The fair go is fact, not political platitude

With the controversy over the adequacy of unemployment benefits heating up again, the divide between the haves and the have nots has resurfaced this budget season.

The 2013 budget initiative to allow Newstart Allowance recipients to earn more before their government payments are docked has been decried as inadequate by the welfare lobby, the Greens, and Labor MPs, including Doug Cameron.

Having called the Newstart Allowance the 'antithesis of a fair go' in March, Cameron and others want it raised by $50 a week.

The chorus of support for increasing unemployment benefits is the most recent example of an underlying schizophrenia in the national psyche: Although we have long prided ourselves as a society that offers a fair go to all, many of us suspect the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the community miss out on the assistance they need.

Despite creeping doubts that Australia does not live up to the promise of a fair go, the numbers show the fair go is still more fact than fiction.

With the right combination of ambition and ability, success is open to Australians from any background, while Australia's dynamic meritocracy is one of the most socially mobile in the industrialised world.

With many of us rising from the proverbial rags to riches, the American dream is actually an Australian reality.

Approximately 12 per cent of sons born into the poorest 20 per cent of families make it to the wealthiest 20 per cent. Given that only 27 per cent of the sons from this bottom fifth stay there as adults, a full 73 per cent of sons from the poorest families are able to improve their lot in life and earn more than their fathers.

Australia's social escalator moves so quickly that the poorest Australians can find fortune in just a few years.

Between 2001 and 2009, more than 5.5 per cent of individuals from the poorest 20 per cent of the population entered the wealthiest 20 per cent.

This means that in the space of less than a decade, more than one twentieth of the poorest Australians became some of the wealthiest.

On top of massive movement up the earnings distribution, social mobility is also the norm rather than the exception when it comes to education and profession.

A 2011 Smith Family study revealed that almost a third of the children of fathers who stayed at school until Year 10 or below gain university qualifications, while more than 50 per cent attain a post-secondary qualification of some kind.

At the same time, slightly more than one in four children of fathers with the lowest status jobs (blue-collar labourers) work their way into the highest status jobs (white-collar professionals). And fewer than 30 per cent of the children of fathers with the lowest status jobs end up with those jobs as adults.

By ensuring that humble beginnings are not a barrier to success, the fair go also guarantees Australia's strong performance in international measures of social mobility.

With approximately 41 per cent of the children of parents who did not complete high school pursuing tertiary education, Australia is almost 10 percentage points ahead of its closest OECD competitor and more than 20 percentage points ahead of the OECD average.

As well as being a world leader in providing educational opportunities for the disadvantaged, Australia has high levels of earnings mobility compared to other leading industrialised countries.

OECD research shows that the earnings advantage conferred by wealthy fathers is only slightly higher in Australia than the social democratic Nordic countries, and approximately half the rate of the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Notwithstanding the dynamism of Australia's meritocracy, it would be naïve to assume that entrenched disadvantage is a thing of the past.

A large body of evidence confirms that children from families receiving income support, for example, are more likely to leave school early, face unemployment, have children at a young age, and receive income support themselves.

Although some segments of the community still suffer from intergenerational disadvantage, Australia overall remains a resounding fair go success story.

Before we succumb to fears that Australia's commitment to the fair go is fraudulent, we should remember that success is still built on ambition and ability, not pedigree.

Far from an empty political platitude, the promise of a fair go for all is the defining feature of contemporary Australia-the experiences of the thousands of disadvantaged Australians who enter the ranks of the wealthiest and best educated are testament to this.