How Do Unionists Vote? Estimating the Causal Impact of Union Membership on Voting Behaviour from 1966 to 2004

This paper explores the voting patterns of trade union members in Australian elections conducted between 1966 and 2004 and finds that, on average, 63% of trade union members vote for the Australian Labor Party. Despite the fact that union membership declined from around half of the workforce in the early 1980s to a quarter of the workforce in the early 2000s, unionists have not become more pro-Labor. Analysing unionists' voting behaviour by gender, it is found that male unionists were more pro-Labor than female unionists in the 1960s, but that the reverse is true today. Recognising that union membership may be endogenous with respect to political ideology, this study instruments for union membership and concludes that the observed association between union membership and voting reflects a causal relationship.     

Miscellaneous Artifacts From Casselden Place, Melbourne

The miscellaneous artifacts from Casselden Place derive from an urban working-class community in nineteenth-century Melbourne, Australia. They include a broad range of items associated with work, recreation, education, fashion, food consumption, health, and other facets of everyday life. In this paper the miscellaneous assemblage is examined in light of research questions relating to health and hygiene, leisure and work, and access to luxury items amongst the working-class of the mid to late nineteenth century.     

Inside and outside the school lunchbox: themes and reflections

We examine here the discourses surrounding the lunchbox taken to school by children: aspects both of the contents and of how children consume and understand these.1 The observations presented here form part of the preliminary stages of a broader project examining ‘Men, Children and Food’. The project itself is part of a large research programme – ‘Changing Families, Changing Food’ – funded by the Leverhulme Trust (award number F/00118/AQ) from 2006 to 2008, and situated at the University of Sheffield, working in collaboration with colleagues at Royal Holloway University of London. Our aims, in ‘Men, Children and Food’, are to explore the experiences of fathers (and other male figures in the household) and of children, in relation to food practices, including ways in which the two interconnect. View all notes Examples within and beyond the UK suggest that the lunchbox is a container for various aspects of the private and public. What traces can be found inside of wider social relations, including processes of care and surveillance? We argue that the lunchbox consists of intersecting spatialities, within which children constitute a public face, and create identities, relationships and subjectivities; this perspective frames opportunities for priorities in future empirical research with children.     

Three Tools for Forecasting Federal Elections: Lessons from 2001

What is the best way to predict Australian federal election results? This article analyses three forecasting tools: opinion polls, economic models, and betting odds. Historically, we find that opinion polls taken close to the election are quite accurate, while economic models provide better medium-run forecasts. The November 2001 federal election largely follows this pattern, although the economic models provided more accurate projections than recorded through the 1990s. Against these, we compare betting odds, analysing a rich data source from one of Australia's largest bookmakers, Centrebet. The betting market not only correctly forecast the election outcome, but also provided very precise estimates of outcomes in a host of individual electorates. Betting fluctuations present an intriguing quantitative record of the shifting fortunes of the campaign. Particularly in marginal seats, the press may have better served its readers by reporting betting odds than by conducting polls. We conclude that the results of these three models can help determine how important the events of August and September 2001 were in deciding the outcome of the election.     

Path dependence,policy learning and Australian manufacturing since the 1970s

The impending demise of passenger motor vehicle manufacturing in Australia provides a good opportunity to view the trajectory of industry policy since the Whitlam government commenced the process of tariff cuts in 1973. It is argued that industry policy over this period demonstrates the effects of path dependence and a lack of policy learning. In the industry policy context, the path dependence perspective suggests three key factors in explaining policy effects: the importance of initial conditions; the role of cumulative causation in the interaction between policy settings, actors and firms; and the shaping role of networks. While political or electoral factors could, on occasion, generate support for threatened industries, overall, neo-liberal policy ideas guided decision-making. An examination of Australian defence industry, and a comparison of the Australian and New Zealand dairy and milk processing industries reinforces the importance of institutionally shaped path dependency.