Here is a draft alternative media release for Jenny Macklin — what she should have said as a response to the current consultation rather than harping on about truancy and grog.
Articles by Eva Cox 
Cox: fairness agenda takes a back seat at tax forum
This was the tax forum where the fairness agenda was lost, at least from the government side.
Cox: social and gender equity way down on the tax forum agenda
It appears social and gender equity will be well down the tax forum agenda.
Women lumped with thin end of retirement wedge
The ABS has again produced data that shows women are lagging badly behind men in one of the pillars of our retirement income. This is because our highly subsidised superannuation system is based on pre-retirement earnings.
Cox: broadening the boardroom options
One of the failures of feminism has been our inability to change the culture of most workplaces.
Ignoring evidence may explain why the income management gap doesn’t close
Today the Productivity Commission releases its latest report on Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage, which shows only 13 of 45 measures showed any improvement and seven went backwards.
Cox: why is equal pay so difficult to achieve?
As many women’s groups gear up for the annual unequal payday commiseration, more statistics emerge that suggest the gap may be going backwards, or, at best, is stuck.
Does new evidence from NT women undermine supposed benefits of income management?
A new research report, which has sought the views of more than 180 women in the NT, raises questions about income management’s level of support or perceptions of benefit.
Them and us: why we need a fair society
Much of the debate over the UK riots has focused on the particulars of today and the recent past. They miss the wider implications of the effect of changes to the public ethos over the past few decades.
Cox: new intervention proposals … same old, same old
A new consultation process on more intervention proposals does not please the many critics of the current version’s costly failures.
Questions Gillard should ask in Alice Springs, but probably won’t
It is four years this month since the Mal Brough emergency intervention in the NT and today the PM goes to Alice Springs to see the “progress” supposedly being made.
Budget breakdown: making a society more fragile
The federal budget uses social stereotyping to show the government as tough.
Cox: PM’s macho social agenda has balls but no heart
The whole Women’s Budget statement is a paean of praise for the virtues of hard work and economic participation, like so much of the rest of the budget
Welfare: government fails its social democracy obligations
This is not a Labor government budget in any serious sense. It does not take from the rich, except in very minor ways, and its redistributive tendencies are almost reversed.
Smarter budget cuts? Government to target the usual suspects
With the federal budget in the next week, there is the usual jockeying for headlines by various groups.
NT Intervention: the divide between opinion and evidence
The over-publicised tweet by Larissa Behrendt needs to be seen as part of a wider issue.
Cox: Gillard’s preaching doesn’t offer salvation for unemployed
‘Labor by name and Labour by nature’ may be a catchy title but it does little for those society excludes and then rejects. Julia Gillard ignores the evidence the problem with unemployment is as much a demand side problem as the fault of the unemployed.
When tax sends a powerful message of official values
Taxation is an essential part of our support for the public sphere.
Problems with pushing new coercive employment policies
Beware the welfare policy areas when we get bi-partisanship.
Push for higher super contributions using women as stalking horse
Look carefully at who is pushing for the rise in super contributions to 12%. The clear beneficiaries will be the finance industry, union funds and high income males.
Cox: a centenary of continuous struggle for women
Women still have a long way to go for equality and we need to get moving because there are serious issues that cannot be solved by economic modelling of independent self-interested masculinity equations.
Cox: major parties show their limits on women’s issues
It seems neither major party leader put a sufficient priority on the WEL NSW event to give them something new to announce.
NT intervention … why it just didn’t work
The intervention has failed because of what was done and the way it was done, and it did not consult or engage with local people or, in many cases, address their problems.
Whatever happened to evidence-based policy making?
The federal government is adding another serious question to its social and financial policy competence by informing the public that it is proceeding with the promised evaluation of the New Income Management Program.
Cox: it’s possible to make every post (office) a winner
The Australia Post decision-making process for closing offices is primarily commercial so I am suggesting an option for reform.
