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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginal) people are overrepresented in Australian prisons, where they experience complex health needs. A model of care was designed to respond to the broad needs of the Aboriginal prisoner population within the nine adult prisons across South Australia. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods and findings of the Model of Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Prisoner Health and Wellbeing for South Australia.

The project used a qualitative mixed-method approach, including a rapid review of relevant literature, stakeholder consultations and key stakeholder workshop. The project was overseen by a Stakeholder Reference Group, which met monthly to ensure that the specific needs of project partners, stakeholders and Aboriginal communities were appropriately incorporated into the planning and management of the project and to facilitate access to relevant information and key informants.

The model of care for Aboriginal prisoner health and wellbeing is designed to be holistic, person-centred and underpinned by the provision of culturally appropriate care. It recognises that Aboriginal prisoners are members of communities both inside and outside of prison. It notes the unique needs of remanded and sentenced prisoners and differing needs by gender.

Supporting the health and wellbeing of Indigenous prison populations can improve health outcomes, community health and reduce recidivism.

Only one other model of care for Aboriginal prisoner health exists in Australia, an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation-initiated in-reach model of care in one prison in one jurisdiction. The South Australian model of care presents principles that are applicable across all jurisdictions and provides a framework that could be adapted to support Indigenous peoples in diverse prison settings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ending of fee-free higher education in Australia for overseas students in the 1980s, and the ways in which the government managed the diplomatic relationships that were affected by this policy shift. The introduction of fee-free higher education in Australia in 1974 was incredibly popular, and the end of the program in the late 1980s created difficulties for individuals, families and diplomatic relationships.

Using a mix of secondary sources and archival documents, this paper has a historiographical element, and an element of analysis.

This research finds that the ending of fee-free education created significant diplomatic issues with a number of Australia’s regional neighbours. It also created issues for individual students and families. The solution to these problems was, in large part, a scholarship scheme called the Equity and Merit Scholarship Scheme (EMSS). The EMSS was designed, in part, to address the issues created by the end of the fee-free program. However, the design of the scholarship scheme also created its own diplomatic issues with a different cohort of nation states.

There is limited scholarly research into the history of international education policy in Australia. This research draws on the work of some scholars of international scholarships, as well as historians of universities and education more broadly. This research adds to a growing body of work in the field of Australian international education history.

This chapter discusses the use of law and legal institutions by the emerging social movement seeking to end Australia’s policy of mandatory detention for refugees and asylum seekers. Through an examination of Australian inquiries and court cases alongside social campaigns, it considers the ability of legal institutional responses to identify the harms, in particular state and institutional responsibility, and the subsequent impact of these legal processes in inhibiting and promoting social and structural change. It shows how social movements are harnessing law and creating new legal and civic spaces in which to contest Australia’s refugee and asylum seeker regime.

Since 1945, there have been significant changes in the pattern of Indian overseas immigration. Australia has become a popular destination for Indians, particularly skilled immigrants, during this time. Until the 1950s, Australia maintained a strict ‘White Australia’ immigration policy, which was eased by a formal agreement to favour immigrants from select European nations, particularly the United Kingdom. The policy’s original aim was to increase the population for defence purposes. Its goal in the 1950s and 1960s was to bring in workers to help with Australia’s industrial development. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Australia began to see the benefits of a multicultural immigration policy, a mostly bipartisan approach that has helped Australia’s economy grow and its society become one of the world’s most progressive. By the early 1990s, the immigration policy had become more flexible, incorporating humanitarian, social, and economic goals. Over the previous two decades, the policy has placed a strong focus on skilled immigration. As a result, Australia now has a genuinely global immigration policy that promotes a culturally diversified and socially united society. In Australia, the pattern of immigration has changed dramatically, and the Indian population is rapidly growing. Even though most of the research on cultural diversity in Australia has centred on unskilled foreign labour, many immigrants hold management positions. On a daily basis, however, several of them face prejudice, discrimination, and racism.

Uncontrollable movement of people across international borders is one of most pressing contemporary challenge encountered by nation-states. Their response to this challenge is often rooted on a reconceptualisation of (in)security from a state-centric to a non-state-centric one. This has been the case with Australia where insecurity from asylum seekers, or what is referred to as the ‘boat people’, dominating the country's discourse on protecting its borders. Such conceptions are rooted on historical anxieties from ‘foreigners’, resulting in exclusionary policies of ‘White Australia’ to recent assertions of exclusive sovereignty over the refugee intake. In this context, while reviewing government documents, reports and other secondary sources, the chapter examines Australia's policy towards asylum seekers domestically as well as at the regional level, while placing them within the broader debate between deterrence and human rights. The chapter is significant as it provides an important case study of the inherent contradictions that come into light in a nation-state's response towards refugees on the one hand and undocumented arrivals, in this case, the ‘boat people’ on the other. This chapter provides analytical support to the primary assertion that while Australia has been an active international player regarding refugee issues, there is bipartisan exclusivity and hard-handedness towards asylum seekers.

In March 2020, the Australian Government restricted the entry of travelers into Australia by closing its international borders in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). While Australian citizens who were resident overseas could return to Australia under certain conditions, the border closures significantly affected their ability to return to Australia and as a consequence had a dramatic impact on their lives and the lives of their families. This chapter explores the effects of the Australian government’s decision to close the national border by presenting the lived experiences of Australian citizens adversely affected by the government’s decision. The research is based on an online survey conducted in late 2021 and early 2022. Based on the findings, this chapter explores notions of Australian citizenship rights and privileges in the context of the pandemic, and the profound impacts the national lockout had on Australians as individuals, family members and on their sense of national identity. A central finding of this research reveals how citizens’ separation from family during the lockout placed considerable stress on the family as a social institution and caused significant impacts on Australians’ physical and mental health.

Most publications on the management of diversity in Western countries pay homage to history by referring back to the way regulatory frameworks developed to promote equal treatment and to oppose discrimination. In work on English speaking countries, particular attention has been given to the struggles waged in the USA for civil rights and for gender equality in the 1960s and their impact on the emergence of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action laws and policies. Generally, these developments are depicted as the antecedents to the emergence of diversity management in the USA. This genealogical orientation is usually designed to establish historical foundations. However, as we see it, this approach to history has promoted an impression of linear evolution. Our general aim in this chapter is to show how an historical perspective can help uncover continuities in regard to equal employment opportunity, affirmative action and diversity management policies and strategies in Australia, particularly in relation to the management of cultural diversity in Australian workplaces. Rather than seeing development in linear terms, our aim is to highlight connections and the implications of such connections. Accordingly, this chapter relates each of these policies/strategies to analogous political and legal developments that emerged concurrently, in particular such initiatives as multiculturalism, anti-discrimination laws and what became known in Australia as ‘productive diversity’ policies.

Various achievements of Australia in the field of applied ethics from the 1980s to 2016 are outlined. The review covers academic scholarship, research and teaching; the ethics of business and actions to build ethics into the structures of enterprises. This follows the 3-fold categorization developed by De George (2012). A brief account of the formation and history of the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics is included, as is a selection of scandals involving Australian organisations. Australia is shown to have made a significant contribution to the academic discipline of applied ethics and to have been aware of its position, distant from the English-speaking West and in the midst of nations of the global south.

British colonization of Australia had lasting consequences for Australia’s legal system. Although designed as a “one law for all system” based on the English common law, the reality was, and is, that there have always been people regulating their lives according to their own distinctive culture and religion. Recognition of de facto legal pluralism, has only recently given rise to instances of de jure legal recognition. The latter necessitated a role for cultural expertise in a range of legal cases. The first considered is how social science expertise was employed in redressing the dispossession of the continent’s first peoples: indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. The landmark case of Mabo No 2 laid the legal ground for native title land ownership which fueled a demand for cultural experts in indigenous traditions, laws, and customs. The second aspect is Australia’s response to recent immigration from non-European nations, including from Muslim countries. Many Muslims continue to regulate their interpersonal relationships exclusively, or partially, by principles of Islamic law and their “homeland” culture. This is particularly evident in family matters and the prism for exploring the nascent role for cultural expertise is through post-divorce parenting orders. The third issue is the extent to which a court can accept an accused’s cultural practice or religious belief as a defense to a criminal act or omission. In all three, who is a “cultural expert” can be contentious. While cultural expertise in indigenous matters is well established, the role for cultural experts in the resolution of family disputes and criminal cases is just emerging.