The High Court of Australia in its recent decision of Mabo v. The State of Queensland has recognised a form of native title for the first time under the common law of Australia. In 1982, Murray Islanders (also known as the Meriam people) brought an action in the High Court of Australia against the State of Queensland. They claimed that the Crown's sovereignty over the Murray Islands was subject to the land rights of the Murray Islanders based upon local custom and traditional title. The High Court decision was handed down on 3 June 1992. In the result, of seven Justices, six (Mason, McHugh, Brennan, Deane, Gaudron, Toohey) agreed and one (Dawson) did not, that : (1) Australian common law recognises a form of native title, (2) where it has not been extinguished, native title reflects the rights that the laws or customs of the indgenous inhabitants give them to their traditional lands, (3) subject to the effect of some particular Crown lease, Queensland law preserves the native title of the Murray Islanders as defined by their laws or customs. Similar challenges were made after the Mabo Decision. If the expectations of Aboriginal leaders are realised, it is possible that about 1.5% of the population can lay claim to about 50% of the land area of Australia along with the territorial sea and the contiguous sea. There have been many calls for Federal Government legislation to water down the Mabo Decision. The Native Title Act was born on 22 December 1993. The Act has four key aspect : (l) ungrudging and unambiguous recognition and protection of native title, (2) provision for clear and certain validation of past Acts if they have been invalidated because of the existence of native title, (3) a just and practical regime governing future grants and acts affecting native title, (4) rigorous, specialised and accessible tribunal and court processes for determining claims to native title and for negotiation and decisions on proposed grants over native title land. But there is uncertainty over the title of much land in Australia. The consequence is that many pastoral, mining and even possibly residental titles, particularly in Western Australia, are in doubt.

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The legal institutionalisation of enterprise bargaining and enterprise agreement seems to have been greatly accelerated by its reform in 1993. The legal operation of enterprise flexibility agreements, in particular, will go ahead of socalled collective bargaining which has the potential to undermine the basic structure of deep-rooted industrial relations system in Australia. Those who advacate the abolition of traditional compulsory reconciliation and arbitration, more often than not tend to criticise the half-way reform' to industrial relations of this new Act. But those criticisms should rightly be responded to by plain remarks of "too much focused on efficiency and productivity". This is because the new Act has a willingness of not only raising efficiency and productivity of enterprises but also protecting standards of working conditions well-established under award systems. From a view point of meshing up productivity with protection the first thing we should turn our eyes on is "no disadvantage test" on an occasion of the certification and approval of the agreements. Decisions by the Industrial Reletions Commission (IRC) are final in this respect, hence appropriate apraisal and criticism as the case may be, on the basis of scientific analysis will be indispensable. On the other hand, enterprise flexibility agreements appear to give rise to lots of troubles and disputes. Reportedly, an employer has effectively moved to exclude trade union deals by using enterprise agreements with all employees at a workplace with low union density. The IRC's decision, however, refused to approve another enterprise flexibility agreement which provided for a buy-out' of half of 4week's annual leave. There is no doubt that the new Act has prepared for a-good-faith-negotiation between employees and their employer by authorising the IRC to intervene for that purpose. But there still remains misgivings that direct negotiations will be likely to bring unfair outcomes to employees, because of the power distance and information gap that exists among the parties.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the neighbourhood relationships maintained by women in Canberra. To gather empirical evidence, a sample survey in four study areas in Canberra was conducted in 1986-87. Three hundred and eighty-four women under 55 years of age who were married or in a de facto relationship were interviewed. The analysis of the data revealed the following;(1) More than 80 per cent of women expected their neighbours to be sociable or dependable.(2) Women socialised mainly with some of their next-door neighbours, felt close to only 1.25 neighbours on the average, and associated with their neighbours approximately once every two weeks. They were able to expect assistance from their neighbours mainly in short-term situations. These lead to the conclusion that they were not particularly active as neighbours. (3) Because there was a system in Canberra which integrated newcomers into neighbourhood relationships, they were able to establish relationships of slight intimacy within a short period of moving in. However, the term of residence at the present address was a very important factor which had an effect on neighbourhood relationships of more intimacy. The longer a woman lived at a place, the more she was involved in the neighbourhood relationships of more intimacy. Family life cycle was an important factor which influenced her neighbourhood relationships. Infants or school children made it easier for their mother to establish neighbourhood relationships. Canberra is mainly composed of middle class residents. As a result, middle class residents were able to establish easier neighbourhood relationships of more intimacy, because they were able to find many neighbours in the same social class. When local relatives were unavailable, neighbourhood relationships did not serve a compensatory function in sociability and social support. In addition, whether women worked outside the home or not, did not have a direct effect on their neighbourhood relationships.(4) While most women hoped for active neighbourhood relationships, this was not to be the case. This discrepancy was caused by the fact that many residents changed their residences within a short period. Another reason is that neighbours need not work together for their neighbourhood, because the government provided its residents with good community services. The other reason is that a high percentage of women in a neighbouhood worked outside the home.

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This paper examines the meaning of 'the Pacific' in Australia in the 1920s. Although we now call the region which we belong to the Asia-Pacific region, not many studies have been done on the historical construction of this term. Current discussion on regional integration in Australia is mainly about Australia's relations with Asia. This is due to the relative power shift to the countries in Asia. In the 1920s, the region was called the Pacific and the colonial framework was absolute. The only countries which were called Pacific 'nations' in Asia were Japan and China, and even they were often referred to as the Orient, somewhere rather exotic and mysterious. Examination of the Australian branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) shows that the concept of the Pacific as an independent entity was a challenge to the existing British imperial order in Australia in the 1920s. The government as well as many intellectuals took the idea to be dangerous. This concept of the Pacific was related to American involvement in the region, as the IPR was also initiated by American scholars, businessmen and missionaries. The difficulties of acceptance of this organization meant that the initiative of the USA in the region was not easily accepted in the 1920s.While those who gathered at the IPR in Australia and voiced the importance of regional awareness should be re-evaluated as pioneers of this regional movement, they were also confined by the time they lived in. They assumed a colonial framework, and their attitudes to the countries in Asia, were often paternalistic at best. Now in a time of dynamic power shift, the lessons of these pioneers of regionalism in the 1920s should be recognized.

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Australia has produced major national language policies since the 1980's to take the initiative in directing the nation's language issues. In 1987 A National Policy of Languages was issued, which was a comprehensive document with clear specifications for implementation. It pursued realization of multiculturalism and advocated a strong commitment for learning of languages other than English (LUTE) for all for the sake of both maintenance of community languages, such as immigrant and Aboriginal languages, and acquisition of languages for economic purposes. In 1991 it was developed into Australia's Language: The Australian Language and Literacy Policy, with more emphasis on English literacy for all and on learning of economic languages in Asia. It aroused controversy over its social justice agenda aiming to overcome disadvantages minorities face, which was one of the major issues in the earlier policy. This paper examines the characteristics, the overt and covert objectives, and the implications of these policies concerning the influence of social change and the conceptual development of language issues. Three factors are analyzed in relation to social change: first, the failure of assimilation policy; second, political issues, with reference to the demographic change of immigrants and to national identity; and third, the decline in the number of . foreign language learners. Also, 3the change in the concept of language is discussed in light of language and culture issues on which the rationale of these policy statements and the future direction of foreign language teaching is intrinsically based. Although it is often stated in many language related policy documents that LUTE learning can contribute to intercultural understanding and nurture tolerance toward different cultures, no clear directions are given in the ways it can be achieved. In order to achieve this goal, capacity to analyze and cope with different behavioral patterns which are regulated by social norms and value systems of respective cultures for intercultural communication should be incorporated in language education. The debate over social justice vs. economic rationalism, focusing on economic efficiency in language education, is also closely examined as a major concern in the analysis of the Australian language policies under multiculturalism. The problems caused by the current upsurge of Japanese language learners who assume that Japanese learning can lead directly to economic profits are identified for further consideration on the implementation of these policies.

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