The Old Holden, and Resetting Australia’s Social Contract

Many reports, insight papers and reviews into the social economy sector of late contain rich data and insights to inform policy ideas and reforms to navigate the challenges or take up the opportunities ahead; The ACNC 2023 Report, The Intergenerational Report 2023 (‘IGR23’), The Productivity Commission into Philanthropy and its 250+ submissions…to name a few.  

Triangulating the big ideas therein suggests it might be time for a broader reset of Australia’s social contract to create a sustainable and strong social economy where more people, and particularly future generations, benefit. After all, the last remodeling of our social contract and the fundamental underpinnings of our economy was back in the 1980s with The Accord, resulting in a subsequent productivity surge from opening up the economy; how can we be sure now this ‘Old Holden’ will make it over the next few hills…?

The commitment by Philanthropy Australia to double giving by 2030 is admirable, until you ask yourself, ‘to what end?’ If giving has already doubled in the last 10 years (which is likely), while social inequity has considerably worsened (which is a fact), are we not missing the point?  

Similarly, the IGR23 released recently is a triumph in econometrics, forecasting our future prosperity through the lens of an ‘economy’.  Individuals, families, communities, and the natural capital in which we live are converted into factors of production, or faceless beneficiaries. Our +$2tr annual economy has rolled forward at over +2% GDP on average for a generation, but its momentum is starting to slow, and productivity is now the only pedal with room to push further (with population and participation maxed out).  

The IGR23 report presents a deterministic view on the future, extrapolating trends and economic forces through to 2063, but it fails to explore the big question ‘what society do we want to create for ourselves and future generations?’ References to ‘fairness’ were remarkably absent, as were explicit references to closing gaps for First Nations, gender and rural & regional communities that are on the front-line of our agricultural production and exposed to disproportionate risks from climate change. The Non-Profit Sector, and its rich vein of services, volunteers and community leaders producing 15% of services and employing 8% of the workforce, hardly gets a mention: perhaps it is considered the trailer hooked up to the tailgate of our Old Holden economy, and pulled along for the ride to Destination Unknown? 

So, what is to become of our social contract in Australia? And what measures and data are most important to us beyond Treasury, and beyond a summarised introduction of the metrics under the Wellbeing Budget’s Measuring What Matters Statement? Like 50 years of science that has linked the extractive economy’s role in the ‘climate boiling’ now upon us, commitments to Net Zero are only now attempting to swerve and avoid a head-on collision at the last minute.  

The New Yorker ran a brilliant essay on the limitations on reason, entitled ‘Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds’. Citing several psychological studies, confirmation bias is outed and ‘even when the evidence for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions to those beliefs’. The researchers suggest the main remedy to address these reasoning blockers is to think through the implications and complexity of policy proposals that hang off the evidence.  

Specialist efforts to bring insights through data by those who do understand the ‘depths’ of the issues, and can wrestle with the complexity of policy proposals, are worthy of consideration. We have seen the efforts of several GoodWolf clients to aggregate data in a way that is insightful and persuasive in protecting or developing key aspects of our social economy: The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (‘PIJI’)  has a national data mapping project examining the rout in public interest journalism and helping inform the government’s response to protect this fourth pillar of our democracy. Social Traders and its bespoke certification program for social enterprise is producing a rich data set to lure buyers towards the power of social procurement in a $1tr market. The National Centre For Outdoor Risk & Readiness (‘NatCORR’) is convening a national dialogue amongst outdoor learning and recreation operators to aggregate their experience and data and ready the sector for an increasingly hostile and risky operating environment due to climate change.  

So where to from here?  

Perhaps we can be so bold as to propose that increasing democratisation of data and the power of AI tools, which enable a broader audience to see patterns and trends in that data, might empower a ‘social renaissance’ whereby those outside the traditional government-charity worlds become engaged with and go beyond commentating on issues, to (most importantly) responding to the need in conjunction with government and the charity sector. Too idealistic? 

We’d like to suggest a first step. It seems to us that many in society have a fear of data – like the fear of finance – and we don’t think we know enough to analyse or interpret data. So, alongside the creation of the technology and data tools, we need to embark on a societal education program to build our ‘bench strength’ to have confidence and capacity to understand and act on data in a coherent manner; in a way that considers and (even better) includes the important stakeholders that matter. 

Maybe then we will be able to let facts change our minds, and we can begin to dream up the future model to replace the Old Holden.