Australian Response Research Articles

The Australian medical response to Typhoon Haiyan.

The Australian medical response to Typhoon Haiyan.

An Australian Indigenous-focussed Justice Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Offenders’ Perceptions of the Sentencing Process

This article draws on research conducted over the past four years on the use of Indigenous sentencing courts in Australia for sentencing Indigenous offenders of intimate partner violence (IPV). It presents interview findings of offenders’ perceptions of justice of a sentencing process that involves the participation of Elders and Community Representatives, as moral and cultural guides. This study concludes that the vast majority of interview participants found an Indigenous sentencing court process is fairer than a mainstream sentencing court process despite the fact that it is more challenging and confronting facing Elders and Community Representatives when being sentenced for an IPV offence. Their respect for Elders and Community Representatives, and the respect afforded to Elders and Community Representatives by the mainstream criminal justice system created a forum that both ‘shamed’ and supported the offenders in ways that reflected cultural values and norms.

Bastard Immigrants: Asylum Seekers Who Arrive by Boat and the Illegitimate Fear of the Other

Bastard Immigrants: Asylum Seekers Who Arrive by Boat and the Illegitimate Fear of the Other

The role of public health in climate change and sustainability: what should the Australian public health response be?

The role of public health in climate change and sustainability: what should the Australian public health response be?

Australia's leading public health body delays action on the revision of the public health goal for blood lead exposures

Globally, childhood blood lead levels have fallen precipitously in developed countries since the 1970s following action by international bodies such as the WHO and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. These reductions have been affected by the activities of national agencies such as the US EPA and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the establishment of air lead and blood lead standards, the introduction of legislation to remove lead from petrol, paint and consumer products and tighter restrictions on lead emissions. The outcome of recent major international reviews of research into the effects of low-level lead exposures (e.g. by WHO, USA health and environmental agencies, German and Canadian health bodies) has resulted in recommendations to reduce and eliminate lead exposures. By contrast, Australian policy responses to the incontrovertible evidence that adverse neurocognitive and behavioural effects that occur at levels well below the current national goal of 10μg/dL have stalled. The delayed response by Australia occurs at a time when blood lead levels in two of Australia's three primary lead mining and smelting cities: Port Pirie, South Australia and Broken Hill, New South Wales, are rising. In the third city, Mount Isa, Queensland, there is still no systematic, annual testing of childhood blood lead values. This is despite the fact that Mount Isa has the highest lead (and other toxic metals such as cadmium and arsenic) emissions to the environment (120tonnes of lead in 2011/12) from any single point source in Australia. It is clear that both state and national policy approaches to the ongoing risks of lead exposure need to be revised urgently and in line with contemporary international standards. Recommended changes should include a new lower blood lead intervention level of no more than 5μg/dL, with a national goal for all children under 5years of age to have a blood lead level of below 1μg/dL by 2020. In order to achieve any new lower exposure goals other relevant lead standards including air, dust, soil and water must also be revised downwards.

Barriers to legal and human rights in Australia in the era of HIV treatment as prevention.

This paper analyses developments and debates regarding legal and human rights issues relevant to the Australian HIV response in the context of treatment as prevention (TasP). A refocusing of prevention priorities on individual responsibilities to 'test and treat' without regard to the legal and human rights context is, we argue, problematic. The paper maintains that the justification of testing and treating for the greater good risks eroding the foundations of a human rights-based approach to HIV prevention, and that the TasP agenda as presently conceived may divert attention from pressing law reform issues relating to sex work, illicit drug use, and criminalization of HIV transmission.

Australia's HIV-prevention response: Introduction to the special issue.

Australia is relatively unique in having, until recently, sustained an effective response to HIV in all of its affected communities. The first case of AIDS was diagnosed in 1982 in a gay man in Sydney, and between 1982 and 1985 HIV spread rapidly, with an estimated 4,500 men being infected, predominantly in the gay community in Sydney and to a lesser extent in Melbourne. The majority of these infections took place at a time when relatively little was known scientifically about HIV (then known as HTLV-III). In consequence, men within the gay community and their friends were forced to look to their own resources—organizing politically and socially, and drawing upon experience both at home and elsewhere in the world, to mount what in retrospect is perhaps best seen as something of a social revolution among gay and other homosexually active men. The difficulty of these early struggles should not be underestimated, especially since homosexual behavior between men remained illegal in many states in Australia until the mid 1980s, and into the 1990s in Queensland and Tasmania. Although there was concern that HIV was also spreading among people who injected drugs (PWID) and that it would be only a matter of time until heterosexual infections became more common, as the pattern of transmission became more established, it was apparent that spread via injecting drug use remained at a very low level (about 5% of the total, but closer to 1% if gay and other homosexually active men who also inject are excluded), that transmission from medical procedures such as the receipt of blood or blood products had declined from about 14% in 1985–1986 to about 1% in 1991–1992, and that onward transmission into the heterosexual community had not occurred to any great extent. The peak in HIV incidence occurred in 1987, and incidence declined year on year until 1999. Over that period, 1987–1999, there was a profound decline in the epidemic. Thereafter, there has been a small but steady increase in incidence. Gay and other homosexually active men remain the largest group affected by HIV in Australia. HIV transmission continues to occur mainly through sexual contact between men and in 2012 accounted for 70% of newly diagnosed HIV infections and 87% of newly acquired infection. The early and relatively sustained success of the Australian response can be attributed to a wide range of actions by communities and networks, supported by government. These include but are not limited to the following measures. Between

“Characteristically Generous”? Australian Responses to Refugees Prior to 1951

When Australia pledged to accept 15,000 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1938, it was applauded by the London Times as “a characteristically generous contribution” and an example for others. Australia's reputation for generous humanitarianism was solidified after the war when it absorbed more than 180,000 of Europe's Displaced Persons and committed to international human rights instruments designed to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This reputation has been used to both defend and critique the nation's contemporary responses to asylum seekers. Recent Australian Prime Ministers have invoked Australia's proud record of refugee resettlement to deflect criticism of their tough border control policies, policies which critics charge repudiate the nation's humanitarian traditions. This article critically reviews the history of Australia's responses to refugees and asylum seekers prior to 1951 and demonstrates that contemporary border control policies are neither a deviation from, nor defence of, a proud humanitarian record. Rather, they embody the migration management approach to refugees that provided impetus for Federation in 1901, governed Australia's response to the Jewish refugee crisis in the 1930s, and shaped its conditional acceptance of the Displaced Persons and the position it adopted in the drafting of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951.

So far, so good: Maintenance of prevention is required to stem HIV incidence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia.

Indigenous people globally remain resilient yet vulnerable to the threats of HIV. Although Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience the worst health status of any identifiable group in Australia, with a standardized morbidity rate three times that of non-Indigenous Australians, the Australian response to HIV has resulted in relatively low and stable rates of HIV infection among Australia's Indigenous peoples. This paper examines the reasons for the success of HIV prevention efforts. These include early recognition by Indigenous peoples of the potential effect that HIV could have on their communities; the supply of health hardware (needle and syringe programs and condoms); the development and implementation of culturally-appropriate health promotion messages such as the internationally-recognized Condoman campaign; the inclusion of dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sexual Health Workers in communities; and an inclusive policy and partnership approach. Furthermore, the efforts of peak Aboriginal health organizations including NACCHO and its member services and Indigenous programs in peak mainstream organizations like AFAO and its member organizations, have all contributed to prevention success. Efforts need to be maintained however to ensure an escalated epidemic does not occur, particularly among heterosexual people, especially women, and people who inject drugs. New ideas are required as we enter a new era of HIV prevention within the context of the new paradigm of treatment as prevention, and getting to zero new infections.

An Australian Response to Asian Decolonisation: Jawaharlal Nehru, John Burton and the New Delhi Conference of Non-Western Nations

This article examines the 1949 attendance of John W. Burton, Australia's Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, at Jawaharlal Nehru's New Delhi Conference of non-Western nations. It argues that initial ambivalence and unevenness, then a swift process of learning and adjustment, characterised both Burton's response to India and the Chifley Government's stance toward change in Asia more generally. Burton's relationship with Nehru's India is used as a case study of the ways that intellectual and cultural preconceptions, as well as firsthand interactions and experience, shaped Australian government officials in their attempts to craft policy responses to the rise of Asian nationalism.

PhD crisis discourse: a critical approach to the framing of the problem and some Australian ‘solutions’

A feature of HE reform discourse is the tendency to construct the rationale for reform in terms of averting calamity and risk. We refer to this risk talk as ‘crisis discourse’. This study examines the formulation of PhD crisis discourse internationally and in Australia. We find that a key feature of PhD crisis discourse is that universities are producing too many graduates for too few academic jobs; and graduates lack skills that enable them to be productive in jobs outside academia. In Australia, the discourse has shifted from one dominated by efficiency concerns from the late 1990s to the present focus on graduate skills and employability. The policy solution to the efficiency crisis in the Australian PhD resulted in system-wide changes in research training funding focused on increased efficiency. The current unemployability discourse has as yet prompted isolated institutional responses, the introduction of new PhD programs or re-badging existing offerings as pro-skills development offerings. Following an examination of three Australian institutional responses, we conclude that the crisis discourse signals tensions surrounding the PhD: should achievement in doctoral education be measured by outcomes in intellectual excellence or the responsiveness of qualification to the current needs and priorities of society?

Australian Employer Response to the Study‐Migration Pathway: The Quantitative Evidence 2007‐2011

AbstractIn recent years OECD countries have prioritized international students as a human capital resource. To assess their labour migration outcomes, this article defines Australian employment rates the year after graduation by two measures. Our first in‐depth case study (drawing on the Graduate Destination Survey) compares international students' work status to that of domestic students in 11 professions, from 2007 to 2011. Our second case study (based on the Immigration Department's Continuous Survey of Australia's Migrants) reports the employment rates achieved from 2009 to 2011 by international students who have secured skilled migrant status in Australia, compared with those of skilled category applicants selected off‐shore. Empirical analyses such as these are rare in the existing study‐migration literature, which is dominated by policy and qualitative perspectives. The findings are relevant to international students as well as policymakers, in a context where governments frame migration policy but employers maintain the power to offer/withhold work.

Mobilisation, politics, investment and constant adaptation: lessons from the Australian health-promotion response to HIV.

The Australian response to HIV oversaw one of the most rapid and sustained changes in community behaviour in Australia's health-promotion history. The combined action of communities of gay men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, people living with HIV and clinicians working in partnership with government, public health and research has been recognised for many years as highly successful in minimising the HIV epidemic. This article will show how the Australian HIV partnership response moved from a crisis response to a constant and continuously adapting response, with challenges in sustaining the partnership. Drawing on key themes, lessons for broader health promotion are identified. The Australian HIV response has shown that a partnership that is engaged, politically active, adaptive and resourced to work across multiple social, structural, behavioural and health-service levels can reduce the transmission and impact of HIV. The experience of the response to HIV, including its successes and failures, has lessons applicable across health promotion. This includes the need to harness community mobilisation and action; sustain participation, investment and leadership across the partnership; commit to social, political and structural approaches; and build and use evidence from multiple sources to continuously adapt and evolve. So what? The Australian HIV response was one of the first health issues to have the Ottawa Charter embedded from the beginning, and has many lessons to offer broader health promotion and common challenges. As a profession and a movement, health promotion needs to engage with the interactions and synergies across the promotion of health, learn from our evidence, and resist the siloing of our responses.

Dealing with a social externality – alcohol and health

Public awareness of illness resulting from the harmful consumption of alcohol is increasing. Public-health reaction has been to determine types of health problems, treatments and interventions. Work is continuing at international and national levels, supported by research leading to policy and cooperative public-health developments. The proportionality of the response by the alcoholic beverages industry has been questioned. The business risks are wide ranging principally due to a less than fully professional managerial response to existing concerns and pressure for more general interventions. The Australian wine industry response to this form of externality has been to meet regulatory requirements. It also cooperates with national market interventions, but as far as possible on a ‘self-regulatory’ basis. Their approach is similar to that taken by the international alcohol and tobacco industries consisting of a low-level contribution. The opportunity to create a more holistic strategy to improve both public-health and business outcomes is examined including identification of variables towards a cost–benefit analysis. The differentiated situation of ‘small and medium’ enterprises is considered. Failing any new initiatives, by the industry, more general interventions can be expected starting in 2013. Why would an industry ignore such risks?

Multicultural Citizenship and Religiosity: Young Australian Muslims Forging a Sense of Belonging after 9/11

This article investigates the role religiosity plays in the ways young Australian Muslims enact themselves as citizens in a context in which their right to belong to the political community is often seriously questioned. Australian responses to 9/11, 7/7 and the Cronulla Riots have relied on an understanding of Muslim youth identity that sees young Muslims' religiosity primarily as a barrier to the development of good citizenship practices. Against this backdrop, this article explores the ways in which religiosity informs the everyday acts of citizenship through which young Muslims challenge dominant narratives of citizenship. Drawing on an ethnographic study of two Melbourne-based Shia youth groups, I look at the subjective accounts of multicultural citizenship that youth group members shared in the course of the groups' weekly activities. In doing so, I draw particular attention to the role religion plays in the imaginative ways young Australian Muslims fashion themselves into citizens.

Stopping War and Stopping Conscription: Australian Labour's Response to World War I in Comparative Perspective

In the early twentieth century, the labour movement was the most important force seeking to prevent war and restrain militarism. Comparison of the Australian labour movement's response to World War I has been rare, but it shows the Australian experience was distinctive in two ways. Elsewhere, socialist and labour leaders engaged in a frantic round of efforts to stop the war prior to its outbreak, although most soon abandoned their opposition once the conflict had begun. In Australia, similar efforts were virtually absent. Yet during a second wave of opposition in the English-speaking countries, the Australian labour movement was uniquely successful in stopping the introduction of conscription. How can we account for these two differences? Cross-country comparison of labour's political strength suggests that this may help to account for both.

Stephen Roberts as a commentator on fascism and the road to war in Europe

In the light of recent scholarship on Australian responses to Nazism, Fascism and the origins of the Second World War in Europe, it is worth revisiting a formative influence on Australian public opinion on international affairs in the 1930s, the Sydney University historian Stephen H. Roberts. While his bestselling 1937 book, The House that Hitler Built, is relatively well-known and well-documented, his regular media commentary in the same period has received less detailed analysis to date. Focussing particularly on Roberts’ weekly commentaries on international affairs in the Sydney Mail, this article looks critically at the strengths and limitations of Roberts’ prolific statements on Nazism, Fascism and the threat of war.This article has been peer-reviewed.

Creative self-destruction: corporate responses to climate change as political myths

Despite the dire implications of anthropogenic climate change, societies have failed to take comprehensive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A major reason for the lack of social and political engagement on this issue is the way in which political myths function to overcome the contradiction of environmental degradation and endless economic growth. Through a qualitative analysis of Australian business responses to climate change, we outline how the myths of corporate environmentalism, corporate citizenship, and corporate omnipotence absorb and adapt the critique of corporate capitalism while enabling ever more imaginative ways of exploiting nature – a process of ‘creative self-destruction’. Rather than seeking to falsify these myths, we explore how they are supported and what they seek to achieve – the work of myths. Revealing the nature of current political myths in relation to climate change is, we argue, a necessary first step to constructing alternative imaginaries.

Deterring the ‘boat people’: Explaining the Australian government's People Swap response to asylum seekers

This article examines why Australia has taken a tough stance on ‘boat people’, through an analysis of the Malaysian People Swap response. The findings support the view that populism, wedge politics and a culture of control drive Australia's asylum-seeker policy agenda. The article further argues that these political pressures hold numerous negative implications for the tone of Australia's political debate and the quality of policy formulation, as well as for asylum seekers and refugees themselves.本文通过分析“马来人交换协议”的反响，探讨了为什么澳大利亚对“船民”采取了一种严厉的立场。根据作者的研究，民粹主义、极端政治以及控制的文化推动了澳大利亚的难民政策。作者指出，这些政治压力给澳大利亚政治辩论的定调以及政策制定的质量，对避难者和难民，都带来消极的影响。

The disability self‐direction movement: Considering the benefits and challenges for an Australian response

The following article provides a snapshot of the current self‐direction movement within the disability sector across the industrialised world, with particular emphasis on the Australian context. As a global movement, self‐direction has been in progress for several decades through a variety of implemented responses. Despite implementation variation, all self‐direction models aim to facilitate individual control and decision making in care and support services. We describe self‐direction, its various models and programs, and explore its benefits and challenges. We conclude by making broad recommendations for decision makers involved in self‐direction. In particular, we offer a hierarchical decision tree that can be used to inform policy decisions at a systems – government policy – and organisational level.