South Australia - and the world - is entering a time of transformational change: social, economic, industrial and environmental. As a new government takes the reins, it has the power to shape the future of our state and its citizens at a crucial moment. The automotive industry has closed, but maritime shipbuilding projects are booming. Automation and artificial intelligence technologies are on the rise - and with them, both fears of jobs lost and the promise of increased productivity and wellbeing. Which way will we go? In this insightful collection of essays, some of South Australia's leading policy thinkers consider our future in the context of jobs, our economy and its drivers, industrial relations, law and order, the environment, education, health (including ageing and aged care) and more.

Will South Australia emerge from the global economic crisis relatively unscathed and enter a period of unprecedented prosperity? State of South Australia tackles this and many other questions, offering the most comprehensive analysis of the major social, economic, cultural, environmental and political trends and policy challenges facing this state.

This book places Australian conditions and urban planning centrally within comparative analysis of planning systems and cultures around the world to address issues including urban governance, climate change, transportation planning, regional development and migration planning. Australian urban conditions and their associated planning responses can and often have been seen as unique or exceptional. They are seldom discussed in the same breath as conditions and associated planning systems internationally. Yet, as well as being somewhat different from those elsewhere in the world, Australian urban conditions and planning responses are also somewhat similar. They are uncanny – strangely familiar yet unfamiliar. In this book, Australian urban conditions, and their planning policies and practices are informally compared and contrasted with those existing internationally. If Australian urban planning policy and practice have had limited influence internationally, the partial familiarity of challenges posed by its urban conditions ensure that Australia is a more important global reference point for scholarship and practice than commonly is appreciated. In this book the authors assert the potential and actual originality of urban planning scholarship arising from the Australian context. It will be useful for students and faculty, planners working in Australia, as well as anyone interested in international planning debates.

By the end of the Twentieth century, formal schooling - once the privilege of male elites - had become accessible to women, the working class and some ethnic minorities. The essays in this volume explore the historical origins of this transformation, analyzing struggles Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, India, the United States, and South Africa.

How Australia can become a leader in a world of zero net emissions In his bestselling Superpower, renowned economist Ross Garnaut showed that Australia - rich in resources for renewable energy and for capturing carbon in the landscape - could become an economic superpower of the post-carbon world. Now, in The Superpower Transformation, he turns that idea into a practical plan to reshape our nation. Garnaut outlines new evidence that stronger and earlier action on climate change would be good for jobs and incomes, including in the old gas and coal communities and in rural and regional Australia. He looks at the challenges for the new federal government: how Australia can meet the objectives set at the Paris and Glasgow climate conferences - and the growing costs of not doing so. He shows that our national decisions matter greatly for the world. With contributions from Mike Sandiford, Ligang Song, Frank Jotzo, Isabelle Grant, Susannah Powell and Malte Meinshausen, as well as a major essay from Garnaut himself, The Superpower Transformation covers electricity, hydrogen, steel, exports, carbon capture in the landscape and more. It reveals the rich endowments of five resources that give us the most to gain economically: 'The new opportunities are much larger than the old.' Over the past nine years, Australia has consistently acted against its national interest. This compelling book shows how to change that, so that the nation becomes a confident leader of progress towards zero net emissions. 'Our nation's most prophetic economist' -Ross Gittins

In this lively, provocative collection, some of Australia's leading historians - and a Miles Franklin shortlisted historical novelist - challenge established myths, narratives and 'beautiful lies' about South Australia's past. Some are unmasked as false stories that mask brutal realities, like colonial violence - while others are revealed as simplistic versions of more complex truths. 'Each generation writes history that speaks to its own interests and concerns,' write historians Paul Ashton and Anna Clark. In Foundational Fictions in South Australian History, which grew out of a series of public lectures at the University of Adelaide, an impressive range of contributors suggest different ways in which familiar narratives of South Australia can be interpreted. These essays tap into wider debates, too, about the nature and purpose of history - and the 'history wars' first flamed by John Howard. Stuart Macintyre highlights South Australia's central role in several national events. Humphrey McQueen questions the origins and influence of the money behind South Australia's so-called progressive founding. Lucy Treloar suggests historians can learn from novelists when it comes to understanding the past. Steven Anderson argues that Don Dunstan's achievement in abolishing capital punishment owed much to a historical movement. And Carolyn Collins highlights the role of anti-conscription group Save Our Sons (SOS) in not just ending the Vietnam War, but broadening the appeal of the anti-war movement.

Canadian and Australian economic geographers provide a comparative analysis of the economies of the two countries as both nations attempt to redefine their roles in a rapidly changing world.