Public Policy, Stakeholders, and Social Change

Stakeholders include unions, researchers, individuals, and governments.
Town halls and submissions are methods for gathering input from various groups (religious groups, schools, etc.).
This contrasts with the top-down model where decisions are made by a small group and executed by bureaucrats.
Stakeholders ask how to think about solutions to problems and what expert ideas or research to bring in.

Think about the roles of individuals and groups involved.
Stakeholder groups putting pressure on governments are called pressure groups.
Consider the research, activities, and tactics used to convey the significance of the issue to the government.

Advocates fought for a decade to give domestic violence victims universal access to paid leave.
This change aims to prevent employees from having to choose between earning a wage and protecting their safety.
Domestic violence rates in Australia remain troublingly high.
The time when women first leave domestic violence situations is when they're at the highest risk of being murdered.
A woman is killed every week by a partner or family member.
The law needs to change to ensure a woman's right to safety, regardless of her employer.
Advocates propose a minimum of ten days of paid family domestic violence leave.
This leave would empower victims to reclaim their lives by enabling them to:
- Ensure their children are safe at school.
- Look at alternate housing.
- Stay home and have locks changed.
It costs almost $20,000 for someone to escape a violent situation.
Paid domestic violence leave is essential for women to be able to leave.

For over a decade, workers and unionists campaigned for paid family and domestic violence leave.
The first win of paid leave occurred in Victoria and became a catalyst for a nationwide union movement campaign.
Activities included rallies, laying flowers outside Parliament House, lobbying politicians, and speaking to anyone who would listen.
When Rosa Batty was named 2015 Australian of the Year, family violence became a major national conversation.
The We Won't Wait campaign, led by the ASU, garnered thousands of supporters.
By the end of February 2015, unions had won paid leave in agreements covering 2,000,000 workers, but it was not universal.
The Fair Work Commission initially granted ten days paid leave and then five days unpaid leave.
In 2020, Labour MP Linda Burney introduced a bill to the lower house, urged by unions and women's organizations.
In 2022, the newly elected Labour government introduced ten days paid family and domestic violence leave for all workers as a national employment standard.

Public awareness and personal stories, like Rosie Batty's, were key factors in driving change.
The second dimension of power is evident in the long time it took for this policy to come into effect (10-12 years).
The policy window opened in 2022 due to a change of government, which was more sympathetic to the union movement.
Professor Jan Breckenridge provided insights into the specific policy window.

Challenges exist with this policy solution:
- Workers need to disclose their experience of family and domestic violence to their employer.
- The policy doesn't account for the high costs of leaving a violent situation ( $20,000$ ).
- The workplace might be the safest place for some victims.
- The focus is on the victim rather than the perpetrator.
- Lack of funding for shelters or alternative housing is not addressed.
The policy doesn't address core issues of needing to leave home or being in a situation of family and domestic violence.
It's essential to continue pushing the government to make more effective policy changes.

In the domestic violence leave example, the trade union movement is a pressure group.
A pressure group seeks to affect policy change or develop new policies.
It's an organization or collective that represents a section of society and pressures the government.
Pressure groups can be:
- Interest groups: those who have their own interests (e.g., a grassroots collective of people who have experienced family domestic violence who want to affect policy change).
- Advocacy groups: those who advocate for change on behalf of people (e.g., refugee groups like the ASRC).
The ASRC is a pressure group and an advocacy group.
Pressure groups use collective power to influence policy.
People can participate in interest groups and pressure groups at all levels of political and social affiliation (religious groups, conservation groups, unions, professional associations).

Social movements mobilize change through widespread protests and direct actions.
Individuals can participate without being officially affiliated with a group.
Examples include the school strike for climate, Black Lives Matter protests, and anti-war protests.
There are different ways to take collective action to enforce social change, including protests, direct action, writing petitions, advocating, and lobbying.

RoboDebt was a policy to collect debts from people on welfare.
Debt was calculated through income averaging, which led to incorrect debt notices.
The system was automated with no individual oversight.
Agencies collecting debt had a material interest in collecting as much debt as possible.
Some people committed suicide because they couldn't afford to pay the debt.
Mothers who lost their sons joined with other activists in a grassroots campaign called #notmydebt or #RoboDebt.
Personal stories motivated the government to affect change.
RoboDebt has been canned, and a royal commission has taken place.

Advocacy plays a big part in getting issues on the public agenda.
It involves agreeing on a problem, advocating for a solution, and defining who the issue is for.
There are many contesting ideas and definitions about problems and how to solve them.
Policy experts need to know the best possible solution and advocate for it.
It takes time and requires people to come together through different coalitions.
Harness social movements to campaign for social change.

Governments can act to curtail people's right to protest.
Examples include:
- The Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, where police used harm against protesters.
- Anti-protest laws brought in by the New South Wales labor government after Blockade Australia, which is an active climate activist group, with fines of up to $22,000$ and two years in jail for blocking traffic.
Stakeholders like Amnesty International and the Human Rights Law Center have called these laws undemocratic.
These laws were passed in thirty hours with no consultation.

Social change involves using voices and experiences.
Grassroots campaigns use personal stories to tell why an issue is important.
Campaigns should be grounded in personal stories.
Examples include:
- Grace Tame for Let Her Speak.
- Malala and who's have used her story to advance women's and children women and girls' rights for education.