Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate researc ....Mapping the effect of social enterprise on regional city disadvantage. This project aims to explore how social enterprises affect wellbeing and community capacity in disadvantaged areas of regional cities. Governments increasingly invest in social enterprise to benefit individuals and places. This project will use a spatial methodology to map where and how benefits are realised. To date, robust evidence about how social enterprise affects disadvantage is lacking, partly due to inadequate research methodology. This project expects to provide web-based design tools and applications to assist regional city communities and councils in the development of social enterprises that can help disadvantaged people and places.Read moreRead less
Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisati ....Enabling social innovation for local climate adaptability. Climate variability and change is likely to be felt most acutely at the local scale in Australia. This is where inter/national and State policies are translated into practices to prepare for, and adapt to, anticipated impacts of heatwaves, bushfires and floods. This project will investigate tensions and potentialities between risk-based assessments by local governance agencies and innovations by local groups and Non-Government Organisations. The research will utilise an innovative mixed-methods approach to investigate and to analyse the strategies and experiments of adaptation practices. It aims to develop new ways of identifying and implementing practical, local, adaptive responses that are contextually relevant, socially innovative and capacity building.Read moreRead less
Challenges, Possibilities and Future Directions: A National Assessment of Australia's Children's Courts. Children's Courts occupy a unique position in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in responding to often marginalized delinquent youth and vulnerable children and families. Philosophical and structural shifts in Australia and overseas suggest community and legal system responses are often ineffective and contribute to longer-term problems, creating social challenges for governments ....Challenges, Possibilities and Future Directions: A National Assessment of Australia's Children's Courts. Children's Courts occupy a unique position in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in responding to often marginalized delinquent youth and vulnerable children and families. Philosophical and structural shifts in Australia and overseas suggest community and legal system responses are often ineffective and contribute to longer-term problems, creating social challenges for governments and communities alike. This national study will examine how key stakeholders, including, significantly, judicial officers, view the Children's Court's contemporary responses and challenges, their preferred alternatives responses and the viability of suggested reforms, thus offering a unique contribution to informing legal and social policy change.Read moreRead less
Catching capital: Understanding and influencing corporate tax strategy. This project aims to analyse the factors which influence the tax strategies of large multi-national corporations, and explain variations in behaviour between firms and industry sectors. Identifying reforms that exert the greatest influence over corporate behaviour will enable reforms which refine and improve the efficacy of international tax regimes. The expected outcomes will provide an evidence base for policy makers to ev ....Catching capital: Understanding and influencing corporate tax strategy. This project aims to analyse the factors which influence the tax strategies of large multi-national corporations, and explain variations in behaviour between firms and industry sectors. Identifying reforms that exert the greatest influence over corporate behaviour will enable reforms which refine and improve the efficacy of international tax regimes. The expected outcomes will provide an evidence base for policy makers to evaluate and refine corporate tax reform initiatives.Read moreRead less
Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance wi ....Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance with Australia's commitment to fostering a multicultural, pluralistic, democratic society. This project will produce practical recommendations for refining public consultation in healthcare policy-making through an examination of three relevant contentious case studies in Australia with comparison to Canada.Read moreRead less
Sustainable fiscal federalism and reform of the GST distribution system. The primary source of funds for Australian States and Territories is GST revenue distributed by the Commonwealth using an equalisation formula that has proved to be politically unsustainable and in recent times manifestly inadequate to provide the revenue needed in response to crises and natural disasters. A tipping point has been reached and reform is urgently needed. Drawing on international experience with GST distributi ....Sustainable fiscal federalism and reform of the GST distribution system. The primary source of funds for Australian States and Territories is GST revenue distributed by the Commonwealth using an equalisation formula that has proved to be politically unsustainable and in recent times manifestly inadequate to provide the revenue needed in response to crises and natural disasters. A tipping point has been reached and reform is urgently needed. Drawing on international experience with GST distributions specifically and fiscal federalism more generally, the project aims to develop a reform blueprint for a sustainable and equitable fiscal federalism regime in Australia that best aligns with Australia’s current and long-term fiscal needs.Read moreRead less
Caring for thoroughbreds: addressing social, economic and welfare issues in international horse racing. Horse racing is an economically valuable industry but visible welfare issues are challenging its future. This study addresses perceptions and the economic worth of these issues internationally. Research findings about values, and alternatives to jump racing and whipping horses, will help change the conduct of horse racing around the world.
Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from ....Quantifying sea-level trends and extremes along Australia's coastal margin. Multi-decadal changes in sea-level, and sea-level extremes, cannot be well quantified along most global coastlines, including Australia's, because the high spatial variability of sea-level is under-sampled by the sparse set of long, high quality tide gauge records. Satellite altimetry provides an alternative data source with greater spatial sampling, yet experiences contamination from land within tens of kilometres from the coast and also suffers from regionally correlated biases. This project proposes to address these problems through re-tracking radar altimetry waveforms to derive new data in the coastal margin, enabling the production of new inferences on sea-level change and extremes at dramatically improved spatial resolution around Australia.Read moreRead less
Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Democratic Governance: A Problem of Institutional Design? How well Australia's democracy is working is critical both for national policy making and for citizenship. Many scholars argue that populism is in the ascendant, political parties have weakened and that public confidence in political leaders has diminished. This project will provide an authoritative test of these propositions. If they are established, it will identify the ways democratic governance can be ....Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Democratic Governance: A Problem of Institutional Design? How well Australia's democracy is working is critical both for national policy making and for citizenship. Many scholars argue that populism is in the ascendant, political parties have weakened and that public confidence in political leaders has diminished. This project will provide an authoritative test of these propositions. If they are established, it will identify the ways democratic governance can be renewed.Read moreRead less
Vulnerability, autonomy and justice. Vulnerable people require assistance and care. But what are our responsibilities in relation to the vulnerable? And how can we provide assistance and care while avoiding stereotyping or paternalism? This research will advance ethical theory and be useful in solving practical problems in health research and policy.