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Australian governments have a long and inglorious record of establishing valuable, valued and successful science-based initiatives that address issues of major continuing importance, only to later abolish them. The results are loss of focus, loss of group knowledge, loss of expertise, loss of analytical capability, wasted effort and resources, wasted expenditure - and most of all, wasted opportunity and wasted priceless time. There are so many instances of this highly destructive political behaviour over so many years, committed by governments of both major political persuasions at both national and state level, that it should be recognised as an ingrained political behaviour and a basic endemic flaw in the Australian political system - a flaw that urgently needs correction, if Australia is to achieve a peaceful, sustainable future. This paper presents a necessarily incomplete account of nine science-based bodies that met premature and unnecessary deaths at the hands of politicians - the Commission for the Future (CFF), the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC), Land & Water Australia (LWA), Queensland's Regional Open Space System (ROSS), the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA), the Sustainable Rivers Audit (SRA), the Native Fish Strategy (NFS), the National Water Commission (NWC) and the Climate Commission (CC). It describes some of their successes and some of the deleterious consequences of their abolition, the political reasons for their axing and the rationales used to justify the executions. The paper calls for academic study of (and insider perspectives on) these and other valuable science-based initiatives killed off by Australian state and federal governments, so that the worth of these endeavours is recognised and remembered by the scientific community and by society at large. It concludes with a discussion of how this destructive political silencing of scientists might perhaps be reduced in frequency and significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked to accept restrictions on liberties in order to slow the spread of the virus. Based on a survey of 1992 Australians conducted in May 2020, this paper reports on the attitudes of Australians toward the responses of their State and Federal governments to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we found support for government responses differed with partisan alignment. However, when we controlled for values differences, we found that values predicted social distancing attitudes and behaviour. This oppugns the common conclusion in political psychology that party alignment is a proxy for values. Scientists were trusted more than political institutions or actors for accurate COVID-19 information, and likewise, traditional media were preferred to online sources. These findings have implications for policy communication when individual action is required to address collective goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective obesity prevention requires a synergistic mix of population-level interventions including a strong role for government and the regulation of the marketing, labelling, content and pricing of energy-dense foods and beverages. In this paper we adopt the agenda of the Australian Federal Government (AFG) as a case study to understand the factors generating or hindering political priority for such ‘regulatory interventions’ between 1990 and 2011. Using a theoretically-guided process tracing method we undertook documentary analysis and conducted 27 interviews with a diversity of actors involved in obesity politics. The analysis was structured by a theoretical framework comprising four dimensions: the power of actors involved; the ideas the actors deploy to interpret and portray the issue; the institutional and political context; and issue characteristics. Despite two periods of sustained political attention, political priority for regulatory interventions did not emerge and was hindered by factors from all four dimensions. Within the public health community, limited cohesion among experts and advocacy groups hampered technical responses and collective action efforts. An initial focus on children (child obesity), framing the determinants of obesity as ‘obesogenic environments’, and the deployment of ‘protecting kids’, ‘industry demonization’ and ‘economic costs’ frames generated political attention. Institutional norms within government effectively selected out regulatory interventions from consideration. The ‘productive power’ and activities of the food and advertising industries presented formidable barriers, buttressed by a libertarian/neolibertarian rhetoric emphasizing individual responsibility, a negative view of freedom (as free from ‘nanny-state’ intervention) and the idea that regulation imposes an unacceptable cost on business. Issue complexity, the absence of a supportive evidence base and a strict ‘evidence-based’ policy-making approach were used as rationales to defer political priority. Overcoming these challenges may be important to future collective action efforts attempting to generate and sustain political priority for regulatory interventions targeting obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 30 years has seen significant developments in the Australian housing sector for people with disabilities. Despite much change in the sector, and advancements in disability services, the range of current supported housing options for younger Australian adults with a neurological disability remains vastly under-developed. This is despite a widely accepted and endorsed recognition that, as is the general population, people with all forms of disability have a right to housing of their choice. This paper presents a timely critique of the key actions made by the Australian disability and housing sectors and subsequently proposes a more informed approach to supported housing design and development: one that is based on a comprehensive understanding of consumer housing priorities and preferences, and is conducive to a person’s biopsychosocial health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]