The socio-economic status of migrant populations in regional and rural Australia and its implications for future population policy

The migrant population living in regional and rural Australia has been growing, partly because of the introduction and expansion of a number of state-specific and regional migration programs by the Australian Government over the period since 1995. The programs were created in response to both the skill shortages in regional and rural Australia and environmental and social critiques of urban migration. This study uses data from the 2006 Census of Population and Housing in Australia to compare five socio-economic measures: labour force participation, unemployment, income, educational attainment, and occupational status, between the migrant and Australia-born populations. The results reveal that the migrant population in regional and rural Australia now records similar values for the labour force participation rate, unemployment rate, median individual weekly income, and proportion in high skill level occupations to the Australia-born population. The most notable difference is that migrants have a substantially higher level of education, particularly university education. The differences between men and women on these socio-economic measures are wider for the migrant population than for the Australia-born. Recently-arrived migrants are significantly more educated, more highly skilled and higher paid than their longer-standing counterparts. The study also discusses the differences between the larger migrant groups living in regional and rural Australia. The improvement in the socio-economic outcomes experienced by the migrant population of regional and rural Australia and their broad similarity to those of the Australia-born living in these regions strengthen the case for increasing the proportion of migrant settlers going to these regions.     

The socialist blues? Citizenship,class and civil society

This article seeks to explore the relationship between the British labour movement, the Left and the Labour party. It does so through the intellectual prism of debates around citizenship and civil society. In this respect, I seek to recover a critical politics around questions of class from the New Left who were always critical of more mainstream ideas of citizenship. However, I also point to the limitations of those who have argued that meaningful forms of citizenship can no longer be connected to political parties and only occurs outside of state organizations. Political parties continue to need intellectual narratives to legitimate their role in society and to connect with the broader civil order. The Labour Party in this respect has seemingly broken with ‘New Labour’ and is searching for a new narrative. The rise of an intellectual grouping around ‘Blue Labour’ has made considerable headway recently and I seek to take a critical view of some of their ideas and ethical frameworks. Here I argue that changing class formations and a more pluralistic society potentially ask difficult questions of those who seek to revive the labour movement in troubled times.     

From Knowledge Engineering to Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is seen by many to be a prerequisite for the successful organization, and one that relies heavily, though not exclusively, on a sound technological infrastructure. A major drawback, though, with current technology (e.g. Lotus Notes and www) is its focus on information management and communication rather than on knowledge itself. What knowledge management needs is tools and techniques that are more oriented towards knowledge – its creation, mapping, transfer and use. We show how many of the methods and tools used in the branch of artificial intelligence known as knowledge engineering can be adapted to provide such a knowledge-oriented technology, and lead to significant benefits for organizations. A number of case studies are presented which illustrate our points, including decision-making at Andersen Consulting and best practice at Rolls-Royce. A more elaborated use is shown in the context of business process re-engineering, where a new software tool kit called SPEDE is being applied and validated within the aerospace and automotive industries.     

Whither Commodity‐based Trade?

Market access for livestock products from Africa has traditionally been limited by the presence of certain infectious diseases that pose risks to animal and human health. However, an increasingly discussed option for widening that access is commodity‐based trade (CBT) focusing on the health and safety attributes of the product rather than the disease status of the country of origin. There have, however, been few analyses on the potential economic impacts and unintended consequences of such an approach. This article examines the principles behind a dramatic shift in approach to trading opportunities that CBT might bring, exploring both technical and economic considerations.     

Firm friends: exploring the supportive components in gay men's workplace friendships

Research shows that friendships are among the most important sources of support for gay men. Despite insights into how friends can be significant providers of emotional, practical and affirmational support, particularly when gay men 'come out' or experience discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, scholars have rarely considered the role of work friends in supporting gay men in the workplace. This is remarkable given that work organisations remain challenging arenas for sexual minority employees to fashion a meaningful sense of self. Drawing on in-depth interview data with twenty-eight gay men employed in the UK, this article argues that gay men can rely on work friends for different forms of support in helping them to negotiate and sustain a viable sense of self. The findings show how the gender and sexuality of organisation influences which men and women are available as work friends, and the types of support they might give. Also, the affirmational support received from work friends is important not only for validating participants' sexual identities, but also identities of class and parenthood. The study aims to complicate stereotypes of men's workplace friendships as sources of support used largely for advancing careers and personal gain.     

Anthropic Shadow: Observation Selection Effects and Human Extinction Risks

We describe a significant practical consequence of taking anthropic biases into account in deriving predictions for rare stochastic catastrophic events. The risks associated with catastrophes such as asteroidal/cometary impacts, supervolcanic episodes, and explosions of supernovae/gamma‐ray bursts are based on their observed frequencies. As a result, the frequencies of catastrophes that destroy or are otherwise incompatible with the existence of observers are systematically underestimated. We describe the consequences of this anthropic bias for estimation of catastrophic risks, and suggest some directions for future work.