New Research

Service costs in modern residential aged care facilities

31 January 2012This paper presents the results of a national study of the cost of delivering residential aged care services in modern and efficient facilities.

What do we know about the private sector's contribution to development?

What do we know about the private sector's contribution to development?

09 January 2012Business is increasingly seen by international aid agencies as a partner in development.

Preparing for a better future: creating a sustainable system of aged care services for Australia

05 January 2012In this paper, the Business Council of Australia sets out its response to the Productivity Commission’s Final Inquiry Report on aged care services, Caring for Older Australians.

Making health care free for the poor

05 January 2012User fees are widely regarded as one of the main obstacles to increasing poor people’s access to health care in developing countries and, in doing so, promoting more inclusive forms of development.

Welfare policy and labour supply of immigrants in Australia

22 December 2011This paper investigates the impact of social security payments on the labour supply of recent immigrants to Australia after the policy change.

Young carers: social policy impacts of the caring responsibilities of children and young adults

Young carers: social policy impacts of the caring responsibilities of children and young adults

16 December 2011The research in this report fills a critical gap in Australia, by contributing a theoretically-informed and policy-focused quantitative and qualitative study on young carers.

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Families & households

Past and present adoptions in Australia

09 February 2012This Facts Sheet provides a summary of the ways in which adoption currently operates, past adoption practices, and the potential impacts adoption has on those involved.

State Trustees Limited: management of represented persons

08 February 2012This audit found that State Trustees is not able to clearly demonstrate that it is fulfilling its obligations to represented persons.

Family violence and Commonwealth laws - improving legal frameworks: final report

08 February 2012This report contains 102 recommendations for law reform to address family violence.

Social inclusion

Teaching with social media in classroom settings: Top ten practices from teachers around Europe

05 February 2012The “Teachers’ competition for social media use in formal language learning contexts” was created within the framework of the EU-funded network “Language learning and social media: 6 key dialogues”.

Commentary

What's data got to do with it? Reassessing the NT intervention

25 January 2012Income management should be one of the easier programs to measure writes Eva Cox for The Conversation.

The shape of the sector in 2012

05 January 2012According to the Centre for Social Impact's Gina Anderson, 2012 looks to be a defining year for the not-for-profit, social enterprise and philanthropic sector.

Government ignores evidence of policy failure on Aboriginal issues

06 September 2011Despite a raft of studies showing income management isn’t significantly improving people’s life chances, the Commonwealth is determined to press on with expanding the policy writes Eva Cox

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Topic Guides

NBN: Guide for Consumers

  • Australian Communications Consumer Action Network & Internet Society Australia

09 June 2011The Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), have developed NBN: A Guide for Consumers, designed to offer all Australians information about the National Broadband Network.

Homelessness

  • Public Policy Institute - Australian Catholic University

12 December 2011Despite numerous reports, reviews and initiatives over many years, homelessness remains a policy issue in search of a solution.

Equity and education

  • Public Policy Institute - Australian Catholic University

12 December 2011In the international testing stakes, Australian school students are mostly high achievers. However, there is a significant equity problem in education.

Audio

Charity bank

Listen to audio
03 November 2011According to the Community Council for Australia, there is an urgent need for a 'Better Australia Bank', with $500 million of start-up funding.

NSW Family and Community Services: From managing disadvantage to breaking it

Listen to audio
31 October 2011New South Wales Minister for Community Services and Women, Pru Goward speaks about managing and breaking disadvantage.

Immigration & refugees

Inclusive education for students with refugee experience: whole school reform in a South Australian primary school

25 January 2012In recent years, there has been an increase in students with refugee experience in the UK, the US, Europe and Australia.

Immigration detention in Australia

23 January 2012The policy of mandatory detention in Australia (that is the legal requirement to detain all non-citizens without a valid visa) was introduced by the Keating (Labor) Government in 1992 in response to a wave of Indochinese boat arrivals.

Australian Government spending on irregular maritime arrivals and counter-people smuggling activity

23 January 2012There has been much discussion in both the media and political debate in recent times about the substantial and rising costs to the Australian Government of intercepting, detaining and processing asylum seekers arriving by boat.

Video

Trends and recent developments in income inequality in Australia

Listen to audio
07 February 2012The 2011 Fay Gale Lecture will be presented by Associate Professor Denise Doiron on the theme Trends and Recent Developments in Income Inequality in Australia.

Innovative Indigenous policy

Listen to audio
04 November 2011Professor Ian Anderson, Foundation Chair in Indigenous Health at the University of Melbourne, comments on some of the countries most pervasive issues of Indigenous inequality and disadvantage.

Youth

Juvenile detention population in Australia 2011

09 February 2012This report presents information on the number of young people in detention in 2011 and describes recent trends in the detention population.

Early childhood, education and training; justice; emergency management

08 February 2012Volume one of the report focuses on early childhood, education and training as well as justice and emergency management sectors.

Websites

iTaNGO

14 November 2011iTaNGO is a project designed to help give Victorian community sector organisations the knowledge and resources to get the most out of their information communication technology (ICT) setup.

Australian Social Policy Association (ASPA)

18 July 2011Established to promote debate and to increase understanding of social policy in Australia, the ASPA enables productive collaborations between those working and researching in social policy locally, across the Asia-Pacific region and internationally.

Specialist Homelessness Services collection

04 July 2011Focusing on people's experiences of homelessness, a new collection to assist in measuring homelessness in Australia has been launched by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

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Books

Speechwriting for government in Australia

Speechwriting for government in Australia

  • James Groves
  • James Groves & Associates
"...an indispensible book...excellent practical guide to the art of effective oral communication" from the Foreword by Malcolm Hazell CVO AM, former Official Secretary to the Governor-General
Digital futures for cultural and media studies

Digital futures for cultural and media studies

  • John Hartley
  • Wiley-Blackwell
As they play with their digital devices and online games, children may unknowingly be making up the kind of democracy we will have tomorrow.

Noticeboard

Topic Guides

NBN: Guide for Consumers

  • Australian Communications Consumer Action Network & Internet Society Australia

09 June 2011The Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), have developed NBN: A Guide for Consumers, designed to offer all Australians information about the National Broadband Network.

Topics

APO