Social Policy Practice and Processes in Aotearoa New Zealand introduces the reader to social policy in the contemporary New Zealand context. Commencing with an overview of political theory that has influenced New Zealand's social and institutional architecture, Social Policy examines how current ideas about uncertainty, big data, well-being and 'future-proofing' are influencing approaches to policy design, implementation and evaluation.
Explains and analyses the development of contemporary social policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. It helps students to understand the conflicting values and perspectives in policy-making and implementation, and to relate the theories of social policy with the practices they will encounter in the field.
S ocial policy reflects the dominant social, economic and political discourses of a nation's government and reveals how each country addresses the needs and wellbeing of its population. For practitioners in social work and human services, questions of human rights, citizenship, social justice and equity are ever-present in their day-to-day work with clients of all ages. As such, social policy plays a significant role in shaping the response to need in any community or population, through the provision of financial, physical or legislative protections or resources. The extent to which social policy offers security for the most vulnerable, while addressing economic and social inequality, signals the moral and ethical compass of those who govern. There are ways for practitioners and other advocates to influence, and resist where necessary, the direction of policy through community development, strategic change, research and social action. This volume provides examples of such initiatives and examines the making and shaping of contemporary social policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. The text covers a broad range of social policy topics from a critical perspective including fields of practice, current debates and case-study examples of social-change inititiaves. Students, lecturers, researchers and people interested in New Zealand society in general will find a critical appraisal of current social policy within these pages
"The principle guide to the political context, institutions and processesz of government in New Zealand. It provides readers with a clear and comprehensive introduction to the history, theory and knowledge required to understand the New Zealand political system."--Publisher's description.
In Australia and New Zealand, many public projects, programs and services perform well. But these cases are consistently underexposed and understudied. We cannot properly ‘see’—let alone recognise and explain—variations in government performance when media, political and academic discourses are saturated with accounts of their shortcomings and failures, but are next to silent on their achievements. Successful Public Policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand helps to turn that tide. It aims to reset the agenda for teaching, research and dialogue on public policy performance. This is done through a series of close-up, in-depth and carefully chosen case study accounts of the genesis and evolution of stand-out public policy achievements, across a range of sectors within Australia and New Zealand. Through these accounts, written by experts from both countries, we engage with the conceptual, methodological and theoretical challenges that have plagued extant research seeking to evaluate, explain and design successful public policy. Studies of public policy successes are rare—not just in Australia and New Zealand, but the world over. This book is embedded in a broader project exploring policy successes globally; its companion volume, Great Policy Successes (edited by Paul ‘t Hart and Mallory Compton), is published by Oxford University Press (2019).
Exploring the current and historical tensions between liberal capitalism and indigenous models of family life, Ian Kelvin Hyslop argues for a new model of child protection in Aotearoa New Zealand and other parts of the Anglophone world. He puts forward the case that child safety can only be sustainably advanced by policy initiatives which promote social and economic equality and from practice which takes meaningful account of the complex relationship between economic circumstances and the lived realities of service users.
An ethnography of the development and travel of the New Zealand model of neoliberal welfare reform, this study explores the social life of policy, which is one of process, motion, and change. Different actors, including not only policy élites but also providers and recipients, engage with it in light of their own resources and knowledge. Drawing on two analytic frameworks of the contemporary anthropology of policy—translation and assemblage—Kingfisher situates policy as an artifact and architect of cultural meaning, as well as a site of power struggles. All points of engagement with policy are approached as sites of policy production that serve to transform it as well as reproduce it. As such, A Policy Travelogue provides an antidote to theorizations of policy as a-cultural, rational, and straightforwardly technical.
This white paper sets out the Government's plans to introduce legislation to reform the welfare system by creating a new universal credit. This universal credit will radically simplify the system to make work pay and combat worklessness and poverty. The consultation document (Cm. 7913, ISBN 9780101791328) spelt out the issues and the consultation responses (Cm. 7971, ISBN 9780101797122), publishing simultaneously with this paper, broadly welcomed the proposals that were put forward. Universal credit is an integrated working-age credit that will provide a basic allowance with additional elements for children, disability, housing and caring. It will support people both in and out of work replacing working tax credit, child tax credit, housing benefit, income support, income-based jobseeker's allowance and income related employment and support allowance. The universal credit will improve financial work incentives by ensuring that support reduction is tapered at a consistent and managed rate. It will also be backed up by a strong system of conditionality. As a simpler system managed by one department it will reduce the scope for costly errors and fraud. The universal credit will not replace: contributory jobseeker's allowance & contributory employment and support allowance which will continue aligned to earnings; disability living allowance; child benefit; and bereavement benefits, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance and industrial injuries disablement benefit
Environmental Politics and Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand is a comprehensive introduction to confronting some of today's most urgent challenges.Global warming, threats to biodiversity, contamination of waterways and other environmental issues confront today's citizens with critical challenges that are fundamentally political. Power, authority and state action enable current practices - and through politics and policy that power can be harnessed to create a more ecologically sustainable planet. In this book, leading scholars from around Aotearoa introduce students to environmental politics and policy based in this country's unique institutional, cultural and resource context.The text focuses on the key importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the characteristics of the natural environment in Aotearoa and the role of gender dynamics in the distribution of power, before turning to how this unique setting informs and is, in turn, informed by the global context of environmental politics. The authors take a systemic view of environmental politics and governance in New Zealand, addressing the philosophical and ideational debates about who and what matters (both human and non-human), the political institutions that embed and enact these ideas, and how these ideas then manifest in particular arenas - from climate and freshwater to energy and farming. Practical tips - how to make a submission, organise a protest, write a policy brief or a press release - are woven throughout.
By any measure, New Zealand must confront monumental issues in the years ahead. From the future of work to climate change, wealth inequality to new populism – these challenges are complex and even unprecedented. Yet why does New Zealand’s political discussion seem so diminished, and our political imagination unequal to the enormity of these issues? And why is this gulf particularly apparent to young New Zealanders? These questions sit at the centre of Max Harris’s ‘New Zealand project’. This book represents, from the perspective of a brilliant young New Zealander, a vision for confronting the challenges ahead. Unashamedly idealistic, The New Zealand Project arrives at a time of global upheaval that demands new conversations about our shared future.
