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We rely on the public service to implement sweeping policy decisions and reform – but we have had some recent examples of what can go wrong when the decision-makers don’t get it quite right. In today’s blog, Andrew Joyce and Fiona Buick share insights from their examination of how the NDIS was rolled out. Interviews identified key points where the decision-making process could have been more robust. The authors reflect on what the public service could learn from this case study.
Robodebt highlighted how a government initiative, designed and delivered by the public sector, could cause profound harm to vulnerable people. For many of us interested in Australian social policy a central question remains: how do we ensure something like this never happens again?
The literature on policy diffusion is replete with examples, theories and frameworks about how ‘good’ policy travels. Many industries (such as healthcare and air transport) are built around learning from others’ mistakes and near-misses. Yet in public policy, the literature is more despondent about the ability of lessons from crises to successfully travel. This is the issue that Dr Maria Maley and I explore in Robodebt and the limits of learning: exploring meaning-making after a crisis
In complex healthcare systems, staff voice is vital for ensuring healthcare professionals and service providers uphold safe, ethical and high-quality care. When staff are unable to voice concerns about patient safety or their own wellbeing, mistakes and misconduct are more likely to go unaddressed, allowing scandals to happen or last longer. Organisations such as the National Health Service (NHS) have been long aware of these risks and currently use “speaking up” policies to combat the silencing or neglect of staff concerns. After 9 years of speaking up policy many NHS staff still find themselves unheard or silenced. Now, the U.K. government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which oversees the NHS, proposes new plans to remove these existing policies and introduce new staff voice policy under the NHS Fit for the Future strategy (NHS England, 2025). In this blog post Sukhwinder Essie Kaur unpacks the failings of Speaking Up and explores how co-production research may be a key player in designing new policies and mechanism that better support NHS staff to voice their concerns.
The role played by the police in our wider mental health system has never been truly resolved. In both Australia and the United Kingdom, as across the world, discussion is at its most intense when considering police contact deaths involving those of us affected by our mental health. In this blog, Michael Brown explores the complex issues behind tragic outcomes and starts to think about how to embed “lessons learned” into policy.
Bernadette Black AM, CEO and Founder of SEED Futures, shares her deeply personal journey from teenage motherhood to national systems change advocate. Reflecting on the transformative impact of one woman’s care and belief in her, she makes a powerful case for reimagining the way Australia supports families in their earliest, most vulnerable days. With warmth and urgency, Black argues that kindness must not depend on chance—it must be built into the system. Through SEED Futures and the Incremental Reform Catalogue, she offers a clear, practical path to make that vision real.
Giulia Fabris, Policy Advocacy Lead at Health Justice Australia, discusses what is needed to move from recognising persistent social problems to implementing solutions.
Ahead of the International Day of Families on 15th May, Dr Karen Villanueva and colleagues from the Social Equity Research Centre at RMIT University, along with researchers from the University of South Australia, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and the University of Montreal, explore why neighbourhoods matter for young children.
Our blog today also considers a crisis - perhaps the biggest social and administrative crisis in recent times- Covid-19. Nicholas Bromfield writes about his latest paper on NDIS’s response, highlighting the important role of people with disabilities co-producing policy successes.
Recent government crisis, such as Robodebt, have highlighted that empathy might improve policy making processes. This blog explores research from Assel Mussagulova and I (Colette Einfeld) on how empathy is used, and might be useful, in the public service.
As Australia grapples with a deepening housing crisis, much of the public conversation has centred on first-home buyers, skyrocketing rents, and the shrinking supply of affordable housing. But an equally urgent – and often overlooked – issue is the growing number of older Australians renting privately into later life. In this piece, Joelle Moore, a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, explores the increasing precarity faced by older renters.
In this article, Dr Raelene West discusses community housing for people with disability exploring housing options, noting that a home is made of more than bricks and mortar.
As the NDIS faces significant ongoing reforms, it can be useful to look back at where we’ve come from – from disability rights to fights for entitlements, and from investment to cost containment, Eloise Hummell summarises her recent co-authored article on policy drift and evolution in the NDIS.
This year Power to Persuade will continue to bring you articles on a variety of topics related to social policy, written by experts involved in designing, implementing, studying and/or navigating social policy . However, in addition to our regular call for submissions, we invite you to be part of a new conversation in 2025 on the relevance of rights for 21st century policy. We are at a point in history where well-trodden paths in politics, policy and practice are being reworked. What are the implications for equality, diversity, inclusion and equity? We hope you will join us in that conversation this year, as readers and authors. Find out more about submitting an article for publication with us here.
On this International Day of People with Disability, Dr Raelene West points out that access to the built environment is still problematic. Dr West is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne in the Melbourne Disability Institute. This article was originally published in Architecture Victoria Magazine edition 2, 2024.
In this week’s blog, Simon Katterl writes about Victoria’s proposed anti-vilification laws and their implications for vilification in mental health.
As we approach the end of 2024, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on both the progress that has been made in disability equality, but also the things that we all do to protect ourselves and sustain our collective and individual advocacy efforts. In the Spring 2024 Edition of the Canberra Disability Review , Editor Rob Donnelly invited readers to do this, by responding to the question: What do you do that helps you to keep going, and maintain some measure of hope, when progress towards a fairer and more inclusive Australia is under heavy fire?
Advocacy for Inclusion’s Head of Policy, Craig Wallace, and the Disability Leadership Institute’s CEO and Founder, Christina Ryan, shared their perspectives.
Care-giving can be a rich and complex experience that is both rewarding and challenging. Enrico Pfeifer (@EnricoPfeifer1), a PhD Candidate at the University College London, knows this first-hand. Today, he explores his doctoral research on the impact that care-giving can have on people’s health, and how we can support care-givers to stay healthy.
In the Spring 2024 Edition of the Canberra Disability Review, Editor Rob Donnelly sat down with Hannah Orban to discuss the Grattan Institute’s (@GrattanInst) recent report “Better, Safer, More Sustainable. How To Reform NDIS Housing and support”. Today’s blog piece shares key parts of their interview, highlighting key issues with the current NDIS housing system and opportunities for improvement. You can read the original interview here.