An Australian study comparing the use of multiple-choice questionnaires with assignments as interim, summative law school assessment

o the author’s knowledge, this is the first Australian study to empirically compare the use of a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) with the use of a written assignment for interim, summative law school assessment. This study also surveyed the same student sample as to what types of assessments are preferred and why. In total, 182 undergraduate property law students participated in this study. Results showed that scores for the MCQ (assessing five topics) and assignment (assessing one topic) followed a similar distribution. This indicates that an MCQ does not necessarily skew students towards higher grades than an assignment. Results also showed significant but low correlations of test scores across instruments. When asked which instrument best assessed their knowledge of property law, students expressed a strong preference for an assignment over an MCQ or examination. Comments revealed a strong belief that, because lawyers write, law schools must assess legal writing – a skill not captured by MCQs. This study is important as many Australian law schools face increasing marking loads due to higher student numbers and compulsory mid-term assessments. This article endorses the use of MCQs but only as part of a diverse suite of law school assessment.

Small amount credit contract reforms in Australia: household survey evidence & analysis

A review of small amount credit contract regulation in Australia began in 2015 as mandated under s 335A of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth). The review panel sought comprehensive data on industry and consumer characteristics and trends. To provide such evidence, consumer groups commissioned original empirical research using data collected from a longitudinal survey that monitors the financial position and attitudes of Australian households. This data on household use of small amount credit contract loans was extracted for the last decade, allowing detailed analysis of the historical patterns and developing trends. The data indicates that overall demand for small amount short duration credit is growing in Australia, the consumer base is broadening, and the predominant form of lending today is online. Deeper analysis highlights the varying motivations of borrower households and their different stages and levels of financial difficulty. It also confirms the socio-economic, employment, educational and financial disadvantages of most households using these loans and their vulnerability to adverse changes in personal circumstances and negative external shocks.

Mining and energy law

This text is an ideal starting point to understand the regulatory regimes and policy challenges relevant to Australia's mining sector.

Savings provisions in Australian electoral law : their forms, functions and historical development

The introduction of universal suffrage in 1902 established voting as a right for adult Australians who were British subjects and over 21 years of age. However, parties, parliaments, and electoral authorities have not been content with merely ensuring that citizens are entitled to vote. They have also enacted measures that aim to maximise citizen participation in elections. Turnout was made compulsory in 1925, which largely solved the ‘problem’ of voluntary abstention from the ballot box. A second concern has been disenfranchisement caused by incorrectly completed ballot papers. This situation arises when a voter submits a ballot that fails to comply with the legal requirements for a formal vote. Since the introduction of compulsory voting, debates about how to improve electoral turnout have largely concentrated on how to reduce rates of informality.The ‘problem’ of informality has long occupied the attention of electoral authorities and policy makers. This is due, in part, to the fact that rates of informality in Australia have been consistently high relative to other mature democracies. Moreover, the prevailing view in much of the Australian literature is that most informal voting is the result of mistakes and therefore ‘accidental’ or ‘unintentional’. Estimates of unintentional informal voting at national elections vary, but usually fall within the range of 80 to 85 per cent of informal votes cast. Even by the more conservative estimates of the Australian Electoral Commission (‘AEC’) the average rate of unintentional voting in the four national elections conducted in the period between 2001 and 2010 was 60.45 per cent.

Other people's country : law, water, entitlement

This issue of Settler Colonial Studies comes out of a long-term collaboration between the guest editors which began, in earnest, with a panel on the theme of ‘Other People’s Country: Law, Water, Entitlement’ at the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia conference held at the University of Sydney in December 2012. The panel’s topic was drawn from our own work on encounters between settler and indigenous ‘laws’ over specific waters, including Lake Omapere in the Hokianga district of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Lake Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada, Lake Cayuga in upper New York State, and the Wenlock, Archer, Stewart and Lockhart rivers in far north Queensland, Australia.1 Further, the conference’s provocative title (Materialities: Economies, Empiricism, & Things) corresponded to our own interest in thinking through the entangled objects of law – legislation, policies, institutions, treaties and so on – that ‘govern’ waters and that make bodies of water ‘lawful’ within these settler colonial sites today. Informed by the theoretical interventions of cosmopolitics and political ecology, each opening up new approaches to questions of politics and ‘the political’, we were interested in attempting to locate these insights within material settler colonial ‘places’ rather than abstract structures of domination. A claim to water is not simply a claim to a resource. It is a claim to knowledge and to the constitution of place and therefore, in the terms of Isabelle Stengers, to the continued constitution of the past, present and future of a ‘real world’.

Mental health legislation (civil) in Australia and China: a comparative study

This comparative review of statutory provisions of Australian and Chinese law focuses on accessibility of mental health care, diagnosis, admission and treatment orders for involuntary patients in civil cases as well as discharge procedures. The introduction contextualises the object of the comparative study, including key rights and principles that are used as the basis for analysis. Such factors as different political and legal systems, history, culture, and infrastructure resources of China and Australia form the background for the legal examination. Not surprisingly, these five factors, rather than statutory texts per se, are found to be the most important drivers of each country’s approach to the law of mental health. Two cases, XX v WW [2014] VSC 564 in Australia and Xu Lixin v Xu Canxing, Qingchun Psychiatric Rehabilitation Hospital of Shanghai [2015], known as the Right to Liberty Case, in China illustrate practical differences in legal approach to involuntary treatment. The comparative analysis concludes by identifying the most problematic aspects of the legislation in each country.

Cloud computing adoption by SMEs in Australia.

This study aims to examine the important factors that influence SMEs’ adoption of cloud computing technology. The results showing that SMEs were influenced by factors related to advantaging their organizational capability rather than risk-related factors. The findings are useful to SMEs owners, Cloud service providers and government in establishing Cloud computing adoption strategies for SMEs.

Country brand and stakeholder engagement: Case study of Australia unlimited

The thesis presents a comprehensive conceptual framework of stakeholder brand engagement with a place brand identity. The framework comprises of typology of stakeholder brand engagement in place branding context as well as drivers, inhibitors, manifestations and outcomes of such engagement.

National security, surveillance and terror: Canada and Australia in comparative perspective

This edited collection brings together leading scholars to comparatively investigate national security, surveillance and terror in the early 21st century in two major western jurisdictions, Canada and Australia. Observing that much debate about these topics is dominated by US and UK perspectives, the volume provides penetrating analysis of national security and surveillance practices in two under-studied countries that reveals critical insights into current trends. Written by a wide range of experts in their respective fields, this book addresses a fascinating array of timely questions about the relationship among national security, privacy and terror in the two countries and beyond. Chapters include critical assessments of topics such as: National Security Intelligence Collection since 9/11, The Border as Checkpoint in an Age of Hemispheric Security and Surveillance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Law Enforcement, as well as Federal Government Departments and Security Regimes. An engaging and empirically driven study, this collection will be of great interest to scholars of security and surveillance studies, policing, and comparative criminology.

The disparity between human rights policy and parliamentary practice in Australia : a Victorian case study

Over the past decade alcohol-related violence in and around licensed premises has given rise to significant legislative, regulatory and operational policing developments. In Australia, the State of Victoria introduced police-imposed banning notices as part of a range of provisions and new powers targeting alcohol-related disorderly behaviour. Banning notices exemplify a broader shift towards discretionary, pre-emptive, regulatory, summary justice which circumvents the criminal law, dilutes individual rights, and reconfigures expectations of balance in the administration of justice. The legal principles upon which banning notices are based and the way in which they were enacted by the Victorian Parliament challenge both the purpose and specific requirements of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Detailed analysis of the application of the Charter compliance processes to the banning notice provisions point to a notable disparity between the expectations of formal human rights policy and the reality of substantive practice. The broader effect of such a disconnect is potentially significant, but has been largely opaque to meaningful scrutiny.