Abstract
The recent announcement of a Senate inquiry into the ‘extent and nature of poverty in Australia’ reminds us that poverty policy in Australia has long been a contested concept in terms of identification of causes and potential solutions. The 1972–1975 Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty led by Ronald Henderson arguably represented the high point of Australian poverty research and policy discourse. That inquiry established a framework for measuring poverty based on a link to the minimum wage, and incorporating housing costs which has informed all subsequent research.
The recent announcement of a Senate inquiry into the ‘extent and nature of poverty in Australia’ (CALC, 2022) reminds us that poverty policy in Australia has long been a contested concept in terms of identification of causes and potential solutions.
The 1972–1975 Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty led by Ronald Henderson arguably represented the high point of Australian poverty research and policy discourse. That inquiry established a framework for measuring poverty based on a link to the minimum wage, and incorporating housing costs which has informed all subsequent research (Regan & Stanton, 2019; Saunders, 2019).
The first main report of the commission published in September 1975 found that 10.2% of Australians were very poor and 7.7% were rather poor. It identified poverty as the result of ‘structural inequality within society’ (Henderson, 1975, p. viii), and called for ‘a redistribution of income and services to increase the capacity of poor people to exercise power thus enabling them to take an effective part in decision-making processes along with other sections of the community’ (Henderson, 1975, p. ix).
Its recommendations targeted both increases in specific levels of income needed to alleviate poverty for individuals, and influencing broader societal factors that could alternately create or prevent disadvantage. The first element resulted in major raises to the unemployment allowance from 1972–1974 so that they achieved parity with pension rates. The second element referred to what has been called a structural approach which interrogates how a broad range of ‘economic and social institutions and values’ (for example housing, education, labour markets and location) influence unequal access to life ‘opportunities and resources’ (Saunders, 2005, pp. 86–87). That approach was reflected in its recommendation for the medium-term introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income Scheme (GMI) to replace the existing system of social security benefits and pensions, which they estimated would cost $900 million to be funded by higher taxation on richer sections of the community (Henderson, 1975).
To be sure, some (mostly Marxist) commentators argued that the Henderson Report did not sufficiently address the impact of class inequality entrenched in the broader social structures of society and failed to tackle the need for a redistribution of power, income and resources from the affluent to the poor (Mendes, 2019). The GMI was never introduced. Nevertheless, the Henderson poverty line remains the most accepted measure for adjudging poverty rates today.
Since that time, poverty as an issue has increasingly been relegated to the political margins (see Appendix 1 for Timeline of major poverty policy developments from 1975–2023). One of the key reasons for this relative silence has been the concerted campaign by neoliberal forces (based in think tanks such as the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and Institute of Public Affairs, media corporations such as News Corp, business advocacy groups and political parties) to reframe poverty as an individual character deficit (i.e., the result of individual behaviour and failures rather than economic or social structures), what is called Welfare Dependency (Mendes, 2019; Saunders, 2002, 2005). That term, which aims to blame and stigmatise those living in poverty, has been used to legitimise forms of welfare conditionality such as the Work for the Dole scheme and the Cashless Debit Card that erode the social citizenship rights of many Australians. This article traces the key arguments and critiques of the Welfare Dependency discourse from the late 1970s to the current day.
The Neoliberal Campaign to Eliminate Welfare Dependency
The neoliberal critique of the welfare state comprises four related themes—(a) The capture of the welfare state by self-interested welfare professionals and lobbyists; (b) Changing irresponsible welfare dependent behaviour is the solution to social disadvantage; (c) The need for mutual obligation and conditional welfare to punish the undeserving poor; and (d) The preference for private charitable welfare rather than government provision. In this article, I will concentrate on Theme (b), welfare dependency.
So what is meant by this populist term welfare dependence? It is used to depict the increasing (and prolonged) financial reliance of individuals or families on social security payments for their primary source of income, and the alleged anti-social behaviour of this group of people.
Australian neoliberals (strongly influenced by American political scientists such as Charles Murray and Lawrence Mead) reject structural explanations for poverty and unemployment. Rather, they argue that social disadvantage is caused by dysfunctional behaviour including substance abuse, disengagement from education and work, involvement in crime, and associated family violence and breakdown. They maintain that government welfare programs based on a right to assistance only cause further damage: they encourage dependency and anti-social behaviour, and the development of a feckless underclass typified by high rates of unemployment, illegitimacy and lawlessness; and do little to encourage self-reliance and desirable behaviour.
The general argument here is that welfare programs have a ‘perverse’ effect, that is, they produce poverty instead of relieving it. This ‘perversity thesis’ dates from the time of the Poor Laws in England when critics of social assistance argued that it promoted idleness and mendicancy, instead of relieving distress.
Neoliberals label welfare recipients as holding fundamentally different values and attitudes to the rest of the community. This is despite contrary evidence from numerous poverty researchers (e.g., Rank, 1994, in the USA; Shildrick, 2018, in the UK; Daly & Kelly, 2015, in Northern Ireland; and Argy, 2003, in Australia). For example, a study of 150 Australian social security recipients by Murphy et al. (2011), Half a Citizen, found that most were actively engaged in social and/or economic participation. Many were involved as volunteers in local neighbourhood activities such as school parents groups, sporting groups, churches, and political groups including the Council for the Single Mother and Her Child. At least one third (including two-thirds of the single parents and half of the unemployed) were employed—mainly in part-time work—and closely linked to workplace social networks. Many of those not working had significant work histories, but were currently limited by factors such as age discrimination, disability, caring responsibilities and inadequate employment support services.
Additionally, the WD model totally ignores the different life opportunities that those growing up and living in poverty experience compared with those who enjoy greater social and economic resources. Yet, dependence on welfare is constructed by neoliberals as a psychological addiction not dissimilar to that of helpless dependence on drugs and alcohol or gambling. One specific report by CIS researcher Lucy Sullivan (2000) argued that poverty was not the result of low incomes, but rather was an outcome of irresponsible and self-destructive behaviour such as substance abuse, cigarette smoking, laziness and gambling. She asserted that unconditional welfare payments encourage such behaviour by eliminating incentives for self-reliance. Consequently, the author blamed rights-based welfare for creating sole parenthood, youth homelessness, the drug problem, begging, juvenile crime, and youth suicide. The recommended solution was to reinstate obligations of honesty, hard work, and independence on welfare recipients.
However, in the real world, there is no serious evidence that such an indeterminate psychological concept of illness or addiction exists whereby reliance on social security can be diagnosed as a form of personal pathology or mental health condition. Rather, the WD model assumes an ideal world in which anyone who wants work can find work at a living wage, and all citizens enjoy equal opportunities from the time of birth. In contrast, the real world is based on social and economic inclusion and exclusion, and unequal life opportunities. The American political scientist, Professor Sanford Schram (2018), has exposed the absurdity of this term being used in an attempt to medicalise a debate that to the contrary reflects deep seated political and ideological contention around the causes of social disadvantage.
Neoliberals also insist that the generosity of the current welfare system encourages recipients to choose long-term dependence. For example, Australian neoliberal think tanks in the late 1980s and early 1990s argued respectively that many teenage girls have children in order to qualify for the parenting payment which has historically paid more than the single rate of unemployment benefit; that the non-time limited availability of unemployment benefits increases the duration of unemployment by providing an incentive to spend longer looking for the ‘right’ job; and that the availability of the Youth Allowance is responsible for a growth in the number of young homeless people.
The neoliberal policy solution to welfare dependency is that the state should act to motivate and discipline welfare recipients and reintegrate them with mainstream social values and morality such as self-reliance and the work ethic. Social security should shift from being a right or entitlement to a privilege. Welfare-dependent individuals should be given incentives to choose employment over welfare. Initially, their policy priorities were the introduction of longer waiting or qualifying periods, time limits, reduced rates and tougher eligibility criteria via mutual obligation plus public campaigns against welfare fraud including, for example, the Howard Government’s ‘dob in a dole bludger’ hotline to discourage long-term reliance on social security. Later, the emphasis shifted to harsher conditionality measures (involving prescribed activities and/or good behaviour) as reflected in Work for the Dole, Parents Next, the proposed (but never legislated) drug testing trial for new applicants for unemployment payments, and of course compulsory income management via both the Basics Card introduced as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response in 2007, and later in 2015 the Cashless Debit Card.
In summary, the political aim of the welfare dependency argument is to undermine public sympathy for disadvantaged people by shifting attention from the social context of disadvantage and the real deprivation and hardship caused by poverty to the individual flaws of the disadvantaged. This stigmatisation and blaming of the poor was characterised by Prime Minister Howard’s 1996 attack on the Paxton family who had been exposed as alleged ‘dole bludgers’ by Channel Nine’s A Current Affair program for turning down a job offer on a far-away island. Howard said:
If you are not trying to get a job, if you are not prepared to take a job offer, then I don’t think people can expect a lot of sympathy from the rest of the community, because it is hard-working, battling Australian taxpayers who have got to foot the bill, and I can understand their anger. (Taylor, 1996)
The Political Application of the Welfare Dependency Argument to Create Second Class Citizens: The Best Form of Welfare is a Job
The two coalition government welfare reform reviews of 1999 and 2014 entrenched this individualistic notion in Australian welfare policy.
The first review was motivated by a specific concern to prevent and reduce welfare dependency. It exclusively targeted the skills, character and failures of individual social security recipients. It did not examine the broader social and economic causes of poverty which drove the increasing demand for payments, or whether the existing payment levels were adequate to alleviate poverty. Rather, the government constructed the problem as the dependence of too many people on social security payments due to individual character deficits, and implied that many did not deserve to receive these payments. Long-term reliance on welfare was identified as the cause of poor physical and mental health and limited life opportunities. The implied solution was to promote the social and economic participation of social security recipients, and particularly to encourage as many recipients as possible to enter the workforce which was identified as a key source of self-esteem and positive connection with broader social and community networks.
The second welfare reform report also argued that too many Australian were receiving social security payments, and adopted a work rather than welfare paradigm. The report made no reference to the effectiveness of the social security system in alleviating poverty. Rather, its particular concern was to advance workforce participation and self-reliance.
Later, the neoliberal preference for placing the responsibility for resolving disadvantage on those living in poverty rather than society more generally underpinned the 2019 House of Representatives inquiry led by a coalition-dominated committee into what was termed ‘intergenerational welfare dependence’. That inquiry targeted the alleged dysfunction of those people ‘who have a disproportionate need for welfare support, including successive generations of individual families’.
Yet, the committee was forced by the weight of evidence to dial down its specific attack on individual welfare dependency, and to acknowledge that conditional measures may not provide an effective solution. Instead, the final inquiry report mostly used the alternative term ‘entrenched disadvantage’ due to a concern voiced by many welfare advocates that ‘dependence carries an implication of individual fault’. The inquiry acknowledged that disadvantage had multiple and complex causes including systemic factors such as geographic location in rural or remote areas, access to education, and the availability of jobs and health and welfare support services, as well as being linked to membership of specific population groups such as single parents, the unemployed, those with a disability, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
Resistance to the Welfare Dependency Argument
The peak community welfare body, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), and other social justice advocates have continued to place poverty on the public policy agenda. They have used a number of strategies including press releases, research reports, collaboration with sympathetic politicians and political parties such as the Greens, and joint statements with those that have lived experience of poverty. One ongoing strategy has been the annual anti-poverty week campaign which began in 2003, and is annually scheduled in the month of October. Its current objective is to secure a major increase in the rate of social security payments above the poverty line, and an increased investment in social housing. The campaign has used a number of strategies including media releases, public forums, research projects, and parliamentary speeches to place pressure on governments to take action to relieve poverty.
Conclusion
The reframing of poverty as welfare dependency has legitimised a policy paradigm shift. Disadvantage is attributed to behavioural not structural causes, and its resolution has become an individual rather than societal responsibility. Welfare is transformed from a social right to a conditional payment reliant on prescribed activities. Those living in poverty are stigmatised and segregated as a separate category of Australians that do not deserve full citizenship rights. Hopefully, the current Senate inquiry will provide an opportunity for the development of new service approaches to addressing poverty including particularly the introduction of co-design frameworks that privilege the voices of those living in poverty within program and policy planning.
Major Australian Poverty policy developments Timeline, 1975–2023.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
