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This paper examines how the conduct of a local festival of fashion retailing—the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival—reinvigorates the commodity fair format of older times. The paper takes a longitudinal view of the festival’s evolution and draws on Lefebvre’s spatiology, complemented by Terranova’s approach to the participatory economy, to explore how it produces monetary value as it produces space. The discussion highlights the contradictory nature of event processes, arguing that they reinforce dominant representations of the city and extend retailers’ reach into public space, but at the same time undermine spaces of business activity. The paper suggests that the event’s use of participatory economies of cultural mobilisation are similar to the tactics of social movement activism, but that in this context mobilisation works to support the value-capturing strategies of local retailers and to reinscribe urban spaces as spaces of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper examines the geography of corporate headquarters in the Australian urban system, giving consideration to their location, control of capital and performance. The paper argues that, while considerable recent attention has been given to global cities in the networks of corporate power, the spatial organisation of company headquarters remains important within national urban systems. In the case of Australia, Sydney and Melbourne dominate the corporate landscape, although the smaller cities of Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth occupy important niches. The paper demonstrates that there are clear variations in the relative performance of companies across the Australian urban system. There is also a pattern of sectoral specialisation within Australia’s cities which, in part, helps to explain the different development trajectories and relative levels of corporate performance. The paper concludes by exploring some of the implications of the study for the understanding of urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

People receiving working-age income support payments are often stigmatised as morally and/or behaviourally deficient. We consider the role of the media, as a potential source of structural stigma, in perpetuating negative characterisations of people in receipt of either the Disability Support Pension (DSP) or unemployment benefits (Newstart) during a major period of welfare reform in Australia. Newspaper articles (N = 8290) that appeared in Australia's five largest newspapers between 2001 and 2016, and referenced either payment were analysed. We found an increased use of fraud language associated with the DSP, which coincides with increased political and policy focus on this payment. We conclude that in a period of increasing political concern with welfare reform, media coverage of welfare recipients is a form of stigma power, acting discursively as symbolic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of an objective, universal measure of newspaper quality has led researchers to apply a wide range of criteria suited to their particular needs. But one commonly accepted starting point is that adequate editorial staff levels are a necessary though not necessarily sufficient condition to ensure newspaper quality. A basic industry guide of one editorial staff member for each 1000 circulation does not allow for the distortions imposed by economies of scale. This article adapts the 1:1000 model to produce a newspaper quality index which can be applied both comparatively and longitudinally, and tests it on Australia's metropolitan newspapers. The article concludes by arguing that such an objective indicator of newspaper quality is vital because of the economic and other forces in the community that militate against quality journalism, and the ramifications this has for all of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New public transport investment can improve accessibility for existing and new users of the urban transport network and this can lead to land value uplift with uplift benefits being distributed in relation to the proximity of the location of the property to the infrastructure. This paper quantifies land value uplift and its spatial distribution for accessibility to different destinations for residential properties around a new-build Liverpool Parramatta transitway for buses in a suburban area of south-west Sydney, Australia. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to take account of spatial dependency in the estimation process with the results being presented in map form. Results indicate that property prices are mainly determined by the property’s internal features and the neighbourhood effects, but accessibility by car and accessibility to employment along the transitway also contribute non-marginally. The GWR local model shows that accessibility varies significantly over geographical space demonstrating the advantages of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the influence of public greenspace on the life satisfaction of residents of Australia’s capital cities. A positive relationship is found between the percentage of public greenspace in a resident’s local area and their self-reported life satisfaction, on average corresponding to an implicit willingness-to-pay of $1172 in annual household income for a 1 per cent (143 square metres) increase in public greenspace. Additional results suggest that the value of greenspace increases with population density and that lone parents and the less educated benefit to a greater extent from the provision of public greenspace than the general population. In all, these results support existing evidence that public greenspace is welfare enhancing for urban residents and adequate allowance should be made for its provision when planning urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many suburban areas in Australian cities built between the 1930s and 1960s are facing major challenges from socio-demographic change, ageing housing, long-term disinvestment and entrenched pockets of social disadvantage. Yet despite emerging relative disadvantages, these middle ring or ‘third city’ suburbs are experiencing locally generated piecemeal market-led reinvestment and renewal. This paper explores housing, household and housing investment characteristics and trends in the older parts of Sydney’s western suburbs drawing on analyses of socio-demographic and development application data. Policy options to achieve more appropriate urban renewal outcomes under broad social sustainability criteria are canvassed. Similarities and differences to the American ‘first suburb’ phenomenon are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The New Poverty Agenda is said to represent a break with the past and to offer a rationale for aid that is built on partnerships towards a common and realizable goal – the elimination of poverty. However, recent critiques have highlighted problems with the practice of poverty policy, and particularly limitations identified from its association with global actors which stand accused of contributing to poverty. For some, there is no new agenda; a poverty focus merely represents a different path to the same ends (i. e., political reform and economic adjustment). This paper investigates the implications for smaller donors, such as Australia and New Zealand, of adopting poverty policy as defined by the World Bank and others. It argues that certain contexts, such as the Pacific, demonstrate the weaknesses of an all-encompassing policy that remains muddled and contradictory. In terms of effective partnerships, much more could be gained by first seeking to learn more about the nature of poverty in the immediate region and its underlying causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For flood-prone urban areas, the prospect of increasing population densities and more frequent extreme weather associated with climate change is alarming. Proactive adaptation can reduce potential flood risks in theory. However, there is limited empirical economics exploring this issue, without which convincing residents within exposed areas to participate in adaptation is challenging. In this paper, a hedonic model is presented of property prices for a flood-prone inner-city suburb of Brisbane, Australia. The study defines a continuous flood-risk variable based on the vertical distances of properties relative to a flood level that occurs on average once every 100 years. The results show significant property-price discounting of 5.5 per cent per metre below the defined flood level. Detailed hedonic characteristics also provided shadow price estimates of housing characteristics and distances to amenities (such as bus-stops, train-stations, parks and bikeways) and these hedonics need to be considered when holistically assessing the dynamics of suburbs for adaptation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australian sociologists have barely engaged with the resurgence of economic sociology in the USA and Europe. It might be argued that this lack of engagement arises from a robust local agenda, immune from metropolitan fashions This article argues that this is not the case. Rather, it arises from the enduring residualism of Australian sociology vis-a-vis economics In turn, this residualism is grounded in sociology's late beginnings in Australia, the dominant framework at the time of its institutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s, and the limited challenge presented by critical approaches from the 1970s. The article identifies four major lines of inquiry in the resurgence of economic sociology: network analysis, comparative political economy, field theory and performativity theory Notwithstanding their differences, these approaches direct attention to the social construction of markets. In turn, they challenge both mainstream economics and sociology. The papers in this Special Edition of the Journal of Sociology build upon these lines of inquiry in the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the 'quick and dirty' travel cost method (TCM) to generate a range of estimates of one part of the environmental value of the Australian Alps: the recreation use value (RUV). Data for the study were collected during 2001/02 from 4,791 visitor surveys which provided information on 18,480 individuals who were visiting seven different regions of the Australian Alps across three states. The range of estimates is between $10 billion and $200 billion -- that range varying across a variety of plausible travel costs and other research judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a context of uncertainty over travellers' security, tourism experienced two critical events in 2003 — the Iraq War and SARS. This paper explores the economic effects of the tourism crisis on Australia. While the events resulted in less inbound tourism, they also resulted in a reduction of outbound tourism. The net economic impacts on the nation depend on the extent to which cancelled or postponed outbound travel are allocated to savings, domestic tourism or the purchases of other goods and services. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the Australian economy, simulations of the impacts of the events suggest that the net effects are not as severe as might have been perceived by tourism stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the two world wars on welfare legislation in 16 western countries. We use Poisson regressions to test our hypothesis that war was a catalyst of welfare legislation, especially in countries that were heavily exposed to the dreadful effects of war. By welfare legislation, we mean the inaugural adoption and major reforms across four programmes (old age and disability benefits, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment compensation and family allowances). Our findings suggest that both world wars are key factors for explaining the timing of comprehensive welfare reforms and outweigh the significance of other factors such as regime type or level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments have intensified conditions on social security payments, implementing new paternalist and neoliberal policy ideals that individualise responsibility for overcoming poverty. This article explores how such policy ideals can operate with a racialised impact in the context of income management, a type of welfare conditionality in Australia that delivers cashless welfare transfers. Income management originally applied only to Indigenous welfare recipients, but has since been expanded. The government’s rationale for the scheme is to limit access to alcohol and other drugs, and promote ‘socially responsible behaviour’. However, empirical evidence indicates that income management in the Northern Territory has not been successful in achieving the government’s policy objectives. Income management is built upon a policy narrative of addiction – those subject to it are portrayed as addicted to welfare payments and to alcohol. This article critiques these depictions and outlines a range of pragmatic, political and ethical concerns about income management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a climate of fiscal austerity, Australia's neo-liberal government is continuing to fund and implement an expensive National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This article presents a demographic, funding and policy context for the introduction of the NDIS. Its success, we argue, must be situated in the context of development of a post-industrial workforce, and owes a lot to its embrace of social investment, marketisation of welfare services, and cash for care. We then look at two tensions unfolding during the scheme's implementation: increasing demand for care work alongside a shortage of care workers, and the market-driven reform of the Australian vocational education and training system. The changes to vocational education, we conclude, have produced more problems than they solved. Since they anticipate key aspects of the NDIS, they raise questions about the intent and future of Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the administrative and research capture of child support data as a case study of how institutional data collection processes are performative in perpetuating gendered inequalities. We compare interviews with 19 low-income single mothers and their longitudinal survey responses from the same research to reveal how low-income women strategically or inadvertently ‘smoothed’ their experiences when responding to data collection processes. This directly resulted in material and symbolic costs in the form of reduced welfare benefits and limited evidence with which to lobby for policy reform. These processes in turn provided benefits to fathers and the state in the form of reduced child support liabilities and enforcement action, and welfare outlays, respectively. We conclude that current administrative and research data collection practices provide a limited and gendered evidence base for administrative justice and policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the representation of housing risk in contemporary Australian policy discourse through a critical analysis of two policy texts from the recent Victorian Coalition government (2010-2014). Drawing on governmentality theory and contemporary debates on neoliberalism, it examines how these policy texts perpetuate a discourse in which 'housing risk' is primarily understood as an issue for individuals to manage, rather than as an issue with predominantly structural roots. It then explores how this particular neoliberal representation of 'housing risk' supports policy solutions that ultimately responsibilise individuals through a narrow focus on education and employment as the pathways to independence in the private housing market. The article argues that this situation is problematic in a context of increasing rates of homelessness and diminished access to affordable housing across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We often hear that the high unemployment rates of low-educated workers in Europe are due to the rigidities of the institutions increasing the labour costs that burden employers. In this article, we challenge this traditional view and offer alternative explanations to the cross-national variation in the employment rate of low-educated workers. Using macro-data and an error correction model, we analyse the determinants of the creation of jobs for low-educated workers in 19 countries between 1997 and 2010. Our findings tend to invalidate the neoliberal view, while also pointing to the positive impact of investing in public employment services and the predominant role of economic growth, which can be weakened by union density and employment protection in the case of male workers. Last but not least, creating low skill jobs has no or little impact on the employment outcomes of low-educated workers, thus indicating job displacement issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The issue of racist violence appeared in the Australian media and politics in mid-2009 following a spate of attacks on international students in Melbourne and Sydney. The racist aspect of these attacks was downplayed, authorities describing them as ‘opportunistic’ and a ‘regrettable fact of urban life’. The denial of racism is a familiar hallmark of contemporary racism; for some scholars, it is a defining criterion of what has been called the ‘new racism’. But the denial of racism around the attacks on Indian international students also had an economic imperative. Negative media coverage within India posed a substantial threat to the AUS$18.6 billion international education export market, with potential students and sponsors becoming concerned about their security should they elect to study in Australia. Data from the Challenging Racism project provide compelling evidence on the racist context of the attacks. The Indian media and politicians maintained an outraged position on the attacks, affecting student interest in Australia. And as the substantial economic costs became clearer, Australian governments came to more openly acknowledge a racist element to the attacks, also hinting at structural issues regarding community relations and attitudes which required policy attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Both interest-group and public-policy scholars accept that groups are important to policy formulation and implementation because they hold valuable capacities. However, the literature has not dealt with whether, and how, groups develop capacities. In this article, we examine the question of group capacity development by focusing on the adaption of specific groups to evolving policy contexts. Taking the example of organic farm policy we look at the impact that divergent policy strategies aimed at growing this infant industry sector have had on the way related industry groups have evolved in four countries. This comparative study supports our argument that policy strategy is one key force in shaping the capacities that groups develop over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sales off our wheel drive (4WD) recreational vehicles in Australia continue to grow at a faster rate than for other vehicle types. Meanwhile anecdotal reporting suggests there is a growing demand for 4WD tourism experiences to Australia's desert areas. To date there has been no segmentation of 4WD tourism markets arm this has encouraged destination marketing organizations arm product developers in desert areas to adopt a broad-brushed approach for attracting visitors. In this article we present findings from focus groups and surveys of 4WD enthusiasts conducted at large 4WD shows to propose a segmentation of the market. The findings emphasize that the market is not homogeneous. For desert areas, the Explorer-traveller segment expresses a high favourability for trips there; however, other segments are important. Those directly and indirectly, involved in 4WD tourism should benefit from applying this understanding to develop products arm experiences which reflect the motivations and experiential aspirations of their target segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian industrial system has undergone significant changes over the last 100 years. Through most of that period, the changes in principles and procedures have been incremental and were developed, at the federal level, mostly by the tribunals guided by the prevailing economic climate and the submissions of employers, unions and governments. More recently, the changes have been driven by legislation. The Work Choices legislation marks a radical departure in scope and philosophy from the past. This article reviews the new legislation against the background of the requirements of an economically efficient and socially fair industrial relations system. It concludes that the case for the new system rests mainly on assertions and is not supported by persuasive evidence or argument. By promoting individual bargaining at the expense of collective bargaining and by greatly weakening union power and the role of the industrial umpire, the balance of economic power has been tilted greatly in favour of employer. These circumstances will encourage wage-cost cutting rather than deliver productivity improvement. They violate ILO Conventions; they go against the Australian ethos of a fair society and have the potential of being socially divisive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]