The rise and fall of IPRA in Australia: 1959 to 2000

The International Public Relations Association (IPRA) was established in 1955 as the lead international organisation for the development and promotion of public relations as a professional communication practice (L’Etang, 2004). Australian practitioners began their relationship with IPRA in 1959. However, it too three decades before it became intensive over a 15-year period from 1983 to the late 1990s during which time leading individuals took global leadership roles. Drawing from the IPRA archive and recent interviews by the authors with prominent practitioners in Europe and Australia, the paper establishes the narrative of international engagement by the Australian PR sector and explores the aims and effects of its involvement with IPRA in four periods: 1) Early international engagement (1959-1967): London-based Australians occasionally attended IPRA meetings in Europe, but engagement was mostly by correspondence with little evident impact on IPRA or vice versa. 2) The Jon Royce era (early-mid-1980s): Melbourne consultant Jon Royce’s presentation of Australian PR to IPRA in 1983 led to the 11th Public Relations World Congress being awarded to Melbourne for 1988. Royce was IPRA President in 1985 but died in early 1986. 3)IPRA World Congress in Australia: The 1988 IPRA World Congress in Melbourne in Australia’s Bicentenary year is acknowledged in IPRA records as very successful and a significant milestone in the nations’ developing PR industry. Senator Jim Short was praised for his leadership and Sydney consultant Jim Pritchitt joined IPRA’s Council and then Board, after which Australian membership of IPRA soared. 4) Peak membership and leadership (1990s): Pritchitt became Australia’s second IPRA President in 1992. Also during this time, Australians took a lead role in development of the IPRA Gold Paper No.11 on Evaluation (1994). In 1999 IPRA awarded its 2002 World Congress to Tasmania, but was postponed to 2003 and then merged into that year’s Public Relations Institute of Australia National Conference. This failure symbolised the fading influence of IPRA within Australia and internationally. By 2000, Australian membership of IPRA had fallen to 25 from a peak of 78 in 1993. The reasons for the rise and fall are explored in the paper. Based on archival documents and interviews with IPRA members from these periods, it concludes that the impact of IPRA on the development of the Australian public relations sector and Australian influence on IPRA was relatively ephemeral, limited to a decade from 1983 to 1993. Nevertheless, Australian practitioners made use of both the symbolism of international endorsement and international connections established through IPRA to transform the national PR sector from a predominantly local focus to an increasingly international outlook at a time when public relations services were expanding rapidly worldwide

Tristram Shandy and the Limits of Copyright Law; Or, is a Blank Page an Idea?

Australian copyright law does not give copyright protection to ideas. However, depending on the analysis used, certain types of creative outputs can be treated as ideas, rather than the protectable expressions that are given the status of a copyright work. Denial of the status of work will affect the economic right of the creator, and they will also be denied moral rights. This paper explores copyright law's adoption of a Lockean conception of ideas through the 18th century literary property debates, but shows that in the 18th century, the concept of ideas had not hardened into the forms used now. Instead, the law accepted and acknowledged that 'books' or 'compositions' (in their conceptual sense as well as their physical sense) and compositions were literary property. Through the agency of Lawrence Sterne's digressive comic masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, a nine-volume novel published at the height of the 18th century literary property debates, the notion of Lockean ideas, textual sparcity and the concept of the creative process is juxtaposed against the oppositional categories of idea and expression now used in copyright law. It is suggested that the adoption of a concept like 'book' or 'composition' to frame textually or visually sparse creative outputs, could provide a legal recognition for creative outputs now refused copyright protection

Rural Autochthony? The Rejection of an Aboriginal Placename in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

This article addresses the question of why the name ‘Mullawallah’, advanced by local Wada wurrung for a new suburb in the Ballarat area, was contested and rejected by residents. It argues that the intersection between corporate profit, government policy and meaning-based issues of belonging should be highlighted for a deeper understanding of practices around place naming. The contextual conditions regarding the democratisation of place-naming policy, overwhelming power of commercial developers to ‘name Australia’ with marketable high status names and a ‘carpentered’ pastoral environment ‘emptied’ of the Indigenous population, created an environment conducive for the contests over naming. The Indigenous people appeared to have been wiped from the landscape and the worldview of settler locals. Concepts of ‘locals’ and ‘rural autochthony’ prove useful for understanding the ambiguities of belonging and placename attachment in Australia. The article argues that cultural politics of naming remains a contested social practice

Settler colonialism, multiculturalism and the politics of postcolonial identity

The twentieth century saw the development of nationalism and the construction of postcolonial identities in many newly independent nations. Formerly colonised peoples have struggled to restore and adapt their customs and to construct postcolonial national identities. Settler colonial nations face a distinctive challenge in the construction of postcolonial national identities. These nations are founded on the dispossession and assimilation of indigenous peoples and the impulse to build an autonomous settler nation. They are, therefore, caught in a limbo between an ambivalent relationship to the ‘mother-country’ and an unwillingness to acknowledge brutal and colonial aspects of their nation’s foundations. The Australian situation is a powerful example of the difficulty of constructing postcolonial national identities in settler colonial nations. In Australia, multicultural discourses have sought to distance Australian identity from its settler colonial foundations. These discourses have the potential to contribute to a more postcolonial form of national identity. Many Australians, however, have seemed indifferent to multicultural descriptions of Australian identity. Multiculturalism’s failure to capture the Australian imagination can be attributed to the difficulty of overcoming settler colonial forms of identity. The settler colonial ambivalence regarding Australia’s British and colonial heritage has resulted in the adoption of liberal democratic ‘universalist’ values as a form of surrogate cultural and national identity. The culture of Australians of British heritage is normalised and these Australians frequently regard themselves to be without a true cultural heritage. This has serious implications for multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is interpreted as applicable only to Australians of ‘ethnic’ background, irrelevant to Australians with British heritage and unable to provide a sense of belonging to all Australians. Settler colonial discourses of Australian identity continue to be influential. However, multicultural discourses have broadened Australian public debate to include a search for innovative identities in a postcolonial world

Diversity in leadership: Australian women, past and present

This book provides a new understanding of the historical and contemporary aspects of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s leadership in a range of local, national and international contexts. Overview While leadership is an over-used term today, how it is defined for women and the contexts in which it emerges remains elusive. Moreover, women are exhorted to exercise leadership, but occupying leadership positions has its challenges. Issues of access, acceptable behaviour and the development of skills to be successful leaders are just some of them. Diversity in Leadership: Australian women, past and present provides a new understanding of the historical and contemporary aspects of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s leadership in a range of local, national and international contexts. It brings interdisciplinary expertise to the topic from leading scholars in a range of fields and diverse backgrounds. The aims of the essays in the collection document the extent and diverse nature of women’s social and political leadership across various pursuits and endeavours within democratic political structures

Peirce's reception in Australia and New Zealand

Although I think it is far to say that in what natives of this part of the world call “downunder,” Peirce is still a minority interest, appreciation of his work appears to be growing slowly but surely

Scots in Australia: the gaze from Auld Scotia

No abstract available

A Double Agent Down Under: Australian Security and the Infiltration of the Left

Because of its clandestine character, the world of the undercover agent has remained murky. This article attempts to illuminate this shadowy feature of intelligence operations. It examines the activities of one double agent, the Czech-born Maximilian Wechsler, who successfully infiltrated two socialist organizations, in the early 1970s. Wechsler was engaged by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. However, he was ‘unreliable’: he came in from the cold and went public. The article uses his exposés to recreate his undercover role. It seeks to throw some light on the recruitment methods of ASIO, on the techniques of infiltration, on the relationship between ASIO and the Liberal Party during a period of political volatility in Australia, and on the contradictory position of the Labor Government towards the security services

Wilbur Norman Christiansen 1913-2007

W. N. ('Chris') Christiansen was an innovative and influential radio astronomy pioneer. The hallmarks of his long and distinguished career in science and engineering, spanning almost five decades, were his inventiveness and his commitment to, and success with, large-scale projects. These projects were the outcome of his innovative skill as physicist and engineer. Paralleling this was his equal commitment to forging strong international links and friendships, leading to his election as Vice-President of the International Astronomical Union for the years 1964 to 1970, as President of the International Union of Radio Science, URSI, from 1978 to 1981, and subsequently as Honorary Life President in 1984, and as Foreign Secretary of the Australian Academy of Science from 1981 to 1985. Major subsequent developments in radio astronomy and wireless communications on the global scene stand as a legacy to Chris's approach to his work and to the development of those who worked with him.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure