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The Australian Social Inclusion Agenda: A New Approach to Social Policy?
Author(s) -
Long Emily
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.2010.tb00173.x
Subject(s) - cognitive reframing , rhetoric , aside , sociology , social exclusion , project commissioning , social policy , mainstream , mainstreaming , disadvantage , inclusion (mineral) , coalition government , opposition (politics) , scope (computer science) , political science , publishing , public relations , public administration , social science , law , politics , social psychology , computer science , programming language , psychology , art , linguistics , philosophy , special education , pedagogy , literature
The Social Inclusion Agenda (‘SIA’) was introduced by the Australian Labor Party (‘ALP’) in the lead up to the 2007 federal election. The rhetoric was hopeful, proposing to reframe the government's approach to disadvantage. Rhetoric aside, what the then opposition meant when it talked of building social inclusion (‘SI’) was less clear than may have immediately met the eye. This paper offers an introductory analysis and review of the SIA. It first considers why Australia might benefit from a readjustment in its social policy direction, reflecting on the concepts of poverty and Amartya Sen's ‘capabilities approach‘. Second, it offers a critical overview of the main conceptions of SI/Social Exclusion. Third, it applies these first two parts of analysis to developments to date with the SIA. This part, whilst limited in scope and preliminary at best, offers some general comments as to the possibilities and pitfalls of the SIA and proposes the way forward from an analytical perspective in terms of guiding the SIA in a desirable direction.