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Remote communities often face a range of problems related to distance, service provision, high costs, and economic uncertainty. Many of these problems are structural and a direct result of their location on a periphery. In recent decades many remote settlements have looked to the tourism sector to supplement existing local economies. Numerous tools variously described in the literature as theories, models, and frameworks have been suggested as approaches for assisting local economies develop tourism. In searching for solutions, it is not unusual for researchers to advocate a standalone theory, model, or framework as a preferred approach. However, this method ignores the complexity of the real world and that solutions usually require a multidimensional approach based on combining various theoretical tools. This paper proposes an open architecture approach that utilizes a number of theories and models that can be selectively and collectively used to assist remote settlements develop a tourism sector. This approach was tested in Cooktown, Australia. One outcome was the identification of a range of deficiencies in the strategies currently used by the destination.

Australia notably was one of the few developed nations to avoid a technical recession subsequent to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). However, the fact that the nation escaped a technical recession doesn’t mean that citizens and local governments were not subject to some of the measures associated with post-GFC austerity. In particular, intergovernmental grants – an important source of revenue for Australian local governments – were frozen by the federal government seeking to mitigate large deficits over the forward estimates. This chapter compares and contrasts the budgetary outcomes for the local governments of Australia’s two most populous states – New South Wales and Victoria. We find that the disparate regulatory controls in the two municipal jurisdictions were strongly associated with the budgetary outcomes of the individual municipalities: In particular, we present evidence which suggests that taxation limitations and lax investment guidelines in New South Wales can be associated with relatively inferior budgetary positions and higher budgetary volatility. By way of contrast, Victorian councils had the flexibility to vary rates of taxation to the changing conditions and largely avoided investment losses associated with the financial failure of Lehman Brothers. In New South Wales the regulatory response to deteriorating municipal budgets (subsequent to the GFC) has been to execute a radical programme of forced amalgamations. Somewhat ironically, the Victorian state government has recently imposed taxation limitations on its municipalities. In summary, this chapter demonstrates the saliency of regulatory constraints on municipal resilience, in the context of post-GFC economic challenges.

A case study methodology was applied as a major component of a mixed-methods approach to the evaluation of a mobile dementia education and support service in the Bega Valley Shire, New South Wales, Australia. In-depth interviews with people with dementia (PWD), their carers, programme staff, family members and service providers and document analysis including analysis of client case notes and client database were used.

The strengths of the case study approach included: (i) simultaneous evaluation of programme process and worth, (ii) eliciting the theory of change and addressing the problem of attribution, (iii) demonstrating the impact of the programme on earlier steps identified along the causal pathway (iv) understanding the complexity of confounding factors, (v) eliciting the critical role of the social, cultural and political context, (vi) understanding the importance of influences contributing to differences in programme impact for different participants and (vii) providing insight into how programme participants experience the value of the programme including unintended benefits.

The broader case of the collective experience of dementia and as part of this experience, the impact of a mobile programme of support and education, in a predominately rural area grew from the investigation of the programme experience of ‘individual cases’ of carers and PWD. Investigation of living conditions, relationships, service interactions through observation and increased depth of interviews with service providers and family members would have provided valuable perspectives and thicker description of the case for increased understanding of the case and strength of the evaluation.

The increasing prominence of environmental sustainability as an objective of transport policy, and in people's thinking about their travel-related decisions, brings new challenges for data collection because, uniquely in the transport sector, it brings three issues to the fore: firstly, the difficulties associated with gathering data and opinions on a topic which is socially and morally charged; secondly, the fact that the resulting adjustments to behaviour may be in dimensions (such as choice of vehicle characteristics and mode choice for infrequent trips) which are not traditionally covered very fully in travel surveys; and thirdly, the likelihood that any change in behaviour may emerge only slowly over an extended period of time (as and when the opportunity arises for the individuals' behaviour to be adjusted to fit their aspirations).

It is argued that, because the topic is socially charged, data on sustainable travel behaviour is particularly prone to social desirability bias and other related biases. The nature and implications of these biases are addressed and it is concluded that individuals will tend to exaggerate the likelihood of behavioural change in response to sustainability concerns and policy initiatives. Methods, which might be used to study the emergence of sustainable patterns of behaviour in general, and responses to sustainability orientated policy initiatives in particular, are discussed and attention is given to ways of minimising bias in the data.

Modern emergency management policy is built around the concepts of shared responsibility and the development of resilient communities. Drawing on the Australian context, this chapter argues that giving effect to these policy directions will require negotiation between stakeholders and an inevitable trade in values, interests, and resources. The chapter identifies an apparent contradiction at the heart of modern disaster management: that improvements in establishing professional emergency and risk management services may have reduced the capacity of individuals and local communities to take responsibility for disaster preparation and response.

While feminist scholars have highlighted the fact that citizenship should not simply be equated with political representation, they have also emphasized the importance of equity of participation for women in the formal sphere of politics (e.g., Lister, 2003; Staeheli & Kofman, 2004). Thus, the focus of this chapter is on women's representation in mainstream politics and more particularly, within the political arena of local governments in rural and regional areas. The aim of the chapter is to use a feminist theoretical lens to examine gender and representation in rural local governments in Australia. To do so, I draw on data from nineteen interviews with women elected mayors in the Australian state of Queensland. While women continue to be seriously under-represented in the local government sector in rural areas in Australia (see Table 1), women's presence has increased dramatically in the arena of local government in recent years (Sawer, 2001; Pini, Brown, & Ryan, 2004). Nineteen represented a record number of women mayors in the state of Queensland in 2002. Furthermore, all of these women represented constituencies outside the state's capital city of Brisbane. In fact, ten were located in very sparsely populated shires in the western areas of the state (populations ranging from 400 to 7,000 people), two in areas with populations of approximately 15,000, and the remainder in regional towns with populations ranging from 40,000 to 120,000.

The roles of ‘conventional’ (fixed-route and fixed-timetable) bus services is examined and compared to demand-responsive services, taking rural areas in England as the basis for comparison. It adopts a ‘rural’ definition of settlements under a population of 10,000.

Evidence from the National Travel Survey, technical press reports and academic work is brought together to examine the overall picture.

Inter-urban services between towns can provide a cost-effective way of serving rural areas where smaller settlements are suitably located. The cost structures of both fixed-route and demand-responsive services indicate that staff time and cost associated with vehicle provision are the main elements. Demand-responsive services may enable larger areas to be covered, to meet planning objectives of ensuring a minimum of level of service, but experience often shows high unit cost and public expenditure per passenger trip. Economic evaluation indicates user benefits per passenger trip of similar magnitude to existing average public expenditure per trip on fixed-route services. Considerable scope exists for improvements to conventional services through better marketing and service reliability.

The main issue in England is the level of funding for rural services in general, and the importance attached to serving those without access to cars in such areas.

The boundary between fixed-route and demand-responsive operation may lie at relatively low population densities.

The chapter uses statistical data, academic research and operator experience of enhanced conventional bus services to provide a synthesis of outcomes in rural areas.

On one level, motor vehicles might represent the possibility of unfettered freedom, escape (from government authority) and autonomy through providing work and leisure opportunities. On another level, in remote places, ‘hybridised’ and ‘Indigenised’ vehicles have been appropriated to speak to economic and cultural realities of everyday life. This chapter considers how night patrols may articulate expressions of decoloniality by enhancing Aboriginal social capital or what we refer to here as ‘collective efficacy’. It draws upon a subset of the findings from an evaluation of Indigenous Youth Programs in New South Wales to examine the effectiveness of night patrols operating in nine communities across the state. While the patrols were universally endorsed by the communities they served, some services were functioning at a high level while others had experienced periods of dysfunction and inactivity. The factors that impede effective service provision for night patrols in some communities were compared with other communities where services were functioning well. The chapter argues that night patrols can build and harness collective efficacy providing more than mere community policing functions.

Although many employers continue to adopt various forms of worker participation or employee involvement, expected positive gains often fail to materialize. One explanation for the weak or altogether missing performance effects is that researchers rely on frameworks that focus almost exclusively on contingencies related to the workers themselves or to the set of tasks subject to participatory processes. This study is premised on the notion that a broader examination of the employment relationship within which a worker participation program is embedded reveals a wider array of factors impinging upon its success. I integrate labor relations theory into existing insights from the strategic human resource management literature to advance an alternative framework that additionally accounts for structures and processes above the workplace level – namely, the (potentially implicit) contract linking employees to the organization and the business strategies enacted by the latter. The resulting propositions suggest that the performance-enhancing impact of worker participation hinges on the presence of participatory or participation-supporting structures at all three levels of the employment relationship. I conclude with implications for participation research.