The Neoliberal Seduction: Governing-at-a-distance, Community Development and the Battle over Financial Services Provision in Australia

This paper is concerned with understanding the reasons for the apparent success of neoliberalism: why the model of the 'entrepreneurial, self-reliant community' has been adopted so widely and readily across Australia. It does this through an analysis of two events in the restructuring of financial services provision in regional Australia during the 1990s and 2000s: the John Laws/Australian Bankers' Association 'cash for comment' affair, and the rise of 'alternative' financial service providers in the wake of the major trading banks' financial service withdrawal programmes of the 1990s. This analysis is conducted using the conceptual toolkit of the governmentality literature. In this context, the paper explores the notion of translation — how authorities, agencies, etc., exert control over distant entities, whether these entities be branch staff or a far-flung consumer market. In examining the often fragile character of 'governing-at-a-distance' in modern forms of rule, it is argued that some recent advances in the 'geography of power' have much to offer in highlighting both the important roles played by space and scale in the execution of power in its various guises and the ways in which resistance to the more regressive features of neoliberal philosophy and policy may best focus

Wool and the relative resilience of Western Australian Wheatbelt economies

This article seeks to examine the path dependence and relative resilience of rural economies by focusing on the dynamics of the wool industry, a former mainstay of the economic base of many, if not most, Australian rural economies throughout most of the twentieth century. Based on a case study of the Western Australian Wheatbelt, a region in which broadacre cropping and Merino sheep grazing formed a cohesive farming enterprise type for many decades, we employ dynamic econometric models to test the relative resilience of the wool sector for four of the region’s constituent local government areas (LGAs) from just prior to the onset of the Second World War to the closing years of the twentieth century. The testing reveals evidence of both path dependence in the general model specification and a tendency for the four LGAs as a group to return to their long-run developmental trajectories following a “shock.” However, divergence across the performance of the four LGAs suggests the persistence of historical and ecological gradients that require further investigation

The Potential for Agritourism Associated with the Dairy Heritage Assets of the Clarence River Valley in Northern New South Wales

Dairying has been a rural activity in the Clarence River Valley of NSW since the 1840s. From humble beginnings then industry grew to be the most important agricultural industry in the Valley and mainstay of the farming community for many years. After reaching a peak with over 2000 dairy farms in the 1930s and 1940s, the industry has steadily declined. Currently there are only ten dairy farms operating. Remnants of the old industry are scattered throughout the landscape in the Valley. Over 300 dairy bails still stand, ghost to the former thriving industry. Concrete foundations of some creameries can still be observed while three factory building still stand. These relics are, however, disappearing quite rapidly and if the importance of this industry is to be recognised by future generations it seems appropriate that some form of heritage conservation is overdue. In order to survive in a post deregulated environment many dairy farmers are diversifying their activities, one form of pluriactivity being agritourism. Currently few dairy farmers in the Valley have entered this field but most of them see its potential in order to broaden their income base. Associated with agritourism at the farm level, the local government authorities in the Valley see heritage tourism as a way of increasing employment in the area. In the past heritage tourism has been associated with urban sites but there is now a broadening of this concept to apply to rural features such as those associated with the old dairy industry. This thesis indicates that there is a potential demand for both agritourism and tourist heritage safaris to sites associated with the old dairy industry

Grain Drain: The Impacts of Changing Infrastructure and Marketing on the Wheat Landscape of Northern New South Wales

Market accessibility has always been a driving force in the development of the wheat landscape in northern NSW. As the wheat frontier moved north and west from the coast through the tablelands to establish on the western slopes and plains, it was the accompanying changes in transport and storage infrastructure that played a major role in this development. In the early years of poorly developed transport routes, local markets flourished and flour mills mushroomed. With the improvements in transport infrastructure, however, a local monopoly situation gave way to competition from elswhere and the local wheat landscape faded away in favour of other activities which had a local comparative advantage. This is the story of the Northern Tablelands, where improved rail access and its extension to the north-west, led to the local demise of the wheat and flour industry and its growth in the north-west. Globalisation, coupled with the deregulation of the State owned rail network and wheat marketing arrangements in recent years has led to dramatic ramifications for the wheat landscape in northern NSW. The problems faced by Australian Wheat Board (AWB) single desk export marketing following the Iraq scandal and the deregulation of domestic wheat marketing arrangements has led to changes in the grain supply chain. With the growth of feedlots and the potential growth in the biofuel industry, there has been a decline in the use of rail and its associated line-side silos in favour of on-farm storage and road transport. These changes have had flow-on effects for the local communities established as centres servicing the surrounding district and forming an integral part of the wheat landscape. The growth in on-farm storage and increasing use of road transport has seen the demise of both the railnet serving the communities and the line-side silos that have served as icons of the wheat landscape. The impacts of the closure of the grain line and silo infrastructure on these service communities have been enormous while the impacts on the farming enterprises have resulted in adaptation to these altered conditions and to sweeping changes to the rural landscape

Reduction of Blast Fishing in Tanzania: Analysis of Outcomes and Deterrence Measures

Blast fishing (known variously as dynamite and bomb fishing) has caused long-term damage to reefs and coastal livelihoods in Tanzania and across the globe for decades. Blasting reefs with explosives has provided fish for commercial and consumption purposes, but the practice has also led to large-scale destruction of coral reef ecosystems by reducing the populations of coral colonies and reef species. In 2015 and 2016, a Tanzanian government campaign against blasting was initiated along the entire coastline. Subsequently, a significant and near uniform reduction in blasting was observed. The aim of my study was to: (1) assess the current global status of blast fishing, and to elucidate broad causes, implications and solutions to the problem; (2) analyse causal factors underlying involvement in blast fishing and reduction of the activity in Tanzania; and (3) assess how Tanzania’s coastline communities and their fish stocks have been affected by the reduction of blast fishing. My literature review analysed 212 papers from seven databases and found that ineffective enforcement and governance structures drive blasting; socioeconomic causes may contribute but are not dominant. A combination of deterrence measures and co-managed marine protected areas (MPAs) emerged as the most effective solution to blasting. I surveyed 98 households and 19 fisher focus groups with 243 fishers in four Tanzanian regions with historically high levels of blast fishing. Survey sites were purposively chosen based on previous records of blasting activity, including controls with low blasting histories; respondents were systematically selected. My primary data show that the profitability of blasting is its primary cause. The government campaign against blasting is regarded by the majority of respondents as the primary cause of the reduction. Fish catches are widely reported as having increased following the campaign. These data support the literature review as well as previous studies conducted in the region. Further research incorporating geographic and market factors will deepen understanding of destructive fishing in developing coastal fisheries

Do Co-Ethnic Neighbourhoods Affect the Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrants? Longitudinal Evidence from Australia

Unlike the situation in other immigrant-receiving countries, the impact of co-ethnic neighbourhoods on immigrants' life outcomes has been understudied in Australia. In addition, because of reliance on cross-sectional and sample survey data, existing Australian studies have not taken advantage of recent methodological progress that addresses selection bias. In that context, this paper estimates the impact of the size of co-ethnic neighbourhoods on labour force participation, employment, hours worked and income of immigrants using microdata from the 2006-16 Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset that spans three censuses. Drawing on this unique dataset, the paper applies a series of OLS regression models that address issues of individual and location sorting by applying individual-fixed effects, controlling for residential mobility, duration of residence and using an exogenous measure of co-ethnic neighbourhood size. We find a small significant negative effect on labour participation and wage, particularly for the non-tertiary educated and immigrants with low English proficiency. However, when we control for residential mobility, residence in co-ethnic neighbourhoods is no longer statistically significant, which highlights the importance of stringent methodological choices that control for settlement trajectories, while revealing that movement toward smaller co-ethnic neighbourhoods is associated with increased labour force participation. Our findings suggest that efforts by the Australian government to settle immigrants in regional areas with a limited migrant population should not affect the labour market outcomes of immigrants given that ethnic enclaves do not facilitate labour market integration in Australia

Assembly of high nuclearity clusters from a family of tripodal tris-carboxylate ligands

A family of four tris-carboxylic acid ligands 1,3,5-tris(4′-carboxybiphenyl-2-yl)benzene (H3L1), 1,3,5-tris-2-carboxyphenylbenzene (H3L2), 1,3,5-tris(4″-carboxy-para-terphenyl-2-yl)benzene (H3L3) and 1,3,5-tris(3′-carboxybiphenyl-2-yl)benzene (H3L4) have been synthesised and reacted with first row transition metal cations to give nine complexes which have been structurally characterised by X-ray crystallography. The ligands share a common design motif having three arms connected to a benzene core via three ortho-disubstituted phenyl linkers. The ligands vary in length and direction of the carboxylic acid functionalised arms and are all able to adopt tripodal conformations in which the three arms are directed facially. The structures of [Zn8(μ4-O)(L1)4(HCO2)2(H2O)0.33(DMF)2] (1a-Zn), [Co14(L2)6((μ3-OH)8(HCO2)2(DMF)4(H2O)6] (2-Co), [Ni14(L2)6(μ3-OH)8(HCO2)2(DMF)4(H2O)6] (2-Ni), [Zn8(μ4-O)(L3)4(DMF)(H2O)4(NO3)2] (3-Zn), [Ni5(μ-OH)4(L2)2(H2O)6(DMF)4] (5-Ni), [Co8(μ4-O)4(L4)4(DMF)3(H2O)] (6-Co) and Fe3(μ3-O)(L4)2(H2O)(DMF)2)] (7-Fe) contain polynuclear clusters surrounded by ligands (L1–4)3− in tripodal conformations. The structure of [Zn2(HL1)2(DMF)4] (1b-Zn) shows it to be a binuclear complex in which the two ligands (HL2)2− are partially deprotonated whilst {[Zn3(L2)2(DMF)(H2O)(C5H5N)]·6(DMF)}n (4-Zn) is a 2D coordination network containing {Zn2(RCO2)4(solv)2} paddlewheel units. The conformations of the ligand arms in the complexes have been analysed, confirming that the shared ortho-disubstituted phenyl ring motif is a powerful and versatile tool for designing ligands able to form high-nuclearity coordination clusters when reacted with transition metal cations

Photophysics and electrochemistry of a platinum-acetylide disubstituted perylenediimide

The synthesis and photophysical study of a perylene diimide (PDI) functionalised with platinum acetylide units of the type, trans{–C[triple bond, length as m-dash]C–Pt(PBu3)2–C[triple bond, length as m-dash]C–Ph} and comparison with a phenylacetylide substituted model compound are reported. The model compound demonstrates typical perylene absorption and photoluminescence spectra characteristic of singlet excited state formation and decay. The Pt-substitution, however, appears to induce spin–orbit coupling into the chromophore and giving rise to a triplet excited state which was confirmed by transient absorption measurements. This excited state is quenched by oxygen, leading to the formation of singlet oxygen in dichloromethane, recorded by time-resolved near-infrared luminescence measurements

Selective photoinduced charge separation in perylenediimide-pillar[5]arene rotaxanes

The ability to control photoinduced charge transfer within molecules represents a major challenge requiring precise control of the relative positioning and orientation of donor and acceptor groups. Here we show that such photoinduced charge transfer processes within homo- and hetero-rotaxanes can be controlled through organisation of the components of the mechanically interlocked molecules, introducing alternative pathways for electron donation. Specifically, studies of two rotaxanes are described: a homo[3]rotaxane, built from a perylenediimide diimidazolium rod that threads two pillar[5]arene macrocycles, and a hetero[4]rotaxane in which an additional bis(1,5-naphtho)-38-crown-10 (BN38C10) macrocycle encircles the central perylenediimide. The two rotaxanes are characterised by a combination of techniques including electron diffraction crystallography in the case of the hetero[4]rotaxane. Cyclic voltammetry, spectroelectrochemistry, and EPR spectroscopy areemployed to establish the behaviour of the redox states of both rotaxanes and these data are used to inform photophysical studies using time-resolved infra-red (TRIR) and transient absorption (TA) spectroscopies. The latter studies illustrate the formation of a symmetrybreaking charge-separated state in the case of the homo[3]rotaxane in which charge transfer between the pillar[5]arene and perylenediimide is observed involving only one of the twomacrocyclic components. In the case of the hetero[4]rotaxane charge separation is observed involving only the BN38C10 macrocycle and the perylenediimide leaving the pillar[5]arene components unperturbed

The Little Island That Did: Related Variety, Branding and Place-based Development In South Australia

While the vulnerability of natural resource-dependent rural communities and regions to environmental, technological, and market-based shifts and shocks has long been recognised there has also been recent appreciation of the fact that more remote, non-metropolitan places can and do thrive in neoliberal spaces and times. Drawing on the notion of related variety, itself an offshoot of evolutionary economic geography, this paper examines the factors that best explain the relative robustness and adaptiveness of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, economically, in the face of a severe market and regulatory crisis. Based on semi-structured interviews with local farmers, other representatives of the local business community, and key members of local and State Government and regional development agencies this paper argues that Island producers' dedication to overcome the region's isolation, together with their commitment to quality, niche and value-added products carefully tuned to export markets, has been a key element of this success. Local spillovers within and between sectors and firms sharing cognitive proximity have also been fundamental in fostering production, processing, marketing, and logistics innovations. This case study demonstrates how the local farming sector was brought into a new direct relation with major international markets for food and fibre, based on the Island's developing global reputation for high quality, high value produce. It underscores the capacity of local scale businesses to develop innovative market strategies and to combine efforts in order to form broader networks that 'jumped scale' and ensured their farming business success and, crucially, their ties to the land