Category Archives: Indigenous Policy

At Crikey, Simon Chapman suggests an intriguing health policy idea: why not pay Indigenous Australians to quit smoking? At the very least, I think this one merits a randomised trial. The critics might say that it will induce start-quit cycles, … Continue reading →

Farrah Tomazin has an interesting piece in today’s Age on strategies to improve the performance of Indigenous children in Victorian schools, identifying a divide between those who say ‘change the school culture’ and those who say ‘spend more money’.

Today’s Oz has an article by Simon Kearney on one of the ideas I suggested last week – paying Indigenous children to attend school. He neatly links it in to the New York debate over paying poor kids to achieve … Continue reading →

The ‘war cabinet’ to address Indigenous disadvantage sounds gimmicky on first blush, but may actually play a useful role if it allows the federal government to rely more on the evidence and less on interest groups and the median voter. In … Continue reading →

My former econ masters student Kirsten Storry is standing down from her position as indigenous policy researcher at the Centre for Independent Studies to take up a job in a Sydney law firm. It’s good for the law, but a … Continue reading →

My friend Justin Wolfers emails an observation on the Indigenous policy initiative. I was just looking at the actual report that led to Howard’s actions with the aboriginal communities.  As I understand it, he is pushing these new policies based … Continue reading →

While most of the recent commentary has been on the federal government’s health checks and alcohol bans, one of the more curious aspects is the pornography ban. So far as I know, there’s no convincing experimental evidence on the question of … Continue reading →

According to today’s press: Mr Howard said the Government’s intention was to “introduce widespread alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land for six months”. The government is clearly right in noting that alcohol is a major contributor to Indigenous disadvantage. … Continue reading →

I’m running an event on Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Indigenous Crime on 28 May (details here). So it’s timely that the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released a series of statistics on Indigenous Australians’ exposure to crime and the justice system. … Continue reading →

I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed Boyd Hunter’s public lecture on August 3, on the topic that Indigenous policy should be based on evidence rather than hyperbole. Much of the talk focused on critiquing work coming out of the … Continue reading →