Australian Values Research Articles

Prejudice and Discrimination From Two Sides: How Do Middle-Eastern Australians Experience It and How Do Other Australians Explain It?

There is little quantitative research regarding the causes and expression of prejudice and discrimination against Middle-Eastern Australians. We report two studies, one from the perspective of new settlers and a second from the perspective of host communities. The first found that Middle-Eastern Australians reported more discrimination compared with non-Middle-Eastern Australians. More discrimination was reported by Middle-Eastern males compared with females on dealings with the police, disrespect, name-calling, and distrust. The second study, focusing on attitudes of other Australians, found that they were more likely to perceive that Middle-Eastern Australians would be discriminated against compared with their own social group. When the non-Middle-Eastern Australians in the survey were asked for reasons why Australians from the Middle East were discriminated against, the most prevalent themes were (a) perceived conflict with ‘Australian values’, (b) fear of Muslims, (c) fear of terrorism, (d) negative media and (e) fear of difference. The overall finding that there are strong levels of public acknowledgment of the higher discriminatory burden endured by Middle-Eastern Australians is seen as a positive in terms of (1) community action to address that burden through (2) counteracting the socially negative attitudes that underpin discrimination in some Australian communities.

Radical nationalism and socialist realism in Alan Marshall's autobiographical writing

Alan Marshall's work has either been neglected or has been discussed in the context of its contribution to the Australian identity or as an example of Australian autobiography. This essay examines his early novel and his three directly autobiographical works to argue that he uses his studies of popular Australian values to develop a basis for an inclusive Australian democracy. The argument of the essay is that the socialist realist doctrines of the Realist Writers Group and his bush background influence his choice of voice and form, but that the politics of his work has been overlooked. This, as well as his reputation as a popular author, accounts for the unjust critical neglect of his work.

Influence Of Australian Coal Export On A$/US$ Exchange Rate: A Longitudinal Study

This paper investigates the contribution of Australian coal export to determine the exchange rate of Australian dollar with the US dollar. The quarterly data of Australian coal export and the Australian dollar exchange rate from 1992-2009 are employed to measure the influence of Australian coal export on A$/US$ exchange rate. This study finds that the Australian coal export has a positive relationship with the exchange rate of A$/US$ and their relationship is becoming stronger. The findings of this research suggest that the volume of Australian coal export contributes about 8% to determine the exchange rate of A$/US$ between the period of 1992-2009. The results of this analysis confirm that for each one million tonnes export increase of Australian coal, the Australian dollar value against the US$ increases by 0.002450 USD.

Meanings of Integration in the Australian Press Coverage of Muslims: Implications for Social Inclusion and Exclusion

This article uses a framing perspective to analyse the Australian press coverage of Muslim Australians with regard to the issue of their integration into Australian society. Taking a qualitative approach, this study is based on analysis of articles published in The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Courier-Mail in alternate years from 2002 to 2010. Of particular focus are the themes and definitions associated with integration that arise in the context of the coverage. The study finds the coverage of Muslim integration to contain both favourable and pejorative representations of Muslims. However, the coverage tends to focus on certain themes that represent only a minority of Muslims, such as radicalisation and terrorism. Muslim integration also features as central to debates concerning multiculturalism, Australian values and the citizenship test. The coverage uses narrow definitions of integration that are based mainly on cultural indicators rather than other definitions prevalent in the scholarly literature on integration, such as economic, political and broader social indicators. Overall, the article suggests that these limitations to the coverage have the potential to impact on public perceptions of social inclusion and exclusion in relation to Muslim Australians.

History and governmentality in the Australian citizenship test

In its final year in office, the Howard government introduced a citizenship test in order to determine if migrants and refugees could become Australian citizens. Prospective citizens prepared for the test by studying the contents of the resource booklet, Becoming an Australian Citizen. A significant part of the booklet's content dealt with the subject of Australian history, a new form of assessable knowledge that test candidates needed to learn in order to be considered as citizens that could embrace the Australian way of life. Yet, although the history section made up 37% of the booklet's content, the use of Australian history in the citizenship test has not been extensively researched. Most work has focused on the inclusion of Australian values as essential knowledge required. A genealogical analysis enables us to see the test as a particular technology of power whereby the test provides a particular account of Australian history which citizens-to-be must be familiar with and place themselves in relationship to, in order to pass the Australian citizenship test and hence be considered as ‘model’ Australian citizens.

Replicating ‘A Model of Mutual Respect’: Could Singapore’s Legal Pluralism Work in Australia?

Like other western nations with a Muslim minority, Australia too is debating the extent to which our government should recognize and make concessions to our small but growing Muslim population. In 2011, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils made a submission to the government entitled ‘Embracing Australian Values – Maintaining the Right to be Different’, which advocated legal pluralism as the right of all Australians. It argued amongst other things that conflicts, especially ones involving family and inheritance matters, should be resolved according to the law and traditions of one's own religion. This was contentious in a nation where ‘one law for all’ has been the accepted approach for two centuries. It did however give rise to a debate on whether the nation can, or should, formally recognize certain aspects of Islamic law or support the establishment of a Syariah Court or tribunal. One of the models for legal pluralism often advocated is that of Singapore. Like Australia, Singapore has a minority Muslim population and also inherited the common law system during the era of British colonisation. This paper reflects on the pluralism debate in Australia and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Singapore’s plural model to determine whether it could, or should, be replicated ‘down under’.

The Existence of Tax Clienteles: An Australian Setting

There is little empirical evidence of company tax driving firm value in the finance literature though a change to Australian dividend imputation tax law in 1997 suggests the existence of dividend taxation induced tax clienteles. Recent changes to the regulation of the Australian dividend imputation system appears to have created two tax based shareholder clienteles determined by whether the shareholder is an Australian resident for tax purposes. A unique feature of this study is the focus on the value of franking credit balances, which have accumulated over time for many dividend paying Australian corporations. Analysis, using a sample of Australian listed companies over the period 2001 through 2006 (3071 firm-year observations), suggests that while Australian resident shareholders value franking credit balances, non-resident shareholders seem to attach little value to them and this has implications both for firm valuation.

Testing Citizenship, Regulating History: The Fatal Impact

Testing Citizenship, Regulating History: The Fatal Impact

'It Would be Okay If They Came through the Proper Channels': Community Perceptions and Attitudes toward Asylum Seekers in Australia

Australia's humanitarian programme contributes to UNHCR's global resettlement programme and enhances Australia's international humanitarian reputation. However, as the recent tragedy on Christmas Island has shown, the arrival of asylum seekers by boat continues to stimulate debate, discussion and reaction from the Australian public and the Australian media. In this study, we used a mixed methods community survey to understand community perceptions and attitudes relating to asylum seekers. We found that while personal contact with asylum seekers was important when forming opinions about this group of immigrants, for the majority of respondents, attitudes and opinions towards asylum seekers were more influenced by the interplay between traditional Australian values and norms, the way that these norms appeared to be threatened by asylum seekers, and the way that these threats were reinforced both in media and political rhetoric.

Nutrient and sediment concentrations in the Pagsanjan–Lumban catchment of Laguna de Bay, Philippines

Abstract The off-site transport of nutrients and sediments can have detrimental effects on water quality and ecological health of waterways. This study was conducted to determine the concentrations of nutrients and sediments in surface waters contributing to Laguna de Bay, Philippines. Four sites representing various land uses and non-point and point sources of contamination (rice, vegetable and coconut production systems, and piggery) were selected and instrumented with automated water samplers for time weighted collection of water samples. Total suspended solids (TSS), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total phosphorus (TP) and total carbon (TC) were determined in unfiltered samples. The effluent from piggery farms (a point source) had the highest TSS, TKN, TP and TC concentrations. For the other three sites, the dominant land use upstream of the sampling sites greatly influenced the concentrations of nutrients and sediment. Among the croplands, the site associated with rice as a dominant land use in the Pagsanjan–Lumban catchment contributed more suspended sediments and higher concentrations of TKN and TP as compared to the vegetable (Lucban) and coconut dominated (Cavinti) sites. In the majority of cases at all sites the TKN and the TP concentrations exceeded the Australian trigger values for freshwater quality for total nitrogen of 0.35 mg/L and TP of 0.10 mg/L. In addition to land use, TKN was correlated with TSS particularly in the Majayjay ( R 2 = 0.28), Pagsanjan ( R 2 = 0.51) and Lucban ( R 2 = 0.36) sampling sites. The relationship between TP and TSS was also significant at Lucban ( R 2 = 0.29) but not at the other sites. Rice paddies are subjected to wet cultivation (puddling) and have loose topsoil and are kept flooded most of the time which allows larger amounts of suspended sediments and nutrients to leave with the drainage water.

Prejudice Against Muslim Australians: The Role of Values, Gender and Consensus

ABSTRACTData from an Australian community survey (n = 189) examining the predictors of prejudice against Muslim Australians were analysed. Using thematic analysis, we investigated the specific values our participants reported regarding their perceptions of Muslim Australians and Islam. We then investigated the relationship between prejudice against Muslim Australians, the most important value priorities given by our participants, and other prejudice‐related variables. After entry into a regression analysis, the participants high in prejudice were found to be significantly more likely to have lower educational levels and more right‐wing views. They were also significantly more likely to report high levels of national attitudes (i.e. stronger identification with Australian identity), concern about gender equality within the Muslim community, less concern about equality generally and report that Muslims were not conforming to Australian values. High prejudiced participants also scored higher in the reporting of negative media‐related beliefs, were more likely to perceive higher support in the community for their views than was the case and were more negative towards Muslim men than Muslim women. The implications for anti‐prejudice interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Retribution or restoration? Anglo–Australian's views towards domestic violence involving Muslim and Anglo–Australian victims and offenders

The current study explored how gender, group membership and different emotional reactions to the crime of domestic violence predict attitudes and endorsement of restorative or retributive justice practices. The experiment consisted of a 2 (victim group membership: Muslim- or Anglo–Australian)×2 (offender group membership: Muslim- or Anglo–Australian)×2 (Sex of participant) between-participants factorial design. Anglo–Australian participants (43 men; 50 women) were randomly assigned to one of the four manipulated conditions, and completed an online questionnaire that involved viewing a short video clip of a woman describing her experience as a domestic violence victim. Results revealed strong preferences for restorative justice in dealing with domestic violence, with women supporting this practice more than men. The crime was perceived as most severe and retribution was endorsed most strongly when the victim was Anglo–Australian (i.e. an in-group member). Intra-group violence was also perceived to be a greater breach of shared Australian values than inter-group (i.e. cross-cultural) domestic violence. Emotional reactions further predicted participants' responses, with hatred predicting stronger support of retributive ideals and sympathy for the victim predicting greater endorsement of restoration.

Knowledge of Self in the History Classroom

One initiative related to citizenship education in Australia has been a policy of values education. This latest form of citizenship education has been largely based on whole school policy and a list 'Australian Values'. In recent research I examine the way 'values' are already understood by History students and teachers. I use Foucault's theories of subjectivity and technologies of self to examine how the practices of historical inquiry shape students' and teachers' own values formation and knowledge of self. This paper will focus on the ways in which studying History fosters school students as ethical global citizens. History teaching is a space and place in schools for the exploration of a myriad of values including those espoused in the relationship between and within the school as an institution, the syllabus, historical sources, students and the classroom teacher. Opportunities for values formation are provided through critical inquiry and discussion, historical positioning and reflective practices which develop students and teachers 'knowledge of self'.

Aboriginal Enterprises: negotiating an urban Aboriginality

In 1952 long time political activist Bill Onus used compensation from a road accident to establish Aboriginal Enterprises, a tourist outlet in Belgrave, on the outskirts of Melbourne. Employing both Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers Aboriginal Enterprises manufactured artefacts and furnishings, imported bark paintings and didjeridus from Arnhem Land and sold a range of other small objects. At a time when assimilation policies expected Aborigines to adopt the ideals and values of white Australians, Aboriginal Enterprises offered a model for cultural maintenance that began to rebuild pride in Aboriginality, contributing toward a new urban Aboriginal presence in Melbourne. Yet despite its success, Aboriginal Enterprises is almost completely overlooked in the history of Aboriginal art in south-eastern Australia. With colonisation Aboriginal people in south-eastern Australia were incorporated within the uneven power relations of a settler society. From the outset they engaged in barter and trade, drawing from their own cosmologies, stories and histories and selectively incorporating from colonial genres. For Aboriginal people, participation in tourism through the production of artefacts and cultural performances was an expression of continuing attachment to their own culture often carried out in opposition to government policies of assimilation. However the narrowly ethnographic concerns of museums viewed the stylistic hybridity and commodification of these objects as evidence of acculturation and cultural decline. This scholarly response imposed an enforced silence on the history of Aboriginal art in the south-east such that, even today, a lacunae exists from the drawings of William Barak and Tommy McRae in the late nineteenth century to the emergence of a contemporary 'urban' Aboriginal artistic expression in the 1970s and 1980s - a period of silence that coincides precisely with the implementation of assimilation policies aimed at rendering Aborigines invisible. By considering the cultural production of Aboriginal Enterprises in the light of recent debates in cross cultural discourse and the wider socio-political context of colonisation, this paper intervenes in this apparent historical absence to argue for a dynamic and resilient presence in south-eastern Australia. My research shows that for ethnic minorities entangled in colonial power relationships, the visibility politics of tourism provides a critical insight into the representation and recognition of Aboriginal identities within the wider framework of the nation state. The ambiguities and tensions that arise around issues of authenticity and tradition as Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike engage in processes of collaboration, adaptation and appropriation suggest the saliency of this study to postcolonial debates on tourist art.

Water and sediment quality of dry season pools in a dryland river system: the upper Leichhardt River, Queensland, Australia

This article presents the geochemical characteristics and physicochemical properties of water and sediment from twelve semi-permanent, dryland pools in the upper Leichhardt River catchment, north-west Queensland, Australia. The pools were examined to better understand the quality of sediments and temporary waters in a dryland system with a well-established metal contamination problem. Water and sediment sampling was conducted at the beginning of the hydroperiod in May and September 2007. Water samples were analyzed for major solute compositions (Ca, Na, K, Mg, Cl, SO(4), HCO(3)) and water-soluble (operationally defined as the <0.45 μm fraction) metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn). Sediment samples were analyzed for total extractable and bioaccessible metals (As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn), elemental composition and grain morphology. At the time of sampling a number of pools contained water and sediment with elevated concentrations, compared to Australian regulatory guidelines, of Cu (maximum: water 28 μg L(-1); sediment 770 mg kg(-1)), Pb (maximum: water 3.4 μg L(-1); sediment 630 mg kg(-1)) and Zn (maximum: water 150 μg L(-1); sediment 780 mg kg(-1)). Concentrations of Cd and As in pools were relatively low and generally within Australian regulatory guideline values. Localized factors, such as the interaction of waters with anthropogenic contaminants from modern and historic mine wastes (i.e. residual smelter and slag materials), exert influence on the quality of pool waters. Although the pools of the upper Leichhardt River catchment are contaminated, they do not appear to be the primary repository of water and sediment associated metals when compared to materials in the remainder channel and floodplain. Nevertheless, a precautionary approach should be adopted to mitigating human exposure to contaminated environments, which might include the installation of appropriate warning signs by local health and environmental authorities.

Coalition

Coalition

Addressing issues of religious difference through values education: an Islam instance

The article’s main focus is on exploring ways in which modern forms of values education are being utilized to address major issues of social dissonance, with special focus on dissonance related to religious difference between students of Islamic and non‐Islamic backgrounds. The article begins by appraising philosophical and neuroscientific research relevant to the underpinning concepts behind such forms of education. It then explores evidence from the federally funded Australian Values Education Program, and its various related research projects, that suggests that values education has potential to impact on a range of educational measures, including those related to enhancing understanding and tolerance across lines of religious difference.

School system as axiological medium

This paper analyses the Australian Values Education Program (VEP) within the framework of late-classical political economy. Using analytical methods from systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis, we demonstrate that the VEP is an unwitting restatement of the principles of ideology as developed by the likes of Destutt de Tracy and the Young Hegelians. We conclude that the sudden shock of globalisation and the post-national cultures this has entailed is in many ways similar to the shock of formal nationalism that emerged in the late-Seventeenth and early-Eighteenth centuries. The overall result of the VEP for the Australian school system is a massive procedural burden that is unlikely to produce the results at which the program is aimed.

Optimal management strategies to control local population growth or population spread may not be the same

The objective of most pest management programs is to "control" the pest species. However, optimal control of local abundance and population growth may require different management strategies than optimal control of spatial spread. We use coupled demographic-dispersal models to address the relative importance of different management approaches to these two main control objectives for the invasive thistle Carduus nutans. The models are parameterized with data from thistle populations in the native (France) and invaded ranges (Australia and New Zealand). We assess a wide range of commonly used management strategies for their absolute and relative impacts on population growth and spread in both invaded-range scenarios. The projected population growth rate in New Zealand is more than twice that in Australia, while the spread rate is more than four times the Australian value. In general, spread and growth are both most strongly affected by the same life cycle transitions; however, in a few cases certain vital rates disproportionately affect either spread or growth. The transition that represents the contribution of large rosettes in one year to the number of large rosettes in the following year (the large rosette-large rosette transition) in Australia is dominated by reproduction (rather than survival) and hence is relatively more important to spread than to population growth. In New Zealand, the small rosette-small rosette transition is also predominantly dispersal-related. However, establishment of small plants from the seed bank contributes more to population growth than spread, as no dispersal is involved. The fine-resolution vital-rate-based modeling approach allows us to identify potentially novel optimal management strategies: approaches that reduce microsite availability show promise for reducing both population growth and spread, while strategies that affect dispersal parameters will affect spread. Additionally, the relative ranking of some biocontrol agents shifts depending on whether control of population growth or population spread is the desired outcome and therefore could alter which of the agents are preferred for release in a new area. The possibility of differences in ranked agent effectiveness has been predicted theoretically, but never before demonstrated using field data.

The Influence of Regionalization and Cultural Distance on the Direction of Exports

Research has identified two distinct influences on the direction of firm internationalisation, cultural distance, and regionalisation. This paper sets out to test the strength of these influences on the direction of exports in circumstances where they act in different directions. The paper applies a quantitative methodology to a large, purposively compiled data set of Australian export values over the period 1990 to 2004. The Australian context provides an interesting case because its cultural linkages and its geographic connections lie in different directions. It is shown that regionalisation is the dominant influence on the direction of exports in the Australian context.