Australian Government Budget 2018-19: Response from the Centre for Social Impact

What does the 2018-19 Budget mean for society? Is this budget creating the Australia we want? This piece summarises the Centre For Social Impact's response to last week's budget release. The Centre for Social Impact is a collaboration between the University of New South Wales Sydney, the University of Western Australia and Swinburne University of Technology, with the purpose to catalyse social change. According to the Centre's Chief Executive Officer, Professor Kristy Muir, the budget does not do enough to support the most disadvantaged or to address key social issues.

Australia’s first social procurement policy redefines value for money

The Victorian Government's new policy aims to distribute more government money to social enterprises and marginalised groups, explains Stephen Easton. Repost from The Mandarin

Finance and economicsPower to Persuade27 April 2018Social Services, finance, government budget, employment

Financial inclusion, basic bank accounts, and the Cashless Debit Card

The Cashless Debit Card Symposium was held at both the University of Melbourne and the Alfred Deakin Institute on Thursday, the 1st of February 2018. The Power to Persuade is running a series of blogs drawn from the presentations made on the day. In this piece, David Tennant of FamilyCare Shepparton and Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand assess the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) as a tool for promoting financial inclusion, and find it comes up well short.

Looking at the Australian Social Security System through a Trauma-Informed Lens

The Cashless Debit Card Symposium was held at both the University of Melbourne and the Alfred Deakin Institute on Thursday, the 1st of February 2018. The Power to Persuade is running a series of blogs drawn from the presentations made on the day. In this piece, Katherine Curchin from Australia National University uses a trauma-informed lens to assess the effectiveness of the Cashless Debit Card to address the social issues it was introduced to address.

The new politics of financialised social policy: re-thinking HECS

Finance is changing our lives. Through mortgages and super we now have more debt, and more savings, then ever before. In this article Ben Spies-Butcher explores how financial ways of thinking are changing the way policy makers think and make policy, particularly in relation to HECS.

Finance and economicsPower to Persuade28 March 2018economic policy, funding models

Trailblazers working together in cross-sector initiative to address financial exclusion

The Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) is an innovative collaboration that sees organisations across industry, government, not-for-profits and education coming together to improve financial inclusion and resilience across Australia. Here Vinita Godinho and Abigail Powell explain the importance of a program such as this and reveal findings from the evaluation of phase one of the FIAP program.

How the ‘child penalty’ matters for domestic and family violence (and what we can do about it)

The ‘gender pay gap’ is a major contributor to conditions that enable and perpetuate domestic and family violence. That women on average earn much less than men increases their vulnerability to financial abuse, makes it difficult for them to leave violent relationships, and leaves them much worse off financially if they do leave. Recent research suggests that it’s the ‘child penalty’ more than anything else that is currently driving the pay gap. ANZSOG Research Fellow Sophie Yates (@MsSophieRae), who is completing a PhD on gender and domestic and family violence, reflects on the importance of changing our expectations about who will take care of children if we want to significantly reduce family violence.

It’s time for Australia to think bigger on big data

In the new age of big data, firms are gathering comprehensive information about consumers - transaction and consumption data, browsing history, social network, or location data - that is increasingly tipping the scales in the firms' favour. In this post, Lauren Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, reflects on the need to broaden our understanding of consumer data issues in Australia, beyond establishing a Consumer Data Right and the Review into Open Banking. This piece was originally published in The Mandarin.

Finance and economics, Innovation, IssuesPower to Persuade22 February 2018

Nicholas Gruen: The academy and partners try wellbeing frameworks

Economist Nicholas Gruen looks at problems with various attempts to measure wellbeing and the struggle to get from noble principles to practical outcomes. This is a repost from the Mandarin of a part three of Nicholas Gruen’s essay series about the difficulty of translating policy into outcomes. Read part one, on wellbeing frameworks, and part two on commonsense hacks government could use to bolster Australians’ wellbeing.

A Universal Basic Income may be a good idea, but... we will still need social security that works

The idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is gaining traction in Australia and around the globe. While a UBI has the potential to lift people and communities out of poverty, Michael Fletcher from the Aukland University of Technology warns us that it is not a panacea; government still needs to provide comprehensive services and tailored support. This policy analysis originally appeared on the New Zealand web site Briefing Papers, and can be viewed here.

Policy and governance, Finance and economics, InnovationDr Susan Maury19 September 2017Social Welfare

Here’s why it’s so hard to say whether inequality is going up or down

Is inequality rising or falling? The answer, if recent public debate is anything to go by, may appear at first to depend on who you ask. Peter Whiteford Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University explores in this re-post from the Conversation.

The value of a home cooked meal: Economic theory and productive and non-productive work

Tanya Corrie of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand facilitated the recent Good Conversation – Economic Frameworks and Women’s Human Rights. The panel discussion concerned gender equity and the limits of economics in examining public policy and welfare. This is an edited version of Tanya’s introduction to the event.

Finance and economicsTanya Corrie12 July 2017economic policy, gender, Social Welfare

The Cost of Collaboration: More than budgeted for?

Collaboration remains the ‘go to’ or ‘gold-star’ strategy as governments, business and community look to connect people, break down silos, cross boundaries, build partnerships and generate collective impact. All of which leads to collaborative advantage. It is likely that this preference will continue well into the future. The allure of collaboration is seen as self-evident: by leveraging the synergies formed from working together, innovation is possible, new knowledge is built, and complex, intractable social and economic problems can be resolved. In addition to these social benefits are the expected cost savings to be had from working in more connected or integrated ways. Robyn Keast*, Michael Charles* and Piotr Modzelewski** discuss the cost of collaboration.

Issues, Finance and economics, AdvocacyPower to Persuade6 June 2017Collaboration

Federal Budget’s support of universal services undermined by divisive welfare approach

The 2017 Federal budget unveiled by the Coalition held many surprises, mainly in the efforts it went to achieve distance from the disastrous 2014 budget. With significant investment into education, health and housing, some even called it a ‘Labor light budget’. However, these positive inputs are offset by the increasingly punitive approach to people on welfare, contrary to what evidence indicates is effective policy. In today’s post Kathy Landvogt highlights some of the most concerning aspects of the government’s stance towards people on welfare and how it will set Australia back as the land of the ‘fair go.’ This blog originally appeared on the Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand web site.

Aggressive outsourcing undermining service quality and trust

Is aggressive outsourcing of government services affecting service quality and trust? The Mandarin's David Donaldson spoke to contracting expert and NSW Premier's ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Delivery Gary Sturgess for his take on the matter. This post originally appeared on The Mandarin.

Single parent support and the feminisation of poverty

Juanita McLaren, interning with Good Shepherd, has written previously about her experience as a single mother of Centrelink policies (see her posts here and here). On International Women's Day (8 March 2017), she was interviewed by Rayna Fahey on the radio show The Renegade Economists on 3CR, discussing the feminisation of poverty in Australia and the role that government policy plays.

Words matter: deconstructing ‘welfare dependency’ in the UK

When our politicians frame the discussion around welfare users by using such language as "dole bludgers" it is a deliberate tactic to validate punishing them - as we have seen with the Centrelink debt debacle and the accusations by staff that a faulty system was deliberately implemented. In today's post, Paul Michael Garrett explains how language use frames public opinion in the U.K. in unhelpful ways. Have ideologically underpinned debates, portraying those on welfare as being lazy and having an easy life, become part of collective public perceptions? With 2016 marking the 40th anniversary of the publication of Raymond Williams’ Keywords, an interrogation of the taken-for-grantedness of specific words used to support a neoliberal agenda is timely. Here, he looks at ‘welfare dependency’. This blog originally appeared on the London School of Economics' British Politics and Policy blog; the original can be viewed here.

Increasing Personal Resilience will not fix Structural Unfairness.

By Gerard Brody and David Tennant

Gerard Brody is the CEO of the Consumer Action Law Centre and David Tennant CEO of Shepparton–based FamilyCare. Both participated in the Advisory Committee for the CSI/NAB Financial Resilience in Australia 2015 Research.

Finance and economicsPower to Persuade14 September 2016social services, cross-sector relationships

Susan Feldman on ageing and gendered disadvantage

In a recent interview on 3CR’s Solidarity Breakfast, Susan Feldman discussed gendered disadvantage and the need to look at men’s and women’s different experiences of ageing.

Why Australian Women over 55 Aren’t Exactly Enjoying the Time of their Lives

In the lead-up to Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum on 16 August 2016, the Women’s Policy Action Tank has asked some of the day’s participants to publish articles reflecting how current policy differently impacts on women. In today’s post, Susan Feldman and Harriet Radermacher detail how women’s disadvantage accrues across the lifespan resulting in a disproportionate number of older women in hardship. This article originally appeared in The Conversation.

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