Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Reform in Australia and the Dilemmas of Power

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-149
Author(s):  
Lauren Butterly ◽  
Lucas Lixinski

AbstractThe last decade or so has seen a fundamental shift in Aboriginal cultural heritage law in Australia. A number of subnational jurisdictions in Australia have undergone major reforms to their Aboriginal heritage legislation. Other subnational jurisdictions are currently in the reform process or have promised reform in coming years. We use the latest (and, at the time of writing, ongoing) process to reform Aboriginal heritage legislation in the state of New South Wales (NSW) to explore some of the legal issues and themes emanating from the Australian experience. The NSW example is a useful case study for thinking about how minority heritage regulation can not only serve broader social movements but also undercut some of its own possibilities. We argue that even law that is ostensibly in place to promote the control of communities over their own heritage can cause difficult balancing acts that may default to a dependency path and effectively detract from its own projected goals.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 237437352199862
Author(s):  
Tara Dimopoulos-Bick ◽  
Louisa Walsh ◽  
Kim Sutherland

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect health care systems globally, and there is widespread concern about the indirect impacts of COVID-19. Indirect impacts are caused by missed or delayed health care—not as a direct consequence of COVID-19 infections. This study gathered experiences of, and perspectives on, the indirect impacts of COVID-19 for health consumers, patients, their families and carers, and the broader community in New South Wales, Australia. A series of semi-structured virtual group discussions were conducted with 33 health consumers and community members between August 24 and August 31, 2020. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. The analysis identified 3 main themes: poor health outcomes for individuals; problems with how health care is designed and delivered; and increasing health inequality. This case study provides insight into the indirect impacts of COVID-19. Health systems can draw on the insights learned as a source of experiential evidence to help identify, monitor and respond to the indirect impacts of COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-55
Author(s):  
Amy Thomas ◽  
Beth Marsden

In Australia, Aboriginal peoples have sought to exploit and challenge settler colonial schooling to meet their own goals and needs, engaging in strategic, diverse and creative ways closely tied to labour markets and the labour movement. Here, we bring together two case studies to illustrate the interplay of negotiation, resistance and compulsion that we argue has characterised Aboriginal engagements with school as a structure within settler colonial capitalism. Our first case study explains how Aboriginal families in Victoria and New South Wales deliberately exploited gaps in school record collecting to maintain mobility during the mid-twentieth century and engaged with labour markets that enabled visits to country. Our second case study explores the Strelley mob’s establishment of independent, Aboriginal-controlled bilingual schools in the 1970s to maintain control of their labour and their futures. Techniques of survival developed in and around schooling have been neglected by historians, yet they demonstrate how schooling has been a strategic political project, both for Aboriginal peoples and the Australian settler colonial state.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Chancellor

Australian construction productivity has grown slowly since 1985 and remains arguably stagnant. The importance of this study is therefore to examine several factors through to be drivers of construction productivity and to understand possible avenues for improvement. The drivers tested are research and development, apprentices, wage growth, unionisation and safety regulation. Expenditure on research and development and the number of apprentices were found to be drivers of productivity growth in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. These findings are important because collectively, these three states account for a majority of construction activity in Australia.


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