We rely on the public service to implement sweeping policy decisions and reform – but we have had some recent examples of what can go wrong when the decision-makers don’t get it quite right. In today’s blog, Andrew Joyce and Fiona Buick share insights from their examination of how the NDIS was rolled out. Interviews identified key points where the decision-making process could have been more robust. The authors reflect on what the public service could learn from this case study.
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Robodebt highlighted how a government initiative, designed and delivered by the public sector, could cause profound harm to vulnerable people. For many of us interested in Australian social policy a central question remains: how do we ensure something like this never happens again?
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The literature on policy diffusion is replete with examples, theories and frameworks about how ‘good’ policy travels. Many industries (such as healthcare and air transport) are built around learning from others’ mistakes and near-misses. Yet in public policy, the literature is more despondent about the ability of lessons from crises to successfully travel. This is the issue that Dr Maria Maley and I explore in Robodebt and the limits of learning: exploring meaning-making after a crisis
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In complex healthcare systems, staff voice is vital for ensuring healthcare professionals and service providers uphold safe, ethical and high-quality care. When staff are unable to voice concerns about patient safety or their own wellbeing, mistakes and misconduct are more likely to go unaddressed, allowing scandals to happen or last longer. Organisations such as the National Health Service (NHS) have been long aware of these risks and currently use “speaking up” policies to combat the silencing or neglect of staff concerns. After 9 years of speaking up policy many NHS staff still find themselves unheard or silenced. Now, the U.K. government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which oversees the NHS, proposes new plans to remove these existing policies and introduce new staff voice policy under the NHS Fit for the Future strategy (NHS England, 2025). In this blog post Sukhwinder Essie Kaur unpacks the failings of Speaking Up and explores how co-production research may be a key player in designing new policies and mechanism that better support NHS staff to voice their concerns.
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The role played by the police in our wider mental health system has never been truly resolved. In both Australia and the United Kingdom, as across the world, discussion is at its most intense when considering police contact deaths involving those of us affected by our mental health. In this blog, Michael Brown explores the complex issues behind tragic outcomes and starts to think about how to embed “lessons learned” into policy.
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Bernadette Black AM, CEO and Founder of SEED Futures, shares her deeply personal journey from teenage motherhood to national systems change advocate. Reflecting on the transformative impact of one woman’s care and belief in her, she makes a powerful case for reimagining the way Australia supports families in their earliest, most vulnerable days. With warmth and urgency, Black argues that kindness must not depend on chance—it must be built into the system. Through SEED Futures and the Incremental Reform Catalogue, she offers a clear, practical path to make that vision real.
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Giulia Fabris, Policy Advocacy Lead at Health Justice Australia, discusses what is needed to move from recognising persistent social problems to implementing solutions.
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Ahead of the International Day of Families on 15th May, Dr Karen Villanueva and colleagues from the Social Equity Research Centre at RMIT University, along with researchers from the University of South Australia, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and the University of Montreal, explore why neighbourhoods matter for young children.
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Our blog today also considers a crisis - perhaps the biggest social and administrative crisis in recent times- Covid-19. Nicholas Bromfield writes about his latest paper on NDIS’s response, highlighting the important role of people with disabilities co-producing policy successes.
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Recent government crisis, such as Robodebt, have highlighted that empathy might improve policy making processes. This blog explores research from Assel Mussagulova and I (Colette Einfeld) on how empathy is used, and might be useful, in the public service.
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As Australia grapples with a deepening housing crisis, much of the public conversation has centred on first-home buyers, skyrocketing rents, and the shrinking supply of affordable housing. But an equally urgent – and often overlooked – issue is the growing number of older Australians renting privately into later life. In this piece, Joelle Moore, a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, explores the increasing precarity faced by older renters.
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In this article, Dr Raelene West discusses community housing for people with disability exploring housing options, noting that a home is made of more than bricks and mortar.
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