Avian influenza is a deadly disease that can spread rapidly through poultry. There are many documented cases of transmission from birds to people, but as yet only rare instances of human to human transmission. Nonetheless, public health officials are concerned about the possibility of a human pandemic, and many countries have policies of banning imports...

Recent controversies, eg over intelligence in Iraq, have raised problems about the politicisation of official advice, particularly the supposedly factual or objective elements of advice. Objectivity is a contested value and the lines are often hard to draw between bare fact, spin and misrepresentation. Public servants are held to higher standards of objectivity than politicians...

This paper explores the relationship between cultural attitudes and estimates of the economic value of cultural institutions. The relationship is tested with preliminary findings from an empirical study of the economic value of two national cultural institutions in Australia?the National Museum of Australia and Old Parliament House (the historic former national parliament building). The two...

Over the past 25 years the Commonwealth has committed to several sport facility funding programs. However, in each case the distribution of projects funded, and total funds allocated has been concentrated into marginal electorates. With a greater number of projects being funded per marginal electorate than per fairly safe electorate or safe electorate, there is...

'Good governance' – the current buzzword of the international development community, despite its elusiveness – promises prosperity and democratic justice for all citizens of the world. Good governance commonly espouses the efficient management of a country’s institutions and social and economic resources in an open, accountable manner. Upon its emergence as the prevailing developmental paradigm...