Punishing The Poor - McClure's Welfare Scam.
Late last year Tony Abbott indulged in the popular political past time of
kicking people when they're down by labelling welfare recipients as job
snobs. He and his fellow government ministers Jocelyn Newman and Amanda
Vanstone then went a step further by calling for all on welfare to be
punished via an expansion of mutual obligation. Under this concept they
called for single parents and the disabled to join the unemployed in work
for the dole and other mickey-mouse job training schemes. Schemes designed,
in their words, to discipline the unwaged into accepting insecure and badly
paid work.
When a public backlash against these plans occurred the government quickly
backtracked claiming that these were just vague ideas and opting for the
time honoured method of commissioning a rigged study on welfare reform.
After a series of public consultations that have consistently ignored the
views of those actually on social security benefits the government finally
delivered the McClure report in mid August.
Inevitably this report delivers what the government has wanted all along- a
rationale for punishing the poor and recommendations as to the means of
doing so. The report puts the final nail in the coffin for the ideas of
welfare as a way of assisting those in need on the basis of that need alone
and of unemployment benefits as a method of compensating those denied work.
It ignores the fact that there are eight job seekers for every job on offer
and pretends the unwaged are poor because of individual shortcomings rather
than those of the economic system itself.
Whilst decidedly vague on a number of key points the report proposes that
the government, over a 5-10 year period, roll all existing forms of welfare
into one. With the sick, disabled, single parents and the unemployed all
under one scheme Centrelink will then pay out three levels of benefits. A
base rate will be topped up by two higher rates tailored to those with
special needs (childcare, health, etc) and those who are participating in
mutual obligation. Everybody regardless of health or child rearing
commitments will be expected to orient themselves towards the job market
and be involved in training schemes, forced voluntary work, military
service and work for the dole. Penalties for the refusal or inability to
participate will be toughened.
That the report recommends further expanding the role of Christian
charities in policing the unwaged is hardly surprising given that the
report drew heavily on the opinions of those groups currently profiting
from their involvement in a privatised Job Network. The reports architect
McClure himself heads up the conservative Mission Australian group who are
now one the primary providers of welfare in many country towns. The fact
that increased monitoring of the lives of the unemployed, disabled and sole
parents will occur under the recommendations is chilling given the
conservative family values of many of these organisations. How much
sympathy are evangelical (like the Salvation Army) and Catholic
organisations who oppose sex before marriage likely to have for the
situation of single parents?
The report scapegoats the unwaged in the nicest possible terms and aims to
hurt us in the name of doing us good. Rather than labelling us no good
bludgers and parasites who need a kick up the backside it labels us job
poor and disempowered people who need to be helped back into the community.
In the classic tradition of Christian charities the individual is blamed
for the failings of the system and should they fail to cooperate they must
be taught a stiff lesson. For these charities all community life is based
around work, no matter how crap, anti social or bad for our health and
children that work may be. Mutual obligation is only for the poor. The idea
that the rich and their friends in government have an obligation to pay
back some of the wealth they have gained at our expense never comes into play.
The big lie driving the whole report is the assumption that if everyone on
welfare got out there and looked for work they would find a job. This
ignores that through sheer poverty alone the unemployed generally are
already desperate for work and that the majority of those on sole parent
and disability pensions are already involved in part time work. The reality
is that there are not enough jobs available for all something acknowledged
by studies done by Centrelink and by the Liberal and Labour parties both of
whom quietly define full employment as around 4% unemployment.
If both parties believe they cannot deliver a job for everyone then why are
they going through the pretense of forcing people to look for something
they know doesn't exist? All this talk of helping the unwaged into work
serves to disguise the real rationale for welfare reform which is to drive
down wages and conditions, hide the real level of long term unemployment
and deliver further tax cuts to the rich through a reduction in spending on
welfare.
Even if they could give everyone a job the current economic system requires
a certain amount of unemployment so that employers can avoid paying decent
wages to attract workers. Through welfare reform the government hopes to
find a balance between not having to pay too much to maintain this pool of
unemployed labour and keeping people desperate enough to take whatever job
they can no matter how bad it might be.
Workplace restructuring has seen a quarter of the workplace move into
insecure casualised work in recent years. Centrelink has led the way
putting the majority of its call centre staff on short term contracts and
recommending they keep putting in dole forms as they cant guarantee they'll
have a full 13 weeks work! If the government cannot even provide secure,
decent jobs for its own staff is it any surprise that a small minority of
the unwaged continue to reject most of the jobs on offer on the basis that
they are boring, underpaid and only designed to profit someone else.
The increasing number of fines laid upon those on benefits for petty
infringements of social security rules is another way the government sees
welfare reform complementing that in the workplace. Despite the McClure
report acknowledging that at least 150 000 people (which only represents
the third who successfully appealed Centrelink decision) were incorrectly
docked their benefits last year it still calls for a further expansion of
penalties. The belief here seems to be that if they can condition people on
welfare to accept petty autocratic rules and fines then they will prepared
to cop the same in the workplace.
In recommending a further dismantling of welfare the McLure report
surprised some by advising it be done over a period of time rather than
hitting the unwaged with one hard blow. In borrowing the Labour Party's
strategy of death by a 1000 cuts the Liberals hope to overly avoid
alienating the third of Australians now reliant in some way on welfare and
those in the community who still believe in a fair go for all.
Although the government is yet to indicate how exactly they will apply the
reports recommendations it appears initially the scheme will only force
sole parents with kids aged 6-13 to attend a single interview a year
although after age thirteen the pressure to abandon children in favour of
work will kick in heavily. Similarly they appear keen to go relatively
lightly on the disabled in the beginning. The experience of New Start
though would indicate that once the government has a foot in the door the
number of expectations and penalties will only spiral ever higher.
The suspicion that is all about hacking away at welfare is further
underlined by the fact that the government has already out of hand rejected
the few positive recommendations made by McClure. An immediate increase in
the level of social security is not on the cards and an expansion of
childcare funding to allow sole parents time to work would seem unlikely
given extensive cuts made in recent years.
The government has promised to deliver its final reform package by the end
of the year. With the Labour Party, Democrats and the Australian Council of
Social Services all broadly approving the McClure Report we can expect some
quibbling over the final legislation, but little real opposition to an
overall crackdown.
So as ever we are on our own. In reply to these attacks we need to continue
to push the fact that welfare is already failing to meet our needs and that
social justice will only come through the redistribution of wealth and the
ability of all of us to have a say in the way our lives are run. After all
the only mutual obligation we have is to each other so lets get together
and wipe the smirk off Howard's face!
--
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