vurrn

Transforming Carbon Regions in Australia: A Geographical Political Economy

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 19:11:09 GMT

Purchase Details

2024

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9874558-4-0

Paperback: $39.95 (including GST, postage & handling)

eBook download (PDF): $14.95

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9874558-5-7

CHAPTERS

Purchasable Separately ($5.95 ea)

Chapter 1. Introduction: Australia’s Industrial Regions - BUY
Chapter 2. Legacies of History - BUY
Chapter 3. Gladstone: Boomtown - BUY
Chapter 4. Collie: Planning for a Just Transition - BUY
Chapter 5. Whyalla: A Destiny Shaped Elsewhere - BUY
Chapter 6. Portland: State-Supported Development - BUY
Chapter 7. The Latrobe Valley: State Intervention - BUY
Chapter 8. The Upper Hunter: Jobs versus Climate - BUY
Chapter 9. Bell Bay: Industry versus Environment - BUY
Chapter 10. Trajectories and Transitions - BUY

References - VIEW

How vulnerable carbon-intensive regions outside metropolitan Australia might secure a ‘just’ transition is the focus of this book. It questions the potential for such regions to transform into renewable energy hubs capable of providing quality jobs, and assesses the role of the state in promoting a just transition process. The analysis adopts a geographical political economy perspective to explore how the history of development in seven carbon-intensive locations is shaping contemporary strategies, actors, assets, and market conditions.

The book contains case studies of seven of Australia’s most industrially specialised carbon-intensive regional towns: Gladstone, Collie, Whyalla, Portland, the Latrobe Valley, the Upper Hunter Valley, and the Bell Bay area. As the key centres of the nation’s hydrocarbon network, these places face significant change as the economy moves towards zero carbon. Informed by a geographical political economy framework, the case studies contrast the experiences of these places and seek to understand how their trajectories unfold in the context of wider policy changes. The final chapter uses the geographical political economy framework to draw out the commonalities and challenges revealed by the case studies. The book is highly relevant and appropriate to understand the current debate on regions and the challenges they face in changing from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy producers and its impact on their regional economies and jobs.

Testimonials

“This book examines the future of carbon dependent towns and regions in Australia. It focuses on a demanding set of puzzles for us as citizens, as well as policy makers and societies more generally. After setting up a comprehensive and important political framework, the book examines seven carbon-intensive regions with a series of pressing problems in one of the most environmentally challenged continents in the world. It thus has lessons for all of us. We can learn much from the book and it should be read as a whole or chapter by chapter, whichever suits.”

Peter Fairbrother

PROFESSOR

Better Work and Wellbeing Research Group

Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

“Sally Weller brings together a magisterial volume here in terms of assessing the impact of securing a(just) transition for regional and rural communities in Australia. Adopting a case study approach that assess the challenges facing Gladstone, Collie, Whyalla, Portland, the Latrobe Valley, the Upper Hunter, and Bell Bay in Tasmania. Adopting a Geographical Political Economy Approach, Weller makes clear that these communities relied on the state from day one to maintain their viability and that their current lack of agency and resources leaves them vulnerable to the whims of wider global production networks.

The analysis makes clear that market-based approaches will not be sufficient to ensure successful transition and that the state needs to exert a greater influence. As such this is a very timely collection, particularly given the Australian Federal Government’s stated intention to increase efforts in this regard. The book will be particularly suitable for policymakers, academics and others interested in the field and as such I highly recommend it.”

Alex De Ruyter

PROFESSOR

Director, Centre for Brexit Studies

Birmingham City University, UK

Package deal – Three great books for the price of two, plus a free CD!

vurrnpressinc@gmail.com (Matthew Carroll) — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 19:30:10 GMT

Purchase Details

To celebrate the release of the latest VURRN publication, we are pleased to offer three great paperbacks from our back-catalogue, along with a copy of the Right Where We Are CD (details below).

Package price: $59.90 (including GST, postage & handling)

The package deal includes the following three great paperbacks:

The Changing Nature of Australia’s Country Towns, (2013), edited by M. F. Rogers & D. R. Jones

The Sustainability of Australia’s Country Towns: Renewal, Renaissance, Resilience, (2010), edited by J. Martin and T. Budge

Climate Change in Regional Australia: Social Learning and Adaptation, (2009), edited by J. Martin, M. Rogers and C. Winter

Plus a copy of the Right Where We Are: Songs that reflect and celebrate life in rural communities CD.

This represents a saving of almost $30.

Details of the individual items are available on our Publications page.

Sowing the Seeds of Farmer Health

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 03:23:51 GMT

Purchase Details

2014

ISBN: 978-0-9874558-3-3

PDF Available from Farmer Health Website (External)

Paperback currently sold out.

Faced with an increasingly unpredictable climate, fluctuating markets, and geographical and social isolation farming is no life for the faint hearted.

The National Centre for Farmer Health (NCFH) emerged in response to these challenges as a way of improving the health, wellbeing and safety of farmers.

This book contains a series of chapters developed from presentations made at the 2012 NCFH Conference ‘Sowing the Seeds of Farmer Health’. Each of the chapters provides an opportunity to document and distribute the lessons and innovative approaches developed in the field of agricultural health, wellbeing and safety, which offers a sound basis for ongoing research into the future.

Testimonials

“Rural communities face a range of health risks, resulting from a complex blend of local, national and international forces. Local patterns of alcohol and other drug use, geographical isolation and psychological distress impact uniquely on rural health… The brilliance of Sowing the Seeds of Farmer Health is that it not only improves our understanding across different levels of risk factors, but begins to explore the process by which rural Australians make sense of, and respond to, them.”

Professor Anthony Shakeshaft

NATIONAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL RESEARCH CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

“This book is a must read for anyone concerned with the sustainability of Australian farmers: those men and women who provide the nation with food and fibre, often in the most challenging of environmental and economic circumstances. All Australians would do well to reflect on the contributions in this book.”

Dr John Martin, Emeritus Professor

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

Employer Power and Weakness: How local and global factors have shaped Australia’s meat industry and its industrial relations

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:14:25 GMT

Purchase Details

2012

ISBN: 978-0-6465769-9-2

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

Paperback currently sold out.

How have employers in Australia’s meat-processing industry contributed to shaping their industry’s often turbulent industrial relations?

This book explores the choices employers have made and the reasons behind those choices in the context of the national economy, global meat trade and periodic severe booms and busts. The strong regional focus is due to meat-processing facilities spread far and wide often in remote locations. In particular, the book focuses on companies with plants location in regional centres of Portland in Victoria, and Townsville, Rockhampton and Murgon in Queensland.

Testimonials

“This study is well conceived and executed and makes an original and valuable contribution to the historical literature on Australian industrial relations. The narrative weaves together secondary, primary documents and oral sources in a manner that is generally effective and seamless. As such, in the best traditions of industrial relations scholarship, the study demonstrates very clearly the interconnectedness of the ‘macro’ and the ‘micro’; the global and the local; the economic and the industrial.

The study’s particular novelty, though, lies in its very welcome focus on describing and explaining the role of employers and their organisations in the transformation of industrial relations in Australia. The detailed focus on developments in Queensland and Victoria since the 1970s is immensely illuminating of the strategic challenges, twists and turns that characterise employer attempts to reclaim lost ground from the industry union.

In essence, the study is both ‘gap-filling’ and corrective. As the authors note, Australian labour and industrial relations historians have tended to underplay the importance of employer agency in long-term industrial relations change and this study is a welcome addition to the relatively small body of high-quality empirical scholarship that has endeavoured to redress this institutional bias in the Australian literature.”

Professor John Shields

THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Pipes, Ponds and People: Adaptive Water Management in Drylands

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:40:14 GMT

Purchase Details

2012

ISBN: 978-0-9874558-0-2

Paperback: $29.95 (including GST, postage & handling)

ISBN: 978-0-9874558-2-6

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

Water is a scarce resource around the world, but particularly in dryland regions of Australia where droughts and the impact of climate change have dramatically reduced water availability. For communities living in dryland areas, and for global food security, this is a critical issue.

This book contains case studies of innovative applied research for adaptive water management in the dryland regions of Australia. Each of these studies tells a story of an approach to adaptive water management that not only provides solutions to the water scarcity challenges in dryland areas, but also helps build sustainability of regional communities around this issue. As a result, these studies provide examples of how collaborative applied research, innovative tools and creative solutions can play a role in water management in dryland areas for water management practitioners, researchers, and people interested in how sustainable practices can be practically provided in places with water scarcity.

Testimonials

“This book explores and provides insight into the complexity of water decision making when incorporating social, economic and environmental considerations. It gives real life examples of water management conundrums experienced in the Australian landscape, applicable to the rest of the world.”

David Brennan

WIMMERA CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY

“This book is essential reading for anyone who seeks appreciation and understanding of the role of water in dryland regions. It highlights the interlinking of the recreational, environmental, consumptive and physical and mental health values it provides to these communities.”

Paul Atherton

GRAMPIANS WIMMERA MALLEE WATER

The Sustainability of Australia’s Country Towns: Renewal, Renaissance, Resilience

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:45:32 GMT

Purchase Details

2010

ISBN: 9781921915116

Paperback: $29.95 (including GST, postage & handling)

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

This book is based on the third Australian Country Towns conference held in Bendigo late in 2010 and is a timely reminder of the diversity of Australia’s country towns and the unique challenges each faces.

Over seventeen chapters, the book considers the sustainability of these places from a number of perspectives: leadership; decentralisation policy; mobility; lifestyle choices; ageing; housing; agriculture and forestry; retail; youth; health; and finally art and culture.

This eclectic mix of papers reveals the multidimensional nature of sustainability as applied to Australia’s country towns. The book emphasises the important role regional associations and local government play in ensuring the sustainability of our country towns.

Australia’s country towns are at the forefront of environmental, social and economic change. The combination of climate change impacts, demographic change - especially ageing communities and many with their population in decline - in an economic setting dictated by the vagaries of world financial markets places many country towns under siege. Yet in the face of these significant circumstances many small towns have found their voice and together people in these communities have made them liveable and sustainable. Their resilience allows them to do this in spite of the inadequacies of government policy.

Yet the response from governments is wanting, if not heartfelt. Politicians see the problem but are captured by the neo-liberal, managerial culture that pervades their bureaucracies. This way of responding, one which seeks universal prescriptions based on principles of competition, assumes there will be winners and losers. This doesn’t need to be the case. The cases in this book demonstrate this fact.

We argue in this book that the Australian Federation needs to reset its compass in relation to the social contract with our country towns. Local governments are best placed to engage with communities about their future. Central governments would do well to ensure that local governments have the capacity to do this work.

Climate Change in Regional Australia: Social Learning and Adaptation

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:24:04 GMT

Purchase Details

2009

ISBN: 9781876851361

Paperback: $29.95 (including GST, postage & handling)

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

If humanity is to successfully respond to the global issue that is climate change effective local responses will determine our collective future. While governments address the politics inherent in restructuring economic and social relations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ultimately it will be through individual behaviour and community action that we successfully mitigate and adapt to climate change. The social learning approach to community level change is an effective approach for taking action to address climate change impacts.

In this book are case studies of community level approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation covering communities and governance, farming communities, economics and water. The cases are based on research being undertaken across Australian communities and show how a social learning approach can bring about fundamental change with lasting impacts at the local level. There is no one best way to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation. The book concludes that the adaptive response will work only if it is diverse and varied, and it will demand forms of engagement that have not been embraced seriously before. This presents challenges for governments looking for universal approaches to this diabolical policy problem.

The salience of the local approach empowers communities recognising that they are unique and that they can take action to respond. It is essential for their survival that they do so. If ever there is time for governments to decentralise action it is now

Recruitment and Selection of Vice-Chancellors for Australian Universities

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 08:43:13 GMT

Purchase Details

2007

ISBN: 9781876851309

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

Paperback currently sold out.

This book addresses the gap in our understanding of the processes in place to recruit and select vice-chancellors (VCs) for Australian universities. With the growing corporatisation of universities, one would expect that they would be managed and led in ways similar to those in use in the private sector. We know quite a deal about the role and incumbents but not how VCs are appointed. In the process of this inquiry, the book identifies a paradox concerning the fact that many of the successful candidates do not come from a ‘business’ discipline or the business community as might be expected for a role considered to be the Chief Executive Officer of the institution.

Thus this qualitative study thoroughly researches the recruitment and selection practices in use, attempts to determine their effectiveness and addresses the paradox in order to provide a detailed framework that allows these elements to be explained. This monograph presents original and valuable research into a field of study for which no comparable literature exists in Australia or internationally.

Testimonials

“Bernard O’Meara and Stanley Petzall have written a significant and scholarly body of literature addressing the changes in educational leadership in Australia. Although the academic titles differ, the changes in the requirements of leadership for universities parallel and reflect major changes impacting higher education around the world. Today’s academic leadership is driven by strategic planning, budgetary constraints, political influence while creating an environment of intellectual growth and personal development. Part CEO, part politician, part public relations expert and even part-time security analyst, academic leaders must exceed their business counterparts with their breadth of knowledge and professional acumen. O’Meara and Petzall have written a comprehensive study of the future of education not only for Australia but for higher education through out the world.”

Karen M. (Guthrie) Videtic

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, VIRGINIA, USA

“The diversity and complexity of the leadership role of the 21st century vice-chancellor is well captured in this monograph.”

Professor Kerry O. Cox

VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRESIDENT, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY, PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA

The Changing Nature of Australia’s Country Towns

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 08:27:49 GMT

Purchase Details

2006

ISBN: 1876851236

Paperback: $29.95 (including GST, postage & handling)

eBook (PDF download): $9.95

“Country Towns” provides a look at our increasing understanding of the growth, stasis and decline of our country towns. It covers not only changing social and economic trends, but also the art of engagement of communities, new modes of development, water and its local management and planning policies and practices.

This book brings together both international and Australian experts on country towns. The ideas and actions described in this book are those of academics and inhabitants of country towns, often working closely together. They reflect our growing understanding of the realities of non-metropolitan Australia.

Testimonials

“Communities are forever changing. So why do some communities fail, and others prosper? All of the old cliches spring to mind – whether necessity was really the mother of invention, whether Murphy's law that 'if it can get worse it will' really exists – we do know that there is no gain without pain.

The rural communities that prosper have found a way to come together and find their own solutions to their problems – those that fail have not found the necessary social glue to bind them. So here's to the real country, and all of the wonderful rural and remote communities who are determined to hang on, hold out, and continue to be the best place in all of Australia to have a challenging and satisfying life.

This book reflects the many and varied ways in which communities are rising to the challenge.”

Myra Pincott

NATIONAL PRESIDENT, COUNTRY WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION

Right Where We Are: Songs that reflect and celebrate life in rural communities.

Mon, 31 Dec 2001 19:39:10 GMT

Purchase Details

2001

Free with any paperback book order while stocks last.

All songs written by Craig Cristie.

Music arranged and performed by Andrew Patterson.

Recorded at Goldfields Studio, Maryborough.

Recorded by Mark Woods, assited by Jamie DaFonte April 2003.