There would be no doubt a number of ways to analyse Peter Saunders’ column supporting the government’s new authoritarianism with regard to welfare, though I do welcome his criticism of the differential application of the stick approach to welfare payments as between Indigenous people and the Northern Territory and everyone else.
Whether or not you accept the principle that Centrelink should spend people’s parenting payments if there is a belief that their children are at risk is an important consideration (and I’m still waiting to hear how responsibility is encouraged by removing it), but there are also key problems raised, as Saunders himself observes, with the implementation.
Saunders writes:
So how will the new system work? Details are sketchy, but it is crucial that only truly dysfunctional families should get caught in Centrelink’s paternalistic net.
It’s far too much to hope, these days, for any government announcement to be well thought through and contain any detail, but I have one question that I don’t believe has been asked.
It isn’t only people who are unemployed, or whose primary income is from welfare, who are in receipt of parenting payments. The huge edifice of Family Tax Payment A and B extend far beyond those who are on Newstart or Supporting Parent Benefit and deep into the middle class, with certain families with a taxable income of 47k paying no net tax at all. The principle – supporting children – is identical to that behind the payment of extra benefits to welfare recipients with kids. Since Saunders frames all this in moral terms, and believes that parenting police are feasible in one way or another, and since it’s also presented as wise stewardship of taxpayers’ money, will these principles be applied to all people in receipt of government transfer payments of any kind related to parenting? And, if not, why not?
Update: Andrew Norton takes a look at the politics of the announcement.
It’s a strange proposal in many ways.
Centrelink’s jurisdiction is Federal, yet child protection services are run by the States. Each state has different legislation and policy to determine what constitutes ‘risk’.
As it stands, poor people are grossly over-represented in the various child protection systems. Partly, this is because many ‘issues’ (domestic violence, parental substance use, use of physical discipline) seem to be statistically higher among the poor. Nonetheless, the incidence of sexual abuse is pretty much consistent across class demographics, suggesting that child protection systems either cannot or will not filter the relatively affluent ‘at risk’ families into the system.
Also, who would assess which parent loses their money? No child protection worker or support service of any sort would want the families with whom work to become even more disadvantaged. Typically, it is magistrate’s who assign court orders and conditions to children and families, and I fail to see why they would be motivated to strip parents of their payments when this is almost certainly going to add to the ‘risk’, rather than decrease it.
Linking the proposal to parents ‘failing to send kids to school’ is also a problem, since, in Victoria, at least, this sort of thing isn’t considered a child protection issue at all, and is meant to be dealt with by the Dept of Education. Indeed, it’s difficult to see how a parent, faced with say, an aggressive 13-year old with mental health issues would ‘force’ the child to attend school without significant physical coercion, which would still put the child ‘at risk’ in any case.
Not all of these problems are Federal, by the way. The States’ handling of these matters has been almost criminally negligent over the years, with backside-covering holding primacy over any attempt to actually address child abuse.
Very well said, Mark. This is just typical Howard doing what he does best, crushing the poor. Putting aside for one moment his recent tactic of kicking people off of the dole (welfare in general) who if unable to find employment find themselves looking at crime as a viable option to survive but we have his robbing Peter to pay Paul shenanigans of “giving” money that should go to the poorest to middle income families. One could argue to create another batch of “battlers” to supple at his teet.
Anyone with an eye on the rubbish they’re trying to pull in the NT on our most disadvantaged and margianlised people can see what he’s trying to get towards, the US system of food stamps etc. How on earth is removing sorry “witholding” 50% of their dole going to help these kids? Do both parents face this or just the one supposedly doing the abusing? or is this going to be applied carte blanche to all Aboriginal people living in their natural communities? He’s “testing” all this out up there in the hope of applying it not only to all Aboriginal people on welfare but everyone in general. Food stamps for everyone and no money at all as clearly every unemployed person spends all their money on alcohol and drugs.
It will be done to avoid the “wedge” of being labelled racist.
Howard’s continued crusade on the poor (WorkChoices, forcing disabled/single parents/unemployed into employment or full time Work for the Dole and of course Aboriginal’s) is so transparent.
Always follow the money!
Let me guess, it will start with the Aboriginal communities as a test , to fine tune the scheme and then be expanded to the whole population, except those family payments that are being received by well off and middle income families
These would then be held in a trust, or administered by a body (similar to super? or the future fund?!) to eventually be returned, or at least controlled through direct debits, etc.
We all know how well that worked for the stolen money from Indigenous wages.
It could then be directed into “community building projects”, local “job creation” and training, eg: farming, mining projects?
The key question is: who would be in charge of the $? the treasurer? an outsourced mgt trust? (Macq Bank!?!), outsourced to some charity? or institute?
Always follow the money!
Let me guess, it will start with the Aboriginal communities as a test , to fine tune the scheme and then be expanded to the whole population, except those family payments that are being received by well off and middle income families
These would then be held in a trust, or administered by a body (similar to super? or the future fund?!) to eventually be returned, or at least controlled through direct debits, etc.
We all know how well that worked for the stolen money from Indigenous wages.
It could then be directed into “community building projects”, local “job creationâ€? and training, eg: farming, mining projects?
The key question is: who would be in charge of the $? the treasurer? an outsourced mgt trust? (Macq Bank!?!), outsourced to some charity?
Mark,
Do you believe that handing people with booze or drug problems an open amount of money encourages responsibility?
I am happy to provide my taxes to pay for education and food for those in need but not to buy drugs or booze. And it is my money.
Food stamps or coupons provide a simple and practical way of regulating the way money is spent.
If part of the payment is given in the form of food stamps or something similar how will responsible parents who are inadvertently caught up in the scheme lose? They will need to spend a minimum on food anyway – the welfare payments are not that large so, for a family, at least 40%-50% will be spent on food anyway. This can be safely quarantined from buying booze, reducing the income available to spend on booze.
Of course ideally only disfunctional families need this arrangement. With respect to middle class welfare lets cut it welfare entirely not try regulate how it is spent.
You describe the approach as ‘authoritarian’ and suggest it is not ‘well thought through’. I think it is responsible and a replication of schemes used in other countries such as the US. It promotes the welfare of women and kids.
If memory serves, the US experience is that issuing food stamps just creates a market where food stamps can be exchanged for real cash, albeit at a discount.
I guess that’s why the proposal is for an eftpos card system. But some bright spark is sure to find a way of dealing with converting Foodcard dollars into cash. After all, that’s how the market, and entrepreneurism, works. if there’s a demand for the service – and there will be – someone will find a way to provide it.
Who decides who is ‘dysfunctional’?
If parents spend their money on booze, but are still able to provide minimal standards of care in accordance with their states’ laws, how is reducing their income going to help?
There are plenty of US policies that are not worth replicating here.
Harry, “middle class welfare” is the mass redirection of money from people without children to people with children.
This a) encourages women to have children, which is super-popular with social conservatives and demographers, and b) is hugely politically popular.
I can’t see it going away any time soon.
Yes let’s all copy US policies. Then our cities will be models of social cohesion and stability, free of violence, addiction and abuse – just like US cities. We’ve all seen the Norman Rockwell pictures.
What this argument makes clear is the way that an attack on one section of the population opens up the possibility of attacks on all.
First they came for the Aborigines and I did nothing because I’m not an Aborigine.
Then they came for the trailer trash and I did nothing for I’m not trailer trash.
Then they came for me.
I know this draining fear. It’s the terror that comes in the night to wowserish people, the anxiety that someone, somewhere out there is having a good time on the dole. Sweating, clutching their pillows, they scream into dark:
The fuck is wrong with poor people self-medicating, Harry? Someone who’s forgone food for a bottle or a fix is not going to take the same pleasure out of it than a well-fed fully employed pillar of society, you’ll just have to take my word for that.
If it’s a matter of cost or efficientlly, you’ll also have to take my word for it that your tax dollars also pay for a whole lot of far more useless shit than getting unemployed people drunk.
An incisive critique of vague proposals is impossible except on the basis of the paucity of material to work with, which suggests a poverty of thinking on the topic.
On one point Saunders is very right- decentralisation. At this point the Govt’s response has all been about re-centralisation to the bureacratic massif in Canberra.
The general idea is beset by pitfalls, most of which, on the basis of general bureacratic competence, we can expect the Govt to stmble into during the slow process of getting something workable happening.
Even what Saunders sees as a relatively straightfoward idea of linking school attendance records to payments is a problem. It’s a fine idea from Canberra, but somewhat more problematic for school teachers who now find themsleves in the unexpected (and probably unwanted) role of Centrelink police. You can imagine the scenes of parents confronting teachers over disputes on attendence figures.
And there seems to be the faint scent of Puritanism at work. The poor, due to their moral condition, need someone looking over their shoulders to ensure responsible spending.
Passing thought: the ‘access’ card is supposed to be issued and used by anyone in receipt of benefits or using Government services. Practically, this works out to almost everyone. Now we have this notion that such payments may need to be ‘quarantined’ – for the good of the children, of course. How will a Government addicted to regulation and bureaucracy resist the temptation to marry these two ideas? We could end up with an enormous database on the spending habits of welfare recipients. And we all know what happens to massive consumer databases. That’s right: they get posted on the web.
Another concern: if you start telling people what they can’t spend their money on, pretty soon you have a vibrant grey or black market, and its associated high prices. The result is that your protected consumers end up spending even more on ‘non-essentials’.
Why should we believe you?
Fatty foods will be next thing quarantined, Tony Abbott is already working on a nanny state approach as we speak (get to love dem big-spending conservative governments when they come up with these silly schemes).
Right, that’s it! It’s no bloody good because we don’t know the details so it must be crap. It will never work. Previous systems have been able to be rorted so why bother trying? Just keep giving them the money, because that has certianly worked a treat.
More from Robert Bollard:
“They came to help the children and I criticised . . . so they did nothing for the children.”
Niemoller is probably rolling in his grave after the crud you’ve tried there Mr Bollard.
First, I’m in favour of controls that benefit children and families through preventing the squandering of welfare, especially on alcohol and gambling.
Second, hotels and clubs, alcohol makers and tobacco companies are big beneficiaries of current free-for-all policies. We should not forget this. Indeed, watch for those groups to start lobbying against any controls.
Third, elegant technical solutions could be used to avoid stigmatising welfare recipients. Financial institutions are already huge beneficiaries of government welfare programs by being designated receivers of funds, so it would be easy to use leverage with them. Much more complicated programs already operate successfully for pharmaceutical goods.
Again, expect the retail financial industry to lobby against any proposals such as this.
I think that the Government might have caused itself some damage by taking this attitude towards welfare.
George Megalogenis has an interesting article in Saturday’s Australian
My partner works as a Social Worker at Centrelink and as such she assesses clients for payments. She feels that this approach has angered lots of people. She works in a safe Labor seat, but if this sort of anger has occurred in those seats that Megalogenis has mentioned, then that could be a factor.
Razor,
Will people never tire of the false dichotomy of; if you don’t support this, you support doing nothing?
I suspect not.
Problem drinking is a real issue, so why not have a real response. Tinkering with the policing of welfare payments may have some small role to play, but the provision of alcohol/substance abuse treatment programs is a major part of the solution. Remote communities have virtually no access to them.
Apparently tinkering is more important.
Michael – “Remote communities have virtually no access to them.” – Solution – don’t live there then!!
As for the dichotomy you speak of – the other side of the dichotomy is “no change” – despite multiple reports, decades of consultations, ATSIC, land rights, race based health, legal and welfare services etc etc – IT HASN”T WORKED!!!
I have been into these communities, my wife has taught in the North of WA and been PHYSICALLY AND VERBALLY assualted IN THE CLASSROOM by both aboriginal students and drunken aboriginal parents, I have relatives in Hermansburg and Alice Springs who work for Church based NGOs in Aboriginal communities. The current systems have failed. The Aborigianl Leadership has failed.
These criticisms do nothing to positively support changing what is happening.
The scare campaign about the Army being involved in law enforcement and removing children is proof that there are people willing failure. Noel Pearson is right – this can only be described as a sickness.
First of all, Mark, recipients of welfare are assumed to be responsible when they first receive it. I may be wrong, but I think your statement implies that receiving all the welfare actually encourages responsibility. I think it neither encourages nor discourages.
Isn’t it proposed that only when it has been demonstrated that they are consistently irresponsible, that part of the payment is quarantined for priority payments? In this context, I believe this is what needs to be done if they or others near them (children) are at risk, and quaranting helps those at risk.
The next hard part, though, is seeing them become responsible again so that quarantining is no longer necessary.
Razor, you assume that your wive’s experience of assault is unusual for a teacher – it is not. My mother is a teacher in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and has been abused by parents and students on many occasions- one child threw a chair at her, amongst other things. Do not extrapolate from that experience that remoteness is the cause of appalling behaviour.
Where exactly was I saying that the assaults on my wife by both Aboriginal students and drunk aboriginal parents were due to remoteness?
I’ll see your chair and raise you a half a house brick and a basebal bat, along with a drunk female who weighed probably two to three times her own body weight. Fortunately the apple of my eye can run pretty quick when she wants to.
Note that she has never been threatened or assualted by either students or parents except during her time at Carnarvon, WA. She has taught for over 15 years in WA, Victoria and the NT in State and Local Government and private, both Catholic and non-Catholic, across a spectrum of low socioeconmic to the most expensive schools. Few teachers would have the diversity of her teaching background thanks to me draggiing her all over the palce for my work – selfish bastard that I am, but I earn more than she does.
Razor,
You can’t have it both ways. If your intent, in asking your opening question was to indicate that you don’t believe that isolation was the cause of the assaults, why raise the point that Carnarvon was the only place this happened to her in the last paragraph? What are you trying to say, exactly?
I don’t consider Carnarvon remote, but it did have a large disfunctional Aboriginal community, and in my wife’s extensive teaching experience she only suffered assaults by Aboriginals.
Razors response shows exactly the bind Anoriginal people find themselves in. If the services don’t exist in remote communities then it’s “don’t live there then”. And drinkers in town are told “go home to your community”.
As for the reports that show “IT DOESN’T WORK”, that’s not quite right. They detail what hasn’t worked and show what has, and encourage more of the latter and much less of the former. The lastest Fed Govt response ignores this simple lesson.
You mean besides the trifling matter of avoiding approaches about which we can say from experience, “IT HASN’T WORKED”?
Avoiding fail strategies would be extremely positive, wouldn’t it?
Don’t worry Harry, I’ll pay your share – as long as you pay my share of the billions being wasted on aircraft for the RAAF. I refuse to have my money thrown away in such a profligate manner. And it is my money.
Cruisey, I’m merely stating that I’m yet to see an argument about how removing benefits will encourage responsibility. It may or may not, but let’s see some evidence.
Razor, rather than arguing from anecdote, you might like to check for some representative figures about the incidence of assault on teachers. In general, my understanding is that assaults on teachers – and also nurses and other health workers – are on the up, and I very much doubt the problem is caused either by the way the welfare system works, or some racial factor as you appear to be implying.
If I thought that Howard & Co. would implement the scheme with proper safeguards – in conjunction with the States, I think neglected children do ‘deserve’ intervention.
This type of program also means that there would be ‘another’ option, other than just removing the children from their family/community.
I do think however, think that state based Community Services case workers should be the only ones who should & could make recommendations for any intervention, and not the Federal Centrelink Dept – who would only process the arrangements etc.
Trained social services/case workers who are already working with dysfunctional families should be the only Govt. representatives who should be authorised to make or recommend these type of interventions. These are the professionals who are already visiting these families, and already currently make/recommend decisions like the removal of children from families, where they are in danger of physical sexual abuse and neglect etc.
This type of intervention shouldn’t be managed by untrained Centrelink staff – or by some special ‘Centrelink squad’ hastily set-up, just for this specific punitive purpose.
There should also be checks and balances, and a right to appeal.
And this type of program should (in a more perfect Australia), form just one part of range of programs for very dysfunctional families including better funded D&A programs for the parents, free long day care for the children, free transport to day care/school and provision of food at school/day care for the children etc etc.
But as with the “Indigenous Emergency” – you get the feeling that Howard’s version, will be another cheap-skate “all stick and no carrotsâ€? program delivered by untrained Centrelink staff over the phone.
And I’m 110% against this type of intervention for adults.
Mark, I agree that there is plenty of scope for this to go wrong, but I’m wondering if you have any ideas about how to ensure that children’s basic needs are met (short of removing them from the family), when the parents have a substance or gambling addiction and there is clear evidence of neglect.
As to whether quarantining (not removal) of payments will have the effect of encouraging parents to resume responsibility, it may do for some. However, I suspect there will be others who will be all too happy for someone else to take over the responsibility for paying the essential bills, especially if they feel they can’t trust themselves to do it.
I do have more concerns about attaching general behavioural conditions (Peter Saunders’ beloved community norms) to the receipt of family assistance. I can understand the argument for someone else taking control of money to ensure that the rent is paid and the children are fed, but I’m not sure how it will ensure that kids go to school, for example. And I think it is important that this is not presented as punishment for drinking and gambling, but as a strategy to ensure that children have the benefit of money that is paid on their behalf.
“The plan is that any parent who allows their child to play truant from school, or who spends their family payments on alcohol, drugs and gambling rather than putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their children’s heads, will have 40 per cent of their payments withheld by Centrelink. This money will then be spent on ensuring their rent is paid and that their children’s food and medical expenses are covered” says Mr ‘Heart’ Saunders.
I would have thought that 40 percent of combined payments of those on benefits and paying rent would easily be taken up “ensuring their rent is paid and that their children’s food and medical expenses are covered”, anyway.
Does Peter think that supplying hot water, heating and electricity are luxury items best kept for the morally superior? Love to see him take a six month break, on the cushy dole, without credit card or call home rights.
I”m not comfortable with a broad implementation of a policy such as this, however, i have seen some a few situations of gross financial mismanagement where it may have merit, for instance, where a substance addicted partner repeatedly accesses parenting money against the mothers wishes.
Currently when the pension runs out and a parent needs food money , the main options are to present to various (usually church or community based) welfare centres and request a food voucher, or apply for a ’special payment’ at centrelink (you are allowed up to 4 non repayable grants a year in special circumstances).
DEmand for these are extrememly high and many access their quota quickly, because, as blunt as it seems, it is known that its better to blow your money on drugs alcohol or pokies and then apply for an emergency payment for food for the children, than the other way round.
Yet, there comes a point when many families reach their limit and rent starts getting behind, kids go hungry and teachers (or the welfare groups) start notifying DOCS. At this point, DOcs usually implemets a set a family support programs (budgeting, parenting etc et c) and monitors the childs subsequent wellbeing if that hasn’t happened already.
Despite this there are still parents who will continue to struggle and for whom a food partitioning system may be of benefit to the welfare of kids.
As an aside, re the single parent welfare to work policy, i am very opposed to the current paremeters, not the least because i feel it disadvantages parents from fully participating in the early years of primary school – (i’m a big advocate of parent school partnerships, reading help, tuck shop, sports days etc ) and alienates single parents from the important networks that are established in the early years.
SC,
Great comment. You are clearly the most sensible commenter on this site. Good on you.
“In general, my understanding is that assaults on teachers – and also nurses and other health workers – are on the up, and I very much doubt the problem is caused either by the way the welfare system works, or some racial factor as you appear to be implying.”
I put it down to the “rights without responsibilities”culture propagated by the dippier elements in the boutique left. The strap should be reintroduced into our schools and used liberally on those students who have forgotten their place. I remember how my old Tech School went to shit in a handbasket after the strap was banned.
Mark, I can’t see how Centrelink could possibly operate this scheme without the involvement of state-based Child Protection services.
Unless Howard duplicates these services in Centrelink – how are they going to identify children ‘at risk’ – other than by state based Child Protection workers? And these Docs workers already liaise with both Dept of Health and Education professionals/workers in respect of mandatory reporting etc. There isn’t any other way to identify children ‘at risk’.
Peter Saunders also can’t think past Centrelink – while further down his piece he says:
Centrelink is surely the most remote bureaucracy. It should be just dispensing the bucks and that’s it.
And why the need for duplication anyway? (Noel Pearson may want a local bureaucracy set up for local employment and historic other reasons)
In respect of the indigenous communities – I’d also suggest that the reasons why rates of sexual assault/abuse/neglect of children is much greater in indigenous communities (even accounting for the endemic poverty/historical reasons) is that social service workers have been reluctant to remove indigenous children from their homes. i.e these children show up as abuse stats. rather than foster kids stats., which would be the case for non-indigenous children, who are more likely to be removed in similar situations.
This has been known for sometime and is mentioned in the 1998/99 NSW Child Death Review Report (which I can’t seem to find a link for).
And surely, this is unintended blowback from the Stolen Generations, and doubly tragic for it.
Generally, it should be remembered that Australia is pretty scabby when it comes to welfare spending.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/23/1093246442918.html?from=storylhs
Melaleuca,
If the strap was introduced at LP – you’d be the first boy I’d be putting forward to receive it.
And what Backroom Girl said…
“The strap should be reintroduced into our schools and used liberally on those students who have forgotten their place.”
And we can bring back the stocks for petty thieves, the branding iron for adulterers, and public flogging for corrupt public officials, while we are at it.
I mean, fair’s fair. If it is good enough for the kids then adults should be prepared to cop it sweet as well.
Hilker says:
“And we can bring back the stocks for petty thieves, the branding iron for adulterers, and public flogging for corrupt public officials, while we are at it.”
I’m glad to see someone else is on my wave-length.
I think that Razor’s anecdote suggests a kind of moral imperative for the poor and dispossessed to somehow behave ‘well’ in the face of their situation. If we take disadvantage seriously, then we have to assume that it makes it more difficult to present a civil front to the world. The same could be said of ‘responsibility’ in an everyday, normative, middle class sense. I think we incorrectly assume that we are totally autonomous and rely only on ourselves to act ‘responsibly’, whereas in reality we have a lot of resources at our disposal that tend to ‘disappear’ when we rhetorically engage welfare issues. The ‘virtuous’ poor are to be admired, but can we realistically, and with all available empathy, expect or demand ‘virtue’ in advance of its material conditions?
“… expect or demand ‘virtue’ in advance of its material conditions?”
What does that mean? In Plain English?
It is plain English, but here are some words of one syllable: it’s easy to be good when you have nice, soft life.
What I mean is that acting ‘responsibly’ involves a whole network of material factors that it is easy for those whose context is middle class and white to take for granted. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone who has no support to be a particularly pleasant person, for example.
Thanks Laura, that was what I was trying to get at. I guess I would extend it to a critique of the formalisation of that moral imperative – to be virtuous in advance of any support at all – into a governmental policy. It’s certainly a vote winner, but it’s also playing to a certain complacency where we don’t recognise our own positions and those things we take for granted that assist us in reacting ‘well’ to others.
Yes well, “material factors” does need defining. Is it money and property or does it include other resources, like social networks? Hence the Plain English snark.
Irrespective, while there are structural factors that can lead to poverty, for example “too many people chasing too few jobs”, some people have lifestyles that result in poverty. The issue of whether people in the latter category ought be stigmatised and punished is altogether separate.
a drunk female who weighed probably two to three times her own body weight.
How can anyone weigh more than their own weight? Either this was some weird Torchwood-like scenario, or Razor is seriously making stuff up.
No, I’m not talking about the causes of poverty but of it’s actual, lived dimensions. I think that policy should take people as they are not as they ought to be, and if they are impoverished – for whatever reason – they lack at least some of the material and social resources that we take for granted, thus it is to be expected that their ‘behaviour’ will not meet middle class norms. If addiction is a factor, then that needs to be addressed concurrently. It’s not like we can just wait around for an addict to ‘come good’ before offering to meet their basic human needs.
I think he meant his wife’s own weight. Took me a while, too.
If his wife is a 50-kilo sylph then the evildoer must have been either 100 or 150 kilos; either way, I can’t think that outrunning her can have been much of a stretch.
‘Course, if she was fat, she must have been bad. Stands to reason.
Adam, I think that is pretty much what is being suggested. People whose behaviour doesn’t meet societal norms will be encouraged to do so by fairly crude manipulation of the minimal social security system. As apart of an overall approach of treatment program, economic development etc, it could be sensible, but as proposed so far, it isn’t. I guess we’ll know more (a little) tomorow about what is actually being proposed.
As you suggest there is a very strong tendancy to ignore the kind of invisible supports that contribute to what people are. It’s especially easy to ignore when looking at a non-dominent-culture minority. The cult of individualism that we have overlooks the important instititional factors to go to forming the supportive ties that help make us what we are. Those ties rest on an implicit understanding of the social mores, patterns of relating, and communication conventions that exist within the dominent culture and are assumed to be the natural state, transcending culture and history. Hence our successes are down to our individual efforts, and so too the failures. It feels compelling, but it’s a fraught conclusion in this context.
And in a testament to the Govt’s incoherent policy approach, a Child Safety program in a remote NT community that was endorsed in the “Little Children are Sacred” report as a model for programs of this type, was unsuccessful in gaining Commonwealth funding to continue.
Believe it or not.
I think Razor’s story is a bit of a red herring, and I’d prefer it if we could refocus discussion around the policy and political issues.
On Backroom Girl’s comment, my expertise doesn’t lie in this area so I’d be reluctant to do instant policy on this thread! Indeed, my whole concern, shared by several commenters here (and I agree with a lot of the points made by BG, Jo and sc), is that these announcements are policy on the run, and not necessarily informed by expertise or evidence. I’m not sure how much evidence actually lies behind the “rights without responsibilities” stuff – but I am planning to read at least a fair slab of Pearson’s Cape York Institute report, and I would hope that coming in at 373 pages, it includes substantive policy discussion and not just rhetoric.
I do know something about how Centrelink works and I know the social workers employed by Centrelink are badly over-worked, and the frontline staff who take their job seriously usually resist having to make these sorts of judgements. It’s basically a rule-based bureaucracy, and it really only can operate effectively if it sticks to that.
What Saunders alludes to, and where I suspect the thing will head, is probably a system of case management similar to the Job Network (also something I know something about) to make these assessments. Since Pearson’s idea of community based commissions is obviously particular to isolated Indigenous communities (and may not be a bad one per se), it wouldn’t make any sense in an urban context. Unfortunately, assessments made according to profit incentives and by people who aren’t properly trained or resourced to make them are characteristic of outsourcing such decisions to employment service providers – an issue which also arises with regard to disability assessments. I see no prima facie reason why a similar set up for people in this situation wouldn’t be subject to the same problems. Being run by a church doesn’t give any guarentee of quality practice, in and of itself, in welfare services.
Update: Andrew Norton takes a look at the politics of the announcement.
Could it be argued that its actually a preventative response toward that small group of parents and children who would otherwise be highly at risk of state intervention by DOCS (due to chronic mis direction of benfits away from food, shelter and clothing) without sounding paternal ? I’m not sure, but i wonder if in practice this may be the effect?
It’s possible, sc, but that still begs the question of how risk is assessed, does it not?
Thanks Mark – I couldn’t see how they could make it work – but you depressingly show how easily they could do it.
I’d forgotten how much the Job Network and church/private providers have become enmeshed with Centrelink in respect of punitive “mutual obligations” requirements, and unemployment had become case managed etc.
But assessing ‘children at risk’ surely requires way more expertise than assessing someone’s work availability or their skill requirements for a low skilled generic factory, office or retail job.
But how does Centrelink identify this small group of families, as per Sublime Cowgirl, except through Docs? Are families going to be identified – by filling in workbooks with copies of their Coles/Woollies reciepts?
But that’s precisely the difficulty with the assessments of people either for a disability pension or in assessing their capacities to work (as most are now required to), jo, unfortunately. It requires much more expertise than what is usually present within those providers. The bureaucratic rulebook aspect of it, which governs the service providers, can also compound the problem, particularly when the rules are misapplied (as they very frequently are – if you follow Social Security Appeals Tribunal decisions!)…
Mark says:
“It’s possible, sc, but that still begs the question of how risk is assessed, does it not?”
Are you able to offer a constructive alternative?
A little boy was killed here in Victoria by his mother’s partner a few days ago. The postmortem showed the boy had 160 wounds to his body inflicted over a number of months. Please furnish your plan for encouraging responsible parenting in the underclass.
As I said, melaleuca.
I’m rapidly coming to the view, particularly in light of the discussions around the “state of emergency”, that very often that question is asked to protect the policy from criticism. It is for the government to provide well thought out policy that draws on research and expert opinion. There are a small number of areas where I would have some claim to policy expertise, but child protection is not one of them. But, as a citizen, I am still entitled to ask questions and to criticise principles, and point to likely results. Your use of an emotive example doesn’t impress, either, melaleuca.
Fine, Mark.
But surely you have some broad brush stroke ideas on this matter? You are after all, a trained sociologist and learned individual.
As to my example, it is emotive but a daily reality. It is sometimes important to note that people live or die according to policy in this area. The “my expertise doesn’t lie in this area” contention does nothing to help these kids and it also unintentionally, in a sense, invalidates your criticism.
No, I couldn’t disagree more, melaleuca. It does not, and actually blog comments per se rarely do anything “to help these kids”.
I would be supportive of interventions in this area which seek to modify behaviours which do direct or indirect harm to children, but I doubt that the manner in which this policy seeks to do that is the most effective, because, as I said, I do know something of how Centrelink and the Job Network operate. I would want to either hear from people who have worked or studied in the area of child intervention or make a study of the literature myself before I’d propose an alternative policy.
Hardly a daily reality mel – if cases such as the one you describe were a daily reality, they wouldn’t be considered newsworthy.
This deals in detail with the question of expert assessment and treatment of child abuse, with particular reference to the current ‘national emergency’.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1964851.htm
Mark – one of the kids who assaulted my wife and whose 100kg plus (yes – my wife used to weigh about 45kg) drunk Mother tried to assault my wife in the classroom, hung himself at the age of 11 in 1997-8. He was known by name in the WA Ed Dept at age 7.
Some red herring.
Thanks Hilker.
(note the reference to Attachment theory in the transcript btw GUmmo
Just to clarify, however we have to take care not to just lump evrerything under the term child abuse.
Parental neglect of a child is profoundly different to physical, emotional or sexual abuse, though there is no doubting they sometimes occur together. Each of these categories also have a extensive spectrum in themselves, and requite differing responses.
The diverting of a proportional amount of parenting payments to parenting essentials such as food, clothing, shelter is a very specific policy aimed at over coming financial/physical neglect of kids needs due to financial mismanagement.
To blanketly enforce this upon all aboriginal parents in certain communities is obviously appalling because it assumes universal inability to manage money, and is a demeaning assumption. Would it apply to the local doctor and his family if they were aboriginal, even if they came from Brisbane?
I agree with Mark that the assessment is the key . That is not to say undertaking an assessment of parental financial managment capacity would be difficult, its just that it would be an expensive undertaking if it is to be implemented and managed in a rehabilitative , child centred framework, not a punitive one.
Razor, I’m not suggesting that experience wasn’t painful and unpleasant and should never occur, but I’m questioning its generalisability, and the direction discussing it took the thread.
Unfortunately, sc, I have grave doubts about whether that will be the outcome.
SC makes the important point of distinguishing child abuse from child neglect, which are often being conflated in the current debate.
It’s the latter that the proposed welfare measures target. A further distinction also needs to made, and that is whether the neglect is about an unwillingnes or an inability to provide appropriate shelter, clothing and nutrition. Most reports make it clear that it’s a significant part of the issue is entrenched social disadvantage, particularly family and community economic hardship. Quaranting a portion of welfare benefits will not do anything to address the broader issues, such as sky-high basic food prices. The research also points out the need to confront a range of other issues such as housing, availability of child-care, family support services, schools etc.
The current focus on one tiny aspect of the solution, one of unproven efficacy, looks very much like policy on the run, and remote Aboriginal communities are to be the guinea pigs.
SC,
I took a look at the transcript to see what was said about attachment – and I noted that Jill Sewell committed a bit of a howler on deafness:
This was the subject of a bit of controversy a few years ago, when someone involved in teaching deaf children actully had the temerity to take a swipe at the notion that cochlear implants are a fix for deafness (well that’s how it got reported). In fact the criticism was that waiting for the cochlear implant to “fix” the deafness led to exactly the sort of problems with language acquisition that Sewell refers to, so it’s still necessary (or desirable) for profoundly deaf kids to learn sign language, as early as possible.
Beyond that, I don’t find anything that Sewell says about the need for infants to grow up with secure attachments to mum objectionable, and I’m not qualified to comment on its role in frontal lobe development. What I do know – from personal experience, and talking to a lot of f***ed up people – is that there are plenty of ways that your family and social life can f*** you up. I’ve also collected a lot of purely anecdotal evidence that a particular pattern of family life which exists across all classes is especially likely to f*** people up, sometimes quite severely – and while attachement might play a part in that f***ing up, I don’t think it’s the whole story.
One thing I did get – serendipitously – from visiting the Wikipedia page on attachment in infants was this link (via learned helplessness) to the fundamental attribution error. It seems to me that it has some application to discussions of the undeserving poor, whatever their race.
I think the biggest problem is that poverty is a *complex* issue, as are child abuse, substance abuse, addiction, and a lot of the other endemic problems associated with a life of chronic welfare requirements. Yes, part of the complexities of all of these issues are their intersection with matters of criminal law; but in *none* of them is it the *only* factor to be considered.
For example, let’s look at child abuse. It has been documented that a lot of people who abuse children were previously abused as children themselves. Having grown up in an environment where such things were “normal” (for them), they may not be aware of any alternate behaviours. In many cases, people who abuse children are doing so because at the time they commit the abuse they are angry and frustrated, and they genuinely know of *no* *other* *way* to deal with their anger and frustration than through violence. So there are at least *two* people with problems in any situation where there is child abuse occurring – the child, and the abuser (probably more, since other immediate family members would be aware of the abuse, even if they don’t admit it). Both of them need help – the child, to prevent them from growing up thinking what happened to them is “right” or “normal”; the abuser, to help them cope with the abnormality which was foisted on them, and to hopefully provide a set of alternative coping strategies to violence.
None of that is going to be accomplished wholly and solely through Centrelink. The staff there aren’t trained to deal with it, and they’re generally a touch or three too busy to actually be able to do anything about it. The average Centrelink staff member sees their average customer on Family Payment approximately once every four to six weeks, for as long as it takes them to drop in a form – or even less often if the person decides to mail things through. Even then, if the average Centrelink staff member suspects there is something wrong, they are *very* limited in what they can do – putting a comment like “I suspect this mother is hitting her children” or similar on someone’s record is illegal unless you actually have evidence to back this up. [I learned this the hard way - I worked in the Unemployment section of Centrelink for a short while, and I had one customer who turned up at a compulsory interview unshaven, unwashed, unkempt and stinking to high heaven. I wasn't allowed to record this in my report of the interview. Later, I was called on to read out the full text of Employer Contact Certificates to this same customer, at which point it dawned on me that it was highly likely this person was functionally illiterate. I wasn't allowed to put that on their record either.]
There isn’t going to be a “quick fix” for any of these problems. Instead, dealing with these issues is going to be a multi-decades-long process of removing systemic injustices and maladjustments. Of course, this doesn’t look good on the short-term electoral balance sheet, so no government is going to bother with any of it.
Oh i’m with you one hundred percent on this one. Twin studies on childhood (and later adult) resiliance would verify that attachment is only a part of the picture.
Just mentioned itto yout as an example of how integral the theory is in current thinking around early child development, given we spoke about it last week.
Yes, and it drives me crazy when people make claims for causitive effects when they are merely correlated. (not that most of us arent guilty of it to some extent, its part of the human tendency to want to organise data into a cohesive/consistent framework order to make sense of it.)
The fundamental attribution error has really wide ramifications, not only for this debate but for the one on terrorism that Anna posted. When I was reading everyone’s contributions on that thread I was thinking about all the research done into how torturers are “trained”. There are great similarities with cults and with terrorism and they found that the vast majority of people, put in those circumstances (removed/excluded from other sources of social reinforcement and then rewarded only for the behaviours sanctioned by the cult/terrorist cell) will behave in the way required of them by the group. Situational factors are paramount.
Sewell would be aware of your point, Gummo, she was just saying that without early exposure to language, language acquisition is damaged, and yes that means exposure to sign language for deaf children, because it has all the properties of a separate language, it isn’t just an alternate medium for english. There is a lot of controversy in deaf culture about language- signed english vs auslan and what cochlear implants will mean for their community and for their language.
Sublime Cowgirl. You are welcome. (BTW, great handle, one of the best I have seen on blogs.)
You can say that again. It is also extremely common. I spend most of my working week trying to make sense of a particularly confounded peer-reviewed database in medical science (somewhat related to the issue being discussed here), and it astounds and appalls me how often that error turns up, how persistent it is, and how insidious its effects are for patients. And this is from the so-called professional, world leading, scientific experts! At least amateurs have an excuse.
I also very much regret to say that quite a few of these experts are very good at sniffing the prevailing political winds and telling the powers that be what they want to hear, dressed up in wonderfully compassionate pseudo-scientific language, of course. It gets the funding dollars rolling in. You can bet there are one or two of those people whispering in the government’s ear right now. Sad and cynical, but all too true, I’m afraid.
In the case of parents whose substance abuse/mental health/gambling/general dissolution is so advanced that these measures are being proposed, isn’t that what DOCS is for?
Why do children in these unbelievably toxic and life-threatening social/family environments not given safe refuge until the parents are better able to cope?
DOCS only take children of of their family of origin in the last instance, when all other options of supporting the family unit have been exhausted, as much as people may choose to believe otherwise.
Earlier Jo wrote:
The CHild Safety reforms of QLd faced this complex issue several years back. Certainly in practice there was a general reticence to remove children from indigenous communities except in absolutely dire situations for fear of perpetuating the dispossession of culture and identity. Unfortunately this meant indigenous kids were left in violent situations far longer than white city kids.
Its a very complex area, and i could give you any number of difficult examples, but this is not the forum to do this.
Mal Brough isn’t making policy on the run (sadly). He floated this idea towards the end of last year and I know that his department has been working out the mechanics. I’ve heard they have it worked out. Although, since they haven’t told us how it will work, I’m having trouble imagining how it will work. Perhaps I’m not machiavellian enough.
All that aside, I wonder if they would think it reasonable to garnishee the wages, or fine, people who were drinking too much, not paying the bills and seriously neglecting their children? What makes people in receipt of govt benefits so special?
“The three-month-old’s skull was allegedly bashed with a rock at Epenarra, 120 kilometres east of the Stuart Highway, south of Tennant Creek. The community was bracing for payback violence last night as police interviewed a 17-year-old youth over her death.
Five carloads of youths – armed with nulla nullas, knives and other weapons – were seen entering the community about 9pm last night. Police turned the Herald back 60 kilometres from Epenarra, saying they could not guarantee the safety of anybody who entered the community.” http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/teenager-arrested-after-baby-is-bashed-to-death-in-outback/2007/07/03/1183351209798.html
How do the supporters of self-determination, laissez faire welfarism and the permit system feel about this. For example, should the outside world intervene to nullify the payback system, even if it is accepted by the local Aboriginal community? Also, is it acceptable to prevent the media entering communities to do their job as the fourth estate? Also, if these communities are not safe for the media, how is it that they are safe for children?
melaleuca, If you think by taking away 50% of someone’s welfare and violating what rights they had left will decrease (and not actually increase) crime you’re an imbecile.
Correct Futt Bucker. A much more comprehensive policy is needed. However I maintain that a policy that has carrots and no sticks will not work.
Melaleuca, the above quote presents quite a different “take” on what happened, than the quote that you provided – which casts your question
in quite a different context, I believe ?
As for the “fourth estate” – well from what I have seen over the last few years, it is no more relevant than any other propaganda arm of the federal govt., and deserves no “special” consideration until it can demonstrate its independence to all.
Part of the problem is a diabolical shortage of resources in Aboriginal communties. Aboriginal health workers and social workers are in extremely short supply, and, given the issues they face, are probably more prone than others to burn-out. I think there’s only one Aboriginal psychologist in the entire country, and Aboriginal foster-carers are very difficult to find, even in urban centres.
Yes those are significant factors, HR, (though i think you’ll find there are a few more psych’s than you think..).
i was once involved in establishing an alternative care program for indigenous kids on bail where their families were unable to provide to suitable care and it was my experience that proportianally aboriginal care-providers were actually substantially easier to recruit in FNQ then non-aboriginal care providers.
Many aboriginal and islander families are extrememly generous (often with an active christian service ideology), community minded and prepared to extend support to disadvantaged children without question. THe difficulty is the recruiting the numbers required. And yes to the burn out factor, as involvement in this program was but one of many different community programs most of my carers were actively engaged with – many in local, state and national leadership. ( i cant drop names of course
)
The indigenous death dance continues: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/06/1971314.htm