Both major parties are examining changes to negative gearing. Ben Spies-Butcher argues the two proposals for reform point to just how deeply flawed negative gearing is, and why neither change goes far enough.
Read MoreAustralia has long been known as a nation of home owners. Ben Spies-Butcher explores the changes and implications that have been slowly taking place.
Read MoreA key tenet of the Australian Government's National Innovation and Science Agenda is that public research funding should be awarded based on industry collaboration. A/Prof Michael Charles of Southern Cross University and our new Policy Whisperer Prof Robyn Keast ask: how can collaborative research excellence can be measured across a variety of very different disciplines? And if it can be measured appropriately, how can academic culture both within universities and at the grant-awarding level be changed to facilitate this transition?
Read MoreAustralia spends more on dealing with a few thousand asylum seekers than the UNHCR's budget for supporting nearly 50 million refugees worldwide. This is outrageous and unsustainable, according to Asher Hirsch, Policy Officer at the Refugee Council of Australia. It's the next post in this week's series on asylum seekers. This article originally appeared in Right Now.
Read MoreAustralia’s welfare system does a lot with a little. But the plight of growing numbers of precarious workers has led to calls for a new basic income.
The cost of such a scheme seems prohibitively expensive. So, might the lessons of Australia’s super-efficient welfare system offer a potential way forward?
Read MoreWhile most in the social services and community sector assumed that the 2014\15 Harper review concerned the ‘economy’ and not them (see the very limited range of ‘social’ submissions) it has indeed turned out to be a Radical Liberal push to undermine social services and the community sector by an inappropriate extension of market principles into our community and social life. Even as the Federal Treasurer initiates a ‘reform’ process together with the States we have Mr Harper himself already positioned as an ‘independent’ advisor (representing the for-profit firm Deloites) to the Victorian Government’s current Roadmap for Reform. Push is turning to shove and it behoves anyone with a concern for the future of Australian society to take stock of the situation and develop their action plan.
Read MoreThe National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been built to enable people with disability a greater choice in the services they wish to use. However, what if these choices are different to supports that have been funded traditionally? If this is not enabled, are people with disability really being given a choice?
Helen Dickinson from the University of Melbourne explores this in an article originally published in The Conversation.
Read MoreBy Ben Spies-Butcher, Lecturer in Economy and Society at the Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, with thanks to The Conversation for permission to re-post the original article here.
Read MoreNext up on Basic Income week, Professor Greg Marston explores how the simple yet powerful idea of basic income could help people vulnerable to climate change.
Read MoreContinuing on with our contributions to International Basic Income Week, our regular contributor Jon Altman provides an important analysis of what basic income could do for remote Indigenous Australia.
Read MoreNext up for International Basic Income Week, Dr Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico), lecturer in critical theory and technology studies at UC Berkeley and at the San Francisco Art Institute, offers an alternate view of the basic income discourse. This piece originally appeared on Dale's personal blog.
Read MoreAs well as being the week of the Power to Persuade Symposium, this week is also International Basic Income Week. In recognition of this, we will be running a series of posts on basic income (as well as some lead up pieces to the symposium). Below Dr John Tomlinson outlines the case for basic income. John has campaigned and published widely on the need for basic income.
Read MoreWith growing talk of tax reform, advocacy to promote equity and ensure that those on low-incomes are not negatively impacted is essential. Interestingly, the advocacy landscape is changing, with new alliances being formed to advocate for a different type of tax reform. In this post, Ben Spies-Butcher (@SensibleBSB) takes us through how tax reform has been reframed and its implications for a more equitable taxation system.
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As we look for new ways to collaborate and adopt 'disruptive' models of practice we need to be aware that just because it is disruptive, it does not mean that it is truly 'sharing' or revolutionary. The term 'sharing economy' is being co-opted as outlined in this post by Olivier Blanchard, which was originally published here.
Read MoreIn the latest Social Policy Whisperer, Dr Ben Spies-Butcher discusses the implications of the perceived (and sometimes rhetorical) differences between "social" and "economic" policy. How do we bring these two debates together?
Read MoreIn his latest Social Policy Whisperer column below, Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne warns of growing risk to our society and democracy from an agenda to defund peaks and fund agencies only to deliver services – "no more no less".
Read MoreDespite some very strange advice from the Treasurer in recent weeks, it's clear to most that Australia is suffering from an acute housing affordability problem. It isn't an easy problem to solve and so the Transforming Housing Project @trnsfmnghousing, at the University of Melbourne is looking at it from all angles.
Read MoreAccording to Marc Jarh, of Community Development Futures LLC and former president of the New York City Housing Development Corporation "the math of affordable housing finance is cruel". So how, in the midst of a housing affordability crisis, can we make the numbers stack up? In this edited extract of Marc's presentation to the Transforming Housing Affordable Housing Summit he explores the institutions and policies that makes the US affordable housing finance system work.
Read MoreA coalition of 17 peak and non-government organisations from the health and community sectors is calling on the Australian Government to scrap plans to cut nearly $800 million in funding to key health initiatives over the next four financial years. The foreshadowed cuts would drastically reduce the capacity of non-government organisations and peak bodies to deliver services across the country and to provide advice and support for reform in health.
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