Australian Journal of Social Issues最新文献

An appreciation of Aboriginal land rights in New South Wales (NSW) is characterised by two dominant narratives. One is that land rights are central to achieving and advancing recognition and support for the existence and survival of Aboriginal peoples in the settled spaces of south-eastern Australia. In this view, Aboriginal land rights realise intrinsic political power. The second dominant narrative is that the land estate restituted to Aboriginal people's Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) is to be “activated” and “leveraged” for economic prosperity of collectively defined groups and shared to support and sustain individuals and families. This perspective holds that land enables realisation of wealth and prosperity. Although these narratives are based in truth, they have served to make some important work and values held by Aboriginal people less visible in any evaluation of the benefits of land rights. It is this less visible work, the work of care that is unique to Aboriginal worlds and made possible by the resources and structures of LALCs realised through the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, 1983, that is the focus of this paper.

Since 1996, migration-related schemes have directed new immigrants, refugees and humanitarian entrants to regional Australia to mitigate the need for skills and declining population growth in these locations. However, a key concern of these schemes is the uncertainty of long-term immigrant retention in regional locations beyond the stipulated visa category period. We draw on the metaphor of stickiness: the ability of geographic clusters to attract and retain to examine Australian regional settlement literature and identify factors and processes associated with immigrant settlement and retention. Through a systematic and rigorous review process, we identify seven interconnected factors and processes nestled amongst three core themes of sticky factors and processes that attract, enable and impede settlement and retention contributing to the growing knowledge regarding regional immigrant settlement and retention.

Child abuse and neglect in the home is a prevalent and significant issue in Australia. Recent findings from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study revealed that 62.2 per cent of participants had experienced at least one type of maltreatment during childhood, with most reporting multi-type maltreatment. This rapid evidence review was aimed at understanding factors associated with child abuse and neglect in the family context. Results from the included studies indicated that there is a complex interplay between various child-related factors, parent or family characteristics and contextual factors in understanding child maltreatment. Implications for a reliance on proxy measures of child maltreatment, including involvement with child protection systems, are also considered. A key finding across the included studies was that parent characteristics were consistently identified and should be a key target for prevention. Further research is needed to explore the role of parenting capacity and skills in the prevention of harm, the intersection between associated factors, how protective factors and strength-based approaches can inform prevention efforts and how policies and practices can be designed to appropriately address this issue.

Influenced by a harm reduction philosophy, the then Victorian Labor Government announced the establishment of the state's first medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) in North Richmond in late 2017. But, public and political opinion remains sharply divided as to the merits of the MSIR. One influence on policy development appears to be media commentary on the MSIR and the wider illicit drugs policy debate. This paper compares the official editorials of the two daily Melbourne newspapers, the Herald Sun and The Age regarding the MSIR, from November 2017 until November 2022. Based on 33 articles (Herald Sun, N = 28; The Age, N = 5), our findings identify philosophical differences between the two newspapers as reflected in their sources of information, language and highlighted issues. The Age was mostly supportive of both the introduction of the North Richmond MSIR and proposals for a second site. The Herald Sun's position was more ambiguous, ranging from qualified support for the North Richmond MSIR to strong opposition to further sites.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of several factors that potentially contribute to attitudes toward demographic (i.e., racial, ethnic and religious) diversity in 16 advanced economies, using data from a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2021 (N = 16,254). Specifically, the study aimed to examine 12 potential covariates of anti-diversity attitudes, using Bayesian multilevel modelling. The results showed that the variables with the strongest positive association with anti-diversity attitudes were perceived domestic conflict (perception of greater conflict between different groups in one's country), being older and dissatisfaction with the way democracy works in one's country. The strongest negative covariates of anti-diversity attitudes were higher levels of education and perceiving discrimination as a problem. Household income was not associated with diversity attitudes, whereas being female was associated with more pro-diversity attitudes. The model was tested separately in Australia, and the results were generally consistent with the findings from the multinational sample. Perceived domestic conflict emerged as the strongest covariate of unfavourable diversity attitudes both in the overall sample and in Australia.

Ableist hate speech regularly appears in online comment-enabled articles on social media, whenever disability-related topics enter public discourse. In 2022, Dylan Alcott's appointment as Australian of the Year as a person with disability was widely celebrated. Despite this progress, we identified new forms of politicised ableism in online responses to his disability advocacy in this role. This research considers readership responses to an April 2022 Facebook post by an Australian tabloid publication. The post editorialised Alcott's Twitter response to the then Australian Prime Minister's comments on feeling “blessed” to have children without disability. Enmeshed within the usual ableist imaginary—“why would any parent want to have a child with disability?”—were new justifications for ableism associated with political “wokeness.” We analyse this emerging contour of politicised ableism in contemporary Australia to consider the complex patterns of progress toward social justice for people with disability.

In this paper, we discuss a rapid-fire study involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders from the urban Indigenous health sector who collaborated to produce an “Urban COVID-19 Systems Map.” The map outlines the behaviours, actions and responses that stakeholders identified as mitigating or exacerbating COVID-19 risks in urban Indigenous communities. Data were collected and analysed during the height of the pandemic in 2021. We begin by introducing the characteristics of system thinking—the methodology that informed our research—and consider its use in Indigenous health research more broadly. We then outline our utilisation of system thinking and discuss how it was applied to the three workshops. System thinking contributes to collaboration and collective debate amongst stakeholders and aims to produce holistic understandings of complex problems, such as pandemics. This article provides a reflective overview of the benefits and challenges of applying system thinking in Indigenous health research whilst also sharing some of the research findings. We argue that centralising the voices of stakeholders, particularly Indigenous stakeholders, is critical to developing and implementing effective and culturally appropriate responses to pandemics and is equally as important to the preparedness for future pandemics.

Corporal punishment is associated with adverse outcomes; however, little empirical data exists about the state of corporal punishment in Australia. This paper presents the first national prevalence estimates of experiences of corporal punishment during childhood among Australians and its use as adults by Australian parents and caregivers. We also report community beliefs about the necessity of corporal punishment. Results show corporal punishment remains common in Australia. A high proportion of Australians (62.5%) experienced corporal punishment in childhood, including almost 6 in 10 (58.4%) young people aged 16–24. Approximately half of all parents surveyed (53.7%) had used corporal punishment. A quarter of Australians (26.4%) believe corporal punishment is necessary to raise children, 73.6% do not view it as necessaryThe use of corporal punishment and belief in its necessity are lower among younger people. Findings indicate the experience of corporal punishment remains unacceptably high in Australia but that the use of corporal punishment and beliefs about its necessity may be changing. These findings have significant implications for policy and practice in Australia. Changes in legislation could reduce this form of violence toward children. Relatively low rates of endorsement of the necessity of corporal punishment suggest the Australian community may be receptive to attempts for law reform in this area.

Better data are fundamental to improving the effectiveness of policies. Drawing on examples from nutrition, education, criminal justice and income support, I discuss how data access has contributed to policy improvements. Data linkage across departments can also help ensure that policymakers are focussed on the right policy goals, rather than merely those that are easiest to measure. As governments increase the rigour of evaluation, quality data will be crucial.

The prohibition of corporal punishment in Australia will require reform of the criminal law of assault to abolish defences in each Australian state and territory that permit the use of force on children for the purpose of punishment. This paper highlights the anomaly of those defences by undertaking a comparative doctrinal analysis with other Australian criminal law principles that excuse the use of force by parents and caregivers, including force for the purpose of management and control, and physical contact that is accepted by the community as part of everyday life. This comparison highlights the persistence in the corporal punishment defences of outdated notions of parental rights and authority over children, in contrast to broader trends in the law toward recognising that parents exercise responsibilities in the best interests of their children. In addition, this analysis confirms that abolition of Australian defences for corporal punishment will not criminalise parents and caregivers using force for purposes other than punishment.