20 Results

It is budget week, so how will the new Holy Cow surplus drive the political agenda?

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.

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.

Does income management work to make children safer? The evidence is not clearly there in the various evaluation studies that have been done.

Why not do a cost-benefit study on the costs of quarantining income voluntarily or compulsorily versus the benefits of more cash, direct services for children and some widely available financial education for the same groups?

Jenny Macklin’s dismissal of a review that has found income management is not making an impact on tobacco and healthy food sales in remote NT communities is an insult to the Government’s professed commitment to “evidence-based policy”, writes Melissa Sweet.

Jenny Macklin’s response to the latest evidence that Income Management doesn’t work is only the latest example of anti-evidence based decisions in the welfare system, writes Eva Cox

The federal government’s NT income management scheme has been branded a nutritional failure, with indigenous communities continuing to load up on junk food despite stringent measures meant to boost fruit and veggie sales.

Jenny Macklin’s latest effort in justifying policy is her gross over-promoting of the results of a very small and dicey survey of 76 income-managed residents in four communities in the Northern Territory.

Rather than invoking nanny, let’s have an informed discussion about income management rooted in some sensible analysis of its potential benefits and costs — including the likely harms, writes Melissa Sweet.

As the government prepares to roll out income management to all Australian welfare recipients, health policy experts ask: will it actually improve Australian’s health and wellbeing? A resounding “NO”.

Rather than attempting to punish struggling, low-income families, the government should be dealing with the underlying causes of neglect and delivering proper support for families in crisis, writes Fernando de Freitas.

The government’s plan to extend income management beyond the NT intervention to the rest of Australia is good policy, says former Howard government adviser David Moore. Tough love is needed to protect women and children.

Crikey readers continue to weigh in on the messy asylum seekers debate. Plus, the surprising nature of extending compulsory income management to all Australians on welfare.

Hidden in the 500 or so pages of the government’s National Emergency Response legislation is Mal Brough’s plan to commandeer community stores — an extraordinary move, which would be inconceivable anywhere else in Australia.