Laptops, mobile phones and other technological advances have created a workplace culture where employers and employees work around the clock. But more and more workplaces, and a few governments, have stepped in to ensure that work-life balance is protected to maintain productivity and employee wellbeing. UNSW Canberra's Dr Sue Williamson and Dr Meraiah Foley explain why 'leav[ing] early' should be modeled by public sector leaders to encourage healthier work behaviours. This piece was originally published in The Mandarin.
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How has the Australian Public Service (APS) been progressing and embedding gender equality, and are its efforts working? In the report Embedding Gender Equality in the Australian Public Service: Changing practices, changing cultures, UNSW Canberra's Dr Sue Williamson explains how the Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy has started an important conversation about the nature of equality, and where the APS may improve to achieve its goals. This piece was originally published in The Mandarin.
Read MoreIn 1991 Carol Bacchi comprehensively introduced poststructuralism and social constructionism to policy studies with her book Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. It detailed an approach called ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ and offers a different way of conceptualizing and understanding policy. Whilst usual approaches tend to treat policy as axiomatic or self-evident, Bacchi’s challenges the privileging of all forms of expertise and knowledge. For Bacchi, approaches to policy studies are ‘inherently political’ and need to be treated as such.
Read MoreIn a recent episode of Professor Glyn Davis’ podcast The Policy Shop, Bruce Bonyhady (former Chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency) and PtP Policy Whispere A/Prof Helen Dickinson discussed how the National Disability Insurance Scheme came to be, the scheme’s ongoing rollout, and whether the NDIS will in fact improve the livelihood of people living with disabilities in Australia.
Read MoreAn ANZSOG-funded research project is exploring the increasing use of robots in care services to replace or complement the roles of humans. In this article, researchers Helen Dickinson, Nicole Carey, Catherine Smith and Gemma Carey explore some of the long-term implications for governments from the rise of robots.
Read MoreOn 2 September, the Women’s Policy Action Tank presented Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum. We were delighted to have Celeste Liddle (@Utopiana), public commentator, blogger (Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist), Arrernte woman, Unionist, and recent inductee onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women as one of our keynote speakers. Here we present part 2 of her talk, in which she traces low numbers of Aboriginal students at the tertiary level with systemic injustices that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities experience. Specifically, Celeste discusses how lack of facilities and sanitary supplies keep young women from attending school, and the historic and current practice of non-payment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders for their work – which continues today in the guise of the government’s mis-named Community Development Program. Part 1 can be found here.
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The concept of “stewardship” keeps coming up in a wide range of contexts, suggesting it is capable of broad application to achieve many outcomes. In this article Katie Moon, Dru Marsh, Helen Dickinson & Gemma Carey examine how we can meaningfully identify stewards, and understand their role in contemporary public policy.
Read MoreIf your job involved poring over the best and the worst of government, you’d probably pick up a few things. Here, ANZSOG’s Marinella Padula harnesses 13 years of public sector case writing experience to identify the top lessons for program leadership, design and evaluation.
Read MoreGovernments value evidence-based policy; but are policy makers using all possible evidence to inform their decisions? Dr. Anna N. Li, Postdoctoral Fellow at UNSW Canberra argues that "soft, qualitative, practice-based evidence can be used to better inform decision making by providing frontline, implementation information, which can increase the chance of policy success.
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The Australian Government announced in its 2017 budget that it would trial random drug-testing of recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance in three locations from January 2018. Evidence suggests this approach will neither help people overcome addiction or find a job. Drawing on her recent article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, Dr Sue Olney from the Public Service Research Group at UNSW Canberra explains why this is bad policy.
Read MoreThe potentially life transforming National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) won’t be a safety net for all if the market is weak. UNSW Canberra's Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey canvas what options the government’s market stewards have to ensure none are left behind. This article was originally posted on The Mandarin.
Read MoreWhat links flexible work, flexible thought, and diversity? Sue Williamson, Senior Lecturer of Human Resource Management at UNSW Canberra's School of Business explains these interlinking concepts in this repost from Government News.
Read MoreMelbourne has been awarded the world's most liveable city and yet the experience of traffic congestion, unaffordable housing and public transport bursting at the seams would suggest otherwise. The authors suggest 7 domains of liveability and consider how our capitals perform and the implications for policy. This post by Billi Giles- Corti, Director, Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform and Director, Healthy Liveable Cities Group, RMIT University and Jonathan Arundel, Senior Research Fellow, Healthy Liveable Cities Group, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University originally appeared on The Conversation.
Read MoreThis week the Victorian Upper House will debate - and possibly pass - the Assisted Dying Bill. This legislation is extremely emotive, and emotions have been at the heart of the discussion in the wake of the protracted and painful deaths of family members experienced by MP Jill Hennessy and Premier Dan Andrews. However, it is critical to ensure adequate public debate on this issue prior to its passage precisely because it is emotive. The medical community itself is divided on this topic, with the Australian Midwifery & Nursing Federation supporting it, while the Australian Medical Association and Palliative Care Australia are both opposed.
The merits of a policy must be considered, not in the light of those who have high levels of personal agency, but in terms of how it will affect those in the margins. As always, the Women's Policy Action Tank is interested in how policies may impact differently on women compared to men. Today's analysis, by Rachel Wong and originally appearing in The Conversation, provides a gender analysis on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Read MoreIn today’s post, Dr Emma Tinning, outlines some of her findings from her recent PhD on organ donor registration. Emma explores whether a change in framing the act of organ donation from a “heroic” act to a collective act would help address Australia’s low rate of donor registration through the current opt in policy.
Read MorePerhaps nobody is more deplorably served by Australian policy than asylum seekers. In today's post, Azadeh Dastyari ( @azdastyari ) of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, explains how women held in detention in Nauru face very specific physical and mental harm due to their gender. This blog first appeared on Themis Says: The Blog of the Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash ( @feminist_law ). NOTE: This blog post contains references to sexual and physical assault that may be distressing to some readers.
Read MoreEconomist Nicholas Gruen looks at problems with various attempts to measure wellbeing and the struggle to get from noble principles to practical outcomes. This is a repost from the Mandarin of a part three of Nicholas Gruen’s essay series about the difficulty of translating policy into outcomes. Read part one, on wellbeing frameworks, and part two on commonsense hacks government could use to bolster Australians’ wellbeing.
Read MoreDr. Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling in the UK and he has a message for us about how to make our evidence count. Paul is the author of The Politics of Evidence Based Policy Making (2016), which has already achieved cult status for politics enthusiasts worldwide. Read some of his insights in this week's blog post, originally posted on Paul's own blog.
Read MoreToday’s post explains tensions between the National Disability Insurance Scheme - a system that aims to facilitate choice and control for people with disability - and the socio-legal conception of disability that perceives people with disability as legitimate subjects of coercive medical intervention. Noting that competing notions of political rights, autonomy, agency, and the role of the state often play out in the form of social policy reform, the author argues that the creation of the NDIS could be a starting point for new claims and calls for legislative activity in the area of disability law. The post is published under a pseudonym at the author’s request.
Read MoreBars, gyms, the homes of friends and all the places that community life happens; it’s no secret they are often inaccessible for people with disabilities. The NDIS funds individual packages and community linkages to reduce this social exclusion. Jen Hargrave from Women with Disabilities Victoria says the fledgling scheme may need external architecture to increase social inclusion.
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