Uniken

Creator
University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit
Call Number
Nf 378.944 UNI
Created/Published
Kensington, N.S.W. : University of New South Wales, [1975]-2015
Issue
1997, no. 5 (11 Apr., 1997)
Images
12
View Catalogue

Contents

Uniken UNSW 1
New project to spark debate on ‘English-speaking social disease’ 1 , 4
New International University Association established 1
Inside 1
New directions in marketing 2
Letters Acknowledging the work of St George 2
Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowships awarded for 1997 2
COFA director’s appointment 2
National inquiry clears the air 3
Food policy for the Olympics: how to make it ‘outbreak’ free 3
Conference aims to make university a better experience 3
Scientists control chaos 3
Linking art and medicine 4
Government and industry attacked over decline in geophysics graduates 4
Profile Trevor follows in his family’s tracks 5
Helping to rebuild war-ravaged Eritrea 5
What’s in store for our economy? 5
Social Work research under the spotlight Program investigates children in care 6
Top marks for a model ARC application 6
Social Work research under the spotlight Healing child sex victims 7
Law students put their case in US for Jessup moot court competition 7
Tony Vinson’s new challenges 7
Diary 12 April – 2 May 8
Cambodian genocide data base on the Internet 9
Forum’s focus on Europe 9
Commissioner’s lecture honours Europe Day 9
UNSW video for German festival 9
ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE ... ARTS UPDATE The body/vessel dialogue, in art and writing 10
One trip to Japan leads to another 10
Unisearch begins HSC coaching 10
COFA’s role in stunning show on the art of deep space 11
Speakers invited to April/May graduations 11
Uni students link up with employers at careers expo 11
Books Record of 40 years of fibre research 12
Help is here for analysing social research 12

Text

Uni ken  

UNSW  

No. 426 (No. of 1997)  

Fortnightly  

11 April 1997  

• Urban air pollution  

under the spotlight  

PAGE  

• Linking medicine  

and art  

PAGE  

• An update on  

the arts  

PAGES 10 11  

New project to spark debate on  

‘English-speaking social disease’  

Stephen Bennetts  

Economic Rationalism in Canberra,  

Cambridge University Press  

bestseller, published by UNSW soci-  

ologist Professor Michael Pusey in 1991,  

was characterised by one reviewer as “the  

most important political intervention  

against the New Right carried out by an  

academic in recent years”.  

Professor Pusey is credited as the first per-  

son to bring the term ‘economic rationalism’  

into common currency in Australia.  

The book charted the rise of economic ra-  

tionalism during the eighties to its position  

as the dominant intellectual philosophy  

within the Canberra political and bureau-  

cratic establishment.  

Professor Pusey is now recognised as per-  

haps the foremost critic in Australia of an  

economic doctrine that has become the  

conventional wisdom on both sides of Aus-  

tralian politics, and indeed perhaps at the  

University of which he is staff member.  

Professor Pusey is well advanced on ma-  

jor new project that promises to arouse as  

much controversy as his earlier study, as  

well as making major contribution to  

public policy debates into the next century.  

The subject of his three year ARC grant is  

the transformation of the Australian middle  

class.  

He claims that the attitudes of Middle Aus-  

tralia have given stability to our institutions  

and our political system throughout the  

post-war period, but that this segment of  

society is now disintegrating under the  

pressures of economic restructuring and  

the upward redistribution of income in  

Australia over the past 20 years.  

The Pusey project, entitled Economic Ra-  

tionalism and citizenship in middle  

Australia, is based on questionnaires and  

interviews in five states with sample of  

400 “middle Australians” from broad 70  

percentage band of middle income earn-  

ers.  

The sample is selected from three different  

segments of Middle Australia: those whose  

incomes have risen steeply over the past 20  

years, those whose incomes have fallen  

steeply over the past 20 years, and those  

whose incomes have remained steady. The  

study aims to determine what effects rising  

or falling income has on people’s economic  

expectations, and their feelings towards  

social and political institutions.  

Professor Pusey sees citizenship as key to  

studying the cultural impact of the rapid  

upward redistribution of income.  

“One point in my research is to check  

whether people understand what economic  

forces are at work do they understand the  

new rules of structural change and alloca-  

tion? Do they know who the new winners  

and losers are, and if so, whom or what do  

they blame?”  

Professor Pusey said Middle Australia is  

still adjusting its expectations downwards,  

“because this is the first economic recovery  

in memory where there have been no flow-  

on benefits to the broad population”.  

There are number of objectively measur-  

able economic changes that are eroding the  

post-war middle class unemployment is  

hitting Middle Australia as middle income  

jobs fall away, the real median price of  

house in Sydney has tripled since 1950,  

and there are other factors such as the inse-  

curity of retirement income, the  

casualisation of jobs, the withdrawal of  

public services and the introduction of  

user pays society.  

Traditionally, public service provision has  

been seen as one of the rights of citizens.  

This study aims to determine whether peo-  

ple still hold to those beliefs, or are they  

melting away in the face of the current scal-  

ing back of the public sector?  

Professor Pusey argues that economists as-  

sume humans are infinitely plastic, and  

have an infinite capacity for adjusting be-  

haviour to markets and prices. But this  

could be wrong and it may well be that  

economic adjustment runs into some rela-  

tively hard limits, such as the need to hold  

families together and to maintain social co-  

hesion.  

Professor Pusey and other commentators  

suggest that the move towards greater in-  

come disparities in Australia is likely to  

have clear implications in the Australian  

political arena.  

“Insecurity is biting hard into Middle  

Australia and generating the kind of social  

resentments epitomised by Pauline  

Hanson’s supporters, or even the rejection  

of the Keating government in the last elec-  

tion. The ethnic lobby has been  

particularly concerned about the Pauline  

Hanson phenomenon, because it is uncom-  

fortably reminiscent of the situation in  

1930 Germany and of some parts of Eu-  

rope today where politicians were able to  

focus resentment caused by genuine social  

and economic hardship onto racial  

scapegoating.  

“It is ironic that middle class resentment is  

being directed at the poorest and most un-  

derprivileged people in our society, since it  

is the large corporations that have been the  

only winners in the past 15 years,” Profes-  

sor Pusey said.  

Professor Pusey has bleak projection for  

the future.  

“The economic rationalist trajectory we  

have taken is towards what has been called  

the 30/30/40 society 30 per cent unem-  

ployed, 30 per cent in insecure part-time or  

casual work and 40 per cent in properly  

paid full-time jobs.”  

Continued on page  

New International University Association established  

Three leading Australian universities,  

UNSW, Melbourne, and Queens-  

land, are founding members of  

new group ng of major international re-  

search-based universities formed to work  

together to enhance their functions, status  

and capabilities.  

Membership of the new association, to be  

called Universitas 21, will be limited to not  

more than 20 institutions.  

The founding members include the three  

universities from Australia, four from the  

UK, three from Canada, one from the  

United States, one from Singapore, and  

one from New Zealand. Universities from  

the United Kingdom are the Universities  

of Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and  

Nottingham. Universities from Canada are  

the Universities of British Columbia and  

Toronto and McGill University. Other  

members are the National University of  

Singapore, the University of Auckland,  

and the University of California at  

Berkeley.  

Invitations to join the founding group will  

also be extended to leading universities in  

the Peoples Republic of China and Hong  

Kong, and the United States of America.  

The new association will assist the capa-  

bilities of its members to become global  

universities and to advance their plans for  

internationalisation. It will provide frame-  

work for exchanging best practices and  

benchmarking of performance of its mem-  

bers in areas including administration and  

teaching.  

... ..  

11 wlll als ° assl development ar-  

rangements for student and staff mobility  

"d establish program of Umversitas 21  

fellowships.  

Umversitas 21 secretariat will be estab-  

hshed, and will be based at the University  

of Melbourne for the first three years until  

2000.  

 

The three Australian vice-chancellors agreed  

that the new association was significant  

step in equipping universities to meet the  

challenges of the 21st century, and in meet-  

ing the imperative for Australia to retain its  

share of world class universities.  

nside  

Letters  

Profile  

Diary  

Books 12  

Professor Pusey ... pictured in part of ‘Middle Australia’ in Kensington.  

Cite

Citation options:
Work identifier

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254124224

APA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. (1975). Uniken Retrieved June 5, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254124224

MLA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit and University of New South Wales, issuing body. Uniken Kensington, N.S.W: University of New South Wales, 1975. Web. 5 June 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254124224>

Harvard/Australian citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. 1975, Uniken University of New South Wales, Kensington, N.S.W viewed 5 June 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254124224

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  | author1=University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit.
  | author2=University of New South Wales, issuing body.
  | title=Uniken.
  | year=1975
  | section=volumes : illustrations ; 30-43 cm.
  | issn=0312-7877
  | issue=1997, no. 5 (11 Apr., 1997)
  | location=Kensington, N.S.W
  | publisher=University of New South Wales
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-254124224
  | id=nla.obj-254124224
  | access-date=5 June 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

Citations are automatically generated and may require some modification to conform to exact standards.

Download

Select the images you want to download, or the whole document.

Available formats
TIF high resolution
Include
All
Current

Or select a range of images:

Selected: 1 - 12 (12 Images)

Order

You can order a copy of this work from Copies Direct.

Copies Direct supplies reproductions of collection material for a fee. This service is offered by the National Library of Australia

Include

Or select a range of images:

1 - 12 (12 Images)

Share

Share on Twitter

Share on Facebook

What can I do with this?

Copyright varies by issue and article

Reason for copyright status
Serials have an open range of dates.

Copyright varies with each issue and article. You may have full rights to copy, or may be able to copy only under some circumstances, for example a portion for research or study. Order a copy where circumstances allow or Contact us for further information.

Copyright status was determined using the following information:

Material type
Literary, dramatic or musical work

Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply.

For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Article
Share Close

Copy and paste one of these options to share this book elsewhere.

NOTE: We've tested EMBED on blogspot.com blogs as well as self-hosted Wordpress blogs. This feature will NOT work on wordpress.com blogs.

About this book Close