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Much research has focused on the reasons for child labor. This paper, in examining the experiences of late nineteenth century Australia seeks to ask the alternate research question: “What are the factors that cause managers to desist from the use of child labor during periods of initial industrialization, even where the society is characterized by a youthful demography and low levels of manufacturing productivity?”.

This study measures the incidence of child labor in Queensland, Australia's third largest state, through an examination of the censuses for 1891 and 1901. It then locates the results of this analysis in the nineteenth century Australian peculiar pattern of economic investment.

It is found that industrializing Australia had an extremely low incidence of child labor. This is attributed to the highly capitalized nature of the Australian rural and mining sectors, and the linkages between these sectors and the wider economy. This suggests that counties, or regions, with a highly commercialized primary sector, and with manufacturing establishments with high skill requirements (even if characterized by low productivity), will have a low incidence of child labor.

The most effective policy for reducing the incidence of child labor is to enhance capital investment in the primary sector and enhance the need for workplace skills in the secondary sector.

The International Labor Organisation suggests that there is currently a revival in child labor. This paper suggests that the most effective policies for reducing the incidence of child labor are ones that seek to foster increased levels of capital investment in the primary sector, rather than ones directed towards legal restriction or poverty alleviation.

Tourism is an important part of the Queensland economy, contributing 7.3% to the state’s GDP, and alongside agriculture, resources, and construction, is part of the state’s “four-pillar economy.” Tourism and Events Queensland is the state’s peak tourism organization, a quasi-governmental body with responsibility for destination marketing and management, and more recently, organizing major events including the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This case explores the roles, responsibilities, and governance challenges of Tourism and Events Queensland, providing insights to regional cooperation, destination marketing, and policy and planning.

Union membership has declined in many countries reducing union capacity to bargain and contribute to economic equality. This paper aims to explore a more hopeful case in an Australian state, where the dramatic anti-union strategies of conservative governments have been reversed by Labor governments.

The research frames union recognition and union security in an international context, highlighting differences between US, Canadian, UK and Australian approaches. The research focuses on the Australian state of Queensland, providing an historical account of changes to union recognition and union preference provisions, drawing on legislation, major public service agreements, newspapers and parliamentary transcripts.

Conservative governments in Australia have implemented anti-union strategies, and Labor governments have often failed to restore union-friendly provisions when re-elected. In contrast, the Queensland study demonstrates a substantial restoration of union security provisions when Labor governments are re-elected, rebuilding political capital with unions and potentially supporting union membership. This difference is due to unique political and institutional factors that provide governments with unfettered powers to legislate their industrial relations agenda, whether in support or otherwise of unions, and has led to the more distinctive pendulum swings to the right and left than occurred elsewhere in Australia.

The research contributes to debates about the factors related to declining union membership and highlights a case where unions have achieved restoration of many provisions that increase their influence and potentially their membership.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the asset management policies and practices of six Australian states – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania – to improve understanding of the policy context to best shape policy focus and guidelines. Australian state-wide asset management policies and guidelines are an emergent policy domain, generating a substantial body of knowledge. However, these documents are spread across the layers of government and are therefore largely fragmented and lack coherency.

The comparative study is based on the thematic mapping technique using the Leximancer software.

Asset management policies and guidelines of New South Wales and Victoria have more interconnected themes as compared to other states in Australia. Moreover, based on the findings, New South Wales has covered most of the key concepts in relation to asset management; the remaining five states are yet to develop a comprehensive and integrated approach to asset management policies and guidelines.

This review and its findings have provided a number of directions on which government policies can now be better constructed and assessed. In doing so, the paper contributes to a coherent way forward to satisfy national emergent and ongoing asset management challenges. This paper outlines a rigorous analytical methodology to inform specific policy changes.

This paper provides a basis for further research focused on analyzing the context and processes of asset management guidelines and policies.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, although there are some unique features associated with mental illness, such special features do not preclude economic analysis.

As a mechanism for understanding how individual economic studies fit into the mental health sector, a conceptual framework of the components of mental health service provision is outlined. Emphasis is placed on, not simply institutional and market resources, but also on the services provided by relatives, self‐help groups, etc.

Australian data on parts of the mental health sector are employed to illustrate that some (and different) economic analyses can be undertaken in mental health. First, time‐series data on public psychiatric hospitals are employed to demonstrate trends associated with deinstitutionalisation. Other data (for Queensland alone) indicate that there are state‐based differences in the provision of such services. Second, attention is then directed to the analysis of time‐series data on private fee‐for‐service psychiatric services. Various concepts and measures from industrial economics are applied to analyse the relative size of this service industry, the pricing behaviour of the profession, the service‐mix of “the psychiatry firms” operating in Australia. In addition, the analysis also sheds some light on the distributional implications of Australia's national (and uniform) system of health funding, Medicare.

Apart from demonstrating that economic analyses can be undertaken in the difficult area of mental health, this paper indicates a number of puzzles (e.g. various regional variations within a unified profession and a uniform national funding scheme) that invite further investigation.

Over the past decade, the Queensland wine industry has experienced a greater percentage growth than the Australian national average. The aim of the research undertaken for this article is to identify specific national and international strategies that have allowed the industry to achieve this level of growth.

The study involved a quantitative survey of all Queensland wineries at the time (n=101), using a five‐point Likert‐scaled questionnaire with questions developed from the literature, together with a small‐scale qualitative survey involving in‐depth interviews of winery managers and industry leaders.

The findings indicated that key strategies in the domestic sector included a focus on cellar door sales combined with establishing links with the tourism industry, together with an incremental expansion of domestic markets. For the international sector, additional strategies included targeting familiar, psychically‐close and niche markets in the initial stages of exporting, as well as taking advantage of firm‐specific strengths and managerial competencies.

Not previously regarded as a major wine producing region of Australia, the Queensland wine industry has received limited attention in the literature, particularly the reasons for its rapid growth in recent years. The article helps to identify the strategies used by wineries in growing the industry.

Sustainability Declarations were introduced by the Queensland State Government on 1 January 2010 as a mandatory disclosure measure for all dwelling sales in the State. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact this policy decision has had in the homebuyer decision‐making process in the first year since its introduction and to consider the effectiveness of the legislation in meeting its policy objectives.

This quantitative research comprised a two‐part process: the first stage surveyed the level of compliance by the real estate industry with the legislative requirements. Stage two comprised an online survey of Real Estate Institute of Queensland members to determine what impact the Sustainability Declaration has had on home buyer decision making and how effective the legislative mechanisms have been in achieving the policy objectives.

This paper assesses the initial impact of this initiative over its first year in operation. These preliminary findings indicate a high level of compliance from the real estate industry, however results confirm that sustainability is yet to become a criterion of relevance to the majority of homebuyers in Queensland.

These quantitative findings support anecdotal evidence that the objectives of the legislation to increase homebuyer awareness and relevance of sustainability issues in the home are not being achieved.

Sustainability Declarations are a first step in raising homebuyer awareness of the importance of sustainability in housing. Further monitoring of this impact will be carried out over time.

This is the first research undertaken to assess the impact of this new mandatory disclosure legislation in Queensland, Australia. The findings will inform policy makers and assist them to assess the effectiveness of the current legislation in achieving its policy objectives.

Whilst overt bullying has received considerable attention for its negative impact on the emotional well-being of children and adolescents, peer problems such as excessive teasing and social exclusion have received less consideration. The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence, demographic, and clinical correlates of frequent peer problems in children and adolescents who participated in the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being.

Participants were a nationally representative sample of 2,107 children (aged 6-12 years), and 1,490 adolescents (aged 13-17 years). Frequent peer problems (excessive teasing or social exclusion) were measured by parental report for children, and self and parental report for adolescents. Associations with a number of mental health problems were examined, including being in the clinical range for internalising and externalising symptoms, having major depressive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or conduct disorder, low self-esteem, experiencing suicidal ideation and behaviour, or using marijuana and alcohol.

One in 30 children and one in 20 adolescents experienced frequent peer problems. Parents less commonly identified frequent peer problems than were self-reported by their adolescent children. Frequent peer problems were strongly associated with all mental health problems except alcohol and marijuana use.

Frequent peer problems are associated with a greatly increased risk of mental health problems. Identifying those children and adolescents with frequent peer problems provides opportunity for assessment and intervention of emotional and behavioural problems.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and impact of a Queensland Research Support Network (RSN) in emergency medicine (EM).

This paper presents a descriptive summary of EM networks, network evaluations and the structure and development of the Emergency Medicine Foundation’s (EMF) RSN in Queensland, including an observational pre- and post-study of research metrics.

In two years, the RSN supported 33 Queensland emergency departments (EDs), of which 14 developed research strategies. There was an increase in research active clinicians, from 23 in 2015 to 181 in 2017. Collaborator engagement increased from 9 in 2015 to 276 in 2017 as did the number of research presentations, from 6 in 2015 to 61 in 2017. EMF experienced a growth in new researchers, with new investigators submitting approximately 60 per cent of grant applications in 2016 and 2017. EMF also received new applications from a further three HHS (taking EMF-funded research activity from 8 to 11 HHS).

This paper describes changes in KPIs and research metrics, which the authors attribute to the establishment of the RSN. However, it is possible that attribution bias plays a role in the KPI improvements.

This network has actively boosted and expanded EM research capacity and capability in Queensland. It provides services, in the form of on-the-ground managers, to develop novice clinician-researchers, new projects and engage entire EDs. This model may be replicated nationwide but requires funding commitment.

The RSN improves front-line clinician research capacity and capability and increases research activity and collaborations with clear community outcomes. Collaborations were extended to community, primary health networks, non-government organisations, national and international researchers and academic institutions. Evaluating and measuring a network’s benefits are difficult, but it is likely that evaluations will help networks obtain funding.