Welfare as a means of (even more) control
In the previous post I commented on the government plan to "quarantine" a part of the welfare payment to parents who are considered not to be spending enough money on essentials for their kids and what the move meant in terms of using welfare as a means of control.
The federal cabinet approved the plan, also including a provision to cut welfare payments of parents whose children don't attend or play truant from school. It plans to cross-check Centrelink records and school attendance records to identify children who have not been attending school. Presumably such checks will need to be carried out on regular basis for the plan to work and the government hinted that the job would be outsourced to the private sector.
Naturally, ensuring that children attend school is of great importance. But, again, the proposal is about coercing and punishing people who are economically and socially vulnerable, rather than introducing reforms aimed at providing appropriate services and counselling to both parents and students to encourage school attendance. Without focus on affecting social change, the plan is likely detrimental consequences. Consider a student who is discouraged by having to turn up to school in second hand daggy clothes, with second hand books and with no lunch money. Consider the student who stops attending school because he has trouble understanding school material and has no one at home to lend any help. Consider a student with behavioural problems that his parents are unable to adequately cope with. Or even consider a student who feels schooling is pointless because his parents are too stupid or too apathetic to encourage education.
Is this student going to be assisted by his parents having even less money for clothes or books? Is the student likely to be encouraged to attend school or to perform better by being singled out as a delinquent by the government's welfare laws? Are the parents likely to be any more encouraging towards their child because they are singled out as bad parents?
While a punitive or coercive approach may be justified when all other approaches have been tried and failed - the government has not attempted to encourage school attendance or appropriate spending on essentials for children by putting in place positive programs, education or counselling. During the last eleven years the government has done nothing to remedy any of these social ills. It has gone from doing nothing to absolute control and coercion.
There can only be one conclusion - the government's plan is not about bettering the lot of neglected children. It is about control. It is about punishment. It is about treating all welfare recipients as meriting suspicion and being incapable of reforming without coercion. It is about equating poverty with social criminality. The plan is reminiscent of the Elizabethan (as in Elizabeth I) poor laws - the "deserving poor" get our help, anyone defined as "undeserving poor" is put in a pillory or whipped through the streets (or in our more modern version get their payments cut and get labeled as delinquents).
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