National review of maternity services 2008: women influencing change

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2009 the Australian government announced a major program of reform with the move to primary maternity care. The reform agenda represents a dramatic change to maternity care provision in a society that has embraced technology across all aspects of life including childbirth.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A critical discourse analysis of selected submissions in the consultation process to the national review of maternity services 2008 was undertaken to identify the contributions of individual women, consumer groups and organisations representing the interests of women.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Findings from this critical discourse analysis revealed extensive similarities between the discourses identified in the submissions with the direction of the 2009 proposed primary maternity care reform agenda. The rise of consumer influence in maternity care policy reflects a changing of the guard as doctors' traditional authority is questioned by strong consumer organisations and informed consumers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Unified consumer influence advocating a move away from obstetric -led maternity care for all pregnant women appears to be synergistic with the ethos of corporate governance and a neoliberal approach to maternity service policy. The silent voice of one consumer group (women happy with their obstetric-led care) in the consultation process has inadvertently contributed to a consensus of opinion in support of the reforms in the absence of the counter viewpoint.</p

Children and Safety in Australian Policy: Implications for Organisations and Practitioners

Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring ‘child safe’ organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in some organisations. Drawing on a recent policy analysis, undertaken as part of a larger Australian Research Council Discovery Project, this article examines how children and safety are constructed, within and across relevant state and federal government policies in Australia, and the implications of this. Distinctions are drawn between conceptualisations of children within the broader education policy context and two specific policy contexts in which children are considered particularly vulnerable to abuse – out-of-home care and disability. The findings indicate that policy discourses of ‘child safe’ potentially foster different emphases and approaches in organisations. These have implications for the way children are positioned in relation to their safety, how their rights are recognised and implemented, and what is required to foster cultural conditions within organisations to best support children’s safety and wellbeing

Adaptation pathways for conservation law and policy

Globally, biodiversity is under increasing pressure from human activities despite protective measures in conservation laws. Climate change will exacerbate those pressures and the effects of habitat loss and species decline. Current approaches to conservation law in most countries focus on establishing protected areas and limiting activities outside reserves that might affect priority species, habitats, and ecological communities. These measures have had mixed success depending on scale and implementation, but are likely to perform poorly under conditions of future change. To prepare for the future, we consider how conservation law and policy needs to anticipate and manage for future change; widen its scope beyond species and ecological communities that are currently threatened; and support adaptive management of priority areas and species. Using Australian conservation law as a case study, we outline three possible routes by which this shift could occur. The first involves enhancing the adaptiveness of conservation law, the second expands the focus of conservation law from protected areas and listed species to include ecosystems and ecosystem services, while the third attempts to do both simultaneously. We examine the legal mechanisms needed to implement each route, examples of their use in practice, and barriers that must be overcome for successful implementation. This article is categorized under: Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Conservation Strategies