Another brick in the wall:responses of the State to workplace fatalities in the New South Wales construction industry

The construction industry is characterised by complex contracting and sub-contracting arrangements, relatively short-term working phases and high levels of occupational injury and death. This thesis examined judgements brought by the New South Wales WorkCover Authority under the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Acts 1983 and 2000 for offences in regard to workplace fatalities, and which were heard in the Industrial Court of New South Wales from 1988-2008. It demonstrated that penalties were low, representing approximately 18 per cent of the maximum penalty allowable. This figure is commensurate with other research on penalties for workplace death, and the thesis reflects on procedures of judicial sentencing and if the de-contextualising of workplace crime in the court process and in the wider community acts to result in punishments that are questionable as deterrent measures. The thesis considers these questions through the lens of a broad political economy, addressing the social construction of penalties through the perspective of judicial rules and norms, regulatory policies, state legislation and ideological constructions about workplace health and safety offences as essentially non-criminal events

Post-Modernism, as Decadence On Aesthetics and the Philosophy of History

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The idea of historical recurrence in Western thought : from antiquity to the Reformation

Even today it is commonly held that history repeats itself. The idea of historical recurrence has a long and intriguing history, and this thesis concerns the period of time in the western tradition when its expressions were most numerous and fervent. As we shall show, this idea is not to be confined to its cyclical variety, for it also entails such notions as re-enactment, retribution, renaissance and such like which belong under the wider umbrella of 'recurrence'. Moreover, it will be argued that not only the Graeco-Raman but also the biblical tradition contributed to the history of this idea. The old contrast between JudeaChristian linear views of history and Graeoo-Roman cyclical views will be seriously questioned. Beginning from Polybius, we examine the manifold forms of recurrence thinking in Greek and Roman historiography, but then turn our attention to biblical pictures of historical change, arguing that in the work of Luke-Acts and in earlier Jewish writings there was clearly an interest in the idea of history repeating itself. Jewish and early Christian writers initiated and foreshadowed an extensive synthesizing of recurrence notions and models from both traditions, although the synthesis could vary in accordance with different contexts and dogmatic considerations. In the Renaissance and Reformation the interrelationship between classical and biblical notions of recurrence reached a point of consummation, yet even in the sixteenth century some ideas distinctive to both traditions, such as the Polybian conception of a 'cycle of governments' and the biblical notion of the 're-enactment of significant events', were revived in stark separation from each other. We find ourselves dealing with a continuing, but not always fruitful 'dialogue' between the two great traditions of western thought, a dialogue which did not stop short in the days of Machiavelli, but which has been carried on to the present day. In all, this study represents the first half of a long story which I intend to continue in a work on the idea of historical recurrence from Giambattista Vico to Arnold Toynbee

Farmer Adoption; Ten Years of Productive Pasture Systems in Southern Australia

n Southern Australian sheep and beef farmers have been slow to adopt technology related to grazing management and pasture utilisation despite clear evidence of a strong link between utilisation (stock per ha) and profitability. Between 1971-95, the average stocking rate on farms was 10-12 dry sheep equivalent per hectare (dse/ha) (Anon 2004). Results from the Hamilton Long-term Phosphate Experiment (Cayley et al., 2002) show higher pasture production, herbage digestibility, stocking rates and profitability as phosphorus fertiliser applications increase. In 1993, the Grassland Productivity Program (GPP) started in the winter rainfall areas of southern Australia (Trompf & Sale 2000), initiated by the Grassland Society of Southern Australia, funded by the wool industry. In brief, groups of 4-6 farmers were assisted by experienced advisors to compare current management practice in one paddock with productive pasture technology (PPT) in an adjacent paddock. PPT consisted of appropriate fertiliser application; pasture manipulation to balance grass and legume content and higher stocking rates to ensure utilisation of the herbage grown. Over 300 farmers participated in GPP between 1993-2003. This paper reports the impact on the grazing industry 10 years after PPT was introduced