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In 2022, after two years of the COVID virus profoundly interrupting social connection, learning, work and human mobility, governments worldwide turned material and rhetorical attention to life 'post-pandemic'. Understandably, teachers who were central in keeping communities virtually connected during the pandemic--are positioned as core to a return to the quality of life and to gaining social futures beyond COVID-19. This is reflected in the theme of the 64th ICET World Assembly Building Creative Global Teacher Education Communities Post-Pandemic. This conceptual paper, given initially as a keynote at this conference, argues that for teachers, the state of crisis has not abated, rather, post-COVID educators are 'returning' pre-existing and enduring social, environmental and workforce crises that have been amplified during the global health crisis (Rosehart et al. 2022). The paper contends that for teachers to respond to the major social and environmental justice issues of our time, it is important to examine the structures and practices which standardise and regulate teachers and teaching and limit the creativity required for powerful knowledge building. Drawing on recent research, the paper offers an example of the ways in which teachers might be supported to reimagine disciplines and subjects in order address and respond to the major crises of our time.

This paper examines the ways that Australian school leaders made sense of and responded to situations of crisis and uncertainty that resulted from the COVID-19 global pandemic. The paper draws on a qualitative study of the subjective experiences of eight school leaders and uses a sensemaking theoretical approach applied to crisis leadership to contribute to understanding leadership in unprecedented situations. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews undertaken in the middle of 2020. At that time participants were working through significant changes resulting from community lockdowns that required their schools to move to remote provision of education. The findings revealed these school leaders engaged in rapid processes of sensemaking and change implementation. They assessed and managed risks, relationships and resourcing in environments where usual processes of change leadership were not available to them. They reported that their attention was predominantly directed to the well-being of their communities. They noted an increase in the community leadership aspect of their role and the requirement of effective, timely and honest communication. They also demonstrated prospective sensemaking orientations in their capacity to reconfigure for a positive and productive future that could emerge from these disruptive experiences.

Introduction: This paper reports the findings of a study of risk management in public libraries. The focus of the research was to determine whether the libraries had a risk management and disaster plan for major disasters. Method: A qualitative study was done to investigate risk management and disaster recovery in public libraries in South Australia. Seven personal interviews were conducted with library managers and librarians at four public libraries. Analysis: The qualitative results emerging from the interviews were analysed through hand coding using grounded theory. Results: Participants confused risk management and disaster recovery with the practice of work (occupational) health and safety. None of the participating libraries have a risk management or disaster plan. Conclusions: The library managers do not rate the risk of disaster as high, believing that their library is located in a low-risk disaster area. They also do not regard any part of their collections to be of great value. Loss of a collection is perceived as an opportunity to refresh that collection. The participants do not consider risk management and disaster recovery as an important part of their business. [Paper presented at the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC): The Information Behaviour Conference, Part 1 (11th, Zadar, Croatia, September 20-23, 2016).]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to education and highlighted the importance of effective leadership during times of crisis. This paper considers the impact of the pandemic on school leaders in Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand. A secondary analysis of data from five interpretivist, qualitative studies was conducted. The aim of the study was to investigate the similarities and differences between the leaders' experiences across school settings, states/provinces, and countries. Our findings place renewed importance on understanding the role of schools within the community and the vital role school leaders play in helping schools respond to volatile and dynamic circumstances. The findings show how leaders' roles and responsibilities adapted to respond quickly and effectively to the urgency of the crisis, regardless of the context. Furthermore, common practices such as attending to wellbeing and providing clear and timely communication were revealed. The analysis also revealed some interesting nuances in the leaders' responses because of the duration of the crisis, the particular needs of the community, and government requirements. Papers like this provide insights into what leaders do and how schools and systems might prepare and support leaders to lead during times of crisis.

This paper presents the provocation that 'unmediatised liveness', or experiences not filtered through digital technology, is vital to performances that promote recovery, resistance, and survival among young people in response to the climate crisis. Our provocation draws from interviews conducted with youth theatre and performance practitioners in Australia whose work addresses the climate crisis holistically across disaster preparedness, first response, disaster recovery, and climate activism. We argue that while mediatised interactions remain a critical element of contemporary youth culture and performance, unmediatised co-presence, artistic collaboration, community action, and activism are crucial in the high-stakes context of Australia's climate crisis.

Purpose: This study aims to explain the primacy that rapid, centralised decision-making gained in higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on Australian universities. Design/methodology/approach: This paper draws on discussions regarding policy problems of an international, purpose-convened on-line policy network involving over 100 registrations from multiple countries. It analyses emerging institutional policy governance texts and documents shared between network participants, applies policy science literature regarding traditional institutional policy-making routines and rapid decision-making, and references media reportage from 2020. The paper traces how higher education institutions rapidly adjusted to pandemic conditions and largely on-line operations. Findings: The study finds that higher education institutions responded to the COVID-19 crisis by operationalising emergency management plans and introducing rapid, centralised decision-making to transition to remote modes of operation, learning and research under state-imposed emergency conditions. It highlights the need to ensure robust governance models recognising the ascendance of emergency decision-making and small-p policies in such circumstances, notwithstanding longstanding traditions of extended collegial policy-making routines for big-P (institutional) Policy. The pandemic highlighted practice and policy problems subject to rapid reform and forced institutions to clarify the relationship between emergency planning and decision-making, quality and institutional policy. Practical implications: In covering a range of institutional responses, the study advances the possibility of institutions planning better for unexpected, punctuated policy shifts during an emergency through the incorporation of rapid decision-making in traditionally collegial environments. At the same time, the paper cautions against the normalisation of such processes. The study also highlights key practices and policies that require urgent reconsideration in an emergency. The study is designed as a self-contained and freestanding narrative to inform responses to future emergencies by roundly addressing the particularities of the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as it affected higher education. Originality/value: There is only limited research on policy-making in higher education institutions. This research offers an original contribution on institutional policy-making during a prolonged emergency that deeply changed higher education institution's governance, operations and outlook. Particularly significant is the synthesis of experiences from a wide range of sector personnel, documenting punctuated policy shifts in policy governance (meta-policy), institutional policy-making routines and quality assurance actions under great pressure. This paper is substantially developed from a paper given at the Association for Tertiary Education Management Institutional Policy Seminar, 26th October 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every sphere of human life including education. Educational institutes all overthe world are faced with the unique challenge to keep running the education amidst the lockdowns and social distancing. This has resulted in an unprecedented shift to the alternate mode of instructional delivery. This is a temporary shift in the mode of delivery as a result of the crisis or emergency situation. The present paper discussed the implications of one of such crisis pedagogies of remote learning during the COVID-19 propelled closure of the tertiary institutions in Australia. The effectiveness of emergency remote learning (ERL) was assessed through the online survey. The participants were international students, the majority, at the time of the survey were in Australia and doing postgraduate course in project management. To assess the overall effectiveness, the solicited opinions were analyzed under five headings: students' perception, curriculum, feedback, quality, and technology & resource. The ERL model adopted in this study has two components: self-paced asynchronous learning and faculty-guided synchronous learning. The aim of the self-paced asynchronous learning was to provide the student access to learning and teaching materials which they could use safely, reliably and remotely, and later used those in their learning at their own pace. Similarly, the aim of the synchronous learning was to provide an interactive learning experience as in face-to-face teaching through faculty-guided live session. The result of the present study reveals that students perceived the ERL quite positively and are satisfied with the overall online learning and reported that transition to online learning from face-to-face was smooth and without much of the issue.

Purpose: In this paper we report on the outcomes of a scenario planning project in Melbourne's (Australia) inner northern suburbs, which was undertaken in the context of an extended lockdown during Melbourne's second wave of COVID-19 infections. In this project, the researchers sought to identify the ways in which young people and youth service providers understood the challenges that the pandemic was creating for young people and the provision of youth services, and through the 5 years up to 2025. Design/methodology/approach: The project was shaped by a scenario planning methodology that produced three research informed scenarios of possible futures for young people in Melbourne's inner north in 2025. The project conducted a series of structured video interviews with young people, and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders that asked participants to reflect on the context of the pandemic, and what the future might hold in relation to young people's pathways and health and well-being, and the futures of their communities and the planet. Findings: The scenario planning methodology revealed many concerns, uncertainties and anxieties that were shared, but which also varied between young people and stakeholders--both about the immediacy of the pandemic, and its aftermaths and intersection with future crises. Originality/value: The scenario planning approach offers sociologies of education and youth a means to do the future-oriented, "hopeful" work that multiple crises for young people demand. Scenario planning is an "affirmative" exercise in hope by which sociologies can "stay with the trouble" that we find ourselves in, and that the pandemic has amplified.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Problematic policy constructions of the purpose of education implicate professional identities and working conditions of professionals working with the youngest children. This paper builds on our earlier writing, to contest teacher professional identities in Australia, Ireland, Denmark and the United States of America, to illustrate the crucial importance of contextualised policy landscapes in early childhood education and care. It uses prevailing policy constructions, power imbalances and tensions in defining teacher identities, to ask crucial questions, such as what has become of the professional 'self'. It questions the fundamental ethics of care and encounter, and of worthy wage and other campaigns focused on the well-being of teachers when faced with a world-wide crisis. The cross-national conversations culminate in a contemporary confrontation of teacher identity and imperatives in increasingly uncertain times as evolving in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Climate change impacts cascade across scales and sectors, and present specific threats to education institutions and systems, including reduced educational access, participation and attainment by students. In this paper, we set out the pursuit of climate change mitigation and adaptation responses, grounded in commitments to equity and justice, as a renewed fundamental purpose for higher education. To this end, we suggest the understanding of public and private benefits of education that is typically applied to individuals may be usefully applied at institution and system scale. However, in the context of an accelerating climate crisis, adopting a renewed fundamental purpose will require institutions and systems to display critical awareness beyond the public-private benefits divide, towards an understanding of themselves as embedded in -- rather than separate to -- their broader communities and societies, and an acknowledgement of the particular interests that are foregrounded and privileged in the construction of their purpose.

Animals on a grand scale are victims of climate change and of natural disaster. With no voice within human cultures, their plight can be silenced and forgotten once an extreme weather event is over and when media coverage of the devastation has ceased. The creative arts have an important role to play in raising public awareness of and empathy for animals impacted by natural disaster. This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the Australian play Fire by Scott Alderdice (2017), framed by Animal Studies perspectives. The voices of the animals in Fire, as expressed through language -- dialogue and narration -- are the focus of the analysis to determine how the play engages in the concepts of considering other-than-human interests; imagining and representing animals and their significance; personifying species' presence using human speech to offset facelessness; and inspiring humans to take responsibility in this time of climate crisis and natural disaster. Fire provides an exemplar for theatrical expression giving voice to animals in times of crisis. An examination of the narration and dialogue of the animal characters reveals a respectful representation of native Australian animals, who are shown to be sentient and social beings intimately entwined with the environment in which they live. The language use by the animals throughout elicits recognition and empathy and subsequently feelings of grief and of guilt. The play inspires humans to take responsibility by considering animals' perspectives and interests; understanding their significance in the world; and performing our role to protect the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to education and highlighted the importance of effective leadership during times of crisis. This paper considers the impact of the pandemic on school leaders in Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand. A secondary analysis of data from five interpretivist, qualitative studies was conducted. The aim of the study was to investigate the similarities and differences between the leaders' experiences across school settings, states/provinces, and countries. Our findings place renewed importance on understanding the role of schools within the community and the vital role school leaders play in helping schools respond to volatile and dynamic circumstances. The findings show how leaders' roles and responsibilities adapted to respond quickly and effectively to the urgency of the crisis, regardless of the context. Furthermore, common practices such as attending to wellbeing and providing clear and timely communication were revealed. The analysis also revealed some interesting nuances in the leaders' responses because of the duration of the crisis, the particular needs of the community, and government requirements. Papers like this provide insights into what leaders do and how schools and systems might prepare and support leaders to lead during times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a case study of an Australian university involved in the delivery of transnational programs in an educational environment that has been increasingly characterized by commercial considerations. The researchers conducted focus group interviews with both general and academic staff to ascertain the personal, academic and administrative issues affecting the delivery of educational programs in Asia that arose as a result of one particular crisis in 2003: the SARS epidemic. The findings indicate that both administrative and academic staff felt personally and professionally challenged by the complexity of the issues involved in interrupting the pattern of transnational teaching. Potentially conflicting rationales emerged through the focus group discussions, with administrative staff expressing concern with maintaining services, while lecturers articulated a preoccupation with the safeguarding of assessment standards.

Some problems and solutions of "steady state" or nongrowth higher education institutions are considered, such as accountability, lack of funds, and lack of staff mobility. Possible remedies discussed are early retirement, fractional appointments, retrenchment, retraining, flexible ranking, and protected positions. (MLW)

Purpose: Management history has long acknowledged the existence of unproductive labour. Despite becoming unfashionable in modern times, the growth of unproductive labour within the economic composition of Australia's labour force, witnessed since the late 1980s, brings to the fore old debates with a modern resonance, debates as to how and when labour contributes to economic growth. Using Australia as a case study, this paper aims to explore the economic cost increasing rates of unproductive labour, typically associated with government-imposed regulation, may have upon an organisation, and more broadly society. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores the theoretical frameworks developed by classical and neoclassical economists on the subject of productive and unproductive labour and uses key elements to explain the economic consequences of the current labour economy and regulatory environment that exists within modern Australia. Findings: It is the growth of unproductive roles within the Australian economy since the late 1980s that contributes not only to the rising cost of employing domestically and the rising cost of living, but furthermore, to the fragility of Australia's long-term economic security. Originality/value: Australia's economy is bound by chains of regulation. No longer does productivity fuel a growing economy, but rather, economies are powered by the rein of unproductive labour – labour that does not produce value but rather, consumes it. Unproductive labour is not a "dusty museum piece". Rather, it is a defining characteristic of modern Australia, one that impacts immensely the cost of domestic business, and ultimately, society and the cost of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At times of crisis, existing institutional arrangements of societies are thrown into question. Crises that occur in multiple societies simultaneously present rare opportunities for comparative empirical analysis. Social theory can reveal the framing conditions of the responses to crises and the sources of variations between them. This paper compares the immediate responses of the Australian, UK and US governments to the global COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regard to financing lockdowns, and points out significant differences between the three approaches. Drawing on Polanyi's method of institutional analysis, we compare the responses of these same national groups to an earlier crisis, the Japanese prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, to show similar patterns of integration recurring eight decades apart. This analysis shows that aspects of moral economies that are not usually apparent can become pronounced during crises, and points to the importance of enduring social imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hazards, both natural and human induced, have impacted libraries throughout history. With multiple examples across the globe of libraries impacted by a range of hazards and the future prospect of natural hazards occurring in greater strength and frequency, it is important for libraries to consider a changed approach to risk management from a 'response/reactive' focus to 'resilience building'. This paper will demonstrate examples of Australian libraries impacted by a range of natural hazards, discuss the meaning of resilience and increase awareness of a specialist 'Disaster Resilience Toolkit for Libraries' designed to assist libraries in assessing their current resilience levels to natural hazards, specifically flood, fire and earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major natural disasters are events where day-to-day governance activities are disrupted and a large range of different actors - governmental and non-governmental - are required to (re) act. Given the inherently chaotic nature of disaster events, and the diverse groups responding to their attendant impacts, clarity about how authority and responsibility are allocated across key disaster management actors is essential. This raises numerous pertinent questions: Are there areas of shared competence between different disaster management actors? Is there a need for them to act in common? Is credible cooperation feasible? Can responsibilities be allocated in a clear and effective manner? In this paper, drawing upon the subsidiarity principle, we provide a review of the academic literature using the role of different actors in disaster management in Australia as the case. The objective of the paper is to synthesise what is known and to, thereby, provoke greater conversation and research of responsibilities during disaster events in Australia and beyond. The ultimate contribution is to help understand how the roles of different disaster management actors can be better reconciled to ensure more effective and efficient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Governments have historically offered their workforce a public service bargain founded on stable pay and conditions and job security. However, while the Westminster system aims for public service employment to be protected from the whims of government, public servants are nonetheless affected by the political environment in which they operate and changes to this bargain can occur with a new government. This paper focuses on a Queensland public service change process that resulted in large‐scale forced redundancies, non‐renewal of temporary contracts, and legislative changes that nullified the provisions in job security, organisational change, and redundancy policies. Using communication as a lens through which to understand leadership, it examines how the government communicated with the public service about this organisational change, immediately before and after the 2012 election. In particular, through analysis of public and media commentary, speeches and Hansard records, it examines Premier Newman's change leadership and communication by contrasting pre‐election messages to the public service with post‐election messages about the public service and the justifications for change during this period of downsizing. This analysis is used to reflect on political leadership, communication, fair treatment, and trust in public service change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a real – albeit rare – test for human and organisational resilience worldwide, including those in the higher education sector. In this paper, I reflect on my observations of the pandemic's impacts that have rippled through the university sector in Australia in the first three quarters of 2020. The pandemic has not only heightened existing issues in universities, such as the tensions between university management, union, and part of university staff, but also posed new ones, such as supporting doctoral students to overcome research disruptions at an unprecedented scale. In terms of supporting doctoral students, the case of the University of Melbourne, one of the largest Australian universities, shows that there are still hidden issues even with a relatively flexible approach based on good intention. Given the uncertainties caused by the pandemic, the sustainability and effectiveness of the university's current support measures remain to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the circumstances in which a crisis response strategy can compound a crisis, especially a corporate scandal, as evidenced by the case of AWB Limited, where the organisational damage of the "cover-up" escalated the scandal further and caused additional damage to the company. Design/methodology/approach – The AWB case study provides a unique insight into the application of theories and research on crisis and reputation management and the specific challenges and risks of corporate scandals. Findings – As a specific form of crisis, corporate scandals can easily descend into a secondary or "double crisis" if incorrectly managed, or even mismanaged. Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that the information provided to the Australian Government's Royal Commission and other documents relating to the management of the scandal by the company further embarrassed AWB and exposed the inappropriateness of the original defensive apologia crisis response strategy pursued by the company. Practical implications – The AWB case study provides an opportunity for alignment with the crisis response theories of Coombs and De Maria, based on the evaluation of the initial failed response strategy and the more appropriate response eventually undertaken by the company. Originality/value – The paper offers the additional insights of the author (as a former member of the management team at the company) into the documents tendered to the Royal Commission, which have not been evaluated and studied for their contribution to crisis communication and crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper seeks to present an interview with Ross Campbell, a Melbourne, Australia-based crisis management practitioner, focusing on the development of crisis management as distinct from risk management. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses an interview to explain the importance of investment in crisis management and outlines what is involved. Findings - The paper offers examples of good crisis management practice and looks at some cases of failure to anticipate and prepare for potential crises. Originality/value - The paper warns that such failures can not only damage corporate resources and reputations, but can also result in an organization's demise. The paper also lays particular emphasis on the need for a timely and efficient message strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the Australian federal government's response to a series of tourism disasters and crises that affected the Australian tourism industry in 2001 and measures these impacts against the response mechanism suggested in the Tourism Disaster Framework Model developed by Faulkner (2001). The paper finds that as shocks often occur with little warning, the establishment of a formal disaster management framework should be given a high priority by government and receive support from the private sector. Had such a mechanism been able to respond to the disasters in a more considered manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse an Australian commercial radio talkback show that deployed prank as a strategy to scoop royal news to entertain an Australian audience, often commodified for popularity ratings and sponsorship dollars. Design/methodology/approach – Using textual analysis, the study empirically examined the crisis that followed the 2Day FM’s prank call to the Duchess of Cambridge at King Edward VII Hospital, London. The paper engages with the media-made disaster from the lens of issue and crisis management interrogating social conversations and news stories across three countries, i.e., Australia, Britain and India. Findings – Findings reflect that the media, in this case, radio, far more than any other public entity, is subject to public scrutiny and has a moral obligation to practice with public interest at heart. Both news and social media played crucial roles in the escalation of the crisis that ignited a range of public issues. While social media narratives were abusive, condemning and life-threatening, news stories focused on legality, ethics and privacy. Practical implications – The prank broadcast invited news and social media attention and raised public concern over the ethics of Australian radio entertainment. Crises, whilst often damaging, contribute to the rethinking and rejuvenation of organisational and professional values and practices. Originality/value – This project is significant in that it is the first to use a radio talk show as a case to engage with issue and crisis management literature and interrogate radio practice in Australia. Further, the project identifies this crisis as media-made and develops an innovative crisis lifecycle model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Twitter posts mentioning Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard during the 2011 Queensland flood crisis. The contrast in the perceived styles of the two leaders is analysed using the theory of transformational leadership as a framework. The implications for effective leadership communication in a crisis are discussed, notably, strategies for instilling pride and gaining respect and trust. The study also highlights the emerging role of Twitter in setting the media agenda at times of fast-breaking news. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the findings of an unusual international endeavour that combines action research with leadership development for 40 senior officials from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. The four nation Leadership Across Borders programme, co-delivered by the governments' business schools of each country, set out to explore and understand some of the most significant facets of public service ranging from citizen engagement to whole-of-government complexity, and from the economic downturn to crisis management. Over the 10 months of the programme, the senior group engaged with heads of the public service, leading academics, delivery experts, leaders of civic society and scores of street level service users. This paper highlights the critical importance of understanding complexity and the role of 'systems thinking' in dealing with modern problems. But it also points to a new order of innovation required of leaders if they are to bring value to problems such as deprivation and global financial crises, and if they are to successfully bring about citizen-centred services in increasingly complex societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency and severity of natural disasters has placed a clear emphasis on the role of governments in responding to these crises. During the past decade, disaster events have had a significant impact on the relevant communities as well as raising questions regarding the role of government and the bureaucratic coordination of planning and response processes. These events have placed a renewed focus on the ability of governments to plan, prepare, and respond in an effective way to crises. They have also tended to indicate that there remain serious challenges to government coordination and that crises create a unique series of challenges for the public sector. At the heart of understanding how governments respond to crises are notions of bureaucratic coordination. It has been suggested that joined-up or whole of government arrangements may provide an appropriate means in which to approach crisis management. As a result a number of key themes emerge including the nature of crisis management, role of leadership, understanding coordination, impact of organisational culture, and the interactions between individuals and institutions. This paper will consider these issues and provide a review of the relevant literature, to understand the synergies that exist in connected responses to crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Queensland Police and Community Safety Review (PACSR) 2013 headed by Mick Keelty was tasked by the Queensland government to examine the State's emergency management practices and processes. Commissioned before any crisis, the PACSR was still collecting evidence when extensive flooding occurred across many regional centres of Queensland in 2013. It was the subsequent management of this event, and selected evidence from earlier inquiries that underpinned many of the findings in the final PACSR report. Keelty recommended institutional and organizational restructuring that included the abolition of a department, and the tasking of the fire and rescue service with additional oversight and audit functions. PACSR argued too much emphasis was placed on relationships, which made disaster management in Queensland potentially unsustainable in the longer term. Some of the findings replicated those of earlier inquiries (O'Sullivan 2009; QFCI 2012), including the apparent reluctance by police to implement communications systems that are interoperable with other emergency agencies. This reluctance to embrace new technologies indicates institutional and cultural barriers to reform. Despite this, the Police and Fire and Rescue services have been given additional responsibilities by the Newman government, based on Keelty's recommendations. PACSR did not appear to evaluate some of the best practice aspects of the 2010-2011 flooding event, whereas some suggest the report had a predetermined element to it (Byrne 2014). In finding that too much emphasis was placed on informal relationships and networks in 2013, and concentrating on structural reforms instead, this paper argues that the PACSR discounted many features that current crisis literature notes as important for a successful disaster management response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies how ‘civil contingencies’ are addressed in Australia. It describes how responsibilities for emergency management are allocated across Australia's federated system of government and provides a critical review of the institutional and structural arrangements. It is argued that, even though Australia's emergency management arrangements have generally served the community well, there are undoubted limitations. One limitation is the lack of established Commonwealth response powers and weak arrangements to coordinate the Commonwealth response to emergency. It is further argued that Australia's arrangements focus on governments and their response to emergencies. They have, to date, largely omitted other players, in particular non-government actors, whether that is private industry, communities or individuals. There is evidence that this is changing with the recent overarching policy statement – the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The frequent occurrence of emergencies and disasters continues to threaten community safety and security. Emergency communications and warning systems (ECWS) allow people to make decisions and take actions before, during and after the emergency or disaster. The critical objective of this study is to determine the critical capacities of ECWS in the Australian context. Design/methodology/approach – This study used stakeholder analysis in which written submissions from individuals, and public and private organizations collected by the Australian federal government were subjected to structured coding techniques in order to identify major ECWS capacity issues. The summary of findings were generating by axially collapsing and summarizing the coded statements. Findings – Findings showed that a broad range of ECWS are deployed in the Australian context. These ECWS come with social and/or technical limitations that suggest the importance of adopting an integrated or systems based approach for their construction and deployment. Also, while the identification of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities reinforced the argument for an integrated systems approach for ECWS, this also demonstrated the pressing need to build resilience and redundancy into domestic infrastructure networks. In addition, new and innovative ECWS technologies and solutions will enable improved emergency or disaster management in the future. Originality/value – This paper simultaneously considers important factors and issues impacting ECWS and provides an instructive discourse on the requirement for more combinative ECWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the difficulties in examining organisational resilience in a community setting is the sheer complexity of the interrelationships essential to creating and sustaining that resilience. Very often, one is reduced to synthesising simpler hypothetical models to try to define and analyse the key aspects of resilience to volatility in the environment. This paper uses a university organisational setting as a real-life model of a community to explore the key arrangements essential for establishing resilience. Australia's worst recorded natural disaster, the devastating Victorian bushfires of February 2009, provides a context against which the resilience arrangements of an organisation, and by extrapolation a model community, can be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has been seen as a crisis looming in the future, and has therefore not reached the top of the political agenda. This no longer holds true when looking at Australia, where climate change has become high politics. In this paper we examine the Australian electoral debate in terms of accountability framing, where the Government and Opposition were involved in a ‘framing contest’. We argue that theories on accountability framing in crisis need to be modified in order to capture the complex dynamics of climate change due to its inherent scientific uncertainty and global nature. After conducting an inductive analysis of Australian Broadcasting Corporation-reporting we found three themes to be of importance for accountability framing in the ‘risk society’: labeling, linking and coping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the expert and popular discourses that sought to construct and disseminate the idea that Australia faced a masculinity crisis with the return of servicemen at the end of the Second World War. It explores how these discourses proposed a process of remasculinisation to ensure the successful reintegration of returning servicemen. These discourses were directed primarily at wives, mothers and fiancées, who were seen to bear the responsibility for rebuilding the manhood of returning men. Doctors played an important role in producing this prevailing discourse on the looming post-war masculinity crisis, identifying its symptoms and proposing solutions. This crisis discourse filtered into popular culture through many means, predominantly, however, advice literature and romance fiction. While some of these expert and popular discourses constructed a backward looking ideal of domesticity for women, romance fiction in particular explored more modern possibilities of companionate marriage. The dissemination of a discourse about an impending masculinity crisis created different possibilities for the reconstruction of relations between men and women. The remasculinisation project could look both backwards (through ideals of women's subservience to damaged men) and forwards (through notions of marriage as a partnership) in imagining post war gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11 2001 have troubled the practice of security. There has been renewed emphasis on the need for a layered security strategy, and this has refocused attention on civil defense. As a consequence, emergency management institutions are increasingly being incorporated under the aegis of 'national security'. This is resulting in the implementation of older command- and-control type models of emergency management at the expense of the prevention-oriented, preparedness and community based approaches that emerged after the end of the Cold War The paper situates this recent convergence of security and emergency management in a discussion of the evolution of both policy fields since the end of WWII. It then explains the post- September 1/trend towards centralizing authority in emergency management in Australia, but with considerable reference to parallel developments in the United States. The paper argues that while this retrogressive shift seems inimical to contemporary advances in emergency management, an inclusive interpretation of security—as human security—could serve to reinforce the important developments made in the field of emergency management in the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian health system has been the subject of multiple reviews and reorganisations over the last twenty years or more. The year 2004-2005 was no different. This paper reviews the reforms, (re)structures and governance arrangements in place at both the national and state/territory levels in the last year. At the national level some progress has been made in 2004/05 through the Australian Health Ministers' Council and there is now a national health reform agenda, albeit not a comprehensive one, endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in June 2005. Quality and safety was an increasing focus in 2004-2005 at both the national and jurisdictional levels, as was the need for workforce reform. Although renewed policy attention was given to the need to better integrate and coordinate health care, there is little evidence of any real progress this last year. More progress was made on a national approach to workforce reform. At the jurisdictional level, the usual rounds of reviews and restructuring occurred in several jurisdictions and, in 2005, they are organisationally very different from each other. The structure and effectiveness of jurisdictional health authorities are now more important. All health authorities are being expected to drive an ambitious set of national and local reforms. At the same time, most have now blurred the boundary between policy and service delivery and are devoting significant resources to centrally 'crisis managing' their service systems. These same reasons led to decentralisation in previous restructuring cycles. While there were many changes in 2004-2005, and a new national report to COAG on health reform is expected at the end of 2005, based on current evidence there is little room for optimism about the prospects for real progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the pattern and consequences of crises experienced by corporate Australia during the last decade. Crises are defined here as a single incident or issue with consequences that threaten the organisation's viability; thus, this study observes 55 corporate crises in Australia between 1990 and 2001. Half were operational crises; the prevalence of extortion and product recall made wholesale and retail trade the most crisis-prone industry. In Australia, over a quarter of companies affected by crisis did not survive. Direct costs typically exceed $10 million, with a quarter costing over $100 million. Because many crises are due to systemic deficiencies in industries or companies, their causes are often apparent (at least in hindsight). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social policy represents a critical dimension of the governmental response to COVID-19. This article analyses the Australian response, which was radical in that it signalled an unprecedented policy turnaround towards welfare generosity and the almost total relaxation of conditionality. It was also surprising because it was introduced by a conservative, anti-welfarist government. The principal argument is that, though the generosity was temporary, it should be understood simultaneously by reference to institutional change and institutional tradition. The 'change' element was shaped by the urgency and scale of the crisis, which indicated an institutional 'critical juncture'. This provided a 'window of opportunity' for reform, which would otherwise be closed. 'Tradition' was reflected in the nation's federalist conventions, which partially steered the response. The central implication for other countries is that, amid the uncertainty of a crisis, governments need to consider change within the bounds of their traditional institutions when introducing welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]