Today’s long read post is a discussion piece by a disability advocate based in regional Victoria. The author, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is living through the COVID-19 pandemic with insecure housing and significant health risks. This post is republished with permission from the author’s blog Disability Advocacy Truth Telling.
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The Federal Government’s Women’s Safety Summit indicates a keen interest in doing more to keep women safe; however, social security settings were not a focus of the agenda, despite the central role that financial security plays in securing women’s safety and agency. In today’s analysis, Lily Gardener and Policy Whisperer Susan Maury of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy), and Frances Davies of the National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) argue that the JobSeeker Payment, originally designed for younger unemployed men, is disproportionately exacerbating poverty for women. This analysis is part of the NFAW (@NFAWomen) Gender Lens on the Budget series, drawing on the income support analysis.
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Gender inequality takes many shapes, embedding into systems and structures in ways that may be hidden. In today’s analysis, Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) and Lily Gardener of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy) and Frances Davies of the National Foundation for Australia Women (NFAW) provides a thorough analysis of how Australia’s social security settings, by maintaining the sole use of the CPI in most income support payments is disproportionately exacerbating poverty for women. This analysis is part of the NFAW (@NFAWomen) Gender Lens on the Budget series, drawing on the Indexing analysis, as well as on Good Shepherd’s submission on the adequacy of the Newstart Allowance.
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The Women’s Safety Summit was noticeably silent on the social safety net. As an area over which the Federal Government has complete control, it represents an accessible lever for policy change. In today’s analysis, the paper that was tabled jointly by the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children (NCSMC) and ACOSS (@ACOSS) is presented, detailing eleven ways that social security works to harm women. Terese Edwards (@Terese_NCSMC) of NCSMC provides a preface.
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One woman a week is murdered in Australia, but there has been little to no progress on reducing this grim statistic. In the wake of the Women’s Safety Summit, it is clear a multi-pronged approach is needed. In today’s analysis, Brenda Gonzales of the Data Feminism Network (@DataFemNetwork) provides an example of how a private citizen in Mexico initiated policy change to make women safer through contextualised data collection of feminicides.
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‘Closing the gap’ is a major, and highly visible, government policy goal, with the intention of reducing disparities between Australia’s First Nations peoples and White communities. Despite many years, however, there has been little demonstrable progress. Today’s analysis utilises critical race theory, with important lessons for intersectional feminism. Penny Skye Taylor (@PennySkyeTaylor) and Daphne Habibis (@dhabibis), both of the University of Tasmania (@UTAS_), identify white ignorance as an overlooked key factor. This analysis is drawn from their research into Aboriginal views of White Australians and the dominant culture.
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Why are victim-survivors of gender-based violence such powerful agents of change? What perils do they face? New research published in the journal Violence Against Women (@VAWJournal) presents findings from an in-depth study of domestic and family violence advocate Rosie Batty and the significant social and policy change she helped to drive in Australia. Lead author Lisa Wheildon (@wheeliebinit), from BehaviourWorks at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, shares a summary of the findings from the study, co-authored with Professor Jacqui True (@JacquiTrue), Associate Professor Asher Flynn (@AsherFlynn), and Abby Wild.
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We expect to be included in decisions about our care, yet one in three patients report not being included as much as they would like. Health services are working to include patients in decisions through Shared Decision Making (SDM) but lack robust research evidence to support implementation in hospitals. In today’s analysis Alexandra Waddell (@WADDELLAL) of Monash University (@BehaviourWorksAustralia) shares a summary of her recently-published paper, co-authored with Alyse Lennox (@alyselennox), Gerri Spassova, and Peter Bragge (@BraggePeter). It is the first publication to explore insights into barriers and facilitators to SDM faced by patients and clinicians, specifically in hospital environments. It also goes beyond past research to include other crucial stakeholders such as health service decision-makers and administrators, and government policymakers.
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Earlier this year, Australians were shocked to hear Brittany Higgins’ story – not only of her alleged sexual assault in Parliament House, but also the lack of a process to report and address her allegations. More recently, Annabel Crabb’s series Ms Represented showcased the historic and continuing barriers to inclusion and respect that women face in Australian politics. In today’s analysis, Josefina Erikson (@Josefinaerikson) of Uppsala University (@UU_PoliSci), shares a summary of her recently-published paper, co-authored with Cecilia Josefsson (@CeciliaJsfssn). It provides a framework encompassing five dimensions, explaining how parliaments fail to operate as gender-sensitive workplaces despite increasing numbers of women working there.
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Last week we learned that the gender pay gap widened in the first half of the year, with men earning on average $260 per week more than women. In today’s analysis, economist Leonora Risse (@LeonoraRisse) of RMIT, the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard (@wapppHKS), and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (@WLIAus), parses the numbers to provide a more nuanced understanding of where the pain points are most acute, and provides policy remedies for this seemingly intractable issue.
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According to a recent Anglicare Australia report, more than three quarters of Australians surveyed using a representative national sample method supported the creation of a permanent basic income. Last year’s JobSeeker/JobKeeper experience showed us the potential of this approach. This article from Nikki Stefanoff (@nikki_stefanoff) was originally posted on Pro Bono Australia.
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In this Research Brief originally published in The Bridge, Maria Katsonis from ANZSOG reviews recent research on street-level bureaucracy - the people who translate policy into action. Her post provides clear and useful insights into tensions between policy designers and those working at the frontline of program and service delivery.
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Trust is often invoked as a key ingredient to establishing effective relationships between researchers, their research, and policymakers. In this post, Christopher Cvitanovic and Rebecca Shellock discuss their research on trust in practice. Drawing on their study into ICES (the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas), they outline lessons and processes in building and maintaining trust informed by the organisation’s extensive experience of connecting research to policy.
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You may know the terms “nudge theory” and “co-design” very well, but you’ve probably thought less about how contradictory they are in practice. This is problematic because it is not uncommon for policy development to use both simultaneously. In this post, the authors outline why they are contradictory and provide a link for further reading.
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Despite being most notable for its ungenerous policies, Australia’s Paid Parental Leave has increasingly incorporated changes to encourage fathers or secondary carers to take leave. But is it working? In today’s analysis, Deborah Widiss (@DeborahWidiss) of Indiana University (@IUMaurerLaw) compares Australia’s policies to the US, where uptake by fathers or secondary carers is much greater. This analysis is drawn from a recently-published article that can be found here.
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With the recent release of the Intergenerational Report, questions over how a dropping fertility rate will effect an ageing population have come to the fore. In today’s analysis, Miranda Stewart (@AusTaxProf) of University of Melbourne (@MelbLawSchool) and ANU (@ANUCrawford), explains how the lack of an economic accounting of care work, particularly of children, is creating myopia in government planning systems, and could be remedied if care work was properly valued as a national asset. This analysis is a summary of a policy brief put out by the Melbourne School of Government entitled Tax & the Fertility Freefall: Children, Care & the Intergenerational Report.
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