Barry Duggan and Andrea Sharam explore the implications of the rivalry between private low-income rental providers and private competitive utility providers in Victoria by tracking regulatory changes in the utility sector and through the experience of low-income tenants.

There is an emerging crisis within housing for older persons, a crisis which will primarily affect older renters but would also include some owner-occupiers with very low valued houses. Sean McNelis looks at the role of independent living units in the future of aged housing.

Although universities are the only area of education spending solely funded by the Commonwealth, they received only one-third of the increase in education spending in this year's federal budget. Once again, argue David Hayward and Alexis Esposto, the budget shifted funds away from government education and towards private schooling. And it is the wealthiest schools...

The federal government's 'welfare reform' agenda recognises the potential importance of housing in the overall structure of welfare and tax reform but has not addressed this issue in any depth. In this paper Kath Hulse and Bill Randolph attempt to fill a part of this research gap. It reports on the findings of research into...

The ISR is working with the Australian Electoral Commission to develop a joint research project on Australian homeless people, voting and access to the ballot. A discussion paper is available online, calling for comment and for suggestions on how to contact homeless people.