National trends in nurse education have changed from the Nightingale system of on-the-job training to a professional preparation in institutions of higher learning. Western Australia was one of the first States in Australia to commence a professional preparation of nurses at an institution of higher education in 1975. Graduates of the program were presented with their Bachelor of Applied Science from the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University of Technology), in March 1979. This thesis seeks to answer the question concerning the genesis of such an event. The focus of the study is primarily to follow the progress of general nurse education in Western Australia and to highlight the accompanying influences that shaped its development. The purpose of this study was to explore, analyse, interpret and describe the history of nurse education in Western Australia from 1962-1975. The study used a pluralistic approach employing a variety of historical methods. The research commenced with broad questions and ideas developed from documents and people. The process of data collection, historical criticism and analysis took place simultaneously. The synthesis was written as a chronological narrative. The material of the study thus 'spoke' for itself by providing answers to questions raised during the investigation. The history of nurse education from 1962 to 1975 revealed visible milestones that represented nurse education reform. Beginning from the antecedents of the study these were the sanctioning of a review of nurse training in 1960 together with the commencement of the Western Australian Nursing Survey and the appointment of the Nurses Registration Board Education Officer. In 1962 the survey was completed. / It exposed the deficits of nurse training which led to the development of a new Hospital Based Diploma curriculum and an Associate Diploma in Nursing in 1966. The establishment of the College of Nursing Australia Western Australian Branch in 1966 paved the way to solve the shortage of tutors to implement the Hospital Based Diploma. The Nurses Act in 1970 enhanced the plans for implementing the Hospital Based Diploma and conferred autonomy to the Nurses Registration Board. In 1973 the first independent school of nursing came into being. The Western Australian School of Nursing carried the hopes of a continuation of hospital nurse training. In 1974, however, the entry of students to the Western Australian Institute of Technology School of Nursing saw a turn of events that led to a degree for nurses in 1975 and a decision for the transfer of all nurse education in Western Australia to the Western Australian Institute of Technology. These milestones did not emerge as an accident of history. There were forces that facilitated and impeded the perceptibility of the reform landmarks. These were crucial in the shaping the history of nurse education in Western Australia from 1962-1975.

This exegesis describes and interprets a body of work produced by the writer from 1991 until 2001. This work includes three State Government reports and a commentary on the Workers Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 1981 (WA) contained in a Loose-leaf service published by Butterworths. In addition four refereed journal articles are included to complement the final report completed in 200l.This work shows the progressive development of a framework to describe the Western Australian compensation system. The first report, completed in 1991, explores the links between the resolution of disputed compensation claims and other elements of the compensation system. The second report, completed in 1999, is concerned with the issue of cost containment within the compensation system and the final report, completed in 2001, combines the insights of the previous two reports with the work of other commentators to develop a broad holistic framework for a compensation system in Western Australia. Underpinning the compilation of the three government reports is the legal analysis contained in the Workers Compensation Western Australia Loose-leaf service. These works, taken together with the four journal articles, evidence a link between theory and practice which provides the framework for a holistic approach to workers compensation in Western Australia.

Male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in Shark Bay, WA, form several levels of alliances. Determining the relationship between paternity, relatedness and alliance membership is crucial in seeking evolutionary adaptive explanations for alliance formation. Previous behavioural data have revealed a social system whose complexity is unparalleled outside humans. Pairs or trios of male dolphins cooperate as stable first-order (1? alliances to sequester and control reproductive females. Two 1?alliances sometimes cooperate as small second-order (2? alliances to attack other 1?alliances or defend against attacks. Some males choose a different strategy by forming large superalliances of approximately fourteen individuals to attack 1?and 2?alliances. Kinship appears to play a role in the structuring of male alliances, but its importance differs with the alliance type. Relatedness analyses showed that on average, males in 1?and 2?alliances are strongly related, while members of the superalliance are not. Further, the strength of the association of partners within the superalliance was not correlated with their genetic relatedness. Thus, within one sex, it appears that there may be more than one simultaneous mode of group formation and its evolution. There was also an association between alliance behaviour and reproductive success as predicted by some theories of group formation. I assigned nine paternities to six out of 107 mature males. Males with alliance partners were significantly more successful in fathering offspring than males without partners. Compared to non-allied males, the chance of obtaining a paternity was significantly higher for members of 1?alliances, and reproductive success was significantly skewed among 1?alliance members. Assessment of kinship and relatedness required a number of technical developments and some preliminary data. I first refined a biopsy system in order to obtain tissue samples from free-ranging dolphins with minimum behavioural effects irrespective of age-group or gender. Then I carried out population genetics analyses, which demonstrated that there was only weak population structure within Shark Bay. Microsatellites showed a weak pattern of isolation by distance, and eight haplotypes of the mitochondrial DNA control region suggested weak female philopatry. The high number of migrants between locations allowed all samples from East Shark Bay to be pooled for subsequent analyses.

Male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in Shark Bay, WA, form several levels of alliances. Determining the relationship between paternity, relatedness and alliance membership is crucial in seeking evolutionary adaptive explanations for alliance formation. Previous behavioural data have revealed a social system whose complexity is unparalleled outside humans. Pairs or trios of male dolphins cooperate as stable first-order (1? alliances to sequester and control reproductive females. Two 1?alliances sometimes cooperate as small second-order (2? alliances to attack other 1?alliances or defend against attacks. Some males choose a different strategy by forming large superalliances of approximately fourteen individuals to attack 1?and 2?alliances. Kinship appears to play a role in the structuring of male alliances, but its importance differs with the alliance type. Relatedness analyses showed that on average, males in 1?and 2?alliances are strongly related, while members of the superalliance are not. Further, the strength of the association of partners within the superalliance was not correlated with their genetic relatedness. Thus, within one sex, it appears that there may be more than one simultaneous mode of group formation and its evolution. There was also an association between alliance behaviour and reproductive success as predicted by some theories of group formation. I assigned nine paternities to six out of 107 mature males. Males with alliance partners were significantly more successful in fathering offspring than males without partners. Compared to non-allied males, the chance of obtaining a paternity was significantly higher for members of 1?alliances, and reproductive success was significantly skewed among 1?alliance members. Assessment of kinship and relatedness required a number of technical developments and some preliminary data. I first refined a biopsy system in order to obtain tissue samples from free-ranging dolphins with minimum behavioural effects irrespective of age-group or gender. Then I carried out population genetics analyses, which demonstrated that there was only weak population structure within Shark Bay. Microsatellites showed a weak pattern of isolation by distance, and eight haplotypes of the mitochondrial DNA control region suggested weak female philopatry. The high number of migrants between locations allowed all samples from East Shark Bay to be pooled for subsequent analyses.

Chapter 1. The hardwood forests of Western Australia -- 2. Sustained yield management and its influence upon timber production -- The influence of technical developments upon sawmilling operations -- Labour organisation and sawmilling practice -- The rationalisation of the production of timber -- Future prospects for Western Australian hardwoods

Adaptation of exotic species to the Australian landscape poses a serious threat to the integrity of natural ecosystems and profitability of current farming systems. Ryegrass, an outcrossing species complex (Lolium spp.) and an intractable weed of cropping systems, was used as a candidate to further investigate adaptation within Mediterranean-type environments. Evolutionary differentiation in naturalised populations and their adaptive potential were examined in common gardens by characterising the genetic variability within and between 80 populations collected across 8 cropping regions, and 30 populations from adjacent paddocks differing in key management inputs. Morphological variability within and between populations was not found to be simply the consequence of variable distribution in the number and frequency of taxonomic species which colonised Australia with European settlement. Most plants were intermediate in appearance between L. rigidum Gaud. and L. multiflorum Lam. Ecotypic differentiation between regions was clearly evident even though the vast majority of variation in life history traits was found within sites (except for flowering time, 18%). Overall, as growing season length decreased flowering time and spikelet number per spike also decreased; conversely, florets per spikelet, flag leaf size, and population uniformity increased. Larger leaves and lower maternal investment per seed may confer an adaptive advantage in more arid, cropping intensive habitats where competition to intercept light is intense and moisture availability during seed fill more uncertain. By contrast smaller, more numerous leaves and a wider diversity in life history traits may confer an adaptive advantage in higher rainfall, grazing intensive habitats where the risk of predation (consumption) of plant parts is greater and a wider range of biotic pressures abound. iv However, in spite of the large amount of variability in morphological traits upon which selection could act, no evidence was found to support the claim that ryegrass would change in response to mechanical seed collection at harvest (chaff-cart use) to circumvent such control. The frequency of a deleterious adaptation to acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase inhibiting herbicides appeared stable in one population after 13 years without herbicide use. Notwithstanding, the frequency of herbicide resistance declined sharply within a 20 m zone adjacent to a susceptible area but this has only limited agronomic benefit. By contrast, the potential to decimate the frequency of resistance by sowing herbicide-susceptible tetraploid ryegrass was identified, and glasshouse results were consistent with the minority cytotype exclusion principle. Possible experimental approaches to field validate this novel concept and key issues to be resolved are discussed.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Murdoch University, 2005. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 122-129.

Both historically and geographically Western Australia has been separated from the rest of the Australian continent. Sixteen hundred miles of desert intervene between the settled south western tip of the continent and the main concentration of Australian population in the southeast. Partly owing to this geographic isolation, the Swan River colony (founded in 1829) passed the first sixty years of its existence with very little intercourse with the more flourishing eastern Australian colonies. It was not until the goldrush of the 1890’s that the eastern Australians began to display an interest in the far west. The presence of large numbers of these "T'othersiders" in the Western Australian goldfields played an important part in securing the colony's entrance into the new Australian Commonwealth which came into existence on January 1, 1901, The old settlers and the leaders of the colony's responsible government were none too eager to accept the terms of federation, maintaining that, under the proposed constitution, the new states would not have sufficient sources of revenue to meet their obligations, but their objections were over-ruled by the unanimous pro-federation sentiment of the diggers. From the first Western Australia's peculiar position — a state with a small population and a large, undeveloped area ... resulted in special financial concessions being granted to her. Such concessions mitigated, but did not completely obliterate, the separatist tendencies of the western state. In 1906 a motion was introduced into the state parliament favouring secession from the federal union but nothing came of it. The War-induced encroachment of the federal government on taxation fields which had formerly been state preserves intensified the irritation felt by state leaders toward the ever-increasing powers of the Commonwealth government. Such sentiments were mirrored in newspaper articles expounding the theory that the federal bond was preventing Western Australia from realizing her full potentialities. The reports of a number of federally-appointed boards in the 1920's indicate that, even during these prosperous years, secessionist sentiments were held by a sizeable portion of the state's inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was not until the depression fell, with a particularly severe impact on primary-producing Western Australia, that secessionism became the dominant factor in the state's politics. The cause of secession was adopted by the state administration, partly from a desire to use it as a means of exacting a more generous financial arrangement from the Commonwealth government. A referendum on the question of secession was held concurrently with the state elections in April, 1933.Although the state's electorate repudiated the parties sponsoring secession they recorded a two-to-one majority in favour of the state seceding from the Australian Commonwealth and becoming a self-governing Dominion. The newly elected Labour government redeemed their election pledge to attempt to give effect to the people's mandate, as expressed in the referendum results, by sending petitions to the British parliament requesting the passage of legislation which would release the state from the Australian Commonwealth. A joint committee of both houses, appointed to investigate the constitutional propriety of receiving the state's petition, reported that such a request could be entertained only if it came from the federal parliament. Following this rebuff from the British parliament the secessionist movement withered and died, leaving behind a better system of deciding on state grants in Australia, and a noteworthy decision defining the relationship of the state and federal governments with the British parliament in the ever evolving British Commonwealth. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This research provides an ethnographic and phenomenological study of how lesbian and gay educators in Western Australia employed adaptive rituals of conformity and nonconformity within their educational culture. This thesis depended on these educators telling their own story and it became a more complex study of their perception of and adaptation to homophobic distancing and repression. Through private interviews and collaboration with the co-participants in the research the study makes sense of the roles lesbian and gay educators enact in the educational culture in Western Australia around the time of Law Reform in 2002. The study is not an historical account but presents data from a specific historical context as a contribution to knowledge of how lesbian and gay educators view themselves and construct themselves in educational settings. The stories of everyday experience of Western Australian lesbian and gay educators present layers of gestured meanings, symbolic processes, cultural codes and contested sexuality and gender ideologies thereby reconstructing the reality of lesbian and gay educators. The research provides a range of embodied narratives and distinctive counter-narratives experienced by this group of educators in Western Australia. The study demonstrates that there are social practices in schooling that assist in the recognition and construction of their own gender identity even though the law in Western Australia at the time of writing, precluded the public promotion of lesbian and gay activities, and by association, silenced what many take to be their preferred mode of public behaviours. More importantly the study maps the extremely subtle processes involved in generating and expressing homophobia resulting in a sense of double invisibility, a constitutive silencing of personhood, which makes even the identification of rituals problematic. The very different stories reveal various interpretive strategies of belonging to the dominant homophobic culture, furthering our understanding of the contemporary identity formation issues of a hitherto invisible and silenced group of educators.

[Truncated abstract] BACKGROUND This thesis explored the relationship between social capital, sense of community and mental health and wellbeing; and factors that may influence these within the environments in which people live. Area variations in health are well documented and are mirrored in emerging evidence of geographic and neighbourhood variations in social capital. Little is known, however, about the specific facets of the impact of local physical environment on social capital; or about the mechanisms by which these are linked with each other, and with health determinants and outcomes. Despite the recent proliferation of social capital literature and growing research interest within the public health realm, its relationship to mental health and protective factors for mental health have also been relatively unexplored. AIMS The overall aim of this thesis was to explore the potential associations between social capital, health and mental health, and neighbourhood environments. In particular, the thesis considered whether the physical attributes and street network design of neighbourhoods are associated with social capital or particular dimensions of the social capital construct. It also examined the relationship between social capital and demographic and residency factors and pet ownership ... CONCLUSION The combined use of qualitative and quantitative research is a distinguishing feature of this study, and the triangulation of these data has a unique contribution to make to the social capital literature. Studies concerned with the measurement of social capital to date have tended to focus on dimensions pertaining to people’s involvement, perceptions and relationship with others and their community. While these constructs provide insight into what comprises social capital, it is clear that each is in turn influenced by a range of other factors. Elucidating what fosters trust and neighbourly interactions in one community and not in another, and by what mechanisms, is one of many research questions unanswered in the published literature to date. The consideration of measures of social capital that relate to the physical environment is therefore of relevance to the growing research and public policy interest in identifying what might build or restore social capital in communities.