News

2007

Housing and Social Cohesion: An Empirical Exploration (PDF), a new report by Wendy Stone and Kath Hulse, has been published in June 2007 by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

The City of Melbourne Case Study (PDF), by Ivan Zwart and the City of Maribyrnong Case Study (PDF) by Nicola Brackertz have been released by the Community Consultation and the ‘Hard to Reach’ research project.

ISR Visiting Professor Fred Fletcher delivers a lecture on Free and Fair Elections (PDF) at the Parliament of Victoria on 20 June 2007.

Brian Costar discusses the right of prisoners to vote on ABC Radio National’s Perspective.

The Nillumbik Shire Council Case Study (PDF), by Nicola Brackertz and Denise Meredyth, is a new report from the Community Consultation and the ‘Hard to Reach’ research project. The project is investigating how community consultation is currently practised by Victorian councils, especially in relation to multiple publics and groups that councils can find hard to reach.

Julian Thomas discusses the language and political theatre of The West Wing on ABC Radio National’s Lingua Franca.

The World Internet Project Annual Partners’ Meeting, hosted by the ISR, will be held in Melbourne on 10–12 July 2007.

Writing in the Canberra Times, Klaus Neumann comments on Mark McKenna’s article about Manning Clark in the March 2007 issue of The Monthly.

Peter Browne’s book The Longest Journey: Resettling Refugees from Africa was shortlisted in the community relations category of the NSW Premiers Literary Awards.

David Mackenzie has been appointed one of the commissioners of Australia’s first national independent inquiry for 20 years examining youth homelessness. The National Youth Commission inquiry has been set up to examine why youth homelessness continues to be a major problem in Australia. Despite Australia experiencing 15 years of economic growth and unemployment at record lows, the number of young people turning to homeless services for support has remained unchanged since the last comprehensive inquiry by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. David was profiled in the Age’s education section on 12 March 2007.

In a paper to the Australian Financial Review’s Housing Congress 2007 on 9 March 2007, Terry Burke looks at the experience of housing affordability, revealing how deeply the problem cuts into the financial and general wellbeing of renters. Not only does it create intense hardship for many, but there is no escape from the relentless squeeze between income and rents. And, for many renters, the problem is not that rents have increased to excessive levels (they have been relatively constant), but that incomes are too low and too uncertain. Experiencing the Housing Affordability Problem: Blocked Aspirations, Trade-offs and Financial Hardships (PDF).

Brian Costar is one of the authors of a new research paper, The 2006 Victorian State Election (PDF), released by the Victorian Parliamentary Library Research Service. The paper examines the campaign and the result, describing who won and why. It also includes a detailed explanation of voting for the new-look Legislative Council, and voting figures for each Assembly District and Council Region.

Not long ago, travellers idly fancied that there would be a time when humanity could tour the world free of restrictions. It seems things have gone the other way. The next big thing will be biometric identification, by scanning the traveller's iris, and anyone without legal travel authority can might be arrested as a terrorist. On Radio National’s Radio Eye at 2pm on Saturday 3 March (repeated 1pm on 7 March), the ISR’s Peter Mares looks at The Passport.

Klaus Neumann’s latest book, In the Interest of National Security: Civilian Internment in Australia during World War II, was recently launched by Sam Lipski AM. It is available from the National Archives of Australia (phone 02 6212 3609 for credit card orders). An extract is available online (PDF) >>

Who is Hard to Reach and Why? (PDF), is a new working paper by Nicola Brackertz from the ISR project Community Consultation and the Hard to Reach: Local Government, Social Profiling and Civic Infrastructure.

Peter Mares and Brian Costar wrote about the federal government’s proposed citizenship test for the Age and Australian Policy Online.

Professor Peter Newton has joined the ISR and Swinburne’s Centre for Regional Development, and is based within the ISR. Peter is an expert in urban planning and sustainability and comes to Swinburne from the CSIRO, where he was Chief Research Scientist and Leader of the Urban Systems Program. Among many outstanding publications, he is well-known for his work as a lead author of the 1996, 2001 and 2006 State of the Environment reports for the federal government.

2006

On ABC Radio’s AM, Brian Costar discussed the November 2006 Victorian election campaign.

Peter Browne’s book The Longest Journey: Resettling Refugees from Africa was shortlisted for the 2006 Human Rights Arts Non-Fiction Award.

On ABC Radio’s PM, Julian Thomas discussed attempts by Victorian political parties to circumvent election advertising laws via YouTube and other internet sites.

Peter Browne wrote about the federal government’s record on interest rates in the Canberra Times (PDF) and Australian Policy Online.

William Maley’s Rescuing Afghanistan, a recent title in the ISR’s Briefings series, has been co-published in the UK by Hirst, and reviewed in The Guardian.

Brian Costar will provide expert commentary on 774 ABC Melbourne’s radio broadcast of the 2006 Victorian election count on Saturday 25 November 2006.

Ellie Rennie’s book, Community Media: A Global Introduction, has been published by Rowman & Littlefield. Dr Rennie explains how community media has, since its beginning, challenged the mainstream. The book lays out the terrain in which community media theory and advocacy have located themselves, including the ideals of participation, community, and social change.

Brian Costar wrote about the upper house contest (PDF) in the Victorian election for the Weekly Times.

The New Media Theory Reader, edited by Robert Hassan and the ISR’s Julian Thomas, brings together key readings on new media – what it is, where it came from, how it affects our lives, and how it is managed. Using work from media studies, cultural history and cultural studies, economics, law, and politics, the essays encourage readers to pay close attention to the “new” in new media, as well as considering it as a historical phenomenon.

AWB, Australia's monopoly wheat exporter, was “a disaster waiting to happen,” according to one observer. The significance of the AWB scandal extends well beyond its immediate political impact. Its lasting lessons go to the heart of how government and companies are run in Australia. In Against the Grain: The AWB Scandal and Why It Happened – an “explosive new book,” according to the Canberra Times – Stephen Bartos explores those lessons, and shows that reform will be needed to provide the assurance that Australia is committed to transparency and accountability. The book is published in the ISR’s Briefings series by UNSW Press.

A team including the ISR’s Denise Meredyth, and Sue Moore, Mike Kyrios and Glen Bates from the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, has been granted Department of Justice funding for a project in 2007 entitled Problem Gambling Vulnerability: The Interaction between Access, Individual Cognitions and Group Beliefs/ Preferences.

Brian Costar argues for reforms to the system for preselecting political party election candidates on ABC Radio National’s Perspective.

Julian Thomas and Denise Meredyth received Australian Research Council funding for a three-year project, Australian information seekers and the social consequences of information poverty. Developed in partnership with the State Library of Victoria, this project aims to advance considerably our understanding of information seeking, and its social, cultural and civic implications for Australia. It will produce useful findings for researchers and policy-makers interested in the economic and social consequences of information poverty, and will also contribute to the strategic planning of the public library sector.

Professor Geoff Gallop launched The Victorian Premiers 1856-2006, edited by Paul Strangio and the ISR’s Brian Costar on 23 October 2006 at the Windsor Hotel.

Ellie Rennie writes about Indigenous television for Creative Economy.

With Kay Saunders, the ISR’s Brian Costar edited a special edition of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal on the work of the noted political historian, the late Denis Murphy.

Peter Mares writes about the Senate committee report, Perspectives on the Future of the Harvest Labour Force, for the Canberra Times and Australian Policy Online.

The latest book in the ISR’s Briefings series, What Price Security? Taking Stock of Australia’s Anti-Terror Laws, by Andrew Lynch and George Williams, was published in late October.

A new book in the ISR’s Briefings series, Limiting Democracy: The Erosion of Electoral Rights in Australia, by Colin A. Hughes and Brian Costar, was launched in early October in Canberra by Peter Andren MHR and in Melbourne by the Hon John Cain and the Hon Alan Hunt.

Nicola Brackertz presented a paper, Hard to Reach? Engagement, Governance and Community Consultation in Victorian Local Government (PDF), at the Governments and Communities in Partnership Conference in Melbourne.

Peter Mares gave evidence to the Senate Inquiry into Pacific Seasonal Contract Labour at hearings in Canberra on Tuesday 22 August. The evidence was based on his research for the ARC Linkage project Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture on the potential for Pacific Islanders to fill seasonal gaps in the agricultural labour market. The transcript (PDF) is available online.

Peter Mares and Nic Maclellan are among the lead authors of a new World Bank report, At Home & Away: Expanding Job Opportunities for Pacific Islanders Through Labour Mobility, which advocates greater mobility for unskilled workers from the Pacific Islands to help overcome the challenges the region faces because of small economies, remoteness, growing youth populations and low jobs growth. Giving unskilled workers from the Pacific Islands access to seasonal employment in neighbouring developed economy labour markets is essential to the future development of the region, the report finds.

Terry Burke, Kath Hulse, Scott Ewing, Mike Pelling, Robyn Timms and David Hudson have received a Carrick Institute citation for making an outstanding contribution to student learning through the ISR’s housing course. The citation notes their achievement in “initiating and delivering Australia's only postgraduate courses in Housing Management and Policy strongly underpinned by applied research, and in a creative and enterprising manner.”

The ISR and the Centre for Applied Social Research at RMIT University are joint recipients of a $2.1 million grant from the Commonwealth, state and territory governments for a three year project, Counting the Homeless 2006. This project has been developed by David MacKenzie at the ISR and Chris Chamberlain at RMIT, whose collaborative work on homelessness has made a major impact on policy and program development. Counting the Homeless will establish the population statistics for homelessness in Australia using a census of homeless school students, data on users of SAAP services, and data from the ABS Census to be held in August this year.

The Swinburne Housing Residential 2006, presented by the ISR, takes place on 20–22 July 2006. The program and presentations are available online.

Ellie Rennie writes about the obstacles facing the Mt Gambier based community broadcaster, Bushvision, for Creative Economy and Australian Policy Online.

Brian Costar writes about the federal government’s recent electoral legislation in the Age and Australian Policy Online.

Ian McShane presented a paper, “Aqua Profonda – Culture and the Regeneration of Local Facilities” (PDF), to the Museums Australia national conference in Brisbane.

Articles by Nicola Brackertz and Ian McShane feature in a special edition of Facilities, a UK-based journal of facility management, devoted to community-based facility management.

Peter Mares made a detailed submission (PDF) to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee Inquiry into Pacific Region Seasonal Contract Labour.

The ISR’s John Stone, together with Paul Mees, Patrick Moriarty and Michael Buxton, argues in a new report that the privatisation of Melbourne’s trams and trains has been an expensive failure. By June 2006, the privatised system will have cost $1.2 billion more in public subsidies than continued operation by the former Public Transport Corporation; by 2010 this difference will blow out to $2.1 billion. In Putting the Public Interest Back into Public Transport (PDF file) they argue that the state government should replace the franchise agreements with a new public transport agency modelled on the very best in the world, such as those in Vancouver, Zurich or even Perth. They make detailed recommendations about the best way of establishing a dynamic, efficient, accountable public body to spend the annual $1.2 billion budget.

Pacific island community and government leaders have long argued that increased access to the Australian and New Zealand labour markets, especially for unskilled workers, should be a central component of regional economic integration. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion about labour market access and seasonal work schemes, Nic Maclellan and Peter Mares analyse the debate over remittances, migration and development in Remittances and Labour Mobility in the Pacific.

Unlike her predecessors, Amanda Vanstone has followed due process in assessing the claims of asylum seekers from West Papua, writes the ISR’s Peter Mares in an article for Australian Policy Online and the Canberra Times.

Brian Costar and Peter Browne write about the federal government’s Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 for the Age, the Adelaide Independent Weekly and Australian Policy Online.

The final report of the Carlton Community Lifelong Learning Hub Project, carried out by the ISR’s Liza Hopkins, presents the findings of a twelve month research and community development project undertaken for Carlton Primary School. The focus of the research part of the project was on the educational backgrounds and learning needs of the wider school community – parents, grandparents, siblings and others related to the students at the school. The majority of students who attend the school are from Horn of Africa refugee backgrounds and now live in public housing in Carlton.

The ISR’s Brian Costar discusses factions in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party on ABC Radio’s PM.

Brian Costar gives evidence (PDF file) at the Senate inquiry into the federal government’s Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, which he describes as meeting neither of its two main objectives.

Wired High Rise: A Community-Based Computer Network (PDF) summarises three years of research on the immediate social effects of computer network established between 1999 and 2004 and based in Atherton Gardens, a high rise public housing estate in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The initiative is the product of a social partnership generated by the ISR and Infoxchange Australia in alliance with community groups, private companies and local government, with support from the Victorian government. The aim of the project was to increase access to information and communication technologies for low income people, to contribute to neighbourhood renewal and to build the social and economic participation of residents with high needs.

In its report on the administration and operation of the Migration Act 1958, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee draws on the submission (PDF) made to the committee inquiry by the ISR’s Glenn Nicholls. Two key recommendations of the inquiry – that prior to anyone being removed or deported there be a check by an independent authority of that person's identity, health, fitness to travel and the existence of permissions from transit and destination countries, and that people lawfully resident in Australia for more than ten years should not be deported – reflect proposals outlined in Dr Nicholls’s submission.  

Costs and Pathways of Homelessness: Developing Policy-Relevant Economic Analyses for the Australian Homelessness Service System was launched at the 2006 National Homelessness Conference, The Great Australian Dream? Waking up to Homelessness, held on 1–3 March in Sydney. Written by Sarah Pinkney and Scott Ewing of the ISR, the report helps lay foundations for the development of robust economic evaluation relevant to Australian homelessness policy and service delivery. It explores a range of approaches to understanding and estimating the costs of homelessness and homelessness interventions, particularly those relevant to analysis at the broad policy level. The report focuses on the 'pathways’ approach to costing, and this is investigated with reference to recent international research.

In Labour Shortages in Murray Valley Horticulture: A Survey of Growers’ Needs and Attitudes (PDF), a report from the Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture project, Peter Mares shows that fruit and vegetable growers have trouble finding seasonal workers to pick their crops and sometimes resort to illegal immigrants to get the job done. His findings are based on a survey of horticultural producers in the horticultural region stretching along the Murray River between Swan Hill and Mildura in northwest Victoria.

Ian McShane’s paper, Social Value and Community Facilities (PDF file), presented at Just Communities, the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia's Biennial National Conference, in November 2005, is now available online.

The first issues paper from the ISR project The Effectiveness of Mandatory Comparison Rates: Information, Capacity and Choice is now available, together with a paper discussing the findings of a survey of consumers’ understanding and use of comparison rates. This project focuses on the effectiveness of recently introduced government regulations regarding mandatory comparison rates for consumer credit.

Australia offers more refugee resettlement places than any country except the United States, but how fair is the resettlement process? Does it always help the neediest of all refugees? Drawing on interviews with refugees, policymakers, officials and aid workers in Nairobi, Kakuma, Geneva, Canberra and Melbourne, Peter Browne’s book, The Longest Journey, published in the Briefings series by UNSW Press, looks at the opportunities and obstacles that face refugees whose homelands are in turmoil. It is reviewed in the Australian Higher Education Supplement.

The second report of the Community Consultation and the ‘Hard to Reach’ project is now available. This study investigates reasons for non-participation in local government consultation, drawing on critical policy analysis and debates on governance and democratic capacity.

Kath Hulse and Ivan Zwart were both successful in the 2006 Swinburne Researcher Development Grants Scheme. Two grants will fund new projects, one on Housing Tertiary Students and another on Attitudes to Water: Assessing the Views of CALD Communities.

Sean McNelis presented a paper at the recent 2005 National Housing Conference in Perth entitled Rental Policy: Financial Viability or Affordability in Australian Public Housing. In his paper, he argues that financial crises are endemic to Australian public housing and that public housing managers cannot trade-off affordability for financial viability.

The World Bank has commissioned Peter Mares and Nic Maclellan to contribute to a project on labour mobility in the Pacific. The World Bank is currently producing a report on labour mobility and Peter and Nic will provide a chapter looking at the potential for creating a viable model for Pacific Islanders to enter the Australian agricultural labour market on a temporary (seasonal) basis. Peter and Nic will travel to Fiji for a workshop on this theme with government and regional officials in Suva on 30 November 2005.

ISR researchers have been successful in the latest round of Australian Research Council grants for projects commencing in 2006. From the ARC’s Discovery program, Robert Hassan received funding for a five-year project, Speed, Time and the Political Process in Australia, and Klaus Neumann received funding for the two-year project, Australian Public Policy Responses to Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Comparativist and Historical Perspectives. Australian Policy Online, based at the ISR, received a one-year grant, its third, under the ARC’s Linkage–Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities program.

Denise Meredyth and David Prater edited a special issue of Southern Review (vol 38 no 1) about Online Archives and Virtual Collections. It contains articles by the editors (‘Online archives and virtual collections’) and by ISR researchers including Klaus Neumann (‘Probing the past: ideas for a web-based learning resource about the White Australia policy’),  Ian McShane (‘Museums, multimedia and history education’), Julian Thomas (‘Between journals and archives’) and David Prater (‘That wicked CIA technology: archiving and on-line literary journal’). Robert Hassan reviews Terry Flew’s New Media in the same issue.

2005

The National Archives of Australia, the ISR’s industry partner on the ARC-funded Retrieving the Record project, has launched Vrroom, its virtual reading room designed for teachers and students, on Thursday 10 November 2005. Klaus Neumann and Denise Meredyth have worked with the NAA to explore innovative multimedia design that could allow teachers to make effective use of archival documents in the classroom.

With Colin Hughes, Brian Costar wrote about recent federal proposals for electoral law changes for the Age, the Adelaide Independent Weekly and Australian Policy Online. Their main points are taken up in an Age editorial on 7 November 2005.

Speaking at the National Housing Conference in Perth in late October 2005, Terry Burke challenged orthodox views of the relationship between the market and the state, between social housing provision and support, and between past housing needs and those of the future. His paper, Social Housing Over the Horizon: Creating a Contemporary Social Housing System, is available online.

Peter Browne wrote about the federal government’s industrial relations legislation for the Age, the Adelaide Independent Weekly, the Canberra Times and Australian Policy Online.

Liza Hopkins wrote about the Wired Hire Rise project in the November–December 2005 edition of The Information Society. Her article, ‘Making a Community Network Sustainable: The Future of the Wired High Rise’, traces the efforts that have been made to establish a networked community at a single high-rise public housing estate in inner Melbourne, and considers some of the potential opportunities for and barriers to ensuring the continuity of the network, which is large, complex, costly, and potentially fragile, into the future.

Senator Andrew Bartlett drew on research by the ISR’s Glenn Nicholls in a speech to federal parliament (PDF file) on recent deportations by the immigration department.

Peter Mares and Nic Maclellan discussed the need to create opportunities for lower skilled workers from the Pacific to engage in seasonal work in Australia in the Australian Financial Review and Australian Policy Online, based on their recent conference paper, Labour Mobility in the Pacific: Creating Seasonal Work Programs in Australia (Word document). Nic discussed the research on Australia Talks Back on ABC Radio National on 26 October, and Peter was interviewed on regional ABC radio stations in Ballarat, Riverland and rural Queensland and quoted in the two main morning news bulletins on ABC Radio in Adelaide. Their research featured in an Age article about the Pacific Forum; other coverage included the Swan Hill Guardian, the Sunraysia Daily, the Weekly Times and the Herald Sun.

The ISR’s Glenn Nicholls, currently writing a history of deportation in Australia, featured in a report on ABC Radio’s AM on the decision of the Federal Court to overturn a ruling by the immigration minister, Amanda Vanstone, to deport a 31-year-old man to Sweden despite the fact that he had spent all but four weeks of his life in Australia.

Two new books in the ISR’s Briefings series have been published by UNSW Press. Freeing Ali: The Human Face of the Pacific Solution, by Michael Gordon, the national editor of the Age and a research associate at the ISR, describes the campaign to free detainees on Nauru and the impact of detention on Ali Mullaie and dozens of other asylum seekers. Dealing with America: The UN, the US and Australia, by John Langmore, looks at how the international community, and Australia in particular, should best relate to the United States and respond to the US administration’s criticisms of the United Nations.

The ISR’s Peter Mares has been invited to join the advisory committee for the 2007 Adelaide Festival of Ideas. The Festival of Ideas provides a gathering place for some of the world’s most eminent and provocative speakers – some high profile and some soon to be. A series of lectures, public conversations and panel discussions analysing and challenging current thought and practice is presented in Adelaide over three days and four evenings.

There has been considerable media interest in the ISR’s research project Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture, funded by the Australian Research Council, which is analysing the feasibility of bringing Pacific Islanders to the irrigated horticultural regions around the Victorian towns of Swan Hill and Mildura on the Murray River. After returning from a trip to look at the operation of Canada’s long running seasonal labour scheme, project leader Peter Mares has been interviewed for recent stories carried in the Weekly Times, the Swan Hill Guardian, ABC Radio Mildura/Swan Hill, WIN TV News and the ABC’s Landline program. Meanwhile, the project’s Pacific researcher Nic Maclellan has been conducting field research in Tonga and Fiji and has been invited to present a paper on the research to date at the forthcoming conference on Globalisation, Governance and the Pacific Islands at the ANU in Canberra.

David Mackenzie has begun a two-year project, funded by the Commonwealth Dept of Family and Community Services, to evaluate the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of the Australian Governments ‘Household Organisational Management Expenses (HOME) Advice Program’. The project builds on David’s policy work on early intervention into homelessness.

Helen McKernan's submission More Bytes has been successful in receiving DEST funding ($110,000) in the recently announced Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) projects. More Bytes aims to use information and communication technology and multimedia to produce an interactive narrative of girl's culture across place, space and time (see www.asistm.edu.au).

The ISR is one of the partners in the successful application to the Australian Research Council for funds to establish a Centre of Excellence in Cultural and Media Industries.

The ISR’s Glenn Nicholls writes about Australia's deportation laws for the Age and Australian Policy Online.

The ISR is one of the partners in the successful application to the Australian Research Council for funds to establish a Centre of Excellence in Cultural and Media Industries. The ISR’s Julian Thomas and Swinburne’s Trevor Barr are two of the Chief Investigators on the project, with the ISR’s Denise Meredyth and Swinburne’s Darren Tofts as Associate Investigators. The lead institution in the project is the Queensland University of Technology, with Swinburne as a major participant; other partners include the Australian National University, Wollongong, Charles Darwin and Edith Cowan universities, Australian Film Television and Radio School, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Australian Film Commission, Queensland State Library, Australian Council for the Arts, Australian Museum, National Museum and Queensland Museum.

ISR postgraduate students are among those from around Australia presenting the results of their research at the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute postgraduate symposium 2005 in Melbourne on 15–17 June 2005.

In The 1955 Bob and Bert Show, a talk broadcast on ABC Radio National's Perspective, the ISR's Brian Costar discusses the two major personalities who figured in the split in the Australian Labor Party in 1955, Herbert Vere Evatt and Bartholomew Augustine Santamaria.

Philanthropy: What Can Australia and the USA Learn From Each Other?was the theme of a talk by Michael Liffman and Denis Tracey of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and Social Investment at the Australian Consulate, New York, on 10 May. In addition to describing the status of Australian philanthropy, Michael and Denis explored the cultural similarities and differences between the two countries and considered what each might learn from the other.

Financially Sustainable Community Housing Organisations is the theme of the second in a series of three Community Housing Seminars being held by the Community Housing Federation of Victoria and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research in partnership with the Office of Housing. This seminar will be held on Thursday 26 May at the Duxton Hotel, Flinders St, Melbourne. The seminar is free but numbers are limited. Community Housing Federation of Victoria Program information, registration

In Downfall: Almost the Same Old Story, published in Rouge 6, the ISR’s Klaus Neumann discusses the recent film, The Downfall.

The ISR’s Brian Costar assessed the political career of Joh Bjelke-Petersen for the Age and Australian Policy Online. Professor Costar also discussed the Bjelke-Petersen years on ABC Radio National’s Australia Talks Back.

A translation of chapter 2 of Shifting Memories: The Nazi Past in the New Germany by the ISR’s Klaus Neumann was recently published in Celle, Germany ('Eine "Hasenjagd" in Celle', in 'Hasenjagd' in Celle: Das Massaker am 8. April 1945, Celler Hefte 1-2, translated by Tim Wegener, edited by Oskar Ansull, Ralph B. Hirsch and Tim Wegener, Celle: RWLE Möller Stiftung (2005), pp. 33-63). The same publication also contains a new text by Neumann ('Ketzerische Nachsätze: Kein Anlaß zur Schadenfreude / Auch wir Deutschen verdienen ein Hasenjagd-Denkmal', pp. 63-69). For a review, follow this link. The publication is available from: moeller-stiftung@gmx.de

In an article published in the Age, the ISR’s Klaus Neumann argued that the new film, The Downfall, ignores ‘the many worthy and complex previous attempts by German filmmakers and writers to grapple with a difficult past’.

The ISR’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and Social Investment is jointly hosting, with Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, a conference on Philanthropy, Ethics and International Aid. The conference, to be held on 5–6 May in Princeton, New Jersey, will consider such questions as: Is philanthropy the right response to global poverty? What ethical problems do foundations face when they give international aid? Can the impact of aid programs be rigorously assessed? Among the panelists are Paul Brest, president, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Joel L. Fleishman, director, Foundation Strategy and Impact Research Program, Duke University; Ray Offenheiser, president, Oxfam America; and Smita Singh, special advisor for global affairs, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The ISR’s Michael Liffman will be speaking, as will fellow Australian David Morawetz. Michael Liffman and the ISR’s Denis Tracey will also be presenting a lecture in New York the following week, as guests of the Australian Consul General.

The ISR is seeking a part-time Research Fellow to conduct research on the ARC-funded Community Consultation and the Hard to Reach project.

The Great Labor Schism: A Retrospective, co-edited by the ISR’s Brian Costar, has been published by Scribe Publications to coincide with a conference on the Labor Split, being held on 16–17 April 2005 at Parliament House in Melbourne.

The Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and Social Investment has received a seeding grant of $10,000 from the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust to undertake a feasibility study for the development of the International Journal of Philanthropy and Grantmaking.

Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, a book in the ISR’s Briefings series written by Greg Barton from Deakin University, has been published for Southeast Asian readers by Ridge Books, an imprint of NUS Publishing, under the title, Jemaah Islamiyah: Radical Islamism in Indonesia.

ISR researcher Peter Mares writes about proposals for a ‘guest worker’scheme to deal with rural labour shortages in the Australian Financial Review and for Australian Policy Online.

In Commemorating the Lives of Victims, Bystanders and Perpetrators, a new project funded by the Swinburne Research Development Grants Scheme, Klaus Neumann will explore how local communities remember and commemorate the victims, bystanders and perpetrators of past crimes. The project will be primarily concerned with Germany and Australia, but will look at other so-called perpetrator societies. >>

ISR researcher Peter Mares writes about the implications of the Cornelia Rau case for detention policy in the Age and the Canberra Times and for Australian Policy Online.

The Carlton Community Lifelong Learning Hub is a new research and community development project being carried out by the ISR’s Liza Hopkins at the Carlton Primary School, in the grounds of the high-rise public housing estate in Carlton.

ISR researcher Peter Mares has been awarded a travel grant under the Canadian Government’s Faculty Research Program. Valued at CDN$4200, the grant is “designed to assist individual academics in higher education institutions to undertake short-term research about Canada or on aspects of Canada’s bilateral relations with Australia and New Zealand”. Peter Mares will travel to Canada for two weeks to study the operation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, and its potential applicability to Australia. The field work in Canada will complement Peter’s project on Pacific Island Labour and Australian Horticulture which has been funded as an Australian Research Council Industry Linkage Project in 2005.

All the Way with the USA: Australia, the US and Free Trade, by Ann Capling, one of the latest books in the ISR’s Briefings series, was launched by the Hon John Button on 15 February 2005. In the book Ann Capling analyses the new Australia–US Free Trade Agreement in the context of Australian trade policy since the second world war.

A new Chair in Victorian State Parliamentary Democracy will be based at the ISR from early 2005. The Victorian Parliament and Swinburne University have jointly established the new Chair to develop the study of parliamentary democracy and representative government in Victoria. Announcing the establishment of the chair on 7 December, Victorian Speaker Judy Maddigan MP said, ‘I hope that the establishment of this position will lead to a greater profile nationally and internationally for the study of parliamentary democracy. I believe it's a fantastic move to establish a professorship that can engage academically with the parliament and its work, and provide fresh insight into the parliament's place in the community, and its future.’

ISR senior research fellow Klaus Neumann's book, Refuge Australia: Australia's Humanitarian Record, published in the ISR's Briefings series, has won the Arts Non-fiction Award in Australia's 2004 Human Rights Awards. The judges noted: "Klaus Neumann doesn't prejudge the issues. Rather, he allows readers to arrive at their own conclusions. Refuge Australia does, however, leave the reader with a sense of optimism and the idea that change is possible. In the midst of widespread community debate about Australia's current treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, Refuge Australia provides an important historical context in which to examine these issues. It's also a great read." The Awards were judged and presented by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

ISR staff presented three papers at the annual Australian Sociology Association conference at La Trobe University (Beechworth campus). Denise Meredyth and Nicola Brackertz spoke on "Community Consultation, Local Government and the Hard to Reach", Liza Hopkins presented "Media Use and Turkish Australians", and Yoland Wadsworth gave a talk on "What's Myers Briggs Got to Do with It? Toward a New Synthesis of Epistemology, Systems Thinking and Psychology".

Two new books have been published in the ISR's Briefings series. All the Way with the USA: Australia, the US and Free Trade is Ann Capling's analysis of the new Australia–US Free Trade Agreement in the context of Australian trade policy since the second world war. A Win and a Prayer: Scenes from the 2004 Australian Election, edited by Peter Browne and Julian Thomas, brings together snapshots of the election campaign by Geoffrey Barker, David Burchell, Brian Costar, Brett Evans, Morag Fraser, Marion Maddox, Shane Maloney, Peter Mares and Rodney Tiffen.

Greg Barton's book, Indonesia's Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, also published in the ISR's Briefings series, will be published in Southeast Asia by Singapore University Press, in early 2005.

Congratulations to two ISR members who've been elected to councils in the recent Melbourne local government elections. Researcher Andrea Sharam was elected to Moreland Council and visiting researcher Kathleen Maltzahn won a position on the Yarra Council.

Denis Tracey, from ISR's Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and Social Investment, published "Don't Sell the Family Silver, We May Need It" in the Age on Monday 29 November.

The Action Research Program has been funded for a second phase of its innovative R&D work with the Victorian Department of Human Services, assisting health promotion practitioners write action evaluation narratives as part of routine annual reporting. Yoland Wadsworth has produced guidelines, resources and case studies in collaboration with Ani Wierenga of Melbourne University's Youth Research Centre, Gai Wilson of LaTrobe University's Centre for Development of Innovation in Health, Karen Goltz of the Department of Human Services and a team of six agency practitioners. The first phase work-in-progress was launched recently by Regional Director Brian Joyce and was published last week by the Department of Human Services in co-operation with Swinburne University: Evaluation and Dissemination and Planning, Implementation and Evaluation for Health Promotion.

Congratulations to ISR staff who've won a range of grants recently. Terry Burke, Kath Hulse and Michael Pelling have won Swinburne Strategic Initiative funding for the project "Social and Affordable Housing Exchange", while Sue Lewis, Catherine Lang and Judy McKay have also received Strategic Initiative funding, for "Women in Non-traditional Areas". Klaus Neumann has been awarded a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in the US to work on "Local Public Policy Responses to Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers in a Global Context: An Australian Case Study". And in the recent round of grants from the Australian Research Council, Liza Hopkins won an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project "Community, Identity and Media Use: Understanding the Turkish Community in Australia", Peter Mares was awarded an ARC Linkage Grant for "Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture" and Julian Thomas received an ARC Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities Grant for the "Australian Policy Online Enhancement Project".

Presentations from the Ten-year Housing Anniversary and Reunion held in November are now available for Ten-year Housing Anniversary presentation download.

Kath Hulse's paper "Getting a Job: The Role of Rental Housing Assistance", presented with co-author Bill Randolph at July's European Network for Housing Research conference, is now available online. Download in PDF format or Word format.

11th Annual F. Oswald Barnett Oration: On 9 November, Gavin Woods presented the oration on the topic What Is Happening in Australian Housing Markets? Why Policy Makers Should be Concerned. (Also available in Word format.)

New ISR Working Paper published - Bleak House: The Implications of the Contest between Private Utilities and Landlords for the Non-discretionary Income of Vulnerable Households, by Barry Duggan (Reach Out for Kids Foundation) and Andrea Sharam (Institute for Social Research). This paper explores the implications of the rivalry between private low-income rental providers and private competitive utility providers in Victoria by tracking regulatory changes in the utility sector and through the experience of low-income tenants. The ISR and the Reach Out for Kids Foundation would like to acknowledge the Consumers Utility Advocacy Centre for funding this work. Download Working Paper in PDF format.

Julian Thomas (ISR's Acting Director) has published "Television as a Plastic Resource" –investigating the complex futures of broadcast television – in the new book Lounge Critic: The Couch Theorist's Companion, edited by Annabel Rattigan and Terrie Waddell.

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