Sue Olney
In both Australia and New Zealand, policy settings treat welfare fraud as more serious than tax evasion, prompting the assumption that this reflects community views.
Not so, reports New Zealand Taxation Professor Lisa Marriott in the post below, which wraps the findings of her work published in this edition of the Journal of Australian Tax.
Read MoreAt the height of the neoliberal period in Australia, Anti-Poverty week was always a somewhat dismal reminder of the absence of any serious political agenda on the subject. But are people listening now? And are the moving beyond listening to action? In this post, Whisperer Paul Smyth tackles these questions and more.
Read MoreNature is essential to our wellbeing. There are multiple layers of complexity and nuance to the interactions between humans and their environment, which are often referred to as ecosystem services. In this post, Manu Saunders discusses how the concept has much greater potential for improving human wellbeing and promoting nature conservation than it is often given credit for. This post was originally posted on Remember the Wild, and is republished here with permission.
Read MoreA key component of the NDIS is the provision of individualised funding to people with disability, who should then have greater choice and control over how this is spent. While this sounds good in theory a new paper by Associate Professor Helen Dickinson, published in ANZSOG’s Evidence Base journal, raises doubts about the quality of the evidence in favour of individualised funding. In this post, Helen discusses the key findings of her review. This piece originally appeared on the ANZSOG blog.
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, Jasmine Ozge, a PhD candidate at RMIT living with disability, discusses the conjectural nature of disability, why disability is a strength, and the benefits of an inclusive society.
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 MoreOn 20 September 2017, an historic and legally-binding treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons opened for signature at United Nations Headquarters in New York. In a post published here on 28 July, Associate Professor Tilman Ruff - the founding chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) – described how the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came about and what’s in it. Today, Associate Professor Ruff describes the challenge ahead for governments and civil society in promoting and implementing the Treaty.
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.
Read MoreThe National Disability Insurance Scheme promises to transform the lives of people with disability, and deliver an economic boost for all Australians by creating thousands of jobs. At the recent launch of an Empowering Youth Initiative designed to encourage young people to work in the disability sector, David Moody, National Disability Services State Manager – Victoria, talked about opportunities to develop and grow the disability workforce of the future.
Read MoreThe Federal Coalition Government has introduced a range of cuts to welfare payments, and accompanying this there has been an increasing focus on compliance. Compliance requirements are often onerous and unrealistic for people receiving welfare, and in addition seem designed to strip recipients of their dignity and agency. In today’s post Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) from Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand briefly reviews some of the compliance initiatives, suggests possible world views that are driving these changes, and provides a brief review of the consequences. Note: Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand is part of the newly-formed Treating Families Fairly campaign, organised by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare.
Read MoreThe idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is gaining traction in Australia and around the globe. While a UBI has the potential to lift people and communities out of poverty, Michael Fletcher from the Aukland University of Technology warns us that it is not a panacea; government still needs to provide comprehensive services and tailored support. This policy analysis originally appeared on the New Zealand web site Briefing Papers, and can be viewed here.
Read MoreIn another insightful post, Juanita McLaren (@defrostedlady) of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand examines the patterns of welfare dependency by women and suggests that the Welfare to Work policy could be more effective if, rather than punishing single mothers, it supported them based on normal arcs of parenting and employment. You can hear Juanita speak on her experiences at our upcoming Women’s Policy Forum, held in Melbourne on 22 September 2017.
Read MoreA growing number of organisations have explicitly supported the campaign for marriage equality in Australia. But as the debate has gathered momentum and a degree of heat in some quarters, some organisations have chosen to refrain from taking a public position, viewing the issue as one of personal conscience. In this adapted evidence review, Jason Rostant briefly outlines the public health case for health, community sector and other NGOs taking a public stance in support of marriage equality.
Read MoreIn this blog that originally appeared on the Nesta blog, Alex Glennie and Madeleine Gabriel examine the role of innovation in helping to support the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but caution that innovation is not a certain road to reducing global inequality.
Read MoreThis is a guest post on Paul Cairney's Politics & Public Policy blog by Claire A. Dunlop and Claudio M. Radaelli both from the University of Exeter. In it they discuss how to use insights from the Policy Learning literature to think about how to learn effectively or adapt to processes of ‘learning’ in policymaking that are more about politics than education. The full paper has been submitted to the series for Policy and Politics called Practical Lessons from Policy Theories
Read MoreAnother from our audio and graphic recording series from last month's Power to Persuade symposium: today we feature EY's David Schmidtchen on the vital and under-appreciated role of middle managers - the engine room of change and reform.
Read More'Naive optimism' and mistaken beliefs about improved efficiency and cost savings are major drivers of the adoption of government ‘one stop shops’, a recently published review paper has found. Misplaced expectations about cost savings don’t just influence decisions but can be damaging, as governments pre-emptively cut budgets and leave new projects without enough money, argues Dr Cosmo Howard in ANZSOG's open access Evidence Base journal.
Read MoreContinuing our audio and graphic recording series from the Power to Persuade symposium, today we feature the first panel of the day: "Changing concepts of evidence". Speakers were Tara Oliver and Prof Robert Slonim (Behavioural Economics Team, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet), Daniel Reeders of ANU, and Dr Michael Fletcher of the Auckland University of Technology.
Read MoreThis week we'll be posting the audio and graphic recordings from last month's Power to Persuade symposium held at ANU in Canberra. Jessamy Gee from Think in Colour attended the symposium and produced wonderful visual representations of each session. The keynote speaker for the day was Professor Gillian Triggs, whose presentation featured in various national media publications. Listen to Prof Triggs and see her graphic recording here!
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