Sue Olney
Should we mainstream gender in policy? What would that look like? Taking employment and work as a key example, our guest contributor Associate Professor Lyndall Strazdins (ANU) examines how working hours, ability, gender and care are intersecting and cautions us about which groups are being framed as the new 'leaners'.
*This post is based on Assoc.Prof Strazdin's contribution to a panel debate at the PTP:Gender, Menzies Policy Grand Challenge held in Canberra last month.
Read MorePTP:Gender's keynote, Eva Cox AM (@evacox), is our guest writer today. In this special extended post, Eva presents a critical analysis of Australia's past and current state of play and shares her thoughts on how to start a hopeful narrative based on a feminist approach. This post ends by inviting the debate of ideas and discussion – you're all welcome to contribute through twitter or the comments section below.
Read MoreWould you choose workplace flexibility over pay? The future of work is here, we are told, and it is in the form of freelancing self-employment in the "gig" economy. But are we destined to become mini-entrepreneurs, free from the mundane 9-to-5? Or will we be imprisoned to a life of low-wage servitude and insecurity? In this post, which originally appeared on the OECD's Insights blog, Brian Keeley explores concerns about future job quality and job security in the "gig" economy.
Read MoreThe problem of domestic violence has inspired much chest-thumping from Australian politicians and public figures alike. Grand statements are being made about collective social responsibility and social justice--perhaps attitudes are finally changing. In this article, however, Susan Hopkins and Jenny Ostini (University of Southern Queensland) argue that using populist rhetoric about domestic violence is inadequate while neoliberal governments continue to undermine key social services. Forms of support for women at risk of experiencing domestic violence remain dangerously underfunded. This article is reprinted with permission from the Overland Journal.
Read MoreWhat happens when the state is concerned with how we feel and how healthy we are? André Spicer (Cass Business School) and Carl Cederström (Stockholm Business School) argue that with many governments now employing behavioural scientists to help shape policy, state interference in our private lives is increasing.
Read MoreDo we have an immediate youth unemployment 'crisis' in Australia? Or is it more of a slow burn? In this post, Dr Iain Campbell of RMIT University provides some insights. This post originally appeared on The Conversation.
Read MoreIn the closing plenary panel at last week's Australian Social Policy Conference, ACOSS' Peter Davidson @pagdavidson, highlighted three interrelated challenges for workforce participation and welfare reform. Today's post originally appeared on Peter's blog and is re-posted here with his permission.
Read MoreIn today's Social Policy Whisperer column Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne revisits the debate on the marketisation of community services.
Read MoreThe social sector has only recently begun to see itself as a critical economic player. But as governments shift more from social provision to social investment, David Hayward, Professor and Dean of the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University asks whet her it can and should think still more broadly and internationally – and even about how to ‘mix it ’ with the Sercos of the world?
This article was published in the latest edition of Insight, the VCOSS member magazine.
Read MoreFollowing on from Mondays blog on the increasing marketization of the community sector, David Tennant, CEO of Goulburn Valley FamilyCare discusses what this means for Not-For-Profits, and in particular, those who work in regional, rural and remote communities.
Read MoreThe not-for-profit sector has been under increasing pressure to adopt market-based approaches in the development and delivery of human services. This perspective has been reiterated consistently through various reviews and re-commissioning processes, placing the sector in the precarious position of choosing to provide services or advocacy. It has also seen an encouragement of for-profit providers in the sector, the subject of last weeks’ Power to Persuade Symposium.
This blog, from David Tennant, Chief Executive Officer, Goulburn Valley Family Care Inc., is part one of a two part blog on what this means for the sector. This blog will discuss the development of the marketization of community services, recent cuts and focus on productivity, and whether market-based mechanisms really can address the needs of vulnerable communities. This next part of the blog will discuss how the sector is faring in this context, and what this means for regional not-for-profit services providers
Read MoreContinuing our exploration of social impact bonds, David Donaldson of The Mandarin (@davidadonaldson) considers what the early results for NSW's Newpin bonds mean for the future of SIBs in Australia.
Read MoreCo-production has many meanings and many faces, as fellow PtPer Gemma Carey found recently at the Population Health Congress in Hobart. There was a lot of talk about introducing co-production into preventive health efforts, but nobody actually defined what they meant by that. Reading between the lines, it seemed that what the presenters were actually talking about was co-design, which is one facet of the co-production endeavour. Today I’m going to discuss the co-delivery facet, and I’ll start by defining my terms.
Read MoreThe first Power to Persuade symposium explored the value of social network analysis in examining collaborative activity. Here Power to Persuade symposium moderator Prof Jo Barraket and her colleagues Michael Moran, Andrew Joyce, and Emily Foenander from Swinburne University's Centre for Social Impact discuss their recent social network analysis of a utility company/not-for-profit partnership.
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.
Read MoreContinuing on with our contributions to International Basic Income Week, our regular contributor Jon Altman provides an important analysis of what basic income could do for remote Indigenous Australia.
Read MoreNext up for International Basic Income Week, Dr Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico), lecturer in critical theory and technology studies at UC Berkeley and at the San Francisco Art Institute, offers an alternate view of the basic income discourse. This piece originally appeared on Dale's personal blog.
Read MoreAs well as being the week of the Power to Persuade Symposium, this week is also International Basic Income Week. In recognition of this, we will be running a series of posts on basic income (as well as some lead up pieces to the symposium). Below Dr John Tomlinson outlines the case for basic income. John has campaigned and published widely on the need for basic income.
Read More"We've all got knowledge, it's just different knowledge." Wales Chief Medical Officer Dr Ruth Hussey focused on the value of 'co-production' in her address this week to the Population Health Congress in Hobart.
In this article below, Michela Clarkson examines the theory and practice of co-design, which she says 'starts with an open question of need and recognises the limits of professional assumptions'.
It was originally published in the latest edition of Insight, the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) member magazine and is based on the Walk Alongside report by the same author, also recently published by VCOSS.
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