Australia and New Zealand developed distinctive 'wage-earner welfare states', with social protection largely delivered through high breadwinner basic incomes and residual social policies. Market reforms then pursued in both countries during the 1980s and 1990s retrenched important elements of the Antipodean model. Our article offers a novel characterization of major reforms to both welfare states from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. We focus on industrial relations, as a form of wage-earner welfare, and expansions to social provision for families and retirees that may be viewed as responding to the evolving needs of wage-earners as family patterns diversify and populations age. Policy reversals complicate the picture of the long-term path of industrial relations. Voters rejected the Employment Contracts Act in New Zealand in 2000 and WorkChoices in Australia in 2007, with incoming labour governments moderating policy to favour wage-earner expectations of decent wages and fair bargaining. Alongside this, governments expanded both paternalistic social policies and private social provision. We argue these changes taken together produced a 'hollowing out' of wage-earner welfare in both countries, accompanied by increasingly stratified welfare, which marginalizes and stigmatizes many outside the workforce. But, we also note persistent differences, reflecting the more radical and 'pure' New Zealand experiment, its relatively centralized politics and stronger liberal tradition. Hence, Australia retains more progressive taxation and family support less connected with employment status, while making greater use of tax expenditures to support private welfare.
One of the most important functions of the discipline of economics is to provide a rational basis for policy making. The role of evidence is at its heart, yet the scientific approach to social matters may also blind us to fundamental normative issues that must be faced before we can answer the question: does this policy make us better off?
Over the past 30 years New Zealand’s system of public management has seen a number of positive changes, both systematic and incremental. That process made New Zealand a world leader in public management. Despite this, it remains difficult to gain traction on some of the most complex problems in society. Further, citizens have begun to demand more from their public service than just outputs and efficiency. In order to continue the positive trend of the previous decades, the system must evolve to appreciate the importance of outcomes and effectiveness.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.