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Previous research has indicated that healthcare support for sexuality after spinal cord injury appears to be neglected or inadequately provided. The perspectives of people living with spinal cord injuries regarding what is lacking and what support they would like to be provided, and why, has yet to be explored. This paper uses critical theory to explore how societal constructs of sexuality and disability shape how sexuality is supported after a spinal cord injury. To do this, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 people with a spinal cord injury from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We drew from the works of various critical disability theorists to analyze what discourses underpinned the experiences people with spinal cord injuries had when receiving sexuality support. Analysis suggested that the following discourses were apparent: (1) broken bodies require repair, (2) sex is penetration, ejaculation then reproduction, and (3) sexual autonomy is required. Findings indicated healthcare professionals need to recognize people with spinal cord injuries as sexual beings with a diverse range of desires, lives, relations, and bodies. Provision of individualized comprehensive high-quality sexuality support is therefore warranted. To achieve this, healthcare professionals should aim to be aware of, and mitigate, ableist and normative assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical overview of housing tenure transitions in Australia, the UK and the USA during a period of unprecedented economic instability in 2001–2017. Focusing on the neglected theme of episodic homeownership, we profile those who straddle the tenure divide by moving into and out of renting from time to time. Using panel data we model this 'churn' in three jurisdictions, showing that even the dislocation of a global financial crisis does not eclipse the independent impact of life events during rental spells. We find that whatever individuals bring from prior ownership, shocks occurring during a rental spell – unemployment, loss of a partner, additional dependent children – can be sufficient to prevent return. Churning is also health- and age-selective, adding 'drop-out' among the old to 'lock-out' for the young as a policy concern. Even those who successfully regain owner-occupation increase their credit and investment risks without necessarily improving their housing position. Overall 'churners' are a diverse constituency whose life chances are powerfully shaped by episodic ownership: what they share is time spent in an unacknowledged, under-instituted space between tenures where there is latent demand for innovative financial services and untapped potential for radical policy shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract While vaccine-critical activism has been widely documented and discussed, comparatively little has been said about the concerted response of pro-vaccine activists defending the majority view. This paper explores two case studies of pro-vaccine activism in Australia and the United States (US). It shows how pro-vaccine views and behaviours can take varying forms due to different aims and methods of engagement – oppositional counteractivities in favour of vaccination in Australia, and issue-based advocacy as part of a political alliance in the US. The focus in Australia comes from a pro-science stance and includes 'skeptics' against pseudoscience directly opposing vaccine-critical groups. In the US, the focus takes the form of an issue-specific campaign that has arisen from existing pro-vaccine parent blogs and discussion groups pushing for policy change rather than public confrontation. These case studies exemplify how pro-vaccine activism can take varying forms of either reinforcing the mainstream view or countering digression from it. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper aims to examine the types of practices and strategies employed by activists to voice their support of vaccination, and discusses the means, messages, and motivations of pro-vaccine activism. It ends with an argument for why a study – of public support for in addition to studying public opposition to vaccination – can help to better understand vaccination views and behaviours. These findings have wider implications for the study of counter-activism and the polarisation of civil society groups. Highlights • Pro-vaccine views and behaviours are understudied. • Case studies on pro-vaccine activist groups in Australia and the United States. • Pro-vaccine activism reinforces the mainstream or counters digression from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose As libraries are required to become more accountable and demonstrate that they are meeting performance metrics, an assessment website can be a means for providing data for evidence-based decision making and an important indicator of how a library interacts with its constituents. The purpose of this paper is to share the results of a review of websites of academic libraries from four countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA.Design/methodology/approach The academic library websites included in the sample were selected from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Research Libraries of the United Kingdom, Council of Australian University Libraries, Historically Black College & Universities Library Alliance, Association of Research Libraries and American Indian Higher Education Consortium. The websites were evaluated according to the absence or presence of nine predetermined characteristics related to assessment.Findings It was discovered that “one size does not fit all” and found several innovative ways institutions are listening to their constituents and making improvements to help users succeed in their academic studies, research and creative endeavors.Research limitations/implications Only a sample of academic libraries from each of the four countries were analyzed. Additionally, some of the academic libraries were using password protected intranets unavailable for public access. The influences of institutional history and country-specific practices also became compelling factors during the analysis.Originality/value This paper seeks to broaden the factors for what is thought of as academic library assessment with the addition of qualitative and contextual considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature suggests that the segregation of infrastructure and urban/regional planning is at the root of contemporary problems facing many of the world's metropolitan areas. More recently, the introduction of new telecommunication infrastructure highlights the invisible borders that exist within critical infrastructure that provide advantages to some areas such as transportation and disadvantages to others. This paper attempts to understand the nature of inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral borders across infrastructure in Australia and the US. It examines the sometimes contradicting market-led vs. government-led models adopted in the two countries to deliver broadband communications and transportation. The findings identify similarities and differences between the two countries, and reiterate that in order to achieve social equity, and enhance the provision of infrastructure to non-profitable areas, government intervention is required. The paper concludes with a call for performance-based policies that go beyond traditional borders in an effort to better address the contemporary wicked planning problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of national curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA, set against the backdrop of global trends since the 1980s. The analysis is driven by an interest in the reconstitution of national policy spaces in global times, and draws particularly upon Stephen Carney’s notion ofglobal policy-scapesas a way of understanding the complex and disjunctive flows of transnational policy ideas and practices. The paper begins by arguing that reforms since the early 1980s have been driven by global panics about globalisation, equity and market competitiveness. These global influences have underpinned parallel reform attempts in each country, including the development of national goals in the late 1980s, failed attempts at national standards in the early 1990s and rejuvenated attempts towards national consistency in the 2000s. Building on this, we argue that despite shared global drivers and broad historical similarities, reforms in each country remain distinct in scope and form, due to several unique features that inform the national policy space of each country. These distinctive national policy spaces provide differentconditions of possibilityfor reform, reminding us that despite global commonalities, policy reforms are relational and locally negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Asia's middle powers face a trilateral dilemma stemming from their relationships with the U.S. and China. This paper uses the Australian example to examine the dilemma. It shows that Australia has bound itself to the U.S. because of domestic political factors, cost considerations, a belief that it can keep its interests separate, and its perception of regional threats. The paper then argues that others are likely to resolve their trilateral dilemmas in ways that make the regional strategic dynamic more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intentionally planned parenthood by gay male couples through commercial and altruistic surrogacy is gaining momentum in Australia and abroad. Very little is known about this group of male parents, including the relational considerations important to them in forming families through surrogacy. This paper, based on in-depth interviews with six Australian gay male couples who utilized altruistic surrogacy in the state of Victoria, and commercial surrogacy arrangements in the US, considers the meaning and management of biogenetic paternity in the creation of their family relationships. Despite the extent to which participants underplayed the importance of paternal biological connections in creating or defining the meaning of family, biogenetic paternity remains an important kinship resource that must be carefully managed – emotionally and socially – in creating and maintaining couple, parent–child and extended family relationships. First, there was a keen emotional significance attributed to the biogenetic connection for some men in the context of their own family history and lineage. Second, the careful management of information and sharing or alternating sperm provision constituted an attempt by couples to thwart speculation among friends, family members and acquaintances about the identity of the biogenetic father. Third, despite some interest in sharing sperm provision in the interests of symbolically establishing shared parenthood, explicit knowledge of biogenetic paternity through DNA paternity testing was regarded as an important kinship and identity resource for children as they grow up. The paper concludes that when gay male couples form families through commercial or altruistic surrogacy, a range of symbols and metaphors conventional to heteronormative nuclear family formation are in play in this ostensibly unconventional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper revisits the concept of medicalisation and considers its value as a framework for understanding the ongoing development of new reproductive technologies, and their impact on women’s reproductive decision-making. This evaluation is drawn from a qualitative discourse analysis of the public debate about the first extended cycle oral contraception (ECOC) to suppress menstruation in the United States of America in 2003/2004, and subsequent interviews with women living in Australia who had already extended their cycles without it being medically approved for widespread practice. Firstly, the debates about menstrual suppression are couched within a discussion of the ongoing usefulness of medicalisation as an analytical tool. It is posited that medicalisation occurs in a particular social and cultural moment, and is a dynamic process where dominant social relations can be both reproduced and challenged. Secondly, qualitative interviews with women about practices of menstrual suppression are used to explore the productive nature of agency in this particular medicalisation contest. Specifically, the ways in which these women engage with the discourses of ‘risk’, ‘choice’ and ‘nature’, as canvassed by menstrual suppression advocates, reveal accommodation and modification as much as resistance and contradiction. This paper suggests that if the concept of medicalisation is to have ongoing traction as a frame of analysis, such a critique must incorporate a generative discussion of agency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper we engage with some fundamental questions about the focus and conduct of academic research and its potential influence on policy in relation to social problems. We use the example of public housing and social-spatial disadvantage as a basis to advance an analysis of the housing researcher's role in informing and framing the policymaking process and its links to research evidence. Although our paper uses the example of Australia, the arguments presented are also applicable to other nation states, such as the UK and US, that have an under-funded public housing stock. The paper proceeds in three stages. First, we detail the role and function of public housing in Australian cities and the politics surrounding public investment in welfare provision. Second, we discuss a series of models developed around the kind of research narratives that have been linked to policy on public housing and neighbourhoods from the academy, arguing that the social composition and management of 'place' has been emphasised at the expense of structural imperatives. Third, we examine some of the more abstract concerns raised by the linkages we make, and the potentially delimited role of academic research on social problems such as poverty and locational disadvantage. We conclude the paper by arguing that the weak position of housing research has fuelled an internalised narrative-driven pragmatic realism that has occluded more useful accounts about the nature of social problems. It is therefore incumbent on researchers to challenge, in a more vigorous way, the narratives underpinning this self-restraining form of policy-realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines an ad-hoc collaborative exercise arranged between a group of undergraduate students studying an introductory MIS course in the USA and a group of Australian masters students studying a Collaborative Information Systems (CIS) course. As part of a visit to the US the first author, who normally taught the Australian CIS course, taught the introductory MIS course and the timing of the evening course coincidently crossed over with the Australian morning session. The availability of a collaborative tool (ThinkTank) at the US hosting institution suggested the possibility of a collaborative exercise within the Web 2.0 space that would support the content, to varying degrees, of the two courses. Although the focus of the meeting was defined the outcome more closely resembled e-graffiti than an organized discussion. The rather hastily arranged exercise met with mixed responses from both sets of students and this paper considers the benefits and problems of arranging such ad-hoc exercises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to reflect on the sources of the technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations, using a sample of Australian and American hospitals. Design/methodology/approach - The paper applies the stochastic frontier model to reflect on the technical inefficiency and its sources. The advantage of the model is that it allows the simultaneous parameters estimation of technical efficiency as well as the factors that explain variations in technical efficiency. A set of hypotheses are tested to ensure the applicability and suitability of the suggested model. Then the model parameters are estimated, discussed and checked against the theoretical requirements and the literature. Findings - Results show that all the variable coefficients are correctly signed and that the average technical efficiency is around 83 percent for Australia and 80 percent for the USA. Practical implications - The technical efficiency results, according to the introduced model, suggest that health care foodservice operations in both countries are not operating at a full efficient level. The results also reveal that factors such as manager's education, manager's experience, and size have a direct impact on reducing the level of technical inefficiency of these operations. Originality/value - This paper overcomes the limitations of the existing efficiency techniques in the area of health care foodservice and also provides policy implications by emphasizing on the sources of technical inefficiency of health care foodservice operations for Australia and USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the organizational structures of nonprofit organizations in Australia and the United States. Using random samples of nonprofits drawn from the two organizational populations, the analysis compares the extent of structural resemblance or isomorphism in each. It detects similar levels of isomorphism for several structural characteristics. The paper interprets this finding as reflecting expectations for nonprofit organizations that stretch worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real Estate Investment Trusts are being introduced throughout the world. This paper examines whether their introduction will promote private investment in rented housing. It draws on the evidence from the USA and Australia where residential REITs have been established successfully and unsuccessfully, respectively. From these experiences, it draws together the necessary conditions in the housing market for residential REITs to prosper. Using these criteria the paper then focuses on the demand and supply conditions in the private rented sector of the UK and assesses the implications. The introduction of residential REITs into the UK and in other countries is shown to face a range of challenges with success not guaranteed. The establishment of residential REITs per se will not necessarily generate a substantive expansion of the private rented sector at least in the short term. Enabling the conversion of the large housing associations to REITs in the UK arguably provides the most likely route for the long-term growth of the private rented sector by this means. The blurring of the distinction between private and social landlords in turn raises some fundamental policy questions about the goals of such institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the dynamics of competition in higher education. National competition and global competition are distinct, but feed into each other. Higher education produces ‘positional goods’ (Hirsch 1976) that provide access to social prestige and income-earning. Research universities aim to maximise their status as producers of positional goods. This status is a function of student selectivity plus research performance. At system-level competition bifurcates between exclusivist elite institutions that produce highly value positional goods, where demand always exceeds supply and expansion is constrained to maximise status; and mass institutions (profit and non-profit) characterised by place-filling and expansion. Intermediate universities are differentiated between these poles. In global competition, the networked open information environment has facilitated (1) the emergence of a world-wide positional market of elite US/UK universities; and (2) the rapid development of a commercial mass market led by UK and Australian universities. Global competition is vectored by research capacity. This is dominated by English language, especially US universities, contributing to the pattern of asymmetrical resources and one-way global flows. The paper uses Australia as its example of system segmentation and global/national interface. It closes by reflecting on a more balanced global distribution of capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse job ads as relatively accessible indicators of the knowledge, skills and competencies required of librarians by employers. It then uses a framework provided by the literature on professional jurisdiction to examine what may be trends and shaping factors for the Library and Information Studies (US) profession with regard to jurisdiction in a changing information landscape. Design/methodology/approach – Job ads were examined in two separate studies; one comparing job ads in Australia and the USA over eight weeks in 2004, and the other looking at one month snapshots of Australian job ads in 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004. The text from the job ads was analysed using a content analysis software package. The literature on professional jurisdiction provided an interpretive framework. Findings – The Australian snapshots over time showed that there is an increasing lack of clarity about the skills and competencies required of librarians. The American job ads seemed to rank jurisdictional knowledge and professional qualifications more highly than their Australian counterparts. Interpersonal skills, behavioural characteristics and technical services skills are in demand in both countries. Originality/value – In addition to reporting on the knowledge, skills and competencies required of librarians, by applying an interpretive framework from the literature on professional jurisdiction the paper exposes some of the challenges ahead for the LIS profession. Research limitations/implications – The research used a small number of sources and a relatively small number of ads. It is acknowledged that job ads are only one source of information about knowledge, skills and competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government contracting with not-for-profit agencies, particularly those characterised as 'religious' and 'faith-based', to deliver social welfare has been the subject of substantial research in the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years. In contrast, attention to the role of 'religious' and 'faith-based' agencies in service delivery in Australia has been relatively limited. This paper explores conceptual issues relating to research into the impact on 'church-related' not-for-profit social welfare agencies in Australia of engagement in government contracting. It commences with a critical analysis of typologies in recent US and UK literature that use the terminology 'religious', 'faith-based' and 'secular', and identifies why this terminology is not analytically helpful. An alternative conceptual approach is developed, to guide research into the engagement of these agencies with government focusing on issues of governance, identity and mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the results of the world's largest ever survey of international relations (IR) scholars with an eye to establishing the particularities of the discipline in Australia and New Zealand. The survey covered the areas of teaching, research, the structure of the profession and scholars' views on foreign policy. From these results, this paper compares IR in New Zealand and Australia, and discusses the extent to which the discipline in these two countries is distinctive from its overseas counterparts, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. The particular areas of focus include the degree to which the field in Australasia conforms to or differs from US or Commonwealth identities; epistemological and gender divides; the distinctive foci of what IR scholars in both countries teach and research; which publications are favoured and disfavoured; and the contrasting linkages between academia and the world of government and policy. We conclude with some suggestions about how the field in both countries might be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is facing many of the same trends in journalism that are occurring in other countries with mature media industries including declining numbers of journalists, fragmenting audiences, a loss of advertising revenue for media organisations and other challenges to their traditional business models including shifting patterns of news consumption, new competitors for old media and new technologies that demand more time from audiences. However, Australia is also in a unique position. It has a small population and unusually concentrated media ownership; recent newspaper circulation declines have not been as large as in the United States or United Kingdom; and Australia's major media organisations have “colonised the Web” to a larger degree than in many other countries. This has led to suggestions that Australian journalism will be immune from many of the most damaging international trends. Yet other evidence suggests Australia is already in the midst of an economic and professional crisis in newspaper journalism and that this is even more advanced than in other countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. This paper tests these competing propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of multinational retailers has induced shifts in the spatial distribution of retail capital. Furthermore, the advent of shopping centres has led to a reconfiguration of consumption spaces. These trends have particular consequences for independent retail businesses. This paper investigates the impacts of rationalisation and consolidation in retailing on independent bookshops in Sydney. There is a view that independent bookshops are in decline, and this is particularly true when you look at the independent bookshops in the UK and the USA. However, this research reveals that the perception of the demise of the independent bookshop in Australia is exaggerated. Despite the challenges they face, there are counterbalances to the trends of shopping centres, chain shops and online retailing that have carved a niche for the independent bookshop. Independent bookshops differentiate themselves from chains by designing unique shops, carrying a wide range of inventory, and providing personalised customer service. In this way, they have successfully distinguished themselves from other types of booksellers and maintained a stable position in Australian book retailing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the evolution of the relationship between tourism and indigenous peoples. Based on published work on indigenous tourism in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, a six-stage model of evolution has been proposed. The model begins with (1) pre-European in situ control, characterised by high local control and indigenous theme; (2) in situ exposure occurs in the early stages of colonialism and is followed by (3) ex situ exhibitionism and exploitation as native artefacts are displayed in museums and exhibitions. The opening of remnant indigenous space to tourist visits marks (4) in situ exhibitionism and exploitation, which represents the nadir of indigenous control but fosters strategies of resistance. Reassertions of indigenous control give rise to (5) in situ quasi-empowerment, while the extension of this control to previously occupied territory characterises (6) ex situ quasi-empowerment and the presence of “shadow indigenous tourism”. The empowerment and sustainability implications of the model have also been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching national history in school generates significant public anxiety and political debate—as the various 'history wars' around the world reveal. For many school students, however, studying their nation's past is dull and repetitive. Such lack of interest has been confirmed by surveys and research reports that reveal alarmingly low levels of national historical knowledge among young people, and there is growing popular concern that their ignorance of the past endangers the nation's future. Yet preoccupation with students' apparent national illiteracy tends to overlook how they connect with history in the first place. This paper draws on findings from a comparative Australian and Canadian research project that interviewed students and teachers about the ways they learned and taught history. It argues that any return to 'the facts' at the expense of critical historical engagement in class could turn students away from the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the reasons why, in the first half of the twentieth century, Australian librarians were encouraged to adopt professional work practices and educational standards based on US models of 'democratic' librarianship. The promotion of US models of library education and association occurred both directly through government agencies such as the United States Office of War Information (OWI), and indirectly through the philanthropic agencies and professional associations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) and the ALA, and was to have a lasting impact on the work of Australian librarians and on their education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. This paper reports the results of the 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2004 Australian and US household surveys, with emphasis on changes since 2001. Design and Methods. The US survey data were recalculated to match age groups in the Australian data. Statistically significant changes are reported. Differences in prevalence of use by gender within age group were tested for significance. Results. The past-year use of 'any illicit drug', cannabis, cocaine, tranquillisers and injecting drugs decreased between 2001 and 2004 in Australia, but remained stable for all these drugs except ecstasy between 2002 and 2004 in the United States. The use of hallucinogens decreased in both countries. Alcohol and use of many illicit drugs by teenage girls in both countries increased to rates similar to or higher than boys, and teens in both countries reported binge and heavy drinking in the past month. Australians in their 20s had the highest rates of use, but in the United States, past-year use of many drugs was highest among teenagers. Discussion. More treatment services are needed, particularly for people dependent upon non-opiate drugs. The changes in acceptability of use of different drugs and their perceived availability are related to changes in prevalence rates. Even with the similarities in levels of use, there are differences in patterns of use and preferences for certain drugs in each country, and geographic proximity to drug sources is a factor. [Maxwell JC. Are we becoming more alike? Comparison of substance use in Australia and the United States as seen in the 1995, 1998, 2001, and 2004 national household surveys. Drug Alcohol Rev 2008;27:473-481] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses problematic integration theory to assess destination online promotional activities often used to influence consumer travel purchase behavior. The model of destination online promotion activities assessment focuses on the link between consumers' online brand preference drivers (differentiation, quality, and value) and online market data (price, distribution, Web presence, promotions, direct online communication tool, and ad identification). The model is tested using the case of Australia (www.australia.com) and their efforts to attract a U.S. market. The study found Australia.com is a well-designed travel guide that provides information and emphasizes its aesthetic aspects. However, the Website's interactive aspects could be improved. By assessing destination online promotional activities, destination marketing organizations may be able to reduce underlying uncertainty regarding the destination and more clearly address the needs of their target markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue for the importance of theorising citizenship as an independent axis of social inequality in the contemporary world. As a foil, I take two intertwined tendencies within anthropological writings on migration. First is the historical trend of anthropology as a discipline to theorise against the grain of the nation-state. Second is the tendency within anthropological studies of transnationalism and migration to theorise their subject in terms of Marxian understandings of class and exploitation or in terms of the intersecting dimensions of race, class and gender (but not citizenship). The result of these approaches is to elide the role of national boundaries and citizenship as significant theoretical objects in themselves. To build my approach, I contrast the production of migrant 'illegality' in three national contexts: the United States, China and Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The present paper aims to: (i) describe how the Mental Health Commission in New Zealand works and has contributed to the substantial enhancement of mental health resources and services; (ii) determine whether mental health reform policies will ever be implemented properly without an independent monitor with official influence at the highest levels of government; and (iii) demonstrate how variants on this model work in other Western countries and how it can be adapted to the Federated system in Australia.Conclusions: It is recommended that the Australian National Mental Health Plan 2003-2008 should be complemented by a long-standing national mental health commission (or similarly constituted body), which is also able to report independently from and to the government, with direct access to the Prime Minister, Premiers and Australian Health Ministers. Its aims would be to monitor service effectiveness and identify gaps in service provision, training and performance of the work force, management and government. It would be informed by consumer, carer and provider experience, and by reviews of evidence-based research regarding health needs and cost-effective services. It should accurately cost such service gaps, and advise government on a strategy for implementing them. It could also promote and advise formally on enhancing community awareness, decreasing stigma and discrimination and improving workforce recruitment and retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the policy context of the rise in the international mobility and migration of nurses. It describes the profile of the migration of nurses and the policy context governing the international recruitment of nurses to five countries: Australia, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also examine the policy challenges for workforce planning and the design of health systems infrastructure. Data are derived from registries of professional nurses, censuses, interviews with key informants, case studies in source and destination countries, focus groups, and empirical modelling to examine the patterns and implications of the movement of nurses across borders. The flow of nurses to these destination countries has risen, in some cases quite substantially. Recruitment from lower-middle income countries and low-income countries, as defined by The World Bank, dominate trends in nurse migration to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States, while Norway and Australia, primarily register nurses from other high-income countries. Inadequate data systems in many countries prevent effective monitoring of these workforce flows. Policy options to manage nurse migration include: improving working conditions in both source and destination countries, instituting multilateral agreements to manage the flow more effectively, and developing compensation arrangements between source and destination countries. Recommendations for enhancements to workforce data systems are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper updates an earlier article by comparing the results of the 1998 and 2001 household surveys. The Australian survey showed a significant decrease in past-year use of "any illicit drug". The methodological changes in the US surveys prevented comparison for these years, but there were increases in use of any illicit drug between 2000 and 2001. Patterns of use of marijuana, stimulants, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin and needles are shown by age group and gender. Use by teenage girls in both countries has risen to the point that they are now using alcohol and some drugs at rates similar to boys. Over 20% of teens in both countries reported binge drinking in the past month. While Australians in their 20s had the highest rates of lifetime and past-year use, in the United States, depending on the drug, lifetime use was highest among people in their 30s or 40s, with past-year use highest among teenagers. Drug treatment services are needed not only for young people, but also for aging users. The changes in perceptions of risk from use of various drugs and availability of these drugs are related to changes in prevalence rates. [Maxwell JC. Update: comparison of drug use in Australia and the United States as seen in the 2001 National Household Surveys. Drug Alcohol Rev 2003;22:347 - 357] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘It is much easier to extirpate than to amend Mankind.’ Sir William Blackstone Five stages in the history of regulation are derived from the literature as a starting framework for this essay. These stages are outlined in the first section. This five-stage model is then confronted and revised in light of the neglected case of the Australian penal colony. It is juxtaposed throughout the paper with the history of the regulation of crime in the US. Australian convict society is found to be brutal yet forgiving. We conclude that surprisingly high levels of procedural justice and reintegration in Australian convict society drive down crime rates at a remarkable rate in the nineteenth century. In contrast American slave society is characterised by procedural injustice, exclusion and stigmatisation, which delivers high crime rates. Following Heimer and Staffen's theory, reintegration and procedural fairness are found to arise in conditions where the powerful are dependent on the deviant. Acute labour shortage is the basis of a reintegrative assignment system for Australian convicts to work in the free community. While convicts change Australia in very Australian ways, we find that many of these developments are not uniquely Australian and so a revision of the five-phase model is proposed. The revision also implies that Foucault's distinction between governing the body versus governing the soul (corporal/capital punishment versus the penitentiary) is less central than exclusion versus inclusion (banishment versus restorative justice) to understanding all stages of the history of regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilises a bilateral bargaining approach as an explanatory framework for understanding how New Zealand and Australia have conducted their trade policy towards the United States and the European Union. Though alternatives like neo realism and liberal institutionalism have some value for explaining bilateral outcomes between the strong and the weak, the bilateral bargaining approach takes us further by showing how and why the negotiation process can potentially adjust outcomes in favour of weaker states. New Zealand and Australia have sought to exploit such opportunities through the application of three important bilateral strategies: informing tactics; coalition-building; and the execution of formal agreements. Differences in their bilateral bargaining approaches are informed by reference to their commercial history and respective interests, as well as cognitive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]