Professor Gurran notes that there is no substitute for housing, and unless there is some better planning now, the crisis we are facing will only escalate. She also adds that the language used around housing is often misleading, with housing need driven by an increase in population, whereas housing demand is how much people are willing to pay for properties themselves.

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Nicole Gurran is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Henry Halloran Research Trust at the University of Sydney. Nicole has authored and co-authored numerous publications and books on urban policy, housing, sustainability and planning. Her research focuses on comparative urban planning systems and approaches to housing and ecological sustainability.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Reimagining urban planning appeared first on Policy Forum.

Barbara Norman is an Emeritus Professor of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Canberra and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. Barbara is also Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network Oceania Hub (Columbia University, USA) and co-chair of Planners for Climate Action (UN Habitat).  She was recently appointed Chair of the Urban Policy Forum.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Housing fit for our climate appeared first on Policy Forum.

In this episode, we speak with Professor Alan Morris about what we can do to fix the social housing crisis, as well as the decline in homeownership across Australia.

Having stable housing brings a significant cost benefits, ranging from improvements in mental health and reduced hospitalisation time to enhanced growth and development in young children. Professor Morris argues it is a human right, one we have been neglecting.

This is the second podcast in our housing miniseries, following the first episode with Dr Nicholas Frank. Stay tuned for next week!

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Professor Alan Morris is an urban and housing studies scholar.  He is a professor at the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at the University of Technology Sydney, and is the author of many books, including The Private Rental Sector in Australia: Living with Uncertainty co-authored with Hal Pawson and Kath Hulse and published in 2021. He currently has Australian Research Council funded projects on eviction and on social housing waiting lists.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Fixing our social housing crisis appeared first on Policy Forum.

Dr Nicholas Frank lays out why house prices skyrocketed in the 1980s and how the availability of credit became vital for families to survive with rising costs of living.

The consumption aspect of the economy currently depends on the wealth generated by increasing house prices. While this has led to wealth inequality, it has also contributed to rising income inequality. Additionally, it poses environmental concerns, as there is often insufficient regulation in place for emissions in the construction of homes, which further exacerbates the problem.

This episode is the first in a miniseries on Australia’s housing crisis, so stay tuned!

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Dr Nicholas Frank is a Research Fellow in the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse in the School of Regulation and Global Governance here at the Australian National University. He has worked with the World Trade Organisation and the OECD. His research focuses on the political economy of trade and investment governance.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Australia’s dependence on housing appeared first on Policy Forum.

Dr Liz Allen and Professor Paul Burke discuss the key takeaways of the latest IGR that in 2062 Australia will be bigger, slower growing, and more diverse, with living standards at risk of going backwards.

Liz saying we are “heading into the greatest demographic headwinds of our time,” and we need to spend more time imagining the whole picture, with a particular focus on inequality.

We must “discuss the need for earnest and substantive change to actually take control and not assume demographic destiny,” she says.

Professor Paul Burke highlights there are a lot of assumptions in the report and discusses our need for specific reforms particularly around superannuation and stamp duty, with additional information also needed in subsequent intergenerational reports.

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Dr Liz Allen is a demographer at the ANU Centre for social research and methods, and has deep experience across the public and university sectors. In 2018, she was appointed an inaugural ABC Top 5 Humanities and Social Science Researcher. And she is the author of the truly wonderful book The Future of Us.

Professor Paul Burke is Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics and Deputy Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy, at the Australian National University. He is a researcher in the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific research initiative at ANU.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Insights into the Intergenerational Report appeared first on Policy Forum.

She discusses the connection between the market, our work and our health, particularly for those with precarious working conditions where we see the market’s direct impact on physical and mental wellbeing.

Professor Sell explains the phenomenon of ‘failure demand,’ growing demand for services we shouldn’t need, particularly if we were to value caring for people and place in society.

A key concern raised by Professor Sell is corporate tax avoidance and profiteering. She highlights how clear this has become, giving examples from the COVID-19 pandemic when major corporations gained record profits from government stimulus in the economy. Companies now focus on making more money for shareholders rather than the betterment of society.

Professor Susan Sell is based at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at the Australian National University. She has previously held positions at a number of universities, including George Washington University in the United States and has published widely on the global political economy and on 21st century capitalism. In 2015-2016 she was appointed to the Expert Advisory Group for the United Nations Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Public Health and Access to Medicines.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, a physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Politics of despair: 21st century capitalism appeared first on Policy Forum.

He breaks down some key items of the report, and how he thinks we can prevent a policy like this from happening again. It is clear that the scheme was made possible through years of attitude and policy changes that prevented access to social security and stigmatised those who received it.

Professor Whiteford also highlights that when Robodebt was active there was an ongoing pattern of deception to prevent results from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) being released to the public.

He recalls the disbelief he felt when he learned that DHS was averaging out income over a whole year. While Robodebt affected a vulnerable minority of the population, this government failure represents a risk to all Australians. “You are very lucky if you don’t have to call on social security at some time in your working life.”

Peter Whiteford is a Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy. He’s a member of the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. His research focuses on social security policy in Australia and internationally. Peter was previously Principal Administrator in the Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.  

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: After Robodebt: reimagining social policy appeared first on Policy Forum.

Both Professor Cook and Associate Professor Phillips are on the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee and advocate strongly for raising the rate of support payments in Australia, to bring people out of poverty.

Phillips takes us through the immediate steps and payments that would make a difference to poverty in Australia, and how to raise the revenue to make it happen. He says by lifting JobSeeker to be lifted to 90% of the aged care pension would bring around one million people above the poverty line. For the millions of people still below the poverty line, it alleviates the depth of poverty they suffer. Cook reminds us that people who are receiving JobSeeker payments are being forced to choose between food and medicine, and in colder climates, also warmth.

Cook puts in perspective through her own research, how having limited government support can also leave struggling parents reliant on child support from the other parent, making them vulnerable to financial abuse. Abusive former partners can exploit loopholes in a flawed system further impacting the lives of children. She says this would have less of an impact if people were able to receive benefits that did not force them into poverty.

Both agree the Measuring What Matters Framework is a good start, but acknowledged that there are flaws. Cook says what matters to whom is something that needs to be discussed. Phillips raises the issue that the lack of data means we may not be able to measure what we value as a society.

Professor Kay Cook is Associate Dean of Research School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology, and a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow.  Her research has focused on a range of social policy issues, including welfare-to-work, child support and child care policies. She is also a member of the federal government’s interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

Associate Professor Ben Phillips is a Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at ANU. He has more than 20 years of experience as an economic and social researcher in Australia, and has worked on issues from housing affordability and financial stress to reform of the tax and welfare systems. He is also a member of the federal government’s interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

You can find full show notes on the Crawford School of Public Policy LinkedIn account.

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: What we value: reimagining social policy appeared first on Policy Forum.

The Pod was recorded live in front of an audience at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy on May 31^st, 2023. The Treasurer gave a short speech highlighting the nine ways to unlock the budget, before he sat down for a one-on-one conversation with Crawford School Director Professor Janine O’Flynn.

Following this, an ANU panel of experts from the Crawford School of Public Policy answered questions about the longer-term impacts of the budget.

Panel members were:

Sharon Bessell, a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy. She is also the co-host of the Policy Forum Podcast.

Frank Jotzo, a Professor of environmental economics at Crawford School and Head of Energy at the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions. He’s been involved in policy advisory on climate change and energy transition and has been a senior author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Professor Peter Whiteford works at the Crawford School of Public Policy and is a member of the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. His research focuses on social security policy in Australia and internationally.

Dr Siobhan McDonnell, a lawyer, anthropologist and economist who has spent over 25 years working with Indigenous people in Australia and Oceania on land rights, gender, and climate change issues, including as a climate change negotiator for various Pacific governments.

Dr Michael Di Francesco, an Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy with research and teaching interests in public financial management. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Public Administration.

Kristen Sobeck, a Research Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute. Kristen undertakes research on various Australian tax and transfer policies using administrative data and formerly worked for a decade as an economist at the International Labour Organisation.

Podcast co-host is Arnagretta Hunter. She is the Human Futures Fellow at the ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes / The following was mentioned during this episode

Brawler statesman: Paul Keating and prime ministerial leadership in Australia – Jim Chalmers (2004)

Capitalism after the crises – Jim Chalmers (2023)

Placido Domingo speech from Paul Keating

Tim Watts on Q&A

NZ living standards framework

Joe Hockey liters or leaners

The Choice: Violence or Poverty – Domestic Violence and its consequences in Australia today by Dr Anne Summers AO (2022)

Bob Hawke Election speech on no child being left behind (1987)

Poverty In Australia 2022: a snapshot

AUKUS Nuclear-powered submarine pathway (2023)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: Budget beyond the numbers with Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers appeared first on Policy Forum.

In this episode, we speak to Professor Paul Burke and Associate Professor Elise Klein about the impact of the budget priorities on peoples’ daily lives, the values that underlie it, and unpacking the choices that have been made.

“A government needs to have values to express those values and live the values as well,” Burke says.

Discussion centred on the care economy, the level of welfare payments and the revenue needed to support our most vulnerable. Associate Professor Elise Klein says the government was in a position to do something bold after voters asked for action on poverty, inequality, and climate action. A government “going from terrible to being less terrible is still terrible,” she says, adding that there are a lot of people being left behind in life-and-death situations because of the decisions of this Government in this budget.

In order to have more money to spend to solve these problems, Professor Paul Burke says Australia needs to be more efficient in raising revenue. As a country, if we created a few simple streams we could see billions of dollars being available to target poverty reduction.

“Behind the numbers are choices about who is winning and who is losing,” Klein said.

Jobseeker was raised from roughly $49 a day to $52 a day which leaves people having to make horrible decisions about keeping a roof over their head, putting food on the table or getting medical care that they need. Particularly startling when put into the context, as Elise Klein did, that around 40% of people on Jobseeker have a disability as it is now much harder to qualify for the Disability Support Pension. “We have a situation where people who are on that payment aren’t seeking jobs because they cannot,” Klein says. Others on Jobseeker are also doing unpaid work, including caring and other unpaid roles that are fundamental to the success of the economy. Paying them a living wage, as we did during COVID, is a step that must be taken for the betterment of the whole country.

Professor Paul Burke is Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics and Deputy Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. His research is in energy and environmental economics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.

Elise Klein (OAM) is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Crawford School.  Her research is situated in the intersections and cracks of development, social policy, decoloniality and care.

Sharon Bessell is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and a Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes / The following was mentioned during this episode

Budget 2023-24- Budget Strategy and Outlook (2023) 

Budget 2023-24 – Delivering cost-of-living relief (2023) 

Budget Speech 2023-24

Budget 2023: Defining our values – Policy Forum Pod with Frank Bongiorno (2023)

Measuring what matters inquiry (2022)

Financial Stress and Social Security Settings in Australia – Ben Philips and Vivikth Narayanan (2021)

The value of the commons with Guy Standing – Policy Forum Pod (2021)

Latrobe Valley Authority (2023)

Proposed Changes to the Disability Support Pension (DSP) Impairment Tables (2022)

Policy Forum Pod is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Subscribe on Android or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum.

The post Podcast: The economy and our future appeared first on Policy Forum.