Law Commons^™

A Living Tradition, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

At the recent Historical Materialism Australasia Conference (Sydney, July 2015), the keynote address was delivered by veteran scholars Terry Irving and Raewyn Connell. The subject was their seminal book Class Structure in Australian History (CSAH), the first edition of which was published by Longman Cheshire in 1980, followed by a second edition in 1992. Whilst in print the book sold at least 12,000 copies, a significant figure at the time for an Australian book, still a figure to set a publisher’s lips drooling, and in terms of international academic/scholarly publishing, where print runs of 200 copies struggle to sell, a …

Book Review: The End Of Laissez-Faire? On The Durability Of Embedded Neoliberalism, Timothy Dimuzio

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

On the heels of the global financial crisis, many on the left of the political spectrum anticipated the end of neoliberalism. The financial and economic crisis—global in scope—had supposedly discredited over two decades of neoliberal rule. The massive state interventions required to curtail the worst vagaries of the crisis demonstrated to everyone paying even the remotest attention that deregulated markets are unstable, that bankers cannot be trusted with increasing the money supply and that government intervention could help steer the economy in a more positive direction should politicians be willing. Moreover, the aftermath of the crisis spawned the worldwide Occupy …

Reading Through The Mirror Stage, Luke M. Johnson

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Censorship And Free Speech In Scientific Controversies, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Many publicly debated issues have implications for health, including smoking, pesticides, food additives, seat belts, fluoridation, vaccination and climate change. Campaigners on such issues use a variety of methods, including presenting evidence and arguments, denigrating opponents, lobbying and organising protests. In some cases, campaigners seek to censor opponents, most commonly on the grounds that their views are false and dangerous. To probe rationales for censorship, recent events in the Australian public debate over vaccination are examined. A citizens' group critical of vaccination has come under heavy attack, with pro-vaccination campaigners and politicians trying to shut down the group and restrict …

Translit As Thought-Events: Cloud Atlas And Storyland, Catherine Mckinnon

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in (and publication of) multi-narration novels that surf time, genre hop and shift geographical location. In 2012, novelist and critic, Dougles Coupland, coined the term 'translit' to describe such novels (11). If we accept Couopland's term, david Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2003), Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming (2009), Jennette Winterson's The Stone Gods (2007), and Michael Cunningham's, the Hours (1998) and Specimen Day (2005), might all be called translit, so too Virginia Woolf's not so recent Orlando (1928). By choosing to travel across time, space and genre boundaries, what might …

Nonviolence Unbound, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Rallies, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins — these and other methods of nonviolent action can be used to bring down dictators. Nonviolence Unbound shows how insights into what makes nonviolent action eff ective can be applied to four completely diff erent arenas: defending against verbal abuse, responding to online defamatory pictures, and engaging in the struggles over euthanasia and vaccination. This investigation shows how to analyse options for opposing injustice.

Work With Men To End Violence Against Women: A Critical Stocktake, Michael Flood

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper provides a critical assessment of efforts to involve men in the prevention of men's violence against women. Although there is a substantial evidence base attesting to the effectiveness of at least some strategies and interventions, this field is also limited in important ways. Violence prevention efforts often have focused on changing men's attitudes, rather than also seeking to transform structural and institutional inequalities. While feminist and queer scholarship has explored diversities and pluralities in the organisation of sexuality, much violence prevention work often assumes a homogenously heterosexual male constituency. Too often this work is conceptually simplistic with regard …

Creation And Preservation: Teaching Colour Theory, Madeleine T. Kelly

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Colour wheels and colour charts run the risk of seeming elementary. My attempt to revitalise these traditional forms of relating colour has opened up a gamut of possible approaches within an undergraduate tertiary context and, here, I will describe a few in view of an archaeological metaphor.

Trace 2015: Biennial Exhibition And Art Auction In The Streets Of 4101 (Broken Memories), Madeleine T. Kelly

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Her art explores the materiality of images – in particular painting, as an earthen testimony figured from the ground that speaks of the primal frontiers of art, such as material transformation, as well as environmental contingencies. In this context, her work avoids dogmatism by depicting protean and rubric worlds.

Re-Routing Empire? Steam-Age Circulations And The Making Of An Anglo Pacific, C.1850–90, Frances Steel

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The introduction of steam not only enhanced Australia’s transport links within the empire. It also altered attitudes towards the feasibility and desirability of transpacific connectivities, and brought new prominence to the Pacific-orientations of Australia’s eastern colonies. By envisioning steam-age connections across the Pacific, first to Panama and then to San Francisco, Australia sought to imagine and situate itself in a transpacific sphere. The routes shaped cultural sensibilities and political ideologies across the Pacific, expressed in affinities and allegiances between Australia and North America. This article examines transpacific steam from the mid- to the late nineteenth century, a fractured and indeterminate …

Capitalism, Regulation Theory And Australian Labour Law: Towards A New Theoretical Model, Brett Heino

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article employs the methodology of the Parisian regulation approach to periodise Australian capitalism into distinct models of development. Within such models, labour law plays a key role in articulating the abstract capitalist need to commodify labour-power with the concrete realities of class struggle. Given the differential ordering of social contradictions and the distinct relationship of social forces within the fabric of each model of development, such formations will crystallise distinct regimes of labour law. This is demonstrated by a study of the two successive models of development that have characterised Australian political economy since the post-Second World War era: …

The Refugee Limbo: Negotiating The Bar Of Australian Law, Benjamin Hightower

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Often refugees and asylum seekers are said to be in some sort of limbo: physical, social, and/or legal. This article picks apart the limbo-concept through the expanded metaphor of the Limbo dance; a performance that illustrates an ‘inner history’ that evolved from the conditions aboard the slave ships of the Middle Passage. ‘Playing‘ the Limbo allows the experiences of the slaves to be reenacted: due to the limited space and terrible conditions, slaves had to arch their backs in order to fit inside the ship’s hulls. They had to remain limber or limba before they could re-emerge on the other …

Populism And Criminal Justice Policy: An Australian Case Study Of Non-Punitive Responses To Alcohol-Related Violence, Julia Quilter

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Populism is widely regarded in the literature as a negative and inherently punitive influence on criminal justice policy. This article challenges this view and highlights the ways in which populism can produce forms of citizen engagement in the criminal justice context that are new and progressive. These possibilities are illustrated through a close analysis of the responses to a single instance of ‘random’ fatal violence: the killing of Thomas Kelly in King’s Cross, Sydney, in 2012. This case study shows how a populist campaign powerfully realigned political allegiances to call for, and achieve, real and enduring action from the New …

Sex, Censorship And Media Regulation In Japan: A Historical Overview, Mark Mclelland

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Over the past several decades alarmist reports about the supposed dangers of the sexualised nature of much Japanese popular culture have regularly featured in the English-language press. It has been claimed that Japan is 'awash' in all kinds of pornography, including child pornography (Larimer 1999; Fallows 1986: 38) and that insufficient attempts are made by the authorities to properly regulate the expression of sexual matters. A major concern of such reporting has been the supposed 'dark side' (McGinty 2002) of the manga (comics) which are ubiquitous in Japan and, since the 1980s, have become popular with young people worldwide. International …

The Southern Tree Of Liberty Explained: Class Struggle, Popular Democracy And Representative Government In New South Wales Before, Terence Irving

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In 2006 The Federation Press published my book, The Southern Tree of Liberty - The Democratic Movement in New South Wales before 1856. It received better reviews overseas than in Australia, where some reviewers persisted in assimilating it to the standard account of a British-influenced, elite-led, peaceful transition to responsible self-government in 1856. The "radicals" that the book concentrated on were seen as just part of that story, a tiny group of agitators whom no one took seriously - certainly not the established historians who wrote those reviews

Book Review: The History Of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation By Brian S. Roper, John Passant

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Brian Roper's book on the history of democracy from a Marxist perspective is an ambitious one. Roper starts with Athens and Rome and then, as capitalism rises, examines the revolutions in England, America and France and after that the 1848 revolutions across Europe. He then looks at the Paris Commune and The Russian Revolution. In doing this, Roper describes three distinct but related forms of democracy - Athenian democracy which was a form of participatory democracy limited to sections of society; liberal representative democracy which, while nominally open to all, is actually limited to operating within narrow propertied confines; and …

Book Review: Constructing An Avant Garde: Art In Brazil, 1949-1979 By S. Martins, Michael Leggett

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

To anyone unfamiliar with the interventions made by avant-garde artists into the art world and occasionally wider society during the middle of the 20th century, this volume delivers a very readable account. The artists, the objects they made and the discussions they generated are selected here in relation to the particular practices and contexts emergent in Brazil following the chaos of World War II (during which the country remained neutral). In keeping with a historiographical approach—rather than an art historical account—the author introduces an initial group of Brazilian artists attracted to ideas concerned with the nature of the object in …

On The Suppression Of Vaccination Dissent, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Dissenters from the dominant views about vaccination sometimes are subject to adverse actions, including abusive comment, threats, formal complaints, censorship, and deregistration, a phenomenon that can be called suppression of dissent. Three types of cases are examined: scientists and physicians; a high-profile researcher; and a citizen campaigner. Comparing the methods used in these different types of cases provides a preliminary framework for understanding the dynamics of suppression in terms of vulnerabilities.

The Streisand Effect And Censorship Backfire, Sue Curry Jansen, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Barbra Streisand's attempt to restrict online views of her residence on a public website had the paradoxical effect of leading to many more views than if she had done nothing. Subsequently, attempts at censorship that end up being counterproductive have been dubbed the "Streisand effect." To better understand the dynamics of the Streisand effect, we examine five tactics used by censors to reduce outrage from their actions: (1) hiding the existence of censorship; (2) devaluing targets of censorship; (3) reinterpreting actions by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others, and using benign framing; (4) using official channels to give an appearance of …

Anarchist Shaping Of Technology, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Technology pervades modern life, from cars and computers to paper and clothing. Food might have organic origins but has been processed and transported using a variety of technologies. Even bodies have become technologically manipulated and transformed through hair coloring, glasses, prostheses and plastic surgery. Humans create technology and use it, so it is sensible to say that technology is political in the sense that it involves or embodies the exercise of power. This is an obvious opening for anarchist analysis. Anarchism can be said to involve a rejection of any form of domination, including by the state, capitalism, patriarchy and …

Leaking: Practicalities And Politics, Brian Martin

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

When you want to reveal information in the public interest, consider leaking. To be effective, you need to be very careful and to understand both practical and political aspects.

Social Cognition And Psychopathology: A Critical Overview, Shaun Gallagher, Somogy Varga

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The philosophical and interdisciplinary debate about the nature of social cognition, and the processes involved, has important implications for psychiatry. On one account, mindreading depends on making theoretical inferences about another person's mental states based on knowledge of folk psychology, the so-called "theory theory" (TT). On a different account, "simulation theory" (ST), mindreading depends on simulating the other's mental states within one's own mental or motor system. A third approach, "interaction theory" (IT), looks to embodied processes (involving movement, gesture, facial expression, vocal intonation, etc.) and the dynamics of intersubjective interactions (joint attention, joint action, and processes not confined to …

Just The Ticket! The Thomas Keneally Papers, Paul Sharrad

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Considers the nature of the archive as a shifting dynamic relative to the time and interest of users, highlighting some of the curiosities in the Keneally collection.

The Asia-Pacific War And The Failed Second Anglo-Japanese Civilian Exchange, 1942-45, Rowena G. Ward

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The proposed 2nd Anglo-Japanese civilian exchange, originally planned for October 1942, never eventuated partly due to differences in the interpretations of what constitutes a merchant seaman and views on whether the Hague Convention should apply. The failure of the exchange meant that over 3,000 Japanese and British civilian internees as well as another 2,000 or so Japanese and American civilian internees remained in internment camps until at least August 1945. At the heart of the negotiations were 331 Japanese pilots and pearl divers who had been employed in the pearling industry until the outbreak of war. The impasse would impact …

Revisiting A Struggle: Port Kembla, 1938, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

Rowan Cahill ruminates on the premiere screening of the documentary film Pig Iron Bob (Why Documentaries: Sandra Pires, Producer and Director) in Wollongong, 21 March 2015

Canada And Australia Share A Political Culture Of Conflict, Gregory C. Melleuish

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In a recent book, political scientist Tom Flanagan argues that the years of minority government in Canada between 2004 and 2011 had a corrosive effect on Canadian politics and political culture. He comments:

After so many years of continuous campaigning, federal politicans are like child soldiers in a war-torn African country; all they know how to do is fire their AK-47s.

This statement, and many other things that Flanagan describes as features of Canadian politics – including increased centralisation of decision-making in the party and the need to be in constant campaign mode – could also be considered to be …

Anti-Zionism In The Courts Is Not Kosher Law, Gregory L. Rose

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

A German court in Wuppertal held last month that an arson attack on a synagogue causing fire damage was not anti-Semitism but political expression. Also in February, five youths who vandalised 300 Jewish graves and a Holocaust monument in Alsace, France, claimed that the action was not motivated by anti-Semitism.

In general, an attack specifically targeting Chinese would be considered anti-Chinese. Only in an exceptional case, it might not be. Why is the exceptional case becoming the rule for Jews, so that targeting Jews as a group is generally not anti-Jewish but “political”?

Legal artifice is being constructed to make …

Public Intoxication In Nsw: The Contours Of Criminalisation, Luke J. Mcnamara, Julia Quilter

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This article traces the history of the regulation of public intoxication in New South Wales (NSW) from the early 1800s to the present. We argue that although the formal legal status of public drunkenness and drinking has changed over time, and although different approaches have been prominent at different points in the history of NSW, public intoxication has been consistently and continuously criminalised for almost two centuries, despite official ‘decriminalisation’ in 1979. Shifts in regulatory modalities — including offence definitions, police powers, the involvement of local councils and enforcement practices — have been associated with significant changes in how the …

Alcohol And Drug Fuelled Violence - Mandatory Aggravating Factor In Sentencing, Julia Quilter, Luke J. Mcnamara, Kate Seear, Robin Room

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

1: We refer to the Attorney General's request for the Sentencing Council to consider a proposal from the Thomas Kelly Foundation to make amendments to the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 ('the Act') aimed at deterring alcohol and drug fuelled violence.

'How To Sex'? The Contested Nature Of Sexuality In Japan, Mark J. Mclelland

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

There has been a tendency in English and other European-language reporting on Japan to stress the strangeness and otherness of Japanese values, particularly in regard to sexuality. Reports of Japanese immorality go back as far as the sixteenth century when the first Jesuit visitors to the country were appalled by open displays of cross-dressing and male-male sexual relations (Cooper 1965). After the ‘opening’ of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, Victorian visitors were alternately intrigued and shocked by the government-regulated prostitution that took place in Japan’s many pleasure quarters. Commentators have noted how the figure of the geisha, in particular (albeit …