Dissertations / Theses: 'Labor policy Australia'

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Barry, Sean. "Hard Labor: The Political Economy of Economics Policy Reform in Australia." Thesis, Griffith University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/378091.

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In the closing decades of the twentieth century, a growing consensus emerged about the tailored economic principles that might promote economic growth. There has been less understanding, however, and no consensus, about the political processes conducive to achieving successful economic reform. The obstacles on the path to successful reform are numerous. Consequently, factors conducive to policy success are vital for understanding the process, and enhancing social learning for policy actors. This dissertation compares instances of economic reform by federal Labor governments in Australia since 1972, to determine factors that contributed to the success or failure of those reforms. To do so, it uses, and assesses the robustness of a multi-hypothesis framework. The research situates itself within a political economy theoretical framework. This framework recognises the inseparability and interdependence of political and economic factors. The study draws on economic data and political evidence to examine the actions, circumstances and background of governments and leaders in the relevant periods, using a comparative historical approach and a framework derived from the political economy of reform theory. It utilises a framework encompassing a number of hypotheses about reform, condensed into five ‘clusters’ of: economic conditions, political conditions, role of ideas, economic team, and reform program. This framework is a modified version of one developed by John Williamson and Stephan Haggard in The Political Economy of Policy Reform. This study applies the framework for analysis qualitatively to the three representative case studies of economic reforms. The first case study examines the 25 per cent across-the-board tariff cut by the Whitlam Government in 1973. Australia had lived behind a ‘tariff wall’ for most of the century, and this reform sought to promote efficiency and innovation by encouraging competition, as well as reducing consumer prices. The second case study explores the Hawke government’s float of the Australian dollar in December 1983. Australia’s approach to its fixed exchange rate had undergone various modifications over the years, but none had allowed the economic flexibility necessary for a country with such a high rate of resource and primary industry exports. The last case analyses the minority Gillard government’s decision to implement the Clean Energy Future Package. It was a significant economic and environmental policy initiative encompassing multiple purposes, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, and promoting new industries. The research challenges presumptions that economic reform is driven solely or primarily by ‘economic imperatives’ (such as economic crisis), at least in the Australian context. It finds the landscape of the political economy of policy reform is far more complex. Instead, the political conditions, role of ideas and economic team all influenced the subject reforms to varying degrees. All governments used favourable aspects of the political conditions to pursue reform, exploiting opportunities in their political honeymoons, building social consensus ex post to enhance durability and visionary leadership to support change along the path to reform. These aspects were notable in the earlier two reforms, but largely absent in the third case study and this contributed to the failure of that policy program. All three reforms reflected evolving ideas about the policy prescriptions necessary in the circumstances. The Hawke government’s float of the dollar was a paradigm shift as defined by Peter Hall, which assisted with the durability of the change. The Gillard government’s reform was technically a paradigm shift, but lacked the durability necessary to be a true shift. The governments introduced the reforms during windows of policy opportunity and the most successful program (Hawke) held valence (emotional appeal) within the community, the Gillard reform lacked that support and Whitlam’s valence weakened as economic conditions turned against the government. Of vital importance in all reforms was the role of the economic team. Coherent economic teams supported the executive and the governments, and that assisted the development and introduction of the reforms, and improved the prospects their durability. It is not possible to unequivocally isolate factors sufficient or necessary for reform to take place in all circumstances. As scholars have recognised, however, there is still considerable value in identifying and exploring a range of contributing factors, even if not all are decisive. This research provides new insights into the political conditions that have been conducive for the pursuit of successful economic reform in Australian conditions. It also demonstrates that the use of a conceptual framework encompassing multiple reform hypotheses provides a richer, more nuanced understanding of reform decisions. This is a viable and useful approach for research in this area of interest, particularly when comparing multiple cases.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Govt & Int Relations
Griffith Business School
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2

Orchard, Lionel. "Whitlam and the cities : urban and regional policy and social democratic reform." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1987. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09pho641.pdf.

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3

Economou, Nicholas. "Greening the Commonwealth : the Australian Labor Party government's management of national environmental politics, 1983-1996 /." Connect to thesis, 1998. http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000333.

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4

Ralston, Deborah Jane. "How to protect Australian workers within the APEC political-economy." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1996.

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This thesis develops options and strategies for Australian unions in protecting and advancing the interests of Australian workers within an internationally competitive environment. Analysis of the APEC arrangements as the trading regime in which Australian workers will be exposed is pivotal to developing these strategies. Economic liberalism and market mechanisms within Australia were adopted during the period 1983 to 1996. Features of this direction included the deregulation of trade and financial markets, and the shift toward a decentralised and deregulated labour market. This changed focus impacted on workers, in particular in regard to wage outcomes, cash income and wealth dispersion. Unions, and workers, who had traditionally operated within a national market, are required to develop a different approach to a decentralised and deregulated environment from an international perspective. Within an internationalised environment, a different set of responses are required. The capacity for unions to respond is hampered by the international deregulatory climate, and the conflicting views of APEC member countries to institutionalising labour issues. This requires unions to develop a broader range of strategies to mitigate against the effects that APEC will have on Australian workers. In considering these strategies, reference is made to the social clause, international unionism and collective bargaining, "good faith" arrangements such as Codes of Conduct, and tying environmental and labour standards to trade and investment restrictions. The ability to generate worker solidarity on an international basis is also discussed. The conclusion is that the combination of a decentralised labour market in Australia and the labour arrangements within APEC does not auger well for workers.

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De, Matos Christine, University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Humanities. "Imposing peace and prosperity: Australia, social justice and labour reform in occupied Japan, 1945-1949." THESIS_CAESS_HUM_De Matos_C.xml, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/480.

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Historiography tends to seek patterns of inevitability, attempting to explain a decided course rather than incorporating other evident, though unfulfilled possibilities. In the case of historiography on the Allied Occupation of Japan, this is particularly obvious. Occupation scholarship appears absorbed by the overarching US presence in Japan during this period, reflects the dominant paradigm of the Cold War and when it does venture past the US remains focused on the US-Japan dichotomy. Australia also participated in the Occupation, also held a vision for a Pacific future and developed a relationship with Japan. Often the Australian perspective did not coincide with that of the US especially on the terrain of ideological and historical experiences and interpretations. The potential for conflict between the two nations’ approaches to post-surrender Japan is particularly evident in labour reform policy and issues of social and economic justice – the focus of this thesis. Australian policies towards labour reform under the Chifley Labor Government are examined in this thesis within the context of the Australian labour movement’s historical legacy, Orientalism and racial stereotypes, the Cold War, US hegemony, idealism and pragmatism and overall Australian policy towards Occupied Japan as a dual-paradigm structure. This thesis investigates attempts to turn labour reform polices and ideals into practice, via the diplomatic control machinery established for the Occupation namely the Allied Council for Japan and Far Eastern Commission and as articulated by Australian government representatives including Dr H.V. Evatt, William Macmahon Ball, Patrick Shaw and Sir Frederick Eggleston. The thesis contests the predominant simplistic harsh peace label given to Australian policy in the current literature. By examining Australian policy towards Occupied Japan from a micro perspective, what emerges is a more complex foreign policy mosaic to which the research in this thesis is a contribution
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Kuhn, Rick. "Paradise on the instalment plan: the economic thought of the Australian labour movement between the depression and the long boom." Phd thesis, http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1271, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/7450.

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The period between the depression of the 1930s and the long post-war boom saw the development of the contemporary shape of the labour movement's economic thought, with its dichotomy between moderate and left nationalist currents. This development is examined in terms of the nature of the main organisations of the labour movement, economic conditions, the ideological proclivities of different classes and the levelof the class struggle. The main areas of economic thought examined are theories of Australia's place in the world economy, the class anatomy of Australian capitalism and of economic crises. During the late 1930s laborites continued to express a longstanding commitment to national development through tariff protection and wariness of overseas loans. Moderate ideas of the possibilities for overcoming class conflicts increasingly displaced radical Money Power theory after the depression. While monetary and real underconsumptionism continued to be the main explanations of economic crises offered by laborites, both ALP politicians and union officials became aware of Keynesian economics and the legitimacy it provided for longstanding Labor policies. The advent of the Popular Front period in the international communist movement saw the Communist Party of Australia move from a revolutionary internationalist towards a politically more conservative left nationalist position, sharing assumptions with Money Power theorists, despite the rise in the level of industrial struggle. The Communist conviction in radical underconsumptionist theory of inevitable economic crises began to weaken. World War II and the advent of the Curtin Government saw the leadership of the ALP embrace Keynesian economics and its priorities. This was expressed in both foreign economic and domestic policies, but was qualified by a keen appreciation of the requirements of the Australian economy for both protection and foreign markets and the level of the class struggle. The promotion of Keynesian ideas and divisions in the labour movement was successful after 1947 in countering working class militancy. While retaining a fervent nationalism the Communist Party's policies shifted after the War from strong support for the Government during the War to a very radical and anti-American position after 1947. Bolstered by a return to radical underconsumptionism and a focus on the conspiratorial role of the Collins House monopolists, the Party believed it could challenge the authority of the ALP and the Chifley Government, on the basis of working class industrial struggles. But the Communist Party made its attempt when the level of united struggle was already in decline. Between 1949 and 1952 the balance of class forces shifted sharply in favour of capital. Moderate laborites have continued to accept the main propositions of orthodox economics, while the bulk of the left in the labour movement has been nationalist and, after the Communist Party's break with Moscow, committed to a version of Keynesian economics. Although the adequacy of both approaches to working class interests is in doubt and they have not consistently promoted its struggles, their hegemony over the labour movement has not prevented the emergence of militant working class action.

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Sesay, Diana Margaret. "A socially just rationale for an Australian curriculum? : a critical thematic policy analysis of political speeches in education (2007-2010)." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2013. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/62675/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_StaffHome_StaffGroupH%24_halla_Desktop_Diana%20Sesay%20Thesis.pdf.

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In late 2007, newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd placed education reform on centre stage as a key policy in the Labor Party's agenda for social reform in Australia. A major policy strategy within this 'Education Revolution' was the development of a national curriculum, the Australian Curriculum Within this political context, this study is an investigation into how social justice and equity have been used in political speeches to justify the need for, and the nature of, Australia's first official national curriculum. The aim is to provide understandings into what is said or not said; who is included or excluded, represented or misrepresented; for what purpose; and for whose benefit. The study investigates political speeches made by Education Ministers between 2008 and 201 0; that is, from the inception of the Australian Curriculum to the release of the Phase 1 F - 10 draft curriculum documents in English, mathematics, science and history. Curriculum development is defined here as an ongoing process of complex conversations. To contextualise the process of curriculum development within Australia, the thesis commences with an initial review of curriculum development in this nation over the past three decades. It then frames this review within contemporary curriculum theory; in particular it calls upon the work of William Pinar and the key notions of currere and reconceptualised curriculum. This contextualisation work is then used as a foundation to examine how social justice and equity have been represented in political speeches delivered by the respective Education Ministers Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett at key junctures of Australian Curriculum document releases. A critical thematic policy analysis is the approach used to examine selected official speech transcripts released by the ministerial media centre through the DEEWR website. This approach provides a way to enable insights and understandings of representations of social justice and equity issues in the policy agenda. Broader social implications are also discussed. The project develops an analytic framework that enables an investigation into the framing of social justice and equity issues such as inclusion, equality, quality education, sharing of resources and access to learning opportunities in political speeches aligned with the development of the Australian Curriculum Through this analysis, the study adopts a focus on constructions of educationally disadvantaged students and how the solutions of 'fixing' teachers and providing the 'right' curriculum are presented as resolutions to the perceived problem. In this way, it aims to work towards offering insights into political justifications for a national curriculum in Australia from a social justice perspective.

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8

Norton, Paul C. R., and n/a. "Accord, Discord, Discourse and Dialogue in the Search for Sustainable Development: Labour-Environmentalist Cooperation and Conflict in Australian Debates on Ecologically Sustainable Development and Economic Restructuring in the Period of the Federal Labor Government, 1983-96." Griffith University. Australian School of Environmental Studies, 2004. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20040924.093047.

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The thesis seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of interaction between the environmental and labour movements, and the conditions under which they can cooperate and form alliances in pursuit of a sustainable development agenda which simultaneously promotes ecological and social justice goals. After developing an explanatory model of the labour-environmentalist relationship (LER) on the basis of a survey of theoretical and case-study literature, the thesis applies this model to three significant cases of labour-environmental interaction in Australia, each representing a different point on the spectrum from LER conflict to LER cooperation, during the period from 1983 to 1996. Commonly held views that there are inevitable tendencies to LER conflict, whether due to an irreconcilable "jobs versus environment" contradiction or due to the different class bases of the respective movements, are analysed and rejected. A model of the LER implicit in Siegmann (1985) is interrogated against more recent LER studies from six countries, and reworked into a new model (the Siegmann-Norton model) which explains tendencies to conflict and cooperation in the LER in terms of the respective ideologies of labour and environmentalism, their organisational forms and cultures, the national political-institutional framework and the respective places of labour and environmentalism therein, the political economy of specific sectors and regions in which LER interaction occurs, and sui generis sociological and demographic characteristics of labour and environmental actors. The thesis then discusses the major changes in the ideologies, organisational forms and political-institutional roles of the Australian labour movement which occurred during the period of the study, and their likely influence on the LER. The two processes of most importance in driving such changes were the corporatist Accord relationship between the trade union movement and Labor Party government from 1983 to 1996, and the strategic reorganisation of the trade union movement between 1988 and 1996 in response to challenges and opportunities in the wider political-economic environment. The research hypothesis is that the net effect of these changes would have been to foster tendencies towards LER conflict. The hypothesis is tested in three significant case studies, namely: (a) the interaction, often conflictual, between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the environmental movement in debates around macroeconomic policy, economic restructuring and sustainable development from the mid-1980s onwards; (b) the complex interaction, involving elements of cooperation, disagreement and dialogue, between the environmental movement and the unions representing coal mining and energy workers in the formulation of Australia's climate change policies; and (c) the environmental policy and campaign initiatives of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to improve workplace environmental performance and promote worker environmental education. The case studies confirmed the research hypothesis in the sense that, whilst the LER tended overall towards greater cooperation in the period of the study, the Accord relationship and union restructuring process worked to slow the growth of cooperative tendencies and sustain conflict over particular issues beyond what might otherwise have been the case. The Accord relationship served to maintain conflict tendencies due to the dominance of productivist ideologies within the ACTU, and the union movement's perseverance with this relationship after the vitiation of its progressive potential by neo-liberal trends in public policy. The tripartite Accord processes institutionalised a "growth coalition" of labour, business and the state in opposition to excluded constituencies such as the environmental movement. This was partially overcome during the period of the Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) process, which temporarily included the environmental movement as an insider in the political-institutional framework. The long-run effects of union reorganisation on the LER are difficult to determine as the new organisational forms of unions were not in place until almost the end of the period of the study. However, in the short term the disruptive effects of the amalgamations process restricted unions' capacity to engage with environmental issues. Pro-environment initiatives by the AMWU, and cooperative aspects of the coal industry unions' relationship with environmentalists, reflected the social unionist ideology and internal democratic practices of those unions, and the influence of the ESD Working Group process, whilst LER conflict over greenhouse reflected the adverse political economy of the coal industry, but also the relevant unions' less developed capacity for independent research and membership education compared to the AMWU. The LER in all three cases can be satisfactorily explained, and important insights derived, through application of the Siegmann-Norton model. Conclusions drawn include suggestions for further research and proposals for steps to be taken by labour and environmental actors to improve cooperation.

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9

Norton, Paul C. R. "Accord, Discord, Discourse and Dialogue in the Search for Sustainable Development: Labour-Environmentalist Cooperation and Conflict in Australian Debates on Ecologically Sustainable Development and Economic Restructuring in the Period of the Federal Labor Government, 1983-96." Thesis, Griffith University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/368094.

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Abstract:

The thesis seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of interaction between the environmental and labour movements, and the conditions under which they can cooperate and form alliances in pursuit of a sustainable development agenda which simultaneously promotes ecological and social justice goals. After developing an explanatory model of the labour-environmentalist relationship (LER) on the basis of a survey of theoretical and case-study literature, the thesis applies this model to three significant cases of labour-environmental interaction in Australia, each representing a different point on the spectrum from LER conflict to LER cooperation, during the period from 1983 to 1996. Commonly held views that there are inevitable tendencies to LER conflict, whether due to an irreconcilable "jobs versus environment" contradiction or due to the different class bases of the respective movements, are analysed and rejected. A model of the LER implicit in Siegmann (1985) is interrogated against more recent LER studies from six countries, and reworked into a new model (the Siegmann-Norton model) which explains tendencies to conflict and cooperation in the LER in terms of the respective ideologies of labour and environmentalism, their organisational forms and cultures, the national political-institutional framework and the respective places of labour and environmentalism therein, the political economy of specific sectors and regions in which LER interaction occurs, and sui generis sociological and demographic characteristics of labour and environmental actors. The thesis then discusses the major changes in the ideologies, organisational forms and political-institutional roles of the Australian labour movement which occurred during the period of the study, and their likely influence on the LER. The two processes of most importance in driving such changes were the corporatist Accord relationship between the trade union movement and Labor Party government from 1983 to 1996, and the strategic reorganisation of the trade union movement between 1988 and 1996 in response to challenges and opportunities in the wider political-economic environment. The research hypothesis is that the net effect of these changes would have been to foster tendencies towards LER conflict. The hypothesis is tested in three significant case studies, namely: (a) the interaction, often conflictual, between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the environmental movement in debates around macroeconomic policy, economic restructuring and sustainable development from the mid-1980s onwards; (b) the complex interaction, involving elements of cooperation, disagreement and dialogue, between the environmental movement and the unions representing coal mining and energy workers in the formulation of Australia's climate change policies; and (c) the environmental policy and campaign initiatives of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to improve workplace environmental performance and promote worker environmental education. The case studies confirmed the research hypothesis in the sense that, whilst the LER tended overall towards greater cooperation in the period of the study, the Accord relationship and union restructuring process worked to slow the growth of cooperative tendencies and sustain conflict over particular issues beyond what might otherwise have been the case. The Accord relationship served to maintain conflict tendencies due to the dominance of productivist ideologies within the ACTU, and the union movement's perseverance with this relationship after the vitiation of its progressive potential by neo-liberal trends in public policy. The tripartite Accord processes institutionalised a "growth coalition" of labour, business and the state in opposition to excluded constituencies such as the environmental movement. This was partially overcome during the period of the Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) process, which temporarily included the environmental movement as an insider in the political-institutional framework. The long-run effects of union reorganisation on the LER are difficult to determine as the new organisational forms of unions were not in place until almost the end of the period of the study. However, in the short term the disruptive effects of the amalgamations process restricted unions' capacity to engage with environmental issues. Pro-environment initiatives by the AMWU, and cooperative aspects of the coal industry unions' relationship with environmentalists, reflected the social unionist ideology and internal democratic practices of those unions, and the influence of the ESD Working Group process, whilst LER conflict over greenhouse reflected the adverse political economy of the coal industry, but also the relevant unions' less developed capacity for independent research and membership education compared to the AMWU. The LER in all three cases can be satisfactorily explained, and important insights derived, through application of the Siegmann-Norton model. Conclusions drawn include suggestions for further research and proposals for steps to be taken by labour and environmental actors to improve cooperation.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Australian School of Environmental Studies
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10

Merkes, Monika, and monika@melbpc org au. "A longer working life for Australian women of the baby boom generation? � Women�s voices and the social policy implications of an ageing female workforce." La Trobe University. School of Public Health, 2003. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au./thesis/public/adt-LTU20051103.104704.

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With an increasing proportion of older people in the Australian population and increasing health and longevity, paid work after the age of 65 years may become an option or a necessity in the future. The focus of this research is on Australian women of the baby boom generation, their working futures, and the work-retirement decision. This is explored both from the viewpoint of women and from a social policy perspective. The research draws on Considine�s model of public policy, futures studies, and Beck�s concept of risk society. The research comprises three studies. Using focus group research, Study 1 explored the views of Australian women of the baby boom generation on work after the age of 65 years. Study 2 aimed to explore current thinking on the research topic in Australia and overseas. Computer-mediated communication involving an Internet website and four scenarios for the year 2020 were used for this study. Study 3 consists of the analysis of quantitative data from the Healthy Retirement Project, focusing on attitudes towards retirement, retirement plans, and the preferred and expected age of retirement. The importance of choice and a work � life balance emerged throughout the research. Women in high-status occupations were found to be more likely to be open to the option of continuing paid work beyond age 65 than women in low-status jobs. However, the women were equally likely to embrace future volunteering. The research findings suggest that policies for an ageing female workforce should be based on the values of inclusiveness, fairness, self-determination, and social justice, and address issues of workplace flexibility, equality in the workplace, recognition for unpaid community and caring work, opportunities for life-long learning, complexity and inequities of the superannuation system, and planning for retirement. Further, providing a guaranteed minimum income for all Australians should be explored as a viable alternative to the current social security system.

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van, Schoubroeck Lesley. "Gallop's Government: Strengthening Coordination in the Shadow of History." Thesis, Griffith University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366718.

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This thesis sets the Gallop Labor government in Western Australian during the period 2001 to 2005 in its historic context. It seeks to understand the capacity that Gallop had to deliver on promises for a more coordinated agenda in the light of community, political and public sector expectations. In doing so, it examines his capacity from three perspectives: the leadership environment, the actors around him and the structures and routines he was able to use. Despite their best intentions, the capacity of all leaders is shaped by expectations and the structures and routines that they inherit. Only with time can those expectations and conventions be changed. The research draws on interviews with key actors around Gallop, documents published by Gallop’s government and the literature more broadly. Gallop was elected after only eight years in Opposition after the reputation of the Labor Party was destroyed by the findings of the WA Inc Royal Commission. He needed to establish his government’s credibility as a sound economic manager and to avoid at all costs perceptions of political appointments in the public service. He would also have been aware that Western Australian governments rarely get more than two terms so there was a sense of urgency to get things moving. This thesis shows Gallop as an aspirational leader who relied on his public sector to implement reforms but he did not introduce systemic mechanisms to oversee implementation. This is not unusual in first term governments where the focus is more commonly on instigating change. It shows that the constraints of legislation, and no doubt his own reluctance to intervene in the light of history, resulted in a strong demarcation between public sector and political staff. Gallop was clearly committed to a sustainable agenda. However, this meant that he faced the dilemma increasingly common to all leaders – any commitment to one interest group could be seen to disadvantage another. Therefore, attempts to provide balance across the environmental, social and economic spectrums could be seen as a lack of commitment or an ad hoc approach to decision making. Gallop’s reforms to the machinery of government and to the administration of Cabinet were in keeping with contemporary practice. He instituted the State’s first attempt at a strategic plan across the public sector. He championed increased participation of the community in policy development and strengthened the capacity of his department to coordinate across several policy areas. His five years at the helm resulted in significant reforms but there remained a sense that more could have been achieved. In focusing on three particular policy issues that Gallop tackled, I argue in this thesis that the traditional structures and routines can be successfully applied to those policy issues that can be reduced to relatively independent parts. However, those complex problems where the solutions to the parts are interdependent and which require on-going consultation and negotiation need new sets of skills and routines that are not likely to be an accepted part of the risk-averse culture so often found in bureaucracies. Moreover, the traditional coordination mechanisms of central oversight may detract from the likelihood that solutions will emerge. I argue that leaders could make more use of their accountability levers to monitor the collaborative capacity of central agencies and senior bureaucrats so that working together to solve problems becomes routine. What cannot be known, is whether or not Gallop like his contemporaries such as Blair in the UK or Beattie in Queensland would have increased his attention to implementation had he stayed for a full second term. Nor can we foretell whether he or his department would have been able to establish the routines and culture necessary to work collaboratively as a matter of course to solve the most complex problems he faced.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Politics and Public Policy
Griffith Business School
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Dockery, Michael. "The Evaluation of Australian Labour Market Assistance Policy." Curtin University of Technology, School of Economics and Finance, 2002. http://espace.library.curtin.edu.au:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=13384.

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This thesis is comprised of a series of published papers relating to the evaluation of active assistance measures for the unemployed in Australia. It offers both applied evaluations of active assistance measures as well as critical assessment of the evaluation approaches that have dominated the literature and policy formation in Australia. "Active" assistance for the unemployed is distinguished from "passive" assistance, such as income support.The motivation behind the work lies in the fact that a very large amount of public expenditure is directed to active assistance for the unemployed. Over $2 billion dollars was spent on labour market programs at the height of the Working Nation package in each of 1995-96 and 1996-97, and $1.5 billion was allocated to "labour market assistance to jobseekers and industry" in the most recent (2001-02) Commonwealth budget. Despite this considerable past and ongoing expenditure, the evaluation effort in Australia has been far short of international best practice. As a consequence, there is no convincing empirical evidence as to how effectively these public resources are being used, or of the relative merits of various options in the design of active interventions for the unemployed.Ultimately, the goal of the research is to improve supply-side policies designed to address unemployment. As stated, it aims to do this through original empirical evaluations of programs and through critical assessment of existing evaluations and institutional arrangements.

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Dockery, Alfred Michael. "The Evaluation of Australian Labour Market Assistance Policy." Thesis, Curtin University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/872.

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This thesis is comprised of a series of published papers relating to the evaluation of active assistance measures for the unemployed in Australia. It offers both applied evaluations of active assistance measures as well as critical assessment of the evaluation approaches that have dominated the literature and policy formation in Australia. "Active" assistance for the unemployed is distinguished from "passive" assistance, such as income support.The motivation behind the work lies in the fact that a very large amount of public expenditure is directed to active assistance for the unemployed. Over $2 billion dollars was spent on labour market programs at the height of the Working Nation package in each of 1995-96 and 1996-97, and $1.5 billion was allocated to "labour market assistance to jobseekers and industry" in the most recent (2001-02) Commonwealth budget. Despite this considerable past and ongoing expenditure, the evaluation effort in Australia has been far short of international best practice. As a consequence, there is no convincing empirical evidence as to how effectively these public resources are being used, or of the relative merits of various options in the design of active interventions for the unemployed.Ultimately, the goal of the research is to improve supply-side policies designed to address unemployment. As stated, it aims to do this through original empirical evaluations of programs and through critical assessment of existing evaluations and institutional arrangements.

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Dockery, Alfred Michael. "The evaluation of Australian labour market assistance policy /." Full text available, 2002. http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20030116.162443.

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de, Groot Babet. "The Influence of Key Political Actors on Labor Government Climate Change Policy." Thesis, Department of Government and International Relations, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21661.

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The threat of anthropogenic climate change is arguably the defining issue of the 21st Century. Climate change has devastating global implications to which various authorities worldwide have responded by declaring a climate crisis. Australia, however, has neglected to address this issue. The Liberal-National Coalition, which has almost exclusively held government since John Howard was elected Prime Minister in 1996, maintains its scepticism on anthropogenic climate change despite international scientific consensus. It established Australia as a climate laggard, a reputation which was suspended for a brief period of Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government from 2007-2013. Despite the promise of a progressive government, attempts at climate change mitigation by the ALP were also criticised for their weak targets and generous financial concessions that primarily benefitted the nation’s biggest polluters. The inconsistencies between the actions and rhetoric of the ALP, which under Rudd proclaimed climate change as the ‘greatest moral challenge of our generation’ have raised the question of whether there were other actors infiltrating this government. This paper examines the role of key political actors in shaping Labor Government climate policy. Specifically, it investigates the undue influence of vested interests, understood as interest groups which conflate their self-interest with that of the nation. It finds the mining industry is the most powerful opponent of climate policy. Australian Government climate policy has typically addressed the symptoms of climate change rather than the root of the problem. The mining industry has taken advantage of this tendency, utilising the ALP’s ecological modernisation policymaking framework to minimise the impact of emissions-reduction policy on its bottom-line. The undue influence of powerful interest groups has resulted in a climate policy that supports the growth of the carbon-economy, favours business-as-usual and fails to address the damaging corporate practices of emissions-intensive industries.

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Bonner, Suzanne M. "Fertility in Australia: The role of policy and the labour market." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2015. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/86665/1/Suzanne_Bonner_Thesis.pdf.

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One of the most discussed topics in labour and demographic studies, population ageing and stability, is closely related to fertility choices. This thesis explores recent developments in the fertility literature in the context of Australia. We investigate individual preferences for child bearing, the determinants of fertility decisions and the effectiveness of policies implemented by the government aimed at improving total fertility. The first study highlights the impact of monetary incentives on the decision to bear children in light of potentially differential responses across the native and immigrant population. The second study analyses the role of unemployment and job stability on the fertility choices of women. The final study examines whether the quality-quantity trade-off exists for Australian families and explores the impact of siblings on a child's health and educational outcomes.

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Henehan, Kathleen. "Whose party? Whose interests? : childcare policy, electoral imperative and organisational reform within the US Democrats, Australian Labor Party and Britain's New Labour." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2014. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1070/.

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The US Democrats, Australian Labor Party and British Labour Party adopted the issue of childcare assistance for middle-income families as both a campaign and as a legislative issue decades apart from one and other, despite similar rates of female employment. The varied timing of parties’ policy adoption is also uncorrelated with labour shortages, union density and female trade union membership. However, it is correlated with two politically-charged factors: first, each party adopted childcare policy as their rate of ‘organised female labour mobilisation’ (union density interacted with female trade union membership) reached its country-level peak; second, each party adopted the issue within the broader context of post-industrial electoral change, when shifts in both class and gender-based party-voter linkages dictated that the centre-left could no longer win elections by focusing largely on a male, blue-collar base. Were these parties driven to promote childcare in response to the changing needs of their traditional affiliates (unions), or was policy adoption an outcome of autonomous party elites in search of a new electoral constituency? Using both qualitative and quantitative techniques, this research analyses the correlates of policy adoption and the specific mechanisms through which party position change on the issue took place (e.g. legislator conversion versus legislator turnover). It finds that parties largely adopted the issue as a means to make strategic electoral appeals to higher-educated, post-materialist and in particular, female voters. However, the speed in which they were able to make these appeals (and hence, the time at which they adopted the issue) was contingent on the speed in which elites were able to reform their party’s internal organisation and specifically, wrest power away from both the unions and rank-and-file members in order to centralise decision making power on election campaigns, executive appointments and candidate selection processes into the hands of the leadership.

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Faulkner, Xandra Madeleine, and n/a. "The Spirit of Accommodation: The Influence of the ALP's National Factions on Party Policy, 1996-2004." Griffith University. Griffith Business School, 2006. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20070216.133604.

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This thesis explores the influence of the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) national factions on Party policy. The specific emphasis is on policy development during Labor's 1996-2004 period in opposition. Through a total of 88 interviews, predominantly with members of Caucus including Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham, this thesis has been able to examine not only the formal policy development processes but, significantly, also the informal processes within the Party. The thesis begins with an overview of the national factions' organisation and operations in relation to policy development in both the organisational and parliamentary wings. It concentrates on exploring how the informal processes of the faction system dominate the formal Party structures, and demonstrates how the factional elite control these decision-making forums. The thesis then concentrates on analysing in-depth the factional influences on policies developed within the Immigration, Trade and Family and Community Services portfolios. These case studies were selected because they provoked debate, to varying degrees, in the Party. An understanding of how consensus was reached among the diverse perspectives, particularly between the factions, within the Party is critical to exploring the relationship between the national factions and policy development. The case studies cover a range of policy development modes, and therefore provide ample opportunity to explore factional dynamics in relation to policy formulation under different circumstances throughout the 1996-2004 period. This thesis utilises Arend Lijphart's theory of the Politics of Accommodation, which was originally developed to explain inter-party negotiations within the Dutch coalition government during the twentieth century. This theory is relevant to the study of the ALP's modern factions because, similar to the Dutch political system, the faction system operates on the power-sharing principle of proportional representation (PR). By applying Lijphart's theoretical framework, this thesis provides a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the ALP's factional dynamics in relation to policy. It gives an in-depth analysis of the elite control of the faction system in the domain of policy development. It demonstrates that faction leaders resolve contentious policy issues by negotiating in a 'spirit of accommodation' and when the factions adopt a policy position, the unwritten rules of the 'factional game' are applied to ensure the national factions reach a consensus on Party policy. Given that the national factions compete for power and sometimes pursue a different set of policy objectives, this 'spirit of accommodation' appears to be paradoxical; this palliative application of factional power is arguably in contrast to the general perception of faction politics. Through the presentation and analysis of original primary data this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the study of the ALP and factions in general, significantly advancing existing knowledge.

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Faulkner, Xandra Madeleine. "The Spirit of Accommodation: The Influence of the ALP's National Factions on Party Policy, 1996-2004." Thesis, Griffith University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366353.

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This thesis explores the influence of the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) national factions on Party policy. The specific emphasis is on policy development during Labor's 1996-2004 period in opposition. Through a total of 88 interviews, predominantly with members of Caucus including Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham, this thesis has been able to examine not only the formal policy development processes but, significantly, also the informal processes within the Party. The thesis begins with an overview of the national factions' organisation and operations in relation to policy development in both the organisational and parliamentary wings. It concentrates on exploring how the informal processes of the faction system dominate the formal Party structures, and demonstrates how the factional elite control these decision-making forums. The thesis then concentrates on analysing in-depth the factional influences on policies developed within the Immigration, Trade and Family and Community Services portfolios. These case studies were selected because they provoked debate, to varying degrees, in the Party. An understanding of how consensus was reached among the diverse perspectives, particularly between the factions, within the Party is critical to exploring the relationship between the national factions and policy development. The case studies cover a range of policy development modes, and therefore provide ample opportunity to explore factional dynamics in relation to policy formulation under different circumstances throughout the 1996-2004 period. This thesis utilises Arend Lijphart's theory of the Politics of Accommodation, which was originally developed to explain inter-party negotiations within the Dutch coalition government during the twentieth century. This theory is relevant to the study of the ALP's modern factions because, similar to the Dutch political system, the faction system operates on the power-sharing principle of proportional representation (PR). By applying Lijphart's theoretical framework, this thesis provides a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the ALP's factional dynamics in relation to policy. It gives an in-depth analysis of the elite control of the faction system in the domain of policy development. It demonstrates that faction leaders resolve contentious policy issues by negotiating in a 'spirit of accommodation' and when the factions adopt a policy position, the unwritten rules of the 'factional game' are applied to ensure the national factions reach a consensus on Party policy. Given that the national factions compete for power and sometimes pursue a different set of policy objectives, this 'spirit of accommodation' appears to be paradoxical; this palliative application of factional power is arguably in contrast to the general perception of faction politics. Through the presentation and analysis of original primary data this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the study of the ALP and factions in general, significantly advancing existing knowledge.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Business School
Griffith Business School
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20

Kudrna, Jiri, and g. kudrna@unsw edu au. "Retirement Income Policy in Australia: Life-Cycle Analyses." University of Sydney, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/4119.

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Doctor of Philosophy(PhD)
Retirement income policy in Australia has undergone significant changes over the last two decades, including the introduction of the Superannuation Guarantee [SG] with mandatory contributions in 1992 and the 2007 superannuation changes with the benefit tax abolition. Numerical implications of adopted pension reforms and reform proposals such as further increases in the SG contribution rate, changes to superannuation taxation and to means-testing of the age pension have been examined mainly by micro-simulation models. These models, often criticized for their lack of theoretical content, provide an incomplete picture of pension policy effects because of no or limited behavioural responses to underlying policy changes. In this thesis, models based on the life-cycle theory of saving pioneered by Modigliani and Brumberg (1954) are applied to simulate behavioural, welfare and macroeconomics effects of proposed changes to Australia’s pension policy. In particular, this thesis develops the following computable models: a life-cycle, single household model, a partial equilibrium, household model and a general equilibrium model with overlapping generations [OLG]. The single household model describes lifetime behaviour of the utility-maximising single household with uncertain lifespan. The model features perfect capital markets, endogenous labour supply and retirement decisions, and it incorporates main aspects of Australia’s pension and income tax policy settings. The simulated policy changes are (i) increase in the SG contribution rate, (ii) superannuation tax changes and (iii) abolition of the age pension means test. The results indicate higher retirement consumption and welfare gains from all the analysed pension policy changes. Partial equilibrium and general equilibrium models introduced in this thesis are built on lifetime behaviour of the single household. Both models distinguish many generations of households by age and, therefore, are capable of studying behavioural and welfare effects of policy changes for different generations. The partial equilibrium model examines behaviour of the household sector in the environment of the fixed factor prices. It is shown, for instance, that welfare gains from the investigated pension policy changes are not uniformly distributed across generations. The general equilibrium OLG model extends the partial equilibrium analyses by incorporating production, government and foreign sectors in addition to household and pension sectors. The model is a small open economy version of Auerbach and Kotlikoff’s (1987) OLG model. The simulation results are significantly different from those in the partial equilibrium framework, driven mainly by the changes in aggregate labour supply. For instance, the higher SG rate policy increases aggregate assets and saving. However, the saving increases are exported abroad rather than invested in the domestic capital stock. Hence, the implications of this policy change for the capital stock and output are minimal. Younger cohorts and future born generations experience consumption and welfare gains but older cohorts are negatively affected by a higher consumption tax rate resulting from this hypothetical policy change.

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Jones, Cassandra. "Public and Private Parents: The Gendered Division of Labour and Australian Paid Parental Leave Policy." Thesis, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/14025.

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Since the 1970s, the gendered division of household labour has been an important issue for both academic disciplines and policy-makers. This thesis considers the gendered division of labour in relation to Australian family policy, arguing that policy has a particular significance to the production of gendered familial relations in liberal societies. Specifically, this thesis considers paid parental leave policy and its implications for the gendered division of childcare labour in Australian heterosexual households. In doing so, it contributes to scholarly discussions about the ways various approaches to family policy might enable or impede progress toward a more equitable division of childcare in Australia. Drawing from critical theory, feminist studies of liberalism and Raewyn Connell’s work on masculinity, I provide analysis of The Coalition’s Policy for Paid Parental Leave (LNP 2013) and of historical Australian family policy, considering the ways this has failed to recognise the shared responsibility of childcare labour. I argue that Australian family policy has worked to enshrine childcare responsibilities onto women and mothers. And that this history and contemporary policy framework implicitly privileges and excludes certain men. I argue that this is exemplary of the way gender hierarchies are reaffirmed by policy and the way paid parental leave policies can work to reinforce the gendered division of childcare labour. Centrally, I am interested in the power relations that are implicit in historical and contemporary Australian family policy’s positioning of women and men, mothers and fathers, and in the broader question of what good policy might look like in this area.

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22

Ingold, Jo. "Policy responses to partnered women outside the labour market : what can Britain learn from Australia and Denmark?" Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2010. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1239/.

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This thesis compares policies in Australia and Denmark relevant to assisting women from workless couples into work, with a focus on policy learning for Britain. The research uses case studies comprising of documentary analysis and 52 elite interviews with policy actors to create a contextual analysis based on the notion of 'hard' policy learning (Dolowitz, 2009). It also develops the idea of 'policy as translation' (Lendvai and Stubbs, 2007) rather than as 'transfer'. In so doing, it examines the cultural and political underpinnings of the policy developments in each of the countries and how these impact on the translatability of policies and programmes to Britain. The concept of 'welfare recalibration' (Ferrera and Hemerijck, 2003) and its four sub-dimensions (functional, distributive, normative, politico-institutional) is used both as a theoretical basis, as well as a framework for the analysis. It is argued that the normative aspects underpin policy change in the other sub-dimensions. Policies for partnered women in both Australia and Britain have recalibrated their access to social assistance, informed by a normative shift in conceptualising them as 'workers' rather than as 'wives/partners' or 'mothers' (Sainsbury, 1996). In Denmark policies have been restructured in response to perceived challenges resulting from immigration. The thesis argues that policy change, as well as policy learning, for partnered women in all three countries is incremental. It suggests that activation for partnered women as a reflection of welfare recalibration wrongly assumes that the labour market and families have similarly adjusted and that childcare provision in Britain is a missing core foundation for activation for this group, reflective of stalled functional and normative recalibration. The analysis also argues for the incorporation of welfare recalibration as a framework for assessing the possibility of policy learning, as well as in considering whether policy translation has taken place.

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Nanlohy, Owen. "“A TEST OF LOYALTY”: A HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY AND THE UNITED STATES ALLIANCE 1960 – 1967." Thesis, Department of History, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/8832.

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During the 1950s and 1960s Australian foreign policy was focused on ensuring the presence of the United States in South East Asia and the consequent protection of Australia under the ANZUS Treaty. For the Australian Labor Party between 1960 and 1967 the fundamental test of its readiness for government was the positions it took on issues relating to the Alliance. This thesis sheds light on the ALP’s vision for the Alliance during the period.

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com, coble-neal@bigpond, and Fiona Elaine Coble-Neal. "Post-compulsory curriculum reform and teachers' work: A critical policy ethnography in a Western Australian State Secondary school." Murdoch University, 2008. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20091117.130012.

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This thesis set out to examine how teachers understand, experience and respond to mandated curriculum reforms in English in years 11 and 12 at a Senior High School in Western Australia over the period 2004 2005. The time period is significant as it is a halfway point between the commencement of the new policy driving reform of senior secondary education and the partial settlement of the policy and curriculum reform. The research is conceptualised using labour process theory as a means of analysing how teachers are being separated from their intellectual work throughout this curriculum reform process. The methodology chosen to inform this research is a dual approach using critical ethnography of lived individual experiences and critical policy ethnography to analyse the changing landscape of education policy in Australia. This dual approach offers a system level of understanding of mandated curriculum reform with an emphasis on the individual experience of expert teachers implementing the contested curriculum reform. Several central themes emerged over the course of the research: growing deprofessionalisation of teachers work; intensification of workload and curriculum creation; technocratisation of teacher roles; diminishing autonomy, increased accountability and responsibility; and heightened external surveillance and control. Significantly, the data also captured and analysed in this research demonstrates how teachers are continually experiencing the processes of reprofessionalisation as a consequence of sustained critical reflective practice and the imposition of mandated curriculum reform. The data also relates the need for an authentic consultation between teachers and policy makers/government authorities in order for curriculum reform to be successfully established and taken up in secondary State schools. The processes of reprofessionalisation are a source of continued professional renewal and reinvigoration for the teachers involved.

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Wright, Christopher F. "Policy legacies and the politics of labour immigration selection and control : the processes and dynamics shaping national-level policy decisions during the recent wave of international migration." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/237050.

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The two decades preceding the global financial crisis of 2008 saw an increase in international migration flows. This development was accompanied by the relaxation of immigration entry controls for select categories of foreign workers across the developed world. The scale of labour immigration, and the categories of foreign workers granted entry, varied considerably across states. To some extent, these developments transcended the traditional classifications of comparative immigration politics. This thesis examines the reform process in two states with contrasting policy legacies that adopted liberal labour immigration selection and control policies during the abovementioned period. The instrumental role that immigration has played in the process of nation-building in Australia has led it to be classified as a 'traditional destination state' with a positive immigration policy legacy. By contrast, immigration has not been significant in the formation of national identity in the United Kingdom. It has a more negative immigration policy legacy and is generally regarded as a 'reluctant state'. Examining the reasons for liberal shifts in labour immigration policy in two states with different immigration politics allows insights to be gained into the processes of policy-making and the dynamics that underpin it. In Australia, labour immigration controls were relaxed incrementally and through a deliberative process. Reform was justified on the grounds that it fulfilled economic needs and objectives, and was consistent with an accepted definition of the national interest. In the UK, liberal shifts in labour immigration policy were the incidental consequence of the pursuit of objectives in other policy areas. Reform was implemented unilaterally, and in an uncoordinated manner characterised by an absence of consultation. The contrast in the manner in which reform was managed by the various actors, institutions and stakeholders involved in the process both reflected, and served to reinforce, the immigration policy legacies of the two states. Moreover, the Howard government used Australia's positive legacy to construct a coherent narrative to justify the implementation of liberal reform. This generated greater immediate and lasting support for its reforms among stakeholders and the broader community. By contrast, lacking a similarly positive legacy, the Blair government in the UK found it difficult to create such a narrative, which contributed to the unpopularity of its reforms. This thesis therefore argues that policy legacies had a significant impact on the processes and dynamics that shaped labour immigration selection and control decisions during the recent wave of international migration. The cases demonstrate that a nation's past immigration policy experiences shape its policy-making structures, as well as institutional and stakeholder policy preferences, which are core constituent components of a nation's immigration politics. The UK case shows that even when reluctant states implement liberal labour immigration policies, these characteristics tend to create feedback effects that make it difficult for reform to be durable. The relationship between immigration policy and politics thus becomes self-reinforcing. But this does not necessarily mean that states' immigration politics are rigid, since the institutions that help to make a nation's immigration policy and shape its politics will inevitably undergo a process of adaptation in response to changing contexts.

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26

Blissett, Edward. "Inside the unions : a comparative analysis of policy-making in Australian and British printing and telecommunication trade unions." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2013. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/45549/.

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This thesis consists of a comparative analysis of policy making in Australian and British telecommunications and printing trade unions. It tests empirically the validity of different models of union policy making and behaviour, whilst also assessing the strength of the research hypothesis, that informal micro-political influences inside unions - such as personal friendships, enmities and loyalties - affect union policy making to a greater extent than is acknowledged in the literature. In order to address the subject the following research questions were posed: How, and why, do unions adopt specific policies? What factors explain the different behaviour of similar unions, when faced with comparable policy choices? To ensure that policies of strategic significance were focused upon, three key areas were selected for study: recruitment, amalgamations and union efforts to influence the labour process. As a former senior union officer I realised that trade unions were often loathe to publically disclose those factors which informed their policy making processes. For this reason a qualitative, interview rich, methodology was adopted, which involved a longitudinal study, in which over 220 officers and staff, of the relevant unions were rviewed. The research revealed that policy making in all the featured unions was a rich and complex process, in which occupational, geographical, ideological and personality based factional groups all had a significant influence on policy makers, along with the institutional and political context within which the unions operated. The empirical evidence also showed that micro-political factors, in particular enmities and personal loyalties, along with the individual beliefs, values and ideologies of policy makers, profoundly influenced their policy choices. Finally the research corroborated the assertion that strategic policy choices, made by trade unions, have a significant affect on their success or failure as organisations.

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Griffiths, Philip Gavin, and phil@philgriffiths id au. "The making of White Australia: Ruling class agendas, 1876-1888." The Australian National University. Faculty of Arts, 2007. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20080101.181655.

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This thesis argues that the colonial ruling class developed its first White Australia policy in 1888, creating most of the precedents for the federal legislation of 1901. White Australia was central to the making of the Australian working class, to the shaping of Australian nationalism, and the development of federal political institutions. It has long been understood as a product of labour movement mobilising, but this thesis rejects that approach, arguing that the labour movement lacked the power to impose such a fundamental national policy, and that the key decisions which led to White Australia were demonstrably not products of labour movement action. ¶ It finds three great ruling class agendas behind the decisions to exclude Chinese immigrants, and severely limit the use of indentured coloured labour. Chinese people were seen as a strategic threat to Anglo-Australian control of the continent, and this fear was sharpened in the mid-1880s when China was seen as a rising military power, and a necessary ally for Britain in its global rivalry with Russia. The second ruling class agenda was the building of a modern industrial economy, which might be threatened by industries resting on indentured labour in the north. The third agenda was the desire to construct an homogenous people, which was seen as necessary for containing social discontent and allowing free institutions, such as parliamentary democracy. ¶ These agendas, and the ruling class interests behind them, challenged other major ruling class interests and ideologies. The result was a series of dilemmas and conflicts within the ruling class, and the resolution of these moved the colonial governments towards the White Australia policy of 1901. The thesis therefore describes the conflict over the use of Pacific Islanders by pastoralists in Queensland, the campaign for indentured Indian labour by sugar planters and the radical strategy of submerging this into a campaign for North Queensland separation, and the strike and anti-Chinese campaign in opposition to the use of Chinese workers by the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in 1878. The first White Australia policy of 1888 was the outcome of three separate struggles by the majority of the Anglo-Australian ruling classto narrowly restrict the use of indentured labour in Queensland, to assert the right of the colonies to decide their collective immigration policies independently of Britain, and to force South Australia to accept the end of Chinese immigration into its Northern Territory. The dominant elements in the ruling class had already agreed that any serious move towards federation was to be conditional on the building of a white, predominantly British, population across the whole continent, and in 1888 they imposed that policy on their own societies and the British government.

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Hense, Sibasis. "Intention to migrate to Australia: a mixed-method study of Indian physicians and nurses." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2016. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/96241/4/Sibasis_Hense_Thesis.pdf.

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International migration of physicians and nurses is a growing concern in India as it is linked to skill and staff shortages in the Indian health system. This research investigated the migration intention of Indian physicians and nurses internationally with a special focus on Australia. The research employed a mixed methods approach, involving surveys and interviews with physicians, nurses and key informants. The conceptual framework driving the analysis employed a push-pull framework of migration. The study has both policy and practical implications for retention of physicians and nurses in India and in relation to the regulatory environment of skilled migration in Australia.

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Robinson, Geoffrey 1963. "How Labor governed : social structures and the formation of public policy during the New South Wales Lang government of November 1930 to May 1932." Monash University, Dept. of History, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/9164.

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30

Robinson, Marcus Laurence. "Economists and politicians : the influence of economic ideas upon labor politicians and governments, 1931-1949." Phd thesis, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/109804.

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Throughout the period 1931-1949, the Australian Labor Party tended to be preoccupied with the role of money as a cause of, and cure for, economic instability. The party was very much influenced by a long tradition of economic thought which saw the business cycle as an essentially monetary phenomenon. In part, this tradition affected the A.L.P. through the influence of 'quack' writers in the 'monetary radical' tradition, who combined a monetary view of the business cycle with a fear of financial manipulation and a commitment to the abolition of interest. At least as significant as this unorthodox. influence was, however, the impact upon Labor thinking of the monetary views of the main school of expansionist economics of the 1920s. Labor's preoccupation with money was due in no small measure to the way in which much of the 'mainstream' economic debate focussed upon money in the 1920s and into the 1930s. Labor economic thinking was not suddenly transformed as a result of a 'Keynesian revolution' following the publication of the General Theory in 1936. The party had absorbed much of the 'Keynesian' policy message - in particular, about the centrality of counter-cyclical public works - well before 1936. Nevertheless, because of its long attachment to purely monetary theories of capitalist economic instability, Labor did not readily absorb the 'Keynesian' view of the way in which the economic mechanism operates. The party was, for example, inclined to view public works not so much as an instrument of 'fiscal' policy, as a conduit for monetary expansion. Even in the 1940s, the A.L.P. remained deeply imbued with the traditional view that monetary mechanisms played an all-important role in the economy. In government, Labor's ideological zeal was directed towards banking reform. By contrast, Labor politicians were not greatly interested in the issues (concerning the role of planning in normal peacetime economic management, and the form and social content of a full employment program) which were dividing economists and public servants at the time.

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31

Sutton, Ray. "Labour movement youth organisation and policy in eastern Australia, c.1918 - c.1939." Phd thesis, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/131956.

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Labour youth organisations in the period 1918 to 1939 have only recently emerged in memoirs, been mentioned as a by-product of women's studies, or partially re-discovered through the development of labour history. Communist initiatives, as the most enduring and self-consciously counter-hegemonic, form a central strand in this thesis, yet they are just one part of a far broader tradition. From 1903 to 1928 Socialist Sunday Schools preached a secular gospel of humanity and love. Opposition to the Great War by Quakers and pacifists led to the formation of a Children's Peace Army. A Brisbane Labor Girls Club, founded in 1919, spread the doctrine of 'One Big Union' and in 1925 University Labour Clubs began building socialist enclaves in the midst of bourgeois privilege. Early Labor Party youth organisations in Victoria and New South Wales served as a step-ladder to individual political careers or, alternatively, were motivated by belief that the ALP's bureaucratic structure might somehow be influenced in a socialist direction from within. Trade unions and Trades Hall Councils also responded, formulating policy to deal with the erosion of traditional apprenticeship or, as the Depression lifted, to ease the plight of a 'lost generation', seemingly destined to a future of low pay and 'blind alley' jobs. A more diffused ideology of youth grew out of events the labour movement felt unable to ignore : the survival of jingoism and militarism in the school curriculum after 'the war to end all wars'; continuation of juvenile military training in the 1920s; the possible effect of child migration and the rapid growth of the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, YMCA and other 'capitalist' youth movements. Trade unions hoped to recruit young people and the ALP expected their vote at twenty-one, yet the labour movement feared the economic competition of youth in the workplace and suspected that its intervention in party politics might have turbulent results. Communist strategy, based on an imported Leninist model, bore only partial relationship to how Australian working class youth actually resisted bourgeois socialisation. These ambiguities account for the vacillating, intermittent characteristics of so many labour youth initiatives and their failure to seriously challenge establishment- sponsored organisations.

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32

Orchard, Lionel. "Whitlam and the cities : urban and regional policy and social democratic reform / Lionel Orchard." Thesis, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/18575.

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33

Hackforth-Jones, Simary. "The ALP's foreign policy towards Indonesia 1983-1996 : cooperating for peace?" Master's thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/151221.

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34

Singleton, Gwynneth. "The Labour movement and incomes policy : origins and development of the accord." Phd thesis, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/129771.

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The Hawke Labor government was elected for its third term of office in 1987. It owes much of this success to its Accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The purpose of this thesis is to elucidate what consolidates and sustains the bargained bipartite relationship that is the core of the Accord and central to its viability as a cooperative incomes strategy for the industrial and political wings of the Australian labour movement. The thesis begins with an examination of what the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party and the ACTU each sought to achieve from a co-operative incomes policy. The following chapters trace the origins and development of the Accord, beginning with the difficulties that arose between the Whitlam Labor government and the ACTU that prevented any similar agreement. The post-Whitlam period brought about a change in attitude by both the unions and the FPLP that made the Accord possible. The thesis examines the reasons why Australian unions changed their approach from maintaining living standards primarily through nominal increases to the industrial wage to embrace a collective centralised incomes strategy that included the industrial wage, employment and the social wage. The effective point of wage negotiation then lay with the ACTU. This thesis examines the basis of ACTU wages policy and the reasons why the strategies that were pursued to gain its implementation failed. This failure led directly to the Accord with the FPLP. The following two chapters examine the reasons why and how the FPLP reached similar conclusions about the necessity for a collective incomes policy with the unions in 1979 and the subsequent negotiations that brought them to formal agreement on the Accord with the ACTU in 1983. The Accord has proved to be a flexible process that remains relevant nearly six years after its inception. The operations and renegotiations of the Accord that have occurred over this period are examined to determine why this has been possible. A discussion about the relevance of corporatism to the Accord follows. This concludes that, while there may be some aspects of corporatism that can be related to the Accord process, the imprecise nature of corporatist theory raises doubts about its utility as an explanation for the bargained bipartite relationship that is the essence of the Accord. It is suggested that it is more satisfactory to regard the Accord as a contemporary embodiment of traditional Australian labourism; that is, the balancing of economic, electoral and social objectives by the trade union movement and the ALP to achieve what is politically and economically possible through Labor in government.

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Inall, Neil J. "The legacy of John Kerin : a Labor Party man of rural policy based on science." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:38636.

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The aim of this research was to discover why John Kerin, when Minister for Primary Industry in the reformist Hawke Labor government in Australia in the 1980s, vigorously pursued the development of policies aimed at increasing farm productivity. He believed those policies were the best form of assistance to the primary industries. Productivity had been languishing in Australia. The dominance of farm policy by the conservative parties had led to complacency and inefficiency as a result of decades of government price support schemes and a plethora of subsidies. A prime example was the reserve price scheme for wool, which led to the industry’s collapse. Kerin, a former Shadow Minister, farmer and officer in the prestigious Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), believed the only way to foster increased productivity in the farm industries was through research and development (R&D) programs. He had absorbed the findings of senate and public service inquiries into the operations of government and grower funded farm research committees. Those findings highlighted the need for greater focus and accountability. Kerin resolved to reform the system by establishing corporate governance for each commodity. He achieved his purpose through the passing of the Primary Industry and Energy Research and Development (PIERD) Act of 1989. This thesis examines John Kerin’s role in encouraging fellow ministers in the Hawke Labor government and the nation’s farmers to support his reforms, as well as obtaining a significant increase in government funding aimed at enhancing competitiveness in the complex farming industry. Because of this complexity, the farm sector needs long-term research within a defined framework and that is what John Kerin put in place. The research highlights the significant role played in policy formulation in the second half of the 20th century by the relatively new profession of agricultural economics. Kerin’s association with its practitioners, many of whom were highly critical of government policies of intervention, no doubt influenced his thinking and policies. He was an officer of the prestigious BAE for two separate periods before being appointed as Shadow Minister for Primary Industry and later Minister. This researcher interviewed John Kerin and his associates, learnt of his insistence on policy based on science and learnt how he convinced his fellow ministers and farm leaders that his policy proposal was the way to provide greater focus and accountability to research and development programs. The thesis also demonstrates how Kerin’s all-encompassing proposal overcame the objections of the pre-eminent government departments like Finance and Prime Ministers’ and convinced the parliamentary opposition to support the establishment of the research and development corporations. A major achievement. What is more, Kerin’s basic research and development framework is still intact in 2015, despite seven changes of government, numerous official inquiries and the addition of marketing responsibilities to some corporations. This research thesis provides evidence that Australia has a globally unique system for farm research and development. It provides all Australians, as consumers of foodstuffs and wearers of fibres, that this country has permanent farm research structures established by Kerin and endorsed by the federal parliament. The corporations are designed to ensure the delivery of high quality and safe essentials for all Australians as well as providing assurance to the millions of buyers of Australian foods and fibres around the world. The objects of the Primary Industry Research and Development Act (PIERD) established by Kerin and the federal parliament in 1989 are clear and simple. First, to make provision for the funding and administration of research and development with the aim of increasing the economic, environmental and social benefits to the primary industries and the wider community by improving the production, processing, storage, transport and marketing of the farm products. Previously there had been no emphasis on any procedure or process beyond the farm gate. Added to these features was the sustainable use and the sustainable management of natural resources and making more effective use of the skills of the community and the scientific community in particular; and most importantly improving accountability for expenditure on research and development activities in relation to primary industries.

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36

King, Thomas Francis. "The Rise and Fall of Minor Political Parties in Australia." Master's thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/147961.

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This thesis contributes to the political science literature by exploring why minor parties arise and decline. This thesis explores the rise of Australian minor parties in Australia from the time of the Labor ‘Split’ in 1955 that led to the formation of the DLP through to the rise and continuing rise of the Australian Greens in the 1990s and beyond. In that time the Australian Democrats emerged in 1977 and in 1996 and 1997 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation first appeared. The thesis goes behind these parties to explore and analyses the underlying factors that caused these parties to be established in the first place and succeed electorally, before, in the case of three of the parties, meeting their decline. The Australian Greens have not declined to any significant degree and One Nation has experienced a political resurrection. The four parties considered in this thesis were the minor parties that were in the Federal parliament as at 1 January 2009 or had being in the Federal parliament and had lost all of their seats in parliament before that that date.

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37

Hu, Dan. "Protectionism, national interest, and strategic distrust : the Labour government’s attitude and approach towards Chinese investment in Australia (2007-2013)." Thesis, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:57262.

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Australia’s Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor Governments (3 December 2007 – 18 September 2013) witnessed China overtaking Japan to become Australia’s largest trading partner. More importantly, it found itself having to deal with a sudden and dramatic surge of Chinese foreign direct investments (FDI) in Australia, most notably in the resources sector by state-owned enterprises (SOE). This had never been an issue with preceding administration. Expert recommendations on the government’s appropriate response to this emerging economic dependence on a strategic non-partner are rather conflicting. Views ranged widely; some urged the government to take “a more protectionist approach in order to protect the national interests of the country”, while others criticised the “restrictiveness of Australia’s foreign investment regime” (Senate, 2009). This research intends to explore the following questions: what approach did the Labor government take towards Chinese investment? In other words, was it a protectionist approach? How did the administration balance the country’s urgent demand for foreign capital to sustain its mining boom (and in turn economic growth) and domestic concerns over foreign ownership of resources by a strategic rival and other national interests that have or have not been made explicit in review decisions by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB)? The focus of this research is to evaluate the Labor government’s attitude and approach by examining government policy updates and clarifications, which are widely regarded as targeting Chinese investors, and FIRB review decisions on investment proposals from Chinese companies. An analysis will be made not only on the formation of the policies, namely their background, content and objectives, but also on how they were implemented in individual FIRB reviews and what outcome or effect they had on China’s investment in Australia. This study will contribute to research on Labor’s China policy in the economic domain. Notably, there is still a dearth of literature analysing government policy towards China on investment for the period specified. Such discussion will be illuminating for future Australian governments, for whom investment will continue to be an issue of significance in its relations with China. An analysis of Labor’s policy, as a case study, against the framework of protectionism/liberalism will also add to our understanding of what is a neglected area of FDI research.

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38

De, Matos Christine. "Imposing peace and prosperity: Australia, social justice and labour reform in occupied Japan, 1945-1949." Thesis, 2003. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/480.

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Historiography tends to seek patterns of inevitability, attempting to explain a decided course rather than incorporating other evident, though unfulfilled possibilities. In the case of historiography on the Allied Occupation of Japan, this is particularly obvious. Occupation scholarship appears absorbed by the overarching US presence in Japan during this period, reflects the dominant paradigm of the Cold War and when it does venture past the US remains focused on the US-Japan dichotomy. Australia also participated in the Occupation, also held a vision for a Pacific future and developed a relationship with Japan. Often the Australian perspective did not coincide with that of the US especially on the terrain of ideological and historical experiences and interpretations. The potential for conflict between the two nations’ approaches to post-surrender Japan is particularly evident in labour reform policy and issues of social and economic justice – the focus of this thesis. Australian policies towards labour reform under the Chifley Labor Government are examined in this thesis within the context of the Australian labour movement’s historical legacy, Orientalism and racial stereotypes, the Cold War, US hegemony, idealism and pragmatism and overall Australian policy towards Occupied Japan as a dual-paradigm structure. This thesis investigates attempts to turn labour reform polices and ideals into practice, via the diplomatic control machinery established for the Occupation namely the Allied Council for Japan and Far Eastern Commission and as articulated by Australian government representatives including Dr H.V. Evatt, William Macmahon Ball, Patrick Shaw and Sir Frederick Eggleston. The thesis contests the predominant simplistic harsh peace label given to Australian policy in the current literature. By examining Australian policy towards Occupied Japan from a micro perspective, what emerges is a more complex foreign policy mosaic to which the research in this thesis is a contribution

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39

Brink, Graham Patrick. "Factors contributing to the emigration of skilled South African migrants to Australia." Diss., 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/5963.

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Talent management is a source of competitive advantage and will be achieved by those organisations that are able to attract, develop and retain best in class individuals. It is thus not just a human resources issue but rather an integral part of any organisation’s strategy. Due to negative perceptions about South Africa, skilled workers are immigrating to countries such as Australia to the detriment of the South African economy. This loss is not necessarily being replaced by graduates or through immigration. Government policies such as Broader- Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE), Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Affirmative Action (AA), compound the issue by then decreasing the pool of skilled applicants that may occupy skilled and senior posts in organisations. Globally there is a shortage of skills and due to employee mobility they can use any opportunity that presents itself. The objectives of this study was to determine the factors which lead to the emigration of skilled South African’s to Australia and then once these factors are known to propose retention strategies to role players to stem the emigration tide. To achieve these objectives a survey was prepared based on previous studies and a link to the web questionnaire was distributed to the population via an Australian immigration agent. The link was sent to all the agent’s clients around the world and thus consisted not only of South Africa respondents but also elicited international responses, which will be used for comparison purposes only. Only 48 South Africans responded to the survey and although limited, it was sufficient for the purposes of this study. The demographic profile was mainly male and dominated by Generation X. Using a Likert scale respondents were questioned on their levels of satisfaction in their country of origin and in Australia through an adaptation of a study by Mattes and Richmond (2000). The study of Hulme (2002) was adapted and incorporated into the questionnaire, where respondents were given the opportunity to rank considerations for leaving South Africa and factors that would draw them back. Respondents were provided with the opportunity for responses to open-ended questions to include other considerations for leaving and factors that would draw them back. Results from these survey items revealed that the primary reasons driving skilled South Africans to emigrate was safety and security, upkeep of public amenities, customer service and taxation. In contrast, South African migrants had high levels of satisfaction with safety and security, upkeep of public amenities and customer service in Australia. Respondents indicated that factors that would draw them back to South Africa would be improvements in safety and security and government, followed by family roots, good jobs and schools. The study also looked at the permanence of the move. If skilled individuals returned with new-found skills and experience then it could be a potential brain gain for South Africa. The results of this study found that 43% of respondents had no intention to return, 42% did not supply a response and only 10% were undecided on whether to return or not. To attract, retain and develop talent, the South African government and the private sector would need to work in partnership to develop policies that would satisfy the lower-order needs of individuals, such as physiological and safety needs.
Emigration of skilled South African migrants to Australia
Business Management
M.Tech. (Business Administration)

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40

Lewis, Judith Andrea. "Great Expectations: Australian Baby Boomer Women, Policy and Older Labour Force Participation." Thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/120360.

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As the vanguard generation of rapid population ageing in Australia, Baby Boomers have represented a substantive challenge to government policy makers. Increasing older labour force participation has been promoted as the preeminent policy initiative most likely to reduce the labour force shrinkage and increased fiscal demand likely to be caused by the retirement of this disproportionately large generation. This “one size fits all” policy does not, however, sufficiently consider the significant diversities within the Baby Boomer generation. The systems approach guiding this research clusters environmental influences around the subjective experiences of labour force participation recounted by Australian Baby Boomer women. Nine research questions directed the data collection, analysis and findings of this thesis that populate a systems framework and underpin the discussion and conclusion. An analysis of data from key policy documents provides a clear overview of the aims and objectives of policy seeking to increase older labour force participation. Census and HILDA data is analysed to establish a quantitative context that identifies factors implicated in the divergence of labour force participation patterns for Baby Boomer men and Baby Boomer women. Primary data obtained from semi structured interviews of the Baby Boomer women respondents from North West Adelaide provides insight into experiences at the individual (micro) level and that reflect the effects of elements at national (meso) and global (macro) levels. This research found that several factors constrained the ability of Baby Boomer women to comply with policy urging increased older labour force participation. Notwithstanding generally accepted correlations between qualification levels and older labour force participation, both the timing and type of qualification are likely determinants of older labour force participation among Baby Boomer women. It also found that, whilst marital status has often been linked to higher financial wellbeing amongst older women, links between marital status and labour force participation were most often associated with changes in marital status over the life course. The effects of competing policies such as those promoting family based provision of care and those supporting a ‘laissez faire’ economy were found to frustrate the aims of policies targeting increased older labour force participation by women. In the case of many Baby Boomer women this policy discord can be directly linked to the obstruction of pathways to labour force participation and statuses that might enhance future financial self-sufficiency. The findings of this thesis urge deeper consideration of the impacts of this policy for Baby Boomer women specifically and older women generally.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2019

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41

Paterson, Wendy Anne. "Desire for social justice: equal pay, the International Labour Organisation, and Australian government policy, 1919-1975." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1312837.

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Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Australia is one of the forty-two founding members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), established in 1919. The objective of the ILP is to develop and raise international labour standards in order to promote social justice and secure world peace, with the ultimate goal of making those standards part of the law and practice of member countries. Yet, eighty-one countries had ratified the 1951 Equal Remuneration Convention before the Australian government's formal agreement in 1974. Within days of being elected in 1972, the Whitlam Labour government asserted its desire to pursue a new direction in foreign affairs and its intention to ratify a number of significant ILO Conventions addressing human rights. The Federal Parliamentary Labour Party also declared its commitment to overruling State involvement in the decision making process if this would assist in the reconstruction of Australia's image overseas. Until now, feminist approaches to the determinants and processes of foreign policy have been paid limited attention,. International relations theorists have either assumed that women's experiences are marginal to the study of "high politics", national security and diplomacy, or that both men and women are similarity affected by foreign policy decision. This study traces the development of successive Australian governments' relationships with the ILO from 1919 to 1975 in order to assess the interconnections between domestic and foreign policy decision-making with regard to the issue of equal pay for women. A particular focus is on the role of external influences, such as ILO standards, on major forces or groups within Australia. The defence of "domestic jurisdiction" has an extensive history. As such, equal pay for women was long in coming. This thesis challenges a commonly held view: - that successive Australia governments were unable to ratify many ILO Conventions, particularly those that supported equal remuneration for men and women, simply because of the constraints of the federal constitution. It demonstrates that the elimination of discrimination between men and women was both a foreign and domestic policy issue, actively ignored, suppressed or confronted through strategies designed to effectively counter demands for social justice.

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42

Chan, Hock Thye. "The employment paradox of international accounting graduates in Australia." Thesis, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1421009.

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Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The employment paradox among international accounting graduates is characterised by an official shortage of accountancy positions alongside a surplus of qualified accountants, mainly international graduates from Australian higher education institutions. The paradox arises from a policy nexus between skilled migration and higher education created to meet skilled labour shortages through international graduates. Despite evidence that accountants are no longer in short supply, accountancy continues to be listed as a profession in need of labour for skilled migration purposes. Employing Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as the theoretical framework, the thesis addresses the treatment of accountancy in immigration policy through the question: How does policy problematisation contribute to the employment paradox for international accounting graduates? A post-structuralist ‘policy as discourse’ approach is employed within Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to be? methodology to interrogate the roles of various actors in sustaining the employment paradox. Policy related texts from 1997 to 2018 are analysed to indicate the creation of two profiles for international students and graduates. The ‘consumer of education export’ profile is unproblematic due to its commercial value as an international export industry. However, the profile of ‘domestically trained skilled migrants’ is problematised through the intruder metaphor, based on racial and language discourses reflecting the history of Australian immigration policies. Despite the failure of the first profile to transition into the second as originally intended, the policy nexus continues to be defended by institutions with financial and economic interests in its continuation. The practices of these actors discursively entrench problematisations for the graduates while at the same time silencing problems created by the actors themselves. Poor labour market outcomes are positioned as deficits in the graduates rather than in the nexus, higher educational institutions, or discriminatory labour market practices. To avoid subjectification, graduates seek refuge in secondary and ethnic labour markets. Using the treatment of accountancy in immigration policy, the thesis demonstrates how policy is used to further the interests of institutions at the expense of policy subjects.

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43

O'Flaherty, Veronica Ann. "A very dim light, a very steep hill: women in the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party." 2005. http://eprints.vu.edu.au/1481/1/OFlaherty.pdf.

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This thesis presents a contemporary approach to the problem of the lack of recognition of women in Australian society and politics using the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as background and the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party as a test case. It examines the paradox that women have had the vote in Australia for over a hundred years yet, in the largest political party officially dedicated to social equality, they still fail to hold leadership positions with the exception of Jenny Macklin who is Deputy Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (FPLP). Several writers have drawn attention to this puzzle of the lack of effective participation in general by women in Australian political life. Authors such as Joy Damousi, Anne Henderson, Marian Sawer and Marian Simms among others have begun the process of theoretical and historical analysis of women in politics in this country. Sawer and Simms are both prominent female academics in the field of Political Science. Their book, A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia (1993), is a good example of an emerging genre. Given my own particular academic interests, the thesis is based in the discipline of Political Science. It is not located primarily in the area of Women’s Studies, but feminist theories and ideas are applied, as are historical surveys and sociological perspectives to support my arguments and buttress conclusions. The aim of the work is to examine the Victorian Branch of the ALP between 1946 and 2005 and tests the hypothesis that a combination of societal and structural factors has been responsible for the exclusion of women for the most part from leadership positions in the Party. The Victorian Branch was chosen partly for reasons of access and manageable size, but also because it is representative of general trends in Australian politics. Essentially, this thesis is about the role of women in a major political party committed to the cause of working-class people. It does not deal with policy formulation or the dynamics of the parliamentary arena. Rather, it concentrates on the party’s culture and the structural and organisational factors which affect the participation rates and levels of influence of women. This thesis will contribute to knowledge by analysing the reasons for the exclusion of women from positions of power in the Victorian Branch of the ALP; it also draws lessons about the nature of politics in Australia. Indeed, it constitutes the first major study of the role of women in Victorian ALP politics—no such study currently exists. My own personal case studies will determine how and why and if male-dominated ‘traditions’ (patriarchy) are restricting the progress of women in the public sphere in this country. The research material from interviews with past and present female MPs (including former Victorian Premier Joan Kirner) and State Executive members will provide a great deal of invaluable information and opinion for other students of party politics. The thesis will give an opportunity for female ALP views to be expressed. A further contribution to knowledge will be to establish why injustices, inequalities and constraints have been placed on women which hinder their rise to power in the ALP and the Victorian Branch. It is significant to state that throughout Australia’s largely patriarchal history the nonrecognition, or misrecognition, of Australian women has been a form of exclusion resulting in their under- representation in leadership roles in the ALP and its Victorian Branch. Therefore, by studying the particular processes of how gender diversities are formed within a historical and ideological context, we can start to hypothesis on how and why women have been marginalised with the male-dominated ALP and the Victorian Branch. This thesis will examine why women in the Victorian Branch of the ALP have been largely excluded from decision-making positions. Has a combination of cultural, historical, sociological and structural reasons contributed to their exclusion until some thirty years ago when things began to appear to change? Are attempts to make the Branch more inclusive real or are they simply a form of Marcusian repressive tolerance? Therefore, in order to clarify specific aims of the project, one should ascertain why, despite the attainment of legal, political and social rights, there exists a significant inequality between the genders when it comes to achieving and exercising power and influence in the Federal ALP and the Victorian Branch. By researching those factors that create inequality, I hope to ascertain why women have been excluded from decision-making positions in the ALP and the Victorian Branch and document what changes have occurred and suggest future directional aims.

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44

O'Flaherty, Veronica Ann. "A very dim light, a very steep hill: women in the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party." Thesis, 2005. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/1481/.

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This thesis presents a contemporary approach to the problem of the lack of recognition of women in Australian society and politics using the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as background and the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party as a test case. It examines the paradox that women have had the vote in Australia for over a hundred years yet, in the largest political party officially dedicated to social equality, they still fail to hold leadership positions with the exception of Jenny Macklin who is Deputy Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (FPLP). Several writers have drawn attention to this puzzle of the lack of effective participation in general by women in Australian political life. Authors such as Joy Damousi, Anne Henderson, Marian Sawer and Marian Simms among others have begun the process of theoretical and historical analysis of women in politics in this country. Sawer and Simms are both prominent female academics in the field of Political Science. Their book, A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia (1993), is a good example of an emerging genre. Given my own particular academic interests, the thesis is based in the discipline of Political Science. It is not located primarily in the area of Women’s Studies, but feminist theories and ideas are applied, as are historical surveys and sociological perspectives to support my arguments and buttress conclusions. The aim of the work is to examine the Victorian Branch of the ALP between 1946 and 2005 and tests the hypothesis that a combination of societal and structural factors has been responsible for the exclusion of women for the most part from leadership positions in the Party. The Victorian Branch was chosen partly for reasons of access and manageable size, but also because it is representative of general trends in Australian politics. Essentially, this thesis is about the role of women in a major political party committed to the cause of working-class people. It does not deal with policy formulation or the dynamics of the parliamentary arena. Rather, it concentrates on the party’s culture and the structural and organisational factors which affect the participation rates and levels of influence of women. This thesis will contribute to knowledge by analysing the reasons for the exclusion of women from positions of power in the Victorian Branch of the ALP; it also draws lessons about the nature of politics in Australia. Indeed, it constitutes the first major study of the role of women in Victorian ALP politics—no such study currently exists. My own personal case studies will determine how and why and if male-dominated ‘traditions’ (patriarchy) are restricting the progress of women in the public sphere in this country. The research material from interviews with past and present female MPs (including former Victorian Premier Joan Kirner) and State Executive members will provide a great deal of invaluable information and opinion for other students of party politics. The thesis will give an opportunity for female ALP views to be expressed. A further contribution to knowledge will be to establish why injustices, inequalities and constraints have been placed on women which hinder their rise to power in the ALP and the Victorian Branch. It is significant to state that throughout Australia’s largely patriarchal history the nonrecognition, or misrecognition, of Australian women has been a form of exclusion resulting in their under- representation in leadership roles in the ALP and its Victorian Branch. Therefore, by studying the particular processes of how gender diversities are formed within a historical and ideological context, we can start to hypothesis on how and why women have been marginalised with the male-dominated ALP and the Victorian Branch. This thesis will examine why women in the Victorian Branch of the ALP have been largely excluded from decision-making positions. Has a combination of cultural, historical, sociological and structural reasons contributed to their exclusion until some thirty years ago when things began to appear to change? Are attempts to make the Branch more inclusive real or are they simply a form of Marcusian repressive tolerance? Therefore, in order to clarify specific aims of the project, one should ascertain why, despite the attainment of legal, political and social rights, there exists a significant inequality between the genders when it comes to achieving and exercising power and influence in the Federal ALP and the Victorian Branch. By researching those factors that create inequality, I hope to ascertain why women have been excluded from decision-making positions in the ALP and the Victorian Branch and document what changes have occurred and suggest future directional aims.

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45

Griffiths, Philip Gavin. "The making of White Australia: Ruling class agendas, 1876-1888." Phd thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/47107.

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This thesis argues that the colonial ruling class developed its first White Australia policy in 1888, creating most of the precedents for the federal legislation of 1901. White Australia was central to the making of the Australian working class, to the shaping of Australian nationalism, and the development of federal political institutions. It has long been understood as a product of labour movement mobilising, but this thesis rejects that approach, arguing that the labour movement lacked the power to impose such a fundamental national policy, and that the key decisions which led to White Australia were demonstrably not products of labour movement action. ¶ It finds three great ruling class agendas behind the decisions to exclude Chinese immigrants, and severely limit the use of indentured “coloured labour”. ...

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46

Goswami, Kuntal. "The Commitment to Sustainable Development in Three Australian States: Policy-Lifecycle Analysis of Three Over-Arching Holistic Sustainability Policies." Phd thesis, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/186327.

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In Australia, during the early 2000s, all Labor-governed states adopted a sustainable development-based strategic plan or strategy. This study examines the life-cycle of three overarching policies of early 2000s from three Australian states, which are: Tasmania Together, South Australia’s Strategic Plan and the Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy. My study compares the level of commitment towards sustainable development in Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia during the life span of these policies and establishes the importance of understanding the political dimensions of sustainable development. Methodological Structure I examined each case from both the macro-level (political and governmental level and external manifestations of sustainable development values) as well as the micro-level (public agency level and internal manifestations of sustainable development values). My study applied two complementary theoretical frameworks: political-economic theory and institutional theory. I also used the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Sector Supplementary for Public Agencies (SSPA) as an analytical framework. The findings of this research are supported by corroborating primary as well as secondary data. Research Findings & Conclusion My findings showed that institutional factors may facilitate the diffusion of a sustainable development value-based policy model but the actual implementation of the concept depends on fortuitous political-economic factors. My analysis revealed that all three Labor governments adopted those sustainable development-oriented policies not solely because they were enlightened politicians; rather there was political motivation as well. They saw the strategic plan or sustainability strategy as a new tool: to reconnect with a declining electoral base; to regain public confidence in their government; to manage their party’s political reputation; and to create a plausible alternative to neo-liberal approaches. My study showed that, even though these grand holistic sustainability policies were abolished, slowly discontinued or shelved even after it was launched, sustainability values were incorporated, and trickled down into certain public policies and practices through various institutional influences. Therefore, I have described the sustainable development policy story in these three states as ‘hidden’ successes.

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47

Anderson, Evelyn A. "Family-friendliness of working time provisions in Australian enterprise agreements." Thesis, 1999. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/18139/.

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Many workers report difficulty in balancing work and family responsibilities and a critical factor in this difficulty is time demands. The workplace bargaining provisions and the minimal protection provisions in the Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993 were promoted by the Government as an opportunity to address work and family issues. This study investigates the manner in which work and family issues have been addressed in agreements registered in this industrial framework by considering two questions: (i) what evidence is there of changes to working time arrangements within selected agreements that purport to be family-friendly; and (ii) have these changes been consistent with the promotion of a family-friendly workplace? Eleven agreements that were reported by the Department of Industrial Relations as containing family-friendly provisions were selected for examination. The working time provisions contained in the contents of the agreements were compared with the parallel provisions in preexisting awards and agreements to establish whether changes had occurred. Changes to working time provisions were assessed according to whether they promoted family-friendliness. Two of the most important principles for workers with family responsibilities are the ability determine the amount and schedule of working hours and the ability to vary working hours. Workplaces can assist employees in the balance between work and family responsibilities by providing a diverse range of consistently family-friendly working time options within a family supportive workplace culture. Most agreements provide extensive evidence of changes to the amount, the schedule and the variability of working time. However, on the question of the direction of the changes, these agreements provide evidence of family-friendly changes as well as changes that detract from work and family balance. In particular, changes to provisions that concerned the amount of working time, such as part-time employment and access to carer's leave, were consistently family-friendly, while changes to schedule and variability of working time both enhanced and detracted from family-friendliness. Only two of the eleven agreements have addressed work and family issues by changing a diverse range of working time provisions in a consistently family-friendly direction within family supportive frameworks. The extent to which a lack of consistency, or a lack of diversity, or an absence of family-supportive environmental parameters, has limited the promotion of family friendliness in the other nine agreements requires further workplace investigation. Although family-friendliness has been enhanced in these agreements through changes to a broad range of working time provisions within family-supportive environmental parameters, the degree of enhancement has been tempered by changes that are not family-friendly.

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48

Elton, Judith. "Comrades or competition? : union relations with Aboriginal workers in the South Australian and Northern Territory pastoral industries, 1878-1957." 2007. http://arrow.unisa.edu.au:8081/1959.8/45143.

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This thesis examines internal union and external factors affecting union relations with Aboriginal workers in the wool and cattle sectors of the South Australian and Northern Territory pastoral industries, from union formation in the nineteenth century to the cold war period in the 1950s.
PhD Doctorate

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49

King, Christopher. "Exploring the intensive and extensive margin of employment in a CGE framework." Thesis, 2020. https://vuir.vu.edu.au/41797/.

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This research incorporates a model of labour demand into a computable general equilibrium model for Australia. It extends the underlying model by disaggregating the price of labour into (1) ordinary wage costs, (2) payments for overtime hours and (3) fixed costs of labour. It also distinguishes the labour input into hours worked per worker and the number of workers. This research developed a model of labour demand where firms chose between increasing the number of hours worked per worker and paying overtime wage premiums which increase with overtime hours or expanding the size of their workforce and paying fixed costs for each additional worker. A labour services function was adopted to represent the aggregate quantity of labour so that an additional hour per worker had a differing marginal product than an additional worker. A two-stage least squares model of wage premiums and overtime was estimated to represent Australia’s industry-specific overtime regulations based on the set of modern awards and collective bargaining agreements. This provided a relationship between the average wage premium per hour of overtime and the number of overtime hours performed. This was used to calibrate the labour demand model integrated into the CGE framework. The Australian government has a compulsory retirement savings scheme, the superannuation guarantee, which requires employers to set aside a portion of an employees wage income to provide income support in retirement. The effects of increasing the superannuation guarantee from 9.5% to 12% of employees ordinary wage earnings is simulated using the labour demand model developed within this research. It demonstrates how industries respond to the increase in the superannuation guarantee by substituting away from workers to additional hours per worker. The main findings are that industries with (a) higher fixed costs, (b) higher levels of ordinary hours and (c) flatter wage premium schedules comparatively experience larger increases in overtime.

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50

Raine, Danuta Electra. "Getting here." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1310490.

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Abstract:

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
In January, 2009, as part of my research for this award, I discovered my mother had been born in a Nazi concentration camp for the extermination of Slavic infants. The following Palm Sunday, I was the first descendant of a Polish infant survivor to have visited the site of the Frauen Entbindungslager, Birth and Abortion Camp, in Waltrop, Recklinghausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. I shared communion with a predominantly octogenarian congregation that been young men and women in 1943, some of them the residents of this German Catholic town when it enforced the fates of the pregnant Slav workers. Nearly seventy years after my mother’s escape, I became the custodian of a story I should never have been born to tell. Although more a piece of literary fiction than an autobiographical novel, >>The Glass Mountain<< engages with family stories to explore the depth, transference and healing of trauma across four generations as it weaves between the contemporary Australian lives of Kaz and her autistic 17 year old son, Jason, and the experiences of Zuitka and her infant daughter, Julka, in Germany during the last years of WWII. In 2011, Christophe Laue from the Herford Archive, Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia emailed Nazi documents relating to my mother, as well as an historical book and a museum program in which she is named. Scholars have asked, “What happened to Danuta Anita?” The exegesis, >>The Legacy of Danuta Anita<<, responds to this while exploring practice led research in creative projects involving intergenerational trauma and migration. It engages with the researcher as subject, authorial authenticity and performativity, the science and literature of trauma and intergenerational (transgenerational) trauma, the unreliability of memory in researching trauma narratives, the origins and ongoing influences of eugenics, infanticide and genocide, and the complexities of representing trauma and autism in literature.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Labor policy Australia'

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