Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-08T06:44:52.723Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Examining the Consequences of Welfare Conditionality: A Case Study of Compulsory Income Management in the Regional Community of Ceduna, Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2021

Steven Roche ,
Philip Mendes ,
Greg Marston ,
Shelley Bielefeld ,
Michelle Peterie ,
Zoe Staines  and
Louise Humpage
Steven Roche
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Monash University, Australia E-mail: steven.roche@monash.edu
Philip Mendes
Affiliation:
Social Inclusion and Social Policy Research Unit (SISPRU), Department of Social Work, Monash University, Australia E-mail: philip.mendes@monash.edu
Greg Marston
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia E-mail: g.marston@uq.edu.au
Shelley Bielefeld
Affiliation:
Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Australia E-mail: s.bielefeld@griffith.edu.au
Michelle Peterie
Affiliation:
School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, Australia E-mail: mpeterie@uow.edu.au
Zoe Staines
Affiliation:
School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Australia E-mail: z.staines@uq.edu.au
Louise Humpage
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts, The University of Auckland, New Zealand E-mail: l.humpage@auckland.ac.nz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Welfare conditionality, whereby eligibility for income support payments is linked to prescribed forms of behaviour or values, is intended to encourage responsible behaviour in marginalised populations. However in practice, it may have consequences that worsen rather than improve their life chances. One of the most invasive forms of conditional welfare is income management (IM), involving the quarantining of up to 90 per cent of income that cannot be spent on excluded items in order to reduce substance abuse and gambling and enhance financial management and parenting capacity. This qualitative study examines the views of IM participants and community stakeholders in the regional community of Ceduna, Australia. Its findings are presented – pertaining to practical experiences of IM, the impact of IM on participant wellbeing, and community divisions around IM – and the study discusses whether or not it has advanced key program objectives. It is concluded that the negative effects of IM exceed any perceived benefits.

Keywords

Income managementwelfareconditionalitysocial policyIndigenous issues
Type
Article
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 21 , Issue 3: THEMED SECTION: Towards a Sustainable Welfare State , July 2022 , pp. 369 - 384
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, T., Fisher, S., Josif, P. and Allen, L. (2013) Community Perspectives on Income Management from Ceduna, Koonibba, Scotdesco, Yalata and Oak Valley; Final Report, Alice Springs: Ninti One Limited, https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/02_2014/nintione_ceduna_acc.pdf [accessed 16.04.2020].Google Scholar
Alston, M. and Bowles, W. (2012) Research for Social Workers, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Auditor General (2018) The Implementation and Performance of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, Canberra: Department of Social Services.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2018) Socio-Economic Indexes for Australia 2016, Canberra: ABS, https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/2033.0.55.0012016 [accessed 16.04.2020].Google Scholar
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) (2010) Evaluation of Income Management in the Northern Territory, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.Google Scholar
Bielefeld, S. (2018) ‘Indigenous peoples, neoliberalism and the state: a retreat from rights to ‘responsibilisation’ via the cashless welfare card’, in Howard-Wagner, D., Bargh, M. and Altamirano-Jimenez, I. (eds.), The Neoliberal State, Recognition and Indigenous Rights: New Paternalism to New Imaginings, Canberra: ANU Press, 147-65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, R. (2016) ‘Seven years of evaluating income management – what have we learnt? Placing the findings of the new income management in the Northern Territory evaluation in context’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 51, 4, 449–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carney, T. (2015) ‘Conditional income transfers and choice in social services: just more conditions and more markets?’, in Goodwin, S. and Philipps, R. (eds.), Markets, Rights and Power in Australian Social Policy, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 341–58.Google Scholar
Carney, T. (2019) ‘Conditional welfare: new wine, old wine or just the same old bottles?’, in Saunders, P. (ed.), Revisiting Henderson: Poverty, Social Security and Basic Income, Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 100–12.Google Scholar
Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (CFECFW) (2017) Review of the Cashless Debit Card trial in Ceduna and East Kimberley, Melbourne: CFECFW.Google Scholar
Community Affairs Legislation Committee (CALC) (2020) Commonwealth Senate Estimates Hansard, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 5 March.Google Scholar
Cooper, K. and White, E. R. (2012) Qualitative Research in the Post-Modern Era – Contexts of Qualitative Research, New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalley, C. (2020) ‘The “White Card” is grey: surveillance, endurance and the Cashless Debit Card’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 55, 51–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Department of Social Services (DSS) (2016) Cashless Debit Card Trial – Evaluation Framework Summary, Canberra: Australian Government, https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/12_2017/cashless_debit_card_trial_-_evaluation_framework_summary_-_accessible.pdf [accessed 20.03.2019].Google Scholar
Department of Social Services (DSS) (2019) Cashless Debit Card Trial – Ceduna Region, Canberra: Australian Government, https://www.dss.gov.au/families-and-children-programs-services-welfare-reform-cashless-debit-card/cashless-debit-card-ceduna-region [accessed 12.12.2019].Google Scholar
Department of Social Services (DSS) (2020a) Income Management Program Data Summary April 2020, Canberra: Australian Government, https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/australian-government-income-management-program [accessed 16.04.2020)].Google Scholar
Department of Social Services (DSS) (2020b) Cashless Debit Card Data Summary April 2020, Canberra: Australian Government, https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/australian-government-cashless-debit-card-program [accessed 17.04.2020].Google Scholar
Dwyer, P. (2019) ‘Editor’s introduction’, in Dwyer, P. (ed.), Dealing with Welfare Conditionality, Bristol: Bristol University Press, 1–13.Google Scholar
Gray, C. (2019) ‘The implementation and impact of National’s welfare conditionality in an international context’, New Zealand Sociology, 34, 2, 71–92.Google Scholar
Hunt, J. (2017) The Cashless Debit Card Trial Evaluation: A Short Review, Canberra: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Hunt, J. (2020) ‘The uses and abuses of evaluation: the Cashless Debit Card story’, Social Alternatives, 39, 1, 20–27.Google Scholar
Marston, G., Mendes, P., Bielefeld, S., Peterie, M., Staines, Z. and Roche, S. (2020) Hidden Costs: An Independent Study into Income Management in Australia, Brisbane: The University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Mendes, P. (2018) ‘Community as a spray-on solution: a case study of community engagement within the income management programme in Australia’, Community Development Journal, 53, 2, 210–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendes, P. (2019) ‘Top down paternalism versus bottom-up community development: a case study of compulsory income management programs in Australia’, The International Journal of Community and Social Development, 1, 1, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merriam, S. B. (1998) Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. Revised and Expanded from “Case Study Research in Education”, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Orima Research (2017) Cashless Debit Card Trial Evaluation: Final Evaluation Report, Melbourne: Orima.Google Scholar
Parsell, C., Vincent, E., Klein, E., Clarke, A. and Walsh, T. (2020) ‘Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 55, 1, 4–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterie, M., Bielefeld, S., Marston, G., Mendes, P. and Humpage, L. (2019) ‘Compulsory income management: combatting or compounding the underlying causes of homelessness?’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 55, 1, 61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reeve, K. (2017) ‘Welfare conditionality, benefit sanctions and homelessness in the UJ: ending the something for nothing culture or punishing the poor’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 25, 1, 65–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schram, S. F. (2018) ‘Neoliberalizing the welfare state: marketizing social policy/disciplining clients’, in Cahill, D., Cooper, M., Konings, M. and Primrose, D. (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Neoliberalism, Los Angeles: Sage, 308–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheikh, K. and Porter, J. (2010) ‘Discursive gaps in the implementation of public health policy guidelines in India: the case of HIV testing’, Social Science and Medicine, 71, 11, 2005–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, K. (2016) ‘The Cashless Debit Card trial: a public health, rights-based approach to better health and social outcomes’, Indigenous Law Bulletin, 8, 29, 22–27.Google Scholar
Stewart, C. (2016) ‘On the Cards’, Weekend Australian Magazine, 20 February.Google Scholar
Taylor, D., Gray, M. and Stanton, D. (2016) ‘New conditionality in Australian social security policy’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 51, 1, 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, D. (2006) ‘A general inductive approach for analyzing qualitative evaluation data’, American Journal of Evaluation, 27, 237–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, E. (2018) ‘Governing indigenous difference differently: the politics of disgust, compassion and care’, Oceania, 88, 3, 320–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, E. (2019a) ‘We’ve lost our vision. A card cannot give vision to our community’, Inside Story, 18 March.Google Scholar
Vincent, E. (2019b) Lived Experiences of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, Ceduna, South Australia, Canberra: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Watts, B. and Fitzpatrick, S. (2018) Welfare Conditionality, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar