What aspects of the government’s reforms succeeded in assisting people into employment? And did the reforms improve the population’s economic well-being? Or have they left some groups worse off?
Radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell told the Q&A audience that refugees are costing $100 million a year in welfare payments and have a 97% unemployment rate. Is that accurate?
The government’s revised Family Tax Benefit proposals will still have some significant negative impacts on low-income families, but they are not as regressive as the 2014 budget.
The Productivity Commission has just released a timely new working paper that sheds light on how Australia’s tax and transfer system functions to distribute income across the population both at a point…
What are the key challenges for ministers entering new portfolios in Malcolm Turnbull’s first cabinet? The Conversation asked experts in key policy areas to respond.
If the government had provided analysis on how the budget impacts households it may not have found itself defending its record on fairness.
Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm has said that probably half to two-thirds of the Australian population is receiving some form of government benefit. Is that right?
Implying that 80% of Australian income tax goes straight towards the welfare bill overlooks the fact that a large proportion of income taxpayers benefit from social security.
In his time in office, Malcolm Fraser oversaw the acceptance of southeast Asian refugees and led economic and social welfare reforms.
The Intergenerational Report may actually be underestimating the scale of the budgetary challenges ahead.
Scott Morrison’s appointment as minister for social services in late December 2014 has been seen as an important step for the Abbott government as it moves towards its second budget. The tasks he faces…
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has just released its latest report card on child well-being in 41 rich countries. In particular, the report looks at the effects of the economic crisis on children…
As a tough federal budget round looms, there has been suggestions that the pension eligibility age could rise to 70, indexation of pensions could be changed, Family Tax Benefit Part B could be more tightly…
The Conversation is running a series, Class in Australia, to identify, illuminate and debate its many manifestations. Here, Peter Whiteford investigates what has happened to income and wealth inequality…
Social services minister Kevin Andrews has targeted the Disability Support Pension and Newstart, the main payment for the unemployed, for reform, branding the current level of welfare as unsustainable…
“Our senior citizens and our disability pensioners are paid less than newly arrived asylum seekers.” - Clive Palmer, founder of the Palmer United Party, National Press Club, 26 August. Clive Palmer’s claim…
“Of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 33 offer paid parental leave schemes. Of these 33 countries, Australia is one of only two that fails to pay leave…
[Under the Coalition’s proposed parental leave scheme] “the woman working in the local chemist in Gippsland in regional Victoria would be subsidising the paid parental leave of the woman working in the…
When it comes to welfare spending in the budget, the federal government has given with one hand and taken with another. Funding for support of disability services (NDIS) and schools the (Gonski reforms…
Last week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a preliminary version of its 2012 Economic Outlook lowered its growth forecasts for Australia from 3.7% to 3.0% in 2013. This…
Poverty may cause people to focus too narrowly on short term needs at the expense of their long term well-being, a US study has found. The study, titled Some consequences of having too little and published…
It’s been revealed that the Federal Government has been sitting on advice since 2009 showing the Newstart payment has dropped well behind other government allowances. The National Centre for Social and…
The 2012 federal budget has been described as “a big taxing, big spending budget” with a big focus on welfare. The first spending measure to be legislated and to come into effect is the new Schoolkids…
The Treasurer Wayne Swan has described the 2012 Budget yesterday as “a Labor budget to its bootstraps”, and commentators have variously seen it as “a big taxing, big spending budget, including a big increase…
Despite ongoing uncertainty about global economic conditions, prosperity in Australia remains both very high and relatively widespread. But there is one group in Australia who has not shared in our rising…
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