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The purpose of this paper is to fabricate and characterize the natural fibre (NF) reinforced epoxy composites containing flame retardants (FRs) and microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) in terms of flammability, thermal properties and dynamic mechanical performances.

The FRs used in this study were ammonium polyphosphate and alumina trihydrate.

The results demonstrated that the addition of MCC particles into the flame retardant composite (control) further enhanced the self-extinguishing properties of composites, in particular, the burn length. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that the mass residue improved with every addition of MCC particles at 700 °C. For instance, the residual weight enhanced from 28.4 Wt.% to 33 Wt.% for the control and the composite with 7 Wt.% MCCs, respectively. As obtained from the dynamic mechanical analysis, the glass transition temperature of composites increased upon increasing inclusion of MCC particles. For example, this parameter was 77.1 °C and 86.8 °C for the control and composite loaded with 7 Wt.% MCC, respectively.

Thus, the combination of MCC and FR had been proved to be a promising flame retardant system for NF reinforced epoxy.

This chapter examines changing attitudes towards exhibiting Chinese immigration in New Zealand. Drawing on archival research and qualitative interviews with subject experts and visitors, three museums are discussed: national narratives at the New Zealand Maritime Museum in Auckland and The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington; and regional representations at the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin.

The exhibition analysis shows that multicultural narratives of tangata tiriti immigration including Chinese only became prevalent in the 1990s, when changing attitudes in society at large and progressive immigration legislation influenced strategies of display.

These modernised national narratives propagate a multicultural paradigm. However, exhibiting Chinese immigration history constitutes only a small part of the larger mission of national museums. Accordingly, narratives of Chinese immigration remain superficial, serving celebratory representations of ethnic communities, while racism and discrimination are an important, but not central aspect of these narratives.

At the regional level, Toitū re-invented itself into a social history museum with a more inclusive and reconciliatory agenda, with a redesign in 2013 subsuming Chinese immigration into an intercultural narrative, featuring alongside other minority groups with a focus on cultural contact and exchange.

Nevertheless, all three museums still rely on narratives based on minorities and majorities arranged around a stable hegemony. Consultation and cooperation with Māori also reveal the wish to be presented as first people, set apart from tangata tiriti. That way biculturalism seems to act as a dividing force spatially, but thematically both immigration histories are more and more intertwined.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: first, what contracts, instruments and accounting activities constitute Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy in practice? Second, how are notions of legitimacy and accountability mediated through the network constituted by this policy?

The paper is located in the critical interpretivist approach to accounting research. It is based on an exhaustive documentary analysis. Policy documents, contract documents, records of parliamentary inquiries (Hansard) and legislation were analysed drawing on a network policy perspective.

The paper finds that the Australian Government has sought to escape its accountability obligations by employing a range of approaches. The first of these approaches is the construction of a network involving foreign states, private corporations and non-government organizations. The second is through a watered down accountability regime and refusal to be accountable for the day-to-day life of asylum seekers in offshore processing centres through a play with the meaning of “effective control”. Yet while the policy network seems designed to create accountability gaps, the requirement within the network to remain financially accountable undermines the governments claims not to be responsible for the conditions in the detention camps.

The paper focuses largely on the period starting from when Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister to the death in Papua New Guinea of asylum seeker Reza Barati on 17 February 2014. Earlier periods are beyond the scope of this paper.

The paper will result in the identification of deficiencies inhuman rights accountability for extra-territorialized and privatised immigration detention and may contribute towards the formulation of effective policy recommendations to overcome such deficiencies. The paper also provides empirical data on, and academic understanding of, immigration detention outsourcing and offshoring.

The paper will inform debate regarding treatment of unauthorized maritime arrivals and asylum seekers generally.

The paper provides the first detailed and full understanding of the way Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy is practiced. The paper also provides an empirical analysis of the way national policy and its associated accountability mechanisms emerge in response to the competing legitimacy claims of the international community and national electorate.

Programs in agricultural leadership are continuing to enjoy success in institutions around the country. To this point, there has been a lack of research conducted to (a) identify objectives for these programs, (b) identify courses that should be taught in these programs, (c) identify the need for and objectives of an internship requirement, or (d) determine future placements of program graduates. This study sought the opinions of 15 agricultural leadership experts from across the nation to address these questions. Although the panel came to consensus on these areas it was apparent that the experts in agricultural leadership must continue to work toward national goals and standards for agricultural leadership programs.

This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolution and institutional drivers.

The paper draws on secondary analysis of source materials and the existing literature on social enterprise in Australia. Analysis was verified through consultation with key actors in the social enterprise ecosystem.

With its historical roots in an enterprising non-profit sector and the presence of cooperative and mutual businesses, the practice of social enterprise in Australia is relatively mature. Yet, the language of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship remains marginal and contested. The nature of social enterprise activity in Australia reflects the role of an internally diverse civil society within an economically privileged society and in response to an increasingly residualised welfare state. Australia’s geography and demography have also played determining roles in the function and presence of social enterprise, particularly in rural and remote communities.

The paper contributes to comparative understandings of social enterprise and provides the first detailed account of social enterprise development in Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how international drug policy continues to have a hugely damaging effect on population health, human rights and wellbeing, not only on individuals who consume and/or sell drugs but also on societies as a whole. And to review whether anything has changed after United Nations General Assembly Special Session.

UNGASS had been seen as a real opportunity for scientific evidence to become the driver of future drug policy. This paper looks at any changes that have since taken place that might support such an aspiration.

The authors found the criminalisation and incarceration of people who use drugs, mainly from the most marginalised sections of society, remains the primary response in almost every member state of the UN and there are at least 33 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences. The impact on the health of people who inject drugs (PWIDs) living with HIV is devastating and overdose and AIDS related mortality are the leading causes of death. Hepatitis C infections among PWIDs are increasing at epidemic levels even though this now a curable disease.

Changes in drug policy urgently needed.

This paper is an important review of the health implications of bad drug policy.

The idea of ‘identity politics’ has become quite prominent in news commentary. It has been referred to in explaining the 2016 US Presidential election result, the 2016 Brexit vote and a variety of other events in contemporary social life. The idea emerged under that title in the late twentieth century, and refers to political conflicts where groups unite and act on the basis of some shared identity. While the term initially referred to action by groups seeking to remedy past oppression, ‘identity politics’ may now refer to a wider range of cases where there is contestation based on recognition of some shared identity. Individuals’ identity is central to resurgent modern virtue ethics, but it has been suggested that virtue ethics is less relevant to political conflict than utilitarian views or theories of justice. However, an important distinction can be made between narrative identity, on the one hand, and social identity that emerges from individuals’ self-perceived group membership, on the other hand. It is narrative identity that figures in major accounts of virtue ethics. In many situations, narrative identity is importantly affected by group identity, but it is still only narrative identity that has intrinsic ethical weight. This suggests that virtue ethics has relevance to identity politics just because it urges attention to individuals’ narrative identity rather than to group identity.