Suchergebnisse

Parliamentary scrutiny of government ministers is limited by the convention that one house of parliament cannot compel a member of the other house to appear before it. This convention limits the Senate's capacity to examine ministers who are members of the House of Representatives. It has its origins in UK parliamentary practice, and is given alleged legal force in Australia by virtue of section 49 of Australia's constitution. That section effectively says that Australia's current parliamentary powers, privileges and immunities are those of the UK House of Commons in 1901.However analysis of UK practice prior to the twentieth century reveals a surprising picture. Far from protecting members of one house from the other house's inquiries, it would seem that invitations issued by one chamber to a member of the other were never refused, an element of 'custom and practice' now conveniently overlooked. Furthermore, the purpose of the powers had nothing to do with protecting ministers. On the contrary, their origins He in a desire to ensure the strength of parliamentary accountability. If modern Australian practice is to be true to historical House of Commons practice, consideration should be given to ensuring that each chamber does have guaranteed access to ministers of the other house.

The objectives of public consultation can clash with other policy objectives, partly because the norms underpinning public consultation clash with other institutional norms within the policy process. This phenomenon is evident in the case of selecting a site for a low‐level nuclear waste disposal facility in Australia. This case shows how the results of consultation processes are moulded by the process design, which in turn is constrained by a range of policy process norms to which governments adhere. The case confirms some recent critiques of participatory practices. It also suggests that reconciling potentially competing policy process norms will be an important exercise in institutional design if elected representatives wish to mitigate citizens' alienation from their governments.

"This title was first published in 2002: Political ethics is a rapidly growing field in disciplines such as political science, philosophy, applied ethics and public policy and it has become a major topic in current affairs' reporting of politics. This book discusses the most prominent subjects - and occasional victims - of the ethics debate: government ministers. It is the first major work to discuss institutional reforms around the world that target ministerial morality and asks: how are these reforms influencing the motivation and conduct of the most powerful of our politicians? The book provides unique insights into ministerial behaviour and the changing role of institutions in influencing the ethics of the executive, with analyses from around the world. Contributors to the volume include international high-profile players in political ethics. They include Lord Nolan, the first Chairman of Britain's Joint Parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life; Professor Robert J. Jackson, a leading Canadian political scientist instrumental in establishing the Canadian Office of the Ethics Counsellor; and Associate Professor Noel Preston, the leading commentator on ethics in Australian politics, who has been involved in developing a number of its ethical regimes."--Provided by publisher.

"This title was first published in 2003. This insightful work examines institutional formation and change as evidence of the major re-shaping of government internationally over the last two decades. It is based on a series of case studies of institutional reform and ranges across institutions in countries including the UK, China, Australia and the USA. Each case study considers questions concerning the establishment of institutions, such as: what have been the objectives of institutional changes? What are the principles and values on which new institutions are founded? In addition to looking at broad hypotheses regarding the state and new institutions, the book also draws together practical lessons regarding institutional reform. Thus the cases are analysed as a group to throw light on a number of issues: are there patterns discernible in the formation of new political institutions? What do the cases reveal about what works, and what does not work, in forming new institutions? What predictions can be made about the relationship between values and governance structures?"--Provided by publisher.

AbstractEnvironmental pollution incidents generate an emergency response from regulatory agencies to ensure that the impact on the environment is minimised. Knowing what pollutants are present provides important intelligence to assist in determining how to respond to the incident. However, responders are limited in their in-field capabilities to identify the pollutants present. This research has developed an in-field, qualitative analytical approach to detect and identify organic pollutants that are commonly detected by regulatory environmental laboratories. A rapid, in-field extraction method was used for water and soil matrices. A coiled microextraction (CME) device was utilised for the introduction of the extracted samples into a portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) for analysis. The total combined extraction and analysis time was approximately 6.5 min per sample. Results demonstrated that the in-field extraction and analysis methods can screen for fifty-nine target organic contaminants, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, monoaromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, phthalates, organophosphorus pesticides, and organochlorine pesticides. The method was also capable of tentatively identifying unknown compounds using library searches, significantly expanding the scope of the methods for the provision of intelligence at pollution incidents of an unknown nature, although a laboratory-based method was able to provide more information due to the higher sensitivity achievable. The methods were evaluated using authentic casework samples and were found to be fit-for-purpose for providing rapid in-field intelligence at pollution incidents. The fact that the in-field methods target the same compounds as the laboratory-based methods provides the added benefit that the in-field results can assist in sample triaging upon submission to the laboratory for quantitation and confirmatory analysis.