Remote Australia Online

This project comprises a detailed examination of learning pathways into the emerging employment opportunities in a disadvantaged and remote part of Australia, the Big Rivers Region in Northern Territory. In doing so, it tackles the complex relationship between learning and skills shortages. By identifying the drivers and conditions for success, it provides not only understandings about the area under study, it will stimulate study elsewhere. The overall aim is to provide an empirically informed basis for developing policy. The challenge with the Big Rivers Region is to establish pathways for residents to access the emerging employment opportunities in the industry growth sectors.

A retrospective study of clinical case records was conducted at the health centre of a rural central Australian Aboriginal community to determine the frequency of acute rheumatic fever and of rheumatic heart disease between 1978 and 1987. The case records of 976 residents over 5 years of age were examined for evidence of the clinical indicators of acute rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease; together they contributed 8015 person-years of study. During the 10-year study period, 18 patients developed acute rheumatic fever and 12 patients had rheumatic heart disease. The annual incidence of acute rheumatic fever (first and recurrent attacks) for children aged 5-14 years was 815 per 100 000 person-years. For the residents aged 5 years and over, the point prevalence for rheumatic heart disease at the end of 1987 was between 7.9 and 12.3 per 1000 persons, according to health clinic records and the official population census, respectively. These rates are similar to those reported for Third World countries. Preventive measures must include efforts by health professionals to help to alleviate the adverse living conditions in Aboriginal communities.

Objective To describe the epidemiological and clinical features of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Methods A retrospective review (in some instances as far back as the 1960s) of all cases of known or suspected acute rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease, with prospective validation of clinical status where necessary. Cases were ascertained from hospital and community medical clinic records and medical staff; and from records and health staff of 10 rural communities. Results Three hundred and eighty-six revised Jones criteria-confirmed episodes of acute rheumatic fever were documented in 249 individuals (99% Aboriginal). The annual incidence of confirmed acute rheumatic fever between 1989 and 1993 was 254 per 100000 Aboriginal people aged 5 to 14 years. A more accurate estimate of 651 per 100000 came from 10 rural communities with more complete information. As of 1995, there were 286 people living with established rheumatic heart disease (95% Aboriginal). The point prevalence of rheumatic heart disease among Aboriginal people was 9.6 per 1000, with a rate of 24 per 1000 in one large rural community. Sydenham's chorea was common, and associated with later rheumatic heart disease in 49% of cases. There was a preponderance of females with acute rheumatic fever, rheumatic heart disease and chorea. Conclusions In Aboriginal people in rural northern Australia the incidence of acute rheumatic fever is higher than that reported anywhere in the world, and the prevalence of rheumatic heart disease is among the highest in the world. While continuing attention must be paid to alleviating the causes of these diseases of poverty, immediate action is needed to improve diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever, adherence to secondary benzathine penicillin prophylaxis regimens, and follow-up of rheumatic heart disease cases.

Background: Rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) cause considerable morbidity and mortality amongst Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Secondary antibiotic prophylaxis in the form of 4-weekly benzathine penicillin injections is the mainstay of control programs. Evidence suggests, however, that delivery rates of such prophylaxis are poor. Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with patients, parents/care givers and health professionals, to explore the enablers of and barriers to the uptake of secondary prophylaxis. Data from participant interviews (with 11 patients/carers and 11 health practitioners) conducted in four far north Queensland sites were analyzed using the method of constant comparative analysis. Results: Deficits in registration and recall systems and pain attributed to injections were identified as barriers to secondary prophylaxis uptake. There were also varying perceptions regarding responsibility for ensuring injection delivery. Enablers of secondary prophylaxis uptake included positive patient-healthcare provider relationships, supporting patient autonomy, education of patients, care givers and healthcare providers, and community-based service delivery. Conclusion: The study findings provide insights that may facilitate enhancement of secondary prophylaxis delivery systems and thereby improve uptake of secondary prophylaxis for RF/RHD.

The Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA) produces annual crops during the dry season (April to October), and perennial crops all-year-round, and is located in tropical northwestern Australia. Sandalwood plantations cover 50% of the ORIA’s cropping area. Aphids cause major crop losses through transmission of viruses causing debilitating diseases and direct feeding damage. During 2016-2017, in both dry and wet seasons a total of 3,320 leaf samples were collected from diverse types of sites on cultivated and uncultivated land and 1,248 (38%) of them were from aphid-colonized plants. In addition, aphids were found at 236 of 355 sampling sites. The 62 plant species sampled came from 23 plant families 19 of which contained aphid-colonized species. Aphid hosts included introduced weeds, Australian native plants, and volunteer or planted crop plants. Six aphid species were identified by light microscopy and CO1 gene sequencing, but there was no within species nucleotide sequence diversity. Aphis nerii, Hysteroneura setariae, Rhopalosiphum maidis and Schoutedenia ralumensis each colonized 1-3 plant species from a single plant family. A. craccivora colonized 14 species in five plant families. A. gossypii was the most polyphagous species colonizing 19 species in 11 plant families. A. gossypii, A. craccivora, A. nerii and S. ramulensis were found in both wet and dry seasons. Because of A. craccivora’s prevalence and high incidences on understory weeds and host trees, sandalwood plantations were important reservoirs for aphid spread to wild and crop plant hosts growing in cultivated and uncultivated land. Alternative hosts growing in rural bushland, irrigation channel banks, vacant or fallow land, and orchard plantation understories also constituted significant aphid reservoirs. This study provides new knowledge of the ecology of aphid vector species not only in the ORIA but also in tropical northern Australia generally. It represents one of relatively few investigations on aphid ecology in tropical environments worldwide.

Key elements A: Carbon pricing mechanism 1. Fixed price period – The carbon pricing mechanism commenced on 1 July 2012, with a price that is fixed for the first three years. The price starts at $23 per tonne and will rise at 2.5 per cent each year in real terms. 2. Emissions trading scheme – On 1 July 2015, the carbon price will transition to a fully flexible price under an emissions trading scheme, with the price determined by the market. Coverage Broad coverage from commencement, encompassing the stationary energy sector, transport (as described below), industrial processes, non-legacy waste, and fugitive emissions. International linking International linking to credible international carbon markets and emissions trading schemes from the commencement of the flexible price period. At least half of a liable party’s compliance obligation must be met through the use of domestic permits or credits. Industry assistance The $9.2 billion Jobs and Competitiveness Program provides significant support for jobs and protects the competitiveness of these emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries. The Program also ensures that industry, local communities and workers have a smooth transition to a clean energy future and that these industries have a strong incentive to reduce their carbon pollution. Energy Security An Energy Security Fund has been established to ensure there is a smooth transition which preserves energy security. Household Assistance Assistance for Australian households, through tax cuts and increased payments, to help them with increased living costs as a result of the introduction of a carbon price. Governance Climate Change Authority – advises on pollution caps, tracks Australia’s pollution levels and progresses towards meeting targets and undertake reviews of the carbon pricing mechanism. Clean Energy Regulator – administers the carbon pricing mechanism, the existing regulatory functions for the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, the Renewable Energy Target and the Carbon Farming Initiative. Productivity Commission – undertakes reviews relating to industry assistance, and carbon pollution reduction activities in other countries. Land Sector Carbon and Biodiversity Advisory Board – reviews and oversee land sector initiatives, providing advice to Government and ensuring the effectiveness of assistance. Energy Security Council – advises the Government on any emerging risks to energy security and may offer loans to coal-fired electricity generators for the refinancing of existing debt. B: Related Clean Energy Future programs Assisting manufacturing and energy efficiency A range of new and existing measures to encourage energy efficiency are targeted at households, businesses, communities, Government, buildings and transport. Renewable energy Investment in clean energy projects, including through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – invests in the commercialisation and deployment of renewable and clean energy projects. Australian Renewable Energy Agency – improves the competitiveness of renewable energy and related technologies through supporting renewable energy technology innovation. Land use – Incentives for the farming, forestry and land sectors to reduce carbon pollution and increase the amount of carbon stored on the land.

The Australian Bush Foods industry is a complex fledgling industry where raw product inputs originate from both wild (bush) harvest and cultivated supply of multiple native fruits, nuts and seeds. In remote Australia, where much of the bush harvested supply of raw product originates, the industry spans the two socio-cultural worlds of western commerce and Aboriginal women’s business. These two worlds come together in the supply chain associated with bush harvested produce, at the juncture where this is sold by remote Aboriginal women to (mostly) non-Aboriginal others. This paper examines a participatory action research (PAR) project undertaken with Aboriginal bush harvesters and growers of katyerr from central Australia. The project, called ‘Information = Power: Walking the Bush Tomato Value Chain’ enabled members of a component in the industry chain to physically follow the raw product through various stages of the chain from processing through manufacture to the retail sector. The paper focuses on the participatory nature of the project and the effectiveness of this as a methodological approach, and the multiple learnings that resulted. The paper highlights and illustrates the importance of relationship development in PAR approaches and discusses this particularly in the two-worlds paradigm. The paper concludes with recommendations around using PAR in future bush foods research with remote Aboriginal peoples.

This paper derives from a presentation delivered at the 2018 ANZSWWER Symposium 'New Technology: Disrupting Social Work Practice and Perceptions'. The authors discuss the experiences and challenges of developing a 3D simulation involving an Aboriginal client presenting with suicidal ideation and indicators of self-harm. When completed, the 3D simulation will be used as a key teaching tool in the social work program at the University of South Australia (UniSA). Based on relationships with the Centre for Child Protection at the University of Kent, the simulation evolved into this context for Australian-based social work education and the need to prepare practitioners to develop the knowledge, values and skills for culturally responsive practice when working with Aboriginal Australians. An opportunity presented itself to develop a simulation for teaching that would allow for the development of knowledge and competencies in a digital environment. This simulated environment will afford a safe space within which students will explore themselves in relation to Aboriginal epistemologies and provide opportunities to contextualise that knowledge to fields of practice. The development of this teaching tool has presented a range of unforeseen considerations concerning the politics of representation when utilising new technologies in Aboriginal contexts, which the authors reflect on in this paper.

Background and Objectives: Indigenous Respiratory Outreach Care (IROC) is a culturally appropriate specialist respiratory service established to deliver multidisciplinary respiratory care to regional and remote Queensland communities. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of an outreach specialist respiratory service on the spirometry of children attending IROC clinics, particularly Indigenous children with asthma and bronchiectasis. Methods: Retrospective single-arm cohort study of 189 children who performed spirometry at twelve sites across regional and remote Queensland between October 2010 and December 2017. Each child’s baseline spirometry was compared to their best spirometry at follow-up visit occurring within (1) 12 months of their most recent visit with at least 12 months of specialist care and; (2) each year of their first 3 years of care. Results: Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) z-scores improved significantly across the whole group from baseline to follow-up (change in z-scores (Δz) of FEV1 = 0.38, 95% CI 0.22, 0.53; ΔzFVC = 0.36, 95% CI 0.21, 0.51). In subgroup analyses, lung function significantly improved in Indigenous children (n = 141, ΔzFEV1 = 0.37, 95% CI 0.17, 0.57; ΔzFVC = 0.36, 95% CI 0.17, 0.55) including those with asthma (n = 117, ΔzFEV1 = 0.41, 95% CI 0.19, 0.64; ΔzFVC = 0.46, 95% CI 0.24, 0.68) and bronchiectasis (n = 38, ΔzFEV1 = 0.33, 95% CI 0.07, 0.59; ΔzFVC = 0.26, 95% CI − 0.03, 0.53). Significant improvements in FEV1 and FVC were observed within the first and second year of follow-up for Indigenous children, but not for non-Indigenous children. Conclusion: The IROC model of care in regional and remote settings leads to significant lung function improvement in Indigenous children with asthma and bronchiectasis.

The program addresses a need for strengthening parenting skills among Indigenous families in remote communities of the Northern Territory. The main focus of this profile is on the adapted implementation of FAST (Families and Schools Together) in the East Arnhem CfC site. However, FAST operates in other remote regions of the Northern Territory and in other contexts within Australia and internationally. The FAST program (© FAST National) is a collaborative and time-limited prevention and parent involvement program designed to address three problems: alcohol and drug abuse; violence and delinquency; and school dropout. Its strategy is to reduce causal factors related to those problems by starting with young children using a family-based model. Children (ages 4-9 years) who display behaviour problems (at school and at home), poor self-esteem, short attention span and hyperactivity are targeted by teachers for this multi-family program.

Planning for climate change will change how we run our businesses, government agencies and other organisations. The Australian Government is increasing its focus on adaptation- one of the three pillars of its comprehensive climate change strategy. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to the National Climate Change Adaptation Framework in April 2007. The Framework covers a range of cooperative actions between all Australian governments to begin to address key demands from business and the community for targeted information on climate change impacts and adaptation options.

For several years prior to the Australian Federal elections in September 2013, Commonwealth Government telecommunications policy and legislation focussed exclusively on the fixed services National Broadband Network. This distracted broader public attention from the need for cellular mobile expansion in the more sparsely populated areas of the country. Commercial returns in these areas are clearly inadequate for unilateral private operator investment, making government participation crucial. Thus a commitment from the newly elected Coalition Government for a Mobile Black Spot co-investment programme marks a significant change of prospects for remote and regional Australia. This paper proposes that the joint program should commence with a comprehensive financial and technical study of backhaul and base station technology options, to identify the most cost effective approaches. These options include the coordinated provisioning of modern satellite and terrestrial backhaul systems, utilising and upgrading existing HCRC microwave system infrastructure, and the implementation of small cell base station types. It is especially timely for these opportunities to be considered now, during the present pre-launch design and construction phase for the NBN Ka band satellites.

Objective: Closing the gap in Indigenous health and wellbeing in remote settings in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area of Far North Queensland (FNQ) includes addressing a well-documented sexual health disadvantage among young people. Community mobilization around the underlying risk factors influencing sexual health is required.Method: Performing-arts-based workshops were conducted in schools and after-school venues in four remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander locations in FNQ in early 2010, to initiate consciousness-raising around the real dimensions of youth sexual health risk. Specific objectives included strengthening operational partnerships at school-level and developing ongoing consultative processes in each location for sexual health reference group development.Results: Results include a significantly strengthened productive partnership with primary and high schools in each location and sixteen production-ready hip hop songs exploring a range of physical, emotional and sexual health themes authored by the students and recorded on site. Additional outcomes included the willingness of community councils and civil society organizations to support local sexual health reference group activity.Conclusions: This initiative, the Indigenous Hip Hop Project, although accompanied by opportunity costs including alternative, more core business uses of staff time and program budget, has demonstrated the power of tapping the creative energy of young people at risk and the potential for mobilizing communities to activism around sexual health disadvantage.

Due to the lack of resources in remote Aboriginal communities within the Northern Territory of Australia, Aboriginal people requiring chronic maintenance hemodialysis often have to relocate from their home communities to Darwin city permanently to receive on going care. This phenomenon can cause distressing isolation from important traditional food, land and family.To identify the relationship to traditional food from an Aboriginal perspective and the enablers and barriers to accessing traditional food post relocation from remote regions of the Northern Territory Australia to the urban city of Darwin.A qualitative study design with a total of 12 Aboriginal participants (4 males; 8 females) receiving on going hemodialysis at the Nightcliff Renal Unit. Participants had all relocated from a remote region to Darwin. Interviews were conducted between July and September 2018 in Darwin, Australia. Data interpretation was conducted by an Aboriginal researcher and co-authors with a combined thirty years of experience conducting research with Aboriginal people in a health context. Data analysis comprised an inductive thematic analysis approach with an Indigenist knowledge interpretation lens to construct, reaffirm and protect Indigenous views.Traditional food was an important part of participant's identity and strongly connected to social, emotional, spiritual and physical health and well-being. Access to traditional food post relocation is associated with enablers and barriers including mobility, local knowledge, social support networks, commercial access and economics.Dialysis patients who are dislocated from remote Aboriginal communities to Darwin experience clear disruption to traditional food access, consumption, availability and knowledge dissemination to the younger generations.

Objective To identify important causes of premature mortality among Aboriginal adults in the Northern Territory (NT), 1979-1991. Methods All deaths of NT Aboriginal residents aged 15-64 years which occurred in the NT between 1979 and 1991 and which were recorded by the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages were included. Standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) were used to compare the number of deaths observed among Aboriginals in the NT to those expected, based on overall Australian rates. Years of potential life lost before age 65 (YPLL.as) were estimated for specific causes of death. Results Aboriginal women (overall SMR, 5.5) and Aboriginal men (SMR, 4.7) experienced a high burden of excess mortality from almost every cause of death. This excess increased over time, especially for Aboriginal women. Among Aboriginal men, the most important causes of premature death were motor vehicle accidents (11% of excess deaths and 17% of YPLL.as), ischaemic heart disease (10% of excess deaths and 10% of YPL4s), pneumonia and influenza (8% of excess deaths and 6% of YPLL65), and homicide (7% of excess deaths and 8% of YPL4s). For Aboriginal women, the most important causes included homicide (7% of excess deaths and 11%of YPLL65), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (10% of excess deaths and 5% of YPLL65), rheumatic heart disease (7% of excess deaths and 8% of YPLL.as), and ischaemic heart disease (6% of excess deaths and 5% of YPLLe5). Conclusions The wide variety of causes of excess mortality will require an equally wide variety of solutions, both medical and non-medical, and a long term commitment will be necessary to achieve reductions in premature mortality among NT Aboriginal adults.

Introduced in 2016, the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) is part of a welfare policy trial designed to restrict and direct the expenditure of Aboriginal people receiving a range of government benefits. In this article, I explain that the CDC, also referred to as the ?White Card,? appeases the concerns of non-Aboriginal residents and broader Australia and that government is attempting to ameliorate Aboriginal dysfunction. I offer an account of income management in daily life from the perspective of those living with the Card in the East Kimberley town of Wyndham. I describe it as interconnected to a broader range of suite of government policies and enmeshed in broader social and political relations. Focused on participant observation and interviews undertaken with Wyndham residents in the period immediately after the introduction of the Card, this perspective is informed by longer-term research in the region since 2013. I show that the Card acts as a quotidian form of disciplining surveillance against Aboriginal people. It is also a site of reinterpretation and rearticulation through the development of subversive practices by Aboriginal people, what I describe as the labour of endurance: Card holders are trying to endure its effects and manage its invasiveness into their lives.

The Carbon Farming Initiative is a carbon offsets scheme being established by the Australian Government to provide new economic opportunities for farmers, forest growers and Indigenous landholders while also helping the environment by reducing carbon pollution. The Government consulted broadly on design options for the Carbon Farming Initiative from October 2010 to February 2011. The legislation for the Carbon Farming Bill was introduced to Parliament on 24 March 2011. Acknowledging the complexity of some issues under the CFI, the Government has committed to conduct further stakeholder consultation on targeted issues such as additionality and Indigenous land issues. The Department has now released a consultation paper which covers how Indigenous landholders can participate in the Carbon Farming Initiative and outlines outstanding issues in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. This consultation paper provides an opportunity for stakeholders to comment on the approach to native title and land rights issues.

The Australian Government’s up to $126 million Climate Change Adaptation Program is helping Australians to better understand and manage risks linked to the carbon pollution which continues to increase in our atmosphere and to take advantage of potential opportunities. Through the Climate Change Adaptation Program, the Australian Government has funded a number of projects and assessments to improve our knowledge of the impacts of climate change, strengthen the capacity of decision-makers to respond and address major areas of national vulnerability.

This is the fourth in a series of annual reports to the Australian Parliament that tracks progress in Indigenous education and training and discusses issues under the major goals of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (AEP). It enables the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training to report to the Parliament at the end of each funding year on outcomes associated with Indigenous education and training. This report gives an account of educational outcomes achieved not only in 2004 but also over the period of the 2001-2004 funding quadrennium. Four priority areas relate to improving outcomes for Indigenous students in literacy and numeracy, enrolments, attendance and retention, and in education outcomes across the pre-school, school, vocational and technical education (VTE) and higher education sectors. Most of the 2004 national benchmark testing results for Indigenous students are better than previous years, yet there are still areas, especially numeracy, where there has been little improvement. There has been an increase in the numbers of Indigenous enrolments in preschools from 2001 to 2004. However, results in the schooling sector were mixed. Whilst there was an overall 17% increase in Indigenous enrolments since 2000 indicating more Indigenous students participating in schooling, there has been little improvement in overall attendance rates during the quadrennium. Indigenous apparent retention rates were variable and only one of the four grade progression ratios improved in 2004. Overall Year 12 enrolments increased by 22% during the 2001-2004 quadrennium. VTE continues to provide an important pathway for Indigenous people by delivering a broad range of personal, family and community benefits as well as employment and economic benefits. During 2001 to 2004 there have been some significant shifts in participation that saw the overall proportion of Indigenous students enrolled in government VTE institutions fall sharply. A key area of success in the VTE area continues to be New Apprenticeships. In 2004, Indigenous students were more likely to complete courses than in previous years of the quadrennium. Access and participation rates were at much the same levels in 2004 as they were over the quadrennium in the higher education sectors and the gaps in terms of access and participation have widened between 2001 and 2004. At the same time, the success and retention rates have moved fractionally upwards since 2001. The trend towards increased numbers of Indigenous students completing bachelor and higher level courses and the consequent closure of the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students at these levels is positive, although Indigenous award course completions need to increase significantly to reach parity with non-Indigenous students. It is encouraging that the number of Indigenous students gaining admission to higher education having completed the final year of secondary education has increased, particularly in the context of declining commencing student numbers.

The planning, design, funding and delivery of quality, contemporary health care is universally a complex and challenging task.This is irrespective of setting, community and population characteristics, economic circumstances and individual health status. In rural and remote Australia the complexity is magnified by unique characteristics and challenges. These necessitate the development and application of a dedicated framework which supports a nationally coordinated approach that is also adaptable to local conditions. Health care planning, programs and service delivery models must be adapted to meet the widely differing health needs of rural communities and overcome the challenges of geographic spread, low population density, limited infrastructure and the significantly higher costs of rural and remote health care delivery.In rural and remote areas, partnerships across health care sectors and between health care providers and other sectors will help address the economic and social determinants of health that are essential to meeting the needs of these communities.

Objective To examine the association between residential remoteness and stage of cancer at diagnosis, treatment uptake, and survival within the Australian Indigenous population. Design Systematic review and matched retrospective cohort study. Setting Australia. Participants Systematic review: published papers that included a comparison of cancer stage at diagnosis, treatment uptake, mortality and/or survival for Indigenous people across remoteness categories were identified (n = 181). Fifteen papers (13 studies) were included in the review. Original analyses: new analyses were conducted using data from the Queensland Indigenous Cancer Study (QICS) comparing cancer stage at diagnosis, treatment uptake, and survival for Indigenous cancer patients living in rural/remote areas (n = 627, 66%) and urban areas (n = 329, 34%). Main Outcome Measures Systematic review: Papers were included if there were related to stage of disease at diagnosis, treatment, mortality and survival of cancer. Restrictions were not placed on the outcome measures reported (e.g. standardised mortality ratios versus crude mortality rates). Original analyses: Odds ratios (OR, 95%CI) were used to compare stage of disease and treatment uptake between the two remoteness groups. Treatment uptake (treated/not treated) was analysed using logistic regression analysis. Survival was analysed using Cox proportional hazards regression. The final multivariate models included stage of cancer at diagnosis and area-level socioeconomic status (SEIFA). Results Existing evidence of variation in cancer outcomes for Indigenous people in remote compared with metropolitan areas is limited. While no previous studies have reported on differences in cancer stage and treatment uptake by remoteness within the Indigenous population, the available evidence suggests Indigenous cancer patients are less likely to survive their cancer the further they live from urban centres. New analysis of QICS data indicates that Indigenous cancer patients in rural/remote Queensland were less likely to be diagnosed with localised disease and less likely to receive treatment for their cancer compared to their urban counterparts. Conclusion More research is needed to fully understand geographic differentials in cancer outcomes within the Indigenous population. Knowing how geographical location interacts with Indigenous status can help to identify ways of improving cancer outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Plants from arid environments have some of the most diverse morphological and anatomical modifications of any terrestrial plants. Most perennials are classified as xerophytes, and have structures that limit water loss during dry weather, provide structural support to help prevent cell collapse during dry periods or store water in photosynthetic tissues. Some of these traits are also found in sclerophyllous plants and traits that may have developed due to evolution of taxa on nutrient poor soils may also benefit the plants under arid conditions. We examined the morpho-anatomical features of photosynthetic organs of three tree and four shrub species with reduced leaves or photosynthetic stems that occur in arid or semiarid sites in Australia to see if there were patterns of tissue formation particularly associated with xeromorphy. In addition, we reviewed information on succulent and resurrection species. In the tree species (Callitris spp.) with decurrent leaves clothing the stems, the close association between the water transport system and stomata, along with anisotropic physiology would allow the species to fix carbon under increasingly dry conditions in contrast to more broad-leaved species. The shrub species (Tetratheca species and Glischrocaryon flavescens) with photosynthetic stems had extensive sclerenchyma and very dense chlorenchyma. The lack of major anatomical differences between leafless species of Tetratheca from arid areas compared with more mesic sites indicates that quite extreme morphological modifications may not exclude species from growing successfully in competition with species from less arid areas. The sclerophyll flora now characteristic of Australian vegetation from seasonally arid climates may have evolved during mesic times in the past but with relatively minor modifications was able to adjust to the gradually drying climate of much of Australia up to the present time.

New Australian government funding for the Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care initiative is a significant step forward for mental health, with general practitioners now able to offer direct referrals to psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and Aboriginal health workers. Incentives for better teamwork between GPs and other mental health professionals have been introduced, but may have unintended consequences, including an exacerbation of workforce shortages in rural and remote areas. Possible solutions to these shortages include rural scholarships for students in the mental health professions; recruitment and retention of students coordinated by university departments of rural health; better access to continuing professional development; and federally funded rural positions and additional financial incentives for rural mental health practitioners.

Road trauma is a significant health problem in rural and remote regions of Australia, particularly for Indigenous communities. This study aims to identify and compare the circumstances leading to (proximal causation) and social determinants of (distal causation) crashes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in these regions and their relation to remoteness. This is a topic seriously under-researched in Australia. Modelled on an earlier study, 229 persons injured in crashes were recruited from local health facilities in rural and remote North Queensland and interviewed, mainly by telephone, according to a fixed protocol which included a detailed narrative of the circumstances of the crash. A qualitative analysis of these narratives identified several core themes, further explored statistically in this sample, supplemented by participants in the earlier study with compatible questionnaire data, designed to determine which factors were more closely associated with Indigenous status and which with remoteness. Indigenous participants were less often vehicle controllers, more likely to have recently been a drink driver or passenger thereof; to be unemployed, unlicensed, distracted or fatigued before the crash, alcohol dependent and have lower perceived social, but not personal, locus of control in a traffic crash than non-Indigenous persons. Differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants are largely ascribable to hardship and transport disadvantage due to lack of access to licensing and associated limitations on employment opportunities. Based on these findings, a number of policy recommendations relating to educational, enforcement and engineering issues have been made.

In 2017, AITSL conducted nationwide consultation into the state of professional learning in Australia, and identified three cohorts of teachers for whom access to professional learning is particularly challenging, namely: rural, regional and remote (RRR), early childhood, and casual/relief teachers. Further consultation with these cohorts was undertaken in 2018, and this article concentrates on the findings related to RRR teachers. By sharing these findings, AITSL hopes to draw awareness to the challenges faced by this cohort in accessing professional learning, including barriers to engagement, a lack of inter-school collaboration, and a strong reliance on external activities. As many of the same challenges were found in another study (Beswick and Brown in Stack, Beswick, Brown, Bound, and Kenny, 2011) conducted over 10 years ago with no significant change, it is important that renewed interest in this cohort of teachers results in actionable solutions for change.