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Background: Despite growing evidence on the social determinants of health and health equity, political action has not been commensurate. Little is known about how political will operates to enact pro-equity policies or not. This paper examines how political will for pro-health equity policies is created through analysis of public policy in multiple sectors. Methods: Eight case studies were undertaken of Australian policies where action was either taken or proposed on health equity or where the policy seemed contrary to such action. Telephone or face-to-face interviews were conducted with 192 state and non-state participants. Analysis of the cases was done through thematic analysis and triangulated with document analysis. Results: Our case studies covered: trade agreements, primary healthcare (PHC), work conditions, digital access, urban planning, social welfare and Indigenous health. The extent of political will for pro-equity policies depended on the strength of path dependency, electoral concerns, political philosophy, the strength of economic and biomedical framings, whether elite interests were threatened and the success or otherwise of civil society lobbying. Conclusion: Public health policy actors may create political will through: determining how path dependency that exacerbates health inequities can be broken, working with sympathetic political forces committed to fairness; framing policy options in a way that makes them more likely to be adopted, outlining factors to consider in challenging the interests of elites, and considering the extent to which civil society will work in favour of equitable policies. A shift in norms is required to stress equity and the right to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As a country largely free of the corruption that bedevils the defence procurement of many of Australia's Asian neighbours, it is generally assumed that Australia's national security interests, together with value for money, are the paramount criteria for Australia's defence procurement. This is an assumption, however, that deserves critical interrogation, particularly with respect to the influence that domestic politics can have on strategic decisions. This article investigates the Australian government's 2016 decision to acquire land‐based anti‐ship missiles. To do so, it adapts Putnam's two‐level game to a defence policy context, enabling the incorporation of both realist and domestic political factors, including the influence of interest groups. I find a plausible case that the influence of the resources sector and constituents of Australia's northwest, as well as the corporate interests of the Australian army in asserting a greater role in Australian defence strategy, may have been significant in the decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines advocacy, agenda-setting and the public policy focus of private philanthropic foundations in Australia. While concerns have been raised regarding advocacy and public policy influence of foundations in countries such as the U.S., less is understood on this issue in other contexts. Interviews were conducted with 11 managers and trustees of 10 Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs) in late 2014. Analysis of publicly available data on the participating PAFs was then undertaken comparing PAF information available at the time of the interviews with that available approximately five years later, to consider any changes in the public communication of their agendas. Findings reveal PAFs' agendas were largely consistent with public policy but may vary in the approaches to address social causes. Further, a preference for privacy indicates the PAF sector may be characterised as 'quiet philanthropy' rather than having a visible public presence. As such, PAFs' advocacy focused on promoting philanthropy, rather than altering or influencing public policy. Our main contention is that the conceptions of advocacy in structured philanthropy are dominated by the obvious, the outliers and the noisy. Our contribution to the philanthropic literature is a more nuanced and broader discussion of how advocacy and agenda-setting occurs and is understood in the mainstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Studies in Population is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Rural Australian populations experience an increased burden of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) compared to their metropolitan counterparts, similar to other developed countries, globally. Policy and other efforts need to address and acknowledge these differences in order to reduce inequalities in health burden. This paper examines rural health policy makers’ perceptions and use of evidence in efforts to reduce the burden of IHD in rural areas. Methods: Policy makers and government advisors (n = 21) who worked with, or advised on, rural health policy at local, state and federal government levels, with specific focus on the state of Victoria (n = 9) were identified from publicly available documents and subsequent snowball sample. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in regards to the use of evidence in policy to prevent IHD and thematic analysis undertaken applying two theoretical perspectives: context-based evidence-based policy making and the conceptual framework for understanding rural and remote health. Results: The rural context, particularly low resourcing, was seen as limiting potential for evidence based policy at local government (LG) level. Lower levels of political pressure and education were seen as constraints to evidence-based policy in rural communities. Participants described the potential for policy to have a greater impact on reducing heart disease in rural areas though they felt under-resourced and out of touch with the scientific evidence. Scientific studies were less valued than local anecdote to prioritise specific policy. At all levels (local, state and federal) low self-efficacy in interpreting evidence and perceived lack of relevance inhibited development of evidence informed policy. Conclusion: The rural context constrains the use of scientific evidence in policy making for the prevention of heart disease in rural areas in Australia with multiple factors influencing the capacity for evidenced based health policy. This is similar to findings at the international scale and is for consideration across other developed countries that experience inequalities in IHD disease burden between rural and urban populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which economic regulation accommodates uncertainty through an examination of experience of regulation in Australia against a background discussion of literature on regulatory risk and principles for good regulation. Regulation, typically in the form of incentive based price caps, often applies to aviation infrastructure, such as major airports and air navigation services. At the same time, the demand for aviation infrastructure services is uncertain and subject to external shocks. Two case studies in economic regulation of aviation infrastructure are examined. They cover a period of volatile demand associated with the collapse of a major domestic airline which coincided with the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. One case study involves the application of price caps to newly privatized airports during 1997–2002. The other case study examines the development of a long term price path for air navigation services over 2002 to 2004. The case studies illustrate the important role played by regulatory design. The paper concludes that the design of the regulatory framework has an important role in ameliorating the risks associated with uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of asylum policy under the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd governments between 2008 and 2013 and evaluates its impact on irregular maritime arrivals and deaths at sea. In addition to providing an account of asylum policy during this political epoch - and the dramatic rise in irregular maritime arrivals and deaths at seas - we also evaluate these policies in an effort to distil some broader public policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the connection between national immigration policy and a society's attitudes towards immigration. It argues that a country's immigration policy framework plays an important role in the formation of attitudes towards immigration by shaping the local national context of the receiving country. It examines the influence of a country's immigration policy framework by contrasting two countries - Australia and Germany - that developed remarkably different immigration policies in response to large immigration movements during the postwar period. We explore attitudes towards immigration on four dimensions: (1) the national economy, (2) the labour market, (3) the national culture, and (4) the level of immigrant influx. The analyses reveal three main fi ndings. First, people in Australia tend to display more positive attitudes towards immigration than in Germany. Second, in both countries, attitudes towards immigration tend to be infl uenced in a similar way by an individual's socio-economic background and feelings of national identity (in the form of nationalism and patriotism). Third, immigration policy represents a strong indicator of attitudes towards immigration. We found that the planned integrative immigration policy in Australia supports the formation of more positive attitudes towards immigration by infl uencing people's perception on the economic and socio-cultural impacts of immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Policy is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We address the problem of landholder participation in biodiversity offsetting, a policy tool based on principles of market-based incentives. Our study focuses on the working rules of offsetting, specifically the rights and responsibilities of landholders. Our case study is an application of biodiversity offsetting in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area, New South Wales, Australia. We conduct empirical analysis of landholders' perceptions of their rights and responsibilities and subsequently apply an institutionalist perspective to infer implications for public policy reform. We find that landholders' perceptions of their rights and responsibility with regard to i) providing offsets, ii) receiving money for doing so, iii) land management, and iv) transferring the land, elicit diverse reasons for (non)participation in biodiversity offsets in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area. Some landholders consider themselves in alignment with the current working rules of the scheme, others do not. We reflect on these findings by abductively inferring reasons for institutional reform. The broader significance of our study resides in its potential to inform institutional design in jurisdictions where established schemes are under review, or may become subject to review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analysed Australian government strategic policy documents related to the "Closing the Gap" (CTG) strategy in early childhood circa 2008-2018 to explore the extent to which Indigenous rights are named and recognised in written policy. Our analysis of the policies was informed by Bacchi's What's the Problem approach and showed inconsistency in the recognition of Indigenous rights. These rights are sometimes undermined and ignored, sometimes implied and sometimes named and recognised. Silences within the CTG strategy are discussed and reveal the ongoing nature of colonisation and deficit framing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. Findings from this research are relevant for the current era of the "Closing the Gap" strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid Australia's surging house prices, rental housing has become the safety net for young adults experiencing housing stress. The attention of policymakers is drawn towards the build-to-rent (BTR) housing model, a growing housing option for many young Australian adults. Although BTR's integration into Australia's housing and planning landscape is unfolding, the perception of young adults is lacking in policy reforms for this growing industry. This study examines the perspectives of young adults aged 18 to 34 years on the critical success factors (CSFs) of the BTR housing provision in Australia. The responses are analysed using an explanatory factor analysis, relative importance index, and ANOVA. Our findings show a critically low awareness of BTR among young adults in Australia. Respondents, between 18 and 24 years, are most concerned with public awareness, an indication of their desire for transparency and engagement in decision making at the policy level. Young adults rank regulation and government policy interventions as the most important CSF of BTR housing. This shows that they are more concerned about the affordability of BTR houses. This study concludes that young adults' viewpoints on BTR are important in ongoing policy reforms. There is a need to ensure that this asset class is accessible and affordable to this target group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Australian data has indicated that the frequency and severity of family and domestic violence (FDV) tends to increase with remoteness. Rural communities rely on Emergency Departments (ED) within public hospitals for general health and safety needs. Public health departments within Australia are strongly influenced by Government policies which can define 'health problems' and limit institutional responses to patients presenting with FDV. The current study therefore aimed to critically examine FDV Australian Government policies to explore how policy meanings could potentially impact on ED staff and individuals within rural communities. Methods: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and Policy Narrative Analysis were used to examine 9 policy documents which represented national, state/territory and clinical practice levels. Publication dates ranged from 2006 to 2020. Results: A total of 8 discourses were identified, with each one providing a unique construction of the target problem and determining the potential agency of health professionals and subjects of FDV. Discourses combined to produce an overall narrative within each policy document. Narrative constructions of the target problem were compared which produced three narrative themes: 1) Deficit Subject Narratives; 2) Object Oriented Narratives; and 3) Societal Narratives. Conclusion: The results reflected a transition in the meaning of FDV within Australian society and over the past decade, with policies trending away from Deficit Subject Narratives and towards Object Oriented or Societal Narratives. Institutional systems, sociohistorical context and broader societal movements may have shaped this transition by stagnating policy meanings or introducing new insights that expanded the possibilities of understanding and action. Narratives produced assumptions which significantly altered the relevance and agency of individuals and groups when applied to a rural ED setting. As FDV was moved out of the clinical space and into the public domain, the agency of health professionals was reduced, while the values and strengths of FDV subjects and rural communities were potentially recognised. Later policies provided contextual specificity and meaning fluidity that could benefit diverse groups within rural areas; however, the expectation for ED staff to learn from their communities and challenge institutionalised approaches to FDV requires careful consideration in relation to rural hospital systems and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a revised version of the 2022 Michael Volkerling Memorial Lecture. It offers insights for the GLAM sector into the history of Australian national cultural policy (NCP), now in a new phase with the delivery of Revive in January 2023. It draws on the author's experience as a theatre director, a researcher into evaluation methods, and a policy activist to reflect on the challenges facing cultural policies at the current time. If arts organizations confront tough questions about diversity and inclusion, what happened to the economic ones of market efficiency and value-add that seemed all-consuming just a few years ago? The article utilizes Max Weber's conception of "a vocation" to reconsider the aims and purpose of an NCP. As the world contends with problems of entrenched inequality, catastrophic climate change, and democratic deficit, how can cultural policies, as distinct from other kinds, address these? Should they even try? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is one of the top ten consumers of electrical and electronic (EE) products in the world; yet legislation for the management of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) is in its infancy and has received minimal review. This paper sets to assess the effectiveness of Australian legislation, policies and associated instruments, with a focus on the sub-national level of implementation. A mixed methodology was adopted to this end, including: literature review, case study, semi-structured interviews and a comparative analysis of WEEE management practices in Australia versus Japan and Switzerland; the latter to identify causative factors of international leading practice that could advance current policy in Australia. The findings indicate that Australia’s management of WEEE is not effective. The rate and types of WEEE generated in Australia far exceed the measures prescribed in legislation to address or even curb the problem. The five key issues were identified around stakeholder roles and responsibilities; scope of WEEE categories legislated for recovery and recycling; public engagement and accessibility to services; recycling and material recovery targets; and the auditing and compliance of material flows within the system. Our findings suggest that Australia has the capacity to address the five key priority areas within the current legal framework and achieve effective WEEE management in line with leading practice examples from Japan and Switzerland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the "Pacific Solution," the Australian national policy of controlling illegal migration by detaining refugees in Immigrant Detention Centres in offshore Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru, and the human rights issues it raises. It refers to Behrouz Boochani's prize-winning refugee memoir, No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018) as both a prison narrative of resilience and a politically resistant text, and it discusses Boochani's representation of Manus Detention camp as "The Kyriarchal System" in terms of Foucault's "monstrous heterotopia." The article emphasises the issues of accountability and responsibility in the bilateral governance arrangements of the Manus Detention Centre between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and considers the possibility of more humane detention practices in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact globally, with older people living in aged care homes suffering high death rates.Objectives: We aimed to compare the impact of initial government policies on this vulnerable older population between the UK and Australia during the first wave of attack.Methods: We searched websites of governments in the UK and Australia and media outlets. We examined the key policies including the national lockdown dates and the distribution of some important resources (personal protective equipment and testing) and the effects of these initial policies on the mortality rates in the aged care homes during the first wave of attack of COVID-19.Results: We found that both countries had prioritized resources to hospitals over aged care homes during the first wave of attack. Both countries had lower priority for aged care residents in hospitals (e.g. discharging without testing for COVID-19 or discouraging admissions). However, deaths in aged care homes were 270 times higher in the UK than in Australia as on 7 May 2020 (despite UK having a population only 2.5 times larger than Australia). The lower fatality rate in Australia may have been due to the earlier lockdown strategy when the total daily cases were low in Australia (118) compared to the UK (over 1000), as well as the better community viral testing regime in Australia.Conclusion: In conclusion, the public health policy in Australia aimed towards earlier intervention with earlier national lockdown and more viral testing to prevent new cases. This primary prevention could have resulted in more lives being saved. In contrast, the initial policy in the UK focussed mainly on protecting resources for hospitals, and there was a delay in national lockdown intervention and lower viral testing rate, resulting in more lives lost in the aged care sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2018, the Australian Government, through a Senate-led Parliamentary Inquiry, sought the views of diverse stakeholders on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation both domestically and as part of Australia's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program. One hundred and sixty-four written submissions were received. The submissions offered perspective and guidance from a rich cross-section of those involved, and with keen interest in, Australia's ODA-SDG commitment. This article identifies and explores the submissions to that Inquiry which placed impetus on Australia's ODA-SDG and health and development nexus. It then compares how the synthesized views, concerns and priorities of selected Inquiry stakeholders align with and reflect the Australian Government's treatment of SDG 3 in its SDG Voluntary National Review (VNR), as well as with the final Inquiry report summarizing submission content.Results: Four key themes were synthesized and drawn from the thirty-one stakeholder submissions included in our analysis. Disconnect was then found to exist between the selected stakeholder views and the Australian Government's SDG-VNR's treatment of SDG 3, as well as with the content of the Parliamentary Inquiry's final report with respect to the ODA-SDG and health and development nexus.Conclusions: We situate the findings of our analysis within the wider strategic context of the Australian Government's policy commitment to "step up" in the Pacific region. This research provides an insight into both multi-stakeholder and Federal Government views on ODA in the Indo-Pacific region, especially at a time when Australia's Pacific engagement has come to the forefront of both foreign and security policy. We conclude that the SDG agenda, including the SDG health and development agenda, could offer a unique vehicle for enabling a paradigm shift in the Australian Government's development approach toward the Pacific region and its diverse peoples. This potential is strongly reflected in stakeholder perspectives included in our analysis. However, study findings remind that the political determinants of health, and overlapping political determinants of SDG achievement, will be instrumental in the coming decade, and that stakeholders from different sectors need to be genuinely engaged in SDG-ODA policy-related decision-making and planning by governments in both developed and developing countries alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]