Undelivered risk: A counter-factual analysis of the biosecurity risk avoided by inspecting international mail articles

International mail articles present an important potential vector for biosecurity and other regulatory risk. Border intervention is a key element in Australia’s biosecurity strategy. Arriving international mail articles are inspected and those that are intercepted with biosecurity risk material are documented, including the address to which the article was to be delivered. Knowledge about patterns in the intended destinations of mail article permits more detailed biosecurity intervention. We used geo-location software to identify the delivery address of mail articles intercepted with biosecurity risk material from 2008–2011. We matched these addresses with demographic data that were recorded at a regional level from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 Census and used random forest statistical analyses to correlate various demographic fields at the regional level with the counts of seized mail articles. The analysis of the seizure counts against demographic characteristics suggests a high correlation between having higher numbers of university students that speak a particular language in a region and higher quantities of intercepted mail articles destined for that region. We also explore metropolitan and regional patterns in the destinations of seized materials. These results can be used to provide information on policy and operational actions to try to reduce the rate at which mail articles that contain biosecurity risk material are sent to Australia

Lessons From Slingshot

Slingshot is a self-employment pathways program designed to assist young people who have an interest in running their own businesses to learn relevant skills and to explore the opportunities presented by self-employment. Slingshot\u27s target group of young people aged 18 to 24 years old who might otherwise not have the opportunity to establish their own enterprises included a particular focus on young people facing barriers to education and skills development and to employment. In this report Lois Bedson, Koto Fukushima and Fiona Macdonald document and review what has been learned from the Slingshot program over its three years of operation as a demonstration project established to inform policy and practice in the area of youth employment programs. Specifically, they consider how Slingshot has achieved its objectives, documents the reasons for success and gauges the impact of Slingshot on the experiences and pathways of the young people involved. The paper also considers what could be done differently to increase successes in future programs, suggests appropriate benchmarks and measures of success, and makes recommendations for similar youth enterprise projects in the future. The information, analysis and views presented in this paper are the result of consultations and interviews with key program stakeholders - the young people and mentors, the program manager, the Slingshot committee of management members, and the trainers. The paper is also informed by examination of Slingshot program documentation and other literature, and other relevant literature relating to self-employment and enterprise development programs

Climate risk and industry adaptation-Murray Darling Basin

This report provides findings from four case studies that explored the links between people\u27s climate risk management strategies and their perceptions of climate variability and climate change. The study took place across both irrigated and dryland communities in the Murray-Darling Basin

Sustainability and participation in the governing of water use: the case of water recycling

Urban water recycling has been promoted as one of several ways that water use efficiency could be improved in Australias cities, but few such schemes have been introduced. Many urban water-recycling schemes have been proposed, but often, these projects have been rejected because of community opposition. These difficulties suggest that recycling water is not just about having the right answer to any problem, but about the way in which the question is addressed. It is concerned with how practice is institutionalised; not just the rule making, but also the understandings and values that make the rule-making possible. In this thesis, the question of how the system of water governance could be strengthened to encourage sustainable water use through water recycling is examined. An analysis of experiences in three Australian case studies is conducted, in which recycled water was proposed for sustainability, to illuminate the way in which water use is institutionalised. Particular attention is given to the construction of meaning in relation to water use, by considering how water problems are framed and negotiated by different stakeholders and groups and the significance of the multiplicity of interpretive frameworks in use for the institutionalisation of practice. The analysis draws on institutional organisational theory and interpretive methods, which regard interpretation as one element (cognitive) in the stabilisation of social practice and closely linked to organisation (regulative) and values (normative). The study findings suggest meaning was a very important part of institutional change. Participants tended to construct policy issues as they became involved by drawing on different interpretive frameworks embodying different values and expectations. These interpretations reflected the organisational structuring of practice, such that the position/role in the organisational field reflected an actors interpretation of problems and/or solutions. Outcomes of the study suggest that institutionalising change in water management is problematic and depends on changes in the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of practice, as part of a continuous feedback loop between interpretation and practice. This view of change contrasts with existing research, which tends to see the problem in terms of influencing attitudes of specific groups and assumes preferences precede the action

Revised Indicators of Community Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity Across the Murray-Darling Basin: A Focus on Irrigation in Agriculture

Changes are occurring in rural and regional communities in the Murray-Darling Basin as a result of climate change, water availability, water trading, global markets, population movements and ongoing social change. Impacts of these issues and responses to them by Basin communities will be mediated by their adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability to change. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) commissioned this project to measure the vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity of Basin communities to changes in water availability - due to a range of factors - in order to inform MDBA planning and decision-making. The aim of the project was to increase understanding of community socioeconomic circumstances in the Murray-Darling Basin and to provide a readily accessible metric with which to compare the vulnerability of communities across the Basin. A set of measures of community vulnerability to changes in water availability was developed, drawing on and adapting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework (Allen Consulting 2005). Composite indices were derived to spatially examine differences across regions and communities and these were mapped for the Basin. The project reports on community vulnerability in two ways. First, community vulnerability before exposure to any water policy intervention (community vulnerability 'before exposure'); and second, exposure to a 2800 gigalitre sustainable diversion limit (SDL) water recovery scenario assuming 2005-06 commodity prices (community vulnerability 'after exposure')