As Australia’s public sector outsources more and more of its thinking on public service reform, the Productivity Commission has become an increasingly important, independent voice.

Alison McClelland traces the changes in understandings of poverty, and responses to it, in the services, research and advocacy undertaken by the Brotherhood of St Laurence since the 1930s. She argues that two enduring features of its approach have been the recognition of the structural dimension of poverty and the related need to address poverty...