Designed as a celebration of sculpture and to stimulate debate about its place in the wider cultural context, the Forum includes projects by more than 30 selected artists from around Australia. Every private and public gallery is hosting a project or associated exhibition and many institutions are housing site-specific installations or events.
Deputy Chair of the Forum Organising Committee, David Watt, Head of Sculpture at the Canberra School of Art (CSA), said ,"This is a good point in time and space to hold such an intensive and far-reaching exhibition of sculpture. We hope the Forum increases awareness and understanding of sculpture and the role of public art and leads to an enrichment of Canberra's public spaces."
Many of the provocative issues raised by the Forum will be discussed at the CSA's program of free public lectures titled "Beyond the White Wall Art in Public Spaces" to be held at the CSA Lecture Theatre on Wednesdays at 1pm.
Among the many CSA staff taking part in the Forum are Ante Dabro whose work "Return of Homosapiens" will be at the High Court; and Head of Ceramics Alan Watt who will exhibit Landscaped Inspired Sculptural Ceramics at the Narek Galleries at Cuppacumbalong.
The CSA Gallery is presenting Melbourne artist Lyndal Jones' exhibition "Sexual Play in the Galapagos Islands" as part of the Forum. This video/performance and installation investigates the sexual habits and mating games of young adults and opens on Friday 31 March at 8pm, with another performance the following night. The exhibition runs until 30 April.
Later in the month, the School's Foyer Gallery is showing The Japanese Art of Shibori work by pre-eminent Shibori artist Hiroyuki Shindo. Mathew Ngui and Richard Hadlow are presenting a mixed media project involving film, video and performance, also in the Foyer Gallery. At the Photospace Gallery, Jill Barker's exhibition of installed objects, "Waistline", opens on 3 April.
Four major ACT sculptors will be exhibiting at the Drill Hall Gallery throughout the Forum. Taking part in "Perceived Differently" will be Rosalie Gascoigne and CSA staff members Mark Grey-Smith, David Jensz and Wendy Teakel. CSA Deputy Director Nigel Lendon's work "Untitled Invisible Sculpture" will be exhibited in the Gallery's Portico.
Students from the Faculty of Environmental Design (UC) and CSA will participate in a collaborative project, the results of which will be in display at the School and at UC. Sculpture lovers with Internet access are being invited to explore the files at a World Wide Web site titled "On War and Peace: A virtual encounter" by Arthur Wicks. A dedicated computer will be found in the CSA Library.
According to conference organisers Professor Mike Dopita and Dr Ariane Lancon, the high plateau of Antarctica was now widely recognised as being likely to provide the best site on Earth for astronomical observations, and it was crucial to capitalise on Australia's capabilities in astronomy to ensure a deep involvement in this research in Antarctica.
A highlight of the conference is expected to be a live satellite link-up with researchers at the South Pole for an update on the latest results from the astronomical front-line as the temperature plunges towards its winter value of -80 C.
With financial support from the Department of Industry, Science and Technology (DIST), the US National Science Foundation, the Italian Progetta Antartide and the Australia-France Science Agreement, the conference will allow preliminary discussions already held with groups in France, Italy and the US to extend into practical planning and detailed negotiations towards a coordinated research effort. Representatives from Argentina, a wide variety of Australian universities, the Australian Antarctic Organisation, the CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division are also expected to attend.
Conditions at the Antarctic are ideal for observations in the near- infrared and sub-millimetre regions of the optical spectrum and offer the potential for opening up new far-infrared windows in the spectrum for Earth-based observation. The image quality also is likely to be outstanding, providing a more detailed look at the universe.
The Joint Australian Centre for Astrophysical Research in the Antarctic (JACARA) has been set up to bring together the expertise of the ANU and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) for practical day-to-day coordination of the research effort. JACARA plans to purchase an AGO (automated geophysical observatory) with funding from both universities, to be sited on Antarctica's high plateau. Equipment in the AGO is set up to collect data automatically without the need for a physical human presence throughout the long, cold winter months.
It is likely that the AGO will be located firstly at the South Pole and later at a site on the high plateau called Dome C (Concorde). Dome C lies within the Australian Antarctic Territory at an altitude of over three kilometres and is the site of a new Franco-Italian base. An extensive site-testing program will be undertaken by JACARA in collaboration with the USA, France and Italy to discover the best location to concentrate research efforts in the long term.
One exciting long-term possibility is the placement in Antarctica of a lightweight four metre telescope under a tethered balloon. These balloons, called aerostats, can float as high as 12km in the stratosphere where the air is exceedingly stable and cold. Such a telescope would surpass even the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope and would offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity in the near-infrared wavelengths. This would allow researchers to probe the structure of the gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies at the time they were being born, providing a unique insight into the early universe.
In a submission invited by the Federal Government's EPAC Task Force on Private Sector Involvement in Public Infrastructure, Professor Max Neutze of the ANU's Urban Research Program said that in many cases of infrastructure privatisation, a range of factors including risk, the need for regulation, cost of capital and environmental and equity objectives made the public sector the more efficient provider.
The paper said that privatisation was often driven by the desire of governments to reduce their need to borrow for capital expenditure or the need to increase taxes to pay for current expenditure. However, private borrowing, he said, was almost always more expensive than borrowing by governments and public authorities.
Professor Neutze said that where the private sector was a more efficient provider of services, government assets should be privatised, however, this did not usually apply to natural monopolies. The problem with the current privatisation debate, he said, was that it was largely driven by general views which had an ideological edge. "The correct way to go about privatisation is to carefully assess each service on its own merits," he said.
While the private sector usually had the ability to deal with cost and interest rate risks, the management of demand and policy risks for the provision of large-scale infrastructure service were often beyond the means of private companies and, in the case of policy risks, often unfair to impose.
Policy risks may relate to new information or changing community expectations which can lead to more stringent health, safety or pollution standards.
"It is both simpler and more equitable for the cost of higher standards that are decided in a political process to be imposed on public than on private providers of services," the paper said.
In terms of competition, Professor Neutze argued that infrastructure services were, by their nature, natural monopolies, and hence precluded true competition. For services such as water, electricity and sewerage which relied upon delivery networks he said it was usually not feasible to have genuine competition in the sense of individual consumers having a choice between suppliers.
The paper notes that even the Industry Commission, in a report on improving the efficiency of Government business enterprises, concluded that the main factor promoting efficiency was likely to be competition rather than ownership per se.
A further problem with privatisation is the need for complex and high levels of regulation when the responsibility for provision of infrastructure services is separated from the responsibility for achieving other public policy goals through their provision. Without significant regulation a range of social, economic and environmental policy objectives may be compromised, the paper says.
Regulation was needed to ensure that suppliers did not exploit monopoly positions, environmental goals were not compromised by the need to maximise profit by selling as much of the product as possible (water is a good example), and economically disadvantaged consumers are not deprived of services.
The latest figure consisted of $6.4 billion in plantation forests and $8.8 billion in native forests, available for commercial exploitation. These reported values raise a number of questions.
First, if the commercial value of native forests is greater than that of plantation forests, does this mean that the new figures in the national accounts will only make such values more transparent and speed the demise of our native forests, rather than assist in its preservation and conservation? Second, if native forests are to be protected, it stimulates the question as to what policy measures will most effectively reduce the commercial values of native forests to zero and stop further exploitation? Two diametrically opposed options could produce that result. One option is to totally log the native forests as fast as possible. The other is to introduce government, or market, restrictions which will severely curtail the commercial opportunities. Both can change the balance between commercial values of plantation and native forests. The figures provide a starting point for discussion of such policy options, but used in the wrong way the additional transparency could well lead to further over- exploitation rather than conservation.
With this paradox in mind, I suggest that there is also a need to look at micro-accounting for environmental assets (and liabilities) by organisations involved in the forest industries. It is possible for such organisations to present their own "green accountings". These could identify the natural capital asset base essential for continuation of each line of business, and show depreciation and appreciation of their natural assets over time. This process would encourage organisations to become mindful of the need to maintain natural as well as economic capital to secure their own future. I submit that it is not enough to consider the macro effects of the ecosphere on the accounts. To be effective the broad issues highlighted in national accounts must be translated into accounting information for action at the organisational level.
Roger Burritt
Senior Lecturer in Commerce
(Editor's Note: Roger Burritt is the coordinator of a unit in Environmental Accounting offered by the Department of Commerce and accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the University who have an interest in environmental and ecological issues.)
This is the advice from internationally renowned physicist and engineer, Professor Elsa Garmire, who was visiting the ANU's Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering (RSPhysSE) this month.
Professor Garmire, from the Center for Laser Studies at the University of Southern California, refers to the "priesthood of physics", where the study of chemistry and physics derive from alchemy (trying to turn lead into gold). Alchemy was closely associated with religion and mysticism and was practiced by priests and monks, and hence was an exclusively male stronghold.
In this context of male domination in physics, Professor Garmire says the way for women to achieve success is by learning the politics of "the physics priesthood", the unwritten rules, and using it to advantage.
Speaking as a woman who has managed to combine family life with a successful and exciting career in the male dominated areas of physics and engineering, Professor Garmire says women cannot depend on the law for equal opportunity.
"Women already have equal rights enshrined in law, however this does not seem to be giving women the equal opportunities they deserve," said Professor Garmire.
"What women want is equal opportunity without sacrificing their families."
She recommends a strategy of affirmative action for women, which means taking the initiative.
"Affirmative action does not mean lowering standards to make it easier for women. Rather it means women going for what they want and asking people, both men and women, for help.
"Finding role models and mentors is part of this process, which involves building up friendships with people, especially men, because, after all, that's where the power is.
"When looking for a mentor, women should look to men who have daughters these men are more likely to help women because its in their interest to improve prospects for their own daughters."
Professor Garmire also recommends cultivating friendships with the men who determine funding for science.
"It's all part of accepting reality and playing the system, which doesn't mean you have to condone the rules, but realising that to be successful you have to play by the unwritten rules."
Professor Garmire has had a number of role models along the way, although no-one she would count as a mentor because she figures she taught these people as much as she learned from them.
"Ultimately, we each have to do it ourselves. However, there are a number of individuals who have assisted me along the way. My first role model was Marie Curie, whose biography I read as a small girl. I count as role models Lillian Gilbreath, the first woman engineer, and Eve Hurdler Green, who was an old friend of my grandmother.
She speaks of the need for consciousness raising and the sad fact that there are women who become successful but "sell-out" other women. Increasingly, women want to be accepted for themselves they don't want to have to act like a man just to get the jobs they deserve.
She reflects sadly that there was a time (before her consciousness was raised) when she herself was guilty of "selling-out".
"I will sadly mention one role model I missed: the late Luise Meyer Schutzmeister. I had an opportunity to work with her at the Argonne Laboratories in Chicago, but I turned it down, because she was a woman, and in the 1960s I did not, in general, respect women as scientists. I learned later that she became a very well respected and inspirational leader for many young women before her untimely death. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to experience her mentoring."
Professor Garmire is certainly proof of the success of her approach of playing the political game to advantage.
She was given the top award of the Society of Women Engineers in the US last year and was the second woman President of the Optical Society of America. She also is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Professor Garmire will take up the position of Dean of Engineering at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, in September this year. Ironically, she was not allowed to study there as an undergraduate because the college did not accept women.
She points out how far women have come in a relatively short period of time.
Professor Garmire was accepted into Radcliffe College in 1957 Radcliffe was the women's annexe at Harvard University and the women were taught in separate classes to the men. It was not until after World War II that women and men at Harvard actually shared classes, although admissions remained separate for men and women until even later.
Twenty years later, Professor Garmire's elder daughter, Lisa, went to Harvard and was able to show her mother around Harvard's library, a place Professor Garmire had not been allowed to go as an undergraduate because "women might distract the men from their study".
"I spent eight years at Caltech as a postdoctoral fellow and left in 1974 with words of a male faculty member ringing in my years 'Women students should not be admitted because it is a waste of an education'.
"Even today, I am one of only four women in the Engineering Faculty (of 130) at the University of Southern California. I was the first woman on the faculty and the first tenured woman. I'm told the Dean of Engineering had to 'bang his shoe' on the table of the faculty tenure committee, before they would approve it."
Professor Garmire believes it is important for women to keep making inroads into the areas of physics and engineering where she says women bring a different perspective. This will be particularly valuable as we enter the 21st century in which socio-economic factors will impact on these areas much more than at any other time in history.
"The study of physics would be different if women taught the subject at university in equal numbers to the men. For example, if women had been involved in developing the programming and instructions for VCRs, most people would be able to program their own VCRs, instead of which hardly anyone is able to program them."
Professor Garmire's final piece of advice to aspiring women students was in response to a question about how to deal with sexual harassment: "Become famous I haven't been harassed in years."
The two ANU teams faced each other in an exciting final, debating the topic that "Affirmative action is the greatest slur of all". Ms Catherine Deadman and Ms Angela Buckingham, who made up the first ANU team, won narrowly over Ms Rachael Doland and Ms Catherine O'Brien.
All four are members of the ANU Debating Society, one of the larger and more active student clubs on campus, who regularly send debaters to compete at national and international competitions as well as maintaining a large internal competition that helps to train debaters for the challenges of intervarsity contests such as this.
Two of the students, Ms Francesca Coles and Miss Katrine Bewley, began studying Russian in the first year of their Arts degrees four years ago, with no background in the subject. The third student, Mr John Reid, began in 1990 and currently is in Russia before completing his honours year.
The level three National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) exam, which the three students passed, qualifies them for translating newspaper articles and official documents.
The students were able to achieve such a high level of proficiency in Russian after only four years of exposure thanks to the disciplined approach to language learning taken by the Russian section of MEL, said Ms Coles.
"They prepared us well: translation was an important part of the course and they also gave us a very good foundation in the grammar," she said. In addition, Mr Rosh Ireland and Dr Kevin Windle of the Russian section offered the students weekly informal preparatory courses in the months leading up to the NAATI exam.
According to the two students, Russian was not an easy language to learn, but the challenge was fun.
"I went in with the idea that one day I'd be able to read Dostoyevsky in the original, and I wasn't going to give up until I could," said Miss Bewley who, after three years in the Russian department wrote a First Class honours thesis on an aspect of Dostoyevsky's work.
"It is rewarding to see that the skills we have gained can be recognised," said Ms Coles. "It now seems more like a marketable commodity."
During the half-day strike on Thursday afternoon, the students rallied in Union Court at the ANU, and then about 200 of them marched through Civic to the main building of the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET).
The date of the strike was selected to allow students to voice publicly their concerns before the Federal Government's Budget, due for release in May 1995. The main concern was the recent trend towards a user-pays higher education system, which has manifested itself in the introduction of upfront fees for professional qualification courses for students, and in increases to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) expected in the May Budget.
Thursday's strike was called by the No Fees Campaign, and endorsed by the Students' Association (SA). The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) met on 17 March and passed a motion recommending that lecturers across campus cancel classes.
We received no correct entries for the last Who Wrote It? The author was Christopher Isherwood writing in Christopher and His Kind. The prize now jackpots to a $60 voucher for goods and services from University House, and the winner will be drawn from among the entries correctly identifying the author of the above passage and the work in which it appears. Please send your entries to ANU Reporter at the address on page 12, before 5pm on 10 April.
It is an incredible 50 years since Seρora de los Angeles made her operatic debut in her native Barcelona. Since graduating from the University and Conservatory in that city she has appeared in all the leading opera houses of the world Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala Milan, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Vienna State Opera and of course in her native Spain. She has also graced all the major concert platforms and recorded an enormous range of operatic and recital repertoire as well as the popular Spanish zarzuela.
Her radiant and silvery voice is as beguiling as ever and her recital will not only reinforce the admiration of those who have followed her career over the years, but will give younger music lovers the opportunity to hear one of the century's greatest divas. Standing ovations were a feature of her most recent tour of Australia in 1994.
The splendid acoustics of Llewellyn Hall provide the best possible environment for her program of songs by Spanish, French, German and Italian composers, in which she will be accompanied by Spanish pianist Albert Guinovart. Seρora de los Angeles is touring the east coast of Australia in March and April, possibly for the last time in an illustrious career her Canberra recital is presented by the School of Music in association with Sydney entrepreneur Andrew McKinnon and Associates. Tickets including group bookings are available through Canberra Ticketing at the Canberra Theatre Centre.
The system, now being installed, automates the entire process of DNA sequencing and DNA fragment analysis, allowing faster and more accurate work. It is the first model of its kind in Australia and has several features which are an advance on previous models.
Sequencing of DNA is a chemical reaction performed to determine the order of the four possible organic compounds known as nucleotide bases, spelling out a unique genetic information code. Sequencing reactions are loaded onto a very thin vertical gel and subjected to a current which separates DNA fragments according to their size ("electrophoresis").
With conventional sequencing, the DNA is radioactively labelled and each reaction requires four separate "lanes" on the gel to differentiate between the four nucleotides. The automated DNA sequencing system utilises four different fluorescent dyes as markers in place of radioactivity and allows a complete reaction to be run in a single lane, instantly increasing the number of reactions that will fit on a single gel by a factor of four. It also avoids the unpredictable lane-to-lane variability that leads to less accurate results and problems in interpretation. So that data between different gels and lanes can be compared, it is possible to run a size marker within each lane.
After samples are loaded onto the gel of the automated sequencer, they automatically undergo electrophoresis. A laser detects the labelled samples as they run off the bottom of the gel and the data is fed into a computer to be viewed in real-time or stored for later analysis by specialised software packages.
In addition to DNA sequencing, the system will be used extensively for the techniques of genotyping and fingerprinting, which look at fragments of DNA to identify individual animals or plants.
Research within BoZo is concentrated in the areas of ecology, evolutionary biology and systematics, which increasingly require molecular tools such as sequencing and genotyping. Genetic research in these disciplines usually requires the study of many individuals, making automation highly desirable. "This machine will give our division a position as one of the best places in the world for research in these fields," said Dr Rod Peakall, whose laboratory will be one of the 12 in BoZo to make use of the system.
Dr Peakall is looking at the genetic fingerprints of rare plants found in the suburbs of Sydney. Sequencing and genotyping will allow the first large scale studies of the variation or lack of variation between plants that may be facing ecological extinction. Such data will be of value for the future management and recovery of endangered plant species.
Other researchers in BoZo will be analysing the DNA of fairy wrens from the Botanic Gardens in order to establish family trees between whole populations of the birds. This information will shed light on the evolution of their complex and cooperative societies and mating systems. Around 500 birds will be tested each year, requiring over 7,000 separate genotyping reactions. The presence of the automated genetic analysis system makes this task achievable.
A full list of the successful equipment grant recipients appears on page 11 of this issue.
The raids included restaurants, pubs and other public hangouts. The strategy of the police was to send someone into the restaurants in advance to check the layout of the space, so that all exits could be blocked. The police had a list of facilities to be targeted, mainly places where foreign mostly American residents gather. Following the daily arrests, during the nights the police were using helicopters with spot lights to locate those whom their spokesman labelled as "unfit people", involving the homeless, the unemployed, and all "such people". Police spokesman Petr Link dismissed the complaints about the behaviour of the police. He said: "Of course we were using helicopters, but not on the foreigners, we used them on unfit persons. We were just trying how it would work out on parking lots where there are a lot of homeless people and others." Link repeatedly referred to the homeless and unemployed when he defended the new policy of policing. He said: "On one side people are calling on us to get rid of unfit people, and then we start doing it and others say that we are inhuman. But those who criticise it are only the homeless, for instance, and such people."
The new policy, and this jargon, should not have come as such a surprise to the foreign community in Prague, in light of the growing exclusionist tendencies within Czech society. Last year the Czech Parliament passed a citizenship law which severely discriminated against the Romany population in the country. The law requires that all those who apply for Czech citizenship (after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia) must have a clean criminal record in the past five years. This was mainly aimed at the local Romanies, many of whom have been convicted of petty offences such as theft and pick-pocketing. The Romany population is severely marginalised in Czech society, with the highest rates of unemployment and poverty, and anti-Romany sentiments among Czechs are extreme. Most polls show that Czechs consider Romanies second-class citizens and trouble-makers who do not deserve the benefits of equal treatment.
Similar sentiments prevail against the homeless and even against the unemployed, who are considered suspicious and deserving of exclusion.
Czech citizenship law has drawn some decided criticism from the Council of Europe, which has threatened to block the Czech entry into the EU in the near future unless the law is reversed. Czech President Vaclav Havel is also against the law and against the practices of discrimination taking off in the Czech Republic, but he has been overridden by the dominant forces of the Czech self-proclaimed "Thatcherist" right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus.
The worrying questions are concerned with where the homeless and the unemployed are taken, and what rights they have that can be enforced while they are in police custody. Czech independent governments have an appalling record in the treatment of minorities; the most startling example of discrimination was their expulsion of approximately three million Sudeten Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia to Germany, with their property confiscated. Even today, the Czech right-wing government is refusing to restitute property to Sudeten Germans, because of the fear of their return to the country and becoming citizens. Together with the Germans, Czechs (this time together with Slovaks) have also expelled thousands of Hungarians since World War Two. The significant thing is that the same sentiments can be discerned today in the Czech populace, and that the present Klaus government is in many crucial ways similar to the post World War Two Government headed by the National Socialist politician Eduard Benes, who issued decrees governing the mass expulsions.
The discrimination in the Czech treatment of national minorities is in certain ways more dangerous than that in the Balkans or in other parts of the world where there are open military conflicts and where parties are accused of "ethnic cleansing". It is more dangerous because it is quiet and hidden, but systematic, and represents a continuous deprivation of marginalised people of their human dignity and civil rights.
The Czech Republic has received considerable benefits from the West in terms of investment and public and political support for its "breakaway" from Communism. However, if Western governments are to retain the standards of respect for human rights with which they have been conducting their domestic and foreign policy for decades, then they must recognise the need to force post-Communist regimes to show respect for national minorities, even if breaches of human and civil rights are not marked by civil conflicts such as in the Balkans.
The Czechs must be reproached more decisively and, if necessary, sanctioned by the international community, if they continue to refuse to change their treatment of Romanies, and if they do not reverse the blatant exclusion and stigmatisation of the poor and the unemployed. These practices, to a certain extent characteristic of the so-called "high Manchester capitalism", have long been abandoned in the West and are generally considered intolerable in the democratic world. A closer look into the current and the emerging policies and laws of the Czech conservative government reveals that these democratic standards may be in the process of being questioned by the rogue governments capitalising on Western tolerance and their ambition to expand Western influence further east.
The jargon of "unfit people", "only the homeless and such people", "unemployed and the like" suggests that there is something worthy of reprimand in being homeless and unemployed, and reveals values and a way of thinking in Czech Government officials which democratic Europe must be shocked with. While the reduction of unemployment and the provision of housing for the homeless are among the main targets of social policy measures in most West European countries, in the Czech Republic the government is increasingly applying an old and well- remembered solution: exclusion. Surely it is easier to engage in power-politicking with the population which is already heavily infected by the virus of chauvinism and racism, especially against the Romanies, than to provide social policy directives which could have a real impact on the problem. While it is probably fair to say that it should remain within the discretion of any government to devise its social policy to cope with its problems, it certainly ought to be the concern of the entire European community of citizens when rogue governments inflict blame and punitive measures on those whose problems they are supposed to address.
*Mr Aleksandar Fatic is a PhD student in Philosophy, and presently is in the Czech Republic
The Chorale gave the Australian premiere performances of Alfred Schnitke's Requiem in 1991 and Arvo Part's Miserere in 1992. Other performances have included John Rutter's Gloria and the requiems of Maurice Durufle and Gabriel Faure.
The performance on 2 April is entitled, "There is Sweet Music: a program of English choral music", and will featureVaughan-Williams' Mass in G minor, Britten's Hymn to Saint Cecilia, along with works by Purcell, Battishill, Parry, Elgar, Harris and Wood.
The concert begins at 8pm. For further details, phone 295 9613.
"In this area, Australia is well behind other countries," she said, citing New Zealand as an example of a country where women have played competition rugby for 20 years. Remarkably, considering the success of men's rugby teams in international competition, Australia has never had a team in the Women's Rugby World Championships. But interest in this sport was growing, said Ms Job.
"We have been accepted into the Rugby Club as equals and we train alongside the mens' teams. We train just as hard as they do and don't get any concessions," she said.
The team had its first game on 25 March against Wollongong University, despite the fact that they have yet to find a coach. The team will meet the two Canberra clubs in preparation for the Intervarsity Eastern Conference Games in July at the University of Western Sydney, and will attend the Intervarsity Games in September in Darwin and the Australian Championships in June.
Training is held on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 6pm on North Oval. For details, contact Ms Job on 279 9298.
This volume is a major contribution to two well-established lines of inquiry in the anthropology of Aboriginal Australia. Ethnographically, it adds a new dimension to our knowledge of north- east Arnhem Land, a region that has attracted anthropological attention since the work of W Lloyd Warner in the 1930s. Theoretically, it continues an extended tradition of western scholarly interest in Aboriginal religion, and offers a bountiful response to the call made nine years ago by Howard Morphy, in a survey of the field, for studies of ritual that look at "the organisation of ritual action as behaviour which reflects choices made in the light of political, psychological and semantic factors".
Keen is much more interested in political and semantic questions than psychological, but he shares this primary concern with action, and his study realises the potential of such a focus for exploring inter- relatedness and overlap within the domains of Yolngu culture. This fine-grained and systematic analysis is pitched directly at the relationship between practice and negotiability on the one hand, and structure and doctrine on the other. Keen shows indeterminacy and unboundedness throughout the social and mythical grounds of religious belief and practice, and a multivalence in the designs, songs and dances of ritual that left room for multiple perspectives and interpretations as a necessary condition of participation between groups.
The ethnographic exegesis begins with myths about creative ancestors. Stories of their travels were foundational. They established associations, sometimes by recounting transformations, between ancestors, their actions and possessions, and natural entities and geographical features. These symbolic connections and inferences extended to incorporate the social groups created at each stage of their journey. Members of those groups claimed ownership of particular songs, dances, and designs relating to that portion or version of the ancestral story relevant to their own country, and rights over others to which they could claim some other connection, such as close kinship with the owners, or a common ancestral path of travel.
By itself, this model implies great potential for commonalities or distinctions of meaning that could be deployed to validate co- operation or division in ritual performance. But Keen shows that there was much more at work here than an intellectual process of symbolic classification between social, natural and spiritual domains. Rather, he explores a continuous activity of exploiting the ambiguity of symbols and the contingencies of social relations that was discursive, strategic and shifting.
The linguistic expressions used in the telling of ancestral myths were inherently ambiguous or indeterminate with respect to such things as species, number and gender of entities involved. The types of spirit-beings were not always discrete, and their capacity for transformation effected a simultaneity in the type of entity being represented in story, song or design, and therefore a potential also for multiple intersections with other domains, especially geographical places and the groups responsible for them.
Group membership provided an individual's primary orientations to country, ancestors, and ceremonial forms. Keen argues, however, that groups lacked clear separation as bounded, corporate entities, they did not fit into a hierarchical and segmentary order, and even their internal make-up could be subject to disagreement. Groups maintained their own versions of the foundational stories. Individuals had rights circumscribed by relatedness to tell only some stories, and validated these as against other versions by having learned them from their fathers. However, sharing in the perspectives of other closely-related groups meant that members of the same group could disagree about details of ancestral histories, such that the recounting of stories was often subject to a delicate politics of deference and witnessing. The same applied to planning and execution of ceremonies. Different participants attributed divergent meanings to the same forms, such that co-operation in public performance contrasted with discretion in verbal exegesis.
Ceremonial rights and responsibilities were fulfilled by members of different groups performing complementary roles defined by kinship relations, especially towards mother's and mother's mother's countries. Because these categories were extendable by kin classificatory principles, and also because people of one patrilineal group had matrilineal links with different groups, there was potential for a range of ceremonial connections to be activated in different contexts, and for those to change between generations.
Cross-cutting lines of ancestral travel established patterns of symbolic affiliation between different countries that provided another layer of possibilities to be mobilised and dramatised in ritual. Such choices manifested a particular political perspective about relationships between groups, countries and resources. Statements about difference or similarity between particular designs, songs, ancestors, etc, were political in two ways: they involved a claim of entitlement to assert knowledge about those things, and a claim about relationships with other groups holding symbols considered to be "same" or "different". Keen's discussions of ceremonial performance range across levels of inclusiveness from the scope allowed to individual creativity and innovation to supra- regional connectedness of cultural forms between Yolngu and their neighbours. Genealogical and territorial relations within groups, commonalities and exchanges between groups, linguistic sameness, and ceremonial interaction, were part of the currency of negotiated identity.
In Part 2 Keen moves to consider restrictions on access to religious knowledge across distinctions of age and gender. He intensifies his focus on performance, recounting and closely analysing details of a male initiation ceremony, a lengthy revelatory ceremony intended to further the young men's education and competence, and two mortuary ceremonies. The initiation ceremony reveals a concern with the reproduction of groups and of their bonds with their ancestors, and of the incorporation of new male members. Keen uses the ceremony also to show how formal connections, especially of kinship, between groups, and contingencies of age and knowledge distribution, affected the organisation of performances. The extended discussion of a revelatory rite details the techniques of physical separation that protected secret meanings from public exposure. Keen further offers interpretations of the substantive themes being conveyed through song and dance, and compares them to other possible readings, both indigenous and academic.
The final chapter in Part 2 addresses the use of encoding and disguised communication for hiding the secret meanings of publicly- displayed forms. In some of the most interesting passages in the book, Keen explains that these measures took advantage of general qualities of ambiguity, condensation and an open potential for analogical cross-referencing and interpretive innovation in the uses and understandings of religious symbols. Secret meanings did not occur as a fixed and discrete corpus of knowledge. They were, rather, a variable interpretive dimension in the play of symbols for which women and neophytes did not possess the necessary decoding keys. Even among initiated men, there were protocols based on group membership and individual seniority that governed the right to produce particular symbolic forms, and separately, the right to impart levels of information about the forms. Keen moves from this into a concluding discussion of the relationship between secrecy and power.
Part 3 charts recent trends in north-east Arnhem Land religious culture that emphasised more socially inclusive performances and doctrines, and subverted the political weight previously given to discontinuities in the distribution of knowledge. The Gunapipi ceremony employed universalist symbols and distributed complementary roles across social categories to which everyone had one or another affiliation. In the late 1970s, it drew the broadest participation of the regional ceremonies. Like the ceremonies discussed earlier, however, intimate co-operation between actors from a wide social and geographic range was facilitated only by a tolerance for divergent interpretations of shared forms. Also as before, men retained predominant control of secret aspects of the performance. Christian revival movements went further to transcend differences of group membership and gender, to assert a community unity and equal participation with whites in the law, and to eliminate the domain of secret knowledge on which senior male power was based.
A review summary cannot do justice to the detail and depth of description in this volume. The ethnography is at times saturating, and demands some commitment from the reader. The immersion of this analysis in practice and discourse shows that the social structures and cultural categories discerned in earlier forms of anthropological analysis are not just permeable, but as Keen puts it in his theoretical statements, unbounded and indeterminate, and all perspectives upon them relative and contested. Yet they are not insubstantial. Of what, then, do those structures and categories consist? Keen touches this question a few times, but his only substantive points are that commonality increases with decreasing social distance, and indeterminacy is greatest with regard to referents that are imaginary.
The existence of a common conceptual corpus, the possibility of establishing its propositional content and the means of its reproduction-beyond-debate, are left largely unexplored. It is on this ground of common allegiance that the play of relative perspectives, political contest, and interpretive variation, occurs. It constitutes the difference between disagreement and mutual incomprehension. It is that which is shared in the regional religious culture of north-east Arnhem Land.
Given the exhaustive demonstration in this volume of all that is not shared, one is left to wonder how much could be left to act as an agreed reference point around which all the disagreements circulate.
The book is handsomely produced and illustrated with several fine line-drawings, but expensively priced.
*Mr Robert Levitus is in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Faculties
The first ANU Creative Arts Fellow for 1995 will be the distinguished artist, printmaker and pedagogue, Udo Sellbach. Sellbach was born in Cologne in 1927 where he trained as a printmaker before emigrating to Australia in 1955. He played a critical role in the establishment of printmaking in Australia as a serious art form. As a printmaker he taught at the South Australian School of Art and at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and later headed the Tasmanian School of Art and the Canberra School of Art.
He has also had a distinguished career as an exhibiting artist and, after leaving the Canberra School of Art in 1985, worked as a freelance artist, initially in Queensland and more recently in Tasmania.
Udo Sellbach intends to arrive in Canberra for his 16-week stay in mid-April. He will be using the facilities of the Graphic Investigation Workshop and the Printmaking Workshop, both at the Canberra School of Art. Towards the end of his stay, in mid-August, a small exhibition of his work will be held at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, which will include some of the artist's books and prints produced during his time in Canberra this year.
While eco-rats will cringe at the waste of money on the arts, the university art communities will benefit greatly from sharing in the experience of working with one of the great printmakers active in Australia today. Also, our national standing in the Australian arts community will be enhanced, as it has been in the past with such former Creative Arts Fellows as Arthur Boyd, John Perceval and Don Burrows. It is a cause for celebration that next year, during our 50th Anniversary, ANU hopes to have at least two Creative Arts Fellows.
Masks of Time, Drama and its Contexts describes itself most succinctly in the first sentence of the introduction: "The essays gathered in this volume were originally presented as contributions to a symposium...held in Canberra in November 1993 under the auspices of the Australian Academy of the Humanities". The Australian Academy of the Humanities began its annual symposia in 1971 and this was the first to be devoted to drama.
The essays range from a study of Greek theatre through the evidence of archaeological remains to Australian Aboriginal drama and Chinese Ritual Theatre, briefly touching on Shakespeare (notably John Gillies' essay on the Elizabethan's knowledge of geography) on the way.
The first essay, "The Greeks and their Theatre" by Richard Green, was the Annual Lecture of the Academy of the Humanities and explores the importance of theatre to the Greek society of the fifth century BC. Green uses many illustrations from Greek artefacts and vases to support his argument. This is an interesting, thorough and extremely readable piece of scholarship, but Green tends to fall into the dreadful trap of realism when he begins to discuss any aspect of performance. For instance: "comedy... was seen for what it was, actors acting, and the attempt to maintain dramatic illusion was limited". Seeing "actors acting" was exactly what audiences went to see until the rise of modern realism in the 19th century and we have no evidence to suggest that "dramatic illusion was limited". This confusion between maintaining dramatic illusion and theatrical realism is the curse of most scholarly works when venturing into the realm of performance. Indeed, he discusses at some length the process of the Greek actor "becoming" the character when donning a mask, describing it as "a realistic performance of a new order". Theatre is a non-realistic art form. The mere donning of a mask is a clear illustration of this but this does not deny the extraordinary illusion and magic that this creates. To denigrate performance in any non-realistic theatrical period to the kitchen sink level of realism is to deny its grandeur and power. We must stop assuming that theatre is only "good" if it is "real".
Jane Goodall's "Endgames: Performance and the fin de siecle" is a delightful look at the Grand Guignol play endings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and sums up the whole situation with her first sentence: "Endings aren't what they used to be". She goes on to compare the Grand Guignol style with late 20th century performance art: "The difference between ending and stopping may be one of the more significance [sic] differences between late 19th and late-20th century forms of performance."
John Gillies, once a lecturer in our own English Department, has become a real expert on the geographic knowledge available to the Elizabethans, as recently seen in the publication of his book: Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1994). His essay, " 'Theatres of the World' Elizabethan Theatre and the Geographic Muse" explores the Aristotelian demands for unity of time, space and action coupled with the growing geographic knowledge of the world of the Elizabethans and the playwrights' obvious delight in using this knowledge on stage in spite of their embarassment at its limitations: "Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?". He goes on to to show how the "geographic muse" works in Marlowe, Shakespeare and others and gives an insight into a hitherto unknown region of the Elizabethan consciousness.
Ultimately, however, the book remains unsatisfying, despite the gems it contains. One wonders why the Academy of the Humanities chose to focus its first and only drama symposium on the "contexts" of drama rather than on the beast itself. Consequently, there are no essays on performance study, no essays on mainstream acting or directing or its new physicality. Drama is, necessarily, a living, physical, visual discipline that requires performance and audience. Without them, its relevance and meaning are extremely limited. What we end up with here, interesting and readable though they may be, are the peripherals of drama.
*Mr Anthony Turner is a Lecturer in the ANU Drama Program
By republicanism, I refer not simply to the push for an Australian republic. The concept refers to a range of possible forms of government that Australia might embrace were it to sever its links with the monarchy and seek to enhance the citizenship of the Australian people. It is quite possible for Australia to have a republic without republicanism.
The core elements of modern US republicanism entail a system of government by the people equally that seeks to achieve the common good through deliberation by political actors who act not in their own interest or the interests of their constituents but for the community as a whole.
It is obvious from this definition that incorporating republicanism into the Australian tradition could involve radical constitutional change, not to mention radical shifts in behaviour from our politicians!
The push for an Australian republic has led to debate over what influence, if any, republicanism should have in a revitalised Australian nation. At stake is the chance to underpin the formation of a new Australian polity and to create a new constitutional tradition.
Republicanism has been put forward as an alternative to Paul Keating's idea of a minimalist republic, which was examined in the 1993 report of the Republic Advisory Committee. Minimalism would mean a republic created by the "minimal constitutional changes necessary to achieve a viable federal republic of Australia while maintaining the effect of our current conventions and principles of government".
For proponents of republicanism such as Andrew Fraser of Macquarie University, the achievement of a minimalist republic would represent nothing more than "cosmetic constitutional change" that may not amount to a "genuinely republican movement at all". Ironically, the minimalist position might not bring about a republican republic.
As is already clear, the semantics of the minimalist versus republican debate can hamper understanding. The minimalist approach to an Australian republic focuses upon one aspect of republicanism namely the removal of the monarch of the United Kingdom as Australia's Head of State, and without seeking to disturb the existing political structures in the manner that would be necessary to achieve other republican goals, such as greater political equality and greater emphasis on the participation of Australians in government.
Minimalists are thus concerned to maintain the status quo as far as is possible while achieving an Australian republic.
For republicans, that is, proponents of republicanism, the goal is not only to establish the formalities of a republic or simply to change the Head of State from a foreigner to an Australian. The aim is to alter the Australian constitutional and political structure so that it embodies some of the themes of republicanism, particularly the enhancement of the ability of ordinary citizens to participate in exercising political power.
This might mean citizen-initiated referenda or the creation of a new political body, such as an elected constituent assembly, to carry out the task of transforming Australia into a republic.
Such a republic might recognise not only governments but also business corporations and professional associations as essential elements of the republic so as to enable the people to act as citizens in everyday life.
The minimalist and republican paths offer very different terrain. Republicans argue for an agenda potentially encompassing radical constitutional and political change aimed at enhancing the citizenship of the people in a way, they argue, that is not provided for by existing Australian traditions such as those based upon the Westminster form of government. The minimalist position is characterised by an enduring faith in exactly those traditions.
If Australia is to embrace republicanism, it has the chance now. However, republicanism will only become part of an Australian republic if it can gain the political and intellectual ascendency over the current dominant minimalist position.
While Paul Keating's minimalist position certainly has the front running, there is still scope for an Australian republic to involve a shift from the dominant Westminster tradition to a new framework incorporating greater emphasis upon citizenship and civic virtue.
The conservatism of the Australian people is perhaps the greatest obstacle to this.
As the recent report on citizenship by the Civics Expert Group shows, the republican course would require significant changes in the way Australians are educated if they are to participate in and vote for a new republican Australia.
*Dr George Williams is a lecturer in the ANU Faculty of Law
A good example of CCF's potential contribution to the debate is its next major activity: a three-day conference in May will address a number of issues including one which is exciting public opinion at the moment: the method of electing a president in an Australian Republic.
This conference of 100 opinion-makers will attempt "to consider and, if possible, reach agreement on the question which might be put to referendum to determine whether Australians want an Australian republic or whether they wish to retain the monarchical system". The conference, "Australian Governance in a Global Society", is being held on 6-8 May at Old Parliament House.
Among the propositions to be debated is the one that "the Head of State should be chosen by the Prime Minister, and appointed for a five year term".
The CCF is still a little-known player in the constitutional debate in Australia which has so far been dominated by party politics: prime ministerial leadership from Paul Keating which in turn has generated partisan opposition from the Liberal and National parties; plenty of expert advice from at least two major government-sponsored committees, the Republic Advisory (Turnbull) Committee and the Civics Expert (MacIntyre) Group; community pressure from two well-organised pressure groups, the Australian Republican Movement and Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy.
But what is the CCF and what distinctive contribution might it play to the evolution of the Republican debate? The CCF is an independent, non-partisan organisation, headed by the former Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen. It was launched in October 1991 after a constitutional conference which aimed to begin a decade of Constitutional debate leading up to the centenary of Federation in 2001. The board includes not only a sprinkling of senior public figures, but also the Attorney-General and the Shadow Attorney- General and nominees of all State and Territory governments.
The CCF is an honest broker and an educator. It "aims to promote and facilitate an informed public discussion on the Australian system of government during the decade leading to the centenary of Federation in 2001". It has no predetermined views but it does believe that discussion is necessary and education is healthy. Its four key themes are: i) encouraging participation in debate; ii) providing information; iii) clarifying various options; and iv) education. Its activities include a publication program, schools constitutional conventions and curriculum development for community education.
The Foundation has worked hard to maintain its position as an honest broker, even as party and group politics have hotted up. It has not been easy to remain independent, non-partisan, informed and attractive to the media. Both government and opposition have tended to either bypass it (Keating) or pinch its ideas without acknowledgment (Alexander Downer). The prime minister could well have been expected to call directly on the Foundation for advice on civics education seeing that he was already funding it (though MacIntyre is a council member). The then Leader of the Opposition's proposed people's convention drew on an idea with which the Foundation was already identified.
The major recent achievement of the CCF has been the place accorded it in the recommendations of the Civics Expert Group CCF features on several occasions in the report for its role in the production of materials for Civics education in schools, for its potential role in adult and community education and particularly for its potential role in Citizenship Education in the wider community.
CCF is part of the grand tradition which believes in an informed citizenry and intelligent, rational debate. There is a certain naivete about this conception and an undue belief in the power of reason to sway public debate. Nevertheless, to the extent that this is possible, CCF offers the best chance and deserves support. If community education about a potential republic is what is required then the foundation has a track record and is well-placed. CCF's weakness is that its activities have tended to be of a "high-brow" kind. For example, it has produced a discussion paper on Heads of State: A Comparative Perspective, which examines seven republics which are parliamentary systems and draws lessons for Australia.
The assumption of the CCF is that good sense will out, that ignorance will be banished and that men and women of goodwill may address issues such as the republic in a calm and rational way. It believes that the "will of the people" will be aided in the birth of a republic by an intellectual mid-wife. It is an approach which deserves support but which can offer no evidence from recent Australian constitutional politics that this is the way in which things will be done in the l990s.
The danger is that the foundation will go the way of the constitutional conventions of the 1970s and the constitutional commission of the 1980s which were ultimately unsuccessful. The foundation has to find a way of influencing popular as well as elite opinion. Its idea of schools conventions is a start. More needs to be done. However, the benefits of this exercise are long-term, whereas the republic debate may well be resolved one way or the other in the next five years.
*Professor John Warhurst is Convenor of the ACT Chapter of the Constitutional Centenary Foundation and Head of the Department of Political Science, The Faculties
Such city-states reforged Roman republican ideas and traded them throughout Europe in the centuries that followed. Partly as a result of being imported into England during the period of the Cromwellian revolution, those ideas had established themselves firmly in the common mind of the 18th century English-speaking world. They provided what has been described as the language of political debate in England and America in that century.
We in Australia have been heirs to republican ideas on a double front: our earliest institutions were conceived and formed under the influence of 18th century republican ideas: republican ideas that had been reconciled to a constitutional form of monarchy. And the institutions created at the time of Federation the institutions that gave us the Commonwealth of Australia, to use its distinctively republican title were conceived and formed under the influence of American republican precedents.
Republicanism in this broad sense is characterised by one key idea and three corollaries. The key idea is a certain conception of liberty or freedom. For republicans of the 18th century and earlier, freedom required not just the absence of interference not just freedom in the contemporary, liberal sense but security against interference: not just the good fortune of having your rights respected by others, but the ability to command such respect from others. It required a social status under which it was publicly established and publicly recognised that no one no husband or master, for example could interfere in your affairs with impunity; no one had arbitrary power over you.
We all see at once the point which peace activists make when they say that peace requires more than the absence of conflict; that it requires also a publicly guaranteed security against the possibility of conflict. Republicans would have put the liberal notion of freedom as non-interference, freedom as being let alone, on a par with the notion of peace as cease-fire. They would have said that just as peace is not peace without security against the renewal of hostilities, so freedom is not freedom without security against the possibility of interference. If women and employees remain vulnerable to the power of husband and master, as was certainly the case in much of the 19th century, then they are not free: and they are not free, even if they happen to be let alone. Their subordination means that they do not command respect, even if they happen to receive it. As one popular text put the point: '"Liberty is, to live upon one's own Terms; Slavery is, to live at the mere Mercy of another".
Liberty as security or power was the key idea in the web of republican themes, but there were three associated ideas that I should also mention. The first is the notion that a republic requires a rule of law which is binding on all; a rule of law which means that no one stands beyond the possibility of legal reproach: not a monarch, not the judges, not even an elected assembly. Anything less than a rule of law any arrangement that granted unconstrained and possibly arbitrary power to some figures or bodies would mean that citizens were not secure against the invasions that those agents or agencies might perpetrate.
The second of the three extra strands in the republican tapestry is the idea that republican liberty requires, not just the rule of law, but also an arrangement under which those in public positions are disciplined by various checks and balances: checks and balances sufficient to ensure that there is no room in the making and the administration of law for those in power to serve their own sectional interests and compromise the liberties of others. Republicans envisaged a range of checking and balancing measures, including the separation of administrative, legislative and judicial powers, the exposure of administrators to interrogation in parliament, the judicial review of legislation, the popular election of parliamentary representatives, the division of parliament into upper and lower house, and so on. The thought of republicans was that unless the powerful could be visibly contained by such measures, unless they could be supported by such measures against the temptations of office the tradition was fairly realistic about human nature then there was little hope for the rest of the citizenry. Other citizens would have little assurance, objective or subjective, of not suffering abuse at the hands of the powerful: little assurance, for example, of not having arrangements rigged against their interests or of not having their taxes spent in pursuit of other people's goals.
The third strand that stands out in the republican tapestry of ideas is that of civic virtue. Republicans generally emphasised, though with differing degrees of vigour, that a rule of law and a regime of checks and balances would not suffice on their own for the promotion of liberty: that they would only work, if they were supported by, and were supportive of, a general culture of virtue. Those in authority would have to internalise the public interest, at least in the main, and reliably try to advance it. Those out of authority, on the other hand, would have to be vigilant in the scrutiny and questioning of public figures and parties they would have to avoid the vice of apathy if there was to be any hope of guarding against the spread of corruption: any hope of keeping the bastards honest. The price of liberty, as it used to be put, was eternal vigilance.
The republican ideas that I have sketched have not bulked large in the ideologies around which politics has been conducted in our country in the past 200 years. On the contrary, I think that the explicit ideologies have often been unfaithful to republican ideas. Some have placed an absolute value on democracy, for example, ignoring the possibility of a tyranny of the majority. Others have given excessive importance to the rule of the market, ignoring the vulnerabilities that an unmodified market brings in its train. Others again have invested the government with unrestricted responsibility for doing good, neglecting the dangers inherent in granting such authority and power to a single body.
But politics does not live by ideology alone and republican ideas have exercised a low-level, sustained pressure on the institutional life of our society. They are a heritage lodged deep in the chromosomes of the body politic and have made their impact in the slow and silent fashion of biological determinants. One of the most important challenges in Australia today is to try to articulate that republican heritage and to let it speak to the great issues in our public life: not just to the Head of State issue but also to the larger questions that we must resolve in the course of our further development. The republican heritage is not just deeply laid, it is also a tradition replete with lessons for contemporary society and politics.
*Professor Philip Pettit is the co-author, with Dr John Braithwaite, of Not Just Deserts: A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice (OUP, Oxford 1990) and his ABC ('Late Night Live') lecture on "Our Republican Heritage", from which this is excerpted, is shortly to be published in Eureka Street. He is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the Research School of Social Sciences
One of the most important reforms is the recognition of Native Title, another is the emerging debate over how the rights of Australian indigenous peoples should be accommodated in the Constitution in the context of reform, while the third is the question of how to develop a creative framework for government in the 21st century which can support Australia's move to repatriate its constitution. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are major stakeholders in all of these developments.
The most important development will take place during the transition to a republic, when all Australian municipal law is converted, or transferred, to meet the predetermined requirements of the new Australian constitution. It is during that constitutional transition that Aboriginal gains are likely to be at their most vulnerable, particularly in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory government already has the Commonwealth's Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 in its sights, however, since the Northern Territory wants statehood, its own Self-Government Act will be under close scrutiny as it rolls over into a new framework.
The States are running their own publicity campaigns on State constitutional reform. Western Australia, the State that reveres the secessionist principles (and the principle of not recognising Aboriginal rights on native title), is reviewing its own position on constitutional reform through a constitutional committee. The Northern Territory, in its bid for statehood, has stimulated public debate through a series of discussion papers, produced by the Sessional Committee on Constitutional Development, on the shape of the Territory as an equal partner with the States in future arrangements for federation, #2. Indigenous people will need to set their entitlements clearly apart from those of the State and Territory governments in the transition to a new republic.
Assuming that the existing federal infrastructure will be carried over into the new constitutional arrangements and, because of the requirements in the existing Australian constitution, most of the decisions relating to institutional arrangements in the republic will be made by communities in the States and Territories. According to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, representation in the federal parliament will need to be accompanied by dedicated seats in the States and Territories. Constitutional issues, particularly those decided by Commonwealth referenda, are won or lost in the regions.
The general position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first Australians underpins their special constitutional position, a position detailed in the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation's submission released by the Commonwealth Government on St Patrick's Day 1995 (Going Forward: Social Justice for the First Australians). The ambitious nature of parliamentary reform is acknowledged in the report and, resistance from the States and Territories notwithstanding, there are a number of related issues that reinforce the report: for example, High Court recognition of Native Title in the recent case of The State of Western Australia v The Commonwealth (challenge to the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993), issues such as constitutional conventions, presidential elections and republicanism. State and Territory responses will no doubt vary.
Matt Rigney, Chairman of the Patpa Warra Yunti Regional Council, raised these points in Adelaide recently. According to Mr Rigney, three seats should be dedicated to Anangu in the South Australian legislature. Success will depend on appealing to the political culture that dominates each region: Western Australians might be more difficult to convince than South Australians. Western Australia is richer and bigger, and the mining industry is all-powerful. Also, there are no land rights provisions in Western Australia only leaseholds. Mining rights far outweigh Aboriginal rights.
Aboriginal representation through dedicated seats in a future NT legislature would probably accelerate representation elsewhere and impediments are more likely to be political than constitutional. Because the Northern Territory obtains its self-governing authority through an Act of Commonwealth Parliament rather than through a sub- national constitution of its own, further negotiation over the self- governing process in the Northern Territory has the potential to present itself for debate. The Territory is quite different from the States in this respect.
Under recent High Court interpretations of native rights, the question of sub-national sovereignty (otherwise known as "states rights") is as much political as it is constitutional and would not be jeopardised by shared jurisdiction in a new republic. There is no question mark over national sovereignty. According to the recent High Court judgement on the WA government's challenge to the Commonwealth's Native Title legislation:
"The effect of an act of State by which territory is acquired on rights and interests in land within the territory is, of necessity, a matter for determination by the municipal law applied in the territory by the acquiring Sovereign. At common law, a mere change in sovereignty over a territory does not extinguish pre-existing rights and interests in land in that territory." (The State of WA v The Commonwealth, 16 March, 1995, p7).
There was never any intention that native title be extinguished when Europeans settled in Australia.
The way the system currently works, Aboriginal people are locked out of State and Territory parliamentary processes. The Commonwealth, State and Territory governments share the distribution of authority over administrative, judicial and general governmental processes but the State and Territories offer little in the form of political gains to the Aboriginal people unless the Commonwealth pays. The Commonwealth's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission fulfils that role along with a system of elected regional councils. But, in view of Aboriginal self-determination, the policy position that Aboriginal demands will continue to be decided on the basis of policy ultimatums imposed by non-Aboriginal Australians is defunct. Australian federalism is supposed to encourage diversity and given that the federal system is supposed to be based on consensus between a variety of competitive governments, Australian indigenous people should have the opportunity to influence representative choices at every level of government.
*Dr Christine Fletcher is Senior Lecturer with the National Centre for Development Studies at the ANU
It is a condition of entry that the short stories and poems should be unpublished and not submitted for publication elsewhere throughout the duration of the competition.
"Oh God," I moaned. "Couldn't you have given me a few minutes?"
"It's disease free," he grumbled. "I really can't understand your problem."
He lifted the frozen body from a plastic bag, put it on a plate, and positioned it in the morning sun.
"It makes me sick," I answered.
"You're neurotic," he said. "Think of it like lamb chops defrosting."
Inside the freezer there are more than thirty white rats which Richard used in his medical experiments on stress factors affecting disease. His findings were published last month in a research paper. When the experiments were finished he killed the rats, sealed them in plastic bags and brought them home. He put them in our freezer as food for his sea eagle.
"They're dirty just the same," I argued.
He rinsed his hands in the kitchen sink. "Be a good girl and make some toast for me while I pop out and see how my eagle is doing," he replied. He left me to cook breakfast while the warmth of the sun softened the rat and its body fluids leaked onto the plate.
The sea eagle arrived in the early summer while I was swimming in our pool. Richard came bounding up the track from the beach with something wrapped in his jumper. "Look, I've caught an eagle," he cried. His face glowed pink with pride. "I found it on the rocks. Its wing is broken."
I pulled myself from the water. "Show me," I said.
"No, no. It'll bite," he answered. "Get me a pillowslip." He turned and half ran with the eagle to the garage.
When I returned with the pillowslip, Richard uncovered the eagle's head. Its wild eyes glowed with anger as it swivelled its neck and struggled against Richard's grip.
"Hurry up," Richard said. "Pull that damn slip over its eyes." I held the pillowslip tentatively. The eagle darted out with its beak. I flinched.
"You're bloody useless," Richard growled. I tried again, my hands shaking. The bird glared as I began to lower the make-shift hood. Its beak snapped viciously towards me, ripping open the skin on the back of my hand.
"You fool," complained Richard. He watched as my blood dripped over the bird's creamy feathers.
When Richard had securely wrapped the eagle's head in the cloth, he took a short chain and pinned it around the eagle's leg. He padlocked the other end of the chain to the work bench. Once he was satisfied the eagle couldn't escape, he sent me back into the house to fix my hand.
The jagged wound stung as I rinsed it with disinfectant.
"I've rung the vet and he'll be here in twenty minutes," Richard called, from the loungeroom.
After the vet pinned the eagle's wing, Richard removed the cover from its eyes. The captive, locked in the darkened garage, began to scream. Its cries of despair echoed round the yard and the small birds, that usually fluttered amongst the bushes, flew away.
The following morning Richard waved some steak in front of the eagle until it hooked out with its beak, snagged the meat, and gulped it down. Feeling confident, Richard reached out and stroked the eagle's back. "It trusts me already," he said. The eagle fixed its piercing eyes on me and hissed. I took a step backward. "You're too easily intimidated," said Richard. "You'll never earn its respect."
Several weeks later, the vet removed the pin trom the eagle's wing. He pronounced it fit to fly but Richard kept it locked up.
"I'm going to train it to hunt," Richard said, one morning as he took a rat from the freezer. "To do that, it has to become dependent on me for food."
"Can you please take the rat outside to defrost?" I asked.
"No, the flies will blow it." He washed his hands under the running water in the sink and soaped each finger slowly. His hands gleamed as white as the rat's fur in the morning light. "I'd like dinner on the patio around seven," he added.
He dried his hands on my tea towel, leaned toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist. "I've put the housekeeping money on the dining table," he said. "Get us a really good bottle of wine for dinner. I want to celebrate. I've been asked to Oxford to lecture on my research." He kissed me on the side of my head as he left for work.
The sea churned with an oily light from the setting sun. The paving on the patio radiated the late afternoon heat. Richard sipped his wine with relish.
"Let the eagle go," I said. "Its crying depresses me."
Richard raised his eyebrows. "Don't be silly," he said. "Without me it would be a pile of bones at the ocean's edge."
"It's cruel," I replied.
"Cruel? Cruel?" Richard queried, as he lifted his glass and gazed through it across the sea. "Cruelty is merely a concept." He turned and poured the last of the wine into my glass. "Have some more. Lovely sunset," he commented.
The wine caused me to break out in a rash. My skin burned and itchy lumps appeared. In bed, my heart pounded and I moved away from Richard's touch.
"The wine's given me an allergy," I moaned, as I tossed and turned.
"You've always got an excuse," Richard muttered, and rolled onto his back.
Richard's breathing soon broke into a regular rhythm. I climbed out of bed and padded naked to the pool. The water cooled my blistered skin. I spread my arms and legs wide and floated. A million pin-prick lights silhouetted the trees in the yard and illuminated my skin. I became an ivory star suspended between the earth and sky. The constellation of Orion, the hunter, hung upside down.
The caress of liquid around my breasts and stomach contrasted with the chill night air. For a moment I wished I could float up and away to join Orion and fight noble battles amongst the stars.
Richard won't swim in the pool. He hides from the sun under layers of clothing and sun screen, since I found a skin cancer on his shoulder last year. The skin specialist told him to stay in the shade and burned away the cancer. Richard has become so pale you can see the veins through his skin. Every week he gets me to check him in case he's developed a new malignancy. His body has begun to feel waxy and my skin crawls when I touch him. It reminds me of a dead dolphin I found washed against the shore last week.
The dolphin wallowed in the swell as if it were alive and I rushed toward it hoping I could get close before it swam away. A larger wave rolled the creature onto its side. Ribbons of translucent skin trailed from a gaping wound and undulated in the wash. Brightly coloured fish circled in and out of the hole, biting chunks from the dolphin as they swam. I haven't been to the beach again.
I lifted my head from the water. A beetle buzzed past, brushing my face. A dull splash reverberated in the silence as it fell. Tiny waves rippled outward as the insect began to swim. The moonlight glistened on its rounded carapace. Its barbed legs scratched my skin as it climbed the swell of my breast and inched toward my nipple. I rolled over and dived deep into the water. The beetle floated away.
Under the water I opened my eyes. All around was midnight. For a moment I had a vision of Richard waking from his sleep, coming out to the pool and pulling the pool cover across the water. My lungs tightened. My heart lurched in my chest and I swam frantically to the surface. I pulled myself from the water and stood shaking in the still night air.
The eagle doesn't scream at night. It sleeps with its head on one side and one eye on the garage door.
Back in bed, I lay beside Richard and watched his steady breathing. His back was streaked with dark hair and I imagined him bobbing belly up by the rocky shore, surrounded by iridescent fish.
Every evening, before dinner, Richard visits the eagle in the garage. The eagle hops from one leg to another and extends its wings in greeting. Richard places a rat on the bench and waits till the eagle is quiet. Then he gives a hand signal. The eagle pounces and grips the rat with its talons. Its tears open the rodent's skin with its beak and pulls savagely at the flesh which it swallows with chunks of skin and bone.
When I enter the garage, the eagle fluffs its feathers and screams. Richard says I have no sensitivity and should try not to scare the bird.
Every moming, Richard checks the eagle's water and strokes its plumage. Then he joins me for breakfast. This morning, he said, "I want you to buy some conservative clothes for Oxford". He spooned cereal into his mouth and looked out the window towards the garage. "Something slimming. I don't want you letting the side down," he added.
After Richard had gone to work, I cleaned the pool. The eagle's piercing cries disturbed the peace of the garden and sent my skin rippling with goose bumps. Amongst the fallen leaves and drowned insects floating in the water, a beetle still struggled. The water's surface tension held the creature in a filmy grip. It swam to the edge of the pool and butted its head against the slippery tiles. Its claws slid against the glazed surtace but it slipped back.
I put my hand under the beetle, lifted it from its watery trap and laid it on the cement. It opened its hard-shelled back and spread its lacy under-wings to dry. Its body vibrated with joy. The eagle's screeching cut through my thoughts. I turned and looked down the beach track to the ocean where a lone sea eagle scudded across the surface, looking for prey.
I walked toward the garage, opened the door and peered into the gloom. The eagle fixed me with its baleful eyes. I moved into the shadows and stood beside it. The morning light streamed in through the open door, highlighting floating dust motes. The eagle stared out into the yard. Its feathers drooped and the light went out behind its eyes. It tilted its head and screamed.
I reached down and unpinned the chain to its leg. The bird remained immobile, staring at the open doorway.
"Shoo," I shouted, and waved my hands. "Fly you silly thing. Fly!"
The eagle jumped at my sudden movement and realised the chain no longer held it to the bench. It shuffled away from me. I approached it again and herded it toward the door. It blinked in the bright sunlight, looked at me for a moment, ruffled its plumage and preened its feathers into place. Then, with a few giant beats of its wings it soared into the sky.
gently taking the pain out of himself
in the spring earth with its dry crumb
and sweaty palm from the nightly rain
the whole paddock tight enough to ride
a bicycle, the old Malvern Star 28
in grandpa's mind's-eye
cranking its back wheel snakelike
over the harrowed cultivation
off into the far sweep of the fenceline
foreshortening dip and hollow
and both of us at the altar
upon earthen prayer mats
trusting the ground to nurture
our seeds and our desires
ungodly pantheists seeing life
come twisting on the planet's machinery
well greased with microbes
and technological know-how
a fattening moon and a warm sun
kneeling with fingers pushed in dirt
as close as holding hands
and more the electricity of our wills
waiting for the south west tread
raking the sweet epidermis
into germination with the shrill claw
of lovers' uncut fingernails
sparking the momentum of growing things
into particular revolutions
Family upbringing had a huge impact on the way Ben Selinger views the world. His parents were Jewish refugees who escaped to Sydney from Germany just a few months before World War II started and just before he was born.
It was a tough life for the only Jewish family in middle-class Oatley. The Selingers were expected to assimilate into Australian culture as quickly as possible. Ben remembers that a neighbour who came around said to his dad, "Why don't you give all this crap up?" His dad replied, "Well, if you've got two good bottles of wine, you drink them separately and enjoy them separately, you just don't mix them together and make one common wine." To this the neighbour exclaimed, "What, are you a plonko as well?," wine not being part of the Australian culture at the time.
Selinger still remembers all his teachers from Mortdale Public School with an enormous amount of affection. "The teachers were terrific, mainly ex-servicemen who'd lost five years of their lives, lost their mates and their health. I think primary school has the biggest influence on you. That's where you develop your mores," he said.
He attended Sydney Boys' High School and a particularly motivated chemistry teacher cemented his fascination with chemistry. "We made these compounds you put on doorknobs that exploded when flies landed on them," he said.
As a kid, "I was always reading books on science, doing experiments in the back yard and pulling batteries apart," he said. "I've still got a couple of scars that I got as a kid playing around with chemicals. Luckily I wore glasses even then, which protected my eyes."
At Sydney University, Ben Selinger studied chemistry with the help of a teaching scholarship, the only way the less affluent had access to higher study. He would have loved to have studied law, but that was out of the question. As it was, he had a serious falling out with the teaching college and ended up having to pay back his bond, instead of teaching for several years.
Keen to discover for himself the reasons for what had happened in Germany during WWII, Selinger went to Stuttgart to study, gaining his doctorate from the Technical University of Stuttgart, an unusual step for a Jewish person to take in the 1960s.
"I came away feeling that the average person probably had very little control of events," he said. "But the people in high social positions, university professors, business people, church leaders could have changed events because they were protected. And I thought, coming home, that if I felt strongly about some issue, I had an obligation to protest. Otherwise someone else might say in 20 years' time, 'Why didn't you do something about it?' "
"When I first started out I was a fairly theoretical sort of chemist and my dad, who was one of the founding members of the Australian Consumers Association (ACA) [publishers of Choice magazine] said, 'Why don't you do something bloody useful for a change?' So he got me involved in the consumer movement and we were the first father-son combination on the council."
In the late '60s and early '70s, as a member of groups like the ACA and Canberra Consumers, Ben Selinger helped to get standards we now take for granted put in place. They performed the first Australian tests on condoms and, as they all burst, demanded a standard be set up. Standards for soaps and detergents, sunscreens, sunglasses and paints followed.
Throughout his career, Ben Selinger has spoken out on issues he felt strongly about, such as the Vietnam War, Agent Orange and the Lindy Chamberlain case. He became involved in the debate over the forensic evidence in the Chamberlain case quite by accident. He was working in a lab with a colleague who happened to be a personal friend of Lindy Chamberlain, who showed him a copy of the scientific evidence submitted in the case. Selinger immediately questioned some of the evidence, such as the paint on the Chamberlain's car which was thought to be blood stains.
"The first test performed for blood was a test for iron, which the undercoat contained. All cows have four feet, so if an animal has four feet it must be a cow it's exactly that sort of mistake that was made."
However, Professor Selinger doesn't blame the forensic scientists involved personally for such mistakes, he sees the problem as being more basic than that. "The way we teach science is directly responsible for some of these things happening," he said.
"The labs and the lectures are all so busy, there's so much material to be taught that there's really no time for science students to become critical of what they're taught. They expect that there is always a right answer."
Occasionally, Professor Selinger has run lab classes that were deliberately designed not to work. "The literature references were wrong, the experiment didn't work and it was very interesting to see how the students reacted when the results weren't what they expected."
Most students would blame themselves or inaccurate experimental conditions for the "incorrect" results and a few would cheat so that their results came into line. "Every now and then a student would say, 'I've done this experiment properly and these are my results and they don't fit,' so I'd sign them up for Honours," he said.
Selinger's forensic interests led him to consultancies with the Navy on deaths from "rotten egg gas" aboard the HMAS Stalwart and with the Department of Health on illicit drugs.
For several years, Ben Selinger lined up as the resident expert on "Dial-a-Scientist", an ABC radio talk back show. He found it a tremendous challenge to come up with definitive answers to such curly questions as, why do bread crumbs fall off the plate while toast crumbs do not? The answer lies in the moisture released by cooked toast it locks crumbs onto the plate.
A bushman from somewhere beyond Wagga asked why breath remaining on the blade of a knife showed that it would take a sharp edge. Selinger explained that carbon is added to steel to make it harder, creating little microcrystals of iron which are poor conductors of heat. If you breathe on a blade and your breath stays on, it shows that there is low heat conduction and a hard steel.
With his experience from committees such as that on Intractable Waste and the ACT Asbestos Advisory Committee, Professor Selinger seems to be consulted whenever issues of chemical contamination crop up in the media. When the concern of possible arsenic contamination in Canberra from old sheep dip sites came up recently, he was asked to talk to local community groups. He considers the feelings of local residents to be the primary issue, rather than their actual risk level. "If people are worried about their kids being outside and not sleeping at night, then there is a concern, whether the danger is real or not. I think that chemistry needs to come to grips with social attitudes," he said.
Along with his teaching, Professor Selinger's part-time duties as the first Chair of the board of directors of the National Registration Authority (NRA) keep him fully occupied. The NRA, whose act was proclaimed on 15 March, is a statutory authority set up to oversee a national scheme for the registration of all agricultural and veterinary chemicals.
It is an immense task. Until now, each state has had its own regulations for the use of such chemicals, requiring labels to carry instructions specific to each state.
The process of achieving a chemical standard requires a lot of negotiation. Recently, organochlor-ine compounds were removed from use in chemicals used against termites, after lengthy public hearings, submissions and more public meetings. "However, the housing industry hasn't prepared properly and we are in for some uncertain times.
"One thing we've learnt, it doesn't matter what's written in the regulations, it's what happens on the ground that's important," he said. "The regulations are necessary but by no means sufficient to produce change; the number of inspectors enforcing the laws and a lot of different social issues affect whether a regulation will work properly or not."
"Legislation can be used to change people's attitudes but it's hard working that way round. I'm amazed at how people's attitude to smoking changed in such a short space of time. For years and years people knew about the dangers of cancer and heart disease, then in a matter of two years attitudes changed. It wasn't legislation that did that."
As far as interests apart from chemistry, Professor Selinger tells people that chemistry is also his hobby. He does admit to an attraction to cooking ("my great ambition is to be able to cook as well as my wife"), but chemistry appears to be involved there as well. "Cooking is like chemistry. You get better egg white meringues by beating them in a copper bowl as the copper complexes with one of the egg white proteins," he said.
All entries for Academic Diary, and for Visitors and Awards, should be made on special forms which are readily available from ANU Public Affairs Division. No entry can be accepted unless it is on this form. Diary entries for the next issue, 24/4/95 to 7/5/95 inclusive, close at 5pm on Monday 10/4/95. No further entries can be accepted after that time. Enquiries x2106.
Tuesday 4 April
Cultural Heritage Conservation Studies Research Centre, Environmental Design, Sem. Jay Arthur, "Landlord & Tenant: colonisation through language." 7C22-26 University of Canberra. 6- 7pm.
Div. Pacific and Asian History, RSPAS, ISG. Rosemary Trott, "The philosophical underpinnings of a planned economy in 18th Century Japan". Sem Room E, Coombs Bldg, 11am.
Wednesday 5 April
Sociology, The Faculties, Sem. Professor Bertell Ollman, "Market Mystification: What does the market hide and/or distort, and how exactly does it do so?" Room 2175 Haydon Allen Bldg, 12 noon.
Political Science Program, RSSS, Sem. Professor Michael Pusey, "Economic rationalism and the contest for civil society". Sem Room D, Coombs Bldg, 3.30pm.
Public Policy Program, Faculty of Arts, Sem. Mr Ross Worthington, "Models of democracy: public policy making in a dominant party state." Lecture Rm, 1st fl, Old Canberra House, 1.30-2.30pm.
Centre For Aboriginal Economic Policy Research,Sem. Dr Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh (Discussant: Mr Mike Dillon), "Negotiations between Aboriginal communities and mining companies: structures and processes", Sem. RM 209 Crawford Bldg, 12.30-2pm.
Indonesia Project, RSPAS, ISG, Mr Mario Saldanha, "The economy of East Timor since 1980: The high but unbalanced growth", Sem Rm B Coombs Bldg, 12.30-2pm.
Thursday 6 April
Div. Botany and Zoology, SLS, Sem. Ms Kendi Davies, "Invertebrates in forest fragments: which traits make species extinction-prone?" Sem Rm, Botany and Zoology Bldg, 4pm.
Div. Botany and Zoology, SLS, Sem. Mr Brett Melbourne, "The structure of the aquatic grazer guild: scale, pattern and process." Sem Rm, Botany and Zoology, 4.30pm.
Div. Historical Studies, RSSS, Sem. Gordon Briscoe, "Aborigines and the Spanish Flu 1918-21". Hohnen Rm, Chancelry, 11am.
CRES, Sem. Dr Rosemary Sandford, "Global Links, Local Challenges: Environmental Treaty Implementation". CRES Sem Rm, 5th fl, Hancock Bldg, 12.30pm.
Public Health Ass. ACT Branch, Sem. Dr John Deeble, "Movement on the North/West Frontiers Health Care Reform in South Africa and Turkey", University House, Balmain Cres. 6.45pm. Dinner details RSVP 31 March, Jill Davis Ph 205 0989 Fax 205 0984.
Friday 7 April
Economics, RSSS, Sem. Dr Meng Xin, "China's industrial growth and efficiency: A comparison between the State and the TVE sectors". S. R. A, Coombs Bldg, 2pm.
Philosophy, Sem. John O'Leary-Hawthorn, "The ontology of meaning", Haydon-Allen Rm 2177, 11am.
History Dept, Sem. Ruan O'Donnell, "The Exiles of Erin: the transportation of Irish political prisoners to NSW 1795-1806". Geoffrey Fairbairn Room 1207 Haydon-Allen Bldg, 3.30pm.
Tuesday 11 April
Div Pacific and Asian History, RSPAS, Sem. Tessa Morris- Suzuki, "Tribes of the island and tribes of the mountains: Ethnicity in Northeast Asian history". Sem Rm E, Coombs Bldg, 11am.
Philosophy, Sem. Thomas Wartenberg (Mount Holyoke), "A simple story for simple people?: Improvising a life in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night", Manning Clark 6, 8pm.
Wednesday 12 April
Public Policy Program, Faculty of Arts, Sem. Mr Saut Situmarang, "The Impacts of Decentralisation Policy and their Relationship to Regional Development Management: Case Study of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia". Lecture Rm, 1st fl, Old Canberra House, 1.30-2.30pm.
Centre For Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Sem. Dr Julie Finlayson (Discussant: Dr Nicholas Peterson), "Tourism Enterprise and Native Title: The Tjapukai Dance Theatre Cairns", Sem Rm 209 Crawford Bldg, 12.30-2pm.
Indonesia Project, RSPAS, ISG, Dr Lepi Tarmidi, "Do large firms grow at the expense of small ones? The case of Kretek Industry", Sem Rm B Coombs Bldg, 12.30-2pm.
Thursday 13 April
Div Historical Studies, RSSS, Sem. Penelope Corfield, "The Urban Gentleman in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England", Hohnen Rm, Chancelry, 11am.
CRES, Sem. Judy Pinn, "Multidisciplinary research and the politics of difference", CRES Sem Rm, 5th fl, Hancock Bldg, 12.30pm.
Wednesday 19 April
Centre For Aboriginial Economic Policy Research Sem. Prof Jon Altman & Ms Diane Smith (Discussant: Mr Murray Chapman), "Funding Native Title Claims: Establishing Equitable Procedures", Sem Rm 209, Crawford Bldg, 12.30-2pm.
Indonesia Project, RSPAS, ISG, Prof Anthony Reid, "Merdeka: The idea of freedom in Indonesia", Sem Rm B Coombs Bldg, 12.30- 2pm.
Friday 21 April
Economics, RSSS, Sem. Mr Paul Gregg, "Who's afraid of a recession: Company performance over the economic cycle". SRA Coombs Bldg, 2pm.
AFUW Georgina Sweet Fellowship For a member of the Australian federation of University Women or Association of the International Federation of University Women who is not an Australian citizen and does not normally reside in Australia to do post-first degree study or research in any field at an Australian University. Closing date: 31 July 1995.
French Government Postgraduate Scholarships - For Australian graduates to do 3 months study or research at a French tertiary institution leading to a French postgraduate degree in the field of french literature, language or civilisation. Closing date 30 November 1995.
Japanese Association of University Women Fellowships - For women who are members of a national federation or association affiliated to IFUW (except members of the Japanese Association) who are carrying out independent research or advanced study at the postgraduate level in Japan. Closing date: 30 April 1995.
Details on these scholarships and awards can be obtained from Careers and Appointments Service, Chancelry Annex, Ph 2493593
BED pine queen size with side tables vgc $300, dining suite iron with glass top & matching chairs as new $550 ono. Ph Sango 2871239.
BIKE 2nd-hand, 10 gear Sports World Four Star Series. Reasonable condition w bike stand. $110 ono. Jodie 2794103 w ans machine.
BLACK bean bag chair $20, oval laminex table $4, orange chairs $70, 2 wooden bookcases $15 ea., 2 two-seater folding divan $35 ea, large Xmas tree $20, b& w TV (2 channels) $40, 2 armchairs $10 ea. Ph 2543818.
FRIDGE vertical two door $990, large microwave with browner $200, bikes, curtains, printer ribbons Panasonic KX-P1124/145, HP Jet Series cartridge, SHARP-PA1000, intelliwriter, household items. Ph 2961785.
GOLF CLUBS Tom Watson Golden Ram 9 irons, 3 woods, excellent condition $325. King Cobra Driver $185.Ph x3306/2591143
PORTABLE gas stove $40, heater $15, ladies jacket $10, cot mattress $15, change table $5, baby bath $5. Ph 2474148.
TV 34cm colour screen $150, electric blanket double as new $30, three drawer desk $20, vaccum cleaner $20. Ph 2492275(w), 2816893(h)
WASHING MACHINE Malleys Whirlpool automatic 2 cycle $50. Ph 2772442, 2572161(ah).
MACINTOSH SE, 4X40 MB hard disk, some books & software syst 7.1 & Mac carry case $750. Ph x2719 Maree.
APPLE MACINTOSH LC 11.excellent condition, 16 inch monitor, 4mb RAM, 40 mb hd. Some software. $1100 ono Ph x2793, 2415790(ah).
BEACH COTTAGE ROSEDALE, NSW F/F & S/cont. sea views sleeps 4. No smokers or pets Ph 2959067.
BEACHSIDE getaway at secluded south coast village. Self- contained holiday unit ideal for couple or small group. Tom/Elaine Quinn Ph (042)342301.
BED-SIT LYONS, ACT F/F & Immac, suit one quiet non- smkr, lease. Ph 2959067.
BED-SIT LYONS, ACT F/F & self cont. incl linen, crockery, TV, no lease, short term holidays. Suit one or two non smokers. Ph 2959067.
ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT Picturesque comfortable 4-bedroom furnished house. Central heated, well-equipped, beautiful surroundings, Wordsworth associations. Available July 95 on assured shorthold tenancy for 1 year possibly renewable. Refs required. £400 pcm. Enquiries: SE & FA Hughes, Walker House Seathwaite, Broughton-in-Furness, Cumbria, UK, LA20 6ED.
GARRAN vegetarian non-smoker to share 2 bedroom furnished townhouse with ANU postgraduate student. $75pw. Ph Mark 2495522(w), 2815557(h).
HOUSEMINDER(S) Comfortable house on 8 acres, 30 mins ANU, May-June. Comes with 2 cats and low-maintenance poultry. Guy 2490462.
LONDON 2 double bedroom flat, garage, near Wimbledon Common, communal garden. Long let possible. £540 pm. Ph 249037, 2514950, or UK 873890385.
LYONS one bedroom available from 27 March, very good condition close to shops & buses. Non-smoker.$100pw. Ph 2810400.
NON-SMOKING house and cat sitter wanted for Belconnen townhouse 29 April to 14 July. Ph 2512658.
WANNIASSA large furnished house (27sq) with flexible floor plan. Suit visiting academic/public servant and family. July 95-July 96. Ph2492381(b), 2316584.
YARRALUMLA 3 bdr charming cottage, large verandah, gas heater, quiet, private. Part or unfurnished. Suit academic. $250 pw. Ph 2824357(ah).
HOUSECLEANING Experienced cleaner available now. Reasonable rates. Relax on your weekends - let me clean! Call Victoria on 2674757.
SIGMA (Chrysler)'78 Sedan, leather int. good cond. U.L.petrol $2200 ono. Ph Jill 2428066 (ah).
FORD Cordina 1980, good engine, reliable, automatic, must sell to move overseas. $2000 ono. Ph 2492275(w), 2816893(h).
MAZDA 626 White 1981 Model, New API engine Oct 94, Digital Cassette/Radio. $3200 ono Ph 2998656.
MAGNA 12/87 white Sedan, service rpts, good NRMA rpt. $7800 Ph x0030, 2854463 Charlotte.
1. Generic system for serving one million images across the network from a WorldWide Web/Mosaic Interface Awarded $65,000. Contact: Dr Michael Greenhalgh, Art History
The system offers simple and flexible network-transparent access to over one million still images and videoclips for research and teaching.
2. Applied Biosystems Genetic Analysis System Model 373A Awarded $170,000. Contact: Prof A Cockburn, BoZo
The system automates the entire process of DNA sequencing and DNA fragment analysis. A unique feature of the system is its ability to analyse DNA molecules labelled with any of four different fluorescent dyes in the same lane (See story, p. 3).
3. Inert atmosphere Glove Box/Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer Awarded $160,400. Contact: Dr M G Humphrey, Chemistry
The equipment will support the research of the Inorganic Chemistry section in the Department of Chemistry; the physically-linked Glove Box and FTIR spectrometer will provide a resource for other university users to obtain infrared spectra of sensitive materials. Research in organometallic chemistry and its applications in materials science, biological chemistry and enantioselective catalysis will be enhanced.
4. Fisions surface plasmon resonance biosensor Awarded $110,000. Contact: Dr C Parish, Division of Cell Biology, JCSMR
This biosensor will be the first instrument of its type in Canberra. The study and characterisation of molecular interactions is essential for an understanding of biological systems in the life sciences. This biosensor can monitor real time interactions between biomolecules with great sensitivity and precision in the absence of chemical tags. The system allows the study of many aspects of biomolecular interactions such as cooperativity, mapping of multi-molecular interactions and kinetics of association and dissociation.
5. Enhanced protein sequencing facilities: N-terminal sequencer Awarded $195,000. Contact: Dr P J Milburn, Biomolecular Resource Facility, JCSMR
The new generation of sequencers allows an order of magnitude more sensitivity. This equipment will allow determination of sequences from many protein samples which have not previously been possible. The N-terminal sequencing facility is of major importance to biological researchers in all parts of the University.
6. Microbore high-performance liquid chromatograph; benchtop gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer with electron-impact and chemical ionisation modes Awarded $163,000. Contact: Professor B Rolfe, RSBS
This equipment will replace obsolete and unserviceable equipment. It will provide an essential part of the infrastructure for the Cell Surface Glycan Unit, which is part of a campus-wide link with RSC (Electrospray mass spectrometry) and JCSMR (Surface plasmon resonance), aimed at raising the ANU to forefront levels in biological molecular analysis.
7. High sensitivity photon counting spectrofluorimeter Awarded $89,600. Contact: Dr T Wydrzynski, RSBS
The spectrofluorimeter will aid research into the mechanisms of photosynthesis. It is a modular instrument designed for basic research that can be configured to measure highly accurate, corrected fluorescence excitation and emission spectra, steady-state and time- dependent fluorescent yield changes, and optical absorbance and per cent transmittance. The photon-counting mode provides a stable, low noise background used in the detection of very low light signals. Two free-standing monochrometers allow for various experimental configurations of the optical path and are designed to minimise stray light with a high light throughout, facilitating the measurements of weakly-emitting highly-scattering samples, as is common with biological materials.
8. Photonic trapping (laser tweezers) Awarded $84,000. Contact: Professor B Gunning, Plant Cell Biology Group, RSBS
The equipment represents a non-invasive method for spatial manipulation of cell contents, to be used primarily for studies of regulation of plant cell division, growth and intracellular motility, but with potentially very wide usage in all aspects of plant and animal cell biology.
9. Continuous flow stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer Awarded $75,000. Contact: Professor G Farquhar, RSBS
The mass spectrometer comprises an essential component for assembly of a system to measure the oxygen isotopic composition of vegetation and assess ecosystem isotope fluxes of carbon dioxide and water vapour using the technique of eddy correlation. It will be used to develop a new technique for measurement of the stable oxygen isotope ratio of organic matter.
10. Magnetic stimulator for the study of vision and brain function Awarded $90,000. Contact: Professor M V Srinivasan, Centre for Visual Science, RSBS
The equipment will enable researchers at the Centre for Visual Science to study visual processing and brain function in a novel way. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) can be used to inactivate specific regions of the brain in a safe, non-invasive fashion during visual stimulation, thereby providing a new tool for investigating information processing by the visual pathways, and regionalisation of brain function.
11. Electrospray ionisation mass spectrometer Awarded $400,000. Contact: Dr J K MacLeod, RSC
The equipment represents both a new venture and an extension of existing facilities. It will complement existing mass spectrometry facilities in RSC and JCSMR and will also offer a completely new method of ionising and analysing high molecular weight molecules directly from solution. The electrospray mass spectrometer will complete the range of ionisation methods readily available to support research groups across the ANU.
12. High performance workstation for research in computational quantum chemistry Awarded $75,000. Contact: Professor L Radom, RSC
The workstation will maintain the international competitiveness of research in the field of computational quantum chemistry. The properties and reactions of molecules are being studied using ab initio molecular orbital theory (the calculations are carried out from first principles using the laws of quantum mechanics). The calculations may be carried out in advance of experiment and are truly predictive.
13. Spectropolarimeter - Awarded $110,000. (Note: RSC award) Contact: Dr P J Milburn, Biomolecular Resource Facility, JCSMR.
This is a complete chiroptical analytical system that will enable chiroptical measurement over the wavelength range 170 to 1000 nm with very rapid data acquisition. The controlling software provides accurate system control such that both thermodynamic and kinetic experiments (including stopped flow) may be performed with confidence.
14. Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe-Reverse Geometry (development of SHRIMP I and II) - Awarded $125,000. Contact: Professor W Compston, RSES.
15. Equipment for geodetic monitoring and measurement of crustal motion Awarded $130,000. Contact: Professor K Lambeck, RSES
Trial cooperative experiments with the UNSW and University of Canberra have demonstrated for the first time that the kinematics of the complex tectonic area of Papua New Guinea can be measured on a time scale of years using Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology. The equipment will permit a comprehensive GPS crustal deformation study of the PNG region.
16. Set of solid state recorders for geophysical survey requirements Awarded $100,000. Contact: Professor B Kennett, RSES.
The recorders, developed in-house, will enhance a number of aspects of geophysical field studies directed at understanding the structure of the solid earth or lower atmosphere. The recorders will replace 20-year-old analogue equipment and allow a number of styles of experiments which have not previously been possible.
17. Laser micromachining facility Awarded $155,000. Contact: Professor B Luther-Davies, Laser Physics Centre, RSPhysSE.
The machining station will be used to make waveguide structure in polymers for the Laser Physics Centre, the Optical Sciences Centre, and the Research School of Chemistry, and to define structures in glass, ceramic, metal or semiconductor films for the Department of Electronic Materials Engineering and the Plasma Research Laboratory.
18. High pressure gas stripper for the 14UD accelerator Awarded $130,000. Contact: Dr L K Fifield, Department of Nuclear Physics, RSPhysSE.
The new gas stripper assembly will substantially enhance the performance of the 14UD/linac booster system by p