Television advertisements, packaging regulations and health warning labels (HWLs) are designed to communicate anti-smoking messages to large number of smokers. However, only a few studies have examined how high smoking prevalence groups respond to these warnings. This study explored how socioeconomically disadvantaged smokers engage with health…

Since the early 1990s, liberal welfare regimes have begun to treat lone parents as workers rather than as carers. This has happened in conjunction with an ongoing "moral panic" about the need to develop policies to invest in children, and to protect them from adult worlds. The purpose of this article is to analyse contradictions within…

Current discussions regarding the relationship between welfare governance systems and employment promotion in disability policy appeal to a rejuvenated neo-liberal and paternalistic understanding of welfare governance. At the core of this rationality is the argument that people with disabilities not only have rights, but also duties, in relation…

Current government and business policy has forced regional Australia to adjust to the national deregulation of industries on which regional communities have become highly dependent. Adjustment is proving difficult with many regional communities struggling as the economic, social and educational core of the town and district falters. This paper…

Volunteer administrators (n=32) participating in Australia's Voluntary Work Initiative, designed to assist welfare recipients who were required to perform volunteer work, were interviewed. Although volunteering helped overcome isolation and develop job skills, low levels of commitment and short stays (especially among younger participants) and…

Identifies key characteristics of indigenous sole-parent families relative to other such Australian families and analyzes the factors associated with their ongoing levels of economic disadvantage. Raises issues about the efficacy of job-skill-development programs. (Author/JOW)