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The purpose of this paper is to assess recent strategic sustainability policy, planning and assessment efforts in Victoria, Australia.

An interpretive approach to policy analysis provides the methodological foundation for the analysis. Evidence is drawn from the analysis of policy texts and semi‐structured interviews.

Sustainability attracted considerable policy attention in Victoria during the first decade of the 21st century, with stated ambitions for Victoria to become “the sustainable state” and “world leaders in environmental sustainability”. In pursuing these ambitions, Victoria's efforts centred on hosting a summit, articulating medium‐term directions and priorities, releasing a whole of government framework to advance sustainability, and establishing a Department of Sustainability and Environment, and a Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability. However, the evidence indicates these efforts would have benefited from greater public engagement and input, stronger governance arrangements, and a broader conceptualisation of sustainability.

The evidence presented highlights the implications associated with efforts to promote sustainability through strategic policy and planning processes.

This paper provides an informed, yet policy relevant, analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and possibilities associated with pursuing sustainability at the sub‐national level. It also highlights the ways in which policy objectives can be frustrated by failing to establish the solid foundations necessary for building a robust approach to promoting sustainability. The value of progressing sustainability within a strategic improvement cycle is also highlighted.

Alcohol-related disorder in Australia’s night-time economy has precipitated an expanding regulatory and legislative framework. A key feature is the growth of police-imposed discretionary justice, one example of which are Victoria’s banning provisions. Banning notices are imposed on-the-spot, may be issued pre-emptively, but permit no right of independent appeal. However, there has been little analysis of the enactment, implementation or use of police-imposed banning provisions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper draws upon a detailed examination of the record of parliamentary debate of the banning notice legislation to document how the provisions, and their embedded procedural vulnerabilities, were legitimised. In addition, an analysis of Victoria Police data informs consideration of the ongoing scrutiny of the police power to ban.

The absolute discretion afforded to police officers, and a lack of effective oversight, has created the potential for the disproportionate and discriminatory implementation of Victoria’s banning notice powers. The findings highlight procedural vulnerabilities within the provisions, and concern regarding the particular risk of banning notices for vulnerable recipients.

The nature of Victoria’s banning provisions created the circumstances for their inequitable imposition, but public scrutiny of their use and effect is limited. Omissions and deficiencies in the published data restricts meaningful analysis of how banning works in practice.

The research underpinning this paper was the first detailed examination of the implementation and ongoing scrutiny of Victoria’s banning notice provisions. The findings presented in this paper highlight key procedural vulnerabilities resulting from the passage of the legislation and the absence of effective oversight.

Describes how, in the 1970s and 1980s the issues of formal political accountability and police powers dominated debates about policing. However, as programs designed to “reinvent government” have developed, police, like other public sector agencies, are increasingly subject to the practices of “new managerialism”. One technique used to promote change to the practices of managing the Victorian Police Force was the introduction of the Police Board in 1992. While formally limited from considering operational matters, the research program of the Police Board already indicates the possibilities of significant changes to police work practices. Examines the context within which the Police Board. Provides an outline of the research program of the Police Board. Argues that the Police Board and its research program are suggestive of the need to infuse debates about police practices and police accountability with analysis of managerialism

The purpose for this paper is to share jurisdictional knowledge on local law-making theory and praxis, an area of law not well represented in the literature despite its involvement in day-to-day life.

The paper not only shares knowledge about the local law-making process in Melbourne, Australia, but also explores attitudes to local law-making gathered through semi-structured interviews from a sample of relevant stakeholders.

The paper reports on findings from a study undertaken in Melbourne, Australia. Stakeholder perceptions and attitudes were canvassed regarding local law-making in the areas of land use planning and waste management. Overall, stakeholders were satisfied that Melbourne is a robust jurisdiction offering a fair and transparent local law-making system, but they see scope for more public participation.

The findings suggest that even though the state of Victoria offers a fair and transparent system of local law-making, there is still significant scope for more meaningful involvement from the community, as well as space for more effective enforcement of local laws. The stage is set for greater cross-jurisdictional reciprocal learning about local law-making between cities.

This paper offers meaningful and utilitarian insight for policy and law makers, academics and built environment professionals from relevant stakeholders on the operation and transparency of local law-making.

This paper seeks to provide a timely review of developments to the theory of constraints (TOC) body of knowledge, particularly the TOC thinking processes as reported in the public domain peer‐reviewed literature, and to present an analysis of the nature of the thinking processes (TPs), and their methodological and applicatory evolution.

Research reported in the public domain from 1994 to early 2006, as peer‐reviewed journal articles or as papers published in refereed conference proceedings, was reviewed to summarize key research issues that have been studied and to suggest future research. The literature is categorized along several dimensions and according to several emergent and self‐defined clusters that relate to application area, methodology and epistemology.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the TP literature, identifies specific publication and research gaps as they relate to the defined classification and also provides some future research topics.

The review addresses only the peer‐reviewed literature spanning a limited period from 1994 to the time of the current work in early 2006 – that is the period since the publication of Goldratt's It's Not Luck. In doing so, the review complements the work of others for the period to 2000, extends previous reviews beyond 2000, whilst providing an additional focus on the TPs.

This paper provides useful insights about the development of the TOC body of knowledge, especially as it relates to the development and reported use of the TPs as stand‐alone tools or in tandem with other tools or methods. It provides a valuable summary, for academics and practitioners, of the developing TOC body of knowledge that has been reported in the peer‐reviewed literature.

The development of the TOC body of knowledge has been largely practice‐led, manifested not only in the diverse nature of application areas and in the diverse use of TOC tools, but also in the broader evolution of TOC methodology, methods and tools. Earlier reviews of the literature in this journal preceded many of the developments documented here. This paper will help position the many TOC methods and tools in relation to one another, as well as capturing developments in multi‐methodological usage across several domains.

In Great Britain, at the moment, the freezing of fruits and vegetables is on a small scale, being confined to one or two firms which are freezing vegetables, mainly peas, for hotels and restaurants. A certain amount of fruit is frozen by individual firms for their own use in catering or for further processing. As there are now, however, signs that a trade in frozen fruits and vegetables will be developed in this country, an account of this industry as it has developed in America and of the experimental work that has been carried out on the freezing of English fruits and vegetables seems opportune. In the large American cities practically every kind of fruit and vegetable can be obtained fresh at all times of the year. Nevertheless, the trade in frozen fruits and vegetables is established and expanding. Already 160,000,000 lb. are consumed annually. The fruits which find most favour and freeze best are peaches, raspberries, and strawberries. Raspberries freeze well in the dry form, but peaches and strawberries are best frozen in syrup; the strawberries may be whole or sliced. Among the vegetables, peas, spinach, lima beans, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, string beans, and a mixed pack of peas and carrots are frozen in large quantities.

There has been a global phenomenon in public sector management which advocates a paradigm shift from administrative to managerial values. Governments have been able to put an ideological gloss on managerial strategies to suit local political agendas. The spread of this policy, where public servants have their roles transformed to managers and the public to customers, serves to strengthen demonstration of the diminishing role of government and the increasing reliance on the market. Through our research on managerialism in local government in Victoria, we show that there has been a repackaging of the senior council manager into an idealised private sector version. However, we identify a paradox between the rhetoric of the empowered, entrepreneurial “new public manager” and the reality of intensified government control and scrutiny over municipal activities and conclude that “new public management” in Victorian local government is illusory or, at best, incomplete.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize management practices that have the potential to improve labor productivity in multi-storey building construction projects.

The study adopted two-phase mixed-methods research design and 58 project managers, contract administrators and project coordinators were involved in the survey. During Phase I, qualitative data were collected from 19 experts using interviews and the management practices that could enhance labor productivity in multi-storey building construction projects were identified. In Phase II, quantitative data were collected from 39 contractors involved in the delivery of multi-storey building projects by using questionnaires. The data were analyzed to prioritize the practices identified in Phase I.

Well-defined scope of work, safety and health policy, safety and health plan, hazard analysis, long-lead materials identification, safe work method statement, and toolbox safety meetings are the top seven practices that have the potential to improve labor productivity in multi-storey building projects.

The research identifies the management practices that can be implemented to enhance labor productivity in multi-storey building construction projects in the context of Australia. Being the first study in the Australian context, the findings can be used as benchmark for international comparison.

Although it was ordained in the Beginning, we are told, that mankind should have dominion over the fish of the sea, it is only within comparatively recent times that the ocean has provided man with that very substantial proportion of his food supply now deriving from this source. More and still greater weights of fish are taken from the sea each year, but the food requirements of a hungry world are increasing too, at a rate that is a persistent source of alarm to many, so that any design or device that may decrease wastage and thus expand the quantities of food available, must be given careful thought and consideration. The case for utilising aureomycin or some other antibiotic to reduce fish spoilage has a not unreasonable aspect, but at this year's conference of the Public Health Inspectors' Association, Mr. John D. Syme, who is Chief Port Health Inspector at Grimsby, and should therefore know something about the fishing industry, came out fairly strongly against the idea; he feared it might cause a lowering of standards of hygiene on fishing vessels, and although the duration of voyages could be lengthened, he doubted whether in the long run the condition of the fish on landing would show any improvement. He regarded the step proposed as retrograde and contrary to the generally accepted trend of recent years toward the production of purer food and the elimination of preservatives as far as possible.

The necessity of standards of purity for certain kinds of agricultural produce being now recognised by the new Adulteration Act—4, (1)—no apology is needed for attempting to bring the application of the principle into actual practice. Some few standards have already been generally adopted, and the legalization of limits relating to many of those substances with which the Adulteration Acts deal would undoubtedly be welcomed.