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School attendance and welfare

By Ruth McCausland - posted Monday, 30 June 2008


Despite the characterisation of such schemes as trials, there has been little public information or debate about the policy rationale behind such an approach. Nor has there been much scrutiny of whether the stated aims of the trials have much connection to their measures.

This appears to sit in stark contrast to Jenny Macklin’s assertion that her government’s Indigenous policy-making would be based on a “thorough, forensic analysis of all the facts and all the evidence”.

Critics of mutual obligation describe it as “selective paternalism” in the way that it treats some Australians as capable of making decisions in their own interests or those of their families, and others as not. Implicit in the mutual obligation framework is the assumption that policy makers are more “rational” and “moral” than the poorest welfare recipients. For example, wealthy families receiving the Baby Bonus aren’t required to demonstrate that they’ve spent their government welfare payment in the interests of their children.

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Catholic Social Services Australia has recently identified a number of major problems with mutual obligation-based welfare policy in this country - namely that it stigmatises rather than supports recipients of income support; it is punitive and focused on deterring claims rather than assisting recipients to meet their obligations; it frames welfare reliance as if it were a law and order issue with a focus on enforcement; and it in fact removes responsibility from individuals, families and communities.

In relation to Indigenous communities, the approach is based on the questionable proposition that passive welfare has led to learned helplessness and dependence, whereas active welfare and mutual obligation will create self-reliant, self-governing communities and good citizens who’ll stop drinking and send their kids to school.

The notion of linking parents’ welfare payments to their children’s school attendance is new to Australian social policy. However, versions of this approach have been implemented over recent decades in the US.

A number of state governments (who have responsibility for welfare programs in the US) began experimenting with programs linking families’ welfare payments to their children’s satisfactory school attendance in the 1980s. As part of the major welfare-to-work reforms undertaken by the Clinton Administration in 1996, states were given the power to introduce Individual Responsibility Agreements whereby welfare recipients must fulfil certain obligations to receive payments, such as their children regularly attending school.

An evaluation by David Campbell and Joan Wright in 2005 published the first comprehensive findings of evaluations of seven programs that linked families’ welfare payments to their children’s satisfactory school attendance. The study found that programs linking welfare payments to school attendance are based on assumptions of questionable validity, including the fact that they implicitly define the problem as one of parental or student negligence.

Evaluations surveyed found that such programs spend disproportionate resources monitoring attendance rather than confronting the underlying problems associated with poverty. The data supported the proposition that welfare school attendance programs will not succeed in improving attendance unless supportive case management services are an integral part of the program.

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A common feature of successful programs to improve school attendance and achievement was that of a creative collaboration, which intentionally builds bridges between public agencies and the community, often by engaging parents or community-based organisations. Evaluations also found that illness rather than truancy was the major cause of absence - a finding which undercut the idea that financial sanctions alone are likely to alter attendance patterns.

The relevance of such a study to Australia and to Indigenous communities in particular is debatable. However, it does appear that Australian policy is being influenced by new paternalist approaches adapted from the United States, so the evidence that does exist bears reflecting on.

In fact, these shifts in Australian policy are unprecedented in their attempts to control how welfare recipients spend their money.

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A version of this article was first published in the National Indigenous Times on May 29, 2008.



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About the Author

Ruth McCausland is a Senior Researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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