Australian Journal of Social Issues: special issue devoted to selected papers from the 2007 Australian Social Policy Conference

Australian Journal of Social Issues, Winter, 2008 by Peter Saunders, Tony Eardley

The papers in this Special Issue of The Australian Journal of Social Issues were originally presented at the 10th Australian Social Policy Conference (ASPC), held at the University of New South Wales in July 2007. The theme of the conference was Social Policy Through the Life Course: Building Community Capacity and Social Resilience. The ASPC is one of the key events on the social policy calendar in Australia, and the 2007 conference attracted around 500 participants from academia, government and non-governmental organisations. In addition to Plenary Sessions on inequalities in child outcomes, the challenge of the work-life balance and the ethics of care, special forums focused on Indigenous policies and programs, policies that make a difference for disadvantaged children and families, advocacy and consumer participation, and Australia's demographic challenges. Contributed paper strands included: income distribution and social inequalities; families, work and care; labour market participation and welfare reform; children and young people; early childhood; citizenship and participation; organisation and delivery of human services; and retirement and ageing.

This selection of conference papers represents the wide spread of topics covered by contributors. They address many of the issues that are at the centre of the social policy agenda by raising new problems or identifying inadequacies in existing responses. It is now more than three decades since the combination of high unemployment and high inflation threatened the economic foundations of the post-war welfare state, but the second half of that period has been characterised by strong economic growth, rising material prosperity and falling unemployment. Governments of all political persuasions have been forced to re-assess their policy interventions in order to better address complex problems with limited resources.

This requires new ways of thinking about old problems and new ideas for combating emerging issues without undermining the stability that social programs are designed to offer those in need. New partnerships have been forged between government and the non-government sector, often focusing on new ways of harnessing economic ideas and market mechanisms to promote social goals. Increasingly, social problems reflect a range of failures--institutional, attitudinal and behavioural--and require responses that can address the underlying causes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner. Government's role has become more facilitative and less directly interventionist, identifying others that can contribute their knowledge and expertise in a coordinated response to these problems.

'Joined-up government' is the only effective response to inter-connected problems, to quote Tony Blair. But the approach requires more than a coordination of activities within government, because government is now so intimately bound up with a large cast of non-government actors. It also requires an evidence-based approach that draws on what we know about the challenges we face to develop responses that recognise and build on current realities, not on simplified diagnoses derived from anecdote, ideological bias or simplistic textbook theorising. Evidence also needs to be interpreted, not just collected.

The re-emergence of economic liberalism as the driving force behind policy change has reinforced the importance of ideas such as agency, choice, competition and freedom. The social policy agenda has been struggling to adjust to these new realities while responding to problems associated with diversity and inequality, disadvantage and discrimination, rights and responsibilities, poverty and need. The challenges are complex, priorities must be determined and difficult choices confronted. There is scope for disagreement not only about the means of policy, but also about its ends. What is it we are trying to achieve and what are our markers of success? Is it enough to generate and maintain a high rate of economic growth? Clearly not, to judge from recent experience--at least when viewed from a social perspective.

Economic growth generates its own dynamic, one that is often inimical to the needs of those who are left behind. The underlying challenge involves balancing the freedom and prosperity that market forces can deliver with the guarantee of fair play and fair outcomes--allowing everyone to contribute and ensuring that their efforts are justly rewarded. It involves ensuring that our economic institutions are grounded in a platform forged by a social vision of what Galbraith has called 'the good society'.

The papers in this Special Issue illustrate how the factors identified above are shaping the ways in which social issues are conceived and addressed. The first three papers set the scene by addressing three of the major themes driving today's social policy agenda: the nature of economic and social disadvantage; problems associated with achieving a balance between (paid) work and family life; and the nature of public opinion about the notion of social citizenship that is embodied in the concept of a welfare state. This 'big picture' perspective is followed by three papers that focus on the problems faced by three specific groups that have been at the forefront of policy concern for much of the last decade: homeless people, the long-term unemployed, and people with a mental illness. The final two papers provide a thorough discussion of one of the issues that has assumed central place in social policy discussion in Australia, as in many other OECD countries--the ageing of the population and its implications for policy.