Blog

THIS WEEK’S MODERATOR

Dr. Cadhla O’Sulllivan

Restorative justice: Can short-term politics align with long-term juvenile justice policy?

David Moore is President of the Victorian Association for Restorative Justice.

In the article below he looks at the impact of 'tough on crime' approaches to youth justice in Australia and how restorative justice – "not some warm-hearted-but-soft-headed notion" – offers to resolve the apparent conflicts between short-term politics and long-term policy in youth justice.

The article looks particularly at the Victorian justice system in recent years, where more punitive policies have sparked a spiral of issues for individuals and the system, and also where restorative models are offering real hope.

Power to Persuade18 October 2017

How & why do we treat tax evasion & welfare fraud differently?

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.

Power to Persuade16 October 2017

Ecosystem services: it’s not all about the dollars

Nature 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.

IssuesPower to Persuade10 October 2017environment

How do we design effective individual funding systems for people with disability?

A 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.

IssuesPower to Persuade9 October 2017disability, NDIS

Paul Cairney's 5-step strategy to make evidence count

Dr. 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.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade4 October 2017evidence-based policy

What needs to be heard about disability and the way in which to say it: A Mash-Up

Today, 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.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade29 September 2017disability

Disability Rights, the NDIS and the Need for Law Reform

Today’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.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade28 September 2017Disability, NDIS, Law

Why the new treaty banning nuclear weapons is important and how it can be used – Part 2

On 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.

IssuesPower to Persuade27 September 2017United Nations, nuclear weapons

Bumping into barriers on the way to social inclusion with the NDIS

Bars, 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.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade26 September 2017ndis, health, Disability

How do we ignite young people to work in the disability sector?

The 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.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade25 September 2017employment, Disability, ndis

Three ways to encourage policy learning

This 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

Policy and governancePower to Persuade13 September 2017policy making

Middle managers: interlocutors between policy and evidence?

Another 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.

ConferencesPower to Persuade8 September 2017evidence-based policy

‘Naive optimism’ driving uptake of one stop shops

'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.

Policy and governance, Creating using evidencePower to Persuade6 September 2017evidence-based policy, policy research

Changing concepts of evidence: Power to Persuade Symposium panel 1

Continuing 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.

ConferencesPower to Persuade5 September 2017evidence-based policy