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welfare
Books & arts
Something’s really, really up
Matthew Ricketson
15 November 2024
Rick Morton’s account of the robodebt scandal is a bracing reminder of unfinished business
National affairs
Australia’s failed jobs experiment
Mike Steketee
16 September 2024
The Keating government’s changes to employment services – intensified by its Coalition successors — have bred inefficiency and fragmentation
National affairs
Increasing JobSeeker is good economics
Adam Triggs
3 September 2024
The arguments against a rise in JobSeeker have proliferated, but none of them stands up to scrutiny
Books & arts
Fear of falling
Peter Browne
20 December 2023
Why would high earners have a mistaken view of where they sit on the income ladder?
National affairs
Tax reform is hard, but not impossible
Danielle Wood
7 November 2023
The outgoing Grattan Institute chief executive strikes an optimistic note in this year’s Freebairn Lecture
Books & arts
Lost in the market
Mike Steketee
3 October 2023
The NDIS has been life-changing but also disempowering, according to Micheline Lee
National affairs
The ageing alarmists won’t let go
John Quiggin
4 September 2023
Fears about the impact of increasing longevity haven’t aged well
Books & arts
Recoding government
Andrew Leigh
30 August 2023
Are governments creating efficient online systems that don’t make us feel stupid?
Essays & reportage
“You need to run it as a public service because that is what it is”
Mike Steketee
16 August 2023
A string of scandals and cost-blowouts in social services look a lot like symptoms of a deeper problem
National affairs
Do the robodebt recommendations go far enough?
Paddy Gourley
14 July 2023
We know how to foster a frank and fearless public service. It’s time now for action
Essays & reportage
Choice versus voice
Mark Considine
22 June 2023
Why money won’t fix Australia’s broken social services model
National affairs
Jenny Macklin’s mythbusters
Mike Steketee
10 May 2023
The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee might not have got what it asked for, but it has kickstarted an overdue debate
National affairs
Albo’s choice
Tim Colebatch
24 April 2023
Steady-as-she-goes government is unequal to Australia’s challenges
International
On economics, America has moved left
John Quiggin
8 March 2021
Public support for much greater government spending has grown in the United States, and the economic risks can be managed
National affairs
“We are just waiting. We are always waiting”
Jean Ker Walsh
22 October 2020
Will ending Melbourne’s lockdown trigger more of the refugee evictions initiated by the federal government?
Essays & reportage
A steep climb ahead, but the landscape has become clearer for Closing the Gap
Michael Dillon
8 September 2020
While the new agreement opens up opportunities for Indigenous organisations, the federal government has stepped back from its post-1967 responsibilities
National affairs
Would a job guarantee be
work for the dole 2.0?
David Sligar and Hugh Sturgess
8 September 2020
There are better, tested ways of generating new jobs
Essays & reportage
Orwell that ends well?
Nicholas Gruen
31 August 2020
Can the latest push to evaluate Indigenous programs really Close the Gap?
National affairs
Is a job guarantee the answer?
Adam Triggs
24 August 2020
The idea is plagued by economic, operational and political challenges — and there is a simpler solution
Essays & reportage
All hands on deck
Michael Dillon
21 August 2020
Noel Pearson’s job guarantee plan meets its most powerful critic: the newspaper that published it
National affairs
Machine learning
Mike Steketee
19 June 2020
Does the federal government’s heavily qualified apology for the robodebt fiasco suggest that more trouble is on the way?
National affairs
Post-pandemic, here’s the case for a participation income
John Quiggin
18 June 2020
For less than the cost of the Coalition’s Stage 3 tax cuts, Australians can be paid adequately to look for work or participate in socially useful activities
National affairs
Need growth? Scrap policies that favour rich people and monopolies
Adam Triggs
1 June 2020
Breaking self-perpetuating cycles of rising inequality will be key to Australia’s economic recovery
National affairs
A chance to do better for migrants, and for the economy
Annabel Brown and Caitlin McCaffrie
25 May 2020
Covid-19 has exposed the flaws in Australia’s treatment of temporary migrants. Fortunately, a blueprint for change already exists
National affairs
The powerful case for a participation income
John Quiggin
6 May 2020
Now the pandemic has shown “workplace reform” to be a dead end, let’s take JobSeeker and JobKeeper to their logical conclusion
Essays & reportage
Magical thinking and the aged care crisis
Sarah Holland-Batt
5 May 2020
Why do we keeping rediscovering, then forgetting, the diabolical state of aged care?
National affairs
Rebuilding the economy after Covid-19
Adam Triggs
7 April 2020
What we should and shouldn’t change once the crisis is over
National affairs
Lives in limbo
Abul Rizvi
3 April 2020
The new JobKeeper allowance holds a gun to the heads of more than a million temporary entrants
National affairs
Australia’s (temporary) welfare catch-up
Bruce Bradbury and Peter Whiteford
26 March 2020
Dramatic changes to social security have lifted Australia’s welfare performance into the middle rank. But they’re temporary, and anomalies remain
National affairs
Social protection and the viral recession
Bruce Bradbury and Peter Whiteford
20 March 2020
So far, Australia’s help for employees displaced, self-isolating or ill has been less than generous
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