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.
Read MoreThere are so many policies that intersect at the level of the family, which either enable or create barriers to active workforce participation while also ensuring family needs are met. Today’s Scorecard summarises what the major issues are for families, gender equity in the workforce, an ageing population, and carer duties. This synopsis is backed by a comprehensive document created by the Work + Family Policy Roundtable, comprised of over 30 academics from 16 research institutions. This analysis was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 30 May, 2016.
Read MoreBoth the acknowledgement that domestic violence occurs at high rates in Australia and the increased Federal funding for tackling this issue are to be lauded. In today’s post, a distinction is made between adequate funding and supporting best practice. For women experiencing violence, the choice of service model is critical. Funding must support best practice to ensure the safety of women and children.
Read MoreToday’s post examines women in the policy process and how gender can influence their agency, by examining the case study of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This article first appeared in the Canberra Times on 1 June 2016.
Read MoreIt has been heartening to see the recent attention that family violence has been receiving at both a Federal and State levels in the past two years. In today’s policy analysis Supriya Singh argues that this attention is not being translated into meaningful policy responses, and has been sidelined in the current election debates. In order to effectively tackle family violence, gender inequalities must be addressed in a meaningful way.
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 this policy analysis, originally published in The Conversation, Eva Cox provides an analysis of a range of current Federal policies that must be addressed to increase public trust. In her words, “the social must include feminist issues as most of the devaluing of this is in areas associated with women, and similarly many of the failures in the concerns of Indigenous people relate to social well-being and more collectivist cultures.”
Eva has initiated a policy network designed to fill some of the overlooked and under-resourced social policy gaps with positive alternatives: The Good Society Policy Network.
Read MoreAs the federal election looms in Australia, the track records of both Coalition and ALP governments of fulfilling their election promises are under scrutiny. Sometimes, a promise gets lost or falls short in implementation. Todays’ post by Professor Christina Boswell and Dr Eugenia Rodrigues provides lessons from the UK on how policy can be reinterpreted, distorted or even subverted when applied at a local level or across different arms of government.
Read More
Below, Professor David Hayward from RMIT provides some thoughtful reflections on the recently announced budget from a social policy perspective.
Read MoreWhat kinds of research evidence will policymakers pay attention to, and when? How can researchers plan better for policy impact? This post by Paul Cairney and Kathryn Oliver (originally appearing on Paul's blog) builds on a discussion of ‘evidence based best practice’ in the Evidence and Policy journal.
Read MoreConditional arrangements designed to ‘correct’ the ‘problematic’ behaviour of welfare recipients have become commonplace in the UK, Australia and other countries for many years. What’s missing from current debates about welfare conditionality, and how can this problem be thought about differently? Professor Peter Dwyer from the University of York, and head of the Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions Support and Behaviour Change project, offers his views in this email interview for Power to Persuade.
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 MoreNSW Council for Intellectual Disability has been having lots of conversations and engaging with many people about the NDIS Information Linkages & Capacity Building Framework which is currently in consultation. Submissions on the framework can be made until 22 April. This post, originally published on the CID website, explores some of their initial thoughts on the framework and shares some of the ideas and themes that they are developing.
Read More
Gemma Carey & Lara Corr examine the orms and values of the Productivity Commission and how this influences the way PC reviews are conducted and the advice that is given to government. The full article is available online.
Read More
Positive psychology is the emerging field that examines what allows people to thrive. In this blog post, Policy Whisperer Susan Maury of Good Shepherd AustraliaNew Zealand makes a case for considering self-efficacy when designing or evaluating government policy.
Please note that some links embedded in this blog post contain photos of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be deceased.
Read MoreAt the Jesuit Social Services annual fundraising dinner on Saturday 19 March, CEO Julie Edwards talked about the organisation staying true to its purpose in a changing service environment. This edited version of Julie’s speech continues our dialogue on the future of social services and the community sector, and will interest anyone contemplating the role and resilience of not-for-profit organisations in civil society.
Read MoreTo celebrate the launch of the new website, we have included today a review of the book written by Power to Persuade founder Gemma Carey: Grassroots to Government: creating joined-up working in Australia. This review was written by Power to Persuade moderator Luke Craven and is reposted from the Croakey site.
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 MoreAs we head towards the next Federal Budget and Federal Election, this post below from the London School of Economics and Political Science blog (@LSEpoliticsblog) provides a timely challenge to the term 'welfare dependency'. Paul Michael Garrett's post is focused on the United Kingdom but has much to offer the Australian context amid comments like 'the poor don't drive cars' from the former Treasurer Joe Hockey.
Read More