Remote Australia Online

The Routledge Companion to Rural Planning provides a critical account and state of the art review of rural planning in the early years of the twenty-first century. Looking across different international experiences – from Europe, North America and Australasia to the transition and emerging economies, including BRIC and former communist states – it aims to develop new conceptual propositions and theoretical insights, supported by detailed case studies and reviews of available data. The Companion gives coverage to emerging topics in the field and seeks to position rural planning in the broader context of global challenges: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, food and energy security, and low carbon futures. It also looks at old, established questions in new ways: at social and spatial justice, place shaping, economic development, and environmental and landscape management. Planning in the twenty-first century must grapple not only with the challenges presented by cities and urban concentration, but also grasp the opportunities – and understand the risks – arising from rural change and restructuring. Rural areas are diverse and dynamic. This Companion attempts to capture and analyse at least some of this diversity, fostering a dialogue on likely and possible rural futures between a global community of rural planning researchers. Primarily intended for scholars and graduate students across a range of disciplines, such as planning, rural geography, rural sociology, agricultural studies, development studies, environmental studies and countryside management, this book will prove to be an invaluable and up-to-date resource.

Varied distribution of resources, populations and Indigenous people result in significant socio-economic differences among statistical local areas (SLAs) in remote Australia. These differences indicate that the experience of change at the height of the resources boom will differ among SLAs in the region. Using hierarchical cluster analysis with Ward's minimum variance method, four socio-economic clusters were identified among the 197 SLAs in the region. The first was the most disadvantaged, with limited resources and human capital and the highest percentage of Indigenous people. The other three clusters improved in sequence, with the fourth having the most resources with the highest employment rate and income but least number of Indigenous people. Multivariate analysis of variance with main and interaction effects showed changes in demographics, industry structure, human capital and income over the period of investigation for the region as a whole and differences in the extent of these changes among the clusters. Policy interventions in the region are suggested for each group to match its specific needs.

An overview of the formal institutional arrangements for natural resource management (NRM) in the Lake Eyre Basin (LEB) and the role of these arrangements as an enabling environment for community engagement in NRM constitute our broad research focus. The appropriate scale of NRM management and the complexity and expense of effective community engagement are discussed. The research highlights challenges faced by NRM groups in remote regions and their need for proper support and sharing in significant decision making processes. Regional interface groups are presented as relatively recent experiments in ecological intervention within a rapidly changing policy environment. The study concludes with a summary of key challenges for NRM engagement in the LEB region and suggests that interface organisations require understanding, capacity and support to learn how to improve, adapt and meet the challenges of their operating environment.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples suffer higher rates of food insecurity and diet-related disease than other Australians. However, assessment of food insecurity in specific population groups is sub-optimal, as in many developed countries. This study tailors the Healthy Diets ASAP (Australian Standardised Affordability and Pricing) methods protocol to be more relevant to Indigenous groups in assessing one important component of food security. The resultant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healthy Diets ASAP methods were used to assess the price, price differential, and affordability of healthy (recommended) and current (unhealthy) diets in five remote Aboriginal communities. The results show that the tailored approach is more sensitive than the original protocol in revealing the high degree of food insecurity in these communities, where the current diet costs nearly 50% of disposable household income compared to the international benchmark of 30%. Sixty-two percent of the current food budget appears to be spent on discretionary foods and drinks. Aided by community store pricing policies, healthy (recommended) diets are around 20% more affordable than current diets in these communities, but at 38.7% of disposable household income still unaffordable for most households. Further studies in urban communities, and on other socioeconomic, political and commercial determinants of food security in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities appear warranted. The development of the tailored method provides an example of how national tools can be adapted to better inform policy actions to improve food security and help reduce rates of diet-related chronic disease more equitably in developed countries.

This paper draws on the personal experience of the author who had been employed as a Youth Arts Manager in a small, desert town in the Northern Territory. In her research honours study during the project for which she was engaged, she aimed to understand the tensions she experienced managing this partnership. Now, five years later, she reconsidered the experience and, placing the concept of culture shock at the forefront of her perspective, came to see the experience in a new light. Kate proposes that understanding protocols is a process embodiment that may be affected by the experience of culture shock, and secondly, that creative processes can be reduced neither to process nor product. Rather, with a clear understanding of aims and objectives as they relate to context, from community development can fruitful artistic partnerships.

This paper provides a case study of research interactions between an Arrernte researcher and non-Aboriginal institutional repositories that hold significant collections of Arrernte material culture and cultural knowledge. This paper, although exploratory in nature, is designed to both document and give voice to Aboriginal people who are compelled to engage in research as a means to rediscovering their Aboriginal identities through private efforts to gain knowledge of their kin relationships, language, cultural practice and protocols, and rights to place.

This report is a deep qualitative investigation of the Northern Territory - based NO MORE program and the South Australian Power to End Violence Against Women programs. Incorporating a research partnership between Centacare Catholic Family Services, CatholicCare NT, Power Community Limited, and the Australian Centre for Community Services Research, this comprehensive report provides an exploration of two primary prevention programs aimed at the eradication of violence against women and girls. The NO MORE program is wider in scope and works across multiple communities, while the Power to End Violence Against Women is delivered in schools to male students. For both program s, sport, football in particular, is used to capture the interest s of participants, to engage with men and boys around awareness and behaviour change, and as site to mobilise for change. Five key recommendations are offered: • Develop a n enhanced socio - ecological understanding; • Identify and harness power in key actors; • Mobilise and activate communities; • Involve women and girls; and, • Commit, communicate and evaluate over a significant time period . The purpose of this report is not to be overly prescriptive as to future steps. Instead, the research provides an opportunity to explore transformative systems change. Future pathways will be dependent upon strategic decisions and community consultation and activation.

Iteration is a factor of the human research ethical clearance through which research and evaluation with humans is undertaken in Australia. In remote community research contexts, iteration has helped us to redress some features of the cultural dissonance that occurs between western and Aboriginal research paradigms and between remote and urban contexts. Without a commensurate ethic of feedback between national programs and remote research settings, the uptake or non-uptake of findings from short-term or rapid-contract research often remain a mystery. The proposition this paper puts forward is for a post-research process whereby research commissioners and administrators provide feedback as to the uptake or not of research findings. This would produce a meta-data, as well as make accessible the rationale for research findings being accepted or rejected. The meta-data would provide baselines for further research, an ongoing record of areas of research and neglect, and assist in the uptake of research knowledge useful at a community level. However, this proposition would require non-partisan support which is highly unlikely to be realised in the current political climate.

Describing the making of Monstrous Breaches here gives us an opportunity to reveal some of the elements at work when our artistry, narrative and research occur in intercultural contexts that depend on our adoption of ethical processes as artist researchers who are communicating from very different cultures and heritages. Though they are so often left unspoken and remain unseen, it is important to uncover and explore these processes that underpin the concept of our ethic in this applied research and artistry – if we wish to engage well at this interface of cultures and styles and traditions with the wider global intercultural imagination.

Insufficient and inadequate housing remain serious and enduring problems in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. Housing is recognised as a key determinant of persisting inequities between Aboriginal and other Australians in health, as well as education and employment outcomes which in turn impact on health. In our qualitative study exploring strengths and challenges related to early childhood in a remote NT community, insufficient housing emerged as the greatest challenge families experience in ‘growing up’ their children.

Biodiversity management in Australia is underlain by legislative mechanisms such as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwlth) and policies such as the national Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity and the international Convention on Biological Diversity. While these policy directives encompass a range of values and components of ?biodiversity?, on-ground planning and development assessments often focus only on threatened species and ecosystems as defined in state and national legislation. In regions such as northern Cape York Peninsula, which is managed by the resident Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT), planning for biodiversity management needs to acknowledge the high cultural values of such areas and to encompass Indigenous values and perspectives. A recent study assessed the significant species and habitats of the greater Lockerbie Scrub ? the northernmost extent of rainforest in Australia and a region with high species and ecosystem diversity. While it is acknowledged that research into the cultural values of the plant species is preliminary, the minimal overlap between lists of flora from Western (i.e. under legislative mechanisms) and Traditional Owner perspectives suggests that cultural differences in values and perceptions may result in differing conservation management priorities. A more holistic, integrative approach to local and national biodiversity management planning could accommodate multiple perspectives and enable greater environmental and socio-cultural sustainability.

BackgroundIn Australia’s Northern Territory, 33% of babies are born to Indigenous mothers, who experience high rates of hyperglycemia in pregnancy. We aimed to determine the extent to which pregnancy outcomes for Indigenous Australian women are explained by relative frequencies of diabetes type [type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and gestational diabetes (GDM)].MethodsThis prospective birth cohort study examined participants recruited from a hyperglycemia in pregnancy register. Baseline data collected were antenatal and perinatal clinical information, cord blood and neonatal anthropometry. Of 1135 women (48% Indigenous), 900 had diabetes: 175 T2DM, 86 newly diagnosed diabetes in pregnancy (DIP) and 639 had GDM. A group of 235 women without hyperglycemia in pregnancy was also recruited.ResultsDiabetes type differed for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women (T2DM, 36 vs 5%; DIP, 15 vs 7%; GDM, 49 vs 88%, p < 0.001). Within each diabetes type, Indigenous women were younger and had higher smoking rates. Among women with GDM/DIP, Indigenous women demonstrated poorer birth outcomes than non-Indigenous women: large for gestational age, 19 vs 11%, p = 0·002; neonatal fat 11.3 vs 10.2%, p < 0.001. In the full cohort, on multivariate regression, T2DM and DIP were independently associated (and Indigenous ethnicity was not) with pregnancy outcomes.ConclusionsHigher rates of T2DM among Indigenous women predominantly contribute to absolute poorer pregnancy outcomes among Indigenous women with hyperglycemia. As with Indigenous and minority populations globally, prevention or delay of type 2 diabetes in younger women is vital to improve pregnancy outcomes and possibly to improve the long-term health of their offspring.

Objective To assess central and peripheral arterial stiffness in Indigenous and European Australians with and without type 2 diabetes using applanation tonometry to obtain the augmentation index (AI) and pulse wave velocity (PWV). Methods

A key to improving the quality of life in remote communities is the empowerment of children who are at health and educational risk. Between 2002 and 2009, at a remote Aboriginal school, students and community members participated in an innovative, play-based health and well-being program aimed at helping children to become self-determining and responsible for their own health and well-being. Holistic in its approach, and broad in its scope, the multi-faceted program encompassed the fundamentals of personal hygiene; understanding of body systems; the importance of nutrition, hydration, sleep and exercise; brain care; the biology of emotions, with particular emphasis on anger management and the critical interplay between emotions and behavior; the impact of substances of abuse on the brain; as well as the Hospital Familiarization Program (HFP) which prepares children for planned and unplanned hospitalization. Program outcomes included improved school attendance and student engagement; increased community awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle; improved self-concept, self-esteem and self-confidence; as well as increased respect and caring for self and others. A reduction in children’s fear and anxiety when facing hospitalization and visits to the doctor was also evident. Each year, 12,500 children throughout Western Australia enjoy the benefits of the HFP.

In this paper we investigate the pedagogy of archaeological field schools. Specifically, we explore the combination of tertiary level field schools and Indigenous community (or community-based) archaeology. Using a detailed case study of a rock art field school in Arnhem Land, Australia, we explore the processes and outcomes of combining archaeological field training with the ideas and methods of community archaeology. We discuss the relationship and unique challenges faced by such community archaeology field schools, particularly that of balancing the priorities of competing stakeholders. Our discussion illustrates the complexities of training students to work in an environment where cultural belief systems are still strongly linked to sites and landscapes. While the challenges are numerous, the outcomes, particularly for students, provide an unparalleled educational experience, one that cannot be obtained in any other learning format.

Aim: To ensure consistent care for mental health consumers when admitted in rural and remote hospitals and subsequently contribute to the management of regional acute mental health inpatient unit beds. Background: The admission process in Central Queensland rural mental health services has been compromised by diminishing resources and increased demand for the service. This has resulted in compromised provision of consumer care, reduced consumer engagement, poor consumer outcomes and frustrated staff. Therefore, the impetus of this paper is to present the application of Lean practices to the rural hospital mental health admissions procedure, in order to create clear processes and care expectations, to enhance consumer outcomes and rural hospital staff confidence and role clarity when providing care to admitted mental health consumers. If mental health consumers can be admitted safely in rural hospitals, this would address the issue of increasing demand for regional acute mental health inpatient beds, as care would be provided in the consumers rural locality. Methods: The study utilised a qualitative approach through an online ‘survey monkey’ questionnaire to develop in-depth understanding of the perception and experiences of hospital and mental health staff. Key Results: The participants reported that the improved standardised work processes were clearer and simpler to understand which resulted in more efficient service and therefore, increased consumer safety and rural hospital staff confidence to admit and provide care.

Diabetes mellitus is one of the non-communicable diseases that has accompanied Aboriginal exposure to Western life style. The prevalence of diabetes mellitus is higher in the Aboriginal population than in non-Aboriginal Australians (Holding, 1985) and many Aboriginals who have diabetes mellitus develop diabetic retinopathy. Early detection facilitates treatment and prevention of blindness, a sequela of diabetic retinopathy. This paper describes the use of technology assessment as a framework for comparing two diagnostic technologies, fundal camera and ophthalmoscope, for use with Aboriginal people in central Australia.

Improving the health of rural populations requires developing a medical workforce with the right skills and a willingness to work in rural areas. A novel strategy for achieving this aim is to align medical training distribution with community need. This research describes an approach for planning and monitoring the distribution of general practice (GP) training posts to meet health needs across a dispersed geographic catchment.

Food reformulation is an important strategy to reduce the excess salt intake observed in remote Indigenous Australia. We aimed to examine whether 12.5% and 25% salt reduction in bread is detectable, and, if so, whether acceptability is changed, in a sample of adults living in a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory of Australia. Convenience samples were recruited for testing of reduced-salt (300 and 350 mg Na/100 g) versus Standard (~400 mg Na/100 g) white and wholemeal breads (n = 62 for white; n = 72 for wholemeal). Triangle testing was used to examine whether participants could detect a difference between the breads. Liking of each bread was also measured; standard consumer acceptability questionnaires were modified to maximise cultural appropriateness and understanding. Participants were unable to detect a difference between Standard and reduced-salt breads (all p values > 0.05 when analysed using binomial probability). Further, as expected, liking of the breads was not changed with salt reduction (all p values > 0.05 when analysed using ANOVA). Reducing salt in products commonly purchased in remote Indigenous communities has potential as an equitable, cost-effective and sustainable strategy to reduce population salt intake and reduce risk of chronic disease, without the barriers associated with strategies that require individual behaviour change.

In July 2008, the local government sector in the Northern Territory of Australia underwent wide-sweeping reforms whereby 53 councils, most of which were located in remote Indigenous communities, were amalgamated into eight regional shires. The dominant justifications for these reforms focused on internal ?deficit? views about the community council sector, including lack of competent and ethical staff, managerial workforce instability, inefficient use of resources, and poor oversight as the primary causes of chronic underperformance and dysfunction. This paper identifies and discusses the under-scrutinised role of grants revenue dependency and volatility in the demise of remote small councils in the Northern Territory. We analyse financial data to demonstrate the extreme volatility in year-on-year grants funding. With their high dependency on grants revenue, such volatility and unpredictability resulted in councils being hamstrung in their ability to strategically plan and ensure stability in service delivery, infrastructure management and employment provision. We argue that these fiscal dynamics, fuelled by hierarchical intergovernmental relations, contributed significantly to dysfunction in the sector, as well as mutually reinforcing pre-existing structural and endogenous weaknesses. This argument runs against the common conceptualisation of the sector as requiring of externally imposed structural reform. We conclude by suggesting that there are factors additional to scale that need to be incorporated into analysis of the effects of amalgamation policies on remote councils.

Nurses represent the largest occupational group of health care professionals in Australia. The ratio of nurses to population is relatively consistent, unlike other health care professional groups (including medical doctors and allied health staff) whose numbers decline as population density and distance from metropolitan areas increases. Nurses working in areas where other health care professionals are limited or absent have expanded scopes of practice with their work being more generalist than specialist. The role of nurses in remote and isolated areas of Queensland, Australia was the focus of a commissioned multi-case research project. Findings reported in this paper relate to the position of registered nurses as part of an interprofessional team. These findings indicated that, in some instances, local health care teams were limited to a single nurse and Indigenous health care worker/s, while in others the teams were more diverse. In all cases collegial support was available either locally or via telecommunication technology. Understanding the role of each team member, having useful strategies to enhance communication and work collaboratively were identified as essential criteria for ?good practice?.

High rates of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in Australia predominate in young Aboriginal people highlighting underlying racial and equity issues.  This article focuses on the perceptions of the disease among young Aboriginal people living in remote Australia. Participant understanding was constrained by clinicians? use of language rooted in biomedicine and delivered through English, a second language for all participants. Clinicians? communicative competency is a social determinant of Aboriginal health. We recommend that the use of Aboriginal languages be prioritized in health services caring for Aboriginal people and that biomedical dominance in the services be relinquished.

Objective: To estimate the home range (HR) and investigate the potential predictors for roaming of 58 dogs in four Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Design: Prospective study. Procedure: Global positioning system (GPS) collars were attached to the dogs for 1–4 days, recording location fixes every 1–3 min. Utilisation distributions (UDs) and extended (95% isopleth) and core (50% isopleth) HRs of dogs were determined. Potential predictors of roaming were assessed. Results: Estimated core (median, 0.27 ha) and extended (median, 3.1 ha) HRs differed significantly (P = 0.0225 and 0.0345, respectively) between the four communities; dogs in the coastal community travelled significantly (P < 0.0001) more per day than dogs in the three inland communities studied. Significant associations were found between extended HR size and sex (P = 0.0050) and sex + neuter (P = 0.0218), and between core HR size and sex (P = 0.0010), neuter status (P = 0.0255) and sex + neuter (P = 0.0025). Entire males roamed more than neutered females. The core HR of dogs with poor/fair body condition scores (BCSs) was larger than dogs with ideal/obese BCSs (P = 0.0394). Neutered male dogs also travelled more per day than entire female dogs (P = 0.0475). Conclusions: Roaming information can be used to inform the management of dogs in remote communities and to design disease control programs. Widespread data collection across the Northern Territory should be undertaken to further investigate the associations found in this study, considering that data were collected during relatively short periods of time in one season.

This paper is a study of bilingual talk among Garrwa/Kriol speakers in the communities of Borroloola and Robinson River, NT, focussing on choices speakers make between traditional and non-traditional Indigenous languages in ordinary conversations. The analysis presented here supports the view of code-switching, recently summarized by Matras, as an interactional resource?a means by which speakers can structure their talk around the local contingencies of an interaction. Language choice may be symbolic of a particular social stance or ?social arena? in a given context, but the fact of language shift (regardless of the direction of the shift), may be equally significant in demarcating conversational activities, and marking shifts in perspective.

This article is about the educational work of governesses on Australia?s remote cattle and sheep stations. These stations occupy vast tracts of land in the outback, and form part of global food supply chains exporting meat to countries around the world. The article explores the nature of governesses? work, the boundaries they negotiate to perform their work, and the spaces and places in which it takes place. The governess occupies a unique position within the occupational and social hierarchy of the station. She lives and works in the same domestic space as the family/employer, unlike other station employees, and is valued for her success in managing the social and spatial dynamics of power both with the students/children and the employer/family. The article focuses on the negotiation of boundaries between domestic/public spaces, paid/unpaid, affective and educational labour involved in governess roles.