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This paper examines the links between tariff protection and wage protection. These two areas of regulation were linked politically by a coalition of the Protectionist Party and the Labour Party which supported both policies together. In the regulatory systems themselves there were links through New Protection Policy and the major influence it had on the hugely important Harvester Judgment of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. By 1910, these developments had laid down the foundations of Australian tariff policy and labour market regulation which became among the most highly regulated markets in the non-communist world for many decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's latest defence plans have provoked controversy at home and in its region. A White Paper outlined plans for significant improvements in defence capability over the next two decades, including a doubling of the submarine fleet. But it raised questions about Australia's strategic interests and the affordability of the planned changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Sustainability' provides the dominant frame for environmental policy debate, even though there is considerable debate to as to what sustainability is, why is it needed, and how can it be progressed. From 1999 through to 2010, Victoria was governed by Australian Labor Party (ALP) led governments that, at times, actively pursued the goal of sustainable development. This culminated in the stated ambition for Victoria to be 'world leaders in environmental sustainability debate and practice'. This paper explores the way in which sustainability was enacted by Victorian Labor while in government. The evidence indicates that the potential of Victorian Labor's vision was never realized, and that it failed to significantly reform the neoliberal policy settings it inherited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 the Rudd Labor government in Australia introduced significant changes to education policy for the nation. The Skilling Australia's Future (Rudd et al. Skilling Australia for the future. Election policy document, 2007) policy was meant to redress a perceived failure by the previous Howard federal Liberal-National Coalition governments to fund and manage vocational skills training adequately. The Skilling Australia's Future policy established a number of areas for immediate action. This paper looks at one of these areas from the policy document, namely, the Rudd government's plan for addressing skills shortages (Rudd et al. , pp. 4-9) through the establishment of Trade Training Centres in schools. The policy is analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis, featuring the semiotic concept of intertextuality. Findings from the application of this method suggest that Skilling Australia's Future (2007) belongs within a history of like-minded policy and, although a new direction is provided by the allocation of Trade Training Centres to selected high schools, the policy is not clearly separable from the market-driven discourse that has pervaded education policy since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of new media in the 2007 election. This election is commonly seen as a breakthrough for the use of Internet in electoral campaigning due to the high profile use of Internet channels in the 'Kevin 07' campaign and its association with the change of Government. The paper examines the impact of the technology on the presentation of political campaign messages in the campaign. In this election, the Internet played a more visible role in both centralised party and individual candidate campaign strategies. The paper concludes that while some innovation occurred, the overall application of new media was modest, which parties and candidates face unprecedented challenges from a wide variety of alternative online voices. The degree of political engagement with online channels remains limited, however, by the continued dominance of mainstream mass media channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines voter attitudes and behaviour at the 2007 Australian federal election, using data from the Australian Election Study. It considers socio-demographic factors as well as the role of policy issues and voter evaluations of the party leaders. The paper concludes that issues, such as the government's WorkChoices policy, as well as health and leadership contributed to Labor's victory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traverses three consecutive policy periods with respect to Australian higher education equity, the first two driven by the policies of successive Labor Governments and the third by a highly deregulatory market liberal Coalition Government. It identifies the distinguishing characteristics of the national equity policy, planning and reporting framework put into place by Australian Labor Governments in the first of these periods (mid 1980s-mid 1990s). The second and abruptly concluded period is significant in terms of the evaluation it provides of the achievements of that framework and the elaboration of the principles, policy and procedures required to entrench progress over the longer term. The paper goes on to identify what remains of that framework in the third and contemporary era, given that the policies of the current conservative Coalition Government have brought about changes in higher education funding and policy directions which threaten to reverse what progress had been made in the two earlier periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the reform of environmental policy-making by the Hawke government through its creation of the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC). The paper pursues two themes. First, it argues that this reform must be seen within the broader context of the Hawke government's approach to public policy generally. The paper argues that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has instituted a model for policy politics based on key strategic and normative approaches—a model this paper refers to as 'Accordism'. Secondly, this paper looks at the RAC and in so doing argues that, on the basis of the norms that underpinned the reform of environmental policy-making based on this body, the Commission may be placed squarely within the 'Accordist' paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguments about the nature of the Australian Labor Party have been somewhat revived over the past few years. Those who argue that there has been a fundamental break with Labor tradition are criticised from both the right of the labour movement and the Marxist left. Both, interestingly, argue that to see the Hawke-Keating years as too distinct is to misread history. Both schools of thought argue that those who defend a Labor tradition which is fundamentally different from contemporary Labor are glorifying the past. This paper gives an account of Keynesian social democracy, and employs a comparative case study of economic debate in the 1940s and 1980s, in order to argue that there has indeed been a fundamental change in Labor's approach to political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The Australian Radical Education Group (RED G) was created in June 1976, which in turn launched a magazine for radical(ising) teachers, the Radical Education Dossier (RED), that would be published for the next 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to characterise the emergence and first phase of RED’s publication up to its name change in 1984. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw on interviews with key members of the magazine’s editorial collective, and a review of RED’s contents, to identify the major political ambitions as manifest in RED in historical context. The authors contextualise this radical education project in the post-1968 world context of social and political upheaval, rejecting the Cold War options of either Soviet style Communist or US-based capitalist pathways. Findings – In this context RED generated powerful critiques of dominant educational policy in multiple areas. The critique was part of a project to promote a socialist understanding of mass education, and to promote the transformation of Australian society towards socialism. The authors argue that the debates and struggles within RED in this period, seeking to define and advance a socialist educational project, reflected a broad and consistent critique of progressive educational reforms, rooted in its radical political foundations. Originality/value – This paper provides an historical review of a 30-year radical education publishing initiative in Australia, about which no accounts have been published. It connects directly with contemporary educational issues, and offers insights for interviews with those directly involved in the historical project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly mediatised policy processes influence practice in schools as education becomes a site of parental anxiety and choice exacerbated by standardised national assessment and ranking of schools in the media. This paper analyses the responses to media scrutiny of six principals whose schools’ national test results were reported in the Australian press following the release of the federal Labour Government’s MySchool website in 2010. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, the concept of cross-field effects, and associated research on mediatisation, the evidence suggests that the relationships between the press, education policy and schools are highly contested, and that principals have some agency in talking back regarding their school’s reported ‘performance’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is one of the largest coal exporting nations in the world and its economy is underpinned by the availability of cheap fossil fuels. It is well documented that it has failed to act on climate change, and that the conservative Howard government was particularly hostile to international action. It is also well documented that 2007 was an agenda-setting period when climate change was elevated to national prominence. This paper details and interrogates the ultimately successful Labor national governments' efforts to establish an Australian carbon pricing mechanism. It considers whether irresistible normative forces for climate policy change overcame the previously immovable object of economic and political self-interest, and the power of the carbon lobby. In explaining complex climate policy dynamics, temporal scales and politics, it finds great utility in John Kingdon's pragmatic 'policy window'1 as an explanation for Australia's climate policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Traditional militant displays of proud working-class masculinity are no longer an advantage in union (or Labor Party) campaigns to win public support. This paper examines the contested masculinities within the construction industry, and specifically those deployed within the campaign by construction unions to achieve workers' rights on site, together with the strategic limitations for their campaigning options. The question of how unions in this sector can effectively campaign to protect their rights is considered, as is the dilemma for union leaders in managing members' legitimate outrage when its usual expression will replicate behaviour demonised by the unions' opponents. In the era of mediated political campaigning, and third-wave labour politics, unions are having to reinvent their public image and campaigning tactics. As the example of the construction unions shows, gender roles and performances of particular masculinities and femininities are highly significant in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2011 NSW election produced the largest two-party swing in recent Australian election history, ending 16 years of Labor government. It raises the prospect of the end of Labor's dominance of NSW politics. This paper focuses on the consequences of ALP instability for the Party's electoral opportunities and strategy in the lead-up to its 2011 defeat. The authors single out the mass departure of Labor MPs prior to the election and the loss of Greens preferences as interesting problems for empirical analysis. They explore both loss of incumbency and preference effects in a seat-level (n = 93) regression model and comment on the significance of the findings for NSW Labor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 2007 election, which the Labor Party won comfortably, some political journalists and some of the polling organisations hedged their bets: despite the fact that every national poll, after allowing for preferences, showed Labor ahead, several predicted a close race and the possibility of a Liberal-National Party win. This paper examines the plethora of polls on voting intentions published during the campaign. After the election, the diversity of this polling allowed journalists and pollsters to assess the performance of the polls against their own criteria of 'success'. The paper tracks the polls across the campaign period, assesses their performance against various criteria, and compares their performance in 2007 with their performance in earlier elections. It shows the difficulty of using the polls to identify when the Opposition's lead narrowed, the devices pollsters used to hedge their bets, and the possible use by pollsters of a last-mover advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most widely-endorsed norms in Australian politics is the requirement for bipartisanship in the management of defence and security policy. This norm is assumed to lead to good policy creation, foster political unity, and protect those who implement national policy (particularly the military). The paper argues that evidence for all three of these claims is overstated. In addition, the effects of the norm are often counter-productive and even harmful to the conduct and management of Australian policy. The paper concludes by arguing that the norm of bipartisanship for Australian defence and security policy should be abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect Australia's 'Medevac' legislation had on the way refugees were depicted by the Liberal-National Coalition and Australian Labor Party in their debate about immigration detention and border security. I argue that by enabling medical evacuations for people detained offshore, Medevac shifted debate about refugees and border security into the realm of the biomedical. I maintain this resulted in the biopolitical production of the figure of the malingering refugee, who falsifies illness to cross the border. While both parties produced this pejorative category, what distinguished them was the degree to which they believed malingering applicants could be rendered ' known ' via the medical border. For the ALP, Medevac could recruit the purported 'objectivity' of biomedicine, such that malingering applicants could be identified, and border security thereby supposedly maintained. Conversely, for the LNP, no such guarantee could be established, meaning for them, Medevac rendered the border and therefore the nation vulnerable to malingering applicants. Despite their differences, I argue both parties articulated the figure of the malingering refugee for similar nationalistic purposes. Namely, to justify the violence of the Australian border protection regime, while nevertheless simultaneously depicting themselves and the nation as fundamentally 'good': not in spite of, but because of their harsh border policing practices. In concluding, this article considers the applicability of its analysis both to the contemporary Australian context and abroad, such as the United States and UK, where similar border protection policies and discourses have emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour governments around the world are struggling to renew labour and social democratic values in the modern era. The South Australian Labor government, led by Mike Rann (2002-11), presents a striking case of a labour government that pursued a renewal of social democracy. By offering a critical examination of the ideological contours of the Rann Government, this paper contributes to wider debates about the flux of social democracy. In Australia, debates about Labor's identity tend to focus on the federal rather than state level, which this article seeks, in part, to redress. The Rann government's economic and social inclusion policies are examined and compared with its South Australian historical forebears, and the Rann government is located within the various labour 'traditions'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of telecommunications reform between 1967 and 1972, during which time Labor developed a new policy approach that included committing to reconstitute the Postmaster-General's Department as a relatively independent statutory authority. This represented the first serious attempt to reconcile the conflicting objectives of Australian policy: to provide affordable universal services by a government department expected to operate as a 'business-like' enterprise, and ended the political consensus about how national telecommunications should be delivered. The paper contrasts Labor's policy with the Liberal-Country government's more incremental approach; and highlights a significant public policy shift that has received insufficient attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of ‘compacts’ between government and the ‘third’ or ‘not-for-profit’ sector is intimately linked to the comprehensive transformation of the welfare state. The first compacts in the United Kingdom in 1998 spawned similar policy instruments in other jurisdictions, including Australia. In 2006 the Labor opposition led by Kevin Rudd undertook to repair a ‘broken’ relationship between the federal government and the not-for-profit sector. The National Compact, launched in March 2010, was an initial step in a bumpy policy journey. Prime Minister Rudd was replaced in June 2010 by Julia Gillard, who portrayed the National Compact as the ‘foundation stone’ of a broader reform agenda. Although dogged by political instability, Gillard pursued ground-breaking reforms in the not-for-profit policy space. These reforms are now threatened with repeal by the Coalition government elected in 2013. This paper attempts to explain why Labor's reform agenda appears set to unravel. 政府与“第三”即“非盈利”部门之间的协定，与福利国家的综合转型密切相关。自1998年英国出现首个协定以来，类似的政策工具在其他地界像澳大利亚便如雨后春笋。2006年陆克文领导的工党反对派修补了联邦政府与非盈利部门之间破损的关系。2010年启动的国家协定在磕磕绊绊的政策旅行中迈出了第一步。2010年6月陆克文总理卸任，茱莉亚杰拉德接任，她将国家协定描绘成广泛改革议程的“基石”。尽管困于政治动荡，杰拉德还是在非盈利政策空间里进行了开拓性改革。这些改革有可能被2013年当选的联盟党政府所废除。本文探讨了工党的改革计划为什么会开始瓦解。 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australia's main parties have experienced rapid deterioration in levels of membership but most have been reluctant to follow the lead of many of their counterparts in Western Europe and embrace more radical, inclusive pre-selection formats to arrest declining numbers. This paper offers a partial explanation of why the Liberal and Labor parties have been disinclined to look to reforming candidate selection as a strategy to combat their shrinking rank-and-file membership. It argues that compulsory voting in conjunction with high levels of party identification has reduced the imperative for Australia's major parties to resort to candidate selection reform as a device to stabilise their voter base. This study underscores the important role of the institutional setting in affecting the incentives for parties to use pre-selection reform to combat a shrinking membership base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first National Security Statement in 2008 identified climate change as a ‘fundamental’ threat to national security. Two years later, Rudd was deposed with little to show for climate activism beyond the largely symbolic ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Australians largely accepted Rudd's claim that climate change constituted a threat, yet relatively mainstream climate-policy measures were subjected to significant, and ultimately effective, political opposition. This has important implications for climate politics in Australia. This paper, however, focuses on implications for the securitization framework. Specifically, the author argues that this case raises serious questions about the capacity of the framework to account for the mobilising power of security or the dynamics of its construction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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The relationship between strategic culture and defence policies has not yet been much explored. Australia and New Zealand provide some evidence of the impact of strategic culture on defence policy. Australia has a dominant strategic culture which is strong enough to prompt both the major political parties to adopt realist defence policies, even though Labor has a traditionally 'idealist' outlook. Until the 1970s, New Zealand had a similar dominant strategic culture which influenced both major political parties, but it was always less strong than Australia's. In recent years, the Labour Party has rejected that culture, and allowed an alternative strategic culture based on its ideology to influence its defence policies. The result has been that on the last two occasions when Labour has been in government, New Zealand's defence policy has changed dramatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Americanism, sometimes called the 'last acceptable prejudice', is a common phenomenon in the modern era. This paper explores the ebb and flow of anti-Americanism in the Australian Labor Party in the post-Second World War period and argues that while at times it was reasonable or proportionate, at others such criticism became unreasonable, disproportionate and therefore prejudicial. When this occurs the Australia-US alliance can become strained, the Australian electorate tends to become sceptical of the ALP's credentials on national security and the party's electoral prospects also tend to suffer. Nevertheless, following the brief leadership of the stridently anti-American Mark Latham, such sentiment in the ALP has been widely discredited and is unlikely to emerge again in its prejudicial form for some time, marking the end of an era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overall, as in 2001 and 2004, the print media provided substantial coverage of the election campaign; and, as in recent campaigns, the Prime Minister received greater coverage than the Opposition Leader. As in previous campaign coverage a small number of topics—including opinion polling—generated the majority of stories. Two features were different in the 2007 campaign, namely the gradual increase in the number of positive stories about the Opposition Leader; and an increase in the number of negative stories about and unflattering images of the Prime Minister. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coalition's clear victory over Labor at the 2004 federal election after prominent campaigning by conservative church-based groups - along with the election to the Senate of a member of the Family First party - seemed to many commentators to confirm the growing power of a 'Religious Right' in Australia. This paper argues that two features of the 2007 federal election campaign are impossible to square with the rise of the Religious Right thesis. First, Labor won in 2007 without shifting its leadership, policies or electoral strategy to suit the Christian Right. Second, the contributions of church groups to the 2007 election campaign were not dominated by a single perspective but covered a wide range of issues and expressed competing views on key policy issues. This pluralism allowed Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party and even the Greens room to present themselves favourably to significant groups of Christian voters. The 2007 election suggests that, rather than being dominated by a hegemonic Christian Right, church involvement in Australian electoral politics is pluralistic in character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on interviews with 93 members of strategically located institutional elites and nominated influentials. It examines the sources of economic ideas in economic policy and studies a select number of key economic policy decisions made during the Labor governments of Hawke and Keating. It will argue that the economic liberalisation carried out during the Labor government reflected the influence of a range of individuals and institutions, depending on the economic decision in question, while a variety of domestic and internationally based institutions and individuals contributed ideas to economic policy-making. It will reject Pusey's (1991) belief that the central agencies (ie Treasury, the Department of Finance and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet) were necessarily the major influence in economic policy and show that other individuals and institutions, including cabinet and particular ministers, ministerial offices, the ACTU and other government departments, were also important. It will discuss further how economic policy is made in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the turmoil of the so-called 'death of socialism', both in Australia and elsewhere, there has been renewed debate about what socialism should be taken to mean. This paper attempts to come to terms with the competing claims about, in particular, socialism within the Australian Labor Party and, in general, how better to understand the meaning of socialism. A comparison and contrast between the first principles of liberalism and socialism helps to illuminate some of the inadequacies of Marxist criticisms of parliamentary Labor. In addition, the argument is made that if we are willing to give greater emphasis to questions of means and ends, socialism can be seen to be part of Labor's historic mission. Far from being a defence of the Hawke administration, however, the case is made that there has been, under Hawke, a fundamental break with the democratic socialist tradition; that the difference is in kind, not degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]