One of the main points that concern the 1975 annexation of East Timor by Indonesia is the right of self-determination of the people of East Timor. The ASEAN countries and some developed nations have accorded de facto recognition to the annexation of East Timor. In 1979 Australia, for its political, economic and strategic reasons, accorded de jure recognition to the situation where East Timor was incorporated into the territory of Indonesia. Moreover, for the purpose of exploring and exploiting the resources of oil and gas within the continental shelf of East Timor, Australia concluded a treaty of co-operation with Indonesia in 1989 and actually engaged in exploiting them. It appears that Australia's idea of self-determination was conspicuously restrictive. Australia did not regard the guarantee of democratic procedure for self-determination (including the opportunities to opt for `independence' or for 'free association') as indispensable. Australia considered that `internal autonomy' within the sovereignty of Indonesia was also an important right of self-determination; and that the question of East Timor rather fell within the realm of the human rights questions. As to whether those acts taken by Australia were compatible with the rights of peoples to self-determination under international law the Portuguese and the Australian Governments argued in the International Court of Justice (the 1995 judgment of the East Timor case). In this essay I would like to discuss the limits of Australia's policy towards East Timor and the realities of the right of self-determination.

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The purpose of this paper is to discuss how social and cultural environments have made impacts upon Australian football and the Australian Football League, Australian football (or "Aussie Rules") is a very popular spectator sport in Australia while the Austlralian Football League (AFL) is responsible for governing the sport. Hawthorn Football Club will be the focus of this paper since it enjoyed a lot of scuccess from the late 1970's to the early 1990's, but particularly during the 1980's.Hawthorn FC, which had been the least successful club in AFL since it joined the league in 1925, improved its on-field performance since the late fifties. The club has advanced to the finals regularly since the late seventies. It is said that eighties were the years of Hawthorn. Hawthorn's success in the AFL is reviewed at different levels, that is, from the game style, from players' performance, fan support, mass media coverage, corporate sponsorship, league office, and club management. It becomes clear that there happened enormous changes in the sport and Australian society during the period. These changes favored Hawthorn FC, while they did not for most other clubs in Melbourne. Even though it is true that those affiliated with the club, such as players, coaches, management and club members contributed to the club's success in some way, the club much owed its success to social and cultural changes during this period.

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The ways in which white artists have depicted Aboriginal people in their work since the beginning of the white settlement are closely related to the transforming relationship between Aborigines and white settlers. The emergence of Aboriginal themes in the mainstream of Australian painting in the 1950s is a continuation of this phenomenon. Aboriginal presence provided an unique national subject matter for early Australian artists at the beginning of colonial settlement. During the nineteenth-century, as white colonization progressed, however, Aboriginal themes and images gradually vanished from mainstream Australian painting. During the first half of the twentieth-century, Aboriginal presence appeared in the work of artists such as Margaret Preston who derived inspiration from designs and colours of traditional Aboriginal artefacts in an attempt to develop a national style, or social realist artists who depicted the condition of the wretched urban Aboriginal dwellers. By the late 1950s, Aboriginal presence as a subject matter had become visible in mainstream Australian painting. The most notable example was, Arthur Boyd's series, Love, Marriage, and Death of a Half-caste, which presented Chagallian dream-like imagery of the marginalized Aboriginal life in outback townships, This series was exhibited in Melbourne in 1958. Russell Drysdale produced a number of paintings featuring Aboriginal people in the outback landscape following his trip to northern Australia. The themes that underlie Arthur Boyd's series are the artist's moralist reflection upon human issues and his pursuit of Australian subject. In case of Russell Drysdale's landscapes with Aboriginal figures, the underlying theme is the artist's admiration of the integrity of the environment and the humans. In the discussion on Aboriginal presence in Australian painting in the 1950s, the Aboriginal watercolourist Albert Namatjira and his landscapes painted in the region around Hermannsburg mission play problematic roles. Namatjira's work has been given little importance in the context of the history of Australian 'high art' but rather attributed legendary values as a historical curiosity. Recently, over three decades after his death, Namatjira and his work are perceived somewhat differently from his life time. Namatjira's achievement has had important influence on Aboriginal art movement which emerged in the early 1970s. In the eyes of white artists, the Aborigines were inspirations and passive models for their painting. Namatjira was an active participant in making of Australian painting, and his role as a forerunner of today's Aboriginal artists should not be overlooked.

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The conservation of Australia's biological diversity has many controversial aspects, in particular,wildlife management programs that sanction population control, or culling, of native species. Most Australians, however, draw the line at shooting koalas. Koala populations in Australia vary widely in their population dynamics and conservation status as some are experiencing critical decline and others, unbridled expansion. Sensitive habitats in parts of southern Australia have become overpopulated by koala populations which have overbrowsed their preferred tree species'. As a result, endemic Eucalyptus communities have become decimated and the food supplies destroyed.Controlled culling of koalas has been proposed by some ecologists and conservationists, and has become a political issue. Koala protection organisations and the media have at times played on public sympathy for the koala to the point where koala management issues have influenced voter preferences and confused the conservation status of the species. Education is needed to change the public perception of the koala as a cuddly national icon to a more holistic understanding of the koala as one element in the ecosystem, the integrity of which must be maintained as first priority. Such a view would reduce the political sensitivity of koala management and enhance the sustainability of koala populations and their preferred habitat.

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