Social inclusion under Labor in South Australia

Social inclusion policies were championed by the former Rann Labor government in South Australia from 2002 to 2011. In 2011 the Social Inclusion Unit was dissolved by the South Australian government. It is argued that the relatively narrow focus of the former SIU on ‘problem’ communities limited its capacity to provide more than residual solutions. The diminishing political returns on social inclusion also encouraged the South Australian government to abandon this initiative. In 2014 this government has had to grapple with the end of car making in Australia and a declining manufacturing labour force, traditionally a ‘mainstream’ constituency of the Labor Party. The return to ‘mainstreaming’ social policy in South Australia might offer limited space for realignment of social policy with the concept of social citizenship. It might also represent a move away from the functionalist morality of social inclusion. Social inclusion as practiced in South Australia has limited capacity to address generalised social disadvantage. The latter is likely to concern a re‐elected Labor minority government grappling with significant job losses and a declining local economy.     

Social inclusion,exclusion, and well‐being in Australia: meaning and measurement

This paper begins by examining the social inclusion agenda that formed the centrepiece of the social policy agenda of the Australian Government between 2007 and 2013. It discusses several features of the agenda, including its objectives (as articulated by the government) and some of the administrative and bureaucratic mechanisms that were put in place to assist with its development and implementation. Although no formal assessment of the impact of the agenda is attempted, some of the ways in which such an agenda could make a difference are identified. The paper then summarises the social inclusion indicator framework developed by the Australian Social Inclusion Unit with assistance and advice from the Australian Social Inclusion Board, and compares its structure and content with the frameworks developed by two of Australia's leading social research institutes. Finally, data from two national surveys of poverty and social exclusion are used to examine recent changes in social exclusion and the association between the severity of exclusion and levels of subjective well‐being. These latter results show clearly that subjective well‐being is consistently lower among those who experience the greatest degree of social exclusion, suggesting that exclusion as identified and measured reflects external constraints rather than internal preferences.     

Social impact Analysis in Australia: Policy Issues for the 1980s

Over the last ten years in Australia the social component of Australian Environmental Impact statements has gradually increased in size as the importance of Social Impact Analysis has been recognised. This commendable trend has not been without mishap, however, and there remain many areas largely ignored in Social Impact Assessment. This paper seeks to identify these areas, identifying value questions that need to be addressed in the preparation of the social impact component.     

Conditionalising the unemployed: Why have consecutive Australian governments refused to increase the inadequate Newstart Allowance?

Welfare advocacy groups led by the Australian Council of Social Service have been campaigning for an increase in the Newstart Allowance (now renamed the JobSeeker Payment) for more than 20 years. Yet consecutive Australian governments – both Liberal‐National Coalition and Labor – have refused to raise the rate, other than the recent temporary changes introduced in response to COVID‐19. This paper argues that whilst the Coalition and Labor come from different political traditions, they share a common belief in paid work as the principal foundation of Australian social protection. Consequently, their principal concern has been to incentivise the unemployed via conditional welfare measures to engage in labour market participation, rather than boosting the welfare safety net.     

A Broader Perspective for Social Indicators

Following in the wake of R. W. Taylor's The Problems with Social Indicators in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, this article defends the use of indicators as practical policy tools. It argues that, in assessing the use of indicators, researchers should differentiate more clearly between ‘ideal’ indicators and ‘existing’ indicators, and between inadequacies within the indicator and subjective interpretations by the user.     

Australian Assistance Plan: A Study of Ineffective Planning

Social planning, to which the Australian Assistance Plan was committed, demands strong administrative infrastructure support. This paper argues that an understanding of the purpose of social planning was lacking in that infrastructure; that the method of implementation by the Social Welfare Commission and the Department of Social Security produced only uncertainty in the minds of regional councils; and that, in the result, the initially stated goals of the plan were compromised.     

The protection of atypical work in the Australian, British and German social security systems

It is a common feature of Australian, British and German social security law to exclude atypical work from many normal standards of protection. Social insurance and occupational welfare law still concentrate on the standard employment relationship, as they use length and continuity of employment as the major criteria for distributing benefits, and means-tested systems put those who depend on different sources of income, as most atypical workers do, at a disadvantage. However, equal treatment and even promotion are granted to one type of atypical work: the combination of domestic and atypical labour market work. Examples are the law of unemployment insurance in Great Britain and Germany, the family components within the social insurance schemes, the special British and Australian means-tested benefits for the working poor family, and parental leave legislation in Germany.     

After the tax revolt: Why Medicare matters more to middle Australia than lower taxes

The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2003 gives new insights into the public's increasing preference for more social spending and their willingness to pay more taxes to fund services. This paper profiles the new electorate and discusses factors driving this trend in public opinion. Multivariate analysis allows us to identify the key demographic, political and policy variables that predict support for spending. All the usual factors matter: being older and more educated, and identifying as Labor, Green or Democrat all predict support for higher spending. But we find that policy perceptions matter as well: believing that health and Medicare and/or public education have declined in the past two years brings major support for increased spending. We also find that the Australian public supports modest tax increases to fund spending on health and education and that the Australian electorate is more open minded about tax rises than conventional wisdom holds. Our main conclusions are that support for social spending over reduced taxes has increased over the past two decades, and especially after the election of the Howard Government, and that dissatisfaction with health and Medicare, and public education, are reshaping the fiscal preferences of the Australian electorate.     

Australia's Social Wage

Public Expenditure and Social Policy in Australia By R.B. SCOTTON & HELEN FERBER (eds.)
Poor Policies: Australian Income Security 1972–77 By PATRICIA TULLOCH.     

Three Big Breakthroughs for Social Research

The past two years have brought three developments almost certain to change radically the way social scientists and policy analysts view the conduct of their enterprise. These have been the release of samples of data collected by the ABS as unit records on magnetic tape, major modifications to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and the development of the completely new Australian Standard Classification of Occupations. The impact of each individually will be enormous, but the extraordinarily complementary nature of these almost simultaneous innovations is emphasised to demonstrate that together this impact will be revolutionary.     

Evaluating Alternative Modes of Consumer Participation in Community Health Services

There has been considerable effort expended over the last ten years in the field of technological forecasting in which attempts have been made to qualify, quantify and aggregate subjective judgments. However, the methods have not achieved widespread application in the social fields in Australia. This paper offers a procedure which utilizes subjective judgments for evaluating a set of alternative proposals for consumer participation in community health services; these proposals were suggested by Gross in an earlier issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues. In his article, a number of options for consumer participation were examined and some conceptual mechanisms were outlined for improving both the visibility and impact of community organizations, but no evaluation of the proposals was included. The subjective modelling procedure is applied to the findings and recommendations from Gross' paper, using subjective evaluations of a carefully selected non-random sample of health care personnel from the Australian Capital Territory.     

Researching Giving and Volunteering in Australia

The giving of time and money, mainly to private nonprofit organisations is not trivial, but in Australia has been little studied. This article introduces a special issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues which draws on data collected in the largest study of giving and volunteering conducted in Australia hitherto. It seeks to establish terminological guidelines and reviews past Australian research on giving and volunteering, arguing that there has been a disproportionate interest in volunteering. It seeks to put to rest some common myths about giving and explores whether the increase in giving and volunteering can be attributed to government policy. It concludes by introducing the other papers in the collection.     

SOME DEMOGRAPHIC CORRELATES OF HIV/AIDS-RELATED DISCRIMINATION

In late 1991, a survey was made of HIV/AIDS-related discrimination in the Australian community. Structured telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of 2,053 respondents. Twenty-one questions provided an index of expressed discrimination. Social contact with HIV-positive people was a significant predictor of low levels of discrimination. Other important predictors of (lower) levels of discrimination were: social contact with gay men, education, sex, age, sexual identity, and sexual experience. Social contact with gay men was the single best predictor of positive attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS.     

Researching Giving and Volunteering in Australia

The giving of time and money, mainly to private nonprofit organisations is not trivial, but in Australia has been little studied. This article introduces a special issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues which draws on data collected in the largest study of giving and volunteering conducted in Australia hitherto. It seeks to establish terminological guidelines and reviews past Australian research on giving and volunteering, arguing that there has been a disproportionate interest in volunteering. It seeks to put to rest some common myths about giving and explores whether the increase in giving and volunteering can be attributed to government policy. It concludes by introducing the other papers in the collection.     

Does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain? A study of Australian social workers

The present study investigated the mediating effects of job satisfaction on the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain among Australian social workers. Data for the study were collected by an online survey of the membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers, yielding 439 usable responses. The results provide evidence that job satisfaction mediates the relationship between work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict and psychological strain. These findings contribute significantly to the social work literature on work–family interface and confirm the importance of developing and targeting not only strategies that aim to reduce work–family conflict, but also those that aim to increase job satisfaction among social workers.     

Perceptions of Australian Cultural Identity among Asian Australians

A review of research on transnationalism shows that diasporas with transnational orientations and connections tend to have a strong attachment to local and global identities but a weak attachment to the nation state. In addition, it is argued that territorial nation states are losing their authority in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. Governments in western democracies have responded by tightening restrictions on citizenship and placing more emphasis on social cohesion and integration rather than multiculturalism. Using the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2003), this paper examines attachment to cultural conceptions of national identity among the Asian Australian diaspora and examines the existing literature about the relationship between transmigrants and the nation state. Findings from the study reveal a number of social determinants behind variation in emotional attachment to cultural conceptions of national identity.     

Social Policy at the 2004 Election

Social policy appeared to be a key battleground at the 2004 Australian Federal election. Opposition Leader Latham announced major policies on Medicare, family support and taxation, and schools funding during the election campaign. Using sample survey data from the Australian Election Study 2004, this paper analyses how these policies may have influenced voters. In brief, although a significant proportion of electors identified these issues as being extremely important to them when they were deciding about how to vote, many made up their mind about how to vote around the time of the announcement of the election or before. This mitigated the potential effect that these major policies could have on the election outcome. Nevertheless, these policies were important and Labor had a significant policy advantage amongst those who were late deciders about how to cast their vote.     

Gender and Political Participation in Australia

A sizeable gender gap in political participation, such that men are more likely to be active than women, is a well-established cross-national finding. But evidence for Australia is scarce, particularly in recent times, and so is international evidence since the mid-1970s. The 1984–85 Australian National Social Science Survey shows only a small gender gap to exist in a variety of political activities, in contrast to past findings. Furthermore, controlling for political interest largely explains the gap in rates of orthodox political participation. A significant gender gap remains in political protest activities, however, despite the introduction of a wide range of controls.     

Reaching Men who have Sex with Men in Australia. An Overview of AIDS Education: Community Intervention and Community Attachment Strategies

This paper outlines the principles underlying the Australian AIDS strategy and offers an explanation for its success in reducing the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among homosexual and bisexual men in Australia's gay communities. A brief outline of the AIDS education activities offered by the gay-community AIDS organisations is followed by results from the Social Aspects of the Prevention of AIDS (SAPA) research project based at Macquarie University. This research confirms the importance of the community-intervention strategies utilised by gay AIDS organisations. The paper then assesses progress in the development of community-attachment strategies for men who have sex with men but who are not attached to organised gay communities.     

Labour Force Participation,Social Inclusion and the Fair Work Act: Current and Carbon‐Constrained Contexts

The notion that employment is a precondition for personal wellbeing and social inclusion is almost sacrosanct in Australian culture. Yet, the working and living conditions of Australia's low paid workers tells a different story. While labour market participation is a cornerstone of the Federal Government's Social Inclusion Agenda, it is recognized that low pay and poor job quality often derail this key objective. Indeed, the difficulty of ‘making work pay’ at the bottom end of the labour market is a social inclusion challenge that has yet to receive the policy or public attention that it warrants. This article considers what the Fair Work Act means for the social inclusion of disadvantaged workers, in the context of wider‐ranging strategies to address low pay. It concludes with some considerations of the challenges that a carbon‐constrained economy is likely to present for labour force participation as a remedy for social exclusion.