The massive Olympic Dam mine, now fully approved, threatens by itself to shift the centre of gravity of the future South Australian economy away from its traditional base in manufacturing. A ‘two-speed economy’ is in the early stages of being made. Part and parcel of this new dynamic is the decision by BHP Billiton, Olympic...

Key Points: Asia literacy – literacy about the region – has been the dominant underlying rationale for public investment in research about Australia’s region leading to a strong focus on country based centres with a considerable area studies and humanities focus. This conventional Asia literacy strategy is prone to rent seeking, and is less effective...

User fees are widely regarded as one of the main obstacles to increasing poor people’s access to health care in developing countries and, in doing so, promoting more inclusive forms of development. During the 1980s and early 1990s, a number of developing country governments introduced formal fees for health services in an attempt to generate...

On September the 8th, the Australian government announced changes to its Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme (PSWPS). In broadening and deepening Australia’s primary development-orientated migration scheme, this move demonstrated a commitment to improving the development impact of Australian migration policy. As such, it is in accordance with a large and growing body of literature advocating...

Negative stereotypes about the extractive industries constitute a cultural risk for operations, damage good-doers, and discourage other companies from imitating them. This paper discusses the concept of a cultural license to operate, which addresses these cultural risks.