Noel Pearson ought to be obliged to provide some reasonable policy proposals rather than the tired Third Way rhetoric and populist authoritarianism that’s become his stock in trade. As Paul Kelly reveals, Pearson, acting as a consultant to the Federal Government on welfare reform, has come out with something that the government already had in the pipeline for Indigenous welfare recipients:
The Pearson submission reviews former US president Bill Clinton’s 1990s welfare reform that imposed time limits on benefits, arguing that “we must find a compromise between the Australian and American values”.
His compromise rejects time limits but advocates instead limits on how income support should be spent.
“My view is that the loss of discretion over income will be a strong incentive for people to move out of income support,” Mr Pearson says in his submission.
“Society will provide a safety net for basic needs such as housing, food and rent but to expect society to maintain people’s lifestyle when they are unemployed and not seeking work has got to end,” he says.
When this issue was first bruited, I wrote the following commentary:
During the election, Mark Latham was criticised (rightly I think) by John Howard and Tony Abbott as a social engineer and a “behavioural policeman” – his floating of policy proposals which would have restricted payments to mothers who did not “read to their children” deserved condemnation for their interference in people’s lives. However, it seems in the Howardians’ mind, there’s one rule for the Whites and one for the Blacks.
Let’s not forget that until a few decades ago, Indigenous Australians could not vote, were subjected to limitations on their right to move around freely or marry without consent, had their children stolen from them, had large percentages of their wages held back “for their own good”.
Although alcoholism is a scourge in Indigenous communities, it is also a scourge in “mainstream” Australia. Is the solution a “smart card” which will prevent Indigenous welfare recipients from spending money on alcohol? We never seem to worry too much about what respectable middle-class citizens spend their swollen credit card debts on… In fact, moves to remove ATMs from pubs and casinos have been resisted strongly by rent-seeking industry lobbies and State governments living off sin taxes have passively acquiesced.
Pearson’s sole originality in his latest proposals seems to be to take the racist stigmatising that originally inspired these proposals and turn it into class stigma, arguing that welfare dependency is a problem from “Cape York to Macquarie Fields”:
Mr Pearson calls for a change in the principles of welfare policy from Cape York to Sydney’s Macquarie Fields.
He says the public sees the distinction between earned income and income support. If school leavers want money for consumption and recreation “they must earn it themselves”.
It is “absolutely critical” that the first experience of young people on leaving school “is not on income support”.
He says there is “no use” Australians “pretending that gambling and other addictions do not consume a large percentage of incomes of too many disadvantaged individuals and families”. This only compounds disadvantage. It means that unmanaged income support “contributes to and maintains social problems” for many individuals and families.
Mr Pearson sees welfare as an economic issue and a behavioural problem. He recommends welfare reform through positive and negative incentives. His priority policy combines pushing the disadvantaged into the workforce and rewarding them once in work.
It’s hardly worth taking the trouble to refute such populist nonsense. Pearson is bereft of policy ideas. Most thinking on Indigenous disadvantage recognises the supply side issues with regard to economic opportunity and jobs in remote communities. Pearson seemingly can’t see this – the fact that many long term unemployed people lack marketable skills and that properly resourced training and labour market programmes, as well as incentives to employers who are often suspicious of candidates who are long-term unemployed, are a much better way of assisting people into the labour market than ranting about dependency and proposing punitive and grossly illiberal “solutions”.
The irony would be, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least from this Government, if these punitive measures were only to be imposed on Indigenous communities.
Pearson should wake up to himself. He may be Paul Kelly’s darling, but the only useful role his policy advocacy is playing at the moment is as a political figleaf for a government trying to save money on welfare and beat the populist drum against the shirkers. These proposals are a disgrace.
Elsewhere: Reaction to Pearson is reported here.
Yet Mark, many of these proposals are what Indigenous elders have been asking for, to help stem the domestic violence and neglect, caused by alcohol, that characterises much of the Indigenous population in places like Alice. I did not realise how bad the problem was until I had to live with it, and I only have to deal with the fringes of the problem. But let me tell you it’s a real eye opener. If banning people from spending their money on alcohol and cigarettes, as charities already do with their food vouchers, is going to mean that the kids get fed and the women don’t get bashed then I’m all for it. Domestic violence is a way of life for Indigenous women up here. They don’t understand that white women don’t have to live with it too.
Is there a link to the Paul Kelly/Pearson thing? Or am I being dense?
I knew I forgot something, Amanda, be fixed in a sec.
May I hear the counter proposal, concerning mutual obligation. Perhaps Mark you could have lunch and tea in the park at Westend on dole day. If the problems exist in mainstream Australia then why not impose the same restrictions. Always race and racist, the main card of the defence lawyer. I wouldn’t mind hearing solutions and not rhetoric. The kids and women raped and bashed want something a bit stronger than rhetoric, perhaps the solution is a move backwards, but all the left feel good talk of two decades failed the people who needed protection and a hand up and not a hand out.. ATSIC failed because of no responsibility.
How would Mark from the suburbs feel after a childhood of violence. Nice tower try going across town.
The lack of realism in this discussion is interesting – problems with alcoholism in Indigenous communities are not solved by declaring the community dry – people smuggle the grog in.
What sort of research exists to demonstrate that most welfare recipients spend their money on gambling and grog? None.
Pearson is correct to say that jobs are the answer, but as I pointed out, precious little is being done for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians alike on the supply side – either in terms of upskilling people or creating jobs which are suitable for long term unemployed people (of whom there are more than there were in 1996).
No, what we are getting is creeping paternalism – as implied in the notion of “protection” – from themselves, presumably.
Mark you are ignoring the reality of the alcohol problem. Grog running is a problem, that’s why we have policemen checking vehicles and elders reporting grog runners. But until the all pervasive alcohol problem is fixed, even finding these people jobs won’t work, because alcohol will still be there. In many places you can’t say what the unemployed spend their money on, here you can because they are drunk in the streets.
“…political figleaf” = Uncle Tom = bad (non-leftist) boong.
Pretty nasty Mark.
Seeing the same sights every day on the streets of Alice, I agree with Mindy.
And Mark, I think it’s a bit high-handed to call Pearson’s views ‘populist nonsense’. He does know what he’s talking about and he’s arrived at his present position only after years of thinking and worrying about the roots of Indigenous disadvantage. From calling Howard ‘racist scum’ to working with him on welfare reform – a very interesting political trajectory, and not to be simplistically dismissed as a sell-out.
What I think you’re all missing is that while I acknowledge the scope of the problem, I question the illiberal and paternalist means provided to solve it. What good is a dry community without alcohol education and rehab programmes? That’s precisely not what’s being invested in. And what good is surveillance of welfare recipients without some sort of meaningful plan to create work. Why do you think people take up the grog in the first place?
It’s astounding that people are prepared to countenance such illiberal solutions which smack wholly of previous government moves to stop Indigenous people spending money they earned for “their own good”.
As to Pearson, C.L., that’s a really low blow – that’s not the inference I was making at all. I couldn’t give a toss about Pearson’s political trajectory – what he needs to look to is how his rhetoric is used by the Government and start thinking about solutions that don’t involve punitive measures which are far more about social control and scapegoating than solving personal and social issues.
I’m with Mark. Contrast how the government is obsessed with what people on the dole spend their money on with – say – a Double Bay divorcee who neglects her kids and spends all day at the Wheatsheaf or drinking cocktails at tennis parties. No-one’s ever going to intervene in the latter situation because she’s a “respectable”, middle class and white member of society.
Whereas these “Others” are positioned outside society and as owing obligations to us.
It is all our problem, Naomi, but I’d like to hear from a broader range of Indigenous leaders than just Noel Pearson – which of course is difficult since the government dismantled any representative structure. And I don’t think that punitive measures are the answer – there needs to be more creative thinking than taking out a big stick.
I agree with Naomi. It doesn’t really matter what it looks like – what matters is will the policy generate the right kind of practical outcomes on the ground. After all, we looked and sounded – and were – impeccably liberal for the past 30 years but it doesn’t seem to have done Indigenous Australians a whole lot of good (apart from land rights which I whole-heartedly support). In terms of material disadvantage the situation only seems to have got worse. Time for one of those awful things called paradigm shifts.
And ATSIC was a complete failure, as Labor has also recognised – in fact Latham got in first with the promise to abolish it.
And the only policy that’s practical is one that’s harshly regulative of people’s lives? I hardly think so, Rob.
So what solution would you recommend, Mark? I don’t wish to sound combative, but you’re very clear on what should not be done; so what should be?
BTW, I meant to say in the earlier comment, before my non-vegetarian sausages threatened to catch fire – such are my modest culinary needs – that instead of indulging in a lot of theorising, we should maybe listen to the old men out in the desert, when they say, ‘Don’t give us money; give us jobs’.
Like I said repeatedly, Rob, although no-one appears to be listening, some serious money needs to be spent on alcohol rehab and awareness programmes, and domestic violence prevention. The Murri courts in Queensland and associated measures are a good start.
And, yeah, jobs. The partnerships that the Queensland government has facilitated between mining companies and TAFE for the training and employment of Indigenous youth are an excellent model, but it’s very hard to see a viable economic base emerging in some remote communities. What’s certain is that beating people over the head with a stick won’t make them get jobs in areas where there simply are none.
Further to that, Rob, I cite this exchange between me and your fellow Territorian, Ken Parish:
Every time I’ve raised issues of Indigenous policy, I’ve taken care not just to be critical of the Government, but to suggest what direction policy should be moving in, recognising that it’s a highly complex area.
ATSIC was indeed flawed, but nothing is going to work if Indigenous people themselves aren’t involved in the solutions. Punitive “incentives” for non-existent jobs aren’t going to help anyone, except perhaps Mr Pearson get a generous consultancy fee.
The trouble is, Mark, that most “alcohol rehab and awareness programmes, and domestic violence prevention” that would be promoted by government are a crock. I’ve seen ‘em in rural WA and they don’t work because they’re based on whatever the latest in pop psychology says will help addictive personalities. The Murri courts may prove to be successful, which would be a good thing – but they are the exception in terms of approach, and I suspect Pearson’s just bypassing the rest of this other crap because he’s seen it for the worthless pap it is, and trying to cut right to the heart of the problem, which is the booze and drugs.
Maybe you have and I’m being judgemental, but if not – live in or even visit Katherine, Carnarvon, Port Hedland, Wilcannia, Dubbo, Geraldton, Roebourne. You get to the point where you think it would be worth just about any sacrifice of personal liberties just to see what you could do once the most hellish end of the hopelessness was gone. And taking the “alcohol is a problem for everyone approach” line just dilutes the reality again – it is THE problem for these communities. I don’t give a toss for bored housewives in Noosa who have martini’s for lunch – I do care about indigenous kids who watch their Dad drink himself blind and then flog their Mum. The rest is just sophistery.
Pearson might say you are aiming at the symptom, not the cause. I can’t find a link for it, but he gave a great lecture a couple of years ago where he talked about how welfare dependency was the practical, everyday cause of Indigenous disadvantagement, not 200 years of dispossession (not that he denied the impact of the latter).
I don’t know about Queensland, but I do know about Alice. And I can tell you that the sight of Aborigines shuffling from the ‘bad’ end of town towards the bottleshops every day at 2 pm, when they open, and emerging with their 2 litre casks of port and heading down to the dry river bed to drink is a dreadful sight. For those of us who are sensitive and sympathetic to their plight, our hearts break a little more every time we see it; and I don’t care if that sounds paternalistic or not, it’s not the issue. Others see it in other ways.
But I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think anyone here does. All that seems possible is to make and mend. Mend the women whose eyes are dead, who’ve lost the living spark to men’s violence; mend the kids who were bashed in utero, and won’t live past two or five or 13.
It’s tough out here. Textbooks aren’t going to help. Pearson seems to have some good, strong ideas. Let’s try them out. Nothing could be worse than what we have already.
That’s moving, Rob and Tony, but it’s interesting how the language of compassion is evoked to evade the actual argument. So if these people’s lives are as ruined as you say (and there are people like that in Brisbane too – black and white – and I’m sorry domestic violence and alcoholism happen in Ascot as well as Inala) then how are policies which are meant to turn them into job ready skilled workers going to help?
This is the nub of the issue – Pearson is conflating problems with alcohol and violence and unemployment. The solutions are interlocking, but claiming it’s all down to “welfare dependency” is misleading. It’s astonishing to me that he doesn’t believe in cultural dispossession. But maybe as a mission boy educated at Sydney University, he hasn’t felt too much of it.
If you could find the link, Rob, I’d be interested in reading it.
And I totally agree with Tony.
Pearson doesn’t ‘not believe’ in cultural dispossession, Kim, he’s just tired of people – especially whites – using it as an alibi.
As for domestic violence happening everywhere, that’s true – but many of the Indigenous women in Alice are literally the walking dead. I’ve never seen anything like it, anywhere. Something essential to life has been beaten out of them. It’s horrible; I would never have believed it possible.
I’m sure you’re right, Rob – but surely to suggest their problem is welfare dependency is to misidentify it.
It would be good if Pearson had as much compassion as you.
But, Kim, Noel’s lived and worked with this all his life. He’s got a perspective on it; he’s worth listening to. I’m an Alice newbie, still in shock.
Well, Rob, I don’t deny that, but if you know some of the Murri folk from Noel Pearson’s neck of the woods, you’d also know that he’s by no means the flavour of the month in many circles up there, and hasn’t been for a long time. There’s resentment that he’s the only person that the Queensland government speaks to, and questioning of his right to purport to speak in the singular, if you like, about Indigenous experience. There have been legal actions launched in the Queensland Courts over some of the policies that Pearson has championed – on rights grounds. And those actions have emanated from within the Indigenous community not from “white lefties”.
Noel’s up against some powerful forces so of course he’s got his opponents, within the Indigenous communities and without. He’s trying to force some fundamental shifts in thinking – what used to be called revolutionary.
Anyway, I’m full of ‘I don’t knows’ on this subject.
I’d just like to be able to walk through the streets of Alice without feeling this constant need to burst into tears.
Apologies for a pointless comment.
Yes, but Rob, it’s wrong to think that all who disagree with Pearson are reactionaries or that they don’t also have serious ideas. It’s just that they’re not listened to. They don’t get high paying consultancies from the Government or easy access to top columnists. That’s my point.
Sorry, Mark, I think we’re doing this hot emotional vs. cold political thing again. I don’t dispute that Pearson is saying things that fall more gently upon the government’s ear and so is gratefully heeded, nor that there are not other views worth listening to. That doesn’t in or of itself make Pearson wrong, though.
No, it doesn’t Rob – but what I’m suggesting is that Pearson’s prescriptions are hardly unique – and in fact are not genuinely derived from any original thinking, nor in my view particularly tailored to the situation in Indigenous communities (as is indeed evident from his new argument that one size fits all when it comes to welfare policy – something I’ve noticed people haven’t addressed on the whole) but come straight from the Third Way/authoritarian communitarianism toolkit. Hence the sort of support he gets from people like Botsman and Kelly.
Other people like Mundine think in terms of empowering Indigenous people through individual ownership within a collective framework (with which I have some problems but nevertheless) but Pearson always seems to play into the big stick welfare discourse, and really has very little to say that’s positive these days. It’s fine to say jobs are the answer, but that doesn’t go far towards doing the hard work of figuring out how to create them, or the commitment that’s necessary financially to create opportunity in terms of both skills and outcomes.
Blond genug, Mark [WWII POW pig German for 'fair enough']. I’ve got nothing intelligent to further contribute.
Small point Mark – we aren’t telling people what they can do with money they have earnt, we are suggesting stopping them spending all their welfare money on alcohol. This is something that should happen for black and white, even if it’s only a small proportion of their welfare cheque. I’ve seen kiddies on the street who haven’t eaten or been bathed in days. I work with people who are left for days while their carers go and get drunk and the only people keeping them alive are over worked stressed clinic staff who won’t allow another death on their concience. Call it emotive if you like, but come to Alice and see for yourself. It is like nowhere else. Before living here I would wholeheartedly agree with your pov. I said the same things myself. Then I came here and saw the children and the women and the neglect. These people live in third world conditions. Urban Indigenous are much different. Come here, I have a spare room, and see for yourself. You can’t understand until you have been here. Rob is a RWDB and I’m left of centre yet we agree on this issue. There has to be something in that don’t you think?
I think you and me and Tony know what we’re talking about, Mindy. Something to do with hearts breaking – ours and theirs.
Rob, you don’t have a lien on compassion, and it doesn’t make your argument right.
Fair point, Kim. On the other hand, I’m not sure I have an argument at all on this. I can’t seem to get much past feeling sick and depressed, which doesn’t help anyone, of course.