Proving yourself to Centrelink

Imagine extending this complexity to other populations and in big cities. It undermines capacity, if on a limited budget, to check prices and look for bargains. Tough! Sources are defined and you buy what they offer. No more chasing specials, buying from sales or finding stuff at Vinnies or garage sales.

Ever tried living on a very small income? I lived on a sole parent payment for some years while completing a university degree in the 70s. Making ends meet was hard so finding bargains became a way of life: second hand clothes for my daughter; a trip to the markets late to pick up cheap fruit and veg; finding cheap wholesale butchers and other sources of bargains.

I was a uni student with a child and an end in sight, but know others who are stuck long term on payments, trying to manage the tensions and constant crises of daily life. People need government payments to allow them to pay bills and survive while caring for children, upgrading skills, trying to find a job or dealing with a life that fails to leave time and/or energy for earning money.

Most are responsible and cope better than expected. In 2006 we surveyed some sole parents affected by welfare to work changes. They were a very mixed group: a few finishing studies, while parenting at a level that precluded sufficient paid work; others were coping with children who had difficulties with health and well being and needed intermittent attention that made regular paid work difficult. Others have been overly mindful of the traditional roles of motherhood and had left the workforce many years before to find themselves without a breadwinner in their late 40s.

A few were in their teens, some are well into their 50s. Some have little English, and good qualifications, some have little education in their countries of origins and few literacy of language skills. Few wanted to be on Centrelink payments, most want paid work and were employed when they could find appropriate work.

Soon those in NT will have their regular payments quarantined in the NT, closing the gap by exposing non Indigenous sole parents to the same unfair level of control that has been affecting Indigenous families. They will have to queue up with other stigmatised beneficiaries at approved stores and tender a piece of plastic to have certain types of purchases approved and maybe offer other money if they want to buy a beer.

This silly system has no evidence that it will, to quote Macklin: "protect children and families and help disengaged individuals. The Government is committed to progressively reforming the welfare and family payment system to foster responsibility and to provide a platform for people to move up and out of welfare dependence. The reforms will help fight passive welfare and mean that more money goes to food, clothes, rent and less money goes to buying alcohol and gambling."

There are serious questions whether this change will achieve any of the aims stated above. It hasn't done so in the NT, and extending it will find many more people failing to manage the Centrelink pitfalls of snakes and ladders. With the best of goodwill from all, there will be many that will not cope with extra bureaucratic processes, the surveillance and loss of dignity and control that is manifested already in the relatively simple NT example.

It is also expensive, more than $88 million has been spent on extra bureaucratic processes in the NT, alone, but not on the needed services that could really create change. Welfare agencies are mostly not supporting it: “it will demonise more people on flawed evidence that it benefits disadvantaged communities”, said a range of social service, charity and church groups.

This is an expensive piece of social engineering, playing into prejudices.