Roadside Memorials: Interpreting New Deathscapes in Newcastle,New South Wales

Over recent years, roadside memorials to commemorate people killed in motor vehicle accidents have become increasingly noticeable in parts of the Australian landscape. In Newcastle, New South Wales, roadside memorials are placed for young people. The age/gender group most at risk of road death, and those most memorialised, are young men. This is linked to spatially specific constructions of masculinity which circulate within youth milieux of Newcastle. Like other memorials and monuments these ‘deathscapes’ have multiple meanings, differing between those who build, maintain and interpret them. They function as conservative memorials of youth machismo; of heroic aggression, disregard for safety and egocentrism. Roadside memorials need to be re-read as symbolic of societal flaws; of a wasteful road toll, and a testament to dominant and problematic strains of masculinity.     

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.     

Folk-Tales of the Aborigines of New South Wales

THE WITCH-CULT IN WESTERN EUROPE. A STUDY IN ANTHROPOLOGY. MARGARET ALICE MURRAY. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. 1921. Pp. 303. Price 16s. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday.

THE SEMA NAGAS. By J. H. HUTTON, C.I. E., M.A., I.C.S. Published by direction of the Assam Administration. London : Macmillan &; Co. 1921. Price 40s. net. Reviewed by A. C. Haddon.

ANCIENT TALES FROM MANY LANDS : A COLLECTION OF FOLK STORIES. By R. M. FLEMING. With an Introduction by H. J. FLEURE, D.Sc. London: Benn Bros. 1922. Price 10s. 6d. Reviewed by A. Hingston Quiggin.

ASPECTS OF ANCIENT INDIAN POLITY. By NARENDRA NATH LAW, M.A., B.L. ; with a Foreword by ARTHUR BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., D.Litt. Oxford University Press. London: Milford. Reviewed by H. A. Rose.     

1. New South Wales and Victorian Politics

Ernie Chaples and Helen Nelson (eds), Case Studies in New South Wales Electoral Politics, Sydney, Department of Government and Public Administration, University of Sydney, 1985, pp. 109. $8.50 ($9.50 posted) (paper)

Ernie Chaples, Helen Nelson and Ken Turner (eds), The Wran Model: Electoral Politics in New South Wales 1981 and 1984, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1985, pp.289. $14.99 (paper)

Brian J. Costar and Colin A. Hughes (eds), Labor to Office: The Victorian State Election 1982, Melbourne, Drummond, 1983, pp.293. $17.95 (paper)

P.R. Hay, J. Halligan, J. Warhurst and B. Costar (eds), Essays on Victorian Politics, War‐mambool, Warrnambool Institute Press, 1985, pp.210. $9.00 (paper)     

Early Middle Cambrian corals from western New South Wales

Three forms, Cothonion sympomatum gen. et sp. nov. with a bi-radially septate operculum, and the new species lissa and daseia of the genus Lipopora gen. nov., are described from the early Middle Cambrian Coonigan Formation in the Mootwingee district of western New South Wales, Australia. They may be representatives of hitherto unknown groups of organisms, but they are tentatively interpreted as coelenterates that reached a level of development comparable with the Anthozoa. Cothonion is placed in the new family Cothoniidae and questionably referred to the Rugosa. Lipopora is considered to be similar to Coelenteratella Korde; both are grouped in the new family Lipoporidae and tentatively referred to the Tabulata.