Intervention’s welfare management to extend across Australia
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The Federal Government will shortly announce the extension of income management Australia-wide to black and white welfare recipients as part of its reintroduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory, Crikey has been told. In May this year, the Government committed to the introduction of legislation restoring the RDA and NT anti-discrimination laws in October, meaning either this week or next week. The Bill was not among those considered by Caucus earlier this week. The Government has been grappling with how to restore the RDA while maintaining the income management system imposed on indigenous communities under the NT intervention. Currently, half of income support and family assistance payments, and all lump sums including the Baby Bonus, are set aside and accessible only via a “BasicCard” for buying essential goods and services. They cannot be used for products such as alcohol, tobacco, pornography or gambling. It currently applies in 73 prescribed areas in the NT and to people who live in town camps. Last year the Government rejected a proposal to make income management voluntary, which would mean it complied with the RDA. Since then, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has been involved in extended consultations with indigenous communities. Some legal academics and indigenous community representatives argue that income management can only comply with the RDA if it is extended community wide. According to Crikey’s sources, the Government will extend income management to welfare recipients, white and black, across Australia, as part of its restoration of the RDA. While the RDA affects other Intervention measures like alcohol and p-rnography bans, income management is the primary stumbling block to the Act’s restoration. In recent months, the Government has rolled out income management on a “free and confidential” voluntary basis in other areas, and earlier this month announced success in rolling it out across Perth. As part of the Perth initiative, however, the WA Department of Child Protection will also obtain the power from early next year to recommend to Centrelink that income management be applied for the benefit of children. Under those arrangements, “income managed” families would, on the recommendation of the Department of Child Protection, have up to 70% of welfare payments and all lump sums quarantined and accessible only via BasicCard. The WA initiative may provide the template for a nation-wide, non-voluntary income management process that would empower child protection agencies to impose income management on any family where the safety of children was at risk. Such an arrangement would not be racially-based and would therefore comply with the RDA. A nationwide rollout will mean considerable additional costs for Centrelink, which administers the BasicCard scheme. Centrelink is receiving $105m in 2009-10 for administration of NT income management. Minister Macklin’s office was unable to provide a comment by deadline. |
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15 Comments
This is just ludicrous. I recall a program where aboriginal people could nominate to receive their pensions, benefits etc weekly, and to receive help in learning how to budget and handle money. It was very successful, and so it was stopped. This happened under Howard. People in the NT in receipt of aged pensions, veteran pensions etc are also put on this invasive interruption to their lives; making them travel long distances to buy their essentials, even though they don’t have dependant children living with them. They, along with many others are incensed by this injustice. Some may be ill or infirmed in some way. Bad enough that they(or their wives) were treated like garbage while they served, but now they’re being forced into more difficulty and discrimination.
What about those ex priests, brothers and teachers in NSW who’ve been charged with various degrees of alleged sexual assault/abuse of students in their care at a well known school in Orange/Bathurst? Did they have their incomes quarantined? Have their homes been reclaimed by the NSW or Federal govt? As far as I’m aware, they’re all non-indigenous (white)males, so I guess not!
It is ludicrous to punish all indigenous people, implying that they’re all abusers of kids, but keep the dangerous legislation re the Family Law Act, that enables Judges in the Family Law Court to insist, that women comply with orders to hand their kids over to an abusive partner/father every second week or so, under the new laws introduced by Howard/Ruddock. I’ve heard mention of some amendments to this horrific practice, and it can’t come too soon. If I had young children, I’d pick them up and run if they were being abused by their father, but that would make me a criminal. I could be charged with contempt or kidnapping. How damned ridiculous is that?
Aboriginal people are being forced to pay up to $600 and more to get a taxi to Alice Springs or Darwin or another major town, in order to buy their groceries and other essentials, even though there’s a closer store, where they can buy some goods, like flour and sugar in bulk. Sadly, in some cases those stores have been forced to close down, as the Govt is nominating the major grocery chains as the only places where aboriginal people can shop. They’re being forced to fill a taxi in order to cut costs, but it takes ages to get there and back. Who looks after the kids when they’re not there? Damned stupid!
I also understand, that fresh food is ridiculously expensive, and I’d say the major stores would take full advantage of their ‘windfall’? Putting prices up when aboriginals go shopping. (I notice it on pension days in southern NSW?)Unless you have good refrigeration in the NT, people would need fresh food each day. How do they comply with dietary requirements of 5 servings of vegies and 2 servings of fruit per day for their kids? How much for fresh juice as opposed to cordials, which have too much sugar for kids general and dental health. I understand that aboriginal kids who used to have beautiful teeth are suffering from more decays etc. This is not conducive to ‘closing the gap’? Bad teeth can cause all sorts of illnesses and diseases!
I think Jenny Macklin and others (Kevin and Therese?) should live up there for a few weeks and find out what life is all about for aboriginal people in remote areas. They could live in one of the ‘homes’ built without wires connecting the light switch to the centre of the room. (recent report on aboriginal housing - The World Today - ABC - several months ago?) Read that to exercise the eyebrows. No running water in the kitchen? No locks on doors. Overcrowding! Too many of these houses built by shonky workpeople, who did things on the cheap and pocketed the profits! They should be hunted down and charged with fraud! And so it goes on, and on and on!
So for those depressed and stuck in the welfare cycle, with inadequate help to find work even if there is any in the areas they happen to live in will now be forced to reveal their low status whenever they need to buy groceries.
There is already a stigma felt by these people for being on welfare, even if no one actually knows, yet now it will be obvious to the the people in the shopping qeue, the checkout person etc… This is an extra weight on those who struggle with maintaining any self esteem whilst unemployed. The humiliation felt by a lot of welfare recipients can only be made worse by this.
Obviously no one will care as the impression most Australian’s seem to have of welfare is that everyone on it is selfishly lazy and a burden on the community, despite the fact that any welfare is spent within whatever area the recipient lives in and so therefore contributing to the business’s income and employment of staff at those businesses. Abolish all welfare and each community will simply have less money spent within it, besides the obvious increase in poverty, homelessness, crime etc. So demonising welfare and portraying it as a waste of money, a burden on the community does not make economic sense to me. Though anyone who believes they work hard and are regularly resentful of the inescapable fact of paying taxes will certainly disagree despite any recognition of the way welfare spreads money throughout communities and contributes to the economy.
This BasicCard approach will recieve a lot of support, yet I can only see how demeaning it may be for those on welfare (whether they are the ‘deserving’ welfare recievers or those ‘lazy partiers’ the right wingers love to hate), and that it excarbates the dislocation those welfare recipients feel from society. And for arguably no real benefit to anyone.
Dear Bernard,
Many thanks for your article. Perhaps you could clarify one point. My understanding is that if income Management were to be rolled out across Australia it would still only apply to parents where the safety of children is considered to be at risk.
In the NT ALL Aboriginal prople living in prescribed areas who are receiving wefare payments are Income Managed, whether or not they are caring for children.
I fail to see the justification for the continuation of Income Management in the NT in this form simply because other parts of Australia will be forced onto a similar system aimed at parents whose children may be at risk. Could you please explain the logic of this.
If this has worked for indigenous communities then obviously it should be extended to the general community. Parents and gaurdians who abuse alcohol or gamble excessively are not identifiable by skin colour, nor are they identifiable by whether or not they are on welfare. But if we can help families to stand up to those who destroy themselves and their family with drugs and gambling then we should do it, regardless of race, creed or economic circumtsances.
Now how can we deal with the financially well-off drug or gambling addicted lawyers, doctors, politicians, public servants, garbos, welders, motor mechanics, journalists etc who make their childrens’ lives hell?
I couldn’t give a stuff about the intervention being racially discriminatory but my libertarian instincts don’t run to respecting the right of one’s children to be useless junkies or other people to be unemployed burdens on the employed when a bit of the rough and ready heavy handedness which is the best that we can manage in criminal law and other mean of social control might at least jolt a few in the right direction.
Sorry Jaded John your argument won’t bear the weight you try to put on it. People spending welfare money may contribute to a depressed economy as a good war does or building pyramids but it doesn’t actually get over the simple fact that it involves enabling people who aren’t working (contributing to the GDP anyway) to spend at the expense of what people who are productive, or at least employed, might otherwise have been able to spend or save.
So Bravo to our courageous government of the Left. Let’s hope the Lower Orders (sorry Underclass - or should I say Permanently Disadvantaged Often Through No Fault of Their Own) can be brought into line even if bringing drunken Aborigines into line has proved a hopeless venture.
So abolish welfare, and give the amount they would have gotten to the ‘productive and employed’, would that not still be the same amount circulating the community? Reducing the tax the productive pay that goes on welfare and letting them keep what they earned doesnt mean that more money is flowing within the community does it? It just means it is staying in the hands of those that earned it. Many believe this is an ideal situation, though Im not sure it would add to Australia’s prosperity.
And then with all those formally on welfare recieving no money what kind of burden will they be on society then?
Whenever Income Management (IM) is discussed, the fact that on these Prescribed Areas in the NT, IM is applied to ALL Centrelink recipents without exception is either skirted or ignored.
Exemption was offered to two retired nuns (non-Aboriginal) which they refused because “if we are exempted so should everybody else”.
In Yuendumu we have a pensioner couple that are Order of Australia recipients. They are on IM.
Increasingly we (at one of the locally owned stores) would get phonecalls from local people, e.g. “I’ve just bought a second-hand washing machine from such and such in Alice Springs, how much will it cost me for your truck to pick it up and bring it to Yuendumu?” Not exactly people that need their income “managed” by Centrelink personnel. Many of these people are now on IM.
Because so far the Yuendumu Community is refusing to sign the 40 year leases, not a single residential house for local residents has been built here by the government, but in Yuendumu we are getting a new Centrelink office!
I’ll say again… it isn’t IM per se that we find offensive. It is the blanket application of it that is inherently unfair, and counter-productive. It is a highly inefficient system that does nothing towards its purported aims.
To me this sounds an excellent idea. However, it hasn’t gone far enough. Ideally this act should also apply to the non-indigenous peoples of Australia. Most of society’s ills are caused by people who are only too happy to spend and/or waste money they haven’t got.
The drunken louts who beat up people inside and outside our pubs. The little old dears sitting and farting on their pub chairs whilst feeding next fortnight’s pension money into the mind-numbing pokies. The ladies out at Caulfield, Moonee Valley and Flemington who blow their husband’s money on the two hundred to one shot with four white socks in the Melbourne Cup.
All those obese people one sees barely able to even walk down the streets would be delighted to have income management, it would help to stop them from eating 1500 kilojoules of c/rap at the famous Scottish restaurant, every day.
Society is riddled with trash that out-spends their income in a ratio of three hundred to one.
It might help to moderate the spending habits of our biggest corporate and business sectors. Oz needs to put its people in sound economic patterns. We all need to use the Racial Discrimination Act.
Most of all those serial rapists of our money, the government-of any hue, should set the standard by actually looking after our money, instead of spending it on a trillion meetings where the government has no intention of doing anything about the topic under discussion.
¡¡¡ B R I N G I T O N!!!
does anyone know if this extends to the disabled and the aged pensions? is it just families in receipt of benefit with/without children?
I’ve seen news coverage in the past, where people on veterans pension and aged pension are also having their incomes quarantined - so much for the BS that goes on each year on April 25th? The reasoning? Probably is easier for Centrelink? Many aboriginal people who are providing for their kids; sending them to school etc are also being victimised. I believe that the only reason the Rudd Govt is extending this around the country is to bypass the Racial Discrimination Act. They’ll be able to say, we’re applying it in non-indigenous communities too. Of course, what they’ll omit to say is, ‘we’re not doing it across the board like in the NT’!
In every State and Territory in the country, whether it’s city, regional or remote, aboriginal people receive less income than non-indigenous people. (Australian Bureau of Statistics). I’ve also read, that only 15% of aboriginal people drink alcohol, 85% don’t, as opposed to the rest of the community, which is the opposite to that. Which leads one to ask the same question as LIZ JOHNSTON asked? What about those well off people who are making their kids lives miserable?
If you take notice of the news items on all channels, sadly, this includes the ABC and SBS, they always show the same set of films - a couple of variations, but the same. Take note in future and see if I’m right! Sometimes the story is not about alcohol intake etc, but you see the same footage of aboriginal people, either in a park and drinking, or in a run down community that looks pretty awful. There are heaps of people, areas etc even in remote areas where parents are raising their kids, and doing a great job with almost zilch - this does not portray the ‘right image’ of racist govts/media for their own agendas. Denigrate a people, and you can rip them off, ignore their basic needs, and pay them next to nothing, and spend next to nothing too!
If Rheumatic Fever which can leave kids with serious and life threatening heart conditions was being diagnosed in non-aboriginal communities, the people would be screaming, and rightly so - it was eradicated after the end of WW2 with the improvements in sanitation, housing and paying attention to overcrowding etc. 60 yrs on and aboriginal kids are still suffering. While the govt(all govts, past and present, state and federal) puts everyone off side via lies or exaggerations, they can ignore this - and have obviously succeeded! And we let them get away with it! Shame on us!
ALL Centrelink payments to people whose addresses are on “Prescribed Areas” are Income Managed. Even the “stimulus package” was. Guess what people in Yuendumu did with their “stimulus” money? They went and spend it in Alice Springs! No stimulus to our own internal economy.
In Yuendumu ALL pensioners are on IM (including at least two non-Aboriginals) whether they are looking after children or not. Whether they have ever had alcoholic drinks or not. Whether they know what pornography is or not. Whether they have provided their dependent children with healthy food or not. Whether they have lead exemplary lives or not. Whether they are able to handle money or not.
At Yuendumu we’ve had two stores providing “healthy food at reasonable prices” for decades (I know as I manage one of these). We have consistently scored well on the NT Government nutritionists periodic prices, variety and quality surveys. Yet FaCSIAH propaganda keeps insulting us by pretending that the Intervention imposed store (that happens to be the dearest Yuendumu store) is providing such for the first time.
From “Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory-Budget Initiatives”:
“Extension of income management and financial management support services: $105.9 million to continue comprehensive and compulsory income management, which has demonstrated benefits for women and children. This comprises:
$89.2 million for income management and associated Centrelink delivery costs and for the continued operation of the BasicsCard until 30 June 2010;
$4.9 million to continue financial management support services started in 2008-09 in Darwin, Alice Springs and Katherine town camps, Hermannsburg, Groote Eylandt, Wadeye, Central Desert Shire, Barkly Shire, Roper Gulf Shire, Laynhapuy Homelands and Maningrida which will continue to help people build their money management and budgeting skills; and
$11.8 million for the development of a new point of sale delivery mechanism to replace the BasicsCard from 1 July 2010.
I believe this $105M exceeds the actual amount being Income Managed.
Wow! Children saved by a bizarre inefficient bureaucratic attack on the rights and dignity of their guardians! How bloody visionary! Australia the clever country. Think I’ll vote for them again.
And all this to support the view, that ‘Little Children Are Sacred’? yes, we can see that!
How many have been arrested and charged for the abuse of kids? A couple, a few? They even drove a young man to suicide, as the police persecuted him and his girlfriend. Why? They were in love and both families were OK with their relationship. They were going to get married. She was under age - just! The same thing happens in every high school, every neighbourhood in the country, and the young men involved aren’t driven to their deaths!But he was an aboriginal young man - that’s what made the difference!
There’s no end to it!
It seems very unfair to deny the poor access to porn - why shouldn’t they be able to enjoy some healthy masturbation too?
They get what they deserve
How dare they be poor and live in this time. This is the time of the rich. I’m so lucky that I am perfect and altough born without a cent(of my own, of course mummy and daddy had six figure incomes)I can now afford everything I need. If I can do it then so can they. I had no help (except for all the people who helped me and free education.)These lazy good for nothings. They should work harder at minimum wage like the refugees I help with my spare time(you should see how grateful they are and how they treat me like a god bwohaha…..sorry lost myself in my ego again).
The low life should be extinguished like mein fuhrer said.
Cannot believe some of the bs on this stream.
I would like to propose a rule. If you have any debt then you dont get to bag other people for their debt. If you are free and clear then ok. also if you have a plasma or a mcmansion then you dont get to bag people fior having a plasma or a mcmansion.
Deluded.
@HEATHDON MCGREGOR @BISCUIT BARREL: You both did the irony better than me. Well done!