Policy Monographs
Policy Monographs (PM) are pieces directly commenting on government policy, new programs or legislation.
Categories
A Fair Go: Fact or Fiction?
The Australian ideal of a fair go is fact rather than fiction. By offering all individuals the opportunity to capitalise on their ambition and natural ability, Australia’s dynamic and socially mobile... Read More
Panacea to Prison? Justice Reinvestment in Indigenous Communities
High Indigenous incarceration has elicited a long list of so-called solutions over the years. Yet the percentage of Aboriginal people in custody has continued to rise, and is now nearly double what it... Read More
The New Leviathan: A National Disability Insurance Scheme
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been touted as the biggest social reform since Medicare. Currently, there is only a naive understanding of the scheme. This report makes the case that... Read More
Do Not Damage and Disturb: On Child Protection Failures and the Pressure on Out-of-Home Care in Australia
This monograph shows that the rising size, cost, and complexity of the out-of-home care system in Australia is directly linked to child protection failures. Children are entering care later and more damaged,... Read More
Working Towards Self-Reliance: Three Lessons for Disability Pension Reform
To successful reduce the number of pensioners on disability support, policymakers must apply the lessons of other welfare reforms. Disability pensioners must be categorised based on their ability to work;... Read More
Selection, Migration and Integration: Why Multiculturalism Works in Australia (And Fails in Europe)
Australia’s migrants are extremely well integrated by international standards, particularly Europe. The reason why multiculturalism works better in Australia than in Europe may be Australia’s more... Read More
Populate and Perish? Modelling Australia's Demographic Future
Since the publication of the 2010 Intergenerational Report, Australia has been debating its demographic future and whether it is desirable for the nation to grow to more than 35 million people by 2050.... Read More
Fatally Flawed: The Child Protection Crisis in Australia
It is not underfunding or an overwhelming workload that has caused child protection services to fail the vulnerable children they exist to protect, it is the failure to investigate reports and remove children... Read More
A Streak of Hypocrisy: Reactions to the Global Financial Crisis and Generational Debt
Dr Jeremy Sammut says that ‘household savings have collapsed due to an unnecessary dependence on welfare handouts. A new era of thrift is overdue!’ Read More
The False Promise of GP Super Clinics Part 2: Coordinated Care
The report’s author Jeremy Sammut examines the evidence for the Rudd government’s plan to use GP Super Clinics to boost prevention of chronic disease and ‘take the pressure off public hospitals’... Read More
The False Promise of GP Super Clinics: Part 1: Preventive Care
Dr Jeremy Sammut examines the evidence for preventive care programs to help make the Medicare system sustainable, given the demands of the ageing of Australia’s population, the rising chronic disease... Read More
The Coming Crisis of Medicare: What the Intergenerational Reports should say, but doesn’t, about health and ageing
The demographic and medical realities of the twenty-first century mean that Medicare can no longer provide every citizen with ‘free’ access to all the new medicine. Without reform, healthcare in... Read More
The Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away: Tax Welfare Churning and the Case for Welfare State Opt-Outs
Australians are more prosperous than ever before, so the number of people needing government assistance should be falling. Yet the welfare state keeps getting bigger. The book explores this paradox. It... Read More
Reform 30/30: Rebuilding Australia’s Tax and Welfare Systems
John Humphreys has a vision of how the tax and welfare systems could be refashioned to break through the dispiriting problems that currently bedevil them. It is for those who reject this vision to put... Read More
Poverty in Australia: Beyond the Rhetoric
This report challenges prevailing definitions and measurements of poverty, and calls for an alternative strategy for poverty alleviation based on American-style welfare reform, lower taxation and job creation. Read More
Behavioural Poverty
The welfare debate is bedeviled by the failure to distinguish behavioural from financial poverty. The minimum income available to families on welfare are commensurate with those of families on average... Read More
Welfare State or Constitutional State?
In this contribution to the CIS Social Welfare Research Program, Suri Ratnapala, Lecturer in Law at the University of Queensland, explains why the welfare state is a constant source of political conflict: Suri... Read More
