The “electoral mandate” serves a useful function as a political weapon in competitive party democracies, notwithstanding the ambiguities, multi‐layered complexities and uncertainty of many of the issues which the concept involves. The diverse uses of “mandate” indicate competing ideas in Australian politics about the responsibilities of parties to pursue commitments made during campaigns and the extent of rights to govern. This article portrays mandate not as a “theory” or “doctrine”, but as a rhetorical device that needs to be examined in the context of “contested word use” in political speech. The renewed interest in the study of rhetoric reflects the usefulness of examining multiple and layered meanings that exist under what ostensibly may appear as “empty rhetoric”, and to understand how rhetoric is used to persuade an audience of the validity of a particular action or viewpoint. While mandate often comes under attack as “meaningless”, it is a useful persuasive tool employed by politicians to consolidate their legitimacy and justify their rights to implement a political agenda and, as such, it contributes to public discourses relating to the nature of political representation.

This ocean-going trading vessel, able to carry 1000 t and a crew of fifteen, was built in Belfast in 1885 and travelled more than 800 000 nautical miles (nearly 1.5 million km) carrying coal and nitrate between Europe and South America.

Although there exists some ambiguity over the precise constitution of Oceania, given the scattering of islands across the Pacific Ocean, it is broadly accepted that the region comprises Australia and the islands to Australia's immediate north, northeast and east contained within the sub-regions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The region is often delineated between Near Oceania and Remote Oceania.

Often viewed as the nightmare of portfolios, Health has been the Achilles heel of the Kennett government. The coalition's handling of the portfolio has taken the shine off its economic achievements and would suggest that this is the one area where it has had a reverse midas touch - little in this portfolio has been done with political finesse.
Upon its election, the coalition set about reforming almost all sectors of government, and health was to be no exception. The government continued the previous Labor administration's program of decentralising health services by introducing a number of radical reform initiatives. The previous departments of Health and Community Welfare Services were merged to form Health and Community Services, with Marie Tehan the senior minister. With the reduction in departments came a reduction in senior staff, and a number of professional bureaucrats were head-hunted to implement the coalition's reform program.

Rural crime has long been overlooked in the field of crime prevention. Sustained academic interrogation is necessary, therefore, to reduce the extensive economic and social costs of rural crime as well as to challenge some of the myths regarding the prevention of rural crime. Rural Crime Prevention: Theory, Tactics and Techniques critically analyses, challenges, considers and assesses a suite of crime prevention initiatives across an array of international contexts. This book recognises the diversity and distinct features of rural places and the ways that these elements impact on rates, experiences and responses. Crucially, Rural Crime Prevention also incorporates non-academic voices which are embedded throughout the book, linking theory and scholarship with practice. Proactive responses to rural offending based on sound evidence can serve to facilitate feelings of safety and security throughout communities, enhance individual wellbeing and alleviate pressure on the overburdened and typically under-resourced formal elements of the criminal justice system. This book provides an opportunity to focus on the prevention of crime in regional, rural and remote parts of the globe. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology and practitioners interested in learning about the best-practice international approaches to rural crime prevention in the twenty-first century.

Asia is both the largest continent geographically and the most populated with over 4.5 billion people (60 per cent of the world's population), dominated by the economies and populations of both China and India. The average rural population of the 48 Asian countries is 38.2 per cent, although this varies enormously: from the city-state of Singapore with no rural population, to Sri Lanka with 81 per cent of residents residing in rural locations. There is, indeed, enormous diversity across the countries which constitute Asia, as well as diversity across regions within a country such as China - socially, economically, politically, religiously, culturally and geographically.

This article presents select findings from 'farm crime' victimisation surveys undertaken in the two most populous Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. We examine the findings in relation to farmer crime victimisation, their willingness to report crime, and their worry about crime, as well as farmer perspectives on policing generally and the policing of farm crime specifically. In both states, there are high levels of victimisation, high levels of worry, low- to mid-levels of confidence in the police, and there remains a gap between experiences of farm crime and reporting. Both states have police tasked specifically with addressing farm crime. The Victoria Police have Farm Crime Liaison Officers that specialise in assisting with farm related crimes, however this is a voluntary role which forms part of an officer's larger workload. By contrast, the New South Wales Police Force Rural Crime Prevention Team is a dedicated team consisting of specialised rural crime investigators and intelligence practitioners focused on proactive and preventative interventions in farm crime. Farmers in both states were surveyed regarding their awareness and engagement with these rural policing teams, and we examined how this may shape victimisation, reporting, worry and the relationships between police and farmers. In New South Wales, awareness and direct contact with rural crime police led to both increased satisfaction with police and crime reporting. Respondents with awareness of this team also express significantly less worry of crime, whilst those with direct contact did not. We conclude the article by discussing and contextualising these findings within rural criminology and considering ways forward for the policing of farm crime.

There exists scant contemporary empirical consideration of the impacts of illegal hunting or shooting, such as damage to environments; harm to animals (native and livestock); risks of self-harm; harms to people and property; or the role of organized criminal elements. There is, though, a large volume of research related to illegal poaching, particularly poaching of endangered fauna in Africa and East Asia which has attracted transnational criminal elements. A differentiation between poaching and illegal hunting needs to be acknowledged: the former addresses notions of theft for profit; the latter often involves non-economic motivations and, in various instances, can be considered a 'folk crime', a form of political dissent, or resistance to conservation measures (see Pohja-Mykrä, 2016).