Mobilising evidence in public policy: The contribution of the evidence provider

This article contributes to the conceptualisation of evidence‐based policy through providing a framework of the key factors that influence research utilisation, including those that shape the quality of evidence provided. We apply this framework to an analysis of public policy to regulate the remuneration of freight truck drivers to improve workplace safety in their industry. Recent policymaking concerning the regulation of truck drivers’ remuneration in Australia provides an opportunity to examine the quality and utilisation of research evidence by external evidence providers in opposing political contexts. This article suggests the need for informed and vigilant scrutiny of the contributions of evidence providers to government policymaking, particularly in the case of wicked policy problems about which there are sustained ideological differences that underpin problematisation, research interpretation, and conceivable policy solutions.     

Negotiating Female Morality: place,ideology and agency in the Red River Colony

By 1850 British women had settled in the Red River colony, a British outpost in what became the province of Manitoba, Canada, and where the Hudson’s Bay Company established fur trading posts. Through an analysis of documents concerning two unconnected lawsuits involving Countryborn women, it is possible to glean some understanding of how British women became agents of colonialism. Company authorities envisaged that White women would establish households predicated on Victorian patriarchal ideology that defined separate spheres for men and women. This article maps how White women stereotyped non‐White women as ‘Other,’ manipulated their symbolic role as mothers of the English nation, and used rumour to maintain a segregated settlement. It also explores the agency of these White women as they sought to establish a place for themselves through their struggles with one another, with First Nations and Countryborn women, as well as with the White men who ruled the colony.

The establishment at which we encamped last night, may be considered the boundary between the Civilized and Savage Worlds, as beyond this point, the country is uninhabited by Whites, except where a Trading Post of the Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company occasionally presents itself. ¹ [1] Hudson’s’ Bay Company Archives (HBCA) D6/4, Frances Simpson’s Journal, 5 May 1830. In 1830, Frances Ramsey Simpson was the eighteen‐year‐old English wife and first cousin of Sir George Simpson, the Governor of Rupert’s Land. View all notes     

NSW Workers’ Compensation Reform: A Parody of Evidence‐based Policy Making

The characteristics and evolution of evidence‐based policy making in Australia and other mature democracies have been mapped extensively in this journal. This article advances research on the use of evidence in policy making, examining changes in the New South Wales workers’ compensation system from 2012 to 2014. This analysis of two phases of policy change, legislative implementation and statutory review, highlights the limitations of building integrated, coherent evidence‐based policy in a contentious policy area. The article finds that the collection of wide and detailed evidence will not satisfy requirements of evidence‐based policy without political will, transparency, and accountability.     

Vulnerable Bodies, Vulnerable Borders: Extraterritoriality and Human Trafficking

In this article, I interrogate how the UK government constructs and manipulates the idiom of the vulnerable female, trafficked migrant. Specifically, I analyse how the government aligns aspects of its anti-trafficking plans with plans to enhance extraterritorial immigration and border control. In order to do this, I focus on the discursive strategies that revolve around the UK??s anti-trafficking initiatives. I argue that discourses of human trafficking as prostitution, modern-day slavery and organised crime do important work. Primarily, they provide the government with a moral platform from which it can develop its regulatory capacity overseas. It is not my intention to suggest that the government??s anti-trafficking plans are superficial, and that extraterritoriality is the sole driver. On the contrary, I argue that complex interrelationships exist and while the government??s interest in protecting vulnerable women from sexual exploitation may seem to be paramount, I assert that in fact it intersects with other agendas at key points. I consider how government action to protect vulnerable women in trafficking ??source?? and ??transit?? countries such as development aid and repatriation schemes relate to broader legal and political concerns about protecting the UK from unwanted ??Others??.