In recent years, the prevalence of food insecurity in Australia worsened (1,2), whilst policy attention spiked. For example, the House Standing Committee on Agriculture conducted a national inquiry into food security. This study aimed to capitalise on the heightened policy environment and identify and map interactions between relevant parties that influence policies relevant to household and community food insecurity.
An invitation to complete a Qualtrics survey was sent to 284 people, including those who participated in the inquiry and other relevant actors identified through government directories. The survey included five main sections: i) participant characteristics; ii) identification of relevant parties (e.g. person or organisation name, location) perceived to influence the development, implementation, and evaluation of food insecurity policies at a national level; iii) frequency of direct contact with identified relevant parties; iv) ranking of identified relevant parties according to perceived level of influence and v) open-ended question to enable comments. Ego-centred social network maps (sociograms) were generated to identify relevant parties, their levels of influence, and the formation of community clusters within the policy network.
To date, 41 people (14.1% of the invited sample) have completed the survey. Of these, 26.8% worked in Non-Governmental/Non-Profit organisations, 24.4% worked in Academia/Research, and 14.6% worked in the Private Sector/Industry. A subset (14.6%) reported more than one affiliation. Nearly one-third of survey respondents were located in Victoria (31.7%), followed by New South Wales (26.8%) and the Australian Capital Territory (21.9%). The rest were spread across Queensland (9.8%) and the other jurisdictions; Northern Territory, Western Australia, Tasmania, and South Australia (2.4% per state).
Survey respondents made a total of 396 nominations, encompassing 189 distinct relevant parties. Of these, eleven relevant parties were cited eight times or more. Conversely, 149 relevant parties were named only once. These preliminary results indicate a skewed pattern in which attention clusters around a small core of 11 prominent relevant parties while a long tail of peripheral actors receives minimal but widespread recognition.
Overall, government entities (ministries, departments, committees, elected officials) appear most influential in shaping national policies relevant to household and community food insecurity in Australia, followed by charitable organisations and business-sector groups. The social network analysis indicates respondents’ perception of who influences federal food-insecurity policy in Australia, is concentrated in a dominant core, while most actors are relegated to a marginal role with potentially less influence.