School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemBlue army: paramilitary policing in Victoria( 1998)This thesis focuses on the changes to law enforcement precipitated by the establishment of counter terrorist squads within State police forces during the late 1970's. It looks at the impact of Victoria's specialist counter terrorist squad, the Special Operations Group (SOG), on policing in Victoria and asks whether the group has led to the development of a more 'military based' approach to policing. The research demonstrates that the SOG has been the harbinger of more military styles of policing involving high levels of confrontation, more lethal weapons and a greater range of weapons and more frequent recourse to deadly force. The establishment of groups like the SOG has also undermined Australia's democratic traditions by blurring the boundaries between the police and military and weakening the safeguards which have in then past prevented military force being used against citizens. The SOG has acted as a vanguard group within Victoria police, anticipating and leading progress towards a range of new military-style tactics and weapons. The SOG, although relatively small in number,, has had a marked influence on the tactics and operations of police throughout the force. The group was never contained to dealing with only terrorist incidents but instead used for a range of more traditional police duties. While terrorism has remained rare in Australia the SOG has nevertheless expanded in size and role. Because the SOG is considered elite and because the SOG are frequently temporarily seconded to other areas of policing, SOG members provide a role for other police and have the opportunity to introduce parliamentary tactics into an extended range of police duties. The parliamentary skills developed by the SOG have been passes on to ordinary police through training programs headed by former SOG officers. In addition, the group has effectively been used as a testing ground for new weapons. The structure of the Victoria Police Protective Security Group and the way public demonstrations and industrial disputes are viewed in police and security circles ensure that parliamentary counter terrorist tactics will be used to stifle dissent and protest. The move towards paramilitary policing is necessarily a move away from the police mandate to protect life, keep the peace and use only minimum force. The interrogation of SOG and SOG tactics into everyday policing has occurred without any public debate or recognition of the important democratic traditions that have ensured that military force is not used against citizens except in the most extreme circumstances. Although the SOG is not formally part of the military it is nevertheless a significant parliamentary force virtually indistinguishable in terms of the weapons and levels of force at its disposal from the military proper.
-
ItemMoral reform organisations in Australian: a political response to the sexual revolution( 1997)The 1960s and 1970s were a period of profound social change in Australia and throughout the Western world. One of the most obvious manifestations of cultural upheaval was the so-called 'sexual revolution', whereby several formerly tabooed behaviours including abortion, homosexual practices and the sale of pornography were publicly debated and progressively legalised. Governments which had previously supported traditional Christian standards of sexual morality suddenly seemed powerless to prevent the changes, and even encouraged some of them by actions such as the liberalisation of divorce and censorship laws. The denominational churches were deeply divided over many of these developments and failed to mount an effective campaign against them. Many conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, were deeply disturbed by the advent of the 'permissive society', and banded together in voluntary organisations independent of ecclesiastical control in an attempt to save what was left of the old 'Christian' social order, to alter public attitudes and to reverse the legal changes which had already occurred. Among the better-known groups are the Australian Festival of Light, the Society to Outlaw Pornography and the Right to Life Association. Guided by outspoken leaders such as Fred Nile and Margaret Tighe, these bodies participate actively in politics and their opinions are frequently sought by the media on a wide range of public issues, from prostitution to in vitro fertilisation. Moral reform organisations of this kind have existed in Britain since the seventeenth century and in America since the early 1800s, but were comparative rarities in Australia until 25 years ago. While they have made little tangible impact on the increasingly secularised culture of this country - owing to their limited resource base and the sheer immensity of their actual target (namely, modernisation) - they are able to exert a degree of leverage in certain political contexts e.g. when parliaments are debating the abortion issue. Also, despite their distaste for major aspects of the modern world, many groups employ the language and technology of modernity in ways designed to enhance their prospects of success.
-
ItemConservative radicals: Australian neoconservatism and its intellectual antecedents( 1989)This study charts the rise of Australian neoconservatism. With reference to a range of influences which coalesced in the journal Quadrant, it is argued that the genesis of a new intellectual conservatism had its origins in the decade of the 1950s, and that it has reached its culmination in the contemporary phenomenon of neoconservatism. Correspondingly, it is contended that recognition of this evolution reveals the longstanding inadequacies of depictions of 'the right' in this country, and the wider implications of this for Australian critique. A preliminary chapter discusses the shortcomings of conceptual approaches to the topic of Australian conservatism, and indicates the ways in which they are challenged by the neoconservative evolution. Part I considers the components of an informal alliance which crystallized in the 1950s, gravitated towards the journal Quadrant, and lay the foundations for a new conservatism. It is argued that despite their disparity, important common ground existed between a Jewish-European component of Australian society, a Catholic component, and a group influenced by Sydney philosopher John Anderson. A focus on founding Quadrant editor James McAuley completes this discussion of neoconservative antecedents, and highlights both the commonality and diversity of sources from which the new conservatism would emerge. Part II traces the evolution of neoconservative critique with reference to some of its central and recurrent themes. It is shown that neoconservative concerns were prefigured in the early Cold War period, and that these have been heightened and amplified in the light of ensuing developments. Such themes include the depiction of a 'new class' within society, and the rise of an 'adversary culture'; both of which were given impetus by developments of the 1960s. Exploration of the continuity and character of this evolving critique also underlines the inadequacy of critical approaches to it. In this way, it is shown that the emergence of Australian neoconservatism simultaneously demands reappraisal of the ways in which Australian intellectual traditions are conceptualized.