Ms Karen Kiernan:

It was really interesting to work with the Senator on that and to learn a bit more about it. We came to the point at some stage of not being able to tell how it would be implemented in practice. That is why our research recommends talking to the end users as well. There is not really an equivalent organisation in New Zealand? It is not the same because its society is much more progressive on social welfare and it has a different culture.

Part of the issue here is that it has been privatised and farmed out to people because the State has not wanted to interfere in people's lives. Actually, there is a policy issue here around child poverty and conflict because our services are so poor. It is very difficult to predict the unforeseen consequences. A stepped approach seems very sensible. It would need to be an inbuilt process to see what the unintended impacts are.