Articles tagged: Welfare Policy

Welfare for the rich? How tax breaks are transforming Australia’s Welfare State

CPD Fellow, Ben Spies-Butcher considers how tax breaks are transforming Australia’s welfare. Are these new forms of social security promoting self-reliance or more welfare for the rich?
If you’re in Melbourne, come along to this joint Centre for Policy Development and Australian Fabians event on 6pm Wednesday 1 July.

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A Rather Too Conservative First Year

CPD fellow Eva Cox assesses the Rudd Government’s performance on Indigenous issues, income support, child care and parental leave: Rudd has apologised to the Stolen Generation, signed Kyoto and fixed some of the worst conditions for asylum seekers. These actions seemed to suggest a serious change in political directions, but other signs show he is leading a government designed to avoid scaring off the Howard voters. This is worrying as the social agenda of the government could be defined as a more modern form of social conservativism, with some residual neo-liberal tendencies. It lacks the fire and imagination that would challenge some of the retrograde social assumptions that drove most of the last government’s policies. more

Abuse and Neglect in Care – Then and Now

Philip Mendes considers contemporary leaving care policy and practice: Looking at the 2004 Forgotten Australians report on people who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, it would be very easy to conclude that these events were an historical anomaly which have little bearing on contemporary child welfare policy and practice. And to be sure the state care system has changed considerably since that time, and arguably for the better. But the evidence suggests that some (and perhaps even many) children and young people currently or recently in care have experienced forms of abuse and neglect similar to those described in the Forgotten Australians, and that this abuse and neglect is similarly undermining their long-term life chances. So there is no doubt that we need to learn some key lessons from the Forgotten Australians if we are to avoid similar suffering in the future. more

How Productive is Social Policy?

Sean Regan writes: The ideal of social and economic integration is one to which few object, at least in public (what is moot is the kind of integration we’d accept). For social democrats ‘fairness’ and ‘prosperity’ are a passable shorthand; and ‘social inclusion’ an adequate policy framework. Clearly, though, these terms have to be unpacked and their practical applications spelled out, as there is an inherent tension between the two elements of the putative integration. more

WELA submission to the Productivity Commission about Paid Maternity Leave

As Chairperson for the Women’s Electoral Lobby Australia (WELA), I’ve been heavily involved in preparing a submission for the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave.

The WELA strongly supports introducing industrial based, paid maternity leave as soon as possible with three clear arguments supporting this proposal:

1. Financial reasons for maintaining income in households around the time of birth rather than decreasing it by the loss of an income earner; more