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Australia’s states and territories could be powerful players when it comes to tackling some of 2017’s big issues, according to Griffith University expert Dr Tracey Arklay.
Dr Tracey Arklay
Dr Arklay was among a range of academics, public officials and community stakeholders who took part in Sir Samuel Griffith ‘State of the Federation’ series symposium in Melbourne last month.
She said states were responsible for many of the important policy decisions that affect Australians on a day-to-day basis – yet they are hamstrung by limited resources and dependency on the Commonwealth for funding.
“To date it has been the Commonwealth that has largely set the agenda and organised the times for meetings to discuss important ideas,” she said.
“Consider COAG, for example, which is where the Prime Minister and Premiers meet to consider big ideas, problems and attempt to work things out collaboratively.
“It sounds great – but again, the timing of these meetings are reliant

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In an age of growing concern surrounding shortages in the world’s water supplies, a Griffith University researcher is using historical insights to create a more sustainable, forward thinking future.
Civil engineer, Dr Edoardo Bertone is using ‘big data’ tracked from agencies such as Seqwater, the Bureau of Meteorology and Queensland’s Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation, to develop models that will ensure more efficient, cost-effective supply to meet growing demand.
Dr Bertone has undertaken his research within Australia’s Gold Coast, using historical data, in combination with qualitative content, to develop predictive models and decision support systems to grow long term resilience of water resources.
“We are quickly transitioning towards a world where technology enables the collection of an enormous amount of data, but often it is collected without adding real value,” confirmed Dr Bertone.
“Forecasting of weather patterns and pinpointing related effects on dam storage and capacities has led to the development of

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More than 70 leading government, academic, and industry experts tackled one of the country’s biggest problems at the 2017 Australian Social and Affordable Housing Symposium.
Held in Brisbane, participants examined the social, political and economic challenges amid increased calls to ease the burden of ‘housing stress’; particularly for low-income households.

The Australian Council of Social Services estimates more than a million lower income households are paying housing costs exceeding 30 per cent of their income, and more than 100,000 Australians are homeless.
Stefen MacAskill, one of the Griffith University organisers, said the event provided an excellent opportunity to connect those in the industry to discuss ideas, research, and proposed solutions from a variety of angles.

“It was a successful and very informative event on the latest developments in the space,” he said.

“The success of the symposium reaffirms the strength of the ongoing partnership between the Griffith Business School and industry to tackle real world and

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The Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing is hosting Professor Jason Shaw from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on October 10th as he holds a special seminar about his study on a construal-level theory of employment relationships and psychological contract fulfilment.
In his paper, Professor Shaw argues that there is a distinct difference in the way employees evaluate organisations’ employment relationship policies and practices, as the former is seen in more of an abstract level and the latter is seen in more concrete terms.
“In this paper, we make the argument that when people evaluate these things that are at a very abstract or high level they tend to prefer policies which indicate some sort of balance,” Professor Shaw said.
“But when we make the argument using the construal-level theory when people evaluate what the are experiencing they prefer practices or an employment relationship that is imbalanced towards stability or inducement, things that

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