Penny Davidson

Assessing Government Intentions for Australian Water Reform Using a Social Justice Framework

Concerns about justice are increasing as Australian governments continue to implement water reform, often facing hostility from stakeholders with conflicting interests. This article presents a social justice framework that can be used to analyze water reform from a justice perspective. The framework is a compilation of existing justice theories taken from the social psychology literature and is based on the components of distributive, procedural, and interactive justice. We applied the framework in a content analysis of eight key policy documents on water reform. Results show that Australian governments intend that justice be achieved across the distributive and procedural components, with distribution scoring highest and procedural concerns being most numerous. Justice in water reform is predominantly constructed as distribution according to need, with transparent, consistent, and accurate decision making as a second priority. The analysis shows that the framework is a useful tool for evaluating and developing policy using a justice perspective.

How the social construction of the environment affects people's reactions to water policy

Abstract Over the past 20 years, water reform has moved to clarify water rights and responsibilities among users, separated water and land management, and introduced markets. Most recently, water policy has clearly recognised the need for environmental allocations to ensure sustainability. These reforms, especially the last, have created conflicts between stakeholder groups. While these conflicts have been couched on many occasions as irrigation versus conservation, this article shows that the basis of these arguments lies in tacit differences in the constructed meaning attached to the environment by different stakeholders. It explores the differences between how government managers, scientists and non-government stakeholders, such as irrigators, foresters, croppers and graziers, as well as Aboriginal elders, view the environment. Our study is based on interviews with government managers responsible for water management and rural non-government stakeholders in two case study sites in the Murray-Darling Basin, where water reform has caused vigorous debates. The findings show that scientists and government managers tend to see the environment as the passive recipient of human impacts, problems best addressed by objective science. In contrast, landholders see themselves as active agents within the environment, and place much more emphasis on personal experience and local knowledge. These worldviews influence peoples reactions to water policy but are rarely explicitly discussed or acknowledged. This results in unnecessary conflict in public debate. Understanding the government and landholder perspectives is essential as a foundation for effective collaborative planning.

Negotiating Ideologies: Women Finding a Place in National Park Agencies

Abstract Although significant changes have occurred with regard to women’s access to employment in natural resource management agencies over the past twenty years, field-based and management positions remain male-identified. A case study of women’s experiences working in two Australian national park agencies reveals some ‘discomfort’ and conflict as a consequence of the positions being constructed as masculine. This paper explores these issues drawing on post-structuralist concepts of contested subjectivities, and argues that an on-going process occurs where women negotiate ideologies that are significant to their senses of self, such as career woman, mother, conservationist and the masculine-defined position of Ranger. This interpretation suggests that the successful inclusion of women into traditional male workplaces requires the feminisation of the workplace and the construction and acceptance of a diverse set of feminine subjectivities that are seen as valid by women, men and the institution.