Gender-Responsive Budgeting improves targeted and effective social change. Despite being an early leader in this area, Australia abruptly ceased issuing a Women’s Budget Statement (WBS) in 2013. Today’s post argues that the WBS ought to be resurrected as an integrated analysis of the budget process itself.
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A lack of economic analysis expertise in the Australian public sector is costing the country, writes economist Dr Leo Dobes in the wake of his recent cost-benefit analysis research. Government resources are finite, and decisions must constantly be made about where to direct resources so that they will most benefit the whole community. But these are complicated decisions to make - how can we genuinely move toward evidence-based public policy if we don't have the in-house capacity to rigorously analyse policy proposals? Relying on consultants has its risks.
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In this piece, originally published in The Conversation, Eva Cox (@evacox) of the University of Sydney argues that the major parties' commitment to fairness and trust doesn't extend to those who are not contributing paid work hours. As more than a third of registered voters are not in the paid workforce, this bipartisan silence on welfare policy and income support seems electorally short-sighted.
Read MoreLast week, the Australian Labor Party announced that it will lift the Medicare rebate freeze if elected to office in the July federal election. We know health issues feature strongly in election debates, but what does this proposal actually mean for most of us? In our latest post, Helen Dickinson explores these questions and more #healthelection.
Read MoreIn 1968 anthropologist Bill Stanner spoke of the Great Australian Silence in relation to the historical mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, a national myopia. The just announced 2016 Budget could be similarly termed ‘the Great Australian Fiscal Silence’, a fiscal myopia incommensurate with the level of need.
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Every year I do an analysis of the Indigenous provisions in the federal Budget. This is done in the light of current and past strategies, policies, programs and funding, and is supported, where this is possible, by data and information drawn from government agencies, reports and published papers.
This year’s analysis is now available on the University of Sydney e‐scholarship website where you can also find the analyses from previous years.
Read MoreThe 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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Below, Professor David Hayward from RMIT provides some thoughtful reflections on the recently announced budget from a social policy perspective.
Read MoreNudging is the flavour of the moment in public policy, with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet recently announcing they will follow NSW and establish a new high-level behavioural economics team in PM&C. But what are the risks, ethically and otherwise, of a focus on the psyche? And what can we learn from the experiences of international development practitioners in how we nudge our citizens at home? Elise Klein explores these questions, and more, in this new post.
Read MoreAs speculation mounts about the possibility of an early budget announcement--and with it, a potential early Federal Election--debates about the Government's social and economic priorities have intensified. In this post by Dr Veronica Sheen, we take a look at the importance of social protection and the example of how the Greek economy responded to austerity measures.
Read MoreThis guest blog is written by Tony Greenham, Director of Economy, Enterprise and Manufacturing at the RSA (The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in London, and was originally posted on the RSA blog site on 2 February 2016.
Read MoreBoth major parties are examining changes to negative gearing. Ben Spies-Butcher argues the two proposals for reform point to just how deeply flawed negative gearing is, and why neither change goes far enough.
Read MoreAustralia has long been known as a nation of home owners. Ben Spies-Butcher explores the changes and implications that have been slowly taking place.
Read MoreA key tenet of the Australian Government's National Innovation and Science Agenda is that public research funding should be awarded based on industry collaboration. A/Prof Michael Charles of Southern Cross University and our new Policy Whisperer Prof Robyn Keast ask: how can collaborative research excellence can be measured across a variety of very different disciplines? And if it can be measured appropriately, how can academic culture both within universities and at the grant-awarding level be changed to facilitate this transition?
Read MoreAustralia spends more on dealing with a few thousand asylum seekers than the UNHCR's budget for supporting nearly 50 million refugees worldwide. This is outrageous and unsustainable, according to Asher Hirsch, Policy Officer at the Refugee Council of Australia. It's the next post in this week's series on asylum seekers. This article originally appeared in Right Now.
Read MoreAustralia’s welfare system does a lot with a little. But the plight of growing numbers of precarious workers has led to calls for a new basic income.
The cost of such a scheme seems prohibitively expensive. So, might the lessons of Australia’s super-efficient welfare system offer a potential way forward?
Read MoreWhile most in the social services and community sector assumed that the 2014\15 Harper review concerned the ‘economy’ and not them (see the very limited range of ‘social’ submissions) it has indeed turned out to be a Radical Liberal push to undermine social services and the community sector by an inappropriate extension of market principles into our community and social life. Even as the Federal Treasurer initiates a ‘reform’ process together with the States we have Mr Harper himself already positioned as an ‘independent’ advisor (representing the for-profit firm Deloites) to the Victorian Government’s current Roadmap for Reform. Push is turning to shove and it behoves anyone with a concern for the future of Australian society to take stock of the situation and develop their action plan.
Read MoreThe National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been built to enable people with disability a greater choice in the services they wish to use. However, what if these choices are different to supports that have been funded traditionally? If this is not enabled, are people with disability really being given a choice?
Helen Dickinson from the University of Melbourne explores this in an article originally published in The Conversation.
Read MoreBy Ben Spies-Butcher, Lecturer in Economy and Society at the Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, with thanks to The Conversation for permission to re-post the original article here.
Read MoreNext up on Basic Income week, Professor Greg Marston explores how the simple yet powerful idea of basic income could help people vulnerable to climate change.
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