Rethinking suburban development in Australia: a Melbourne case study

This article considers suburban development in Australia through the lens of its second largest city, Melbourne. Contemporary urban policies have focussed on the low densities within Australia's capitals and tried to achieve sustainability through urban consolidation policies. The article argues that these policies are often based on a distorted understanding of the relationship between housing markets and labour markets in Australia's large metropolises. The analysis of suburban development in Melbourne shows that suburban development involves complex links between changes in housing and job location and that urban sustainability policy needs to include actions designed to change the distribution of employment as well as the location and density of housing. The article shows that the vast spread of the Melbourne population masks closely linked regional labour and housing markets.     

The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post‐industrial structure. This transformation has had far‐reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy‐focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.     

THE SECTION 8 RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM: COSTS AND POLICY OPTIONS

Housing benefits and income transfers realized by Section 8 program participants are examined. The distribution of benefits depends on income eligibility rules and the level of Fair Market Rents, the latter establishing an upper limit on the quality of housing available to households. By establishing Fair Market Rents for an entire urban area, program regulations tend to exclude the poor from better quality neighborhoods. Subsidy costs for newly constructed units are twice as high as for existing units. Income eligibility rules are such that many more households are eligible than can be supported, creating difficult problems of horizontal equity. Lowering Fair Market Rents or raising the required share of tenant's income paid in rent would tend to reduce these horizontal equity problems.     

Professionalism and Australia's Security Intellectuals: Knowledge,Power, Responsibility

This article examines critically the systemic 'professionalism' which has overtaken Australia's defence and security community in the 1990s. It focuses on the unhealthy convergence of academic security studies at the Australian National University with an overriding foreign policy priority of the Australian Government: the formation of a new regional identity based on themes of 'engagement' and 'enmeshment' with Asia. It argues that the main consequence of this 'professionalist' trend is a mode of inquiry that expunges politics, ethics and responsibility from academic discourse on security. The article also addresses briefly an emerging postmodern politics of dissidence in the disciplines of security studies and political geography which has transformed our understanding of the role and social responsibility of security intellectuals.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Forest Soils and Nutrient Cycles, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne Division of National Mapping Climate, Atlas of Australian Resources Herbicides in Agriculture: Minimum Tillage, Science and Society Population aging in Australia: Implications for social and economic policy Australia's Changing Population: Trends and Implications, Melbourne The Natural Environment. Australia–a geography Volume I, Sydney The Adelaide City Plan: Fiction or Fact, Wakefield Press, Adelaide With Conscious Purpose: A History of Town Planning in South Australia Atlas of South Australia, Adelaide     

Amenities,affordability, and housing vouchers

Against the background of an emerging rental affordability crisis, we examine how the standard rule that households should not spend more than 30% of their income on housing expenditures leads to inefficiencies in the context of federal low‐income housing policy. We quantify how the current practice of locally indexing individual rent subsidies in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program regardless of quality‐of‐life conditions implicitly incentivizes recipients to live in high‐amenity areas. We also assess a novel scenario for housing policy reform that adjusts subsidies by the amenity expenditures of low‐income households, permitting national HCV program coverage to increase.     

住房制度改革对中国城市居住分异的影响

住房制度改革是中国城市居住分异的重要影响因素。住房制度改革后,城市居民可根据自身社会经济特征和消费偏好,选择居住区位和住房与邻里质量,住房选择行为相对自由化。商品房的开发在住房制度改革后得到鼓励,房产商在政府宏观调控指引下,自主选择投资区位,建设不同层次的住房和邻里,以满足不同层次居民的居住需求。不同类型企业、不同工龄的职工在享受房改房的机会明显不同,造成享受者和未享受者住房条件的差异,从而形成居住分异。公共部门的干预使得住房类型构成多样化,出现了经济适用房、房改房和廉租房等资助房,与商品房并存;种种约束条件使得社会群体在不同类型住房中分布并不均衡,形成居住分异。     

One continent,two federalisms: rediscovering the original meanings of Australian federal ideas

Federalism is usually described in political science as a single body of ideas—in Australia's case arriving in the 1840s–50s and moving to constitutional reality in the 1890s. This article re‐examines the origins and diversity of federal ideas in Australia. It suggests that federal thought began influencing Australia's constitutional development significantly earlier than previously described. This first Australian federalism had a previously unappreciated level of support in British colonial policy and drew on Benjamin Franklin's American model of territorial change as a ‘commonwealth for increase’. The revised picture entrenches the notion of federalism's logic but also reveals a dynamic, decentralist style of federalism quite different from Australia's orthodox ‘classic’ or compact federal theory. In fact, Australian political thought contains two often‐conflicting ideas of federalism. The presence of these approaches helps explain longstanding dissent over the regional foundations of Australian constitutionalism.     

Navigating the housing crisis: A comparison of international students and other newcomers in a mid-sized Canadian city

This article investigates the housing experiences of international students in comparison to other newcomers in the mid-sized Canadian city of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, with a focus on how they navigate housing crises. Drawing on recent literature on housing justice, a quantitative survey of 188 participants, and 30 qualitative interviews, the findings reveal that international students and other newcomers are at different stages of their housing careers, have different needs and goals, and are experiencing the affordability crisis differently. Housing discrimination is a pressing concern, especially for international students who are subjected to intersectional prejudice, exploitation by landlords, and amplified challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The article argues for inclusive housing and immigration policies that acknowledge international students as part of the Canadian housing market and ensure their rights to housing.     

Unintended consequences: an examination of Australia's ‘historic policy shift’ on East Timor

The Howard government's foreign policy objectives concerning East Timor remain the subject of intense historical debate. Given that some Indonesians harbour suspicions about Australia's role in East Timor's independence, it is important to reflect on Australia's diplomacy throughout this period. This article draws on 15 interviews with former politicians and officials—including Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer—to argue that in 1998, Australia's foreign policy was focused on supporting Indonesia's democratisation process and maintaining the bilateral relationship. It was only when Indonesia moved towards a ‘special status’ of autonomy for East Timor that Australia reconsidered its own position. Although rarely acknowledged, Australia's policy shift actually precipitated outcomes that it had sought to avoid. As such, Habibie's decision to allow self-determination in East Timor can only be viewed as an unintended consequence of Australian diplomacy—independence was never the objective of Australian foreign policy.     

The Country,the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.     

The politics of Antarctic minerals: The Greening of white Australia

On 22 May 1989 the Australian Government announced that it would not sign the Antarctic Minerals Convention that had been concluded in June 1988. Australia had been a strong supporter of the minerals treaty approach to regulating Antarctic mineral development. This case study in Australian foreign policy examines four well known approaches to foreign policy making in order to explain Australia's volte face on the minerals treaty. It is concluded that domestic politics best explains Australia's decision and that students of Australian foreign policy need to pay more attention to the domestic determinants of the policy making process.     

Between Jakarta and Geneva: why Abbott needs to view Africa as a great opportunity

Australia's engagement with Africa during the Rudd and Gillard governments was primarily driven by the national interest, which revolved around three issues: humanitarianism, support for mining corporations, and the United Nations Security Council seat. This article argues that there is a need for the Abbott government to retain the same depth and breadth of relationships with Africa. It is in the interest of both Australia and African states for the Australian government to remain committed to humanitarian objectives and to help African countries meet some of their Millennium Development Goal targets. Moreover, the continued support of Australian mining corporations operating in Africa, especially through the training of African policy makers in mining governance, is good for both Africa and Australia. Finally, Australia's continued success in multilateral diplomacy will depend on support from all parts of the world, including Africa. Australia's success at the multilateral level will, in turn, result in bilateral benefits in other regions, including the Asia-Pacific.     

Leveraging city officials’ professional and social Identities to facilitate affordable housing

Housing affordability is an acute problem in many developed economies. It is rooted, inter alia, in a conflict of interests across levels of government. Policies that seek to increase the supply of housing and lower their purchase price are popular among the general electorate, yet local governments deploy urban planning regulations to restrict densification and development of affordable housing within their jurisdictions. Moves to address this conflict would benefit from unpacking city officials' policy preferences and their variation. This paper compares the positions of local-government politicians vs. those of unelected bureaucrats in Israeli cities, drawing on survey and interview data. Our findings confirm the conflicts of interest between levels of government even within Israel's unitary, centralized context. However, we show that career bureaucrats, given their relative freedom from electoral pressures and commitment to professional values, are more amenable to citizens' and central government's shared interest in densification and affordable housing. We also highlight city officials' place of residence—within vs. outside the city—and their social identification with citizens and residents as antecedents of their urban-planning preferences. We draw on these findings to delineate directions for more effective central–local government collaboration in seeking affordable housing solutions.     

Resource nationalism or resource liberalism? Explaining Australia's approach to Chinese investment in its minerals sector

Since 2005, a burgeoning wave of Chinese investments has set off a new ‘minerals boom’ in the Australian iron ore and coal mining sectors. While normally a welcome development, the state-owned and strategic nature of the investors has raised concerns in Australia about how these should be regulated. As a result, in February 2008 the Australian government declared an intention to more closely screen foreign direct investment (FDI) from state-owned sources, which both supporters and detractors alike have claimed is evidence of ‘resource nationalism’ in Australia's approach towards its trade and investment relationships with China. This article challenges this understanding through an examination of the characteristics of Chinese mining FDI, the dilemmas these present to the Australian government, and the relatively restrained nature of its response. Through this, Australia's FDI policy is explained as a defensive move against the potential for strategic behaviour by Chinese investors resulting from their state ownership, rather than any national program to subject minerals trade and investment to political control. On this basis, the article argues that Australian government policy instead evidences a ‘resource liberalism’ approach, which intends to ensure that the governance of Australia's minerals trade and investment with China remain market-based processes.     

Housing Vancouver, 1972–2017: A personal urban geography and a professional response

The forum includes a research paper, preceded by a brief introduction and followed by five short responses from Pablo Mendez, Loretta Lees, Margaret Walton-Roberts, Ilse Helbrecht, and Alison Mountz. Mountz's introduction sets the context for the paper and makes some framing remarks on David Ley's career. The main paper examines the housing question in Vancouver, in the period from 1972 to 2017. Re-examining a number of Ley's research projects over this period, three broader themes are explored: the continuity of the housing crisis, and its reconfiguration over the period under study; the contrast between innovative and interventionist housing policy in the 1970s, with the later withdrawal of the state from significant intervention while endorsing market solutions; and the new centrality of housing as an empirical and analytical category in current human geography. This period saw upscaling from the 1970s welfare state to neoliberal globalization, including wealth immigration and off-shore property investment that accelerated serious metropolitan affordability problems. Following this research paper, colleagues and former students respond to the paper and locate the contributions in David Ley's broader career. Their commentaries address Ley's key contributions to debates in human geography, including his work on gentrification, urbanism, urban activism, global migration, art, aesthetics, and ethnography.     

From Commonwealth Responsibility to the National Interest: Australia and Post-war Decolonisation in South-East Asia

This article re-examines the drivers of post-war Australian foreign policy in South-East Asia. The central argument is that the motive of Commonwealth responsibility has not been given sufficient explanatory weight in interpreting Australia's post-war engagement with South-East Asia under both Australian Labor Party and Liberal-Country Party (Coalition) governments. The responsibility expressed by Australian policy-makers for the decolonisation of the Straits Settlements, Malayan Peninsula and British Borneo Territories cannot be adequately understood within a cold war ideological framework of anti-communism. Nor can it be explained by the instrumental logic of forward defence. The concept of responsibility is theorised as a motivation in foreign policy analysis and applied to Australian involvement with British decolonisation in South-East Asia between 1944 and 1971. The article finds that in its approach to decolonisation, Australia was driven as much by normative sentiments of responsibility to the Commonwealth as it was by instrumental calculations of cold war strategic interest. This diminished with the end of Indonesia's ‘Confrontation’ of Malaysia in 1966 and subsequent British commitment to withdraw from East of Suez. Australia's policy discourse becomes more narrowly interest-based after this, especially evident in Australia's negotiations with Malaysia and Singapore over the Five Power Defence Arrangements from 1968 to 1971.     

The alliance echoes and portents of Australia's longest war

Afghanistan was Australia's longest war, yet the consensus between Australia's major political parties on the commitment never wavered over 12 years. The bipartisan unity held even as the nature of the war changed and evolved, Australian casualties rose and popular support fell away. The enduring centrality of the US alliance explains much—probably almost all you need to know—about the unbroken consensus of the Australian polity. Afghanistan was an example of the Australian alliance addiction, similar to Vietnam. As with Vietnam, the Australian military left Afghanistan believing it won its bit of the war, even if the Afghanistan war is judged a disaster. As Australia heads home it finds the USA pivoting in its direction; with all the similarities that can be drawn between Vietnam and Afghanistan, this post-war alliance effect is a huge difference between the two conflicts.