Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into affordable housing 20 August 2014: De-risking development of medium density housing to improve housing affordability and boost supply

This submission addresses the problem of housing price inflation, the chronic under-supply of new housing stock, and the resultant decline in housing affordability for low and middle income households. It specifically focusses on the supply of medium density housing (multi-unit development) in Melbourne, although we believe that the observations made about housing in supply in Melbourne are relevant in other urban centres and to other types of housing supply. In terms of medium density housing (MDH) our concern also extends to the poor quality and design. Why the market tends to deliver generic apartments of poor quality and design which are uncompetitive with lower density housing and amenity despite planning objectives, and how this apparently intractable problem can be overcome is the topic of this submission...

Turning the Kaleidoscope - (E)FL Educational Experience and Inquiry as Auto/biography

This book is a study on learning, teaching/counselling, and research on the two. My quest has been to find a pedagogically-motivated way of researching learning and teaching interaction, and in particular counselling, in an autonomous language-learning environment. I have tried to develop a method that would make room for lived experience, meaning-making and narrating, because in my view these all characterise learning encounters between language learners and counsellors, and learners and their peers. Lived experience as a source of meaning, telling and co-telling becomes especially significant when we try to listen to the diverse personal and academic voices of the past as expressed in autobiographical narratives. I have aimed at researching various ALMS dialogues (Autonomous Learning Modules, University of Helsinki Language Centre English course and programme), and autobiographical narratives within them, in a way that shows respect for the participants, and that is relevant, reflective and, most importantly, self-reflexive. My interest has been in autobiographical telling in (E)FL [(English as a) foreign language], both in students first-person written texts on their language- learning histories and in the sharing of stories between learners and a counsellor. I have turned to narrative inquiry in my quest and have written the thesis as an experiential narrative. In particular, I have studied learners and counsellors in one and the same story, as characters in one narrative, in an attempt to avoid the impression that I am telling yet another separate, anecdotal story, retrospectively. Through narrative, I have shed light on the subjective dimensions of language learning and experience, and have come closer to understanding the emotional aspects of learning encounters. I have questioned and rejected a distanced and objective approach to describing learning and teaching/counselling. I have argued for a holistic and experiential approach to (E)FL encounters in which there is a need to see emotion and cognition as intertwined, and thus to appreciate learners and counsellors emotionally-charged experiences as integral to their identities. I have also argued for a way of describing such encounters as they are situated in history, time, autobiography, and the learning context. I have turned my gaze on various constellations of lived experience: the data was collected on various occasions and in various settings during one course and consists of videotaped group sessions, individual counselling sessions between students and their group counsellor, biographic narrative interviews with myself, open-ended personally-inspired reflection texts written by the students about their language-learning histories, and student logs and diaries. I do not consider data collection an unproblematic occasion, or innocent practice, and I defend the integrity of the research process. Research writing cannot be separated from narrative field work and analysing and interpreting the data. The foci in my work have turned to be the following: 1) describing ALMS encounters and specifying their narrative aspects; 2) reconceptualising learner and teacher autonomy in ALMS and in (E)FL; 2) developing (E)FL methodologically through a teacher-researcher s identity work; 4) research writing as a dialogical narrative process, and the thesis as an experiential narrative. Identity and writing as inquiry, and the deeply narrative and autobiographical nature of the (E)FL teaching/counselling/researching have come to the fore in this research. Research writing as a relational activity and its implications for situated ways of knowing and knowledge turned out to be important foci. I have also focussed on the context-bound and local teacher knowledge and ways of knowing about being a teacher, and I have argued for personal ways of knowing about, and learning and studying foreign languages. I discuss research as auto/biography: as a practising counsellor I use my own life and (E)FL experience to understand and interpret the stories of the research participants even though I was not involved in their course work. The supposedly static binaries of learner/teacher, and also learner autonomy/teacher autonomy, are thus brought into the discussion. I have highlighted the infinite variability and ever-changing nature of learning and teaching English, but the book is also of relevance to foreign language education in general.

How to design educational settings to promote collaborative inquiry: Pedagogical infrastructures for technology-enhanced progressive inquiry

Strategies of scientific, question-driven inquiry are stated to be important cultural practices that should be educated in schools and universities. The present study focuses on investigating multiple efforts to implement a model of Progressive Inquiry and related Web-based tools in primary, secondary and university level education, to develop guidelines for educators in promoting students collaborative inquiry practices with technology. The research consists of four studies. In Study I, the aims were to investigate how a human tutor contributed to the university students collaborative inquiry process through virtual forums, and how the influence of the tutoring activities is demonstrated in the students inquiry discourse. Study II examined an effort to implement technology-enhanced progressive inquiry as a distance working project in a middle school context. Study III examined multiple teachers' methods of organizing progressive inquiry projects in primary and secondary classrooms through a generic analysis framework. In Study IV, a design-based research effort consisting of four consecutive university courses, applying progressive inquiry pedagogy, was retrospectively re-analyzed in order to develop the generic design framework. The results indicate that appropriate teacher support for students collaborative inquiry efforts appears to include interplay between spontaneity and structure. Careful consideration should be given to content mastery, critical working strategies or essential knowledge practices that the inquiry approach is intended to promote. In particular, those elements in students activities should be structured and directed, which are central to the aim of Progressive Inquiry, but which the students do not recognize or demonstrate spontaneously, and which are usually not taken into account in existing pedagogical methods or educational conventions. Such elements are, e.g., productive co-construction activities; sustained engagement in improving produced ideas and explanations; critical reflection of the adopted inquiry practices, and sophisticated use of modern technology for knowledge work. Concerning the scaling-up of inquiry pedagogy, it was concluded that one individual teacher can also apply the principles of Progressive Inquiry in his or her own teaching in many innovative ways, even under various institutional constraints. The developed Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework enabled recognizing and examining some central features and their interplay in the designs of examined inquiry units. The framework may help to recognize and critically evaluate the invisible learning-cultural conventions in various educational settings and can mediate discussions about how to overcome or change them.

Submission for the Inquiry into the Establishment of a Queensland Health Promotion Commission

This submission outlines eight evidence-based recommendations for consideration by the inquiry committee to achieve the goal of improved and sustained health and wellbeing among Queenslanders. For the Queensland Government to be effective in establishing a commission to improve and sustain health and wellbeing, we recommend the eight actions.

Reflective perspectives: Negotiations at and within the borders of cultural difference: A post-qualitative inquiry of cultural hybridity within third space enunciations

This research explores the in-between space of intercultural collaboration between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia. Using critical and third space theories and a post-qualitative inquiry, I examine negotiations of cultural difference through articulated moments of intercultural collaboration in order to inform intercultural pedagogical practices. This research also explores how ideology, imbued through discourse, has the power to enforce or challenge cultural and social domination. This in turn creates cultural hegemony, a process whereby a particular social and cultural group has the power to influence the thoughts, expectations and behaviours of a particular society.

‘Lemon Laws’: an inquiry into consumer protections and remedies for buyers of new motor vehicles

1. Under the Terms of Reference for the Committee’s Inquiry, ‘lemons’ are defined as ‘new motor vehicles with numerous, severe defects that re-occur despite multiple repair attempts or where defects have caused a new motor vehicle to be out of service for a prolonged period of time’. Consumers are currently protected in relation to lemon purchases by the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) located in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA). The ACL applies as a law of Queensland pursuant to the Fair Trading Act 1989 (Qld). The voluntary recall and consumer guarantees law took effect on 1 January 2011. 2. In 2006, the Government of Victoria made a commitment to introduce a lemon law into the provisions of the then Fair Trading Act 1999 (Vic). The public consultation process on the proposal to introduce a lemon law for motor vehicle purchases in Victoria was conducted by Ms Janice Munt MP, with the assistance of Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV). CAV released an Issues Paper to canvas with industry and the community options for the development and introduction of a motor vehicle lemon law.(Consumer Affairs Victoria, Introducing Victorian motor vehicle lemon laws, Issues Paper, (September, 2007). 3. A CAV report prepared by Janice Munt MP was released in July, 2008 (Consumer Affairs Victoria, Motor Cars: A report on the motor vehicle lemon law consultations (July 2008) (Victorian Lemon Law Report). However, the Victorian proposal was overtaken by events leading to the adoption of a uniform consumer protection law in all Australian jurisdictions, the ACL. 4. The structure of this submission is to consider first the three different bases upon which consumers can obtain relief for economic loss arising from defects in motor vehicles. The second part of the submission considers the difficulties encountered by consumers in litigating motor vehicle disputes in the courts and tribunals. The third part of the submission examines the approach taken in other jurisdictions to resolving motor vehicle disputes. The final part of the submission considers a number of possible reforms that could be made to the existing law and its enforcement to reduce consumer detriment arising from the purchase of ‘lemon’ motor vehicles. 5. There are three principal bases upon which a consumer can obtain redress for defects in new motor vehicles under the ACL. The first is where the manufacturer admits liability and initiates the voluntary recall procedure provided for in s 128 of the ACL. Under this basis the manufacturer generally repairs or replaces the part subject to the recall free of charge. The second basis is where the manufacturer or dealer denies liability and the consumer is initiates proceedings in the court or tribunal seeking a statutory remedy under the ACL, the nature of which will depend on whether the failure to comply with the consumer guarantee was major or not. The third basis upon which a consumer can obtain redress is pursuant to public enforcement by the ACCC. Each basis will be considered in this part. What all three bases have in common is the need to conduct an investigation to identify the nature of the defect and how it arose.

The gradual release of responsibility: A case study of teaching science inquiry skills

This thesis investigated how a year-4 teacher used a pedagogical approach referred to as the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) model of instruction for teaching Science Inquiry Skills in a primary classroom. Through scaffolding her students' learning using the GRR, the teacher guided her students towards developing an understanding about Scientific Inquiry leading to the foundations of scientific literacy. A learning environment was established in which students engaged in rich conversations, designed and conducted experiments using fair testing procedures, analysed and offered justifications for results, and negotiated knowledge claims in ways similar to some of those in the scientific community.

Inquiry learning: A pedagogical and curriculum framework for information literacy

This chapter presents an inquiry learning framework that can be used as a pathway for the development of information literacy in both K-12 and higher education. Inquiry learning is advocated as an authentic and active approach that draws upon students’ natural curiosity. The pedagogical and curriculum framework incorporates three major elements: questioning frameworks, information literacy and an iterative research cycle. Models and strategies for the elements of the framework are presented and discussed. The chapter ends with an acknowledgement of the challenges associated with implementing inquiry learning.

The EU and Institutional Twinning in Morocco - An inquiry into the motives of cooperation through discourse ethics

This study examines Institutional Twinning in Morocco as a case of EU cooperation through the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics. As a former accession tool, Twinning was introduced in 2004 for legal approximation in the context of the European Neighborhood Policy. Twinning is a unique instrument in development cooperation from a legal perspective. With its long historical and cultural ties to Europe, Morocco presents an interesting case study of this new form of cooperation. We will analyse motives behind the Twinning projects on illegal immigration, environment legislation and customs reform. As Twinning is a new policy instrument within the ENP context, there is relatively little preceding research, which, in itself, constitutes a reason to inquire into the subject. While introducing useful categories, the approaches discussing “normative power Europe” do not offer methodological tools precise enough to analyse the motives of the Twinning cooperation from a broad ethical standpoint. Helene Sjursen as well as Esther Barbé and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués have elaborated on Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics in determining the extent of altruism in the ENP in general. Situating the analysis in the process-oriented framework of Critical Theory, discourse ethics provides the methodological framework for our research. The case studies reveal that the context in which they operate affects the pragmatic, ethical and moral aspirations of the actors. The utilitarian notion of profit maximization is quite pronounced both in terms of the number of Twinning projects in the economic sphere and the pragmatic logics of reason instrumental to security and trade-related issues. The historical background as well internal processes, however, contribute to defining areas of mutual interest to the actors as well as the motives Morocco and the EU sometimes described as the external projection of internal values. Through its different aspects, Twinning cooperation portrays the functioning of the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in international relations.

Perspectives on knowledge creating inquiry in higher education

Higher education is faced with the challenge of strengthening students competencies for the constantly evolving technology-mediated practices of knowledge work. The knowledge creation approach to learning (Paavola et al., 2004; Hakkarainen et al., 2004) provides a theoretical tool to address learning and teaching organized around complex problems and the development of shared knowledge objects, such as reports, products, and new practices. As in professional work practices, it appears necessary to design sufficient open-endedness and complexity for students teamwork in order to generate unpredictable and both practically and epistemologically challenging situations. The studies of the thesis examine what kinds of practices are observed when student teams engage in knowledge creating inquiry processes, how the students themselves perceive the process, and how to facilitate inquiry with technology-mediation, tutoring, and pedagogical models. Overall, 20 student teams collaboration processes and productions were investigated in detail. This collaboration took place in teams or small groups of 3-6 students from multiple domain backgrounds. Two pedagogical models were employed to provide heuristic guidance for the inquiry processes: the progressive inquiry model and the distributed project model. Design-based research methodology was employed in combination with case study as the research design. Database materials from the courses virtual learning environment constituted the main body of data, with additional data from students self-reflections and student and teacher interviews. Study I examined the role of technology mediation and tutoring in directing students knowledge production in a progressive inquiry process. The research investigated how the scale of scaffolding related to the nature of knowledge produced and the deepening of the question explanation process. In Study II, the metaskills of knowledge-creating inquiry were explored as a challenge for higher education: metaskills refers to the individual, collective, and object-centered aspects of monitoring collaborative inquiry. Study III examined the design of two courses and how the elaboration of shared objects unfolded based on the two pedagogical models. Study IV examined how the arranged concept-development project for external customers promoted practices of distributed, partially virtual, project work, and how the students coped with the knowledge creation challenge. Overall, important indicators of knowledge creating inquiry were the following: new versions of knowledge objects and artifacts demonstrated a deepening inquiry process; and the various productions were co-created through iterations of negotiations, drafting, and versioning by the team members. Students faced challenges of establishing a collective commitment, devising practices to co-author and advance their reports, dealing with confusion, and managing culturally diverse teams. The progressive inquiry model, together with tutoring and technology, facilitated asking questions, generating explanations, and refocusing lines of inquiry. The involvement of the customers was observed to provide a strong motivation for the teams. On the evidence, providing team-specific guidance, exposing students to models of scientific argumentation and expert work practices, and furnishing templates for the intended products appear to be fruitful ways to enhance inquiry processes. At the institutional level, educators do well to explore ways of developing collaboration with external customers, public organizations or companies, and between educational units in order to enhance educational practices of knowledge creating inquiry.

The EU and Institutional Twinning in Morocco - An inquiry into the motives of cooperation through discourse ethics

This study examines Institutional Twinning in Morocco as a case of EU cooperation through the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics. As a former accession tool, Twinning was introduced in 2004 for legal approximation in the context of the European Neighborhood Policy. Twinning is a unique instrument in development cooperation from a legal perspective. With its long historical and cultural ties to Europe, Morocco presents an interesting case study of this new form of cooperation. We will analyse motives behind the Twinning projects on illegal immigration, environment legislation and customs reform. As Twinning is a new policy instrument within the ENP context, there is relatively little preceding research, which, in itself, constitutes a reason to inquire into the subject. While introducing useful categories, the approaches discussing “normative power Europe” do not offer methodological tools precise enough to analyse the motives of the Twinning cooperation from a broad ethical standpoint. Helene Sjursen as well as Esther Barbé and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués have elaborated on Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics in determining the extent of altruism in the ENP in general. Situating the analysis in the process-oriented framework of Critical Theory, discourse ethics provides the methodological framework for our research. The case studies reveal that the context in which they operate affects the pragmatic, ethical and moral aspirations of the actors. The utilitarian notion of profit maximization is quite pronounced both in terms of the number of Twinning projects in the economic sphere and the pragmatic logics of reason instrumental to security and trade-related issues. The historical background as well internal processes, however, contribute to defining areas of mutual interest to the actors as well as the motives Morocco and the EU sometimes described as the external projection of internal values. Through its different aspects, Twinning cooperation portrays the functioning of the pragmatic, ethical and moral logics of reason in international relations.