Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Land settlement New South Wales'

Sustainable development is a multi-faceted and complex proposition, investigating such a goal required a grounded study capable of analysing real world issues. Managing such a highly diverse region as Western Sydney with its multiple demands is complicated by the plethora of government administration agencies. Contemporary land use planning policies and decisions appear frequently at odds with community values and aspirations for the region. Evidence presented in this research suggests a declining natural resource base that manifests itself in an insidious cost impost to the public sector while the benefits accrue to the private sector.Eventual developments in the resolution and maintenance of the functional integrity of the natural systems in Western Sydney may demand a major paradigm shift in economic and social policy. This research suggests that a precautionary based approach to thresholds of harm in the Western Sydney region is long overdue. Tools developed in this study appear capable of clarifying the evident land use planning paradoxes and may assist in negotiating sustainable outcomes by fostering a collaborative learning process between decision makers, experts and the community.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Soil erosion has been recognised as a global threat against the sustainability of natural ecosystem. The work in this thesis has been undertaken to assist in combating this threat, and addresses the soil erosion issues associated with urban construction activities. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was employed in this research work and the parameters associated with the model were calibrated. This model was chosen for calibration, as it has been proven to be an easy to use tool yet providing reasonable results. Large scale rainfall simulators developed at UWS were used for rainfall simulation at two sites with diverse soil types: dispersive clayey soils at Penrith and highly permeable sandy soil at Somersby (Both in New South Wales, Australia). It is concluded that RUSLE can be successfully used in single storms for erosion prediction. Calibrated values of RUSLE parameters are useful in predicting soil erosion from the construction sites in NSW. It is also identified that in rolled smooth land condition, clayey soils are more erodible than sandy soil. Specific support practices such as short grass strips, gravel bags and silt fences are identified as very effective erosion control measures in reducing soil erosion from 45% to 85%. These results will be very useful in soil erosion prediction planning and conservation management in NSW.
Master of Engineering (Hons)

Mgaga, an informal settlement in KwaZulu, south of Durban, on Cele-Zulu polity land, had an indigenous, albeit urban, system of Zulu land tenure in 1980. Mgaga's transformation, from an area with scattered homesteads in 1959 to an informal settlement, was linked to local and external factors. The external factors were, regional industrialisation, urbanisation and apartheid policies which involved, the division of South Africa into ethnically based 'homelands'; controlled Black access to 'White' cities; an urban management system for 'homeland' townships, like Umlazi township which abutted Mgaga. Umlazi's development and urban management system involved, the resettlement of members of the polity; the removal of their office bearers from their posts; and the phased building of the township; which caused cumulative effects in Mgaga. I link these external factors to the behaviour of Mgaga's residents, who transformed the area's land tenure system, by using Comaroff's dialectical model (1982), where the internal dialectic interacts with external factors to shape behaviour at the local level. I analyze the Zulu ethnography to show that the internal dialectic in Zulu social organisation, and in Mgaga, is centred around fission and integration; and that the integrating hierarchy associated with Zulu social organisation and the Zulu land tenure system is composed of groups with opposed interests in the same land. Within this hierarchy entrepreneurship and coalition formation influence the transfer of land rights. Also, rather than rules determining the transfer of land in the land tenure system, processes associated with the interaction of external factors with the internal dialectic, within terms of the cultural repertoire associated with the system, shape local behaviour; and the system's rules are manipulated within this cultural repertoire by individuals striving for gain. This results in different manifestations of the internal dialectic in the Zulu land tenure system, i.e. a range of variations in the Zulu land tenure system, including different local level kinship groups; a variety of terminology and rights held by office bearers; and communal and individualised land rights. The external factor of urbanisation interacted with the internal dialectic in Mgaga, manifested in terms of an ongoing izigodi (wards) dispute -including its boundaries, to shape residents' behaviour, so that some introduced an informal settlement and others resisted its geographical spread. This informal settlement development, where eventually purely residential land rights were transferred for cash to strangers by strangers, with no role for polity officials, was an urban variation of the Zulu land tenure system, because of the continued existence of the internal dialectic in Zulu social organisation in the local system, with the integration side being expressed by the community overrights. Characteristics found in Mgaga, such as kinship diminution; the individualisation and sale of land rights; and the ongoing influence of polities; are found elsewhere in Africa where informal settlements have developed on indigenous land tenure systems. Therefore the transformation of Mgaga's land tenure system to urban forms is not an isolated phenomenon, and my dialectical ransactional approach may have an applicability beyond the context of the Zulu land tenure system.

The thesis is a comparative legal analysis of environmental principles in environmental law. Environmental principles are novel concepts in environmental law and they have a high profile in environmental law scholarship. This high profile is promoted by two factors – the high hopes that environmental law scholars have for environmental principles, and the increasing prevalence of environmental principles in legal systems, particularly in case law. This thesis analyses the latter, mapping doctrinal developments involving environmental principles in two jurisdictions and court systems – the courts of the European Union and the New South Wales Land and Environment Court. This doctrinal mapping has both narrow and broad aims. Narrowly, it identifies the legal roles in fact taken on by environmental principles within legal systems. Broadly, and building on this assessment, it responds to scholarly hopes that environmental principles (can) perform a range of significant roles in environmental law, including solving both environmental problems and legal problems in environmental law scholarship. These hopes are based on assumptions about environmental principles that have methodological weaknesses, including that environmental principles are universal and that they fit pre-existing models of ‘legal principles’ drawn from other areas of legal scholarship. The thesis exposes these methodological problems and concludes that environmental principles are not panaceas for pressing and perceived problems in environmental law. It does this by showing that the legal roles of environmental principles, which are significant in environmental law and its current evolution, can only be understood by closely analysing the legal cultures in which they feature. This is a conclusion for environmental law scholarship generally – while environmental issues and problems may be urgent and often global, legal analysis of the law that applies to those problems requires close engagement with legal systems and cultures, as they are and as they develop.

The experiments described in this thesis were designed to assess changes in pasture dynamics (biomass and species composition of pasture) of grazing land on the Southern Tablelands of ACT and NSW, after 16 combinations of rabbit control treatments had been applied. The rabbit control performed by CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology consisted of all combinations of presence-absence of Poisoning (using sodium monofluoroacetate, 1080: POIS), Ripping (ripping warrens using a tractor fitted with ripping tynes: RIP), Fumigation (pressure fumigation using chloropicrin: FUM) and repeated follow-up fumigation (using phostoxin pellets one, six and eighteen months after completion of the initial treatment: ANN). The pasture was assessed before treatments were applied, and every six months after rabbit control treatments. Treatment combinations were assigned randomly in a 24 factorial design on a total of 32 sites. There was a significant increase of pasture biomass at the RIP+ANN treatment at post-treatment sample 5. The analysis of covariance did not detect any other significant increase or decrease of pasture biomass for any rabbit control treatment, at any posttreatment sample. A significant increase of grass species occurred for the treatments of POIS+RIP+FUM, POIS and RIP+ANN for the post-treatment samples of 1, 3 and 5 respectively. There was a significant increase of thistles at the rabbit control treatments of POIS+RIP+FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 1), RIP, ANN, RIP+FUM, RIP+FUM+ANN and POIS+RIP+FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 3) and RIP and FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 5). A significant increase of weeds occurred at FUM (post-treatment sample 3) and at FUM+ANN (post-treatment sample 5). No significant changes in the amount of herbs or legumes was apparent for any rabbit control treatment or post-treatment sample. There were no significant decreases for any species group. Except for the significant results for post-treatment sample 1, all significant increases of biomass for any species group occurred during spring (post-treatment sample 3 and 5) which suggests a growth phase during spring then subsequent dieback (particularly for thistles and weeds), as any change was not detected in the following autumn sample. No strong trend is evident for any particular rabbit control treatments, or any combination of treatments. Analysis of covariance revealed that the rabbit control treatment of RIP+ANN showed significant increases in both total biomass of pasture and grass biomass during post-treatment sample 5. This treatment reduced the number of active entrances the most. Significant positive correlations were found between pasture biomass (total) with grass, herb, legume, thistle and weed species groups. Significant negative correlations between grass biomass and the number of active entrances were found when the rabbit control had been highly effective in reducing the number of active entrances. When rabbit control had not been very successful, there was a significant positive but low correlation with the number of active entrances. There was no significant relationship between the number of active entrances with the weight of rabbit dung pellets. It is reasoned that they are different measures of rabbit abundance. More rabbit dung pellets were found closer to the warren than further away from the warren, but there was no correlation between rabbit dung and pasture biomass. Rainfall was above average for most of the experiment, biomass increased accordingly, and rabbit control was highly successful. The resulting changes in the pasture were difficult to detect, although some increases in species composition groups occurred. It is reasoned that the changes observed are partly attributable to seasonal conditions, and to high rainfall. Grazing by domestic animals, sheep and cattle, had been found to be consistent throughout the experiment.

This is a study of government sponsored closer settlement in the semi-arid and arid far west of New South Wales (NSW) since 1884. That year, the region was named the 'Western Division' for NSW land administration purposes. The study was inspired by disjuncture. First, disjuncture between the little that has been written about closer settlement in NSW and what I felt was its reality in the Division, in particular its acceptance of closer settlement without freeholding and commercial agriculture, hence my phrase 'closer pastoral settlement'. This was redistribution of land from one white person to another without expectation of a 'higher use'. Second, disjuncture between popular beliefs about the unpredictability of the western natural resource and the tough independence of landholders on the one hand, and evidence of bureaucratic controls and equity concepts, rural socialism, on the other. Third, between what varying government historical accounts of closer settlement there said, and what I knew to be the case, and finally, between what landholders and a Western Lands Commissioner in the 1980s argued to be the case and what I argue here. I trace the actions and motivations of political, legislative and bureaucratic actors prominent in the process from 1884 to 1985 and argue that closer settlement in the Division developed and displayed the characteristics of a 'policy paradigm', a deeply shared and accepted collection of concepts and tools wielded by politicians, bureaucrats, landholders, and courts, and particularly bureaucrats. All shared a vocabulary peculiar to it, each seeking benefit from it, hence its strength and persistence. Given the frequency with which land was redistributed to those already with land, the study suggests ways general descriptions of closer settlement in Australia warrant elaboration. The last two chapters examine the problems of what would replace the paradigm once the irrelevance of these controls and concepts became obvious when there was no more land to redistribute, and when there were wide concerns about over-allocation of land and loss of the natural resource. Concerns about the natural resource were raised throughout the period and though usually overwhelmed by the power of the closer settlement paradigm and the politics surrounding it, it is important to trace them. I argue that when bureaucrats and politicians finally responded, they simply tried to convert the tools of closer settlement into tools of conservation. These attempts to give old tools a green tinge were a failure. A completely new paradigm had to be created before landholders could drop old images and vocabulary and speak in new ways that encompassed grazing management for conservation. I identify the factors bringing about the change and show that they share features of policy paradigm change identified in political science theory. Necessary to it was the overturning of the 'research-extension' model of dissemination of scientific knowledge and technique to landholders, a model closely associated with colonialism. Necessary also was the creation of new ways for scientific personnel both inside and outside bureaucracy to engage with landholders, daring even to enter and influence day to day management. In clarifying the history, the study may assist in showing ways forward for rehabilitation and further encouragement of grazing management for conservation of pastures.

The proximate causes of many of the environmental issues facing residents of the Western Division are well known. Inappropriate land use practices (intensity, duration and timing of grazing), total grazing pressure, poor knowledge of ecosystem fragility and seasonal variation are some of the issues that contribute to an actual or perceived degradation of the landscape. Many of the current practices are seemingly at odds with the attitudes and values of the wider community and also those of the pastoralists who carry out these practices. This thesis seeks to explain this apparent contradiction. The thesis is composed of four elements. The first element reviews historical (mostly European) thinking about nature and the relationship between nature and society and traces how this thinking has changed through time. The second element is a review of the history of land settlement and land use in the division, and shows how the development of the division followed contemporary societal attitudes and values. The third element is an examination of the portrayal of landscape in a western visual art tradition and how this has the potential to be used to reflect contemporary social attitudes and values. The fourth element involves the use of three projects that used art and text as a basis for investigating the attitudes and values of people in the Western Division. The findings of the research indicate that visual landscape has the potential to become an aid in the identification of community attitudes and values about the landscape in which they live. Further, this technique allows for the emergence of other factors such as individual identity and its accommodation within the behavioural framework. In accommodating such factors as individual identity, individual and social attitudes and values toward the environment in any discussion of behaviour in relation to the landscape and its use, a better understanding of the motives underlying behaviour will be gained. In so doing better decisions can be made by both pastoralists and land administrators. Further research is needed to verify the usefulness of these findings in both opening up a positive dialogue with landholders and administrators and in aligning pastoralists’ behaviour towards a more sustainable land use ethic.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The possession of land, its settlement and the means by which it was occupied, has been a vital determinant in the unfolding of NSW history and yet, in recent times, its importance has been neglected. Rather than a backdrop to a wider historical narrative, land policy in the years of the early governors was crucial to the way in which the colony grew and to the socio-economic and political structures that emerged. The possession of land and its regulation therefore formed a cornerstone on which the history of NSW was founded. This thesis revisits the early history of NSW and presents land use and ownership as a major theme. Britain’s imperial aspirations were instrumental in James Cook’s taking possession, on behalf of the British Crown, of the land along the continent’s eastern coastline in 1770. Cook’s claim intrinsically carried with it the associated dispossession of the indigenous population from that date. Land and its possession was prominent among the objectives of Arthur Phillip’s 1787 expedition to Botany Bay and is regarded by many historians as the prime reason for the colony’s existence. The selection of the site at Sydney Cove, the colonisation of Norfolk Island, Tasmania, New Zealand and the expansion across the entire continent were processes that unfolded at the confluence of British policies and the exigencies of colonial government. It was land that seeded the power of the NSW Corps officers and enabled them to achieve a monopoly on trade. It was their fear of losing land that ignited a rebellion by the same officers against a sitting governor. Land policy explains the colony’s original slow expansion and, once the confining barriers and restraining policies were breached, the rapid expansion of pastoral pursuits. Finally, land policy was a major cause of tension between the governors and the governed. It was a source of disquiet that tainted colonial politics and led to demands for, and the eventual achievement of, representative government. An examination of the land policies of both the British government and the early colonial governors Phillip to FitzRoy and the means by which different groups responded to those policies will shed fresh light on the physical, social and political growth of colonial New South Wales.

Australia has accepted several million immigrant and humanitarian entrant people since the large-scale immigration program began at the end of World War II. Since the White Australia Policy was completely abandoned in the early 1970s, many more Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people have arrived in Australia. They have disproportionately moved to and settled in the metropolitan centres, and not the regional centres. There is very little literature about the settlement of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people in Australian regional centres. This research used a dialectic social work lens to analyse critically how settlement was structurally and individually framed by exploring the settlement experience of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people living in an Australian regional centre, using Coffs Harbour NSW as a case study. Respondents (31) and key informants (16) were interviewed using in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. There were six themes that proved to be significant that exhibited minimal social inclusion of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people, resulting in a position of social inequality: Firstly, compatriots were present in small numbers, but were not deemed important. They did not play much of a role in the settlement of the respondents. Secondly, DIMIA funded hours of English language tuition were quite limited, and this resulted in most respondents only learning survival to functional English. Thirdly, the respondents had to interact with the townspeople, because of a lack of compatriots. Through this interaction, the respondents were forced to speak and learn more English. They were seen to be reaching out, by the townspeople. Fourthly, the respondents reported experiencing mainly low-level and unintentional discrimination and racism. The townspeople were reported overall as polite but tentative (tolerant but not accepting). Fifthly, the respondents were employed in part-time and casual work ranging from unskilled to semi-skilled. Their level of English kept them out of the occupations they wanted to work in, and this was not likely to change in Coffs Harbour; although, most of the respondents were employed in some capacity. Sixthly, belongingness, acceptance by the dominant group and the respondents’ sense of place, was attributed to Australia and in some cases to Australia and the country of origin. Belongingness was not attributed to Coffs Harbour or to compatriots. This reflects Australia, as the preferred country in which to live because of its standard of life. The respondents’ settlement was found to be one of minimal social inclusion (tolerance) resulting in a position of social inequality. This research has advocated change and reform, by striving to individualise the structural and giving voice to a marginalised group of people and then using this collectivised voice to advocate for change on the structural level. The commencement of this change and reform is the reconceptualisation of regional settlement.

The Upper Nepean River catchment in the Sydney Basin has a rich repertoire of visual imagery - rock-art, and a variety of other types of marks on stone. This thesis examines the diversity and spatial distribution across the land of these rock markings and change over time. The theoretical focus is on materiality, practice and performance. In previous research conducted in the Sydney Basin, rock-art located in shelters has been considered, at least implicitly, to be functionally equivalent across both space and time. The research in this thesis, by comparison, has been developed to explore both synchronic and diachronic variability in sheltered rock-art and to give consideration to the occupational and contextual diversity this represents. The rock-art corpus is analysed in accordance with its material diversity in order to explore the qualitatively different forms of behavioural expression that this variation may embody. A fundamental distinction is made between graphically structured, imposed form on the one hand, and gestural marks on the other. The material relationship between the rock-art and the rock on and within which it is set, is also examined. The different data sets are explored dialectically and in accordance with their geographic and environmental location in order to gain an appreciation of the experience and engagement between Aboriginal people and the land in this part of the Sydney Basin. The analysis employs both quantitative and explicitly narrative approaches to examine the spatial and temporal dimensions of occupation. While this research has been conducted without the support of any direct dating or archaeological context, the methodology has, nevertheless allowed for the discrimination of temporal diversity in spatial patterns, and concomitantly, the manner in which the land has been occupied and created as landscape, over time. In order to achieve this, it has been crucial to analyse the rock markings not only in respect of their behaviour correlates, but also their material locations within geographic, environmental and micro-topographic space. The analysis of the Upper Nepean rock-art reveals a pattern of diachronic change in which the marking of the land with imagery became increasingly diverse in a number of formal and material ways, and geographically and environmentally common and widespread. The results suggests that regional bodies of rock-art are likely to have been produced in accordance with a diversity of motivations and functional purposes and that significant temporal change in the impetus to mark the land, and the choice of how and where to do so, can occur over relatively short time frames. It is argued that the practice of marking the land in the Upper Nepean was a dynamic dialectic, both constitutive and transformative, of being and place. Over time, people drew the land into an object world which became, with ever increasing inscription and embellishment, a marked and painted landscape, both productive of and reflecting, a complex history.

Australia has accepted several million immigrant and humanitarian entrant people since the large-scale immigration program began at the end of World War II. Since the White Australia Policy was completely abandoned in the early 1970s, many more Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people have arrived in Australia. They have disproportionately moved to and settled in the metropolitan centres, and not the regional centres. There is very little literature about the settlement of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people in Australian regional centres. This research used a dialectic social work lens to analyse critically how settlement was structurally and individually framed by exploring the settlement experience of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people living in an Australian regional centre, using Coffs Harbour NSW as a case study. Respondents (31) and key informants (16) were interviewed using in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. There were six themes that proved to be significant that exhibited minimal social inclusion of Asian immigrant and humanitarian entrant people, resulting in a position of social inequality: Firstly, compatriots were present in small numbers, but were not deemed important. They did not play much of a role in the settlement of the respondents. Secondly, DIMIA funded hours of English language tuition were quite limited, and this resulted in most respondents only learning survival to functional English. Thirdly, the respondents had to interact with the townspeople, because of a lack of compatriots. Through this interaction, the respondents were forced to speak and learn more English. They were seen to be reaching out, by the townspeople. Fourthly, the respondents reported experiencing mainly low-level and unintentional discrimination and racism. The townspeople were reported overall as polite but tentative (tolerant but not accepting). Fifthly, the respondents were employed in part-time and casual work ranging from unskilled to semi-skilled. Their level of English kept them out of the occupations they wanted to work in, and this was not likely to change in Coffs Harbour; although, most of the respondents were employed in some capacity. Sixthly, belongingness, acceptance by the dominant group and the respondents’ sense of place, was attributed to Australia and in some cases to Australia and the country of origin. Belongingness was not attributed to Coffs Harbour or to compatriots. This reflects Australia, as the preferred country in which to live because of its standard of life. The respondents’ settlement was found to be one of minimal social inclusion (tolerance) resulting in a position of social inequality. This research has advocated change and reform, by striving to individualise the structural and giving voice to a marginalised group of people and then using this collectivised voice to advocate for change on the structural level. The commencement of this change and reform is the reconceptualisation of regional settlement.

This thesis demonstrates the value of bringing together local environmental knowledge and perspectives on change with professional knowledge. Since the first pastoralists displaced Aboriginal land owners in the Tumut region, the country has been shaped by successive waves of occupation and land use. Each time a new land use industry was imposed on the country, the knowledge base of previous occupants was devalued, and the country once again managed without a knowledge of its history. I explore the characteristics of local environmental knowledge in order to understand how it may be tapped by new land managers. In doing so, I analyse the subjective nature of local people’s memories as well as the information resource which they contain. By drawing on local knowledge, and contextualising it with reference to scientific and historical sources, it is possible to construct a more detailed picture of how a particular region has changed over time. The environmental impact of various land uses can be better understood and the social impact also becomes clearer.

Hostels are a product of the migrant labour system that originated in the copper mining industry in Namaqualand in the 1850s. The migrant labour compounds were used to accommodate migrant labour workers in the urban areas. However, these compounds also meant that migrant labour workers were denied the right of access to permanent accommodation and residential space in the urban areas. After the repeal of the influx control and segregative laws in South Africa in 1986, some of the hostel dwellers brought their relatives and friends to live in the hostels and this resulted in problems such as overcrowding which were exacerbated by poor management and control of the hostels. The living conditions of the hostel dwellers deteriorated during the 1990s. After the announcement of the unbanning of all liberation movements and political parties in South Africa in the 1990s, hostel violence broke out. This hostel violence left many hostel blocks vandalised and without basic municipal services such as electricity, water and waste removal. The hostel violence was primarily between the Inkata Freedom Party (IFP) aligned hostel dwellers and the African National Congress (ANC) aligned township and informal settlement residents. The hostel violence has catalysed the public housing challenges faced by the democratic government since its inception in 1994. Nevertheless, since 1994 the democratic government has introduced various housing programmes in an effort to provide adequate houses for all South African citizens. One such housing programme is the hostel redevelopment programme. The hostel redevelopment programme was adopted by the democratic government after 1994 with the aim of, among other things, upgrading public hostels, redeveloping and converting the rooms in public hostels into family rental units in order to improve the living conditions of the hostel dwellers and introducing hostel dwellers to family life. The Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) is one of the municipalities in Gauteng province that is participating in the hostel redevelopment programme. The findings of this study have revealed that the upgrading of the Kagiso hostel involved the following two processes: During the first process, the MCLM upgraded the Kagiso hostel by fixing broken windows and doors, repairing toilets and providing basic municipal services such as electricity, water, and waste removal in order to improve the living conditions of the hostel dwellers. The second process involved demolishing the hostel blocks and converting them into family units in order to address the public housing challenges relevant to the Kagiso hostel. In this study, the hostel redevelopment programme is called process 1 and the community residential units (CRU) programme is called process 2.
Public Administration & Management
M. Tech. (Public Management)