The Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia: The Politicisation of a Public Policy Issue

In Australia, there is a laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising but, over the past ten years as accusations of misuse for partisan purposes have grown, many external policy actors have tried to achieve a change in policy. This article traces the history of these (failed) reform attempts. This case study is of interest because it is an example of a government demonstrating long‐term resistance to reforms that are quite modest by international standards and despite attempts by usually influential policy actors to propel reform. This article draws particular attention to the role of the Auditor‐General and demonstrates the growing politicisation of the issue in an environment where those who seek to investigate and comment upon government advertising are severely discouraged.     

Characteristics of court-involved men and non-court-involved men who abuse their wives

The characteristics of court involved (CI) (n=86) and non-court-involved (NCI) men (n=42) who abused their wives and attended a treatment program were investigated. The groups experienced similar childhoods concerning family violence. The NCI men had more years of education, were more likely to be employed full-time, and tended to earn more money than the CI men. The NCI men also had more social support and scored higher on interpersonal problems than the CI men. The CI men were more likely to be separated, more reported drinking during their most recent assaultive occasion. Compared to the norms on the Basic Personality Inventory, both groups scored significantly higher on depression, anxiety, feelings of alienation, hypochondriasis, and impulse expression. CI men had higher denial and social introversion scores and NCI men had higher interpersonal problem scores than the norm. These findings have some implications for the planning of treatment programs.     

A forensic international market survey of condom lubricants and personal hygiene products using ATR-FTIR coupled to chemometrics

Condom residues may be encountered in forensic investigations as traces in sexual assault or rape cases. Casework studies have shown the value of distinguishing condom residues from other types of personal products used by women. However, up to now, there has been no investigation of their chemical variability within an international context. This work employed attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with chemometrics to provide objective characterisation of condom lubricants and personal hygiene products from the international market. 166 samples were obtained covering five major classes of products likely to be used by women. Principal component analysis distinguished most major classes based on their spectral profiles, with subsequent support vector machine models yielding discrimination accuracies over 90%. A two-step approach was subsequently developed and enabled both classification and a discrimination accuracy of 100%. This could provide greater confidence in chemical discrimination of residues from these products when conducting investigations and help assess the origin of the chemical profile obtained. Further testing using three validation sets produced an identification accuracy of 100% for generic classes, which may allow investigative leads to be more readily obtained from recovered evidence.     

Young people,family relationships and civic participation

This article examines young people’s civic participation and the extent to which this is influenced by the family. Although literature on young people’s civic participation is abundant, the role of the family in influencing this participation is largely absent. Drawing on survey data collected from 976 young people aged 13–14 in South Wales, we outline the extent and nature of civic participation and how this varies according to relationships with parents and grandparents. Our data show that relationships with mothers and grandparents are particularly important in young people’s accounts of their participation, suggesting that family is far more important in developing a propensity for engagement in civil society than is commonly understood.     

Annual Index 2002

China's rural land rights regime is being reformed. Most explanations for the reforms focus on the efficiency effects anticipated from the strengthening of villagers' land rights. In contrast, this article argues that rural land rights reforms are intended to resolve the intra-state and state-society contention generated by China's market transition and globalization, and to mediate villagers' dispossession of their land and their transformation into a proletariat.     

Complicating Complicity: Aiding and Abetting Causing Death by Dangerous Driving in R v Martin

The law of complicity, particularly relating to joint enterprise liability, appears to becoming more and more complicated. Cases on secondary liability for murder in the Court of Appeal demonstrate that this area of law is difficult to interpret and to apply. Even more complex is the question of how to apply these cases to offences other than murder. This case note attempts to address the Court of Appeal's questions in the case of R v Martin as to how the jury ought to be directed in a case of aiding and abetting causing death by dangerous driving.