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This week in Australian foreign affairs: China removes sanctions on Australian wine; Australia to produce military vehicles for Germany; statement on aid worker Zomi Frankcom killed in Gaza; Watts to visit Brussels for NATO foreign ministers meeting, and more.

This book is oriented on cities and their role in society, from the public places created in cities to the visionary and more abstract views on large scale developments. The chapter authors argue, each in their own way, how urban design can produce an answer to these questions. Furthermore, detailed insights are given into how current designers, architects, urbanists and landscape architects deal with the contemporary urban problems of our time: climate change, migration, resiliency, politics, environmental change.

AbstractDetailed labour market and economic data are often released infrequently and with considerable time lags between collection and release, making it difficult for policy‐makers to accurately assess current conditions. Nowcasting is an emerging technique in the field of economics that seeks to address this gap by 'predicting the present'. While nowcasting has primarily been used to derive timely estimates of economy‐wide indicators such as GDP and unemployment, this article extends this literature to show how big data and machine‐learning techniques can be utilised to produce nowcasting estimates at detailed disaggregated levels. A range of traditional and real‐time data sources were used to produce, for the first time, a useful and timely indicator—or nowcast—of employment by region and occupation. The resulting Nowcast of Employment by Region and Occupation (NERO) will complement existing sources of labour market information and improve Australia's capacity to understand labour market trends in a more timely and detailed manner.

This article contends that the influence of Australian rock musician Lobby Loyde has been overlooked by Australia's popular music scholarship. The research examines Loyde's significance and influence through the neglected sphere of his work (1966–1980) with The Coloured Balls, The Purple Hearts, The Wild Cherries, The Aztecs, Southern Electric, Sudden Electric and Rose Tattoo, and his role as producer in the late-1970s until his death. First, it explores how he has been discussed by his musical peers and respected Australian rock historians. Second, it details Loyde's musical origins and work with early bands during the period in which he was first referred to as Australia's first guitar hero. Third, it investigates the career and influence of The Coloured Balls, their relationship with the 1970s youth subculture known as the 'sharpies', and the media-fuelled moral panic which surrounded both the band and the sharpies. Fourth, it assesses Loyde's work as a producer in the 1980s, and late-in-life recognition by the Australian music industry. In doing so, the article shows the nature and importance of Loyde's contribution to Australia's popular music industry and discusses why he is only known to a strong but small fraction of the Australian public.

This article reports on a research program that has developed new methodologies for mapping the Australian blogosphere and tracking how information is disseminated across it. The authors improve on conventional web crawling methodologies in a number of significant ways: First, the authors track blogging activity as it occurs, by scraping new blog posts when such posts are announced through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Second, the authors use custom-made tools that distinguish between the different types of content and thus allow us to analyze only the salient discursive content provided by bloggers. Finally, the authors are able to examine these better quality data using both link network mapping and textual analysis tools, to produce both cumulative longer term maps of interlinkages and themes, and specific shorter term snapshots of current activity that indicate current clusters of heavy interlinkage and highlight their key themes. In this article, the authors discuss findings from a yearlong observation of the Australian political blogosphere, suggesting that Australian political bloggers consistently address current affairs, but interpret them differently from mainstream news outlets. The article also discusses the next stage of the project, which extends this approach to an examination of other social networks used by Australians, including Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. This adaptation of our methodology moves away from narrow models of political communication, and toward an investigation of everyday and popular communication, providing a more inclusive and detailed picture of the Australian networked public sphere.

The current Australian manufacturing industry is in relative decline and companies are now facing dynamic changes in the domestic market. Specifically, they are now facing the rise of China, with its rapid industrial rise and growing manufacturing sector. No longer are companies using local supply chains and competing with local suppliers. Now in the globalising world, companies are forced to use global supply chains to compete with companies all around the world. China has rapidly risen to be one of the most powerful global manufacturing nations. Combining large markets, increasingly skilled labour and with low wages, it has challenged established leaders of the supply of manufactured goods. Australian companies are responding to China's industrial growth, by increasingly offshoring. However, companies are now establishing operations in China, to maximise the benefits available. These are: Low cost labour Increasingly large pools of highly skilled labour Movement into higher value activities Servicing China's massive domestic market However, there are risks and concerns when establishing operations in China, they range from the ageing population to IP counterfeiting. Two case studies are analysed: Bluescope Steel Ampcontrol (Electronics manufacturer and Service provider) BlueScope Steel and Ampcontrol were asked how to respond effectively and efficiently to the impact of China and current changes in the Australian domestic manufacturing sector, and both companies stressed that Innovation and R&D is crucial to develop new products and be able to participate in the higher value manufacturing market where most Chinese companies cannot compete. Ampcontrol also stated that skilled labour is essential. A supply of skilled labour is crucial for companies to innovate, hence the skill shortages must be addressed. BlueScope Steel also stated that Government regulations can be inefficient and tariffs need to be reviewed to ensure that Australian companies can continue to be competitive. Bluescope Steel and Ampcontrol stated that the manufacturing industry and the Australian Government need to address the above issues to ensure that Australian companies are operating in a favourable and highly efficient environment so they an retain and enhance their competitive edge in the global market. The Australian Government and the manufacturing industry need to ensure: • There is a culture of Innovation and R&D, which is highly efficient and effective in exploiting all the creative capital available in Australia to produce new high-value products. • Address the skill shortages and ensure younger students are inclined to join the industry and undertake higher education training to ensure Australian companies have a highly educated labour pool. Simplify Governmental regulations and reduce tariff barriers while creating policies that encourage innovation and R&D and the training of a highly educated workforce.

Climate change in the form of higher temperatures, changes of rainfall patterns, and for some, more natural disasters will reduce the returns from current farming choices on what to produce and the production methods. Variation of climate change across regions and uncertainty about the magnitudes of change call for a diverse mix of adaptations to climate change across different regions and individual farms. This paper considers the institutional structure for effective climate change adaptation by Australian farms. It is argued that a rerun of the history of successful adaptation of farms to new technology, changes in output and input prices, natural climate variation, and other circumstances can be repeated for climate change adaptation. Individual farms can benefit from incentives and rewards to revise their decisions, which will combine with better individual outcomes. Complementary support by the government includes the provision of climate change and weather forecast information, support for research into new technology, help to evaluate the pros and cons of alternative choices, and provision of a social safety net for those unable to adapt.

To determine whether males exhibited a different form of depression to Major Depressive Disorder, 85 male volunteers completed a survey questionnaire about background variables, the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) and the Gotland Male Depression Scale (GMDS). Almost 50% of the variance in the GMDS was not accounted for by the SDS, and the sensitivity of the SDS against the GMDS showed that about 15% of those men who were identified as depressed on the GMDS would not be similarly identified on the SDS. Different prevalence rates from the two scales suggested that they were assessing different sets of symptoms of depression. A combined SDS-GMDS scale of 24 items was used to produce a profile of male depression in these men.

Abstract
Has Australia's focus as a producer and exporter of natural resources—often considered low technology industries—constrained the development of its innovation system? We exploit a new digital database from the Commonwealth Patent Office to investigate this question. We find that the focus of domestic innovativeness supported key industries for Australian development and complemented technological specialization by foreign patent applicants, particularly in European and American manufacturing. The results support the argument that shifts in national technological orientation is a relatively long game and that technical advantage is shaped by a nation's stage of economic development.

This collection resulted from an international workshop funded and organised by Biosecurity Australia, the agency of government responsible for analysing Australia's quarantine import risks and for negotiating multilateral SPS rules and less restrictive access to overseas markets for Australian produce. The workshop, which was held at the Melbourne Business School on 24-25 October 2000, brought together a distinguished group of applied economists and quarantine policy analysts whose focus involves regions as disparate as Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and New Zealand, in addition to Australia.

At first glance, the introduction, on 22 May 1936, of the Trade Diversion Policy appears to be an Australian example of the protectionist policies being instituted globally in the 1930s, as states sought to isolate their national economies as far as possible from the vagaries of the international market in the wake of the Great Depression. However, while the policy was a result of the transitional nature of international affairs in the 1930s, an in-depth analysis of trade diversion reveals a myriad of factors that impelled the Australian Government to pursue what was a controversial course of action, in the face of unanimous condemnation of Australian economists, and which would have a significant impact on Australian-United States relations. The imposition of a new tariff schedule that placed higher duties on specified commodities imported from countries outside the British Empire, and the implementation of an import licensing scheme of quantitative restrictions was publicised as an initiative designed to help the Australian Government avert a impending crisis in their balance of payments with Great Britain, and the threat of default which loomed in 1936. The government's aim of diverting its import trade from 'bad customer' countries to 'good customer' countries, was intended to encourage larger purchases of Australian exports by 'good customers', whilst also providing a practical means of addressing the long standing adverse balance of trade with the United States free of any punitive spirit. Neither the threat of default or the authenticity of the 'good customer' 'bad customer' tenet, stand up under critical reassessment. The impending balance in payments crisis was a fallacy designed to veil the introduction of drastic measures to ensure greater long-term economic stability and the expansion of Australia's secondary industry. The political motivations driving trade diversion begin to come to light with consideration of the application of the policy to Japanese imports. The policy's in-applicability in the case of Japanese imports, reveals the level of discrimination that underpinned trade diversion, for in 1936 not only was Japan an important market for Australian produce but Australia ran a large surplus on its balance of trade with Japan, and there was thus no economic rationale in diverting Japanese trade. The early 1930s saw the Australian government becoming increasingly unsatisfied with the trading position it occupied in relation to the United States, and in 1934 prime Minister Lyon's presented a letter to the US Consul-General in Sydney outlining Australian trade requests which were to provide the foundation for the opening of negotiations for a bilateral trade treaty between the two nations. Unfortunately the Australian proposals clashed directly with the liberalizing trade policies being introduced by the American Government, and plans for domestic development which also determined the outlook of the United States government at the time. In the face of the persistent negative American attitude, Arbitrary action was sanctioned by the Australian Parliament in May 1936, and the Trade Diversion policy was introduced, creating a protracted trade conflict that was to have significant consequences for Australian-United States relations.

In undertaking what we believe is the first national-scale study of its kind, we provide methodologically transparent, statistically robust insights into associations and potential unfolding effects of house and contents under-insurance. We identify new dimensions in the complex relationship between householders and insurance, including the salience of interpersonal – and likely institutional – trust. Under-insurance is (re)produced along socio-economic and geographical lines, with those of lower socio-economic status or living in cities more likely to be under-insured. Should a disaster strike, such communities are likely to suffer further disadvantage, especially if governments continue to shift the responsibility for risk onto households. Our findings support the observation that insurance can contribute to increasing socio-economic urban polarisation in light of natural disasters. We conclude by considering how under-insurance may contribute to growing urban social stratification, as well as how it may produce situated ethical and political responses that exceed neoliberal aspirations.

This article outlines the Australian Taxi Industry Association's (ATIA) perspective on the development of the National Competition Policy (NCP). The ATIA has been actively involved in the issue since the establishment of the Hilmer Inquiry into National Competition Policy in 1992.The Australian taxi industry is regulated by state and territory governments. Taxi industry regulations are designed to facilitate the provision of high‐quality and comprehensive taxi services to the community and disadvantaged groups. One element of this regulatory structure involves the sale, or lease, of taxi plates by state and territory governments as a revenue‐raising measure.This revenue‐raising by governments produces two different effects. On the one hand taxi plate owners having purchased taxi plates from the government (or leased) have an interest in the value of the plate, as well as in continuing to provide quality services. On the other hand some observers see taxi plate values as inherently unacceptable and needing to be reduced, or abolished, by allowing unrestricted access to the taxi industry.These competing views have provided much of the impetus for the debate associated with the taxi industry and the NCP. The industry believes that NCP has the potential to impact adversely on taxi 'markets' and consumer interests.

Currently grappling with the complicated task of state and nation building, Papua New Guinea represents what, at times, seems like an insurmountable obstacle to development theory. Despite the vast resource pool at the disposal of the state, one of which is a substantial volume of foreign ODA, with particularly high input from Australia, the nation has failed to prosper. The symptoms of PNG's poor development record are manifest in a profusion of measures. The nation exhibits a number of poor socio-economic indicators, such as insufficient economic growth relative to the pace of population growth, growing law and order problems, endemic corruption, poor service delivery, high poverty rates, low education levels and short life expectancy. The causes are deep-seated, complex and overlapping. They are consequently extremely difficult to penetrate and address. Incompetent governance is widely seen as lying at their core. The intricate torrent of issues underlying ineffectual governance in PNG, however, is embedded in a cycle that infiltrates every level of the society. The extraordinarily linguistically, geographically and culturally diverse population lacks a sense of nationhood. Traditional clan based social obligations precede loyalty to the state. A weak government produces an abysmal level of service delivery, which provides the population with very few of the services on which to base a recognition of the state as a source of welfare and social regulation. The people's commitment to the state is therefore weak; further eroding the government's capacity; resulting in persistently poor service delivery; and consequently, a further reduction of the standing of the Government in the eyes of the population. Finding a link in the chain of this cycle from which to catalyse an improvement of PNG's development trajectory has proven extremely difficult. Enhancing service delivery depends upon improving the capacity of the Government. To make the Government more powerful, the population needs to identify more with the state as a resource provider, which will increase their demand for it to be more effective and accountable. To generate such demand, requires less institutional alteration than a fundamental sea change in the patterns of socio-political behaviour at play in PNG The missing ingredient in achieving such reform has not been a lack of effort. Confronting impediments to development has been an abiding imperative on the part of PNG and various interested stakeholders since PNG attained independence in 1975. Geographic proximity and the corresponding trans-national strategic and security interests it encourages, as well as economic, historical, humanitarian and personal links, have inspired an enduring interest in the well-being of PNG as a high priority Australian foreign policy challenge. Australia is the chief contributor to the base of Official Development Aid (ODA) supporting PNG, and has invested considerable time, capital, and technical support into helping the country develop. To date, Australia has contributed nearly $16 billion dollars to assist PNG's socio-economic progress. This significant commitment, coupled with foreign aid from other sources, indicates that PNG has not suffered from a dearth of financial assistance or expertise. Yet, PNG's development aspirations have lingered out of reach. Aid has not fostered the outcomes it was intended to produce. It has been 'ineffective' in the eyes of many, sparking widespread debate about its potential to influence positive change. On review, ODA can be seen to have contributed to keeping PNG's collapsing systems functional, yet it has not generated substantial improvements in shifting the underlying impediments which keep the cycle of poor development in motion. The root causes of instability and poor progress in PNG persist undeterred. The fundamental point detracting from the capacity of ODA in PNG is that it finds it difficult to permeate the deeper levels of the problems constraining development therein. The lack of incentive for institutional reform within PNG is a primary consideration in addressing this issue. Furthermore, aid has produced some destructive by-products in PNG. The various deductions that have been drawn regarding what this entails about the effectiveness of aid and the future of Australia's commitment to PNG are in stark contrast. On one hand, critics point to the persistently poor and only incrementally, if at all, improving socio-economic indicators PNG exhibits. Based on a strictly economic rationalist perspective, these commentators conclude that 'aid has failed' in PNG. Opponents to this viewpoint acknowledge that the aid program has been imperfect, yet contend that it has produced positive impacts when one assesses poverty alleviation from a more comprehensive matrix. Furthermore, the value of preventing considerable decline in PNG should not be discounted. Supporters of the notion that 'aid has failed', suggest that aid should be withdrawn to enhance PNG's development. Supporters of the second perspective, with whom this report concurs, conclude that aid should be continued, with improvements to enhance its effectiveness.