The Australian government has been tightening its grip on welfare benefits through the Income Management program, which paternally dictates how the poor should spend their benefits. Participants may have about 50 to 70 percent their money placed under state control, reserved for essential items like food. Participants must spend the "quarantined" money using a “Basics Card” at government-approved outlets. The rationale is that too many poor people would squander money on gambling, drinking, pornography and other unproductive things when given a chance.
The program was first piloted in destitute aboriginal communities. Income Management is now spreading to several new areas, according to the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), with enrollment based on “referral from child protection authorities” and referrals from social workers “on the grounds of ‘vulnerability.’ " Income Management has been rolled out with another strict "intervention": the threat of suspending certain welfare benefits for parents “whose children are not enrolled or regularly attending school,” thus further punishing poor parents and their children. The targeting of already stigmatized groups - indigenous people, parents in troubled homes, and others deemed financially incompetent - reflects the myth that poverty is cultural and not the result of capitalism. The main problem facing poor people isn’t their bad self-management, but the faillure of the welfare state to provide adequate economic supports for "life essentials." A coalition of community-based service providers and advocacy organizations has dismissed Income Management as both discriminatory and needlessly punitive. To progressive anti-poverty advocates, Income Management threatens to infantilize people who want self-sufficiency but are hindered by structural economic hardships.
Pam Batkin, head of Woodville Community Services explains that the program: "is a simplistic response to very, very complex social problems. People may be unemployed due to lack of education and skills or they may have a disability. Quarantining their welfare payments if they are behind in their rent will not assist them to find a job. Indeed it may make life more difficult for people. Addictions to alcohol, illegal drugs or gambling are complex social issues which cannot be addressed by simply quarantining a person’s welfare payments."
Paddy Gibson of Sydney's Stop the Intervention Collective said the program was “built on racist assumptions that Aboriginal people are incapable of managing their lives; it imposes harsh control measures rather than creating opportunities."
An Australian Council of Social Services policy analysis points to “a lack of evidence that the groups targeted were unable to manage their financial affairs.”
Now that the draconian model has been tested on indigenous people, the government is expanding it to new communities. Razza Kattan of the Arab Council Australia, located in Bankstown, where the program has just been launched, said "The government wants to push people off the books, blame them for their situation, for things that are beyond their control." For service providers, Income Management would damage community relations. “This is a system that will change our relationship and how we work with people. This system is about punishment and control. It's very nasty."
Taken from here
The program was first piloted in destitute aboriginal communities. Income Management is now spreading to several new areas, according to the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), with enrollment based on “referral from child protection authorities” and referrals from social workers “on the grounds of ‘vulnerability.’ " Income Management has been rolled out with another strict "intervention": the threat of suspending certain welfare benefits for parents “whose children are not enrolled or regularly attending school,” thus further punishing poor parents and their children. The targeting of already stigmatized groups - indigenous people, parents in troubled homes, and others deemed financially incompetent - reflects the myth that poverty is cultural and not the result of capitalism. The main problem facing poor people isn’t their bad self-management, but the faillure of the welfare state to provide adequate economic supports for "life essentials." A coalition of community-based service providers and advocacy organizations has dismissed Income Management as both discriminatory and needlessly punitive. To progressive anti-poverty advocates, Income Management threatens to infantilize people who want self-sufficiency but are hindered by structural economic hardships.
Pam Batkin, head of Woodville Community Services explains that the program: "is a simplistic response to very, very complex social problems. People may be unemployed due to lack of education and skills or they may have a disability. Quarantining their welfare payments if they are behind in their rent will not assist them to find a job. Indeed it may make life more difficult for people. Addictions to alcohol, illegal drugs or gambling are complex social issues which cannot be addressed by simply quarantining a person’s welfare payments."
Paddy Gibson of Sydney's Stop the Intervention Collective said the program was “built on racist assumptions that Aboriginal people are incapable of managing their lives; it imposes harsh control measures rather than creating opportunities."
An Australian Council of Social Services policy analysis points to “a lack of evidence that the groups targeted were unable to manage their financial affairs.”
Now that the draconian model has been tested on indigenous people, the government is expanding it to new communities. Razza Kattan of the Arab Council Australia, located in Bankstown, where the program has just been launched, said "The government wants to push people off the books, blame them for their situation, for things that are beyond their control." For service providers, Income Management would damage community relations. “This is a system that will change our relationship and how we work with people. This system is about punishment and control. It's very nasty."
Taken from here
No comments:
Post a Comment