Andrew Macintosh challenges one of the central arguments in the federal government?s case for reforming cross-media ownership laws ? that new media sources, particularly the internet, will guarantee pluralism in Australian media. He shows that as little as one per cent of Australians rely on alternative media providers as their main source of news and...

Andrew Macintosh challenges one of the central arguments in the federal government’s case for reforming cross-media ownership laws – that new media sources, particularly the internet, will guarantee pluralism in Australian media. He shows that as little as one per cent of Australians rely on alternative media providers as their main source of news and...

Recent public debate about the child care system in Australia has focused primarily on the availability and affordability of child care. Drawing on the results of a national survey of long day care centre staff, Emma Rush considers the quality of the care provided. For all the aspects of quality care investigated, results show that...

Australia’s ‘tough on drugs’ policy has failed to significantly reduce domestic drug markets or confront drug-related mental health disorders, according to Andrew Macintosh. He finds that strict drug law enforcement policies have failed to dent illicit drug markets and have exacerbated the social cost of illicit drug use.This report calls on governments to shift the...

A small but growing group of well-educated urban dwellers, often in well-paying jobs, is challenging the socially sanctioned revulsion around waste by engaging in ‘skip dipping’: sorting through the contents of publicly located skips for items which are still useful. Emma Rush examines the phenomenon in this paper.