The British scientist Lord Kelvin once asserted that if something can be measured, it can be understood. To the extent that this is true, social scientists who want to understand political corruption or police misconduct would seem to be in big trouble, for some fairly obvious reasons. Corruption and misconduct by their nature usually involve prohibited actions committed by consenting adults in private, the offenders sometimes occupy positions of considerable power, any victim is often as compromised as the offenders or (especially in the case of an organisation) is unaware of being victimised, and whistleblowers historically have got such a raw deal from their departments and from the authorities that only the most heroic have persevered with their claims. No doubt its covert nature and reach into the upper echelons of power are reasons why there is still debate about how much corruption there really was in Queensland prior to the Fitzgerald Inquiry, and why there is continuing controversy about whether the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), set up in late 1989 to continue the work of the Inquiry, has been a success or a failure.

The title of this paper is taken from a testimonial signed by a number of Gundagai residents on the departure for China in 1903 of Mark Loong after sixteen years in the district. That the notion of a person ‘sojourning’ in China is a contradiction of the prevailing ‘sojourner’ concept usually held about early Chinese migrants in Australia is the result the failure of Australian-Chinese research to fully appreciate the significance of family and district links between Australia and China and their impact upon the motivation, organisation and settlement patterns of Chinese people in Australia before the middle of the twentieth century. Without such an appreciation most research into Australian-Chinese history has focused only on those who established families in Australia or who ran successful businesses. This paper will focus on describing some features of these family and districts links with regard to that generation who arrived after the gold rushes of the 1850s to 1870s but before the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, who originated in one south China district, Zhongshan , and who lived primarily in one Australian city, Sydney. These restraints are partly due to reliance on sources such as the administrative files of the Immigration Restriction Act which begin only in 1901, and partly to the fact that this research represents a first step in the investigation of the significance of district of origin and the people of Zhongshan district in Sydney are the first to be investigated.

From their foundation at the turn of the twentieth century, the remoteness from large population centres of Queensland's reserves for Aboriginal and Islander people was a key factor in maintaining them. Activism by the people themselves, reports and commentary by journalists, and research by historians like Charles Rowley, Raymond Evans, Henry Reynolds and Ros Kidd have raised the public's awareness of past and present reserve conditions. Although important in itself, the tide of events may seem to be of only marginal professional concern to students of literature, yet a question worth considering is whether textual analysis can contribute usefully to the reform process. In this essay I demonstrate a form that such a contribution might take, by examining an unofficial canon of texts associated with Palm Island. In some respects a representative place of confinement for Aboriginal and Islander people, Palm Island has been described as ‘the largest and historically most punitive of Queensland's reserves’ (Watson 1993: ix). I explore the texts for the insights they provide into the changing attitudes and understanding of whites and blacks, as the forces of repression and resistance have wrestled for dominance. My aim is to contribute to the conversations among Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that are presently shaping Palm Island's future.

The concept of sustainability is often connected with environmental and socio-economic debates, but it is just as central to cultural developments. Historical studies of music-making within a local context often reveal that any ‘good idea’ needs both initiators and supporters, and also patrons and advocates. For example, the story of chamber music in early Queensland is bound up with contextual factors such as organisational and physical infrastructure and, more importantly, the contributions of leaders whose long-term vision encouraged audiences to participate. While important beginnings appeared during the colonial decades, changing circumstances required new approaches to sustaining chamber music traditions in the post-Federation era.

The Battle of ’Narawai on North Stradbroke Island, and skirmishes that culminated in this event (c. 1827–32) have been sidelined in recent decades, based on the assumption that the event was more likely a massacre, and that sources are too conflicted to build a workable narrative. Here we utilise known and unexamined sources, and the untapped oral tradition and environmental knowledge of Stradbroke Island Aboriginal peoples, to reconstruct both the build-up and phases of the confrontation. We find that our primary sources for this incident ultimately derive from Aboriginal informants; together with current Aboriginal perspectives, these allow a more nuanced and Aboriginal-driven narrative than is normally possible for a frontier wars skirmish. It is argued that the Battle of ’Narawai was not a one-sided massacre but rather a well-planned operation by Aboriginal combatants, orchestrated to provide tactical advantages. We contend that the battle merged tactics of traditional pullen-pullen (inter-tribal tournaments) with strategies more suited to the demands of the frontier wars, and that it was perceived as a victory by Aboriginal Stradbroke Islanders.

The Great Barrier Reef is inscribed on the World Heritage List for its natural values, including an abundance of marine life and extraordinary aesthetic qualities. These and the enormous scale of the Reef make it unique and a place of ‘Outstanding Universal Value’. In the twentieth century, protection of the Great Barrier Reef shifted from limiting mechanical and physical impacts on coral reefs to managing agricultural runoff from adjacent mainland to minimise environmental impacts. By the early twenty-first century, it was apparent that threats to the Great Barrier Reef were no longer a local issue. Global warming, more frequent extreme weather events and increased ocean temperatures have destroyed vast swathes of coral reefs. Conservation scientists have begun trialling radical new methods of reseeding areas of bleached coral and creating more resilient coral species. The future of the Great Barrier Reef may depend on genetically engineered corals, and reefs that are seeded, weeded and cultured. This article asks whether the Great Barrier Reef can remain a natural World Heritage site or whether it might become World Heritage in Danger as its naturalness is questioned.

This article introduces a new strengths-based approach to youth development program practice developed in Queensland, Australia. This approach is encapsulated in a good practice framework, its six principles, their underlying indicators and examples of action. The framework is a wholly new synthesis of academic, youth and practitioner expertise, and demonstrates the complex ecological nature of youth programs and the bi-directional links between the diversity of staff and youth needs, and contributions made within the program environment. I introduce the framework by discussing each of the six principles, which focus on the themes of learning and development; leadership and decision making; an inclusive ethos; community service; partnerships and networking; and ethical promotion. Taken together, the principles presented here embody an innovative, comprehensive and comprehensible framework for volunteer and paid youth practitioners, service providers and youth studies scholars.

So rhapsodised the editorial in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 14 June, 1890. From the nineteenth century the drop in temperature which greeted the traveller's ascent to the elevated tablelands of the Darling Downs was greeted as a sign of a more vitalising and health-giving climate than the sub-tropical humidity of the Brisbane coastal plain. Katie Hume in 1866 felt Toowoomba's air 'cool and English like … after the heat of Brisbane’, while the consumptive Walter Coote argued in 1887 that the Downs possessed ‘a climate as healthful and even invigorating as that of any place in the World’ (Hume 160, Coote 201). The Social-Darwinist connection between the moral character of a people and the temperature of their climate was a frequent theme of nineteenth century culture. The imperial triumphs of European civilisation were often explained by Europe's temperate climate, for the cooler the climate the more ‘civil’ the people are deemed to be (Spurr); and Europe's temperate climate was also an acknowledged cause of the reasoned moral restraint of the civilised colonial settler. Thus the celebration of Toowoomba's ‘European’ climate served to familiarise an alien Australian space as a place which would support European settlement.

Janette Turner Hospital is the author of eight novels, four collections of short stories, a novella published only in French, and a crime thriller under the pseudonym Alex Juniper. Her work has been published in 20 countries, and in 12 languages other than English. She is the recipient of a number of overseas literary awards, and both Griffith University (in 1996) and the University of Queensland (in 2003) have conferred honorary doctorates upon her. In 2003 she won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best Fiction Book for her most recent novel, Due Preparations for the Plague, and the Patrick White Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement.

Patrick Buckridge conducted this interview with Nicholas Zurbrugg on 19 June, 1995. Nicholas taught in the Faculty of Humanities at Griffith University for 17 years. He departed in August to take up a position as Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Simon de Montfort University in the United Kingdom.

Most Australian school children, whether public or private, primary or secondary, had been finely tuned for warfare long before the Great War of 1914–18 had actually begun. School papers and reading books, history, geography and civics lessons, the personal persuasiveness of teachers trained to accept unequivocally “the power for good in teaching patriotism” to captive and captivated young audiences, the “rhythmic harmony” of loyalist singing, marching and versifying, the Imperial pageantry of Empire Day and the militaristic inculcations of highly disciplinary cadet training schemes all combined, in the closed educational environment of the schools, to produce young Australians well primed for unquestioning obedience to the State and martial sacrifice to the Empire. Children at a Sydney primary school were ordered to chant, in 1907, “I give my mind to my country to think for it; I give my heart because I love it; I give my hands to my country to work for it”; — “[and] to fight for it”, all the boy pupils were then expected to intone. Such orchestrated love of country was subordinated, in tum, to love of Britain's Empire — “our peace-bearing, peerless, guardian Empire” as one educator described it - which was presented as not only the largest but the worthiest empire in world history. The “cement of Empire”, it was said, contained such essential ingredients as social conformity, duty and sacrifice, which non-Catholic private schools and state schools applied with a heavily-laden trowel to impressionable young minds both preceding and during World War One.

The general consensus of historians is that Queensland was economically dependent on primary production, and that, compared to the southern states, its manufacturing sector was relatively underdeveloped and unsophisticated. Generally speaking, however, the discipline of economic history has not paid sufficient attention to Queensland history, nor has economic analysis in the general body of Queensland historiography been as rigorous and encompassing as it could be. Some of the main themes on economic development considered in Queensland historiography are the patterns of expansion and dominance of the pastoral industry, the growth in agricultural activity associated with closer settlement schemes, and from after the First World War, the institutionalised responses intended to give primary producers control over marketing their own commodities. This reflects the obvious rural bias that infused the political economy of the period. However, close empirical analysis of the economic processes and sectoral composition of Queensland's industrial base demonstrates that the economic significance of the secondary industry sector has been somewhat understated historiographically. Furthermore, the impact of internal and external political, financial and ideological forces that effectively marginalised early Labor government plans to encourage the development of secondary industries have not been adequately researched. To illustrate the context of this, an examination of the dominant patterns of government sponsored developmental policy needs first to be undertaken.

Since the Australian Labor Party came to power in Queensland in 1989, social attitudes towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) community have undergone significant change. In 1989, the decriminalisation of male-to-male homosexuality was the subject of intense debate, even within the ALP, which ultimately put forward the legislation. Today, policies have evolved considerably, with the Queensland ALP endorsing gay marriage and Anna Bligh, the current Queensland Labor Premier, releasing a YouTube video for the ‘It Gets Better’ campaign to give hope to LGBT youth experiencing harassment and perhaps contemplating suicide. During Labor's time in power, apart from the decriminalisation of male-to-male sexual activity, same-sex relationship laws have been reformed, altruistic surrogacy has been introduced and the presumption of lesbian parenthood has been extended. Some areas of LGBTIQ policy are still being contested, however, with debates surrounding civil unions, an equal age of consent and the existence of the ‘gay panic’ defence continuing. This article considers the progression and limits of these policies and areas of LGBTIQ reform that are still being disputed.

In 1963, Rockhampton was chosen by the Australian Broadcasting Commission to become its first television station in Queensland. ABC Rockhampton TV belonged to a select number of outlets that, in the days before aggregation and extensive networking, gathered and broadcast their own news and local programs to regional viewers. This article details the unearthing and preservation of records vital to this research, and uses these to document the highs and lows of the Rockhampton station. We argue that the history of ABC Rockhampton TV forms a neglected chapter in the ‘getting of regional television’ and the production of local content, and provides an account of the early operations of the organisation from its inception in 1963, an overview of its achievements and an explanation of the reasons for its abrupt demise in the mid-1980s. Additionally, we identify the achievements of particular programs and staff members, and acknowledge the personal tragedies that dogged the station and its community in the closing phase.

This article consolidates the pros and cons of the two common modelling techniques for economic impact analysis: the input–output multiplier and the computable general equilibrium (CGE) technique. The latter is recommended for large event assessment and was used to examine the economic impacts of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. The Games is estimated to have generated approximately A$2.5 billion of gross state product (GSP) to Queensland after netting out the costs incurred. The effect is spread over a period of nine years from pre-Games period of preparation for the Games, through the Games period itself, and then rather significantly in the post-Games period. While benefits accrue to Queensland, the rest of Australia is estimated to lose due to the so-called ‘crowding out effect’.

The thirtieth anniversary of the election of Wayne Goss’s Labor Party to government in Queensland was marked on 2 December 2019. Considered a landmark political event, the 1989 state election saw the once-dominant National Party dispatched from office after thirty-two years of conservative government in this state. The election of an energetic new premier kick-started a period of purposeful public administration reform and public accountability renewal that many have described since as ‘the birth of modern Queensland’. Yet the end of the divisive Bjelke-Petersen era, as Goss’s ascent was characterised, was for some an uneasy time of accelerated transformational change. From these varied perspectives, and through the recorded recollections of public figures and senior administrators of the time, this article looks back at a modern benchmark for ‘historic’ state elections in Queensland.

Peter Carey has said of his 2008 novel, His Illegal Self, that it grew from an image he recalled of a hippie mother and her son wandering along the edge of the Bruce Highway near Caboolture, and an American who arrived in his commune near Yandina who turned out to be a drug dealer wanted by the FBI. In typical Carey fashion, the three central characters in His Illegal Self are in the process of escaping from the narratives that have been imposed upon them, and metamorphosing into different and better selves. His Illegal Self is the first of Carey's books in which he reverses the angle of vision on the cross-cultural comparison of Australia and America that has engaged him throughout his career. This reverse comparison is set some thirty-five years in the past, against a background of the protest movements against the Vietnam War in both countries. Unlike several of his earlier novels, His Illegal Self lacks a pronounced sense of self-conscious storytelling, and this increases the direct emotional impact of the novel, intensifying the reader's empathy with the characters’ emergence from their imposed identities.

When considering the question of reading provision in remote regions, Australian historians have tended to focus on the challenge of distributing books and other reading matter affordably across vast and sparsely populated areas. In the back-blocks of Western Queensland between the wars, however, the problem of distribution had been addressed with some success: by mail orders to metropolitan book retailers, subsidised postal rates, local Schools of Arts libraries, the Workers’ Educational Association and, above all, the efficient operations of the Queensland Bush Book Club, which performed extraordinary feats of remote distribution throughout the interwar period. Isolated booklovers could almost take for granted a steady — if somewhat limited and belated — supply of books to read. Two things they could not take for granted, however, were reliable, disinterested and informed advice about what books to choose (where choice was available) and — even more important — the opportunity to share their reading experiences with others. Walter Murdoch once said, ‘It is a basic fact that when you have read a book you want to talk about it.’ That may overstate the case a little, but there is no doubt that the desire to communicate the pleasures, occasional disappointments and sense of discovery in reading books — no matter how solitary the reading experience itself may have been — was and is very strong and widespread, and that single families or households did not then (and do not now) necessarily provide congenial environments for such ‘book talk’.

According to one newspaper report, Paradise Beach was initially marketed in the US as a ‘very hip, very cool’ Australian serial about three good-looking suburban kids finding romance and adventure in an endless summer. Here, in Australia, Channel 9 did something rather similar:

Literature written for children and adolescents still has not been treated with due seriousness by standard Australian literary histories and companions. This is despite a growing number of critics over the last two decades who have pointed out how much of the genre is ‘good literature’ which can withstand any critical scrutiny. Whatever its conventional literary merits, writing for children and young adults is a major industry and an important cultural practice that requires as much attention as adult literature. Of particular interest is the relationship between children's reading and the reproduction of social attitudes and behaviour.