Deep funding cuts and uncertainty about government plans have created one of the largest-scale upheavals in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. That is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander…
- Professorial Fellow, Jumbunna IHL, University of Technology Sydney
The mess of federal budget negotiations has taken over the limited space for social policy debates. However, we are due to get final reports on a range of inquiries. These include the McClure report on…
The reform of Australia’s federation is under review. In this special series, we ask leading Australian academics to begin a debate on renewing federalism, from tax reform to the broader issues of democracy…
Tertiary education graduates across the OECD earn on average 70% more than the non-tertiary educated, meaning despite rising costs of higher education in Australia the investment is still worthwhile. The…
The Creating Parity report on Indigenous employment and welfare, released last week by mining magnate Andrew Forrest, is in much the same vein as Tony Shepherd’s recent Commission of Audit. Forrest and…
(COMMENTS UPDATED) In the lead up to last year’s federal election, the government promised two million new jobs within 10 years. Its focus was on the “five pillar economy” of manufacturing, agriculture…
The Productivity Commission’s Draft Report on Childcare and Early Childhood Learning shows the serious limitations of market economics for analysing social policy. The report’s 900-plus pages offer a collection…
The prime object of welfare reform should be to increase the well-being of people rather to reduce public expenditure. Good policy should be able to achieve both goals over the longer term. Too many current…
Male university graduates earn more than their female counterparts and the pay gap will likely increase with the more time spent in the workforce, according to new research. A study by Graduate Careers…
In the lead-up to the budget, the story of crisis has been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten writers…
One of the bizarre bipartisan policy overlaps between the Coalition and Labor is in the area of income support known as welfare payments. Labor has been seen as the party that cared about the poor and…
The disappointing data that regularly appears in Closing the Gap reports should raise serious questions about policy development and funding processes. The assumption of media stories and many politicians…
The major missing factor in debates on cutting welfare spending – as has been flagged by social services minister Kevin Andrews – is the limited and falling demand for labour. Labour market figures give…
Can the Productivity Commission review commissioned by the Abbott government recognise the possible failure of the market-model funding of many early childhood services? This rather broad term now covers…
Australian girls and women start out on an equal footing with males in school and higher education, but fall behind in workforce participation and leadership roles, according to a new report prepared for…
For a brief moment, it looked as though the Coalition would be better than the ALP on welfare policy. It appeared that the new government would listen to evidence for policy changes in its newly retitled…
Welcome to the The Conversation’s Election 2013 State of the Nation essays. These articles by leading experts in their field provide an in-depth look at the key policy challenges affecting Australia as…
Kevin Rudd has completed one the great political comebacks in Australian history by reclaiming the prime ministership from Julia Gillard in a party room vote in Canberra tonight, 57 votes to 45. Earlier…
There is an odd consensus emerging between conservative Liberals opposed to their own leader’s paid parental leave scheme and defenders of the Gillard government’s version of the same policy. Into the…
The death of the first - and so far only - female British prime minister raises the question of how to judge her contribution to feminism and leadership. Given that only now we have our first female PM…
Late last year, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council expressed its concern that moves to push sole parents onto a lower paid income support may breach our responsibilities under a number of human rights…
Media stories about possible changes to superannuation tax concessions generally focus on the “dangers” of reducing the unfair benefits of better off super contributors. Most stories come from financial…
We have 226 days until the election, and are hearing lots of pious statements about having time for some serious policy debate. But we should use this time to move the policy debates well beyond what the…
It is universally agreed Newstart is inadequate, especially for the long-term support of individuals or families. The government says their solution is for recipients to get a job, but that is not easy…
When Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave her now famous speech attacking Tony Abbott, millions of women around the world cheered. Her denunciation echoed and fuelled their anger at being unfairly judged…
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