Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: Opportunities to Reduce Social Disadvantage from COVID-19 (preprint)

This paper from social policy experts at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre) identifies and examines a range of policy reform opportunities in Australia arising from COVID-19. Their analysis provides an optimistic, forward-looking counterpoint to what has undoubtedly been a catastrophic global event. The authors demonstrate how COVID-19 presents unique opportunities for rethinking and redesigning long-standing rules and regulations covering how people live and work in Australia, with some opportunities arising coincidentally and others requiring purposeful policy and institutional redesign. They present a broad range of ideas to address entrenched disadvantage in health, labour markets, the tax and transfer system, gender equality, education, housing and criminal justice in Australia, in order to leverage the COVID-19 crisis to build a better society.