一般にオーストラリアの政治は、「労働党対保守連合」の2大勢力対立の図式としてとらえられている。すなわち、民主政治を「多数決型」と「コンセンサス型」に分けたライパートの理論によれば、オーストラリアは「多数決型」に分類されるという考え方であり、ライパートもこのような結論を出している。1901年の連邦形成以降、オーストラリアの政治は3つの時代に分けることができる。1901年から1909年までは、3大勢力(労働党、保護貿易派、自由貿易派)が鼎立しており、「コンセンサス型」の政治が行われていた。保護貿易派と自由貿易派が合同した1909年から1981年までは、この間に結成された地方党(現国民党)や民主労働党も反労働党勢力に含むことができ、したがって労働党と反労働党の2大勢力が対立する「多数決型」の政治が70年以上続いていた。ライパートの研究は、1945年から1980年までを対象としたものであり、このタイム・フレイムの中では、オーストラリアの政治は「多数決型」であるとしたライパートの結論は誤っていない。しかしながら1981年以降は、2大勢力のどちらにも色分けすることのできないオーストラリア民主党が、下院と同等の権限を持つ上院のバランス・オブ・パワーを得たことにより、オーストラリア政治の性格は大きく変化した。1981-82年度予算、オーストラリアカード法案、1993-94予算、労使関係改革法案などにおける民主党の上院における活動は、民主党が労働党政権下であろうと保守連合政権下であろうと、2大勢力のどちらか一方に与するのではなく、一貫して政府のアカウンタビリティーを追求し、民主党が公正であると考える政策を実現するために、上院のバランス・オブ・パワーを行使していることを示している。政府が上院の過半数を獲得できず、民主党など少数政党や無所属議員がバランス・オブ・パワーを握っていることから、政府は上院において法案ごとに非公式な連合を結ばなければ、選挙公約や政策を実行に移せなくなった。この非公式な連合は、「労働党+保守連合」、「労働党+民主党」、「保守連合+民主党」の組み合わせを基本とし、近年ではグリーン政党や無所属議員も非公式な連合に含まれる可能性が生じている。この結果、オーストラリア政治の性格は、それまでの「多数決型」から「コンセンサス型」へ移行し、上院が立法活動の中心となった。民主党など2大勢力以外の政党への支持率が下院選挙より上院選挙で高くなっていることから、政府が上院の過半数を獲得できず、オーストラリアの政治が「コンセンサス型」に移行したことは、有権者の積極的な意思の反映であると考えることができる。これにより、下院選挙で過半数の議席を得て成立した政府が、選挙時に掲げた政策をそのまま実行する権利を得るという従来の「マンデイト」の理論は、今日のオーストラリアでは通用しなくなった。

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The concept of `middle powers' has received little attention in international relations theory, since traditional international relations have mainly focused on the great powers. Therefore, there is no single definition of the term `middle powers' and hence, the concept of middle powers' have been approached from various perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the term `middle powers', and to clarify the role of middle power diplomacy in the process of multilateral cooperation by analyzing Australian coalitional diplomacy in the APEC initiative. In January 1989, Robert Hawke announced in Korea that the time had come for closer regional economic cooperation. Following the statement, Australia started active diplomatic efforts to convene ministerial-level meetings to deal with trade and monetary problems in the Asia Pacific region. This Australian trade initiative has become known as the APEC initiative. In this initiative, Australia used the diplomatic skill of coalition building and fostered multilateral cooperation among diverse countries with different backgrounds. Coalitions are defined as cooperative efforts to attain short-range, issue-specific objectives. Australia tried to make multilateral cooperation realistic by focusing only on economic issues in the region. In the APEC initiative, Australia took advantage of its status as a middle power. Since middle powers are not likely to be suspected by other countries of intentions of domination, it was easier for Australia to act as a catalyst through careful negotiations with Asian countries, and to take a leadership role in collecting support from those countries. It seems that the characteristics of middle powers can be effectively used as potential assets of diplomacy. In this paper, a definition of the term `middle powers' is offered in chapter 2. Then chapter 3 deals with the APEC initiative. Firstly, it briefly summarizes the process of the APEC initiative, then the preconditions for the effective coalition building in the initiative are analyzed, and finally the type of leadership which Australia took in coalitional diplomacy is discussed.

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This paper objectives to find whether wage differentials exist by the country of birth controlling such individual attributes as sex, age, occupation, industry, educational attainments, working hours and marital status. I use individual samples from the ABS 1990 Survey of Income and Housing Costs and Amenities for this objective. First, I estimated a wage function by all samples. I obtained the results that UK-born and Oceanian-born immigrants earn by 3% to 6% higher than natives and Italian-born, other European-born and Asian-born immigrants earn by 3% to 7% lower than natives. Next, I estimated wage functions by eight occupational groups. As a result, English-speaking-background (ESB) immigrants earn by 9.3% higher in the occupation of managers and administrators, by 5.5% higher in tradespersons, by 6.2% higher in clerk and by 5.7% higher in labourers than natives. On the other hand, Non-English-speaking-background(NESB) immigrants earn by 8.3% lower in operators and drivers and by 3.8% lower in labourers than natives. Estimating occupational status function, natives tend to obtain higher status occupation than immigrants. Although ESB immigrants do not have any problems on language, they have some disadvantage on occupational status. However, if they obtain same occupation as natives, their wages are higher than natives because they have better ability for the occupation. If NESB immigrants obtain occupations except for operators and drivers or labourers, they do not have any disadvantage on wages. NESB immigrants tend to be engaged in the occupation of operators and drivers or labourers, even if they have high educational attainments or occupational experiences. Since their overseas education and experiences are not enough recognized in these occupations, NESB immigrants have negative wage premium.

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The Australian Securities Commission (ASC) has developed a unique information system called the ASCOT system, where 4 million company and business names are indexed against their details in the database. In the United States, the SEC has developed the EDGAR system mainly for listed companies. The EDGAR system offers more detailed and frequent information such as quarterly reports. The EDGAR search facility also provides more detailed string searches even in the main body of the company text. Even the Australian Stock Exchange offers more comprehensive information for listed companies, such as half yearly reports. However, as the Australian Stock Exchange system is not accessible to the public via the Internet, Reuter provides the same information as well as other data to Reuter subscribers. These facts do not necessarily dismiss the significance of the ASC and its ASCOT system. This is because the ASCOT database covers not only listed companies, but also non-listed companies (except family-owned companies), many non-profit organisations and business names. Company documents, including annual reports, can be extracted at ASC offices or its agents for a reasonable cost ranging from $20 to $50 in most cases, under the user pays principle. The ASC approach seems a practicable way to invigorate registrar offices using information technology, particularly the Internet. The difference between AEC's ASCOT and SEC's EDGAR systems derives from the respective historical backgrounds of the ASC and SEC. The ASC originates from company registrar offices under state company laws and state registrar offices have been transformed into the ASC under the federal system. In the US, the SEC was set up to cope with the stock market depression by regulating the flow of security transactions under the jurisdiction of the US Federal government, in order to avoid conflict with the corporate power of the states. So far, Japan has not developed comprehensive information systems for such corporate matters. The Australian approach may be useful to the Japanese.

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