This paper argues that the driving motivation for federalism reform in Australia should be to enhance Australian federal democracy. Federal democracy is a rich, compound, concept that supports responsive and accountable government, participation in public life, policy innovation and collective...

This book examines legal reform in China. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the 'field', the increasingly complex and contested processes of legal reform are analysed in relation to police powers. The impact of China's post-1978 legal reforms on police powers is examined through a detailed...

The prevalent issue of marriage migration between (mostly) women from Southeast Asian ‘sending' countries and men in ‘receiving' countries in East Asia gives rise to many socio-legal issues about identity and nationality. Since the 1990s, the phenomenon of international marriage migration...

There is a burgeoning body of consumer scholarship that identifies a consumer-citizen identity, reconstructing the consumer as a social and political actor and not just an economic actor. In food systems dominated by supermarkets, some hail the coming of the consumer-citizen as an antidote to...

Australian law has no concept of absolute ownership of land. Instead, it recognizes a limited number of interests, public and private, in land. Many of these interests, or titles, are statutory in origin. During the colonial era, state legislatures won control of public land from the British...

Innovations in the use and application of technology are increasingly making Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services and trainings available to ever wider audiences. For some disputants, online dispute resolution (ODR) makes sense due to the challenges posed by geographic distances, time...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Immunity Policy for Cartel Conduct is seen as a vital tool in detecting, stopping, prosecuting and deterring cartel conduct. In May 2013 the ACCC announced that it is conducting a review of the policy. The review is significant because,...

Transparency has attracted unprecedented attention in national and global debates about taxation in recent years. It has been adopted as a goal by international organizations, governments, non-government organizations (NGOs), academic commentators, media and citizens across the political...

This survey has been undertaken in connection with a research project (The Cartel Project) that investigates various aspects of the criminalisation of cartel conduct in Australia. In section 1 of the Report we set out the background to cartel criminalisation in Australia (section 1.1) and...

The establishment of the new Australian Parliamentary Budget Office in 2012 has created a body capable of increasing the transparency and accountability of public finance by providing independent policy costings, budget analysis, and forecasts to the Parliament. This working paper examines the...