Doctor of Philosophy / During the 1990s, governments, managements and unions have been focused upon improving the cost efficiency of firms. This focus has been strongest for firms in the public sector where improved outcomes can be expected to significantly improve the Gross Domestic Products of whole economies. This case study looks at the cost efficiency of NSW rail passenger services over a 41 year period to 1991/92, long suspected (but hitherto only tentatively demonstrated) as a paradigm of cost inefficiency. The case study focuses upon the use of the total factor productivity (TFP) index, as a datum point for measuring change in productivity in four markets: suburban, internrban, country and interstate passenger services since 1951/52. From this datum, changes over the years in management, technology and other external factors can be identified and assessed. The thesis identifies management quality (the organising element in the firm) as the preeminent factor in determining productivity change, and the role that new technology plays in its impact on failures in management. We establish the linkages between management and innovation, with TFP, pricing efficiency and economic resource use efficiency, to present a rich paradigm for assessing the economic performance of any business firm. Borrowing from systems theory and other management practices such as total quality management, we disaggregated the case firm into its component systems, sub-systems and processes, for separate study in relation to impact on TFP. The database for 41 years of rail behaviour is the richest ever compiled for any railway in Australia, and with enhanced modelling, enables a systematic treatment of the performance through time of State Rail's passenger services.

"1994". / Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, School of English and Linguistics, 1995. / Bibliography: leaves 356-373 (pt. 1) / Introduction -- Research in joint book-reading and the discourse of literacy pedagogy -- The study : Part A: Research questions, preliminary analysis and participant selection -- Part B : Data gathering and preparation -- Language, context and semantic variation -- A semantic network for the description of linguistic interaction in joint book-reading -- Reading The three little pigs at home -- Results of the message semantic analysis of the interactive text -- Interpretations -- Joint book-reading in the discourse of literacy pedagogy -- Concluding comments -- Appendices. / The study contributes to the fields of educational linguistics and semantic variation by examining linguistic interaction during joint book-reading between mothers and four-year-old children, and between teachers and Kindergarten classes at the beginning of school. -- Joint book-reading was selected because of its centrality to the metaphor of a partnership between home and school in children's literacy development. The problem for the study was to investigate possible systematic semantic variation in linguistic interaction associated with social class locations of speakers, and relations between any such variants and features of interaction in joint book-reading in Kindergarten. -- A preliminary survey of 427 families in two sociogeographically contrasted sites established that joint book-reading was a common social practice, and gave sufficient indications of variation to justify an intensive socio-semantic study. Two sets of ten mother-child dyads, contrasted for class locations using Bernstein's (1990) theory of class relations, were constructed and recordings of joint book-reading sessions made by mothers. Recordings of interaction in two sets of ten Kindergarten classes in the same socio-geographical areas were made by teachers. -- Vygotsky's theory of semiotic mediation was the general resource used for interpreting children's learning, but it was necessary to resolve problems in the theory in the modelling of contexts for learning, and of mediational means. For this purpose the systemic functional linguistic concept of context of situation, as proposed by Halliday (1978) and expanded by Hasan (in press (a)), was deployed. -- Transcripts of recordings were analysed through a semantic network developed for the study, based on a network proposed by Hasan (1983). -- Semantic variation associated with class locations of families was found across all four metafunctions described within systemic theory, and one variant found to be associated with Kindergarten classroom interaction. The variable semantic features were interpreted as the realization of different principles regulating the individuation of experience, using Bernstein's theories of coding orientation and pedagogic discourse. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 2 parts (373, 539 p.) ill

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Environmental & Life Sciences, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 202-224. / Introduction -- Geological setting of the New England Fold Belt -- Regional geophysical investigation -- Data acquisition and reduction -- Modelling and interpretation of magnetic data over the Peel Fault -- Modelling and interpretation of magnetic data over the Mooki Fault -- Gravity modelling of the Tamworth Belt and Gunnedah Basin -- Interpretation and discussion -- Conclusions. / This thesis presents new magnetic and gravity data for the Southern New England Fold Belt (SNEFB) and the Gunnedah Basin that adjoins to the west along the Mooki Fault in New South Wales. The SNEFB consists of the Tamworth Belt and Tablelands Complex that are separated by the Peel Fault. The Tablelands Complex to the east of the Peel Fault represents an accretionary wedge, and the Tamworth Belt to the west corresponds to the forearc basin. A total of five east-north-east trending gravity profiles with around 450 readings were conducted across the Tamworth Belt and Gunnedah Basin. Seven ground magnetic traverses of a total length of 60 km were surveyed across the bounding faults of the Tamworth belt, of which five were across the Peel Fault and two were across the Mooki Fault. The gravity data shows two distinct large positive anomalies, one over the Tamworth Belt, known as the Namoi Gravity High and another within the Gunnedah Basin, known as the Meandarra Gravity Ridge. All gravity profiles show similarity to each other. The magnetic data displays one distinct anomaly associated with the Peel Fault and an anomaly immediately east of the Mooki Fault. These new potential field data are used to better constrain the orientation of the Peel and Mooki Faults as well as the subsurface geometry of the Tamworth Belt and Gunnedah Basin, integrating with the published seismic data, geologic observations and new physical properties data. --Magnetic anomalies produced by the serpentinite associated with the Peel Fault were used to determine the orientation of the Peel fault. Five ground magnetic traverses were modelled to get the subsurface geometry of the serpentinite body. Modelling results of the magnetic anomalies across the Peel Fault indicate that the serpentinite body can be mostly modelled as subvertical to steeply eastward dipping tabular bodies with a minimum depth extent of 1-3 km, although the modelling does not constrain the vertical extent. This is consistent with the modelling of the magnetic traverses extracted from aeromagnetic data. Sensitivity analysis of a tabular magnetic body reveals that a minimum susceptibility of 4000x10⁻⁶cgs is needed to generate the observed high amplitude anomalies of around 2000 nT, which is consistent with the susceptibility measurements of serpentinite samples along the Peel Fault ranging from 2000 to 9000 x 10⁻⁶ cgs. Rock magnetic study indicates that the serpentinite retains a strong remanence at some locations. This remanence is a viscous remanent magnetisation (VRM) which is parallel to the present Earth's magnetic field, and explains the large anomaly amplitude over the Peel fault at these locations. The remanence of serpentinite at other localities is not consistent enough to contribute to the observed magnetic anomalies. A much greater depth extent of the Peel Fault was inferred from gravity models. It is proposed that the serpentinite along the Peel Fault was emplaced as a slice of oceanic floor that has been accreted to the front of the arc, or as diapirs rising off the serpentinised part of the mantle wedge above the supra subduction zone. / Magnetic anomalies immediately east of the Mooki Fault once suggested to be produced by a dyke-like body emplaced along the fault were modelled along two ground magnetic traverses and three extracted aeromagnetic lines. Modelling results indicate that the anomalies can be modelled as an east-dipping overturned western limb of an anticline formed as a result of a fault-propagation fold with a shallow thrust step-up angle from the décollement. Interpretation of aeromagnetic data and modelling of the magnetic traverses indicate that the anomalies along the Mooki Fault are produced by the susceptibility contrast between the high magnetic Late Carboniferous Currabubula Formation and/or Early Permian volcanic rocks of the Tamworth Belt and the less magnetic Late Permian-Triassic Sydney-Gunnedah Basin rocks. Gravity modelling indicates that the Mooki Fault has a shallow dip ( ̃25°) to the east. Modelling of the five gravity profiles shows that the Tamworth Belt is thrust westward over the Sydney-Gunnedah Basin for 15-30 km. --The Meandarra Gravity Ridge within the Gunnedah Basin was modelled as a high density volcanic rock unit with a density contrast of 0.25 tm⁻³, compared to the rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt in all profiles. The volcanic rock unit has a steep western margin and a gently dipping eastern margin with a thickness ranging from 4.5-6 km, and has been generally agreed to have formed within an extensional basin. --The Tamworth Belt, being mainly the product of volcanism of mafic character and thus has high density units, together with the high density Woolomin Association, which is composed chiefly of chert/jasper, basalt, dolerite and metabasalt, produces the Namoi Gravity High. Gravity modelling results indicate that the anomaly over the Tamworth Belt can be modelled as either a configuration where the Tablelands Complex extends westward underthrusting the Tamworth Belt, or a configuration where the Tablelands Complex has been thrust over the Tamworth Belt. When the gravity profiles were modelled with the first configuration, the Peel Fault with a depth extent of around 1 km can only be modelled for the Manilla and Quirindi profiles, modelling of the rest of the gravity profiles indicates that the Tablelands Complex underthrust beneath the Tamworth belt at a much deeper location. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xi, 242 leaves ill., maps

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, School of History, Philosophy and Politics, 1995. / Bibliography: leaves 427-449. / In the 1860s work performed by children was reflected the wider labour market. Children undertook paid employment in formal situations and work of a more casual nature on city streets. They also performed unpaid work at households and farmsites. Children working at the homesite contributed to home based production and service, and also, through domestic duties, to the daily reproduction of labour. Children's participation in the workforce was significant in the three main sectors of the economy. Small-scale farming, most commonly on selections, made significant use of children's labour. Selection, and its appropriation of children's labour power, continued throughout the entire period. The colony's infant industrialisation utilised cheap, child labour in its development from craft-based to more intensive, larger-scale industry. Children's labour power was usually of financial import to their households and usually allocated with regard to age and gender. In times of intensive demand or financial difficulty, the need for children's labour could lessen gender strictures. Demand for children's labour power was, at times, in conflict with the expanding liberal state, which was extending its training and supervision of future citizens through primary education. Mass education was generally accepted, although many families used schools on a casual basis so that children could alternate work and schoolwork. The 1880 Public Instruction Act pragmatically reflected common practice by making some schooling compulsory. -- By 1916 patterns of children's work participation which held for much of the twentieth century were set. Children were virtually excluded, through attitudinal and legislative change, from the paid main-stream workforce. Their effective, and permanent, removal from the urban, industrial workforce had been closely controlled. Their use as casual labour, was circumscribed by adherence to daily, all-day compulsory schooling. Children's work on city streets was limited and regulated. Their work at the home site and in the rural sector continued, now fitted around demanding schooling requirements. -- Pressure on the state, from organised labour and other concerned interests, to remove children from employment in factories and streets had intensified from the 1890s. These demands were echoed by educational authorities, who, since the beginning of the period, had called for strict adherence to their full-time ideal model of school. The state, reflecting and consolidating attitudinal change, responded in an incremental fashion with increasing regulation and control. State action included the 1916 Education Act which could enforce adherence to the ideal school model. The withdrawal of children from mainstream labour was accompanied by an increasingly widespread, accepted and entrenched ideology of protected, nurturant and dependant childhood. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / [9], 449 leaves

Thesis (MA)--Macquarie University, School of History, Philosophy and Politics, 1979. / Bibliography: leaves 168-179. / Introduction -- Ragged school movements in Britain in the Nineteenth century -- The colonial background -- The establishment and development of ragged schools in New South Wales, 1860-1867 -- The emergence of social reform, 1860-1867 -- The ragged school movement consolidated, 1868-1889 -- The triumph of evangelism, 1868-1889 -- Expansion and decline of ragged schools, 1890-1924 -- Social needs reconsidered, 1890-1924 -- Assessment and conclusions. / Ragged schools were private philanthropic institutions which were established to counter the growing problem of destitute and neglected children in the nineteenth century. They were non-denominational in character, although essentially Protestant, their work being firmly based on the teachings of the Bible. ... Their establishment in New South Wales was due primarily to the combined influence of the pattern of ragged school movements in England and Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the social and economic dislocation caused by the gold rushes of the 1850's. ... Ragged schools first emerged in Sydney in 1860 and the movement lasted until 1924. Their work was limited to the inner city areas of Sydney. However, their extensive history provides a means of analysing the changing philanthropic responses to the care and education of neglected and destitute children during the latter half of the nineteenth, and early part of the twentieth centuries. / In the early years of the Sydney Ragged Schools (1860-1867), their work displayed a social reformist approach, which put the schools and their supporters to the forefront of efforts to help these types of children. In the years of consolidation and expansion (1868-1889), there developed a strong emphasis on evangelism as the chief means of reclaiming these children, so that the schools became little more than missionary agencies. Finally, their latter years (1890-1924), influenced by the physical suffering of the depression, there was a return, in part, to the social concerns of earlier years. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 179 leaves

Regional planning and its associated institutional structure has been given ad hoc consideration in New South Wales over the last thirty years. At the Federal level moves towards regionalization of planning have been based on party political platforms rather than carefully considered planning objectives. The States have traditionally held the mandate for regional planning, however, it has been circumscribed by the rigid and detailed procedures involved in statutory planning. Attempts at instituting regional planning have occurred without adequate recognition of the nature of regional planning, nor an adequate consideration of what the regional scale problems entail. This thesis evaluates a recently proposed planning system in New South Wales in the light of a reconsideration of the concept of regional planning and the regional problems that exist in New South Wales. It is hypothesized that regional planning is an appropriate device through which to achieve an integration of functions and areal reform, Regional planning is defined as a continuous process at the supra urban/sub state scale. It is public planning based on law which is carried out by public institutions and is capable of effecting change in society's milieu. Regional problems are classified into three broad categories: problems of service delivery arising from an urban/ rural dichotomy; problems of land use conflict and resource management; and problems of area and function. Most of these generic problem areas were seen to result from the inability of institutions to adequately reconcile area with function. It was contended that regional planning involves the reciprocal adjustment of function and area through areal reform and simultaneous functional co-ordination and integration. The regional level is the level at which a balance is found between the 'efficiency' of functional specialization, and some rationalization of areal particularism. Based on such an articulation of the cause of regional problems, together with the consideration of the nature of regional planning, six principles of regional planning are identified as being essential for its success. Regional planning: *should be based upon the identification of regional needs and the articulation of areal problems *needs to fulfill national regional policy, needs to be co-ordinated with State policy, and should attempt a degree of co-ordination with the private sector *should facilitate the co-ordination and integration of functions *must possess a statutory basis on the one hand, and on the other, must remain flexible *must explicitly recognize the process of regionalism *regions should possess an adequate fiscal base upon which an institution can carry out its planning mandate. These principles are the criteria against which the proposed regional planning scheme in New South Wales is assessed. The following were the main observations made: - The regional planning that was envisaged by the proposed scheme was based on a 'top-down' and rigid statutory framework, obviously still influenced by the rigidities of the existing statutory land use planning system. - The proposed institutional structure was found to be not politically accountable at the regional level, not autonomous in decision making, lacked executive authority over regional matters, and lacked community involvement in the mainstream of the planning process. As a result its potential for need identification and priority resolution was considered limited. - No institutional mechanism exists for program integration at the regional level. Based on these findings some modifications to the institutional structure were prescribed so that it could satisfy the proposed criteria. The most important were: - the responsibility for regional planning should rest with an independent regional planning body (but responsible to the State government) in each region, composed of local government and regional community representatives. - regional level sub-committees should be established in the areas of industrial resource development, social development, and natural resource development, so as to reflect planning structures at the State departmental and Cabinet levels. - a regional program committee composed of the regional planner and sub-committee representatives should provide liason between articulated regional needs and public program delivery. - an extensive consultative structure should be established with individuals, groups, and private and government agencies. These modifications of the proposed institutional structures can be viewed as the particular conclusions to the thesis. Under conditions comparable to those in NSW, the six principles of regional planning are the generic conclusions and can be considered as essential preconditions for successful regional planning and regional progress. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs), where injecting drug users (IDUs) can use pre-obtained drugs in a hygienic and professionally supervised low threshold setting, aim to engage high risk IDUs, reduce public drug use, injecting-related morbidity and mortality, and improve access to drug treatment. This thesis evaluates the service demand, accessibility, utilisation, and coverage of Australia???s first DCR, the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), located in an area with a history of illegal shooting gallery operation. MSIC impact on injecting practices and injecting related health, and referral to drug treatment were also examined. Methods included cross-sectional IDU surveys, key informant interviews, staff focus groups, analysis of client registration and surveillance data and routinely collected data on needles and syringes - including multiple indirect prevalence estimation, and prospective follow-up of MSIC referrals. Shooting gallery users expressed demand for and willingness to use the MSIC. Injecting episodes previously occurring in shooting galleries appear to have been transferred to the MSIC, although shooting galleries continued to operate at a reduced level. The MSIC service model was accessible, with few refusals of entry, high levels of client satisfaction and limited non-use for reasons relating to the model. MSIC engaged high risk IDUs - regular injectors, sex workers, and those injecting in public places and shooting galleries - who were also more likely to be frequent attendees. MSIC clients were more likely than other IDUs to inject in public places and shooting galleries, be HCV seropositive, have riskier injecting practices and more severe injecting related health problems. MSIC achieved good coverage of the local IDU population (70.7%, range 59.1%-86.7%) and modest coverage of their estimated total injecting episodes during its operating hours (8.8%, range 7.3%-10.8%). MSIC use was associated with improvements in injecting practices and health. Frequent MSIC use was also associated with higher rates of referral to drug treatment than less frequent use. Drug treatment referral uptake was positively associated with a recent history of daily injection and sex work and negatively associated with a lifetime history of psychiatric treatment and/or self harm. This research was confounded by substantial changes in heroin availability during the study period but provides new evidence on DCR coverage, impact on injecting practices and health, and referral to drug treatment. Implications for future research are discussed.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation and my experiences of working with young homeless people in refuges, in this thesis I develop an analysis which identifies some key spatial practices through which young people negotiate the field of homelessness in inner-city Sydney. The particular contribution of this work is to consider homelessness in terms of a theorised understanding of the broader role of place within homelessness, rather than in terms of the immediacy of cause or solution. While acknowledging the importance of the large body of work which has focused on the structural causes of homelessness and the need for a clear policy-oriented definition of homelessness, I develop an alternative agenda for a focus on young homeless people's struggles to feel 'in place' and 'at home'. These struggles throw into relief the need to understand young people???s homelessness in terms of a search, not just for a place to stay, but for a place to belong. Utilising the rich body of work which explores the important relation of place and subjectivity, I connect young people???s experiences of place within homelessness with the broader social and phenomenological concepts of ???displacement??? and ???implacement???. In particular, I focus on the spatial relations through which young people construct and organise their daily paths and begin to make sense of their often painful and chaotic lives and their fears about the future. I contextualise their fragile experiences of being somewhere in a broader spatial structure of constant movement and grief and feelings of alienation from the wider community. I consider the enduring role of past homes in their continuing struggle to piece together a way of ???being at home??? both in terms of drawing together a network of physical places of safety and in terms of experiencing a sense of acceptance, recognition and rootedness through place. I point to the critical need to include broader understandings of both home and homelessness in addressing the displacement which shapes the experience of homelessness for young people and impacts on the success of immediate measures developed to respond to it.

This thesis is an intellectual genealogy of counting crime in New South Wales. It is a history of a system of thought which is one of the contemporary foundations of the way we interpret the nature and extent of crime today. It argues that the incitement to annually record crime statistics in New South Wales, and internationally, is immediately connected with a will to govern crime. This thesis traces this bonding of the technology of crime statistics with mentalities of government, and maintains that although the connection of these two discourses has been highly effective, it has not been one of universal domination. This is a history of the continuous state practice of compiling and publishing crime statistics. But it is also a history of discontinuities. This thesis regularly investigates shifts in the categories of recording. It locates changes in what is recorded by broadening its discussion to include localised and international debates on crime that are contemporaneous to these changes. This is not a thesis with a project to improve the way in which we record or utilise crime statistics. Its project is to write a history of how we came to record crime statistics and how we have intended to utilise these crime statistics in our practices of government. It traces the rise of counting crime and interrogates it as one of the key technologies deployed in the government of crime / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Aims and objectives: To investigate the epidemiology, risk factors, and preventive strategies for serious head and spinal injuries related to rugby league and union football in New South Wales (NSW). Methods: The three main components of this study included. 1. A retrospective analysis of clinical and compensation case file records during the 16-year period, 1984-1999. 2. A review of game rules, weights and heights of players, over the past 100 years. 3. A review of film and video footage of rugby football games spanning most of the 20th century. A method was developed to allow valid comparisons in style of play over a 70-year period. Results: The estimated annual incidence rate of SCI for rugby league players was 1.9 (95%CI 1.3 - 2.8) per 100,000 estimated players per year, and 3.3 (95%CI 2.2 - 4.8) per 100,000 estimated rugby union players per year over the study period 1984 to 1999. There was no significant change in the incidence of rugby league related serious spinal cord injuries (1984-1999), fatalities (1984-1999) or serious head injuries (1984-1999). There was a small but significant decline in rugby union related serious spinal cord injuries (1984-1999, P<0.05). However, the relative risk of spinal cord injury was 1.34 times greater for rugby union compared to rugby league over the entire study period (95%CI 1.01 - 1.67, P<0.05). For rugby football, the evidence suggested that the force of impact between participants was a key causal risk factor for serious injury. Elite rugby league and union players from 1999-2000 teams were significantly heavier (P<0.05) and taller (P<0.05) than players pre 1950. Players in modern elite games post 1989 were more likely to be tackled by multiple opponents (P = 0.000), tackled head on (P<0.05), at chest level (P<0.05) and at greater speeds than their earlier counterparts pre 1958. However, modern players appear to be no more aggressive or perpetrate greater foul play than their predecessors. Conclusions: There was a continued annual occurrence of catastrophically serious injuries leading to permanent brain damage and quadriplegia associated with rugby league and union in NSW. The critical risk factors found to be associated with serious injury in rugby football suggest relatively novel approaches to the development of preventive strategies.