Papers
The Environmental Effects of Mount Lyell Operations on Macquarie Harbour and Strahan
Author: Alexandra de Blas
Date: 1994
Price: $33.00
ISBN: 1 86365 134 9
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Alexandra de Blas's thesis explores possible environmental effects of The Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Limited's operations on Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour and the community of Strahan. This thesis was awarded First Class Honours, and the University of Tasmania's Centre for Environmental Studies planned to publish the thesis as a Working Paper early in 1993. However, the Mount Lyell mining company said that anyone involved in the publication of the report might be subject to legal action.
The University demanded that if Alexandra wished to publish with its financial and legal protection, she needed to sign over the intellectual copyright of the thesis, allowing the University to decide what alterations they would make or whether they would publish at all. This option was unacceptable to her.
By early March 1994 the University of Tasmania had not sought a legal opinion on the work, as a consequence of this Alexandra advised the University that she would publish elsewhere.
In her thesis, Alexandra de Blas concludes that her preliminary work should be followed by "further scientific, social and economic studies" to assess the health of Strahan residents, and the impacts of the mine on the community and the aquaculture and tourism industries in the area. Scientific and community discussion and debate cannot take place unless information circulates freely.
Ethnic Conflict and the Australian Media
Authors: Andrew Jakubowicz & Kalinga Seneviratne
Date: 1996
Price: $5.95
ISBN: 1 9586754 1 4
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The Asia Pacific region is one of rapid social and cultural change, in which political and social institutions have undergone major challenges and transformations in recent years. The media, in particular, have had to define an orientation which comes to terms with key contemporary concerns such as human rights, within historical and political frameworks of inter-group conflict and the desire by governments for security and political stability.
This report reflects the concern of researchers and media practitioners in the region to understand the role the media does play in the relationship between ethnic groups, with the aim of indicating directions in which the media might develop that could enhance intra-communal relations.
Papers from a seminar on the Westpac Letter Affair
Editors: Denise Hare and Wendy Bacon
Date: 1992
Price: $5.95
ISBN: 1 86365 041 5
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During the 1980s many stories about unpleasant consequences of financial deregulation slipped by unnoticed. Despite this general media euphoria, a few journalists did adopt a more critical approach. One of them was Sydney Morning Herald reporter Anne Lampe who persisted with the story of how major Australian banks had mismanaged the selling of foreign exchange loans.
That story was confined to the business pages until two devastatingly revealing letters to the Westpac bank from its own lawyers, Allen Allen & Hemsley, were leaked to Anne Lampe in early 1991. The letters discussed the bank's mismanagement of its foreign loans and provided advice on how it could best avoid repairing the damage it had done to its customers. When the SMH published details of the letters, the Westpac Bank spent thousands of dollars seeking injunctions against a number of publications in jurisdictions in and outside of Australia.
The train of events that followed became known as the Westpac Letters Affair. This story was to challenge the relationship between parliament and the judiciary and the right of the public to be informed not only about banking malpractice but of what occurred in their parliaments.
The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and the Australian Press Council decided to hold a seminar to explore the press and legal issues of judicial and parliamentary suppression of the Westpac Letters.
This publication is an edited record of that seminar which was held 30 October 1991 at the NSW State Library. The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism hopes that this publication will encourage journalists, lawyers and other members of the public to pursue and resolve these issues. At stake is the community's right to be informed of all matters raised in parliaments around the nation and of sensitive commercial matters when they are of public importance.
Politics and Freedom of the Press
Author: Zhang Wei
Date: 1997
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 0 646338048
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This study examines the role of the press in Australia and China. It analyses the development of freedom of the press in the two countries through three themes: history, theory and practice. It pays particular attention to the news coverage of some significant events since 1970 by two leading dailies, The Sydney Morning Herald and the People's Daily.
Zhang Wei worked for many years as a journalist and an editor for the Beijing Review, the most prominent news weekly in China. He won several Chinese national literacy and journalistic awards including the Mass Publishing House Golden Shield Literature Prize in 1985 and the Best Feature Story of the Chinese Youth Daily in 1987. He came to Australia in 1989 and studied at the University of Sydney, where he obtained an MA. In 1993, he was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Research Scholarship and studied at the University of Technology, Sydney, obtaining a Ph.D in journalism. Zhang Wei lives in Sydney and currently is teaching at the School of Asian Studies, the University of Sydney.
Print Media Use of Freedom of Information Laws in Australia
Author: Nigel Waters
Date: 1999
Price: $5.95
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Freedom of Information laws are part of a package of legislation introduced in many countries in the 1970s and 80s with the objective of making governments more accountable. Along with the creation of Ombudsmen and in some cases, rights of review of administrative decisions, FoI laws were designed to redress the imbalance of power between individuals and bureaucracy.
But unlike the other reforms, FoI had a wider and, some would argue, even more important agenda. This was to open up the workings of government so that democratic processes could work better.
In liberal democracies, the media play a crucial role in holding governments to account, and should be natural and prolific users of FoI laws. This report sets out to sample the current use made of FoI by the print media in Australia, assess the barriers and constraints to more effective use, and make suggestions for changes.
