Sport,Localism and Social Capital in Rural Western Australia

Whilst there has been some research conducted on the role of sport in Australian rural communities, to date there has been little detailed discussion by social scientists and geographers on the association between sport and social capital. This paper identifies elements of social capital, at a community and regional social scale, which have been expressed through the activities and adaptive strategies of twenty‐five sporting clubs from the wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Most of the adaptive strategies are a direct result of the clubs being exposed to the processes of rural restructuring and include amalgamation and the spatial reorganisation of sporting competition locations. The importance of localism in rural communities is also examined through the issues of trust and distrust within a regional hierarchy context. The paper illustrates how sport is not only an important part of rural life but also an activity which plays an integral role in the formation of bonding and bridging social capital.     

Australian local government in the 1970s

Australian local government was the subject of a great deal of debate in the 1970s as attention focused on geographical boundaries, legal and constitutional jurisdiction, and financial imbalance. Little came of moves to reform boundaries or to alter the scope of activities. More success was achieved in applying the principle of fiscal equalisation to local government's parlous financial situation. Stability and resistance to change are however the overwhelming characteristics of Australian local government. The paper surveys the scope and function of local government in the 1970s. The recently developed radical critique of the local state is found to have little relevance to Australian local government because of the small and fragmented scale of local government social policy.     

Multiple agents,blame games and public policy-making: the case of local government reform in New South Wales

Politicians often use ‘independent experts’ to avoid blame for contentious public policy. The use of multiple agents, however, has attracted relatively little attention. We extend the blame-avoidance literature to identify additional opportunities and risks that arise when multiple agents are used to support/oppose particular public policies. We then test our propositions using evidence from recent local government reforms in New South Wales. The picture which emerges is largely one of confusion whereby independent agents provide contradictory opinions, attempt to shift blame to one another, and dispute interpretations of earlier advice. We conclude our analysis with a discussion of the salient factors for successful pursuit of the multiple-agent variant of the blame games.     

Business political activism and government relations in large companies in Australia

This paper reports on findings of recent empirical research which deals with the prevalence and role of government relations functions in large companies in Australia. It is argued that large firms have become more politically active in the last two decades and that many of the largest firms have established specialised government relations functions. The operation of such functions is discussed and the implications of such ‘in house’ corporate political activism for the role of business associations is explored.     

Tertiary frogs from South Australia

Four species of hylid and leptodactylid frogs are reported from the Tertiary (mid-Miocene) Ngapakaldi fauna of the Etadunna Formation at Lake Palankarinna, South Australia. The species comprise Limnodynastes archeri sp. nov., Litoria sp. cf. caerulea (White), Litoria sp. indet. and Australobatrachus ilius Tyler. Previously the extant genera Limnodynastes and Litoria have been known only from Quaternary deposits.     

Local government perceptions of water related issues in rural Australia

Water supply has long been regarded as a limiting resource in the further development of Australia. Active management has been necessary in both more densely settled areas and in areas of moderate settlement density but low rainfall such as the Murray-Darling system. The recently released Water 2000 Report details current knowledge about the quality and distribution of these resources. Following on from this Report this article presents perceived problems with water quantity and quality (in particular, salinisation) obtained from a survey sent to rural local governments in late 1982. The survey requested information on the relevance of twenty-two land use issues, known from earlier work to be representative of common concerns throughout Australia. Public perceptions were remarkably similar to the results of the Water 2000 Report. Water quantity/quality and salinisation issues were the sixth and seventh most commonly cited issues throughout Australia, but were of much greater concern in specific areas. Tasmanian local governments reported major problems of water supply, those in southwest Western Australia exhibited a very high level of concern with dry land salinisation, local governments in the Murray-Darling Drainage Division reported concern with salinisation, droughts, floods and general water quality, while local governments in the Gulf of Carpentaria Drainage Division consistently cited flooding as being a major problem. Information from surveys such as this, and others where the respondents are the end-users, need to be combined with expert opinion in order to increase the effectiveness of the management of our water resources.     

Localism and radicalization in North Africa: local factors and the development of political Islam in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya

Over the past three decades North Africa has experienced a wave of Islamic activism. From the emergence of groups such as Shabiba Islamiya in Morocco in the 1970s to the recent appearance of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the region has been home to a plethora of different Islamist movements, each with its own national characteristics. As such the region has displayed a general propensity to Islamist activism. However, certain areas within each North African state have proven particularly receptive to the ideology of political Islam. Although this trend is by no means universal, given the strong appeal of the Islamist ideology that has been able to transcend geographical boundaries, these areas have nonetheless been a key source of recruitment not only for the more moderate strands of the Islamist opposition, but also to the militant movements and networks that espouse violence. As such there would appear to be a correlation between localism and Islamist activism in North Africa. Focusing on Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, this article will examine some of these local issues and will argue that in order to understand better the causes of radicalization in the region, the rise of Islamism in North Africa should be considered within the broader historical context of political and cultural resistance by certain peripheral regional elements to a dele-gitimized and stagnated central authority.     

Lobbying and minority government in Australia: The concept of the marginal member

Within Westminster-based majority parliaments, the presence of minority government runs contrary to the conventional wisdom. Over the last 40 years, however, there has been a steady voting trend away from major parties in many of these parliaments. The complex composition of the Australian Senate after July 2014 reinforces that non-ministerial marginal members continue to be a vital part of the political landscape. This article introduces the concept of the marginal member and examines the potential influence of these members for legislative outcomes and lobbying success. In doing so, the article provides a heuristic through which to identify avenues of policy influence and presents a range of strategies for lobbyists working with marginal members within minority-government contexts.

在英式多数制议会内,少数党政府的存不符合传统的智慧。在以往40年里,许多英式议会出现了一种偏离多数党的稳定趋势。澳大利亚参院2014年之后的复杂构成,说明非内阁边缘成员依然是政治格局中有活力的部分。本文提出了边缘成员的概念,考察了他们对立法结果及游说成败的潜在影响力。本文提供了一种关于政策影响渠道的思路,以及在少数党政府的情况下如何游说边缘成员的一系列办法。