Labor government extends welfare quarantine powers across Australia

Labor’s punitive new regime of “welfare quarantining” comes into force this week, allowing government to dictate how pensioners and the long-term unemployed spend their money...

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Act 2010 means that from July 1 the entire Northern Territory will be subject to the quarantining policies originally introduced into remote Aboriginal communities in 2007... What has not generally been reported is that the relevant minister—currently Labor’s Jenny Macklin—can now extend the measure to any area, including any state, in the country.

Under the new provisions, welfare recipients identified as either long-term unemployed, “disengaged youth” or “vulnerable” (including pensioners and single parents in “financial hardship”) are prohibited from spending half their welfare payment (the “quarantined” portion) on anything other than “basics,” including food and clothes. Quarantined purchases can be made only with a “basics card” at designated stores.

The new powers are the culmination of the Howard Liberal government’s 2007 police-military “intervention” into Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities. The original pretext for the intervention, which Labor fully backed, were lurid accounts of paedophilia in remote townships. Every newspaper in the country, especially the Murdoch press, gave blanket coverage to what the government called an “evil” stalking Aboriginal society. Police and soldiers entered townships and made dozens of arrests for low-level offences. Appealing to base prejudice, welfare quarantining was imposed under the guise of preventing welfare payments being spent on alcohol.

When Labor took office in November 2007, it expanded the incursion and by November 2008, welfare quarantining applied to 15,000 Aborigines in 73 communities across the Northern Territory. As for the original pretext, the intervention has produced not a single child sexual assault trial...In order to carry out the NT intervention, the Howard government suspended the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. Now that the Labor government is extending the regressive policy to all welfare recipients, Macklin declared Labor was carrying out its “very significant commitment” to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act... Now this “non-racist” legislation punishes Aborigines and non-Aborigines alike...As the WSWS explained in mid-2007: “Once again, the appalling social conditions confronting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable sections of the working class are being exploited to justify measures that will, sooner rather than later, be imposed on the working class as a whole.” Three years on, this analysis is completely vindicated.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/welf-j28.shtml

:grr: :grr: :grr:

God that article makes me sick

That money is quarantined for FOOD. Thereby preventing addicts from spending their children's milk money on liquor, cigarettes, and drugs.

But Ms Martin, now the head of the Australian Council of Social Services, said that the scheme could mean everyone - including age and disability pensioners - having half their income controlled.
"The scheme is broader than most people realise," she said. "It could cover all income support recipients, including age, disability and carer pensioners, who live in areas designated by the minister."

"If this is all about children, and Jenny Macklin, from time to time, says it's about children, why not take the $410 million and really target child protection and strengthen up the system?" she said. Income management will apply to people under 25 who have been on welfare for three months or people over 25 on welfare for a year. People will be able to apply for an exemption if children regularly attend school or receive health checks.

The scheme may be expanded across the rest of Australia, but NT goes first. It can be applied to anywhere the minister decides is "disadvantaged". The whole of the NT has been defined as disadvantaged.

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/06/23/158351_ntnews.html


The walk-off began in July 2009, protesting against the effects of welfare quarantining, and other NT intervention measures, in the community of Ampilatwatja.

The NT intervention was imposed on 73 Aboriginal communities in August 2007 by the then federal Coalition government. Welfare quarantining means 50% of people's benefits is put on a card that can only be used for food, clothing and medical supplies.

Downs said it was a complete disaster, limiting people’s ability to travel or to pay for what the government deemed non-essential, such as funerals.

Davidson said community services minister Jenny Macklin was proposing legislation that would expand welfare quarantining to any area she deemed "disadvantaged".

Fairfield is an area of high disadvantage. Davidson said it was a likely target for the expansion of the scheme. This would severely limit the ability of migrants and refugees to send money to relatives overseas.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/43916


is there a reason you think everyone who's getting government money is an "addict" or should be treated like one?

I'm sorry, but you want me to object to that? ARE YOU KIDDING?

Don't you see it????!!!1 :grr:

I do NOT support welfare in one country being mailed to another country. You do? Well, I'm sure the Australians appreciate your generosity with their money. I do not.

BTW, taking money for personal use and sending it abroad would probably get you arrested for fraud here. Just guessing, of course.

I note that the first clause of your reply was an attempted sneer. And the second, separated by a period instead of a comma but we've all had typos, was a suggestion that I might achieve wisdom by examining assumptions you assume I have. Really, you need to clarify what you think I think.

the person quoted is from the office of refugees & migrants.

the "sneer" is in your pereption, not my post.

You can't be serious with your post, can you?

:popcorn:

It seems like the state is going to divert so much of what little income the poor have into food and clothing that what little money isn't "managed" by the state MUST be spent on housing...

Food expenses are not necessarily fixed. They can be minimized far easier than rent payments can be lowered (such as buying staples in bulk, for example). Clothes can be handed down.

My income certainly leaves a lot to be desired, and I know I spend a lot more on rent than I do food, and I spend practically nothing on clothes. 50% for food and clothes ONLY seems like an incredible waste, unless the welfare payments are so low that it takes more than 50% of it just to eat (which, for an industrialized nation such as Australia, I doubt).

Plutonomic tools. :grr:

that's where i buy the majority of my clothes, & i'm not even on welfare.

that's where i buy most household items & furniture too.

i've never owned a piece of furniture that was new.

kid's toys, kid's clothes -

it's a major way to save money & this would seem to remove that option.

they incarcerate everyone receiving benefits. They simply develop a secondary barter market for trade in essentials vs what it is they really need/want.