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.
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Deb Tsorbaris (@DebTsorbaris), CEO of The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (@CFECFW), discusses the recently launched national wellbeing framework, Measuring What Matters, and contends that if we're serious about enhancing the wellbeing of Australians, the first place to start is with our children and young people.
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Policy lessons don’t travel on their own - a lot goes into helping them from their place of origin to new homes (or stopping them from getting there). Drawing on research with disaster management personnel in Queensland, Dr Jenny van der Arend (@JennyvdA) and A/Prof Alastair Stark distil a ‘traveller’s guide’ of practical insights for policymakers who want to help lessons from place to place. The post is based on their new article in the Journal of European Public Policy and is free to read until October 2023.
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Building on the post-disaster recovery narratives, today’s piece by Dr Sajal Roy and Oliver Tirtho Sarkar draws insights from the Munda Indigenous peoples' response to climate change in Bangladesh and documents their livelihood-rebuilding strategies to identify lessons which can be replicated in the Philippines in the context of other climate induced disasters like Cyclone Mocha.
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Last month the Victorian government announced new reforms on poker machines – but is it enough to tackle the harms caused by gambling, particularly in protecting future generations? In today’s article Dr Hannah Pitt (@HannahLPitt), Dr Simone McCarthy (@SimoneNicoleM), and Ms Grace Arnot (@GraceArnot), all from the Institute for Health Transformation at Deakin University (@IHT_Deakin) outline why gambling is an intergenerational justice issue and makes specific policy recommendations to protect communities from harm.
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Not too long ago a global survey named Australia the ‘drunkest country in the world.’ Meanwhile, studies are increasingly emphasising that there is no ‘healthy’ or ‘safe’ level of drinking. In today’s post, VicHealth (@VicHealth) Postdoctoral Fellow Florentine Martino (@FP_Martino) of Deakin University (@IHT_Deakin) discusses how the Australian alcohol industry influences health policy through its registered charity DrinkWise.
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which in turn is driven by the marketing of unhealthy foods. In today’s post, VicHealth (@VicHealth) Research Fellow Alexandra Chung (@Chung_Alexandra) of Monash University (MonashUni) traces the problem to its origins in childhood and explains recent proposals to curb commercial activity that compromises children’s health.
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Exploring the pressing need for trauma-informed care in Australia's National Housing and Homelessness Plan, Research Fellow Chris Hartley sheds light on the deep links between trauma and homelessness while advocating for a unified, comprehensive approach to address the issue in line with global best practices.
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While COVID-19 is no longer considered a global emergency, Chris Hartley discusses its enduring effects on homelessness policy and practice.
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Reposting an excellent blog that was published on the UK social policy blog, because of the insights it offers into the ways in which welfare recipients could be supported to participate in welfare policymaking. Given current interest in stigma power in the wake of the Robodebt Royal Commission the blogs insights are salient to thinking about the ways in which lived experience can be embedded in future policy making in Australia.
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In today’s post, Deb Tsorbaris discusses the sobering findings of the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) released in April this year, and the need for policymakers and the child services sector to respond swiftly. The study reveals that child maltreatment is widespread in Australia and associated with early and persistent harm. Deb is the CEO at The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, (@CFECFW), Victoria’s peak body for child and family services.
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Today’s post by Brandon Maki was commissioned by the Antipoverty Centre. Brandon is on the Disability Support Pension (DSP) and has written about the income free area and the focus of pushing people into work.
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This article by Darren O’Donovan, republished from The Conversation, discusses the findings of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme released on 7 July 2023. Dr O’Donovan has written and spoken widely about Robodebt, and pursued answers to how government was calculating debts, since 2017. You can read and hear more of his work on Robodebt here, here, here and here.
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Today’s post from the Australian Unemployed Worker’s Union discusses the report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme released on 7 July 2023. AUWU describes the Royal Commission as “the most significant and damning investigation into our welfare system in decades” and pledges to “stand with victims and fight to extract justice for the mass abuse and denigration inflicted on the poor.”
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LGBTIQA+ people are more likely to experience marginalisation, stigma, social exclusion, abuse, and violence than the wider community. Philippa Moss, CEO of ACT-based LGBTIQA+ peer-led health service Meridian, and Alison Barclay, researcher and social impact consultant, explain how peer-led services are helping to address this gap, and what more needs to be done.
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Recent animal cruelty court cases have once again shown that the traditional justice system falls well short for both victims and offenders. Felicity Tepper, senior research officer at ANU’s School of Regulation and Global Governance explores how restorative justice could have better outcomes for humans and animals alike.
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The exploitation of migrant workers continues to be a scourge across Australia, according to a new report from the Grattan Institute.
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Much attention has been paid to policies and programs to address the needs of people in prison and their post-release experiences, but not many policies recognise the needs of children with a parent in prison (also known as parental incarceration). Dr Caroline Doyle (@CaroDoyle13), Joanna Cui, and Dr Lukas Carey discuss their recent article in the Alternative Law Journal on the experiences of children with a parent in prison and lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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