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During the last thirty years, ideologies, theories and policies relating to domestic violence have changed radically. As a result of this, community concern and state policies shifted considerably towards protecting and supporting abused wives. Although this shift was justified by the extreme severity of the problem and the relative inadequacy of relevant policies of the past to address wife abuse effectively, it nevertheless led to a partial neglect of other types of domestic violence. Particularly wife-to-husband abuse has been totally ignored and neglected, and even taken to be the fault of the victim. This paper explores the status of husband abuse, by re-assessing relevant trends and developments in Australia and other countries, and presents a review of empirical evidence which shows that husband abuse is more common and more serious than it is generally believed to be, and that it is the task of the government to address spouse abuse by means of policies and practices which are free from a sexist bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nineteen fifties and sixties, many single male Italian immigrants to Australia entered into marriages by proxy with Italian women. Such marriages were performed in Italy when the physical absence of either the bride or groom made it necessary for a stand in or 'proxy' to register consent to the marriage on behalf of the missing partner. This paper explores the reasons why Italian nationals and Italo-Australian immigrants contracted such unions and argues that proxy marriages reflected and perpetuated parochial loyalty or 'campanilismo' amongst Italian settlers in post-war Australia. By granting proxy marriages tacit approval, the Federal Government (and the Catholic Church) in effect helped facilitate and strengthen home-town allegiances within Italian communities, despite official assimilationist rhetoric which discouraged the formation of tight knit ethnic groups. These marriages were condoned in order to help contain the alleged 'rampant sexual proclivities' of single Italian bachelors and to promote stable, family oriented Italian immigrant communities in Australia which would contribute to the goal of population building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community participation is one of the underlying principles of democratic societies and the potential benefits of the participation process are well documented. Although a number of participatory mechanisms have been established by government departments and community agencies to facilitate community participation in health, few Australians regularly or actively participate. This paper examines the context for participation in health action in Australia including a political culture which serves to discourage participation in health, and many other areas, and barriers to participation associated with the complex structure and financing of the health care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of calls for a 'third way' which proposes the abandonment of many of the social democratic and statist commitments of the postwar era, this paper reviews both the responsibilities accepted by peak bodies such as ACOSS and those that ought to be retained by government. It is sceptical of claims that social policy debates in Australia lead to the conclusion that welfare state development here has been satisfactory. Social democratic objectives (derived from intellectual contributions in the 1940s and 1950s as well as from the comparative political economy of the 1980s and 1990s) emphasize more decommodified provision of services than can be readily admitted in Australia. If the demand for social welfare and social policy continues to increase to the extent suggested by past and present circumstances, serious implications emerge for both public and private providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Berween 1982 and 1993 the number of women serving on local government councils, the political arena in which women have been most successful, more than doubled. Data from two Australia wide surveys, one in 1982, the other in 1993, indicate that in the period benveen the two studies there were also some significant changes in the characteristics of women entering local government, with the 1993 respondents better educated and more likely to be in the paid workforce than their earlier counterparts. Some aspects of the commonly held stereotype of female councillors as middle aged, middle class housewives with adult children are challenged by these data, particularly with respect to workforce participation. While this indicates that female councillors are in some ways more heterogeneous than the stereotype suggests, their characteristics remain unrepresentative of those of many women in the community. This paper attempts to provide a picture of women who serve on local government councils, drawing on survey data collected Australia wide in 1982 and 1993. It examines the extent to which the characteristics of female councillors have changed over the period between the two surveys and the extent to which these women conform to the commonly held stereotype of women in local government, and considers the relevance of this to the issue of representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines recent debates relating to the provision of welfare in Australia. It starts with an assessment of the trend towards the acceptance of the philosophy of 'mutual obligation' by governments, commentators and lobby groups, traces the process of the movement of welfare from 'entitlement' to 'obligation' and argues that this is being used to justify a reworking of the relationship between citizen and state. The paper argues that a 'genuine' mutual obligation has always been pan of the Australian welfare system and that, in contrast to the current rhetoric of individual responsibility, it should rather be seen as a community based obligation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the changes to the delivery of labour exchange assistance to the unemployed, initiated in the 1996 Federal Budget, are unlikely to deliver on the promise of `Helping Australians into Real Jobs'. The changes posited by the government are more realistically viewed as a trend to divesting itself of cost intensive functions through the mechanisms of corporatisation and privatisation. Through an analysis of service expectations, the author suggests that the creation of the employment services market will neither build confidence in the Government's strategy to contain unemployment, nor have a positive impact on reducing levels of unemployment. PEPE Ltd, the government owned employment placement enterprise, faces an interesting future as it competes in an open employment services marketplace. It is further suggested that the privatisation trend has serious implications for equitable service delivery to unemployed Australians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper; the level of HACC funding under the South Australian Dementia Support and Respite Projects and the Community Support Scheme was compared across Domiciliary Care and Human Services and Health regions. Results revealed that metropolitan regions generally received more than their per capita share of HA CC funding despite the greater cost of community services in rural areas and the relative paucity of supplementary or alternative rural services. The need for greater planning in the distribution of HACC funds, including moving towards formula funding is identified [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bulk of research investigating the effects of television violence on viewers has concluded that it leads to aggressive behaviour. Whilst the weight of evidence does demonstrate an association between television violence and aggressive behaviour, closer scrutiny of some influential and prominent studies in the area indicates that in a number of cases there exist methodological and/or statistical weaknesses that suggest a need for further work in the area, particularly if claims of causation are to be more confidently advanced. This paper examines some of the methodological limitations that appear in the diversity of research designs employed in the literature. Arising from this examination is the proposition of a longitudinal model which, it is hypothesised, overcomes a number of the identified limitations and utilises relatively recent advances in statistical techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the construction of Childhood Asthma Syndrome by families of affected children. That is, ways in which families understand and describe their child's illness, how they respond to the frequent changes, find ways to adjust to and accommodate being caretakers of a child with a chronic illness. The data revealed families' perception of childhood asthma as a process of frequent change in regard to the asthma condition itself, the child with asthma, individual family members and the family as a unit. Adjustment in family lifestyle was seen as necessary to accommodate the caretaker role of families of a child with a chronic illness. Therefore, to support the role the family plays in this process, additional insights are needed which focus on enabling family empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's immigration policies have had a dramatic effect on school populations, especially in the state of New South Wales which receives about 40 per cent of the intake. This paper is based on a study that was carried out for the Bureau of Immigration. Multicultural and Population Research and the NSW Ministry of Education. The study revealed that many turn-English speaking background pupils miss out on English as a second language tuition, community languages are allowed to lapse and aspects of the school environment, such as relations between different groups, are not given the attention that they deserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on Australia's largest whistleblower study. Specifically it focuses on the experiences of whistleblowers in the Queensland public sector during the Goss Labor government's first term. Rather than being affirmed as good citizen-workers when they took disclosures of wrongdoing to their supervisors within the units in which they worked, the whistleblowers encountered obstruction and vlilification. Their experiences offer a rare cheek-up on the slate of workplace dissent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines critically the relationship between the rhetoric and reality of the then Queensland Government's consultation procedures in relation to the 1992 Juvenile Justice Bill. It is argued that although the State Government viewed consultation as central to the process of social policy reform, the steps adopted to achieve this in the case of the Juvenile Justice Bill were regarded widely as inadequate in a number of important respects. We contend that such shortcomings were generated by a number of interconnected factors, not least being the Queensland Government's hasty attempt to appease public concern over juvenile crime, and the absence of a practise model to implement it's stated aims of public consultation. This in turn served to enhance the political legitimacy of the Labor Government in the period prior to its re-election in September 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) provides services for homeless people. After demonstrating that the Program is intended to assist people to move on to independent living, the following paper examines the implications of remaining in SAAP services for longer than would otherwise be necessary because there is no where else to go. In particular, the broader social functions of SAAP are examined in the light of the work of Michel Foucault. It is suggested that SAAP serves a specific social function in exerting socially approved power over SAAP users who are forced to remain in SAAP services for longer than would otherwise be required if affordable and appropriate accommodation were available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift to community care for people with disabilities in Australia has given rise to some recognition and acknowledgment, in both academie research and policy development, of the importance of their carers. However, information about government policy and services for carers is fragmented and limited. Our knowledge about the prevalence of caregiving and the socio-demographic characteristics of carers and their service needs, is inadequate. Studies in relation to carer use of and satisfaction with services tend to be small scale and focussed on a specific service or carer group. Carer views on broader mainstream service provision have received little attention. This paper identifies gaps in our knowledge as well as the practical and conceptual difficulties in documenting the range of services available and the relevant social policy. These difficulties are likely to reflect barriers to broad and effective policy and service development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the "Australian Journal of Social Issues." Since late 1995, the journal has been publishing papers on issues related to the Australian society. The journal's editorial team is being changed and will include Tim Battin as general editor and Sean Regan as managing editor.