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ASPC: 300 researchers at UNSW to open Australia's premier social policy conference

Australia’s largest social policy conference kicks off today tackling issues including climate change, how migrants might help solve Australia’s family care ‘problems’ and Gen Y’s struggle for home ownership.

Published on the 28 Sep 2015 by Susi Hamilton

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Susi Hamilton
UNSW Media Office
9385 8920 or 0422 934 024
susi.hamilton@unsw.edu.au

Can migration help solve Australia’s family care ‘problems’? How do we sort fact from fiction in Gen Y’s struggle for home ownership? Does ‘fuel poverty’ affect household income and energy spending?

These are some of the questions being addressed by the latest research and data presented today at the opening of the country's largest social policy conference, the Australian Social Policy Conference.

The overarching theme of the biennial event, hosted by UNSW’s Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), is Rights and Entitlements in Times of Austerity. It brings together over 300 leading national and international researchers, practitioners and policy makers with a view to influencing debate and practice.

Care policy experts, led by UNSW Professor Deborah Brennan, will look at new policy directions including the role of migration in addressing the care needs of Australian families and providing employment opportunities for migrant women.

The opening plenary – Climate change: crisis for humankind; crisis for the social sciences – will be delivered by Robert Manne, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow and Convenor of The Ideas & Society Program at La Trobe University.

Professor Manne will also be part of a panel discussion on climate change, moderated by Richard Aedy. Others taking part are Brian Head from the University of Queensland and UNSW’s Mark Dangerfield.

Other papers being presented today include:

  • Home ownership opportunity among young adult Australians: Facts and fiction (Terry Burke, Wendy Stone, Swinburne University)
  • Fuel poverty, household income and energy spending in Australia (Francisco Aizpitarte, Melbourne University and the Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Damian Sullivan and Victoria Johnson, Brotherhood of St Laurence)
  • Incorporating the ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ to understand the standard of living and well-being of older people (Yuvisthi Naidoo, UNSW’s SPRC)

What: Australian Social Policy Conference – Rights and Entitlements in Times of Austerity
When: Monday 28 to Wednesday 30 September 2015
Where: John Niland Scientia Building, UNSW Kensington

For more information on the conference and the full program, go to the conference website