Heat, health, and humidity in Australia's monsoon tropics: a critical review of the problematization of 'heat' in a changing climate

Exposure to heat has killed more people in Australia than all other natural hazards combined. As the climate warms, temperatures are projected to rise substantially, increasing the impact of heat stress and heat illness nation-wide. The relation between heat and health is profoundly complex, however, and is understood differently across multiple sectors. This paper thus provides a critical review of how heat is currently measured and managed in Australia, highlighting how humidity, exposure, and exertion are key elements that are not consistently incorporated into 'problematizations' of heat. The presence or absence of these elements produces different spatial and temporal geographies of danger, as well as different governance practices. In particular, the invisibility of humidity as having a significant impact on heat and health shapes whether Australia's tropical monsoon zone is visible as a region at risk or not, and whether prolonged periods of seasonal heat are treated as dangerous. Similarly, different populations and practices become visible depending on whether the human body (its exposure, exertion, cooling, and hydration) is included in accounts of what constitutes 'heat.' As a result, the outdoor, manual workforce is visible as a population at risk in some accounts but not others. A brief review of key policy areas including housing, public health and work health and safety is presented to demonstrate how specific problematizations of heat are critical to the identification of, and response to, current and future climatic conditions. This has implications for how populations, places, and practices are constituted in the region

Independent public schools: a move to increased autonomy and devolution of decision-making in Western Australian public schools

With the increasing diversity in schools and the call for addressing specific regional needs, decentralized regulation of the education system is often proposed as an alternative approach to achieve school improvement. Researchers have often associated experimentation and risk-taking as key aspects of effective educational leadership while engaging in discussions about authority among local leadership in schools. An Independent Public Schools initiative in Western Australia emerged with the objective to provide for greater autonomy, flexibility, and accountability as a means for improving student achievement over time. Karen Trimmer's article speaks to the uncertain nature of the changes brought into the role of local leadership through the independent, charter, and academy school reform initiatives across the world that propose to deliver efficiency and quality in educational achievement and administration. The study can contribute to evidence-based dialogues around effective, context-specific shifts of authority in education

The investment approach to public service provision

The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers

Relationship between construction firm strategies and innovation outcomes

Survey results provide a preliminary assessment of the relative contribution of a range of tactical business strategies to innovation performance by firms in the Australian construction industry. Over 1,300 firms were surveyed in 2004, resulting in a response rate of 29%. Respondents were classified as high, medium or low innovators according to an innovation index based on the novelty and impact of their innovations and their adoption of listed technological and organizational advances. The relative significance of 23 business strategies concerning (1) employees, (2) marketing, (3) technology, (4) knowledge and (5) relationships was examined by determining the extent to which they distinguished high innovators from low innovators. The individual business strategies that most strongly distinguished high innovators were (1) ‘investing in R&D’, (2) ‘participating in partnering and alliances on projects’, (3) ‘ensuring project learnings are transferred into continuous business processes’, (4) ‘monitoring international best practice’, and (5) ‘recruiting new graduates’. Of the five types of strategies assessed, marketing strategies were the least significant in supporting innovation. The results provide practical guidance to managers in project-based industries wishing to improve their innovation performance