Australian Councils Unelected by the Citizens in an Indigenous Setting: The Case of Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory

Within the Australian democratic nation there are towns where the citizens are governed by administrations that have not been democratically elected by the residents. These unique residential centres are termed ‘special purpose towns’ that can be transformed to a permanent community governed by a democratic structure through a process termed normalisation. This paper examines the special purpose mining town of Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory of Australia, which is on the cusp of the normalisation process. The paper outlines the similarities and differences of local government roles and responsibilities with Australian towns or shires that have publicly elected executive members. How Indigenous people are facilitating the normalisation of Nhulunbuy, through cultural perceptions of opportunity, is discussed. A concluding focus challenges well established conventional frameworks endorsing the roles of governments and miners in the normalisation phenomenon.     

From Subjects to Citizens: On Educational Reforms and the Demarcation of the “Israeli-Arabs”

Based on a critical analysis of the Arab educational policy, from Israel's independence in the 1970s, this article examines the pivotal role of the state in engendering the trends of Palestinianization and Israelization that arguably characterize the attitude of the Arab minority to the Israeli state. Exploring the educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, it shows the contingent relation between ethnicity and the state, and also, the interrelationship between the intra-Jewish and Jewish-Arab divides. Looking at the ethnicization of social relations not as a preordained upshot of primordial realities, the history of the reforms unravels the changing patterns of inclusion and exclusion that result in demarcating the Arab minority as both Israeli and Palestinian, and in constructing the oxymoronic category of “Israeli-Arabs”. Seen from the perspective of the goals for Arab and Jewish education, this category manifests the internalization of the “Arab Question” and the shift in educational policy from preclusion to incorporation, but also the limits of inclusion. These goals thus epitomize the ways in which the new discourse of meritocracy (resulting from the liberalizing of the economy and society) had determined civic equality between Arab and Jewish citizens, but equally important, the seclusion of the Arab minority from both the Jewish (ethnic) society and the Palestinian (national) collective. In this sense, I argue, neither Israelization nor Palestinianization were a matter of choice. Rather, both constitute the inevitable dual path for social and political inclusion, limited as it is.     

Change in the Australian Electricity Industry: A Case Analysis

In this article a contextualist framework is used for theoretical analysis, in which context, content and process are linked over time. Within this framework we begin with the contextual factors which appear to be significant in restructuring the electricity industry, then outline the pathway taken by reform in the United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia, before describing the principal changes to one organisation and the management issues which have arisen as a result of these changes.     

Alternatives to Competitive Tendering and Privatisation: A Case Study from the Australian Health Industry

The international trend towards economic and financial management reforms is well documented with most governments now being involved in public sector restructuring programs, which have at their core the aim of improving the quality of administrative functions through a more responsive approach by state agencies (OECD 1996). In nations with administrative systems derived from British models these efforts may be generally referred to as 'the de-Sir Humphreying of the Westminister model' (Hood 1990:105). In essence this approach has had three aims. First, it has attempted to diminish the role of thestate and make the bureaucracy more responsive to political leaders. Second, it has aimed for greater efficiency through the use of private sector management techniques. Third, it has focused on the citizen as a customer and service recipient (Aucoin 1990:16).     

Governance Disclosure on the Internet: The Case of Australian State Government Departments

This paper examines corporate governance disclosures on the websites of Australian state government departments. The study focuses on the nature and extent of governance information and the ease of finding this information directly on department websites and also in annual reports which are downloadable from websites. Our sample comprises six departments from each of the six states in Australia, giving a sample size of 36 departments. Our findings indicate considerable variability in both the level of disclosure and the accessibility of the information disclosed. The study also highlights a lack of consensus regarding the meaning of governance and what governance comprises, together with the need for a more structured approach to communicating governance information to stakeholders.     

Social Democrats and Neo-Liberalism: A Case Study of the Australian Labor Party

Social democratic parties have been agents in the neo-liberal transformation of public policy in recent decades. There has been debate about the reasons why social democrats have embraced market policies, with particular emphasis given to ideological trends, globalisation and electoral factors. This paper aims to shed further light on this debate by examining the case of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), which was a prominent social democratic exponent of neo-liberalism during its time in office in the 1980s and 1990s. In Labor's case, the primary cause of the shift from pledging social reform and interventionist government to neo-liberalism was the lower levels of economic growth that followed the end of the post-war boom in the 1970s. Social democrats rely on strong economic growth to fund redistributive policies. Thus when recession occurred in the 1970s it eroded the economic base to Labor's programme. While this paper focuses on the story of the ALP, it may provide some answers as to why social democrats elsewhere have adopted neo-liberalism.     

论社会转型期我国公民的政治参与

社会转型时期,由于公民利益意识的觉醒、新的利益群体的出现、政治民主化程度的提高、利益分配不公现象的存在、政治文化的变迁等因素的影响,大大促进了我国公民政治参与的发展。本文分析了社会转型时期我国公民政治参与的新特点,并提出了推进与完善公民政治参与的对策建议。     

Non-violent Erotica: A Case Study in an Issue Network within the Australian Federal Parliament

The federal government's attempt to replace the X classification for videotapes with a Non-violent Erotica (NVE) classification category was rejected through the intervention of an issue network within the federal parliament. By assessing this process, we can see how individuals can form issue networks and successfully alter a policy proposal.     

The Council of Australian Governments and Intergovernmental Relations: A Case of Cooperative Federalism

A series of Special Premiers' Conferences begun in 1990, andthe establishment of the Council of Australian Governments in1992, signaled a phase of "cooperative federalism" in Australia.Joint schemes of policy and legislation and new national intergovernmentalbodies were made by a series of formal agreements. The conditionsand circumstances are appraised in a discussion of the natureof intergovernmental coordination and cooperation, and fromthe critical perspective of a model of competitive federalism.It is concluded that the initiatives, largely, did not representa centralizing process, nor did they override strongly articulatedclaims for diversity. This is made clear following an analysisof the processes occurring in the newly established federalinstitutions and from a series of brief case studies. They expressedthe continuing interdependency and underlying autonomy of stateand Commonwealth governments through schemes that promised tobring agreed, joint benefits through federal solutions.     

社区安全建设中府民合作与角色定位

西方国家安全社区建设是围绕安全管理环节展开的,中国社区安全建设则围绕政府部门展开,中国政府主导下的社区安全建设存在政府唱独角戏的弊端.社区居民安全感并没有因社区安全建设而得到相应的提升.针对目前社区安全建设的现状,论文提出了四共、四公、四线和四动的建设方案;并主张推动社区安全建设中的府民合作,促使政府从社区安全建设主导者逐步变成引导者,最后成为监督者和评估者;同时整合各类社区安全建设方案,从而减少基层管理者承担的运动式的工作任务.     

Australian Child Support Reforms: A Case Study of the Use of Microsimulation Modelling in the Policy Development Process

Child support is always a difficult area of public policy, balancing the sometimes competing needs of children, resident and non‐resident parents and the state. This article provides a relatively rare insight into some of the processes involved in developing the new Australian Child Support Scheme (CSS), which will commence full operation in July 2008. In particular, this article shows how microsimulation modelling was used by the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support and the government in the policy reform process. The availability of such sophisticated distributional analysis and modelling allowed the development of a comprehensive picture of how the reforms would affect CSS clients, thereby facilitating the adoption of major policy change. This article also provides a blueprint for policy‐makers of how modelling can facilitate their policy development processes.     

Participatory Reactions to Policy Threats: Senior Citizens and the Defense of Social Security and Medicare

The sociodemographic factors emphasized in much participation research cannot explain abrupt changes in levels of activity. This study shows how threat of undesirable policy change acts as an impetus to participatory activity, helping to explain temporal variation in participation. Newly available individual-level time-series data are used to show surges in senior citizen letter writing in response to threats to Social Security and Medicare during the 1980s. Policy threat interacts with individual characteristics to produce variations in participatory reaction congruent with the magnitude of the threat to the individual.     

Accountability in Public Service Quasi‐markets: The Case of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme

Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) represents the latest in a worldwide shift towards individualised funding models for the delivery of care services. However, market‐based models for care deliveries bring new considerations and dilemmas for accountability. Drawing on previous work by Dickinson et al. (2014), we examine a range of accountability dilemmas developing within the early implementation of the NDIS. These relate to accountability for the following: care outcomes, the spending of public money, care workers, and advocacy and market function. Examining these accountability dilemmas reveals differences in underpinning assumptions within the design and on‐going implementation of the NDIS, suggesting a plurality of logics within the scheme, which are in tension with one another. The contribution of this paper is to set out the accountability dilemmas, analyse them according to their underpinning logics, and present the NDIS as having potential to be a hybrid institution (Skelcher and Smith 2015). How these dilemmas will be settled is crucial to the implementation and ultimate operation of the scheme.     

我国商品房价格合理性分析

近年来,我国房地产业得到迅猛发展,在肯定房地产业对经济发展做出贡献的同时,我们也应该看到房地产经济中存在的问题。目前由于房地产经济过热以及我国部分城市“炒房团”的存在,使我国商品房价格呈现出快速上涨的态势。快速上涨的房价超出了居民的购买力,普通老百姓买不起房的现象严重。因此,从理论上探讨商品房价格的合理性问题,为宏观调控提供依据,不仅十分必要,而且十分迫切。