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Carbon farming presents an opportunity for the land sector to generate income and transition to more sustainable land management practices. In Australia, establishing a carbon project and earning carbon credits is complex, with project proponents needing to satisfy eligibility requirements and adhere to rigorous measurement, verification, and reporting protocols of approved methods. To address these challenges, a human centered design (HCD) approach was used to deliver a digital solution, serving landowners' needs related to method discovery and reconfiguring how the methodological and scientific complexity of abatement potentials was delivered. The solution, called LOOC-C (pronounced "Look-see"), supports the discovery of abatement methods that are available for a given land area and provides an initial estimate of the potential quantum of carbon sequestered/emitted and the nature of co-benefits associated with each eligible method. Reporting on LOOC-C development and its observed impact demonstrates the role that human centered digital tools have in promoting land management actions that are both sustainable and reasonable to undertake. It equally demonstrates the power of integrating environmental market and user requirements with a robust design methodology. With similar opportunities in environmental markets globally, additional applications of an HCD approach are proposed. In 2012, the Australian government established the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) to reward landowners (via awarding Australian Carbon Credit Units, or ACCUs) for the implementation of management practices that either sequester carbon and/or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Rigorous eligibility and method requirements are intended to provide confidence in abatement outcomes, but they introduce significant complexity that participants must overcome. 11 years later, uncertainties in the implementation and ACCU generation potential of ERF projects and implications on productivity/co-benefits have limited uptake and the quantum of ACCU generation of land sector enterprises. Digital tools that support the discovery of options and provide estimated potential outcomes, such as the LOOC-C tool described in this paper (), can generate interest and empowerment, helping to initiate decisions toward market participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this systematic literature review was to investigate the current understanding of the competencies needed by Engineering Asset Management personnel in local authorities within Australia. During the development of the search string for the literature review, it was found that there were no available peer-reviewed articles on Engineering Asset Management competencies through an Australian local authority lens between January 2010 and December 2019 within the searched databases. Based on this, the search string criteria was re-focused onto Engineer Asset Management competencies within Australia (in general), as the new frame. Using this updated string search, the authors searched several databases (EBSCOHost, Informit, Scopus Informit and Web of Science) for research published in English between January 2010 and December 2019 that detailed the competencies deemed necessary for personnel undertaking Engineering Asset Management activities within the Australian context. Additional records were searched for in relation to the topic, from a range of Engineering and Engineering Management Conferences held between 2010 and 2019. Two hundred and thirty publications were identified through database searches, while eight conference proceedings were identified from the additional conference search. These were initially checked for duplicates, and then subjected to the refinement stage against a detailed review criteria, as per the PRISMA framework checklist process. Four articles progressed through the full PRISMA framework process. Further in-depth reviews of the remaining four papers found that one article was principally focused on the Australian Quality Framework (AQF) certification training processes, while the remaining three papers contained data of competency requirements (and example subjects) for Engineering Asset Management personnel within Australia. This data was collated, and through a deductive qualitative content analysis, was coded into three common themes: (1) Technical skills, (2) Professional skills – internally focused and (3) Professional skills – externally focused. The review process undertaken within this research initially showed that there were no papers within the original search frame of Australian local authorities, while the updated search detailed limited available literature within the general Australian context. This highlights an apparent gap within the available literature for the research topic scope during the period within January 2010 and December 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the procedural effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of urban planning in Australia. The SEA has been practiced in Australia over the last two decades under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act of 1999. After the reform of EPBC Act in 2006, the application of SEA in urban sector has been widened. By evaluating the procedural practice of SEA of Melbourne Urban Extension Plan using a set of evaluation criteria, the study shows that most of the procedural requirements were confirmed by the SEA of the plan. There were some shortcomings including, among others, inadequate consideration of cumulative impacts, socio-economic impacts and the analysis of alternatives at different stages of SEA. The possible reasons behind these shortcomings were explained based on the context of SEA in Australia. Furthermore, this study explored some key features of SEA system in Australia those may influence the SEA practice. The findings of the study can be useful to the application of SEA of urban planning in addition to practitioners, academics and policy makers in Australia or elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Early childhood education and care has been an area of significant policy attention, public investment and private market activity in Australia over the past three decades. Australian educationists and policy-makers have looked to international examples for evidence, policy design and institutional models. However, this area is under-researched in Australia, with regard to how these knowledge flows are theorised, and how policy is implemented on the ground. Purpose:The paper’s purpose was to contribute new Australian-focussed conceptual and empirical insights on the trajectories, development and implementation of evidence-based policy in the field of early childhood education and care. Sources of evidence:The paper is based on three main sources of evidence:• the critical literature on policy transfer and policy mobility• policy statements, reports and planning documents produced by national- and state-level governments• data from fieldwork analysis of new capital works and programmes in the early childhood field. Main argument:International research and evidence on the benefits of investment in early learning has had a significant impact on the framing of Australian policy. So too has a move in several countries to align early childhood institutions with schools. However, a dominant paradigm of policy transfer, reliant on pluralist and rationalist frameworks of policy-making, fails to account for the dynamics of policy development and implementation across and within jurisdictions and geographical space. Conceptualising a new alignment in Australia between children’s centres and schools as ‘educare’, this article employs the theoretical lens of policy mobility to account for the circulation and transformation of educare policy in Australian settings. Through an empirical analysis of a new educare centre in the growth corridor of western Melbourne, the article demonstrates the extent to which neoliberal policy settings outside the educational sphere, around public finance, partnership, place and infrastructure provision, influence the implementation of ‘educare’ policy. Conclusions:The educare discourse in Australia addresses a complex and multiscalar set of policy problems that associate child development with concerns around human capital formation, economic efficiency and productivity, place making and community building, and the role of the public sector in neoliberal democracies. International circuits of knowledge, policy design and institutional models in the educare field have been significant in shaping recent Australian policy, despite well-publicised views expressed in Australia on the disconnection between academic research and policy. The strength of policy mobility as a theoretical lens to assist our understanding of these influences lies in its critique of formalism in policy-making and in its attention to fluidity and transformation. The mobility lens encourages new empirical research that focuses on spatial and institutional dynamics, assisting our reading of on-the-ground developments in Australia’s fastest growing city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This opinion piece reflects on some critical questions being asked today about Australian library and information science (LIS). It explores some of the foundations of such questions to provide an historical perspective on contemporary Australian LIS practice. This paper contends that lack of historical perspectives amongst recent graduates contributes to a sense of professional isolation, and there is a need to place contemporary concerns within a broader and deeper professional landscape if the profession is to successfully address contemporary concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]