The Good Neighbour explores the Australian government's efforts to support peace in the Pacific Islands from 1980 to 2006. It tells the story of the deployment of Australian diplomatic, military and policing resources at a time when neighbouring governments were under pressure from political violence and civil unrest. The main focus of this volume is Australian peacemaking and peacekeeping in response to the Bougainville Crisis, a secessionist rebellion that began in late 1988 with the sabotage of a major mining operation. Following a signed peace agreement in 2001, the crisis finally ended in December 2005, under the auspices of the United Nations. During this time Australia's involvement shifted from behind-the-scenes peacemaking, to armed peacekeeping intervention, and finally to a longer-term unarmed regional peacekeeping operation. Granted full access to all relevant government files, Bob Breen recounts the Australian story from decisions made in Canberra to the planning and conduct of operations.

A British colony of fifty souls in the Pacific Ocean, Pitcairn Island was settled by the Bounty mutineers and nineteen Polynesians in 1790. In 2004 six Pitcairn men were convicted of numerous offenses against girls and young women, committed over a thirty year period, in what appears to have been a culture of sexual abuse on the island.
This case has raised many questions: what right did the British government have to initiate these prosecutions? Was it fair to prosecute the defendants, given that no laws had been published on the island? Indeed, what, if any, law was there on this island? This collection of essays explores the many important issues raised by the case and by the situation of a small, isolated community of this kind.
It starts by looking at the background to the prosecutions, considering the dilemma that faced the British government when the abuse was uncovered, and discussing the ways in which the judges dealt with the case, as well as exploring the history of the settlement and how colonial law affects it.
This background paves the way for an exploration of the philosophical, jurisprudential and ethical issues raised by the prosecutions: was it legitimate for the UK to intervene, given the absence of any common community between the UK and the Island? Was the positivist 'law on paper' approach adopted by the British government and the courts was appropriate, especially given the lack of promulgation of the laws under which the men were prosecuted? Would alternative responses such as payment of compensation to the female victims and provision of community support have been preferable? And should universal human rights claims justify the prosecutions, overriding any allegations of cultural relativism on the part of the UK?

The last book in a trilogy of explorations on space and time from a preeminent scholar, The Boundless Sea is Gary Y. Okihiro's most innovative yet. Whereas Okihiro's previous books, Island World and Pineapple Culture, sought to deconstruct islands and continents, tropical and temperate zones, this book interrogates the assumed divides between space and time, memoir and history, and the historian and the writing of history. Okihiro uses himself-from Okinawan roots, growing up on a sugar plantation in Hawai'i, researching in Botswana, and teaching in California-to reveal the historian's craft involving diverse methodologies and subject matters. Okihiro's imaginative narrative weaves back and forth through decades and across vast spatial and societal differences, theorized as historical formations, to critique history's conventions. Taking its title from a translation of the author's surname, The Boundless Sea is a deeply personal and reflective volume that challenges how we think about time and space, notions of history.

In January of 1788 the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales and a thousand British men and women encountered the people who will be their new neighbours; the beach nomads of Australia. "These people mixed with ours," wrote a British observer soon after the landfall, "and all hands danced together." What followed would determine relations between the peoples for the next two hundred years. Drawing skilfully on first-hand accounts and historical records, Inga Clendinnen reconstructs the complex dance of curiosity, attraction and mistrust performed by the protagonists of either side. She brings this key chapter in British colonial history brilliantly alive. Then we discover why the dancing stopped . . .

Diese Studie widmet sich der Entwicklung des modernen Sozial- und Interventionsstaates im Australien des 20. Jahrhunderts. Sie zeigt, dass der australische Sozialstaat unterschiedliche historische Einflusse amalgamiert. Die Steuerfinanzierung von Sozialleistungen, das Versicherungsprinzip und die Sozialsteuer konstituieren bis heute das interessante "Mischmodell" Australien. Sozialpolitik in ihrer australischen Definition beschrankte sich nie nur auf staatliche finanzielle Leistungen an die Burger. Die Loehne wurden bis in die jungste Vergangenheit im "Wohlfahrtsstaat des Lohnempfangers" von sogenannten "Schiedsgerichten" und "-kommissionen" festgesetzt. Dazu kam das System der Schutzzoelle, die australische Arbeitsplatze sichern und beim Aufbau einer nationalen Automobilindustrie helfen sollten, die sich am PKW-Modell "Holden" als dem (Status-)Symbol des sozialen Aufstiegs festmachen lasst.

In 1997 Nancy de Vries accepted the Apology from the Parliament of New South Wales on behalf of all the Indigenous children who had been taken from their families and communities throughout the state's history. It was an honour that recognised she had the courage to speak about a life of pain and loneliness. Nancy tells her story in an unusual and challenging collaboration with Dr Gaynor Macdonald (Anthropology) of the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Jane Mears (Social Policy) of the University of Western Sydney and Dr Anna Nettheim (Anthropology) of the University of Sydney.

A good historian, it has been said, is a prophet in reverse. The perceptive historian has the ability to look back at the past, identify issues overlooked by others, all the while stimulating the reader to search for the implications in the present of what has been discovered. Jan Snijders is such a prophet in reverse. He brings his shrewd intuitions and scholarly reflections to the material of this book as no previous writer on Colins leadership in 18351841 has so far been able to achieve. This is a landmark book for historians, but more than that as well. It is the first in-depth scholarly publication on Father Jean-Claude Colin as the French founder of the Marist Missions in the South Pacific. It is an enthralling read for anyone who wonders how French countrymen coped when trying to open a Catholic mission in the New Zealand and in the Polynesian Islands of the 1830s and 1840s. And anyone interested in cross-cultural processes will get a very close look at the culture contacts between French Catholics, Polynesian people and British settlers, all pursuing their own objectives.

This book questions the common understanding of party political behaviour, explaining some of the sharp differences in political behaviour through a focused case study-drawing systematically on primary and archival research-of the Australian Labor Party's political and policy directions during select periods in which it was out of office at the federal level: from 1967-72, 1975-83, and 1996-2001. Why is it that some Oppositions contest elections with an extensive array of detailed policies, many of which contrast with the approach of the government at the time, while others can be widely criticised as 'policy lazy' and opportunistic, seemingly capitulating to the government of the day? Why do some Oppositions lurch to the right, while others veer leftward? Each of these periods was, in its own way, crucial in the party's history, and each raises important questions about Opposition behaviour. The book examines the factors that shaped the overall direction in which the party moved during its time in Opposition, including whether it was oriented towards emphasising programmes traditionally associated with social democrats, such as pensions, unemployment support, and investment in public health, education, infrastructure, and publicly owned enterprises, as well as policies aimed at reducing the exploitation of workers. In each period of Opposition examined, an argument is made as to why Labor moved in a particular direction, and how this period compared to the other periods surveyed. The book rounds off with analysis of the generalisability of the conclusions drawn: how relevant are they for understanding the behaviour of other parties elsewhere in the world? Where are social democratic parties such as the ALP heading? Is Opposition an institution in decline in the Western world?