Those who have finished high school and/or obtained non-school qualifications experience a range of positive outcomes throughout their lives. Despite these benefits being likely to apply to the Indigenous Australian population, current as well as past participation in education is substantially lower than that of the non-Indigenous population. Some reasons for this relatively low participation may be locational and monetary disadvantage, household overcrowding and a curriculum that is not always relevant. How Indigenous Australians form their expectations about the benefits of education and what these expectations might be (accurate or otherwise) may also influence educational participation. This thesis looks at the education outcomes of Indigenous Australians. There are two main research questions are examined. The first is what are the relative benefits of education for the Indigenous population? The main outcomes that are focussed on are employment and income; however, there is also analysis of the extent to which those with higher education levels report better health outcomes or more favourable health behaviour. The second main research question is what factors are associated with the decision to attend high school? That is, does the Indigenous population respond to the economic incentives to undertake education as estimated in this thesis? In addition, other factors at the individual, household and area level are likely to influence the social costs and benefits of education, as well as geographic and financial access. The extent to which these are associated with high school participation is also examined.

Indigenous Australians were also known to use plants for medicinal purposes. For thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have used native plants as a source of medicinal agents. Some tribes living in Central Australia still, to this day, prefer to use traditional medicines in favour of the more common and readily available western medicines. A number of plant species endemic to Australia are listed in various Aboriginal pharmacopoeias, with approximately one-third of those species belonging to two genera, Acacia and Eremophila. Of the 1100 recognised species of Acacia, approximately 900 occur in Australia. At least thirty of these species were utilised by the Indigenous Australians as a source of medicine. Extracts of 8 Acacia species were screened using four frontline bioassays. These were the brine shrimp lethality test, the crown gall tumour assays, the disc diffusion antibiotic assay and the seed germination test to determine if any of the species were biologically active. Of all the species screened, Acacia pruinocarpa showed the most promise. The species demonstrated significant activity at concentrations at low as 3.7ppm, which is well below the standard 400ppm exhibited by potassium dichromate (Sam, 1993). Acacia adsurgens and A. dictophleba were the next two promising species exhibiting activity at concentrations of 16.12ppm and 37ppm respectively. This was a trend that was also observed in the Lettuce seed germination test for allelopathy with these three species showing the most promise. Interestingly the potency of A. pruinocarpa extract decreased significantly when it was re- screened after being put through a polyamide column. It can therefore be suggested that as tannins are removed by the polyamide column, the biological activity exhibited by A. pruinocarpa is a result of the tannin content in the species (2%), although more testing is required. / Both A. pruinocarpa and A. adsurgens showed promise as anti-tumour activity when used in the Crown Gall Tumour Assay (CGTA). Acacia pruinocarpa and A. adsurgens both exhibited significant activity when compared to the control producing inhibition percentages of 31% and 37% respectively. Surprisingly, only one of the Acacia species tested inhibited pathogenic growth when tested on the common pathogens Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogens and Candida albicans. Acacia bivenosa was the only species to exhibit any activity when tested on the pathogens. This activity, however is not considered to be significant, as the species was only active against one of pathogens tested, Staphylococcus aureus. In order to be considered to be significant, a species must be active against two or more pathogens. It is however, worthy of further evaluation. Acacia species are among the large number of plants that have long been regarded sources of biological activity. This study was guided by the indigenous use of Acacia species as sources of medicine, which led to the use of front-line bioassays. All of the species tested exhibited some form of biological activity. Acacia pruinocarpa demonstrated the most promise as a source of novel biologically active compounds exhibiting activity at very low concentrations. Such compounds have not been determined as it was outside the scope of this study to identify the active constituents of this species. However, it has been suggested that tannins are responsible for eliciting some of the activity observed in A. pruinocarpa. All of the species screened in this study are worthy of further evaluation. The bioassays used in this study are good examples of front-line bioassays. All of the tests used in the study fulfil the criterion, which defines a good test.

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This postmodern feminist ethnographies research aimed to explore the everyday meanings of primary health care (PHC) held by rural community nurses. Secondly, the research aimed to explore the everyday meanings of care held by the clients of the rural community nurses who participated in the study. The representation of this research is written in four voices which converse with each other to varying degrees in each chapter. This writing strategy is a deliberate one aimed at destabilising the usual approach to representation of research. It is also a strategy which seeks methodological coherence. The third aim therefore is to deliberately trouble the acceptable grounds concerning how nursing research is represented. The research utilised dialogical (conversational)and participant observation methods concerning the everyday meanings of nurses and their clients.The meanings I made of the information were created from a deconstruction of the texts. These texts included fieldnotes of participant observations and transcripts of conversations with nurses and their clients. The form of deconstruction utilised was informed from multiple sources and involved three levels of analysis. A realist interpretation was followed by an oppositional interpretation and then a reconstructive movement. The results revealed that rural community nurses practice is both spatio-temporally contextualised and metaphorically situated in an in-between space. This in-between space is situated between margin and the centre. Rural community nurses working on the margins traverse this space in order to overcome further marginalisation whilst working with Indigenous Australians and the aged. Moreover, the in-between space encompasses and creates opportunities to mutually exchange the gift of desire that being - empowering and compassionate relationships with clients and colleagues. Futhermore, whilst rural community nurses are strongly committed to the philosophy of PHC, their evryday working life is discursively constructed by powerful discourses which result in oppositional tensions. The tensions and the 'in-between' space allow the rhetoric of PHC to be resisted and reframed. Consequently, the oppositional constructs of their practice were displaced. Moreover, this necessitated the negotiation of space and place, and required the reconstruction of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and becoming / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

To date, there has been only limited research investigating the musculoskeletal health of Indigenous Australians. Nevertheless, the pain and disability associated with musculoskeletal conditions are thought to be high. This thesis reports on the outcomes of a cross-sectional survey and clinical assessment designed to measure the prevalence of musculoskeletal conditions, and uses them to inform the development of a community-based musculoskeletal training program for Indigenous Australians living in one of the largest rural Indigenous communities in Australia. There were three separate community-based studies comprising this thesis: The first describes the development of measures for assessing the prevalence of musculoskeletal conditions and the associated risk factors and barriers to managing these conditions for people living in this Community. The development of a screening survey and clinical assessment protocol was based on a literature search, existing validated measures, feedback from Indigenous focus groups and pilot testing with Indigenous people in order to achieve cultural appropriateness. The second study piloted the research tools, then measured and assessed the prevalence of musculoskeletal conditions, associated risk factors and barriers to managing these conditions in the Community. The third study describes the development and implementation of a preliminary community-based intervention delivered by AHWs that responded to the outcomes of the prevalence study. It assessed the cultural acceptability of a musculoskeletal training program (MTP), as well as piloting an approach to assessing changes in skills and knowledge of Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) who participated in the MTP. The conduct of these studies reiterates the difficulties associated with conducting studies in Indigenous Communities according to mainstream concepts, which rely on randomly selecting participants in order to achieve generalisability to the larger population. Beyond empowering Indigenous people through sustainable, community-based training initiatives, lies the immediate need to improve access to musculoskeletal health services and to remove this current and considerable barrier to improving the musculoskeletal health of Indigenous Australians. The conclusions of this thesis highlight the importance of giving consideration to cultural sensitivity and collaboration in planning health service delivery to Indigenous people. The application of the community-based model used in this study may have the potential to be seeded in Communities throughout the country as a step towards promoting the musculoskeletal health of Indigenous people living in rural Australia and beyond. / PhD Doctorate

The bureaucratic measure of health service, health performance indicators, suggest that we are not effective in our legislative responsibility to deliver suitable health care to some of the populations we are meant to serve. Debate has raged over the years as to the reasons for this, with no credible explanation accepted by those considered stakeholders. One thing is clear though, we have gone from being a culture believing that the needs of the many far outweigh those of the few, to one where we are barely serving the needs of the 'any'. This is most evident in the care delivered to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

The bureaucratic measure of health service, health performance indicators, suggest that we are not effective in our legislative responsibility to deliver suitable health care to some of the populations we are meant to serve. Debate has raged over the years as to the reasons for this, with no credible explanation accepted by those considered stakeholders. One thing is clear though, we have gone from being a culture believing that the needs of the many far outweigh those of the few, to one where we are barely serving the needs of the 'any'. This is most evident in the care delivered to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

The notion of 'race' was central to the thinking about and administration of Aboriginal affairs in the 1930s, but its meaning was fluid. In many respects Auber Octavius Neville, senior bureaucrat in Western Australia from 1915-1940 and a national figure in Aboriginal affairs during that period, was emblematic of the race thinking of the period. This study looks at the Western Australian Moseley Royal Commission of 1934, the Western Australian Parliamentary debates and legislation of 1929 and 1936, the Canberra Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities in 1937, and Neville's 1947 book, Australia's Coloured Minority - for their exemplification of race thinking. Basic incompatibilities and inconsistencies, as evidenced in Neville's thinking and action across his career, were common in the period. Neville's central administrative desire was to force biological absorption to its ultimate conclusion - the 'Destiny' of Aborigines of the part descent was to be absorbed biologically into the white community. He used scientific support to 'prove' the 'safety' of this strategy. The central premise of Neville's race thinking, however, was that some form of racial essentialism would always negatively impact upon the 'absorption' of Aborigines into white Australia. Other major figures differed with Neville over the suitability of absorption, notably Queensland Chief Protector, J. W. Bleakley, but still believed in some essential 'Aboriginal-ness'. The thesis also traces Neville's attempts to dominate Aboriginal affairs both in the construction of the 'problem' and in proclaiming solutions. Neville was absolutely certain that his solution was the only way forward. This certainty, when added to the inconsistent notions of race that informed his conceptualisation of the 'problem', produced policies and practices of insurmountable internal contradictions that have profoundly affected generations of Aborigines.

This thesis examines how Aboriginality, ‘Asianness’ and whiteness have been imagined from Federation in 1901 to the present. It recovers a rich but hitherto largely neglected history of twentieth century cross-cultural partnerships and alliances between Indigenous and Asian-Australians. Commercial and personal intercourse between these communities has existed in various forms on this continent since the pre-invasion era. These cross-cultural exchanges have often been based on close and long-term shared interests that have stemmed from a common sense of marginalisation from dominant Anglo-Australian society. At other times these cross-cultural relationships have ranged from indifference to hostility, reflecting the fact that migrants of Asian descent remain the beneficiaries of the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. (For complete abstract open document)

France and Australia possess such distinctive national traits that they are not habitually compared in relation to their history, identity and culture. However, their national cinemas reveal that they have much in common. A significant number of recent films from both nations bear the mark of a similar obsessional quest for national identity that is linked to the exploration of a troubled colonial past. This shared preoccupation constitutes the starting point for this thesis, which compares the representation of colonial history in the cinema of France and Australia since 1970. It is of course evident that the two nations have had widely differing experiences of colonisation. Modern France is among the ranks of the major empire builders, and Australia is the product of one of Great Britain's most successful colonies. If neither nation can forget its colonial past, it is also for different reasons: France is the principal destination of migrants from her former colonies, and Australia faces landrights claims from her indigenous populations. If these differences provide the distinct social, political and geographical contexts of French and Australian cinema, they do not, however, impinge upon the stylistic and ideological analysis of their colonial thematics. For the purposes of this thesis, three fundamental criteria determine the inclusion of a film in the corpus: it must have an historical colonial setting; its narrative must focus principally on aspects of the colonisation process; and its director must be a descendant of the former colonisers. Around a dozen films released since 1970 in each country have been identified as matching these criteria and, for the purposes of the thesis, have been called postcolonial films. The content and structures of the films dictate the analytical approach and theories are drawn upon as tools when needed. These theories are widely varied across the disciplines and the theorists include Pierre Sorlin, Edward Saïd and Albert Memmi. The approach to representing colonial issues varies widely, with the majority of the films in the corpus neither appearing to confront openly nor to support the ideology of colonialism. Two exceptions are Coup de torchon (Tavernier, France, 1981) and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Schepisi, Australia, 1978). More typical of the ambivalent treatment of colonialism are the popularly attended films such as Indochine (Wargnier, France, 1991) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir, Australia, 1975). In the first chapter an analysis of the relationship of the films to documented history demonstrates that French films are frequently set during the period between 1910 and 1950, and Australian films during the last half of the nineteenth century. The following chapter examines the relationship of the colonisers to their colonised lands and asks if the exceptional attention paid in all the films to the colonial geography has the effect of assimilating an alien landscape into the Western settlers’ culture and mythology. The following two chapters address the core element of colonial life - in Franz Fanon's terms - its division into two worlds. The first of these chapters examines the interaction between the coloniser and the colonised through individual relationships between the two, and addresses the problem that all of these relationships end in permanent separation. The following chapter explores the interaction between coloniser and colonised as social groups that are divided by notions of race and discusses the general epistemological problem of the representation of the Other. The fifth chapter analyses the symbolic mechanisms being used to structure the films and manipulate the unconscious effect on the viewer. For example, there are a number of films with journeys of some kind, orphan-like characters and characters with strong noble savage qualities. Finally, the sixth chapter compares two of the films to the books from which they are derived. The object of this double comparison is to isolate differences in the films which are better explained by changing colonial politics than by inherent differences between cinema and literature. In the conclusion, it is argued that there appear to be few sustained attempts at confronting and resolving the problematic aspects of colonialism’s legacy. This is especially evident from the predominance of fictitious stories over the depiction of actual documented events. This tendency in both the French and Australian cinemas to contain the representation of the colonial past within a fictional framework has the inevitable consequence of masking history and thus avoiding the necessity of dealing with it. A further notable tendency was the preference for selecting certain periods and avoiding others, hence stripping the colonial past of its most embarrassing aspects. For example, no film could be found which showed the initial phase of the establishment of a colony. Despite the rarity of films released in France and Australia that openly challenge colonialism as a whole, many signs are evident throughout these films that the practices and values defending or justifying colonisation are nevertheless being questioned. / Thesis (Ph.D) -- School of Humanities, 2003