Post by horace on Feb 1, 2011 18:28:58 GMT 7
This is an interesting and up to date (September 2010) response to Jessica Brown and others:
apsa2010.com.au/full-papers/pdf/APSA2010_0008.pdf
APSA Conference Paper
Theme: Australian Politics
THE KEY CRITICS OF THE WELFARE STATE IN
AUSTRALIA: ARE THEIR VIEWS LIBERAL OR
REPRESSIVE?
PHILIP MENDES, Department of Social Work, Monash University
This paper examines some of the recent writings of influential conservative critics of the
Australian welfare state such as the Australian newspaper, the Centre for Independent
Studies, the Federal Liberal Party, and the Business Council of Australia. A common
theme in their writings appears to be a concern to introduce a more restrictive and
paternalistic system that will impose further controls and obligations on welfare
recipients, and make it harder for them to access income security payments. These
recommendations, however, seem to philosophically conflict with their more general
concern to promote what they consider to be a more liberal and freer society based on
individual choice and empowerment. Many of these critics argue that their views reflect
the common-sense beliefs of ordinary Australians, but their opponents on the Left argue
that their views are driven by a narrow combination of ideology and corporate selfinterest.
This paper suggests that one key but relatively ignored factor in forming their
opinions may be their limited direct contact with, and knowledge of, the welfare state,
welfare service providers and welfare recipients. It is argued that greater engagement
with the welfare sector might lead them to instead recommend welfare reforms that
involve positive incentives which would enhance rather than limit the freedom of choice of
the poor
The Australian Government’s recent extension of compulsory income management to
non-indigenous welfare recipients suggests that those who define social problems as
caused primarily by individual behaviour rather than social structures are winning the
public debate. This individualistic viewpoint is often referred to as neo-liberalism, a
philosophy which emphasizes individual rights and initiatives, the rationality of the free
market, and the necessity for the size and influence of the state and government to be
limited as much as possible.
Individualistic explanations of poverty and unemployment tend to assume that people are
poor or unemployed because of behavioural characteristics such as incompetence or
immorality or laziness. Neo-liberals believe the government should act to motivate and
discipline welfare recipients, and re-integrate them with mainstream social values and
morality such as the work ethic. Income security should shift from being a right or
entitlement to a privilege. Welfare-reliant individuals should be pressured to choose
employment over welfare (Mendes 2004). These objectives appear to be broadly reflected
in the compulsory income management scheme which aims to promote personal
responsibility and the work ethic, and discourage passive reliance on welfare payments
(Macklin 2010).
Most structuralist critics of compulsory welfare quarantining also understand that
individual behaviour and choices can influence social outcomes. Many would
acknowledge that some welfare consumers engage in anti-social behaviour – drug or
alcohol abuse, criminal activities, gambling, violence towards family members, and
refusal to seriously seek employment – that does not improve their life situations.
But they also argue that most poor Australians are heavily constrained by their limited
life opportunities (including for many personal deficits such as physical or psychiatric or
intellectual or social disability and/or language and literacy issues) compared to others
(Saunders SPRC 2005).1 They believe that structural factors such as social and economic
deprivation and inequality are significant influences on the prevalence of poverty, and
that blaming the poor for their plight reflects a lack of compassion, and is unlikely to
improve their prospects. They note in particular that some groups - such as young people
leaving state out-of-home care who were victims of childhood abuse and neglect, those
recovering from mental illness, those who have fled family violence, refugees escaping
political or ethnic persecution, and those formerly involved in substance abuse – may
have to use welfare payments in order to access basic necessities, and rebuild their lives.
Some individuals may need a long, long time before they have recovered sufficiently
from past traumas to access training or employment (Perusco 2010).
Consequently, the structuralist definition of the causes of social problems leads to
entirely different solutions to those posed by the behaviourists. For example, they would
recommend that governments take action to improve access to affordable housing and
education, create jobs, promote a fairer distribution of wealth and income, and generally
facilitate the social and economic empowerment of the poor (Mendes 2008a).
This individual/structural divide is arguably at the heart of contemporary debates about
the future of the welfare state. In this paper, we specifically explore the views of four key
groups which favour behavioural explanations of disadvantage: a national newspaper, an
independent think tank, a political party and a business lobby group. Using primarily
public documents from the past two and a half years, we dissect some of the key beliefs
and rationales underpinning their perspective. We also examine the potential tension
between their stated commitment to freedom of the individual, and their demands for
significant limits to be placed on the rights of individual welfare recipients. And we
analyse whether or not their critique of the welfare system is based on any first hand or
empirical understanding of welfare provision. Finally, we consider whether these groups
might wish to re-direct their energies towards promoting a more liberal welfare system.
Case Study One: The Australian Newspaper
The Australian newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited organisation
which generally favours neo-liberal and socially conservative ideas (Bessant & Watts
1999; Rundle 2005). This bias seems to be particularly prevalent in the reporting of social
problems. Previous studies have found that News Limited publications tend to espouse
blame the victim attitudes to poverty and disadvantage, and promote conservative
stereotypes of social workers and other human service workers involved in child
protection practice (Mendes 2008b; Putnis 2001).
This paper surveys editorials which can reasonably be interpreted as reflecting the
Australian’s official point of view. No editorials seem to have been published on social
welfare issues between January 2008 and October 2009. However, we have identified
eight such editorials from November 2009 to June 2010.2 A number of common themes
are present.
The principal theme is that people who are reliant on income support payments hold
fundamentally different values and attitudes to the rest of the community. The newspaper
is not interested in exploring the different life opportunities that those growing up and
living in poverty may experience compared to those who enjoy greater social and
economic resources. Rather, their agenda is to primarily focus attention on the individual
flaws of the poor person, rather than any social or structural causes of their poverty. To
be sure, the Australian does sometimes hint that social problems may be the result of a
complex range of individual and structural factors (2010a). But they reject any
redistribution of resources to promote greater social and economic equity for low-income
Australians.
Rather, they construct dependence on welfare as being an addiction not dissimilar to that
of helpless dependence on drugs and alcohol or gambling. Most disability support
pensioners are labelled as people who see ‘no correlation between effort and income’
(2010b). Parents who spend their welfare payments on alcohol or drugs are described as
‘people whose cruel or chaotic lifestyles mean they leave children in their care to fend for
themselves’ (2010f). And the homeless are characterized as people
‘not able to run their own lives, some of whom make choices that lock them into
cycles of drugs, alcohol and joblessness, some of whom are habituated to
exploiting the welfare system’ (2010a).
This ‘dependency culture’ is then allegedly transferred to the children of welfare
recipients leading to what they call trans-generational welfare dependence. The welfare
system is alleged to perversely produce rather than relieve disadvantage by creating
structural barriers to participation in the social and economic mainstream:
Too often, the lack of a job is inextricably linked to a serious breakdown in
parental responsibility, contributing to a pervasive cycle of educational underachievement,
truancy, substance abuse and youth homelessness (2009a).
The proposed solution to this dysfunctional behaviour caused by welfare payments rather
than social inequality is what they call ‘tough love’. The Australian holds that a less
liberal welfare regime will benefit welfare recipients and their children. For example,
they argue that the ALP’s compulsory income management scheme will ‘remind
parents…of their responsibilities to care for their children properly’ (2009a), and
‘recipients objecting to the perceived indignity will be motivated to get a job and leave
the system behind’ (2010d).
Similarly, the Australian advocates a tightening of eligibility criteria for the Disability
Support Pension (DSP) in order to give a ‘firm nudge’ to those who are really able to
work to rejoin the workforce, or engage in training. The stated assumption here is that
many DSP recipients – referred to as those with ‘ahem, bad backs, chronic fatigue,
crippling stress, RSI, burnout and other ills’ are not really unable to work (2009b). And
the Australian also endorsed Tony Abbott’s proposal to force the young unemployed to
relocate to access employment (2010e).
An associated theme is that measures which limit access to income support payments will
assist taxpayers who are constructed as a separate group to those who rely on welfare
(2009a). There is no recognition here that many income support recipients have also been
taxpayers. A final theme is that welfare payments are driven by a self-interested welfare
industry or lobby which allegedly holds that ‘benefits should always be paid, no
questions asked’ (2010c).
Case Study Two: the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS)
The CIS is an independent Sydney-based think tank which advocates an economy based
on free and competitive markets, and individual liberty and choice, including freedom of
association, religion and speech. The CIS has long been a vigorous and influential neoliberal
critique of the welfare state (Mendes 2003).
The CIS argues that the welfare state has failed because:
1) It undermines the self-reliance and self-esteem of recipients. It also damages the
future life chances of their children who are more likely to become homeless,
teenage parents and/or recipients of welfare.
2) Welfare spending has become highly expensive, and unsustainable. It also robs
working taxpayers.
3) Much poverty is attributable to immoral or irresponsible behaviour such as
promiscuity, substance abuse, smoking and gambling rather than to structuralbased
material disadvantage.
4) Much welfare spending is driven by a self-interested left-wing social policy
establishment comprised of Non-Government Organisations, media commentators
and academics headed by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
which deliberately exaggerates levels of poverty and disadvantage for its own
advantage.
The CIS propose the following policy alternatives:
1) Adopt the ‘American’ model of welfare reform based on forcing workforce age
recipients to shift from welfare to work which has allegedly produced lower levels
of both welfare reliance and poverty.
5
2) Apply tougher eligibility rules for those on welfare payments. For example,
unemployment payments should be limited to a time period of six months following
which all recipients should be forced into the work for the dole scheme.
3) Deregulate the labour market via loosening awards and reducing the minimum wage
in order to provide incentives for employers to hire more unskilled workers.
4) Future welfare provision should be based on private charities and ‘self-funded
benefits and services’ incorporated in a Personal Future Fund in place of the existing
entitlements of the welfare state (Lindsay 2005; Saunders CIS 2004; 2005; see also
summaries in Mendes 2003; 2008a).
This paper specifically survey CIS viewpoints presented in the last two and a half years
either as organisational publications, or as opinion pieces in the daily media. A number of
key themes are present.
The overriding theme is that reliance on income security payments creates damaging
long-term welfare dependence. This ‘cycle of dependency’ is assumed to correlate with
drug and alcohol addiction, child abuse and domestic violence, and lead to
intergenerational joblessness (Brown 2010).
The CIS argues that income security recipients should be ‘nudged, nagged or pushed’ or
‘hassled’ (Saunders CIS 2008b: 7, 14) to end their reliance on welfare. For example,
Saunders CIS (2008a) defended the former Coalition Government’s mutual obligation
policies such as the work for the dole scheme which required welfare recipients to give
something back to society in return for their payment. He argued that mutual obligation
stopped people falling into idleness, and would ensure that reliance on welfare was less
attractive than securing low-paid, full-time employment. Similarly, Brown (2009c)
argued that eligibility criteria for the parenting payment should be further tightened by
requiring single parents to work as soon as their children reach pre-school age.
Brown also argued that tougher criteria should be introduced to lower the number of
people reliant on the Disability Support Pension. She added that minimum wages should
be reduced so that more low-skilled jobs are available for those moving off welfare
payments. But this would necessitate changes in the tax-transfer system in order to
protect the living standards of low-paid workers and their families when they shift from
welfare to employment (2009b; 2009d).
The CIS reject structural explanations for poverty and unemployment. They argue that
factors such as drug and alcohol addiction, limited availability of child care, and lack of
skills or confidence are not genuine barriers to finding work. Rather, they argue that the
unemployed often develop character flaws such as ‘fatalism, passivity, victimhood…and
learned helplessness’ (Saunders CIS 2008b: 14), and that they need to be actively pushed
into renewing their capacity and motivation to seek employment (Brown 2010; Saunders
CIS 2008a).
The CIS reject claims by welfare lobby groups that we need higher welfare spending to
counter poverty. They argue that welfare groups deliberately exaggerate levels of poverty
in order to justify campaigns for bigger government and higher taxation (Buckingham et
al 2008). They dismiss as ‘hysterical emotive over-reactions’ concerns by welfare groups
about the potential detrimental social effects of the tougher eligibility criteria introduced
by the Coalition Government for the Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payment
(Saunders CIS 2008b: 11-12).
The CIS argue that tough welfare rules have a positive impact on the rest of the
community because they will allow government revenue to be diverted to more deserving
sources. In particular, they will arguably improve our capacity to fund tax cuts which will
stimulate our economy, or to introduce improved public services (Brown 2009a; 2009d).
The CIS recognize that some people will never be able to work due to disability or caring
responsibilities (Brown 2009d). They also acknowledge that punitive measures may be
incompatible with a commitment to an open and liberal society free from government
coercion. But they still argue that tougher measures are justified in order to force those
who have become dependent on the state to reassert their personal responsibility and
independence (Brown 2010; Saunders CIS 2008b).
Case Study Three: the Federal Liberal Party
The Liberal Party argues in principle in favour of minimum government intervention in
order to maximise the choice, freedom and rights of individual Australians including
those who fall into marginalized or non-mainstream groups (Abbott 2009; Brandis 2009a;
Brandis 2009b). But in practice the Party’s social welfare policies often seem to lean in
an illiberal direction. Since 1983, the social welfare policies of the Party have been
dominated by two ideological tendencies: the neo-liberal concern to reduce government
interference with free market outcomes by restricting access to social security payments;
and the social conservative concern to reinforce traditional institutions such as the family.
These perspectives have been reflected in four key policy themes as follows.
1) Welfare dependency: this reflects a belief that current welfare programs
encourage long-term dependency on government and do little to encourage
personal independence and self-reliance;
2) Mutual obligation: the Party distinguishes between the genuinely needy or
deserving poor who are entitled to assistance, and the undeserving poor who can
look after themselves. The latter group are to be disciplined via contractual
obligations which require them to give something back to society in return for
their payments.
3) Capture of the welfare state by interest groups: this is a concern that selfinterested
welfare lobby groups have manipulated the redistributive process to
their own advantage rather than that of the poor.
4) Private charitable welfare: the Party favours greater involvement by private
charities in the provision of welfare benefits and programs (summarized in
Mendes 2008a).
This paper surveys Liberal Party viewpoints from the last two and a half years. The Party
has consistently urged that further conditions be placed on recipients of income security.
For example, party leader Tony Abbott and frontbencher Kevin Andrews have argued
that all Australian families with children under 16 years that are reliant on welfare, not
just those in remote Aboriginal communities, should be subjected to compulsory income
management (Abbott 2009; Berkovic 2009; Dunkerley 2010). According to two
Coalition Senators who participated in the recent parliamentary Community Affairs
Legislation Committee inquiry, income management should be applied on the basis of
‘dysfunction not race’ (Boyce & Adams 2010).
Tony Abbott and Coalition Employment spokesman Matthias Cormann have consistently
urged that after three months all the unemployed should be subject to strict work for the
dole requirements (Abbott 2009; 2010; Franklin 2010; Karvelas 2010a; 2010c). In one
press release, Kevin Andrews and Senator Cormann jointly argued that ‘welfare
recipients don’t even need to get out of bed to claim anymore’, and accused the Labor
Government of being ‘too soft on welfare recipients’ (Andrews & Cormann 2010).
Tony Abbott has proposed (although this does not appear yet to be official party policy)
either banning the dole for people under 30, or alternatively placing time limits on the
dole that would require all the unemployed to relocate to centres of high job growth to
find work or lose their payments (Burrell 2010; Karvelas 2010b). Another flagged
toughening of requirements is that job seekers would be required to accept job offers
even if they involved more than two hours of travel (Schubert 2010).
The Liberal Party argues that taxpayers, whom they call ‘ordinary Australians’, are being
‘forced to pay for people not meeting their mutual obligation requirements’ (Andrews &
Cormann 2010). The Party has also emphasized individualistic rather than structural
explanations for social problems. Tony Abbott argues that poverty is caused in part by
irresponsible behaviour such as laziness, alcohol and drug abuse, family violence and
gambling (Abbott 2009). He has refused to set targets for reducing rates of homelessness
because he believes that many people make ‘a choice’ to be homeless, and there is little
government can do to help this group of people (Nader 2010).
Case Study Four: The Business Council of Australia
Australian peak business groups have consistently adopted a hostile approach to welfare
spending. In general, business argues that economic goals and wealth creation should take
precedence over social goals and expenditure. Consequently, business taxes should be
reduced regardless of the negative impact on government revenue, and the associated ability
to fund social expenditure (Argy 2001).
During the 1983-1996 period of ALP governments, business groups frequently called for
cuts to unemployment benefits and job training assistance, and for overall cuts to
government social expenditure. Under the Howard Government, business groups continued
to urge cuts to social spending. For example, business groups requested the government not
to exclude the 700,000 existing disability pensioners from the tougher eligibility rules
introduced in the Welfare to Work package. And the Australian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry commissioned a discussion paper by neo-liberal economist Des Moore calling for
$7 million to be cut from welfare spending in areas such as the age pension, disability
support pension, parenting payment, newstart allowance for the unemployed, and family tax
benefits. In addition, a Business Council of Australia report suggested that welfare payments
contribute to unemployment by reducing the incentive to accept any job that becomes
available (summarized in Mendes 2008a).
This paper surveys two statements from the Business Council of Australia (BCA) over
the past two and a half years. The BCA is a peak business body which claims to represent
100 of Australia’s leading corporations (BCA 2010a). The first statement by the then
BCA President Greg Gailey urged the government to reduce middle-class welfare
payments in the 2008 federal budget. He referred specifically to the baby bonus being
paid to high income earners, and also to other welfare spending involving the government
‘taking money from taxpayers and then handing it back in unmeans-tested benefits’ (cited
in Korporaal 2008).
More recently, the 2010 BCA Budget Submission expressed concern at the high level of
government spending on seniors income support, the family tax benefit, the Disability
Support Pension, and unemployment benefits. The BCA urged the government to tighten
eligibility requirements and modify means testing arrangements in order to ‘reduce the
cost of the major social benefits programs’ (BCA 2010b: 24).
Key overall themes: An analysis of the critique of the welfare state
The four groups surveyed in our case studies seem to hold a number of beliefs in
common. The first belief is that poverty and disadvantage is produced by dysfunctional
behaviour rather than by structural inequities. Welfare recipients are assumed to develop
a culture of anti-social behaviour that separates them from the dominant values of
mainstream society.
However, there is little research evidence that people who are reliant on income support
payments actually hold fundamentally different values and attitudes to the rest of the
community. For example, a longitudinal study of the US welfare system discussed by
Rank (1994) found that claimants shared the values and principles of Middle America,
and that any significant differences related to opportunities and resources rather than to
individual motivations. Australian research cited by Fred Argy (2003) suggested that
most of the unemployed are miserable rather than content, and would far prefer work to
welfare. Similarly, Judt (2010) reminds us that welfare handouts have often involved
humiliation rather than pleasure for the recipients.
In addition, no research has been completed which shows that irresponsible behaviors
such as drinking and gambling are more prevalent among income support recipients than
other community members. This suggests that the unique monitoring of, and censuring
of, such behavior by welfare recipients is discriminatory in that many others in the
community (including some very affluent business people and sports stars) also engage in
anti-social activities, but are rarely targeted for collective condemnation (Jordan 1998).
A second associated belief is that some form of paternalistic bullying needs to be
employed to end the reliance of welfare recipients on government payments. But the use
of punitive measures to change the allegedly dysfunctional behaviour of welfare
recipients seems highly illiberal in that it involves significant coercive intervention by
powerful institutions in the lives of the powerless. As noted by Falzon (2010), the new
paternalism seems to construct recipients as the equivalent of ‘young children who have
no capacity to make decisions or take control’.
There also seems to be no recognition here that coercive measures only divert
responsibility for the problem from one social welfare agency to another. For example,
those welfare recipients who have their payments suspended or cancelled by Centrelink
are rarely able to suddenly acquire full-time employment as the ideal neo-liberal model
would suggest. Rather, the evidence suggests that they are most likely to turn up at nongovernment
welfare agencies seeking emergency relief assistance (CARC 2004: 395).
It is surprising that critics of the welfare state do not also consider the use of incentives or
subsidies to encourage engagement with the labour market. One useful measure could be
the commissioning of independent research with income support recipients who have
moved from welfare into viable and sustainable employment in order to identify the key
factors that assisted them. Such research could explore whether the key factor
contributing to a successful transition was the initial availability of any job (irrespective
of wages or working conditions), or alternatively some guarantee of ongoing training and
the serious prospect of accessing a higher income over time.
A third belief is that the individual rights of welfare recipients (what liberals call the right
to ‘negative freedom’ from unnecessary state intrusion) need to be limited via conditional
citizenship in order to promote greater personal responsibility and protect the freedom
and self-reliance of the overall community. But similar obligations are not imposed on
affluent groups in society including the non-working rich who live off high-earning
partners or inherited wealth. Intrusive measures of regulation and surveillance are
discriminatingly applied only to those who are reliant on income support payments
(Jordan 1998; Marston & Watts 2004).
The narrow association of income support with dependent behaviour also ignores the
important role that the welfare system plays in promoting positive freedom and choice for
the disadvantaged. It is evident that for some vulnerable groups such as women with
children and the disabled, welfare payments provide an opportunity for escape from
dependency upon violent or abusive relationships. There is also no valid reason for
labelling sole parents receiving welfare as dependent, whilst constructing married
mothers who don’t work and rely on affluent partners as independent (Marston & Watts
2004; Williams 1999).
It is surprising that critics of the welfare state do not consider the introduction of a more
liberal model that would arguably enhance the freedom of choice for the poor. This
would mean accepting that a certain proportion of the working age population would
remain outside the paid workforce due to the imbalance in the labor market between
supply and demand. All people reliant on income security could then be offered a
participation income which incorporated a range of social, cultural, educational,
environmental, community and caring activities and expectations. In addition, welfare
services could be transferred to the control of local communities with extensive consumer
participation and/or control. The focus of services would then be on meeting the
aspirations of participants, rather than those of government or providers (Mendes 2008a).
A fourth belief is that a self-interested welfare lobby and industry deliberately
misrepresents the extent of poverty and disadvantage for its own gain. This highly
contentious argument seems to be based on an ideal interpretation of public choice
theory, rather than any empirical evidence. The implication here is that those who work
in the welfare sector are not motivated by compassion as they generally claim, but rather
by ulterior motives such as financial and professional status and income. But no research
whatsoever has been undertaken on the motivations of Australian social welfare workers
that would confirm this allegedly hidden agenda.
A related implication is that reports by non-government welfare groups on poverty and
disadvantage do not reflect the real demand for their services, but rather a masked leftwing
political perspective. Yet the welfare NGOs have everyday contact with large
numbers of poor and disadvantaged Australians. They provide a range of services and
material support, and develop a substantial base of information on the needs and
problems of service consumers. They listen to the stories of consumers, and their case
records and statistical data inform their policy agenda. If they find that many Australians
are presenting to their emergency relief services because their income security payments
are not sufficient to fund basic necessities such as food, clothes and housing, then they
say so because their organisational mission is to assist the poor. No research has been
completed which reveals the existence of any deliberate misrepresentation in their policy
papers (Saunders SPRC 2005). And none of the critics of the welfare state appear to have
any actual working knowledge or experience of the welfare sector which would provide
an evidence base for their arguments.
Further, human service employees are generally not high income earners, and appear to
be among the worst-paid members of the workforce. Most are women working in casual,
part-time or poorly resourced positions with highly disadvantaged and often challenging
client groups and individuals including children and adults with a disability, children and
young people in out-of-home care, the homeless, the mentally ill, people involved in
substance abuse, and the frail elderly. The current Equal pay campaign by the Australian
Services Union suggests that workers in the non-government community sector earn
approximately $15,000 less per annum than their counterparts employed in the
government welfare sector (Darmanin 2010; Gannon 2010). It is surprising that liberals
committed to individual rights do not support higher wages and greater professional
training and status for social welfare workers on the basis that this would lead to higher
quality services for vulnerable groups of welfare consumers.
Finally, the critics of the welfare state seem to argue that welfare spending is wasted
money because it only produces human well-being rather than creating financial benefits
(Mullins 2009). They want the revenue saved by welfare cuts and retrenchment to be
diverted to more deserving sources. This argument seems to have three limitations.
Firstly, the critique of government spending is only directed at government welfare funds
which flow to poor and disadvantaged Australians. There is no critique here of the
billions of dollars of corporate welfare payments (estimated at 17.2 million in gross terms
in 2008-09) provided annually by governments as incentives to business (Productivity
Commission 2010; Van Dyke 2003). Secondly, they promote an artificial, but politically
significant distinction, between taxpayers and welfare claimants whether unemployed,
sick or disabled, single parents, or elderly. In practice, it is likely that many income
security recipients have worked for a significant number of years, and can reasonably
claim to have directly contributed via taxes to their own support.
Thirdly, there is the question of which groups are framed as more deserving. A traditional
Marxist interpretation might simply suggest that the extra revenue gained from welfare
cuts will be redistributed directly via increased profits or indirectly via government
subsidies to powerful corporate interests (Cahill 2002; Stilwell 2000). But even if we
question the ideological assumption that savings will automatically be used to reduce the
taxes of the well-off, it surprising that the critics of the welfare state do not specifically
recommend that any extra revenue be allocated to raise the incomes of those on minimum
wages. Such a proposal would provide a positive incentive for those seeking to move
from welfare to work.
Conclusion
This paper has surveyed the views of four groups which are critical of the welfare state
from an individualistic/behavioural viewpoint. We have noted that these groups hold a
number of key beliefs in common. They include highlighting individual rather than
systemic causes of poverty and disadvantage, the need to apply the stick rather than the
carrot to encourage welfare recipients into the workforce, placing restrictions on the
individual rights of welfare recipients to promote personal responsibility, the self-interest
and hidden political agenda of welfare lobbies and workers, and arguments for diverting
welfare savings to more constructive agendas.
We have argued that these beliefs have a number of limitations. One is that the policy
assumptions and proposals emanating from these beliefs do not reflect the influence of
empirical evidence on the relative contribution of individual versus structural factors to
social disadvantage. A second limitation is that the authors of these beliefs claim to be
liberals committed to minimum government interference with individual freedom of
choice, but their proposals actually recommend significant state intrusion into the lives of
powerless individuals. A third limitation is that their proposed reforms do not include any
positive incentives which would enhance the individual freedom of poor Australians.
apsa2010.com.au/full-papers/pdf/APSA2010_0008.pdf
APSA Conference Paper
Theme: Australian Politics
THE KEY CRITICS OF THE WELFARE STATE IN
AUSTRALIA: ARE THEIR VIEWS LIBERAL OR
REPRESSIVE?
PHILIP MENDES, Department of Social Work, Monash University
This paper examines some of the recent writings of influential conservative critics of the
Australian welfare state such as the Australian newspaper, the Centre for Independent
Studies, the Federal Liberal Party, and the Business Council of Australia. A common
theme in their writings appears to be a concern to introduce a more restrictive and
paternalistic system that will impose further controls and obligations on welfare
recipients, and make it harder for them to access income security payments. These
recommendations, however, seem to philosophically conflict with their more general
concern to promote what they consider to be a more liberal and freer society based on
individual choice and empowerment. Many of these critics argue that their views reflect
the common-sense beliefs of ordinary Australians, but their opponents on the Left argue
that their views are driven by a narrow combination of ideology and corporate selfinterest.
This paper suggests that one key but relatively ignored factor in forming their
opinions may be their limited direct contact with, and knowledge of, the welfare state,
welfare service providers and welfare recipients. It is argued that greater engagement
with the welfare sector might lead them to instead recommend welfare reforms that
involve positive incentives which would enhance rather than limit the freedom of choice of
the poor
The Australian Government’s recent extension of compulsory income management to
non-indigenous welfare recipients suggests that those who define social problems as
caused primarily by individual behaviour rather than social structures are winning the
public debate. This individualistic viewpoint is often referred to as neo-liberalism, a
philosophy which emphasizes individual rights and initiatives, the rationality of the free
market, and the necessity for the size and influence of the state and government to be
limited as much as possible.
Individualistic explanations of poverty and unemployment tend to assume that people are
poor or unemployed because of behavioural characteristics such as incompetence or
immorality or laziness. Neo-liberals believe the government should act to motivate and
discipline welfare recipients, and re-integrate them with mainstream social values and
morality such as the work ethic. Income security should shift from being a right or
entitlement to a privilege. Welfare-reliant individuals should be pressured to choose
employment over welfare (Mendes 2004). These objectives appear to be broadly reflected
in the compulsory income management scheme which aims to promote personal
responsibility and the work ethic, and discourage passive reliance on welfare payments
(Macklin 2010).
Most structuralist critics of compulsory welfare quarantining also understand that
individual behaviour and choices can influence social outcomes. Many would
acknowledge that some welfare consumers engage in anti-social behaviour – drug or
alcohol abuse, criminal activities, gambling, violence towards family members, and
refusal to seriously seek employment – that does not improve their life situations.
But they also argue that most poor Australians are heavily constrained by their limited
life opportunities (including for many personal deficits such as physical or psychiatric or
intellectual or social disability and/or language and literacy issues) compared to others
(Saunders SPRC 2005).1 They believe that structural factors such as social and economic
deprivation and inequality are significant influences on the prevalence of poverty, and
that blaming the poor for their plight reflects a lack of compassion, and is unlikely to
improve their prospects. They note in particular that some groups - such as young people
leaving state out-of-home care who were victims of childhood abuse and neglect, those
recovering from mental illness, those who have fled family violence, refugees escaping
political or ethnic persecution, and those formerly involved in substance abuse – may
have to use welfare payments in order to access basic necessities, and rebuild their lives.
Some individuals may need a long, long time before they have recovered sufficiently
from past traumas to access training or employment (Perusco 2010).
Consequently, the structuralist definition of the causes of social problems leads to
entirely different solutions to those posed by the behaviourists. For example, they would
recommend that governments take action to improve access to affordable housing and
education, create jobs, promote a fairer distribution of wealth and income, and generally
facilitate the social and economic empowerment of the poor (Mendes 2008a).
This individual/structural divide is arguably at the heart of contemporary debates about
the future of the welfare state. In this paper, we specifically explore the views of four key
groups which favour behavioural explanations of disadvantage: a national newspaper, an
independent think tank, a political party and a business lobby group. Using primarily
public documents from the past two and a half years, we dissect some of the key beliefs
and rationales underpinning their perspective. We also examine the potential tension
between their stated commitment to freedom of the individual, and their demands for
significant limits to be placed on the rights of individual welfare recipients. And we
analyse whether or not their critique of the welfare system is based on any first hand or
empirical understanding of welfare provision. Finally, we consider whether these groups
might wish to re-direct their energies towards promoting a more liberal welfare system.
Case Study One: The Australian Newspaper
The Australian newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited organisation
which generally favours neo-liberal and socially conservative ideas (Bessant & Watts
1999; Rundle 2005). This bias seems to be particularly prevalent in the reporting of social
problems. Previous studies have found that News Limited publications tend to espouse
blame the victim attitudes to poverty and disadvantage, and promote conservative
stereotypes of social workers and other human service workers involved in child
protection practice (Mendes 2008b; Putnis 2001).
This paper surveys editorials which can reasonably be interpreted as reflecting the
Australian’s official point of view. No editorials seem to have been published on social
welfare issues between January 2008 and October 2009. However, we have identified
eight such editorials from November 2009 to June 2010.2 A number of common themes
are present.
The principal theme is that people who are reliant on income support payments hold
fundamentally different values and attitudes to the rest of the community. The newspaper
is not interested in exploring the different life opportunities that those growing up and
living in poverty may experience compared to those who enjoy greater social and
economic resources. Rather, their agenda is to primarily focus attention on the individual
flaws of the poor person, rather than any social or structural causes of their poverty. To
be sure, the Australian does sometimes hint that social problems may be the result of a
complex range of individual and structural factors (2010a). But they reject any
redistribution of resources to promote greater social and economic equity for low-income
Australians.
Rather, they construct dependence on welfare as being an addiction not dissimilar to that
of helpless dependence on drugs and alcohol or gambling. Most disability support
pensioners are labelled as people who see ‘no correlation between effort and income’
(2010b). Parents who spend their welfare payments on alcohol or drugs are described as
‘people whose cruel or chaotic lifestyles mean they leave children in their care to fend for
themselves’ (2010f). And the homeless are characterized as people
‘not able to run their own lives, some of whom make choices that lock them into
cycles of drugs, alcohol and joblessness, some of whom are habituated to
exploiting the welfare system’ (2010a).
This ‘dependency culture’ is then allegedly transferred to the children of welfare
recipients leading to what they call trans-generational welfare dependence. The welfare
system is alleged to perversely produce rather than relieve disadvantage by creating
structural barriers to participation in the social and economic mainstream:
Too often, the lack of a job is inextricably linked to a serious breakdown in
parental responsibility, contributing to a pervasive cycle of educational underachievement,
truancy, substance abuse and youth homelessness (2009a).
The proposed solution to this dysfunctional behaviour caused by welfare payments rather
than social inequality is what they call ‘tough love’. The Australian holds that a less
liberal welfare regime will benefit welfare recipients and their children. For example,
they argue that the ALP’s compulsory income management scheme will ‘remind
parents…of their responsibilities to care for their children properly’ (2009a), and
‘recipients objecting to the perceived indignity will be motivated to get a job and leave
the system behind’ (2010d).
Similarly, the Australian advocates a tightening of eligibility criteria for the Disability
Support Pension (DSP) in order to give a ‘firm nudge’ to those who are really able to
work to rejoin the workforce, or engage in training. The stated assumption here is that
many DSP recipients – referred to as those with ‘ahem, bad backs, chronic fatigue,
crippling stress, RSI, burnout and other ills’ are not really unable to work (2009b). And
the Australian also endorsed Tony Abbott’s proposal to force the young unemployed to
relocate to access employment (2010e).
An associated theme is that measures which limit access to income support payments will
assist taxpayers who are constructed as a separate group to those who rely on welfare
(2009a). There is no recognition here that many income support recipients have also been
taxpayers. A final theme is that welfare payments are driven by a self-interested welfare
industry or lobby which allegedly holds that ‘benefits should always be paid, no
questions asked’ (2010c).
Case Study Two: the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS)
The CIS is an independent Sydney-based think tank which advocates an economy based
on free and competitive markets, and individual liberty and choice, including freedom of
association, religion and speech. The CIS has long been a vigorous and influential neoliberal
critique of the welfare state (Mendes 2003).
The CIS argues that the welfare state has failed because:
1) It undermines the self-reliance and self-esteem of recipients. It also damages the
future life chances of their children who are more likely to become homeless,
teenage parents and/or recipients of welfare.
2) Welfare spending has become highly expensive, and unsustainable. It also robs
working taxpayers.
3) Much poverty is attributable to immoral or irresponsible behaviour such as
promiscuity, substance abuse, smoking and gambling rather than to structuralbased
material disadvantage.
4) Much welfare spending is driven by a self-interested left-wing social policy
establishment comprised of Non-Government Organisations, media commentators
and academics headed by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
which deliberately exaggerates levels of poverty and disadvantage for its own
advantage.
The CIS propose the following policy alternatives:
1) Adopt the ‘American’ model of welfare reform based on forcing workforce age
recipients to shift from welfare to work which has allegedly produced lower levels
of both welfare reliance and poverty.
5
2) Apply tougher eligibility rules for those on welfare payments. For example,
unemployment payments should be limited to a time period of six months following
which all recipients should be forced into the work for the dole scheme.
3) Deregulate the labour market via loosening awards and reducing the minimum wage
in order to provide incentives for employers to hire more unskilled workers.
4) Future welfare provision should be based on private charities and ‘self-funded
benefits and services’ incorporated in a Personal Future Fund in place of the existing
entitlements of the welfare state (Lindsay 2005; Saunders CIS 2004; 2005; see also
summaries in Mendes 2003; 2008a).
This paper specifically survey CIS viewpoints presented in the last two and a half years
either as organisational publications, or as opinion pieces in the daily media. A number of
key themes are present.
The overriding theme is that reliance on income security payments creates damaging
long-term welfare dependence. This ‘cycle of dependency’ is assumed to correlate with
drug and alcohol addiction, child abuse and domestic violence, and lead to
intergenerational joblessness (Brown 2010).
The CIS argues that income security recipients should be ‘nudged, nagged or pushed’ or
‘hassled’ (Saunders CIS 2008b: 7, 14) to end their reliance on welfare. For example,
Saunders CIS (2008a) defended the former Coalition Government’s mutual obligation
policies such as the work for the dole scheme which required welfare recipients to give
something back to society in return for their payment. He argued that mutual obligation
stopped people falling into idleness, and would ensure that reliance on welfare was less
attractive than securing low-paid, full-time employment. Similarly, Brown (2009c)
argued that eligibility criteria for the parenting payment should be further tightened by
requiring single parents to work as soon as their children reach pre-school age.
Brown also argued that tougher criteria should be introduced to lower the number of
people reliant on the Disability Support Pension. She added that minimum wages should
be reduced so that more low-skilled jobs are available for those moving off welfare
payments. But this would necessitate changes in the tax-transfer system in order to
protect the living standards of low-paid workers and their families when they shift from
welfare to employment (2009b; 2009d).
The CIS reject structural explanations for poverty and unemployment. They argue that
factors such as drug and alcohol addiction, limited availability of child care, and lack of
skills or confidence are not genuine barriers to finding work. Rather, they argue that the
unemployed often develop character flaws such as ‘fatalism, passivity, victimhood…and
learned helplessness’ (Saunders CIS 2008b: 14), and that they need to be actively pushed
into renewing their capacity and motivation to seek employment (Brown 2010; Saunders
CIS 2008a).
The CIS reject claims by welfare lobby groups that we need higher welfare spending to
counter poverty. They argue that welfare groups deliberately exaggerate levels of poverty
in order to justify campaigns for bigger government and higher taxation (Buckingham et
al 2008). They dismiss as ‘hysterical emotive over-reactions’ concerns by welfare groups
about the potential detrimental social effects of the tougher eligibility criteria introduced
by the Coalition Government for the Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payment
(Saunders CIS 2008b: 11-12).
The CIS argue that tough welfare rules have a positive impact on the rest of the
community because they will allow government revenue to be diverted to more deserving
sources. In particular, they will arguably improve our capacity to fund tax cuts which will
stimulate our economy, or to introduce improved public services (Brown 2009a; 2009d).
The CIS recognize that some people will never be able to work due to disability or caring
responsibilities (Brown 2009d). They also acknowledge that punitive measures may be
incompatible with a commitment to an open and liberal society free from government
coercion. But they still argue that tougher measures are justified in order to force those
who have become dependent on the state to reassert their personal responsibility and
independence (Brown 2010; Saunders CIS 2008b).
Case Study Three: the Federal Liberal Party
The Liberal Party argues in principle in favour of minimum government intervention in
order to maximise the choice, freedom and rights of individual Australians including
those who fall into marginalized or non-mainstream groups (Abbott 2009; Brandis 2009a;
Brandis 2009b). But in practice the Party’s social welfare policies often seem to lean in
an illiberal direction. Since 1983, the social welfare policies of the Party have been
dominated by two ideological tendencies: the neo-liberal concern to reduce government
interference with free market outcomes by restricting access to social security payments;
and the social conservative concern to reinforce traditional institutions such as the family.
These perspectives have been reflected in four key policy themes as follows.
1) Welfare dependency: this reflects a belief that current welfare programs
encourage long-term dependency on government and do little to encourage
personal independence and self-reliance;
2) Mutual obligation: the Party distinguishes between the genuinely needy or
deserving poor who are entitled to assistance, and the undeserving poor who can
look after themselves. The latter group are to be disciplined via contractual
obligations which require them to give something back to society in return for
their payments.
3) Capture of the welfare state by interest groups: this is a concern that selfinterested
welfare lobby groups have manipulated the redistributive process to
their own advantage rather than that of the poor.
4) Private charitable welfare: the Party favours greater involvement by private
charities in the provision of welfare benefits and programs (summarized in
Mendes 2008a).
This paper surveys Liberal Party viewpoints from the last two and a half years. The Party
has consistently urged that further conditions be placed on recipients of income security.
For example, party leader Tony Abbott and frontbencher Kevin Andrews have argued
that all Australian families with children under 16 years that are reliant on welfare, not
just those in remote Aboriginal communities, should be subjected to compulsory income
management (Abbott 2009; Berkovic 2009; Dunkerley 2010). According to two
Coalition Senators who participated in the recent parliamentary Community Affairs
Legislation Committee inquiry, income management should be applied on the basis of
‘dysfunction not race’ (Boyce & Adams 2010).
Tony Abbott and Coalition Employment spokesman Matthias Cormann have consistently
urged that after three months all the unemployed should be subject to strict work for the
dole requirements (Abbott 2009; 2010; Franklin 2010; Karvelas 2010a; 2010c). In one
press release, Kevin Andrews and Senator Cormann jointly argued that ‘welfare
recipients don’t even need to get out of bed to claim anymore’, and accused the Labor
Government of being ‘too soft on welfare recipients’ (Andrews & Cormann 2010).
Tony Abbott has proposed (although this does not appear yet to be official party policy)
either banning the dole for people under 30, or alternatively placing time limits on the
dole that would require all the unemployed to relocate to centres of high job growth to
find work or lose their payments (Burrell 2010; Karvelas 2010b). Another flagged
toughening of requirements is that job seekers would be required to accept job offers
even if they involved more than two hours of travel (Schubert 2010).
The Liberal Party argues that taxpayers, whom they call ‘ordinary Australians’, are being
‘forced to pay for people not meeting their mutual obligation requirements’ (Andrews &
Cormann 2010). The Party has also emphasized individualistic rather than structural
explanations for social problems. Tony Abbott argues that poverty is caused in part by
irresponsible behaviour such as laziness, alcohol and drug abuse, family violence and
gambling (Abbott 2009). He has refused to set targets for reducing rates of homelessness
because he believes that many people make ‘a choice’ to be homeless, and there is little
government can do to help this group of people (Nader 2010).
Case Study Four: The Business Council of Australia
Australian peak business groups have consistently adopted a hostile approach to welfare
spending. In general, business argues that economic goals and wealth creation should take
precedence over social goals and expenditure. Consequently, business taxes should be
reduced regardless of the negative impact on government revenue, and the associated ability
to fund social expenditure (Argy 2001).
During the 1983-1996 period of ALP governments, business groups frequently called for
cuts to unemployment benefits and job training assistance, and for overall cuts to
government social expenditure. Under the Howard Government, business groups continued
to urge cuts to social spending. For example, business groups requested the government not
to exclude the 700,000 existing disability pensioners from the tougher eligibility rules
introduced in the Welfare to Work package. And the Australian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry commissioned a discussion paper by neo-liberal economist Des Moore calling for
$7 million to be cut from welfare spending in areas such as the age pension, disability
support pension, parenting payment, newstart allowance for the unemployed, and family tax
benefits. In addition, a Business Council of Australia report suggested that welfare payments
contribute to unemployment by reducing the incentive to accept any job that becomes
available (summarized in Mendes 2008a).
This paper surveys two statements from the Business Council of Australia (BCA) over
the past two and a half years. The BCA is a peak business body which claims to represent
100 of Australia’s leading corporations (BCA 2010a). The first statement by the then
BCA President Greg Gailey urged the government to reduce middle-class welfare
payments in the 2008 federal budget. He referred specifically to the baby bonus being
paid to high income earners, and also to other welfare spending involving the government
‘taking money from taxpayers and then handing it back in unmeans-tested benefits’ (cited
in Korporaal 2008).
More recently, the 2010 BCA Budget Submission expressed concern at the high level of
government spending on seniors income support, the family tax benefit, the Disability
Support Pension, and unemployment benefits. The BCA urged the government to tighten
eligibility requirements and modify means testing arrangements in order to ‘reduce the
cost of the major social benefits programs’ (BCA 2010b: 24).
Key overall themes: An analysis of the critique of the welfare state
The four groups surveyed in our case studies seem to hold a number of beliefs in
common. The first belief is that poverty and disadvantage is produced by dysfunctional
behaviour rather than by structural inequities. Welfare recipients are assumed to develop
a culture of anti-social behaviour that separates them from the dominant values of
mainstream society.
However, there is little research evidence that people who are reliant on income support
payments actually hold fundamentally different values and attitudes to the rest of the
community. For example, a longitudinal study of the US welfare system discussed by
Rank (1994) found that claimants shared the values and principles of Middle America,
and that any significant differences related to opportunities and resources rather than to
individual motivations. Australian research cited by Fred Argy (2003) suggested that
most of the unemployed are miserable rather than content, and would far prefer work to
welfare. Similarly, Judt (2010) reminds us that welfare handouts have often involved
humiliation rather than pleasure for the recipients.
In addition, no research has been completed which shows that irresponsible behaviors
such as drinking and gambling are more prevalent among income support recipients than
other community members. This suggests that the unique monitoring of, and censuring
of, such behavior by welfare recipients is discriminatory in that many others in the
community (including some very affluent business people and sports stars) also engage in
anti-social activities, but are rarely targeted for collective condemnation (Jordan 1998).
A second associated belief is that some form of paternalistic bullying needs to be
employed to end the reliance of welfare recipients on government payments. But the use
of punitive measures to change the allegedly dysfunctional behaviour of welfare
recipients seems highly illiberal in that it involves significant coercive intervention by
powerful institutions in the lives of the powerless. As noted by Falzon (2010), the new
paternalism seems to construct recipients as the equivalent of ‘young children who have
no capacity to make decisions or take control’.
There also seems to be no recognition here that coercive measures only divert
responsibility for the problem from one social welfare agency to another. For example,
those welfare recipients who have their payments suspended or cancelled by Centrelink
are rarely able to suddenly acquire full-time employment as the ideal neo-liberal model
would suggest. Rather, the evidence suggests that they are most likely to turn up at nongovernment
welfare agencies seeking emergency relief assistance (CARC 2004: 395).
It is surprising that critics of the welfare state do not also consider the use of incentives or
subsidies to encourage engagement with the labour market. One useful measure could be
the commissioning of independent research with income support recipients who have
moved from welfare into viable and sustainable employment in order to identify the key
factors that assisted them. Such research could explore whether the key factor
contributing to a successful transition was the initial availability of any job (irrespective
of wages or working conditions), or alternatively some guarantee of ongoing training and
the serious prospect of accessing a higher income over time.
A third belief is that the individual rights of welfare recipients (what liberals call the right
to ‘negative freedom’ from unnecessary state intrusion) need to be limited via conditional
citizenship in order to promote greater personal responsibility and protect the freedom
and self-reliance of the overall community. But similar obligations are not imposed on
affluent groups in society including the non-working rich who live off high-earning
partners or inherited wealth. Intrusive measures of regulation and surveillance are
discriminatingly applied only to those who are reliant on income support payments
(Jordan 1998; Marston & Watts 2004).
The narrow association of income support with dependent behaviour also ignores the
important role that the welfare system plays in promoting positive freedom and choice for
the disadvantaged. It is evident that for some vulnerable groups such as women with
children and the disabled, welfare payments provide an opportunity for escape from
dependency upon violent or abusive relationships. There is also no valid reason for
labelling sole parents receiving welfare as dependent, whilst constructing married
mothers who don’t work and rely on affluent partners as independent (Marston & Watts
2004; Williams 1999).
It is surprising that critics of the welfare state do not consider the introduction of a more
liberal model that would arguably enhance the freedom of choice for the poor. This
would mean accepting that a certain proportion of the working age population would
remain outside the paid workforce due to the imbalance in the labor market between
supply and demand. All people reliant on income security could then be offered a
participation income which incorporated a range of social, cultural, educational,
environmental, community and caring activities and expectations. In addition, welfare
services could be transferred to the control of local communities with extensive consumer
participation and/or control. The focus of services would then be on meeting the
aspirations of participants, rather than those of government or providers (Mendes 2008a).
A fourth belief is that a self-interested welfare lobby and industry deliberately
misrepresents the extent of poverty and disadvantage for its own gain. This highly
contentious argument seems to be based on an ideal interpretation of public choice
theory, rather than any empirical evidence. The implication here is that those who work
in the welfare sector are not motivated by compassion as they generally claim, but rather
by ulterior motives such as financial and professional status and income. But no research
whatsoever has been undertaken on the motivations of Australian social welfare workers
that would confirm this allegedly hidden agenda.
A related implication is that reports by non-government welfare groups on poverty and
disadvantage do not reflect the real demand for their services, but rather a masked leftwing
political perspective. Yet the welfare NGOs have everyday contact with large
numbers of poor and disadvantaged Australians. They provide a range of services and
material support, and develop a substantial base of information on the needs and
problems of service consumers. They listen to the stories of consumers, and their case
records and statistical data inform their policy agenda. If they find that many Australians
are presenting to their emergency relief services because their income security payments
are not sufficient to fund basic necessities such as food, clothes and housing, then they
say so because their organisational mission is to assist the poor. No research has been
completed which reveals the existence of any deliberate misrepresentation in their policy
papers (Saunders SPRC 2005). And none of the critics of the welfare state appear to have
any actual working knowledge or experience of the welfare sector which would provide
an evidence base for their arguments.
Further, human service employees are generally not high income earners, and appear to
be among the worst-paid members of the workforce. Most are women working in casual,
part-time or poorly resourced positions with highly disadvantaged and often challenging
client groups and individuals including children and adults with a disability, children and
young people in out-of-home care, the homeless, the mentally ill, people involved in
substance abuse, and the frail elderly. The current Equal pay campaign by the Australian
Services Union suggests that workers in the non-government community sector earn
approximately $15,000 less per annum than their counterparts employed in the
government welfare sector (Darmanin 2010; Gannon 2010). It is surprising that liberals
committed to individual rights do not support higher wages and greater professional
training and status for social welfare workers on the basis that this would lead to higher
quality services for vulnerable groups of welfare consumers.
Finally, the critics of the welfare state seem to argue that welfare spending is wasted
money because it only produces human well-being rather than creating financial benefits
(Mullins 2009). They want the revenue saved by welfare cuts and retrenchment to be
diverted to more deserving sources. This argument seems to have three limitations.
Firstly, the critique of government spending is only directed at government welfare funds
which flow to poor and disadvantaged Australians. There is no critique here of the
billions of dollars of corporate welfare payments (estimated at 17.2 million in gross terms
in 2008-09) provided annually by governments as incentives to business (Productivity
Commission 2010; Van Dyke 2003). Secondly, they promote an artificial, but politically
significant distinction, between taxpayers and welfare claimants whether unemployed,
sick or disabled, single parents, or elderly. In practice, it is likely that many income
security recipients have worked for a significant number of years, and can reasonably
claim to have directly contributed via taxes to their own support.
Thirdly, there is the question of which groups are framed as more deserving. A traditional
Marxist interpretation might simply suggest that the extra revenue gained from welfare
cuts will be redistributed directly via increased profits or indirectly via government
subsidies to powerful corporate interests (Cahill 2002; Stilwell 2000). But even if we
question the ideological assumption that savings will automatically be used to reduce the
taxes of the well-off, it surprising that the critics of the welfare state do not specifically
recommend that any extra revenue be allocated to raise the incomes of those on minimum
wages. Such a proposal would provide a positive incentive for those seeking to move
from welfare to work.
Conclusion
This paper has surveyed the views of four groups which are critical of the welfare state
from an individualistic/behavioural viewpoint. We have noted that these groups hold a
number of key beliefs in common. They include highlighting individual rather than
systemic causes of poverty and disadvantage, the need to apply the stick rather than the
carrot to encourage welfare recipients into the workforce, placing restrictions on the
individual rights of welfare recipients to promote personal responsibility, the self-interest
and hidden political agenda of welfare lobbies and workers, and arguments for diverting
welfare savings to more constructive agendas.
We have argued that these beliefs have a number of limitations. One is that the policy
assumptions and proposals emanating from these beliefs do not reflect the influence of
empirical evidence on the relative contribution of individual versus structural factors to
social disadvantage. A second limitation is that the authors of these beliefs claim to be
liberals committed to minimum government interference with individual freedom of
choice, but their proposals actually recommend significant state intrusion into the lives of
powerless individuals. A third limitation is that their proposed reforms do not include any
positive incentives which would enhance the individual freedom of poor Australians.