Opinion & Commentary
APY Lands women say income management ensures kids have enough to eat
They believe income management is the only way to ensure their children have enough to eat.
If women's welfare payments are managed, then the men who drink, buy drugs and gamble cannot take their money and waste it.
Instead, the women will have some control over their money and be able to put food on the table for their children.
In this context, income management helps protect Aboriginal woman from the obligations of demand sharing or "humbugging".
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin often uses this example when asked about the benefits of income management.
Despite the protective value of income management, welfare advocates and human rights groups argue that income management is a racist policy that stigmatises and punishes the poor.
They cite the scenarios where income management is used to "punish" people who have transgressed, either by abusing alcohol, abusing or neglecting their children or by failing to enrol or send their children to school.
But by focusing on those people who are unhappy about losing control over their "income", welfare groups are ignoring those sections of the population who want the protection of income management.
These welfare groups argue that those who have opted for income management have been duped into accepting a paternalistic "control" on their finances.
The term income management is something of a misnomer as it is people's welfare payments that are managed rather than the income they have earned from working.
This distinction is not something that everyone recognises, particularly welfare groups and advocates. But there is a difference between money you earn yourself and money that is given to you.
The Government has failed to articulate this point clearly, just as it has failed to differentiate between the two competing objectives of income management - to protect and "punish".
This lack of clarity has played into the hands of welfare groups and human rights advocates who argue there is little merit in continuing with a program that has not been proven to "work".
Jo Coghlan argues in Arena magazine (June/July edition) there is little empirical evidence to support continuing income management.
Coghlan cites research by the Menzies School of Health Research suggesting that income quarantining has had no substantial impact on improving child welfare.
Yet measuring the success of income management will always be difficult because of the large number of variables.
Without controls such as baseline data and comparison groups, it is not possible to show that improvements in child safety and health are as a result of income management.
Government should not even try to prove the "overall" benefits of income management because any findings are likely to be of "limited evidentiary value" - and thus subject to the scrutiny of welfare groups and human rights advocates.
Instead, the Government should focus on people like the women in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and those who have volunteered or opted to remain on income management (at last count, 4374 people in the Northern Territory) as evidence of the benefits of income management.
If the people opting to have their welfare payments quarantined feel they are better off, then surely that is proof enough of the usefulness of income management.
Where people have been referred for income management, say by state or territory child protection authorities, it may be possible to measure whether this has had a positive impact on a child's health and wellbeing - for example, if the child no longer shows signs of malnourishment or neglect.
There is a difference between those who are genuinely disadvantaged and those who are taking advantage of Australia's relatively generous social security system.
Welfare advocates have engendered a sense of entitlement in beneficiaries' minds that the Government owes them a living.
As Warren Mundine, chief executive of GenerationOne, said recently: "Welfare should not be a safety net. It should be a trampoline - sending people back into employment and self-determination."
Instead of arguing for measures that encourage welfare recipients to rely forever on the Government (through higher payments and unconditional welfare), advocates should expend their energies on helping people into meaningful employment.
This may not be easy, but it is better than sending the message to people that welfare is all they can look forward to for the rest of their lives.
Sara Hudson is a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
