Edited by the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology

New Research

Mass poverty in Asia and the GFC

  • Peter McCawley
  • Lowy Institute for International Policy
03 July 2009In addition to the current Global Financial Crisis (GFC), there is a second global crisis: long-term poverty in the third world.

Energy account, Australia, 2006-07

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
03 July 2009Australia's total energy use has increased by 15% over the last six years, according to this report. Manufacturing, along with the electricity, gas and water industries were the largest domestic energy users (around one-third each), while households made up a further 12 per cent.

Understanding vocational education and training, productivity and workforce participation

  • Justine Evesson, John Buchanan, Gillian Considine, Tanya Bretherton, Mike Rafferty
  • National Centre for Vocational Education Research
03 July 2009This report explores access to vocational education and training (and university) currently and historically over the past 20 years.

Breastfeeding and infants' time use

  • Jennifer Baxter, Julie Smith
  • Australian Institute of Family Studies
03 July 2009Being breastfed during infancy is known to improve developmental outcomes, but the pathways by which this occurs remain unclear. One possible yet unexplored mechanism is that breastfed infants may spend their time differently to infants who are not breastfed.

Stronger families in Australia study: the impact of communities for children

  • Ben Edwards, Sarah Wise, Matthew Gray, Alan Hayes, Ilan Katz, Sebastian Misson, Roger Patulny and Kristy Muir
  • Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
03 July 2009 This report presents the results of the evaluation of the short-run impacts of the Communities for Children (CfC) initiative on child, family and community outcomes.

Web 2.0 collaboration tools for the next generation of public service

  • Greg Parston, and others
  • Accenture
03 July 2009Web 2.0 technologies and services have spread around the world at an amazing pace and are used by millions of people every day. Many public service organizations are also adopting Web 2.0 applications as a means of improving their ability to collaborate and serve citizens more effectively.

Creative Economy

Web 2.0 collaboration tools for the next generation of public service

  • Greg Parston, and others
  • Accenture
03 July 2009Web 2.0 technologies and services have spread around the world at an amazing pace and are used by millions of people every day. Many public service organizations are also adopting Web 2.0 applications as a means of improving their ability to collaborate and serve citizens more effectively.

A support framework for remote workers

  • Marieke Guy
  • Ariadne
02 July 2009The central thrust of this article is that improvements in remote working will not occur consistently without some form of structured process and that more strategic benefits evolve as the increased profile of remote workers is acknowledged in organisational policy.

Economics

Understanding vocational education and training, productivity and workforce participation

  • Justine Evesson, John Buchanan, Gillian Considine, Tanya Bretherton, Mike Rafferty
  • National Centre for Vocational Education Research
03 July 2009This report explores access to vocational education and training (and university) currently and historically over the past 20 years.

Energy account, Australia, 2006-07

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
03 July 2009Australia's total energy use has increased by 15% over the last six years, according to this report. Manufacturing, along with the electricity, gas and water industries were the largest domestic energy users (around one-third each), while households made up a further 12 per cent.

Education

Understanding vocational education and training, productivity and workforce participation

  • Justine Evesson, John Buchanan, Gillian Considine, Tanya Bretherton, Mike Rafferty
  • National Centre for Vocational Education Research
03 July 2009This report explores access to vocational education and training (and university) currently and historically over the past 20 years.

E-readiness rankings 2009: The usage imperative

  • Economist Intelligence Unit
02 July 2009The e–readiness scores of all but nine of the 70 countries in the study have declined in 2009.

Health

Bridges and barriers: addressing Indigenous incarceration and health

  • National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee
02 July 2009Despite the investment by governments to reduce incarceration, Indigenous Australians have continued to fill our correction systems at alarmingly disproportionate rates, making up almost one quarter of Australian’s prison population and over half of Indigenous juveniles in corrective institutions.

Does the Commonwealth have constitutional power to take over the administration of public hospitals?

  • Sharon Scully
  • Parliamentary Library
02 July 2009This research paper addresses the question of whether the Commonwealth has the constitutional power to take over and regulate the administration of public hospitals (with or without the agreement of state governments). 

International

Mass poverty in Asia and the GFC

  • Peter McCawley
  • Lowy Institute for International Policy
03 July 2009In addition to the current Global Financial Crisis (GFC), there is a second global crisis: long-term poverty in the third world.

World drug report 2009

  • United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
  • United Nations
30 June 2009The World Drug Report presents comprehensive information on the illicit drug situation. It provides detailed estimates and trends on production, trafficking and consumption in the opium/heroin, coca/cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants markets.

Justice

The state of music online: ten years after Napster

  • Mary Madden
  • Pew Internet & American Life Project
02 July 2009In the decade since Napster’s launch, selling recorded music has become as much of an art as making the music itself.

Community attitudes to discrimination legislation report

  • Australian Coalition for Equality
01 July 2009A strong majority (85%) of Australians support federal laws protecting Australians from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity

Social Policy

Stronger families in Australia study: the impact of communities for children

  • Ben Edwards, Sarah Wise, Matthew Gray, Alan Hayes, Ilan Katz, Sebastian Misson, Roger Patulny and Kristy Muir
  • Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
03 July 2009 This report presents the results of the evaluation of the short-run impacts of the Communities for Children (CfC) initiative on child, family and community outcomes.

Understanding vocational education and training, productivity and workforce participation

  • Justine Evesson, John Buchanan, Gillian Considine, Tanya Bretherton, Mike Rafferty
  • National Centre for Vocational Education Research
03 July 2009This report explores access to vocational education and training (and university) currently and historically over the past 20 years.

Commentary

Perils of government dominance

29 June 2009Without strong upper houses, parliaments cannot rely on watchdogs alone to guard against bad government, argues Scott Prasser

We aren't refugees

29 June 2009For people on Kiribati and Tuvalu, the description "refugee" has too many negative connotations, write Jane McAdam and Maryanne Loughry on our partner website, INSIDE STORY

The rise and fall of a Canberra souffle

29 June 2009Over the past week Canberra has fiddled while the world burns, writes Geoffrey Barker on our partner website, INSIDE STORY

Audio

Australia's international future

Listen to audio
03 July 2009The world after the Global Financial Crisis will be a world which asks some very searching questions of Australia's foreign policy makers, businesspeople, and citizens.

New Australian consumer law

Listen to audio
03 July 2009Jacqueline Downes and Catherine Parr, Partners at Allens Arthur Robinson, outline the changes to Australian Consumer Law introduced into Parliament recently.

Environment

Energy account, Australia, 2006-07

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics
03 July 2009Australia's total energy use has increased by 15% over the last six years, according to this report. Manufacturing, along with the electricity, gas and water industries were the largest domestic energy users (around one-third each), while households made up a further 12 per cent.

The dynamics of housing affordability: movements in and out of housing affordability stress 2001-2006

  • Gavin Wood, Rachel Ong
  • Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
29 June 2009This project provides important information for the formulation and design of policies that aim to improve housing affordability in Australia.

Video

Andrew Ness on urbanisation in China

Listen to audio
03 July 2009One of the byproducts of China's extraordinary development in the last few decades has been an explosion in its urban populations. At the recent Metropolis summit in Sydney, Asia researcher Andrew Ness described how this changing landscape has come about, and how the Chinese are planning for an urbanised future.

IQ Squared: Should public money be used for public schools?

Listen to audio
02 July 2009Once again, the IQ Squared debate series filled the auditorium of the Angel Place Recital Centre in Sydney's CBD, and this time it was to argue a hotly-felt topic, that "Public Funding of Private Education is Unconscionable".

Indigenous

Bridges and barriers: addressing Indigenous incarceration and health

  • National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee
02 July 2009Despite the investment by governments to reduce incarceration, Indigenous Australians have continued to fill our correction systems at alarmingly disproportionate rates, making up almost one quarter of Australian’s prison population and over half of Indigenous juveniles in corrective institutions.

Reported gambling problems in the Indigenous and total Australian population

  • Gambling Research Australia
01 July 2009This study investigated factors that correlate with gambling-related problems among the Indigenous population. There are significant variations between states and territories in the percentage of Indigenous people reporting gambling related problems for themselves or their family and social networks.

Websites

Arts in aging

26 June 2009The National Endowment for the Arts's Arts in Aging project links a number of studies, articles and best practice models that discuss the benefits of arts education and types of arts programs available in the United States for older people.

Climate change

22 June 2009The web site includes useful information sources and explains core concepts and developments necessary to understanding and responding to the climate change debate.

Sustainable by Design

19 June 2009  A practical online resource for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) focusing on improving sustainability performance with design being the catalyst to achieve this success. The aim of this ‘How to Kit’ on Sustainability is to highlight the economic, environmental and social value of addressing environmental factors in the creation of products, services and spaces.  

Politics

Web 2.0 collaboration tools for the next generation of public service

  • Greg Parston, and others
  • Accenture
03 July 2009Web 2.0 technologies and services have spread around the world at an amazing pace and are used by millions of people every day. Many public service organizations are also adopting Web 2.0 applications as a means of improving their ability to collaborate and serve citizens more effectively.

Open recommendations for the use of web measurement tools on federal government web sites

  • Brock N. Meeks, and others
  • Center for Democracy and Technology
02 July 2009The Internet is an ideal medium for citizen engagement in government, and US Federal agency web sites will have a key role to play in making government more transparent, accountable and participatory.  To succeed, the operation and improvement of Federal agency web sites must be done through the lens of protecting citizen privacy.  

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Books

The general theory of economic evolution

The general theory of economic evolution

  • Jason Potts and Kurt Dopfer
  • Routledge
The first book to chart the development of the field of evolutionary economics, this book provides an integrated generic framework to define the rules of an economic system
Digital history: a guide to gathering, preserving and presenting the past on the web

Digital history: a guide to gathering, preserving and presenting the past on the web

  • Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig
  • University of Pennsylvania Press
This book provides a plainspoken and thorough introduction to the web for historians

Policy Guides

Blog, podcast, vodcast and Wiki copyright guide for Australia

This guide was developed by the Law Research Program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) to examine and explain copyright issues which impact upon creators and users of blogs, podcasts, vodcasts and wikis in the Australian legal environment.

18-05-09

Topics

APO