Waiting For The Word On Welfare? Action Speaks Louder
The Age
Monday December 4, 2000
FOURTEEN months ago Family and Community Services Minister Jocelyn Newman declared that some people had a destructive and self-indulgent welfare mentality. It poisoned the system as they stayed at home and exploited the social safety net - despite the availability of jobs. Newman was setting the scene for an overhaul of Australia's $55billion-a-year welfare system.
With so much money and ideology - not to mention votes - at stake, an independent, high-level group was formed to guide the government. It was headed by one of Australia's leading welfare figures, Mission Australia CEO Patrick McClure, and one of the country's senior bureaucrats, Wayne Jackson, deputy secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services.
The group's job was described as the most far-reaching and focused analysis of welfare dependency ever conducted in Australia.
Newman's speech was a signal that the government had moved its focus on from economic policy reform, via the GST, to social policy. Because the review was launched with such fanfare, plus a dash of political controversy, punters could be forgiven for thinking that major changes would be held off until the government had considered the group's final report. Or, at least, had read it.
But that hasn't quite been the case. Ever since Newman took aim at Australia's ``entrenched culture of welfare dependency" last September, the changes have come quietly and consistently. Some have been small, some have been big, but possibly all offer a taste of what's to come when the government eventually announces its response to the McClure report.
Here is a selection of the welfare changes made this year:
In January, on Australia Day, Community Services Minister Larry Anthony unveiled changes to the obligations of job seekers on unemployment benefits. In strong labor markets such as Melbourne, they would be required to make 10 job applications a fortnight, up from eight. In country areas with higher unemployment, it would be three applications, up from two.
Almost all job seekers would be required to fill out job-search diaries, up from about 70 per cent. But there were rewards for people who took a part-time job - having their job-search requirements halved. However, those who left a part-time job ``for no good reason" would have their benefit reduced or cancelled, Anthony warned.
In April, at the Liberal Party convention in Melbourne, the government announced a $240 million families package, including $65.4 million to improve the flexibility of child care. For the first time, government was to subsidise child-care workers to go into the homes of parents so they could work or study - quickly dubbed ``flying nanny squads".
The Australian Council of Social Service applauded the package, while Democrats leader Meg Lees was sceptical of the government's ``new-found preoccupation with social policy".
In May, in the federal budget, the measure expected to yield the biggest single saving was the new Preparing for Work Agreement, expected to save $212million over four years. Job seekers must sign a contract pledging to actively search and prepare for work, or lose their unemployment benefits. The agreements are individually tailored. Savings are expected as people get a job or drop off welfare.
New child-support measures were also proposed. Under changes flagged on budget night but not yet through parliament, non-custodial parents would be rewarded with lower maintenance payments if they had contact with children for between 10-29per cent of nights in a year. Such a radical proposal in a sensitive area raised the ire of single mothers. The Sole Parents Union said it was a sad indictment of fathers and society.
In June Prime Minister John Howard promoted a novel welfare reform possibility, calling on workers to give part of their pay packets each week to charities. ``Workplace giving can be especially attractive to employees when individual staff are able to decide which particular charities they wish to support from a range of options," he said.
In July, pensioners, job seekers, care-givers and students received increased benefits as part of the GST's introduction. All social security and Veterans Affairs income support payments - from the age pension to the invalid service pension - increased by 4per cent or more.
Twelve benefits given to families as payments or rebates were rolled into three new benefits: the Family Tax Benefit Part A, Family Tax Benefit Part B and Child-Care Benefit. The last replaces the Child-Care Rebate and Child-Care Assistance.
On July 14, Employment Services Minister Tony Abbott announced a trial scheme to run in Sydney during the Olympic Games that aimed to get the unemployed into training sooner. Abbott declared it should be possible to ``create the best employment conditions since the halcyon years of Bob Menzies" on the back of the Olympics. Under the scheme, young unemployed people could be forced to work for the dole if they had been on benefits for three months. Outside of the trial, young unemployed would not have to join work-for-the-dole programs until they had been collecting benefits for at least six months.
Abbott said the scheme could extend beyond Sydney, if judged a success. It began on August1 and was described as a three-month pilot. Four months later it continues.
On July 23, the Prime Minister capitalised on Australian feelings of military pride, announcing a widening of mutual obligation at a ceremony honoring Australia's three surviving recipients of the Victoria Cross. He said the young, long-term unemployed would be able to join the Army Reserve to justify their benefit. The announcement expanded the list of mutual obligation activities, such as work-for-the-dole.
Labor's welfare spokesman, Wayne Swan, said Howard was slipping on the army greens to ``score a headline".
In October, The Age revealed that the government wanted to renegotiate the social security agreement with New Zealand. Australia pays about $770million a year in benefits to New Zealanders living here. New Zealand, meanwhile, pays about $150 million to Australians in New Zealand.
This week we will know a bit more about welfare reform when Newman delivers a ``ministerial statement". But don't expect a full government response - that's more likely next year, when it won't interfere with the recent road-funding announcement and Wednesday's defence white paper.
And when the complete response does come, don't expect harsh new measures. Look for a $700 million-plus spending increase over four years and perhaps moderate new measures to encourage people into work rather than welfare.
After all, why would the Coalition want to look draconian with an election less than a year away? Besides, some of the tougher measures have already been implemented.
© 2000 The Age