment), environmental modifications (both in the home and outside of it), and personal care (paid and unpaid) (Assistive Technology Collaboration n.d).

Despite a large number of Australians relying on AT, there is little data available about life for these Australians, the extent of AT use, or unmet need for AT. Existing research in Australia suggests that aids and equipment provision in Australia is ‘fragmented’ across a plethora of government and non government programs (AIHW 2006a:35). In Victoria, one of the prime sources of government funding for AT is the Victorian Aids and Equipment Program (VAEP) which is a subsidy program for the purchase of aids and equipment, home and vehicle modifications for people with permanent or long term disability. Recent research suggests that waiting times for accessing equipment through the VAEP are high, as is the cost burden to applicants (Wilson, Wong & Goodridge 2006). In addition, there appears to be a substantial level of unmet need (KPMG 2007).

Additionally, there is a paucity of literature around the economic evaluation of AT interventions and solution packages, resulting in little evidence of their cost-effectiveness credentials.

The equipping inclusion studies : assistive technology use and outcomes in Victoria ; key findings and policy recommendations

Approximately one in five of the Australian population lives with disability (AIHW 2006a; ABS 2003). Of these, almost 1.9 million rely on assistive technologies to live independently (Hobbs, Close, Downing, Reynolds & Walker 2009).

Assistive Technology (AT) is defined as,

‘any device, system or design, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified or customised, that allows an individual to perform a task that they would otherwise be unable to do, or increase the ease and safety with which a task can be performed’ (Independent Living Centres Australia n.d).

‘Assistive Technology solutions’ have been defined as entailing a combination of devices (aids and equipment), environmental modifications (both in the home and outside of it), and personal care (paid and unpaid) (Assistive Technology Collaboration n.d).

Despite a large number of Australians relying on AT, there is little data available about life for these Australians, the extent of AT use, or unmet need for AT. Existing research in Australia suggests that aids and equipment provision in Australia is ‘fragmented’ across a plethora of government and non government programs (AIHW 2006a:35). In Victoria, one of the prime sources of government funding for AT is the Victorian Aids and Equipment Program (VAEP) which is a subsidy program for the purchase of aids and equipment, home and vehicle modifications for people with permanent or long term disability. Recent research suggests that waiting times for accessing equipment through the VAEP are high, as is the cost burden to applicants (Wilson, Wong & Goodridge 2006). In addition, there appears to be a substantial level of unmet need (KPMG 2007).

Additionally, there is a paucity of literature around the economic evaluation of AT interventions and solution packages, resulting in little evidence of their cost-effectiveness credentials.

'Build it, fill it and bill it' : how work in the public housing sector has changed (and stayed the same)

This paper is an ethnographic account of how 'wicked' (i.e. entrenched and enduring) problems with the 'building, filling and billing' of public housing have shaped and influenced the work of public housing workers in Victoria, Australia. With a few exceptions, the front line work of housing staff is represented in the literature as smaller, constituent parts of some larger policy process, organisational event or procedural reform. In order to understand how housing work has been constructed over time, this paper attempts to consolidate these fragmented narratives (contained in old documents, training manuals, news articles and reports) into an historical account of 'what it was like' to work in the public/social housing sector. In this paper, I will construct this 'historical account' with the stories I gathered over twelve months of field work in three different public housing offices. In their stories, public housing workers tell me how subtle and incremental has been the change to their work, how increasingly complex are the needs of tenants and how dfficult their work has become. Their stories illustrate the complexity of undersdanding and addressing these 'wicked' housing problems when tenants change, staff change and
the public housing sector has a history of frequent 'restructuring'. This contextualisation of 'old and new stories' will allow the reader to understand how the organisational reality of present day housing work has been socially constructed ('sedimented') by generation, of workers, managers and tenants.

The impact of learning in the workplace policy on differing ICT degrees

At Victoria University, the release of a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy has been introduced to ensure that graduates are job and career ready. The policy underlines the importance of workplace contextual learning in all course deliveries and is scheduled for progressive implementation by 2010. For each degree, the policy mandates that a minimum of 25% of program content and assessment must be related to work integrated learning.

Compliance with the 25% shift poses significant challenges for its implementation upon all undergraduate programs since the policy is expected to impact upon program structures, unit deliveries, assessment practices, and course administrations. In particular, there has been an extensive review of existing approaches to learning and teaching in the programs that deliver information and communications technology (ICT) degrees across business and science faculties. This paper describes the current Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Business in Information Systems programs identifying similarities and differences between the two offerings with respect to their learning in workplace components. It explores possible synergies between the two programs that could be capitalized upon to implement the LiWC policy and details the challenges to both faculties in mounting a coordinated response.

The politics of 'sustainability': a critical discourse analysis of Victorian Government policy discourse, 1999-2006

Since its emergence during the 1980s the idea of sustainability has come to provide the dominant frame within which environmental policy is debated. Thus, for many ‘sustainability’ represents the best way to address the economic, social and environmental effects of the myriad of environmental issues facing human societies, including biodiversity loss, soil erosion, pollution of waterways, ozone depletion and climate change. There are however, widely divergent views advocated as to what sustainability means, which has important implications for how serious environmental issues are understood to be, why they are important, what has caused them, and what needs to be done to address them. Given the diversity of such views, the consequences for policy making, and the likelihood of effective responses being developed, are self evident. Within this context, this thesis investigates the politics of sustainability, focussing particularly on the way in which it is defined, because of the implications this has for the way in which environmental issues are understood and addressed. Following a review of various approaches to analysing environmental policy (traditional, mainstream, ecopolitical and discursive), Norman Fairclough’s approach to discourse analysis (Critical Discourse Analysis) was identified as having particular merit. Fairclough’s approach avoids the assumption that policy issues exist independently of the way they are framed and offers a perspective on discourse that links the social theoretical concerns of Foucault with the micro level concerns of linguistics. It also provides a means for taking environmental policy analysis in directions that that have attracted relatively limited attraction, namely the detailed analysis of the ideological effects of language on environmental policy. In this thesis Fairclough’s approach is used to explore how three storylines of sustainability (sustainable development, environmentally sustainable growth and transforming society) and their associated discourses shaped environmental policy making in Victoria, Australia, between 1999 and 2006. In undertaking this analysis, I examined the political and institutional context informing policy making (social practice); the contested process of text production (discourse practice), and; the detailed wording of a policy text (textual analysis). A major policy statement on environmental sustainability released by the Victorian Government in 2005 is subjected to detailed analysis. Based on the analysis undertaken, the substantive finding from this research is that rather than moving beyond neoliberalism, the Victorian Government embraced an approach to sustainability that was informed by neoliberalism and (weak) ecological modernisation, which constructs sustainability in ways that limit its importance and constrain the types of responses that could be advocated. In doing so, it drew heavily on notions of natural assets and ecosystems services as ways to make sense of the environment and why it is important. The Victorian Government also highlighted that environmental issues are caused by the cumulative effects of individual choices, and emphasized the importance of individual choice and behavioural change as central features of sustainability, while restricting opportunities for more transformative ideas to be heard. The broader conclusion arising from this research is that approaches to environmental policy that rely on neoliberal and (weak) ecological modern discourses are flawed, because, in commodifying nature, limiting the nature and magnitude of change required, and placing responsibility onto individuals they offer a constrained understanding of the challenge of sustainability and what needs to be done about it. The overall contribution made by this research is an improved understanding of the discursive nature of the politics of sustainability and the influence of neoliberalism and ecological modernisation, the use of a methodology that has attracted relatively limited attention within environmental policy (despite its widespread use in other areas of policy) and the documentation of a period of significant environmental policy reform in Victoria.

Singular influence : mapping the ascent of Daisy M. Bates in popular understanding and Indigenous policy

Daisy M. Bates’s influence on Indigenous affairs has often been attributed to her once romantic legend as ‘the saviour of the Aborigines’, obscuring the impact of the powerful news media position that she commanded for decades. The ideas advanced by the news media through its reports both by and about Bates exerted a strong influence on public understanding and official policies that were devastating for Indigenous Australians and have had lasting impacts. This paper draws on Bourdieu’s tradition of field-based research to propose that Bates’s ‘singular influence’ was formed through the accumulation of ‘symbolic capital’ within and across the fields of journalism, government, Indigenous societies, and anthropology, and that it operated to reinforce and legitimate the media’s representations of Indigenous people and issues as well as government policies.

Trade and industrial policy in developing countries : what scope for interfaces between agent-based models and computable-general equilibrium models

How best to assess trade and industrial policy in developing countries is a controversial question that unlocks a host of modelling complexities. Large computable general-equilibrium (CGE) models dominate many economic policy debates, but recent developments in the field have demonstrated that it is by no means clear that they give reliable results to questions of how trade reforms affect the poor. Over the last decade or so, a new approach to modelling complex systems has emerged using agent-based models (ABMs). This paper explores the question of whether ABMs are useful for economic policy-makers seeking to quantitatively model the effects of trade and industrial policies and whether constructive interfaces could be developed between CGE models and ABMs. The paper argues that in developing economic policy, ABMs can and should be used in conjunction with CGE models and that there is much to be gained from a greater understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different modelling approaches, and what domains are most appropriate for their use. It concludes with some reflections on the reasons for the success of CGE approaches and ways in which ABMs could be made more widely understood and used among economists.

Supporting rights-based ideas in policy and practice

Principles of human rights rest at the heart of social justice and notions of an inclusive society. This article seeks to refocus practice attention on the issue of human rights and the ways in which rights-based ideas can be integrated across practice, policy and legal domains. It argues that creating systems in which critical components mutually reinforce rightsbased ideas will be more likely to have the depth of influence required to shift thinking toward rights-based practice and maintain its endurance over time.

Introduction : consumer groups and the democratization of health policy

This book examines the important role of consumer activism within health policy in different national contexts. In an age of shifting boundaries between state and civil society, consumer groups are potentially drivers of democratization in the health domain. The expert contributors explore how their activities bring new dynamics to relations between service providers, the medical profession, government agencies, and other policy actors. This book is unique in comprehensively analysing the opportunities and dilemmas of this type of activism, including ambiguous partnerships between consumer groups and stakeholders such as the pharmaceutical industry. These themes are explored within an internationally comparative framework, with case studies from various countries. Students and researchers in the fields of health policy and sociology, public policy and social movements will find this relevant and path-breaking book enlightening. It will also prove invaluable for participants and activists in patient and health consumer organizations.

When is collaboration not collaboration? When it's militarized

In adopting the medical lobby’s preferred definition of collaboration where midwives are legally compelled to seek endorsement for their care plan from an obstetrician, Determination 2010 connotes a form of militarized collaboration and thus negates all that genuine collaboration stands for–—equality, mutual trust and reciprocal respect. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, the first half of this paper analyses the submissions from medical, midwifery and consumer peak organisations to the Maternity Services Review and Senate reviews held between 2008 and 2010 showing that Determination 2010 privileges the medical lobby worldview in adopting a vertical definition of collaboration. The second half of the paper responds to the principal assumption of Determination 2010–—that midwives do not voluntarily collaborate. It argues by reference to a qualitative inquiry conducted into select caseload maternity units in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales during 2009—2010 that this presupposition is erroneous. The evidence shows that genuine collaboration is possible without legislative force but it requires a coalition of the willing among senior midwives and obstetricians to institute regular interdisciplinary meetings and clinical reviews and to model respectful behaviour to new entrants.

Issues in Australian foreign policy : July to December 2010

Two unforseen developments impeded the Labor government’s capacity to pursue its foreign policy objectives in the period under review. Firstly, Labor’s precarious standing in the parliament tilted the government’s policy agenda in favour of issues that the Greens prioritised. Gillard addressed some of these issues, for instance by holding the parliamentary debate on Afghanistan and by pursuing Japan over whaling in the Southern Ocean, but not to the degree that the Greens demanded. Immigration was emblematic of the government’s travails. The Greens advocated an increase in the refugee intake, but the Coalition favoured the resumption of offshore processing. Just when Labor’s proposed Timorese solution was becoming a realistic possibility, the High Court’s decision devalued the entire notion of offshore processing. The only consolation for the government was that the court had reduced the options available to all political parties.

Secondly, the Wikileaks saga revealed that Rudd may no longer be — and perhaps never was — Labor’s trump card in the realm of foreign policy. American assessments of the foreign minister’s character and judgment were in parts scathing. The Obama administration, nonetheless, appeared to readily and usefully absorb his analysis of Chinese politics. Quite how revelations of Rudd’s conversations with Clinton will affect his relations with the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party is another matter. It may well be that Rudd’s influence on Chinese leaders was always wildly overestimated, but in any case it seemed likely that the foreign minister would spend some time rebuilding ties with Beijing in 2011.

A third development — which hitherto had applied more in the realm of perception than reality — similarly threatened to limit the options open to future Australian governments of all stripes: the intensifying debate over alliance management that Hugh White’s essay instigated. Judgments about what sort of region — and what sort of China — Australia will face were imprinted in issues such as the rare earths find and the AUSMIN meeting. By the end of 2010, few issues could be discussed without reference to the China factor.

Ethical issues for internet use policy : balancing employer and employee perspectives

An organisational internet use policy (IUP) is a recognised deterrent to manage insider internet misuse. However, IUPs have proven ineffective against this threat, perhaps because of their neglect of the ethical issues involved. An important part of setting an IUP involves the resolution of key ethical dilemmas when employer and employee perspectives conflict. This paper explores the ethical issues that must be addressed when developing an organisational IUP. It draws on a conceptual analysis and an interpretive study of five medium-size and large organisations in Australia and North America. The paper provides a set of key ethical issues for an IUP and compares and contrasts the employer and employee perspectives. It highlights the need to balance the employer and employee perspectives when setting an IUP. Other implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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.

Public policy and USM : an approach to fit a renewed sense of public purpose

Malaysian Higher educational reform is an important and central aspect of the broader Malaysian public policy focus on excellence, development and national growth. This proposed paper intends to discuss analyze and critique the APEX program for Malaysian Universities. In particular the paper will investigate and discuss the way Universiti Sains Malaysia has interpreted and developed its strategic goals in light of its award of APEX status. Specifically I intend to discuss the strengths and limitations of the Universiti Sains Malaysia agenda, and contextualize it within a broader discussion about the directions of Malaysian Higher Education, in conditions of globalization, network society, and the knowledge economy. The challenges faced by the reform agenda at USM are significant and it is important that any understanding of the USM agenda be informed by deep reflection on the underlying philosophical aims and justifications for its direction. In this way my paper will attempt to show how the USM project is both an important part of Malaysian national development and a critical response to contemporary globalization, while at the same time an innovative and challenging intervention into public policy debate in Higher Education. The values and objectives of USM in regards to its strategic reorientation have implications far beyond the Higher Education sector and these implications will also be discussed.