Australian waterfalls as tourism attractions

For a largely arid country with generally low relief, Australia has a remarkably large number and variety of waterfalls. Found mainly near the coast, close to where most of the population lives and near the major tourist resort areas, these landscape features have long been popular scenic attractions. As sights to see and places to enjoy a variety of recreational activities, waterfalls continue to play an important role in Australia’s tourism, even in seaside resort areas where the main attractions are sunshine, sandy beaches and surf. The aesthetic appeal of waterfalls and their value as recreational resources are recognized by the inclusion of many in national parks. Even here, demands of visitors and pressures from developers raise serious problems. This paper examines the way in which waterfalls have been developed and promoted as tourist attractions, demonstrating their importance to Australian tourism. It considers threats to the sustainable use of waterfall resources posed by power schemes and, particularly, by the tourist industry itself. Queensland’s Gold Coast is selected as a case study, and comparisons are made with other areas in which waterfalls have played important roles as tourist attractions, especially the Yorkshire coast of northeast England. The discussion draws largely on an examination of tourist literature from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, including holiday brochures and guide books, as well as other published sources, together with field observation in various parts of the world

The paradox of transparency : short-termism and the institutionalisation of Australian capital markets

As the ultimate corporate decision-makers, directors have an impact on the investment time horizons of the corporations they govern. How they make investment decisions has been profoundly influenced by the expansion of the investment chain and the increasing concentration of share ownership in institutional hands. By examining agency in light of legal theory, we highlight that the board is in fact sui generis and not an agent of shareholders. Consequently, transparency can lead to directors being 'captured' by institutional investor objectives and timeframes, potentially to the detriment of the corporation as a whole. The counter-intuitive conclusion is that transparency may, under certain conditions, undermine good corporate governance and lead to excessive short-termism.

AIDS and pro-social television : industry, policy and Australian television drama

This thesis examines the intersection of popular cultural representations of HIV and AIDS and the discourses of public health campaigns. Part Two provides a comprehensive record of all HIV related storylines in Australian television drama from the first AIDS episode of The Flying Doctors in 1986 to the ongoing narrative of Pacific Drive, with its core HIV character, in 1996. Textual representations are examined alongside the agency of "cultural technicians" working within the television industry. The framework for this analysis is established in Part One of the thesis, which examines the discursive contexts for speaking about HIV and AIDS established through national health policy and the regulatory and industry framework for broadcasting in Australia. The thesis examines the dominant liberal democratic framework for representation of HIV I AIDS and adopts a Foucauldian understanding of the processes of governmentality to argue that during the period of the 1980s and 1990s a strand of social democratic discourse combined with practices of self management and the management of the Australian population. The actions of committed agents within both domains of popular culture and health education ensured that more challenging expressions of HIV found their way into public culture.

Connecting Diversity : Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia

Commissioned by SBS, and published in March 2006, Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia is a follow-up study to SBS’s 2002 report, Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future. The attitudes of many younger Australians from culturally diverse backgrounds reveal paradoxes about Australian multiculturalism today. This report sheds light on their views, experiences and expectations and the role of media in their lives. Younger, culturally and linguistically diverse Australians are often the subject of mediafanned controversy about disaffection, ‘ethnic gangs’ and cultural isolation. While these controversies tend to be localised – Cronulla, Inala or Bankstown – Connecting Diversity tells a national and quite different story. This research builds upon the findings of the 2002 report, Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future, which challenged common assumptions about contemporary multicultural Australia. In an era of fragmenting media and assumed political apathy, Connecting Diversity further examines many of the findings of the earlier study, with a new focus on younger people, cultural identity and media use. Connecting Diversity reveals individual experiences and often contradictory ideas about media and diversity in Australia. Disjunctions appear to exist between an individual’s experience and their thoughts about Australia’s national identity. Multiculturalism is valued for broadening the appreciation of difference, yet this support can coexist with concerns about perceived segregation, usually ‘elsewhere’ in Australia. Younger people tend to be more comfortable with cultural difference than previous generations and cite their own diverse network of friends as one of the reasons for this. Even so, some describe experiences of racism that engender a feeling of exclusion from ‘mainstream’ society. In their everyday lives, social relationships are navigated through regular and familiar connections on the one hand, and experiences and expressions of disconnection on the other. Racism and tolerance may be expressed almost simultaneously. These disconnections are often managed through ‘practical tolerance',allowing them to negotiate these apparent contradictions. The connections can be based simultaneously on such things as work, family,religion, friendships or location. The result is a multilayered sense of personal belonging and community connection. A large number of respondents in these focus groups expressed frustration at the failings of media, especially news and current affairs coverage, yet spoke enthusiastically about the accessibility and range of media compared to what was available to previous generations. In their many forms, media remain a key ingredient of self-identification among younger Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds who are especially cynical about media and disillusioned by their perceived inability to influence issues that are important to them. These findings reveal that although they may be cynical about media messages, these younger Australians are looking for connection through media and are seeking ways to participate in meaningful ways. This raises questions about the possibilities for media to empower younger people to play a part in genuine cultural democracy. By capturing the attitudes of Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds under the age of 40, Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia provides an insight into social trends and the generational and cultural changes that are now shaping Australia.

Community participation in the development of digital radio : the Australian experience

The participation of the community broadcasting sector in the development of digital radio provides a potentially valuable opportunity for non-market, end user-driven experimentation in the development of these new services in Australia. However this development path is constrained by various factors, some of which are specific to the community broadcasting sector and others that are generic to the broader media and communications policy, industrial and technological context. This paper filters recent developments in digital radio policy and implementation through the perspectives of community radio stakeholders, obtained through interviews, to describe and analyse these constraints. The early stage of digital community radio presented here is intended as a baseline for tracking the development of the sector as digital radio broadcasting develops. We also draw upon insights from scholarly debates about citizens media and participatory culture to identify and discuss two sets of opportunities for social benefit that are enabled by the inclusion of community radio in digital radio service development. The first arises from community broadcasting’s involvement in the propagation of the multi-literacies that drive new digital economies, not only through formal and informal multi- and trans-media training, but also in the ‘co-creative’ forms of collaborative and participatory media production that are fostered in the sector. The second arises from the fact that community radio is uniquely placed — indeed charged with the responsibility — to facilitate social participation in the design and operation of media institutions themselves, not just their service outputs.

Sport and the law implications for the nonprofit corporation

Sports associations constitute a large portion of the nonprofit sector. The past 15 years have witnessed substantial changes in the overall legal environment in which they operate. This paper will examine selected aspects of those changes with a view to identifying considerations which may be relevant to the way in which nonprofit corporations in sport ought to be regulated

CO2 emissions from the combustion of native Australian trees

Carbon dioxide (CO2), as a primary product of combustion, is a known factor affecting climate change and global warming. In Australia, CO2 emissions from biomass burning are a significant contributor to total carbon in the atmosphere and therefore, it is important to quantify the CO2 emission factors from biomass burning in order to estimate their magnitude and impact on the Australian atmosphere. This paper presents the quantification of CO2 emission factors for five common tree species found in South East Queensland forests, as well as several grasses taken from savannah lands in the Northern Territory of Australia, under controlled ‘fast burning’ and ‘slow burning’ laboratory conditions. The results showed that CO2 emission factors varied according to the type of vegetation and burning conditions, with emission factors for fast burning being 2574 ± 254 g/kg for wood, 394 ± 40 g/kg for branches and leaves, and 2181 ± 120 g/kg for grass. Under slow burning conditions, the CO2 emission factors were 218 ± 20 g/kg for wood, 392± 80 g/kg for branches and leaves, and 2027 ± 809 g/kg for grass.

The empire goes to war : News Corporation and Iraq

The three main contributors to the war on Iraq in March 2003 (the United States, United Kingdom and Australia) are also the three most significant countries in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation operates. This article examines the degree of editorial conformity (or otherwise) that existed across the news media of News Corporation in six months leading to the invasion. It compares the framing of the arguments for war and finds significant similarities across the three countries, especially in the output of columnists and commentators employed by News Corporation. While generally pro-war, however, News Corporation outlets also displayed local variations in the caution or stridency of their editorial pitch as well as the degree of toleration for debate. The extent and significance of these variations are used in the article to argue for the development of a more complex political economy model in the study of private news media bias.

Academics and activists in the policy process : engagement with Australian media inquiries 2011-13

After its narrow re-election in June 2010, the Australian Labor government undertook a series of public inquiries into reform of Australian media, communications and copyright laws. One important driver of policy reform was the government’s commitment to building a National Broadband Network (NBN), and the implications this had for existing broadcasting and telecommunications policy, as it would constitute a major driver of convergence of media and communications access devices and content platforms. These inquiries included: the Convergence Review of media and communications legislation; the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) review of the National Classification Scheme; the Independent Media Inquiry (Finkelstein Review) into Media and Media Regulation; and the ALRC review of Copyright and the Digital Economy. One unusual feature of this review process, discussed in the paper, was the degree to which academics were involved in the process, not simply as providers of expert opinion, but as review chairs seconded from their universities. This paper considers the role played by activist groups in all of these inquiries and their relationship to the various participants in the inquiries, as well as the implications of academics being engaged in such inquiries, not simply as activist-scholars, but as those primarily responsible for delivering policy review outcomes. The latter brings to the forefront issues arising in from direct engagement with governments and state agencies themselves, which challenges traditional understandings of the academic community as “critical outsiders” towards such policy processes.

Academics in the policy process : engagement with Australian media policy inquiries 2011-2013

This paper critically evaluates the series of inquires that the Australian Labor government undertook during 2011-2013 into reform of Australian media, communications and copyright laws. One important driver of policy reform was the government’s commitment to building a National Broadband Network (NBN), and the implications this had for existing broadcasting and telecommunications policy, as it would constitute a major driver of convergence of media and communications access devices and content platforms. These inquiries included: the Convergence Review of media and communications legislation; the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) review of the National Classification Scheme; and the Independent Media Inquiry (Finkelstein Review) into Media and Media Regulation. One unusual feature of this review process was the degree to which academics were involved in the process, not simply as providers of expert opinion, but as review chairs seconded from their universities. This paper considers the role played by activist groups in all of these inquiries and their relationship to the various participants in the inquiries, as well as the implications of academics being engaged in such inquiries, not simply as activist-scholars, but as those primarily responsible for delivering policy review outcomes. The paper draws upon the concept of "policy windows" in order to better understand the context in which the inquiries took place, and their relative lack of legislative impact.