Research events

• Program 2011
• Program 2010
• Program 2009
• Go to research events in previous years

The Research and Policy Centre fosters dialogue through research events including a lunchtime seminar series, conferences and workshops such as the social inclusion workshops program which commenced in 2008. 

Many research events are open to researchers, students and other interested members of the public. Please RSVP to kphilipp@nullbsl.org.au if you wish to attend a seminar, or register to get updates for advance notice of research events.

Our lunchtime seminar series runs during university semesters, usually on Thursdays, 12 noon to 1 pm (*unless indicated otherwise) at 67 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, in Father Tucker's Room.

Recent seminars and conferences are listed below, with related papers and presentations. For upcoming events see What's on

Program 2011

Just deserts? Retirement incomes policy and the transformation of social rights in Australia
Dr Myra Hamilton, Research Associate, Social Policy Research Centre, University of NSW
27 October

Over the last few decades, changes in retirement incomes policy and provision for old age in Australia and a number of other countries have seen governments encourage individuals to provide for their own old age from private means. In Australia, this has involved a shift from the non-contributory, publicly funded age pension towards an increasing emphasis on self-provision through mandated occupational superannuation. This paper situates these changes within the history of retirement incomes policy and broader social rights in Australia and the long-standing tension in the system between the objectives of meeting need and rewarding deservingness. In particular, it draws attention to the way that this tension has played out in debates about the means test on the age pension. It reveals the way in which the historical tension between need and deservingness has created policy legacies that have shaped contemporary reform. For example, the growing emphasis on superannuation and its associated taxation concessions, rather than undermining the status of the age pension as a social right, has been constructed as a concurrent or complementary 'right' to state support in old age. Finally, the paper reflects on how these historical tensions may shape opportunities for future retirement incomes policy reform.

Myra Hamilton is a Research Associate at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her PhD in sociology from the University of Sydney was a comparative analysis of retirement incomes policy in Australia and Britain that situated retirement incomes policy in wider processes of welfare reform, and drew on the conceptual traditions of citizenship and the social contract to understand these reform processes. Her main research interests and subjects of publication are the principles underpinning retirement incomes and welfare reform, the service needs and experiences of people with caring responsibilities, and the perceptions and management of social risks over the lifecourse. Recent projects include research on the attitudes and expectations of the baby boomer generation towards retirement, and research on the needs and experiences of children and young people who provide care for a family member with a disability or long term illness. From March to October 2011, Myra was a visiting Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Bristol in the UK.

Myra Hamilton's presentation (PDF file, 204 KB)
Myra Hamilton's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13 MB)

Home ownership, risk and the wealth-fare state
Professor Gavin Wood, RMIT-NATSEM Centre, AHURI, Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT University
20 October

Secure housing careers in home ownership are increasingly challenged by the risks associated with socio-demographic changes, job insecurity and housing market volatility. Despite these risks and changing housing career paths, governments are showing increasing interest in home equity based welfare initiatives, particularly those tailored to the elderly. Furthermore, innovation in mortgage markets has encouraged growing numbers of home buyers to ‘tap’ accumulated housing equity to meet pressing expenses. There is a curious aspect to these developments since home equity is unusual in that owners cannot hedge its value, or insure against some of the more important threats to home ownership status, for example divorce. This would not matter if these risks were trivial. However, the idea that housing careers progress smoothly from leaving the parental home through renting and then into ownership, with low housing costs matching lower income post-retirement, is losing its relevance in the 21st century. In this seminar we present evidence of home owner career paths in Australia, the threats confronting home ownership status and their implications for asset-based welfare initiatives.   

Professor Wood is in the AHURI-RMIT Research Centre of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. He previously held positions in the economics departments of Murdoch University, WA, the University of Glasgow and University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Professor Wood’s main research interests are urban economics, housing finance and labour economics.  He has published widely and in recent years has authored articles on housing and tax published in Real Estate Economics and the Journal of Housing Economics. He is currently on the international editorial advisory boards of Urban Studies and Housing Studies, and has consulted to organisations including the New Zealand Department of Labour, the Western Australian Office of Fair Trading and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Current research includes the project, 'Housing wealth and welfare: unlocking housing wealth over the life cycle', funded jointly by the Australian Research Council and the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council under its Linkage International Social Sciences Collaboration grant program. The project involves researchers from Durham University, Cambridge University, Girton College and RMIT University. In 2008 Professor Wood was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence at RMIT University.

Gavin Wood's presentation (PDF file, 205 KB)
Gavin Wood's seminar audio (MP3 file, 15.7 MB)

Young people, the rise of precarious employment and the role of control over time in social connection
Dr Dan Woodman, TR Ashworth Lecturer in Sociology, University of Melbourne
13 October

Precarious employment - casual, insecure and with variable patterns of work - is increasing across the developed world. Young people are amongst the most likely to find themselves part of this growing ‘precariat’ (Standing 2011). Drawing on data from the Life Patterns longitudinal study of the post-secondary school transitions in Australia, I explore how precarious employment, often mixed with study, impacts on young people’s lives and relationships. Many participants in the study found themselves in ‘dead-end’ jobs where the hours they worked varied, sometimes each week and often with little notice. This shaped their lives in inconsistent and singular ways that made it challenging to find the regular periods of shared time to maintain close friendships and to build new acquaintances into deeper friendships. Other participants had more secure employment and more control over their work patterns. Employment for this group was likely to extend their networks and give them useful work experience while not having a negative impact on time with friends. The growth of precarious employment means that control over time is functioning in a new way in the reproduction of inequality.

Dan Woodman is the TR Ashworth Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He has published on how social change is reshaping youth transitions, young people’s hopes for the future, and inequality in young people’s lives. For six years he has been part of the Life Patterns Project, a longitudinal study of the post-school transition in Australia. He is on the editorial board of the journal Youth Studies Australia, an associate editor of Journal of Youth Studies and founding convenor of the Sociology of Youth thematic group in The Australian Sociological Association.

Dan Woodman's seminar paper (PDF file, 205 KB)
Dan Woodman's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.4 MB)
 
Inclusive cities: transforming the lives of Delhi's urban poor
Dr Kiran Martin, Asha Community Health & Development Society, India and Visiting Fellow, The Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne
11 October

Around one-third of inhabitants of the world's cities - nearly one billion people - live in urban slums. Over 3 million people in India's capital New Delhi, stay in slum areas. India’s slum populations are growing at much higher rates than urban populations overall, a trend mirrored across the developing world. This state of affairs is unsustainable for India and the world. People in slums display poor developmental indicators across the board, from poor health to low literacy rates to lack of access to financial services. Over 23 years of working with the urban poor, the NGO Asha has developed an urban community development model that emphasises pro-poor growth and the inclusion of slum dwellers in the rest of society. Having seen success in poverty alleviation through programs in health, education, empowerment, financial inclusion and environmental improvement, this seminar focuses on how Asha has achieved results in heterogeneous slum communities through the practical application of such universal values as equality, individual dignity and social justice.

Dr Kiran Martin studied at the University of Delhi’s Maulana Azad Medical College, gaining a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree, then specialised in Paediatrics at Lady Hardinge Medical College. In 1988, Dr Martin heard about a cholera outbreak in a south Delhi slum. Her Christian faith inspired her to use her talents to help the poor and marginalised, so she went to the slum, set up a borrowed table under a tree and began working to save lives. As Dr Martin learned more about the hardships and deprivation faced by the people there, she started to devise ways to address their problems. After some time, and with growing cooperation from the grateful community and the Indian government, she acquired like-minded helpers and began to form the Asha Society. Now, more than 20 years later, Dr Martin is an influential figure in the field of slum development and Asha’s programmes are benefiting more than 400,000 people in around 50 slum colonies of Delhi. In addition to appearances before the US House of Representatives and the British House of Commons, Dr Martin has lectured at universities such as Harvard, MIT and Cambridge, and at numerous international conferences as well as given talks at hospitals, churches, and Friends of Asha events in various locations around the globe. In 2001, a book titled 'Urban Health & Development' was co-authored by Dr Martin in collaboration with Dr Beverly Booth and Dr Ted Lankester. The work of the Asha Society has been cited in publications, research and case studies by institutions such as the World Bank, Tearfund and others.

Kiran Martin's presentation (PDF file, 9.36 MB)
Kiran Martin's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.9 MB)

Early childhood development and equity: where to from here?
Dr Sharon Goldfeld, Paediatrician, Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Senior Fellow, University of Melbourne, and National Director, Australian Early Development Index
6 October

In Australia policy attention has shifted to the early years in recognition of the substantial evidence pointing to the human capital benefit of investing when children are very young. This has resulted in all levels of government paying close attention to strategies that may have an impact on early childhood and beyond. Despite this interest, Australia’s population statistics continue to show a substantial social gradient across a range of health and developmental outcomes. These emerge early in life and can be measured well into adulthood, with particularly adverse outcomes for some subpopulation groups. This unequal impact of social change on children’s health and development requires complex policy responses that concurrently consider the health/education interface, the importance of targeted and universal strategies, and the more equitable distribution of program and service funding (particularly at a local level). There are concurrent opportunities for robust trial and evaluation methodologies to ensure that policy investment is both beneficial and does no harm over the short and long term.

Dr Sharon Goldfeld is currently National Director of the Australian Early Development Index Program and until recently was the Principal Medical Advisor in the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Her research has focused on the development of indicators and data, improving health care delivery and factors related to health service utilisation, the topic of her PhD. She has been the recipient of the prestigious international Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy and the Aileen Plant Medal in Public Health Research. 

Sharon Goldfeld's presentation (PDF file, 2.82 MB)

Shifting risk at work and in working life: the individualisation of risk and a new role for finance
Dr Michael Rafferty, Senior Researcher, Workplace Research Centre,
University of Sydney
8 September

In discussions about the Global Financial Crisis, not much attention has been given to the way this crisis has revealed how much more all workers and households are integrated into financial processes and calculations in their everyday life, a process known as 'financialisation'. Financialisation is a cumbersome term but recognises that the labour force has been much more fully incorporated into economic and financial processes across their working lives. Superannuation, housing, health insurance, education and transportation have all incorporated labour into an agenda of risk management : the household has been encouraged to think of itself as a unit of financial calculation akin to a business, yet without limited liability. The experience is often felt individually. Individuals and households are expected to decide the types and amount of insurance to have, how much to borrow and what interest terms to go for, how much and where to allocate their superannuation and what investment option to choose. This presentation will identify a shared process and momentum in those many seemingly individual particularities, and nominate it as part of the shared experience of modern working life.

Mike Rafferty is a Senior Research Analyst at the Workplace Research Centre (WRC), University of Sydney, where he has been undertaking research on skills development in the meat processing industry in Australia, occupational health and safety in New Zealand, and the governance and performance of superannuation funds. He holds a PhD in economics and has taught finance, economics and international business at universities in Australia and in Europe. Prior to joining the WRC, Mike was Co-ordinator of the MBA program at the University of Wollongong.

Michael Rafferty's presentation (PDF file, 1.41 MB)
Michael Rafferty's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.8 MB)

Is philanthropic money solely private?
Elizabeth Cham
Research Fellow, Institute of Postcolonial Studies, University of Melbourne
1 September

In the 21st century, after more than 100 years of organised philanthropy, the only legal obligation of philanthropic bodies in Australia is to provide an audited annual report to the Taxation Office. As this information is treated as confidential, there is almost a complete lack of public information on philanthropy. This is particularly surprising when the majority of donors are private individuals who receive a subsidy of 45 cents from the government for each dollar donated to a foundation. Why in Australia, unlike the United States, is philanthropy still viewed as private when it receives such a significant contribution from the public purse?

Elizabeth Cham has worked for a prime minister, a leader of the Opposition, a premier, and has taught Australian politics at Canberra University and the ANU. For the last two decades Elizabeth has worked in philanthropy, initially for a number of foundations including one of the largest, the William Buckland Foundation and one of the oldest, The Felton Bequest. As CEO of Philanthropy Australia, she established its full-time secretariat and was a founding member of the Prime Minister's Community Business Partnership. Elizabeth was also a founding member of WINGS, the international umbrella body for associations of philanthropy and, with Robert Fitzgerald, founder of the National Roundtable of Non Profit Organisations.  She is currently writing a PhD on philanthropy, and is a board member of The Australia Institute.

Elizabeth Cham's paper (PDF file, 166 KB)
Elizabeth Cham's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.1 MB)

Tax reform – the way ahead
Professor Julian Disney, Director, Social Justice Project, Faculty of Law, UNSW
25 August

Looking ahead to the federal government’s National Tax Forum in October 2011, this seminar examined what is wrong with the current tax system and what is good about it? How does Australia’s tax system compare with other countries, and what are the priorities for reform? Moreover, how would these changes help to achieve social justice and reduce hardship?

Professor Julian Disney is Convenor of TaxWatch, an information service on tax issues for the community sector and the media. He is also the independent Chair of the Community Tax Forum, an alliance of the ACTU, ACOSS, Australian Conservation Foundation and Consumers Federation of Australia.  Julian is National Co-Chair of Anti-Poverty Week. He has previously been Coordinator of the Sydney Welfare Rights Centre and President of ACOSS.

Julian Disney's presentation (PDF file, 158 KB)
Julian Disney's seminar audio (MP3 file, 10.2 MB)

Colonisation and the Indigenous ‘gap’: fact or fiction?
Associate Professor Jane Freemantle, Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Health & Society, and Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne
18 August

British colonisers landed in Australia in 1788. They were greeted by Australia’s First People and history reports that tumultuous times followed for  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The sequelae of colonisation are still being experienced today and are evident in the reported ‘gap’ in the measure of antecedents to increased morbidity and premature mortality among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Associate Professor Jane Freemantle’s is a paediatric epidemiologist.  Her research has resulted in the development of a unique and a comprehensive, total population mortality profile, using linked population data. Jane is leads an international consortium that will focus on more accurate and complete reporting on Indigenous child health within an international context.  She is currently leading an ARC Discovery Grant funded project that will develop a total population mortality profile of Victoria's Aboriginal (and non-Aboriginal) children born between 1998 and 2008, using an innovative method and research process. This will produce a baseline from which to measure the success of state and national initiatives aimed at reducing the current disparities in health, education and social outcomes experienced by Indigenous populations.

Jane Freemantle's presentation (PDF file, 9.2 MB)
Jane Freemantle's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.3 MB)

The changing life-course, adult ageing and social policy
Professor Simon Biggs, Senior Manager, Retirement and Ageing, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Professorial Fellow in Social Policy and Gerontology, University of Melbourne
11 August

Australian society is facing a situation that is unprecedented, for which the challenge is cultural as well as demographic. That there will be larger numbers of older adults and fewer younger ones as the 21st century progresses is becoming a commonplace anxiety for policy makers. But what sort of life course do we want for mature adults and for ourselves as we age?  This talk examines a number of alternative models for exploring what is happening to the adult life course, each of which has different implications for public policy. The impact of ‘decline’, 'leisured', ‘productive’ and ‘stretched’ life-course models will be explored with examples from international, European and Australian policy. Economic approaches will be compared with what can be learned from humanistic and dynamic psychology. Alternative life priorities will be explored as a basis for a sustainable national policy in this area.

Simon Biggs joined the Research and Policy Centre in September 2010 as the Senior Manager, Retirement and Ageing, and Professor in Social Policy and Gerontology, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne.  Formerly a community psychologist in mental health and adolescence, Simon was the Head of Policy Development, UK Social Work Education Council, Professor of Social Gerontology, Keele University, and visiting Research Fellow, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard University. He was the UK representative on the EC Masters in Gerontology Program, and Professor of Gerontology and Director, Institute of Gerontology, King’s College, London. Simon's writing extends to community care policies, technologies of self such as counselling and psychotherapy in later life, midlife and maturity, intergenerational relationships, spirituality and ageing, lifestyles and retirement communities, public policy toward old age, and social theory and ageing. His new book, Generational intelligence: a critical approach to age relations, Routledge, London, examines the role of empathic understanding in relations between different generations and the steps to improve intergenerational communication in families, at work and in neighborhoods. The book has been co-authored with Professor Ariela Lowenstein of Haifa University.

Simon Biggs' presentation (PDF file, 631 KB)
Simon Biggs' seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.9 MB)

Has economic growth been good for the income-poor? And what happens to the socially excluded?
Dr Francisco Azpitarte, Henderson Fellow Economist, Brotherhood of St Laurence and the University of Melbourne
4 August

The main aim of this paper is to determine whether economic growth in Australia in last decade was beneficial for the most disadvantaged groups in this country. We examine how the income gains from economic growth between 2001 and 2009 were distributed among different population subgroups defined according to their initial situation. To determine whether growth was pro-poor we consider two different approaches to measure disadvantage: the standard income-poverty approach, and the muti-dimensional social exclusion approach. Interestingly, we find that economic growth in the last decade was more favourable to the income-poor than to the socially excluded. Further, while changes in labour income explain most of the increase for the income-poor, social transfers account for much of the increase for the socially excluded. Finally, we investigate whether different demographic characteristics of the income-poor and the social-excluded can explain why growth was more beneficial for the former group. We find that, although this factor contributes to this result, there remains a significant part of the gap which it does not explain.

Francisco Azpitarte is an economist who joined the Research and Policy Centre in early 2011. Francisco has a masters degree in Economic Analysis from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and completed his PhD in Economics at the Universidade de Vigo in 2009. After postdoctoral studies at the London School of Economics and Social Sciences, he was appointed to the Ronald Henderson Research Fellow joint position at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne and the Brotherhood of St Laurence. His research interests include the measurement of poverty and inequality, social exclusion and multidimensional poverty, and welfare economics.

Francisco Azpitarte's presentation (PDF file, 557 KB)
Francisco Azpitarte's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.9 MB)

Are active labour market programs least effective where they are most needed?
Dr Duncan McVicar, Principal Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute for Applied Economic & Social Research, University of Melbourne
28 July

One view of active labour market programs (ALMPs) is that they are ‘most needed’ in slack labour markets, where more unemployed workers require help finding jobs. But ALMPs might be less effective in such labour markets because there are fewer vacancies with which program participants can be matched. In this paper we illustrate this problem by examining the impact of a British ALMP – the New Deal for Young People – across 300 local labour markets over a nine-year period. We show that the unemployment exit and job entry impacts of participating in the program were negatively correlated with unemployment rates.

Duncan McVicar joined the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research as Associate Professor in July 2010, having previously worked at Queen’s University Belfast and the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre. His PhD is from the University of Southampton. He has published widely in international exconomics and social science journals and has produced numerous reports on social policy issues for British government departments and agencies. His research interests include labour market policy, social inclusion, unemployment and inactivity, health and disability. His current work includes evaluating recent Australian welfare reforms for low-income parents and measuring peer effects in adolescent substance use.

Duncan McVicar's presentation (PDF file, 318 KB)
Duncan McVicar's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.3 MB)

Line of Sight: integrating assistance for disadvantaged job seekers
Michael Horn, Senior Manager, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
26 May

The Gillard government has embarked on a new wave of welfare reform stressing the ‘dignity of work’ for all. There is widespread support for policy measures that address the stubborn levels of underutilisation in Australia, with more than 1.5 million people underemployed or unemployed, as well as the increasing levels of people on Disability Support Pensions. With an ageing population and declining participation rate, there is a solid argument in support of effective policy reform. Michael Horn argues that the proposed changes are too narrowly framed and ignore the evidence pointing to the need for more substantial reform. Despite the changes introduced in 2009 through Job Services Australia, assistance to highly disadvantaged job seekers remains poor. The current universal approach, even with refinements, will fail to deliver sustainable, decent jobs for this group. The Brotherhood’s call for better integrated forms of assistance will be presented.

Michael Horn is Senior Manager, Research and Policy Centre at the Brotherhood of St Laurence, with responsibility for the school-to-work and working years transitions.

Michael Horn's presentation (PDF file, 391 KB)
Michael Horn's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.1 MB)

China’s social policies since 1949
Dr Li Guoqing, Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Law, Northeastern University, China
19 May

China is Australia’s biggest trading partner so it is important for Australians to understand China’s social policies. In this seminar Dr Li will explain the five prerequisites for understanding China’s social policies and introduce four stages of the evolution of these policies since 1949. He will then introduce some specific policies in today’s China around health, old age, housing, education and relief, with a focus on social insurances which are the core of China’s social policies.

Dr Li Guoqing is a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Law, Northeastern University, China and a visiting academic in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include Chinese government and politics, public policy, local governance and socialism theory. He has published about 20 articles and is a co-author of the book, Theory and practice of scientific socialism. His book, Research on Chinese government’s capacity building, will be published soon.

Li Guoqing's presentation (PDF file, 906 KB)
Li Guoqing's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.6 MB)

Digital natives meet the colonial impulse: the web and new inter-generational politics
Professor Judith Bessant, School of Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT University
12 May

In this paper I explore how young political activists who are ‘digital natives’ use the web to engage politically with older and more powerful groups, typically ‘digital immigrants‘ who are accustomed to traditional forms of political action and who attempt to regulate this new politics (Prensky 2001). The aim is to describe and analyse the power relations and dynamics of this new public sphere. Much has been said about the democratising role of digital technology in authoritarian states such as Egypt and Tunisia, how it has been used to capture significant events and disseminate information and critique with far-reaching political effect. Less attention has been given to the potential democratising  role of digital technology in authoritarian institutions which many young people inhabit (e.g. schools, the modern university). I also draw on Habermas’ (1962) work on the creation and degradation of the ‘public sphere’ to establish whether web space constitutes a new public sphere, and the implications. The ideas of ‘digital native’ and ‘colonial impulse’ are used to extend and apply the old idea that western discourses about children and youth as primitives or savages have had a colonising impact on the lives of young people by closing off space and options.

Judith Bessant is in a research role at the School of Global Studies, Social Science & Planning, RMIT University.

Judith Bessant's presentation (PDF file, 367 KB)
Judith Bessant's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.5 MB)

Discipline and punishment under the welfare to work system: how single mothers deal with Centrelink and employment services
Eve Bodsworth, Research Manager, Line of Sight project, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
5 May

Current welfare policies are firmly focused on shaping the behaviour of ‘jobless’ income support recipients, with both major parties agreeing on the need for a punitive, compliance-based system. This paper focuses on the ways single mothers targeted by the welfare to work policy reforms introduced in 2006 understand and experience the disciplinary functions of employment service providers and Centrelink. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with a small group of low-income single mothers, it highlights the ways in which the women knowingly submitted to, managed and, at times, actively resisted ‘the system’. It also shows the contradictory effects of a system designed around compliance and ‘hassling’, raising important questions abuout both the efficacy and ethics of this policy approach. Finally, it is argued that social policy analysis must pay attention to the complexity of individual experiences, particularly in relation to the effects of government power and policy on everyday lives.

Eve Bodsworth is in the final stages of her PhD looking at the impact of the welfare to work policy reforms on low-income single parents.

Eve Bodsworth's presentation (PDF file, 406 KB)
Eve Bodsworth's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.7 MB)

Sharing of government and community facilities – increasing the benefits
Robert Kerr, Economist and Honorary Research Fellow, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
28 April

A public inquiry investigated the sharing of government and community facilities in Victoria, for example using school buildings after hours or using local council neighbourhood houses. A cost/benefit framework was explored. Some 20,000 facilities exist in Victoria, but what is the role of government in managing benefits and costs? What governance and commercial principles apply? There is potential for increasing the sharing of facilities and the associated social inclusion benefits, but control from the top would be unwise. The (then) government accepted most of the inquiry recommendations. The conclusions provide community organisations with a basis for pursuing their expectations of government.

Robert Kerr is an economist working as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Brotherhood of St Laurence.  His career was in the Commonwealth Treasury and the Productivity Commission, and latterly as a Commissioner of the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission.  He is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Defence Studies.

Robert Kerr's presentation (PDF file, 227 KB)
Robert Kerr's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.4 MB)

Researching the researchers: Australian human service NGOs
Dr Ruth Phillips, Social Work and Policy Studies Program, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney
21 April

This paper reports on research conducted by Susan Goodwin and Ruth Phillips in 2010 in response to the development of research networks and capacity within NGOs to conducft ‘in-house’ research. The key objective was to map the extent and level of this development in NGOs previously identified as predominantly human service organisations. Other aims were to explore the underlying reasons, the type of knowledge production undertaken and the researchers’ perceptions of their impact on policy. Broadly, the study found legitimacy in the views of the researchers that suggested that human service NGOs now have more influencing power than previously, and that they are best positioned to  produce research that should influence policy. The presentation will convey the results of an in-depth telephone survey with researchers and NGO researcher commentaries on the findings.

Ruth Phillips is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney in the Social Work and Policy Studies Program where she teaches social policy in the undergraduate Social Work program and the Postgraduate Policy Studies Program. Ruth also supervises a wide range of research students across a wide range of areas. Ruth conducts research  in the fields of Australian and global social policy, third sector studies, feminism and the Korean and Japanese welfare states.

Ruth Phillips' presentation (PDF file, 443 KB)
Ruth Phillips' seminar audio (MP3 file, 10.1 MB)


Special research and policy event
Later life learning and wellbeing forum
20 April 2011
hosted by Brotherhood of St Laurence, University of Ballarat and Adult Learning Australia

Summary report by Helen Kimberley, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence (PDF file, 90 KB)

Presentations:
Verna Kearney, Adult, Community and Further Education Board, DPCD presentation (PDF file, 450 KB)
Sally Thompson, Adult Learning Australia presentation (PDF file, 106 KB)
Patricia Reeve, COTA Vic presentation (PDF file, 77 KB)
Helen Kimberley, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence (PDF file, 88 KB)
Barry Golding, School of Education, University of Ballarat (PDF file, 153 KB)
David Perry, Association. of Neighbourhood Houses and Learning Centres (PDF file, 136 KB)
Rob Mark, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Strathclyde (PDF file, 863 KB)

Business as usual? Welfare reform in the UK
Dr Dalia Ben-Galim, Associate Director for Family, Community and Work, Institute for Public Policy Research, UK
15 April

At a time of global financial instability, governments in the UK and around the world are facing higher rates of unemployment and major cuts in public spending, with welfare reform top of their agenda. With economic growth sluggish, a new work program aimed at changing the welfare to work landscape and an overhaul of the tax and benefits system, will the UK Government be able to achieve its aims of making work pay and reducing welfare spending? This seminar will consider some of the opportunities and challenges of the current policy framework.

Dalia Ben-Galim is an Associate Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) in the UK. Dalia joined ippr in February 2008 and leads projects in the areas of family, work and care. Previously, Dalia taught social policy at the University of Oxford, held research posts at the LSE, and worked as a consultant and researcher for a specialist practice on the built environment. Dalia holds a PhD in social policy from the University of Oxford, and completed her undergraduate work at the University of Melbourne.

Dalia Ben-Galim's presentation (PDF file, 116 KB)
Dalia Ben-Galim's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.6 MB)

Energy, water and housing: towards more sustainable suburbs
Professor Tony Dalton, Australian Housing and Urban Research Centre, RMIT University
14 April

The long-established foci of housing policy development have largely been new housing production, accessibility and affordability issues. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water use in Australian suburban cities suggests that this housing policy agenda is too narrow. In recent years there have been initiatives aimed at reducing domestic energy and water use principally through the 5* new housing requirements and subsidies for particular measures such as PV cells, solar hot water, CFLs, insulation, low-flow shower heads, water tanks and garden mulch.  However, this plethora of initiatives has been insufficiently underpinned by broader thinking about the production and reproduction of Australian housing, and to thinking about the way households live in their housing.  This  presentation will outline housing-related energy and water use and make an argument for broader Australian housing policy frameworks. 

Tony Dalton is a Professor in the RMIT Australian Housing and Urban Research Centre. The main focus of his research is urban housing; changing housing markets and distributional outcomes in a period of social and economic restructuring; the housing industry, building regulation and housing renovation. His research connects to his long involvement in non-government sector policy work and advocacy through Shelter, ACOSS, Hanover Welfare and the Housing Justice Roundtable.

Tony Dalton's presentation (PDF file, 1.19 MB)
Tony Dalton's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.4 MB)

Memories of class?
Professor Peter Beilharz, Sociology and Director, Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology, La Trobe University, and
Mark Mallman, PhD student, La Trobe University
24 March

Class still matters in everyday life, both for those who miss out and, significantly, for those who rise above the stations of their parents and carry that baggage with them. In 1982 Zygmunt Bauman published a book called Memories of Class, subtitled The Prehistory and Afterlife of Class. Bauman’s subsequent work pushed the theme that the mall had replaced the factory as the central locus of everyday life in the west; that consumption, rather than production, was the core sphere of identity. With and after New Labour, it became popular to talk of exclusion, rather than exploitation, as the core issue for radicals. Class talk seems to recede; but problems of inequality fester. In this presentation Peter Beilharz will open discussion of these language games and what they signify for those of us who remain concerned with problems of inequality and suffering. He will also refer to his work with Trevor Hogan and Sheila Shaver on the intellectual biography of Jean Martin, whose name is often associated with migration and multiculturalism, but whose earlier work focused squarely on rural life and factory labour in NSW. Against  this background, Mark Mallman will then discuss his recent lauded MA work on the hidden injuries of upward class mobility. 

Peter Beilharz is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University. The most recent of his 23 books is Socialism and modernity. Mark Mallman is a PhD student at La Trobe University.

Mark Mallman's presentation (PDF file, 72 KB)
Peter Beilharz and Mark Mallman's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.1 MB)

Low-income interview project: respect, shame and receiving welfare
Associate Professor John Murphy, The Australian Centre, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne
17 March

This seminar will present selected findings from a large project interviewing 150 Australians who live, at least partly, on welfare benefits. As well as telling us about everyday life on a low income, about dealing with the welfare system and about seeking employment, many of those we interviewed told us about their values about what income support is for, who should and shouldn't be entitled, and how they feel they are treated. These stories about values are the focus of this seminar. Welfare reform policies are built on assumptions about the motivations and values of welfare recipients, many of which are challenged by our findings. A book from this research, Half a citizen: life on welfare in Australia, by John Murphy, Suellen Murray, Jenny Chalmers, Sonia Martin and Greg Marston, will be published in July 2011 by Allen and Unwin.

John Murphy teaches history and social policy, and was previously Director of the Centre for Applied Social Research at RMIT University. He has published widely on Australian social and welfare history. His latest book is A decent provision: Australian welfare policy, 1870-1949, to be published by Ashgate in the UK in April 2011.
 
John Murphy's presentation (PDF file, 183 KB)
John Murphy's seminar audio (MP3 file, 15.8 MB)

Thinking about rights in social work practice
Professor Marie Connolly, Chair and Head of Social Work, School of Health Sciences, University of Melbourne
10 March

Social work has long had a commitment to issues of social justice and human rights. Integrating rights-based ideas into practice and policy frameworks has nevertheless received less attention in recent years. It is not that human services and the professionals working within them do not appreciate or understand rights, indeed it could be argued that service delivery has become increasingly rights-conscious. But the focus has tended to be on legalistic and often adversarial interpretations of rights. This seminar considers ways in which practice can meaningfully integrate rights-based ideas and engage with the subtleties of rights-based thinking.

Professor Marie Connolly recently joined the University of Melbourne after five years as Chief Social Worker within the New Zealand government. In this role she was involved in reforming the NZ child welfare system, and provided social work leadership across the sector, as well as advice to the Minister, the head of the Ministry of Social Development and the child welfare service within the ministry. Prior to this she was Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury, and founding Director of the Te Awatea Violence Research Centre. Her numerous publications include: Lives cut short: child death by maltreatment (2007); Morals, rights and practice in the human services (2008); and Social work contexts and practice (2009). 

Marie Connolly's presentation (PDF file, 1 MB)
Marie Connolly's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.2 MB)

Two paths to ageing: the real costs of means testing and user payments
Dr Ben Spies-Butcher, Lecturer in Economy and Society, Sociology Department, Macquarie University
3 March 2011

Much of the welfare state, both in Australia and overseas, is targeted towards the aged, so as our populations grow older, governments are faced with rising expenditures. This has led to numerous proposals, most recently from the Productivity Commission, to increase targeting by means testing government payments, introducing user charges and marketising services. However, alongside this, less transparent and less equitable forms of government support have increased, aimed at largely the same areas of social policy. This paper explores the emergence of a ‘dual welfare state’, where different policy mechanisms are used to address similar problems faced by different social groups, arguing that this is the result of economic and political pressures reinforced by population ageing. It argues that attempts to target government support can have perverse effects that undermine both efficiency and equity, while failing to reduce fiscal pressure. Broadening our approach to include different policy instruments, and to include economy-wide effects not only fiscal impacts on government, can lead to better outcomes.

Ben Spies-Butcher is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and a member of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion. His research focuses on the economics and politics of the welfare state.

Ben Spies-Butcher's presentation (PDF file, 340 KB)
Ben-Spies-Butcher's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.1 MB)

Recognition, rights and the redistribution of care in Europe: political tensions and spaces
Emeritus Professor Fiona Williams, Social Policy, University of Leeds, and SPRC, UNSW
25 February

In order to understand the social politics of care provision and policies, this paper examines how care needs are interpreted in Europe. It looks at this from two perspectives: first, from the claims for state support to emerge ‘from below’, that is, from movements and organisations of those with unpaid and paid caring responsibilities or needs for support; and second, from care policies ‘from above’ – from supranational organisations and national governments. It proposes that these perspectives represent two overlapping but competing frames for interpreting care needs: social justice (from below) and social investment (from above). The paper argues that while the social investment frame has provided spaces to raise issues associated with the social justice claims, it has, at the same time, led to policies that have undermined those claims. It concludes with a discussion of how care might find greater social value.

Fiona Williams OBE has written widely on gender and 'race' in social policy, and is concerned with how to develop a political ethic of care. Publications include The Making and claiming of care policies: the recognition and redistribution of care (published by UNRISD 2010) and Gendering citizenship in Western Europe with Ruth Lister et al. (2007). Fiona is co-editor of Social Politics. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a member of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences.

Fiona Williams' presentation (PDF file, 65 KB)
Fiona Williams' seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.2 MB)

Program 2010

Social and political economy of care in Japan and South Korea
Ito Peng, Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary and International Affairs, and Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, University of Toronto
3 December

Since the 1990s, both the Japanese and the Korean governments have made significant attempts on the one hand to flexibilise their labour market through employment deregulation, and on the other to expand social welfare, particularly social care. This is interesting and surprising. For one thing, these policy reforms are a qualitative shift away from these countries’ historical policy trajectories. For another, the combination of social and economic policy reforms is somewhat contradictory, as neoliberal market policies do not usually go hand in hand with social welfare expansion. Why and how did the Japanese and Korean governments come up with such a curious mix of policy reforms, and what do they mean? In this presentation, Ito Peng shows how the combination of demographic shifts, changes in family relations and women’s employment patterns, increased global economic competition and, in the case of Korea, the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the subsequent push towards neoliberal market reforms, have culminated in a serious rethinking of social policy.

Dr Ito Peng  teaches political sociology, comparative welfare states and public policy, specialising in family, gender, and labour market policies. Her current research includes political and social economy of care; social investment policies in Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea; and international comparative research on labour market dualisation. Dr Peng is also an associate researcher for United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). She received her Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

Ito Peng's presentation (PDF file, 865 KB)

Disengagement from secondary education in the Frankston Mornington Peninsula Region
BSL and DEECD professional development workshop
24 November 2010

Disengagement from secondary education in the Frankston Mornington Peninsula Region - overview (PDF file, 62 KB)
On the BSL: how and why it works for the benefit of youth by Sarina Greco, General Manager, Community Services, Brotherhood of St Laurence (PDF file, 456 KB)
Disengagement: Current work underway on policy within the DEECD by Ian Claridge, General Manager, DEECD Student Wellbeing (PDF file, 1.12 MB)
Case study: findings from BSL evaluations of its Community CVCAL by Dr George Myconos, Senior Research Officer, Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence (PDF file, 329 KB)
Options: The relevance of applied and adult learning principles by Dr Damian Blake, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Deakin University (PDF file, 747 KB) 
Facilitated group discussion and report back (PDF file, 87 KB)

Care, social inclusion and citizenship symposium
Hosted by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in collaboration with Centre for Work + Life, University of South Australia, the Social Policy and Research Centre, UNSW, and the Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne
25 October 2010

Care, social inclusion and citizenship symposium program (PDF file, 89 KB)
Care, social inclusion and citizenship symposium summary report (PDF file, 151 KB)
Social inclusion, social investment and citizenship: adding care to the equation presentation by Professor Ruth Lister, Department of Social Sciences, University of Loughborough, UK (PDF file, 246 KB)
The contentious politics of paid parental leave in Australia presentation by Professor Deborah Brennan, Social Policy Research Centre, University of NSW (PDF file, 69 KB)
Care, social inclusion and the early years presentation by Professor Collette Tayler, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne  (PDF file, 11.6 MB)
Including older people: some implications for care presentation by Professor Simon Biggs, Senior Manager, Retirement & Ageing, Research & Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Professor of Gerontology & Social Policy, University of Melbourne (PDF file, 476 KB)
Gender and paid care work presentation by Dr Sara Charlesworth, Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University (PDF file, 216 KB)
Family policy, care of children and inclusion – the NZ experience presentation by Assoc. Professor Susan St John, Economics Department, University of Auckland (PDF file, 248 KB)
Family policy, care of children and social inclusion paper by Assoc. Professor Susan St John, Economics Department, University of Auckland (PDF file, 354 KB)
Social inclusion and the intersections of care and employment paper by Dr Trish Hill, Cathy Thomson, and Bettina Cass, Social Policy Research Centre, University of NSW (PDF file, 861 KB)
Fairness for carers: policies for support, mitigation or prevention presentation by Professor Bettina Cass, Social Policy Research Centre, University of NSW (co-authors Thomson and Brennan) (PDF file, 76 KB)
Equal pay for caring work presentation by Linda White, Australian Services Union (PDF file, 2.9 MB)
Revaluing care presentation by Dr Dina Bowman, Research & Policy Manager, In and Out of Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence (PDF file, 1.8 MB)

Early childhood policy, translation of research into practice
Mary Sayers, Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, and Fellow, Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne
28 October

Recent research has deepened our understanding of how children develop and the factors that affect their development. We know more about the nature and significance of the early years, the role and significance of relationships in child development, the neurobiology of interpersonal relationships, the cumulative impact of multiple risk and protective factors on child functioning, and the interplay between genes and environment. This presentation will discuss the early childhood research, policy and practice nexus in Australia, and implications for the future.

As Associate Director (Programs), Centre for Community Child Health, Mary Sayers is responsible for wide-ranging activities concerned with early childhood policy, translation of research into practice, workforce development, service development and evaluation. Her previous role involved the successful national implementation of the Australian Early Development Index AEDI between 2004 and 2009. Before joining the CCCH in 2004, Mary worked in the area of family policy/programs with the Australian Government.

Mary Sayers's presentation (PDF file, 2.4 MB)

Young people and activation employment policies
Dr Sonia Martin, Research & Policy Manager, Through to School to Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence
21 October

Active labour market policies aim to improve economic self-reliance by moving people into work and off state-funded welfare. Policy measures range from curtailing benefits to tightening eligibility to making welfare conditional upon fulfilling certain job search activities and punishing recipients for non-compliance. Underpinning this approach is a set of contestable assumptions about the behaviour and morality of welfare recipients. Guided by critical social inquiry and drawing on interviews with young people, this presentation proposes a theoretical frame for considering action and choice that challenges policy assumptions about the sources of unemployment.

Sonia Martin's recent research interests include issues of welfare reform, youth, social inclusion/exclusion, stigma and community development.

Sonia Martin's presentation (PDF file, 250 KB)

Environmentally, socially and economically sustainable mobility
Dr Janet Stanley, Chief Research Officer, Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash University
14 October

This seminar reports on research findings which examined the role and importance of mobility in facilitating social inclusion. Promoting access to transport for those at risk of social exclusion can also achieve economic and environmental outcomes, thus making a stronger case for transport improvements. Policy issues for improved transport options will also be raised.

Janet Stanley's current research interests include sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, social policy, transport, equity, bushfire arson, social exclusion, social capital, community development, and project evaluation. She is on government policy committees, including the Advisory Council for Minister Gavin Jennings.

Janet Stanley's presentation (PDF file, 1.8 MB)

Residents experiences of reputation, stigma and the neighbourhood
Dr Kathy Arthurson, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Health Sciences, Flinders University
7 October

In this presentation the reputation of the neighbourhood is conceptualised as having important impacts on whether residents’ are socially included or socially excluded. A stigmatised neighbourhood can affect access to employment and other opportunities, business and government investment, and residents’ ability to reach their potential. Living in neighbourhoods with poor reputations – viewed as 'problem places' that are home to 'problem people' – can reinforce the difficulties of already socially excluded individuals. Taken as a whole, these issues undermine policies to establish a cohesive society as well as diminishing political imperatives associated with social inclusion. Many stigmatised neighbourhoods consist of high concentrations of low-income rental housing that present a significant challenge for policy-makers and practitioners. The study of three Australian neighbourhoods explores the impact of changes to social mix in neighbourhood regeneration on social housing tenants, home owners and private renters’ perceptions of neighbourhood stigma.

Kathy Arthurson joined the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity at the Flinders University of South Australia in 2009. Her focus is on critical analyses of housing and urban policies and their impact on social exclusion. In particular, she is concerned with why place matters for achieving social and health equity. Arthurson’s experience as a senior policy analyst in areas including public health, housing and urban policy, ageing and disability is reflected in her applied research spanning social housing, neighbourhood regeneration, stigma and locational disadvantage.

Kathy Arthurson's presentation (PDF file, 544 KB)

Social policy today - What  happened to Australian egalitarianism?
Dr Lindy Edwards, Political Scientist, University of NSW
30 September

Australian governments are abandoning their commitment to egalitarianism. A string of failed policy experiments has seen the hard heads decide that equality is no longer a plausible social goal. They have now set themselves on a path of allowing minimum wages and welfare benefits to fall over time. Governments are stealthily allowing the Australian social landscape to be transformed to one where we accept a widening gap between rich and poor. This presentation will explore this phenomenon and the larger political context. It will focus on the de-legitimisation of Australia’s egalitarian tradition, and examine how our egalitarian heritage was transformed into something to be ashamed of, paving the way for the current policy era. It will argue that reclaiming that egalitarian heritage is an essential part of turning around the current policy malaise and it will offer up tools to do that.

Dr Lindy Edwards previously worked as an economic adviser in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, as economic policy adviser to the then Leader of the Australian Democrats, Natasha Stott Despoja, and as a press gallery journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald. She is the author of How to argue with an economist: re-opening political debate in Australia, Cambridge University Press.

Are there barriers to Australian Muslims' inclusion?
Emeritus Professor Riaz Hassan, Department of Sociology, Flinders University
23 September

This seminar examines the demographic, social and economic position of Australian Muslims and its implications for their social inclusion. Although Australian Muslims come from more than 120 countries, the largest group, 38 per cent, are Australian-born and almost 40 per cent are younger than 20 years. Educationally they are high-achievers. Twenty-one per cent of adult Muslim men have a university degree compared with 15 per cent of non-Muslim Australians, yet their age-specific unemployment rates are two to four times higher. On other socioeconomic indicators Australian Muslims fall into a very disadvantaged category. For example, their rate of home ownership is half the national average; 40 per cent of Muslim children are living in poverty, which is twice the Australian average; only 25 per cent of Muslim households have above-average household income while the corresponding figure for non-Muslim households is 34 per cent. These indicators suggest that a significant proportion of Muslim Australians occupy, both socially and economically, a relatively marginal position. After exploring these issues, Professor Hassan will argue that socioeconomic marginalisation and a sense of relative deprivation are often breeding grounds of religious and non-religious radicalisation. Theological and ideological impulses only further galvanise those who are socially and economically disadvantaged.

Riaz Hassan AM, FASSA, is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology, Flinders University, Adelaide and Global Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University, Abu Dhabi. His recent books include: Life as a Weapon: the Global Rise of Suicide Bombings (Routledge 2010); Inside Muslim Minds (Melbourne University Press 2008) and Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society (Oxford University Press 2003).

Riaz Hassan's presentation (PDF file, 172 KB)

Local connections to work
Janie Davey, Centrelink Business Manager, Melbourne
26 August

Local Connections to Work is a place-based service arrangement aiming to help disadvantaged job seekers and their families overcome barriers to social inclusion and to enhance economic participation. Based on New Zealand's Community Links model, Local Connections to Work brings together Australian Government, state government and non-government services on a rostered basis ‘under one roof’ in Centrelink premises. These services include employment, housing, health support services including mental health, financial assistance, education and counselling. Job seekers who have been unemployed five years or more, and disadvantaged youth, receive wrap-around assistance through joint interviews with Job Services Australia / Disability Employment Services, other services and Centrelink staff to identify and coordinate assistance. Other job seekers can also access services subject to capacity. A Community Partnership Group provides the local governance to oversee, plan and integrate the provision of services.

Janie Davey is the Centrelink Business Manager implementing the four Local Connections to Work sites across Australia. Prior to this Janie was the Centrelink National Manager responsible for the Commonwealth's contribution to the Victorian Bushfire Case Management Service. In addition to ensuring professional social work service delivery across Centrelink networks, she has been part of their emergency response teams deployed overseas to assist Australian citizens after disasters. Janie has worked in welfare in non-government, state and Commonwealth sectors.

Janie Davey's presentation (PDF file, 4.2 MB)

Included or excluded? Low socioeconomic status young people and the community
Rosalyn Black and Dr Lucas Walsh, Foundation for Young Australians
19 August 2010

This presentation will share the findings of recent research conducted and commissioned by the Foundation for Young Australians that show how the experience of young Australians from low socioeconomic backgrounds compares with the continuing policy rhetoric of citizenship and participation. While some young people are civically engaged, innovative and hopeful, there are persistent structural reasons for the disengagement, marginalisation and exclusion of many more young people from the decision-making processes that affect them and their communities.

Rosalyn Black is Senior Manager, Research and Evaluation, with the Foundation for Young Australians and a PhD candidate with the Australian Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. Her research focus includes the capacity of schools in low socioeconomic contexts, school–community partnership and the role of young people in leading community and social change. Rosalyn’s book, Beyond the Classroom: Building new school networks, is published by ACER Press.

Dr Lucas Walsh is Senior Executive, Research and Evaluation, with the Foundation for Young Australians. His research interests include educational policy reform, technology and its political implications, particularly in the areas of e-government, e-learning and new forms of political participation.  His most recent book, Building Bridges: Creating Cultures of Diversity, is authored with Professor Fethi Mansouri, Dr Louise Jenkins and Dr Michael Leach and published by Melbourne University Press. His next book, In Their Own Hands: How young people can change Australia, is authored with Rosalyn Black and will be published by ACER Press.

Ros Black and Lucas Walsh's presentation (PDF file, 1.1MB)

Making sense of inequality as we ‘move forward’
Dr Dina Bowman, Research & Policy Manager, In and Out of Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence
12 August

In a recent paper delivered at the International Sociological Association World Congress in Sweden, I looked at the ideas of Amartya Sen and Pierre Bourdieu and how they can help make sense of inequality. As Sen has observed, the tension between approaches arises only if we have room for 'at most one idea' (Sen 2009, p.308).  I suggest that there is room for more than one idea, and that the capability approach can be usefully complemented by Bourdieu’s concepts which provide more finely grained insights into the processes and experience of inequality. This presentation also draws on my trip to the UK and Sweden to highlight some challenges and opportunities facing researchers, analysts and advocates as we work towards an Australia free of poverty.

Dr Dina Bowman joined the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 2009. Dina has a background in higher education, private enterprise and the community sector. She holds a PhD from Swinburne University and a Graduate Diploma in Policy and Law from La Trobe University, and is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Current research projects include employment retention and advancement of disadvantaged jobseekers, balancing trust and control in the provision of employment services, and comparing outcomes for, people with disabilites, vocational training and employment, support  for disadvantaged jobseekers with  mental health issues, and labour market disadvantage and mature age workers.

Dina Bowman's presentation (PDF file, 172 KB)

Increasing the age pension eligibility age and its (dis)contents
Professor Allan Borowski, School of Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe University
5 August

This seminar will explore both the reasons behind the increase in the Age Pension eligibility age announced in the May 2009 Federal budget and the underlying factors. It will also consider whether the objectives of the eligibility age increase are likely to be realized. It will be argued that the issues of the Age Pension eligibility age is unlikely to go away.  Indeed, there is good reason to believe that still further increase can be expected in the future.

Allan Borowski is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Gerontological Society of America and the Australian Association of Gerontology. His research interests include two aspects of demography: the economics of ageing and international population movements. 

Allan Borowski's presentation (PDF file, 359 KB)

Overview of financial inclusion in the UK: the current state of banking, savings, credit and insurance
Emeritus Professor Elaine Kempson, Personal Finance Research Centre, Bristol University, UK
3 August

Elaine Kempson is an internationally respected authority on consumer financial issues, with over 25 years' experience researching personal financial services, including banking, saving and investment, insurance, credit, mortgages and pensions. Although much of her work looks at the consumer perspective, she has also undertaken research into provision of financial services and advice services. Elaine is particularly known for her research into financial inclusion, over-indebtedness and financial capability, including the provision of financial education.

Elaine was the first independent reviewer of the UK Banking Codes in 2002 and was reappointed to review the Codes in 2004. With Sharon Collard, she undertook the first independent assessment of the Financial Ombudsman Service. She is currently a consultant to the World Bank and OECD on financial capability. Elaine is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee, the HM Treasury Financial Inclusion Taskforce and the BERR Advisory Group on Over-indebtedness. In December 2007 she was appointed to the Financial Ombudsman Service board as a non-executive director. Until recently she was also a non-executive director of the Banking Code Standards Board.  In 2007 Elaine was awarded a CBE for services to the financial services industry. Elaine is a visiting academic hosted by the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University.

Elaine Kempson's presentation (PDF file, 3.7 MB)

The Abecedarian Approach: research findings and implications for home visit and parent education programs
Dr Joseph J Sparling, Research Professor, Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, and Fellow, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, USA
11 June

Dr Joseph Sparling will present on the research history and findings from a series of scientific studies which show that the Abecedarian Approach results in positive outcomes for at-risk children and families. The child gains show up at 18 months of age and are still significant at 30 years of age. The Abecedarian Approach has been used in centres, visits, and parent education workshops.

Joseph Sparling, PhD, an early childhood educator, has been a co-principal investigator on three longitudinal research projects known as the Abecedarian studies. He is the author of Learning Games, Partners for Learning, and Conversation Books, educational resources for parents and teachers of very young children. Dr Sparling is currently in Australia at the invitation of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the University of Melbourne.

Joseph Sparling's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.1 MB)
Joseph Sparling's presentation (PDF file, 566 KB) and video (5 minutes, via You Tube)
Joseph Sparling's learning games handout (PDF file, 68 KB)

Young people’s experience of work placement and part-time work
Dr Helen Stokes, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
27 May 

Living with and managing change and uncertainty become key factors for young people in late modernity where they face changing labour market and unpredictable transitions in an increasingly globalised culture and society.  Crafting narratives within a neo-liberal economic discourse has required young people to draw on enterprising subjectivities such as the need to be self-managing and responsible for their life course directions. However differing social, economic and geographical circumstances impact on young people's capacity to access resources to navigate their life situations and biographical patterns. While this period for young people is often described as a transitional phase, for example from school to work, this description does little justice to the complex processes that are occurring and the active identity work that young people are undertaking. This seminar explores work as a context for the crafting of identity narratives, in particular investigating the resources that young people draw upon including work placement, part-time work, community activities and parental support.

Dr Helen Stokes has been a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne, since 1996. Central to her work has been research about young people’s participation in and experiences of work, including VET, structured work experience and part-time work. Her PhD research focused on the relationship between identity formation and the role of formal and workplace learning for young people.

Helen Stokes' seminar audio (MP3 file, 6.46 MB)
Helen Stokes' presentation (PDF file, 361 KB)

Financial Inclusion beyond the mainstream: considerations for developed countries
Dr Zuleika Arashiro, Research & Policy Manager, Financial Inclusion, Brotherhood of St Laurence
20 May

Financial inclusion policies are historically linked to the context of welfare reforms in developed countries, and in the UK to the New Labour’s social inclusion agenda. After reviewing some approaches followed overseas, this seminar discusses how a progressive financial inclusion agenda can be built in Australia through a combination of programs and policies that not only address individual inclusion but also deal with the regulatory and institutional constraints that create systemic barriers to the process of financial inclusion.  The concept of financial inclusion has been predominantly associated with the promotion of effective access to mainstream financial services and products. Access to financial instruments such as bank accounts, credit, insurance, and savings is certainly an essential component in the process of social inclusion. However, I argue that this restricted definition risks minimising the relevance of financial inclusion policies to the social inclusion agenda.

Zuleika Arashiro has previously worked on policy-oriented research for government agencies, the corporate sector and non-profit organisations, with an emphasis on trade and development policies. Her professional experience in Brazil and in the United States has contributed to her commitment to a comparative perspective on the relationship between economic policies and inequality. Zuleika has a PhD in Politics and International Relations from La Trobe University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Zuleika Arashiro's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.5 MB)
Zuleika Arashiro's presentation (PDF file, 882 KB)

Can governments ever act collaboratively?
Professor Peter Shergold AC, Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, University of New South Wales
18 May

The contractual relationship of governments and community organisations is marked by asymmetric power.  Non-profit organisations too often are confined to being outsourced providers of public services rather than having the opportunity to influence policy development and delivery design.  Frequently they are funded to deliver programs that actually reinforce the learned helplessness that marks social exclusion.  This seminar will ask how citizens and community organisations can become part of a networked governance that acts as a foundation for participatory democracy.

Peter Shergold was a CEO in the Australian Public Service for two decades. For five years he served as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is now the Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW. He has served on the Board of CSIRO and Centrelink, and is now Chair of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Chair of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, and a Director, National Centre for Indigenous Excellence, and the Sir John Monash Foundation.

Peter Shergold's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.9 MB)

The 'rise of the provider'
Professor Ed Carson, Social Policy, University of South Australia
13 May

Near-full employment in recent years has shifted the focus of labour market programs from addressing high rates of unemployment to addressing skills shortages and the need to increase labour force participation rates, including offering assistance for those who have multiple barriers to employment, at the same time as ensuring that people receiving working age benefits fulfill their responsibilities. This, combined with outsourcing of labour market programs as promoted by New Public Management, has led to the ‘rise of the provider’ as a key feature of the education, employment and training sector. Paradoxically, the sector charged with addressing some of the skills deficit is itself under-skilled and in need of revitalisation (on 22 April 2010, the Productivity Commission was charged with undertaking a study of the education and training of workforce in Australia). This seminar will report on a project investigating labour market disadvantage in the Northern Adelaide Region, one of the most disadvantaged in the country as measured by SEIFA indicators. It explores concerns about supply-led training being offered at the expense of industry demand-led training, and explores the implications of competitive funding imperatives for coordination across the plethora of private and public providers of services in education, employment and training in a disadvantaged region. 

Ed Carson is Professor of Social Policy at the University of South Australia.  He has had a longstanding interest in employment services and state – third sector relationships. His current research interests include the meaning of New Localism and New Regionalism in Australia and the implications of these for employment and workforce planning.

Ed Carson's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.5 MB) 
Ed Carson's presentation (PDF file, 554 KB)

Insights into neighbourhood stigma
Dr Deborah Warr, Senior Research Fellow, McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
6 May

Problems of neighbourhood stigma, where residents are stereotyped in unflattering, misleading and negative ways are frequently reported as a significant problem by residents living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Worryingly, tendencies to defame and discredit poor neighbourhoods are arguably heightening in post-industrial societies. In this presentation, I discuss residents’ accounts of experiences of place-based stigma, contemporary contexts for understanding why people and places are vulnerable to being stigmatised, the contribution of stigma to problems of social exclusion and the reproduction of socio-economic disadvantage, and strategies for challenging place-based stigma. 

Deborah Warr is a sociologist whose work explores the social determinants of health and spans theoretical, empirical and methodological issues. She has a commitment to knowledge transfer and exchange activities that maximise the value of research for disenfranchised communities and populations. Her current research includes projects exploring associations between neighbourhoods and health, problems of social inclusion and preventing social exclusion among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds and exploring the value and challenges of participatory methods for research.

Deborah Warr's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.2 MB)
Deborah Warr's presentation (PDF file, 103 KB)

Climate change and social justice: the importance of building a fast and equitable pathway to a safe climate future
Professor John Wiseman, Director, McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
29 April

This seminar will address the question, to what extent are current Australian community sector climate change arguments, policies and strategies an adequate response to the threat of catastrophic climate change?  The presentation will begin with an overview of recent evidence on the social impacts of global and Australian climate change trends, particulalry for disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.  This evidence suggests that while a wide range of adaptation strategies are essential, there are clear and finite limits to the capacity of any society to adapt to runaway climate change.  Designing and building a fast and equitable path to a low carbon, safe climate future is therefore a crucial task for anyone concerned with ensuring a socially just response to climate change.  Effective action to restore a safe climate will require first a rapid transition to a zero net carbon economy, seondly drawing down existing atmospheric carbon, and finally actions to ensure an equitable, democratic and sustainable transition process.  The seminar will conclude with some reflections on political, policy and advocacy implications and priorities for the Australian community sector.

Professor John Wiseman has worked in public sector, academic and community sector settings. He has published widely on social justice and public policy issues, especially on the role of local communities and civil society in responding to globalisation. 

John Wiseman's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.27 MB)
John Wiseman's presentation (PDF file, 14.8 MB)

Flexibility, routinisation and a decade of private employment services in Australia
Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social & Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
22 April

In 1998, Mark Considine surveyed frontline staff in Australia’s employment sector. At that time Australian employment services had been partially privatised, signalling an end to the public monopoly of welfare services. Considine reported signs of specialisation, flexibility, and networking on the part of frontline employment services staff.  In 2008, Mark Considine, Jenny Lewis and Siobhan O’Sullivan asked Australian employment services professionals to complete the same survey. By 2008, the sector had been fully privatised. This seminar will present results from the two surveys, along with responses from recent interviews. They show that in the ten years between surveys there was a marked increase in the level of routinisation and standardisation reported by frontline staff. They also show that by the end of Job Network there was little discernable difference between the service offered by for-profit and not-for-profit agencies. In conclusion, some possible causes of the observed increases in routinisation and standardisation in the sector will be discussed.

Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan specialises in reseach related to the welfare state, especially the delivery of employment services. For the last two years Siobhan has been working with Mark Considine and Jenny Lewis on an ARC funded project called ‘Activating States’.

Siobhan O’Sullivan's presentation (PDF file, 219 KB)

Social inclusion, power and the everyday
Professor Stephen A. Webb, Director, The Australian Institute for Social Inclusion and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle, NSW
8 April

There are a number of conceptual problems associated with the term social inclusion. It is a slippery concept capable of a wide range of analytical and policy formulations and of both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ interpretations. Weak interpretations typically do not focus on who it is that is preventing the inclusion or the social and economic consequences of a full reversal of the conditions of exclusion. Another common criticism is that inclusion is merely a descriptive and normative, rather than explanatory concept. Further ambiguity threatens the usage of social inclusion as a solution to social problems. Its application is questionable whenever indiscriminate generalizations are asserted or implied. One common practice is to try to operationalise inclusion as if it exists by fiat. Another is the attempt to measure inclusion from a loosely fashioned referent. Each tends to confuse the issue. The confusion is often translated into policy formation and implementation.  This seminar will identify processes of closure as crucial to an understanding of the inclusion/exclusion dynamic. It shows how closure is an attempt to plasticise the reality of exclusion within power relations at the level of the everyday. An attempt is made to soften up the dogmatic form of exclusion not by invoking principles of structure, rather by showing how structure of sorts is generated by processes of closure at the level of the everyday. This approach militates against much of the policy talk about social inclusion with its bias towards structural change, social indicators and measurements and evidence-based policy impacts. The paper offers an alternative way of thinking about the concept of social inclusion.

In 2008 Stephen Webb was appointed from the University of Sussex, UK to the University of Newcastle where he is Professor of Human Sciences.

Stephen Webb's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.63 MB)
Stephen Webb's presentation (PDF file, 128 KB)

Making work pay – and making income support work
Eve Bodsworth, Research Officer, Research & Policy Centre,  Brotherhood of St Laurence
1 April

This seminar presented the findings of the Brotherhood’s Making Work Pay study. With the Henry Tax Review in mind, this research began with the modest aim of documenting ways in which the tax and transfer system created barriers against labour market entry for some unemployed people and sole parents through the operation of effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs).  What we found, however, through in-depth interviews with forty-four such people, was a far more complex and sometimes chaotic pattern of incentives and disincentives. This study revealed that Australia's income support system has failed to adapt to the new economic environment and to equip the most disadvantaged citizens to manage the many risks they face when engaging with insecure forms of paid work. It points to the need for a wide-ranging overhaul of our income support, housing and employment services, and includes recommendations for a system that can indeed make the transition to work pay for some of the most disadvantaged members of our community.

Eve Bodsworth conducted the Making Work Pay study and is also currently completing PhD research looking at the experiences of single mothers affected by the welfare-to-work policy introduced in 2006, part of a project funded by an Australian Research Council linkage grant between the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Deakin University. Eve previously practised as a community lawyer specialising in family law and family violence law. 

Eve Bodsworth's presentation (PDF file, 90 KB)

Improving the wellbeing of young Australians – the role of prevention science
Professor Ann Sanson, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne and Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY)
25 March

For a wealthy country, too many young Australians are experiencing problems which not only impact on them in the present, but will impact on their capacity to be healthy and productive future citizens - see ARACY’s Report Card on the Wellbeing of Young Australians.  The problems that children and young people face are complex and cross physical, emotional, social and educational domains, but with closely interrelated causal drivers concentrated amongst disadvantaged communities and groups.  Current strategies to address these problems focus on crisis-end treatment, which is costly, relatively ineffective and fails to reach the majority of those affected.  This seminar describes a proposal to establish a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Prevention Science for Children and Young People, which aims to deliver integrated, evidence-based preventive strategies to improve the health, development and wellbeing of Australia’s young people. It will engage in collaborative, cross-sectoral, multi-disciplinary research, driven by the needs of policy and practice end-users.  It will address all phases of prevention science – identifying the best leverage points for intervention, rigorous development of innovative prevention strategies, and applied research of how to take prevention strategies to scale, to those who need them most and in a sustainable way. Knowledge exchange and capacity-building will underlie all its work, ranging from PhD training through secondments to work-based training modules.

Ann Sanson is a Professor in Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne and the Network Coordinator for ARACY. She is a developmental psychologist and plays a leading role in both the 26-year Australian Temperament Project and “Growing Up in Australia”, a Longitudinal Study of the Australian Children. She has over 180 publications and is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and the Association for Psychological Science. Ann is leading the bid for the CRC in Prevention Science for Children and Young People.

Ann Sanson's presentation (PDF file, 1.4 MB)

Living the second fifty years: generation matters

Dr Helen Kimberley, Acting Senior Manager, Retirement & Ageing, Research & Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
18 March

‘Older’ is a slippery concept. Does the use of this epithet to encompass people aged anywhere from 50 to 101 place us in danger of homogenising the aspirations, characteristics and needs of three different generations? Utilising a capabilities approach, an analysis of multi-dimensional measures of poverty and disadvantage indicates that there are significant differences among age cohorts and that policy development needs to take account not only of these differences but also the cumulative and interdependent nature of factors impacting on people’s lives as they set out on their second fifty years.  This presentation drew on recent research findings published in The Brotherhood’s Social Barometer: living the second fifty years (Kimberley & Simons 2009), the fourth in the Brotherhood's Social Barometer series, its predecessors being The working years (Allen Consulting Group 2007), Challenges facing Australian youth (Boese & Scutella 2006) and Monitoring children’s chances (Scutella & Smyth 2005).

Helen Kimberley's presentation (PDF file, 1.4 MB)

'Turning 18', Life Chances report and DVD launch

Wednesday 24 February

Launch of Turning 18: pathways and plans, the new report from the Brotherhood's Life Chances longitudinal study, and the DVD created by filmprojects, with panel discussion about engaging disadvantaged young people in education.  Presentation by Ian Claridge, General Manager, Student Wellbeing Division, Office for Government School Education, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, about ways of addressing the challenges facing schools in engaging young people at risk of disengagement, and panel discussion.
Contact: Janet Taylor
Email: jtaylor@nullbsl.org.au 
Phone: (03) 9483 1376

Copenhagen climate talks 2009: a justice perspective

Josie Lee, Research Officer, Equity in Response to Climate Change program, Brotherhood of St Laurence
Friday 5 February

Josie Lee provided a first-hand account of her recent experience working on climate change with the Third World Network, an organisation promoting in the interests of developing countries.  The network advocates for a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal at the United Nations climate change negotiations. Josie explained what an equitable and just deal means from the perspective of developing countries, the highs and lows of the negotiating process and the politics behind the scenes, and discussed the outcomes from Copenhagen negotiations.

Josie Lee's presentation (PDF file, 1 MB)

Program 2009

Special research and policy events 2009

Ready for the second fifty years

2 December 2009

This workshop included the launch of The Brotherhood's Social Barometer: living the second fifty years and discussion of the research and policy agenda to underpin advocacy to enhance social and economic inclusion of those who are disadvantaged in later life. Presentations included:

Helen Kimberley, Brotherhood of St Laurence, The Brotherhood’s Social Barometer: ready for the second fifty years? (PDF file, 92 KB)

Peter Davidson, ACOSS, Retirement incomes and assets: from equality to inequality in mature age (PDF file, 164 KB)

Owen Donald, National Housing Supply Council, The future of housing for older Australians (PDF file, 366 KB)

Erica Smith, University of Ballarat,  Mature aged workers: some research evidence (PDF file, 59 KB)

Francesca Beddie, National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Mature age learning (PDF file, 114 KB)

Partnering to learn: the role of community organisations in supporting disadvantaged students forum

Hosted by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Melbourne Citymission
12 November 2009

The Partnering to Learn forum brought together over 100 representatives from state and federal governments, schools, the community sector, and parents, to explore the role of Learning Support Programs, such as homework clubs and tutoring programs, to promote better outcomes for disadvantaged students. 
Keynote speaker, Rosalyn Black, Senior Research Manager, The Foundation for Young Australians and author of ‘Beyond the Classroom: Building new school networks’ (2008), presented on overcoming the barriers to educational success through a collective response to young people’s educational needs. Other presenters came from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Learning Beyond the Bell program, Melbourne Citymission, and the Brotherhood of St Laurence. 

The Brotherhood and Melbourne Citymission’s position is that these programs are a promising example of local school-community partnerships that need to be taken up into policy. Options for their development were outlined in the following papers and presentations.

Forum discussion paper

Pate, A & Bond, S 2009, Partnering to learn: the role of community supporting disadvantaged students, Melbourne Citymission & the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Anne Pate and Sharon Bond's paper (PDF file, 266 KB)

Forum papers and presentations

Black, Rosalyn 2009, Overcoming the barriers to engagement and equity for all students, The Foundation for Young Australians.
Rosalyn Black's paper (PDF file, 389 KB)

Horn, Michael 2009, Policy frameworks for learning support, Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Michael Horn's paper (PDF file, 157 KB)

Ryan, Kim 2009, School-community partnerships: policy and practice, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Kim Ryan's presentation (PDF file, 978 KB)

Tribe, Robyn 2009, Learning support programs in Victoria, Learning Beyond the Bell, Centre for Multicultural Youth.
Robyn Tribe's presentation (PDF file, 84 KB)

Anne Pate and Sharon Bond 2010, Partnering to learn: the role of community organisations in supporting disadvantaged students summary of forum 19 November 2009 (PDF file, 260 KB)

Related reports and programs

Bond, Sharon 2009 Learning support programs: education reform beyond the school (PDF file, 347 KB)

Bond, Sharon 2009, The cost of a free education: cost as a barrier to Australian public education (PDF file, 311 KB)

Melbourne City Mission Learning support programs

Housing Roundtable

Brotherhood of St Laurence and Good Shepherd
13 May 2009

The Brotherhood of St Laurence, Good Shepherd Youth and Family Services, and the Housing Justice Roundtable convened a gathering to assist people to be fully informed and involved in the current housing debate. A major topic was how to make the most of the current golden opportunity to house homeless people and people with disabilities, to accommodate an ageing population, and to enable families to establish themselves in decent, affordable housing, which also needs to be linked with employment, support services and community infrastructure. 

Brotherhood and Good Shepherd Housing roundtable program (PDF file, 244 KB)

Tony Dalton's housing policy presentation (PDF file, 848 KB)

Julian Disney's 4-year growth plan presentation (PDF file, 68 KB)

Michael Lennon's supply gap presentation (PDF file, 1.65 MB)

Brotherhood and Good Shepherd Housing roundtable notes (PDF file, 166 KB)

Lunchtime seminar series 2009

New developments in housing policy

Professor Tony Dalton, AHURI Research Centre, RMIT
29 October
Housing policy has crept back onto the national agenda, as evidenced by recent initiatives such as the National Affordability Rental Scheme, the National Affordable Housing Agreement, the expansion of the First Home Owners Grant as an element of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, and the establishment of the National Housing Supply Council charged with assessing land supply and demand for housing for all levels of government. These initiatives have been enacted against underlying structural issues, including declining housing affordability; housing under-supply, especially for low-income renters and aspirant purchasers; and long-term creep in real house price increases. This presentation assessed recent policies against the background of the longer-term changes in the Australian housing system.  Tony Dalton's primary research interest is housing and social policy, with a focus on changing housing markets and distributional outcomes in a period of social and economic restructuring. More recently he has expanded his research to consider the challenges of climate change or Australian housing provision and policy. 

Tony Dalton's presentation (PDF file, 1.1 MB)

Single parents, poverty and social inclusion

Dr Kay Cook, School of Health & Social Development, Deakin University
22 October
This seminar outlined baseline findings from an ARC Linkage project supported by the Brotherhood, examining the health and social exclusion of single parents engaged in Australia’s ‘welfare to work’ program. When the welfare to work policy was introduced, the then government claimed that the benefits to single parents  would include higher incomes, better social participation, and improved wellbeing. Using data from baseline surveys and qualitative interviews, three issues for low-income single parents were considered including quality of life, time use, and volunteering. Implications for low-income women's social inclusion were then discussed.

Kay Cook's presentation (PDF file, 150 KB)

Re-thinking ‘spheres of responsibility’: Business, Human Rights and Institutional Action

Dr Kate MacDonald, School of Political Sciences, University of Melbourne
8 October
This seminar considered two frameworks for defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first advocates the extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of enterprise to encompass broader ‘spheres of influence’. The second advocates a business ‘responsibility to respect’ human rights, but not also to protect, promote or fulfill rights. Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts, a modified framework of ‘spheres of responsibility’ is developed. Business responsibility is conceptualised not only in terms of direct ‘harms’ imposed by business, but also in relation to corporate influence over broader institutional relationships and structures that shape and constrain human rights. This presentation suggests that such a model of responsibility may be given concrete expression as shared and partial responsibilities for institutionally mediated outcomes, and suggest possible directions for such innovation.  

Kate MacDonald's presentation (PDF file, 108 KB)

Kate MacDonald's paper (PDF file, 265 KB)

Microfinance and social inclusion

Dr Mohshin Habib, Faculty of Higher Education, Swinburne University of Technology, & Honorary Research Fellow, Brotherhood of St Laurence
24 September
Across continents, women are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in all economic, social and  political dimensions. Women’s control over and access to material resources is essential to their exercise of  social power and autonomy. Microfinance programs not only provide financial services to the poor , but can provide an avenue for acheiving broader change can be achieved, with little if any threat to the existing social and institutional order. Microfinance programs often have specific components to both address poverty and involve their participants in socio-cultural and political activities.  This seminar presented a tested theoretical model depicting the complex inter-relationship between poverty, social exclusion and human development, and provided evidence of microfinance programs addressing social exclusion. Likewise, the proposed relationship between ‘poverty and human development’ and ‘social exclusion and human development' is supported by multivariate analyses. 

Dr Mohshin Habib currently works as a Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology. A former development practitioner in both non-profit and international development agencies, he has worked in South-east Asia, conducting research in 20 microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and the Philippines. Mohshin’s research interests include microfinance, non-profit sector management, poverty index/assessment tool, social exclusion, social capital, social protection, human development and gender. Mohshin is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Research andPolicy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence.

Mohshin Habib's presentation (PDF file, 7.1 MB)

Youth underclass: a critical analysis of social divisions in the era of welfare reform

Dr Sonia Martin, Brotherhood of St Laurence
17 September
Current welfare arrangements are underpinned by contentious assumptions about the behaviour and morality of welfare beneficiaries. This agenda is guided by the belief that the sources of disadvantage and exclusion are largely attributable to the perceived behavioural problems and moral shortcomings of the disadvantaged themselves, and the perceived disincentive effects of the welfare state, manifest in what is believed to be an ‘underclass’. The policy solution is to tighten eligibility requirements, coerce individuals into behaving in prescribed ways and to enforce labour market participation.  Guided by critical social inquiry, this seminar asks whether the ‘underclass’ is a useful heuristic device for understanding some young people’s disengagement from the labour market. Reporting on interview findings with 27 young people with varying attachments to work, it explores respondents’ experiences of, and their values and attitudes towards, work and welfare and examines whether there is evidence to suggest some welfare recipients are ‘behaving badly’. 

Sonia Martin's previous appointments were at the University of Melbourne working on the semi-longitudinal ARC project ‘150 low-income Australians’, and the Universities of Adelaide and South Australia undertaking research and teaching in the field of social policy. Sonia’s interests include the social divisions of welfare, the underclass thesis, social inclusion/exclusion, locational disadvantage and the social work profession.  

Sonia Martin's presentation (PDF file, 694 KB)

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion

Guy Palmer, webmaster of The Poverty Site www.poverty.org.uk, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,,and founding member of the New Policy Institute, UK
3 September
The British Labour Party's manifesto for the 1997 General Election did not even mention either 'poverty' or 'social exclusion'.  Ten years later, 'poverty and social exclusion' has a high political profile in the UK.  Guy outlined the reasons for this, the main policies introduced, and the extent to which they have succeeded in reducing poverty and social exclusion.  He suggested lessons for Australia, such as the prerequisites for getting poverty and social exclusion higher up the list of political priorities, and the potential role of organisations such as the BSL in independently monitoring what is actually happening.  

The Poverty Site  (www.poverty.org.uk) is widely recognised as the most authoritative source of analyses about poverty and social exclusion in the UK.  Supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it  is the data source for the foundation's annual Monitoring poverty and social exclusion reports. Before emigrating to Australia, Guy was founding Director of the New Policy Institute, a UK-based think tank concerned with social justice, his research topics ranging from low pay and labour market disadvantage through financial exclusion and utilities, to homelessness and child play services.

Guy Palmer's presentation (PDF file, 270 KB)

The risk agenda – what does it mean to understand the social world in terms of risk?

Associate Professor Jens Zinn, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne
27 August
In present day societies, risk is pervasive. Controversies about global dangers, social risks and everyday life seem to dominate our social existence. However, it is still contested whether life is more risky than 100 years ago. The growing amount of risk communication might be a result of an increase in (neo-) liberal values or a specific style to govern societies rather than of new risks.  Dr Zinn explored the sources of current perceptions and responses to risk and how the risk agenda affects the societal construction and management of social problems.  He concluded with perspectives for a critical approach to risk and uncertainty in (social) policy. 

Dr Zinn has worked in several collaborative research centres and research networks in Germany and the UK on institutional and individual management of risk and uncertainty. Recent books are Risk in Social Sciences (2006, with P. Taylor-Gooby, Oxford University Press) and Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty (2008, Blackwell).

Jens Zinn's presentation

Older men’s learning through social inclusion

Associate Professor Barry Golding, School of Education, University of Ballarat
20 August 2009
Research by Barry Golding, Annette Foley and Mike Brown into the effectiveness of older men’s involvement in men’s sheds has led them to ask what role informal learning plays in other community-based organisations, and especially how diverse learning contexts can engage and benefit older men not in paid work.  The seminar was informed by early findings from 2009 research for National Seniors Australia and the Western Australian Department of Education and Training, based on recent interviews and surveys in 12 sites and 87 organisations across four states. Insights come from older men involved in adult education, sporting, Indigenous, religious, age-related, disability, fire and emergency services and men’s special interest organisations including community sheds.

Barry Golding's presentation (PDF file, 1,2 MB)

Golding, Brown and Foley, Men’s Learning and Wellbeing Research paper 2009 (PDF file, 184 KB)

Studying up, down and sideways

Dr Dina Bowman, Research and Policy Manager, In and Out of Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence
6 August 2009 
Forty years ago Laura Nader famously challenged anthropologists to ‘study up’.  In this presentation Dina Bowman drew on her research on the very wealthy and ‘wannabe wealthy’ to argue that it is important to study up, down and sideways when examining  the patterns, practices and processes of advantage and disadvantage.

Dina Bowman's presentation (PDF file, 207 KB)

Applying social inclusion principles to education policy: new evidence from the ruMAD? Program

Rosalyn Black, Senior Research Manager, The Foundation for Young Australians 
30 July 2009
The seminar drew on insights from the ruMAD? Program, which engages young people to create and lead social change within their school, local or global community, to argue for stronger links between schools and community agencies to address the long tail of disadvantage, and explored how these links can be forged.

Rosalyn Black's presentation (PDF file, 1 MB)

Religion, welfare and the new social contract in Australia

Professor Paul Smyth , General Manager of the Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Professor of Social Policy, Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne
23 July 2009
While church-related agencies are major deliverers of government social services in Australia, the role has been little researched and typically conflated by researchers with that of the voluntary sector in general. This presentation explored the Australian experience through a case study of the Anglican welfare agency, the Brotherhood of St Laurence.  It identified dimensions of he social policy regime which have lent Australia’s voluntary sector certain distinct features.

Paul Smyth's presentation (PDF file, 37 KB)

Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Contribution of the Not for profit Sector (PDF file, 143 KB)

Social enterprises – UK and Australia

Alastair Wilson, CEO, School of Social Entrepreneurs, UK and
Professor David Adams, Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania
8 April 2009

Social enterprises: a UK perspective

Alastair Wilson, CEO, School of Social Entrepreneurs, UK

The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) is being launched in Australia, based on the highly successful SSE in the UK which has operated for 10 years and spans 7 Schools. The goal of the SSE is to identify, develop and support social entrepreneurs to establish effective and sustainable enterprises and initiatives that meet social and community needs. Alastair spoke about the SSE UK experience; the policy implications for support agencies, government and others; and the effectiveness of the SSE 'action learning' approach in supporting the learning needs of social entrepreneurs.

Alastair Wilson's presentation (PDF file, 2 MB)

Social enterprises: new approach to social inclusion or another candle in the wind?

Professor David Adams, Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania
Social enterprises are now maturing in a number of countries but are still on the margins of social inclusion strategies in Australia. We still debate the meanings of the idea; whether it is politically correct enough; whether it should be a universal strategy or only selectively invoked; how social enterprises should be funded; and whether and for whom they work best. David canvassed where the theory and practice might be heading in Australia and what can be done to accelerate progress.

David Adams' presentation (PDF file, 921 KB)

Green jobs – towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world

Peter Poschen, Senior Advisor Sustainable Development and Climate Change, ILO
7 April 2009
'Green jobs' have become something of an emblem of a more sustainable economy and society that aims to preserve the environment for present and future generations and to be more equitable and inclusive of all people and countries. Green jobs hold the promise that humankind will be able to face up to the two defining challenges of the twenty-first century: averting dangerous climate change and environmental degradation and providing decent work and thus the prospect of well-being and dignity for all. This presentation will focus on green jobs for development. The concept of green jobs is even more relevant in the current economic crisis. The major investments made to overcome the crisis can become a unique opportunity to begin the shift towards more sustainable production systems and towards more social justice.

Peter Poschen's presentation (PDF file, 1.5 MB) 

Care, social inclusion and citizenship symposium, Fitzroy Town Hall