Japan and Australia have a close economic relationship, mainly because of the huge trade in natural resources. In 2008, of the natural gas that Australia exports, 80% was for Japan, while 17% of the same resource imported by Japan is from Australia. The author thinks that the import volume of natural gas from Australia will sharply increase in line with the Japanese Government's countermeasures to global warming. Countries party to the Framework Convention on Climate Change discuss the framework and aim to counter global warming after the regime of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) by an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. In June 2009, the Japanese Government, to show its basic stance on negotiations under the Convention, adopted the target, and plans to reduce the emission of GHG by an average of 8% against 1990 levels. However, the author thinks that this target is not feasible. This is, firstly, because the Government plans to reach the target mainly by energy-saving technologies, some of which are still under development; and secondly, because the amount of CO_2 emissions (which constitute round 90% of GHG) in 2005 increased by 11% against 1990 levels, in spite of the Government's strong energy-saving policy. The author proposes that replacing some of the consumption of oil and coal with the consumption of natural gas, of which the carbon emission factor is relatively low, is a potential way to reduce the emission of CO_2 drastically, without depending on uncertain measures. To demonstrate the proposition, this paper shows, firstly, that the policy of replacement is effective in reaching the reduction target by calculating the rate of CO_2 reduction in some cases; and secondly, by analyzing the market situation of natural gas in Asia and Oceania, that Japan will not find any difficulty in securing enough natural gas from Australia to meet the requirement for the target. This paper concludes that the proper policy for the Japanese Government in reducing GHG emissions is to import more natural gas from Australia. The policy would also be of benefit to the Australian economy.

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Ever since he won the Federal elections on 24 November 2007, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has managed to keep an extraordinary level of electoral support. Considering the fact that Rudd is not particularly endowed with burning charisma, the secret of his success must be lying with the way he has handled various aspects of politics. This paper pays particular attention to Rudd's modus operandi, that is how and why the Rudd government takes particular set of policies. My hypothesis is that there are three-fold principles in the Rudd government's modus operandi. First, Rudd has made every effort to implement election promises. One of the reasons for his persistent popularity is said to be that voters associate Rudd with "integrity" because of his commitment to election promises. Second, as he has referred policy matters to more than 140 committees, his prime mode of operation is so-called "evidence-based approach". This paper analyses three cases, the education policy, the Rudd government's approach to the Howard-initiated intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and Industrial Relations and its relationship with the union movement. These three cases indicate that the evidence-based approach can be a good and effective policy making as well as politically astute move by dampening over-enthusiastic expectations from its supporters. Third, this rather cautious approach favoured by the government's earlier stage appears to be cast aside by the advent of the Global Financial Crisis. As the crisis demanded governments to make decisive and timely actions quickly, the Rudd government has abandoned the evidence-based approach temporarily, and introduced policies based on Rudd's and the ALP's social democratic ideology. The Rudd government has introduced large spending initiatives including direct payment to low to middle-income earners and massive infrastructure programmes. These programmes, as well as the end of mining boom, erosion of tax base and massive expansion of so-called "middle class welfare" under the Howard government turned the federal budget from A $20 billion surplus to A $57.6 billion deficit. However, unique among advanced economies, Australia has so far managed to avoid plunging into recession. The Australian Labor Party has long been seen as having an unfortunate habit of winning the office just when the World Wars were fought, the Great Depression started or the OPEC nations increased price of petroleum by four-fold. From the cursory look, the Rudd government may be seen as following this pattern as the Global Financial Crisis just wiped out serendipitous export earning from the mining boom. But in fact this is the blessing in disguise as it has enabled the Rudd government to implement programmes based on its long-held ideology of social democracy.

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This paper explores the interwoven relationship between community and identity of Aboriginal people in southwestern Sydney. The idea of 'community' is and has been almost always associated with identity, especially after the shift of the argument of community to symbolism. However, not so much discussion has happened on their relationship. This paper addresses this issue by using Delanty's (2003) argument that community is based on the experience of communication. For most of the Aboriginal people in rural and remote areas, kinship ties have been their primal social relations and their identity has been a matter of kinship ties associated with their perceived place of origin. However in urban areas such as south-western Sydney, Aboriginal social relations are not always exclusively based on kinship ties. In this area, organisations dealing with Aboriginal issues provide ways of connecting non-related Aboriginal people. Through participation in these oganisations' activities, Aboriginal people communicate with each other and feel the sense of community. In these activities, although they are from many different areas, Aboriginal people can usually recognize each other as Aboriginal by sharing and recognizing certain 'Aboriginal' cultural mores and traits, the most important of which is the practice of identifying each other by using their knowledge of kinship ties. However, in south-western Sydney, there are some who, for various reasons, although claiming to be Aboriginal, do not share these cultural mores and traits. Their presence gives rise to tension and conflict revolving around the concept of Aboriginality. Some people are accused to be 'non-Aboriginal pretenders'. This accusation became prevalent but also has stayed as gossipbecause of the particular social structure of Aboriginal community in south-western Sydney. While unraveling the relationship between identity conflict and social relations, it is also argued in this paper that this accusation itself is a form of communication, and thus, a part of the experience of Aboriginal community in south-western Sydney.

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Regional differences in contemporary Aboriginal society are evident regarding material culture, local social institutions (e.g. law and kinship), and systems of social practice (e.g. economic life and marriage patterns). The regional categorisation of "remote", "rural", and "urban" Aboriginal Australia has led Australian Aboriginal studies to limit its focus to the remote Aboriginal communities. However, up to now, cash, commoditisation and the welfare economy have permeated into all Aboriginal communities in Australia. Anthropologists are urgently needed to explore the dynamic response by Aboriginal people towards this drastic change in their economic lives. This paper explores the everyday practice of demand sharing or moral economy among Aboriginal people in "settled" Australia. By means of comparative examination of ethnographic data from remote Aboriginal communities and rural communities, this paper aims to reconsider the either-or dichotomy of change and persistence, or that of culture loss associated with "settled" Australia and cultural persistence associated with "remote" Australia.

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Under self-determination and multicultural policies in the early 1970's, urban Aboriginal people began to construct their collective identity, Aboriginality. During the same period, Aboriginal leaders in Adelaide actively pursued their Kaurna identity and reconstructed Kaurna culture. Today Kaurna culture, especially the Kaurna language, is taught at several educational institutions in order to raise the awareness of Aboriginal culture among young Aboriginal people. Given the diversity among Aboriginal people in cultural, economic and social terms, though, it is assumed that the views of the local Aboriginal people regarding teaching Kaurna culture to all Aboriginal people vary. This study aims to consider the significance and limitations of Kaurna cultural studies from the perspective of local Aboriginal peoples. In Kaurna cultural studies programs, in addition to Kaurna culture, 'traditional' Aboriginal culture features such as Aboriginal dance and art derived from remote Aboriginal communities were selected and taught to Aboriginal children. Aboriginal leaders selected the cultural elements to be taught, based on the image held by people in mainstream society about Aboriginal culture, emphasising commonality and unity as an Aboriginal people rather than diversity among them. Aboriginal teachers and activists engaged in the development of cultural studies believed that these studies would provide Aboriginal children with the opportunity to reaffirm and enhance their Aboriginality, which would eventually help overcome racism and stereotypes against Aboriginal people in the wider society. Such attitudes of indigenous elites towards the studies can be regarded as a strategy to adapt to an urban multicultural society. On the other hand, based on the response of ordinary Aboriginal people, it becomes clear that, for them, Kaurna culture is something 'foreign' at present and not relevant to their everyday lives, which are highly influenced by western culture. The teaching of commonality-focused Aboriginal culture may also neglect the diversity of their cultural experiences, conflicting with other Aboriginal cultural elements transmitted through generations within each family. Further study is necessary to determine the extent to which Kaurna culture becomes internalised by Aboriginal people as pride in Aboriginal identity.

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This paper considers sister-city relations between 15 municipalities in Victoria, Australia, and their counterparts in Japan. The research was based on interviews with each of the municipalities in Australia and a survey sent to all of the municipalities in Japan. After describing some long-term trends in the formation of sister-city links with different countries, the analysis considers whether any generalizations can be made about the way in which sister cities come to be matched and then the validity of the very limited theorizing that has occurred to date about how sister-city relations evolve over time. The research discussed in this paper reveals that the current models which see a progression from cultural exchange through to the development of economic relations may hold only for large cities but not for medium-sized municipalities, most of which have a rather limited economic base from which to pursue economic interdependence. However, such municipalities have a range of options that would allow them to develop their sister-city relations in other directions. For example, some have begun to explore the possibility and usefulness of exchanging with their sister-city counterparts information relevant to the good governance of their municipal areas. The article concludes with a look at some of the Japanese survey data on plans for the future. Those data confirm that on the Japanese side Osaka, as a flagship-type of city, is interested in relations that bolster its economic functioning in a global sense, whereas some smaller municipalities may entertain hopes of moving in that direction but are more uncertain in that regard and others remain much more focused on the cultural exchange. While the difference between the large cosmopolitan centres and the smaller municipalities is clear, further research is needed to see if there are differences between medium-sized municipalities and those that are smaller yet again.

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