Educational Provision for Refugee Youth in Australia: Left to Chance?

This paper investigates how education bureaucracies in Australia are using languages of categorisation and promoting community partnerships to construct and govern the refugee subject. We use a framework of governmentality to analyse education policies and statements emerging from two levels of government - Commonwealth and State. Drawing on web-based materials, policy statements and accounts of parliamentary debates, the paper documents the ways in which refugee education continues to be subsumed within broader education policies and programmes concerned with social justice, multiculturalism, and English language provision. Such categorisations are premised on an undifferentiated ethnoscape that ignores the significantly different learning needs and sociocultural adjustments faced by refugee students compared with migrants and international students. At the same time, educational programmes of inclusion that are concerned with utilising community organisations to deliver services and enhance their participation, point to the emergence of 'government through community partnerships'; a mode of governance increasingly associated with advanced liberal societies

Project bank accounts: the second wave of security of payment?

Project bank accounts: the second wave of security of payment

Urban water mass balance analysis

Planning for “water-sensitive” cities has become a priority for sustainable urban development in Australia. There has been little quantification of the term, however. Furthermore, the water balance of most cities is not well known. Following prolonged drought, there has also been a growing need to make Australian cities more water self-reliant: to source water from within. This article formalizes a systematic mass-balance framework to quantify all anthropogenic and natural flows into and out of the urban environment. Quantitative performance indicators are derived, including (1) degree of system centralization; (2) overall balance; potential of (3) rainfall, (4) stormwater, and (5) wastewater to offset current demand; and (6) water cycle rate. Using the method, we evaluate Sydney, Melbourne, South East Queensland and Perth using reported and modeled data. The approach makes visible large flows of water that have previously been unaccounted and ignored. It also highlights significant intercity variation. In 2004–2005, the cities varied 54% to 100% in their supply centralization, 257% to 397% in the ratio of rainfall and water use, 47% to 104% in their potential stormwater recycling potential, and 26% to 86% in wastewater recycling potential. The approach provides a practical, water-focused application of the urban metabolism framework. It demonstrates how the principles of mass balance can help foster robust water accounting, monitoring, and management. More important, it contributes to the design and quantitative assessment of water-sensitive cities of the future

The Role of Internal Audit in Australian Local Government Governance: A Step in The Right Direction

While the functions of local government are many and varied, the primary role is to provide effective performance which arguably will coincide with good governance for its municipality. Internal audit and relevant controls play a key role in ensuring that good governance. The introduction of accrual accounting in local government certainly has added complexity and additional risks, with cases of fraud, corruption and high risk investments in several Australian local councils being reported periodically by the media. Those cases have been accompanied by proposed governance reforms including the introduction of an internal audit function to address the issues raised. Although seen as an essential part of the governance process, the results here suggest there is still some confusion as to the role of the internal audit and its perceived effectiveness in Australian local government