The global economic alignments of the present pose many political, moral and theoretical questions, but the central issue the essays in this collection address is: how do relatively poor people of the Australia–Pacific region survive in current precarious times?

"Abolishing CDEP was a well-intentioned mistake and CDP is our attempt to atone for it.” So said Tony Abbott in a recent exchange with journalist Amos Aikman in the Australian. CDEP was the Community Development Employment Projects scheme, which replaced unemployment benefits in a growing number of Indigenous communities after it was launched by the...

The Community Development Programme (CDP) is a remote-area Work for the Dole scheme that principally affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The program is billed by the government as 'helping people find work, and allowing them to contribute to their communities and gain skills while looking for work.' But there is mounting evidence that...

This paper is a collection of contributions from leading academics and social justice campaigners providing different perspectives on the ideas of shorter working hours and Universal Basic Income.

The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Intervention (the Intervention) of 2007 was a bold experiment by the Howard Government. The Intervention was developed quickly without comprehensive policy development based on evidence or consultation. During its five-year statutory life (ending August 2012), the absence of coherent policy logic has seen the Intervention fundamentally reframed by the...