Dealing with unfinished Indigenous business: The need for historical reflection

The commitment by both major political parties to the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission symbolises profound problems that continue to bedevil movement towards meaningful reconciliation in Australia.
Unlike Australia, long-established treaties in Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as greater theoretical clarity in identifying the process of colonization and its ill-effects on Indigenous peoples have provided stronger foundations for policy and more positive outcomes.
This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding the effects of colonisation in Australia, and policy prerequisites for redressing its damaging effects. These include a treaty, improved economic resources and stronger political, intellectual and property rights.     

Integrated leadership system in the Australian Public Service

On 16 July 2004 the Australian Public Service Commission launched a new approach to leadership capability development for the public service. This approach, the Integrated Leadership System (ILS), is described as innovative and unique by the four speakers who make up this presentation—including Andrew Podger (AO), Public Service Commissioner, Jane Halton, Secretary of Health and Ageing, Anne Simic, Head of People, Qantas, and Dr Peter Shergold, Head of the Public Service and Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.     

Unanimous constitutional consent and the immigration problem

This paper utilizes the cross-cutting cleavages approach to evaluate the probability of a unanimous constitutional consent and, based on these results, discusses the implications of immigration on an existing constitutional consent. It is shown that previous conclusions of beneficial effects stemming from a multitude of political dimensions for a unanimous constitutional consent crucially depend on the assumption of an extreme mode of intrapersonal compensation of constitutional majority and minority preferences. These conclusions are reversed once you consider more restrictive schemes of such intrapersonal compensation. Since, furthermore, the probability of constitutional consent unambiguously falls with a growing size of the collectivity, only a policy of selective and controlled immigration will be able to guarantee with regard to the existing cleavages of a society that the existing constitutional consent will not be damaged or destroyed, whereas uncontrolled immigration, possibly based on ethical norms, will risk the breakdown of any constitutional consent in a society.     

State budget stabilization fund adoption: Preparing for the next recession or circumventing fiscal constraints?

The high rate of budget stabilization fund adoption during the 1980s is often attributed to the 1980–1982 recession. In this view, states adopted funds to prevent a recurrence of the fiscal crises experienced during that recession. An alternative hypothesis is that some funds adopted during this period were intended to circumvent tax and expenditure limit laws. We find that states with TELs in place were significantly more likely to adopt statutory funds, but were significantly less likely to adopt funds with stringent deposit and withdrawal rules, suggesting that some funds were adopted to circumvent existing fiscal constraints.     

Pennies from heaven: Entry fees to a socialist “paradise”

Based on a political-economic perspective, this paper assesses the former GDR-regime's policy of obligatory exchange (Pflichtumtauschsatz). ThePflichtumtausch, one of a wide array of instruments used to collect convertible currency and restrict access to the GDR, is briefly described. Following that, a demand function, relating visits to East Germany on the one hand to thePflichtumtauschsatz on the other, is estimated. The empirical evidence adduced suggests that visits to the East were considered a normal good. The next question considered is whether the GDR-regime, acting in its role as a monopolist, followed an optimal pricing policy. On both theoretical and empirical grounds this can be rejected. Visits to the East were underpriced. This resulted in a higher number of visits and lower revenue when seen from a profit-maximizing perspective. On the other hand the actual pricing was advantageous with respect to two goals: the deterrence of visits and the collection of convertible currency. Nonetheless, it is clear that the GDR-regime voluntarily restricted its revenue collection from thePflichtumtausch. This restraint, however, can be seen as its input into a political bargain. As a rule, such “good manners” in the matter of thePflichtumtausch were more than compensated by interest payments saved in the use of the Swing. The GDR-regime's generosity thus turned out to be a rather expensive good for the West Germans.     

Self-interest,public interest,and public health

Although the activities of physicians, as represented by the AMA, have long been viewed from a self-interest perspective by economists, public-health processes have not been subjected to such an examination. But just as the conduct of ostensibly charitable hospitals cannot be examined independently of the interests of the physicians who staff them, so too, we think, the conduct of public-health bureaus should not be examined in isolation from the interests of the medical community that they represent. An interest-group interpretation of public health would look to the ways in which public-health processes increase the aggregate demand for medical services, thereby generating quasirents for specialized input suppliers. We have explored in preliminary fashion some ways in which public-health agencies may advance the collective interests of physicians, though we would be the first to acknowledge that much work remains to be done on this topic.We are grateful to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for financial support.     

Cost-sharing — A necessary component for successful technology transfer

The general objective of this paper is to propose the establishment of a federal cost-sharing policy for reducing risk in transferring technology from the R&D stage to commercialization. Minimization of this risk barrier is expected to encourage diverse groups to participate in technology transfer. Section II focuses on specific barriers that impede technology transfer efforts and it presents policy options to minimize identified barriers. Section III introduces objectives of cost-sharing experiments from which cost-sharing policies can be formulated. In addition, we also identify specific cost-sharing participation criteria and success variables for the policy.     

Technological innovation in the semiconductor industry

A comprehensive list of innovations in the semiconductor industry during 1970 to 1980 was derived. The patterns of innovation across eight organizations showed consistency between the stages of initiation, adoption and implementation. Smaller organizations compared to large implemented a lower percentage of the innovations they initiated. The value of organization net sales and the dollar amount of the R&D budget, but not the number of organization of R&D personnel were significantly related to the number of innovations.     

A differential survey of the problems of privileged and underprivileged adolescents

The problems of adjustment during the midadolescent years were examined in 1298 privileged and underprivileged adolescents from the Sydney Metropolitan Area, Australia. Girls reported more problems than boys in all areas of adjustment and underprivileged adolescents more problems than the privileged group; however, a significant interaction effect was also found. Whether high-income or low-income group, the overwhelming number of problems were associated with educational adjustment and were interpreted as the reaction to pressures to achieve imposed on adolescents of this age.Received her M.A. (Hons.) and Ph.D. from Macquarie University. Member of Australian Psychological Society. Principal research interests are child psychopathology and psychology of adolescence.Received his M.A.(Hons.) and Ph.D. from Sydney University. Fellow of Australian Psychological Society. Principal research interest is psychology of adolescence.