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Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are associated with overweight/obesity and linked to chronic diseases. A levy or tax on SSBs has been introduced in many jurisdictions globally as a way to lower sugar consumption and/ or reformulate lower sugar levels in order to address increasing rates of overweight and obesity. In this article we describe the various approaches to SSB taxation in these jurisdictions. We then explore the legal and policy landscape relevant to the introduction of an SSB levy in Australia. We argue that there is a mandate for the Australian government to introduce such a tax given the clear evidence that consumption, and therefore the adverse associated health outcomes, have a disproportionate impact upon those from lower socio-economic communities. We ultimately recommend that the tax take the form of an excise which focuses on changing industry practice, based on the success achieved by the United Kingdom tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the legal and policy regulatory frameworks in Australia relevant to two of the key areas identified as central to managing and preventing obesity, namely, food labelling and junk food advertising. It does so against the backdrop of a global pandemic which resulted in a perfect storm: a global virus colliding with an obesity epidemic. The aetiology of the COVID-19 virus, and the isolation and shut down restrictions associated with combatting it, mean that introducing reforms in these key areas is, more than ever, a public health priority. This article provides important practical recommendations to modify legal and regulatory policy frameworks in the two key areas to address the obesity epidemic in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situations in which a deceased person has died in the course of "fright, escape or selfpreservation'1 have long posed complex causation questions for the criminal law. The Western Australian Court of Criminal Appeal has had the opportunity in recent years to consider the situation where a victim's death follows threats or intimidation delivered by the defendant. In Yarran v The State of Western Australia, decided in 2019, the Court focused on the role that section 272 of the Criminal Code Act Compilation Act (1913) plays in resolving the difficult causation issues which can arise in these sorts of cases. While the earlier case of TB v The State of Western Australia2 had resolved some of the questions associated with the operation of section 272, Yarran directly raised the issue of the victim's reaction to the threats or intimidation: what relevance should the "unreasonableness" or "disproportion" of a victim's response to an accused's threats have to the question whether the accused caused' that response under S272? Is the nature of the victim's response part of the legal causation inquiry, or does it only concern the criminal responsibility (scope of liability) inquiry within the excuse of Accident? This article explains the court's approaches to this question and highlights some of the more general, fundamental questions raised by the case around the relationship between the different causation provisions in the WA Criminal Code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The provision of supported decision-making for people living with disabilities is an emerging area of practice and rights-based law reform, and is required under international law. Objectives: This qualitative study aimed to understand how Australian health and legal professionals conceptualised their professional roles in the practice of providing decision-making support for people living with dementia. Methods: The methods were informed by grounded theory principles. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 health and legal professionals involved in providing care or services for people with dementia. Interviews explored how professionals described their practice of providing support for decision-making and how they conceptualised their roles. The analysis was underpinned by the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism. Results: Participants described providing support across a range of decision domains, some of which were specific to their professional role. Four key themes were identified: 'establishing a basis for decision-making', 'the supportive toolbox', 'managing professional boundaries' and 'individualist advocacy versus relational practice'. Participants identified a range of generic and specialised techniques they used to provide support for people with dementia. These techniques were applied subject to resource limitations and perceived professional obligations and boundaries. A continuum of professional practice, ranging from 'individualist advocacy' to 'relational practice' describes the approaches adopted by different professionals. Discussion: Professionals conceptualised their role in providing support for decision-making through the lens of their own profession. Differences in positioning on the continuum of 'individualist advocacy' through to 'relational practice' had practical implications for capacity assessment, engaging with persons with impaired decision-making capacity, and the inclusion of supporters and family members in decision-making processes. Further progress in implementing supported decision-making (including through law and policy reform) will require an understanding of these inter-professional differences in perceived roles relating to the practice of providing decision-making support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Examine policies of aged care organisations relating to healthcare and lifestyle decision‐making. Methods: Seven aged care organisations submitted policy documents. Policies were analysed using the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) "Decision‐Making Principles" as a framework. Senior staff (N = 9) with policy development roles participated in follow‐up interviews. Results: The structure and content of policy documents varied significantly between organisations. Most acknowledged the need to support the rights of care recipients in decision‐making; however, the nature of this support was often unclear. Interview themes included factors relating to "organisational contexts" "policy development and implementation" and "ethical challenges." An overarching theme among high‐performing organisations was "proactive response aimed at pre‐empting decision‐making dilemmas". We provide recommendations for policy development, including a self‐assessment audit tool. Conclusion: Aged care provider organisations may need to review policies in the areas of healthcare and lifestyle decision‐making to meet current best practice principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the evaluation of a project between the Australian Museum and the Juvenile Justice department in New South Wales, Australia, where young people who offend of Pacific Islander heritage were introduced to an extensive range of Pacific Islander cultural materials. The key assumption of the project was that young Pacific Islander people who offend struggled with cultural identity issues, and that a meaningful connection with their heritage would improve cultural knowledge and pride-thereby reducing their involvement in crime. However, this assumption was not borne out by the study's results. Firstly, the twenty-two Pacific Islander young offender study participants were already proud of their heritage, and comfortable in their cultural identities. Secondly, though they enjoyed their visit to the museum, most did not want to visit again, so there was no sustained engagement. Thirdly, the Museum program was not designed as part of a holistic approach with multiple strategies which addressed the complex reasons for youth offending. Despite eight out of the twenty-two participants reoffending after the Museum visit, there was enough potential for the rehabilitative intervention that the Museum was granted funding to take its program to the community and make it more user-centered. This, it is hoped, will set it on a path towards more sustained engagement, and the potential for a greater influence on Pacific Islander youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the absence of specific policies that address the digitization of Pacific cultural collections, it is important to document the practices of Australian museum professionals and cultural experts who deal with close to one-fifth of Pacific cultural objects held in museums. Interviews with 17 museum professionals and cultural experts in Australia help advance reflective practice relating to digitizing Pacific collections. Drawing on principles enshrined in international, regional, and Australian policies and protocols relating to the management of indigenous collections, they favor responsible digitization based on consultation with source and diasporic communities. In order to consult across a region with multiple languages and cultures when time and resources are limited, they begin with areas they know best and when possible, work with curators of Pacific backgrounds. Some practicalities of publishing and protecting digitized images online revolve around validating information about the artifact and going beyond copyright to respect traditional knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reservations about the digitization of cultural collections center on the wish for universal access and scalability. This push toward the digital can infringe on the different levels of access (or non-access) often required by indigenous communities, particularly for secret and/or sacred cultural objects. Consultation is necessary before digitizing cultural objects in order to ensure that digitization delivers the promised benefits of broadened access while respecting traditional knowledge and copyright. Culturally sensitive consultation needs to include source communities, diasporic populations, museum and cultural experts. It is only then that the Web can potentially revitalize culture, harness the power of the visual, and connect cultural objects to stories of everyday and ceremonial use and meanings. This paper is based on open-ended interviews in Australia with 27 people from the Pacific diaspora and 17 museum experts and specialists on Pacific cultures. It brings the voices of the Pacific into the discussion of digitization of cultural collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the idea that a health care professional who becomes aware that a patient has a genetic linked disorder should in some circumstances owe a duty to inform blood relatives of that fact, and that failure to so inform should be redressed through the law of negligence. This is a contention which has appeared in medical literature1 and been the subject of litigation in American jurisprudence.2 Given that medical researchers have identified the genetic causes of many human diseases through more sophisticated methods of DNA sequencing, and have confirmed the hereditary nature of many of these conditions, the disclosure of screening results is a serious and contentious issue. This is particularly so given the increasing importance of preventative medicine as a means of dealing with disease.3 The article suggests, by reference to ethical discourse, and particularly Levinas' theory on responsibility,4 that health professionals do owe a duty of care to a patient's relatives, but that this duty may be discharged in ways which do not necessarily involve the disclosure of the information to those parties, and that it is only in certain, specified circumstances that a duty to disclose the information exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the issue of physician assisted suicide (PAS), which is considered as a criminal offence in most of the western jurisdictions. She mentions that the U.S. and Canada have sought to challenge this position by claiming PAS as a human right issue. Further, the author criticizes European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which is somewhat identical to English domestic law, for not allowing state intervention in the issue.

Objectives: To systematically document measurement approaches used in the monitoring and evaluation of gender-based violence (GBV) risk mitigation activities, categorise the types of available literature produced by sector, identify existing tools and measures and identify knowledge gaps within the humanitarian sector., Design: Systematic mapping and in-depth review., Data Sources: Pubmed, Global Health, PsychInfo, ReliefWeb, OpenGrey (grey literature), Google Scholar, Web of Science (Social Science Index)Eligibility criteria: a structured search strategy was systematically applied to 17 databases as well as registers, websites and other resources to identify materials published between 1 January 2005 and 15 May 2019., Data Extraction and Synthesis: Those resources that met the inclusion criteria underwent a comprehensive full-text review. A detailed matrix was developed and key data from each resource were extracted to allow for the assessment of patterns in thematic areas., Results: A total of 2108 documents were screened. Overall, 145 documents and 112 tools were reviewed, representing 10 different humanitarian sectors. While numerous resources exist, many lack sufficient information on how to monitor outputs or outcomes of GBV risk mitigation activities. There is also limited guidance on how to integrate the measurement of GBV risk mitigation into existing monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Those reports that aimed to measure GBV risk mitigation activities mostly employed qualitative methods and few measured the impact of a GBV risk mitigation with robust research designs., Conclusions: Recent efforts to adapt humanitarian response to COVID-19 have highlighted new and existing challenges for GBV risk mitigation. There is a significant gap in the evidence base around the effectiveness of GBV risk mitigation across all sectors. Understanding and strengthening measurement approaches in GBV risk mitigation remains a critical task for humanitarian response., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Australia is obliged under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to provide decision-making support to people with cognitive impairment. While there has been considerable recent activity looking at how the law should respond to the challenges raised by the Convention, there has been little discussion in Australia of how these changes will impact upon the care of people with dementia (the largest class of person with cognitive impairment in Australia). This section examines current Australian legal approaches to decision-making for people with dementia in four jurisdictions (New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia) through an analysis of reported tribunal decisions in each of these jurisdictions. It notes the scope for informal supported decision-making and the basis for the invocation of guardianship orders, including the new Victorian supportive guardianship order, and compares the new standards raised by the Convention. The section considers legal reforms which could improve the implementation of supported decision-making for people living with dementia., Competing Interests: This work was undertaken with funding support from the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Partnership Centre for Cognitive and Related Functional Decline (Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre). The funding bodies had no role in determining the design of the study, data collection, data analysis, write-up, or decision to publish. The authors acknowledge the contribution of funding bodies (NHMRC) and funding partners (Dementia Australia, HammondCare, Helping Hand Aged Care, Brightwater Group). The contents of the above materials are solely the responsibility of the individual authors identified, and do not reflect the views of the funding bodies or the funding partners.

This article examines the 'fit' between the Western Australian legislation on advance care planning (ACP) and health professionals' experiences implementing this in relation to persons with dementia. The legislative provisions are outlined, and a qualitative study of experiences with ACP among 19 health professionals, all engaged in the care of persons with dementia, is described. Based on these interviews, the authors propose three themes: 'navigating risk', 'the therapeutic journey' and 'the most agreeable outcome' to describe current practice in this area. The authors conclude that ACP in this context is aimed at minimising risk, establishing consensus and achieving the 'most agreeable outcome' for the person and their family, rather than privileging the individual autonomy of the person engaging in ACP. The implications for policy and law makers regarding possible reform of ACP in relation to persons with dementia are discussed., (© 2017 The Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.)