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The law of parliamentary privilege in New South Wales is the sum of certain immunities, rights, and powers enjoyed by the individual Houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, together with their members and committees, as constituent parts of the Legislature. The law is complex. It is liberally interspersed with uncertainty and ambiguity. It is also distinctly different from the law of privilege in other Australian jurisdictions, including the Commonwealth, and also from overseas jurisdictions. It is singular in the degree to which it relies on the common law, without recourse to statutory expression or to the historical privileges of the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, in some respects, the Parliament of New South Wales has been remarkably successful through the courts, and through its own procedures, in asserting the powers and rights of members under the banner of parliamentary privilege, notably in relation to orders for the production of State papers.

An assessment of the tree species preferences of koalas inhabiting forest and
woodland communities growing on Quaternary deposits in the Port Stephens area,
New South Wales, was undertaken between November 1994 and March 1996. Using a
plot-based methodology, 3847 trees were sampled, comprising 15
Eucalyptus species and 17 species of non-eucalypt.
Evidence of tree use by koalas, specifically the presence of koala faecal
pellets, was recorded from beneath 10 Eucalyptus species
and 9 species of non-eucalypt. Tree species preferences were determined by
analyses of log- likelihood ratios derived from data based on the
presence/absence of koala faecal pellets, rather than on gross counts.
This approach confirmed significant variation in the levels of utilisation
amongst and between different tree species, and that two in particular –
swamp mahogany (E. robusta) and drooping red gum
(E. parramattensis) – were most preferred.
Increases in the levels of use of other tree species were also positively
associated with the presence of E. robusta and/or
E. parramattensis. Levels of utilisation of
E. robusta and E. parramattensis
did not alter significantly in response to changes in their respective
densities, suggesting that the relative abundance of both was important in
terms of understanding the carrying capacity of vegetation communities
utilised by koalas. The results have established the success with which an
enumerative approach to the interpretation of faecal pellet data can be
utilised to clarify the tree species preferences of koalas. Application of the
approach for habitat assessment and mapping purposes is also discussed.

Focuses on politics in New South Wales, Australia, Jan-June 2002. Liberal candidate Judy Hopwood defeated independent candidate John Muirhead in a special election to fill the seat of retiring Liberal Stephen O'Doherty. Questions about the effectiveness of the police force in fighting crime led to the resignation of police commissioner Peter Ryan. John Brogden supplanted Kerry Chikarovski as Opposition Leader. Problems in the National Party surfaced. A large spending initiative also appeared in the 4 June 2002 budget.

Australian agricultural company; Correspondence; Pioneers; History

Australian agricultural company; Archives; Correspondence; Pioneers; History; Australia

This paper argues that we need to bring government back into discussions about network governance, via the concept of metagovernance which uses water reform in an Australian state as an example. Metagovernance is defined as the government of governance, and is a vital but under researched and under theorised problem because it is difficult and contentious. The paper identifies a range of metagovernance failures in this case and suggests that the lessons learnt by the Australian authorities from the experience have led to some rethinking about the benefits and desirable scope of network governance.