New Zealanders on the Population Geography of the Western Island

New Zealand origin academics have played a key role in the academic study of Australia's population in the post-war period. The paper argues that New Zealanders have contributed not only to the furthering of knowledge of the processes of change in the Australian population but have been important in the teaching of population geography in Australian universities, made inputs into policy relating to population and been influential in the development of the Australian Population Association. Major contributions have been made by New Zealanders not only in the traditionally strong areas of population geography such as internal and international migration but also in the areas of fertility, mortality and ageing.     

Australian state government road funding policies in the 1970s and 1980s

Australian road funding in the 1970s and 1980s has been characterised by conflict between federal and state governments over control of spending. This has influenced both total funds made available and spending priorities between national, arterial and local roads. Having the constitutional responsibility for roads, state governments have refused to discuss priorities with the Commonwealth, have not stated policies, have given the Australian government as little public acknowledgement as possible, have spent money on markedly different priorities, and yet are changing their means of determining priorities to reflect changing community wishes. Interestingly, at neither state nor federal level is there evidence of pursuance of a single, dominant policy objective.     

Linguistics,geography, and the potential of Australian island toponymies

Australian placename studies have focused on documenting toponymic histories and issues of concern mainly for placename taxonomy and etymology. Language-external factors such as geographical and environmental conditions have not been of great interest to Australian toponymists. This article assesses the role of geographical and environmental constriction of island places on their toponymy. It considers whether or not island locations breed ‘insular toponymies’ or placename histories inaccessible and not readily accessible to outsider researchers. The case studies are Norfolk Island, South Pacific, and Dudley Peninsula, South Australia, two island environments within political Australia. The results demonstrate that the degree of insularity of the toponymies of the two island environments is driven more by geographical and social factors than linguistic elements. The results put forward several ways in which geographers, linguists, historians, toponymists, and Australian studies scholars could work together and collaborate to better understand Australian island places.     

Mapping the multiple geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples in Australia

Mixed-ethnicity partnerships are becoming increasingly common in Australia and other countries of high immigration. Formal and de facto marriages involving partners from different ethnic backgrounds are key indicators of decreasing social distance between groups. Yet mixed-ethnicity couples have received scant attention from Australian geographers. We use customised data from the 2011 Australian census to analyse the nation-wide distribution of several types of mixed-ethnicity couples. We focus on couples comprised of an Anglo-European (ethnic majority) partner, and a partner from a ‘visible’ ethnic minority group. Our analyses explore the residential geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples vis-à-vis ‘co-ethnic couples’ (where partners share the same ethnicity). We find that mixed-ethnicity couples are more widely dispersed across Australian cities and regions than comparative co-ethnic couples. However, each type of mixed-ethnicity couple has its own unique residential pattern: there are multiple geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples in Australia. These distinctive patterns reflect the migration and settlement histories of the couples’ constituent ethnic groups, but also hold great potential to shift seemingly entrenched ethnic residential geographies in the present and future.     

Contesting Domestic Ideals: queering the Australian home

The Australian home is a crucial site for both normalising and contesting acceptable modes of sexual identity, desire and behaviour. Social norms and government policies have imbricated the detached suburban dwelling with the heterosexual nuclear family form, consequently heterosexualising the ideal Australian home. But this discourse is simultaneously challenged by the domestic practices of gay men and lesbians, who use their homes to consolidate gay/lesbian identities, relationships and communities. As such, they unsettle the normative heterosexuality underpinning dominant, ideal conceptions of home. In this paper I present four vignettes which illustrate how some gay men and lesbians queer the ideal Australian home, generating domestic spaces which affirm sexual difference. In doing so, I highlight two key ways in which this process of ‘queering home’ works. First, through certain uses of home—activities taking place within domestic space. Second, through changes to the materiality of domestic space itself wrought by some homemaking practices, effectively embedding gay/lesbian identities and relationships within the physical environment of the home.     

Measuring Urban Sustainability: the potential and pitfalls of city rankings

Measuring the sustainability of a city, and ranking the city against other cities, is increasingly seen as a way to achieve urban sustainability. A number of studies have highlighted how Sydney is unsustainable, with two recent ranking exercises appearing to confirm these findings by placing Sydney below many other Australian cities for urban sustainability. These two exercises are situated within international moves towards ranking cities. The article explores the assumptions and criteria used by Mercer in its Eco-City Index and the Australian Conservation Foundation in its Sustainable Cities Index. The conclusion discusses how Sydney could become more sustainable, and identifies why normative urban sustainability rankings should be recognised for their potential while simultaneously being treated with caution.     

Where immigrants live: capturing ethnic segregation at the local level in two Australian cities

Although the consequences of residential segregation are well documented, few studies to date have examined patterns of residential segregation at the local level in Australia. While available research indicates relatively low levels of residential segregation in Australia compared to other contexts, the traditional measures of segregation commonly utilised tend to be aspatial and global in nature and, as such, offer limited insight into local segregation trends. Considering these shortcomings, this paper employs two highly spatialised yet under-utilised local segregation measures—Location Quotients and Local Moran’s I. Using these measures, this paper explores how various immigrant groups are spatially distributed across two Australian cities with differing immigration histories—Sydney an established immigrant gateway and Brisbane a relatively new immigrant destination. Additionally, this article examines whether or not immigrant neighbourhoods in each city are co-located or isolated. Contrary to expectations that Australian neighbourhoods are multicultural, these findings demonstrate clear differences in the neighbourhoods where immigrant groups settle.     

Australian cities: the challenge of the 1980s

The growth of Australian cities was the most prominent aspect of Australia's development during the boom years from the end of World War Two. As the nation pursued a policy of import substitution, the economies of the cities became firmly based on manufacturing. Mass production methods and mass consumption dictated the pattern of urban development. Such growth was premissed on very special conditions that enabled the system to accommodate the fluctuations that inevitably occur within the capitalist mode of production in general, and mass production methods in particular. A nation which had always been highly urbanised and open to international influences became even more deeply enmeshed in the fluctuating fortunes of the global economy. As the special factors supporting the postwar prosperity broke down through the 1970s and 1980s, Australian cities have faced a number of critical problems of adapting to the new environment.     

The trade in wild pig meat: Australia and Japan

Socioeconomic developments in Japan since World War Two have influenced the supply of wild pig meat (inoshishi niku) from Japanese domestic sources. Trends in the supply of meat from wild boar as well as the development of the farming of wild boar in Japan are discussed. The special nature of trading in wild pig meat in Japan is outlined. Australian exports of wild pig meat to Japan depend upon developments within Japan and the relevant links are identified. Some historical background is also provided on the Australian game industry supplying wild pig meat, the location and the structure of the industry are specified and the economic value of the industry is discussed, including its exports and prices paid for wild pig meat. Comparative aspects of the industry and of trade in wild pig meat in Japan and in Australia are highlighted. In conclusion, difficulties involved in identifying the Australian product in the Japanese market are noted.     

Urban re-generations: afterword to special issue on the politics of urban greening in Australian cities

ABSTRACT

‘Urban re-generations' is written as an afterword to the special issue of Australian Geographer on ‘The Politics of Urban Greening in Australian Cities'. The collection prompts a deep questioning of reparative and regenerative work associated with greening, green spaces and green infrastructures. The climate-driven 2019-2020 bushfire crisis and COVID-19 have amplified the visibility of the more-than-human connectivity of our cities and the deep underlying structures of social and environmental inequity underpinning a variety of urban green spaces and agendas. Inspired by the articles in this special issue, the afterword explores how we might call back the grammars and practices of regeneration from their service to the neo-liberal, settler-colonial city and instead nurture reparative de-colonial practices that aid in the collaborative work of re-composing, becoming into better relation with, and working in modes of situated historical and cultural difference, with green and just cities.     

A weighted least-squares fit of the Australian apparent polar wander path for the last 100 Myr

Summary. Recent versions of the Australian apparent polar wander path (APWP) for the late Mesozoic and Tertiary show considerable variation. Re-examination of the Australian igneous data suggests that they are more reliable than assumed by some recent authors. The trajectory of the Australian APWP is defined by fitting the position of a set of poles including both igneous and laterite/overprint data. This allows the dated igneous poles to be used to determine age as a function of distance along the trajectory. Both the trajectory and the age are fitted by means of weighted least-squares regression, and are given approximate confidence limits.
Age is best fitted in the Australian case as a linear function of distance along the APWP. This result contrasts with that of Idnurm, who suggested a variable rate of polar wander during the Tertiary. The new APWP is in better agreement with hot-spot data. Dating of New Caledonian laterites by the new APWP gives a result consistent with geological evidence, while dating by reference to Idnurm's path does not. Large non-dipole components or significant true polar wander are not needed to explain the Australian Tertiary APWP.     

Development of a Journal: Some brief comments relating to the Part Index for the Australian Geographer, 1928-98

This commentary concentrates on the physical production of the Australian Geographer and developments of a related nature. As I cannot pretend to have read every paper published over the last 71 years, comment on content is very limited. I also wish to avoid overlap with already published retrospectives included in Volume 19, Number 1, and Volume 27, Number 1, of this journal. A full issue-by-issue index is included in Volume 30, Number 1, of the Australian Geographer (pp. 103-26): all major papers, but not some minor pieces, are listed. Some of the latter, when part of a series, are listed in Tables 1 to 4 in this commentary. A full alphabetical author index for the 71 years of the journal will be included in the next issue (July 1999) as Appendix B.     

The Decline of Competition: The emergence of a duopoly in the Australian sugar refinery sector, 1841–1915

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the emergence of large single-product organisations whose expansion was stimulated by a desire to control a substantial part of a particular product market. An Australian example is the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd (CSR). By 1915, the company accounted for 90 per cent of refined sugar production in Australia. CSR had achieved this control over the Australian refined sugar market by using underselling, strategies that denied its competitors outlets for their refined sugars and amalgamations with rivals. After 1890, however, CSR was interested in sharing the Australian market for refined sugar with its rivals by forming spheres of influence in marketing areas or adopting production quotas, although the Queensland National Bank was the only organisation to successfully negotiate annual market share agreements with CSR in the 1900s. These agreements ensured the survival of its Millaquin Refinery. Other competitors eventually exited the industry. In 1915, the Commonwealth government institutionalised this duopoly in the sugar refining sector by agreements with CSR and the Queensland government, and allowed it to continue until deregulation of the Australian sugar refining sector in the early 1990s.     

Spatial Relationship between Dwelling Crowding and Selected Causes of Morbidity in Sydney,Australia, 1994–97

The environment in which we live greatly influences our health. One particular factor that has been related to morbidity and mortality is dwelling crowding. A range of mechanisms have been proposed as links between dwelling crowding and disease, including increased exposures to allergens, respiratory irritants and infectious agents in crowded dwellings. While studies of dwelling crowding have been conducted in many locations around the world, this factor has received little attention in Australian health studies. We examine relationships between dwelling crowding and health in Sydney, using three case studies at the local government area (LGA) level within the Sydney Statistical Division. Dwelling and demographic data from the 1996 Australian census are used, along with four socio-economic indexes produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and hospital inpatient data for the period 1 July 1994 to 30 June 1997 as the health indicator. Results suggest that dwelling crowding is a significant factor in certain diseases in Sydney. Asthma hospital separations are not correlated with dwelling crowding, although multiple linear regression analysis produces three models which include crowding and three of the socio-economic indexes as significant variables. Separations for bronchitis and emphysema, and all causes combined, are positively correlated with dwelling crowding. Dwelling crowding is strongly negatively correlated with all but one of the socio-economic indicators.     

Residential differentiation in nineteenth‐century Fremantle: the antipodean case

The study of residential differentiation in nineteenth‐century cities has generally been pursued without reference to Australian examples due to a lack of suitable data sources and a tendency to assume ‘New World’ models for the antipodean case. This study of late nineteenth‐century Fremantle, Western Australia, utilises data drawn from contemporary municipal ratebooks in a comprehensive analysis of residential space at the micro‐scale of individual lots. Conducted at three time intervals during a period of in‐migration and urban transformation, the analysis reveals the distinctiveness of one Australian urban experience during an era of ‘compressed development’. Residential differentiation is shown to exist both between and within occupational status groups, reflecting subtle differences in tenancy status, dwelling type and lot densities. With population increase and the onset of industrialisation, many of these differentials can be seen to disappear, particularly between middling status groups. Drawing upon additional evidence from other researchers, it is possible to construct a schematic model of antipodean urban development to represent more precisely the period in Australian cities prior to large‐scale suburbanisation.     

Creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography

The Institute of Australian Geographers Urban Study Group and Australian Geographer present the first essay in our Leading Insights/Thinking Space partnership. We discuss Dr Natalie Osborne's 2018 essay, flag Dr Marilu Melo's 2019 essay and talk about creating a thinking space for the rising stars of Australian urban geography.     

Prosperity along Australia's Eastern Seaboard: Sydney and the geopolitics of urban and economic change

Throughout the last decade, the Australian economy has experienced its second longest period of uninterrupted prosperity in recorded history. The paper argues that this prosperity is sourced from an extraordinary surge in finance-based economic activity along Australia's eastern seaboard, especially in the Sydney region. Population growth in the Sydney basin has further fuelled the region's economic growth. The spatialised nature of this prosperity has produced a major shift in distributional outcomes across Australian regions and among households. Sydney-based households, especially those in inner 'global Sydney' neighbourhoods, have had access to high rates of job creation and sustained increases in income and house values. On the other hand, non-metropolitan households away from Sydney--those in regional and rural Australia--have experienced largely negative consequences as historical inter-sectoral and spatial redistribution mechanisms have been dismantled. The paper shows how divergent experiences of the new prosperity have produced an unstable political landscape in regional and rural Australia. It concludes by urging further research into the spatialised nature of economic changes in Australia, especially research that is conscious of distributional flows and outcomes.     

Present‐day stress orientation in the Clarence‐Moreton Basin of New South Wales,Australia: a new high density dataset reveals local stress rotations

Early phases of the Australian Stress Map project revealed that plate boundary forces acting on the Indo‐Australian Plate control the long wavelength of the maximum horizontal present‐day stress orientation in the Australian continent. However, all numerical models of the stress field to date are unable to predict the observed orientation of maximum horizontal stress in the northeast of New South Wales, Australia. Recent coal seam gas exploration in the Clarence‐Moreton Basin, eastern Australia, provides an opportunity to better evaluate the state of crustal stress in this part of the continent where only limited information was available prior to this study. Herein, we conduct the first analysis of the present‐day tectonic stress in the Clarence‐Moreton Basin, from drilling‐induced tensile fractures and borehole breakouts interpreted using 11.3 km of acoustic image logs in 27 vertical wells. A total of 2822 drilling‐induced stress indicators suggest a mean orientation of N069°E (±23°) for the maximum horizontal present‐day stress in the basin which is different from that predicted by published geomechanical‐numerical models. In addition, we find significant localised perturbations of borehole breakouts, both spatially and with depth, that are consistent with stress variations near faults, fractures and lithological contrasts, indicating that local structures are an important source of stress in the basin. The observation that structures can have a major control on the stresses in the basin suggests that, while gravity and plate boundary forces have the major role in the long wavelength (first‐order) stress pattern of the continent, local perturbations are significant and can lead to substantial changes in the orientation of the maximum horizontal present‐day stress, particularly at the basin scale. These local perturbations of stress as a result of faults and fractures have important implications in borehole stability and permeability of coal seam gas reservoirs for safe and sustainable extraction of methane in this area.     

Large‐scale patterns of dune type,spacing and orientation in the Australian continental dunefield

As a contribution to understanding the morphogenesis of the Australian continental dunefield, maps are presented of the main types of dunes, their orientation and mean spacing using the best available sources of data. Major features on previous maps of the Australian dunefield are verified and new information has been obtained. The anticlockwise whorl of dunes has been found to close on both its eastern and western ends. Dunes extend as far north as 16°S and over large parts of the far south‐west of Western Australia. Distributions of dune types are related to former vegetation cover, climate, supply of sand and directional variability of formative winds. Previously documented relationships between dune spacing, height, equivalent sand thickness (EST) and the texture of surfaces over which sand is transported are used to partially explain the map of mean dune spacings. The spatial distribution of EST, and mineralogic and sedimentologic evidence show that aeolian sediment in the Australian dunefield has travelled only short distances.     

Cost Shifting in Australian Local Government: an analysis of the spatial impact of pensioner rate concession rebates in New South Wales,Australia

The problem of cost shifting from higher tiers of government to local councils in Australia is widely recognised and has been investigated by several official inquiries. However, it has thus far been difficult to gather reliable estimates of the magnitude of the problem. Quite apart from the taxing definitional and data problems associated with the phenomenon, these difficulties have been compounded by the fact that very few attempts have been made to measure the impact of specific instances of cost shifting in Australian local government, especially its spatial impact. In an attempt to remedy this neglect, this paper seeks to measure the spatial effects of pensioner rate concession rebates on local councils in New South Wales.