Australian Debate Research Articles

Political Apologies and the Question of a ‘Shared Time’ in the Australian Context

Although conceptually distinct, ‘time’ and ‘community’ are multiply intertwined within a myriad of key debates in both the social sciences and the humanities. Even so, the role of conceptions of time in social practices of inclusion and exclusion has yet to achieve the prominence of other key analytical categories such as identity and space. This article seeks to contribute to the development of this field by highlighting the importance of thinking time and community together through the lens of political apologies. Often ostensibly offered in order to re-articulate both the constitution of ‘the community’ and its future direction, official apologies are prime examples of deliberate attempts to intervene in shared understandings of political community and its temporality. Offering a detailed case study of one of these apologies, I will focus on Australian debates over the removal of indigenous children from their families, known as the Stolen Generations, and examine the temporal dimensions of the different responses offered by former prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd.

Undoing attitudes: subjectivity and ethical change in the Go Back to Where You Came From documentary

In the context of Australian debates about refugees and asylum seekers, this article examines the relationship between attitude, as a performative articulation of selfhood, and ethics of non-violence and welcome. Exploring how attitude change has been represented in the narrative of the Go Back To Where You Came From documentary, it is argued that attitude is a concept indelibly fixed within discourses of refugee arrivals in Australia and attitude change regularly posited as the process towards ethics. An example of attitude change in the documentary is discussed through Butler's ethics of non-violence and the ways in which recognition and the recognizability of the other operate to promote or stem an ethical responsiveness or welcome. This is followed by looking at how the Butler's account of frames as the social and political mechanisms that can prevent the recognition of the other as human or worthy of hospitality can be expanded to show how the production of an ethical relationship is aided by a disturbance in selfhood such that a subject can recognize his or her own vulnerability and hence the vulnerability of the other. How an expanded theory of ethics and hospitality plays out through attitude change is highlighted.

‘Hurtling down the track’: The significance of Australian population debates in an era of anxiety

This article focuses on some of the fantasies underpinning contemporary politics and the way that these ‘perform’, in effect, to occlude more complex understandings. To develop my argument, I deploy a critical discourse analysis to consider the narratives used by politicians during the 2010 Australian Federal election campaign to galvanise popular support by raising the ‘threat’ posed by large-scale population growth. I argue that narratives framing ‘population growth as unsustainable’ have a resonance with sections of the electorate because they connect to a sense of unease about the present and the future. The vexed debates surrounding population size are indicative of anxieties that lie beneath the surface of political discourse.

Excluding students from school: A re-examination from a children’s rights perspective

School exclusion including school suspension is common in Western industrialised countries and has negative effects on excluded students such as alienation from and dropping out of school and engaging in antisocial and violent behaviour. Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights. The CRC sets out a framework to document and evaluate school policies and practices and specific sections relate to the use of school exclusion (e.g., repeated suspension constitutes the denial of education and reflects failure to guarantee access to education, Article 28 of the CRC). However, in the Australian debates about the use of school suspension and expulsion, rarely is the children’s rights to an education perspective adopted. In this paper, the issues around the use of school suspension are reconsidered through a children’s rights lens. It is concluded that such a view requires consideration in Australia discussions about school exclusion.

The Australian Asset Pricing Debate

The Australian Asset Pricing Debate

Work Health and Safety and the Criminal Law in Australia

This paper analyses recent Australian debates about the use of the criminal law in work health and safety regulation. It argues that these debates have to be seen in the context of the historical development of work health and safety regulation in the United Kingdom and Australia. The first part of the paper shows that, since the late 19th century, contraventions against the Australian work health and safety statutes have not been regarded as 'really criminal', and have largely been addressed by informal measures and, since the 1980s, by administrative sanctions. When prosecutions have taken place, work health and safety issues have been individualised and decontextualised, so that defendants have been able to reduce their culpability in the eyes of the court. Significant legal barriers have undermined the use of the crime of gross negligence manslaughter against corporations and individuals. The second part of the paper analyses recent debates about restructuring gross negligence manslaughter and bolstering the 'criminality' of offences under the work health and safety statutes. It argues that the latter debate has been constrained by the historical forces examined in the first part of the paper, and that the current position, embodied in the recently harmonised Work Health and Safety Acts, favours attempting to recriminalise the work health and safety legislation. The debate about reforming gross negligence manslaughter has stalled.

'The Full Face Covering Debate: An Australian Perspective'

The wearing of full face coverings by women in public, such as burqas and niqabs, has become a controversial and hotly debated issue both in Australia and around the world. While some overseas jurisdictions have opted to ban full face coverings Australia, despite some attempts to ban full face coverings, has so far opted for a more nuanced approach. This article examines the Australian debate from the calls for a complete ban of full face coverings by political leaders such as Senators Fred Nile and Cory Bernardi through to the passage of the Identification Legislation Amendment Act 2011 (NSW). In particular the article highlights that more recent debate on the issue has focused on ways in which concerns surrounding security and identity checks can be met without imposing a blanket ban on the wearing of full face coverings.

Some Gays and the Queers

Some Gays and the Queers

Dealing with dilemmas in health campaigning

Campaigners on public health issues face a number of dilemmas when tactical choices in public debating involve uncomfortable mixtures of benefits and costs. Key dilemmas for campaigners are whether to acknowledge weaknesses in their own position, whether to advocate research to address claims by opponents, whether to acknowledge vested interests on their own side, whether to debate with opponents, whether to launch attacks on opposition individuals and groups and whether to criticize extreme behaviour by those on their own side. Drawing on the literature on scientific controversies, these dilemmas are outlined, with illustrations from the Australian vaccination debate. Dilemmas in health campaigning warrant attention because choices made can affect both the success of policy initiatives and the image of professions, sometimes with trade-offs between these. However, dilemmas have been neglected because most studies of health controversies give little attention to campaigning tactics. Campaigners can choose options that seem to maximize the likelihood of winning in the short term. However, options for short-term advantage may establish a precedent for approaches to campaigning that undermine commitment to free and open debate to possible long-term disadvantage.

‘TWO DREAMS IN ONE BEDROOM’

This paper explores two stories of the author's own family, one of post-Second World War Displaced Persons, and one of Nazi collaboration. Juxtaposed, these two stories attached to one familial identity throw into relief the expectations of victimhood and responsibility encoded in stereotypical refugee narratives. The paper tracks such expectations in contemporary Australian refugee debate, showing that essentialised equations between refugees and victimhood can be used to obscure, rather than expose, relations of power and violence. The uncomfortable revelations about my own family that I canvass here can thus be understood as a synecdoche for uncomfortable truths about Australia's history in relation to refugees, both past and present. Attending to these truths requires being prepared to disrupt ‘familiar’ narratives of victimhood and perpetration, and remember our own potential affiliations with violence, whether personal or national.

Lesbian Mothers and Child Custody: Australian Debates in the 1970s

Lesbian Mothers and Child Custody: Australian Debates in the 1970s

Cyborg stem cells in public: deconstructing and taking responsibility for categorizations

“Cyborg” entities do not easily fit into pre-existing categories and can therefore be useful in deconstructing these categories and showing their contingency and political power. In this paper, some cyborg stem cells are examined. They were discussed in Australian public debates as well as during interviews with scientists. Multiple ways of making sense of them are possible, but one became dominant, was inscribed in Australian parliamentary documents and may now seem to be a simple reflection of nature. By showing other possible categorizations and highlighting the contingency and ambiguity of concepts such as “embryo,” or “fetus,” the established definition of these cells is contested. In particular, the way it can displace conversations about women's bodies and the use in research of material from terminations is highlighted. Alternative stem cell categorizations are put forward; these are not “innocent” either, but may offer fruitful ways of talking about this area of techno-science in public.

Duelling realities: Conspiracy theories vs climate science in regional newspaper coverage of Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth

In the lead-up to the first Australian parliamentary debates on an emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2009, Ian Plimer – mining geologist, mining company director and climate change contrarian – published a book that argued there is no link between human activity and climate change. Plimer boasted that his book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming – The Missing Science, would ‘knock out every single argument we hear about climate change’. While promoting the book in media interviews, Plimer warned that the ETS would destroy mining and agriculture in Australia. Plimer’s book was discredited by Australia’s top climate scientists, yet received mostly favourable coverage in regional newspapers. Using content analysis and critical discourse analysis, this paper examines regional news articles, features, opinion columns, editorials and letters to the editor published between April 1 and June 30, 2009. The paper also considers the impact that media coverage of Plimer and his book had on the public debate on the ETS leading up to the legislation’s defeat.

Scientific Advice, Traditional Practices and the Politics of Health-Care : The Australian Debate over Public Funding of Non-Therapeutic Circumcision, 1985

Scientific Advice, Traditional Practices and the Politics of Health-Care : The Australian Debate over Public Funding of Non-Therapeutic Circumcision, 1985

Response to Taylor: The Full Picture of the Sexualisation of Children Debate

IN HER REVIEW AND REFRAMING of ‘the Australian public media debate over the sexualisation of children in the media’, Affrica Taylor claims that ‘loss of innocence is the fundamental concern’, and portrays the debate as simply a ‘moral panic’ characteristic of the history of introductions of new media to children (2010, p. 48, p. 52, p. 49). While Taylor is correct to identify and critique concerns about ‘loss of innocence’ as part of the public media debate, the debate can only be reduced to such concerns by misrepresenting or leaving aside logically independent sources of concern. Hence, Taylor provides an inadequate view of the debate to early childhood professionals who are aware of and concerned about the sexualisation of children but not necessarily familiar with the full depth of discussion on the topic. I introduce the public policy debate over the sexualisation of children, which is based on both research evidence and expert opinion from those working in the areas of children's health and welfare. This debate exists both beyond and entwined with the media debate. Attention to the policy-relevant literature reveals that Taylor's reframing significantly distorts the full range of issues raised by the corporate-led sexualisation of children along three major axes. First, while post-structuralist attention to micropolitics is important, it does not render appropriate attention to macropolitics redundant. Second, stereotypical, rather than age-inappropriate, sexuality is the primary focus in the debate over the sexualisation of children. Third, child health, wellbeing and safety are the driving concerns for professionals and policy-makers.

Pacific ‘Solutions’ and Imaginaries: Reshaping Pacific relations or re-colonising the ‘sea of islands’?

Asia Pacific Viewpoint. For much of the time in New Zealand and Australia, our journal’s name has little resonance with the bulk of the population in these countries. There are moments though, when events at home and abroad come together to pull the respective gaze of New Zealanders and Australians away from more parochial fascinations, such as the RugbyWorld Cup taking place in New Zealand as we write, and from the Western media geographies that direct attention to North America and Europe, with occasional glimpses of military activities in the Middle East. These moments can be revealing, in large part because of the glimpse they give us of the national ‘viewpoint’ towards the Asia Pacific and how countries in the region are scripted. Three recent events and trends give us cause to pause and reflect on where the current relationship between New Zealand, Australia and the Asia Pacific region is at, not just in terms of the diplomatic or economic form of the relationship, but also in terms of the imaginaries associated with the region. The raison d’etre of Asia Pacific Viewpoint since its establishment in the 1960s has been to improve ‘understanding of the changes that are transforming the Asian and Pacific scene’ (Buchannan, 1960) and encourage alternative viewpoints and perspectives. Our brief analysis of three contemporary examples suggests that we have a long way to go. Asia Pacific viewpoints are central to recent Australian debates regarding refugee policies. In 2001, conservative Prime Minister John Howard controversially refused to let the Norwegian tanker, the MV Tampa, dock at an Australian port after it had saved 433 mainly Afghani asylum seekers from a sinking vessel between Indonesia and Australia. With an election looming, and conservative voices manipulating widespread anti-refugee feelings that bordered on hysteria, Howard deployed military forces to prevent the vessel from landing before hastily devising the ‘Pacific Solution’. Rather than ‘process’ (a disgracefully dehumanising term) the asylum seekers on Australian soil, he looked first to Indonesia, who refused, then to more economically dependent states in Melanesia. The former Australian colonial territory of Papua New Guinea, which allowed Manus Island to be used as a ‘human processing zone’, and the tiny island state of Nauru (whose once bountiful supplies of phosphate had long since been diminished by Australian mining companies and used to enhance the New Zealand and Australian agricultural economies) became sites to ‘outsource’ and ‘offshore’ humanitarian responsibilities (see Rajaram, 2003). Midway through the stand-off, the Twin Towers were brought down, contributing to public anxieties and approval of Howard’s handling of the crisis, even as Australia’s international reputation floundered. For Howard and his supporters, the episode rejuvenated long-established anxieties many Australians hold towards Asian refugees and migrants, rekindling the ‘Yellow Peril’ fears that underlay the country’s notorious White Australia policy. In contrast, the Pacific was scripted as neo-colonial spaces where Australia could forgo its humanitarian obligations and Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 52, No. 3, December 2011 ISSN 1360-7456, pp233–235

Academic dissatisfaction, managerial change and neo-liberalism

This paper examines perceptions by academics of their work in the Australian state of Victoria, and places such perceptions within the context of international and Australian debates on the academic profession. A 2010 survey conducted by the National Tertiary Education Union in Victoria was analysed in light of the literature on academic work satisfaction and on corporatised managerial practice (“managerialism”). The analysis is also placed in the context of neo-liberalism, defined as a more marketised provision combined with increased pro-market state regulation. Factor analysis was used to reduce 18 items we hypothesised as drivers of work satisfaction to four factors: managerial culture, workloads, work status and self-perceived productivity. Regression models show the relative effects of these factors on two items measuring work satisfaction. This analysis is complemented by discursive analysis of open-ended responses. We found that satisfaction among academics was low and decreasing compared to a previous survey, and that management culture was the most important driver. Concern with workloads also drove dissatisfaction, although academics seem happy to be more productive if they have control over their work and develop in their jobs. Work status had little effect. In the open-ended responses the more dissatisfied academics tended to contrast a marketised present to a collegial past. While respondents seem to conflate all recent managerial change with marketisation, we pose a crucial question: whether the need for more professional management needs to be congruent with marketising policy directions.

Sacrificing workers?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a distinctive strategy used in the Australian non‐profit community services sector to recruit and retain care workers. The paper argues that the implementation of salary sacrificing illuminates a wilful blindness to the interests and rights of paid care workers and the genesis of this blindness lies in the gendered nature of care work.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on a brief review of relevant literature on the gendered nature of paid care work, Australian industry debates, interviews and data from a small case study to examine the context and paradoxical outcomes of salary sacrificing.FindingsThe findings illustrate the consequences of New Public Management models of funding and management in the non‐profit community sector, including how inadequate resourcing of agencies can work to pit the interests of clients against the interests of workers. The findings also suggest the limited impact of salary sacrificing as a retention strategy, while revealing the links between gender, domesticity and care that play out in the undervaluing of paid care work.Research limitations/implicationsThe research suggests that sustainable change to address the looming “crisis of care” in community services needs a rethinking by governments of funding and service models so that quality services are supported by properly valued and remunerated care workers.Originality/valueThe paper explores the paradoxical effects of an Australian industry recruitment and retention strategy.

Responsibility for Canada's Healthcare Quality Agenda: Interviews with Canadian Health Leaders

Canadian healthcare is under increased scrutiny to improve quality and performance, and for good reason. The proliferation of provincial-level quality councils underscores the urgency to establish an aligned national quality agenda. Patient safety has long been held as a critical element of a high-quality healthcare system; with the inexorable growth in spending, efficiency has more recently been introduced. Efficiency and quality are both factors in Ontario's Excellent Care for All legislation introduced in June of 2010, and Quebec's l'Institut national d'excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS) arising from the Castonguay report. These associations of quality and efficiency are also echoed in the US, Australian and UK public debates. The development of a quality agenda has concurrently precipitated discussion regarding responsibility for quality, particularly but not exclusively with the emergence of quality issues in the technical and interpretive pathology arena. The discussion and debate on responsibility have become preoccupations at the national, provincial, institutional and individual profession levels.

Australia, India and the Uranium Question

This article examines the bipartisan nuclear ‘grand bargain’, namely that Australia would only export uranium to states signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in framing Australian policy and debate towards India. India has not signed the NPT, and shows no willingness to do so. Since 2006 the domestic political and media debate regarding uranium sales to India shows that this grand bargain is fraying. This article explores the major arguments that have been elucidated by Australian political party leaders either for or against uranium sales to India and concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges presented to Australia if it were to make an exception for India.