The concept of 'moral panics' continues to be used as a framework for analysing the causes, structures and functions of social and political crises. Nonetheless, as an analytical tool, such a framework is limited in its capacity to explain the ongoing and interconnected relationships between drugs and society. Drawing first on an interdiscursive and intertextual framework, the field of analysis is broadened to consider how recent drug panics in Australia depend upon, signify and condense wider social and historical anxieties around drugs and other social problems. However, such an approach also has its limitations given that the play of intertextuality is conditioned by relations of power at the level of what Foucault calls a 'dispositive', a historically contingent configuration that strategically orientates our responses to the problem. Three dispositional drug-related prototypes are considered and how they work together to shape, reinforce and condition the drug problem and our responses to it.

This article questions conceptualisations and attributions that record the emergence of Australia's first national drug campaign as a necessary and inevitable governmental response to an escalating social problem around drug abuse. I argue that the proposal for, and subsequent establishment of, the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) in 1984-85 was contingent upon historically specific discourses and events in the lead up to the 1984 federal election that were not primarily or solely concerned with drug use or 'abuse' (as suggested by the campaign's title), but with perceptions of crime and governmental corruption, and the social and political anxiety these were generating. As such the NCADA was more an expression of political rather than health concerns.

This article examines the controversy around the proposal in the late 1980s and early 1990s to mainstream HIV/AIDS treatment, services, and care in Australia. With the predicted increase in HIV infections, and with improved prophylaxis and antiretroviral therapy (such as AZT) extending the lives of people with HIV/AIDS, mainstreaming was proposed as a strategy that could meet the anticipated increased demand in HIV/AIDS services. Our analysis suggests that mainstreaming was strategically positioned as a necessary intermediary step between specialist and community control, one in which general practitioners and local health workers would serve as conduits through which specialist knowledge and information could be deployed. The strategy also reflected a general shift in thinking and acting on public health that emerged in the late 1980s, a shift that sought, inter alia, to reorientate health services towards fostering the self-managing capacities of HIV/AIDS affected communities.

This article investigates the links between drug law enforcement initiatives designed to reduce the availability of illicit drugs, and the illicit drug problem in Australia. Of particular interest are supply-reduction initiatives designed to locate and eradicate the production of illicit drugs in 'source' countries; the interdiction of drugs at the border; and attempts to disrupt the distribution of drugs at the community or street level. The examples provided illustrate that rather than reducing or deterring the trade in illicit drugs, many supply-reduction initiatives, when 'successful', create conditions that are favourable to the operation and expansion of the trade. This suggests that drug law enforcement is not the 'solution' to the drug problem, but part of the problem. The initiatives and effects outlined will be situated and discussed within the concepts of success and failure, power and resistance, and constitutive dialects.

Despite legal protections, couples in Australian residential aged care facilities experience institutional interference in their intimate and sexual relationships. Panoptic surveillance remains widespread in aged care. Little attention is given to privacy. Some residents' doors are kept open at all times. Couples may be separated or provided with single beds only, unable to push them together. Staff frequently enter without knocking, commonly ignore 'do not disturb signs' and often gossip about residents. This culture has its origins in colonial institutions. Attempts at legislative reform to redress this situation have been met with mixed responses, with the most vociferous opposition coming from religious conservatives. A recurrent source of conflict is the tension between the 'rights' of religious and political institutions versus those of individuals. This article identifies systemic issues faced by partnered aged care residents, their historical origins, and the legislation that is designed to protect residents. Using a thematic analysis methodology, it reviews political debates in the past 40 years, in both federal Parliament and newspapers, and provides a critical analysis of recurrent themes and ideologies underpinning them. It concludes with recommendations for legislation that is consultative and 'person-centred' and recommends proscriptive privacy protections. Adoption of these ideas in future policy reforms has the potential to create more positive outcomes for partnered aged care residents.

A third of Australians living in residential aged care facilities are married or partnered, however, institutional interference in residents' relationships is not uncommon. Practices in some establishments include keeping residents' doors open; staff entering without knocking, ignoring 'do not disturb' signs, and gossiping about residents. Partners are variously accommodated in separate beds, separate rooms or separate wings of a facility. Many are not permitted to enter care together. Such conditions make it challenging for couples to maintain their relationships. To date, insufficient research has focused on supporting older couples’ relationships subsequent to one or both partners being admitted into care. From July 2018, a public policy of consumerdirected residential aged care will take effect, developed in anticipation of the postwar 'baby boom' cohort becoming aged care consumers. This thesis reports on a study that explored the needs of Baby Boomers as aged care consumers, given that they represent almost a quarter of Australia's population. The aims of this study were to identify (1) which aspects of Baby Boomers' intimate relationships they considered essential to their wellbeing; and (2) practical measures that need to be implemented to support those valued relationship elements in residential aged care settings. To address these aims, a predominantly qualitative, three-part mixed methods study was designed. It adopted an interpretivist-constructivist perspective, drawing on grounded theory and phenomenology. The findings indicated that, in practice, a broad policy focus on 'person-centred' aged care did not adequately address the needs of couples as they envisaged them. Instead, this thesis argues that, in the case of partnered residents, what is called for is an industry-wide 'couple-centred' model of aged care. Conclusions drawn were that: (1) ageist attitudes to older adults' intimate and/or sexual relationships are pervasive at every tier of the aged care system; (2) the sector is failing the needs of many older couples; (3) these issues are not unique to Australia; (4) partnered Baby Boomers' needs are unlikely to be met by current aged care policies and practices; and (5) Baby Boomers' are already exploring alternatives to current models of residential aged care. These issues have wide-reaching implications at a societal level, for public institutions, the aged care sector as a whole and Baby Boomers themselves.