Who’s lobbying whom? When it comes to alcohol, tobacco, food and gambling firms, we’re in the dark

It can be very difficult to get traction for meaningful policy change that will benefit the Australian public, particularly for marginalised communities. What can make it even harder is the influence of corporate actors, which is often hidden from public view. In today’s post, VicHealth postdoctoral research fellow Jenn Lacy-Nichols (@JLacyNichols) of University of Melbourne (@unimelbMSPGH) and Katherine Cullerton of University of Queensland (@UQmedicine) share their research findings into tracking the lobbying activities of corporations. This article first appeared in the The Conversation on 13 November 20203; you can read it in its original form here.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade23 November 2023government, economic policy, public policy, public health

Diversifying the gender equality lens to include migrant women

In today’s post, Hyein Cho (@hyein_ellen_cho) and Marie Segrave (@MSegrave) from Monash University (@MonashUni) present a snapshot of their recently launched report on Victorian local councils and gender equality. They detail seven key findings in the report and highlight four of them here.

Policy and governance, PoliticsPower to Persuade6 September 2023Gender equality, migrants, politics, government, diversity, inclusion, equality

Improving Census data on Australia’s diversity will help to better identify and address poverty

The Australian Government recognises the current Census questions on cultural, ethnic and racial identity are inadequate. So what might better Census questions look like? And how would more comprehensive data on Australia’s ethnoracial diversity help to better address underlying social and economic inequalities? In Anti-Poverty Week (@AntiPovertyWeek), Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) researcher and sociologist Dr Rennie Lee (@Rennie_Lee) at The University of Queensland, and colleague Professor Farida Fozdar, sociologist at Curtin University, examine this important data collection issue that is vital for government policymaking.

Creating using evidenceLife Course Centre19 October 2022Poverty, government, migrants

Women in the ministry and shadow ministry

To great fanfare, the Albanese government announced a cabinet that had the highest rates of female representation in Australian history. In today’s analysis, Anna Hough (@AnnaC_Hough) of the Australian Parliamentary Library (@ParlLibrary) compares the gender composition of both the cabinet and the shadow cabinet with recent historical elections. While representation is important, the kinds of portfolios led by women are also analysed. This analysis was originally published on the Parliament of Australia website.

Opinion: aged care crisis shows a disaster waiting in workplace ‘flexibility’

The second spike of Covid-19 in Victoria which has resulted in a large number of outbreaks in aged care homes is shining a light on the policies and practices of how governments and the private sector manage aged care. In this blog post Bernard Keene discusses challenges within the aged care sector such as casualisation of the workforce that require immediate attention in the wake of the corona virus crisis.

Issues, Policy and governancePower to Persuade6 August 2020Aged policy, COVID-19, government, Policy making

COVIDSafe tracking app reviewed: the government delivers on data security, but other issues remain

At the time of writing the Australian Government’s COVIDsafe app has been downloaded more than two million times. In this repost from The Conversation, Dr. Mahmoud Elkhodr from Central Queensland University tells us how the app works, how its delivering on privacy concerns and some of the issues that have arisen.

IssuesPower to Persuade28 April 2020coronavirus, government

People with a disability are more likely to die from coronavirus – but we can reduce this risk

Prior research has shown that health inequities worsen during pandemics. In this blog piece Professor Helen Dickinson and Professor Anne Kavanagh highlight the health inequities already faced by people with disability and how the Covid-19 pandemic could make these worse. They outline steps the Government urgently needs to implement to protect people with disability as the pandemic progresses.

Other countries are shutting schools – why does the Australian government say it’s safe to keep them open?

The issue of school closures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic has been polarising the political and public discourse in Australia. In this blog post Professor Peter Collignon from ANU Medical School discusses why the Australian Government recommends keeping schools open for now.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade26 March 2020government, education, Policy making, public health

Data underpinning COVID-19 decisions should be made public

As Covid-19 case numbers have been rising quickly in Australia Government responses and recommedations to the public have also been fast moving. In an age where trust in our political institutions is at an all time low Professor John Shine from the Australian Academy of Science argues that in such a fast moving environment transparency must be at the core of Government responses. The Academy has thus called on the Government to make all the data and science underpinning their Covid-19 decisions be made public.

Homelessness and overcrowding expose us all to coronavirus. Here’s what we can do to stop the spread

The Covid-19 pandemic is exposing a raft of issues with social welfare policy in Australia. Australia’s lack of social housing and lack of affordable rentals means many people are living in crowded or inadequate housng, or are homeless. In today’s blog post Nicole Gurran, Peter Phibbs and Tess Lea discuss the issues Australia is now facing as Covid-19 intersects with homelessness and inadequate housing, and what governments need to do to help.

Advocacy groups call for immediate changes to Australia's welfare system in the face of COVID-19

As unemployment surges in the face of Covid-19, advocacy groups are calling for Government to respond by raising the rate of all welfare payments and put an end to the Cashless Debit Card trial. Yesterday the Accountable Income Management Network and the Australian Unemployed Workers Union issued a joint Media Release outlining their calls to the Federal Government. Below are their demands:

AdvocacyPower to Persuade24 March 2020government, policy problem, Social Welfare

The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting the importance of inclusive work and a strong and flexible safety net

Covid19 is creating massive employment upheavals with significant implications for peoples’ mental health. In today’s blog Post Aurora Elmes discusses the role social enterprises can play in providing flexible and supportive workplaces for vulnerable people and the need for government to consider how they can support these businesses to help cushion some of the economic and social fallout from Covid-19.

Lesson for Australia. Make it hard for people to get benefits, and they’ll stop, but they mightn’t get jobs

Australia’s system of social welfare is based on mutual obligation. But what happens when those obligations become so onerous that people simply stop seeking to claim government benefits? Professor David C. Ribar from The University of Melbourne dicusses this issue for those on Newsart.

This post originally appeared in The Conversation

Putting value creation back into public value

While value creation has long been discussed in the private sector, the concept of value creation by the public sector is largely absent. Until recently there has been no clear role for the public sector to create value itself – the term ‘public value’ does not even exist in economics. However a new paper by Mariana Mazzucato and Josh Ryan-Collins at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose proposes ways that public value can be created using a theory of collective public value creation. This article orginally appeared in The Mandarin and is authored by Maria Katsonis.

Why government agencies forget

Scholars have, for decades, suggested that organisational amnesia can negatively impact the effectiveness of government agencies. So why do they forget? Maria Katsonis has summarised the findings of Alastair Stark (University of Queensland) for why public institutions may be unable - or unwilling - to access and/or use past experiences to help deliver better public outcomes.

From the United Nations to the classroom: where is Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Australia?

The University of Queensland’s Romy Listo reports on the United Nations 63rd Commission on the Status of Women held 11-23 March in New York. She draws attention to the commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) which is supported by Australian delegates. Despite support for these commitments by the Federal Government, in practice the actual implementation of CSE by Australian states and territories does not meet the inclusive and expansive ideals being championed. Investment and strategies are needed to bring the right to CSE into Australian classrooms.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade26 April 2019gender, Policy making, education, government

Using cognitive science research to redesign policy decision making systems

Climate change is back on the political agenda and public support for action on climate change is at its highest level since 2007. But can we expect our political institutions to be able to respond in the time and scale needed given their past failures? Rather than merely policy reform do we need to reform the system of government itself? In today’s post Celia Green and Andrew Joyce discuss how cognitive science research could be used in the redesign of our political institutions to enable better decision making processes.

How the Sustainable Development Goals can help change the way we evaluate Federal Budgets and election platforms

Election season is on us again, and Twitter feeds and daily news updates are full of potential elected leaders making policy promises and giving warnings about how the opposing parties won’t be able to bring us the Australia we need.

But how do we know what the Australia we need is? Depending on political leaning and personal values, this is going to vary from voter to voter. But when deciding on which policies to support, it can be useful to try and have a framework by which to evaluate platforms and the societies they are wishing to create. Megan Weier suggests that, if we want an Australia in which there is a ‘fair go for all’ (the classic Australian dream), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a useful benchmark to look to.

Let’s be brave about the little things

In today’s post, Professor Catherine Needham argues that low tolerance for public servants to test new ways of working is hampering meaningful change in the way government works with citizens. This post was originally published on the 21st Century Public Servant blog.

Policy and governancePower to Persuade17 April 2019accountability, government

What can you do when policymakers ignore your evidence? Tips from the ‘how to’ literature from the science community

In this post, Paul Cairney and colleagues distil eight recommendations for promoting the use of evidence in policy making from 78 academic articles. But what if these recommendations are not enough? It’s OK, the authors also provide five additional resources to facilitate research impact in a policy context.

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