Elizabeth Hill is a lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney and co-convenor of the Work and Family Policy Roundtable (www.familypolicyroundtable.com.au). She has a long standing research interest in women’s work-life experience in both advanced and developing economies. Her recent research focuses on the gendered character of the Australian family tax benefit system and its impact on women’s labour force participation.
Barbara Pocock is Director of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia. She took up this position in 2006, after fourteen years at the University of Adelaide. Barbara has been researching work, employment and industrial relations for over twenty years. Barbara’s books include The labour market ate my babies: work, children and a sustainable future 2006, The work/life collision 2003, Strife; sex and politics in labour unions 1997 and Demanding Skill: women and technical education in Australia 1988.
Alison Elliott has contributed to early childhood education over a long period of time in a range of capacities including teacher, researcher and academic. Alison is a long time advocate for targeted early learning and development programs and universal early childhood education provision. She is an active contributor to public and professional debate and comment on children’s development and learning, early childhood education, and the wider education sector. Alison is currently Professor and Head of the School of Education at Charles Darwin University. She was previously Director of the Early Childhood Research Program at the Australian Council for Educational Research. She is the long-standing editor of Australia’s leading journal for early childhood education professionals, Every child.
Anita Nyberg, The Centre for Gender Studies, Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden. She was previously Professor of Gender, Work and Economy at the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden. Her work has dealt with the dual-earner/dual-carer model and the policies to support this model, in which publicly financed child care is central.vii
Deborah Brennan has published extensively in social and family policy as well as gender and politics. Her books include ‘No fit place for women’? Women in NSW politics, 1856–2006, The Politics of Australian Child Care: Philanthropy, Feminism and Beyond and Caring for Australia’s Children: Political and Industrial Issues in Child Care. She was the inaugural convenor of the National Association of Community Based Children’s Services and a board member of many non-government organisations including ACOSS and Community Child Care. She has served on government advisory bodies including the Commonwealth Ministerial Advisory Council on Children’s Services and the NSW Planning Committee on Child Care.
Patricia Apps is Professor of Public Economics, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, Adjunct Professor, ANU and UTS, 2006 President of the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE), Research Fellow of IZA (Germany) and CHILD (Italy), and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Her research covers a wide range of areas in Public Sector Economics and she is a major contributor to the new literature on the economics of the household. Her work has appeared in leading international journal in economics and specialist journals in the field.
Bettina Cass is Professorial Fellow, Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW. She has published research on the gendered nature of family responsibilities for care giving and employment; family tax/benefit systems; social security reform and employment policies in Australia and internationally; ageing and retirement incomes policies – identifying impacts on the distribution of wellbeing throughout the life-course.
Lynne Wannan is a social commentator and policy advocate, having held many positions in government and non government organisations in the social policy field. Lynne is currently National Convenor of the National Association for Community Based Children’s Services, Chair of the Victorian Government’s Children’s Advisory Council, a member of the Federal Government Children’s Services Reference Group on Children, Chair of the Victorian Government’s Adult, Community and Further Education Board, Commissioner of the Victorian Learning and Employment Skills Commission, a Member of the Victorian Qualifications Authority viiiand Deputy Chair of the grant making organisation Western Chances. Lynne works as a consultant to all levels of government and to the non government sector advising on social policy and community services reform.
Gabrielle Meagher is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Sydney. She has a long standing research interest in social services and the workers who deliver them. Gabrielle also researches attitudes to the welfare state, with a focus on social service provision, and was a Principal Investigator for the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes in 2003 and 2005.
Emma Rush is a research fellow at the Australia Institute (www.tai.org.au). Her recent research has included work on the quality of long day care in Australia. She has also written on the premature sexualisation of Australian children by media and advertising and the risks this poses for children.
Frances Press is a senior lecturer in early childhood education at Charles Sturt University. She has a strong interest in early childhood policy. Her publications include What about the kids? Policy directions for improving the experiences of infants and young children in a changing world; and she co-authored, with Alan Hayes, The Australian background report for the OECD thematic review of early childhood education and care.
Margaret Sims runs the community work degree programs at Edith Cowan University and teaches in the Children and Family Studies area. Her research interests focus around quality community-based service delivery to children and families, including child care, parenting and family support. Her work was recently included in the documentary ‘Life at One’ screened on ABC TV in October 2006 and repeated in January 2007.
Joy Goodfellow is an early childhood educator and researcher. She is an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University and holds the position of Vice President of the Board of a large not-for-profit organisation that manages child care centres and associated early intervention programs funded by state and federal governments. Her current research interests are in the impact of the regulatory environment on early childhood teachers’ decision making, practitioner research, program evaluation and strengths-based practices within early intervention programs.ix
Eva Cox has had a long engagement with child care policies, as single parent user in the 1960s, as Women’s Electoral Lobby and welfare advocate for more care, as state bureaucrat and as an academic researcher. She is head of the Social Inquiry program at University of Technology, Sydney, and teaches research and policy practice. x