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Social democratic parties have been agents in the neo-liberal transformation of public policy in recent decades. There has been debate about the reasons why social democrats have embraced market policies, with particular emphasis given to ideological trends, globalisation and electoral factors. This paper aims to shed further light on this debate by examining the case of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), which was a prominent social democratic exponent of neo-liberalism during its time in office in the 1980s and 1990s. In Labor's case, the primary cause of the shift from pledging social reform and interventionist government to neo-liberalism was the lower levels of economic growth that followed the end of the post-war boom in the 1970s. Social democrats rely on strong economic growth to fund redistributive policies. Thus when recession occurred in the 1970s it eroded the economic base to Labor's programme. While this paper focuses on the story of the ALP, it may provide some answers as to why social democrats elsewhere have adopted neo-liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New markets and governance arrangements have emerged in recent years to address grand challenges at the interface of science, economics and politics. Whereas much has been written on the technical design on these markets, this paper focuses on how these complex socio-economic systems are created and evolve over time. Drawing on theories of legitimacy, we propose a model for how legitimate authority is created in environmental governance along three bases: scientific authority, economic authority and emotive authority. We distinguish our approach from the literature on power by examining discursive practices that create legitimacy over time. Our analysis relies on the case study of the Australian carbon market and uses in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 45 respondents across multiple fields. Our findings have implications for theory and policy practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the majority of Australian schools the responsibility for gifted education has been designated to the appointed Gifted and Talented Coordinator. Despite this responsibility few studies have concentrated on these Coordinators. The main aim of this qualitative case study was to investigate the role and experiences of Gifted and Talented Co-ordinators, specifically those in Priority Funding Schools Program (PFSP) schools in a socio-economically disadvantaged area of Western Sydney, New South Wales (NSW). This paper reports on a single aspect of an in-depth qualitative case study investigating the role and experiences of Gifted and Talented Coordinators in these Australian schools. The findings indicate the impact of teacher expectations on students disadvantaged by residence in lower socio- economic areas contributes to a 'deficit view' of student abilities by educators. The ramifications for identifying gifted and/or talented students are profound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the access to justice for people living in poverty in Australia. Topics include the number of Australians living below the internationally accepted poverty line, the erosion of economic and social rights due to poverty, and the legal representation of vulnerable population. Information is provided on the need for reform.