Is aggressive outsourcing of government services affecting service quality and trust? The Mandarin's David Donaldson spoke to contracting expert and NSW Premier's ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Delivery Gary Sturgess for his take on the matter. This post originally appeared on The Mandarin.
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Juanita McLaren, interning with Good Shepherd, has written previously about her experience as a single mother of Centrelink policies (see her posts here and here). On International Women's Day (8 March 2017), she was interviewed by Rayna Fahey on the radio show The Renegade Economists on 3CR, discussing the feminisation of poverty in Australia and the role that government policy plays.
Read MoreWhen our politicians frame the discussion around welfare users by using such language as "dole bludgers" it is a deliberate tactic to validate punishing them - as we have seen with the Centrelink debt debacle and the accusations by staff that a faulty system was deliberately implemented. In today's post, Paul Michael Garrett explains how language use frames public opinion in the U.K. in unhelpful ways. Have ideologically underpinned debates, portraying those on welfare as being lazy and having an easy life, become part of collective public perceptions? With 2016 marking the 40th anniversary of the publication of Raymond Williams’ Keywords, an interrogation of the taken-for-grantedness of specific words used to support a neoliberal agenda is timely. Here, he looks at ‘welfare dependency’. This blog originally appeared on the London School of Economics' British Politics and Policy blog; the original can be viewed here.
Read MoreBy Gerard Brody and David Tennant
Gerard Brody is the CEO of the Consumer Action Law Centre and David Tennant CEO of Shepparton–based FamilyCare. Both participated in the Advisory Committee for the CSI/NAB Financial Resilience in Australia 2015 Research.
Read MoreIn a recent interview on 3CR’s Solidarity Breakfast, Susan Feldman discussed gendered disadvantage and the need to look at men’s and women’s different experiences of ageing.
Read MoreIn the lead-up to Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum on 16 August 2016, the Women’s Policy Action Tank has asked some of the day’s participants to publish articles reflecting how current policy differently impacts on women. In today’s post, Susan Feldman and Harriet Radermacher detail how women’s disadvantage accrues across the lifespan resulting in a disproportionate number of older women in hardship. This article originally appeared in The Conversation.
Read MoreEquality is seldom the same as equity. In today’s post, Dr Peter Ninnes of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand analyses the New South Wales government’s data to refute their claims that the Gonski recommendations have been fully implemented through the Resource Allocation Model (RAM).
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While we wait for a conclusive outcome of the 2016 Federal Election, let's return to everyone's favourite story of the past week--Brexit. In this post, economist Saul Eslake argues that the greatest immediate danger to Australia is contagion in the financial markets. Longer term, there are legitimate grievances to be dealt with. This post originally appeared on Inside Story.
Read MoreGender-Responsive Budgeting improves targeted and effective social change. Despite being an early leader in this area, Australia abruptly ceased issuing a Women’s Budget Statement (WBS) in 2013. Today’s post argues that the WBS ought to be resurrected as an integrated analysis of the budget process itself.
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A lack of economic analysis expertise in the Australian public sector is costing the country, writes economist Dr Leo Dobes in the wake of his recent cost-benefit analysis research. Government resources are finite, and decisions must constantly be made about where to direct resources so that they will most benefit the whole community. But these are complicated decisions to make - how can we genuinely move toward evidence-based public policy if we don't have the in-house capacity to rigorously analyse policy proposals? Relying on consultants has its risks.
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In this piece, originally published in The Conversation, Eva Cox (@evacox) of the University of Sydney argues that the major parties' commitment to fairness and trust doesn't extend to those who are not contributing paid work hours. As more than a third of registered voters are not in the paid workforce, this bipartisan silence on welfare policy and income support seems electorally short-sighted.
Read MoreLast week, the Australian Labor Party announced that it will lift the Medicare rebate freeze if elected to office in the July federal election. We know health issues feature strongly in election debates, but what does this proposal actually mean for most of us? In our latest post, Helen Dickinson explores these questions and more #healthelection.
Read MoreIn 1968 anthropologist Bill Stanner spoke of the Great Australian Silence in relation to the historical mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, a national myopia. The just announced 2016 Budget could be similarly termed ‘the Great Australian Fiscal Silence’, a fiscal myopia incommensurate with the level of need.
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Every year I do an analysis of the Indigenous provisions in the federal Budget. This is done in the light of current and past strategies, policies, programs and funding, and is supported, where this is possible, by data and information drawn from government agencies, reports and published papers.
This year’s analysis is now available on the University of Sydney e‐scholarship website where you can also find the analyses from previous years.
Read MoreThe economic argument for community legal centres is strong, and the Productivity Commission has recommended an immediate injection of cash to shore up their operations. Despite this, their funding is still being cut. Dr Chris Atmore (@ChrisPolicy; Senior Policy Adviser at the Federation of Community Legal Centres Victoria) outlines why CLC funding should be an election issue in the run-up to July 2.
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Below, Professor David Hayward from RMIT provides some thoughtful reflections on the recently announced budget from a social policy perspective.
Read MoreNudging is the flavour of the moment in public policy, with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet recently announcing they will follow NSW and establish a new high-level behavioural economics team in PM&C. But what are the risks, ethically and otherwise, of a focus on the psyche? And what can we learn from the experiences of international development practitioners in how we nudge our citizens at home? Elise Klein explores these questions, and more, in this new post.
Read MoreAs speculation mounts about the possibility of an early budget announcement--and with it, a potential early Federal Election--debates about the Government's social and economic priorities have intensified. In this post by Dr Veronica Sheen, we take a look at the importance of social protection and the example of how the Greek economy responded to austerity measures.
Read MoreThis guest blog is written by Tony Greenham, Director of Economy, Enterprise and Manufacturing at the RSA (The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in London, and was originally posted on the RSA blog site on 2 February 2016.
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