When the debate about public funding for PrEP started up, I was concerned that it would go down the same path as PEP — with a set pool of funding, left to state/territory governments to administer, with de facto rationing based on sexual risk, and only available from a set number of locations. So my own position on PrEP was that it needed to be funded via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and not rationed.
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The Cashless Debit Card Symposium was held at both the University of Melbourne and the Alfred Deakin Institute on Thursday, the 1st of February 2018. The Power to Persuade is running a series of blogs drawn from the presentations made on the day. In this piece, Shelley Bielefeld from Australia National University analyses the Cashless Debit Card initiative to ascertain whether the concept of proportionality can justify the curtailing of certain human rights for communities subjected to the CDC.
Read MoreMarkets are all well and good, but with the NDIS, we have to be careful that we don’t sacrifice equity in the name of efficiency, writes Associate Professor Gemma Carey.
Read MoreResearch assessment exercises provide the government and wider public with assurance of the quality of university research, with the guiding principles being accountability, transparency, and openness. But is there the same accountability and openness when it comes to the public cost of these large-scale exercises?
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The Cashless Debit Card Symposium was held at both the University of Melbourne and the Alfred Deakin Institute on Thursday, the 1st of February 2018. The Symposium attracted attendees from a range of backgrounds, including card-holders, representatives from community organisations, academics based at a number of Australian universities, Labor and Greens senators, and various other interested parties. A mix of presentations and panel discussions generated productive conversations around issues including the experience of being subject to the Cashless Debit Card (CDC), settler-colonial relations and the CDC, a rights-based perspective on income management, the consumer and banking implications of the CDC, income management and the social determinants of health, and perspectives on moving beyond current framings of welfare in Australia. Additionally, the Symposium featured a panel discussion on behavioural approaches in policy making. This is the first of several blogs that the Power to Persuade will publish based on the papers presented on the day. We kick off with an overview by Elise Klein, the organiser of the Symposium and a leading researcher into its harmful effects on communities and individuals. This paper is drawn in part from an article that ran in The Conversation; you can read it in its original form here.
Read MoreThe Commonwealth Government announced late last year that they are changing the way they fund hospitals. While the initiative aims to improve the quality of hospital care and reduce overall costs, the new policy may result in some negative impacts. Helen Dickinson, Associate Professor of UNSW Canberra's Public Service Research Group explains why the pay-for-performance scheme may lead to unintended consequences. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read MorePerformance management is key to achieving employee effectiveness and efficiency, but are organisations using probation as a tool to achieve high performance? Deborah Blackman, Fiona Buick, Samantha Johnson, and Michael O’Donnell of UNSW Canberra's Public Service Research Group believe that employers should use probation to help define high performance and encourage desired employee behaviour.
Read MoreResearch from UNSW Canberra's Gemma Carey, Helen Dickinson, Eleanor Malbon and Daniel Reeders shows that government must take an active role in ensuring that the important policy goals of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are met through market stewardship, employing more than just light-touch measures. Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey explain their research findings in this article from The Mandarin.
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Market approaches have been used in a range of areas in Australia, an example of which is the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). While market approaches may lead to efficiencies in some areas, Gemma Carey of UNSW Canberra and the Centre for Social Impact argues that the Scheme should not sacrifice equity in the name of efficiency. This post was originally published in Pro Bono Australia.
Read MoreLaptops, mobile phones and other technological advances have created a workplace culture where employers and employees work around the clock. But more and more workplaces, and a few governments, have stepped in to ensure that work-life balance is protected to maintain productivity and employee wellbeing. UNSW Canberra's Dr Sue Williamson and Dr Meraiah Foley explain why 'leav[ing] early' should be modeled by public sector leaders to encourage healthier work behaviours. This piece was originally published in The Mandarin.
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How has the Australian Public Service (APS) been progressing and embedding gender equality, and are its efforts working? In the report Embedding Gender Equality in the Australian Public Service: Changing practices, changing cultures, UNSW Canberra's Dr Sue Williamson explains how the Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy has started an important conversation about the nature of equality, and where the APS may improve to achieve its goals. This piece was originally published in The Mandarin.
Read MoreIn 1991 Carol Bacchi comprehensively introduced poststructuralism and social constructionism to policy studies with her book Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. It detailed an approach called ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ and offers a different way of conceptualizing and understanding policy. Whilst usual approaches tend to treat policy as axiomatic or self-evident, Bacchi’s challenges the privileging of all forms of expertise and knowledge. For Bacchi, approaches to policy studies are ‘inherently political’ and need to be treated as such.
Read MoreIn a recent episode of Professor Glyn Davis’ podcast The Policy Shop, Bruce Bonyhady (former Chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency) and PtP Policy Whispere A/Prof Helen Dickinson discussed how the National Disability Insurance Scheme came to be, the scheme’s ongoing rollout, and whether the NDIS will in fact improve the livelihood of people living with disabilities in Australia.
Read MoreAn ANZSOG-funded research project is exploring the increasing use of robots in care services to replace or complement the roles of humans. In this article, researchers Helen Dickinson, Nicole Carey, Catherine Smith and Gemma Carey explore some of the long-term implications for governments from the rise of robots.
Read MoreOn 2 September, the Women’s Policy Action Tank presented Putting Women at the Centre: A Policy Forum. We were delighted to have Celeste Liddle (@Utopiana), public commentator, blogger (Rantings of an Aboriginal Feminist), Arrernte woman, Unionist, and recent inductee onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women as one of our keynote speakers. Here we present part 2 of her talk, in which she traces low numbers of Aboriginal students at the tertiary level with systemic injustices that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities experience. Specifically, Celeste discusses how lack of facilities and sanitary supplies keep young women from attending school, and the historic and current practice of non-payment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders for their work – which continues today in the guise of the government’s mis-named Community Development Program. Part 1 can be found here.
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The concept of “stewardship” keeps coming up in a wide range of contexts, suggesting it is capable of broad application to achieve many outcomes. In this article Katie Moon, Dru Marsh, Helen Dickinson & Gemma Carey examine how we can meaningfully identify stewards, and understand their role in contemporary public policy.
Read MoreIf your job involved poring over the best and the worst of government, you’d probably pick up a few things. Here, ANZSOG’s Marinella Padula harnesses 13 years of public sector case writing experience to identify the top lessons for program leadership, design and evaluation.
Read MoreGovernments value evidence-based policy; but are policy makers using all possible evidence to inform their decisions? Dr. Anna N. Li, Postdoctoral Fellow at UNSW Canberra argues that "soft, qualitative, practice-based evidence can be used to better inform decision making by providing frontline, implementation information, which can increase the chance of policy success.
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The Australian Government announced in its 2017 budget that it would trial random drug-testing of recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance in three locations from January 2018. Evidence suggests this approach will neither help people overcome addiction or find a job. Drawing on her recent article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, Dr Sue Olney from the Public Service Research Group at UNSW Canberra explains why this is bad policy.
Read MoreThe potentially life transforming National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) won’t be a safety net for all if the market is weak. UNSW Canberra's Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey canvas what options the government’s market stewards have to ensure none are left behind. This article was originally posted on The Mandarin.
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