Sue Olney
The Coalition’s stance on income support is “the best form of welfare is a job.” For many people on The Newstart Allowance, however, one job doesn’t cut it. In today’s analysis, the insightful Juanita McLaren (@defrostedlady) takes us through her tax return to demonstrate how Welfare to Work policies incentivise decisions around employment, education, income support and debt for single mothers.
Read MoreVictoria has recently committed to spending a whole lot more on prisons and corrections to accommodate its growing prison population. As Deirdre O’Neill, Valarie Sands and Graeme Hodge of Monash University report, Victoria relies more heavily on privatised prisons than anywhere else in the country, but lack of transparency makes it frustratingly difficult to tell whether privatisation has delivered on its promises of cheaper, better and more accountable. This post is based on their recent article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration.
Read MoreThe child penalty is a significant driver of the gender pay gap, which points to a solution through more progressive policies. Today’s analysis compares six OECD countries which reflect a range of progressive policies to support women into employment. The analysis highlights a powerful determinant of the gender pay gap external to policy solutions - social norms. This article originally appeared in VoxEU.org under the title “Child penalties across countries: Evidence and explanations”, and is authored by Henrik Klevin, Camille Landais, Johanna Posch, Andreas Steinhauer, and Josef Zeimüller.
Read MoreIn this post, Professor Jenny Stewart and Dr Fiona Buick from the Public Service Research Group reflect on the ever-present divide between academics and practitioners in public policy. They present a number of strategies to bridge the gap and provide the foundation for academics to undertake research that generates outcomes for both researchers and policymakers.
Read MoreThis article from Dr Simone Casey explores tensions between 'work first' activation of unemployed people enforced by the employment services system in Australia and theories of rational choice that underpin market economies. Dr Casey is an Associate of the RMIT Future Social Services Institute.
Read MoreThere is currently an unprecedented interest at both Federal and State levels to address family violence in a holistic and meaningful way. In today’s analysis, Sophie Yates (@DrSophieYates) of UNSW Canberra (@PSResearchG) shares her insights into the various ways that practitioners in the family violence sector talk about gender and how their various conceptions of the term impact on their practice. The article she published on this topic recently netted her the inaugural Rosemary O’Leary Prize for outstanding scholarship on women in public administration. This piece was originally published in the LSE Engenderings blog under the title “Big G and small g: Understanding gender and its relationship to family violence.”
Read MoreWith the outcome of the recent federal election, the Coalition’s ‘pre-employment’ program known as ParentsNext looks set to continue indefinitely. While a recent Senate Inquiry found the program to be deeply flawed and often harmful to participants, the program is not without its defenders. In today’s piece, Ella Buckland (@EllaNBuckland), who has become a strong advocate for women who are enrolled and is leading a petition to have the program made voluntary, writes about her own experiences and those of other mothers who are on the program in an effort to set the record straight on the program’s merits.
Read MoreIt’s a term widely used by politicians, educators, and the media in the UK to describe Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups – but we need to be wary of using ‘BAME’, especially within a public health context. Dr Sandhya Duggal draws on her doctoral research to reflect on some of the key issues associated with the term ‘BAME’, with reference to the Indian Punajabi community. Her work highlights two key recommendations – the importance of recognising heterogeneity and multi-generational differences – something ‘BAME’ fails to acknowledge.
Read MoreDogs have traditionally assisted humans and their supportive roles continue to evolve and diversify. There are now courtroom facility dogs (Kaiser 2015) and even funeral therapy dogs, offering ‘love and support to the bereaved’ (Snead, 2018). More than half of Canadian universities implement dog therapies during examination periods as a means of reducing stress (Dell, et al., 2015). We are beginning to see this strategy introduced to UK universities. In 2018, the University of Birmingham’s School of Education offered dog therapy to their alumni teachers as a possible remedy for alleviating stress. In the second of her two guest posts this week on Power to Persuade, Dr Alison Broad the Director of Primary Initial Teacher Education examines why some schools have a dog on their staff.
Read MoreThe role of animals in supporting mental health and emotional wellbeing is probably not a modern phenomenon. Myers (1998) draws our attention to the book ‘De Canibus Britannicus’, written in the sixteenth century by Dr Cairs in which he advocated the therapeutic use of dogs and recommended that a person afflicted by illness should carry a small dog on their bosom to soak up the disease. In 1699 John Locke prescribed giving children small animals, including dogs, birds or even squirrels, to look after, in order to foster the development of ‘tender feelings and responsibility for others’ (Garforth, 1964, p.154). The assumption was that this would help children to control their innately ‘beast like’ characteristics (Myers, 1998). In the first of her two guest posts this week on Power to Persuade, Dr Alison Broad the Director of Primary Initial Teacher Education examines the question – can animal assisted therapies help to tackle the issues of wellbeing and mental health?
Read MoreMaiy Azize explains the important lessons of Anglicare Australia ‘s recent study of attitudes towards welfare and poverty for how anti-poverty advocates can use language effectively. Boldly stating our support for all people in poverty, as well as focussing on their strength and resilience are two key recommendations.
Read MoreIn the wake of the election results, Millie Rooney (Australia reMADE) describes how a united and inspiring vision for what Australia could be can help us work together across and around difference to create ‘the best version of us’.
Read MoreMaiy Azize of Anglicare Australia explains how her recent study of social attitudes shows that Australians are surprisingly empathetic towards people in poverty - and how anti-poverty advocates can campaign and win.
Read MorePost-Christchurch, our leaders must reinvigorate their responses to radicalisation in our communities. Deb Cleland and Valerie Braithwaite (ANU) introduce the RAMP framework for behaviour change to help understand community organisations’ responses to radicalisation. The RAMP framework suggests that behaviour change can be facilitated by: Rewards, Awareness, Motivation and Pathways.
Read MoreDespite being our largest and most complex social policy reform, the NDIS didn’t receive much attention in the recent election campaign until its close. We could read something into this about how political parties think the NDIS plays with the electorate, but irrespective of political perceptions and prioritising the fact remains that the NDIS affects the lives of not just its 460 000 participants, but their families, carers, and more than 35 00 workers.
Read MoreThere has been much lament over the discarding of Australia’s Women’s Budget Statement as part of the budgeting process, and reinstating this process was one of Labor’s promises should they have won the election. While this is an absolutely critical document, there is an upstream problem that also needs addressing - data collection. The data which is collected and analysed is often itself subject to gender bias, resulting in huge gaps in our understanding of how policies effect women.
Today’s analysis looks at the problem of women’s invisibility in data sets using the example of transportation policy. Transport policy researcher Nicole Badstuber (@NicoleBadstuber) has written an explosive piece that resonated strongly with readers in the U.K. but also hit a nerve with Australians, as evidenced by a viral tweet on the piece from Per Capita’s Abigail Lewis. This piece originally appeared in London Reconnections and can be viewed in its original format here.
Read MoreThis article from Dr Simone Casey explores why Australia’s Mutual Obligation requirements are so demanding and whether this is based on evidence about what works. It asks why critical research evidence has not received more attention from Australia ‘s activation policy makers. She argues that lack of engagement with critical social research is a limitation which hampers social justice efforts and reflects disregard for social suffering, and says there is plenty of room for stronger engagement with participatory policy design approaches. Dr Casey is an Associate of the RMIT Future Social Services Institute.
Read MoreSince inception, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognised reducing violence against women as a global goal. Yet, it’s difficult to see how Australia can meet the goal without significantly greater investment in the prevention of violence against women. Today’s original blog post is contributed by Kara Beavis (@KarsyBee). Kara is enrolled in a Ph.D. at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) entitled: Lessons from Norway: Influencing the Political Economy for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. Apart from working previously as a “femocrat” within women’s policy units in NSW and Queensland, she presently juggles teaching duties with research and advocacy for gender equality.
Read MoreThe Coalition government has had a long-term focus on moving women into paid employment through increasing Welfare to Work requirements and keeping the Newstart Allowance artificially low. However, many women are unable to participate in employment due to caring duties. For some women this career break is a temporary one as children age and become less dependent, but others are looking after family members or others who have a disability or a chronic condition. In today’s piece, Melanie Zeppel (@MelanieZeppel) of GenIMPACT at Macquarie University shares findings from co-authored research on the economic analysis of the cost of caring, which overwhelmingly impacts on women.
Read MoreWith the federal election campaign in its final days, people are heading to polling booths to vote in Australia’s next government. In today’s federal election series, Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@susanmaury) and Laura Vidal (@lauraemilyvidal), both of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand, break down the Government and Australian Labor Party’s policies for improving women’s safety, providing both a comparison between the platforms and commentary on how the plans fall short. Today’s piece on women’s safety is the second in a two-part series from the @GoodAdvocacy team. You can read Part 1 on economic security here.
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