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Debate continues to rage as to the veracity of evidence around the permanence of climate change. There is no doubt that changes are occurring across the world and that these changes are causing significant social hardship, including food and water insecurity and large-scale movements of people. What is also emerging in research across the world is that these social impacts and adaptations are highly gendered. This article draws on several years of research on the Australian drought and more recent research on declining water availability in the Murray—Darling Basin of Australia. It notes the significant social impacts, particularly in remote and irrigation areas, and draws out the gendered impacts of these changes. The article argues for more sensitive rights-based social policy to address people who are under extraordinary stress during times of unparalleled change.

Many small communities across the vast interior of Australia are under pressure from ongoing rural restructuring and a long-running drought. Socioeconomic indicators suggest that rural people are significantly disadvantaged by comparison with their urban counterparts. While these factors are evident, less well understood are the circumstances of rural and remote young people. In this article we draw on research conducted in 2001 and 2004 on the employment and educational experiences of young people in these communities. Using Reimer's typology of relations associated with social exclusion — market, bureaucratic, associative and communal — we indicate that rural and remote young people are experiencing rising levels of social exclusion. Their access to education and employment is restricted through no fault of their own, and is in fact, obstructed by government policy. The need for sensitive policy to increase the social inclusion of young people in rural and remote areas is evident.

The long-running Australian drought has had significant economic and environmental consequences, not least its impact on water supplies for major cities. What is less well understood are the social consequences affecting the farm families and communities reliant on agricultural production. In this article we focus on the mental health outcomes for farm men, noting that they are more vulnerable to extreme measures such as suicide. We argue that a dominant form of hegemonic masculinity in rural areas, which has served men well in good times, allowing them power and privilege, is inherently unhealthy in times of significant stress such as the current drought. The stoicism so typical of normative rural masculinity prevents men from seeking help when their health is severely compromised. We argue that attending to the health of rural men during drought requires attention not just to health outcomes but also to hegemonic masculinity.

This paper examines the lack of recognition and devaluing of the work of Australian farm women by examining the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Eco nomics (ABARE) report, Women on Farms (Gooday 1995). The paper argues that the work of ABARE and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is fundamentally flawed by their definition of what constitutes valid work and by their perception that farm family labour can be differentiated by gender such that the work of men is accorded greater value while the work of women is reduced or ignored. By examining the nature of farm family labour, analysing the notions of work and by incorporating a radical fem inist framework to this analysis, this paper challenges ABS and ABARE to re-examine their position on the issue of work.