It is vital that those impacted by policies are given the opportunity to express their needs and have a voice in the policy process. This is often easier said than done. In this post, Tanya Corrie from Good Shepherd Youth & Family Service reflects on what this means for those who are financially excluded andwho access the fringe lending market. While regulation is imperative, Tanya also notes it is important to understand the underlying, cultural reasons that people prefer to 'pay their own way' rather than 'accept charity' and why this is such an emotive proposition.
Read More'Every Australian Counts' is the memorable mantra of the citizens' campaign for the NDIS. It speaks volumes about the public demand for a radical change in the delivery of disability care. The promise of the NDIS is to have an inclusive, person-centred care scheme, capable of redressing the 'lottery' of patchy support systems provided by State and Territory governments. As the first stages of implementation unfold, it is more important than ever that the NDIS is in a position to deliver true policy innovation.
In this article, our social policy expert Professor David Hayward, Dean of the RMIT School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, reflects on two vexed aspects of the NDIS - privatisation and funding uncertainty - that merit attention from policymakers and disability advocates.
Read MoreThere is a lot of rhetoric about putting civil society at the centre of policy decision-making. But policy actions over the past 40 years suggest that there is still a way to go in achieving this in practice. In the second of our NDIS-themed articles this week, Dr Simon Duffy (@simonjduffy) of The Centre for Welfare,
Read MoreIt has taken many years for Australia to introduce a social insurance scheme to support the needs of people with a disability. One year on into the introduction of the NDIS in trial sites across Australia, a parliamentary inquiry has highlighted a number of implementation challenges. In ensuring that the needs of people with a disability and their families are met by this scheme, it is crucial that the key policy challenges facing the scheme are both recognised and addressed.
In the first of our NDIS themed articles this week, Claire Hjorth Watson, PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, reflects on the need to put people and care relationships at the centre of NDIS policy frameworks.
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In a Melbourne School of Government Seminar last week, Helen Dickinson (@drhdickinson) commented on the growth of economic rationalism in Australian policy, and how economic reasoning seems to be expanding into other areas of public and social policy at a much quicker rate than in other countries. In this fortnight's piece, Prof Paul Smyth draws attention to the ways in which economic reasoning is creeping into social policy and social services reform
Read MoreIn this post, Kathy Landvogt from Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service (@goodadvocacy) provides another perspective on the 2014 ACOSS Conference.
Read MoreLast week was the National ACOSS Conference, held in Brisbane. The ACOSS annual conference is always an important date in the calendar, but this year it was more important than ever to bring the sector together, reinforce values and plan for action. Below, John van Kooy (@jvank00y) provides a wrap up of the key themes and ideas to emerge from the event.
Read MoreThe Shergold review of social services has put outcomes based funding back on the table. Below, Simon Smith from Wesley Mission Victoria unpacks what lies behind interest in 'outcomes based funding' and what it might mean for program delivery.
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In this legal perspective on the proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, Rik Sutherland from St Vincent de Paul deconstructs the arguments on both sides and suggests a way to move beyond entrenched positions.
Read MoreShock waves from the Abbott government’s first budget continue to reverberate. Below, Bruce Duncan provides another lens - that of Catholic social teaching. Analysis at the ACOSS Conference this week is echoing Bruce Duncan’s critique: the harsh measures are neither warranted nor healthy for civil society.
Read MoreOutcomes-based funding gets a lot of flack from the community sector. As Simon Smith from Wesley Mission raised in a post earlier this week, its ambiguity is taken as cause for concern.
Simon's post got us thinking about what some of the upsides of outcomes-based funding might be. So, as we like to do from time-to-time at PTP, we asked some academics to lend a hand.
In this article Dr Fiona Buick (@fibuick) from the University of Canberra, Dr Gemma Carey (@gemcarey) from ANU and Dr Pauline McLoughlin (@PJ_McLoughlin), Lighthouse Institute and Centre for Youth Mental Health affiliate, ask: 'what’s so bad about outcomes-based funding?'
Read MoreHow do we influence the decision-makers? Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of ‘From Poverty to Power’, considers a recent study of US national security policymakers through a non-government organisation (NGO) lens. We thank him for his permission to republish his post here.
Read MoreIn his latest Social Policy Whisperer column below, Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne considers the risk to the social rights of citizenship from the march of marketisation in social service provision in Australia, in the context of an important new book, a shift in international trends and an emerging local debate.
Read MoreA Q&A with Gavin Dufty (@gavindufty), Manager of Policy and Research at the St Vincent de Paul Society in Victoria on achieving social change.
Read MoreLast Friday Paul Smyth encouraged us to think beyond individual policies to begin reimagining the future of the wage earners welfare state. Below Jackie Brady, Acting Executive Director, Catholic Social Services Australia, also calls on social policy advocates to look at the big picture of reform – this time, the tax system. Jackie questions the logic and morality of applying concepts of ‘deservingness’ to the transfer side of the tax system, but not the taxation side.
Read MoreDon Arthur writes for the group blog Club Troppo, His work has also been published in the Australian Review of Public Affairs, the Centre for Independent Studies’ Policy magazine, and by the Evatt Foundation. An earlier version of this post appeared at Club Troppo.
Read MoreMoral and ethical arguments sit at the core of public policy. Politics and policymaking is, after all, a contest over ideas and world views.
The evidence-based policy paradigm has encouraged academics and, to a lesser extent, advocates to disengage from the moral dimensions of the arguments they make. But, by disengaging we sidestep the very ground upon which policy arguments are fought and won.
Below, Associate Professor Brent Sasley and Associate Professor Mira Sucharov reflect on the opportunities presented when we combine evidence with a moral stance through social media:
Read MoreIn an increasingly competitive environment, collaboration in the community sector is seen as a way of overcoming some of the challenges involved in market-based approaches. It enables organisations to share risks, gain efficiencies and combine efforts to strengthen the organisations themselves, and improve outcomes for service users.
However, there is a risk of 'mission drift' - that is; in attempts to strengthen our organisations position and secure funding, we drift from the central reasons our organisations exist. This is a real tension that community sector organisations must hold if they are to exist in this new environment. In this post, I reflect on these challenges and pose questions about what these approaches can mean for mission and social justice.
Read MoreWe've seen widespread criticism of the budget (some of it on this blog!), particularly around cuts to social policy and the (potential) removal of the safety net. While critique is important, Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne draws our attention to the lack of feasible alternatives put forth in post-budget commentary. In particular, Paul urges us to think wider than individual social policies to begin to (re)image what the Australian welfare state should look like for this century.
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