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Contents: Breaching the most vulnerable SA Anti-Poverty Conference Model for full Employment Take a look at this month's additions to the Sleuth Click here to access our previous newsletters: UpWords 1 No. 1: What is Breaching UpWords 1 No. 2: Young Poor under Attack UpWords 1 No. 3: Frog Boiling; UpWords1 No. 4:: Welfare Reform; UpWords1 No. 5: S11; UpWords1 No. 6: History of Unemployed Movements, Homelessness Up-Words No. 7: Launch of UPM/Latest Breaching Statistics UpWords1 No 8: Open Letter to Minister Amanda Vanstone UpWords2 No 1: Millionaires' Coup for Govenrment Centrelink Officiouisness hurts us all UpWords2 No 2: Big Brother is watching you! Work for the Dole is not working UpWords2 No 3: Globalisation - the Excessive Wealth Disease? UpWords2 No 4: Is Howard a Communist? Mal Brough, Minister for Compassionate Employment Figure Fudging UpWords2 No 5 Benefits 37% below poverty line May Day protests worldwide UpWords2 No 6: The Permanently Alienated Underclass Speaks UP! The Budget for the Unemployed Views from the Coal Face UpWords 2 No 7 Criminalisation of Poverty Job Network is not working - from rorts to incompetence UpWords 2 No 8 Work for the Dole can kill! National Coalition against Poverty Petition Post card campaign Poet's Corner: Views on Unemployment UpWords 2 No 9 UPM joins Ranks for Peace International Day for the Eradication of Poverty Unemployed Treated Worse Than Criminals! UpWords 2 No 10 Election 2001: UPM's How to Vote Card Annual General Meeting How much longer? Up-Words Vol. 2 No 11 Not Drowning - Just Looking for Work Election Aftermath: ALP Awake! Human Rights Day Picnic AGM Up-Words Vol. 3 No 1 35 hour week or share Argentina's destiny? Human Rights Day - do we count too? State Election Issue No 1: Jobs My experiences with Job Network Providers Insert in this issue: War against Terrorism - the Police State Agenda can be found at: http://www.newdawnmagazine. com/articles/War_on_Terror_ The_Police_State_Agenda.html Up-Words Vol. 3 No 2 Is it Australian to bully the unemployed? Greens support the 35 hour week Up-Words Vol.3 No 3 New compassionate breaching rules? Put 35 hour week on the agenda UpWords Vol.3 No 4 New Parking Zones for the Unemployed! Unemployed must unite against fascism UpWords Vol.3 No 5 Cruising through Poverty! 43% of politicians are cruisers New UPU in WA: Budget Comment UpWords Vol.3 No 6/7 The Blocked Brain Syndrome Model for full employment in Australia Budget promises a lot of thinking! AMWU listens! Should Telstra be privatised? UpWords Vol.3 No 8 Is breaching sustainable? Model for full Employment Don't Quit Depression Link to the Crusing Report and Behaviour Modification advise for the unemployed! Up-Words Home Have a look at our new campaign site: 35 hour week PO Box 485 Brooklyn Park SA 5032 Phone (08) 8352 4950 Come to our Meetings on the last Tuesday of the month, 5:30 – 7 pm at the World's End Hindley Street West, Adelaide. Join UPM against Poverty as a member! Copy the membership form here! See the Sleuth for more information on arrests of women and children Home Sitemap Upwords Archive
		Breaching the most vulnerable By Alison Visser Research shows that if a person identifies as Indigenous they are twice as likely to incur a breach as non-Indigenous Australian’s (ACOSS, 2001, p. 1). The unemployment rate of Indigenous people in Australia is 22.7%, which is more than triple the unemployment rate of 6.5% for all Australians (ABS, as on March 2002). This research was undertaken as part of an Honours dissertation for the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of SA. The research focuses on examining the impact of ‘breaching’ policy, which is outlined in the Social Security Act 1991. The impact of ‘breaching’ is of particular importance within Indigenous communities. This study is particularly important, due to the disproportionate representation of Indigenous people in the unemployment group being affected by this policy, and the cultural and household responsibilities and customs unique to Australia’s Indigenous peoples. Breaching policy is a penalty applied as a punishment for not carrying out a social security activity or administrative requirement, it acts much like a fine. The discussion about the impact of ‘breaching’ policy on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous communities occurs within a wider social policy context. For Indigenous communities, altered socio-economic circumstances since the period of European invasion and colonial domination have affected all aspects of life including autonomy, dependence and economic and political freedoms. Social and cultural dislocations have affected educational and employment outcomes for Indigenous peoples as well as the long and slow process of resistance and recovery from many decades of direct discrimination and legislative ‘protection’ and control. Running parallel to these changes for Indigenous peoples has been the shifting political and policy reappraisal of the rights and responsibilities of all Australians regarding social security entitlements based on labour market participation. The debates about mutual obligation and moves to limit or curtail access to benefits (breaching policy) have therefore very serious potential consequences for people marginalised through generations of discriminatory policies and practices. This study examined the impact that breaching policy has on Indigenous peoples and gathered these descriptions from human service workers who identify as Indigenous. The study found that the impact of breaching is significant for Indigenous individuals, families and communities. Respondents identified a number of critical issues and barriers that develop, when applying breaching penalties to Indigenous peoples. The descriptions gathered from participants were consistent across a range of areas. This includes the: cultural, financial and emotional impact of breaching on the family, removal of people off benefits, but not into jobs, resulting impact these have on organisations and in particular their Indigenous workers. There’s a tremendous financial burden placed on family infrastructure because it’s about being dependent on relatives for survival. That then encroaches on their survival. The whole thing has a massive rippling affect right across the community. And there’s no end to it. (Research Participant) This study gives voice to the views of Indigenous workers and community members who consistently suggest that Indigenous people are not assisted by the breaching policy. The study identifies that the breaching policy does not encourage active participation. In the majority of cases the policy does not prompt any participation and entrenches risk for individuals and families. In the cases where Indigenous people are complying with the obligations, this compulsion is motivated with the sole purpose of receiving money. The views of participants consistently emphasise that ‘self-reliance’, in the sense of gaining work outside the income support system, does not follow from this breaching policy. The study suggests that the penalties of breaching hinder Indigenous people’s ability to participate in that it impacts on the family by: reducing the family’s financial resources, placing strain on family members regardless of their employment status, impacting negatively on the emotional wellbeing of family members, encouraging a breakdown in the relationship between Centrelink and Indigenous peoples, undermining the protocol and family commitments essential within Indigenous culture, severely reducing the family’s ability to provide basic needs such as accommodation, food, transport and amenities, hindering the educational progression of children and young people, and producing homelessness. The policy moves people out of the system in that it: neglects to provide real work opportunities, hinders a persons ability to search for work, encourages people to undertake risk-taking behaviours to provide for their family, and increases the prevalence of Indigenous people in the Justice System. The policy impacts on human service organisation and their Indigenous workers by: transferring the responsibility of the ‘safety-net’ from, the Federal Government Welfare System, to State funded human service organisations and charity agencies, handballing Indigenous families in poverty to already careworn Indigenous organisations, and compelling Indigenous human service workers to experience the overwhelming responsibility of providing for the basic needs of these families, in cases where they are often related. A statement by the Department of Family and Community Services asserts, “mutual obligation is about building a resilient and supportive society that depends on a web of supportive relationships between individuals, families, communities, business and Government” (2001, p. 1). In contrast to this statement this study asserts that mutual obligation, as it continues to include the practice of breaching, does not support Indigenous peoples, their families or the community. It does not build a resilient Indigenous society while it continues to prescribe universal obligations and breaching penalties. The findings of this study declare that, the impact of breaching policy is devastating for Indigenous peoples, the organisations that assist them and the Indigenous human service workers on the front line. Breaching is the large linchpin that finally screws down the lid on the coffin of society. Really that’s where basically a lot of Aboriginal people live. They live on a day-to-day basis and the hand and mouth system and that system is continually working it, trying to outwit them in every way that they can - for every single dollar that they can. (Research Participant) The Mutual Obligation Initiative as asserted by the Howard Government, “will focus on policies that build a strong foundation for family and community life for the next century, while continuing to provide a safety net for those in need – one that encourages self reliance and supports people to escape the trap of welfare dependency” (Senator Newman, 1999, p. 2). The findings of this study challenge Senator Newman’s statement. It was the consistent view of all participants in this study, that the policy of breaching does not provide a strong foundation for Indigenous families and communities. Instead this study identified that the participants experienced the policy as threatening to the functioning of the Indigenous family by placing extreme financial and emotional pressure on people already facing significant structural disadvantage. The study highlighted that the ability for families to participate and to survive is compromised at all levels of age, and throughout the members of the family, regardless of their income status. Particular concern was held for young Indigenous people who make up the majority of the Indigenous population and who hold the reins for the future. Another area of concern was for those workers within families who suffer a hidden poverty from this policy. The policy forces these members to provide for those in their family that have been breached. This study discovers that the breaching policy and the ways in which it is implemented administratively, takes away the ‘safety-net’ from people most at risk; those Indigenous people who are already marginalised and excluded from the ‘mainstream’ labour market. The study ascertains that the safety-net of ‘Centrelink determined payments’, is not guaranteed for Indigenous people in ways that take account of, and protect, family functioning and well-being. The loss of access to this ‘safety net’, contributes to the pressure forcing community members to undertake risk-taking behaviours in order to provide for their families. The breaching policy has “created and enlarged bureaucracy dedicated to the surveillance and control of people presumed to be incapable or ‘not yet ready’ to assume responsibility as full citizens” (Hollinsworth, 1996, p. 116). As impoverished Aboriginal families and communities grow from this breaching policy, this focus on surveillance and punishment cannot be denied. Interestingly the above quote by Hollinsworth, provides an adequate picture of the current study findings. Even more interesting, is that the quote originates in the context of descriptions of the government’s protection and assimilation policies from the 1800’s and until the 1960’s. A time of deep shame in Australia’s history, and an era that has been recognised as a time of devastation for Indigenous peoples. The current study findings show that the extent, to which Indigenous families who incur a breach can exercise autonomous power to decide the direction and manner of their development and partici-pation, is highly questionable. The participants assert that while the penalties of breaches continue to ravage Indigenous families and their cultural ways, full partici-pation in the mainstream community and economy will not be achieved. Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS). 2001, Breaching the Safety Net: the harsh impact of social security penalties, Media Release, no. 305, [online accessed, 12th Nov. 2001]. URL: http://www.acoss.org.au FaCS. 2001d, What is Mutual Obligation and how is it changing? Department of Family and Community Services, [online, accessed 7 Mar. 2002]. URL: http://www.facs.gov.au/internet.facsinternet.nsf/aboutfacs/programs/esp-mutual_obligation.htm Hollinsworth, D. 1996, ‘Community Development in Indigenous Australia’ in Community Development Journal, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 114-125. Newman, Senator the Hon J. 1999, The Future of Welfare in the 21st Century, Address to the National Press Club, 29 Sept 1999, [online, accessed 18 Mar. 2002]. URL http://www.facs.gov.au.internet/newman.nsf Power to the People On October 17 events all around the world marked the International Day of the Eridaction of Poverty. Here in Australia the National Coalition again Poverty NCAP, of which UPM is a member, handed over a petition requesting a Royal Commission into Poverty. This has been heard by the ALP and on Monday 21 October, the ALP will move a motion calling for an inquiry with terms of references we could have only dreamt about in our wildest dreams. It may yet turn out to be a dream anyway, but it is certainly progress. On the 17 and 18 of October the SA Anti-Poverty Conference took place, and people, the participants, community members and staff from agencies, were asked to identify the issues, their impacts and what they thought ought to be done about them. The Fullarton Community Centre was abuzz with the energy of around 200 experts from all walks of life. It was the experts, those who live in poverty who had a great chance to tell their story in the working groups. There was a great balance between listening to the people and providing information and answers to questions from those in power. All recommendations from the working groups will be passed on to the Social Inclusion Board, ACOSS and naturally SACOSS, who facilitated this event. UPM against Poverty is proud to have played a small role in organising this conference. Model for full Employment In the last Upwords we started a project to develop a website which collects ideas to achieve full employment in Australia. The web site has been put onto the 35hour web site which is hosted by the Un(der)employed People’s Movement. The purpose of this site is to continue the discussion about a viable and liveable future, in paricular in regards to employment. Everyone is invited to introduce their solutions to solving the problem of unemployment. All ideas and links will be posted on the web site for all to see. From the front page of the 35hour week site anyone can enrol in a mailing list which will be used in the future to discuss contributions or the model. UPM against Poverty’s management committee has concluded that campaigns for a 35 hour week and restricted overtime are only one part of the picture. No single policy will bring about the change needed to achieve full employment, it has to be a combination of initiatives. The model is constructed with four pillars which rest on the foundation of a democratic and cooperative society based on human rights and protecting the interests of all its citizens. The four pillars are: (double click on the underlined text and you will be transferred to the web site) 1 Health and wellbeing at work 2 Social justice, increase employability 3 Strong support for innovative and committed entrepreneurs, training and research 4 Equal opportunity, a fair tax system and a supportive Social Security system Please make your contribution, go to http://au.oocities.com/thirtyfivehours/modelfe.html Home UPM Sitemap Home UpWords Sleuth