Agenda setting, framing and wage theft in Australia

Over the past decade the problem of wage theft has burst onto theAustralian policymaking scene, seemingly out of nowhere. Itsmeteoric rise, from a largely unrecognised issue to the broadpublic agenda, then onto the narrower governmental anddecision agendas of state and federal governments, was a majorfeat in policy advocacy. It stands as a particularly outstandingexample of the power of framing to change the salience andesteem of an issue. By tracing the journey of the wage theft issuethrough the different spheres of public and governmentalattention, this research illuminates under-studied aspects of there-framing and agenda-setting artforms and advances the studyof advocacy group interventions in policy conflicts.