Welfare rights need political defence
COMMENT BY JONATHAN SINGER
In its forthcoming budget, the federal Coalition government plans to announce more programs trialing extended "mutual obligation" provisions for all unemployed people, sole parents and people with disabilities who receive social security payments.
Already, in several regions, the payments of some sole parents are being suspended if they fail to attend a mandatory Centrelink interview on education, job training and child care support. Those targeted for the new programs will be families with no members employed, the mature-aged unemployed and those unemployed for five years or more.
These programs are being brought in even before the government's Welfare Reform Reference Group submits its final report. The central proposal of its interim report, released in March, was for the various social security payments for people of working age (16-64) to become a single "participation support" payment; individual negotiations by claimants with Centrelink officers would determine the "participation" requirements to get the payment.
'Participation'
The interim report notes there are various forms of social participation, but Michael Raper, president of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the peak body of community sector organisations, and also director of Sydney's Welfare Rights Centre, told Green Left Weekly, "the report overemphasises participation in the paid work force".
This reflects the government's own heavy influence; it is seeking to drive people into work — any work — or out of the social security system and into dependence on their families.
Government talk of "welfare dependency" and a "social coalition" has covered up the increased requirements being placed on social security recipients and the reduction in the public provision of social welfare services.
Younger unemployed people were the first on whom the government placed its demands: 50,000 a year now work two days a week for six months for no pay, other than a fortnightly $20 allowance, in work for the dole. Failure to take part, as with other "breaches" of social security's administrative rules, results in payment cuts for up to six months.
Tendering out
The "individualised assistance" the interim report proposes will allow the tendering out of these services. Mandy Dunn, secretary of the Sole Parents' Union (SPU), told Green Left Weekly that a government source had revealed to her the Coalition's desire to put Centrelink activities "into the hands of people who really care".
This has already happened with the Job Network, which replaced the Commonwealth Employment Service. The Job Network is now dominated by church-based employment agencies, some of which demand employees adhere to their version of Christianity.
The government's goal is to transform social security into a form of charity. Raper noted that making individual negotiations a basis for entitlement implies "a return to the 19th century regime of deserving and undeserving poor". For the government this brings twin advantages: cut-rate social security and a means of social control.
Family and community services minister Jocelyn Newman was probably ready to announce most of the current set of proposals in September. Yet the original government proposal was withdrawn (and not made public for another two months) and the reference group established.
Reference group
Over the last six months the reference group review has drawn community sector organisations into its submission process and into responding to its interim report. ACOSS' briefing paper advises that the report has both "positives" and "potential pitfalls" and urges its member organisations to make further submissions to the group, lobby politicians and publicise their concerns in the media, especially local newspapers.
But this response means that ACOSS and the community sector groups that follow its lead will again not focus their efforts on talking to the people whose interests they are trying to represent.
Dunn said, "The people on the review group are not people who have suffered disadvantage. They're career politicians or businessmen who are working for a charitable organisation, predominantly male.
"They have an intellectual concept [of how people live on social security]. But when it comes to the day-to-day struggle, it's beyond anything they can comprehend.
"The people whose lives they are affecting have disabilities or perhaps a heartbreaking story. These people don't have a voice at the table."
The problem does not lie with what ACOSS is saying to the reference group. Its key proposals, according to Raper, are for social security payments to be raised to at least the poverty line (that is, by at least 20-30%), for a reduction in breach penalties, and for resources to be provided for participation, starting with jobs and child care.
Moreover, he has invited groups interested in public campaigning to contact ACOSS for assistance, albeit while saying "ACOSS' role as the peak body of community sector organisations does not lend itself to mass movement-type public campaigns — that's just not our role or our structure."
Clear direction
Rather, Raper argues, ACOSS believes "neither [the Coalition nor the ALP] has a clear direction forward. We therefore must invest heavily in the Welfare Reform Reference Group to try to get that group to get it right in its recommendations to the government ... We certainly are trying to mobilise individuals and organisations in the community welfare sector to make sure that the policy development of the reference group is well-informed."
For its part, the government is clear about what it's doing — and part of that is the review group. When its work is done, community sector groups will have "taken part" and the government will have recommendations telling it what the community sector groups will more or less accept.
The government is on a collision course with the interests of welfare recipients. ACOSS shows no sign of willingness to turn to those people, using its authority and what resources it does have to encourage and unite them in a counterattack.
Rather it largely accepts the political framework offered it. Raper, for example, allows that making payments conditional on meeting participation requirements was possible if ACOSS' key concerns were resolved — as if that will happen.
Other community sector organisations, such as the SPU, are at least discussing public campaigning against the Coalition government's drive. But a still broader range of activists need to devote thought and effort in the coming years to bring together a campaign that will defend, or if need be restore, the right to welfare.