‘Lawyers are not disposed to look behind the immediate constitutional framework to the ultimate sources of legal authority’: Lord Lloyd, The Idea of Law (1987) 173.

In spite of Lord Lloyd's observation, the centenary of federation has given many Australian lawyers the impetus to do just that, to consider the ‘ultimate source’ of authority for the Australian Constitution. The general aim of this article is to assess the legal basis of the Australian Constitution and, more specifically, how ‘autochthony’ for the Constitution might be achieved. Part I notes that as a result of the Australia Acts, some members of the High Court have instigated a move away from the traditional basis of the Constitution, the United Kingdom Parliament, to a new basis in popular sovereignty. However, as it could be said that the Australia Acts only dealt unequivocally with ‘autonomy', and not ‘autochthony', this move is dubious. Whether Australia's evolutionary achievement of autonomy means that both the political and legal sources of Australian constitutional authority now lie in some concept of popular sovereignty, is a next step. Part I further argues against the necessity for the judiciary alone to take this next step. This Part concludes by suggesting that, if the traditional legal basis is to be judicially discarded, and a local legal source found, the federal compact is the most historically correct interpretation of federation.

Despite a decade-long bull market between the financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession, state defined benefit pension plans had accrued more than $1.37 trillion in unfunded liabilities. However, little work has investigated the actuarial sources of these unfunded liabilities. This paper uses original data hand collected from publicly available financial reports between 2000 and 2020 for 145 state-administered pension plans to determine the sources of unfunded liabilities. The largest unfunded liability contributor is investment experiences (when actual investment returns do not match assumed returns). The second and third largest contributors are changes to actuarial assumptions and expected changes (or interest accruing on existing unfunded liabilities). Benefit experience and legislative changes, demographic experience, and explicit funding shortfalls account for relatively little of the growth in unfunded liabilities. Moreover, the specific sources of unfunded liabilities are heterogeneous over time and across plans.

According to recent dual-process theories, interpersonal trust is influenced by both impulsive and deliberative processes. The present research explores the determinants of deliberative trust, investigating how trust decisions are affected by the availability of cognitive resources. We test the interaction of two relevant factors: self-control (the ability to exert mental control over one’s behavior) and the default response (a preselected option that requires minimal or no effort). Past research has shown that self-control has extensive effects on social behavior and decision making. Here, we report that the effect of self-control on trust depends on the default. Across two studies, we find no direct link between self-control and trust. Instead, self-control affects trust indirectly by influencing the level of effort in decision making. Poor self-control (due to experimental depletion or trait-based differences) predicts adherence to the default—the response that requires the least effort.

We examine the redshifts of a comprehensive set of published Type Ia supernovae, and provide a combined, improved catalogue with updated redshifts. We improve on the original catalogues by using the most up-to-date heliocentric redshift data available; ensuring all redshifts have uncertainty estimates; using the exact formulae to convert heliocentric redshifts into the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) frame; and utilising an improved peculiar velocity model that calculates local motions in redshift-space and more realistically accounts for the external bulk flow at high-redshifts. We review 2607 supernova redshifts; 2285 are from unique supernovae and 322 are from repeat-observations of the same supernova. In total, we updated 990 unique heliocentric redshifts, and found 5 cases of missing or incorrect heliocentric corrections, 44 incorrect or missing supernova coordinates, 230 missing heliocentric or CMB frame redshifts, and 1200 missing redshift uncertainties. The absolute corrections range between $10^{-8} \leq \Delta z \leq 0.038$, and RMS$(\Delta z) \sim 3{\times 10^{-3}}$. The sign of the correction was essentially random, so the mean and median corrections are small: $4{\times 10^{-4}}$ and $4{\times 10^{-6}}$ respectively. We examine the impact of these improvements for $H_0$ and the dark energy equation of state w and find that the cosmological results change by $\Delta H_0 = -0.12\,\mathrm{km\,s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ and $\Delta w = 0.003$, both significantly smaller than previously reported uncertainties for $H_0$ of 1.0 $\mathrm{km\,s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ and w of 0.04 respectively.

The notion of academic disengagement, regardless of its specific conceptualisation (e.g., cognitive, affective, or behavioural) is one that has received considerable attention within the educational and social psychological literature, especially with regard to disadvantaged minority groups. Akhough such research has done much to identify the complexity of factors as to why some minority groups may disengage from the schooling system (extending well beyond rightfully maligned deficit models), there is a still a need to empirically identify factors that may lesson the risk of disengagement. This investigation tested the causal impact of secondary students' academic self-concept on patterns of school disengagement (once prior measures of disengagement had been accounted for) for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian secondary students across two time waves of data. The results suggest that a heightened sense of academic self-concept is causally, yet differentially, related to varying patterns of disengagement for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. The implications of this research suggest that academic self-concept may be a key variable to unlocking trends of school disengagement that have been noted for Indigenous Australian students, although more effort should be made to increase the strength and importance of academic self-concepts for Indigenous students.

Preliminary evidence suggests that consumption of Porphyridium cruentum (PC) biomass results in hypocholesterolaemic effects; however, mechanisms responsible have not been elucidated. The aim of the present study was to determine whether PC biomass lowers circulating cholesterol concentrations, dose dependently, in hamsters fed hypercholesterolaemic diets for 28 d and determine whether cholesterol biosynthesis is affected. Biomass added to diets at 2·5, 5 and 10 % resulted in 14, 38 and 53 % reductions (P < 0·001) in total plasma cholesterol, respectively, compared with a control diet. Similarly, non-HDL-cholesterol concentrations in the 5 and 10 % PC groups were reduced (P < 0·001) 28 and 45 %, respectively, v. controls. These effects were unrelated to cholesterol fractional synthesis rate (FSR), as this did not differ between either treatment or control animals. PC consumption had no effect on food intake, plasma glucose concentrations or energy expenditure, but percentage of body fat was lower (P < 0·001) in the 5 and 10 % PC groups compared with controls. These data show that PC reduces total plasma cholesterol and non-HDL-cholesterol when incorporated into the diet at levels as low as 2·5 %. The mechanism of action for this reduction may be related to increased excretion since food intakes and cholesterol FSR were not reduced in the animals receiving the PC. In conclusion, the use of PC biomass reduces circulating cholesterol, dose dependently, in hypercholesterolaemic hamsters but not via reductions in cholesterol FSR. There is potential for the use of this biomass as a functional ingredient to aid in the management of blood cholesterol concentrations.

Dietary Se levels in the UK have fallen over the last 20 years and recent surveys indicate that average Se intakes are 30–40 μg/d, which is well below the current UK reference nutrient intake for adult men (75 μg/d) or women (60 μg/d). Functional consequences of this decline have not been recognised, although epidemiological data suggest it may contribute to increased risk of infections and incidence of some cancers. Previous data have indicated that biochemical changes in Se-dependent proteins occur in otherwise healthy UK subjects given small Se supplements. The current studies have focused on the effect of small Se supplements on the immune response since there is evidence of specific interactions between Se intake and viral replication, and since the potential anti-cancer effects of Se may be mediated by non-antioxidant effects of Se such as changes in immune function. Data indicate that subjects given small Se supplements (50 or 100 μg Se/d) have changes in the activity of Se-dependent enzymes and evidence of improved immune function and clearance of an administered live attenuated virus in the form of poliovirus vaccine. Responses of individual subjects to Se supplements are variable, and current work is evaluating potential explanations for this variability, including genetic variability and pre-existing Se status.