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Danielle Thornton

Working paper

Safety net to poverty trap? The twentieth-century origins of Australia’s uneven social security system

Tracing the history of Australia’s social security system helps us to consider what reforms are needed for the present day. This paper explores how our social security system has developed over more than 100 years since Federation, and why it is no longer suitable for...
Working paper

Reclaiming social security for a just future: a principled approach to reform

Australia’s current social security system is ill equipped to respond to the technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical challenges the country faces. In this paper, the authors propose five indivisible principles to underpin Australia’s social security system, so that it contributes to a just, fair and...
Case study

Steering social innovation: community agencies and the commissioning of Education First Youth Foyers

In the spring of 2010, with a close state election contest on the horizon, the leadership of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Hanover Welfare Services both saw a chance to win political support for innovation in the youth homelessness sector.