A structural events approach to examining long-term change in the Australian trade union movement, 1969-1996

Traditional studies of long-term change in trade union structure have predominantly focused on aggregate trends in union merger activity, in constructing explanations of change. This paper argues that our understanding of structural change in the Australian trade union movement would be better served by a structural events approach that examines the incidence of union formations, dissolutions, and breakaways, in addition to that of union mergers. In doing so, it outlines how these structural events can be identified and measured, and presents the preliminary findings from the methods application.

Nurse practitioner competency standards: findings from collaborative Australian and New Zealand research

Background: The title, Nurse Practitioner, is protected in most jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand and the number of nurse practitioners is increasing in health services in both countries. Despite this expansion of the role, there is scant national or international research to inform development of nurse practitioner competency standards.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to research nurse practitioner practice to inform development of generic standards that could be applied for the education, authorisation and practice of nurse practitioners in both countries.

Design: The research used a multi-methods approach to capture a range of data sources including research of policies and curricula, and interviews with clinicians. Data were collected from relevant sources in Australia and New Zealand.

Settings: The research was conducted in New Zealand and the five states and territories in Australia where, at the time of the research, the title of nurse practitioner was legally protected.

Participants: The research was conducted with a purposeful sample of nurse practitioners from diverse clinical settings in both countries. Interviews and material data were collected from a range of sources and data were analysed within and across these data modalities.

Results: Findings included identification of three generic standards for nurse practitioner practice: namely, Dynamic Practice, Professional Efficacy and Clinical Leadership. Each of these standards has a number of practice competencies, each of these competencies with its own performance indicators.

Conclusions: Generic standards for nurse practitioner practice will support a standardised approach and mutual recognition of nurse practitioner authorisation across the two countries. Additionally, these research outcomes can more generally inform education providers, authorising bodies and clinicians on the standards of practice for the nurse practitioner whilst also contributing to the current international debate on nurse practitioner standards and scope of practice.

The structural events approach- A "better" way to understand long-term change in trade union structure: the Australian story (1986-96)

Traditional studies of long-term change in trade union structure have predominantly focused on aggregate trends in union merger activity in constructing explanations of change. Using the Australian trade union movement as an example, this article argues that our understanding of the long-term change in the external structure of trade unions would be better served by a structural events approach (Waddington, 1995) that examines the incidence of union formations, dissolutions, and breakaways, in addition to that of union mergers. In doing so, this article presents new data on structural change in the Australian trade union movement between 1986 and 1996, and explains the additional contribution made by union dissolutions and union formations to the reductionist effects of the merger wave that dominated these years.

Nurse practitioner standards project : report to the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council

The aims of the project have been to conduct research that will inform a description of the core role of the nurse, core competency standards for the nurse and standards for education and program accreditation for nurse preparation leading to regsitration and authorisation.

Nurse practitioner standards : an Australian and New Zealand research collaboration

This paper will report the findings from research conducted in Australia and New Zealand to inform development of standards for nurse practitioner education and practice competencies. In New Zealand and Australia the nurse practitioner is a new and unique level of health-care provider. The shifting boundaries caused by health-care reform have created impetus and demand for development of new models of health-care, but have also created some uncertainty regarding nurse practitioner standards, education and models of care. The title, Nurse Practitioner, is now legislated in New Zealand and most jurisdictions in Australia but there is scant research to inform development of nurse practitioner standards. This research, sponsored by the Australian Nursing Council and the Nursing Council of New Zealand, was conducted to develop generic standards that could be applied for the education, authorisation and practice of nurse practitioners in both countries. The study involved collection and triangulation of data from a range of sources across Australia and New Zealand including: in-depth interviews with 15 nurse practitioners from different geographical and clinical contexts; curriculum survey of all nurse practitioner courses in the two countries and interview with convenors of these courses; collation of the authorisation/registration processes and policies from states and territories in Australia, New Zealand and internationally. These data were analysed within and across the data modalities to provide information on standards for nurse practitioner practice and education. Findings from the study included identification of the core role of the nurse practitioner as it is expressed in New Zealand and Australia and generic standards for nurse practitioner competencies, education and authorisation. These findings will standardise expectations, support mutual recognition of nurse practitioner authorisation across the two countries and make an important contribution to the current international debate on nurse practitioner standards and scope of practice.

Changing journalism for the likely present

Media convergence and newsroom integration have become industry buzzwords as the ideas spread through newsrooms around the world. In November 2007 Fairfax Media in Australia introduced the newsroom of the future model, as its flagship newspapers moved into a purpose-built newsroom in Sydney. News Ltd, the country’s next biggest media group, is also embracing multi-media forms of reporting. What are the implications of this development for journalism? This paper examines changes in the practice of journalism in Australia and around the world. It attempts to answer the question: How does the practice of journalism need to change to prepare not for the future, but for the likely present.

Early in November 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Sun-Herald moved into a new building dubbed the ‘newsroom of the future’ at One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct. Phil McLean, at the time Fairfax Media’s group executive editor and the man in charge of the move, said three quarters of the entire process involved getting people to ‘think differently’ – that is, to modify their mindset so they could work with multi-media.

The new newsroom symbolised the culmination of a series of major changes at Fairfax. In August 2006 the traditional newspaper company, John Fairfax Ltd, changed its name to Fairfax Media to reflect its multi-platform future. In March 2007 Fairfax launched Australia’s first online-only daily publication in Queensland, brisbanetimes.com.au. In May 2007 Fairfax completed its merger with Rural Press to become the biggest media company in Australasia, with annual revenues of about $2.5 billion and market capitalisation of about $7 billion. Two months later Fairfax got even bigger when it acquired at least one radio station in all Australian capital cities plus television studios when it bought Southern Cross Broadcasting. Fairfax is expected to bid for one of the two digital television licences made available by the changes to media ownership laws promulgated in May 2007.

The aim in moving Fairfax from a print to a multi-platform company was to reach as large an audience as possible. ‘We have a total readership in print of over 4 million per day and online of over 5 million per month’, CEO David Kirk said at the time of the Rural Press merger. ‘Our brand of quality, independent, balanced journalism will serve and support more communities than ever’ (Kirk 2007). A few months earlier chairman Ron Walker had written in the company’s annual report: ‘Fairfax is evolving into a truly digital media company’ (2006: 2). Within five years Fairfax would be a significantly bigger Internet company that distributed its content ‘over more media’, Kirk wrote in the same report (2006: 5).

Kirk developed a three-pronged strategy. The first part of the strategy involved the need to ‘defend and grow our newspaper publishing businesses’ – that is, to consolidate and develop the existing newspapers, whose circulations were holding steady during the week and improving on Saturdays. The second part involved plans to ‘accelerate the revenue and earnings of our digital business’. The third part was ‘to build a digital media company for the twenty-first century’ (Fairfax annual report 2006: 3). In June 2007 Kirk appointed Tim Mannes project leader for the Fairfax Media-Rural Press integration. ‘The purpose of the integration work is to bring the two companies together and build what is truly Australasia’s leading media company’, Mannes wrote in a memo to all staff on 7 June 2007. ‘It’s vital throughout this process that we maintain continuity and momentum and protect the interests and needs of our customers’ (2007: 1).

The business model appears attractive. Kirk said Fairfax’s increased scale and diversity would mean it relied less on classified lineage advertising in major metropolitan newspapers, so it could ‘rapidly develop the best online response to changing media advertising patterns’. In the two years to 2006, online’s contribution to Fairfax’s profits had grown from 1 per cent to 14 per cent with ‘much more to come’. Online’s share of the national advertising pie had grown from 2 per cent in 2002 to 10 per cent in 2006 (Beverley 2007: 6) and had jumped to 14 per cent in 2007. Analysts said they were happy with Fairfax’s move ‘from a newspaper company to a media company’ and banks such as Credit Suisse upgraded their profits forecast (AFR 19 September 2007: 37).

Planning for the move to One Darling Island Road in Sydney’s Darling Harbour started early in 2006. Fairfax CEO David Kirk took personal responsibility. He and chairman Ron Walker visited integrated sites around the world, along with a group of editorial bosses. The favoured site was The Daily Telegraph in London, which embraced convergence from June 2006. CEO Murdoch McLennan hired a consultant from Ifra, Dr Dietmar Schantin, director of the Newsplex, to facilitate the move from mono-media to multi-media at The Telegraph. Schantin said change was less about new technologies and more about altering the established mindset. The focus must be on the audience: ‘The whole idea of audience orientation seems to be quite new for some newspapers. In the past it was more “we know what is good for our readers and so we distribute the content”.’ Newspapers were a service industry whose service was information and news, he said. Newspapers had to learn to ‘serve’ its audience with the things the audience wanted to know, on any appropriate platform. ‘We start from the audience. What they want is a very important point. That does not mean that a newspaper should just do what the audience wants. The newspaper [also] needs to stick
to its core values’ (Luft 2006, Coleman 2007: 5).

Tom Curley, CEO of the world’s biggest newsgathering organisation, Associated Press, gave an important speech to the annual Knight-Bagehot dinner in New York in November 2007. The news industry had come to a fork in the road and needed to take bold steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role for both the economy and democracy, he said. Otherwise the media industry would find itself ‘on an ugly path to obscurity’. He similarly emphasised the need to serve the audience: ‘Our focus must be on becoming the very best at filling people’s 24-hour news needs. That’s a huge shift from the we-know-best, gatekeeper thinking. Sourcing, fact gathering, researching, storytelling, editing [and] packaging aren’t going away’
(Curley 2007).

Kirk appointed a ‘newsroom of the future’ committee from editorial (reporters and photographers), IT and HR. The committee initiated a study tour by editorial executives of leading integrated and converged newsrooms in the UK and the US in April 2007. This became known as the ‘Tier 1’ course and involved the editor and deputy editor of The Age, and the news editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. The Herald’s editor went to the annual conference of the World Association of Newspapers in Cape Town, South Africa in June 2007 because that event featured convergence as one of its main themes (PANPA Bulletin June 2007: 6). The committee designed a two-day awareness course for senior editorial managers, known as ‘Tier 2’, that was run in Sydney in July 2007. The ‘Tier 3’ program for all editorial staff started in August 2007 and this ‘multi-media awareness program’ continued until the end of the year. A ‘Tier 4’ course for about 10 per cent of editorial staff (about 40 journalists), where they learned a range of multi-media skills, was scheduled to start after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. The author facilitated most of the Tier 2 and 3 courses.

The Tier 3 and 4 courses have profound implications for journalism education in Australia because they represent the start of major changes to how journalists work in Australia. The process reflects evolution in newsroom practices around the world. In November 2006 Ifra, the international media research company, asked newspaper executives worldwide about their priorities for 2007. The survey attracted 240 responses from 43 countries and results appeared in January 2007. Integration, editorial convergence and cross-media strategies attracted the most attention. Four in five executives rated it one of their top priorities, and half made it their main priority in terms of allocating ‘significant’ funds (Ifra 2007: 34). Ifra repeated the survey in November 2007 and published the results in January 2008. Expanding web strategies was first on the list for 2008, just ahead of editorial convergence strategies, which topped the list in 2007. Improving video and audio content jumped 14 places, and mobile phone strategies leapt 9 places between 2007 and 2008 to be near the top of the list (Ifra 2008: 8).

Capitalism's new handmaiden : the biotechnical world negotiated through children's fiction

In an era when the merger between capitalism and science becomes an accepted norm, new questions need to be asked about the ethical implications of scientific practices. One such practice is organ transplantation. However, potent debates surround the just distribution and ethical implications of organ transplantation. This paper examines the ways in which children are socialised through children’s literature to accept or challenge the dominant ideologies underpinning organ transplantation. It argues that how subjectivity is constructed informs understandings of agency, and this in turn can deliver new approaches to concerns about scientific practices.

Segment reporting and corporate takeovers : user needs

The nature of a corporate takeover often leads to the contraction in the number of companies operating in a given industry classification, along with the contraction in the amount of formal financial statements produced by the companies in that industry. Since 1985 Australian diversified companies are required to break their operations down into industry and geographical segments, so it would be expected that companies which diversify their operations through a corporate takeover would be forerunners in the adoption of this relatively new accounting standard on segment reporting. While previous studies have both declared the benefits of segment reporting to report users, and exposed some preconceived problems of its application in practice, there has not been any work on the 'usefulness1 of segment reporting as a form of reporting that will compensate shareholder users for the information loss suffered during a corporate takeover. This study endeavours to determine this, by questioning shareholders of companies that have been involved in takeovers in a period subsequent to the application date of the segment reporting standard, and obtaining their views on the usefulness of the post-takeover segment reports produced by their companies. A link is discovered to exist between shareholder dissatisfaction with segment reporting and the non-practice of creating a new segment in the post-takeover annual report for the target acquired. The underlying assumption that the practice of new segment creation after a takeover is influenced by the type of takeover undertaken is supported by the study. Regardless of whether or not a company is diversified before the takeover, the findings show that a corporate acquirer in a takeover is less likely to create a new industry or geographical segment for the target acquired if they are involved in horizontal or vertical takeovers than if they are involved in diversified takeovers. In these situations, segment reporting is found to not compensate shareholders for the loss of information incurred by them in these types of takeovers.

Extracting fingerprint features using textures

Personal identification of individuals is becoming increasingly adopted in society today. Due to the large number of electronic systems that require human identification, faster and more secure identification systems are pursued. Biometrics is based upon the physical characteristics of individuals; of these the fingerprint is the most common as used within law enforcement. Fingerprint-based systems have been introduced into the society but have not been well received due to relatively high rejection rates and false acceptance rates. This limited acceptance of fingerprint identification systems requires new techniques to be investigated to improve this identification method and the acceptance of the technology within society. Electronic fingerprint identification provides a method of identifying an individual within seconds quickly and easily. The fingerprint must be captured instantly to allow the system to identify the individual without any technical user interaction to simplify system operation. The performance of the entire system relies heavily on the quality of the original fingerprint image that is captured digitally. A single fingerprint scan for verification makes it easier for users accessing the system as it replaces the need to remember passwords or authorisation codes. The identification system comprises of several components to perform this function, which includes a fingerprint sensor, processor, feature extraction and verification algorithms. A compact texture feature extraction method will be implemented within an embedded microprocessor-based system for security, performance and cost effective production over currently available commercial fingerprint identification systems. To perform these functions various software packages are available for developing programs for windows-based operating systems but must not constrain to a graphical user interface alone. MATLAB was the software package chosen for this thesis due to its strong mathematical library, data analysis and image analysis libraries and capability. MATLAB enables the complete fingerprint identification system to be developed and implemented within a PC environment and also to be exported at a later date directly to an embedded processing environment. The nucleus of the fingerprint identification system is the feature extraction approach presented in this thesis that uses global texture information unlike traditional local information in minutiae-based identification methods. Commercial solid-state sensors such as the type selected for use in this thesis have a limited contact area with the fingertip and therefore only sample a limited portion of the fingerprint. This limits the number of minutiae that can be extracted from the fingerprint and as such limits the number of common singular points between two impressions of the same fingerprint. The application of texture feature extraction will be tested using variety of fingerprint images to determine the most appropriate format for use within the embedded system. This thesis has focused on designing a fingerprint-based identification system that is highly expandable using the MATLAB environment. The main components that are defined within this thesis are the hardware design, image capture, image processing and feature extraction methods. Selection of the final system components for this electronic fingerprint identification system was determined by using specific criteria to yield the highest performance from an embedded processing environment. These platforms are very cost effective and will allow fingerprint-based identification technology to be implemented in more commercial products that can benefit from the security and simplicity of a fingerprint identification system.

Changes in the Australian Commonwealth departmental machinery of government 1928-1982

The Commonwealth departmental machinery of government is changed by using Orders in Council to create, abolish or change the name of departments. Since 1906 governments have utilised a particular form of Order in Council, the Administrative Arrangements Order (AAO), as the means to reallocate functions between departments for administration. After 1928 successive governments from Scullin to Fraser gradually streamlined and increasingly used the formal processes for the executive to change departmental arrangements and the practical role of Parliament, in the process of change, virtually disappeared. From 1929 to 1982, 105 separate departments were brought into being, as new departments or through merger, and 91 were abolished, following the merger of their functions in one way or another with other departments. These figures exclude 6 situations where the change was simply that of name alone. Several hundred less substantial transfers of responsibilities were also made between departments. This dissertation describes, documents and analyses all these changes. The above changes can be distilled down to 79 events termed primary decisions. Measures of the magnitude of change arising from the decisions are developed with 157.25 units of change identified as occurring during the period, most being in the Whitlam and Fraser periods. The reasons for the changes were assessed and classified as occurring for reasons of policy, administrative logic or cabinet comfort. 47.2% of the units of change were attributed to policy, 34.9% to administrative logic, 17% to cabinet comfort. Further conclusions are drawn from more detailed analysis of the change and the reasons for the changes.

Structural change in the Australian trade union movement

This thesis used a 'structural events' approach to examine changes in Australian trade union structure between 1969 and 1996. Broad labour market trends and legal and industrial factors resulted in a high level of union formations and dissolutions between 1969 and 1984. Post-1985, agency factors produced a merger wave.

Context-based e-health system access control mechanism

E-Health systems logically demand a sufficiently fine-grained authorization policy for access control. The access to medical information should not be just role-based but should also include the contextual condition of the role to access data. In this paper, we present a mechanism to extend the standard role-based access control to incorporate contextual information for making access control decisions in e-health application. We present an architecture consisting of authorisation and context infrastructure that work cooperatively to grant access rights based on context-aware authorization policies and context information.

An analysis of police officers decisions about whether to refer cases of child abuse for prosecution

In many jurisdictions, police officers are responsible for deciding whether cases of child abuse are referred for potential prosecution. Such discretion justifies the need to scrutinise these professionals' decisions to determine if they are consistent with the scientific eyewitness memory literature. Prior research has shown that interviewer questioning is one of the most critical factors impacting the reliability of child witness statements. Hence, we asked: 'To what degree do officers' consider the quality of interviewer questions when making case authorisation decisions?'. In order to answer this question, we conducted a thematic analysis to identify issues referred to in a sample of documented police correspondence (n=33) about potential prosecution of child abuse cases. Two key themes emerged: the existence of corroborative evidence and whether the suspect denied the allegations. Questioning technique, however, was not considered. All but one decision that referred to interview process focused on the presentation of the witness, even though the witness interviews (as a whole) did not adhere to recommended best-practice guidelines. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Is all cartel activity evil?

The new Australian cartel laws prohibit a provision of a contract, arrangement or understanding that inter alia, results in price fixing and output restriction between competitors in the relevant market. This is subject to a recognition that sometimes such conduct can be in the public interest, in which case the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) may grant an authorisation. One such instance may be an activity characterised by substantial externalised cost. An authorisation application would need to provide suitable evidence in support of the underlying case being argued. Traditionally in Australia, such evidence has been qualitative in nature; however, where possible, the ACCC and its counterparts in the EU and New Zealand encourage quantitative estimates. This is a case study of the welfare impact of output restrictions in the Australian beer industry, which is a source of substantial negative externalities. A standard simulation exercise is utilised as an example of how applicants and the competition regulator might combine theoretical and quantitative concepts to better achieve the objectives of the new legislation.

Creating an Innovation Exception? Copyright Law as the Infrastructure for Innovation

Innovation is clearly essential for economic growth, cultural development and personal autonomy. Yet the relationship between innovation and copyright law in Australia is uncertain and perhaps overly restrictive. After the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement Australia now has a copyright regime that can broadly be
described as a lock up and lock out scheme. Whilst the Australian Government has paid lip service to innovation the Australian Copyright Act, which provides the essential legal infrastructure for innovation, now privileges the rights of owners over the interests of the public. In particular, the Copyright Act neglects to create a specific exception for technology innovation. If there is to be some coherence in Australia
thinking with regards to innovation and copyright policy it is crucial that such an exception be created. Arguably, it is possible that such an exception can withstand the scrutiny of the three step test. At present the only ‘exception’ that can be said to exist is in the form of the limits of the authorisation liability provisions or the ISP safe harbour scheme. Australian copyright law needs something more substantial than that
and needs for there to be a clear hierarchy between the exceptions and the liability provisions.