Challenges to the sector: Do you have a majority of people with disabilities on your board, staff, membership?

The Strengthening Disability Advocacy Conference hosted recently in Melbourne by the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit (DARU) included a session on applying a human rights based approach to person-centred service delivery. It asked:

What role can or should disability advocacy play in a landscape of person-centred service delivery?
How do we make sure that mainstream services are accessible to people with disability?
What will best practice look like?

Advocacy for Inclusion CEO Christina Ryan was a panelist at the session and delivered this address to open her contribution, which included a big challenge to all community service organisations in the room.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade19 October 2016disability

Networking for Change: the role of the National Women’s Alliances in the women’s movement

Today we present the final blog post from Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum. Hannah Gissane (@hannahgissane) from the Equality Rights Alliance (@ERAAustralia) discusses the role of feminist networks in advocacy. She covers a brief history – or herstory – of women’s networks in Australia, including the ERA. She then discusses networks as influencers, capacity builders, and movements, concluding that networks help women reach out to each other for support, exchange of knowledge, growth, and to generate the energy needed to do the difficult but essential work of advancing equality.

Womens Policy Action Tank, AdvocacyPower to Persuade14 October 2016social inequalities

Intersectionality: tackling privilege, colonisation, oppression, and the elimination of violence against all women.

At this year’s Prevalent and Preventable Conference organised by the Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) and Our Watch, there was a dedicated stream to exploring intersectionality within the Australian context, in relation to responding to, and preventing violence against women, specifically those who have been ‘minoritised’ by the dominant social groups. Intersectional theory is by no means new, however its more centralised inclusion in the violence against women discourse is. Many feminist and critical race theorists have long suggested and warned that ‘culture talk’ in relation to violence against women is a double-edged sword – whilst it may obscure gender-based domination within communities, it also highlights the importance of cultural considerations for contextualising oppressed groups claim for justice, for improving their access to services, and for requiring dominant groups to examine the invisible cultural advantages they enjoy.

This blog piece provides a reflection of the intersectionality stream and is posted as a Storify by the Women's Policy Action Tank.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade6 October 2016social justice, violence against women, human rights

Forced Marriage: More than a crime

As an egregious abuse of human rights and an often hidden form of violence against women and children, forced marriage needs very specific policy responses. Currently, the major response is a legal one, requiring police intervention. Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand has been a key driver in increasing awareness of its prevalence in Australia, through conducting research (The Right to Refuse) and helping to establish the Victorian Forced Marriage Network. Good Shepherd’s Kathy Landvogt explains why a criminal response, while important, is not adequate.

Quarter Time at the Productivity Commission inquiry into social services: who’s winning?

The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Human Services has released its interim report, and Policy Whisperer Paul Smyth identifies the social services sector as leading the match – but is there scope to carry this important conversation to completion? Together with Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey, Paul led a coordinated response to the Inquiry in the form of the report Social Service Futures and the Productivity Commission.

A National Plan for Children?

In today’s post, James McDougall examines Australia’s inconsistent record of promoting the rights of children. He argues that instead of simply reacting to policy failure, we must coordinate planning, effort, knowledge and resources across jurisdictions to improve the wellbeing of all young Australians.

Some key ideas for the next generation of disability activists

In this post, author and disability advocate Dr Peter Gibilisco offers a perspective on the role of affirmative action as a policy approach to promote inclusion of people living with disabilities. This post originally appeared on the Pearls and Irritations blog.

Advocacy, IssuesPower to Persuade1 September 2016disability

Why 100 years without slum housing in Australia is coming to an end

A new research report, Poor housing quality: Prevalence and health effects, has found that a growing number of Australian households living in poor quality and unhealthy housing are doubly disadvantaged—by the quality of their housing and because policy makers in Australia do not acknowledge the health effects of housing.

In the article below, report authors Emma Baker, Andrew Beer, and Rebecca Bentley outline the need for urgent action, warning that otherwise we risk becoming "a nation scarred once again by slums, reduced life chances and shortened lives."

Advocacy, IssuesPower to Persuade25 August 2016housing and homelessness, health

Sex, Drugs and Politics: Enhancing peer-led health promotion’s influence in community and policy systems

Concurrent with The Power to Persuade 2016 Symposium, we are running some accompanying blog posts. In this post, Graham Brown details lessons learned in enabling disenfranchised communities to influence policy.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade15 August 2016policy making, health

Aboriginal women: we have voice, don’t speak for us

In today’s post, Summer May Finlay makes the case for a facilitative approach to policy influence and change for people whose voices are silenced. Specifically, she calls on the feminist movement in Australia to ally with rather than speak on behalf of Aboriginal women. A Yorta Yorta woman, Summer specialises in health policy, qualitative research and communications, and is a popular blogger with Croakey. She is speaking at Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum on 16 August. You can follow Summer on Twitter @OnTopicAus

Citizenship & mental health: looking upstream for solutions to a better welfare system

In this article to be published in the upcoming edition of VICSERV's newparadigm journal, Dr Simon Duffy poses a challenge to the welfare sector, saying it often tries to solve the wrong problems in the wrong way. He says this challenge is particularly important to consider as the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) begins its national rollout.

Advocacy, IssuesPower to Persuade11 July 2016mental health, ndis, social welfare, social inequalities

Welfare policy: a poverty scorecard

Being in receipt of welfare is the most significant factor in Australians experiencing poverty. Associate Professor Ruth Phillips from the University of Sydney analyses what the three major political parties are claiming they will do to reduce poverty in Australia; their capacity to deliver on their promises; and their welfare policy history. Scoring the parties on a scale of 0–4, where 0 = very low confidence and 4 = very high confidence, her overall scorecard has the ALP in front by virtue of its detailed equality policy that acknowledges issues that affect inequality and social justice in Australian society, but notes it has room for improvement in punitive policies affecting welfare recipients and refugees.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade1 July 2016social welfare

Critical policies for women

In this post, Dr Anu Mundkur, Dr Bina Fernandez and Ms Kara Beavis analyse the policies of the three major political parties in three key areas that impact women’s social, economic and political status – women’s unpaid care work, violence against women, and women’s representation in decision-making. Scoring the parties on a scale of 0–4 (where 0 = very low confidence and 4 = very high confidence), their overall scorecard has the ALP ahead in addressing women’s unpaid care work, the Greens ahead in addressing violence against women and women’s representation in decision-making, and the Coalition lagging in all three areas.

Auditing Indigenous Poverty

In today’s post, leading up to the election, Professor Jon Altman analyses what the three major political parties are doing to address Indigenous poverty in Australia. Looking beyond campaign rhetoric he scores the parties’ commitment to ameliorating Indigenous poverty on a scale of 0–4 where 0 = very low confidence and 4 = very high confidence. His overall scorecard strongly favours the Greens and throws the shortcomings of the Coalition and the ALP in this arena into sharp relief.

No 'one size fits all' solutions to long-term youth unemployment

Election campaigns tend to reduce complex issues to soundbites. In today’s post, Jesuit Social Services CEO Julie Edwards argues that it takes more than jobs and growth to help some young people prepare for and find sustainable employment. Without the right investment and support, young people with complex needs can be excluded from education and employment and are more likely to cycle in and out of homelessness services, mental health services and the justice system throughout their lives.

Stemming the revolving door phenomenon: the importance of strategic advocacy in the community legal sector

The community legal sector is well positioned to identify need for systemic change, to act upon that need and to generate policy improvements with significant public impact. Jacki Holland of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand discusses how, by engaging in strategic legal advocacy, community lawyers can venture beyond traditional case by case approaches to tackle systemic and common legal problems through novel means generating broad community benefit.

Raising people’s voices in Parliament

In this piece, originally published in VCOSS’s Insight magazine, Senator Ricky Muir says it is time people living in poverty were given a real voice in Parliament, raised above those of think tanks and party lines.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade7 June 2016politics and democracy

Fact-checking Attorney-General Brandis on community legal centre funding

A series of federal budget cuts to community legal centres has put the viability of many services at risk. Yet the government maintains it has increased funding to the sector. Darren Lewin-Hill, Communications Manager at the Federation of Community Legal Centres, runs the numbers on just how big a funding shortfall the sector faces.

Issues, AdvocacyPower to Persuade6 June 2016law

Women's Policy Action Tank: women receive half the level of support through superannuation tax concessions than their male counterparts

It has been widely publicized that women’s superannuation accrual is significantly below their male counterparts' and often inadequate to support women in their retirement years. This policy analysis identifies the current weaknesses in the legal structure and provides practical suggestions for rectifying the inequities.

Rocks and hard places: Traversing the terrain of the community legal centre funding crisis

The economic argument for community legal centres is strong, and the Productivity Commission has recommended an immediate injection of cash to shore up their operations. Despite this, their funding is still being cut. Dr Chris Atmore (@ChrisPolicy; Senior Policy Adviser at the Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria) outlines why CLC funding should be an election issue in the run-up to July 2.

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