Using Data Integration to Improve Health and Welfare Insights

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is a leader in the provision of high-quality health and welfare information. Its work program has built a strong evidence base for better decisions that deliver improved health and welfare outcomes. The evolution of the AIHW’s data integration program has exemplified innovation in identifying and addressing key information gaps, as well as responsiveness to opportunities to develop and capture the data required to inform national priorities. The AIHW conducts data integration in partnership with data custodians and specialists in integration and analysis. A linkage project requiring the integration of Australian government data must be undertaken by an accredited integrating authority. The AIHW has met stringent criteria covering project governance, capability, and data management to gain this accreditation. In this capacity, the AIHW is trusted to integrate Australian government data for high-risk research projects. To date, the AIHW’s integration projects have generated improved research outcomes that have identified vulnerable population groups, improved the understanding of health risk factors, and contributed to the development of targeted interventions. These projects have fostered new insights into dementia, disability, health service use, patient experiences of healthcare, and suicide. Upcoming projects aim to further the understanding of interrelationships between determinants of wellbeing.

A Coordinated, Risk-Based, National Forest Biosecurity Surveillance Program for Australian Forests

Australia has a comprehensive plant biosecurity system, with the Australian Government responsible for pre-border (e.g., off-shore compliance) and border (e.g., import inspections) activities, while state governments undertake a variety of post-border activities (e.g., post-border surveillance, management of pest incursions, and regulation of pests) designed to reduce alien pest and pathogen arrival and establishment. Once an alien pest or pathogen has established and spread, its management becomes the responsibility of the land manager. There has been a growing understanding among plant industries of the need to be more engaged in post-border biosecurity activities, including resourcing and undertaking early detection surveillance and contingency planning. Here we summarize Australia’s broader plant biosecurity system along with current forest-specific biosecurity surveillance activities. We describe the development of a proposed forest biosecurity partnership between the Australian Government, state governments and the forest sector to establish a post-border, risk-based National Forest Pest Surveillance Program. We outline why there is a recognized need for such a program, how it would improve biosecurity outcomes in relation to forests, its component activities, and key stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Empowering STEAM Academics to Adopt Enterprise Pedagogies

Digital transformation and emerging technologies have disrupted the workplace, from the skills employees need in the workplace to the entrepreneurial mindset they require in this dynamic and globalized economic system. While the workers of today are navigating this transition, students require skills to lead the working landscape of the future. These skills, known as 21st century skills which encompass enterprising skills (i.e., creativity, innovation, teamwork), are generic skills that are transferable across different jobs and are a powerful predictor of long-term job success and will be increasingly important into the future. The Australian Government calls for enhanced enterprise skills due to their ubiquitous application and benefit across life and work domains. To answer this call, this chapter bridges the knowledge and resource gap that Australian STEAM academics have by explaining the development of a specially designed platform to teach the 21st century skills and enterprise skills.

The Dynamics of Polarisation in Australian Social Media

This chapter provides a case study of a public debate attracting highly polarised and antagonistic participants within the Australian context and examines the dynamics of polarisation, information flows, discourses, and materialities shaping these dynamics. Twitter conversations about immigration policies of the Australian government and detention of asylum seekers in offshore camps attract a great deal of polarised debate. The authors show how the affordances of the platform constitute, and are constituted by, the discourses of the users, and how users strategically discursify and give meaning to these affordances to further make their own political positions visible, amplify antagonisms, and at times, join each other in the formation of larger agonistic communities.

Offensive behaviours against school leaders: Prevalence, perpetrators and mediators in Australian government schools

Offensive behaviour towards school employees is widespread and involves a number of potentially harmful acts. There is evidence that school employees’ experiences of offensive behaviour are shaped by demographic, role and school-based factors that mediate the likelihood of victimisation. However, very few studies have investigated the prevalence and correlates of offensive behaviour against school leaders. This study analysed 13,028 survey responses from the Australia Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing survey that were completed between the years 2011 and 2019. The analysis determined the prevalence of bullying, threats of violence and physical violence against government school leaders, the main perpetrators of these offenses and the moderating effects of key socio-demographic factors. Results from the study demonstrated that considerable proportions of Australian government school leaders were subjected to offensive behaviour with an average (pooled) prevalence of 36.2% for bullying, 48.6% for threats of violence and 38.7% for physical violence. School leaders report that students and parents are responsible for most offensive behaviours, but that colleagues also contribute considerably to incidents of bullying. Our findings illustrate that offensive behaviours against Australian school leaders are very high and that particular groups of school leaders are at elevated risk of victimization, especially female school leaders and to a lesser extent assistant principals and those inner or outer regional areas.

Assessing Australia’s Progress Towards a National Broadband Strategy at December 2021

This paper is based on a report by the TelSoc Broadband Futures Group in which Australia’s progress during 2021 towards a National Broadband Strategy is assessed against the criteria set out in Towards a National Broadband Strategy for Australia: 2020-2030, a report prepared by TelSoc in November 2020. The Journal publishes this assessment of progress as a Special Interest Paper. The Assessment shows that there has been some, albeit limited, progress towards a National Broadband Strategy, including in various Australian Government statements about the development of the digital economy and its expectations of NBN Co in the provision of fixed broadband access services nationally.

Primary specialisations in Australia: graduates’ perceptions of outcome and impact

In 2014, the Australian Government established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) to advise on how teacher education programmes could ensure new teachers were adequately prepared for the classroom. Following this, the Australian Government endorsed a key recommendation of the TEMAG Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers report, the inclusion of specialisations in primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This research was conducted at an Australian public university that, in 2016, had embedded specialisations in a revised primary teacher programme structure and was one of the first ITE institutions in Australia to graduate primary teachers with a specialisation. Using a mixed-methods case study design with convenience sampling, this study sought to investigate these primary graduates’ perceptions of undertaking a specialisation in relation to the development of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in the specialist area, as well as perceived employment advantages. This research took place over 4 years with participants having completed a Bachelor of Education (Primary) at least three months prior to participating. The participants reported benefits to having completed a primary specialisation but expressed concerns about their preparedness to teach their specialisation and whether it would result in any advantages for employment. Recommendations from the participants included teaching practice in their area of specialisation, consideration of specialist skills and changing the timetabling of the specialisation in the programme. Ultimately, there is a need for ongoing research in this area to determine the extent to which primary specialisations deliver the intended outcomes and impacts at both the policy driver level and the university level.

Female Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The Experience of Chinese Migrants to Australia

This article reports on findings from interviews with a small group of Chinese female immigrants to Australia who have started up their own business since their arrival. Unlike most publications concerning immigration that focus upon financial factors, we have instead concentrated on their personal journeys, why they started their businesses and the benefits they sought. We interviewed thirteen participants in Adelaide who had recently arrived from China with the aim of immigrating permanently to Australia. Immigration records indicate that by 2020 this figure had risen to over 160,000 per annum. However, it dropped again quickly in 2020 following the beginning of COVID-19. Nonetheless, according to recent Australian government records, over 866,200 current Australian residents have Chinese ancestry and 74% are first-generation migrants. The primary motivators for respondents were independence and control as well as income and skill development. Respondents were also satisfied by the personal development they gained.

Asymmetrical understandings of the value of time between Taiwanese Working Holiday Makers and the Australian government: Cultural exchange or serving time?

The impact temporary visa status has on the lives of migrants and their experience of time has been widely discussed. Fewer studies, however, focus discussion on the competing interpretations of the value of Working Holiday Makers’ (WHMs) time and the complexities of disruption and (un)certainties: more specifically the contrast between the value the Australian government places on time spent doing agricultural work in rural areas to become eligible for a second visa, and how this time is perceived by WHMs. This article seeks to fill this gap by comparing data drawn from the government’s rhetoric and interviews with Taiwanese WHMs who had worked in regional areas of Australia for three months. I argue that the government selectively highlights to prospective WHMs the value of cultural exchange and tourism (life-value) while downplaying the labor value (money-value) to WHMs’ time. Furthermore, the government and WHMs are not always talking about the same ‘time units’ (working time and holiday time) when applying these values. This article demonstrates that WHMs are conscious of how their time is spent and perceive the three months of specified work as being ‘suspended’, ‘immobile’, and ‘disrupted’, which undermines their life-values and migration flow in Australia.