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In 2020, the Australian Government proposed a new model of higher education funding that purported to incentivise study in national priority areas. However, despite shortages of social workers, the initial proposal doubled the student fee contribution for a social work degree. The Save Social Work Australia campaign was established by the Australian Council of Heads of Schools of Social Work to redress errant assumptions underpinning the funding of social work education and to lobby for social work to be funded at the same level as other allied health programs. A successful social media campaign resulted in the reclassification of social work prior to promulgation of the legislation as one of only two academic disciplines to achieve this outcome. This article demonstrates that social media can be an effective tool for social workers engaged in political lobbying. Social work academics successfully lobbied the Federal Government to improve the funding of social work education in Australia. Social media can be an effective tool for social workers engaged in political lobbying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic led to widespread social and economic policy experimentation as governments sought to protect household finances while locking down economies. Cash transfers emerged as one of the most popular policy measures, leading many to reflect on new possibilities for enacting universal basic income through temporary or emergency interventions. We take Australia's pandemic response, and particularly its Coronavirus Supplement, as an example of this broader experimentation. We analyse the Supplement through the lens of an emergency basic income, arguing the measure reflected existing institutional structures and norms, forms of national and international policy learning, and vulnerabilities in Australia's liberalized housing and labour markets. While temporary, we consider how its apparent success might suggest ongoing policy relevance, either as a form of capitalist "crisis management" or as an alternative pathway for implementing forms of basic income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly unaffordable housing means that family homelessness represents an urgent issue for social policy and practice. Targeting families at risk of homelessness, Supportive Housing for Families (SHF) subsidizes leases and offers support aimed at sustaining tenancies and family unity. We explore how short-term funding cycles in an advanced welfare system impacts experiences with service delivery. Building on housing scholarship employing an ontological security lens, we interrogate the temporal dimensions of SHF, and how these are intertwined with understandings of home in spatial terms. The analyses are based on research conducted to examine a 12-month SHF pilot in Southeast Queensland, Australia. We analyse qualitative interviews conducted with families (n=17), statutory child protection officers (n=7), and SHF support workers (n=10) involved in this pilot. Findings indicate that fixed-term funding impacts every aspect of service delivery, resulting in the collective production of ontological insecurity, as families continue to long for a forever home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has a long history of realising value from data assets supported by our strong governance and analytical capability. Recent changes to technology, government policy and the complexity and volume of our data holdings have put increasing pressure on our existing processes for data collation, analysis and sharing/release. While the AIHW has already put in place a number of initiatives to respond to the changing demands on data, some slow response times have resulted from new developments required to meet some of the complex challenges posed by Multi‐source Enduring Linked Data Assets (MELDAs) such as the National Integrated Health Services Initiative (NIHSI). The learnings we are taking forward will provide smoother pathways for newer MELDAs such as the National Disability Data Asset. This paper outlines the new challenges faced with appropriately managing MELDAs, and the learnings of the AIHW have taken forward in realising value from this new type of data asset along with how MELDAs, such as the NIHSI, can be applied to address social policy questions in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveillance and governance of the poor have been key foci for the critical social policy literature for some time, although scholarship regarding the role of big data in social policy – and how this might differ from previous forms of surveillance – is continuing to emerge. This article contributes to this literature by exploring the use of big data under Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand's social investment approaches. Both seek to replace social policy spending with "investment" expected to produce future fiscal returns; in the words of a former Aotearoa/New Zealand Prime Minister, they aim to do "more with less". We argue that big data often provides a poor evidence base for social investment and can, instead, be better understood as part of a panoptic toolkit for poverty governance, mediating continuous surveillance, examination and normalisation of the body politic by enabling the discursive (re)construction of people's identities and subjectivities. This construction serves to exacerbate social inequalities and undermine the rights of ordinary citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments of highly developed western nations with colonised Indigenous populations such as Australia, Canada and South Africa are increasingly turning to social procurement policies in an attempt to solve social inequities between Indigenous people and other citizens. They seek to use policies and funds attached to infrastructure development and construction to encourage private sector companies to provide training, employment and business opportunities for Indigenous people in the communities in which construction occurs. This paper outlines the rise of these policies and their origins, and critiques their connection to Indigenous people's human rights, impact measurement, evaluation and accountability mechanisms. In doing so this paper also explores benefits and potential of social procurement policies, as well as risks. Drawing on insights from an Aboriginal-developed evaluation framework, Ngaa-bi-nya, and Indigenous Standpoint Theory, this paper highlights Indigenous peoples' definitions of value and outlines their relevance to social procurement. Introducing the notion of cultural counterfactuals into social impact measurement research, it also offers a new conceptual framework to enable policymakers and practitioners to more accurately account for social procurement value and impact, including Indigenous people's notions of social value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a queer theoretical reflection on the emergence of lesbian, gay, and queer (LGQ) youth as subjects of policy attention in Australia in the late twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which specific forms of social, bureaucratic, and organizational recognition have given shape to LGQ youth as categorical policy objects. To this end, this article critically interrogates social policy related to the provision of funding for LGQ youth support during the 1980s and 1990s in two Australian states: New South Wales and Western Australia. More specifically, it focuses on some of the ways in which LGQ youth have been discursively shaped and materially supported in three different organizations, two of which continue to be strongly associated with support of LGQ youth in Australia. This study of the emergence of these organizations, resourced by three different sectors—the state, the church, and the LGQ community itself—necessarily draws on ephemeral resources, reflecting the conditions of possibility in which this work was being enacted. We conclude with an analysis of the necessity for situating policy recognitions within specific contexts to examine the implications for LGQ youth as the subjects such recognitions simultaneously seek to constitute and serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years Australian governments have significantly refocused domestic violence policies to prioritise primary prevention strategies. The objective of such strategies is to change how Australians perceive, acknowledge, and respond to domestic violence as a gender-based problem. Recognising the value of these efforts to address oppressive cultural practices, we draw attention to limitations inherent in shifting culture as a means to prevent domestic violence. We demonstrate how governments may improve policy approaches by addressing the structural inequalities that have historically forced women into positions of subordination. This will help us move toward more effective and long-term solutions to domestic violence. IMPLICATIONS Australian domestic violence policy must include structural and systems changes prioritising women's equal rights in addition to equal opportunities. To change cultural attitudes and behaviours, we must alter the environment in which oppressions and opportunities are located. Social workers can shape the debate to ensure that changing culture to prevent domestic violence is conceptualised as part of a wider social and policy change agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores representations of gender and violence in Australia's National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children. The Plan's neglect of violence in the context of LGB relationships is discussed as indicative of the Plan's implicit heteronormativity and its uncritical reliance on dominant discourses of gender and violence. In its failure to engage with the diverse complexities of gender and violence, I argue that the Plan perpetuates the exclusion of certain bodies, identities and experiences, such that rights to protection and safety are reserved for some and not others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on qualitative Australian research that was conducted with 32 workers from Job Services Australia and Emergency Relief agencies. Researchers investigated the operationalisation of assistance for unemployed people to illuminate the language, discourse and processes through which workers and unemployed people were constructed within the quasi-market culture. Findings included individualistic and behaviourist frames, paradoxical positions in relation to client choice and blame, and a metaphorical frame which reinforced position, status and difference. This study provides important evidence from the frontline of Australia’s deregulated employment services, adding to the growing body of international social work literature pertaining to neoliberal welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored Australian federal level policy instruments which influence and impact on women’s reproductive choices and the consequences of those choices. A systematic policy search and mapping exercise was undertaken. Eighteen policy instruments were identified at the Federal level and were explored through a policy framework and thematic analysis. Findings indicate there are multiple layers of influence on women’s reproductive choices and the consequences of those choices, and the policy instruments interact in multiple dynamic, interconnected and contextual ways. Yet, they also lack cohesion and congruency, failing to account for women’s life circumstances while at the same time shifting the promoted position for women in each policy instrument. The policy instruments seek to regulate, control and selectively support women’s reproduction while simultaneously silencing, marginalising and reprimanding some groups of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precariousness, together with its cognate terms (e.g. precarity, precarious work, precarious workers, the precariat and precarious life), has become a significant theme in employment relations research in recent years. This paper reviews important aspects of the discussion, taking its starting point from an article in Labour and Industry which introduced the concept and sketched out a proposed research agenda for examining poor job quality in Australia. The current paper identifies patchy progress in knowledge concerning the core issues. Casual employment has been one area of successful inquiry, but challenges remain in connection with analysis of precariousness in permanent employment. At the same time, understanding of precariousness has moved into new channels of inquiry that were uncharted in the 1998 article and offer great promise for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the policy environment and settlement support services provided for migrants arriving in Australia and the challenges faced by them when engaging in a complex policy environment. Using structuration theory, it aims to understand how migrants’ understanding of settlement services relates to their exercise of agency and to the institutional and social structures they draw upon to integrate in the new society. Data were collected through 14 focus group discussions (N = 164), across seven migrant communities in Greater Western Sydney, Australia. The paper highlights access to language services and literacy programmes as contributing to the obstacles affecting migrants’ ability to achieve employment and draw on available settlement services. Three main themes emerged: (i) language barrier; (ii) employment in the new country; and (iii) settlement services. Language posed as a major barrier to find suitable employment and overall settlement. While non-recognition of prior skills or education, and a lack of local employment experience, posed significant barriers for migrants looking for work, participants also found settlement services had not been able to ease this challenging process. Our findings suggest the need to consider pre-migration experiences while planning for interventions that are tailored to better integration of migrants into the Australian workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The reproductive choices available to women, and the consequences of those choices, exist within the broader policy context whereby policy is influenced by pervasive ideologies of women's roles in society and the family. Women's reproductive rights and their resulting consequences are governed by policy at the federal and state/territory levels within Australia yet little is known about the number or scope of these policies. This study aimed to systematically search and map Australian policy to identify the number and scope of policies governing women's reproductive choices and their consequences, including how policy interprets the role of women in society through their reproductive choices. The systematic search identified 147 Australian policies in 2013. The mapping of the policies identified common themes that drive policy agenda impacting women's reproductive choices, including those where the focus is promoting motherhood and/or children, providing economic incentives, regulating reproduction, or a broader health focus. These policy agendas simultaneously construct and are shaped by the context in which women's reproductive choices and impacts occur. Women's reproductive choices are highly politicised and regulated, impacting women's position within society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years policy makers and social scientists have devoted considerable attention to wellbeing, a concept that refers to people’s capacity to live healthy, creative and fulfilling lives. Two conceptual approaches dominate wellbeing research. The objective approach examines the objective components of a good life. The subjective approach examines people’s subjective evaluations of their lives. In the objective approach how subjective wellbeing relates to objective wellbeing is not a relevant research question. The subjective approach does investigate how objective wellbeing relates to subjective wellbeing, but has focused primarily on one objective wellbeing indicator, income, rather than the comprehensive indicator set implied by the objective approach. This paper attempts to contribute by examining relationships between a comprehensive set of objective wellbeing measures and subjective wellbeing, and by linking wellbeing research to inequality research by also investigating how subjective and objective wellbeing relate to class, gender, age and ethnicity. We use three waves of a representative state-level household panel study from Queensland, Australia, undertaken from 2008 to 2010, to investigate how objective measures of wellbeing are socially distributed by gender, class, age, and ethnicity. We also examine relationships between objective wellbeing and overall life satisfaction, providing one of the first longitudinal analyses linking objective wellbeing with subjective evaluations. Objective aspects of wellbeing are unequally distributed by gender, age, class and ethnicity and are strongly associated with life satisfaction. Moreover, associations between gender, ethnicity, class and life satisfaction persist after controlling for objective wellbeing, suggesting that mechanisms in addition to objective wellbeing link structural dimensions of inequality to life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long-standing debate in the comparative welfare state literature as to whether social policy regimes come to look more alike over time ('converge') or else retain their distinctiveness. In this article, we explore this question through a detailed interrogation of the social policy record since 1996 of three states widely classified as 'liberal:' Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Overall, we find that the social/economic pressures faced by all three countries are more similar now than they were two decades ago and that each has sought to legitimize its policy response to the global financial crisis (GFC) in similar ways. In terms of the three policy areas we explore, we find convergence is much more substantial in 'welfare-to-work' than in either child-contingent support or pensions. But we also find that any straightforward convergence story is unsustainable, despite the GFC and accelerating globalization, and partisan effects remain important. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study of the welfare reform trajectories of two countries that are often identified in the literature as having institutional patterns of the 'social protection by the other means' approach. It is questioned in the article whether these two countries have undergone a converging reform trajectory against the increasing forces of economic liberalisation and whether their distinct ways of doing social policy have now come to an end. It argues that while both Australia and Japan have followed a similar neoliberal path in their social policy reform direction, the forms and patterns they have taken to follow have been distinct, largely aligned with the existing structure of social protection in each. Distinctive strategies of welfare adopted by each country have led to a divergent pattern in their way of doing social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Population-level interventions can possibly enhance each other's effects when they are implemented simultaneously. When the plain packaging policy was implemented in Australia, pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages were also updated and a national mass media campaign was aired. This study examined whether smokers who recalled the media campaign reported more attention to and talking about HWLs. Methods Longitudinal survey data was obtained among Australian adult smokers, aged 18 years and older, from an online consumer panel. One survey wave was conducted before (September 2012) and two waves were conducted after (January 2013 and May 2013) the interventions. The sample was replenished to maintain a sample size of 1000 participants at each wave. Generalized Estimating Equations analyses were performed. Results Compared to wave 1, attention to HWLs increased at wave 2 ( b = 0.32, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001), but not at wave 3 ( b = 0.10, SE = 0.08, p = 0.198). Talking about HWLs increased over time (IRR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.58–2.09 and IRR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.05–1.47, at wave 2 and wave 3 respectively). Campaign recall was significantly associated with more attention to HWLs ( b = 0.29, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and with more talking about HWLs (IRR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.06–1.29) with similar effects across waves 2 and 3. Conclusions Recall of the campaign was associated with more attention to and talking about HWLs. When adjusting for campaign recall, there was still an increasing trend in attention and talking. This suggests that the media campaign and the new packaging and labeling policies had independent and positive effects on attention to and talking about HWLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a historical-comparative policy and discourse analysis of the principles underpinning the Australian disability income support system. It determines that these principles rely on a conception of disability that sustains a system of coercion and paternalism that perpetuates disability; this is referred to as disablism. The article examines the construction of disability in Australian income support across four major historical epochs spanning the period 1908-2007. Contextualisation of the policy trajectory and discourses of the contemporary disability pension regime for the time period 2008-now is also provided. The system was found to have perpetuated disablism through the generation of disability categories on the basis of normalcy and ableness as a condition of citizenship. Two major themes were found to have interacted with the ideology of disablism. The first theme - Commonwealth authority - set the tone for legitimising the regulation of disabled citizens. The second theme - conservative sanctioned paternalism and coercion - reflected the tensions between the paternalistic concern for income support provision while attempting to prevent idleness and welfare dependency. This article argues that a non-disabling provision based on social citizenship, rather than responsible or productive citizenship, counters the tendency for authoritarian and paternal approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that we have been amiss in diagnosing the role played by government, which has exacerbated the housing problems afflicting low-income households in Australia. However, I argue further we have placed too much faith in the capacity of managerial interventions to ameliorate what are far more deep-rooted and systemic challenges. It is suggested that researchers need to adopt a more critical account of the conduct of contemporary government policy making, one that casts aside a view of the State as a benevolent agency whose primary objective is to ameliorate the conditions of the disadvantaged. Instead, the State should be understood as an agency that sustains the conditions necessary for the finance industry, developers and real estate agents, along with well-off householders and landlords, to reap profits. The political economy of Australian housing, in its current incarnation, performs a form of reverse welfarism that exacerbates social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late 2007, a national Labor government came to office in Australia and identified permanently reducing homelessness as a policy priority. At the time, Australia's new approach to addressing homelessness was celebrated and widely supported as innovative and timely. This policy review asks: what constituted Australia's new approach to homelessness policy; what was the basis for implementing the approach; and what does the evidence say about its effectiveness? Our analysis shows that, based on official intentions, new programmes, and increased levels of funding, recent Australian strategies to respond to homelessness are meaningfully different from the former crisis-based approach. Advocates for Australia's contemporary approach drew upon a range of normative, economic and evidence-based policy arguments. Although there is much to be optimistic about, we show that there is little data available to measure the effectiveness of Australia's efforts to achieve targeted reductions in homelessness; the limited data available indicates that homelessness at the population level is not decreasing as intended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his celebrated work of comparative policy, Francis Castles argued that a radical wage-earning model of welfare had evolved in Australia and New Zealand over the course of the 20th century. The Castles' thesis is shown to have two parts: first, the 'fourth world of welfare' argument that rests upon protection of workers; and, second, an emphasis on the path-dependent nature of social policy. It is perfectly possible to accept the second premise of the argument without the first, and indeed many do so. It is also possible to accept the importance of wage level protection concerns in Australasian social policy without accepting the complete fourth world thesis. This article explores the path of social democracy in Australia and New Zealand and the continuing importance of labour market regulation, as well as considering the extent to which that emphasis still makes Australasian social policy distinctive in the modern age. The argument focuses on the data and policies relating to labour market protection and wages, as well the systems of welfare and social protection, and the comparative information on poverty and inequality . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyze the social policy reactions to economic crises in Australia and New Zealand. After the financial crisis of 2008, Australia built its crisis management strategy around a large fiscal stimulus with a significant social policy component, whereas New Zealand did not. While the government enacted fiscal stimulus measures, the social policy component was small and the government soon returned to welfare retrenchment and workfare policy. Based on a detailed account of recent crisis policies as well as a condensed overview of previous crisis responses (to the 1970s oil shocks, the early 1990s recession and the Asian financial crisis), I discuss the contribution of a number of factors to explaining this difference between Australia and New Zealand. These factors include: idiosyncratic causes such as the Australian mining boom and the Christchurch earthquakes, partisan politics, interest group structures, political institutions and policy legacies. The analysis shows that the recent differences cannot fully be explained through idiosyncratic factors, as partisan ideology was already crucial in strategic policy decisions during the first months of the crisis. The historical pattern further supports this conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While events associated with the global financial crisis ( GFC) had a profound impact on real family incomes and well-being in many rich countries, impacts in Australia were relatively minor. One reason for this was the massive policy response by the Australian government at the outset of the GFC, which pumped billions of dollars into the pockets of low and middle income families. This article examines the impact of this stimulus on child poverty in Australia in the context of longer-term policies on income support for families with children. We show that the emphasis of longer-term policy has been to moderate support for families with children and that, since the mid-1990s, rates of relative child poverty have not fallen. We find that while the impact of the stimulus was to reduce child poverty, the underlying trajectory of policies towards family assistance and child poverty in Australia has not changed, and therefore there is no expectation that child poverty will continue to fall in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Labor Party, following its election to government in 2007, has implemented an ambitious social policy agenda with spending on hospitals, pensions and community workers, as well as programs for parental leave and disability. It has also reformed taxes, in part to finance these reforms, implementing the mining and carbon taxes in 2012. Labor, however, has difficulty avoiding deficits because tax revenues are too low to finance expanded welfare. This article explores the political constraints and opportunities involved in financing welfare by examining voter responses to the ANU Poll of September 2011. Spending on welfare is supported by low-income earners, while taxing big industries finds greater support among university-educated voters. The article advances an explanation for this mismatch and for why tax resistance has hindered Labor's efforts to finance welfare expansion. 澳大利亚工党在2007年选举上台后实施了雄心勃勃的社会政策计划，涉及医院、养老金、社区工作人员、带薪育婴假、残疾人等项开支。它还在2012年改革了税收，推行采矿及碳排放税为上述改革筹集资金。不过，工党苦于避免赤字，因为税收太少，资助不了扩大的福利。本文分析了选民对2011年9月ANU民调的回应，探讨了资助福利之举的限制与机遇。低收入者支持福利开支，受过高等教育者则多支持向大企业征税。本文解释了这种矛盾，以及为什反税收阻碍了工党资助福利扩张的努力。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australia's work-family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality. Design/methodology/approach – The authors critically assess a suite of new work/family-related policies, including the introduction of a government-funded national paid parental leave scheme, a limited right to request flexible working conditions, and the extension of state and federal anti-discrimination legal protections for workers with family responsibilities. Findings – The analysis suggests a lack of coherence and integration between various work/family related policies and the need for a wider range of reforms, particularly in relation to domestic work and care. It is found that the gendered use of flexibility rights, like the new right to request, do not necessarily improve gender equality and may work to entrench it in the face of strong gendered workplace and societal norms and practices around work and care. As a consequence women workers and mothers – who have been constructed as the work/family problem to be "fixed" – are left even more rushed and pressed for time. Originality/value – This empirically-informed analysis shows the power of the broader gender political and normative context and the limits of modest and piecemeal policy reform in relation to work-family issues – even where economic conditions remain relatively positive. The paper concludes that without robust, multi-faceted and integrated policy reform around work and family, in which gender equality outcomes are a central objective, policy reforms will fail to achieve a more equal sharing of paid and caring work between men and women, and greater equality between women and men more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Nearly one quarter of Australian children under the age of 5 experience multiple non-parental child care arrangements. Research focused on the relationship between multiple child care arrangements and child socioemotional development is limited, particularly in Australia. Evidence from the United States and Europe has linked multiple child care arrangements to increases in children''s problem behaviors (de Schipper, Tavecchio, van Ijzendoorn, & van Zeijl, 2004; Morrissey, 2009), but there is little corresponding evidence on Australian children''s child care experiences. Using a nationally representative sample of Australian children, we examined the associations between concurrent multiple child care arrangements and child socioemotional and behavioral development at age 4.5. We found suggestive evidence that child care multiplicity at age 4.5 is related to higher levels of behavior problems. However, this relationship is moderated by prior child care experiences. We found that prior care multiplicity mitigates the relationship between concurrent multiplicity and children''s prosocial skills and conduct problems. In contrast, moving from a single arrangement or no non-parental child care to multiple arrangements appears to be negatively associated with children''s concurrent socioemotional skills. Implications for policy and practice are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although a wealthy country, Australia nevertheless has pockets of poverty which remain resistant to anti-poverty policies. After describing the dimensions and demographics of poverty with emphasis given to Indigenous Austalians, the paper describes how Australian governments have responded, particularly in terms of the system of income security. Within that system, social work plays a unique role; one which illustrates how social workers can contribute in a pivotal manner to poverty alleviation. Their role also illustrates how the Australian government has positioned social work as a key profession to its social policy agenda. The paper also notes that while social work is central to the government's response to poverty, its role in the system of emergency relief payments funded by government and delivered by the non-profit sector is more muted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A limited understanding about the influential predictors of attitudes toward same-sex marriage in Australia exists in the literature. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of attitudes toward same-sex parenting on attitudes toward same-sex marriage, above and beyond that of demographic variables. A community sample (N = 790) ranging in age from 18-78 (M = 30.01, SD = 12.49) completed an online questionnaire assessing attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, same-sex marriage, same-sex parenting, and basic demographic information. Results indicate that participants who reported negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting were significantly more likely to hold negative attitudes toward same-sex marriage. Attitudes toward same-sex parenting also explained the most variance of attitudes toward same-sex marriage when controlling for the influence of religiosity, sex, number of gay, lesbian or bisexual friends, attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, marital and parental status, age, and sexual orientation. This study illustrates important implications for Australian marriage policy and the lives of many same-sex couples. Future research should continue to explore factors influencing attitudes toward same-sex marriage to further the knowledge base and influence social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the insights of Sawer and Laycock (2009) to explore similarities in the use of populist discourse by former Australian Prime John Howard and current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. While Sawer and Laycock label this discourse ‘market populism’ and focus on economic issues, here it is argued that Howard and Harper's populism is better understood as ‘mainstream populism’ due to the equal importance of sociocultural issues in their discourses. To demonstrate this, the treatment of issues such as immigration, multiculturalism, the culture wars, criminal justice, and childcare is considered. It is further suggested that such populist policies were used to satisfy rival wings of their respective parties – neoliberals and social conservatives – that do not always share the same priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ageing in Place policies have transferred responsibility for many frail elderly people and those living with dementia from residential to in-home care. Despite this placing a greater obligation on families, in Australia carers continue to under-use day respite services. This qualitative design study identified issues around the use of day respite care from the perspective of the family carer, focusing on barriers to attendance and strategies to facilitate attendance. Telephone interviews were held in 2007 with Tasmanian carers whose family member refused to attend day respite care (ten carers) and those whose family member attended (17). Carers considering day respite care were often overwhelmed by the quantity of information, confused about the process, and worried about the recipient's safety in an unfamiliar environment. They felt anxious about public acknowledgement of the condition leading to fear of embarrassment. Day respite care users appreciated the break it provided them and the opportunity for their family member to socialise. To facilitate a greater uptake of day respite care, reliable information sources and strategies to help carers deal with the emotions they face on a daily basis, together with a wider social acceptance of dementia, are important. Furthermore, carers need an opportunity to talk with others, enabling them to gain support from those who have successfully introduced a family member to day respite care. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

'Engagement' is the second of six top priorities in Australia's most recent Indigenous education strategy to 'close the gap' in schooling outcomes. Drawing on findings from a three-year ethnographic analysis of school engagement issues in the north of Australia, this article situates engagement within the history of Indigenous education policy, followed by considerations of how many of the issues faced by Indigenous families both match and can be distinguished from those experienced among poor and underemployed social groups throughout the western world. We find that Indigenous people are content with the schools' engagement efforts and with their interactions with schools, accepting that how their lives are lived are not within the provenance of the school system to amend. In its homogenisation of Indigenous issues, reification of cultural distinction and foregrounding of disengagement as an issue, Australian education policy is also about non-engagement, in that it excludes key issues from policy consideration while appearing to be inclusive. The education sector does not systematically engage with the grinding issues that Indigenous families face in their everyday worlds; and since Indigenous people do not really expect schools to know how to solve their issues, the call for engagement and its resolution is perfectly irresolvable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of Australia's rapidly ageing population, this paper argues that there is a need to consider the positive contributions made by older people through their volunteer and civic engagement activities. There is a strong civil society tradition in Australia, and a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that older Australians contribute both as volunteers and more informally to their families, their peers, and their communities. Older Australians are active volunteers across a range of organizations, and contribute more time than other age group. Yet there are few policies and very few programs in Australia that promote and support volunteering amongst older people, despite the associated health benefits. There are also significant barriers to volunteering that require attention if these benefits are to be made available to a broader and more diverse group of older Australians. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on a study of Australian curriculum shifts between 1975 and 2005 to take up two themes of this special issue: the question about what conceptions of knowledge are now at work; and the consideration of global influences and national specificities in the reformulations of curriculum. It discusses two important approaches to curriculum in Australia in recent times, the ‘Statements and Profiles’ activity of the early 1990s, and the ‘Essential Learnings’ formulations of the past decade. The global tendencies we see at work in these two major approaches are, first, an increasing emphasis on externally managing and auditing student progress as a key driver of how curriculum policies are being constructed; and, secondly, a growing emphasis on approaching curriculum aims in terms of what students should be able to do rather than what they should know. We argue that in the contexts we discuss here, these approaches offered a way of marrying 1970s progressive views on child development and knowledge-as-process (views widely held by influential curriculum professionals in Australia) with late 20th century technologies of micro-management and instrumental agendas favoured by politicians — but that many questions about knowledge were left off the agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the reasons why, in the first half of the twentieth century, Australian librarians were encouraged to adopt professional work practices and educational standards based on US models of 'democratic' librarianship. The promotion of US models of library education and association occurred both directly through government agencies such as the United States Office of War Information (OWI), and indirectly through the philanthropic agencies and professional associations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) and the ALA, and was to have a lasting impact on the work of Australian librarians and on their education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic between housing policy and wider welfare reform has been an important theme within housing scholarship. As a background this paper considers Jamrozik's contention of a transition in social policy from a welfare state to a post welfare paradigm through exploring the impact of ideological discourses for contemporary Australian social housing policy. Our approach combines an analysis of the discourses of social exclusion in two key housing policy documents and interviews with social housing tenants and professionals in South Australia. The analysis serves to illustrate the ways in which contemporary housing policy reflects and is shaped by competing ideological discourses. In particular, it makes explicit how the foundational discourses shaping Australian housing policy has changed considerably over recent years, reflecting, to a large extent, the influence of neo-liberal ideologies on the operation of government policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although elder self-neglect is of significant concern to adult protective service (APS) workers in the United States, minimal research has been conducted on this topic in Australia. Using qualitative research methods, this article examines how 24 Australian professionals understand situations of self-neglect. Unlike in the United States, where the term self-neglect is used in a broad and all-encompassing manner, participants in this research differentiated among self-neglect (the neglect of self), squalor (extreme neglect of environment), collecting (the accumulation of certain objects), and hoarding (the inability to throw objects away). It is argued that separating out the various behaviors that are classified under the broad umbrella of neglect can be useful in fostering reflective interventions in these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I approach the question of mobiles in Asian countries by considering the case of Australia. I do so by way of a preliminary inquiry that seeks to explore the intersection between the emergence of mobiles in Australia with transformations in that country's sense of its relationship with Asia. First I discuss the history of the mobile phone in Australia, noting some important uses and representations that formed part of its social shaping. Second, I explore mobiles and the paradoxes of multiculturalism, and also how digital technologies became central to political culture and identity debates in Australia in the early to-mid 1990s. Third, I look at some important moments in the social shaping of text messaging, in which questions of cultural difference were decisive. Finally, I offer concluding remarks about future research on mobiles in Australia and how they are tied into Asian identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares policy and practices for engaging older people in community life in Sweden and Australia. Barriers and support for active engagement through paid work, social activism, volunteering and aged services are compared. Both countries face issues of ageing populations, services for rural areas and people with small needs. Issues for Sweden were the absence of age discrimination legislation, availability of funds and lack of recognition of the growing levels of volunteering. Issues for Australia concerned the new managerialist approach to services, with associated complexities of access and limited social activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can complex and diverse societies ensure the survival of core democratic values and the allegiance of all citizens, while respecting cultural difference? In the Australian context, these issues have been foregrounded by the presence of Muslim communities. This article argues that the discourses about Muslims and discourses by Muslims can work to reveal the dynamics for negotiating social cohesion. The political projects of mainstream Muslim communities can play a critical role in knitting together fragmented elements, and offering broader fronts through which a more integrated multicultural society can evolve. However, the potential for integration can be undermined in two ways: by political decisions in the dominant society that reject such projects, rather than engaging with them in creative and constructive directions; and by marginal groups within Muslim communities gaining greater leverage over younger people in a period of heightened apprehension occasioned by world events and Australian government reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper relates to the Australian government's community awareness campaign, as part of the Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons, which was announced in October 2003 in response to evidence of human trafficking in Australia. The authors explore the challenges that are likely to be encountered during the implementation of the campaign using empirical data from two Victorian studies, the first of which explored community awareness of trafficking and the second of which examined Victoria Police and local government's responses to trafficking. We conclude that there are significant barriers to both the community and authorities identifying suspicious activities and acting on reports by community. In addition, institution challenges faced by Victoria police and local government in dealing with referred information appropriately will jeopardise the success of the initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, rapid population ageing, and government efforts to support people who are chronically ill, elderly or with disabilities to live in their own homes, has led to the primary responsibility of care being undertaken by families. Through its social policies, the Australian government provides income and other types of support to informal caregivers. This article explores how Australian social policy and women's understanding of their roles impact on their access to welfare support. Qualitative research was conducted in Melbourne between February and June 2006. In-depth interviews were undertaken with eight Russian-speaking women involved in caregiving, purposively recruited through ethnic associations, and with four community service providers. Women based their expectations of the gendered and private nature of their role on the social policies in countries of their origin and, hence, did not attempt to access welfare support unless they were referred by health and welfare professionals. In addition, poor referral by professionals, influenced by past societal attitudes that caregiving is a gendered role, contributed to women's limited access to welfare benefits. Changes in the implementation of social policy are proposed to increase caregivers’ access to welfare support and efficient utilisation of existing resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the auspices of a prominent Chinese association, a group of young Chinese girls diligently practise, produce and perform what they understand to be Chinese cultural dance in Perth, Western Australia. The public performance of this cultural dance form has been a common sight since the implementation of multiculturalism in the Australian landscape in the 1970s. This paper explores how a uniquely Chinese-Australian belonging is enabled for a migrant community in one of Australia's key cities by focusing on the processes through which Chinese cultural dance is postured, practised and produced. It underlines the dynamic reflexivity and resilience demonstrated by the community in seeking to define their belonging within a state-imposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]