The Attorney-General’s suggested changes to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975

The paper examines the legal implications of the four proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 suggested by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. Executive summary The paper examines the legal implications of changes to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (the RDA) suggested by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. It does not investigate the policy issues which have been the subject of general discussion, such as the impact of the changes on reconciliation, the proposed constitutional changes or the Close the Gap project, nor does it explore the relative benefits of ensuring more forms of free speech. These issues have been examined extensively elsewhere. There are four changes made by Senator Brandis’ proposed amendments and these are examined in some depth. Of primary significance is the extension of the pre-existing ‘free-speech’ provision, which currently provides that relevant speech acts done ‘reasonably and in good faith’ are not regulated under the RDA.  The proposed extension would protect a very much broader range of public speech, including speech which would incite racial hatred.  To fall outside the proposed section’s regulation the communication must simply form part of the ‘public discussion’ in a very broad range of categories (including, for instance, discussion of a ‘political, social or cultural’ matter). Next, there is the narrowed definition of vilification and intimidation. The requirement that intimidation involve a fear of physical violence would duplicate existing criminal law and tort law provisions. The forms of abuse that would be regulated under the proposed vilification provisions are limited. The examination of these provisions includes an exploration of the nature of race-based insults, which evoke or endorse a significant history of discrimination and prejudice—the difference between such insults and the ‘garden‑variety’ of insults which lack this racial patina is explored. The other two changes are more technical, involving a change to the definition of who sets the standard of a ‘reasonable’ response to racial abuse—the proposed changes would require the judges to cease their current practice of taking race into account when determining what ‘reasonably’ constitutes a breach of the RDA. Finally there is a proposal to delete the section of the Act which recognises that, in determining whether an act is racially motivated, race may be established as simply one of a range of motivations. With this current provision deleted the new section would thus require race to be proved as a more central element of any breach of the Act’s racial vilification provisions. The paper concludes with a brief examination of the interplay between defamation law and the regulation of speech under the RDA. Both are part of a variety of regulatory mechanisms governing speech acts, and both regulate speech which can cause damage, but their history, rationale and processes are different

Dangerous Ideas: Women’s Liberation – Women’s Studies – Around the World

Dangerous Ideas explores sex and love, politics and performance, joy and anguish in a collection of essays focussed on the history and politics of the Women’s Liberation Movement and one of its offshoots, Women’s Studies, in Australia and around the world. These are serious matters: they are about tectonic changes in people’s lives and ideas in the late twentieth century, too little remembered or understood any longer. ‘Feminism’, this book suggests, ‘is always multiple and various, fluid and changing, defying efforts at definition, characterisation, periodisation’. Nevertheless, Dangerous Ideas tackles some hard questions. How did Women’s Liberation begin? What held this transformative movement together? Would it bring about the death of the family? Was it reorganising the labour market? Revolutionising human reproduction? How could Women’s Studies exist in patriarchal universities? Could feminism change the paradigms governing the world of learning? In the United States? In Russia? In the People’s Republic of China? It is great fun, too. This book tells of Hobart’s hilarious Feminist Food Guide; of an outburst of creative energies among feminists – women on top, behaving badly; of dreams and desires for an entirely different future. And, always unorthodox: it finds hope and cheer in a history of the tampon

Grape-vine Yellows - Aetiology, Epidemiology and Diagnosis

Grape-vine Yellows comprise diseases with the same symptoms as Flavescence Doree (FD), a disease severe in Southern France and Italy, and caused by a procaryote. Other members include Bois Noir, Goldgelbe Vergilbung, and Australian Grape-vine Yellows. Yellows diseases have been observed in Europe, Australia, Israel, U.S.A. and Chile. Symptoms include yellow leaves which curl downward, and fall prematurely. Shoots are stunted and remain unlignified, and bunches shrivel and fall at flowering. Baco 22A, Jurancon blanc, Riesling and Chardonnay, are among the most susceptible cultivars. Scaphoideus titanus, the lealbopper vector of FD, is controlled by insecticides and loss from FD is now minimal. The other yellows diseases are of lesser importance and their aetiology is unresolved. Further investigation is needed to clarify the taxonomy of Grape-vine Yellows but the current diagnosis of yellows diseases of grape-vine is dependent on symptoms and at least one of several other features

Toddlers' food preferences: The impact of novel food exposure, maternal preferences and food neophobia

Food preferences have been identified as a key determinant of children’s food acceptance and consumption. The aim of this study was to identify factors that influence children’s liking for fruits, vegetables and non-core foods. Participants were Australian mothers (median age at delivery=31 years, 18-46 years) and their two-year-old children (M=25 months, SD=1 month; 52% female) allocated to the control group (N=230) of the NOURISH RCT. The effects of repeated exposure to new foods, maternal food preferences and child food neophobia on toddlers’ liking of vegetables, fruits and non-core foods and the proportion never tried were examined via hierarchical regression models; adjusting for key maternal (age, BMI, education) and child covariates (birth weight Z-score, gender), duration of breastfeeding and age of introduction to solids. Maternal preferences corresponded with child preferences. Food neophobia among toddlers was associated with liking fewer vegetables and fruits, and trying fewer vegetables. Number of repeated exposures to new food was not significantly associated with food liking at this age. Results highlight the need to: (i) encourage parents to offer a wide range of foods, regardless of their own food preferences, and (ii) provide parents with guidance on managing food neophobia

Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis in quantitative pest risk assessments : practical rules for risk assessors

Quantitative models have several advantages compared to qualitative methods for pest risk assessments (PRA). Quantitative models do not require the definition of categorical ratings and can be used to compute numerical probabilities of entry and establishment, and to quantify spread and impact. These models are powerful tools, but they include several sources of uncertainty that need to be taken into account by risk assessors and communicated to decision makers. Uncertainty analysis (UA) and sensitivity analysis (SA) are useful for analyzing uncertainty in models used in PRA, and are becoming more popular. However, these techniques should be applied with caution because several factors may influence their results. In this paper, a brief overview of methods of UA and SA are given. As well, a series of practical rules are defined that can be followed by risk assessors to improve the reliability of UA and SA results. These rules are illustrated in a case study based on the infection model of Magarey et al. (2005) where the results of UA and SA are shown to be highly dependent on the assumptions made on the probability distribution of the model inputs

Understanding trade pathways to target biosecurity surveillance

Increasing trends in global trade make it extremely difficult to prevent the entry of all potential invasive species (IS). Establishing early detection strategies thus becomes an important part of the continuum used to reduce the introduction of invasive species. One part necessary to ensure the success of these strategies is the determination of priority survey areas based on invasion pressure. We used a pathway-centred conceptual model of pest invasion to address these questions: what role does global trade play in invasion pressure of plant ecosystems and how could an understanding of this role be used to enhance early detection strategies? We concluded that the relative level of invasion pressure for destination ecosystems can be influenced by the intensity of pathway usage (import volume and frequency), the number and type of pathways with a similar destination, and the number of different ecological regions that serve as the source for imports to the same destination. As these factors increase, pressure typically intensifies because of increasing a) propagule pressure, b) likelihood of transporting pests with higher intrinsic invasion potential, and c) likelihood of transporting pests into ecosystems with higher invasibility. We used maritime containerized imports of live plants into the contiguous U.S. as a case study to illustrate the practical implications of the model to determine hotspot areas of relative invasion pressure for agricultural and forest ecosystems (two ecosystems with high potential invasibility). Our results illustrated the importance of how a pathway-centred model could be used to highlight potential target areas for early detection strategies for IS. Many of the hotspots in agricultural and forest ecosystems were within major U.S. metropolitan areas. Invasion ecologists can utilize pathway-centred conceptual models to a) better understand the role of human-mediated pathways in pest establishment, b) enhance current methodologies for IS risk analysis, and c) develop strategies for IS early detection-rapid response programs

Genital mutilation: a health and human rights issue

The practice of female genital cutting and mutilation is continuing to wreak havok on the health of women in countries all over the world. It is estimated that in Africa alone, 75 million women have been genitally mutilated in some manner. The Inter-African Committee on traditional practices affecting the Health of Women and Children (the lAC) is campaigning to eradicate these practices and the campaign is gathering momentum. In 1989, the report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women included a call for information campaigns to promote eradication of the practice of female circumcision. A lack of cultural sensitivity on the part of some Western individuals and organisations has been a contributing factor to the difficulties faced by the lAC. While the history of Western involvements in the area has not always been productive, there are now opportunities for Western individuals and organisations to support African women who are campaigning against the practice

Recruiting and engaging new mothers in nutrition research studies: lessons from the Australian NOURISH randomised controlled trial

Background: Despite important implications for the budgets, statistical power and generalisability of research findings, detailed reports of recruitment and retention in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are rare. The NOURISH RCT evaluated a community-based intervention for first-time mothers that promoted protective infant feeding practices as a primary prevention strategy for childhood obesity. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed description and evaluation of the recruitment and retention strategies used. Methods: A two stage recruitment process designed to provide a consecutive sampling framework was used. First time mothers delivering healthy term infants were initially approached in postnatal wards of the major maternity services in two Australian cities for consent to later contact (Stage 1). When infants were about four months old mothers were re-contacted by mail for enrolment (Stage 2), baseline measurements (Time 1) and subsequent random allocation to the intervention or control condition. Outcomes were assessed at infant ages 14 months (Time 2) and 24 months (Time 3). Results: At Stage 1, 86% of eligible mothers were approached and of these women, 76% consented to later contact. At Stage 2, 3% had become ineligible and 76% could be recontacted. Of the latter, 44% consented to full enrolment and were allocated. This represented 21% of mothers screened as eligible at Stage 1. Retention at Time 3 was 78%. Mothers who did not consent or discontinued the study were younger and less likely to have a university education. Conclusions: The consent and retention rates of our sample of first time mothers are comparable with or better than other similar studies. The recruitment strategy used allowed for detailed information from non-consenters to be collected; thus selection bias could be estimated. Recommendations for future studies include being able to contact participants via mobile phone (particular text messaging), offering home visits to reduce participant burden and considering the use of financial incentives to support participant retention

The Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy of Australia position on pre-manipulative testing for the cervical spine

The MPA undertook a survey of its members in 1997 to determine their compliance with and opinion of the APA Protocol for Pre-Manipulative Testing of the Cervical Spine (Magarey et al 2000a, Magarey et al submitted-a). As a result of that survey and a comprehensive literature review, the MPA developed a new set of guidelines for premanipulative procedures for the cervical spine (Magarey et al 2000b, Magarey et al submitted-b)