Social Policy and Participation

The Social Policy and Participation PRP provides opportunities for enhanced collaboration between public servants and academics on some of Australia’s major contemporary social policy challenges.  The program has two inter-linked projects:

1. Future workforce participation challenges
2. New Social Policy approaches

The Social Policy and Participation PRP builds on work carried out under the Visioning Australia’s Future initiative.  The papers from this project were launched at an event to celebrate partnerships between social policy academics and public servants at the end of 2012.
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Future Workforce Participation challenges
This project  aims to build a shared understanding of how and why future levels of workforce participation are a public policy concern, set out the range of objectives (social and economic) that need to be balanced in pursuing increased participation, and identify practical policies for enhancing participation. The Treasury’s 3Ps (Population, Participation and Productivity) framework is guiding the analysis and debate. This project includes a series of roundtable seminars and public lectures, the publication of papers and a number of specific joint pieces of work:

Seminar and lecture series

• Welfare reform and the new world of older workers by Professor Bob Gregory, Emeritus Professor, ANU
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• Welfare reform under Austerity by Professor Dan Finn, University of Portsmouth
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• Setting the wage floor: The evolution and future of the Minimum Wage in Australia by Rob Bray PSM, ANU
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• Mother’s workforce participation *Forthcoming

Publications

• Reflections on the evolution of the Minimum Wage in Australia: Options for the future by Rob Bray PSM, ANU
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• Australia’s workforce participation challenge: Synthesis report by Sue Regan, HC Coombs Policy Forum *Forthcoming

 Collaborations

• A partnership has been formed with the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to support their review of Employment Services post 2015.

New Social Policy approaches 
This strand of work is a vehicle to promote academic work being undertaken at the ANU, elsewhere in Australia and internationally to a public policy audience interested in social policy concerns. The 2013 work program includes:
A series of papers and thinkpieces

• Australia: Inequality and prosperity and their impact in a radical welfare state by Professor Peter Whiteford, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU
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Visits from national and international experts with new ideas and approaches to social policy are planned for later in 2013.