Income management in Australia: A critical examination of the evidence

The introduction of income management – sometimes called welfare quarantining – for subgroups of Australian income security recipients within the Northern Territory, and subsequently a number of other trial sites, has provoked considerable contention. The present study critically examined the arguments and evidence presented in favour of income management with particular reference to the guidelines, methodology and findings of official evaluations conducted by the Commonwealth Government. We identified five key issues that do not seem to be adequately addressed by official evaluations: choice and control, the quality of decision making, consultation with local community members, structural disadvantage and economic cost. We used these concepts to develop a proposed alternative model for assessing the impact of income management on local communities.     

‘Pushing buttons‘: an evaluation of the effect of Aboriginal income management on commercial gambling expenditure

The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 was a radical intervention into the lives of Aboriginal residents of the Northern Territory, Australia. One of the intervention's key measures was income management – a scheme designed to limit the range of goods and services that may be purchased with social security payments. The aim of income management was to curb 'anti‐social behaviours' such as excessive gambling and alcohol consumption. In this paper, we specifically test the efficacy of income management in reducing the amount spent on commercial gambling. To achieve this we conduct an interrupted time series analysis with deflated monthly electronic gaming machine (EGM) expenditure data from July 2002 to July 2010 for hotels and clubs in the towns of Alice Springs and Katherine. We find a negative association between income management and EGM revenues for only one gambling venue in each town. However, local complexity in the form of segregated markets along temporal, spatial and racial lines, along with other policy confounders, may obscure the effects of the macro‐policy intervention. We conclude by making suggestions for locally‐based responses to problematic forms of risky consumption that may be more sensitive to local geographies.     

西方国家政党与议会立法的运行机制分析

西方国家政党与议会立法的运行机制包括两个方面：一方面,是政党对议会立法的影响或控制。首先,通过政党组织———议会党团实现对议会的影响或控制,议会党团是政党影响或控制立法机关的组织形式。其次,充分发挥政党领袖和督导员的作用,他们往往通过职权、威望影响本党党员的投票行为。另一方面,是议会对政党的监督和制约。根据监督路径的不同,可以分为直接监督和间接监督。     

Yarning about gambling in Indigenous communities: an Aboriginal and Islander Mental Health Initiative

Gambling impacts upon the health, wellbeing and finances of many people throughout Australia. This study aimed to explore the socioeconomic and cultural factors linked with gambling in urban and remote Indigenous settings in the Northern Territory to inform the development of a gambling public health strategy. The Aboriginal and Islander Mental Health Initiative developed a semi‐structured questionnaire with Aboriginal partner organisations following consultation. Indigenous consumers of substance use treatment facilities participated in focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted with nine service providers at two time points, a year apart. Participants described key strengths in community as family, health and culture, while key worries included substance misuse, health concerns and family disharmony. Regulated gambling and card playing were also identified as important community worries. Financial and family concerns and addictive behaviour were seen as negative consequences of gambling. There was increasing concern linked with card playing and electronic gaming machines and an increased call for awareness campaigns, support from government for change and greater regulation. The findings of this study provide the most recent insight into attitudes, behaviours and consequences linked with Indigenous gambling in the Northern Territory.     

Losing localism,constraining councillors: why the Northern Territory supershires are struggling

Local government reform in Australia's sparsely settled Northern Territory resulted in the emergence of large, remote area, regional shires in 2008. This paper outlines the history of remote area local government in the Northern Territory since ‘self-government’ in 1978 and compares these new large supershires with the more dispersed system of local government which preceded them. It argues that the large remote area shires are struggling to be accepted by their predominantly Aboriginal constituencies due to two significant changes in ideas. The first is a loss of the ideas of localism and self-determination, which sustained the previous generation of smaller, dispersed local governments. The second is the rise of the idea that the roles of elected councillors in local government should be constrained and those of appointed staff enhanced. The paper questions the wisdom of both these changes in the particular context of remote area, predominantly Indigenous, local government.     

Towards better preparation and support for health and social care practitioners conducting specialised assessments in remote Indigenous contexts

Remote health professionals encounter many challenges associated with delivering care in poorly serviced remote locations and working across cultures. Despite an identified need for the assessment practices of health and social care professionals to accommodate cultural differences, and for staff training in the area, deficits in preparing the remote workforce for assessment remain. This paper combines the results of two qualitative studies to consider current and improved approaches to preparing and supporting staff for conducting assessments in remote and Indigenous settings. Study A focused on aged care assessment practices within the remote Aboriginal context of Central Australia, and Study B focused on the practice for assessing cognition among Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory. Our secondary analysis of these combined data sets provides valuable information to improve planning of approaches to preparing staff for assessments in these contexts. We report themes relating to three categories: the assessment workforce, current approaches to preparing assessment staff, and cross‐cultural knowledge/skill. We discuss which areas require more detailed attention to prepare staff for this work – such as critical reflection and cultural safety – as well as how this may best be achieved – such as through the inclusion of cultural supervisors in practitioners' supervision models, and in follow‐up components to workshop models.     

Equipping child protection practitioners to intervene to protect children from cumulative harm: legislation and policy in Victoria,Australia

Many children are repeatedly reported to statutory child protection services, but do not receive the protection they need. Many such children are suffering chronic maltreatment, which is likely to result in cumulative harm. Chronic maltreatment encompasses emotional abuse and chronic neglect. As a result, children can experience a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural problems that are more serious than those associated with other abuse types. This paper focuses on the Victorian statutory child protection system, and considers why cumulative harm is not receiving the attention the legislation intends. Under the Victorian legislation cumulative harm must be proven on grounds of emotional abuse and/or neglect. However, it is difficult for child protection practitioners to place before the court the necessary evidence to establish these grounds. The paper concludes that the legal definitions of emotional abuse and neglect should not require evidence of a link between the abusive actions of the parent and the poor outcomes for the child. The evidentiary focus should be on the actions of the parent. Furthermore, legislation should focus on abusive parental behaviours that are likely to result in cumulative harm, which are more concrete and measureable than emotional abuse and neglect, such as intimate partner violence and parental illicit drug use.     

Problems in Maori Land Legislation and the Woodward Report

Legislation in New Zealand dealing with Maori land, though well intentioned, has given rise to the twin problems of alienation and fragmentation. Legislation proposed by the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission for the Northern Territory of Australia basically avoids these pitfalls, but there are some clauses that could give rise to some forms of alienation and fragmentation.     

The Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984: A New Dimension of Legal Regulation?

Recent legislation governing the practice of In-Vitro Fertilization indicates that the traditional regulatory role of the law has significantly expanded. This article examines implications arising from the Victorian Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act 1984 and specifically, the extent to which the law can now regulate the genetic composition of human beings.     

The Use of Imprisonment on Groote Eylandt

The island of Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria off the coast of East Arnhem Land, has a rate of imprisonment far higher than that prevailing in other local government areas of the Northern Territory and more than 25 times the national rate. Groote Eylandt prisoners are predominantly young, unmarried, Aboriginal males who are likely to be unemployed, have low levels of educational achievement, are highly likely to have been in prison previously, are dealt with by the Magistrates Court for offences involving property or alcohol and are likely to serve actual prison terms of under one year. This paper suggests that the use of correctional facilities in Darwin and elsewhere has little deterrent effect for these offenders and recommends the establishment of a small correctional facility on Groote Eylandt.     

Entrepreneurship in the Swedish municipal polis: the case of Mer [*] Östersund

Scholars in political science and policy studies have been paying increasing attention to a specific kind of actor, the policy entrepreneur, as an agent of change. Less attention has been paid to the contextual factors that may shape entrepreneurial action as most of the extant research is performed in pluralistic systems and in high complexity policy sectors. This is a study of a routine planning process in the municipality of Östersund in Northern Sweden with the purpose of studying the kind of actors that may act entrepreneurially (the who); the kind of strategies they use; and what contextual powers facilitate these strategies (the how). This two-and-a-half-year routine, low-complexity process was analyzed with in-depth interviews and a survey, participant observation, document analysis, and formal social network analysis. Findings suggest that professional administrators acted entrepreneurially by employing a set of six strategies while the members of civil society were central – though not entrepreneurial – participants.     

Access to justice for Aboriginal People in the Northern Territory

This article discusses research in the Northern Territory on Aboriginal civil and family law needs. It is based on focus group discussions and interviews with legal services providers and other associated organisations. The article argues that key areas of legal need involve discrimination, housing, child protection, social security, credit/debt and consumer law problems. It further argues that welfare conditionality, particularly as embodied in the NT Intervention and subsequent Stronger Futures policies, has exacerbated the need for legal assistance and advocacy for Aboriginal people.     

Seven years of evaluating income management ‐ what have we learnt? Placing the findings of the New Income Management in the Northern Territory evaluation in context

Income management programs ‐ which restrict how some recipients of government transfers can spend these funds ‐ have operated in Australia since 2007. The nature of the programs implemented varies, especially in regard to the combination of voluntary and compulsory elements, and there are also differences in scope and targeting. A number of evaluations and other studies of these programs have been undertaken. These vary in rigour, methodology, and the set of programs considered. This has led to an apparent diversity of findings, which has been exaggerated by selective use in public debate. The largest and most in depth evaluation has been that of ‘New Income Management’ in the Northern Territory. This found that the program had not achieved its objectives and appears to have created dependence. The relative outcomes of the studies are considered.     

Leglislators,Social Policy and Action: The Case of ‘Dying with Dignity’

This paper describes a process of policy formation through the parliamentary committee system. The nature of a Victorian investigatory committee and its function as a medium for public consultation regarding complex social and ethical issues is explored. The Public Inquiry into ‘Options for Dying with Dignity’ is discussed as a case study. The Inquiry led to benchmark Australian legislation through the Medical Treatment Act 1988, as well as promoting significant changes in terminal palliative care.     

Fusion ballots as a candidate-centered reform: Evidence from Oregon

This article argues that fusion balloting, or the ability of multiple parties to nominate a single candidate for office, can be viewed as a candidate-centered and incumbent-oriented reform. Using the recent passage of fusion legislation in Oregon in 2009 and its subsequent use in 2010 state legislative elections as a test case, I study the factors behind supporting fusion legislation in both chambers of the state legislature and how these same factors affected, or did not affect, the incumbents that received cross-nominations in the 2010 elections. Overall, I find that party did not play a direct role in determining which legislators supported fusion, though female legislators were less supportive. When it came to obtaining nominations, the main finding is that incumbent candidates who voted yes to fusion were generally more likely to receive nominations. Still, legislators from the group that most opposed fusion, Democratic women, attempted to win cross-nominations once the 2010 elections approached. These findings suggest that candidate factors, more than party dictates, affected support for fusion and the ability of incumbents to receive cross-endorsements. Thus, the willingness of major-party candidates to adopt fusion can be understood through theories of candidate-centered elections and political parties.     

A good death for residents of long-term care: family members speak

Little research has been done on the topic of end-of-life care in long-term care settings to identify important themes regarding end-of-life care structures, processes, and outcomes. This study utilized data gathered in a stratified, random sample of 437 family members of residents who died in 31 nursing homes (NHs) and 199 residential care/ assisted living facilities. Structural components of care including staffing adequacy, training, and consistency as well as facility environment and size were important factors for family members interviewed. "Being there" and manner of care delivery (e.g., staff attitudes/empathy) were major elements in the process of care. These factors were mentioned more than direct care, Hospice, or resident preferences. Family members identified themes of [dying at] home and being comfortable and clean as important outcomes of care. These identified structural components, processes, and outcomes have implications for the role of social workers in these settings despite that social work support is notably absent in these findings.     

The Beveridge Report: Its origins and outcomes

The Beveridge Committee had an inauspicious start. It was intended by the British government to be a minor tidying-up operation. When the report was completed, the government seriously considered not publishing it. The report advocated family allowances, a free health service and full employment, and that all social insurance benefits should be at flat rate and at subsistence level with the aim of abolishing poverty. But the actual recommendations would not have fully achieved Beveridge's aims. Although the report had a rapturous media reception, the government initially decided not to commit itself to action. But pressure from parliament forced Prime Minister Churchill to produce plans for legislation. When the report finally became law, the benefits were about a third less than Beveridge had recommended. As a result his social assistance safety net, intended to have a very small role, ended up giving ultimate protection to some 7 million persons. The report had a major influence in other countries by setting a much more ambitious agenda for social security than had generally been accepted before.     

Minority government and marginal members: new issues for political and policy legitimacy in Australia

A steady decline in major party support in Commonwealth nations has resulted in changing parliamentary compositions, including the growing prevalence of minority government. Such situations pose new questions for notions of government legitimacy within Westminster systems. For instance, is negotiation with cross-benchers an example of government illegitimacy? What is the legitimate role of non-ministerial members when the composition of parliament gives them the final say on the enabling legislation for public policy? What is the legitimate response of the public sector regarding policy-making in the context of minority government? In this paper, we reflect on how a ‘marginal member’ concept can provide new insights into such issues and their implications.     

Missed opportunity: The NTER and sustainable development outcomes for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory

This article questions why the Labor Government has failed to fundamentally change the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) which it inherited from the Howard government, in the face of evidence which suggests that it is a development intervention unlikely to bring about sustained change. There are two major problems which this article highlights: the coercive and denigrating approach of the NTER, and its failure to address the need for Indigenous governance to drive lasting Indigenous development. Drawing on global research about the reduction of poverty and evidence about the social and economic development of native nations in other settler states, the article suggests that the NTER has been a missed opportunity for Indigenous development. Better policies would have been to address the barriers which Indigenous people identify as blocking their initiatives for development, and to support the essential work of building effective and legitimate community governance to drive development.     

A Good Death for Residents of Long-Term Care

Abstract

Little research has been done on the topic of end-of-life care in long-term care settings to identify important themes regarding end-of-life care structures, processes, and outcomes. This study utilized data gathered in a stratified, random sample of 437 family members of residents who died in 31 nursing homes (NHs) and 199 residential care/assisted living facilities. Structural components of care including staffing adequacy, training, and consistence as well as facility environment and size were important factors for family members interviewed. “Being there” and manner of care delivery (e.g., staff attitudes/empathy) were major elements in the process of care. These factors were mentioned more than direct care, Hospice, or resident preferences. Family members identified themes of [dying at] home and being comfortable and clean as important outcomes of care. These identified structural components, processes, and outcomes have implications for the role of social workers in these settings despite that social work support is notably absent in these findings.