Via Nick Costello Nicks comment on Kevin Andrews page: (and my I say yet again, well said!!!) I have been reading media-coverage of this speech and I find it confusing. While I agree with your belief that Australias welfare-system is nurturing cycles of poverty rather than assisting people out of poverty, I do not understand how you can make such a suggestion without identifying the core-problem, which is the pervasive culture-of-paternalism entrenched within it. I also find your references to actuarial modelling and employment covenants somewhat vague. Given that actuarial-modelling is really risk-assessment, I wonder what parameters have been set for the analysis. You mention perverse incentives within the system, and suggest that these have encouraged families experiencing long term welfare dependence to take actions that are detrimental to their own long term interests. You go on to suggest that people receiving Newstart Allowance have been driven by a perverse incentive to test their eligibility for the Disability Support Pension because it pays $260 per fortnight more, yet neglect to mention the fact that Newstart Allowance is , quite simply, not enough to live on. From where I stand it seems that the perverse incentives you speak of really involve the personal behaviour of individuals rather than any systemic issues. If that is not the case, why is it necessary to identify and support in a timely way those groups” affected by them? What exactly, does the government need to identify here? If the perverse incentives have already been identified as the problem, why is it necessary to identify groups ? Furthermore, if the problems within the system really are failure to provide clear incentives, opportunities and rewards for working age Australians wanting to leave welfare, then surely the solution is to identify their source rather than identifying the groups affected by them. I would have thought that risk-factors would include systemic-poverty, social-neglect and unemployment as a result of global industrial change, yet you make no mention of these things. This leads me to wonder about the meaning of your reference to employment covenants. As I understand things, they were originally designed to provide 50,000 indigenous Australians, with training for employment in 50,000 guaranteed jobs, yet I still do not understand exactly how they would work and when participants would actually receive payment. In your speech you say “Another option I would urge you to explore is the employment covenant option. The Reference Group found a strong interest in employment covenants in its consultations”. Does this mean that there are plans afoot to roll it out across the wider welfare-community? A similar question hangs over the Basics Card and I dont believe that has been properly explained yet wither. Am I being unreasonable in asking for greater clarity? Considering how important welfare reform is to Australia, I am amazed how much of that reform appears to be initiated behind closed-doors by selected groups. You claim that broad support for reform has showed up in the consultations, but I seriously doubt that, and I challenge you to publish a list of the groups and individuals who have actually expressed the broad support you speak of. Please understand that I am not saying these things to stir up trouble. If we are serious about addressing the problem of welfare-dependency we must examine it objectively. Consequently, I am bound to continue posting my comments until that takes place.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:49:55 +0000
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