Critical Reflections on a Social Inclusion Approach for an Ageing Australia

Abstract

The use of call centre operations in public and private sectors is a notable development in the changing structure and nature of employment worldwide. This trend is clearly evident in the South Pacific with the establishment of a call centre as the official point of entry for the statutory child protection systems in both New Zealand and New South Wales. As sites of professional practice however call centres are a controversial development. This paper discusses the practice findings of a qualitative research project which explored the particularity of intake social work (ISW) with 14 social workers employed at the Child Youth and Families' (CYF) National Contact Centre (NCC) in New Zealand. Findings were established through semi structured interviews and thematic analysis. They reveal a unique practice combining attributes of social work and emergency communication services in a workplace environment subject to similar output requirements as those found in commercial call centres.     

Quality out-of-school care in Aotearoa/New Zealand

The out-of-school-care sector, a reasonably unregulated industry, has grown quickly despite minimal government investment in comparison to early childhood care. In 2006, the New Zealand government released a draft five-year strategic plan committing an extra $17.4 million per year to this area. This article examines the impact on providers, recipients, and quality standards with the influx of resources and attention.     

Asian Transnational Families in New Zealand: Dynamics and Challenges

Since the 1990s, Asia has emerged as the major contributor of migration flows into New Zealand. Settler migration, tourism, international business and more recently, international education make up the diverse flows of Asian peoples into the country. This paper explores the changing dynamics of Asian transnational families over the last two decades, with a special focus on the experiences of young people within these families. In the early 1990s, bi-local families were commonly known as "astronaut" families, in which one or both parents returned to their countries of origin to work, leaving their children to be educated in New Zealand. Over time the structures of these families have changed, as many young migrants relocated back to their former homeland or re-migrated to a third country, while "astronaut parents" rejoined their spouses either in the origin or destination. More recently, the educational migration of international students from countries in Asia has given rise to another form of transnational family, in which young people enter New Zealand as international students and some subsequently become residents. In this paper, the experiences of these young people are explored within the wider context of family strategies for maximising benefits through spatially extended networks on the one hand, and government initiatives and immigration policy changes that have been taking place in New Zealand since the 1990s on the other.     

Understanding the Post‐Industrial Assembly Line: A Critical Appraisal of the Call Centre

As a relatively new form of service sector employment, call centres have been an important issue in the sociology of work for two decades. This article offers a critical review and appraisal of call centre literature, drawing upon an existing typology classifying call centre research in four categories: characteristics and organisational features; choices and strategies of management; the effect of work on employees; and the response of employees to working conditions. The article also explores recent developments that utilise call centres as a tool to investigate emerging social theories and other sociological concepts.     

Anti-Alienism in New Zealand during the Great War: The von Zedlitz Affair, 1915

This article examines the role played by the New Zealand popular press in fostering anti-German sentiment during the Great War. In particular, it focuses on the case of George von Zedlitz, a Wellington academic, who for 12 months after the war's declaration, evaded government legislation intended to dismiss all enemy aliens from their posts, and intern those regarded as a danger to home security. Weekly journals led the campaign against the professor and fed the public's growing interest in the case. The affair sparked considerable public and private debate to the extent that by August 1915 the New Zealand Government was pressured into introducing the Alien Enemy Teachers' Act, which led to von Zedlitz being dismissed from his position.     

Anti-Alienism in New Zealand during the Great War: The von Zedlitz Affair, 1915

This article examines the role played by the New Zealand popular press in fostering anti-German sentiment during the Great War. In particular, it focuses on the case of George von Zedlitz, a Wellington academic, who for 12 months after the war's declaration, evaded government legislation intended to dismiss all enemy aliens from their posts, and intern those regarded as a danger to home security. Weekly journals led the campaign against the professor and fed the public's growing interest in the case. The affair sparked considerable public and private debate to the extent that by August 1915 the New Zealand Government was pressured into introducing the Alien Enemy Teachers' Act, which led to von Zedlitz being dismissed from his position.     

The regional consequences of economic restructuring: the West Coast, New Zealand (1984–1991)

This paper focuses on the local implications of the state's response to crisis under global capitalism. New Zealand, one of a small number of European settler, primary producer economies, performed relatively poorly through the post-war long boom. A new government in 1984 sought to rectify this through an intensive programme of deregulation and state sector restructuring. This, however, was carried out without consideration of the impacts of policy on people in places, whose interests were assumed to coincide with the ‘national interest’. The local effects of the restructuring of both state and private sector capital are traced through a study of the West Coast of the South Island, a remote rural region, formerly dependent on extractive activity and state sector employment. The importance of understanding the interaction of local, national and global forces in assessing the outcome of restructuring is shown, and the need to understand the specificity of place in accounting for people's reactions to restructuring is underlined. The state is now reliant on a model of ‘enterprise’ to counter continued disinvestment, the validity of which requires ongoing research.     

Beyond bifurcation: Examining the conventions of organic agriculture in New Zealand

The last 10 years have witnessed numerous attempts to evaluate the merits of new theoretical approaches – ranging from Actor Network Theory to ‘post-structural’ Political Economy and inhabiting a ‘post-Political Economy’ theoretical space – to the explanation of global agricultural change. This article examines Convention Theory (CT) as one such alternative approach, assessing its potential in the context of ongoing change within commercial organic agriculture in New Zealand. More specifically, CT is used to expose the insufficiency of recent ideas of conventionalisation and bifurcation, both reflecting more traditional Political Economic approaches, as explanatory concepts for the emerging condition of the New Zealand organic sector. In this paper, the concept of worlds of justification as developed in CT is utilised to address the emerging complexity of organic production. While farmers supplying a more diversified domestic market can be distinguished from those supplying export markets, an exclusive focus on such distinctions ignores the influential role of extra-economic factors on the viability of organic production systems. Thus, in addition to what are classified as market and industrial worlds in CT, the paper addresses aspects of civic, green, domestic, inspired and renown worlds. Producers' selections of organic certification organisations are used to demonstrate the interaction of these worlds in the development of the organic sector in New Zealand. The article concludes with the imperative to move ‘beyond bifurcation’ and acknowledge the greater complexity of negotiated outcomes that might be achieved from a CT perspective than from existing political economy-derived models like conventionalisation and bifurcation.     

Resisting Hybridity in Community-Based Third Sector Organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand

The influence of the state policy agenda though a neo-liberal contracted funding environment is redefining the boundaries of the third sector through a process of hybridisation. Hybridised organisations adapt to possess characteristics and logics of multiple sectors (public, private or community). Increasing hybridity within the New Zealand community and voluntary sector has resulted in a perceived dichotomy separating organisations that adapt to these challenges from those that resist. In this paper, we apply a hybridity lens to seven community development organisations, who have predominantly resisted marketisation and alignment with the state policy agenda, to assess the extent of their hybridity and how this has impacted on their place in the community and voluntary sector and access to funding opportunities available from the state.     

Sense of home in a transnational social space: New Zealanders in London

In this article, I explore the ways in which ‘middling’ migrant New Zealanders living in London and New Zealand discuss and identify with home. For these multi‐local individuals, the discursive and material aspects of New Zealand as home form a framework for their everyday life as migrants living in London. Interpretation of the interviews using thematic and narrative analyses works through a conceptualization of home, migration, and identity as interdependent, through three interrelated themes: the symbolic or political nature of home; the importance of family and familiarity for a sense of home; and the role of physical material objects and places. Participants in this study see New Zealand as their home, yet by being away from home they gain new perspectives on home. In London, they engage with or resist a collective imaginary of New Zealand as home that is both self‐perpetuated and externally imposed, and which both reveals and conceals ideas about individual and group identity and community. On returning from London, the idealistic and sometimes simplistic visions of New Zealand as home that structure their lives in London are often disrupted by the more complex yet more mundane version of home and self with which they are confronted.     

Entering the Twilight Zone: The Local Complexities of Pay and Employment Equity in New Zealand

This article introduces the recent pay and employment equity situation in the New Zealand state sector through a discussion of research carried out for a Pay and Employment Equity Taskforce. It investigates the twilight zone of pay and employment equity — the murky situations where pay and employment equity programmes already exist, but progress for senior women has stalled for no obvious reasons. Qualitative research is necessary to make sense of these complex situations and to complement labour‐market level studies. The example used is a study of teachers in New Zealand schools, where a range of complex reasons, including lack of support, gendered job designs and intense workloads, creates a bottleneck for women at senior levels. The authors argue that highly decentralized human resources practices work against progress in equal employment opportunity in the state sector.     

Third Sector Accounting Standard Setting: Do Third Sector Stakeholders Have Voice?

The study examines the empirical evidence of the submissions received from third sector organisations and their stakeholders in response to proposed changes to the New Zealand accounting standard setting framework. The study aims to determine whether third sector stakeholders have voice in third sector accounting standard setting. Critical comparison of submissions and proposals appear to show that the standard setters were not listening to their third sector stakeholders. However, the study found that the standard setters utilised legitimacy management strategies to gather third sector stakeholders’ voice. The standard setters proactively achieved this by conforming to the environment and achieving pragmatic legitimacy to ensure that their decisions were based on third sector stakeholders’ voice. The study is important for those countries where accounting standard setters are grappling with the due process to undertake for third sector accounting standards in its elevation of working groups to the role of salient stakeholders.     

Window on the world. Social policy and social work in New Zealand

In recent years, New Zealand has attracted some international attention for its relatively rigorous application of monetarist, neo-liberal social and economic policies. This has led to its transformation from being one of the most socialized and protected economies in the western alliance to being relatively deregulated and open to global trade. The implications for New Zealand society and its publicly funded services have been profound. This article gives a summary of the outcomes of the neo-liberal era for New Zealand, including some of the major changes specific to social policy and social work. Areas of interest include: the growing recognition of the bi-cultural foundation of New Zealand society; the changes in welfare, labour, housing, and social security policies; and especially New Zealand's unique approach to the welfare of children and young persons. The implications of New Zealand's strong emphasis on contracting-out of social services are considered, alongside a broader assessment of the benefits of the 'reforms' for New Zealanders collectively. Some indications of future changes in direction, subsequent to the recent change in government, are also given.     

Older New Zealand women doing the work of Christmas: a recipe for identity formation

‘Christmas, because it is rather a sentimental time you tend to look for the familiar and go back into what you remember in your childhood.’ In the process of preparing family favourites or trying exciting new foods at Christmas, older New Zealand women construct self and family identities. This paper presents the New Zealand findings from an interpretive, multi‐site research project exploring older women's experiences of food occupations at Christmas in Auckland, New Zealand, and Kentucky, USA and Songkran (the tradition Thai New Year) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Narrative data were collected through focus group interviews with 16 New Zealand women, aged 65 years or over. Talk about recipes and kitchen things used, and how the foods are prepared and served revealed layers of identity work. While recipes from, and stories about, mothers’ and grandmothers’ homemade cooking are kept alive through doing the food work at Christmas, being a women in contemporary New Zealand allowed new identities to emerge. Identity as a family unit is formed and reformed over time by blending cultural and family traditions and remaking new ones through Christmas foods and family rituals. Significantly, the women's skilled preparation and customising of recipes for Christmas foods creates a rich opportunity for self‐affirmation and public recognition. For these older women, the gift of Christmas food was like giving something of themselves.     

Asylum Discourse in New Zealand: Moral Panic and a Culture of Indifference

Recent law changes in New Zealand allowing for the detention of a “mass arrival” of asylum seekers reflect a concerning international rhetoric and associated policy trend in Australia and the United Kingdom towards those seeking asylum. This paper argues that, although the New Zealand public has not (yet) reached a “moral panic” that is prevalent within international contexts, there are concerns about a “culture of indifference” in relation to asylum seekers. By providing a policy analysis about asylum seekers and an examination on the associated discourses utilised in international contexts, this discussion presents the New Zealand context through the process of risk signification. The paper discusses how the social work profession can respond to this culture of indifference through addressing collusion (often through silence) with oppressive asylum policies, the need for stronger advocacy and action, and the associated role of social work education.     

‘You Don't Have to Shout’—Vocal Behaviour in Social Work Communication

In the context of an increasing trend toward indirect service user/practitioner contact, this article argues that voice quality, vocal features, and the use of paralanguage can facilitate communication and/or negatively reinforce social difference and professional hierarchies of power in social work practice. These issues will be considered with reference to a finding from a qualitative research study undertaken in New Zealand with Intake Social Workers (ISW) at the National Contact Centre of Child Youth and Family (CYF). The National Contact Centre (NCC) is a social work call centre, and the official entry point to New Zealand's statutory child protection system. The research explored how ISWs constructed their practice in a call centre environment. The study identified the importance to many ISWs of achieving a calm, respectful telephone manner towards service users. A smaller number of participants showed more in-depth appreciation of the impact of vocal behaviour on practice, drawing attention to the effect of paralanguage on relationships with callers. Strategies for the teaching of this skill set to social work students will be considered.     

The historical context of community development in Aotearoa New Zealand

Community development in Aotearoa New Zealand can be conceptualizedas three concurrent processes such as (1), statutory work undertakenby the State through central government departments and localauthorities (consisting of a system of legislation, fundingassistance to individuals, groups and organizations and theprovision of social services), (2) social change processes undertakenprimarily through the collective action of individuals, groupsand organizations that give voice to marginalized groups andcommunities and (3) the forces of change within Tangata Whenuacommunities working for tino rangatiratanga, self determination.Three time-periods are identified to help structure the discussionthat begins from 1840, the time of the signing of the Treatyof Waitangi between the Queen of England and Maori, the indigenouspeoples of Aotearoa New Zealand, signalling the birth of modernAotearoa New Zealand. This paper argues that community developmentas policy and the practice (methodology) of social change throughorganizing, coordinating and initiating activities that enhancethe wellbeing of individuals, groups and communities is morethan ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ and, therefore,cannot be conceptualized simply in terms of ‘resistance’.It is a holistic process of transformation encompassing socio-economic,political, cultural, environmental and spiritual dimensions.     

Competing for Talent: Diffusion of An Innovation in New Zealand's Immigration Policy

In 2003, New Zealand introduced a novel “expression of interest” (EOI) system for selecting skilled migrants. In 2012, Australia adopted a similar approach while the Canadian government is proposing to adopt a variant of the EOI system in 2015. From being a follower of Canadian and Australian immigration policy initiatives, New Zealand has become the innovator. This paper examines the reasons for this significant policy shift and reviews some outcomes of the EOI system during the first decade of operation. As the international competition for talent intensifies, such policy innovation is essential if countries are going to attract skilled migrants.     

Achieving pay equity: Strategic mobilization for substantive equality in Aotearoa New Zealand

In an unprecedented move the New Zealand Government in 2017 announced a $2 billion pay equity settlement for 55,000 healthcare workers in aged and disability residential care and home and community support services. The settlement reversed the Government's previous austerity stance that pay equity for carers was too expensive, and that pay parity in the sector was out of the question. The political concession followed five years of intensive equal pay feminist activism. While pay equity settlements overseas have generally used either legal opportunity structures or government intervention, this article argues it was the combination of complementary and intersecting elements of mobilization that led to the negotiated settlement. These elements include a statutory human rights inquiry; legal opportunity; civil society coalition building; increased women's voice; and a government‐led negotiated settlement. The novel theoretical contribution of this article is its empirical support for the concept of substantive equality.     

Comparing the New Zealand and Swedish National Surveys of Gambling and Problem Gambling

National surveys of gambling and problem gambling have recently been completed in New Zealand and Sweden. These studies are unique in that data collection was undertaken by official government statistical agencies, involved large, nationally representative samples, and attained high response rates. Comparison of the findings is facilitated by the use of similar procedures and instrumentation and is of interest in that both countries have similar per capita gambling expenditure and welfare states that have recently undergone major economic and social restructuring. Data on gambling participation, problem gambling prevalence and risk factors for problem gambling are presented and discussed. While there are a number of similarities and differences, the Swedish findings are more similar to those of an earlier national survey conducted in New Zealand during 1991. This suggests that risk factors are changing over time in relation to evolving patterns of gambling participation and attitudes towards gambling, a finding that has implications for future patterns of gambling and problem gambling in these and other countries.