Hasty changes to the machinery of government can disrupt departments for up to two years

Prime Ministers who are new in government or who are facing difficulties, often reorganize Whitehall as a way of demonstrating impact. Yet Anne White and Patrick Dunleavy show that this approach often has substantial costs, which are particularly hard to bear in the current climate of budget austerity

The competing influences of deluge and drought in Queensland’s dry tropics

During the flooding of Townsville in January and February 2019, around two meters of rain fell within the Ross River catchment over fourteen days. The monumental deluge and subsequent catastrophic flooding gained international media attention after many homes were left uninhabitable and parts of the city became an urban archipelago. Amid the chaos of flooding, there was a familiar sense of civic relief as the rain replenished the city’s dwindling water supply. Since colonial settlement, local governments have battled to secure reliable supplies of water, yet Townsville has endured at least a twenty significant flooding events. This paper explores Townsville’s 150-year struggle against environmental reality

What if the Burdekin was never bridged?

The banks of the flood-prone Burdekin River were connected by modern infrastructure in 1957. The opening of a massive steel bridge over the river was a major milestone in the development of northern Australia. Recognised as one of the nation's engineering marvels, the high-level steel bridge transformed the connection between northeast Queensland and the rest of the Australian nation south of the flood prone river. Yet what if the construction project had failed? The following counterfactual history explores one possible consequence, which has implications for the entire Australian nation

Archive noir

"Arriving back in my room I reflected on the old pub and all the humanity it had been host to. Jubilance, comradery, prejudice, division, sadness, conflict, hatred and now an outsider seeking answers." This creative non-fiction joins a researcher's dramatic pursuit of long-lost evidence

Northern promise: North Queensland and the politics of northern development, from 1939 to 1969

Patrick White studied the political history of northern development in Australia. With a focus on north Queensland’s local governments, this research revealed discord between local and national visions of northern development. The thesis demonstrated how local councils influenced federal policy and development in the Australian tropics between 1939 and 1969

Symbiotic Suppression: How Digital Authoritarianism Helps Facilitate Physical Repression in Indian Controlled Kashmir

Within the scholarship of authoritarianism, there is a growing assumption that as a regime’s access to digital means of repression increases, use of violence and other forms of physical state repression will be replaced and decrease. However, since India’s revocation of Kashmir’s special semi-autonomous status in August 2019, the nature of the ensuing crackdown has suggested that this understanding of modern repression may be incomplete—especially in light of India’s extensive use of the digital tactics that purportedly facilitate this transition. Through examining a broad collection of Kashmiri activist, survivor, journalist, and NGO accounts since August 5, 2019, this thesis contends that digital authoritarianism and physical repression can actually thrive symbiotically—offering substantial dividends for the regime at the expense of the civilian dissent. In particular, these findings highlight the need for future research to continue studying the development of “symbiotic” situations like Kashmir, as well as to begin identifying the ways in which international players can leverage change in this evolving realm of repression

An Experimental Analysis of Firefighter Protective Clothing: The Influences of Moisture and a Thermally Activated Expanding Air-Gap

Thermally protective clothing garments are necessary pieces of equipment that ensure the life safety of firefighters. In this analysis, material samples of such garments are tested experimentally with and without the presence of both moisture and a thermally activated, expanding air-gap. Moisture is delivered to samples via a porous baseplate with an integral fluid supply system, simulating perspiration. Operation of the expanding air-gap is controlled by a custom-designed assembly of shape-memory rings, which undergo a shape transformation over a predetermined temperature range. Samples with varying characteristic layers and arrangements are subjected to a controlled thermal exposure. The performances of tested samples are evaluated based on normalized temperature parameters. Assembly characteristics offering the greatest protective performance are then established. Results suggest that limiting moisture absorption in the thermal liner of a garment and implementing air-gaps of increasing thickness improve the protective performance of firefighter protective clothing