Zoe Staines – The Conversation

Mick Tsikas/AAP, Alexandros Giannakakis/Unsplash, Dan Himbrechts/AAP, The Conversation

December 2, 2025

With a sneaky tweak, the government has made welfare recipients guilty until proven innocent

Zoe Staines, The University of Queensland; Francis Markham, Australian National University; Hannah McGlade, Curtin University, and Thalia Anthony, University of Technology Sydney

The government’s laws cancelling social security payments for some accused of crimes turn a safety net into a weapon for punishing people.

courtneyk/Getty

March 18, 2024

‘Care is in everything we do and everything we are’: the work of Indigenous women needs to be valued

Elise Klein, Australian National University; Chay Brown, Australian National University; Janet Hunt, Australian National University; Kayla Glynn-Braun, Indigenous Knowledge, and Zoe Staines, The University of Queensland

To First Nations women, ‘care’ is more broad and all-encompassing than traditional definitions. We need a new approach to capturing, and appreciating, their work, paid and unpaid.

Peter Eve/PR Handout Image

August 6, 2021

To enable healing, there’s a more effective way to Close the Gap in employment in remote Australia

Zoe Staines, The University of Queensland; Elise Klein, Australian National University; Francis Markham, Australian National University, and Jon Altman, Australian National University

Mass unemployment is not a result of people choosing to remain on welfare. Attempts to close the “employment gap” ignore the real cause: unemployment is structural, not behavioural.

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February 25, 2020

‘I don’t want anybody to see me using it’: cashless welfare cards do more harm than good

Greg Marston, The University of Queensland; Michelle Peterie, The University of Queensland; Phillip Mendes, Monash University, and Zoe Staines, The University of Queensland

The first independent, multisite study of compulsory income management in Australia suggest little evidence to support political enthusiasm to extend the policy.

Unless the Productivity Commission inquiry examines the government’s shortcomings, it will fail to bring any necessary improvements. Inala Wangarra

September 12, 2019

A new inquiry into Indigenous policy must address the root causes of failure

Chelsea Watego, The University of Queensland; Alissa Macoun, The University of Queensland; David Singh, The University of Queensland; Elizabeth Strakosch, The University of Queensland, and Zoe Staines, The University of Queensland

When it comes to improving Indigenous policies and programs, Indigenous communities should be the ones evaluating government – rather than the other way around.

There has been no robust evaluation of the last two employment programs. AAP

August 28, 2018

The Indigenous employment gap is widening and we don’t know how to fix it

Zoe Staines, Queensland University of Technology

Governments have relied on a series of employment programs to tackle the employment gap, but these have not yielded positive outcomes.

The Closing the Gap targets miss out on other aspects of economic well-being. AAP

February 13, 2018

Australia is missing the Closing the Gap employment target by decades

Zoe Staines, Queensland University of Technology

Australia is on track to meet its ‘Closing the Gap’ employment target, but more than a decade late.

The ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative has existed since 2006, but the statistics show the gap is growing. Mick Tsikas/AAP

December 21, 2017

We’re not closing the gap on Indigenous employment, it’s widening

Zoe Staines, Queensland University of Technology

To Close the Gap, Indigenous Australians are the experts. Indigenous organisations are more likely to achieve outcomes because they understand local issues and have ‘skin in the game’.

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