DOCSLIB.ORG

Research Proposal for Dee Margetts

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Research Proposal for Dee Margetts A Critique of Australia’s National Competition Policy: Assessing its outcomes in a range of major sectors Diane Elizabeth (Dee) Margetts BA (Hons), GradDipEd, MPhil This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia Management & Organisations Business School 2012 Abstract This thesis analyses the policy assertions of National Competition Policy (NCP) in relation to the actual outcomes in the following key sectors of the Australian economy: Dairy, retail and water. Reference is also made to the relationship between NCP and outsourcing. The research was driven by an awareness of a gap between policy claims and the actual transformations, which have never been assessed by government, despite the substantial nature of the changes ushered in by NCP. In this respect, the thesis reflects a characteristic of Australian political processes since the mid -1980s where neoliberal policy change is also not assessed in terms of outcomes. The thesis contends that in this regard the public interest reflecting the needs of society (families/communities) has not been properly applied. This analysis is theoretically informed by a political economy approach, which gives due weight to the relationship between the economic sphere and society. The Dairy Case Study examines the impacts of the forced removal of the Statutory Marketing Authorities due to NCP and the impacts of increased corporate market dominance of the major retailers over dairy producers (family farms), dairy manufacturers and consumers. The Retail Case Study analyses the role of the large retail companies in pressurizing the state to deregulate the retail market and considers the impacts of NCP on retail suppliers, manufacturers, corporate and independent retailers and consumers and critiques the lack of adequate assessment of the impacts of NCP. The Water Case Study shows how and why the NCP Water ‘Agreement’ was made prior to the main NCP ‘Agreement’ and investigates the outcomes, the impacts of climate change and inadequate data that was available on Australia’s water use and water availability prior during the major push for water privatisation/water trading. This analysis of NCP policy prescriptions and their impacts uncovers the shallowness of claimed social gains. In so doing, the thesis makes a modest contribution to de- legitimating the neoliberal project. i Preface As an elected member of the Australian Senate at the time that National Competition Policy (NCP) was being debated, I both participated in these debates and critically observed the nature of the political process in advancing competition policy. I came to the realisation that these changes were likely to have a significant impact on the Australian economy and society. Hence, while I was a politician, I attempted to promote public debate on the likely effects of these changes. This thesis is an extension of that journey, for I became convinced that this logic could only be challenged through analysing both the theoretical modelling of competition policy and researching the actual empirical outcomes of the restructuring. The political phase of this journey is now briefly recounted, as it formed the foundation of the analysis that follows. This brief recall of my parliamentary experience reveals how NCP and the ideology of ‘contestability’1 became dominant, both in the minds of key policy makers and in subsequent policy. Prior to my election to the Australian Senate,2 the Australian Federal Government had already begun deregulating the banking and financial sector in accordance with the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)3 by responding to the Campbell Committee under Treasurer John Howard in the 1979 Fraser Government (Margetts 2001: 24). Framed by this event, my maiden parliamentary speech heralded an interest in the impacts of government economic policy: Many people in Western Australia know me as a lobbyist for peace and disarmament. However, like many people who have been drawn into the Green movement because of their concern about particular issues, I began to see the connections between issues of world peace, social justice, environmental responsibility and grassroots democracy. In my last two years as a research masters’ student in economics, I travelled extensively around Western Australia. I opened my eyes to the huge gap between the stated goals of government economic policy and the reality at the community and regional level. I will speak out, wherever possible, about the lunacy of a blind faith in the benefits of financial and economic deregulation (Margetts 1993: 256).4 1 The ideological basis of ‘contestability’ is explained in the Retail Chapter 6. 2 I was elected to the Senate in March 1993 and my Senate term was from mid-1993 to mid-1998. 3 The Uruguay Round of GATT had taken seven and a half years of negotiation and, in the end, 123 countries were ‘taking part’. It covered almost all kinds of trade and was considered the largest ever trade negotiation in history (WTO 2012). 4 In the 1970s, after my first year at UWA, where I commenced a BA degree with majors in English and Anthropology (my double major), including Economics, I began working on land for Qantas. While working for Qantas (which I did for six years), I continued studying part-time and began working as a ii In this speech, I also expressed concern about the lack of scrutiny over the ownership and control of Australia’s primary resources and of the level of public resources that were being used to subsidise this industry by way of royalty deals, infrastructure, subsidised electricity and access to other resources:5 Some forms of investment wind up costing us more than the benefits they bring to our economy, and yet we are now planning to voluntarily surrender any last threads of economic sovereignty (Margetts 1993: 256). This position diverged significantly from the mainstream political thinking of the two major Federal parties because, by the mid-1990s, the ‘economic rationalist’6 policy change was a ‘done deal’. At the time of my formally entering the Australian Senate, the Hon Paul Keating had become the Australian Prime Minister (1991-1996). While an acute thinker, Keating had, in my view, become vulnerable to the lobbying by Treasury officials regarding the free trade ideological agenda, which promotes economic deregulation. Keating had developed such enthusiasm for Australia’s commitment to the Uruguay Round of GATT that he considered Australia should make unilateral domestic free-market globalisation changes prior to the signing of GATT to encourage other countries to follow (IAC 1989, Vol 1: 102). For example, in announcing an inquiry by the Industry Assistance Commission (IAC) to investigate the impacts of significant government charges other than taxation, Keating stated that the inquiry would assist the Australian Government’s GATT negotiations (Margetts 2001: 29). The subsequent report, Government (Non-Tax) Charges (IAC 1989), focussed on how to reduce the regularity and other (non-tax) government costs for big business, to assist corporations to become internationally competitive and to open up more of the Australian economy to overseas volunteer anthropology library assistant. Facilitated by this latter role, I became very interested in Development Studies through my reading, including of the Australian media articles by JK Galbraith. In 1979, I left Australia to enrol in the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia, one of the few universities in the world that taught Development Studies in an undergraduate Honours degree. Economics and Anthropology were my majors in my Honours Degree, and the School’s methods in teaching economics helped me to investigate and assess the impacts of economic policy directions. 5 Some years later, a report commissioned in 1994 by the Federal Environment Ministry from the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (1996) was released, entitled Subsidies to the Use of Natural Resources. This provided data on a significant range of resource subsidies. 6 The basis of Australia’s term ‘economic rationalism’ is explained on page 9 of Chapter 1. iii investment (Margetts 2001: 10),7 thus indicating the ‘thinking’ within the Hawke/Keating Government.8 The Hilmer NCP Inquiry was subsequently established in 1992, following what Keating described as an agreement, reached through the Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG), ‘on the need for such a policy’ (Hilmer et al. 1993: iii). The Hilmer Report was published in 1993, which was my first parliamentary year. Neither of the two major parties opposed this general COAG proposal for the Competition Principles Agreement (COAG 1995a), and it was completed on 11 April 1995. Given the complementarities in the policy directions of the two major parties, there was little parliamentary debate on NCP, except by the Greens (WA), the Australian Democrats and some independents. As a result of this co-operative approach between the major parties, the general community remained largely uninformed about the significance of the policy, leading to limited public discourse. It was also apparent that, since both major parties appeared to agree, the media tended not to question this major policy position.9 However, it should not be assumed that the ‘agreements’ reached by the Australian States and Territories with the Federal Government on NCP indicate their full understanding of the implications of these ‘agreements’. Susan Churchman (1996: 97), former Senior Executive of the Competition Policy, Policy and Cabinet Division of the South Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet, in her article ‘National Competition Policy—Its Evolution and Implementation: A Study in Intergovernmental Relations’, published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, clearly shows that during the NCP negotiations, the States and Territories were not easily able to appoint representatives ‘with all the necessary skills and the time’ to fully and effectively focus on the task of understanding the impacts of the ‘intergovernmental agreements’ based on the Hilmer Report and ‘draft legislation’.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • HON. GIZ WATSON B. 1957
    PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH HON. GIZ WATSON b. 1957 - STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA - ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION DATE OF INTERVIEW: 2015-2016 INTERVIEWER: ANNE YARDLEY TRANSCRIBER: ANNE YARDLEY DURATION: 19 HOURS REFERENCE NUMBER: OH4275 COPYRIGHT: PARLIAMENT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA & STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. GIZ WATSON INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS NOTE TO READER Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is a verbatim transcript of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Parliament and the State Library are not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge. Bold type face indicates a difference between transcript and recording, as a result of corrections made to the transcript only, usually at the request of the person interviewed. FULL CAPITALS in the text indicate a word or words emphasised by the person interviewed. Square brackets [ ] are used for insertions not in the original tape. ii GIZ WATSON INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS CONTENTS Contents Pages Introduction 1 Interview - 1 4 - 22 Parents, family life and childhood; migrating from England; school and university studies – Penrhos/ Murdoch University; religion – Quakerism, Buddhism; countryside holidays and early appreciation of Australian environment; Anti-Vietnam marches; civil-rights movements; Activism; civil disobedience; sport; studying environmental science; Albany; studying for a trade. Interview - 2 23 - 38 Environmental issues; Campaign to Save Native Forests; non-violent Direct Action; Quakerism; Alcoa; community support and debate; Cockburn Cement; State Agreement Acts; campaign results; legitimacy of activism; “eco- warriors”; Inaugural speech .
    [Show full text]
  • The Australian Women's Health Movement and Public Policy
    Reaching for Health The Australian women’s health movement and public policy Reaching for Health The Australian women’s health movement and public policy Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Gray Jamieson, Gwendolyn. Title: Reaching for health [electronic resource] : the Australian women’s health movement and public policy / Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson. ISBN: 9781921862687 (ebook) 9781921862670 (pbk.) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Birth control--Australia--History. Contraception--Australia--History. Sex discrimination against women--Australia--History. Women’s health services--Australia--History. Women--Health and hygiene--Australia--History. Women--Social conditions--History. Dewey Number: 362.1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2012 ANU E Press Contents Preface . .vii Acknowledgments . ix Abbreviations . xi Introduction . 1 1 . Concepts, Concerns, Critiques . 23 2 . With Only Their Bare Hands . 57 3 . Infrastructure Expansion: 1980s onwards . 89 4 . Group Proliferation and Formal Networks . 127 5 . Working Together for Health . 155 6 . Women’s Reproductive Rights: Confronting power . 179 7 . Policy Responses: States and Territories . 215 8 . Commonwealth Policy Responses . 245 9 . Explaining Australia’s Policy Responses . 279 10 . A Glass Half Full… . 305 Appendix 1: Time line of key events, 1960–2011 .
    [Show full text]
  • News Release
    HELP RESCUE THE FORESTS WITH THIS FOREST PROTECTION STRATEGY THIS was ASPIRING TO BE AUSTRALIA'S BIGGEST EVER PUBLIC PETITION News Release The Earth Repair Foundation (ERF), an innovative environmental and community education organisation based in the Blue Mountains, is aiming to achieve Australia's most signed petition. This petition calls for the permanent protection of all native forests and an ecologically sustainable future. The petition is already supported by more than 160 diverse community groups, union, business, environmental, indigenous, ethnic, religious and political organisations representing millions of Australians (see list of endorsees overleaf). The petition is seeking to collect over a million signatures. The Forest Protection Petition outlines viable and achievable solutions aiming to protect in perpetuity, Australia's irreplaceable high-conservation value native forests including old-growth and rainforests. It also recommends practical plantation strategies which can sustain the important pulp, paper and timber industries in Australia. The petition began in the early 90's when a group of dedicated forest defenders began a Fast for the Forests on Macquarie Street, Sydney in front of NSW Parliament House. Two individuals fasted for over 30 days as a personal protest and the action ran for 60 days. Since that time the petition has gained an unprecedented support base and aims to be the most influential petition in Australia's history. It advocates a long-term approach to ecologically-sustainable forestry practices, by assisting rural communities with much-needed employment in developing plantation timbers and annual fibre crops and effectively 'reaping only what we sow'. It is a well-known fact that Australia's native forests are being sacrificed to export woodchips to Japan and other countries, while those countries preserve their own native forests as national treasures.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of the Australian Greens
    Parliament of Australia Department of Parliamentary Services Parliamentary Library Information, analysis and advice for the Parliament RESEARCH PAPER www.aph.gov.au/library 22 September 2008, no. 8, 2008–09, ISSN 1834-9854 The rise of the Australian Greens Scott Bennett Politics and Public Administration Section Executive summary The first Australian candidates to contest an election on a clearly-espoused environmental policy were members of the United Tasmania Group in the 1972 Tasmanian election. Concerns for the environment saw the emergence in the 1980s of a number of environmental groups, some contested elections, with successes in Western Australia and Tasmania. An important development was the emergence in the next decade of the Australian Greens as a unified political force, with Franklin Dam activist and Tasmanian MP, Bob Brown, as its nationally-recognised leader. The 2004 and 2007 Commonwealth elections have resulted in five Australian Green Senators in the 42nd Parliament, the best return to date. This paper discusses the electoral support that Australian Greens candidates have developed, including: • the emergence of environmental politics is placed in its historical context • the rise of voter support for environmental candidates • an analysis of Australian Greens voters—who they are, where they live and the motivations they have for casting their votes for this party • an analysis of the difficulties such a party has in winning lower house seats in Australia, which is especially related to the use of Preferential Voting for most elections • the strategic problems that the Australian Greens—and any ‘third force’—have in the Australian political setting • the decline of the Australian Democrats that has aided the Australian Greens upsurge and • the question whether the Australian Greens will ever be more than an important ‘third force’ in Australian politics.
    [Show full text]
  • The Distinctive Foundations of Australian Democracy
    Papers on Parliament No. 42 December 2004 The Distinctive Foundations of Australian Democracy Lectures in the Senate Occasional Lecture Series 2003–2004 Published and printed by the Department of the Senate, Parliament House, Canberra ISSN 1031-976X Published by the Department of the Senate, 2004 Papers on Parliament is edited and managed by the Research Section, Department of the Senate. Edited by Kay Walsh All inquiries should be made to: Assistant Director of Research Procedure Office Department of the Senate Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 Telephone: (02) 6277 3164 ISSN 1031–976X ii Contents Alfred Deakin. A Centenary Tribute Stuart Macintyre 1 The High Court and the Parliament: Partners in Law-making, or Hostile Combatants? Michael Coper 13 Constitutional Schizophrenia Then and Now A.J. Brown 33 Eureka and the Prerogative of the People John Molony 59 John Quick: a True Founding Father of Federation Sir Ninian Stephen 71 Rules, Regulations and Red Tape: Parliamentary Scrutiny and Delegated Legislation Dennis Pearce 81 ‘The Australias are One’: John West Guiding Colonial Australia to Nationhood Patricia Fitzgerald Ratcliff 97 The Distinctiveness of Australian Democracy John Hirst 113 The Usual Suspects? ‘Civil Society’ and Senate Committees Anthony Marinac 129 Contents of previous issues of Papers on Parliament 141 List of Senate Briefs 149 To order copies of Papers on Parliament 150 iii Contributors Stuart Macintyre is Ernest Scott Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne Michael Coper is Dean of Law and Robert Garran Professor of Law at the Australian National University. Dr A.J.
    [Show full text]
  • The Australian Women's Health Movement and Public Policy
    Reaching for Health The Australian women’s health movement and public policy Reaching for Health The Australian women’s health movement and public policy Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Gray Jamieson, Gwendolyn. Title: Reaching for health [electronic resource] : the Australian women’s health movement and public policy / Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson. ISBN: 9781921862687 (ebook) 9781921862670 (pbk.) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Birth control--Australia--History. Contraception--Australia--History. Sex discrimination against women--Australia--History. Women’s health services--Australia--History. Women--Health and hygiene--Australia--History. Women--Social conditions--History. Dewey Number: 362.1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2012 ANU E Press Contents Preface . vii Acknowledgments . ix Abbreviations . xi Introduction . 1 1 . Concepts, Concerns, Critiques . 23 2 . With Only Their Bare Hands . 57 3 . Infrastructure Expansion: 1980s onwards . 89 4 . Group Proliferation and Formal Networks . 127 5 . Working Together for Health . 155 6 . Women’s Reproductive Rights: Confronting power . 179 7 . Policy Responses: States and Territories . 215 8 . Commonwealth Policy Responses . 245 9 . Explaining Australia’s Policy Responses . 279 10 . A Glass Half Full… . 305 Appendix 1: Time line of key events, 1960–2011 .
    [Show full text]
  • Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Conference of the Samuel Griffith
    Chapter Four Independents and Minor Parties in the Commonwealth Parliament J. B. Paul I accepted Julian Leeser’s invitation to address the Society on this subject without a second thought. Had I thought twice about it I might have queried him on a vexing problem: how to compress this subject into a presentation confined to thirty minutes. It follows that my fully prepared statement will have to be published with the other papers. The first and shorter part of this paper will deal with the House of Representatives; the second and more important part will deal with the Senate. The House of Representatives Two factors have limited the role of Independents and minor parties in the House: it comprises single-member constituencies and two succeeding electoral systems have governed its elections. From 1901 to 1918 the simple majority/plurality system applied. This has been misnamed “first-past-the-post”: a misnomer because there was no fixed post for the winning candidate to get past. Independents found it difficult to top the poll against candidates endorsed by political parties. Independents found their position more favourable under the preferential system introduced in 1918 especially when a seat was being contested by three or more candidates. If the count went to preferences an Independent could move to a winning position from behind with each distribution. Not that this happened often! I would isolate two examples when an Independent has succeeded. In the 1922 election, a prominent leader of the Victorian Bar, J G Latham, KC, contested and won the seat of Kooyong, then held by a grandee of the Nationalist Party, Sir Robert Best.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Balancing Act: the Australian Greens 2008-2011
    Parliament of Australia Department of Parliamentary Services RESEARCH PAPER NO. 7, 2011–12 8 February 2012 Balancing act: the Australian Greens 2008–2011 Dr Joy McCann Politics and Public Administration Section Executive summary • In 2008 the Parliamentary Library published The rise of the Australian Greens which discussed the emergence of environmental politics in Australia, analysed the characteristics of Greens’ voters, and speculated as to whether the Australian Greens party would ever be more than ‘positioned on the edge’ of mainstream politics. • In the 2010 federal election, the Australian Greens emerged with the balance of power in the Senate and shared balance of power in the House of Representatives in the first hung federal parliament in Australia for 70 years. As a result, the ALP entered into an agreement with the Greens in order to secure the party’s commitment to a stable government during the 43rd Commonwealth Parliament. • The increased visibility of the Australian Greens at a national level has generated greater public scrutiny and debate about the implications of the Greens’ policy agenda for Australia, and exposed a lingering confusion about the true ideological nature of the party. • The party has a distinctive political culture and values with a ‘grassroots’ organisational structure reflecting its origins in social and environmental movements and citizen-led activism. • The party’s federal electoral success has also highlighted the way in which the Greens are engaged in a ‘balancing act’, both externally, as a coalition partner with the Labor government and as the balance-of-power party in the Senate, and internally, between the pragmatists and idealists within its membership.
    [Show full text]
  • (Dee) Margetts
    MAKING A DIFFERENCE—A FRONTIER OF FIRSTS WOMEN IN THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT 1921–2012 David Black and Harry Phillips Parliamentary History Project Parliament of Western Australia 2012 Making a Difference—A Frontier of Firsts ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DIANE (DEE) ELIZABETH MARGETTS Senator 1 July 1993–30 June 1999 (GWA). MLC Agricultural Region 22 May 2001–21 May 2005 (GWA). Member numerous senate standing and select committees. Member Standing Committee on Public Administration and Finance 2001–2005. Dee Margetts served one full term as a Greens (WA) member of the Federal Senate from 1993 to 1999 and completed a Master’s thesis (‘Competition Policy, State Agreement Acts and the Public Interest’) at Murdoch University by mid-2001. In the same year she was elected to the WA state upper House (Agricultural Region) in February 2001, taking her seat in May of that year. Since the mid-1990s, Dee had worked actively to promote knowledge and awareness of the major economic policy changes which occurred while she was in the Senate. From 2001 she served one term in the state’s Legislative Council but lost her seat in the 2005 election and was unable to gain re-election in 2008. Diane (Dee) Elizabeth Margetts was born in East Fremantle on 5 March 1955, daughter of Ernest Joseph Margetts and June Elaine Margetts (nee Stearne). She attended Palmyra Primary School and John Curtin Senior High School and commenced a double major (English and anthropology) arts degree at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1973. Being uncertain as to her life direction, she gained employment with Qantas Airways as a passenger sales agent in 1974 but recommenced university at UWA part time after work.
    [Show full text]
  • Directions in Australian Electoral Reform
    Directions in Australian Electoral Reform Professionalism and Partisanship in Electoral Management Directions in Australian Electoral Reform Professionalism and Partisanship in Electoral Management Norm Kelly Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Kelly, Norm Title: Directions in Australian electoral reform : professionalism and partisanship in electoral management / Norm Kelly. ISBN: 9781921862878 (pbk.) 9781921862885 (ebook) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Elections--Australia--History. Election law--Australia--History. Law reform--Australia--History. Voting--Australia--History. Representative government and representation--Australia--History. Australia--Politics and government. Dewey Number: 324.60994 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2012 ANU E Press Contents Abbreviations . vii 1 . Introduction . 1 2 . Australia’s Electoral Administration . 9 3 . The Independence of Australian Electoral Commissions . 27 4 . The Franchise . 51 5 . Enrolment, Turnout and Informal Voting . 61 6 . Registration of Political Parties . 83 7 . Political
    [Show full text]
  • Fighting for the Forests
    Fighting for the Forests A History of The Western Australian Forest Protest Movement 1895-2001 Ron Chapman BA (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University 2008 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. Ron Chapman Abstract This thesis complements and extends Hutton and Connors' research on forest protest contained in their study of the Australian environment movement. As the first comprehensive study of Western Australian forest protest the thesis analyses the protest movement's organisation, campaigns and strategies. Its central argument is that the contemporary Western Australian native forest protest movement established a network of urban and south-west activist groups which encouraged broad public support, and that a diversity of protest strategies focused public attention on forest issues and pressured the state government to change its forest policies. The thesis identifies two distinct periods of protest activity in Western Australia. During a first period of protest from the 1890s, conservationists used non-confrontational strategies to campaign for the protection of areas of native bushland, and the formation of Western Australia's first nature conservation groups in the early twentieth century laid the foundations for a contemporary forest protest movement. A second period of protest from the mid-1950s comprised five evolutionary
    [Show full text]
  • Pdf, 59.33 KB
    A I A T S I S AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER STUDIES Native Title Research Unit GPO BOX 553 CANBERRA ACT 2601 Phone 02 6246 1158 Fax 02 6249 1046 E-mail: [email protected] NATIVE TITLE NEWSLETTER No. 4/97 November 1997 NATIVE TITLE IN THE NEWS JUNE - JULY 1997 (Note: Where an item also appears in other newspapers, etc, an asterisk (*) will be used. People are invited to contact the Native Title Research Unit at AIATSIS if they want the additional references. As usual, NTRU will try to provide people with copies of particular newspaper articles on request.) Ad = Advertiser (SA) LE = Launceston Examiner Age = The Age Mer = Hobart Mercury Aus = Australian NTN = Northern Territory News CM = Courier Mail (QLD) SC = Sunshine Coast Sunday CP = Cairns Post SMH = Sydney Morning Herald CT = Canberra Times Tel M = Telegraph Mirror (NSW) Fin R = Financial Review WA = West Australian HS = Herald Sun (VIC) WAus = Weekend Australian KM = Kalgoorlie Miner CLAIMS ACT Ngunnawal [NNTT Ref#AC96/2] Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, said the government was keen to negotiate a settlement for a claim for 47,000ha in Namadgi National Park and some land in Tuggeranong Valley. The Namadgi land would remain as national park giving Ngunnawal people a shared management role. (CT, 3 June, p2) Chief Minister Kate Carnell said she hoped the claim would be settled by NAIDOC Week next year. (CT, 7 July, p1) Ngunnawal [NNTT Ref#AC97/1] A second claim over parts of the ACT was lodged, taking in the whole of the Namadgi and Tidbinbilla parks, extending the amount of the ACT under claim.
    [Show full text]