Is monitoring implementation the key to preventing repeated workplace corruption?

Survey results published in 2009 by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of New South Wales reported that most public sector organisations in its jurisdiction have established integrity policies and procedures – or ‘organisational integrity systems’ (ICAC 2009). Despite this, many of the public inquiries conducted by the ICAC that find corrupt conduct often also find a failure to implement or enforce existing anti-corruption mechanisms in agencies. More recently an ICAC inquiry reported that similar patterns of repeated corrupt conduct had been pervasive in one government agency since the early 1990s despite being prohibited by organisational policy (ICAC 2008). These findings are also consistent with the anecdotal experience of integrity practitioners that public sector agencies are experiencing repeated workplace corruption despite the presence of apparently adequate organisational integrity systems. When workplace corruption is exposed, it may be professionally investigated and reforms to address the problems proposed and attempted, yet the same or similar workplace corruption reoccurs. As Barber suggests, ensuring successful delivery requires a “long grind” of “steady, persistent implementation” and “gentle pressure, relentlessly applied” (Barber 2008:112 and 119).This paper examines cases of low-level non-compliance in a municipal waste collection services and a state owned railway to identify some of the factors that could be contributing to reoccurring workplace corruption. The analysis suggests that a major factor in repeated workplace corruption is the failure to monitor and implement reforms recommended by investigations and existing organisational integrity systems

First-Principles Calculation of Electric Field Gradients and Hyperfine Couplings in YBa2Cu3O7

The local electronic structure of YBa2Cu3O7 has been calculated using first-principles cluster methods. Several clusters embedded in an appropriate background potential have been investigated. The electric field gradients at the copper and oxygen sites are determined and compared to previous theoretical calculations and experiments. Spin polarized calculations with different spin multiplicities have enabled a detailed study of the spin density distribution to be made and a simultaneous determination of magnetic hyperfine coupling parameters. The contributions from on-site and transferred hyperfine fields have been disentangled with the conclusion that the transferred spin densities essentially are due to nearest neighbour copper ions only with marginal influence of ions further away. This implies that the variant temperature dependencies of the planar copper and oxygen NMR spin-lattice relaxation rates are only compatible with commensurate antiferromagnetic correlations. The theoretical hyperfine parameters are compared with those derived from experimental data.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, accepted to appear in EPJ

Planar Cu and O hole densities in high-Tc cuprates determined with NMR

The electric hyperfine interaction observable in atomic spectroscopy for O and Cu ions in various configurations is used to analyze the quadrupole splitting of O and Cu nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in La2-xSrxCuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6+y and to determine the hole densities at both sites as a function of doping. It is found that in La2-xSrxCuO4 all doped holes (x) reside in the Cu-O plane but almost exclusively at O. For YBa2Cu3O6+y and y<0.6 doped holes are found at planar Cu as well as O. For y>0.6 further doping increases the hole content only for planar O. The phase diagram based on NMR data is presented. Further implications from the Cu A and B site in La2-xSrxCuO4 and the two planar O sites in YBa2Cu3O6+y and consequences for the phase diagram are discussed.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, 2 appendice

National interest, good international citizenship and Labor&#039;s foreign policy

On 31 May, the&nbsp;Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development, the Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, spoke at the Lowy Institute on how Australia can be a better international citizen

Australia&#039;s social inclusion heritage – past, present, future

Tanya Plibersek outlines Australian egalitarian values and how they have been and continue to be translated into government, economic and social policy

Number of homeless single women set to rise

A new report out today predicts that homelessness among single women aged over 35 is set to escalate in the next 20 years. The 'Going It Alone' report, prepared by a Victorian homeless service, says support services often turn these women away because they're considered a low-risk group even if they're living below the poverty line. The report's author estimates 30,000 women on the east coast are living under this type of housing stress

Views and practices of induced abortion among Australian Fellows and trainees of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: A second study

Objectives: Knowledge of current practices of abortion is important for planning of health services in Australia and for future training. Aims: To conduct an online survey of the Fellows and specialist trainees of RANZCOG regarding their views and practices of induced abortion and compare these with results of a similar study from 2010. Methods and Materials: A questionnaire was distributed to Australian Fellows and specialist trainees. Data collected were descriptively analysed and thematic analysis used for free comments. Results: Approximately 25% of those emailed responded (632 of 2542); 13.7% reported total opposition to abortion on religious or conscientious grounds; the remainder did not. 83.5% believed that abortion should be part of general obstetric and gynaecological practice; 90% believed that education about abortion should be part of the curriculum for RANZCOG trainees. 92% supported public hospital provision of abortion services. A range of views was explored using thematic analysis. Discussion: While a majority of Fellows and trainees do not hold religious or conscientious objections to abortion a significant minority do; this has changed little since 2010. Many respondents distinguish between ‘medical’ and ‘social’ indications for abortion although definitions of ‘social’ appear variable. There was strong support for the inclusion of abortion in the Fellowship training curriculum. Conclusion: Although the response rate was lower than for the 2010 survey participants expressed strong support for the provision of abortion services in the public sector in Australia, and for incorporation of information about abortion in the training curriculum for Fellowship of RANZCOG