Significance of environment in the assessment of sustainable development : the case for South West Victoria

The assessment of sustainable development is often based on the three pillars of sustainability model or triple bottom line using a set of indicators that evaluate the social, economic and environmental systems. It is thought that by measuring the performance of each system information can be gained about the sustainability of the whole system. However, this represents a disconnect between sustainability theory and the practice of sustainability evaluation as there is no attempt to evaluate if this assumption is true. During the development of a sustainability assessment framework for south west Victoria, Australia, it has become evident that this approach to sustainability assessment does not provide an accurate evaluation of system sustainability. Throughout this project, from stakeholder prioritisation of indicators to final multiple criteria analysis of sustainability, the environmental indicators were found to be the most important for the region’s sustainability. As a consequence, the assessment produced shows that in south west Victoria, sustainability is largely determined by the condition of the environment. This finding highlights the current disconnection between theory and the reality of sustainability. Thus, we discuss a framework for sustainability assessment that attempts to re-connect theory to practice.

Intellectual capital reporting : an examination of local government in Victoria

The objective of this research is to examine how Victorian local government annual reports disclose information on intellectual capital. The idea of intellectual capital has become part of the working organisational vocabulary, and is widely held in management literature to be the pre-eminent economic resource and a key driver of efficiency, effectiveness and continual improvement in the private and public sectors. Under the recent Best Value Victoria policy, local governments are under increasing pressure to acquire and apply intellectual capital to improve responsiveness to community needs and meet cost and quality criteria. Annual reports exist as vehicles for communication, accountability and decision making. This study examines how the internal, external and human categories of intellectual capital are represented in the annual reports for the 2000 year for 77 of the 78 Victorian local
governments.

Using a matrix approach derived from Petty and Guthrie's (2000) framework, content analysis is employed to examine the incidence and intensity with which specific elements of intellectual capital are reported. This research indicates that generally the content of annual reports have not provided clear and coherent representations of how local government in Victoria are developing, applying and measuring intellectual capital. The nature and extent of intellectual capital reporting varies considerably between councils, and the disclosure of the human elements of intellectual capital is particularly underdeveloped. The findings suggest that more research in this area is needed to determine the extent to which intellectual capital should be disclosed and whether the current paucity of disclosure stems from disinterest or technical problems. There is also the need for further research into the need to identify and describe elements of intellectual capital, and into effective
reporting strategies and techniques. This may lead to the development of a 'best practice' reporting model for intellectual capital. Furthermore, the preliminary investigations indicate a perceived need to raise the consciousness of public sector
managers as to the existence of intellectual capital within their organisations, and ultimately lead to more informed and effective management of this asset.

Crisis of meanings : divergent experiences and perceptions of the marine environment in Victoria, Australia

The oceans of the world are regularly depicted as under threat from human exploitation with the problem portrayed as being of 'global' concern. In a world market characterised by the division of labour, many of those who eat fish do so without directly experiencing the ocean as a domain of productive utility. Rather, their encounters are with representations that depict the 'natural' world as an aesthetic object of contemplation, and environmentalist discourses that identify human activities as' threatening marine ecosystems. So prevalent is this experience that tangible institutions, such as state fisheries management bodies, have emerged, acting to reinforce the ontology of this 'contemplated' ocean, giving weight to the illusion that humans can, and should, appreciate it only from afar. In this representation, commercial fishers are regularly depicted as transgressing a 'natural' boundary between humans and the environment. It is when the world is simultaneously encountered as an object of consumptive utility and aesthetic utility that the human role in the environment becomes ambiguous and a sense of crisis arises. This paper investigates disjunctions in experiences and understandings that contribute to environmental anxiety, and debates over the appropriate use of the ocean.

Late Silurian trace fossils from the Melbourne Formation, Studley Park, Victoria, southeastern Australia

An ichnoassemblage of 10 ichnospecies is described for the first time from the Late Silurian Melbourne Formation at Studley Park, Victoria, southeastern Australia. The ichnofauna is preserved in a typical deep-water turbidite succession of alternating thin- to thick-bedded sandstone and thin- to medium-bedded mudrocks. Trace fossils observed within the study site have been assigned to three main ichnofacies. Ichnofacies 1 is best developed on the linguoid-rippled upper surface of thin sandstone beds and includes Laevicyclus, Aulichnites, Nereites, Helminthoidichnites, small Chondrites and possible Zoophycos. Ichnofacies 2 is very similar to Ichnofacies 1 in ichnospecies composition but instead contains large forms of Chondrites together with other thin burrow types usually poorly preserved and in very low abundance compared with Ichnofacies 1. Ichnofacies 3 is preserved mainly as casts on the underside of medium- to thick-bedded turbiditic sandstones, and has a very low diversity, with Planolites being the most common trace. A detailed analysis of the ichnofabrics and tiering structures of these ichnofacies suggest that Ichnofacies 1 and 3 represent "simple tiering’, in contrast to Ichnofacies 2, which is more characteristic of 'complex tiering’. Despite the differences in ichnospecies composition and ichnofabrics between the three recognized ichnofacies, the collective ichnoassemblage from the study site can be assigned confidently to the Nereites ichnofacies and is, therefore, interpreted to have formed in a distal submarine fan environment of lower bathyal to abyssal depth. Further, it is possible to recognize two main subenvironments within this deep-sea setting to account for the differences between the ichnofacies. Ichnofacies 1 and 2 are interpreted to represent a typical Nereites ichnofacies located on a level basin floor subenvironment of relatively low energy conditions at the distal end of a submarine fan deposit. In comparison, Ichnofacies 3 is dominated by Planolites with rare other facies-crossing trace fossil forms, and lacks Nereites. It is, therefore, best interpreted as representing a relatively high-energy environment, possibly a distributary channel near the distal end of the submarine fan system.

You don't have other teachers to bounce ideas off : report from SiMERR Victoria

Companion volume to the SiMMER National Survey.

Interrupted cadence : the mismatch of the school music curriculum and the intercultural understandings of pre-service teachers in Victoria, Australia

In Victoria, Australia, the curriculum framework for schools, Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) stipulates multiculturalism as an integral part of the education of students. This encompasses knowledge, skills, values and behaviours (Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority, 2009). In this curriculum framework, teachers must consider ‘intercultural understanding’. It seems logical that, to teach this, preservice teacher education students should be able to embrace this idea. VELS addresses multicultural understanding and the development of thinking skills. The Arts domain specifically provides diverse opportunities for students to “develop aesthetic and critical awareness … of arts works from different social, historical and cultural contexts”. In this research, undertaken between 2005 and 2008, semi-structured interviews were completed with final year pre-service music education students about their intercultural understandings in music education. Interpretative phenomenological analysis of the data showed that, although many feel confident including music of other cultures, having had some experience in their tertiary education, some have pursued other ways to inform themselves about music of other cultures. There appears to be a mismatch between curricular expectations and the limited time and resources available in tertiary education programs for music. The disparity between the school music curriculum framework and the preparation of teachers requires attention and resolution.

Ecology of feral cats (Felis catus) at a refuse dump in coastal southern Victoria, Australia

The ecology and behaviour of a colony of feral cats was studied at a refuse dump at Anglesea, Victoria. Research found that the cats lived at the dump all year round, congregating on the exposed refuse at night. Here they fed mainly on meat scraps, supplementing their diet with local wildlife. Aggression between individual cats was rare, allowing them to live as a colony, rather than as solitary individuals. Although female cats were fecund, breeding success was low, preventing a steady increase in the population. No justification for controlling these cats could be found at this time.

Nutrient and phytoplankton status of Lakes Purrumbete and Bullen Merri, western Victoria

The thesis investigates two adjacent volcanic maar lakes, with differences in chemical and biological properties. Lake Bullen Merri a brackish, phosphorous-limited lake that suffers from nuisance algal blooms and Lake Purrumbete a fresh, nitrogen-limited lake with diverse phytoplankton assemblage. Nutrient fluxes for both lakes are dominated by internal cycling.

The role, objective and future of local government in Victoria

Discusses the performance of the Australian local government system in the 1980s with reference to the future of local government, particularly in the Geelong region. Suggests that if reform (amalgamation) does not occur the future of local government will be under threat.