Department of the Treasury

The epizootiology of ephemeral fever in Australia from its first recognition until 1968 was reviewed. Since 1968, ephemeral fever often in a silent form has been shown to be enzootic in northern Australia, by the use of sentinel cattle. The major epizootics which occured in 1970-1971, 1972-1974 and 1974-1975 are described. These epizootics were characterised by an apparently rapid movement of disease in a general north-south direction in summer months. Ephemeral fever antibody was detected in 11% of 1009 domesticated and feral water buffaloes.

Break crops (e.g. pulses, lupins, canola, oats) underpin the continued profitability of cereal (wheat or barley) based cropping sequences. The area sown on farms to break crops varies widely across geographical regions according to climate, soil type mix, enterprise mix (crop v. livestock), and other constraints such as the prevalence of soil-borne disease. Given recent fluctuations in the area of established break crops in Western Australia, there are concerns about their long-term prospects in the farming system. A survey of the area and grain yield of break crops on-farm was combined with whole-farm bio-economic modelling to determine the upper limit to the area of break crops on representative farms in 4 agro-climatic regions. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to ascertain the potential effects of varying commodity prices (sheep and grain), costs of production, and assumptions on the yield of break crops and the boost to the yield of following cereals. The survey revealed that the two dominant break crops, lupins and canola, occupied 8–12% and 8–9%, respectively, of farm area on those farms that grew them in the medium-rainfall zone and this declined to 6–8% and 7–10% in the drier region. Nevertheless, the modelling results show that break crops are an important component of the farming system, even where the area is small, and the response of whole-farm profit to percent of the farm allocated to break crops is relatively flat near the optimum of 23–38%. The modelled area of break crops at maximum profit is higher than that found in farm surveys. The discrepancy could possibly be explained by the lower break crop yields realised by farmers and a reduced boost to cereal yields following break crops than assumed in models. Also, deterministic models do not account for risk, which is an important consideration in the decision to grow break crops. However, the yield difference does not explain the discrepancy entirely and raises questions about farmer motivations for adoption of break crops. The scope for increased area of break crops beyond 23–38% of the farm is limited, even with increases in the yield enhancements in subsequent cereal crops, higher break crop prices, and higher fertiliser costs. Further research is required to better quantify costs and benefits of break crops in Western Australian farming systems.

As in all the other major economies, China's macroeconomic policy framework was put to the test during the global financial crisis. China applied one of the world's largest stimulus packages. The package provided a very rapid boost to activity in the Chinese economy, with empirical evidence suggesting the package added around 2–3 per cent to the level of GDP in both 2009 and 2010. The stimulus package was clearly a success for China, but there are challenges in unwinding the effects of the stimulus and addressing structural imbalances. Pressures to rebalance Chinese growth and integrate China further into global capital markets will necessitate changes in China's macroeconomic policy framework.

Rural populations in Australia are in decline and rural farm businesses now endure chronic labour shortages. Livestock enterprises traditionally require more labour than their cropping counterparts and this threatens future increases in their intensity and scale. The influence that labour scarcity has on the profitability of mixed-farming systems in the Central Wheatbelt of Western Australia is investigated in this study. When labour supply is assumed to be non-limiting, perennial plants are profitable where their out-of-season production sustains a sizeable breeding flock in a prime-lamb enterprise. However, when labour supply is limited and labour demand is defined as a function of enterprise mix, cropping activity increases and livestock production decreases. In addition, the proportion of the farm planted with perennial pasture declines. This has implications for natural resource management, with perennial pasture helping to prevent soil erosion, decrease waterlogging, and reduce recharge to saline watertables. Efforts to improve the labour efficiency of livestock production are therefore highly pertinent if perennial pastures are to offset land degradation on a broader scale.

Abstract There is widespread agreement that current climate change scenarios mean we have to change how we live on this planet. Yet our current understandings of social and behavioural change seem insufficient for the task at hand. In this paper we explore Bruno Latour's notion of "learning to be affected", and we argue that this idea of bodily learning seems well-suited to thinking about how people can be moved to act in response to the human and nonhuman world that is all around us. We also argue that research can prompt and sharpen this form of embodied learning when it is conducted in a performative and collective mode that is geared towards crafting rather than capturing realities. We demonstrate how this might occur through the example of a community garden research project based on a collective bus trip-workshop method. Keywords: learning to be affectedperformativityhybrid collectivecommunity gardeningbus trip-workshop method Acknowledgements Thanks to the wider group of collaborators – the Newcastle community gardeners who participated (and continue to participate) in this project. Thanks also to Newcastle City Council and the University of Newcastle for funding support. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Community Garden Conference, Canberra, 7–8 October 2010, and published in the conference proceedings, and the comments from two anonymous reviewers prompted us to sharpen the ideas. Notes The title deliberatively echoes Hobson's Citation(2008) sub-title "thinking sustainably for a (climate) changing world". Obviously, there are numerous texts that could be referred to. Two recent and useful reviews are Braun Citation(2008) and Hayes-Conroy and Hayes-Conroy Citation(2010). Here there are parallels to Rigby's Citation(2009) discussion of "dancing with disaster" and "contact improvisation". Like learning to be affected these concepts can help us think about bodily learning as a way of relating differently to the world around us. The term "performativity" is often associated with the work of Judith Butler on gender. Butler Citation(1993) argues that there is no gendered essence that subjects reflect, rather gendered subjects come into being through endlessly repeated practices. In the same way, research as a performative practice means that research is not about reflecting and "getting at" the features of the social world that exist independent of the researcher, rather the world comes into being through endlessly repeated practices that include research. This is one way in which the idea of a hybrid collective working in a performative mode differs from participatory action research (PAR). The focus in PAR is very much on human interactions. While there are parallels (for example, both value multiple forms of expertise, and both attend in some way to emotions and affect), PAR has largely developed within a realist tradition that seeks to capture the reality of the world, particularly the reality of oppression and exploitation. For more on PAR and how it connects with and differs from participatory projects informed by a different set of epistemological and ontological understandings, see Cameron and Gibson Citation(2005). With only enough funding for a mini-bus and lunches, etc., for 2 days we could not include all the community gardens in Newcastle, so we focused on gardens that were relatively close to each other. Craig Manhood phoned or visited each garden to explain the project and invited the gardens to send along two representatives. This evaluation comprised nine questions: 1. What were the highlights of the field trip/workshop for you?2. What were the lowlights? What didn't work so well?3. For a similar event in the future, what do you think should be done the same?4. For a similar event in the future, what do you think should be done differently?5. Can you tell us a bit about what you've learned or what's been confirmed for you about gardening (things like crops you might grow in your community garden, or the activities you might include in the garden)?6. What about the way your garden is managed and coordinated. What have you learned about this (or what's been confirmed for you)?7. What about your own role in your garden or your own personal journey. What have you learned about this?8. Overall, can you tell us a bit about what you've learned or what's been confirmed for you about community gardening in general?9. Finally out of all the things you've learned through the field trip, what ideas do you plan on putting into practice? Arguably, the distinctiveness of each garden was the result of this loose approach which meant that each garden developed in response to the specificities of its social and environmental setting. One participant has since got a job as a community garden facilitator in a public housing estate. He has commented how almost everyday he has to "step back" from what he thinks should be done to let community members drive and own the garden and that he only learned the importance of doing this through participating in this project. One idea is to work with community gardens in Newcastle to research more about the community economies that are being creating around each garden through ethical economic decisions about necessity, surplus, commons and consumption (see Gibson-Graham Citation2006; Hill, Citation2011).

This paper presents a cohort analysis of household income, consumption and saving in New Zealand. It is based on an analysis of unit record data from March years 1984 to 1998 taken from the Household Economic Survey (HES). These data are a series of cross-sectional surveys rather than a true panel, so we construct synthetic cohorts and use a range of regression models to separate out the effect of age, birth-year cohort and survey year on income, consumption and saving rates. There appears to be a “V” shaped cohort pattern in household income and saving, such that the age profile of saving shifted down for the cohorts born between 1920 and 1939 relative to the younger and older cohorts studied.

Governments around Australia and internationally have come to recognise that both public and private sectors have roles to play in building modern public infrastructure. Governments are increasingly turning to mechanisms known as public‐private partnerships (PPPs) or the private finance initiative (PFI). 1 The nature of PPPs and the reasons governments use them have evolved over the past 20 years and are continuing to do so. This article describes the evolution of PPPs in Victoria since the late 1980s, the accounting treatment of PPPs and future developments.

Livestock production in Western Australian mixed-farming systems has traditionally been constrained by a profound scarcity of feed in autumn–early winter when crop stubbles and pasture residues from the previous growing season have been exhausted. This study investigates the profitability of partially filling this ‘feed gap’ through the grazing of vegetative wheat crops. Whole-farm bioeconomic modelling is used to provide insight into the relative value of grazing and grain production in both low- and high-rainfall areas of Western Australia. Dual-purpose wheat crops are a valuable source of feed in high-rainfall areas as they provide an affordable alternative to expensive grain supplements for a short period in winter. This also allows annual pastures to establish more vigorously by reducing grazing pressure on young plants. Model output suggests farm profit can increase by over 10% with the grazing of vegetative wheat crops in high-rainfall regions; however, these results are logically shown to be strongly related to the assumed rate of yield loss. In contrast, at the parameter values used in this study, grazing wheats are unlikely to be profitable in low-rainfall environments due to depressed crop production and the extended feed gap experienced in these areas. Higher grain prices unequivocally lower the relative advantage of grazing activity since this elevates the cost of foregone grain yield.

Unemployment differentials are bigger in Europe than in the United States. Migration responds to unemployment differentials, though the response is smaller in Europe. We use a multi-country DSGE model with cross-border migration and search frictions to quantify the benefits of increased labor mobility in Europe and compare this outcome to a case of fully flexible exchange rates. Labor mobility and flexible exchange rates both work to reduce unemployment and per capita GDP differentials across countries provided that monetary policy is sufficiently responsive to national output.

The extent to which people are saving for retirement is a key element in formulating public policy toward saving and retirement incomes. This paper adopts a life cycle model of wealth accumulation to estimate the saving rates that people would need in order to have an adequate income in retirement. Based on data from the Survey of Family, Income and Employment, we found that most of the population aged 45-64 has made adequate provision, especially among the lower income groups where New Zealand Superannuation represents the majority of their retirement income.

Abstract This paper uses 15‐minute exchange rate returns data for the six most liquid currencies (i.e., the Australian dollar, British pound, Canadian dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, and Swiss franc) vis‐à‐vis the United States dollar to examine whether a GARCH model augmented with higher moments (HM‐GARCH) performs better than a traditional GARCH (TG) model. Two findings are unraveled. First, the inclusion of odd/even moments in modeling the return/variance improves the statistical performance of the HM‐GARCH model. Second, trading strategies that extract buy and sell trading signals based on exchange rate forecasts from HM‐GARCH models are more profitable than those that depend on TG models.

There are conflicting tendencies among recent developments in bargaining and participation at the workplace level in Europe. While there is an emphasis on decentralisation of bargaining structures in many countries, there is considerable variance. Similarly, there is a diversity of approaches to both direct and indirect forms of participation. Despite attempts by the European Community to integrate policies on these matters among member countries, external influences such as the globalisation of economies and technologies are leading to diverse outcomes.

A bstract . Henry George's influence on economic thought has been neglected although his readers included Clark, Marshall, Hobson, Commons, Lerner and Böhm‐Bawerk and his ideas provoked thought and discussion, Clark made clear that George stimulated him to develop his marginal productivity theory. But the 19th century American theorist affected or touched upon the neoclassical concept of capital , the theory of externality , the neoclassical versus the classical concept of monopoly ; the entitlements approach to distributive justice ; the burden of debt and other transfer incomes and capital formation and the theory of expectations. George's influence is wider than generally recognized. The last of the classical economists , he wrote in high Victorian prose about some very modern problems.

The use of longitudinal data from the criminal records of a sample of 6,042 female prisoners in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Victoria reveals limitations in the traditional method of examining criminality within specific offense categories. Investigations devoted exclusively to particular categories of women’s offenses potentially obscures the extent to which women resorted to multiple forms of offending. Such versatile activity challenges conceptions of women as predominantly petty offenders by suggesting that some women were arrested for minor offenses because of their engagement in more serious crimes and their participation in criminal sub-cultures.

s press coverage of media issues self-interested? The short answer is yes, most of the time. There can be apparent exceptions. For example, a recent two page feature by Luke Collins in The Australian Financial Review ('The Hilmer Report -Downgrade adds to pressure ', 23 March 2001) gives great prominence to Fairfax chief Fred Hilmer's announcement downgrading profit forecasts and, all in all, appears to give Fairfax a rather hard time. It duly notes that Fairfax shares had fallen some 43 per cent over the last twelve months and that its Internet arm lost $40 million in 1999-2000. It publicises criticisms of Hilmer's strategy by fund managers and even refers to a 'not warm and friendly' meeting between Hilmer and major Fairfax shareholder James Packer, discussion of which would, one might assume, embarrass Fred Hilmer. The piece is crafted with a keen sense of balance. Comments by Fairfax executives are carefully counterpointed by criticisms of Fairfax strategy and performance from various analysts. We are even told that the views of the chief executive of News Ltd, John Hartigan, were sought but that he declined to be interviewed. What could be fairer? Yet even in this admittedly highly professional piece the disinterestedness is more apparent than real. The crafted balance and tone of impartiality, worthy though they are, are themselves mobilised to give credibility to an article which is essentially a defence of Fairfax and of Hilmer's management.

We investigate the potential for biosecurity regulators to design inspection regimes that reduce intervention and encourage importers to decrease the likelihood of biosecurity risk material being present in consignments. The interaction between a biosecurity regulator and a vertically integrated importer is framed as an inspection game. Our principal focus is a dynamic version of the game, which we use to assess whether regimes based on past compliance can encourage behaviours consistent with the regulatory objective. Our results suggest appropriate candidates for compliance‐based inspection regimes are goods where there is access to cost‐effective ‘fixed’ abatement technologies, and those with high costs associated with being inspected or failing inspection.

A substantial literature exists on the economic analysis of bureaucracy, which includes formal models of bureaucratic behaviour by Niskanen (1971) and Dunleavy (1991). This article develops hypotheses from those models about changes in size of bureaux over time and tests them against data on the Australian federal budget sector in 1982–83 and 1991–92. The models predict that bureaucrats usually will be able to influence the size or structure of their bureaux in line with their personal preferences. However, the Australian data suggest that the extent of such influence may be less than is assumed in either model and that the preferences of politicians are more influential than the models allow. One conclusion is that, if bureaucracy is to be modelled, a principal‐agent approach will have more to offer than the neo‐classical maximizing framework adopted by Niskanen in particular. A further conclusion, at odds with those of Niskanen and weakening his case for wholesale privatization, is that bureaucratic dysfunctions may be amenable to reform of the political and bureaucratic rules and systems.

To support broader global efforts to improve diversity and inclusion in economics, this paper provides a statistical picture of the gender composition of the economics profession in Australia and the evidence‐based initiatives taken by the Women in Economics Network (WEN) to improve women's representation and recognition. WEN's impact is evaluated across a range of metrics. This includes a case study of WEN's mentorship programme for university students that was delivered as a behavioural intervention and evaluated as a randomised control trial. Drawing on practical experiences in combination with research insights, the paper identifies some of the challenges encountered and the lessons that can be shared with similar organisations globally that are pursuing diversity and inclusion goals.

The sensitivity and specificity of 0.2 mg and 0.4 mg doses of bovine PPD tuberculin were compared in Northern Territory beef cattle from tuberculous herds and herds with a prevalence of tuberculosis of less than 0.1%. Reactions were interpreted subjectively by observation and palpation, and were also measured to the nearest mm with calipers at 24 h, 48 h, 72 h and 96 h after injection of tuberculin. All cattle were examined post mortem for the presence of macroscopic and microscopic tuberculous lesions. The apparent specificity of caudal fold tests with 0.2 mg and 0.4 mg doses was determined in cattle in Victoria from tuberculosis-free dairy and beef herds. Victorian cattle reacting to the caudal fold tests were subjected to a comparative intradermal test with 0.1 mg bovine PPD and 2,500 IU avian PPD not less than 42 days later. Tests with the 0.2 mg dose achieved the highest level of sensitivity of 95.6% at 48 h, 72 h and 96 h, while in tests with 0.4 mg the maximum reached was 94.7% at 72 h. The specificity of tests in Northern Territory cattle ranged from 85.0% to 88.3% with the 0.2 mg dose and from 80.6% to 82.3% with the 0.4 mg dose. The highest specificity was achieved with both doses at 96 h. The apparent specificity of 0.2 and 0.4 mg doses of bovine PPD in tuberculosis-free herds in Victoria was high, a false-positive reactor rate of only 0.6% occurring with caudal fold tests. All false-positive reactions were shown to be non-specific or due to previous experimental sensitisation.

Abstract The Intergenerational Reports have helped lengthen the horizon of public policy analysis in Australia, enabling governments to focus on the longer term implications of policy changes, particularly their fiscal implications. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the reports have examined fiscal sustainability from the Commonwealth's perspective, notwithstanding that fiscal sustainability is also an issue for the states and territories. Additionally, the reports have not incorporated contingent fiscal liabilities, notwithstanding their relevance to fiscal sustainability.