Australian Policy Research Articles

Living in Limbo: The Experiences of People Seeking Asylum in Australia

Over the past two decades, the Australian policy environment has become increasingly focused on deterring asylum seekers. For people who arrived by sea between August 13, 2012 and January 1, 2014 (legally considered the “legacy caseload”), policy measures include border excision, the removal of permanent protection and family reunion, and restrictions on economic and social rights. This research reports the results of 15 In-depth, semi-structured interviews, with legacy caseload asylum seekers to explore how policy instruments affected and governed their lives. This research found that the prolonged refugee determination process excludes people seeking asylum from meaningful support. This research contends people seeking asylum in Australia exist in a liminal space—in a state of exclusion enforced by the government.

Tools and resources used to support implementation of workplace healthy food and drink policies: A scoping review of grey literature.

This study aimed to identify and evaluate tools and resources used to support the implementation of workplace healthy food and drink policies, primarily in Australia and New Zealand. A scoping grey literature review included searches of government agencies and non-governmental organisations' websites in six English-speaking countries, public health nutrition intervention databases and Google search engine queries. Paper-based and digital tools were included if they were written in English, referred to within a policy or on a policy's website, and primarily targeting supply-side stakeholders. Tools were evaluated on two domains: 'Features' (summarised descriptively) and 'Usability and Quality' (with inter-rater reliability scores calculated using an intraclass correlation coefficient). Twenty paper-based tools were identified relating to Australian (n = 14) and New Zealand (n = 6) policies, and a further six digital tools were identified from Australia (n = 3) and Canada (n = 3). Target audiences included workplace managers, food providers and suppliers. The paper-based tools focused on general implementation guidance. In contrast, digital tools tended to support specific elements of policy implementation. 'Usability and Quality' scores ranged from 2.9 to 4.5 (out of 5.0) for paper-based tools, and 3.9 to 4.2 for digital tools, with a moderate agreement between reviewer scores (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.523, p = 0.010). A range of tools have been developed to support the implementation of workplace healthy food and drink policies. Understanding the strengths and limitations of current tools will assist in developing improved aids to support policy implementation.

Structural Transformations and Everyday Spatial Consequences in Austerity Ireland: An Embedded Comparative Approach

Urban research often focuses on aggregate characteristics of macroeconomic performances or in-depth case studies of everyday urban phenomena. However, this dichotomy risks alienating two perspectives that can constructively illuminate spatial developments together. This article extends the “political economy of everyday life” approach, borrowed from political economy, to connect the local and everyday to global structures. The aim is to make this perspective sensitive to geographic differences and develop a “spatial political economy of everyday life.” To operationalise this approach, I discuss the multi-scale analysis employed in a comparative project on austerity and urban youth in Ireland that sought to ground everyday consequences in a structural context. This project combined three methods: (a) a theoretical analysis of the global structures of the 2008 financial crisis, (b) a policy analysis of the impact of Irish austerity policies on youth, and (c) a comparative qualitative analysis of the everyday consequences of crisis and austerity on youth from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Cork and Dublin. This embedded comparative approach identified how the global financial crisis shaped national policies and how geographic differences shaped everyday spatial and personal consequences. This embedded comparative approach conceptualises cities as places where the structural and everyday constitute each other. It illuminates how this mutual interaction creates spatial particularities and common trends. In doing so, an embedded comparative approach contributes to developing a “spatial political economy of everyday life.”

Business politicians and fiscal consolidation

AbstractWhat explains the variation in countries’ propensity to engage in austerity policy? Economic and political country-level factors are the paramount explanations in the literature. Nevertheless, variation in fiscal preferences at the executive level remains underexplored, except for ideology. Moreover, budget decisions are endogenous to the state of the economy, thus casting doubt on standard measures based on the debt and/or deficit ratio. This article contributes to the literature in two ways. First, I turn to the individual level of analysis and suggest that leaders with business experience are more likely to pursue a balanced budget and tend to implement fiscal consolidation policies based on spending cuts. Second, I ease concerns about individuals’ self-selection into office by relying on fiscal adjustments that are weakly orthogonal to the economic cycle. The statistical analysis of a panel of 17 OECD countries between 1978 and 2014 confirms the theoretical expectations. The results are robust to a variety of specification and statistical methodologies and hold for a subset of as-if random leadership transitions following close elections. A case study of Brian Mulroney's governments in Canada (1984–93) further illustrates the argument.

Not just Kangaroos and Koalas: evaluating the operation and outcomes of Australian local content regulation on pay-TV

ABSTRACT The production and distribution of ‘local’ content around the world has been a major regulatory pressure point emerging from the global rise of video streaming platforms. To support greater evidence-based policy development as these regulations emerge, this article reflects on the outcomes of Australian local content regulation on pay-TV. In doing so, the article explores the cultural outcomes of Australian pay-TV local content regulations since the 1990s. This article demonstrates how prevailing Australian cultural policy frameworks facilitate particular types of content. The Australian case study highlights the fraught relationship between policy goals and outcomes that can occur with cultural frameworks that do little to regulate the type of culture produced and suggests a greater separation between cultural and industrial value of content is needed by regulators. The findings from this analysis of Australian cultural policy can be valuable to other interventionist markets as new regulations are considered.

Leading the Circular Future: South Australia’s Potential Influence on Circular Economy Development in Asia-Pacific Region

Circular economy is among the most influential concepts relating to the realization of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Advocates of the circular economy promote its potential to achieve a decoupling of growth from material consumption. Academic critiques describe the circular economy concept as poorly defined and insufficiently concerned with other problems associated with consumerism, globalization, and inequality. South Australia has built a reputation as a first mover in waste management regulations and has recently positioned itself as a leader in the transition to the circular economy. However, the Asia-Pacific region contains a wide variety of socioeconomic, geographic, and climatic conditions that impact waste generation, resource recovery, and circular economy potentials. There are questions about the appropriateness of transferring waste strategy and technologies to different settings. Therefore, this paper explores the basis of South Australia’s leadership credentials and discusses its potential influence over the region. This research is based on an analysis of policy documents produced by the South Australian Government. This study found that while multiple South Australian policy documents highlight a desire to lead in circular economy transition, South Australia’s leadership reputation had been built prior to its adoption of circular economy ideology. The South Australian Waste Strategy 2020–2025 projects a vision of circular futures aligned to circular modernism and planned circularity. The paper concludes that any transfer of waste strategy should occur with sensitivity to existing waste management systems including the informal sector. Asia-Pacific countries, including Australia, should consider decentralized, low-tech circular economy projects to help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Allan Gyngell's podcasting contribution to Australian foreign policy

ABSTRACTThis article analyses Allan Gyngell's contribution to Australian foreign policy through his podcast, ‘Australia in the World'. We outline two mechanisms. First, we explore how the unique features of the podcast medium as a form of communication channelled Allan's approach – in both form and substance – to Australian foreign policy thought. Second, we show how Allan leveraged the podcast to help pry open a political culture where bureaucrats seldom made public contributions.

Decolonising Australia's International Relations? A Critical Introduction

Australia's international relations (IR) discipline has a deep colonial history, but has never been through a conscious process of decolonisation. Although discussions of decolonising IR have taken place elsewhere, the discussion in Australia is in its infancy. This collection examines the possibilities for decolonising Australia's IR in the present moment, looking at its teaching practice, its research, its styles of analysis, and its relationship with Australian foreign policy. We consider what is particular to Australia's settler colonial context, what is achievable, and what is not. The collection also seeks to develop a new style of anti‐colonial foreign policy analysis in Australia, looking at the relationship between colonisation, settlement, and foreign policy. In this introduction, we first look over debates on decolonisation elsewhere in the field. We then examine the historical background of Australia's IR discipline, and look at Australian Indigenous diplomacy, to consider what is specific to Australia's context. We conclude by looking over the contributions of the papers in this collection, and consider what a decolonised Australian IR might look like. Ultimately, we argue that any process of decolonisation will be extremely difficult, and that decolonisation in Australian IR should be perceived as an ongoing struggle, rather than an endpoint in itself.

Settler Colonial Strategic Culture: Australia, AUKUS, and the Anglosphere

Australia's history as a settler colony within the British Empire fundamentally shapes its sense of security within the Indo‐Pacific region. Australia has consistently looked outside of its region for security and sought partners on the explicit basis of political, cultural, and ethnic similarity. What role does Australia's history play in shaping its foreign policy? We argue that these choices in foreign policy are inextricable from Australia's history as a settler colony on the farthest reaches of the British Empire. The AUKUS Agreement (AUKUS) is an example of how Australia operates to preserve racial hegemony in the face of non‐white threat — real or perceived. This research utilises critical discourse analysis to interrogate elite‐level discourse around AUKUS to ascertain the dominant narratives that inform its creation, the issues it seeks to address in Australian security policy, how it is structured by historical narratives of security, and how it functions to structure those narratives going forward. This article seeks to participate in the growing push to decolonise International Relations by illuminating the way Australia is ontologically and epistemologically invested in the preservation of racial hegemony.

‘The Limits of Austerity’

One of the challenges of historical work is the way in which concepts that have a powerful but limited traction in understanding episodes in the past are then used promiscuously and therefore unhelpfully. A recent example is ‘neoliberalism’, a term productively used to understand and analyse an important post-1940 intellectual movement, but commonly deployed to characterize all kinds of political and economic developments across the West since the 1970s. This is not, of course, an argument for not using the concept, but rather for its careful deployment. A similar problem can occur with ‘austerity’, which Clara Mattei applies to the years after the First World War when, following the initial post-war boom, restrictive economic policies were developed from 1920–21. Mattei offers a comparative account of Britain and Italy organized around ‘austerity,’ framed as a recurrent ruling-class strategy to suppress workingclass revolt. Her account is flawed by an exaggeration of the scale of the post-war labour insurgency in both Britain and Italy, and by the failure to assess the constraints imposed on their governments by the interconnectedness of the world capitalist order. She also greatly overestimates the role of economists in shaping the policy of austerity.

Remunicipalization of water management in Spain: legal barriers to successful narrative

As a result of the austerity policies applied in Europe after the global economic crisis, some of the New Public Management proposals have been reactivated, especially the outsourcing of public services. Given the negative and unforeseen consequences, observed in many cases after its implementation, a set of opposite reforms emerged as the economic situation improved. Re-municipalization strategies or return to public hands of previously privatized or outsourced services appear, especially at the municipal level. However, in countries like Spain, there is a gap between the abundance of political speeches that support remunicipalization and the low effectiveness of these reforms. Taking water management as a case of empirical analysis, this work deepens in these processes, questioning their scope, trajectory and the reasons of the gap

Elena Niculiță-Voronca, Zaharia Voronca și nu doar ei, în câteva micronarațiuni labirintice (I)

Divided into two distinct sequences, the present study aims in a first instance to recover two representative figures of Bukovina from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century: the quasi-unknown Elena Niculiță-Voronca and Zaharia Voronca. Through this recovery, which addresses both the biographical and the moral-ideational plan, the author intends to restore the atmosphere of the moment, putting in the foreground the relationship between Romanians and Ukrainians and the Romanians’ vision of the Austrian policies, reconstituting facts and identifying the dominant ideas of the time. However, the reconstitution of the two figures and their defining ideas is not possible without calling into question all sorts of relevant contexts. The first part of the study questions the case of the “Arboroasa” trial and the hypothesis that Zaharia Voronca was involved in a genuine conspiratorial action. It reconstitutes the figure of Zaharia Voronca during the trial and the possible reasons for the marriage with Elena Niculiță-Voronca and launches explanations for some surprising hypotheses. In the author’s opinion, Elena Niculiță-Voronca and Zaharia Voronca are united by several ideas that justify the events that the author reconstructs through their writings and the way in which they imagine each other in their own writings. Beyond all this, is it possible that there was a rift between Zaharia Voronca and Constantin Morariu, prison fellows during the trial of “Arboroasa”? And if there are arguments for such a rupture, how could it be explained? On the other hand, was there a visible metamorphosis over time of Zacharias Voroncaʾs personality? Wasn’t this rupture due precisely to some changes in Zacharias Voroncaʾs options? Trying to answer such questions, the author analyses a sequence from the diary of Elena Niculiță-Voronca, i. e. the record of her first trip to Vienna, in 1904, but also the way Elena Niculiță-Voronca appears in the texts written by Zaharia Voronca. The fact is that the two were united by the desire to reawaken in the villages where the Romanians considered themselves Ukrainians the consciousness of the Romanian identity. The first part ends with the reference to the Ruthenianization of Bukovina, a book from 1904, which will analysed in the second sequence of the study.

‘No way. You will not make [insert country here] home’: Anti-asylum discursive transfer from Australia to Europe

This article analyses the ways Australia’s overseas ‘public information campaign’ on asylum based around the phrase ‘No way. You will not make Australia home’ has been adopted by far-right movements in Europe. Considering examples of anti-asylum online video campaigns and activism in a range of European countries, we note semiotic and discursive similarities with the Australian campaign. We discuss the implications of such discursive transfer from official Australian government policy to far-right campaigns promoting a blatantly racist agenda in Europe. We also consider the broader question of the fundamental challenge to international law inherent in the promulgation of information that denies the right to seek asylum in Refugee Convention signatory states.

"Make it better for the women and babies who come after me": Findings from women in Australia completing the international Babies Born Better survey.

Woman-centered maternity service delivery is endorsed by Australian federal health policy. Despite this, little evaluation of maternity care is conducted through the lens of women. We examined the responses of women birthing in Australia to the international Babies Born Better 2018 (Version 2) open-response survey. An online international survey was distributed primarily by means of social media for women who had given birth in the last 5 years. In addition to closed-ended questions to describe the sample, a series of open-ended questions recorded women's experiences and satisfaction with their maternity care and place of birth. Of 1249 women who reported birthing their most recent baby in Australia and speaking English, 84% responded to at least one open-ended evaluation question. We thematically analyzed the data to identify three related themes of safety, choice, and respect for women. Women's experiences of these were closely tied to their model of care; those birthing at home with a private midwife more so reported positive experiences than those discussing obstetric care or, to a lesser extent, midwifery-led care in a hospital. There was a strong preference and need for (1) access to affordable care with a known practitioner from early pregnancy to postpartum, and (2) individualized care with the removal of restrictive hospital policies not aligned with woman-centered practice. This is the first Australian national study of women's maternity experiences and evaluations. Consistent with previous state-based research, women birthing in Australia continue to report maternity "care" that is physically and emotionally harmful. They also stated a need to address the psychosocial aspects of becoming a mother, in addition to the biological ones. Women and other birthing people must be at the center of defining quality maternity health service delivery, and services must be accountable for preventing and addressing harm, as defined by all birthing people.

Seeking wicked problems, finding opportunities: Advancing Australian general aviation policy beyond COVID-19

The efficacy and value of Australian general aviation policy has been the subject of strident debate. While a program of regulatory reform has shaped activity in the last decade, little documented evidence of coherent sector development or stimulus exists. The purpose of this paper is to highlight policy issues of contemporary concern to a sample of Australian general aviation stakeholders and to capture insights into their attitudes about the current policy environment. The paper presents the early qualitative findings from part of a longitudinal study into the sector, and initially asks whether the economic concept of ‘wicked problems’ represents a frame for understanding some of the impediments identified by the respondents. The results suggest that although there is a willingness to engage with progressive policy initiatives, efforts to resolve endemic and emergent issues are being compromised by the current bureaucratic engagement strategies in place to participate in industry planning.

A thematic analysis of homelessness practitioners’ perception of the impacts of welfare reforms in the UK: “Hard to maintain my own mental equilibrium”

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the lived experiences of key stakeholders working with homeless people during the implementation of universal credit during the austerity years.Design/methodology/approachThe literature on austerity reveals welfare reforms’ impact on support services staff. Service providers’ perceptions of the impact of austerity-led policies and welfare reform via nine interviews with people working in homelessness organisations in Brighton and Hove in the UK. Service providers see the situation for their service users has gotten worse and that the policies make it more difficult to extricate themselves from their current situation. Three central themes relating to the impact of austerity-led welfare reforms were, namely, Universal Credit: the imposition of a precarious livelihood on welfare claimants; a double-edged sword: “If people are sanctioned: people can’t pay”; and “Hard to maintain my own mental equilibrium”.FindingsMore precisely, this paper captures service providers’ perceptions and experiences of the impact of austerity-led policies on their services and how they believe this, in turn, impacts their clients and their own lives.Research limitations/implicationsThe dimension cuts across service provision to vulnerable people and is intertwined with health and well-being outcomes. Austerity is detrimental to the health of service users and their clients. It is known that when it comes to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable, who have suffered most from the impacts of austerity policies. However, in times of open austerity, it falls also on those trying to ease their suffering.Originality/valueThe data suggest that policies were developed and accentuated by austerity, which led to the stripping of welfare support from vulnerable people. This process has impacted the people who rely on welfare and service providers.

Land, labour, and sovereignty in school: the Strelley mob and zones of contest in Indigenous education

ABSTRACT Schooling has been a site of harm for Indigenous people in settler colonial contexts, as a tool of dispossession, assimilation and separation from country and kin. However, schools have simultaneously been sites to work against this and build alternatives to settler colonial systems that nourish Indigenous futures. This article centers the connections between Indigenous labour, land, sovereignty and schooling. It focuses on the Strelley mob’s innovative remodelling of schooling during the first phase of national Australian government policies of Indigenous self-determination and self-management between 1972 and 1983. Working with Indigenous-authored texts and oral histories, I explain how the Strelley mob and supporters worked to exploit and reshape schooling to bring together and sustain their communities on their land, developing a practice of local control over repossessed country with an Indigenised schooling system at the heart. I show how the tensions centred on five ‘zones of contest’ where the Strelley mob clashed with norms of settler state governance in schools. I suggest these zones – political economy; school sovereignty; knowledges, technologies and temporalities; language and linguistic power; and spaces and lands – may provide an analytical tool for situating contests over Indigenous schooling within wider contests over land, labour and sovereignty.

Structural evil or individual deficiency? The construction of poverty in the Finnish Parliament

This article examines the political standpoints and arguments related to poverty by asking how Finnish politicians understand poverty as a social problem, how they construct the poor as a group, and what policy recommendations they propose to fight poverty. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine minutiae from the interpellation debate on the increasing inequality in Finland in November 2017. Despite an increase in austerity policies and a right-wing government, the poverty discourse remained in alignment with a predominantly structural nature, showcasing the strength of ideological and contextual continuity in terms of poverty policy development.

A Critical Analysis on The Impact of Australian Natural Gas Price Cap Policy on Asset Value and Income

This paper provides an in-depth critical analysis on the impact of the Australian government's natural gas price cap policy on the asset values and income of major energy companies like Santos. It begins with detailed background information on Santos, examining its business operations, revenue streams, products and services, competitive landscape, and regulatory environment. A comprehensive financial analysis of key ratios from Santos' annual reports is then presented to evaluate liquidity, profitability, efficiency, and leverage trends. The paper highlights several salient business risks posed to Santos from commodity price volatility, operational risks in exploration and development activities, intense competitive pressures, and stringent regulatory compliance requirements. It then rigorously analyzes the significant effects of government-imposed price caps on gas prices on asset valuation and revenue recognition as two key audit matters, delving into the relevant accounting assertions and suggested audit procedures. The implications for the audit report and opinion are also discussed in-depth with regard to properly assessing risks and obtaining sufficient appropriate audit evidence as per Australian Auditing Standards. Overall, this paper conclusively demonstrates how the introduction of gas price controls can profoundly impact asset carrying values and revenues for major energy companies like Santos, posing critical risks of material misstatement that must be thoroughly evaluated and addressed in independent financial statement audits.

Problematising the potentials of music programs to address Australia’s youth justice policy problems

ABSTRACT Reflecting an international shift from punitive to more rehabilitative responses to youth offending, many Australian youth justice systems are undergoing significant revision and reform. The urgency of these changes are intensified by longstanding inequities pertaining to the gross overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and documented violations of human rights within Australian youth detention centres. As state and territory jurisdictions strive towards more child-centred practices, music programmes have been seen to provide transformative experiences for incarcerated young people through opportunities to express themselves and form positive relationships with others. In considering the potentials of music programmes to contribute towards such a child-centred youth justice ‘solution’, this article reports a poststructural policy analysis of Australian youth justice policy texts that produce child-centredness in particular ways. Music programmes are thus positioned as inherently political endeavours that hold potential to reinforce or disrupt policy problems, with implications for equity and justice.